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So she sayeth...
Sunday, September 23, 2001 02:40 a.m.
Well, it's Saturday night. Frat house parties are raging across the street. The Exotic Erotic party is going on in the apartment building across the parking lot, and here I am blogging and eating Pokemon cereal marshmellows. Yeah, it's good to be me. :D
Yes, anyway, those things are going on now. The frats are loud, but not that loud, so it's no deal or anything. The cereal is not mine. Not mine, you hear me! O_O; I'm just eating the marshmellows. They're addicting. Wow, how appropriate! :D Blah. Anyway, my weekend has been a fun one so far. It's almost over too. Pooh. I have to go to a make up class for Virginia Woolf lit. tomorrow night, which isn't very amusing, but hey, I'm getting out of going to class on a couple week days, which is better in my opinion. So, anyway, Friday night Matt and I went out and stuffed ourselves full of good food at Perkins for dinner. The service was actually decent. We had refused to go there for an entire year since the past several times before we had gone there, the service had generally just sucked. Then we bided our time playing video games until the Japanese Club meeting.
Going into the meeting, I was concerned about what was going to happen because there were issues floating around about how the club was going to be for this year; what we wanted out of the club; and our general image on campus with general students, the other Asian clubs, and the Japanese students. Basically, last year was so-so as far as Japanese cultural events. We just watched our movie on Friday nights (usually anime) and did the Asian Cultural Festival and the International Fair. This year, we have a new president who wants to do more with the club in the area of culture. To which I whole heartily agree, but we were unsure of the rest of the club's reaction. Fortunately, it seems that many people were all for it. ^_^; Which is great! The meeting lasted an hour where we talked about what we were going to be doing for the year and any reorganization of the club and club doings. That will be continued to talk about for awhile, but the general groundwork was at least discussed. After the meeting, the club watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky, but I skipped out since I'd already seen it. Instead, Matt and I watched (at LAST! O_O;) the final six episodes of Fushigi Yuugi. It's been almost a year since I saw the any of the show. And finally, I got to see the end. Pretty cool. ^_^
Today I madly read my book for tomorrow night's class (Jacob's Room). I almost finished. It's an interesting read. Not very much plot, just a sea of characters running through doing stuff. Thankfully I found the moral of the story right on top of page 174 where it says that "It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirly what is done." Nice of Woolf to throw that in there so people could figure out what the heck she was doing with the novel. ^_^; So, after a nice, tasty dinner of instant ramen and instant fruit salad (made with fresh fruit and a can of pears :D) and some sitting around the apartment, I watched "Being John Malcovich" with a bunch of people, hung out for ahwhile, and came back home. Which leads us up to now. And my bedtime. ^^ Rather abrupt ending, I'd say, but hey, I'm comin' down off the sugar high now.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Haha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia!" -- Vizzini, The Princess Bride
Friday, September 21, 2001 02:45 p.m.
