| IEA Notice |
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| 03:28pm 08/10/2009 |
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mood:  stunned & ecstatic
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Oh good lordy.
I got my Tentative Offer (TO) notice for the Immigration Enforcement Agent (IEA) position today in the mail. I now have a half-inch thick packet that I need to photocopy (blank) for my records, fill out, photocopy (completed) twice more for my records, and then I have to send (the completed original) back in by October 25th. Then I get to sit around some more, waiting for DHS to contact me again to schedule my urinalysis (tox screen), physical fitness test, medical exam, and interview(s). Then the background investigation happens. Then more waiting, then FLETC. Assuming I pass everything and they like me for the spot, of course.
I'd be based out of the Seattle field office, which means I'd probably be working in southern Washington or Oregon.
Meanwhile, I get to spend that "sitting around" time working out like mad so that I can pass the 5-minute, 16-inch, 96-steps-per-minute step test and the push-up test (it's not the number of push-ups that's a killer...it's the fact that they have to be FUCKING PERFECT push-ups). At least I know I can pass the kneel-stand test without any difficulty, so I don't really need to train for that.
....
I think I'm going to go do some crunches. Like...50 of them. |
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Read 10 - Post |
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| Sleep Deprived |
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| 12:39am 19/09/2009 |
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Awake now for 26 hours and counting, no rest periods. Have been working for 18.5 of those 26 hours. Don't get off work for another 7 hours yet, and then home and to bed for 6-7 hours, then back to work for another 16.5 hour shift.
Why do I do this to myself? D=
Oh, yeah. I have dolls and shit to finance. =D |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| Abigail |
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| 03:52pm 16/09/2009 |
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The Elfdoll "Kio Carolei" Ruru sculpt was supposedly sold out in fall of 2008. I am so, so thankful that I was able to find a dealer that still had her in stock, and I am so, SO glad that they offered layaway. I can't believe I didn't notice her when she was initially released.
Abigail is here. This is the first time, in all of my years of doll collecting (and I may be young-ish, but I've certainly been around the hobby for a while), that I've had a doll come out of the box and be a perfect fit for their intended character. I mean, really a perfect fit. No body switching needed, no huge modifications, no new faceups. Hell, I even like the EYES she came with. I just pulled her out, pierced her ears, put her clothes on, slapped her wig and necklace and earrings on, stuck her purse on her shoulder, buckled her shoes, and BAM. Abigail. I might darken her lips up just a tad, since she's supposed to favor very red lipstick...but really, I don't think she needs it. At least not yet. We'll see if this weird made-for-this-role feeling wears off.
Darryl's being strangely silent. I think he's a bit thunderstruck, poor fellow. Or possibly a bit PTSD-ish. And Talon's being...well, he's being Blake, which should say it all (at least to some of you).
Abigail's already re-arranging the seating in the doll cabinets. She sure is a force of nature, sometimes. It's a shame she and Tekla never met - I think they would have had a lot to talk about.
Pictures to come. Right now I need to go to bed, as I have to be up for work in less than 6 hours and I haven't slept yet. |
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Read 4 - Post |
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| EID Jessica |
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| 12:53am 12/09/2009 |
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If I ever had any hesitation about whether or not Jessica would work for Tekla, this shoot has erased my worries. Especially this photo.
I'm so fucking excited about this doll. XD |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| Dead Laptop |
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| 09:10am 05/09/2009 |
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mood:  melancholy
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My trusty (much abused) Toshiba A135 Satellite died today. It's been threatening to do it for about nine months or so now, but the symptoms have gotten particularly bad over the past week or so, and today it finally called it quits. So I'm limited to my Asus EeePC for the time being, which doesn't suck TOO bad, but does suck quite a bit, as I can't do any photo editing or video editing or gaming or anything on here. Basically, I can browse the web and write, and that's about it.
I suspect I may be able to fix the problem with my Toshiba, actually - I kinda thought it was probably the video cable going out, based on the laptop's behavior, and when it went totally dead-screened today I pulled it apart and that seems to be correct - but I'm not sure if it's worth the time, money, and effort. It's a fairly old model (2006), and it might just be time to get a new one. That's like $500-900 that I don't really have laying around to spend right now, but I could probably manage it in a month or so.
On the plus side, if I'm right and it really is just a video cable issue, I can snag a VGA cable at work (assuming I don't have one in my "random computer shit" drawer) and hook it up to my TV and treat it like a desktop. ^___^ This would be a good temporary fix until I address the bigger issue.
Sigh. It has been a good few years, but I'm thinking that "new laptop" will probably win out (after all, Diablo III will be coming out relatively soon, and I want to make sure my system doesn't have any trouble handling it).
