One of my good high school friends (and fellow band nerd), a girl named Emily Dorris (now Emily Westbrook), was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the age of three. You never would have thought it. She was a tiny thing, but whatever she lacked in size she made up for in personality. Many times this girl had me bawling with laughter on the bus, and she had a belch that would put a 400-pound sumo wrestler to shame. She always has a witty or smart aleck comeback, and she was refreshingly down-to-earth, never cliquey or snobby, never judgmental.

Or whiny, for that matter. Marching band is hard work, broiling out under the sun and carrying equipment, making practice and staying long hours after school. Emily did all that and never ONCE complained or used her disease as an excuse to miss an event. (Unlike me--I was always looking for an excuse to take a break because I'm a good-for-nothing slacker.) Most of us had no idea Emily had CF. Her condition stated that she wouldn't live to age 18, and so far she's a decade beyond everyone's expectations. Nothing scares this little firecracker. She has the heart of a lion and the laugh of a demented clown. She's just one of those rare few awesome people you get to have in your life, and I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to have many.

CF is a progressive disease and lately her health has taken a turn for the worse. She's got pneumonia that refuses to get better, and she's in need of a double lung transplant. She's married and has a cute little kid that has no doubt inherited those awesome Funny Genes of hers, and her family needs both moral and financial support right now.

Visit Emily's medical blog for more info on her condition, and even if you can't make a Paypal donation (any amount will be greatly appreciated), please just keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She's a great person--I don't know why it's always the nice ones that end up with these horrible battles to fight--so please, help if you can.

Well, the move went off without a hitch and I'm slowly getting settled and adapting to life in South of South, USA. So far I'm loving it, though I'm living out in the boondocks, which is a little bit of a culture shock to my semi-city slickerness. I have no doubts about my ability to champion onward and assimilate myself with the locals, perhaps in time becoming one of their own.

Things are still a bit crazy at this point, what with getting change of address forms and updated car insurance and a new driver's license and all that baloney, but I'm slowly working my way back toward my fandoms in my spare time. I can't say what'll come first at this point--fic updates or art--but it'll be here when it gets here. Thanks to everyone who commented on my last entry! Hopefully I'll get some time soon to sit down and have a good, long session of Internet with all my pals. :)

Getting ready to move 500 miles south to the land of oranges and hurricanes. I'll be leaving Saturday, which means I'm doing a lot of packing, sorting, and worrying about how the hell I'm going to fit the contents of my life into a 5x8 trailer. Even though I sold, donated, or threw out half of my belongings last summer, it still seems like I've got a lot of stuff. Of course, the majority of the things that went were old books, toys and nicknacks. I forgot all about furniture. (Headdesk... and headbookcase, headcoffeetable, etc.) I can't imagine trying to pull off this same move a year ago. I would have had to rent a tractor trailer.

In other news, I've somehow managed to find time to write, busy as my life's been these past couple of months. I'm simultaneously working on A Boys' Game and Die Cast, though more the former than the latter. I'm also trying to incorporate some original material into my writing time, too. I've got a pretty solid idea, I think; it's just difficult trying to get excited about my own characters instead of somebody else's.

Well, back to it. Will try to suppress the urge to just burn everything I own.

So they're remaking The Lone Ranger. At first I was rolling my eyes and condemning the lack of new material spewing out of Hollywood's leaky bowels, but then it occurred to me that, in today's fandom-oriented internet subculture, there's a super-massive possibility that the remake is going to be even gayer than the original (and much less campy). I mean, I thought it was impossible to get any gayer than neckerchiefs and spandex riding breeches, but after seeing that Armie Hammer (as the Ranger) and Johnny "Prettyman" Depp (as Tonto) are going to be the dynamic duo, I began to rethink a few things.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the tidal wave of slash fics when this movie comes out.

I went down to Florida last week to spend some time with my reenactment buddies and also to attend an Item Company veteran's 90th birthday. It was a blast, but that Friday night I started coming down with what was going to be the worst case of influenza I'd had in ten years. Five out of the seven days I was there I was sick, and getting sicker by the moment. By the time I flew home this past Thursday, I was eyeball-deep in mucous-coated misery. I had it all, brother. The chills, the rigor, the migraine, the aches, the crawling skin, the congestion in both sinus and chest, and not nearly enough tissues. Between the Nyquil, Tylenol, Theraflu, Mucinex, phenylalanine-laced nasal spray, and the shots of whiskey and honey I'm taking, my liver probably looks like it's been chewed up by a wild dog and shit over a cliff. I even lost my appetite. I have to be practically dead before that happens, 'cause I can always eat.

Anyway, I'm still six kinds of crappy but at least I'm starting to get better. You don't even wanna hear about the crud I'm hacking up and blowing out. At least I've managed to catch some good comfort movies on TV. Indiana Jones, Quentin Tarantino films, etc. I'm probably still gonna be coughing up snot for another week, but in the meantime I plan to try to work on a few fics here and there, maybe draw something. I'm getting rusty. Last thing the world needs is a rusty old Bender.

