Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

しかし・・・But・・・お嬢さまでもないし・・・ましてやゴージャス感なんてものはないよな・・・

2008-07-24T01:33:12Z

The other night, I noticed that I had a tennen tate-roll (just one, on the right). This reminded me, I don't know where the stereotype that such a 'do is sported by rich ladies (as exemplified by the source for the subject line, which applies just as well to me as to Ms. Azumano; also includes three-point ellipses, which are somewhat half-assed according to the Yuri Dōjō in a recent issue) originated. The only support that comes to mind is Ms. Daitokuji from PROJECT "A" KO, which was itself a parody (in her case, of a character from the original Macross, if memory serves; I never saw it anyway).

Closer to my heart is the much more commonly obvious trope of the character with a lot of melanin in the skin but not in the hair. (I call it a trope because it doesn't seem to appear in real life, except where darker hair has gone gray/white or has been artificially changed. I've never encountered any accounts of such localized albinism. It's probably also popular because of the abstraction needed to differentiate characters when all but one human race in the real world seem to have the-same-colored hair, a point that the Japanese unsurprisingly have a tradition of stylistically avoiding. Incidentally, I also have found myself unable to find reference information about races' physical characteristics on Wikipedia, which makes it difficult for me to check the authenticity of my work. On example that I don't plan to use but that has bothered me for a while: I don't recall having ever seen a man of American descent with facial hair. Is this genetic or cultural?) As far back in time as I've traced it (through idle thought, not actual research, as I don't know any good places to look for such information on Japanese media), there are two main possibilities:

1. Ms. "Storm" Munroe of Ame-comi fame. As Watsuki's liner notes often illustrate, these are well known in Japan (although not enough that she influenced him to use a similar character design in Ruro-Ken, even though, despite the fact that all but five of the characters in the 28 books are native Japanese, he goes quite far in variety, including at least a 1,000% range in height of grown men; maybe he was just too lazy to cut all that tone). Unless we can find someone way back there who was so direct about his influences, it would be pretty impossible to pin this one down.

2. The Dark Elves from Lodoss-tō Senki (an island whose name, despite the official Romanization, is spelled exactly the same as "Rhodes"). In case you were living under a rock in the '80s as I was, this series was a thinly veiled retelling of a Basic D&D campaign, as illustrated by the fact that the starting lineup consisted of six of the seven classes from the original "blue box" (excluding only the one that was stolen entirely from Tolkien's creation). Even back in those days, there was already the policy that the dark-skinned subraces of the good peoples are the evil ones, but D&D avoided some flak by saying the drow were actually black-skinned, not a human skin tone. Whether it's because they hadn't made that point yet or because of creative differences, that safety was not present in Lodoss, so (other than the being evil part) it translates just fine to humans in versions of the real world. This one could be easily confirmed or denied by asking someone who's actually watched the major Japanese animation and read Japanese comics from before that whether or not there were any examples then, but I don't think I know any such person.

By the way, in one of the extra stories from Sapphism, Ms. Lee (Ley?) tries to talk Ms. Yang down by telling her that her loss would devastate all the dark-skin fetishists. Of the examples given, I recognized only Akamatsu (no doubt due to my lack of attention to mainstream stuff), but all were called "-Sensei," so I imagine the other two are of the same ilk. But from what I've read of Akamatsu's, he's less so than I am: no major character in his first work, one who starts ranking at fifth-most-important then is displaced further by new ones in his second. As if it's not maniac enough already, my taste is mostly restricted to the illustrated versions, as in real life I'm more narcissistic, preferring my own two races (now that I've been out of high school long enough to break down my prejudice against non-white blood). I feel as if I don't much like real-world African features, which is a hell of a generalization considering that they're thought to be the oldest and thus now most diverse human race. (The aforementioned Ms. Munroe looks good, particularly with the 'do in the third movie.) I don't seem to have any such preconception about ladies of South Asian or American descent, probably because I don't see as much of them in American TV and movies.

In terms of more general tropes, is there some name for the one where the hero thinks up a clever plan but keeps it a secret from his friends in order to maintain audience suspense? I'd look around on the eponymous wiki, but from what I've seen it just seems to be a bunch of people typing whatever they feel like typing, so I'm not bothering to learn how to find things there.

