I just finished Deep Secret, my latest Diana Wynne Jones, this evening. It was of course wonderful. ^.^ I don't know if any of you have read it, but the main narrating character, Rupert, started out a little bland but by the end I loved him. He's wonderfully grouchy and uptight about things, which is quite funny... but one thing I like about DWJ is that when she has a character like that, she doesn't take it to extremes. You get to see the rest of him as well, being genuinely concerned about people and occasionally doing Cool Things. Maree is just great. XD She reminds me a bit of old-Sophie sometimes, but you get the other side of her, too. Nick is the youngest main character, and he's a bit immature at times, but he also reminds me of Howl - he's a confirmed slitherer-outer, tends to get around things by smiling and agreeing a lot and then doing his own thing. He's got the ego, too. XD (Howl: I'm wounded. ;_;) The plot did its usual thing, being deceptively cheerful for a while, at least relatively speaking, while hinting of unseen depths, and then springing a much more serious conflict on you in the last third of the book. Her books are always so much fun to read, both for that and the characters. Also, there's a sci-fi/fantasy con involved, which is hilarious, especially in light of the cons I've been to. XD V. accurate but not unsympathetic, I suppose. The only thing I would complain about are the covers - whoever did the cover art got Rupert looking far too old, and the text on the front and back has very little to do with the book itself, bordering on the blatantly innacurate. Sigh. Still, you all must read it, bad cover notwithstanding, have you not already. I'm feeling the urge to go reread more DWJ now...

Speaking of her, one thing I noticed while reading the book: she and Neil Gaiman use lots of the same poems. For instance, 'Song' is in Howl and Stardust, the nursery rhyme about how many miles to Babylon? is in Deep Secret and Stardust again, and the Lyke Wake Dirge, which had previously confused me, is in Neverwhere and Deep Secret (in fact, there's a bit in Deep Secret I definitely wouldn't have gotten had I not looked up the poem and read the rest, which wasn't printed anywhere in the book). This is clearly deeply symbolic. Now, if only I could find something Neil Gaiman had done that involved Tam Lin... speaking of which, I found a lovely site with lots of different versions of the ballad. It's my new hero. XD Some of the versions get surprisingly dark, though, it's interesting.

Definitely looking forward to Furuba-layouting. Hana-chan~ I think I immediately liked her because she reminded me so much of Tomoyo. XD I mean. The the quiet one, and also the self-sacraficial friend, which are two more things which put her high only my list of Favourite Characters. I really want to think of some good words to go with, and possibly new images as well. I have a few, but nothing really good. Hmm, maybe I shall ask to borrow manga from people. I'm considering Prufrock words, but that's probably just because I'm insane. Need words. Need pictures. Need inspiration. Blah.

And I'll go with Sonomi for CCS marathoning if it's all the same with everyone else.

Wednesday, March 12, 2003, 09:32 p.m.

quick entry...

Oh, more marathons, so much fun~! Definitely want to do Hana-chan for Furuba, but what exactly's open for CCS? Because it looks like Hemlocke's doing Yukito and Nadeshiko/Fujitaka? Or am I just a very confused person? If all else fails I could always do some of the cards - maybe something interesting could be done with the Dark and the Light. Or maybe Sonomi, I rather like her. XD

I'm beginning to plot Otakon cosplay already, and I think the leading possibility at the moment, besides Sheeta from Laputa, which I've already made most of and is really simple-but-cute anyway, is Belldandy. Is vaguely funny to think of being such a meek-and-mild target of fanboy-ing, but I look enough like her (have got the waistlength brown hair, at least), and her goddess dress is pretty, and will be fun to decipher and make. The main problem is her excessive jewelry. Bracelets, anklets, rings, earrings, necklace... everything. I'll probably have to make quite a bit of it, too, at least the necklace and earrings, because they're pretty distinctive. Oh well, will be a party. I'll have to get together with my friend who's cosplaying someone from RG Veda - this Indian water-type girl, I forget her name, but it's a great cosplay for her - and we'll make jewelry for a day. Mm, I want it to be summer already.

