The Experiences of a Budgie Lover

Happy Winter Solstice!

2009-12-22T01:26:20Z

Ok, need to get a few rants out of the way first. First off is a leaked picture of Thaz's "wonderful new cration". I'm saying that with sarcasm in case you can't tell. Here's his latest abomination.

What's with the giant nose? And the stupid smile that looks like his lips can't go any further. And the huge forehead? I can't believe I thought this might be good. This thing could make the pterodragons look decent. I'm not getting this stupid thing. Goodness. The man can't draw to save his life. I don't know why he can't put in the quality to dragon adopters that he does on deviantart. If he had stuck to the Lion King style this would have worked but he's screwed that up now. May-be I will get one just to see if I can be among the first and have people drooling to find out what each stage will be. I hate how he draws wings with no supports. How do those things stay open? They'd just be floppy membranes. The sleeping western has the same problem. He needs to stick to coloring other people's work and forget about drawing. So feel free to use this image and help spread it around the world.

Happy Winter Solstice everyone. So today is the longest night of the year. It was rather dark and nasty out so early today. Around 5:45 it got dark. Yuck. But now the return of the sun begins. To commemorate this I made a sketch of Sorath welcoming the sun back.

I'm quite happy with this as a sketch. This was my second attempt. My frist one I made him too big and he wouldn't have fit on the page. So I did something I've never done before. I started by drawing his feet. I really love the pose that he's in. His anatomy is so much fun to draw. He's very angular. He lends himself well to difficult poses too.

I don't know if any of you can help me out, but do you remember when I wrote that little short story about how Cope does his hair in the morning? How he puts the gel in and all that? I can't find it and I really need to. Seems stupid me didn't tag it either "story", "writing" or "Cope". I remember getting comments that you thought it was funny but I can't track it down. Searching for Cope on my journal would be pointless. I did search on yahoo for my journal looking for Gel since I don't use that word often. Nothing.
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Getting down to the nitty gritty

2009-12-21T16:29:10Z

I sent out nearly all the cards today. You can see who I've checked off Here. Chris is going to the post office with them so hopefully they'll make it out today. To those of you over seas, sorry about being late. And I figured I'd post this again since I mentioned it back in Novemmber but here is My Wish List for this year. Thanks to those of you that already sent cards and stuff. I'm having a great Christmas so far.

It's been cold. Last night it dropped down to 37. All the budgies are in the house right now. Cockatiels got covered good. It's going to be bad for the next few nights so I'm kind of stuck with all these budgies. Apart from the mess they make it's a lot of fun. I need to read up on that Barns, Sheds and Outbuildings book I have because I really want to start working on the aviary.

I'm thinking of designing some new return address lables too. I had my budgie ones printed on one big sheet of sticker paper and the worst was cutting each lable with a knife. Very frustrating and tedious. But I'm going to pick up some of the premade ones from Office Depot and hopefully I can make a template for them. I'd like to make four unique ones. One of each of my guys on it. But we'll see. Or may-be different birds. I'll probably spend most of today just quietly proof reading my story. It's long and I'm such a slow reader. I do miss working on art but I just can't do that right now.
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Interesting Goings on

2009-12-21T00:28:28Z

Chris and I went out to Wal-Mart today because we ran out of certain types of bird food. We picked up a few bags to hold us over because our usual feed story is closed until after Christmas. How inconvenient. But it was fun getting out. It's been cold. I don't like it. The hawk is trying to get in the patio again, but luckily no window attacks today. I really hope he's a northern and will go away in the Spring. I tried Lipton Green Iced Tea with citrus today and it was really good! If I see it again I may have to try more. But I also had a coke and I've been having coffees and my chest hurts a little and I got kind of weird. So I may have to back off a little on caffeine at least Cokes which seem to be too potent for me.

I got all the cards and envelopes done today! But I didn't realize it was Sunday so they'll go out tomorrow. Yes, I'm definitely cutting it close.
I've been having fun watching Chris play the Shimering Isles portion of Oblivion. I shouldn't see too much because I really want to play that now. It's so heavily influenced by Alice In Wonderland and those stories. The god your run errands for is the god of maddness so it all ties in well.

Dragon Adopters has announced they will release a new species for the new year. From the shadow they have up it looks like a winged lion. I actually am a bit excited about this one. If it's drawn in Lion King style it shouldn't be too bad. Like it or not I can't get one because I already have all seven slots full. Lots of others have already asked if he'll allow 8 since they too don't want to release any of the ones they have. I'm quite certain this one will produce fur, which means there has to be a third species in the works to even things out for the shedding production. It seemed wrong to me that there were three reptile scale producers and only two of the others. Of course if Thaz had listened to me and just made a new shedding like Feathers or Bones he would only have had to create two new species and that would have brought the prices of sheddings back up over all after the whole powder screw up.
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Good stuff and musings

2009-12-19T03:53:53Z

Today was a nice day. Chris didn't get any calls and I printed out most of the cards. I have four more to do. He cut them for me and they look very nice. His parents invited us out to eat for Christmas and Chris's bosses were there too. This was a fancy seafood place we'd gone to every year. They'd always been good but this time was a disapointment and they made so many mistakes that I'm never going back. There were hairs stuck to the bottom of our drinking glasses. Chris ordered a Coke but when they came to refill they gave him tea. Oops. I ordered Crab legs and they used to come in this snake basket looking things. When the waiter told me they don't do that anymore and that they were better I knew that wasn't good. Why fix the formula if it isn't broken? I think they were king crab legs instead of Alaskan snow crab. The king has the spines and made it hard to open. They didn't have those tiny forks anymore which is perfect for shell fish. And it didn't taste good. It just tasted old. I always finish them. Not this time. I also never share. I gave one to my father in law who's also a seafood fan and he said it was bad too. Chris ordered steak and lobster and they forgot the lobster. The steak was good but I tried his lobster. It was gross. I was not amused. I gave his parents one of my cards and his dad really liked my art. He was showing it to everyone. Hehe. It was cold and raining so I ran into the car on the way out and Chris picked up the gifts. We got some awesome stuff!! We both got gift cards to Best Buy, Borders, American Express gift card ( can be used anywhere), and I got one for Home Depot and he got one for Outback. Woo hoo!! Wow that's awesome! Very good gifts definitely!
Does anyone have experience with American Express gift cards? I wonder if I can use them on Ebay? Well, I need to decide carefully what I'm going to buy with all this stuff. I'm going to horde my Best Buy stuff because MAY-BE I can get a nice laptop if I get enough cards, or something else nice like that but not as expensive. Here's hoping. Christmas isn't over yet.

I had another peppermint Mocha from Starbucks today. It was nice.
Have you guys seen that you can now write a short blurb on Dragon Adopters? That's kinda like having a profile. But it's limited to 70 words. Right now I just have the url to my journal showing there. When I first saw it I wasn't sure what it was so I just wrote in "WTF is this?" I always react that way to change. Chris doesn't like the intrusive arrow that makes it look like a word balloon. It covers his name. I don't blame him. They should have just made it a square underneath. Another thing I must add to the message I'll send. I MUST do that soon. I need to force myself to do it. And of course the butt licking has commenced on the comments. No one can think for themselves. It's sickening. But I must say I do enjoy clicking on names to see what people have writen, just as much as I enjoy seeing what avatars they have. You couldn't tell much about a person unless they had crative dragon names. Now we can tell a little more but not much.

Chris and I had an interesting NT conversation the other day. We were talking about the Cryptkeeper since it's that time of year for his Cryptmas Album. I then asked him if he thought Cryptkeeper was a zombie or a skeleton. Chris said a skeletal zombie. Hey no cheating now. But then he explained to me that zombies are fleshy and he's too thin to really be a zombie. He's right and I realized that a zombie needs to be freshly dead too. They do have more meat, but Cryptkeeper isn't quite a skeleton either. I then go, "He's a mummy!" Chris said without the bandages. No no. I explained that mummies don't have to be Egyptian and wrapped. A mummy is a dried preserved corpse. They don't have to have bandages. All you need is a dry environment like the dinosaur mummies that are naturally preserved. So we were very happy to have figured that out. Cryptkeepr is a mummy!

EDIT: Sorry. I was typing real fast. I think I've fixed all the spelling errors now.
Note to self. Talk about Tags next time.
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Gifts

2009-12-18T00:58:16Z

I'm very happy today. I woke up to a lovely email from sike_saner. She had sent me some gift that she made of Thagirion in the game Spore. I know there have been several expansion packs and I've missed out on a good deal because my computer is too slow and stupid to handle the regular game. Anyway, check out Thagirion version 2.0. Much better than the one I made.

Click for full size. I'm impressed and I know how limiting the game can be. So this is the first time I've seen Thagirion (not Davon) in a video game. Best one so far. Nice. A few more and these will go behidn the cut because they are big.

