TikiPrincess

I agree with Pinwillie. Tattoos are a form of expression, so you don't want some generic flash that you pick out from a picture on the wall or in a magazine. Always ask to see an artists portfolio or album of tattoos that he/she has personally done. The photo album should be of people, not patterns! You want to work with an artist to do something meaningful and unique, something personal. My cousin got one just after he enlisted, a little Calvin being electrocuted, and now, 10-12 years later, he's trying to figure out another tattoo to cover it up. Before you go to an artist, you have to have an idea of where you want it and how large it will be. Then comes the hard part of deciding what you want. That's where I'm stuck since I have a million different ideas and I'm trying to narrow them down so that the artist isn't bombarded with everything that I'm bringing to him. And remember that your tattooist is an artist, each one has a unique style. Most can do just about anything that you ask them to, but they're usually better at a certain style than another. For example, if you like color, then you want to work with someone who knows which colors to blend and shade to give the best effect. If you like black and white, you want someone who knows how to shade in a way that gives depth to the tattoo. Certain people are better at tribal tattoos than others because it requires precise lines and symmetry. There's this tattoo parlor in my neighborhood that has all this Asian decor, but there's an artist there that does amazing Aztec-inspired tattoos. Your tattoo should reflect you: your personality, your lifestyle, a meaningful or emotional event in your life. It makes for a much more interesting story than "I walked into a tattoo shop and picked this skull and bones from a book/off the wall" or "My best friend and I got the exact same tattoo in the exact same spot so we know we'll always be B.F.F.'s!"

Feel free to eat me. Just a little warning about messing with a tiki, remember what happened to Greg Brady. (Yeah, I had parents who loved to watch TVLand and stuff like that.) Welcome to the forums! Feel free to contradict yourself, use faulty logic, and make strange topics. Just try not to flame or post non-sequitur comments.

I think the whole point of WiiSports is that you don't need awesome graphics to have a really great game. Not only is the Wii interactive and physical, it's also a lot more personalized. One night, we didn't even play any games and spent the entire night just creating everyone's Mii. How often have devs put out a game with stunning graphics and crappy gameplay? In my view, CGI really doesn't count for much because what keeps me going back to a game isn't how pretty it looks, but how fun it is to play. Yeah, I might not play WiiSports all the time or do the training, but when I'm having a party or a get together, everyone wants to play and we all have fun with it.

Irrashaimasu! Welcome to the forums, eh! Obviously you're in the right place for a Japanophile, and I'm sure you'll feel right at home her in no time as long as you follow the rules and guidelines. As for being a Canadian, well, we'll see aboot it, eh?Since you're a D&D fan, did you happen to catch the little easter egg in Summoner on PS2? Or was it Summoner 2? I can't remember. Anyways, I think it's probably posted on YouTube or somewhere on the 'net if you haven't seen it.

My cousin is visiting the US from the Philippines for the first time, so I volunteered to show her around and stuff. The day after she arrived, I planned to take her to a local theme park since she likes roller coasters. We were kind of hungry in the morning, but didn't want a big breakfast, so I suggested that we run to the market and pick up some bagels from the bakery section because they were a little healthier than donuts. Her eyes got so big when we walked in. Unlike some of my other cousins, she's actually pretty well off. She lives in Metro Manila, has a maid and gets paid pretty well as a teacher working for an international school, so she can afford more than most. But she probably could have spent a few hours in the market looking at all the things we take for granted. She was amazed at the pre-packaged sandwiches, the whipped cream that she could only get at a specialty store, and she was completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff. When I asked her what kinds of things to bring to the Philippines, she said to bring Tylenol since it's not available, I could only buy tampons at the PX (an American military store), and the peanut butter is very different.I have visited other countries, but just as a tourist. I never had a craving for something from back home since I was so interested in experiencing the food and culture of the country that I was living in. But seeing my country through her eyes made me realize how America is different from many other countries. We are a consumerist culture and we've become accustomed to intant gratification. I complain that polenta isn't available at my local supermarket and I have to drive 20 minutes to Trader Joe's or a specialty Italian market when I could simply use cornmeal instead. We Californians are perhaps the most spoiled of all since so many fruits and vegetables are grown locally, so they're readily available at the store or a farmers market and they taste fresh and ripe. My friend went to school in Pennsylvania and begged her sister to send her avocados since she couldn't find them at her local market. I never really thought of myself as lucky to have all of these things just around the corner from me, and I took it all for granted until last week. Of course, I'll probably go back to taking it for granted, but for now, I'm thankful that I live here and happy to have such a plethora of goods and services from all over the world available to me in an instant.

