Shadee’s Blog

Well, turns out we had to be at the new house at 12 instead of 10, so I was wrong . Still meant we had to leave at 10.30 but luckily the people having to come in here at 10 were early and didn’t take all that long.
The possible new land lord didn’t seem all that great, didn’t even introduce himself so I dunno what kinda character he is or what his intentions for the place are. So yeah, I’m really hoping the deal hasn’t gone through entirely yet and that we’ll still be paying our old landlord for next month and get some more time without having to deal with the new guy just yet.

So yeah, I was able to go with Mord for the septic inspection after all. It was pouring the entire time but luckily one of us was smart enough to bring umbrellas (And no it wasn’t me lol).
It was actually good fun standing out in the rain while they did the inspection. Not at first, but it got amusing when the septic inspectors pulled out this thing that looked like a bad old fashioned sci-fi ray gun which made all sorts of weird bleeping sounds when pointed towards the ground, I decided to call it the “Poo Detector”.

Things became even more weird when our Realtor suddenly went “OMG I ALMOST SLIPPED ON A DEAD MOUSE!” while walking around in the front yard. One of the septic inspectors went “That’s a bit big for a mouse isn’t it? I think it’s a rat” which freaked her out even more. But it turned out to be a dead chipmunk.
Then the argument about what to do with it. “Do you have a shovel?” “yeah” “where do you want me to put it?” “Well not here…” “Just toss it across the street in the neighbor’s yard” “Ya that’ll be a great way to start off with them” “Just put it in the trash” “just like that?” “I have a plastic bag” and then the two Realtors squealing as one held the tiny plastic bag open and the other tried to get it in there with a shovel lol. Poor lil dead chipmunk on the shovel in the most cheesy death pose possible, on it’s back with it’s little legs sticking straight up into the air lol.
So ya, that was interesting…
BTW, I’m sorry mister chipmunk, it’s a sad thing about your passing and all but it was such a hilarious scenario that I couldn’t help but laugh

On a downside though, the septic tank didn’t pass the test. The rest of the system did but the tank itself definitely needs to be replaced, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens next. The good thing is, it’s the current owner’s problem and not ours. But the bad thing is, it means this is going to take even longer

So yeah, I guess we’ll see what happens. More paperwork to go from lawyer to lawyer and back again starting Monday. And I guess all we can do is wait. So bleah :/

And while we wait we get to deal with more annoying realtors here unfortunately. Last week’s one is back again and scheduled another showing “between 2 and 4″ tomorrow so we’re not gonna be able to visit Mord’s mom like we wanted to. Instead we’ll be stuck at home again. These people ‘d better fucking show up this time..

*Recycles previously acquired hugs and rolls around in them*

-Dee.

That’s right.

I know I should be excited about the possible new house right now and I am, but crap’s been piling up on top of it so much that I’m a nervous wreck at the moment. So if I’ve come across as being a bit bitchy lately then I apologize. I’m just a bit high strung at the moment. :/

The realtors are one problem. My browser’s spell checker says I typed “realtor” wrong but I don’t believe they deserve a capital R right now (Well except our Realtor, she rocks ), they’ve been doing showings disrupting our normal life, which sucks pretty bad but isn’t even the worst of it, the worst is when they give a vague time like “between 2 and 4 on Sunday” and then end up not showing up at all and don’t even have the fucking decency to call and cancel, leaving us stuck at home waiting till most of the day is over for absolutely no fucking reason.

Yesterday our landlord came over to paint the 2nd bedroom, he didn’t call ’till the evening before, so I lugged all the crap from that room to ours including the dog crate that same night. Today I was supposed to have electricians over to put an outlet in the bathroom which was required for my landlord’s inspection, course they didn’t show up either but at least my landlord called to let me know.

Tomorrow we were supposed to go to our new place for a septic inspection, but the future landlord of our current place, the realtor working for him and an their inspector are going to come over tomorrow morning as well. After getting that call I managed to drag out of our current landlord that the house has already been sold and the new guy already has the deed and everything. I wish he’d tell us these things himself so we know where we stand. So yeah they’ll all be over tomorrow at the same time we’re supposed to do the septic inspection so Mord ‘ll have to go alone.
They said they’d use the lock box to get in if we weren’t home but fuck that, I don’t want strangers alone in our home, not with our stuff and especially not with our pets. If they’d accidentally let them out and they got run over or something I’d just have to fucking massacre them all.

