Reflections in Raindrops

I love how the amount of posts I produce on this website appears to decrease on a yearly basis. It's not that I forget this LJ exists as much as everyone I know migrated the -eff- away from it (with one exception) and I honestly haven't much to say. Life continues as it does, very little to report.

I feel that I've become much more of a private person as the years rolled by - I've gone from rambling about the most trivial shit absolutely no one cares about on LJ to only leaving an occasional report about a major event and fizzling off into the mist, if at all. I'm far more active in other venues, but even there I do not go on about my existence much, aside from the occasional grumble of frustration with current events. I guess it's this 'growing up' thing?

Derp. Might as well just post something here to state that I am indeed still alive, and will most likely notify you if that changes. XP

So, it's been over a month since the day where a biomechanical abomination has been unleashed upon the roads of Israel. And I've done a lot less driving than I expected I'd do, largely because of this ridiculous war going on around here lately (so the increased death toll isn't related to me, guys, sorry to disappoint). Along the way I found out my glasses needed a solid kick in the teeth because my eyes would lose focus at night - and so I got a new set, which fixed THAT problem.

So aside from a few long multi-hour drives to the middle of no where and back with the 'rents, I haven't had much time to stretch my flight muscles so to speak. And so - when today, ze mother and ze grandmother had an appointment to get Needled Chinesely and (as it happens every rare once in a while) the acupuncturist saw them at her house (which has another one of her practices - the primary one is in Tel Aviv), which is pretty much p. much in the middle of no where near Jerusalem - we figured it might be a great opportunity. And so, around 11-something, we set out, picked ze grandmother up and launched off into a rather awesome drive which combined long stretches of open road and a few slower winding roads with some utterly gorgeous view - made it there, they got their stabs, I sat around listening to music on my phone, then we headed back, stopping along the way for some food and later for some food shopping. When we got back here, I had an hour or so to rest before having to head out for one of my art classes - and instead of taking the bus as I usually do I figured it was about time to attempt to grab the car and make my very first actual solo flight, so to speak.

This is where things started getting phenomenally fucking silly.

... I'm a new driver, right? I have no sense of direction, right?... So, my phone's internal GPS decided to have a catastrophic meltdown. I basically realized that I'm not going in the right direction, found the first place to stop without being in anyone's way, phoned home - apparently my mother's been having a similar issue with her phone. Of course, by that time I was already going to be hopelessly late - But I figured, y'know, screw it - I'm not missing this one. Today was my last art class for the month, my instructor's flying off to Belgium for all of August, and I wanted to finish this damn portrait I was working on beforehand, delay or no delay.

Now. We actually have an Actual GPS Unit that ISN'T phone-based, but it wasn't in the car at that particular moment - so I figured I'd head back home, grab it and try again. So I doubled back home (after some navigation shenanigans because where I parked didn't have anywhere to actually do a U-turn so I had to basically do a labyrinth-exploration-sequence to find my way back home to begin with), parked the damn car, headed back up, picked up the NOT phone GPS...

And as you can probably guess, things got even sillier after that.

Whoever built this device had NO IDEA HOW TOUCHSCREENS WORK. The calibration is WAY off - which makes it a Pain in the Arceus to actually bloody input a destination - and there's no calibration options to speak of that I could find either. So yeah. Spent ten minutes or more just fucking typing in a god damn address and waiting for the thing to PICK UP THE SIGNAL... and I am not sure HOW long it took me to actually back out of the fucking parking (because I suck at reverses omg. new driver. can't help it. i will get the hang of it eventually >>;) - but eventually these minor setbacks were set aside and I hit the road.

Once this GPS decided to play nice and pick up a signal, it was FAR more cooperative - I had a quiet drive over to the art class until I tried to find a damn parking space. My first attempt kind of got botched, so I pulled out back onto the road and drove further, when the thing suddenly started trying to direct me into right turns that don't quite exist. From here to there I got back to the street exit and had to do a pretty fucking silly loop to get back to it which included the GPS telling me to take a U-turn where U-Turns are Not Allowed and probably giving me an indignant look when I ignored its recommendation to break the law. You can't trust electronics these days, can you?

