Ack ! I just read Nick's weblog from yesterday (Hallowe'en) and I got to a section about what he might have liked to dress as, had he been going out. This is what I found:

"Well, suppose those were too much work, or too uncomfortable. Next plan would be to have a shirt that says "Safe Sex Guy" written on it somehow, and then whenever someone says "What makes you 'Safe Sex Guy'?" I'd start to unbuckle my pants. Yes, I'd be wearing a condom all day. What makes this idea extra great is that then I'd try to convince Maya to actually have sex with me so that I could be wearing a used condom around all day. Ugh! No, it wouldn't work either."

Niii-iiiiick, I think you're disgusting !!!! Guh. *shudder*

Anyway, I'm off to Ricks tonight, so more logging tomorrow. Whee !

There's an hour left of class today and I'm sort of at a loss for how to spend it. You see, we're rendering our animation, my group that is, or at least the bits that I worked on. Miyagi still did some wacky hand things, but apparently we're just going to deal with it. I was all for trying to fix it, but the concensus was that it would take way too long and it's okay if he looks like he has the palsy.

The fellow who teaches us character design and (soon) storyboarding, Brian Lemay, was in today and we had a fun time. We had to work with a character that we'd already created (I hadn't, so I used one from a previous class - my mafia man, if you must know) and create a sequence of poses for it. We had to concentrate on where the lines of action were within each pose, and the clarity. Basically, if the picture were flattened out and made into a silouette, would the viewer still be able to understand what is taking place? Anyway, I did a very Film Noir sequence for my mafia man, who ended up looking like a Rat Pack member with a hideously broken nose. It was pretty basic, just him lighting a cigarette. First, he's shown reaching into his coat, then he's shown standing, lighting his smoke, one hand cupped around the match. In the third pose he's shown holding out his hand as it starts to rain, cigarette hanging from his mouth, and finally, he's seen pulling up his collar, hunching over as he walks off in the rain. See? Very Film Noir. Well, no, you can't see, but I'll ask Nick how to input images into this thing and I'll scan it. THEN you can see.

After that, we all got to take turns striking poses to do quick sketching. You could tell the serious artists in the group because when a particulary complex pose was struck, they'd ooh and ahh. It was nice. I got that reaction for one of mine because I gave my body a wicked twist. One fellow came up and struck martial arts poses and they were very impressive. We all liked them a lot and he was trained, obviously, so his muscles didn't shake as he held them. He also didn't even slightly wobble off balance like so many of us. Excellent stuff.

My Hallowe'en was a bit of a bust, I must say. I did the costume party on Realms of Despair, and naturally, Rhyl and Vernese did not win the contest. The judge didn't even look at our descriptions. Roleplayers are always overlooked. Following that, there was a quest specially designed so that our characters could 'trick or treat' in the haunted forest. I think it would have been better if the quest was doable, and after an hour of losing our loot to the unkillable bully, and getting caught all too often in the trap, we bailed. Still, 5 glory points is nothing to sneeze at, and next time I participate in a quest I will earn enough to get another rename.

Deanna was supposed to come into Toronto last night and we were supposed to go out. It's good that I didn't bother with make-up or even a costume, actually, because she was waylaid due to technical difficulties (whatever that means) as I found out when she phoned me before I left for school. The poor woman slept in her car after finally arriving at 4am. I told her she should have come by and crashed chez moi, but I guess it was too late by the time I was talking to her. Anyway, in that I had to go to school, she decided to head up to the Petes to visit Lindsay, and we've rescheduled Monday. Maybe we can go to the Lord of the Rings exhibit at Casa Loma, though I did promise to do that with Rick. I don't know, I don't know. Anyway, her not arriving gave me time to work on the article I promised to write for The MUD Companion. Nothing too exciting, just a basic discussion of the importance of description in roleplay.

Monsters Inc. opens tomorrow ! I'm going with hopefully lots of people. Tracy and maybe her friends, Rick, perhaps Nick (did I remember to invite him?), and maybe Al and Carrie. Also, we got permission from Larry at school to go as a class to see it on Saturday afternoon. Hopefully it will be good enough to see twice, otherwise I'll just go home again and sleep. There are just so many new movies that I really must see ! Monsters Inc. and Harry Potter, and One, and Iron Monkey, and Fellowship of the Ring... and those are just the mainstream movies ! Nick and I have a whole other list for independent movies. All these exciting movies, though, make me think that I might prefer a future in film art rather than video games, but I'm not ready for that decision, yet.

Excellent homework doings today ! I slept until noon and then, coffee in hand, began to animate the Miyagi piece I needed to do. And it works ! Well, with the exception of some bizarre hand giggling that is probably related to the mess-up we had in the blend-shapes lipsynch. Perhaps Daniele will be able to fix it. If not, we'll just tweak it somemore tomorrow. Anyway, I feel pretty darned pleased with myself, completing an animation and, mostly, having it work. Maybe things really are finally coming together for me. Gosh, I do hope so.

