Typical. The only time Telkom displays any promptness and efficiency is when they're cutting off my internet at 11pm sharp the day I reach my bandwidth limit.

I haven't seen the person inside the costume, but I have a crush on Bugs Bunny.

Last semester I had a really terrible lecturer. She rambled off topic (mostly about herself and her many degrees), contradicted herself, gave untrue information about current affairs, never gave clear and structured lectures, and overall I learnt absolutely nothing from her and didn't believe her to be fit to lecture an Honours class. Today in the paper I find out she's been officially charged with corruption due to paying her supervisor for "assistance" in getting her doctoral degree. If true that would explain a LOT.

The best thing about this is that she also lectured in Business Ethics.

I finally had my hair recoloured to its more natural tone.

Picture!

I love it so much more than the variety of blondes I've had over the past few years. The only reason I would ever go back to blonde would be if I wanted to cosplay Riesz, which has a probability of zero.

I leave for Chicago in less than two weeks, on my mom's birthday. I just remembered that I need to buy new socks. If I'm working for Warner Brothers, they probably won't love me too much if 90% of my socks have Donald Duck, Goofy, and all the rest of their Disney friends running around all over them.

More to come later, but the short version is that my visa to the US was approved today and I get to go to Chicago in three weeks. Yay!

My internet was capped today, but I went out and bought some more bandwidth just to play my new copy of Guild Wars: Nightfall (collector's edition). It was worth it, probably my favourite installment of the series so far. I just hope that I don't get to a point in the storyline where I lose interest, like I did with Prophecies and Factions. I usually start a new character when that happens, but since all my slots are full I should follow through some of my current ones and try to finish the games. Either way, I'm sure this is the only MMORPG I'll have time for until Age of Conan comes along in October.

The PS3 is due to be released in SA tomorrow. It retails at a whopping R6299 ($874), almost double the price of an XBOX360, so I wonder if many people will really care. I suppose I do care, but it can wait.

I'm getting some fairly big news next week. I really, really hope that it's good news.

A neat and fun little meme:

The Challenge: Assemble a superteam from your various fandoms.
Your team must consist of the following:
(1) Team Leader
(1) Warrior
(1) Smartypants
(1) Hottie
(1) Comic Relief
All your superteam members must be from DIFFERENT fandoms.

1. Team Leader: Samuel Vimes (Discworld). Can be as highly ranked as he likes, but he's still a street copper at heart. A combination of luck, pure nerve, and a bit of shouting on the side to hurry things along can get Vimes out of any predicament.

2. Warrior: Jayne Cobb (Firefly). Not always the first to leap into danger for the sake of his allies, but if you need someone to do the killings, there's no one better to watch your back. Just make sure he isn't holding a knife at the time.

3. Smartypants: Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich (Metal Gear Solid). Arguably the geekiest scientist ever, Otacon is not the bravest of sorts but will willingly put himself in danger to help his friends and make amends for his mistakes.

4. Hottie: Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) This was tough because I'm a fan of multi-talented women. But going for a babe who isn't overly useful in dangerous situations, Jessica is sexy, seductive, and drop-dead gorgeous, and could wind almost any man around her little finger.

5. Comic relief: Vyers aka Mid-Boss (Disgaea). Could there be anyone else for this position? From his significance in plot to his hilarious escapades, Vyers can make anything funny while still showing a serious side when it's absolutely necessary.

It took about 12 hours over the course of yesterday and this morning, but I finished the online portion of the lifeguarding course. It covered Professional CPR, Lifeguarding, First Aid, and Simulations section involving 10 Lifeguard scenarios, and was overall very educational and informative. I am ready to theoretically save some lives. Thankfully the MCQ test at the end was easier than the murderously difficult questions within the training. I only missed out on 100% because I broke the cardinal rule of multiple choice tests by going back and changing my answers.

The greatest news I've heard all week, Spielberg is going to make a Tintin movie. Although it's in pre-production, there's no official news as to whether it's going to be live-action or CG. I'm assuming it's going to be done in CG though. While I'd love to see what they would do with the story in a live-action film, I think CG would serve the essence and overall tone of the comic better.

Since I now have nothing engaging or interesting to occupy my time for the next day or two, a meme gently lifted from libra_dragon:
Ask me to take a pic of something and I'll try my best to oblige.

"These peoples spoke a similar language, arguing a common origin." - The Hyborian Age, Robert E. Howard.

Whenever I have to relate my surname to someone over the phone, I always, always with 100% certainty have to spell it at least once. Not so bad on its own, a lot of people have to do the same with theirs. What irks me slightly is trying to explain to people what an apostrophe is.

I've described it as a "floating comma", a "raised comma" (which occasionally leads to me explaining what a comma is), "the key to the left of the enter button" and many other things I have subconsciously chosen to forget. I was once spelling my name to someone and mentioned the apostrophe, and he told me not to swear at him. I could probably get away with disregarding the apostrophe completely, but that would make my inner editor scream in protest and make my name look even sillier. Oh well.

