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10/23/02: Jesus. Leamonde crashed and ate the index page to my site. I couldn't put it back up until today because I couldn't get access to my own computer until last weekend, when my mom and my brother brought it down here for me. So now it's back up and hoo-ray for you. I put up new MegaHAL quotes and new Game-A-Minutes, which I've had hanging around for awhile, but you know, I really don't feel like fucking laughing right now because my father has been diagnosed with a pancreatic tumor (ed. note: thought it was on his stomach at first, but it wasn't), and he went in for a biopsy and the results aren't back yet, so we don't know yet if it's cancerous or benign. Enjoy the update, because I sure as hell don't know if I'm going to feel like doing anything else to this page in the near future. 05/18/02: So, um, yeah. I still exist and stuff. Really. I've been busy with school and... you know, I really don't feel like saying much about this update, other than to say I'm going to be re-designing the front page a bit soon. Why? Well, as I'm sure I've constantly impressed on those of you who talk to me on any kind of regular basis, I've undergone a lot of mental housecleaning and re-evaluation of things in the past year. I guess I can say in fairness that I am proud of myself for doing it. I'll be frank: when I first started posting fanfics online, at least under this name, I was a whiny, codependant brat with abysmal self-esteem who couldn't go five minutes without needing reassurance from someone that her stuff didn't suck. The people who stuck with me through all of that are among those few whom I consider true friends, and I hope they're at least somewhat proud of how I turned out. Right. I'll also admit, though, that a lot of the people I was in contact with over the past few years didn't exactly help, and a lot of what I've been doing in the past six months or so is setting priorities, deciding who I just don't need any more, what I want to try to salvage and who isn't worth more than five seconds of my thought. Basically, as callous as it may seem to say it, I've cleaned house and I'm a lot better off for it, and I'm infinitely grateful for all those who helped me sort things out. I would like to re-design the page a bit, re-word things here and there (especially on the story pages) to reflect that. So, yeah. Updates. Two new Rants, two new Game-A-Minutes courtesy of Mongoose, and a few updated links. Have fun. 03/01/02: It's a MEGA SUPER ULTRA JUMBO NACHO BOMB (tm) update. W00t! A winner is you. Anyway, I, uh... have so much stuff to upload I'm trying to keep track of it all. >_> It's not all new content, strictly speaking. Some of it is simply re-designs/rewrites of old story descriptions/etc. I'm trying to standardize the page designs, because when I first started out HTMLing, I had no clue what the frag I was actually doing. ^^;; Most of the new content is on the Silly page, because I'm a lazy bugger and would rather spend my time insulting rabid otaku or writing a 30-second parody of the FF7 script than actually writing something serious. I also removed broken/dead links and added a few. (Vera, Kati, I finally updated your links. I'm sorry!) Also, I twigged around with my profile a little bit, changed the colors on my Rant page for easier reading, and probably did something else, but I can't remember what it is at the minute. (But whatever it is, it won't crash your computer. I don't THINK.) Just watch out for falling llamas. 12/2/01: You know, the longer you go without doing something, the easier it is to not do it. I'm referring specifically to this page, of course, which, shortly after its one-year anniversary, was eaten by Crosswinds during its temporary crash. Luckily, I'd had the presence of mind to keep backups of everything, but I didn't actually want to wrangle with Crosswinds' FTP again, and... well, things happened. The longer I denied it and put it off, the easier it became to ignore it. The more I told myself I would "get it done soon," the easier it became to delay that anticipated "soon." I felt bad about it, of course, but... but eventually I realized, hey, I do have fans, dammit. Whether or not I feel good enough about my work at any given time to put it in a place where it can be seen by all and sundry, the fact that I did allow it to be seen for so long means I have an obligation to those who enjoyed it-- and besides, it's probably unlikely that any of them are going to judge my stuff by criteria anywhere near as harsh as the ones I use to judge my own work. -_-; But... *sighs* I don't know. There have been an awful lot of changes in my life over the past year or so-- formations and dissolutions of friendships, general upheavals, drastic changes of self-definition-- but strangely, the end effect of it all is that I feel oddly freed. I think I'm a bit less stressed out than I was at the beginning of the year. This, at least, is good. Things are actually starting to happen for me; I'm going to be transferring to UC