So REALLY what I am making this post about is that jenkatb4u did that 'five things' meme and he gave me my own list of things, and okay, I dislike memes but hey, this one involves talking at length about yourself and not filling out boring forms, so I approve of it.
( But I'm cutting it because it's long )

My life is actually pretty boring, and since I disapprove of telling people on the internet boring life details (not that my disapproval stops me from doing so, but at least I won't do it un-prompted such as in a random LJ post) I, um, won't do so in a random LJ post. Suffice to say: I am still alive and well. Just occupied with SKILL-LEARNING and not the internet.

It seems I never update this LJ unless something notable happens in real life.

The notable event this time is that I am moving. Again! Tomorrow! It's a tiny one-room studio in a building that used to be a hotel. And, as appears to be usual for me, I'm planning on not getting any internet service for a few months. So I can work on Legitimate Life Goals instead of using all my time, say, reading a whole bunch of tutorials via delicious that I'll never use because all my time is used reading more stuff via delicious.

So you won't see me on AIM or IRC or whatever else for quite some time-- I'll probably check delicious and LiveJournal every week or two, and my email every week, if anyone wants to contact me.

But what I am really making this post about is recommendations. Last time, when I ran out of things to work, on I ended up sorting my home dir and going through a bunch of old files I hadn't seen in years. It was actually pretty interesting, but I'd like to avoid it this time. So if you have any book or media recs, um, comment. I have varied tastes and I like to read, so pretty much anything would be good. Actually, hey, any topic that exists in my delicious tags is something I'm interested in learning more about.

Any drawing or cooking reference books would be esp. useful, although I already have copies of a bunch of Andrew Loomis books on my computer. ...not that books is all I am after.

...But on a topic unrelated to begging for information, um. Most of the people I interact with (...or blogstalk) on the internet are really smart or at least have a bunch of redeeming values I wish I had, and even though I will miss the constant stream of information I will probably not miss the constant sensation that I'm drowning.

So. It's my birthday in a week; let's hope by a year after that I'll have it all together, or at least more together. I'm pretty bad at moderating my time, and my excessive internet use reflects that. Forcibly disconnecting myself isn't the best option, but I think it'll be the most productive, at least until I get better at self-control.

Let's see what I've done since my last post.

I moved again! And probably will be moving again in the next few months. GO ME. The upside is that I am rapidly shedding junk I don't need. The downside is, uh, I suck. Once again, I really miss Minneapolis.

So, I now have a job doing IT junk for the city government here. Which is, uh, interesting. Next week we're planning on setting up a wireless network between several buildings using tin can antennas. Last week I learned all sorts of things about SNMP. It's educational! It's pretty much exactly what I was doing last time I was here, only now I'm getting paid.

And then as an amusing contrast to the last notice, I'm now a coder for a porn site. Well. It's AFFN, which may or may not qualify as a porn site, depending on your definition. The code is a mess. A hilarious, mismanaged mess. I first contacted the admins when I noticed gigantic unsanitized text fields (hur hur lets just forbid < and > THEN NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO HAX US) that I pretty rapidly spun into a cookie stealing script (because, as usual for bad website setups, they stored the MD5 hash of the password in the cookie) and then contacted the admins about, uh, giant security issues. (I only managed to snag two user's passwords, but now I have database access, so it doesn't matter. Specifically, it doesn't matter because all the passwords are stored in plaintext. YES I KNOW.)

And then a week later there was a moderator schism (think the Jheryn/Arcturus schism only with more fanfiction) and the mods were like "so... you ever moderated a forum?" It's kind of ridiculous. It's weird to be on the 'evil oppressing administrator' side of the equasion for once. Whatever, I'm getting Real World® experience, it's all good. I get to see what happens to databases and code after five years of organic growth! And then I get to try to undo people's horrific kludges! Oh, the joy.

But really, I only noticed the bug in the first place because I recently wrote some porn and posted it there and fff, pseudo-bbcode is not a good way to do things. There's actually some hilarity regarding the code that would be incredibly boring for anyone who wasn't a coder, so I'll maybe spare the details.

