Sporadic Sims and Sense

For those of you who are even vaguely interested, I have been planning to go to Dolpa 21 in Tokyo during Golden Week. Dolpa is the Volks Doll Party - basically a doll convention. It only allows Volks dolls though - so Miranda won't be able to join me there (*sniff sniff*), but it is something i DO want to experience before I leave Japan.

Anyway, in order to get into the Dolpa, you have to buy a Guidebook ahead of time. So Saturday saw uberdweeby and myself heading off to Kanazawa to get said Guidebooks. We decided to take the dolls along too and went to take pictures around Kenrokuen - the big and famous garden there. Exploits included some old Japanese dude telling me that Miranda was cute and people starting conversations with uberdweeby about her Asterisk and asking her if they could take his picture too.

For those who may have seen my gallery post on DoA, this is much the same with a few extra pictures. For those who aren't on DoA - these are primarily doll pics. You have been warned, only click the cut if you want to see more. :P



( Come and have a look inside the garden... )

Hello everyone!  This is going to be an index of the updates and links to them.  Simply because it takes me so gosh darned long to update, some people may need a refresher!

GENERATION 0 - PRISMATIC - PRE-RAINBOW MESSIE MESS A LOT CHALLENGE

Messy Rainbow 0.1:  Let's start at the very beginning...


GENERATION 1 - YELLOW

Gen 1.1:  And it was all yellow

Gen 1.2: Electrical banana is bound to be the next phase.

Gen 1.3: I'm hanging around, I'm waiting for you

Gen 1.4: You are my sun in the darkness of time/The night is so long, you'll never be all alone

Gen 1.5:  Sunshine though my window, that's what you are




EXTRAS

Who is who in the zoo - generations 0 & 1!

Wow. It has been the LONGEST time since I have updated this. Um yeah... sorry about that.

But the Reenboogs have not been forgotten! They are still alive and kicking, although I have not played them in ages (so that I would not get too far ahead of the story).

As such, this update may be a little spotty as I try to remember what happened when I last played and to reconnect with my legacy. So, without further ado, may I present...



Sims may woohoo, use inappropriate language or simply act like idiots.  You have been warned.
( LOTS of pics behind the cut - you have been warned. )
Hopefully I won't take as long to do the next update.  Need to get the kids through university, choose an heir pair and send them home.  :)

OK, so mullenkedheim posted this meme MONTHS ago and I said that I would do it when I had time. I very promptly... didn't.

So I am sitting with my music open and haven't really posted on LJ for quite a while, so I figure one more pieces of meme spam won't hust you guys TOO much and it is time to right the wrong of not having done this yet.
( It's the click of faith, it's a meme you hope. )

OK - so I did this meme on Facebook, but my music player seemed to decide to find the songs with the most depressing first lyrics ever.  I am redoing the meme here to try and prove that my poor music player is not going through a major depression.  ;)

---The Rules---

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
(I am, however, assuming that you skip instrumental pieces - since that would be a bit impossible)
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both band and title.
Step 4: Tag 30 friends to do their own  (Hahahaha - yeah, right... like I even KNOW 30 people on LJ - I just tag everyone who reads this)

( Click here to look at the lyrics )

MUCH less "Kill me now" than the Facebook selection.  ;)  I also see some of my "literature" songs and 80s music decided to come out and play.  :)

Wand, people, wand. I am talking about wands. Why? Harry Potter meme.

Tried to lj-cut, but it kept screwing up.




I apparently have a hidden talent for sports considering that Quidditch progression there. Hmph, maybe I would be good at sports if I was on a flying broomstick. ;)

And I get a pretty cat too. :)

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well. We all can make stuff!

This has got to be the most hilarious music video I have watched in a LONG time. XD




It's Billy Idol's White Wedding. This was a song that I discovered about half way through high school when I got my hands on the soundtrack from The Wedding Singer (which I did because the music from the movie was a zillion times better than the movie itself and introduced me to a lot of older music that I would have never heard otherwise). Anyway, I had never seen the music video til now - with this lovely rendition.

So, somebody on the awesome interwebs got their hands on Songsmith (a microsoft product that lets you just sing and then it will add music to the song), ripped the vocals out of the video, added music with Songsmith and them mashed the two back together again. The syncing is not perfect... but my goodness... the banjos! XD

I shamelessly stole this from a blog post I was directed to at Geekpad. There are 8 more videos, some pretty good - most hilarious. But this one was my favourite. Yes, that's right - BANJOS. Banjos and Billy Idol, what an incredible combination.

