For about 1-2 months now I've been having a love affair with the show The X-Files; ever since all 9 seasons came onto Instant Watch on Netflix. I use to be fond of the show a while back, watching it when it occasionally came on the Sci-fi channel(to me, it was the only thing worth watching on Sci-fi besides Ghost Hunters) but I'd never really been a dedicated fan, watching episodes out of order and not keeping up with the main storyline drama of the show. That is until I started watching it more regularly, starting from the first season and making my way forwards.

For the most part, I really like it. I love the premise, I love the characters and the shows are just the right blend of creepy and conspiracy theory. And some of my favorite episodes involve Mulder's three geeky friends, whom I cannot remember the names of. But after watching it for a while, I've gone from being ambivalent to it, to having particular things I enjoy and dislike about it.

One of the big things I don't like is the stupidity displayed by normal people in society. It especially shows up in early episodes revolving around the odd, creepy guys who are often "Monsters of the Week". They always try and blend into society at some point and appear normal, except there is always something off. Most notably, the kind of blank stare/intense gaze, a slight hesitation before speaking, like they had to think it over, and a very level tone, like speech is forced and awkward. Eugene Victor Tooms did it. The death fetish guy did it. And now this black, albino dude is doing it. But the thing is, nobody they interact with seems to notice! If someone like the death fetishist guy were talking to me that way, I wouldn't invite him to make himself at home like one lady did! Not that I'm prejudice or anything, but seriously! The guy LEERS constantly and the lady smiles and introduces him to her 15 year old daughter, acting like she wants to make him a part of the family, while the guy practically drools over the jailbait tits right in front of her. I really wish the guys playing the Monsters of the Week would OVER ACT for once.




Then the second thing I do not like are the humor centric episodes. I mean, it's just not that type of show to me. After episode after episode of serious business and constantly chasing after crazy stuff, all of a sudden an episode filled with dorky music and joke lines makes it all feel really cheesy and phony. So, I usually skip episodes with an overwhelming amount of humor and gags in them.

And finally, I have a deep hatred for "The Smoking Man"(also nicknamed "Cancer Man" by people in the show). He's just always seemed like such a malicious and hateful bastard, always getting in the way and killing people without blinking an eye. It's very frustrating when they spend the whole episode(or several in a row) digging up conspiracies and programs of control in secret and then it all ends with the Smoking Man and his little friends erasing EVERYTHING they found. It's very disheartening to have it happen over and over again in many different episodes. Even with the "background" episode on the Smoking Man did not elicit any sympathy from me for his character. So, he's been trying for years to get his sucky story published and when it finally does, they change the ending on him. Waah! Cry about it. And the things revealed about his past and leading up to his recurrent encounters with the X-Files agents doesn't provide me with enough justified motivation to like him an ounce more than I did before.

So, for all of season four, I was rooting for his character to die. You can imagine my delight when my wish came true and he gets shot in one episode and is declared dead. I was giddy not seeing him in any episodes after that. Until he came back. >8[ At first, he wasn't an active participant, just showing up sending and receiving a letter in one episode. But then his colleagues were all needing him to come back, and he emerged from his little hut in the mountains and is now a semi-active part of the series again, just like before. Somebody shoot me.

Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:23 pm; edited 2 times in total

Alright, most of the time, I remember my dreams in some form or another. Very rarely will I wake up and not remember dreaming but it does occasionally happen. And sometimes, even when I do remember dreaming, it will fade soon after waking. But a lot of them stick with me and I've even woken up and gotten confused and scared about the content of the dreams, thinking that what had happened had been real. Here are a few I've recently had.


Dream 1

I was in my house with my husband and we were both hanging out on the couches in the living room(something we rarely do). He was on the one couch and I was on the other and we were facing each other. I was laying down, covered with a blanket and trying to sleep and he kept talking to me. I got annoyed with the conversation we were having; he was teasing me or speaking like a retarded child so I finally just told him to "Shut up!" and I laid down grumpily to try and sleep.

Well, my in-laws live next door in real life and in the dream, my husband's stepmother was throwing some sort of party over there and kept on calling us. So, I answer once, while groaning and being curt with her and when I hang up, I turn the phone off.

Then, my sister in-law Kelly comes over and knocks at the living room door that faces their house and I whimper in distress and throw off my covers and slump on over to answer it. I do and she is standing there with two friends, not wearing her glasses and they're all wearing pastel purple gowns like you'd see at a prom. She holds out a little plastic purple plate at me and asks me for cinnamon buns or some sort of treat like that saying that they'd like "more, please". In real life, my husband and I had ordered some Mocha Chocolate buns from her for some fund raiser so she could go to Chicago for Chorus class next fall of something, and before I'd laid down to sleep I'd finished them all.

