Jen's thoughts

8:04am: I WON!
I won! I won! I won I won I won! :D

two bids in the last 10 minutes, one was an automatic snipe bid attempt from rinkya in the last 10 seconds, but it wasn't enough to beat my bid, so I won!!!

happy sigh!

It was a set of three cels from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. One of them is this one:

( can't believe I won it! )

Looks like every other cel out there, doesn't it? But if you notice, there are two characters on the cel. Reinhart (with his back to the viewer) AND Yang. It's from episode 54, the one and only time in the entire 110 ep series when the two main characters meet each other face to face!! The first cel I've seen of the two of them together too. I had to have it! It shall join my Kircheis/Yang cel in it's Empire/Alliance duality!

I can go back to sleep now. I actually woke up early this morning with a nightmare that the auction price had skyrocketed to over 30,000 yen. Thank God that didn't happen. My pockets aren't that deep. :D

1:15pm: Fanfiction
I randomly decided to check my old fanfiction.net account to see if there were any stories left there after the purge a few years ago when they decided to police formatting and deleted some of my favorite stories without adance notice. Not that im still bitter or anything, but seriously, just because something is experimentally different doesn't make it bad.

Anyway, I tried to log in, and discovered that my old account is linked to my old ev1.net address which no longer exists. And I don't remember the password. :( I don't know if that makes me sol to reclaim my old account or not.

I'd like to do some editing to some of the old stories, put them in correct catagories, and upload some other old things to the account. Maybe even write something new! I wrote to support@ff.net, so we'll see what they say if they ever write back.

Posted via LjBeetle

11:29am: earthquake
Im very stressed out and concerned about the earthquake in Japan. I am at least slightly relieved that my friends in Kochi shouldnt have any damage. I was thinking of visiting north japan this summer during my sabbatical, now its obviously wait and see. :(

Posted via LjBeetle

10:46pm: 61st Kohaku Utagassen
No Mikawa Kenichi this year!?!! I was fast forwarding through the recording looking for his costume this year. He wasn't in it! I'm in shock. Kobayashi Sachiko's bird outfit was seriously cool though.

Had the Johnny's trifecta this year - SMAP, Arashi, and TOKIO.

The best part of the whole thing was, IMHO, the performance of the Gegege no Kitaro theme. That was awesome.

However, I HATE with the passion of a thousand burning suns the horrible mascots they added this year. Horrible, creepy red and white monkey-things. You can see them on the official page: http://www9.nhk.or.jp/kouhaku/ They may look a little cute in the banner, but imagine them as full-size fursuits dancing on stage. Horrible.

8:49pm: Kitty issues...
I bought some cat toys a few months ago called Kong Wubbas. Basically, it's a ball with a bell in it with four long tails. Ruxpin loves them. He sucks on them. Apparently he also gnaws on them, because today I came home to find two legs missing. I think he ate them. :( I wanted to throw away the others. Found one intact. The other is missing 3 legs. I don't know when that was destroyed. I know the first was destroyed today because I saw it before i left the house.

I don't know what to do. The tails are about 5 inches long. They're fabric with a little crinkle plastic inside. He's not acting sick. He's eating and wants treats. But I don't want him to end up with an obstruction. He might have eaten the others a week ago and I didn't notice and they passed through, though I didn't notice them in the litter box.

I called the emergency vet and they said I could bring him straight in or I could just monitor him and bring him in if he starts acting different. I can't really afford major surgery right now. :( I seriously hope if he did eat them that they pass through. I guess I'll just keep an eye on him for now and call his regular vet in the morning.