Ok. I think the attempts on my sanity are becoming fewer and further between. Now, I may sound paranoid, delusional, whatever, but it could be true! You're not really paranoid if the ARE out to get you. o.o;;; And well, I suppose I should detail what happened. First of all, there was the incident known as "My Computer is Playing a CD When I Didn't Tell it To." Basically, when I was out of the room, my CD player in my computer started playing the CD that I had left in the D: drive for no reason. It's done that twice in two days. Then there was the "Extra Keys" incident. For some reason, I ended up having two sets of apartment keys in my stuff (one was on my bed, one on my desk in a pile of stuff). Neither of them were my roomates. I did conclude later those were the extra keys borrowed from housing to replace the one's she left at home last weekend (which were returned to her the day before I found the extra pair). But that still doesn't explain why they were in MY things. o_o;
But that's not all. Third there was the "Dark Room" incident. I came home yesterday during the afternoon to what I thought was an empty apartment. Instead, I find the door to my room almost shut, the room inside darker than usual. My thought: "Oh, V's asleep. I should be quiet." Upon entering the room there was no one there. o_O; And, for some reason my roommate had closed the drapes and put a blanket over them and left, closing the door behind her. The last weird incident was "Email from Hell." Basically, I had sent Karen two emails almost three weeks ago and she had supposedly never replied to them, but then they turned up in my inbox yesterday for no reason without even a date received marked on them. O_o; She had sent them back the very days (three days apart) that I had sent them, but I didn't get them until yesterday. Screw you, technology. XP
So, take what you will from these incidents. Is someone actively trying to drive me insane? Or am I just slowly making my way there myself? :P But today hasn't been so bad. I had to get up earlier than usual to get to a meeting which lasted almost an hour longer than I expected, so I had to race through lunch so I could make it to lit. on time. Had lit. Worked out. Now I'm going to head to a meeting with the dean which I know now is basically worthless since I already determined that I don't think I want to pursue what I'm going to talk to him about (applying for X scholarship for grad school). Oh well, maybe he can point me in other directions I know or don't know about. ^_^
Tonight's J-Club. More about that tomorrow. It'll be interesting. ^^
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Wasn't your mole on the other side?" -- Sheriff of Rottingham, "Robin Hood: Men in Tights"
Thursday, September 20, 2001 03:19 p.m.
O_O KAREN! Read my email, and if you don't get it, I'll know for sure that someone is trying to drive me mad. o_o;;; Once again, gomen ne!
Monday, September 17, 2001 10:16 p.m.
Well, what a weekend it was. Back again, am I with tales of Knox fun. Hmm. I think this is gonna be a big entry. Bear with me. :D
First, my impressions of late as to the WTC attack. I'm really irked at the media. It's just all that, all the time. I mean, really, I and everyone else want to keep up on what's happening, who's saying what and everything, but even this can be talked about into the ground. One thing I miss is the regular news. Instead of having "Fox News Live" updates every half hour on FoxNews they have "America United" which are reports on what's going on in NY and/or DC. Now, I may sound callous when I say this, but there IS other news out there that I want to know about, and I don't need to be told the same information every other minute or hour or whatever. But I guess it's what people want to hear, so that's what we're going to get. My only other comment right now is just worry and concern about all the goings on over in the area of Afghanistan. Borders closing, countries getting irked at us and "them", countries around the world taking sides. I was reminded today of the nuclear capabilities of India and Pakistan. Goody. That makes me feel a whole lot better. o.o; World War III could start so easily right about now.
And in less depressing news, as I said, I had fun this weekend. Friday night was the first official J-Club meeting of the term. We have new first-years to frighten, entertain, and enlighten, or any combination there of! XD It's gonna be a great year. We're already thinking about plans for the term including driving on over to IA City/Coralville to eat at the Three Samurai, a Japanese restaurant. No plans whatsoever have been formed, but if this happens, is there a chance I can invite certain IA City dwellers again? Will ya email me back this time? :P You can meet the crazy members of J-Club! Or is that a deterant...um... O_o; Anyway! we had our meeting and then watched the first tape and a half of Slayers. The first tape was dubbed. O_O; Yes, Karen, I sat there twitching through the whole thing. I think it was worse than I remember. Matt kept looking at me and shaking his head. XP But I got to see the Koala Episode in Japanese, so it was worth an hour or two of suffering. XD After that my apartment mate and I watched Matt play MegaManX4.
