currently feeling: xeno'd out

Decided to spruce up the layout a bit. Dunno why I added a bunch of Waddle Dee pics to a page that has a dull brown layout but... hey, Waddle Dee is great. :) I didn't want to make a red or orange themed layout so I just kept the beige color scheme.

Finished re-playing Xenosaga II for RetroAchievements, wow, such a SLOW GAME. Everything is just slow - the battle system, the side quests, the plot. The actual plot is great, though, but it's bogged down by the slowness of everything else. I'm planning on making a page to dump all the screenshots I took. *shrug* I quit right before Dark Erde Kaiser, I just couldn't fucking take the endgame sidequests anymore.

So I'm now re-playing Xenosaga III and I'm at the last section already. Such a sad game. I know I'm going to cry at the ending, as per usual. It's a great end to a series, but with all the apparent throwbacks in the latest Xenoblade game, maybe Episode IV is right around the corner...? I think this game has my second favorite video game soundtrack of all time. Chrono Cross is my favorite OST.

Oh! I didn't have COVID. Whew.

currently feeling: i am going to throw this shitty mouse out of the window, well i would but i don't have a spare one also i mean a computer mouse not the animal

and my keyboard is kinda fucking up too, i guess the space and enter keys are... not working 1% of the time, pull the fucking trigger piglet

Anyway, hope everyone had a great holiday season, I kinda... well, for me it was okay, I actually only had to work one shift Christmas day and I had the last two days off. I requested these days off months ago so that I could spread my pet's ashes on the spot where my mother's ashes were spread... but I didn't want to push my luck with my car and just stayed home. But I needed the time off.

Oh, and I might have COVID. My dad's in the hospital with it. He's doing well, actually, but he was home almost 24 hours from his stay at his physical rehab place before he called 911 so I DID have a little bit of contact with him. But I feel alright and the social worker mentioned that PT at the hospital is going to decide if he needs to go back to the rehab center. It's a loophole in America's non-existant healthcare system - he had to be sent home early due to his Medicare not covering any more days at the facility but the doctors at the hospital can send him back for another stay if they feel it's neccessary since he has a reason to be admitted to the hospital again. That doesn't make any sense, sorry. I don't think I have it, though, haven't shown any of the symptoms so far. I KEEP SPELLING "BUT" AS "BUIT", I'm going rip and tear this keyboard apart

Still writing 'original fiction' that's in the Xenosaga universe. Don't do this. The fucking lore of this series is so COMPLICATED AND CONFUSING that I'm now at the point of going 'fuck it, just write it, no one's gonna read this anyway' and yeah. What's the term for it? Canon-compliant? BACK IN MY DAY, the only fan made terms that everyone knew were 'lime' and 'lemon'. Holy shit, that takes me back. (The first lemon I read was a Slayers fanfic. Can't remember the first lime.)

yo the super mario rpg remake ost SLAPS, it's so fucking good - "BEWARE OF THE FOREST'S MUSHROOMS" SOUNDS *EVEN BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL*!! Yoko Shimomura is an amazingly talented composer. Actually, the remake itself looks really well done - not like I can play it! Since I don't have a Nintendo Switch!!

I do have plans for this website, including revamping a lot of the non-sozai themed pages. And I need to update my book review page with at lease five books! Buit But if you couldn't tell by now, I'm an extremely lazy woman so who knows when I'll get around to doing that.

just want to also link to this instagram before i end this entry, i am in love with the BABY WOMBATS that are living there!!!

AH FUCK I TOTALLY FORGOT, THANK YOU FOR 200K VIEWS EVERYONE!!!! HOLY SHIT I JUST OPENED MY NEOCITIES DASHBOARD TO UPLOAD THIS UPDATE AND WOW YEAH

currently feeling: v-stab

Since my last entry, I managed to cancel that fucking vehicle inspection twice. First time was because I was on hold to figure out if I needed to pick my dad up from the hospital (he's fine and is actually at a physical rehab place for now) (if we had a better relationship i would go into the whole drama but whatever) and the second time was yesterday night when I realized that I need to renew my car's validation. So now I have to wait until that comes in... I feel like I've been shonking T-nubs, man... I'm gonna get beef brain or something...

