EMMJAY

Everybody else my age can't be pulled away from their mental calendar as they count down the days until their education draws to a close. I on the other hand, wouldn't be able to give you an answer past "Ungh... Sometime this month?" This isn't because my legacy transcends nowhere past my Facebook page or because I have no plans for my future (Although I do on occasion partake in such carnival squander in the tongue-in-cheek way I approach 90% of the rest of my life's happenings) I've pretty much known my destiny to this point since I was in the eighth grade without any real road map to where I was well aware I'd land up. Pardon my flirting around the point. My point is, I'm shutting myself out to how much school is left for me because I don't want it to end. School ending would imply a deadline for assignments which I am slowly cranking out. I can't get out of this miserable pit fast enough and yet I hang around anyway.

On the topic of "Out of my graduating class of about 600, I'm probably one of about 50 who actually has their shit together and will probably achieve a comfortable and permanent life", Professional Development in the Arts 35: What a joke that has turned out to be! In short, I think the idea was that it would be a class to encourage students to pursue postsecondary education in the arts by crediting their lengthy, rigorous portfolio preparations. In reality, like most other classes I've had the misfortune of being in, it turns out that all that work I put into getting to University can be thrown right out the window in substitution for hour logs, research papers ("What influences your art?" Nothing. My art isn't reactionary. Its revolutionary. I am uninspired and happen to act on it. And don't dock me marks for being a smart ass), job shadowing (Remember how I was supposed to go work fashion retail for a day but that fell through because the teacher didn't want to have to organize it any further? Yeah, because thats why I'm going to University all the way across the country, to get a degree in fashion design so I can fold clothes in a sweatshop at the mall. I just happened to have an extra $70,000 kicking around my bedroom and a bizarre urge to waste four years of my life.) and a "What this course meant to me" paper (Which I'm sure, as you can see I will have no problem doing). Once again, I'm cramming my effort, my gift to the world into a metaphorical ice cube tray known as the curriculum, cutting around the edges and pouring leftover ham fat into the rest of the slots.

I should have come to expect this by now. I'm almost done and then I can at least attempt to piece myself together without my introspective conversation being interrupted by a normal curve yelling at me to find its derivative.

In other news, OtaFest happened a few weeks ago. I didn't win anything in the competition but I won 2^nd runner up, Ms. OtaFest which was nice to be recognized for all the effort I put into my Eternal Sailor Moon cosplay. I'd attempt to write a more conclusive synopsis to balance out the 60,000,000,000,000 photos taken of me that weekend but there really wasn't much to say about OtaFest this year. I think two photos will have to suffice:


Eternal Sailor Moon!


Eternal Sailor Moon lookin' up Audrey's skirt...

Far further down on the list of importance is that I graduated. Graduation is all pretty ridiculous. I think its more so a (now) customary passage of rights in combination of a celebration for all the kids who had doubts as to whether or not they would even graduate in the first place. Less long than the banquet for Benson's grad last year, but just as boring. What I liked about mine was how much everybody just blatantly talked through the banquet instead of making any efforts to conceal their dissatisfaction. Pictures ensued:


Princess Serenity and Tuxedo Kamen. Would you really expect any less of me?


Apart from me cheating the dress to look more interesting than it was and extreme impromptu back lighting, this isn't a very good photograph.

These next couple of weeks are basically going to be an academic write off so I may as well start them tonight and blog instead of doing my mind blowing amounts of homework.

First and foremost, tomorrow night at 6:00, I'm picking up my Japanese home stay kids who are going to be here until the 25^th. Of course, being Japanese and everything, they're going to be absolutely WHACK. More or less really polite and easygoing but just you wait my radiant darlings of the orient, I pledge to make your Canadian field trip experience WHACK (Also, I solemnly swear to kill you both or set you into a coma by feeding you copious amounts of carbohydrates, cholesterol and the meats)

Next of all, my IB Art exam is this Tuesday so I get to put my heart out on a plate and explain why I draw on sticky notes everyday and how that relates to justifying human values. Just thought you should be in that loop.

Today I also found out that my Hot Topic order from January 18^th has been sent back to the states, ONCE AGAIN. You see, my aunt's mail carrier is a douche vat and didn't put the "We kindly urge you to pick up your parcel" tag on my aunts door back in February when the order came so it got signed for in Tennessee and then returned to the company where they tried to re-send it to us in Canada and the mail carrier didn't drop off the tag yet again. Thus my $250 order resides in Toronto and they aren't allowed to just ship it back to us. It has to go back to the states and then re-sent back to Canada. Best of all, we aren't allowed to issue complaints, only Hot Topic is authorized to. I'm a have to pull open a can of "public interest story on Global news of corporate injustice" on this bastard, I will. And everybody said... YATTA!!

Also, barely related to my first point, I found some Manic Panic in my closet from Grade 9 and died my hair since Japanese kids make it so I don't have to work for the next two weeks.


YEAAAAAH.

