Frequently FRIENDS ONLY

Just keeping the personal stuff kind of personal for now. I'm always open to making new friends though, so drop me a note if you've friended me :D

Because I can't keep track of everything I've watched/read. I've probably left some stuff off, and I'll be adding to this over time.

Ratings are based on how happy the series made me. They are totally and completely biased.

Idea/layout shamelessly stolen from the wonderful missatralissa



( List )

I didn't get trampled on my first ever Black Friday shopping experience \o/ Granted my mom and I forgot to set our alarms and woke up way later than we expected to, but we weren't chomping at the bit to make it to any particular sale so that's alright. I got a new wallet, cute heels and boots, Psych Season 3, and a cat bed out of it so I'm feeling accomplished!

The first thing I did when I got home was assemble the cat bed to see if it worked okay. I may be getting a little more excited about having a cat in the house again than I should, but my getting the bed and poop-scoop and buying cat litter just makes me feel more like "HEY THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!!" I do feel guilty bring home an 11 year-old cat when my parents and I still get all misty-eyed over the mere mention of Pogo, but these are *~special circumstances~* and Waffles is very sweet-natured and deserves a good home ;o;b I just hope I can bring her home soon, because at this point if things don't fall through I'd be kind of crushed.

Otherwise, I've been "slaving" over more Kindaichi scanlations. The series jumped another 200 spots in ranking on OneManga, so now we're sitting at 294, hurrah!! It makes me so happy that someone out there is reading this series ;o; I've also been doing a comparatively slow power-through of the Percy Jackson books on gaisce and wonderseal's recommendations (as well as Camp's awesome Percy, kyaa ♥). I liked The Lightning Thief reasonably well, but I wasn't all that fussed about The Sea of Monsters or The Titan's Curse. Somewhere in The Battle of the Labryinth things got more engaging again, and I stayed up till 1AM finishing The Last Olympian yesterday =__= I wasn't crazy about the writing style at first, but I have to say I really came to love Percy's sarcastic and wry narration.

Anyway, more scanning and cleaning for me today, I guess orz

We have these big Rubbermaid carts at work to transport stuff around to the different rooms. While pushing an empty one down the hallway, I thought "Hey, why not jump onto the back like with a shopping cart and coast down the hallway? Less energy expended on my part! :D"

So I did!

And instead of having a brief moment of "Whee~", I had a TERRIFYING MOMENT OF "AAAUUUUUUUGH!!!" because I almost flipped the cart. And in an attempt to not have the cart smush me, I ended up careening down the hallway as a result of the momentum, trying really hard not to land on my face.

I'm just glad none of my co-workers saw me orz. They already joke about making phone calls to me every ten minutes to check that I'm still alive/uninjured when I have to work by myself in the unit >:

So I've just decided that it's about time I do my first superhero cosplay!



IT'S LIKE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL COSTUME EVER, AM I RIGHT?!! :DDD

I am probably going to give people seizures with that outfit and colour combo, it will be fabulous :Db

I actually though the pilot for "V" was pretty good!

Then again, I though the pilot for "Glee" was awesome, and now I kind of have a love-hate relationship with it, so clearly my gut-instincts suck.

For the one person on my FList who might care (HI NINGEN, HI!!! ♥), we finished another new chapter of Kindaichi. And I am stupidly pleased to see that the series jumped up 200 spots in OneManga's ranking; that must mean people are reading it, right?

Halloween was fun; we took purikura, took dumb photos with my BSG figurines, and I got carded for the first time ever to get into an 18A movie by a kid who didn't look any older than 15 himself, sob. At least Zombieland was pretty entertaining.

Also went laptop shopping today with Jason, but all the new laptop models at FutureShop and BestBuy had "bilingual keyboards" which were really frustrating to type on. Mostly because the "Shift" keys are about half their normal size now, and apparently reeeaaaching my pinky out to get it throws off my finger placement and I end up gettting nonsense sentences. I just know it'll drive me absolutely bonkers to use that keyboard, so I'm looking at buying a laptop in the States or online now, since I still fear that mine is just going to spontaneously die one day.

Dear Slightly Malfunctioning Circadian Rhythm - I HATE YOU. I SHOULD BE ASLEEP RIGHT NOW. WHY DO I ALWAYS WAKE UP AT 6:30 AM?!?!

But anyway, since I'm up I guess I can do this meme thing and then work on more Kindaichi scanlations orz

1. Comment to this entry saying "ICONS!" and I will pick 6 of your icons.
2. Make an entry in your own journal and talk about the icons I picked!

