Earthbound_Misfit

TV Tropes Meme - Because why not?

skybound2 — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:43:38 GMT

Snagged from isiscaughey (Even though I was too late to be able to guess any of the ones that she posted. Slow Sky is slow. *hangs head*)

TVTropes meme: "Go to Better Than It Sounds and find some shows/books/whatever that you like. List 20, let people guess."

This particular list includes an even mix of movies, books, comics, video games, and TV shows. A little somethin' for everyone. Aaaand go!

A nihilist tries to make a woman love him, but ultimately sets himself up for defeat.

Young man fights in the Second World War, goes home, gets married, is abducted by aliens, goes home, dies. Not necessarily in that order.

~~A convict on death row learns to read and speak a new language, one word at a time, and then solves the world's problems by yelling at them.~~ "Skyrim" guessed by girl_undone.

~~Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles. It doesn't sound too bad.~~ "The Princess Bride" guessed by silentstephi.

~~An enlightened old man, a young up-and-coming commander who refuses all promotions, an attractive female doctor, and an android go where no one has gone before. They usually would rather not.~~ "Star Trek: TNG" guessed by isiscaughey.

~~Five teenagers have a spat with their parents and run away from home~~. "Runaways" guessed by fragilecat.

A man is let out of prison and is hired as chauffeur and bodyguard to a weird man who's conducting a secret war against another bunch of other weird people. The story is occasionally interrupted for history lessons or stories that are almost completely unrelated.

Boy meets girl. They break up. Girl forgets boy, so boy expresses grudge by forgetting girl. Boy withdraws his consent to the memory wipe right in the middle of the memory wipe. Post-production lazily avoids putting the scenes in order. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" guessed by phd_fan.

A pair of bitter war veterans, a sexual ambassador for hire, a mercenary with a cunning hat, a hot mechanic, a childish pilot, a preacher with a Mysterious Past, a medical genius and the cutest little psychotic killing machine ever all get together on a ship. They Do Crime! "Firefly" guessed by isiscaughey.

~~A Wicked Cultured man, tired of being blamed for things he didn't do, gives up his position and travels the world.~~ "Lucifer" guessed by isiscaughey.

An undead space cop working for a terrorist organization tries to curb a species' collective hoarding habit by committing genocide with his/her ludicrously dysfunctional team. All to stop ancient giant mecha space squids from killing everything for the 838th or more time in the history of forever. Or, Cockblocking Cthulhu, IN SPACE! "Mass Effect 2" guessed by fragilecat.

An austere northern aristocrat tries desperately to prevent his best friend's wife's family from screwing everyone over. He fails miserably. Meanwhile, a teenage girl has sex with a Genghis Khan expy, and decides to conquer the world. Her brother pouts about it, then has a bowl full of karma poured all over his head. "Game of Thrones" guessed by phd_fan.

~~A unicorn has an identity crisis, gets turned into a human, falls in love with The Dude, and fights an energy drink mascot. There's also a talking cat.~~ "The Last Unicorn" guessed by isiscaughey.

~~The (occasionally painfully long) adventures of a homeless man who lives in a box and claims to have a degree in medicine.~~ "Doctor Who" guessed by fragilecat.

~~A Massive Multiplayer Crossover featuring characters from Fairy Tales and folklore, who are forced out of their homelands by a ruthless dictator and take refuge in New York City.~~ "Fables" guessed by isiscaughey.

Ordinary man from an ordinary planet (which has recently been torn down) goes galaxy- and dimension-hopping with a hot scientist, a perpetually unhappy robot, an alcoholic daredevil, and a narcissist with two heads and three arms. Or, a man loses his home and fails to find a decent cup of tea. "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" guessed by isiscaughey.

~~A hero's attempts to slay a dragon are delayed when everyone makes him/her solve their problems first.~~ "Dragon Age: Origins" guessed by fragilecat.

~~A girl navigates a maze at the whim of a fairy rock star.~~ "Labyrinth" guessed by isiscaughey.

~~A group of dysfunctional people are chased by their pissed-off children. IN SPACE!!~~ "Battlestar Galactica" guessed by silentstephi.

~~Pirates try to conquer the universe using vampiric jellyfish, and the only one who can stop them is an orphaned girl raised by birds.~~ "Metroid" guessed by silentstephi.

Fake crossposted from: http://skybound2.dreamwidth.org/1024310.html

Went and saw Star Trek Into Darkness this Weekend

skybound2 — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:13:00 GMT

And was deeply disappointed.

I wanted to wait until my head cooled before writing a review, but now I think I am just burnt out from thinking about how awful it was all weekend, and giving a completely cool and calm review is not going to happen. Sorry in advance.

It was a non-stop action movie roller coaster ride of a flick, which would have been fine if this wasn't a Star Trek movie. Hell, the first reboot was also a jam-packed action adventure ride and it STILL made time for a few moments of reflection. This one...did not. They came close once (the movie opens with Kirk breaking the Prime Directive not once, but TWICE. Once to save a still tribal people from death by volcano, and then again immediately after by revealing the Enterprise to those same people in order to rescue Spock from death by volcano. Kirk is reprimanded and demoted. Spock is reassigned, and Pike is given the Enterprise back, with Kirk as his First Officer, seemingly so that Pike can knock some sense into Kirk about why they have rules and stuff), but then Benedict attacks, and that was all washed down the drain. (I want to read the fic where Benedict Cumberbatch never happens in this universe and Pike and Kirk go off and have wacky adventures. Please, someone make this happen.))

I, like most fans, had heard rumblings that Abrams MIGHT be trying to use the Khan storyline again, but I firmly had my fingers in my ears regarding that, because I did not want that to be the case: Because casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan was just an AWFUL CASE OF WHITEWASHING THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.

There are other reasons I didn't want to believe that Abrams was tackling the Khan storyline again, true. I mean, 'The Wrath of Khan' is one of the best Star Trek movies ever made and I didn't want to see it redone, not even just because THERE IS NO BACKSTORY FOR KHAN AND KIRK IN THIS UNIVERSE FOR WHICH KHAN SHOULD BE FEELING WRATHFUL, but also because I WANTED SOMETHING NEW.

But mostly: because casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan was just an AWFUL CASE OF WHITEWASHING THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.

I REALLY wanted to believe that Abrams was not going to go there. And when they introduced Benedict Cumberbatch's character as someone named Harrison, I WAS STOKED. Honestly, I was. I thought to myself 'YES. YOU ARE GOING TO DO A EUGENICS WAR PLOT THAT DOESN'T FEATURE KHAN. AND IT WILL BE NEW AND DIFFERENT. I thought, maybe the character was one of Khan's crew who was awoken INSTEAD of Khan. This is a different universe after all, who says that Khan had to be the one awoken? Hell, Khan's capsule could have been fried or something over the last 300 years, so the next most-highly ranked officer from the crew could have been awoken instead. OR, he could have been just someone who worked on the project with the Admiral and was NOT OKAY with what he was doing. MAYBE THEY DIDN'T WAKE ANYONE UP FROM THE EUGENICS WAR AT ALL. THERE WERE SO MANY POSSIBILITIES, AND ALL OF THEM NEW AND EXCITING AND INTERESTING AND NOT OFFENSIVE.

What we got instead, wasn't. It wasn't new. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't good. Instead it was a piss-poor remake of Wrath of Khan WITH A WHITEWASHED KHAN. DO I EVEN NEED TO GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT WHY THIS WAS A BAD CALL, ABRAMS? DO I?! Honestly, there is just no excuse for this. Zero. Zilch. THIS CASTING SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. Not in this day and age. They should have hired a POC to play the role, and that's all there is to it.

