my boyfriend took one look at that photograph, and said, if anything embodies you, it is that pumpkin.

compliments of chibijosh:

http://www.hairlessape.com/shack/headcopter.html.

wow, look at other shackers i didn't know reading my blog. hi kill virus (sorry, your name gets the no-numbers spelling).

okay, here's the deal. i don't know if i should change the font on my blog. i write my word documents in arial narrow -- that's my font -- but here, it looks kind of tiny. so here are the candidates:

make arial narrow bigger, like so.

change it to arial.

change it to verdana.

<<< insert your suggestions here with other fonts >>>

Update:

Comic Sans is eric's suggestion.

Also, Georgia.

Can everyone read Garamond?

And then there's tahoma. that's a good one.

oh god, i need to get more sleep. i want to die. i don't even think i'm actually awake right now. i believe i am dreaming that i am at work.

in other news, last night on the shack someone put up a post asking what you would do if you actually woke up, and the world had been infected and everyone was a zombie. would you kill your significant other (if they were a zombie) and go road warrior?

in this situation, the living shackers were all going to band together and party, but it got me to thinking: do you have it in you to survive?

me? i don't think so. i can't even kill a fucking spider. i have dreams about rabid squirrels and i freeze up. and zombies freak me the fuck out, since only 1 bite and you're basically done for. i think i'd hide in my house like a pussy and end up getting eaten in some horrific fashion.

unless i was rescued by the shack squad. then i could hide behind them and be the Stereotypical Girl. that would be pretty sweet.

http://digg.com/podcasts/Played

this is my podcast. the wonderful shackers put it on up digg. i'm desiring to get it up higher in the rankings because... i don't know. i can?

i know just about 2 of you read this, but, c'mon. digg's awesome. sign up. digg my podcast.

i'll give you a cookie. :-(

blog peoples.

i have to say, james blocke is my rock. like a little lego of awesome, i adore him.

we now know that he a. listens to played and b. likes strategy games. moreover, he's a shacker who appears to have at least at some point thought i might have dignity or clout. WHICH IS AWESOME IF HE IS A SHACKER AND KNEW ME BEFORE THIS BLOG.

also, he's stuck around, and commented, but yet not given into the two traps i laid seeking his identity on the shack AND the played forums. to have the will to stay back from those? you are a man of steel.

he has passed my IP checks, so even if he is a hoax, james blocke, you are now a 3D pixel fixture in the rendering of my life. when i think i'm too emo, when i think i'm getting in too deep, and mixing the internet worlds of myself together, stirring the pot, when i think "god, what if everyone in all realms of my life heard this? what then?" and i think of you.

but you know what? it's cool. you're cool. and my sister thinks you are cool. (here's a sidenote, sarah, in the ode to james blocke, an ode to you. you are the bestest ever. seriously. and i wouldn't be so downtrodden about how i think you think of me if i didn't always want to be the little overpriced diamond in your belly button which you haven't gotten since you are a lameass. which, in short, means that even if i think you judge me, really i think you are spectacular and you walk on water like jesus. who, according to a talkshow, has risen again and is trying to prove to the world he exists. which would be really fucking hard to do if you were jesus, you know? i mean, goddamn. anyway. i'm digressing, i love you.)

and james blocke? i love you too.

you little lego man, you.

i was going to post this to the shack, but i stopped myself:
ugh. i'm pissed.

once i had a stepmother. i suppose she thought taking in 15 and 18 year old girls would be cake, and they would assimilate into her life easily. sadly, that didn't happen. she ended up kicking my sister out of the house, divorced my father messily and broke the news of that fact by telling me i couldn't come to my stepgrandfather's funeral or ever come home for christmas in a week, or ever again. never saw her, my dog, or stepsister ever again. she let me leave the presents in the mailbox.

anyway, she's a shitty novelist and now apparently a columnist for a newspaper. after years of silence, i guess she had a use for me:

q[Wine vinegar looks anemic after balsamic, and the water bottle has replaced the Thermos. We have calculators and laptops, iPods and Blueteeth. And we have lots of first days that we never had before, and never expected to have. We get downsized and relocated, we change jobs and careers, we leave the mommy track and then jump back on, we telecommute, we e-mail work everywhere. We marry and divorce. We acquire stepchildren and then lose them again.]q

thanks, lise, glad i was acquired. last time i checked, though, you didn't lose us. we got kicked out.

i reiterate my title. fuck you lisa. burn in hell.

so i got bored. i haven't cut my hair in like, a year. and it was wicked long. and, because i find that male-dominated gaming forums to be the best place to get hair styling advice, i took a poll on the shack about how i should do my hair, including pictures of how my hair looked now, and different cuts and colors i got in the past.

then i went to dop dop salon in soho, and worked with nicole, who rocks, and got the best cut and color since i was like, 16 years old. and i'm very happy. of course, this hair cut meant i got carded ordering wine on sunday, and my father said i looked like a stupid high schooler... but you know, if it pisses your father off, that probably means you're doing something right.

mike made a nice before and after gallery for me. i love my sexy trying-to-pout look (lol) and also the amazing face i'm making in the last "before" picture. see my hair!