Riverside in January (anyone want a roommate? ^_^;;) and finishing up my Geology BS. As you may notice, there are some changes in the page. I was finally able to make the index page look the way I wanted, because I was getting sick of looking at the old one all the time. I added two new Rants-- which I've actually had sitting around on my hard drive for quite some time-- and a crapload of new links, as well as fixing all the broken links in the Slayers section of my fanfic page. There's been some amount of minor tweaking in almost every section, actually. Also, the all-important Moved Page. If you don't look at anything else, at least look at that one. *nods* 06/06/01: The one-year anniversary of my site is coming up in two days. w00t! Also, and entirely coincidentally, my birthday is coming up in tomorrow. So, er... if you want to... send me a present or anniversary picture or something, you can. In fact, I want you to. In fact, I'd love you to. But it's not an obligation or anything. Really. ^^;; I have a front-page renovation, but I wasn't able to make the HTML do what I wanted in time to put it up with the update tonight. Bad HTML! *whap whap* So actually, there's nothing new here except for the fact that my Silly page has been streamlined and re-designed a bit, because it needed it. I got HTML-giddy one night and started mucking around with color codes, and that purple kind of background color was the result. It's kind of hard for me to believe this page has been around for a whole year. I don't actually remember how many visits I expected it would get, but it wasn't 6000. It was considerably below that, as a matter of fact. o.0 I console myself by thinking that a good portion of those hits just come from friends' repeat visits, or me reloading when I'm trying to force the HTML to do something it doesn't want to do. ^^; It's been sort of a warm and fuzzy constant in my life for the past year. The number really doesn't register objectively in my mind when I look at the counter. I still feel like this is some kind of private thing, despite the counter stats-- maybe just because so few people in my "real life" know about this page. Odd. It's most definitely fun, though. 05/15/01: Hmm, so... I've been doing a bit of thinking about my writing tonight, and in between fits of attempting to bake cookies, I've come to a few conclusions... The main problem is that I just don't write enough. I don't write enough (one long, multi-hour writing spree every two weeks is average for me) and I'm trying to make myself compete with people who write every day, or at least several times a week. I tend to wait until some really vivid inspiration strikes, out of fear that nothing I write during times when I'm not "inspired" will be at all decent. That, and there's the problem of cramping my style. I know I do it. I know I do it to compete, which is even worse. In a way, purplish prose is a mark of an amateur author who hasn't yet realized that less can be done with more, that it's what you say that makes a great work of literature and not how you say it. However, the vast majority of fanfiction writers are amateurs; the vast majority of fanfiction readers are also amateurs. Big words will impress them, right off the bat. I can think, off the top of my head, of several fan writers (I'm obviously not going to mention names here) whose work I've seen touted as "fabulous" and "wonderful," and when I ended up looking at the stories in question... well, let's say I didn't hate them, but I certainly didn't like them all that much either. I was underwhelmed. I really can't account for people's tastes and why people like the stories they do, but I think length and big words will both earn you big points in the world of fanfiction readership. And so I twist my style, force it into something it isn't naturally inclined to be, all for the sake of having a few more people point at it and go "ooooh!" Sort of like an author who writes cheap trashy romance novels not because it's really what they dream of doing with their literary skills, but because that's what sells. Since we obviously aren't getting paid for it, reputation is everything in the world of fanfiction. So, uh... there were going to be some updates in here somewhere... yeah. I have... a new fanfic in the Xenogears section. Well, sort of. It's a fanfic, but it's definitely not a normal fanfic. It's probably best to say that it was... stress relief for me. I wrote it a few months ago, but refrained from posting it anywhere out of fear that the intended targets would be offended. I think I've finally gotten over caring about that, though. Blah. I also poked at the links section a little. I'm going to be making a big MegaHAL update fairly soon, because I finally got the copy I downloaded to start working properly, and so I have a vast amount of HAL-ish goodness to be shared with all and sundry. (Now if I can only get it to stop insisting that I had sex with Akio...) 04/25/01: My GTE account is back. Yaaaaay. Okay, this is reasonably important: anyone who's sent me