1. I loved today's Wondermark. Don't miss the mouseover!

2. I also loved this super cute picture of a puppy!

3. And this capcha fail.

4. The past few days I've been really good about working on transferring lyrics from my old site to my new site (if you're new to my journal, I've been moving stuff from this old site to this new wiki-based site) and today I decided to compare and see how much I still have left to go...only 350 romaji and 250 translations! And that's all from eight artists + the Digimon lyrics (which were separate, but are now just going to be mixed in because if people want to search just for Digimon, there are category tags). I really feel like I might get this done someday! After over two years of this, it was just feeling like no matter how much I worked on it, it was never going to get done. I think (hope) seeing the light at the end of the tunnel will help keep me on track with working on it every day.

5. I also did other productive stuff yesterday! Always something to be happy about.

1. The Weekly Jump stuff seems to be coming earlier and earlier. I already did One Piece last night as usual, and did Bleach and Naruto early this morning. I have started Bakuman as well, but they said it wasn't as much of a hurry, so I could go to sleep and do it when I wake up, which is good, because I'm kind of falling asleep here. XD But it's still nice to have almost all of that out of the way.

2. I was productive in other areas last night, too! I finished reading my 60th book of the year! (Wow, compared to twenty books last year, and eleven the year before!) I translated two very short doujinshi, half of a one-shot, and a couple pages of Saint Young Men. I wish I'd gotten more done, but I was also traslating the Jump stuff as well, so.

3. We had super delicious grilled chicken and rice last night. OMG it is the best evar.

1. I had one of the best doughnuts I've ever had last night. It was a glazed buttermilk bar. Still warm. Soft and moist on the inside. Crispy on the outside. OMG. Seriously. Best thing ever.

2. It was really foggy last night. I loved it. It's still kind of foggy and overcast now, too. :)

3. I got stuff done last night!

1. I have now read 59 books this year! (And am almost done with While I still don't think I can make 75, I think I will be able to make 70. I have a stack of short books here on my desk to choose from.

2. Including the $150ish we already had set aside, we've now reached $450 towards Carla's new computer (over halfway!), thanks to the CD sales. :D We should get the balance of the financial aid money this week, so we can put in a little from that, and then a little every week from whatever I make, and I think we'll definitely have enough saved up to get it by Christmas.

Had a fun day yesterday. We took the bus over to Alexander's to help him move some furniture and stopped at Togo's on the way. There are no Togo's anywhere near us anymore so I haven't been there in years, but last time we were over by him we saw one on the corner of Normandie and Wilshire. They still have my favorite turkey cranberry sandwich, too! The one we used to go to was the one down by Fry's in Manhattan Beach, and before that one closed they stopped selling the turkey cranberry, so I thought it was just off the Togo's menu altogether, but apparently it was just that store. So delicious om nom nom.

1. I got these Blueberry Muffin Pop Tarts at the store yesterday and omg they are so good. They actually do taste like blueberry muffins, not just blueberry Pop Tarts.

2. I dislike daylight savings and don't understand the point of it, but I'm glad to get an extra hour, especially since we're going out and doing stuff later today.

3. I've sold quite a few CDs from my most recent sales post, and had requests for even more. We're hoping to make enough to buy Carla a new computer for Christmas. She sold her Mac Book and has been getting by on my old laptop (which after some very weird shenanigans, seems to be working okay again for the moment), but is increasingly frustrated with having to use Windows all the time. So we're trying to save up for a Mac Mini.

I...really can't figure out where yesterday went? But I somehow did manage to get some stuff done, so yay for that.

Also I meant to put this in yesterday's post, but forgot. Our heater magically started working again! We have a wall heater out in the living room and we rarely used it because we don't spend much time out there. But a couple years ago it just stopped working altogether. The pilot light was still on, but adjusting the little thermostat dial did nothing. So I figured oh well, don't use it much anyway, and figured it was dead for good. But then last night it just magically came on all by itself. I didn't even touch it. It just fell below the temp that it showed on the thermostat (which was the same temp it had been left on these past couple years) and popped on. So now if we're out there and want to use it, we can!

1. The yuletide mods are having an amnesty this year, so anyone who defaulted and was banned in previous years can participate! That means me! :D I'm pretty excited about it.

