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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 :: smiths :: 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 :: morrissey :: beastie boys :: neuroactive :: bauhaus :: depeche mode :: underworld :: air :: juno reactor :: tricky :: nitin sawhney :: big black :: husker du :: nick cave :: white stripes :: tear garden :: 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 ? » | Saturday, July 27, 2002, 03:22 p.m. And sometimes it all just comes together.Thursday was my mother's birthday. After work, I came to their house, and we drove to eat dinner. I was driving the car, so I was lord and master over the tape deck. So I slipped in one of my tapes. And I guess it was because everyone was in a good mood, but at one point everyone in the car was snapping their fingers and tapping their feet in unison to Underworld's "Jumbo." It's these sorts of memories that I'll really treasure about my parents. Now Playing: Underworld - Jumbo (It just reminded me of that. I guess that'll be my memory-association with this song.) Friday, July 26, 2002, 05:36 p.m. Well, I'm not sure who's the bigger dumbass here. >DJACK My suitcase was vibrating? SECURITY TFM Nine time out of ten, it's an electric razor. But, every once in a while ... (whispers) ...it's a dildo. It's airline policy not to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. We use the indefinite aricle: "A dildo." Never "Your dildo." Now Playing: Lost Universe ED: EXTRICATION (P.G.F. Perfumix remix) Thursday, July 25, 2002, 03:13 p.m. I stand corrected.************ From: janaki, the spawn of Satan To: Puu, fellow traveller ...shouldn't that be "Atlus can bang my gong anytime they want to"...? XD ************ Now Playing: T. Rex - Telegram Sam (yes, I DO happen to have T. Rex CDs on me at work. Shut up, I'm a freak. <3) Thursday, July 25, 2002, 09:06 a.m. Well, spank my monkey and call me Nancy. I did not see that one coming.Well, this is Persona-related, but if you're into music at all, KEEP READING. >D I was working on the persona list for the upcoming persona page, going off one of my guidebooks an an online version of that guidebook. And I was going along, translating/summarizing as best as I could. And then I came to a demon in the EX dungeon of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, the METARUGULU. And I hrmed, and translated the blurb for it. "Appears in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. (well, duh.) A demon that wears a purple suit and plays rock music on his guitar. (hou...) The model for this demon is the leader of a rock band that became famous in 1970, T. REX -- namely Marc Bolan. (HOLY CRAP! XD) The name of the demon comes from the T. REX song "Metal Guru." It's official. Atlus can spank my monkey whenever it likes. They put MARC FREAKING BOLAN as a demon in their game. A~~n, kimochii~~~~ <3 Kya, I'm sure I've sent you at least a few T. Rex songs; go forth and listen! XDDD Atlus just kicked me in the jimmy again. How dare they listen to glam rock while toking up and reading mythology books. It's not fair to abuse impressionable josei gamers like this. Now Playing: T. Rex - Mambo Sun Tuesday, July 23, 2002, 05:49 p.m. Y'all might find this amusing. I know I did.No, this isn't a hoax or anything; I saw this one coming a mile away. This email is courtesy of my mother, who got it on some Hindu mailing list or another. 6. Japanese DVD "RG VEDA" Not About Our Rig Veda Source: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/8584/rgveda.html TRINIDAD, July 8, 2002: HPI's local contacts here sent in a note that a Japanese-language DVD had appeared entitled "RG VEDA." Our correspondent, Anil Mahabir, spoke with a distributor of the DVD who said, "The film is not about anything even remotely resembling Indian culture or Hinduism, although the name "Rg Veda" would seem to suggest such." Intrigued, HPI tracked down a website on this DVD ("source" above). There we learned, "RG Veda was created by a group of female Japanese artists and writers who go by the name of CLAMP. RG Veda was one of their first creations, and they are also responsible for X (called X/1999 in the US), Tokyo Babylon, Clover, and a few others." The illustrations, apparently made some time ago, are in Japanese "anime", a stylized cartoon, and the plotline summarized on the wedsite does indeed seem to have nothing to do with the Rig Veda. Concerned that Hindus might take offense at the cartoon, the Trinidad distributor, Hafeez Amin of Genesis Foundation (genesis@wow.net) has decided not to feature the DVD as part of their Japanese cartoon festival. He did ask our correspondent, "Should you do the necessary research and deem this movie able to be shown to general audiences in Trinidad and Tobago, please do not hesitate to contact us." HPI readers who want to look into the cartoon are welcome