No, I can't get over. It's just so freaking hilarious.

And now to get back to work. *sigh* At least I have something to giggle about. :)

Hmmm... this does not bode well - wonder if I will get a chance to say hi to the real Little Mermaid.

Well, I guess I had to get around to this sometime.  Please forgive my lack of eloquence compared to the other post on this topic.

rethwellan left yesterday evening for home.  And, as per usual, it feels like I have lost a limb and have been stabbed through the heart.  But this time it also feels as though my whole world just got pulled out from under my feet and am now in a confusing freefall.

He broke up with me.

No, he did not tell me at the last minute at the airport - I did know beforehand and we decided not to actually break up until he left, he is not the kind of person who would only tell me at the airport.

If you want an explanation as to his reasons, please go and look at his LJ, the entry is open for all to see.

The decision was not mutual.  He broke up with me.  I disagree with much of his reasoning and think he is making the biggest mistake of his life.  But that is not important.

What is important is that he thinks that he needs to do it.  And I realize that this is not something I can even ask him to give us a chance to work on when I am on the other side of the world.  When there is a problem in a relationship, it takes two people to fix it - and that cannot happen right now.

I am glad that he has done this instead of doing something daft like cheating on me.  Then, I would have had to kill him.  And I respect his decision and that he feels that he needs to do this to have a chance at being truly happy - and that is the crux.

I love him.  I love him with every fiber of my being, every inch of mind, every beat of my heart.  And because I love him, I want him to be happy.  And if he cannot be happy with me, he needs to do what he needs to do - even if it hurts me.

But this does not mean that I am fine.  A number of people seem to think that I am in perfect happy stable land right now.  Thanks for the messages congratulating me on how well I am coping - but I am not in happy fluffy bunny land.  Its going to take me a while to get there.

To give you some small inkling of how I am feeling - my HUGE discovery that I have made in Japan, the one thing that I managed to make absolutely clear and defined was not anything to do with my future except one thing - I wanted to spend the rest of it with Ian and it's perfectly OK to feel like that.  For those who don't know - I am a bit of a commitment phobe, so it has taken me YEARS to come to terms with feeling this strongly.  I was expecting some deterioration to our relationship from the long distance, but not to break up.  I had offered the option to Ian before and he had turned it down both times - I was certain we were going to make it through the last 6 months.  

This blindsided me.  Ian and I normally talk about everything.  But he wanted to spare my feelings in case it was something that he could figure out or fix on his own.  So this time, this one thing, he did not talk to me about.  I picked up that there were some issues, but I thought they were all standard things to do with being on opposite sides of the world and not in close physical proximity.  I thought it was nothing that would stop us from making it through this final leg of being apart.  I did not realise what the problem was or how badly it was affecting him because he was not talking to me about it.  I didn't have much warning that this was going to happen.

I love Ian.  I am still in love with Ian.  And asking me to convert that to purely platonic love is the single hardest thing that I have ever been asked to do in my life.  But I am willing to try to do it for him.  Losing our friendship as well as our relationship would be even more of a tragedy.

So to everyone who thinks I am fine - no, I am not fine.  Unless you are using the Miss Congeniality definition of the word.  I will get there, but I am not there yet.  As for my gtalk status - ever heard of sarcasm?

Odlly enough, a song that perfectly captures how I am feeling played on my ipod while I was on the train.  Sending me into a blubbery heap, but that is the way it goes.  This describes exactly how I am feeling right now if you want to know.

( Cut because the rest of this is long enough already. )

To those who I suddenly bailed on plans with this holiday season, now you know why.  As I said, it was not you.  It was the situation.

And yes - I am hurting.  Badly.  Incredibly badly.  But I am not angry with Ian.  And I don't want anybody to "punish" him for hurting me.  He needed to this.  Please try to understand that.

And I WILL get through this.  Right now I am hurting, but the pain will pass.  I will pick up the pieces, and I will move on with my life in whatever new direction it takes. 

Copied from musicboxgirl .

