My eleven year-old brother is using Axe body  spray and deodorant in the mornings. Uh, whut?

...but considering I just got back less than two weeks ago I can't expect too much. At the very least my brother and I are hanging out tomorrow.
As of a few minutes ago, I am officially twenty-five years old. Considering what a klutz I am it's a miracle I've made it this far. 

As for this week, Wednesday my church had their annual cake auction. That's right. Cake auction. People bake the cakes and the men of the church gather after dinner and bid on them. It's one of our better fund raisers for the youth missions coffers. Some of the cakes/pastries end up going for hundreds of dollars each. Even a "pretty good chocolate mousse pie" (to quote the auction master) goes for at least seventy dollars. The highest bid was a gorgeous cake decorated with chocolate shavings that looked like icicles sprouting from a chocolate-covered strawberry on top. The winner bid over seven hundred dollars for it, but the runner-up ended up giving his bid as a donation. Combined, the cake earned the missions budget over eleven hundred dollars. All told, with over forty cakes sold, the missions budget grew by over ten thousand dollars Wednesday night.

Duncan of course wanted to bid on the really pretty ones, which subsequently went for hundreds of dollars. We took home a couple of pastries as well. The pastor acted as the auction master, and the youth group presented the cakes. The church garage sale is the only fund raiser that comes close to raising this kind of support.

I have also volunteered to help a friend of mine at his dental clinic. They discovered their receptionist had been stealing money from them for several months, so I'm helping them straighten out the insurance claims. Since I'm getting paid for it, I can consider this my first job! Sorta. Even while she was showing me how to do it, we found the paperwork for all of last year had been horribly mismanaged and spent an hour sifting out the ones we needed and organizing them.

It seems the weather has recovered in Louisiana. It was nowhere near this rainy when I left. Now it rains several times a week and we've already had two or three tornado warnings since I got here. Even now the weather is looking grim. On the bright side, it's not cold. Still, after living in a concrete jungle I'm not used to having mud everywhere.

Hopefully this weekend I can finish the Global Conflict script and have it to mippa so she can work her magic with it.

Finally, Kappa Mikey and Mythbusters are total love. Hope the rest of you have / had a great day!

The Forbidden Kingdom

Jackie Chan. Jet Lee. Ancient Chinese kung fu. Hot kung fu chicks with swords. This movie has everything.

My only criticism is that I know this movie will be a hundred times better without the token white boy cramping their style. Why not Stephen Chow or someone more local? Then they could record it in Chinese and dub it over in English for that authentic kung fu feel!

Hell yes I'm going to see it anyway. Afterwards I'll just pretend the white nerd-boy didn't exist!

First news: major birthday props to mippa! In the bronze age, you'd be the hottest old lady to ever sport a toga. If that doesn't come off as a compliment, uh, I'm sorry! But seriously, keep up the good work. It's done you good so far.
It's been a week since I got back to the states, and I am finally settling back in. I allowed myself to be lazy this week (I still haven't unpacked my bags), but it's not helping my sleeping habits. I have GOT to stop taking three hour naps in the afternoon. If my parents leave a car here, tomorrow I will go run an errand or two and get everything unpacked and put away. Then its on to updating my resume, job hunting, finishing the TUA monologues and the Global Conflict script.

The best news of today was I got to go to church. Getting to worship with other believers and seeing some old faces was incredibly refreshing. I really have been away for too long. All the kids have grown a foot since I was last there and there are some new ones running or being carried around. I am also pretty sure now that I will be the last in my circle of friends to get married, if the number of engagements and marriages among them is any indication. C'est la vie, no? When my time comes, it will come. I won't be bored in the meantime, that's for sure.

I am already missing having a convenience store in walking distance of me. The nearest markets are a ten-minute bike ride down the highway from here. It's good exercise, at least. And teas! Lychee, lemon, muscat, pineapple, apple; a half-pint box for a hundred yen. Share the wealth, Lipton!

After church my dad and I met my brother for lunch near LSU at this new pizzaria which I described immediately as "trendy." They had a decent goat cheese pizza and the waitress was both cute and polite, so it was all good.

And that's about it!

