First day of December

December 1st.  (And no partridge in a pear tree.
Oh wait, no "true love" either, much less a boyfriend.  >_> ) 

 Almost the end of the year!  >.<  Time to put up the advent calendar that my Grandmother made and has been put up every December since my Mom was a kid~

Really quiet day.  Could have been a lot better in some respects, but whatever.  >_>  Not in the best of moods today.  Hormones are not helping.  xD  I was especially happy, however, to randomly get texts from Habib, Belle and (out of absolutely nowhere) Kamadashi, since I was starting to feel generally frustrated because it seems lately that people (including my new texting pal  ; w ; ) don't text me unless I text them, in which cases, it often feels like I'm bothering them. 

But hey, I know, it's a really crazy time of year.  People are busy as heck, sick (and sick as heck), and it's almost finals time. It's not that I don't understand or am demanding more attention, but it's just this crummy feeling that it's been a while since someone sounded like someone actually really missed or wanted to talk to me in particular, you know?

Lately, it feels like even when friends do talk to me, it's just because I texted them, they're bored, because their lovers/other friends are busy at the time, and that I'm often the only one really happy to be talking to them.  (non-passive aggressive/sarcastic) But hey, what can you do?  I'll just have to suck it up and stop being such a panda pansy, lol. [/griping]   Cause I do love hearing from you guys whenever you do want to/ have time to talk... Maybe I just need a boyfriend, lol.  x__x;  (mostly joking)

How a panda pansy would look?  

But anyway.    

Two more packages came in the mail today, yay.  My lego block ice cube tray (that I want to make gummies or soap with), and my wing charms all the way from France!  <3

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ CRAFTING   ★★★★★★★

Ohhhhhh mannnn, I'm just dying to post about my pictures and progress of the Christmas gifts that I'm making for people, but a few of you actually read my posts.  xp  So instead, here is a picture that I took a month or two ago.  ; w ;

But yes!  I'm going to be sending out my first batch of Christmas gifts and cards to my friends on the mainland within the next week! <3

★★★★★★★★★★★★★INTERNET   ★★★★★★★

Watch out.  First, there was being Rickroll'D.  Now, there's the danger of being NickRoll'D.  

"It now appears that Rick Astley has some competition for his meme crown as the NickRoll is here, and it’s awful.

Nickelback’s latest travesty song, When We Stand Together, is being passed around the Internet, but not necessarily because people like it. Just like the the RickRoll, people are being directed to the video under the assumption that it’s something that they’d actually like to watch. Sadly they’re greeted with the Chad Kroeger repetitiously screeching the word 'Yeah'."  

-http://www.webpronews.com/nickrolld-latest-meme-leads-victims-to-nickelback-youtube-video-2011-12

Oh, Nickelback.  

Oh.  And after having signed up for RedditGifts, I also subscribed to their facebook page.  So checking my news feed today, I saw that someone participating in the secret santa exchange this had been given a cruise.  Yes, a freaking CRUISE trip.  Um, wow.  This secret santa exchange is truly scary.  You can get anything from paperclips and boxes of dirt to a cruise trip.  Mind=blown.

LUMOS

Never a dull day.  Went to sleep at 4-4:30 AM this morning after having yet another awesome-packed conversation on skype chat, slept through a power outage this monring, woke up and worked on Christmas gifts, felt really sore, sick, and dizzy in the late afternoon and crashed until around 8 PM, only to have the electricity go out (again) in the middle of microwaving a frozen dinner.  Of course.  I spend hours sleeping in the dark, and when I finally wake up, the power goes out.  >.<

....

Good thing that I have my 2 AA Cell Mini Maglite Flashlight that can convert to candle mode!  Seriously.  Along with the [much] larger literally-bright-as-freaking-daylight/disaster-ready-and-good-self-defense-weapon flashlight, they may be the most useful and thoughtful gifts that I've ever gotten from a guy, I feel like I can never thank him enough (and have repeatedly done so, and is likely very tired of it, perhaps to the point of regretting having given it to me xP ).  I've had to use it so many times already, it's the perfect small flashlight.  If you don't have an excellent small flashlight, you should really invest in this one.   Flashlight specs

LUMOS!  UTEVO GRAN LUX!  

So while I was waiting for the power to go back on, thanks to my tiny flashlight and 2 candles, I pan-heated the half-frozen tray of Chicken Alfredo Florentine in the total non-darkness while my mom worked on a crossword puzzle and my sister played Chuzzle Place (pffft) on her new laptop.  It's times like these that make me and my sister realize how much we rely on the internet. ... And how often our power and internet goes down.  >.<

I was content making hand shadows on my kitchen cabinet.
Look, it's a wolf!  Now it's a....Geodude?  ... aww, screw this.

After the power finally came back around 9:30 PM, I went on Facebook and saw my news feed comprised almost entirely of posts relating to power outages.  My family and I previously thought that it was just my neighborhood, but apparently, it was all over the island.  According to the news, the power outages were due to one or two transformers blowing out and the Hawaiian Electric Company purposely turning off the power to reduce the strain on them.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ INTERNET   ★★★★★★★

REDDIT GIFTS

Ah, Reddit.  The source of profound amusement, random education, both deeply heartwarming and disturbing stories and pictures, and everything in between.  Up until now, I have been content to casually lurk and laugh heartily at the posts (and more often, the comments), but this early morning, the level of regard and fear that I have for this site has been deepened considerably after learning about a truly epic event, the Reddit Secret Santa Gift Exchange .  

From what I heard from my friend who is participating (and got matched up with a hot Asian gamer model chick,  of course that would happen to you  >_>  ) in this year's exchange, this is the world's biggest secret santa exchange.  Some of the gifts highlights of last year's exchange have included things like a pile of cash, kindles, ipods, an electric guitar, consoles/games, a 50" HDTV, professional portraits/paintings, being serenaded by Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, but also weird things, like paperclips, six 22 pound boxes of beer, a box of dirt, Moais, ever issue of Playboy since the recipient's birth year (1986), hookahs, drug (and *ahem*)-related stuff.  

Ideally, the objective once you get your Reddit secret santa recipient is to stalk their posts/comments/facebook/etc, to try and get to know them and their interests/etc. as well as possible before choosing what will, hopefully, be thoughtful and awesome gifts. (You know, like how you're supposed to choose gifts for really close friends/lovers, except for complete strangers) But according to said friend, a lot of people just get gift cards and $20 bills or something too.  ...Even so, I'm thinking this is definitely something that I want to take part in.  *w*

According to the Reddit gift site, they have other exchanges, like Arbitrary Day, " a celebration of nothing in particular. The goal is to have fun and make others happy."  Sounds right up my alley.

Hey, that reminds me.  I still haven't heard from my dA "Gotta Craft Em All" group Secret Santa Exchange... Still have until the 15th to hear from them.  *waku waku*  >w<

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ VOCALOID   ★★★★★★★

After skimming through my subscribed dA group journal entries, the post about the new vocaloid IA caught my eye.  She's based off of the Japanese singer, Lia, and the official song demo is her cover of "Tori no Uta" from Aria, which Lia sang.  I must say, I'm quite impressed.  Even though there are still heavy artificial traces, the line between synthetic and real voices is definitely becoming more blurred.  If you don't pay too much attention while you listen to her song, you might not realize that it's synthetically composed!  (....maybe.)

In other vocaloid news, there are the new Spanish-singing vocaloids, Bruno and Clara, and English vocaloid Oliver, whose voice is based off a 13 year old British boy.  Shota fangirls, rejoice.  *stares at my sister*