ReadingLirael, As You Like It, The English Patient, Heart of Darkness, Suikoden III, Candidate for Goddess
Watching House, Rick Mercer's Monday Report, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, Corner Gas, Aishiteruze Baby, Prince of Tennis, Hikaru no Go
Playing The Bard's Tale, Katamari Damacy, Curse of Monkey Island, Final Fantasy VI, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Pretty Barbie Dressup Party Final Fantasy X-2(group gaming)
Back-burner Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, Planescape: Torment, Final Fantasy VII
Obsessing Firefly, Erik and Ray, Impulse/Bart Allen, Ford Prefect, Monkey Island, Nostalgia.
Upcoming Things of Importance January 5 First day of classes January 14 Birthday party January 16 Jaryn and Matt Are Old Day
layout
Is by Meimi, that wonderful Goddess who brings joy and happiness to the hearts of Ingrids.
This time, Meimi brought joy by doing a layout of Isumi Shinichirou and Waya Yoshitaka, of Hikaru no Go. It is full of wub.
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2/9/2002 12:30:04 PM
Well, well, the Box is all packed up and ready to go, as soon as I can bum a ride down to the post office from Dad. If it doesn't get where it's supposed to go, it's because Bell's instructions suck beyond word and deed.
2/9/2002 10:18:33 AM
I had a dream that a new dubbed version of Card Captor Sakura was put ou, in Canada, because people were tired of getting whiny and ranting e-mails from diehard sub fans. In their press release, they said they intended to "keep the gay" I believe.
My dreams -suck-.
2/8/2002 10:17:41 PM
Envy.nu? You suck. But I'm too lazy to find a new freeserver.
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I made Kate-chan's head explode. Sowwy, Kate-chan . . .
2/5/2002 12:00:20 PM
So, watched X episodes fourteen and fifteen this morning. You know the drill.
X Fourteen - Gathering (does this make anyone else think of Final Fantasy VII, with all those mumbling black cloaked Sephiroth clones shuffling about?)
Another episode basically recapping what's happened in the last thirteen episodes, plot-wise. Which makes you wonder how they're going to get to the end between this and character side stories but eh, whatever.
Kamui weeps over Kotori's grave, accepts the other Seals help, seals the shinken, which doesn't prevent Nataku from swiping the other shinken and bringing it to Fuuma like a little puppy.
Destiny is foreordained, Kotori would have died anyways, Hinoto and Kakyou believe the future cannot be changed, Kotori thought it could be, Kamui's going to save Fuuma and return him to normal . . .
And that's really about all that happened. Seriously. It corresponds with X volumes nine (the very very end) and X ten, which I believe is generally considered the most boring of all volumes thus far.
After the major KamuixSubaru-ness of the last episode, Subaru has a grand total of one line. As does almost everyone else in the cast except for Kamui, Fuuma, Hinoto, Kakyou, Sorata, Karen, and Aoki. Yes, even Seishirou is only on screen for a brief second, and says only one thing. Seishirou lovers everywhere are greatly disapointed.
Oh yes, and the end features a Moment (tm) between Sorata and Kamui, as does the beginning.
Well, at least it isn't anti slash . . .
X Fifteen - Guardian
Saiki Daisuke/Aoki Seiichirou side story. Sort of. But not.
Starts with a flashback to Saiki's childhood with Aoki teaching him about being a wind master and using the power to protect someone important. Go to a tender scene between Hinoto and the teenage Saiki. Mix in a scene with Karen and Yuuto talking about Fuuma being less terrifying and more smiley, making him even more frightening than before, and Fuuma playing Daddy to Nataku. See angst!Kamui come to Hinoto to try and find out about making a kekkai. See Kamui get burned because Hinoto really isn't all-seeing. See Saiki blush. A lot. See Saiki try and explain to Kamui about the kekkai and using it to protect something precious. See Kamui be -nice-.
