Misc. cont.

I've been ordering a lot of my assigned books from Powells.com. In order to get the order up high enough that I can get free shipping ($50 limit for pete's sake! Amazon.com's only $25), I've been sticking in the volumes of Mars which I don't have. Which was all except the first two. The ones that Powells.com didn't have, I ordered from Amazon.com. Problem is, my orders have been dribbling in, and the Amazon.com orders have been coming in faster (not only is the free shipping limit lower, but the service is faster). So I have Mars volumes 1, 2, 5 and 10. Arg. I want to read my Mars! Grr! No, I can't read them out of order. I...I just can't.

I have to say Mars is the stronger addiction, currently, than Hot Gimmick, but it's easier to sate as the entire 15-volume series has been released in English, while I still have to wait on volume three of Hot Gimmick.

Also, Alice 19th is exceptionally cute.

Yay manga! Yay Tokyopop forcing Viz to start charging less than $10 for their books and making them proper manga format, right-to-left! All smiles.

Oh hey, while searching for a website link for Mars, I came across a manga discount retailer which sells strawberry Pocky. Why couldn't I have found them sooner? waaah! All that money spent on Mars and Ranma 1/2 and Inu-Yasha. Also, stawberry Pocky is the food of the gods. Deadly. Soooo deadly.

Yay! ...I think

You all know, of course, that NASA's decided to scrap the Hubble so that Bush II can have his ridiculous plan for the space station on the Moon and the manned flight to Mars. However, this AP story says:

NASA to Review Decision on Fate of Hubble.

Maryland's congressional delegation also sent a letter to O'Keefe on Tuesday urging him to reconsider.

'The scientific returns we have received from Hubble's service thus far have exceeded our expectations. ... We believe that NASA should make every possible effort to retain this proven window on the universe,' the letter said.

Without the servicing mission, which had been planned for 2006, the orbiting telescope is expected to stop working several years before its scheduled 2010 retirement."

Which means Hubble just might survive. The telescope has contributed so much to science. While the idea of a space station on the moon is SF-geek cool, I don't want to play spaceman if it means we lose the real, hard contributions to science of the Hubble. I've been furious since hearing of the Hubble's planned demise. It's good to read that other people have reacted as strongly as I have. There's even a website petition:
However, I recommend that folks contact their representatives and senators as well. Don't let them scrap the Hubble! sniffle Please?

Another book to add to the list of editions I want to buy when I make my first few million

The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Now Newly Imprinted. London: Basilisk Press, 1975.

This is a limited edition facsimile of the Kelmscott Press production of Chaucer's works, held by many to be the most exquisite book of printed English literature. It was originally published in 1896 by William Morris with illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. It was the final book printed by Kelmscott Press under Morris and remains the only major effort to illustrate all of Chaucer's works.

Morris had a clear goal in mind when creating this edition: 'A book ornamented with pictures that are suitable for that book, and that book only, may become a work of art second to none, save a fine binding duly ornamented or a fine piece of literature.'

[ ... ]

That this edition was the crowning achievement for both men was not in doubt. Burne-Jones wrote, "Indeed, when the book is done . . . it will be a little like a pocket cathedral."

sigh Please note I'd even settle for a nicely printed replica from the `70's. And yet I still cannot get it. Being without money sucks.

Misc.

The snow didn't hit us too hard up here. Sure, we got a lot of it, but it wasn't insane. I'm sorry I can't say the same for my friends in NYC. Sorry, guys.

Oscar's arthritic hip hurt him so much this morning that he had to eat out of his bowl while lying down. Poor fuzzy.

I've a new addiction: Hot Gimmick, the manga by Aihara Miki.

Hm. It's 8:20 already. I'd better get back to Japanese. I'll probably add more later, as I've not much to say lately.

Oh, sorry I couldn't answer the phone last night, ET. I was feeling sickly. Bleh.

Ooh! What's this shiny, firey globe thing...?AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!...Hey, that hurt! Oh, hi Gandalf.... (whoops)

Whee! I'm still Pippin!