to send Hafeez their comments." This comes from the Hinduism Today online newsletter, it seems. I just had to burst out laughing, and my mom was rather indignant. "Why on earth did they call it Rg Veda if it's not about anything Hindu?" "Mom, I've seen this. I swear, the OVA and manga are about NOTHING. I remember watching it, and not knowing exactly what'd happened over the past half hour except that it was pretty with flowing clothes and big eyes. Typical CLAMP style over substance." "That's not the point! You don't see them making sailor moon shows and calling them "Bible Stories," do you? "Well, no, but they screw up Christian mythology/symbolism on a regular basis in anime." "But why Hinduism?" *smiles and thinks about Earth Girl Arjuna, but says nothing* "I don't know." "I mean, they wouldn't dare do it to Catholicism or Islam, would they?" "Probably not." "That's because Christians and Muslims would throw such a fit. Hindus don't. Maybe we should." "Oh, Amma, do we have to stoop to their level? ^_~" Well, I thought it was an amusing article. But I wouldn't email them if you're not Hindu, y'know. :D Ha, religion is so amusing sometimes. (No offense intended, blah blah yackity smackity.) Now Playing: Amin Tobin - Get Your Snack On Sunday, July 21, 2002, 06:17 p.m. o/~ I feel my body reeling...o/~I've been busy with packing and the wedding, so - eh heh. Sorry to the few people who read my blog. I have run up against the doujinshi-whore's dilemma: how to transport my jellies. This wouldn't be a problem if (a) I didn't have a stack of doujinshi that could easily come up to my waist (ah, damn those cheap doujinshi dives in Japan!!) and (b) a certain (large) percentage of it is yaoi, from G-rated to "whoo boy, I'd never be able to explain this." My parents are paying for my move, and helping me move, and as a result, may like to rearrange boxes and shit. How to keep them from spying the crawling chaos contained within one of my boxes? (gosh, I feel like a 16-year-old trying to hide a Playgirl...which, in a sense, I am...) This would be a lot easier if my parents would treat me like an adult - but then again, I feel stupid saying that, since they're paying for my move. I just don't have $1200 offhand to pay for it myself, not when I need my savings to live upon in med school. It's expensive enough as it is; I've borrowed about $79,000 for the next year - but that means my monthly expenses have to be under $600/month. It's hard to mooch off your parents and protest that you want them not to snoop, I know - but - they still open any mail addressed to me that comes to their house. >_> And they're sure to protest no matter how little manga/doujin I take there. >_> On the grounds that they'll disrupt my studies. I get this even at the graduate level, yes. The joy of being an immigrant child, huh? Eh, time to stop bitching and time to start figuring out how to transport the pr0n. You know what I find incredibly funny? How a lot of yaoi fangirls seem to have this odd notion that explicit yaoi manga/doujinshi isn't just ghei pr0n. (Note that I said A LOT, and not ALL.) What, because it's in Japanese and it's drawn makes it not pr0n? It's like those people who write explicit lemons and call them "sekushiaru romansu" (sexual romance). Because since it involves wining, dining, and sixty-nining and not just hot monkey sex, it's not - oh, pr0n. It's tasteful er0tica. Yeah, whatever. :D I guess there's a certain difference between admitting, "I am a yaoi fangirl and I own doujinshi/june works" and "I'm a girl/woman who collects ghei stories/p0rnography." What prompted this, really, was that Kya found a girl overseas who links on her blog a directory of screencaps. They're screencaps of what appears to be a live-action Japanese ghei pr0n. About 200 of them. (well, it appears softcore, or she didn't cap the naughty bits.) And I was just amazed that she linked it on her blog; as Kya said, "If I took hundreds of screencaps of, say, Taboo II and linked them openly on my blog, people would look at me funny." Or if a guy had a bunch of screencaps of some yuri pr0n anime - or live-action - we'd call him a gross fanboy for posting them on his blog. Why on earth is it not pr0n if it's in a foreign language? She had about 50 screencaps of the guys getting it on in a clear-walled shower - well, from the waist up. I was just amused and astounded at this seeming double-standard. ANYWAYS. Yes, I'm packing. All the stuff I've accumulated, all the stuff I'm leaving behind. How odd. Gotta pack like crazy. Movers coming on the first. Myon myon. I need to get rid of most, if not all, of my Gravitation manga. Anyone want? I have also discovered that I game the way some people knit. I fire up the PSX, slip in an RPG (not just ONE particular one, but yes, that's a familiar one, even in JP), and idly level/run around while I'm