Well, looks like it's that time, folks. My paid account has expired (dear God, the ads--*clings to Adblock, rocking back and forth*) and LJ is continuing in its unrelenting quest to hit the absolute rock bottom of stupidity. (Keep working on it, LJ. You'll get there soon.) I'm packing my bags and moving off to InsaneJournal as of now.

tyraarane.insanejournal.com
For those of you who aren't migrating (or aren't migrating yet), and who missed the first post about this, there's three easy ways to keep track of my new IJ:

on LiveJournal: friend ij_tyraarane, the RSS feed for my IJ. This will let you read my public posts on your LJ flist. Please note that it picks up only public posts, and impolitely ignores my LJ-cuts.

through OpenID: with OpenID, you can log onto InsaneJournal with your LiveJournal username. You can then friend my IJ; if I friend your OpenID back (which I gladly will, btw), you can see my friendslocked posts. This is pretty much the only way to read my flocked posts without having an IJ account. Same goes for leaving non-anonymous comments.

on InsaneJournal: if you do have an InsaneJournal account, please let me know! I'd love to friend you. :)

And as a final note, no, I will not be deleting my LJ account. I'm going to be using it to keep up with my flist as well as I can, and I still hold out some tiny, faltering hope that maybe, just maybe, LJ will have a spontaneous brain cell regrowth and snap out of it. (Speaking of Snap...can I have the head of the person who thought force-enabling the Snap.com previews for all basic and plus users was a good idea brought to me? Preferably on a pike? Thanks.) ...It's a very, very tiny hope, as I said.

Until then, though...I'll catch you all later, or around, or whichever.

*waves*

Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: Tom McRae - Got A Suitcase, Got Regrets

For those who've been missing memos lately, Brütal Legend is the title of DoubleFine's much-rumored and now semi-officially confirmed new game. There are scans from an article in Game Informer here and a (apparently leaked, so if the link goes dead, that's why) trailer over here.

(Also: although the game hasn't been rated yet, judging from the violence in the trailer, I'd say it's not getting away from the ESRB without an M rating. GameTrailers requires a statement of age before they'll let you see the video for that reason. So keep that in mind.)

Now. I'd like to say that I'm absolutely, ridiculously excited about this game, so much so that I'm getting in the car right now to go splurge on a PS3 or 360, just so I can play this game.

...Sadly, right now, I can't say that. As enthused as I want to be about this game, because we all know how much I love Tim Schafer's games, there's one thing stopping me, and that's the first thing I saw when I clicked on the scan of the first page of the Game Informer article.

(LJ cut is for spoilers, and for the pictures themselves.)

( ...what the bloody hell are those women WEARING? )

It's sad, but I almost expect to see those sort of ridiculous images of women from other game companies (including Blizzard, who apparently still has not figured out that no sane woman would charge into battle with a bare midriff). If there's one place I sure as hell never expected to see this coming from, though, it's DoubleFine.

...I'm not just offended. I'm disappointed.

And now I need brain bleach to get those images out of my eyes. Pass the Grim Fandango, please.

Tags: all aboard the failboat, meta, wtf
Current Mood: pissed off
Current Music: The Bravery - No Brakes

First of all: if anybody on my flist has ever bought something from LJ using a credit card, you need to check and make sure that autopayments (for paid account time) have not been mysteriously enabled. This includes those of you who've used autopayments before but have since disabled them, or even have never used them. There's been scattered reports of autopayments being magically turned on, whether by accident or design I don't know, but it's still something to watch for. You can check for said payments here.

Presumably, this only affects those who bought account time, etc. from LJ using a credit card; those who paid in cash, check, and so on should be okay.

*facepalm* Every time I wonder why I'm moving, LJ goes and does something like this. Thanks for the inspiration, LJ.

In other news...I set up an RSS feed on LJ for my IJ: ij_tyraarane. Friending that will let you read my IJ posts on your LJ flist...although be aware that it does not pick up flocked posts (such as FSTs), and it likes to pretend LJ-cuts don't exist. Also, I don't read the feed, so please comment on posts at IJ, not on the feed itself--otherwise I'll probably never see them.

I've also discovered another alternative: OpenID. With OpenID, you can login to IJ with your LJ username, which means you don't have to comment anonymously on IJ posts, and if you friend people (and they friend you back) you can read their flocked posts when logged in. So that's another option, and I'm happy to friend people that way if anyone wants to do that.

