constant evolution

Joker is Stealing The Pies!

2008-07-14T16:42:15Z

Rotten Tomatoes is doing a HORRENDOUS JOB. They have failed to find any critics AT ALL who dislike even slightly The Dark Knight. Why must they raise my expectations so high? No movie should have 100% rating from critics, it is IMPOSSIBLE and yet there is Dark Knight sitting all smugly with that most impossible of ratings. How so? HOW?

This is seriously the most excited I have ever been for any movie ever. Mostly my expectations were raised really ridiculously high by the six minute preview they played before Beowulf which completely blew me out of the water.

Joker is my favorite Batman villain and it's rare enough that he's written fantastically in comics. I was anticipating a still gimmicky attempt at a grittier Joker in this film, but the preview showed the actual psychotic serial killer mad man Joker of my favorite comics. The previous Batman films always had a Joker who was pulled from the Golden Era - crazy, gimmick loving, murderer who was more about punnery and jokes than about horrific crime sprees and true psychosis. He never reached the darker depths of the Joker figure, who while he can be funny and cliche can also be the most frightening and cold killer in all of Batman's rogue gallery. The Dark Knight previews and clips have given me hope that they've captured this more intricate characterization.

In any case, is it Thursday yet?

Zoo, Go Carts, & Packing; or The Multitude of Reasons My Feet Are Aching

2008-07-14T15:39:50Z

Had weekend full of craziness, but it was fun.

Friday I went out to lunch with one of my oldest friends, Jessica. She's newly back from her amazing honeymoon in Hawaii and as it was her birthday I treated her to sushi. I'm so glad she's back in the area after spending five years in southern Illinois. She and her husband have settled in Schaumburg, which is roughly a half hour away from my hometown. We also set loose plans for next weekend since I have to make a run to Dick Blick's and will be out there. So fun!

My parents sold their house last week. They need to be out by the end of July and they haven't started packing yet. So part of Saturday was spend talking my brother down from preteen fits while packing. We also played some Lego Indiana Jones, which is a fun game even though we spent more time getting annoyed with each other and killing the other person with shovels than cooperating to beat the levels. Afterward Les and Charlie came over and we went for Buffalo Burgers at Country House and out to Funway for batting cages, mini golf, and go carts. In retrospect flip flops were probably not the best shoe attire for hitting softballs.

Sunday us chilluns went for the first every parent free zoo excursion. We saw every single exhibit and stayed from opening until just before closing. There are loads of pictures and if I ever get my SD card to connect to this new computer I will upload them later. Mostly there are a lot of monkeys and polar bears.

Dog Safety Warning!

2008-07-10T14:30:12Z

Recently my aunt purchased the Dentley's Pork Femur Bone dog treat product from PetSmart. After feeding it to her dog Bella, the dog wouldn't eat and began vomitiing so she took it to the emergency vet. $3500 worth of surgery later, it turns out large pieces of the bone had lodged in Bella's stomach and colon. They're still not sure if she is going to fully recover.

Don't buy Dentley's Pork Femur Bone product!

Greasemonkey? Stylish? Mod Del.icio.us? Whatever are you talking about?

2008-07-02T16:57:59Z

I think someone needs to take greasemonkey and stylish and most definitely del.icio.us away from me.

Since I had to re-install everything on the new computer anyway, I delved much deeper into modding individual sites, especially del.icio.us, and extensions to increase the ease of use for Firefox 3. Then, because of the changes I'd made to how my del.icio.us functions I decided to reorganize all my tags and bundles again. All 3,000+ tags, when I've just gone through and renamed and bundled all of them over the previous two weeks and have just barely begun to scratch the surface of cleaning up the 2,000 or so tags made before I settled on the format for posting. Clearly my tagging has taken on an obsessive nature.

Also, I understand a lot of people have a fandom account and a private account. Does anyone have a combination of the two and managed to solve the organizational issues involved in that? I don't want to have to switch between accounts, especially since there is some overlap between the two. But the lack of organization is driving me a little crazy. No matter what I do with them it never looks right.

New Computer!

2008-07-01T20:09:33Z

My new work computer finally arrived today!

I've already installed the new Firefox, which I have to say is not my favorite version. The lighter my browser runs when just a basic install, the happier I am. It's okay, though there are some extension I'm pretty bummed don't work anymore (del.icio.us classic anyone?).

