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Lazy Sunday

Filed Under (Alfee, General, Girl Stuff) by Morbid Romantic on 27-07-2008

Fridays are the nights when you go out and do something relaxing but fun, something to unwind.

Saturdays are when you can spend all day and night out, going places, seeing friends, having fun.

Sundays are the lazy days that you spend in bed.

That was just what me and Alfee did. Well, maybe not so much Alfee since he tried to wake me up twice before I actually got up. The bed was just so, so comfortable that I couldn’t bring myself to step out of it. Then afterwards, I snuggled up to Alfee and we lay in his bed for about an hour and a half watching TV and napping. The only reason we got up when we did was because it was going to storm and we both wanted him to take me home before the big storm hit. Safer that way for him having to drive and all.

I decided to watch movies when I got home, so I got a stack from my mother’s huge collection and went upstairs.

My Aunt’s funeral is tomorrow, not Wednesday. It was scheduled for Wednesday, but apparently that day was bad for a lot of people and my cousin moved the date up. My mother just happened to have tomorrow off, so we will go together. On one hand, I am happy about that. On the other hand, I don’t want to spend all day tomorrow at a funeral for someone I don’t really care that anything about. What hit me hard in all of this was supporting my cousin. The ‘emotional’ part for me is dealing with the people who are living who are in pain because of this.

Alfee wants to buy me more dresses. I totally support this! I’m putting the more expensive of clothes in nice garment bags to keep them safe.

Popularity: 9% [?]

My Heat Scare

Filed Under (General, Life) by Morbid Romantic on 23-07-2008

My mother and I decided to head off to Busch Gardens for a bit since we had some time between errands… though, yes, because of our little trip to Williamsburg to ride on stuff, we didn’t get everything done and have to go to the bank and pay a few bills tomorrow. There are a few shows that my mother has yet to see and we also wanted to ride those few rides that aren’t too intense for her.

We went to go to see the More Pet Shenanigans, which I have never seen before despite having gone to Busch Gardens countless times. It was such an adorable show, I swear I almost died. All these kitties and puppies running around, just being cute kitties and puppies. All of the animals have been rescued from the ASPCA, so that just makes them all the more special. And they were sooooo cute. Those kitties! I can’t gush enough over how sweet they all looked bouncing around and running and doing tricks.

Afterwards, since it was starting in ten minutes and just across the way, my mother and I went to see the Grey Wolf show. It’s a stand up show and it was so hot. Today was the hottest day of the year so far. With the humidity, it was an easy 108 degrees. I’m a pretty tough person. I have youth on my side, right? So, I stood out in the sun and heat for a good half an hour since the show was 20 minutes long. My mother and I planned to ride the Sky Ride to Germany to go to the Festhaus and get something quick to eat. By the time we leave the wolf show, I feel a little sick to my stomach, but I take that as hunger. When I get hungry, I get really super nauseous.

I think to myself, “a cold drink and a little food and I’ll feel great.” By the time we make it to France next to Ireland (where the two animal shows were), it’s only getting worse. And when I say worse, I mean its worseness seems to be growing exponentially. I’m feeling a little lightheaded, but again, it’s hot and I need water. Nothing big or detrimental. I’ve felt that way before. Except at this point, I’m getting a little scatterbrained. I can this when I walk the wrong direction in the line, something obvious to a clear mind. I tend to be somewhat out of it from time to time, so I don’t think my mother took it as a bad sign.

When we got into line and stood, it hit me like bricks. It was the strangest feeling in the world. It felt like there was this huge weight or pressure on my chest. I felt like my breathing was being restricted to short and shallow breaths, yet at the same time I felt like my lungs were expanding and wide open. I tried not to panic at this point because I knew that to do so would only make my breathing worse, more labored and quick. I held on to the line bar and tried to put as much weight against it as I could to relax, to take the stress off of me.

My eyes began to go all blotchy, like there were dark spots popping up here and there. When I would open them and try to focus on something, my eyes felt strained. After the splotching, it seemed like the whole world was beginning to fade. When I opened my eyes, it was like everything was covered in a film of see through black so that I could see everything, but it was darkened in an artificial way not by clouds or a gray sky. I don’t know when I told my mother that I felt like I was going to pass out, but I did. She noticed then that my lips were pale white, the color of my face, which one would expect to be flushed in heat like that. All the color had drained from me.

The feeling that I was going to vomit was so bad I felt like I was going to collapse. The world kept dimming, things were getting lighter. I knew that I was seconds away from passing out. I was actually going to faint. My mother asked if I wanted to get out of line, but all I thought about was sitting in the cart, closing my eyes and cooling off. So, despite that it was hard for me to stay upright and conscious on two feet, I forced myself to.

