On October 17th, 2006 my grandma died. She was 86 years old, and would have turned 87 in November. She had an advanced case of Alzheimer's, so I suppose it was for the best, but I miss her. My grandpa - her husband - died of liver cancer in June of 2004, so now I have no grandparents left. My dad's parents died before I was born, so I never knew them.

Grandma had been in the nursing home for three years. After Grandpa got sick, he couldn't care for her anymore. My parents and uncle were there everyday, and I would have been if I didn't have to work. She wasn't really able to talk by the time she was placed in the facility. Before that, she was a smoker and would forget that she lit a cigarette and leave it burning. She would do the same with food on the stove. Eventually she forgot she smoked...

There's no quality of life when you're in a nursing home. The help is underpaid and overstressed and usually just don't give a damn about their patients. Most are younger people who are just looking for a paycheck. I work in a hospital, and trust me, it's pretty bad.

So, I leave in a melancholy mood. A song that has a very haunting melody has been going through my head in the past few days, so I'll put it here. Enjoy.  RIP Grandma and SRV.

(Edit: I guess the video won't play. It's Stevie Ray Vaughan's version of Hendrix's Little Wing. Very beautiful and sad...)

I just loved playing NES as a kid. My brother was having a hard time learning to read, so my parents said that if he learned how to read, they would buy him an NES. Lo and behold, brother learns how to read and the both of us turn into total gaming freaks. We spent hours upon hours indoors, becoming sickly, pasty white creatures and developing calluses on our left thumbs from mashing the arrow buttons. Ok, so we didn't turn into little albino Gollums, but we did have calluses. 

Now, we do basically the same thing, but in different locations. I've found a husband to geek out with me, and brother has his friends to geek out with. But I am damn proud of this quiz I took. Here are my results...

I'm watching 'Ghost Hunter' on the Sci-Fi channel right now, and I must say, I'm not disappointed with this one. There's a bunch of people who will get wind of a supposedly haunted place, then go there one night with all sorts of audio and visual equipment. They totally rig the place up all over with cameras and recorders, then walk around and take EMF readings to find where there's electomagnetic fluctuations. They listen and look, as well as take regular flash pictures to try to pick up blobs or globes or anything on the film.

Usually the shows are kinda lame - maybe a few sounds or shadows that someone hears, but that's usually about it. Tonight's show took place in the Bird Cage Theatre in Tombstone, AZ. One of my favorite movies while I was a teenager was Tombstone with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp, so I'm familiar with the place. Now, I missed the first five minutes or so (I was furtively searching for naughty Thrawn and Wedge fics, to be honest) but I was hearing what was going on on the show and went to watch it. Where I picked up the show, two guys were patrolling a large room with cameras and such recording. There was an extension cord wrapped around a bell on the wall, and somehow it came off the bell and hit the floor, scaring the guys. It was actually caught on video tape - you can clearly see the cord being lifted off of the bell with nobody there.

Another couple of guys were going down into the same area and they both saw a full-body apparition. It was a lady in a light colored dress, wearing a light colored bonnet. 

The third piece of evidence was a segment they had taped. Two of the guys were talking about one of the paintings there, and in the background could clearly be heard some sort of music. The guys on the tape didn't hear it personally - it was only on playing the tape back did they hear the music in the background. 

Creepy stuff. I'm scared now. Ahh, but here's a video with my beloved Jimmy Page to make me feel better...

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Favorite Star Wars Villain: Grand Admiral Thrawn. There's another clone of him out there somewhere, I just KNOW it. There's gotta be - Timothy Zahn himself said there might be! From the Mitth'raw'nuruodo entry on Wookieepedia: In a recent interview, Timothy Zahn explained that he could bring another clone of Thrawn to life if the Grand Admiral's ability is an absolute necessity to solve future galactic crisis. However, to escape the traditional archetypes of clones, Zahn stated that that clone would be aware that he was not Thrawn, and would be aware of immense pressure to live up to the original. To prepare for Thrawn's possible return, Zahn aroused Mara Jade Skywalker's suspicion that another clone of Thrawn existed and was behind the events in the novel Survivor's Quest.