I uh, slept. The whole day. Until 6 pm. Woke up at 4 wondering why it was so bright out and figured my clock was wrong. Woke up later and noticed it was getting darker. My mind was so cloudy I just thought the weather was bad. Then it hit me. Ha ha ha frick.

So as of now I haven't slept since then. I lose so bad.

But hey, mippa's new TUA chapter is done. Good stuff, man.

I uh, should go do something constructive.

As consolation, some of you might enjoy this:

...I get to go home to an all-out war between two of my least favorite franchises!

What do I think of this? I think it's AWESOME! I can't wait to see who's left standing when the smoke clears.

From the Time blog page:

STROUDSBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -- Jason Sanchez, 10, received superficial abrasions to the exposed flesh of his buttocks after he refused to stop playing his Nintendo DS during Christmas dinner. When asked to close the DS and halt his game of Pokemon Diamond, he reportedly told his father, Juan, 45, "When I get to a save point, dickhead!" Moments later, a full-fledged spanking was in progress. The DS was last seen in the kitchen garbage disposal.

Source

Juan Sanchez, I salute you. Another reason my kids will not have their own video game system until they are at least ten.

2008 is going to be a good year for entertainment.

WALL-E
Alvin & the Chipmunks
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
Horton Hears a Who
Iron Man
Speed Racer
The Dark Knight
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Jumper
Prince Caspian
Get Smart

And that's just movies. If this writer's strike ever lets up all the American series will have new episodes in due time as well. This list is just movies I was already interested in!

Anyone wanna be my movie buddy next year? I hate going to movies alone.

Good. Now go watch Macross Frontier. You heard me. Go go. Off with you now. You have a good anime to watch now.

What's that you say? No hard drive space? Then steal someone else's computer and get downloading.

Illegal you say? Oh I'm sure the computer's owner will appreciate having some quality entertainment in his computer rather than the gigabytes of Jackass and Real World clips and Star Wars Kid remakes he/she already has on there. If they don't they probably shouldn't have a computer to begin with.

Okay, enough scolding. Macross Frontier. Get to it before I have to come over there and smack you.

No I will not link a video! You can go to Google just as easily as I can.

So you thought you could take me out with a few major setbacks this morning did you? Well as sure as I stand sit here typing this message I assure you that you will have to try a lot harder if you want to get rid of me! Like the stain that cannot be Shouted out, I will remain through countless wash cycles to spoil the appearance of your overpriced designer wears! I am the gum that will not come off the bottom of your shoe, the apple peeling that remains wedged between your teeth and the rock in the toe of your shoe you just can't get rid of all in one. I am Darkwing Duck Tatewaki Kuno The Phoenix your new worst enemy!

You have given me a strong hand, but for a few bureaucratic hurdles I gain clarity of vision. Next round I am all in and I will see your bet and raise you a hearty round of triumphant / deranged laughter, good sir!

(translation: the PIN for my bank got borked and in order to fix it I gotta make a nosedive into bureaucracy. on payday, even!)

Pardon me, but I must rave.

If that show is The Venture Brothers and the person is me, then the answer is a definitive "yes."

I can't remember a show that has put me in stitches as often as this one has. Everything about the show is sheer brilliance. They've mined fifty years' worth of pulp and pop adventure stories and thoroughly blended and baked them into a comedic gold mine. I mean, everything about the characters is totally lampooned to their archetypes, yet they are completely true to them. I can tell the writers grew up watching Johnny Quest and Birdman and spent their weekends reading the Hardy Boys (much like I did), so they know their source material inside and out.

For example, take Dr. Venture (the skinny Dr. Quest lookalike). He is petty, egotistic, whiny, greedy, and a mere shadow of his father's glory. He is the polar opposite of the Super-scientist dad, yet he plays the role itself perfectly somehow. In one episode he builds a robot eye (a dead-ringer for Johnny Quest's infamous robot spies) just because it looked cool. Later he admits "the damn thing never worked right anyway" while watching a gang of villains go nuts over fighting it.

His archnemesis is the Monarch, who, aside from his ridiculous butterfly costume and army of similarly-clad henchmen, is exactly like Dr. Venture. He often spends so much time chasing after the love of his life (Dr. Girlfriend, a bombshell genius with a voice that makes Sylvester Stallone sound like a child), that he neglects to destroy his sworn enemy.

