la moonchild’s Neighborhood

Well, I haven't posted about Pullips in a while, so here's a recap of my current dollies and their personalities:

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Cardea Rialai: She's very quiet and shy. She has long brown hair that curls at the end. She loves exotic teas and books, and works in a bookshop. Someday she hopes to write her own novel. (Cardea is actually a character at the Suburban Senshi Chatbox -- she has a second life as a personal senshi. Her wiki page is here.)


She is Kitty White's roommate. They live in Azabu-Juuban, Tokyo, Japan.

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Carbine White is Kitty White's cousin and a brat. Although she doesn't live with Kitty and Cardea, she visits occasionally, and is tolerated at best. She has a posse of 17 friends and likes to take them around uninvited. For a little kid (between 8 and 10 years old) she's really good at riding her Vespa. Right now she's irked because she tied for second in the Miss World Domination pageant -- but she vows revenge, and will be back (next year).

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Step 1: put your music player on random
Step 2: post the first line (or so. some are hard) from the first 10 (or 20 or 42 or whatever) songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: bold the songs someone has guessed (no lyric hunting! That is cheating!)

1. Are you aware of what you make me feel, baby
2. Sometimes I have dreams, I picture myself flying
3. Oh yeah I'll tell you something I think you'll understand
4. I sit in a yellow cubicle and I type in an orange screen
5. I'm standing on the bridge Avril Lavigne - I'm With You
6. So Jacob came to Egypt
7. Kids listen to the rap music
8. I man am regal, a German am I - Weird Al - Bob
9. She used to be my enemy and never let me be free
10. Dearest darlingest Momsie and Popsicle: Wicked - What Is This Feeling?

Instructions lovingly ripped off from my WST. <3 Good luck, eh? If you don't have a Vox account and don't want one, email or IM me: babelglyph AT gmail DOT com oooooor Babelglyph on AIM or even babelglyph@hotmail.com on MSN! (Babelglyph works on Yahoo too!)

Oh the glory of standards!

IN WHICH I babble on for thirteen minutes. It's mildly entertaining, I suppose, and there IS a special thing that can be seen only in the video... ;D

If this is your first time at my blog you might want to take a look around and get acquainted. I have another video post (you can find it by clicking the "talkbits" tag!)

Take a good look at my hair when I turn my head -- you might be able to see flashes of purple. I've dyed my hair (I had chunky streaks of blonde put in a few weeks ago and so they picked up the purple best) and I'm really having fun with it. Hopefully I'll have better pictures soon but uh...I lost my camera again. =D;;Is it sad when I have a tag just for that?

Hope you enjoy this even though it's long. ^_^

(I accidentally mispronounce a few things. Mostly it's minor (like Azumanga Daioh) but I also say "animes" and for that I ask your forgiveness. ;_; )

Last night, Tadakatsu, one of the Game Masters (GMs) of Hello Kitty Online, held an event-- he was poisoned, and the Sanrioland citizens had to save him!

Tadakatsu, The loyal samurai vassal of Ieyasu Tokugawa, has been poisoned while on a delivery mission! Fleeing from his pursuers, he stumbled upon Florapolis, a peaceful place where the citizens of Sanrio land lives. 

 Using the last of his strength, he dropped down in the front door of Kuririn's cafe, where Kuririn immediately gave him first aid upon seeing the injured samurai.  However Kuririn needs more ingredients for the antidote he needs to make for Tadakatsu...

 Kuririn: Oh my...these ingredients are not enough! Hang on, Tadakatsu! I just need to buy 10 poison powders!

 But when Kuririn went out to buy all the ingredients, he saw ninjas swarming Florapolis!!! Tadakatsu can fend them all off but is injured.  Help him get back on his feet and save Florapolis!

 This is where you come in, my friend.  I need you to get me 1 poison powder and deliver it to me.  Be careful though! If a ninja spots you and shouts in town, "(player's name), you're Tadakatsu's agent!" you're out of the game. You'll be spotted if you transact with merchants using the local chat so make sure you transact with them in private chat.  You can also be spotted by Ninjas if you don't tell the merchants the correct secret message in private when buying ingredients.  If you're one of the first 10 who will successfully deliver the ingredient to Tadakatsu, you'll be rewarded.

 However, poison powders are not easy to find. You need to go through 4 merchants who will tell you riddles before they tell you the merchant's name (5th merchant) who's selling the poison powders.

