archived notes for Apr. 2000

04.20.00 - Shotgun analysis of Weiss Kreuz: Team shounen anime about four assassins who hunt down Really Bad People in a version of Japan where Really Bad People seem to get away with a lot of Really Bad Things. Lots of black and white characters, though the main four seem themselves to be entirely in the gray.

It's about what I expected, which means not absolutely wonderful like some other anime I've watched, but not a disappointment. It feels like a weird cross between Batman and the X-Files, except without the supernatural/magical element. The character designs are appropriately cool though the animation doesn't quite match up to the design in some places. The stories are...dark. There's a definite tragic element to just about every character.

And perhaps that's why I can't call Weiss Kreuz absolutely wonderful. It's heavy on the angst. Too heavy. I know that statement will come as a surprise for those of you who have actually read my fiction, but even I reel if the angst bomb is too big. Still, I've only watched seven episodes, so maybe it'll change a little.

However, I don't feel like I've wasted my money. I am enjoying it, and I'd watch the episodes again. I am not disappointed. I'm also not knocked off my feet.

Of course, the fact that the tape quality is really not good is possibly part of the problem as well. The first tape skipped horribly in the second episode, and the second one was too bright. One can only hope that someday a professional will release it on DVD and I could then watch it the way it was intended to be seen.

There are quite a few fine fight scenes, though, and some nifty one-liners. And all the characters have interesting back histories. So would I recommend it? I think yes, I would, if you want something that's entertaining but dark, and has the Gotham feel without the sense of mystical undercurrents that Batman's world always had. The bishounen are tasty. The voices are excellent.

On my way out the door to the land of sunshine and avocados. I'm there till the 2nd, so this is the last posting for a while. I'm sure I'll be back with...absolutely nothing new to say. ;)

Flight is at 7 am. Oy. I think I'll take a nap tonight. Yes, a nap.

04.19.00 - Yeeha! My Weiss tapes showed up -- all five of 'em. I think I'll have time to watch one before I go off to La-La-Land. Hope they don't end in cliffhangers.

I don't know if it's good or bad, but apparently I'm especially good at doing the voice of Cartman's mother. I'm not too bad at imitating Kyle's mother, either. "What what what?"

Which reminds me of something that actually hits on both paragraphs above. Somewhere back in the late 1700s, my ancestry traces back to German Jews by the name of Weisskopf. "White Head" I think. Going to the 1800s, members of my family (the Panniers) were French Huguenots. Which is funny, because I clearly remember being profoundly effected by John Calvin's idea of the direct covenant with God when I was studying European history in high school. I thought that was such a fundamental notion, I couldn't understand how there could have been a time in Europe where it hadn't been accepted. To be sure, I don't agree with everything he said (I'd be a Huguenot if I did now, wouldn't I?), but I do agree with the idea of a personal relationship with God.

(Assuming I'm remembering the right post-Rennaissance religious leader who came up with the direct covenant with God thing. Hm. Hey, it's only been six years. :P)

Duo delivered the famous "Shinigami has returned from Hell!" line last night. It's probably just a tad bit cooler if you know what a shinigami is. I'd love to hear it in Japanese (aren't I pitiful?).

The next Darth? I was kind of hoping it would be a woman, actually. Oh well. Maybe Darth Sidious is sexist as well as evil. But then, this is still rumor stuff after all. For all I know, Lucas will stumble across my site and say, "A chick! Why didn't I think of that! Doh!" et voila -- we get Courtney Love as Darth Harlot.

My waking-up-and-seeing-things spells seem to be over, but last night I was woken up by ghost noises. Not even cool ghost noises, just ultra cheesy ones. Like something you'd hear out of a Casper the Friendly Ghost animation. It reminded me of the scene in Beetlejuice where Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are trying to be scary, and don't quite manage it. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

As bizarre as it is, this page is actually...kind of useful. Which reminds me, I may be going to Disneyland next week. Yay! Fun!

04.18.00 - So apparently some of you actually liked the idea of me drawing real life people as anime characters. Ergo, I show unto you...the DonnaBear picture!

04.17.00 - One of those...days. Not depressed or mad, but I am tired. Probably because I got up early to come into work and work on something. Yup.

The peach JYU candies are really excellent. The marshmallow chocolate things are so-so. The apple Konnyaku jellies taste like a red delish. Mmm. Konnyaku jelly.

We had a lovely storm this weekend -- big hail balls and lots of rain and grumblings from the sky. I leave this Friday for California, so there won't be any updates past the 21st, I think. Of course, my folks are getting DSL, so maybe I'll download a trial of WS_FTP and try to sneak some chats in.

