Fangirlin' It

Showing off

2017-10-15T02:47:16Z

I felt like I needed to post here to show off my new OTW Member icon! Ao3 has become so much more awesome over the years since I first became a member; if you haven't done so, please contribute to their current fundraising campaign. I know we all use the Archive so much these days, so please support such a great feature. /PSA

God, this has been the week from crazy-land. Monday was the October bank holiday, which sounds good, but just meant that I lost a day of work with a loan closing coming up next week. Then, my co-worker is in Europe for a week, so I got dragged along on two site visits, for which I had to get up around 4 AM on both Tuesday and Thursday. I didn't leave the office until after 9 PM last night, so I'm dead tired. But! In spite of the craziness, still loving the job. And I'm going to visit family this coming weekend, so that will hopefully go well.

comments

Back we go

2017-04-11T15:35:24Z

Well, here we are again, people flocking to DW since LJ and the Russian mob are back at it. Perhaps this migration will be more complete and we can just stay here. We'll see. I'll try to connect with all my friends here over the weekend.

ETA: This was a much faster and easier import than the last mass exodus! I'm falling in love with all my old icons that went inactive when I gave up my paid account, and the fandoms that gave rise to them. I wish I had something witty or clever to contribute, but these days I use up all my brain power at work.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-12-24T20:42:00

2013-12-25T01:42:31Z

So, my family has finally finished joining the 21st century--Mom and I bought the iPhone 5s today. I had a 3G once a long time ago, so not such a big deal (although after years of having nothing but a basic phone since, it sure is nice), but Mom has never had anything more complicated than a phone that dials and maybe takes pictures that she never figured out how to use. So we'll see.

Buying the damn things was a big ordeal, though; they were only on sale at Best Buy; okay, fine, we also had a cashback thing through the credit card company for buying online if you go through their portal; nice, right? Yeah, until you go to order. First, it turns out you already have to have a plan from your phone carrier that works with smartphones before you can order, so we had to call Verizon and do that first. Okay, fine. We had some nice stuff from them, including waiving the activation and upgrade fees. Neat. So, you would think we're home free and can order the phones, right? Not so much. Best Buy's website tried to charge us the upgrade fee Verizon had already waived. When we contacted Best Buy, they told us they couldn't change it. So we'd have to buy in the store, thus missing out on the cash back. So we called the card company to see if they would give it to us anyway, since it was hardly our fault Best Buy's website sucks. No dice. Mom and I had gone out to Best Buy at lunch, and it turns out we should have just bought them then, because the store didn't charge for anything but the phones themselves. Go figure. So I'll be setting up Mom's phone tomorrow, not that it will take much time.

Still, I'm very excited to finally get rid of the old flip phone. We both got the space grey colour, so we'll have to get different cases to be able to tell them apart.

Since our president gave us today off (originally only tomorrow was a paid holiday) I had time to do this, as well as make a key lime pie this morning (yes, it was very good!) and other holiday stuff.

Hopefully all of you will have a wonderful winter/summer celebration of your choice (or have already done so), and we'll see you in the new year.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-12-13T21:11:00

2013-12-14T02:23:50Z

Well, I guess there are still a few of you out there... Anyway, time for another drive-by update. I kind of feel like they're all 'this week at work', but since I don't really have a hobby other than you guys (fandom), oh, well. In the exciting life of Rhia, we had two more near-disasters with the Christmas tree (we've never had this many problems with a single tree before), got almost all the rest of the decorations up, and are working on the candied pecans. I want to take some in to work, to contribute to the holiday fattening-up. ;)

Speaking of work, I was terribly excited to find out that we do indeed have an office Christmas party, and it will be at a ritzy restaurant in town next Thursday night. On the company expense account. Susan asked us all what kind of wine we wanted with dinner. o.O Should be fun, as I really like all my co-workers.

Also, I'm putting this out to the Universe, as Wings says: one of my friends at work (an asset manager) told me that the company might be hiring three new AVPs (asset managers) and he thought I should let Erin know I would like to be considered, because I do such a great job at my job that I would be good at the AM job. I was very flattered, and decided, 'what the hell, why not?' and let Erin know. She said essentially she'd talk to Tom about it, but I figure I lose nothing by mentioning it. I love the job I do now, but the AM job would pay more (and be a ton more responsibility...); if I don't get it, I've still got a job I love.

