\o/

Heheh. To think that less than a week ago I was hopelessly behind on wordcount. And well, look at me now.
W00T! :D

Okay. So. If any of you want to read what I've written, leave a comment (with your email address) or drop me an email, and I'll send the thing to you. (If I know you decently enough, anyway. Not going to give my novel out to read to perfect strangers. I want to get this published someday, and giving it out to everybody and their little dog would be counterproductive.)
Just keep in mind this:
- The story is not finished. It's either barely halfway through or not even halfway through. I'm definitely going to continue it, I think it's going to last another 50K words at least. So, read at your own risk. ;)
- This is a first draft. There's going to be a lot of crap, and a lot of problems with the storytelling. (One known problem is the beginning, it's too hurried... you'll see if you read.)
- If you read it, I'm expecting comments and suggestions.

Many thanks to everybody who beared with me in this past almost-a-month of frantic writing. \o/

I have the FotR extended edition DVD. \o/

Lifted from Ro, because I'm bored and I need a little break from writing (45140 words, woohoo!), the shuffle mp3 game (load every single mp3 on your HD in your Winamp playlist, shuffle and list the top 10 songs).
Keep in mind that I usually keep my entire mp3 list loaded as my playlist - so, no embarassing stuff I'd forgotten I downloaded here ;)

1. Giorgia - Riguarda noi - Mmh. Still one of my fave Giorgia songs. Not much more I can say about it, except it brings back memories from her concert I went to see years ago... during this song, in the first long pause (right after "lo specchio", if you know the lyrics), a bunch of guys shouted, "sei bellissima!!!" ("you're beautiful!!!") at her. XD
2. Loreena McKennitt - Tango to Evora - Nice instrumental song, a bit melancholy maybe. Again, not much else I can say, except that I have fallen asleep to this a couple times (I have a mp3 CD full of celtic / relaxing type music that I listen to in the evening in bed).
3. Enya - Pilgrim - Lookit the coincidence - this is the theme song for the current kicie.net layout. I like this a lot, and it's one of the few songs that get put on repeat when they pop up randomly in my playlist.
4. David Bowie - Space Oddity - ^^; I have no idea who suggested this to me, but I like it a lot. I probably saw it mentioned on a thread on the TTLG forums, and decided to check it out out of curiosity. I seem to be finding a lot of music that way recently.
5. Naomi Tamura - Yuzurenai Negai - XD Ahh, MKR. My anime past. The song still 0wns.
6. Enya - The Council of Elrond - Enya again. Not surprising, since I have ripped all my Enya CDs and stuffed them into my playlist, so I have a lot of Enya mp3s. This one has the plus that it's from the LotR movie. Mmm, Aragorn.
7. James Last - Ballade pour Adeline - The first mp3 I ripped, ever. Bloody nice piece of classical music, it's been on repeat for days on end a few times.
8. Eve 6 - Here's to the night - No idea where I found this from, either, but I love it. I think I saw it mentioned on a blog once... on a layout, or something. I thought the lyrics were nice, so I downloaded the song.
9. Loreena McKennitt - Dante's prayer - My current favourite song. It's just so... nice. ^^
10. Melissa Manchester - Don't cry out loud - Another song I found randomly. Eh. It's nice. ^^

(Not very wordy on the subject of music, am I? Not as you'd expect, anyway... ^^;)

...
Current wordcount for NaNoWriMo: 43294. Which means, holy shit, I've written about 12K words between yesterday and today.
And I'm also very much ahead of the target wordcount. Woohoo. I can make this! \o/

38529 words written for NaNoWriMo, which means I've written 7K words (and change) today.
It also means that I am not only on target with the wordcount (first time ever), but actually ahead of the target wordcount (first time ever). w00t.
Now excuse me, I'm going to sleep.

Feeling a bit less lonely today. ^^ Thanks to everybody who did their best to help.

Went to choir rehearsal yesterday evening... that always makes me feel better. Sometimes it can be very tedious, going over and over and over two or three bars of the piece until they're perfect. But then you sing the whole piece as a choir, and it turns out perfect, and the music is so loud that you can feel the music sheet vibrating in your hands. And you feel alive.

