| "You will do foolish things, but do them enthusiastically." | (Thursday January 24th, 2002 | 12:37) |
Heh ... so there's this cute little webcomic artist survey thing that Penny Arcade linked today. It amused me to no end this morning. I still think I should have gotten Largo or Tycho, but it kept giving me Piro, ah well .. very funny, though, if you read too many webcomics.
The trip planning has been going well. I found a really cheap youth hostel in the middle of Tokyo to stay at. It'll work well until I can find a cheap boarding house or some such similar place to live.
My godfather found me two more people to talk to (both of whom speak english, woot!). They both knew him and my father and are apparently old friends of theirs from the navy. It strikes me as being potentially very weird to meet them, since I've never met a non family member that knew my father. It should be interesting at the least though.
Ugh ... I've also been reading too much. I'm almost done with the Akira Chuck lent me, still plodding through Berserk and Kenshin, desperately trying to finish Chapterhouse before I forget what's going on again, reading Beowulf for god only know what reason, and becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of translations for the latter volumes of Bronze. Ah, I almost forgot, add a few pages of Perl manuals to that list and you have an accurate depiction of the rest of my free time. It's good though. I like almost all of it (still waffling on Beowulf), and it makes me feel less useless ... if only slightly ashamed.
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| "If I go crazy then, will you still call me superman?" | (Tuesday January 15th, 2002 | 11:41) |
So it seems Miss Ling has one-upped me again. From her link section, in reference to me:
The only question I have for this one is, where are all the female authors?
I hadn't really noticed it before, but there are only two female authors on this site (three if you count me, which I don't), and they're both poets. I'm not big on tallying up people just to make sure things are 'equal' ... but it struck me as a little odd. I read a lot of things written by women, why isn't it reflected in my site?
Answer (obtained after scanning my bookshelf for female authors): Because I'm generally not very proud of the things I read that are written by women. It consists of a lot of Anne Rice, Anne McCaffrey, Minami Ozaki, ... essentially, the things I don't enjoy admitting to myself that I like. It's not really bad ... just sort of trivial, self-indulgent, fluff.
The only stuff that's even remotely intellectual is poetry. Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Edna St.Vincent Millay, Emily Dickenson. Depressing, depressing poetry, written mostly by women who were in and out of mental institutions their whole lives. Merph ... so that's something like an answer for you Miss Ling.
Pair seems to be pretty fuxored right now, so it may be awhile before anyone actually reads this post. Not only are all the hosted sites slow (mine, Yish's, Dave Dash's) but Pair's main site is so slow I can't load more than the header. Very weird ... especially since Pair is generally super-reliable.
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Ah, I forgot to mention. I now have plane tickets. For real. For really real <does a little dance>. After all the rearranging of plans, calling of friends, and flustered searching, I officially leave on March 15th. It's a funny changeable-date-round-trip-ticket thing so I can move the return
date back to whatever's convenient.
I still have this sinking feeling that it's all madness. That I will never achieve my goal of living like a scruffy scrub child in Tokyo ... but then again perhaps I will. And if not, I can always go back and try again when everybody's economies don't suck so much.
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| grace | (Thursday January 03rd, 2002 | 15:02) |
Yesterday was awesome ...
Before I get into that though, I should make a few noises about new years. It was ... shall we say, interesting. Interesting shitty that is (though not really for me). Paul and Kit had issues large enough for everybody to share, Dave moped and whined and went home early, Chad ran around in a towel, Matt played chess outside in nothing more than a robe and boxers, Chuck drank too much bourbon, passed out on his floor and blissfully slept through midnight. Many people got sick, many more got drunk, and I kind of managed to float around between them all eating Russian tea cakes. Not the worst new years ever ... but not exactly what I'd call good either.
Back to yesterday though. It ruled. I went over to Chuck's to watch Berserk with him and a some other people (Sam & Jesse). It was somehow exactly what I needed to do. Jesse, Chuck and I basically just sat around and waxed philosophical about the story while the episodes played in the background. We interjected no less than ten times "Oh god, I remember this part ... it was so the beginning of the end!". If for nothing else, Berserk gets points for having at least 12 'beginnings of the end'.
I also got one of the best presents ever. Almost as good as the paper flower, and right up there with the duct tape card. Chuck gave me his ninjato as a 'new years present'. It's the one he always butchered plastic bottles with at House. The sheath even has awesome gouges from blocking things. Perhaps I love sharp things too much, but well-used weapons make me very happy. I just have to find a good place in my back yard to set used milk jugs now ... =)
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