Between the good and bad, that's where you'll find me, Reaching for Heaven

My long-awaited copy of issue #2 of the Dresden Files graphic novel just showed up in the mail. The money order I'd sent out got lost and had to issue a stop payment on it, and I'll have to get a cashier's check, the better to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, but I have it after all this scrimmigeing around for it. Thank you, Lord! :: Goes to re-read it for the third time::

I'd sworn up and down that I was going to wait till October to get the compilation of "Welcome to the Jungle", the new Dresden Files graphic novel...

But, I knuckled down and made the trip to Larry's Comics the other day, first time I'd been there since the fall. Said Larry, with a big grin, on seeing me, "Oh, I know what *you're* here for: Dresden Files."

Also made a trip to the GameStop in Burlington and finally got the copy of Hellgate: London I was going to get myself as an Easter present/"Thank God Jack Thompson got tossed out of the Florida Bar Association like yesterday's news" celebration gift. I have to admit, this is a little more intense than I usually go for, but I've heard nothing but good things about it from my gamer-geek friends.

Finally fixed the timing problem on the anti-Damned Book icon and I also discovered I needed to compress the animation to make it fit on the site. LiveJournal can be pretty picky about file sizes which gives me a heads up on the next project I decided to break up the last frame into three, which makes it somehow more dramatic. Here's one for the biggest literary con artist of all time.

In and out of Lowell the past couple days: yesterday, I was bringing back some overdue CDs (ouch) and today I had an appointment with my therapist. Also (yesterday) I nipped into Larry's Comics for my once-a-month-therabouts visit and picked up the May issue of "Hellblazer" and an odd volume I hadn't noticed before, "Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days", featuring several stray DC/Vertigo items that Neil scripted, including an odd issue of "Hellblazer" (which was reprinted with the comic version of
"Constantine", but the little introduction that they added for this collection was clever, so I don't mind having the same story in two different books), a few stories from the "Swamp Thing" series (which I'm not familiar with, aside from the Swamp Thing's cameo in "Black Orchid" and aside from the knowledge that John Constantine first appeared in the "American Gothic" story arc of ST), and a mini-series from the "Sandman Mystery Theatre", in which Wesley "the Sandman" Dodds of the Golden Age of DC Comics briefly crosses paths with the King of the Dreaming, from a certain series that helped launch the Vertigo line...

(Which reminds me, I took it into my head to animate my Vertigo logo icon so that it spins. Don't ask me what posessed me to do that -- maybe the mischievous part of me wants to make you, my readers, dizzy. I may or may not upload it. We'll see...)

Good news at the dentist: No new cavities to be seen. WHEW!!! I've gotten paranoid since the three little pinholes showed up over the summer, but I've been brushing my teeth religiously since then (the joys of rotary brushes...)

Went to the library downtown and downloaded/burned onto CD-R a copy of he_dreams_awake's "Gnosis", a computer game you can get via his site. I only just installed it earlier this evening, and I have yet to actually play it, though (If I'd just stay away from the dumb Tinkertoy for a while...)

Also nipped into Larry's Comics, which I haven't done since, what, before Thanksgiving? I made up for it: Got the next two issues of "Neverwhere" and the March and April issues of "Hellblazer", as well as Alan Moore's "V for Vendetta"; yep, I'll be seeing the movie when it comes out: would a Vertigeek who likes the work of the Wachowski Brothers do otherwise? I've got high hopes for that movie, and I'm already enjoying the graphic novel immensely. I can see why the W Bros chose to direct a movie based on this GN: The storyline is right up their alley, complete with subverting the system and brain-bending moments that help a character free their mind... (The movie also has Hugo Weaving as V's voice talent, though I've heard that Hugo and Chad Stahelski, Keanu Reeves's stand-in/stunt double from "Reloaded" and "Revs", juggled duties as the man under the mask. Question: Will Don Davis do the music? He did only half the stuff for the MxO, and he didn't do the music for "Path of Neo". Trouble is, a W Bros. production without Don Davis is like a Spielberg movie without a John Williams score.)

And good news from the Tinkertoy: One of Siegy's crewmates put in a good word for her with a certain someone... We'll see where that goes.

And in my busy-ness, I completely failed to look at my friends list. I'll be tuned into Radio Zero-One tomorrow night, I promise!

