just like the ones i used to know
...I had a very Neil Gaiman Christmas.
That's a little ironic, isn't it, since he's Jewish. Is he Jewish? I can't remember. I tend to believe anyone I think is l33t is Jewish. And gay. I blame Tetsuya Nomura.
But! I am, at the moment, fomenting a lengthy essay about how very Neil Gaiman my Christmas was, and it will be filled with unmitigated fangirling and bitter vituperation, and I shall post it forthwith, once I finish 1602. It's taking me a long, long time to read 1602, because although it is quite easy to understand, I can only get through a few pages at a time. When I read it, I feel like I'm wearing an extremely tight hat.
Um? Besides the Neil Gaiman, I had a great Christmas. I'm sorry for not being in better touch with everyone, but as you probably know by now, I suck. Also, there's a stray cat living in the barn, and I spent much of the month of December lying in the snow on my stomach with snot and tears freezing to my face, trying to coax it to let me pick it up and take it to the Humane Society. This didn't go over so well with the cat, of course -- cats are famously unmoved by sniveling -- and it's still in the barn and seems to be fine. I, however, got a terrible flu-like illness from crouching in the ice and cold. Go figure. At one point -- I think this would've been around the eighteenth or nineteenth of December -- my fever went super-high, and topped out at about 104°. Shut up! That's really high for me! And many eight-year-olds. Anyway, it stayed high like that for a couple of days, and then went back to normal fever-levels, and then disappeared entirely after Christmas. But, apparently, the whole time I was fevered, I thought it was Christmas, and I kept trying to get online with people and tell them to have a happy day. I think I was to some degree successful. So. If you got an IM from me on the twentieth of December that looked like "NNNJHDO FWEIKLJAFH!!!!!" that was me trying to tell you Merry Christmas through the near-Republican levels of confusion engendered by a quasi-malarial fever. Sorry about that.
Ah. I've been reading and watching lots of stuff lately, and I'm gonna make a monster review post here in a few days. No, really. I think it's my contribution to society, the reviewing. So... be excited!
...You know, all that effort being put toward pretending to look excited isn't really very ego-warming. Just so you know.
I watched The Book of Daniel on Friday night, because I thought it was an adaptation of the E.L. Doctorow novel. It wasn't. Here is my run-down of what it was:
1.) Calculated to annoy politically conservative Christians, filled as it was with gay people and drug addicts, and, in the case of certain very lucky characters, gay drug addicts.
2.) Featuring a cast of "kids" who were all over forty and looked it.
3.) Featuring the creepiest sex-offender-looking white-dude Jesus I have ever seen in my life.
4.) Featuring a side-plot involving gay manga, which the actors called "munga," and which was repeatedly described as "Japanese animation" despite the fact that the example shown was static images being drawn by an American teenager. I think the creators of the show just trolled the internet looking for the weirdest idiot-fringe thing that these crazy kids today are blogging about, and then tried to fold it clumsily into the narrative as best they could in terms of plot elements. And ten bonus points for the gay! Too bad none of the munga characters were drug addicts! Yes. Er. It was that kind of embarrassing television series. Um, the munga was also the very ugliest thing ever, and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with actual manga, and was completely indistinguishable from, say, an Archie comic from 1953. I think research only takes you so far, yes?
So, pretty terrible show, all in all, despite the fact that Aidan Quinn is somewhat hot, in a dad-like sort of way. I prefer to get my gay in other places, thanks.