Even assuming they HAD bothered to cast an appropriate actor to play the role of Khan, this movie STILL would have been awful, though. Because it was a piss-poor remake of Wrath of Khan:

With no backstory between Khan and Kirk to build tension off of;

With horribly shoe-horned in 'classic' lines of dialogue ('Dammit man, I'm a Doctor, not a torpedo specialist!' REALLY, ABRAMS? REALLY?!);

With the reduction of classic characters to throw away references (we shall never see Nurse Chapel, because Kirk wronged her off-screen. Awesome.);

With extreme moments of character assassination (They reduced Uhura's character almost entirely down to the love interest for Spock. Even going so far has to have her behave in a VERY unprofessional manner during a high-risk mission AFTER she assured the Captain that her issues with Spock would NOT impact the mission. They also just shoved her character into places that she didn't belong. Like, why was she even ON the shuttle at the beginning of the movie helping Spock get into that jumpsuit? She's a communications specialist. They provided no reason for her to be there other than so that she could kiss Spock's helmet ala the Doctor and Rose in Satan's Pit. Similarly, WHY was she the best choice to beam down to save Spock/stop him from killing Khan at the end, other than that Spock was her boyfriend? Wouldn't a security officer have been better suited to that job? I mean, I am ALL FOR utilizing Uhura's character. I adore her. But PLEASE utilize her character WELL. Like, having her go with Kirk and the away team to Kronos MADE SENSE, because SHE SPEAKS KLINGON. THAT WAS A GOOD CALL, ABRAMS. PLEASE MAKE THOSE MORE OFTEN. The other two instances? Didn't. And also, SHE IS A DAMN PROFESSIONAL AND SHE WOULD ACT LIKE IT NO MATTER HOW ANGRY AT HER BOYFRIEND SHE MAY BE. THANKS ABRAMS FOR NOT LETTING HER.);

With Spock randomly letting Carol Marcus go after discovering that she FORGED HER WAY ONTO THE ENTERPRISE. Why did he do that again? Because that made zero sense to me. But I guess that he HAD to let her go, otherwise we couldn't have gotten...

One of the most awkward and forced moments of showing off a female character in underwear simply because they apparently HAD to include at least one female in underwear for no good reason (it was completely irrelevant to the plot, and only served to showcase Kirk as a complete creep with no respect for boundaries - GOOD JOB ABRAMS.);

With a completely NONSENSICAL reversal of an iconic scene (Kirk dies in the engine room this time with his hand pressed to Spock's through the glass and Spock gets to cry and scream 'KHAAAAAN!' before going on a revenge rampage - because APPARENTLY one of those two dying in the engine room while their hands meet and the other yells our their grief IS A FIXED POINT IN TIME OR SOMETHING AND HAS TO HAPPEN NO MATTER WHAT UNIVERSE THEY ARE IN);

And OH YEAH, then we got the complete disintegration of any tension that might be caused by watching one of those two DIE in this universe because after a fade to black THEY ARE RESURRECTED THROUGH KHAN'S MAGIC BLOOD. REALLY, ABRAMS? REALLY?!

I mean, seriously. Do you remember how at the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock was DEAD. Like dead, dead? Like, shot into space in a coffin kind of dead? And then we spent the ENTIRE next movie SEARCHING FOR SPOCK? REMEMBER THAT?

Not so this time, folks. This time Kirk is healed almost immediately through space!magic, the Enterprise is salvaged (after pretty much being torn to shreds by a massive dreadnought and falling partially through Earth's atmosphere - SPEAKING OF WHICH. There was a firefight IMMEDIATELY above Earth. So close to Earth, in fact, that the ENTERPRISE WAS PULLED INTO EARTH'S GRAVITY. And yet... no one stepped in to help? Are you honestly telling me that there are no ships stationed in patrols immediately above Earth? Or at least in the solar system? No one was around at all to help out with that? Really? REALLY?!), and a year-long time-skip later, Kirk is back in charge of the Enterprise, heading out for a five-year mission, even though nothing that happened during the plot of the movie was able to show that he WASN'T GOING TO BREAK THE PRIME DIRECTIVE AGAIN AND AGAIN AND YOU JUST SENT HIM ON HIS MERRY WAY FOR FIVE YEARS? WHAT?!

I just...ugh. I mean, there WERE some good points (Karl Urban was fantastic. Anton Yelchin was adorable. John Cho in the Captain's chair was awesome. Really, the cast played their roles well, and did their best with a shit plot), but overall, the movie was complete shit. It didn't feel even a little bit like a Star Trek movie should.

Here's hoping that Abrams is too busy working on Star Wars to make the next Star Trek flick, and someone who gives a shit about the franchise takes things over.

*sigh*

Crossposted at http://skybound2.dreamwidth.org/1024161.html. Please leave your comments over there. (If you can't access that post, please comment here and I will add you to my reading list over there! Complicated enough yet?)

Stuff & Things

skybound2 — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:48:36 GMT

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought it was probably time. Life has been busy, as per usual. This weekend marks the last weekend that I will have to deal with Girl Scout cookie sales, which have been going on for the last 6 weeks. SO CLOSE to being done. Ugh. Every year I take this on, and every year by the end of it I feel like I'd rather lay down in front of a train then do it again, and yet, I do. Rinse, repeat. This year was just made more rough because now we have the nephew staying with us several nights a week, and so that is taking up a lot of time and energy that I just don't feel like spending trying to sell COOKIES of all things.

But it's just about over. Thank goodness!!

Moving on, the nephew has been with us for about 6 weeks so far. Not very long, really, but in some ways it has seemed a lot longer. We love having him, WHEN we have him. The biggest issue is the pull-back we are now getting from his mother, and subsequently from him, regarding staying with us. He has gone from staying with us 5 days/4 nights a week (we had initially agreed on 4-5 nights a week, with us REALLY pushing to have him Sunday nights as he desperately needs the extra study time, and there is no where else for us to squeeze it in - but alas, that has happened exactly once), to him staying with us 3-4 days/2-3 nights a week. The weekdays that he doesn't sleep at our house he still stays with us until about 8:30 at night, and gets dropped off at our house in the morning in enough time for him to shower and eat breakfast, and for me to take him to school. So really, it just amounts to him going to his Mom's to SLEEP those nights, but it's been a bit of trial and error to figure out a set schedule for all of this because he NEEDS it. When he has a stable, set schedule, he does well. When he doesn't, well...he doesn't.

Also, both him and his Mom have this awful pattern that they have fallen into many times, wherein whenever he improves AT ALL, they think that everything is now fine, and it is okay to slack off again. So he'll get a few good grades, think that he is done working, and then flunk for the next couple of marking periods. Rinse, repeat.

Since now that one of the driving reasons for her FINALLY agreeing to have him come stay with us was, all of the disciplinary problems he was having, has practically vanished now that he has switched schools as he is still getting comfortable with the new setup, she seems to think that everything is fine, and will stay fine. And she just wants to kind of downgrade us to being 'tutors', which yeah, no. We ARE acting as tutors, but its not just for his classes, but for his LIFE.

I mean, YES, he is HORRIBLY behind in school. Which is why he is in so many resource classes. And yes, I was horrified to discovery that my 14 yo nephew who is in Freshmen algebra had literally NO ABILITY to do basic division without a calculator. (You can bet your ass he has been doing long division worksheets at home most night, I don't care how readily available calculators are these days so the schools apparently don't bother teaching it, the boy should be able to do division in his head, and this is how he will get there.) But tutoring him in the content of these classes will accomplish NOTHING until he can learn basic (and then more advanced) note-taking skills. (He had ZERO note-taking skills when he started staying us. As in, he never took them in any classes. EVER.) We have managed to move him forward to what I would honestly consider to be only the most rudimentary level of skills at this point. And he is SUPER-resistant to improving it further. And the reasoning behind WHY is that he just doesn't see the point. Trying to impress upon him the need to learn these skills is going to take time. Time that we aren't getting right now.

Not too mention, it feels like we fall back 2 or 3 paces every weekend that he goes home, and only move forward about a half pace every week. It's slow, and unsteady, and having him with us LESS is not going to help. But honestly, we don't have much choice, so we will do what we can with the time that we have, and just hope that we can help.

