Friday, November 28, 2003

First day of my Thanksgiving vacation: Wasted. I woke up really late, played some Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (or whatever it's called) then ate some food, then did some stupid stuff, went online awhile, backed up 4 gigs of stuff to CD's and cleared it off my hard drive, went offline awhile, played Panzer Dragoon for the Xbox (Mindless but entertaining, until your hands start to hurt), went back online, and now I'm about to sleep. I did nothing creative, went outside very briefly, and I feel sluggish. :K( I'll try to do better tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Went to a furry potluck on Monday, and had a great time! Met some new furs, like WhiteShepherd, and...hmm, I'm not sure how to spell the others, but they were all really nice. :K)
We ate clam chowder, chicken, pasta salad, and drank Mt. Dew... Then we watched Mortal Kombat, and then The Ring, which two of us hadn't seen up to then. Ugh, that movie's just plain icky.

Geez... Sounds like Jace is in big trouble with diabetes, and has a huge doctor's bill he can't possibly pay. If you can help him out, please do so. He's offered to do art in return for donations, if that makes it easier for you to justify on the 'ol budget.

Played Xenogears again last night; finally on the 2nd CD! But... So far the second CD has SUCKED ASS in a major way, because they're leaving out huge chunks of the game... They've been narrarating the bits I've had to play up to now, then dumping you into a boss fight, or a *small* facility to retrieve an artifact... I was told they ran out of money while making the game, so had to cut out a lot of stuff...I guess this is what they were talking about.

Work today, then a four day weekend! Woohoo! Probably won't have a turkey dinner again, (had ours last weekend when my sister was visiting) so we may just go out to a restaurant. Mmm...Waffle House...

The RAM I bought off a guy on a forum arrived night before last, and I slotted it with much difficulty. This is the first time I've had 512 MB of RAM...and it doesn't help Windows at all, ;K) Not even with the Double Data Rate stuff in operation now...

RL pause: Cool! The safety people just came through, and are pushing to get the air back on in my office! With the little fan here at least I haven't been dying, but it's been miserably stuffy.

Monday, November 24, 2003

This is great stuff! Sort of... Things that happened on my birthday, throughout history:


1647: The first recorded execution of a witch in America takes place in Massachusetts.
1937: The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, opens; at the time of its completion, it is the longest suspension bridge in existence.
1994: Nobel Prize-winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returns to live in his native Russia after 20 years in exile.
1996: Russian President Boris Yeltsin signs a truce with Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, leader of the breakaway state of Chechnya, although fighting continues on both sides.

Born on this day:

Rachel Carson, marine biologist and author (1907)

Julia Ward Howe, author and reformer (1819)

Wild Bill Hickok, frontiersman, marksman, and law enforcement officer (1837)

Hubert Humphrey, vice president of the United States (1911)

Herman Wouk, novelist (1915)

Amelia Jenks Bloomer, reformer (1818)

Well, I'm starting to hear from my friends who made it to MFF, and it sounds like they had a blast. :K) I'll go next year guys! I hope...
Spent the weekend at home. Inside. With the family. And my visiting sister/brother-in-law/baby. That makes FOUR kids to survive, three of them a year old or less. (The last is three, and the worst of them all barring their sane bedtime.)
Watched the extended version of the Two Towers; it rocked my socks. Still need to watch the rest of the extra features...
Here at work, they've apparently turned off the ventilation to my part of the building. :K( I'll have to bring in my fan again... Tonight I'm attending a potluck at a local fur's place. I'm bringing eggnog and Vernors, :K9 I wanted to bring cider too, but I guess it's too late in the year now...
I'm considering more seriously trying FFXI now... I mean, it isn't *that* big an expense, you know? Aside from the initial investment... So I might try it. Mebbe.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

http://www.the-magicbox.com/game111903a3.shtml

Cool! FFXII will be set in Ivalice, the world of Final Fantasy Tactics.
The screenshots are cool, but look like a blend of Final Fantasy IX and X. That's both a good and bad thing... I hope it's nothing like FFX (which I loathed) but I hope it's more than FF9 (Which I liked, but would never obssess about like FF7, which I looooooved.)

Well, I'm back. For private reasons, I'm no longer going to post on LJ. I'll keep my account, but I won't be posting there anymore. So...hi again. o,O

Monday, November 03, 2003

If anyone even reads this thing, be warned that I'm pretty much moving over to my new Live Journal account. No offense to the Blogger people, but LJ is much better developed, and has a buttload more features. If blogger does too, I haven't heard of them... Aaaanyways, look for Animakitty over on LJ.

I went to go see Kill Bill last night with Asmo. My thoughts are varied, and it took a consultation with Kamber to really clarify a few points I was confused about.

Alright, for those who don't have a clue, I'll give you the basic premise so you can decide whether to see this film or not. An assassin squad murders a nine person wedding party in a chapel. One survives, a member (or former member) of their own squad, but her injuries leave her in a coma for 4 years. When she awakens, she vows revenge, and goes out to hunt down the four or five henchpersons and their leader Bill.

This film pays homage to the old wire-fu and Hong Kong action movies, as well as a good dose of anime and blood opera. Confused? It actually blends rather well, even if it does make the movie seem like a cartoon in points. The blood spurts for instance, are terribly exxagerated and forceful. This is *intentional* and does not reflect on Terantino's budget. ;K)
The sword sequences are wonderful, the choreography incredible. And of course, the characters are *quite* memorable. Some might complain about the dialogue, that it's cliched and stiff, stilted, forced. It's *supposed* to be, because these people are fighting each other with their strongest tough-guy/girl facades in place. Inside they might be afraid, or regretful, etc. and they show it in their eyes, if you look closely enough. Layered acting like that is a joy to see, and it impressed me to no end.
My greatest complaint is that they split the movie into two parts, and I wanted to see the rest of it immediately. Grrrrrrrr! Guess I'll have to make do with Matrix Revolutions, Brother Bear, and Return of the King while I wait. ;K)
Do NOT under any circumstances take anyone under 16 to see this movie. It may be violent to the point of silliness in some parts, but in others, the violence is tragic, horrifically realistic in many details, and would surely damage/influence a child or even a teenager. The anime sequence in particular is one of the most horribly violent things I've ever seen, and managed to convey a big lump of emotional trauma. That isn't to say I hated it; to the contrary, it was one of the most stylized and interesting scenes in the movie. Terantino put that level of violence in there for a reason, explaining the origins of one of the Assassination squad's most powerful members. (It sure explained why she was so screwed up and violent...)

Anyways, I've blathered on long enough. If you hate martial arts movies, don't see it. If you wanted gunplay instead of swordplay, don't see it. If you possess a strong sense of empathy, I doubt you could watch this film without getting sick to your stomach, feeling for the characters. And finally, if blood makes you squeamish, go see Brother Bear for petes sake. :K)