Anyway, must eat and do lots of work for my Anthro project in the next couple hours, so I'm out. Thanks to you two for the lovely layout comments. ^_^

Saturday, March 8, 2003, 10:55 a.m.

at long last

I get to show off this layout in all its non-browser-compatable overphotoshopped glory. Whee.

I have been performing Extensive Research (by which I of course mean Google) looking for possible explainations of a rhyme in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere which I completely did not get. That is, the 'fire and fleet and candlelight' one. It turns out to be the Lyke Wake Dirge, an anonymous ballad, as in this, which would be sung when at someone's wake or when carrying a corpse to a church to be buried, I gather. Not that I am much more enlightened than I was, but a bit. Unfortunately, the only page I can find to mention the poem in the context of Neverwhere, besides the occasional 'look at this cool poem from this book I just read!' blog, appears to be in a language I cannot read but bears a passing resemblance to Czech. But the same book of ballads in which the Lyke Wake Dirge was published apparently contains Tam Lin, so now I get to read it. Hooray for Fire and Hemlockness. XD And now I realize a bit of this was in Rose Daughter too, and involves picking a rose in an enchanted garden without permission. ^^ It's a little bit sad how much fun I find this stuff.

Tweaked Serena's Inuyasha layout a bit to include the code for the marathon link-buttons, and even deciphered the fading in-and-out code enough to make the images look decent. I feel so accomplished now. XD

I had quite the adventure getting this thing up, which is why it's slightly late. First Tim's server, apparently dealing with other issues, decided to delete my ftp account, so I was sitting there for a couple days wondering why I couldn't log on to upload anything. When I finally had the clever idea of asking him, it worked fine (thanks~!), but then I had to maul at the thing for quite a while to fix a problem I found getting the side-column to line up properly with the top when there's actual text in the text-area. This is why I shouldn't skip tests, I keep telling myself. -_-; Anyway, may need to similarly fix Serena's, but we'll see. I'm glad it's finally done, is all. Ended up having to redo lots of the tables and deal with that stupid thing where leaving a linebreak in the code makes a gap in the page. How dumb. -_-; So now my code looks ugly, on top of everything else. *grumbles*

In between that, though, my soul has been sucked by Lust Over Pendle, which someone on lj told me to read, but I've been avoiding both long fics and HP fic recently, so I didn't for a while. Eventually the snow got me into it, and suffice to say I should have done so some time ago. I'd feel bad for enjoying fic which prominently features pretty-essentially good but still attractively bad-slightly disturbed-slashy-Draco, but I don't, because it's just that much fun. XD And really not as cliche and impossible as it sounds when you put it that way, anyhow. Neville's grandmother also figures prominently, which should be reason right there. Besides, there is much Britishness. Go, read, tell me if I'm delusional or not.

Anyway. *cough* About that nonexistant lit paper final draft...

Monday, March 3, 2003, 10:56 p.m.

and even more snow-boredom

Serena, your layout is done, more or less. Take a look and see if it works on your computer or if I need to tweak it. Let me know if you like the scrollbar and assorted text colors, too, because I can change those v. easily. I haven't put the Inuyasha marathon buttons on it yet, because so far as I know they aren't complete (Kohaku isn't in there yet, and that's clearly all that matters. =p) But will add before you put it up. Anyway, feel to tweak or ask me to tweak stuff. I assume you don't want to put it up till it's actually March, will talk to you about doing so then. Is good? I hope you like it. *grins*

And the rest of you, comments? Cos I've got to run...

Wednesday, February 26, 2003, 06:22 p.m.

layouting

Kohaku layout, done. Comments appreciated. Next up, Inuyasha layout for Serena. Any pic you'd like me to use in particular? Anime/manga preference? Or does it not matter at all?

Someone wants to let me know about the buttons for the other blogs, right? Thank you much.

Finished my Sheeta dress completely and made the basic clay bead for the levistone - I'm cosplaying Sheeta from Laputa, probably for next Otakon. Very simple cosplay, but fun, and she looks reasonably like me (and plus plots regarding Pazu that I won't go into now except to say, I expect the results to be sickeningly cute). While I was playing with the clay, made myself a Yuki-mouse and an onigiri with hooks in them so I can put them on keychains. Must needs take pictures for you all, they came out rather well.

