Thursday, December 21, 2000 :: 06:08 p.m.
be still be calm be quiet now my precious boy / don't struggle like that i will only love you more

Ah, time for my yearly holiday mantra: ' must not snap. will not snap. must not snap.' No wonder family members literally kill each other at holidays. ^^ ( I remember seeing on CNN last year about some guy killing his brother-in-law with a nailgun at XMas or something. ;;^^ )

We celebrate XMas the Danish way, which is somewhat different that I bet most of you do, if you do. We open presents on the 24th, for one thing, at night. Traditional old-fashioned X-Mas dinner is a goose, but we do turkey nowadays. For dessert we eat ris a la mande ( I hope I spelled that right...o.o ) which is essentially sweet rice in whipped cream with almonds. You eat it with warmed jam. And then we go and turn off all the lights and stare at the tree some.

Danish Christmas trees are decorated with small lit candles; we usually put about two dozen on the tree and light them. Another thing we put on the trees is shiny...hell, I don't know what they're called, they're like shiny heart-shaped paper baskets that you handmake and hang from the tree. We put strings of Danish flags up too, and it's all good. Yes, of course we're careful with the candles.

And then we tear into the presents. ^^ Here's what the Danish Embassy says about Danish Christmas.

Just took the Keirsey test - as I remembered, I'm a 'Rational Mastermind - iNTj'. Here's what it says:
    " Portrait of the Mastermind Rational (INTJ)

      All Rationals (NTs) share the following core characteristics: 

    • Rationals tend to be pragmatic, skeptical, self-contained, and focused on problem-solving and systems analysis. 
    • Rationals pride themselves on being ingenious, independent, and strong willed. 
    • Rationals make reasonable mates, individualizing parents, and strategic leaders. 
    • Rationals are even-tempered, they trust logic, yearn for achievement, seek knowledge, prize technology, and dream of understanding how the world works.

    All Rationals are good at planning operations, but Masterminds are head and shoulders above all the rest in contingency planning. Complex operations involve many steps or stages, one following another in a necessary progression, and Masterminds are naturally able to grasp how each one leads to the next, and to prepare alternatives for difficulties that are likely to arise any step of the way. Trying to anticipate every contingency, Masterminds never set off on their current project without a Plan A firmly in mind, but they are always prepared to switch to Plan B—or C or D if need be.

    Masterminds are rare, comprising no more than, say, one percent of the population, and they are rarely encountered outside their office, factory, school, or laboratory. Although they are highly capable leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once they take charge, however, they are thoroughgoing pragmatists. Masterminds are certain that efficiency is indispensable in a well-run organization, and if they encounter inefficiency—any waste of human and material resources—they are quick to realign operations and reassign personnel. Masterminds do not feel bound by established rules and procedures, and traditional authority does not impress them, nor do slogans or catchwords. Only ideas that make sense to them are adopted; those that don’t, aren’t, no matter who thought of them. Remember, their aim is always maximum efficiency.

    In their careers, Masterminds usually rise to positions of responsibility, for they work long and hard and are dedicated in their pursuit of goals, sparing neither their own time and effort nor that of their colleagues and employees. Problem-solving is highly stimulating to Masterminds, who love responding to tangled systems that require careful sorting out. Ordinarily, they verbalize the positive and avoid comments of a negative nature; they are more interested in moving an organization forward than dwelling on mistakes of the past.

    Masterminds tend to be much more definite and self-confident than other Rationals, having usually developed a very strong will. Decisions come easily to them; in fact, they can hardly rest until they have things settled and decided. But before they decide anything, they must do the research. Masterminds are highly theoretical, but they insist on looking at all available data before they embrace an idea, and they are suspicious of any statement that is based on shoddy research, or that is not checked against reality.



Iiiinteresting. ^^ Just like oneesama it seems - or oneesama on good days. o.o XD And no, don't ask me why Yoshiki's nipples are like that. It's one of those grand cosmic mysteries.

