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Ozymandias

[ website | Beyond the World's Edge ]
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Snow! [21 Nov 2004|02:14am]
There be snow outside!

I have evidence.Collapse )

Edit: More Evidence!Collapse )
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Launch was a go [21 Jun 2004|08:56pm]
I was at the launch of SpaceShipOne today. Sadly, I was unable to get any good pictures of the ship itself. However, I did get a few pictures of Yao Chi and Tugrik.



Here's Yao, looking his dragony best.



Yao and myself.



Tugrik



Here's a friend of Tugrik's enjoying some well-earned rest. His name was Garth, as I recall.

I'll recount events more fully later.
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The Color Ozy.. [18 May 2004|09:57pm]
Copying this from a friend's LJ...

Paste this line into your journal: [font color=yourusername][b]yourusername[/b][/font]

Then substitute <> for []. And sub your user name for "yourusername."

Then you can see what color you are.

ozythestrange
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[18 May 2004|09:13pm]
Well, it's certainly been a long time, hasn't it? Things are working out fairly well for me. School's going all right, though finals are driving me slightly crazy. I've doing work for my father and trying to get a job to raise money to go to Comic-Con this year. Right now I'm registered and I have a hotel room booked, I just need to raise spending money. Still, it'll be fun. It's a shame more dreamers aren't going, though. So far, only Jorick and Xaila are definitely coming, with the possibility of Voychael and Yao Chi. It should be a blast.
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[18 May 2004|09:04pm]


Let's give this a try, shall we?
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Meeting Dreamers [02 Dec 2003|01:16pm]
[ mood | cheerful ]

I found out late sunday night that Maus had missed his flight, and was still at Voychael's house. They invited me over, since I only live about two hours away. The next morning, I set out. During the course of the day, I learned several things.

It's a bad idea to forget one's money when one is low on gas.

Air-conditioning, while pleasant, doesn't help fuel efficiency.

It's important to pay attention to the signs indicating on and offramps on the interstates.

Those dirt roads are tricksy, and false.

Getting lost adds signficantly to the drive time.

Voy has a sense of direction as bad as mine.

Even though I'm straight, I still have an easier time asking for directions than Maus or Voy.

Three felines in one car doesn't lend to decision-making.

Maus doesn't do well in the cold.

The Metro Station looks uncannily like the mall. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The Rainforest Cafe is a difficult restaurant to find.

Wraith isn't able to wait an hour in a restaurant for people who may or may not be coming.

My taste in food is horribly pedestrian.

Goodbyes are hard to make.

Gridlock makes me angry.

Going faster than the car in front of you is a bad idea, in the long run.

It's not a good idea to fall asleep while behind the wheel.

My mother worries when I get home two hours later than I say will.

Despite all this, I had a great day, and I hope to see Maus and Voy again, as well as Wraith and Rein.

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The Stupidity of Mankind Astounds Me [21 Oct 2003|03:59pm]
[ mood | impressed ]

Today, in my Ecology class, we went on a "plant walk." The idea was that we would look at various plants, and our teacher would tell us about them, so that we would be just a little less ignorant than the average American.

About the fourth plant we looked at was jimson weed. For those of you who are unaware, jimson weed is a member of the deadly nightshade family, and is one of those plants known as bella donna. It has a number of effects on the body depending on how much you take. Simply touching a live plant can give you a severe rash. It can cause trembling, dehydration, and dilated pupils in small amounts. Larger quantities can cause delirium, hallucinations, coma, and eventually, death. Sometimes bored, mentally challenged teenagers will use it for its hallucigenetic properties, proving that evolution is an on-going process.

Anyway, we were looking at a specimen that was growing near our school. Most of the plant was dead and dried out, with new buds sprouting towards the bottom. Since it was well dried, it was safe enough to touch the plant, and we examined the dried fruit that was still attached to the stalks of the plant. Our teacher showed us the heart-shaped seeds within, and we were looking at these, which are where the poison of the plant is most concentrated. Suddenly, towards the back of the group, a girl cried out words that brought a chill to our hearts, "You're not supposed to eat them!"

Indeed, it was true. One of the members of our class had taken several of the seeds, put them in his mouth, and swallowed them. Our teacher ended the walk, had us go back to the classroom, and spoke to the young man about how he needed to flush the toxins from his system. Personally, I'm not sure she should have interfered with natural selection like that, but I'm not the ecologist. Fortunately for him, it was a fairly small amount, so he'll likely make a full recovery, provided he drank a lot of water, or vomited.

Still, I'm amazed that anyone would actually do that. I mean, it's not like this was someone from one of the special classes. He's in college. One would think he would have the common sense not to eat something someone has just explained is extremely poisonous.

