talonomega

Happy turkey day to all of you who do have internet connection. For those of you who don't well, you'll probably see it on sunday when you gorge of the blessed teat of "teh intarwebs" upon your return to your homes. either way enjoy your time with family and be thankful for the extended family we have all chosen for ourselves.

just a quick little message. off to the house of mouse. Those of you with annual passes feel free to meet me there after work. or hey play hooky like kamuishirou1999 and spend the whole day with us.

who's the leader of the pack that's made for me and you?
DONALD DUCK!

Went to watch Black Dynamite at the theater instead of staying home and studying like a good student would.

and I don't regret one damn second of it. The movie is just so hilarious and there is so much quotable shit in it. Everyone needs to request that this movie be played at your local theater. Forget Paranormal Activity, this movie should be requested. I can't even say anymore without ruining it. if you love 70's kung fu flicks and blaxploitation films or if you are even vaguely aware of them you will enjoy this. you will sit there laughing for almost the entire movie. and you'll want to stay for the entire credits too.

If you must have it ruined for you, watch the trailer on the website.

favorite quotes:
"I will shake that poison out of you" (while shaking an orphan)

"I told the girl, 'You need a pimp in yo' life.' She said 'I already have a pimp.' I said, 'that's not a pimp, that's a valet for hos.'"

Play with this until they get it into a local theater.
http://blackdynamiteyoself.com/talkinjive/soundboard/

P.S. This is Amy "the gf". This movie is f***ing hilarious. While it was, frankly, embarrassing to sit next to the giggling schoolgirl that was Aldo, I was struck with the sudden urge to liveblog the experience, pirate a movie, and tell everyone I know to see it. During the ride home, I decided to buy a copy off a dude on the corner (and force my friends to bear witness to the awesome), get a t-shirt, and get the (legal) DVD when it comes out, because the extras have got to be amazing.

P.P.S. Black Dynamite has a great ass!

So a new semester is upon us and I can't really complain about it. the only thing I did complain about was how long I had to wait to get my disbursement which made it tight for the last couple of weeks as I was counting on it to come in to pay for bills books and whatnot. I made sure to add the classes I wanted early while at the same time staying flexible as far as what I want to study so I don't have to worry about trying to add classes on the first couple of days of school. The class/job combo that I'd been doing for the past two semesters didn't come back this semester so I wound up having to find a class to fill up my schedule with to make me a "full time" student, and I managed to do so. On the other hand of that point though that means that I now have to try to find another work-study job, and probably "real" job.

On the job front, I've always hated looking for jobs, and have been lucky enough previously where one has pretty much fallen into my lap, so now that I actually have to be proactive and look at place after place I get disheartened really easily and as such spent the better part of the summer break in a funk of not wanting to go out and look for a job because I didn't want to waste gas that I didn't have, and bitching at the fact that I couldn't find a job. nevermind the fact the former action was causing the latter, I know that's what would happen but like i said I was in a funk. I'm sending applications at all the places I see at the campus career center that has openings, but at the same time I was looking forward to having the same job I had before and as such put off looking for another work-study job until now when I'm sure most of them are already taken.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I've been telling people that I'm thinking of going into grad school for school counseling or psychologists, but I don't know how likely that one is because I've been looking at CSUN's grad school for those Masters and they both have almost the same pre-requisits, but they are all in the education department whereas all of my studies have been in the psych department. I've gotta make an appointment with my academic advisor and ask about that. I've got one of the pre-reqs done for one of those tracks but I'd have to add the other two next semester and maybe overload myself on classes doing so since it would hopefully be my last semester.

I spent the summer taking classes at Pierce where I took the history class that is a requirement for graduation, and retaking child development because I got a C on it when I took it my first semester because of personal issues during midterms where I was unable to bring the grade back up for that class so I needed to pad my GPA. All I can really say is damn classes are easy at the community college level. I'm still surprised I got an A on the history class considering I hadn't really studied the questions for the final, and "Standup Philosophised" the entirety of the final exam.