I'm now procrastinating before having to go to a union meeting. It's the demand setting meeting and we need as many of the part-time membership there as we can possibly have. This being the case, picking 5:30pm on Hallowe'en is probably not such a good idea. So, I'll go in my cloak, be one of the five people there, accomplish nothing, and leave. I've got no plans for tonight, really. There's a party on Realms tonight, so my character, Rhyl, is getting dressed up. Hopefully the MUD will be back online sometime soon, since it's crashing badly right now. Rhyl will be dressed as Vernese. Rhyl, of course, is a mean, nasty drow queen, whereas Vernese is a goody surface elf. Vernese will be attending the party as Rhyl. That all is supposed to go off around 7:30pm tonight, so I should be back from the meeting before then.

Following that, I'll have to log off around 9pm or so because Deanna, aka. Graelynia, will be coming through Toronto on the way to visit Lindsay in Peterborough. I'm supposed to find something for Dee and I to do tonight, but it's not going to be easy. We'll probably just end up at Java or something. Not exciting, but seeing as I've got no food in my house, it won't be all bad, either. It will be nice to meet her, too. Finally.

On a sad note, Sam The Record is bankrupt and only the flagship store and a few select locations will remain open until all their stock is sold. I guess I'll go by there and see about buying a Sams teeshirt or something. Wow, it's sad. No one has their film collection or their massive selection of classical music. I'll go on Friday, I suppose, or after school tomorrow. Sad, sad, sad.

M*A*S*H* remains, to this day, some thrirty years after it first aired, one of television's finest series. I've had my TV on for the last few hours, despite having been disappointed by Buffy's pre-emting by a hockey game. Most of game three of the World Series past by in a haze as I hung out with the new upstairs neighbour, Greg. An A&E biography of Caligula made vaguely interesting background noise (with lots of lovely Roman and Neoclassical art), though they left out some of the more debatable and ghastly details. But I wasn't talking about Caligula, I was talking about M*A*S*H*.

I've seen every episode, I think, thanks to syndication, but I never cease to be moved. I tuned in for the last eight minutes of the episode when Colonal Henry Blake is recalled to the USA, and of course, dies as his plane is shot down over the sea. When Radar comes into the surgery and holds himself up against a rack, grief-stricken, I am already crying. "Radar, put on a mask." He stoops over the rack and touches his face, and the viewer already knows what he's going to say. Blake is dead, it's impossible, but he is. The operating room can't shut down, there are lives to save, but the doctors and nurses keenly feel their pain. The sorrow is palpable. God, they just don't make poignant shows, which also happen to be funny as Hell, like that anymore.

Wow, I think I just stumbled on a 'late night' movie on City TV. This means that it's either a horrible thriller, or a ghastly soft-core. Oh, look, a dead body floating in a boat wreck. Damn, it's the former. Oh well. It deserves at least ten minutes of my time. Hm, not even.

Ahhh, the hallmarks of a movie from the mid-eighties: fake paint splattered silk shirts and gratuitous exercise machine moments. Yeesh. And both in the same thirty seconds. Throw in a headband, a palm tree, and a bad premise such as a school reunion, and BOOM ! Instant crap gratification. Quite the come-down after M*A*S*H*. Oh, and look what's on TLC: some lame show about ... Poe? Horror? I'm not sure, but it featured a dominatrix in truly campy pvc. Her dungeon wasn't my fear, but her fashion sence might kill me. Hm, good stuff.

Oh, and on an unrelated sidenote, I'd like to say that Justin appologised, if you were wondering.

I overslept this morning, mostly due to the stupidity of the night before. Justin didn't come out of his room while I was getting ready so I don't even know if he was awake. Not that I felt like talking.

Wackiness, though, when I came out of my room to get ready for bed sometime around 4am, I stepped in a massive puddle that seemed to be making its slow way toward my bedroom from beneath Justin's door. I suppose it was water, but it was pretty weird. I briefly considered it as an act of passive aggression directed against me, but I dismissed it, thinking that was just a little too vindictive for Justin. Maybe he spilled something in his room, but whatever it was, I mopped it up with a towel. Weird.

My homework was not overly successful last night, I must say. It probably wouldn't have been successful even if I'd been able to work straight through without distraction and interruption. I've read through a lot of the online tutorials that come with Maya Unlimited 4.0, just trying to find the clues I need to do my work. Maybe that's why my theoretical knowledge is so much further along than my practical. Anyway, in school, my group was a little disappointed that I didn't have work done, or rather the work I had done was disfunctional, but soon they realised that there were a lot of inherant problems in the model. We're moving along at a nice pace now, though, and I've been helping Martin blend face shapes for the lipsynch. Once that's done, I'll try animating it again. Hopefully this time it will work.

