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priya / 21 / IL d.o.b: march 9 occupation: josei gamer, ATLUS's uke sign: pisces/metal rooster/ashwini alignment: neutral evil keirsey: INTJ Big O - Cowboy Bebop - DiGi Charat - Trigun - lain - Boogiepop - Basara - Tenjou Tenge - Hameln - MegaTen games - MPD Psycho iggy pop :: david bowie :: rolling stones :: orbital :: BT :: depeche mode :: massive attack :: english beat :: velvet underground :: lou reed :: brian eno :: morphine :: placebo :: magnetic fields :: adam ant :: siouxsie :: cure :: t rex :: clash :: beastie boys :: neuroactive :: bauhaus :: depeche mode :: underworld :: air :: juno reactor :: tricky :: nitin sawhney :: big black :: husker du :: nick cave :: white stripes :: tear garden :: the mooney suzuki :: new order :: brand new idol :: cornelius :: gary numan :: kraftwerk :: boards of canada  
Retro ti~me! This layout was from August 2001, and the song I was listening to when I made this was the GorillaZ' "Double Bass." Listen to it. Doesn't it make you twitch? And I just realized how illegible this layout was. >_> Oh well, if you serious have problems reading it, email me and I'll fix it, OK? [ peeji ][ archives ][ email ] cruel.com :: the onion :: seanbaby.com :: BC :: engrish.com :: satirewire [ < gamergirl blogs > ] « # musicforgirls ? » |
Monday, July 1, 2002, 11:09 a.m. Puu: Heh heh. This church's address in the guestbook is listed as '777 Marigold Way.'PuuSis: What's so weird about that? Puu: Well, see, in the Christian numerology... PuuDad: *interrupts by bursting into song* If man is five, then the devil is six, then GOD IS SEVEN! o/~ Puu: ...what he said. PuuSis: O________O Dad, you've been listening to a LOT of Pixies, haven't you? Puu: Thank you, thank you very much. XD This ranks up there in the 'weird musical conversations' with the Husker Du conversation, which went something like this: Puu: You like this? PuuDad: Yes. What is it? Puu: You ought to be able to remember this one, Dad - husker Du? PuuDad: Do I remember what? Puu: No, seriously, that's the band's name. PuuDad: No kidding? n.b. My dad's Danish, and "Husker du" is (sans umlauts) Danish for "do you remember?" Although I dunno if I'd use 'du' with him, I'm still not to clear on how strict the du/De rules are. I should properly learn Danish. I bet the grammar would take me about an hour, (maybe) and then I'd just need to bulk up my vocab, which isn't too bad. I like to watch English programs subtitled in Danish, because I learn vocab that way, and can even tell when they fudged the translation a bit. I guess that's another project for another day. Had an Eventful weekend. Went to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana for the weekend; my sister had rented a 'cabin' there to help celebrate my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. (I call it a 'cabin' because it had air conditioning, carpeting, and a VCR.) If you're ever in the neighborhood, I can give you the info; it was really a very nice place to stay, except the beds were the softest things ever. Gave all of us hideous back pain. Anyways. My sister, her husband, their dog, my parents, and I spent Friday night through Sunday morning there. Saturday was devoted to hiking in the State Park, where I amused my sister and her husband by slipping on some wet rocks (the trails involve scrambling up and down inclines in a shallow fast-running stream), falling backwards, and hitting my head extremely hard on the rocks. The only reason I'm still here, probably, is because I had braided my hair up into a sort of looped twist on the back of my head, and I hit my head precisely on that cushion of hair. I still managed to see stars, though. My elbow wasn't quite as lucky; I managed not to crack it when I fell, but I gave myself a bruise the size of both of my hands put together on my forearm. It was pretty amazing; within thirty seconds it had swollen to the size of - well, the size of something pretty big, a hamburger bun, I guess. My mother, of course, had a right proper freak-out (you could HEAR my head crack against the stones) but I got up immediately and was more annoyed about my elbow. My sister checked my head, saw no bleeding, swelling, or even any mark at all (ah~ my hair~) and spent the rest of the walk teasing me about the wet-jeans noise I was making as I walked. And boy, did we walk after that. The end of the trail was two and a half miles past the point I fell, and I kind of plodded on with a severe headache, trying not to move my arm. It was a good hike (besides the fall), but I was soggy, exhausted, and peevish by the time we got back to the car, because we'd forgotten to bring any water, either to drink or to wash out my scraped arm. At least I was wearing my hiking boots; if I'd been wearing sneakers, I'd have slipped a lot more often, or I'd have twisted my ankle as I fell. So we got back, and my mom insisted that I get into the whirlpool tub in their bedroom to soak. (Yes, the 'cabin' had whirlpool tubs.) So I did, and then after everyone took a shower and napped, we had a barbecue and roasted marshmallows. My parents have never quite understood the concept of 'marshmallows' - my dad thinks they're revolting. Foreigners. My sister and her husband also are into toasting their marshmallows, not setting them on fire the way I do. No, seriously! If you let them burn for a second, twisting the poker so that the entire marshmallow surface caramelizes (or carbonizes...), it's so~~~ good, especially in S'mores. They also thought I was a freak when I mentioned putting a bag of marshmallows in the freezer. But Ka, you know that tastes good, right? Ugh, not that I can eat marshmallows more than twice a year. I can barely handle eating Peeps. Anyways, at the end... Puu: *watches marshmallow melt off poker into the fire* Whoops. PuuMom: It's a sacrifice to Agni, don't worry about it. Puu: So say something! PuuMom: Um....Marshmallow Swahaaaaa~~~~ n.b. In ancient Vedic fire ceremonies, the priests would sit around a fire for days, pouring in spoonfuls of melted butter and flowers and whatnot, and with each offering, they'd say a prayer, ending with the name of the offering plus "swaha" ("hail"). (Kristina, look up svAhA if you're going to look for it. >D) In short, my entire family is silly, in a very obscure way. And if you're curious. (I think this link will work.) Ugh, yesterday and today I've been so sore that I can barely move. Rock is an unforgiving surface to land on. I'm going to go home after work and curl under a blanket, armed with some painkillers. I called my mom from work today to tell her how I was - she'd SEEN my head hit the rocks, and still is slightly worried about me. "That was pretty funny, wasn't it? My head went *boing* off the stone-" "Stop giggling, you bad girl." Krisit, I'm sorry I missed your call - call again? And Kya, tell me your weekend plans so I know whether to ask for Friday off. >D Now Playing: Brian Eno - Blank Frank (I hope I get my driver disk today...>_>) Friday, June 28, 2002, 10:33 a.m. o/~ Now that I understand this right, let me take it to the mic...this revolution has just begun...o/~Hm, hm, one last thing I'd like to say about the Pledge thing. :D I didn't mean that I didn't support it, or that it's a bad thing. I was just thinking about the following things, really. For example, the ever-kakkoii Jesus-sama told our president that American money should not be used to find overseas family planning clinics. So we cut off American funding for that, didn't we? Jesus-sama wants third-world women to have no access to contraception or any way to avoid having five, six children, risk dying in childbirth, or living a life of debilitating poverty with more children than she and her husband can support. Contraception and abortion are the tools of the unbelievers, right? Hooray for our leader, who acts according to his religious principles of charity and forgiveness. >_> That's an example of what I mean when I say that we have bigger fish to fry when it comes to the separation of church and state. We have laws and policies in place that are heavily influenced by religion, and these laws affect the lives of people far more dangerously than the Pledge of Allegiance does. I am glad that one court was brave/foolish enough to tackle the righteous indignation of the entire political system, but I'd prefer that it be on something that will actually do people some good right now, and that won't inspire a knee-jerk reactionary motion against all things "liberal." This ruling may actually have done harm to all causes that seek to keep the curch and state separated, simply because this particular ruling seems so pointless and silly and extreme to people. It'll make them view all future attempts to separate church and state, even the most NECESSARY ones, as just more of that "silly liberal nitpicking nonsense." It'll be easier for politicians to go, "They want to keep us from holding appointing religious leaders to prominent advisory positions in the government? Those stupid godless liberals, remember when they wanted to ban the Pledge of Allegiance because it DARED mention God, which made them sick to their godless stomachs?" and sway public opinion that way. Public: Yeah, those liberals do get worked up over the silliest things... Us: But, but, but this is IMPORTANT! Public: Yeah, you said that about the Pledge of Allegiance. *snort* The public as a whole is STUPID and EMOTIONAL and must be handled very carefully. PR is crucial for getting essential work done. I just fear that this ruling was bad PR. I went to dinner with my parents at a fancy Belgian restaurant last night. My god. *_* After that, I went home, and at midnight, the phone rang. Dad: One Eyed Jack's on A&E. Puu: Aw, I'm missing Twin Peaks? (You called me at midnight to tell me this?) Dad: I'm not talking about Twin Peaks. Puu: ............THE BOWIE REQUEST SPECIAL? Dad: Fu fu fu. Until 2 am. It started 5 minutes ago. Puu: *looks at the time* *thinks about work* Argh! I'm coming right over. So I drove over in my jammies (to the shock of my mother...) and settled down to watch the special, ignoring all the gently snide commentary that my parents and cousin provided. It didn't rock my world, no, but I still have fun seeing Bowie perform. Moby called in, told Bowie he had a request (Bowie: You want me to clean your apartment, don't you. Moby: Yeah, can you do the dishes, too? Bowie: Yeah, I think I can go over after this show is done...) and asked for Sound and Vision. He's in good form, and I think I'll enjoy the Area2 concert, even if it's just more of the same. One thing he said that kind of interested me was his answer about all the stage persona he'd used over the years, like Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane, etc. He explained that he was really a very shy person, and so putting on these different personae helped him kind of distance himself from the reality of being on stage when he had to perform. (At which I wondered if he could dance, hand in hand, with himself. >D) He said that now he finally felt comfortable enough with performing to not need a stage persona. So they said, "So you're just David Bowie now." And he replied, "Actually, no, I'm more like David Jones now." (his actual given name) A five-year-old called in (helped by his dad, of course) and said, in one of those cute little high-pitched voices, "Mr. David Bowie, will you please play Ashes to Ashes?" There's nothing more amusing than watching grown men go a big rubbery one. >D He wanted to talk to the kid some more, but the music started up and he had to stop, telling the little boy good night. Heh heh. Parenthood lays even the strangest of us low, it seems (although he has grown children, of course...) I think I could come up to Chicago on the 4th or 5th of July and stay until the 7th. Anyone free and want to do something? Isn't that the end of the Taste? Now, to do actual work! Shannon...you got me a poster? A cornelius poster? *__________* You're my hero! Well, even more than before, of course. Now Playing: Clinic - Welcome Thursday, June 27, 2002, 03:38 p.m. o/~ Who loves the sun? o/~An interesting argument between two reverends - Rev. Jerry Falwell and