In the dream, it annoyed me that she was even asking me and I told her "No" several times without her seeming to understand and continuing to beg me, until finally I tell her that they're gone and they should eat the other snacks that my mother in-law had set out for their party, for some reason right on my back patio. And I slammed the door in their faces and plopped down on my couch again. I remember worrying that if I had upset her, she'd probably tell her mother and I'd have to deal with Kim and I wouldn't be able to just sleep on the couch and hide because my couch was in full view of the large windows on the back door; anybody peering in would be able to see me laying on the couch and would probably try and rouse me. And then I woke up.


Dream 2

I had a dream that I was in my house and it was night, but the moon was full outside. I went into the kitchen and outside through the window above the sink, I could see the little thin lamp post by our driveway and in it's shadow there stood an emaciated black dog with red eyes(like in the picture above only he was completely black). He was just standing there, looking at me with those eyes and I knew if I went outside he would kill me. I walked into the bed room and looked out the window and in the shadow of the large tree between our property and the in-laws there was another one, just standing there, looking at me with those eyes. I began to get really really scared that they would try and break into the house and kill me, so I locked the window and went to the doors and locked them and just looked out at them as they continued to stand there, still as statues. Staring at me.

When I woke up, I had trouble shaking the bad feelings from the dream and began to grow scared. I looked out the windows at the morning shadows and began to grow uneasy and went to lock the doors. As I was passing through the kitchen to go to the front door, I was startled to look out the window and see the lamp post and the shadow it cast was almost in the exact same spot as it had been in my dream. I stood staring at it for several moments making sure there was no skinny black dog hiding behind it. *shivers*

Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:24 pm; edited 2 times in total

♨ Chicken Enchilladas ♨



Ingredients

1 can evaporated milk
1 pack cream cheese
2 sticks butter
1 can diced green chilies (strained)
3 lbs of chicken - precooked
1 pack of grated cheese
8 tortillas

1. melt cream cheese and butter in a pot on the stove. Add chilies and chicken - cook until smooth

2. Put mix in tortillas, wrap them up and place them in a greased pan. Pour evaporated milk on top.

3. put in oven at 350℉ for 30 minutes. Take it out and put grated cheese on top. Put it in for another 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.


Cooked these tonight using my mother in-law's recipe and they are absolutely delicious!

Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:25 pm; edited 2 times in total

Have you ever done something stupid when you were younger that, not only was stupid at the time but also ended up ruining something for when you were older? ✍



Lately, I've been reading the Rhapsody trilogy by Elizabeth Haydon. I have owned these books for a very long time, and Rhapsody was one of the very first fantasy books I'd ever read as a teenager. I had just finished a bunch of Raymond E. Feist books(which, incidentally WERE my first fantasy series) and was REALLY into the genre. I remember being in Wal-Mart looking in their novel section which was poorly stocked at the time--the bulk of it was old dusty looking fantasy and scifi like DUNE and a TON of Westerns and Romances. This book stuck out among them with it's unique title and intriguing cover and I pleaded with my mother to get it for me(I must have been between the ages of 11-13 at the time). She was hesitant at first, thinking that it was an awfully thick book for my age, but I insisted(ignoring my history of being fascinated with big books but not enjoying reading them) and she got it for me. I was instantly hooked into the story and read the first three books of the series.

So, being 22 now, I've had these books for a while and it's been that long since I've read them but they will always be a nostalgic favorite. Well, I'm pissed at my younger self right now! Now, before I explain why, there are two things I have to tell you: 1. As a child, I was very idealistic and religious. I wanted to grow up to be a "good" girl and go to heaven. Anything that interfered with that was considered bad and had to be literally cut out of my life, AND my thoughts. Just like avoiding watching R-rated movies, I would not allow myself to read anything sexual. ANYTHING. And 2. I've always had a very close relationship with my books. I keep them around for a long time and will often look through them and reread them millions of times. To facilitate this desire better, I usually mark them in some way, a small bracket in the margins around my favorite passages and lines. And sometimes, if there are words I don't know, I will look them up and make a note in the margin about the definition. Lots of people cringe when I tell them how I treat my books, but I honestly do not see anything wrong with it. They are mine and I love them. Marking them helps me grow a more familiar relationship with the words upon their pages.