アンニュイ

2008-07-08T11:46:47Z

When I stop to think about my life, I can see that I've done nothing right with it. Each time, I actually think of one or two things that I've done wrong with it. Then I forget about it again. Here's one that comes to mind at the moment. I don't have anyone with whom I can share my problems, so I just bottle them up inside and try to forget about them. This morning, it suddenly seems like I should have sometime in my life imposed myself on some of my friends to get to know them, and maybe if they were willing, tell them enough about myself that they might have some idea whom I am. Instead, I come to a time when I don't have any real friends, I can't remember the last time I've talked with someone, including a friend, without starting a fight, and the one person who is willing to carry on conversations with me through IM walks away in the middle of the conversation without telling me more than half the time. So I have to keep my problems to myself to avoid starting fights and getting fired, so I end up exploding in front of people more and more often. I know I should call my social worker when these sorts of things happen, but I'm uncomfortable doing that with a stranger, particularly considering all the times (don't remember how many, guess a couple of dozen) I've cheated her out of ~$100 or an hour of her time because I was lazy or didn't feel like it. I am fully aware that this is a very disjointed paragraph, and I have missed a lot of things that I've been thinking of typing in the last 45 minutes. If anyone wants to ask for clarification on any of this or talk about pretty much anything else, I appreciate it. I'll be binging here for the next couple of hours until my drugs kick in.

よろしくありません

2008-07-06T20:01:56Z

On the topic of possible entries for the Ichijinsha Comic Taishō (YuriHime Bumon):

I forgot in the last paragraph that there's also one in S that has a drag queen (thus, the subject clipped from the same quote as before) as pretty much the most important character after the protagonist and heroine. I guess these guys are more palatable than big, hairy gits like the ones in "Spaghetti Western." There have been various men who've appeared in the numerous sad one-shots throughout the years, but those are the only two major ones whom I remember in serials.

Meanwhile, there may be another problem if I have to give up my ownership of the intellectual property as with the contest for my other half, which would mean that it would have to be thrown out if I couldn't get it published. If so, I'd want to make sure that I have the best chance I'll ever have of winning before I risk it. It would be better, of course, if I could instead become an established author/illustrator and thus be considered for publishing without having to take that risk in the first place. I'll have to take a closer look at the rules when I get back to those issues as part of my other stuff I'm supposedly doing. (I can also use that opportunity to look over the previous winning entry and the judges' comments for that and the runners-up to get a better idea of what they want.)

Another consideration is the problem of graphic novels. I've seen that Japanese author/illustrators often have problems getting one-shots that have been published in periodicals printed in more permanent form as they're not enough to make up a full compilation. A common solution is to put them in as extras in volumes of series by the same person, but that wouldn't work very well in my case, because these ones would read right-to-left, while my projects are left-to-right. YuriHime Comics dealt with that through Yuri-Hime Selection, but I don't know whether they'll do that again or how long it'll be in print. Authors sometimes publish sequels/spinoffs/side stories of their own works as dōjinshi, as you may have noticed (also mentioned here), but I don't imagine they're allowed to do that with the stuff that's been licensed by professional publishers.

Speaking of which, I hear that Zettai×Roman actually has quite a lot of stuff that wasn't published in the mooks, including a short from a long-out-of-print anthology, two from another magazine, and further explanation on the one from YuriHime whose details I found quite incomprehensible (also, incidentally, the only one I remember where one of the main characters is anywhere near as promiscuous as in mine). I haven't been bothering to buy the graphic novels as I already have all of the serials, but I suppose I should be checking their introductions to see whether the extras are worth it.

By the by, as I was grabbing links for this post, I found there was a tachi-yomi (reading without buying) page in case you want to try any of the publications.

I'm Not the Gunsmith, Ironsides! I Mostly Just Hurt People!