And then there's Brock Samson, a blond killing machine assigned as the Venture's bodyguard and voiced by Patrick Warburton (officer Pete on Family Guy). He refuses to use guns, but is living proof that guns do NOT make a man violent. Brock can kill a man with anything he can get his hands on and LOVES it.

The writing on this show is top-notch. The banter between the characters is some of the best I've ever heard, and even Dean and Hank - the dim-witted progeny of Dr. Venture and an unknown woman who have been killed and subsequently cloned back to life several times - shine with their naevite.

By far my favorite quirk to the series is that when weird stuff goes down, the characters mostly just roll their eyes and sigh thinking, "not this again! I've got more important things to worry about, you know?" Even when a nine-foot tall alien arrives fortelling of judging the entire planet, they mostly complain about his spine-rattling loudspeaker through which he talks to them (Hank: "Geez! I can feel it in my nuts!" This episode culminates in an ode to the movie Contact which left me in TEARS from laughter). Dr. Venture is more likely to complain about how it puts a wrench in his schedule and then let Brock kill whatever is threatening the world now.

And then there are secondary characters like Dr. Orpheus (Venture's tenant and local sorcerer) and the Phantom Limb (The Monarch's romantic rival who has...well...phantom limbs), the Impossibles (a Fantastic Four send-up that is too funny for words) and many others who look like they came from a comic book that flopped after five issues and thus fit right in to the Ventureverse.

The best part is that I can watch it for free on Adult Swim's website, a total boon for me since I am still stranded in Japan. I think it is easily one of the smartest, funniest things on television right now.

Phew! Raving over. Now to wait for new episodes to come out next week! I can't honestly say how many people can really appreciate it for the sources that inspire it, but if a few more people can at least acknowledge the quality of this production because of my efforts, then I have done some good in the world.

You know, I've never been able to answer this question myself, and all I ever get around here is Harry Potter.



And that settles that. Matt Dillon it is. Maybe the Tommy Lee Jones will grow in later.

It's my last week here in Sagamiono. I have a packed weekend of work (yay monehs), and then next week I have to make the final trips to Tokyo and complete my move. I am hoping I can fit most of my stuff into my two suitcases, and then I will have to bring my bed with me. Then I need to call my bank and somehow contact my phone company and change my address. And somewhere in all of that I need to take my suit to the dry cleaner's.

I am seriously going to miss this place. Even if it is a little far from Tokyo proper, I still love living here. It's such a nice area, even if the jets from the navy base do get loud in the fall. And let me tell you, moving from here to the more crowded confines of Tokyo does nothing for my homesickness, which is only getting worse as the holiday season draws near. Thank God I'm not working Christmas Day again. I'll see to it that never happens again. And next month I will start getting Sundays off, so I have that to look forward to.

Gads, and after seeing some of the price differences between here and America, I am going to take that country by storm whenever I return.

Until then, or until I get paid in December, I will be here, merrily chipping away at my sanity while fighting to keep my head above water by the grace of God alone.

Mmm, muscat tea...<3

Gundam 00

I know, I know. I made a rather lengthy rant about it last time. In context, I was targeting a particular aspect of shounen anime I've noticed recently, and chose Gundam 00 as an example. The rest was just me having too much fun with it.

Gundam 00 is, without a doubt, the most fanservicey Gundam series ever. The boys are concentrated bishies, and the women are equally handsomely drawn. They really know their audience. There are 14 year-old honeys for the loli crowd, full-grown, more mature hotties for the older fans, and everything in between. And I'll be damned if it doesn't work! Heck, they even put a good deal of thought into the costumes and have the characters wearing different clothes every couple of episodes, which doesn't happen much in anime. While it is mostly for fanservice, I give the show kudos for actually putting thought into what the characters wear on a day-to-day basis. It's definitely the best-animated Gundam production outside the movies and OVAs. Seriously, the action sequences are flawless.

