The Flatlanders

Vạn sự như ý!

If you don't have a whole boiled chicken the way your bà ngoại used to make it, well, you're completely missing out.

(And what's this "Valentine's Day" that everybody's been complaining about? ;)

Thelonious Monk - I Didn't Know About You, 15.74Mb mp3 file at 320kps.

( Once Again I Fail to Read an Important Novel )

( Hornworm: Summer Reverie )

( Bathrooms )

( Sunday Morning, Late August )

( Ex-boyfriends in Heaven )

( After )

( Lucky )

( Newsphoto: Basra, Collateral Damage )

( Vegan )

( Nineteen-Thirty-Eight )

( Spy Girls )

( when serpents bargain for the right to squirm )

( After an Absence )

Shiira crashed three times and took down three drafts of this before LJ remembered how to autosave the web form. So, no explanation for you. Just read.

( since feeling is first )

( At Tea )

( Mahogany China )

I ♥ subjects that are completely tangental to what the heck I'm actually talking about. Don't you?

Anyway. One comic I've been following for over a year is RAY, by Akihito Yoshitomi, licensed and translated by ADV. Mrr. But anyway, it's a good series. Nice levels all around of what the hell, what the shit, and what the FUCK, as well as x-ray vision, kickboxing nurses, the best Not-A-Pirate dude ever, and an unabashed admission that the whole thing is really just a fanfic spinoff of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack.

So this week, we discovered that there's a TV adaptation out, RAY The Animation, and it's being digitally fansubbed by Froth-Bite, whom we ♥. (We also ♥ Seichi, Soldats, and Lunar. They do good work.) After downloading two episodes by BitTorrent last night and watching them this morning, I give it one and a half thumbs up as far as adaptations go. Why not two thumbs? Well. It's cheesy in the right places, serious in the right places, Misato, Ray, and Dr. Sawa are dead on, but.....

...when the HELL did Shinoyama get a haircut so you could see his EYES?! He's supposed to be so much scruffier and geeky. You rarely, rarely, rarely see that much of his face in the manga. AND WHEN DID HE GET SOCIAL SKILLS. AND WHEN DID CHICKS GET CRUSHES ON HIM.

Other than that, no problems. I'm more or less satisfied and highly recommend the show so far.

SHINOYAMA! COME BACK TO THE DORK SIDEEEEE

Behold, what the internet has sought from the very beginning: a program that will stuff something through Babelfish five times and print out the results.

( First Test! )

And when you take that and include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean...

( My given name broke the machine! )

Again!

( It makes everything worse! )

So, in short, don't use Babelfish, you naughty little creatures! It consolidated with the situation of the screw is understood!

For some reason, after browsing around looking for new icons thanks to official generosity, I ended up downloading brushes and textures and things from colorfilter and crumblingwalls and trying my hand at it myself. It's not as hard as I thought.

Does anyone remember "catprin"? It was this website a while back, brought up on Mandom Stank for mockery, in which strange Japanese people would dress up their cats and then take pictures of them in the outfits. Like a cross between cosplay and Oolong.

Anyway, there were some cute pictures sitting around on the computer from that, so here's four catprin icons.

( These cats are not pleased! )

Then, three icons of some Vietnamese women from this site, which I adore.

( Two pretty young women, one beautiful old one )

Out of the three, I think the one of bà lão there is the prettiest. But then again, that smile probably would've made it the best icon anyway.

I kid you not, snugglywuzzums has been gliding around all day, singing this song to the tune of "Silver Bells":

鶏、鶏が好きですよね
あなたを話してかな
岩神、岩神が嫌いですよね
分ないってマイハニーように

This translates roughly to

Chicken, you know I like the chicken
I wonder if you are spoken to
Rock god, you know I hate the rock god
As my honey says "I don't get it"

In other words, it's a nonsense song that's also one big joke on me. So, I get my revenge by calling her snugglywuzzums and moochiepoo online to potential millions of strangers! HAHAHA!

Yes, I am lame. But I control the Lame! The Lame does not control me!