reading/typing/packing/cleaning/talking on the phone. It's like a brainless thing to do with your hands while your mind is occupied elsewhere. OK, time to keep packing. :D This was a whiny, bitchy blog entry, but not too boring, I hope. *huge yawn* Now Playing: Eno - Cindy Tells Me (why am I the only person in the world who seems to <3 Brian Eno??) Wednesday, July 17, 2002, 08:14 a.m. o/~ oh my hands are shaking... o/~Ugh. Ever have one of those Wednesday mornings when you realize that the movers are coming in two weeks and you are nowhere near packed? Ever have one of those Wednesday mornings when you realize that you need to call up a carpet cleaner pronto because, oh yeah, a carpet-cleaning is part of your lease? Why is it that procrastination settles on you like a lead apron on those Wednesday mornings? Now Playing: Magnetic Fields - Strange Eyes and Air - Playground Love Thursday, July 11, 2002, 09:17 a.m. Dark entriesNyar. Been a Special week, I guess. On Monday, I went to get some more RAM for my computer (the minimum computer specs sent by the med school surpass my poor old computer slightly >_> <_< ) and I picked up 256 MB of PC133 SDRAM. Now, the 128 MB RAM I had already was PC100 SDRAM, but the Best Buy guy cheerfully assured me that it'd probably clock down, and if it didn't, I could return it. So I got home, took the cover off my computer, slipped the new RAM into the primary slot, and the old RAM into the secondary slot. Booted it up, and it recognized the primary RAM just fine, but not the secondary. OK, I said, and opened the cover again to take out the 128 MB of RAM. Now it booted and said I had 256 MB of RAM, but! Now something was wrong with the speakers and it wouldn't recognize my two CD drives. " >_> <_< " I said, and swapped out the 256 MB with the original 128 MB. And it's still messed up. So I swore mightily, and wondered what to do. I had a warranty with Best Buy, but since I'd opened the seal, they might not honor it, and that would be annoying, considering that it was a $200 warranty. Then I remembered that I'd had Compaq install a new DVD-ROM drive in the computer some years ago, so THEY'D already broken the seal before I'd gotten to it. Oh yeah, I thought. Good. But the rule is to always Ask Someone You Know before going to the company, so I asked the IT guy at work to take a look at my poor confused computer. Hopefully it's something simple he can point out. It WORKS just fine - apart from the sound and the CD-ROM drive/burner. Maa. So two days ago, I borrowed my dad's nice new fast laptop (that he uses so often that he'd completely forgotten where he'd put it) and hooked the DSL to it and placed it in front of the TV. Really, Kya, having a laptop with internet access in front of the TV is a godsend for a josei gamer. I can look up kanji, chat with fellow josei gamers, and game all at the same time. Nyar! The only problem is that the laptop didn't have an floppy drive, and I couldn't burn stuff onto CD from my fubar computer, due to its not recognizing its drives (that's how I discovered the problem, actually...) so I couldn't work on anything I'd been working on. Oh well. God, I got gaming done, at least. In other news....whichever one of you evil bastards sent me the Morrissey e-card with the exhortation to buy, buy, buy his albums...I'll find you one day. Trust me. My vengeance will be swift and ticklish! And I bought "Viva Hate" on Monday, and, and, uh, I really like it. >_> <_< Damn. I always hoped I'd be able to hold out against Morrissey, but it looks like my sanity's slipping these days. I've been listening to the album over and over all week. ;_; Help! Somebody! Iya~~~~~~~~~~~~~! I also watched "The Hypnotist" yesterday. 1999 Japanese horror film, subtitled by ADV. Despite its laughably fake corpses at times, it was quite a decent horror movie (I actually jumped in shock when the phone rang as I was watching a particularly tense point, and I'm hard to startle. It didn't help that the plot at that point was that the sound of metal on metal, such as a telephone ring, prompted people to exhibit psychotic suicidal behavior.) The plot was also decent, although the exact WHY of all this was left hanging. Oh well. Let's see if I can summarize. The police are baffled by a string of strange suicides that have all happened recently. A groom strangles himself with his tie in front of the entire wedding party. An old man jumps out of a window in front of his wife at her birthday party. A high school track runner runs herself to death, breaking her legs in the process. The common thread to all of them was that they all suddenly started acting strangely and muttered that it hurts, and that the "midori no saru" was after them before attacking themselves. A young psychiatrist who's learning about hypnotism suggests to the aging cop in charge of the case that this could be due to