Speaking of which! Does anyone still have scanlations of Tactics? I came in late on this series, because I had dial-up for so long, but I just watched and adored the anime, and I *really* wanna read the manga now. The Tactics series seems to have been co-opted and published by ADV Manga, which is, if I remember correctly, the name of the company that forced Shinsen to stop distributing Tsubasa Chronicle, which means they will not get penny one from me, now or ever, no matter how well they translate this or any manga series. I get a little antsy when an American company tries to get me to pay hundreds of dollars for an anime title that it won't let me watch first (and which was aired for free in its original format on Japanese broadcast television). Plus, I invariably buy the Japanese, or "real," editions of any manga I'm fanning over, since I am not the sort to enjoy defrauding hardworking mangaka for no reason (unlike, just to pick an example at random, your average American manga publisher). [ETA: I was all wrong here! Turns out that Tsubasa Chronicle was licensed by a company called FunImation, who produced the über-tragic version of Hagane no Renkinjutsushi that appeared on Adult Swim. Crime enough, yes, but they also interfered with a fansub. SO NOT ONE CENT!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME, LJ-TROLLING FUNIMATION EMPLOYEES -- AND I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE, IF DEL REY HAS SOME, EVERYBODY DOES -- NOT! ONE!! CENT!!!!] So, if there aren't any Tactics scanlations available now, I'd be just as happy with text translations. Can anybody help me out with scanlations/translations of this series? Have any on your hard drive from the last year or two? I'd be eternally grateful. I've searched a lot myself, but I mostly get expired YSI links and porn comms.
Anyway. I come bearing gifts of graphics! The first is a desktop wallpaper featuring my realistic-like interpretation of Aoyagi Ritsuka, and it took me two months to complete, mostly because, as I have said before, I suck. Also I destroyed my hard disk at one point. Um. The second is a Faypaper that I just finished today. I attempted to copy the loverly art style used to spectacular effect by the nokiirat on the graphic, and I think I was about 38% successful. I also think this is one of my better Faypapers, actually. It'll show up on BlueSkies once I get all my crap together, right. In March. Um, the next one isn't a wallpaper (although I may try to make it into one), it's a layout for Hyu, for when they come off hiatus (soon, right?). That's supposed to be Yuuko. STOP LAUGHING, YOU. The next two are desktops featuring Ashura-ou, father and child reunion, and they feature a minimum of edits, because if it ain't broke, etc. Yes, I will put these and other new designs on my desktop site, when I have a desktop site again. Hopefully before March.
Well, I think that's all for now, but I'll be back, like the Terminator, Mariah Carey, and many failed New Year's resolutions. May all your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be Neil Gaiman-y :)
That's a little ironic, isn't it, since he's Jewish. Is he Jewish? I can't remember. I tend to believe anyone I think is l33t is Jewish. And gay. I blame Tetsuya Nomura.
But! I am, at the moment, fomenting a lengthy essay about how very Neil Gaiman my Christmas was, and it will be filled with unmitigated fangirling and bitter vituperation, and I shall post it forthwith, once I finish 1602. It's taking me a long, long time to read 1602, because although it is quite easy to understand, I can only get through a few pages at a time. When I read it, I feel like I'm wearing an extremely tight hat.
Um? Besides the Neil Gaiman, I had a great Christmas. I'm sorry for not being in better touch with everyone, but as you probably know by now, I suck. Also, there's a stray cat living in the barn, and I spent much of the month of December lying in the snow on my stomach with snot and tears freezing to my face, trying to coax it to let me pick it up and take it to the Humane Society. This didn't go over so well with the cat, of course -- cats are famously unmoved by sniveling -- and it's still in the barn and seems to be fine. I, however, got a terrible flu-like illness from crouching in the ice and cold. Go figure. At one point -- I think this would've been around the eighteenth or nineteenth of December -- my fever went super-high, and topped out at about 104°. Shut up! That's really high for me! And many eight-year-olds. Anyway, it stayed high like that for a couple of days, and then went back to normal fever-levels, and then disappeared entirely after Christmas. But, apparently, the whole time I was fevered, I thought it was Christmas, and I kept trying to get online with people and tell them to have a happy day. I think I was to some degree successful. So. If you got an IM from me on the twentieth of December that looked like "NNNJHDO FWEIKLJAFH!!!!!" that was me trying to tell you Merry Christmas through the near-Republican levels of confusion engendered by a quasi-malarial fever. Sorry about that.
Ah. I've been reading and watching lots of stuff lately, and I'm gonna make a monster review post here in a few days. No, really. I think it's my contribution to society, the reviewing. So... be excited!