2. Alexander came over for dinner last night, which would normally not be good for me on a Thursday, since I have Jump translations to do, but I got Bleach and Naruto out of the way in the early afternoon, and Bakuman didn't come in until like eleven last night, so it all worked out. :D

3. I was really productive yesterday, despite it being Jump day (which often means I don't get much else done besides those) and having Alexander over.

4. My mom said I could borrow her car to pick Erin up from the airport when she comes to visit.

1. Still nice and cold yesterday. I love this weather!

2. I got my paper done for yoga* yesterday and it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought it would be. The first paper was one of those where I could barely think of anything to say and didn't meet the minimum length requirement at all. But this one I was able to easily get two pages without putting much of any thought into it. (I'm horrible at writing papers, so that is really rare and amazing for me.)

3. Pretty productive day! Not only did I get the paper done, but I also got a good chunk of translation stuff done.

4. I've been on a caramel apple kick lately. Carla introduced me to these caramel wraps. Ralphs has them in a package of five for $1.50, so they're pretty cheap. They're thin circles of caramel and you just wrap an apple in one and stick it in the oven for five minutes, then let it cool off and eat it. Not the healthiest food ever, but as a replacement for a less healthy snack or dessert, it's not bad. It's mostly apple, after all.

5. ???

I was going to say something else and then I got distracted and forgot. D:









*Yes, I'm taking a yoga class that has tests and homework assignments. It's because we're taking it at the college. But it's so much cheaper** there it's worth it.

**Because we're low-income, we don't have to pay the per-unit fee (which would only be $26, since it's a one-unit class, but still), just the general enrollment fees, which come to like $46. That's for an 18-week class that meets two times a week. Plus I get an SMC ID that lets me take the Santa Monica bus anywhere, anytime for free for the whole semester. I took a look at a class offered through the city and it was $75 for a class that was like 8 or 10 weeks and met once a week. I'm sure private studios are even more expensive.

It was sooooooo overcast and windy yesterday. Of course posting about it will make sure it's bright and sunny today, but I can't help it! I love the fall weather. The wind made it a little dry, and I got grit in my eyes when we were out running errands, but still. So nice and autumny!

Also I was pretty productive yesterday. :D

One of the last times we were at Trader Joe's they had samples of super delicious rosemary ham and cilantro jalapeño hummus in a wrap. The rosemary ham was too expensive, but the hummus was fairly cheap, so I got some for myself (Carla doesn't like cilantro, so it's mine, all mine!) and have been eating it with Wheat Thins. It's soooooo good. I think I'll have to get some more next time we're there.

Also the last time we were there, they had this cheese called (I think) "frying cheese". I got some out of curiosity and the vague unspoken hope that it might be similar to paneer and...it is! In fact, I'm really not sure why they're not just calling it that. They were carrying paneer several years ago and then, as happens with all things I like at TJ's, they suddenly stopped. Obviously I could buy some at an Indian market, but I don't know of any that are really close or convenient, so I've just given up. But now! I will definitely be buying more of this. :D

And in completely unrelated news, there's a new Discworld book out! I had no idea.

1. I sold some CDs yesterday! We still have hundreds left, but still. Every little bit helps.

2. After a really unproductive week, I managed to get quite a bit done over the weekend. Maybe not as much as I'd hoped, but better than I had been doing. I hope this coming week will continue to improve in that regard.

Um...I finally got enough monies to buy the invincibility option in Lego Star Wars? XD

I didn't had a very productive day yesterday, even though I meant to be really productive and get a lot done. I don't know where all the time went (I didn't even play Lego SW that much!). It seems like the whole week has been like that.

I hope today's better.

Oh, and saying_yes_2010 looks like a cool fest. It's not happening til January, though.

1. Got my Jump scans early again this week (that's three weeks in a row) and was done by 5pm, which is an hour earlier than I would usually be getting started (assuming they got them to me on time). I'm really enjoying getting them done early. Then we can take a walk afterwards or whatever and there's no pressure to be back before a certain time.

2. We have a vocab quiz for yoga on Monday (I like the fact that taking it at the college is cheap, but I don't like the fact that it means it's an actual class with homework and quizzes and stuff in addition to the exercise!) and I was worried I wouldn't do well, but I've been going through the flashcards I made and consistently getting all but four or five of them correct (there are 36 total, I think).