My cat is eyeing me with disfavour at the moment since I put some Burt's Bees cuticle stuff on my fingers earlier and she doesn't like the smell of it or the feel of it on her fur, or something. Oh, well. Everyone's a critic. I actually semi-seriously considered kidnapping one of my cats to sit on my lap and keep me warm at work this morning. It's freezing here, and the office is always somewhere between 67 and 71 F (way too cool for winter, when it's 20-40 F outside). Alas, Mom thought it was a bad idea, so the cat stayed here and I froze.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-11-26T20:30:00

2013-11-27T01:43:22Z

It's a good sign when they start giving you more work, right? I'm kind of brain dead these days after working on SBA liquidation plans. The trouble is, they're long and not all that complicated unless you haven't been working on that loan very long (at all). So I'm taking loans that I have maybe a passing familiarity with and am trying to detail our plan to liquidate the assets left, how the borrowers got into the state they're in, etc. Fascinating, but very time-consuming and filled with 'I have no idea if that's what they're looking for, but whatever' moments.

Right now I'm working on one where the obligors haven't given us any financial information (P&L statements, balance sheets, nothing) since loan origination in 2006. And of course, since they're tens of thousands of dollars behind on their loan and also in delinquent property taxes up to their eyes (the IRS actually froze their accounts at one point), they're no longer talking to us. So I'm having to guesstimate whether these people have anything other than the houses they put up as collateral for us to bother with. It doesn't look like it.

But. I have done one of these and have another to follow. That's good, right? I sure hope so!

At home, we went and got our Christmas tree on Saturday last, and got it up and all the 10,000-plus lights on it on Sunday (around watching the too-exciting Panthers game!). Nice, but then that night we discovered the tree stand had been leaking onto our carpet (it went right through the protective mat) all day. So the tree was sitting in the middle of the living room the last few days, waiting for the carpet to dry. Dad had to pick the thing up, lights and all, to get it out of the stand and into the new one. I went out on Sunday night to Lowe's to get a new one at 7:30 and it was already below freezing! I want hazard pay for this. ;)

Mom and Dad are headed out of town this weekend, which is why we were in a bit of a hurry to get the lights on, as it takes both me and Mom to do it. But the tree is the only decoration we've managed to get up so far. I think it's going to go a lot slower this year with me working.

How are you doing, dear flisters? It's been raining here since last night; the kind of really cold soaking (hovering around freezing or just above all day) that makes it miserable out. I nearly hydroplaned off the road on the way in this morning, but lived to tell about it.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-11-08T20:36:00

2013-11-09T01:40:48Z

So today at work I got my first employee review. I am apparently literally a model employee, and my boss said so many nice things about me I was blushing. Of course, I'm hoping this translates into a raise at the end of the year; praise is nice, but money's better. :)

Still enjoying work a lot; we're almost full up in the office, so I have lots to do most of the time. However, since I get up every morning while it's still dark, I'm about to fall asleep right now. Yay, weekend.

comments

Drive-by update

2013-08-17T14:13:09Z

Hello, internet, it's been awhile, hasn't it? I've neglected you shamefully. I thought I'd do a quick update in between chores today.

Last weekend was my great-aunt's 90th birthday. She lives in Maryland, so it's about a seven hour drive, if you stop once or twice. Mom and I wanted to visit her, so I took Friday off from work and we drove up that morning. The GPS, which we've sarcastically nicknamed Miss Know-it-all, kept trying to get us to turn around for about fifty miles; it was trying to get us to go north into Annapolis then south back into Waldorf, when all we had to do was stay on the road we were on. Fortunately, we knew this, so we didn't waste time going the other way. (Mom and Dad started calling their GPS by that name a while back; they still had the voice turned on, and it had a way of sending you out of your way at times, sort of acting like it knew everything, and the voice sounded a bit snippy every time it had to re-calculate the route.)

At any rate, we got there, and the trip was really good except the hotel stay. The first night, we were very tired from the journey and all, so we went to bed somewhat early. I have a very hard time falling asleep in rooms other than my own, so I wasn't really sleeping well anyway, and then at 1:30 AM this group of people comes noisily down the hall to the rooms right around us. They were laughing and talking rather loudly, but then someone turned on music! People called the desk, and the guy came up to tell these people to be quiet, but they instead became louder, so they called a police officer to do the same. That finally worked, except for the little brat that went yelling down the hall, banging on people's doors. At least it was quiet again. The hotel refunded our first night due to this.