I could go on for hours about what's wrong with the show, from (poorly) ripping off Metal Gear Solid to drawing the American flag hanging the wrong way, but knowing the problems are there helps me to ignore them. I do hope they plan on fixing that flag before selling the lisence to North America, though. In the end, it's entertaining. Taking it any deeper than that is asking to kill the fun. I also enjoy it being set in our timeline (300 years from now), which makes it a little easier to connect to.

Denno Coil

Synopsis: Set in a fictional town in Japan, where people can use special glasses to use the internet and make phone calls, among other things. Yasako has just moved to town when her father was transferred there. Strange things are afoot, however, as powerful hackers take each other on, and strange things seem to be appearing in cyberspace...

Denno Coil reminded me of Digimon somehow when I saw it on television for some reason, though the characters look like they came from Studio Ghibli's drawing boards. I've enjoyed watching the town's mystery involving the fainting children slowly unfold and turn downright creepy when the children's investigations take a dangerous turn. It's well-animated and the characters all have strong relationships and personal motivations. The "Other Side" is like a nightmarish, evening-lit vision of the Digital World. At times it is downright funny, such as when everyone's faces become infected with colonies of digital creatures that resemble beards. As if that wasn't strange enough, the creatures are sentient and build civilizations and philosphy, and even...nuclear weapons?

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Funny. Creepy. Bizzare. Outlandish. Disturbing. Genius. All those words can describe this show about a pessimistic, suicidal teacher and his class of equally psychotic children. The jokes come so fast that I often have to pause it to read the ever-changing chalkboard and classroom posters. Highlights include a Black Jack parody, constant references to other manga and anime, pointless fanservice and even scathing critiques of manga, anime, and doujinshi that blindside you all at once. It's totally bizzare, but it doesn't disappoint. Download in high quality so you get nice clean pauses, which you will need often.


Bleach

Baaa. I'm a sheep. Sue me. I watch it because I can't get the manga in English here, though I flip through it in Weekly Jump every week. Still, I think Tite Kubo has a great eye for perspective and action in the manga. The censorship and filler in the anime bugs me at times, though. It will still never redeem itself from the Bound story arc and the pre-Hueco Mundo fillers. This is what happens when you don't break a series down into seasons and instead try to make it run every week.
..............

As you can see, the list of anime I actually follow is pretty short. On my list of things to watch is Fruits Basket, Sugar Sugar Rune, and the rest of Zeta Gundam.

After mistakenly grabbing a box of Muscat tea instead of my usual Lemon tea, I am now hopelessly addicted to this flavored drink. I know the convenience store isn't but a three-minute walk from here, but I'm trying to save money here! 

First off, Mr. Bennet is the single most bad-ass character on the cast. No if's and's or but's. He caps dudes in cold blood simply because he thinks leaving them alive might lead them to Claire, and he has probably the best lines in the whole show. Yeah, the "gifted" characters can do cool stuff, but Noah Bennet is one of the few who actually does cool stuff. And he don't need no fancy powers to instill fear.

Sylar is still majorly creepy. But in a good way. Even without his powers, he's still got it.

Monica is really cute and she has a great ability. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her. (NOLA pride yo!)

I still wish Wes would either a) turn out to be a bad guy or b) die a horrible death. He was mostly tolerable in episode six because he had a total of five minutes of air time, but he is still a gigantic asshole. "OOH LOOK AT ME I CAN FLY SO I CAN SAY AND DO WHATEVER I WANT AND SO SHOULD YOU CLAIRE CUZ WE'RE SPECHIAL HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!11111" Sylar, if you ever get your powers back, please head straight to California poste haste.

I still really like Nathan more than Peter. But I think so does everyone. And Parkman's dad is freaky. I don't think he's working alone, though. The guy who shoved Hiro's dad off the building was too small and he walked away from the fall. I don't think Parkman Sr. can regenerate.

That's about it, really. The last two episodes renewed my hopes for the series, so I eagerly await next week's episode! Now to catch up on House.

I was riding home late on the train the other night, which per usual for the Odakyu line was crowded. I had managed to score a seat, however, so I was content to listen to music and generally ignore everyone around me for the forty minute trip home.