3. That heat spell we had last week only lasted a couple days and it's been back to nice fall weather. Yesterday it was nice and overcast when we went out for our walk (though still a bit muggy). I'm hoping it rains again soon.

4. I finally got the final mini-kit piece in Lego Star Wars Episode I level 5. It was so stupid. When I first played through it in story mode, I was able to shoot this window open, but I couldn't seem to jump high enough as a Jedi, so I assumed I'd have to come back as Jar Jar. But then when Carla played it, she was able to jump in, so I guess it was just the wonky controls I have grown to expect from this game. Anyway, so I came back in free play mode and...now Padme couldn't seem to shoot at the window. No matter where I stood, she refused to shoot at it. Anywhere but! I played through the level a couple times and each time, no luck. So finally I played again in story mode (blah) and this time Panaka was able to shoot it and then I could jump in as a Jedi. Gah! Such a pain! Still, I did finally get it, so yay.

1. Erin emailed me to let me know what dates she was going to be out here over Thanksgiving. I'm excited about seeing her. She hasn't been out here in almost three years! D:

2. I am definitely going to be working with a group to scanlate IS~Otoko Demo Onna Demo Nai Sei~. They're starting with vol. 9, since 1-8 were already done by another group, and I think my translation will be starting with chapter 3 of vol. 9, as they already had a couple chapters done.

3. Speaking of scanlations, I finally got off my ass and worked some more on Saint Young Men last night. I wish I wouldn't drag my feet so much on that one. :-/ (And I really need to remember that one page a day, or even part of a page a day, is better than no pages a day. It does no good to think I need to set aside a huge chunk of time, and then if I don't have the time, to not do it at all, which is usually what happens.)

4. I made brownies last night and tossed in a bag of Reese's peanut butter chips. They turned out really good!

1. I used my new iPod for the first time today. Carla is maybe kinda coming down with a cold, so she didn't feel like going out when I went to the store. Normally when the two of us take a walk together, we don't take our mp3 players, but since I was going alone, I had a chance to use mine. I still haven't filled it up all the way (trying to decide what to put on it is hard!), but I had more than enough to listen to.

2. I have now beaten story mode on both Lego Star Wars I and II. After playing the original Lego SW, I realise I was totally unfair to II. It may have clunky controls and bad camera angles and all that, but wow, it is a vast improvement over the original. Especially the camera. I didn't think the camera could be worse, but it is. A lot. Really, really a lot. The flying levels are also even more frustrating, since they are all autoscroll, my old nemesis. Also they have checkpoints, so when you die, you don't start where you are, but go back to the beginning of the section. I also don't like that you can't see that you can Force something unless you are a Jedi. I like in II that you can easily see when you need to switch characters (or come back with someone later). There's also a hell of a lot less stuff to smash. I like the smashing! But still, it's fun and I enjoyed it a lot. Now time for free play! (I've done a lot of free play on II as well, and need to get back to that, too.)

1. I got my new (to me) iPod in the mail yesterday! A few weeks ago helens78 offered me her old iPod when she got a new one, but she's been sick since then and not had a chance to go to the post office, so I had just put it out of my mind for a while. But then I got an email on Friday saying it had shipped, and there it was today! :D Thank you again!

It's an 8GB Nano, one of the older ones that can't play video, but still, it's a huge improvement over what I had, which was a 1GB Creative Zen (also a hand-me-down, which was in turn a vast improvement over my previous 128MB player). 1GB is actually plenty for me, but I do like the idea of having more space, and I really like the ability to have playlists and actually choose what I want to listen to at any given time.

Anyway, speaking of the 1GB player, does anyone want it? It's free to a good home.

The battery cover is broken (it takes one AAA battery), but it has a protective sleeve (with clip), so I just keep it in that to hold the battery cover on. It has a screen that shows what's playing, but there are no options to control what order you listen to stuff in (except for a fast-forward/rewind button). It just plays it in alphabetical order from the beginning, though thankfully it remembers your place, even when you turn it off. (My old player started from the beginning every time, so I was always hearing the same five songs...) You can just drag and drop files onto it, no need for any special programs. Comes with a USB cord, but no headphones.

