riari | Entries tagged with rambling

My paltry book list for October.

( Two whole books. Still cutting them tho :P )

I have started a short story compilation called The Ladies of Grace Adieu. I've only read the first story so far but I rather enjoyed it. Considering once I got the audio book of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell I really enjoyed that book too. So since Ladies... is from the same author and are short stories based in the same setting, I should enjoy it. :D I just got to get myself to read it.

And I noticed that since we've hit November 1st, Christmas advertising and items have taken off. Which is okay for the Starbucks cups. I liked their paper cups last year and I like them again this year. Which may or may not be the same design since I don't keep track.

I don't know why I'm just noticing this. Maybe because part of me wonders is it really that close to Christmas already? Dad's already asking for a Christmas list. I should make sure my Amazon wish list is up to date.

Maybe I should just go work for a cupcake shop. :>

Current Mood: groggy

This post is ging to be me rambling on the current state of anime. :P

Man, reading the Region 1 forum on AnimeonDVD (well Mania.com's AnimeonDVD forum) is getting really depressing. There are two threads about Best Buy cutting back on anime purchasing. Best Buy also recently, according to two of the forum posters who work there, have been sending back a lot of Media Blasters and Bandai Entertainment discs and a few older ADV and Funimation discs.

Which normally isn't too bad, with the except most Best Buys are no longer carrying the newest of Bandai's catalog. Media Blasters isn't doing all too well lately but they're opening a retail store. So it will be interesting too see how that goes. But at least Best Buy will still carry anime. And that should keep the R1 market going for a while longer. Apparently most anime is still being sold at brick and mortar stores. Huh.

But look at, for example, Bandai's releasing pattern. Sure, it's great for the collectors that you can get either: a) a limited edition box with all the extras and two DVDs every two-pack release, b) a 2-pack of DVDs that are cheaper than buying two singles, or c) the singles by themselves. But that makes for a lot of shelf space being used. And Best Buy bought lots of them. Now a good chunk of them are going back.

Sure, there's going to be market correction. I doubt there's very few markets that aren't going through correction right now. But it makes me worry about the health of some anime companies.

I'm worried about titles I would like to purchase later. Will they still be there later? I mean, the finishing up of Geneon releases by Funimation, Media Blaster's titles like Go Lion, and so on. Though so far I'm not too worried about Funimation's own half-set releases because they're relatively easy to find so far. And I suspect with Funimation holding half the market share, at least, their boxsets will hang around for a while. At least with online stores, I can find most of them, and for a really good price.

I guess it's a waiting game right now. And maybe not reading some of the depressing news threads. But I like trying to keep up with anime and manga news.

Current Mood: curious

Hmm, been a little bit since I updated, huh? A second Twilight Princess run through, City of Heroes, and a few websites have been eating my time...when I'm not out with friends on the weekend. ^_^

So! Regarding City of Heroes Issue 12:

Video has been released today about the Villain Epic Archtypes. I hope to actually be able to watch the video this weekend. (Curse my internets.) Supposedly there is more information being released later today. (ETA: New link now. The original site deleted the video because they don't carry game trailers. Someone messed up there.)

Massively.com's Exclusive Over Villain Epic Archtypes

Oh! And the Rikti invasion starts tomorrow and goes through the 24th. (I'm still highly amused that story-wise we know these invasions in advance.) They had to move this month's invasion a week earlier since the event code would conflict with the anniversary coding. Wonder what they're going to do besides the buying slots on servers thing? And you know, a badge. Though I don't need to buy any slots with the three I get from vet rewards and the two free ones.

As for Twilight Princess, yeah I know what y'all are thinking. Why am I playing through this game again? Especially since I just beat it a week or so ago. Well, it's just that awesome. ^_^ I really like the story and I'm finding things I missed on the first play through.

Running through it again so far has been fun and a little faster dungeon-wise since I remember parts of it. (Water dungeon was still highly annoying but better this time around.) I hope to get the Cave of Ordeals done before defeating the game this time around. But right now, I'm just before Snowpeak, and I've been hunting Poe's souls, pieces of hearts, and uh...fishing. It's kinda fun to go fishing in this game. ^_^

I do have Wind Waker pulled out and ready to play though when I finish Twilight Princess. :P

Current Mood: calm

( Write Up for Double XP Weekend. Man, what a blast. ^_^ And the commentary runs a bit long. Just to warn y'all. )

So, to summarize: Sirian went from level 39.5 to 41.1 all by soloing. Whew. The Malta are gunning for me. And I am annoyed at Maxwell Christopher, Crey Voltage Tanks, and Nosferatu...again.

Lots of fun.

Current Mood: accomplished

So, oddly, I've been cleaning my room...slowly. Very slowly. I've started on my computer first, funnily enough. Still working on that but the C:/ drive has a little more room than it did before.

