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Saturday, November 14th, 2009
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suzukiblu
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LOOK
IT'S THE MADNESS
SAVE YOURSELVES
  
For the record, it totally took all three of us to make those icons. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) stereowire drew the pictures, spacehussy photographed the whiteboard, and I manned the Photoshop.
WE ARE JUST THAT AWESOME, OKAY.
GOD PLEASE CAN I SLEEP NOW JUST A LIIIITTLE.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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mullenkamp
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Instead, more action figure antics.
( Spock Prime and Bones take a more active role this time... )
Less stupid, but just as pointless - this afternoon I decided to check a used CD shop for the Beatles albums I didn't have on CD yet, and turned out they were having a buy one, get one half off sale. So I picked up Please Please Me (only owned on vinyl), Help, Let It Be (both of which I had never owned, but had most of on various compilations on tape or vinyl), and the third anthology. Now all I need to complete the set is Abbey Road, which I'd only owned on tape. Have just ripped them to put on the iPod, and am going all eeeeeee over some of these songs I haven't heard for ages. "There's A Place", "Two Of Us", "You're Going to Lose That Girl", "I've Just Seen a Face"... I don't even know which songs to go back and listen to repeatedly first. :D (Also, speaking of "Two Of Us", LOL at "Iiiii dig a pygmy!") And it definitely makes me want to pick up the guitar again.
Probably more stupid but less pointless - last night I was bored and unmotivated, so I thought it was time to play a video game, but couldn't think of any game I'd been meaning to replay that I actually felt like replaying at the moment. I decided on FFXII, because I knew I'd get into it fast - except then I couldn't find my PS2 memory card. Since ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) akatonbo and I both had PS2s when we moved in together, one is in the living room with the TV, and the other is hooked up to my computer's video capture, and I thought maybe my memory card was in there...
It was not, but Shadow of the Colossus was. I hadn't actually started playing it yet, but the other day I had been calibrating the video capture, and grabbed it because it was near the top of a stack of used games and I knew it would be pretty, therefore great capture material. ...Suddenly realized "Wait - why haven't I played this yet?" And since one of the games under heavy consideration for replaying had been Ico, seemed appropriate.
To sum it up, I fumbled around forever before I figured out that the colossi might have more than one weak point (you don't even want to know how many times I stabbed that first one in the leg and wondered why it had stopped working), wandered around taking in the scenery and lighting effects, and spent an hour and a half fighting the third colossus - one hour of which was a single attempt after I figured out how to do it, but kept falling off. XD But boy, did it feel good when I finally took that thing down. Definitely time for a break then, though. That was over 12 hours ago - think it's time to go find another monster to climb. :D
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, November 13th, 2009
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suzukiblu
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17205 / 50000 words. 34% done!
WHY HELLO, PROGRESS, I MISSED YOU TOO. <3
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Saturday, November 14th, 2009
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Friday, November 13th, 2009
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captainecchi
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I'm somewhat back on track with NaNoWrimo, reaching 18,404 words today. As it turns out, introducing ninja librarians who look like Parker, then blowing shit up, really is a good way to get your novel kickstarted when it feels boring.
Also, I might as well take this opportunity to talk about my progress on reading Deadhouse Gates. Man. This book, as I said elsewhere, is 900 pages of depressing in an 836-page package. Everything about the Chain of Dogs is poignant. Hell, even List's festering foot wound is poignant. And if that weren't poignant enough, there are all the other characters.
Well, except Icarium and Mappo Trell, and their story is probably poignant on the grander scale of things, but I can't bring myself to care, because not a word between them makes sense to me. When it was the convergence of them and the ever-nonsensical Iskaral Pust, I quite wanted to throw the book across the room.
In short, I want to pat Duiker's head and give him a cookie.
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usomitai
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PS: An Archive of Our Own, the fic archive of the wonderful Organization for Transformative Works (also responsible for Fanlore), is going into Open Beta! Right now it's invitation-only, and I have ~one~ invite. Not sure what to do with it. Demand goods/favors in exchange of it (I'd love a Foreman & Amber banner for alwaysright)? Give it to the first person to comment, or to whom wants it most? Give it to a close friend (though, as far as I know, the people I'm close to either already have an account or don't know the AO3 exists).
