I've retyped my ill-fated and intensely belated birthday entry so many times I've lost count - but if I'm ever to wrap it up, I'd better do it before summer is over. stereophilic's birthday has been chronicled ages ago - and it was half a year after mine. *facepalm*

On Gaia, I am generally known as a kind of rabbit freak, a bunny addict, an obsessed collector of cute bunny peripherals. I'm not sure if I ever let slip that fact here, but let it be announced: I am weak against bunnies. If I had a totem animal that would probably be it, neurotic, highstrung, liable to kick it at any point of time. Turn back the clock to over half a year back - when my birthday arrived, I had no idea that she was planning a surprise. Of course, I was in the thick of several 10k-word essays then [one due on the day itself, no less], and I had no idea of anything, period. As it were, she had covertly planned a bunny bonanza - a bunntacular tsunami, if you will. A bunnificent opera in three acts.

Act I [Postcrossing and the Grand Poobah]



Her pet project last year and lately has been a steadily increasing stack of Postcrossing - from this we had learnt bunny cards are apparently rather hard to come by [WRY?!!?!?]. Totally unbeknownst to me, she abandoned her pride and prowled the swap forums, begging and trading to scour out these rare finds - as well as put out a call to arms on LJ that saw the unimitable catatonic_cats and her awesomely worshippable Grand Poobah send a veritable deluge of unbearable bunny cuteness (live photos far left). AUGH. Check out the ribbon action - is that not cute overload^TM?!!! Thanks, Lee - I don't deserve to even be in the photographic presence of the Grand Poobah! DX


Interlude i [Cake]



…Let's just call one 'Chocolate' and the other one 'Candy.' stereophilic had previously executed Chocolate and Candy for other nefarious purposes, and we decided they would go very well on my cake, yesssss… Well, they did, and they were indeed…delicious. Sweet Secrets, however, got the full force of stereophilic's wrath because they had obviously left the cake hanging around waiting for death for a few days, the print having faded from a former glory. I was not quite so fussed, it was still…delicious…


Act II [The Magnificence that is Cassiel]





If there was a land that could produce a shop dedicated solely to producing merchandise featuring cute bunnies, that land would be Japan. WHAL GUESS WHAT? Even more unbeknownst to me, she went scurrying off to beg help from kyashieru - who delivered oh-so-handsomely with PyonYa. Not only did she so deliver, out of the vast and unending kindness of her heart, she decided it would be peachy to send me a bunch of birthday bunniness herself. AAAUUAAGHH. Desk calendar with 12 months of different adorable-and-often-oddly-hilarious buns! A floating moon-candle kit for bun to hang off the side of a vessel and moonwatch! [Seriously, Japan, don't ever change.] And a surface-perching bun that, as evinced, has taken up permanent residence on my monitor. LOOK, the horribly addictive fun-filled block chocolate that we now crave in our darkest dreams, and BUNNY COOKIE CUTTER. ARGARGHGHGH. Oh, Cassiel, what have I ever done for you to be so good to me? XD Thank you so, so much.


Interlude ii [Scrunge and Her Prescient Thematism]



In the middle of all this deliberate bunness, it blew my mind that our dear scrunge had managed to slip in a thematic gift [along with a laser pointer that still drives Azri insane, heheheheh]. We had beseeched of her to help receive and send us a copy of Sam & Max Season 2, the 2nd season of the episodic adventure to which we are, well, pretty much addicted. Quite sneakily, she had additionally purchased and sent along the Season Case File - a little collection of in-game trinkets [the sort of merchandise I verily live for]. Check out the royal seal featuring the resident Killer Rabbit [okay, technically lagomorph] Max on the envelope! And that's to say nothing of the immense and wicked joy I gained from the items within. Let's just say that if you like adventure gaming and self-referential pop-cultural humour…well, you've probably already played Sam & Max. If not, you should? Thanks, Scrunge - you know how much of a pal you are. XD


Act III [I Gotta Leave Her Stuff Till Last Don't I]





And finally, of course, my darling stereophilic. She got me the two items she knew would be my favourites from the entire catalogue [and she knew they would be because after she confirmed her order with Cassiel, she blithely showed me the site with much prevarication [or at least, obfuscation] and checked my reaction, which seems like a kind of roundabout way to do things, but whatever works]. Scholar-bunny letter paper because - hey, it's a scholar-bunny, and this. This friggin' kimono-bunny organiser. This friggin' kimono-bunny. I…argh…I can't even…let's just leave it at, every time I look at it, I feel like throwing up because it's too much cute for my system to contemplate. I can't even fathom using it - what if I hurt it? Perish the thought! As if that weren't enough - and as if she hadn't, yannow, been in the thick of her exams, she'd long predrawn two…uh… *cough*…and sent them through the mail as postcards to complete her theme. Sending that through the mail? That takes guts. I wonder how the postman felt… And…uh…wow. I never knew they made Euro postcards. This is not exactly the appropriate venue for me to discuss my love for certain types of rabbits, so I'll leave all that at that, except to elucidate that I was at once suitably impressed and squeeful.

And so finally concludes the birthday post I've been working on since last November! Alas, it appears to be truly cursed because no sooner had I finished the introductory paragraph of the umpteenth draft last night did our internet connection go kaput - for the third time this year, but in a manner suitably different from the previous two outages that the techs still have no idea what's wrong with it when we call them. The last time something happened we lost all connection and cable for a whole week, which would've been a breeze in the early 90s probably BUT LEFT US CLAWING AT OUR EYES IN INFO-WITHDRAWAL.

This time we seem to occasionally be able to access a maimed version of certain sites, so if you're looking at this entry, LJ is one of them. Let's see…