Then, of course, Fuuma and Nataku destroy the building Nataku used to be kept in, and Kamui runs to stop the slaughter and get his friend back. Fuuma Is Evil and crushes Kamui's throat. Fuuma is Stopped by Saiki. Cue battle between Fuuma and Saiki that results in Saiki getting bloody and beaten as hell. More creepiness from Fuuma about wishes, specifically Saiki's. See Saiki not know what's good for him and keep fighting. See Hinoto try to protect Saiki and get blown away with him. See Saiki die and Hinoto scream in agony. See a shot of Aoki Seiichirou being shocked.
Magically, Kamui returns to conciousness and runs to weep over Saiki's dead and broken body, then tries to kill Fuuma. See someone's hand shoved through someone elses bleeding body part.
Cue more pointlessness between Hinoto and Kakyou about destiny, even Saiki's, being foreordained, and really want to kick those damn yumeni.
Back to Kamui and Fuuma. Kamui tried to pull a Sakurazukamori, but he has crappy aim, and shoved his hand straight through Fuuma's shoulder instead of his chest. Fuuma pulls Kamui's hand out of his shoulder and puts it over his chest, telling Kamui that's where he has to aim, and waits for Kamui to kill him. Uke!Kamui goes "Fuu . . . ma . . ." and does nothing, letting Fuuma go in for the kill. A star-shaped kekkai is abruptly raised.
Back to Kakyou and Hinoto, being yumeni some more. Get bats and beat them to death.
Go back to the totally destroyed scene of the battle, where everything's pretty much totalled, Aoki is holding his dead nephew's body, and Subaru is holding Kamui with bloody dripping out of his eye socket.
Renew vows to kill Kakyou at the earliest opportunity, and assume the fight between Subaru and Fuuma will be dealt with as a flashback in episode sixteen.
Saiki died much sooner in the anime compared to the manga, or so it seems. Obviously trying to compress things by having him die in the same battle where Subaru looses his eye. Oddly enough, I prefer his death this way than how he died in the manga. For one, we don't have to see yet another decapitated head. Also, Saiki seems to have died for an actual reason beyond Fuuma's desire to grant his Wish, which is nice. Saiki's a nice guy, and it'll be sad to not have his beady-eyed little face in future episodes. Except, perhaps, in angsty flashbacks.
If Subaru's eye being poked out isn't explained, then members of the fandom are more than welcome to kill the producers of the tv series, since it's quite unexceptable to poke someone's eye out and not show why it happened.
If Fuuma says "Ore wa Kamui da" once more, I'm going to kill him.
Still no Keiichi. How . . . utterly unshocking.
2/4/2002 10:31:39 PM
There are some authors who make me seriously regret how easy it is to drag me into a book and make me feel for the characters, reading like a madman, unable to sleep properly until I'm finished the story.
Connie Willis leaves me furiously muddled. Her books leave me blown away, but dammit, the last couple ones have hurt to read.
Passage kept me from sleeping until one or two in the morning until I finally finished it. It was, of course, a wonderful book, with beautifully life-like, wonderful, passionate characters, and a fiercely twisting plot full of sharp humour. Long, longer than anything else I've ever read by her, and bloody hell, I was crying for the last hundred pages or so.
Maybe I'm just emotional, although I don't think I am. But dammit, I simultaneously love and hate Willis for the way she ended Passage. She really couldn't have written it any other way, and it's perfect the way she wrote it, and I wouldn't want anything to be different, but at the same time, I wish it had ended in a completely different way, because I loved the characters so bloody much.
If you get ahold of a copy, by all means, read it. It's wonderful. If it doesn't get a hugo nominee, I'll have a fit. Better than fucking Harry Potter any day of the bloody week, that's for sure. Ahem. If you read it, though, and you're the kind of person who, like me, gets involved in stories, please, do yourself a favour and read it at some time when you have nothing to do but read. Read it when you can finish a seven hundred page in one day. Read it on a long plane or car ride, or when you have someone to snuggle with as you read, and leave the lights on.
I also just finished Lincoln's Dreams. Guess who won't be getting much sleep tonight.