My del.icio.us addiction is only getting worse. For the past few days I haven't been doing much there, though, this AFFN thing is driving me nuts. You can really tell I've gotten into bandslash. Like, seriously. I still feel kind of awkward with my bookmarks split between pornographic fanfiction, scientific advances, art stuff, and programming references. Well, 'awkward' isn't the right word. Maybe 'awesome'.

IN CONCLUSION: I feel kind of like a real programmer now, even though I haven't been working on my multitudes of personal projects. (although I should.) Also I'm still considering trying NaNoWriMo even though it's a few days past the start, but uh, I have no throwaway plot ideas. hmm. I feel like I ought to be writing more.

Here is a short list.

moving: sucks.
third-story apartment: not so fun to move out of.
the wilderness: not so fun to move into. stupid bugs.
the cables for my computer: still packed. so I have to use this computer, which... windows. old. I keep trying to right-click to open background windows, and I don't even have a mouse on my computer.
dial-up: OH GOD, NOOOOOO. I'm totally not going to be able to read metafandom anymore! Or, uh, all that bandslash I get via del.icio.us. And, I guess, the science? Yeah, that's it, I'm totally missing not being able to read all the science.

and I had just figured out how to code a lame-but-functional random map generator for phantomnation, too.

Current Mood: sweaty

So you might have stumbled upon that one Planarity game at one point.

There's a Linux clone. Why is this important? Because the only thing that kept me from wasting all my time, ever, on this game was because it kept freezing up a half-dozen levels in. And the clone version doesn't have that bug.

I'm 38 levels in. HELP.

Writing the stupid tile join code correctly (FINALLY)¹ should not make me feel this accomplished.

...no, really, it's not that big a deal compared to, oh, everything else I still have to program. But it's a step.

I've been reading a whole lot of bandslash instead of doing anything productive! Well. I did get Ruby on Rails Postgresql installed on my computer. But that's not that productive, because I don't know any Ruby whatsoever.

...Hi! I swear I'm not dead. I'm just, um, not doing anything interesting enough to warrant posting about. Not to imply that this post is interesting. Because it's not.

1: kind of. I'm going to have to edit it two more times-- once to deal with textures (which, once I figure out how textures work², should be fairly easy), and once to make sure joins draw correctly when dealing with two tiles on top of each other (right now it'd calculate according to the first-placed tile and ignore all the rest, which is certainly going to cause issues)

2: not so much 'figure out' as 'expend the effort to make work correctly.'

p.s. I keep editing this. hrm. also: apparently LJ strips out the 'id' attribute? I can't link to my footnotes. LIKE IT MATTERS.

I am back! I am so back. I have had 'net access here for all of 23 hours and I've steamrollered over all my FA and y!gallery updates. I posted to Sheezy, even. But I have not sent all the e-mails (okay, one) I need to send nor have I checked my RSS feeds at all-- probably not a good choice.

Also, I re-read all of The God Eaters.

Now I aim towards my del.icio.us network and my feeds.

While I was away and sad with my lack of 'net access I wrote up a big long toread/todo list, composed of things I just couldn't do without serious 'net access. As almost anyone who has ever had that particular state of mind knows, once you get something you've been anxiously waiting for, you generally find that you don't actually 'want' (not so much a waning of desire, but a kind of laziness) to do what you had planned to do as much as you thought.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do about this whole thing. There are Things I Want To Do, and I will hopefully not less silly things like, uh, e-socialization get in my way. But we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I will not lapse back into my former habits of wasting time on IRC and artsites. Hopefully I'll have the willpower to mine information from the internet without having it eat all my will.

We'll see how things turn out.

Current Mood: zzz

Hello Internet!
I am sorry I have not written to you recently, but certain events have conspired to limit my 'net access. My most sincere apologies.