And yes, BTW, I've started posting over on my IJ--I'm working on moving over old fics (now new and improved! newly edited, and in some cases rewritten) and the like at the moment.

Tags: all aboard the failboat, migration
Current Mood: working
Current Music: Steve McDonald - Sons of Somerled

So, I had this strange, belated birthday gift arrive in my mailbox today...


(also an alternate angle. Sorry they're sort of blurry...that seems to be the only kind of picture my camera will take these days. I think it's getting ooooold. Like me.)

*glee!* Thanks, riumplus! :D (Seriously, this made my week. I've been coveting this shirt for ages now. *g*)

Tags: picspam, sam & max
Current Mood: loved
Current Music: Hurdy Gurdy - Frost Mats

(Subject line = one of the many reasons why I love our STD faculty advisor. Who also happens to be the awesome creative writing prof I had a few semesters back.)

Anyway. Lit conference is a week from tomorrow. Mad, insane flailing has long since commenced...although we may actually have a handle on things this time. The other shoe should drop any second now.

In other news: I turned 21 on Wednesday. I'm oooold. But now I can legally console myself with booze! ;P Bought myself a permanent InsaneJournal account, since it was only $40, so happy birthday to meeee. *g*

( To-do list for this weekend: )

Also, dear Morrowind: ...why did my definitely female character just get promoted to House Brother of one of her factions? wtf? *head scratch*

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: Carbon Leaf - What About Everything

Yesterday, I got the "your extra user icons subscription will expire in 12 days!" e-mail warning from LJ.

...I LOL'd. And then signed up for an InsaneJournal account. Anybody on my flist with an account there? I'm tyraarane, naturally. I can has friends now plz?

In other news, I have two exams on Tuesday, so...blargh. Going a little insane studying this weekend. (...Because I'm clearly sane every other day.)

Although this does remind me that I've never talked about my classes this semester... ( ...and why they're all conspiring to kill me. )

And as an added bonus, I'm part of the exec board for our campus chapter of Sigma Tau Delta (aka "the English society with the most unfortunate set of initials ever"). This also means that I'm the publicity chair for our fall undergraduate literary conference that's happening in two weeks omfgPANIC, which also means that for the next few weeks, I'm going to be tearing out all my hair.

All in all: good times. ...*tears out hair*

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: George Winston - Night

Something has apparently gone horribly wrong with the water here in the dorm (...hopefully just the dorm and not the whole campus). For some reason, it tastes (and smells, for that matter) like dirt.

...Ew.

So, yeah, it kind of goes without saying that I stocked up on bottled water today.

On the plus side, I has a baby cactus! I decided for some reason that it'd be nice to have some living things hanging around the room, so I picked up some plants from the nursery down the road. Surprisingly, none of them have keeled over dead yet.

Anyway. One of said plants is a baby cactus so adorable that it pretty much had to be mine.

...I named it Darrel. Don't judge me, dammit.


Darrel is totally the room mascot now.

And lastly, FST artwork progress: still slow as hell:

5 / 11 (45.5%)

...My Photoshop-fu is weak.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: AC/DC - Jailbreak

I keep meaning to update this thing and forgetting. Oops?

Anyway. Just when I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, LJ would quit with this batshittery so I wouldn't have to move house...yeah, they stepped the insanity up yet another notch. (Apparently their Insanity Meter™ goes all the way up to 11.) This just in--we're all now responsible not only for linked content, but for continually monitoring said links to make sure they haven't changed to link to inappropriate content.

...Yes. Because I obviously have the time, energy, and attention span to continually go through four years' worth of links and make sure they meet whatever LJ's imaginary standards are this week.

*facepalm* ...I can has check now plz?

So, in regards to InsaneJournal, which is the journal service I've finally decided on--right now I'm thinking that the money that would be going towards renewing my paid LJ account in October will go to a paid account at IJ, instead. Don't know if I want to get a permanent account there or not, although they are ridiculously cheap ($40USD, + $10 for permanent extra icon space).

I also think I'm not going to transfer entries from here to there, with the exceptions of fanfic, original fic, icon posts and fanmixes (except for a couple early ones that need facelifts and retooling). Those posts will also have links back to the original posts here on LJ.

And, obviously, I won't be deleting my LJ, so as to keep up with all of those on my flist who aren't migrating. :) I may set up an RSS feed for my IJ, too; we'll see.