Whoo boy. An early novel, it just reads like one in that way, and I wasn't expecting much from it. In fact, I had trouble focussing for the first little while. But then . . . God. The downfall of a truly great writer is that if they make their characters truly real, then what happens to them must also be truly real, and reality isn't Happily Ever After. Hell. I'm not crying, but I'm damn near to it. Those last few chapters were rather like being punched in the stomach. Also worth a complete reread to pick up on the hints scattered through the book, and to properly understand the quotations at the beginning of each chapter. Willis loves her quotations.
Hell, I need a copy of this book for myself. Of course, I need copies of all of Willis' books. Specifically Impossible Things because it contains a short story called The Schwarzberg Radius which is the most bloody terrifying thing I have ever read. I kid you not. Scary as hell. Powerful enough that when I had to write up something for my history intern for remembrance day, it's what instantly came to mind, although the short story I wrote, Limbo, can absolutely never come within a thousandth of it's power . . .
I want to be able to write like Connie Willis or Diana Wynne Jones. Not now. I'm a teenager. I'm realistic. Teenagers cannot write the way women in their forties and fifties can because they haven't been alive long enough to understand anything, really. But part of me wants to be able to make someone feel the way I feel reading their books, just with words.
Which is an utterly ridiculous thing for someone who's going to be starting the program for her bachelor of science to want, but there you go.
The few readers of this may have noticed that I talk alot about books and very very little about anime or manga or tv or much of anything else. Why? Well, partly because you can get hundreds of blogs and journals that talk about such things with much greater depth, perception, and experience than I ever could. But mainly it's because if I was allowed only one form of media for the rest of my life, I would choose books. I love anime and manga, but I have very little access to it, and as a result, my manga at the moment is limited to new Hikaru no Go Scanlations (and that's just sad . . .) and the only anime I get to see new episodes of regularly is X. I read at least a book a week, usually, and if I'm focussing on very little else, generally three or four.
I've been reading since forever, and I admit, there isn't a great amount of diversity in what I read, because my desire for brain candy is rare. I read books that make my brain bleed and my heart ache, that make me want to throw up, I get so into them. As a result, I tend to think about them alot. Every now and then, I happen to actually have a thought going through my mind about the book when I'm in my room, near Keiichi, and, if bored, I'll type it up and blog it. Sometimes I do, usually I don't, because as far as I know, the people reading this blog don't have much interest in the authors I would personally sell my soul to.
So, basically, you blog about what you know. Some people party, some people dream, some people have wacky interactions with their friends online and off, some people have great revelations concerning the symbolism of their favourite whatever because they watch it nonstop. And I read, and I've always read, and I don't have anything particularly interesting to say about what I read, but I blog it anyways, because you never know, eh?
And at least it isn't piles of self-loathing suicidalness, or furious hate-rants towards idiots, or stuff to get a rise out of other people, or for popularity or anything. It's just because sometimes it's good to get things out so they aren't running through your head when you sleep, I guess.
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And now, I bet I won't blog a thing for days and days and days. It's a pattern.
2/4/2002 08:56:28 PM
Dad's at SUMA (Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association) in Regina until Wednesday.
This would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that the satelitte died today, and, while we can still access the things that have been recorded, Dad also seems to have changed the password. So I can't watch Six Feet Under except for the tape I have of the season finale.
I am not pleased.
2/4/2002 08:54:14 PM
You know, some people have dreams that are deep, meaningful, and symbolic.
This morning, I dreamt that David Fisher (of Six Feet Under) was working on the corpse of a young man and talking to it about what happens after you die (see Passage) . . .
I hope dreams don't have meaning, because I'd hate to think what the meaning to that one is.
Let's not touch the slashy pseudo-smut SyaoranxEriol dream.
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Went to the dentist today. The dental hygenist was vicious with the dental floss and made my gums bleed profusely.
I did however, get a spiffy new toothbrush.
I still think dentists and dental hygenists are the sort of people who dress up in black leather underwear and dog collars and whip people.
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People don't always suck. Sometimes, you can be surprised by how nice essential strangers can be.
This week's All Around Great Guy is Stephen Congly, who gave me four links to information about forensics and molecular biology. Yay!