Otherwise, I'm just trying to get all my programs and setting set up. I'm predicting a day and a half at least until I'm fully functioning again. Even then I'll still run across some things I forgot to do until I get annoyed that the computer isn't doing them. Ah well, such is life I guess.

Music Help?

2008-06-23T18:42:54Z

In the great computer crash of last week I lost the following albums and songs. If anyone would be willing to upload them I would be forever grateful!

~~The Hush Sound - Goodbye Blues~~
~~Charlotte Sometimes - Waves and the Both of Us~~ Thanks lostonbroadway
We The Kings
The Cab - ~~Whisper Wars~~, Glitz & Glamour, & the random tracks (from an ep? I'm not sure)
The Used - all of their albums :(
~~The Roots - Birthday Girl feat Patrick Stump~~
~~Patrick Stump - Tom Taubert's Blues~~

There are probably a lot more than this because I was keeping the things I actually listen to at work and not updating my home computer because I've just been listening to vinyl there. SADNESS.

A Rec! :O

2008-06-20T15:06:05Z

Yesterday someone absolutely fantastic on the flist* linked subterrain's Iron Man AU Helpmate [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and the sequel Weathervane.

Shia LaBeouf as Pepper Potts! There is no wrong in this, in fact there is only heaps of mind blowing fantastic. I made flaily arms while reading this. It is fantastic. Read it!

* I didn't pay attention to who posted the rec, but whoever it was you are fantastic! :D! Thanks for the rec!

midnightbex @ 2008-06-19T09:08:00

2008-06-19T14:07:05Z

Does anyone know of good ways to get rid of really low quality furniture?

The problem is that my mom bought some furniture from an older friend of the family for me to use until I could get some better things when I first moved out. Only, the friend wasn't ready for me to take the stuff in January and now that she is I've replaced it all. There isn't a single thing she's giving me that is better quality than what I currently have or that I even want.

I thought about Goodwill, but the nearest one is 15 miles from her house. I also don't want to just have some service come and take it all away, I'd rather drop it off.

Any suggestions would be absolutely fantastic.

:|

2008-06-16T16:24:59Z

My work computer has committed supuku, taking with it all of my work files, a ton of personal crap, and my dignity.

I spent all morning getting the spare computer up to speed, which is definitely relative. This computer is newer by 2 1/2 years and yet still somehow slower and with less RAM. Also, it fails to have all the things I need to do my job like Dreamweaver and Photoshop and all of my data. And my music library. I am filled with overwhelming sadness.

At least the weekend was good. One of my oldest friends got married on saturday. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a ton of fun. Father's Day was also pretty good. The whole family went fishing and then went to see The Hulk (suprisingly good!).

How are all of you?

Now I'm Seeing Words Everywhere, a babbling story

2008-06-12T15:55:41Z

I have been playing excessive amounts of babble lately. Mostly to avoid going home in the currently insane amounts of traffic attempting to cross the bridges in St Charles when one is closed for construction and another has flashing red stop signs instead of functioning lights.

Also, I find it helps prevent me from opening my email and sending vicious hate mail to the webmaster of the Agie Charmilles site. How their coder fails so epically at HTML when they can manage passable and occasionally impressive feats with CSS and Cold Fusion is beyond me. They fail to use elements properly and do a shoddy job with everything! They are over fond of the spacebar and wouldn't know the proper use of a padding element if it was shoved up their ass!

Hate mail is the least they deserve, though that would be unprofessional and would also tip them off that I've figured their clever schemes and how to lift elements that they don't want me to have. It saves time typing up their horrible failer of english they call the tech specs in their brochures! Just reading them burns my eyes! This is all in the interest of self preservation, I assure you.

It is possible my job is making me slightly more insane than usual lately. All I see when I close my eyes is coding, it has begun to devour my brain.

Also, I have a wedding to attend this weekend and no shoes! There are no shoes to be had anywhere in the universe and I am sad. All I'm looking for is a pair of nice black flats that are in a passably current style and not a throw back to the damn flats with bows on them I wore as a child in the 1980s. Why are these suddenly being made for adults? I'm supposed to be a grown up I just want some god damn grown up shoes!

Having just re-read all of that I need to go away for a little while now and attempt to no longer be slightly insane. Hopefully my brown sugar bagel will help. (they are delicious!)