If you'd like the invite, though, leave a comment, and I'll follow the above guidelines somewhat. Only one person will get the invite, natch, but if/when I get more later, I'll come back to this post to see who else is trying to get in. Comments will be screened.
Oh, as addendums:
1) the OTW is awesome. Seriously. I've been a terrible volunteer, but whenever I see their work, I grow all warm and snuggly and proud of fandom;
2) i'm bellaboo over there! :D
Mmmmm, this makes me want to dig in and spend all weekend reading good fic. Which I can't do. But! Go AO3. ♥
ETA: Invite gone! As it turns out, the first person to comment is a very dear friend, so that worked out nicely. ♥ Sorry to the others; still, do leave your name and, like I said, when I next get invitations, I'll know who else to give them to. You can also leave your name on the AO3 waiting list, which will go live soon. And this doesn't meant that some other kind-hearted person couldn't still make that Amber & Foreman banner
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suzukiblu
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ALRIGHT SO I HEAR SOME OF US HAVEN'T BEEN WRITING IN OUR NANOWRIMOS Y/Y? especially me oh God I have not touched it in daaaays. DDDX
I AM FOR REMEDYING THAT.
*rolls up sleeves, turns up music, attacks The Book*
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captainecchi
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I had to go out to deal with employment-type stuff, and so I said--"If I have to go out, I'm going to Panera." So here I am, trying desperately not to spread my germs.
It's the lunch rush here, and it's strange to be surrounded by so many people all of a sudden, when I've spent the week indoors.
Well, I brought my laptop, so I should probably get some writing done--trying to catch up on NaNo.
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petronia
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Fifth day of Dreadful Cold and have been visited by Aunt Flo i.e. in summary am leaking and dissolving into component bits, but at least not being able to do anything except sit in front of the computer is helping my wordcount. (And my farm. The difference between fantasy and reality is that in the fantasy I spent coins to acquire piles of maple leaves for my yard, which also contains a pony.) I remember starting and writing nearly half of Senza Fine while I was down with the Stomach Monster in Shanghai; illness is one time when what is happening inside one's head is emphatically more interesting than what is happening outside of it. Even if I'm bitter that I've been felled during the one week the weather's been nice.
Of course something always falls by the wayside, and I think it's been the tunes lately. So having done my duty by posting something to carnet, here is some girly disco. XD;
Coeur de pirate - Comme des enfants (Le Matos Andy Carmichael Remix): not a little local critical backlash against the (again quite local) success of the Coeur de Pirate album panning it as simpering juvenilia, but the Le Matos dudes' brainstorm here - essentially, recasting Beatrice Martin as the Québecoise Sally Shapiro - is a stroke of genius. CFCF must be kicking himself for not getting there first.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than the Stars (Saint Etienne Remix): if it didn't say so in the track name I'm not sure I would've realized Saint Etienne had anything to do with it... and I'm not sure why I wouldn't have. ^^; The original is dreamily classicist indiepop caught somewhere between BeruSeba and Asobi Seksu, and this is reminiscent of that Tom Middleton remix of "Halcyon". very "dj ran" twinkly arpeggios etc
Lady Gaga - Paparazzi (Stuart Price Mix): at first I thought Stuart Price changed up the chord structure here but he really didn't. It's sped up and more straightforwardly poppy, in that it's lost some of the jitteriness of the original, which really only becomes eerieness in the video. Which is nearly as good as "Bad Romance", but suffers in comparison from making a too-obvious point heavyhandedly, and also from not setting polar bear pelts on fire. I like the song better, though.
I'm now watching all the Lady Gaga videos redone in Sims 2, they are bananas.
***
I have a suspicion that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) ontd_startrek will end up forming its own guild or whatever equivalent in the online game and it will end up like that one Cory Doctorow short story, only with more celebrity dogwalking.