Rev. Lynn, who IIRC is the head of a group that advocates the separation of the church and state. Of course, they're talking about the whole Pledge of Allegiance thing. Me being me, I tend to think Rev. Lynn is being logical and level-headed about it. Had a weird night. Kya called at around 11:30 and - you know the phone went out at 2 am? Maybe it was the phone card? Tacchi, thanks for calling, I was beginning to feel a little anxious. And then I contemplated summoning the Kamen-to so I could kill them all! <3 But seriously, after the call, I went to sleep, and woke up at about three with a bad cough/asthma attack. Maybe it was dust or allergies or something, but I lay there for about an hour, trying to stop wheezing. I could breathe fine, it's just that every breath made this loud crackling, wheezing noise like someone crinkling wrapping paper. And it would kind of tickle my chest, and I'd have to cough some more. It's terribly annoying, and so I didn't sleep well. (Switching the side I was lying on helped.) I tell you, the noises your lungs can make can be creepy; it was weirding me out. Sometimes it sounded like wadding a sheet of paper, and sometimes it sounded like, well, that creepy ghost-voices sound effect. WhooOOoO~~~ Today I both have a kitchen shower (a wedding party where you give the bride-to-be kitchen stuff for presents and give her recipes and stuff) and it's my parents' 30th anniversary. Well, for my parents, I'm going to dinner with them tonight, and my sister, her husband, my parents, and I are going to stay in some cabins near Turkey Run State Park in Indiana for the weekend. So that's taken care of. I just don't have a present for my engaged friend yet. Now, this is the friend whom I may or may not have mentioned is rather like Belldandy. Very mild and sweet and traditional. (Well, I met her in third grade, you know.) It was kind of traumatizing to go lingerie-shopping with her at Victoria's Secret and see Belldandy looking at baby blue and gingham teddies. X_x NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Anyways. I guess I'll stop at Art Mart after work and pick up something for her, wrap it/stick it in a pretty bag, and drop it off directly at her house with my recipe card. I could go to the party for an hour, maybe, but why bother if I have to rush from one part to another? Oh, Tacchi, if WWIII breaks out again and you need to kachin kachin again with your fellow uke, or you just need to talk, he'll be back from dinner after about 10 pm, at a guess. Krisit, if you're reading this, your package from Japan came. Can you come visit and get it sometime? Now I'm off to Art-Mart. Aiya! Now Playing: Curve - Worst Mistake (I think?) Wednesday, June 26, 2002, 03:03 p.m. One euro, many....euro? euros?Believe it or not, they're not sure what the plural of a euro is. Or the plural of "cent" is (Euros are made up of cent(s), just like dollars). Lawmakers and armchair linguists are arguing in Europe right now whether to use the more English-familiar plural (euros, cents) or the more French euro and cent plurals. Huh. Interesting. The Pledge of Allegiance has been ruled unconstitutional. Now, I know that this will put most of the country up in arms (I think it's something like 20 : 80 in the CNN.com poll) but really, what a STUPID thing to fight over. Sure, it has the phrase "under God" which was added by Eisenhower to make sure that "millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty." Sure. But who cares. The lawsuit was brought by the atheistic father of a second-grader, saying he didn't want his daughter to recite the pledge. Why? It's not like the daily recitation of the pledge will all of a sudden turn her into a raving Christian, or make her believe any particular thing about God or the lack therof. Because you know what? 99.99% of children who recite that do it BY ROTE. They don't know what the pledge is saying because they don't stop to think about it. It's just that thing they say every day before classes start. They don't think, "Hm, okay, so this is a avowal of loyalty to my country, a unified republic under the Judeo-Christian God. Jesus-sama kakkoii." They think, "Ipledgeallegiancetotheflagofthe UnitedStatesofAmericaandtotheRepublic forwhichitstands..." It's just words to most gradeschoolers. At least it was to me. I went to public grade school. I said that pledge every day. And you know what? I didn't really know what it meant, nor did I care. Heck, every Christmas I learned a slew of extremely religious carols and hymns, and I didn't care - they were just songs. You learn the words, you sing them - and that's it. Yeah, I'm an atheist. But I have no problem going to a church, or a mosque, or whatever, and reciting religious songs or prayers or whatever, because they're just words or songs to me. Why not? It's not some magical brainwashing formula; do we still believe that Words have Power? Forcing me to pray would just bore me more than anything else; after all, I still go to my mother's Hindu prayers, and know mindnumbingly long Sanskrit slokas. I guess I just don't see the harm in it. (But then again, Hindu doctrine doesn't really preach any hatred of anything. Other religions tend to have some kind of hatred of others nestled in their doctrine somewhere, and forcing people to learn that kind of hatred couched in religious terms SHOULD be stopped. But the "God, god, yay God" sort of stuff....is rather harmless in my eyes, as long as God isn't used as a JUSTIFICATION for your bad actions.) And, okay, it means that people who aren't Jewish or Christian were being forced to say things they didn't believe in. Honey, if I had a dime for every time I said something I didn't mean - "Of course, I'd love to work overtime." "That dress is lovely." "Of course I wasn't speeding, officer!" Did saying any of those things change reality, or how I perceived it? NO. The dress was STILL fugly, and I still THOUGHT it was fugly. But it didn't harm me to lie about what I thought. Maybe I'm just lazy when it comes to these small things. The world is full of injustices that should be addressed. So I prefer to pick my fights more carefully. If we're worrying about the slippery slope about the interaction of church and state, well, aren't there more egregious violations that we could pursue? Now Playing: Bauhaus - Dark Entries Wednesday, June 26, 2002, 11:17 a.m. This entry is about "Satellite of Love." Run while you still can.I swear, I am far too easily amused by that song. If you've never heard it - well, it's off Lou Reed's "Transformer" album. Or maybe you've heard it in the movie Velvet Goldmine. (Or maybe it just makes you think of MST3K. ^_~) Let's just say it's a Special, Special song, and I'm rather fond of it for its Specialness. As Tanzy said once, "Many have thought they could handle SoL....and they were wrong!" It has pianos. It has freaking TUBAS. And the background vocals...ho ho ho. It didn't sound like much of the rest of the album, to my ear, at least - I mean, compare it to "Walk on the Wild Side" which is on the same album. Anyways, as I said in my last entry, this Velvet Underground album I'm listening to has an early demo version of SoL. Apparently Lou Reed recorded it with them, and then when he fled the band, he took it with him and rerecorded it in its current Special state. And so I listened to it, giggling to myself in anticipation. My god. Swap out the tubas and pianos for a guitar and some muted drums, and nix the background vocals and SoL is so unmistakably a Velvet Underground song. It's incredible what a difference the instruments make. The tune's exactly the same. The lyrics are more or less the same. But I couldn't hear the Velvet Underground in the album version of Satellite of Love. But this demo - whoa. Reminds me a lot of Sweet Jane, I guess, when a guitar handles the melody, not a piano. I guess I was just surprised because this song has always been such a glaring anomaly to me. "Lou Reed wrote this?! But, but, the tubas!" Now I seeeeeeeeeeee. Ku ku. Yes, I have an infinite capacity for amusement when it comes to Satellite of Love. It's one of those songs that, if you got me completely blasted at a karaoke parlor, I'd try to sing. Shannon, you better hide from me for the next few days while I get over my amusement at this. Otherwise I'll make you listen to the demo. Then again, I know where you live. And where you work. You can't RUN from Daddy! Ho ho ho! Now Playing: .....*evil chuckle* Wednesday, June 26, 2002, 09:32 a.m. o/~ Standing on the corner, suitcase in my handJack is in his corset, Jane is in her vest And me, I'm in a rock 'n roll band... o/~ Well. I am without home internet access for the next, oh, week or so. >_> Mein DSL ist kaput. Yesterday afternoon, when I came home, I decided to call SBC and get them to help me get my DSL to stop acting like a biznatch, such as taking over a minute to load a 20K text-only page. So I called their tech support. .... Two hours and about eight reboots later (seriously), the tech support guy had talked me through screwing up my IE settings beyond my ability to fix them, so that now the modem would connect, but no program could use its connection - not telnet, browser, nor mIRC. He also helped me set up the Microsoft Client for Networks - nevermind I'm not ON a network - which further sent my compy to all hell, as it desperately searched for the other compies on the network. (And I told him at the outset that this was a home computer.) He also told me to disable all startup items, which also made my computer queasy. As the coup de grace, he told me to uninstall one of my TCP-IP adapters, which was not only completely made my modem unable to work, it was also a permanent removal that would require a CD to reinstall. He seemed surprised that I couldn't find the CD I used last August. Finally, since it was 6:30 and I'd been screwing up my computer at his order for almost two hours now, I told him I'd hang up and look for the disk, and he agreed with obvious relief. I hung up, stared at my dead-in-the-water computer, and yelled, "DAAAAAAAAMN!" I called SBC back and told them, very politely and nicely, that my DSL was now down because I followed the instructions of their tech support, and could they please send me a new disk with the drivers on it. The nice lady agreed, and I added that since it was going to take over a week for the disk to arrive, I had better get a refund for at least half a month's worth of DSL that I was not getting. My DSL had been giving me problems for a week before I called, and now...she agreed, and told me to call the billing people and explain. Which I'll have to do tonight, once I get over my raging headache. To my credit, I didn't lose my temper at the tech support guy. He constantly put me on hold because he had to keep consulting with people on how to fix the escalating problems he was causing. I just sat there, phone to my ear, and read a book. And yes, the tech support guy was causing the problems, because I started out with functional but slow DSL, and ended up with none whatsoever, and a completely messed up set of network and system settings. But still, I said please and thank you and didn't give him crap, because even though I had a headache, I didn't want to share it. And I don't believe at yelling at people over the phone unless I know them, like my parents. XD Argh. So yes, I'll be offline for at least the next week. If you want, you can call me; I betcha I'll be getting a lot of reading and gaming done. >D I played an hour of JP Batsu last night - I'm wildly overlevelled, so it took about half an hour to finish two dungeons. I'm like ten levels above the dungeon demons. Then, for a giggle, I fished out my copy of Thousand Arms, my first step down the road of evil. I've had this game for something like three years, and still haven't finished it, so I started it over. I hadn't touched the game for two years, so... Remember Jyabil, Juri? He doesn't even let SODINA 'touch his hammer', but Meis, on the other hand...