Saturday was the day I tried to do homework but failed miserably because everyone in the world was IMing me! O_O Ok, it was just my mom and my grandma, but they just wouldn't let me go. After awhile I just gave up (I hate the book I'm reading anyway :D). We shopped for groceries and then ate dinner in the caf (yum!). The rest of the night was devoted to watching a local rhythm and blues band perform and playing Monopoly with a bunch of folks. The band was all right, and very loud. I keep forgetting why I ususally don't go to non-choir concerts--it's because they're just too loud for my ears. I was bamboozled out of Boardwalk in order to get all of the plum colored properties, and then eventually lost at Monopoly. Why doesn't anyone every land on my property, dang it?! ;_;
Sunday was catch up day until the evening when I and the same people who I played Monopoly with gathered at another apartment and watched Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams." Basically the whole movie is a series of dreams that Akira Kurosawa had. For the most part, each contains the director himself, either as a boy or a youngish man. Visually, it was a spectacular movie. There were so many vastly different scenes and really weird and interesting stories in it. For example, a boy sneaks out in the rain to see a kitsune (fox) wedding procession and then has to go off and commit suicide or seek the kitsune's forgiveness before he's allowed to go home. I highly recommend it, but make sure you're not sleepy when you watch it because it gets slow at times.
Today was choir and class. Not much to speak of. Tomorrow is Japanese Table, where I'm assured we will speak Japanese this week. *_* yay! I started missing Japan yesterday during the movie. Wha, I wanna go back. I miss the landscape and just the whole atmosphere a lot. It's so beautiful over there. The weather leaves much to be desired, ^_^; but I'd get used to it. I've been able to speak Japanese around the apartment too since one of my apartment mates can understand my level (uh, such as it is...) of speak. I think he's prolly a full year ahead of me, too, which is great. ^_^ Most of my friends at JCMU were first years or second years, and everyone I knew in Japanese 200 level is not around (well, one's living with me Winter and Spring Term, but he's in Japan now or at least enroute) so as a result there are so, SO few people I know who I can just talk to in Japanese and have them understand. Most of those people don't even attend my college. So it makes me very happy to have someone I can kaiwa with. ^_^
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "It's time to get serious! Yeah! Yeah!" -- Zero, MegamanX4
Thursday, September 13, 2001 03:04 p.m.
Mini-After Entry: Uh, if you read this anytime between the time I posted it and 5, please note that I edited it around 5. I kinda jumped about in my writing and didn't seperate two ideas that should have been seperated. O_o; It came out rather, um, bad. But it's fixed now, and it should be all right. O_o; *smacks self* That'll teach me to not edit. End Mini Entry.
Well, I woke up. But I'm still tired.
*hugs*
It's so hard being a natural moderate/sit on the fence-er. I hear people everywhere just telling me things anywhere from "we should bomb the hell out of anyone who dare attack us!" to "we should retaliate against those who would do such horrible things" to "don't perpetuate the cycle of violence!" and I just sit there and whimper that there must be a happy medium between the two.
Last night we had a vigil on campus. Not a prayer vigil--our campus is a supposed (it's pretty darn close IMO) to a utopia of tolerance of all creeds/race/etc.--although some people prayed. I have my dad sending me emails about how this is war and how we should strike back against those who did this. I have people saying we shouldn't perpetuate the cycle of violence for fear of more innocent suffering. I have emails coming in from friends about how underappreciated America is in the world and how the world shouldn't be so quick to judge how we could have deserved this. (Anyone receive or see that article?) I've heard about people from other countries on webboards saying that Americans DID in fact deserve this because of wrongdoing on our part for whatever horrible things Americans may have done. Well, to those people I say, shut the hell up. >_<
Yeah, we Americans have done some horrible things. We're sloppy goofs sometimes. We throw our weight around and many of us only speak one language. But, dammit, we've done a lot of good for this world, too, in a variety of ways. Now, I'm not going into any of that since, well, it sounds stuck up, and I hate that, but I KNOW we're not just some nation of do-nothing, know-nothing bumpkins. And I'd also call to these people attention, again, that it was the WORLD Trade Center that was attacked. I saw on the news the other day the list of tenants in the main two WTC buildings. I saw many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean banks. I saw an office of the Royal Thai Embassy. Right, so you want to tell me that because of America's evils, the workers at these places should die too; their businesses and livelihoods should suffer? And does anyone, including the U.S., really deserve to have thousands of its innocent civilians randomly slaughtered? The answer to those questions, is obviously, of course not. ~_~ I'm sure that if this had happened in another country, that the U.S. wouldn't be shrugging their shoulders and blaming the victim. Isn't it more like the U.S. to jump up and send people and aid to that country, vowing to help in what way it could? Sure it is. And I would hope that anyone and everyone could see all that. I wouldn't wish the kind of thing that happened on Tuesday on any country, even the one's my own country is at odds with.