6:26pm: The collection
Some of you on my fl may know that once upon a time I was an avid collector of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff. I was going through boxes the other day and here, for the first time ever assembled in one place, is my collection. ( cut for your sanity )

More later when i figure out this posting from the phone thing

Posted via LjBeetle

5:02pm: farewell, tooth number 18
Lately my teeth on the back left (two root canals on the bottom) have been bothering me, especially after eating. So I made a dentist appointment. His verdict? My back molar fractured. It wasn't salvagable. It had to come out. The fracture seems to have originated where a large post was put in the tooth from the root canal - the post was supposed to give strength to the tooth I guess. Instead, it caused it to shatter. So I was directed to go next door to the oral surgeon, who took a look at the xray and told me he could take it out that very day. So I'm now missing one of my adult permanent teeth. I'm very achy and sore. It'll take a few weeks to heal. In the mean time, I need to decide whether to get an implant (expensive, but probably the best permanent option), a partial denture (might damage the tooth next to it, which also has a root canal and is probably fragile too), or just not bother replacing it at all (which will probably eventually cause me to lose the upper molar). I wasn't planning on this right now. :(

1:31pm: My new patio
I made a patio!

( picture here )

It's approximately 5x6 feet. It's really just a place for me to put my new propane grill. I wanted to have it finished by Memorial Day, but that obviously didn't happen. It was a HECK of a lot of work. I watch a lot of HGTV and DIY network, so I knew exactly how to set the pavers. I just didn't realize or think about the fact that they usually have a crew of strong guys with machines to do the digging and tamping. Even on DIY's Yard Crashers they usually have a machine for tamping. I have an 8x8 inch tamper and two arms. They also have trucks delivering all the sand and pavers. I have a Honda Civic, and I had to make multiple trips and carry all the stuff from the front to the back yard. It was also rediculously hot. I would get up early to work on digging, and by 10AM it would already be 90 degrees. It didn't help any that the area used to be a bed for the giant philodendron, and it was full of roots. The bed was also filled with marble chip rocks that the previous owners had used for aesthetics. Every time I put my shovel in the dirt I hit rocks and had to rotate the shovel around in order to get past them. I still would like to make a larger patio, at least 10x10 or 12x12, for a table and chairs. 12x12 is four times the size of 6x6, which means four times the cost and effort. :( I'm not going to start working on it right now - I think I'm going to wait until it gets cooler out.


Speaking of Yard Crashers, if I ever see Ahmed Hassan in my local H&G store, I'm going to force him to come to my house and fix the rest of my yard!

1:09pm: Awesomeness!
I was going through a couple of boxes of stuff I brought back from my parent's house a couple of months ago. Stuff I haven't seen for many years. Stuff made of pure awesome.

( pictures )

3:02pm: Mito Komon on TV Japan
TV Japan is currently showing Mito Komon season 37 on Wednesday nights. I'm so excited! I can finally watch it on TV without having to rent or buy videos from the Japanese grocery store! The first episode was on last week. As expected, the first episode of each season sets the overall plot and gives them a reason to hit the road. I think there were more gratuitous sword fights and ninja antics in the first episode of this season than in entire seasons past. :) The second episode, on last night, is where things go back to the standard plot. Last night's episode was freaking hilarious. I literally laughed out loud several times. I'm so glad I have this show to watch again. I hope TV Japan will show future seasons, too.

9:31am: Another year come and gone
Another year, another birthday. Yay. So now I'm 36 (yesterday). I guess it beats the alternative ;)

My mother and sister chipped in together to buy me a zojirushi electronic rice cooker. It's fantastic! :D I've wanted one ever since I got back from Japan, but could never justify buying it. I've already used it twice. My office got me a musical Hampster Dance card, and someone stuck a Yemeni 20 Rial bank note in it. Kind of cool. We went out to Mia Bella Italian restaurant for lunch at work, and then I went out by myself for dinner to Red Lobster, mainly because I love their cheese biscuits, and since I told them it was my birthday I got a free dessert. Totally over-ate yesterday, but I figure it's okay once a year or so. :)

6:32pm: Concert
I went with my sister to see Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm in concert on Saturday. It was a great concert! Afterwards they came out to do autographs. In addition to getting a t-shirt and my ticket autographed, I got my picture taken.