Fellow Cat Owners, I Need Advice!

2008-06-03T13:20:40Z

Fatima peed in my bed at 5:30 this morning. This is the third time she's done so since I got her and I've no idea what to do about it.

The thing is, 99% of the time she uses the litter box fine. I clean it daily because of her parasite, to keep her from being re-infected, so it isn't that the litter box is full. Ti just apparently decides it's okay to pee on the bed (this time with me in it) and she's also peed on towels when they're on the floor. I'm fairly certain the person I got her from didn't introduce a litter box to the kittens early enough and instead let them pee where ever they wanted in the box they were in.

I asked my vet about it last week and she said it was probably a side effect of the parasite and not feeling well. However, she's been clear of the parasite since mid last week and off the medicine since Saturday. My vet also said to pick her up and put her in the litter box if she started going elsewhere and praise her when she did. This is obviously not working since she only seems to pee on the bed when I'm either not in the room or am asleep.

I really hope this is something I can fix, otherwise I'm going to have to get rid of her.

If any of you are cat owners and have any advice, please share! I'm a little desperate.

oops, this is my entire week's worth of updates which I forgot to post

2008-05-30T20:35:02Z

(monday)

Memorial Day! I slept late and played with the kittens and went and saw Indiana Jones with my family. It was mostly pretty solidly awesome except for the aliens! What the hell was up with that?! ALIENS?! As soon as they opened the movie in Area 51 I knew it was heading that way. How pathetically stupid of a plot device! The cool thing about archaeology is that its all about uncovering human history and things other civilization did and invented. Aliens does not fit that! ALIENS?! I'm still all WTF over it, really. But it was still 800 times better than Temple of Doom.

(tuesday)

Today is filled with overwhelming hatred for snap previews. They suck and they interfere with opening links or right-click-saving things and they never go away! Okay, they close eventually, but it's long enough that it feels like an eternity. This is the interwebs, things are supposed to move faster! I know there's a workaround for this in firefox and that I got about halfway into doing it until my short attention span and increasing number of open tabs led me to close out the instructions. Maybe it was in adblock plus? I will have to try and figure that shit out because this is driving me INSANE. edit of HA!: figured it out. I had already done everything and then forgot to enable it. *headsmack*

(wednesday)

Uploaded my sister's entire cd collection to my work computer (it's not that big, her cd collection!) and now I am jamming to albums I haven't listened to since I was in middle school with no cd collection of my own. Smashing Pumpkins! Pearl Jam! Weezer! Green Day! Tom Petty! It's pretty rocking.

Why are there no Wii's available in all the universe when I've finally managed to get the money for one? Every single place I looked online is sold out. I will have to make eight million phone calls tonight to see if any stores in the area have one left. Nintendo, why are you so crap at stocking your vendors?

(thursday)

I bought a Wii last night with my tax rebate incentive thing (the $600 the government sent me in addition to my refund? that thing). Everyone told me horror stories about tracking one down and the internet backed them up, but they were all wrong! I called Target, they had three. I bought it! The End. Anyway, it's pretty awesome! I played a lot of Harry Potter and forgot to eat dinner. Sweet.

Ti has learned not only to jump over the clever blockade I assembled in the living room, but also over the couch. Now she's confined to the bedroom and Oop gets visiting time every night. He's not too happy about it though because there is nowhere for him to run that she can't follow.

(friday)

New Freak Angels today! This is a weekly six page comic written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Paul Duffield. It's set in post apocalyptic London and focuses on a group of people calling themselves the Freak Angels who have taken Whitechapel as theirs to protect. It's pretty much my favorite ongoing comic right now and it's free! You should all check it out.

:(

2008-05-27T19:07:37Z

I was halfway through reading 'Hold It Together (with craft paste)' by somewhatdeluded who was formerly madsciencechick when she deleted her journal. Now I will forever be unable to know if Brendon turning Spencer down was it! There is a whole second half I will never be able to read! I am filled with sadness.

