beandelphiki

Finished getting all the [local] presents wrapped and put under the tree (and my mom's stocking stuffed and hidden) about an hour ago. Finally. Ugh, I think wrapping is just about the worst part.


Unfortunately, non-local things will NOT make it to their destinations by Christmas. In fact, they're not mailed yet. Now that my mom's sister and her husband and son have moved to Sunny Cal, Mom and I decided to co-ordinate our mailing efforts for that part of the world. She went scouting the Canada Post situation earlier this month however, and even THEN express post wasn't guaranteed to make it.

Which, um. Canada Post's "Xpresspost-USA" service is supposed to take 5 days max under ordinary circumstances. Understandable that they might not be able to guarantee 5 days at Christmas, but we had way more than 5 days to get stuff down there, and the woman at the post office said, "Um. Might not make it."

Since we couldn't be guaranteed a Christmas arrival, we mutually agreed to hang on to stuff and send it a bit AFTER Christmas when it's less likely to get lost. Which, in retrospect, was a very wise choice...given the massive storms that have been assaulting Canada the past little while. God only knows how the mail is getting around.

So yeah, Christmas gifts will be late. Big shock, I know, me being late. THAT NEVER HAPPENS. But they're coming, I swear it!

I also feel better because the gifts Mom got her own sister aren't going anywhere either.



At Christmas Eve dinner tonight, my aunt Heather reported that a friend of hers who works for an airline (WestJet, I do believe) admitted to her that they have EVERY PLANE in the air. None on the ground. No back-ups. None down for maintenance. They're ALL flying. WOW.

Meanwhile, the mall was utterly DEAD today, and we all stood around at work and felt silly. And heck, it was so warm today in comparison to the brutally nasty temperatures we've put up with all month!


But apparently, nothing slows Santa down! I SHOULD now be going to bed, but I'm hungry so I'm having chocolate frozen yogurt instead. And I've been watching Santa's speedy progress on NORAD Tracks Santa, since darkrosetiger reminded me of it, and the concept never fails to amuse me. Santa's flight is over now, but apparently Calgary was his 293rd stop.


Wishing you all a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, happy holidays if you don't, and roll on 2009 next week!

Night, guys!

I'll admit this is a meme. But it's a really COOL meme. I did this days ago, and haven't had a chance to post it, but I think other people should find this fun.

Okay, here it is (I've completely forgotten who I originally saw post this, so these are the rules from memory): put your iPod/MP3 player (this assumes you have one) on "shuffle." (If you don't have one, I suppose you could just turn on the radio. It ought to work the same way, since you don't pick the rotation on the radio, either.)

Then, write down the first lyric of the first twenty songs. These form a poem. The first lyric of the 21st song is your title.


Did I cheat when I did this? You betcha! But not so much as you might think. I did move a few lines around (and skip some really goofy songs), but some of the eeriest combinations of lines were pure serendipity. (The boat/stowaway thing, for example.) Totally freaky.

I'm pleased that it sort of formed a story (especially with my bits of re-arrangement, heh), even if it IS unintentionally hilarious with the way you keep getting smacked between the eyes with really obvious, well-known song lyrics.

Also, I didn't see anything saying I HAD to keep this to a strict, four-line stanza format (unless I missed it), so um...I didn't. I actually spliced one line into another towards the end, but hopefully the credits are clear enough.

So...TA-DAAH! [Re-]shuffled art.

( I Have Sailed The World )

NEAT, huh?

Holy fuck, the internets are being so stupid lately.


I'm going through another one of those cycles (it always goes in cycles because I bite my tongue for a while, and then give up on doing so - lather, rinse, repeat!) where every. single. goddamn. reply. in my inbox is, WTF I AM NOT RACIST JUST BECAUSE I AM SAYING RACIST BULLCRAP STFU and YOU THINK YOURE SO CLEVER DONT YOU WELL YOURE NOT SO SMART STFU.

I hate you all, you ignorant jackasses.

GO AWAY.


Thank god I have a haircut to get, Christmas shopping to do, and exams to study for. I have excuses to make myself get off the stupid goddamn internet and away from all its stupid goddamn PEOPLE.

Now I just have to deal with the idiots at the mall.

I CAN HAS DESERTED ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC NAO?



P.S. To the newest person to add me (if you're actually watching this, you know who you are): adding only people in Native American-related communities (or so it appears) when you have no entries in your own journal kinda makes you look like a troll. Just sayin'.

If you're not a troll, I'd advise you to expand your interests and maybe post some things in your journal so people can get an idea of what you're like.

Also, I'm actually white.