I remember analyzing this after reading "The Half-Blood Prince." Three have been obviously identified as the locket, the ring and the diary, leaving three others and Voldemort himself. Dumbledore seems to think that Nagini is one of them, which is entirely possible as I'll discuss later, probably the cup from Helga Hufflepuff, leaving one other. I believe the last one is most certainly Harry. 1) There have been several instances where Dumbledore suggests that some of Voldemort's powers have transferred to Harry, i.e. the ability to speak in Parseltoungue. 2) When Harry had dreams about Voldemort in "The Order of the Phoenix," they were from the point of Nagini, pointing to a shared bond between them, possibly the fragments of Voldemort's soul. 3) Voldemort's intention was to kill Harry, not to make him into a horcrux, why else would Harry have seen the flash of green light from the Avada Kedavra? He could use inanimate objects, but he wouldn't want to put his soul into a dead person. I guess he could have pulled out a bone or something like that, but it just seems silly to me. I think that either his failed attempt to kill Harry accidentally transferred his soul into Harry or he performed the ceremony after he failed to kill Harry. So that's my hypothesis!

When I was a little girl, I got chased all the way home by a little Scottish Terrier, so I've really never been a big fan of the little dogs. My parents didn't want the responsibility of taking care of any animals other than the goldfish we'd win at the fair, but a stray cat birthed her litter behind our garage, so we kind of adopted them. Not that we really fed them everyday or let them come in the house, we just gave them food every once in awhile or put out saucers of milk sometimes. The kittens would let us pet them and we made little toys for them. I think my mom and I tried telling my dad to let us get them spayed and neutered, but he didn't want to pay for it, so one of the kittens grew up to have a few litters in our backyard and my dad wouldn't let us feed them anymore.But now my heart belongs to my lovable, cuddly, pretty little pit bull. Like most people, I was a little hesitant when my husband came home and said that he wanted to adopt a pit bull even though our neighbor from our previous home had a wonderful pit bull that we would play with and pet sit on occasion. But he was 150 lbs and didn't play well with other dogs. He was extremely friendly to most people, and he mostly just watched and growled at people that he didn't like. Still, I wasn't sure that I wanted to deal with a dog like that since he could be so tempermental sometimes and weighed at least 30 lbs more. We made the best decision of our lives when we adopted our pit bull, Arizona. Since she's a female, she only weighs about 50 lbs, although it can seem like more when she would go tearing off after a squirrel. Thanks to our training sessions and the Gentle Leader, she's much easier to control. And she loves to just cuddle, snuggling in between my husband and I when it's cold. Sometimes she's needy when we've been gone most of the day and she'll follow us around the house, but for the most part, she's pretty content to just lie there next to us. And she's always happy to receive attention when we give it to her, unlike cats which mostly only accept attention on their terms, not yours. So yeah, I'm definitely a dog person. Or at least, I'm a fan of medium and large dogs. I still can't stand yappy little dogs like Chihuahas... and Scottish terriers (shudders).