So here I am, my second to last (hopefully) semester at CSUN, and I've got to decide what I want to do. I'm on campus mondays and wednesday from 2 to 3:15 for Group Dynamics, tuesday and thursday from 8-9:15am for brain and behavior, tuesday and thursday from 2-4 on tuesday and 2-5 on thursday for a day of the dead class, and tuesday from 6:30-9:15pm for human sexuality. I still gave myself fridays off and the furlough days makes it so that I don't have classes on my birthday (YAY!!). well see what this semester is like, though I do have to step it up these next two semesters and make sure I get good grades if I want to get into the masters programs

so once more into the fray.

GF found this and I figured people on my FList would be able to appreciate this.

http://aviary.com/blog/posts/aviary-launches-crane-paper-editor

via slave_to_anime, chase_the_bunny, and solaria

( baaaaaa )

don't worry peeps, this won't be an emo post. I just finished watching hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and that line seemed to work.

( life update after teh cuttage )

via everyone an they mama

Your results:
You are Uhura

Uhura 55% Worf 55% Deanna Troi 50% Jean-Luc Picard 45% Mr. Scott 40% Chekov 40% Mr. Sulu 40% Geordi LaForge 35% Data 34% Will Riker 30% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 30% Spock 22% James T. Kirk (Captain) 15% Beverly Crusher 15% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 10%

You are a good communicator with a pleasant soft-spoken voice. Also a talented singer.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test


Why couldn't I get Worf? I scored the same for both!

so Friday night I am contacted by the i360 staff who are still in Los Angeles, for a late night meeting way out in the SGV. Somehow I am conscripted into picking up lifftchi and dropping him back off. after the official meeting, I'm driving him back home and make mention of wanting to steal an LCD monitor from him to continue a MAME table I've been planning on making. I mention the IKEA end table that I think would be good and he comes back with it's proper name. lifftchi being the impulsive little scamp that he is, tells me he is willing to bankroll the purchase of the Ramvik's and supplies if I will involve him and help him make MKII (at which point all the kinks are ironed out of course). So Saturday morning I head out to his place, we head to IKEA and pick up two Ramviks, head back to his place, pick through his random piles or LCD's and figure out how we're gonna do it. After a trip to the 'rents place to pick up tools to complete the work. After seven hours, this is the final product.








This is of course after I get it home and finish installing everything I am going to install on it. I still need to take the actual computer out of there and switch it's battery, and I need to figure out how I want to angle the screen, because with it flat against the glass, the image is not all that great. and I still need to get a PS2 Joystick to complete my control plan, and get the proper rails I want so that it can close properly on the front and hide everything. oh, and I can't forget that I want to put some casters on it too to make it a little easier to move around. After I make those changes, then I'll post a new update to this. but it's not gonna happen till maybe next month cause the semester is almost over so it's time to study for finals and I am moving into a slightly larger apartment next weekend.

and one final pic of it in action.

So since people already know and slave_to_anime has essentially been blabbing about it anyway. I finally took the plunge and picked up my first DSLR. Yay me! I wound up getting the Canon EOS 30D. I was taking a day trip to LA since it's my spring break, and headed down to Torrance to try to hang out with a friend down there since traffic to get back home in the valley is horrendous until about 8. Since I didn't get a hold of him, I decided to check out silvios cameras down there. I asked about the used camera and they showed some to me. little hint people in relationships... don't to wishfull thinking window shopping with your significant other. I know I've been wanting a DSLR for a couple months now, but she convinced me to just pick it up anyway. So now I am the proud new owner of a used D30. It didn't come with a lens so I'm borrowing slave_to_anime's lonely unused kit lens indefinitely until I pick up a lens of my own. now I need to pick up a camera bag, or something.

unfortunately, trying to keep real life moving has kept me from really playing around with the new toy. On other news I'm going to be moving to a new apartment in about a week. That's the real life thing that has been keeping me busy. we've been negotiating getting the apartment next to ours since it has a bigger living room and kitchen. We had been keeping an eye on Cragislist since our apartment puts ads there, and we were contemplating requesting a rent reduction when the lease was up. Instead the apartment next to us opened up, and we started checking it out. we decided to ask and were told it was 1550/mo for it. we told them we'd been seeing the prices offered and countered with 1500 even. Since legally they are allowed to raise the rent on a tenant 8% every year we were going to wind up paying near that amount anyway for our current place, we figure it wouldn't hurt to haggle a bit. turned out to our advantage, and now we're moving in a week. I had really hoped to postpone the moving until the end of the month to keep from having to do pro-rating on any of the services or rent. property owner said "nein" said by the 18. worked for us since GF has that weekend off anyway so I don't have to do the moving entirely by myself. seems almost wrong that we're only moving next door though. I really wish we could have gotten the similar apartment on the second floor, but that had already been pre-leased to someone else.