...You know, all that effort being put toward pretending to look excited isn't really very ego-warming. Just so you know.
I watched The Book of Daniel on Friday night, because I thought it was an adaptation of the E.L. Doctorow novel. It wasn't. Here is my run-down of what it was:
1.) Calculated to annoy politically conservative Christians, filled as it was with gay people and drug addicts, and, in the case of certain very lucky characters, gay drug addicts.
2.) Featuring a cast of "kids" who were all over forty and looked it.
3.) Featuring the creepiest sex-offender-looking white-dude Jesus I have ever seen in my life.
4.) Featuring a side-plot involving gay manga, which the actors called "munga," and which was repeatedly described as "Japanese animation" despite the fact that the example shown was static images being drawn by an American teenager. I think the creators of the show just trolled the internet looking for the weirdest idiot-fringe thing that these crazy kids today are blogging about, and then tried to fold it clumsily into the narrative as best they could in terms of plot elements. And ten bonus points for the gay! Too bad none of the munga characters were drug addicts! Yes. Er. It was that kind of embarrassing television series. Um, the munga was also the very ugliest thing ever, and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with actual manga, and was completely indistinguishable from, say, an Archie comic from 1953. I think research only takes you so far, yes?
So, pretty terrible show, all in all, despite the fact that Aidan Quinn is somewhat hot, in a dad-like sort of way. I prefer to get my gay in other places, thanks.
Speaking of which! Does anyone still have scanlations of Tactics? I came in late on this series, because I had dial-up for so long, but I just watched and adored the anime, and I *really* wanna read the manga now. The Tactics series seems to have been co-opted and published by ADV Manga, which is, if I remember correctly, the name of the company that forced Shinsen to stop distributing Tsubasa Chronicle, which means they will not get penny one from me, now or ever, no matter how well they translate this or any manga series. I get a little antsy when an American company tries to get me to pay hundreds of dollars for an anime title that it won't let me watch first (and which was aired for free in its original format on Japanese broadcast television). Plus, I invariably buy the Japanese, or "real," editions of any manga I'm fanning over, since I am not the sort to enjoy defrauding hardworking mangaka for no reason (unlike, just to pick an example at random, your average American manga publisher). [ETA: I was all wrong here! Turns out that Tsubasa Chronicle was licensed by a company called FunImation, who produced the über-tragic version of Hagane no Renkinjutsushi that appeared on Adult Swim. Crime enough, yes, but they also interfered with a fansub. SO NOT ONE CENT!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME, LJ-TROLLING FUNIMATION EMPLOYEES -- AND I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE, IF DEL REY HAS SOME, EVERYBODY DOES -- NOT! ONE!! CENT!!!!] So, if there aren't any Tactics scanlations available now, I'd be just as happy with text translations. Can anybody help me out with scanlations/translations of this series? Have any on your hard drive from the last year or two? I'd be eternally grateful. I've searched a lot myself, but I mostly get expired YSI links and porn comms.
Anyway. I come bearing gifts of graphics! The first is a desktop wallpaper featuring my realistic-like interpretation of Aoyagi Ritsuka, and it took me two months to complete, mostly because, as I have said before, I suck. Also I destroyed my hard disk at one point. Um. The second is a Faypaper that I just finished today. I attempted to copy the loverly art style used to spectacular effect by the nokiirat on the graphic, and I think I was about 38% successful. I also think this is one of my better Faypapers, actually. It'll show up on BlueSkies once I get all my crap together, right. In March. Um, the next one isn't a wallpaper (although I may try to make it into one), it's a layout for Hyu, for when they come off hiatus (soon, right?). That's supposed to be Yuuko. STOP LAUGHING, YOU. The next two are desktops featuring Ashura-ou, father and child reunion, and they feature a minimum of edits, because if it ain't broke, etc. Yes, I will put these and other new designs on my desktop site, when I have a desktop site again. Hopefully before March.
Well, I think that's all for now, but I'll be back, like the Terminator, Mariah Carey, and many failed New Year's resolutions. May all your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be Neil Gaiman-y :)