Lonely.

For what I've heard, the LotR DVD, extended version and gift box version, is out in Italy too. And it's pretty magnificent, too. *drools* I want it. Now. Can't wait. Will have to look around to find it as soon as possible. Hopefully the gift box version. (Yes, I know it costs a lung and a kidney and half a liver, who cares, my parents are paying ;)
Mmm, Legolas. Mmmmmm, Aragorn.

Can you tell which photos are real and which are internet hoaxes?

If you haven't seen this already (it's pretty much all over blogland, I reckon), The Lord of the Peeps: the Fellowship of the Peep.

Found on the TTLG forums, wilderness survival quiz. I got 95%, and I answered wrongly the river crossing question and the international distress signal question (the latter I really should have remembered). Guess my time with the Scouts helped? ^^;

A.L.I.C.E Bot-Off. The A.L.I.C.E bot is a conversation-emulating bot which has won prizes for its capability to emulate human speech. But look at what happens if you set two A.L.I.C.E bots to talk to each other... XD

BUT, on a positive note, I can work on my NaNovel at uni too now. \o/ Of course, I will use Notepad or Wordpad, not touching Word with a ten-foot pole. It would be optimal if I could just install RoughDraft, but alas, that's impossible. Wordpad will have to do.
...if I remember to take the NaNovel to uni with me on a floppy, that is. I was thinking of doing it today, but then I thought, "Naaah, they're always very slow in doing stuff, the computer room can't possibly be open already". ^^;

Aaaaaaaargh! Reason #1 why I hate WinXP: I opened 6 IE windows and it grouped them all under a "program group". This is such a pain in the ass. Can anybody tell me how to deactivate this function? ><# I am so glad I opted for Win98SE on my new computer.

Blogging from university. Yes, they have finally reopened the computer room. \o/ They have added new computers, too, and they're decently fast. The only downside is that the OS is WinXP (Home edition). I had almost forgotten how much I loathe this OS. >< It's too... candylike. Glossy.
Oh, and apparently they finally got a Sysadmin With A Clue™. You can no longer install anything on the university computers unless you are logged in as Administrator, which us students, of course, can't do. On one hand, I am annoyed, because I can no longer install mIRC, and java is disabled too so I will have to find an HTTP chat or some other way to get on IRC :p On the other hand, however, I'm rather happy with the restrictions. They are smart restrictions, finally, and not being able to install stuff doesn't annoy me, since it also means that all the clueless idiots can't install any computer-damaging program. Whee.

[EDIT] LOL, one of the guys from the administrative staff came this way, and said (to the guys sitting next to me), "I will castrate the first one who gets caught downloading shit on these computers and making them unstable. And all the others, for that matter." XD

Yes, I'm still alive, despite rumors to the contrary. I've just been busy. :p

And now look at this. Pencil lead sculptures. I'm looking at a pencil right now, and I can't imagine how difficult it would be to carve something out of the lead. Those sculptures are so absurdly cool.

Courtesy of GBM from the TTLG forums: How to assassinate a third world despot with only a butt plug and a litre of raspberry coulis. I don't care if it's true or not, it probably isn't, but it's bloody hilarious. XD

For the "wtf?" category: possum fur nipple warmers.

If you have always dreamed to live in an airplane, well, here's your chance.

[pubblicità progresso] Per chi non ne fosse a conoscenza (io l'ho scoperto tramite un banner su Hotmail ^^;), il 23 e il 24 novembre, in 800 piazze italiane, ci sarà una campagna raccolta fondi del Telefono Azzurro, denominata Accendi l'azzurro. Praticamente, tu compri le candele, e i fondi raccolti vanno a finanziare le operazioni del Telefono Azzurro. Un po' come quella del WWF dove ti danno le piante, o quella delle uova di Pasqua, eccetera...
Io lo farò, specialmente visto che 1. uno dei punti in cui saranno presenti è giusto vicino a casa mia e 2. mi piacciono le candele. ^^ Non che non lo farei comunque, ma quelli sono punti bonus, diciamo. ^^
Invito tutti quanti a offrire qualcosa, se ne avete la possibilità. E' per una buona causa. ^^ [/pubblicità progresso]

GhostZilla, the camouflage browser. A browser made so people who throw a cursory glance at your screen won't notice you're browsing the internet rather than, for instance, working. *cough*

Optical illusions. Some of them literally swim before your eyes.

