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Two of the Group Projects from Hell are finished and over with. I basically had to do the poster and presentation for one of them myself, but it went over well in the end. This just leaves one more presentation on Tuesday, which unfortunately is also accompanied by a long-ass paper. The presentation is group, but the paper is individual, which is both good and bad - bad because I'm on my own, but good because I can do it on my own pace. I will prevail!

Also, Jon is the most wonderful man ever, and Umbrella Chronicles is pretty sweet. That is all.

So I've spent too much time today sitting around trying to come up with a name for my Nethermancer. The Second Step's random Earthdawn name generator seems to be really convinced I want to name him Ari, as it came up a bunch of times - I don't, for more or less the same reason I don't have any Maras or Jonathans - characters with names of friends just seems awkward.

So! I've come up with Isak and Miska - leaning towards the first, but I'm terrible at picking names (Asher got named by Clare and Jesse. After Jesse's _dog_) - opinions? Surname to be picked once I have a first name decided on.

(Yes, I am totally avoiding schoolwork with this pointless exercise)

So, after metaphorically slapping myself around for being a bit of an asswipe for the last week and a half, things are looking up. I cleaned out my fridge last night, and have been doing laundry today - I should probably do dishes as well, but eh >.> The massive group dice order I organized came in yesterday, so I'm going to go pick it up and pay duty on it today. Project Runway 4 also started airing last night - first episode shows a lot of promise for this season, although I am too lazy to provide further commentary.

After Tuesday night, I've also sat down and done some thinking about Earthdawn stuff. I'm definately going to keep Jorim around in my binder, ready to restat in the future when I've got a good fit for him - the current party was, honestly, not it, which is why I didn't get to do most of the stuff I wanted to with him. I've come up with two different concepts for a new character - I need to do some research on one of them before I make up my mind. They are as follows:

Male human Nethermancer: Original idea was to do something rather TB!Sei-esque - kinda gay, somewhat sociopathic, tendency to give silly cute names to terrifying undead monsters. That idea + this party = NO, though, so I've toned it down to a personality a little closer to how I play Tseng - mostly calm, with just a touch of sarcasm and dry wit. Probably a little less scary than my Tseng, as, well, Tseng is an assassin, essentially, and this guy is not.

Female T'skrang Taildancer: This I need to look up more on, as Taildancers are only in the newest edition, which I don't have PDFs for. But personality-wise - young and energetic, hasn't quite grasped that she isn't invincible yet. Not really violent like Igthakon was, but probably at least a bit physical - not afraid to smack someone she thinks is dumb (although, Aaron, Igthakon fangirl Y/N XD;?). I don't know how well another hyperactive T'skrang would fit with this party, though XD;

Is it true that D20 gives you cancer?

Leading healthy game researchers seem to think so. Luckily, all Catalyst Game Labs products are cancer-free!

I lol'd.

I should be working on my Linguistics paper, but listening to techno and writing character backstory up is way more fun.

So, I should really be asleep, as I need to be up again in another six and a half hours, but I've got too much on my brain. I've been reading old SR campaigns, mostly about the sequence of events leading up to Crash 2.0, as I'd like to write out some backstory for Ally, and I think that's what sparked off this late-night ramble. I was lying in bed, a particular line of synth running through my head (Coburn - We Interrupt This Program (Interrupted Vocal Mix) - I may upload this and some of the rest of the SR playlist later), when I was suddenly struck by an overwhelming wave of longing for a place I've never been, and which may not even exist, save possibly Tokyo in the quiet hours of the early morning. It's neon lights at night, clusters of skyscrapers looming over the water, concrete and steel girders, empty subway stations, the feeling of being alone in the midst of civilization. It makes me miss Boston a little, in part because New England has a way of getting in your blood, and also because Vancouver, while I love it, has a little less of that neon-grit edge that Boston and NYC have. Some of you may remember a bit of an essay I wrote back in '05 (god, was it really that long ago now?) about cities, and a lot of what I said then holds true now. This, plus my rampant techno-fetishism, probably explains the deep draw cyberpunk has on me.

In conclusion, have a cool Tokyo nightscape pic while I decide what my chances of actually falling asleep are.