Today is the day from hell and I would like it to be over with. My sister is out sick with a fever, my mom is home because tyler is sick, I had to bring Fatima to the vet again, there will be no Band-o-rama for me tonight because Ty's sick, the phone at work is ringing off the hook when I have to be three different people today, AND my toilet is backed up at home and the maintenance guy is convinced nothing is wrong! *deep breath*

At least tonight I will get to watch the second half of The Andromeda Strain (deadly virus from outer space! Benjamin Bratt! Eric whateverhislastnameis as a junkie news reporter stuck near ground zero! horrible special effects!) and Charlie has lent me Muppets from Space. As long as the toilet gets fixed and Ti doesn't get sick again the whole day will be salvageable.

midnightbex @ 2008-05-22T11:23:00

2008-05-22T16:23:38Z

It turns out Fatima has some sort of weird parasite that's normally found in rabbits. She's got to have a seperate liter box and a new medication for 10 days on top of the anti-inflammatory and she'll be fine.

Since she's doing so much better I'm going to move her into the bedroom and hopefully that will make nights a little quieter, if not necessarily allowing me to get more sleep. I'm more afraid my neighbors are going to complain about all the noise than losing a little sleep.

midnightbex @ 2008-05-21T14:03:00

2008-05-21T19:03:41Z

I am completely stressing about the kitten.

She started pooping blood and I maybe freaked out a little about it last night. Also I maybe freaked out about it so much that I didn't really sleep.

I had to take her in to the vet this morning. They are, of course, unsure as to what exactly it is. It could be parasites and since she already has fleas it was likely. But they checked for worms and she didn't have those, so they sent out for more tests which should come in tomorrow.

Since they aren't sure, she had to get a deworming treatment and has to take an anti-inflammatory and antibiotic for the next five days. If the tests come back positive for parasites she'll have to go on a treatment for that and I'll not only have to get Ollie tested, but probably treat him as a preventative anyway.

On the mostly positive side, she's otherwise fine and she and Ollie have creepily insta-bonded. If she weren't sick and he wasn't socially maladjusted (she's the first cat he's ever really met), I'd probably already have let them entirely loose on each other when I'm home. She's still too small to let have full run of the apartment when I'm not there, but all the concerns I had about how much they'd hate each other were completely misplaced. Instead I get treated to a lovely chorus of both of them crying at each other through the bathroom door when they get seperated for the night. It's pretty rediculous. Ollie's taken to sleeping outside the bathroom door and they swat at each other under it and cry at each other longingly. Sneaking in to actually use the bathroom has become a 15 minute routine of catching Ti before she escapes and trying to keep Oop out as I'm attempting to sneak in. Then there's crying and Ti trying to convince me with her adorableness that she should be let out to play. It's cat love at first sight, kind of like a bad YA novel version of love as re-enacted by cats. Though when they're actually together all they do is swat and bite and chase each other's tails.

You all rock! <3

2008-05-21T16:01:33Z

Just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU!!! to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday yesterday in whatever form.

I tried to reply to all of you, but if I missed someone please let me know! I very much appreciate all the well wishes and am very touched that so many of you took the time to think of me.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! ♥

As for my birthday itself, it went pretty well. My Grandma drove out and took me to lunch. She also brought me some pink petunias for my balcony which are beautiful. Went to dinner with my family at Country House where I ate one of their absolutely fantastic Buffalo burgers and spilled some French Onion soup on myself. My sister and Charlie got me $50 to Best Buy for my iPod fund and my parents got me a digital camera! It was pretty sweet. Then I went home to my cats who bonded and then spent the entire night howling at each other when they were seperated by the bathroom door.

All in all, a pretty decent birthday in my book.

midnightbex @ 2008-05-19T10:04:00

2008-05-19T15:04:32Z

I HAVE KITTEN!

I've named her Fatima, though mostly she gets called Squeezebox (she sounds like one) or V (because my sister can't spell). She is absolutely adorable and incredibly tiny.

Charlie's mom Pam brought her up from Marion for me yesterday. She is absolutely adorable, though she came with the added bonus of fleas. Now I have to treat Ollie for them too. :/

midnightbex @ 2008-05-16T09:06:00

2008-05-16T14:06:59Z

I was going to buy tickets to see The Hush Sound, but they're playing at House of Blues which is my least favorite venue in the entire city. There are no good vantage points to see the stage, the floor always feels like a pit because of how stupidly they designed it, and even the balcony doesn't provide that great of a line of site. I am jealous of every one of you who gets to see them at an actual decent venue. :/

Eddie Izzard last night was FANTASTIC. If you took a list of things I am guaranteed to laugh at and made them into standup, it would be very close to his current show. There was a whole 15 minute riff on Latin grammar! Seriously, if you get a chance to see him, do so. It's well worth the ticket price.

