11 RANDOM facts you may or may not know about me meme
Once you've been tagged, you have (well, are supposed to, most of you will probably ignore this (guilt trip, guilt trip!)) to write a blog with 11 random facts or habits about yourself. At the end, choose 11 people to be tagged and why you picked them. Don't forget to leave those people a comment with "Tag, You're It!" and "Please Read My Blog". You can't tag the person who tagged you, so when you are done, let me know you have posted your blog so I can read your answers.

1. Sometimes I really wish I had long hair. Like epically long, beautifully messy, shaggy long hair. Or long, super-straight long hair... I USED to have hair this long when I was a kid, but in 6th grade, I cut it off to a bob and have gone shorter ever since. A few times I've tried to grow my hair out, but I just can't stand having hair that requires styling or fussing... so I always end up cutting it. The only reason I want long hair is because I think a lot of pretty young things with long hair are the hottest chicks on earth, AND it's really good to shake around when you're dancing. But fuck it, I'm never gonna grow that shit out unless I'm physically unable to cut it.

2. Being an anime nerd since middle school has of course been a contributing factor to why I am currently studying in Japan, but it's really a song by Pizzicato 5 that I heard in my freshman year of high school that dropped some science on me made me want to get serious about learning. "The Night Is Still Young." The album came with lyrics in Japanese and with romaji beside it. Another amazing fact, it's also an amazing house music jam.

3. I got all into paganism and Wicca when I was 11-13, and though I don't practice anything seriously, it set the tone for my current respect for nature, ritual actions and symbolic items, cycles, and the mental benefits of visualization.

4. On the flip, whenever something is lost, I pray to Saint Anthony, a trick my nana showed me as a kid. So far, I can't remember a time when the lost item didn't immediately or shortly thereafter turn up after I said the prayer. It's crazy. I suspect recently, that St. Anthony may just be a name I've given to some innate cosmic chain of events, some trigger for recall. Prayer goes something like this: Dear St Anthony, please come around. XYZ is lost, and cannot be found. Please help us to find it, yada yada. Amen.

5. I really love bicycles, but know very little about them compared to the kids in Philly who REALLY love bicycles. Like computers, I know enough to fix basic problems and to realize what is a good or bad component... But I couldn't tell you about ratios or all the other crazy parts that track bike kids know about. However, since moving to Japan, and because track bikes and single speeds are so rare in Osaka, I've started to take my love of bikes up a notch. Because there were so many cool kid track jock motherfuckers in Philly, I never wanted to know about the stupid stuff they love. Here, I haven't met a person like that, let alone whole groups of them. So in some innocent way, I change. Haha..

6. I don't know shit about "classic rock." Until a year or so ago, I didn't know what Bob Dylan sounded like. I didn't appreciate guitar-based "rock" music until I got down on Guitar Hero and Rock Band. My mom was never a source of music when I was a kid, but she was never super into music anyway apparently. Instead, I grew up on my stepdad's jazz and funk. Even so, I am only now starting to learn about the groups I listened to as a kid. Despite spending my early teenage years on ska and punk music, disco, funk, soul, and all random sorts of house and electronic music are tops for me. I don't know shit about indie rock.

7. I am seriously into chicks. I could sit around on a bench in a busy place and watch girls walk by for hours. Something about fashion and watching the way they've primped themselves (or not). In Japan, the guys do a pretty good job of making sure they look fine too, but girls... Oh, girls forever.

8. I am 5'3"/162cm, a size 6-7, and weigh 132lbs/62kg. I personally think my weight and height are whatever, but for some reason people are constantly surprised at how much I weigh. Do I really look small? Do people not know what normal weights really are? Are my muscles that bulging that they add that much weight to my frame? Whoooo knows! Also, I gain weight around my midsection SO easily, and it's quite upsetting. The past two years, I've spent 4-5 months working off excessive midsection weight, only to have two-three months of inactivity make it all come back. I don't eat or drink any more excessively in these months, I'm just less active. I don't gain weight anywhere else, either. Just in the belly. >:(

9. I feel undressed if I mistakenly leave the house without earrings on. This undressed feeling is negated if I happen to be wearing something with a high collar, or a big thick scarf/neckwarmer. Also, neckwarmers are everywhere in Japan. Why are they so rare in the US? They make so much sense ...