(I just woke up and was thinking about what the sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw will be like.)

Well, on a lighter note, for some reason I've been getting into messing around with chat bots. Not really character.ai bots but with the kind of bots you can find on Janitor. A few days ago I managed to make a working original character card and began a roleplay session with it... now I have a slew of OCs for the fucking Xenosaga series. Not original characters that would be important to the timeline of the games, mind you, just characters living in the environment that the games take place in. I've always wondered about the lore behind the other planets and cities in the Xenosaga universe, like how the ordinary person would live their lives in the year 4000 and whatnot. Boring things. So when I started to place the original characters into a futuristic setting, I eventually came to the conclusion that it might be more interesting to just stick them in that timeline.

also fifth jerusalem was a fucking awesome city to explore

Anyway, I finally settled with using SillyTavern and the free plans on OpenRouter for the AI tech. And it's not easy to fine tune a character card AT ALL and the majority of the bot's text is adjusted by me... I would say that 90% of what the AI sends me at the moment ends up having me edit it. But I will say that having to edit and guide the AI into the direction you want it to go is a FANTASTIC way to practice creative writing. You'll have to spend hours figuring out what to do to get everything working though so in the time I spent tinkering with the AI I could've written a solid short story with the character instead. And of course, I still have no idea what I'm doing, really. But if you want to get started, check out the SillyTavern reddit (too lazy to link to it) and check out some of the cards on Janitor for examples on how to make your own character.

By the way, when I have downtime at work, I like to ask random AI bots on the chai app one of two questions: "Welcome to McDonald's, how may I take your order?" OR "Welcome to Burger King, what can I get for you today?" All of the fucking bots seem to want Big Macs and large fries. The only one that hasn't so far is a Rain (from Mortal Kombat) character bot that pretty much made fun of me for asking a son of Argus such a benign question. I also keep getting recommended those Call of Duty characters that everyone wants to fuck LMAO they're hot though, I just don't know shit about that series.

Before I end this entry, I want to do kinda a 180 topic wise and give y'all a real hot take: This is one of the funniest videos I've seen in my life and is currently my favorite Jerma stream. When he kept trying to get the bot to put the chairs down, I was literally hunched over at my desk and scaring my cat with my howls of laughter.

It's a damn shame that the servers for this game shut down, this game is absolutely perfect for Jerma and his insane behavior.

currently feeling: eh

hey hi what

Again, I apologize for the absence of updates on this website. Maybe it's just the holidays that are rough on me because the amount of work I have to do seems to triple in size. I do love the gloomy weather that comes with the holiday season, though. It's like I have the opposite of seasonal depression. Hooray.

I just scheduled to have my car revalidated or whatever the proper term for it is. I AM SO FAR BEHIND ON IT AND I'M VERY NERVOUS ABOUT GOING DOWN THERE ON MONDAY TO GET THIS SHIT DONE but I gotta do it. The ride isn't so bad, it's right next to my bank, it's just that I doubt that I'll pass so that'll be more money down the drain for repairs I guess. My car works fine so it's more like a 50/50 on if it will pass inspection or not. It's scary to drive on the parkway in a older smartcar because it takes a few more seconds to get up to speed and if it's windy you need to stay focused on not swerving. I remember going to the hospital (for some reason) on the parkway one windy morning and I had to cross a bridge... it was terrifying.

Well, at least everything else in my life is going okay. Those two police dogs finally left and it's actually just one of those Great Danes left to look after at work until Sunday. Well, him and the two kittens we have up for adoption. They're both orange female kittens and I'm really stumped at why they haven't been adopted yet!

I have a lot of ideas for this site still but I just haven't had the energy to continue working on them. For example I've been working on a "favorite fictional characters" page for about a year LMAO so I'll probably just keep updating my review pages for now. And I want to update the main page to a winter-ish theme or at least change the images to higher quality ones! 🤔 So many ideas, so little time and energy.

currently feeling: worn out

Sorry for the lack of updates, life's been kicking my ass lately. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving if you celebrate it - I really don't because I always work that day, plus I haven't had a big Thanksgiving meal in years.

