ladyluckless

I am, apparently, not qualified to work at Target. Brain-dead high school students with the competency level of your average fruit fly are qualified to work at Target, but I am not.

I really want a job.

So, I haven't really been posting in this thing recently. Partly because I didn't want to have a bunch of whiny emo posts and partly because I've been busy.

Heard back from all the grad schools I applied to; it turns out no one's terribly interested. Remind me to apply to schools that don't have standards next time, or schools with really low standards as opposed to places that would actually be awesome to attend. It sucks, but I'll be trying to get in again next year and I'll apply to some of the schools I'd really rather not go to if I think they might accept me. I think I'd be really good at the whole grad student thing if they'd only let me in.

I also managed to not get a job teaching English in Japan. They went with someone with actual teaching experience. I might try again next year by applying to a different program; I've been doing some research into some of the larger companies that hire teachers and some of them don't suck. The JET programme would still probably be my best bet and if I choose to try and do this I will not miss the deadline for their application again.

So, I might be in Flagstaff for another year. Erin, Cat and I are all looking into renting an apartment--so at least I'd be away from my crazy family members and I'm looking into jobs around town. I'm continually reminded that if one does not have a car or driver's license and has just spent the past several years working on a BA in English there are not too many jobs available to them. I would have been better off if I'd just spent the last several years playing pin ball, because then I'd at least have a skillset. Enter the wonderful world of retail. I hate retail. I hate retail so much, but since a few places are hiring and I'm qualified to do it I can only hope my interview skills will be enough to convince people that I'm not secretly a serial killer.

I got a phone call from my mother last night. She wanted to let me know that she and my dad are not going to be coming up for my graduation. I was expecting this; what I wasn't expecting was her telling me that my dad had gotten time off to come up for my graduation but she made him change the date so that, "he could come visit Jason instead." Because, you know, by coming up here for my graduation he would be rendered completely unable to visit with his nephew in the same city. I will never understand what goes on in that woman's head.

I must say I don't remember fighting Ganon with the mighty power of dance in LttP, but I very clearly missed something. It's things like this that make me think that the 80's weren't so bad after all.

My sister realized that humans need to eat food, and that since she is human she needs to eat food. I'm still hoarding boxes of pasta and don't plan to store stuff in her cupboards unless I have to, but I figured my f-list would be interested in knowing that she's acting slightly less insane at the moment.

I can't graduate and get out of here fast enough. ~sigh~

Ganked from Spike over at Templar Arizona and copy pasted because the current news box will go away eventually. I vote we attempt this next time we get together and render food non-toxic. And if you've not managed to stumble across the comic before, and enjoy things that are approximately 23.82 degrees from reality it's worth going through the archives.

I AM NOT A DEMON
The game for between four and ten players who think themselves clever.

Concept!

Right now, today, as you're reading this, there are tribes deep in the Amazonian rainforest who have no contact with the outside world. This is absolutely and one hundred percent true. These tribes manage this by killing anyone unfamiliar they happen to come across.

I AM NOT A DEMON is about what would happen if you, the hapless adventurer, stumbled unwittingly into one of their camps and were instantly taken prisoner.

The only reason you have not been killed immediately is, by some spectacular stroke of luck, you are completely fluent in this tribe's obscure dialect. Unfortunately, due to a combination of stupidity, nervousness, and unthinking fear, you keep peppering your speech with strange English words from the civilized world. The tribe is assuming these words to be curses or witchcraft, and the urge to spear you to death spikes with each mention of an unfamiliar concept or object, like television, the International Space Station, or Britney Spears.

In the game, the other players provide the current target with a word he or she must explain to the tribe in order to avoid being murdered. They have one minute to give a satisfactory explanation, unless they're being really funny or awesome, in which case it's okay to run a little long. The other players then vote on the answer provided. A simple majority decides whether the player is allowed to live or has been killed for his or her stupidity, in which case that player is "out." Players that have been "killed" then become full-time 'tribespeople," and are restricted to voting on answers from then on.

Rules!

The Amazonian tribe is at a stone age tech level, and so is their language. They have no knowledge of (or words for) things like plastic, steel, internal combustion engine, radiation, December, power outlet, etc., and any attempt to explain one witchcraft word using other witchcraft words should be immediately punished with death.

The player has nothing to assist them with their explanations. Your laptop, iPod, cell phone, and whatever else were instantly smashed the moment you were captured. You're not allowed to call a friend, consult Wikipedia, or attempt to distract the natives with a flashlight or lighter. That is exactly the kind of thing that will get you killed.

The players cannot say "I don't know" or "It's magic" as part of any explanation. If you tell them you don't know what a word you just used is, they'll assume you're lying and they will kill you. And they already think the word you just used is magic. That's why they want to stab you, remember?

Players take turns, once each round. The word chosen for each player is the first word called out by another player. The clock starts immediately. This leaves plenty of room to be an asshole... Asking your friends to define "cytoplasm" or "Rosh Hashanah" when you know they don't know, for example... but if you want to take the game from Fun Territory to Asshole Territory, that's your call.

There are two ways to play: Mandatory Elimination, where the player with the least satisfactory explanation is executed every round, and Long Haul, where eliminations are not mandatory. The former might be best for parties. The latter would probably be really good for car trips or waiting in airports. I dunno, this hasn't been playtested. Not really, anyway.

Still a little confused?

Examples!