Ask me seven questions. Not just any seven questions though. No, to keep it interesting, use the seven questions as per below - just copy and paste the following, replace the blanks with something you want to know/ask (e.g. 3. Donkeys or sandcastles and why?), anything you want, personal, silly, surreal or deep, comment away and I'll answer honestly as I can! Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of things people want to ask you!

1. What do you think of _____________ ?
2. When did you last ____________?
3. __________ or ___________ and why?
4. What did you ______________?
5. What's your favorite ______________?
6. How would you ______________?
7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

Indeed, there IS another one up my sleeve.

After a morning of being pretty darn busy, I am now playing the hurry-up-and-wait game and to pass the time I am dragging another music meme from the vaults. This one to allow your music player to pick the soundtrack to the movie of your life. What song would play in which scene? What kind of movie would your life be based off this music? This time it is not the name of the song that is important, but the whole bundle. Its trying to fool you into thinking it is different from the other one.

 

And without any further ado

 

(  IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE? )

And yes, I am posting from work.  It is lunch time.  Sue me.  :p

Anyway, I got so bored I decided to play - a music meme!  Dug up from an old DA journal and redone for your enjoyment!  :P

The Rules:
Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle.
Say the following questions aloud (or quietly in your head if in an inappropriate setting ;) ), and press play.
Use the song titles that come up to answer each question.
NO CHEATING.

Post the answers in your LJ for some laughs.

 

Commentary on what you get is optional. Using my iPod because of where I am.
( Click for the madness )

Happy thing for the New Year! Last one of the meme.

7. Went looking for a Japanese shrine to see what the New Year celebrations are like. The "big" one I know about did not have anything happening. But we eventually found Uozu Jinja (with the help of a friendly Okinawan and her buddies). The crowds were not too bad, we got all the way to the shrine in about 10 minutes and we even got to go and ring the big bell afterwards. :D

It was awesome. :)

4.  Ian and i went to Komatsu for a dinner party with 2 fellow South African JETs who I have not seen since the Kimono Expo.  Shan had a South African evening, including homemade Bobotie - she even figured out how to vegetarian-ifyy the recipe and is sending it to me since it tastes exactly like Bobotie should!  It has been years since I have tasted it thanks to vegetarianism and soon I will have a recipe!  Yay!

3. Got a totally awesome early Christmas present from uberdweeby !  Also had yummy yummy dinner and got to hang out with her (she lives too far away!  ;) )

2. So today was my secondary school's English Club Christmas party.  Not only was my cake a huge success (with the smallest girl in the club eating nearly a third of it... by herself!), but the party was a huge success.  We only had 4 kids show up (but then again, English club is only 3 kids currently, so it was a whole 1/3 extra!), but they had a blast and possibly the most fun they have had in English Club since they moved it to a Thursday so that I could attend. 

AND as an added plus to the situation, the teacher who I am pretty convinced hates us came and dropped by, while we were playing "Christmas words bingo" and the kids were having a ball.  She looked at the thoroughly redecorated room, watched for a minute, had a tiny slice of cake and some juice then made a hurried exit.  Guess she had nothing to gloat over this time.  :D

OK, so I have been tagged for two things.

First one by l_amanda 
1. Post about something that made you happy today even if it's just a small thing.
2. Do this everyday for a week without fail.
3. Tag 8 of your friends to do the same.

1. I am making fruitcake for the English Club at my secondary school's Christmas Party tomorrow (because here in Japan they have prettily decorated sponge cakes covered with fruit and whipped cream that are their "Christmas cakes", I want to show them a more typical Western Christmas cake).  It seems to be slightly spongier than I expected... a pinker than it is brown.  But it smells like it will taste right.  :)  And that is the important bit!

Next by drderange 

( This one is a tad longer. )

I am tagging the same 8 people for both memes.  Do if you want to, or don't.

1.  rethwellan 
2. magependragon 
3. shadowvortex 
4. triplepunch 
5.  misspaulette 
6.  uberdweeby 
7.  xenaroth 
8.  zanyzenni 

Yes, it is meme time. Again.

You Look Like a Pisces

It's likely that you are quite small... but well proportioned. In fact, the only thing big about you is your big, beautiful eyes. Your eyes are very expressive, though they can look sleepy the minute you start to feel tired. You have a heart shaped face, and your features are pleasantly soft. Like most Pisces people, you are probably quite reserved and shy. It takes a special person to get you to open up.

Hmmmm...



Too true...
( More song lyric silliness )