 Here's how the game should go:

 Go to merchant 1 -> tell them the secret message --> answer the riddle --> ask merchant 1 for the secret message needed to locate merchant 2 --> repeat until you reach merchant 5 --> answer merchant 5's riddle --> get poison powder --> deliver to Tadakatsu

 Good luck.  As a start, here's a clue to find Merchant 1. 

 Merchant 1 is at the tower that lights travelers’ ways.  PM the merchant "Orange" to give you access to the riddle.

Merchant 1, Akio-kun, was posted at the lighthouse. On his blog, he posted his riddle:

Rich men need me, poor men have me, but if you eat me or drink me you will die. What am I?

Players had to check the merchants' blogs in-game as well as use the PM function to play. So, those who had finished the newbie quests had a bit of an advantage over those who hadn't...but since almost everyone has (it IS a Closed Beta after all) it was okay!

When the answer to Akio's riddle was given, "nothing", he released the clue to the next merchant: "Visit Merchant 2 and her Dear friend." Merchant 2's code word was "GI Joe" and she was a tricky one to find if you don't know Sanrio! Bella was standing by Daniel -- also known as Dear Daniel, Hello Kitty's boyfriend. When Bella recieved the code word she, too, told players to check her blog for her riddle:

I have three letters, and I read the same forward and backwards. I rhyme with a word that is important to everyone. What word am I?

The correct answer was "eye", and when it was PMed to Bella, she told them that "the carpentry kitty helps Merchant 3 out." The new code word was "Squall" and the next merchant was someone familiar to you all -- me! Yep, I played the third merchant and I stood by Mellotune -- a cute kitty that teaches you how to craft a bed. Here's a peek at the instructions I wrote myself to make sure I wouldn't forget anything!

1: "squall" is the code word
2: "Fantastic! I'm #3. Check my blog for the riddle!"

(the riddle was more of a question: what is the shortest complete sentence in the English language?)
3: correct answer: "I am"
4: "Bravo/Brava! The next merchant is helpful even if he looks fishy. PM him "Sasuke" for the next riddle!"
5: Report to Tom

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Tom was the fourth merchant, and he was by the lake in Sanrio Harbor. He was actually one of the easiest to find -- he was spouting fish phrases like crazy. Bad puns abounded. He recited One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, he sang songs(a bit out of tuna though), he wrote little fishy emoticons...He was pretty finny. Akio couldn't stop laughing. I didn't get to see most of it because I was on another map, but from what I did hear, he was hilarious.

This clue actually had the most reworking. Originally, the fourth merchant was to be Bucket, but it got too late and she had to go -- understandable as she needed to work and it took longer than expected. (It ended up running until just after midnight Central time! o_o!) The first clues were all related to our names -- so Flowerfall was "when Sakura touches the land of Japan" and Bucket was "You can't get water out of a well without this". My favorite was Bella's -- Merchant 2’s name is loudest of all Florapolis, mimicking a gong. Anyways, since Bucket was going to be the fourth merchant, we had "get water with Merchant 4, but watch out for the claws!" (There are crabs around the lake, you see.) When Tom joined in we had to hastily reconfigure. The first one would have been okay, but it wasn't as good as the second -- Tom is one of the most prominent newbie-helpers ever. He knows pretty much everything about HKO, having played through the closed beta game three times.So, he's "helpful" and he "looks fishy" -- in the lake, there are fish you can see swimming.

Anyways, in order to prevent people skipping steps, I reported to Tom all the people who had passed by me. We had one instance where someone DID skip me. We're still not sure about her...but we had her come back to me and answer my riddle anyways. :D There was also another account we suspected of being a multi (someone who had more than one account to play on -- boo, that's cheating in the worst way!) but we didn't have any real proof other than they gave Tom's password and answer in the same line and walked away to the last merchant before Tom had finished typing the clue.

Oh yeah, this was Tom's riddle:

If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you haven't got me. What am I?

The answer was "a secret". The clue to the final merchant, where the poison antidote lay, was definitely one of the hardest. Katie was indoors in Kuririn's house, standing by his girlfriend, Sakura. So, the clue to find her was "Merchant 5 stands by someone who blooms once a year." Tricky, eh? Sakura has a few quests so she's not totally off the map. Once they had answered Katie's riddle, she would deliver them one antidote -- but it was a hard riddle.

 The man who makes it does not need it. The man who buys its does not use it. The man who uses it doesn't know he is. What is it?

I'll let you work on that one and post the answer at the end. ;D Anyways, once they got through to Katie and answered her riddle, she gave the powder and they took it back to Tadakatsu. You can read his report, and a list of the winners in order, on his Hello Kitty blog. Each winner got $100,000 (in-game) and, I think, a pet. Not sure on the pet though. The merchants got special clothes! Woo!

