The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

It’s time once again to clean out the ol’ tabs. A fresh start, with fresh tabs, will do us all a lot of good, don’t you think? Well, too bad, that’s what’s happening anyway.

First, let’s start with some comics that have vastly entertained me recently.
The last panel of this cracks me up every time. I think I might be slightly broken.
This particular comic kind of sums up everything about why Nedroid is one of the most wonderful things on the internet.
Romance on the job? It’s an idea with vast story potential.
I guess this is sort of a comic? It’s a diagram, at the very least, filled with important information about how to conduct business on the internet.

How about videos? I’ve got that too.
The more I watch this sketch, the funnier I find this discussion of one of the more pressing concerns in the restaurant industry.
It’s a Mega Man 4 Race! I was entertained, certainly.

Now I have two more links, without clear categories to put them in. Oh well.
So this is slash Retsuprae fan fiction. Finally, all your favorite Retsupraers will hook up. It’s about time.
Finally, here are more Harrison Fords than you can handle.

Always good to shake out the dust from those silly tabs, and make way for new ones! Actual content tomorrow, probably. Have a good day.

I’m not sure how to organize all this stuff that’s been in my head into a coherent essay, but I’m just going to go for it anyway. Sorry if it doesn’t make much sense or seems really scattershot.

When I went to visit Brer, I basically conquered my last thing that I was worrying about with the whole transition thing: I started using the correct bathroom. It’s really such a stupid thing, when you think about it, but I was so fucking nervous. But it’s just like anything, and I knew that: act like something is wrong, and something is wrong. Act like nothing is wrong, and nothing is wrong. It was not a big issue at all, and will continue to not be. It also just seems stupid that something like a bathroom would be the main indicator of “you made it” but that’s kind of what it is to me. That’s the main sorter of people into gender groups on a daily basis, and now I’m on the correct side of it. That’s what I wanted.

I really expected some sort of push back from the world. Some sort of horrible fate to befall me because I started going out as myself, and not worrying about it. Nothing has come of it yet. For all the fear my parents beat the fuck into me about Southeast Missouri being intolerant, everyone I’ve encountered and discussed this stuff with has been fucking fantastic. Everyone who is not my parents is so understanding and supportive, it really makes me feel stupid for having lived this long being so scared of being myself. And while it was subtle, and not the huge weight off my shoulders I was expecting, I feel so much better. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m not acting confident, but am confident, and maybe that’s not a useful distinction as far as what it lets me get done (because let’s face it, fake confidence is good enough in the majority of situations) but as far as me feeling good while doing it? It means a ton. It means a lot to me that I can believe in myself. It’s been a long time since I could say that and really mean it.

The parents are still being stupid. If I was being overly dramatic, I would say that I think that them being like this will end up being one of their biggest regrets in life. I love them so fucking much, and I know they love me, and once they understand how much better I am doing, and how much happier I am, they are going to feel like garbage for fighting against me for so long. (Okay, I guess this was a stupid, ineffective ploy to be dramatic without being dramatic, but surely you can indulge me a bit in my own diary blog post, hm?) But, you know, I get it, to some extent. They want the best for me, but can’t face the fact that what I’m telling them is true, and that I am working towards the same goal. I’m frustrated, but I’m their daughter, and that’s that. I can’t imagine life without them. I know they’ll be there for me. That’s what matters.

Really, though, the worst thing, if you can call it that, about the transition is people apologizing to me all the time. Nice people, trying to wrap their head around a new name and new pronouns… well, it takes awhile for it to click. I know that. But they apologize every time they get it wrong. I don’t know how to react to it. I just feel lucky that they’re even trying at all. How do you tell someone that yes, you really would prefer them to get it right, but that it’s not hurting, insulting, or otherwise doing bad things to you for them to make mistakes sometimes? I’m still working on the answer to that one. Still, if people being very polite and apologizing to me is my biggest worry, I say that things are going pretty well in my world.