Television: "A television is a shining light in a big shell. The light tells stories with sounds and pictures. Some of stories are made-up, and some are true. Some are stories it's told before, and some are new stories. The television tells stories all day and all night, it never stops. If you wake up in the middle of the night and go to the television, it will even tell you a story then. It doesn't sleep. Where I am from, almost everybody has a television."

The International Space Station: "This is a place where very smart people live. It's higher than the trees, higher than the clouds, and higher than the sky. It floats over everything like a cloud, in a place where you can always see stars. All the tribes far away from here built it together."

Britney Spears: "Britney is a woman who sings, but then went crazy. That was probably because people were always watching her, and telling her she was fat. She shaved her head and accidentally showed everyone her vagina, and then no one wanted to hear her sing anymore, they just wanted to watch her and hope she did more stupid things. And she did. She married a worthless man, and had babies she can't take care of. Every time she does a stupid thing, everyone forgets everything else and talks about what she did. We shouldn't, but we do."

...

Yeah, this is how I spend my evenings. Thinking this nonsense up.

Seriously, someone play this and tell me how it goes.

An explanation of what I've been doing for the last two weeks, a new page of Templar, and some actual news tomorrow. G'nite!

I am attempting to learn how to knit. It's not going very well and the webpage with the pretty color-coded picture guides seems to have disappeared into the ether in between the time I took to walk from Cowden to Tinsley. This is making it a bit difficult for me to continue to screw up.

Why don't I ever remember that I'm rubbish at this kind of craft project? I don't think we ever managed to unknot the yarn from the time I attempted to crochet. I swear the only thing I can manage to do reliably with string is pull it through my neck.

Hello random LJ readers. I just went out and friended some of you, and it occurs to me that many of you probably have no idea who I am. Rather than tell you the obvious and unhelpful fact that I'm me I'll move straight to the more detailed description.

I'm 23 years old as of, well today actually, and I'm a girl. I'm currently a student at NAU (that's Northern Arizona University for those of you that don't live around here) and am about to acquire my very own bachelors degree in English. After I have that lovely piece of paper in hand I plan on fleeing the country in anyway I can to better avoid the more horrible/completely fucking crazy members of my family.

I spend most of my free time reading just about anything I can get my hands on. yumemisama tells me that I would be in severe danger in the event of an actual zombie invasion because I'd have to stop and read every little receipt that blew across my path because they contained information. She's really not that far off, but I like to think my common sense would make me save the receipt reading for when I found a safe place to hole up in. I also like to think that I would be content with the novel I had shoved in my coat pocket, but sometimes you're just hard up for reading material. I also spend an unhealthy amount of time playing video games and my latest obsession interest is the Gyakuten Saiban series. I've been gaming since the days of the Atari and have been obsessed with RPGs since the days of the SNES.

I tend to type this up in a stream of consciousness fashion because I don't want to spend ungodly amounts of time editing it. Since I'm dyslexic and don't actually have the desire to cause any of my readers physical pain I run it through a spell checker but don't be surprised if I've gone and abused parentheticals or misplaced a comma or three. If anything proves to be unintelligible let me know and I'll make the attempt to translate the mess that's in my head to English. Or Japanese. Just don't ask me to translate it into bloody French.

If you want to stick around please keep the drama to a minimum. I don't mind having discussions about damn near anything. It doesn't even have to make a lot of sense but be warned that if you feel the need to be a punk and be an ass to anyone on this journal I will conclude that you're a troll and wield the mighty ban hammer. Nothing personal, my LJ, my corner of the internet, my delicate sensibilities.

Oh, and yes, I do fucking swear.

If there's anything you want me to blog about, let me know and I might just make the attempt.

Dr. Reser is awesome. Today he quoted Cole Porter, while talking about English theater under Charles II. How awesome is that? Now I have "Anything Goes" stuck in my head, but since it's the version sung by John Barrowman I find myself quite content with the situation.



Video for those who haven't seen it, or for people who just like to look at Capt. Jack.

I have concluded that the powers that be want me to mess with my French teacher's head. The final question on my French test was a short answer where I had to write to my French pen pal and tell them about my friend who is a lawyer and describe the people he knows. Between the facts that I drew a chibi Franziska whipping Phoenix, wrote a short answer question that sorta describes the people in the Phoenix Wright universe and managed to reference Eddie Izzard's Dressed to Kill when writing sentences using pronouns I figure I'm kinda full of win and my French teacher is going to be very confused.

.... but testimony was perfectly good evidence before. I'm confused, did they have to go and create a ton of problems in their insane legal system just to make Phoenix a hobo? Also, Apollo is still a moron and I can prove it with evidence. Just like I could prove the entire case with evidence before he'd let me.

I really don't like case 4-3. It's nowhere near as tightly plotted as the other cases in the series and even ignores some of the precedents set in earlier cases--just so the legal system can be well and truly screwed up--I remember, vaguely, one of the Phoenix Wright games having a bit of dialogue that went something like "I may not have all the evidence needed to prove this but there's still one thing left. Testimony." Now, testimony is not enough, even if we have evidence that substantiates it because the witness might be lying. Ignoring that the prosecution often bases their cases off of witness testimony, ignoring the fact that I(or the defense attorney, if you'd rather) has proven plenty of things not only possible but that they had to have happened based on the actual evidence why is testimony now considered useless? What's the point in even having testimony if it can't be used as the basis for forming a case?

lkjndfnj;lsdflnk. I really hope 4-4 is better than the previous two cases. Because if not I'm going to have to go find the writers and smack them with well constructed mysteries until they can write something that is not so full of obvious contradictions.