In other, much happier news, the Sam & Max: Season Two trailer is out, and holy bouncing Buddhas does it look awesome (note: some S1 spoilers do apply). Although I won't be pre-ordering this year, unless my bank and Digital River have magically quit hating each other. Boo. Time to invest in a GameTap subscription, I suppose, at least for those few months.

(How much does a GameTap monthly subscription cost, anyway? Any subscribers on my flist who feel like encouraging me to spend my money on it?)

Also working on a new FST; song selection is done but, since it's got a lot of artwork, I'm still working on that. In my spare time. Which I already am lacking quite a bit of. *facepalm*

Tags: all aboard the failboat, sam & max, telltale
Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Sorten Muld - Roselil Rose

All moved in. Having a room to myself is awesome, even if most of the stuff that came with the room is broken. (Oh, ORL. You do this to me on purpose, don't you.) Will post pictures once all of my posters and stuff are up. (Even the walls are broken, y0. My posters wouldn't stick to them. wtf?)

Also, senior seminar is going to kill me. That is, if my Caribbean Lit. class doesn't get to me first. ...Meh.

Tags: school
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Cirque du Soleil - Pursuit

Leaving for school on Saturday. Haven't started packing yet and still haven't finished shopping. *facepalm* Oops. Getting there, though.

Nothing much else of interest going on besides flailing around, trying to get everything ready for school, except to say that writer's block? Yeah, it sucks. Hard. And it's obviously spreading to my blogging skillz. Speaking of which...thinking now of migrating to InsaneJournal instead of GreatestJournal, thanks to some information dug up on GJ's admins and the apparent general awesomeness of IJ's admin, despite the site's ugly UI. Still haven't figured out if I want to start over with a blank slate or drag the entire contents of my LJ over there (sans comments, very unfortunately)...and I have no idea WTF to do with all my fics and their delicious comments--leaving them here and just posting links at the new journal puts them at risk of banhammeration, but I don't want to bahleet them either, because that would screw up all the links I have cross-posted in god knows how many fic comms.

Argh. Dammit, LJ. Why must you fail at life? D:

Have also discovered the seedy underworld of Morrowind mods. There's no hope for me now, especially now that I've found mods that make the game look freaking gorgeous. (I'll have to take some screencaps sometime when poor Relanna's not stuck schlepping around through Vivec. Ew.) Until then...send more mods? *shifty eyes*

Tags: all aboard the failboat, morrowind
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Azam Ali - A Chantar M'er

Wait, what's this? LJ actually has two brain cells to rub together after all! It's not much, but at least it's something, and it's a definite step in the right direction. Now they just need to keep it up...

Anyway, the meme, stolen from laridian: Leave a comment and I'll assign you a letter. You are to list your ten favorite songs that begin with that letter in your journal.

My letter was J, so...( man, I didn't even know I had more than 10 songs that start with the letter J. )

I'd do a zip file, but, um...too lazy?

Tags: memes
Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Tom McRae - Keep Your Picture Clear

(1) Still figuring out the logistics of moving my LJ to greener saner pastures since, yeah, given LJ's latest multiple-feet-in-mouths response to their screw-up (see here, it sums the whole mess up fairly well), there's no way they're getting another cent of my money, and I don't even want to be associated with them anymore. Ugh. Still planning on decamping to GreatestJournal, but fandom_flies is in the midst of creating a fan-run journaling service that has definite appeal--so I may end up playing musical chairs with journal sites for a while.

Joy. *tosses a giant "FAIL" macro in LJ's general direction, just out of spite and tradition*

(2) I leave for my senior year of college in less than two weeks. Panicking is now allowed to commence.

(3) Been playing some of the Uru: Complete Chronicles in my spare time. Honestly, between Yeesha's continued adventures at being needlessly cryptic, the fact that the game's so far been nothing more than a complex game of "collect the Journey Cloths" (as opposed to End of Ages's game of "move the slates"), the god-awful camera angles, and the @#%^&! jumping puzzles, I'm really very glad I got it on the extra-cheap.

Also, because it can't be repeated enough so far as I'm concerned: my hands, Cyan. Let me show you use them. For the love of God. I mean, really now. Who in their right mind is going to kick rocks and buoys and things around when they could, I don't know, pick them up? Seriously. Whose brilliant idea was that?

*sigh* I knew I was in trouble with Uru when, a little ways into Kadish Tolesa, I found myself wishing Esher would pop in and start in on the "D'ni is teh awesomez" propaganda--because at least then I'd have some better idea of what was going on/what the hell I was supposed to be getting out of that Age. I don't think that's a good sign.

