I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas! If you know me then you know that I’m not a religious person and identify myself as an Atheist/Agnostic. But I did have a Christian upbringing and attended private Catholic schools growing up, so I do say “Merry Christmas” and celebrate this religious holiday, with all that entails! As long as we’re all celebrating Peace on Earth, who cares if I’m the biggest hypocrite on it, right? *L*

I ordered both sets of Team Fortress 2 Christmas cards from the Valve Store and framed my favorites in a collage. I only intended to hang them during the holidays, but even after all our Christmas decorations have been packed away, I still have these on my wall. I just love them too much to take down and pack away for another year. They make me giggle whenever I look at them, whatever the season!

Thanks to everyone who sent me gifts, either IRL or on Steam. I will probably be spending 2010 playing all of them. *L* BTW, I don’t give gifts with an expectation of reciprocation. If you received a gift from me then don’t stress about returning the favor. I only wish I could have given out more during that crazy sale on Steam.

Poupee Girl is having its annual New Year’s event. This will mark two years of regular and continuous use of the site for me (one Snapshot every day) and quite frankly, I can’t believe it! I thought that I would have grown bored of playing with what amounts to vectorized kamikisekaeningyou (紙着せ替え人形) by now. But the cute doll clothing designs and the upload of real fashion items by other girls continues to keep me interested enough to login every day — even if it does make me feel a bit childish! =X

Poupee as a service has really grown and improved a lot since I first started using it two years ago. There is much more English language support, site navigation is easier, and there are more payment options for foreign users (who now outnumber the Japanese users that the site was originally directed towards). Poupee Girl is definitely making a lot of money from the Jewel system, if not all of its recent site advertisements and Dress Up item endorsements. I wish there was a way to invest in Pupe or Ameba.jp stocks, because they certainly would have outperformed my Sony and Toyota stocks this fiscal year! ww

Speaking of fashion, I got some cool stuff for Christmas that I plan to post in my next diary update, including some new Hunter wellies that I bought for myself and a wicked-looking Berserk necklace that I received from JoHny. I can’t wait to post the necklace — it is totally “JoHny style” cool and I love, love, LOVE Berserk!!

Whenever I tell Japanese players that I live in California, they always ask if I live in Hollywood, or San Francisco. I just tell them that I live “where there are more cows than people.” Well, here’s my proof!

The US Mint raided Liberty Dollar back in 2007 and I was curious to see what became of the case, so I looked it up on Google. I discovered that a federal grand jury only recently indicted LD (May 2009), but was more surprised by the amount of articles written by Liberty Dollar proponents that call the raid and indictment “unconstitutional.” One of these was Walt Thiessen, Libertarian, of NolanChart.com. Below is a quoted excerpt from his popular (among LD supporters) front page article, which makes the bold assertion that the Mint/Congress do not have an exclusive power to coin money, and that they acted outside the scope of their Powers under the Constitution by shutting down Liberty Dollar’s tax evasion minting operation.

If Thiessen had read the beginning of Section 8, rather than Clause 5 by itself, he would have seen that this is in fact a Power granted by the Constitution. If a Power is granted by the Constitution, then it is not delegated:

The first clause of Article I, Section 8 begins with “the Congress shall have Power” and ends with a semicolon. Semicolons are used to separate and connect clauses. The language of the wording requires that we keep reading beyond the semicolon, and what follows are Powers:

Political “blogs” remind me of the game Telephone that I used to play at slumber parties growing up. One girl starts a dialogue, but by the time it reaches the last girl, it barely resembles what it once was.

I bought this delicious lipgloss quartet from Urban Outfitters ages ago, but I still wanted to post them on my diary, because the cupcake containers are just too cute! Their designs mirror their flavors (raspberry cream tart, chocolate cream puff, etc.). I’ve used up one of them so far (strawberry cream tart) and still have no idea what I’m going to do with the empty containers. They’re just too adorable to throw away! *L* Maybe I could re-use them if I found a hard perfume to put inside? Anyone out there with some ideas?

I always look forward to reading the graffiti in new Left4Dead Campaigns. Reading the graffiti in Crash Course felt a bit too much like reading the Steampowered Forums, though. QQ

BTW, I really want to pre-order the new Poupee Girl DS game. ArGh!!