"And when we dream, what stranger things there are,

Question for the astrology/mysticism/language/SMT fans....

2012-11-10T09:46:44Z

I compiled this pic from multiple PSP screencaps:

Couldn't get rid of all the vertical streaks in the background, because of how the Velvet Room is, but I tried to clean it up best I could.

Anyway, question is, what exactly is all the text on it? I know it's some sort of astrology chart -- planets and prolly elements and stuff? -- but I can't really make out the letters, and I'd like to recreate it, bigger.

This was taken from Persona 3 Portable... anyone have good clear caps of a fusion in progress in Persona 4, maybe? Or the PS2 P3 games? ....Able to fill me in on the words in this spread? Any help would be appreciated, here. :)

Edit: Cherry linked me to this:

"Nosebleeds"? lmfao. THANK YOU, CHERRY. XD

This entry was originally posted at http://ladyasul.dreamwidth.org/23057.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

Vocaloid music listing: My still-growing collection from Nico and Youtube, etc....

2012-06-11T13:42:17Z

Explanation and WTF this is:

WARNING: it may be TL;DR, but it's very informative!

You know how you can search YouTube for various Vocaloid songs, and most of everything that's up there is just a reprint from Nico? Oh, don't get me wrong, there's original stuff too, but it seems like we only ever see a few dozen really good songs get reposted on Youtube, and covered by almost every 'loid there is.

I'm not encouraging people to go out and start ripping songs from NND to repost them to Youtube, mind. In the words of one Japanese music producer who puts their stuff up on Youtube themselves, "Reprint[ing] is an unwanted favor." Although some producers are fine with their works gaining more exposure, there are producers that do not want their works reprinted: Check with them and get permission first!

I'm also not saying not to look for good Vocaloid music on Youtube. Some of the stuff that's there is just great, like Puffihn's songs. (She uses Miriam!)

But if you want more of the Japanese songs than the handful that've been reprinted on Youtube, and you don't read Japanese, and/or don't have a Nico Video account, this could be tricky. So, I'll help. See, there's this wonderful site, NicoSound, that just plays you the mp3s of various uploaded videos. And lets you download said mp3 files. It tells you the bitrates, length, etc etc. I wish someone would make a site on par with NicoSound for Youtube, really, but alas.

So I've gone on some song-downloading sprees, hunting for good ones, and am sharing some of the results of that here. There are some important bits you'll want to know, if you want to make any real use of this list.

First, almost every song listed here has its unique Nico or Youtube ID, and thus going to its url is but a copy-paste away. The ID is at the end of the filename, either sm#### or nm####, if it's a Nico ID (such as sm10811864) or else it's in parenthesis, after "yt" (example: "(yt WKIx8_HlgXI)") Either way, that's the key part of their url. To go to the songs on NicoSound, you paste the Nico ID just after http://nicosound.anyap.info/sound/ and to get to the ones on Youtube, you paste the ID just after http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= and then go to the resulting address. Sometimes I recorded both Youtube and Nico IDs; in those cases, the Youtube versions are usually subbed. More often than not, you'll find the Nico ID without a Youtube one; I was often looking directly on NicoSound for songs, whether by searching, or looking through the Related links (lower on the right, just like in Youtube!) and thus didn't see them on Youtube. They might be there, and sometimes I might even know for certain that they are, but for my mp3 collection, I was only concerned with the mp3 files. You can't subtitle those. ^_~

Second, a lot of the titles are translated into English when they were originally in Japanese. I used Google Translate, and if I had doubts as to its results (sometimes, Google simply couldn't do it at all!) I'd try translating it using several different sites' dictionaries, my own (paper) dictionary, and looking up the individual kanji meanings, if it used Kanji. Sometimes just getting the romaji was enough. I just want to be able to have something to easily call the songs, that I know how to pronounce, and that could be memorable so I can associate titles with songs. If you want the song's original title and it's not in the filename, try going to the Nico url.

Third, my lists surely look rather odd, but there is something resembling a method to their madness. When I first got into Vocaloid music, I threw all the songs I'd collected into just one folder. (There wasn't much Vocaloid music on Youtube, back in 2010, iirc, so this was, at the time, a reasonable enough move.) Then I fell in love with Gumi's amazing V3 appends and found out about NicoSound, and went on a song-gathering spree on my laptop. I put the songs into a folder called "new" to distinguish them from the songs I'd copied to my laptop's music folder from my desktop comp's, so I knew what to transfer to my desktop via USB drive, to keep my main music folder (on my desktop) up do date on that front. It went from there. "new 2" was the second folder-ful of Gumi songs I'd gotten, and this whole multiple-folders-of-new-stuff system was working great, for keeping everything together and not missing copying anything to keep the two music folders in synch.

I'm no longer keeping them in synch (had to reformat my laptop's hard drive a while back) but I found that it's still useful for sorting out downloading sprees. There's often a main theme of some sort to each New-labelled folder; sometimes I had a focus on one (or two?) particular characters' songs. Sometimes, I wasn't on any particular downloading spree, but just kept saving the random cool songs I'd stumble across to that folder until I felt it was full enough to start another folder. Some are a mix of the two, a small character-focused downloading spree (or two) plus some random songs. Hope this explains some of the odd combinations of songs in these lists. :)

Fourth, this list is (hopefully) going to be something I'll revisit to keep updated as I extract mp3s from various Youtube files, find the URL IDs for songs I missed getting them for (I didn't start recording their IDs until that first Gumi spree, you see! I've gone back and re-found a lot of the songs, but not all of them...) and add to my collection. I also can't guarantee that all of the IDs will still point to valid URLs; though they were valid when I copied them, I could've potentially mis-copied it (not so likely) or the video might've been taken down since I recorded that url for it (it's happened with several songs already.)

Fifthly, I'm always up for suggestions! If you have some good song recs, I'd love if you posted them here, Nico links preferred. Just give me the title, a note on who sings in it (if you know) and the ID. :) ...this is probably a good time to add the disclaimer that I'm not a fan of Miku or Rin, isn't it. I actually very much favor the voices of Gakupo, Gumi, Kaito, VY2 Yuuma, Yuzuki Yukari, Al and Tonio. (But those last two have to be used right. Users have to pay close attention to Al's pronunciation, and have Tonio sing a style he can do. Which means the opera 'loids doing Lady Gaga covers is not something anyone should try suggesting. Them actually being used to do opera, on the other hand? Yes please!) I'm also rather fond of Prima, Ann, Miriam, Leon, Lola, Kiyoteru, Iroha, and Kaai Yuki. I'm in the air about Luka. She has to be used right, for me. Like, in a duet with Gakupo, or a really good song like Stardust Utopia. Meiko, Piko and Len are okay too, but the two boys I'm more iffy on; they sound a lot better to me with their voices pitched down.

I haven't much gotten into many of the V3 banks, but I think you can already predict some of my tastes, just from that list. Like, Oliver's fine if used right, but using him correctly doesn't often mean using him for songs I'd listen to as much as the songs I already have. (Lol, and here I am listening to Prima's version of Ave Maria -- sm2991361)

You might not want to try suggesting UTAU songs unless they're of rather extraordinary quality somehow. If you actually like the average UTAU songs' sound, then by all means, compile your own lists of them. And yes, I do have a few UTAU songs in here, but only a few, for having a surprisingly good near-Vocaloid1-quality sound, or pure earworminess, or whatever the reason. But see, my usual personal aversion to Teto and her ilk is far greater than my dislike of Rin or Miku.

And Miku really doesn't need anyone's help in promoting her. XD

Sixthly, if anyone wants any of the individual mp3s, especially the ones not up on Nico or Youtube any more, or that I haven't/can't figure out the source url for, just point out which ones. I'll put them up in my MediaFire account, and put the link after their listing. :) Converting an mp4 or flv to mp3 will often result in lowered quality, sad but true. Not everyone can hear the sound artifacts and distortions introduced with lower bitrates, but some can (like me) and it drives them batty. Ripping mp3s from mp4s, and preserving their quality in full, is something of an art form. (Actually, it involves looking at the file's bitrates and figuring out what the minimum bitrate you need to re-encode it at is, to prevent the further loss of quality, and then re-encoding at or a little above that bitrate. Taking the 128kbps audio of an mp4 file and re-encoding it at 320kbps for mp3 format does not improve the quality, and while it does preserve it without further degredation to speak of, it also wastes space; that file will end up being about nearly three times the size it needs to be. If you have a smaller-capacity MP3 player, that's what you call a problem.

NicoSound has already extracted the mp4 audio into mp3 files for your doanloading ease: look below the preview-pic with the author's comments, under the song data that lists playtime, bitrate, downloads/streams, and that other fun info. You'll see three buttons with blue links in them. The rightmost says "MP3 を抽出" -- that's your friend; that link is to download the mp3 file.

Youtube has no such nice feature. If a song has both Nico and Youtube IDs, I probably got the mp3 from NicoSound. If it only lists Youtube, then I probably downloaded it from the file linked in the description (in the case of original postings, not reprints) or if it was a reprint, extracted them from the mp4 myself, being careful about the bitrates as always. I'm totally willing to save you guys the trouble, and upload my extracted-from-Youtube-mp4s mp3 files.

As it is, I'm considering zipping up the folders (into parts, for some) and uploading them like that, too, for ease of collecting. What do you think? Would letting 7zip split them be a good idea, or should I just make separate zip files for some of the mp3s and split it manually like that?

ON WITH THE LISTS!

Loose Files:

99 Red Balloons [Sonika] (1) (yt eR6PZ4ilR2M)
All of Me [Big Al] (yt leJJHk-R-PU)
Asymmetry [Len] sm6893771
Baby One More Time (Britney Spears) [Gakupo] (yt RpC0qF0GnZA)
Believe (Cher) [Lola] (yt O3Li-6kQ5SY)
Big Al's Blues [Al] sm9211569 (yt -eODeXX8poc)
Breathe [Gakupo] sm6096404
Burial Dance (original song) [Gakupo] sm12447574
Butterfly - Right Shoulder (Migikata no Chou - Len orig.) [Gakupo] nm7298702
Butterfly (Original Song) [Gakupo] sm4144990
Butterfly (Where's My Samurai) short version sing along [Luka] (yt lXqZY1a7J3Y)
Butterfly on Your Right Shoulder [Gakupo Luka] (yt Bi-uJVtEfog)
Caged Baby Dragon [Luka] sm7420165
Cantarella (Full - low-ish tone) [Gakupo] sm4431297
Cantarella [Gakupo Rin] (elsewhere IDEK)
Castle on a Cloud [Kaai Yuki] sm12515247
Christmas with you [Gakupo] original - nm9127270
Crazy [Ann] (yt ueqORKkS6Qo)
Disappearance of Gakupo (slow mix) sm4774811
Disappearance of Kaito (yt dgWvpj9sQ84 from dl link)
Disco☆Chocolat [Yuki] sm9569325
Duke of Venomania's Madness [mostly Gakupo] sm11519178
E.T. [Luka] (yt MpzQJal1Xj0)
Eighty Degree Halloween! (original goofiness) [Tonio Al] (yt Q8ZvXs-0U1E)
Fireflies (Owl City) [Gakupo] (yt 51ihEb2zmoE)
Fireflies (Owl City) [Lola] (yt wKDA8Rm1N0A)
Fleeting Moon Flower (English Sub) [Kaito Gakupo Len] sm9422444 (yt kkzVA2LAndQ)
Fly Me To The Moon (Jazzy) [Luka] sm6030631mp3
Fly Me To The Moon (SSB BOOST Mix) [Luka] sm13299026
Fly Me To The Moon [Gakupo] nm6140594
Fly Me To The Moon [Luka] nm6030590
Fly me to the moon [Miriam] sm1062684
GakupoWhisper + GakupoPower samples (V3) nm17655205
Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne) [Gakupo] (yt QpdoVzoYsdM)
God is Dead (Dance of the Vampires) [Gakupo] sm5012553
Google It (GGRKS) [Gakupo and Luka] sm6184115 (yt AjbTHFJf6FE)
Grandfather's Clock [Al] sm9421440 (yt 2Vzyh5VHR2s)
If I Were A Rich Man (Fiddler On The Roof) [Big Al] (yt YclzIZRvYsw)
Im Too Sexy (Right Said Fred) [Al] sm9789427 (yt QM7XylR4LNg)
Imitation Black (English Subs) [Gakupo Kaito Len] sm7215575 (yt H22xjO-lTtg)
Interstellar Flight [Luka] sm6067445
Jingle Bells Rock [Al Miku] sm9187002
Just a game (original was Gumi) [Gakupo] sm11570973 (yt oUeU58mPkvc)
KAITO soft append alpha-demo - Karakuri tokei to koi no hanashi (からくり時計と恋の話) (yt etdsxkcd__U)
Last Winter [Kaito and Gakupo] sm5320752
Lighthouse (original) [Gakupo] nm7536888
Magnet [Al Tonio Kaito Leon]
Mary Jane [Al] sm9280244
Misty Sky (original) [Gakupo] nm10422075
Monkey Magic (DS-10 and SX-150) [Al] sm9238446
My Heart Will Go On (Celine Dion) [Prima] (yt 3rIm6VVwhpg)
My Way (Def Techカバー) [Leon Al] sm13612389
Pachelbel Canon [Miku Len Rin] sm1942834
Pane dhiria (cover) [Gakupo] sm10083370
Paranoid Doll [Gackt] sm8221175
Paranoid Doll [Gakupo] sm7706816
PHANTOM (Full ver. - BETTER MIX) [Leon] sm7911412
Philosopher's Wishes [YV1] sm15873563
Piano x forte x scandal [Gakupo] sm7314219
Rolled [Gakupo] sm5379015
Rumor of Yours （Kimi no Uwasa) (DEMO SONG!) [Kaito] sm2498167
Specimen Girl (Original Song) [Gakupo] (not on Nico or YT any more)
Specimen Girl translation ~Narumo on deviantART.url
SPICE! [Gakupo] sm9588458
Stainless Moon - Re-Birth [Gakupo] sm11574592 (yt NqhDOTlCaoU)
Stardust Utopia [Luka] nm5988510
Still Alive (Portal) [Sonika]
Still Alive [Kiyoteru]
Sway [Al] (yt GiTnEj_TdBc)
Tailor Shop on Enbizaka [Luka] sm9032932 (yt Sg1mwobY-B8)
The Gambler (Eng subs) [Gakupo] sm6568088 (yt FUesvka1af4)
Tonio's first demo song
Transmit [post-puberty Len] sm7269191 (yt ZR9pOMHgnyw)
Tu vuo fa l' americano [Tonio and Al] sm11367773
Uninstall (fast mix) [Gakupo]
Uninstall [Gakupo] sm4250830 (yt Bg59ZCLH0Is)
Uninstall [Gumi] sm7551697 (yt w8pRiC1ndPo)
UpsideDown [Gakupo] nm11445860 (yt db2Hu5x4oYo)
Want you gone (Portal 2) [Al] (yt ke2Ny5HVNNE)
White Lie [Oliver] (yt jn3_bJpCXKg)
WishingOnTheSameStar VOCALOID -neutrino version (take 1) [Iroha and others] sm13405841

New:

A Flash of Summer [Gumi Sweet] nm15714610
Be MYSELF [Gumi] (yt CuVlKn8nrQA)
Be MYSELF [Nakajima Megumi]
Black and White World Ocean [GumiWhisper] sm15972859
By the crowd saw the pants Omomuroni (wtf Google Translate) [GumiSweet] sm15947830
Competition Hypnosis [GumiPower] sm15699585
Fly Me To The Moon [GumiWhisper] (yt WbTEKLDBJG4)
Gumi sample from v2
Gumi sample from v3
It's Raining [GumiSweet] sm15699979
NIGHTMARE [GumiPower] nm15711290
No Sense of Direction [GumiWhisper GumiPower] sm15948862
Peace [GumiWhisper GumiPower] sm15948824
Perfume [GumiWhisper] sm15988564
Puppy Love Story - Music Box With Puppy Love [GumiSweet] sm15950938
Rhapsody [GumiWhisper] sm15970769
Secret Base With Holes [GumiSweet] sm15948939
Showroom Dummy [GumiAdult] nm15713658
Smile Over My Books [GumiWhisper] sm15956674
Snowdust Memory [GumiSweet] sm15742608
Stay Out [GumiSweet] nm15954753
Sweet Shackles [GumiSweet] sm15944368
Sweet Waltz [GumiAdult] sm15961808
The World After The Rain [GumiSweet] sm15950744
Two Palms [GumiPower] sm15981685
Waltz for stranger [GumiWhisper] nm15715386

New - Prima and Tonio:

Apres un reve - Gabriel Faure [Tonio] sm12827100
Ave Maria Gounod [Prima] sm2991361
Crocodile Tears [Prima] sm5398620
Des Irae (Day of Wrath) - Requiem [Prima and everyone] nm4773902
Falsky (original song) [Prima] sm3044247
Garden (original song) [Prima] sm2048734
Melody From The Sky [Prima and Miriam] sm4413849
Nessun Dorma - Turandot - Giacomo Puccini [Tonio] sm15014164
Princess Mononoke song [Prima] sm3159993
Tchaikovsky - Fifth Symphony 1st Movement [Tonio and Prima] sm13067691
Tchaikovsky - Fifth Symphony 2nd Movement [Tonio and Prima] sm13078053
Tchaikovsky - Fifth Symphony 3rd Movement [Tonio and Prima] sm13087038
Tchaikovsky - Fifth Symphony 4th Movement [Tonio and Prima] sm13099381
Tonight (West Side Story) [Prima] sm3121596
White - The Color of Love [Prima] sm2624901

New 1:

Addicted to Nothing [Gumi] sm13671521
After Dreams... [Gumi] nm7849292
After The Rain [Gumi] sm8654700
BLUE BUTTERFLY [Gumi] nm7291610
Candy Tear [Gumi] sm12271660
Cherry Blossoms [Gumi] sm9151804
Ciao-n!! (Over Tea!) [Gumi] sm7458795
Dear Rainbow [Gumi] sm12701343
Envy [Gumi] sm13168321
Finger Memory [Gumi] nm10401765
Frustrated Non-Smoking Song [Gumi] sm9993350
Gift [Gumi] sm7473845
Girl Moratorium [Gumi] sm7467102
Glitch [Gumi] sm11437634
Glued Sky [Gumi] sm11234673
Hot Spring BeBop-Rock [Gumi] sm7458912
Hubble [Gumi] sm7966666
Light Barrier [Gumi] sm7454539
Love Quiche Pan [Gumi] nm12359479
Over and Over [Gumi] sm12424867
Possibles [Gumi] nm7654705
Proud Beat No.8 [Gumi] sm7547144
Rainy Day, Your Song [Gumi] sm7652706
Read Only Memory [Gumi] nm7509252
Rendezvous [Gumi] sm10262265
Sabishingaru [Gumi] sm13029537
Song In My Heart [Gumi] sm9539583
Star Orchid Road [Gumi] nm7569227
Stargazer [Gumi] sm8273457
Starless Sky [Gumi] sm12690576
The Frightening Squeeze [Gumi] sm11854770
Twinkle Pain [Gumi] sm7536163
Wake Up! [Gumi] nm7499570
Young Graffiti [Gumi] sm12894879

New 2:

A Little Ogre [GumiWhisper] sm15955790
As The Light [GumiPower] sm15963830
Beyond the Spectacle of the World [GumiWhisper] sm15882016
Black and White [Gumi] sm15653653
Colors of the Rainbow Spectrum [GumiWhisper] sm16012317
Comet [Gumi GumiPower GumiWhisper] sm15945573
Dream Recoder [GumiWhisper] sm16050285
Eye Sensor [GumiPower] sm15785925
Hangnail [GumiWhisper] sm15949035
Heart Drawn In Arcadia [Gumi] sm12981881
Hug [GumiWhisper] nm15949032
Limit of Closure [Gumi] sm14810550
Lost [GumiWhisper GumiPower] sm16020496
Love Is Cool [GumiPower] sm15983823
Luna Light [GumiWhisper] sm16010322
New Birth [GumiPower] sm15983823
Noir [GumiPower] nm15944652
Raptured [GumiWhisper] sm16004915
Restart [GumiPower] sm15947029
Revolving lantern - demo ver. [GumiWhisper] sm15989477
Sayonara Midnight [GumiWhisper] sm15965793
Spirale [GumiPower] nm15985469
To Those Who Dream of Adventure [GumiWhisper] sm15944856
Twilight Rocket Booster [Gumi] sm15492477
You Find The Crystal Clear Blue [GumiWhisper] sm15947186