I was going to write a Vent on sex called "None of Your Damn Business", but I'm too tired today. Nor do I think I'm going to have the inclination to do so. Sorry. Lots of things that are sucking the lifeforce out of me in new and different ways right now, so personal projects go on the backburner while I try to deal with the other things in my life.

04.14.00 - I can't believe I misplaced my purse. Again. What the heck is wrong with me? It's not like there's a lot on my mind. Guh. But I got it back. All is well -- that is, unless the ladies at the Japanese restaurant decided to purchase senakku with my credit cards. ^_^;

I had cooked eel for the first time in my life today. It's not as unusual as you'd think. You don't notice the taste -- you notice the consistency. It's very flaky, almost powdery. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't in ecstacy over it. I'd eat it if it came on a plate, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get some. Now, red bean ice cream...that's another matter. I've gotten Dave into it. Bwahahahaha.

Quiet day. Not much else to say, other than that I notice I am once again a nighttime creature in behavior -- that is, I'm answering all my email and doing all my writing after sunset. I can't seem to escape my destiny of being the pale one in the family.

Since I got tarred and feathered for not passing on the "Superfriends" parody of the "Wassap!" commercial, I will make a note of linking to the new Star Wars parody of the same (not as funny as the original Superfriends parody, but still amusing).

We got ourselves slap-happy last night by speculating over a parody of Gundam Wing using the South Park characters. I think the funniest thing that came out of all of it was the idea of Quatre as Pip and Cartman as Heero.

04.13.00 - I had the weird idea to draw all the priests and various members of the House of Netjer as super-deformed anime characters tonight. I think, however, I'll pass on the thought lest my colleagues and fellow Shemsu think I've gone completely neurotic.

But I drew me anyway.

I get back $70 from the gummint. Took me an hour to do my taxes. Either I did something horribly wrong and I owe them $1000, or they actually owe me $10,000. That's unlikely, so I'll be happy with the $70. It was supposed to be $100, but I gave $30 of it to the children's fund for Missouri.

So taxes are done, and article is done, and that leaves...the template and the search engine, the proposal, and other stuff.

Spring is a neat time of year. I noticed our first batch of lemon chiffon colored butterflies floating in the field outside my apartment today. And the amount of roadkill has gone up, meaning a lot of dumb bunnies are learning some hard lessons.

Which reminds me, what kind of sick culture are we that we give kids candy shaped like bunnies? You know I was one of those kids who snapped the head off her chocolate bunny. I used to make little screaming noises when I ate gummy bears, too. And I liked to snap the arms off my gingerbread men so they suffered a little before I broke their heads off and consumed them.

And look how I turned out!

Ah, cruel MP3s! Making me choose between the Gundam Wing soundtrack and the opening theme of Weiss Kreuz. (sniffle)

04.12.00 - Today is a Mizu Kagami kind of day. It's one of those days and last night was one of those nights. And I decided to do my taxes today. I think I must be crazy.

When one thing is the responsibility of many, simply standing by and being smug that you're doing your job when your coworkers aren't isn't enough. A group project requires cohesion; it is a sign of personal weakness and perhaps even fear if one does not speak to those one is working with and explain to them when one feels they have fallen short of your expectations. A collaborative effort can not succeed on the shoulders of a few and the shadows of the inconsistent. If it does, it was luck and God's will. If it doesn't, even those who did put forth their best have still fallen short. What one has to realize is that simply doing "your part" of the load is not enough -- one must also have the courage to speak up, to change, and to motivate the very people who one is cooperating with.

I realize that last sentence is rather long and convoluted, and I also realize I'm not making a lot of sense. But even amidst the difficult days, there are things for me to learn about leadership and myself.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends

-- Shel Silverstein (of course)

04.11.00 - I live again!

Back from Chicago. Drive was fast. Came home to glitter eyeshadow (yay!) and a hideous shade of lipstick (doh!). But the glitter is fun.

Taxes are due, and so is that article as well as some website work and some office work and some proposals I need to wrap. But I'm still processing oxygen. Rumors of my demise have been greatly exagerrated.

I'm not going to Egypt this year, though I technically could. Oddly enough, it's not money that's limiting me, but time off from work. Isn't that weird?

The music soundtrack for Gundam Wing -- which I have managed to acquire through arcane methods -- is only partially the heavy, bloodthirsty-but-cheerful brass-and-guitars battle music. A large part of it is really pretty arrangements that seem to be a combination of synthesizer and horns. Mononoke Hime's soundtrack wins handsdown against it -- I'm a sucker for stringed instruments -- but this one isn't that bad. And it's not as repetitious as the other. Sometimes, when I'm writing, it's good to have vocals, and sometimes they get in the way. This is a good one since many of the pieces are lowkey and very subtle.