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I've drawn up a map showing where each merchant was, by number. The T is for Tadakatsu -- that's where he lay, sick and dying! :( 

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Woo! Did you figure out the answer to the last riddle yet? It's "a coffin."

This was really fun and I want to do it again in the open beta so everyone can participate! But be warned...the riddles will change~ ;D Hope you guys have enjoyed reading about this! If any part of it is confusing please comment here or send me an email! I love email. ^_^

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Hello Kitty Online is awesome. You all need to play it with me when it gets into open beta!

Asashi is going to sell her Horizon and since I was lazy and didn't notice when he came out, I went dutifully trundling off to the Pictionary threads on Pullipstyle to see what he looked like out of the promo pictures, seen below.

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photo credits: first is by lovehaze (tag visible in large version) others are by jupiterlilly, both from the Pictionary thread at pullipstyle

He's badass! Why did no one tell me this? All I could focus on was the chickenhair and the manskirt (ew, manskirt) but he's pretty awesome in real life, or as close as you can get on the internet. :P 

IF I did end up getting this guy he would be the boyfriend of the Legendary Third Doll, my "surprise custom" who's actually being done by Asashi also. She's a punkyfruitsy colorful girl. I like the idea of the contrast between his grey faceup and her (going-to-be) bright colorful one.  He would also have different eyes, either grey or another color (colors?), but that's still an if.

But...I'm just not sure.  I'm getting more and more in love with this guy but I'm afraid of jumping into something like this. His stock would probably have to go, as I see him less as an emo kid and more as a guy who just likes to have fun and experiment with stuff.  Oh god, I'm giving him a personality, does that mean I have to get him now? XD

I would love to have some other opinions. Is he cool and awesome or just a poser? What do you think? 

Do you ever do something that makes you go "oh my god how did this happen, I was so STUPID"?

I did that.

This weekend I decided to finally use my birthday gift cards to Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. $25 to Amazon.com bought me the English Gothic and Lolita Bible and the Go Fug Yourself book. Pretty sweet, right? I zipped through the ordering process happily and went on to Barnes and Noble, where I got Excel Saga 17, the Crimson Fairy Book, the Indexed book, a replacement copy of Dark Lord of Derkholm, and a book called Elsewhere. All in all, not bad for $75 total. I ended up paying a little extra at Amazon for shipping but I didn't mind.

Today I got the cheery little email from Amazon telling me that my order was shipped and this completes my order. "AWESOME!" I cried, until I saw something that plummeted my soul into darkness.

I shipped it to my friend in New York instead of myself in Louisiana.

A terrifying realization dawned as I figured out what I did...you see, the first item I bought on my Amazon.com account went to her. So, it thinks that's my default address. I'd begun to check out with the G&L Bible and the Indexed book but changed my mind halfway through and went back to replace it with GFY. I'd changed the address that time. I forgot to pick mine the second. >.<

Now I'm waiting impatiently and slightly scaredly. I spent most of the rest of my money today on books and a Zelda T-shirt and the rest on a birthday gift for my other, nearby friend. I don't think I COULD cover shipping back to me if she needed me to pay. and of course, the worst part is that it's all my fault. >.<

AGH THIS DAY HAS JUST BEGUN SUCKING. T____T at least there's only an hour left in it.

So exciiiited! The latest Howl book (as in Howl's Moving Castle, of course ;D) will be out on June 10. There's a cover preview right here and it seems cool. I can't wait. It's called House of Many Ways and sounds FANTASTIC.

If you're a fan of the movie, you've GOT to try the book. Sophie is a bit different but Howl is just as bishonen and awesome. There's no birdman or war but there IS a lot more focus on Howl himself and Sophie's family and just oooh it makes me so happy. I love both versions.

HOORAY DESU!

Yeah, you read that right! Duct tape prom dress. I've been planning this since November and been working on it off and on since January. Now I'm buckling down to really get things done!

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Here's the design. Accessories not included... ;D Those are for another day when I'm not so lazy. (They're on a separate picture, you see.) The front view is on the left and the back is on the right. The grey underneath is going to be shinyshiny chrome duct tape with black strips crisscrossed over it!

There is a matching guy's suit but I'm not sure that I'll be able to do this. ^_^; The guy I'm going with is not perfectly reliable and so I'm finishing mine first. Plus, his is less labor-intensive. At least, I think so... :S  It's really hard to tell!

I'm going to reuse my hoopskirt from the Jalissa costume. (Orange and black, shiny, cyberlox.) The jury is still out on hair designs.