A meme, copied from dramaminequeen and posted here because I've been stressed out over my job and other things and am not too proud to ask for a pick-me-up!

"One little compliment can make you feel amazing. So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, even that my shoelaces are pretty. Put this in your journal. And once you get some comments, put that entry in a memory or tag and when you are feeling down, just go to that entry and this will remind that you're not so bad in other people's eyes after all."

Last night at RHPS was fun. The show went well, I got a few bits right that I goofed up on last week (and made a new goof - oh well!) and generally I had fun. I have to repair one of my fishnets, as a sharp edge of the seat tore a huge gash in it. Not that they aren't holey already, but you could put your fist through this one. I also serenaded two cast members before the show - sang Science Fiction Double Feature so they could rehearse their Trixie routine - and spent at least 10 minutes helping that night's Rocky put pasties on. (We were a little nervous about possible prop failures, but the spirit gum held to the end. Whew.)

I'll be playing Frank for them again next week 'cause Java has non-RHPS plans. At this rate I'm going to get their blocking memorized!

I've been playing Final Fantasy on my GBA. When we get into the hot days of summer I start bringing my Game Boy to work, because when it's hot and nasty outside a book won't take my mind off that discomfort, but a video game will. I thought I'd lost my game when I got to a pair of bosses that seemed impossible to beat. My characters have less than 1000 HP apiece, I've been fighting monsters with less than 500 that go down with one smack from a sword, and then thee game hits me with a pair of 35,000 HP bosses with freakishly high defense and instant-evisceration attacks? WTF?? Time to run away! Oops, can't do that, there are no exits to that level and exit spells and items mysteriously don't work. But then I discovered one thing that makes it possible: spells that up your attack are cumulative. What ho! So, have two characters healing every round to keep everyone alive, the other two casting "saber" on Fighter McWarrior for a half dozen rounds, and when I finally unleash him he hits for 2000 points rather than 150. Mwaahaahaa! It's still a nasty trick to hit you with bosses like that right out of the blue, though.

Saw this on Deviantart and thought of you...



For fifty cents, name that tune!

We've seen some info from the DDR X location test, and it's been confirmed that the ratings have been changed. 10 is no longer the ceiling. However, what people are now reporting is that it has been raised to 20, or at least 18, and many songs have been rerated. For example:

Arrabbiatta 9 -> 13
Candy* 8 -> 12
Can't Stop Fallin' In Love Speedy Mix 9 -> 14
Fascination Maxx 10 -> 18
Max 300 10 -> 15
PSMO Flashing-10 -> 17

I don't know if I like this system, but if it spreads out the upper reaches while leaving the lower ones (1-7) more or less alone I can live with it. Somehow, I get the feeling that in their effort to avoid ITG-like ratings they've instead mimicked PIU.

Some info has come out of E3 about DDRX, the next DDR to come out for the PS2. I've got a lot of stressful, upsetting things on my mind, but I don't want to post about them, so DDR it is.

• The difficulty ratings have been confirmed to go up to 13 instead of stopping at 10. This is good, because it makes little sense for easy 10s like Sakura and Xepher to be lumped in with murderous crap like Fascination Eternal Love Mix and Dead End Groove Radar Special. There have been rumors of rerating earlier songs - essentially redoing the whole rating scheme - but that isn't confirmed.
  
• There will be "Shock Arrows" that you are not supposed to step on. Hmm, does that remind anyone else of ITG's mines?
  
• "The song list is robust and features significantly more tracks than most DDR titles." Bigger song list = GOOD. The usual mix has 70-73 songs. How generous will they be? I'd love a nice, juicy 100 songs.
  
• There are rumors of more speed multipliers. .5 increments up to 5x, then 6x, 7x, and 8x. If this is true, I get my long-desired 2.4x and 4x.
  
• Butterfly. Dub-I-Dub. YES.
  
• Rage is a takoyaki seller. Not that that has anything to do with gameplay, but it amused me. I'm glad they didn't change that to "burger flipper" when they translated it.

More as news trickles out of E3.

Last night I baked a batch of hot dog buns.

I'm such a foodie nerd.

Last night a friend brought her 12-year-old son to see Rocky Horror for the first time, and I was playing Frank. She'd said before that she planned to go, so I figgered that they'd be there unless something else came up. What I didn't realize was that a group of my RHPS-alumni friends would be there.

Now, because I'm in makeup I have to hide backstage until I'm on; it's a cast rule that you don't show yourself until it's time. So, I didn't see who was out there. I knew Laurie was in the audience, though, because I heard her during the preshow. A little later I heard Geena too. I did peek out during the Tine Warp, and saw Laurie instructing Andrew, AKA The Kid, on the finer points of Time Warping. Because the lights were in my eyes and my contacts are way out of date, I couldn't see them in the audience though I could tell where they were by the sound of Laurie's AP. Toward the end I heard Rod, which surprised me. After the show I saw that the whole movie-goin' gang (the regular ones, that is) had come! I felt so warm and smooshy.

After the show five people - The Boy plus 4 different cute girls (who were young enough to be my daughters, sigh) had their pictures taken with me. Hooray for ego-boo! Anyhow, it was a really great show - packed, lively audience, cast on their marks, generally much fun. This is how RHPS is supposed to be.

It takes about 15 minutes for my brain to boot up in the morning, so I can be a little strange. This morning, while getting my clothes together, I faced the full-body mirror and did the Caramelldansen thing for about half a minute. I remember considering how far to swing my hips and wondering if the thumbs stayed up or folded with the fingers.

Caramelldansen would be a fun DDR song, but it has more of a PIU look. It's ( weirdly hypnotic. )

Tomorrow I'll be playing Frank at LDOD's show. I've posted about this before; this is a tickler message for those who, every time I play Frank, complain that they would have gone if only they'd known, why didn't I put anything in my LJ? Not that they'll come to the show, but this will eliminate that excuse.

Oh, and I'll be there next Friday as well. That's two! Two shows in a row! Ha-ha-ha! <./LightningFlash>

(PS - I just got an AA, 15 Greats, on Afronova Primeval H, a 400+ step 9-footer. I rock.)

This week I've been working at Lockheed. My company staffs one of their areas, and with two of our people out - one with a broken arm and another on vacation - they needed someone else to come in during a peak period. Since I worked there 6 or 7 years ago on the same finicky documents they're doing now, they sent me.

Long story short, I'm quality-checking PDF manuals and it's boring as heck, but it passes the time. Security is a ginormous pain - I need an escort to co outside our little work area, even to go to the bathroom! I hate having to ask someone to walk me to the potty.

When I was there years ago there was a Lockheed guy who was big into opera, including Gilbert & Sullivan. I'm a serious G&S fan. Seriously. Mention one of their operettas and I'll burst into song. Anyhow, this man loaned me some books and CDs and we'd talked about the shows we'd seen. Well, today I was talking with a person about a document I'd found some errors in when the man in the next cubicle over turned and stared at me, then pointed excitedly. "You're the Savoyard! I remember you!" Grinning, I sang the short sharp shock stanza from I Am So Proud in The Mikado. I'm flattered that he remembered me, but I guess a woman my age who can whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore is a rare bird.

I finally AAAed In The Heat of The Night H, a 7-footer. It's easy, solid rhythmic streaming with only one sixteenth near the end, but I've always black flagged it before.

DDR X will be in arcades in Japan. Cool. and It'll be in my PS2 in September. Technically just as cool, but because of its proximity to me it is, subjectively speaking, much more coolerer. So, E3 is on July 14-17, and if I don't see any news on the songlist I'm gonna hold my breath until I turn blue and pass out.

What color would Orko turn if he held his breath?