Playing with Picasa~

I've been playing with the online version of picasa and decided to get the program. I had it on my old computer, but there were so many pictures that it was always importing stuff and I didn't want it to. This time I told it to only look in a few places instead of everywhere. I was looking at the little 'collage' option with some images I've sized for a calendar on deviantart. I messed with some contrast and stuff and this is how it turned out. I've got a longer post about school and stuff that I'm planning on posting sometime today or tomorrow. Let's hope I remember.

Woke up earlier and I feel even more tired than before. The sky looks amazing. Too bad I left my camera behind. :o I hear music.

It's 1:01 and I'm between Rose city and Mio. I just got a really good look at bald eagle. \o/

Blarg.

I’m going to college and am taking Beginning Japanese I, Information Systems, and MS-Office '07. Tomorrow is my first day. I'm going to be going Tuesday through Thursday 6-10 PM. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. My mom thinks I'm going to get sick of it, but my tendency to stay up all night leads me to think I wont mind much. I'm more worried about the homework. Awhile back I did lesson one of my Japanese workbook and it took me three hours. ._. Eeks. I have no idea what my computer classes are going to be like.
Over the summer I've done absolutely nothing. None of my friends, but one, have contacted me. One has gone off to college already and I've no clue about the rest of them. Most never even showed an interest in talking to me outside of school and its kind of depressing. I have some of their phone numbers from the school trips, but to call would be so full of awkward it's not even funny. I've found some of them on those social networking sites, but I feel awkward about talking to them on that too. I don't know what I'd say. When I start IM conversations they usually go down hill fast.
Been putting off any blog stuffs since the beginning of August. I totally forgot that I had a dream at three AM on the tenth that was really long and vivid, so I got up, hopped on my laptop, and started typing it up. I was originally going to make that it's own post, but I think I'm going to just shove it into this one. When I write in the middle of the night I have this weird thing about putting what time it is. You can ignore those if you want, 'cause I'm not removing them.
[] - My little time notations.
() - My comments and clarifications. Added as I was typing it up.
{} - Stuff added now. Well after the fact.

[3:00AM approx.]I just woke up from one of the longest, strangest dreams I’ve had in a while. It starts off with some axe- and cable-wielding murderer, who attempts to murder Cammy(dwah!?), who seems to alternate between human and cat. The earliest event I remember is two girls in a forest or someplace dark. They’re definitely outside at night somewhere. I have no clues to where this part takes place. Ones sitting down, on some unknown object, totally benign and I think probably just- I think I’m making assumptions about my dream that may or may not be what actually happened. {I wish I could remember what I was originally thinking here, I think I stopped and went back to sleep after awhile.}
Then it jumps to Mexico. I’m with my dad and he’s driving to some country that (in my dream) Britain hates and he ends up driving through an abandoned house (on the Mexico side) that’s really amazing on the side of the hated country and backwards along this really tall cliff. Then he makes some sort of transaction, I think. [3:11AM] After that he drives forward along that same path, back to Mexico. The dream makes a random jump at this point to my house, which is the same as the one I’m in now, but I think it must have been moved, because the guys my dad was talking to were there. One was near the door and Bob, the cat, was hovering near by. I made a stupid comment about him wanting out when the guy asked if he was ok, so the guy opens the door and he [Bob] runs out. Somehow Bob And Tabitha get out, she just kinda appeared. I was able to grab Tab easily- she was just on the first step of the porch. When I picked her up though it was like on a computer when you go to move the window, but while the original moves it also leaves an after image there. Bob was under the grills farther away, My Dad was telling me to say something about challenging him (was that it? It’s fuzzy.) and to “hurry up.” That was the end as far as I can remember. I woke up to find Bob, Tab, and Whitey sleeping at my feet. :-) [3:19, end. Making edits.]

Note: cross posted to my many blogs across the 'net.

Cats and Plants Will Never, Ever Mix

I can't have ANY plants in my house except for my room because within five minutes the cats WILL be chewing on it. I got a succulant from Trader Joe's today that had a little flower bud coming up. I set it on the stove so I could clean the pot off before taking it to my room. I was only away for ten or fifteen minutes and I came back and the bud was sitting next to the pot. Of course. Darn cats. >.<

I finally saw 21 today. Yay! It was free too, my mom happened to find some old coupons. I liked it. If I hadn't been in a theatre at the time I would have said 'squee' when You Can't Always Get What You Want started to play. The entire time at TJ's I had it stuck in my head (which isn't a bad thing). I'd write more about the actual movie but I don't remember anything that anyone would want to read.