some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion, that some external trigger caused them to act out the commands that had been placed during a session of hypnosis. And at the time, on a local live variety show, there's a hypnotist that can - and does - make his subjects do almost anything he tells them to... After watching it, I commented, "Wow, this is such a Priya movie." Not only does it not have the ending you'd expect, it's got weird occult action and - well, I don't want to give the ending away, but the ending really makes it a me movie. Remember, I'm the one who thought it'd have been cool if Final Fantasy 8 had ended with Rinoa being erased from the time stream, 'because that'd make it less predictable.' (Which is part of the reason I'm so fond of Persona 2: Tsumi - it has an unhappy ending, basically, with someone dying and everyone forgetting about them for their own good. Hell, even Persona 2: Batsu doesn't QUITE have a 'happily ever after' ending.) Well, last night I had to give back the laptop. My father hadn't touched the thing more than twice in six months, and all of a sudden he needs to use it NOW. Oh well. :D So I may be offline for another few days, mmkay? As for gaming...almost done with my first play-through of JP Batsu. I've been going back and trying to do all the optional side-quests and dungeons that I avoided in my english play-throughs because I was lazy/anxious for more plot. I ran through, fought Odin, Virochana, and Gaia, getting their material cards. I had good luck running into Odin and Gaia; I didn't even know Gaia was a rare encounter in the Monde Mandala until I ran into a lone demon and wondered, what's this? I liked the Tsumi Gaia, though...and with Odin, I walked into Area 5, took 2 steps in, and bam, that was my first encounter. "OK," I said, and went right back out. In Area 7, I got a rumor from - hm, hm, what was it. Mananan, maybe? - that Grimekara would break a boulder near the entrance for me. (Entrance of Area 8, I assume, I haven't checked.) So I made a contract and asked it to do that for me. None of the FAQs that I checked mentioned this little fact. I also bothered to do the fight with Azi Dahaka past that door in the Monado Mandala. (Kya, you'll know when you get there. You open a door, inst-battle with something that is void magic and physical. You escape, and are kicked out past the door.) To beat it, Kya, get 270 Star cards and summon Faridone. Again, this is another example of Atlus' mythology-wank; Faridone (I need to look up the actual spelling of his name; this is going from the kana I remember...) is the natural enemy of Dahaka in Zoroastrian mythology, IIRC. Stick Faridone on someone, maybe Ulala. Go back to the door, and open it, and you'll get a persona-talk. Faridone will be outraged to see Dahaka, who will be like, "Long time no see, Faridone-san, you think you can beat me?" Faridone will challenge Dahaka, and Dahaka accepts, saying this will be an entertaining diversion. And then both Dahaka and Fariedone are berserked, and will only attack each other. So you lose control of Ulala, or whatever, but then Dahaka gets wounded by attacks. So you kill him, which doesn't give you any special item or a lot of EXP, but now you can open the treasure chest past the door - and it's a Legenbright, which you need for ultimate weapons. I can think of three places to get Legenbright in the game offhand - Ixquic gives you one for the 200 km/hr Ji-ji, here's another, and I think Sachiko has one in her treasure room in Area 8 of the KasuKou dungeon. But that's about it; it's that rare. Man, Katsuya's insanely buff. After giving him the Karma Ring and buying him the ultimate weapon, his attack power was around 360, but then I got the demon rumor that the handgun had a great secret power, now I have the Megido Flare gun, which adds an almighty effect. My attack power is 380. It's insane, man, insane. Although you're right, Kya, now it's annoying to attack physical-only demons, since I have magical weapons. I have an excellent persona setup now; it enables me to do Meltdown, Giga Cyclone, and Last Quake. I have Nannar on Maya, Hanuman on Ulala (with a aques card), Mucalinda or Urd on Baofu (Mucalinda has a magnus card, I think, or maybe Urd does), Bishamonten on Katsuya, and Virochana on Tatsuya (with a Maha Magdyne card.) I'm planning to get Alice tonight - I didn't have enough FOOL cards to summon and return Kuroda Junnosuke for a Karma Ring, but hey, I have the one I ported in from Tsumi, when I killed Alice in the locker in the factory. XD I tellya, having data ported in from Tsumi is SO SO worth it. You get that Karma Ring, and Tatsuya came into my party at around level 67 or so. He's level 77 now. The rest of the party is at level 68 or so. Back to Real Life...it's going to cost me $1400 to move to CO. In moving costs, not counting the furniture I need