I’ve been putting this off far too long, I apologize. I’m beginning to think that in my absence, everybody is slowly beginning to wean themselves off of LJ. Or maybe this is once again an example of my hyper-paranoid wishful thinking which apparently surfaces when I’m too busy to tend to social networking sites amidst actual real life socializing? Who the heck knows; I sure don’t.

Wednesday night:
With my last day of school for the week behind me before my five day long weekend commences, I find myself slaving away at my sewing machine ever still adding “finishing touches” (such as sewing almost whole garments together) to Sid and my cosplay costumes before fake nails would render me incapable for the night . To the dismay of the previous deadline, I received a parcel from CosWorx which I did much fretting over for the weeks leading up to OtaFest (the Anime convention) seeing as I had ordered it a month and a half in advance however it didn’t get shipped out until about a week before OtaFest (problematic because international shipping takes “up to five business days to arrive… or more”; how specific) In this box came three wigs (Sid’s, mine, Sid’s friend’s), a Styrofoam head with it’s nose pushed in, two wig caps and a pair of white Candy 100s… with a irreparable zipper. So on numerous occasions before Saturday, I took them to shoemakers and I guess they couldn’t be repaired unless they tore out the zipper so in short, Sid ended up wearing my precious Swing 815s and I wore the old pair I ordered back in February. So the long and short of the matter is that for the rest of the night I was styling wigs. The sewing just stopped happening.

Thursday:
Benson’s grad, Benson’s grad, Benson’s grad, Benson’s grad, Benson’s grad, oh gosh yes! If there was any time for me to break down and insert an emoticon in one of my journal entries, it would be here and it would be grinning with a CAPITAL D. Mark my word. This commenced with me getting all the hairs on my head dyed blonde by that kooky, Vietnamese hair dresser guy who every time he goes to the back room, comes back with the scent of liquor on his breath. Anyway, I have acne but I looked cute and my eyebrows rock but not as much as Benson’s and liquid honey tastes excellent in tea and I was the only person who really understood why that honey was there in the first place and why do teenage girls all look the same? Anyway, the highlights of the actual grad included playing with the plastic spinning stone on the floor that defies all laws of physics, periodically making “trips to the facilities” in order to escape the ceremony so we could talk as loud as we wanted to, writing back and forth to each other on the program to keep ourselves awake and mentally stimulated and any whispered banter along the way. Long story short (and oh how I do mean long), we left something ridiculous like four hours early to go to China town; where everything was closed but was still more entertaining than what ever it was that we were doing before. Now despite having left at 8:00 or 9:00, I still managed to convince the school that I should have the next day off seeing as I would be in no condition to attend classes the next day as a result of copious alcohol consumption because that’s how I have a good time for sure fatigue. We actually stayed up until two or something playing Pokémon.

Friday:
Excellent sleeping accommodations hardly permitted any prolonged amount of sleep, what with OtaFest on Saturday (costumes still not done at this point) and a whole day to spend with Benson ahead of me. We went back to China town where I decided that I needed more sexy nurse figurines and obnoxious strawberry paraphernalia in order to make my life complete but did not obtain them as a result of leaving any means of finance back at my place or origin. I regrettably don’t remember any specifics of what went on this day but do remember that I had much fun and didn’t return until late at night after Summerstock, exhausted and still not done my cosplay. I eventually finished (at 5:00 no doubt) and then submitted myself to slumber in some unnatural position for two hours.

Saturday
As you should already know, I woke up nice and early to get to OtaFest to be about twelfth in line to be admitted. Fortunately, along came Sid so through the duration of the line to get into vendors (alternately, the other reason apart from cosplay that I actually go to OtaFest; to buy more useless Japanoholic crap I have no use for), slowly became a most smashing Puding. Then others I know (many who I resent the existence of because of their overt interest in anime fan culture in combination with a lack of social skills needed to associate with any higher form of being other than the Otaku folk) joined in the locomotion line of anticipation which most favorably included the lovely Bree (One of our dancers for the cosplay competition later that afternoon) I figure I may as well get this out of the way now seeing as it’s so interesting to myself and anybody else enthralled with my life enough to wade through tedious lists of my purchases, so here goes. Everything I bought at Otafest:

Manga:
- All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku
- Black Knight 1, 2 & 3
- Fake Fur
- Gals! 1
- Gerard & Jaques 1 & 2
- Gorgeous Carat 3 & 4
- Gorgeous Carat Galaxy
- Hero-Heel 1
- Hybrid Child
- Ill Gatto Sul G 2
- Innocent Bird 1
- Juno Romantica 1 & 2
- Kissing
- Little Butterfly 2 & 3
- Lost Boys
- Loveless 2, 3 & 4
- Lovers in the Night
- Only the Ring Finger Knows
- Our Kingdom 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
- Rin! 1, 2 & 3
- Same Cell Organism
-Seven
- The Moon and Sandals 1
- Time Lag
- Wagamama Kitchen

Anime:
- All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku Dash! boxset
- Kizuna 2
- Peach Girl 1

Everything else:
- OtaFest ’07 T-Shirt
- OtaFest ’07 lanyard
- 4 5” G-Taste nurse figurines
- Dance Dance Revolution 2^nd Mix for Playstation
- Gothic Lolita blouse and crinoline by Body Line
- Strawberry shaped purse with wings

So, not as much as last year, but still a darn good amount for under $800 and I still had some money left so I haven’t gone through my annual, post OtaFest onset of depression yet.