EDIBONG: And my grammar was off in a few places. Ar, Japanese. Sometimes I swear they made this language up just to laugh at people who get it wrong.

This would be really cool if I could get the testplay to work right. Running around is fun, but then I click on the dog too much and it freezes.

Cute thing stolen from meridjet. You should probably take it yourself before looking at ( my answers ).


( Comment response meme! The kind that no one ever answers~ )

( Because I won't play fair with a meme that asks for my age. )

I got this from a dork that seems to think complete strangers can ruin your life. Oh, and that ruining a life is equivalent to not liking a particular toy anymore. OMG YOU MADE ME NOT LIKE TRANSFORMERS YOU BASTARD. Either way, I felt the need to shatter someone's faith in the Truth of Memes.

I personally think this is an excellent idea.

Also, I have a new theme song. karinofujo is amazed, because she'd expect me to pick something cool and badass and instead I pick... well, listen to it and you'll see. No comprehension of Japanese necessary.

That said, the issue of whether or not to emigrate and where to have been pretty much settled. Now it's just a matter of when and whether to apply for citizenship first. I say that governmental aid is well worth a tiny delay, so long as Shrub keeps in mind that about half of the country wanted him out and doesn't parade around like his usual pseudo-Texan self.

No, no, I do mean pseudo-Texan. The man was born, raised, and educated in New England: specifically Connecticut (his real home state) and Massachusetts, though Maine figures heavily as well. The first records of his ever having anything to do with Texas would be the Arbusto Oil Company, which failed miserably. Not only that, but the first time he ran for governor of Texas, he lost to a native Southerner that played up the "Good Ol' Boy vs. Northern Carpetbagger" element of the campaign. The next time he ran, he borrowed the "Good Ol' Boy" persona for himself, even adopting a fake Texas accent to seal it all in. He's never lost a race since.

In other words, the President's public personality is completely fabricated, and a good chunk of the people in his country have bought it hook, line, and sinker. The whole "nook-yoo-lur" thing is likely part of this. He's a Northerner party boy trying to disguise his willful ignorance as stereotypical blue collar "simplicity".

And if you don't believe me, please find a video of the 3rd Presidental Debate. Watch it in full, paying very close attention to Bush and his answers, and then, please explain to me why the President's accent suddenly vanished. If there's a good reason behind that, I'd love to hear it.

Well, this was unexpected. karinofujo went off to get birthday presents for the party this weekend, and got me a blues album while she was at it. A Sonny Boy Williamson album, in fact. She says it was hard choosing between that and the many Etta James albums available.

She knows me so well.

If I were you, I'd just leave fst. Staring you-know-who down every single day for the foreseeable future is not a good idea. Even if she never follows your comments back your journal, no amount of great music is worth the stress. Just leave it, and I'll donate a couple dollars to a brand-new Used CD Collecting fund. Why, yes, that's a bribe. Take it or leave it.

You know, it would be wonderful if karinofujo could undertake a serious artistic project these days without having to obsessively formulate verbal defenses ahead of time. Not that this is entirely her fault; being blanket-labeled as a made-for-tv movie psycho killer by the power of unsupported rumor sort of increases general anxiety and social paranoia. It's just that, as far as I'm concerned, anyone that's actually convinced by such a story without actual physical evidence is probably unlikely to be deterred by a pithy comeback. It's time to move on, to go forward without fear.

In other news, she's given me a new nickname: "Nago", because she can't pronounce Nguyên. It's a cute one, so I think I'll feed it rice crackers and beer.

Well, since qilora, sethrenn, and thebkcam have done it, I might as well. I am so very pansexual for no reason at all. I am currently in a long term open relationship with karinofujo (big surprise there). Occasionally this branches out into a on-and-off polyamorous triangle of sorts whenever a particular other person who shall remain nameless decides to stop hiding from the world. Usually some catastrophe sends this person back into their hole, though, which is the only reason it's on-and-off. It's a cosmic game of whack-a-mole.

I also have the weirdest religious beliefs of any non-schizophrenic person alive. Well, save possibly New Age fluffies who sniff at the ignorance of "neurotypicals". They're a bit touched.