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Polly wanna cigar?

Naturally, you've all read about Churchill's 104-year old foul-mouthed parrot. "Fuck Hitler," she says, sounding just like the former prime minister of Britain. "Fuck the Nazis." How adorable.

Better yet, though, is the plethora of useless and possibly erroneous information to be found at this site. For instance:

"Robert Heinlein once used the sound effect "*spung*" to describe female nipples changing shape. This is yet more evidence that Heinlein was scary in a bad way."

D'oh

Whoops. Ten days late! Bad Sugar Kat. Baaaad. Baaaaad. Oh, well. It's already been proven via extensive testing that I'm more than a bit of an idjit. Tra la!

Case of the disappearing blogs

A year and a half ago, I was persuaded to start a blog. Everyone's doing it, I was told. You should, too. We don't read your e-mail, anyway. So, I started a blog. I've kept up my blog. I've wasted far too much time on my blog. It's not a good blog, but it's here so I don't have to write e-mail (which I've pretty much stopped doing all together).

So what is everyone I know doing? Stopping their blogs. No more blogging. Bleh-phooie upon the blog fad.

Now I'm debating with myself whether I should bother continuing with my blog, as it is not very good and I suspect my friends for whom I created it don't have the time to read a badly written blog to find out what's going on with me. You know, they, like, have lives and stuff, as illustrated by their no longer wasting precious time on something as idle as blog maintenance.

(As my blog so clearly illustrates, I do not have a life.)

Christmas continues...

Well, I don't know what I did to earn the loot, but the gifts keep on coming.

Doomo arigatoo gozaimasu to...

• D---, my brother's best friend from high school and almost a sister to me, sent me the Angels In America soundtrack, which made me very happy as I adored that film.



• Maggie, who will meet you at 8 at Ray's Pizza, she swears, who sent me the My Neighbor Totoro DVD, which also made me very happy as I also adore this film.

I have such good friends! :)

kingashinnen!

Gung Ho Fat Choy



Happy Year of the Monkey, y'all.

Whoops

First day of classes today. Japanese and Chaucer. Have not done a damned thing to help myself remember my Japanese except to watch Cardcaptor Sakura DVDs: they are in Japanese with English subtitles, so I can catch the spoken Japanese; the text is often in kana, as the characters are in elementary school and the intended audience is about that age, too. Other than that, I'm screwed (especially when it comes to vocab: adjectives, location, building names). Unless I really put a lot of work into it this weekend.

Ha. Yeah. Right.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ET!

wow. now you're thirty. that's old. like, i-hope-i-die-before-i-get-old old.

'course, i'm still older than you are, e.g., old-fartier.

welcome to MIDDLE AGE.
Halifax, Sheepboy and i got it all warmed up for you.

cheers! -ltsk

Return of the little trooper

Came back home Monday. Have done little but reset the DVR to shows which are returning and flip through Entertainment Weekly magazines which arrived while I was away.

I have not and probably will not finish the latest Honor Harrington book before the semester starts on Tuesday. It's difficult to focus on the book at this stage, even though I'm half-way through it, as I keep thinking about the movies I've seen instead of the book I'm reading. And nothing's happening in the book. I know something will, it's an Honor Harrington book, but nothing has and that does not stand up again memories of oliphaunts and ships of war and giants.

Halifax's novel is completely beyond my limited mental capacities this holiday break. I'm feeling guilty about that one. How soon do you need the critique, Mr. Slasher?

Mostly I just want to go see a couple more movies (saw Big Fish last Saturday, and it was good) and veg out. Unfortunately, I live in Smalbany, NY, where small films do not come and if they do come, they don't stay long enough for us to get out to see them. Also, I have work to do to prepare for the upcoming semester.

My brain's so dead, however, all I want to do is take the LotR personality quiz over and over again, as I'm just so dead thrilled to be Pippin.