Technology, I BEATS U!

David Tennant in tight, early-twentieth-century British trousers and being woobishly gay, yes I CAN has.


I'm watching the BBC's Einstein and Eddington right now, and it's really awesome. I should be doing homework, but, well, the day is young. It's not even 8:00 a.m., after all.


There was as assignment for programming class that I had to hand in Monday, despite the fact that I had major problems with it and couldn't really finish it. Still, I was relieved to finally be able to delete Alice 2.0 off my computer, since it meant that I now have room to get back to making discs for people - something I've been unable to do as long as I had to have that stupid program taking up room on my computer. (Also, it helps that my sister finally cleared a bunch of music off.) With an assignment due every week, there was just no taking it off. I tried to squish it in somewhere, but I just suck at programming in Alice, so I've ended up taking the maximum amount of time to do the assignments, every time.

(Of course, those discs are kind of silly now that series 4 of Doctor Who is out on DVD - wow, I fail - but hey, it's a really expensive DVD set and these are free, so Frank and Ann Marie, you still want 'em? Like, um, for Christmas? *blush* It might have gone faster for you to DL them yourselves!)

But it turns out there was a submission problem with my assignment. So my instructor is giving me the rest of today to re-submit it. So...I actually have a chance to try and fix what was wrong. Like, the universe is giving me a chance to save that grade after all.

But it means I have to download Alice again. And struggle with it for several more hours. DAMMIT.

Not looking forward to it. NOT.

Going to finish the movie first instead.


Edit: Poor Eddington! *wibbles*

Edit II: Oh... *wibbles more* This movie will kill me yet. I should stop editing this until I finish it, but I'm doing this in lieu of giving Eddington a hug. WAH.

I started to get that tell-tale cramping pain in my chest an hour ago...

But on the RIGHT side this time. Oh, lord.

It got so intense that I laid down on the floor wrapped around a bunched-up afghan, hoping that if I stayed scrunched, my lung wouldn't pop. It hurt so badly to breathe that I ended up gasping in these little high-pitched pants, and my cats all ended up in an anxious semi-circle around my head again, Pidwidgeon (our new[ish] kitten - er, more on her later) intently standing guard over my asthma inhalers when I'd managed to get them out of my bag. It would have been cuter if I wasn't in so much pain.

(I took 'em both. Don't know if it did any good, but I'm a bit recovered now. It still hurts to breathe, though.)

I'm scared, but not scared enough to wake Mom up. Especially now that it's died down. But I'm not sure if I can go to bed, because what'll happen when I lie down again?

Suckitude.

Edit: Ooh, if I move too much, I get this weird, ooky feeling. Like something rippling under my skin. I was thinking at first that was muscle, but now I'm wondering if it's air in a body cavity? Is that possible, if it's escaped my lungs?

Either way, FUCK. It hurts, too.

A comment I just saw in fandom_secrets (bolding is mine):

I have to admit, I'm glad that it seems the super-teeny-boppers are leaving (because honestly, that's the only thing I consider an absolute sign of a fairweather fan--leaving when the hawtness is gone), if only because maybe, in a few years, people who actually liked the Doctor/Rose ship will no longer be so vilified.

...

Hey, America elected a black President! I can dream that one day Classic!Who fans will no longer hate more for loving my ship unapologetically!

WHAT.

You did NOT just go there.


WTF. WTF.



Also, what the HELL, Ripway?! You bastards, I have not been online ALL GODDAMN DAY, I have NOT exceeded my fucking bandwidth! I'm looking straight at my damn account summary: I've used 19% of my available bandwidth, and I'm only using a third of my storage space, so STOP doing this to me. JESUS.

I expected to be going a little nuts without lj, so I decided to - gasp! - attempt to do some homework. But I was so tired for some reason that even after taking my Dexedrine, I managed to fall asleep in front of the computer and sleep through the entire move. Heh. I woke up to refresh LJ Status, and it went from saying, "We've taken the site down [six minutes ago]," to, "Livejournal is back up. Expect slow page loads."

I hope and trust everyone's move went okay?



My film class watched Lola rennt (Run Lola Run) on a day when I wasn't there, and I just watched it yesterday in the library to catch up. I went in blind, having no idea whatsoever what it was about, but it scored big points with me when I realised: This movie is about time loops! Heh.

Overall, a really cool movie, although it was one of those ones that was really hard to sit through for some reason. Some movies are just like that for me - no matter how good they are, I struggle to sit still and watch them. And then I definitely can't watch them twice. Movies with a slower, thoughtful pace tend to fall into this category, as well as movies that require me to be pretty mentally alert to follow them more than superficially. (Citizen Kane, for example, despite being genius, is hard for me to watch.) This movie is supposedly pretty fast-paced, but the fact that the story is repeated several times, albeit differently each time, makes it rather slow to me.