But apparently, when I was 13, I did not have this level of respect. If any of you has read this series by Elizabeth Haydon, you will know that there are a few graphic love scenes sprinkled here and there, most notably in the beginning chapters of the first book. Well, before I began reading these books again, I knew that I had at some point torn out the pages of this graphic sexual encounter in the first book Rhapsody. The pages on either side of the missing ones are marked with a stupid little note saying "They basically have sex." Alright, fine. Whatever. It's one of the crucial scenes that sets the stage for the rest of the novels, but fine. I was a prude. Moving on.

But what I did not remember is the love scenes later on in the middle of the second book were also altered. I was a bit surprised to come upon the passages marked out in black marker and was dismayed at the pages marred with another note saying the same thing in thick, magic marker lettering. But it was alright. I could still somewhat read the words and limped through it with plans to type up the passages and print them out and paste them over. No big deal. They'd be fixed like new. I could handle it.

But what I could NOT handle was another section of pages completely torn out and missing. 10 frigging pages! "Pages torn out; more sex" the little note says mockingly and I just wanted to scream and tear my hair out. For the first book, it was fine because I've read Rhapsody a few times and did not miss the missing pages all that much. I can kinda, vaguely remember what happened in them. But I have not touched Prophecy in years and do not remember anything about these missing pages. And it just makes me rage at the lack of respect and censorship of my younger self.

I mean, it's not that they're sexual scenes and I want to get off on it. Not at all. It's the fact that I have no idea what is missing. I do not remember if the characters stopped to say something that will come into play later. I do not know if something dramatic happened to change the core of the relationship. 10 pages of information gone. And the book is ruined and ugly now. I'm going to buy new copies of both Rhapsody and Prophecy and if I find Destiny in a similar condition, then I will replace it as well. Unbelievable!


Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:25 pm; edited 2 times in total

☽ Dream 3

This afternoon, I had a dream that I was in a sort of run-down and grubby cafeteria building that was filled with little old ladies. There was a young woman and her black boyfriend in there as well, but I did not talk to them. And the girl looked like a blonde Natalie Portman with her hair cut super short on the sides but semi-long and sticking straight up on the top(like the picture above). And she was walking around in nothing but a button up dress shirt and a thong.

Well, I was in this place with my friend, one of the old ladies and we were getting food from the guy behind the counter. But I spent a long time looking at a vending machine full of McDonald's and Burger King burgers, most of them out of a wrapper and just sitting in the little plastic cubicles. Some of them were really sloppily made, with melted cheese dripping down their sides and ketchup and other sauces dripping from them. And one had a tower of meat about as long as my forearm stuffed between two buns.

Then my little old lady friend was getting a bunch of paper grocery bags to take home her food in and got into a little fight with another old lady while trying to steal one of her paper grocery bags. I slapped her hand and told her "No, we don't need it. We've got enough bags. We'll be alright." She seemed satisfied with this, even though I was talking to her like she was a little girl and she was at least 80-something. Well, she went back to trying to fill her bags and had one of them folded up and tucked under her arm. Another old lady whom I did not know, with a small head and REALLY wrinkly face, came by and took my friend's bag from under her arm.

I stepped forward and started trying to take it from her hands but she wouldn't let go of it. So, I grabbed the purse that was hanging off her arm and smacked her in the face with it, finally forcing her to let go of the bag. I turned to her, and with my hands on my hips and shaking a finger at her said, "Now you cut that out! That's not your bag! You've got enough! Go on now!" And shooed her out the door like a disobedient child.


Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:26 pm; edited 2 times in total

(At the current moment, I'm not looking for any more role-plays, already having enough to keep me occupied right now. But I've set up a thread that I will post in the future, detailing my ideas and storylines that I want to try when I am looking again)

Alright, instead of making a bunch of threads whenever I have an idea, I figured I'd just make one thread to put them all in.

I'm a really big fan of horror and writing scary stuff, anything from demons, ghosts, to zombies and aliens. I'm pretty ambivalent when it comes to classical monsters(vampires, werewolves) but will play them if there is an original element. My favorite subject being shadow monsters and boogiemen, sometimes involving children but mostly dealing with them in the adult realm, like in the movie They. I also like a kind of psychological element to my horror in addition to whatever supernatural elements there may be, like my character in
Letters from Corvine(it's a group role-play and didn't last for long, but even from those few posts, you can get the gist of what type of horror I like to do). I like playing scared and frightened people and I also like scaring others.

