Happy Materialism Day!
Dec. 25th, 2004 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaOh the weather outside is frightful
but the furnace is so delightful...
Or it is now that I decided the thermostat wasn't working properly and turned it up to 74 degrees. Mm...heat.
Christmas was a strangely calm affair. Usually there's rushing and yelling and crying by midday as my mother tries to get us ready and able for the commute to my grandmothers to receive presents, but since this year the female members of my mother's family decided to go to Hawaii, we stayed home all day.
I got expensive manga and a link cable, as well as cookies and a black notebook because I love gel pens but also enjoy being able to actually see what I write, plus whatever my grandmother and aunt gave me (I'll go out on a limb and say clothing). My brother got a bunch of games, one of which was the game he'd begged for two days before (Pokemon Pinball, RS version) and another was Pokemon Channel, which he dismissed as "lame" and "boring". Two minutes later he discarded Pokemon Pinball and spent the next few hours playing Pokemon Channel. I, meanwhile, who had argued that my mother shouldn't get Pokemon Pinball because "it's just a pinball game that has nothing to do with pokemon" spent that time playing Pokemon Pinball.
Yummy irony and foolishness.
Anyway, I'm not that good at pinball (I've gotten addicted recently to the Windows-bundled version, but have no real experience) but between the two of us now we've got about sixty pokemon. I don't know how far my brother got in Pokemon Channel, as it's impossible to tell by just glancing in and because by the time my hands cramped up and I went back to the living room, he was playing Jimmy Hatcher or something about a kid dressed up in a rooster suit who has to save Morning World by rescuing the elder roosters who call in morning. It's about as insane as it sounds, but unlike most of the crap my brother plays, actually has good graphics and looks amusing.
Anyway, I got my brother off and played Pokemon Colosseum for a little more than three hours. I got it a while ago, when it first came out, and started five different games, each of which my brother screwed with about two to six hours in. By the fifth time I was so sick of playing I didn't restart. Now that I have the mighty cable of linkyness, though, I've got more reason to play it, and after a couple of months of not playing it, I'm less frustrated at redoing what I already did five times.
I'm not that far, just at Pyrite Town. I've managed to catch all the shadow pokemon so far and I've emptied the bars on five of them.
Also, we've finally gotten the gerbils and rabbit, as well as another beta to take care of. The gerbils are currently clawing frantically at their little plastic tubes, trying to escape. I've checked three times - they have food and water, and after I noticed how huddled and cold they looked I gave them paper towels and napkins and tissues for a nest. I wish they'd stop acting like they're dying.
The beta is small, cute, and in a horrible nightmare of a tank. It's...I don't think it's a full half-gallon, and the lid (which is attached by hinge and is supposed to be snapped on) has to stay up so the heater fits. It's two, maybe three inches deep and I'm worried my cat's going to decide he's dinner.
The rabbit is large, fuzzy, fearless and very friendly (so friendly, in fact, I'm sitting on my legs right now rather than having them rest on the floor - god, why must I attract creepy attention from everything possible? It's the story of my life.). My cats are scared just-this-side-of-shitless of him (phrase used for literal meaning, thank you). The cage was downstairs near their food bowls for a bit, and they spent the entire time begging for food from us because they would not go near the bowls. Fear the wrath of the mighty, fully caged, entirely inactive and tired-out rabbit. Fear it!!!
...yes, my cats are spineless little cowards.
Finally, finally managed to find the second birdfeeder (my mother has a knack for finding what she wants easily, but takes forever for what I want...). We bought more birdseed. One's a songbird mix, high fat, and the other is for insect-loving birds (complete with real insects, of course). I refilled the large birdfeeder and filled the narrow one, then went out to try to hang them up.
The string from the pretzels was still on one branch, so I tied the large one up, figuring it'd be out of reach of squirrels, and I hung the narrow one from a wire on another branch. The squirrels managed to climb down the string and perch on top of the large feeder for twenty, maybe thirty seconds of eating before falling off. They seemed to really hate this and stopped doing it, but a few hours later when I checked I found they'd broken the string and had the feeder on the ground. It's back up now with the wire, and so far the squirrels haven't gone back. I'll see what they think up tomorrow.
but the furnace is so delightful...
