Last Saturday I caved in and bought the Limited Edition version of Chobits vol. 8, which comes with the special carrying case to put all the Chobits volumes in. I'd seen it in the Friendly Neighborhood Comic Store since Christmas, but had waffled over buying it. But finally I realized that I would have to buy vol. 8 eventually, and would probably regret it if I missed out on buying the one with the special case. Anyway. It's pretty. *___* And of course I read vol. 8, which is the final volume of the series...

*vague spoilers*

Well what do you know. The way the series had been shaping up, I was actually starting to expect a bittersweet or even sad ending; but nope, CLAMP springs a sweet fluffy happy ending on us once more. They really must be going soft. I wonder what the implications for the ending of X might be...

Fuuma: Ha ha ha! Destroying Tokyo is so much fun! Now to fight the decisive final battle with Kamui.
Kamui: Fuuma! I've just realized that it doesn't matter that you've destroyed Tokyo and killed a bunch of people, because I love you and junk!
Fuuma: Oh, okay! I love you too! Let's forget about the whole thing and run off together, shall we?
Kamui: But what about Subaru?
Subaru: Oh, I'll be okay. Eyeball-san and I have decided to work things out.
(meanwhile...)
Arashi: Hi Sorata! Sorry I disappeared ominously for a few weeks, but I was just off trying to pick the perfect ring. *pulls out shiny engagement ring* Let's get married!
Sorata: Wow! I'm so happy I could just die!
Arashi: Well, don't!
Sorata: Ha ha ha! Just kidding!
(Then everybody gets married to everybody else and lives happily ever after in the biggest mansion on CLAMP campus. The ghosts of Hokuto, Kotori, and other Dead CLAMP Females guest star as wacky sitcom neighbors. The End.)

Martians attacked at 11:15 p.m.! Where were you?

~

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

You're right, that thing about Harry mistaking himself for James seems unlikely in the movie version. @__@

About Gary Oldman's age, though... One thing to remember about the casting for Sirius, James, et. al. is that, well, they had Alan Rickman as Snape first. From the start, that kind of raised the bar for the ages of the rest of his contemporaries. ^^;; I actually think it's better for them to get people a little on the older side, rather than get someone like, say, Ewan MacGregor and try to convince us that he went to school with Alan Rickman. -__-;;

And I don't think the books explicitly say how many years there were between the Marauders graduating Hogwarts and the fall of Voldemort, nor do they give a specific age for Sirius and co. Lupin is described as being "young"... but given the average age of most of the other Hogwarts professors, "young" could be anywhere from thirties to early forties, I'd say. ^^;;; So at least it doesn't seem like too much of a glaring inconsistency to cast older guys.

At any rate, I would never have thought of Gary Oldman for Sirius either, but I look forward to seeing him in the part. ^^ Now, as for David Thewlis, who they're getting to play Lupin... X____x Let's just say I'll never be able to reconcile my image of Lupin with that nancying evil prince from Dragonheart, or that whiny guy in the Island of Dr. Moreau movie. Or Mr. Earthworm from James and the Giant Peach. Well come to think of it, he also played that dorky lovelorn pianist guy in Besieged, and I didn't even realize it was him until much later; so maybe his dramatic range will allow him to be convincing as Lupin. Must remain optimistic. ^^

But yesterday it occured to me that DavidThewlis!Lupin will have absolutely no business making cracks about AlanRickman!Snape's "abnormally large nose". XD

Martians attacked at 06:23 p.m.! Where were you?

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Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Ack, I keep forgetting how long it's been since I blogged. ^^;;

At any rate, I just got back from the copy place, where I had copies of my NaNoWriMo novel made and bound. Wow, they look so nice! *___* Just plain old ring binding with the title printed on the cover, but still. Makes it look like I wrote a real book, rather than a loose assemblage of plot devices, pop culture references, and inane banter. ^_^

Martians attacked at 04:00 p.m.! Where were you?

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Wednesday, January 22, 2003

I freaking love the Thundercats. Today's episode: Lion-O must win a joust against a yeti mounted on a giant white snow-cat.

Lion-O: Gee. I wonder how I, the Lord of the Thundercats, can defeat this opponent.

Glowing Blue Ghost of Old Mentor: Lion-O, you dumbass. He's riding a giant CAT, for crying out loud.

Lion-O: Oh yeah.

