Friday, August 13, 2004

So how do they get the little M's on M&M candies, again?
Well, yesterday we were off in San Diego (again), this time with a big moving truck, and we moved a ton of our grandmother's stuff out of her now spider-infested house. Before this everybody's been putting it off, but the time has finally come to make a move.

Earlier in the day I helped my dad with most of the heavy lifting and box-making. I swear, you can get so much entertainment out of those cardboard boxes.. My brother hid himself in a corner in three boxes that looked like they were just stacked there, and freaked all of us out. It was pretty funny to see my sleep-deprived aunt's reaction, heh.

Other things my brother did with the boxes:

- Sneak around in it and pop out ala Solid Snake

- Fell asleep in one with a blanket and a radio with country music playing

- Put things we were taking home in them, sealed them closed with tape, picked them up, put them in the truck and arranged them to optimize the amount of space used (Creative, huh?)

Our two-week-old cousin was sleeping in the living room for a good amount of time while we were packing, and my brother wasted a lot of time watching him. Little guy made lots of strange faces in his sleep when I was watching- he was a lot more "baby-cute" than when we saw him last week (At that time, he was still "ugly-and-pink-and-smushed-but-still-a-baby" cute).

My dad woke me up at eight for unpacking the truck, because he had to return it and go to work by 2, but I really didn't get up until 11-something.

And now that it's all unloaded, this house it totally packed with stuff. We moved our tried-and-true cream-colored leather couches out into the backyard temporarily to make room for the new couch which is only comfortable when you put tons of pillows on it. We have two end tables sitting next to each other in the middle of the room, next to a new one-person couch, which has absolutely no place to be in that room. Oh, and there's the new TV cabinet sitting between the dinnertable and the old TV cabinet. It doesn't have room for game consoles or too many DVDs, so a wonderful new solution has become apparent to us:

The computer cabinet of my grandmother shall now be used as a TV cabinet that shall be placed in this, the room with the computer, and one of the televisions will be in here as well.

So all I need in here is a toilet and I could spend all day in here. The Gamecube and PS2 will be in here, along with our good-as-new-but-still-lame computer and a TV. Isn't that just great?

But until everything's sorted out, this room is also a huge clutter of junk. Three boxes of stuff, a chair, an end table covered in bills and a disturbing Erte painting are nearly covering the entire entryway, so it's very hard to get in and out.

--

The other day when the computer had just stopped working I decided to go watch End of Evangelion for the first time since February. This action was motivated by the all-night Evathon over at my friend's house a week ago, and after watching the earlier half of the series over there (Which pales in comparison to the other half) made me want to watch the "better" parts of Eva.

So I decided to go with the movie. I had only seen it a couple times, after all.

End of Evangelion is a very, very good movie. I may have a rather limited number of theatrical anime releases under my belt, but EoE is not only my favorite in the animated category, but it's probably in my top ten movies of all time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to rant about why it owns Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies and Ghost in the Shell combined .

I would first like to address the issue of the animation quality. The 26-episode series of Evangelion had extremely high quality fight scenes and production values (for its time), and animation should never be the first or only reason to go see a feature-length animated film, but End of Evangelion had some amazing visuals and it deserves some recognition.

To me, the most important aspect of animation is not fluidity or color but character designs. If a character's features are far off from the original designs in a scene, I stop enjoying a scene as much. It kills the mood. In End of Evangelion, however, everything is on-model in every frame, even when the ever-complicated Eva 02 is jumping around slicing off the heads of nine other complicated Evas.

The framerate during action sequences is flawless as well- The entire SEELE invasion was all so fluid. It's really impressive, when you consider how many people are onscreen at a time and how long it must have taken to get it all right. Asuka's last stand is another memorable scene that's so freakin' impressive. It's not my favorite scene ever (Rei II death for-evah, baby), but it's definitely noteworthy.

Next is the story itself. I found EoE to be a good mix between the two portions of Eva- the psychological one and the action-oriented one. A lot of people were really turned off by the last two episodes of TV-Eva, mostly because it was left so open-ended and with a ton of questions, not to mention that god-awful congratulations scene. Personally, I enjoyed them, but End of Evangelion was a better mix, with a better ending.

"But Sen, TV episodes 25 and 26 were open-ended and you're ignorant for not liking them more!"

