UC's Negligent Mommy

This story has an awesome picture...

2009-11-13T17:57:51Z

Man distracted by bird drives Bugatti into marsh

I predict that Top Gear will have a field day with this. Or possibly a funeral. That poor car...

ellyfialy @ 2009-09-21T16:02:00

2009-09-21T20:05:48Z

This is for chadius, but you should all read this because it is awesome.

ellyfialy @ 2009-08-20T16:51:00

2009-08-20T20:54:12Z

The Authoritarians.

I'm spreading the love for this link (gotten from brynndragon) because it is a good read. It made me feel better about my decision to not have conversations with brick walls anymore. Or dining room tables, either.

ellyfialy @ 2009-08-06T18:26:00

2009-08-06T22:27:55Z

So I am making Skittles Vodka. Double batch. What they fail to mention is that, even with just one coffee filter, it takes for-fucking-ever for the vodka to filter through. I'm glad I have two funnels so I can double my throughput, but damn...

I'll let you all know how it turns out. I'll try to take pictures. I'm doing a double batch of all 5 flavors plus a single batch of a red/purple mix.

EA website support is dumb

2009-06-18T15:46:55Z

Oh my fucking god. I have had the most ridiculous time trying to log on to the Sims 3 community site.

It started on June 5th (though I'd been trying to log in for many days before that.) I logged in to the EA Sims help site because I was trying to make a log in for the Sims 3 community site and kept getting "UnExpected error occured, Please try again". Over and over again, for 3 days. I post this question.

My reply asks for the usual trouble shooting steps (screenshot, what browser are you using) and then I'm told to clear my cache and the ticket is closed. Unsurprisingly, clearing my cache does nothing (like the goggles.) So I'm annoyed and I reopen my ticket. I get an apology for it taking so long.

On the 15th, I get some feedback. The rep says they will help me create an account and register my product, since I can't do it through the website. They ask for my email, a password, a persona for the forums, and my product key. I confirm that I'll be able to change my password when I can log in, and I send them this. They write back to tell me that the password does not work.

At which point I'm thinking "WTF. How does it not work? You're *creating* an account for me." I clarify that I don't know the restrictions on their passwords, but it was not my normal ea.com password, just a temporary one for the community site.

At no point has anyone said "Oh, it will be the same login for both sites." If they'd said that, this issue would have been fixed 2 weeks ago, because I know my ea.com login. I have demonstrated that I know it because I logged this issue through their system. This is the information I have discovered today. Want to know how? I'm skipping ahead.

Next thing I get is "I can't change your password for you, I can only reset it." When I express my confusion about this, she clarifies that I can make an ea.com useraccount, log in, and then they can get me a new version of the game since I'm having trouble.

I respond with another big "WTF" because I have never expressed any trouble with the game.

She apologizes for misreading and goes ahead and resets my password. Nevermind that I obviously have been having no trouble getting in to my EA help account.

When I try logging in and changing my password, it tells me that my old password is wrong. Despite the fact that I was able to log in with it. Ok, so that's bullshit. I complain about this.

Then I try logging in to the EA help account. My old password does not work. The new one she reset it to does. It finally clicks for me. I was distracted by the "We'll get you a new copy of your broken game!" I think. I try resetting my password again. I get a system error.

Here's where I think "Maybe they don't allow commas in their passwords and are just completely failing to say so at any point, including their fucked up error messages." So I try standard useless password #2 and voila--it works.

So my latest bitching has been "Your error messages suck. You don't read through tickets. You don't answer simple questions with simple answers. Your QA group should have caught this. You wasted two weeks of my time on this."

God damn, EA. Learn some simple answers to simple questions. A quick "You already have a community account. It's the same as your EA.com account. You can make a profile here" would have solved this problem ages ago and I'd be able to get new shit for my Sims.

Serious business. Or maybe I'm just PMSing.

ellyfialy @ 2009-06-11T12:37:00

2009-06-11T16:38:28Z

I turned 29 today. My adventuring life is over now, y/n?

Computer stuff

2009-05-29T17:03:17Z

The case I ordered came in yesterday, but we were playing TOA (a Tri-stat game) so I put off on building my new computer. I'm pretty excited about it, but it's going to be enormous and probably hilariously heavy.

Now I get to puzzle through rebate junk, too.