Show's over; there is no meaning to life. It's always like this and I'll feel fine in a week or so but right now, one giant blah.

Saturday, February 22, 2003, 08:31 p.m.

slowly going crazy...

Eve-chama, was going to tell you last night, but pestering Kim and doing a little reseach on my own, I've decided I'd definitely like to join in the Inuyasha-ing, if that's alright. Is Kohaku still free? Cos he's cute, and would be fun to layout. XD (voices: shallow just a bit, aren't we? me: hush. He's a cool character, too. voices: cos you know /so/ much about him... me: -_-;) Kiimu also says you two are doing about three layouts apiece, so if you'd like a hand with one or two others, I'd be happy to help. Email me, ne? Or I will you, or something. Am feeling the urge to photoshop about now, anyway. Ah, the joys of procrastination. XD

Oh, I actually started coloring my nearly two months late New Year's pic. I'm such a bum. -_-; I still think it's rather cute, though. Must needs finish it during these excessive snow days.

Speaking of snow, here in the wilds of the DC suburbs, we have nearly two feet. Most impressive. But honestly, all the roads are clear, I don't see why they need to cancel school for nearly the entire week - at least through Thursday, at the moment. Bums. >_> Normally this wouldn't bother me too much, as they're beyond the point where I, as a senior, have to make up days, but it's getting in the way of the last two performances of our musical that were suppose to be last Saturday and Sunday, but keep getting pushed back. Very annoying. If they end up getting cancelled after all, as looks entirely possible at the moment, I will cry.

Just glancing at the competition, Spirited Away is so going to win the Oscar for best animated feature this year. I suppose one of the Disneys might, but probably not. Horay for Miyazaki actually getting some publicity in the US. XD Am annoyed about lack of Two Towers nominations for categories it could actually win (aka not best picture) beyond the technical ones. I mean, costume design or score or /something/. I guess I understand about the not considering sequel-soundtracks, even though I love the Two Towers soundtrack and think it has a lot more originality than quite a few of the John Williams knockoffs out there (and when you're borrowing from John Williams, that's just sad). But you'd think at least the costuming would get a mention - the only costumes that were mostly the same from the first film were some of the Fellowship, not even all. The Rohan stuff in particular deserves attention. Alas.

Going slowly insane from being stuck in this house with the same people all the time...

Wednesday, February 19, 2003, 05:23 p.m.

so what is wrong with anime style, anyway?

I was writing a response to your 'what's wrong with drawing anime?' post, but it kind of got out of hand. ^^

Yeah, I've noticed that attitude on deviantart quite a bit, too, and it definitely annoys me, as the vast majority of the people on there just do not have much in the way of discernable talent. -_-; Granted, a lot of the anime art is that way, but so are other styles, and I think anime/anthro styles tend to attract people who are new to drawing to a certain extent because there's lots of source material to work from, and it's kind of pop-culture-y (definitely agree with you, Sakura, about American comic book style - not only is it disproportionate, it often just isn't as pretty as anime. Though I'm biased. XD).

I sort of see the point of the 'drawing anime style = stupid' people, in that a lot of the time the 'ideal' for anime art kind of tends to be really cute girl/really hot bishounen, which is kind of... shallow, in a certain way. It annoys me when I see people who have more ability to draw than I'll ever have but just sort of churn out unoriginal fanservicey things. ^^ Or even people who aren't amazingly good, but who only seem to try mindless-fanservice type things. It's just not good practice. But I definitely don't think all anime is like that, or that it has to be, and the DA anti-anime contingent seems to think it all is. Which means they're stupid and you should laugh at them - always a good antidote for people who like to think they're on some sort of artistic high ground. =P

I guess my point is anime can be unoriginal and kind of pointless, and sometimes has a certain tendency to be, but it can also be creative and thought-provoking and beautiful. Much like any other style or genre of art, I guess. And the range of styles that are more or less 'anime style' is huge - there are all kinds of unique styles, often very beautiful. This person on DA and the Strings of Fate artist spring to mind immediately, though I'm sure I could come up with many more. Unfortunately, people with such a distinctive, individual style aren't terribly common among anime artists, but then the tendency to follow previous artists in your field is common in any style or medium.