Yes, TV eps 25 and 26 (Let's call them ending A) and EoE (Ending B) were both left rather open, but there are two kinds of open endings: The first one is a good open ending in which some things happen and you're left wondering about how things will pan out. It is a good ending. The other, however, is an ending where a bunch of random stuff happens and there's no possible way to have a decent idea of what had happened, which makes it rather hard to imagine what will happen next. Ending B was good-open, and Ending A was bad-open. Both left your head scratching, but Ending A left you scratching until you penetrated your skull and started tearing up delicate brain tissues. In a bad way.

Of course, they were both good, but this is all my amateur opinion. I just felt like ranting for a while.

Oh, and for the record, I had to turn off EoE in the middle of Giant Rei's encircling of Earth during Third Impact so I'm probably missing some sort of important information in here somewhere. Forgive me.
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Thursday, August 12, 2004

If God wanted us to wear socks, he would have made boa constrictors out of 100% cotton.
Back down to #61. Perhaps I'm getting too hung-up on the ranks.

The computer's being fixed up as we speak. My dad decided to upgrade the RAM to 512MB, and put in the new hard drive, which is basically a must. We're just going to re-purchase Windows 98 instead of get XP simply because my dad's cheap.

This isn't the computer to end all computers, of course, but it's not meant to be the top computer in this house for five years. We're going to be getting the computer more suited for my needs (Can you say "Half-Life 2"?) "soon," according to my parents.

Now "soon" can mean a lot of things. In the most optimistic sense, "soon" could be within the next month or two. It could be in six months, or maybe ten. In the end, a lot of "soons" turn into "never." The ambiguity of this word irks me to no end- and this issue is the perfect example.

But I think it's high time that I talk about something than these simple computer issues and bring up something that's interesting to people other than myself.

And, of course, this is the hard part. For me, trying to come up with a subject to talk about is a real pain in the ass, in conversation and in myOtaku. I talk about and learn about a ton of things every day, and it's hard to remember it all, sift through it all, and select the tidbits that are, first of all, interesting, and second, something that I have an opinion/interesting view on.

So, out of sheer laziness, I normally write about the first thing that comes to mind, if I'm not fixated on a certain subject at the time. That's why you have all been listening to nothing but me talking about my computer troubles for the past four or five days.

And for that, I apologize. :P

--

A week ago I went over to a friend's house overnight and we watched a lot of Evangelion. A month or so ago he came over and we watched the first disc or so, so we did the only logical thing to do in such a situation: We picked up where we left off (Shocking, isn't it?). I believe we got to the end of the fourth disc by the time I started dozing off. Honestly, I don't think Evangelion got really good until halfway through the sixth disc. Sure, the rest of the series was good, but a lot of it seemed a bit too filler-ey and standalone for my tastes. Of course there was a ton of the story mixed in with it all, and I was enthralled from the beginning, but episode 20 was where I really got into it.

The seventh disc was my favorite. I mean, between a flashback episode going deeper into Yui, Gendo and Fuyutsuki's relations, Rei II's demise, and Asuka's whole fiasco in episode 23, how could it get any better?

Yes, Azure, if Shinji were to die a painful death it would make everything a hundred times better, but it's not going to happen, so get over it. >:|

And as if Rei II's death weren't cool enough the first time through, the Director's Cut edition released in February added several shots that added a lot to the intrigue, confusion and overall creepiness that made the scene so cool.

I never liked Asuka as much as Rei, and so I didn't like her episode as much, even though it was still one of the best, but the extended peek into Asuka's mind as the angel is "defiling" her really gave me a better opinion on the scene, and Asuka in general.

Beforehand I simply felt she was a.. Well, bitch, heh, plain and simple. Sure, she had some traumatic experiences in her childhood, but none of the stuff displayed before really made me pity her for it.

Her reasons for how she had acted before was all were clear now, and it made you feel sorry for her. Plus this is where I got really, really depressed. :P

Sorry to any Asuka-lovers out there for bashing your character so much, but that's how I felt.

--

Tune in next time for another Evangelion rant (End of Evangelion, specifically,) and possibly a recap of tomorrow's trip to San Diego.

