DC Radical Faerie Beltane was a wonderful occasion this year. Our maypole was a motley assortment of all kinds of amazing colors and though it turned out a little kaplowy on top, the center part all the way down to the end wove up perfectly. It's a crazy beautiful thing.

And of course I'm like a shade away from sunstroke...

Cursed day star...

Anyways, the weekend was lovely. The bonfire was fun, even if the wood was smouldering on the fire. The maypole dance was excellent. And the little cluster of people going out for kabobs afterward was great.

Saturday night after the bonfire I went home and watched a ton of anime on adult swim. Hooray for an all anime saturday night again! It was glorious, and I even watched InuYasha twice! Sunday I bought a ton of anime at Best Buy with a tiny portion of my tax refund. I got the complete set of Noein, vol. 4 of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the movie Paprika.

So, tonight, I'm going to chill at home with my boyfriend, and a couple other folks and watch some Noein.

I'm back in DC and sitting in my library now. You wouldn't believe the number of people who read my badge and thought I worked for DC Comics in some kind of public outreach division....

Next Time I put Washington DC Public Library or District of Columbia Public Library on the badge.

So, here's the breakdown.

Exhibit Hall

I skipped the first two panels to go straight to the exhibit hall before the crowds became beyond enormous. I got to walk the whole floor, and I took some pictures of the cool things. I'll post those later.

Notable booths

After Dark HorrorFest: These are the people who put out 8 films to die for. They had a trailer running in a little room that scares you just walking in, and trying to get out you have to go by the hanging corpse mannequin. The film is just as gory as you would expect, and it's unrated and not being released in the 8 films series because they got an NC-17 and decided to not go that route.

Mr. Toast: This stuff was so cute I couldn't believe it. I totally wanted to buy a painting of egg or toast to put on my kitchen wall. I couldn't find the booth again after the first time, so I'm going to contact him through his website.

Vertical Publishing: Vertical publishing is the company who releases a lot of Osamu Tezuka's more literary works like Buddha, M-W, and Apollo's Song. They are also the publisher of the English translations of Koji Suzuki's horror novels which have been the basis for the Ring and Dark Water. I bought the Ring trilogy, and holy heck, I could not go to sleep at ALL last night. I must finish it if only to put it away forever.

A Wave Blue World: This was notable, because their comic "American Terrorist" was an interesting statement of rebellion through traditional means like free inquiry, free press, free speech. The protagonists are a teacher, a reporter, etc. It looked good, and I may pick it up.

Comixology.com: Comixology is a means for the average guy to put together a pull file on his own based on the listings of comics being released that week through Diamond. It also contains a TON of information and original content about comics. I'm definitely going to start looking at this.

Panels

These are all the panels I attended. I will keep it brief, since there were a lot of them.

State of the Manga Industry: Three bigshots from Del Rey, Viz and Tokyopop chatted about how things are doing. Basically they are at a levelling off point.

Emerging Trends in Manga Retailing: Four store owners and a moderator from ICv2 chatted about how they buy, what they buy, their target audiences, and shelving. Across the board it was different. Some stores had niche markets for adult oriented Manga, whereas others had extensive collections of everything ever produced in English. No clear decisive way to do it.

Using Comics in the Classroom: This particular panel appealed to me because I notice some of the teachers discouraging kids taking out comics at the library. I got some good ideas about how to talk to teachers about children reading comics, and how they could be used as part of a curriculum across all ages.

Beyond Shonen and Shoujo: Indie Manga from Japan: This was one of the least exciting panels of the day. It basically consisted of a slideshow and a list of names. This is so and so's artwork, it's very important. I did learn a couple of things. Axe magazine is the indie manga bimonthly publication, and preferred term for these indies is "gekiga."

Bandai Entertainment: WOW! Bandai is going to release Gurren Lagann, and they're going to release it in 9 episode subtitled chunks at a time. This is like the most awesome news to me ever. They are also finally releasing Lucky Star and Code Geass will be airing on Adult Swim starting this saturday night. I'm totally in love with Bandai right now.

Lucky Star: This was a screening of the first two episodes of Lucky Star. It's basically a slice of life comedy about high school girls and their inane conversations. It was absolutely hysterical. I can't wait to buy this.

MoCCA: Ralph Bakshi Unfiltered: This was a panel including Ralph Bakshi and the two gentlemen who wrote his biography. It was absolutely fascinating to hear Ralph talk about his vision of animation as collage and utilizing real soundscapes in the production of his films. It was pretty great.