mail since April 10th needs to resend it, because my account was deactivated for almost two weeks and couldn't process any mail. I hug and love and hoard every paltry little bit of mail I get about this page, so I'm really paranoid that I might've missed something important. ^^;;;; There is nothing important in this update. However, my friend Wyvern came up with an alternate ending for Faxanadu (see The Shrine of Olde Games, which I'm really honestly going to update sometime within the next fifteen years), so I'm going to repost it and make everyone read it, 'cos it's funny. Wyvern: *still combing through your site* What's the ending of Faxanadu like? Me: Really, really bad. ^_^;; Wyvern: Details? You made me curious. ^^;; Me: All it shows is The Hero going back to talk to the king. There's a few inane lines of dialogue, and the hero says he's going to go find a new adventure, and the king says, "You sure are a busy guy! Ho! Ho! Ho!" Then you see the hero getting the hell out of there. Wyvern: LOL! Wyvern: That line is classic. ^^ Me: I know. ^^;;;;; Wyvern: I figured it would go like this- Hero: Hello, hideus people! I have saved the tree from the evil midgets or whatever and the world is safe once again. Townsperson:WHAT? You....you tried too hard! YOU BASTARD! Hero:Um.... Townsperson:LET'S GET HIM! *our hero is beaten to death with clubs* THE END 04/22/01: Blah. GTE (or Verizon, as the case may be) can bite me. I had sort of a problem involving my credit card expiring, and Verizon de-activated my account, so I've been stuck using AOHell for quite a while. I called them on Friday to give them the new card number, and was promised my account would be re-activated in about two hours. Well, the person I spoke to was quite nice, but nonetheless, MY ACCOUNT IS STILL OFFLINE. I think there's a Verizon office about seven or eight blocks from my house. Maybe I'll go down there and throw stuff at the windows. >< So, um... basically... until further notice, if you want to contact me, send mail to AzusaEris@aol.com. And, um... there's nothing new in this update except that I finally finished redesigning the story pages, and so they no longer look like crap. Er, at least I hope they don't. I have some new links to add, but I'm lazy... >< 04/03/01: Today is a happy day for any of you who missed my rants, if indeed any such people ever existed at all! For there is a new one up on my rant page, this one involving a scattering of FF9 spoilers. I also re-designed my main stories page, which is the first in a series of many, many pages I'm going to redesign. I'm trying to sort of consolidate the whole page and make its overall look more uniform. Oh, and the FF6 page is now linked off of the main story page-- not like it'll probably incline anyone else to read it, but it's worth a try. *shrug* 03/26/01: Wow, an update with actual stuff. Today's update contains approximately half of your daily allowance of Stuff (tm). Do not store at temperatures below absolute zero. I actually added something to the fanfic section, in the "other" category-- it's an unfinished Vagrant Story fanfic, "Babylon Revisited," which may be added to shortly if anyone likes it enough to bug me about it, as noted in the story description. ^^; I started it way back last summer, but since I have a weird aversion to putting incomplete works on my page, I let it sit around for half a year before deciding to do something with it. And... um... "deeper meaning" is now located on a page at Diaryland.com. The reason for this is, in fact, just that I got tired of having to HTML every entry by hand. Its purpose, however, remains the same. *repeats to self like a mantra* "I will NOT make a blog, I will NOT make a blog, I will NOT make a blog..." 03/24/01: Um... this isn't really much of an update. -_-;; The only difference is that I reshuffled the links page a little bit and added a new link to a page I've been working on for the past month or thereabouts. I have some fanfics in progress, really I do, but "in progress" is the operative term here. I'm trying. Really, I am. ^^; I guess, to be honest, I'm kinda depressed about the lack of feedback I'm getting for this page. I'm not thinking of shutting it down or anything-- not even remotely-- but it just bothers me a touch that people like Lyn can get carloads of people to illustrate their stories, and all I can do is pathetically beg for contributions, and then generally not get them anyway. --;; I'm not sure what the difference is... maybe that hers are mostly ongoing sagas, and mine are largely one-shot types of things? The fact that other people have blogs, diaries, messageboards and such, which perhaps gives them an impression of being more personable? I wish I was better at getting to know people. --;; So... um... I have some decent additions to the page in progress, but they're not ready yet. Sorry. ^^; 03/01/01: What happen? Azusa have not been update for long time. It appear that somebody set Crosswinds up the bomb. All my page were belong to them! They were on the way to destruction. But