and now, some pics of the toy:

Well this whole week has been made of pain and suck.
Saturday after I left jason-con and the poeples left my apartment, I went over to my friends house down in Torrance. While there I started to feel a bit of pain in my molars. Both of my upper molars have fallen apart from my wisdom teeth coming out and compacting them so I figured it was just a little more of that. I left his place early because of the teeth and because I had woken up at 8 to get to the park early. On the way home I decide to just check and see if I can get lucky and find a dentist open 24 hours because it's starting to hurt just a bit more than what I'm used to. no dice. Sunday morning I am woken up from the pain in my teeth, and I start looking for dentists near me. any dentists and checking if they open on sunday. luckily I find one that is open on sunday near my apartment, unfortunately it's not in my HMO so I wind up having to pay out of pocket. They find the wisdom tooth that was trying to come out has actually rotted so it has to come out. I suffer through about a day of after tooth removal pain and I'm starting to get used to it to look forward to the week.
Apparently monday night I nap on my sofa wrong and I start getting a twinge in my back. I rack it up to having slept wrong and just go to bed. At some point the twinge gets a little worse while I'm adjusting in bed to the point where it wakes me up. I go back to bed not thinking anything of it, and wake up in time to go to work. I take some Ibuprofen that I was given for tooth pain and just head out to work. While at work the back pain start getting worse. Here's where the first "that's weird" moment comes up. my back is hurting, but my tooth isn't. So the ibuprofen is working, but not for the back pain. about an hour after I get to work my back twinges really bad and I decide I can't make it through the next hour and leave work. Here's where the first bad incident happens. As I'm heading up the stairs to leave work, my back twinges really badly and I actually collapse on the stairs. I think I mortally scared one of the kids I work with. She asks if I need an ambulance, and i tell her no, I just need a minute for the pain to subside. I stretch out my leg a bit and that lessens the pain a bit. I manage to get myself off the ground and continue walking towards my car. Just as I'm getting to my car, ten feet from it, my back twinges again. this time I am near a lamp post so I try to lean up against it hoping for some support. not a good idea. it makes it hurt even more, and I have to squat on the ground to lessen the pain. after the pain lets up, I get into my car and start heading home. Halfway home, I decide I am just going to go my HMO's urgent care office. When I get there, I am told that since I didn't choose a doctor in this office, I can't be seen today, even though I am practically doubled over in pain, the asshat in the reception desk tells me I need to drive myself into downtown or wait until six when the urgent care opens. I hobble back out and just head home to wait until six. When I get home, I lower myself slowly to the floor and lay flat on my back. this seems to lessen the pain quite a bit, but anytime I shift it hurts. When six finally rolls around, my GF takes me to the urgent care again. On the way to the car, I actually collapse again from the pain just in front of the car. As I am hobbling back into the reception area of the urgent care they ask if I need a wheelchair and I tell them I don't think it'll help because sitting on a chair is not happening with my back like that.
When the doctor finally sees me, they prescribe vicodine and a muscle relaxant as they think it's just back spasms. It seems to be working by lessening the pain, but it's still there, It hurts less where I can walk without being bent over but it still twinges. I spend all of wednesday at home on my back again.
Today when I get up out of bed, I catch a glimpse of myself out of the corner of my eye in the mirror and I instantly think something doesn't look right. I turn towards the mirror and take a good look, and my upper body is actually leaning over to the left. Again I have spent all of today on my back on the ground with the TV being my only companion. I made an appointment with the chiropractor for tomorrow hopefully they'll be able to do something, if not removing the pain, at least making sure I can stand up straight.

banner still taken from slave_to_anime

quick stealth post from in the middle of class. thoughts later.