Front view.

Side view. I like how she did the tail star and even the longest tusk at the back of his lower jaw.

Back view. I'm impressed and I don't impress easily. I like how he's glossy too as he would be.

Sigh, it seems I can't ever give out praise to a site without it then making me into a liar. I should just stick to point out flaws. You can't go wrong with that. Forget praise. I love LJ but lately they've been doing some stupid things. I thought they were offering a free account for the holiday. So I sent these coupons to my other accounts and to Chris. What it is is pays for half and you pay the other half. What kind of lousy gift is that? "Here's coupon and you can pay for the rest of your account yourself. Merry Christmas." Yeah right! Why don't they just offer them at half off so we can buy them for our friends? So everyone's royally pissed about this. No big deal I just declined to use them all. The free V gifts are up now and they are these UGLY pictures that say TMI. What kind of Christmas gift is that? I wouldn't give anyone that for free. And then I heard they "sold out" and people couldn't get them. HAHAHA! I told them to please bring back the snow flake. The one good thing that they did is now you can see who's visited your journal. Here is the link. I don't know if it's a paid feature only though. Lastly, I don't know who or how but I realized I have two bucks worth of credits for V-gifts. I don't know how that happened or if one of my stalkers secretly gave me two bucks. Whatever, YOINK! I've been giving enough. Perhaps I'll spend them on myself and get two V-gifts. Hey I didn't pay for them so it's ok. To: Me, From: Me. That's how I'll sign them hehe. Now to decide what I want. Perhaps I'll do it in January when all the December gifts get put away. Who knows how long those two bucks were in there.

I sent the PSD file to Chris's computer and it worked! I got 16 cards printed out then I ran out of paper. They look really nice! I'm so glad I used the Deathclaw. I need to print four more then I should be done. Then I just have to make envelopes and I can finally mail them out. I know my over seas friends will definitely get theirs late. Sorry about that. I know Chris got me a gift today. He had to hide it hehe. Luckily I'm not one of those that has to go hunting and spoil the surprise. I can wait til Christmas.
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Printer woes

2009-12-17T00:59:36Z

Well I never did find the templates to the cards. So I had to make them from scratch in photoshop. Not impossible but I am a lazy artist like all the others. It would have been easier to just use a template. I'll have to make sure to not lose it for next year's card when I go on one of my mad back up sprees. Anyway, Chris bought me the new ink cartidges and I stick them in the printer. Printer won't work. After searching and searching we never found the CD. But I found every other CD I needed including Sony Movie Studio so I might make some youtube stuff finally. Provided I can get around to installing it. Anyway, after going to the wrong site and trying to download the drivers I finally got them from HP. I hate HP products. They never work right and they have invasive programing. So I install the stupid drivers and still nothing. Seems it's the USB cable isn't working because it's not detecting the hardware. Well that just sucks because the plug that goes into the printer is specialized. I can't just use any 'ol USB. By this point I'm quite mad, probably need a new printer and was pissed we'd blown nearly forty bucks on ink we won't use. Chris also has an HP printer/scanner/copier. That means I have to AIM him my HUGE PSD file. He's going to try to return and exchange the cartridge for the cartidges for his printer. At least his works but this has been so annoying and there's still potential for problems. Like my PSD not opening on his photoshop. But that's never been a problem before. Of course my printer never had problems before either.

So because I had all this extra angry energy I decided to use it to clean my desk. I tend to become very productive when angry. I created Thagirion out of anger back in 1999 and he's one of my most awesome creations. Well it was about time and I think my desk looks great. I hope I can finish this project soon like by tomorrow. I also started inking the drawing of Owen and his fire sword. I'm not sure how I'm going to make the road he's standing on but I do need to give it a background so you can see the effect that his sword is see through. It's clear metal after all.

Speaking of lazy artists, a buddy of mine on Dragon Adopters showed me a very interesting Disney video. Now you know how I say all artists are lazy and we'll cut corners and if we can get away with stuff we will. Animators reuse poses. Just watch He-Man to know what I mean. I kinda knew that Disney did this but it was rather amazing to see how this person superimposed all the footage from Robin Hood, The Junble Book, Snow White, Mr. Toad and a few others. Now you have to admit it's kind of understandable since back then they didn't have computers and it was easier to just trace stuff. Though using the same gag in Mr. Toad and Jungle Book was a bit much. But to have the waltz scene from Sleeping Beauty ripped off in Beauty and the Beast to the point that the camera angles are the same and pull out the same is too much. They had computers by the time Beauty and the Beast came around. So this is amazing and sad to watch, but at the same time I can't blame them form an art point of view. There's no law you can't rip yourself off and I must say I've been tempted to do similar stuff. But I will keep a high standard and not do that. Oh yeah, turn off the comments by clicking on the box in the lower right. I hate badly placed annotations.

EDIT: AARRRGGG!!! Why did LJ change the search bar in the banner on the journal pages? I liked that it had a drop down box for categories like interests. Now it's just a long ugly bar that's probably too general.

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Another INTJ FAQ

2009-12-16T22:18:03Z

I love this three part FAQ. But sometimes I have a hard time finding it as a I have so many links saved in my favorites. I'll post it here to share with you. I think you'll find it amusing but it's all true. I think there are only one or two things that I disagreed with for myself.

We’re smart.
37% of INTJs have IQ’s that place us in the top 2% of the general population. We are visionaries, strategic (and compulsive) planners, big-picture thinkers, complex problem solvers, adept decision makers, conceptualists, theorists, and pattern recognizers – in short, we are “masterminds” [insert evil mastermind laugh here].

We don’t do feelings.
We use critical thinking, reason, and logic. We have a tough time with people who make decisions based on emotions, and we can often come across as blunt and cold because we ignore the feelings of others. But on the plus side, we take criticism well since we have no feelings to hurt.

We live inside our heads.
We frequently zone out. We get lost in thought and spend much of our time inside our heads. If our immediate reality becomes boring, we will retreat into our minds, and you might have to shout our names repeatedly to get our attention so we will come out again. And no, sorry, but you can’t come into our heads with us. You wouldn’t last five minutes there. You’d be driven insane by the nonstop cacophony of overlapping voices madly free-associating from one idea to the next.

We are self-confident.
No type is more self-confident than the INTJ. We have a very keen awareness of our own knowledge and abilities, and – more importantly – of the limits of our knowledge and abilities. Consequently we can come across as arrogant sometimes. This is your problem to deal with, not ours, since it is a problem of erroneous perception (yours).

We are aloof.
Because we are somewhat detached from reality, because we are introverted (we find interacting with people to be tiring and tiresome), because we are very private, and because we are impassive, we tend to come across as rather reserved and aloof. Okay, we actually are reserved and aloof.

Do’s and Don’ts (mostly Don’t’s):

DON’T ask one of us a question unless you really want a truthful answer. We will not sugarcoat it for you, and we don’t tell white lies to spare anyone’s feelings. Do you really, truthfully want to know if those jeans make your ass look fat? Normal person’s response: “Um, no, you look fine. Really.” Honest person’s response: “Well… maybe a different belt would help?” INTJ’s response: “No, it’s not the jeans that make your ass look fat; it’s your fat ass that makes your ass look fat.”

DON’T express an opinion to us unless you are prepared to back it up with sound arguments and well pedigreed facts and evidence. Otherwise do not be surprised when we logically shred your opinion for you and hand it back to you in tatters.

DON’T be repetitive. We have absolutely no patience for that. There’s no need to cover old ground, and we heard you the first time, unless we were zoning out. And if we were zoning out it’s probably because you started repeating yourself.

DON’T take 100 words to say what could have been said in 10. Content-free speech will cause an INTJ to zone out faster than repeating yourself.

DON’T engage us in “small talk”. Keep in mind that you are competing for our attention with all the voices in our heads, and they are bound to be far more interesting than you. The voices are constantly regaling us with things like anagrams of Wayne Newton (Wanton Weeny, We Annoy Newt, New Yawn Tone, …) and candidate titles for parodies of “Carry On My Wayward Son” (“Cary Grant Was Six Foot One”, “Curry On My Egg Foo Yung”, …). Do you really think your talk of the weather or your six year old’s soccer league is going to be more compelling than that? Please. Be realistic.

DON’T look at an INTJ in bewilderment when he/she discloses an idea to you. Yes, it may have required a double somersault of imagination to reach their conclusion. Ask them to take you through it step-by-step; they will happily oblige. Ideas are of ultimate importance to an INTJ, and it is a compliment for them to share their ideas with you. Similarly, failing to give due attention to an INTJ’s idea is a high form of insult.

DO… um… well, we thought there should be at least one “DO” but we can’t think of one. Oh, how about this: DO keep it short.