Ugh. It just finished storming here. Well, just raining hard. Prolly why I'm so tired. I tend to get sleepier on the days when there's no sunlight. Well, as far as me, I've just been alternating studying and watching the news. I have so much reading to do this term, it's not even amusing. o.o; Well, that's my fault for taking two 300 level lit courses, now isn't it? Oh well, we'll be back to semi-normal next term. Normal. hmm.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Love is in the hearts of all men. You are not alone." -- Esca movie
Wednesday, September 12, 2001 01:30 a.m.
Hmm. Well, honestly, I really don't know what to say anymore. It's all been said, and I'm probably still in shock to scribble out what I'm really feeling. It was just really shocking and down right disturbing getting out of class today having not turned on a radio or a computer, and discover this. Many people on campus had their classes cancelled, but not my morning class. It still seems like it's all one big movie. Unfortunatly, there won't be credits rolling any time soon. ~_~ It is difficult to grasp as real, still, at least for me, but then I just sit there and think about the huge, empty gap in the middle of NYC where the towers used to be. That's more real to me than seeing the video of the plane hitting the second tower over and over. Then it becomes a staggering thought.
And now that what's happened, has happened, I'm worried about the aftermath. Not just finding out the death toll, but what the reaction of the U.S. will be. What will happen today? What about the next day or tomorrow? I don't think anymore attacks will happen in the immediate future. But at the same time, I can just see people settling back into blank acceptance of this in a few weeks. Of course, I hope not. I really, really do. Yet, I'm scared about the other direction too. War? It's a possibility, but against who? We obviously don't know yet, but if it's a country, I bet we'll declare war if not come really close--I hear we're at DefCon 4 as it is. If it's a terror organization or person like Osama Bin Laden, what then? How do you retaliate against that? Sure we could just off him, but what about the organization? Retaliation could just cause even more problems, although because of what happened, I'm sure many people are willing to take that chance. Sigh. I'm just scared to wake up tomorrow.
Monday, September 10, 2001 03:20 p.m.
Well, it's been a few days since my last entry. Oops. Starting to slack off on this again. ^^; Anyway, I had a fun weekend, despite the sheer amount of reading I had to do. I'm still not done with it all yet, but the class with the reading left isn't until tomorrow, so. Anyway, Friday I raced around all day because my schedule requires me to be in class or at lunch from 10:30 to 2:30. I'm actually impressed so far with my Virginia Woolf class. It's going to be better than I thought, but on the other hand, my Romantic Lit. class is going to be far less enjoyable than I thought. Now, I enjoy Romantic lit. because I'm a sucker for that kinda thing. I went in expecting fluffy clouds and yellow daffodils and so forth but instead I get Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen novels. Not fun. I swear, English politics, history, and high society in the 18th and 19th century just bores me to tears these days. I hadn't realized how much until I had gotten away from it for a year. (My last year's English classes consisted of workshops and modern lit. and poetry.) So of course, as we can see from the choice of authors we're reading, I'm not too pleased. I would drop the class and take something else, but there's actually nothing open that appeals to me. ._. So I be stuck.