Because I'm bored out of my skull and procrastinating on the NaNoWriMo (even if I'm only on 6309 words at the moment AARGH AARGH I'LL NEVER MAKE IT [/brief moment of panic]), I took the Archetype test at Colorgenics... turns out I am The Shadow.
"Though often quiet on the outside, the Shadow personality is known for having deep-felt convictions and a sense of the importance of life's abstract concepts like love, honor, and duty. The Shadow personality is often the hidden hero: someone who rushes in when needed and then after the emergency is over fades back into the woodwork, neither eager for attention or reward. Because of this sense of duty and honor, the Shadow personality can also on occasion be rather rigid in its viewpoint and unyielding in the face of other ways of thinking."

(Misa, se la vuoi mettere sull'AYW fai pure ^^)

Okay, magari sono poco tollerante io, magari ha le sue buone ragioni per fare quello che sta facendo, ma dopo aver letto gli ultimi numeri di W.I.T.C.H., beh... [sfogo]

Sì, sì, lo so che non è un granchè. Se volete contribuire alla causa, piazzate questa o un'immaginina sullo stesso stile fatta da voi sul vostro blog o qualcosa del genere. ;) Non che mi aspetti partecipazione, ma eh. Gli sfoghi fanno bene. ;)

[/sfogo] ><

(Maybe I should make two separate blogs, one in English and one in Italian... my English friends are starting to wonder what I'm saying when I speak in Italian. ^^;)

Just came back from the theatre... we went to see Il barbiere di Siviglia. It was incredibly fun, it was even better than I remembered it from the last time I'd seen it.
And of course, Figaro 0wns. He is, I think, one of the best opera characters of all time. :D

*_____* Giorgia fa un concerto a Padova il 23 di Novembre! *_____* Ci voglio andare! Speriamo di riuscire a convicere mamma...

Sul giornale c'era un articolo su Roberto Vecchioni... così mi sono ricordata di una vecchissima cassetta mix che mi aveva passato mia zia (Ebbene sì, mia zia mi faceva le cassette mix con la musica che piaceva a lei ^^; Ho scoperto tantissimi splendidi cantanti "vecchi" in questo modo!), con alcune canzoni di Vecchioni. Così ho aperto WinMX e me le sono scaricate. ^^v
o/~ Ridere, ridere, ridere ancora, ora la guerra paura non fa, bruciano nel fuoco le divise la sera, brucia nella gola il vino a sazietà... o/~

\o/ Buon compleanno Hikaru! \o/

The latest feat of Attila the kitten: he found a chocolate bar, neatly nibbled a bit of the wrapping off, and proceeded to lick the chocolate. He must've spent quite some time licking the chocolate, as the bar was nearly licked through.
^^; And then people wonder why we named him Attila when we found out he was a male kitten and needed a change of name...

So I have a lit candle sitting on my desk, and one of the previously mentioned (two posts below this one, f00) sounds of nature mp3s looping on my winamp. And it's incredibly relaxing. I could almost fall asleep like this.

(Weird? Me? Noooo.)

Eeee. Okay, so I'm a sucker for cool-looking stuff, but eee. CDRs that look like old vinyl 45s. I want.

Plug, because I think this is very cool: Guy in the woods. Basically, recorded thunderstorms, waterfalls, etc. Very relaxing, at least for me.
You'll need to register with mp3.com to download the mp3s. Do it with a throwaway email account if you don't like getting image-heavy emails once in a while. It's very worth it, though.

