Jon and I never actually even cooked our dinner. We got sleepy midday and just snoooored our way through the day. Kind of sad! But turkey and potatoes and yule log are on for later today!

I totally got Talliska to circle 42 on Christmas Eve though. Also went looking at a Dragonrealms fest with some of Talli's in game friends. That was a lot of fun. :)

I'm a dork for being on DR on Christmas Eve. I was on RPoL too, handing out holiday bonuses in a couple of my games. n.n While tallying up the experience, I I wrote and tested the most amazing script ever to help Talliska train hiding and stalking. Now I can finally get those two skills to catch up to my other survivals. It's truly epic. :3 And I'll need it, my dream title for Talli is "Penumbra" which takes 400 hide/stalk. Such a long way off! ;.;

Though I'm proud that Talli now has Trailmaster (175 scouting) - that took quite a bit of work to achieve!

Lastly, I'm in love with Kokia's album The Voice. I'm not big on her pop albums, but I LOVE when she goes for more 'new age' style musicI got me some mp3s, only because I have no way of getting a hard copy any time soon and was so eager to hear it. It's definitely on my "to buy" list though!

Aes introduced me to Kokia several months back...

Fast forward to me messing around with my Youtube favorites and finding vids of her singing. And looking for more of them after, because I was just flat out completely impressed by her music. (I am a sucker for good vocals.)

Kokia really has a gorgeous voice and a unique style. Here are some of my favorites.

Ave Maria, live during her 10th anniversary concert. I would have cried hearing this in person!

Il mare dei suoni, also at the same concert. Amazing song that really shows off Kokia's vocal range and versatility. (Also, nice acoustic guitar!)

Harmony, used for an amazing Suikoden video. My god this is a beautiful song. ;.; The video maker compared the song to 'Exceeding Love' which is also one of my favorite songs ever.

Follow the Nightingale - this was the video Aes sent me. Kokia sings in a totally made up language to beautiful and dramatic effect. :)

I've been working with hostforweb to try and speed up my site. There were some memory errors lately, which I think have been fixed. I'm not sure about whether the speed is better though.

What I really want is a Xen VPS... Unfortunately I don't think hostforweb has those. But I'm also kind of iffy about moving my entire site without testing the server first. I know, I got slicehost for that. But I'm so lazy with it that I think I'll have to cancel and wait until I have more time to think about webstuff. Besides the fact that I'm not really confident moving my site to slicehost, as it feels more appropriate as a testing environment.

Roleplay and writing have been my main time foci lately, beyond worrying about things like reapplying for college (which I may wait till January to do now, as I've been told no one looks at the files anyway until after holidays), and whether I really will get my passport on Nov 25 (it would not surprise me if I'm getting jerked around again, geez). Oh and ordering new wedding bands and planning our little vacation for our 5th annversary (we'll be gone from Dec 17th-21st).

We also made a few purchases lately that have been entertaining and fun.

I'm listening to this album right now (by Red Hot Chili Peppers) and feeling nostalgic. It came out 10 years ago and used to be one of my favorite driving songs. I have very fond memories of driving down the Las Vegas Strip listening to that album with Michelle, Paul and Lisanne.

In fact I used to really enjoy driving a lot. Every time I did it was like a mini-vacation from life. But now I have chronic headaches and eyestrain and likely am not helping that by being at the computer for most of the day.

My car of 11 years (from 1996-2007 ish) was taken from me too due to being ruled by Canadian law to be unfit to drive. I've gotten $4k back for a savings fund, but it's still sad... that car was a big part of my late teens and young adulthood, and took me on that last, long journey from California to Quebec five years ago.

I've been delaying about writing about Diamanda's concert mostly because it's hard to figure out what to *say*. The fact I was even there at ALL was completely mindblowing. Hearing her sing and perform in person was just out of this world.

I think about the only negative I can say is that because I have ears really sensitive to loud noises, the concert was actually painful at times. Not because I don't love the music, but more 'cause of a physical deficiency on my part. That kind of put a damper, but on the other hand it's very cool to think that Diamanda can hurt your ears with just her VOICE. :D (Using mic delays to layer her voice and reverberate throughout the theater!)

That aside though, I was just... unbelievably impressed. Below is a list of the songs she played. I put an album name for songs that also appeared on her recorded albums. Also for those of you who don't know Diamanda, she usually does interpretations of cover songs, and more rarely, originals.