Q: Where can I find an INTJ?

A: We INTJs are über-introverts, so we prefer asynchronous and semi-anonymous forms of communication. We get most of our socialization through internet forums and Usenet newsgroups. Look for us there.

Q: Can I become an INTJ?

A: Unless you are born an INTJ, your only hope is to find a genie lamp while strolling on the beach, rub it, and make a wish. You can fake being one of us by burying yourself in a mound of books, nerding out on a favorite subject (like quantum mechanics, not needlepoint), wandering around by yourself, not giving a damn what others think of you, etc. If this sounds like too much work, just try doing a good robot impersonation.

Q: How can I break up with my INTJ?

A: Tell us the truth. We'll reply, "Sure, why not?", and go on with our lives.

Q: My INTJ is trying to take over the world. Should I be concerned?

A: Remember, he’s trying to take over the world for the betterment of everyone and everything. Just go ahead and let him. He’ll be happy and the world will be a more organized and efficient place.

Q: My INTJ just told me I’m retarded. Should I take offense?

A: You probably are retarded, by our standards. But don’t take offense. Our standards are so high that even we don’t meet them. We judge ourselves more harshly than we judge others.

Q: My INTJ isn’t sensitive to my feelings. Should I take offense?

A: We aren’t even sensitive to our own feelings. Why should we be expected to be sensitive to yours? We won’t even try to fake it. Insincerity is a pet peeve of ours, and anyway, it would ruin our reputation if we ever showed emotion.

Q: Why doesn't my INTJ ever show emotions or feelings?

A: Because he doesn’t have any. Actually, that’s not strictly true; it’s just that we tend to get emotional about things you might not appreciate. INTJs have been known to cry during the liftoff scene in "Apollo 13", for example, and there are also many touching moments in some of the Star Trek movies. An INTJ may also smile or laugh at random for no apparent reason; probably one of the voices in his head just made a good joke.

Q: My INTJ doesn’t care about me any more after he tried to explain his idea and I didn’t listen. What should I do?

A: Ideas are of prime importance to INTJs, and disregarding or not listening to our ideas is the highest form of insult. Although INTJs do not hold grudges, neither do we go out of our way to associate with people who don’t give serious consideration to our ideas. You’ll be in damage control mode for quite some time, fighting an uphill battle to get back into our good graces.

Q: My INTJ won’t talk to me. What should I do?

A: What subjects are you trying to talk about? Most INTJs hate gossip, and all of us hate talk of relationships. We also don’t do small talk. Try quantum physics, psychology, or some other deep (but non-touchy/feely) topic. If all else fails, try email instead.

Q: Why does my INTJ keep correcting my grammar?

A: Probably because you are being grammatically incorrect. The next time you tell your INTJ that you’re going to “try and [do something]”, prepare to get bitch-slapped. It’s “try to”, not “try and”. And there’s no such word as “irregardless”. Words have specific meanings, and language has specific rules; please abide by them. And don’t even get us started on your contextually ambiguous use of pronouns.

Q: I have this REALLY good idea… should I tell an INTJ?

A: Sleep on it… for a week or so. If it’s still so appealing, sleep on it for another week. Then maybe run it by one of us and we’ll pick it apart for you. Your idea is more likely to survive our scrutiny relatively unscathed if you have actual logical arguments and sound evidence with which to back it up.

Q: Is it dangerous to annoy an INTJ?

A: First we will ignore you, then we will launch a volley of extremely witty but esoteric insults that will probably go right over your head, and finally we will just engage the "nod-and-smile" autopilot and go back to ignoring you. Best to leave us alone at this point. If you push us too far we may blow up your head with our telekinetic abilities. So, yes, it can be dangerous to annoy an INTJ.

Q: What are the pet peeves of INTJs?

A: Thanks for asking. Our pet peeves are:

* We dislike surprises.
* We hate having decisions made for us. We’re INTJs; nobody is more qualified to make decisions than us.
* We dislike getting gifts, as it burdens us with the need to reciprocate.
* We hate small talk, gossip, and relationship/people talk. Really anything mundane is beneath us.
* We get particularly annoyed by attacks on our intelligence, competence, and integrity.
* We hate it when people try to manipulate us.
* Insincerity and lying.
* People interfering with our alone time.
* People who are chronically late.
* People who talk incessantly. We will just engage our “nod and smile” autopilot and mentally go somewhere else.
* People who are stupid, arrogant, opinionated, and/or closed minded.
* Crooked/badly placed pictures.
* Superficiality (body piercings, pimped out cars, brightly colored anything).
* Salespeople. INTJs are immune to emotional manipulation and have zero tolerance for lines of bullshit.
* Incorrect grammar and word usage.
* People who waste our time (see Salespeople, people interfering with our alone time, etc.).

Q: My INTJ keeps disappearing. Is this normal?

A: Yes. We need our “alone time” to recharge, more so than any of the other introverted MBTI types. Being around people for very long sucks the life force out of us, and we sneak off to be by ourselves whenever our “low battery” warning light starts to flash. (And in those cases where we can’t disappear physically, we will retreat into our minds.) Consequently we have great stealth capability; we can sit in a corner, observing while being unobserved, and we can escape, unnoticed, when we’re ready to move on.

Q: Why can’t my INTJ remember anything?

A: This is normal. Most of us INTJs are very forgetful. We have too much going on in our heads at any time to remember a lot of new stuff. Also, we zone out and go into autopilot mode quite frequently. We often won’t remember where we put our car keys because we weren’t “there” when we did it.

Q: My INTJ employee consistently strolls into work an hour late and leaves an hour late, every day. He/she seems to make their own hours, however the job gets done rather well. Should I feel disrespected?

A: Time is relative to the INTJ, and getting the job done right is paramount. We do not like wasting our time, so we will often adjust our schedules accordingly to miss AM and PM rush-hour traffic. The more traffic we miss, the more time we have for books, movies, video games, books, message boards, books, etc. You should feel disrespected, although it has nothing to do with them not honoring your work rules; it has to do with them not thinking you are particularly smart or competent. If you were smart/competent, you wouldn’t be going on about getting your wittle bitty feewings hurt by your disrespectful but high-performing INTJ employee.

Q: My INTJ is very pedantic.

A: Strictly speaking, that’s not a question.

Q: Dammit, see what I mean?

A: Yes, the irony was not lost on me as I typed the previous answer.

Q: And sarcastic as hell, too.

A: Sarcasm is a free public service we provide to those within earshot. No need to thank us. We also do irony, hyperbole, word-play and puns, one-liners, quick-witted observations and flippant remarks, and abstract and deep philosophical insights on nonsensical themes. Our sense of humor tends to be dry, warped, and morbid, and not everybody "gets" us.

Q: Why does my INTJ just “shut down” at the end of the day?

A: Our minds are always buzzing with plans and theories, and we cannot voluntarily get it to stop. But even an Indy 500 car will coast to a halt after it runs out of gas. When we are very tired our brains slow down, and we become normal or even a bit retarded. If we start asking you to repeat what you just told us but more slowly this time, and/or if we can no longer perform simple routine tasks like computing an orbital transfer burn or finding a memory leak in 10,000 lines of C++ code, you know it’s time for us to call it a day.

Q: Why is my INTJ so… well, so freakin’ WEIRD??!?

A: It’s probably just a side effect of the way our brains work. Many of us tend to be rather obsessive-compulsive, for instance ordering our cd’s, dvd’s, and books by genre then alphabetically (by title for dvd’s, by group then title for cd’s, and by author then title for books, except for series which must be kept in appropriate serial order). Most of us have other quirks as well, e.g., always eating M&M’s in a specific color order, naming our children in alphabetical order, etc. It’s a small price to pay for genius, really.

Q: Why does my INTJ just start nodding and smiling after we’ve been talking for a couple of minutes?

A:

Q: I said, WHY DOES MY INTJ START NODDING AND… Oh I get it, you’re being sarcastic again. Does it ever get old?

A: [ hey, more Wayne Newton anagrams… We Want On Yen, Ant On New Yew, Way None Went… ]

Q: Hello? Are you going to answer any more questions?

A: [ … “Hair Salon For Stray Nerd Nuns”, “Larry Moe and Curly’s On”, “Karaoke’s Not That Fun”, “Harry Potter’s Gay Stepson”, … ]

Q: Asshole. I’m outta here.