I knew what I doing. I move "Zig," for great justice, and upload every pages! I feel betrayed. Two years ago, a few friends and I stumbled across a page entitled "Zany Video Game Quotes," featuring a great many examples of early games which appeared to have been translated by 10-year-old Japanese kids for a school assignment. Among these was a game entitled "Zero Wing," set apart from your typical shoot-em-up by virtue of having translation so bad it was good. Really. We latched onto this immediately, creating in its honor many parodies such as Xeno Wing. About a month ago, someone on a forum for some online game also found the Zero Wing translation and duly spread the joke to the entire forum. The end result of all this was the creation of a music video including the Zero Wing intro and thirty or so photo hacks featuring various permutations of the line "All Your Base Are Belong To Us," set to a song which I, lacking any really functional speakers, have not been privileged enough to hear. Apparently, every person in America, their cat, and their two-year-old sister has now seen this video. I have seen homeless bums wandering on the streets of San Francisco muttering "Take off every 'Zig'!" to themselves. Well, okay, maybe not that last part, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's not fair, dammit. It's MINE!! All your base are belong to ME!!! Now that it's mainstream, it isn't as funny any more! It's no fun if everyone knows what you're talking about. *sobs* Uh, anyway... I added a new entry in "deeper meaning" and a new link, and that's about the extent of it. I have a few more things I could add, but I feel lazy tonight and don't want to HTML anything else. ^^;; 02/17/01: Warning: update includes lots of rambling. Feel free to skip it if you don't care. ^^;; I made a very interesting discovery the other day. In the Black Mage Village in FF9, there are numerous places where you can actually play cards. With the Black Mages. That's right, they will play cards with you. I am officially weirded out beyond description by this. ^_^;; There was a time when I really didn't like Yoshitaka Amano's artwork. I thought it was bizarre, and, well, it is, but it's kind of a good bizarre, even if it doesn't look all that much like the end character results. (To quote a friend: "They're good pictures, but of different people.") However... even though I love most of FF9 to little itty bitty pieces, I have to admit some of the character designs are just plain awful-looking. Eiko is a good example. Now, I like Eiko as a character and all, but whoever designed her costume ought to be dragged out into the street and shot. Likewise with Amarant, who is unique in that his "official" design actually makes him look like more of a freak than the Amano artwork does. Believe it or not, the original design did not have him with blue skin and hands twice the size of his head. (And speaking of the head... the head... I'm sorry, but... the way it's shaped looks like some kind of chisel.) The city designs, background designs, and so on are all quite nice and lovely, but some of the character designs are... just... ugly. I remain convinced to this day that Queen Brahne was the result of a really bad acid trip coupled with a minor head injury. Anyway, today is the special Two-Day-Late-Valentine's-Day-Update, including absolutely nothing except for a little ramble in the "deeper meaning" section, which I typed up in about fifteen minutes. Enjoy, or not. 02/11/01: Why do people make shrines to games they haven't even played yet? More to the point, why do they make shrines to characters in games that haven't even been released yet? I have actually found several FF10 pages whilst looking for FF9 material, and I find it rather pointless. Are they enshrining these characters based solely on their appearance? I know there were several Sephiroth shrines made by people who'd never played the game, back when FF7 was current, but you'd think people would grow up and get over the fixation with "kawaii bishies." >< I've found that a good 90% of character shrines are nothing but reiteration of the same common knowledge, anyhow, with some flashy graphics tacked on. This is why I don't make shrines to characters unless I feel I have something particularly unique to offer, which I don't as of now. I'll gladly explain why I like such-and-such character to anyone who's curious, but thinking up a unique sort of tribute to all the characters I like is something I'm too damn lazy to do right now. ^_^; *goes back to being happily obsessed with FF9* Anyway, there's quite a bit of new stuff today. I changed this section around a bit because it was getting to be annoying to load with all the updates stuffed onto the same page. There's a new story on the Xenogears page; read the warnings on this one. ^^; There's also a new Rant, two new pictures, and I tweaked the Links section a little, changed all the old/outdated links and added a new section (which is still under construction; I'm trying to figure out which pages anyone save myself will actually be interested in). I was starting to feel kind of bad about having so many unfinished sections on my page, so I finally added the "deeper meaning" page under Personal and one entry. The Me page is also a teeny bit updated to reflect my new obsessions. 