Saturday, we took my aunt shopping in Annapolis, which was very pretty. The Naval Academy was apparently having a parents' weekend, so all the students were out with their families, in their dress whites. So wings128 will be very jealous! Aunt Minnie, who met her husband back during the war when he was stationed in Atlanta, said she always had had a weakness for a man in uniform. ;)

The ladies of her church threw a big luncheon for her on Sunday, which was very nice, and the trip back was fine though we had some nasty rain in spots. Work this week was busy but good; a fellow Davidsonian started on Monday, so that was cool. The weather is once-in-a-lifetime unseasonably cool right now, which is fantastic! Other than that, I have nothing much to report.

How have you all been?

comments

Slash tourney!

2013-07-21T20:21:50Z

I know several others are plugging this already, but the backlot is holding another slash pairings tourney, and SGA is on there with McKay/Sheppard. Now, even if you're not normally a McShep fan, please vote in this so we can make a good showing! Last time, we almost beat out Dean/Castiel from Supernatural; not bad for a fandom that's been off the air for a while! You can vote once an hour from each mobile device you have, so let's show all these new fandoms that we're not 'dead'!

Here's the link to the voting site: http://logo.to/18uL8Re.

comments

meme thing

2013-07-10T00:23:26Z

I picked this up from wings128 and figured I'd give it a go. Unfortunately, it kind of highlights how boring my life is.

What was the last book you read?
Into the Black: Odyssey One by Evan Currie and Jingo! by Terry Pratchett

What was the last TV show you watched?
Jeopardy! tonight; there's not really anything else good on TV any more.

What was the last movie you saw?
Uh, it might have been The Hunger Games...last year. Again, they totally quit making movies I care about.

What was the last album you listened to?
Well, I listen to my iPod on shuffle, so I don't usually listen to a single album at a time.

What was the last video game you played?
Dragon Age a couple of years ago.

Bonus round: What was the last fanfic you read?
Reread By My Side by rinkafic.

So, um, yes, see how boring my life really is, internet!

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-06-23T15:23:00

2013-06-23T19:57:51Z

I've been neglecting you terribly, I know, internet, but...

Yes, well. This is an incredibly sleep-deprived entry, as I missed so much sleep last night. The idiot speedway apparently has some kind of outdoor movie night now that they've got the biggest screen in the world, or something, so the damn movie could be heard all the way at my house last night, followed by freaking fireworks until past 11 pm; when you get up at seven every morning, that's not good. Even after that, I couldn't seem to really sleep, and finally I gave up this morning around six-thirty. So I'm really tired.

But. Yesterday I went to the big bookstore in the mall which was having a one-day sale and bought several books. One of them was a book by an author I'd never heard of, but I liked the sound of the summary, so I gave it a shot. I love it. Totally recommending this book here. It's military sci-fi, so Stargate fans pay attention. The author is Evan Currie, and the book is Into the Black: Odyssey One. It's really good on the military stuff, including a section where he essentially says, yeah, combat pilots have to know almost as much about how their craft work as the people who built them, so they're anything but stupid (which, after some time in the SGA fandom, is refreshing--we all know how many fics treat the military as dumb, even pilots like Sheppard or Mitchell).

The main premise is that, in a post-WWIII Earth, the North American Confederation sends out the brand-new space ship Odyssey, under the command of Eric Weston, on a shakedown cruise of the universe. Weston was a former fighter jockey in the Marines, and there are lots of Special Forces members of our military as well as Canada's in his new crew. There are some aspects that resonate a lot with the Stargate universe, but only on the surface. It's a fascinating and compelling action read with linguistics, philosophy, combat tactics, tragedy, and triumph. I won't give away any more of the plot, other than to say there are alien humans and alien beasties, and there's a war. Um, it's a lot better than it sounds from my lame description? Seriously, though, if you like the mix of military and science that marks the best of Stargate canon and fandom, I think you ought to give this book a go. It's in paperback, so not as expensive, and I'm fairly sure there will be a sequel, since it's left very up-in-the-air as far as the ending goes.

