The Dragon's Den

My restored Teddy Ruxpin and Grubby are here at last! I've wanted a Grubby for almost as long as I can remember. Now I finally have him, and he's perfect! XDDD

Included in the package was a photo-documentary of their restoration...a personalized, individual history of each of the toys. And it's bloody amazing! ^_^ These two have been through a lot.

Grubby (from Florida) had a badly damaged circuit board from the time he was manufactured, and had his neck broken at some point which damaged more wires. Teddy (from Italy!) just about had to be rebuilt from scratch! Missing his upper jaw, broken neck, foam skull and belly just saturated with mold and battery acid. Poor little guy had even been in a fire! Then he was uncerimoniously thrown away. Someone rescued him from the trash along with two other Teddys and shipped them off to Dr. Eeyore, to be traded for a Mother Goose.

Lovingly repaired, Teddy and Grubby are finally home. Picspam to follow.

( Chapter 7 )

This has got to be the best find I've ever made at the flea market. Anyone else remember this guy? 

He was worth every penny, even though he doesn't work too terribly well anymore. (This thing's more than twenty years old...it's amazing that he still works at all!) I must admit, I shed a happy tear or two when this Teddy blinked at me and said "Come dream with me tonight..." ^_^
 

This one will enjoy a quiet retirement as a display piece, and photography model. I'm in the process of buying a fully restored Teddy and Grubby pair to play the tapes I've started collecting again.

EDIT 10/03/09: My restored Teddy and Grubby will soon be on their way!

 
The wonderful Doctor Eeyore is in Florida for two weeks, so these two will get shipped out when she gets back. I wish her a safe trip, and a speedy recovery from a relatively minor yet quite unfortunate accident.

Another strange, yet amazing thing happened with the flea market Teddy too...he's working perfectly now! At first he would really struggle to finish the tape, and his eyes and mouth would twitch pretty badly when he wasn't talking. I thought for sure he had servo motor problems, and possibly a dying tape player motor/drive belt. He's totally fine now! He can finish the tape smoothly now, and his eyes and mouth hardly twitch at all. Maybe all he needed was a good workout to get all his parts moving again. Maybe he wasn't satisfied with just being a display piece. ^_^

Oh darn...I'll have TWO functioning Teddy Ruxpins! XD

 

I've been on a game buying spree lately. I just polished off Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with all of the crests and most of the badges. (I made sure I got all of the Quidditch and Potions badges, but some of the Dueling badges were just taking too damn long so I didn't bother.) Potion making on the Wii is way too much fun. ^_^

Which brings me to my next two games...tonight I ordered Cooking Mama, and started on Hell's Kitchen. Are we noticing a theme here? ;)

Hell's Kitchen recieved some pretty crappy reviews, but I just couldn't pass up the bundle when I saw it. You know that Wii Sports bundle that comes with the tennis racket, golf club, and baseball bat wiimote attachments? It's just like that, but with cooking utensils. XDD Now I can get yelled at by a virtual Gordon Ramsay whenever I want. lol! (And I've unlocked some recipies that I want to try!) I've been able to keep him pretty happy so far, but it's bound to get way more chaotic.

On a non-food related note, I FINALLY hid my geocache last weekend. www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx It doesn't have many hits on it yet, but the first-to-find prize went safely on the first night and that's what I really wanted. I already have an idea for another cache, but first I need to find a good place to hide an ammo crate. o_O

My sweetie's been working on quitting smoking, and he's put in a monumental effort this weekend. I can count on one hand how many cigarettes he's had in the last two days. I'm so proud! ^_^

There's a down side that I wasn't expecting, however. (Don't get me wrong, it's a small price to pay.) Now I've got a massive nicotine withdrawal headache.

( *blows the dust off the story* )

omg...seriously...*drool*...deep fried oreos...

The Stampede kicked off today, so I went down after work and ate til I blew up. XD Deep fried oreo cookies are FUCKING AMAZING. Then they go and cover them with chocolate sauce and powdered sugar...*mops drool off keyboard*

In between stuffing my face, I went to the barns to pet some horses before they got sick of all the attention, and checked out the games. (Just looking, not playing. I swore off the games after I finally won the big one.) Naturally, the ridiculously rigged games had the best prizes...giant adorable Pikachus, Chimchars, Piplups, and Turtwigs, but this one booth stopped me dead in my tracks just to make sure I was seeing this right.