But yeah. Things. Things are going well. I’ve been noticing other things, though, which I will record for posterity, so I can see how stupid wrong I am in a few years time.
I am so fucking hungry recently. I don’t know if it’s giving up sodas (you’d think that would have died down if it was, as it’s been several weeks now) or the hormones or what, but fuck, I am so hungry. I’ve gone from eating a meal a day, maybe two if it’s a social occasion, to just feeling starving all the time, and eating three meals a day, often out of hungry desperation. I just cannot remember being this constantly hungry before. I have no idea what this means, but it just feels like it can’t be random coincidence. I dunno.
The other thing is that women are talking to me more. Conversations that used to just be a slight nod of the head or a “sorry” suddenly are becoming actual conversations. I had a cashier strike up a fairly sizable conversation with me about the flavor “sour apple” at a gas station, and another woman I was in line with at Wal-Mart started a conversation with me about one of the magazines on the rack, for some examples. This isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. I am good at polite conversation. I just don’t remember that kind of encounter happening before, really. It just feels like a shift in how the world is interacting with me. It feels like something has changed, you know? And, well, I suppose something has, since I’m going out as me now. This might be another point of insanity, though.

Overall, though, things are going great. They’ll be better if I get the job I interviewed for today (And hi, background check people, if you read this!) but, you know, either way. Life is worth living. Life is great. I think I’ll keep at it.

I gave up soda.

Yeah, me. I did that.

Can you fucking believe it?

In any case, I drank straight water for awhile, and while that was fine, it also felt very forced. It didn’t replace the feel-good that came from cracking open a Pepsi, since it wasn’t all that enjoyable. Thus, I started making Crystal Light Lemonade, because I had enjoyed that in the past. (Of course, I always used twice the powder back in the day. I used the recommended dose this time around.) It was a good substitute, and while not water, was way, way better for me than soda.

Of course, the pack of lemonade mix we had from who knows when eventually ran out, and I went to the store to buy some more. When I got there, though, I noticed that the Schnucks brand was like… way cheaper. Three for the price of two cheaper. I decided it was worth a shot. However, there were three lemonade variants available: A “Natural” Lemonade, a “Natural” Pink Lemonade, and a Raspberry Lemonade. Of course, I bought all three to give them a try.

The first one I went with was the Raspberry Lemonade, because that seemed the most interesting. I love citrus, love lemonade, and rather enjoy things that are raspberry flavored. However, past experiences with Raspberry Lemonade had been poor at best. They just tasted like shitty weak lemonade that someone dropped a raspberry in.
This, however, didn’t. It was a rather strong lemonade, which I appreciated, which just had a little bit of raspberry on the back end to cut the sour slightly. It was rather good, but it’s not something I’m going to drink every day. Still, I had high hopes for the normal lemonades, as that one turned out quite well.

The standard lemonade wasn’t nearly as good, though. For whatever reason, it just tasted artificial. It had that sting that artificial sweeteners have. Granted, this is supposed to have artificial sweeteners, but I kind of hate that taste. I guess the raspberry was hiding it in the previous mix. With nothing to mask it, it was out in full force. It was drinkable, but not optimal, by any means.

The pink lemonade, though, is probably the one I will keep buying. It undercuts that artificial flavor with the sweetness of pink lemonade, and does it without, you know, making it not taste like lemonade like the raspberry does. It’s a solid and cheap drink mix. I like it.

Overall, though, these are pretty decent products, which surprised me. For example, I have bought the Schnucks generic Chex Mix before, and that was a god awful mess nobody would ever believe is Chex Mix for a second. Tasted horrible. These are fine, though.

Yeah, I wrote about drink mixes. I dunno, it was on my mind.

Hi! By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to spend a week with Brer. This is both totally awesome and totally scary, but I know the trip will be worth it. It should be relaxing and lovely, and I’ll finally get to see him, finally. At least once before he moves down here. That’s good, right?

That, of course, leaves the question of this blog. I don’t really want to do a week-long hiatus because I like things posting. That means I’ve got to build up a back catalog of posts to post over the week! That’s what I’m doing now, in the past. I’m going to try to write enough to keep things rolling. That doesn’t mean I won’t maybe break in and write something different, if I have time and feel inspired. I can always push those older posts forward even more. Why not?

So, yeah. Basically, if any of this stuff seems kind of old news when you read it, that’s why. It’ll all be new content, as far as the site is concerned, but who knows, I may have already talked your ear off about it by the time you read it. So be it.

Now I’m going to go enjoy my trip. You enjoy the week as well, yes? New old content begins tomorrow.

Time to dump some links on you all. I’m about to travel, so these tabs need a little clearing out to lighten my load!

