Get that thing off your chest... Now...

[thebackup]

Had my birthday yesterday. Not really as exciting as compared to birthdays of 15 years, or so, ago, with the parties and presents. It's not really about "growing out" of those things (though I feel like I have), but rather the notion of getting older isn't really fancying.

I just celebrated it quietly with some pizza, cake, and watching basketball. A little disappointed though that my sisters didn't call me to say "happy birthday".

I just had the freakiest experience a few hours ago. I had just went up some stairs to go into the building my friend's apartent is in. And just as I was walking towards the door, suddenly I felt like I was in an elevator that stopped. It just felt like the building dropped, and I was absolutely 100% sure for a second, that the building was falling apart. I panicked and rushed up to my friend's apartment door, and it felt like the floor was swaying or something, and I DEAD seriously thought the building was crumbling. I knocked on her door, completely panicking, and when she answered, I said something was wrong and had to ask her if the building was acually falling apart since she looked calm when she answered. She got me in and sat me down on the floor in the entrance and tried to calm me down, and after like a minute it went away.

If anyone has ANY idea what this is or has experienced it before, I'd VERY much like to know what it could be. I seriously almost cried, until she told me nothing was moving.

Oh gosh, I get that feeling too! Sometimes I would feel like the entire ground was shaking, as in an earthquake, while everyone else around me is fine. I think it's just dizziness / vertigo.

[Inksword]

I just had the freakiest experience a few hours ago. I had just went up some stairs to go into the building my friend's apartent is in. And just as I was walking towards the door, suddenly I felt like I was in an elevator that stopped. It just felt like the building dropped, and I was absolutely 100% sure for a second, that the building was falling apart. I panicked and rushed up to my friend's apartment door, and it felt like the floor was swaying or something, and I DEAD seriously thought the building was crumbling. I knocked on her door, completely panicking, and when she answered, I said something was wrong and had to ask her if the building was acually falling apart since she looked calm when she answered. She got me in and sat me down on the floor in the entrance and tried to calm me down, and after like a minute it went away.

If anyone has ANY idea what this is or has experienced it before, I'd VERY much like to know what it could be. I seriously almost cried, until she told me nothing was moving.

It might be an inner ear infection setting in? Those can mess with your sense of balance hard, but if it stopped fairly soon after it started I'd guess it was just a sudden drop in blood pressure which made you feel lightheaded and unstable. Of course, sudden drops in blood pressure for no reason aren't good either, and if you keep having similar experiences you might want to go to a doctor. Hope it's nothing though!

[MaiMai]

So I decided to make a new Deviantart account instead of spending money on the Premimum just to get a name change... But hmm, gonna have to make these changes slowly since I want to save all of my favorite images and my resource collection...

[Hijiri]

I just had the freakiest experience a few hours ago. I had just went up some stairs to go into the building my friend's apartent is in. And just as I was walking towards the door, suddenly I felt like I was in an elevator that stopped. It just felt like the building dropped, and I was absolutely 100% sure for a second, that the building was falling apart. I panicked and rushed up to my friend's apartment door, and it felt like the floor was swaying or something, and I DEAD seriously thought the building was crumbling. I knocked on her door, completely panicking, and when she answered, I said something was wrong and had to ask her if the building was acually falling apart since she looked calm when she answered. She got me in and sat me down on the floor in the entrance and tried to calm me down, and after like a minute it went away.

If anyone has ANY idea what this is or has experienced it before, I'd VERY much like to know what it could be. I seriously almost cried, until she told me nothing was moving.

Vertigo seems to be the most likely, since I've experienced that before and I suffer from it. Of course, it could be a number of other things, so maybe go check up with your doctor.

[Caveat Lector]

I know it's a little early for it, but I'm wondering if we're going to do Secret Santa again this year or not. It was kind of fun last year.

[noeinan]

Have been working with a new writer for one of my projects, and they seemed pretty motivated. Got a red flag early on when they said they didn't want to link me to past projects, because things had ended badly with them and they didn't want that to taint the way I saw them, and I decided to take a chance because they said they'd been following the project for months and were really interested in it.

I was super happy that they were writing so much, because my last writer had some health problems which made it so we didn't have as many scenes, but they also got really excited about doing things like forming a company, and talked about funding the project with their own money. I declined this, saying we needed to finish a game before thinking about a company, and that this was a free game so I didn't think putting money into it was a good idea.