Anyway, after classes, we had the annual Carnival of Clubs where we club people sit out on the lawn and entice freshmen to join our clubs. We enticed quite a few. Due to some very effective peer pressure, I joined the Gaming Information Network (not that it was against my will :p they had console RPG stuff on the table) and resigned up for fencing. After bumming about there, I headed off to dinner with many people. Later we had our first J-Club movie showing of the term. We saw the dub version of Mermaid's Scar and my sub copy of All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku. Most of the club was screamed in fright when Nuku Nuku was introduced in the box of Perfect Blue:
Former Pres.: "We're going to watch THIS tonight! :D"
J-Club: "O_O! IYA!!!!"
Select Few: "*snicker* XD *point*"
But that soon passed when it was revealed that it was a joke. A cruel and vicious joke. XD Not that I didn't enjoy Perfect Blue the first time through, but none of us were in the mood for mind messing that night.
Saturday I got down and did my homework and then goofed off during the night hours. Matt's parents came down this weekend for some reason and took us out to lunch and dinner. Sunday was a BBQ for those living in the apartments. Unfortunatly, it was raining so we didn't know where to go until an hour after it had began and we were heading to the caf. O_o; But we found it and went. Yummy burgers and brownies. We got to take home a plate of brownies since very few people came and ate them. This weekend our two roomies heading to Japan went back home to prepare for their flights later this week. So now there be three. We're still trying to clean up the apartment and put everything in a proper place of somesort. I still have a few boxes of stuff that needs to be put away, but I haven't yet since I've been reading when not goofing off. ^^ Speaking of which. Gotta get to it.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Bean Crock: That's just so us." -- a placemat at Steak and Shake
Thursday, September 6, 2001 03:09 p.m.
Well, I'm back at school and *generally* moved into my new (on-campus) apartment. It's really nice, but still chaotic. Two of my apartment mates here are leaving within a week to go to Japan so they haven't moved in their stuff, and I haven't put away most of my stuff either since, well, I'm lazy. We have an interesting set up. The apartment is pretty large. We have a little kitchen/dining room that seats roughly four at a time with personal space. We have ample cupboard space in the kitchen and a fridge. Next to that is our living room which has quickly filled with our video and game library and the four gaming systems we brought (PSX, PS2 Japanese version, SNES, and N64.) We don't have the nasty Knox Couches, instead we have one of the old ones with proper cushioning. We have a balcony which isn't being used because a hornet's nest is forming right outside. o.o; But we have AC in the living room! XD WAI! Down the hall we have a decent sized bathroom--meaning it has more room than just standing room aside from the bath, counter, toilet.
My room is the largest of the two bedrooms (since we're eventually housing three in here and only two in the other room). It's a *huge* room (at least compared to any other room I've been in on campus), but I have to remember, there will be three in here come winter. ^_^ Then it may get a little tighter. Instead of the brand new beds, again we have the old furniture which cheats us out of bunking ability and dressers. Instead, we have two large drawers under the bed. The desks are old too and pretty much suck. They were made LONG before PCs came along, I'm betting. There's room for my monitor, keyboard, my tiny woofer, speakers to fit snuggly. And some little owl figurines, but that's pretty much it. I'm using one of the drawers turned upside down for a place for the mouse. o_o;
Anyway, I had my first class today--Romantic Lit. Contrary to what I was expecting, we're doing Jane Austen and other works for 19th century *novels* rather than any poetry. >.> Well, there went my sole purpose of taking the class. Yeesh. But I'm going to stick to it anyway. I need a background in literature anyway. My other two classes are tomorrow. Virginia Woolf and Japanese Art History. I'm actually TAing the art history class, as I took it last fall. So, the prof decided it might be a good thing for me to do a little presentation on my thoughts about going to Japan for the first class. ^^; So, I get to show some slides and babble about going to Japan to yet another group of people. I'm glad I had such practice with my family before hand. :p About three different times.
And so, yeah, the college is still the college. We had Pumphandle last night--the annual event where the entire campus shakes hands with everyone else on campus. It was interesting as always. And I think my apartment will be abuzz with social stuffs this year. Should be exciting.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "You know, there are times when you turn to yourself and say, 'Hey, this would go a lot easier if I had a moose.'" -- Matt
Monday, September 3, 2001 11:50 p.m.