On a separate note, I can not express how glad I am that Friday is FINALLY here. I spent the last two weeks VERY busy at work, and also, sick. Quite sick. As in, I was down for the count the last two Saturdays in a row. The first Saturday that I was sick, I thought it was just a 24 hour thing, as by Sunday I was improved enough that I was okay to attend our annual "Trip to the Museum" planned with the two 7 yo nieces and the 3 yo nephew (it was his first trip) and we didn't want to cancel. But, that trip wore me down, and that Monday I was sick again. (Luckily, the office was closed that day.) By Tuesday afternoon, it just got worse. I was working from home by that point, as I had too munch to finish and couldn't call out completely. I muscled through the rest of the week, finally going back into the office for a full day on Friday. Which meant I pretty much didn't move from the couch Saturday, or most of Sunday. Then I DID call out from work on Monday. But this past Tuesday I was finally starting to feel human, only for poor Magus to finally get what I had. Which is apparently a 10-day virus. So, yeah, I am looking forward to NOT being sick this weekend. *fingers crossed*

In other, completely unrelated news, SIMON GAGNE IS BACK WHERE HE BELONGS WITH THE FLYERS!!! *SQUEES* That was just about the high-point of my week. And will probably remain so for a good long while.

Crossposted at http://skybound2.dreamwidth.org/1022234.html. Please leave your comments over there. (If you can't access that post, please comment here and I will add you to my reading list over there! Complicated enough yet?)

Ahh, teenagers.

skybound2 — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:36:47 GMT

So this morning, there is day-old snow still frozen to the ground, the 'actual' air temperature is 12F (-11C), with a wind-chill 'feels like' temperature of 0-1F (-17C), and the nephew wanted to argue with me about wearing his coat, hat, and gloves because: 'I look stupid.' I argued that what would be stupid would be NOT wearing a coat, hat, and gloves in this weather. And also, that I didn't care whether or not he thought he looked stupid, he was wearing the suckers. Especially considering he will be walking home from school with his uncle today. I informed him that his ticket to being allowed to commence said walk home from the school would be actually HAVING all three of these items on his person when he exits the school, or his uncle will send him back in to get them.

Of course, this means that he promptly 'forgot' his hat in the car when he got out of it to dart into the school this morning. Joke's on him though, because now it is in his uncle's bag, and will be plopped unceremoniously on his head when he starts the walk home this afternoon.

I say again: Ahh, teenagers. That very particular set of years when looking 'cool' is more important than getting frostbite. (I say this as someone who had to stand outside for an hour last night waiting to pick up a refill on Girl Scout Cookies for my troop. I was wearing a sweater, a coat, a scarf, a hat, and TWO pairs of gloves, and I STILL couldn't feel my fingers enough by the time I was done to hold onto a pen long enough to sign the paperwork. That'll teach me to forget my hand warmers next time...)

Crossposted at http://skybound2.dreamwidth.org/1022143.html. Please leave your comments over there. (If you can't access that post, please comment here and I will add you to my reading list over there! Complicated enough yet?)

That antsy feeling you get

skybound2 — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:24:02 GMT

when you are almost done the last day of the 3-day work week which followed a week long vacation? I've got it. As such, my productivity today is kinda on the side of nil. So I'm taking a break to blather on about things here.

Life in the new year is trucking along. The holidays were good, very relaxing. I may just have to plan to take off the week between Christmas and New years more often, it was just that nice. We got to spend plenty of time with both our families, and with a bunch of our friends. Christmas night we had our eldest niece and her two BFFs stay over, and well into evening the next night. Having three teenage girls at the house is a baffling experience for Magus, but it honestly makes me smile with nostalgia. Regardless, it's just an entertaining experience.

The five of us went to see Les Mis, and it was WONDERFUL. Was the singing the absolute best I've ever heard? No. It was not. BUT I DON'T CARE. I've seen the musical on stage several times, and I was OBSESSED with it as a child to the point that I still know every single lyric This was a problem when the movie changed lyrics a little, or moved things around a bit, because I NOTICE*, But still, I DON'T CARE.

So back to what I was saying, no the singing wasn't the best it could have been (In particular, Russell Crowe's rendition of Javert's solos were sub-par. I think he played the CHARACTER well. He showed nuances to Javert that were surprising and intriguing, but he was NOT able to pull off singing "Stars" or the Soliloquy - which was depressing.) and I wasn't thrilled with the direction choices for a couple of the pieces/scenes, but overall? Overall, it is still an AMAZING film that managed to tug on my hearts-strings plenty. I got just as invested in the characters this time as I have every time I've seen it on stage, and I applaud the way that some of the songs were deliberately sung in a more gritty and desperate fashion. It really worked for the tone, and to help pull the viewer in.

I was, admittedly, disappointed that they didn't take this opportunity to include Garvroche's song "Little People." It is such an adorable song, and I love the light-hearted air that it adds to the musical at that point, and it just makes his later death scene so much more poignant in my opinion. But alas, I am destined to only ever get to hear that song sung again on my copy of the original soundtrack. (I will never understand why the song was removed from the US version of the musical. NEVER.)

On the opposite side of things, I was okay with their decision to NOT include "Dog Eats Dog". It's never been one of my favorite songs in the musical, and I think in this case, that excluding it was the right choice. It would have really interrupted the flow of the story at that point.

On the OTHER other side of things, I really did like the addition of "Suddenly" it was quite sweet and fit in with the story well, but if I had the option, I would have seen that one left on the cutting room floor, and "Little People" included instead. *shrugs* What can you do?

Regardless, I will go see this again. With my Mom this time, most likely. And I will buy the movie when it is released so that I can watch it whenever I want at home. Which will probably be more than a few times a year.

I mentioned that I was obsessed as a child, right? You never really get over that ya know.

To that end. I may have LITERALLY bouncing in my seat when Colm Wilkinson's version of the Bishop showed up on screen. Seriously. I was so giddy, it was ridiculous. I KNEW that he was going to be playing the part, but it didn't stop me from going all fangirly when I saw him. Just sayin'.

*Seriously. I noticed every single little change. Like, for instance, during "At the End of the Day" Hugh Jackman's Jean Valjean sings "I am the mayor of this town, I run a business of repute, I look to you to sort this out, and be as patient as you can" but in the musical it is "I run a business of repute, I am the mayor of this town, I look to you to sort this out, And be as patient as you can"...I NOTICED EVERY LITTLE THING

In non-movie related news, I got the board game Pandemic for the holidays, and it is LOTS of fun. It is the first co-op board game I've ever played, and I gotta say, I like it. There's something cool about playing WITH your friends/family instead of AGAINST them. I also got a new monitor for my computer. The new monitor is a BEAST, I tell you. A BEAST. I love it. I really really do. And I suspect that I will love it more once I get to park myself in front of it for a good long while and USE it. But that won't be until after my new desk arrives. (In order to make room for the nephew, I had to vacate what was the office, and move into the living room, and my desk wouldn't fit in the much smaller space I now have to use. Instead, we are leaving that desk for the nephew, and I ordered a more space efficient one. In the meantime, my computer is set up on folding TV trays. Well, not the tower. The tower is my baby and has its own little shelf thing that it lives on.)

I've also been playing Dishonored. A LOT. It's quite enjoyable. Though I am baffled about why the character that you play has to be a set-in-stone generic white guy BioWare has spoiled me, apparently, because I just don't see why we couldn't be allowed to design the look/gender of our character. I mean, the thing is told from first person POV, and you wear a MASK for most of it. The only thing they would have had to adjust would have been the wanted poster signs and a few pronouns and whathaveyou throughout the game. Would that have been so hard? (I also would have liked there to have been more diversity among the NPCs, because frankly, they all look alike. And that's both irritating and boring. But all of that aside, I really do enjoy the game. I like that you can actually go through the whole game without killing anyone! (I messed up during the prologue and prison escape, so I won't get the Clean Hands achievement, but whatever.) I don't know that there are many modern games like that (I know that there is a game called Thief that is similar, but I've never played it), and it makes for an interesting challenge. (Though I feel bad for my character, as his knees must ache after spending so much time walking in a crouched position.)
There has also been an almost nightly rewatch of episodes of Star Trek: TNG for the last couple of weeks. It is bliss. *happy sigh*

Moving along, our nephew starts school in our town on Monday, so that means that Sunday night will be his first night at our house as a regular. He seems to have moved into a level of acceptance with this, to the point that he is actually GLAD to be done at his old school now, and looking forward to having the fresh start. I REALLY hope that this somewhat positive attitude that he is displaying about coming to our house is going to hold for a little while, as I want so much for this to work out. And that will be much easier if he is willing to work with us. *fingers crossed*

Crossposted at http://skybound2.dreamwidth.org/1021605.html. Please leave your comments over there. (If you can't access that post, please comment here and I will add you to my reading list over there! Complicated enough yet?)