I liked the soundtrack, so I went looking on iTunes and mininova to see if I could find it, with not much luck thus far except for finding the music that plays over the interludes between runs.

I did, however, read the Wikipedia page on it, and noted this bit, from the summary of her third run:

[Lola] hitches a ride in the same ambulance, unnoticed by the driver, as it stops in front of the crew with the window pane. The ambulance is carrying Schuster, the security guard from her father's bank who has apparently suffered a heart attack, as foreshadowed by his clutching his chest and his loud heartbeats in the Second Run earlier in the film. Although some English subtitles here have Lola saying, "I'll stay with him," the actual German line is, "Ich gehöre zu ihm," which translates as, "I'm with him," or, "I belong with him." She holds Schuster's hand, and moments later, his heart rate begins to return to normal. The paramedic is stunned and relieved.

(Bolds mine.)

Okay, a question for the Germans on my list, if you see this:

Which translation do you think is the better one? Is, "I'll stay with him," something that fits how her words would generally be taken, regardless of how it literally translates? Or did the people who wrote the English subtitles just mess up?

Okay, so just in case you guys need the links:

Go here to complain about the new design of the profiles.

Go here to put protest buttons in your profile instead, if you'd like to just move your profile to an entry. (If you want to know what that means, feel free to look at mine for an example.) There's also a petition going around here, which is admittedly probably useless...but then, when the comments are full in lj_design, people will still be able to sign the petition, so no number of complaints will be capped, I suppose.


But what I REALLY made this post for was to ask this:

Why did lj do this? I'm not just asking in an outraged, OMGMAHPROFILE sort of way. I really want to know what the reason was for going ahead with this despite warning that there would be a big backlash against it.

Their story, of course, is functionality for new users. But they say that every single time, and never really mean it: it's always their cover story. (You'd think they'd realize that's pretty obvious by now.)

So what REAL reason did they have for making the profiles so ugly, creepy and less functional? It doesn't really make any sense.

Honestly, I don't want to talk about what a disappointment Proposition 8 was. You know, I truly, genuinely believed it wouldn't pass.

All I can say to the Californians on my list is this: the fight's not over. Take heart, and don't give up!


So here's something a bit more fun, hopefully, ganked from blackfolk:

Presidential playlists!

(If you have a slow connection, see behind the first cut below for text lists of both playlists.)

The above link opens automatically on Obama's playlist. McCain's playlist is here, although you will probably have to sign up with imeem.com to access it. (I did. It takes 10 painless seconds, though.)

Supposedly "top ten" lists of both Obama and McCain's favourite songs, as reported by the media. And they basically match what Psychology Today reported in their October piece, "Accounting For Taste." (It was in a sidebar. I included most of the text of that sidebar down below, under the second cut.)


Now I want to say this: I like both playlists! This isn't specifically a, "yay Obama" post, it's just a post to share this, because I think it's pretty awesome!


That said, ( here are the playlists! )

I can't help but notice that both of them have Sinatra on their playlists. That's Sinatra for you, loved by all.

( What Psychology Today had to say about McCain and Obama's respective artistic tastes )

Okay, thoughts? Likes, dislikes from these lists? Feel free to list your own top ten, if you can pick ten. (I sure can't!)

Overheard in my Film class today:

"...and if Obama doesn't win? There's gonna be minorities marching in the streets down there!"

(Pause. People nearby nod.)

"...Hopefully with weaponry."


We were all so nervous in Film that our instructor asked one of the students with a wireless laptop to keep checking the election results in between our class discussions and the viewing of Hitchcock's Psycho. (Which, by the way, I've seen before. But it's much better the second time around, not being preoccupied with trying to get into the pants of the girl I first saw it with. But never mind.)

As the chain pulled Marion Crane's car from the swamp, the kid checking the results reported that it looked like a win for Obama, but I had to come here to the library and check it myself.

And my friends list is reporting that the weaponry WON'T be needed.

It's been declared a win for Obama.


God fucking damn. HE DID IT!

If you're not happy? Fine. Mourn in your own journal. Personally, I'm pretty pleased with America today. For pretty much the first time in eight years, it doesn't seem like a place the world should give up on if it only could.

And just so you guys know, the rest of the world is going to be pretty happy, too.

Oh, yes. And I passed all my midterms. Aced Film, in fact. *winks*

Good night, all!