New 3 - Kaito:

Created [Kaito] sm2669063
Gong Pure Land [Kaito] sm6673279
Hana Penglai - Houraika [Kaito] sm7000665
Infinite Loop [Kaito] sm9228896
Moon Rain [Kaito] nm4841567
Pane dhiria (original) [Kaito] nm9437578
Pane dhiria (SPTM mix) [Kaito] sm15605232
Red Love Story (incomplete - preview) [Kaito] sm6991771
Sadness Of My Heart (ver.4) [Kaito] sm10476886
Singing Land (fixed) [Kaito] sm3744821
Sky Wind Song Road [Kaito] sm10534531
Thousand-Year Solo Song [Kaito] sm3122624
Una Voce [Kaito] sm9627008

New 3b - Kaito - Infinite Loop producer (Osechi):

★お試しリスト★ ‐ ニコニコ動画(原宿).url
1000presents××××[オメデトウ] [Kaito] sm3724336
Aoi-so- (April Fool's) [Kaito] sm6629366
aqua blue (original) [Kaito] sm7910134
Ashibi (Lily) (馬酔木) (original) [Kaito] sm16155554
BabyPowder (original) [Kaito] sm6215016
Boys' Era (Shounen Jidai) (少年時代) (cover) [Kaito] sm8091789
ChocolateRomance (original) [Kaito] sm5698961
crow (original) [Kaito] sm3381164
Cute (original) [Aquestone] sm8804768
Disappear (original) [Kaito] sm5211336
Dolce (original) [Aquestone] sm7560435
epilogue (original) [Kaito] sm13739075
Famima ◎△＄♪×￥●＆％＃？！[ファミマ入店音] [AquesTone] sm8327888
Fantasy☆land (original) [Kaito] sm11174320
FishIce 2nd stage[CDデモ] [Kaito AquesTone] sm12413008
float (original) [Kaito] sm5699287
Flower Umbrella (Hana Kasa) (華傘) (original) [Kaito] sm4583965
Hajimemashite (ハジメマシテ) [Kaito AquesTone] sm6882185
HalloweenGirl (original) [Kaito] sm5000262
happybirthday (MEIKOオメデトウ) [Kaito] sm5159759
HAPPYBIRTHDAY／2010 (Flash) [Kaito] sm9857624
HAPPYBIRTHDAY／2011 (４話のアレ) [Kaito] sm13629286
ice cream (original) [Kaito] sm3274065
Little Mermaid (original) [Kaito] sm3274450
Ｍ (original) [Kaito] sm4412995
MoviePanic (original) [Kaito] sm3310404
on Christmas day (original) [Kaito] sm5649446
Oni and Daughter (or girl) (Oni to Musume) (鬼と娘) (original) [Kaito] sm3760839
Pollution (original) [Kaito] sm4584198
Re：SmileBox (original) [Kaito] sm4880349
Real pressure (original) [Kaito] sm14542283
Receive (original) [Kaito] sm3222294
Scissors (original) [Kaito] sm8423823
SmileBox (original) [Kaito] sm3381082
Stray child's Alice (original) [Kaito] sm3940314
Stray child's Alice-long- (original) [Kaito] sm4133018
Tanabata (Sonota Taisei) (七夕[その他大勢]) [Kaito] sm3880682
the last flight (original) [piano-instrumental] sm13185498

New 4:

Alone Again (Naturally) - Gilbert O'Sullivan [Al] sm10506711
Basket of Lilies [Gakupo] sm14109247
Blue Mother Earth [Sonika and others] sm8475905
Brocade Dance (Nikishi no Mai) (Remix) [Gakupo] sm8620311
Caribbean Journey [mixed choir] sm7497262
Carrying You (English version) [Al] nm10892232
Chaining Intention [Piko(Older)]
D.O.P.E. [Gakupo] (sm4327357)
Dancing Samurai (original) [Gakupo] sm4136912
Dignified as the Blooming Flowers (Rintoshi te Saku Hana no Gotoku) (凛として咲く花の如く) [Gakupo] nm5306048
Dreaming Little Bird (Yumemiru Kotori) [Gakupo Luka] sm6948152
DYE [Luka] (yt A8HMGNuSyJo)
Gale (fixed) [Gakupo] sm4523743
Just be friends (Piano version) [Gakupo] sm8516807
Just the way you are [Al] (yt oojn04kJvd4)
Kuri Muzon (くりむぞん) Shooting Star ver. (CREST) (cover) [Gakupo] sm7846984
Livin' La Vida Loca (English Ver.) [Al] sm13937629
Livin' La Vida Loca (Spanish Ver.) [Al] sm13033571
Love is Not Enough (Ai ga Tari Nai) [Gakupo] sm4160570
Melodies Of Life (FF9) [Kaito] (yt 8TRXYiTuz88)
Pantsu nugeru mon! - Shower Edition Collection - 1st Single [Piko] (yt KlNoUHiUGOg)
Project FRUiTY- Type your text here (FL-chan) (yt kYOticberyY from dl link)
Project FRUiTY- Type Your Text Here (FL-chan) (yt kYOticberyY from dl link).rar
Puff The Magic Dragon - Peter Paul and Mary [Al] sm16034271
Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head (BJ Thomas) [Al] sm10235897 (yt ncnmajovnWY)
Scarlet Dragon Sound, Mini Garden Grounds (Senkou no Ryuu Naku Hakoniwa Kyori) (鮮紅ノ龍啼ク箱庭拠リ) [Gakupo] sm7985855
Take On Me [Kaito] (yt CfNcWZYiF9M)
Tsugai Kogarashi [Luka Gakupo] (yt WKIx8_HlgXI)
Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai [Al] sm11234940

New 5:

Bad Apple!! (Touhou) [Gumi] sm8841091
Beat Beat Tick Tick (original) [Al] (yt TJgOSacLvFg)
Beauty of Destiny (TV Size) (Persona4Animation) [Al Luka] sm16157825
Cherry Trees at Evening Wine Princess [Luka Gakupo] nm10053376
Cool Attraction [Sonika] (sonika-vocaloid.com)
Danny Boy [Al] sm10017927
Digital Love (Daft Punk) [Leon] (yt muxNqEDFrAk)
Dinky Dink No Time To Think [Sonika] (sonika-vocaloid.com)
Dublin Jack of All Trades [Al Miriam Rin Len Luka] sm9362695
Embraced in Your Arms [Luka Gakup] sm9500726
Golden Slumber [Al] sm12612735
Gravity (cover) [Al] sm11839478
Hungry Spider (English Version) [Al] sm10976495
Imagine (John Lennon) [Al] sm12222453
Just The Way You Are (Billy Joel) [Tonio] (yt BXS5zek31I8)
Last Dance (original) [Al] (yt iAZeGqXqpfo)
Lion Sleeps Tonight [Sonika] (sonika-vocaloid.com)
Little Toy Robot [Al] sm9489619
Melancholy Nihilism [Gakupo] sm14171936
Minerva's Owl [Luka Gakupo] sm6424003
MONZETZ [Luka Gakupo] sm10599375
Pretty Woman [Leon Al Tonio] sm13776944
Pursuing My True Self (Persona4) [Luka] sm16119791
Ring my Bell [Sonika] (sonika-vocaloid.com)
Salamander (ELLEGARDENカバー) [Al] sm9380554 (yt ySUW14RyTYM)
Scarborough Fair [Tonio Al] (yt UmRo6m5fpqU)
Sky's the Limit (Persona4Animation) [Luka] sm16253892
Sky's the Limit (TV Size) (Persona4Animation) [Luka] sm16126142
Sonika Says (sonika-vocaloid.com)
Susanita Rock [Kaito Sonika] (sonika-vocaloid.com)
Tears In Heaven (cover) [Al] sm13452562
The Minstrel Boy (Irish Folk Song) [Miriam] sm11241184
The Neverending Story - Limahl [Luka] sm6088004
The night of vampire [Gakupo] sm12447628
The Stranger (Billy Joel) [Al Luka] sm16075621
Thriller [Tonio Sonika] (yt hdhcP2mpNG8 (from dl link))
Time To Say Goodbye (Sarah Brightman) [Luka] sm8520393
Ultra Seven (Ultraman) [Al] sm9294928
UR not in My Heart [Sonika Al] sm9727466
We Will Rock You (Queen) [Meiko Luka Ann] sm9417018 (yt WJLIC8JAEKs)
When All Heaven And Earth Were Made [Luka Gakupo] sm9301201
Wondering (Donna Burke) [Miriam] sm9720773
World's End Dance Hall (piano rock ver.) [Luka Gakupo] sm15245979
Yesterday [Al] sm11378349
Yesterday [Tonio] sm11384449
Yesterday Once More (Carpenters) [Luka] sm6563666

New 6:

Ave Maria acapella (Caccini) [Toniox3 Al] sm16312565 (yt U72KfudI19k)
Ban Kogarashi (original) [Meiko Kaito] sm4794708
Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day) [Ann] (yt Ams7flHLgVA)
Dawn of the East, Dusk of the West [Meiko Kaito] sm5717989
Denkitribe - AquesTone Vocal Synthesizer (yt KIHT4P1W35o)
Forgetting Suicide [Meiko] sm1587618
Human Genome [Meiko] sm5152120
I'll Sing a Duet [Kaito1.0 Kaito1.1] sm6096853
Irohaa Uta [Kaito]
Killing me softly with his song [Lola] sm1042107
Kowase Kowase [Meiko] sm13047806
Moral Forest [Meiko] sm7012231
Night Illusion (original) [Ann] sm12156078 (yt 7KTXcxBA59k)
Puffihn - Bad Guy [Lola] (yt U-VXCwA0j1Q (from dl link))
Puffihn - Blue [Miriam] (yt IbVJmaobmlk (from dl link))
Puffihn - Counting [Miriam] (yt pNbJ9GcAonU (from dl link))
Puffihn - Lonely Flight (Logan IV Remix) [Miriam] (yt PvdX1v9fBeY)
Puffihn - Lonely Flight (Logan IV Remix) instrumental [Miriam] (yt PvdX1v9fBeY (from dl link))
Puffihn - Lonely Flight [Miriam] (yt _1vxgACDki4 (from dl link))
Puffihn - Only a Dream [Miriam] (yt FaLw2ggJFPY (from dl link))
Puffihn - Perfect Day [Miriam] (yt O5ju8S-ABCU (from dl link))
Puffihn - Secret Space [Miriam] (yt 6rw6mJZ_RS0 (from dl link))
Puffihn - Sunset [Miriam] (yt g0DBqFvJm6s (from dl link))
Puffihn - Untitled 1 [Miriam] (yt QgwdPucqMvc (from dl link))
Puffihn - Untitled 2 [Miriam] (yt Cu5_hqgqSlI (from dl link))
Puffihn - Without Us [Miriam] (yt rEoEAYLAQVs (from dl link))
Satellite [Miki] sm9085950
Shima Uta Vocaloid [Kaito]
Small World (Chiisanasekai) [Meiko] sm2036136
When You Wish Upon A Star (Zero-G Ruby Festival) [Miriam] sm14890300

New 6b - Muzehack:

Muzehack - Alright [Leon] (yt UEx8dLB4Uv8)
Muzehack - Be My Baby [Lola] (yt 5nwR6P-9QEI)
Muzehack - Bring on the Night [Lola] (yt iMQs3HCWUDI)
Muzehack - Darren Hayes - Darkness (DJ Semaj White Room Mix)
Muzehack - Destruction (beatless mix) [Leon]
Muzehack - Destruction [Leon] (yt SQxw022uEn0)
Muzehack - Footsteps [Miriam] (yt EH1I3gAo4A4)
Muzehack - Forever [Lola] (yt erRndneO90M)
Muzehack - From Flat to Fabulous
Muzehack - I Still Want U [Leon] (yt 2I3_nBNjABw (from dl link))
Muzehack - If I Had My Way [Leon] (yt vNHDdzvqn-0)
Muzehack - Joy to the World [Leon] (yt QrRjiINVdhU)
Muzehack - Love and Hate [Leon] (yt f2u5nc9OU9w)
Muzehack - Never Too Late For Now [Leon] (yt t0tLqhlDRks (from dl link))
Muzehack - Out of Sync
Muzehack - Retroactive
Muzehack - Right By Your Side [Leon] (yt DCpm061Js0s)
Muzehack - Say It [Leon] (yt AXGbKTdJwms)
Muzehack - Secret Heart [Leon] (yt OcoPfmx3x6g)
Muzehack - Silent Night [Leon] (yt SfEtz-cQWmE)
Muzehack - Starshine [Leon] (yt GCzmnT9BevE)
Muzehack - Strange Music(D&Bish) [Miriam]
Muzehack - Take My Hand [Lola] (yt FUAVLKs2D7g)
Muzehack - Take Some Time [Leon] (yt 2dNLkLtQHes)
Muzehack - TranceFusion - Island
Muzehack - Winterkill
Muzehack - Without You [Leon] (yt BNiGU0uE-AE)
Muzehack - Zombies In Your Head [Lola] (yt l3Y_-f-_vco)

New 7:

A Born Coward (Ama no jaku) (天ノ弱) [Gumi] sm14583646 (yt Rcg5Gdw9gTI)
Alejandro v4 [Al] (yt sKdLfZO0PlQ (from dl link))
Amazing Grace [Prima] sm3010876
An Answer to Hatsune Miku (初音ミクへの回答) [Kaito] sm1067989
ao - kaito kaossilator sm4131273
Beethovan - symphony 9 movement 4 in D minor (full) [Gakupo Al Luka Miku] sm15674393
Breaking Point (Shatter Mix) [Al] (yt 3Z2RwobRWU0 (from DL link))
Dance in the Rain (original) [Luka] sm10771635
Flower Tail [Kaito] sm13944678 (yt VGbIjs9SIE8)
Gray People [GumiWhisper] sm16863410
Hurting for a Very Hurtful Pain (Aching For Agony) [VY2 VY1.V3] sm16658127 (yt csxR8BvLqF8)
I'm By Your Side [Gakupo Luka] sm6036074
Journey's End, Sky's Lament [Kaito] sm13722851
KiLLER LADY [Gumi] sm14705584 (yt -eJl0DQWni4)
Life-Sized Godzilla to Tokyo (等身大のゴジラ　東京へ) (original) [Kaito] sm4981995
Meltdown [Kaito] sm9219510
Mist (Missing Love) [Gakupo Luka] sm9249442
Pain of the Sins [Gakupo] sm15166400
Scarborough Fair - full [Oliver] (yt 09bh_9cFT2M)
Song of the World Without You -short- (君のいない世界の歌－ｓｈｏｒｔ－) (original) [Kaito] nm17516470
SWITCH [Kaito] sm10811864
The Longest Time [Leon] sm4028235
Valentine's Delusion [Kaito and Gakupo] sm6129607
Wailing Cage (original) [Gakupo] sm12442753
Yellow (Coldplay) [Oliver] (yt hf_c3YbXegA (from dl link))
Yesterday [Oliver] sm16486511 (from dl link)

Vew 7b - Xiena-Project (lol Potato):

Affection [Prima] nm16977544
Independence [Kaito] nm16917545
More (original) [Lola] nm14866120
NO,NO.NO! (original) [Kaito] sm14744212
Okuribito (オクリビト) [DARK] [Miku] sm16544820
Potato! [Kaito] nm16669238
S.O.I [Meiko Kaito Miku Rin Len Luka Gumi Gakupo] nm16960122
どんぐりボロボロ [Al] nm16681083
雨降りのバス停で [Luka] nm16638878

New 8:

(listing pending -- a friend of mine is collecting this one. ♥)

New 9 - Yuzuki Yukari:

(has Jingle Bells and other stuff but odd title) (original) [Yukari] sm16509741
Merry Christmas Without You -Lusent- [Yukari] sm16518921
Moon Bond Song (Setsu Getsu Ka) [YuzukiYukari] sm16489919
Theory of Killing [Yukari] sm16613114

New 10:

code altered [GumiV3] sm16403090
code altered [live singers covering a Gumi song] sm16530617 (yt 9oG2Hr0Kmuk)
Cyber Thunder Cider [VY1] sm15440067
Cyber Thunder Cider [VY1 50+Chorus] (yt yS3MnEljCWk from dl link)
Cyber Thunder Cider [VY1 NicoChorus] sm15873465
Freedom Outside (Dance of the Vampires) (外は自由／ミュージカル『ダンス・オブ・ヴァンパイア』) [GumiV3s VY2] sm17270113
Guilty Verse [Kiyoteru] sm10037227
Let It Be (Beatles) [Ann] (yt W010620_W4Q (from dl link))
Love's Sun Song [Kiyoteru] sm9040181
Mad World [Oliver] (yt 2rIl2YJoXGk)
Magnet [Gakupo Luka] sm9351287
Matryoshka v.2 [Gakupo VY2] (yt -NMWYxe8jXg)
Miyabi Uta (雅唄) -FULL BLOOM Edition- ver. [Gakupo] sm15053653
Miyabi Uta (雅唄) Rock Arrange Ver. [Gakupo] sm15108010
Miyabi Uta (雅唄)～みやびうた～ (original) [Gakupo] nm6313530
Mosaik Roll [Gumi] sm11398357
Poker Face [Gumi] sm12894209 (yt _lIR3J9fQdw)
Powder (original) [Gakupo Luka] sm13385986
Raindrops [Oliver] (yt D23aBPOc6g)
Scarborough Fair - Canticle [Al] sm10199733
Scarborough Fair [Ann] (yt hB3nQ0zUrfE)
Scribe's Humble Song of Thanks to The World Below [EnochUTAU] sm16915340
The Longest Time [Al 4xUTAUs] sm11258527 (yt ahm_FlO8-4c)
the Red Sea (original) [Gakupo Luka] sm8758977
Time with you -MEIKO ver.- (by shu-t - original) [Meiko] sm9527140
White Thread Bits (Shiraito Shou) (白糸抄) (Original) [Gakupo Luka] sm11551377
Yuzen (友禅) (original) [Gakupo Luka] sm9262636

New 11 - UTAU:
Egoistic Boy (original) [UTAU - naoomirutoroto] sm16333600
Unhappy Refrain [LucifelUTAU + EnochUTAU] sm14523417

Misc (still being sorted/ripped/kept for the vids more than the songs/etc):

Carrot Love Song and short drama [Gumi and Gakupo] sm7460103 (yt ByqAiyaByDU)
God's An Energy Cheapskate [Gumi] sm16895801 (yt gjc0n4MiaUQ)
ICE! (full version) (parody) [Kaito] sm5405840 (yt v30of8gzu5k)
ICE! (full version) (parody) [Kaito] sm5405840 (yt v30of8gzu5k).txt
I Forgot [Gakupo] (E subs) sm9865890 (yt SOh0Zfp_3SQ)
Lord Of Darkness - Yami No Ou (English Subs) [Kaito] (yt DjRDUVGiaRA)
Melodies Of Life (FF9) [Kaito] (yt 8TRXYiTuz88)
My Ice Cream Is Melting (AISU ga MELT) (Melt Parody) [Kaito] sm2435365 (yt shf49MOhbqQ)
My Ice Cream Is Melting (AISU ga MELT) (Melt Parody) [Kaito] sm2435365 (yt shf49MOhbqQ).txt
Onii Yuukai [Rin Miku Luka Kaito] (Eng sub) (yt 2tOwg6CPrHg)
Owata [Gakupo] (yt yaxJjW9GqfE)
Piano x Forte x Scandal (full) [MeikoAppend] (yt EAhMYh2I354)
When I Get Home My Wife Always Pretends to be Dead [Kaito] (E Subs) (yt QZAzcfScA20)

And a few choice albums:

Connection of voice
EXIT TUNES PRESENTS Kira Hyakka Ryoran Butokai (煌百花繚乱舞踏会)
EXIT TUNES PRESENTS Kirameki Senshi Bango Daigaen
Super Vocaloid
THE VOCALOID produced by Yamaha
Vocalo Lovers
Vocaloid Collection Nonstop Mix
Vocaloid Folk Songs (民族調曲集)
Vocalonation

This entry was originally posted at http://ladyasul.dreamwidth.org/22500.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

This started out as a comment to someone on dA. Ahahaha....