Stuffed Barack Obamas. I laughed my ass off. That was the coolest prize I've ever seen. It's even kinda cute!

I did something a tad out of character down there too...I went and got an airbrush tattoo! For the next week or so, I have a cool little blue/green dragon on my lower back. ^_^

I'm still debating whether or not I want to haul my carcass out of bed early tomorrow morning for a free pancake breakfast at the mall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsVJGRuHA8k

Wow. Just...wow.

I cannot believe I got this lucky...

Last night I was working on EV training my Gabite (soon to be one kickass Garchomp!), and I flew back to town to heal up, just like I had done a hundred times before. But that time, Nurse Joy told me something I'd never heard before.

"Your Pokemon may be infected with Pokerus."

That crash you may have heard was my jaw hitting the floor. ^_^ I wasn't that excited when I caught a shiny Graveller!

And now in my trade fodder box, there sits an untrained lv1 adamant female Gible infected with Pokerus. XDD I might be able to trade that for something decent!

Oh Lord...projects, projects, PROJECTS!!! I have way too many on the go already (mainly finishing that camo Care Bear and picking out the perfect spot to hide my own geocache), too many I want to start (I knew those amigurumi books would bite me in the ass!), and I started a few pretty ambitious ones, but damn these new ones are fun. I started on a new cross stitch piece, and for The Sims 2 I'm attempting to make a sim!Teddy Ruxpin. Hee...I relearned how to recolor things. I'm all proud of myself. ^_^

As I make progress on the other projects, I'm feeling a bit better about the fic, even if it is still mostly gathering dust. It's just a little bit of dust. ;) I'm gonna try for a nice long session this weekend. I'm so close to the end of chapter 8...it's drifting into dry, boring description and I'm not terribly happy about that, but I don't know any way around it.

My copy of The Sims 3 came in today!!! I bought the collector's edition just for the plumbob flash drive. XDD It'll be months before any major custom content comes out, but until someone does a better job, I made a pretty respectable sim!Grissom. They don't have anything remotely close to his hairstyle, and I can't get the color quite right (I'm still playing with that), but he's about the best looking sim I've ever made! His personality was a no-brainer...genius, bookworm, perfectionist, workaholic, and loner. :)

Whenever I get around to making/downloading a sim!Sara, there's a vegetarian trait for her! XDDD

Let's see, what have I been up to lately...

Saw Wolverine last weekend (and if you like Wolverine in a homicidal rage or Hugh Jackman's naked ass, it's fan-fucking-tastic!), gonna go see Star Trek next weekend because this upcoming weekend I'm gonna go see Angels and Demons! Yayz! I also joined Scene so I'll probably have enough points for a free ticket or two in time for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince next month. There's a rather large influx of movies that I actually want to see right now. ;p

Swapping out my DVD drive for one without a CD-RW cleared up all those stupid error messages, and I'm 2/3 of the way through Lego Star Wars. I finally got around to trying out that Thief 2 fan mission that I downloaded, and it's packed to the rafters with undead! It's gonna be scary as hell. >:)

I've also discovered my new favorite video game reviewer. Google "Zero Punctuation". He must be seen to be truly appreciated, and you'll see why they call him Zero Punctuation. ^_^

But as a serious down side to having the attention span of a gnat lately, I'm suffering a severe lack of motivation to keep doing horrible things to Grissom. He's currently in the middle of a horrible thing, and I know where I want to go from there, but I can't seem to make him get from point A to point B. I keep telling myself I'm going to sit down and crank out one measly sentence just to feel like I'm accomplishing something, and I'm just not happy with what I come up with.

I think what I really need is to silence the self-doubt. Besides being pissed off about how long it's taking (even though logically I know damn well not to force it because forcing it makes it SUCK), I'm especially worried about the particular scene I'm working on. All this jumping from character to character, it's disjointed and chaotic and makes very little sense, but it's SUPPOSED to be disjointed and chaotic. In context, it makes a great deal of sense.

