What you want to know about me, you can essentially pick up through the journal that follows. For the reference stuff, this is a good place to start.

Elsewhere on the internet:

I'm also on Twitter, Facebook, and Model Mayhem, and my website is up and running.

Jewelry:
The jewelry I make falls under the "jewelry" tag, so you can look there for all of my pieces.

Commission list:
For the basics on how to commission me, go here.
1. juldea
2. hntrpyanfar
3. dark_towhead
4. darkangellove46
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Pieces still for sale:
Grace Lace
Pirate Pearls
Oil Slick

This'll also be a good spot to keep track of other list-type things.

Poll #1521287 Legitimate question, I promise.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

If a Necropolis high school were to have a senior prom, what cheesy theme would it be? (remember, this would be necropolis-style.)

Any other ideas?

EDIT: If I were to bid this as an Intercon game, would anyone actually play in it?

Emotional fail.

I am now going to scrub and reorganize the entire kitchen, then go grocery shopping and do a ridiculous amount of cooking.

As stated in twitter, apparently I'm one of those women.

Carrying it over from shadowravyn:

"Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one reason why I like you. Then put this in your own journal, and spread the love."

I commented, therefore I must repost.

So, with me, a large percentage of how a player gets cast is how they respond to the questionnaire.

As in, how much of an answer they give and the tone.

I am entirely serious.

I was thinking it over today as I sent out one-week reminder emails and looking over the ones I'd already gotten, as well as putting another one or two into my spreadsheet.

Actually, that's something I should mention. They way I store most of the base information I get from players is slapped into a spreadsheet with their answers in the corresponding columns. It's easier to answer big questions that way, like "Have they responded to me yet?" or "Do they want to play an E-pho?" or "Do they like romance plots?" Those are things that are simple and easy to look up. They tend to be straightforward yes/no or number value answers. Anything further than that, and we can refer back to the e-mail they sent for more details. (More details! I'll come to that later.)

( This is starting to resemble the OkTrends Blog, so I'm going to cut it. )

That was longer than I expected. But at least I'm understanding my casting MO a little better now.

I'll leave it up to elenuial to keep me from casting the... less than informational... players as Eeyore.

So, here is the dress so far:




( Larger photos and progress photos under the cut! )

Now I have to figure out a way to make dozens of gears. I've made a mold, but using Fimo has proven to be both time-consuming and ineffective - out of twenty or so tries, I've only gotten 4 decent gears.

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

The dress still has quite a few pins in it and a lot more work, but it'll hopefully be done within a few weeks. It's really transformed, though - no more ugly bridesmaid dress, I hope.

Going to hopefully add more gears and (if I can find some of a suitable shade) gold chain. Maybe some silk flowers.

But I really like the silhouette. It's killing me that I can't try it on yet.

Thoughts?

So, I accomplished Step 1: Acquire Base of the dress, as I have challenged myself to sew as little as humanly possible throughout this whole project. I know that if I allow myself to oversew, I'll likely overdesign as well.

So far, the supplies I have:
1 size 16 (!!) hideous polyester bridesmaid dress
1 ballgown petticoat
1 PILE OF LACE
24 yards of faux pearls
3 yards of 2" wide chocolate brown ribbon

Here's my first dilemma: Basic design. I've stripped the bridesmaid dress of a lot of its hideousness, which included ugly as sin beaded flower scarves and many, MANY of the beaded flowers and other tacky little things covering it. Now it's naked and on my dressform over a giant petticoat. Time to drape the lace.

Ignore the lace around the neck, as that's just where I'm storing it for now. It won't end up there, trust me.

Here are my three choices:
( Photos under the cut! )

As soon as I get that down, I can start on things like adding pearls, bows, gears, and quite possibly a white or tan leather underbust corset. Oh, and taking in the dress itself.

So, which do people like? 1, 2, or 3?

Things I am working on right now, in mission briefing form:

Operation Make Calcifer Eat: Calcifer's refused food for about a month now. Could be he's not going to eat because it's cold, or maybe he feels that the pinkies are too freezer burned. Whatever the case, I've turned the tank heat up and brought home some used mouse bedding from work. So now he's warm, and his food will hopefully smell more appealing. Fingers crossed!
Howl doesn't care. He's like a hoover.