>D This game is typical ATLUS fubar, except in the form of an RPG/Dating Sim. And you know, the dates are so silly and entertaining that I kept going on date after date until I ran out of mojo, or whatever points those are. XD Basically, this game is your standard - well, okay, your standard WEIRD - RPG. You're Meis Triumph, heir to the Triumph House, and you've been driven out of your home by the invasion of the Dark Acolytes. Your father was a Spirit Blacksmith, it seems, and that involves, uh, "forging a sword" with the "help of a beautiful girl." Yeah, that's right. The Triumph Family are all raging perverts in search of poontang - in the first five minutes, when you're looking for your father, who wants to talk to you, you can talk to the maids, who tell you some random bit of info, ending with, "Young Master~! <3 Don't touch me there!" Anyways, yeah, so seriously, to be a Spirit Blacksmith, you have to infuse Spirit into a sword, which you do with the help of a girl who likes you. The more she likes you, the more spells you can weave into the sword, and the stronger it gets. That's where the Dating Sim part of this game comes in, and god, it's so silly. You get the idea - if you're a Blacksmith of Light (well, in-training...your ego and your hormones constantly distract you from learning your craft...), there must be a Blacksmith of Darkness that you have to defeat, who's an ex-apprentice of your new master, blah blah, Dark Acolytes, the evil Emperor, you know, standard RPG stuff. What redeems the game is, I guess, the utter silliness and entertainment factor. This game is kind of like the Legend of Smoove B. Except you're messed up, the girls you're dating are messed up, and all of them can fight, even the token Healer/Main Romantic Interest, Sodina. (Who has a bit of a Brother Complex. Come on, this is Atlus we're talking here. She asks you on a date if you think her attachment to her brother is unnatural. You can either say it's okay, or point out that now she's noticed it, she can do something about it!) The dates aren't all rabu-rabu - you can say the nice, suave, smoove answer to each question - or you can say the more entertaining wrong answer. (Sodina: What do you do in your free time? Meis: A) (some standard boring answer) B) I can't tell you. --> Sodina: Oh, it's something naughty, isn't it? You do THAT! XD Meis: A) Of course not! B) How'd you guess?) Then there's the range of questions, from "do you like romantic movies" to "what do you think of cockroaches" to "you know what I was thinking of the other day?" (A) No, what? (B) A diet, I hope... Atlus - the home of really silly fubar. The English translation is really slangy and entertaining - the liner notes explain that if the humor was just too Japanese to translate literally, they took certain liberties. Fu. It's fun to play an RPG that makes me giggle every few minutes. (Then, being the josei-gamer Atlus-uke, I thought, "wow, with all this voice acting - if this was in the original, I should have bought it.") Oh yeah, Kya, I've figured out how Atlus sends its mad wubbles to the josei gamers. Their games for josei gamers involve lots of dirty jokes, at least one okama-yarou (there's your standard psycho-okama-yarou in Thousand Arms - except he's on your team, and he's a cold-hearted girly-faced killer who is gentle and kind to women....hmmm...), and liberal, LIBERAL use of the Dual-Shock Function. Oh my god, Thousand Arms buzzes like nothing else. Earthquakes, mecha invasions, you getting slapped into oblivion by an angry girl...well, think about it. A josei gamer who likes Atlus games is happiest when she can say, "Huh huh. The okama on the screen is talking about wanking, and the controller is buzzing. Huh huh huh huh." " Heh heh, mm, mm, yeah!" That reminds me. Kya~ gameblog your progress and thoughts about Batsu, wouldja? It'd give me something to read, and I'd like to know your thoughts as you play. Ku ku ku. Maa, ii wa! Anyways. Someone call me! T_T I feel so alo~~ne! I have been listening to an unhealthy amount of the Velvet Underground over the past very days. I'm listening to "Loaded - Fully Loaded Edition" now, and reading the liner notes. There's a double-CD set of Velvet Underground bootlegs behind the counter at Record Service. Someone's gotta remind me to get it - if I have the money - before I leave C-U. That'd probably have to be you, Shannon - you're the only one who understaaaaands my neeeeeeeeds! *sob* At least for Lou Reed. Back to work categorizing these dictionary entries. >_> Now Playing: Velvet Underground - Rock & Roll (demo) and Satellite of Love (demo) XDDD Monday, June 24, 2002, 09:43 a.m. "Be strong, Dad! People have survived worse tortures than Depeche Mode!""Are you sure about that?" Back from Denver. It's a 2200-mile round trip, and I drove 1400 miles of that, at least. I feel so bone tired, but hey, a job's a job. I left around 3 pm Wednesday and returned around 6 pm last night. Ugh. I took I-70 there and I-80 back; I can't remember if I picked up I-70 after St. Louis or Kansas City. Well, whatever. I had a rental car (my parents came with me for, er, moral support, yeah) with a CD player, so I grabbed my backpack full of CDs and my bright green gym bag (which has been used in Japan to transport doujinshi anthologies, remember, Kya? XD) and I was good to go. I-70 goes through Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado straight to Denver. Wednesday night we stopped at Kansas City, which is on the border of Missouri and Kansas, and stayed at a Motel 6. Now, my only beef with Motel 6 is the extra-soft beds. I woke up with a completely stiff back, unable to move until I popped my spine and stretched properly. Ugh. I used to take these things for granted until I questioned why I was so stiff and sore in the morning. Anyways, after checking out, I stopped at a K-Mart to pick up some sunglasses so I could do some proper daytime driving. I can't drive without sunglasses - not for any real length of time. The world's too bright for me, I guess, and the constant squinting at the light makes my eyes tired and I have to stop soon. But with shades on, I can usually clock at least 250 miles before I have to take a break. I'm a sissy that way. So I picked up some glasses, and started through Kansas. Now, Illinois is all flat grassy plains and farmland, and Missouri is largely wooded and hilly, or wooded and flat, because of the Mississippi. Kansas is grassy and somewhat hilly for the first part, and later on it levels out into the huge hollow valleys that would have been perfect dustbowls if there were no plants to hold the soil down. The plants are low and sparse at the western edge, and you can see the cuts in the dirt where the water dried up. But on the eastern edge it's full of enormous wheatfields rippling in the wind. I guess that "amber waves of grain" cliche holds true. (Dude, in IL, we mostly have tall fields of corn or low fields of soybean. A giant wheatfield isn't something I've seen THAT often. Not in this country, at least. In Denmark, after horseback riding, I'd walk my horse by the oatfields and strip off a fistful of semi-raw oats to offer to the horse, who munched it up, stems and all. :D) The speed limit in Kansas is 70, but the flow of the traffic was around 80 mph, so I blew through that state with my cruise control set to 85. Didn't see a single cop. Amazing. Kansas is around 300 miles wide, ugh, so it seemed kind of neverending. Spent the day listening to a mix of my Dad's Mick Jagger CD, my Big Black and Pixies CDs, and the Rolling Stones CDs I found in my backpack. My dad can name the SEASON each Rolling Stones song came out. "Paint It Black...that was spring 1966, I think." Stuff like that. I also pulled out my Velvet Underground CDs, which my dad was listening to when he was my age. My mother wanted the oldies station, which I gave her when I was tired of listening to my own music. ;;^^ We hit Colorado a little before sunset, and were in Denver by 8 pm. Let me tell you this: Colorado's speed limit is 75. These are my people. O_O Again, the traffic flow was so fast that I could cruise at 85, and fit in neatly with the traffic at around 90. Eastern Colorado is pretty flat and grassy still, although you head gradually up some hills until you find yourself at about 5000 feet above sea level. I couldn't see any mountains around Denver; the horizon was hazy and grayish to the south. "That CAN'T be wildfire smoke," I thought. That night, after dinner, I decided to sleep on the floor of the Motel 6 in hopes of getting a good night's sleep. So I wrapped myself in a blanket and lay between the beds. But I kept coughing, so I gave up and crawled into bed at around 4 am. I woke up with a terrible cough, and I couldn't figure out why I was wheezing like that. I haven't had a proper asthma attack in years. So I took a puff of my dad's inhaler, and we headed to the UC campus to find an apartment. I took a look at four apartments - two hardwood-floored, two carpeted, three 1-bedroom, one studio - and decided on a carpeted one-bedroom apartment about half a mile from the school. It's nice, it's very...white. White carpet, white-and-black tiled kitchen, the works. It's unfurnished, so I need to figure out how to get my furniture there. Well, if I have a TV and computer and stereo to get there, I might as well rent a movingtruck, in which case I'm going to take the new bed and the writing desk. I may pick up a futon; who knows. And with a moving truck, I'll just pack my jellies in boxes, tape the boxes shut ^_~ and take them with me. Fu fu. When I stepped outside, I could clearly *smell* the smoke and I realized that both the haze surrounding the town and my cough this morning were due to the wildfire smoke. Dizamn. I hurried to the UC financial aid office after signing the lease, and spent a few hours chasing down admissions and financial aid to find out a) where to get $40,000 and b) how to establish residency (where's the DMV, etc.) Got both pieces of information, so I'd accomplished what I needed to do in CO. Then we headed up north to Fort Collins, where my mother's friends lived. We were "in the area" so of course we were obliged to make a visit. >_> They're nice people; Uncle is some kind of bigshot in the reproductive technologies world, so he took me to his lab and showed me where they had perfected a technique to sort out X and Y sperm by weight and where they had the prize racehorses brought in, etc etc. Interesting. He talked to me about possibly pursuing a MD/PhD if I really was into immunology, and I just listened and nodded. I'll decide eventually if I want that PhD; I can't say yet if the life of a researcher (or "academic physician") interests me. Dunno. Man, I'm sleepy. Well, these people's son was one of those sickening people who won something like 8 awards in medical school for academic excellence. Outstanding second-year this, excellence in that. The plaques were all over the house, and they were Giving My Parents Ideas. I know that look. >_> *sigh* School is so tiresome sometimes. Not the learning of new material, but the quest for distinction. >_< The thought of the endless struggle to Achieve just kills my back-to-school wang; it always has. I dreamt two nights in a row that someone was quizzing me on my immuno knowledge, and woke with the frantic urge to study. So on Saturday we started driving back, this time taking I-25 to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and then grabbing I-80 through Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa. Nebraska. Good god, it's windy and full of cows. I was so sick of driving that I pushed on through Nebraska, which was about 300 miles long, turned over the wheel for about 100 miles while I slept, and then took it again at 11 pm. I went entered Iowa, and pushed on to Des Moines, which we reached at 2 am before I admitted defeat. 