2008-07-04T20:00:24Z

Upon closer inspection, it was probably just Ron's big-ass revolver. Speaking of his weapons, I find it odd that they feature him holding up the big stone fist and saying, "five-fingered Molly" or some such, considering that when he's using it (I've only seen the end of the first one and none of the comics, so I don't know whether it's a gauntlet, a metamorphosis, or what) it only has four fingers (counting the thumb). It also seems unusual to use "boy" for a muscular 6-ft.-1-in. superhero with that much facial hair. Judging by the CLIX, that's because the "baby" is the size of a grade-schooler.

East girl meets WEST!

2008-07-04T19:46:02Z

Some other points about "Spaghetti Western（仮）" that I neglected to mention:

*Although I'm told that "Hispanic" is technically not a race but an ethnic group that includes both blacks and whites, I plan to make them all a tan tone to emphasize the difference from the outsider protagonist. For the same reason, I'm also tempted to have them speak Kansai dialect (mostly because of the "sai"), in which I'm even less fluent than standard. It might be more logical to give them stereotypical rural accents (using the copula verb "da" after verbs and adjectives and the emphasis particle "be"), but that always annoys me because it sounds like bad grammar.

*Also, since it's set in a Spanish-speaking area, I can hardly resist using the first-person pronoun 「予」 ("yo"). Unfortunately, I only know one character who uses it, so I don't have much on which to base the speech patterns. (He's an emperor, so it may not even be appropriate for anyone in the setting.) I've commented before on all the new first-person pronouns I encountered when I first read that series, but I never saw any of them again, except the one that's used by two characters therein, which turned out to be all over the place.

Did He Fire 20 Shots or Only 19?

2008-07-03T21:46:09Z

The pilot flew the chopper over campus as I laid down fire with my eight-round-cylinder-fed LEGO grenade launcher, with two plug-in six-rounders attached.

Apparently I had the post-apocalyptic eishi-chō ability to use a really long, heavy weapon without anything supporting the muzzle end. (Meanwhile, I still haven't gotten around to watching the last episode.) I also overlooked the fact that the two smaller launchers were plugged into chambers in the main one, which would prevent the cylinder from rotating properly. Anyway, this was brought on from some movie trailer or CM (don't remember which one) that I saw where someone was using a six-rounder that actually exists in real life—and perhaps too much playing with LEGOs.

It's Double-Action, So the Next Chamber Oughta Be VISIBLE, Punk

2008-07-03T21:20:52Z

As you may have noticed, I made a tag and a database for my shorts.

Expanding on my comments on the first one, I'm not sure why I claimed that I would learn better, as that doesn't seem plausible. Also, I likely misremembered the character limit. In yuri shimai (which I've been rereading for other stuff), at least, it was far dinkier than 400. I may just end up posting all my comments on the Web and just say 「こちらではスペースが足りませんので、下のURLへどうぞ」 or some such.

Meanwhile, the fact that I've been using plurals should tell you that I've thought of another one, even if you can't access the database. I just thought I might make a spaghetti Western for the hell of it, and it happened to be in relation to the YuriHime Bumon that I thought up an actual story for that genre. (At this rate, I oughta call it "Project Ichijinsha Taishō" or something.) Of course, I've barely even seen any Westerns (probably less than the number of space Westerns), and I'd require a hell of a lot of research to make it historically accurate. This is also my only chance to use 19th-century firearms, so the ideas I can only use there bring more clutter to the plot.

Incidentally, it's interesting that Clint's famous line is not actually from a Western, just from a character who acts like he's in one. It doesn't seem to be listed on Wikiquote, but as you can see here, the line is completely changed in Japanese. Fortunately, I was planning on wording the official translations to convey my messages and to sound good, not to be exact translations of the English (or vice versa).

Also, it occurred to me that even Project AnthraXX has much more focus on male characters than anything published in YuriHime Comics (unless you count the one with the transsexual), so maybe that wouldn't be such a good place for it either. Maddie's Maids might work, but considering it takes place after the events of AnthraXX, there's no need to be thinking much on that anytime soon.

A Foursome of Quickies

2008-06-28T19:16:40Z

1. You get three strikes, but you're not out. What do you call this phenomenon?

2. What size is the engine in this kart?

3. THE SIMPSONS : FUTURAMA :: LEGO : LEGO

In what way?