A: [ works every time ;-) ]

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For me I hate repeating myself more than people being repetitive. Why weren't they listening to start with? It took a lot of energy for me to think up a response and then say it only to have to remember how I said it again and try to be consistent. But yes people that repeat too much irk me too.
As for gifts I love them and will always take them. But yes I do feel the need to reciprocate...provided I care about the giver to begin with.
Wow it wasn't until I read this that I now realize why I DO hate pimped out cars so much. I didn't know it was an INTJ thing, probably an NT thing as Chris hates them too. It's because it's all superficial and we hate that type of fakeness and insincerity! I hate the big hub caps and wheels that have hardly no rubber. I feel so sorry for beautiful exotics that are put though this torture. You don't need to do anything to them. They are already awesome as are. Leave them be. If you must show off do it with style not tackiness that makes you look cheap not rich.

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Planning

2009-12-16T01:53:25Z

You guys know I love Christmas but I know some of you aren't too keen on the season. That's ok and I have lots of funny songs to share with you that are anti-season. These three are by Bob Rivers and are rather funny. Please take and enjoy and let me know what you think.

The Twelve Pains of Christmas
The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen
Police Stop My Car

I'm cracking up just writing the names out. They'll be up for a week. Get them while they're hot.

We got a star for our tree. It was a cheap one that glows green and blue. Two of my favorite colors so it's cool. My life membership for The National Home Gardening Club is finally all paid for. So I wish they'd stop billing me especially after they sent me my all paid final gift. There's some bad communication in the billing department obviously.

This morning I woke up to this funny sight.

Chopin barred the gates to his castle with his water bowl. Too funny. I always put his bowl on the far side of the cage so it was funny to see him in the castle and the bowl right there blocking the enterance.

Chris got me this little motorcycle model today. This is great because I can use it as a reference and view it from any angle when I draw.
I also got new ink cartridges for my printer. So tomorrow I will work on printing out the Christmas cards. Unfortunately I couldn't find the card templates from last year. That means I have to make them from scratch. I can do it but it's a bit annoying. I'll have to make sure to hold onto them this time for the 2010 cards next year. Some of you will probably get the cards late after Christmas but I'll do my best to get them out as soon as I can. I needed both black and color but it looks like they don't sell them individually anymore. That's not good because when I'm done I'm going to need just color. I always run out on the last few.

And in big ambitious plans...I want to build a new aviary. I want to put all the budgies, cockatiels, finches and doves in one big flight. So I'll be drawing up plans for the new aviary. I need to read up on how to build a roof, make an A frame and how to install doors and windows. It seems hard not knowing anything so I hope I can do it. If I can pull this off then I shouldn't have a hard time building another pigeon loft and chicken coop. I think the most expensive part will be buying large panels of wire mesh.
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Christmas Card

2009-12-14T23:42:46Z

I've been working both on my story and on my card today. Before I get to that I want to say thanks to darknessiguana, the_insane_0ne, rhodielady_47 and roman_pirate for the cards. They motivated me to hurry up on mine already. Roman Pirate, thanks so much for the gift. I didn't expect anyone would get me anything off my list.

So anyway, I have finished the photoshop work on this year's card. YEAY!
EDIT: MAJOR EDIT!!

Ok, so I have decided that THIS will be the card I use instead. I'm proud of this one unlike the budgie one I made. I'm proud to send this out to all my friends and it's up there in quality with the 2007 budgie and the 2008 Cope. This works so well as a winter scene not just a desert night. I think she's beautiful.

~~Not my best but not bad for the rush I did it in. Last years was way better, but I hope you all will still like it. Now to buy printer cartidges and line up the text inside and out on this.~~

While working on my story I've found something new I need to fix. I need to come up with last names for the early lesser characters. I think even though some played minor roles I need to have quality in my book so all characters should have first and last names. I suck at coming up with names so I'm not too thrilled about this. So the editing process has commenced. I'm still on chapter one and have a long way to go.

...uh, was just looking through my profile here and realized my Deathclaw drawing would make a beautiful Christmas Card instead and live up to the quality and standard I like. Holy Cow. She's running through the desert at night but if I add a few snowflakes it would look like snow dunes. Opinions? Do respond please. I can't do both so I need to decide.
I don't remember what font I used in my banner up here. I like it too and should use it again.

I have decided and I found the font. It's Pristina.

EDIT: EDIT: Forgot to mention. I added Bethesda Studios to my card list. I will send them this since I'm such a big Deathclaw fan and I hope that I can impress them.
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Our first Christmas Tree!

2009-12-13T00:46:50Z

Once again I got nothing accomplished creative wise. Tomorrow I want to really work on my story and start on my card. I need to be at the printing stage and sending them out already. I'm tempted to cheat this year and use a photograph but I shouldn't. I pride myself on making cards from my own art. Must not listen to the lazy voice. I know some of you wanted to see what Tesla looks like now. Here's a pic.

He doesn't like the playgym. He just sat there and didn't move. I wanted to have him in the room with me while I typed, but he was a statue. Not good.

Chris got half the day off today and I think he'll get he day off tomorrow too. Today we went out and we got our first tree for our house. I'm very happy. I'm going to put the pics behind the cut.

It's soo pretty!! I love white Christmas trees. It was the last one they had. Funny enough the one with the lights cost less than the one without. We got that gold tree skirt for it too since I figured that would look good with any other color. There was a red one too but I don't see that matching well. It's got glitter on it and was pretty. No ornaments yet or star. We have to buy some which may not be for a while. I leave the tree up through January 6th because I observe El Dia De Los Reyes. That means the Kings's Day. Basically it's the day the three kings arived with gifts for baby Jesus. It's a Spanish tradition and you take the tree down then. Hum, we need a nativity scene too. A bit annoying when money is tight to not have everything but I do love my tree and it's better than nothing. I'm happy with the few decorations we have up. We're still in the Christmas Spirit.

And now for some close ups of light. I think these turned out nice considering the crappy camera I have. I love all the glows and ambiance Christmas lights cast.

I think this red one turned out the best because of all the unfocused ones in the background.

I've been having trouble with photobucket lately. It doesn't always load my images from IE. In FireFox it would use the old uploader where you had 20 slots. But that didn't work today either and it asked to install the plugin so I did. It was for Adobe Flash 10. So now I have that new uploader and I knew that would be bad. Sure enough now I keep getting a message in FireFox saying a movie is messing things up and to abort when no movie is playing and saying abort does nothing. Great I hope I don't have another virus. That would suck.

Update on the Free Snowflake and missing e-mails

2009-12-11T14:58:59Z

Well folks seems that the free snowflake I sent to you all is the reason why you have not been recieving e-mail notifications. People sent so many it back logged the e-mails and that's why LJ took down the snowflake. I read about it on News here. I did leave this comment.

I'm disapointed the snowflake cookie is gone. I managed to send it to most of my friends, but they didn't have time to send one back. You really should have a few free V-gifts like that because some people like me refuse to pay and others, like kids or people without jobs, can't even aford to shell out a dollar but would like to send gifts to friends. I don't have my journal set to get emails so I never missed anything. I do hope you bring them back. This was such a wonderful little thing for Christmas.

There was a link to the maintenence journal and one thing they said was promising. Makes me wish I hadn't commented now.

1. The free snowflake gift that some people found in the gift shop over the weekend wasn't meant to be there; it was a side-effect of code related to the new payment processing and LiveJournal shop backend we've been working on most of this year (and a good portion of which went live in release #59). No user-facing differences were supposed to be noticeable, but this one v-gift was inadvertently added temporarily and marked as free. As part of the upgrading of our payment system, we'll be able to offer free v-gifts in the future, so if you enjoyed having this to send around over the weekend hang tight for a few weeks and we'll have the capability to offer you some more.

Wow, they're going to do it!! I left them this nice response.

Oh wonderful! I just posted on News that I was very disapointed the snowflake was gone as it's a great thing for people that can't aford for V-Gifts but would love to give some anyway. I think that offering a few free ones in the future is a wonderful idea. I'm now not so disapointed and will be checking the store more often to see what you all make. It's little features like these why I think LJ is the best journal system out there.

They say notifications are also now back online and you should be getting them in order though late. I don't use E-mail notices though and have my own way of keeping up with posts. For one this Comments Page is a very useful link. I recommend it to all of you. For paid accounts you can view your last 100 comments in your own journal and see links to comments you've left on other journals and communites. But not posts you've started in communities. As for me, I tend to memeorize the number of posts that are here on my LJ and on my friends page. I always check when the number changes to see if I got a response. For my journal I usually know if there's a new response if I have an odd number and and even number on friends page. It's not a perfect system as people posting multiple times can throw the odd and even thing off but nothing ever is perfect and so far it's worked pretty well for me.