It was understood, therefore someone of shacknews pointed out the translator of Japanese google from beta English. He passed through that Japanese which takes us, and that the post which was reset was nominated to English for the highest making merry noise. Rather than I try that, being able to imagine me it was the gold. So, the proper. I'm which does that for my blog. If you think that we would like to try that, as for link on the bottom, there is here. In addition, �??my original�?? post it is under queer word, before moving that through therefore whether me the translator, orginally it can look at those which are typed. So the pleasure. I before I send out those, think of that me we would like to move my E-mail entirely with this. My father putting me on the straight jacket, before being able, which rank you think? (You! The love which is sounded plunk)

Okay, so someone on shacknews pointed out the english to japanese google translator beta. he recommended we take a post, put it through japanese, then put it back into english for maximum hilarity. i tried it out, and it was more golden than i could ever imagine. so, of course. i'm doing it for my blog. if you want to try it out, here's a link, at the bottom. also, my "original" post is below the gibberish, so you can see what i orginally typed out before running it through the translator.

so much fun. i think i want to run all my emails through this before i send them out. how long do you think before my father got me put in a straight jacket?

(love you pops!)
http://translate.google.com/translate_t?langpair=ja|en

Wagon tipped over
You lost: food, clothes, ammo, Paul
Fuck him anyway

Coffee Table:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22059704@N08/sets/72157603498843435/

Side Table:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22059704@N08/sets/72157603498847449/

Walkthrough of the stages, some stuff omitted:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22059704@N08/sets/72157603498873729/

in discussing cars on the shack, i found myself advocating the fit again. which, in general, is poopoo'ed by the very secure males that frequent that wonderful forum.

and from that conversation, this quote came out of my fingertips, and i liked it. so i'm saying it here.

"you just have to be comfortable with the fact that your car is not, in fact, your penis."

man. i am a really big dork. not only do i adore my job, and got to work on the game i have loved since i was like 12 years old, but today i came into my office and my producer presented me with this box. apparently they were made for the team, and i fucking squealed like a little girl on christmas.

...yes. yes it actually works too. i hit lydia with a dime. WHERE ARE JELLY BEANS I WILL BLUDGEON YOU WITH SUGARY PELLETS OF DOOM.

there is a new website, wordle.net, where you can make word clouds. someone took my most recent 200 posts (75,826 words) and filtered out the curse words, lol, and other non-important words. this is what wordle created as my most frequently typed words on that website.

roasting pumpkin seeds, making pumpkin pie, carving pumpkins, playing dead space! perfect halloween.

we even ate in and out for dinner. in the car! just like a kid would do.

dear american airlines,

i apologize. it appears i falsely accused your coach class food of nearly killing me. instead, i do believe while i was in business class, someone was carrying a 24 hour flu bug of all evilness, and i caught it. i know this because denby wrote me today to tell me that yesterday he had my "food poisoning" and to accuse me of spreading illness and awful throughout the office. so while it's still your fault i got sick, it was at least not your food.

glad we cleared this up.

-dahanese.

long story short: a shacker has a girlfriend who makes fleece hats. i live in california, and have no need for a fleece hat, but it was inexpensive and i wanted to support her.

her hats happen to be animals. and i could request a custom animal. so, of course, i chose a meerkat. because that is, of course, the logical thing to do.

below is the result. i even have a comparison shot of me and a meerkat so you can see how uncanny the resemblance is.

if you want your own animal hat, go here: http://www.hideebugdesigns.com/

so i found out my dog has a twitter account today. how? because she started following MY twitter feed, and i got an email about it.

and no, i didn't do it. and neither did mike. and i still think asked might have done it, but he's not online to ask. it's definitely a shacker (prompted by the posts i've made about pan being ill last week, i guess, and her awesome professional pictures.)

i've actually posted back to her a couple times. i am actually referring to this feed as "her" also, which is even more hilarious. my dog is CLEARLY not twittering. she's sitting beside me right now.

this is like when i made that blog for sake. (and that was awesome, by the way.)

anyway, you want to see pancake's twitter? right here. can't imagine it will hang around long, as i bet the shacker responsible will get bored. still, she has 14 people following her. my fucking dog.

oh, internet.

http://twitter.com/PancakeTheDog

October's been good. Engagement, wedding ideas, planned Christmas, moved into a new place (expect pictures early next week) and got to announce happy stuff at work which always is a bonus. Also, Halloween is coming up, which is my favorite holiday, and being in a new house I think I might actually have kids come by and I can give them CANDY which I haven't gotten to do in years and makes me REALLY FUCKING EXCITED.