4. What fictional character seems to have a penchant for four-letter words that begin with "lan"?

"We are whites of Angelgrove Camp. Jason Lortell is my name, and this is Samwise Hensley."

2008-06-26T01:49:00Z

"Your lawyer?"

"His pastor."

Here's an article I happened to spot in the break room. This place also says "7-day archive," which probably means you won't be able to access it for free in a week, so I'd be interested if someone could find a permanently available posting of it somewhere. My search only turned up this, which doesn't even appear to credit the author.

Anyway, there isn't anything that needs to be added to the article itself (other than my opinion of it, which you already know), but as with the previous, I'm using stuff that I have to print while it's still visible or remembered as excuses to get related things out of my system. One note that I was rather apprehensive about mentioning here was the myth that the hymen is normally visibly broken the first time, as apparently perpetuated in all sorts of fiction. I never took 101 in college, and it doesn't seem like it would make good television, so I didn't find this fact out until I was researching it on Wikipedia for Project AnthraXX. (You can bring up that page yourself once you've remembered to take into account the fact that they make sure not to censor anything, including images.) Yes, that project is pathetic enough that this is a significant technical point in it. I intended this one to be more whimsical and less structured in terms of, for instance, how magic works, but I couldn't resist making rules, and now I'm worried about how I can even talk about such things in the comic or related materials.

It's also interesting to note that the Japanese word for "female virgin" is apparently used to refer specifically to the lack of experience of something that's enough to break the hymen. I'm for some reason planning to deal with that in my second short, too; I think "teisō" might work, as it was used to refer to two ladies in such a supposedly mainstream series as LOVE♥HINA, but it was a gag, and it might be an archaic term. I thought I might have heard the euphemism "junketsu" in such a context, but if so, I don't remember where.

Also, when I was looking up details for the post subject (as you can see, I couldn't find one of the names, so I kept it from the misquoted source), I happened to read a bunch of complaints about that episode on the site. People were outraged that NBC was willing to depict a fictional Christian sect as extremist fanatics. At least one registered user said that he was going to boycott the show because of it. In the 18th season, you're boycotting a show because of portrayal of guest charas in one episode? Is it so offensive to suggest that it's possible for self-proclaimed Christians to be zealots? (I guess that means that—just like the Holocaust—the Spanish Inquisition, the KKK, and so on are only myths.) But it's all right to have an episode where a Muslim guy beats an ADA within an inch of her life to prevent her from prosecuting the man who raped his sister?

I wouldn't be surprised if it's true that the Bible doesn't specifically state that you must kill those who sleep with Muslims. (Apparently the prophets didn't predict that part. I think Sean was actually talking about how adultery is against one of the Ten Commandments.) As far as I've heard, nor does it specifically say that you have to lynch black guys, or prevent gays from practicing their beliefs, or persecute any other innocents.

On that subject, I was surprised by this (coincidentally, also at NBC, since that was the first hit that seemed to have the more common wording). However, it sounds as if the people who are willing to admit that they're not on the only path are the more casual practitioners, not choir boys and ordained clergy.

Two for the Price of One

2008-06-26T00:40:56Z

I was playing a game starring Mario, Luigi, and Koopa, set in a house that was much too big for them (like the stage in SUPER MARIO LAND 2, only 3-D). ~~Bowser~~ [Koopa]'s goal was apparently to jump up and down on tables to punch holes in them so they'd sink. A female player or character also questioned why Luigi, despite being the younger brother, had a larger and bushier mustache.

I was Sano from Ruro-Ken, and I was staying at a modern gym for training. For some reason, I couldn't find the men's locker room, until I realized that it was one of the places through which I'd rampaged looking for it.

Edit (2008.06.25): Apparently old habits die hard. I haven't been interested in such video games since before I grew a brain, after all. I don't know where they would've gotten the idea to give a generic dog name to a turtle—perhaps he's supposed to be a rock star (as his courses' BGMs in MARIO KART games suggest). Of course, even in countries where they voice the "é" as in the original French, it wouldn't be that way, but we all know that American translators are crazy Germans.

