magealita's Xanga

Capital City Pet Nanny

Thu, 01 May 2008 04:36:57 GMT

Well I worked a week but never heard back on any sort of permanent position so I decided to start my own Pet Sitting Dog Walking business for Boise, ID. It's called Capital City Pet Nanny.

I registered the name and created a web site at www.capitalcitypetnanny.com . I'm not exactly a web site designer so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I am using the google web editor which is very limited, and I pay 10 dollars a year for web hosting. I designed the logo using logo works, but haven't decided yet if I want to fork over the 50 bucks to get print worthy proofs. I made simple business cards using vistaprint and sent out mailers as well. for relatively cheap. I haven't forked over the money yet for paid advertising online since well I don't want to target the entire U.S., just my little neighborhood really. If anything at least I am getting experience starting up and running a business. One of the best books out there for sole proprietors that I came across is Deduct IT! I also read in several books that it's just not a great idea to be a sole proprietor. But right now I have no assets, according to quicken I'm at a negative amount. Also I invested in liability insurance for pet sitters and dog walkers. I thought about getting a bigger car, but realistically speaking getting more deficit in my current situation is not a good idea even if it is an investment. I was originally considering taking dogs off leash, but the insurance I bought has a high 500 dollar deductible for anything that goes wrong if a dog is off leash. With the economy going haywire also doesn't make sense to get any car that consumes more gas per mile then my honda civic.

Daisy, one of my first customers.

Hailey, my oldest customer, she's 14 and loving it!

What is your daemon

Thu, 01 May 2008 04:21:11 GMT

Hounds Lounge

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:51:09 GMT

I just got a part time job working at a place called downtown hound. It's a doggie day care where busy people can drop off their dogs to socialize and play with other dogs. I've worked two days there so far and it's interesting to see the interaction of dogs where there are 40-50 of them in several large rooms. I brought my dog with me on the second day. Poor Jasper was terrified and kept jumping on me because he was jealous as well. Yes he's a spoiled dog who is used to being number one.

Well hopefully this job will expand to more hours and be a position where I can feel competent in. Cleaning kennels and mopping floors is a new thing for me lol. But watching dogs and spending time with them comes easy. I used to be a cat person until I got my puppy, and now I love them both. Even though I grew up with dogs, but they were always more attached to someone else. And I was always too busy with school and work to be around them. Now my work is to be around them.

Finally!

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:40:27 GMT

Well it's been two weeks since my birthday. Been holed up inside. Did get a new cat, his name is Jonas. I think he's napping in some corner at the moment.

Went to an interview for a receptionist position at Boise Art Museum . Crossing my fingers that it went well, and that my competition isn't so steep. They loved my shoes and my professional attire, so that's a plus! But my feet hurt, decided to go to the Foot Doctor finally. Turns out the reason my feet hurt is because I have ewww hammertoe and bunions. Also explains why I had so much pain trying to ski last year especially after adding a foot bed in which stretched my foot the wrong way causing severe arch pain. So today I was casted for orthotics so I can a. wear shoes and b. wear ski boots and hopefully have a less painful ski season. But the insurance company doesn't cover it, so I paid for it on my credit card. Soon my credit card will start taking over my life like a ball and chain, hope I can find work real soon so that I can start paying it off. I decided it would be easier/cheaper in the long run to get the orthotics vs dealing with crutches for 6 weeks after surgery. Well it could be that I was wearing the wrong kind of shoes shrug, but I really don't think so, I wear mostly sneakers or doc martens. But oh boy when I put those dress shoes on the other day, they even had rounded toe boxes, but didn't help since the foot was pushed downward, I felt like a cripple trying to walk. That I suppose is the biggest clue to get help from a foot doctor.

On top of this all also having the front of my house paved, it's going to look so nice, we had it dug up last year, but money is never an easy thing to come up with especially when the other half, me, is not working.

This is our yard from last summer i.e. summer of 006. This summer we put up a wall along where that orange paint is. And now its being filled in with concrete as we talk. Oh also have several steps outlined with pavers as well. It was a lengthy process, will be so nice to have it done. Now to work on the second bathroom.

Other news my brother is visiting for a month from Nov until dec or so. And we are going to see Tori Amos at the morrison center here in boise.

car back yay!

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:41:57 GMT

Yay! Got my car back! My honda is safe in my garage. It's been almost a week, it died when I came back from vacation. But it's home now. :)

Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:33:46 GMT

Well I came back last week from my week long vacation. Here are some pictures. The highlight though was seeing the King Tut exhibit in Philadelphia, over no cameras were allowed.

Alexandria, VA.. it was really humid that day, and overcast.

Jousting at the Maryland Renaissance Fesitval

My brother, the fop

My parent's yard, sooooo much greener then mine.

Me and the Liberty Bell

Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, everyone was here, people were sunbathing, it was like the beach of Philadelphia

cat gone.

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:35:21 GMT

Kyo the cat never came back. It's been a stressful last couple of weeks.

My boyfriend went on vacation to Montana, I didn't go, taking care of the dog, taking him for walks twice a day. Walking is nice. I suppose it's nice to just get out and not be too social. He sometimes gets to play with other puppies, but seems this morning everyone was all business, running with their dogs, no play time for dogs, doh!. Jasper was able to chase some birds, didn't catch any thank goodness.

I went and tried some iced starbucks coffee, um first of all it tasted horrible. And second of all I now have a terrible headache. Starbucks is like Nair for me, even if I continually have bad experiences I still keep going back for more. I do need my caffeine fix, and my coke zero wasn't cutting it. Any suggestions? Should I just start drinking red bull again? Though I heard that's a no-no when you have a heart murmur.