On a random side note, if I could be any type of painter, I'd want to be some sort of Impressionist. Both extremes of photorealism and of abstraction seem pointless to me after some point, but I love the way Impressionist paintings can capture some motion or light with relatively few strokes that shouldn't really work but do, somehow, look exactly like the thing, and kind of moreso. Oh, and the colors. *wub* I could stare at them all day.

I definitely went through a period where I couldn't draw anything but anime, but looking back on it, that was also when even my anime was badly disproportionate and none too pretty looking. I mean, it was in some ways better than my previous work, but still really bad. ^^ There was one summer where I tried to get myself out of my habit of only drawing anime. I think I've somewhat suceeded, though people who aren't used to looking at anime style stuff sometimes say my 'other' style people look kind of anime anyway. I guess now my sort of default style is more realistic but slightly stylized. I really work better with that style, anyway, when I'm trying to make a more serious picture.

Speaking of which, a doodle ended up on one of my lit papers today of the woman from the end of The Waste Land who stretches out her hair and fiddles whisper music. ^^ I like the idea; I think I want to do something more with. There's also a messy but kind of cool looking sketch of Dream from Sandman that I want to scan, and I really want to finish my sketch of Ophelia floating on the water - I wanted to watercolor it, but (1) I'm v. inexperienced, which is to say bad, with watercolor, and I don't want to mess it up, and (2) I have no good watercolors and the paper isn't watercolor paper. Hélas. XD

Oh. I have happy new layout ideas, finally. Now I just need to find out if the pictures I want exist - pictures from the Utena movie or series of the castle crumbling, preferably, though any decent ones of the castle would do. Mmm, layouting. XD Unfortunately family's dragging me off to college interviews tomorrow and over the weekend, and then hell week for the musical will be starting, so I won't be seeing you all for a while. Wish me luck!

[edit] Tiimu has proved once again that he is the Coolest Person Alive by hosting images for me and letting me direct link them. Yay! This is the cause of a couple minor tweaks in the layout.

Thursday, February 6, 2003, 10:42 p.m.

Look, I really am alive. ^^ I just keep starting entries and never finishing them or getting around to posting, because four-day weekends make me bummish.

1. John Howe - LotR illustrator type, does many other happy drawings as well, though I do not quite like his style as well as Alan Lee's, it's a close thing - has a website with a very extensive gallery. Happy. XD It would be nice if the images were bigger, but still.

2. There's a big drawing in progress that was going to be a collective New Year's picture for everyone, but the new year caught me unawares, and since then I haven't gotten much done. Planning where everyone goes and what they'll be doing is much more fun than actually drawing it, mostly. *sigh* Though I'm just getting to the slightly-inebriated-Gandalf bit, so. XD I'm toying with the idea of doing super-late wallpaper presents for people, too because I haven't done much photoshopping in a while.

3. On the webdesign topic, a few comments of my own. I'm certainly guilty of overphotoshopping and not worrying about functionality or browser compatibility, but there are people much, much worse than me. That's one thing. Form (hopefully) follows function, or at least strikes a reasonable compromise with it. One random thing that annoys me are these side-scroll layouts people seem to be doing lately on purpose. I mean, not accidentally making your layout too wide, but having several small vertically-scrolling sections within one long side-scrolling thing. I /hate/ that. It's so very obnoxious, yet it's done by people who generally have good design. o.o Maybe it's just me. I'm also not too fond of scrollbars where the 'bar' part that moves along the side is indistinguishable from the rest; it means if you scroll, stop, then restart, you can't find where it is and have to either use arrow keys (too lazy) or guess (I miss). From a purely aesthetic standpoint, it bothers me when people have a basic grasp of image-editing tools yet fail to apply them to make something with an overall layout or organization, when you get the feeling they slapped random things together and ran filters on it till it looked good. Or, alternately, when people try making collages and fail because they either don't know enough or are too lazy to select and blend things well. Uuuugly. -_-; And it's also surprising the number of times people fail to realize a color combination or background image makes their text illegible, or just too much work to read. There are certain points at which I decide I just don't care enough to either strain at the screen or select everything all the time and give up on an otherwise decent site. It's annoying.