01/23/01:I haven't updated in a really long time. (x_x) There are various reasons for this, including the fact that I didn't have much to update with, school, a growing infatuation with FF9, and the fact that Crosswinds went splat for a few days, but the primary reason is, in fact, just that I'm lazy. Um, anyway, today's update is brought to you by the number 23, the We Hate Peace, Love, and Happiness Club, and ACTION CRASH! The KING of WELDING! You know what I really hate? When you're eating pizza and the cheese cools off and kind of solidifies and when you take a bite half the cheese comes off with it and it tastes kind of weird and lumpy on its own, like chewing on a lot of bubblegum without much flavor to it, and it feels really weird when you swallow it, and it's kinda gross and then half your pizza has no cheese on it and it makes you kind of not want to eat any more. It's really annoying and I haven't wanted to eat pizza as much lately because of that. ^^; I recently passed the 6-month anniversary of my webpage. I don't think I've done too badly for myself-- 3000 hits in 6 months was better than I expected. Of course, I'm fairly certain a large percentage of those hits were actually /mine/, but... yeah. I updated the "About Me" page a little tiny bit, and that's about it for this week's updates. 12/12/00: Only one thing is new today and that's a Rant. In the immortal words of some band whose name I don't know, "They say I'm lazy, but it takes all my time." I've been busy lately trying to avoid everything I should be doing, so that's the only new thing I have to report. 11/29/00: This update includes a mini-rant. This one is about Christmas lights. For those of you who had enough sense to not read the "About Me" page, I live in California. Now, contrary to what many ignorant out-of-staters think, not all of California is sunshine and beaches and flowers. The Sierras, for example, can get extremely cold; I've seen twenty-foot snowdrifts there. However, I do happen to live in one of the areas of California which is snow-impoverished, and I suppose people make up for it by putting up the most gaudy, overblown, bloated Christmas decorations they can afford the day after Thanksgiving. I suppose I really shouldn't complain, as the local mall was putting up its Christmas displays before Halloween, but I guess it really just goes to demonstrate how this whole season has become a paean to mindless consumerism. Well, it's still not as bad as Valentine's Day where shameless merchandising is concerned, but still. (Of course, since I'm female, I'm apparently supposed to buy into the brainless consumer mentality hook, line, and sinker, despite the fact that shopping ranks just above "cleaning the cat box" and just below "picking lint out of my toenails" on the Azusa List O' Funness, and that makes me even madder. But that's a rant for another day.) Anyway, in the spirit of being cynical about the holiday season, I've put up a new Silly Thing. I also updated the MegaHAL quotes page for the first time in... a really long time. There's also a new story on the Xenogears page; I thought that the next story I'd finish was definitely going to be a Slayers fic, but it turned out to be Xenogears again. Odd. Well, the idea just struck me, and so I wrote it. 11/12/00: I am a thorough and complete moron. Why? Well, back in June when I realized that an error in the table code was causing all my tabled pages to come out centered in Netscape, I forgot to fix the code in about half my stories. For all Netscape users, I genuinely apologize for the fact that my stories-- especially Whom The Gods Destroy-- must have looked like utter crap. (Of course, by saying that, I know I'm inviting a volley of snide comments along the lines of "Your stories look like crap anyway," but I'll risk it.) Anyway, I fixed it this time. If anyone finds one more page with centered font, please e-mail me and beat me over the head with large dead trout and foam rubber mallets and I'll fix it. Really. Speaking of WTGD, all one or two of you wonderful people who asked me to post the rest of it have a happy surprise today, because the rest of it is posted. I finally gave up on trying to fix the parts I didn't like, especially given that the story was finished a year ago, and just let it rest. It's no longer truly representative of my writing style, anyway. On the subject of stories, I should probably add that the story section has undergone a complete renovation. There are now seperate sections for my Xenogears work, my original work, and my pithy little handful of non-Xeno fiction (that I decided could be posted without incurring mass ridicule). There's a new Rant up, too, and this one is, er... a bit... potentially inflammatory. (Don't worry, it's not about the election. In fact, it involves no political issues at all except for a little blathering about Japanese culture.) I'm in a relatively good mood today. I think I'm going to try to work on my Slayers fanfic ideas tonight. Idle musing: if I added a bulletin board to this site, would anyone post to it? I'm thinking that it would probably just get myself and a handful of friends posting, but feel entirely free to e-mail me and prove me wrong and make me look silly if I'm mistaken. ^_^ (Humiliate the webmistress, get a free cookie!) Um, on that note, I think I'm going to go try to channel my energy into something actually productive... 