I hope so!
Forgot to get pics. Was paying attention to boyfriend and cleaning out the upstairs. So many extension cords. So many beads. So many pokemon. Also, coincidentally, forgot to write anything for NaNo. Oops!

I would be willing to try for the obnoxious Libertarian tuba player who keeps trying to talk to me in Consuite. He doesn't have anything I want, though. I think he lives in the woods.

I thought it was. And loud idiot might be easy to write, but it's difficult to write in an appealing way. I usually find myself identifying at least somewhat with most characters (loud idiots and people who eat noodles with deep confidence, for example).

Oh. I have a twitter. Maybe I should follow him. I know how to do that, at least.
Are any of them on Netflix?

No one is going to respect you in the post apocalyptic future for wearing shoes. That bar is much too low. You need to think much more leather.
It keeps snowing and I can't get it to stop. I think it's broken. Now it's getting warm again, which means meltwater in my shoes tonight. Lots of it. Again.

Did you get your tax situation sorted, or will we be having unhappy phone conversations next weekend? Dad and I will be at Quiz on Saturday morning and part of the afternoon and thus unavailable, if you want to plan the meltdown in advance. Dad finally finished his taxes this last Saturday.

Whyyyyyyyy. I'm starting to doubt you even bought all of these supposed books. I bet it was all a lie to make me feel bad for not being at Minicon.
Did Jared have a fun time cleaning our house? Also, Dad tells me that you decided to get rid of a bunch of my old stuff without asking me. I'm not impressed, Merch. Not impressed.

Sounds like you have a target. It's okay that he doesn't have anything you want; you need the practice. Work up to taking on the wily old ladies.

I know that you identify with those character types. Do you still consider them to be role models? I don't think I've ever seen you eat noodles with deep confidence, but maybe you never quite achieved that level.

Don't you already follow too many celebrities on twitter? Settle down.
I don't know. I don't want to know. Protect yourself from the man who ate Brendan Fraser.

Shoes are all I've got. I do have my weird pentagram harness from Halloween, but that comes across as more Neopagan than bondage.
We've had snow off and on this past week. Maybe the weather gave up on seasons, and is using a random number generator to pick temperature and precipitation now.

Dad and I had that particular unhappy phone conversation while you were out with yo' boyfriend. It was a very unhappy conversation, but at least it's over now.

Okay, fine, I admit it. There are no books. I spent all of my money on cheap jewelry.
Very fun. Lots of dust and cats. What old stuff of yours were we getting rid of? All of the Pokemon are safe. The Polly Fashions are safe. A disturbing number of happy meal furbies are gone. And I like how he decided that was all my decision, when it is definitely a joint task.
Also, do you still wear size 7 shoes? I'd like to know if we should hold on to your old ice skates. Mine still fit. They felt surprisingly familiar.

He's hard to find in the woods. Will need to wait until next year. He only appears on Sunday morning.

Yes. I might not eat them with deep confidence, but I prepare them with deep familiarity. What sort of character do you relate to, then?

I don't think most comic artists actually count as celebrities. Same with Buzzfeed employees. So I follow like four celebrities on twitter. Is that settled enough for you?
Is this the same man who ate Val Kilmer, or are multiple cannibals running around wearing the faces of former actors? Are any of them Shia Labeouf?

Neopagan could work. You could present yourself as a shaman. It won't get you a top spot in the new world order, but you could manage an advisory role. Probably The Dragon at best, if you're feeling proactive.
The farmers will not be happy if they need to replace their weather forecasts with percentile dice. But I'm sure GURPS has an answer.

I'm glad you were able to wash your hands of the government for another year. Looking forward to a good refund?

Well then, Dad both misrepresented his own involvement in the decision-making process and falsely reported on what was gotten rid of. He told me that my Polly Fashions had been purged. That man. I rescind all previous unimpressed-ness.
Nope, not a size 7 any more. Now I'm 8.5-9, so I'm pretty sure those skates won't fit me. A shame. I think my feet remember them.

Use the coming months to hone your hunting skills. When next your prey appears, you shall be ready.

I frequently feel the most overall kinship with characters who are in some way insufferable. Rimmer. Eridan and Vriska. You know, terrible people. I identify with specific behaviors and attitudes in other characters, but I don't normally get a strong sense of familiarity with them.

