Persistence of Memory

Napping on Bane's chair cushion. You can just barely see the eye infection. And I don't think she appreciated it when the flash went off. Either way, she has a gorgeous little face.

Bane took a few swipes at her earlier, but that was when she was on the floor playing with a mousie. She mostly ignored him, which is an excellent tactic.



Ahem. Ignore the painters tape. This room is not yet completely painted.

Christ almighty. I love and hate Sims 3. Sims 2 was bad enough with the odd random crashing, but Sims 3 takes it to a whole new level. I have discarded so many saves so far it's just not amusing at all. And my latest one, in Starlight Shores, seems to be corrupt. It's crashed in approximately the same place multiple times now since around 11.30 last night.

Maybe I should take him to China again? Maybe that would break the cycle. Hopefully. Please?

And yes, it really is difficult to play Sims 2 after having spent some time with 3. Build mode goodies aside, it's strange not having traits, moodlets, and the ability to wander anywhere at whim. I play Sims 2 and keep thinking, "Why hasn't one of them gained a stir crazy moodlet yet after not leaving the home lot in days? Oh yeah... duuuuur."

Doesn't mean I won't play Sims 2 any more. Maybe I finally will do a legacy. For real. Or an apocalypse with pre-Pets rules. Because really, the rules past that point (and I am in no way fond of the Pets additions to the rules) are just flat out insane. (I know, I trashed the last attempt, but at least I had a good game plan for it.)

So, yeah.

At around 10pm I finally realize why I've been yawning fit to break my jaw... I woke up between 2 and 3am that day, so no wonder. It still takes me two hours to actually wander into the bedroom with the intent to sleep, though. I haul in a squeaking kitten and the pet bed (placed in the corner, next to my current-temporary bedside table), plunk them both down, and hop into bed.

Next thing I know ... *scrabble* I freeze, then slowly look behind me. Yeah, fluffy thing on my six. I do some weird cross between a giggle and a snort, pick her up, and carry her out with me to the living room, where Rick is watching TV, and tell him to "be very careful when you come to bed" and why. And back we go to the bedroom.

A short time later I hear it again. *scrabble* Yep, she's there again. And then I conked out, apparently, only to wake up at around 3.20-ish (gawd!). I'm now facing the other way and the kitten is curled up in my armpit. Well, okay. Somehow I failed to be surprised at either getting so very little sleep or her position.

Meanwhile, Shadow spent most of the day being cautiously curious, and Bane, well, he sulked a lot, usually while curled up in the laundry basket on my dresser. Pathetic little sod.

(Also posted at Facebook.)

Haven't even had her a day and she's already attracted to plastic. Hrm. And naturally, because I'll be the one at home with her every day, any psychotic behavior will be my "fault", absolving Rick of any responsibility when it comes to picking a whacko cat to add to our other two.

So, pictures. Not very good ones, I admit. She does have a beautiful face, but right now I don't dare get that angle due to the eye infection. Makes her look creepy as hell.

( Three Pictures )

Current potential name: Ginger.

So we have a kitten. Approximately 6-7 weeks old, female tortoiseshell. Poor thing has an eye infection, but luckily the vet had a cancellation for ten minutes after Rick brought her in (straight from the house he got her at), so she has some stuff to put in her eyes twice a day and they did the flea/worm treatment. She has to go back on the 29th for her shots, and then later at some point to be snipped.

Shadow reacted exactly as I expected, which is to say... cautious. Bane... well, he poked his nose into the cat carrier and his tail immediately puffed out. Oooo, a threat! And he hisses at her a lot.

No name yet. Gotta wait and see how she acts once she's ready to get off the cat bed we hauled in here (computer room) and nose around. But the first stop will be showing her the litter box, especially since the house she came from they were all outdoor cats.

The only name that comes to mind so far (on my end, anyway) is Mot (mainly short for mottled, but technically it's a real name of a Semitic god). We'll see, right?

And since Rick picked her aaaaaaaaaall by himself, if she turns out to be psychotic I can blame him, which would be a change from him accusing me of evil things when it comes to Shadow and Bane.

I did take a couple of pictures, but... they're kinda dark even with auto-flash. Maybe later.

And we’re back!

So, I’ve been playing Sims 3 today (well, I started last night) and finally figured out why I was getting non-critical core mismatches after updating Awesomemod (it expired). I updated the ruleof6 file, but that wasn’t the problem. And it finally hit me—did I remember to update the patch to 1.33? Naw. So I did that and no more mismatches. Instead, now I get pauses every thirty seconds or so, which is extremely annoying. Yay for those fantastic(ly buggy) patches EA puts out! I so can’t wait for the next one!