Oh, and I'm way behind schedule on the comic. I haven't even decided which idea I'm going to do next.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Weekly comic # 2- Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Well, you do. ~_^

--

The computer people called my dad and said that the hard drive is "broken." They to put in a new 80-gig hard drive in its place. I got rather frustrated with everybody, including myself, when they didn't put it in as a slave drive to see if anything was recoverable. I'm going to have to go in tomorrow and tell them to do that.

If they can't recover anything, I guess I'm pretty screwed in several ways. My dad suggested we get a cheap, refurbished Dell to hold us over until we can afford the big uber-computer (Alienware, most likely), and that Dell will become the little computer that the rest of my family will use.

Well, they'll probably say that that one is theirs, too, but I won't let 'em near it. :P

But assuming everything goes in this direction and nothing's recoverable, Torture Your Funny Bone may have to be put on hiatus (already!?) until I can get, at the very least, Paint Shop Pro 8 onto any computer in this house that can work with the scanner.

Which means that the comics may suffer in quality for a little while, unless somebody can teach me the deep secrets of making Photoshop-quality text in Paint Shop Pro (Which I have never achieved), it's pretty screwed.

Other than that, I can continue most of my regular internet stuff on this, for now. I'm starting to go into withdrawral without my music, and I'm not going to bother putting anything on this 16-gig hard drive. :|

But I'll get by. To quote that one song I heard on VH1, and this is a very obvious example of how I'm running out of things to say, "And we'll all float on okay."
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Monday, August 9, 2004

Insert witty title here.
Mimmi- Yes, it is promising. Because I made it. :}

Mal- I haven't used Kazaa since March of last year. :|

Azure- It's in "the shop" right now. Let's see what they come up with, and we'll find out if you're a credible source or not. ~_^

Shin- Heh, I leave suddenly all the time.

Mal again- Damn cockroaches. They ruined the salsa.. And are the millions and millions of spyware you're talking about ninjas, because they never showed up on any Spybot (Search and Destroy) searches, or on my startup list.

--

Well, as I stated earlier, the computer's in the shop now, and I'm hoping those guys don't just sit on their asses and flip a coin to see if they're going to do anything or not.

Actually, I didn't go to the shop. I was asleep and my dad took it on his way to work. I haven't talked to him since. Perhaps there is something I should know, or maybe they screwed him over.

"Yeah, we'll make your hard drive bigger, sir, by ONE WHOLE MEGABYTE! Give us some RAM and we'll weld it right in there."

*shudders at the thought*

Not much else to say on that topic. I ran a spyware check on this laptop, because it was running slowly (Well, slower than 128MB RAM should be going), and Spybot found fifty-six items. That left me scratching my head, considering the only things I've put on this laptop are AIM, Yahoo DSL and Spybot itself, but I have come to the conclusion that Weatherbug and that other little AIM add-on are to blame.

Damn AOL. Corporate bastards.

I also saw Resevoir Dogs the day before last on Bravo, and I was blown away. I had never seen any Tarantino films outside of Kill Bill at that point, outside of Pulp Fiction's twist competition the night before, and it was awesome. I'm a bit tired to get specific, but, as expected, the dialogue was what brought me in. The whole "Like a Virgin" thing seemed a bit unnecessary, but I'm either not looking deep enough into it or it may have been needed to give a little more shock value to the Orange and White car scene. It felt out of place, but I was entertained, so it wasn't all bad.

I felt the resolution at the end was a bit weak, but I didn't really feel that way until afterwards. I like to imagine that the one with the diamonds (OMG I SPOYLD TEH MOOVY!!1) got caught by the police, simply because I wasn't rooting for him throughout the course of the movie. He was a funny, interesting character, yes, but he didn't deserve the diamonds.

I got upstairs at 3:30 AM after watching the ending and fell asleep rather quickly. I had to wake up the next morning at 8 to take my grandmother to the airport, and I knew that before I decided I was going to start watching Resevoir Dogs at 12:20 AM, but it was worth it. A quick shower in the morning jostled me out of my half-conciousness, and I took a short nap on the way to LAX.

We simply left her in the line, where she would soon be receiving wheelchair services. Last time we left her at the airport, it was all sad and touchey between her and my mom, but this time it was just a hug, a goodbye, another hug, and "call me when you get there." I was actually surprised how quickly we got out of there.