Another genre that is a favorite of mine, is dystopia. I like the type of government control and oppression in a futuristic world, or government corruption and conspiracy, scenarios. You can see an example of this type of story in the role-play, A Desolate Future.

Also, a few other things that interest me:

time-travel
mental institutions
alternate dimensions and realties(like dreamworlds, purgatory, or other worlds that sit side-by-side our own)
post-apocalyptic

I am not feeling like writing any fantasy or sci-fi at this time unless it incorporates one or more of the elements I've detailed above. But I am open to basically any setting and time period that involves the above genres.

Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:27 pm; edited 3 times in total

I cooked seafood for the second time! :-D The first time doesn't really count because it was premade, precooked, frozen coconut breaded shrimp that all I did was fry it(without thawing or anything) and the shrimp came out mushy and too greasy. XP

This time was at least halfway real! I got a bag of precooked, frozen shrimp from the store and thawed it. So, it's not technically raw seafood, but I wanted to start small and simple first. First of all, I love seafood and shellfish. Fishy fish are icky most of the time, but my favorites are shrimp, lobster, crab, octopus, mussels, scallops, and clams. It's always so expensive getting it from restaurants(most of the time if they offer it, seafood dishes are if not the most expensive then one of the most expensive things they offer) and I've always wanted to try cooking it at home but have been too scared that I wouldn't do it properly and end up making myself sick.

Well, now, I have finally done it!

♨ Shrimp Pasta ♨




Yield: Makes 3 to 4 servings
Ingredients

* 12 ounces dried penne pasta
* 1 pound frozen cooked shrimp (35 to 40 per lb.), thawed
* 1/2 cup prepared pesto
* 1/4 cup whipping cream
* 1/4 cup fat-skimmed chicken broth
* 3 tablespoons chopped drained oil-packed dried tomatoes
* Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. In a 4- to 6-quart pan over high heat, bring about 3 quarts water to a boil. Add pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender to bite, 7 to 12 minutes. Drain and return to pan.

2. Add shrimp, pesto, cream, broth, and dried tomatoes to pasta; stir over medium heat until hot and evenly incorporated, 2 to 3 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour into serving dish or divide among individual bowls.


This is where I got the recipe: Myrecipes.com Shrimp and Pasta with Creamy Pesto Sauce

I couldn't find any oil-packed dried tomatoes(I'm not sure if they meant the tomatoes themselves were dried or for me to drain the oil and "dry" them, but whatever), so I used this:



Petite diced with garlic and olive oil.

Also, I had no clue what "pesto" was before this, but found out when I went to the store. I found it in the pasta sauce aisle. It came in a jar like this and was a dark, kind of olive green color.



I accidentally used 18 ounces of pasta instead of 12 and the sauce was very good but there wasn't enough to cover everything, so next time even if I used 12 ounces of pasta, I'd still up the other ingredients just a bit(I do not like my pasta dry and flavorless).


Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:28 pm; edited 2 times in total

Just a little roleplay tracker so I can keep track of when I need to post. It may not make sense to anyone else, but it's my own little system.

Key:

Cycles = how many people in the roleplay
Roman Numerals = How many times we've all posted
Posts = who needs to post
(me) = I need to post
(me) = I have posted for this cycle
# = how many people have posted for this cycle(when I post, I will put a number to count for myself so I don't lose count)

Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:40 am; edited 4 times in total

☽ Dream 4

It starts with a kind of overview, like a movie I'm watching; I'm there but not involved in what is happening. Through someone else's tragedy and drama I learn that there is an Alternate Dimension to ours where there are alien people trying to get into our world. The only way they can do this is by possessing our bodies by making us touch a plot of land from their world. You can tell a person has been taken over by their eyes; they fill almost completely with black.

Then the real dream begins, with me and my family arriving by car at this facility for some reason. I forget why, but it was all my immediate family: My dad, my mom, my brothers and my sister. It had the feel of a family outing, but this facility was like a military base in some parts of it. Anyways, my dad carried my little sister Haley and my brothers, Danny and Ben followed behind him because they're a bit older and don't need their hands held.

However, in this dream, my little brother Teddy was still practically a toddler and my mother was trailing behind looking after him. For some reason, she insisted on me staying behind the others to help her with him, so I stayed beside her as we made our way through the rooms and hallways of this facility.