Martians attacked at 04:57 p.m.! Where were you?

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Wednesday, January 22, 2003

So it's true! Thundercats is showing on our Cartoon Network! Great Hera, I know this episode. We had a Thundercats comic that was the exact same story.

Eww, Berbils are evil. I swear they're the bastard children of R2-D2 and an Ewok.

Wow, they're performing an evil summoning ritual at Stonehenge! I guess an evil summoning ritual just isn't complete without Stonehenge, even on an alien planet.

Lion-O: "She's so BEAUTIFUL! ...in a kind of EVIL way, of course." Brilliant dialogue!

For readers who have not seen this episode, I will now present a summary of its climax, in digest form:

(Cheetara runs around single-handedly kicking the asses of all the evil henchmen while Lion-O stands around stupidly and Mumm-Ra and Evil Transdimensional Villainess Du Jour stand around being evil. Villainess then uses her "Doomgaze" on Lion-O, which basically consists of her batting her beautiful but evil eyelashes at him, causing him to stand and stare dumbfounded, which is pretty much what he was doing from the beginning. Villainess then tries to use "Doomgaze" on Cheetara, but...)

Villainess: *gasp* What??? My evil deadly Doomgaze had no effect on you??? How can this be???

Cheetara: I'm a woman too, you dumbass. (Cheetara then proceeds to single-handedly kick everyone's ass and save the day. THE END)

Man, old cartoons can be really bizarre. But Cheetara is my new heroine.

Martians attacked at 12:24 a.m.! Where were you?

~

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Today instead of sitting at the table and eating a healthy and balanced dinner like civilized adults, we all sat around the TV and watched Moulin Rouge and ate pizza with pepperoni and potato crisps on it. Like civilized adults.

Show me! Show you! KikkoMan is my new hero. And I find it incredibly funny that the english version, here, is censored. They changed the warning about watching TV in a well-lit room, and added disclaimers like "smoking is bad!" And changed the bit where the little bunny thing hangs itself. XD

Martians attacked at 10:16 p.m.! Where were you?

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Sunday, January 19, 2003

Went to see the Hollywood version of The Ring today. Stuck amazingly close to the Japanese version in some parts (especially the beginning); in other parts, differed in strange but not unsound ways. One or two things I thought might have been handled even better than in the original. All in all, a pretty good adaptation, I thought. But the original is the only version that's going to have me avoiding blank TV screens at night.

Did they really have to do that to the poor horsie, though? That was not happy to watch.

Martians attacked at 11:19 p.m.! Where were you?

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Saturday, January 18, 2003

Man, I'm cold. I thought it was against the law for it to be so cold in this country. People might start to think we have, you know, actual seasons and stuff. As opposed to just Hot and Less Hot.

The problem with our climate is that it occasionally gets cold enough to chill you, but it never gets cold enough to wear really cool-looking winter clothes like trench coats and gloves and scarves.

Bah. It's still too damn cold. That's why I could never live someplace like Boston or Canada or London. I am a delicate hothouse flower.

Martians attacked at 08:39 p.m.! Where were you?

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Saturday, January 18, 2003

Heh heh... In fairness to Gaiman, he didn't know the comic hadn't been updated in ages, as he'd only discovered it the other day. So I suppose the culprit there would be Scott McCloud who recommended it to him. ^^;;;

I suppose it's a strange facet of human nature that long delays don't really hurt something's popularity. It probably even boosts popularity in some cases (see the berserk mobs ransacking the bookstores for HP5 come June 21). At a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen forum I go to, there are plenty of people griping whenever the next issue's release date gets pushed back a couple of months; and yet there's no doubt that every single one of them will be buying that issue once it is released.

But then, fans of long-delayed comics probably wouldn't be quite so patient if not for the consolation of their other favorite comics which do come out regularly. ^^

Martians attacked at 05:36 p.m.! Where were you?

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Saturday, January 18, 2003

Well, it seems that it took an act of God to get me to stop using Netscape 4.7. Late the night before last, my Netscape crashed and would not reopen. >__< So as of yesterday I have been using Netscape 6.2, which is slow and annoyingly shiny and everything is in a different place, but eh. What worries me now is that I can no longer test webpage layouts in 4.7. It would bother me terribly if I ended up designing something that was illegible in my old browser. X__x

Martians attacked at 03:35 p.m.! Where were you?