700 miles in one day. Ouch. Another Motel 6, but an OK one, I guess. Iowa is nice and hilly; it was fun to be racing up and down hills in the middle of the night. >D Sunday morning we left at around noon and made it home at 6 pm, transferring from I-80 to I-74 at Davenport at the border. I drove the entire way on Sunday, and man, I am still feeling this week's driving. I feel blurry X_x Anyways, that was my faaaaaaaaaaaaaascinating week(end). >_> I'm just tired now, and am sort of feebly poking at werk. I tellya, Big Black is excellent driving music. Sometimes, to torture my dad in the front seat, I'd stick in an entire Depeche Mode album, or turn up the volume on Lou Reed's "Transformer" when it reached "Satellite of Love." I got him to explain to me about the Paris Commune when the Clash's "Combat Rock" was playing, since there was that song about it and I've forgotten all my French history. X_x I don't want to ever drive again. X_x But I guess I'll be driving back in early August. Bleh. A more interesting, less personal blog later, I guess. Now Playing: Rolling Stones - Mother's Little Helper Wednesday, June 19, 2002, 11:30 a.m. o/~ and my hands shake, my head hurts, my voice sticks inside my throat, I'm invisible, and dumb, and no one will recall me, and I can't see the water through the tears in my eyes...o/~Ah~ Bowie~. Driving to Denver to get an apaato. Back Sunday night, probably. :D I have 2000 miles to drive between then and now. Yay me. Now Playing: David Bowie - Conversation Piece and Curve - Doppelganger Tuesday, June 18, 2002, 08:55 a.m. Straight down, scrape.There's good news and bad news. The good news: I got my financial aid package for CO. It's approx. $40,000. The bad news: That leaves about $35,000 for me to pull out of my couch cushions. That's just for next year. Time for high-interest bank loans. *sigh* Oh well, I'll work it all out somehow. :D One more thing I'd like to say, and at least consider what I'm trying to say before getting offended, mmkay? I wish more people - both in blogland and on IRC and other things - would really just get over themselves (I'm including myself in this sweeping statement, don't worry). Let's all try to cut down on the wounded egos, non-stop angsting or raging, constant fishing for compliments, primadonna behavior, and ESPECIALLY the goddamn Greek choruses of "I have more Issues than you do." If I'm annoying you, then tell me. Really. I mean it. I like to think that I can take criticism fairly well. (And if there's something you need to say to me, just say it to me straight. Don't hope that I'll guess it or pick up on what you're trying to say - the Internet isn't exactly a good medium for picking up on nonverbal signals, you know. I'll probably stay oblivious to what you mean unless you openly yell at me, for example.) I'm going to try to cut down on my muttering about music and video games on IRC, because I realize that it bores the hell out of people who don't game or listen to anything I do. I know that I sometimes - uh, often - blog about stuff just for the emotional vent, using my blog as a diary. That's one thing, and of course everyone should feel free to do that. But stuff such as "my pain is the only real pain, you all are spoilt children who don't understand what true suffering is" or "you were mean to me, you didn't agree with my blog on ____ subject! I hate you! Bitch!" - oh, just get over yourself. It's particularly ridiculous to see it in people who aren't angsty teenagers and should have grown out of that kind of navel-gazing self-absorption by now. Not to say that all teenagers act that badly, but there's very little excuse for twenty-somethings to throw kiddie tantrums about what other people say to them, or to act like wilting lilies who need someone to sing their praises or they will wallow in self-hatred. (This, of course, excludes being annoyed at people who are assholes to you for no reason. I'm mainly talking about people who react badly to criticism/dissent of any kind, no matter how civilly it's phrased. The people who start blog wars, in other words. But I've always put more stock in polite, rational, logical responses than I do in emotional, expletive-filled rebuttals.) I honestly wasn't aiming that at anyone in particular, because I'm not really angry at anyone now. But if you thought I was talking to you...I'm trying to curb bad behavior in myself, too. :D Maybe I'm just tired and cranky. The power went off again at 6 am, and the bang-hummmmmmm of the power coming back on woke me up. X_x Couldn't get back to sleep. Argh. Now Playing: Pixies - Something Against You (Ah~~ my favorite weasel is really distinctive, even when he's just engineering albums.) Monday, June 17, 2002, 03:17 p.m. Say it with me now: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!John Woo Bids Adieu to Action Films I'm feeling anxious, Tacchi. I need to rewatch the Killer now. Now Playing: Clinic - Welcome Monday, June 17, 2002, 02:58 p.m. o/~ Sitting here wishing on a cement floor,Just wishing I had just something you wore. So bloody your hands on a cactus tree, Wipe it on your dress and send it to me... o/~ Update. If you're bored by this babbling, go to my next entry, which isn't really about music :D At breaktime I drove down to the local record store to try to get a copy of Bowie's new album, heathen. I step inside, and they're playing something loudly over the speakers, and damned if I don't recognize that voice. XD "Score," I thought, and wandered around, but I couldn't find a copy of the CD. There was nobody at the counter, but the employee appeared as I was searching for the CD and asked me what I wanted. I pointed up at the speakers. "Is that heathen?" He nodded. "Do you have any more copies?" "One more," he said, and pulled out the last copy in the store and gave it to me. I followed him to the counter and took out my wallet. "Did you see the Bowie special this weekend?" he asked as he was ringing me up. "Auuuugh!" I thought. "No, I missed it," I said, figuring he was just asking because he'd heard of it. "It was great," the clerk said. "You saw it? What'd he play? O_O" I said, turning green with an exclamation point over my head. The clerk immediately listed all the old songs, flipped over the heathen CD, and pointed out the new songs he played. I was obviously speaking to a Fellow Traveller. Ku ku ku. "Don't worry, I'm sure there will be reruns. His backup band was excellent, too." "Squig, squig, Bowie!" I thought. "He released three versions of heathen, too. This double-CD one, a single-CD one, and this one, that we keep behind the counter." He brought it over for me to see; it was really cool. It was packaged exactly like a vinyl record somehow; I would have thought it was just a vinyl version of the album if the clerk hadn't told me that it was a CD inside instead of a record. I wavered, and bought the version with the bonus CD instead. I'll get that faux-vinyl version later, maybe. So while I was staring at all the versions of heathen, squigging and turning green, the clerk apparently figured out my weak points and went back to the shelf with the behind-the-counter sets. "Here's a new thing we have. Velvet Underground bootlegs. Double-CD set." "O_O" "And that box set of the Andy Warhol album over there, it has some bonus material too." I inspected them happily, signed the credit card slip, and left with ONLY the Bowie CD. Oh, and a saabisu Bowie promo poster. This is why I'm so fond of this small record store. Sure, the clerks in both Borders and this store are going to be nice and polite and ring up your order with no fuss. But it's far less likely in Borders for the interaction I described above to happen. And I'm not just talking about old or obscure music; heck, no matter what you buy, you'd probably be able to gush with the clerks about what you're getting. And that's just fun, don't you think? Listened to heathen. It really is better than his past few albums - less self-consciously experimental, more suited to Bowie's voice. Kind of odd, wistful at times - the songs really evoke a bunch of different emotions in me all at once. Nothing strong and visceral, but it kind of floats in your head, if that makes any sense. Bowie's music nowadays isn't the kind of music that seizes you by the throat and shakes you, but it's the kind that makes you stare out into space, feeling vaguely sad and paranoid and happy and confused at the same time. The bonus CD has remixes by Moby and Air (I prefer the Air one) and two re-recorded tracks from 1970 and 1979 respectively. And man, I really poinged on the re-recorded tracks. (I swear, this blog will be the last time I gush over Bowie. Really.) I think I've said that Bowie doesn't have a 'beautiful' voice. He just doesn't. But it's unusual, and I love it when he uses it in ways that sound good for HIS voice. But over the past 20 years or so, he's been pushing it to more ballad-y, tremelo-rich heights, and I just don't like that. His tremolo makes me giggle. o/~ I've been putting out the fire....WITH GASOLIIiIIiiIiiIiiIIiiINE!!!! o/~ XD Leave the tremolos to, like, Bryan Ferry or someone with that kind of voice, man! I just like it when he sings simply, without all the extra vocal whatnot. Which is why I like his stuff before 1980. So anyways, I was listening to heathen. And he's toned down his voice, so it sounds good. But then I got to the old, old songs, which he re-recorded for this album...and bam, kick to the gut. It's his old voice, the one I love so much. He resurrected it for "Conversation Piece." I'm so in my happy place. *_* And the tune is so old-fashioned too. I mean, now it has strings and all sorts of production, but I can imagine it being sung acoustically, with just a guitar, or maybe drums. It could be stripped down to those basics with no loss at all. Squig, squig, SQUIG! That was a pleasant surprise; usually "bonus" tracks are mediocre. Another thing that was pretty cool was Bowie's cover of the Pixies' "Cactus." I mean, you listen to the lyrics, you listen to the tune, and it's so Pixies. Unmistakable, even if you'd never heard this particular Pixies song before. It doesn't sound like something Bowie would sing normally, which is the point of picking it, eh? :D But even though it has slightly smoother edges than the Pixies original (Bowie's voice is just smoother than Black Francis's, and the guitars aren't quite as raw, you know?) - it's good. I mean, if you'd asked me what Bowie covering the Pixies would sound like, I would have been at a loss, but the results are actually - thankfully - quite good. In my opinion. At lunchtime, I took my car to a nearby parking lot, parked it in the shade, opened the windows, reclined my seat, and took about a 45-minute nap/doze. I usually do that; it's so relaxing and a nice break. The radio was on, and 107.1 was having its Flashback Cafe, which I kept drifting in and out of consciousness to. I remember hearing "Weird Science" and "One Night in Bangkok" and some other songs, but what really woke me was "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before." Whoever does the Flashback Cafe is an evil minion of Satan who likes Depeche Mode and the Smiths. Now Playing: David Bowie - Conversation Piece/Cactus Monday, June 17, 2002, 10:30 a.m. YOU GOT THE BOOT WORLD! NO FAIR!Monday morning again, and I'm dead tired. Why do I stay up all night on Fridays and Saturdays? :D At least I had fun. No, I didn't see the Bowie by Request thing on A&E. Saturday morning, my parents called me to invite me for brunch to see off my cousin, who's moving to Chicago. I was so tired and had only had an hour of sleep, so I begged out of it. Sunday morning, when I met them for Father's Day brunch, they casually told me that they'd watched the entire special last night, but hadn't called me because they thought it was late and I wouldn't pick up the phone. While I was screaming, "NOOOOO!" they put the icing on the cake by trying to remember any of the songs he'd sung and only remembering two. "Oh, he sang a lot of old ones, but I never remember their names. Oh, DARN." I think they were getting back at me for that Saturday brunch. >D I got my father a CD for Father's Day, namely Mick Jagger's solo album, "Goddess in the Doorway." He'd asked specifically for it after he came back from Italy, and luckily I remembered that he wanted it. See, my father was a mod when he was my age. I've seen pictures of him, dressed all in black, with heeled boots and a Beatles-style haircut. He used to have a gas mask and a monocle that he'd sometimes wear to the Gymnasium, or so he claims. I've seen the monocle, and he tells me stories about how he tried to clean out the charcoal in the gas mask's filter using ETHER, and how the next time he used the mask after that, he