...Man, I miss the little Gehn clone that couldn't Esher.

Tags: all aboard the failboat, myst
Current Mood: working
Current Music: Joan Jett - Bad Reputation

In regards to the latest LJ kerfluffle (see here): ...you know, I got pissed during the first Strikethrough '07, because it amounted to a surprise witchhunt apparently egged on by a tiny group of crazed neocon vigilantes.

Now that they've gone and done it a second time? I'm fucking furious, and the more information that leaks out about this business, the more furious I get.

It's not about "omg, you guuuuuys, give us our porn back!" anymore. It's a hell of a lot bigger than that.

It's about the fact that, apparently, if LJ Abuse decides that just one of your entries lacks "artistic merit" (per LJ's definition of said term, which has yet to be clearly outlined to its users), then it's banhammer time. It doesn't matter if you're a basic, paid, or permanent member. Your personal account, along with any other accounts you may have, will be permanently suspended, without warning. You will not have an opportunity to defend yourself, or even remove the offending entry in hopes that that will fix the problem. You're just gone, so long and thanks for all the fish; don't let the door hit you on the way out.

It's about the fact that 6A/LJ have contradicted themselves, over and over.

It's about the fact that this weekend, while LJ users were demanding explanations for this latest round of insanity, LJ staff member burr86, who was heavily involved in "clarifying" rules post-Strikethrough (see the above link), was busy mocking fandom, which includes a number of LJ's paying customers. In a public forum. (Can we say "fiddling while Rome burns?")

Oh, and for more added goodies, as if that wasn't enough? LJ will soon be adding a "report abuse" button to the bottom of every page, opening the door for piles of grudge-reporting and a new, ever lurking threat of banhammering. (Fanfiction.net uses the same system. To say that it fails on an epic level is an understatement.)

And, well, remember that permanent account sale that went on a few months back, with some of the money going to various 'net based charities and non-profits? Yeah, all of those groups save one connects back to SixApart.

There isn't enough EPIC FAIL in the world to describe how disgusted and infuriated I am with 6A/LJ right now. And also a little bit scared, rightfully so, because these latest TOSings set a disturbing precedent: basically, if someone on the LJ Abuse team wakes up one day and decides one of my fanfics or original works lacks "artistic merit," I can kiss my LJ goodbye.

For the time being, I've backed up my LJ (info on how to do that here, for those interested). My paid account expires on October 19, 2007. When that time comes, assuming 6A/LJ haven't done a major overhaul and shaped up big time, I will be packing up and moving to GreatestJournal. Period. My GJ account is tyraarane, here.

And in the event that LJ decides I can not has artistic merit, because god only knows who they'll go after next, go there for more info.

Tags: all aboard the failboat, wtf
Current Mood: infuriated
Current Music: Tom McRae - Keep Your Picture Clear

My laptop is back! *hugs it*

Yeah, so apparently the problem all along? Was the battery. *facepalm, headdesk, die* ...HP's sending me a new one. I'm just starting to think that anything with batteries is predisposed to hate me for some reason.

Anyway, in celebration of me having an omglaptop again, have a meme: ask me anything.* Fandom, original fic/characters, real life, etc. I'll answer as best I can.

* Plz to be using common sense. Questions like "what's your credit card number?" will not only not be answered, they'll also be deleted, and the person who asked them slapped with something silly, like a trout. :P

Tags: memes
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Shiny Toy Guns - Puttin' On The Ritz

So, I was going to do a whole tl;dr post on my thoughts on Deathly Hallows, but...you know, I'm lazy. And tired. And still suffering from laptop deprivation. And I've been playing Alpha Centauri in lieu of TS2 and Morrowind, and God help me, I just can't stop. (I <3 SMAC. Hard. Intellectual crack FTW.)

And really, I don't know about you all, but if I have to see one more thesis sized post on somebody's Thoughts on HP™, I may well go insane. So in an effort to save my sanity, I'll just make a short post, instead of, say, analyzing the whole 700+ page book.

...It goes without saying that there'll not only be major-league spoilers beyond this point, but also in the post comments. So don't say I never warned you.

( In other spoileriffic news, the Titanic sinks, and Soylent Green is people. )

Hm. That's about all I can remember wanting to comment on, anyway. ...And that was a bit longer than I thought. Oops.

Tags: misc. fandoms, reviews
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Tom McRae - Hidden Camera Show