Ahhh, my poor brain, Mich! Fortunately, I've been subjected to LEET speak and NOOB. I think I'm finally capable of TXT, but definitely not fluent.But back to the topic at hand, I remember reading some article about how deja vu is actually just a glitch in our memory processor. Things are transferring from our short-term memory to our long-term memory and our brain kinda forgets for a second, so it's like we're see something all over again. However, I've woken up from dreams and gone about my day only to have the events in the dream happen in real life as far as a year later. I know that it's not some memory glitch because I would write about the dream in a journal and go back to it when the event happens to check the date and everything. Not saying I'm psychic or anything, I just think that when we sleep, our minds are much more open and sometimes our conscious mind taps into the subconscious mind. Considering that we only actively use 10% of our brain, there's a lot of stuff going on in that subconscious that we have no control over or even any idea of what it's possible of doing. Those people with great intuition, whether you call them psychics or something else, may simply be able to tap into their brains more than the average person.

I tried to be a vegetarian after I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation the same semester. It wasn't necessarily about the poor animals, though it is really sad, it was more about the unsanitary conditions at the meat-packing plants and the suppliers for the fast food industry. Unfortunately, we've learned that our supermarkets and grocery stores aren't terribly safe either. I finally went back to meat because it's what my body craved and I just didn't have the strength to get through the cravings. My sister-in-law is a vegetarian and has been for over 10 years now. While she was pregnant and nursing, she did crave tuna every once in awhile, so she ate it because she figured that's what the baby needed at the moment. She went back to being vegetarian before her daughter had her first birthday. The problem is that she eats crap. She doesn't really cook for herself and she's not terribly fond of salads. She mostly eats spaghetti and bean burritos. Her best friend is a vegan, meaning no animal products whatsoever. She has to take dietary supplements to get all of the nutrition that her body needs, despite eating a rich and diverse diet. She even had a vegan cake at her wedding, with no butter in either the cake or the frosting. My friend's fiance grew up as a vegetarian because his parents didn't eat meat. When he was finally on his own in college, he ate like the rest of the omnivores and actually enjoyed meat. But he developed a rare arthritis condition, so he can't eat most meats anymore. He can still eat seafood, but there's something in meat, poultry and pork that makes his arthritis flare up.

Ahhh, the on-going debate about carbs. When I was growing up, the USDA food pyramid said that the bulk of our diet should be grains and breads while consuming meat should be kept at a minimum. Of course, the rate of obesity has steadily increased over the years and the number of weight-related illnesses and deaths has caused concern for many. I can't really blame the food pyramid for that one, though, since I believe that all of this is due to America's fast food addiction and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Here's the thing about carbs: there are two major types, simple and complex. Simple carbs, like potatoes and white rice, quickly turn into glucose, or sugar. Glucose is your body's fuel or energy source. So if you're exercising regularly, you use up the glucose. If you aren't, then the glucose stores that energy as fat. Complex carbs, like whole grains and oats, take longer to digest, so the process is slower. Many of these foods also have a large amount of fiber, which helps clean out the system. Protein is used by your body to create and repair muscle tissue, but it can also be used to create some energy. It's harder for the body to access and it tires your muscles out. It also creates a byproduct that eventually becomes your urine. By eating complex carb and daily exercise, even just 30 minutes a day, you should be able to maintain a strong, healthy body. You don't even have to walk all at once, you can space it out over the day. Maybe walk 10 min in the morning, 10 more at lunch, and 10 more in the evening before you eat. Or you can do 20 minutes of something more strenuous, like going up stairs, jogging, aerobics, etc. Hope this helps!

Sorry, I had to do a double take at that one! When my friends and I make guacamole, that's the first thing to run out, even before salsa and way before any other dip. I also love butternut squash and lemon tarts which are both very pretty yellow colors. And let's not forget the incredible, edible egg! Scrambled, sunny-side up, hard-boiled, as an omlette or as quiche, it's yellow and quite yummy. And who doesn't love corn? Corn on the cob, popcorn, creamed corn, cornbread, I could go on and on! I remember a news article that said something about eating a variety of colors in food is healthy since the colors show the presence of different amino acids or something like that. So get out those mixed vegetables with a healthy dose of orange carrots, yellow corn and green beans! Anyways, I was thinking someone should do an experiment and put the same amount of food on a small plate and a large plate and see what the difference is. Maybe do something generic like ice cream. Actually, scratch that. I would finish ice cream no matter how much is on the plate or even how big the plate is.