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Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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captainecchi
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I don't think the plague is hamthrax--if it were a flu, it would have to be H1N1, since I've had my seasonal flu shot--because I'm not running a fever, but it is the most miserable cold I've had in a long time. My throat feels like raw meat, and it's so inflamed that I'm having trouble swallowing. Thanks to some 12-hour nasal decongestant, I can breathe, but my nose is protesting this thing that has so thoroughly dried it out. I fade into and out of sleep, and I read a lot, and I drink a lot of tea. I guess that's all I can do. I feel incredibly cut off from the world, but I really don't want to go out and start infecting people.
Unfortunately all this means I'm behind on delivering the Diocese of Portland report, AND NaNoWriMo--I'm still at my day 9 word goal. I don't want to be the loser that gets sick at the last minute and dumps work on other people, but that's what I'm turning into, apparently. And hell, I don't even have that much left to do... it's just I can't seem to manage sitting at a computer for very long.
Only long enough to whine, apparently. *sigh*
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dotiscute
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I suppose I should update what's been going on recently.
I had a meeting with the head of the department who basically said "Um... how about you do your final assignment and you don't have to come to class ever again?"
Which to me and everyone else suggested that they'd ASKED my teacher if he'd like to resolve whatever problems he had with me and his response was "No! That whore is DEAD TO ME!" and it was too much hassle to convince a catty queen with tenure to think other-wise so they just went over to me.
I took the deal because this thing was already more stressful then it needed to be and I'm getting what IS my top priority (graduation).
It's a shame because I always assumed that people the age of my Mom were grown-ups who would talk and resolve their problems face to face in a proper manner, but as I am learning at this school, most "grown-ups" are children with huge egos who don't have the social skills to be interacting with other people, let alone students. Really, most of these people should be working at ferrett rescues or some sort of place where they don't have to interact with people at all.
But now I just gotta complete my final and move the fuck on.
I like to relate my own current problems to the story of Little Wienie. Little Wienie is a dachshund pup who got too excited the other week and well... it didn't go back in. Yes. Just like poor Kyle. My boss took him to the vet who demanded a ton of money to save him or else they'd put him down. Shannon was smart and surrendered the dog over to them so that he'd get his life saved and he'd end up in a home some where.
Last week they returned Little Wienie to us and while he now has a hole where his wienie once was, he apparently still has his balls.
So you must make due what you can in odd circumstances. Or in little wienie's case. Circumcisions.
The End.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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mullenkamp
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And directly related to my previous post regarding young Vulcans knowing the work of Lennon/McCartney...
Outtakes from RP, #1:
Spock: *playing the lute/harp-thing* It would be more recognizable with a vocalist, I imagine. Since we had mentioned late twentieth century Earth, the songwriting duo of Lennon and McCartney seemed appropriate.
Jim: ...Wait. Is that "I Want to Hold Your Hand"?
Spock: ...
Jim: Are you Vulcan-flirting with me?
Spock: *clears throat, changes to "Let It Be"*
...We discuss a lot of weirdness like this that the characters are too smart to actually do. XD
Scruffy!Spock plotamari: I got past the minor block I had in writing it, the night before last at work, just by giving up on trying to make the scene meaningful or relevant to the plot and writing it anyway. It gave itself relevancy all on its own, and told me exactly the next scene I needed to write, and how to make that one more relevant too. I love it when my characters are smarter than I am.
So I wrote some yesterday morning after work, in bed, without the laptop plugged in, and the batteries ran down. Then I took my laptop off to work... and realized I didn't bring the cord, and the batteries were almost dead. Quickly renamed the file (because "adoptavulcan.txt" is somewhat more conspicuous in the recent documents list than "09-11-11.txt"), stuck it on a flash drive, and worked on it on the work computer. Not nearly as much as I wanted to because they were doing some upgrades and reboots, and I didn't want to chance having my text file up there when the remote techs decided it was time to do stuff on our computer. Had to wait until they were done.
