Day 37: PicSay

So I've had this app on my phone pretty much since I got it called PicSay.  It's a photo editing/enhancing/sillifying program.  Sillifying is when you make something silly just in case that wasn't clear.  Anyway, I've only just started using this program recently.  For example this morning when I wanted John to get out of bed and join me in the living room I sent him this picture...

It's so much easier to manipulate someone's emotions with kittens.  Then later when John went to take the trash out and talk to the manager and I somehow completely forgot that he had left the apartment and was wondering what the heck he was doing, I sent him this...

For the record, this is a realistic picture because she likes to sleep underneath his desk when he's in it.  Since he was not there, she had no reason to be under the desk and was starting to feel lonely. 

I'm going to send him this one later because he's off working on a project...

I may never send a regular text message again

Contemplation

One thing I remember from my youth about the last few days of lent is my grandmother fasting.  Unfortunately, I don't remember which days she used to fast for lent.  I think it was Thursday or Friday because Jesus was "dead" and therefore you fast.  Either way, I'm considering doing this this year.  I've never fasted before and I get the feeling it's not an entirely pleasant experience.  However, I feel the need for a change in my life and culminating my lent experience by steeping it in tradition sounds like the first step.  Either way I'll have to look into this a bit more.  I can't remember whether this is a three day thing or not.  Like...Thursday through Saturday.  With a paper to write and people coming over this weekend on top of school, this may not happen.  If it does, I will surely log it into the blog.

Day 36: School

You know, it's not just lent that went by fast, this whole semester is speeding by.  I only have a little over a month until summer.  In grade school that would make me feel happy and joyful but in college, it just makes me go "OH SHIT I ONLY HAVE A MONTH TO GET ALL MY SHIT DONE!"  That is how I will feel until I finish my final paper.  Then I will feel like my happy joyful young self who is done with school for a whole summer.  UNLESS I take summer school which might happen.  I'm actually planning on talking to the head of department today to find out if that is a possibility.  That's the nice (and annoying) thing about grad school.  It's not a straight forward system.  If I want to take undergrad courses (which I'm totally allowed to do) I have to get approval from the department head and the professor teaching the course so that they can both make sure I'm doing more work than an undergraduate.  However, there's a class I want to take next fall that doesn't have a professor listed yet.  This could put a wrench in my whole plan.  Or force me to take another class.  Both equality as horrible. 

Counter Point

Of course I agreed to write on a weekly topic with Angela.  While this began as a "Lent blog" it would be foolish only to update once a year for 40 days.  While this has been a great way to get me to write down thoughts about random things every day for weeks on end, I did like the idea of being able to slow down and consider posts ahead of time.  I've written a couple in preparation for this blog that I look forward to posting at some point in the future, finding them unsuitable for Lent posty goodness.  Lent posts are a time for rediculocity and randomness.  All other blog posts are serious business.

That being said, Angela is at my mercy for what I choose to post.  Commence with the wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Day 35: The Countdown

It's the last week of Lent!  This lent went by pretty fast.  Probably because I'm in school now and time in school goes faster because their is always homework to do and its always due before you're ready.  Then summers and breaks go fast because you don't want to go back to school.  Time is just mean like that.  I was out of school for two years.  Longest years of my life. 

Anyway, after lent, Kris has agreed to do a weekly topic with me.  She can't back down now cause I've put it in writing.  It's legally binding. 

I have a fever...

And the only cure is more Skyrim.

Spring break is finished and I'm back in school for another quarter.  I can already tell this is going to be even more obnoxious than the last quarter.  So the only solution is to get as much work done as humanly possible and drown my sorrows in Skyrim...or writing.  Writing works too.

But for now, Skyrim!  I don't know what it is about this particular game over the other Elder Scroll series, but it stands out as one of the best in my opinion.  I am completely absorbed into this game in a way that Morrowind and Oblivion failed to do.  I think the reason why has a lot to do with the different way they changed character creation and the CRAP TON OF QUESTS YOU TRIP OVER OMG.

Seriously, you cannot walk out your front door without someone running up to you and telling you that they need you to trim their toe-nails because you are the world's grunt.  Congratulations on being Dragonborn, now go out into the world and do menial tasks for everyone.  Apparently no one else in the world is motivated enough.  I'm hours into the game and dubious about whether or not I can take over the world.  It seems like it should be easy, since you're the only one in existence who can be bothered to do anything.  But I somehow get the sneaking suspicion that when the game ends, I won't be anything more than a very powerful thane of Whiterun...and Solitude...and um...how many thaneships can one have?

Anyway, the game is addictive and engaging and I highly recommend it to anyone lucky enough to have the time to devote to it.  Someday maybe I will have the time to devote to it, but today is not that day...anymore...because I already mostly did...*cough*.

Palm Sunday

One week and counting!

I actually wanted to talk about Palm Sunday today because it has a special place in my heart.  Around this time of year, my Mom, sisters, and sometimes my Dad and I would go to visit our Grandmother in Tennessee.  Since she passed two years ago, we haven't gone to her house or anything since.  I actually really miss it.  Every year, my Grandmother's church has a ceremony with fire.  I don't really know what the significance of it is, but I remember it because it was like having a bonfire at the church.  We would also get palms which we would sometimes braid into neat patterns during the palm service.