I bought my sister an mp3 player, and went through the PSX section of Best Buy just piling things into my dad's arms. ' Parasite Eve 2...Bust-A-Groove 2....Chrono Cross...' and to my amazement I think he bought it all _O_ Wow! I woulda thought he would put all but one away @_@

I would like to announce at this time that Marc Bolan OWNS ME. I picked up T Rex's 'Satellite Rock' and oh my god it rules *___* Deshi, you must get this CD. You mentioned you got into T Rex because of a song in Billy Elliot? What was it, Cosmic Dancer? I'd guess that one, and it's on this CD. *_*

Now I'm gonna go buy something to clean the lens of my DVD-ROM. Tech support finally figured out why the fuck putting anything but a DVD made the computer crash or go funny on me. Oh, right, I might buy some more XMas presents. NY-tachi: I'll see if my parents will let me Amtrak up to Chicago. Someone will have to pick me up, so I'll need to know who's gonna do that before I begin negotiations. ^^

Now playing: 'Mambo Sun' - T Rex



Wednesday, December 20, 2000 :: 08:01 p.m.
You sick bitch!

Just got off the phone with deshi - have fun tonight, you ho! I promised her I'd make another blog with scary links, so here, for your viewing pleasure, is Priya's List of Sick Links. *cymbal crash* It's mostly sick slash, so caveat emptor, or the equivalent here. ^^ I think that's plenty to traumatize people. Of course, I could always find more...

Now I have this nasty feeling people are going to stop reading my blog after reading these last two or three entries. Oops. ;;^^

Now Playing: PJ Harvey - My Beautiful Leah



Wednesday, December 20, 2000 :: 10:25 a.m.
This is SO not my fault.

I don't know whose fault it is, but it ain't mine. Yeah, that's it. BTW, this is Yoshiki. He is also capable of looking like this. I need to pry myself away from these image galleries, methinks.

Now Playing: Wo Qui Non Coin ( Bebop OST 3: Blue )



Wednesday, December 20, 2000 :: 05:50 a.m.
BISHOUNEN! GACKT! BISHOUNEN! GACKT!

Sorry, I'm hanging out with my esteemed colleagues, the early-morning fangirl contingent, and talk, naturally, turned to his Gackt-ness. Niichan, can we call the bot Gackt? XD

Right now I'm imperilling my immortal soul by surfing J-Pop pages. This is a particularly good one. Currently I'm looking at a band called Dir en grey which apparently has exceeded Japan's bishounen quota in ONE BAND. koukou and xio and I have spent almost an hour trying to make sure they're REALLY all guys.

Cases in point: I wish we had J-Rock stars in the US ;_; Life isn't brightly-colored enough without them! They're like weird rare waterfowl who are hunted for their plumage!

Um...maybe I need more sleep.

Oh, come on, they ARE like exotic birds. O_o
    See the Kyo in its mating plumage. Nearby you can catch a glimpse of the elusive Toshiya.
    And this is the long-tailed Kaoru. You can see it displaying its wings here. And I don't know who's clinging to him, no.
    And Die, pulling a Kamui. By process of elimination, that would mean Shinya-onenisama is the one clinging to Kaoru. Damn, I just realized Die's hair reminds me incredibly of Schuldig's from WeiB. Let me not contemplate the idea of Koyasu flipping through J-Rock mags.

    This is sad; now I'm trying to find a good picture of Shinya's cleavage to settle the issue. Well, here's a good picture of Toshiya's cleavage ( corsets, again ) but Shinya's covering his up. Tease! Goshdarnit, this dress doesn't help either! Well, judging from the straight lines of his torso, and the lack of hips, I'm GUESSING he's male. You may inform me otherwise. @_@ I suppose I could just check a page about the band, but that would spoil me fun!