10. I am almost exactly what every Gemini horoscope thing says I am... Which is, I can come across as aloof or too cool emotionally... I am both extremely thoughtful and extremely callous. I am always concerned about what the other person feels. I have no patience for people with passive, indecisive attitudes. Because I know I can often be a very selfish person, I have to take time to think about things and let them sink in sometimes. I am the thing I dislike. I am some thing other people admire. Maybe I am a difficult girl to date.

11. I am somewhat uneasy around people who seem to be wasting their abilities or intelligence on easy-way-out mundane activities. If I happen to like someone who is seemingly unambitious, I try to find out what they're passionate about or makes them excited, and try to get into it with them.

I tag ... tigerbaxter , philalpaka , tokyocandykila , and anyone else who is an awesome genius of a person that doesn't post enough on their journal.

Funny as hell yo. The first two definitions are sweet and whatnot, but this one is for real. I could've written it myself.

3.	Maggie
	1) n. Nickname for Margaret. 2) n. Commonly used dog's name. If your name is Maggie, chances are every person that ever meets you who happens to have a dog named Maggie (Which will be at least 25% of the people you meet in your life) will immediately reply with, "Oh. My dog's name is Maggie! How cute!" Because they think you A) Care and B) Also think this is "cute". 1) Newborn's mother: "I think I'll name her Margaret." Friend: "You should call her Maggie for short." 2) Maggie: "Hi, I'm Maggie, nice to meet you." Girl: "Oh! Your name is Maggie?! My dog's name is Maggie!" Maggie: *in head: I don't give a fuck.* "That's nice. You should introduce me to her."

Rules:

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

Seven of my Interests hand-picked by tacohime:

BDSM (since when?!?!)
cosplaying
design
robot music
short hair
ska
攻殻機動隊


BDSM
I became interested in BDSM while I was living in Massachusetts and life was totally super boring. The visual aspect of it is not as interesting as the mental. I'm fascinated by issue of trust in submitting yourself to another person. Plus I'm fairly perverted to begin with, and most anime nerds that role play online seem to be pretty freaky, myself included. Anyway, I suggest reading the Sleeping Beauty Triology by Anne Rice. That's what really got me full-on interested in BDSM. It is quite titilating.

Cosplaying
Cosplaying for me is just an outlet to pretend I'm someone else. Some of my favorite things to do are jump around and make weird noises and yell. Dressing up in a costume is pretty similar to making quacking sounds to me, just cause it's something aside from the mundane. I like the ability to act completely out of the normal just by putting on funny clothes. I also like to pretend I am a cyborg badass for real. I had a really good time wearing my Kusanagi outfit at Anime Boston and going to the rave on Saturday. With the wig and visor glasses on, NO ONE could recognize who I was personally, but people would step out of my way and nod at me just for the idea that I really was the Major. It was nerd-tastic.

Design
Design is a vague interest, but that is because I appreciate anything that has a really good aesthetic and feel. I like pingmag.jp a lot because their articles focus on stuff that is pleasing to look at and feels good to use. I like crisp notebooks with narrow college ruled sheets, and I am compelled to buy them even if I don't need any notebooks. Other things that are great: smart color combinations, clever packaging, dressing in well-textured layers, glossy with matte and embossed ink, rooms that have an atmosphere, arranging food in pleasing shapes and color palettes, people that have their personal style figured out.

Robot music
This is another vague wording of an interest. I enjoy ambient music with a lot of blips and bleeps, in patterns, and techno/electronic/disco music with a heavy bass beat and other synthesized sounds on top, again in patterns. My number one example is Daft Punk, which might be lame, but I love that group, and they are as much into the whole robot/human dynamic as I am. I guess "robot music" is really music that makes me think of artificial creatures pursuing something more passionate. Then again I might associate chipset music with robot music, just cause it sounds so childish and whimsical, which is what I imagine a robot might attempt to create. Err whatever.

Short hair
I like short hair on myself because I think it looks best with the least effort. When I had long hair, when I had a bob haircut, I hated how poofy and unruly my hair was. I had no interest in styling it or straightening it, so I just started to shave the underside to take away some of the volume. It just got shorter and shorter. I like to change the exact shape of my cut every few months, even though I bet it all looks the same to most people, but whatevs. I also really enjoy short hair on other girls. It's interesting to see what other hair textures can bring to a cropped cut. I'm envious of girls with nicely shaped, shaved heads - I'd shave my head too if I didn't have a flat head (found this out first-hand in high school). Annnnd, I think short hair fits my personality. I've tried growing it out before, and I end up just feeling like some girly girl, or that i just look like anyone else. I have issues with needing to look strong or something.