I'm selling my Yoroiden Samurai Trooper collection (well, most of it), and a few other odds and ends from my old anime fandom. I've got tons of doujinshi, including the nearly-entire Laim Club series by Kaimu Tachibana, plus a bunch of artbooks and wall scrolls. Help me get rid of it all!

Bender's Massive, Big-Tent Liquidation Event! Going on now until... uh, all the stuff is gone.

When I was 12 years old, I heard this soundtrack sequence from my favorite anime of all time, Ronin Warriors (known as Yoroiden Samurai Troopers across the big blue puddle). Because of some kind of inalienable copyrights mixup, that little music clip does not appear on any of the already hard-to-find soundtrack CDs. Inflamed with musical passion, I vowed to one day learn to play the song that has held such deeply-rooted feelings within me.

That day came today.

Tonight, January 11th, 2012, I sat down with my cumbersome keyboard propped on my desk, and listened to a twice-slowed-down version of the song (I call it Creating the Armors) that I had ripped from the DVDs. It took me about two hours to get it down to semi-perfect precision. I'm still a bit slow, but practice will help with that.

After almost 15 years, I have conquered a major life goal. I feel phenomenal. Just goes to show that it's never too late to do something you've always wanted to do. ☆ミ

Earlier this week my Dreamweaver CS3 spontaneously decided to stop working. I have been unable to diagnose the problem, and, despite my best reinstalling efforts, presently arrived at the conclusion that my problem could only be solved by updating to newer software. I spent approximately two days downloading the 12-gig Adobe CS5 Suite, only to find out that it only runs on Windows 64-bit systems. I run Windows 32-bit. And I hate CS4, and am still not fully convinced that Adobe got all the bugs out. I equate the CS4 Suite to such magnificent disasters as Windows ME and AOL.

As of now I have no Adobe software on my computer, which pretty puts a tight lid on my productive output, at least in the visual field. But at least I have my health, which I'm grateful for, especially having just recently gotten over the flu earlier this month. Worst of all, I had to fly, and being crammed in a pressurized cabin with sinus congestion and a dwindling supply of tissues is a misery I wouldn't wish on anyone. No one was knocking themselves over to crowd me, so at least I had a bit more elbow room.

I had barely enough time to recover to a non bed-ridden condition when I attended my college graduation on the tenth. Wasn't really in the mood for it; I was more excited about my parents treating me to a Mexican dinner afterward.

All in all I'm doing good, staying busy, preparing to start hawking some of my doujinshi and anime paraphernalia, and get a working copy of Adobe installed on my PC. I know I've got a ton of correspondence to catch up with, so if you've left reviews/contacted me/etc, don't panic--I'll try to respond to you soon.

MAH ICONS.

default	oldest	newest
saddest	happiest	angriest
cutest	sexiest	funniest
fave ship	fave fandom	fave animated
		BITCH I DON'T GOT NO ANIMATED ICONS
best quote	best textless	best stolen idea
		BITCH I DON'T STEAL IDEAS
use the most	favorite

HOW MANY ICONS DO YOU HAVE: more than I really need (58)
OUT OF HOW MANY AVAILABLE ICONS SPACES: 62
IF YOU COULD BUY SPACE FOR MORE, WOULD YOU: no
DO YOUR ICONS MAKE A STATEMENT: don't care
WHAT FANDOM DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Band of Brothers
AND THE SECOND MOST: Alex Rider
WHAT SHIP DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Winters/Nixon
ARE YOUR ICONS MADE MOSTLY BY OTHER PEOPLE: not a single damned one
DO YOU MAKE ICONS: hell yes
ARE THEY ANY GOOD: what's that supposed to mean?
ANIMATED ICONS ARE: animated
DO THE MEME.
Coding can be found here

I think it's pretentious how people put themselves down as knowing a bunch of languages on their Facebook profiles when they barely have a grasp of their own mother tongue and clearly no comprehensive knowledge of any of the languages they've listed. Old English? Really? Well jumping Jesus, that's a miracle at age twenty, considering Old English hasn't been spoken in almost a thousand fucking years. You must be a time-traveling prodigy, kid. I'm super impressed.

I could understand the pseudo-intellectual and desperate-to-impress putting down "Middle English" because their high school lit teacher made them memorize the intro to Canterbury Tales, but Old English? Bitch, please. You probably couldn't tell the difference between it and German. And don't get me started on the living languages; watching Speedy Gonzales and Pepe Le Pew does not mean you know Spanish and French, you delusional knothead. Shit, I studied French for two years and went to France before I reconnected with my German roots, but I don't list myself as "knows French". And as much German as I know, and for the five-plus years I've been studying it, I still consider myself a noob.

Well, I'm not the idiot police, and people can say whatever they want in the profiles. But it's really a stick in the eye to all the people who actually study language and culture and who can communicate with native speakers, not just spout out a poorly-articulated "Comment allez-vous" whenever they can summon the brainpower to remember it.

tl;dr I hate ignorant know-it-alls, but whatever, it's Friday, TGIF and DGAF.