Major shock, new store, Twitter/Facebook much?, Tashica is gone, iFight Shelby Marx, fanlistings, projects, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne

First, I have to write about a major shock I had today. After work, I decided I wanted some real food for lunch. So I went to this sit-down restaurant near my new store called The Money Pit (I know, doesn't sound like a restaurant...but then, neither did "The Max" from Saved by the Bell). I spent some time looking at the menu board to decide what to order (since, though it's sit-down, you order and pay first), because it was my first time there. Then, when I finally got in line, there was this couple in front of me. Then, out of nowhere, the guy in the couple started collapsing! I don't think he fainted, because after it happened he seemed conscious. He could've had a heart attack for all I know (though he didn't show signs of it). I was too in shock to do anything, and just stood there for some time because I thought I needed to stay in line (the line had moved though without my knowing it). Another patron had enough composure to yell to the employees to call 911. Eventually, even though I got in the right line, I didn't want to stay there, so I left and went to Taco Bell instead. I called my parents, but only reached my dad. I was really freaked out! The paramedics got there (I saw them from the window of Taco Bell) so hopefully the guy is ok.

I've just started my second week at the new store. Things seem to be going smoothly, although on days like today when I didn't get much sleep the night before, the day seems longer than it is. I'm working GMC stuff, specifically HABA (health and beauty) and doing pretty well at it. I was off yesterday, and today I helped Tom Green (a GMC who's sort of my supervisor) finish going through a pallet of tubs from Saturday. We managed to go through all that was left. Hooray! I have to do bake shop by myself a couple days this week, probably Friday and Sunday since I'm coming in at 6 a.m. those days. I don't know for sure yet, though; Tom said maybe I'd be working it on Wednesday since there's usually no one working the bread or bake shop on Wednesdays because there are no deliveries. We'll see.

My next topic is "Twitter/Facebook much?" (this is written in the fashion of a show I like called Totally Spies!, where they often said things like "Rude much?"). Granted, I am not against Facebook or Twitter; I've been on Facebook for a while now and I just recently gave in and joined Twitter, for the sake of promoting my writing (although I have a "personal" one as well, ostensibly for my personal site; I twittered to it using my iPod Touch about the collapsing incident as soon as I had wi-fi). But now it seems like EVERYONE has a Facebook and/or a Twitter (or both). Even TV news programs are getting them now. Just the other day, I saw a "find us on Facebook" logo on a copy of Do It Yourself magazine (a magazine that teaches you how to do DIY projects, supposedly) in the checkstands at work. It just seems like overkill. Now these networks have their advantages, look at the young Iranian Twitterers who twittered about the riots involving the elections there. But this is just TOO MUCH for me. I don't even know how to work the vast social network circuit. How will I ever use it to promote my writing? I'm in over my head.

Today I watched my DVR recording of the latest episode of HGTV Design Star, a reality show where designers compete for their own show on HGTV. I got into it last season, and now it's back for season 4. One of the designers on it is a girl named Tashica. She seems nice and all, but she keeps doing badly on the challenges and then somehow surviving to fight another week. [SPOILER] But this week she messed up again, and after some suspicious whispering between the judges and host Clive Pearce, she was eliminated (or, to use the show's terminology, her "show has been canceled") before they'd even gone through everyone else in the traditional elimination fashion (it was a double elimination this time). So at least we won't have to see her mess up everything anymore. [END SPOILER] She did seem a little annoying to me, though I haven't really picked a favorite designer yet. I like Antonio (the set designer) though; he takes the lead well and he does a good job at what he does.

I had another recording to watch after Design Star. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've gotten into the Nickelodeon show iCarly. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's about a girl named Carly who does her own comedy webshow with her friends Sam (who is a girl, btw) and Freddie. The starring cast is rounded off by Carly's crazy sculptor brother Spencer. Anyway, they had a special hour-long iCarly movie the other night, and that's what I watched today. It was called iFight Shelby Marx. [WARNING: spoilers here]. Guest starring Victoria Justice (from Nickleodeon's Spectacular! and Zoey 101) as teen martial-arts fighter Shelby Marx, the movie has Carly and Shelby agreeing to a charity exhibition fight after Carly teasingly challenges Shelby to a fight. But chaos ensues when Carly trash talks Shelby at the conference thanks to Sam's coaching, and Carly accidentially falls on Shelby's grandmother and is accused of tackling her. Carly chickens out of the fight and gets avoided at school for it, so she goes and explains the situation to Shelby and agrees to fight. But then Nevel (the iCarly trio's archnemesis and owner of a website review site called Nevelocity) shows Shelby a clip he faked from the press conference showing that Carly meant to push Shelby's grandmother. This infuriates Shelby, and she fights Carly for real, to Carly's surprise. Carly barely wins, and later Nevel's plan is revealed. Carly and Shelby make up, and Shelby appears on iCarly (not the TV show, but Carly's webshow, which also has the same name). The B-plot of this movie involves Spencer being so frustrated over his allergies he agrees to take an experimental allergy medication from a doctor in his and Carly's apartment building. While it does seem to cure his allergies, it has some strange side effects: first intense itching, then severe sweating, then uncontrollable thirst, then short-term memory loss, and finally involuntary muscle spasms. It's all majorly exaggerated, but funny. I sure would never take that medication, no matter how annoying my allergies are.
[end spoilers]

The four-week deadline for both of my fanlistings is approaching. My Hina one is pretty much done, I just need to do a final detail check and test the join form to see if it works. Right now, I'm just going to add people manually, until I figure out how to use a fanlisting script like Enthusiast or phpFanlist that can do it for me. I need to work on my Mamoru/Hina relationship one. It's going to be called "Earth and Sun," because Mamoru has the kanji for "earth" in his last name (Chiba) and Hina has the kanji for "sun" in her first name (Hina). Combining the earth and the sun also shows a sense of compatability, which is how I feel about their relationship.

As for my school projects, my Sacred Texts paper is done...halleujah. I have been prepping for it for a while, but I finally wrote and finished it yesterday in many long hours of work. I'm so glad it's done. As for my sociology project, I have taken notes from some books about autism, now I need to put everything together in terms of the website I'm making for the project itself. It's going to be hard, but I think I can do it.

Oh one last thing. I started watching the anime series Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne (Divine Wind Thief Jeanne), which is based on a manga by Arina Tanemura, who also created Full Moon wo Sagashite. When I first heard about this anime ages ago, I was somewhat offended by it because the heroine is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc in French, hence the "Jeanne" in the show title), who is my hero. I thought it awful that she was being trivialized like that. Now I realize that idea was silly. I've seen the first three episodes, and it looks pretty good.

Well, that's all for now. As Jeanne would say, Adieu!