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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:02 am
Liamh's Quest... for a leafy situationQuestor Information Username: starcrosser Mule SN's: Liamh Doradan IoDM Newbie? (Y/N): Yep! Serum: Serum 58 - Kudzu Vine CODE for your quest banner(s): ~Contents~ Post the First: Quest Info Post the Second: Meet Liamh! Third Post: History Fourth Post: Blueprints Fifth Post: Art! Sixth Post: Funds $$$ Seventh: News, etc, reserved.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:03 am
About Liamh... Name: Liamh Doradan Age: 23 Gender: Male Birthday: November 18th Nationality: American Height: 5’11” Build: Lean, bordering on skinny (twig, beanpole, scarecrow), but with a little bit of definition. Eyes: Hazel Hair: Pale sandy blonde. Perpetual bed-head, likely hasn’t seen a brush in three years. (Get it wet, shake it around, run your hand over it, and go!) General Appearance: Lean and lanky, his form seems to defy the large amounts of junk food he ingests. Maybe it ends up in a separate dimensional pocket, and when he finally overloads it, he’ll simply implode. His pale complexion would be pasty white, except having a laptop+wireless usually lets him run around outside while still being connected to Teh Intarwebs. He usually wears old jeans or shorts and a collection of Geek-couture t-shirts that he packed, long coat for rain, and swankier “going out clothes” (Since this is a resort, right? …Right…?). And a horrible loud Hawaiian shirt. His usually disheveled hair and clothes give him a cheerfully unkempt but clean-cut demeanor, though on occasion he’ll put more energy into looking vaguely stylish. Occupation: Employee of Procyon Information Technologies (referring to the star, not the mammal family ;3). His official title on paper is Data Security and Encryption Specialist; most people see him as a hacker/antihacker on payroll. He sets up and debugs network security protocols – the unglitcher of glitches! Likes: The internet, comics and anime, arcade games, strong black tea, 70’s sci-fi TV shows, hackysack, foosball. Really awful junk food and combinations thereof. His ipod (“Mini-Me”) and his laptop (“Claire”). People, helping people, hanging around with people, and people who are not arrogant and self-serving. Making a fool of himself. Dislikes: Healthy food and/or trying to cook anything that involves more than a microwave, being disconnected from Teh Intarwebs, people who are arrogant and self-serving. Seeing anyone else get hurt, physically or emotionally. Personality: Very perceptive, especially about people – though not always about what’s going on around him. Usually cheerful, with a wry sense of humor, likes to put people at ease or lighten a mood. Jokes a lot, laughs a lot. When by himself, he tries to keep his mind occupied or it tends to wander. ( Who named our planet Dirt? What if no one officially named it? Maybe it doesn’t have a real name... Hocrap, what planet am I on...?) He’ll usually try to avoid physical confrontation, being something of a weakling anyway, though he can and will take a surprising amount of abuse for someone else. If it’s his own skin, the answer’s simple: RUN like a maniac!
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:08 am
Ye Olde History In the beginning... Liamh’s family tended to move a lot, generally because both his father’s work as a charter pilot and his mother’s as a property manager demanded a degree of mobility. Inheriting his mother’s gregarious nature even at an early age, he never found it hard to make friends – yet because he was always ‘the new kid’, he always felt a step behind the rest. At the age of seven, his mother and father separated, and then divorced. The boy was never entirely sure why, but knew they hadn’t been seeing much of each other and had fought when they did. Devastated, Liamh became more soft spoken and withdrawn, but kept up his cheerful demeanor for his mother. He felt the weight of responsibility on his young shoulders to keep her from depression, and in time, they both could laugh again.
His mother married again when he was twelve, to a computer analyst, and settled down to a little more stable life. Looking to bond with the boy, his stepfather introduced him to computers, not expecting him to take to them so quickly – Liamh soon learned the basic workings and could code simple programs. To him, it was a toy that kept growing, with new puzzles and new challenges. His stepfather brought home various programs and old equipment to play with.
Before too long, two younger half-siblings were born, but Liamh had already found a way to escape the chaos of the new family... if he could just keep the twerps out of his room! However, he found that he quite liked the role of older brother, and was soon running around with them and telling them all sorts of preposterous brotherly lies that they, of course, believed with wide eyes.
And so it goes, By high school, Liamh had embraced the way of the computer geek. He seemed to be able to transition easily between entertaining his friends and classmates by day and delving into the rapidly expanding world of the internet by night, neither of which benefited his schoolwork. Fortunately, he was bright enough to scrape by academically without trying too hard, a fact which exasperated his teachers and parents alike. In college, he studied computer sciences; here he put in his efforts and was able to shine – he received an offer of internship from an IT firm before he graduated, though he was fairly sure it was more because of his exploits in digital trespassing than his academic performance.