We stopped in Valencia, a nice very commercial city that we used to live in (When I was one and a half we moved here), and I was pretty eager to go check out the cool, two story, recently rennovated mall. We first stopped in the food court, which was the most overhauled area, with a small but nice selection of restaurants (They have best service at Panda Express). I then told my family I was going to go wander about for forty-five minutes, eager to see the cool stores they were bound to have.

And what a let-down I experienced. It has become a yuppie fashion mall. The Electronics Boutique was small and cramped, and their B. Daltons was okay, but they didn't even have a DVD store. What kind of mall doesn't have a DVD store?

A crappy yuppie fashion mall. Damn you, Abercrombie & Fitch!

Disappointed with the indoors shopping, I then walked across the street to the outdoor shopping which, apart from the sushi bar and the cool glasses store, had no redeeming qualities. I discovered the Imax had a Tilt! Arcade next to it, which had an impressive selection of fighting and shooting games (There was a cool Silent Scope I had never seen in person before, with a lame eight-year-old who had his arm way below where it should have been, and it wasn't because he was short), but the only sign of Bemani/music games was a delapidated, torn apart Pump! It Up pad next to the Wheel of Fortune game. That left me feeling quite sad, and I didn't go into the two-story Borders book store because I knew my mom and my brother wanted to go in there as well. I met up with them, we browsed through the stylin' glasses frames at Optyx, and went over to Borders.

That place is so cool, heh. Tons of fiction and magazines on the first floor, including a nice selection of manga, and they have a comprehensive CD and DVD collection of floor two, accompanied by non-fiction and the children's section.

I was looking for the Pulp Fiction DVD, and found it in the Action/Adventure section.. Now I may know next to nothing about that movie but is it really that action-ey? I was under the impression that it was more of a drama, but whatever. I'll still watch it, despite problems in the categorization department. :P

My brother bought another Calvin and Hobbes book he had never read before (I swear, they must systematically hide them in the back, bringing them out once we've bought the "last one") and my dad got a book about Gettysburg.

I didn't buy anything. I wanted to find a cool novel to read, but I don't want to read a book only to find that it's not on our Accelerated Reader list and that I spent two months reading what could have been something else. AR sucks.

Tomorrow: Torture Your Funny Bone 2. Fear its greatness.
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Sunday, August 8, 2004

GAH!
As if I weren't angry enough before, this stupid laptop accidentally hit the Add Post button just as I was almost done with this update.

Piece of crap.

Well, good news, kiddies! My computer's dead. It had been acting funky all day, and it finally crapped out on me. Things were going fine early in the day- I was talking with Shin, and I was reading a Doom 3 review, but out of nowhere the computer suddenly froze and restarted.

All day it had been making this strange clicking noise. Now, this computer's been making a clicking noise its entire life, but this sound was different. It was much louder, and much less consistent. The other one would make a thinking sound for five to ten seconds and make its sound, while this new one would have a heavy thinking sound while having very far-between clicks one minute and intense multiple repititions the next.

Well, it never got past the Windows 98 screen the three or four times I restarted. We came back from Black Angus tonight and restarted it, only to find a black screen that said, in a menacing 8-bit font, "Operating system not found."

Who knows what happened to it? There's no sure way for me to find out until the guys at the computer shop check it out on Monday. I'm accessing from my deceased grandmother's laptop (So it has a purpose after all), and I've been frantically asking about what happened to many, many people. They have all basically come to the conclusion that it's a mechanical problem- one person even went so far as to say that they hard drive may have simply burned out.

..Whoa, man, Resevoir Dogs is on Bravo. I'll edit this when I'm done watching. O_O

EDIT: Okay, PT told me Resevoir Dogs was on.. In the Eastern Standard Time Zone. I have to wait until about 12:30 Pacific Sandard Time to see the edited but hopefully still good Tarantino-ness, heh.

Anyway, back to where I left off.

According to that friend of mine, if the thing just burned out I'll probably be able to get most of my files back. I don't really mind losing most of my stuff- I just need all the web graphics I've done dating all the way back to that very first Rei banner. They all hold very.. Special memories for me. Oh yeah, and I need PhotoShop and my music. All the hours of downloading that it took to get those precious 129 songs and PhotoShop (courtesy of Syk3).. It would take forever to acculumulate it all again.