10/22/00: Man, it's been a long time since I even touched this thing at all. I genuinely apologize to anyone who's been waiting for an update, because I promised myself back when I first started this page that if I had something to update the page with, by god I was going to update and not be like those annoying people who let their pages sit untouched for months at a time without even a word in the way of "Hey, I'm still around..." And now I've turned into one of those sorts. Bleah. There's a second reason I haven't been updating, and it has to do with the subjects of my recent writings. For the past year and a half, I've written almost exclusively about Xenogears; spare for a few scattered original pieces, Xenogears has basically been the food and drink of my writing for well over a year now. Now, I love Xenogears, I love its characters, and I always will love it, but there inevitably comes a point in my own obsessions when the initial rapture of obsession begins to wear off and I want to branch off into new things. I didn't want to admit this to anyone, though, because I had thought that if I had anything in the way of regular readers, they probably thought of me as being just a Xenogears writer, and if I were to start writing non-Xeno fanfiction, I'd lose whatever I had in the way of fans. Regardless, though, I can't constrain my imagination this way any more, and trying to redirect my inspiration always seems to make me LESS inspired. This site is still going to be "Wanderer of Time"; it's still going to be primarily a fanfiction/art page; it's just going to be a bit more varied in terms of subject matter. There are definitely still a few Xenogears story ideas left in me, but after so much time spent writing nothing but, I think some variety would help my style. Besides, I've already finished most of the major Xenogears ideas which were nagging at my brain (including Whom The Gods Destroy, really; I'm going to explain in the epilogue why I waited so long to post the final chapters). Um, this was supposed to be an update report or something, wasn't it...? Well, I did update. First and most conspicuously, the 100% In-Joke-Free Wanderer of Time FAQ is now complete. I haven't added anything new to the fanfiction section and likely won't for a while, but there are a slew of new pieces in the original stories section: "A Lifetime of Solitude," "Shattered Silver," "Dagger's Edge," and the first chapter of "Elena." The Silly Section has two new things, and I updated/fixed a handful of links. 08/31/00:Not much of note is new, except that I tweaked the "Me" page a bit. I think it looks spiffer now. *nods* I also updated my profile a bit, because it was getting a little dusty, and messed with the "Links" section too. New, improved, and now in alphabetical order! Yeah. 08/26/00: A Silly Thing and a Rant are up. *hears the chirping crickets in the background start to gripe... "Azuuusaaa, when are you going to write an actual story?"* Well, you see, the answer to that question is... um... er, actually, I don't know. ^^;; I'm a slow writer. I don't know what to do about that. >< And if you need something to do, go visit some of my friends' pages... *points to the "Friends' Pages" section under Links* They need more hits... Go there. I command you. And sign my bleedin' guestbook, willya? Or I will send the Pink Bunnies after you! 08/17/00: The front page now has a new design. Why'd I change it? Well... because I felt like it. (x_x) And the other one was starting to grate on my nerves. This one has at least a modicum of aesthetic value. I also got my first gift, for 1000 hits, from Chesh. If for whatever reason you want to see the old index, incidentally, it's here. Do let me know what you think of the new design. I'm also considering organizing the stories page into an index of its own, with seperate pages for various games and for original work. On a completely unrelated note, Almond Crush Chocolate Pocky is the best kind of Pocky there is. This is a scientifically provable fact. Well, maybe it isn't, but I say it is. Then again, I also believe raspberry yogurt and Apple Jacks taste good mixed together, so I don't know how many people will be inclined to take my word on matters food-related. ^^; 08/15/00: Smile! I updated. Well, I'm smiling, anyway, because of the fairly good chance that I'm going to be living away from my family in a month or less. So come on, be happy while you can, before I start to hate carbon-based organisms in general and people in particular once again. There are new Rants. There is a new Silly Thing. I also found out that it is possible to play with the Guestbook code, and amused myself thusly. *points* Maybe this will get more people to sign it... uh, what am I saying? Yeah, right. 