A variety of trees

skybound2 — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:10:09 GMT

And just because I can, here are a bunch of pictures of downed trees in my town, taken by people who are NOT me, as I have only left the house today to walk the dog and deal with our downed business sign!

Again, I'm really glad that none of these hit anyone or anyone's homes. We've been so very lucky.

ETA: An update. Apparently at least one tree:

DID manage to damage a home and crush several cars. No one was hurt though. So yeah, still lucky...

I probably shouldn't have spoken so soon regarding work.

skybound2 — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:26:41 GMT

Because I have been working pretty steadily for the whole afternoon. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but I can't really work on the office's terminal server as it is WAY too slow right now. (Power surges and what not messing everything up.) It's hellish. I'm getting a headache just from dealing with it. Ugh.

ANYWHO, on a completely unrelated note, has anyone here played Dishonored? I've been seeing the commercials (and the full-length commercial that was that one episode of Face-Off) and I am finding myself curious. IS it any good? Is it worth paying full-price, or should I wait until can get my hands on a discounted used copy? Or shouldn't I bother at all?

I'm not a HUGE first person POV lover, though I HAVE played games designed that way in the past and enjoyed them immensely. But the story REALLY needs to draw me in for that to happen. And beyond my knowing that this game IS in first person, I know nothing about the gaming mechanics. Do you get to create your own character, or is it a stock character that you play? How about the NPCs? Is interaction with them more on the level of an RPG or an FPS? Or is it somewhere in the middle? I am hyper-curious and thought I'd ask my lovely flist first before venturing into the abyss that is online forums and review websites. *shudders*

Thoughts, comments, and insights are requested and welcomed! Please?

Welp, no work for me today!

skybound2 — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 19:15:55 GMT

They decided to close the office and NOT require everyone to work from home, which was rather nice of them I think. So far I've spent the day stalking meteorologist websites and NOAA and playing video games. Later, I plan to attempt to write. *fingers crossed*

The wind/rain is really starting to pick up in our area, and the emergency shelters are now officially open. NJ is in a State of Emergency, and my county is in a 'Local Area State of Emergency.' And with the exception of WaWa (our local chain convenience store) all other businesses in town are closed, and public transit is offline. There has also been some power loss in my town, due to down branches/trees. And of course, the areas down by the rivers are flooding. We haven't been effected much yet though. Just one instance of flickering lights.*more finger crossing*

At this point, my biggest concern is just how the heck we are going to walk our dog tonight. So far, she is taking this all surprisingly well, seeing as how a normal storm freaks her the hell out enough to hide in the bathtub. The lack of thunder right now is probably the only reason she isn't having a panic attack, for which I am ever-so-grateful.

As far as the cat is concerned, life is business as usual. He's currently sleeping on a pile of clothes on top of a pillow on top of our leather chair. He couldn't care less about the state of the weather outside. Which is probably the right attitude.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a SimCity to go build...

Hurricane Sandy Preparedness

skybound2 — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 19:06:59 GMT

All the porch furniture is inside, all of the trash cans are in the shed, two multipacks of bottled water are in the pantry as are plenty of nonperishable foodstuffs, the dog & cat food has been restocked, storm windows are closed, all electronics are as charged as they are gonna be, all other emergency gear is at the ready (though it always is, camping duffles are awesome like that), and all of the outdoor Halloween decorations have been taken down *sniffle*.

This might be the most prepared we have ever been for a hurricane.

Magus's classes have been canceled for the next two days, as have MOST of the schools in our county, and the neighboring ones. A majority of our local shops are also going to be closed (when you drive through the town you can see most of them have taped up their windows, just in case), and there is a better than average chance that my work will be closing down as well for a day or two. (And if not, I will probably just work from home, and save myself the possible hazard of driving into the city.)

Now that all the prep work is done, I think I'm going to stick a roaster chicken in the oven and play some video games. Since if we lose power, those will be two things I WON'T be able to do. (Suddenly, having an electric stove doesn't seem like such a good thing...)

Hope all is well with everyone else, and if you also happen to be in the path of this thing, please stay safe!

Two Car Accidents in Two Days

skybound2 — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:59:26 GMT

Yup. That's been my week so far. The first accident happened on Monday evening after work. Magus and I decided to detour from our regular route home to go pick up dinner. I stopped behind a lone line of cars waiting at a red light. The car behind me (a yellow Chevy) also stopped. The car behind them (a silver Lexus) stopped as well. However, the car behind THEM (a black Honda SUV) attempted to change lanes. When they realized that they didn't have enough room to change lanes, they just kept driving forward, not noticing that the whole line of cars in front of them was not moving. So the Honda rammed the Lexus, which rammed the Chevy, which hit me. Luckily, I was far enough back from the person in front of me that I didn't hit anyone. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The damage to my car was visible, but minimal. Especially when you considering that the three other cars all had to be towed away, and I was able to drive mine home. (For those of you keeping track at home, this is the second time this car was rear-ended while at a standstill in traffic, and the fifth time a car of mine was rear-ended, while at a standstill, to such a degree that repairs were needed. We shall not discuss the numbers of times I've been given lovetaps while driving, as those are just a part of life in heavy traffic areas.)

The next day (yesterday) I opted to work from home so that I could more easily get my car to the body shop and pick up my rental. (The car is a lease, so I wanted to make sure it got repaired.) A little before noon, I left the house to drop Magus off at school on the way to the body shop. (I was supposed to be there by 12:30.) When I drop Magus off at school, I just usually pull over to the curb to do so, and this day was no different. It WAS different in that there was already a car parked where I normally would pull up to, so I just stopped behind it, not noticing that the curb was yellow (due to its proximity to the little intersection there on campus). Magus gets out of the car, I check the road next to me, see that it's clear and start to pull out. I get to be ALMOST parallel with the parked car that I was just behind when a pickup truck slams into my driver side door, crumpling it and exploding the window all over me. I was rattled, and covered in exploded glass, but unharmed. (And so very, very thankful that I wear sunglasses when I drive during the day, as getting glass in my eyes would have been BAD.) I had to crawl out through the passenger side of the car, but, eventually once the pickup truck was moved, we were able to determine that my car WAS still drivable. (Not entirely safely on account of the pile of glass in the well by the pedals; but drivable.) And, after calling in the SECOND accident in as many days to my insurance company) I was able to just complete my trip to the body shop.

Now the first accident was clearly not my fault. So, I have no worries there with my insurance company. They will get the money they are owed from the responsible party, and my rates shouldn't be affected. The second accident is a little bit more of a grey area. The pickup truck that hit me TURNED onto the road AFTER I left the curb. He wasn't there when I stared to leave the curb, so I didn't see him, but he should have seen me. BUT I was pulled along a yellow painted curb, which is a no-no. So I am not sure how they are going to handle this one when it comes to fault. Personally, I don't think I am at fault. This feeling is compounded by the witnesses in the area (including Magus) who said they didn't think it was my fault, AND by the fact that when the pickup driver left the scene, he drove like a bat outta hell down the road. Seriously, his acceleration was fast enough that it made me take note of it, despite my still shaken state. Who DOES that after they've been in an accident? Luckily, AGAIN I was not hurt. I was sore later on, and I had a bad headache, but that was probably stress related, as I feel fine so far today. Also interestingly, none of the EIGHT AIRBAGS in my car deployed. I don't know whether that is a good thing, as it might mean that the accident really wasn’t that bad, despite how scary it was at the time, or if it means my airbags are defective. I'm choosing to believe the former, because it seems like my Kia can really take a hit. The crumple zones on that thing WORK.

