my moral standing is lying down

Part of the reason I haven't updated much is that I'm doing mostly nothing so I have nothing to talk about. I have another job interview on Monday which I'm hoping will be the last because jesus FUCK I need a job right now.

I went into downtown LA today to take a walk around the fashion district. 'Cause I can't afford to buy anything anyway, and it's something to do that's free (aside, of course, from parking and the cost of gas). It was sort of a cross between NYC's Chinatown, garment district, wholesale district, and London's Camden Town. Thankfully, I was able to successfully resist buying anything. Mostly because there wasn't anything as interesting as what's in Camden Town, ahaha.

I parked at a lot a bit farther away than I thought I was, for a $3 flat rate (after 4pm), which was great! What wasn't so great is that I started walking in the wrong direction and ended up walking through a bad neighborhood. LOL, go me! There were a lot of homeless people lining the streets in this area; I think I walked past a shelter on one block. But wow, waaaaay more homeless people than I'd ever seen before all in one area. Plus shady-looking characters who weren't homeless.

I'm absolutely sure I walked past a car-side drug deal going down.

As I was approaching the corner of the block were I'd be mostly getting out of the area (finally), I saw two policemen patting a guy down. Hoo boy.

I told Rich and he said "almost like being back home, then", but honestly I was more worried, and much more aware of sticking out like a sore thumb than I ever have been in NYC-- including the bad areas of NYC. Part of that is familiarity maybe, but most of it is that in the area I walked through there were very very very FEW other non-homeless/non-creepy/non-shady people walking on the street. Extremely disconcerting.

And just to clarify, it really has nothing to do with race. I'm way more comfortable in non-white neighborhoods than I am in white neighborhoods.

Anyway, all's well that ends well, but it was a good long five minutes of mental tension.

On a completely different note, I've discovered a couple of iTunes (metal & hard rock) radio stations that I really like and have figured out how to play them on my iPhone! \o/ So I've been listening to those at home and in my car sort of non-stop lately. It's an about-face from what I'd been doing before-- though even if I'd discovered them in NYC I wouldn't have been able to listen to the stations during my (subway) commute, so I suppose it's moot.

And because of the new radio stations I've been listening to I've sort of rediscovered Chevelle. Downloaded their new album and am enjoying it though only one song has stood out for me so far. I'm considering going to their show (with Dead Sara, to whom I'm pretty indifferent, but whose name I adore for obvious reasons) here on April 25th, but we'll see.

I'm EXTREMELY bummed I wasn't able to get a ticket to the Primus show in June. General admission tickets were gone within the first few minutes. A lot of them are up on stubhub, but I'm too broke to justify the hiked up prices. I'll check back again when it gets closer to the show date, or if I get a job soon and can afford it. But still, WILL I EVER GET TO SEE THEM LIVE BEFORE I DIE? T_T

A whole lot of stuff has been keeping me busy lately.

With last week's new iPhone 3GS release, the "old" 3G went down to $99 with a 2-year contract. With some discussion and finagling with Liz, we both got new phones -- hers is an LG Invision, mine the $99 8g iPhone 3G. I looked far and wide for a phone to compare to the iPhone and, for my personal taste and the features I'm interested in in a smartphone, the iPhone was actually the nicest. I'm slightly ashamed of myself everytime I look at it. Still, it was $99 for almost EXACTLY what I wanted. How can I argue? There still are instances that remind me exactly why I dislike Apple products, but in a phone, it's something I can overlook (whereas I wouldn't be able to overlook it in something like a laptop or desktop, or even an mp3 player). In any case, Liz's new phone is sleek and pretty and super lightweight! And I've been having fun with my new iPhone as well!

Saturday night I went to Medieval Times in NJ with a big bunch of coworkers for Danielle's birthday party. It was a blast. Our group was rooting for the yellow knight. Unfortunately, he was pretty lame. However, the "MC" of the tournament was CUTE. Long hair. Accent. Awesome. =D

Sunday I woke up with a scratchy throat. Went to eat lunch with parents and then came home to work on cosplay. Unfortunately, the scratchy throat developed into a full-blown cold by the end of the night. Stuffy/runny nose, coughing, SNEEZING, feeling weak. Ugh.

Monday and Tuesday were the worst. I've been drinking hot tea like there's no tomorrow. (Which isn't so bad, considering I love tea.) Yesterday was slightly better and today has also been slightly better, though I suspect it will be another week before the cough is completely gone. Which is fine, as long as it's all gone by the time Otakon rolls around.

