Kaymyth

PONIES. Also, having one of the more entertaining avatar name stories on the board. Edit: Proofreading is our friend.

Presentation is everything?

I'm sure you can get replacements for those. But you have my admiration for being able to handle those things, let alone march with them. My oboe is my baby: a professional-grade Loree that's probably almost as old as I am, so was built back in the company's heyday. I did spend time as a music performance major before I gave up the ghost. It's okay, though; honestly, I'm a lot happier playing in a smaller ensemble format than a full orchestra. Though right now the Celtic band I'm in may be dissolving due to one of our members moving to Texas. I just don't know what's happening with that yet, but I do know that I'll somehow wind up doing something, be it Celtic folk or steampunk or something completely different. I got my bamboo flute from an artist who does the RenFaire rounds. In fact, he's still at KCRF every year, and I got my flute over 20 years ago. The embouchure is a bit more particular than a classic flute, but it's not overly difficult. What you have may be a Looks Pretty For Tourists model. Taming the demon cat was one of the highlights of my young life. It's actually quite astonishing how often animals take to music; my dachshund adores the piano. When she was young, she used to hop up on the piano bench and hit a note or two with her snout to ask me to play.

I do! It's an old nickel-plated Artley with marching band dents in it. Still, I keep it in good repair, and it is in better condition than it looks. I tried an open-hole flute for a bit; couldn't get the hang of it. I have problematically child-sized hands and double-jointed fingers that lock, so I can't get the positioning right to keep the keyholes sealed. My hands used to cramp up horribly before I got an extendible thumbrest for my oboe; my hands are the main reason why I couldn't go professional. I just don't have the ability to keep up the hours of practice that it would take for virtuoso playing without serious pain. Bamboo flutes are awesome. They have a nice, whispery tone and you can take them anywhere and drop them on anything and they won't break. I used to cart mine around quite a bit when I was in high school. I tamed the Evil Demon Cat From Heck with that thing. Well, "tamed" is a relative term. The Evil Demon Cat From Heck who scratched and bit all who attempted to approach her once deigned to rub against my ankles and purr one day when I was playing it. I've never seen so many human jaws come that close to scraping the floor as I did that day.

I've got a couple of RL friends lined up for beta'ing once I finish the second draft, but it wouldn't hurt to have someone who doesn't have to look me in the eye ruthlessly tell me what needs to be destroyed. I shall keep you in mind.

As do I. People never seem to get tired of telling them to me. Nope, nothing that fancy. Most of them are folk instruments. I do have my standard flute that's seen too many seasons of marching band; I never did get a super-nice flute, since oboe is my concert instrument. But I also have: a bamboo flute two glass flutes a ceramic flute (that thing is a bear to get a clear sound out of) two ocarinas four Irish whistles a soprano recorder an alto recorder a pretty six-holed wooden flute whose sound is piercing monster noise; more for decoration than anything a Japanese flute that is strangely tuned in half-steps. I don't even know what to do with this one. a quartet of four-note whistles I also have my oboe, an alto saxophone, and the family antique spinet piano. I...think that's it, but I might've missed a flute or two. And...singing all together now, "And a paaartridge in a peaaar treeeeee!"

I know. It was just particularly entertaining to me, as I have at *least* 10 different flutes in varying shades of oddball. I can play them all. Not all of them deserve to be played. Back in college, people used to come up to me and tell (the same) bad oboe jokes. Months later, upon having to take woodwind tech and getting to the part where they attempted to play the oboe, these selfsame people would come up to me and meekly tell me how much respect they have for me now.

Remind me to keep you away from my flute collection...

I'm probably going to try and tack a few thousand more words onto the Mistborn fanfic I've been working on. I need to finish getting the rough draft banged out so that I can tear it apart for rewrite.

Heh. That fits, too. Though it was never as cute and cuddly as the real Clifford.

Maybe, but it's Kelsier. Have you ever known that man to understand the meaning of leaving well enough alone?