Working for Procyon Information Technologies was, at first, as boring as any internship ought to be – aside from the complimentary foosball – but once he was hired on fully he was put to work in earnest. After a while, they began flying him out to other sites to work on systems. He hadn’t flown since his father’s death - a piloting accident several years back - so he was justifiably nervous for a while, but promised himself he would face down each flight as a memory of his dad. And the shot of alcohol beforehand certainly helped the nerves. It became routine, after a while. Fly somewhere across the country, work for a few days or a week on something, fly back. Visit his family. Repeat in a few weeks. Once again, he found himself on the move a lot with little time for socializing, but the world wide web was never far away and he enjoyed the travel.
Yet, despite the new sights and good work, he still longed for new challenges, for testing himself against systems that weren’t part of a routine checkup. Feeling lethargic and unmotivated at work for months, he began spending his nights wandering aimlessly through cyberspace, delving into what systems he could find just for the contrariness of being where he wasn’t supposed to be. It seemed to sate his wanderlust, and he was able to throw himself back into his work, if a little sleep deprived. It wasn’t long after that, that he received word from his superiors that a company had requested his services for a few weeks to set up some new system security – and the best part was, the site was on a safari-themed tropical resort island... Needless to say, he jumped at the chance.
The Island... [/ewanmcgregor] He was a little surprised on arrival when he was informed that the setup of the systems was going to be delayed – possibly longer than the duration of his stay there, but they would put him up for free at the resort anyway until then. Not put out in the slightest, he wasn’t going to turn his nose up at a few weeks of completely paid vacation on a tropical island resort. Kick back on the beach, drink plenty of beverages with the little paper umbrellas in them, finally get a tan for once, watch the resort hosts in their safari-animal themed costumes. Yes, this was going to be a good vacation indeed...
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:13 am
Today the Yard - Tomorrow, the WorldThe Kudzu Vine  Kudzu ( Pueraria lobata), is one of about 20 species in the genus Pueraria in the pea family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. It is native to southern Japan and southeast China in eastern Asia. The name comes from the Japanese word meaning vine. The other species of Pueraria occur in southeast Asia, further south. It is a climbing, woody or semi-woody, perennial vine capable of reaching heights of 66-98 ft in trees, but also scrambles extensively over lower vegetation. The leaves are deciduous, alternate and compound, with a leaf stem 4–8 in long. The leaflets may be entire or deeply 2–3 lobed. The flowers are borne in long panicles about 4–10 in long with about 30–80 individual blooms at nodes on the stems (see image). Each flower is about 0.4–0.6 in long, purple, highly fragrant. The flowers are copious nectar producers and are visited by many species of insects, including bees, butterflies and moths. Flowering occurs in late summer and is soon followed by production of brown, hairy, flattened, seed pods, each of which contains three to ten hard seeds. Once established, kudzu plants grow rapidly, extending as much as 60 ft per season at a rate of about 12 in per day. This vigorous vine may extend 30–100 ft in length, with basal stems 1–4 in diameter. Kudzu roots are fleshy, with massive tap roots 4–8 in or more in diameter, 3–6 ft or more in length, and weighing as much as 180 kg. As many as thirty stems may grow from a single root crown.  Kudzu grows well under a wide range of conditions and in most soil types. Preferred habitats are forest edges, abandoned fields, roadsides, and disturbed areas, where sunlight is abundant. Kudzu grows best where winters do not drop below 5 °F, average summer temperatures are regularly above 80 °F, and annual rainfall is 40 in or more. In areas where winters drop below 5 °F, it will be killed to ground level, but the roots may send up new growth in the spring. Kudzu is sometimes referred to as "the plant that ate the South", a reference to how kudzu's explosive growth has been most prolific in the southeastern United States due to nearly ideal growing conditions. Significant sums of money and effort are spent each growing season to prevent kudzu from taking over roads, bridges, power lines, and local vegetation. CulinaryThe non-woody parts of the plant are edible. The young leaves can be used for salad or cooked as a leaf vegetable; the flowers battered and fried (like squash flowers); and the starchy tuberous roots can be prepared as any root vegetable. The starchy roots are ground into a fine powder and used for varieties of Wagashi and herbal medicines. When added to water and heated, kudzu powder becomes clear and adds stickiness to the food. MedicinalStudies have shown that kudzu can reduce both hangovers and alcohol cravings. The mechanism for this is not yet established, but it may have to do with both alcohol metabolism and the reward circuits in the brain. Kudzu also contains a number of useful isoflavones, including an anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial agent, a cancer preventive, and an antileukemic agent. Kudzu root compounds can affect neurotransmitters (including serotonin, GABA, and glutamate) and it has shown value in treating migraine and cluster headache. In traditional Chinese medicine kudzu is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs. HistoryThe name Kudzu appeared first in Kojiki and Nihonshoki as a type of vine or Kazura used commonly by the people who lived in Kudzu, area around present-day Yoshino, Nara prefecture. It is unclear whether the name was taken from the people or the name of the plant was applied to the people. Kudzu has been in use for over 1300 years and it is speculated that it goes back even further. In the Nara and Heian era, records had been found that they were collected and sent as a part of tax. Even today, "Yoshino Kudzu" has the best image of kudzu powder yet. Kagoshima prefecture is the largest producer of kudzu products. Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the early 1950s the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the South to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years. Kudzu was recognized as a pest weed by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1953, and was removed from its list of permissible cover plants. RegionsKudzu is now common throughout most of the southeastern United States, and has been found as far north as Pennsylvania, and as far south as Key West, Florida. It has also been found growing (rather inexplicably) in Clackamas County, Oregon in 2000 ([4]). In all, kudzu infests 20,000 to 30,000 square kilometres of land in the United States and costs around $500 million annually in lost cropland and control costs. It cannot tolerate extremely low freezing temperatures that bring the frost line down through its entire root system; however it does require some cold weather (a solid frost or freeze annually). Kudzu is also becoming a problem in northeastern Australia. ReproductionThe spread of kudzu is mainly by vegetative expansion by runners and rhizomes and by vines that root at the nodes to form new plants. Kudzu will also spread by seeds, which are contained in pods and mature in the autumn. One or two viable seeds are produced per cluster of pods. These hard-coated seeds may not germinate for several years, which can result in the re-appearance of the species years after it was thought eradicated at a site. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu , edited.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:14 am
Art! it makes the world go round. and around. and around...0% Pic of Liamh, by m'self. Liamh Doradan Kudzu doodle Liamh by AmyD! biggrin Bwee!  Liamh by Casey_Mae xd
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:17 am
The Funds $$$
The Need: Flatsale Serum (58 ): A bunch.
Pure gold: ...
stare I'm in no rush.
Update: With $ from commissions, have about 15k 7k gold, and whatever bunch of stoof that will probably add to the vicinity of 20k were i to sell it all off.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:20 am
News! Etc! Reserved.mmhmm and stuff y'know 3nodding Feel free to make any comments, positive or negative critiques, or homicidal death noogies. and also Commissions!! woooooFinished worksFull Body PortraitsFor Tiger_Kisa699 --- Rosetta - ( quest) For Shiaree --- Aislinn - ( quest) Alternate Character Idea: Trevor Brandt, sabertooth saberistAn alt, just in case i ever need a spare and because my brain coughed him up like a hairball. Though the serum's a bit hard to get. Ah well! xd Breaking News: Gone to the Island, Quest Closed!
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:28 am
First post! heart Hey, I see you are a new quester? I love the idea, and the art! Did you draw that yourself? I think that is awesome. Justin so needs to meet your charecter! Woot!
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:36 am
XD Thanks Reno! Yeah. I've been lurking for almost a month, and figured i might as well submit something. ^_^ Liamh would love to meet Justin, i'm sure! And yeah, i draw a bit. >_>
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:39 am
Justin is a little younger though...he's only 16, and a bit shy. But still. I was wondering, do you do charecter art? I mean, maybe I could pay you to do one of Justin? Maybe? Or a bribe lol. Just something to get some art of him...I have one, and it's cool, but not colored. But yeah, I was just wondering.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:41 am
Heh! Maybe so. I haven't thought about commissions, nor figured out what's appropriate trade for one. 0_o I'll give it some thought.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:42 am
Great! ^^ I'm glad to hear that. Maybe I can be one of the first to get some lol. I can't wait until you decide. Then once I am done RPing Justin in the cafeteria then maybe we can RP a bit. If that's okay.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:46 am
Blast! I wanted to get first post! D:
*snugs Star* I'm glad to see you're finally questing, despite all your waivering ;D Don't worry, Liamh's an awesome character, I'm sure he'll win the hearts of people all over the place!
Plus, the animal is teh awesome. With a capital Teh!
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:48 am
^_^ That'd be awesome, Reno-justin.
Evion: Hee! It's okay, you get, uhh, imaginary post #0! *cough* 9_9 Like when they put out extra comics in a series beforehand. :3 and i'm glad too.
Capital Teh!!! rofl
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 12:49 am
You should become a guest artist Star. I mean, your art is phenominal Sorry Evion...maybe next time. smile I really do love his charecter...
Justin: I can't wait to meet him! whee
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