Samurai X

Praise all that's good and holy, I finally have Samurai X again. My previous copy was lost in an incident with a girl from a few years ago, and I hadn't gotten around to replacing it. However, thanks to the love of the Internet and finding cheap anime therein, I own it once again. I am very happy. Some of you know, some of you don't, so I'll explain.

There is an anime called Ruroni Kenshin, which I own, that is something like 135 episodes long and follows the adventures of a samurai with an X on one cheek who has a reverse blade sword and refuses to kill. It's fairly funny, largely entertaining, has some good philosophy stuff, and is very long. But good till the 100th episode or so. Whatever, the important details are samurai, X on face, correcting for a past life.

Samurai X Trust & Betrayal is the story of how Kenshin became who he is. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen. Not one of the best animes, one of the best movies. Much like Princess Mononoke, it doesn't remotely matter that this movie is animated, it's beautiful, poignant, and quite obscenely (and wonderfully) violent at times. Everything you need for a true Japanese tragedy. And boy howdy is it tragic. But as you watch it to the end, sniffing away, you'll see why it's worth it.

Samruai X Reflections, while also amazing, won't make any goddamn sense unless you've seen the entire Kenshin series, so you're safe skipping it if you don't want to spend, oh, months watching the series. Don't get me wrong, the movie is great, but if you're new to anime, not worth it.

So yes, I'm happy. And there's more anime on the way. So after I've watched that, I'll yammer on about it here I'm sure. Why not? Oh yeah, Final Fantasy Unlimited... Crap. One of the most disappointing things I've ever seen. For the love of all that's good and holy, don't watch it. That is all.

Well praises be that we have elected officials who take immigration reform seriously.

A fence. That's their big reform: a seven hundred something mile fucking fence. Congress, or the Senate, or some other group of idiots is voting on this today, and we're getting a fence out of it if anything at all. Know what? If I wanted a fence, I'd go to Home Despot mydamnself. What the fuck is our government doing? Other than jacking itself off I mean.

This is the most useless and in many ways worst possible conclusion that could happen on this issue. It's an insult to basically everyone who lives here. It's an insult to the American citizens both born and bred as well as imports; it insults the B&Bs by ignoring all the cries for serious immigration reform and treats us in a most condescending way by doing "something" without actually managing to do anything but waste money; it insults our imported citizens further by taking a serious issue that may directly affect their families abilities to join our citizens in this country legally and turning it into a trip to a hardware store. That months of arguing and bickering between the two groups of assholes who run this government led to nothing more than a fence insults every American citizen, alive and dead, and plenty of other people to boot.

In a country with reportedly more than ten million illegal immigrants many of whom are, gasp, NOT MEXICAN, to keep our shitty immigration laws the way they are is, quite frankly, retarded. That hard working, dedicated people from nations all over the world have to go through such ridiculous hoops to gain citizenship in this country is just unbelievable, though only just shy of how retardedly easy it is for assholes who want nothing more than to take advantage of our country to get away with it by stealing our tax-paid services. You'd think that the goverment might respond by taking the issue seriously, but then you'd be an idiot, because they're too busy building a fence to even acknowledge that people who aren't Mexican are part of the problem.

So our goverment has kept the status quo. Nothing has changed, everything is the same, but our hard earned money is going to a gargantuan waste of time that is a multi-million dollar fence. Try as I might, my one vote just isn't enough to get those wacky Libertarians into office where they can do something like, I don't know, propose legislation that isn't a complete waste of time and energy! ...and get shot down since no one will ever listen to a Libertarian anyway, much less elect one.

So my official stance on immigration? Whatever it is, I assure you, it does not include a fence.

the state of things

Work has dramatically improved of late. Real things to do, a new team, and other such bits of interest. That whole money question has not been answered yet, but so far we're on track for a full improvement of my career with this company. Granted, I have the free time to post right now, but that's sure to be very temporary.