One time, when we were supposed to go up and get blessed by the priest, my sister accidentally decided to take communion instead.  She drained the entire wine glass as well, proving my sister is my mother's daughter when it comes to having a taste for wine.  I remember how mad and embarrassed my mom was about it, but it's pretty funny in retrospect...from a certain view point.

Our church sometimes did a pagent of sorts with someone playing Jesus and riding in on the paper mache donkey they stored up in the attic.  This didn't happen every year.  I remember it happening at least once...like, the one year we weren't in Tennessee for palm sunday.  So maybe it did happen every year.  It definitely could have!

Either way, the getting of palms and the celebration of the last week of Jesus before he became crossed is one of my favorite celebrations for some reason.  Have a picture to celebrate!

Day 34: Underground

I don't have any pictures of snails.  It did rain today, but they are nowhere to be found.  Perhaps they are still conspiring in their underground lair.  They're waiting for the huge rainstorm so they can gather all the fellow snails from neighboring lawns.  Still no idea what they are planning.  I don't speak snail.  I don't think they even make any noise.  If they did, I imagine it would something similar to entish.  Maybe that's why its taking so long.  I assume they are ready for attack but they could still be saying hello to each other.  I guess the only thing to do is wait. 

Inspiration Fail

I never know what to do when I get inspired by things that have already been created. In general, I tend to have a lot of integrity over the things I write about. I don't like plagiarism. I make an effort not to plagiarize. And yet, every once in a while someone comes up with a concept so awesome that I am drawn to it like a moth to the flame, wishing so badly that I was the one to come up with the idea and inspired to work with it myself.

I'm wondering how many other people have this problem and what the solution to it is. Do you steal it and twist it around enough to make it your own? Do you leave it as someone else's concept and lament your inadequacy? Do you take the basic structure or the specific parts you like, plundering it like Moses and his people did the Egyptians? I dunno. I suppose once a piece of work is created, it's available to the public, but there are still basic rights a person has to their created work.

So I lie a quandary and frustrated with my indecision to proceed or not to proceed.

Day 33: High Council

John took this picture yesterday during one of his laundry runs.  It is clear they are organizing.  Unfortunately their plans had to be put on hold because its not raining today.  Perhaps they took their meetings underground.  That seems like a much more sinister place to have meetings.  Maybe they have some kind of building down there.  Perhaps I should be more worried about these goings-on. 

Toaster

Sometimes there are certain issues that arise in my parents' household that make no sense to me.  One of these things was the toaster incident.

We had a toaster for years and it was a good toaster.  It toasted things and popped them when they were toasted.  Only once or twice in the entire reign of this toaster did I ever receive burnt things, usually when someone had accidentally knocked the setting so that it was way higher than it ought to have been.  But by and by, this toaster got old and somehow the plug got pulled off of it.  At this point, normal people would throw the toaster away.  However, my parents are resourceful.  While it was clever that my dad simply found a way to replace the plug and continue to use the toaster, the sad truth is that the plug was not the only issue with the toaster.

Half the time when you plugged it in, the toaster would not toast.  You'd set it and walk away, but you'd wonder why you never smelled toasting things and why it never popped.  When you went back to check on it (perhaps while making eggs which were meant to go with the toast), you realized that the toaster was not working, despite having lowered your toast and catching it.  So you unplug it and try again.  And again.  And again.  At this point your eggs were either done or over cooked and either way they were going to be cold when the toaster finally deigned to work for you.

Then one day, I came downstairs and we had a NEW toaster.  And this toaster was not just a toaster...it was a TOASTER.  It had buttons to differentiate between toast, bagels, english muffins, and waffles.  It had settings for specific browning qualities of each.  You pushed buttons and twisted knobs until you had masterfully crafted your breafast into perfection, plus it still did four pieces of toast at once.  It is the greatest toaster mankind has ever created.  And yet this was a source of contention in my family!  My mom was angry...angry!...that a new toaster had been purchased when we had a "perfectly good" toaster already and complained about it at length for days.

Suffice to say, I am stealing this toaster when I move out.  It will remove the issues and I will own the greatest toaster of all time.

An image of the best toaster ever.

Day 32: Snails

There are snails just outside of our apartment plotting things.  They come out when it rains to remind us that they're there... and get stepped on.  Lucky for them, I'm not that heartless.  It's hard to portray their everywhere-ness in a single photo because they're small and don't like to gather for group pictures because it takes too long.  However, I managed to get a few individual shots.

The two on the ground had just finished copulating and began to slither away from each other in shame before I came out to snap a picture.  I'm pretty sure the other one thinks he's spider-man.

In this one, if you look really close, you can see BABIES!  Not the big fat ass in the bottom right corner, I just got him in the shot for reference.  There's like 5 baby snails total.  I'd adopt one but I'm pretty sure Olive would just eat it.  Plus when they get older, they don't look as cute.  They're just slugs with shells. 

There's like 50 more snails on the lawn.  Maybe they're having an old fashioned tent revival.  Except in snail world its bring your own tent.