Or it is now that I decided the thermostat wasn't working properly and turned it up to 74 degrees. Mm...heat.
Christmas was a strangely calm affair. Usually there's rushing and yelling and crying by midday as my mother tries to get us ready and able for the commute to my grandmothers to receive presents, but since this year the female members of my mother's family decided to go to Hawaii, we stayed home all day.
I got expensive manga and a link cable, as well as cookies and a black notebook because I love gel pens but also enjoy being able to actually see what I write, plus whatever my grandmother and aunt gave me (I'll go out on a limb and say clothing). My brother got a bunch of games, one of which was the game he'd begged for two days before (Pokemon Pinball, RS version) and another was Pokemon Channel, which he dismissed as "lame" and "boring". Two minutes later he discarded Pokemon Pinball and spent the next few hours playing Pokemon Channel. I, meanwhile, who had argued that my mother shouldn't get Pokemon Pinball because "it's just a pinball game that has nothing to do with pokemon" spent that time playing Pokemon Pinball.
Yummy irony and foolishness.
Anyway, I'm not that good at pinball (I've gotten addicted recently to the Windows-bundled version, but have no real experience) but between the two of us now we've got about sixty pokemon. I don't know how far my brother got in Pokemon Channel, as it's impossible to tell by just glancing in and because by the time my hands cramped up and I went back to the living room, he was playing Jimmy Hatcher or something about a kid dressed up in a rooster suit who has to save Morning World by rescuing the elder roosters who call in morning. It's about as insane as it sounds, but unlike most of the crap my brother plays, actually has good graphics and looks amusing.
Anyway, I got my brother off and played Pokemon Colosseum for a little more than three hours. I got it a while ago, when it first came out, and started five different games, each of which my brother screwed with about two to six hours in. By the fifth time I was so sick of playing I didn't restart. Now that I have the mighty cable of linkyness, though, I've got more reason to play it, and after a couple of months of not playing it, I'm less frustrated at redoing what I already did five times.
I'm not that far, just at Pyrite Town. I've managed to catch all the shadow pokemon so far and I've emptied the bars on five of them.
Also, we've finally gotten the gerbils and rabbit, as well as another beta to take care of. The gerbils are currently clawing frantically at their little plastic tubes, trying to escape. I've checked three times - they have food and water, and after I noticed how huddled and cold they looked I gave them paper towels and napkins and tissues for a nest. I wish they'd stop acting like they're dying.
The beta is small, cute, and in a horrible nightmare of a tank. It's...I don't think it's a full half-gallon, and the lid (which is attached by hinge and is supposed to be snapped on) has to stay up so the heater fits. It's two, maybe three inches deep and I'm worried my cat's going to decide he's dinner.
The rabbit is large, fuzzy, fearless and very friendly (so friendly, in fact, I'm sitting on my legs right now rather than having them rest on the floor - god, why must I attract creepy attention from everything possible? It's the story of my life.). My cats are scared just-this-side-of-shitless of him (phrase used for literal meaning, thank you). The cage was downstairs near their food bowls for a bit, and they spent the entire time begging for food from us because they would not go near the bowls. Fear the wrath of the mighty, fully caged, entirely inactive and tired-out rabbit. Fear it!!!
...yes, my cats are spineless little cowards.
Finally, finally managed to find the second birdfeeder (my mother has a knack for finding what she wants easily, but takes forever for what I want...). We bought more birdseed. One's a songbird mix, high fat, and the other is for insect-loving birds (complete with real insects, of course). I refilled the large birdfeeder and filled the narrow one, then went out to try to hang them up.
The string from the pretzels was still on one branch, so I tied the large one up, figuring it'd be out of reach of squirrels, and I hung the narrow one from a wire on another branch. The squirrels managed to climb down the string and perch on top of the large feeder for twenty, maybe thirty seconds of eating before falling off. They seemed to really hate this and stopped doing it, but a few hours later when I checked I found they'd broken the string and had the feeder on the ground. It's back up now with the wire, and so far the squirrels haven't gone back. I'll see what they think up tomorrow.
