Royal Flush

My sister has me reading her Sookie Stackhouse books. Since I absolutely refused to so much as touch her copy of Twilight, she said I should at least try the Sookie books. They're not bad. Not the best book I've ever read but they're so much better than Twilight and I'm only about 80 pages in. The vampires are traditional; they can't go out in sunlight, are allergic to garlic and silver, can have sex but can't reproduce, so on and so on. The usual. There's none of that Twilight "vampire" bullshit. I'm so fucking glad, because I probably would have thrown the book if there had been.

http://www.studentaffairs.odu.edu/housing/communities/first_year/greshamfloorplans.shtml

That's what my dorm looks like. There's a convenience store in the building and "laundry facilities." DID I HIT THE DORM JACKPOT OR FUCKING WHAT.

I woke up this morning to a call from my mom. She said that I didn't have to go to ODU, and that I should check out Southern Vermont College and Bennington College. Bennington has more of what I want, and I would go if it wasn't too goddamn expensive for me. Being technically out of state, I'd have to pay out the ass. However... Mom says she might be moving back up here. If she does that, it wouldn't be too hard for me to get in. She said she'd be okay with me just taking a couple of classes at the local community college until I could get in for the spring semester, but I dunno. Apparently Bennington is an amazing college. I'd miss Virginia for sure, but I don't know. Hey, you guys that live in VA- You'd come visit right? I'll take you to Ben and Jerry's! It's actually quite nice here. Dia, I think you'd like to visit the graveyard. It's beautiful out here.

Today, we went to the mall. We wandered for a bit, and ate at Ruby Tuesday. We went a lot of places and I was supremely bored in most of the shops the girls wanted to go to. I got all excited and nerdy when I saw that they had a Border's, since I'd never been in one. What started as me taking Emilie and Kaity in with me so they could look around led to all of us in the store! I ended up buying Blood+ vol. 3 Boy Meets Girl, Vampire Hunter D vol. 2 Raiser of Gales, and Blood+ Adagio vol. 1. It came to about $24, which impressed me. Then again, I've been into the light novels lately and they're usually about two dollars cheaper.

And then we went to Best Buy! I was so excited to be seriously looking at laptops. I found a good one for cheaper than one I had previously looked at, and after calling Mom and enduring much bitching from her, I bought it. It's quite nice. It's a Toshiba with a design on it so it's easier to identify as mine. It was the only one in the store that came with Microsoft Office that wasn't a trial version. It's Home and Student, so it has everything I need. I named it Hagi, since I've been on a Blood+ kick lately. And since it's supposed to always be by my side, much like a Chevalier, I thought it would be appropriate.

After we were done at the mall, we went to get ice cream. I forget the name of the place but it was the best ice cream I've ever had. And it's not a chain, so you'd have to go to New York to get it.

After ice cream, we had to stop at a Wal-Mart for snacks and stuff. Holly's husband George broke down while we were there and ended up buying a Blu-Ray, then bitching about not being able to agree on a movie. We ended up buying Knowing at a K-Mart in Bennington on the way home! I wanna go to BlockBuster and see if they have AC:Complete! It'd be so damn awesome.

I really should get to sleep soon, but Bleach is on. It's the episode where Hitsugaya helps Karin's soccer team win against some douchebag older kids. And you know, I love the short, angry bastard.

Today, I actually left the house. Keri invited me, Amber, Kaity, and Emilie to go with her, Riley, Thyra, her sister's little girl Blair and Corey to her aunt's house to swim in her pool. It was really cold, but I felt much better after taking a quick swim, since it was actually kind of hot today. When we got back to Keri's, I played with her cats. She's got this white demon cat named Conker(pooneran) and a Maine Coon named Dr. Gonzo that used to be/sort of still is my brother Derek's cat. I kept joking about taking Gonz home with me, but I think mom would eat me. He's such a nice cat. A garbage disposal, but a good kitty.

I then came home and laid around playing computer games. Holly and her crew went to some barbaque with people I don't know and kids too young for me to talk to, so I stayed here. I made myself mac 'n cheese with octopus hot dogs for dinner.

Anyway, I've been cleaning up all week with Amber. Kaity and Emilie like to make messes and not clean up, so when they go to day-camp/summer school three times a week, Amber and I take te opportunity to clean the house and have some quiet time. They also like to bitch and moan and start pointless fucking fights between themselves. They're putting me off children.

Tomorrow, Amber and I are getting up early (super-fucking, ass-crack-of-dawn early) to go down to Holly's office and file for her. I'm not entirely sure why. I've just learned to not ask questions and do as I'm told when it comes to my family. After that, we're going to the mall, since it's apparently going to be rainy. We might go see Transformers in the evening, since pretty much everyone wants to see it.

Last night I was watching TV and saw something about Battlestar Galactica and finally thought "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHOW ABOUT. I'M LOOKING IT UP." So I did. There's this character named Zak who's a fighter pilot. Which directly led to Zack Fair being a fighter pilot. Which led to (I have no idea how, other than that I read Candidate for Goddess as a kid) Cloud being his mechanic. Because he's tiny, and that's what the military looks for in mechanics. They have to get in tight places, I seen it.