*chucks a wad of paper at ashiya* I think I need someone to tell me to get the hell out of my own way and trust that the plot bunny knows what it's doing.

I'm all proud of myself...I bought and installed (correctly!!) a new DVD drive. ^_^

With any luck, losing the built-in CD-RW will stop those stupid disc read error messages on a ton of my games. Oh, there's no disc in the drive...FUCK YOU THERE'S NO DISC IN THE DRIVE!!!

I'd never been to a comic convention before, but it sounded like fun and hot damn it was! Way more crowded than I was expecting. Every geek, dork, and nerd in Calgary must have been there. (My people. lol!) Didn't spend much...I bought a Star Trek book, a Wolverine t-shirt, and I got to meet Ray Park! So now I have an autographed picture of Toad. ^_^

Maybe next year I can sweet talk John into entering the costume contest as Pyramid Head. XD

I think the whole ordeal with my computer is almost over. It should be considering there's not much else in there that they could possibly replace. -__-;; (How about the screws in my case? Did I somehow fry those too?)

After I finally got my voice back, I called Memory Express and tried to give them the list of parts. That flew like a lead fart...I had to tell one guy FOUR TIMES no I don't want to buy a pre-made system. I finally gave up and hauled John in on the weekend to speak computer on my behalf. It even took him a couple of tries to make them understand that I wanted parts and not a pre-made system. They were out of some stuff, and the power supply I just bought wouldn't be enough to run the motherboard I wanted, but we hammered out a new list of replacement parts and I don't need to return the new power supply. I don't recall the exact specs, but it's gonna be blazing fast compared to the old one. :)

I thought that was the end of it until they called again Monday night and said "Oh by the way, your hard drive is fried too." Well that would have been useful to know on Saturday when I was in there buying an assload of new parts. I'm assuming they didn't know my hard drive was toast until they installed the new motherboard, but it still pissed me off.

So to try and cheer myself up a little, I'm gonna take a stab at EV training my Giratina. Not for competitive battle or anything, just to see if I can. And for the ribbon if I do it right.

Tonight, Canadians have filled up at Corner Gas for the last time. It probably was for the best to end it at the top of its game, but I'm still sad to see it go. Life in Dog River goes on, and I hope the reruns will as well. :) I got to see Brent Butt live once. Grab tickets if you ever get the chance. He puts on a fun show. ^_^

Today I also reaffirmed something I already knew. Laryngitis sucks BALLS!

Some jackass at work I spent all of five minutes with in the lunch room gave me his cold, and now I've totally lost my voice. I managed to call in sick this morning (and was understood!) and that was the end of it. Haven't said another word all day. Been doing a ton of writing because I suck at charades. >.<

It seems that cold bug was also carrying a creativity bug...holy crap I got a ton of (non-communicative) writing done! This friggin chapter has gone on so long, but it's still telling me it's not quite done. (I've learned not to ignore the fic when it tells me these things. It gets angry.) I think I'll split it into 2 small chapters.

Well, the computer situation is worse than I thought at first. The new power supply works just fine, but nothing else does. When the old one blew it took my motherboard with it. If I replace the motherboard, I need to replace a bunch of other parts because nothing will be compatible anymore. So I'm essentially looking at getting a new system. I wanted to upgrade eventually anway, and my computer was old and old parts will crap out, but I'm still pissed at having to drop that much money all at once. On the up side, there won't be any question about being able to run Sims 3. :)

But I swear I'm gonna kick the next person that tells me to "just buy a new computer". I didn't "buy a computer" in the first place. I bought parts and crammed them into a case. And to fix it, I'm gonna buy new parts. Voila, a new computer. :p (Fear not...just in case they can't salvage my hard drive, the fic is on my laptop.)


Some positive news...I'm gearing up to hide my own geocache, I (at least partially) solved the latest bout of writer's block by bringing Sara back into it, and holy crap Canada is getting its first Pokemon event!!! I can get a 100% legit Secret Key!!!

*sigh* The muse is still being uncooperative. It's formulating an idea, and it feels like a good one, but it's just not ready yet. It'll let me know when it's ready, but I'm still rather disgusted with myself for taking weeks on end to write scenes that would take seconds on film.