For the most part afterwards, I paced about in search of people to take pictures of me, back and forth between vendors and anybody who I knew, all the while estimating how little effort some people put into their costumes (in Canada, to cosplay means to half-ass your rendition of your favorite ‘bishi’ at the moment while spending as little money as humanly possible, totting along a plushie of their alleged gay lover and consuming from your limitless stash of Pocky that must be worth more than your embarrassingly small cosplay on your size 18+ frame) The fun in that went on for pretty much ever, or at least until everybody doing the cosplay competition got summoned into the prep room.

And then came the cosplay competition.

Apparently, this was the longest one ever in OtaFest history because of everybody’s complete disregard of the two minute (slightly enforced) time cap so by the time group 42: The Midrange Vocal Noise Makers were due to make their appearance, a quarter of the audience had gotten up to leave to go home to watch Bleach/Naruto/Full Metal Alchemest/Death Note/Final Fantasy: Advent Children/any of those quality examples of animation whose fans will abandon the series as soon as the next Inu-Yasha comes along (or disregard my bitterness but the only stuff you can buy in China town is all basically from one of those Animes so I have reason to weap)

So we go up, do our little Space Channel 5 skit (Pudding’s revenge, Ulala saves some cosplayers, go, go, go, go, Space Channel 5, left shooting, right shooting, sexy, Ulala, yeah, the top of my microphone flies off but apparently nobody notices, everybody does a dance that was never once rehearsed with all five of us in attendance and then we strut off, Spaaaaaaaaaaaace Channel 5!!) and we win first runner-up for best in show (Best costumes and performance) for the journeyman category. Happy Emmjay.

AND NOW I POST ALL THE PICTURES
( Because like I said, it has been two months since I started this entry and I don’t remember what happened at all )

Benson's Grad, OtaFest and a bunch of other stuff. Expect a massive post from me some time soon.

Just for a healthy change of pace around my neck of the woods, I've chosen to make our Live Journaling experience just a bit more satisfying today by uploading some of my recent Dance Dance Revolution videos for your viewing pleasure (that is of course if you're into watching me facing a screen from a rather unflattering angle; FUN TIMES, no need to remind me) I guess I’m more so doing this to show that I'm physically… "capable" in some regards as opposed to the best DDR player EVAAAR (trust me, had I nothing better to do with my time I could have toped these scores by a long shot and I have on other occasions (especially Witch Doctor which I can normally kick the shit right out of first try) however I was rather impatient to post these when they were in the works so once again I advise you to just deal with this oh-so-important inconvenience to your well being on the internet this evening)


COWGIRL (Heavy, 2x)
AA – 262 Perfects, 17 Greats


SO DEEP ~Perfect Sphere Mix~ (Heavy, 2x)
A – Almost a full combo with a max combo of 367 I think?


TWILIGHT ZONE ~R-G Extended Club Mix~ (Heavy, 2x)
AA – Not a clue what my score was…


WITCH DOCTOR GIANTS TOON VERSION (Heavy, 2x)
A – 267 Perfects, 70 Greats

Oh… Joyous occasion! I have just sealed my fate and will be joining the likes of Hitler in the gazillionth level of hell because I’m now one of those hyper-pretentious DDR players who hosts videos online.

So I’ve figured out how to make my life the most manageable as far as the English homework versus Live Journal dilemma goes: hand in the unrefined, handwritten notes you took two weeks ago in class (and completely without the discussion notes which were supposedly taken throughout the literary seminars last week) and commit, oh, I don’t know, a good hour or so to the update I promised the lot of you yesterday. After all, I get more fulfillment on doing this sort of thing rather than providing commentary of a frivolous nature to some mediocre short story published in a high-school text book. I am brilliant- hear me fail.

Thursday :
I was hoping on put, put, putting over to the blessed kingdom in the sky of Bishop Carol High School while I was on my half day from school in order to plaster a smile across Bridget’s face but she was scheduled for a vet’s appointment instead (this is a most unacceptable circumstance for future reference) so by some series of events that I can’t recall correctly for the life of me (and therefore won’t even bother as much as I love hearing myself type), Jordan and I had an excursion to Westbrook Mall where we took in such quality shopping attractions as As Seen on TV, WAL★MART, the Source (Where I found a PS1 to USB converter (or was it the other way around?) for the everyday suspicious price of $16.99 but didn’t buy it in fear of blowing my dance platform’s overpriced converter box yet again) and finally EB Games where I hadn’t been in a while mainly on account of imports being superior to their domestic counterparts if only for the prestige of having something that nobody else does (Like how up until 6^th Style, the interface for the beatmania IIDX series is pretty much the same in every game and rivals the quality of even the internet’s only known beatmania simulator BM98. Bummer…) So once we arrived there via rusty, tetanus covered shopping cart we found twenty blocks away, Jordan battled many a conscious battles over what games or gaming accessories to spend his birthday certificates on and I made an array of snare comments at just over the allowacated ‘indoor voices’ level about how Final Fantasy isn’t a very good game at all should any Otaku folk come flinging their fat rolls through the doors, all as an elaborate attempt to shut down their impending fandom rants mindless pleas for psychological intervention. More importantly I boughtPhoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All. I’ve had my DS Lite since the pre-release and only now do I own a game I can call my own for it. Still havn’t gotten around to playing it mind you because Animal Crossing: Wild World continues to be all the crack I need as part of a balanced breakfast.