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I Hate My Life [01 Jul 2003|10:02pm]
[ mood | frustrated ]

I am not having a good time at present. On Sunday, I had a severe asthma attack, and ended up having to drive up the mountain to go to the emergency room. Once there, I had to wait in the lobby for quite some time until they were able to see me. While in there, they found out I had a temperature (100.2) and gave me a breathing treatment, some sort of vapor thing. Once they were done, I had to drive back down to escape the thin air. I spent a sleepless night trying to breathe.

While I was gone, my friend's family's jeep broke down in my yard. So yesterday, I had to play taxi-driver to get them around where they needed to go. The first stop was to get some money one of their friend's had wired to them. Patrick, my friend's brother, the one to whom the money was wired, forgot his wallet, so we had to drive back and get it. After receiving the money, he had to pay thirty dollars for a piece of rubber. Not a particularly fancy piece of rubber, either, mark you. I also stopped off at the mall and got Galaxy Quest and a Matrix action figure for my friend Shane, he whose family I was ferrying around. So, some good came that day. Though we then found out the bearings were shot on one of the bits the fan belt attaches too, so their jeep is still stuck in my yard.

Today, I went up the mountain again to see my doctor. One breathless trip later, I have three prescribed medications. One is a rescue inhaler, such as I've used before. One is something they have to replace inhalers. It's a sort of a disc. Instead of an aerosol-propelled fluid, it contains a powder you breathe in. If you don't rinse it out quickly, you get hoarse. Lovely. The third is a pill. I take three a day for two days. Then two a day for two days. Then one a day for two days, and then I'm done. The good news is that it will take care of my inflammation. The bad news is that it can seriously mess up my body's balance if I don't use it exactly as prescribed. They weren't specific, but apparently the consequences are quite dire. I went back down, and then picked up Shane and Patrick to go to town. I was trading some games in. That went well. For Lunar 2 and Final Fantasy Anthology, I picked up Final Fantasy X and Twisted Metal Black. Then I got into a car accident. We rear-ended a Chevy Suburban. I drive a Nissan Sentra. Needless to say, I got the brunt of it. It was my fault, mind you. I was talking to my friends, not paying attention. Fortunately, we weren't hurt, though Patrick wasn't wearing his safety belt. The woman was fine. Her Suburban suffered a minor dent. My car, on the other hand... Well, no real engine damage. The hood and front right wheel well are crumpled. The right headlight is crushed. The windshield is cracked where Patrick's head hit it (he's Irish, like me, so don't worry about him). The windshield-wiper fluid well is crushed. The radiator was missed by an inch, thank God. Luckily I'm insured, my car is registered, so no real unpleasantness. It's just annoying that it happened right now.

If anyone wants to know what that shattering sound is, it's my last nerve being shattered by something else going wrong.

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I'm Going to Comic Con San Diego! [01 Jun 2003|01:11pm]
[ mood | excited ]

This year, it coincides with my family's anual trip to Crystal Pier in San Diego, so it looks like I'll be going to my first convention ever. I'm quite excited. I hope to meet with some of the people I know online. I'll be taking my digital camera, so I will have pictures up after the event.

I'll likely go in costume, though I'm still trying to decide which costume. It will either be my faire garb with the red cape, the black cloth rain coat, or my mad scientist's lab coat, with lots of stains, burns, and rips. Ah, decisions, decisions.

If anyone has any tips and advice for a con virgin, please feel free to post them here.

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Tempus Fugit [21 Jan 2003|08:00pm]
It's been a while since I posted anything to my LiveJournal. Given the way I left off, I suppose I should tell how it ended. Very well. On October third, two thousand and two, after a long fight against her own failing body, my great-grandmother, Marjorie Shaw, died. She went in the company of her family, and was mourned by those who had known her. I wrote a memorial to her, which I posted on the MZDM boards. I shall post it here.

My great-grandmother Marjorie Shaw died last Thursday. She was ninety-three years old.
I've known her for nearly all my life. When my family was stationed in Germany, she used to visit us, and help take care of my brother and I. That was always the role she chose; taking care of others. We called her Honey. She raised both my grandmother and my mother. She has travelled to see all new births in the family, and our extended family. Even those children who didn't have a direct blood link to her she loved. All the children in our family were "her children." She loved us all deeply, and we loved her. She was such a strong person, and nothing could break her, until the very end.

She was the middle child of three, born in 1908, with the older sister being Annie Ruth, and the younger being Annie Bessie. When she was six, her father, who ran a dray line, was kicked by one of his horses. The kick ruptured his intestines, and he died. Their mother started working as the switchboard operator in the town they lived in. She and her daughters lived in the building, and she worked hard to raise them herself, as a widow. However, in 1918, when Honey was ten, there was a great flu epidemic. That year, the flu claimed more people than the Great War which had so recently ended. Her mother was one of those people. Honey herself contracted the disease, which damaged her eyes, as well as her lungs.