And no, I wasn't on any drugs. Except those legal ones from my doctor.

So ODU's martial arts program added me to their friends on Facebook. I checked out the profile and found this picture. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=1820420757#/photo.php?pid=22085&id=1820420757

They're wearing hakama. Iz Azn. But it excites me because I've always wanted to own/wear a pair. I've had this daydream for years (since I started reading manga XD) about being an archer and wearing hakama and all that. I'm such a huge dork.

And about my hair... My mom keeps bugging me to stop dying it at all. I've thought about it and it comes down to cosplay, of all things. Question is: Do I let it gradually grow out and dye it kinda auburny when the blond under it starts to show (I had to, or all the blue wouldn't come out for graduation) and be all BAMF!Turk!Vincent, or do I go back to blue and be all BAMF!Literatureasskicker!Zexion? Because they're both BAMF, and I have the hair style for either.

DISCUSS PLZ

So I had nothing better to do today so I got on the Kingdom Hearts Wiki. I eventually wound up on the Terra page, since I'm really curious about Birth By Sleep. His page said that he has hair similar to Xemnas' and that there could be some kind of a connection. It went on to say that he also bares striking resemblance to Zack. I lean toward him having a connection to Zack, but it's looking more and more like he's connected to our dear Mansex. Of course, either way is fine. I'm just a huge Zack fan. Dia told me once that I'm a "Zack dork." And I'm convinced that Ven(tus) has something to do with Sora and Roxas. I'm not sure what Aqua's connection is, but I feel for her. Surrounded by (pretty) homos.

DISCUSS MY NERDY FRIENDS.

So I made it to Vermont safely! There's terrible service here, though, so I haven't been using my phone. It's kind of weird...

Anyway, I survived camping with Holly and her family. The campgrounds they go to have lots of activities so it's not as bad as I thought. A lot of campers also hook up to electricity and cable these days so we had TV and stuff too. Which was good cause it rained. We played Bingo (I won!) and Candy Bar Bingo, and there was other neat stuff to do. And they had a dance on Saturday. I went to do something and watch my family make idiots of themselves. We expected more MJ, but they only played Beat It. And damnit, I wasn't wearing my fedora at the time. Holly's friend Heather suggested that the next time we go camping we have Michael Jackson Tribute Weekend. Come to find out, the next time we're going camping, the camp ground we're going to is having their Halloween Weekend. It was pretty unanimous that we'd do Thriller. They have a contest for best decorated campsite, so I suggested we do our's up like the movie theater from Thriller. We're nerds.

Alright kids. I'm off to Vermont in the morning. I'm not looking forward to the travel or the camping, but it'll be nice to be there again. I wonder how much has changed? I'll have my camera, so I'll try and put some pictures up if/when I can.

Mom was naggy all day about having my shit packed. I'd already made a list of stuff I needed/wanted so I knew what to pack. I did get to bring my PS2 after my mom's worries and bitchery. I padded it with clothes, so it should be okay. I brought some books and games and DVDs too. And lots of paperwork for college crap to be done at Holly's. Ugh.

Oh god and she just got a new dog this winter. A Yorkie. A rat dog. Well, I guess I'd rather have a dog that weighs as much as a game system if it's fat laying on me than one of the beasts.

Speaking of game systems, Mom finally bought the adapter for our Xbox 360 today. Today. Which means I didn't get to play with Xbox Live much. I know I'll come back to a shitton of downloads for Rock Band. She's fucking addicted.

I found out this morning when I'm leaving for Vermont. My sister had mentioned that she didn't have anyone to watch her daughters this summer and I said I'd do it for her, since I hadn't been up there in so long and I have nothing better to do. Mom woke me up at like, 9:30 to tell me that my plane leaves Norfolk at 6:55 on Thursday morning. There's a stop in Baltimore for 20 minutes (enough time for me to get lost and not be able to eat a fucking thing and worry about missing my flight and being stuck in a city I know nothing about except Hairspray happened there and the people eat crabs and I hate crabs.) before continuing on to Albany. There my dad (the one who bothered coming to graduation) will pick me up. The ride back to Bennington is about an hour and a half, two hours, so I'll be in town around 11 AM, should everything go as planned. Dad will drop me at the law offices Holly works at, and then later she'll take me to her house on the mountain. From there I'll switch out a few things in my bag and then we're going camping with a good chunk of my family for the weekend. Fucking wonderful. Em and Dia BOTH laughed when I told them I'm going to be camping. Apparently the idea of me in nature amuses them. I've camped before. But then I was eight, the Internet wasn't as awesome, and I was in a forest.

So yeah. I'll get around to talking about AMA soon. I'm waiting on more awesome on YouTube before I do. And I'm thinking about dying my hair blue again. I've lost some weight somehow in the past six months and after playing RE:CoM, I kind of want to cosplay Zexion again. I did twice before, and apparently I do it quite well. I did on the last day of AMA 08 for the Giant Robot Battle and then again at school for Superhero Day. I was a supervillian. >3 The only problem is that the coats are goddamn hot.