Tim Schafer is awesome. Doubt it? Well, just look at his latest bit of promotion for his newest game. Yeah, awesome.

But is it as awesome as animated gifs starring cats? That’s hard to say.

The utter insanity of this piece is something that has to be seen to be believed. Wow. Who would have spent so much time on that? Bravo, though.

Just watched some Harry Potter film? Need a recap to help you make sense of it all? Well, these comics are pretty badass, and can do just that. Give them a try!

Finally, I will admit I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but this podcast thing seems an amazing idea, and I can’t wait to give it a listen.

Okay. I feel good getting those links off of my chest! Well, I’m off! Later!

I’m just going to write about stuff today, I think. Rapid Fire Go!

I recently updated my blog. You know, gotta keep it updated and safe, because I am the target of SO MANY HACKERS! Not really, but, you know. Might as well be safe instead of sorry. I update it, and it changes around how all the menus look on the back end that you all can’t see. For the most part, they’re nice little cosmetic changes, but the one thing that really gets to me is the fact that they changed the font in the “write a blog” box. You know, the one I’m typing in right now. It’s now sans serif. Which is just… why would they do that? It just makes it harder to read and proofread. I mean, it’s a nice enough font, but come on: I write so much bullshit, I need to be able to look it over. Anyway, I’m not a fan.
And then I look at my main page and realize that this is the font my blogs normally display in. Awkward. If I had any clue how to change that font, I probably would! It’s been awhile since I really fucked with the guts of this blog. Maybe I should do that sometime.

I’ve been taking hormones for awhile now, which is fantastic! My body still feels like it’s adjusting, though. Recently, I have been feeling incredible fatigue. Today, especially, I was just exhausted, all day. Not tired, just… worn out, you know? Like my arms were so tired it took effort to lift them. Maybe it’s the fact that I got little sleep and got up so early to work at Kohl’s. Maybe it’s the fact that I gave up soda and sweets, and that’s been raging hell on my body at the same time. I don’t know! I just know I’m tired, and going the fuck to bed after I finish writing this.

It is almost time for me to go and see Brer. I’m really nervous as fuck about the whole thing, though looking forward to it. I don’t feel very prepared or anything. I’ve been trying to scrounge up some audiobooks to listen to for the drive, and think about what all I want to bring so we have things to do, and so on. I also need to do a lot of poetry editing and rewriting before I leave, so I hope I am good and work on that like I should. I don’t know. I know in the end, it’ll be okay, and it’ll be worth it to go. I know it’ll be wonderful. But I’ve got so much invested in him, I’m scared something is going to get fucked up again. I don’t know. I’ll just do the best I can, I suppose.

I couldn’t help myself. I watched the first episode of The iDOLM@ster anime. I just had to know what they were doing. It was as terrible as I expected, but it also seemed really badly conceptualized. Like, the player character from the games, who is you, is in this show. Dialog just appears on the screen for you to say, like you picked it from a menu. All the characters talk at the camera like it was a character. But it’s also supposed to be a real camera, and also a film crew, but they don’t even pretend to make the shots look like an actual documentary crew could take them. (At least they pretend to do so most of the time on The Office.) Sometimes there’s camera wobble and movement, sometimes not. I just really don’t know what the person making the game was thinking. Probably something like “The iDOLM@STER is so popular and I am going to make so much money time to bang some shit out!” Something like that.

Nichijou, which I have been following and enjoying, has a new opening. It’s interesting, because in a lot of ways, this opening fits the show a ton better than the original. It’s energetic, and crazy, and the visuals are all the fuck over the place. The original opening had a “sitcom opening” moment in the middle with a title card, and almost looked like maybe it was a normal show, like a normal person would make. Which it isn’t, of course. It’s an interesting comparison. I also am surprised that Nano is going to the high school now, if only because it makes a level of narrative sense and creates coherence between episodes that I didn’t think the show would ever show!

Anyway, I am going to rest. Fuck yes. Later.

Yeah, this is a pretty lame song to get stuck in my head, but here we are.

I was linked this video showing a pre-alpha build of an upcoming My Little Pony fighting game. Yeah, so, that’s a thing, certainly. But what really got to me was how well-done even this pre-alpha was. All those sprites of Applejack are custom, but look extremely true to the show. Same with the background.