EDIT: Swiped a VGA cable and tested my theory. I'm correct - it is the video cable that's the source of the problem. The good news is that this means I've got a ghetto TV+Laptop=Desktop setup in the middle of my living room. The bad news is that I'm not sure if it is a seating issue (on the LCD end of things - the motherboard end is seated very well) or if the cable itself is bad. Based on its behavior, I think it's just a seating issue. I'm going to bed now, but I think I'll take the screen apart tomorrow and see if I can re-seat the cable on the LCD end. If that doesn't fix it, I'll buy a new cable on eBay (only like $15 or so) and try a full replacement. |
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Read 7 - Post |
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| Miss Marcheline |
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| 03:05am 04/09/2009 |
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Here are a couple quick shots of Miss Marcheline, Aiko's new Elf Elly "Banji" girl. Sorry about the terribly grainy photos - I'm at work, and only have Microsoft Paint to resize them. Paint is L-A-M-E.
( A couple more. ) |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| Tinies!! |
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| 07:45am 03/09/2009 |
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Dear lord, someone help me. @_@ I've been bitten by this weird tinies bug. I've been planning to get a tiny to be a doll for Aiko for some time, and recently settled on a Banji. In the process of looking, though, I came across several other tiny dolls that I really like. So now I've got a Banji here (her name, Aiko informs me, is Miss Marcheline - I didn't have the guts to argue with her). I've got a Limhwa ToYou on the way, or will shortly, anyhow (Rowen Aurelia Winterthorne). I've got a Fairyland Multihead with no body (am speculatively looking at the Roxydoll one) sitting on the shelf, and I'm kicking around the notion of a Pukipuki (which has gotten stronger since DaisyDayes started making her FUCKING AWESOME faun legs, but is still being staved off for now by the fact that I don't care for any of the Pukipuki heads currently available, and I don't like the look of the Multihead on the Pukipuki body). I've also been just barely holding off on buying a Planetdoll Mini Riz in tan skin for the past three weeks or so.
HOLY SHIT. The damned things are addictive.
I love that I can carry them around in my pocket. I've been bringing Miss Marcheline to work with me in a hard-shell hinged spectacles case. It looks like I've got her in a coffin, unfortunately, but it keeps her safe while I'm restraining people. |
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Read 11 - Post |
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| Conversations in Security |
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| 11:40pm 28/08/2009 |
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Oh, the wonderful things overheard in the Security Office at the hospital. ^_^;;
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ME: "You do like the shiny silver ones, don't you?"
TED: "They're fucking pretty! You pull your awesome gun out, and BLAM! The last thing they see is something beautiful blowing their fucking head off!"
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TED: "If I only had that staff!"
ME: "Then you could rip people's faces off?"
TED: "No, I don't have a rip people's faces off spec - well, I kind of do, but it only works with certain classes."
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TED: "Lesbians! First they steal our women, then they steal our soda!"
(Note that Ted has no problem at all with homosexuality - but one of our lesbian coworkers had just stolen his soda. Ted has a...special relationship with his soda. Which is ironic, because "his" soda comes from my locker.) |
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Read 1 - Post |
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| CI Exam |
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| 04:20pm 11/08/2009 |
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Passed my CI exam. Don't yet know what my score was on this one, since they don't send that information until later (via snail-mail), but yesterday I got the eMail notice that said, "Congratulations! You Passed! Now send us more paperwork by X date."
Only ten days between taking the test and getting the notification, when it's supposed to take four-to-six weeks. That's a good sign, right? It's faster than my last exam results, for the IEA test, which was also supposed to take four-to-six weeks. I got the IEA results in about sixteen days or so, and I ended up with a 98/100 on that one, which is way better than the 70/100 they require for a passing score. Hopefully my CI score is also in the mid-to-upper 90's. |
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Read 9 - Post |
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| Website Revamp |
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| 11:22pm 08/08/2009 |
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I'm in the process of overhauling my entire website. It's going to be divided into three different sections. Here's the front page of one of those sections - it's inert right now, nothing is active, but this will eventually be functional.
I'll readily admit that I'm very old fashioned in my coding. All handwritten HTML and I even use frames (not iframes, but actual frames). CSS is beyond me. But I usually manage what I'm trying for, even if my methods are outdated. ^_^ |
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Read 10 - Post |
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| Creature of the Wood |
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| 07:41pm 03/08/2009 |
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The Soom MD Amber I ordered ages ago arrived today, so Davlin finally has his tail and his proper hooves. I might need to do a little bit of work on the hooves, but they fit well. He's now basically complete. He still needs his clawed hands, but otherwise he's good - antlers, Saint head, Heliot body, Sard hocks, and Amber hooves and tail. Hybrid, we have one. XD
In celebration, I took him down to the park that's a five-minute walk from my apartment and shot some photos. Lyrics (slightly edited) taken from "Creature of the Wood" and "Creature in the Wood," both sung by Heather Alexander (the latter is a parody of the former, with a female narrative voice rather than a male one).