Well, I'm back. As I expected, I didn't find many of the things I wanted... being things related to popular anime/manga, they were sold out long before I got to Lucca. :p Oh well, will look again next year.
Here's a list of what I did buy:
- Expected and planned purchase: Card Captor Sakura manga artbook III
- Expected and planned purchase (even though I can't read a word of Japanese): Nana volumes 1-5 and 7 (couldn't find volume 6 anywhere --;)
- Random impulse purchase: a Kodama plushie (from "Mononoke Hime"). It was just too cute to pass up. :D (I like oddly cute (or cutely odd) things, so sue me.) The photo's not very good, and the thing looks smaller than it is... its head is almost as large as a human head.
- Unplanned purchase: a Death action figure (from Sandman). :D I was unsure whether to buy this or not, but I kept wandering back to the stand and looking at it... ¬¬ and my subconscious kept saying "buyitbuyitbuyitbuyitbuyit". :p It made my brother and his friend go o.O... "Okay, she's the personification of death, that's cool, but wtf is the umbrella for?" Hehe. It's probably going to end up sitting on my monitor... if, of course, we can teach Attila the kitten that stealing things from the top of my monitor and hiding them who knows where is bad. ^^;
- Semi-unplanned purchase: a dragon miniature. I'd been wanting a dragon miniature for a long time, and had been eyeing the ones that were for sale at the comic store in the city I study in, but those cost too much and they didn't have smaller versions. The one I bought is a smaller version of the ones that were available at the comic store (same series), so it didn't cost more than I wanted to spend. :) There also were larger ones, which were beautiful *.* and which I would've bought if they didn't cost too much.
- Random but semi-planned purchase #1: three Inuyasha gashapon (vending machine) figures. One is a small Kagome plushie and two Inuyasha plastic figures. (While I was assembling them, I stepped on the sword of the one on the right and it broke in half. --; Long live glue!)
- Random but semi-planned purchase #2: three Chobits shitajiki (two manga ones, 1 and 2, and an anime one) and two clear Chobits folders (1 and 2).
- Entirely unplanned "woohoo, can't believe I got this for so little" purchase: a Zelgadis cel (from Slayers). (Any shadows or odd colors on the image are due to the plastic envelope the cel is, which I left on for scanning and is not gonna get taken off anytime soon, only when I frame the cel... the cel is in perfect conditions, uncut, no scratches, no stains, etc.) There was a pile of cels at a stand, so I looked through them to see if there was something cool but not too expensive. Eventually, I narrowed my choice down to two... a Card Captor Sakura cel which cost €20 and the Zelgadis cel, which had no price tag that I could see. I asked the woman at the stand how much the Zelgadis cel cost, and she said €10. So I said, "okay I'll buy this one". She took it from me and looked at it, and visibly cringed. "Er... I told you the wrong price. It's €30." "Oh..." I said, and was going to continue that I would buy the other one, then. But she said, "But since I said the price was €10, I'm going to sell it to you at €10, it's the fair thing to do." So w00t.

And my little brother, bless him, bought the DVD of the Kenshin OVAs. :D

All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience. I enjoyed meeting Ro (grazie delle figurine! ^^) and Mary a lot, even if for a short time only. ^^ Hopefully next year I'll have more time to spend there.

Huh! Just realized, it's technically November 1st now. Which means I could start on the NaNoWriMo. If I wasn't so damn sleepy, that is... *thunk*

[EDIT] Started. Got to around 800 words (ie. half the daily wordcount, but who cares) before my brain pointed out that It Really Was Not The Time To Be Thinking About Writing Stories and shut down on me. Heh.
This shows my priorities. Writing > sleep.

Oh, almost forgot to mention... I had a very odd dream last night. It involved me going to volleyball practice and finding all my old friends from volleyball there, and they all pounced me and we ended up on the ground in a group hug. (;_; Goddamn I miss them... didn't realize how much until I started playing volleyball again. No way to track them down, either...) Then it moved to choir rehearsal, and I was singing oddly (in a very complex way, with a lot of variations and such) and the director asked me to tone it down and sing "solo le note normali" ("just the normal notes"... I know where this is from, it's a quote off this movie). Then the dream shifted again, and I was talking with this guy from a ML (a ML I barely read and never speak up in... I certainly never actually spoke with the guy) about something I forget at the moment. And then I woke up. ^^;
Oh, and somewhere in it there was somebody parking their car on the top of a skyscraper (don't ask me how or why). I remember I was concerned that it would fall off.