The X-Files: Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, the two main producers of The X-Files were there to talk around their new movie coming out this July. They played a trailer and it was exciting. I think there will be more Antarctica from the look of it, but that's about all you could tell. They said it's not an alien conspiracy story, but just a regular scary story. We'll see what happens!

Sci-Friday: Sci-Fi channel, god bless them, played that evenings Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica, uncut without commercial interruptions for the benefit of the people in the audience who would miss it because of the con. It was awesome to see so many people laughing at the Doctor being silly, and gasping at the Cylons being evil. And that episode of BSG, Frakk Me! That I didn't see coming...

Del Rey Manga: they are releasing more Mushishi, Parasyte and they will be releasing Yokaiden and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. I'm stoked.

Code Geass: This was a screening of the first two episodes of Code Geass. The first ep was AWESOME! The second was skipping and sticking and not wanting to play right, so we left. It'll be on Adult Swim this Saturday, and I've got it scheduled to record.

Venture Bros.: This was the most hysterically funny panel I have ever seen in my entire life. It was the four main voice actors from VB and they showed a trailer for season 3. And they also mentioned that they're writing up season 4. It was INCREDIBLE! Oh, the silliness. I laughed so much I think I cried.

There could be no topping that final panel, so we called it a day, and chose not to go back on Sunday.

Well.

Tonight faeshale and I continued down the blood soaked, corpse ridden road of "When They Cry" (Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni).

The second and third chapters are no more illuminating than the first, just as disturbing, and in fact raise more questions than provide answers as totally contradictory stories slam into each other...

with a baseball bat.

Basically what happens, and there are many things that may or may not have happened, is that cutesy anime girls and boys and adults DIE. They die HORRIBLE, EXCRUCIATING DEATHS. And you never really know exactly why, or exactly how, or even if they took place at all. It's like Children of the Rice, or Japanese Village of the Damned...

We were only able to make it halfway through the series tonight. The rest must wait for another time.

This is definitely Shojo Horror. And it's definitely good. But MAN is it confusing.

Friday
Battlestar Galactica. Well, nothing says you're totally frakking insane like holding a gun to the head of the president of the 12 colonies... So, sure, they're going to put you in the brig. And then release you with your own sneak reconnaissance algae ship? Sure, it doesn't make a ton of sense, but it's something.

Saturday
Deathnote. Ah, the glorious death of L. We all knew it was coming. We were all aware that it wouldn't last forever. Especially since they haven't introduced the creepy children from the opening credits. That's next week, I'm sure. Oh, and next week is I think about three years later...

Torchwood. This is probably one of the best episodes of Torchwood, ever. To see the origins of all the characters and their introductions to Torchwood, how they got in, why they were chosen... it was just incredible television storytelling. Just great.

Doctor Who. Both good and bad this episode. I liked the premise of it, the destruction of Pompeii, and how the Doctor is responsible for having done it (as per usual). But I wasn't keen on some of the dialogue. It just felt a little wrong to me. Though I did like it when they used Latin phrases and the people said they were speaking Celtic. That was funny. LOVED the lava monsters though. Also, I felt like I was starting to catch a theme between the two episodes, but I lost it. That's good, don't want to be beaten over the head with the theme.

Sunday
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Vol. 3. This was not my favorite set of episodes, but I did like the murder mystery. I was actually totally shocked by it in fact. Though the ending of it wasn't written very well...

I've got a lot on my plate if you check my GoodReads profile (which I would like to recommend to you all). Currently I'm reading All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Todd Wodicka. It's a novel about an old man, whose life is pretty much over, who decides to chuck it all and live a life as his medieval re-enactment persona. I'm only 36 pages into the book, but it's pretty good so far. It's a quick sort of read at that. In a sense it feels similar to the Testament of Gideon Mack, which I reviewed a few months ago.

In Manga Land I'm on Volume 4 of Cantarella. Finally the Yaoi begins to creep into the plot. I've been waiting for it to show up, and it finally has. Subtle brushes of lips upon lips in the night. Oh how it makes my heart go aflutter.

Our April Book Club selection is Gargantuan by Maggie Estep. I've never read a Maggie Estep novel, but I feel madly in love with her as a NuYoRican slam poet in the 90's. Oh GOD how I yearned to hear her speak. She's got this series of racetrack mysteries, and I'm incredibly curious, because I do love the ponies, and I love Maggie... I'm sure it's going to be a good time.