Anyway... so I sent my sim off to a SimFest at some cowboy-themed venue. First person up was a singer and Justus rolled a want to heckle, so I happily let him do that. And then it was Justus’s turn up on the stage. He’s a level 10 acrobat, don’t you know. (And by the way, either they screwed something up or performing for tips as an acrobat is the best and fastest way ever!! to get a bazillion friends without even trying. Because Justus has, like, a bazillion friends without even trying, never mind that he knows nothing about any of them and performing for tips still gives no social.)

( So Justus is up on stage when this happens: )

...now we have ceiling fans for the guest and computer room, and a custom blind is being processed for the kitchen (over the sink) window (on sale, even). Curtains are ordered for the living room and kitchen.

And my new driver's license (had to update the address so they made new ones) makes me look very tired and like I just woke up from a night of drinking, which is funny since I almost never drink. My face is kind of puffy looking. :( Eh, whatever. All I'd need in that shot is a plaque from the local police department to make it perfect. Meeheehee.

Rick played the usual game. He just wanted to show me something he "thought I might like" and now disclaims any responsibility for the blind we just ordered. It's one of those cell-shaped ones, if that makes any sense. I went with a neutral beige kind of colour, and cordless (so as not to tempt the damn cats). Not light-blocking, but why would you want that anyway for a sink window? Maybe I'll take a picture once it arrives and is installed.

The guest bedroom fan is par, but the one for in here has lights you can aim, in that vaguely retro bullet-shaped style. If nothing else it will sort of match the light fixtures in the bathrooms in that sense.

Oh, and the placemats I ordered are on their way. Bamboo, because that's what caught my eye. Rick played the same game to some extent when I emailed him a list of links, but he is the one who chose out of those, so...

You can only say "I'm a guy and not gay" so many times before it falls on deaf ears.

Linking it rather than embedding since it's huge even after I reduced the size. While it's not as good as seeing it in person, I was struck by the way the rising sun made the clouds glow.

So, here.

Finished Oerba 400, leveled Gold Chocobo to 45, then went mental trying to tame a Reaver. I'll try again tomorrow. It's not that I'm just dying to race chocobos, but there is a specific item I want. And, well, I do need like 300,00 gil...

In an amusing (to me) moment... I decided to go watch the video for Kate Bush's Experiment IV (a favorite of mine). And I see this comment right at the top.

No wonder it all went terribly wrong.

I mean, what were the military thinking by tasking this to the Vicar of Dibley and Dr.House?

• So, the dining table fell through. Refund, of course. But I am pissed. Rick put it on layaway, said how much do I need to put down. XX%. Fine, here.

What they didn't say? They have a different definition for layaway than the rest of the civilized world. No, you have to put down YY% to "guarantee" that the item(s) will actually be available when you pay it off.

Say what?

So yeah, all this time with this table + chairs sitting on layaway, but not enough initially to set one aside. Did they say anything when he went to pay in more? No. Did they say anything when he paid it off and asked for delivery? No.

They decided to stop carrying the set because of some reports about stability and/or the top coming loose (whatever), so we're left with nothing. Hence the refund, and no, thanks so much, but we will not be choosing something else at a discount. It was the perfect table. Nothing else they had was even close. And we're not doing business with them ever again.

So I'm back to having no dining table.

The other two places in the area don't really have what I'm looking for. Colour is off, etc., but I guess I'll have to compromise. I suppose a trip is in order next week to visit places in person, most likely, to see what's different between their online catalogue and in-store.

• In other news, apparently we have a frog in our "pond". I hope he doesn't bully the koi and his buddies.

• In other other news, we ordered a new printer. Our laser is ten+ years old and it's getting temperamental with age. Realistically it needs a new toner cartridge and probably maintenance (it's having issues with pulling paper), but you know what? It's old. It's been a fantastic workhorse all this time and it's time to retire it. Yeah, mum bought me an all-in-one colour inkjet (mainly because I wanted a scanner), but that's an inkjet. I prefer dry for normal, everyday printing over wet ink carts.

The new printer is LED as opposed to laser. Wireless (yay). And, shockingly, also colour. On sale, even.

• And for some reason, even though I've already used Semagic earlier today, Avast suddenly decided this time that it was suspicious. There must have been a definition update in between.

So, Rick came to me just a few minutes ago with a song he wanted me to hear. When presented with a flash drive I said, maybe it's on YouTube (isn't everything?). Hence: Goyte - Somebody That I Used to Know.

The video is fairly interesting in its own right, but... I quite like the song, enough that I pulled a copy down.

...I'm rather enjoying FF XIII-2. Yes, it seems to be a little easier than XIII, but for part of that one must take into account that the crystarium is not capped. None of that "we think you should do just fine at level 3 until the next chapter of the game, so suck it up" stuff.

