Hello, to all curious about this person named hachi_08 who just suddenly showed up on your friends list.

For years I went by the name filiklepto but I decided that it was time for a change, and here I am -- all nice and new and shiny and renamed. I started April 3, 2003, as filiklepto with a story of my naming, which you can check out here, but five years have gone by since that day and I am a different person with different thoughts and feelings than I had back then.

So why hachi_08 ? Well, as listed on my info page, my friends started calling me Hachiko after the character from the series Nana, or Hachi for short. Since both the names Hachi and Hachiko are generally claimed all around the internet, I've decided to go by hachi_08 or the hyphenated/underscored equivalents when that name is also taken.

In Japanese, hachi is also the word for the number eight, and when I see the name hachi_08, I get the impression of a girl in a long sleeve jersey t-shirt with the numbers 08 silk-screened on the backside. For some reason, that image just appealed to me...

So don't be alarmed! hachi_08 is still the same ol' filiklepto, just... different.

So sue me, I haven't followed the HP fandom for quite a while now, but I stumbled onto this on a completely non-HP related thread on IMDb and think that it is "TOTALLY AWESOME!" \m/


Harry Potter the Musical



I don't know how long this has been floating around, but it's pretty brilliant. Example, Harry telling Ginny why they can't be together: "What I'm trying to say is I don't want my life to be like Spiderman 3, I hated that movie." XD Also, tap-dancing Voldemort! And Rumbleroaaar!

Darren Criss, who plays Harry and wrote a lot of the lyrics in the musical is pretty amazing, too. If you check out his youtube channel, there's an awesome vid of him singing "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid. ♥

So... before I read any reviews that might change or color my opinion, I just want to say that I think the HP6 movie was great. I actually want to go back and watch it again, which never happens to me with HP movies, as I'm usually content to see them once and then just catch them on TV.

( My overall impressions. )

This is the benchmark to which all of the HP movies should strive. Or should have striven, since we are now on the sixth one.

( After the jump: Things I really liked, and just a few things that gave me pause. )

Now it's time to go and read everyone else's thoughts and find out if I'm the odd man out. ^_^;

Hello, friends! I am looking for awesome people to play with this coming year~

After spending this last year mostly alone and unhappy with a horrible roommate and very few friends, I've decided that my goal for this coming school year is to surround myself with awesome, nice people ♥ I'm so sick of mean people and negative energy =o

So come play with me =] I do get busy with work, but I have a car now and sometimes I even have money, hehe.



In other news: since krispy_kream, tsuzusushi, and chiharu_octavia have been raving about it, I've finally dusted off my copy of Professor Layton that's been sitting around for ever! Yay, DS time~

There were strawberries in the dining hall and breakfast, and all I could think was, "This could be the very best strawberry in the entire world, but you wouldn't know cause you didn't eat it." ♥ HSM3

So I've just gotten home from class, and I'm sitting at my computer with no pants on.

( Long story, short: I discover my suitemate lying on the ground injured and call the police. She has to be taken by ambulance to the emergency room for a concussion and fractured wrist! )

Love love love this cars.com commercial. I thought David Abernathy was just the cutest thing ever~

I've been catching up on The Daily Show (I like to wait a week so I can watch a bunch of episodes in a row), and I just caught the Inauguration episode. Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson was hilarious. Check out this exchange between him and Jon Stewart:

Stewart: Can I ask you--I mean, Washington was so crowded today, there's so many people... You as a Bishop are sort of doubly handicapped in that situation, only being able to move diagonally. How was that? How was that negotiating the crowds?
Rev. Robinson: John. John, you have to understand there's a Queen on the board as well.

You can check it out for yourself on Hulu at 17:48 (after the second commercial break "dot" on the timeline).

( Speaking of the Episcopalian church... )

Dear President Obama,

Thank you for overturning this ban on US funding to overseas family planning clinics, a policy which has contributed to the deaths and injuries of countless women and girls. I don't think it's arrogant or unethical at all of you to make this decision, and I'm glad that it was one of your first acts as President.

