Murder by chocolate

Since this is the last week for me on this shift, (whee counting down the days - 2 more to go!) I decided to bake something for my colleagues. The top of the chocolate brownie cracked badly but it smells pretty good and I've handed it out. So far, no one seems to have keeled over from eating it. *sweatdrops*

Xandra was last baffled at 04:18 a.m., Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Where did the time go?

This daylight savings time change my friends are all on, seems to have influenced me into thinking that I had an extra hour too! I overslept one hour, and literally flew out of the house to the office. *Meep* Just my luck, I'm never late. I work on this hell of a shift for 8 months and never was late, and now on the last week of my "tenure" I oversleep. Well, not really oversleep, just that my alarm failed to ring. Fortunately, I'm Super Editor (tm) and I managed to get everything I was supposed to prepare within 40 mins, with plenty of time to spare before anyone else came in. RAWR! I rule!

Xandra was last baffled at 04:16 a.m., Tuesday, October 28, 2003

It was a Potty weekend!

Yeah, spent some of my weekend catching up on watching my Prince of Tennis episodes. I'm almost caught up on all now, till ep 93. Once again I reaffirmed to myself that I enjoy watching PoT for all the filler episodes. Like 87-88 was funny and cute. Wai! Another Chibi Episode, and Tezuka in a purple shirt! Super kawaii. Needless to say, the Seigaku gang in chibi form dressed in animal skins got me grinning as well.

Then for some reason I ended up thinking about how much I enjoy liking pairings that are in shows with canon gay. Like Seishirou x Subaru (for Tokyo Babylon) and now Hijitaka x Souji. I'm definitely going to be pimping Peacemaker Kurogane to everyone I know. Not that I don't enjoy reading slash elsewhere but it just makes it a lot nicer when you see the feelings clearly in the canon.

In other matters, I think I might be going back to my art kick once again. I was quite serious about art years ago, before I got distracted by coming online and writing fanfiction. On Saturday, I was looking at my lovely art materials, all still in excellent half used condition and I just wanted to do it again. At the moment, I think I might practice on fanart. Yes, I have to relearn/remember all the techniques and quirks of the materials once again. It's been quite a while but I think I could get just as much satisfaction out of it once more. And since I bought a cheap stretched canvas while I was out with Alison on Saturday, I'm pretty much committed to painting stuff once again.

Oh yes, while I was out with Alison, I bought a local anime/manga magazine just because they devoted a 12 page feature to Yami no Matsuei and included a pretty colour poster insert in the middle. Looks like Yami is really growing in popularity. There was even a very nice fanart of Tsu/His/and a girl (someone with long brown hair, I sure hope it wasn't a Mary Sue but I'm thinking it was Saya or Yume or Wakaba) in the fanart corner.

Xandra was last baffled at 04:18 a.m., Monday, October 27, 2003

I should be sleeping...

Woke up early and as usual, couldn't get back to sleep. So I decided to work on my first attempt at colouring my fanart. Finally settled on using the pastel pencils, in hopes that the powder wouldn't be too bad. So far so good, Subaru is turning all right, he's looking a bit sleepy and I gave him a slight blush. He's cute but I should try widening his eyes. I'll get to working on Sei-chan later.

On another note, I was pretty pleased to get a postcard from Rachel. Since I rarely get mail that's not a bill demanding payment, it was a very nice perk to my day. Rachel seems to be having a lot of fun in Japan. Hope she'll have a safe trip home soon.

Xandra was last baffled at 08:46 a.m., Saturday, October 25, 2003

Huggles pitas

This is alarming. For the first time in my life, I have noticed dark circles under my eyes. Yes for the very first time in my life. This shift is really wearing on me. Thank goodness I only have all of 10 days left doing it. After which I get to force my body realign its body clock so that I can actually sleep during the very same hours that I'm forcing myself to stay awake currently. Oh joyous.

Xandra was last baffled at 02:27 a.m., Thursday, October 23, 2003

Ficcage

Whee! My poor poor blog. This has been the first time in ages that I could log in.