04.05.00 - My hero decided to tell the book about his curse last night, which was great for the story, but hard on me getting any sleep.

Meanwhile, at work, I'm learning how to set up virtual servers on a machine running Windows 2000. Wheee.

Did work on Oracleweb. Did not finish taxes. I have four things I must do before I leave for Chicago: taxes, a Kemet.org template, an article on flinging myself into cactii, install the Kemet.org search engine thingum, and change the oil in my car. Five! I have five things I must do before I leave for Chicago....

Taxes are tomorrow evening. Hopefully, they won't be too hard. The template is a five-minute job. The search engine is about a 15 minute job, the article is two hours of work, and the oil is a little under 30 minutes. Hmph.

I think I'll order in tomorrow night.

This makes me laugh every time I read it. I remember my brother renting the Ultraman anime and me watching it...it wasn't my first exposure to that sort of thing, but it was still kind of cool. At that age, any "transformation" story was cool. I was the little girl who ran around outside yelling "SHAZAM!" when she thought no one was looking. Little did I know I was yelling for the wrong pre-Roman deity....

And really, what would have happened if Zeus had shown up?

04.04.00 - Senakku, part two.

<% ref=request.servervariables("http_referer")
If ref <> "" then
  ' the ref var is not blank.
  response.write "<a href=" & ref & ">"
Else
  ' it's blank, so send it elsewhere
  ' (in this case, default.asp)
  response.write "<a href=default.asp>"
End if
response.write "back</a>"
%>

04.03.00 - Throughout the course of watching Gundam Wing for the past month or so, there have been various points where I've either said aloud or thought, "This is the point where [insert character name] goes berserk.", reprising that classic line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Tonight, it was Quatre's turn.

It's nice, because unlike the other sociopathic/psychotic members of the Gundam group, Quatre is the "sensitive" pilot -- in other words, he's...well, he's a wimp. He's so wimpy, in fact, that in the Japanese version he's voiced by a woman -- which I think implies his youth and that he's not quite yet a man or that he's more likely to be able to cook a good curry than any other woman on the program. I dunno. Something like that. But not tonight. No sir. Tonight was the night where Quatre went berserk, and that was kind of cool. It's nice to see that characters develop on this show.

I took today off, I wasn't feeling well. I slept fourteen hours, despite having gotten ten or eleven hours the days before. Fourteen hours of sleep is a lot of sleep. I don't have a virus or anything, I just didn't feel well. But I feel better now, and on the bright side I got to learn a whole lot more about Kushites today, which is always a bonus.

Powell's is shipping me a copy of Sex in Ancient Egypt by Lise Manniche for $17. Considering Amazon.com was charging $50, I thought this was a pretty good deal. We get the sex in ancient Egypt questions about once every other month on the Kemet.org boards, and I wanted something to respond with. Manniche's other books have been excellent. I'm hoping this one is just as good.

And speaking of sex in antiquity....

I swear, someday soon, I'll stop talking about anime. Right now, though, I'm really sucked into it. So for my mom and the various people for whom this is absolutely of no interest, I apologize.

Sometimes...well, sometimes I wonder about the human race.

Jeff doesn't know it, but I can always tell when he's seen something particularly funny on TV, because clear across our apartment I hear this sound like a chicken bone being sucked into a vacuum cleaner. It means Jeff is laughing in his bedroom, and that I should probably get up and go make sure he's okay. Heh.

04.02.00 - Sometimes....

Sometimes one of the best things you can do for yourself is just hop in a car and go. We did that tonight because I was sick of sitting on a computer, Jeff was sick of playing his game, and Dave was sick of staring at the TV.

So we drove.

Do you remember the first time you ever got to drive by yourself? I remember my mom giving me the keys to the car, and just driving for hours. Hours and hours. I felt like I had wings. It was so wonderful. Even though I've been in over six accidents, I still love driving. The feeling that I could, if I wanted to, just drive away and never look back follows me wherever I go. I think about it, on nights like these. Paying off my bills, getting in my car, and driving away.

No website.

No money.

No ego.

Just drive.

04.01.00 - Gee. I meant it as an April Fool's joke, but I kind of like it....

Never one to pass up a chance to rip off someone else's innovation, you can now use the link connected with the entry's date as a permanent bookmark to that day's entry. Yay us!

I don't know what's worse. That I don't have any dreams with Matt Damon in them, or that Heff has dreams with me and Matt Damon in them.

We Three Programmers discussed doing a free-form Internet radio show this afternoon. Unfortunately, we don't have the equipment. But really, I do think it would be interesting to record some of our conversations. We're quite a colorful trio when we get going.