Friday, April 8, 2005

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds--Deanna

Waah! I'm so NOT prepared for this German Exam. *sob* OK, moving on....Sorry I didn't come around yesterday. I'll look at everyone's page this morning before I prepare for my lit class. Hope you all have been doing well. It's been sweltering and damp here. I'm so tired of this weather. Anyway, I hope it's not as bleak where you all live. I've finally seen Fruits Basket in its entirety! I really enjoyed it. Some of the characters are over-the-top (even more than the concept demands), but I actually thought they were funny--which is rarely my response to such characters. I also watched the last disc of Descendants of Darkness. It was also an interesting anime; a bit scattered without a direct story arc and no real resolution in the end, but I suppose that's because no one knows how the manga--Yami no Matsui--finishes (on hiatus in Japan, last I heard). If you like BL, you'll enjoy the overtones. There are a couple of kisses, etc., and it's obvious that several of the male characters crush on the main guy. ;D

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Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Landslide (live)--Fleetwood Mac

Well, lots went on yesterday. Sorry I didn't update or visit. I met my friend from Philly at the Chinese restaurant. Catching up with him was fun (he seems to have actually had a life these last 2 years). His dissertation (which he came into town to defend) had crept up to the absurd length of 397 pages (!!). I plan to write a total of 250 (if that). His committee members were dismayed to receive 400 pages to read in the mail. Such a reaction is completely understandable to me. Dissertations should not aim to be comprehensive (that's more the goal of an edited book). Yowza, right?...I did not see Sin City after all, but I might go this weekend. Also, my manga finally arrived yesterday. I couldn't help but read Passion vol. 2 as soon as I could. It was much more interesting than the first one, primarily because it had more plot and character development. I also read Level C vol. 1 right away. It was OK--very smutty, but you know, I'm OK with that. ;D Still reading White Teeth, but it's such a fine read, I can't imagine not finishing it soon (it's the one i talked about in my last post). Tomorrow, I'm spending the entire day studying for my German exam, but I'll try to post.

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Monday, April 4, 2005

Some Sappy 80s Song

Well, I hope everyone likes K! Though April is no longer Gravitation month, K fits the April category of "hot guys with guns." I will also include Sanzo and Alucard in the backgrounds for this month. I haven't decided yet which character to use for the last week of April. I love Amon, but I've already done a WHR month. Anyhoo, like you care about all of my indecisiveness! :D I can't believe how behind on everything I am. If only I could work up some motivation to get things done. *sigh* Yeah, yeah, you've heard this griping before too. One day, I will escape my self -involvement, but today is not that day. Tomorrow, my colleague will be coming in from Philadelphia. I plan to meet him and a couple of other people for Chinese food. Yummy. I had also hoped to go see Sin City but now I think I won't go to bat for it because I have so much to do. At the very least, I need to read a 500 page novel for Wednesday's class. Of course, if my friend mentions that she'd like to go, I know that reading will be shrugged off in a heartbeat. I can't resist the movies. :D

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Friday, April 1, 2005

No tunes

I keep forgetting to recharge the iPod. I have no tunes to listn to! Waah! I'm in the office again. Wednesday was a nightmare. My pal came by during my class prep time. He monopolized the entire 2 hours I had set aside. I really had trouble visiting everyone Wednesday (so sorry about that). On Thursday, I made a trip to see everyone who updated (who actually comes to my site), so it might have been 11th hour when I commented on your posts. Thanks, everyone, for the warm wishes for the German proficiency test. I just need to remember to run the registration fee over to the grad school before I leave campus today. I get so distracted lately, that it will be a major feat to remember. I did watch the second disc of Spiral, and I have to say that I thought it was fairly enjoyable after I made peace with some plot and concept issues. I'm looking forward to the last disc anyway. I remember some of you asked me to say something about Legal Drug volume 2, but I totally forgot until now! Sorry! I enjoyed it much more than volume 1--all of the characters are better developed. Still, though, you never discover the purpose behind all of the little psychic jobs that they do. I'm hoping we find out even more about Kakei in the next volume. He's such an interesting fellow. That's it for now! I'll be around later tonight! EDIT: Is Hellsing airing somewhere? Or is a new volume of manga out? My Hellsing wallpapers have been getting more popular in the last week or so...

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Thursday, March 31, 2005

Spiral

I'm watching Spiral right now. Have any of you seen it? So far, it's a simple mystery-type anime. It's only OK at the moment, but I suspect that it'll get better. I have nothing much to say today. I've been avoiding going to the grocery store. I hate grocery shopping. But I have nothing to eat in the apartment, so I'm gonna have to bite the bullet soon. I'm also refreshing my reading knowledge of German today. I have a language proficiency exam next Friday. Unfortunately, my schedule next week is also rather booked, so I'm not sure I'll be prepared to take it. But if I don't pass it this semester, I'll have to fly in to campus next semester to take it--yikes, who'd want to do that?! Oh well, back to the grind. I'll be back around later!