4. My wallpaper site keeps exceeding its bandwith. doi. -_-; I should try to find out where all these hits are coming from. I got a tracker for it, but unfortunately I can't start accessing the information until Tripod stops taking down my site for exceeding bandwith, so not a ton of use. I grumble.

5. The picture of Death I drew for Kim-chan's birthday is here. I'm proud of it. ^^ Go look.

Tuesday, February 4, 2003, 12:30 a.m.

I'm getting unsatisfied with my layout yet again - I blame this on Kim-chan and her layouts for Eve, and these two and their lovely new layouts - so I've been avoiding a full redo by tweaking the style sheets. Garamond is my new favourite thing - proof that even I can get sick of 8-point Arial. -_- I still like the pale yellow, I think, just the general simplicity is bugging me a little. At least with this layout I have the consolation of it being almost entirely everything-compatable, as it's entirely simple tables and basic stylesheets. Ah well. I do have a somewhat shorter version of the current blogpic that I shall have to give to Ki at some point.

Jae, I also somehow thought Draco had black hair for the longest time. In retrospect, I have no clue how I got that idea, but when someone first pointed out that he was blond I was very confused. ^^

This article about Wagner's Ring and LotR suddenly became much more interesting when I realized that not only is it blatantly innacurate in many ways, but that I heard the Ring cycle before I actually read LotR. o.o; Possibly before my parents read me the Hobbit, but maybe not. There are many blatant innacuracies in the article, though, most notably that they try to establish a parallel between Wagner's gods and the elves, when the elves are quite obviously not the main characters, and are more or less perfect - whereas, from what I remember, the gods are more or less the main characters, and the story centers around their downfall. And they try to make Sauron's 'involvement' with the forging of the three parallel to the gods' dependence on the giants, when Sauron wasn't actually involved. o.o; So, um, even though the parallel is mostly nonexistant because the central theme of the Ring that they claim is in LotR doesn't exist there, it's still amusing in its wrongness. That, and the comparison of Hobbit culture to American culture. XD That's just funny.

Ugh, tired. I have way too much schoolwork to do and am procrastinating more than I should. >_> But existentialism makes me happy, in a backwards sort of way.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003, 11:28 p.m.

My brother has a tendancy to go through periods where he watches the same movie over and over and then eventually gets sick of it. He did it with Star Wars (all of them, although I think he may not yet have reached saturation point with episode II), he did it with Harry Potter the first, and now he's doing it with Fellowship, because we got a DVD player for Christmas as a family and he can now watch our happy extended-edition DVD. Not that I object, because it's a good movie, but sooner or later he'll get sick of it, which is sad. I know I've seen it enough for now, at least disregarding commentaries. That, and it's very hard to concentrate on anything else when Aragorn's on screen a few yards away. ^^

I feel somewhat guilty, fangirling over him, but really - I started fangirling over him five or six years ago when I first read the books, and I have been ever since. XD And when the movie came out... well. I wasn't convinced of Viggo Mortensen's potential Aragorn-ness until I saw it, but when I did, I was convinced, and with a vengance. XD He and Gandalf (along with the elven wardrobe and general props/weaponry/costuming) easily made the movie for me. Since then, Eowyn and Gollum (and maybe Theoden, if you ignore some bits - his poems make up for a lot) alone have made it on to the list of those I consider more or less perfectly in character.

Oh dear. Now he's singing. o.o (and Frodo's busily creating his I can speak elvish one moment and not the next plot hole, but that was there on the theatrical cut too, so.) And on a somewhat unrelated note, am I the only one who's annoyed by his accent doing weird things on his very first line? I think maybe I am. ^^ Well, unless you ask my dear linguistics college friend, who will complain about all the inconsistancies in pronunciation forever if left to herself.