I bought three videos last night at Best Buy. Frisky Dingo Season 1, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya v. 3, Doctor Who The Time Warrior (Jon Pertwee, Elizabeth Sladen and Sontarans!).

We watched the entirety of Frisky Dingo last night and GOD was that funny. Not until the very last episode of the season do you even know why the show was called Frisky Dingo, but it's SO worth it. And the fact that the new series plays right off of the old series is even more fantastically good. I'm so glad that I bought it. It's three hours DEFINITELY worth watching.

Tonight: Heading out to the OHF Spring Ball. Tomorrow. Finishing Taxes, and watching anime/Doctor Who.

So, as I mentioned last night I bought some videos. The one anime video that I bought was the first volume of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I knew very little about this show as I was going into buy it, but people have been raving about it online so I figured what the hell.

I'm SO GLAD I bought it, because I laughed so hard I was about to cry. Here's the general plot.

Haruhi is an unusual high school girl. She's not interested in your average people, she wants to meet aliens, future people, and ESPers (telepaths). So, she joins every club in school and hunts for people who would be willing to go along with her scheme. Most of them being semi-unwilling, but Haruhi is a forceful kind of gal. Kyon-kun is the boy who sits in front of her in class, and ostensibly he's the narrator. Kyon, who is somewhat attracted to Haruhi, finds himself swept up in her madness and becomes the webmaster for the SOS Brigade.

What is the SOS Brigade you might ask? Well, Haruhi decides that she's going to start a club to investigate weird phenomena, and in her manic way she ropes people into joining the club, "donating" computers, building a website, handing out literature in playboy bunny costumes and generally reeking havoc. It's quite hilarious.

Though what is even more hilarious is that over the course of the first three episodes you discover some interesting secrets about the people in the club, and some bizarre information about Haruhi.

I totally loved it, and I'm totally going to buy the other volumes.

*Sigh*

Just dropped a chunk of change at Borders. It happens. Here's what I got.

Videos

Doctor Who: The Beginning - Box Set
Harold and Maude
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya vol. 1

Manga

Blood+ v. 1
DeathNote v. 13 - How to Read DeathNote
Monster v. 3
MuShiShi v. 3
Ouran High School Host Club v. 1

Books

A Thousand Years of Manga

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I was going to get an Evangelion Box Set, but they were out. In fact the anime section looked like it had been picked over by vultures. I'm kind of amazed I even got Haruhi. Gurren Lagann was not even on their radar. Maybe it'll be on the website or at Best Buy or something.

But I saved $30.00 on the Doctor Who box set. That's good.

The Thousand Years of Manga book looks phenomenal, but it's more of a coffee table book. I can't wait to read it.

Oh, and I ordered "All Nippon Air Lines" from Lambda. I can't wait to read ANAL!

Now for curry, clean up and Haruhi.

This last weekend I went to SheVaCon in Roanoke Virginia. I wasn't sure what to expect at this con, but it was an amazingly well rounded event. Sure, there was an overabundance of Star Wars geekery and costumery, but overall it was a good con.

We arrived kind of late on Friday night so we didn't get to see much of anything then except the art room. I was smitten by a picture of a baby dragon and a kitten reading a book together by artist Alan Beck. I bid on it and won it for the low low price of $12.00. :D

( Kitty and Dragon )

Games

Saturday was primarily games day capped off with shopping and anime. I went shopping at the dealer room and was drawn to Arkham Horror. The dealer was a huge fan of the game and was telling us all about it, and I broke down and bought it. We wound up playing it twice this weekend it was that good. It's long, but it's definitely good.

After my shopping spree I play tested a game called "Black Death." The developer was there trying to get feedback on the game and I was more than happy to help kill off half of europe as a virulent communicable disease. Basically it plays like Risk, only you're a virus. Not bad, a little slow, but I would play it again.

Then we went to lunch and decided to play Arkham Horror. Well, I shouldn't have expected anything less than something outrageously complicated that's damn near impossible to win. I mean, come on, it's a Call of Cthulhu Game. So, this game has like 8 million little pieces and they're all the size of a fingernail. You play one of about 20 characters who are somehow steeped in the mythos of the Lovecraft world. Some of them are dames, some writers, some scientists, some doctors, some vagrants... It's a nice mix. You have stats, you have pieces, there's a hugeass board and it's totally awesome. Admittedly, there are some frustrating elements. For one, if you've never played the game before it's VERY complex and the rules are VERY over done. It's really frustrating to learn, but once you're in the rhythm of it it's pretty fantastic. It takes about 4 hours to play though, so you've got to be willing to go there. In the end though, it's worth it. The first game we played we actually stopped the apocalypse from occurring. The second game... Not so lucky... We were all hospitalized, the town was riddled with monsters and there were only 5 signs left to go before Azathoth drove everyone to madness. And that's about what you should expect from Lovecraft.