This part is sort of dreamlike, but I remember feeling drunk when I walked into the cart and getting in. Then I sort of let myself slump against the side and close my eyes. My mother said she checked my fingernails then to see if they had color, which they didn’t. I don’t remember this either. I don’t recall her grabbing my hand. I just had my eyes closed and I was sort of half awake. The cool air felt really good that high up. I think I mumbled something to my mom, but again I don’t remember what happened.

Somewhere over Land of the Dragons, something in me snapped like I was waking up and I could open my eyes and talk without slurring. I felt weak, I was shaky all over and cold (but soooo hot), but I could open my eyes and I wasn’t seeing spots anymore. All I had was a growing and lingering headache.

Eating did help. Sitting inside of the Festhaus in the dark with the cold air helped a lot, as did the drink and food.

After my scare, my mother and I decided to take it light. We went to Ireland again and rode Corkscrew Hill, a ride that we can both agree is completely awesome. For such a hot day, the ride had NO line, so we went right up to the front and then on. God, I can’t tell you how good those dark ice cold tunnels felt to get to the ride. Because even though I felt better, I constantly felt like I was on the brink of another spell.

Since we were close, we ended out day with Pirates in 4-D in the Globe Theater at Banbury Cross, England. Once the show was over, we were both exhausted and decided to come home. My mother has been forcing me to drink water. To be honest, I still feel really weak and really… weird. But a little normal and not like I am about to pass out and die.

When Alfee called, I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want him to worry. He’d freak out if he knew and I didn’t want to make his life that much more stressful.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Book List Meme

Filed Under (General, YEY!) by Morbid Romantic on 21-07-2008

You guys know that one thing I don’t do a lot of here are memes. I think a lot of the time they are just silly and I don’t have the patience to sit down and do them.  But, occasionally, I see one that does seem interesting or that I just can’t help but do.

For your sake and the front page of this blog, I will put the list under a cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 16% [?]

Saturday Shopping

Filed Under (Alfee, General, Girl Stuff, Life, Movies, Shopping, YEY!) by Morbid Romantic on 21-07-2008

Alfee and I went to the mall yesterday since we planned on seeing Batman: The Dark Knight and the Lynnhaven mall is right next to an AMC theater. We get there around 5pm and get tickets to the 9:50pm showing of the movie.

We were supposed to buy him some clothes, but I ended up walking away with two dresses, a tank top, a pair of shoes, and two pair of flip-flops. God, I swear he spoils me rotten. He dropped a lot of money last night.

This is what I got:


We went to Hot Topic first. I adore Kuromi because she’s just the cutest thing ever. I want light, thin tank tops to wear and I saw this Kuromi top and of course Alfee gets it for me because, like I’ve said, he spoils me rotten. I was all about the colors because it’s something I won’t get easily hot in. Great for wearing with jeans or with shorts. Sometimes it’s just WAY too hot to wear a regular shirt. So, the next time Alfee and I go to Busch Gardens Williamsburg or Colonial Williamsburg. It’s a totally comfortable top. I won’t mind sweating in it.


Isn’t this dress gorgeous? The dress has a gorgeous vintage look because of the type of top it is and because of the small frill at the bottom. It was on sale at JC Pennyys for $35, cut by half of its regular $70 price. The colors are white, brown and blue– all really pretty earth tones. This is the sort of dress that you go out in, I think, because it’s really nice and would be super easy to mess up. That’s the last thing I want. So, I have something nice to wear if Alfee and I go out to dinner or out some place where I have to look somewhat nice. What I like the MOST about this dress is that it tightens at the waist area in a way that it draws it in and gives you shape rather than expose all of your little bulges and stuff. I’m almost 30, okay! I have bulges.


This is my Billabong Lotus dress. Fortunately, this is a dress that I can get messy in. I found it at PacSun for about $43. It’s a really light cotton material, so it would be perfect for walking around outside in or going to the mall in. I need to protect myself against the hot, humid temperatures of Virginia. I absolutely LOVE this dress. You guys can’t even imagine how absolutely comfortable it is.

Afterwards, Alfee and I wanted to see Batman. When we went around 5pm to get tickets, everything until the 8:40pm showing was sold out. So, we bought for the next showing at 9:50. After shopping and drinking iced tea at Starbucks, we went to the theater around 9:10pm. The place was PACKED. There were, like, NO seats open. There was no attendant at the door checking tickets, so it was obvious some of the people in there weren’t supposed to be.