LOL a meme.

2009-05-28T19:09:30Z

This is for ladyvoldything. If there are more and I get more then I'll edit this to keep it all in one place.

1. Reply to this post with 'Icons!', and I will pick five (or more, damnit) of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

Ok, first to figure out how to put icons in here...

Somehow, I knew this one would end up listed. It's a Harry Potter one, I believe. Comment says: Stolen from thesaneminority, art by squirmy. I probably got this one shortly after Book 7 came out. I like the art style and I'm a sucker for pretty hair. I also liked the Snape-backstory in book 7 even if it was sort of anvilicious.

Hee-hee. Poopin' cat. It looks like Pixel, my orange tabby, except much fatter. I'm juvenile and think poop is the epitome of humor. :)

I don't even know why I have this one. I think I just liked the expression on her face. It had something to do with sf_drama I'm sure, but damned if I can remember.

It's Disco Darcy! Everybody loves Disco Darcy. Also, it reminds me of that Clerks episode: Everybody Disco Dancing! Who is driving car? Omigod Bear is driving car! How can this be? Mostly I just love Disco Darcy. He looks like he's having fun.

I laughed so goddamned hard at this scene in House. I think there were a bunch of people around, too, and everyone was amused. It was just a good scene. I'm glad to see House get some measure of comeuppance. Not as much as he deserves, of course. I think this may have been an early demonstration of Wilson having a backbone, too.

Shoes

2009-05-28T14:41:08Z

Make-your-own Converse has so many options! I got a pair this weekend just for spring/summer sneakers, but they only had sizes 4 and 5 and apparently I'm a size 4.5. The ones I got are 4s and are too tight when walking around.

But damn! I can't make up my mind on what color combos to get off the website, not to mention that they cost twice as much and will take 4 weeks to get here. So tempting, though. They're so cute!

They look big and awkward in this picture because these are ~~size 8 or 10~~ photographed badly to make the toes look enormous. Imagine them as adorably tiny instead. Mine only have 5 eyelets for laces.

Intro Post for new online friends

2009-05-28T02:31:10Z

So hi new people on the FL. What's up? I'm good. As I said in the friendocalypse post, I'm into tabletop rpgs, video games, drawing, painting, reading, writing, anime, and being lazy. I also like music but I'm still getting a feel for my tastes. It's mostly classic rock stuff right now: I like the Eagles and Boston and Aerosmith and the Stones and the Zepp (thank you, Brock Sampson.) It's partly Rock Band's fault. I have a friend who works at Harmonix so I got RB2 through him at his discount and it was pretty awesome, but we've been lame and not playing it for a while. We being the household--I have 3-5 housemates, including my husband and depending on how you count the house because we're the upstairs apartment and 2 of our friends live downstairs. We treat it as a big geek household, though, and pretty much never lock the doors in between.

My two direct housemates, the ones that I signed a lease with but didn't marry, have bought a house so will no longer be my housemates as of August 31st. My husband (let's call him Nybble, he likes that online handle) and I will have to find new roommates to renew our lease, but we've got a pair of brothers lined up who want to move back to Arlington. Twin brothers. It'll be hot. Except not because I'm pretty vanilla, but I can pretend in my mind. One of them even has a goatee, so I can tell which one is evil.

Anyway, Nybble and I are not buying a house just yet because the stars have not aligned right to have it all work. And by that I mean we don't make enough money to justify buying a house right now, but probably will when his job situation irons itself out. We'll see how that works. It might happen next month, it might happen in a few months... eh. If I get to talking about that I'll depress myself so how about not.

Did I mention the rambling? Yeah... Apparently my rambling now comes with a side of run-on sentences and derailed trains of thought. Awesome.

I am a gamer but sort of a lame one. I tend to stick with the classic tried-and-true games and have a hard time branching out. I'm replaying Secret of Mana now that it's out for Virtual Console, because it doesn't require a multitap to get 3 people to play. I don't remember a whole lot of the game, but Nybble showed me the magic-level-wanking mechanism so that's cool. It makes it a whole lot easier. This game was hard when I was 14. I'm also building a PC for the Sims 3. The case should get here tomorrow--all the other components are already here and sitting on the couch.