Anyway, that was mostly the purpose of this post. I'm a little over halfway through the book, which is nearly six hundred pages in an oversized paperback, though I peeked at the last page, as I am wont to do. ;) Which is how I know the ending. And I'm still feeling compelled to read the rest because it's that good. There's really interesting science, too; a lot of it is based on things I know are fairly current in actual science, like tachyon properties, and it makes nice extrapolations in the best tradition of the genre. The alien society they encounter is interesting and somewhat mysterious, even at the end of the book, and the alien enemy is pretty frightening.

So. What's on your summer reading list, guys? I also picked up some more Discworld novels, which are an addiction of mine, and the latest Foreigner novel I'd been wanting to own since I read it back in March. I had to stop myself from spending all of my first paycheck there, since it was only a week's pay. I should get paid again at the end of this coming week, and it will be the normal two weeks' pay this time, which is good, since I keep having to buy gas for my car and it keeps getting more expensive. :/

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-06-19T20:00:00

2013-06-20T00:10:51Z

I was trying to come up with something witty to say here as an intro, but came up blank. How are you doing these days, internet? I never see you anymore except after work and on the weekends. My cubicle is situated where my double screens are really visible, so about the only thing I can do besides, you know, the stuff they're paying me for is keep my personal email down to a manageable level. But the work is pretty interesting. On Monday, I made the two-hour drive down to our other office (and the three-hour drive back) for training, and learned more than I could ever have imagined about commercial business loans. I now know about SBA loans, conventional loans, securitizations, and allonges. At least a little. And even though it sounds kind of boring, it really isn't.

My job is sort of all-encompassing. I find things, draft letters and emails for attorney engagement, appraiser engagement, BPOs (don't ask me what that stands for; I asked the first day and promptly forgot in the midst of all the other jargon), and site visits. The stuff my office does is for "special servicing" loans, which essentially means loans that are in default.

So today was pretty good, I even had time for some crosswords and a few games of solitaire. But I realised that I didn't bring enough to eat for lunch, so, in desperation I turned to the Keurig coffee machine and tried to make the stuff as sweet and flavoured as possible--it didn't really work. Oh, well.

And, and, and, I get paid this Friday! Which is good, because I have to pay for gas for my car every few days now, and it's pretty damn expensive.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-06-13T18:28:00

2013-06-13T22:37:04Z

Well, in spite of the weather, I made it home alive today. I ended up getting to work about 20 minutes early this morning because traffic actually co-operated fairly well, so I decided to leave work early. That was a really good thing, because when I was within half a mile of the interstate exit I get off on to go home (so about five minutes from home), the skies--already ominous-looking--opened up and rain was falling sideways so hard we all were going about 15 miles an hour with our flashers going. Fortunately, my car is low to the ground and has excellent traction, so all the ponding which was very deep in places didn't even make me hydroplane.

One of the poplars in our yard wasn't so lucky, though; the straight-line winds we had were gusting between 50 and 70 mph, about the force of a hurricane. It brought down one of our trees in the backyard onto my old swingset.

On the plus side, tomorrow is casual Friday, so I get to wear jeans and sneakers to the office, and then on Monday I have to drive to our office in Greenville (about two hours from here in good traffic) but I also get to wear jeans! It's neat working uptown (this city is stupid and what most cities call downtown is uptown here), with the bronze elevators with neat designs on the doors and wood panelling inside and the marble floors, but it's expensive to park ($140/month) and you have to dress up. Oh well.

comments

meme thing

2013-06-11T00:49:35Z

So, in honour of my first, successful day at the new job, a meme I grabbed from wings128:

1. You can ONLY answer 'Yes' or 'No'

2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and asks.