Anime

Later on in the day we went to the anime room. I missed Gurren Lagann because we were playing Arkham Horror, but turns out they didn't have a copy of it so they didn't show it anyway. I came in while they were showing Dogtato. Let me tell you, there was a lot of snarking going on with that one! Dogtato was described to me as a kind of Shinto crypto-racist veggie tales. While I could see it being interpreted that way it seemed more like harmless childhood fun, that at times bordered on the existential.

Then we watched When They Cry. Holy fucking god... This was the most disturbing anime I have ever seen in my life. This was a horror suspense anime about a town where strange things are happening, people are dying in horrible ways, and those horrible deaths are shown in vivid gory detail. I have never been so freaked out at an anime, or hell, even in a regular movie, as I have been with this. It puts Takashi Miike to shame... I mean to have wide eyed anime school girls stabbing themselves in the head with giant butcher knives... It was too far. The sick thing is that I want to know what the hell was going on. So I kind of want to see the rest of it, and am also totally afraid of what may be in there...

After the disturbingness of that we watched something a lot more subdued called Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World. Kino is a young girl with a motorcycle who travels from town to town discovering what the world is like. It's a modern-ish steampunk-ish fantasy world. The art and tone of the show is remeniscent of Hayao Miyazake. It's a soft sepia tone world, quiet and lovely. Not everything is perfect mind you, the first story is about a town of hermit telepaths, and the second is about being stranded, starving in the snow. But overall it's a gorgeous show.

Sunday was about wrapping it all up. I bought my artwork of kitty and dragon, and I got an Arkham Horror Expansion set for the King in Yellow.

Workshop: Human Face Casting

Then I was trying to figure out what to do when I walked into a room and saw a woman covered in garbage bags. Of course I was intrigued. As I said to everyone it was a little "Boxing Helena" to see her like that. But what they were doing was making a full plaster replica of her face. They started with a gooey layer of alginate, which is what they use at the dentist's office to mold your teeth. Then they put a plaster cast over the alginate. Then they popped it off, filled it with plaster, and bam. 35 minutes and you've got a replica of someone's face. It was incredibly cool.

More Anime

We ended the con with watching a hilariously funny show called Shinesman. Shinesman is about a corporate Sentai unit called Shinesman who battle alien forces and keep earth safe from harm, and pretend to be average business men and women. Their weapons are business cards that slice through flesh and various other campy things like that. My favorite line was "Step into the glowing green box Shina." But it was full of fabulous one-liners like that.

The trip back was lovely, the conversation was good, and we played Arkham Horror a second time that very evening! Overall, a fantastic weekend. Totally worth it.

Okay, I have to admit. I have heard about this dance number for months because I read Japanator, but I have never watched Lucky Star. Having watched this, not only do I want to watch Lucky Star, but I want yellow pompoms of my very own.

This is "Motteke! Serafuku!"



Beware, it is highly spastic and kind of addictive.

Last night I was watching stuff I had saved in my DVR, and I went through the Astroboy christmas marathon on Adult Swim.

The first episode is called "The Birth of Astroboy." The story goes like this. Astor Boynton is a fun loving child, and in the future of the year 2000 he, like all people are allowed to drive cars at hyperspeeds because the road does the driving for you. Through a horrible mixup the roads and cars malfunction and Astor is killed upon impact. So, Professor Boynton at the Institute of Science declares in his grief that he will build a robot in the image of his child, and he will press the entire service of the institute to that end. Thus Astroboy was created. Professor Boynton is there to throw the switch to turn on his new robot child and they set about having a life together as Father and Son. Years pass quickly and while Astroboy is learning, he does not change in physical appearance. Professor Boynton is dismayed at this because he finally realizes that this robot boy is no substitute for his real son. So the professor sells Astroboy (with much emotional pleading from the child). His new owner is a robot gladiatorial combat ringleader, and the first thing he does is put Astroboy in the ring to fight against a colossally huge robot. Astroboy, being the height of robotics, handily puts the robot in check, but does not want to destroy him. Astroboy doesn't want to hurt anyone. So the ringleader locks him away with all the other junk robots. Astroboy powers up the other robots and they end up saving human lives as the circus burns to the ground. It's at this moment that Professor Elefun, the new head of the Institute of Science takes Astroboy under his wing and they live together.