However, about ten or fifteen minutes out, I noticed the OL (office lady) standing in front of me was acting strange. Apparently she'd had a long day, because she was literally falling asleep on her feet, grasping the hand ring to keep her upright. Although her arms kept her up, she quickly lost control of her legs when she dozed off, causing her to sway back and forth erratically like she was performing some kind of strange amalgam of hula and Darkwing Duck's Belly Bounce attack. As the ride wore on, she became more and more unstable, almost falling on the people next to me a couple of times. At this point I was afraid she would lose her grip and hurt herself, so I gave up my seat because hey, I had no intention of falling asleep.

Naturally, she pretty much passed out as soon as she sat down. Eventually she slumped over on the should of the sleepy salaryman next to her and started drooling. She was so pathetic looking I wanted to get her some candy or something. I can't imagine when she'd last been to sleep.

I never tire of people. Oh I can get mad and frustrated with them, but they never fail to amuse me in some way once I step back and just look.

So I've decided to watch Gundam 00 because hey, it's the new Gundam series and it's good for mindless half thought-out entertainment with giant robots that go boom. Anyway, at the end of episode three, one of the pilots returns to base and the captain appears onscreen and invites him up for a toast to celebrate his return. Mind you, the captain is a total bombshell and was wearing a nice flirty outfit in lieu of her usual spacesuit, and she has a penchant for alcohol (was seen drinking heavily at the end of episode 2). Now, does the guy say "Be right up!" and get out of his spacesuit faster than a cat in a dog pound? No. He gets colder than a protestant (no offense) in the north pole and says "I decline," to which the captain answers "You meanie!"

Which brings me to my point. Things that Boil My Bottom: Asexual characters.

I mean seriously, guys. I know you're all dedicated to your mission and your unit and your leader and your quest and all that crap, but if you can't find time in all of that to kiss the girl then you have just failed at being a hero on an epic scale. Indiana Jones was punching out Nazis, saving the world, and single-handedly taking out tanks on horseback using rocks, and yet he still found time to kiss the girl in all of that. If you can't do the same then obviously you have not met the bar Indy set twenty years ago and thus you FAIL.

Of course I know why they do this. Two words: Slash Pairings. Deliberately keeping the character's sexuality ambiguous so that the slavering fangirls can imagine him with a number of other characters for various semi-plausible reasons since he has no canon coupling. And the characters of Gundam 00 are so freaking gay it's not funny. The mountain of slash doujinshi resulting from this series will probably trump that of Gundam Seed. I bet that captain could lock one of them in her room and order them to do her and they'd commit mutiny before getting a piece of THAT.

I mean heaven FORBID any two characters (especially male and female) have a clear attraction for one another! Very few action series get this right anymore (which was why Blue Seed rocked all that much harder). I'm not saying that they should all be like shoujo series and have long, drawn out, convoluted relationships that eclipse the main story, but give us guys some more credit, you stupid writers! We may like our fisticuffs and our explosions, but at the end of the day we DO want to see the guy get the girl.

This has been something that boils my bottom.

This message brought to you by a possible overdose of shonen titles and seeing way too many Naruto pictures on Deviant Art.


God help us all.

They say people who live in exciting times wish they weren't in exciting times, and with each passing day I find that so terribly true.

My company - who will henceforth not be named - fired its CEO when he failed to show at an emergency meeting (theory is he's either hiding or committed suicide), and filed for bankruptcy protection, which entails a temporary closing of all branches. In other words, I will probably not be working for them again before my October 30 final day.

Additionally, I am moving in light of finding a new job. In fact, I just got the eviction notice today. I have until November 30 to move out. No big worry there. I originally had until the 4th.

Moving, however, will be a bit of a pain today because there's a typhoon raging outside my window. So either the rain relents or I wrap my luggage in plastic. Guess which one is happening first.

At the moment I am praying for something on the level of a miracle with regards to having money this month without mooching off anyone. I will have to contact my phone company and bank and let them know I'm moving. I still have my debit card from back home, but that will only do me so much good.

What's good in my life?

I have a place to stay.
I have a job.
I have my health.
I still have my sense of humor.
I still have a family back home who supports me however they can.
I can still mash potatoes.
I can do the twist.
I can still put a deer down at 150 yards.

Well, back to packing.