Natsuki

The job hunt begins in earnest! Both here and (hopefully) in Seattle!

Yes, I was let go from my current job -- the prime contractor wasn't paying our company, and I was the most expendable. Oh well. This is a kick in the ass, sure, but I think I can turn it into something good.

Or so I keep telling myself. ^^;

Hey, Seattle people, if you know of any job leads, email me at elonghur at gmail dot com? I have an updated resume and all that stuff and I can tailor it to a number things. ^^;

Alive, okay, painkillers bleh.

Going back and skimming the series, I've noticed a lot of more subtle touches that span the seasons than I'd expected. One in particular is the use of particular colour palettes. Book One: Water, logically, used a very blue/green palette, tinting everything in cooler tones rather than broilingly hot. Book Two: Earth used, logically, earth tones -- it was all very warm and made a lot of use of the various shades associated with the element, even in some cases tinting the skies a warmer shade than they probably should have been, skin tones and everything.

Book Three: Fire is the most noticeable: red, red, everywhere. And gold. And black. Tones that really work brilliantly together, but are definitely fire-themed. It's also most noticeable simply because the characters shed their defining costumes for much of the season to blend into the Fire Nation.

The one thing that was largely unaffected by this palette-tint? Eye colour. Skin tones -- though consistent, always consistent, still were washed with some of the same tiny tints, but the most striking example of consistency is Water Tribe eye colour: always vivid blue, no matter what.

It's a really fascinating world, though not without its inconsistencies -- how rare is a bending talent? What defines it? Are all benders on the same essential power-level, and just limited by the scope of their imagination and ingenuity, or how they were trained? As an example, Toph vs. Bumi (oh, how I wish we could've seen those two cackling about Earthbending at one another) vs. Haru: perception and intuitive training vs. a hundred years' experience vs. semi-formal training, and Toph and Bumi are on similar levels of ability (I really have no doubt that Toph could duplicate anything that Bumi could do -- it's just a matter of her thinking to do it), but Haru is a run-of-the-mill Earthbender: is that just a lack of practice, or a lack of the ability to even reach that level?

Another weird thing: Firebending is common enough that they have many, many, many in their army. Same with Earthbending (but the Earth Kingdom seems to have the largest population/land to draw from, so that explains some of that), wheras Waterbending is both yes and no: Southern Water Tribe just has Katara left, but the Northern have enough Waterbenders that they can afford to only fully train the men? Admittedly, some of the SWT's lack is attributable to the Fire Nation's campaign...

It's also clear that Waterbending, as such, is not limited to the Water Tribe (see: Swampbenders); why is it that Aang is the 'last airbender', then? People with the talent must still be out there...

Also, the flyer for the Earthbending School seemed to hint that the talent is amazingly common. Confusing.

Mocking fandom's love of 'omg must repopulate the Airbenders!!!' is great, as seen by the video done by Avatar's creators. Hmm-mm. It's an interesting world to play around in and theorize about, particularly with some of the finale's information taken into account.

Free Range Kids is a site that advocates letting your kids do things independently. It was started by a woman who was on the news earlier this year for allowing her nine-year-old son to find his way home in the New York City subway, after giving him $20, a bunch of quarters for payphones if needed, a MetroCard, and a subway map -- because he'd asked to be allowed to find his own way home from somewhere.

He arrived home whole, healthy, and most likely bouncing with the excitement of having managed it on his own.

While I'm not likely to have kids, I have similar memories from growing up.

( Rambling about stuff I did growing up. )

It just seems weird that there's so little freedom allowed kids nowadays. I don't think it's a terribly dangerous world -- or at least, not moreso than when I grew up -- but it's just that it's more widely covered. Child Protection Services is a little overzealous in some cases... things like that.

Overboss just got a request from one of our customers to supply two copies of hardcopy manuals for the site. The problem is, they were perfectly happy with digital submissions before, and this project is as large as another we did have to submit hardcopy manuals for. That other job? Five full binders, each different topics, and counting: we're not done yet.

I don't know if we budgeted for this, or if Overboss is aware that because it was a digital submission before, we didn't arrange the files the same way we would for hardcopy and thus ...

... what the hell. :(

I do occasionally write fic, when an idea hits me. I am also very fond of Cissie King-Jones as a character, and was amazingly happy to see her in the Wonder Girl miniseries. The problem was the lack of explanation as to why she put the costume back on, and why they didn't try to talk to Bart about the ongoing issues, and so many other things.