So today I came home, bathed the cat and after getting scratched a bit, decided to be diligent and post Chapter 2 of Subaru, Seishirou and the Hokkaido Getaway. Also available at ficsite Butterfly Dreams. *bounces*

Other things happening: I've been trying my hand at some Seishirou/Subaru fanart, thanks to this beautiful box of pastel pencils I bought. All the colours glide on so smoothly. The only problem is the goddamn dust. I'm scared to put it in my scanner and clog up some gears or something.

Xandra was last baffled at 12:33 p.m., Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Of good and bad endings...

I can't believe that Matantei Loki Ragnarok is over. *sobs* Anyway I was watching the last two episodes yesterday and I was very pleased with the animators for that ending. It's not often that a 26 ep show can end on a note that satisfies me. Not everything was resolved, because the manga continues, but it ended on a pretty sweet note and left room for some nice speculation. I was pleased that it did however wrap up the entire series as well as it could, without following the manga too closely at all. In fact those people watching the Loki anime would get a very different story from the manga. They buried poor Loki in angst right at the end, but in all, the plot was well done.

Actually now that I think on it, there are very very few shows that ended at around the 24 to 26 ep mark and left me pleased. Stellvia of the Universe was one, Kiddy Grade had a pretty decent ending too.

So the ones with bad ends (at least in my opinion and my opinion only): I thought XTV's end really sucked to high heaven, even though I love this story to pieces and will rewatch it time and again. I wonder if it had to do with all the deaths in it... hmmm, maybe. Next, I shudder when I recall what the animators did to Kareshi Kanojo no Jijiou. Words fail me when I think about it. Fruits Basket seemed a bit too rushed and too many things left in the air. I'm so-so about Princess Tutu's ending because of Ahiru's fate, but I guess it left a great deal of fuel for fanficcing I suppose. It seems that sometimes 13 episode shows seem to do better. Yami no Matsuei ended pretty nicely with the resolution of Tsuzuki and Hisoka being all cute and huggy with each other. Gravitation was a pretty good end too, although it was nice to have two other OVAs to watch after that. However, WK's Gluhen had a pretty sucky ending. So I guess there's really no trend that I can see there.

Xandra was last baffled at 05:48 a.m., Thursday, October 2, 2003

X11 and new people linked!

Ko you really make me impatient for X11 to come my way. Everyone seems to be wanting to play with everyone else! Now you have to draw Keiichi playing with Kamui! Pretty please?

I've pruned my friends list of links-- apparently a lot of people that were on my old links list are no longer blogging. O.o. I need more friends! Please, if you want to be on my list, tag me on my tagboard and I'll add you to my links list. ^__^ At the moment, I have added Emily-chan, Ivory Kitten, Clamp girl and Usa-p to my list because they linked me. Is there anyone else out there that I don't know about?

Xandra was last baffled at 08:56 a.m., Monday, September 29, 2003

kissy kissy make up

Cocoa, yeah I'm cool now. I guess I was hurt, but after thinking about it, I decided that it was all a misunderstanding. You know I was and still am very fond of you, so come on and IM me when you're free.

Xandra was last baffled at 08:17 a.m., Monday, September 29, 2003

Worried

My sister brought my niece to visit my folks (and me ^^V) yesterday and somehow I got roped into "helping" my niece with her homework. It was art and after I drew her some of the usual sun,clouds and pretty scenery for her to colour in, she insisted on having a person in the picture looking up into the sky. MEEP! I can't draw people well at all. So I sit there stuck until I see a picture of Loki. Like a desperate woman, I latched on, "copied" it (that is free hand sketching but with the same pose and everything), and voila my niece had a piece of pseudo-fanart on her homework. (It wasn't against the rules to "copy." Apparently, she just had to colour stuff in.) But after she left, I started fretting. What if her teacher had something against manga art and marks her down? It's not realistic drawings of people after all, with the big heads and eyes for characters. And I hear that art teachers (obviously not in Japan) don't have much of a high opinion of manga art. I sure hope I didn't get my niece into trouble with a picture of Loki. *worry worry*

Xandra was last baffled at 05:36 a.m., Monday, September 29, 2003

My Pretties!

New Layout, in honour of Subaru and Seishirou from Tokyo Babylon. Doesn't Subaru look sexy? ^__^

Xandra was last baffled at 03:03 p.m., Thursday, September 25, 2003