Ska
Summer in 8th grade. I was coming off of the short-lived Nirvana/Bush/grunge phase my best friend had introduced me to, and into punk music. Except the group of punk kids I met were also heavily into ska. Ska-punk, skacore, whatever. I discovered that I liked two tone era ska best, and from then on I started acting like I was a totally cool rude girl. I didn't own a pair of jeans, I only wore skirts and trousers, and the colors grey, black, white, and red. It lasted for a little under two years, and I went to a ton of shows and bought a lot of MOON Ska CDs. I had adventures downtown and got grounded a lot for coming home late. I had my first serious boyfriend... It was an era of my life, of which ska music was an integral part, if not the center. I don't really listen to much of it now, only because I start feeling super nostalgic for my naive, teenaged days. Whenever I'm out at some club and any kind of dancehall song comes on though, I get all sorts of into it.

攻殻機動隊
This is the kanji for Ghost in the Shell. The kanji doesn't say that though, and my translator bot says it means "Attack Shell Riot Squad," which is I think is close to the actual translation. I remember watching GITS the movie on the Sci-Fi channel back when they were doing their 1am and 3am Saturday night anime runs, and never ever liking it. I always fell asleep and had next to no interest in the philosophical questions posed. I used to have on my personal webpage, a list of my favorite artificial humans, though, and Motoko Kusanagi eventually made it on there just for being a badass. It wasn't until after I turned 20 and had a bigger attention span (hurrr) that I watched the movie and got all that I now do out of it. The television series then greatly contributed to my obsession.

My buddy Steve pointed out to me a while ago that #18 from Dragonball had been my old cyborg idol, and that Kusanagi was my new one. 18 was a character I found in my early teens, that I fleshed out as much as I could. But she was still only a naive creature in a complicated world, angry about a lot of things and trying to make sense of them purely by asserting herself. On the flip, Kusanagi is capable and knows what she is doing in the world, and yet questions herself all the time. That sort of mirrors how I feel about myself now. The Major aside, the rest of the characters in GITS are extremely compelling, like Batou who I just fangirled about below. The sci-fi of the series is tiiight and the tachikoma are cute. Yaaay!

Ground Rules: The first player of this "game" starts with the topic "5 weird habits of yours" and people who get tagged need to write an LJ entry about their 5 quirky habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names.

1. I really, really like to pick scabs. I won't obsessively pick a scab because I like to wait until there is some size to it, so it's more satisfying to pick off. Not only that, I have to tell myself not to pick other people's scabs, and try not to pick my cats' scabs, because it weirds them out.

2. When I have a glass of water, I have to gulp it down all at once, no sipping. This is how I feel I consume the daily reccomended amounts.

3. When I'm especially contemplative, I sometimes actually grasp my chin with my hand, or am in some other cartoony, cliche pose. I also tend to look deep in thought, with scrunched eyebrows and all, and sometimes either tug on a tuft or two of my hair or rub the back of it (where it's shaved down/shortest).

4. I like to dance (or try to) like music video booty girls. Except not those girls. The ones that do the freak dancing, the clownin, or whatever you wanna call it. Basically anything in a Missy Elliot video. It's fast and harsh and crazy and physically freaking challenging.

5. When I'm feeling especially comfortable (and am alone), I usually stick my hand down my pants and just let it hang out. Sort of like Al Bundy, but really all the way down my pants. It's sort of warm and nice, and not sexual in the least.

Tagged: shootingstars, android_13, julu, robotgirl, and tacohime.

Instructions:
If you happen to be working on some new writing project, fanfiction or what have you, post exactly one sentence excerpt from each of your current work(s) in progress in your journal. It should probably be your favourite or most intriguing sentence so far, but what you choose is entirely your discretion. Mention the title (and genre) if you like, but don't mention anything else -- this is merely to whet the general appetite for your forthcoming work(s).

This is going to be half-complete for a hot minute, since I'm at work and my other stories (the two or three there are) are sitting on my hard drive at home.