I refuse to sit in the front of the theater. I am not going to crane my head back to see a screen.

So, we went to customer service and exchanged for the next showing at 10:50pm. Hey, it was a Saturday night. Might as well. We were in line for the 10:50pm showing by 9:20pm. Yes, at that time, there was already a line! But, being that it was early, we were about the 10th people in line. By the time they let us in the theater at 10:00pm, there were two lines already. Alfee and I got good seats in the very back right in the middle. I was pleased as hell.

Let me tell you, the movie was awesome. It was LONG, but you barely notice the length of the movie with all of the action. Just when I thought Christian Bale couldn’t get more wonderful, he does. It was worth $20 and an hour a half wait in line, definitely.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The Hate List pt.1

Filed Under (General) by Morbid Romantic on 20-07-2008

People are always making lists of things that they love, their top fives, their top tens, all of their favorite things (for when the dogs bite, or for when the bees sting, or for when they’re just feeling sad). The truth is that I am just a very irritable person. My lists of hates range from the very general to the very specific.

So, let’s start that list now:

1.) Cold water against my teeth
2.) People who fake accents to be cute
3.) Being told stupid things
4.) Listening to people snore when I am trying to sleep
5.) Someone who kicks the back of my chair at the movies
6.) Standing in line behind someone who constantly steps back and runs into you or jabs elbows out
7.) When store clerks greet me at the door
8.) Sitting in a dark room

There is more to add to this. As they come to me, I will add to my list…

Popularity: 5% [?]

I’m refining my talents as a woman

Filed Under (General, Girl Stuff, Life) by Morbid Romantic on 18-07-2008

Because I DO one day plan to be a home maker (a house wife would be ideal :P ), I am refining my talents in home making. And you know, it’s sort of satisfying to have things cleaned, tended to, cooked and put away.

I had to boil water to make some iced tea. I boil the water to make sure it’s not full of yucky tap stuff, which means the water has to cool before I can make anything out of it. So, when I make tea, I generally have to boil the water hours ahead and then leave it with a protective lid to cool. Then I did the dishes, scrubbed the kitchen floor, and got it in my head that *I* would make dinner.

Yes.

I was going to make dinner.

This was all around my ventures upstairs to do the occasional thing to get Marius-deRomanus.net revamped and back online.

I’m still trying to use everything in the freezer, fridge and cabinets. My mother and I can’t take that stuff with us when we move, so instead of buying new things, we need to get good use out of what is here. Slowly but surely, the pantries are becoming empty. There is room to see in the freezer! Of course, we are lacking some of the all important ingredients of daily food consumption. Right now, for instance, we have no milk. NO MILK! And we can’t exactly afford to go shopping for a while since money is tight. The economy sucks. It’s best to make what we can to eat with what we already have stocked. So, while I say, “use what we have,” I still sort of lament that I can’t eat cereal. You should see how depressingly empty my fridge is in comparison to the cabinets and freezer.

What did I make for dinner? Well, I’m glad you asked!

We have some frozen chicken, so I took out a piece of that. My mother and I rarely eat leftovers, so it’s better to make just enough for one meal and a lunch for my mother for the next day. The way that my mother and I eat, one piece of chicken is more than enough for the both of us. Since I am working with limited resources at my disposal with the thought of cleaning out the cabinets/fridge, I grab a can of creme of chicken and creme of celery soup. I mix these with some water, some minced garlic and some cut up onion in a baking dish. Into that, I put the chicken.

Then I took the potatoes on the fridge that are just on the brink of going bad and I peel and boil them for mashed potatoes. Sadly, with no milk, I had to work with butter and such. Not the healthiest option, for sure.

Since the chicken will be creamy, I decide to make a light pasta. Besides, with no milk, a creamy pasta is out of the question. I make some wheat vermicelli tossed with olive oil and herbs. With some corn, all that we had in the cabinet, the meal was complete. It was really delicious, too. I was really proud of how everything turned out… I worked my butt off on that dinner.

My mother said that Alfred would have loved the meal. I have to agree with her on that. I think he would have really liked it, too. But, he’s a total eater; Alfred can put away some food. And despite his complaints, he is NOT fat. This upsets me considering how much he eats! Still, because of his job and such, he isn’t eating as much as he used to… rather, as often. Or as much. His body needs him to eat one way, a way that he’s not following through with. Alfred needs to eat a lot very often. That kind of stuff is necessary when it comes to muscle. But, only eating one BIG meal a day (instead of three BIG meals) means that he is losing muscle mass while his body packs away the food he does eat as fat.