So, yeah...that's been my week so far. Funny enough, this all happened AFTER having spent Saturday with my Ma helping her pick out/purchase a new car (she got a Toyota Camry). I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something...*

*I think that it is maybe that I should really stop owning cars. *sigh*

Computer Build

skybound2 — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 03:29:47 GMT

It occurs to me that I have neglected to mention here that I recently [late last week] completed building my new computer! *happy dance*

I've been without my own PC since late February (still had my tablet, and my work PC, as well as occasional access to the hubby's laptop, but I think we can all agree that those are NOT THE SAME) and so it feels SO DAMN GOOD to have my own computer again. And it feels even better that I built this one myself from parts I picked out. (With my more knowledgeable older brother's help all along the way, including his metaphorical hand-holding during the actual assembly.)

The actual build for the PC is as follows:

Asus P8Z77-V LE PLUS Motherboar
Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) CPU (Bought with gift cards)
EVGA nVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti FPB 1024 MB GDDR5 Graphics Card (GIFT)
G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR3 2133
Zalman Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler (GIFT)
Antec EarthWatts EA-500D Green 500W 80-PLUS BRONZE Certified (GIFT)
Samsung 830 Series MZ-7PC128B/WW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Samsung EcoGreen F4 ST2000DL004 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (On Order)
Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Three Fans
Asus 24xDVD-RW Serial ATA Internal DVD Burner
Asus BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS Internal 12x Blu-Ray Burner (Delayed)
Kinivo BTD-300 Bluetooth 3.0 USB adapter
Dell E198 WFP Monitor (GIFT, hand-me-down)
Logitech Wireless Wave Combo Mk550 With Keyboard and Laser Mouse
Windows 7 Home Premium

The HDD should arrive this week, and not a moment too soon as I am ALREADY running out of storage space! I am wilffle-waffling on the Blu-Ray burner, as my plan had been to wait it out until Christmas and ask for it as a gift, because I don't NEED it right now, but it is on sale at the moment, so I might just pick it up. I'm debating. Along those lines, I am planning on buying a 24-inch WS LED monitor for my build at some point down the line, but the free WS monitor I was giving is doing JUST FINE right now, so I am going to hold off on that until the price hits a low point.

At the moment, I am running the thing on 8 GB of RAM and the SSD, and it is LIGHTNING fast. My motherboard is expandable ty0 32 GB, but for now, I am more than happy with 8. At some point, I WOULD like to double up both my SSD and HDD so that I can RAID them, but that time it is not now.

I opted to add bluetooth to the build via a USB dongle mostly to save myself PCI ports, but also because it was a cheaper (and still well rated) solution. It makes syncing to my phone/tablet super easy, and Magus and I are planning to get a set of bluetooth speakers at some point that all the devices can share.

Despite the fact that my tower has SIX fans inside of it (three case fans, one CPU fan, on power supply fan, and on graphics card fan), the thing is VERY quiet. (I suspect that will change once I shove an HDD in it, but that's okay.) It's running nice and cool though, so all those fans are being put to good use. The case has spaces for two more fans, but with my build I can only fit one more. Hopefully, that won't be necessary, but it is nice to know that the option is there.

The only sucky thing at the moment is that my brother hasn't had a chance to come over to help me install the ethernet cord in the office where my desk is located, and since I opted NOT to get a wifi card for the computer (I may have to rectify that), I am currently set up in my living room. My monitor is on a TV tray, and I am using my video card box as a table for my mouse. It is a slightly awkward setup, but doable for the short-term.

Random Medical Stuff

skybound2 — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 18:04:42 GMT

I recently had my annual physical for work and, like every year, my results came back abnormal on account of my Beta Thalassemia Minor. The trait or condition or whatever you want to call it, for those who aren’t aware, is an inherited genetic abnormality of the red blood cells, specifically of the hemoglobin protein chain. In my case, the Beta chain. That means that my Beta hemoglobin chains are missing/reduced, which results in shruken red blood cells, and therefore the decreased oxygen carrying capacity of my blood.

Since I only have one copy of the trait, this means that the condition is not fatal, or even really something that needs to be treated. Instead, it presents as a mild to moderate form of anemia. I have known this since I was a kid. As a result, my hemoglobin counts are always low. Too low to donate blood. But I am not iron deficient. (At least, not usually, I do occasionally swing that way, but that might be more due to my diet lacking red meat more than anything else. I’m probably not doing myself any favors there, but hey! I have low cholesterol!) And the trait is supposed to confer some resistance to malaria, so I tried to consider it a mostly good thing, even if it’s not really that good of a thing.

Despite knowing that the trait presents as anemia, and even my knowing that that anemia would occasionally show up in my life (I mean THE WHOLE REASON WHY they ever diagnosed me as a child was because I was hella symptomatic for anemia: heavily fatigued, cold, pale, etc. All of which prompted my mother to have the doctors run tests until they figured out what was wrong.) I never thought that any of the other ailments that I occasionally (or more than occasionally) suffer from could be from it as well. I mean, the doctors that I spoke with, and the medical texts I’d checked all said that it was ‘asymptomatic except for mild to moderate anemia,’ so why would I think any different?

For some reason, this time the day I got the results, I felt prompted to go look some stuff up, and I came across a forum for people with all the various forms of Thalassemia. Reading through those forums was a bit of an eye-opener, because there were all of these people that have the SAME issues that I have. Bouts of fatigue/lethargy (which yes you CAN have even while being an insomniac – it’s not fun), dizziness/lightheadedness, reduced/low/poor immune systems, feeling cold, etc. I was amazed, BECAUSE THOSE ALL DESCRIBE ME.

For the most part, those things aren’t life-altering, but some of them are problematic. The low immune system for instance, my family and everyone I work with/see on a regular basis have always questioned why/how I can be sick so often, all throughout the year. Especially considering that I live a mostly healthy lifestyle, and I have never been able to give an adequate answer. It's frustrating. The fatigue is another one that has caused problems in the past. Even when I had a boatload of bloodwork and a sleep study done a few years ago, I only thought SOME of my symptoms were from the Thal, I didn’t think ALL of them could be. And now it turns out that there have been clinical studies that show that, yup! That’s probably the cause of it all. (Not the insomnia or sleep paralysis, that’s thanks to my Pop, the Thal is thanks to my Ma.) That combined with the forums of people that have the same issues, with no other obvious common denominator, seems to be at least moderately conclusive.

It’s kind of a weird feeling, having this sudden diagnosis for a lot of my issues. And it makes me want to know MORE. Though the indicators are that there hasn’t been a lot of focused research on symptoms of the trait, so it might be hard for me to find more studies; doesn’t mean I’m not gonna look.

In the meantime, it seems like a good start to helping level myself out might be to start taking folic acid supplements. It might not help, but it won’t hurt.

Amazon Music Shenanigans

skybound2 — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:05:45 GMT

In what world does Amazon Cloud Player think that they can continue to compete with Google Music Play by (starting at the end of the month) only allowing users to store 250 songs NOT purchased through Amazon mp3 free of charge, when Google lets users store up to 20,000?! I guess that they are hoping that their interface is that much better? Well newsflash, it's not.

I admit that I prefer purchasing my music through Amazon mp3, as their download system works better than Google's IMO. But at the moment I have ~6000 songs stored on each cloud drive, and only ~700 of them were purchased through Amazon. So guess what system I WON'T be using to store/listen to the majority of my music in the near future?