Then I returned to my dark fortress where I proceeded to do a sloppy ten minute paint job of my Spanish project which was to use at least ten adjectives and full sentences to describe your ideal prospective lover. I having not wanted to take this class in the first place and being of the mindset to reap gradual havoc on the Calgary Board of Education’s moral standards, decided to make a mockery of the assignment through making what is both an homage to Space Channel 5 and a one-point-perspective disaster… But quite the hunk no less.


Yeah, I look for that in a man. Right there. Taco in panties. Sour cream on face. May the ta-la-la touching commence. I just hope you know how serious this is seeing as if you knew the first thing about the language of Spanish you could see right through my pink penning and see that I use words such as ‘offensive’, ‘arrogant’ and list red hair as a turn on. AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA NO.

Friday :
Somebody alert the press, another half day for Emmjay! And once again I employ my almighty powers of manipulation to get Jordan to escort me to 17^th avenue so I could get another pair of Tripp pants with lots of fagatory straps to hold my keys on. Their selection was nothing too far out of the ordinary (well, in comparison to their stock the last half dozen or so times I’ve visited) but then I came across these bitchin’ threads and eatsed ‘em up on the spot (you see, my other ones cut themselves almost at my ankle which I simply will not have)


CLICK FOR BIG.

As usual I apologize for the fantastic quality of my still broken digital camcorder with bonus (and hardly reliable as it seems) camera feature. Get used to it.

So next after recovering various E-ROTIC songs on the street, out in public, Jordan heads home and I head out for a nice hour long walk up 17^th until I reach Phoenix comics to drop more large sums of money which I’m surprised I even have on more manga which I may not get down to reading ever really (just in case you’re a creep and want to know, this newly aquired manga just so happens to be Trigun 10, Trigun 11, Jazz 4, Passion 3 and Yellow 4. Obligatory nasel hemorrhaging here.)

And then of course came Summerstock which in all of it’s dramaturgical glory went pretty well (even better though because I don’t see Sid or Benson nearly enough as it is) but then along came mister fire alarm and threw us all into what I was more or less hoping to be a state of adrenaline induced chaos or possibly even anarchy. Somehow though, a sub-conclusion was drawn that maybe the alarm was pulled as an attempt for the group of bandits who have been robbing the school of all their fancy electronics to, well, do their thang. Too bad I didn’t have any rock-solid alibi as to where I was at the time seeing as I was alone when I heard the alarm and didn’t see anybody for two minutes following. Is this what I get for being antisocial? Oh and Benson can stick two thirds of my DS Lite down this throat. I thought that was pretty cool!

There was so much more to that bit of my story but nothing outside of just descriptions of where we got pulled around to in order to receive further interrogation into the whole whodunit. I’d describe in graphic detail but I’m not about to lost the attention of all the readers (should I have even bothered to pluralized that?) who have made it this far into tonight’s post. But just for the sake of it, I’m going to dole on about the rest of my night after Stock as if it were important to you anyway.

Benson’s dad offered me a ride home so I took it because I’m all for getting the most bang for my buck even when it’s a free deal so there’s no money required in the first place. This however ended up turning into going to Boston Piza where delicious pizza was consumed, napkin origami was made and I was left once again yearning for the simpler times of my life when I could drink the thick syrup they use in orange pop as a beverage on it’s own.

Saturday :
Mom had her birthday party and as usual left no alternative to Greek food to the unfortunate gathering of guests. Luckily spanakopitas were still Greek as of last night around 7:00 so I was pretty much set for life. I throw my arms so high in the air for such delightful spinach filled pastries. Yummy in my tummy, etc…

Sunday :
Yeah, what did end up happening today other than consuming about 500% of my daily recommended intake of sodium?

Duuuuurr, what the hell is this? Why hadn’t I bought a single manga in around six months? That used to be my big ol’ claim to fame that brought about many friends who turned out to just be using me for my massive stash of 278 of the things. Alas four more have been added to my harem: J-Boy 1, Desire, Jazz 2 and Jazz 3 (Definitely forgot to pick up Trigun 9 or maybe even 10 but its all the more incentive to go back…) I’m actually totally pumped for reading Jazz. It’s been appropriately re-dubbed as June which I’ve begun to take a liking to now more so than just yaoi which after reading enough in a large dose, I had decided was getting far to routine:

“Holy shit it’s love at first sight!”

“No dude, no. I’m a man.”

“So you are- I’M SO UNCLEAN IN THE EYES OF GOD”

“Oh well. Fuck you up your pooper?”