What really caught me, though, is the custom song playing behind it. It’s really kind of amazing. It is, at the same time, completely perfect for My Little Pony, having some similar little musical cues to songs from the actual show that you can pick out if you’re as lame as I am. At the same time, this is clearly, clearly a fighting game track. It has that light into heavy bouncing energy that a good fighting game track has, like, say, this one. It just works. You tell me this music is from a MLP fighting game, and I say, “Of course it is.”

It’s also catchy as fuck, too, which is why it’s been stuck in my head the past couple of days. Oy. Ponies. Amirite?

I saw Ok Go in concert, and I’m going to immortalize that in a blog post.

I’m not a huge band-going type. Ok Go marks the third band I’ve actually seen in concert, the others being They Might Be Giants many a time, and Franz Ferdinand once. They Might Be Giants is all about being fun, pleasing the crowd, and interacting with them. It’s a damn good time. Franz was very “we are playing music now” kind of band, and was less fun, even though I enjoy what they do musically.

Ok Go was much more in the fun side of things.

Seriously, not only were they rocking all the songs I loved from their earlier albums, thank goodness, but they really went out of their way to put on an entertaining show. They played a song completely on a set of handbells, which they described as “God’s Instrument.” They pulled a little kid out of the crowd to dance on stage, and a dude in a “Pugs not Drugs” t-shirt to play the guitar part in a song. A song was played right in the middle of the audience, an arm’s length away from me. They really seemed like they were in it for the fun, and really wanted to be there, which means a lot, because that energy is infectious. I started the show feeling kind of ill, to be honest, but when they really got going, I was really into it. It was fantastic.

Seriously, though, what really stands out is the amount of confetti they used. They literally had like an inch thick of confetti on the stage by the end of the performance. They were shooting off confetti cannons twice, three times a song. It never ended. Confetti. It was crazy.

But yeah, would totally see them again. A ton of fun, to be sure. Fun times all around, and I’m glad I took off to go and enjoy myself and watch. I’m also glad Jonathan did all the driving so I could sleep in the car. Thanks, Jonathan!

I spent a lot of today writing my final paper for my final grad school class. (I also spent a lot of today fighting with my parents over me wearing a bra, like I had been for the last week, but them just noticing! So that was exciting. But let’s not deal with that right now. I really don’t want to rant about that.) Basically, it was a really shitty situation! It was frustrating! I was frustrated.

I can write papers like nobody’s business, to be sure. Hell, it had been my job for awhile to teach people how to do just that. I like to think I’m good at it. But there was certainly a time when I hated doing it, and that was when I was letting the sources do the talking for me, instead of talking myself. It was always so painful to have to gather all the sources, and try to come up with a way to make them not sound like shit while having no control over what’s being said. I hated it. Then, I learned the secret of fun paper writing is to have control over what you say. Suddenly, papers were fun again! Well, as fun as homework can be, anyway.

This assignment basically has me stating an opinion, but I really need to back it up with tons and tons of facts and research. Now, I’ve done sources and shit in papers before, sure. But they work so much differently in a literary paper. I know the tricks to get around what sources I have and still say what I want to say. Things are more flexible. That’s what drew me to such papers in the first place. But here I’m arguing for a better educational system, sort of. This is the sort of thing that I certainly would want facts behind, if I were reading an article. Yet, I am just not knowledgeable enough to know where such facts would be located in this field. I’m finding stuff, but it’s not quite the right stuff. It’s like I’m back as an undergrad, not knowing how to work sources and bend them to my will, and banging my head against the desk in frustration that I don’t have ownership over what I’m writing.

I’ll get it done. I’ll move on. It’s my last paper! I’ll do it. But there’s no doubt that there’s some frustration involved in the whole process. Best get some sleep so I can bang out a finish to it tomorrow.

I played two rounds of Disc Golf after having done the first day of “no more sodas” and so I got home and I immediately fell asleep in my computer chair. Now it’s like “Oh shit, better write one of them bloegs!”
Yeah, this means I’m throwing a bunch of links at you. Then I am going to sleep. I’ve heard good things about sleep.

Ponies, motherfucker. Ponies.

SEXISM IS OVER! (I cannot stop laughing at the gif at the end of this.)

Important information about terrorism here.

Pantskat.

After reading this blog, you should go pop some pengs, more than likely.