And maybe this time Maya won't crash. It's a hard lesson to learn, but after a few good system failures, you force yourself to 'save' your work. All the time. So, tedious, but important. Also, all this is a good way to keep my mind off of the other crap.

Tonight I went to see Diane's apartment. It's nice. It's not really as big as where I am presently, and it has no porch to suit my limited gardening desires, but it's nice. I met Justin at his work and we went to the place, checked it all out... nice. What can I say, it was nice.

Unfortunately, Justin was vibing weirdly the whole time, which granted sounds like some sort of medical disorder, but it is the only way to describe it. He even brought up his friend, Peter, out in Halifax, inviting him to move out there. Nice timing there, Just, really. He had to get back to work so I hung out with Diane for a bit - she fed me some yummy soup she'd made herself (how many prospective landladies do THAT?) - and we chatted. I came home and had very little luck with my homework, discovering at this late time, that the model I have to work with is... well, not the best to work with. Lacking the immediate patience to fix it, I did some other things for a while.

When Justin came home, having been out drinking with his bud, Jay, we got to sort of discussing the place. I was talking about what sort of people were also interested in the house and how I thought we'd probably lose out to the present tenant's friend's mother who needs a place because she's just gotten a job in Toronto. He mentioned that it would sort of be better for him to live with Jay where he would only have to pay 200$ a month. I couldn't believe what I heard, so I ignored him while I cleaned Willi's litter. I washed and dried my hands, poured myself a glass of water, and at this point it all degraded:

MAYA: It's totally cool to live with Jay. What's not cool is telling me you'd like to continue living with me and then changing your mind.
JUSTIN: No, what's not cool is you thinking I said something I didn't ! I did not tell you that ! I said I didn't know if I'd want to live with Jay.
MAYA: That is not what you said, you said that you would like to-
JUSTIN (yelling): No, when I said I would consider living with Jay, you laughed it off and said 'you don't really want to live with Jay, do you?'
MAYA: You laughed it off, yourself-
JUSTIN: No, I didn't say I'd rather live with you over Jay-
MAYA (yelling): Don't interrupt me, Justin ! We discussed this and you told me you wanted to keep living with me-
JUSTIN: I-
MAYA (over top of his interruption): That's what you told me, and I've been blissfully thinking I'd still be living with you. Why the hell did you come to the house tonight? Why did you let me think you would jump at moving out of here and-
JUSTIN: I still wanted to see it.
MAYA: Right, so you can live somewhere else and leave me in the lurch.
JUSTIN: I never said anything like-
MAYA (stomping off to her bedroom): Screw it !
JUSTIN: Ya-wha?
MAYA (slams door)

At this point Justin sat fuming in the kitchen much as I was fuming in my room, though I have no idea if he was crying like I was. He put on his shoes and stomped down the stairs to go... trudge around outside. I phoned Nick (I would have called Rick, but he was sleeping, and Nick, having seen him online moments earlier, was not) and bawled the story to him. Justin came back moments later, but I did not open my door for further discussion. At that moment, as far as I was concerned, he could live in a garbage bag if it was what he wanted.

This is not fine timing on Justin's part. Nick JUST committed to a very nice apartment north of here, so I can't even finagle him to take this place with me. I'm screwed. I don't know what Justin plans to do - he can move to Halifax for all I care at this moment. But if I get evicted, I have to look for a new place, pack up my house, and move all while I'm still in school. I can't afford to live on my own, and now I don't even have the security of living with Justin.

And, to top it off, it's 2:20am and I haven't finished my animation project yet. Sleep? Bah, it's for the weak.

Today sucked. Utterly.

"Christmas trees? You have got to be kidding me. What the Hell is wrong with this place?!"

That was my reaction as I walked into the ROM to work this morning. I turned for the cafeteria to get my ritual ROM breakfast of a regular coffee and a rice crispy square and was struck incredulous by the awesome sight of Chirstmas trees in the shops. Someone want to explain to the ROM shops manager that it isn't even Hallowe'en yet? Even *I* remember when the Christmas shopping season didn't start officially until the Santa Claus parade in early, rainy November. I'm not that old, you know? Honestly, all the seasonal television specials in the world can't combat the consumerist bullshit that surrounds Christmas. A whole lot of marketing wonks deserve big, fat lumps of coal in their stockings, if you ask me.