The Secretary of State needs to get a more efficient system for calling people up. I applied for a state ID. Yay. Its to come in two weeks... (Lets see if anyone can find the significance of this fact) I still have not gotten my Voters registration. I'm not sure how long ago it was that I applied for that though.

A teacher of mine has me making an informational website for her. I hope its up to her standards. I'm to the point that I just have to do a bunch of data entry and cleaning up the html. My web design class ironically isn't helping much with this. And if anyone knows how to get PHP to add an entry to a table in MySQL for my personal site, it'd be really awesome of you to tell me how. I try and it doesn't want to work when I use my own variables.

At OTC we've started actually working on the computers that are going to be donated to the little kids, but some of the stuff Mr. L has us doing seems kinda pointless and we didn't have to it last year. Like cleaning the case, monitor, mouse, and keyboards out. I can kinda see cleaning the monitor and mouse, but not the rest. The way keyboards are made they aren't hindered by dust so this an entirely cosmetic action. The monitor needs to be clean so you can see and if the mouse is gunked up it wont work right. Chances are none of the others bothered to clean the rollers inside the mouse well and I don't think the teacher would appreciate us rinsing off the dust on the ball nor would he have a lint free cloth to dry it with (I've found the best way to remove dust from something waterproof is to put it under a faucet.)
And I'm still really, really behind on getting my Net+ cert. If I had been given the list of labs to skip I'd be fine, but nooo they Forgot about me because I'm the only AM student taking it. Augh. I'm also the only BPA member in the morning, so I have to wonder if I'm missing any information about that too.
I still think it odd that so few know what a tilde (~) is and that my teacher called an asterisk (*) an ampersand (&). No idea what he called the ampersand.

Reno Here I come!

Yay! I get to go to Reno, NV for the national BPA conference. ^^ And the schools paying for the plane tickets and hotel too! *Happy* I'm attempting to look up exactly when it is, but the website doesn't want to work for me at the moment. >.< Of course...
Ah! The pdf with a bunch of info loaded. May 7-9. Woo. I can't wait.
Neat, it says on the site that if I get 1st in PC Troubleshooting I can get 500 for college. (psh, like that'll happen)

Edit 4/18/08:It turns out I had the wrong info. Its actually from May 7-11. And I leave 7:00am on the 6th.

W00t!