Over the past eight years, I've cut my hair five times and donated it to Locks of Love. It's great for me because my hair grows pretty fast and I never do anything special with it anyways, like highlight or perm it. I also get a free haircut since my stylist loves the fact that I'm doing something charitable. She even refuses to take my tip and always gives it back to me. At first I donated because I wanted to do something since I didn't weigh enough to donate blood. This didn't take a whole lot of effort and I didn't have to call or knock on doors to raise money, but after watching three aunts pass away from cancer, it took on much more meaning. It's still easy and effortless to grow out my hair, but I try to raise awareness of Locks of Love every time I cut it or get compliments on my long hair. My father-in-law is doing a 50 mile walk this year to raise money and awareness of Multiple Sclerosis. His friend's sister, actually my stylist, has lived with MS for most of her adult life. Now that he's retired, he figures that he has the time to train and contribute more than just monetarily. Yes, there a bit of a shameless plug in there, but I really do want to know what cause or charity everyone else is involved in.

After reading your stories, I really need to share mine, which my husband and I have entitled "The Incredible Exploding Pot."One of the ways to melt chocolate is to cook it on a double boiler, meaning that you pour some water in the bottom pot so that the top on gets the heat off the boiling water and won't burn or, at least, not as quickly. I didn't have a double boiler, so I just found another pot that fit snuggly on top. I got tired after whipping up a couple batches of brownies, so I just left the pots on the stove to clean up later. The thing about metal is that it expands when hot and contracts when it cools, so the pots, needless to say, got stuck together because the bottom pot contracted more quickly than the top. I tried to pry them apart by hand, poured warm water over the seam, tried heating the bottom one back up, all with the same result - still stuck. I finally remembered that little science lesson and decided to throw some cold water into the top pot while the bottom pot was boiling. And it worked! About five seconds later, the top pot rockets through the air with a bang, showering the kitchen with lukewarm, chocolatey water and clatters to the floor, with only a slight bubble on the bottom as a reminder of my mishap.

Meh, you can just build up characters on any MMORPG and sell them on e-bay. If you're good enough, you can get your WoW character to lvl 60 in a few days then sell it. At least that's what my cousin did. I refuse to play because I have a habit of getting addicted to games and I really do need sleep once in awhile.

Thank you very much for sharing such a personal side of yourself. Growing up in the world in this day and age is hard, especially for girls. I remember sitting in the lunch room with all my friends, discussing all the different ways to commit suicide, and our obsession with death. I recently read Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher, which I encourage everyone to read, not just women. Though I'm in my late 20s now, I can still remember my 'tween and teen years as vividly as if they were yesterday. This book made me realize that I wasn't alone in my suffering, that there are people out there who understand me and my pain, and, most of all, it helped me heal. I know that those things are hard to believe right now while you are in the middle of the experience, but as someone who made it through to the other side of that dark, lonely place, I can tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you can make it through. If Reviving Ophelia seems to dry, though I honestly couldn't put it down even to cry, there's another book called Ophelia Speaks by Sara Shandler. She read Pipher's book while she was in high school and realized that while Pipher understood adolescent girls, she was still an outsider speaking for them. So Shandler went around compiling essays, poems, stories, commentaries and interviews with other girls her age, so that Ophelia could speak for herself and share her experiences with others who might be feeling the same way.