So yeah, in short, they’ve been ruining weekend after weekend for us, we have no idea what’s what with our new land lord, how much he wants us to pay, whether he wants a years lease or will accept month by month and we can’t GTFO yet because our deal isn’t done yet with our new place. So I’m really hoping this new guy is reasonable and will give us our 30 days without a struggle if we don’t like the contract he wants us to sign.
And that everything works out with our new place and we can actually wrap all of that up and move in there within those 30 days.

Our landlord has such shitty timing and all of this is just stressing me the hell out.
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/rant

-Dee
(P.S. Please feel free to donate a hug, I could use a few of those right now :/ )

Looks like we’ve found ourselves one!
We’ve settled on a price, funny story that, but I’ll tell ya later when/if this goes through.

Yesterday we had another appointment with our Realtor to finish up some more paperwork and have another look at the place I mentioned before. There were a few things that still needed to be enclosed in the deal and some things we need to have inspectors look at but apart from that it’s looking good. So if all goes well it’s possible we might be moving in about 5 weeks!

We were going to take some pics this time ’round because we thought the owners had already moved to their new place, but apparently they hadn’t yet so it was still a bit messy and a tad awkward to be taking pics of the place with their stuff in it, especially since the guy was there too, but I’m sure we’ll be back there soon so we’ll take some proper ones then.

So yay!!
*excited*

-Dee.

Some of you might remember my first attempt at paper mache since kindergarten.
It was an Anubis mask (well a bust really since it wasn’t one you could actually wear).
I had a lot of fun with it but it did turn out kinda crappy. Which is to be expected for a first try lol.

Anyway, I had people tell me they’d like to see a wearable version so a few days ago I figured wth, Halloween is on the way and it’s a good reason to make a mask, not that I’ll actually wear it let alone go out in it lol, but hey it’s still a good reason

This time I’m not using the craft store pre-made paper mache cloth though. It ended up kinda sagging between the holes of the chicken wire creating kind of a honeycomb pattern instead of just covering the mesh and making it smooth looking. So this time I’m using old school paper mache. Strips of paper and glue made of nothing more than flour water and salt.

It’s still a bit rough and needs some smoothing out, but the mesh is done and I’ve got the first couple of paper mache layers on there. So far I’m already a lot happier with this one. Just need to figure out what to use to really make the surface even and smooth. But I’m sure I’ll come up with something
After that what’s left is making a strap, painting and making and attaching the headdress.

Ooh, and I had this idea to give it glowing eyes but I’m not too sure how to do that without blinding myself when wearing it lol. I thought maybe LED’s or neon light between 2 sets of lenses. sunglasses to protect my eyes, then the LEDs and then another lens on the outside for the light to shine through. there’s lots of room in the muzzle for wiring and a battery pack. But we’ll see. I might end up tossing the glowing idea entirely if it’s too much work or just not possible.

-Dee.

I’ve been looking for one because after having gotten my green card I’ve been starting to wonder about what to do here now that I’m official. I’m kinda tired of the IT thing, too many people are doing it these days so the chances of me finding a well paying job in that sector are small and I’m just not interested in working in a small place with crappy pay and having to deal with the stresses of clueless n00b customers.

So I started thinking about what I enjoy doing and what I might have the patience for to learn.
There are a lot in the first category but not so many in the second unfortunately. I have such a hard time sticking with things and having the patience to finish them, but the one thing I’ve always had a lot of patience with is animals. I can stare at them for hours and enjoy every second of it. So I figured, hey, why not try my hand at wildlife photography? It’s a long shot I know, I’m such a novice when it comes to photography but if I enjoy it then why not give it a shot eh?

So yeah, I’m looking for a camera (Digital SLR probably) well suited for a serious beginner, one which captures motion well and has long range optical zoom. Right now I’m looking at the NIKON D70s and the NIKON D200 but what I’m really looking for is someone who’s got experience in the photography field, someone who can take me by the hand to guide me through getting started and understanding the important features I need to be looking at.

So yeah, if you have any idea or possibly know someone who does and wouldn’t mind giving advice then I’d really appreciate it

A link to my photo account on Deviant Art just to give an idea of my newbie shots. Taken with point and shoots.

-Dee.

This is something Mord came across and sent me a link to.
To quote them:

“The Endless Forest is a multiplayer online game and social screensaver, a virtual place where you can play with your friends. When your computer goes to sleep you appear as a deer in this magical place. There are no goals to achieve or rules to follow. Just run through the forest and see what happens.”