2. The other exciting thing yesterday was the Decemberists! We saw them at UCLA's Royce Hall, where I had had several classes when I was a student, but I had never been in the concert hall itself. (It's really nice!) They played The Hazards of Love straight through in its entirety, and then a second set of like nine or ten older songs after an intermission. I'll write it up more completely in a separate post, but basically it was really awesome.

1. Got some delicious homemade nut brittle yesterday from this arts fair they had up by the farmers' market. One was a granola brittle and the other was pistachio. Om nom nom.

2. Yummy thai dinner with Alexander and a couple of his friends. This is an especially happy point, because Carla went out for the first time in a skirt and blouse.

3. I borrowed the graphic novel of V for Vendetta from Alexander while we were over at his place and so far it's really good. I'd been vaguely curious about it since the movie (which I haven't seen yet) came out, but never got around to actually doing anything about it. Can't say I like the art (no surprise as I don't like most western "realistically"-drawn comics) or coloring (there dark and then there's "I can't tell what the hell is going on"), but I'm liking the story.

4. Today I can stay home and do nothing and not have to see any people! I used up the rest of the month's worth of socialising over the past couple days, that's for sure.

We had a really nice night with Alexander last night. He came over for dinner (porter house steaks and tri-tip on the grill, with edamame and grilled onions and hard cider (surprisingly tasty considering I'm not a huge fan of either apple juice or alcohol), plus ice cream for dessert) and stayed the whole night...literally. He ended up staying so long, he just crashed on our couch.

Today we had been planning on taking the bus down to Target (to return a pair of headphones bought like six weeks ago...yay for Target's 90-day return policy) and then on down to Book Off, which would have been a day-long ordeal (and one I was looking forward to even less than usual considering the hot, hot weather we've been having). But since he was still here, he offered to take us!

So we went to Target and Book Off, and I got the first Lego Star Wars at Book Off! It was $19 and I had been eyeing it used on Amazon (it's out of print) and including shipping, it would have come to about the same price, so I figured might as well. I'm still annoyed that there's no Lego SW Complete for PS2, but oh well. At least now I have them both. I'm happy Carla has been playing it a lot lately, too (both with me and on her own). I got her sucked in! (She is actually the reason we had Lego SW II in the first place, because she'd been obsessed with the first one ages ago for the Mac, and I got II for her for Christmas, but then her enthusiasm kind of waned and so it just sat there because neither of us were really playing games much for a while.)

We also stopped at Fry's on the way back, just to look. Lots of neat things we have no money for. :p

Oh, and I had a stack of manga to sell at Book Off. 26 volumes, many of which were read once but still mint condition, and they gave me a whopping $5.20. *sigh* Oh well, better than nothing.

Now Alexander is sleeping on our couch again (apparently it's very comfy!) and we're going to go out to dinner with him and some of his friends later on.

1. Had a very productive day yesterday. I found the Jump scans early, so got Naruto, Bleach, and Bakuman all done before 8pm (normally I would not even be getting started until a couple hours before that at most). I also got a doujinshi done.

2. I found raw scans of IS~Otoko Demo Onna Demo Nai Sei~! I have all the manga myself, but I had been wanting to pick up the scanlation as it had been abandoned a couple years ago after eight volumes. But seeing as we don't have a scanner right now, I had just set the idea aside for the moment. But when I went to Baka Updates to check and see if anyone had picked it up since I last looked, I found that someone had. But they are looking for a translator, so I emailed them and hopefully will hear back soon about that. I'd really love for it to get a good translation.

3. Since I finished work early last night, we were able to take a nice long walk. We went to Trader Joe's, Nijiya, and Ralph's (also stopped at McDonald's for dinner), none of which is really exciting, but we got some groceries and exercise.

4. Last night's SPN was good. I don't feel like making a separate post, so ( spoilers )

And speaking of TV, ( Glee spoilers )

Also because I need new shows to try and keep up with like I need a hole in the head, I've got Flashforward, Modern Family, and Fringe to check out. That's on top of all the other shows on my hard drive... The first two will probably get checked out first, since they're new this season and thus not much to catch up with if I do end up liking them.