to buy (a dining table, chairs, and a futon...) *sigh* I will be starting medical school in a little over a month. Now Playing: Morrissey - Alsatian Cousin (OK, 'fess up, which one of you WAS it?) Monday, July 8, 2002, 10:16 a.m. "This mint chocolate shake was brought to me by the fine people of Monsanto Chemicals."Ugh. I always feel a little more tired than usual after a drive, even if it's just as short as the drive from Chicago. It could just be the fact that I went to bed at 2 am, of course. This weekend I went to Chicago and I picked up a couple of new manga series. I'll talk about those first, since I guess few people are interested in my social nonsense. I picked up Bleach 3, Devil 1-2, and King of Bandits Jing 1-3. Devil is by Oogureito (Oh!Great), the mangaka for Tenjou Tenge and Himikoden. It's a short series, only two volumes, and it's complete. It looks like it came out last year in like June and October. I haven't taken a really good look through it - for me to comprehend anything at all, I need to sit down with a dictionary and slog through it, of course - but it seems to have two related story arcs. (This description may be WAY OFF. It's based on my recollections of a quick flip-through. So if you get this, and it's not quite right, I'm sorry. ;;^^) The first arc involves a sort of motorcycle gang leader/punk named Tetsu, who's tall and spiky-haired in typical Oh!Great style. He has a little sister, Satomi, that he seems to be taking care of, but pretty much he lives a useless punk lifestyle. I think I remember that the other gang members call him the Devil, since he's that kind of violent, dangerous person if you piss him off. Anyways, one day he encounters this weird demonic thing in an alleyway, and it attacks him, and grabs him by the collar. He bites down on the hand holding him, drawing blood, and the demon kills him.....then he wakes up. He thinks it was all a dream, until he realizes that he's in a coffin, and his own funeral's going on outside. He bursts out, to the joy of his little sister, and everyone assumes there must have been some kind of bizarre mistake. But after that, he starts realizing that he's changed, somehow. "Satomi...want to see something cool?" "Sure, what?" *Tetsu stabs a knife through his forearm, to her horror* "What are you doing???" *Tetsu pulls out the knife, and the wound disappears without a trace* "Isn't that GREAT?" He says that he's somehow become a monster, a real devil, and from then on keeps experimenting with his powers. It looks like his urge for destruction keeps increasing, and once he nearly kills Satomi, who's studying in her room, when he smashes down the wall between their rooms. He's lost control - and I think he was going to kill and EAT her - when she talks to him and snaps him out of it. Then he's sort of scared of what he might do if he loses control. At the same time, there's other similar Devils running around the city, and one takes over the body of Tetsu's best friend Satoshi, another useless pimpy street punk. Cue Satoshi killing his girlfriend, etc etc. Tetsu becomes aware that his friend's been changed. I seem to remember that there's a third Devil who seems to just watch the events. Perhaps this is the one that changed Tetsu into a Devil (it seem to involves tasting the blood of a Devil - Tetsu bit the finger of the Devil holding him - or something like that.) But anyways, he seems to be observing the events, and not interfering TOO much. I'll call him the Watcher. Anyways, evil-Satoshi visits Tetsu, puts his arm straight through the girl Satomi, killing her, and therefore pisses Tetsu off incredibly. So they chase each other through the streets until Tetsu's able to kill Satoshi. They're being observed by the Watcher and - Satomi, who's miraculously uninjured, although her shirt's soaked in blood and there's a hole in the back of her shirt. The Watcher seems surprised that she was able to revive so quickly, and Satomi shows him her hand and says that she got exposed a few days ago, or something similar. Turns out that when her brother tried to eat her, he clawed her hand, and I guess she must have gotten contact with his blood at that time. So she's become a sort of Devil too. Anyways, Tetsu kills the Satoshi-monster, and when he wakes up, Satomi is tending him. He feels horrible that he let her get killed (and, I suppose, for making her a Devil too), and he starts to apologize, but she kisses him and tells him to shut up (ah, shades of Maya and Shin again. Sibling luuuuuuuuuuuuuuv~!), because "I'm still me, and you're still you. Nothing's changed." So this is the end of this story arc (maybe half a volume), and we segue into the next, more important story arc with a set of lovely color pages. There's a boy - well, a teenaged guy, but - standing at a train station...? (that's my memory, but it doesn't seem to make sense.) He