In the past few months I have done a lot of things! I have taken my circa-2001 backup of CR and recreated most of the (important) lost content! ANd made yet another set of xax eq. I have drawn a whole freakin' lot of vector images! I have done a fair amount of coding, but alas that hit a wall because I don't actually know how to code and have no resources, which makes me sad. I have not really done, uh, any writing, for values of writing equaling stories, but who knows, I have nothing but free time.

But at least my monthly net income is no longer in the red and HOPEFULLY in two weeks I'll begin sending out tendrils to get 'net access again... but that's what I said two weeks ago, so don't get your hopes up, internet.

Also of note is that one of my co-workers looks almost exactly like Jheryn. He's not, I think, but it's rather disconcerting and amusing at the same time.

I have had so many instances of "argh I want to read [x] but NO NET ACCESS" (see: The God Eaters, which would be a link normally. see also: spiralhollow) it is hardly even funny any more, but at least I can buy books and read them and they're kind of like the internet, if you ignore, um, everything but the raw information. Incidently, I also apologize for the lack of SEMANTIC RICHNESS in this post, but hey, I'm at a library terminal, what can you do?

I have also realized-slash-admitted that I am a total information junkie. Mmm, information. Which reminds me: TehSean, I am finally reading through The Atrocity Exhibition and it is actually pretty neat. Expect a book report, among other things, once I get back online.

Pretend I wrote something here about the Minnesota cold (even though it hasn't snowed here ONCE) and being nocturnal and how really, walking down Lake St. at five in the morning really does help ease ones fears of getting, say, randomly mugged and beaten to death because that is what everyone who has never lived in the area thinks happens there. Although one guy did ask for bus fare. ...I'm still kind of bitter at John for his "oh no can't drive into the cities I will get LOST and MURDERED these T-intersections are are so less confusing than a grid pattern" ARGH um. I'm up late*, don't mind me.

*Yes, late. I am awake from 8:00pm to 11:00am~noonish. This is late because I am at the library instead of getting ready to sleep.

I kind of want to say 'CALL AND AMUSE ME' but that might end badly for everyone. Probably not, though. I'm very bored.

Current Mood: blah

Dear Internet,
Did I ever, like, tell y'all just what I was up to before disappearing for weeks and weeks? I guess not.

I moved! I am in Minneapolis now and living it up and, uh, stuff. Things are going okay. I have a whole long post saved on my actual computer, but I am refusing to get a 'net hookup until I get a real job (the volunteer teaching job does not count, see) because... procrastination. Not that it has helped, as I've channeled the time I usually waste online into time wasted programming or drawing sprites*. gg me.

But yeah. I am still alive, just net-dead for the time being. It did not occur to me just how much information I get from the 'net daily until I find myself going "oh well I don't know [x]" where X is some random trivial thing I usually would take five minutes online to learn. Or, uh, something. I'm writing this post without a lot of forethought or really just plain /point/, so it's going to be pretty disjointed. um.

Programming! I didn't install Ruby on vohumana before I moved, so I'm not doing much web coding (:( no gestalt programming, alas), but I do have a compiler and SDL and OpenGL, so I've been using my SVG knowhow to start programming on some vague seed of an idea of a tactics game. We'll see how that goes.
Spriting! I am so much better at it now than when I started, or even really since I last draw sprites. Apparently learning some vague semblance of form & anatomy really /does/ improve ones spriting skills. huh. But yeah, they rock. woo. Now to draw 200+ or whatever. Because hey, RO has something like 217~ sprites per class, because there are all the animations (walk, cast, attack, hit, etc) and then five forms of each animation for each angle, and ffff ugh. I only have to deal with /four/ forms of each animation and pose, so um. We'll see how I do with that.
And then, of course, there are the thorny real life issues like 'uh you are unemployed and have monthly expenditures of around $700 and really, not that much money saved up' but I doubt anyone online 1) cares, 2) would help, and really, asking for help on the internet is the lowest form of begging. So I will not really dwell on that and turn this into some stupid angst-fest about how my life sucks, because really, it doesn't. At least I'm not in /Ashland/ anymore.
Also I bought a lot of music and ripped it to .ogg and it's compact and high-quality and oh yeah, I guess the music itself is pretty good too. I am such a semantics whore.