I need to start planning Thanksgiving. My house is big enough to host one now, but I don't know if anyone else is stranded in this state and needs a place to eat turkey.

Turkey.

Nom.

This morning I woke up to an email from Surpass Hosting, the place that runs this here site, informing me that my site was suspended because I hadn't paid them. Given that I'm an idiot who forgets renewing yearly payments, I was fairly certain this should be an automatic withdrawal and that someone should have emailed me before suspending my account if that were not the case.

After some investigation, it became clear that my primary email address blocks Surpass Hosting's emails because they are flagged as spam - and I didn't remember my password - and to get my password, I had to get an email from them or login.

As you can imagine, I just had a fun couple of hours.

Welcome back, dahanese.com! I'll try and not forget to pay your bill next year, but chances are, I will.

you may think, from what i'm about to tell you, that i am an obsessive bride. to that, i'll say this: first off, i'm fucking nuts, and you know that if you know me, so you have to take what i'm doing within the context of how i do everything in my life. that being said, i know my wedding isn't until march 2012, but i know my release schedule this year and i know when work is going to rear up and punch me in the face. because of this, i know i actually have very little time to plan things as i won't be doing any of it in the spring, summer, and fall - that will be all work. no play.

anyway, as much as i hate all this girl stuff, there is one aspect of it i find redeeming: beating prices and trampling estimates more people have. i think having a $1000 cake to be ridiculous. finding one for under $500? FANTASTIC. DJ? good lord, at least give me a real DJ, not a wedding one. flowers? why the fuck do you spend thousands on flowers? i'll take $400 worth, please. i don't get the point.

this is a party. which means: great atmosphere, food, booze, and dancing. this is a milestone. which means: awesome photographs. beyond that? has to look good, and be fun. i'm not in some bridal pissing contest, and i'd much rather spend my money on trips or electronics.

anyway, so far, i think i've figured out these items: dress, shoes, flowers, DJ, venue, food, cake, flowers, photographer, hotels, honeymoon, registry, save the dates, invitations. what do i have left? hair and that girly shit, transportation and/or shuttles, rehearsal dinner, boy outfits, programs and other random crap.

pretty good, eh?

If you have not read my entry "What the hell is Jejuning?" please go here: http://dahanese.com/?item=767. It explains my past year or so with Jejune (which is an ARG that has been going on in San Francisco for the past three years.) Today, I participated in the final chapter - and now, I'm going to tell you about it.

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first off: i promise, this is nothing like a treatise. well, maybe kind of, sort of. but not really. hopefully, much less pretentious at the very least.

as you may know, i'm getting married next march. i have a semi-modern view of weddings and am not keen on excess, stress, bridezillas, and traditions that are stupid.

among those traditions i deem stupid are floral centerpieces.


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Recently, people have been talking a lot about social media and, frankly, the term has quite the bad reputation. As someone who makes a living off things that include social media, I often jump into these debates and someone on the internet asked me to write up my thoughts on the topic. I have many thoughts, so I'm keeping this one general: I could go off on emerging media, experiential and interactive marketing, or even experimental marketing - likewise, I could rant for hours about the value of community and how it's morphed and grown immensely in importance over the past few years. But today, I'm keeping it simple, and I'm talking about "social media" as a generality. Consider this my starting rant (although I hope I'm not too ranty, or worse, preachy). If you like it, let me know if you want to hear more (and what you want to hear more of).

Enjoy.


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I am playing around with Runkeeper's Race page. I'm making a run for Cailin and myself because that's awesome (and hopefully this will make you laugh Cailin, or at least smirk a bit) and this is the official website of that race.

SUPER OFFICIAL.

[Obligatory logo that I made because I am clearly an awesome graphic artist]

Last night, my friends and I went up to Novato to play board games (we're amazing party animals. I'm glad you know this now.) We left around 11:45 at night and got onto the 101, heading south for our home in San Francisco.

Just past the Nave Drive exit, we saw a large white Audi SUV swerving in its lane (and occasionally out of its lane.) There were four of us in my car, and I was driving, and I felt this surge of ABSOLUTE HATRED for drunk drivers. Having worked in Novato for a better part of five years, I've seen quite a few distracted and likely drunk drivers on the roads, and since I had the luxury of friends in the car with me, I asked someone to call 911 and report this driver.


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