'

I feel like drawing, but I don't know what. So I'm taking requests for sketches. Humanoid characters preferred, don't expect anything brilliant but I'll try my best.

Thought briefly about getting WoW, but:
• Only the European server version is available here.
• The US version isn't available to import.
• I'm not a sociable enough gamer to play with people I don't know.
• Purchasing US prepaid cards throws me at the mercy of exchange rates.

Ah well, kind of relieved that the decision was made for me. Really looking forward to going to Cape Town in the next couple of weeks. It's one of my favourite places in the country but I haven't been there in almost 12 years. That isn't right.

I am having way too much fun with these.


It's so true. ;_;

( One or three more )

I haven't been able to get online lately because the scrooges at Telkom capped my internet last week and I only managed to get that sorted out today. Season's greetings to you too, Telkom. Learned something new from the experience though, I didn't even know that you could buy extra bandwidth. Useful knowledge to have, but I probably won't make a habit of it since it costs a cool R200 for an extra 2 gigs.

My neighbour sabotaged my disinterest in the XBOX 360 by showing me Gears of War. Fantastic game, loads of fun. But what are Barret and Cid Highwind doing in there?

My research is coming along far too slowly. I still need to dream up another 4000 or so (good) words for it within the next day or two, then deal with editing that horror. Alas, the twin demons of procrastination and distraction defeat me.

Assuming that the lecturers approve of my hasty ramblings, I may well have written my last final exam ever last week! I have plans for next year, but they almost certainly do not involve joining the corporate world along with most of my peers. Instead, they probably involve playing with rollercoasters for several months. How remarkably apt.

On an unrelated note, I feel like playing KotOR II: The Glitch Lords, but the game keeps crashing every few minutes despite the shininess of a new video card and running well below the graphical limitations of my machine. I suppose that's a hint to go and finish my research.

Laptop is still pretty screwed. Such is life. :\

( I have drawn daikichi. Excellent fortune! ) Cut for image.

Nanami, one of the young girl mages from Valkyrie Profile. She may look cute and innocent, but she will destroy you!

VP is so hot. I need to find or make Arngrim/Lawfer icons. *melts*

Ack. The laptop in my room is giving me a disk controller error on startup, and I don't know what to do with the thing.

It doesn't even belong to me. Typical.

Edit: Praise be! It seems to be working now (touch wood). I dont know why, since I highly doubt my clumsy meddling with the settings did any good. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. I'm too terrified to restart or shut down to check it's fully okay since I have next to no knowledge about hardware issues. Woe to my computer ineptitude.

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth arrived! It is glorious. Now to just figure out how to get Shining Force II (Mega Drive whoo!) playable on the PSP and I'll be immensely happy owning one of these systems.

Hm, half a revelation since I'm almost sure I've said a similar thing before. I was inner monologuing about the appalling state of my art earlier today, especially considering how long I've been at it (4 or 5 years on and off), but then I realised that I'm not supposed to be a full-time artist. Or even a part-time artist. I am a business person. LET US DO BUSINESS.

Drawing is just something I do when the mood hits, or when I've exhausted my other hobbies or activities of diversion. I'm not a fantastic artist, but then I don't call myself one. If I draw some art for myself that I like, that's great. If I draw some Shanart fanart of friends' characters (mostly RPGWWers) and they enjoy it and it brightens their day a bit, that's even better. The latter is why I started drawing in the first place, honestly.

Just something I've been wondering about for a while. Reminding myself that there's nothing wrong with persistently doing something you're not very good at, as long as you enjoy it.

Art is neat.

Just an inked sketch of one of gc130a's characters, Sharell, whom I like very much. Partly because I got to play with her pretty, pretty hair. Mmm. Will probably CG it later.

( Cut for image )

Nothing else to say. :\

I may as well put this back up.

( Cut because )

On the bright side, I am happy because I drew some thingies that I like. May post them later!

Had a good time yesterday meeting the groovy and all-round fun herne_kzn at the Howard College campus, which I haven't visited in many months. We had a chat over lunch, and I got to see part of the university's artifact collection that's been hidden away from me all these years.

( Rant about banks )

Okay, GW update finished. Ooh, hey, pretty new party formation screen.

- A blasted monkey pranced into my house and stole my last avocado pear! Cheeky little beastie, I was looking forward to that.

- VP: Lenneth is on import order from Take2. This warrants further investigation.

- I can't figure out how to make bullet points and the <3 symbol on a laptop keypad. This saddens me.

Edit: VP: Lenneth = ordered! Should be mine within the next week or two. Thanks much, CDWow! Used my brother's card for it, my brother is cool.

Damnit. Quit nudging me, romanycream. Update your own eljay, woman!

Due to proddings and inspiration from my RPGWW pals, I've started drawing a bit again. Unfortunately the tablet I have isn't sensitive enough for real use yet, so until I get more practice I'll just have to stick to ye olde pen and pencil.

dmscv's City of Heroes character, Sayrah.

( Cut for images )

That felt kind of good, it's been WAY too long since I last drew. A wordier update to come later.