I get horribly nostalgic if I go looking at Fushigi Yuugi stuff, particularly because all the sites I knew and loved are dead and gone, or at least fallen into disrepair. XD Silly, I know. I was a complete and utter lurker then - the idea of posting on an ml or emailing anyone filled me with terror unimaginable - so I never participated in the fandom beyond drawing lots and lots of bad fanart that I showed to Ki-chan. XD Somehow, I think this blog is about as close to 'public' and 'into fandom' as I'm going to get, short of some lovely anime or something showing up that I want to fic, me learning to write, or fanart suddenly becoming something people actually care about. I'm sure you've noticed, but art is somehow left out quite a bit in some fandoms... Harry Potter being worse than general anime, I guess, but usually people don't go looking for art, and when they talk about 'fandom' what they usually mean is ficcers and associated hangers-on. I wonder how different this is or isn't in Japan.

Eve, glomp duly delivered to Kim-chan. She thought I had something to actually give her, and was appropriately surprised when instead I began strangling her. XD By which I of course mean hugging in a friendly manner. ^^

Hemlocke, love the idea of awards. I'd be tempted to do my own except my contact with popular culture in the form of movies, music, and such is passing at best. XD I shall have to see this Devdas movie, if it can beat LotR in certain areas. Speaking of, I finally got my Two Towers soundtrack, and oh, the wub~! The Rohan theme is my hero. I love that Norwegian fiddle thing - I thought it was some sort of strange viola at first, but anyway, it's lovely. I got my dad to pay for some of it too. He, the classical music perfectionist, surprisingly enough aproves of Howard Shore, because 'he borrows from the right things'. XD

My mom is going through a period of buying random foods the wrappers of which she cannot read at the asian market, then taking them home and waiting till one of us (usually me) eats them. In this way I have recently tried making miso without little packets of stuff and with Actual Proportions, shrimp crackers (yummy!), and some sort of spicy instant Thai soup. 's fun. XD

Hm... I'm contemplating going on IM, but the rational voice in the back of my head says wouldn't it be nifty to go to sleep before 11 for once, maybe? Given that I have to get up around 6:30 and all. So I'm out.

Monday, January 6, 2003, 10:27 p.m.

Happy new year! I actually am alive. ^^ College apps, combined with deep bumness, have kept me away from blogging. But no more! (well. not really, but we can pretend.)

Sakura, I think maybe I already said something, but thank you so much. ^.^ The poem is so cute, so... furuba. *glomps*

Speaking of presents, I have a new year's pic I'm working on, but I keep getting stuck after Ron and Hermione. -_-; We'll see. I want to get it finished, but I'm on about the third try, and it isn't working again. *glares at* Anyway. Pic of Bran from the Sevenwaters books by Juliet Marillier up here.

The new-and-improved version of this layout's pic is up now. Much less annoying, with its actual fading to black, now. Just when I think I can use photoshop decently, I do something intelligent like forget to fade an overlay layer all the way and prove myself wrong. XD Oh well... actually, I kind of want to make this image less tall now. Longer, flatter blogpics generally work better, I'm thinking. *ponders* Or I could just redesign again, but I actually like the concept and effect of this one here, it's just the tables need some work, or something. blah. I want actual hosting, I think.

For your entertainment....
sophie: Kim-chan, kawaiii~~! *whips out camcorder*
kim: =o-o= ho-hoeeeeeeeeee?
sophie: *sparkles*
kim: =^_^= I love you, too, Sophie. (In the strict cousin friend way because I'm oblivious to what your love and affection obviously actually mean.)
sophie: It's okay, I'll explain to you what I really mean when you're older (and married to that random Chinese white kid that follows you around all the time and there's no chance at all for my tragic and unrequited WUB~)
kim: Okay, that sounds good! (Especially since a million screaming fangirls will pair you off with the suave and intelligent member of the cast clique that's the perfect match for you and you two can have lots of tragic angst until you have your happy ending.)
sophie: Well, glad that's settled then! (now time to start watching out for freaky but cute British-Japanese boys who are the reincarnation of ancient sorcerers...)
kim: Yup! Why don't you come over and have some tea? (Like how that British-Japanese boy will be serving you "tea" until you finally drunkenly confess your love to him.)

Sunday, January 5, 2003, 01:00 a.m.