Their mother had made plans for them to stay with people in the town, but they had relatives in California who offered to take them in. Legally, they had greater claim to the children, and so they were shipped off to the relatives. Unfortunately, there was a reason that their mother had not chosen them in the first place. They were not particularly nice people, and used the girls as unpaid labor. They kept Honey from going to school, saying that her health was too delicate, and that it would be best if she just stayed home and took care of the rest of them.

Annie Ruth managed to escape first. I don't know the details of that escape, but it had to have taken iron will to accomplish. She got herself established in LA, and Honey was allowed to visit her at times. During this time, they concocted a plan. Each time Honey went to visit, she would smuggle a piece of clothing. One day she'd wear two shirts, the next an extra pair of socks. Eventually, when she was sixteen, she was ready to just walk away, and live with Annie Ruth in LA. And after a time, Annie Bessie also joined them.

Because she had not been allowed to go to school, she had no high school diploma, so they spilled ink on Annie Bessie's, and passed it off as hers. She got quite far when they found out, and they decided to let her stay, on the condition that she get straight A's. And that's how she became a nurse. Annie Ruth and Annie Bessie also went through college, and became teachers. The fact that they were able to put themselves through college in that day and age was extraordinary, and I can only marvel at the iron will that possessed them.

Eventually, she married. Her husband was a widower, whose wife had died of tuberculosis, and had a daughter named Norma. Honey took care of her as if she were her own daughter, and eventually bore my grandmother, Jackie. When Jackie was still young, Honey got sick again, this time losing one eye. She was never able to work again. Jackie eventually grew up, got married, and had my mother, Sharon. When Jackie had to work to support herself and Sharon, it was Honey who came in and watched over Sharon, and made sure she learned right and wrong.

She was the steel core of our family. She was the heartwood of our family tree. It's almost impossible to believe that she's really gone. She was so much a part of my life; of all our lives, that it hardly seems real.

But in the past several years, she began going downhill. By the time she turned ninety, she was no longer able to live on her own, and we had to put her into a board and care home. Recently, we had to put her on hospice, as her health took a turn for the worse. She kept her wits almost until the end, and only began to lose her faculties this last year.

A few weeks ago, she had an accident at the home she was living in. She fell down, and broke her hip and her wrist. She was rushed to Desert Valley Hospital, where she underwent surgery on both. I visited her the day the surgery was scheduled, and, because my grandmother had to leave to teach a class, I stayed with her in the pre-op room while we waited for her to be taken into surgery.

During this time, she was incredibly disoriented, both by the pain and the drugs, as well as the fact that her body and mind were now failing her. The fact that she couldn't see aggravated this fact, as she couldn't even use visual clues to try and make sense of what was going on around her. She said a great many things during that time, most of which made little sense. However, there were two things which stuck with me.

At times, she thought we were outside, and kept asking me to take her inside, where it was warm, because it was too cold out. At other times, she asked me to take her home. She wanted to go home.

And that's where she's gone. She's gone home. She's gone in out of the cold. But we're still out here, feeling the cold even more bitterly for her absence. By loving and being loved, she forged strong bonds between us and her, and now we feel those bonds broken, and it hurts. Today was going to be her birthday. She would have been ninety-four. Today, it finally hit me that I'll never see her again. I'll never hear her voice. I'll never hug her again, and I'll never be able to talk to her about the history of my family. There are so many things I still wanted to talk to her about, and I never will. Part of me is happy that she's finally gone home. She was ready to go, and had been ready for the past two years. But part of me can't help but feel angry and hurt that she's left us. I feel abandoned. I miss her so much, and I can't even let myself cry for her. I've got to be strong for my mother and grandmother, who miss her even more than I do.

Tomorrow is her funeral. Tomorrow I'm going to say goodbye to her. And then she'll really be gone out of my life. But I won't forget her. I will never forget her.


The next day was the memorial service, which was arranged by her two grandchildren. Pastor Don Roberts, Norma's son, gave the eulogy, while Sharon, my mother, did the music. Partway through, I gave an abridged version of what I just posted. Afterward, we came together and spoke of the wonderful things she'd done during her life. And so she passed as she lived, loved and respected, and never to be forgotten.
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My Great-Grandma [21 Sep 2002|08:38pm]
[ mood | morose ]

I went to see her on Wednesday. I only planned on stopping for a little while, but my grandmother, her daughter, had to go up to Big Bear to teach a class on violin, and someone needed to stay with her, so I volunteered.