Well, tonight's the last night of summer vacation. Ever. o_o That's really frightening to think about. Now, I'm prolly going to be going to grad school either next year or the year after, depending on whether I go to Japan for JET or not, so it may not technically be the last summer vacation ever, but still. Yes, it really is, I guess. It's still kinda sad, if you think about it. I'm not really thinking about it too much, but if I put my mind to it, I bet I'd get depressed. ^_^
Anyway, where have I been for the past few days? Just doing stuff. I packed a lot. Woo. I actually get to live in an apartment this year rather than a dorm so I had to gather up food related items such as pots and pans, et. al. I went over my Japan pictures yet again with another relative who wanted to see them. I had to explain for the umpteenth time how Chinese and Japanese are different. O_o; I swear, if one more person asks me that, I may develop a permanent twitch or burst some blood vessels or something. I don't get how people can think they're the same thing. It's like English and Spanish. Just because Mexico is right next to the U.S. and we use the Arabic alphabet doesn't mean it's the same language. Yeesh.
I got my pictures back. Last roll shot in Japan plus stuff from AnimeIowa. (Yeeeees, I took pictures of you guys when you weren't looking! tee hee.) I'm really happy with the quality of the shots. I got great ones of Biwa and Lawsons and Coco's and people at closing ceremonies. ^_^ Also the yaoi and web design panels, Greg and Julie and Katherine in costume, Karen on the sidewalk with a box of frosted animal crackers, and that Crono who was running around, among others. I'd scan them in, but I don't have one here. I may find one at school though. But alas and alack! Somehow a hair managed to get into the corner of each picture, thusly ruining several scenic shots, and making others look stupid. >_< Which REALLY ticks me off because these are shots I won't ever be able to take again. I hope I can fix those with Photoshop or something. Ugh. *crosses fingers*
Anyway, Saturday night my parents and I went to the Three Samurai in Coralville. I had very tasty yakisoba, although I had wanted katsudon, but that was a lunch item only. *grumble grumble* I amused myself by watching my mom refuse to even open her chopsticks packet and ask for a fork straight away. ^_^; My dad used his though. I scoffed at the very thought of using a fork while eating soba. *scoff scoff* XD (I think it tastes better that way. :p) I also had to pronounce everything for them. ^^; After that we dropped by Iowa City so I could get some sauce for okinomiyaki.
Sunday night was the premeire of Adult Swim, and thusly Cowboy Bebop, on Cartoon Network. For anyone who doesn't know (ie: those without cable or their head in the sand, which ever :p) Adult Swim consists of shows rated PG or higher. The include Cowboy Bebop, the Brak Show, Space Ghost, and a couple of other shows that I don't care to see ^^. CB was done excellently. I couldn't help but drool out of pure satisfaction. They basically took the already created dub (of two episodes, back to back) and slapped it on the airwaves. They kept the opening and ending credits as seen on the DVD or tape. They even left in the English subtitles in the ending for the first episode and the Japanese romanized lyric subtitles in the second! 0_0 That's probably what impressed me the most. Also, I haven't seen the uncut for quite awhile now, but judging by what they left in, they edited almost nothing (if anything) in those episodes. In short, there was blood, shooting, and swearing. And that breast shot from the first episode? That was left in. I was really impressed here too. Of course, that doesn't take much, considering that I grew up on slashed for TV-anime. My first anime on TV was Sailor Moon back in it's first run at 5:30 a.m. on Fox Kids (complete with the Sailor Says and cheesy opening!), so I'm pretty cautious and hypersensitive about editing when it comes to anime on TV. ^_^
Anyway, there was one thing about the whole Adult Swim thing that caught my attention. You know that TV rating up in the lefthand corner of the screen they flash at the beginning of every show on TV these days? Well, they had one for each show, but instead of flashing it and fading it away, they kept it there through out the whole show for every show! (FYI, CB got a TV14 rating, which is the same as the gorier episodes of the X-files, if you wanna compare.) One side of me is laughing/annoyed at that, because it looks to me like CN is being overly careful about letting people know the non-for-kids rating of each show. Yet, at the same time, the other side agrees with the decision CN made to do that. If it *wasn't* there, they'd probably have angry parents calling left and right complaining about the horrible things that were showing on CN -- a place for KIDS because it's CARTOONS and only KIDS watch CARTOONS and we have to PROTECT THEM yada yada yada. So, in my opinion, kudos to CN for forseeing that problem. ^^ I'm really happy (and if I'm in a position to be) proud of them for finally offering something like Adult Swim for those of us too old enough to be able to handle Adult content, but too immature to either be in bed or watching something "constructive" like the news or something. :D hehe. Well, I've actually been watching too much news during the *day* lately, so yeah.