2012-05-20T16:01:07Z

This started out as a comment to someone on dA rambling about sex/gender/etc, and I decided I'd post it here due to length and stuff. It is not entirely accurate, it is all a gross oversimplification of this sort of stuff, and I'm totally not even going into all the little nuances that exist. It's more just a quick-and-dirty (not pervy, just sloppily done) overview, since I kind of wish someone had written this up for me back in my Jr High sex ed class. Or something better than this, really, but at least then, I wouldn't have been so confused and... feeling different. (They always talked about when you start feeling whatever, but I don't recall them saying if. Assuming a heteronormative gender binary interested in sex, and presenting the info in those terms, only works for most students.)

TL;DR before I even begin: The presumed male/female binary isn't a binary, like people tend to think. It might mostly seem to hold true, but it really doesn't. >_>

Full disclosure: I'm an asexual, generally agender, XX female. This actually does become somewhat relevant, at least on the grounds that I can try to offer another perspective on the whole gender/sex/orientation/chromosomal mess that isn't very common, but does exist. :)

Sex, as a noun, is what's between your legs, the biological aspect of this all. What the body is, physically. (Not gender: gender is pretty strictly a mental thing.) Sex and chromosomes often agree with each other, but not always. Further reading: look up Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (people who are, biologically, female, but have XY chromosomes, not XX. Their bodies simply never listened to the hormones in utero that tried to tell them to develop as a male.) and intersexuality (I'm not really sure the PC term for it, but look up Hermaphrodism on Wikipedia, and I'm sure you'll find your way to the relevant tidbits. ♥) and a few other cases, like Klinefelter's Syndrome (XXY chromosomal configuration) and similar chromosomal/developmental abnormalities. Also, note that "abnormal" isn't really synonymous with "defect" it just means "deviation from the statistical norm" :) Many people with AIS are quite healthy, after all.

Then there's gender -- like I said, it's a mental thing, and I'm pretty certain that it's the label to try describing how a person sees themselves. It usually tends to coincide with sex; probably four times out of five or better, people are, more or less, what they appear to be. There's guys that, personality aside -- they could be Macho Manly Men, or they could be very effeminate, it doesn't matter -- identify as male. They want to be recognized and treated as male, they want to be called the male pronouns, addressed as sir, as he and him. Likewise, there are females -- everyone from the dainty cocktail dress loving romantics, to the ones who prefer jeans and full-contact sports -- who identify themselves as female. There are people who are biologically male, or female, or some degree of in between, who identify as the opposite of what they outwardly appear to be. It's not a matter of what's between the legs, nor even personality. It's about self-image, about how you think of yourself, about identity. There's even a special term for people whose gender agrees with their biology: they're cis-gendered. Cis-female, cis-male. (In reading LGBTQ-related materials (and I'm talking about like, serious discussion boards and research papers, not yaoi!) the cis- terms come up quite a bit.)

Sexual orientation... I think everyone gets that definition, these days, thankfully. :) But not everyone consciously remembers that there's more than gay and straight, or that there are degrees of each (bisexuality.) I think the best chart for it I've seen wasn't one of those sliding-scale gay-bi-straight ones, but had gay on one axis and straight on the other, allowing for all sorts of variations on not only which way people leaned, but to what degree. Using myself as an example, on the sliding scale, any answer I would give would be wrong. Though, I could make an argument for being bi, by saying I like both sexes in my bed equally: not at all. XD

And gender roles? Those are social constructs. Those are the ideas that "men should be manly -- and here's what 'manly' entails~" and likewise, such notions about females, though with other ideas about what it allegedly means to be a girl. Today, at least in America, it's becoming far more accepted that there are stay-at-home dads, while sometimes the woman is the breadwinner for the family with her career. The female is not always the submissive one in the relationship. Men are not always good at fixing things, and I know a few who should never be allowed to pick up a screwdriver, unless it's to hand it to someone else who is competent. Gender roles are a form of stereotype about how males should behave, and how females should behave. (And personally, I hope they die out.)

Again, not all of these things need to overlap similarly. I've known people who were gay and cis-gendered, and had an easy time "slipping into" each gender role, depending on the circumstance (the latter of which I'd count as a sign of a more adaptable personality, being able to send certain behavioral cues, to get people to treat them differently. The psychology of unspoken communication is rather fascinating, sometimes.) I've known people who weren't cis-gendered (I can't recall if there's a term for the opposite, aside from gender dysphoria or transsexuality) but were straight -- like, a person who was physically male, identified as female... and was attracted to other people who were biologically female.

Then there are oddballs like me, who might be very clearly one or the other, physically, but aren't attracted to anyone (asexuality is pretty rare, overall -- estimates are only about 2-10% of the population, and even people who might identify themselves as such have different degrees of it all (and thus may disagree as to whether they qualify to begin with, to further complicate percentage estimates.) No attraction to people or romance, but still a desire for sexual activity? No desire for sex at all, but has an attraction to people (might even be "gay" or "straight" in who they find themselves attracted to,) and a desire for romantic companionship? It's a little complicated. I fall into the category of "no desire for any of it; just friendships." but that's understating the varying degrees of friendship, interest, infatuation, etc, too, I think. Hmm. I'll point out Asexuality.org as a starting point, and if anyone wants to poke me for info on my perspectives, I'll ramble more.)

Being agender, I don't think of myself as being female. It just happens to be what my body is. I don't think in terms of male or female, except in the same terms that people might think of brown or blue eyes, when thinking of others -- it's incidental to the person thought of, rather than a defining "how I think of them" thing. IRL, it's easy enough to remember who looks male and who looks female, if their appearances make them fairly obvious, but that's more a mnemonic device for keeping straight who's who, in my head, and trying not to offend people with using the wrong pronouns (and thus, is easier IRL.) Online, I associate people with their names/screennames or avatars/userpics, and what we've talked about, what they've posted. Whether they're male or female doesn't really enter my mind in terms of who that person is, to me, and it doesn't tend to be info that sticks, when it comes to people I know online -- so I'm often enough forgetting about which pronouns they'd prefer, unless it's come up as an issue, like one person I know who's been female, but has identified as male, and it was talked about plenty, and there's been subjects like hormone therapy and such mentioned. So then that kind of thing gets remembered about. So I tend to kick myself when I realize I've assumed incorrectly about what pronouns to use, on grounds of not wanting to offend people, because that's just embarrassing... and most of the time, I tend to just give up and not use the usual he/she pronouns, and default to singular "they" instead. It's closer to the sense of how my thoughts work anyhow.

As far as what people call me, I'm fine with the female pronouns -- it's what I'm used to. (On the other hand, not so with the male pronouns -- they don't really fit who I am any better or worse than the female set, but I'm not at all used to them, so they seem wrong. Like if you're used to seeing your hair a certain color, in the mirror, and suddenly the mirror starts showing you some other hair color. If that even makes sense.) Singular "they" works too, but it's really more a "shrug and ignore it" thing to me; while gender is often an important issue to most people, and I realize this... like sexual attraction, it's one of those things that I kind of feel a bit like an outside observer trying to understand. I'm not a girl or a boy in my mind -- I'm just me.

...and I think I've lost my train of thought, since it's stupid o'clock in the morning. I'm going to drop off to bed. ♥

And I'll probably kick myself for the incoherency in this later, when I'm more lucid, but oh well. :P

This entry was originally posted at http://ladyasul.dreamwidth.org/22205.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

Worthy petition....

2012-05-03T23:34:57Z

Right now, the Honduran Congress is considering a vote on a law that would jail women for using emergency contraception, even in cases of rape.

But according to this petition, the head of their Congress is a presidential candidate over there, who actually gives a crud about his worldwide reputation, not just his reputation within his own country.

So there's a petition working to get a million signatures condemning this bill. Maybe if the world puts enough pressure on them, this can get killed before it ever becomes a law.

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5971/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10407

The petition's looking for a million signatures before May 16th, when it'll be delivered to their head Congress guy, one Juan Orlando Hernández. Here's hoping more people will sign it; I did.

This entry was originally posted at http://ladyasul.dreamwidth.org/21807.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

Chai tea that isn't! Only, it is?

2012-04-20T15:12:22Z

Chai tea, from generally common kitchen ingredients:

8th grade or so, I came up with this, because I only knew of chai tea from the coffee shops, and was in love with it... but that cost money, which I did not have. So I came up with this, after a determined hour or two in the kitchen, taste-testing and comparing it to the last inch or two of the cup of it I'd gotten earlier that day.

a thread and coffee filter (for making the tea bag)
ground cinnamon
ground cloves
ground ginger
vanilla extract
brown (cane) sugar
milk (I used 2%)
a ceramic mug (standard for drip coffee)
a microwave or tea kettle or some way to boil water

First, spread out your coffee filter. In the middle of it, put down about a tablespoon in total of the spices, at a ratio of approximately three parts cinnamon, two parts ginger, and two parts cloves. Tie the coffee filter closed with the thread.

Fill the mug only halfway full with water. Either heat the water to a boil first, and then add the coffee filter tea bag, or add the bag, make sure it's soaked, and then heat to a boil in the microwave. Either way, using a spoon to squish it around in there is your friend.

Please note that this needs to steep for something like five minutes or more, at least. The spices like to soak up water and not let go of it again after they do. That spoon is your friend here, so you can repeatedly squish the bag's contents to make the water as dark as you can with this spice mixture's... brewed...ness.

Let the drink cool back down to a reasonable-to-drink temperature. (I'd leave the bag in it for the whole span of time involved there, myself.) Squish the bag again to get all the flavor you can out of it before you remove it and set it aside.

Add milk until the drink is more full. (But not all the way to the top yet!)

Add a drop of vanilla.

Add brown sugar, to taste. (And if you'd filled it entirely with milk, you wouldn't have room for this and the spoon, would you?)

Enjoy!

Edit: I always did have some trouble getting the spices (the cinnamon, in particular) to soak up the water properly in the first place, come to think of it. Maybe it'd work better to add that drop or two of vanilla to the spices before wrapping them up, since vanilla extract is alcohol-based and thus will soak the cinnamon far more readily than water will? It might be worth playing with....

This entry was originally posted at http://ladyasul.dreamwidth.org/21706.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

Musings and opinions on the various Vocaloid & Vocaloid2 voicebanks

2012-02-01T02:02:43Z

In no particular order,

Gakupo: I love him. Hated Gackt, though. I think I started out with the wrong songs for introducing myself to his music, so I'm not going to just write off his stuff, but all the same, I don't think I can stomach listening to his cover of the fantastic Paranoid Doll again. I ought to try investigating the effects of various settings on Gakupo's voicebank, though, since he mostly sounds the same everywhere. Did also find one song on NND where he'd been ported to Vocaloid3 -- I'm not sure I like what it does to his voice there. Trying to reserve judgement on Gakupo in V3 for later. Overall, I love the timbre and when the user has his voice break at certain notes and everything. He's quite probably one of the most easily realistic voicebanks out there, imho -- perfectly imperfect is totally the way to go. ♥ Plus, having him sing in english, when done right, is just awesome; his accent is really nice to listen to. I hope they do up some expansion packs for him -- giving him a greater range of styles would be nice; apparently his bank is sampled from Gackt singing at a more mellow/soft tone than not. His voice can be a lot more powerful than the voicebank seems to be able to pull off, so it would be interesting to see what people come up with, if they ever do manage to sample the gamut for him. Even if they don't, I'll happily keep Breathe on my iPod playlist forever. (it's on YouTube somewhere too, if you want to see the PV with english subs.)

Luka: Her voice itself is fine, but her consonants are so soft it's often hard to listen to her alone, especially when she sings in english, and still suspend disbelief that it's a person and not a program. If she did better at pronouncing those, I think I'd like her more, but as she is, she sounds good in duets with Gakupo (like Tsugai Kogarashi) and in other songs where she's mostly singing in Japanese (like Stardust Utopia, Blackjack, etc)

Piko: I really didn't care for him at first. I really didn't. Another high-pitched voice, like some ten-year-old boy. Not that that's bad, but I'm not fond of the high, clear voices (which is one reason I love Gakupo so much, I think -- his is neither!) so I didn't bother looking into his stuff much. And then I was browsing on the VocaloidOtaku forums for something, and came across someone's post where they were trying to get his voice to go lower... apparently adjusting the Gender Factor (basic pitch formant control setting) by about 25 does the trick, and makes him sound... like an adult, or at least an older teenager. And oh wow, does he sound fantastic like that! I fell for him just from the one song, Chaining Intention, they posted as an example! But I can't find others where he's been pitch-adjusted like that. It seems most users like using him as a kid. Sigh.

Len: Much the same as with Piko, overall -- didn't care for him, and then I heard a particular song, called Transmit, where they have him singing with a pitch-change of... what was it, 35? and he sounded more like a teenager. They had his original voice singing as a backup for him in the background, and it's probably my favorite song using him. (Butterfly On The Right Shoulder (Migikata no Chou) is so totally better when sung by Gakupo. *nod*) Overall, I'd consider listening to his stuff when he's been pitched down, but otherwise, I'm not really much of a fan.

Rin: Don't get me started. Another high-pitched voice, bleh. I'm sure she's great for those that like that, but it's really not my cup of tea, you know? Like... at all. Pass.

Miku: Same as with Rin, except she's freakishly popular and I can't seem to get away from her. Someone please shut her up! If I wanted to hear yet another high-pitched, clear female singer, I wouldn't be ignoring the radio stations. I can acknowledge that Miku's bank is very high-quality, yes. Her phonemes blend well, she can be made to sound very natural, etc -- but I just don't like her type of voice.

Gumi: Her voice, on the other hand...! ♥ It's not so crystal-clear, it's humanishly imperfect again, a little touch breathy/hoarse. And I love that quality in it. I'm finding more songs on NND using Gumi's Whisper and Sweet expansions that I'm falling so in love with. Sayonara Midnight has to be one of my favorite Gumi songs ever. You wouldn't be able to tell it wasn't a human singing, if you didn't already know, I'm sure... my sister didn't catch on when I played it for her! Haha.

Kaito: I actually hated him at first -- the phonemes were chopped up too obviously, and he sounded like he swallowed a synthesizer, or was just someone playing with a Vocoder and an audio editor; something about his sustained notes just screamed "fake!" to me. I'd avoided his songs just as much as I avoided the UTAU banks' songs. But I've since found a few songs where he's been used right, and even more of his bank in V3, and one where they used VocaListener on him, and... I am in love! He sounds fantastic. ♥ There are a plethora of different takes on his Thousand-year Solo Song (Sennen no Dokusou Ka/Uta) and I've yet to find one I didn't like. The SPTM mix of Pane Dhiria is fantastic as well. Plus, there's one artist who did some amazingly odd and sometimes wonderful things with his voice, like the cool and a touch creepy Scissors, and the astoundingly catchy dance/techno song, Infinite Loop.

Sonika: Currently, I don't like her. I don't hate her, but I don't like her. She sounds like a higher-pitched Luka -- really understated consonants, an odd timbre to her voice that makes it sound muffled, somehow, and to top it all off, her vowels all sound quite open to me (Japanese-style pronunciation.) I'm tempted to give her a try, to see if I can do something with her that'll redeem her to my ears, like lowering her pitch (maybe she'll sound more realistic then? Adult lady, rather than being so... cartoony?) and maybe even having her sing something such that she sounds like she has a Japanese accent, which seems to be able to excuse quite a bit of mispronunciation.

Prima: If she's being used correctly, I love her. The problem is, I rarely hear her being used correctly. Everyone wants to use her for pop songs, it seems like. I would absolutely love to hear her do a cover of the Lucia di Lammermoor, but until then, singing a West Side Story song isn't bad! And Who didn't expect Ave Maria?

Tonio: Same as with Prima; when he's used well, he's fantastic. I've found him used to sing Yesterday and Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are, and in duets with Al as backup, to sing Scarborough Fair and with Sonika for a really good rendition of Thriller. Unfortunately, I also keep finding him used to cover Lady Gaga songs, of all things. That shit needs to stop. Like, immediately. Having Gakupo cover Brittney Spears is hilarious, to me. Tonio doing Bad Romance? Shudder! KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Big Al: Mixed bag, here. On one hand, I love his voice, and I've heard him used really well many times! Like for Yesterday, Golden Slumber, Bruno Mars's Just The Way You Are, Carrying You, and Salamander to name just a few. On the other hand, listening to more songs with him has helped to make me more aware of English pronunciation, and how the sounds actually used differ from the letters of the words. Like all the times when the user has Al end a word with the "t" sound ("what" in the middle of a sentence, or "that") when Al should've used the "d" sound, for example. I can't seem to un-hear all those little flaws, now. Augh! Long story short, I love Al, but I really wish people who use him would pay more attention to the reality of english in practice, rather than on paper, since Al's pronunciation is so clear that those little slip-ups are really very noticeable. :( And hearing him sing in Japanese is just... LOL. His accent is horrible. ♥ (It doesn't sound so bad sometimes, though! like here where he does a duet with Leon.)

Sweet Ann: It's high time I got around to hunting down more stuff using her, I think. I've heard a couple good ones, like Night Illusion and Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams but I haven't made up my mind on her yet entirely. I do like that she sounds like a mature lady rather than yet another teenager, though, so that's already points in her favor in my book. (Biased? Me? Naaaaaaaaaw. ....okay, maybe a bit.) So I guess I'm leaning toward liking her, but I'd like to hear more stuff done with her in general, and at her natural range, not up so high as in some songs I won't even point to.

Leon: He sounds about as synthetic as one might expect one of the two very first Vocaloid banks to sound, but I have to say I do like him. I've heard a couple songs already where his fake-ness was used to great effect, either hidden or emphasized by the music -- the techno, house, dance, electronica, etc sorts of genres work really well for him, in this regard. Try a Daft Punk cover, Digital Love, or even better, I Still Want U. I definitely need to go hunting around for more of his songs done like that.

Lola: The other very first Vocaloid bank out there, released at the same time as Leon was, by the same company and everything. She's a grown lady with a deeper voice -- and I like that. So far, someone's had her cover Cher's Believe quite nicely, and I like her cover of Owl City's Fireflies better than Owl City's version. (I think I've heard the original too many times.)

Miriam: I haven't really heard enough with her to be able to tell what I think of her yet. Her voice is sort of on that line between "kinda high" and "just right" the way I've heard people using her, as well as that odd line between "realistic enough" and "too synthetic" -- but I suspect that like with Leon, it'll really depend on how she's used. I'd like to hear her doing some techno/dance stuff, I think. Until then, the best song I've found with her is her doing Donna Burke's Wondering. While it's pretty well done, I think it's still a little high-pitched for my tastes, and I can tell she's a program. Hmm. Edit: Wow. Just found one I love! Sunset.

Meiko: I love her. Another lady with a lower voice -- released before Kaito was, actually -- but sadly not half as popular as the younger-sounding Crypton voicebanks. Miku needs to step back a bit for Meiko's Kowase Kowase, Forgetting Suicide, Human Genome, Chiisanasekai and definitely for her awesome duet with Kaito, Ban Kogarashi. Especially for being a first-gen Vocaloid, she sounds quite nice to me. ♥

Kaai Yuki: I love this kid. Disco Chocolat is just adorable, and her rendition of Castle On A Cloud completely blew me away. She needs to see more use. She really, really does! ♥ (And I don't mean with more Lady Gaga covers. Yes, I'm looking at you, people on YouTube. Quit that already! Not all of us want to hear endless Vocaloid covers of those songs! :P)

Kiyoteru: A rare one, to be sure, and he does sound a little bit like Kaito -- he covers the same range, and his timbre isn't as wildly different as, say, Gakupo's or Tonio's or Al's -- but he's still quite distinct to my ears. Guilty Verse has quickly become a fave of mine. I wish I could find more good stuff using him solo....