I had to keep her from getting up and try and walk on her leg. Sometimes she'd talk about wanting to come inside, even though she never left the building. She seemed to think she was just about everywhere at some point, except at the hospital. Sometimes she thought she was in a motor home. She was very aware of the pain in her wrist, but kept forgetting about her hip, which was why she kept trying to get up. I had to keep reminding her of where she was and why she was there. A lot of the time she didn't know who I was. Sometimes she mistook me for other people she'd known. Other times, she thought I was just someone we hired to take care of her. I know she can't help it, I know it was the drugs and the pain, but it still hurt that she didn't know who I was.

The operation was scheduled for two in the afternoon, but there were several cases that were before her that ran long. They didn't end up taking her to the OR itself until after six. I sat with her the entire time, sometimes singing to her, sometimes just talking. I kept reminding her what was happening, and telling her that everything would be fine. Eventually, the nurses came to take her away, about the time my family got there. After they had her off to surgery, we went out to dinner, and I went home.

Today, I visited her again, though not for as long. This time she was feeling better, and she recognized I was family. However, she thought I was her nephew, and for some reason thought she was in a classroom.

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My Great-Grandma [17 Sep 2002|08:14pm]
[ mood | depressed ]

My Great-Grandmother Marjorie Shaw fell down today and broke her wrist and her hip. I don't think she's going to be around much longer. I can hardly believe it, she's been one of the constants in my life. She raised both my mom and my grandmother practically by herself. She always got around despite being legally blind most of her life. She's ninety-three now. She has trouble remembering who we are sometimes, now. Part of me is praying that today's accident doesn't push her over the edge. Another part is praying that she dies soon, so that she won't be in such pain anymore. I don't know what to feel.

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More Tests [10 Sep 2002|09:10pm]
Even more tests! When does the madness end?



You are vivi
You are very shy, yet very powerful. You care about others a lot too. You are a real sweetheart. ^_^

take this quiz!






Take the What High School
Stereotype Are You?
quiz, by Angel.




Super Teen Extrodinaire

Take the Cartoon Hero Quiz?.



Super Charge
What's Your Anime Power?






Genius

Find out what anime character cliche you are.





Kinda picked on

Find out what Cartoon location you are.
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Evil Spell! [10 Sep 2002|08:22pm]
[ mood | devious ]

I need your help. Or to be more specific, Torix does. He needs to know what kind of evil spell to cast on Vedas. Any ideas?

2 comments|post comment

My Soul is Forfeit [05 Sep 2002|09:26pm]
[ mood | morose ]

My efforts to gain employment have failed. Best Buy never got back to me, and none of the other stores I checked are hiring. Tonight, my father damned me with a word. That word is telemarketing. Yes, that's right, I'm going to be forced to do telemarketing. However, before you hunt me down and kill me before I breed, let me explain. I won't be calling any of you up. The job is with Direct TV, and I'm going to be entering information from the installers into the computer database, and dealing with customers. Still, I'm probably going to hell for this.

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My First Test [04 Sep 2002|08:56pm]
Interesting, though hardly surprising.


[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<text="#f8f9c8">') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Interesting, though hardly surprising.

<center>
<text="#F8F9C8" link="#AAAFFF" vlink="#E42866" alink="#008800" leftmargin="5">
<a href="http://www.umich.edu/~rorder/animaniquiz.html">Which Animaniacs Character are You?<br>
<img src="http://www.umich.edu/~rorder/brain.gif" border=0></a>
<h6>You have megalomaniacal impulses regularly. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however, as you have the cranial capacity of a small planet. Trying to take over the world is hard work, though, and you're not above exploiting your lessers. Even now, you have a plan that's being enacted which will pitch the world's economy into turmoil, leaving the floodgates of trade exposed for the sole owner of stock in the Pets.com © company! You are en route to taking over the world!<br>
Oh, and you ARE pondering what I'm pondering.
<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/rinnaldo"><br>Click here to see my Livejournal.</a></h6>
</center>
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Ah, Here We Go! [04 Sep 2002|07:59pm]
Ah, now that I have my colors sorted out, it's time for a more formal post. I got this account because of a conversation I had with Andrew Graham. I told him that I was far too boring to get a LiveJournal, and that the LiveJournal Police would undoubtedly come along and club me with a live trout if I were to get an account. He then pointed out that this comment in itself was interesting enough to warrant a LiveJournal, thus compromising the stability of space-time. Rather than risk the collapse of reality as we know it, I decided to bite the bullet and get a LiveJournal. Yes, that's right, I'm risking a beating-by-trout to save the universe. People simply don't appreciate me enough. Expect more of me as time goes on, and I get more used to this program. Whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen.
4 comments|post comment

It had to happen. [04 Sep 2002|07:07pm]
I've finally given into the madness. I have finally gotten a LiveJournal. Whatever shall I do?
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