has short, carefully parted brown hair, big glasses, suspenders, and actually reminds me an awful lot of a grown-up Harry Potter. That sort of look. Anyways, he's standing there, reading, when two people walk by, and he watches them. One's a cat-girl in a vinyl halter-top and hotpants and knee-high boots - well, she has ears, and I think a tail, and wears pale blue lipstick and eyeshadow. In short, she either looks like something dead or something supernatural. Her companion is a tall, spiky-haired guy in a long black trench coat. His eyes and mouth are covered in two vinyl bandana-type things, with zippers across them - if he unzipped the two zippers, you could see his eyes and mouth, but they're zipped shut. (And I'm pretty sure it's Satomi and Tetsu; it has to be. But I'm still unclear on where she got the cute ears from, and where they learned to do the things they do.) So the Harry Potter guy stares at them, and as they walk by, blood starts dripping down his forehead from a wound that's mysteriously appeared. He thinks to himself that this is the "First Contact"... Now, my knowledge of this second arc is also extremely sketchy. The boy's named/nicknamed Dekoppa-kun, which I thought was a rather odd name until Kya said, "Huh, looks like they're calling him Forehead-kun, or Forehead-Wings-kun." Well, you take that as you will; I haven't seen him called anything else. He's a high school student. He also seems to work as a sort of exorcist/paranormal investigator/ghostbuster, at least later on. >D His forehead bleeds when demons are nearby. And boy, does he kick ass. I love him. I've never seen anyone kick that much ass with their suspenders. Or been lethal against giant spiders in a McDonald's. I love Oogureito's fondness for ass-kicking; it's so entertaining. Anyways, there are a bunch of mini-plots that he investigates; a classmate of his who seems to in fact be a giant spider that's kidnapping schoolgirls, laying eggs in them, and having spiders burst out of them, ala Alien. (Don't worry, it's not terribly explicit. This isn't a doujinshi, after all. >D) This, of course, leads to the killing-giant-spiders-in-McDonald's incident (he grabs the french-fryer and splashes the boiling oil on the spiders, etc...) A shape-shifting dog-man who comes to get a photograph out of the back of a bracelet. A major plot is some kind of sick mad doctor that kidnaps girls, cuts off their head (saves part of their spines) and uses the heads interchangeably on a modified body, and gets them to steal stuff/kill things. It's all pretty interesting, in a weird sort of occult way. The thing is, each time that Dekoppa manages to corner a demon, the catgirl and guy that he met at the train station appear, and they sing a hymn (in English...!) and that usually kills the demons messily. And Dekoppa-kun himself can change forms, and the bleeding mark on his forehead is kind of a stylized mark that looks like wings, and - oh, I need to reread it. I'm confusing myself. Anyways, this is kind of a nice self-contained occult story, only two volumes. It ran in Kodansha Magazine Z, I seem to remember, and one thing you'll notice right off is that Oogureito REALLY TONED DOWN THE BOUNCE-FACTOR. It's amazing. The girls are normally proportioned - more or less - and sometimes downright flat. I guess he was just conscious of the magazine he was running in. I think I may make a layout from this series to show the artwork, and to show the POWER OF CHEESE! Maa, time to work. Ja. Now Playing: Lisa Go - Chinese-Made Machine Gun (Kristina, you got more stuff by her?) Friday, July 5, 2002, 09:44 a.m. o/~ Oh, why do you come here, when you know it makes things hard for me, when you know....oh, why do you come? o/~How odd. Well, I wasn't "well" on the 3rd, so I had an unplanned two-day vacation in the middle of the week. Which I spent sleeping and gaming, mostly. I didn't even go to the fireworks, even though they were held about two blocks from my apartment (each blast rattled my windows, it was that close). I think my parents were disappointed that I didn't go with them, but hey, I wasn't really in a state to go out like that. Oh well. It's not like I skipped their birthdays or anniversary or anything. (rationalize, rationalize) I'm going to Chicago this weekend. Shannon-nyo, Krisit; I need to see more of both of you before I leave! Let me know when's good for either of you. Or anyone else in the great state of Illinois who wants to see me before I sell my soul to education again. My sister was giving me a little pep talk last night. She told me that I should ideally study two hours a night and start reading journals and checking out the school's webpages to figure out who's researching what, and then stalk them to see if they need anyone in their lab. This is so strange; I guess I've forgotten what it's like to be a student in the past