Well, it's not an explanation, but it does touch upon some of the things that always bugged me.

( Short Cissie King-Jones vignettes below )

I think my video card on my desktop is going. If there's too much of a load on it, it overheats (and I've taken the card out and cleaned it out with canned air, but the fan seems gummy and I don't know how to clean it) and I lose all the red tones on my monitor. Even when it's not overheating, it tends to give me scrolling lines in the bottom half of the screen, particularly on some WoW textures (particularly the Quel'danas and Nagrand 'grass' texture) which is really frustrating.

Any suggestions? It's a NVIDIA GeForce 7600GS 256MB card, about a year and a half old now. I haven't had any problems that canned air didn't fix before, and right now, I can't really afford a new card, so I'm sort of stuck with trying to fix it. >_<;

Though admittedly, many of these are author recs over fic-recs...

1. Sakon76 -- Writes for Transformers (G1, movie) Kamen Rider, Princess Tutu (Seriously amazingly good sequel to Tutu!), Ouran and Weiss. I particularly recommend the TF movie fics and her Tutu fics.

2. An Cailin Rua, also tricolora on here. TF fic that makes you think -- something of 2007-verse crossed with G1. Also the source of the Iron Man/TF movie crossover that I hope to see more of soon, because the Tony-voice is perfectly written. Particular recommendations: Naturalized/Revelation.

3. Dwimordene, who writes Transformers movieverse fic that makes you think. The Transformers aren't humans in metal bodies, they're alien -- something that a lot of 'ficcers seem to forget -- and many of Dwimordene's fics deal with these differences. Particular recommendations: Bridges, Indefinite Objects.

4. S'TarKan, who writes for a number of different fandoms. Sometimes, his characterization is too much 'go back and fix the series and make characters powerful!', but the stories are well-written and enjoyable.

That's really all for now.

While I'm not certain where I stand on the illegal immigrant topic, I do know that it's not on the 'Screw them all, they're taking OUR LAND and making it THEIRS' side of things. The Statue of Liberty's inscription still rings in my mind as what I'd like this country to be: a melting pot of sorts. The other side of me points out that the inscription was made when there were still many more cheaply-available resources than before, and fewer public programs paid for by taxes.

That said, when I get a disapproving look and a 'Well, that's why we have the First Amendment!' from my boss for saying that I don't really find anything wrong with having street signs in another language, I feel rather uncomfortable.

His rhetoric on this subject is along the lines of, "They still hate us for having California. They've said, 'We'll take it back! If it has to be done one at a time, we'll take it back!'. I don't like when people come into my country and try to make it theirs."

My boss is a really nice guy, but it's things like that that make me really want to get out of here.

Rewatching the Wedding Special from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon yields the following observations:

1.) Shitennou: So very, very strange. Jadeite practically tries to trip Nephrite and beat him to the ground.
2.) Epic lulz: Mamoru remains the damsel in distress.
3.) Hahah, Edymion's shoulderpads make an unfortunate reappearance.
4.) Jadeite applauding wildly at the reconciliation between Mamoru and Usagi? Just reinforces the 'Oh god, the shitennou are so very strange' thing.
5.) A /motorcycle/, Mamo-chan? With Usagi in a wedding dress?
6.) Poor Mako-chan. A turtle-obsessed fiance. I suppose, though, the only two who would've gotten a good deal out of the fandom pairings of the shitennou and the senshi would be, like... Minako and Ami, given the drama's Nephrite and Jadeite's tendency towards being complete and utter idiots. (oh god, I can't believe I remember that image that well)
7.) No Crystal Tokyo in this storyline! Sadly, no Outer Senshi either. Oh well. I'd almost be afraid to see who they'd get to play Haruka anyway.

... yes, my ancient fandoms do occasionally pop up and bite me.

Bored and insomniac tonight.

( So, we're finding Things We'd Rather Not Think About... )

It's snowing. In June.

Somehow, I'm less surprised than I should be.

http://www.kalispellwebcam.com/

I think I have found one of the geekiest things ever.

A Transformers (movieverse) / Iron Man crossover fanfic.

That's not the geeky thing. The geeky thing is that it's actually REALLY GOOD.

No luck on the job front. I'm actually less crushed than I thought I would be. I'll just keep looking for something else in Seattle that I can be happy doing.

I think I'm more relieved to have an answer at this point than sad that I didn't get the job.

Still no response on job. Will call during afternoon break to see if I can't remind them -- but the question is, how to phrase that without being, "So, did you give the job to someone?"

Blah. >