The second episode "Colosso" has Astroboy longing to have a real family, with a mother and father who look like him and who love him and take care of him. Though derailed by the premature awakening of the robot Colosso, in the end Astroboy is united with a robot mother and father (who have similar features to him).

I give all this back story for a reason.

It's almost exactly the same storyline as the Stanley Kubrick / Steven Spielberg movie Artificial Intelligence: A.I.

Robotic engineer loses his son and designs a robot boy in his image. Family lives with robot boy until they feel that he's too uncanny and mother leaves him alone in the woods to die (with lots of emotional pleading). Boy finds his way into the city and gets picked up by a robot circus where robots fight to the death. There he meets other fractured robots in a pile, waiting to be scrapped. He escapes from the circus But he wants to be a real boy, with a real family. And in the end, thousands(?) of years later, he is united with a mother who loves him though who herself is a clone.

I think you could take scenes from these two episodes of Astroboy and put them next to individual scenes in A.I. and see nearly the exact same thing. The same story arc, the same resolution.

While it could certainly be debated whether or not Brian Aldiss, the author of the original short story, or Stanley Kubrick ever even saw Astroboy it's amazing to me that 45 years later we have a film that follows this so closely without ever mentioning it at all.

Live action Speed Racer!



This looks good. And possibly seizure inducing.

So, JD and I have been having this recurring conversation about Michael Jackson and the rounds and rounds of scary plastic surgery and the god knows where he's going with that look kinds of feelings we both had. JD had told me a long time ago that he thought that now that he'd moved beyond the looking-like-Sigourney-Weaver phase that he was going more for an anime bishonen character look.

And when I saw this months cover of Ebony magazine I realized it was true.

And come to think of it he looks like Hiroshi Nakano from the series Gravitation.

Huh.

So, JD and I were at Potomac Mills this weekend, buying lots of clothes. It was really good, but really expensive, even for outlet shopping. We blew a ton of money.

While we were there we stopped into the lego store. There we discovered, much to our surprise, that there is a Lego Sentai** Fortress playset.



The battle for Sentai Fortress has begun!

The robot army has stormed Tenchii Bridge and is attacking Sentai Fortress! Can the humans fight them off and win the battle? You decide! This giant-sized EXO-FORCE battle set features a massive gate, two towers, human and robot battle machines, a repair bay, laser cannons, light-up elements, and much more! Get set for adventure as Hikaru, Takeshi, Ha-Ya-To, and Ryo fight the Iron Drones led by Meca One.

* Includes Sensei Keiken, leader of EXO-FORCE, not available in any other set!
* Total of 8 minifigures are included: Keiken, Hikaru, Ryo, Ha-Ya-To, Meca One and 2 Iron Drone robot pilots!
* Includes Hikaru's full-sized blue battle machine, Silent Strike!
* Use the repair bay to fix the battle machines!
* Fortress is over 31" (79cm) wide and 17" (43cm) tall!
* Set includes 2 light bricks for powering up!
* Special vehicles ride the rails atop the fortress!
* Robot battle machine features rapid disk launcher!

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** For those who don't know "Sentai" is the Japanese word for a task force or military regiment. However, it has been transformed in popular fiction, manga and anime for fighter groups, most popularly the Power Rangers.

This weekend dmlaenker and I will be heading out to his old college Sci-fi fantasy guild feast. It's camping and garb and silly fun times with padded weapons and gods know what else. I plan on doing some needlepoint while wearing a very lacy shirt. Beyond that perhaps I'll do some cooking. I want to just have a chill weekend really. I may participate in one of their sports, but I'll see what I feel like.

Yesterday I watched "The Queen" and cried my eyes out the whole time. I remember being all torn up from the death of Princess Diana, and how weird that whole time was. I don't remember the newspapers tearing the queen a new one. I guess they didn't play that up as much in the states. It was a really good movie. Not much else to say.

Then I watched the first episode of Boogiepop Phantom and was freaked out by OCD high school girls who want to die by the ghostly hand of her dead boyfriend... Yeah, it was creepy.

I finished reading "Storm Front" by Jim Butcher. It was pretty good. Though having seen his picture in the back he looks like so many Wiccan cliches. Long black hair, piercing gaze, interest in weaponry, martial arts, socially awkward, and a longing to be anachronistic and wield mystical power. Yeah, I've seen that guy a number of times. Still though he writes a decent book. I loved the ending which was loaded with crazy shit. Definitely worthwhile.