I guess it doesn't really matter to Amazon where I store my music that I DIDN'T buy through them if I'm not paying for a premium service (never mind that I ALREADY pay for Prime - since that doesn't seem to have any effect on their music cloud*), but if I can't use their system to store the majority of my stuff, then their own advantage over Google (easier to download from their cloud) isn't all that much of an advantage anymore. So I am LESS likely to continue to use them to purchase my music in the future. Instead there is a better than average chance that I will do my purchasing through Google from here on out. (Well, except for when the music I want is cheaper to buy through Amazon than Google. Because I am a slave to my wallet, damn it.)

In a way this is kind of a good thing, as it'll be good to just consolidate my music collection to ONE cloud location, and overall, I prefer Google's player to Amazon's anyway, so there's no real loss there. I'm just confused as to WHY Amazon thinks that people will chose to PAY to store their music through them if they can store it for free at Google? It makes no sense to me...

*I'm also still bitter that I pay for Prime and yet CAN'T access their book library because I don't own a Kindle device. I'd be more than happy to PURCHASE a Kindle App for my damn tablet, rather than using a free one, if it meant that I could access their library. But nope. You need to own their hardware. Again they can do what they want, but I think they are missing out on a golden opportunity here, because I can't be the ONLY person who has no intention of purchasing a Kindle, but who would pay a premium fee for the Kindle App if it meant we'd have access to that damn library. *sigh*

ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE: For all those who asked for drabbles, I promise that I AM working on them, so don't think that I forgot or didn't get your request because I didn't respond. I did, I swear. They are just taking a while, as I suspected that they might.

Presents! Presents for everyone!!

skybound2 — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 22:55:35 GMT

Every year, I offer up drabbles, fics, icons, graphics, and wallpapers to everyone on my flist as sort of a mass HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! present (since I never remember to wish anyone a happy birthday at any other time). Typically, that offer gets posted by roundabouts April (if not earlier).

*looks at calender*

I'm running a bit behind this year. *hangs head*

Also, I regret that I won't be able to offer up anything EXCEPT for drabbles and fics this go around, because my computer is still broken and so I am working (mostly) off of my tablet. Which makes doing any sort of graphics work very, very, VERY hard. But, if you are interested in having a drabble or a fic written for you (and you've had a birthday, like EVER) now is the time to ask!

(I still need to complete a WIP fic that has been owed to thessilian for AGES now, I know. I AM SO SORRY. I SWEAR I AM TRYING. IT'S BEEN KICKING MY ASS. I'm actually hoping to finish it out during this little gift-giving exercise of mine, but if you want something else in the mean time, YOU WILL GET PRIORITY, I PROMISE.)

The rules are simple, if you read this post, and you acknowledge an annual celebration of the earth's rotation around the sun in conjunction with the date of your birth, and you would like a drabble/fic written for you, then COMMENT AND LET ME KNOW.

I like being brave, and breaking out of my comfort zones as much as I can when I do things like this, so even if I've never written for the fandom before, as long as I have some understanding of the source material I am willing to give it a go! (Though, if I am not involved in the fandom, I can't promise how good the results will be. But I do promise to try.) If I don't think I can write for a particular fandom, I will let you know and you can request something else. The only things that are completely off-limits for me are character-bashing (won't read it, won't write it, sorry), incest, RPF, and any fandom wherein the author has said no to fanfic (I assume that goes without saying, but you never know).

Also, I make no promises about how long I will take to get this completed, as it'll depend on how many requests I get and whether or not the muse has me hog-tied in the back room for her sadistic pleasure. In the past she has been kind to me when I do this, so here's hoping! *fingers crossed*

That's it! Comment away! (And HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALL!)

Between the tablets and vacation, last July and this July are just sort of mirrors of each other

skybound2 — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:59:10 GMT

Now onto real life! (Sort of.) This July, just like last July, Magus and I went and visited his brother + family in Georgia (in fact we went for the EXACT SAME DAYS as last year). It was extremely relaxing, which is all I needed from a vacation at this point in time, but it was also wonderful to spend time with our nieces and nephew.

It was also nice to get at least a LITTLE downtime for writing. (Though a huge chunk of that I ended up scraping when I got home, as it wasn't working for me. *shrug*) I have several original pieces in the works now (mostly just bare bones, but at least one of the stories really got fleshed out), and I made some decent headway on a couple of my fanfic projects. So, yay!writing!

The biggest difference between the trip last year and this year was that last year it was HOT. So hot that we spent every day at the pool. This year it was SWELTERING, so much so that we didn't go to the pool AT ALL. (Though there was an ill-advised trip to a flea market one day, wherein we basically just skirted from shadow to shadow and drank lots of water trying not to die in the 110+ degree heat. YES, it was THAT hot.)

While we were down there, we missed the MASSIVE windstorm that came through the mid-west and into the mid-Atlantic (though we did get some reverb from it, and lost power for a few hours a thunderstorm one night). My dog and cat also were depressed enough while we were gone that they both lost a little bit of weight from not eating enough. (They are taking care of that now by eating as much as we'll let them.)

So vacation was nice, but it would have been more so if we could have had our pets with us. Maybe next time we go somewhere, we will at least try and bring the dog with us. (Neither one of our pets like riding in a car, but the dog can tolerate it well enough, the cat loses control of his gastrointestinal system every time so we keep his road trips to a minimum.)

At some point (probably not today) I will pop on here and discuss the ME3 Extended Cut DLC, and the bird that nested in our porch this summer, but for now, I'm going to try and get some work done!

My unexpected acquisition of a new tablet:

skybound2 — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 13:53:56 GMT

Yesterday morning, I was walking to the kitchen for breakfast, tablet in hand so that I could read the news, when the damnable thing slipped out of it's case (it was a cheap case), hit the floor, and the screen got a crack down the middle. It was still usable, but as my laptop has been broken since February, and the tablet is my only computing device at home (aside from the hubby's laptop, which I try not to use too often as he needs it for work and school) I didn't want to take any chances. Luckily, I still had FOUR WHOLE DAYS left on my accidental damage and handling warranty from Best Buy for my Thrive. So, I took the sucker in to see if it could get fixed.

Sadly, they couldn't repair it/exchange it for the same make and model, as Thrive's aren't being made anymore, and none of the Best Buy's in the mid-Atlantic region had any (or so the clerks at my store told me), so, instead, I got to pick out a brand new tablet in the same price range and take that home with me.

I am now the owner of an Asus Transformer TF300T tablet. And aside from the fact that it won't let me play Mass Effect: Infiltrator on it (the game is not yet optimized for ICS apparently?) it is a pretty nice machine. It has a MUCH better screen than the Thrive, and the Tegra 3 quad-core processor makes running apps and the web browser a smoother experience. (Hell, I was able to use it to go on tumblr last night without wanting to stick a spork in my eye at how long each post took to load, so bonus!)

The biggest downside is that, unlike the Thrive which had full size HDMI, full size USB, mini-USB, and full size SD card slots, the Asus only has a mini-HDMI and a mini-SD card slot. BUT, it does have an optional keyboard dock (which I didn't get yesterday, as I wanted to exchange to not cost me anything as I wasn't prepared for an expense at that point, but I WILL be getting in the future) which has a full size USB port and SD card slot (and will also extend battery life).

Another possible future bonus is that if I can reliably use the tablet for writing via that nifty keyboard anywhere I go, and it turns out that my laptop is well and truly dead, I might opt to get a desktop as a replacement, which would be good for all sorts of reasons. (Cost savings and ease of upgrades being the two topmost ones.)

In the end, this may turn out to have been a very fortuitous trip to the kitchen.

Non tech-related, real-life post forthcoming, honest!

Fic - Tend The Roots That She May Grow

skybound2 — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 02:13:58 GMT

Title: Tend The Roots That She May Grow
Author: skybound2
Rating: K
Characters: Korra (Brief mentions of Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo)
Word Count: ~775
Summary: "It happens like this: Korra is broken."
Spoilers: Implicit for the finale.
Author's Note: While Legend of Korra as a whole may have been unsatisfactory to me (with the season finale even more so) apparently it was good for my muse, as she absolutely REFUSED to let me write anything else today untilI gave life to this little ficlet. It's a bit esoteric, entirely introspective, and definitely AU on the ending.(Assume that nothing post-Katara's appearance in the finale happened.) Now that this exists I thought I would share it with all of you. (Because stories are always better when they're shared, yes?) Written as a flash-fic tonight on my tablet, so this is rough. My apologies for any errors. Also posted on FFN and Ao3

Tend The Roots That She May Grow

It happens like this: Korra is broken. All the parts that were fitted, angled, and aligned to make her who she was are knocked loose. Scattered to the corners of her psyche in a tangled jumble that only becomes more knotted the longer she spends trying to sort it out.