Other than that, everything is either expendable or recoverable.

I'm trying to put a positive spin on it all. This gives my parents a very large reason to upgrade the computer, and my sources are pretty knowledgeable, so I'm not gonna sweat it too much. I've already drawn one really awesome Saikano picture because I had nothing else to do. A vacation from computer addiction may be a good thing, heh.

I'm going to have to change the title for my comics. I did a Google search, and there's already a Sick and Twisted comic/drawing site on the 'net. I'm thinking of "Torture Your Funny Bone," but I'm always open to suggestions.

And while I'm on the topic of the comics, I've decided to do the comics weekly, posting them on Tuesdays. It only takes me two or three days to do one right now, but once I get back into school I may hardly squeeze by. As for why I chose Tuesday out of the individually special and inconvenient seven days of the week, there's not much reasoning behind it. I just have this one done, and I just feel like putting this one up on Tuesday.

Now that I think about it, there is a bit of logic to Tuesdays. That will give me four days of art class to get all of the drawing and inking done, I can scan it and do some of the PhotoShop on the weekend, and finish the coloring on that Monday. Not too bad, eh?

On an entirely different tangent, I watched that new Michael Jackson movie on VH1, and I can't tell if they're promoting him or trying to make him look bad. Either way, the man's totally nuts, and the makeup people were horrible. In some scenes post-95 Jacko was totally pale, and in the next one he looked more like a black actor who got some sawdust on his face. It was all really poorly done, but whatever. It's not like I wasn't watching it just so I can laugh at the man.

Hm, the laptop seems to be getting quite hot now. I'm going to head out. Wish me and my computer luck.
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Friday, August 6, 2004

Jumping the shark? I think not!

Question: What would a low-class republican do with those Kerry Edwards poster-signs from the Democratic National Convention?

Sen's biased answer: Do something childish and/or violent with them, of course.

I'm going to try to do these comics on a fairly regular but flexible basis- I may get one done in one week and three in the next. I'll try and keep them regular, but don't expect much. It will be hard to find the four to six hours needed to do four panels, especially when school starts. Even if I get an hour of art in every day, homework will probably be taking up most of my after-school time this year. I've heard that 8th grade at this school a complete 180 from seventh, homework-wise.

But enough of that. Let's talk about Saikano.

I finally picked up the first volume of the manga version a couple days ago, and it's even better than my expectations (Which were quite high to begin with). It's the only romance manga I've read (in the shounen realm, at least) that didn't rely on fanservice and perverse humor to get by. It's just a guy and a girl, who know next to nothing about love, in a small town where the only thing they can do together is talk. Then the love-during-war dynamic comes in, which is obviously quite important to the series.

It's touching, it's personal, and most importantly it feels real. No wonder Viz put it in Editor's Choice.

Will I be buying the rest of the series? Hell yes. Will I be buying the anime adaptation? No. That money will be going toward Tsukihime.

I also picked up the first volume of Bleach, which pales in comparison to Saikano. I'm probably going to be a cheap bastard and exchange it for cash, if Waldenbooks will let me.

Hm, I should probably end this with some sort of witty quote or comment, shouldn't I?

...

Well, too bad. I'll work on my post closure later.

EDIT: Three people have just asked me if I'm pro-Kerry or pro-Bush after reading this comic. I figured the comic wouldn't be 100% clear..

Anyway, I would vote for Kerry, if I could. "At least he's not Bush."
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Tuesday, August 3, 2004

If you start to urinate the Forbidden Color, please consult a doctor.
Last night my brother brought up how much he enjoyed Van Helsing. For some odd, unexplained reason, I felt it was my duty to crap all over that film. I realized how much I enjoy watching and discussing movies just as I was mocking the shoddy accents. There are always tons of films that I want to go see, but I hardly ever have the chance to, and when I have the chance I have to endure the stupid post-film commentary that is so courteously supplied by my family.

Today, however, I had an oppurtunity actually go see a movie. Not just any lame movie I had no intention of seeing, mind you- a movie that I suggested. My mom wanted everybody (which meant my father, my brother and myself) out of the house for a couple hours, and I proposed that, instead of hiking (which I despise), we go see The Village.