When I say "life's been kicking my ass", I mostly mean "work has been kicking my ass". There's not really a lot of dogs boarding this week - most we had were ten or eleven - but it's a BAD GROUP of dogs. Individually, the dogs are okay but as a group? Awful. They're loud, they're barking at each other and most of them are dog and/or cage aggressive. I even have two K9 dogs boarding from the same family and they are a NIGHTMARE to take care of because one has the worst case of cage aggression that I've ever seen and the other gets chompy whenever you take a lead off him.

Oh, and there's two 200+ pound Great Danes boarding as well. Not from the same family. One's in the spare room and one's in the grooming room. Thankfully I don't have to give any baths while the grooming room is occupied but the other dog is here until mid December. COOOOL (he's a good boy though, just... hold on tight if he sees another dog)

Been TRYING to play the Sims 4 with the massive amount of custom content that I had downloaded previously. Takes a while for the game to load but so far it's been working decently. I think my Fujin sim is stuck in his house though??? of course it's one of the characters that i WANTED to play as

I'll try to get back into the swing of updating this website in a couple days when I have my break but I might be too fucking drained to add content right away. I want to update my book review page first since I've read quite a few books in the time I was absent from this site.

currently feeling: screaming :)

Acorns keep falling on the roof of my bedroom and scaring the shit out of me and my cat.

Eh, some personal issues going on in my life that I don't want to blog about. I'm fine, I guess, just family nonsense.

I cannot believe that this silly little website is close to 200k views! WHAT seriously, it's mindboggling to me. Thank you for visiting, everyone, it's greatly appeciated.

Continuing to write fanfiction, just little drabbles here and there. That S3 fanfic I mentioned in the previous entry is slogging along (lol is that even a term). The best background noise for me right now is episodes of My 600 LB Life, I have NO FUCKING IDEA WHY. Hell, I'm even listening to a episode right now. (Crystal's episode, season 9, episode 13. Not Krystal, the Crystal with the two children and the matted dog that looks like my Chobie did. :( Of course, I got Chobie to the groomer as soon as I adopted her but she was very matted when I got her.)

Playing Pokemon Radical Red right now since I missed a bunch of updates after my last playthrough and, of course, I picked all the randomizer options and Easy Mode. I like switching things up but I'm too lazy to actually put effort into my playthrough. Erika gave me a tough time on Easy Mode but I beat her after a few tries. I am NOT USED TO the Gen VI and beyond Pokes so it's quite the new experience to build a party around the unfamiliar pokemon.

I managed to get a Alolan Muk with that move that triples the prize money so with that plus the Amulet Coin I have quite a few pokemon at the level limit. (Thanks to the guy with the fainting Audino party in Lavender Town!) My other MVPs are currently a Registeel with a pretty awesome moveset (but a 'bleh' ability with the one that boosts speed in sand - I NEVER mess around with weather and/or terrain moves), an Accelgor with Neuroforce ("Powers up super effective moves by 25%") and a great movepool, and a Slither Wing with Earth Eater ("Absorbs Earth moves"). The last one helped out a lot with Erika.

Some of the random pokemon in the wild that made me laugh: Articuno in Veridian Town, Azelf in Veridian Forest, and I think Entei outside Vermillion City. I think I caught my Registeel in Mt. Moon but I'm not sure. It was before Misty. Speaking of Misty, here's how THAT battle went for me:

I'M NOT GOOD AT NAMING POKEMON OKAY, also Noodles was my starter. He did start with Speed Boost but lost the ability when it evolved. Still a physical powerhouse though.

Any trainer that isn't a Gym Leader has random pokemon as well - it's funny to see a Bug Trainer send out a level 10 Moltres after you beat Brock. Give Radical Red a try if you want to have a tougher Pokemon experience with LOTS of options to make your playthrough easier, plus the randomizer options are great too.

currently feeling: anxious and frustrated

Mainly wanted to make this entry to boast that I FUCKING FINALLY BEAT 1-7 OF COOKIE RUN: KINGDOM MASTER MODE!!!

...