~

Friday, January 17, 2003

Are you kidding! I love Bite Me! I hadn't been reading it for a while either; there was a long stretch where it wasn't being updated. Now I found out it's alive (undead) again, from Neil Gaiman of all people! That is incredibly cool. ^^

Martians attacked at 11:10 p.m.! Where were you?

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Friday, January 17, 2003

So today I met with my grandmother to discuss this historical novel project that I'm going to help her with. At least, I'm meant to help her with it. It's all very exciting... but the only novel I've ever written, for NaNoWriMo, was a cheesy sci-fi comedy with sad robots, incompetent ninjas, and pirate penguins. I feel a little out of my league, trying to work on a serious historical piece. Ah well. [cutesy anime voice] Ganbarima~su! [/cutesy anime voice]

And speaking of Leagues (wah, a brilliant segueway!), I was hoping to go out and see the US version of The Ring tonight, but that didn't work out. And now I'm glad I stayed home like a nerd instead, because they showed a new episode of Justice League on the TV, so now I'm happy. I love the Justice League! Martian Manhunter is so adorable.

Oh yeah, this is something I was about to post the other day, but was distracted from by news of HP Book 5. Seriously, read this blurb (taken from here):
Heirs of Eternity is a four-issue mini-series examining opposite ends of a two-edged sword: love and hate. When five beings take up this sword, they find that perhaps it is more than any one of them can handle. Their modest lives take high-speed turns as they slowly lose control of everything they hold dear. Caught up in the entropy that is extreme emotion, their lives come crashing together. And as might be expected, not everyone makes it out alive.
...Now, do you have the slightest idea of what the story is actually about?? 9__9

Martians attacked at 08:26 p.m.! Where were you?

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Thursday, January 16, 2003

Why is it that the times when I can't stop posting are the times when I have to be working?

Hey Geezer, forget your medication this morning? Who cares if you're a demi-god? You constantly act like a senile old man and need help from self-insertion characters to do tasks you did in the books perfectly well on your own.
Which horribly butchered LOTR character are you?

And on that note, this is absolute genius. Mary Sues meeting Tom Bombadil = INSPIRED.

Martians attacked at 01:55 a.m.! Where were you?

~

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

Holy poop-on-a-stick, I still can't believe it. And one third longer than Goblet of Fire? That thing's a monster. You can use it as a bedside table. I am suddenly reminded of that Charlie Brown cartoon where he was reading War and Peace, and had to lug it around in a backpack. Book 6 will probably need a forklift. And Book 7 will be released in 3 parts: The Fellowship of the Phoenix, The Two Chambers, and The Return of the Heir. Each part will, of course, be the size of a small European nation.

Martians attacked at 11:24 p.m.! Where were you?

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Wednesday, January 15, 2003

HOLY CRAP, they actually gave a date?! I'm not dreaming all this, am I? O_____O All these years months years... I was beginning to think Harry Potter Book 5 was a purely mythical beast after all... ;____;

Wait, I'm starting to get confused... So is this the book where Draco is a suave, witty, devastatingly handsome bad boy, Harry is his lover, Ron is an inconsequential doofus who ends up joining the Dark Side, and Hermione sleeps with the entire male population of Hogwarts? Or is this the one where Remus Lupin is a weepy uke, Snape is only nasty because he's pining away for a long-lost love, and Peter Pettigrew never existed and if he did the Marauders never really hung out with him much anyway? Or is this the one with the beautiful but mysterious American transfer student who single-handedly defeats Voldemort and sleeps with the entire male population of Hogwarts?

Good Lord, give me strength... Book 5 is in sight... Just a little bit longer... X____x

Martians attacked at 10:04 p.m.! Where were you?

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Sunday, January 12, 2003

Clips from Big O episode 14. Up to this point my excitement over the continuation of the series had been kinda tempered by the vague apprehension that it would be watered-down cheap-looking fluff, made just to placate American audiences. After watching these clips, though... geeheeheeheehee. X3 Pardon me, I must drool.

What is up with those tomatoes, though?

Martians attacked at 03:35 a.m.! Where were you?

~

Friday, January 10, 2003

Apparently now they have cars in the Victorian era. *blank stare*

I watched the old War of the Worlds movie on Cinemax this afternoon! It was fairly close to the book, though they obviously made some modification, such as moving it from 1890's England to 1960's America. Oh, and instead of having legs, the Martian tripods are held up with strings. XD

Martians attacked at 05:18 p.m.! Where were you?