One of galen's coworkers found some kittens who need homes. I will see about checking them out once I get back from DC. This thursday going to visit my mom and the rest of my family, and head to Philadelphia to see the King Tut exhibit, and perhaps the Liberty Bell, and well just check out the city.

Missing...

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 21:29:51 GMT

My cat has gone missing. And my mom's sick with pneumonia. Eh hopefully we will find him. He's sorely missed right now. And I hope my mom gets better soon, she's never had pneumonia before. And it's definitely a miserable sickness.

used to....

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:13:06 GMT

I used to draw and write. At least I think I did. But now I don't. Think the creative inklings have been erradicated. Okay besides renting movies also been watching Hex. Yeah it's about sex, witchcraft, demons, angels and it takes place in a british manor which was transformed into a high school. Oh yeah and one of the main characters is a lesbian ghost, I sorta can understand sadly why it was cancelled after just two seasons. Too much material that people would find offensive. Or maybe just tooo weird of a story to follow. It does get bizarre. :)

sometimes

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:36:02 GMT

Sometimes a rare gem comes about when I rent stuff from Hollywood Video. This movie actually had me downright crying with laughter, and I can't remember the last movie that made me laugh like that. Perhaps it's usually japanese movies that make me laugh.



	Cha No Aji


	Katsuhito ISHII


	Tadanobu ASANO Maya BANNO Takahiro SATO Tatsuya GASHUIN Satomi TEZUKA Anna TSUCHIYA Tomokazu MIURA


	143 mins.

Who would've thought? After directing a now very passé looking self-consciously post-Tarantino crime comedy and a enormously annoying film about people screaming at each other, I wasn't particularly eager to see what Katsuhito Ishii would be taking on next. His self-chosen exile in animation already seemed to have become semi-permanent, particularly when he also contributed to the animation sequences of pal Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1.

But here he is, back again with a feature film that is a radical change from the throwaway superficiality of his earlier work. The Taste of Tea is a rather delightful look at the eccentricities hiding just beneath the calm surface of ordinary life, touching, funny, imaginative and pleasantly low-key. Even if it is a bit long.

Working from his own original screenplay for the first time, Ishii shows us the everyday goings-on of the Haruno family, a quintet (mom, dad, teenage son, little daughter and grandpa) living in a small countryside town north of Tokyo, expanded to a six-piece during the stay of their city slicker uncle Ayano (Asano). The eccentric grandpa (an artificially aged Gashuin, the pipsqueak hitman of Ishii's debut film Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl) is only the tip of the iceberg of the quirks that run in the family. Mother Yoshiko (Tezuka) is attempting to return to her old job as a cartoon animator by making a hand-drawn short at the dinner table, father Nobuo (Miura from A Tender Place) is a hypnosis therapist who occasionally practices on his own family, son Hajime (Sato) is a vat of raging hormones after the arrival of a pretty new classmate (half-American Tsuchiya, also seen in Kamikaze Girls), and daughter Sachiko is bothered at inopportune moments by her own giant-sized double, who hangs around sitting on buildings and staring at her.

Presenting a colourful collection of oddballs for main characters is a habit Ishii hasn't quite shaken off, but thankfully their foibles here are handled in a refreshingly offhand manner. In a languid, episodic story (there is little or nothing in the way of a plot) that works surprisingly well for most of the running time, we get to spend time with each member of this little contemporary tribe and how they go about achieving their personal goals, as well as take a few sidesteps to spotlight the activities of a number of peripheral characters.

It's this attention to individuals that mostly effectively marks out Ishii's third feature from his earlier work. The script of The Taste of Tea takes a magnifying glass-like approach, enlarging and ever so slightly distorting moments from everyday life that would normally pass unnoticed in the daily grind. The playful use of CGI complements this approach very well, with images like a commuter train emerging from Hajime's forehead, Sachiko's gargantuan double, and a planet-sized sunflower providing striking visual manifestations of the characters' inner worlds.

Not everything Ishii puts on screen works as well. The animation sequence is a bit too otaku-like to be credible as Yoshiko's creation, as well as coming off as indulgence on the director's part, and there are perhaps a few sidesteps too many, resulting in the aforementioned overlength. Although the proceedings are never less than pleasant, you do get the urge to tune out around the two-hour mark. Perhaps Ishii was trying to pull an Ozu with his 143-minute family chronicle - the title certainly tries to evoke the ambience - but he's not there quite yet.

A final nod must go to the fine performances (Asano just keeps getting better and better), not only in the lead roles but also in the numerous supporting parts, which are populated with cameos by famous faces, including the great Susumu Terajima, Gohatto's Shinji Takeda, SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, rising star Ryo Kase, sultry Party 7 and Antenna starlet Akemi Kobayashi, and Evangelion director Hideaki Anno.

The Taste of Tea certainly sheds new light and new promise on its director. In retrospect, perhaps Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl and Party 7 were necessary hurdles on the road to finding his own voice. If that's the case, then if Ishii can curb just those few remaining indulgences there should be some delightful works just beyond the horizon.

Eh sorry for the cut and paste. I did this on a board the other day. I don't know why I can't manage my own reviews. I feel like the creative tendencies have been entirely annihilated. Just finished watching Train Man, another japanese film. It was very cute, and sweet, and realistic. It's a movie about a super geeky otaku who finally thanks to support from an online chat/board room he gets the courage to call her, and go out to eat, and well it's an interesting and entertaining movie that gives hope to otakus who spend their time alone.