Friday was a total write-off. John's idiot neighbors were having a birthday party or something, and it turned my brain to mush. Going out to see Monsters vs Aliens 3D was the highlight of the whole weekend. (Stephen Colbert as the President was a beautiful touch. XDDD) I'm hooked on these 3D movies now!

It's been a craptacular week, so I downloaded some new Sims pets to cheer myself up. Hank's about to have some new playmates...Grissom and Sara are about to be the proud owners of a deer, a lamb, a polar bear, and Garfield. I wanted the koala too, but it hasn't been fixed yet after the last big server crash.

*chucks a pokeball at ashiya* Got Platinum?

I'm over at my boyfriend's place right now and Douchie McDouche next door is at it again with his friggin stereo. I swear I have fantasies about breaking the wall down and utterly destroying that stereo with a baseball bat, or just snipping off the power cord and taking it with me. So here I sit trying to kickstart the muse again, and the thumping through the walls, floor, and table is making me want to kill something. (I can't channel that into anything useful. I've tried.)

I thought it would help that this asshat at least plays real music, not rap or techno bullshit. It doesn't help. I don't know why this happens weekend after weekend after weekend...the SOB KNOWS that the walls here are paper thin and the bass is louder in here than in his place. I know he knows that because he's been told dozens of times.

*sigh* Why don't I just go over there and tell him to shut up? I'll tell you why. There's lots of reasons why. (I never claimed they were good reasons. ;p )

1. It's only ten and he's legally allowed to be loud and obnoxious until midnight.
2. He's drunk and stoned all the time on weekends, and I'm too chicken to go anywhere near him. Drunk people freak me out.
3. He's drunk and stoned all the time on weekends, so he'll forget that he's loud and obnoxious and I'll have to do it all over again next time.
4. He really doesn't seem to give a shit that he's loud and obnoxious.
5. Why the fuck should I have to tell him to shut up every weekend?
6. This is the one that really pisses me off...nobody else is bothered by it! The neighbours on the other side are over there partying with him, and I'm the only one here that it gets to at all. I don't get it. I can feel the bass through the floor, and it doesn't bug anyone else?!

I've tried everything I can think of to block it or drown it out. Nothing works. Trying to sleep with my fingers in me ears gave me a knot in my neck so bad that I couldn't turn my head to the right for a couple of days. Only did that once! My MP3 player kinda works, but I have to crank it up so loud it hurts, so it's not worth it. Earplugs actually make it worse. They block out everything but the thumping.

Well, that's not entirely true. One thing did work. Last time he pulled this shit, I got sick of it around two in the morning, so I beat on the wall with my shoe until he turned the stereo down. God that was so funny...I could hear him open the door more than once thinking someone was outside, then he got all pissed off when I wouldn't stop. I heard "WHAT THE FUCK?!" through the wall. I can be loud and obnoxious too, fucker. lol!

I heard he was supposed to be moving out, but I guess that was too much to hope for. Then again, with my luck, we'll get something even worse to replace him. Metalheads, or a meth lab or something stupid like that.

I'm probably letting this thing get to me a little too much, and I'm probably fighting a losing battle trying to get rid of it, but seriously people! Who the hell wants to fire up Neopets and see this???




I run into this effing ass on all kinds of sites that I frequent, and I'm sick of looking at it! I'm gonna keep reporting it as inappropriate until they're tired of hearing from me.

Guys, seriously. Get this fanny off my screen.

I don't usually watch much in the way of movies, but I went on a bit of a spree this week.

Went to Coraline in 3D today. Noon on a weekday, so it wasnt' crowded, and I got my favorite seat right in the middle of the theater. It's also the best seat in the house for a 3D movie. ;) Just...wow! lol Even the trailers were in 3D! Very cool. Don't wait for the DVD. Go see this in the theater, and get there early enough to snag the good seats!

I also found a copy of To Live and Die in LA at Best Buy when I bought my laptop bag. Watched that Monday night and I'm still drooling. Mmm...sweaty, angry WP chasing people...*fans self* Damn he's hot...

Gave me some good ideas for at least one chase scene later on, but methinks he'll be the prey rather than the predator. >:)