Blarg and the city or the county is out in my yard right now trimming my plam tree. I have no love for that ugly tree and am not surprised as it's probably getting into the phonelines. I would be fine if they chopped the whole thing down. Yet another blunder of the former owner to plant it right under the powerlines. I have a huge list of the stupid things the former owner did . YARG!
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More progress

2009-12-11T02:27:21Z

I'm quite amazed how close I am to finishing my story. I placed all the parts I'd writen seperately into the main document today. That was a big step and my book is currently sitting at 115 pages of small type. The sections I have to write up I will try to work into the main document instead of writing out seperately. Finding where they go can be hard too. So unless something comes up there are only four more points that need to be covered. Then I need to proof read for bad grammar, poor wording and scientific inaccuracies. It sounds so simple but I'm dreading it. I need to smooth out the sections that I literally just pasted in so it's a smooth transition for the reader. I'm getting to the point where I need to seriously start to think about a cover. So far I'm not getting any ideas.

I played a little Oblivion today because by the end of the day I felt like I was going to explode with energy and didn't know what to do. Owen is at level 25 and I'm only just now entering the first Oblivion gate. I want to go in there and get a daedric axe, give it soul trap and a few other nasty properties and name it Thagirion's Thirst.

I brought Tesla and Protist into the computer room today and set up a playgym for them so they could watch me while I worked. They didn't do much, but it was nice to have a bit of budgie company. I'm trying to get Tesla used to me and like going into different rooms. I need to find my Sony Vegas Movie Stuid CD. I need to reinstall it so I can make youtube videos again. Chris will have to help me find it. I know it's in the CD pile somewhere in the closet.

I hate making these short posts but there really isn't much to say. Working on my story was the biggest thing and I can't say too much about that. I've mostly been in my head today so it's been rather enjoyable.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that LJ took down the free snowflake cookie. Oh! I guess I won't be getting anymore. I still think it's a waste of money to pay for an icon you can save for free. They do have some new ones of Christmas lights and ball ornaments I really liked, but not for a dollar. I did "View All" and was agast that one stupid key one is $100. WTF? Anyone could steal it and put it on their profile for nothing.
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Progress made today

2009-12-10T02:48:40Z

Woo hoo!! Sea Catch finally turned 100 this evening. I'm pretty much done with him and moved him to the back. I still need to get him a better necklace and species specific jewelry of the best type. I need to rebuild my resources before I try making more. I had a few fails. So only four more left to grow up to 100. I removed him from the sidebar so now that's shorter. That's good.

I worked a little bit on my story today. I'm happy about that. Chris asked me what percentage he thought I was on it. I'm around 98% I'd say and of course the home streach is always the slowest. But I think I can meet my personal goal of finishing before the end of the year. I've got to!

I don't remember if I mentioned this but my green budgie's name is officially Tesla now. I think he's in the learning to talk stage. I say "budgie, Tesla, hello and pretty bird" to him everyday all the time. I do need to separate him from Peep and Protist though. But he's not bonded to them so I think he'll learn to talk. I need to scan my budgie drawing for the Christmas card. It's been so long I hope I remember how to use photoshop hehe. Feels like it's been forever. But I'm getting strong urges to draw as well. I hope I can make some cool new drawings soon. I'm kind of getting ideas for my alternate story too. I think I have an ending so I kinda know what to work towards. But mostly I have scenes and lots of unanswered questions I need to figure out on my own.
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Good times

2009-12-09T02:16:33Z

Oh man I hate that I'm such a procrastinator. I was so determined to work on my creative projects and I didn't do anything. I must make myself write tomorrow. But I did do a lot of chores and cleaning today which I'm happy about. Chris helped me clear some boxes that were by the door in our bedroom. Soon I'll be able to access the patio from there again. The house is slowly coming along.

Some of you might have noticed that there's a pterodragon in my sidebar now. And yes you're probably confused after I put them down so much. Rest asured there is a reason. I always have a reason for everything I do. That's the oldest one in the game and I'm tired of going to his page every other day or so and giving him a click. This way I can watch without showing up in his logs or adding to the view count. It will change when it will change then I can remove it. This way I can watch it on my grounds and my terms. Yes, I'm a parasite that way and proud of it. I just wish I'd thought of this sooner. I used to do this with arvyre back when I used to care. Sea Catch has 79% to go. Good grief! Hurry up! So I think he'll finally reach 100 by tomorrow night and I'll finally be done with him. He's always been my slowest dragon even with lots of clicks.

I'm quite pleased because I think I've made a new friend on Dragon Adopters. I'm amazed. I never thought this would happen but someone PMed me and asked if I named Sea Catch after the white seal. EEP! Sea Catch is such an obscure name and from the stupid PM's I've recived ( and you all have seen how bad they are) I'm quite happy and surprised. I've been having pleasant conversations with this person about cartoon history. I love talking about old Warner Bros and Disney. I love talking about how Disney is both great and aweful. Chris and I had a conversation about how we're one of the few that names our dragons after a theme. Hardly anyone else does that and it's probably because most people there are just plain stupid and uneducated.

Speaking of Disney, I REALLY want the next dvd set of Zorro. Chris and I watched one of the hour long episodes and it was so neat. This is a show I must have watched when I was very young because I don't remember anything except the intro and theme song. I know I watched it everyday but unlike other old shows when I see them the whole episode doesn't suddenly rush back to me. It's kind of wried because I'm not used to that. It's not until it's over that suddenly I remember one small scene. Oh yeah! I know I've seen them all. I spent so many hours glued to the TV in the 80s. I'm still amazed today how much I used to watch and how I just dont' watch TV now. But what I watched was all good quality stuff so it was worth all the hours.

As much as I love the 80's and had a wonderful childhood sometimes I feel I was born too late. Watching Zorro and growing up with a Spanish background really makes me feel like I miss the old ways. How that is possible I don't know since I wasn't alive back then, but when Many lived with us she used to play old song and I some how understood. I've always have had a way of figuring things out or just understanding language and history by being told just a phrase or a line. I guess that's just my intuition. It's always kind of freaked me out too but it has been most helpful. The 1800s and second age of exploration always seems to speak to me for some reason. I think I would have liked living in that time period.

Well, I've been really bad about keeping records on my other journals. I must update thagirion and sorath_blacksun. I think I shall do that after this. Yikes not sure how to tag this entry.
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Card progress

2009-12-08T02:10:28Z

I have a tentative sketch made for this year's card. I'm not totally happy with it. The budgie doesn't look right for some reason, but I think that it will do. This will probably be what I use. I do have another drawing I made that I sort of like better but not sure how to work it yet.

What do you all think? If any of you are not on my list yet and want a card from me respond and then PM or email me your info. My email is budgie_butts at yahoo dot com. I have set all the comments to screen as well for that post. It's new to me and I have responded on others's posts where they are screened. Despite LJ saying you can only see your own I never can after I leave the page so I don't know if the owner replys. I replied to one but have no clue if it will get through. Anyway, the link to the card list thread is here.

I posted a question on the Flexible Squares help community. They've always been great until now. My question along with a few others has sat there for three days. I will delete it and repost it tomorrow. Surely wanting to know how to move my sidebar to the left isn't all that hard. And I will point out that no one has responded to the recent posts of the last three days. Who wants to bet they'll say I'm a jerk for exposing them not doing their jobs? I have always praised them as the best help site. They are now losing points. It's all to easy to do with me.

Chris and I finished the first season of Zorro tonight. And for the first time I noticed a stupid INTJ. We love to analyze the characters and this is very unique since INTJ's are always portrayed as super intelligent or evil geniuses. It is Corporal Reyes who is Sargent Garcia's assistant. He's slow and stupid, but we realized he's slow because his thinking process is very slow. He's very blunt, doesn't sugar coat things even for his friend Garcia. He draws him out of his delusions by pointing out harsh truths. He comes to conclusions logically but because of that annoys everyone. I think he's halarious and see why we INTJ's come off as jerks to alot of people. I've said it many times too that just because you're a thinking type doesn't mean you're smart. Some stupid thinking types are Patrick from SpongeBob and Goofy. Both INTP's. Gotta love 'em. One example I really liked was that the sargent, who's really fat, was trying to hide a leg of lamb he'd stolen and Reyes walked in on him When Reyes asked him what happened to the food Garcia told him someone took it and ate ALL of it. Reyes believed it for a second but then paused and thought about it. Then he looked at Garcia and said, "Even the bones?" We busted out laughing because it's that type of annoying logical thinking people hate because it catches them in their own lies. In another ep he was at the bar playing solitar when the bad guy comes up all angry and asks him where the inn keeper was. Reyes didn't want to talk to anyone and told him he didn't know and that he wasn't there. The villain got angry and asked him again. "You must know! Where is he?" Reyes responds, "I can not tell you where he is because I do not know. I can only tell you where he is not and that is here." That was great and the bad guy called him an idiot and stormed out. But that's great reasoning. Garcia, who's ESFP, then came in the room and saw Reyes playing alone and came to sit with him. Reyes told him to go away and Garcia said that it's not good to be alone and he looked lonely. Reyes responded, "Sometimes I like being lonely." Spoken like a true introvert. But Garcia is a true extrovert and didn't listen and sat with the "poor fellow" anyway. ARG, we know how annoyed he felt. Hee hee, so yeah it's been funny analyzing the show. Oh and Zorro is a cocky ENTJ so no wonder I've always liked him.