Love,
Hachi♥
The Inactive Catholic

You know, I don't update this thing nearly as often as I should. To be honest, I moved over to the micro-blogging wonder that is Plurk, it's like facebook statuses on crack--you earn Karma for updating your status as often as possible and getting people to comment on it. XD If anyone is interested, lemme send you an invite (because it will help me earn Karma). Helllllo, ulterior motive.

I didn't really make any New Years resolutions, so I've decided this very moment that my NYR is to update my sad LJ regularly even though I've gone all Buck Rogers, micro-blogging in the 25th century with Twiki and Dr. Theopolis. Here's what I've been up to lately (it's been a pretty busy winter break).

1) ( Even though I told myself that I wouldn't buy any Christmas presents and that everyone would understand, as I am so broke that I could actually financially destroy myself for the rest of my life, I went and bought everyone a Christmas present. )

2) ( I asked a cute guy who was bagging my groceries at a Japanese market in West LA for his number and got it. )

3) ( For Christmas we had a gigantic sixteen-person-one-canine sleepover at my grandparents' house )

4) ( Eighteen hours after returning from San Jose for Christmas I immediately hopped on a 6AM flight to Pittsburgh for New Years. Yah, I'm crazy. )

5) ( I got my second braces adjustment! )

6) ( I got a Japanese 'airwave perm,' and now I will have curly Asian girl hair for the next couple of months. )

---

Well, now that I've finally updated this thing with an entry so long no one can possibly read it (haha), my next goals are to do laundry, clean my dorm, get rid of my unnecessary packrat possessions, donate all my unused clothing to a charitable organization, get rid of an unwanted suitor (maybe two; there's this guy who's been texting and facebooking me a lot), and somehow do enough interesting things to update this LJ again next week. Oh, and I might go to Boston soon.

So my hard disk failed right before my birthday this year (Happy birthday to me~♪). I popped in new drive and was running again in no time--take that lousy HP customer service, trying to get me to purchase a new support plan!--but I wasn't able to recover any files from the failed disk, boo. I even tried freezing the drive and mounting it in Linux like a wannabe nerd, but I guess I'm not hardcore enough/the drive was too badly damaged.

Fortunately, I'd been saving most files to my external hard drive, particularly my giant music collection. But I did lose a few important things.

1.) My e-mail drafts. I saved a lot of hints to passwords in e-mail drafts to myself. Probably not the best or most secure way to do it, but anyway it's all gone now. Have no idea what my FAFSA pin is so it's going to be a pain applying for fin aid next year.

2.) Photos and vids from my bff's visit in October. I *always* save files from my camera to my external hd, no idea why I saved it to my desktop this time. :/ Lost a great photo of me at Pacific Beach in a bikini.

3.) Most importantly, I lost at least a third of the fic I wrote for Nanowrimo '07, and it was the best third! It was so good that I would periodically reread the ending of that fic and marvel at how well it turned out, and now it's gone. Including a really awesome sex scene *cough* ahem. I thought I'd saved it to my external hd, but when I went to look for it today it wasn't there, and the only copy that I e-mailed to myself for BUYND (back up your novel day) was at the 30k word mark just before things started to get good.

When I think of trying to rewrite it all, I know I would never be able to recapture the spirit. *sigh* Guess this means I'm going to have to retire it from the fanfic site where I'd been posting it.

In other news, I have a brand new factory sealed Toshiba Satellite L305-S5891 that I'm trying to sell for $500. My cousin was set to buy it but backed out at the last minute, so if I can sell it to someone I know rather than ebay it, that would be nice.

WHYOBAMA?!

Not Hilary for Secretary of State....! Noooooooooooooooo





In other news, my family is not celebrating Christmas this year.

I know it's a few weeks old, but I just found this in a facebook friend's posted items~!