Honestly, I loved the movie. The acting, the execution, most of the script.. It was all great. I enjoyed Adrien Brodey's performance most, and the way he portrayed Noah. His character's ultimate purpose in the story also struck me as interesting, in an ironic and somewhat pitiable way. I won't elaborate any further on that subject, in fear of somebody saying that I "spoyld the moovy" for them.

I did feel that Ivy's character didn't seem.. Blind enough. It may sound a bit rude of me, but I went to school with a blind kid for a few years. Her eyes were too focused, I think, but what can you do about that outside of burning your retinas, eh?

I only jumped in my seat once, but it was a really fun scare (For those of you who have seen it, it was when you saw the red cloak run under the watch tower). God, I love a good suspenseful scene..

And now for the ritual. The ancient ritual practiced by me ever since the dawn of my existence. The very ritual that was performed the last time I wrote about a movie-going experience..

I'm going to rant about the stupid people who were also watching the movie.

There was a scene where Ivy (The blind woman) started slapping Noah (Adrien Brody) repeatedly across the face. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you could hear a bunch of fat dudes in the back of the theatre clapping and cheering and laughing. If I recall, there was some girl that seemed extremely girl-powerey that was cheering along with them.

What the hell, people? The intention of the scene was not at all to make you laugh. It wasn't even a light take at some sort of punishment for a silly childish act on Noah's part. She was doing the only thing she could to a dear friend who.. Eh, I won't ruin it.

And there were a couple guys in front of us who were talking about how much the film sucked afterwards.

"Yeah, it sucked."
"Totally sucked."
"Totally."
"... Yeah, it sucked."
"Uh-huh."

What, were they expecting it to be some big shocker/decapitation around every corner Friday the 13th horror flick? No, it was suspense. It's M. Night Shyamalan for God's sake. He's a storyteller, not a cheap director whose scripts consist of nothing but different, occasionally original ways to destroy people in a gore-fest of chainsaws.

My dad and brother weren't too bad after this one.. They just seemed to gasp while pointing at a red object, whether it be a car, a fire hydrant or a poster, and say "The forbidden color! It must not be seen!" for about half an hour. That really bugged me. Why stretch out a joke until you're sick of it when you can laugh the first time and be done with it? Why, it's not like the color red's a sammich or a biatch. :P

We also had guests over for dinner tonight. Our neighbors of two years, originally from South Africa, went to live in China on business last year. They're probably the nicest neighbors we have- the rest of the people in our general area are either jerks, antisocial or don't speakey the Engish. These people, however, are interesting speakers, with tons of stories from around the world, and they are good cooks. They had us over for dinner before they went to China, and it was one of the most delicious soups I have ever had. The husband has a Harley Davidson, which gave my dad (Who has had a mid-life crisis about motorcycles since he was 25) yet another reason to like them.

We were all quite sad when they left for China. They send us weekly e-mails about their experiences, which is nice, but it's not like they're too personal- the same email goes out to ten or twelve other people.

But suddenly, out of nowhere today, they showed up at our doorstep. They had come back to the US for a week or so, and we had an impromptu barbecue in their honor.

And, as per usual at social events, I was reminded of how I have no place in any conversation. I just listen, heh.. Oh well. At least they don't have little kids that are way into bothering me.

Wow, a decent post. I thought I wasn't going to make one like this until school starts again.

NEXT TIME on OtakuSennen's Splendiforous Blog From Beyond the Grave: It's a desperate attempt to get more visits! Expect plenty of lame jokes, plugs, and a Kill Bill reference in there for James.

..Okay, there may be none of that, but there is going to be a desperate attempt for visits. You can count on that. It's almost done already..
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Sunday, August 1, 2004

Why, God, why..?
Argh, I was just about done with this entire post when the computer restarted on me. Piece of crap.. Well, now I'm going to simply summarize what I said before.

First off, I was whining about how my spot in myOtaku has gone down since Shin was off in Florida. I then brought up how I could possibly put up occasional comic strips or three-to-five page stories (Think JTHM's Meanwhiles).

I then whined about the two and a half hours of full-system virus and spyware scans (Seven viruses and two adware) and how it was the most boring part of this summer, but the highlight of the day.