The lovely ojou picked these:


( Following in Miya's footsteps, I like to ramble )

~*~*HAPPY BIRTHDAY lilorchid1023 and hk_aya!!!!!*~*~

I hope you guys have fabulous birthdays and a great year ahead of you! ILU ♥♥♥

asdlkgjasdlgkaasdlfkdjgs I got so caught up in cutting out cards and stuff that I almost forgot to say:


~~**HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!!!!!**~~

iluuuuuuuuuuuuuuu ♥♥♥

Because I'm an incredibly impatient person, I downloaded the raws for the last chapter and found a translation on MangaHelpers.

Ahhhhhhhh, I can't believe it's over!! (Though Ninomiya Tomoko has "encore" chapters planned for December, so--!!)

I am only a little ashamed to admit I got teary; not because it was particularly sad or touching (though I thought some parts were really lovely at emphasizing how unifying music can be), but because I just loved this series so damn much and I'm sad to let it go ♥

I'm still not ready! There is still so much for these characters to go through, and I wanted to see so much of other characters left behind in Japan!

But though it wasn't entirely satisfying, I'm still very happy with it, in a way.

You're my forever girl, Nodame Cantabile ♥

Gokusen 4 without Nakama Yukie??

IT'S A TRAVESTY!!!

... not like I've watched any season except for the first, BUT STILL! How can it be Gokusen if Yankumi is not in it?!

In other news, on reeeaaally shaky wireless internet that I'm stealing from a neighbour with a snoring dog on the couch next to me. He's super cute, but I have never met a dog who disliked the idea of going out on a walk so much XD

( Glee )