year. Weird. Weird. She made the excellent point that although I'm only getting exams three times a year, I actually have to REMEMBER what I learn; I can't just cram the last week before the exam and promptly forget it right afterwards. She also gave me my family's party line, which is that I'm smart but lazy. I hate getting told I'm lazy. To a certain extent, it's true, but god damn. Then again, these are the people who bitched about my SAT score, and told me that if I'd just STUDIED a bit more, I'd have gotten a perfect 1600. Fair enough, that's probably true, I didn't really prep for that. But man, if "slacking off" is 1530, isn't that acceptable? >_> I consistently do well academically, but since it isn't as good as I *could* do - it's not my maximum capability - I get nagged by my parents. Which I'd be able to take a lot better if I was doing mediocre or poorly in school due to my laziness, instead of rather well. >_< I know this sounds like a stupid thing to complain about, but it's tiresome to hear that a 3.75 GPA is slacking off. But I don't deny that I'm lazy. Or I was, in college and high school. I'm going to try to see that in med school that I work more towards the limits of my abilities. That oughta keep me squarely in the middle of the pack there. ;;^^ And if I follow my trends from HS and college, I'll probably try to find a study group of people smarter than I am. I'll end up feeling pretty stupid a lot of the time, but damned if I won't learn a lot from them. Gonna go on break and get back to work. Now Playing: Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again (oh god. remind me to blog about the terrifying depeche mode angsty lemon slashfics I found by accident. Aiyaaa...) Tuesday, July 2, 2002, 04:49 p.m. WHERE ARE YOU PEOPLE WHEN I NEED YOU TO STOP ME?Ever since I heard Morrissey's "Suedehead" on the radio during the 80's lunch hour, I've had this illicit, bone-deep craving to buy a new Morrissey album. That, and to eat some sushi. Shit, the law of averages struck again and played "This Charming Man" while I was typing this. God can't possibly want me to buy a Morrissey album...right? Now Playing: Morrissey - Suedehead and The Smiths - This Charming Man >_< Tuesday, July 2, 2002, 02:27 p.m. "Even sadder than a dead woman is...A forgotten woman..." Dude, Kya, j00 is 1337 for pointing out that poem to me last night. I'd completely forgotten. You persona-h0'z out there: Maya is one giant font of obscure foreign poetry in Tsumi. She quotes Heinrich Heine's "Doppelganger" all over the place to refer to Jun and Tatsuya, of course...but she also quotes something that Kya and I figured out last night was Marie Laurencin's "Le calmant" ("Painkiller" or "Antidepressant"). That was FUN to figure out >_> Kya romanized her name as "lorenson", of course, but the lines of the poem were so freaking familiar that I stared at them, trying to remember where I'd heard it. Then after about 20 minutes of searching, I found out that it was Marie Laurencin's most famous poem. Apparently it's much bigger in Japan than it ever was anywhere else, being about death and suicide and all that. (Marie Laurencin was more(?!?!) famous as a painter; those of you who came to my apartment last fall may remember a poster on the wall of my kitchen - two women holding a dog, very pale and pastel, with lots of greys and pinks? That's Marie Laurencin; I got the poster from my sister when we visited Paris back in, uh....1991? At any rate, she's not THAT famous; it's just a huge coincidence that I happened to know who she was at all. I guess at the age of 10 I liked her blurry pastel style enough to ask for a poster from the gift shop.) ANYWAYS, so, yes. Maya keeps quoting from that poem in reference to herself, and adds on her own final line when she's, er, spoilering at the end of Tsumi. Ironically, I'm listening to Curve's "Doppelganger" right now. >D I saw the Bourne Identity last night. Not bad; it didn't suck. The action scenes were nice and fast-paced and brutal; I didn't really care all that much about the plotline. If you come into the movie KNOWING that he's a CIA assassin with amnesia, it's hardly suspenseful or mysterious as he tries to figure it out, right? Compare to, uh, Memento, or something, where again, you go in probably knowing that the main character has amnesia...but you're as much in the dark as HE is. Which makes you interested in the plotline as it unravels. Nowadays, you're so spoiled by trailers - or the movies are just that unoriginal - that you go in with a fairly decent idea of the entire plotline, so it's hard to CARE about the plot. Yeah, yeah, he's a dark ops agent that the CIA is trying to rub out, he'll get them in the end and escape, blah blah. Throw in spunky female unF-interest to help him out, etc. At least Franka Potente put her foot down and refused to let them script her character as