Fool of a Took! the prequel

Made my mom take the Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you? quiz, and she got the following result, which is just so damned appropriate, let me tell you:


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That's just damned funny

You are going to marry Orlando Bloom. He will
always treat you right and is very romantic. He
will do anything for you. He is very polite and
has deep brown eyes and is very good looking
(which is another plus!). He can make anything
cheesy look really good (like sliding down
stairs on a shield shooting arrows or wearing
pointy ears for example). Congrats!!


Which male celebrity are you going to marry?
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Just wanted to say...

I don't care how fucking ugly Charlize Theron is in Monster--and therefore how brilliant an actress she must be, because pretty people making themselves ugly is what acting's all about, don't you know--I will not go see Monster. When I want to go see an independent film, I'll go see In America again, which was a very good and moving film about the fringes of American society with brilliant acting which did not require a lead to go from fashion model to bufugly in order to be considered a real actor.

Regarding the dog

It still smells bad. The dog. The places where the dog hangs out. They smell. Bad. I have to wash my hands every time I touch the dog, they smell so horribly of him. It's like OCD: pet the dog, wash my hands. Not because of germs, though that is a concern considering the creature eats his own shit, but because his body odor reeks and transfers easily. I gag when I bring my hand anywhere near my face after petting the dog. He smells that bad.

There is a reason that "dog's breath" is such a nasty thing to call a place or thing. Dog's breath is the only thing which smells worse than the dog itself.

Yeah. You read that right. He eats his own shit. Most of it is shoveled up quickly after his walk and put into a corner of the yard most people don't go. Unfortunately, the boys don't do this and apparently M-- and E-- are begining to slack. I know this because there are shit land mines waiting to explode in semi-frozen form all over my shoe as I follow the dog around the yard, waiting desperately for him to just take a g*ddamned piss already so I can go inside. Or, apparently, to become a tasty snack for the dog.

Yes, you have to dig cat poops (and clumped pee) out of the catbox every week, but they have been deodorized (usually) by the potent chemicals in the sand and are small. You use a scoop and transfer the emittance into a plastic bag and toss it into the garbage, never to been seen or smelled again.

Dog piss is everywhere, and dog poops must be moved immediately unless you want to step in them later. The only reason you'd step in cat poop is if your cat is sick and pooping outside of the designated defecation area.

Cats automatically go to their box as kittens. They want to poop in their sandbox. Dogs must be trained not to poop and piss everywhere they see fit. And even that's not a guarantee, as they get excited and apparently have exceedingly poor bladder control.

Cats just saunter over to their box and do their business. You have to take the damned dog outside and wait, no matter what the weather (and scoop the poop, too, when the dog's done).

Cats don't have B.O. They do have shitty breath, but not because they actually eat shit. They just can't brush their own teeth. Dogs stink. It's not a smell you get used to; your sense of smell has to die before you can stop smellling that dog funk.

Oh, and when a dog farts, you sure as hell know about it. It's worse than some people I know.

Dogs are nice to see for short periods of time. Not to own. Lord above, never, ever to own. What the hell was my sister thinking. She wanted a cat, who would shit in a box in the basement without asking, but she gets a stinking poop machine. Ugh.

Lookalikes on Turner Classic Movies

Turns out that our Maggie looks a bit like Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). I would not know this if I didn't spend far too much time watching old flicks on TCM.

Observations regarding dogs

I will never own a dog.

They poop and pee everywhere.

They are horribly, horribly smelly.

They jump on your furniture and make it smelly.

Your hands smelly after you touch them.

They make your clothes smelly.

They jump on you, scraping you with their ridiculous, useless-yet-huge claws and messing up whatever you're wearing.

They track dirt everywhere.

No matter where they poop, you have to pick it up and move it.

Dogs are cute, but not to own. Leave the dog-owning to the insane, and don't go to their houses. Their houses stink and you will stink, too, after a little while. It's like going to a smoker's house, only the smoker won't jump all over you, shed on you, and get slobber on your shoes. Or chew on any- and everything in the reach of their mouths.

Return of the Fool of a Took!

My elder sister, E--, took the Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you? quiz at my behest and wound up as


which is rather appropriate, considering I'm "Pippin and his complete simple-mindedness". Which I am. See?