My dragon Sea Catch is 99 and 57%. Gosh I wish he'd go faster already! I need to pass down all the jewelry. Oh and have you guys seen the adult pterodragon yet? Yet another disapointment. Seems Thaz really can't draw pterodactyl feet. The thing looks like a worm with only arms draging itself through the dirt. Aweful. You should have been able to see some toes. I'm not getting a pterodragon (failed pterodactyl really) ever. The art totally sucks. Anyway the oldest one is owned by Melkorto so you can see the blunder there.
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Gifts

2009-12-05T23:57:54Z

I forgot to talk about the snake feeding yesterday. I brought home a rat for Chopin my ball python to eat. I always take rats into the bathroom and close the door to kill. I don't feed my snake live rats because they can hurt him fighting back. So I'm getting the rat out of the box and he's fisty and got away from me. So he lands on the ground and goes behind the toilet and starts running back and forth. Damn it! I've rarely had this happen to me. I only remember dropping a mouse back when Chopin was a hatchling almost eight years ago. I'm not a rodent person and I was a bit afraid to pick the rat up now that he was loose. He was scared and cornered and I know that's a bad combination in an animal. I didn't want to mess with it. BUt I didn't like the idea that I'd infested my own house with a big brown rat. Chris was preparing the snake care for feeding and I thought why not? Let's let a professional handle this. He'd heard me yell so he knew something was up. I go, "Just bring me the snake!" When the rat wasn't near the door Chris handed me the snake. I put Chopin on one side of the toilet. This rat was stupid. He walked right up to Chopin to see what he was and Chopin nailed him perfectly in the face in one strike!! Oh wow it was beautiful. He did do it like a pro! I opened the door and showed Chris how our snake was now eating behind the toilet. We closed the door and left him to finish the job and when he was done we put him back in his cage. I'll be more careful next time.

Well, LJ has a very nice virtual gift right now for the holidays that's free. It's a cookie one and since there's no limit like there was on the birthday cake I gave one to nearly everyone on my friends list. If you want to give me one back please do. I don't mind having a bunch of the same thing. I love that there's no limit. I even gave some to communities. If anyone didn't get one and you'd like one from me just respond and I'll be glad to send you one. BTW, kaetarin you were the first one I had on my list to send one but I wasn't able to because you have your LJ set to not accept gifts. Same for you Suzi. And schneeschaf, thanks soooo much for the Auras!! That was a wonderful Christmas gift. YES!! I just looked at your account and it's paid now! I'm so glad. That means silvolf should also have a paid account. I was thinking it wouldn't go through until Monday morning because of the banks. Though it's late I'm glad it finally works. Enjoy you subscriptions. Woo hoo! cheezey, I think your gift is on its way to you. I'm not sure. I bought it off Ebay and I asked them to send it to you but they haven't responded to me. So I don't know if it's coming to me or going to you. So watch your mailbox. If I get it instead I'll just mail it myself.

Ok, have some pictures to share. First off I got silvolf's gift in the mail today. I opened the card first. We thought it was cute and funny. But when I saw the budgie you drew inside I started laughing because it was sooooo cute and perfect! I laughed so hard I cried. You don't know how happy it made me.

And because of this I FINALLY know what to make for my card this year! Thank you for the inspiration. I will work on that soon and hopefully I'll be able to pull off what I see in my head. You even got the feet right! 100 points! I'm very critical of parrot feet. Good job. Love it!

She got me these cute birds in nests. I put them by my ceramic Christmas tree.

Here are the pink ones.

And the orange ones. My camera focused on the lights in the background though. :P

I took a close up of the tree because I love this thing so much. One day I'll do a detail of each color of bird.

I love small Christmas lights. One of my favorite things is when the tips touch a wall and make a ripple effect. It looks like liquid.

I thought this was pretty against the leaf decoratin that's on the wall. I don't like those leaves and need to take them down but this was a very nice scene that I had to take a pic.

Chris took this picture. Here is Chopin after eating. I call him my chin snake. He rests his chin on his castle and looks all cute.

Chris took me out for coffee again at Starbucks. I got the peppermint Mocha and it was warm and sweet and yummy. Had my typical turkey sandwich and brownie as well. Oh it was a wonderful meal. I'm glad this flavor is out again this year. I did become an ENTP on him because of that though. It was quite funny. I really sounded like Doc Brown talking about everything that popped into my head. Being a P is so different. P's are so much easier going. I cracked him up by saying, "It's weird not being bitter and cynical all the time."

We're almost done with the first season of Zorro and it's been a blast. Zorro is so cocky. I've pegged him for an ENTJ. I can't wait to get season 2.
I'm in such a good mood right now. I don't know if that's the coffee talking or what but I have had a very good day today.
Sorry for any spelling errors. As a P I don't feel like proof reading at the moment. I'll get them later.

EDIT: lebongirl, Thank you for the V gift. I like it. I love snowglobes.
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Blueness everywhere!

2009-12-05T03:20:51Z

I'm so happy right now! I went and made a Christmas theme for my journal. I'm in love with the color. Turquoise blue everywhere! I think I'll do a variation of this as my primary look as well. This is my favorite color so I don't know why I didn't just do this from the start. Whenever I looked at someone's journal that had blues like this I would love it. Now I finally have my own. I think I have all the colors right. I made the background and the banner by combining different images. Of course I'd rather have my own art up there but until I can think of something for the season this will have to do. Now I just have find out how to get the sidebar on the left. This way if I post a big image it won't go under the sidebar. With my sidebar being so long that's very annoying. If it's on the left that shouldn't happen.

I'm also very happy because Talon my dragon reached 110. I'm done with him. That's so cool. I have the best items on him too except for one reptile thing. But I care more about auras so he's maxed out on that. Now I know a normal dragon produces a maximum of 2,806 aura a day. I'm curious what ProPhage will produce at 110 as a gold dragon and Dracnair as a silver. Dracnair is Chris's dragon but he's much older than Kotick so he'll hit 110 first. Right now I wish Sea Catch would hurry up. He's still just 98. Seems it takes a year to finish a dragon. I joined this game Dec 22 and that's when I got Talon. So it's been almost a year and I'm finally done with him. Doesn't feel like it but it's neat that DragonAdopters is so involved it takes a year to finish.

I got Spybot back on my computer. The Avast screw up was so huge it affected the whole world. They quickly put up a patch to fix it. So I updated Avast and re-downloaded spybot and now it's fine. Kinda funny in a way really.

I'm a little annoyed with Livejournal right now. I bought two paid accounts for my friends and they still have not gone through. This has never been an issue before and they were usually installed instantly. I even used paypal thinking it would be faster. It said twelve hours which is rediculous. It never used to be that long and it's rounding on 12 hours now. I may have to yell at them and ask for my money back if they don't do something soon.

But other than that things are going very well. I'm quite thrilled right now. I'll probably just stare at my journal now just because it's so pretty.

Oh you've all GOT to watch this funny video called Pigeon Impossible.

I LOVE it when the pigeon flys up beside him. That's some flyer. And pigeons really do start to peck things even harder once they find something they think is fun. I was crying I laughed so hard at this.
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Things for Christmas

2009-12-04T16:28:10Z

Squiby has totally changed their look. Usually I hate change but I actually like this one AND they fixed the issue with favorites pets. They still have issues but they are now minor and I can live with them. Mostly the user name gets bunched under the header images. I can still click it so it's ok. I do miss the menu in the footer. The biggest problem is if you don't have any in you faves you get an error message on any page you view. I like that there's a link so people can see all your pets apart from the ones listed in faves. It's under Default. I'm also very glad I didn't make up a custom css layout as it would be all screwed up right now and I'd have to remake it. So I'm happy with Squiby and there are promises that we can make categories in the future. I can't wait for that. Seems my letter writing was effective. So if anyone wants to help click Here is my Squiby account. All the pets you see are the ones that need clicks. I'm glad I can now have my priority pets out front and remove them once they grow up.

I'm impatiently waiting for Sea Catch to turn 100 so I can pass on his jewelry and be done with him. He's 98 and 80%. At these higher stages with lots of views it still takes about 1% per hour. But since I don't know what the level cap is please click away.

Yesterday we went out to get some supplies at Wal-Mart and we picked up some cute things. Chris found these round Coke bottles and when I saw they were a dollar each I HAD to have some. So he got me a coke and a sprite. Check these out.

Aren't they cute and roundular? I think they're trying to make them look like Christmas balls and it's great! It really works.