( Cell phone pictures! )

10:16am: Ruxpin!
And here's a happy picture! Like I promised, just a little late, here's a picture of my newest cat, Ruxpin. He's about 7-8 mos old. He's huge! This is him sitting on the window ledge next to Pippin with yesterday's snow in my backyard in the background. Taken with my cell phone camera. It's hard to get pictures of him that don't come out too dark - it's hard to see his eyes. You've got to get the reflections just right...

( click for pic! )

1:22pm: Hey, Where's Perry?
My Halloween 2009 pumpkin. XD

( Hey, where's Perry? )

2:42pm: I haven't posted here in forever...
I don't even know where to start. I have a kitten! His name is Ruxpin. I got him around August. He's adorable! He's about 6 mos old now, and getting so big. He's a med-length hair, black and white tuxedo with one sleeve missing - so from one side he looks like a regular tuxedo, and from the other he has a white front leg. I've already got him all his shots and got him neutered a month or so ago. He's sweet and adorable! Still scared of strangers though - it took me a while to get him to calm down around me. I got him from an older couple who were going to take him to the shelter. He was born in their backyard to a feral mother, and he was the only one they'd been able to tame.

The other two fell in love with him almost immediately. I was expecting a few days of hissing and growling, but within a day or so they were grooming him and playing with him. Merry (my orange tabby girl) also decided to let him suckle, even though she doesn't lactate. I thought it was cute at first, then I started to worry a little about mastitis. But now that he's bigger than her, she's finally starting to push him away and walk off when he tries. Yes, he still wants to nurse and he's huge! It looks rediculous. He's going to be a gigantic cat. His paws are twice the size of Pippin's, and he's already taller and longer than Merry. I'll totally post a picture later.

I started a juggling group in Houston creatively called "Houston Jugglers". I set it up through meetup.com. Made a cute logo and everything! First meeting was me and one other guy, who had a broken wrist. I'm hoping we'll have more show up next time. ;)

I also started a blog on the Houston Chronical website. It's creatively located at http://commons.chron.com/jcaliff/blog. I know, I'm a fountain of creativity. I mainly started it there because it's not blocked from work. I also set up a thing so it'll post to my facebook. Might see if there's a way I can post them here, too. It would make it much easier to update here, that's for sure. At least for the non-personal, non-friendslocked stuff.

I offered to run a cel/goods collecting panel at Oni-con this year. I hadn't heard anything back, so I assumed it was rejected. Then just about half an hour ago, I got an email. It says:

Subject: Anime Cel panel

Panel Approved and scheduled.

And that's it. Literally. The convention is Halloween weekend. I have no idea which day, or what time. There's nothing posted on the web site. I have to work Friday, so I hope they don't try to schedule it then. I also scheduled my next juggling group meeting for that Sunday afternoon, which I can reschedule, but I need to know asap.

3:05pm: Stuff for sale
x-posted to anime-beta

Last night I went through one of my toy boxes and pulled out a few things I have with me that I can bear to part with. Let me know if there's anything you are interested in (all prices negotiable, and they don't include shipping):

( Pictures and stuff )

5:26pm: Stuff I'm hoping to clear out
Posted this to anime-beta as well. I'm going to visit my parents in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to bring some stuff back with me to sell. I won't have much room, so let me know if anyone is interested in the following items so I can decide what to bring.

Sailor Moon 12" fashion dolls Irwin 1995ish - set of five inner senshi, not MIB but boxes are included

Sailor Moon 6" fashion dolls Irwin 1995ish - set of five inner senshi, not MIB but boxes are included

Sailor Moon figural bubble bath (around 12" tall) 1995ish - has "real" hair, bubble bath still inside, but probably not usable

Sailor Moon battery powered crescent wand by Irwin, 1995ish, not in box but in good shape. Hopefully battery hasn't corroded. Also some other old Sailor Moon toys

Dragon Ball Z Vegeta figure - around 12", not posable, pretty dang cool looking though, no box. I might also have the matching Goku, not sure though