“The regret burns and stings.”

“iawtc”

“HONK. HONK.”

Yeah yeah, I know. Jazz probably isn’t the best example of this (well at least my experience with the first volume) but what I’m getting at is that my recent re-fascination with the Kizuna series has made me appreciate the relationship just as much as the sex (but maybe that’s just because of Kazuma Kodaka’s wonky tendency to disproportion her men to a sexually unsatisfying degree?) Who knows?

Still, it was an awesome afternoon spent with Mesh-tah “Jamaul” Jordan filled with dozens of plot twists.

AN IN DEPTH SUMMARY OF EVENTS :
- I finally persuade Jordan to come with me to Phoenix Comics
- We start moseying along off the bus to the store, hoping that another bus might pass up by to take us there
- We see a M^cDonald’s and go there instead
- There, Jordan orders fries and a low calorie water beverage for me
- The burger slave throws him his change so I recommend filling out a customer satisfaction survey
- He actually asks her for one (you see, my advice is usually not followed- for the better of all races) but as it turns out, “they don’t have any”
- I recommend writing one on a napkin in the ketchup that he had to get HIMSELF
- We leave the facility at once
- Waaiiiiitaminnet, BITCH DIDN’T GIVE ME MY WATER
-Jordan throws his previously fry-filled bag away in disgust. M^cDonald’s proceeds to cry in an utmost state of shock for its act of discrimination against the youth of today. It should be ashamed of it’s self
- We miss our bus because of this (The same bus that never comes)
- We walk instead
- I write some song about making the light to cross the street. It got kind of sweary towards the end but otherwise, it was quite the inspiring epic considering that I didn’t really make the light anyway
- My neck continues to pop out of place and cause me incredible pain
- We go by the Korean unisex hair studio where I’m sure- much like North Korean correctional facilities- they will stomp on the neck of your undeveloped fetus to teach you that a life of intrigue and baby-bearing do not mix
- We get there. Casher that I go way, way back with gives me correct change on my debit
- We go outside and wait for the next bus
- No bus
- We start singing “Turn Me On” and “Charlene”
- Some old man comes around the corner and hates listening to us youngions talk about how good I look in Jordan’s hat and then proceeds to stand as far away from us as possible while still standing within the bus-zone
- We get fed up and keep walking to the next stop down
- Some car nearly runs me over by trying to turn AROUND me while I cross the street. Conveniently right after I make a joke about how funny it would be it tried to hit me. Not funny apparently
- We then part ways after catching yet another bus and for the rest of my trip I wonder whether or not I should go to the Leather Pocket to play ITG because Steph had mentioned her being there but decided against the notion because of the possibility of me disrupting the balance of the cosmos (or what ever that was)

Speaking of ITG, with the magic of ITG PC, I’m getting more skilful and my skill-gap between DDR and ITG is slowly closing.

Next comes the Japanese winter festival which I love to death because I get to eat yakisoba and then moshi and then more yakisoba and then more moshi and then our exchange-teacher in training (great abbreviation by the way) comments on how much I love moshi and some old Japanese guy is like “Hehehe, I have TWO yakisoba. This is stuff is great. You should go ask them how to make it. It’s easy!” and then I consume more rice clumps with delicious bean paste because it’s free and Japan is still crowded.


All Japanese people wear this kind of stuff, or more appropriately, I’m not the Asian one

Tomorrow at noon I return to my place of former employment for the first time in just over a month. Last Saturday, I got a call from Leanne that said that she was looking for me because I was an hour late. You see, when my boss tells me that she will call me if she can re-add me to the time schedule (because I guess my time restrictions were too hard to accommodate or some complete and utter garbage that would upset the pants off the union), I expect that she would call me herself and not the day of, one hour later. I also love how it had something or other to do with how if I couldn’t work closing at all on weekends, it would be unfair to the other girls that would have to do it when all along I was doing closing on both Saturday and Sundays every God-dammed week.

I’m so getting a job at Adult Source after I’ve worked at Safeway for over a year. And because they can’t legally ask me for my age, I’m just a really intelligent not-minor who dropped out of school after having completed the eleventh grade.

Oh my God, this week has been absolutely hilarious!

So Wednesday was the day that our group’s French Revolution movie would be due on. Originally the date was set for Monday but just because of our group’s immense time restrictions, our teacher adjusted the class due date for Wednesday at the latest.

Anyway, my mom ended up canceling me babysitting my cousins on Monday so that I would be able to get more homework done only for me to have spent that afternoon at school with three of my five group members (ironically enough the two who were absent seemed to be the most stressed over us getting it done on time- go figure) to work on the movie. So no biggie yet. We get all the footage on film, I ride the bus home dressed up as Hitler; life is good. It’s when I get home to transfer the files onto the computer that the shit starts hitting the fan thus leading to my educational crucifixion as I knew it.

Last I had connected my camera to the computer, the fire wire port’s internal prong thingies were a little mangled but the transfer for the most part was okay (mind you it was a bit sensitive because the wire didn’t exactly stay in but worked no less). But when I tried on Monday night, the prongs had gone from mangled to mutilated. So the notoriously intelligent MJ disassembles his camera until it lies in front of him in six parts. Conclusion : Well shit, I think this is broken.