"It's a bit quiet, boss."
"That's what I'm sayin'," Rahl added with a nod.
"You both always got your sensors tweaked up too high..." Those parties were always on my back. I eyed the both of them, hoping that would settle them down for now, but they just kept staring at me. "Yeah??"
- "All That's Left," a terribly underveloped science fiction story

Sometimes in movies, there'll be these scenes where the two actors are suddenly so hot for each other, the motion of them kissing is a fantastic collision where it's nothing but frenzied, smothered throbbing against each other, and all you hear are the grotesque sounds of them sucking in and shoving out breath from their nostrils. This was nothing like that. This was deliberate, this was thorough. I had all intentions of taking my time. Which is why I wasn't peeling her clothes away as the impulses came.
- "Sometimes Always," a lame smutty Shikamaru/Temari fanfic

excerpt to come
- "Cyborg Memoirs," chapter 4. Crazy fanfic about two cyborg twins.

excerpt to come
- unnamed thing, fantasy story

What I find sad is that I don't have any other obligations aside from work, and this is all the crap I have, every one of them neglected pieces. Maybe except for Sometimes Always. Crap.

Here is an amusing one. Set your playlist on random. Plug in what song you get for each question.

( Simple, right? )

1. Reply with your name and I will write something random about you.
2. I will then tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I will pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in.
4. I will say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I will tell you my first memory of you.
6. I will tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll then ask you something that I've always wondered about you.

I am apparently only 44% (Yankee). "Barely in the Yankee category." I guess this isn't too shocking. Philly is in the southernmost tip of the state and my stepdad's family was from the south...

http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/yankeetest.html

Name ten anime characters you would have sex with. Then tag five of your friends.
( (I'll say now, it's gonna be hard to list 10, I think.) )

_ _ _ _ _ _

( delightful little survey )

In other news, I wore my Red Ribbon (#18, guys) vest to work today (after being asked by a couple of nerdy co-workers)with my pegleg black jeans and a black shirt I picked up at work with the actual number "18" on it (kid's shirt). I was punk rock like a muh. Or actually "you got that hardcore look goin on today," as one of my co-worker's put it. Now, I must slap on a wig and take pictures, cause we all know, that despite the cute GAP style Eighteen I like, she was a gang bitch before she was a cyborg. Haha rambling.

OH! Also, I played SVC Chaos: SNK vs Capcom for the first time the other day. Dmitri from Darkstalkers is in it, and when you select him and Vega to play each other, the exchange between them is hilarious. And so so very wrong. Dmitri is like some ominous, sexy vampire lord that takes what he wants, and Vega is a egomaniac (to the maxtreme) who is in love with his own beauty. I'd post the conversation if I could find it, but the vampire stud inviting megalomaniac Vega to be his "servant" (yes, read with subtext) and Vega's subsequent responses are truly priceless.

Well, this happens to the best of us...

( Survey time )

In other news, I got a cold about three days ago. Started with my throat closing up as night approached, and I felt myself getting physically weak. The next day I had a scratchy throat and my joints were all sore. Then yesterday, my voice was GONE. POOF! I could only whisper. Today, I can barely do that. I've also developed a hacking cough. Tomorrow, I have to go to a job interview, so fuck ME! What would Lee do??? ;-;

Also, I would love to dye my hair a dark brown, invest in some pretty girl make-up (and learn how to apply it), and own more cute shoes.

Star Wars Meme by sailor_phobos
1st 2 Ltrs of 1stname + Last 3 Ltrs of last name
1st 2ltrs of moms last name+Last 3ltrs of city brn
Sith or Jedi	Sith
Skin Color	Black
Eye Color	Red
Light Saber Color	Orange
How close you are to switching sides: 90%
Username
You're Random Star Wars Quote:	I don't know who you are or where you've come from, but from now on you'll do as I say, okay?
Your Padawan (if you're a jedi)	msnu24
Your apprentice (if you're a sith)	happy_goth
You're Master	number18
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Ok. So...not only am I shootingstars Sith master, but I'm my own boyfriend's as well?? And apparently, broken_klaive is Roberto's sith apprentice, who in turn is android_13's master. And yet somehow, at one point, I was Steve's padawan (which, btw, Steve, doesn't apply since you yourself are a Sith).

1. Comment with any (relation)ship from a fandom that you know I like, or at least have some knowledge about.

2. I will ramble for 100 words about aforementioned ship. This may be incoherent gushing or exclamations of disgust, depending on what it is.

3. Put this on your LJ, if you are so inclined.

And for your reference, I'm into or have been into: Dragonball, Berserk, The Big O, Battle Angel Alita, One Piece, Naruto, annnnd ummm...shit, whatever you like I'll talk about. So do please comment to this, because it seems like it'll be a good ole time.