1. It rained pretty much all day yesterday again, but thankfully stopped when we had to go out to yoga. I hope it keeps raining (except on Saturday, when we're planning on going out and doing stuff).

2. After refreshing Manga Helpers for many hours, I finally remembered...there's no One Piece this week! So as sad as I am to not have any new One Piece, I was glad I didn't have that to work on last night.

3. Instead of just playing SW and reading, I actually did get other work done. Finished a manga for Kotonoha and translated a bunch of songs for my site, yay. (Only a tiny fraction of what I wanted to get done, but some is better than none!)

It's raining! It's been raining off and on all day, and even this morning before it was raining, it was all gray and overcast and I just love it. I'm so happy to have some nice cool fall weather. And rain. Yay, rain!

Also, Lego Star Wars is so much more fun on the free play than story mode.

Also also, I finally got my lyrics website updated, even though it was a small udpate and I am falling behind on my schedule. I'm still glad I got something posted, including one requested album.

Not too long before I got this laptop, I bought a nice ergonomic mouse. It worked great with my old laptop, which was running XP, but despite being a Microsoft mouse, seems to have had some weird issues with Vista. It worked fine with 90% of the programs I used, but two (two that I use often, iTunes and NoteTab) didn't like the scrollwheel for some reason. If I scrolled really fast, they would move a tiny bit, but it was pretty much unusable on them. But it's a nice mouse and I had just bought it recently and it was only two programs, so I just sucked it up and didn't use the scrollwheel on those.

Then today totally out of the blue it started working just fine. After about a year of having this laptop.

Um...okay!

I'm certainly happy about it, though. (Just hope it doesn't stop working as suddenly as it started.)

I am still completely off-schedule, meh. Anyway!

1. This morning we went to Mitsuwa and whatever the little bookstore there is and while they did not have vol. 17 of IS that I was hoping for, they did have vol. 16 of 7 Seeds, which I didn't even know was out! Woohoo!

2. On the way back, we stopped at Taco Bell and they messed up our order, so they gave us three free tacos. (Also Taco Bell for lunch is a happy all on its own. Mmm...volcano tacos...)

3. I made super delicious enchiladas for dinner tonight. They take a lot of work so I really don't make them very often (in fact, I think I've only made them a couple times total), but they are sooooo good.

4. We got our refund checks from the college in the mail today (we had paid for a couple classes before the financial aid stuff went through and it takes 45 days from the beginning of the semester for them to send out refunds). $120! This won't pay all the bills that need paying right now, but it will pay two of them, so I only have to take money from savings for the third.

5. Our shower is working a lot better now. It's still pretty crap, mainly in that it now cannot switch between bath and shower and the knob for that is just kind of loosely sitting on. But! It no longer has a constant stream coming out even when it's turned off, and when you take a shower, the water actually comes out the showerhead instead of over half of it coming out the faucet.

6. Friday we stopped at the little British import shop we discovered recently and I got a big tub of Maynards wine gums marked down to $7.98. Still pricey but way cheaper than buying the bag or the roll. They were marked down because they're past the expiration, and they're definitely tougher than usual, but I don't care. So delicious omg.

7. As we were walking back from the bank yesterday (had to deposit the refund checks!), we passed a bunch of stuff that was marked free to take. Most of it was junk, but there were a couple of boxes of books. Carla got several and I got three that I wasn't sure if I had or not (I've got so much stuff from BookMooch, I can't keep track of what I have and don't). Turns out I did have one of them, but I just put it up on BookMooch and there were like 60 people who had it wishlisted, so it got snatched up right away.

1. Because I was off my sleep schedule and exhausted after having my mom over all day Wednesday, I slept from midnight to 10.30 that night. It turned out to be a really good decision, because the Jump scans came in early. I got Bleach before noon, I think, and did Naruto and Bakuman in the afternoon/evening. So yay for getting stuff done early, and yay for being awake to get it done early.

2. I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I submitted a story to BetterSex.com and it got accepted to their contest.

Your story will appear on BetterSex.com on Monday January 4th competing against two other erotic stories for community votes. Voting concludes the following Monday morning when we publish stories for the next week. The story with the most votes will become a Weekly Winner, earn $100, be included in our book and be in the semifinals.