Mind you, I am rather pissed off at certain puzzles to be solved. I managed to plow my way through all the anomalies in Oerba 300 AF, up until... the beach, I think. The first stage in that I managed... eventually (with help). But stage two—wtf!? I've tried it a few dozen times. There's always one tile missing from the initial setup and I just don't see how it's possible to solve it. I don't even want to think about stage three. And I think there's one more anomaly in Oerba 300 (the dreaded crystal linking) before I could open the gate to Oerba 400 AF. *whines*

Sheesh. Just once I would like to get 100% completion on a modern game!

On a side note, I am becoming really quite fond of the music for New Bodhum. Rumor has it that Origa is the one singing (which would not surprise me the least bit since it just fits). (Really, you don't know what you're missing if you've not listened to the soundtracks for Ghost in the Shell: SAC. Inner Universe, anyone? Rise?) Surely everyone can get into a mixture of Russian and English, yeah?

Anyway, New Bodhum is all English, but sort of Engrishy given how they always prybar force the English lyrics into what worked perfectly (one assumes) in Japanese.

On a second side note, the music for the er... less domesticated chocobos (red/purple) is so very, very... metal. *cough*

Now if I could just show that Long Gui who's boss.... (Not sure I even want to think about Yomi, Ochu, etc. The Gigantuar was a pushover in comparison, surprisingly.)

On a side note, I am in pixelated love with Noel. *swoon*

So I lied. I'm not actually using an FAQ for FF XIII-2 beyond a printout of the gates. So far. I'm mostly winging it this time. I'm sure that'll come back to bite me in the ass.

Regarding idiocy, though....

So we're outside having a smoke and see one of the neighborhood cats roaming. It manages to take a swipe at a bird (probably breaking its wing), then begins playing with it. I went back inside, only for Rick to come back in a minute or two later with the damn bird. He calls the cats over and sets the bird down. Says, "Have at it!"

We have two really clueless cats, I gotta tell you. They just kind of stared at it, skulked around... Rick finally took the damn bird back outside and put it where the original cat could continue its game (and possibly have a snack).

Book reading complete (including many instances of getting distracted). I shall now go off and be a proper fangirl. Well, right after I have a smoke and refill my drink. And find an extension cord in case I need to recharge the laptop.

The book I ordered finally arrived, When a Fan Hits the Shit: The Rise and Fall of a Phony Charity (or here), which had originally been at LJ in a series of posts, but has since been mostly gutted.

Anyway, now I have my own copy.

I also received my copy of Final Fantasy XIII-2. I mean, what the hell, right? May as well jump in like a brainless fan. With a trusty FAQ at my side, too, of course. *cough* But first I'm going to read this book.

A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square

...the downsides to having this gorgeous new floor... well, for one, dust bunnies are really, really obvious now. (Fortunately, none of them are sporting ears.) Shadow does tend to shed, the little bugger.

But it's also affecting my Achilles tendons. Now, I've always had a problem with them since I was a child. I had a tendency to run everywhere, or at the very least, !walk on the balls of my feet. My heels only ever hit the ground at rest. This came into play, very painfully, when I was twelve and attending a summer dance camp, wherein I used pointe shoes for the first time and pulled both tendons. Yeah. Since then it's been a real problem.

Anyway, because these are hard floors and I usually go barefoot, I'm back to my floaty walk. Which means pain because those tendons aren't getting properly stretched, and me having to keep reminding myself to walk heel first. I don't like making noise, you see... Hell, I don't like "noise" in general. Noise upsets me, hurts my ears, hurts my head, blah blah whine. I flinch a lot in real life.

On the upside, though, aside from this floor looking super gorgeous, it also means that it's really easy to clean up when one of the cats decides to binge on food and then horf it back up.

We did look into getting a new kitten, but the Humane Society here and in Louisville had no kittens (or at best, another black one, which is not gonna happen this time), and the place that did have some (really adorable looking ones, too) wanted all sorts of information (and probably, in the fine print, your first born child as well), so we said "fuck that". Just going to have to wait until some kittens show up at the usual location.

My allergies are in overdrive, sadly. Smoking outside may mean I've dropped to half a pack (or less) per day (from 1-1.5 packs a day), but it also means I'm exposed to pollen and whatnot multiple times a day. *cries* The stuffiness and headaches are just awful, but I shall just have to endure.

And on another good note, cutting back so much on smoking has made the ulcer situation happier.

An example of how the colour we chose for the computer room changes depending on how the light hits it. We used Behr paint, colour name Harbor. Is it blue? Green? Depends, yeah? If we'd had any idea it'd be this damn pretty once on the walls we'd have done the master bedroom and bath with this, too. As it is, we did decide to do the guest bedroom in this colour. (The cat is Bane.)