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Tuesday, January 7, 2003

All right, I suppose this is terribly late; but you know what they say about late being better than never. I present for your approval several anecdotes from our Hong Kong trip, will will hopefully divert and astound.

The HMV Stalker
The first night we were in Hong Kong, Carlo and I and some of our cousins were basically left to our own devices. We ate McDonalds and wandered around the big HMV which was right next to our hotel. It's a great place to hang around and drool over shiny expensive DVD box sets which one could never afford to buy. I was doing just that, when suddenly some guy next to me said, "Hi, how are you," and asking me if I was studying in Hong Kong or something. The guy appeared to be South Asian and perhaps in his forties. I tried to maintain as polite a conversation as I could manage, even though the "pervert" alarm was going off in my head. And then he started asking if I had a number where he could contact me. When I said no, he asked if he could give me his contact number. I kind of slunk away as best I could, thoroughly creeped out by the whole experience. The following evening, as we went on another HMV run, I laughingly wondered if that same weirdo hung out at HMV every night trying to pick up girls. Surprise: the same guy was there again. When he tried to talk to me, I walked past and pretended I didn't hear him. >__<

The Amazing Space Goku
On that first night, after returning from HMV, I plopped myself down in front of the TV and started flipping through the channels for something interesting. I was fortunate enough to come across a live-action, vaguely sci-fi-ish Journey to the West TV series. It appeared to have been shot almost entirely with blue screen backgrounds. Goku's outfit was silvery, and he spent ten minutes flying through some kind of psychidelic wormhole thing, while Sanzo and the other two guys were on this asteroid talking to some chick with a black beanstalk growing out of her head. And then the end theme was some kind of obnoxious Chinese hip-hop. I wish they showed this on TV over here.

The Building With The Hole In
On the way up a mountain road to Stanley market, our hired car driver pointed out a large, wide building on the side of a mountain. The building had a good-sized square hole built right into it. According to our driver, this was to allow the passage of a dragon which purportedly flew down the mountainside every night to go to the beach below. I thought this was a pretty cool story. Also according to our driver, when he was a small child he stayed up one night to see the dragon and saw nothing at all. When he complained to his mother the next day, she told him he was an idiot.

Martians attacked at 04:12 a.m.! Where were you?

~

Monday, January 6, 2003

Aheheh. I was planning to post some additional notes on our Hong Kong trip, as well as some mini-reviews; but that will have to wait a bit, because today I ran out to the store and bought League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol. 2 issue 4.

......

...SEX and VIOLENCE! Now THIS is what entertainment is all about. ^___^ Seriously though. That spread of the Nautilus blowing a Tripod to smithereens was by itself worth the cover price of the comic. Nemo and Hyde are the coolest. Nemo was postively cuddly in that one panel where he says 'good luck' to the little boy. And Hyde got the best line in the book: "I know what children look like, Nemo. I've often scraped them off my boots." I was quite scandalized to see Mina actually -- gasp! -- smiling, but then I turned a few more pages and was scandalized by something else. ^^;;;;; As for her big revelation at the end... all I can say is, Mina dear, if you're gonna wear that scarf 24/7 and never take it off, you've got to expect some nasty rashes. XD

Anyway. As always, cannot wait for next issue. Especially if we're seriously going to run into scary mutant versions of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. *___*

Martians attacked at 05:32 p.m.! Where were you?

~

Wednesday, January 1, 2003

Well, it's a New Year! And we're back from Hong Kong! It was lots of fun, especially since pretty much all of our extended family from the Philippines were there, and we all stayed in adjacent rooms in the same hotel. Bought a lot of books and DVDs, and a couple of little bracelet things. And that cuddly adorable 14" plush Stitch I've been tempted to get for months and months. Oh, and Kingdom Hearts Donald and Goofy figures, heh heh. And the February issue of Asuka. And a little personalized stamp of my name in Chinese characters (at least, the guy told me it was my name; but for all I know it says "this dish cheap but very tasty"). And stuff. I was going to write a few more amusing anecdotes, but they've all vacated my head at the moment. So maybe tomorrow I'll write some more about the amazing Space Goku, and the building with the giant hole in it, and the creepy HMV stalker.

Martians attacked at 10:42 p.m.! Where were you?

~