Then I walked into the horrible cafeteria, a Druxy's deli, to buy, as I said, my typical ROM breakfast. Once, not too long ago, the rice crispy squares were long and large, and took a while to eat. Now, they are small and flat, a snack for mice. I went to the cash to pay, getting out the 2.63$ required to buy my square and coffee, only to hear that they'd upped the price to 2.90$. I laughed and said, "You have to be kidding? For this tiny thing?" They kid at the cash must have thought I was joking around because he laughed too, or maybe he was just an idiot. Add to the whole ridiculous affair tons of red and white balloons to celebrate Druxy's 25th anniverary, and you have something rather surreal.

So, out in the shops it is Christmas, inside the cafeteria it's bloody Valentine's day, and up in membership it's Hallowe'en. Thank God membership (three words I don't normally combine) is seasonal. I might have cried if I'd walked in and found Easter paraphenalia, though after the decorating ideas on the main floor, I wouldn't have been surprised.

So, huh. The Place. Didn't see it. Nope. I met Justin at his work and we strolled down the street to the house, rang the doorbell and... waited. We rang it again and... waited. Hm. Diane was nice enough to provide a comfy wicker love seat on her porch, though, so we sat on that for a bit. I tried calling her with my handy-dandy (it's still new enough for me to call it that) cell phone, but no one was there. I tried calling her at Julie's house where I thought perhaps she might erroniously be. I left another message. Justin suggested ringing the tennant buzzer, but no one was answering there, either.It was getting cold, so we went in search of a coffee house, figuring Dundas W. to be much like, on a more scaled down level, College St. Hah, no.

There was a plethora of unrented and boarded up storefronts, closed convenience stores (not terribly convenient) and hair salons. There is, however; a giant wedding crap super store full of horribly ornate porcelain figures and chincey pastel coloured table dressings. I'll remember that when I'm in the market for B-movie scene filler. Justin and I ended up at the Coffee Time at Dundas and Euclid. It's not as sketchy as many of its bretheren, but it seemed to cater to the local Triad needs. There was even a smoking section where ten or so Asian males were smoking, gambling over poker (I think), and doing business on their phones. So, while this one did in fact have doughnuts, it was still a highly sketchy locale to drink coffee.

We made some more calls, left some more messages, and decided to walk home. When we arrived, Adina infomed us that Diane had JUST called and that we should phone to reschedule. Diane was spaced, apparently, which is okay and I explained that it happened to me all the time, and we've set tomorrow at between 7pm and 8pm to view it. I might as well view an apartment tomorrow evening since it turns out Momus is then, and Rick can't afford it, Nick's likely not going to be able to go thanks to arriving home from Nova Scotia, and I have a pile of homework that needs doing.

Actually, I should start on that homework now; Mr. Miyagi is calling out to be animated. I should. I probably won't for a while, though, I need a bit of down time.

I don't want to be sick again. As much as I love this time of year, being sick every other week really gets tedious. I can't imagine how it must be to be out on the streets these days, when the weather gets colder and the rain falls more often than the sun shines, and then to be sick all the time. Now is about the time when I start carrying loose change in my pockets just so that I can give it away to the panhandlers. God, I don't even want to imagine how horrible it must be on the streets now, let alone actually live it.

I'm off to meet Justin so that we can go look at an apartment together since my Asshole Neighbours are still assholes, and what with the house I'm in being sold and all and not having any idea whether or not we'll be evicted... Anyway, the place in Diane's house is up for rent and, while it might make Nick sad if we get it because it would be a perma-thing, it would be a really good thing for Justin and I who desperately need to keep living together. We like us ! Hopefully the place will be big enough, and Diane will favour us because I'm old friends of the family, but still, no sure thing. Hopefully, though.

Didn't go to Rocky Horror last night. Rick and I picked up Tical and Starlah (from Realms of Despair) for the get together and headed off to Mississauga for fun. Unfortunately, the Fox and Fiddle, the place where all the RoD events, including the massively good for business Reunion every August, decided to be anal because Starlah had no ID. So, rather than send Tical and Starlah off to nowheresville, we decided to accompany them. We collected Selina in the foyer leaving Feyd to wait for others to show. He promised to tell everyone where we'd gone to when they arrived.

So, we drove across the parking lot and went to Casey's which turned out to be a good idea. I had a 'little Ricky' which is a half-pint of Rickards Red and it was DELICIOUS. Naturally, when Rick (my boyfriend, not the drink) told me it was an aquired taste, I knew I'd like it. I ONLY like aquired tastes when it comes to beer. The nachos I had weren't so great, but it was fun, and best of all, everyone came to the restaurant to join us. Yay for geek solidarity ! Then we went to JJQ's and rented tables (it's a pool hall) and played the night away. Sorry for the F&F, we aren't going back there. You'd think for regular customers, who happen to also host a 40-person gathering over four days in August, you could bend the rules or turn a blind eye for ONE person.

Ahh, fuck 'em.

Anyway, now I must take off my skirt and put on some pants because it's damn chilly outside. I must meet Justin at his work and then off to see the place.