Is it wrong to think a blue-skinned, red-eyed alien is... hot? Naah. If people can think Snape is hot, then I can think Thrawn is hot. So there. :D I've actually thought of a name for a female Chiss for a *coughSMUTcough* Thrawn fic: Lure'sin'thoron. Her core name would be Sinth. Cool, huh? Well, ok. It may need some tinkering. But I like the core name Sinth.

Things are looking good for my sojourn in LiveJournal land. I've realized that all those little thoughts and musings that I write down on scraps of paper throughout the day now have a home here. Cool beans. There are communities for any and every interest I have, from aaron allston to ysanne isard (there ARE non-star wars subjects included too). 

The problem with forums is that there's too many people all trying to make their points. LJ may be the solution - a select community (well, OK, just me here, but that's ok) that share the same interests and such. I've never particularly cared to argue and pontificate about what I believe, so I've always faded into the background of any forum I join. There's been a quite a few of them, but I just don't really bother anymore. I may sound like I'm whining, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that resents those forum members that think THEIR opinion is the only one that is correct and indeed, the only one that matters. Ugh. 

Forums are a good place to meet people, however. I met a kid on one of the forums I used to frequent who had the same birthday as me, and the same taste in music as me. We were about to trade some Led Zep bootlegs when he dropped off the face of the earth. I really liked him. He went by 'dyermaker' and was a really smart guy... I wish him well. He'll probably end up as our next president. 

I actually met one of my online friends in person two summers ago. Her name is Faye and she's a really great person. We're both Zep fans,  and the Golden God himself - Robert Plant - was performing at the Orpheum theater in Minneapolis with his band the Strange Sensation. He doesn't quite look or sound like he did back in the 60's or 70's, but gods, he's still got something. *sigh* I actually teared up when he did 'That's the Way'. I LOVE that song...  

Well, I think I'm going to wander off and re-write parts of my Wedge fic. I never did find a beta for it, so I'm winging it myself. When it's done up to my satisfaction, I'll post on the AFF Yahoo group and try to find a beta who can tell me if really sucks or not. It's on the AFF website, but I've only gotten one review. I didn't think it was that bad... My Lupin story only has four reviews so far too and it's been quite a while since I've uploaded it. Makes a person wonder...

To cap off my lovely entry, a quote found on Aaron Allston's website. It tickled me!
"A scream queen is an actress who eeks out a living."  Very Pratchett-esque. :D

Well, I never thought that I would have a LJ page, but here I am. It all started with an obsession with Wedge Antilles. After Googling around, I found lots of LJ sites, so I thought 'Hey, why not?'. I can post whatever I want about anything I want. I like this. One of my authors also recommended getting one, so here we go.

Now, without further ado, my five six favorite things.

1.) Star Wars - X-Wings and their pilots in particular. Mmm... Wedge. I love it all, but I have a special affinity for the Rebellion and New Republic eras.

2.) The music (and band members) of Led Zeppelin. Mmm... Robert Plant. 

3.) Beta reading. I love to beta read. Currently, I have four authors that I'm doing stories for. One is based on the anime 'Saiyuki', one is based on the anime 'Gravitation', one is a Star Wars AU fic, and the last is an original piece. They are all great wonderful authors!

4.) Writing. Mostly fanfics *coughSMUTcough*, but if the mood strikes me, I may churn out a poem or some other piece. I have a notebook full of plot bunnies that will eventually get written out. Mmm... Plot bunnies. 

5.) Water. The most soothing thing in the world is to watch, smell and hear a body of water. But just fresh water. The ocean scares me.

6.) Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Love, love, love the show. Especially the sexy, intelligent Detective Robert Goren. Bobby and Alex are great together (yeah, I 'ship them). Ever since I saw Full Metal Jacket I've loved Vincent D'Onofrio...