Tomorrow Is Another Day
The Good
After having so much fun at Otakon, especially watching the new Tekken movie and the dub of Trigun: Badlands Rumble, Marvel and I have been in even more of an anime mood. Marvel had rented Summer Wars from Netflix right before we left, so we watched it on Monday. It. Was. AMAZING. Oh my God. It's impossible to truly describe the plot, and the summary on Netflix was kind of misleading. On the one hand, it's almost a slice-of-life movie as the main character agrees to help out a girl he has a crush on during a weekend trip, only the job he's supposed to do ends up pretending to be her fiancé during a huge family celebration for her grandmother's 90th birthday. On the other hand, it's a science-fiction action-adventure because while he's there, he's accused of hacking and destroying the World of Oz, which is like if Playstation Home merged with Second Life and the result was used to control all the e-mail, bank accounts, and GPSes of the world. I cried real tears twice during the movie, and I'm not a crier. It's definitely worth watching at least once, and I'm thinking of owning it. We'll see.
On top of that, it's my turn to pick the next series we watch, and after the fun I had running around with the girls on Saturday morning, I decided it was finally time to return to Sailor Moon. Marvel and I have been together for eight years now and he's still never seen the whole series. Unfortunately, since he's seen the first season at least one full time if not more by now, that meant we had to start with the beginning of the R season, and I don't think too many people would argue when I say it's the weakest point of the entire series. The first two episodes were better than I remembered, but of course, pretty much the entire Doom Tree (even though I've obviously been watching the original Japanese version for over a decade now, for some reason the English name of this arc completely dominates in my head. I'm not sure why) plot line WAS filler while they were waiting for Naoko to write more manga. Of course, it's all worth it to get up to the fifth season...though I find something to love in all of the seasons, honestly.
The Bad
My Palm Pilot is finally, irrevocably dead. It is no longer charging no matter how or where I plug it in. No, of course I didn't back it up. Sigh. I'm not too fussed about the loss of data (ha ha, WHAT data, that thing has died so many times that I've lost so many addresses over the years, and had fewer and fewer entries to replace it) as I am about the loss of...convenience of what data I did have. See, I really needed that PDA for three things.
One, reminders: I'm okay at remembering birthdays (and Facebook is great at reminding me), I'm terrible at making the connections between TODAY'S date and when the birthday is. A birthday of August 4th, for example, seems SUPER far away in July...but it's only four days after July 31st. See what I mean? I need time to shop and I need time to ship, and I relied on my PDA to remind me.
Two: addresses. This is really most important at Christmas time when it's time to send out the holiday cards, but it's also important for the aforementioned birthday cards and presents.
Three: lists. This is probably the least important of the three, but I kept lists of among other things, what manga I still needed for the series I'm still collecting, and bad movies we heard about that we'd want to watch, and gift ideas for myself so that when my birthday rolls around and people ask me what I want, I don't go, "Duuuuh I dunno!" (This is actually what I'm most bummed about losing this time. I had a good list in there, I really did. It's gone, now.)
(SHOOT. I just remembered I had a list of gift ideas for Marvel in there as well. Dammit, dammit, dammit! Is anyone on here any good at recovering data from a dead Palm Pilot?)
Now, after I typed this all of this out, I realize most of these functions could be taken care of by Outlook. Here's the thing, though: considering how much time I spend at home, versus how much time I spend at work, Mom's, and Grandpa's, I need something that is with me all the time. And it can't be an internet service, either, because then I need to remember to go to it in the first place, and if I was good at remembering stuff I wouldn't need a reminder service. Do you see what I mean? So I'm open to any suggestions anyone has. I suppose I could just buy another PDA again...but what are the odds I'm going to remember to sync it this time?
The Ugly
Heh, I actually didn't have anything in mind for this, but you know I can't resist completing a metaphor, so I'll make something up. Something appropriate; so, the entire week before Otakon, I spent a portion of every day trying to get my body into the best condition I could to be photographed. You girls know how it is; you examine every single inch of your skin, you pour hot oil on your hair, you scrape dead cells off of your face, you twist your limbs into unnatural positions to remove every strand of hair that is anywhere that you don't want it to be. You wear heels to make yourself look taller and support garments to make yourself look thinner, and in my case I pay a woman to turn my naturally curly hair straight, and I buy contacts to make my naturally brown eyes purple. You take such excellent care of yourself for an entire week or more...only to absolutely wreck it in three days. My hair is damaged from the heat; my face is breaking out from the makeup. My eyes are overtired from the lack of sleep and the contact lenses, and I think I'm going to be limping for the rest of the week.