Also, everyone should watch Leverage! Some of the twists in the scams they run make me kind of go ".... oooookay. Sure, whatever," but I really, really like the characters. Especially Hardison, o my geeky heart ♥

~~~

( Pushing Daisies drabble-ish thing )

... because it means they let LOTS of productions film on campus.

Woman: [popping her head in our lunchroom] Hi there!
Shirley: Oh, hi! Are you here to talk to Gord?
Woman: If that's not a problem, sure! Am I interrupting your lunchtime?
Gord: Nah, it's fine. Let's go talk out here.
Me: [giving my manager a quizzical look]
Shireen: Oh, it's that show that wants to film here.
Me: Oh, yeah, the one that wants us to look like a motel.
Shireen: Yup. But instead of filming in the late afternoon, they want to do it in the morning now.
Me: Oh man, what a pain. Where the heck are we going to park our cars?
Shireen: Dunno. They might not end up filming here, depending on what Gord says.

Gord: [returns!!]
Shireen: So are they filming here?
Gord: Yeah, but they said they'll accommodate us and our schedule.
Shireen: Oh good.
Me: What are they filming anyway?
Shirley: Oh some... show about demons or something? And hunters?
Gord: Yeah something like that. I think it's called... Supernatural?
Me: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: S-SUPERNATURAL!?
Gord: [LAUGHING AT ME]
Me: No, I mean, I've only watched a couple of episodes here and there and I won't fangirl like I did over Psych--!!
Gord: [STILL LAUGHING AT ME]
Me: I-I just know a lot of people who love that show, s-stop laughing at meeeee.



So yes. Supernatural is filming here next Monday. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WHO'S GOING TO BE ON SET OR ANYTHING, and as far as I know it's a veeeeeery quick shot of someone walking away from a motel. It could just be an extra for all I know.


... still. I'm excited or some reason XD

Kristin Chenoweth won Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Pushing Daisies!!!!!

WHY ARE YOU SO PRECIOUS, KRISTIN CHENOWETH?!

Seriously, I almost sat here and cried with her because goddamn that show made me so happy and she was so amazing and totally deserved it. Also she made the cutest speech ever and I MISS MY BRIGHT, HAPPY SHOW ABOUT DEATH AND MURDER SO MUCH ;o;

And then the announcement that they had to call paramedics backstage for her made me go "HHHHKKKKKK!!!!" but she's okay and I can continue with the celebrating!

BOOYAH, THAT'S FOUR OUT OF THE FIVE EMMYS FOR PUSHING DAISIES! I'm still shocked they didn't get more nominations, but TAKE THAT ABC YOU WANKERS.

.... Umineko no Naku Koro Ni just made me feel physically ill like three times in a row.

I'm gonna go back to bed orz

1) *~HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NODAME~* <(^_^<) <(^_^)> (>^_^)>


... what, she deserves love too ♥

2) I am pretending that everyone on my FList cares about Kindaichi because I like being delusional! So that means you should all check out the first chapter of one of the short cases that Jessie and I have been working veeeeeery hard on! Whether you do or not, I'm just going to pretend you did to make myself feel better :Db

3) During one of my "I am so boooooored but I don't wanna sew or do RP ;o;" moods, I joined two challenge communities: fullerverse and twelvecolonies! It's been mostly fun, and has gotten me more involved with "fandom-ish" activities. I mean, I haven't written anything remotely resembling fanfiction in at least six years, but I churned out something haphazardly for the drabble challenge, and it came in second! Which was honestly a surprise to me cause lol 10-minute drabble, and I didn't even vote for myself!

( ew ew komi's trying to write again )



The winning drabble was MUCH better though. I read it and kind of cried on the inside because BAAAAW PUSHING DAISIES IS STILL CANCELED T___T

So I've been posting in kindaichifans and MangaHelpers about my efforts at getting Kindaichi scanlations out. And there's been a few people who are excited, which makes me excited! But that is not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that I have to re-think my stance on this whole project because clearly there is nothing left to "save" or "salvage" in terms of Kindaichi being available to English-speaking fans.

1) Kodansha and TokyoPop have split. So Kodansha is not renewing any of their contracts for any of the series with TokyoPop. This also means they are not reprinting any of these titles. Once they are sold out in stores, they are gone for good. Obviously Kindaichi is amongst these titles, and considering how low their sales were, I doubt that any of the other American manga companies (like Dark Horse and Del Rey) will "rescue" it. There are rumors that Kodansha is going to set up their own U.S. office, but even then I would think that it's highly unlikely that they'd resuscitate this title because apparently no one reads it.

2) Not knowing any of this, when one of the members of MangaHelpers from Sweden approached me and proposed a trade of their bilingual manga copies for some of the TokyoPop volumes that they were missing, I kind of did a double-take. I told them that they didn't have to trade with me and that I would be more than happy to try and get my hands on those volumes for them provided they paid for the books and the shipping. Then I actually went to look for the manga online (since I already know that SakuraMedia only has two volumes, neither of which are the ones this person is looking for).

$124.99 for one volume of Kindaichi in English?!?! Are you kidding me?!

I mean, that was kind of the most outrageously priced one, but still a lot of people are asking at least $25+ for one volume (some up to $80>?!?!). Some of the used ones are going for fairly cheap, but getting them all from different sellers is still going to end up gouging this poor person's wallet when it comes to shipping fees, and I'm a bit leery of buying used ones online, especially since most of the affordable ones were from libraries.

So basically! If there's a fire in my house, my Kindaichi collection is one of the first things I would choose to rescue now because it would be HELL to replace orz

3) Back to the "re-thinking my stance" on this project thing... even four years ago when I "started" this project, it was always in the mission statement that we would only do the cases that hadn't been translated. When a few European members asked if I would reconsider, I was all "Nope, definitely not! I don't want to undermine TokyoPop's work!" Which I still don't, but now I feel like a callous jerk because I had no idea how hard it was for them to get their hands on this manga! I should have, considering it took me well over a year to find all the released volumes when I started reading it, but maaan. Even I wouldn't pay $50 and another $34 for shipping for one volume of a manga, no matter how good it was.

So now I actually want to make those first 17 volumes available to people online, because baaaaaw Kindaichi and the people who want to read it ;o; But how do I do this? Because I don't want to ask my few lovely translators to work on something that's already been translated. But there is also no way I am going to scan my officially translated manga now that I know how relatively "rare" they are. I could clean up the raws that I have and put in TokyoPop's translations, but that would still feel wrong orz



WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BE A KINDAICHI FAN?!?!?!?!? ;o;

Still trapped in the throes of my LOVE KINDAICHI, GODDAMMIT!!! project, I joined Mangahelpers and posted in their Kindaichi thread. Then I surfed through the forums and went "Oh! A 'staff recruitment' section!" and wrote up a little "It'd be awesome if anyone wants to help with translations! blurb. I posted it, subscribed to it, and then just kind of expected to never hear anything back.

And then.

I GOT AN E-MAIL NOTIFICATION THAT SOMEONE REPLIED TO THE THREAD!!!

I gleefully clicked on the link all excited and ready to swear my undying love to whoever was kindly offering their help (like I have to every other kind volunteer so far, ILU GUYS OKAY!!!)

"I think this is a very good forum after reading this post."


...

...

...

GIVE ME MY EXCITEMENT BACK!!!!!! ;o;

Luckily, the mods of the forums deleted the comment because I had no idea how to respond to that orz