Currently I'm reading "The Testament of Gideon Mack" by James Robertson. Quick glance: Scottish minister has near death experience, meets the devil and goes bananas. Sounded good to me, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Oh hot damn!

My boss just sent me the link to the New York Anime Festival website to get a professional pass.

It's December 7-9 at the Javits Center.

I'm SO GOING!

ROCK!

Apparently Kanye West has done this video that incorporates live action scenes adapted from the anime version of Akira. Kanye is apparently in the role of Tetsuo. Unfortunately there are no creepy children, just some hos, which is appropriate for the world of Akira.



Interesting, but wish it went further.

Found on Japanator

I've been working at yet another branch that isn't mine today. The lovely Southeast branch has been full of people loading in new books and putting them on fantastic new lucite shelves. It's quite pretty, but unbelievably hot. Not for lack of trying mind you, because they're running the air full tilt. But it is still hot in there. Of course doing loads of manual labor will make you feel hot anyway.

So, I've been reading Joe Hill's "Heart Shaped Box" which is a horror story with a rock flair. Nothing to write home about per se, but it's not a bad first book. It reminds me of high school and reading those paperback horrors one after the other. On the list of other things to read I have:
( One book and lots of graphic novels )

Yes, I'm trying to get a flavor for everything to know what to buy. Though I haven't started getting into the Shojo titles yet, I know they are just right around the corner. I actually wound up having a conversation with some random kids at the Border's tonight about what they read. Though I refuse to buy another volume of Chibi Vampire. Some things just shouldn't be perpetuated.

I'm all caught up on Doctor Who. Excellent! This season is like a constant high note. They have really been going full tilt and doing fantastic work. Loving the ending storyline. I have my own ideas about what's going to happen, and I hope that I'm right. Though I'll live if I'm not right.

Festival season is kicking into high gear. Of course this means that I'll have loads of conflicts and overbooked weekends. And that brings me to: ALA! ( My ALA schedule for this weekend )

And I've already scheduled off for July 21-22 for Otakon. Yes. Otakon will be a working trip for me as I'll be watching Anime and looking at Manga to find out what are actually hot con trends so that the library can be up to date. So, if you're going to Otakon, please let me know. Unfortunately I'm going to have miss a lot of Saturday, because of a prior library commitment because of programming, but I should be there around 4:00 I think.

In life news I haven't heard much more about my grandmother. Honestly I'm not writing her off just yet. She's a tough old lady and she may go the route of taking the chemo treatment. I'm hoping she's around for a long time, but I'll be ready if she does pass sooner rather than later. And I'll keep everyone posted about that too.

On the homefront situation it sounds like jcruisedirector has some good leads on a place. I'm happy for him, because I think it'll be good for him to have a place to himself. Not to mention the fact that it's hard to live with three people in this house. We've all realized that we have WAY too much stuff and that it's just best to keep the occupants down to two.

And on that note, I'm heading to bed. I've still got a stack of comics from the last round of ordering that I've got to get through. Hopefully I can plow through them in the next couple weeks.

So, the movie I've been dying to see, Pan's Labyrinth, opened in theaters this weekend.

In NYC & LA.

Grrrr!

I hate those first week release things. There's no need for that, really.

Spent yesterday watching Wolf's Rain with sqrlcub, kurtbear and dmlaenker.

Got a little further in Riven. Though, in another @#$@#$! moment I got trapped inside one of the books that I forgot I brought into this world, because it was confiscated in the first 10 seconds of the game and when I got it back I was all like "OH! I can go back to that age now!" and boom, got trapped, saved it and had to restart the whole thing all over again. Though the second time around I got through everything in like 2.5 hours and then got even further when I returned. I'm enjoying it all thoroughly. Though I may need some graph paper here soon. I'm sure there's some place I can just print out some graph paper from the internet. ;)

JD's here, and it's been a lovely time. We've been watching loads of Dr. Who and we're thinking of calling up one of our friends to come over and watch a big bunch of the Dr. today.

Our New Years will be spent with JD's SFFG friends. It promises to be fun. :D

I am totally loving this Samurai Champloo soundtrack album. All of the tracks are this beautiful hip-hop chillout sound. And yes, it includes the opening and closing themes in their entirety.

It's worth the money. I'll listen to this a lot.