Kissed any one of your LiveJournal friends? — Yes

Been arrested? — No

Kissed someone you didn't like? — Yes

Slept in until 5 PM? — No

Fallen asleep at work/school? — Yes

Held a snake? — Yes

Run a red light? — Yes

Been suspended from school? — No

Experienced love at first sight? — No

Totalled your car in an accident? — No

Been fired from a job? — No

Fired somebody? — No

Sung karaoke? — No

Pointed a gun at someone? — No

Done something you told yourself you wouldn't? — Yes

Laughed until something you were drinking came out your eyes? — No

Caught a snowflake on your tongue? — Yes

Kissed in the rain? — No

Had a close brush with death (your own)? — No

Seen someone die? — Yes

Played Spin-the-Bottle? — Yes

Smoked a cigar? — No

Sat on a rooftop? — No

Smuggled something into another country? — No

Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? — No

Broken a bone? — No

Skipped school? — Yes

Eaten a bug? — No

Sleepwalked? — No

Walked on a moonlit beach? — No

Ridden a motorcycle? — No

Dumped someone? — Yes

Forgotten your anniversary? — No

Lied to avoid a ticket? — No

Ridden in a helicopter? — No

Shaved your head? — No

Blacked out from drinking? — No

Played a prank on someone? — No

Hit a home run? — No

Felt like killing someone? — Yes

Cross-dressed? — No

Been falling-down drunk? — No

Made your girlfriend/boyfriend cry? — Yes

Eaten snake? — No

Marched/Protested? — No

Had Mexican jumping beans for pets? — No

Puked on an amusement ride? — No

Seriously & intentionally boycotted something? — Yes

Been in a band? — No

Knitted? — Yes

Been on TV? — Yes

Shot a gun? — Yes

Skinny-dipped? — No

Given someone stitches? — No

Eaten a whole habanero pepper? — No

Ridden a surfboard? — No

Drunk straight from a liquor bottle? — Yes

Had surgery? — Yes

Streaked? — No

Been taken by ambulance to a hospital? — Yes

Tripped on mushrooms? — No

Passed out when NOT drinking? — No

Peed on a bush? — No

Donated Blood? —Yes

Grabbed electric fence? — No

Eaten alligator meat? — No

Eaten cheesecake? — Yes

Eaten your kids' Halloween candy? — No

Killed an animal when NOT hunting? — No

Peed your pants in public? — Yes

Snuck into a movie without paying? — No

Written graffiti? — No

Still loved someone you shouldn't? — No

Thought about the future? — Yes

Been in handcuffs? — No

Believed in love? — Yes

Slept on a certain side of the bed? — Yes

So, the job was pretty neat. I like my co-workers so far, and it looks like there will be enough interesting work to keep me busy and not bored. Also, I am now the official Keeper of the Office Keys, including the extra/guest key fobs to let people into the office. I'm thinking of putting up a sign in my office/cubicle thing that says 'Gatekeeper'.

The lady that had the job before me apparently quit without notice and didn't even come back to clean out her desk, so we also spent part of the day cleaning out her crap (including tea bags, a bajillion packets of salt and pepper, antacids, and personal paperwork) as well as trying to determine what to do with the various files she left.

I have decided I quite like having two monitor screens, but despise the desktop keyboard. It's too big, and it's one of those that curves around a bit at the bottom, thus making typing harder. :( Oh, well.

They took us out to lunch today, which was really nice. I even got to leave at the leisurely hour of 9 this morning, though, as if to make up for it, tomorrow I have to be there at 8:30 because the president of the company is coming and she gets there early.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-02-03T12:34:00

2013-02-03T17:42:09Z

Whee! I got my totally awesome-looking 'Hawkguy' comic yesterday, courtesy of the fabulous pocky_slash. Thanks, Kait! It looks cool so far; I got a few pages in last night before bed.

In other non-news...well, that's about it. Doing some re-reading, working back through my favourite C.J. Cherryh novels, including the Foreigner books, and discovered I had missed the three or so latest, so I've got those to read this weekend. Still such an amazing series. I even managed to impress my mom; normally, she just doesn't get why I read SF/F, and she looked at one of them the other day and asked whether the books all seem alike after a while. I told her no, and why, but she seemed really surprised when I told her that, at heart, the Foreigner series are political thrillers. Point to me.

We'll be watching the Super Bowl tonight, not that we particularly care who wins since our sorry team finished 7-9, like most of the rest of the league. Although, Luke Kuechly did get Defensive Rookie of the Year, so that's something good. Anyway, I'll put in a vote for the Ravens, just because. Not that I really think any of the rest of you care overmuch. ;)

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-01-16T20:24:00

2013-01-17T01:28:16Z

And here is the best thing I've seen all day: Michele Bachmann is so crazy she's trying to hold paychecks hostage for silence on potential illegal campaign activities. My favourite part is the "Rasputin-like" debate coach. How does this bitch keep getting elected? ::sporfle::

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2013-01-01T08:30:00

2013-01-01T13:35:15Z

Happy New Year, everybody. We had morons (otherwise known as teenage neighbours) setting off firecrackers outside our door until nearly midnight, so everyone here is tired and cranky. We've already had at least two arguments before anyone even got breakfast. Oops? Probably not the best way to start a new year, but I don't believe in superstition unless it has to do with sports. Like the Bud commercial says, it's only weird if it doesn't work.