So that was my incoherent life post. Miss you all, hope to be back soon, etc.
Love, xax

* Incidently, Askan, if you read this LJ which I am pretty sure you don't, but I finally drew those sprites you asked me to. They are great. It's quite possible there will be a full sprite sheet of them. It's also, uh, quite possible there won't.

Current Mood: chipper

Okay, Our Lady Peace, you get big credit for plugging AdBusters on your CD.

You lose that credit, and then some, by having psychotic DRM on the CD, one that makes me install a whole separate DRM media player to play the CD on the computer. Your CD has system requirements.

Anyone want copies of any of the songs off Healthy In Paranoid Times? I will rip it once I get back to my actual computer.

p.s. I could really get used to this whole 'wireless internet access on laptops' thing. It's very nice.

Okay SO. As, oh, pretty much anyone who I hang around with on IRC knows, I have been whining and muttering about moving down to the Twin Cities for about, oh, forever (or rather, around two years. For those of you joining now, I moved up from the Twin Cities about two years ago. GG ME). You can probably already see where this post is going (unless you were confused by that massive parenthetical statement).

So I have been down in the Twin Cities for about the last week or so, on a provisional basis. I was just going to stay at a friend's house for a few days, but then they mentioned that they were going out of town for two weeks and would I mind house (and dog) sitting for them? And so I went apartment searching and found several places that didn't suck horribly, so that was fun. Anyway, the place I applied for called back this morning to say that yeah, I have the apartment, and I can move in on the 15th. (For those of you paying attention in the IRC last night, that was the reason I asked about y'alls neighborhood crime statistics, because this place is kind of in an iffy neighborhood. Everyone keeps telling me OH OH DON'T GO OUT ALONE AT NIGHT, which uh, I probably wouldn't anyway (that is a total lie because I tend to go on walks at like 4 AM, but whatever I'll live without them). We'll see how that goes.

But now that the apartment is confirmed, I have to move on to the next (and more important) step of GETTING A JOB. Thankfully, I do have two full weeks to do so before I have to worry about that (and really, once I move in I'll have 1.5 months rent paid already, so that extends the potential wiggle room for jobs &c).

That is what has been up in xaxworld for the past week or so! The lack of internet access is not very nice. Specifically, the lack of all my Opera RSS feeds is not very nice. I'm totally behind on the news! I no longer get popup notifications whenever someone replies to me on LJ! I have already missed several pages of Digger! I get the feeling I'm missing some good drama! And most importantly, there is really not enough music on these computers. I can't wait to get my computer down here.

Also this iBook is confusing. WHAT, ARE YOUR KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS TOO GOOD FOR CTRL? WHY ALL THIS ⌘ GIBBERISH? At least Safari has tabs, WHICH IS MORE THAN COULD BE SAID FOR IE. ahem.

So Internet, what have I missed?

So I am off to Minneapolis in a few hours (read: one) and I am making my first LJ post in like, forever, because there is something I just have to share with you, because it is awesome.

E2's HateQuest! Also required reading: All You Need Is Hate, one of the entries to HateQuest! This will be a little confusing to you unless you have been acclimated to E2, and also know the history of all the characters (users) involved.

Anyway. I'm going to Minneapolis! I will probably be held incommunicado while there, and hopefully I will not die. We'll see how that goes.

Aaand to all those people who follow me only through my livejournal (i.e., people who I do not IRC with and people who are not RL friends) I am sure you are wondering who this strange person posting on your friends list is. Um. I really don't know if I will return to writing fanfic stuff, but really who knows. Right now I'm on a programming kick, and I have no clue when that will run out.

Current Mood: chipper

The Rei/Ryu fic I spoke of now has its second chapter posted. Only took me, uh, a year and two months. ...

Anyway, let's all hope this little burst of productivity continues.

Yes, I /do/ still keep up with my livejournal!

Kind of.

There is a long and boring story behind this, but let's just say that a combination of people I like telling me I write good¹ and being actually unable² to write makes for a fantastic boost in my drive to write.