Gachapoid: Heh... not really to my tastes so far, but I bet someone could make him sound like Donald Duck and do some awesome stuff that way!

Lily: Not really to my tastes either. Her voice is nice enough, but too strong for me. I like Lily Lily Burning Night okay, I guess, but I'm not always in the mood for it.

VY1, VY2: Can't say much about them; I haven't heard enough yet.

Iroha: I kinda lol, since I'd heard the name and went looking for a song to see what this one sounded like. I found a nice version of Wishing On The Same Star that has Iroha as the lead singer, and I actually thought it was a male voice at first. Yeah, I laugh now, but at the same time, I really like that sort of androgynous quality to her voice.

SF-A2 Miki: Satellite was in one of the albums I picked up. I rather like it, but at the same time, she sounds enough like Miku that I'm not in a hurry to go hunt down more of her songs yet. A more listenable version of her, given, but still similar enough that I'd rather hunt down more of Leon's techno instead.

UTAU banks: No. Just... no. There's one of Lucifel from El Shaddai, and that one's good for a laugh, but UTAU is just so much lower quality than Vocaloid, that it's generally extraordinarily grating to me. To each their own; I can't stand Teto/Ted no matter how many people think they're so wonderful.

...

...*head-scratch*

I know I'm leaving out some banks, but I'm pretty sure they're Vocaloid3 ones, and haven't been out long enough for me to catch much of them. Ah well. Later, perhaps!

This entry was originally posted at http://ladyasul.dreamwidth.org/20892.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

Meh.

2012-01-29T11:15:23Z

Overslept. Had a chat with a better friend of mine who's been another of my coworkers at the game store, via the phone (gasp, I actually got on it?) and we vented about junk together for a few, joked around, told stories, generally caught up again....

Hung up with her, sent her something via email I'd told her about, played with my pup.

Felt better.

RPed a bit with some friends, read some news articles online.

Realized it was after 6pm and thus the mall (and the store) were closed by that point anyway.

Decided screwit. Not going to bother calling Ian to have him check with security. I'll just hold it over his head later that he should've investigated nonsense like that, and he shouldn't be surprised if I'm not happy with him pretty much accusing me of crap I honestly didn't do, just because someone claimed it, especially if that someone impersonated someone else to do so.

....Which will open up a whole 'nother can of worms if that one coworker told him a story other than the one she told me.

I'm just going to walk away from that mess and see what happens. If Ian wants to try apologizing in the nebulous future if things go badly, I don't know what my answer will be yet. I really don't.

This entry was originally posted at http://ladyasul.dreamwidth.org/20660.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

LJ old!Default-esque layout for Style Contest (good quality this time, I swear!)

2011-12-22T09:22:21Z

LJ's changes ticked me off last night, so I did a quickie layout. This is not that layout. This one is a modified version of a layout I did specifically for an RP game, building a stylesheet for Style Contest from the ground up.

Preview: Live preview currently at sailslayout03

Account type: ALL, I think?

Custom comment pages: EMPHATICALLY, YES. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS.

Friends/Archive/Subjects/Tags/Etc pages: WITH ATTENTION TO DETAIL, YES! ♥

LJ controlstrip and contextual (user icon) popup box: Nope. Didn't touch it this time.

Written in: Notepad

Tested + working fully in: Google Chrome (Windows), haven't tested other browsers yet. I was being lazy. :)

Other Notes:

Comments have a minimum width set, so they don't get all smooshed into single-word columns when threads reach some arbitrary length. I hate when that happens, so I'm having a min width be a definite feature in about every layout I make ever.

I customized the reply/quickreply tables too! They stretch to the width of the page. :)

Known issues: Not off the top of my head. Please let me know if you find any!

Colors were taken from a screenshot of the old LJ Default. ♥

Please poke me if I missed anything that you'd like to see fixed!

CSS Code:

/* CSS Layout for Style Contest/Unstyled by http://ladyasul.livejournal.com
hosted at http://ladyasul.livejournal.com/20662.html  This is for use by 
people who LIKED the LJ Default before they screwed it all up.  Lemme know
if you use it; I'm curious.  :)*/

html *{
	margin-top: 0;
	margin-bottom: 0;
/*	padding: 0; */
}

hr{
	display: block;
	height: 2px;
	border-width: 0;
	color: #999;
	background-color: #999;
	margin: 15px 30px;
}
.entry-body i{ color: #000;}
h2{ font-size: 18px;}

a{ color: #04e; text-decoration: none;}
a:visited{color: #909;}
a:hover{ text-decoration: underline; color: #d03;}

code, kbd, pre, tt, textarea{ font-family: Lucida Console, Monaco, monospace;}
code{ background-color: #eef8ff;}
textarea{
	background-color: #def;
	color: #def;
	margin: 5px 2px;
	padding: 2px;
}
blockquote{ margin: 0 30px;}

body{
	background: #fff;
	font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;
	font-size: 12px;
	color: #111;
	padding: 0 0 30px 0;
}
#container{
	clear: both;
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0 0 30px 0;
	width: 100%;
	min-width: 640px;
	position: absolute;
	top: 0px;
	z-index: 15;
	background: #fff;
	overflow: visible;
}
#container-inner{
	padding: 0 30px 0 10px;
}
table#lj_controlstrip{
	z-index: 20 !important;
	background: #000 none !important;
}

#banner{
	background: #ace;
	margin: 0 -30px 0 -10px;
	padding: 70px 30px 30px 50px;
}
#pagebody {
	position: relative;
}

/* Sidebar */

#alpha{
	position: absolute;
	width: 180px;
	overflow: hidden;
	top: 0px;
	left: 0px;
	padding: 20px 10px 20px 0;
	border-right: #999 1px dotted;
}
.module{
	margin: 7px 0 10px 0;
}
.module-header{
	margin: 20px 0 5px 0;
}

.module-photo .module-content{
	text-align: center;
}

.module-calendar table{
	margin: 0 0 0 12px;
	font-size: 11px;
}
.module-calendar td{
	padding: 3px;
	text-align: center;
}
.module-calendar tr{
	background: #def;
}
.module-calendar tr:first-child{
	background: #ace;
}

#alpha ul {
 padding-left: 0px;
 margin-left: 0px;
 list-style: none;
}

#alpha li {
 padding: 0 5px 0 25px;
  text-indent: -10px;
}

/* Entries */
#beta{
	margin-left: 210px;
	overflow: visible;
	position: relative;
	padding-top: 20px;
}

.content-nav {
	font-size: 14px;
	margin: 0 0 10px 0;
	font-weight: bold;
	text-align: right;
}

.date-header{
	text-align: center;
	font-style: italic;
	margin-bottom: 20px;
}

.entry{
	min-width: 450px;
	margin-bottom: 50px;
	position: relative;
	padding-bottom: 5px;
	border-bottom: 2px solid #999;
	overflow: visible;
}

.entry-userpic{
	float: right;
	margin: 0 0 10px 10px;
	text-align: center;
	width: 120px;
}
.entry-header{
	margin: 0 0 5px 0;
	font-size: 18px;
	font-weight: bold;
}

.metadata{
	margin: 0 10px 10px 5px;
	border-left: 2px solid #999;
	padding-left: 5px;
}
.metadata  img{ display: none;}

.entry-body{}

.ljtags{ margin: 10px 0 0 0;}

.entry-footer{
	margin: 10px 0 0 0;
	clear: right;
}

/* comments */
.comments: {
	position: relative;
}
.comments-header {
	margin: -25px 25px 25px;
	text-align: center;
	font-weight: bold;
}
.comment{
	margin-top: 20px;
}
.comment-replies{
	margin-left: 20px;
}
.comment, .comment-replies{
	clear: both;
	min-width: 200px;
	overflow: visible;
}

.comment-userpic {
	background: #bdf;
	float: left;
	padding: 3px;
	margin: 0 10px 10px 0;
	position: relative;
	z-index: 15;
}
.comment-header ,.comment-footer,.comment-content{
	background: #bdf;
	padding: 5px;
	margin: 0;
	position: relative;
	z-index: 5;
}
.comment-content {
	background: #fff;
	border: 3px solid #bdf;
}

/* reply fields */

.lj-view-reply #beta-inner table:first-child {
	margin: 0 0 10px 0;
}
.lj-view-reply #beta-inner > h2 { padding-bottom: 15px;}

.lj-view-reply #commenttext {
	width: 100% !important;
}

#qrform > table {
	padding: 10px;
	width: 100% !important;
	margin: 20px 0 0 20px;
	background: #fff;
	border: 1px solid #333 !important;
}
.lj-view-reply #postform > table {
	width: 100%;
}
input#subject,  textarea.textbox {
	font-family: Verdana, sans-serif !important;
	font-size: 12px;
	color: #113 !important;
	background: #fff;
	padding: 2px 5px !important;
}

/* Other views */

.lj-view-tags #beta h2{
	margin: 0 0 5px 0;
}
.lj-view-tags #beta ul {
	padding-left: 0px;
	margin-left: 0px;
	list-style: none;
}
.lj-view-tags #beta ul li {
	padding: 0 5px 0 25px;
	text-indent: -10px;
}

.lj-view-month dt{
	font-size: 18px;
	margin: 0 0 3px 0;
}
.lj-view-month dd{
	margin: 3px 0 20px 15px;
}

.lj-view-archive #beta ul {
	list-style: none;
	margin: 0 auto 50px auto;
	padding: 0;
	text-align: center;
}
.lj-view-archive #beta ul li{
	display: inline;
	font-size: 18px;
	font-weight: bold;
	margin: 20px;
}
.lj-view-archive #beta table {
	background: #def;
	border: #fff !important;
	margin: 20px auto 50px auto !important;
}
.lj-view-archive #beta table td,.lj-view-archive #beta table th{
	height: 30px;
	width: 35px;
	padding: 3px;
	border-collapse: separate !important;
	border-spacing: 0px;
	border: 3px solid #fff !important;
}
.lj-view-archive #beta table th,.lj-view-archive #beta table td[colspan="7"] {
	background: #bdf;
	border: none !important;
	border-bottom: 3px solid #fff !important;
}
.lj-view-archive #beta table tr:first-child th{
	font-weight: bold;
	font-size: 18px;
}

Instructions:
First, go to Select Journal Style and search for Style Contest. Pick the one called Unstyled -- the empty-looking white one.

It looks like this:

Apply the Unstyled layout, then go to Customize your theme and select the CSS option. Tell it No, in the drop-down asking if you want to use the "Base Weblog" stylesheet, and then paste the above CSS code into the Custom stylesheet box and save changes.

And that should do it! :)

I'm curious as to who uses this. Leave me a comment? &heart; And if you comment to let me know, I'll be able to keep you updated on code tweaks, too.

Please credit!

Questions welcome!

LJ old!Default-esque layout.

2011-12-22T04:00:10Z

LJ ticked me off with their changes last night, so I threw this together before I went to bed.

Preview: Live preview currently at sailslayout02

Account type: ALL, I think?

Custom comment pages: YES. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS.

Friends/Archive/Subjects/Tags/Etc pages: Mostly. The layout base resisted styling. :P

LJ controlstrip and contextual (user icon) popup box: Nope. Wasn't my priority.

Written in: Notepad

Tested + working fully in: Google Chrome (Windows), haven't tested other browsers yet. I was being lazy last night.

Other Notes:
Still under construction, I guess?

Comments have a minimum width set, so they don't get all smooshed into single-word columns when threads reach some arbitrary length. I hate when that happens, so I'm having a min width be a definite feature in about every layout I make ever.

I customized the reply/quickreply tables too! They stretch to the width of the page. :)

Colors were taken from a screenshot of the old LJ Default. ♥

Known issues: I got rid of the sidebar in the entry/comment-view pages. On one hand, this makes navigation a little more difficult, but on the other, you've got the whole page's width for the comments again, just like in the LJ Default views.

The coder behind the April theme that this is based on hard-coded a lot of their CSS into the HTML, as every web coder knows you shouldn't ever do, so half of this was a battle to override their CSS. Don't even get me started.

Please poke me if I missed anything that you'd like to see fixed!

CSS Code:

/* Bloggish:  April theme.  Put the sidebar on LEFT. 
Layout by ladyasul.livejournal.com -- and it's still
in the works, so sorry in advance for any bugs. */

body {background-color: #fff;}
body, #beta {font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #111;}

a,.entry-header a {color: #04e !important; text-decoration: underline;}
a:visited,.entry-header a:visited{color: #909 !important;}
a:hover,.entry-header a:hover{color: #d03 !important;}

#container { width: 100% !important;}
#container-inner {background: none; border: none;}
#banner { background: #ace; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: #036; border: none;}

/* SIDEBAR */
#alpha {float: left; border-right: 1px dotted #999;}
.layout-two-column-left #beta { width: auto; margin: 0px 0px 0px 200px;}
.lj-view-entry #alpha { display: none;} /* hide the sidebar on entries... */
.lj-view-entry #beta { width: 100%; margin: 0px;} /* ...and expand the entry-page content! */
#beta-inner {border: none !important;}

.module-photo, .module-photo .module-content {text-align: center !important;}
.module-header {text-transform: none !important; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif !important; color: #111 !important; border: none !important; background: #ace; letter-spacing: 0 !important;}
.module-content {line-height: 110% !important;}
.module-list {padding: 0 0 0 20px;}
.module-list-item {margin: 5px 0 !important;}

.module-calendar .module-content table {margin: 0 auto;}

/* ENTRY stuffs */

.date-header, .trackbacks-header, .comments-header, .comments-open-header, .archive-header, .date-header {text-align: center !important;}
.entry{margin: 0 0 25px 0; padding-bottom:25px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; min-height: 150px;}

.entry-userpic { float: left; margin: 0 15px 10px 0; }
.entry-userpic .poster .ljuser:first-child {display: block;}
.entry-header, .entry-header a, .entry-header a:visited, .lj-view-tags #beta-inner h2 {font-size: 25px; color: #036 !important;}
.entry-header { padding: 0 0 15px 0; line-height: 120%;}
.metadata { margin: 0 0 10px 0;}
.ljtags, .entry-footer {margin-top: 10px;}

/* comments themselves */
.comment {min-width: 200px; margin-bottom: 25px;}
.comment, .comment-userpic, .comment .poster, .comment-header {background: #bdf;}
.comment-userpic > img {float: left; padding: 1px 5px 1px 4px;}
.comment-userpic .poster {margin-top: 0px;}
.comment-footer, .comment-content {clear: both; background:#fff;}
.comment-content {margin: 0 !important; padding: 2px 2px 5px 2px;}
.comment-footer {margin-bottom: 0px !important; padding: 0 2px 10px 2px;}

.collapsed-comment {background: transparent;}

/* comment-reply stuff */

.quickreply {background: #fff;}
#qrform > table, #postform > table {width: 100%;}
textarea .textbox, .lj-view-reply #commenttext {width: 99%;}

Instructions:
First, go to Select Journal Style and search for Bloggish. Pick the one called April -- the blueish, grayish one.

It looks like this:

Apply the April style, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the layout that has the sidebar on the LEFT side. This is pretty important. I'll try to fix the code later so that you can have the sidebar on whichever side you want, but for now, it's left-side only.

Then go to Customize your theme and select the CSS option. Tell it No, in the drop-down asking if you want to use the base weblog stylesheet, and then paste the above CSS code into the Custom stylesheet box and save changes.

And that should do it! :)

I'm curious as to who uses this. Leave me a comment? &heart; And if you comment to let me know, I'll be able to keep you updated on code tweaks, too.

Please credit!

Questions welcome!

EDIT: After some more poking around, I think I figured out what's wrong, that it's cutting off threads. It isn't the layout itself. Like I explained in this thread, the S2 layout system is broken; after too many comments on one page, it gives up and stops generating HTML. This means that it won't matter that the entry footer claims you've got five hundred comments in ten threads all on the one page; you'll probably only be able to see about 125 of them at one time no matter where you scroll; viewing the source says they don't exist on the page there.

And apparently it's been like this before the update...?

Ugh.

Casual use and logs where the comments are all replies to the original entry should be fine; threaded RPs and really long conversations, not so much. Please note, this goes for ALL layouts, as far as I'm aware, aside from the LJ Default.

Which rather defeats the purpose of using a custom layout in an RP community that does threading, now doesn't it. :(

Stupid, stupid customers.

2011-08-04T21:39:16Z

The sad part is, these people are serious.

A guy walks in, comes right up to the counter, doesn't really even look around. He asks if we sell iTunes cards and iPod charger cords. "We're a video game store. We only carry things for video game consoles." And I'm shaking my head, as I say so. "So you carry them?" How is shaking your head in a very obvious way a neutral response?

Guy and his lady come in with a boxed camcorder, and he looks around, then comes to the counter, asking if we carry charger cords for his video camera. Again, I shake my head clearly, giving him a funny look. "We're a video game store. We only sell video games, sorry." "So is that a yes, or a no?" And the lady's stare at me was just as blank.

"Hi, I'm looking for a phone charger for my phone. Do you guys have any?" "We're a video game store, sorry. Did you try the AT&T store right across the hall?" "Yeah, but they don't have one for the model of phone I've got." Then what makes you think a game store will have it?

And twice now, I've had people come in, and you know what it is that they're looking for? They want me to copy their DVDs for them. We sell video games and their systems. We can resurface discs too, but that's it. Where did they get the idea that we copied discs? Is that common practice, in some stores, and I was just completely unaware of it?

And the lady that came in with a portable DVD player, asking if we repaired them... "We're not a repair shop, sorry. Have you thought about asking a repair shop?" "Yeah, but Best Buy's too expensive." "Sorry." And then she got mad at me. "But you buy broken systems and fix those!" "Only video game systems." "But this isn't that different!" "Good luck with it, ma'am." "So you won't look at it?" "Sorry." And she storms out, pissed.

"Hey, so do you guys mod 360s?" "Mod? You mean, like, making the case look cool, or something?" "No, you know, like... mod chips and shit." "No. Absolutely not." "What if I paid you for it?" "We sell games. We're not going to help you pirate them." "Shit, man, why you gotta be so lame?" Look, I understand about playing backup copies. I do that all the time, because there's no way I'm bringing my original DDS discs or P4 to work every day with me. And I'll readily help friends do it too; I know that having a modded PS2 memory card so you can keep your stupidly expensive games safe is an awesome thing. And I see nothing wrong with using it to play imports (I have some on my shelf) or games that're prohibitively expensive or absurdly rare or otherwise unobtainable, or even games that you just want to try before hunting down on ebay and dropping $30 on. But why on earth would you go into a game store and ask such a question?

Similarly, I've had a couple guys come in and get into convos with me about the various systems, and PSPs in particular... and I've admitted about not having a PSP myself, but wanting to build one so I can mess around with it, maybe play one of my old PSX Spyro games on it or something. And then they start asking me to crack their PSP's firmware for them, so they can play downloaded ROMs. See, that's not even attempting to hide the fact that they only want to do it for blatant piracy reasons. And then I have to tell them "Absolutely not. We're a game store, not a piracy store." Telling me after that, "Come on, man, help me out. I'll pay you for it." isn't going to help that cause.

And one time, one of those PSP guys actually started trying to hit on me after I told him in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't crack his PSP for him, in an attempt to get me to cave in on the issue. Shudder.

I wonder if GameStop gets these kinds of annoyances too?

Recipes: Delicious things to bake!

2011-01-11T21:33:39Z

Coconut nut rum cake!
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
4 large eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsp coconut flavor
1 cup nuts (walnuts, pecans?)
1 cup flaked coconut

Grease the pan, bake for one hour at 325*F.