I was stuck on that fucking level for four fucking months, alright?! Achieved victory by using Crimson Coral / Pumpkin Pie / Cotton / Pomegranate / Espresso and the Scroll / Watch / Pincushion relics. Crimson Coral was the key for me, her party-wide buff when she's the sole cookie in the front row was a lifesaver. Even then, it was close, I had about twenty seconds left.

My "mood" is because I started rewriting that Suikoden III fanfic last night and now I'm getting jittery about reopening QuollWriter to start writing again. I'm NEVER sastified with my writing, ever ever ever. But the only way to get better about writing fanfiction is to practice. My main problem now is writing exposition and world building. :I

OH! And that cat boarder from the previous entry let me pick her up with the heavy gloves we use for difficult cats and put her in her carrier. Took about three minutes to get her to comply. So, as usual, it was nothing to worry about.

currently feeling: stupid

I never know how to begin a journal entry.

Sundays for me = Friday, since I have Mondays and Tuesdays off. I don't like being away from my job for two straight days, I would rather just have one day off twice a week but not back-to-back. It's alright as it is, though, just gets me anxious when I come in for my morning shift on Wednesday not knowing which boarders are going to be there.

Anyway, LOOK!! A translated Ogre Battle 64 doujinshi! It was the 23rd anniversary of the game being released in the United States and I learned about this translation by seeing some images on the tumblr tag. I'm too shy to leave a comment, but thank you to the tranalator/anyone else who worked on this scanlation, seeing it literally made my year! (Yeah, "year".)

I actually do have this same doujinshi, purchased it YEARS ago on eBay. I still need to fucking upload the scans from the other Ogre Battle (mostly 64, but I purchased some Tactics and MotBQ ones too) doujinshi I bought but I need to figure out the best way to host them.

This is the first translation of any japanese fan materials for this game that I've ever seen and it's been my favorite game for... I think I played it about a year after it came out, so it would be twenty-two years. GOD I'M FUCKING OLD

But the point is, never take fan-made material for any fandom for granted! (Unless it's... hateful or something.) I see quite a few people in the Mortal Kombat fandom querying about the lack of fanfiction and fanart, even for super popular pairings like Johnny Cage x Kenshi (Jonshi)... and I'm not gonna lie, I'm kinda jealous that they don't have to wait YEARS for "some good fucking food". If I want content of any of my OTPs that aren't from Mortal Kombat (literally the only active fandom that I'm in), I need to make it myself.

Well, I do kinda want to start writing fanfiction again... I had a gigantic burst of writing some for Suikoden III and Ogre Battle 64 earlier this year but it went away after some personal issues started to occur. That's why I'm planning on starting a book review page on this site because I feel more inspired the more I read. Might take a while to get it up, I think I finally figured out how to use modal windows properly but I dunno.

Speaking of pages for this website, I actually have a page in progress with my "live commentary" on... well, My 600 Pound Life episodes... seriously. It was fun doing the Mortal Kombat 1 Story Mode Live Reaction page and the episodes that I'm watching are filled with trashy drama that I love. It's not even about their weight problems, but the other aspects of the show, like the family drama and what they order at fast food joints that I like to comment about. It's fun! So that might be up soon too.

I have to go back to work in a little less than four hours for my night shift and I'm very nervous about dealing with a boarder. Not a dog, but a cat. I had the bright idea to put her in the spare cat room but it turned out that she's "spicy" (aka aggressive) so I don't fucking know how I'm going to get her back into her carrier when there's more space for her to move around. Might have to ask the owner to come help... the cat was also supposed to get a nail trim and "the mats shaved out" (she's a long-haired domestic) but I don't think that was done. I'm not a vet tech but there was a star next to that note that appeared a few days ago so, uh, maybe it was done? Here's hoping the owner doesn't get mad at me.

currently feeling: sluggish

hehe the icon for this entry kinda matches up to the previous entry's icon

Working on a new layout for the home page, I can't decide if I want to struggle with iframes again. Most pages will keep their current layout, I just want to make a tidy, simple sidebar to organize that massive amount of links on the front page. Going to try to make a ~ spooky gothic ~ - ish layout for Halloween.