On to Tuesday. All day I tell nobody about my little predicament in fear of a group member or two shitting bricks at me for being irresponsible or unreliable or what ever (because I’m the one editing the film and everything) It’s about now where I’ve tried every flipping cable in my house in combination with any remotely conductive alloy to connect this damn device to my even further useless computer and the best idea I have is to play the video on T.V. and record that image onto my computer with another video camera. Then it hits me- another camera. If I could get a hold of another camera, I could put the tape with my files into it and then connect that to the computer. So I call my aunt at her school and ask if she can bring me back a camcorder that plays Mini DV cassettes. Of course she brings me the only camcorder from her school which plays the Mini DV’s predecessors and was fortunately from the ‘93ish generation of cameras- yeah right. And I don’t find this out until around seven o’clock that night (16 fun filled hours until presentation time)

So then I take the receiptless camera to London Drugs where I get charged $35 to have the camera sent in to have an estimate done. Meanwhile I am sans any camera at all.

So then I yell and a scream and I pull out some hair and I cry and I piss my pants and start playing the guitar and writing poetry and watching the stars go by and muse about my insignificance in the grand scheme of things and I light patchouli scented candles and watch Dr.Phil and I start self mutilating and start binge drinking and pick up a heroin habit or two and all that good stuff. But the one thing that came out of it all was that I remembered that I’m MJ. I’m a quitter. When I do bad at school, I take a few days off to finish my homework yell at other people on Live Journal who aren’t even home anyway. The only reason I was so driven to get the damn thing done was because regardless if it was done or not, we had to present the next day. The public overlooking my hard work is much worse than public humiliation by a long shot. Anyway, what I’m getting to here was that at oh, I don’t know, nine-something I came up with the brilliant idea of just buying a new camera, putting the tape in, uploading the film and then returning the camera. It’s a mighty shame that cameras don’t come with fire wire ports or mini DV compatibility for under $400- or at least not at Staples, London Drugs, Zellers, Visions, Super Store or any other “fine retailer” near me. And then there was Wal*Mart. Oh sweet, sweet Wal*Mart… Too bad that I only have $320 or so on me because by now a certain mother of mine owes me over $1000.

The cheapest camera I could find that fit my strict criteria was $370. Too bad the useless salesclerks wasted my time fidgeting with the display model so I could test and see if my tape would fit in. It honestly took them at least twenty minutes to realize that they would have to attach the adaptor to the camera, turn it on, turn it to play mode, push the button labeled “Press to open”, insert the tape properly and press play. For Christ sakes, there is certainly no need to flash me the “I know how to do my job, thank-you” face when I was A) telling the guy EXACTLY what to do in as casual of a way as possible and B)going to be returning the camera anyway. But back to the monetary crisis of the time. I was $50 short with seven minutes till closing time and my mom had no money because she got her hair dyed the same color of phony bleach blonde it was before.

So then I yell and a scream and I pull out some hair and I cry and I piss my pants and start playing the guitar and writing poetry and watching the stars go by and muse about my insignificance in the grand scheme of things and I light patchouli scented candles and watch Dr.Phil and I start self mutilating and start binge drinking and pick up a heroin habit or two and all that good stuff. But the one thing that came out of it all was that I went up to my (starving former med-student) cousin’s house which was in close proximity to Wal*Mart, offered a vague explanation of the events and was given her $50 reserve stash. So plus one camera and from then on marks a long night.

So I upload the movies and try to offer brief synopsis’s to my group members over MSN. Too bad the narration files that Pieter had made earlier that afternoon had periods in the filenames. Which doing so is pretty much comparable to shooting yourself in the foot to run faster. To my total time spent on editing, add another two hours; maybe three for good luck.

And then I edit and edit and edit from 10:30 – 9:30. Eleven whole house of mediocre video quality and roundabout ways of solving problems that arise with a harsh case of the 4AM logic bunnies. In any case I finished it and to my understanding we got 100%.


PART ONE

PART TWO

Alas, those should be watched (if not for my red jumpsuit freestyle ballet skills but for the obligatory Strobe Action sampling) You might actually learn something but on the other hand, you probably won’t.



Later that sleep deprived night came Chrissy and I volunteering at the school dance for our Social Actions Project (in this case, UNICEF). That meant casualy going up to people during slow dances and recklessly shaking a box full of spare change at all the couples while I guilt trip then with win phrases such as “In your first world country, you value intimacy and frivolous relationships, in Africa they value education and NOT dyeing of famin” or “For only 1¢, you can save eight African continents. DONATE NOW.” And then I remembered how lame I am that I’ve never slow danced with a guy in my life- ever. I’m just so lame and virginal and all that tra-la-la-la-la like that. But my grieving over that was quickly replaced by joy over doing Alex’s makeup and the occasional insomnia induced hallucinations.