Syrup to top it with:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp coconut or rum flavoring (or a mix of both)

Bring to a gentle boil, cook for five minutes. Add extract, then let sit for 4 hours, then pour over the cake.

You can also substitute 1/4th cup water for rum.

Banana nut bread
3/4th cup walnuts, chopped
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup skim milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
1 egg, beaten
2-3 medium bananas
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
brown sugar (set aside)

Preheat oven to 350*F. Cream the butter, add sugar. Add egg, bananas, and vanilla, mix again. In separate bowl, blend flour, salt, baking powder and soda, and blend. Mix dry into wet with milk, fold in nuts last. Pour into greased + floured loaf pans. Top with a layer of brown sugar (not much, just enough to hide the batter -- smooth it down on top; it makes it easier. This layer should caramelize on top!) and bake for one hour. Let cool ten minutes before removing it from the pan.

Zucchini bread!
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup fine-chopped walnuts

OR: (1/3rd recipe)

1 cup flour
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup zucchini
1/3 cup fine-chopped walnuts

Grease & flour two 8" x 4" bread pans (or just one, if you do the 1/3rd recipe) and preheat the oven to 325*F.

Mix the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar.

Mix the dry ingredients, and mix into the wet with zucchini. Mix the nuts into it.

Pour it into the pan(s) and bake 40-60 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan 20 mins, and remove to cool completely.

The zucchini bread is one of my favorites, I think. ♥

Family Recipes

2010-12-26T00:41:17Z

Merry Christmas, everyone!

This year, my family's decided to forgo the usual holiday food -- the turkey and candied yams and such -- and instead, do something a lot closer to home. For us, this means the "comfort foods" of family tradition.

We had Cream of Wheat hot cereal for breakfast, and are having Talmexo as dinner's main dish. While my dad had the recipe book out, I took the liberty of copying a few things, and felt I'd share them with everyone, as a little gift! ♥

Talmexo:
Lightly grease an 8x10" baking pan.

First layer: 2-3 cups dry egg noodles, cooked halfway.

Second layer: 1 small or medium (sweet is good!) onion, chopped and sauteed
1 lb. ground beef, browned (and crumbled up)
1 small can of tomato sauce (8 oz or so)

Third layer: 1 regular-sized can of cream-style corn

On top: 1/2 cup sliced black olives
1 cup grated cheese (we mix it, when we make it: Ricotta, yellow cheddar, mozzarella...)

Bake for 45 mins at 325*F
Let stand and cool for 15+ minutes to firm up! It ends up like a lasagna. :)

Scotcharoos
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar

Bring to just under a boil, dissolving the sugar. Stir.

1 cup creamy peanut butter

Stir that in well, dissolve it.

6 cups Rice Krispies cereal

Mix it in, coat the cereal thoroughly.

Wet your hands, or put plastic wrap on them. Flatten cereal mix into a large cookie sheet or baking pan, and let cool. Top with choco-PB frosting.

Choco-PB frosting:
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon peanut butter
3 tablespoons cocoa

Mix together.

2-3 tablespoons milk

Add milk GRADUALLY.

Two-Minute Cookies:
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup milk

Boil for one minute. Add:

1/2 cup peanut butter

Mix in. Add:

2 cups oatmeal (regular, uncooked)

Mix. Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper or lightly buttered cookie sheet. Let cool.

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies:
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar

Mix it up

Ball it up into 1 1/2" balls

Flatten balls with fork onto cookie sheet

Bake at 350*F for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Just a little something. :)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Somarium, I've missed you. And will keep missing you.

2010-11-12T07:29:37Z

I think I'll hold off on reapping Harley to Somarium for now.

It isn't that I don't want to go back to having fun with all the wonderful muns there, or that I don't treasure all the CR I've built up with him. In fact, those are two of the main reasons I was so set on returning, now that I have 'net access and free time again.

I've poured over my app to make sure it's still a good app and all, re-wrote parts, added others... and I was having too much fun going into the personality analysis and psychology writeup stuff. I have a lot of fun writing that kind of thing. Tons of it. In fact, I even went off on a tangent with trying to figure out his boss-battle stats and whatnot. I pulled up Photoshop and screencapped a status screen from DDS2, and had at it, remade it for Harley. And I was all set to write new samples and everything.

And then I paused a moment to think about what to write.

The first time I wrote something for his samples, it was easy. I wrote up the first post I'd do, his intro, the "nightmare" taken from his last moments in DDS1, and waking up in an alley afterwards, confused as all else and still on edge, but at least out of the situation which had snapped him. He'd be able to take a breath and calm down, and not have the Embryon looming over him with nowhere to run. Writing his reactions to seeing them again after that was fun; I greatly enjoyed the threads that his intro spawned.

For the sample I posted in that original app, I went with a goofy little idea I actually did up later on, shortly after his intro, of him encountering rabbits and sheep for the first time. It made me laugh. Confusing the hell out of a dorky, somewhat melodramatic character prone to over-reaction is fun, and that's really all there is to it.

I like confusing him. No-- I love it. I loved having him ask Abel about what escargot was, and where snails were found, and then call him up fifteen minutes later to say they must be one of those acquired tastes. Yeah, there were some in the back yard. There were even snails without shells! Playing around with his ignorance and curiosity will never fail to amuse me greatly. Nor does tormenting him with bits of the past life I made up for him, especially how I'd worked it into his fear of monsters eating him, to help explain why he flipped out to the degree he did in DDS.

I never did get around to posting most of those dreams I'd already written up for him, with all those scenes of past-life stuff. For that, I apologize to everyone. I'm thinking I should finish writing up the last of those, and post them anyway, un-friend-locked, so at least anyone who's still curious can see what I'd had planned.

But I digress. I paused to think about what to write for the samples this time, and I came up with a good few ideas... and looked back at what I'd written for the question about why I was interested in apping, where I'd noted that I was having fun at Som, and had a lot of CR and char development going on there. And I realized, I could write a great sample about him having another "nightmare" about almost waking up back in DDS, to where he was dying on the floor in his command room, only to be relieved beyond relieved to find himself in Som again instead.

And then it hit me, I'd already just posted a nightmare for him for the event thing that was going on. I hadn't intended to post that nightmare when I did; I was going to save it for later, and post something more upbeat and fun once I'd gotten net access again. But nightmares were the theme of the event, and the posts I was wanting to post just wouldn't fit well, wouldn't flow for getting back into the groove in Som, wouldn't... work just then, really. Sadface!

And it got me thinking more. I was having so much fun when I first joined, about a year and a half ago. It was a game that was pretty lighthearted. There were crack, fluff dreams, and freaking out about bunny rabbits was totally the way to go. And there was serious stuff too -- as serious as I wanted to make it, anyway. He got adopted by Abel, and made friends, and ate fried slugs, and made simple plush toys, and took care of a dog. And was able to get it into his head that he turned into a horse, not a monster, and therefore it was okay. And narrowed his definition of "monster" as he figured out just what it was that disturbed him so greatly.

But more and more, Somarium's plots started to get more... plot-y. When I joined, the events were totally ignorable and fun when they did happen, far as I can recall. Or at least, they were somewhat neutral. If we had our own thing going on, and a lot of the time, we did, we could ignore the Som!plots in favor of our own. The events were more like LJ's own writers' block topics that you see on the Welcome To LJ page, those questions people put up for others who aren't sure what to post on their own. Sometimes serious, sometimes goofy, but either way, if you already know what you want to post about, go right ahead, don't let the topic of the day stop you. And that was awesome. That was actually one of the draws. I like having my own plots. I like being able to just do what I will, in a setting with other characters. I like having free reign to figure out my own hijinks and... whatever.

Then the Moon Cycles thing was introduced, and that was largely no longer the case. Events were happening in Som which affected everyone, and they started leaning more and more toward the nightmare-type side of things. There was that time everyone got transported to the inescapable and oh so freezing cold warehouse. ....I mostly passed on that one, kinda fudged a bit, shrugged and said sure, he was there, I guess, and picked up on playing again afterwards. It just wasn't for me. There's the constant cycle of things returning to normal, then things getting really weird again, nightmare-ish and orchestrating things toward some bigger, over-reaching plot that the mods cooked up.

I'm not against Somarium having a plot. It's interesting to see where it's headed.

And I like tormenting my characters. But I like to do it myself, more than on someone's prompting.

I like having options. I like to be able to completely ignore the game's own plot if I want to, if I'm busy having fun with whatever my friends and I have planned out and the game plot would interrupt ours. I like being able to say no thank you, I have an idea that'll be more fun for me, and having the freedom to go through with mine. It isn't like my own plots would involve everyone else in the game. In fact, the stuff I came up with tended to only really affect my own character and perhaps two or three others. But the point is, I wanted that freedom to be as lighthearted and silly as I wanted, or as serious, or dark, or whatever as I wanted.

Give me a sand box. I'll be happy. I'll make sand castles and coves and landscapes. I'll sculpt things not normally seen in sandboxes, or at least attempt to.

But when you start directing what I should be making in that sandbox at any given time, I'm likely to simply sit back until I'm allowed to do what I want to do again, and that gets frustrating for me, and I'm sure it gets frustrating for the people I'm playing with too, when I'm simply not there for increasingly significant portions of the game.

And that's not fair to anyone.

(....Like the time Som had that big sand storm, a bit more than a year ago. I'd already plotted with Abel's mun about the next Solar Noise event, about what we could do for further CR and char development. We had plans. I asked when the next Solar Noise might be, only to be told "not yet" -- which was just fine; our plots could wait! -- and given the explanation that such things tended to need a couple weeks' warning beforehand for other players, what with the mess that happened the first time it was done. And then it was what, two weeks later, I was helpfully reminded that if they did a Solar Noise thing, my Harley would be affected too. Yes, I know; I asked about one earlier. And so we had another one, with maybe what, two days' notice? during the sand storm. I'm sure everyone else had fun, but it felt... tacked on, to me. It was one more thing to make the already-crazy storm event even crazier, for a while. The timing for my own hoped-for plots involving it was horrible. The timing for my afk-ness was horrible. The timing for my CRmates' afk-ness was pretty awful too. I opted instead to just quietly pass on it, and there was never a real chance to go through with what we'd wanted to do, after that. The only other time the rest of the cast wanted to do a Solar Noise thing, Abel wasn't in the game, and I wasn't interested at that time, so I passed on it again then too.

I know my castmates didn't intend to cause me problems. I know they were just having fun themselves, and I don't begrudge them that. I just wish things had worked out better. */tangent* )

And I can't help but think that earlier, one of our Yosukes, a certain Derpsona (and man I still love that username!) had hit on what I hadn't even realized, but agree with. Som is getting dark, despite the mods' assurances that it wasn't, or isn't, always going to be. It's getting increasingly dark, with regularity, and with less opportunity to take a pass on it. The Somarium I fell in love with and originally joined was happy, kind of goofy, player-driven, and fun.

It's like playing through Persona 4, only for it to slowly devolve into Persona 3. Or watching Charlie the Unicorn, only for it to end up as Chainsaw Maid.

So I'll sit back for now, and see how things go. As much as I miss Somarium, the friends I've made there, the CR, the char development... as much as I need an RP outlet thanks to stress and Real Life in general, I don't know if Som is still what I'm looking for. It might be, and if it is, that's great. But I just don't know any more.

In which 'Sail goes GRAMMAR NAZI on all y'all....

2010-09-08T20:49:56Z

It has been brought to my attention by someone asking a question about which way of writing something was correct, that there are an awful lot of people that get confused about English grammar. Not to say that English grammar itself isn't confusing, or even headdesk-worthy at times, but I got to thinking about it. Yeah, I know, that leads to TL;DR posts, and I should know better by now, but I GOT ENCOURAGED when talking about it with them, and now... now you all get THIS post to deal with.

Spelling/Grammar lessons, with a gamer twist!

Hopefully you find it both amusing and educational. ♥

* * *

Affect / Effect
"Affect," as a verb means "influence." "Effect" as a noun means "result" and as a verb, "to result in."

To confuse things further, "affect" has another meaning, which is similar to "facade," but as a verb, kind of like "impression." It's normally used in the noun form "affectation," such as when someone acts in some way, to give a specific impression, but "affectation" usually implies falseness or insincerity.

Balzac affects your party members in just one way. If it's cast successfully, it will effect the RAGE status on them.

I can't help but wonder what effect casting Zotzillaha Bane on Camazotz would have, if any at all. Maybe it would only affect his size, and not his markings or head placement?

Sheffield's affected kindness was a shallow thing indeed.

Careful with your use of "affect" as in the Sheffield example, or some people may get the impression that your attempts at enriching your vocabulary are only an affectation of high intellect.

Alot / A lot / Allot
Please take note, "alot" is not a word. That's right. It does not exist. It's two words, "a lot." Not one. "Allot" means "distribute."

Holy crud, that's a lot of points to allot to your Agility stat. What are you planning on doing, outracing all the enemies?

Its / It's
This one breaks the rules on possessives. "Its" is the possessive, while "it's" is only a contraction of "it is."

* * *

All Together / Altogether
Aloud / Allowed
Baited / Bated
Bias
Defuse / Diffuse
Discreet / Discrete
Hoard / Horde
Lose / Loose
Per Se / Per Say
Than / Then
There / Their / They're
Throws / Throes
Should've / Should Of
Weather / Whether
Where / Wear / Were / We're
Your / You're

plural/possessive/plural+possessive
elipses, semicolons, run-on sentences/commas

* * *

If anyone has further suggestions for confused words/punctuation/spellings/etc for me to put in this post, please let me know!

Stupid fail!pony. :|

2010-07-14T09:53:37Z

I'm trying to find out more about Harley's demon form.

Walkthroughs have given me this much:

HP: 560-600
MP: ???
level: ???
Null: Fire, Ailment/Status, Hama, Mudo
Weak: Ice

Skills:
Attack (phys)
Skewer (fire)
Fire Storm (fire - all)
Void Ice

And additional walkthroughs tell me that in DDS 2, he drains fire, has a far higher HP, can do the Psycho Rage trick, and you should be at like, level 50 or so to face him.

Uh, yeah. So, nothing new there. :P I want more detailed info, for RP purposes. What, exactly, is his HP? his MP? Is he immune to ALL ailments, or...? Seriously, info! Want info!

So I equipped a slew of interesting skills in a New Game +, and went grinding in Svadhisthana.

Currently, I'm at level eight. Keep in mind that this is after an hour of grinding; most enemies here are about level 3-5. I am officially over-levelled for fighting Harley. I'm writing down each thing he does and its effects, how much damage it does (or doesn't) do to my chars, and likewise what happens when I try various things on him. And then there's the part of the page where I'm keeping tally of how many times he's used each skill, to try figuring out his MP.

Here's what I've gathered so far.

Attack: (he slashes with his horn, downward. This implies that the front edge of it is sharp, but I'm not even going to go into my issues with the canon Hayagriva's anatomy here.)
Damage done: 11-14 HP.
Type: confirmed to be physical, not fire-based.

Skewer: (his horn is covered in agi/fire, and he charges, slashing upwards -- implied that the edge of the horn facing him is sharp too, as well as the tip.)
Damage done: 16-20 on Serph and Argilla (if Fire Drain reports HP healed as equivalent to potential damage, which it seems to) and 7-8 on Heat (suspect Heat's fire resistance must be at play here.)
Type: confirmed to be agi/fire. (Thank you, Fire Drain!)

Fire Storm: (he waves his itty lil arms around, agi all around, and finally flings it at them.)
Damage done: 20-24 on Argilla (again, with Fire Drain, mostly) only 8-13 on Heat, and 23-28 on Serph (It once randomly did 40, when that Drain wasn't prepared. Seemed to be a random freak weakness-hitting occurrence though.)
Type: definitely agi/fire. (Thanks for all the heals, pony!)

Void Ice: (we all know what this one is.)

Conclusions so far:
The Analyze skill is completely useless when trying to use it on Hayagriva, and I wish I had that Spyglass thing with me. :(
It looks like Skewer = Agi (which is 3MP, as is Void Ice, iirc, but I'll confirm that later),
Fire Storm = Maragi (5 MP, right?),
and he seems to have 350+ MP,
while I'm running out of Chakra Drops and finding myself swearing at him for using plain old Attack after I've readied Fire Drain and could use healing again (because why cast a 5 MP spell every turn when I'm trying to get him to just wear himself out?)
Since you should be about level 50 in DDS 2 for him, while 8 is over-levelled in DDS 1, but his skill set retains the same names (Skewer and Fire Storm) I suspect that they've probably been changed to Agilao and Maragion, or even Agidyne and Maragidyne, but I really don't know for sure. I'd have to get back to that point in DDS 2 and mess around again. It's not exactly a priority for me, though.
Heat's gun sucks ass (2 HP? 2? Come on, Heat, you're joking, right?)
and I need to check WTF kind of bullets Serph's equipped, because hitting for 24 + stun (48 once, holy shit) is uh.
And apparently the pony is not wholly immune to effects, or else he wouldn't have been stunned by those bullets. (This warrants further investigation!)
Harley shields against Makajam (mute-inflicting) and MP Thief (damnation! D:< That would make this so much easier!)
Harley is indeed weak to ice and nulls fire,
the guy that did the script that's up on GameFAQs missed a few of Harley's lines,
and I'm going to be busy for a long time yet to come, trying out everything I can on him.
...especially since the Imagine wiki entry on Hayagriva is not helping. (144 MP, no Skewer or Fire Storm or Void Ice? He's level 57? (oh god, if that held true in DDS1--! LOL.) What's he doing knowing Gale Force and Mamudo? What is this I don't even--!)

TL;DR: my patience is running out, and his MP is not.

....Yet.

Stupid, stupid pony creature.

UPDATE: I kept him going until he tried casting Void Ice again and got the "Insufficient MP!" error. You know what happened then?

He cast Fire Storm and Skewer.

Successfully.

I looked it up -- Void Ice, according to the DDS 2 mantras+skills guide, costs 3 MP. This sounds right to me.

Which means that Fire Storm + Skewer < 3. Therefore, Fire Storm = 1 MP and Skewer = 1 MP, since DDS only deals in integers for HP and MP. Yay! Now I can properly calculate how much MP he had, based on knowing how many times he cast what!

...and then he casts Fire Storm again. Successfully.

What the...?

I kept going for a few more turns.

As of when I've paused to write this up, he's cast Fire Storm seven more times, and Skewer five, and that's after he'd run out of MP to cast Void Ice.

And if he doesn't have enough MP to cast Void Ice, which only requires 3, how the hell does he have enough MP to cast twelve more spells?

Answer: The fail!pony is a freaking cheater and he's casting Skewer and Fire Storm for free.

...

Of course you know, now I'm tempted to get all over-levelled so I can screw around with Bat like this, and find out if that Zotzillaha Bane spell of his has an MP cost for him, or if it's a free move too, or what.

Curiosity killed the cat.

0_o

my IRC kicks.txt

2010-05-25T07:59:05Z

Years ago, some friends and I discovered that one of our text-smileys was a legal channel name, on IRC. So we quickly established it as a secret little RP room, registered it with ChanServ, the whole nine yards.

Problem was, other people used that smiley too, and our channel kept getting invaded by people who didn't speak English, and whose text showed up as utter gibberish in our non-unicode IRC clients. It was pretty disruptive to our RP time. So I took the bot I'd created, and wrote a script for it to automatically kick anyone who entered the channel, who wasn't one of our group, as defined by nick and host mask tests I'd set up. And it would give them a random kick message when it did so.