At one point, we come upon a kind of grungy, run down room and Teddy needs to go to the bathroom. So, she and I stop to look after him but dad and the other kids proceed through the door into the next room. Teddy is taking a while and mom mentions that she doesn't think they know we're missing and urges me to go and tell them. So, I poke my head through the flapping blue doors to the next room and it's big and sterile and there are people in here.

I can see my father at the far end of the room, looking around and exploring and I yell "Wait for us!" He doesn't hear me and I start to panic as he makes his way through a door to the left end of the room with the kids still with him and I scream, "Don't leave us!"

At my mother's urging, I go after them while holding Teddy in my arms, but as I enter the next room fully, dad comes back into this room from that same door with Haley in his arms and Ben following him. He smiles at us and acts like nothing is wrong but his eyes are filled with pitch black. I point at him and say, "He's one of them! He's been taken!" Immediately he stops acting happy and starts to back away back towards the door he just came through and I follow after him as he turns to run.

So, I follow him through a long hallway and into a side room where Danny is sitting at a metal lunch table. There is a small tin-foil generic food container on the table in front of him, and it's filled with a small pile of moistened sand and he's got both hands resting on it with his fingers dipped into it. He's sitting there in a trance and I know he's being taken and I know that I have to stop him from touching the soil of their home-world to wake him up. So, I rush over and start to push his hands out of it, but the transformation is already halfway and he fights me a little trying to stick his hands back into the soil.

I start to grab the little tray and pull it away and he grabs fistfuls of sand and puts them on his cheeks, but apparently it's not enough and the spell is broken. But I spend a moment or two looking into his eyes, which are dark brown, trying to figure out if he's been fully changed or not. Finally, I find the difference between his pupil and irises and I know that he's really Danny.

At that moment, I see my dad and he's got Teddy and he leaves the room. Danny and I give chase and trail him into this room with a large car in it. Except the car isn't real. It's like one of those rides for toddlers where you put a quarter in, except it was adult sized and had a backseat and everything. Teddy is sitting in the back seat of it and is in a trance. I hurry over and snatch him up and run out of there. Somehow, Danny was able to get my dad to wake up and Danny follows me out of the facility.

As he and I run we pass through a kind of locker room/bathroom and we see a bunch of guys have these triangular shaped protrusions bulging from the backs of their pants, like they were growing hard tails or something.

We get to the room that opens out to the front doors and mom and Haley and Ben are with her and we start to run for the doors together. But some of the Alternate people are trying to stop us from leaving and they try to block out way(one of the men is fat and he has a tail like the others did). I hand my dad Teddy Bear and turn to fight the fat guy, feeling brave in the dream. I punch him hard in the gut, but he seems unaffected. So, I punch him again and it still doesn't affect him. So, then I just shove him away from me and call after my mother "The only way to beat them is if we wake them up!"

We're out front and running down the steps, but the Alternates have altered this building a lot. So, the stone of the bottom step is about 6ft from the ground now and we have to get the adults down before we can help the children down. Finally, we all sprint to the car in the parking lot together and there's snow in some spots on the ground.

Dad gets in the driver's seat and mom gets in the passenger's seat and all the kids have car seats(even though some of them are too old for car seats) all crammed into the backseat. I worry momentarily about where I'm going to sit, but start helping them all get in anyways and Teddy is last. I pick him up and set him in his seat and look into his eyes. They are filled with solid olive green color, almost a lime green and he starts talking to me in a deep crackling demonic voice.

But we are being chased. We don't have time to figure out how to wake him up and if I put him in the car with us, he'll transform us all.

So, I take the baby out of his seat.

And I set him in the snow.

And we leave him.

I woke up crying really hard.

Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:29 pm; edited 2 times in total

♨ Fried Rice ♨



I made this from a recipe by a Youtuber named MarinaIsTehSex: Fried Rice Video

Ingredients

Rice
Soy Sauce
Olive Oil
Sugar
Eggs
Frozen peas
White pepper
salt
black pepper
garlic powder

1. I put the stove on High heat and drizzled my pan with olive oil. Then, I cracked the eggs into it and cooked them, scraping and stirring them with the spatula so that the oil and egg spread around the pan. When the eggs became little clumps and were no longer runny, I lowered the heat and added the rice and stirred them together.

2. Add the peas(do not need to thaw them), and as much soy sauce as you think tastes good. Stir it in so all the rice gets soy saucey.

3. Dust a spoonful or so of sugar on top and stir it in. Add the salt, pepper, white pepper and garlic powder and then stir them in.


Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:30 pm; edited 2 times in total