My personal laptop fried itself on Sunday. Nyb says it's the logic board and it's not worth replacing anymore. So I have a six-year-old white Macbook that's now acting as a paperweight. I'd get another one but I just spent my allowance on a new gaming rig. Great timing, laptop. Pricing out a new one led me to see that Wacom has a lightweight Cintiq--4.4 lbs and the size of a small sketchpad--for the same price. Gah, so tempting. I've always wanted one but I don't know if I can justify it. I just don't know if I'd actually use it enough. I really want to make a webcomic or two out of our D&D games, and it'd help, but I run into the fact that I am inherently lazy and will probably not work at it. It's all well and good to dream about it, but putting down $1000 for a piece of hardware that, while pretty, will most likely just sit around is hard to justify. Maybe if/when Nybble starts making more money.

I've made a couple of attempts at character designs for webcomic-style things based on various games we play. For instance, our 2nd Ed campaign as featured a priest of Pussich, the god of hiccups; a mage/cleric of Bambi, the goddess of small furry animals; a miniature storm giant paladin of Pussich; a female satyr acrobat who runs around naked; a hyperactive human monk; a gnome inventor whose inventions sometimes actually work; a 5-year-old Saiyen (sans tail); an elven bard of mostly indeterminate gender; a drow ranger with odd-colored eyes and two swords (LOL, her drow is different); and a 13-year-old half-elf mage who's just hitting puberty. It's comedy gold in monthly installments and we have about 10 years worth of backstory. Then there's the 3.5 Ed campaign that started off as high level so that people could play characters with interesting templates: werewolf, mhyuuntir (Zee will correct my spelling, I'm sure), half-celestial, half-dragon, tremen, and lich. That just has the option of being very pretty, if I can manage it.

The problem with both of these is that if I tried to do a webcomic of it, 1) it would take a lot of work and 2) I have no idea where the story is going, because I'm just a player. It'd probably end up focused on my character, which could get boring and annoy the other players.

Anyway, it's getting late and I have to be up early for a release in the wee hours of the morning. Sorry about rambling, thanks for reading, and I look forward to having a much more active friends list.

New people post, except not

2009-05-27T20:03:02Z

Friendocalpse on sf_drama means I have a whole bunch of new friends on this page. I'll do an intro-post later, I think.

My personal laptop imploded on Sunday evening, which is awesome. I also get to go back to the dentist this afternoon because I'm in pain whenever I try to chew things with the teeth that got fillings yesterday morning. Awesome.

So how about something nerdy? If you're a role-player and you're up for it, write me a comment about your favorite character. Like, full out describing why they're awesome, or their tragic backstory, or why you love playing them, etc. I'll probably edit later with mine.

ETA: My teeth are probably ok. The dentist said the fillings were high and had pulled at the ligaments linked to my gums, thus giving me essentially a "sprain" with the teeth. I'm to chew on the other side for the next week to give it time to rest.

Etsy shop idea?

2009-03-25T15:37:51Z

So I'm building a figurine as mentioned in a previous locked post (and I'm not going into the details publicly here until the figurine is done and the event it's for is over, just in case).

It's actually a lot of fun to make these things, so I'm thinking about opening an Etsy shop for commissions and maybe just to sell the little things I make. This means I need a name... so I made a poll! With ticky boxes!

View Poll: Etsy shop name (assuming they're not taken, which the good ones probably are)

Please let me know what you think.

ETA: UtterChaos is taken. Just as well.

1) I'm a dork and 2) I have gerbils

2009-03-11T16:10:25Z

I have a gerbil named Bart. I'm studding him out. I'm a gerbil pimp. Ok, actually, it's that the breeder I got him from matched me up with another lovely gerbil owner who had a delightful little girl gerbil named Omigosh (best. name. ever.) and since we both wanted more gerbils, they're having a litter or two. The current litter is 11 days old (born March 1st) and to keep everyone involved updated, I started an LJ for them.

It's bartomigoshpups if you're interested--I'll be putting up pictures, observations, and maybe some videos of the newborn pups. It's my little pet project. ;)

omfg why can't I figure this out?

2009-02-18T23:06:32Z

Anybody out there draw and can explain to me how foreshortening on human figures actually, y'know, works? Because I'm 28 and have been drawing since I could hold a pencil and I still haven't figured it out. It's very frustrating. I get perspective. It's when it applies to people that I fail.

ellyfialy @ 2009-02-18T07:50:00

2009-02-18T13:04:37Z

There was an epic post on sf_drama yesterday. I friended firecracker_sj because of all the pictures of Ben Barnes she posted. I'm assuming "she" is the right pronoun--if I'm wrong please correct me.