I finally managed to update the AIFFOA when I was in Lowell: I was actually able to get onto one of the library computers with the one-hour timer, since the kids are back in school and are no longer hogging the computers. I *tried* to update it last week, but I was stuck using the "E-Mail Only" computer, which gives you only 15 minutes of time, and then it's sooo daaaarrrnnn sssslllloooowww that you wind up spending most of that 15 minutes waiting for the bloody pages to load. I'd loaded Patric Lepage and Danielle Swinton's new fic onto the site, but I didn't get enough time to add the link to it, so I took care of that and linked the "A.I." fics I'd written for 31_days.

I also nicked into Larry's Comics to get the next issue of "Neverwhere": said Larry, as I entered: "Neverwhere's here! The Gaimanite is here!", which made me laugh.

I managed to find a minute to nick into the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop, in the hopes of finding the Red Shirt I'm looking for... I found a couple, but one was the wrong material (canvas, when I'm looking for cotton-poly broadcloth -- shuttit, Merv! I ain't buying silk, no matter how much you grumble) and the other would have fit the Merv, but not me (I'm eight inches shorter and about forty pounds lighter than him).

I also had to buy Alavert, since I was dangerously low on that, so I nipped into Wal-Mart when my folks were grocery-shopping tonight. I also found the soundtrack to "Collateral", which I'd been looking for. What a great mix of tunes...

Once I got home, I started feverishly typing (and writing one of) today's fics... I'm a little annoyed that they're getting tough about posting late, since it puts more pressure on me, but I'll find a way to manage.

I woke up this morning with my sinuses packed solid, this when I had to get ready to leave for an appointment with the nurse practitioner about getting the neuro-psyche testing done. I think the heat must have come on in the night and blown some dust into the air, which is why my sinuses got so inflamed. Thus, I didn't have much to say to her when I finally got there, and she kept stating the obvious and asking me if I can't get any prescription meds for it, which meant having to tell her the saga of the HMO That Won't Pay for Zyrtec. I'm beginning to think this woman is Paris Hilton's long-lost twin, since she sometimes seems to have the same intelligence level. That and I'm pissed off with her for thinking my introverted tendencies come from my being home-taught. Both my parents are introverts, so I think I may have inherited the tendency and/or learned the behavior from them. I'm a frackin' INFP on the Meyers-Briggs test; we can't all all have an E in our M-B scores... And stop ragging on the homeschooling: the point was to get me an education, and considering how much I freak out/get unnerved when people get in my face, can you imagine how shut down I'd be in a so-called normal classroom environment?! I'd go from Asperger's Syndrome to classic autism, and to be perfectly honest, I'm so fed up with people getting on my case, trying to make me over in their idea of normal, I'm of a mind to just pull into my headspace and stay there.

To quote a tee-shirt I'm trying to get: "I'm in my own little world most of the time, but that's okay: They all know me here."

Well, she's put in the request for the testing, but that's not likely to go through for another six months, so I've got some time to brace myself for it.

The rest of the trip went fairly well: I nipped over to the Burlington Mall to do a little window shopping. I'm looking for a jacket for my Constantine costume; I thought I found it in Macy's, but the cut wasn't quite loose enough, and it was way out of my price range.

And I was looking for a red shirt in case I ever do costume as the Merv. I found one in Filenes that was aaaalmost just right: it was close enough to catch his attention and bring him to the surface of my consciousness, but of course he turned up his hawkish nose at the fact that it wasn't silk and it cost less than a hundred dollars U.S.

I guess odd colored dress shirts are the style this year: I saw a pink shirt with white pin-stripes, with a bright green tie. Then there was the guy wearing the ORANGE shirt with the purple and grey striped tie.... I mean it was *ORANGE*, not burnt orange, not pale orange, it was ORANGE, like the fruit, or a road construction sign. I finally laughed and said out loud, "What are these colors? Angry fruit salad?" Which elicited an empathetic chuckle from the guy next to me, looking through the bins of dress shirts...

And I looked over at the guy to find I was looking at a near-clone of Flood. I wish I were making this up. I've seen this guy before, and I think he's one of the big-wigs for the store I work for, since I saw him there once when a bunch of the company big-wigs were there for an inspection. Wieerd...

Once I got back downtown, I took care of some computer stuff (ie, printing out emails sent to my mother from her crazy penfriend who sends me the same glurge over and over and over again... I found the same email in my inbox *twice*) at the library -- and had to fight off this insane, probably drug-addicted woman who tried to steal the computer I was using, when I got up to collect my printouts. While I was there, I got out a couple graphic novels, including Neil Gaiman's "The Books of Magic" (only the fourth time I've read it, but man, I love it. ::Pats Neil Gaiman's slightly kinder, gentler version of John Constantine:: ) and a fascinating little travelogue by Craig Thompson, whom I *think* did some of the artwork for one of the "Matrix" Comics.