accidentally made himself light-headed from the ether fumes. >D He was my age in 1970, and listened to the Beatles and the Velvet Underground (it was my grandfather who was the Rolling Stones fan, actually). So he's actually extremely easy to buy music for - along with his classical music and opera, he loves Portishead and Garbage and PJ Harvey and the Pixies. I guess it's weird that I have a father whom I can think, "Man, I guess I could get him some Tricky, I think he'd like that." Those weird middle-aged European math professors like some strange music, that's for sure. :D My relationship with my father has been up and down, as everyone's relationship with their father probably is. He's the sort of person who's pessimistic and thinks that he's just being pragmatic, which isn't a bad thing until he goes overboard with it. I guess he's responsible for a lot of my "you're a failure" Ish because, well, he's told me so many times in the past. My senior year of college he'd wake me up at 7 am to discuss what on earth I was going to do since he was quite sure I'd never get into med school. Maybe I could take some computer science courses at the community college, he'd say. My mother was the encouraging parent, really. But that's only half of the story, you know? He's the one who taught me how to tell time, how to check the oil in my car, how to start up the pilot lamp in an old-fashioned heater, how to write a paper. He's big on objectivity, so he's really influenced how I think - how to consider both sides of an issue, to think carefully and rationally, to withhold judgement until I have enough information on a subject, how important it is to follow the news. (He's rather amused that I've always read Newsweek and Discover before he gets to them.) He shaped my intellectual side, I guess, while my mother handled the social side, mostly (although my mother was the one who taught me basic math and how to read and stuff like that, so it's not completely split off into mental and emotional things.) He taught me that no knowledge is "stupid" or "useless" or "too hard for me" - it's just as important to know grammar as it is to know science as it to know how to balance a check book - and I am fully capable of learning all three. When we wanted to go on a vacation, he asked me where I wanted to go, and when I said Greece, he carefully planned an expensive tour that hit all those dorky archaeological sites that I wanted to see, and put up with me running about with my classics from place to place, pointing out that hey, this is where this myth or this play was set. He's more fond of me than I really realize; he's the one who objected more to me moving out - my MOTHER was the one who helped me move out ;;^^ - and he still seems to think it'd be nice if I'd lived at home for another year. Can't imagine why; it'd have been bad for my sanity and I'm kind of a pain, in all honesty :D I rarely stop to think how much my parents love me. They've made mistakes, of course, but they've done their best with me, and they really do come through when I need them. I whine about them so often that I'm a bit embarrassed by how I constantly take them for granted. Maaaa, ii wa. When I was searching for my dad's CD, I decided to go to the local independently-owned record store on campus to get the CDs. I'd heard that it was having financial troubles, so I thought I'd go there instead of a chain store. I go in, with about four CDs in mind. I can't find any of them. I expect not to be able to find Clinic or the Kingsbury Manx (although back in the day I would have been able to find them in this store) - but no Mick Jagger? Or Bowie's newest CD? They're hardly obscure! I'm guessing they were just out of Bowie, so I'll go in today to see if they restocked, but man. It's kind of a vicious cycle; people don't come, the store can't afford to stock as many titles as they used to, so people don't come there, so...I ended up going to BORDERS, of all places, and easily finding the Mick Jagger CD, two Clinic albums, and Cornelius' newest album. I picked up "Walking With Thee" and the Cornelius album in addition to the Jagger album. It's really scary; Borders actually has quite a decent music selection nowadays, better than my old favorite indie store. That's where I picked up Ugly Casanova and Brian Eno and Roxy Music, in addition to stuff like the Clash. In *Borders*. I mean, I'm glad that big stores are getting better music selections, but it makes it harder for me to support local stores if they don't carry the stuff I want. And I would be sad if this particular store went out of business; I've been going there for music ever since I was small. I followed my oneesan around in the aisles as she looked for Siouxsie records. I guess I'll go there tonight and buy Heathen from them, if they have it in stock. >_> BTW, Clinic's "Walking With Thee" is a pretty good album. I just finished listening to it, and I like it a lot. I think I read that they toured with Radiohead recently...it's blindingly obvious why :D They're a bunch of weirdos, though; they give interviews and perform with surgical masks on. XD Then again, that's par-for-the-course weirdness for me :D Now, to stick in the Cornelius album, and not froth that I'm JUST missing his concert. Pesky moving. Rar! I like how Cornelius's lyrics are always translated into English in the CD booklets, with the Japanese lyrics to compare with. Whoa, that's interesting. Shannon, you must have this CD already, right? Take the CD out of the case, and then pry off the back of the case (the plastic part that holds the CD itself). Underneath the sterile white and blue case is a psychedelic landscape :D Sasuga, ne... Kya, Krisit, I should send you some mp3s. I think you two MIGHT like Cornelius. He's an extremely talented, extremely nutty Japanese guy. :D Ooooou, jyapaniizu! I think this article on science literacy in America is both interesting and frightening. Maybe I'm some kind of intellectual snob, but it worries me how clueless people can be. And this is the majority of the American population, too. "Can a nation debate the merits of cloning when fewer than half its adults can give a decent definition of DNA? Can it render good judgment on genetically engineered food when only a quarter can define a molecule? And can Americans assess competing medical claims when only a third show a good understanding of the scientific process?" Disturbing questions, those... I'm going to go be evil and get some actual work done. Fu fu. Now Playing: Cornelius - Smoke Friday, June 14, 2002, 03:45 p.m. Ah, heck, why not.The Japanese are sending a satellite to an asteroid to gather data. They're leaving a kind of marker behind to guide future probes, and they're inscribing names on that marker, free of charge. They're hoping to get at least a million names, and it's free, so hey, why not. You can register your entire family, too. Let's Fly to Meet Your 'Star Prince!' It wouldn't be Japan if it weren't Engrish. <3 Now Playing: Velvet Underground - Heroin / I'm Waiting For The Man Friday, June 14, 2002, 10:12 a.m. Puu: I wish I'd had a younger sibling. I would have corrupted them.PuuMom: Your older sister didn't corrupt you. Puu: Oh yes she did. PuuMom: Like how? Puu: How many normal people my age have 90% of their favorite music made before 1985? PuuDad: *eyes me askance* Yes, I'd noticed that, actually... Ha, I had an amusing conversation with said neesan last night. Well, I thought it was funny; Shannon may want to strangle me. Puu: So, what's up? PuuNee: I was listening to the Hives' second album. Puu: And? PuuNee: Dude, if I wanted to listen to the Stooges, I'd listen to the Stooges. Puu: XD Ugly Casanova is touring with the Kingsbury Manx, and they've got a show in Chicago on the 19th. Of course, I'll be halfway to Denver by then. ARGH. My h0bag neesan's going, though. I swear, I don't know how she fits so many shows in between her calls. I guess she carries her pager everywhere. h0. You're right, Kya, it IS terribly unnerving the first time you get a job where you have to learn about 401(k) plans and get your own health insurance and all that. Way back in, uh, September, I guess, when I heard that the insurance guy was coming in to tell me about my insurance options because I'd worked at this place for 90 days, I panicked and called my parents. "I'm still covered under your plan, right?" I felt a weird, childish sense of relief to find out that I was (and was additionally pleased that I didn't have to pay $60/month for insurance ;;^^). I guess you really lose your last vestige of childhood when you yourself have to pay your medical bills or get insurance for them. It's another one of those Adult things that you know your PARENTS do, but you can't quite imagine doing for yourself. And as for finding people with jobs who actually enjoy them - well, I enjoy my job, sort of. (Yeah - if you didn't know, I'm actually gainfully employed. Full-time. That's what I do besides sleep and game. ^_~) You might say that this was sort of a temp job, and I knew that I'd be able to leave in August to return to the Student Life, but, well, when I took this job last June, I *didn't* know for sure that I'd be going to med school this year. For all I knew, I could be staying at this job for a year or more. But admittedly, I knew this wasn't what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life; I would probably have gone into grad school in biology or something if I hadn't gotten into med school. All the same, it's not a bad job. I'm paid - not a lot, but money is money - to do something. I'm minimally supervised. My coworkers are nice, and I get positive feedback for just about anything I do. Of course, there are annoying and irritating days, and there are the times when I do boring work, or stuff I don't want to do, but overall, it's not bad. It's also good to be going out and doing something in the outside world; I'm not sure it would be good for me not to have school or work to do. Not with my mental Ish. It's good for me to have to be at work at 7:30 am, really it is. (This from the person who used to complain about having classes before noon ^_~ Ah, the good old days...) So, I guess, work serves a couple of different functions for me. I guess the most important things for me are the low supervision and the positive feedback; makes it less annoying to be going in so early and getting near-minimum-wage. When you're hunting for a job, Kya, you may not be able to check for these things before you sign on, more's the pity. But they make work a lot more tolerable. But, uh, maybe if it's possible, check how easy it is to get ahold of a supervisor who'll be evaluating your work. Are they at least present in the building when you're working? Witness Krisit's frustration that her own supervisor can't see the extra work she does, making it impossible for her to get a promotion. Ideally, they should be present but not hanging over your shoulder, but hey, nothing's completely perfect. I just think that it might help. And it's always possible to quit "permanent" positions, and it takes a bit of the load off. You could hang onto your permanent job for however long it takes you to find a better job, one that's more tailored to your skills. I mean, with a temp job, sure, you can leave in August...but man, then you better have a new job lined up for August! It just removes one more deadline, which is helpful, especially when you've moved out and have bills and rent to pay. Of course, I'm no expert on this. But those are my few feeble suggestions for anyone looking for a job. Ask Tay about resume-writing and job-searching; I have very little idea how to pimp yourself (surprising, after all those med school interviews...but job interviewers won't ask you about your extracurriculars or your opinion on euthanasia or why, really, you'd make a good employee, or what you'd do if you didn't get the job). In all honesty, I got my own job through good old-fashioned connections (well, which didn't mean I got a high-ranking position or was necessarily a shoo-in; they needed an editor with a solid medical/biological background, I got a perfect spelling score, and apparently proved myself with writing and proofreading