After that, I talked about how I drew lots of god-awful sketches while watching Adult Swim, Reno 911 and some Saturday Night Live. I continued my whiney rampage by talking about how the new Texan captain on Sealab 2021 can never replace the large, stanky, sticky hole that Captain Murphy left.

Next, I whined about how I have to be very careful about where I spend my cash (Saikano manga and Tsukihime DVDs only) so that I'll be able to take part in the great gaming harvest this fall (Metal Gear Solid 3, Resident Evil 4, Half-Life 2, DDR Extreme, and many more!).

And that's about as far as I got before the computer crapped out on me.

We may be going to the recently rennovated mall/shopping complex forty-five minutes away from here today. I really, seriously need to get out of this house. The only reason I've gone outside for about three weeks has been to take out the trash. It's insane..

Anyway, feel free to make suggestions about what I should talk about next time. Otherwise, I'm probably going to have a lame update on this summer, which is hardly worth a read.
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Saturday, July 31, 2004

Quick post- screw you, quality!
Well, we're not up in Northern California, either. My grandmother felt too sick to go anywhere, so I'm still here in SoCal rotting away. :P My dad's having a crappy time up there, though, so that's a comforting thought.

Nothing much to say today- I found a way around that Half-Life issue, and I had an entire bag of Jolly Ranchers. Gah, the plaque.. It's bothering me.

Oh, and I drew a pretty li'l picture tonight. It's the first thing I've inked since school let out, and I'm pretty pleased with it. I think I will put it up on TheOtaku tomorrow.

I feel like I'm sort of cheating myself by putting on realistic backgrounds that I had nothing to do with (except for some PhotoShopping). My hand-done backgrounds are pretty lame, and if I don't practice them they'll only get worse. :/

It is now 12:25 AM. I'm going to go.. Sleep, or something. I dunno.
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Thursday, July 29, 2004

And the moral of the story is..
My parents continued their cleaning spree last night, until 9:00, when my dad told me to check the progress of my grandmother's plane to LA. They got off the ground an hour late, but my dad decided we were to leave as scheduled.

I brought along the DDR soundtrack, listened to that on the way down to Los Angeles International Airport, and brought it with me into the baggage claim area. As I listened to all of the songs in detail, I slowly changed my thoughts about the soundtrack. Honestly, I'm not sure where I was coming from when I said that it's not what I expected. Most of the songs have pleasant vocals, and a great beat.

I was also reading some of the booklet that came with the soundtrack.. It was all in Japanese, of course, so I could only get bits and pieces of it, but I still felt it was a big accomplishment when I figured out that one particular song was Italian technopop (Well, I sort of knew it was, but reading it was the accomplishment).

So we sat there for an hour, waiting for the plane to land. It really wasn't crowded in there- some homeless person was sleeping across from us, and there were a couple families waiting for their relatives.

About a half hour in, this huge group of people came in with balloons, and posters, and American and Mexican flags, and they all lined up in a nice fashion. They were waiting for the return of their son/cousin/uncle/whatever, who just came back from Iraq.

I was listening to the Nonstop Megamix on disc two when our grandmother popped up behind us. After exchanging greetings, we went over to the baggage claim carousel thing and picked up her stuff. The large group's soldier came down, and it was a warm, fuzzy Kodak moment.

I, however, didn't care, and wanted to get home as soon as possible.

We got some McDonald's on the way home, talked about various stuff for a while, and I got carsick and went to bed as soon as we got home.

Today I woke up to the painfully familiar pattern of conversation among my mom among her family- Chatter, chatter, yap, chatter, loud sleep-interrupting, chatter yap. After watching a bit of the Daily Show (That guest was pretty outspoken) I started up Half-Life. Things went swimmingly until after I started up the generator. I only had nine health points left, and the scientist guy wouldn't give me a healing shot. I just can't figure out how to get up from the pit without the use of the elevator. The ladder's there, yes, but I die everytime I just jump down to the platform, because I'm so low on health.

So I'm pretty boned. Let's hope it didn't autosave after I started it up..

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this little factoid I found on Anime News Network. Now, I'm not one to keep track of the box office in Japan, but I just think it's funny that five of the top ten movies over there right now are from the US (if you're counting Harry Potter, which may technically be British, but I have no clue).

My reasoning for showing this? Why, there isn't one. I'm just impulsive.
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