Not that he is fat, because he’s not.

And since we’re talking about weight, let me just say that I lost 5lbs. Time to take off that college weight!

My dream shopping list that I can’t afford because I’m food poor:
Milk
Bagels
Strawberry Cream Cheese
Smoked Turkey (for sammiches!)
Oreo Cookies
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds
Asparagus
Cherry Pop Tarts
Count Chocula
Bologna
Hebrew National Hot Dogs
White American Cheese
Extra Creamy Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

Or I’ll just take some Thai take out.

Enough about food, it’s too late (too early) to get so hungry!

Popularity: 7% [?]

A Productive Day

Filed Under (Content, General, Interwebs, Websites, YEY!) by Morbid Romantic on 16-07-2008

Let me tell you… when I took over the Play It Loud music rotation webring, ringsurf.com was still the best thing out there. A FAR cry better than webring.org, which had gone down the drain with ugly, impossible to customize ring codes and crappy forced ads. Ringsurf.com was like a haven to all of those who loved their webrings and the beautiful simplicity of running one through the service.

But, Yahoo bought ringsurf.com and turned it into a crap hole. Gone is the ability to have a pretty customizable text code with various features of what to surf. Heck, you can’t even link to a ring home page with your code or through your webring page. The new ringsurf.com pretty much forces you to use a cruddy, boring, non-customizable scheme. A lot of the options of making a webring were taken away.

So, I decided with Play It Loud that I would run a script from the website. A quick search at Hot Scripts and a visit to some reliable message boards led me to VS.Hive. So far, I LOVE the script. It only took me about 5 minutes to install and customizing it is simple as I don’t know what. Moving to a hosted script is totally the best move for Play It Loud. Come on members! Come back to meeeee.

I emailed at 300+ members of the webring. Hopefully they will rejoin soon so that we can rebuild our community.

Speaking of which, the Yuki Eiri Gallery is about to reach 11,675 members. I sure didn’t expect that to explode like it did… well, I suppose I should have. Gravitation is HUGE and I happened to be building my gallery when all of the new Genzo tracks were being released.

I took my old music rotation, Genetic Bomb, and redid it. In fact, I moved it, renamed it and redesigned it completely. I am starting from scratch here, too! To be honest, though, Genetic Bomb was gone so long that it didn’t seem worth resurrecting. It seemed the best move of all to remake something entirely new. So, I did… Blood Music!

I did some work around here. I cam addicted to plugins. That is probably pretty obvious… but I had to replace some when I upgraded to Wordpress 2.6. And, I wanted new stuff. New stuff for me like post ratings and post views and a site map. It’s all so cool on the backend. You should see my Wordpress Admin panel. :P It’s insanely cramped full of stuff.

Next up!? I am making a totally new layout for Marius de Romanus.net. It was about time that it got an overhaul. I want something a little… darker than what I have now. Elegant, for sure, since it IS Marius that we’re talking about and he’s just not your typical vampire. It is coming along great right now. I am about half way done with the layout itself. Afterwards, I will have to work on the coding. But, I’ll worry about that when I’ve created a layout that I can happy with. And then, it’s on to revamping Yuki Eiri.com.

First my domains and then some of the subsites. Once the main domains are finished and redone, I’ll work on my subdomains because A LOT of them need to be redone and updated as far as content information goes.

Popularity: 9% [?]

They fixed my diploma

Filed Under (General, Idiots, Ranting, School) by Morbid Romantic on 12-07-2008

Just recently when I graduated with my second degree, I graduated with the honor Summa Cum Laude. My first degree was also Summa Cum Laude. When I received my first one post-graduation, it was clearly marked with a little gold emblem that said, ‘Summa Cum Laude’ on it. So, when I graduated this time in May, I assumed that my second one would also have some sort of an emblem or stamp or marking to signify my degree’s Summa Cum Laude status.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed when I got my degree a few weeks ago and there was nothing on it at all to indicate ‘Summa Cum Laude.’ It was pretty cheap, I tell you. All that hard work for nothing, I thought. By first impression, by looks alone, my degree was no more important than those of everyone else who graduated with a normal degree. I know it’s arrogant, but I wanted my degree to reflect my work, to set me apart from the ‘average’ people who did ‘average’ work.

Fortunately, I got a big envelope in the mail today. I recognized it as the same type as my diploma came in a few weeks ago. When I opened it up and pulled out the paper, it was a new copy of my diploma, this time with the words ‘Summa Cum Laude’ under my name.

