Everything is right with the world.

[KathleenJ]

Things be going my way!

I finally got my university acceptance letter, the real estate lady came through with a dream place that's almost too good to be true, I'm totally in love, and to top it all off I actually found some frozen vegetarian egg rolls that don't suck.
Hoo-ha!
This looks like a job for...AN EMOTICON! ->

[Justinpie]

I wonder what vegan egg rolls are make of. Cause, ya know, no egg.

Once upon a time, a Demon captured a wide-eyed young princess and trapped her in his castle - not so she would marry him or anything, he was just a big dick. Anyway, she was very sad. . One day, a hero decided to quest to the faraway castle, defeat the demon and rescue the princes .

He started merrily on his way, but soon became lost in the Forest of Endless Repeating Scenery Like in Some Cheap Video Game and was puzzled . He fought his way through the trees, and some Other Hazards too chilling and time consuming to mention, and finally made it to the Demon's castle, As he confronted the Demon , the hero kept his cool 8) . Then he looked up to the Heavens and shouted some sort of prayer to the applicable deity of your choosing, and the demon was felled. Then the princess kissed the hero and they like got married or something. And there was a considerable amount of gold involved for some reason, which the hero smelted to make some nice dishes and stuff for when guests stopped by.

FIN

[KathleenJ]

I like! Best emoticon fairy tale ever!
And now, the sequel.

Now, it so happened that the hero and the abnormally wide eyed princess had a baby, and because of all the gold-smelting fumes his mother had been inadverantly inhaling and absorbing through her eye sockets the child was born with a bizarre birth defect where her skin changed color from yellow to pink at the rate of roughly sixty times a minute. Her mother was appalled . Her father was only slightly less jovial .
This pink flashing baby did not go over well in the Kingdom of Brightyellowness . Princess Junior was made fun of by all the other kids , which made her sad . Alas, one summer weekend when her parents were away on vacation 8) , the townspeople kidnapped PJ and exiled her into the Forest of Endless Repeating Scenery, never to return.
PJ sat in the forest weeping and looking to heaven for help. But it just so happened that her pink flashing , which had become irregular , spelled out the hidden morse code incantation to release the Demon again, in a more powerful form. The Demon was grateful, and more than happy to comply with PJ's sobbing request to smite the entire town with an unholy firestorm.
When her parents got home, they were understandably annoyed.
"I'm not mad " said Hero , "I'm disappointed ". Then he brought in a Wizard , who cast a powerful magic spell. PJ became that little person on the flashing "WALK/DON'T WALK" traffic light, and the Demon became the red hand that tells you not to walk. Both are trapped there, and can only be awakened and restored to their normal forms by Love's First Kiss.
finito

[KathleenJ]

Wow, that turned out pretty long, and just LOOKING at it is making me dizzy and annoyed!

[ZOMBIE USER 6185]

Seriously guys, I'm saying this as a friend and as a fellow artist.

Put down the emoticons and step away from the computer nice and slowly.

[Justinpie]

but..but.. how will we express ourselves?! We'll have to start wearing feather boas and stuff!

[KathleenJ]

I think you've already taken a step in that direction with that moustache thing you've got going on!
Aw, but without emoticons, how will we express complex emotions like "happy" , and "winking" , and "I Am Satan" ?
SIDEBAR! You guys with those Talk About Comics brand forums also have a HAPPY devil available!
...In other news, two of the things that were right with the world as I mentioned before, school and living place, have now crashed to the ground in a spectacular flaming display of crapitude. Not unsolvable crapitude, but crap nonetheless.
But love and egg rolls remain! ^_^
(although technically the egg rolls are gone, but I could buy more if I wanted.)
I think it's just late and I'm rambling.

[Al_fayyed]

With my law school process, the same thing happens. People on the other end of the phone keep saying "everything's in order, sir," until I get an e-mail or a letter saying YOU HAVE NOT RESPONDED TO US OR PAID US MONEY WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU. At which point, it becomes a scramble to write checks, mail things, and desperately call people asking them to secure my loan, ensure that I'm living in the sweet, sweet student housing, etc. I'm now on the third mini-crisis. School starts in less than a month. There is the potential for much suffering, and I haven't even gotten through fear and hate first.

But my emoticon never has to worry about finding matching sunglasses. 8)

- Akhmed

[KathleenJ]

Warning: Rant Ahead.
My first trouble was that it took these sumbitches until late July to even send me an acceptance letter...I wasn't worried that I wouldn't get in, I had the marks from my two first years of college. It was just irritating it took so long. Anyway, so, I FINALLY get my stuff in the mail, and I call mister RoboRegistar Touch Tone Phone Android to register for my classes, and gosh darn it, it tells me all but one of the classes I need for my major are FULL. And I'm supposed to have priority because I'm an honors student majoring in the subject and all, but the robot cares not for hu-man concepts like that. And so far I haven't been able to contact an actual person who has better advice than "wait until August when other people get kicked out for not paying". And of course none of these people say they're the right person to talk to...they send me off on some wild goose chase for someone else. I'm supposed to talk to the Department of Art and Design, which might as well be located on the moon. I've tried two different phone numbers for it - one was just an infinite busy signal, and one was just an infinite ringing phone.
And I'm not even going to START on the housing thing.
But I'm surprised at how calm I am, with only a month to go. It's like I've gone through those stages of grief, from anger to denial to fear to bargaining to ...acceptance. Now I'm just kind of thinking things will work out somehow. I mean, I still have to set things straight with the school, but I'm not panicking.

[Justinpie]

I think the technical order is:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

I think I'm a perpetual stare of either acceptance or denial, though I'm never sure of which from day to day.

Can you talk the the A&D dept by phone, Kat, or do you have to actually commute there?

[KathleenJ]

I think I can by phone, but I might end up going there too.
Heh, I go through all those stages in any given day. Being me is a wacky emotional roller coaster!