So, the high-level 3rd Ed game that Zahnnie runs is getting some visuals. She's already posted to the wiki saying that Demon Lord Pazuzu (who we met in the last run, to our detriment) looks like Ares from Xena. Here's the wiki page if you're interested. So, of course, the itch to draw has started in my fingers. I saw some those pictures of Binbons (lol phonetic abbreviations) and it clicked. I've already sketched him as a red head (and will need to borrow chadius's scanner for this). If anyone asks, it's not because I'm obsessed with my character and her (ex-)bf and their history (and future) together. It's because I want extra xp.

Also, Jackson Rathbone (who has a wicked awesome name) will probably be used as a model for the adorable half-black dragon rogue Vin, based on this pic. And chadius, when asked how old his disguised lich Ezel looks, responded with "How old is Morgan Freeman?" ... so that settles that.

I still have to find a good model for my actual character, Sil. She's an elven/half-dragon monk woman. This basically means nothing, though, since she could look like anything, just add pointy ears. I'm finding that using a model for the face is a lot easier than drawing realistically straight from my brain. I can do that, too... it's just hard and I'm always afraid that my faces all look the same.

I have the best thing ever

2009-02-11T01:22:10Z

I have Darkness and Starlight, which has a rock opera version of the Opera from FFVI. Also, their choice of vocalists is totally hilarious. Guess they couldn't find a soprano for Maria. I'm dying!

Avatar fans writing campaign

2008-12-23T21:34:41Z

Some of you may know that I'm a big fan of the show Avatar: The Last Airbender. I have a large plush Appa at work and a poseable Momo at home. I've been collecting the DVDs and watched it religiously when it was on the air--just ask my roommates.

There's a live-action movie planned/in production/etc. for the series, called "The Last Airbender" (the name "Avatar" is taken.) Info for it's on imdb. Recently, they put out a press release about who's been cast for the 4 main characters: Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko. I know some people on my friends list have already posted about this, but the cast so far is pretty much all white, for a distinctly Asian world. Ugh.

Apparently, there's a letter writing campaign in effect. You can find the details at aang_aint_white. I'll be sending something in when I get home. I just figured I'd pass the word around.

Stupid things that make me giggle.

2008-12-03T21:31:13Z

A coworker just referred to the "Daily Fails" in a completely valid way, in context. I'm just overhearing the conversation and it made me giggle, a lot.

ellyfialy @ 2008-10-06T03:51:00

2008-10-06T07:54:39Z

I am cold.

I am sick.

It is nearly 4 in the morning and I can't go to sleep because the "gotta pee" part of my brain has been flipped to "on". I've been downing cranjuice and water in the hopes of appeasing this demon, but now I'm getting on towards the loopy bit.

Also, the replacement heaters (switched from oil to gas) are not coming on yet. I know it isn't that cold in New England just yet, but when I can't snuggle into the many layer of blankets that make up my extremely comfortable bed, I feel it. Also, the bathroom floor is freezing.

It's going to be a long night. I should go turn off my alarm clock. Also, I should email work now, because there's no way I'm going to be coherent enough to go in tomorrow. I should just do my tasks now--I have the technology!

Well, that's one more online comic I can take off my massive list

2008-10-01T18:23:12Z

I wasn't really sure why I kept reading Ctrl-Alt-Del, but today's comic pretty much killed it for me:

Link to comic for reference but I'm not putting that crap up for display.

Seriously? For those of you who are smart enough to not read this comic, the female character here has had a miscarriage. The male character is the rich-and-creepy ex-boyfriend. In what world does she invite him in instead of saying "GTFO" and getting on the phone with her lawyer about patient confidentiality? The author has been attempting to paint her as a fairly smart human being up until this point.

I'm morbidly curious to see how he attempts to deal with this (the comic title is "breach" after all) but I know it's far more likely that he's just going to ignore it in favor of the "Stupid rich guy is rich and rich people get everything they want wah wah wah" bullshit. The B plots that I like are not interesting enough to pull this crap through.