screaming and hysterical in the face of violence and bloodshed. When she sees the amnesiac CIA spook in a vicious hand-to-hand fight with an assassin, she just stands at the door, staring, and when the fight winds down, she's just in shock, not screaming, so her hands are shaking and she kind of fumbles with the bag she's thrown, and in short acts like a normal human being who has seen some pretty nasty things, not like a screaming heroine who has to be held and gently comforted. And she doesn't really get any comforting, either, he just grabs her by the arm and marches her out, since she's too shocked and dazed to really run properly. Mreh, it's sad. Nowadays my movie assessments are almost always "it sucked" or "it didn't suck as badly as it could have." The Bourne Identity falls into the latter category, but I have a certain appreciation for quick violent action. I'm not really a movie snob, but I swear, movies today are such shite. Either I can see the entire plotline/moral of the movie from the trailer alone, or the movie treats me like an infant and spoonfeeds me the plot and characters and moral, so that at the end there isn't anything to discuss or decide for yourself. Or the movie has no point at all, which CAN be okay, but usually isn't, especially if it's a 'serious' movie. A typical movie nowadays is that thing I saw the trailer for yesterday - what was it, Blue Crush? Let's see. Local girl learns to overcome her fears and become the best "grrrrrrrl" surfer, despite the taunts of her male audience and her raging hormones towards the new hunk in town. Cue P.O.D. soundtrack, lots of crashing waves, and her running about in a bikini. I mean, what the hell. I know that it's hardly geared at my demographic ^_~ but you know what I mean? Or there was the trailer for the new Robert DeNiro movie. Normally, DeNiro should mean it's safe for me to watch, but I have my doubts about this thing. So he's a cop, and his son's accused of killing a cop, so the entire force is after his son, so he throws his badge on the table, and it's him versus them, does he believe his son or not, blah blah blah. Now, I could be wrong, and this may turn out to be a great, nuanced, unpredictable movie, but it smells like DeNiro picking up a paycheck. His son will probably turn out to be innocent after all, and DeNiro will have to keep corrupt, trigger-happy cops from shooting him before he can gain evidence that it wasn't his son. I think it'd be more interesting if his son WAS guilty, and he has to face this hard fact, but no, that wouldn't be exciting or morally uplifting. They say that we want to watch things we're familiar and comfortable with. Well, "THEY" can kiss my ass. God, I really am sounding like a movie snob. But, but, but, uh, I loved the South Park movie. And Wayne's World. and, uh, Beavis and Butthead Do America. And Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. And the Evil Dead series. and Dead Alive. It's just that when it comes to movies in general, I'm so suspicious of all the stupid crap that makes it to the big screen that the following criteria basically outline things I'll see immediately: A director I like - right now, David Fincher and Christopher Nolan seem to make me poing with interest - or an actor I like - say, Ed Norton - or something that's playing at the local Art Theater. Everything else I have to poke through reviews for before I drag myself to the multiplex and slap down $6.50. (Not that 'art' films are all masterpieces of originality or that I like them all; believe me, a sucky film is a sucky film, and subtitles, a shoestring budget, bad lighting, and unknown actors do NOT a good film make. Wow, what a pointless, incoherent rant. I just meant to say that it's hard for me nowadays to wholeheartedly recommend a movie as "good". I have to say "wasn't bad." Right, now someone peel me a grape. My bruise is fading. Darn. It was such a lovely color this weekend, and now the edges are going green and yellow. Oh, and as for this weekend, Chicago-gumi! I'll drive up on Friday afternoon, and I'll get there around 7, 8 pm. Kya, ask your coworkers if they know about a kaiten place in Chicago? Nummy. I think I'm going to get some sushi tonight. :D~ I want a Wacom. Rar. May-may and Ka, or anyone who has one, can you email me some recs or anything you think I should know when shopping around? I used to draw a lot, but...it'd be fun to get back into the habit. Oh, and DSL is inexplicably up and running again at home. Got the disc yesterday, talked to a tech support for an hour and a half, about twenty reboots, and no luck - and I couldn't even switch to DIALUP! So at 2 am, frustrated, I rebooted one last time before going to bed, letting all the startup items load for once - and it works. >_> Kya, Mr. Boku has missed you, and has some mp3s for you. Now Playing: Ugly Casanova - Ice on the Sheets |