Operation Own a Dog: Have talked to and been approved by (!!) a Papillon breeder. She raises horses and working papillons, something that I find intensely appealing. Several thousand dollars in reserve (vet bills mostly, initial dog cost is low for a pet-grade dog), name on list for her next (december-ish) litter. Still to do: approve dog plan with roommates and landlord (a discussion that will be accompanied by numbers and written plans and probably will not be for a month or two at earliest) and consider getting a job as a vet tech. I would like to have the job change happen smoothly before bringing the dog into my life.

Operation Write a Game for Intercon: Um, slow but steady progress? I've sent out questionnaires and gotten responses from half of the players, with only a few people having personality conflicts with other players so far. It'll make casting a lot easier this time around. And elenuial has started writing with me, so this should go a lot faster! My goal is to have casting done by Valentine's day and all writing done... before Intercon.

Operation Steampunk Wedding Dress: I've decided to go ahead with this one. I got 72 feet of strung faux pearls for $3 the other day, and have *perfect* clock gears with which to make molds. I have a couple designs in mind, one of which involves a cream leather underbust corset that cinches shut with big gold buckles in back. And all involve ridiculous amounts of lace and tulle undercoat. Trouble is, I don't know what size to make the dress, as it's not actually being made with anyone specific in mind, so I'll probably make it fit me and take it in/extend the corset if necessary.

Operation Cyberpunk Evening Gown: I love fetishwear as eveningwear. I want to make a big, puffy ballgown covered in latex tubing and bright candy pink biohazard symbols. If the wedding dress is a success, then this will have a better chance of happening.

Operation Get a Better Job: Started networking among the local vet practices. A lot of them will be hiring come April, when many of their grads will be moving on to either DVM school or their residencies will be done, and although I'm hoping to get in sooner than that, PetS* isn't a bad place to work, all things considered. I get to work with dogs, the pay might not be great but it's enough to let me put quite a chunk aside, and the hours are pretty flexible. Still, working as a vet tech can bring me a lot more, I think, and I think I'll be better for it.

Operation Clean the Apartment of Clutter: Not a lot of space and a lot of junk. Tomorrow, I'm going to go get huge Rubbermaid tubs for the following (for starters!): costume bits, rarely-used craft supplies, broken/obsolete electronics, and whatever else needs moving. Then they'll sit in the basement or attic until needed, but they'll be GONE from my living space!

I think that's about it for now. If I have the time and/or energy, a real life update is long overdue.

I'm about to fly out to VA for a week. I will be nigh-unreachable by twitter, LJ, or the conventional media, as I'll be checking my email only once every few days. Phone is still OK, though L-burg is a reception sinkhole. Roommates will be checking on scaled babies.

See y'all later. I'm going somewhere twenty degrees warmer.

So, I took holiday photos of the babies (they're four and a half months old now!) and thought it would be nice to send some to their breeder, who has been wonderful throughout the bumpy road to happy and healthy snakes.

Question is, which ones to send? I want to send one of each snake, so I've narrowed it down to three each:

Poll #1502326 Snakesmas fotoz!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

Which one is your favorite of Howl?

Which one is your favorite of Calcifer?

It's become increasingly apparent that Howl is much more human-centric, always checking to see what I'm doing and if I'm accessible, while Calcifer is just... Haz-centric. He's more interested in his surroundings than people, but adores me when given the chance.

Both make for photogenic babies. =) They've gotten so big - I should photograph them with a quarter for scale.

Out of curiosity, I looked on the AKC site to see if there were any registered Papillon breeders nearby. Just for fun.

There are three within 200 miles. Two in NY, which are show breeders ($1500-$2k a puppy).

One in Holden.

A pet breeder ($500-$600 a puppy).

Who has puppies available right now.

Well, mid-january. But still.

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME, UNIVERSE

The last few months have cemented it.

I want a Papillon.

They might not be very popular, but I don't care. It came as a surprise to me, as I'm very much a big dog person, but when I whittled my lifestyle needs down, these little guys have matched up in every way.

My three base requirements for a dog are as follows:
- Between 10 and 35 pounds so that I can easily carry/transport it in an emergency
- Have at least marginal grooming requirements that motivate me to be aware of its hygiene, low-allergen breeds preferred
- Be highly intelligent and receptive to training/obedience

Papillons are amazing dogs. I've always loved them, but the more of them I've met recently, the more in love with the breed I've fallen. They're toy spaniels, essentially, meaning they're about a foot at the shoulders and 12-15 pounds but have the work ethic/desire to please of their hunting relatives.