The weather has been *stunning* lately! Of course, for me, "stunning weather" (wtf) amounts to "lots of rain, overcast skies and cooler temperatures". My mom used to call these days "good nap days". As I mentioned on my status.cafe blog, it just sucks to be in charge of taking several dogs out in this weather. But whenever I get bothered by it, I remember the time a hurricane hit years ago at my previous dog kennel job and I had to take dogs outside while water was pooling up at my feet inside. NOT FUN.

AND ANOTHER THING! I don't know WHAT it is with pitbulls/American Pit Bull Terriers but every single time I have to take one outside in the rain, it's a struggle to get them outside AND a struggle to get them BACK INSIDE. I don't know why it's always that breed and I don't know why every single one is like that for me but it's a major pain.

Naturally, with my luck, we have two in at my job right now... one's a senior gal that has been coming as a boarder for a long time and I adore her. She's so silly and affectionate. The other one is a young pit bull that has never boarded anywhere before but is doing extremely well and is VERY SWEET. She's SO TINY, it looks like she's mixed with a French Bulldog. Not as small as one but the face shape is very similar to one. I guess she's on the lower end of 30 pounds? Maybe I'll weigh her tomorrow when I go back into work.

*sigh* I guess since I mentioned APBT/bully breeds, I gotta mention that I'm a fan of all dog breeds. If you're looking for a anti-"pit bull" perspective on this website, you're 100% in the wrong place. And please don't start a argument about it, I'm too tired. It's just absurd that people are still blaming the breed inside of the owner. Breed specific legislation (BSL) laws are so strange to me. Instead of those laws, there needs to be a HUGE reform on the animal control system.

It's weird, when I was growing up it was the German Shepherd more than any other breed that was discriminated against. Other breeds that I was warned about as a child were Rottweilers, Dobermans, and Chow Chows. I NEVER recall even SEEING a pit bull or a bully breed in general besides maybe a English Bulldog on TV or something. This was southern New Jersey in the early to mid 1990s so I doubt it was the same everywhere at that time. I guess I really started to notice bully breeds during the early 2000s, when I was in high school.

Actually, the first mention of pit bulls that I can recall was during the awful Michael Vick trials that happened when I was in my second year of college. My Biology professor got in a argument with a few students about it and told the class that if they still support the Eagles and Michael Vick then he'll fail them. It was said in jest of course but he was really stirred up about it. Years later, I would read The Lost Dogs by Jim Gorant WHICH IS THE SADDEST FUCKING BOOK THAT I'VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE AND HAD ME SOBBING MULTIPLE TIMES. Very well written though! But my professor's rage was 100% justified, I'll just leave it at that.

LET'S MOVE ON FROM THAT SUBJECT, SHALL WE. .........hey guess who wants to ramble about the latest mortal kombat game again??? this idiot (it's so weird for me to have an active fandom!!!) (plus i'm too lazy to add stuff to my reaction page)

SPOILERS FOR MORTAL KOMBAT 1 / MORTAL KOMBAT 12 AHEAD BECAUSE I CAN NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT (nothing too bad though)

Rewatching some of the story mode to take screenshots for stamps, I really do like the majority of the cast this time around. But I gotta say, Reptile/Syzoth and Smoke has some of the most adorable lines in the game in some of their intros!

My favorite intro is this one:

Shoutout to MKWarehouse for the dialogue. Major spoilers on the page, though, for future DLC characters!

also yeah i'm totally on the johnny x kenshi ship now, however I actually like Syzoth x Ashrah more. It's a very sweet and heartwarming relationship. :) Funny how I saw more hate for Ashrah once it came out that she and Syzoth are in a canon relationship... hmm i wonder why ugh

currently feeling: fucking exhausted

New layout! I wanted to make a layout that had a "current mood" part and decided to actually use some of my stamps on my 4U page. Remember the little mood icons you could use on LJ? That's where I got the idea from. :) Like the side div states, this layout is a work in progress and it's VERY bare bones at the moment but I just wanted to get it uploaded ASAP so I'm more motivated to work on it.

Oh, and a little update from the previous entry: the lawyer's office did call me back! ... two days later. And the sheriff's sale was cancelled! ... the day before the actual sale. THANKS A LOT /s

Well, at least I got the sale cancelled in time. Where's that shrug graphic that everyone uses? Oh, here we go: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