Even so, when I got home, I compared text file sizes from the laptop and the flash drive. Before tonight's remote work, 156k. After tonight's work, 172k. Wrote more when I got home, now 180k and a total word count of 32740.
...I think I'm going to add a new tag to my list with this entry. XD
I'm beginning to wonder if I should just start posting this serialized as I write it, because I've been doing that for kink memes for the last year and a half anyway - no beta, no editing, just posting every time I get to a good stopping point. And it's worked out decently. On the other hand, everything longer than about 20k total words, I have gone back and edited or made additions to at some point after I finished. But on the bright side, the edits were for embellishment, rather than because I wrote myself into a corner, contradicted myself, or changed my mind halfway through about some detail of the plot. And this thing is mostly outlined in my head as far as what came before - it's just what's yet to come that reveals what came before that's up in the air.
I'm just... weirded out. I never wrote things in a linear fashion until kink memes ate my life. It was more writing the interesting bits, then going back and filling in the blanks.
Anyway, even if no one else ever reads this thing, I'm having so much fun writing it. (PROTIP: The way Spock shoots pool is totally revenge for the way Kirk plays chess.)
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Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.
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suzukiblu
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DALEK SPACEHUSSY IS TRIUMPHANT.
Now you all have a clearer picture of my cat than my me. Oh yeah, baby, I am THAT CHICK.
To-Do List for tomorrow, in order of Important:
job hunting
UM YOU REMEMBER THAT NANOWRIMO THING? WHUT? WHUTWHUT?
finish AU meme
work on sketch meme
finish Avateers scriptlet
Please feel free to heckle me if you notice these things not getting progressively slashed out as the day goes on. The company appreciates your efforts. <3
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
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meril
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Was attempting to read really old novel by Nora Roberts (reprinted in 2009 in Forever) where the hero was a third baseman for some LA-based team with the same name as the LA hockey team. In any case, he was described as being 6'1", 160...and hitting 37 HR per season. Um, no. I know ballplayers were smaller in 1983, but still umno. Also his other attributes, physical and otherwise, called to mind Eric Byrnes, and I wasn't going to read an entire novel about a skinny Byrnes getting it on in 1983.
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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
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verstehen
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Okay, I'm trying to find links to all those happy fun discussions that happened after the release of Harry Potter book 7 (or six? I can't actually remember now) that were full of shock and surprise that Blaise Zabini is black. Links, anyone, anyone? Bueller?
This entry was originally posted at http://verstehen.dreamwidth.org/8320.html. Read  comments there or reply using OpenID.
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angrybabble
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What news? None really. Finally got the chance to play Beatles: Rock Band thanks to Shawn. It is a fine game and I recommend the experience to anyone who enjoys music games, singing, and/or the Beatles. It supports up to three mics and actually displays (and scores) harmony! :D How spiffy is that? Also one can sing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (and the rest of Abbey Road but I must shamefully admit to not being familiar with any other songs off said incredibly important album) which is just a good time in any case.
Okay, this will be the last of the book reporting. I hope it'll go quickly as it's mostly Discworld books and, when you get down to it, either you like them or you don't. These are mostly too late in the series for me to comfortably recommend them as a starting point (the series doesn't really need to be rigidly read in order, but most later books have certain prerequisites if you want to get the most out of them). If you do enjoy these novels, then there's very specific information you want to have about them, so it shouldn't take too long. If you don't, I don't really know why we're friends. Anyhow.
( October 2009 Book Reviews Part 3: Discworld. )
Okay out of time AGAIN but at least I've got through last month's Discworld novels (I read more this month >_>). Will respond to comments and finish up book list next time! Currently checking out yaoi manga from the library. lol.
Later. "bang bang, Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead."
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mullenkamp
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I had previously posted regarding my city's non-discrimination ordinance, and the ridiculous tactics the opposition was trying to use to get it shot down, and how generally pissed off I was about it. (And actually, the fact that there even had to be a vote on something so basic.)