Contents of its kick-message file follow:

Private party, sorry.
NO CHAT FOR YOU!
Look, no more party crasher! ^_^
This relationship just isn't going to work out.
Were you invited?
Silly customer... you cannot harm the Twinkie!
Would you like Fries with that?
It must be a monday in their world... sigh.
I'm too lazy to give you a real kick message.
Random removal successful!
Here there be dragons.... beware, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!
Anger is a weapon to aim at one's opponents. This means you.
Error processing request... please try again.
Go go gadget army boot!
ERROR: Not enough memory to displ
...and there was much rejoicing....
This is a test of the Emergency IRC Kicking System.
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.
Go sit in a corner.
There are ten kinds of people: those that understand binary, and those that don't.
Lose not thy airspeed lest the ground rise up and smite thee!
My problem is drinking Coke in the Pepsi generation
Beatings will continue until morale improves.
A KGB keyboard has no escape key...
Warranty voided upon receipt of final payment.
Excuse me if I sound bitter... I taste that way too...
When I was a child, I was an imaginary playmate...
Beware of Quantum Ducks! Quark! Quark!
Sects, Sects, Sects! Is that ALL you monks ever think about?
PBS: Shareware TV! To register, please send a check or money order...
Human Error - It's all ***YOUR*** Fault.
Entropy isn't what it used to be...
I'm not as think as you confused I am!
If you can't hear me it's because I'm in parentheses.
Whenever I think about the past it brings back so many memories...
It worked! ....Now if only I could remember what I did....
We are NOT lost! I know EXACTLY where we are! Where are we? We're lost.
If this was a real emergency, you'd've been trampled.
"Raise your glass to the comrades we've lost."
All things considered, insanity may be the only reasonable alternative....
Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.
Life is a constant battle to fight off maturity.
I used to understand this stuff. Now I just fake it.
"We do number some bizarre extremists among our ranks." - S. McMahon
You and me against the world? Great! When do we attack?!?
What has 4 legs and an arm? A happy Pit Bull
Don't play "stupid" with me. I'm better at it!
If at first you do succeed, try not to look -too- astonished!
When cows laugh, does milk come out of their nose?
I'm not perky, but I want to be. --Wednesday Addams
Don't put words in my mouth, unless you want your hand bitten off.
Invalid opcode. Go get that programmer's passport checked, dorkus!
Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1990-1951.
Does life seem worthwhile to you? HERE'S HOW TO ORDER!
Annoy a psychic broadcaster: Think for yourself.
Graduate of the Uncle Fester School of Party Etiquette.
Ya want a stupid answer? Ask something!
Xerox never comes up with anything original.
I saw it in a cartoon, but I'm pretty sure I can do it.
Puns are bad -- poetry is verse.
My Reality Check just bounced.
The cost of feathers has risen... Now even DOWN is up!
Preserve Bacteria.. Its the only culture some people have
I went insane trying to take a close-up picture of the horizon.
***** THIS IS NOT MIND CONTROL. Think about it. *****
Reality depends on the book I am currently reading.
Refresh my memory: Which 'final warning' is this?
The gene pool has no lifeguard...
Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
The mind boggles... the taste buds shudder.
Not only am I a master of suspense, but I ...
Auntie Em: Hate you, Hate Kansas, Took the dog. - Dorothy
Who? Me? I just dropped in to stir up some trouble.
Got kleptomania?? Take something for it!
HAS THIS MESSAGE REALLY COME TO AN END?
I have a mind like a steel trap: sharp, dangerous... and illegal in 48 states.
Some days, the only good things on TV are the vase and the clock.
I know my own mind ... and it's around here somewhere!
It's been nice knowing you.. well actually, it hasn't.
This random kick message was censored by popular request.
I recommend you see a therapist. NOW.
The op is always right!
No, I don't hate you... really. ¬_¬
Were you invited?
Shhh... Be vewy vewy qwiet... I'm hunting idiots...
P.S. This doesn't mean we can't be friends. Just don't come near me.
I'm only doing this because I care.... but not about you.
Trying to establish a new kick record...
I'm too lazy to give you a real kick message.
Removal successful!
Not enough memory to displ
This is a test of the Emergency IRC Kicking System
Another one bites the dust...
This is our subtle way of saying goodbye.
Don't let the door hit you on your way out!
Did you hear something?
Violence is never a solution, but it can be entertaining!
I know you like it when I do this.... XD
Where do you wanna go today? Out? Okay! :D
Are we having fun yet?
I'm tired of your company. Be gone!
I would ask you to leave, but why, when I can force you?
I banish thee!
Be gone, foul beast! :)
Here there be dragons.... beware, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!
So tell me, are you retarded, or just stupid?
Someone's brain was taking the day off....
This is why they advocate the use of birth control.
....and STAY OUT!

LJ CSS Layout: Persona 4 GUI

2010-05-22T22:46:07Z

Persona 4's GUI as a layout for Flexible Squares: You know you want it. ♥

It's my first real CSS layout, and also my fourth, I suppose. I'll count it as just my first. I attempted it back when I started learning CSS, and now

So, here's the details:

Preview: Live preview currently at sailslayout01

Account type: ALL (yes, including Basic/Plus!)

Custom comment pages: YES

Friends/Archive/Subjects/Tags/Etc pages: YES (I like to be thorough!)

LJ controlstrip and contextual (user icon) popup box: YES

Written in: Notepad

Tested + working fully in: Google Chrome (Windows), Firefox 3.5.7 (Mac), Firefox 3.6.3 (Windows), Safari 4.0.5 (Windows & Mac)

Tested + working partially in:
- Camino 2.0.2 (Mac): Round borders work, text glow doesn't.
- Firefox 2.0 (Windows): Round borders work, text glow doesn't.
- Internet Explorer 8.0 (Windows): Neither round borders nor text glow work, but the positioning seems correct. It's usable, just not fancy.
- Opera 10.01 (Mac): Text glow works, round borders don't.
Tested + horribly broken in: Internet Explorer 6 (Windows). Ugh. (no CSS3 support at all, poor CSS2 compatibility... and very broken position:absolute support also.)

Other Notes:
- Links in the sidebar, headers, the links under the poster userpic on entries, footers, and skip-links all have a white text glow. Apologies to those whose browsers aren't up to date and won't display text glow, since that's how the game makes its text visible on the stripes.
- Some borders, like the posted comments, entry userpic, calendars' tables and cells, text-entry fields, and buttons, should be rounded.
- Horizontal rules (<hr>) are customized.
- Mood icons display.
- Userpics on the Recent Entries and Friends pages? I'd enable those, if I were you. I think it looks better with them. :)
- Tag clouds don't work. As in, I managed to force them to appear just like tag lists. So it won't matter what it was set to before. :) (The link-effects did not play nicely with the tag clouds. It just didn't work right for this layout.)
- Speaking of, try hovering over most all the links. They change sizes, just like in the game.
- Comments have a minimum width set, so they don't get all smooshed into single-word columns when threads reach some arbitrary length. I hate when that happens, so having a min width be a definite feature in about every layout I make ever.
- I customized the reply/quickreply tables too!
- Hovering over the ljuser flower icons makes them spin. :D
- In case it wasn't obvious, I tried to stay true to Persona 4's GUI. So yes, the font is big, in the sidebar, and its background is directly taken from a screencap I made of the pause-type-screen's menu, while going around Inaba.
Known issues: The positioning of the userpic, above comments. At best, it lines up just right. At worst, its bottom edge will be hidden by about ten pixels or so, or it'll float up above the comment box a bit oddly.

Please poke me if I missed anything!

CSS Code:

/* Cleaned CSS: */

/* Flexible Squares, Persona 4's GUI, by ladyasul.livejournal.com (http://ladyasul.livejournal.com/13427.html)
Let me know if you use this; I'm curious! :) */

div {margin:0px;border:none;padding:0px;outline:0px;}

body, #content, #header, #footer{
 background-color: #ffffef;
 background-image: url(http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3892/p4rainbow01.gif);
 background-position: 30px 0px;
 background-repeat: repeat-y;
 font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
 font-size: 12px;
 margin: 0px;
 color: #000;
}

a, a:link, a:visited, a:hover {
 text-decoration: none;
 font-weight: bold;
 color: #000;
}

#content {position:relative;margin-top:30px;}
.clear{display: none !important;}

.ljuser img{
 width: 0px !important;
 height: 0px !important;
 background: url(http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8404/p4flowers.gif) no-repeat !important;
 padding: 10px !important;
 margin: -1px -1px -3px 0px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src*="community.gif"]{
 background-position: -25px 0px !important;
}
.ljuser img:hover{
 background-image: url(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1148/p4flowersspin.gif) !important;}

#lj_controlstrip .ljuser img{vertical-align:text-top !important;margin-top:-5px !important;}

#header,#footer{
 background-color: #ffe41c;
 margin: 20px 0px;
 padding: 10px 30px 10px 210px;
 z-index: 5;
 position: relative;
 font-size: 13px;
 font-weight: bold;
 min-width: 300px;
}

div#header a:hover, div#footer a:hover{
 font-size: 17px;
 line-height: 12px;
}

ul.navheader, ul.navfooter{
 padding: 0;
 margin: 0;
 list-style-type: none;
}
ul.navheader li, ul.navfooter li{
 display: inline;
 padding: 0 5px 0 0;
}
ul.navheader a, ul.navfooter a{
 line-height: 12px;
}

.title {
 font-size: 25px;
 padding: 10px 0;
}

.subtitle {
 font-size: 18px;
 top: 10px;
}

#sidebar{
 background-image: url(http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3892/p4rainbow01.gif);
 background-repeat: repeat-y;
 position: absolute;
 top: -10px;
 left: 0;
 margin: 0px 0px 30px 30px;
 padding: 10px 0 150px 0;
 width: 168px;
 z-index: 50;
 overflow: hidden;
 font-weight: bold;
 font-size: 13px;
 color: #000;
}

#sidebar a:hover{
 font-size: 17px;
}

.defaultuserpic{
 margin: 0px auto;
 text-align: center;
}

.sbarbody{
 margin: 25px 0px 0px 0px;
}
ul.sbarlist, .sbarbody2{
 margin: 0;
 padding: 0;
 list-style-type: none;
}
li.sbartitle{
 padding: 0px 12px;
 font-size: 20px;
}
.sbarbody2{
 padding: 0 12px 0 20px;
}

li.sbaritem, li.tagcloud{
 padding: 0 12px 0 25px;
 text-indent: -5px;
}

table.calendar, table.calendar td{
 margin: 10px auto 0px;
 background-color: #000;
 font-size: 10px;
 text-align: center;
}
.sbarcalendar {
 background-color: #888 !important;
}
.sbarcalendarposts {
 background-color: #ffe41c !important;
}
.sbarcalendarposts a:hover{font-size:10px !important;}

li.tagcloud span{
 font-size: 100% !important;
 display: list-item;
}

#sidebar_summary li.sbaritem {margin: 3px 0;}

#maincontent{
 margin: 20px 0 10px 198px;
 min-width: 300px;
}

.subcontent{clear:both;}
.userpic, .userpicfriends{
 float: right;
 position: relative;
 padding: 5px;
 background-color: #ff8f0f !important;
 margin: 5px 10px;
 font-size: 11px;
 text-align: center;
 z-index: 15;
 border: 2px #ff8f0f solid !important;
}

.datesubject{
 background-color: #ff8f0f;
 padding: 0 15px;
 margin: 20px 0 25px 0;
 font-weight: bold;
 position: relative;
 top: 20px;
 z-index: 10;
}
.date, .subject{
 margin: 0 10px 0 0;
 padding: 10px 0;
}
.date{font-size:11px;}
.subject{
 font-size:18px;
 line-height: 18px;
 padding: 0 0 10px 0;
}
.subject a:hover{
 font-size: 20px;
 line-height: 17px;
}
.lj-view-reply .datesubject{
 padding: 10px 15px;
}
.replytoposter{font-size:11px;}
.replytosubject{font-size:18px;}

.entry{
 padding: 0 10px;
}

.entry_text{
 padding: 0 0 10px 0;
 color: #4f4b30;
}
.ljtags {
 color: #000;
 margin: 10px 0 -10px 0;
}
.currents, .currentmood, .currentmusic, .ljtags {
 font-weight: bold;
 padding: 1px 0;
}
.currentmood img{vertical-align:text-bottom !important;}

.entry a, .entry a:link{color: #04f;}
.entry a:visited{color: #551a8b;}
.entry a:hover{color: #ed1c24;}

/*.ljtags a{
 color: #000 !important;
} */

.entry_text hr{
 display: block;
 height: 3px;
 border-width: 0;
 color: #ff8f0f;
 background-color: #ff8f0f;
 margin: 5px 10px;
}

.comments{
 clear: both;
 background-color: #ff8f0f;
 text-align: right;
 color: #ff8f0f;
 font-size: 11px;
 line-height: 10px;
 margin: 5px -10px 0 -10px;
 padding: 5px 10px 0 20px;
 height: 15px;
}
.comments a{color: #000 !important;}
.comments a:hover{
 font-size: 13px;
 line-height: 10px;
}

.separator{
 display: none;
}
.lj-view-recent .separator, .lj-view-friends .separator, .lj-view-day .separator {
 /* only appear on the Recent Entries, Friends, and Day views, kthx. */
 display: block;
 height: 50px;
}

.skiplinks {
 color: #ffffef;
 text-align: center;
 line-height: 30px;
}
.skiplinks a{
 background-color: #ff8f0f;
 display: inline;
 padding: 5px;
 margin: 3px;
 line-height: 12px;
 position: relative;
 z-index: 10;
}
.skiplinks a:hover{
 font-size: 15px;
 line-height: 12px;
}

/*gets rid of the space under the comment in reply page*/
.lj-view-reply div[style="margin:0px 10px 50px 30px; overflow: hidden;"] {display: none !important;}

.box{padding: 10px;clear:both;}

.commentbox{
 margin: 20px 0 20px 0;
 min-width: 300px;
 clear: both;
 padding: 0 0 0 4px;
 color: #fff;
}

.datesubjectcomment{
 vertical-align: text-bottom;
 position: relative;
 z-index: 5;
 background-image: url(http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/8954/p4tilt1.gif);
 background-repeat: no-repeat;
 background-position: 0px 70px;
 min-height: 10px;
 padding: 80px 115px 100px 15px;
 color: #000;
 margin: 10px 0 -100px -10px;
 font-size: 10px;
}
.userpiccomment{
 position: absolute;
 z-index: 15;
 margin: -72px 0 0 0;
 padding: 0;
 vertical-align: text-bottom;
 text-align: right;
 right: 10px;
 clear: both;

}

.commentreply{
 background-color: #4f4b30;
 position: relative;
 z-index: 10;
 padding: 10px 20px;
 clear: both;
 -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
 -moz-border-radius: 5px;
 border-radius: 5px;
 -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 0;
 -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 0;
 -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 0;
 -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 0;
 border-bottom-right-radius: 0;
 border-bottom-left-radius: 0;
}
.commentbox > div[style="margin-top: 3px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;"]{
 background-color: #4f4b30;
 padding: 10px 20px;
 margin: 0 !important;
 z-index: 10;
 position: relative;
 clear: both;

-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
 -moz-border-radius: 5px;
 border-radius: 5px;
 -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 0;
 -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 0;
 -moz-border-radius-topright: 0;
 -moz-border-radius-topleft: 0;
 border-top-right-radius: 0;
 border-top-left-radius: 0;
}
.commentbox > div > div[style="padding: 10px; text-align: right;"]{
 padding: 10px 0 !important;
}
.commentbox > div[style="margin-top: 3px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;"] a{
 color: #ffb000 !important;
}
.commentreply a, .commentreply a:link{color: #ffb000;}
.commentreply a:visited{color: #ff8f0f;}
.commentreply a:hover{color: #04f;}

.commentboxpartial{
 background-color: #ff8f0f;
 margin-top: 20px;
 margin-bottom: 20px;
 padding: 10px 20px;
 border: none;
 line-height: 12px;
 min-width: 150px;
}
.commentboxpartial a:hover{
 font-size: 15px;
 line-height: 12px;
}

#qrformdiv{clear:both}
#qrformdiv > #qrform > table, #postform > table {
 margin: 10px 0;
 width: 100%;
 padding: 10px;
 background-color: #000;
 color: #fff;
}

#qrformdiv > #qrform > table a,
#postform > table a{color: #ffb000;}

#lj_controlstrip_search_input_text,
#postform input.textbox, #postform textarea.textbox,
#qrformdiv input.textbox, #qrformdiv textarea.textbox,
textarea{
 color: #000;
 font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
 font-size: 12px;
 background-color: #fff;
 padding: 5px;
 border: 1px solid #000;
 margin: 4px 15px 4px 1px;;
 -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
 -moz-border-radius: 5px;
 border-radius: 5px;
}
#qrformdiv input.textbox{min-width: 200px; width: 99%;}
#postform textarea.textbox, #qrformdiv textarea.textbox{width: 99% !important;}

input[type="submit"], input[type="button"]{
 background-color: #ff8f0f !important;
 border: 1px solid #000 !important;
 padding: 3px 8px !important;
 font-size: 13px;
 font-weight: bold;
 margin: 1px;
 color: #000 !important;
}
input[type="submit"]:hover, input[type="button"]:hover{
 background-color: #ffe41c !important;
}

/* drop-down menus */
select[name="prop_picture_keyword"],
select[name="mode"],
select[name="redir_key"]{
 background-color: #ffe41c;
 margin: 1px;
 border: 1px solid black;
}
select[name="view"]{background-color:#ffffef !important;}

ul.year{
 margin: 10px auto 20px auto;
 text-align: center;
}
ul.year li{
 list-style-type: none;
 display: inline;
 margin: 45px 25px;
 padding: 10px;
 background-color: #ffe41c;
 font-weight: bold;
 font-size: 20px;
 line-height: 60px;
}
ul.year li a:hover{
 background-color: #ff8f0f;
 margin: -10px -20px;
 padding: 13px;
 font-size: 25px;
 line-height: 60px;
 position: relative;
 top: 2px;
}

.yeartable{
 table-layout: fixed;
 empty-cells: hide !important;
 margin: 20px auto 0 auto;
 background-color: #000;
 font-weight: bold;
 width: 464px;
}
.yeartable td{border: solid 2px #ffe41c; background-color: #ffe41c; padding: 5px 0px; margin: 2px;}

td.yearmonth{
 border: none;
 color: #ffe41c;
 font-size: 20px;
 line-height: 30px;
 padding: 7px;
 background-color: #000;
 border: #000;
}
td.yearmonth a{color: #ffe41c;}

td.yearday, td.yeardate, td.yeardate div{
 text-align: center !important;
 padding: 5px;
 font-size: 15px;
 font-weight: bold;
}

td.yeardate{
 padding: 0 5px;
 height: 70px;
}
td.yeardate div{font-size: 20px; padding: 0;}
td.yeardate a{
 font-size: 30px;
 position: relative;
 top: 12px;
 line-height: 15px;
 margin: 0px -10px;
}
.yeartable a:hover{color: #ff8f0f;}

.lj-view-tags #maincontent{
 margin: 20px 20px 20px 210px;
 min-width: 270px;
}
.lj-view-tags #maincontent a:hover{
 font-size: 15px;
 line-height: 12px;
}

.lj-view-month #maincontent a{
 color: #000;
 font-weight: bold;
 line-height: 12px;
}
.lj-view-month #maincontent .entry a:hover{
 font-size: 15px;
 line-height: 12px;
}
.lj-view-month #maincontent dd{
 padding: 0 0 30px 0;
}
.lj-view-month #maincontent form a{
 background-color: #ff8f0f;
 padding: 3px 8px;
 margin: 0 -4px;
 border: 1px solid #000;
 font-size: 13px;
 position: relative;
 z-index: 10;
}
.lj-view-month #maincontent form a:hover{
 background-color: #ffe41c;
}

.clearfoot{height:20px;}
#footer{clear:both}

/* GLOWY THINGS HERE! */
#header, #footer, #sidebar, .datesubject, .comments a, .skiplinks a, .userpicfriends a, ul.year li{
  text-shadow: -1px 0 white, 0 1px white, 1px 0 white, 0 -1px white, 0 0 5px white, 0 0 5px white, 0 0 5px white, 0 0 5px white, 0 0 5px white, 0 0 5px white;
}

/* ROUNDED THINGS HERE! */

table.calendar, table.calendar td, .userpic, .userpicfriends, .skiplinks a, .commentboxpartial, #qrformdiv > #qrform > table, #postform > table, input[type="submit"], input[type="button"], ul.year li, ul.year li a:hover, .yeartable, .yeartable td, .lj-view-month #maincontent form a{
 -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
 -moz-border-radius: 5px;
 border-radius: 5px;
}

* html div.subcontent{
 /* fixes an IE reply page bug */
 height: 1%;
 clear: none;
}

* html div.box#commentform{
 /* fixes an IE reply page bug */
 position: absolute;
 border-width: 1px;
 border-style: solid;
 border-color: #d1d1d1;
 background-color: #c2cde0;
}

body > div[style~="728px;"] {
 background-color: transparent !important;
 border: none !important;
 padding: 15px 0 15px 210px !important;
}
body > div[style~="728px;"] a {
 background-color: #ffffef;
 font-weight: bold;
 padding: 2px;
}

#lj_controlstrip, #lj_controlstrip_statustext{
 background-image: none;
 background-color: #ffe41c;
 border: none;
 color: #000;
}
#lj_controlstrip a,#lj_controlstrip a:visited,#lj_controlstrip a:hover{color: #000;}
#lj_controlstrip td{border:none !important;}
div.ContextualPopup div.Inner{background:#ffffef !important;}

Instructions:
First, go to Select Journal Style and search for Flexible Squares. Pick and apply any of them. Yes, any of them.