07/26/00: So sorry for the fact that it's been so long since my last update. (Yeah, as if anyone really cared... ^^;) First, I got lazy, and second, Crosswinds did some weird things and I couldn't upload files for a few days. (Uh, for any Crosswinds staff who might be reading right now, I'm sure that there's a very good reason for it. Really. ^^;;;;) Also, on July 29th, I'm going to be leaving for a two-week vacation to Connecticut (my homeland... well, sorta ^^) and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to update from there, so I'm going to try to make this update a really stuff-ful one. I added a slew of new links which should have been added a long time ago, some new art, and a new story. Well, it's actually not all that new-- it was written over two years ago, and it sucks, and I don't even know why I'm putting it up here. Masochism, I guess. I also managed somehow to reach 1000 hits for this little site. o.O If you were the 1000th visitor, could you possibly mail me and let me know, and I might do something special? ^^; Maybe a fanfic or something, nothing really major... but... I'm open to suggestions. I am, after all, in the debt of everyone who helped shape this little site since its inception. 07/05/00: Somebody is racking up my counter. SOMEBODY... IS... RACKING... UP... MY COUNTER! Glargh. Unless my suspicions are correct and someone is entertaining themselves by hitting the reset button repeatedly, perhaps out of the belief that something special will happen if they get the 1000th hit, it would seem that people are actually visiting this page. Curious, Jim. I am starting to hate this page. Not the fact of its existence, but rather the design itself. Simply put, it looks like crud compared to a good many of the other enviable pages out there, and I'm starting to cringe every time I look at the index. And I can't find a decent book on HTML for anywhere under 30 dollars. Grrrrr-baaahh. Time to go rip some HTML codes from nice pages... *hums politely* Sorry for the horrendously long time it took me to update. The new phone connection my mon got wrangled into buying turned out to do Evil Things. We're talking 2400 modem speeds here. Oh, well, the Catholic in me believes that all of the subsequent distress was really good for me in the same nebulous way as eating creamed corn, which makes it somewhat bearable. Oh, yeah, and then there's Vagrant Story. Vagrant Story seems to have eaten my brain. ^^;; It's an amazingly good game, even setting aside the fact that Square seems to have found a translator who can use the English language competently. No, I'm not kidding! The dialogue in this game is quite amazingly great, downright literary in its quality (x_x). I just desperately want to know a) WHO they have doing the translation now, and b) WHERE the hell was sa during the translation of Xenogears? *goes off into a corner and sobs piteously for a while* Okay... I feel better now. That aside, though (and I'm going to ramble on about this game for a little while, so, uh, if I'm starting to bore you, run), it's also incredibly addictive and very very fun. Sydney is apparently becoming quite popular among fangirls, and for the life of me, I wish I could fathom why. (x_x) He looks... well... sickly to me. Anorexic. And as a friend of mine pointed out, his pants are apparently held up by a force which runs contrary to gravity. He is terribly fascinating, though. In fact, the whole game is. There's a very Shakespearean quality about it (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, yeah...). I said something about updates, didn't I? Oh, yeah, I did. Well, there's a new Rant up in the Rants section, and I re-did the Me page, 'cause I'm a narcissistic little bugger. Yeah. 06/25/00: *paces around with a blank look in her eyes, trying to dredge up something entertaining to say* Uhhh... reticulated giraffe? No, wait, I said that last week. I need more caffeine... I tried to get a new rant finished in time for this week's update, but while vitriol was in no short supply this week, patience was not. >< I have a few finished rants which I don't think I'll stick up here, because they would poke a good deal more sharply at the anime/RPG fan community than is probably good for my health. I have been a very crabby evil person lately. (x_x) Maybe... I'll put them up on a secret page or something. As for updates... well... my secret project is finally completed and is now located on the Weirdness page. Part 1 of "Elena" is also up, although to be truthful, don't expect anything spectacular because the story's actually a few years old. ^^; I also updated my profile, just a teeny bit. Advice of the week: Before you eat tomato sauce, check very very carefully to make sure there are no odd-looking things floating around in it. On an entirely unrelated note, I have a banner now, made by Kamitra. ^.