Go California!

2008-05-15T21:19:22Z

California has just made Gay Marriage legal!.

Now if only the rest of the country would follow suit.

(Personally, I'm really looking forward to the day when anyone can get drunk and hitched in Vegas. I'm pretty sure it'd make celebrity tabloids a LOT more interesting.)

Edit: HRC's story on the verdict.

midnightbex @ 2008-05-15T16:03:00

2008-05-15T21:03:49Z

My strawberry yogurt tastes like penicillin. :/

On the happier side I went to Kiss the Sky last night and bought We Are Scientist's Brain Thrust Mastery and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin's Pershing. They are both full of AMAZING. They're pretty much the audio equivalent of Oberweis' Banana Shake, that is summery and over-sensory and all around something you would like to way over indulge yourself with.

the fugitives say that the streets aren't for dreaming now

2008-05-14T22:44:19Z

Hoooooly shit.

How did no one tell me about the cover Patrick Stump posted of Tom Waits' 'Tom Traubert's Blues'? That is seriously amazing.

Has it been ripped anywhere yet? Because I want to burn a copy of it and just listen to it on repeat for hours.

Check it out in the news section of his site if you haven't yet. You have to scroll down a little, but trust me you'll be blown away.

Fic Rec!

2008-05-14T22:17:42Z

People, I have like hearts in my eyes over this fic.

It Depends on Whose Doorway You Walk Through by imntsaying

Brendon centric, eventual Panic GSF, college AU

Brendon giggles a little, but doesn’t really respond. He’s still not sure exactly how to act around Spencer. He seems like a good guy, but he’s sort of intimidating sometimes, what with the beard and the tall-ness and the really, really awesome jackets. He and Brendon have pretty opposite schedules so they don’t see much of each other during the week, and Spencer always seems to have stuff going on during the weekends.

When they do see each other, it’s fine, it’s cordial, and Brendon thinks that’s pretty impressive for a first-year roommate situation, so he doesn’t rock the boat or anything by trying to make it some epic friendship.

Except the thing is, Brendon secretly thinks Spencer’s awesome. He’s got good taste in music and likes the same sorts of movies that Brendon does. He goes out, but he doesn’t come back to the room falling down drunk or anything, and he always offers the snacks he gets in his mom’s care packages to Brendon. Brendon hasn’t gotten anything from his parents since he got to school, so he’s sort of stupidly grateful for the taste of Mrs. Smith’s homemade oatmeal walnut cookies. Plus, Spencer has this amazing smile, the cliché kind where it’s like the whole world smiles when Spencer does. Not that Brendon would ever, ever admit to thinking that.

Seriously, HEARTS IN MY EYES. I look like an anime character right now, all ♥_______♥ Read this! It is adorable and incredibly perfect.

weekend. :|

2008-05-12T19:01:37Z

Weekend ended up being mostly full of suckitude.

Spent the vast majority of it working on mailers for work, which is definitely not a pleasant way to spend the weekend. Also, I was forced to attend my brother's soccer game on saturday. It was outside (the sun and I mutually loathe each other), but ended up being a pretty good game.

On the plus side, I did go shopping for some new shirts since I've been losing weight and haven't purchased summer clothing in about two years. Happily I also ended up getting a dress for an upcoming wedding at 25% off.

Mother's day was mostly uneventful. I spent the morning doing mailers and watching Eureka, then went to my parent's house where we watched Air Force One and practiced music for Band-O-Rama. If only there were words to express the utter audio calamity that is two flutes, a trumpet, and a bassoon playing in a small bedroom. Ouch may sum it up.

midnightbex @ 2008-05-08T13:59:00

2008-05-08T18:59:59Z

Anyone know what happened to bitter_crimson?

Tell me what to do interwebs!

2008-05-08T18:58:43Z

There are all sorts of *things* that need doing tonight, but I really want to go see Iron Man. On the one hand things to do. On the other IRON MAN and also the fact that if I don't go tonight I can basically write it off until next.. uh.. three weeks from now.

SO

Iron Man tonight, Y/N/YOUBETTERMFGO?