They said they would write out quick thoughtless ideas one after another, and I was supposed to give feedback. I was happy with the speed at which things were coming out, but started wondering if they had really been following the project because they kept forgetting basic things, such as... Centaurs living in yurts, and not having high technology (being based on the Mongols), or continuing to write with a huge age hierarchy, even though the basic description of the society says that isn't the case for them. But I just reminded them that the centaurs are based on the Mongols, and tried to provide better references, and kept on.

Then they just blew up on me and said that I was being authoritarian and militant because the game was supposed to be a slice of life and they wanted to turn it into a high action adventure. O.o Okaaaay... It's obvious that they thought the game was a different genre than it actually is, or there was some other miscommunication going on, and asked them to talk to me more about what direction they wanted to take the game, but they just ragequit.

I had asked them multiple times to tell me if they felt that my critique was too negative, or if they wanted to go over the story plot as a whole, and they were all "no, I love that you have attention to detail, I want to bring your story to life so don't worry about me." I guess they felt bad the whole time, but how am I supposed to know anything if they don't tell me, and then just explode one day at random? I guess they had a stressful job as a high level accountant, and possibly relationship trouble, but I just feel that isn't very mature behavior.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't try to work with people who won't show you their previous projects. And it's a good thing I followed my instincts and wrote up a contract that my story belonged to me if the partnership didn't work out. I'll just be more careful in the future. :/

[xavimat]

I know it's a little early for it, but I'm wondering if we're going to do Secret Santa again this year or not. It was kind of fun last year.

+1 for this.

[AmericaTheBeautiful]

So it really bothers me that, even though I'm an artist, I feel like I can't supply art for my own VN projects. Why? My art isn't consistent yet. I can draw some really great stuff I'm proud of but I can never keep it consistent enough that I can supply all my own stuff. And the idea of my own artstyle being used for an entire VN makes me cringe because I'm just not at that point yet where I can look at my art and say 'I could totally show this to anyone and not be ashamed'.

Ultimately this doesn't stop me, I'm still coding and writing. I'm still able to proceed due to the sweet people on this site that allow some of their stuff to be used in any non-commercial project. But I'm still kinda let down as an artist.

Additionally, I recently got my first apartment and I live alone. My brother is in another complex all of 10 minutes away. He called me at 3am on a work night to ask to come over and talk and when I asked if we could put it off a few hours until morning (I was busy) he got pissy and hung up. I got a text later saying 'In case you actually care, I might be skipping town in a few weeks'. This is the same guy who woke me up early on a workday to ask me to take him to Gamestop.

He's like 22. What makes him think any of this is a reasonable way to act. I'm a person with their own things going on, not something that does nothing in case he might call and need me to drop everything at any time. I've tried to contact him since then but he's not answering me and I am not going to play this game where I have to beg him to talk to me. I'm not giving him the satisfaction.

[breadslam]

I guess the moral of the story is, don't try to work with people who won't show you their previous projects. And it's a good thing I followed my instincts and wrote up a contract that my story belonged to me if the partnership didn't work out. I'll just be more careful in the future. :/

I'm sorry you had trouble with your writer, daikiraikimi. Previous projects I've worked on have fallen apart in a similar way, so I get where you're coming from. Good on you for keeping yourself on board with it, though. I've taken a peek or two at your projects, and I wish you the best.

Additionally, I recently got my first apartment and I live alone. My brother is in another complex all of 10 minutes away. He called me at 3am on a work night to ask to come over and talk and when I asked if we could put it off a few hours until morning (I was busy) he got pissy and hung up. I got a text later saying 'In case you actually care, I might be skipping town in a few weeks'. This is the same guy who woke me up early on a workday to ask me to take him to Gamestop.

He's like 22. What makes him think any of this is a reasonable way to act. I'm a person with their own things going on, not something that does nothing in case he might call and need me to drop everything at any time. I've tried to contact him since then but he's not answering me and I am not going to play this game where I have to beg him to talk to me. I'm not giving him the satisfaction.

I have a little brother just like that, to tell the truth. We've had to draw a couple lines in the sand about what's acceptable and what's not over the years. He's just starting college, though, so he's thankfully in a dorm where he can annoy the heck out of his roommates instead of me now. I end up playing the little "won't talk to me" game with him every once and awhile too. There's a reason why "brother" is one letter away from "bother"! Still, I gotta love him for being such a sweet kid when it really counts.