I've been having quite the exciting, or at least fun, last couple days. To begin with, I've seen Two Towers, and was pleased overall. There's a much longer review-type rant on my lj, but in summary form: the effects were amazing, Gollum was as well, Faramir's character was butchered and made me want to cry, Eowyn was beautiful and perfect, the overall plot-screwing was annoying and many changes were probably for the worse - of these the most egregious error was when Aragorn randomly fell off a cliff and dreamt about Arwen or something - all the actors and characterizations from the previous film continued in quality much as they were with special mad skill on the part of Aragorn and Gandalf, the Ents were cool-looking though not really as I imagined them and suffered more from attempts to inject more dramatic tension while shortening screentime than the rest, and Theoden had actual songs ('where now the horse and rider', which was in the very first trailer and I expected, and the battle-song from Minas Tirith, which I didn't) and they were wonderful. XD So while I could easily complain about stupid decisions for hours on end, I liked it and will probably still end up seeing it a great many times because people I know keep going to see it again.

On seeing it again, Faramir actually bothered me a bit less and I can sort of see how he could be redeemed and stuff. But still. >_> All my objections to the movie are driving me to reread the books, anyway. XD such a nerd am I.

That was on Wednesday - evening, not 12:00, unfortunately, but there are only so many things my parents will let me get away with - and then on Saturday I saw les Mis, which I had never seen before. I think I was sort of in a state of shock afterwards for a while. ^^ So good. *sparkles* I would be a freakish fan but have not read the book yet, so I would feel guilty. Now I want the soundtrack, but I want the Two Towers soundtrack as well, and have no money. -_- Alas.

It seems the change in layout at this particular time has caused a spike in the number of visitors here. There are a ton of variations on 'two towers faramir/quotes' hits that I've gotten recently, which is kind of funny.

And happy birthday! *cheers* Slightly late, but I've been neglecting blogland, sorry. ^^

Time to start panicing about college applications... I don't know if my teacher will get the rec for William and Mary done in time because I gave it to him late. *worries* Blarg much. Tomorrow, though, I can basically ignore the rest of the world and bake. I'm making a rather elaborate bûche de Noël (log cake, I guess), which will be fun.

Monday, December 23, 2002, 11:19 p.m.

This layout brought to you by an effort to avoid work and more than usual obsessiveness. Thank you. Though I just realized it doesn't entirely fade to black, will have to fix it and ask Ki-chan to upload it again. I feel stupid. -_- I definitely did edit both Aragorn and Legolas out, or at least into obscurity, in the Eowyn pic, which is oddly appropriate. This is my substitute for a wintery holiday layout, I guess. XD

I've been on a music-downloading kick the last couple days - specifically, lots of Jimmy Eat World because I keep hearing it in Ki-chan's car and it gets stuck in my head, and Kylie, because there's got to be some reason all of you people keep talking about her. ^^ So... random songs found, and I like, certainly - v. addictive. If only Kazaa wasn't so comparatively small, things would be much easier. Usually I can only find the most popular songs by anyone, and for anime and jrock it's worse. I'm thinking of getting a streamload account, but as my parents aren't big on paying for online things, it'd probably be a free one. Does anyone know if those are much use? Also, more music suggestions of the not-incredibly-rare variety would be appreciated. ^^

Looking at jrock stuff makes me want to go download more X Japan instead. XD Can you tell I like just about everything? Is kind of odd.

I'm wondering suddenly if I'm wrong about the not-OST Noir CD being Noir dans Blanc, because several sources have called it 'Noir Blanc dans', which, though that makes little sense and less grammar, could well have come out of Japan. -_-; But the Noir people are pretty good about not being egregiously wrong, generally, so I wonder. *shrugs* Anyone actually have the album and can speak to it?

Reading Hamlet in lit these days - where reading means reading in parts, then watching a scene or two from one of several movie versions, then reading more, then going home and rereading and taking down quotes - and I'm liking it lots. I didn't really expect to so much, because Romeo and Juliet was so very boring my freshman year, but goodness was I wrong. XD And now I want to see the Branaugh (sp?) version, as both the Olivier and Mel Gibson ones have their annoying points, mainly the cutting and rearranging in the latter case. It might pass if we weren't reading the text right before and after, but as it is, no. And I want pretty costumes and sets and things, too. Alas. Although it does do rather odd things to my mind, but it's all good.

Monday, December 16, 2002, 11:25 p.m.