Scented things

2008-09-08T19:13:52Z

By mistake, I bought two boxes of "Fresh Scent" tampons on Saturday. See, I prefer almost all of my bathroom items to have no scent whatsoever. The second box was supposed to be for my roommate, who has even more of a problem with perfumed things than I do, so I was lucky that one of my other friends was willing to take one box off my hands. Yes, I could've returned them and exchanged them for a box of ones that didn't smell like fake springtime, but I'm also very lazy.

The fallout (*snicker*) of this is that now my purse smells like perfumed ass, and my desk drawer at work is slowly adopting the smell as well. Awesome.

ellyfialy @ 2008-08-30T12:38:00

2008-08-30T16:42:04Z

I have determined that it will take 2.5 pairs of jeans to make 1 denim skirt in the style I want. That means 2 for 5. Luckily, I have a box full of old jeans that no longer fit and 2 pairs that I want to work as the main part of each skirt. We'll see how it goes.

Also, The Sims 2: Apartment Life is full of failure. SecuRom keeps it from playing, and it'll probably be another day or so before EA tech support gets back to me. It's very obnoxious.

ellyfialy @ 2008-08-27T12:48:00

2008-08-27T16:48:44Z

I skipped sf_d's OTT yesterday in favor of building a DeathStar.

My fingers hurt now, but I managed to get it done in a day. Take that, Rome!

Edit: Holy crap, the TIE Interceptor is $449 on Amazon? Seriously? ... I need to go double check my lego collection now. Who knew?

Edit2: This is sitting our in our living room. And costs $400 on Amazon... please someone tell me that the price is only for the unopened box, or Amazon is stupidly inflating the cost of these things.

Shit. They're actually worth money. When did that happen?

Edit3: Hah. No they're not. I just wasn't the one that bought (got them all as gifts) and didn't realize that they were about that price to begin with.

Sims2 had seized my attention again.

2008-08-24T03:27:54Z

I'm playing The Sims 2 again. So much for having time...

Yesterday I decided I needed to find an appropriate skin on EA's sims2 site for my half-dragon D&D character. I failed, though I found some wings for the half-celestial.

So sometime between then and this morning I got the brilliant idea that I'd just make one. Never made any custom content for this game before, but I've seen all the tutorials online, etc.

Step 1: Read through tutorials. Got bored with ones I'm supposed to be reading, wikiwalk to other ones, waste some time.

Step 2: Got and installed GIMP. Was a little worried when the tutorials waved their hands and said "GIMP is ~scaaaary~ and strange and different from other paint programs." Turns out it's very much like photoshop. Whee.

Step 3: Took the advice of the website saying "Don't start with skins! Start with clothes." Started on some clothing tutorials.

Step 4: About 5 minutes later get bored of clothing tutorials and jump into making custom skins. How hard can it be?

Step 5: (5 hours later) Swear, a lot, when GIMP crashes hard and the files with layers correct skintone and alpha masks and scales and other hilarity are all GONE.

Step 6: Watch some DVR'd Project Runway in the hopes that the crash was not really a crash. 1.5 hours pass--nope, it's still crashed.

Step 7: Redo work. Discover that work for adult female transfers nicely to adult male skin. Rejoice.

Step 8: Realize that it's after 11, GIMP's crashing again, and there are still 5 different ages to go over. Give up, post, go to sleep.

I just want to bang on the drum all day

2008-08-09T05:01:45Z

Our Rock Band drums broke, spectacularly. A friend from work was over and he plays them on Expert (he's about the same level as Ratri, but she also sings and plays guitar at that level). So we're playing Won't Get Fooled Again and he's saying something about the red pad not working and he dies twice... so yeah, the red pad is busted.

He had brought over his own drum top just in case. We replaced it and kept going. Nyb came home later and took over guitar so we had a 3 person (4 instrument) expert band going for a while--it was hot.

Now Nyb has taken apart the drum controller to see what's wrong with it. Blue pad is nearly shattered and they're all cracked so there's some magic epoxy action going on. He's still figuring out what went wrong with the red pad. Rock Band 2 is coming out soon enough so we're probably not going to buy a new set. Besides, it's cool to watch him fix stuff.

ETA: Red pad has a broken wire. He's got his soldiering gun out. :)

ETA2: He fixed it. Yay!