Edit (2008.06.26): Maybe it wasn't all because of that crazy American video game I bought from arifyn; this may also have contributed.

Exactly Which One of Us Were You Planning on Getting Rid of? Hmmm?

2008-06-24T03:11:44Z

We were hanging out at some nature museum on a forested planet during the reign of Emperor (A.) Skywalker.

Though it was just this morning, I remember virtually nothing about this one after doing all that work on the previous two.

[ドリーム]って！オー[泉様の]かがみ[様]

2008-06-24T02:55:55Z

We were hiding out in some Japanese school.

I remember almost nothing from this one, but it was a combination of Raki☆Sta (particularly the bit starting here) and another school series. (It's been so long, I've forgotten what the latter was.) I've never even read or watched the former, but it's one of the ones blitzcon told me he was going to show me long, long ago (but not early enough that I could actually get the videos), so I've been breaking my usual rule in its case. Consequently, most of my knowledge of it is from Ms.?† Maitake's illustrations and comics (although I haven't actually been reading the posts since I haven't even started the series yet), which is undoubtedly skewing my preconceptions of its content.

†You may remember that I fouled up a while back and that I later decided not to worry about it. I neglected to mention that Ms.? Maitake replied the very next day and pointed out that it was clearly stated on the site that duplicating things without permission was prohibited, which rather scuppered a post I'd made.

Meanwhile, when I contacted her/him to ask whether I could post direct links to individual posts, I decided to ask about her/his gender so I could address her/him less awkwardly, but she/he declined to say. (Japanese writers/illustrators sometimes take PNs that would suggest genders different from their own, but I've never seen anything proving that any have made false claims about this. Then again, nor do I have any proof that any Japanese comic writer/illustrator has ever been captured on camera (with the exception of Akamatsu, whose mug I do not fondly remember seeing, particularly considering that he's actually married to a lady who's more than 13 years his junior now), so that's hard to say with certainty, either. You can take this into account for my generalizations in the next paragraph.) I would tend to assume that she/he's a man like me due to the demographics (?) of what she/he seems to find interesting, but that's a bit of a disservice to Ms. Hayashiya, Ms. oneirotsai, and many others. Of course, in English, there aren't any honorifics‡ except title prefixes, so it doesn't make much difference; in Japanese, I've just been using speech patterns somewhere in-between.

I do find it interesting that I see ladies who draw stuff aimed at male audiences all the time (with Ms. Takahashi being the classic example), but never confirmed examples of men drawing stuff for ladies. (The fact that ladies draw lots of yuri, yet I never hear about men drawing much yaoi, is less surprising.) The closest I've seen is Fujieda, who has been suppressing his style (judging by Iono Sama Fanatics, his only independent work I've read) in various YuriHime Comics mooks (and of course the compilations), but although they always use feminine second-person pronouns, the content of even the main series is more moe than shōjo, so he's still a bit short of Jack Nicholson.

‡In my research for Projects Abdiel and Homuncupunk, I was surprised to find that in modern English, the one language I've encountered that has almost no ways of showing respect, we have retained the plural/formal singular objective from the early modern variety as our sole (before conjugation) second-person pronoun.

Fourteen in 3rd Edition

2008-06-24T01:33:30Z

In my adventures, I discovered the Word of Power that could destroy all existence: "Th." Of course, it was only valid if voiced starting in the 12th tone and glissandoed to the 13th, but it was still dangerous knowledge.

This was of course an upshot from researching the name of the protagonist of another (than the one I mentioned*) short story I happened to think up on Wiktionary. I am aware that, having never learned a language where tone is particularly important, I have no idea how to pronounce it, but that's true for pretty much anyone saying a name from a language he doesn't know. (I chose which pronunciation to use for each character just for variety, and I couldn't even post the "ǔ" correctly in the table because it only allows ASCII characters.) It's also related to fantasy's concept of Words of Power, as seen in such media as Project Artificer, Book of Vile Darkness, and a classic example of Rich Burlew claiming that Wizards are idiots because he changed the rules to make less sense.

*As you can see, I'm planning to post follow-up thoughts on the first one and an introduction to the second.