Buzzfeed employees count as celebrities if they've achieved convention GoH status. Which the Try Guys have. Same for some comic artists.
Difficult to say. Could be the same man who keeps a selection of actor faces for different occasions. The general wideness could indicate it's all one guy. I don't think Shia Labeouf could achieve the proper width.

Ah, yes, the bondage leader's advisor. I'll be killed horribly in a throwaway scene if a hero ever shows up, possibly as a gag.
GURPS: Farm and Field. I wish I could say it probably doesn't exist already, but I can't.

Hah. I wish. I had to pay the government over $2000. Stupid fellowship not withholding taxes. I hope you came out better than I did.

The Polly pockets are gone. He can't tell them apart. I felt that the emotional investment wasn't as high for the tiny ones. There's only so much you can do with a doll that's less than 1cm tall. Now some new child will figure that out.
Do you want to keep the skate bag?

Are you asking me to become a Libertarian and perform my own appendectomies with a bowie knife in the woods? Because that's what it's starting to sound like.

Eh. The behaviors and attitudes are enough to qualify the whole character for me.

Nope. GoH is people. And VidCon doesn't count. If you can't support yourself on your comic, you're definitely not a celebrity.
Padding. I'm sure the paper bag adds a bit of bulk.

Hey, you're the one who couldn't commit to proper bondage attire for the new millennium.
I tried to google GURPS. Typed burps. Typed gurbs. Just now typed burbs while trying to type gurbs. It's a stupid name.
GURPS: Farm and Fleet?

Ew. That's gross. That's what Dad had to pay. I hope he told you you'll be getting an additional $5000 from Grandma's estate, to remove the sting.
I had an undesirable fellowship tax situation as well, but it was only for summer support. I managed to claw my way into the black with a technicality about use of scholarship funds for research vs. rent (UMN listed all of it as taxed on my 1098T, but $3000 was actually non-taxed research scholarship), and the MN student loan thing. Got about $1000 combined, and immediately spent it on Elton John.

I attempted to explain the difference to him over the phone to clarify what, exactly, had been purged, but he became frazzled and declared that everything vaguely Polly-like was gone. I should have known my attempts at communication were for naught. Polly Pockets are indeed emotional-investment free.
It's a nice skate bag, right? And could hold adult-sized skates? A good thing to have.

Becoming a Libertarian is optional. You can still pay taxes and sneak into town to vote if you want. You will have to perform your own appendectomies, though. That's non-optional if you want the strength to bring down your target.

I don't want to identify very strongly with most characters. They can do their own thing without my needing to relate to them. Then again, I am very full of ego and prefer to think of myself as the specialest and most unique snowflake.

So Tamora Pierce is people? That's what it sounds like you're saying. Speaking of Tamora Pierce, one of my classmates lent me Tempests and Slaughter, so I don't need to borrow yours any more. So there. Hah.
The Actor Eater does look very... well-padded. Doughy.

Burp gurbs? Gurp burg. Herben gerben.

It's partially Dad's fault that I had to pay so much. His claiming me as his dependent more than doubled what I owed. He felt bad about that and agreed to send me some money back, especially because he probably shouldn't have claimed me but had already done it. He thinks that he ultimately saved more money on his taxes than I lost on mine, so I think we may have undertaken a tax scheme.
You're fortunate. All of the money that I actually got my hands on was for living expenses. Nothing earmarked for research at all. I hope you got to buy some really good... microcentrifuge tubes, or something.

Yeah, he does that. He seems to be allergic to tiny plastic people.
I was a fan of the ranch and igloo, though. Those were almost worth the space they took up to house a few tiny plastic people and dogs.
Yes, yes, indeed.

I don't need to pay taxes if I make no money while living in the woods.
I... I have some bad news about that. Plan might be ruined.

You do that. Have a good time.

No, she was already celebrity when she became GoH. It's just that GoH does not celebrity make. And good, because it was an enjoyable book and you should read it as soon as possible. It didn't actually resonate with me as well as it was probably supposed to, but I still liked it and you should, too.
Actors are good eating. Makes sense.