Cosplay is coming along a bit slowly, though we all have a good grasp on what we have left to do. I think we'll make it in time. Haha, I'd really like to be done a couple of days before the con, so there's some relax time first, but at this point, why break tradition? We'll see how it goes.

All of a sudden today I'm in the mood for 311 (and therefore a mix of other reggae/ska/punk/dancehall stuff too). metallicapixie and lolichan are both partly to blame.

Look! Nokia has a new phone -- a flip phone -- that looks pretty close to the Japanese all-powerful keitai! Now, I don't like flip phones, but if the quality is like the keitai, then I'm simply impressed. The Nokia 6170 is a video/camera phone as well. In fact, the Nokia 6255i is a video/camera phone with flash!

I ♥ Nokia! (Even if they go and start making flip phones.)

Ohhh, and I watched the first episode of Tsubasa Chronicle on the laptop at lunch. It was so good! I have to at least say this for CLAMP, they sure know how to rope you into a series. I think they only series I didn't really like of theirs was -- don't kill me, Yoshi -- Mahou Kishi Rayearth. I think I even finished watching the whole first season... it was just getting so boring. (Although I really did love Clef and Ferio.)




(Yay! Thanks for telling me how to do the ♥ thing, Sharon!)

I guess it was inevitable. It took me a few years, but I finally gave in and got a cell phone. Now, (as Angelica says) I make up for the resistance by swinging to the other extreme. Today I went on ebay and was looking for some faceplates for the Nokia 5165 model. I don't want one of the solid colors that they have everywhere, so I was looking on ebay to see what they had (although I didn't start out on ebay with this purpose, but I'll get back to that later).

They have a lot of the usual, solid colors. But they also have a few with designs; some of them are really scary, like teddy bears, cats, dogs, raindrop patterns and tie-dye. Ewwww. ::shudder:: But some of them are okay, like the well-known American Flag (which I considered in light of this Attack on America thing, to show my patriotism, but I decided that I didn't want to spend $15 on something that I wouldn't have gotten in any other circumstances). I also saw a cute South Park faceplate, one that had stars and moons all over it, on a black background, and one that I really like, but don't think I'll ever get: a black & white cow pattern. LOL!

But the one that really caught my attention was a NJ Devils faceplate!!! Ooooh, do you know how much I want that one? Even if it is $20, I'd love to get it. The auction was closing in 2 minutes, at the time, so I didn't bid on it, but I know that the seller has more, so I'm not worried. One of the reasons I didn't bid on it then is because the faceplate is from the 5100 series, which has a different keypad than the 5165 phone. Which means I'd have to get a different keypad in order for the faceplate to fit. I don't really mind that much; a keypad shouldn't cost too much, if it isn't included with the faceplate. But I wanted to find out (1) if the sellers had the faceplate available in the 5165 style, or (2) if the auction included the faceplate. Actually, most of all, I wanted to find out if the sellers had a NY Rangers faceplate instead of the NJ Devils. I love the Devils, but I'm a Rangers fan first and foremost. (I know, they suck, but what can I say?) But if they don't have the NY Rangers faceplate, I'd definitely get the NJ Devils one.

(Can anyone tell that I'm a big hockey fan?)

So, I ended up sending them an email asking all these questions, and in addition, saying that if they'd sell it to me outside of ebay (not that I mind bidding on ebay, it's just a waste of time for them to put up an auction since it's a special order request), I'd also be interested in buying one of the dual battery chargers they had up for auction. That's one of those that allows you to charge a battery in your phone and an extra battery at the same time. And I have an extra battery already because my father used to have a Nokia 5120, which uses the same battery as the 5165. (This is what I had started looking for on ebay, to begin with -- the dual battery charger.)

But you know, as I was looking on ebay, I came across some vibrating batteries for auction and I think I might end up buying one of those eventually because I don't like the fact that I have to listen for a ring; I'd much rather leave it in my pocket or something and have it vibrate. (No hentai thoughts, people!) But this is all really kinda sad because then I'll have 3 batteries. o.O*

Oh! You know what else has me in (good) fits over this new phone? You can send and receive emails on the phone! LOL! I'm soooo dying over this, I didn't even know it could do this when I got it! It's so kakkoii!!!

God, I'm pathetic. Ah well.