I think my sixth sense is my ability to spot misspellings, typos, and grammatical errors. My superpower is my need to fix them all! Heeheee. I'll get you my pretty, and you're little dog too! j/k, but as a future English teacher, I rue the day spell check was invented

My parents never actually took the time to teach me how to cook since they were both working. As a child we would go to the market and pick out our microwave meals for the week. I still really like the Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese, but thank goodness I've learned to cook since then. I kinda started taking an interest in cooking in high school, mostly baking stuff out of boxes and messing with it, like adding mint to the brownie mix or stuff like that. Then I moved to cooking on the range, then in the oven. I'm okay with baking everything but yeast breads because I just can't get the dough to rise properly. I just made a fresh apricot cobbler from scratch last night! I even blanched the apricots to skin them, which honestly took forever and a day, but there were so many falling off the tree. Oh, I'm also not too good with pastries or pies that require a flaky crust. I think I'd be ok if I just had the right tools, like a proofer or even a stand-mixer. Doing everything by hand may be the old-fashioned way, but those inventions were made for a reason! I like to get ideas for recipes on Allrecipes.com. I'll usually follow directions to the best of my ability the first time, then play with it after that. Like the awesomely easy slow cooker pot roast that makes its own gravy complete with potatoes, carrots, and celery. We still order pizza once in awhile, and my husband eats Hot Pockets when I decide to have leftovers for dinner, but I almost never eat at fast food anymore and only occasionally eat at casual dining places like Applebee's and Chili's.

I recently picked up the econo-case of Nissin's Chicken flavored Top Ramen at Costco. I know that it isn't the best brand out there, but it's the most economical. I'm trying to stretch my dollars as much as possible right now, which is why I love Xisto. I figured that there are probably a lot of you out there who've had to make a meal from a package of ramen, and I wondered how many different ways there are to make ramen since I have soooo much of it.I usually soak the noodles until they loosen up and separate, then I fry them up with a little sesame oil, soy sauce, and a little sprinkle from the flavor packet. If I have veggies or meat, I'll add that as well. It's especially good with green onions and minced garlic. Of course, I don't add flavoring if I'm using beef or shrimp instead of chicken.So how do you cook your Ramen?

I read "Memoirs of a Geisha" on Monday. I have this thing about not being able to watch a movie based on a book that I've already read. I can't stand the "Harry Potter" movies because I devour the books when they come out, even though I know that the movie's going to be made. Interestingly enough, it doesn't seem to work the other way. I can watch a movie, then read the book and enjoy them equally even if there are differences. "The Princess Bride" is my all-time favorite movie, but I didn't read the book until a few years after I first fell in love with the movie. I loved the book and the Pit of Despair is so much more interesting than the movie, but it doesn't detract from my love for the movie. Same thing with "Memoirs of a Geisha," I enjoyed both the movie without feeling disappointed or cheated because it wasn't faithful to the book.

I am currently in the process of attaining my teaching credential in California, so I'm taking a course on Teaching Strategies. Last night we watched a video that really opened our eyes to the difficulties that Learning Disabled students face. Though "How Difficult Can This Be: The F.A.T. City Workshop" is obviously dated, gotta love those enormous 80s shoulder pads, the ideas and methods that Rick Lavoie demonstrated still pertain today and are, unfortunately, not implemented as widely or as thoroughly as they should be. The F stands for frustration, A for anxiety, and T for tension.Rather than straight lecture, the workshop requires the participants to immerse themselves in a classroom simulation, taking on the role of a child with a learning disability. He says that if they don't want to role play or get invovled, that's too bad because learning disabled students don't get a choice whether they want to be in the classroom. He then went on to teach a lesson, shooting questions at a rapid-fire pace, questions that would be simple if given the time or a less hostile environment. The participants were all adults, including educators, counselors, parents, even an engineer. You would expect them to be able to respond, but within 6 minutes of the simulation, they began showing signs of shutting down.I won't go into the rest of the video since nothing I say would be as powerful as seeing it, and I urge everyone to watch it. My husband was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child. Even though they had a name for his disability, no one at his school knew how to deal with it. This was the age before the world wide web, and information wasn't so readily available and accessible. So he grew up thinking that he was stupid and couldn't do anything about it, knowing that it wasn't his fault. His self-esteem has taken such a beating, especially growing up with a sister who is academically gifted and doesn't have to try for straight A's. Watching this video made me realize what he might have gone through and how difficult it must have been. So check your local library or nearest college for Rick Lavoie's "How Difficult Can This Be: The F.A.T. City Workshop."