Herbergerberger

Eh, it's fine. He claimed me until it was impossible, and I took the tax hit in the form of lower refunds, and it's fine. Especially if you didn't report the money from Grandma as income (I forgot and I'm a little leery about how that was supposed to work, but it's mostly been transferred in 2018 so it doesn't matter yet, anyway), you're still a dependent. He supported you for over half of the year.
It's still sitting in my bank account making me uncomfortable. In checking so I don't accidentally make any money from it. It's going to be used for sequencing, either Sanger or Illumina. Haven't decided yet.

Evil cannot comprehend good. Dad cannot comprehend Tiny Plastic People.
I... don't remember the ranch at all. The igloo, yes, but not the ranch. Has my brain been deleting content again? I hate it when this happens.

I'm sure the squirrels you eat will somehow qualify as taxable income. The IRS has ways. The IRS will find you.
No one ever said it had to be your own, original appendix that you remove. It does have to come out of your body, though. You'll figure something out.

What does celebrity make, if not GoH? I think it's a pretty good yardstick by which to measure. In some cases it might indicate only local celebrity, but celebrity nonetheless.
Social media does create a very unsettling illusion of intimacy with famous people, though. I follow a comic book cover artist on tumblr, and have to constantly remind myself that he's not just some amateur artist that I like, but instead makes his living by creating art that is featured in stores worldwide. I could follow Neil Gaiman on there, too, but I don't want an unsettling level of intimacy with him.

I have no idea what to do about the money from Grandma. Dad said it's probably not enough to get hit by inheritance taxes, but I still feel like I'm cheating somehow. I'm not sure Dad did support me for over half the year, actually. I only lived with him for, what, three months? And even then I was mostly paying rent elsewhere. He bought me food for some of the year, though, and does pay my health insurance, so that might do it. Either way I'm pretty sure I won't qualify as dependent next this year.
Wait, it's mixed in with all your other money? Why would they do that? What a questionable practice that practically begs for fraud. Don't commit fraud, okay?
Do Sanger. Old ways are best ways.

It was sort of coral and yellow and the roof folded open. My brain purged my physics teacher's name once. I remember it again, though.

The IRS doesn't care about income under $1000. Squirrels are not valuable.
I don't want to deal with organ rejection in addition to my own appendectomy. Bowie knives aren't great for that.

Is Richard Tatge a celebrity? He was a GoH. GoH is people.
I have absolutely no illusions about Mark Hamill not being famous. Some people are too famous to ever mistake for some amateur you like. It's just the borderline people who are problematic. Unless they're not, and they're just people.
In a way, Neil Gaiman is just people. He lives/lived in Wisconsin, after all. Nobody famous lives there.

It's fine. Don't worry about it. Just don't get claimed next year.
I have no idea why, but they distributed it through direct deposit. Probably to make me incredibly uncomfortable. Have I mentioned that I am incredibly uncomfortable? I am.
Sanger is expensive. Do you know how much it would cost to sequence even just 160 isolates at 6 loci? And that's not a lot of loci for population-level genotyping. Plus, all of the extractions and PCR would take forever. And several of the most common genotyping loci are hard to amplify. So probably no.

Yesterday I was giving a presentation and forgot the word "observation" for at least five seconds. I didn't appreciate it. It would be great if my brain could just... not get rid of things that I need. I can handle forgetting Polly Pockets.

Says you. The squirrels disagree. Rednecks disagree.
You could store the appendix in your body without actually hooking it up to your intestines. Like, in your stomach, for example. Or your uterus. Somewhere it's easy to retrieve later.

Certified celebrity. Them's the rules. All hail Richard Tatge.
I think it's easier to think of people as celebrities if they have professions that we associate with celebrity. Actors are almost automatically celebrities. Internet video stars, not so much. We met too many authors growing up and our brains sorted some of them into the "not celebrity" pile, which I think gives us weird biases.
Neil Gaiman is definitely not people. He walks among us, but that is because he finds our petty mortal antics amusing. Most of the time he's busy hanging out with David Tennant and stuff.

Maybe they expect you to have some separate account for lab expenses? Do people do that, like their lab is a Pony Club or something?
Then why were you considering Sanger in the first place? Clearly you do not respect the old ways, so don't even bother.