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Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Bummed

Well, as the subject heading says... I've found out that there are problems with my manga order. Apparently, Paradise Kiss vol. 4 needs to be reprinted before my order can ship. How long will that take?! I've asked if I can drop the title and select another one so my order can ship. We'll see how that goes. I wasted all of my time yesterday downloading scanlations and trying to learn how to use IRC (which explains my absence from Otaku). IRC's totally incomprehensible to me. I don't know why scanlations sites can't release torrents... It's supposed to be super warm today. :( I'm not happy about that. I can't believe some people actually like warm weather. I hate getting over-heated. Well, I'm off to visit with you now! EDIT: You may have noticed that Ryuichi is still up. I've decided to keep him since I didn't get online much last week. Also, I've decided that April will be my catch-all hot-guys-with-guns month. That way, I can still work up a K wallpaper!

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Monday, March 28, 2005

Belly--Dusted

Wow! You guys are awesome. I took a holiday hiatus, but people still visited me. Thanks, everyone. I'm sorry I kinda bailed after the pity party. I really appreciate the sympathy, and I'm feeling much better today. I wasn't able to spend the holidays with my family, so I guess I sorta got depressed. Anyhoo--it's raining cats and dogs this morning. I'm water-logged. Sometimes the people on the bus seem so grotesque, y'know? The guy who sat in front of me was this sort of skinny, bean-pole type guy. When he got on, he stumbled around under the awkwardness of all of his rain gear (not surprised that he slipped around because those who are most conscious of bad weather seem to shoot themselves in the foot with worry/self-consciousness). He also spilled his high-energy drink a couple of times and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. And then he heard me gathering my stuff for the stop, and he almost killed himself trying to get his shit together and in front of me at the door. Then he fumbled for a small eternity at his umbrella as I passed him on my way to buy coffee. :D Grotesque, but hilarious. I bought coffee with caffeine because the shop hadn't received its usual Friday delivery (a holiday, I guess). I'd rather have the roast I want than no caffeine (I only get decaf because I'm trying to be good when I drink 10-12 cups a day). I received Descendants of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei) on Friday and read them all in one night. It's interesting, but there is a borderline shota situation in one volume, so read at your own peril. The funniest scene of the first 4 volumes is the one where Tsuzuki is getting into the outdoor bath with his coworkers. The most curious and least explained characters are the two coworkers that he's with (Tatsumi and Watari). I'm really curious about them, especially Tatsumi. :D Also, Gravitation 11 shipped out Friday (since it's released by Tokypop on the 11 of April, I think that's fantabulous). I've placed another order which includes Passion 2, Paradise Kiss 1-4, Les Bijoux 2-5, and a couple of uke/seme tees. I hope that shipment is sent out soon. Well, long update--sorry! I'll be visiting everyone now! EDIT: MyO is mysteriously deleting people off my friends list--again. I'm re-adding a couple of you posters. If you don't see your handle in the list, let me know, and I'll put you up ASAP.

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Thursday, March 24, 2005

Red Hot Chili Peppers--Show Me Your Soul

Hi, everyone! I only got around to those who stopped by my site first yesterday. Sorry to neglect some of you. I'll try to do better tomorrow. Right now I've queued up some downloads, so I can't load your pages (56K modem *grimace*). Yesterday totally sucked. Though there were some glimmers of fun around the edges. The know-it-all peer observer had tons of time-wasting suggestions about group work for the students (I'm sorry, but eventually a teacher ought to disseminate her knowledge. Students don't have enough context to produce a full meaning of a text without assistance). I tried to be patient, but we had completely different pedagogical stances. *sigh* My friend defended her dissertation and is now able to use the title of "Dr." How cool is that. Unfortunately, we could barely talk as much as we'd have liked without her kid and her hubby demanding our attention. Males! Then, I had a frustrating conversation with my sister. She has no idea the amount of work that goes into a dissertation. She constantly reduces my obstacles to nothing. She doesn't think anyone has to work as hard as she does and that other people's problems barely exist. I hate when she's like that (sorry if you read this and disagree, sweetie, but that's my impression of our conversation). *sigh* Pity me! OK, I'll go pity myself then. You're all invited to my pity-party, though, so don't forget!

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Wednesday, March 23, 2005

   Portishead--Sour Times

Well, I have a busy day scheduled today. I have to meet with the colleague who observed my class on Monday to talk about what was happening and whatnot. Total fucking waste of my time. Then, I'm meeting my friend Brooke and her hubby and baby for coffee. I've spent all morning looking at student absences and letting certain students know that I have to fail them for missing more than 25% of our class meetings. That was tough, but university policy is crystal clear about that. So hard to tell students this...not in the least because I'll have to wade through a slew of emails protesting all sorts of mitigating factors that I will then have to reject (university policy does not "excuse" absences of any kind). :( In other news, the second volume of Passion is out, but no Target in the Finder. Why can't these manga be released on schedule? Argh! EDIT: Changed the text colors on the site. I noticed on my laptop that the colors seemed a lot duller, and I figure most of you have non-Mac monitors, so this should be easier for you to read.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2005

This is my Ryuichi Sakuma wallpaper. If you all like it, I'll happily stick it up in the WP section. I'm working on K, but he's giving me a hard time. Still, I really want to do him (*leer*). These images come from the moment where Ryu walks by Shu-chan in the hall and steals his voice. I love this magical quality Ryu seems to have. Well, nothing really happening over this way. i may update later today, but maybe not! Descendants of Darkness should have shipped today (yay!).

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