The most popular choice for Halloween costumes this year amongst the predominately female high school crowed seemed to be Goth-Slut. Some Goth raver fairy things traded “kandi” with me and some other Goth-Slut with a bunch of piercing was nagging at me to make me a dress exactly like mine for her. Sorry, just let me go gauge my ears to some insensible diameter while I think about reproducing my identity to some chick who was “flipping E” or what ever they call it now at a HIGHSCHOOL DANCE (oh cool) who probably wouldn’t pay me anyway.

Yesterday we some how won this free second hand mattress cover which now resides on my bed. In combination with my appalling sleeping patterns, I don’t think I’m ever going to leave my bed now.

Seeing as the In the Groove game series has recently been sold off to game developers Konami (Two days ago if I am correct), I see this time as being rather suitable to dabble on about the two series- and what may become of them.

Two nights ago, after having spent a good six hours at Chrissie’s house filming footage for our French Revolution project, I returned home to the package I had ordered last Wednesday from eBay. Inside were the latest three installments to my rapidly growing DDR library- 4^th, 5^th and EXTRA mix. Unfortunately, due to my mother’s uncontained rejoicing over me coming home something like three hours late, I was only able to play a round from each mix (which the exception of EXTRA Mix which I just distanced myself from sometime last night) But enough about that for now; on to yesterday’s little dancing simulation extravaganza.

After school Chris, Mike and I went to the Leather Pocket (feel free to share with me your colorful mental images, thank you) to play I.T.G.- Ah, I.T.G.! How I continue to suck unpardonably at thou! Alas, I now have a further synopsis of this game as I have experienced it over the past two months.

I can understand that my accomplishments in I.T.G. would be inferior to those of D.D.R. (seeing as I’ve been playing the later of the two for a good five or so years longer) mainly because of the whole slew of different step patterns but those alone are not enough to throw me off. As far as the step charts go themselves, maybe it was best for me to have avoided Expert mode altogether today seeing as those seemed to be the songs that I could withstand the first minute twenty secondsish of before giving up all together (and not to mention, up until now I had played this game for a whopping five minutes) and I am anything but but an expert at this crazy I.T.G. thing. Expert mode in it’s self seems a tad bit overkill at times to me. I can understand the need for challenge beyond the ten foot mark imposed by D.D.R. and all but I really don’t understand the need for the gratuitous placements of all the lengthy runs. I’m sure there are other ways of making a song more difficult without them but at the same time maybe the fact that I don’t bother to do crossovers ever plays a role in my perpetual failure. But actually, now that I think of it, I might actually understand what’s going on half the time had the songs been twice as fast with step charts set according to such (or in other words, something more playable in my beloved 1x presented in a way sans lengthy 16^th step patterns)

Now that I think of it, yesterday I was a little out of it all together. Perhaps this could be attributed to me having just gotten used to playing with the arcade platforms and then having returned to my home pad where I’ve disassembled the bar because of a warped bolt thing which even if properly assembled, I still topple over the pad if I lean back on it. I think I was trying to rely more on the bar in the arcade because it was convenient having forgotten that I’m actually short and was thus hitting the panels with more force (a trait also required from my home platform) from an incredibly awkward angle (perhaps also something I’ve picked up from home as a way of working around the poor craftsmanship of my setup).

As far as game play its self goes, a danger screen of sorts would be nice. Much like the problem I often run into on Beatmania, there is no explicit identification of how well you are doing so instantly my eyes jump to the top of the screen to check my life bar (which surprise, surprise- is nowhere to be found) and then over to the side where by the time I am able to decipher whether or not I’m in the red, I’ve already failed.

So I figured that the best way to truly measure my poor interpretation of the interface was to play something I knew inside and out- MAX300 (which I have been known to AA in most cases and even AAA in some with a marvelous to perfect ratio of say 5:1 thanks to all the “spare time” I obviously have…) and low and behold I fail three quarters of the way through. In consequence, I.T.G. will be on my next eBay order list with hopes that my cocky egocentric attitude I acquire when it comes to D.D.R. will prove to be transferable skills- to the dismay of everybody else (or at least so that I never make such an ass of myself as I did yesterday. Ugggh.)

Speaking of eBay, I just realized that I dropped a good $200 on three obsolete D.D.R. mixes that include the very anthems to my life back in junior high. Oh that MJ...

Finally a little blurb on the whole Konami-I.T.G. merger thing. First off, I think it’s highly unlikely that I.T.G. will be cradled by Bemani. Second, I’m pretty sure I.T.G.3 will be a go but only so that Konami can kick a few bucks out of it before it gets Konamized. After that I’m picturing miles and miles of some kind of D.D.R. I.T.G. lovechild fusion which is more or less D.D.R. with harder more obscure step charts, more of the neo-D.D.R. graphics I love to hate, rolls, mines, more D.D.R. characters with fingers, faster cabinets and more link mode features. I don’t anticipate either one ever being the same again but then again, neither one would be where it is now without the other (Brilliant statement, brilliant)

Later last night Summerstock started up again. Once again the cast is huge and harbors much "Stop stepping all over my toes because there are ninety people on the 10”x10” stage!" potential. I’m glad that a lot of people to whom which I have a general disregard to have left; but some still remain. But I might end up taking Chris’s advice and leaving shortly after not getting a part.