Eventually I found what I thought was a parking spot - there was a sign that seemed to indicate that is what it was - and so I proceeded to park. Something felt off, though, especially considering I was the only car parking there and the sidewalk seemed to be marked with what could have either been a no-parking zone or a bus-stop zone - it was kind of difficult to tell in the rather low light. And so I check the sign and as it turns out, it's a parking zone in weekends and holidays, but not otherwise. Welp.

So I got back in the car and in the process of pulling myself out of the spot I managed to PUT MYSELF ON THE OTHER FUCKING SIDE OF THE ROAD ENTIRELY somehow (at least I was in the right orientation for that side of the road at the end of that ill-fated extraction attempt and there was no one anywhere in range that could have been exposed to THAT glorious fail maneuver)... and then I found a reasonably perfect parking spot, managed to handle THIS one okay, finally parked the damn car and headed off to the freaking class, even though I missed an hour and a half of it due to my magical ability to turn what should have been a simple half-hour trip into two hours of complete bullshit - but hey, I managed to finish the picture, and the way back was much bloody saner. So, all's well that ends well. Hopefully next time will be much less ridic.

So yeah. Long day, most of it spent behind the wheel. Still fun.

Here's to a potentially (and hopefully) awesome 2014.

Note: this post was written after I read way too much H.P. Lovecraft in a row and I fear that it might affect my writing. Watch out for writhing, undulating globs of nameless eldritch words. Or something.

Life has been relatively quiet as of late... as it tends to be for me. My job-hunting quest still yields no results (and not for lack of trying). Driving lessons (yes, I got back into those in case I haven't mentioned) are progressing well. Inspiration comes and goes though that final piece of my tumblr layout still eludes me. I seem to be dealing with some strange issues of emotion yet again, but none that I wish to go into in depth in this public forum. Those who know about them know about them and I've already talked their ears off about it. No sense in painting that lily in colors out of space.

(god damnit, Lovecraft.)

LJ appears to have gone completely mental lately, as though the touch of the Outer Gods came to rest upon its mind and molded its gelatinous tissues - or cybernetic equivalent thereof - into something of unfathomable and alien geometry... Or at least my friends page. There's some weird time warp shit going on in there. Seriously.

Apparently my last post was the 666th in number. Which is kind of amusing considering it's a recounting of an imagined episode of a diabolical anime series centered around a creature based on a plant that earned mythological reputation as the Devil's Own. Somewhere out there, in the depths of a forest in a world that may or may not exist anywhere in the multiverse beyond the scope of my mind, a Belladonyx is grinning - as these graceful enchantress-spectres of the vegetative persuasion are wont to do.

I don't even.

Before I seal this entry though, a random quiz/surveymajig.

( Here I go! Shining FINGERRRR! or something. )

I've been on a huge TES kick lately (And it's all HL's fault. XD) and figured I'd give that game another fair try even though the first time I tried playing it it made me either fall asleep or want to punch the NPCs with a chainsaw. Well, the NPCs still look terrible and Skyrim certainly fixed a LOT of the issues the godawful leveling system had, but the game is actually fun.

My three characters from Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim have been rather active in my head lately - to the point that Sirocco n'Atreyium (Argonian Spellsword, Nerevarine, Telvanni Archmagister, Still alive and very snarky) and Amelie Lothaire (Breton Summoner, Heroine of Kvatch, Slightly Mental and Made of Adorable) have been, in my headcanon, joining the voyages of Leandros (Khajiit, Dragonborn Cat who Turns Into A Dog In His Spare Time) through Skyrim at various points. Occasionally, short drabbles happen. THIS, for example, happened as I was playing Oblivion and noticed a certain unusual tendency of an NPC that follows me, at the moment, around...

For Massive Damage

The Heroine of Kvatch sighed.

It may have been that the inability to do anything to protect his city from an Daedric invasion left Martin Septim with a protective streak tempered by guilt - a desire to ensure that he will never be powerless to protect someone ever again - but there was such a thing as being over-protective to a the point of being utterly ridiculous.