Then go to Customize your theme and select the CSS option. Have all three drop-downs set to No and then paste the above CSS code into the Custom stylesheet box and save changes.

Last step! Go to the Style page for a moment... and in the top (Page) section, find where it says "Background color of the outer table" (fourth box down) and paste in "#ffffef", and then lower down, in the Entries section, the third option down, "Border color of the content and header/footer boxes" paste "#ffffef" there too.

Save your changes again... and you're done!

I'm curious as to who uses this. Leave me a comment? ♥ And if you comment to let me know, I'll be able to keep you updated on code tweaks, too.

Please credit!

Questions welcome!

Quick poll, if you wouldn't mind?

2010-05-08T18:46:34Z

One question, two options.

It's quick, and just for my own curiosity, really.

It's right here.

Thanks. ♥

Styles for Stylish

2010-04-23T20:41:04Z

Posting some code for a new toy I found, the Firefox add-on Stylish.

Stylish lets you override a page's CSS with CSS of your own.

If used wrong, you could mess up how layouts display for you, but Stylish's various style tweaks are easily disabled, so oh well. :)

If used right, however... you know how on almost every layout, including the LJ-default white-and-sky-blue one, if you have a long comment thread, before too long,

it'll
start
doing
this
crud
with
single-
word
columns
on
the
right?

And you have to scroll down like five pages just to read one paragraph, or something? Ugh, I hate that.

So I fixed it.

I'd rather scroll sideways a tad sooner, and be able to read a bit of text horizontally, than just vertically.

Style name: LJ Default (min comment width)

Style code:

It's a simple fix: it sets comments' minimum widths to 200 pixels, or twice as wide as the icons.

I realize that that's a lot of CSS selectors... but I did it like that so that, hopefully, this code will only target the LJ-default pages. Why? To leave non-default journal CSS alone, of course. :)

Sorry for spamming you with so many posts in such a short time, F-list!

Guns....

2010-04-21T21:33:40Z

Hey, everyone... take a brief moment, please?

http://www.closetheloophole.org/ has a petition. It's just your email address and zip code.

This link has some good info on what this is about, but to sum it up, at a gun show, if you claim yourself as a private seller, you can sell a gun to anyone you want, without keeping records, and without doing a background check.

Let me put this another way. If you want a gun, and it doesn't matter who you are (a convicted felon, a drug addict who's been in prison for first-degree assault with weapons, someone who's been brought in for gang-related violence, even a back-alley gun dealer yourself...) and normal stores won't sell you a gun because you can't pass a background check, you can just go to a gun show and go visit the private sellers. ...And then you could buy guns, off the records, no questions asked.

I'd like to think that most people that would sell guns at gun shows would ask questions, but I'm an idealist.

I'm also well aware that this is not the only way people that shouldn't have guns can get their hands on them, but it's one obvious and fixable way, and so there's no reason not to fix it. If you're going to sell one, background check and proper documentation. End of story.

On a more personal note about this, I nearly lost both my sisters to a stupid teenager who managed to get his hands on a gun.

The more accurate sum of that tale is, I have two younger sisters. The older one had a boyfriend, DJ, and the younger one was about to turn 16 in a week. All three were at his house while a party went on. Given that the older of them and DJ, and DJ's roommates (I think) and most of the people there, were all of drinking age, that's... kind of irrelevant. Anyway, Dirkston, then 17, started a fight with another boy there, over a girl... tried to punch him. DJ broke it up and kicked Dirkston out.

An hour later, Dirkston and some friends came back, with a loaded .44 or .45, with hollow-point rounds. At this point, the party was over, and all that were left at the house were DJ, his roommates, and my sisters. Dirkston had put his tee over his face, for a fail mask (they all recognized him instantly anyway) and demanded to know where that kid he'd tried fighting with was. DJ wouldn't tell him, told him to leave, tried to talk him down, and sent my sisters to the bathroom so they'd be out of immediate danger.

I'm not sure exactly what happened out there in the living room, but I know that at some point, DJ left the living room to go check on my sisters in the bathroom. Dirkston shot through the bathroom door and hit DJ, killing him. He went into the bathroom and managed to shoot the younger of my two sisters, which put her in the ICU for a very stressful, anxious week. Dirkston ran and drove off again. He was busted about fifteen minutes to half an hour later.

Dirkston was tried and convicted last December, of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and first-degree burglary. (I'm not sure how the last one got in there, TBH, and I don't care.) I hope his sentence, when they pass it soon, is a good long one. He almost ended one of my sisters' lives, he ended DJ's life before DJ ever found out that he and my other sister were going to have a daughter, and only didn't shoot her because she moved quick enough.

So if anyone wants to know what I think about stricter gun laws, about better controlling who can get their hands on them, and their accessibility... I think you can guess.

Think what you will about adding one more sad story to the pile of them, and the "guns don't kill people, people do" saying... the fact remains, the wrong people still are getting their hands on guns, and there's no reason not to close a gaping hole in the regulations.

((One of the things that stuck in my mind while she was in the hospital was that bit from Eddie Izzard... "The National Rifle Association says that guns don't kill people, people do.' But I think-- I think the gun helps, you know? I think it helps. I just think that just standing there going, 'bang!' That's not going to kill too many people, is it? You'd have to be really dodgy on the heart to have that."))

Project To Do list and directory of past stuffs

2010-04-17T12:01:07Z

Some of the stuff I'm working on, have plotted, was working on at one point, and/or have finished, in no particular order:

Layouts:

Windows 2000/Classic theme. DONE ~~as though you didn't know.~~ [link]

DDS: Karma/Life Terminals. DONE! ♥ [link]

Persona 4: Pause-menu GUI. DONE! [link]

Comic book

the Velvet Room

"TF01"

"AE1"

Mirror Frequency

Purple rose garden

DDS: Stats screen

something Nocturne.

SMT general logo thing?

Flexible Squares mimics Expressive/Mixit. HALFWAY DONE or so.

Dyaus

Mass Effect GUI

In case it wasn't obvious, the GUI-type stuff appeals to me more than some of the more... common styles of layouts. Not that I only do GUIs, though. Far from it. >_>

Art:
....I'll do this later.

Lists are far from complete.

LJ CSS Layout: Digital Devil Saga's Karma Terminal + Life Terminal (now with Vendor!)

2010-04-16T21:32:16Z

OKAY SO. I finally finished my DDS Terminals layout! I think.

It's technically my third finished CSS layout, and I'm having too much fun doing this. It's based on the Karma Terminals and Life Terminals' GUIs, from the Digital Devil Saga games. I recreated the graphics, capped and reworked the background, all of that.

Edit: Now includes a Vendor (Terminal) variant and previews!

So, here's the details:

Preview: Live preview currently at junkyardwolf
Life Terminal variant preview: here
Vendor (Terminal) variant preview: here

Written in: Notepad

Tested + working in: Google Chrome, Firefox 3.6.3, Safari 4.0.5

Tested + broken in: Internet Explorer 6 (it does not like transparent PNGs. Boo hoo. This is not fixed yet, but let's be honest, who uses IE6 for LJ?)

Account type: ALL (yes, including Basic/Plus!)

Custom comment pages: YES

Friends/Archive/Subjects/Tags/Etc pages: YES (I like to be thorough!)

LJ controlstrip and contextual (user icon) popup box: YES

Other Notes: The text-shadow (glow) effects only worked in my Firefox and Chrome; earlier Firefox versions and the other browsers don't normally do it. Which is fine, since they're only very minor effects on this layout, and completely ignorable anyway. Not sure what happened, but the code's not in this version for that anyway. I'll figure that out later. 0_o

Icons for user/comm links, navigation on entry pages, and comment control (edit, track, delete, screen, freeze, etc) are all customized.

Screened comments have a static-looking background instead of being the tinted one.

I styled everything from the horizontal rules (<HR> tags) to custom bullets on unordered lists.

Mood icons don't display (I didn't like them much, in this layout.)

The background is animated (and not a large file -- only 160 KB. Took a while to do, but I'm pleased with it.)

Userpics on the Recent Entries and Friends pages? I'd enable those, if I were you. I think it looks better with them. :)

Tag lists work better in this. I haven't styled the tag cloud, so leave it on tag clouds at your own risk. I doubt it'll break the layout, but I do know it doesn't look right. It also means that tags won't get the teal highlighting on hovers, because they're not in list format. (See below)

Comments have a minimum width set, so they don't get all smooshed into single-word columns when threads reach some arbitrary length. I hate when that happens, so having a min width be a definite feature in about every layout I make ever.

And the sidebar list items' backgrounds change when hovered, just like in the game.

Please poke me if I missed anything!

CSS Code:

/* Minimalism: DDS Karma/Life Terminals + Vendor (Terminal) for Deep Ocean base, by ladyasul.livejournal.com (http://ladyasul.livejournal.com/11180.html)
Let me know if you use this; I'm curious! :) */

html *{
	margin: 0px;
	padding: 0px;
	border: none;
	outline: none;
}

body{
	background-color: #3f303d;
	background-image: url(http://a.imageshack.us/img201/4859/bgveinanim2.gif);
	color: #d0ccef;
	font-family: "Arial", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
	font-size: 12px;
	margin: 0px;
	padding: 0px;
}

p, td, blockquote{
	font-family: "Arial", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
}
blockquote{
	margin: 0px 30px;
	padding: 0px;
}
code, tt, pre{
	font-family: "Lucida Console", "Monaco", monospace;
}

a{
	color: #ffffff;
	font-weight: normal;
	text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover{
	color: #e7fafb; /* ice green */
}

h1{font-size: 22px; font-weight: bold;}
h2{font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold;}
h3{font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;}
h4{font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;}
h5{font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold;}
h6{font-size: 8px; font-weight: bold;}

hr{display: none;}
.entry-content hr, .comment-text hr{
	display: block;
	height: 2px;
	border-width: 0;
	color: #816d6d;;
	background-color: #816d6d;;
	margin: 5px 10px;
}

.entry-text .entry-content ol, .comment-text ol,
#post-sticky .entry-text .entry-content ol, .view-tags .content-tags ol{
	margin: 1em 0px;
	padding-left: 40px;
}
.entry-text .entry-content ul, .comment-text ul,
#post-sticky .entry-text .entry-content ul, .view-tags .content-tags ul{
	margin: 1em 0px;
	list-style-type: none;
}
.entry-text .entry-content ul li, .comment-text ul li,
#post-sticky .entry-text .entry-content ul li, .view-tags .content-tags ul li{
	background-image: url(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7093/termsbbullt.png);
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	background-position: 20px 2px;
	padding-left: 40px;
}

.ljcut-link a{font-weight: bold;}

/* Header */

.header{
	position: relative;
	border: none;
	margin: 0px;
	height: 180px;
	min-height: 180px;
	min-width: 700px;
	background-image: url(http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/3513/termkheaderb.png); /*Karma Terminal*/
/*	background-image: url(http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/1941/termlheaderb.png); Life Terminal*/
/*	background-image: url(http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/699/termvheaderb.png); Vendor */
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	background-position: 10px 10px;
	z-index: 50;
}

.header-in{
	margin: 0px;
	padding: 48px 0px 10px 120px;
}

.userpic{display: none;}

.header-sec{
	margin-left: 10px;
	max-width: 380px;
	width: 380px;
	height: 68px;
}
.header-sec .ljuser img{
	display: none;
}
.header-sec .ljuser a{
	color: #f8e0d6; /*Karma Terminal*/
/*	color: #d5f1ee; Life Terminal*/
/*	color: #e8e1C3; Vendor*/
}
/* .header-sec .ljuser{padding-left:25px;} Vendor*/

.header-sec .ljuser a:hover{
	color: #ffffff;
}

ul.nav{
	display: inline;
	list-style-type: none;
	height: 36px;
	min-height: 36px;
	margin-left: 10px;
	margin-right: auto;
}
ul.nav li{
	padding: 7px 15px 7px 0px;;
	font-size: 13px;
	display: inline;
	font-weight: bold;
	vertical-align: middle;
}
ul.nav li a{
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #bbaacc;
}
ul.nav li a:hover{
	color: #d0ccef;
}

.header-in ul.nav-sub{
	position: absolute;
	top: 60px;
	left: 550px;
	font-size: 12px;
}
.header-in ul.nav-sub li{
	display: inline;
	list-style-type: none;
	padding-right: 5px;
}
.btn-rss{
	padding-left: 16px;
	background-image: url(http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/5725/rssbtns4.png);
	background-position: 0px 1px;
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	height: 14px;
}
.btn-add{
	padding-left: 16px;
	background-image: url(http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/5725/rssbtns4.png);
	background-position: 0px -21px;
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	height: 14px;
}

/* Entries */

.content-inner{
	margin: 0px 0px 0px 250px;
	z-index: 5;
	position: static;
	padding: 0px 15px;	
}

.view-recent .entry-wrap, .view-friends .entry-wrap, .view-day .entry-wrap{
	padding-bottom: 50px;
}

.entry{min-width: 230px;}

.entry-title, .entry-title a{
	font-size: 15px;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #bbaacc;
}
.entry-title{
	position: relative;
	z-index: 30;
	min-height: 31px;
	min-width: 240px;
	background-image: url(http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4655/termsbtitleb.png);
	background-position: 0px 8px;
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	margin: 0px 10px -10px -10px;
	padding: 0px 0px 0px 22px;
}
.entry-title a:hover{
	color: #d0ccef;
}
.hentry .entry-text{
	z-index: 10;
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	min-height: 125px;
	padding: 10px;
}
.vcard{
	position: relative;
	float: right;
	z-index: 25;
	text-align: center;
	margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;
}
.vcard img{margin-bottom: 5px;}

.metadata{margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;}
.meta-location-label{display: inline; font-weight: bold; padding-right: 5px;}
.meta-location-value{display: inline}
.meta-mood-label{display: inline; font-weight: bold; padding-right: 5px;}
.meta-mood-value{display: inline; color: #ebe6ff;}
.meta-mood-value img{display: none;}
.meta-music-label{display: inline; font-weight: bold; padding-right: 5px;}
.meta-music-value{display: inline; color: #ebe6ff;}

.entry-content{
	min-height: 35px;
	padding-bottom: 50px;
}
.ljtags{
	font-weight: bold;
	margin: 50px 0px -50px 0px;
}

.entrymenu{
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	padding: 10px;
	padding-top: 0px;
}
.entrymenu ul{
	display: inline;
	list-style-type: none;
}
.entrymenu ul li{
	padding: 7px 15px 7px 0px;;
	display: inline;
	font-weight: bold;
}
.entrymenu ul li a{
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #bbaacc;
}
.entrymenu ul li a:hover{
	color: #d0ccef;
}

.btn-comments span span span{
	background-image: url(http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/2894/term1diam2b.png);
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	height: 28px;
	width: 28px;
	text-align: center;
	font-size: 20px;
	font-weight: bold;
	padding: 2px 10px 6px 10px;
	text-align: center;
	margin: -2px -10px -6px 0px;
}

ul.page-nav{
	list-style: none;
	margin: 20px auto;
	text-align: center;
}
ul.page-nav li{
	display: inline;
	padding: 0px 10px;
}

/* sticky post etc */

#post-sticky .entry-text, .view-archive .entry-text,
.view-month .entry-text, .view-tags .entry-text{
	z-index: 10;
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	min-height: 0px;
	padding: 10px;
}
#post-sticky .entry-text .entry-content{
	min-height: 0px;
	padding-bottom: 0px;
}

.view-tags .entry-wrap{
	margin-top: 21px;
}

/* entry-page specific */

.entry-linkbar{	/* the entry's icon-navbar */
	text-align: center;
	margin: 10px 0px 10px 0px;
	padding: 0px;
	background-image: none;
	height: 24px;
	min-width: 290px;
}
.entry-linkbar a{margin: 0px 10px;}

.comments-links{/* ( X comments - Leave a comment ) */
	margin: 25px 0px;
	text-align: center;
}

.comment-wrap{
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	margin: 10px 0px;
	padding: 10px;
	min-width: 150px;
	min-height: 100px;
}
.partial{min-height: 0px;}
.screened{
	background-image: url(http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9959/termstaticbg.png);
	border: 2px solid #000000;
}

.comment-head{padding-bottom: 5px;}
.comment-upic{position: relative; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;}
.comment-head-in .comment-permalink{display: block;}
.comment-head-in p label{padding-right: 3px;}
.comment-head-in p a img{margin-left: 3px; margin-bottom: -2px;}

.comment-text{margin: 5px 0px; padding: 5px 0px;}

.comment-menu{margin-top: 5px; padding-top: 5px;}

/* Friends-view specific */

.view-friends dl.vcard dt img{
	margin: 0px 0px 5px auto;
}
.view-friends dd.username{
	width: 120px;
	margin: 0px 0px 0px auto;
}

.view-friends .hentry .entry-text{
	min-height: 170px;
}

/* Calendar views */

.view-month .entry-text{padding-top: 0px;}
.view-month .entry-text dl{margin-top: -10px;}
.view-month .entry-text dl dt{
	font-size: 15px;
	font-weight: bold;
	padding-top: 20px;
}
.view-month .entry-text dl dt a{font-weight: bold;}
.view-month .entry-text dl dd{
	margin-left: 10px;
}
.view-month .entry-text dl dd .ljuser{margin-right: 5px;}

.view-archive .entry{min-width: 230px;}

.view-archive .entry-text ul{
	text-align: center;
	list-style: none;
	margin: 0px 10px 30px 10px;
	font-size: 15px;
	font-weight: bold;
}
.view-archive .entry-text ul li{
	background: none;
	display: inline;
	margin: 0px;
	padding: 10px;
}
.view-archive .entry-text ul li a{font-weight: bold;}

.view-archive .entry-text .calendar-wrap{
	width: 150px;
	display: inline;
	padding: 10px;
	text-align: center;
}
.view-archive .entry-text .calendar-wrap table{
	margin: 10px auto;
	width: 150px;
}
.view-archive .entry-text caption{
	border-bottom: 1px solid #816d6d;
	margin-bottom: 2px;
}
.view-archive .entry-text caption a{
	margin-bottom: 5px;
	font-weight: bold;
	padding: 0px 5px;
}

/* Reply fields, buttons, dropdowns */

.replyform table, #qrformdiv table{
	border: none !important;
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	padding: 10px 15px 10px 0px;
	width: 100%;
	min-width: 390px !important;
	margin-right: 10px;
}

.replyform table td, #qrformdiv table td{padding: 1px;}

/* input.texbox = subject, textarea.textbox = message */
.replyform input.textbox, .replyform textarea.textbox,
#qrformdiv input.textbox, #qrformdiv textarea.textbox,
textarea{
	color: #ebe6ff;
	font-family: "Arial", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
	font-size: 12px;
	background-color: #000000;
	padding: 5px;
	border: 1px solid #b2a3ae;
	margin: 4px 15px 4px 1px;;
}
.replyform input.textbox{}
#qrformdiv input.textbox{min-width: 200px; width: 99%;}
.replyform textarea.textbox, #qrformdiv textarea.textbox{width: 99% !important;}