I can only assume that they messed up the honors batch and someone brought it to their attention, so they redid all of the honors degrees and resent them out.

Thank GOD for that because I was about to email them myself and ask about my degree honor.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Hmmm… so many questions…

Filed Under (General, Life, School, Teaching) by Morbid Romantic on 11-07-2008

Does anyone know a good converter for .vob files to turn them into .avi or .mpeg (etc, etc)? I have some rips from personal DVDs on my computer that I would love to put into .avi or some other format to distribute to others to watch. I did a GOOGLE search, of course, but a lot of the results that I came up with were pay programs or programs that I couldn’t find any reviews of to ascertain if they are what I need. Surely there has to be something free, safe and high quality. … I know, nothing good is free. But, this is the internet, right!? If you want it, it exists. It’s like a sub-part of rule 34.

Okay, maybe that’s not a good connection to make. I don’t think attaching it in any way to rule 34 will benefit it.

I also got something in the mail today from my ODU’s Alumni Association. It’s really nothing more than a, “thanks for graduating, would you like to donate money” letter, but I read the whole thing and appreciate the Alumni sticker that they sent me for the car that I don’t have. I’m not interested in any Alumni gatherings, lunches or events. I don’t have any friends who are alumni. There’s no one who graduating with me whom I’m going to miss at all. I also lack feelings of brotherhood/sisterhood when it comes to that sort of thing. I don’t need OR want to bond with anyone over something so meaningless… at least, meaningless to me.

But I am sort of interested in their mentor program. Call it the teacher in me, but I think I’d like to be involved in it. I have experience in large quantity. I know that I could help some current college students with what I’ve been through personally. It doesn’t seem too much work or too arduous to pass along some advice now and then, not if it makes the college experience that much easier for someone. I want to play a part in the success of others, of giving them whatever piece of strength that I can so that they’ll stick with it and not give up.

I suppose I’m too idealistic. In the long run, I doubt I will be any help at all. And like I said a few posts down… I’m lazy.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Went to the movies today

Filed Under (General, Movies, Musing, Ranting) by Morbid Romantic on 11-07-2008

I am trying to spend as much time with my mother as possible. We got some packing done and did another third of the carpet (one third to go!) with the pre-clean before we shampoo the thing. It was a fairly productive day as far as days go, at least the way mine go. I admit that I am definitely not the most hard working person in the world. I can own up to my laziness. I can think of a few excuses to give for this, all of which would be valid, but I prefer to not even walk that line. I’ll just say, “yeah, I’m lazy” and stick to it, illnesses and issues aside.

Anyway…

My mother and I went to see Wall-E. I’m not a Pixar fan. I’m not a Disney fan. Yes, there are some Disney movies that I adore (like Dumbo), but you’re not going to excite me or rouse my curiosity with a trailer for a new Disney movie no matter the subject or the voice actors involved. However, my mother does get worked up about those sorts of things. Since these next few weeks are all about spending time with her, I figure that I can suffer through a Pixar/Disney movie for her. Besides, I have been hearing good things about Wall-E by people I trust the opinions of. So, while I highly doubt that I’ll leave the movie declaring the awesomeness of Wall-E, I neither think that I am going to be disappointed and on the brink of sleep the entire time.

But really, it is a good movie. Adorable, certainly, which I hate admitting because ‘adorable’ is not my thing unless we’re talking baby animals or my nephew. As for Wall-E, there’s not a lot of talking through the movie, not until you get to the part with actual humans. But there is enough action and movement in the movie to keep kids from squirming in their seats with boredom. It’s a fine line to walk, really.

I laughed, though, at all the fat people in the movie buzzing around in their space chairs, helpless to take care of themself, talking to their friends on their little communication screens. The gross junk food way of eating, the laziness of the fat people, the inability of people to get up and move or communicate with others in an actual face to face way so reflects the way our society is heading. Because that’s what you see everywhere in real life when you leave the house: fat people talking loudly on cell phones without a thought or any consideration to the other people around them, sipping on McDonald’s cups or Starbuck’s. It’s gross.

Though, for the record, I LOVE Starbuck’s. And I AM anti-social. As anti-social as they come. At least I don’t talk loudly and rudely on a cell phone. I just fine some dark isolated corner to sit in. I spare the rest of the world rather than force it on them like so many others.

I think that this message probably went over the head of a lot of the people who’ve seen the movie so far. I also think the message of ‘get off your apathetic, lazy, selfish fat ass and do SOMETHING for this earth’ also went over more than a few heads.

A shame. A true shame.

Popularity: 10% [?]