It Was Probably a Lovable Rogue, Actually

2008-06-20T21:46:23Z

One of my one-shots (on which I'll comment later) led into the idea to start a new campaign run by one of the group, even though we don't have as many as I'd usually place as the minimum. So far, we've done a bit of character development, so I've posted a version of mine here.

I've also uploaded a draft of the character sheet. My comments:

Ability Scores: I don't much like using rolled scores, but these ones are far better than what I usually get. The dump stats reflect my idea of him as a reckless (which I may not play very well due to predisposition), irresponsible rogue of noble birth who's never had to deal with any strenuous work. The only reason I put the 18 in Int is that I'm always irritated when I use an odd number and thus sacrifice at least 6 skill points.

Skills: Consequently, I had as much as I could possibly have here from the Player's Handbook alone, unless I had been a full human. As I was told that he had only gotten the job three months earlier, I used the skills to represent his noble upbringing (in that case, mostly just Ride, since the DM said I would've learned it) and night life. I might use the last 4 points to get actual occupational skills like Forgery (from his experience with paperwork) and/or Knowledge (architecture & engineering, dungeoneering).

Feat: I could use this to say he's been involved in the gentry's dueling circles (Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse) or just to improve his skills.

Anyway, this campaign is supposed to focus on character development, so I don't know much about how he's going to change in the future. . . .

いちおうまたうかがっておきますが

2008-06-14T02:10:01Z

I probably know the answer, but considering that the second-to-last item has been listed, it's time for me to ask again: anyone want anything? It should ship on 2008.07.18 or soon after (UTC+9).

ここでだけヴィオーラ様にかてる様だ

2008-06-12T13:51:54Z

I was going to the store and saw a big display for the latest MY OTOME series, which caught me off guard, since I normally would have heard of it through my usual sources much earlier (if I even encountered it in America at all, which I haven't for these series). I also overheard someone talking about how Ms. Armitage has her own TV show accompanying every episode (although it was only a DVD extra for one disc in the original series), as well as her own HP you can visit and her own phone number you can call to get her telling you she can't talk now because she's busy having guts and stuff.

RETRO GRAND PRIX

2008-06-09T21:44:17Z

What cartoon character greets people two-thirds as enthusiastically as Fat Albert?

♪I Forgot All about the Air Hockey Table♪

2008-06-07T21:56:00Z

Since Thursday was my one night off, I stopped by the other side of town yesterday. Unfortunately, I had not realized that it was the release date of 4th-Edition D&D, so the clerk at the desk immediately asked me, "Have you gotten your books yet?" I made the mistake of telling the truth: that I had gotten a better deal elsewhere, which of course didn't make him and Carlos happy. They made fun of me for the fact that my copies hadn't been delivered yet. I neglected to mention (as a comeback, one of my principal weak points) the fact that, as over the last few months the Wizards have revealed more of their master plan to tell repeat customers to go to hell (as mentioned here), I wouldn't be buying them at all if I weren't intending to use them to save more than the money I paid for them.

Due to the fact that 4th Edition is trying its darnedest not to be D&D, there's also the problem of the theoretical chance of publishing my campaign setting. I have no intention of retconning it to the point of being 4th-Edition-friendly, so the only chance I would have of using the d20 System or something similar is if someone else ends up producing the books and allowing them, such as the Pathfinder RPG. The reason for this is that the d20 System requires you to note on each book that it requires the 3rd-Edition or v.3.5 Player's Handbook, which Wizards will obviously be discontinuing if they haven't already. The Pathfinder RPG is designed to allow people to continue to use v.3.5-compatible materials, so it would work with that, but I don't know whether they'll allow me to actually tell people to use it. I could instead use the OGL, but that would require publishing my own basic materials. Since this was designed as a D&D setting, that would mean either (a) repeating pretty much the same stuff that's in the Player's Handbooks and Pathfinder RPG or (b) changing the setting so that those have something original worth printing as well. The latter means completely reworking the setting, which may be a good thing considering that it's not very original so far, but it defeats the purpose of publishing something I've already developed if I have to go back and start from the ground up. Of course, the chances that I'll ever have the resources (money and name recognition) to do this are rather slim.