tests. The connections just meant that they asked me first before checking the job pool). I guess one nice difference between the Real World and the Student Life is that you can (hopefully) completely dissociate your personal life from the Real World. I come home at 4 pm, and I don't have ANYTHING to do with work until 7:30 am the next day. No homework, no take-home-work, no tests to study for, no nothing. I can switch my adult brain off and spend the evening with my friends or playing games or watching TV with no guilt whatsoever. Of course, this means that your schedule's more rigid than it is in school; you can't skip work the way you can skip classes on a Friday to go to a party in Chicago. :D But both have their pros and cons. I don't know if this stuff is blindingly obvious to y'all. But I guess that the majority of my readers are still in college, or have just graduated, and might not have considered this. I dunno. :D Limits set on residents' work hours - SWEEEEEET! I'll only have to work 80-hour weeks when I'm a resident! (Note: After med school, depending on the specialty you choose, you go through a few years of 'residency', which is sort of on-the-job training, or, alternately, practical medical education where you start gaining actual experience. In the past, 90-120 hour work weeks weren't unusual. It's considered a REVOLUTION that we only have to work 80-hour weeks, and can't work more than 24 hours at a stretch now. Think about that the next time you feel like bitching about doctors. It's not a cushy 9-5 job where they come in, make you wear a silly paper gown, treat you like a number, claim an exorbitant fee, and then go home in their Ferraris to play golf in the middle of the day. It really annoys me when people bitch and bitch about doctors. Sure, I've had my share of rude, hurried doctors and I don't like to go to the doctor either. But it's a hard, often thankless job, you know, and you don't necessarily pull in a quarter-million a year in return. :D My sister has a fellowship in rheumatology, so she's the equivalent of a medical grad student, and gets paid like a grad student. $30,000/year. She only makes twice what I do, and she's had four years of med school and four of residency at an extremely prestigious school and a good hospital. Oh well. "But some hospitals and doctors questioned how residents will be able to get all the training they need under the new rules. They also said it could cost teaching hospitals millions of dollars to hire more doctors. Many older doctors believe such trial-by-fire training allows residents to follow patients more thoroughly and teaches physicians to make hard decisions when they are fatigued and under pressure." Basically, the old fogies believe, "If I had to suffer, so should you! >D" Well, there's something to be said for being trained to stay cool under pressure, but really, there should be a balance. And I suppose y'all will be interested to know that in the past decade or so they've been making doctors take patient interaction and sensitivity courses to develop good bedside manners. Of course, this is the med school equivalent of Home Ec class - "Awww, do we have to go to this? It's STUPID and BORING!" ...or so I've heard on tours. :D All I can say is that I'll try my hardest not to become the sort of doctor *I* hate going to. :D Bahhh, let me go back to my gameblog. Gameblog gooood. Gameblog morally unambiguous! <3 So, anyways, Jun's completely lost himself, and can't even remember his name. (It's interesting; in contacts with demons last night, I got one that asked me who I was. A) Kurosu Jun B) Joker C) "I don't know...") All he can remember is that he's the Joker. So he attacks. Joker's level 45. I was the same level, so, honestly, I can't remember most of his attacks. He has Holy attacks, IIRC, that kill off your highest-level characters. The remedy for this is an item called the SILVER MANISHA, Kya. It nullifies one Holy/Dark attack on the entire party. :D Anyways, the way you're leveling up, you may not need it either. So I killed him in maybe 10 rounds using my mixed magic/physical attacks. Then Nyarly forcibly mutates Jun into Angel Joker, who's level 46 and a bit more of a pain. Same technique ot beat him, really - neither forms of the Joker have any particular elemental weakness, and both have about 2500 HP or so. It only took me a half-hour total to beat both forms. Oh, and Yukino joins you for the battle vs. Angel Joker (I don't know that she does if you picked her 'bad' ending...) Anyways, you beat the Joker, and Jun's awakened. Goshdarnit, he's cute. Stop snerking, Kya. Jun is a nice guy, no matter what those DJ say. ^_~ He apologizes profusely - says he's been having a nightmare - and there's tears and hugs all around. Maya gives Jun a Nemophila that she picked earlier, and he's so happy. (Nemophila = Forgiveness). He wears it in his buttonhole *snerrrrk* That's actually a nice touch. In the initial character designs for Jun, he's wearing the iris - revenge - but later on, he's only wearing the Nemophila. Anyways, Jun's Daddy appears and Jun stands up to him. Daddy shrugs and the Joker persona is exorcised from Jun. (I need to find my picture of Jun's Joker. It's really cool-looking, actually; it's half black, half white, with one red eye visible (the white covers its face like Jun's hair, IIRC, just the way the black covers half of the Jun's Joker mask). It has a golden heart on its chest, stabbed through with long spikes, and it's bleeding. And it's color-coordinated with Jun's Joker outfit, which I'm sure is an important consideration for Jun. XDDDDDD) Well, Philemon takes us all back to his swinging bachelor pad. He asks Jun his name, and Jun replies that he's Korosu Jun, which pleases Philemon. Yukino tells Philemon to take her...ability to use Persona? and give it to Jun so that he himself can fight alongside his friends to make up for what he's done. Jun protests, but Yukki says it's all right. So Jun gains the FORTUNE class Hermes persona. (Interestingly, I think Hermes, when he did his little "ware wa nanji" speech, specifically emphasized his role as the Psychopomp. Interesting, but unsurprising emphasis. Kya, am I right about this? Could you check? Uh - they won't use the word "psychopomp" per se in the speech, but that's the role they're describing. I tell you, this game is a slish-fest for the mythologically-inclined.) Anyways, everyone's Custom Persona gets mutated into their final personae - Venus for Ginko, Hades for Eikichi, Apollo for Tacchi, and Artemis for Maya. (The character designs are also fascinating if you know mythology; Hades is carrying a weird skeletal helmet, of course, and Venus' design is so bubbly because she's born from sea foam. Hey, I just had a thought. Maya's personae always have their eyes covered or shielded or blindfolded (look at Maia and Artemis). Interesting, that.) Apparently the catch with these persona is that they have some fundamental weakness in them. But fear not, they can be fixed! Hermes is wind, Venus and Hades are water, Apollo is fire, and Artemis is ice. You can learn some useful new fusions, yo. Anyways, next order of business is to get back those four crystal skulls. Technically, you can do this in any order, but the supposed "correct" order is to start with the Aquarius Mansion in Hirasaka-ku, just so that you can mutate Jun's Hermes persona into Cronus. A note about mutating the Ultimate Persona: Each of your current persona has a flaw of some sort. If you keep the persona equipped for the boss battles, and answer the Questions correctly, you'll gain an automatic mutation that eliminates the weakness. So, like, in the Scorpio mansion, make sure Eikichi has Hades equipped for the boss battle. Last game, I was dumb and forgot to equip Hermes on Jun for the Aquarius boss battle, so I never got Cronus. This is especially dumb because Aquarius was THE LAST MANSION I WENT INTO. So I KNEW BETTER. Oh well, Cerberus really is an excellent Persona. The mansions are pretty straightforward. There are a couple of holes in the floor, but whatever. The boss is, uh, three Longinus mecha, who call Jun the Marionette. Jun gets pissed at this. Uh, Jun dear, if you let Daddy jerk you around like that and cause the end of the world, you really are in no position to be offended at the name "Marionette." Don't you dou iu imi me, young man, you've been very naughty. But anyways, the upshot is that Jun gains the mutation ability for Hermes, and at the Velvet Room you can mutate it into Cronus. Yes, it's Cronus and not Chronus; he says he was Zeus' father, and the father of the gods, and the Romans called him Saturnus. I guess Atlus is making a deliberate visual pun with Cronus and Chronus, with all the clocks and wings involved. Next mansion is Scorpio. Eikichi and Shadow Eikichi and Miyabi, oh my! Fu fu. I'll play that this weekend. Hades' voice always makes me burst into insane giggles, because he sounds like a eunuch. Eikichi's voice actor really has quite a range. I'd buy him a b33r. I'm hungry, but I need to give a 14-hour fasting blood test. And I was an idiot and ate strawberries last night at 11 pm. So I'm skipping breakfast and lunch and giving blood at 1:30. Rar. Time for a break. Wow, this blog took about two hours to type in between work. :D Now Playing: Brian Eno - Needle in the Camel's Eye Thursday, June 13, 2002, 05:22 p.m. o/~ I got a headache...like a pillow o/~Well, I got Jun in my party last night. As a reward/punishment, the power in my apartment went out at around 6 am, so when I woke up naturally, I rolled over and saw the blinking alarm clock and panicked. It was 10:45 according to my watch, and I was supposed to have been at work since 7:30 am. So I made a frantic call to work explaining the situation, jumped in the shower, and raced to work. Luckily, since I'm so religious about calling in to work when I INTEND not to be there, I wasn't in trouble, and they actually were worried that something serious had happened. Heh. No, Jun just cast Zionga on the local power grid or something. >_> Bad Jun! So I'm working until 6 pm tonight. I'm driving to Denver next Wednesday, and returning Sunday night. Imagine my joy. Luckily I can switch off with my dad on the driving. I'm going to be finding my apartment - you know, checking its position relative to ancient occult burial grounds and underground motherships and feng shui dragons and zodiac charts, laying down roots for the new Den of Evil. Fu fu. So if the state of Colorado takes off into space anytime in the future, I'm denying all knowledge of it. I've been coughing all afternoon. Hm. I've got more that I want to talk about, but the links are at home, such as that rumored arrest/confiscation of a guy's region 2 DVDs at an airport on the grounds that they were bootlegs. Or something like that. Argh. More later on that, then. So, because I can't talk about anything serious, this here be the PERSONA 2 INNOCENT SIN (TSUMI) gameblog. Two nights ago I completed the Air Museum (HYA-HA!) and Mt. Iwato. It's important to pick up all four of the masks in Mt. Iwato - the Red Eagle (Tatsuya), Yellow Owl (Eikichi), Pink Asaz (Lisa), and Blue Swan (Maya). There's a fifth secret room, but the box is empty, leading them to wonder if their fifth playmate had already come and taken his Black Falcon mask. (Well, duh....) Lisa was under the impression that the Joker-sama was their long-lost "dead" onee-chan, based on Leo's claim that the Joker, under the mask, was "as beautiful as a goddess." Now, poor Lisa doesn't know she's in an ATLUS game, where everything is GHEI, GHEI, GHEI, and someone as beautiful as a goddess could just as easily be MALE. Which it is, in this case; it's Jun, of course, who's the Joker. So the Joker appears alongside the Shadow Maya, and the real Maya (where WERE you, again? Kya, did she say? I can't remember!) comes to block the attack of Reverse Custom Maia (who has attacks like Diamond Dust and Dark Dimension. So if you're going through Mt. Iwato, I'd equip water and ice persona to protect yourself, because Shadow Maya is weak physical and slams you with ice attacks. I used, uh, Jack Frost, Kenren Taishou, Ryuume, Tensei Nyan-Nyan(?) and..uh...Hel, that's right. Hel