For me it sometimes goes, I crack a joke, it's so obscure that nobody gets it. Seriously, I have turns of phrase that I use that are secretly jokes, and most people have never caught on. Just today I had a moment of glee when I called something a Giant Floaty Red Ball of Stupid, and ThirdGen understood the reference. I have been using that phrase for years, but he was the first person to get it.

Hee. It's been an interesting ride this week, to say the least. And I get to work some overtime on Sunday. Boo work, yay extra money. I don't expect that we're going to get nearly as many calls as management is afraid of, though, so I'm going to take in my laptop and do some writing.

Yes. Yes, she does. My manager is awesome.

Same here. Image > name. It's a thing.

I now have a mental image of a True Body kandra gundam. edited because I can spell, really I can...

Imma stay pony for a good, long while, I expect. I find this funny, because my first impression of you is with a Celestia userpic. You will forever be pony in my mind.

There is no such thing. It's a trap.

Tell the administration that it could've been worse. It could've been cicadas.

Were they the good, native ladybugs? Or the introduced ones that are mean and bite?

Heh. Let's see how I can elaborate on what's been going on yet still keep it couched in vagueness enough to satisfy CYA requirements. (There are lawyers involved. This fact fills all of us at work with copious amounts of glee.) I work for Large Financial Institution (henceforth known as LFI). My particular department focuses on credit/charge cards for what we shall call widgets. My focus is on the merchant support for a particular kind of Specialized Widget. Many people use are cards to pay for the maintenance and feeding of their widgets at various locations all over the United States. We also are the major processor for several different companies that manufacture and sell widget food on a large scale to widget food providers. One of these companies, whom we shall call Global Widget Foods, has been very, very Naughty. I can't go into too many details, but they've been doing enough Naughty things that the lawyers are goggling over the crazy level of Naughty that they have to go after. Much of the Naughty is couched in amazingly high levels of Dumb, and much of that Dumb has resulted in us finding out about a lot of the Naughty. I created this meme specifically for Global Widget Foods: It's funny 'cause it's true. All of the shenanigans and Naughty and Dumb ultimately led to us deciding that we're not going to be their monkey anymore. We are in the final days of the contract, and we've hit an extinction burst of Naughty and Dumb that really just serves to remind us that the end is near, and at that point, there will be much rejoicing. The lastest piece of fun they threw at us: They sent out letters to ALL Specialized Widget Service Providers (not just the ones that buy widget food from them) that if they used softwares X, Y, and Z (also owned by Global Widget Food, bought up over the years for reasons that are unclear to us) they would no longer be able to process our widget food card. We cannot tell whether this was a flat-out lie or if the person doing the telling really didn't understand what they were talking about. This happens a lot. Hence the meme above. We also had someone call in and tell us today that Specialized Widget Food told them that we will be extending our deadline. We aren't. Oi. The stress is such that I was >thisclose< today to grabbing the bottle of bubbles off of my manager's desk and skipping around the entire floor blowing bubbles and singing, "Tra-la-la I am the Bubble Fairy!" Come to think of it, management is laid back enough that I could probably get away with it, provided I did it during my break.

By Grabthar's hammer... I've used "in accordance with the prophecy" at least 5 times so far today. This is insane.

I believe there's one spot in the Mistborn trilogy where Vin goes up above the mists and gets to see the stars. Also, the mists wouldn't be as prevalent post-Origin, so I expect the Alloy of Law era skies are quite starry.

Go to the counselor. That's what s/he's there for. You're mom is wearing parent-blinders. She might intellectually know these things, but when it comes to her kid, she's having an emotional reaction of, "No, there can't be anything wrong with my child because if there is then I did something wrong and that would make me a bad parent and a horrible person." Not that either of these things are true, but feelings don't like logic. Edit: *snerk* I think TwyLight and I just said almost the same thing at the same time.

Ugh. Depression isn't a reaction to a situation, it's an actual chemical imbalance in the brain. It's physical, not emotional, and teens are at a really susceptible stage to it what with all of the brain changes going on. Being a teenager is the hardest thing in the world. You will get through it and it will get better.