Look, it's krispy_kream at 1:38!! ♥ Kyaaaaa~

Whoa, CNN works fast.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/08/same.sex.protests/index.html

I wanna see pictures of us, we were so cyuuuute~ :3

Come on, really?

1) Wake up to find that even though the gap is closing, Yes on Prop 8 is still in the lead.
2) International Politics midterm
3) Isn't going out for dinner or doing anything special tonight. Asked 2-1-2-2 if we could hang out, but he turned me down and said, "I've been really looking forward to making some curry, so I kinda want to go home and do that." Sorry. And, no, it wasn't a clever trick leading to a birthday surprise.
4) Roommate is gone, so... sitting in dorm room. Alone. On birthday.
5) Talked to best friend in Japan last night, hoping he would remember my birthday and say something. He didn't. Turns out he wasn't sure of the time difference and called me today~
6) Hard disk of my laptop just died in the midst of midterms. So far haven't been able to rescue ANYTHING, even when nerdily mounting the partition from Linux
7) ( Not going snowboarding for my bday after all =[ )

誕生日は一人で過ごす…なんて寂しいな><

If you're a California resident and haven't registered to vote yet, TOMORROW October 20th, is the last day to register to vote in time for the November 4 Elections.

Remember to fill in your registration card completely and have it postmarked or hand-delivered to your county elections office (such as the Office of the Los Angeles County Registrar in Norwalk, CA) by October 20th.

I don't want to interfere with church affairs, I just don't want others to interfere with our Constitutional rights to equality.

P.S. Remember, you can't vote NO on Prop 8, unless you're registered to vote!! XD

My friend singlebluenote linked me to this video essay, Vowellet. Apparently, the voice actress for Violet from The Incredibles is a cast member for NPR and a SUPER HISTORY GEEK--as in Abe Lincoln is her hero geekiness. Just watching her is random and kinda nerdy-awesome.



In other news: Aaron and I were at karaoke, and on my way back from the restroom I ran into tsuzusushi and chiharu_octavia in the next room, haha!

In other other news: My braces have stopped hurting and my teeth have been moving... BUT NOT FAST ENOUGH >:O

Natto is the breakfast of champions! I would eat it everyday if I could~


In other news, I'M GETTING MY BRACES TODAY! LIKE, LEAVING FOR IT.... NOW!

I think everyone needs to watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84YmMIjpM6o

One of my friends has entered a video contest, and the theme is "Nice Is Never Out of Style." Out of the many entries (now in the fifties!) only the top five videos with the highest number of views will be judged, so please check it out. If you have a youtube account, add it to your favorites, spread it around!!

This video is totally sweet, adorable, and will fill you with warm fuzzy feelings!  Love FTW



In other news: I'm hitting up IKEA tomorrow night for their college event, yay free stuff!

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OMFG, I messed everything up >< So my orthodontist said I had to get my four first bicuspids removed before I had my braces put in. When I went to the dentist to get my stitches from my wisdom teeth extraction taken out, they said they could pull my bicuspids that day and it would only take twenty minutes.

I was a total 'tard and panicked!! Not that I'm afraid of getting any more teeth removed. I mean, I survived the wisdom teeth extraction and bicuspids are nowhere near as difficult (they barely even bleed). BUT, I had no idea when my braces would be put in since I had to wait for the orthodontist to get my records in, and I really did not want to walk around in the meantime with four conspicuous gaps in my mouth... especially since I'm going back to San Jose later this week to visit my family and old friends!

Well, I got a call from the orthodontist today. My records came in, and they were ready to have my spacers put in TOMORROW and my braces NEXT WEEK ON THE 28TH!!! Except now have to wait until I get my bicuspids removed because they can't put in the spacers until a week after, and I couldn't make an appointment to see my dentist for the extraction until next week, the 27th!!

So, because I chickened out like a wuss, I just delayed all my dental work by three weeks ㅠ.ㅠ I'm so stupid!

Anyway, now I get my spacers put in on September 4th and my braces on the 12th