Maybe I should bring my PS2 to Holly's... I don't think I can go a month or so without PlayStation-san. Yes, I named it PlayStation-san. So I can yell at it when it's a whore.

I'm abusing my YouTube Downloader. It's become one of my favorite toys lately. I was uploading a video from AMA and thought "huh, bet I could yoink that one vid and fix it up, since the audio got taken out." So I yoinked it. And I'll be getting to fixing it soon. But I'm also downloading and playing with other things. I got that video of Yuri Lowenthal being all "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!" to play with. If I can find clips, I'm totally making a stupid AMV thing with it. Definintely some Yosuke, probably some Luke and Asch. Ryoji... doesn't get angry enough. Maybe Minato or the Nyx Avatar then. XD

I was looking Guren Lagann because Kamina was running around AMA and being fucking awesome. (hopefully I can find clips to include when I get around to talking about AMA) This is what I found. I love Yuri Lowenthal.

Well kids, I'm off! I'm going to bed early so I can be up bright and fucking early to get my ass down to the center for AMA. I'll see you all Sunday afternoon!

So as I was about to edit that last entry to include painkillers in case of a massive headache, Internet Explorer sent my an error message. Usually, it would shut down and I'd be all RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE. But I have IE8 now, and I'm totally loving it. Because it didn't shut down. It recovered the page for me. This little box popped up to tell me "This page has been recovered" and reloaded the page with everything on it! How fucking cool is that?

So, with AMA starting this Friday, I've started making preparations. This year I'll be on my own pretty much. I'll be at the hotel (this one - http://www.ramada.com/Ramada/control/Booking/property_info?propertyId=15084) this year, so I won't have to call up Mom at three AM or worry about waking her up coming in. And it's so much easier to just walk across the street, you know? The hotel provides breakfast, too, so that's one thing off the list to worry about and one less thing to spend money on.

Speaking of, I'll also be spending my own this year. Mom says she'll put $100 back in my account when she can, but after that $100, I'm on my own. So I can't spend too much so I can still get my laptop. I'm not worried about the accessories, I don't need any. Mom's laptop's pretty much dead, so she said I can have her bag. We have an extra mouse, but I'm not worried about that either. I can work the pad pretty well, so I'll be okay.

Before AMA, I need to dye my hair again, for starters. I've been washing it like a normal person does, and the blond underneath is starting to really show so it's gotta be fixed. I'm not running around with thousands of people seeing me blond. And you know, Yosuke doesn't have blond hair. As for the costume, Yasogami's summer uniform (true to my suspicions, it will be FUCKING HOT this weekend, so that's the best way to go) is just a button up and black pants, so I'll just pick that up with my hair dye.

I've started making a list of things I'll need or think I'm going to need so I don't forget anything. I'm thinking I could just use some of the stuff Holly gave me for soap and such. (She bought me this bigass plastic tote and filled it with toiletries and other things to do with clean for college) There's a lot in there, so I should still have plenty if I dip in a little for this.

( Here's the list! )

I was fucking around on YouTube today, (that seems to seriously be all I do lately, I swear) and found about something awesome. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Genderbend Fan Project. Which has some Japanese name I totally fucking forgot but it's still fucking amazing. I mean, genderswaps/bends are only my favorite thing evar. (I think at least half of the P4 kink meme's swap requests are mine XD) And it's epic! Fans are taking the novels and everything and rewritting/animating them. For giggles. And there's this really fucking amazing consensus on what the characters become when they're swapped! Like, nearly everyone agrees on names and appearances and other changes. It's so cool to see a fandom work together like that! The only thing people seem to have trouble with is what to put in Haruki's hair, since Haruhi has that ribbon. It's down to goggles, headphones, and a yellow headband at this point. I'm torn between goggles and headphones myself. And Ryou (who used to be Ryoko)... he reminds me of Zack, or maybe Gin the werewolf from Rosario Vampire. In other words, I find him attractive. XD IT'S ALWAYS THE ONES WHO WANT TO KILL YOU/END UP DEAD THAT I LIKE. WHY IS THIS.

Holly, her kids, and Derek finally left today. I might go up and spend some time over the summer with them. It gets fucking hot here and I haven't been up in a long long time. And hopefully I'll be getting my laptop next week! After graduation I ended up with more than enough to buy a good laptop. The guy at Best Buy (who also attends ODU, ironically) reccommended this really nice Toshiba as opposed to a Lenovo from ODU, and it outdoes the Lenovo on many levels. Including having a way lower price.

Anyway, I'm going to enjoy having my bed to myself again and get some sleep. Maybe I'll get around to talking about my week and all that soon. Right now I have a bed calling my name.

I finally graduated last night. I had to be there two hours before my family and was really worried about them showing up on time. There'd been a storm and there was tree down only road to the venue. They made it just in time, thankfully. Except, surprise surprise, my father never showed up. Dad did though. As he left this afternoon, he told me that he wouldn't have missed it for the world. That really made up for it, but I'm still really angry that he promised to be there and we saved a ticket for him. I could have given that to someone who needed it.

I got sunburned. :(