At first the deer with the human faces creeped me out a bit but I decided to download it anyway and give it a go.

Having played a lot of World of Warcraft it was obvious that this was something completely different from the start. This place isn’t about reaching goals or progressing so much as it is about socializing. Yet the funny thing about it is, you can’t actually talk to people. Communication can only be done through emotes.

The forest also hides a lot of spells, you can change horn style, coat color and pattern, you can get weird looking masks that change your voice, stuff like that. But instead of it being a competitive thing where you have to do certain things to acquire these, you can just find them all over the forest, and to tie it back into the socializing aspect, you can’t use these items on yourself, only on other players. So if you want to look nice, you’ll have to give in order to receive. That said I’m sure this game will repel all the annoying overly competitive griefing assholes (which probably make up 90% of the World of Warcraft population) because it would probably just bore them to death.

I’ve been oddly fascinated by it so far though. Weird stuff happens in that place so it’s fun to try and figure it all out. It’s a very interesting experiment and so far it’s been a lot of fun, yet not so addictive that I end up spending too much time there.

So like I said, don’t expect this to be a game so much as just an interesting social hang out.
If it still sounds fun then I’d say give it a go, it’s free and can be found here.

Here’s a screenie of my little fawn. I got company after I went to lie down for a bit which was cool I chose this symbol because it kinda reminds me of a little deer so it’s easy for me to remember.

-Dee.

And the awesome TV shows and movies which will be surrounding it.
Hot cocoa, a comfy couch, horrid weather outside, snacks on our laps… ghost and haunting shows on TV… oh yeah… bring it on!

I pixeled a little reaper dude just for the occasion.

Well actually it was some random brain fart that just kinda “happened” but after it was done I decided that I did it because I’m looking forward to Halloween. So yeah… that’s exactly what happened…

-Dee.

[edit]

After a conversation with SDF on Deviant Art I also made this little pixel hearse. Hydraulic bouncing version still to come.

[/edit]

That’s right. It’s that time of year again.

Time for the pickemon tournaments where all the pickemon trainers gather to face off, be it at airports, train stations, office buildings, swimming pools or any other public place.

It doesn’t take much to become a pickemon trainer. All you have to do is know how to do your basic gripping of door handles, faucet knobs, coffeepots, or if you’ve advanced past the novice point, hit your opponent with the unblockable sneeze-right-in-their-face attack.

Fig. 1: Pickemon Trainer.

The ultimate goal of this all too popular tournament however is not the attacks themselves but to distribute and collect as many of these pickemon as you possibly can:

Fig. 2: Pickemon

And if you’re very lucky, your and your opponent’s pickemon will collide in a very special way, which allows them to evolve into a bigger and stronger pickemon which both of you get to take home and share with your families.

And so it goes on and on until everyone’s caught them all.

I thought about skipping the tournament this year but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be an option.
So far I’ve already caught one. Think I might be on the verge of “winning” another one too.
Hope I won’t be as “lucky” as I was last year though. I do believe I was pretty close to having caught them all

-Dee.

Saturday we went to meet our Realtor again like I said we would.
We were going to view the 3 houses we were interested in last time and bring Mord’s mom along too this time.

Well our Realtor went out of her way to gather up even more options for us so instead of just viewing the 3, we ended up spending most of the day seeing all sorts of houses again which was a lot of fun.
The cute little one bedroom place I’ve shown most of you guys is definitely out of the picture now. It’s a really cute place and the location is great too but the size and the one bedroom thing really might’ve ended up being a problem in the future. Even if we’d be able to make due with the size of the place it would be a pain in the butt to resell it if we did want to move again some day. 1 bedroom houses just aren’t very easy to sell. And our Realtor confirmed that there wasn’t an option to expand and build another bedroom in the future either.

After seeing a bunch of other places too we did find another great place though.
The people in it are already packing and have a new place waiting, it’s a good sized house, has an awesome bamboo floor in the living room, marble and granite in the kitchen, everything looks brand new and ready to move into. And 2 bedrooms which really makes a huge difference especially for when we have people staying over. Great little private back yard too right next to the woods on the mountain. So ya, we’re probably going to put a bid in and see what happens. Can’t show you guys any pics unfortunately because the place isn’t listed on-line.

So wish us luck! I really hope we’ll be able to get this place for a reasonable price.

-Dee.