Here they are from the back. I love the Sprite one because it has clear areas and looks like a 3D decoration or snowglobe. So pretty!

And I found more cups for my collection. Just one type with candy canes. I don't remember if I posted the green ones I got from wal-greens. I'll have to check the tags if not.

Here they are from the back.

And this is something Chris and I were laughing at. The text on the sticker of the cups is wrong in both English and Spanish. If you can't read it is says

dishwaser safe/avoide heating element/ microwave reheatable
apto para lavavajillas/ evite fuentes de calor/ microondas reheatable

Ok the English part first. Microwave reheatable? Didn't it just say "avoid heating element"? Not only that but reheatable means it had to have been heated before. Point is you can't microwave these types of cups. They'd melt into goo. Now for the Spanish that's even worse. Apato is not a word. I don't even know what the Hell they meant but "lavavajillas". It's definitely not a word. "evite fuentes de calor." Means, "Avoid fountains of heat". HAHAHA!! Lastly Reheatable is ENGLISH! Way to translate or just be plain lazy for not knowing how to say it. Whoever wrote that has no grasp of either language. It's great.

I put out my little ceramic bird tree. It's so pretty and pearlecent. I put out one decoration too of pine leaves and strung some lights over the door way and over our DVD shelves. Everything looks nice now on a dreery day like today. I don't feel so behind on Christmas stuff now. I did manage to get some gifts for schneeschaf and silvolf. Here's hoping I can do something for everyone else on my list.

I just realized my icon and my mood icon don't match. It's cold and yucky right now. I want my Florida weather back.

EDIT: Oh one more thing. Out of the blue the other day my Avast Antivirus decided that spybot was a virus and removed it. I can't download it because Avast prevents it saying it's a virus. And apparently I'm not the only one this has happened to. Seems the new updates for Avast have caused it to do this. I'll have to mention it to Alex and see if he can find a way around it.
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A good few bird days

2009-11-30T23:00:00Z

So the past few days have been good. Chris and I are watching Zorro every night and really enjoying it. We bought most of the ingredients for an acorn squash soup I want to try. I hope it's good. We only need a few more things. I learned what a Shallot was. I thought it was like a leek. A white onion with a green top. But nope, it's a brown dried oinion kinda like a garlic. We went to Bed Bath and Beyond and Chris got one of those food slicer things where you push the top and it cuts vegetables. He's been wanting one for a while. Micheal's is in the same area so I finally got my turquoise pencil holder. Now when I go out with my art supplies that 's what I'll put them in.

suzidragonlady I got the tutorial you made for the tree. Thanks very much it is helpful. Hopefully I can start on that project soon.

I need to come up with a good name for that lime green budgie. He's turning out to be a good pet. He's not afraid and lets me touch him and grab him. All the other babies act like they are wild even though they are hand feed. But this one doesn't. He's getting better at flying and now stands by the door for me to let him out. I've got him, Protist and Peep all back inside. And name change again. Melon just wasn't working out. I wanted a sweet pigeon named Olney so I removed the name for the white bird and gave it to her. She was great today and jumped in my lap while I was typing. I petted her and she was sweet. But she didn't stay long. Still it's nice to have that in a pigeon again. As for the little budgie sometimes he does remind me of Phage. I do want to isloate him so he'll bond to me more and learn to talk.

And I recently went on a long job with Chris too. That was nice. Didn't get a chance to write this time though. Mostly I read. I was more in the mood for a passive activity.

EDIT: And yes. I switched back to my 80's Flexible Squares Look. Who knows. I might put the sidebar on the left. Not sure yet.
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Some people just can't face up to it

2009-11-30T22:38:31Z

Some of you know that back when I had that last flamewar someone that was supposed to be a buddy of mine unfriended me here. Other than disappearing at one of the worst possible times she did something I hate. She didn't tell me why she took me off. It's funny because just the day before she'd left a friendly comment. So wtf? I asked her on one of my posts here about it. I asked on her journal about it. Not a peep. I let time pass. May-be she was busy. But enough's enough so I PMed her on Dragonadopters. Note was read; no response. Silence can be just as loud of a response as someone yelling at me. Conclusions? This girl is a coward that can't tell it to my face so to speak. If someone drops me I'd like to know why. "We have nothing in common anymore." "I'm too busy to keep up." "I think you're a jerk and disagree with everything you say." Any of those responses would be fine. I just would like to know. But stealth unfriending me then hiding irks me. I shouldn't be surpirsed though as she has a cowardly friend that does the same thing that I lost all respect for instantly. If I take someone off I do my best to tell them why and I've had the fortitude to tell people "Your journal wasn't what I thought it was. I disagree with it, or don't like it so I'll just leave." So I won't ever know the reason and because of that I shall draw my own conclusions. Regardless I'm not removing her from my friends list there because as little as she's on there, she's someone I can gather lottos from since they are so hard to come by. Now I know some of you here are mutual friends with this girl and if you don't want to respond you don't have to.

The other annoying thing that happened was with another girl I thought had stolen some art from a friend. I asked her about that and she gave me a typical excuse. Of course I asked my friend about this too and they resolved it themselves. Good all was well right? Not until that girl wrote me back. The issue was settled why would she still talk to me? I told her to leave me alone if she knew what was good for her. That message has been read and no response so far. That's good in this case.

So I guess I'll file this one under flamewar though nothing was really said in either case. One for the better and one for the worse hehe.
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Christmasy anticipation Feel my Energy!

2009-11-28T02:56:56Z

I took down all the pumpkin and Thanksgiving decorations I had. It was sad to put some of the ceramics in the closet but it was a nice fall season. Tonight is so cold. The low tonight will be 41 which totally sucks. I brought in most of the birds. Mainly the budgies and finches. I put up some metallic stars and Christmas tree decorations hanging from the kitchen lights. They look very nice. I'm looking forward to putting out Christmas stuff where all my pumpkins used to be. I get to pull out my pretty ceramic bird tree. Gosh, still no ideas for a card. I better come up with something. I'd have to buy cards. Anyone can do that.

Since I'm already in the holiday spirit I was looking up window clings. I found this great part website called Party Cheap. Their masckot is a chick. I guess he says "Cheep". Hee hee. But they had lots of cool window clings and a bunch other other neat things like the metallic hangy balls and stars. I also hadn't realized it but all these years since I was a kid I'm a fan of tissue art. I didn't even know that's what they were called but you see those balls and bells at parties and weddings. They can make almost anything. They have a tissue dove there that's so pretty. I want one. I used to have a parrot for years hanging over my bed that was made of tissue. I was thrilled to see it here too so I may have to order one. I'm always looking to regain the things I had as a child. So that's very cool.

I did a search today because I have been wondering what the difference between turquoise, aqua and teal is. I think I have my answer now. Turquoise, Aqua, and Teal. So Teal is the darkest. Aqua looks flat to me. So for sure that Turquoise is my favorite color. The moment I saw that huge square my eyes lit up with excitment as they do when I see something I really like.

Speaking of colors. I'm probably going to over haul my journal again. I've found out that I can have more than one layout saved. So this means I can rotate them all without re-writing the code each time. That's great! So I'll make a Christmas one in Flexible Squares soon...provided I can ever force myself to draw again and make a nice header. I can't come up with a card I'm probably not going to come up with a header image right away.

Does anyone here have Google Chrome? If so what's it like? Any trouble with it? How much space does it take up on the computer? I'm thinking of trying it out if it's decent.
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Christmas card list 2009

2009-11-27T14:25:43Z

And now for my Christmas card list. I still haven't made the design so hopefully I can come up with something but I'm still going to make a list. Some of you I already have your addresses so I'll just go ahead and add you. Some of you are new and if you'd like to get a card respond and I'll add your name to the list. PM me or email me with you address though to keep it private. This will help me keep track of who I need to send to and how many cards to make.

Christmas Cards

roman_pirate ü
silvolf ü
cheezey ü
the_insane_0ne ü
_x_blackroses_x ü
darknessiguana ü
earthmother ü
gootc_me ü
kyence ü
lebongirl ü
lorilynns7 ü
suzidragonlady ü
rhodielady_47 ü
budgie_ ü
kaetarin ü
Alex and Kim ü
In Laws ü
CVersilles
Oceania
Bethesda Studios
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Wish List 2009

2009-11-27T14:18:15Z

Ok it's now officially time for Christmas to begin so I'm going to post my wish list if anyone is feeling generous and wants to send something my way.

* Best Buy gift card
* Home Depot gift card
* Borders or Barnes N Noble gift card
* Ebay Gift card
* Subscription to Birds and Blooms magazine or Birds and Blooms Extra
* Money ( can never go wrong with cash)
* Gift art of my characters if you're an artist
* Auras on DragonAdopters

Ok, that's it really. Pretty much the same list as every year. This time I do have them listed in order of priority and they are all things that I don't mind getting doubles on. In fact if I get doubles or tripples it's great because they'll stack.