is so useful. It has fire, water, earth, and air attacks (at least in batsu it does; I remember equipping it with the spell card for the class of attack it didn't have when I summoned it in Tsumi) and it's not any of those classes in particular, so it's not especially weak to anything. But anyways, like, all of those persona generally have physical attacks, so that's how I killed Shadow Maya. "Sayonara, nisemono-san." At this point, if you've made the right choices, Philemon appears and upgrades everyone's base persona to the Custom persona. (Well, except for Yukino; she gets her upgrade later.) Our next job was to "save Jun-kun." We find out that there's some battle going on at the top, and silly Fujii-san went up there and got caught in the fighting (so Yukino's all gung-ho to go rescue him). Well, okay. So we go up I-can't-remember-its-name-zan (or yama, or whatever) to Caracol, because the Last Battalion has landed and now appears to be fighting with the Kamen-to. I was about level, uh, 32 when I started climbing the mountain, and I was level 45 when I finally reached Jun. Yes, I leveled THAT MUCH. I was getting about three levels an hour, so it wasn't THAT bad. Er, by my standards. At the top of the mountain you save some priests (Kya, can you tell me what the deal with them is? I was impatient to get to Jun, so I ignored what they said about them). The Head Priest passes on a camera that Fujii left for Yukino, and tells them that Caracol itself is a bit northwest of here, higher up on the mountain. Before we go, Maya picks a blue Nemophila flower (that's the Latin genus name, Kya; its english name is Baby Blue Eyes, and it's Thpethial meaning is...well, I'll get there...) So I hurried over to Caracol, got in a boss fight with some mecha (I chose Eikichi as my partner in that fight...er, no, really, because he's useful with that water-sword, not just because I <3 him!) We win, just in time to... SPOILERS, KYA AND KA! SPOILERS FOR YUKINO AND ANNA AND WHATNOT! But her important decision comes here, so you might want to read it? I promise, it doesn't completely spoil things for you. ...let, well, something happen. At this point, Tacchi can either tell her to suck it up and come with us, we need you now, or to be nice and tell her that four people alone can handle this. I chose to tell her to pull herself together, which is the CORRECT choice (I'll tell you the consequences of the incorrect choice later.) Lisa and Eikichi think that Tatsuya's gone too far to say such a callous thing at a time like this, but Yukino pulls herself together and says that Tatsuya's right, and she's ready to go on. Philemon appears and grants Yukino her persona upgrade to Durga, which is one hell of a 1337 persona. It has two attacks that I use all the time - uh, the one that's both fire and physical? the something-dance? and the one which is the second attack she gains, the one with 'ama' as part of the name. (You can tell how well I remember kanji-only attack names at 5 pm.) I use the latter constantly when I get it. Does about 200+ damage on EVERYTHING it encounters. Mmm-mm good. So I enter Caracol, run about for a while, and encounter my next really major boss fight. The Last Batallion has cornered Anna Yoshizaka, and she's almost defeated. (FWIW, Kya, the weird long kana-thing that the Longinus mecha uses is "AUF WIEDERSEHEN" (goodbye). And when they call each other 'ELF' AND 'ZWOLF' and all that, that's 11 and 12 in german. Not bad, ATLUS, you obviously didn't ask Koyasu to help you with your doitsugo. XD) Yukino interrupts, so we fight the mecha to defeat them. (I HATE their attacks that seal off your persona-use. I really do. I also hate their electrical attacks, because they screw up my fusions by electrifying people.) Hey, Kya, what is it that the mecha say before the fight that prompts Lisa to wonder, "They know Fujii-san? How??" and Yukino to scream, "DON'T YOU DARE LAUGH AT HIM!" So, right, you beat them (water works well on them, so does fire, and so do those specialized physical+magic attack) and then you're left with the very Special Yukino and Anna show. Anyways, Shadow Yukino interrupts them. If you made the correct decision about whether to make Yukino come with you, Yukino and Anna join forces to fight Shadow Yukino, and you four go on without her, saving you a boss battle. If you made the WRONG decision - well, Anna joins Shadow Yukino, and y'all fight them. When you beat them, Anna and Shadow Yukino join hands and jump off the cliff, swearing to be together forever and eeeeeeeeever. Anna's suicide so upsets Yukino that she kind of has a nervous breakdown. >_< And later on, you can't bear to tell her friends what happened to her. But I made the right choice this time, so Yukino and Anna fight their happy love-love battle against Shadow Yukino, and I head deeper into Caracol. I run into two flashbacks - you see the ghost of chibi-Jun and then fall into the flashback where Maya says she's moving away, and everyone's crying and telling her not to go. Then, according to this flashback, they shove her into Araya and lock it. Maya's screaming to be let out, and Jun tells everyone to stop it, but they shove him aside. Then Lisa goes, "Hey, why don't we kill oneechan? Then she'll never leave us!" Eikichi and Tatsuya agree, and little Tatsuya summons Vulky and sets the shrine on fire. The three kids laugh evilly while Maya screams and Jun cries for his oneechan. Of course, the group freaks out at this flashback. Lisa says it wasn't LIKE that, and Maya tries to reassure the chibi-Jun that it's okay, she's alive, but the chibi-Jun gets mad and says that it was TOO like that, Tatsuya tried to KILL his oneesan, and Jun couldn't protect her! (Tatsuya was the one who locked her in the shrine in the flashback, too.) He leaves behind a wild raspberry flower - "Deep Regrets". The next flashback has little Tatsuya and Jun meeting Maya at the park playground, where she's swinging. They aren't wearing their masks, and Maya says that she was surprised to see their real faces. Then she asks them if they've heard of the poem "Doppelganger" (HOW, exactly, WOULD these 8-year-old Japanese kids have heard an obscure German poem???) and she recites it. Then she explains that - uh, what did she say...I think she said that although Tatsuya and Jun weren't alike in personality, they were like doppelgangers, light and shadow, or...uh...or..oh, heck, it was 2 am by this point. No, it was 2:30 am. Kya, can you do me another favor? ;_; What'd she say? I can't remember. So anyways, soon after this, it's time to fight Jun. It's the Joker, Shadow Tatsuya, Shadow Lisa, Shadow Eikichi, and Queen Aquarius vs. Hitora and the Last Battalion's Longinus mecha. Anyways, stuff happens, and Joker says that this proves that his father was right all along about Xibalba. At this point, Queen Aquarius looks at him sharply and goes, "Masaka....you're really...?" (I guess she didn't realize who Joker-sama was until he referred to Kashihara as his father.) So when a mecha attacks Jun, Queen Aquarius shoves him out of the way, calling him by his real name, and she dies instead of the Joker. So Hitora-tachi disappear, cackling evilly, and then our group calls out to Jun. Maya says that she's alive, so stop this foolishness, and Joker-sama babbles some more (uh, Kya? <3 It was so late that I didn't even bother to try. Solly ;_;) and, to put a feather in his cap of uber-gheiness, he actually uses the phrase "raison d'etre." WHAT 17-YEAR-OLD BOY SAYS STUFF LIKE THAT? (He said it in kana, sure, but man!) So the group tells him to open his eyes... I'll finish this gameblog at home. Now Playing: Mr. Scruff - Get A Move On Wednesday, June 12, 2002, 02:21 p.m. Bowie covering the Pixies?I'll be over here in my wanking corner if you need me. Now Playing: Alien Sex Fiend - Echoes / David Bowie & Frank Black - Scary Monsters Wednesday, June 12, 2002, 09:10 a.m. Lately I have been frequenting bad houses...places no respectable man would be seen...Guess who stayed up too late leveling in Tsumi. I went to bed at 3, and woke up at 4 somehow convinced that it was 7 am and that the 4:00 am on my clock was the time I'd set my alarm to, not the time it was now. I spent a good 30 seconds, flicking back between the current time and the alarm time, too asleep to figure out which was which. :D I'm heading to Denver for a few days in the next few weeks, assuming they get that wildfire under control soon. I hope so; I need to get an apartment! Okamura Maya says a whole bunch of craaaaaaaaaazy shit after the Air Museum. Now Kya, I'm going to run this by you, okay? There's so much I missed, and I know I would have gotten a lot more with a thingie to check my vocabulary. I bet a lot of this is wrong, so correct me, OK? (Plot points?! or insane raving about Persona 2: Innocent Sin follow. Highlight at your own risk, I guess.) Okamura says that she thought the five of them were the "Last Battalion," which were Hitora's (to avoid certain referrals ;;^^) rumored special elite troops with special high-tech weapons, right? Hitora supposedly committed suicide at the end of WWII, but there was a RUMOR that he'd survived after all, and would come back. The deal with the Last Battalion was that once the Last Battalion appeared, the Maiyajin would supposedly appear soon, or something. Oh yeah, she claims that the Last Battalion killed Kashihara-sensei, right? The Maiyajin. I STILL don't know whether to call them the Mayans or the Maians. Let's call then the Maiyajin for now, with the suspicion that they mean the Mayan Indians. ANYWAYS, the Maiyajin came from the Pleiades about 1500 years ago in spaceships. Yes, they're aliens. >_> They left after observing us, but they're due to return after the Last Battalion show up. Now, this "IDEAL ENERGY" that "hearts with dreams" have, that's the source of the power of the Maiyajin, so the Kamen-to are collecting it in the crystal skulls to help power the Maiyajin when they arrive. When the Maiyajin arrive, the mothership "Xibalba" will appear under Sumaru so that Sumaru can take off and make contact with the Maiyajin? She said something about the Mayan god of light, uh, I don't remember it exactly - that they based the name of something-or-other on. They also talk about something called the NAUI ORION or something like that. Wasn't sure what was up with that. All of Okamura's predictions come from the book "In-Lagetti," which she co-wrote with Kashihara-sensei and "Sudou-kun." The title of the book means "I am another you," and it's a collection of the sayings of the Maiyajin as channeled by Sudou-kun. Now, Sudou-kun was a student at Seven Sisters, and he heard voices that he thought were the voices of the Maiyajin, which told him to do stuff like burn things as part of Maiyajin rituals...? Anyways, since he heard the voices, he became the 'channeler' for Kashihara-sensei and Okamura-sensei. The Oracle of Maia is in the In-Lagetti. (I don't remember if Okamura-sensei said this specifically, but Sudou-kun's name is Sudou Tatsuya. Uh huh. Yup.) Okamura-sensei also does a bunch of raving about Kashihara-sensei, about how he was so kind and how he was a visionary (I think she said he "dreamed excessively" which I took to mean that he was a visionary, since she meant it as a compliment?). That's all I got out of that. It was late, and I need a thingie to be able to catch more of that. And it was two days ago, too. X_x And I was unsure about most of that. Kya~~ help~ I'm glad you like the game, but which part in particular did you mean would prevent the game being released in the US? Those beginning parts about teachers committing suicide? Teachers attacking their students/students attacking their teachers? The n4z1s? The truckload of ghei? Where do you START with this game? >D I'm also sort of glad that they won't bring it over and dub it, because if they give Jun the lisping pansy voice that they do for his three lines in Batsu, I'd be forced to put my foot through the TV. The insanity-eyed cockatiel is MALE! (Despite what your brother thinks, Kya.) And despite the whole, er, astrology and fortune-telling and flower-language thing, he's got a normal male voice. A nice male voice. :D~ Eikichi's English voice was