The book is looking good. FBO is pleased with the changes I've made, so far, and that's a very good sign. I haven't written all that much lately, only a little progress made in my high fantasy book, so I'm glad something is happening on my writing front. Hopefully when I next speak with fbo he'll be finished and we can discuss what other changes I need to make before the submission process begins. In some part of my brain I'm imagining that I won't have to make any more changes, but that's just a dream. Reality will be me needing to make hundreds more changes, but I'm ok with that. Work is good.

For no reason I can understand, my back hurts. This isn't post Kung-Fu, or pool, or any kind of activity other than videogames, and last I checked, they weren't strenuous enough for this kind of pain. After the Wii comes out, perhaps that will change, but for now sitting around and playing .hack shouldn't be able to cause pain like this.

Speaking of .hack, I'm at about 30 hours through the game and wondering why exactly why I stopped playing the last time I played a few years ago. The game rules. It's everything I like about MMOs without the things I hate about MMOs. As it's a simulated MMO, there are no random douchebag asshole players to contend with unless they are actually part of the plot of the game. The game can go just plot, or I could literally play the game for hours on end with a theoretically infinite number of variable world/dungeons to explore. The other characters in the game are far easier to get ahold of then in an actual MMO since there's no such thing as "time" to get in the way. Really, it's the perfect MMO for the antisocial type like me; there are no people to irritate, annoy, or disappoint you. Plus I crushed Cubia, so I'm running on that high.

I've been watching the very disappointing anime Final Fantasy Unlimited lately. It's a far cry from the quality I expect from anything with an FF on it. It's finally gotten just interesting enough to want to finish around ep 16 or so; that should speak volumes about my patience. I still won't sit through the goddamn "Soil is my power" nonsense every single episode, but that seems to be slacking off a bit. Oh well, another couple of hours and it's done, so I can move on to something hopefully far more interesting: Technolyze. Or, if I manage to remember to order the last few DVSs, X the series. Or if I remember to borrow it, Seven Samurai. Anime, you are not dead to me. Now that I don't wait on other people to watch you with, we can get back to where we're supposed to be. Anime... I love you.

Once again, I must say, if you do not watch the show on Nickelodeon called Avatar: The Last Airbender, then you are a fool. Though it is a "children's" show, it's one of the most complex, fascinating, and action packed shows I've ever become obsessed with. On top of that, it ranks as one of the only shows I can think of where the characters actually learn. In an early episode the Airbender jumps into a cloud on a dare and reports that clouds are made of water. That knowledge becomes useful throughout the series. Little things aren't just forgotten, and that kind of attention to detail impresses the hell out of me. Long story short: watch Avatar. It will not disappoint. Don't want to jump into the second season in the middle? They're replaying the entire series starting today, so set your DVRs! I also own the entire first season, so you can always call me. I sure don't mind watching 'em over again!

My theory was by the time I was in the middle of writing this I was going to have work to do, but so far, nothing. Time to find something else to do while waiting.

another odd thought

Why the hell am I so fucking obsessed with necromancers and the undead? I don't know what's wrong with me (in this particular regard), but it's definitely something. I have actually actively considered the zombie apocolypse that is coming; I would kill to have the power to raise the dead; I would really enjoy having my own zombie army. What gives? I really don't know why I like all these ideas so much, but gosh darn it, I do.

This gives rise to a very interesting question... Should I talk to my therapist about this? I mean, she definitely knows I'm a little wacky. A lot wacky even. And she knows I'm strange and write fantasy stories. But the concept of actually talking to my therapist about literally wanting to be able to raise the dead might make even her even thinking head explode.

I don't think I'm actually going to talk to her about it, as it doesn't really have a single goddamn thing to do with anxiety, but maybe around Halloween I'll bring it up. Just because. Hey, for me this is almost normal. :)

An odd thought

As an amateur writer of modern fantasy and fiction, I have some interesting thinking patterns. Trying to apply the unreal to the real makes my mind ever so wacky in certain arenas. So I was watching an episode of Bullshit (watch lot of them here for free) in which Penn and Teller were busy pointing out that the bible cannot be "true" if you intend to take it literally. Though I do rather enjoy listening to that kind of thing, put my minor to use and all, but while they were talking about the death and rising of Christ, as well as the miracles that included raising the dead. Can you guess where I'm going with this?