    Which of Kyo's bandmates IS that? o.O
    We've established that Toshiya's male, but still... o.O Who DESIGNS these bondage-dresses-for-men in Japan? o.O
    Costuming concept - ' wrap him in electrical tape! Indiscriminately! '

And now the moment of truth; I'm checking a page to find out Shinya's gender. And...HE'S MALE! Damn! O_o

Okay, enough J-Rock silliness. Time to go back to sleep. *evil laugh*

Wow, Yoshiki produced this band? No wonder they're so...so...yes, quite. For those who don't know who Yoshiki is, check out here or here. No, I don't understand either why he's in the shower with his jeans on. But I want you to slap me if I ever question a bishie's need to get dripping wet for a photo shoot. Oh, he was in X Japan, BTW.

Now playing: Nothing. It's 6 am. Well, 7 am.



Monday, December 18, 2000 :: 06:04 p.m.
New Years, revised :P

Well, that WAS the plan; my dad was fine with it. Then I discussed it with my mom, and she vetoed the hell out of it. She claims I don't have enough highway experience driving alone. Note that she never lets me drive alone period, so it's a circular argument. :PPPPPPPPP But enough of that. It's not all shot to hell, just...revised. -_-

Since my mom says I can't come get you, she suggests that y'all take the Amtrak down here on the 30th. She and my father want to go to Chi-town on the 1st anyways, so she can drive you all back - or at least to some pre-designated spot in Chicago where you all can get picked up or go your merry ways. Either way, it involves a one-way train ride, and someone to drive you to Chicago the other way. Is that fine with you Chicago-gumi? Let me know, okay?

On a brighter note, my Wolfwood figure arrived. Hoe---- *_* He has his Giant Cross of Whoopass and the Port-o-Confessional! *_* Weirdly enough, he has three spare hands ( a total of five - a cross-holding one, two gun-holding ones, and two ciggie-holding ones ), two heads ( with and without shades ) two guns, and far too many accessories. And boy, I'm playing with him like the shameless hussy I am. XD

Engrish from the box:
    " contains small parts small child might cause suffocation. take care of sharp edge not to harm you. plastic package might harm you so becareful when opening." ( repeated 20 times, over and over, in tiny writing, on the front. )

    " We are all like raindrops falling from the sky,eventually landing on this sandy star and drying up from the heat of the sun.Even if protected by a huge umbrella, we never know what tomorrow may bring.Someday we will be blown by the wind and absorber into the sandy earth."

    " Does God have mercy even on this desert planet?Lawless and distant from the mother planet, all the more people on this planet need words of encouragement that there are Hands that support them.A priest walks on a desolate plain, wandering without a destination.He carries a big symbol on his back, as if it is the very sign of the institution.He preaches words of forgiveness and cleanses dead souls.However, this very man who speaks God's words, is the very man who breaks God's words.He has killed too many.Wounded by the reality he can not escape from, he has carved his life out of dirt.As long as he stays human, his choices are minimal.Cutting down countlesssouls, his heart bleeds.Stepping over the bodies of his enemies, he walks.He persists to be merry.His eyes stay calm.His other name is 'Chapel.'When he fires his huge cross-shaped weapon"Punisher" as if possessed by a devil, people call his name in fear.He belongs to the group of super powered killers, Gung-Ho-Guns.Carrying the bloody insignia, what is this man trying to accomplish?The man smiles and does not answer.His destination is not yet in sight."
All misspellings, run-on words, and lack of spaces between sentences or words are the fault of the Engrish-master who composed this. XD As I said, it's like a demented haiku at times. " He persists to be merry."

So, really, when you read this, email me ASAP and lemme know if this set-up for New Year's is cool witchoo. Okay desu? n_n

Now Playing: Orbital - the Box ( 28 minutes long! Christ o.O )



Monday, December 18, 2000 :: 11:32 a.m.
NEW YEAR'S!