( I am a creature of the wood... ) |
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Read 25 - Post |
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| WUNPO |
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| 07:33pm 02/08/2009 |
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Anyone who reads my LJ is doubtless familiar with Wren and Jian Yuan, but I'm also (slowly) putting together the core group of their coworkers in the World United Nation Police Organization (WUNPO). Here's a drawing I did of the other characters that will eventually have bodies as part of WUNPO.
I'd like to reiterate that I am not an artist. Please forgive.
( I am not an artist, but I really wanted to get these down. ) |
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Read 11 - Post |
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| Rude Awakening (Stop-Motion) |
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| 08:03am 06/07/2009 |
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I've taken another crack at some stop-motion animation using one of the dolls. Been meaning to do so for a while now, but just haven't had the free time. It takes forever, and I'm still getting the hang of it (plus, my frame rate isn't quite as high as it should be), but I'm pleased with the results. This is only 7 seconds long, and that's including the fade! Still, I only had one toppling-doll incident, and everyone survived (though I had to lock the cat out of my bedroom, because she was far too interested in the whole process).
Er, let's just say Jian is high as a kite drugged out of his mind under the influence of pain medications due to some undefined injury, and that's why Wren doesn't wake him up when she's doing all that moving around. ^_^;; (The truth is, I didn't feel up to trying to do all this sequential posing with two dolls at once yet. So he gets to stay under the blankets there, looking asleep, and all you see is the back of his head.)
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Read 19 - Post |
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| GitS: Innocence |
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| 04:25am 06/07/2009 |
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I'd forgotten how much I love this movie (and the first Ghost in the Shell, too). I'm not a big fan of the original manga by Shirow Masamune, and the Stand Alone Complex series just leaves me disgusted, but I truly love Mamoru Oshii's interpretations of the story and characters. His interest in Hans Bellmer's work becomes really apparent in this opening sequence, for anyone who is familiar with Bellmer's doll photography.
I really need to buy copies of both films, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
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Read 6 - Post |
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| Fridge & The Yes or No Meme |
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| 02:26pm 10/06/2009 |
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So my refrigerator is broken. Not making anything cold. Freezer not freezing. This has been going on for two days. Complex maintenance came in yesterday and replaced the thermostat, but that hasn't helped, so tomorrow morning they're just going to replace the entire fridge. Yay for new fridge! It sucks that half of the food in my freezer will probably be spoiled, though. I didn't have much, but the shrimp shaomai will have to be thrown out or eaten within the next 12 hours, no question, and those were tasty.
Also, I gakked this meme from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sedens.
( Yes or No Meme ) |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Lt. Colonel Victor Fehrenbach: Don't Ask, Don't Tell |
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| 10:45am 04/06/2009 |
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As a citizen of this country, and as someone who has had many family members serve in the military and who has been recently considering joining the Air Force myself, I am horrified by the fact that this archaic, bigoted, and blatantly discriminatory policy is still in existence. The knowledge that it is being used to unjustly punish someone like Lt. Colonel Fehrenbach, a man who has risked his life many times over in the service and protection of this great nation, a man who has committed no offense warranting such a punishment, and a man who has proven time and again his loyalty to the United States of America, her people, and her values, sickens me to the core. How can our nation's military fight in wars across the globe, claiming to defend freedom, when that same military imposes such a ridiculous restriction on its devoted soldiers?
http://www.sldn.org/page/s/fehrenbach
Go there. Read it. If you're not sure, do some research on him and on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Sign the petition. Change starts with one person. |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Art Theft: Mijn Schatje |
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| 05:22am 03/06/2009 |
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As some of you are probably aware, a fairly well-known and successful (clothing lines and brands like Playstation have used her plagiarised work, and paid her for the right to do so) artist named Mijn Schatje has recently come under scrutiny in the ABJD community for her blatant use of other people's work without their permission. Specifically, she has traced over photographs taken by other people, of dolls that belong to those people, and colored her tracings and then presented them as original artwork entirely of her own creation. She hasn't even done a good job at it - looking at the images, her grasp of anatomy is at best slip-shod, and I could color that well when I was in second grade (and that WITHOUT a nice vector-manipulating program). Many of the photographs she ripped off were stock images of dolls from the company websites themselves, and she did all of this without informing the companies or the individuals, much less asking their permission.
See this very informative page put together by RadioTrash for more information.
I hope someone takes legal action against this moron. I wish she'd stolen a photo of mine, just so I'd have the grounds to do so. That's how much I want to see someone take her down. |
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