pretty cute, though, and Lisa's wasn't too awful (judging from her three lines, of course. >_>) I'm going to take a break before I blog anymore. Now Playing: Clinic - The Equaliser Tuesday, June 11, 2002, 09:48 a.m. Remember, to be a josei gamer, you need to have a TV.Therefore, those of you who messaged me to mox0r me about seeing David Bowie on the Late Show last night - of COURSE I saw it myself, so the taunting didn't work. XD Shannon loves me and called me at home at 9 pm to let me know about it, too. >D Ah~ Bowie~ I saw Insomnia yesterday. I really liked it. More about that later. Amusingly enough, I was so sleepy yesterday that I fell asleep after watching Bowie. Then I dreamt that I was at my parents' house, and they told me to stay until Bowie came on, and I said, "Well, it's still light, I dunno if I can stay that late..." and then they told me that it was 10:00 pm and I just had to wait for a little while. I said, "Oh yeah, I forgot that the sun doesn't set here." Heh heh. I also saw a poster for the remake of Red Dragon, the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs. I actually read the book a while back, and saw the previous movie version when I was in Denmark (I forget what that movie was renamed to, though...). Needless to say, when I saw that Ed Norton and Anthony Hopkins would be in it, I was allllllll over that. H____H Of course, it's coming out this fall when I won't have transportation to a movie theater. >_> I need to make friends with someone with a car, then. Of course I'm shallow and mercenary like that. >D Well, anyone who'd be willing to go to that movie with me would be someone I'd become friends with anyways. (BTW, Joy, I'll mail your doujinshi today, or tomorrow at the very latest. Yesterday I was busy until after the post office closed, I'm afraid.) Now Playing: David Bowie - Andy Warhol (o/~ Andy walking, Andy tired...Andy take a little snooze! o/~) Monday, June 10, 2002, 03:27 p.m. "L-DOPA fix me, alright?"I swear, I give up on my mailing lists. I just transferred the last one to web-only after a sudden flood of posts in the past three days. This particular ML is usually silent as the grave, but the last twenty posts of nonsense just irritated me so much that I figured I'd save myself the bother of deleting the mail. I don't know what it is about mailing lists and forums that brings out the inner idiot in even the best of people. The ML in question is dedicated to a show that has a lot of depth, raises a lot of interesting issues, and at the very least, had enough loose ends that people could happily argue about them until the end of time. Instead, I have only observed the following ML inhabitants - I KNOW y'all have seen these, they're very similar to the usenet species: I don't know. For some series, I expect this to be the majority of the posts. But for others, I honestly expect more out of the ML, due to my OWN ability to analyze the series to death. I've tried posting questions to provoke discussion, but either they're ignored, or I get one-line responses, so I just idle. :D It's at times like these that I wish that there were a "BITCHSLAP" key on the keyboard. Now Playing: Pixies - Debaser Monday, June 10, 2002, 11:07 a.m. I fully expect you West-Coast types to watch this for me, since of COURSE it's raining here. >_<Partial Solar Eclipse Today At Sunset As long as you're west of Indiana or so, you can see the eclipse right around sunset. Maybe the clouds will clear up? :P Now Playing: Big Black - Columbian Necktie (yeh, same CD's playing, of course. :D ) Monday, June 10, 2002, 11:03 a.m. I can instantly tell you which arcana Otohime belongs in, but I have to think hard to remember how many ounces there are in a cup. *sigh*It's going to rain again today. That's not such a bad thing, because it's hot and I'm in work all day anyways. I've been trying to keep my A/C off, but the temperature soars to 85F and higher inside my apartment within half an hour of turning it off. I'm in the slow process of deciding what to keep and what to throw away, sell, or give away. I've whittled down my manga collection to what I want to keep (still three shelves full...>_>) and I'm probably going to leave behind or give away 95% of my tapes. Of course, in this age of digisubs, who's interested in raw tapes anymore? *sigh* Krisit, if you want anything, you can probably have it; I'm definitely keeping my Bebop and Kenshin, and probably my Maze and Berserk and Basara as well. I'll check my collection when I get home; you probably have all of it anyways. I still have NO IDEA how to transport my boxes of doujinshi to Colorado. I can NOT leave them behind ^_~ and the prospect of my parents even accidentally finding them when helping me move fills me with slightly amused ph33r. I <3 my doujinshi, but Rinno-nee and Gravitation remixes should not be viewed by parental eyes. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu indeed. Perhaps I'll mail them to myself as the last thing I do before I move, but then the problem of how to get them from the post office presents itself. Damn my lack of transportation. Any suggestions? I'll be living in an apartment building, not a dorm, so...and I have enough doujinshi to choke a small horse. Well, not really, but still, two large boxes full. 150-200, if I had to venture a guess. Maybe I'll pack them under layers of manga. No, that'd still require too many boxes. Argh~! Preparing to move cross-country is so strange. I've lived in this town my entire life. Strangely enough, the prospect of change doesn't really bother me; I knew I was going to medical school, and although I got accepted at the local med school, I decided to go to an out-of-state one no matter what, just for a change. Now, I admit I've been having some doubts recently, but it's not really doubts about whether moving so far away is such a good idea. (With a phone and the internet, I can keep in touch with my friends in family...and I'm sure you'll hear about it on the news if I become part of the next Donner Party, right?) My doubts are mostly over WHICH out-of-state school I picked. I mean, Colorado is freaking EXPENSIVE. It's going to cost me over $70,000 to go there JUST NEXT YEAR, you know. And so I wonder, is it really worth all that money? Milwaukee would have been so much cheaper, and I could have afforded a car, and I would still be close to my friends and family...but then again, I applied to Colorado because I wanted to go there. I was surprised when I got in, sure, but it's a better school, and so it should be worth it. The prospect of change doesn't bother me much. I think it's because I never moved around much and had such a stable, "boring" childhood, as opposed to people who moved around all over the place. It's weird if you think about it, isn't it? You'd think that people who hadn't moved around much would be terrified of change, compared with people who moved a lot and did this and that...but it seems to be the opposite. How strange. One could claim that I'm comfortable with it because I have a safety net of sorts, but that's not really true; my parents are extremely middle-class, and the money we're spending on med school is a once-only deal. I can't afford to goof off in med school the way I could in college, so it's very important to choose carefully. But I chose to move far away and do something new, despite knowing that this was my only chance. Hm. I guess it's hard to explain why different people react as they do to change, and why people are scared of change. I had a pleasant surprise yesterday. I went out to grab some dinner and ran into a high school classmate (which illustrates Murphy's Law - "If you run out for five minutes in old clothes, figuring that you won't see anyone you know, you WILL run into people you know."). We talked for about 10 minutes, and I found out that he'd been in the newspaper (his research group discovered something pretty damn fascinating about the pores in cell membranes that transport water in and out of the cell...I could explain quickly if you're interested, but I doubt anyone is, though.) He's headed to CalTech for grad school in physics, and another friend of mine is headed to Berkeley for...electrical engineering? Who knows, I think he was a double-major with a minor in music...or maybe a major in electrical engineering with a double-minor in music and math? Can't remember. I know such freaking geniuses, it's both cool and unfair. :D These guys, who went from grade school to high school with me and then both attended MIT for college, are such nice, modest people, too; it's a pleasure talking to them about what they've been working on. I think some of my classmates are trying to organize a 5-year reunion, which I can say right now I'm not going to. ;;^^ I'll get ahold of my classmates that I *want* to see again on an individual basis; I don't get off on telling people what I'm up to and what I've accomplished, and if I didn't like you in high school, I probably don't care what you've been up to, either. :D Wow, that sounds bitchy, but oh well. I don't think they'd be terribly interested in what I've been up to either. High school reunions. Pfeh. ^^; There's another HS friend of mine who's kept in touch with me occasionally - man, I should reciprocate more, but I don't know when she's in town until she calls! :D Anyways, I've been a bit leery of hanging out with her, because I think back to how we were in high school, and I think, "Gosh, we had no common interests other than the fact that we were classmates and had known each other for years, huh. o.o; Getting together with her will be strange because we haven't seen each other since HS, and I've changed a lot since then, so all we'll have to talk about is HS memories, since she has no idea what I'm like now. Ugh." But upon the last few conversations, I realized that I'd forgotten something. I've changed since high school - but then again, so has she. (Another thing that should have been obvious, but really, it isn't - do you stop to think that your high school classmates have fundamentally changed from how they were in high school, or are they kind of frozen in your memory, like a fly in amber?) The person I am now would probably dislike the person she was then...but the person I am now could get to really like the person she is now. If that makes any sense whatsoever. Shannon, everyone's got their own particular Bowie kink. >D I personally like fairly early Bowie stuff - like The Man Who Sold the World and Ziggy Stardust albums, but I also really like Scary Monsters. I never could get into his stuff after 1980...some of it's okay, but a lot of it just sounds odd to me. (I do like Black Tie White Noise , though. Heh.) Bowie has kind of....an odd voice, honestly. It's not really a beautiful voice, but it's extremely distinctive and I like it a lot. But a lot of his later songs don't seem to mesh well with his voice, or have him using his voice in ways that I think just sound silly (I've never liked his tremolo...fu fu.) Now, keeping these objections in mind... PuuMom: *quite seriously* Priya, promise me that you won't run off and marry that goat-eyed guy David Bowie. (She says his eyes remind her of a goat's eyes because they're mismatched :D) Puu: Suuuure, Mom. ;;;^^ (What the?) PuuSister: Priya, don't make promises you know you can't keep. Puu: XDDDD It's so nice having a good relationship with my sister at last. We were kind of annoyed at each other for most of the 1990's ;;^^ but once I moved out and she settled down in Michigan, we're actually friends now and talk on AIM every day. I was pleased when I came home from work and msg'd her, and she said, "I was just wondering when you'd be home." I'm sure there are siblings who've always had a close relationship, but we're not one of those :D I mean, we went to France alone together when I was...11, and she was 19, but still, we couldn't talk much, just because of the age gap. What could we have to talk ABOUT? (Instead, she just rotted my brain with music. <3 ) Wow, that was long and rambling. Guess who doesn't have enough work to do. Now Playing: Big Black - The Power of Independent Trucking / The Model / Bad Penny (how a metronome and a drum machine can KICK J00R ASS.) |