Also went to the Tewksbury Library: I renewed "The Faery Ring" and "Johnathon Strange and Mr. Norrell", neither of which I finished, though I've made some progress with the latter. I also got out the Fodor's travel guide to Los Angeles, since it's got some maps in it which I need to help me out with my "Constantine" fics.

I was so busy, I didn't have a chance to write anything for the 31_days challenge, but perhaps I'll do better tomorrow; I might even cheat and back-date the entry. The rules say you have to post the entry on the day of the theme it fits, but it doesn't say anything about back-dating the entry...

My eye-catching entry subject/title comes from Larry, of Larry's Comics, when I showed up this morning looking for the next issue of the comic book version of "Neverwhere", which has started to grow on me, despite the fact that it's completely different from how I visualized it. He was also intrigued that I got the next issue of "Hellblazer", but I admitted that I got interested in the series after seeing "Constantine". I guess I'm the resident DC/Vertigo geek; someone's gotta balance out the Marvel boys/gals and be the wierd dark one.

On Puck's reccommendation, I got the first volume of the manga version of "Fullmetal Alchemist", and I *almost* got a manga adaptation of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare before Christmas", but the artwork was nowhere as good as the original art design.

Bad news: The computer lab at Middlesex Community College is closing next week, which means no more free printouts until September. Ah well, I'll manage.

Wierd news: As of next week, the bus schedule is changing -- they're adding more buses on the Tewksbury route. The outbound (going *to* Tewksbury) will be leaving at the top of every hour, which means there's gonna be a two pm. bus, so if I miss the one-o'clock bus, I won't be stuck downtown for two hours.

( Iconage )

And then I discovered I was running out of Alavert, the stuff I take for my dreadful nasal allergies, which meant going to WalMart this evening, while my folks were grocery shopping. I went poking around in the DVD section, the way I always do, and discovered they had a two-disk special edition of "Constantine" (complete with a mini-book of "Hellblazer" issue # 41) which I wasn't even aware of. *Headdesk*. Ah well, I'll keep the single disk version because I like the artwork on the case.

Word of advice: Never buy Fujifilm brand CD-Rs. The tracks don't burn in right, thus the disk won't play continously: You have to hit the 'next' button on your CD player to get it to go to the next track. I found this out the hard way with the disk I made yesterday. Grrr. Thus, I had to re-do the entire disk (I'd somehow also missed one track of it, and put two of another track on instead. Merde.) Got that straighened out, thank goodness...

I also managed to get to Larry's Comics: I had a heck of a time trying to find "Neverwhere, Part One", but thankfully, Larry himself was there and helped me out... and since I told him I'm a *huge* fan of Neil Gaiman, he reccomended "Black Orchid" to me: I bought the first issue of it, once he tracked it down, and he kinda loaned me the other two. Wow! I like this guy. What comes of going to a mom-and-pop comic book shop...

And I finally made a lovely new icon I've been meaning to make, this of the Merv's crest, as seen on the mural in the Chateau great hall.

Nipped into Lowell today to take care of library business/bank stuff/computer stuff. Part of the computer stuff involved ordering my dad's birthday present, namely: the Ford book I wanted to get him for Christmas, which got lost in the mail, and which Amazon refunded me the money for.

Plus, I also stopped at Wal-Mart and exchanged the "Sky Captain..." DVD which I mistakenly got the *fullscreen* version of when I wanted to get the *widescreen* version. Why, oh *WHY* did they do a cropped-picture version of that movie is far beyond me: you'd only get half the movie!

And I bought the software for the MxO ::loves the box artwork:: Now I just need to get a better computer; this one is getting very shaky. There's an outside chance that my dad might give me half the money for a better computer for my birthday, but I have to run the whole story past him. He's talked about wanting to sell auto parts and things on eBay, but I told him I was having trouble with my comp, so that kinda got put on the shelf.

After a tiring day at work, I went with my folks up to the Rockingham Mall. I needed a little shopping therapy: I got Jill Thompson's "Little Endless Storybook", which I'd been going slightly nuts trying to find. ::Huggles it:: I'm thinking of loaning it to my mom, once I read it, to introduce her to the "Sandman" series; she liked the cover artwork! ::Huggles Chibi!Endless, kisses Chibi!Dream. I think I'll call him Dreamykins...::

I also made the huge mistake of going into the Hot Topic up there. Ow. Nasty. That's no way to be Gothic, kiddies!