Japan, hands down.For some reason, I've always been fascinated by Japan and it's complex dichotomy of old traditions and trendsetting culture. When I was in high school, I desperately wanted to take Japanese as my foreign language, but it wasn't offered. I finally got my wish when I went to college and studied for three semesters, but I had to discontinue because I couldn't stand the departement chair who was the only teacher for the advanced intermediate and advanced courses. Even though she was born and lived in Japan, she had spent over 20 years living in the US and wasn't as precise and fluent as some of the other teachers because she spent most of her day speaking in English. Plus, she really didn't teach very well, so I didn't learn as much from her as I had my other two teachers. But since she was the most senior professor in the department, she gets to be the chairperson. Sorry about the rant....Anyways, I would love to go to Japan and see cherry blossoms, Mt. Fuji, sumo wrestling, Hokkaido, Kyoto, Tokyo, and all of it. I even though of applying to the JET Programme so I could spend a year there, but I decided that I couldn't leave my husband or my dog for that long.

Traditionally, I should greet you with a lei and an "Aloha," but since we're online and I'm not really Polynesian, I guess it's not really necessary. I chose this moniker because I enjoy everything Tiki and Princess sounds a little less narcissistic than Goddess, which would be the natural companion to Tiki God. I'm basically looking for an area to host my family's website, but I wanted something that included forums because I absolutely love forums, and I heard rave reviews about Xisto. The problem is that I'm such a newbie. I really know very little about design, layout, etc. though I do know how to set up, admin, and moderate forums on Invision or PhpBB because I ran a few when I used to play an online game. Even being comfortable and familiar with those, however, they were extremely basic, just a change in the skin from a pre-fabricated CSS code that I found on a support/hack site. I've never actually written my own code or tried installing any of the mods available because I was so afraid that I would mess everything up.I really like this concept, but I'm kinda worried because I'll be visiting the Philippines for two weeks next year and may not have access to a computer. I know that I can buy credits, actually webhosting, but what if I've built enough credits to not log in over those two weeks? Everything that I've read says that I absolutely have to log in within one week and post within two weeks, so I'm assuming there aren't any exceptions to the rule. I really like the idea of free, but I guess paying $10 really isn't that big of an issue.Anyways, I'm really glad to be here. I'm a total forum junkie, so you can expect to see more of me. Especially when I'm pleading for help when I can't figure out how to put the doohickey in the thingamabobber. So please take pity on this poor soul and don't laugh too much when I get all confused about .html and such.

I have both systems, and I think that it really depends on what you're mood and the games available. While the XBox 360 has stunning graphics and, of course, Halo, it's really more suited for one or two players. Despite the capability to do online gaming, it's still mostly just one person interfacing with the screen. The Wii, on the other hand, is much more interactive and is definitely much more of a "party" console. From the popular Wii Sports to it's less entertaining cousin Wii Play, my friends have much more fun "physically" competing against each other than they do with the racing and shooter games than they do on other consoles. Wario's Smooth Moves allows you to have up to 12 players using a single controller! The only other "party" games that could possibly compete would be Dance Dance Revolution, which my friends really aren't interested in, and Guitar Hero, which I really suck at. Each of those, however, require bulky accessories whereas the Wii remotes are small and easy to tote around. When you want to just kick back and relax after a long day of work, though, playing the Wii is the last thing you want to do. True, you don't have to be as physical when you play, and there are other, non-interactive games made for the Wii as well as the GameCube library, but sometimes, you just want to sit and destroy all of San Andreas. Nintendo has done a lot to change it's image as a "kid's" console, but mature games are less available than on other consoles. So I think both consoles have advantages and disadvantages. Just buy them both and stop debating about which one is better. Just a side note: I think it's absolutely hilarious that the PS3 wasn't even up for consideration!