Tuesday, December 2, 2003

   ... ya da dadadada da...

Hm, well... first preview showing of Dracula was today. It was really weird... I don't think anyone got those pre-show jitters. Ali (the gal who plays Gretchen, who I tie to a stake) and I were talking before the show started, and we were both kinda disappointed. I mean, nobody had any energy, no one was excited at all. It really sucked... well, maybe opening night will be better. Wednesday, woot. Oh, as for our performance today? Well... let me put it this way. Rehearsal tomorrow night will last a long, long, long time. ...>.<; I was sore when I came home, so guess what I did... had a nice, hour-long bubble bath. o.o; That was easily the most relaxing thing I've done since school started. Problem is, I'm falling asleep now, and my english assignment (we've been reading The Scarlet Letter and doing some stuff with themes, symbols, and that sort of thing) isn't done... oh well. Hmm, speaking of The Scarlet Letter. I'm wondering if I should be offended... obviously, it wasn't intended to insult (c'mon, Hawthorne is from what, the 1800's? Who was atheist back then, anyway?), but still, it bothers me... "Were I an atheist, - a man devoid of conscience - a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts, - I might have found peace..." so... me being quite decidedly atheist... yeah... *sigh* Well... it's ten minutes to eleven... I don't want to be awake tomorrow... just want to sleep. All day. I swear, if I had my way, I'd fall asleep tonight and wake up wednesday morning. ... ah, but the play. Must wake up and attend school, for the sake of Dracula. Darned life-sucking, sleep-depriving monster play. Gyar.

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Saturday, November 29, 2003

   Eeeeeh-villll computer.

Yeah, it keeps eating my comments and things like that. Grarl. *threatens it with Nebmuffid* Okay, I would have killed it by now, but... I'm still visiting relatives, and it's a rather shiny, flat-screened monitor, and I really don't want to break it. Yeah, aside from the shiny monitor, it's slower than heck. Anyway... movie review time! O.O; Yeah, I actually went to see a movie. Went from one dungeon to another, I suppose... I never go see movies, and I wouldn't have gone to see this one if my brother hadn't dragged me with him. Anyway, we went to see that one about the british ship that's chasing some french ship. I think it's called Master and Commander, but the name really had nothing to do with the movie, so I don't really remember it. Oh well. Anyway, here goes my review thing! The technical stuff in the movie was really well-done. The use of the camera angles and lighting to draw attention to certain things was effective, and it worked in such a way that you only noticed things that were intended - there is a certain shot that's done twice; the first time, purposefully so that you miss the topic of the conversation, and the second time so that it's in clear view. I thought the ship was pretty cool, and I'm no expert on 19th century ships, but everything looked pretty well constructed. As for the plot... it was a little dizzying. It seemed to me like it was just a lot of little side-stories all smushed together; things moved very quickly from one to another and there were so many different topics that everything seemed really disorganized. Overall, it was entertaining, even if it wasn't entirely captivating. Would I reccomend it? Yeah, go see it, if you don't mind everything being a little disjoint. Would I go see it again? If I had nothing better to do and someone (or several people) to go with, sure. anyway... going home to my kitty tomorrow! Yea.... =^.^=

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Thursday, November 27, 2003

   Happeh Turkeh Day o.o;

Behold! I have left my dungeon of scary doom! O.O; I travel! Bwah, none of you are safe... I'm in Oregon, visiting my aunt and uncle for Turkey Day. ^.^; Turkey's in the oven, the relatives are starting to arrive... My dad and brother and I arrived last night at about midnight. Mom isn't coming this year, she is staying home to care for our sick cat. -.-' *hugs the poor kit-teh* My poor sick baby isn't having a good Thanksgiving... But we'll bring some turkey back for the kitty, and a little for the humans as well. ^.~' Happy Thanksgiving to everybody, good food, and good weather! *hugs and turkey all around*

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Wednesday, November 26, 2003

   well...

... it's looking like my server is down again... I didn't get any notice of this, so I don't know whether my hosts are doing updates or something like that... I can't check my e-mail or access my server admin, so I'll just try and wait to see if things clear up... if things are still down by tomorrow afternoon, I'll try to e-mail my hosting people and check up on things. OH! Speaking of wednesday. I'm leaving tomorrow night to go visit some relatives for Thanksgiving. (Bad me, I'll be eating turkey. Ah, guilt.) I will have internet access, they have a computer and all that, but I don't know how much I'll have. Hopefully I'll have enough time to check my e-mail and things... I'll miss my Cowboy Bebop music goodness, though. o.o; I'll definitely bring my Kenshin-pants and get to work on them, though, because my aunt has a really kick-ass sewing machine. Huh. I wonder if any sewing machine has ever before been described as "kick-ass." That'd be interesting to research. Okay... A question for all of you, before I go, as likely I won't get a chance to post tomorrow before I leave. Thanksgiving dinner. Do you prever gravy or cranberry jelly with your turkey? (or, if you don't eat turkey... what eat you, my friend?) And... just to relate it to anime in some way... what do you think your favorite anime character would prefer? (Myself... I see Spike Spiegel eating both at once, hee... Vash strikes me as a cranberry jelly type person, and Kenshin as a gravy sort of person. Heeh.)

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Saturday, November 22, 2003

   sleeeepy...