Exosquad/Robotech mecha - two or three different
Zentraedi Tactical Battlepod (http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~pdanner/exo/toys/btltctl.jpg)
VF-1S Veritech (http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~pdanner/exo/toys/veritech.jpg)
Also think I have the Veritech Hover Tank (http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~pdanner/exo/toys/htank.jpg)
not sure if I can find the boxes, and the toys have been played with so small parts (probably the missiles and stuff) may be missing, but they should otherwise be in good shape

Babylon 5 Micro Machines - some in original packaging, some not. I'll have to check. Also some Babylon 5 action figures in original packaging. Again, I'll have to check what I have

Figural keychains - Rurouni Kenshin (quite a few), Lupin III, probably some others I'm not thinking of right now

I also have quite a few of the FFVII 6" figures if anyone is interested, no boxes - pretty sure I have at least Cloud, Aeris, Sephiroth, and Tifa.

Those are the things that come to mind. I'm sure there is other stuff I don't need. I don't think any of them are particularly rare, so prices should be reasonable (though I haven't checked yet). If anyone is interested, please let me know. Thanks!

4:18pm: My cel, the musical
I was inspired earlier, so I wrote this song and posted it on anime-beta.

"My Soon-to-be Cel"

(prelude, starts slowly)
When I first saw you there, on that website
My heart, it skipped a beat
I thought I must be dreaming
How could something so sweet
Be there, within my grasp?
The blood rushed to my face
My stomach bottomed out
Because I know that it's a race...

(up tempo)
I want you
I need you
Oh please let me have you
I'm sending the email right now, don't you see?
I'm hoping
I'm praying
That no one else saw you
Oh order, fly quickly, bring my cel to me!

My cel! My cel! My soon-to-be cel!
If I can't get you I'll surely be sad
My cel! My cel! My soon-to-be cel!
I hope you're not stuck to the douga too bad

Now waiting
Now pacing
Refreshing my inbox
Did someone else get it? Was I just too late?
A message!
The subject:
"Thank you for your order"
I sit back in my chair and I'm feeling so great!

My cel! My cel! My soon-to-be cel!
The most wonderful cel that I ever could get!
My cel! My cel! My soon-to-be cel!
Can't wait to show all my friends on the net

My cel! My cel! My soon-to-be cel!
I'll update my website, yes that's what I'll do!
My cel! My cel! My soon-to-be cel!
Here's proof that some wishes really come true!

9:48am: More Nintama
They came out with a new set of Nintama trading cards. Two different boxes, Heaven and Earth, with a total of 54 regular cards and 9 special, of course the special are about impossible to get all 9. They also came out with a set of bromides. And a pencil board. And a clear file. And a new settei book. I'm hoping SMJ can come through for me and get me what I need from Amiami and Animate. God, I hope they can order direct from Animate. It would make life so much simpler. :)

I need another root canal. And I have a possibly broken tooth in one of my old root canals. I'm going to the endodontist on Monday. For now, I'm on antibiotics for the infection and happy pills (darvocet) for the pain.

8:25pm: Well, I'm still thesis-ing. Not quite done, but hopefully soon. Things are going well at the house. Haven't done much painting beyond the hallway, and I'm still not completely unpacked. I could also seriously use a little rain down here, so if you have any extra please send it my way. :) I don't even want to know what my water bill is going to be like this month.

My impetus for finally updating my LJ is this, however. OMG! There's serious Nintama-goodness coming out of Japan right now. They're releasing the 16th season on DVD in its entirety, starting this month, two discs at a time until they get all 8 discs out. I'm hoping a box will be forthcoming. They kind of skipped from first season to 16th season in DVDs, but I don't care! If the 16th season does well, maybe they'll expand backwards. That would be so awesome!!! I don't know if it's renewed interest because of the DVD release or what, but I did a double-take when I did a Nintama search on YJ tonight. In the past I would find a few hundred entries at most. Today is over 1200. Animate has released a crap ton of Nintama tie-in goods, including post cards, metal charms, and a drama CD. I went ahead and bought one of the drama CDs that someone had posted with a buy-it-now price and a couple of promo items included. I also found someone selling all 9 postcards at a decent buy-it-now price with a flyer promo and some book markers. There's also a promo poster http://page2.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b99345152 but I'm not going to buy it right now (can't justify a 500 yen bid with deputy fees). I love that there's all this cool stuff, I don't love not being able to get it all. :) I keep hoping that someday they'll release a CD soundtrack of instrumental and incidental music from the TV series. That's the one thing that's really missing in terms of Nintama goods.