(To the non-existent people reading this) Remember when I went to that "Business Professionals Of America event thing"? (A more accurate title would be 'BPA regional competition'.) Because of it, our chapter got to go to the state conference in Grand Rapids, held at the Amway Grand Plaza, which is really expensive compared to the places I usually stay. Ironically, they didn't have many TV channels, free Internet, or even a coffee maker in the room. You could pay for the first two, but $10 bucks a night for Internet seems kinda unreasonable to me.
I think we ended up on the lowest floor with rooms (the 5th). I had two windows in my room: The first gave a close up look at an A/C unit with a background of the other half of the hotel, with its shiny brick walls, and the second view presented me with a nice blank patch of wall. If I looked out the second window from right next to it I could see the river, spy on people on the second floor (and hear amateurs play piano [if you're going to play, play something decent and don't screw up, please]) and see the fountain on the basement floor.
My friends mostly played video games on their laptops. I'm the only one without one, so when I wasn't wandering around the city I was bored out of my mind. (We weren't allowed to leave the hotel alone.)
I can't exactly remember what order we did everything, thus there will be a lack of accuracy in my timeline. I think I should carry a notebook or something. I can never remember what I want to, even if it's important to me.
All but one of us (Though we still had seven: A former AM-OTC-er was there with his home school replaced the one taking a test) walked to a coffee shop called It's a Grind. There were only three of us as we were leaving. On our way out the door these two girls wearing red bull shirts and backpacks came in. I think Jim made a comment about wanting red bull, so they stop, one takes her backpack off and gives each of us one. I didn't like the smell of the others' so I gave it away, but it was still really cool to get random free stuff. Chris called to ask where we were or something and Jim told him about them, so the rest of the group tracked them down and got free red bull too. (I found it all very amusing) We passed a bunch of boring buildings and construction, but I should have taken a picture of that church (I took barely any pics, I was so pissed off when I realized). I don't remember much of what was talked about either. The place was supposedly a mile away, but it felt farther. I think the temperature wasn't that high, but combined with the sun, walking, and dark gray clothes it felt really hot out. Then, the inside of the coffee shop was even hotter, so I asked the guy if he could make an iced hot chocolate (They had all sorts of iced coffees and of course they had hot chocolate, why can't he combine them?). The guy told me it'd be cold or something. Duh. That's what I want. Why do people not get that there is a DIFFERENCE between cold hot chocolate and chocolate milk? There is, I've had enough of each to know. I ended up with chocolate milk with ice (It was good, but only because it was cold.) Someday I'm going to go back and get a proper hot chocolate from them. I didn't walk all that way just for that. On the way back I did discover from Curt that I'm the vice president of our BPA chapter. Mr. L did deem it necessary to tell me this. GRRR...
Friday, I ate lunch at Jimmy Johns for the first time. I got a slim 2 or roast beef on bread. I'm not a sandwich person. It tasted like if I was a sandwich person I'd like their stuff. But I'm not, so I don't.
Curt and I, the two 'voting delegates' had to go to a big pointless meeting. Then we skipped the vote the next day, so it was even more pointless than it seemed. He took notes on the people we would've been voting on. They were both true and funny.
That night we ate at a place that I call 'the not-mexican-mexican place' They tried, they had cocopelli on every thing (The was a drawing on the chalkboard near the bar of Cocopelli holding a margarita glass XD ) and they had a few Mexican dishes, but not enough of the staples for me to consider them a real mexican place. The chicken quesidilla I had was good though.
I ended up going back to sleep on Saturday on the account of nightmares of the hotel burning (I was still tired). I got two extra hours of sleep, but got ready in ten minutes after someone knocked on my door.
Every single morning, except the last, we ate breakfast at the Cornucopia place in the hotel. Yay not-filled-donuts that are probably two bucks each or something unreasonable like that. Grar.
Lunch the second day was at a sushi place next door to Jimmy Johns. I nearly ordered sushi, but because they said if you don't like fish you'll like sushi. I like fish, so will I like sushi? I'll try it eventually anyways. Our teacher learned how to use chopsticks, which I find interesting, I would've thought he'd already know how, considering how much it seems like he has traveled. None of us knew what to make of the orange dressing on the little salad. The miso soup didn't taste like any thing I've ever had before. I've decided I don't like tofu. I ordered chicken yakitori if I remember correctly. It was really good. I want to order it again sometime.
That night they had a 'formal dinner'. The salad was iceburg, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber. Psh. That isn't a salad, a salad implies it has nutrients and tomatoes are nasty in my opinion. The food didn't seem all that great to me, but I can see why it was like it was. Serving 2000 people can be kind of hard. We were forced to go to the dance. None of us wanted to. We all decided the moment Soldier Boy started playing we would leave. So when it did, we left. Wandering around a city at night in a short sleeved dress isn't the warmest thing I've ever done. I was really glad I chose to wear the tights, only my arms were cold. I didn't mind much though. We found a convenience store. Chris had been looking for twizzler pull and peel candy or something. The only thing was, you had to go downstairs to get to it. From the top of the stairs it looked really seedy and suspicious, but once down it was perfectly fine. :P
Today is Friday, March 28, 2008. 1:25 AM to be precise, so I'm gonna finish this thing up.
We had a meeting Saturday night and we were going to me at the concierge at 9:00 AM, assuming I remember. I was trying to find someone else to find out what was going on and everything, so with waiting for elevators I'm back at the fifth floor and my stuff is just inside my room all ready to go. I got a call from one of the chaperones at about 9:06 or something. I thought I was late and every one was already downstairs waiting. The chaperone and I ended up waiting long enough for him to take his and my luggage across the street to the vans. Two of our group showed up and we waited for some time until those of us who were there headed off to the award ceremony. They eventually showed up at the ceremony too. They called the tests we were in one right after the other. In PC Servicing and Troubleshooting I got first! I was so shocked and wondering how the fsk that happened that I didn't know if I was called for the second one. I ended up onstage anyways thinking I wasn't going to be called and look like an idiot, but I was called and I got third place in Microsoft Network Administration! Funny how totally forgot until now that I was also called for, I think, 5th place in the open event, IT concepts, until now.
Amusing typo of the post: Newtork. sounds like someone trying to come up with a new breed of orcs that had their DNA fused with newts. Or something like that. XD