Well, I really hope their minimalistic/non-existant editing of CB continues. I'll be there to watch. For once (surprise surprise!) I actually like the dub anyway. ^_^ Although hearing Spike's dub voice still freaks me out a bit. His VA is the same guy who did Roger Smith in Big O. Back in the day (last year's AnimeIowa) when I first saw the CB dub, I had of course, never seen Big O, so it came as quite a shock when I heard Spike last night. ^^ I saw Spike, but I heard Roger. Which is odd since I watch so much subtitled anime and hear the same voice actor in multiple roles, like, say Koyasu Takehito or Hikaru Midorikawa. I can identify those guys right off, but I don't hear Zelgadis when I see, say, oh Tamahome or Allen from SM. (I heard Zel first, btw.) I just hear Hikaru Midorikawa. I guess it's because I HAVE heard them in so many roles and have seen their actual faces too. I actually did the same thing before last night, too, when I heard Van in the Esca dub having recently finished watching the Gundam Wing dub. I saw Van, but I heard Trowa. (They, of course, have the same VA. :p) But enough of my seiyuu-loving ways. :p I gotta get to bed since tomorrow I leave for Knox again. Woo hoo. Feel the happy! XD No, I actually am excited to go back. :P I just don't feel like going to class. I just got out of school three weeks ago. >:P I still want my summer vacation, dammit!
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Pretty tree!" -- friend o' mine :D
Thursday, August 30, 2001 10:52 p.m.
I'm just generally irked, so rather than rant about it (because frankly, no one cares, and who would? o_o;), I give you this.
Tuesday, August 28, 2001 09:37 p.m.
Well, AnimeIowa was this weekend, and everyone but me has already given the general run down of events. ^^ Anyway, yes, it was really fun and I had a great time except for my indirect and inadvertant involvment in The Unpleasant Event. But that was that, and I'm not involved beyond that, so no more will be said. It was a very social con too, which was, again, fun fun. Anyway, I got there around 3:30 on Friday and hung out in the lobby with Stephanie and her friend, and then we hit the dealer's room post haste. I was surprised and pleased they managed to get it open on time. ^^ No frothing at the mouth waiting for it to open like last year. I got separated from them when they wanted to go to dinner when (I felt) we had just gotten there. Actually, it'd been about 40 or so minutes. After that I found Karen-tachi and attended their fanfic, doujinshi, and yaoi panels. Quite informative and fun, but certainly not as squealing and loud as the ACen ones.