EDIT: Also, I know I have expressed my desire for mirrorshades in the past - these are pretty much exactly what I'm looking for (cap from Hackers). Leads would be awesome.

Got my Bio 200 midterm back today - 90 = A+ = very happy me. This almost makes up for all the Cs in everything else. My new mp3 player is somewhere between Seattle and Richmond, which also makes me happy - I hope it doesn't get held at Customs, and thus arrives tomorrow, but who knows.

We had a little Halloween party last night - low-key, but fun. Sat around and had chips and canday, and played DDR and Gloom and Rayman, and got a bit tipsy. Good times.

And last but not least, best of luck to all my friends doing NaNo this year. I, as usual, am not, but am going to instead try to motivate myself to write _something_ this month.

Seriously, guys, this is getting ridiculous. Latest casualty in the ongoing technological death around me? My laptop battery. It was fine a week ago. Then suddenly it could only hold 40% capacity. Now it's saying 'irreparable damage to the battery has been detected'. Nevermind that it was working fine when I went to bed last night, and all I did was run the battery gauge reset (which shouldn't damage the battery, it just syncs the software with the actual charge capacity). And Lenovo US says my battery doesn't actually exist. Lenovo Canada has it - for a nice big $180. I'm going to try running the gauge reset again, but gah.

Also, Creative has some good prices on refurbished mp3 players. Can anyone give any input on buying manufacter refurbished electronics? I'm always super-hesitant about buying used, but I don't have the money for new right now...

So, today started out as a normal bad day - slept badly, felt kinda sick, left my USB mouse at home when I was going to be on campus all afternoon, that sort of irritating shit. And then around seven, I get a call from my landlord, who lives upstairs, saying 'Are you home? The alarm just went off'. And of course, I'm on campus - which means bad things are happening.

Turns out our house was broken into - cops think two people. They got in through one of the windows in my suite, tripping off half the the alarms, went into my bedroom and rifled through the nice-looking jewelry box, taking nothing, pried the door to the the upstairs half open with a crowbar, most likely (the deadbolt was almost totally ripped out of the door), setting off the other half of the alarms, and then riffling through my landlord's bedroom. Luckily, we had some fucking stupid thieves - they only made off with one laptop, which was pretty new and didn't have much installed on it. My video games and systems weren't even touched, including Jon's Wii. They ripped off all the alarm panels, probably thinking that it would kill the alarm (only kills the sound, the control panel keeps sending alerts), but they fit right back in and still work fine. So we're going to beef up security some in hopes of thwarting a second attempt by the same guys.

Downside: I managed to accidently throw my two weeks from new CD player into a wall. 'How did you do something like that accidentally?' you say. Well, when you don't realize it's balled up in some blankets, and then toss said blankets onto the bed with a little more force than was probably necessary, this wonderful thing called momentum sends the heavy things flying fast into walls, and scuffing paint. It's toast, and I can't find the receipt, so I'm out $25. This is not a good year for me and personal electronics - two mp3 players and a CD player D:

Upside: I have a shiny new giant silver Ikea bookcase, full of stuff, which means the stuff isn't on my floor, and it actually looks more like I _live_ here now. And I found my Seishirou bling, which I was positive I had lost at a con sometime long ago, and was never going to see again.

Also, OMG, Lady's in DMC4 and wearing hot pants? WTF? Trish too, but she doesn't look any trashier than she did in DMC.

I can't tell if it's because Excel is too user friendly, or too non-user friendly, or some strange combination of the two, but it takes forever to figure out how to accomplish some seemingly simple task. Like adding a linear line of best fit to a graph. This is in part because searching the help for 'trend line graph' gives adding a trendline to a graph as the tenth or twelfth hit, rather than, say, the first.

In giving thanks for small miracles, however, the three-month garbage strike has finally ended, which means come Wednesday morning my week-old three bag of mashed yams will be gone, along with some truly sketchy hot-pot leftovers. And my video card, integrated though it may be (look, it was like $200 cheaper, okay?), is still awesome enough to run Halflife Source, which means I have something to do when I actually have time to play games again.