I did not post a follow-up after the election, simply because most people who were interested in such things were following the story in Maine, and although the news was depressing out of Maine, my hometown generally got a little byline in the national news coverage, saying that at least Kalamazoo, MI had passed a non-discrimination ordinance, so the gay rights battle wasn't moving backwards everywhere. And it passed by a much larger margin than I was fearing, so overall? I'm pretty darned proud to have lived here my whole life, at the moment. (Kalamazoo County, at any rate, if not always in the city itself.)
And now? It appears that Kalamazoo's support for the ordinance has inspired a bill to overturn the gay marriage ban Michigan voted into place in 2004, since it may indicate that feelings on the subject have changed. If this passes, it'll be on the ballot in 2010.
On the one hand, it's not asking for gay marriages to take place in my home state. It's just striking down the amendment that legally declares gay marriages invalid. But it's a step, and it would be incredibly nice to be married in akatonbo's home state and then come back to my home state and still be considered married.
I just wish I could believe voters would actually vote it out. Unfortunately, I don't. Despite the mostly Democratic state leadership for a while, and the larger cities largely embracing diversity and equality, large portions of the state are still conservative. And as noted, that election here in Kalamazoo? Was for an ordinance the city council passed unanimously, and then there was enough of a ruckus that a group got together to force it onto the ballot. (Which isn't a bad thing in general - I like to think most people are sensible enough to vote sensibly.) In other words, there are enough people in this city who apparently were so offended by not being allowed to fire or refuse housing to gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals just for being gay, lesbian, or trangender that they managed to get it on the ballot. And this is one of the big "liberal" cities.
But even so, I'm certainly willing to give it a shot. And if my city's progress inspired it, I'm even more proud of my city.
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fluffyduck
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Those were carrot sticks before he got to them. Dork bird.
Wander's ~*favourite new food*~ is parsley. He seriously cannot get enough of it; this arrangement works perfectly as 1) he loves it so much he will dance into the cage for it whenever we want and 2) we never use the entire bunch of parsley when we buy one anyway. We give him a stalk at a time and he dismantles and chews the heck out of every part of it (leaving behind a gigantic mess, but that's a given when you feed birds anything).
Skip this bit if you hate it when your flist talks about fitness. ( Gym talk )
( Here be some art! )
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Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
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meril
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charmian and I were discussing Bill Walton, and why I was looking him up on Wikipedia:
"I mean, you can't think that one could just casually drop mentions of giant redheaded athletes into books and not have me look them up, really?"
Incidentally, the Spurs game was on NBA Gametime while I was doing that. The Spurs have a giant redhead, Matt Bonner. He's not quite as useful as Bill Walton was, though.
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captainecchi
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Have I mentioned Leverage is awesome?
Leverage is awesome. I bought the DVDs of the first season and I'm catching up now. I love all the characters. I want to give them all hugs.
And now... where's the fanfic? Anyone got any good recs, or do I have to trawl the Pit of Voles?
ETA: So far I have succeeded in finding way too many Parker/Sophie fics, a Nate/Eliot fic where Nate is a werewolf, and a fic site that only allows registered users to read adult fics, but won't let anyone register. Le sigh.
ETA2: "Eliot-centered fic in the steampunk!Leverage AU. Basically, Victorian England is the setting, Eliot's an adventure-seeker, and he feels lots of repressed Victorian desire for all the team members. Implied het and slash unrequited." "This sounds awesome, but it's probably not." "I think steampunk Eliot needs to be wearing those little glasses."
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captainecchi
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Once again, while I wait for the coffee to put my mind in motion, I'll write a little bit about what's going on with me.
Yesterday was my first time running an adventure with the FantasyCraft setting - an adventure of my own creation, too. It was... daunting. ( Moar RPG details )
In other news, even though writing an adventure is off my plate - at least temporarily - I still feel a bit overwhelmed. Going to hope I can organize my day enough to make some progress on at least one of my projects....
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tired.
TRIUMPH..
exhausted.
determined.
accomplished.
relaxed.
hungry.
amused.
surprised.
excited.
giggly.
gobsmacked.
good.
skeptical.
amused.