Shit, I miss Chris. I hate it when one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met just disappears out of my life like that.

But on the bright side, some old Chinese guy smacked his grandson (?) in the face today by accident while asking where the washroom was today at work.


( AND GO LOOK AT THIS IF YOU HAVEN’T. )

Iz baaaaaack… ( And I’m here to re-gain my status as AWSOMEST )

Scott Thompson looks just like Ken did in the early 90s- but that goes without saying he still looks a whole lot faggier. Oh, and how I can not stop thinking about him and the rest of the Kids in the Hall crew and how my days slaving away in the floral department are beginning to vaguely resemble one big sketch comedy set up with no beginning, middle or witty punch line said by a drag clad Bruce (who had possibly been in my very store during his life here in Calgary where he attended the college that was only two blocks away from my house- BE STILL MY BEATING HEART we may have breathed the same air, all of us)

But do I have anything better to think about? Is it my fault I get so bloody obsessive? Not when I’m working these tedious eight hour shifts where my only joy is the cheap hot chocolate thrill that I get on the fifteen minute breaks I usually can’t take because I’m so damn occupied recounting the tale of how there isn’t any more brown paper left or how we don’t have flower picks or that our label machine is brown or why the fuck the rose cooler didn’t actually get moved with the renovations, miss 90-year-woman who clearly spends more time in this store- no, PIT OF BAD than I do. It’s been more than six months since I got this job and already I’m at my wit’s end with boredom. It would be one thing if I could use humor to get myself through this but one, my humor generally doesn’t appeal to the glass-swan-with-a-white-rose crowed and two, I’m too busy apologizing and making mistakes to even consider social interaction. Hey, I never said I was good at making Posey arrangements while somebody who can apparently do my job in their sleep is peering over criticizing my every move as the line four deep grows rowdy and the phone is ringing so I fight that moral dilemma all over again. And where are my partners? Yip yapping about things that only thirty year olds and over talk about. Those things you only understand while making “massive” (and by that I mean the kind of “massive” you find out is really only eight pieces) wedding orders that I can’t even dream of making (not that I’d want to even bother) because although being the only minor, I’ve been officially appointed the stock-boy position where I stick as many boxes in the bailer at once, only to not be able to bail them because I’m six-fucking-teen and have NO INTEREST IN FLOWERS WHAT SO EVER. Really, why do I even have this job?

I guess I shouldn’t be saying all this considering that I didn’t get fired with the last batch and that I’m working a holiday tomorrow for double pay or what ever it is now, but it’s all those precious moments that make you lose your fucking mind. The kind like the sixty piece balloon order WITH hi-float (which I have decided can be used as a sexual lubricant) that was placed at ten to six that needed to be filled by seven. Yes, THAT seven, the seven that I was supposed to be getting off at, the seven I hadn’t taken any breaks before so I could get off just a bit early to go home and enjoy the internet without bitchey little customers, the same even Leanne had apologized to me for, for having not stayed to help me to because she was so busy with this “massive” wedding order and wanted to get back to her nice little suburban home. It does not take four hours to make two bouquets, LEANNE. That is the same Leanne that never trained me properly let alone at all, LEANNE, LEANNE WITH HER BIG FANCY NEW HOUSE IN SUBURBIA, LEANNE LEANNE. Is now a good time to state that just reading the bold parts of my entries does not mean that you understand how my day went or even that you are reading the juiciest tidbits of my life? You’re really just reading the parts where I’m so angry and sick of being passive-aggressive that I start making these little HTML tags to threaten you all off. Kind of like to say: ’BACK OFF, I ART USING BOLD. Back to the subject of the balloons, I ended up having them done by ten after seven when my mom came in and dragged me out by the ear. I tied them to a filing cabinet with a note about what a horrible person I was and how I would never see a cent of those seventy-five bucks I had just blown up. Worst metaphor for my life so far.

If you didn’t read any of that, that’s okay. I’m going to indulge in the “look at all the stuff I bought”-a-palooza so even if you just comment on all this mindless self admiration, I’ll have something other than my super kawaii bishi Suaske bishi poster to jack off to tonight. Or maybe not. Who knows. ( We’ll see. )

Er, it looks like I’m stupid again. Better end this post before I say anything I regret.

EDIT: I saw Talladega Nights, thank-you.

RE-EDIT: For anyone who still hasn't seen this yet, here it is:

1st Term
Block 1	Soc St. 20 G.A.T.E. Mr. Chagani
Block 2	Warrior Pride Ms. R.
Block 3	Bio. 20 G.A.T.E. Ms. R.
Block 4	Math 20 G.A.T.E. Mr. Flegal
Block 5	Art 20 I.B. Ms. Molstad
2nd Term
Block 1	Spanish 10 Ms. Turner
Block 2	Warrior Pride Ms. R.
Block 3	Tourism 20 Mr. Woodward
Block 4	Physics 20 G.A.T.E. Mr. Flegal
Block 5	ELA 20 G.A.T.E. Ms. Jones