By the way, on the topic of the subject line, DUNKIN' DONUTS® CMs have nifty tunes, but the first two* have really dumb lyrics. The "doing stuff" one is pretty self-explanatory (as is the issue with this one, the one for which it's not the creators who are stupid), but as Ms. Maelwaedd noted, it's an odd strategy to tell customers, "We understand your idiocy and provide for it!" The thing about this is, as with every spoken language except English (as far as I know), French and Italian have simple, consistent rules for how every word is pronounced. (lokodraucarn once tried to defend his mispronunciation of "coup de grâce" by saying, "I took German and Russian! No silent letters!" Yeah (again, a very belated comeback), I took Spanish and Japanese. That doesn't stop me using an American English dictionary. When I play a game where I have to vocalize a term often, it makes sense to know how to pronounce it and what it means.) A more common problem is trying to figure out which language the word is, but that's often easy, too.

*As usual, I tried looking for the videos to illustrate, but apparently now Google™ Video BETA doesn't index them anymore and instead has hardcore pornography openly displayed. (YouTube had both.) I never got that before.

「様」ではなくて「センセ」

2008-06-06T21:27:57Z

We had an alliance of kami-tsukai from the two R.O.Ds, like in THE TV. I was Ms. Readman, which meant it was a pain in the ass because I had to speak in a high-pitched voice and always use polite forms.

Of course, from what little I remember, I was talking to Ms. King, which means that I'd be using even politer forms if I were myself. Also, if I were really Ms. Readman, neither of those things would be difficult. . . .

Arachnophobia

2008-06-05T17:51:42Z

We were house-sitting for arifyn's parents, but not in any house I've known them as inhabiting. For some reason, there were numerous spiders infesting books in the building (despite the fact that books don't have empty space in them when closed), and I got in trouble when Mother got back and found that I had turned on all the lights to scare them away. Then we had to shovel snow in the yard. Also, there was an evil dictator at a war crimes court, and (unlike in the U.S., where trials are not allowed to be filmed and thus are reenacted from transcripts) he was displayed live on the multi-faceted side of a big-ass office building.

♪I Coulda Seen This Comin' at Me like an Atom Bomb♪

2008-06-05T16:15:02Z

PayPal™ just informed me that my account has been hacked. I've been pooh-poohing the CMs (see subject line) because I didn't think such a thing was too dangerous since you can see any transactions on your bank statement. I also didn't expect the perpetrator would be stupid enough to buy something from somewhere that sends you automatic email confirmation. Still, the fact that I don't seem to have any way of prosecuting the culprit or getting my money back is somewhat irksome.

Like a Rock

2008-06-05T02:06:17Z

Just for the hell of it, I signed this petition since it had freedom of religion mentioned briefly. It's less trouble than typing one's own letter, so perhaps some of you might be interested in helping.

Panzer Dragoon

2008-05-30T20:17:45Z

In the American version of BRAIN AGE², one of Ryūta's (I'm on first-name basis with him just so I can use an accent mark) suggestions for keeping your mind sharp is to imagine fictional objects. His example is a "cat ladder," and he asks, "Was it furry?" Apparently, in the case of someone at Privateer Press, it was not.

Oh, Here's Something from bladeforge

2008-05-28T03:21:14Z

I didn't end up having enough time for a crunchier post, but here's a simple meme, modified so I can do it:

- Comment[,] and I'll give you a letter.
- You'll then have to list 10 things you ~~love~~ [like] that begin with that letter.
- You may choose to do it at your journal or leave a comment here.
- Afterward, post this in your journal and give out some letters of your own.

My answers (I):

. Iconoclasm
. Independence
. Information
. Inhumanity
. Inquisitor
. The Internet
. Invention
. Iron
. I-TAMA
. Ms. Iwami Shōko 's works

I'll fill in the links later.

That'll Do, Pyg. That'll Do.

2008-05-26T21:07:38Z

On a similar note to the second-to-last sentence way back here:

I find it rather ironic that the man is so much uglier than the troll.