But don't get too excited. The following two snippets are very, very unfinished, to the point where I am still not decided on making this entry friends-only until I manage to clean them up. Also, they cut off at inopportune times and are of fairly obscure fandoms or at least what I assume are fairly obscure fandoms. I have not edited these at all, for serious, and I am also working without the aid of spellcheck. Very much so first drafts. You also get to see my little notes to myself! And my occasional totally incoherant sentences. But enough of that whiny "oh oh I suck at life ;_;" attitude, and on to the shameless porn!

---

Name: Old Deal (chap. 2)
Series: Breath of Fire III
Rating: NC-17 (also weretiger porn and copious ejaculations)
Word count: No clue, apparently something like 18k in size
Notes: Well, I /have/ been saying I'm going to eventually write another chapter to this. So here most of it is.
( middle three-fifths of it, which means mostly a sex scene )

Name: Untitled
Series: Final Fantasy 9
Rating: NC-17; Despite no actual sex in it, but there is mention of rampant erections, so...
Word count: No clue again, apparently 7.2k in size
Notes: The following characters in FF9 do not suck: Blank, Marcus, Amarant, Freya. This fic involves Zidane, Marcus, and Blank. ...don't judge me!
( very short first third of a presumable threesome. I say 'presumable' because it cuts off right before the sex scene would start )
---
( rambling information that is not interesting on its own, but that anyone who clicks on the lj-cuts will end up reading anyway )


1. you know who you are. hopefully.
2. as in, "at the house of a friend who does not use the computer much and also has a creepy fascination with the fact that I write porn on the internet, which means he watches over my shoulder half the time I'm using the computer and also the computer is in his bedroom"

Current Mood: rather tired

Okay, to no-one's real surprise, the return of the Naruto manga has brought a renewed interest in the series, so I'm considering writing more fic for it. Although I will probably start by thoroughly editing that Naruto/Kiba fic.

...I should stop saying "Oh yes I will probably work on [X] first" because it usually turns out to be a filthy lie.

In fic news, I have just posted a Xenogears fic to AFFN. Rico/random mechanic. Yeah.

Here, if you feel like reading.

I'll probably thoroughly edit that Jak fic and post it later.

I, uh... hi! *cough* Anyway, I come bearing fic, for once. I got out of my huge slump just in time to give y'all a New Years present. Well, three or so hours too late for that, but still. And of course, by 'present' I mean 'pornographic fanfiction'.

Name: Untitled (the nice thing about posting the fics in my LJ first is I don't have to worry about titles!)
Series: Jak (three, to be specific)
Rating: NC-17. rather 'duh' at this point.
Word count: 1379, which isn't that bad considering the whole thing is like one sex scene.
Notes: Uh, I wrote Jak fic. More specifically, Dark Jak/Jak fic. ...Don't judge me! And for those who still remember the details of this post, no this is not the scary pairing mentioned.

And as always, if you spot any weird errors of mine, I'd really like it if you'd point them out.
( Read more... )

Heh heh, uh... whoops.

Sorry for vanishing off the face of the earth (at least on LJ and AFFN and all that) for like two months. The fingers actually took about two weeks to stop with the death, but... yeah. I suck, sorry 'bout that.

So what did I learn from all this? I think maybe that I should never try to write chapter-fics again, or if I do at least write them all down first, /then/ post. I'm not sure if I'll even get around to finishing Years, because I'm suddenly not that interested in Naruto fandom. Plus, recent manga spoilers have thinking the manga doesn't suck that much anymore, which removes most of the need for the whole Years rewritey thing.

Writing temporarily delayed because of my fingers turning into the Apocalypse.

Today's vaguely smutty post is two drabbles, both SasuNaru. Probably the only time I will ever write Sasunaru.

Number the first (100 words):( Read more... )
Number the second (261 words):( Read more... )
I seriously think I can't write anything explict with Sasuke in it. odd.
Tomorrow's post will likely be GARR SMUT, and possibly be actual short-fic length.