That's right: Necromancy. So Christ was a necromancer! That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Think about it. Necromancers are those who hold the very power of life and death; they can give you life or drain it away. They can animate your corpse after you are dead and even put your soul back in your body and grant you a second chance! What else would Christ be? He's raising people from the dead left and right and defying death itself, wresting his way back from the grim embrace to return to tell the good word more!

This of course, leads me to my next logical conclusion: maybe Christ didn't raise from the dead... maybe he became a lich! That's right, his death on the cross was an elaborate part of the ritual transference of his life energies into a safe place, letting his immortal body roam once more without fear of damage. The only problem there is figuring out what exactly he could put his spirit into that would be safe enough for his liking. Not many glass jars about at that point. But that way, in raising to heaven, there's no more worry about Christ aging too much before the second coming.

This is what's wrong with me. I just like the idea of raising people from the dead too much. But does anyone think there's a short story to be found in a necromancer raising Christ from the grave for reasons all his own? I think there might be.

juxtaposition

So I'm wearing an interesting pair of clothing items. Why is this worth mentioning? Because I'm weird. Anyways, I'm wearing the shirt I used to wear only when I was depressed: my Nny (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac) shirt with Nny's eyes downcast holding two large hooked daggers. At some point I decided to just like my shirt, but it's the darkest, most evil looking shirt I own. What's so amusing? I'm wearing my Spongebob pants. So black death shirt and bright yellow Spongebob pants. Somehow this is incredibly amusing to me. Anyway, I'm going to attempt sleep early tonight.

Me lately

I have been pissed with my work situation, but as I realize bitching about work in this forum is risky, I'll just limit what I have to say to I'm bored, underpaid, and tired of being jerked around. That's my work situation.

Otherwise I have been fairly decent. I'm making progress in the book, nearly finished with the updates I need to make. I'm feeling pretty good, though I'm definitely going to talk to my psychiatrist about increasing some of my medications. Not the Wellbutrin, but of the three I'm taking that one seems to have the least affect on me anyway lately. Also, as I'm already at the maximum clinical dose for Wellbutrin, it would be lunacy to go higher as I like my internal organs when they aren't bleeding or rotting. I probably should have known that something would go wrong with my sleep meds when I thought to myself "no, I have plenty of refills before I see the dude again". Turns out if you refill the perscription too frequently, they won't refill it again. My fault entirely for not adequately explaining my situation to the doc initially, but as I see him Friday I should be fine.

Judging from the comments from my therapist, I'm a natural born CBT champion. I do CBT subconsciously! Granted, not being aware of it means that it's less effective (read: not effective), but at least my head is in the right place. Major breakthrough today on what's really bugging me, so hopefully I'll make some serious progress in the next few weeks. Though I have heard that CBT is theoretically effective in ten sessions, that's proving to be only the tip of the iceberg for me. I'm at twelve sessions (give or take one, my counting isn't that good), and I don't think I'll be stopping any time soon. I know some people are leery of therapy, drugs, and talking openly about either, but I say those people are pansies. I can't get better on my own, I'm not willing to continue to suffer, and I'm tired of inflicting my bad moods on other people. If pills and chatting with a head doctor can help me, then I'm goddamn well doing it.

In video game news, I am breaking my time between two main games right now: God of War and .Hack. God of War, if you don't know, is the most insanely violent game ever made, and the most deserving of an M rating based on violence and random naked chicks I've ever seen. Sure, GTA is more realistically violent, but at no point in GTA do you stab someone with two huge daggers, then proceed to tear your opponent in half in a huge shower of blood; nor do you twist the head off a gorgon, snap the spine of a siren, split the skull of a minotaur, or hurl your dagger attached to a chain into the eye of a cyclops and then smash the fucker's face into the ground in a lovely shower of blood. And, yes, I enjoy every single bloody moment.