I also watched Yami no Matsuri...I mean Matsuei. I wonder if that was an honest mistake or not...I think it would be a better title, actually. :D Anyway, YnM was filled with bishy goodness, sparkles, and slashiness, and although the plot was thus, I'd like to see more. ^_^ I also watched Graduation M and the Weiss OAVs. More cheese than you could shake a stick at, although the Weiss was better done in my opinion. Graduation M was, well, worth pointing and giggling at (although some of the seiyuu are worth drooling over!) but not something I'd pay to see. The Weiss OAV was horribly predictable. I wanted to shout at the characters to stop being so angsty and predictable and do something useful. Katherine and I sat there and determined who was going to die and what the next part of the plot was. I mean, of COURSE that whole part was a set up. Of COURSE the boys aren't going to kill each other. I hope no audience member actually believed that! XD Know I know why people write fic. You have these interesting characters who don't really, well, do much! But I suppose it was the OAV, and how much *can* you get done. ^^; Eh. I still enjoyed it though! B+ says I. The other thing I saw was Excel Saga. Oh, poor Menchi! *_* Must hug puppy! It was really insane and funny. I wonder if anyone at school has them. ^^
I bought anime goods of course. Not as much as last year when there were many things I wanted. This con the dealer's room was filled with things that I really didn't care for. And can someone please make some Utena merchandise dealing with characters OTHER than Utena and Anthy? O_o; PLEASE? I swear, if I looked at one more poster of Utena and Anthy falling over each other, I was going to scream. (Keep in mind I was looking for any Miki and Juri merchandise, and I don't hate either Utena or Anthy. I was just ticked I couldn't find anything I wanted. ^^) Anyway, aside from that I bought some Cream Collon. Imagine my surprise when I saw it there! I was going to bring some back for people to try (I forgot), but I guess it's already found its way here. I also got a Juri trading card, Gundam Wing pencil board, the patented AnimeIowa cat ears (just supporting a cause ^^ nyan!), Belldandy bamboo blind (same one Julie got), Freya keychain, 2 posters (one of Lina and SD Gourry, Valgaav, and Zel and an Esca one with Allen, Van, Merle, and Millierna), and a Vivi plushie. ^_^ I almost bought a Menchi plushie (they had one! :D) but it was selling for $69. X_X So I decided to pass.
On Saturday, I made it to the cosplay. It was all right. I was impressed by some of the costumes, but overall, it wasn't an impressive cosplay. It was so-so. I didn't get bored or anything. ^^ I think my favorite was the giant Mog and Setzer dancing to Queen while Mog did air guitar. The Haunted Junction skit was pretty funny too. One of the characters (for the life of me, I can't remember their names) was possessed by the spirit of Steve Bennett and the other character had to exercise it from him by showing him beautiful, scantily clad cosplayers. ^^; And thus the possessed guy was immediatly freed from Steve and subsequently possessed by (I think) Robert DeJesus.
After I got home Sunday, I just kinda crashed. Took a little nap and stared into space until I went to bed. Monday I spent most of the daylight hours playing FF5. I actually dragged myself out of the fire castle before it exploded! Yay! I played more of that today as I wandered frustrated through the game looking for the place where the Earth Crystal is. I found it. Now I just have to break into the place. Arrgh it's so HARD. X_@ Before I can get in I have to defeat these cannons which have many HP, but they're weak against bolt, so I *should* have no problem blasting through them because I have a black mage AND a sorcerer AND a theif with the ability to summon Ramah. But the cannons have this power to hit my characters with muddle attacks that ALWAYS work. >_< AND I have no way to defend against them or heal them other than Esna, and my mage is busy doing other things. So, finally on the second try I beat the cannons, but then, oh yes, then I have a boss fight to get through! O_O Lucky for me my black mage (who doubles as a white mage, BTW--the jobs are both level 5 now) RAN OUT OF MAGIC during the fight and my non-magic people were pretty useless because the boss's physical defense was really high. ^_^ And so, if you couldn't already tell from my bitching, I died toward what must have been the end of the fight. So now I have to start over again. Did I mention the game doesn't allow you to run off and save or use a tent before you fight the boss? ^_^; *twitch twitch* aie... Anyway, we'll be trying that again tomorrow. Yosh!
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Interesting anime fan fiction that speculates about the relationships of the characters." -- definition of "yaoi" in the AI program book
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