#qrform table td[align="right"],
.replyform table td[align="right"]{
	font-weight: bold;
	width: 65px !important;
	color: #bbaacc;
	padding-top: 10px;
}
#qrform table td[style="width: 90%"],
.replyform table td[style="width: 90%"]{
	width: auto !important;
	margin-right: 10px;
}

.replyform table tbody tr td table{/* login options */
	padding: 0px;
	margin: 0px;
	width: 250px;
}

/* buttons */
input[type="submit"], input[type="button"]{
	background-color: #b2a3ae !important;
	border: 1px solid black !important;
	padding: 0px 5px !important;
	font-size: 12px;
	margin: 1px;
	color: #000000 !important;
}

/* drop-down menus */
select[name="prop_picture_keyword"],
select[name="mode"]{
	background-color: #b2a3ae;
	margin: 1px;
}

/* SIDEBAR */

.sidebar{
	position: absolute;
	left: 0px;
	top: 142px;
	width: 220px;
	z-index: 40;
	background-image: url(http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/866/termdiamsb.png);
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	background-position: 30px 0px;
	min-height: 200px;
	margin: 0px;
	padding-top: 65px;
	font-size: 11px;
	color: #bbaacc;
}

.sidebar-inner{
	background: url(http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/1782/termsbend2.png) no-repeat bottom left;
	padding-bottom: 150px;	
}

.sidebar-block{
	width: 153px;
	max-width: 150px;
	overflow: hidden !important;
	padding: 0px 0px 0px 84px;
	margin: 0px;
	background: url(http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/3051/termsb3pxv.png) repeat-y 83px 0px;
	
}

.sidebar-block dt{
	font-size: 13px;
	font-weight: bold;
	position: relative;
	z-index: 45;
	min-height: 31px;
	min-width: 150px;
	background-image: url(http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4655/termsbtitleb.png);
	background-position: 0px 27px;
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	margin: 0px 10px -11px -10px;
	padding: 20px 0px 0px 20px;
}

.sidebar-block dd{
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	padding: 4px 4px 4px 15px;
	margin-left: 3px;
	text-indent: -5px;
}

.sidebar-block dd ul{
	list-style-type: none;
}
.sidebar-block dd ul li{
	margin: 0px -4px 0px -15px;
	padding: 0px 4px 0px 15px;
}
.sidebar-block dd ul li:hover, .sidebar-block dd ul li:active{
	background-image: url(http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/6420/termsbtealt1.png);
	background-repeat: repeat-y;
	color: #d0ccef;
}

.sidebar-cal dd{
	padding: 4px 15px 4px 15px;
	text-indent: 0px;
	text-align: center;
}
.sidebar-cal table{margin: 0px auto;}
.sidebar-cal caption{
	border-bottom: 1px solid #816d6d;
	font-size: 12px;
}
.sidebar-cal td, .sidebar-cal th{
	width: 15px;
}

.sidebar-custom dd{
	text-indent: 0px;
	padding-left: 10px;
}

.sidebar-block dd:first-child{/* contents w/o headers get margins too */
	margin-top: 20px;
}

.sidebar-block dt + dt{/* fixes duplicate (empty) title bug in links list */
	padding-top: 0px;
	margin-top: -31px;
	background-image: none;
}

.sidebar-powered{
	padding: 20px 0px 4px 86px;
	text-align: center;
}

/* misc */

.ljuser img{
	width: 0px !important;
	height: 0px !important;
	background: url(http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/911/termljpics.png) no-repeat !important;
	background-position: -75px -25px !important;
	padding: 10px !important;
	margin: -1px -4px -3px 0px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src*="community.gif"]{
	background-position: -25px 0px !important;
	margin-right: -2px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src*="userinfo.gif"]{
	background-position: -50px -25px !important;
}

.entry-linkbar img[src*="http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/btn_"],
.comment-head img[src*="http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/btn_"]{
	width: 0;
	height: 0;
	padding: 0 18px 18px 0;
	background-image: url("http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/4074/ljbtns2.png") !important;
	background-repeat: no-repeat !important;
	background-position: -46px -92px !important;
}

.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_prev.gif"]{
	background-position: 0px -46px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_next.gif"]{
	background-position: -23px -46px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_edit.gif"]{
	background-position: -46px -69px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_edittags.gif"]{
	background-position: 0px -92px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_memories.gif"]{
	background-position: -46px -46px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_sharethis.gif"]{
	background-position: -23px -69px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_track.gif"],.comment-head img[src*="btn_track.gif"]{
	background-position: 0px -23px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="btn_tracking.gif"], .comment-head img[src*="btn_tracking.gif"]{
	background-position: 0px -23px !important;
}
.entry-linkbar img[src*="button-flag.gif"]{
	width: 0;
	height: 0;
	padding: 0 18px 18px 0;
	background: url("http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/4074/ljbtns2.png") no-repeat 0px -69px !important;
}
.comment-head img[src*="btn_del.gif"]{
	margin-left: 3px;
	background-position: 0px 0px !important;
}
.comment-head img[src*="btn_scr.gif"]{
	background-position: -46px -23px !important;
}
.comment-head img[src*="btn_unscr.gif"]{
	background-position: -23px -23px !important;
}
.comment-head img[src*="btn_freeze.gif"]{
	background-position: -23px 0px !important;
}
.comment-head img[src*="btn_unfreeze.gif"]{
	background-position: -46px 0px !important;
}

#lj_controlstrip{
	background-color: transparent;
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	background-repeat: repeat;
	border-bottom: 1px solid #878080;
}

#lj_controlstrip_search_input_text{
	color: #ebe6ff !important;
	font-family: "Arial", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
	background-color: #000000 !important;
	border: 1px solid #b2a3ae;
	margin-right: 4px !important;
}
#lj_controlstrip .ljuser img{
	margin: -4px -4px -1px 0px !important;
}

div.ContextualPopup div.Inner{
	background: #000000 !important;
	padding: 5px;
	font-family:Arial;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: #bbaacc !important;
	border: 1px solid #d0ccef;
}

div.ContextualPopup div.Inner a,
div.ContextualPopup div.Inner a:link,
div.ContextualPopup div.Inner a:visited{
	text-decoration: none !important;
	font-weight: normal;
	color: #ffffff !important;
}
div.ContextualPopup div.Inner a:hover{color: #e7fafb !important;}

div.ContextualPopup .Relation, div.ContextualPopup .Content .OnlineStatus{
	font-weight: bold !important;
	color: #bbaacc;
}

.footer{
	background-image: url(http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/5449/termsbdarkt.png);
	margin: 100px 10px 0px 250px;
	overflow: hidden !important;
}

Instructions:
First, go to Select Journal Style and search for "Deep Ocean". Pick and apply the one result that pops up, a blue and green Minimalism layout. It looks like this:

Then go to "Customize your theme" and select the CSS option. (This link should bring you right to it.) Have both of the drop-downs set to No and then paste the above CSS code into the Custom stylesheet box and save your changes. :)

Further niceties: I suggest you change your Journal Title and Journal Subtitle options to something other than the blank default, because otherwise it doesn't look quite right. Those are formatted too, so why not take advantage of it? Also, I suggest switching to a tag list instead of leaving it on tag clouds, since the varied heights don't look as good here, IMHO, and I didn't format them. (That option is right here.)

ALSO: I did note that this was for the Life Terminal layout as well, didn't I? Well, it is! The code for both is all together. To use the Life Terminal variant instead of the Karma Terminal, it's actually quite simple, for the code only needs to be changed in two lines to get you the Life Terminal.

The first is under the .header part, where two different background-image properties are listed. Move the comment marker (the "/*" bit) to just before the words "Life Terminal" on the second url, so that it looks like the Karma Terminal line right above it.

The second bit is in .header-sec .ljuser a which is just a few items down. Repeat the process here, moving the comment-marker to just after the color declaration, before the words "Life Terminal" so that it matches the line above it.

...and there you have it!

Vendor (Terminal) variant instructions: Do the exact same thing as for the Life Terminal, but for the two lines that say "Vendor" (directly under the lines that say "Life Terminal") instead. There is a third line of code to enable, right below the second bit. Please un-comment the line that reads, .header-sec .ljuser(padding-left:25px;} so that as with the above two lines, "Vendor" is the only part left commented out.

I'm curious as to who uses this. Leave me a comment? ♥ And if you comment to let me know, I'll be able to keep you updated on code tweaks, too.

Please credit!

Questions welcome!

Room-cleaning, for the umpteenth time. (Items to give away!)

2010-03-11T00:50:11Z

While cleaning my room, I rediscovered a big bag of undergarments I bought for someone who told me the wrong sizes to get... so they've never so much as been tried on yet. Size 5 ladies' underwear and 34B bras or thereabouts, if anyone's interested. Jockey, Maidenform, Warner's, Barely There, etc. Good brands... and they even still have the tags on them. I just don't have a use for them here. ~~I have enough of my own as it is.~~

Any takers?

((One of my sisters is going to see if some of her friends are interested in any of them too, so we'll see how it goes....))

Debating, considering, trying to figure this out.

2010-02-16T19:28:11Z

I'll likely f-lock this later, but does anyone have any advice on how to tell someone that they're in your past, and that's where you want them to stay?

No especially hard feelings or anything, and you hope they've grown up enough not to pull a repeat performance on anyone else now... but you're not interested in resuming the friendship you left behind?

Movie reviews. Also, Comps in movies: they BOTHER me.

2010-01-16T07:30:29Z

On a movie-watching spree again.

So far, I've watched... let's see, what've I watched in the last month or two?

Battlestar Galactica -- Blew my mind. ♥ I watched it over at Vicki's house. It was the original one, where the war got started. Captain Apollo and all that. If you like sci-fi, SEE IT. :D ...somehow, it vaguely reminded me a little of Hunt for Red October.

Dark Water -- Jennifer Connelly, yay! It wasn't bad, but Hollywood remakes of Asian horror films are never as good as the original, and this one made me really want to see the original. I get the impression that a lot of it would be far more effective with the original setting. Something about seeing stuff set in Asia makes the particular quirks of the supernatural elements that those movies have all the more believable -- it's the culture and history. You don't go looking for Native American traditional spooks in India, and you don't expect the forces of... IDK, the apostle Judas? ...to show up in... Japan? It just doesn't really seem to work right. Maybe that's biased, but it's sort of like seeing Hindu gods being invoked alongside Greek ones (and not in the Shin Megami Tensei way of doing it) and it just doesn't quite... I dunno.

the Perfect Creature -- The cover made me expect something like a lower-budget Underworld takeoff. Not that I have any particular love for Underworld, but meh. I was pleasantly surprised. The budget wasn't set all on special (crappy) effects on the vampires, it was poured into the settings. The great settings. I wanted to say it was almost the sort of vibe I got from reading about the Vampire: the Masquerade games, but I'm going to have to go with saying it was far more... steampunk. Almost modern-day, at that. They had handguns and televisions, but we're talking about genetic manipulation in the... what, the 1800s, complete with what was very clearly a DNA spread. Not the kind where it's a diagram of the chain itself, but where they take the chemical to cut the chain at certain key gene sequences, and put the dyed sample in an agar mold and run a current through it, to get the bars to separate out so they can see what's what, like they use for paternity tests today. ....I forget what that's called offhand. Good movie for anyone looking for a break from the Twicrap that infests today's vamp fiction. (I'd also suggest 30 Days Of Night -- and note that the graphic novels are better than the movie.)

The Crow -- I kept thinking of one of my OCs, Poet. :| Loved the movie, though. Great stuff!

Stardust -- Another great one to go alongside the 10th Kingdom, the Princess Bride, Ella Enchanted, the Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Gulliver's Travels, and... and why is my brain blank right now for other titles? Oh well.

The Crying Game -- Definitely an interesting one. Even if TVTropes already spoiled it for me, it was still enjoyable. I think my sister Steph'll love it.

The Return -- Another case of covers being somewhat deceiving. I was expecting something more like The Ring, with all the straight horror fare, but it wasn't. It was a lot more tame, a lot more realistic. I think. Kinda. Could've been better written. I'm still not sure exactly why the second guy was after her; the first was just an asshole. And the alternate ending they tried claiming was "too shocking" or something, on the cover, was... actually better, imho. And not "too shocking" at all.

Hamlet -- Mel Gibson did well in this one. I loved the settings and props and everything. Very authentic feel to it all. And they kept it all in old English, too. I loved it so very much....

Cliffhanger -- It was okay, but through it, I've discovered that I don't really care for Sylvester Stallone.

Murders in the Rue Morgue -- Poe. Total classic. Well done, too. Is it bad that throughout it, I kept eyeing the lady's cloak/coat thing and thinking I want one of those?

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Whitechapel Vampire -- or some title like that. (It's currently hiding from me somewhere on my shelf...) For some reason, the actor's portrayal of Holmes just wasn't quite how I'd imagined him, when I was reading some of those stories. He came off as kinda... snobby. I always got the impression he was more just vaguely annoyed that everyone else didn't put two and two together, at most. Maybe that's just me.

Cello -- I've watched this one several times now. ♥ If you like good scary movies, like... in the sense that the Sixth Sense was creeptastic, the first time you saw it, as opposed to how Hollywood seems to confuse "scary" for "sickening" (I'm thinking of the Saw movies. UGH!) then you'll probably love this one. I kept drawing connections between it and Silent Hill, but if I say how, I might spoil something. Starts off a little slow, builds up... by the end, I was sitting there glued to the screen. Again. (Korean, for reference.)

Shutter -- This one too. So good. So very, very good. Thank you for prodding me to watch it sooner than later, Mart! Another great Asian horror movie, about a photographer who keeps ending up with ghosts interfering with his photos, and... nnrgh. I won't spoil it! (Thai, I do believe.)

Premonition -- not the Hollywood title, but another Asian horror film. A guy sees a newspaper clipping telling about something horrible that happened... that hasn't yet happened. That's how it starts. The incidents continue, and... I don't want to spoil it either! (Japanese)

Voice -- Another creeptastically beautiful horror movie that kept me hooked. And I think I want a copy of the song that's featured so much in it. (Korean)

Marebito -- "What is this I don't even--" ....yeah, I... what? Definitely a trip. Kind of felt more like an art film, than a horror movie. Would probably be a lot scarier if I were high at the time. (Japanese)

Neighbor No. 13 -- Wow. Just wow. It's about a guy who moves into apartment 13, and... it's not the apartment that's so scary. It's something happening with him. The beginning has some scenes that take place in some bizarre, otherworldly area (inside his mind, apparently) which make so much more sense as the movie goes on, and... it's very well done. Don't expect anything too Silent Hill-ish. It's almost a little more of a slasher, but done right. (Japanese)

The Phone -- A really good ghost story. I was expecting something a little more like what I know of One Missed Call, but it wasn't quite that. Definitely well suited to its setting. (Korean, I think? I don't recall, it's been a while now.)

The Eye -- I loved it. Very well done story, builds nicely. The way they worked everything together was absolutely great. And then I heard that Hollywood remade this one too, and it made me sad. I almost want to see the remake just to see how much it fails compared to the original. (Chinese)

The Eye 10 -- ...they turned it into a series, and kept the title the same. I think it must've happened like with the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness stuff, since the tenth movie is somewhere between light horror and dark hilarity. Mostly the latter. The impromptu dance-off scene had me laughing so hard... and my brother wants that on his iPod. (Chinese again)

The Ring -- I watched the Hollywood version. Like with Dark Water, there are so many things in it that I can tell would've worked better in its original form... though they did a pretty good job with localizing it. My main gripe actually happens to be tech-related, kinda like with computers in movies. They made a big fuss about the technical aspect of duplicating the tape and all... but they totally failed regarding the whole tracking issue, for VHS tapes. There is not a whole half-the-original-picture's-width area that's present in the tape's data but cropped off on the right side of the screen.

Hostage -- Mmmm, Bruce Willis makes everything better. Great acting as always! He's one of those few actors that I can never say I've seen them do anything I really haven't liked. And this one was just... great. Action/suspense as seems to be usual for him.

Perfect Strangers -- A movie about a lady that's kidnapped to an island by a guy who's obsessed with her even though he doesn't even KNOW her, and... it was ridiculous. Not bad, but... what.

Identity -- It was great until the end. The explanation sort of ruined it, but not entirely, and the ending itself was... I'm not too sure what to make of that.

Runaway Jury -- Suspense. Nicely done. Court case against a big gun company, impossible odds, clever tricks up certain people's sleeves... well written, pretty well directed. I liked it.

Alone In The Dark -- MY BRAIN, IT HURTS. Couldn't sit through the whole thing, and I tend to like some of the campy old horror movies. This one was just... all sorts of awful, and the worst game-to-movie scifi/horror adaptation thing there ever was. Don't bother even downloading it; it's not worth the bandwidth, let alone the money at the rental place, or the time it takes to watch it.

1408 -- actually pretty good. I think I liked it quite a bit. Well done, for a change, Hollywood! :)

COMPUTERS IN MOVIES/TV: UGH. Okay, so I can understand that you want to have to find a balance between getting the point across to viewers easily and quickly, and making it believable, but... a few things.

One. You know where they always take security camera footage, or an old blurry photograph, and run Sharpen filters on it to bring out magic details like license plate numbers in people's rear view mirrors? This totally blows suspension of disbelief away, for anyone who's into art on the computer much. Sharpen filters do not work that way. There is no way to bring tiny details like that out of where the information is simply not stored at all. You cannot enlarge a two-pixel-by-two-pixel piece of photo into a 200x200-pixel image and "sharpen" it until you get anything readable, or a photo of your suspect's face. The answer is NO.

Two. Tapping random keys on the keyboard, to make things happen on the screen. DOES NOT WORK. Look, I love keyboard shortcuts as much as the next geek, but some programs just need a mouse. Period. No one can easily use a Windows-like GUI with their keyboard alone, and no one would when mice are like $2 at the thrift stores. I cannot believe that with four swift keystrokes, someone could easily and naturally bring up a certain part of the grid on that image and zoom in on it, then with another two keystrokes, run it through the database for a match. Try harder, people.

Three. Video calls to people. At least some canons get it right, that the picture isn't always crystal clear and in high-def and realtime. Blurry it up a bit, like a low-quality JPG, please. Give it a quarter-second or more lag. But even if you don't? For the love of everyone that's ever used even a text-based IM program, let alone Gizmo (Google Voice now, I guess?) or Skype, at least have a contacts list up, when they start a call. How about a moment of "dialtone" or even the message "Calling" or "Waiting for reply" or something, before the other person's picture pops up on the screen? Bonus tip: If you haven't talked to them in a year, why would you even have their contact info loaded so conveniently, and in such a quickly accessible way, in a program that they very well might not even use? I mean, programs for stuff like this can change a lot in a year, you know?

Four. We use computers too. If you're not running Windows 95 or 98, don't show us a Windows 9x Blue Screen Of Death for a sec when your computer stops working in the movie. For that matter, a laptop that gets water-soaked and shorts out should not have its programs crash and then BSoD on its user, it just goes blank and is off. And it's probably unusable after that without taking it to a repair shop to exchange shorted boards for working ones, but that's another issue. (I'm looking at you, 1408. Give a Win 9x BSoD on a Windows XP computer, when it gets water poured on it? Really. I think not!)

....

I'm sorry, but some things can really break that whole suspension of disbelief factor you kinda have to have, for most media.

And Dexter: I love you. But for a show where the main character is a blood splatter analyst, how can you excuse trying to claim that someone being AB- means they have a hard time receiving blood transfusions? They can receive any of the four blood types, so long as it's also negative. If you want the character to have difficulty finding a donor, they'd be type O, probably O negative, for added difficulty/rarity. That's ninth grade biology, if not earlier, thanks. :| ...but other than that, and some minor computer-stuff-related nags, it's a great series, and I'm hooked.