They're also in the top ten breeds of The Intelligence of Dogs, a study that measured both the ease of training and obedience level of the AKC recognized breeds.

So, easy to train, motivated, capable of entertaining themselves, human-oriented, cute as hell!, single-coated, and ridiculously loyal dogs. And it's extremely easy to train them to be near-silent, too. I want a dog whose brain I can really work and then reward them by letting them snuggle into my lap.

This is the breed for me.

I know I'm not ready for a dog yet. Not this year. But when I get a more stable situation, it's going to happen.

Until then, I can only wait and fidget.

So, my dad's trying to get his mp3s off of his old hard drive by putting it in the new tower, alongside the brand-new one. The computer accesses the hard drive just fine, and has no trouble opening everything but the mp3s. When he tries to play/copy/anything, he gets this message:



If it helps, he's running Windows 7 now.

Anyone know how to bypass this?

(and thanks for all the birthday wishes so far! =D)

I'm feeling creative, and haven't made a lot of pieces in a while, so here's what I'm thinking of doing.

I'm about to make a bunch of pieces, some might be simple, some might not, but regardless of that: they'll all be $20 each.

Earrings, necklaces, whatever. I'll just want to make them and get them out the door.

$20 no matter what. All of them in one post either tomorrow or late Sunday morning.

I just don't know how many I'll end up making, as I'm not sure what I'll do with them after I make them.

Would anyone be interested in something like that?

I have the urge to make jewelry, due in no small part to having only two or three unsold pieces left.

What I'd like to know from you guys is: what would you like to see more of in my work?

Poll #1492590 Creativity with a starting direction!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

What kind of pieces would you like to see more of?

Any specific requests? (chain headdresses, wrist cuffs, tiaras, masks, ear cuffs, barrettes, chokers, etc)

What kind of materials would you like to see me use?

Any specific requests? (scrabble tiles, motherboard chips, skulls, keys, etc)

New LJ theme!

Still fussing around with how to get rid of/change those freaking subject line images, but my old layout was wiped and I've been meaning to whip up a new one.

I usually don't like green, but I think that this one's growing on me. =)

I'd been having issues with my external hard drive, but now I think that they've all come together at once. I just installed Windows Service Pack 3, and now it refuses to acknowledge my external hard drive's existence. Plus, now Windows lags like crazy.

Yes, it recognizes that there is a drive there. I can remove it with the "remove hardware safely" window. When it pops up, Windows makes the "hey, there's a drive" noise but nothing else happens.
I've tried unplugging and replugging in every order I can think of. I've rebooted. Nothing.

I also tried to read it in Ubuntu, which has worked before, but Ubuntu said that the drive is unmountable because the drive is apparently still trying to talk to windows. Constantly.

I have no idea what to do. There's so much on this hard drive that I want to keep, but apparently can't get to at all.

This is really, really frustrating.

Is it possible to rip the hard drive part out of an external like that and read it somehow else, or does it actually have to be functioning to be readable?

I'm on the verge of tears. I moved my files onto the external so that this would not happen. Now, nowhere is safe to keep anything important, and that's unacceptable.

I don't know what game to pick as my second game. I've already signed up for Securemarket.

What are y'all playing in so far?

Seriously.

In five panels.

Long and short of it: My PCP is an hour away. I needed to get on a new birth control pill. I mixed up the appointment time, and therefore missed my appointment.

I need to start taking the pills on Sunday.

This was a problem.

I'd heard that Planned Parenthood could dole out prescriptions, and not only do they take my insurance, but also walk-ins from 9-3 on Fridays. And it's ten minutes from my house.

After getting through security, despite a full waiting room, I only had to wait for about twenty minutes before being seen. It was low-fuss, the nurses were very nice and very efficient, and it was basically a matter of:
"No health problems?"
"Nope. Just wanna be back on the pill."
"Here are some mandatory questions."
"I will answer them."
"You are not at risk. Yay!"
"Yay!"

So, less than two hours total (that's including getting through security and new patient intake procedure) and $15 later, I was handed a prescription for the pills I needed for a year.

I dropped it off at CVS, and can pick it up at my earliest convenience.

Sweet.