At any rate, I hope those of you who believe in resolutions find them easy to keep and that everyone has a healthy and prosperous (in all senses of the word) new year.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2012-12-21T09:18:00

2012-12-21T14:55:55Z

Well, here we all are, still alive; guess that'll put a temporary halt to those doomsdayers and save me from having to hear about stupid shit that doesn't make sense or matter--oh, wait, the news still reports on Congress. Oh, well.

I had lunch and shopping with a friend yesterday; we had our customary Chinese from our favourite local place, and then did a little shopping in the rain. It's turned cold (for here) now, though--the mountains might be getting some snow, I think. Fortunately, I live about two hours south and east of the mountains, so it's just clear, windy, and cold here.

Happy Winter Solstice/Non-doomsday to all who celebrate such things! It's hard to believe that there are only four days to Christmas. We have a little bit of a light load under the tree this year, as we seem to have mostly given each other gifts during the year or bought things that the other person already knows about. Although, Dad and I just decided to wrap a couple of those anyway, just to have more things under the tree.

I've been enjoying the holiday cards from friends and relatives. It was funny, though; a couple weeks ago I got my first Christmas card of the season, and it was from the White House! The cards, in case you haven't seen a picture of them, feature the First Dog, Bo, with a cute little scarf playing in the snow in front of the White House. It's a really pretty painting. The card will be going in the same envelope with the stuff I got from when my elementary school class wrote to the president back in the day. I don't know what the other kids said in their letters, but I distinctly remember asking for a picture of Socks the cat. I got both an autographed picture of President Clinton (ho-hum when you're that age) and an 'autographed' picture of Socks, which delighted me. Of course, being nine, I didn't really know that they're signed by a robo-pen, but I still have them in the original envelope nearly twenty years later. I'm still not sure how they managed to get a cat to agree to an ink-print of his paw, as just about every cat that's ever owned me would (rather justifiably, I think) claw you for that, but whatever.

In case I'm not in a posting mood in the next few days, I'll go ahead and wish all who celebrate a Merry Christmas and everyone a peaceful year to come.

comments

um. so, update.

2012-12-04T03:30:57Z

Okay, I feel like I should do some sort of update, but, like stunt_muppet, I never really know where to start. I guess I'll start by making people jealous and saying I finished all my holiday shopping in one day on Amazon and didn't break fifty bucks, which is good since I still have no income. I've got a few leads on things that might become possible job openings in the new year, so we'll see what comes of that. I've been out of school for a year this month, although I guess you could count the six months of paralegal classes and that makes it only five months. We'll go with that since it makes the fact that I still don't have a job sound less loser-like. :/

Speaking of paralegal, I finally got my letter that says I passed the state bar! They even gave me a nice certificate that I can frame and put in my office should I ever be employed and actually have an office in which to put it. I squeed really hard when I got it in the mail today. It came in a large envelope that the mail man had to ring the doorbell for, and I looked at the address label, which said it came from the state bar, and I told myself, 'well, surely they wouldn't spend all this money on an envelope like this if it was bad news'. :)

Both of my football teams lost this past weekend, which sucked donkey balls, especially since each could have (should have) won. Sigh.

My computer hard drive is sounding/acting suspiciously like it needs to be replaced, but I've been putting off finding out for sure. I guess I need to determine that so I can beg for a new hard drive for Christmas. Better than a new laptop, both because this one was very expensive and I'm not through using it, and because I hate changing computers. I get used to the way one works, and I don't want to get a new one.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2012-11-16T21:33:00

2012-11-17T02:45:41Z

Guys, I am so excited. For the first time in forever, I feel creative again. As some of you may remember, I used to make wallpapers and icons fairly often, among other creative pursuits. Then, even though I've felt a lot better recently, I just didn't have that creative drive. Which, okay, is a good trade for not being depressed/anxious/whatever, but kind of sad. Well, yesterday I was flipping through the wallpapers on a sci-fi website that has a lot of (really, really fantastic) SGA and SG-1 papers. There was a place where you could submit your own papers by email to the site admin, and if he thinks they're good enough, he might put them on the site.