Full Metal Fangirl

I got a chance to go to a different library than usual last week and I checked out volumes 9-14 of Full Metal Alchemist. (I was on 12 or so) They don't lend their stuff to other libraries, which is how I get most manga, so I was still waiting for 13 to come from some other library.
Oops, guess what I did, again. I completely forgot I had started a post...

2001: A Boring Odyssey and second!

It's kind of late, but I finally finished 2001: A Space Odyssey. The book was interesting, though strange towards the end, but all in all I think I liked it. because I finished it I watched the movie. It had to be the most boring, drawn out, doesn't really follow the book movie I have ever seen in my entire life. The only points that stand out were one: Also Sprach Zarathustra and two: the space effects. I was falling asleep for most of it. They could have used all that empty space to put in details from the book that would make it make sense, but noooo. Lamers.
The afternoon 2nd years (I'm still one of them no matter what my schedule says!) All went to a Business Professionals Of America event thing (The AM's couldn't go on the account of their lack of A+ certification) We took two tests (except Josh) and managed to take the first 1-5 places (I think) in both (there weren't many besides the seven of us taking them) In the networking one I got fifth place (not surprised) and in the PC tech one I got Second! I managed to beat Chris! Woo! He and Curt got both their A+ and Net+ last year. Too bad I don't have anyone to brag to. While we were all sitting around waiting for the tests and the awards every one brought their laptop and were playing games (Of course), 'cept for Curt. We played cards for a while and he did his evil card trick that still baffles me. It was pretty fun getting to see them all again. Half the reason I wanted to get the Best Buy internship was because I'd be switched to the afternoon class again. Ah well, at least this way I can keep photography and programming. Typing of which, the Java class at OCC I was supposedly signed up for filled up, so I don't get to do that unless someone drops the class (please, someone, drop!) I didn't find out until today of course, the day it was to start. Grr. >.< I hate the lack of information.
When I first started to read them I had read practically every Sweeney Todd fic on fanfiction.net (That was back when there weren't even two pages), but I've slowed down and they sped up so I'm falling behind (Now theres six.) Maybe I'll print a bunch off and read them on the bus or something. Or not, that'd waste a lot of paper considering how few are any good.
I had a resolution to get a reasonable amount of sleep (That I totally butchered last night) so I'm off to bed now.

Squee.

I've found myself a new fandom. When I saw commercials for Sweeney Todd I thought it looked a little interesting and I wondered how I could go see it. It didn't look like the sort of thing my mom would like. It turns out my mom and I both want to see it Again. :P (Note: There could be spoilers after this point) I was kinda disappointed about the end. I was sorta "Wait, what? That's it?" I was really hoping it would be happy at the end, but I got the feeling that wasn't to be part way through. In the ninth grade my teacher said there were 3 types of plays: (which Sweeney Todd started off as if I'm not mistaken) Histories, Comedies, and Tragedies. The first is self explanatory, the second he said would end with a wedding, and the last would end with deaths, lots and lots of deaths. Seeing how this was about a murderous barber it was somewhat obvious what the result would be. At least I can hope Antony and Johanna had a happy ending, after she gets therapy for seeing Sweeney in such a state. I've obtained the soundtrack and I've been listening to it much too much. I particularly like the melody Antony sings at the very beginning in No Place Like London (and the rest of the song too) and the song My Friends is my favorite. Someone commented in their blog that when Alan Rickman/Judge Turpin began singing all they could think of was Severus Snape bursting out in song. An amusing thought, I'll never be able to think of Snape the same way again.
I was reading an article ( http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/todd/index_1.html ) on the real Sweeney Todd. It's really long, but interesting. Of course not because of the whole revenge on a judge and irony of what happened to his wife thing. Though he did seem like he was getting back at the world for the lousy life he had. I read a little bit of a script somewhere on the Internet (I lost it, it had a hideous red background) I had no idea that they cut out so much of it. I also didn't know that barbers did stuff like pull teeth.