::Update::
so, went by the park and there does seem to be an "explosion" but it's not much of one. I still think this weekend looks good, but with the projection of rain tomorrow I think these recent blooms might get a beating and not look their best. The fourth picture is where sakurae had her hanami this past weekend, and it looks like the best part of the park. There also seems to be something in the NW corner of the lake as seen in pic 8. All in all thought, I think it'll be zero grown in number of blossoms as it seems that the ones blossoming now are pretty much just replacing the ones falling off from last week. Hopefully the rain tomorrow won't do too much, and more buds will bloom by friday to make the weekend worthwhile.

banner still stolen from slave_to_anime

Okay. So I didn't get a chance to go for my midweek check of the park on account of rain. So I made my way to it today. As I said on my twitter account, it looks like the trees that are going to bloom are starting. probably will be at their most maybe midweek from the looks of it. and if it keeps from raining during the week, I think they will look pretty good for next weekend. I think the rain on Wednesday did a number on the ones that were blooming so things don't look to good for tomorrow. On another note, this Sunday is the Armenian festival that they hold at the park every year.

now for what everyone has been waiting for. I didn't do any macro shots this time as I figure people are going to be there tomorrow to see for themselves. but pictures nonetheless.













Yeah, most of these are from the center inlet, but the outer ringing trees are about the same. I still say we should try to take the tables just north of the first parking lot after the bridge, and if I wake up early enough, I'll try to make a run down there to claim said spot.

I think I caught it off of kamuishirou1999

Directions: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

1. Activision
A friend of mine was working there when Animate was starting to slow down and threaten with closing so I had my friend there pimp me to them and I just started working there. I worked there for four year, ten games, and countless hours of overtime. granted I heard of worse overtimes from the "old timers". What more can I say, worst and best times working. best cause I was able to take any time I wanted for cons, worst because I spent four fsking years there and not a hint of being hired. after the last time being placed "on call" I knew I wasn't going to be called back so I went back to school.

2. Animate
I had just been let go from working at Universal Studios and after taking my constantly held back vacation from them not telling me how much vacation time I had, I started looking for work. at the time Animate was opening their store in LA on Melrose. I loved that job, and if I wouldn't get a frown from GF for saying it, I'd say I'd willingly go back to work for them. I loved the job, I once even went an 8 day week because of AX without noticing because I enjoyed it so much. I loved the freedom we had there and I even loved the stress of con planing. somehow I wound up being the one in charge of planning for cons from hotel to what items to take. loved it.

3. Vampire Hunter D
One of the first anime movies I watched. I entered into the whole thing via Akira, but after that, I found the original 1985 VHD for rent at my local rental place. I just liked how cool he was and from there I've just loved the very idea of him. When I had heard that it was originally a series of stories, I waited forever for the english translations to happen.

4. "talonomega"
"I was young and I needed the money" no, seriously. I used to try to be a morbid teenager. so I took the two things I thought were cool the idea of "Omega" being end while I just though talons were cool, so I took that as my handle.

5. Principality of Zeon
funny story about gundam, I got into it from the models. while working at animate we got in a shipment of gundam flags. we got principality and federation flags, and quite frankly I liked the zeon flags more. During one AX while I was working it, we brought out the flag and we had started having people chant "sieg, Zeon!" one of the better moments working cons. that and I preferred the zeon symbol to the feddy one.

banner still on permanent loan from slave_to_anime

I really am starting to think there won't really be a peak when ALL of the trees will be blossoming together, but I'm starting to angle more towards two weekends of photography at the park.

Exhibit A:


This is a close up of a bud of the tree in the previous shot:


and this is a close up of a bud, on a tree right next to the previous one:

(Please take no note of the deliciously tasty scale gummy bear)

and another close up two trees further:


I skipped a tree because quite frankly didn't have any buds on it, and actually looked like all of it's twigs had been striped off.

and a shot GF took of one of the trees that currently has the most blossoms on it:


And lastly I have a panorama of what the inlet looks like starting from looking towards the north and panning right towards the south. (this is intensive so if you want to see it you need to click on the link):
sucky panorama of five minutes work, ooooh

enjoy today. but tomorrow you better get back to the photo editing! so says your managing editor!

banner ganked from slave_to_anime

Yet another broadband intensive update. but first:


If this isn't an indication to start working overtime on your cosplay, I don't know what is.

