zonkered.net

I went through a period after college where I read nothing but translated manga and Terry Pratchett novels until I burned out on it and picked up real books again. I’m picking up manga again, starting with Saiyuki, by Minekura Kazuya.

Saiyuki and I go way back. I first watched the anime in college after a bunch of us discovered a site that sold entire subtitled series! For cheap! I picked up Saiyuki, Yami no Matsuei, and Fruits Basket this way for a fraction of the licensed cost. Furuba, Yami no Matsuei and the first season of Saiyuki were badly translated but at least decipherable; to this day I have no idea what the hell was going on in the second season of Saiyuki. It’s been out on dvd in the US for awhile now, and eventually I may shell out for it just to relieve my curiosity.

But anyway, the manga. It’s split into three titles thanks in part to Minekura changing publisher’s mid stream – the first 9 volumes were entitled Gensomaden Saiyuki, subsequent ones were titled Saiyuki Reload, and there are also three prequel volumes called Saiyuki Gaiden. I’ve been reading the Tokyopop version of Saiyuki and scanlations of Reload, and its as cool as I remember it.

Cho Hakkai and his relationship with Sha Gojyo is still my favorite, no surprise there. There are certain types of characters I will always like, and so many of my favorite characters fall into this category – and Hakkai is probably the archetype, even though Tezuka Shinobu from Here is Greenwood was the first I identified. He’s very polite and well-mannered, quiet, but that’s only the surface; underneath he’s ruthless. Like I said, all of my favorite characters have this – Shinobu, Yanagi Renji from Prince of Tennis, Kigai Yuuto from X – but Hakkai is the most extreme, and he’s the most complicated. He’s the kind of character that makes me want to write fanfiction.

As for Gojyo, on the surface he’s like a foil to Hakkai – flamboyant and womanizing – but he’s definitely got his own issues, and he and Hakkai lend each other strength. I can’t write about one without involving the other.

Anyway, I read the first two volumes of Gensomaden this morning, and have the next four on order from Barnes & Noble. I’m also about to get to the Hakkai/Gojyo sections of the Burial Arc in Reload (an arc entirely about the pasts of the main characters) so there will probably be more about Saiyuki in the future.

Blackbird Tees has a line of t-shirts that you can print your resume on (on the reverse side of the shirt only). It’s kind of awesome, not that I’d meet employers anywhere I’d be wearing a t-shirt.

Also, I’m somewhat disappointed that “References available upon request” isn’t available as a slogan. (Via PopGadget)

Skipping spinning for two weeks in a row is a very bad idea.

*goes off to die*

Someone needs to explain to the “chefs” at Pret that porous sandwich bread is not the best medium for a hummus sandwich.  Learn to love the tortilla, people.

I just started Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dream Chaser this morning, the latest in her long line of paranormal romances. I’ve been putting it off because by and large I don’t like her Dream Hunter novels as well as her Dark Hunter and Were-Hunter ones, but so far this one’s vastly better than the last. I like Xypher, I like Simone, and Acheron cameo was cool – I love it when he’s pwning people. Verbally, especially.

However. Could someone just kill Satara already? I mean, seriously. Not only does she have no redeeming qualities whatsoever (I can handle, and actually like, that in a villain) but she has no charisma. She’s annoying, rabid, and operates on the lowest common denominator. It’s an invitation to be whacked. Hell, I’d do it myself if she wasn’t, you know. Fictional.

I like evil characters. There are evil characters that are awesomely amoral and charismatic, and I love those. There are evil characters who are so creepy they give me daymares, and I’m cool with those. But then there’s evil that’s so annoying you want to bring the wrath of a giant flyswatter down on them, and Satara is firmly in the latter group.

For a couple of months now I’ve been wanted to read a book I read back in college – my first semester of college in fact, ten years ago, so frankly it’s amazing it’s stuck with me as much as it has. It was a category romance since that’s what was available at the grocery store there, aand I could remember certain things: it was a doctor/nurse romance in a series, it took place at a hospital outside of Portland, Oregon, and the hero was a heart surgeon named Mike. The hero and heroine were close friends before romance bloomed (that’s probably why the book stuck with me, actually; in your typical romance novel, the hero and heroine meet and fall in love within an extremely short period of time. If you read romances, you become okay with it, but it is a tad bit on the unrealistic side). This morning as I was composing an email to the Smart Bitches, hoping they could help me out, I remembered the author’s name was Christine.

Twenty minutes in Google later, I found it. Yes, I know the title is ridiculous.

Anyway, I ordered it in the Amazon Marketplace and it’ll be shipped by the 26th, so woo.

You may have noticed that the layout has changed.  This is because I have the attention span of a spastic gnat on speed.

I can’t. Really. Yes, I went to a Swedish Lutheran college in Minnesota (and as a result I can pull off Frances McDormand’s Minnesotan accent from Fargo with aplomb), but the only language I took there was a semester of Spanish. I had two years of French in high school. I do know a few random Swedish phrases thanks to hanging out in my college’s Swedish House for a lot of my last two years and from being a four year veteran of the Lucia Singers, who sang the same Sankta Lucia song every December on Lucia Day. I’m also pretty good at picking through websites in foreign languages to find whatever I need. It’s a holdover from my last job where, depending on the project or the day, I might have to pretend to be fluent in Romanian or Arabic or Korean without ever speaking any one of those languages.

Neither of these skills make me actually, truly fluent in Swedish.  In the slightest.

And yet yesterday I got emails asking what a particular Swedish word meant in English, and today I spent half my morning “translating” a website to see if there’s any information we could use on it. That was an interesting experience. I’m getting really familiar with one of the Swedish-English dictionary sites.

It’s enough to make a girl consider taking the language or getting the Rosetta Stone software, just in self-defense.

A friend of mine sent me the link to this post on LiveJournal about flirting and sex in Japan. It’s interesting stuff, and the shower conversation with her boyfriend is hilarious.

Can’t say it’s ever been one of my goals to be compared to a tuna, though.

I’m not a big gaming person, and by that I mean that I have never, ever owned any kind of console and my gaming experience tops out with the hours I spent watching boys play Goldeneye in college.  I played computer games as a kid on the Mac, but mostly either the educational type or Summer Olympics (which was mostly awesome for the contortions you could make the high divers do if you hit the right keys).  One of the neighbors had old school Mario when I was growing up, and to say I sucked at it would be an understatement.

Having said that, I really want a cobalt blue Nintendo DS Lite.  Part of it is undoubtedly because it’s pretty.  I mean, look at it.  It’s SHINY.  (This is probably why it’s sold out, too)

Shiny aside, I think I’d actually use it.  I have an almost two hour commute each way to work (thank you, Westchester Bus System), and the DS Lite would give me something to do other than read romance novels on the train.  In the long run, it’d probably be cheaper.  I could play Big Brain Academy (learned that on the Wii at Christmas) and Brain Age.

So that’s what I’ll be asking for as a birthday present this year.