The other game I'm playing is .Hack. Why? Because I watched .Hack Sign, the lovely anime. It got really good at about episode 25. 26 sucked, 27 was a recap, ALL FOUR .HACK GAMES HAPPEN HERE, and then 28 makes no goddamn sense without having played the fucking games. So I'm back to playing .Hack because I am a fucking continuity whore. I can't not know the whole story. Drives me crazy.

And that's a nice update. Lots to read. And now that I've gotten my writing fix for the day, I'm off to try my alternative sleep aids and pray they work ok. They did me ok last night, so we'll try to keep up that trend.

Book watch

Well, I have added over 4k words to my book and I'm not done yet. I've rearranged things, added things, deleted things, and I'm realzing more and more how freaking vital timelining/outlining a book BEFORE I start writing is. I'm so glad I don't start a book till I've outlined it these days. Wrangling my story, that I love dearly, into a new form that I still love is very, very difficult. Remembering to change all the little details throughout the entire book is a new kind of pain I didn't know existed. Editing, though utterly vital, sucks.

On the plus side, I'd say I'm more than halfway done, if not more, so I'm moving along again. I realize that I've gotten to the point that if I need to write something, I can sit down and get words on paper (so to speak). They aren't necessarily good words, but sometimes it's more important to write something then to agonize about making something perfect and writing nothing as a result. My urge to just get this goddamn done is getting back to full power, so hopefully I can muscle my way through the rest of the changes and get this back to fbo very soon.

Whee! I can hardly stand!

Straight sword: awesome. Big Tiger: more awesome. My legs? Dead. Sooooo dead. I can ascend and descend stairs, but barely. This is making getting down to my washer and dryer a little difficult. It will also make getting upstairs to bed a tiny smidgen difficult too. But it was so worth it. I'm definitely liking the new curriculum. At the end of this I may have legs rather akin to goddamn tree trunks though. Hopefully I'll continue to be able to walk. I do have this feeling though... people are going to be hitting me in the throat a lot. Good thing my throat is conditioned for this crap. Otherwise: doink, gak, cough, etc.

ECW!

There's something very satisfying about watching large men smashing other large men through tables, be they on fire or not. Me and tgw had a excitement filled day, I tell you what. After taming the great cholorofiend that was his backyard, we took a break before he destroyed me 49-13 in Madden and then followed that up with a nice set of ECW hardcore matches. There are many scary men involved in ECW, but the Sandman is still by far the worst to my mind. He's a huge, beer bellied, man from Utah, and he's never far from his "singapore cane", which he uses to great amusement. Well, not for the people he's hitting, but so what? I think it's great. There are some fantastically skanky women too, but the main thrust (cough) of this evening was large men savagely beating one another. And you know what? It was freaking great. I'm not saying I'm quite ready to get totally into professional wrestling here, but watching ECW from time to time? Fantastic.

Book watch:

Progress on editing my 1st novel has slowed to essentially a halt at this point. I have made dozens of little changes, improving grammar here and there, and spelling stuff. I have made larger changes, further building the relationship between wizard and apprentice, giving some people more screen time, and such. But there is so much more to do. First I have to change the book from being vague about where it is located to firmly in Delaware. Second, I have to get across that people aren't all necessarily the same age. Lastly, some characters need far more screen time or I'm going to have to cut them entirely, which will make my life really difficult as those characters that don't show up enough are actually heavily mentioned in the second book. This is making my life difficult. On the suggestion of my favorite bookstore owner in the world (henseforth FBO), I have taken some time away from writing to give it time to gestate. I'm still not quite sure how to move on with the editing, and it's been several days, but perhaps I'll have some luck when I pick it up again. I've also ground to a halt in my high fantasy book, so writing has been few and far between lately. Fortunately my DS still amuses me greatly, but I'm gonna have to get back to writing soon. I want to get this show on the road already. If I could have signed copies of my very own published book as not wedding gifts for my favorite people in Boston that would be swell since they couldn't turn them down. I'll have to work on that!