One day rolls into another, until a month - then two - lay out in a narrow path behind her, and she learns what it means to be less. Less capable, less certain, less egotistical, less brash, less herself.

She hates it.

Hates the way that it slivers over her limbs, leaving her sluggish and aching.

Hates the bitter after taste it leaves in her mouth, like that of tea that has been boiled and forgotten until it is nothing but soggy leaves in a cup of tepid water.

Hates how it persists, following her through her waking life and burrowing into her dreams. Leaving her weary as she trudges further along the road that now makes up her existence.

She hates it with every inch of her being, until one day she doesn't.

Until one day when she wakes feeling refreshed and open, like a great burden has been lifted from her. She hums beneath her breath, a smile on her lips as she bumps her hip against Jinora while crowding past her in the kitchen to grab a still piping hot fruit pie. The steam burns her tongue when she bites into it, the juices dribbling down her chin and hands as she nearly drops it to the floor; laughing and laughing and laughing until it hurts.

Until one day when she slips from the walls of the air temple and doesn't feel suffocated by the vast space overhead, and the water lapping at the rocky shore doesn't make her vision go blurry and her heart sick. So that when Meelo speeds past her, riding on a ball of air and sing-songing 'You can't catch me!', Ikki hot on his heels, Korra spins the air beneath her and joins the chase.

Until one day it doesn't feel so much like she is less than what she once was, but becoming who she was always meant to be.

She settles down into a routine. Mornings spent in quiet contemplation, sliding into a meditative state with an ease she once thought would always allude her - but that now feels like coming home.

The afternoons are spent venturing into a city still so torn and confused by the short-lived war brought by Amon through their doors that just her presence admist the lingering chaos is a balm. She may not be who she once was, but neither are so many others. And if she - the Girl-Who-Was-Once-The-Avatar-But-Who-Now-Maybe-Isn't - can embrace her change of fate, why can't they?

Evenings are quieter, she spends them with her mentor and his family; hers now as well in all but name. (But when has that ever mattered?) She learns to take things slow, to think before she acts. And while she may never master Pai Sho, she is improving.

At night, at night her dreams are spent learning to follow the movement of chi through each of her chakras, until the flow becomes as second nature to her as the act of filling her lungs with air.

And over time, a warm and welcoming emotion grows inside of her. It has the texture of hope and the tenacity of truth, and when it smiles through her, she feels Aang, and Roku, and Kyoshi and so many others smiling back.

She knows it to be 'peace' and she wonders at how she has never truly felt it before.

It is only then, when the day to day path that she has stumbled - seemingly forever - along, is no longer paved with brick after brick of all the things that she isn't, but instead curves ever onward built upon all the things that she is and one day will be, that Korra raises glowing eyes onto the skyline of Republic City the voices of hundreds upon hundreds of Avatars singing in her blood. It is only then that the very earth beneath her feet rings out to her in joy, that the water in the bay roars up at her in delight, and that tunnels of flame burn ever brighter from her palms. It is only then, that she understands why.

It happens like this: Korra was broken so that one day she could be made whole.

~End

Turns out I have an Ao3 invite available.

skybound2 — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:56:34 GMT

~~Anybody want it? Figure I'd offer it up here first to folks I know, before sending it out to the great wide open that is tumblr. First to ask, shall receive :-)~~

Taken!!

The new version of Scrapbook that LJ has implemented? IT SUCKS.

skybound2 — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:29:25 GMT

I don't even have THAT many photos (just under 1,500, according to the notification email I received) and it still feels impossible to navigate the damn thing. I can't fathom how folks with upwards of 10,000+ are going to handle it.

No more sub-folders? NO MORE TAGS?! How the HELL am I supposed to find all of the animated gifs that I have saved in this mess?!? (You see, because I had them all organized in SUB-FOLDERS into their appropriate fandom and then TAGGED with 'animated gif' so that I could locate them easily as a group when I wanted.) If you were going to make changes to the damn scrapbook, why wouldn't you add the ability to select MULTIPLE tags at a time, not get rid of them completely?!

WHY DO YOU INSIST ON MAKING EVERYTHING LESS USER FRIENDLY, LJ? WHY?

Argh!!

ETA: Okay I see now in THIS POST that apparently they are going to bring back tagging at some unspecified point in the future. But honestly? I'll believe that when I see it. And also, WHY would you roll out an INCOMPLETE UPDATE? If you had already decided to listen to LJ user concerns (*sock* *gasp*) and keeping the tagging function, why ot just WAIT until you had it working before updating the freaking scrapbook.

YOU MAKE NO SENSE LJ. NONE.

Also, BRING THE DAMN COMMENT HEADERS FOR THE BASIC LJ LAYOUT BACK. GETTING RID OF THEM WAS STUPID.

Took public transit to work today

skybound2 — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:27:40 GMT

I do that occasionally when Magus needs the car for something. But while it's kind of a nice change of pace - I get to relax and just listen to music on the way into work (i can't read because I get motion sickness) and people watch, and then I get to walk through the city on the way from the train stop to the trolley pick up (and of course I stop and get a chai while I'm out there) - it takes freaking FOREVER.

Seriously, it took me two hours to get to work via public transit today, which is just ridiculous as I only live ~12-13 miles from my office. But, considering I live in a different state OVER A BRIDGE, there's not a lot of options for me to get to work. Either I drive, and it takes an hour (yay!traffic) or I take public transit, and it takes two. I can't bike, sadly, because the routes that are most accessible for me to get to my office are not bike friendly for large swaths of them (and also, there is no shower here at my work - which would make things highly uncomfortable during the work day).

At least today is a lovely day so far, with beautiful weather, which made the trip into the office quite nice. And it should make the evening commute home fairly enjoyable as well.

Even if it does take me until 8 pm to get there...

Electrical Woes

skybound2 — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:53:06 GMT

In an odd series of events, the power line leading to our building was cut Tuesday afternoon, leaving us all in the dark for the last three hours of the day. (We got lots of cleaning done, but not much else!)

Then yesterday, the electric company wasn't able to get us back up and running during the work day AT ALL. This led to work being delayed until around 11 am, at which point the higher ups at my office were able to get a generator in to run the network server at least. Still no electricity in the office itself, but we were all able to work from home that way. The server was then cut off again at 2 pm for 45 minutes, and then AGAIN at 5 pm for the whole night. At SOME point during the evening, the electric company got us back up though, which means I'm back in the office today.

It's kind of bittersweet as I do like working from home, but the dual screen monitors at my desk here make everything SO MUCH EASIER to manage. If I could have this set up at home, I'd probably prefer working there 75% of the time, as I genuinely feel more productive when I'm home. Which is weird, but factual. *shrugs*

The whole thing has lent an odd feeling to this week, since we had off from work on Monday for the holiday as well. I feel strangely refreshed, which I guess makes sense, since the work-week has been stunted, and I got to hang out at my house in my lounge clothes all day yesterday. (This might be part of the reason why I'm more productive at home. Also, I get to take breaks to play with my dog and my cat. So, BONUS!)

There really is no other point to this entry. So I'll just stop rambling now.

There is a hockey game tonight

skybound2 — Wed, 30 May 2012 23:33:43 GMT

It's sort of a big one. In light of my poor, beautiful boys *sniffle* not being in the final, I'm just gonna say:

LETS GO ~~WEST COAST FLYERS~~ KINGS!!!