7:18pm: I should write more often. Last week I went to see Billy Joel and Elton John in concert. It was a great show, although I think that Billy Joel's half was a stronger performance than Elton John. I went with friends from work and we had a great time. Got t-shirts and everything.

I'm spending a lot of time right now working on my thesis. Got to get it done!

I've also started using Twitter publicly. Dangerous, I know, but I like being able to post random things that come to mind. My userid ís, creatively, jcaliff. I know, I know.

I have to stop now. I'm posting from my BB on the bus and getting seriously carsick.

Edit: timestamp. Don't know how I ended up posting in the future.

12:39pm: Water Babies plates thoughts
I have my grandmothers second edition hardcover of the Water Babies with most of the color plates still in the book. I wonder if I could manage to scan the images without damaging the spine of the book? I'd love to have copies of the plates to hang up as art, but I don't want to damage the book.

3:58pm: Random Thoughts
I wonder what ever happened to the bronze sculture of the children playing in a tree that used to decorate North Hills Mall (in North Richland Hills, now gone) over by where Stripling and Cox was?

Is there something in the bible that tells people that it's acceptable to stand on the street corner yelling at people as they walk by? Granted, I'm not Christian and I haven't read the whole New Testament, but I do distinctly remember something in there about NOT standing on street corners yelling at people, so it makes me wonder if those guys are preaching from the same book I read in school. Or maybe I'm making that part up and not remembering right?

11:40am: For my birthday, I decided to do something fun. I got tickets for me and my sister to go see Jeff Dunham in San Antonio. It was awesome! I bought the tickets from stubhub since I didn't plan early enough to get decent tickets. We got there, and the lines were crazy. I went to ask someone where we were to supposed to go in, and they took one look at the tickets I had and ushered us in, gave us wristbands, and sent us up to the lounge to get food and drinks. Apparently, the tickets I got were some kind of special vip perk tickets (had no idea when I bought them). The show itself was absolutely hilarious, though I have to wonder about some of the people who brought little kids to the show. Yeah, he's a ventriloquist, and they're puppets, but the humor is not exactly kid-friendly. I fear some of the 8 year olds may end up repeating the Taste of China joke at school to a much less appreciative audience. ;) It was a really funny show though. It's amazing that a nerdy stand up ventriloquist can play to a completely sold out show of over 8,000 people at a basketball arena. We had a great time, and after the show went back up to the lounge to get drinks and wait for the parking lots to empty out a bit. Stayed overnight at the La Quinta near the riverwalk and had a great time overall. Fun birthday! It's a shame though. I'm 35 years old now, without a boyfriend, husband, kids, or prospects. At least I've got a house, car, good job, and soon to have a master's degree.

2:56pm: Well, I finally got my furniture moved this weekend. Worst moving company experience I've ever had. I can't recommend the Apartment Movers, ever, to anyone. They destroyed one of my bookcases, ripped the top off my jewelry armoire, scratched the crap out of my dresser, and were overall slow and somewhat incompetent. They didn't even bring any blankets or anything to carry the shelves for the bookshelves, so they had to use my bedsheets. Hopefully I won't be moving again any time soon. I got the security system, satellite tv, and dsl hooked up yesterday, so hopefuly things will be back up and running normally again soon when I finish getting things hooked up. So far, one of the best parts about the house has been the shower. After using wimpy water-saving showerheads for such a long time, it's amazing going back to a real, old-school full power showerhead. It almost sends chills down your spine, it's just wonderful. I know it's not as environmentally friendly, but darn if it wasn't one of the best showers I've had in a long, long time.