Totally worth it, though. =)
After having so much fun at Otakon, especially watching the new Tekken movie and the dub of Trigun: Badlands Rumble, Marvel and I have been in even more of an anime mood. Marvel had rented Summer Wars from Netflix right before we left, so we watched it on Monday. It. Was. AMAZING. Oh my God. It's impossible to truly describe the plot, and the summary on Netflix was kind of misleading. On the one hand, it's almost a slice-of-life movie as the main character agrees to help out a girl he has a crush on during a weekend trip, only the job he's supposed to do ends up pretending to be her fiancé during a huge family celebration for her grandmother's 90th birthday. On the other hand, it's a science-fiction action-adventure because while he's there, he's accused of hacking and destroying the World of Oz, which is like if Playstation Home merged with Second Life and the result was used to control all the e-mail, bank accounts, and GPSes of the world. I cried real tears twice during the movie, and I'm not a crier. It's definitely worth watching at least once, and I'm thinking of owning it. We'll see.
On top of that, it's my turn to pick the next series we watch, and after the fun I had running around with the girls on Saturday morning, I decided it was finally time to return to Sailor Moon. Marvel and I have been together for eight years now and he's still never seen the whole series. Unfortunately, since he's seen the first season at least one full time if not more by now, that meant we had to start with the beginning of the R season, and I don't think too many people would argue when I say it's the weakest point of the entire series. The first two episodes were better than I remembered, but of course, pretty much the entire Doom Tree (even though I've obviously been watching the original Japanese version for over a decade now, for some reason the English name of this arc completely dominates in my head. I'm not sure why) plot line WAS filler while they were waiting for Naoko to write more manga. Of course, it's all worth it to get up to the fifth season...though I find something to love in all of the seasons, honestly.
The Bad
My Palm Pilot is finally, irrevocably dead. It is no longer charging no matter how or where I plug it in. No, of course I didn't back it up. Sigh. I'm not too fussed about the loss of data (ha ha, WHAT data, that thing has died so many times that I've lost so many addresses over the years, and had fewer and fewer entries to replace it) as I am about the loss of...convenience of what data I did have. See, I really needed that PDA for three things.
One, reminders: I'm okay at remembering birthdays (and Facebook is great at reminding me), I'm terrible at making the connections between TODAY'S date and when the birthday is. A birthday of August 4th, for example, seems SUPER far away in July...but it's only four days after July 31st. See what I mean? I need time to shop and I need time to ship, and I relied on my PDA to remind me.
Two: addresses. This is really most important at Christmas time when it's time to send out the holiday cards, but it's also important for the aforementioned birthday cards and presents.
Three: lists. This is probably the least important of the three, but I kept lists of among other things, what manga I still needed for the series I'm still collecting, and bad movies we heard about that we'd want to watch, and gift ideas for myself so that when my birthday rolls around and people ask me what I want, I don't go, "Duuuuh I dunno!" (This is actually what I'm most bummed about losing this time. I had a good list in there, I really did. It's gone, now.)
(SHOOT. I just remembered I had a list of gift ideas for Marvel in there as well. Dammit, dammit, dammit! Is anyone on here any good at recovering data from a dead Palm Pilot?)
Now, after I typed this all of this out, I realize most of these functions could be taken care of by Outlook. Here's the thing, though: considering how much time I spend at home, versus how much time I spend at work, Mom's, and Grandpa's, I need something that is with me all the time. And it can't be an internet service, either, because then I need to remember to go to it in the first place, and if I was good at remembering stuff I wouldn't need a reminder service. Do you see what I mean? So I'm open to any suggestions anyone has. I suppose I could just buy another PDA again...but what are the odds I'm going to remember to sync it this time?
The Ugly
Heh, I actually didn't have anything in mind for this, but you know I can't resist completing a metaphor, so I'll make something up. Something appropriate; so, the entire week before Otakon, I spent a portion of every day trying to get my body into the best condition I could to be photographed. You girls know how it is; you examine every single inch of your skin, you pour hot oil on your hair, you scrape dead cells off of your face, you twist your limbs into unnatural positions to remove every strand of hair that is anywhere that you don't want it to be. You wear heels to make yourself look taller and support garments to make yourself look thinner, and in my case I pay a woman to turn my naturally curly hair straight, and I buy contacts to make my naturally brown eyes purple. You take such excellent care of yourself for an entire week or more...only to absolutely wreck it in three days. My hair is damaged from the heat; my face is breaking out from the makeup. My eyes are overtired from the lack of sleep and the contact lenses, and I think I'm going to be limping for the rest of the week.
Totally worth it, though. =)