On my own front, I've been having trouble diversifying my diet to include more fruits and vegetables. My neighborhood is pretty low on the health food chain, and I'm limited by my student's budget and fridge space... I really just want to pig out on carrots and apples and celery and pineapple, but that's not really "diversity" or including the stuff I need.

[Sunlit-Dreamer]

One moment, I'm talking on Skype with friends while working on a personal project of mine. The next, internet dcs, than comes back on. Yet, Skype doesn't connect.

I go to browser, no sites work. After a couple minutes, lo and behold, the headache inducing suddenlink screen appears. The question is, WHY. I already paid the bill for last month. So I'm grinding my teeth, confused as heck.

The answer? SOMEONE was downloading illegal crud...something called lucy subkor blah blah blah. Via bittorrent.

Just one teensy, eensy problem there. NONE of our computers have bittorrent. I even grabbed all the computers in the house (at 3am mind you) turned them on, checked for bittorrent and the so called download. Nothing.

Which leaves me to believe that some *long description filled with bleeps* hacked onto the modem and did it. Unsure what to do since family will be moving in the middle of December. Why? Suddenlink might charge, and I'm going to be EXTREMELY pissed if there was a fee for "illegal activities".

Will talk with family tomorrow and decide what to do then.

[curry nochi rice]

WTF HAPPENED TO MY DEAR CLARIS? :v

>Alice graduated a few months ago, naturally we expected the duo to disband but no....
>TODAY, A NEW MEMBER DEBUTS IN THEIR LATEST SINGLE
>NEW MEMBER'S CHARACTER LOOKS LIKE ALICE
>ALMOST MISTOOK HER FOR ALICE
>WTF HER NAME IS KAREN?
>KAREN?
>LOVELY? SERIOUSLY?
...

Yes, this night is full of WTFs for a lot of ClariS fans.

[MaiMai]

It feels like it's been a week of celebrity drama that's been going down and I only really glean the basics from friends who are adamant fans of music/movie celebs.

I feel weird about looking up to any one of some sort of fame too strongly. If I do look up to anyone, it tends to be because of their skills and artistic output and if they have good character, that's also a plus. If it's just because of physical aesthetics, than I am more than aware of it. Now, being personally attached, I can't do it. It might have to do with my spiritual/religious upbringing, but I find it so dangerous to adore a famous person because the moment they do something questionable, it can be incredibly crushing to people who look up to them.

Honestly, this goes for all things we're fans of, not just people. Things in this life are finite and imperfect so if you put your heart and soul into it, be careful? I know I have to constantly remind myself of this.

Eh, 1 AM pseudo-philosophic rambling, go me.

[Kate]

BEDBUGS. I found Bedbugs in our main couch; my parents JUST went out of town until sunday (they literally left at noon yesterday and we found the bugs at 3 am; it's just me and my teenage brother... SO MUCH NOPE!

Aw hell. Vaccuming everything; more laundry than I care to think about. Prying back wall trim. :/ and possibly expensive exterminator bill. At least that one isn't my issue! And no sleep. Just when I thought this weekend would be quiet and blissful....

[meiri]

BEDBUGS. I found Bedbugs in our main couch; my parents JUST went out of town until sunday (they literally left at noon yesterday and we found the bugs at 3 am; it's just me and my teenage brother... SO MUCH NOPE!

Aw hell. Vaccuming everything; more laundry than I care to think about. Prying back wall trim. :/ and possibly expensive exterminator bill. At least that one isn't my issue! And no sleep. Just when I thought this weekend would be quiet and blissful....

As someone who was once homeless and nearly had to stay in a roach infested hotel, I can relate.
Hope you get it resolved soon.

[thebackup]

While at work today, the time came to take my thirty minute break; went to the quiet room where I can take a little nap (note emphasis on "quiet"). And then this dude comes in five/ten minutes later, turns up the volume on the TV. He sits down, and then coughs very loudly several times. He then falls deeply asleep and snores loudly.

...

That is why I have a habit of adjusting my break schedule several times, to avoid that guy. He is noisy, it's called the quiet room for a reason. Sure coughing / snoring is involuntary and he's pretty old, but it's soooo annoying that I just left the room and went to the cafeteria for the remainder of my break.

I just want to enjoy my breaks with some peace and quiet. I'm very sensitive to noise.