Well... I spent most of the day at rehearsal... mweh... heh... I'm so tired. o.o; we painted sets today, so I'm covered in black paint. Oh well... good thing my clothes are mostly black anyway... heeh. Uhm... I'm currently waiting for my mom to come home so she can help me start on my Kenshin-pants. Still looking for a pattern for the shirt thingy, but I think I can probably just do a basic kimono-type thing and make it a little loose and a lot shorter. ^.^; Anyway... uh... I had a very strange and very frightening dream last night, which is recounted in my LiveJournal. I don't know what it meant and there was so much in it, I think it has to have some meaning or another... www.livejournal.com/users/aurussteelsword would be where you can find it. Thanks... now... sleep. Sleep is good. *falls over*

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Wednesday, November 19, 2003

   Marf...

Well, I have a little ranting to do, but that'll go in my (somewhat depressed, as of late) LJ... Since I know you people want to read my happy, happy thoughts o.o;;; Uhm... since people seem to be migrating over to MSN Messenger, my MSN IM thingy is cucurbitatracy@hotmail.com I probably won't be on an awful lot now... rehearsals are murder and I'm spending roughly eleven hours a day at school now, since after all, our show is in two weeks. I get to die a second time, though, I found out. *evil grin* I'm also the third mate on a ship that Dracula gets on and kills everybody. What fun. Mwaha. Anyway... off I go, to find food and then rant in the LJ. Hoo rah. o.o;

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Saturday, November 15, 2003

... plea?

... >.<; yep, I need a little help with my costume (Kenshin Himura) for SakuraCon. I'm planning on sewing it all myself (okay, mom and grandma will be helping some ^.~') to cut down on costs and things... I found a good pattern for the pants (hakama, I believe they are called), but I can't find one for the shirt (as far as I know, it's a gi, but I could be wrong). If you know where I can download or print out a pattern for an appropriate sort of upper-body garment, I will love you forever. Oh, yes. Preferrably something of the free variety. ^.~ saving money is a good thing. *wanders away to go buy fabric*

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BWEE!

*evil grin* Well, I finally got the pictures from the wedding scanned in! Bwaha... anyway, now you finally get to see the dress that my grandma and I put together. I was aiming for the sort of dress that Polaris wears a few times in the first volume of the X-Day manga, which is this really neat, black, sort of victorian-gothy type dress. I'd like to think that we came pretty close! Now you'll just have to ignore my face and the way my glasses got all glary in the pictures ^.~ http://www.cucurbitalane.net/main/wedding1.png First picture... me, with my cello. Bad lighting and all that. ^.^;; http://www.cucurbitalane.net/main/wedding2.png This one is slightly better... I'm not holding my cello so you can see more of the dress. Anyway... o.o; now you all know what I look like. I'm frightened and I shall go hide now. ^.^;'...

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Friday, November 14, 2003

   My take on the question I asked yesterday... (doot doot doot...)

Possible spoilers, though hopefully they'll be vague enough that they don't matter ^.~ I'll try to avoid them. *ponderponder* anyway... I asked yesterday, if Kenshin and Vash got in a fight, who would win? This is something that I can talk for hours on ^.^' In fact, I would LOVE to see a sanctioned, formatted, formal-style debate on this topic. So... both Vash and Kenshin are really, really fast, and both of them rely heavily on their speed and ability to dodge in order to get an edge in battle. I've seen Kenshin dodge bullets numerous times - in the fifth episode, when Gohei is interfering with his fight against Sanosuke, and later on in the Megumi story arc when he dodges that wicked machine gun thing, most notably. Another thing to note: when Gohei shoots at him, Kenshin knocks the bullet away with his sword, so I don't think it's as much a question of the attacker's accuracy as it is Kenshin's ability to block and/or dodge. In that case, I think that even though Vash is an amazing shot, Kenshin would be able to dodge or deflect a lot of his bullets. Of course, it'd be pretty difficult for Kenshin to actually hit Vash with his sword - a lot of the more powerful attacks in the Hiten Mitsurugi style (judging from the movie) are easy to avoid provided you can predict where they're going fast enough, which we know Vash could do. Getting down to who I actually think would win... when you consider that neither would be trying to kill - I guess they'd both be trying not to kill, wouldn't they - it is a heck of a lot easier to do serious damage with a gun than it is to with a reverse-blade sword. A sword with a blunt edge can be used to hit pressure points, for example, the backs of the knees, the back of the neck, the small of the back, or the inside of the elbow; whereas with a gun, you're stuck with having to impale, draw blood, and risk more internal damage in most places it's possible to shoot people. Also, with a reverse-blade sword, you have a lot more room for error when it comes to swinging hard, while with a gun, if you slip up just a little your opponent can end up dead. For this reason, I think Vash would be holding back a lot more than Kenshin would to avoid doing excessive damage. Thus, Kenshin would probably be able to win, since he wouldn't be holding back as much and he wouldn't be in as much danger from Vash's attacks. (post script; Vash obviously wouldn't use his angel arm ^.~ not only would it kill Kenshin, but it'd probably take out everyone else for miles around o.o; ) ... capisce? ^.^' that's my take on things.

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Thursday, November 13, 2003

Question, question...

Just wondering with my random question of stuffness. (And yes, incase you can't tell, my brain has been taken over by cheese, cheese, I tell you! >.<;;;...) Is there anyone around here going to SakuraCon next year? It's in Sea-Tac, Washington, in late April 2004, in case people in the area don't know... I'll be going there, and I think it'd be kinda cool to meet face to face with other anime nuts. I'll be going as Kenshin, by the way ^.^' I love those pants. I've always wanted to wear pants like that... So, uh... tangent and another questiony thing. Imagine by some chance, Kenshin and Vash got into a fight with each other. Who do you think would win? Or would it be a draw? (That'd be a conflict I'd pay to see, actually. I mean, just imagine it. They're a pretty good match when it comes to skills.)

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