Some of the things there blew my mind how much layering had to go into them, but some of them were easily on par with things I've created in the past. So I thought, why not give it a go? I found a screencap from Hot Zone that I'd been working on before, and finished it up, then sent it in. But I thought I should do one completely from scratch. So I spent no less than four hours on it this evening, and I really like it. The base image is a cap from The Tower, and then I've used stuff from other caps. I'm not sure whether to send it in though. What do you think, internet? I've scaled it down here; it's 1024x768, which is the size the site wanted as a minimum.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2012-11-07T02:43:00

2012-11-07T07:48:39Z

Quickly, before I fall into bed and sleep for about 2 days straight, WE WON!!!!! I mean, my home state eventually (after a long time) went for Romney, but we won the election, so that's okay. I can breathe again, people, I'm not even exaggerating how much this means to me. I put in a lot of hours and miles knocking on people's doors and making phone calls and entering data and all kinds of other things, so this one really counts. And Romney's concession speech was actually decent. If that Mitt Romney had actually run...well, he wouldn't have made it past the Tea Party, so it wouldn't matter. Nonetheless, I thought both speeches were good, though the President's was inspiring and great.

And now, to sleep. And may the rest of the world take the next four years to forget exactly how nutso America's brand of crazy can be. I'd sure like to.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2012-11-05T18:39:00

2012-11-05T23:42:38Z

Spent an amazing day at a campaign event; saw the First Lady speak and she was marvellous. We even got to see her plane taxi right up in front of us! Pretty cool. I met some neat people, stood around in a hangar for about five hours, and came home. We even made the local news and everything, y'all. Still, I will be very glad when this election is over; hopefully I will also be glad about the outcome.

comments

Trick or Treat, anyone?

2012-10-31T00:17:48Z

Ganked from aadarshinah:

In honour of All Hallow's Eve, I'm inviting trick-or-treaters to my 'door.'

Comment with "Trick or Treat" to this post and... well, you know the drill. Treats can be anything that strikes my fancy (pics of fave actors or pairings, graphics, a few words why I'm glad to have you on my flist, one sentence fics, etc. etc.).

The more "houses" to visit the more fun it'll be, so go ahead, open your journal and help spread the fun!

Um, maybe not so much the fic offerings, but who knows, I might be inspired!

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2012-10-19T12:32:00

2012-10-19T16:34:27Z

I was just now doing some data entry for voting and saw this name on my list: Donna Noble. I just wanted to note the amusement and irony factors here.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2012-10-18T09:31:00

2012-10-18T13:35:46Z

This probably isn't of interest to most people, but anyone who likes birds might be. We have a broad-tailed hummingbird in backyard right now. This is super exciting, because he's not supposed to be here, not just for this time of year, but ever. His range is over in the Rockies and Texas, not North Carolina. Yet there he is. At first, Mom saw him and thought he was a (really late) migrating ruby-throated hummingbird, which would be unusual for a male this time of year, but at least the correct geography. But we saw him again this morning and he was definitely different; the throat was not as brilliant a red, and was only red on the sides (non-breeding plumage), among other things. This is a life bird for all of us, which means that we've never seen one in person before. It's a pretty big deal. He's really cute, too, because it's sort of cold here and he's all puffed up.

comments

rhia_starsong @ 2012-10-16T14:12:00

2012-10-16T18:17:59Z

So, the job interview went well this morning. The lady I met with, the office manager, was very nice, and seemed impressed with me. I think she really liked that, when she asked about what I like to do in my free time, one of the things I told her about was beta reading/editing for people. Spelling/grammar is one of her pet peeves, and since it's a law office stuff like that is very important. Also, it turns out that one of the partners has actually published some fiction books, which is pretty cool.

The job description sounds pretty good, and I was really glad to hear that they tend to hire their clerical people for paralegal jobs after a few years, which is what I really want. Pay and benefits are pretty decent, and the hours are good, too. I should hear from her on Monday if she thinks I should meet with the attorneys for a second interview, so continue crossing your fingers!

comments