For serious. Richards, Carter, Gagne (ALL MY LOVE FOREVER SIMON), Williams, Stevens, Lombardi, and Hextall? I'M ROOTING FOR YOU GUYS.

Deep, Calming Breaths

skybound2 — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:41:50 GMT

Okay, so the stupid incompetent idiots who were working on my computer (and who broke it worse), have declared the beast dead.

I DISAGREE.

I'm picking it up tonight AND they are giving me a full refund. (Because DAMN IT ALL TO HELL THEY KNOW THAT THEY BROKE IT WORSE. ARGH!!!) And then sometime this weekend (hopefully tomorrow night) I am getting it to my friend who does computer repairs (he wasn't working on it to begin with because he was booked up), and he is going to give it a second opinion.

I love that laptop. LOVE IT. It seriously has given me no issues in all the time that I have had up until I went and dropped the damn thing, and it fits my needs PERFECTLY. I DO NOT WANT TO GET ANOTHER ONE. THIS ONE IS ONLY TWO YEARS OLD. IT'S JUST A BABY.

*sniffle*

And I miss it. I have all of these graphic ideas that I have wanted to make (between ME3 and the Avengers coming out since the thing died, this was inevitable), and I got ME1 and both Dragon Age's on deep, DEEP discount through Amazon, so I wanted to play with them. (Flycam and modding and FRAPS, yes!)

And, OH YEAH, when I bought this thing I got it with the intention of SOMEDAY being able to play Diablo III with it. AND NOW IT'S OUT AND I CAN'T EVEN GIVE IT A TRY. (Admittedly I don't plan to actually subscribe or whatever to D3 (I don't MMO) BUT I was going to sign up for a trial. Just cause.)

Then there is the fact that the vast majority of my writing is being done on my tablet. This is serviceable, but it gets old after a while. And it's definitely slower going than it would be with my laptop.

I JUST WANT MY BABY BACK, IS THAT SO WRONG?

Icon Meme!

skybound2 — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:23:49 GMT

Because I absolutely love doing this one for whatever reason. *shrugs*

Reply to this post with "MONKEYS", and I will pick five of your icons. 
Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose. 
Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts. 
This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

This time, my icons were picked by st_salieri

A purple pimp hat by confusedkayt. Because some times you just need to pimp things, and only the purplest of pimp hats will do!

An icon of the Impala from SPN, made by dontcockblockme. I adore SPN, and as any fan of the show can tell you, the Impala (despite her absence this season *sob*) is just as important a character in the show as anyone else. I mean, she's even helped save the world a few times!

This lovely take on the 'keep calm' poster was made by kazzy_cee. I think we all feel like this from time to time, and so having an icon to express that feeling seemed like a no-brainer, and Kazzy is awesome for having thought to make one :-)

This one was made by hilian, and is (for now) my sole GoT/ASoIaF icon. I do adore the series, though I still haven't finished the books, and this tag line is the perfect encapsulation for it, as I'm sure it was intended to be. (Also, every time I hear it, I start going all science-nerd in my brain, and start trying to work out the logistics of the rotating ice-ages that Westeros apparently gets. It's a thing.)

A lovely icon of Sarah from Labyrinth made by isiscaughey. Way back when I first joined LJ, all of my icons were either Buffy, Homestar Runner, or Labyrinth based. Over the years, the Labyrinth ones all got scrapped for newer, shinier fandoms. Then LJ stopped being stingy with their icon limits, and I had room again! And then I fell back in love with Labyrinth, and had to get some icons. STAT. And since Isis makes lovely icons (and ADORES all things Bowie) I went surfing in her journal to snag a few. This one might be my favorite, as the coloring matches the look on her face perfectly. I adore it so.

The Avengers...WAS AWESOME!

skybound2 — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:00:12 GMT

(The hockey game last night wasn't. So I'm not going to talk about it.)

Magus and I went and saw the Avengers last night at 12:01. We were in our local theater that has 24 screens. ALL 24 SCREENS WERE SHOWING THE AVENGERS. (Including the pitiful NOT really an Imax, Imax, which I have no idea why anyone wastes the extra money on. The screen isn't really any bigger. But, I digress.)

When we got there, there was an employee of the Philly Comic-Con (which is happening at the end of this month) dressed as Iron Man and handing out flyers. The big, stupid geeky grins started about then. We got there an hour early, and just lucked out in getting seats in the last row of the theater. Which actually wasn't a bad thing, because we were in one of the smaller theaters (no Imax and no 3d for us = smaller) and so the view was perfect. The crowd was pretty into it, but there wasn't anyone wearing costumes or anything that I saw. (Not even out in the lobby.) After waiting for an hour+ for the movie to start, we got five minutes into it, and our whole quadrant of the theater had a black out (6 screens). It took them almost 10 minutes to get it back up and running. Annoying? Yes, but we didn't really notice because Loki was on the screen :-D
I loved EVERYTHING about this movie. Well. Almost everything. I'm OKAY with how Joss killed off Phil Coulson. I ASSUMED that he would kill off SOMEONE. It's Joss, HE HAS TO. And at least Phil's death was useful for the plot, but...I was seriously upset about it for a while afterwards, and still a little bothered by the fact that he is dead. HE IS JUST SUCH AN AWESOME CHARACTER. And he FANBOYS over Captain America, which is just so very creepy and adorable, and I loved him. It hurt to see him die, which is exactly what Joss wanted I suppose. Doesn't mean that I don't wish he could have lived, even if it was a good call for the story.

I was seriously impressed with how well-balanced the movie was. It never felt like any one Avenger got more screen-time then any of the others, and like they all had at least some interaction with one another one-one. Or close to. I thought that the way that Hawkeye and Black Widow were handled was brilliant. The actors played off one another SO WELL, and really sold the characters. And the scene where they were fighting down on the ground and spinning around each other, just made my little gaming geek bounce with glee going: 'It's a pair of rogues! Rogues!! And oh! here comes a shield using warrior now! Get 'em, get 'em!!'

*ahem*

As expected, I absolutely adored every scene with RDJ. As Magus pointed out, he simply RULED every scene that he was in. (With the exception of the one's the Hulk was in, because THE HULK.) And I am SO GLAD that RDJ insisted that Pepper Potts be included in the movie, because - basically - 'There is no Tony without Pepper' and it is SO TRUE. She might not have been in much of the movie, but the scenes she was in were PERFECT, and the easy interaction and connection between the two was just lovely. And near the end, when she does't answer to call? Tony honestly looked broken. I loved every second.

I enjoyed how Captain America and Iron Man worked together. The tension to start with (and how Tony seemed kind of preemptively annoyed/jealous of Cap on account of his father, and how Tony bothered Cap at first for pretty much the same reason? PERFECT.) then easing down to something much more respectful. It was lovely.

I was also pleasantly surprised by Bruce Banner/the Hulk. Ee were watching this with an eye for our nephew who is a HUGE Hulk fan, and seriously? I CAN. NOT. WAIT. for him to see it. Mark Ruffalo sold the part, from the slow reveal of the 'I'm always angry' to the punching of THOR (HOLY HELL, but did the audience make some noise there!) to pounding Loki like a rag doll. (The face! The face was priceless!!)

Then there was Thor and Loki. And this dynamic? It's one of my very favorites. Thor just looks so frustrated and pained by what his brother is doing, and even though Loki is CLEARLY a bad guy, you can see some of the layers underneath the villain-exterior that show where it has all come from. Again, they played wonderfully together. (And words can not express how much I adored Loki sitting on the rock just WATCHING as Iron Man and Thor battled it out. PRICELESS.

Also? Iron Man called Hawkeye 'Legolas' and then gave him a lift. Joss Whedon can have all the awards for that alone.

There's more, but I'm tired and need to get back to work. *head desk*

One last thing that was pretty cool was that as we were leaving the theater (with all the occupants of the other 23 theaters), the 3 am showing crowd was hanging in the lobby, waiting. And THEY were sporting some costumes, which made me smile. Also, we had to have police direct traffic out of the damn parking lot like it was a sporting event/concert. There were that many people. INSANE.