When the Priest-Who-Was-To-Be-Emperor suddenly stopped and commenced a bombardment of frost spells across a river, the Heroine of Kvatch had to admit that she was concerned. Readying a spell of summoning to be cast to the other bank of the river, the heroine prepared for battle, keeping an eye on the freezing bolts. Whatever their target was, she could not see it at all. Was it a cloaked assassin of the Mythic Dawn? Were they being followed?

Finally the barrage relented. The Heroine of Kvatch turned an inquisitive gaze to the priest - but she did not even have to ask.

"... I saw a mudcrab on the other bank." Martin explained, almost apologetically. "Loathsome creatures."

The Heroine of Kvatch stared at him for a moment in a stunned silence.

"Martin. It's a mudcrab. A perfectly harmless specimen of Carcinus luteus." she said "They're about as threatening as a pebble."

"That is exactly what they want you to think!" he exclaimed "That mudcrab could have been an agent of the Mythic Dawn and you KNOW IT."

The Heroine of Kvatch rested her hand flat across her face. Stress, she decided, did the strangest things to otherwise rational people.

At least, she hoped it was just the stress. The last thing Tamriel needed was another mad emperor.

That Robin Hobb is freaking awesome. That's all there is to say on the matter.

I have no adequate way to describe how I'm feeling right now. But I can say one thing, it's not fun.

I feel... Hollow. Alone, even though I know I'm not - and even that knowledge feels hollow.

But I can't seem to help it.

This happens quite a bit lately. Not all the time - it comes and goes, fluctuates like crazy. I've been feeling this more and more lately, though... Especially at nights. This is quite a terrible timing for me to feel this way, too - with an exam period bearing down on me and assignments to do and whatnot. And yet...

sigh.

Yeah. I don't really know what the purpose of this entry is, really. I guess I'm just venting.

Happy arrival at a completely arbitrary point along the planet's orbit, folks!

I'm not going to go into dramatic new year's wishes. I'm not going to ramble about new beginnings - because most of the time, new beginnings are entirely up to us and have very little to do with the date unless we make them to be. I also feel that I don't think I need a specific date to hope you're all having a smashing time out there on this planet - and if you aren't - that you will as soon as possible and that all things will turn out as well as they possibly can. ^^

And to those ancient cultures who prophecized the end of the world in this year, I dedicate Dragostea Din Tei. ("Maya he?, Maya who?, Maya huh? Maya HAH HAH.")

As for any new year's resolutions? 1280x1024 on the external monitor, 1200x800 on the laptop's monitor.

That is all. Carry on then!

And sadly, they'd do a better job than 343i seem to be doing.

(Insert five hours of nerdrage about Cryptum, Primordium and how bears named Greg do not belong anywhere near writing things even vaguely related to the Halo series).

Ahem.

Anyway, needless to say I've been back here for a while. Landed on August 22nd, and been kind of derping about since. I figured that since I haven't updated LJ in bloody ages I might as well ramble for a bit about what's been going on with me as of late. Caution: This post is going to be a huge fucking novel.

( So, first and foremost: the trip. ).

So, TL;DR version - It was an awesome trip and I had a wonderful time with ze lifemate.

Once I got back here, not much happened. I've replayed a few point-and-click adventure games and started a new run of Pokemon Platinum (because I've finished the copy of White I finally got my claws on) and a run of Baldur's Gate 2 (Half-Elf Druids aren't exactly the strongest characters one can play. <<;). A new AC unit was installed in my room (which direly needed it!) and all was relatively quiet.

( Until this Sunday. )

But on happier news...

( So. I got a new scanner. ).

And that's pretty much the rundown of everything. Hurdadurdalur. Plans for the rest of this month include some reconstruction/redesign work on my room, signing up for whatever courses I have as soon as possible (I hope they're still running that Astrobiology course!) and set up the dorms for THIS year. Oh gods dealing with the bullshit 'reformed' public transportation system that fails to work properly kill me please. x-x

Because it was about to expire and they demanded a completely ridiculous price to renew it.

So I moved hosts.

And somewhere along the move the forum database went keput. Fortunately I saved all the threads that needed to be saved. These (primarily RPs) will be processed and re-uploaded soonish. Otherwise.. Derp. XD