( And now for the moment you've all been waiting for. )

banner ganked from slave_to_anime
spy post from the middle of lecture

Went by the park again today. looks like a lot of the same. a few more sporadic petals throughout still looks go for end of the month. will check again friday. pictures forthcoming left CF card in car, but if it's any consolation I have the card reader in my pocket.

( This will now be photo intensive, these will be in thumbnail, but it will still be broadband intensive. )

(banner snagged from slave_to_anime)

So I got up this morning with the express intent of going down the street to balboa park, but first I head over to one of the "nearby" Circuit City's. I am on a quest to get a DSLR from them. I go there and they are completely sold out of Canon's and Nikon's but they still have lots of Sony's, weird. I want a canon but they don't have anymore in stock at any of my CC's. I'm getting so tempted by the Nikon D40 now. I'm just waiting to see if it'll go down to 40% off and I might actually get it, it not, I guess I'll just wait a bit more for a DSLR. While there, I find a Wacom Intuos3 6x8. I check on the price and it's $198. I really need to stop going to CC looking for that camera, I keep coming out with other things. last night it was Rock Band 2 for PS3.

( Photo intense, back away slowly if you don't want to be bombarded by large images, or if for some reason you are on a slow internet connection. )

wow. been a while since the last post.

Let's see,Christmas was pretty quiet event for me and the GF. We went to my parents on the 24th as we open presents at midnight in my family, then on the 25th we headed to GF's grandmothers place to try to mend bridges during a family loss, and then headed out to Corona to spend time with some of her cousins out there.

New years we again went to my parent's place and rang in the new year, and we were planning to head out to her families place in Corona for some New Years Gumbo, but we were just to bushed from constantly traveling and back and forth and rarely spending more than about five hours at home. For goodness sakes, we wound up having dirty dishes in the sink for nigh on two full weeks because of it, I think we've permanently stained the countertop around the kitchen sink because of it.

I went to ALA and within five minutes of arriving I had at least five people either inviting me to drinks later that night, or asking me where the drinking was going to happen. needless to say, I spent a fair amount of that weekend wandering from one floor of the hotel to another inebriated. I was also privy to a drink by a friend that he call a raspberry iced tea that tastes just like lipton's version, but from what he told me is almost entirely alchonol and a splash of cola. lovely.

The next weekend mistress_09 came back from the hellish work she has to do in that hellhole Hawaii to see her old friends and her hubby. They spent a night at my place, and then we headed out to the San Diego Wild Animal park courtesy of her job. I think I wound up getting sick from the humidity there and dehydrating myself because for the next week and a half I had dry mouth and lips that I just couldn't keep moisturized.

The nest week I wound up taking a trip up to Davis with lifftchi to drive the truck he rented to drag all his leftover electronic equipment back down to the LA area, for my troubles I got a mini computer tower for a special project I've been planning for a while. while up there I was privy to what his NoCal people called "Drink Everything Night" which included imbibing of Sazerac a very good rye whisky if one of his old friends cursing the name of his destroyer the next morning can be any indication.

The week after was kamuishirou1999's birthday celebration where we ventured into Koreatown for shochu cocktails. Once again kamuishirou1999 got drunk off his ass, but luckily at least this time he wasn't the designated driver and we made sure to take away his keys, and cell phone to keep him from making a bigger fool of himself than he did. we actually wound up having to take away his wallet as he kept insisting on paying as well.

I got my disbursment the weekend just before clases started so I didn't have my books until a week after classes because I had to make sure the check cleared before I could actually use it, but with that I actually treated myself to one little good thing. I finally got around to getting a PS3. Now I have the two next gen systems (I will not consider the wii a next gen system no matter how much people say otherwise, for crissakes it doesn't even support HDMI!) just in time to get around to studying. yay? my gamertag on PS3 is talonomega if anyone wants to add me, just try to let me know who you are, I've sent out a couple invites, but I don't know how many people have one or not for sure. I think that's it for now. I'll try to update a little more often, but we'll see how the semester treats me.