^ 06/19/00: Uh, I feel crabby today, so if you expected something cute to go here, too bad, because I'm not funny. No, I'm not going to say something funny like everyone else does. I'm not even cute. ...Okay, fine. I'll say something funny. "Reticulated giraffe." What's wrong? Why aren't you laughing? It's an amusing term. It sounds funny. LAUGH, DAMN YOU! LAUGH! Okay, fine, be that way! Go off to one of those cutesy pages that make my teeth hurt and aren't actually that funny! *sniff* I try so hard... Uhhh... I can't think of anything particularly interesting to say right now, so I'm just going to ramble. The Rants and Rambling section is now up, along with a few more links on the links page. My Secret Project (tm) is almost complete, and will probably be placed under the Weirdness section when it's done, though I'm not quite sure exactly what to classify it as. I'm also working on a new MSTing with one of my friends... 06/14/00: Blarg. Well, after being told by several people that viewing my page in Netscape caused all the text to come out centered, I finally found out (courtesy of Zach Knoles-- THANK YOU... *showers you with random offerings of various gifts*) that there was a problem with my table code. Apparently, Microsnot Internet Exploder will auto-correct the error, while Netscape will not. So I get to spend tonight cutting and pasting the correct code into all my pages. Yay. Well, I suppose it's good that I caught the error now and not once I had more pages up... Incidentally, after being told that the front page color was too bright, I'm trying a new color out this time. Let me know what you think of it (er, provided that you have an opinion at all... --;;). On the, um, meaningful update front, I've put a new short story up in the fanfiction section, as well as a few more links. 06/10/00: I... HATE... FLEAS!! *scratches irritably at ankles* Um, sorry about that. My poor kitty got slightly infested with them this summer again, and even though we got rid of hers, the rug in my room has them now. (x_x) Anyway, I'm typing this at 6 in the morning after staying up all night and I'm weirdly happy and giddy and slightly hyper, despite the stupid fleas, and probably a good deal incoherent. There's a picture up on the "About Me" page, a gift from Cheshire-- it's not actually a picture /of/ me, it's more representative of me. No, I don't have the nerve to put up actual photographs of myself just yet. ^^; My page of original characters will probably be up with the next update or the update after that. There are also new MegaHAL quotes and more links to friends' pages. I should head off to bed now, but I'm wide awake. All hail Mountain Dew. ^^; 06/09/00: Just a few modifications this time. An illustration for "Whom the Gods Destroy," by Cheshire, is now up on the writings page, and there are more MegaHAL quotes. ^^; I've also been told that the aqua color I currently use for the index page looks really REALLY bad on Netscape browsers, so I'm looking for an alternative right now. (stupid Microsnot Internet Exploder...) I've started a new section for the Weirdness page, but it'll likely be a while before it's complete. I can't tell you what it is, because that would ruin the surprise... um... if anyone IS looking forward to it. 06/08/00: Page launch!! "Wanderer of Time" is officially open for business. *crickets chirp* Every single link on the page SHOULD be operational. I made absolutely sure of that before uploading it. The sections marked as "coming soon" are, well... coming soon. They aren't linked because few things in the world of webpagedom annoy me more than functional links that take you to an error message. They're evil. Evil, I tell you. Taunting me with their promise of taking me away to an enticingly promised page or story and then throwing that 404 at me, like some sort of evil, deranged clown harboring wicked thoughts of menace behind their big red smile. Evil!! Um, anyway... the things I'm planning to add to this page in the next few updates include more stories (mainly the ones listed on the page but not linked yet), my page of original characters, more of my "art", more links, the rants/rambling section, more MegaHAL quotes (I have seven huge files full of the freakin' things ^^;), my MiSTings, and maybe possibly some photos of myself, prefaced by considerable warnings. ^^; (Yeah, I hate the way my face looks. How'd you guess? --;) I'm also going to do a complete overhaul of the index page at some time in the near future when I can figure out a way to make it look nicer (without annoying blinky gifs, enough Javascript to crash 95% of all browsers, or psychedelic backgrounds which make fonts completely illegible. Actually, my first rant/rambling is likely going to involve webpage pet peeves of mine... ^^;). Any suggestions (or actually, suggestions on ANYTHING) would be very much appreciated. ^_^ So, I guess that's it... um... happy browsing? ~Azusa. |