Okay, this is what I came up with:

If y'all are amenable, I can come pick you up on Janurary 30th. That way we can stop at Mitsuwa, do whatever we want, and then come back to C-U and have all of the 31st to be extra-genki and rent pr0n and whatnot. I have room for 6 people; I was thinking Gregly, Juri, the HenTai Kyoudai, and another two people of your choice. You'd all have to email me your addies, and, hopefully, directions to your place. ;;^^

Now, getting you all BACK to Chi-town is another fun problem. My parents are like, you want to drive 600 miles in 2 days? So I was thinking, if you all are okay with this, you could Amtrak back. There are three Amtrak stations in Chicago; one in Chicago proper, one in Chicago Heights, and one in Chicago Ridge. If your parents would be willing to pick you up from the closest station - or if you take the subway to wherever's closest to your house - that would be extra-cool. *_* The fare's only $19, and you can leave at 6:30 pm on the 1st, or whenever, and get to Chicago at 9:30 pm. Is that cool with you all? That would make things so much simpler on my part. Look around on Amtrak.com and see what you think.

Well, email me and let me know how this sounds to you all, okay? You can of course crash with me on the night of the 30th and the 31st.

Saw Charlie's Angels last night, and a weird thought struck me. The ultimate villain - the way he wears snazzy black suits, red shades, and has a tendency to soft-shoe around when he's being particularly evil - he's like an evil Beck. Isn't that a scary, scary thought? If Beck turned to the Dark Side, the world would be a dangerous place. n_n

Gotta go to work. X_x Must...earn...money...

Now Playing: DJ KAZU - Luv to Me ( did you know that this song is, in fact, entirely in English? Damned if I could tell from her pronounciation...)



Sunday, December 17, 2000 :: 11:58 a.m.
My Toys! I Can't Do This Job Without My Toys!

Ok, so I archived again. If you missed out the long-ass blog I did last night, check the archives. n_n

I have been having some hella strange dreams recently. Last night, I dreamt I was wandering around the Opryland Hotel. ( understandable; I was there Friday night. ) Now this is the weird part; I met Moby on the third floor and we hung out for a while. My parents appeared, and I was trying to explain to my parents who 'this bald guy' was. I don't know WHY Moby was in Opryland; I haven't listened to any Moby in at least a few weeks. I dreamt he was a really genki guy, though. ^^

Now, Thursday night I had an even weirder dream. It was one of those weird apocalyptic Eva-esque dreams, except giant Tyrannosaurs were heading for the city ( which I think was Miami, weirdly enough ) and I knew that if they got there, everyone in the city would be killed when the T-Rexes started knocking over skyscrapers with their tails and everything. These were REALLY BIG DINOSAURS, y'see. And so all the roads out of the city were jammed with people trying to escape, and the dinosaurs would be here in a few hours or something. But I knew that there was this one hotel in the city, and if we stayed there, we'd survive. So a bunch of people and I ( I think it was essentially the IL-gumi plus some random JAC people plus some blog-gumi ) went to this hotel, and I was worried that there wouldn't be enough rooms for us all. So I got there, and I'm talking to the receptionist, and I was trying to do a headcount to see how many rooms we'd need, but you all were screwing around on the stairs and in general pissing me off XD So the receptionist showed me a map and said that rooms 5,6,7,9,10, and 11 were free. So I said, ' I'll take them.' At this point, I was talking in my sleep so loudly that I woke myself up ;;^^

Dreams are so much fun! The only thing that worries me is the recurrence of Godzilla-like figures and my teeth falling out. I swear, my teeth have fallen out in like 5+ dreams now. *kusu*

The weather here's a lot better than they predicted. Ice cold - it's 3 F with a windchill of -39 F ( that's -16C and -39C for you metric types ) - but fairly clear. The wind's pretty strong, though, I think 30 mph or something. You people have it easy if you don't live in IL! XD It's incredibly cold in winter and consistently about 85 in the summer.

I'm hoping that I'll finally get a scanner for XMas this year. I've only been asking for one for 4 years. :P As a scanner-ho, it's a pain not having a scanner of my own at home.