EDIT: Oh I just remembered I did want to add something interesting. Those of you on DragonAdopters. Auras would be nice gifts too. I'll be happy to give some as well as some of you have helped out before.
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Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T01:54:55Z

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Hope everyone has a good one. Mine was nice. But before I get to that a little about yesterday. Chris hasn't been happy with his hair because he's got white ones that give him a salt and pepper look. I don't mind one bit but he doesn't want to look older. I don't mind them in myself. I call them white hairs and I've said it before that when I get old I'll let all my hair turn white. But I don't like that he wasn't happy so I'd offered many times to buy hair color and color his hair. He finally accepted and told me he wanted to have brown hair for Thanksgiving to suprise the family. So last night I set him up and colored his hair medium brown. I must say it does look very good. Though I had no trouble with his natural look he does look quite handsome in all brown. He was almost as dark as mine which is a black brown.

We went to his parents house and there were more people there than I expected. I brought my pie for them all to share. The food was traditional and delicious with turkey, ham, yams, cranberry sauce, mashed potatos and gravey, green beans (my favorite!) and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. Chris took pictures and video. And everyone told him his hair looked great. My mother in law gave me a cute bag she sewed with pumpkins on the side. I'll have to post a picture of that soon. And we got tons of left overs to take home. But the funny thing is that several of the women there told me I was too skinny for my age and I need to fatten up. I take that as a compliment but I do find it funny how everyone diets so much and worries about getting thin. But when you are thin people tell you to get fat. My family which is Spanish also does this though they are always lovingly shoving food in your face holidays or not. ALWAYS and they don't understand NO.

Then on the way home we stopped of a Wal-greens for more hair coloring. This time it was my turn. Chris has voiced many times it would be neat to see me in other colors. I always told him I wasn't against dying it to see how it looked if it made him happy. I'd be a little sad to color up my whites but they'll come back. Dies always wash out anyway. So I got a brigh red. My hair is currently drying and I must say I can't wait to see what I look like. In the event it looks terrible I do have a bottle of my natural dark color. But I doubt it. I've never been a red head so this should be interesting. Now as far as blonde goes? Well I'll wear a wig but not color my hair that direction. I'll only do dark colors not lighter. Anyway Chris made a character in Oblivion with bright read hair he thinks is cute. So perhaps I can look like her now hee hee. Yes we role play in real life. Rawr.

It's kind of sad that tomorrow I take down all the window clings and put away all my ceramic and stuffed pumpkins. I'm gonna miss them but it was a great year for pumpkins. I still have two real pumpkins I can use to make something with. I'll have to find some other easy recipies. One is a small pie pumpkin and the other is a white pumpkin. BUT now it is officially Christmas for me. I think I shall post my wishlist and card list tomorrow. OH speaking of cards. Thank you roman_pirate for the Thanksgiving card. I totally hadn't expected that. It was very sweet.

Edit: Oops almost forgot. SeaCatch is in the home streach to 100. He's currently 97. Sea Catch has always been my worst dragon so please give him extra attention. Waiting for 100 always kills me. Grow you stupid dragon!

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Tomorrow's Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T23:46:10Z

The weather today has been crappy. It's been dark, rainy and cold. I usually love our storms. Most are beautiful, but occassionally we'll get one that's ugly or depressing. That's how today's been. I definitely don't like that the temperature is dropping.

Anyway I want to post a quick version about what Thanksgiving is about since I know I have several foregin friends on here. I don't start celebrating Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. It's a day to recognize the trip the Pilgrims made on the ship the Mayflower. They came to America to get away from religious persecution and be able to worship God in freedom. They were able to grow food here and to give thanks to God they had a harvest feast with the Indians that shared their food with them. Some of the foods were Turkey, pumpkins and corn. All of which are native to America and hence a very traditional meal. But it wasn't until much later that it was officially made into a national holiday.

This is a nice little article about Turkey and Thanksgiving facts you may not know. Being the bird lover that I am I did already know all this stuff but it was interesting to see it put this way. I'm going to paste the article behind the cut.

The average American eats 17.6 pounds of turkey per year, more than double the figure for 1970, according to the National Turkey Federation. To feed the growing appetite, some 273 million turkeys will be raised in the United States in 2009, and a good number of them will be consumed on Thanksgiving, after which many Americans will loll about, overstuffed, sleepy and in many cases intoxicated.

This is not what the Pilgrims had in mind.

The first Thanksgiving was a moment for the Pilgrims to thank God for allowing them to kill enough game and grow sufficient crops to get through the winter, says Anne Blue Wills, assistant professor of religion at Davidson College. Those Pilgrims would have spent much of their day in church contemplating the mercies of God's covenantal love, Wills argues.

Not until Sarah Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine promoted for 50 years the idea of a regular Thanksgiving holiday did President Abraham Lincoln make it one in 1863. In the years since, the turkeys we eat have changed dramatically, and so has scientific knowledge of them. Among the things you might not know:

1. Turkeys Can Fly
Wild turkeys feed on the ground, which might explain the myth of their flightlessness. They can in fact soar for short bursts at up to 55 mph. But their tendency to stay on or near the ground contributed to successful hunting that brought the wild population of turkeys down to about 30,000 in the 1930s. There are now 7 million of them.

2. Dark Meat is Rare Because ...
Meat is muscle. And muscle is fed by blood. In the blood is myoglobin, which binds with oxygen and stores it in muscles for when it's needed. Myoglobin also makes meat dark. Muscles that are used most, like those in drumsticks (legs), have more myoglobin. Domestic turkeys are too fat to fly, so they don't use their breast muscles much, which is why breast meat is white. The breast of a wild turkey is entirely different, darker (and far tastier for those who are game).

3. Turkey Eggs Wouldn't Sell
Chickens are champion egg-producers. Turkeys, not so good. Turkey eggs are bigger, so their nests tie up coop space. And farmers have learned that they make more raising turkeys for meat rather than eggs. Oh, and some turkeys are protective of their eggs, making the gathering more challenging.

4. It's Not the Turkey That Makes You Sleepy
Turkey contains a natural chemical called tryptophan, which we need to build proteins for our bodies. Indeed, tryptophan is also related to the production of serotonin, which helps us sleep. But all meat has about the same amount of tryptophan. Cheddar cheese has a lot more. What really makes you sleepier after a Thanksgiving meal compared to other meals is eating too many carbohydrates, from potatoes to pies. Alcohol can contribute, too.

5. Dinosaurs Had Wishbones, Too
The wishbone, called a furcula, is the fusion of two collarbones at the sternum. It's where a bird's flying muscles hook up. It's elastic and great for flapping. Turns out T. Rex and the Velociraptor had wishbones, too. While they didn't fly, this fairly recent discovery is one of the many bits of evidence that shows birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Sarah Hale probably never thought about any of this back in the mid-1800s. She just wanted the nation to celebrate a pious, patriotic holiday, said Wills, the Davidson College researcher. Hale used columns and stories in her magazine to portray Thanksgiving as a triumph of domesticity and rural simplicity over urban sophistication. She urged President Lincoln to create a single day on which all states would mark the holiday as a national event.

"The message is that the simple, pure, honest rural life, away from the temptations of the city, puts you in touch with true values," Wills said. "If we can just travel back to the old home place once a year we'll be protected from temptations and evil."

While some of that spirit might remain in the holiday, much indeed has changed about American culture in general and in how people view and partake in the holiday.

"For instance," Wills said, "I don't think football games and making the day after Thanksgiving the biggest shopping day of the year ever crossed her mind."

I made pumpkin pies to take to the dinner tomorrow. For the first time I burned one. I don't know what went wrong as I did everything the same. So I'll keep the bad one and take the good one since people don't need to see that blunder. I'm kind of excited about it. I didn't hear much last year but seems my mother in law is excited about my pie. That makes me happy and really want to share. Tomorrow is also exactly ten years since Joel died. I can't believe it. It doesn't seem that long ago. But I'm no longer bitter about the holiday. He wouldn't have wanted that and I look forward to it again like I did before I lost him. It's a bird day so how could I not like it? Also a pumpkin day. More reasons to keep pumpkins around past Halloween. And it's patriotic.

Yesterday we had another hawk attack. My birds avoided him perfectly. But upon returning I miscounted. I thought everyone was back and closed the landing board. Usually after an attack my birds stay out a few hours because they're too scared to return. Well one of my pidgies didn't come back. The poor thing was under the roof of the loft. She must have slept out there all night. And it rained and she was hungry. Poor thing. I let her in and fed her extra. What a crappy day for her. Gets attacked by a hawk then locked out of the loft for a day. But everyone's fed and accounted for now.
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