Finally watching Mahou Tsukai Tai! TV #1-4 and Hameln no Baiorin-hiki #17-20. ( Thanks, Abby! ) Watching MTT is extra-funny now that I'm a seiyuu-ho. Onosaka Masaya is both Takeo-kun and Vash the Stampede, and listening to him in the semi-yaoi-tease scene with Koyasu in the very first episode is making me laugh maniacally. ( Well, it doesn't take much to make me laugh maniacally, I must admit. ) Dammit, Hameln no Baiorin-hiki is an example of a show with a good storyline and a shitty animation budget. It's painful to watch all the stills they resort to instead of showing people's mouths moving when they talk. Thank god I have the manga, so I KNOW it's a good story. Otherwise I'd have lost patience with the poor quality of animation of the TV series long ago. ( And there needs to be more Lute in the anime, dammit! Luuuuute-ouji *_* )

I guess I like Lute-ouji because he does it all. Cute, genki, loves to play with children, the favorite prince of all Sforzend, and one ruthless mofo when it comes to killing Mazoku. I mean, even the Mazoku used to call him, ' the human Mazoku' which I guess is a testament to his incredible power and ruthless killing ability. But, unlike most heroes who are good at killing, he doesn't angst and whine about how many he's killed. He kills the Mazoku threatening a family, and then, still bloody-handed, plays with the children he's just saved. He practices black magic upon his mom's annoying councillors ( summoning up man-eating plants when they come to ask him why he wants to learn the black arts. ' I like it! It's fun and USEFUL. *crunch* Whoops! XD ' ) He's genki and tragic without being angst. Angst is good and all, but once in a while it's nice to see someone who doesn't get paralyzed with angst everytime that he has to do something violent. And he's just so darn cute and genki! I want to pinch his cheeks! ...or something, yes. ^^

Oh, I found out about the Big-O manga. There are three volumes, I understand. I'll post more when I know more - sorry, Juri!

I woke up this morning, made biscuits and pancakes, and my parents woke up, bitched at me for making TWO things for breakfast, and then promptly chowed down. -_- At least they were showing the old Batman TV series on the TV while I was baking; I love the old Adam West show XD And it seems that all today they're showing a bunch of monster movies. The Dracula with Bela Lugosi, the Mummy, lotsa Christopher Lee movies....hoe-- *_* Tune to AMC if you get the channel!

Okay, how many Chicago-gumi are we talking about for New Year's? Gregly, Juri, the HenTai Kyoudai, Urbana-Matt - who else? What about the ISU-gumi? If it's just 5 people, doesn't Cat have a minivan? If she's willing and the weather's okay, couldn't we drive up, pick y'all up, and drive back down? Hell, I might even be able to steal my car too. That's plenty of room for whomever wants to come; I just want a navigator in Chicago n_n Juri! Get in touch with Cat and discuss this with her, okay? Or have her call me. You know my number! ^o^

Enough blogging for now. -_- Plus my mom wants the phone free in case anyone wants to call us. Blah.

Now Playing: anjali - Strawberry Mousse


Since this is how everyone seems to be doing this :P

{{ archives! }}

Favorite blogs: ( so far! )
eminyu :: jurinyu :: niisan
ka-chan :: mark-kun :: krisit-chan
kya-chan :: tin :: deshi-chan
chi-chan :: xiola :: oneesama
wufie :: greg-kun :: koukou
dess

Personal stuff:
Name: Priya Monrad
Age: 19
Occupation: Poor college senior
Location: IL
Mental status: unusual, right now
Webpage: genkiland
Email: monrad@students.uiuc.edu

Favorite anime series
Big O - Cowboy Bebop - Di Gi Charat
Trigun - Rurouni Kenshin - Gatekeepers
Petshop of Horrors - Excel Saga - Gokudo-kun


Favorite manga series
Tokumu Sentai Shinesman ( Tachibana Kaimu )
Petshop of Horrors ( Matsuri Akino )
Hameln no Baiorin-Hiki ( Michiaki Watanabe )

Favorite Links
cruel.com
the onion
seanbaby.com
bruce campbell online
engrish.com
portal of evil
the thin h line
anime links

listening to:
morphine
modest mouse
lain CYBERIA MIX
orbital

Augh! Go away! Quit looking at me!