I have plans to clean my desk area up before the new year. Particularly the stack of data CDs that are old and need going through before I toss them into the bucket of incineration. Since I now have a DVD writer installed, I can actually do something about them. ^_^ And, uh, copuous amounts of free time. And I have backups now of game movies on my harddrive that would have taken tons of CDs to do so. Now they're on six DVDs. ^_^

So far today I've: washed clothes, washed dishes, and vacuumed my bedroom rug (with a shop vac so it takes forever and is tiring).

And for the random thought: The funny thing of of Christmas gifts, when you were younger, shiny toys and stuff like that were the things you want. Now that I'm older a fuzzy blanket, gift cards to my favorite places, chocolate, cookies, an awesome soundtrack CD, and a plush microbe are the awesome gifts to get. ^_^

Current Mood: thankful

Today... Today looked like it was going to suck. It was a very meh morning. I had trouble waking up to the point I was sleepy for pretty much the entire work day. And I had a minor blue jean incident this morning while at work where I noticed the pants had split near the zipper. I was not amused. Luckily it was still covered by my shirt.

So, after work, I dashed off to the WalMart in Pearland/Silverlake area to buy a new pair of jeans. I actually ended up with two pairs of jeans due to the fantastic pair a size smaller that actually fit. It was a bit tight, but it fit. :> So that was great. And it wasn't entirely on the credit card, thankfully. And I got to call back a recruiter from a company I talked to during the career fair. She left a message yesterday because I forgot my cellphone was on silent. She asked me to come by on Monday at 3pm to check out the work place. So yay there too. This was due to my experience purchasing at the anime store. So I'll see how it is. It's far for me to drive (more than normal), but I'll find out monday how far it is really. Still putting my resume up on the UH career site, but its a possibility.

And I just had delicious, delicious, delicious potato soup. It's pretty much just potatoes, dumplings, spices and a milk base. Completely delicious. I don't know if its my dad's recipe or my grandma's. Best end to a day. Now if this lab due next week can get started properly...

So yeah. Not a bad end to today, so far.

Current Mood: satisfied

Yesterday

mwerevu, who was kind enough to join me, and I took a trip to the Dallas area to go to my brother's wedding. It was a good wedding and we had a lot of fun. And I got to see some relatives I haven't seen in a while and all my siblings again. I had planned to drive back the same day, but was feeling too ill to continue after fifteen minutes of driving. So after getting lost a bit, stupid roads, we stayed the night with my parents at their hotel room.

Today we got up early and drove back, which is why I posted about the Starbucks. That was late in the trip but I was trying to fall asleep many times throughout the trip due to lack of sleep. Though I did get a nice Lizzy pomegranate drink at a truck stop. And jerky. Centerville has some nice, but expensive jerky. Which I think might get more expensive soon since I think I broke a tiny piece of a tooth off on it. Which was weird. I plan to go by the dentist and see if I need a filling.

Anyways, back at home now. But haven't done any project work for class due to lack of the information we need to work on. And very tired too, but I have tomorrow to catch up on sleep. ^_^

Current Mood: tired

Didn't feel comfortable adding this stuff in the other entry I just made, so here's a new one.

Conversation that just happened between my parents in the other room:

Mom: [My Uncle] hasn't seen them since before Jennifer was born. She's what now?
Me: [incrediously] 29!
Dad: She's 29.
Me: I'm 29 dammit!
Mom: [goes on with conversation]

*headdesk*

Yeah.

In other news, my paper...goes nowhere. I have the paper that's due Tuesday over MD5 just about finished. It only needs another paragraph or some elaboration on a point, but I can't seem to get going on the massive paper of doom. Erg. Wasted today reading a blog. *sigh* Procrastinating for the lose! Though I think I have all my sources now. I even found two new articles today that was just released. And two nice guides for APA style since my guide from my I/O Psych class is MIA.

I have a few hours left of today to get moving on a few pages. And all of tomorrow to write. Lets see what happens. (I better be finished tomorrow evening. I'll be very miffed with myself otherwise.)

I did just get my delivery of the last two Lamento figures, Rai and Bardo. I was trying out a new company KidNemo that I saw recommended on the list on AnimeonDVD.com's Figure thread on the forums. The US postal delivery person just chunked the box in the back of my dad's pickup. I have no clue when it actually arrived. I didn't even know it shipped since I didn't get that e-mail. But, they were decently packed, no stuffing though, and I did get them at a discount. I'm pleased with them so far. I'll give them another try. They have the 4th CLAMP in 3D Land set available to order.

I, uh, have no place however to put said new figures. I need to find a place now. I really need to get a move on selling some books/figures/whatever. Hmm, maybe the swap meet at Yaoi-con will be successful in selling stuff.

Current Mood: working

Woo! Propane tank was filled up this morning. Dad still not happy but we have hot water again, so I'm good.

I got a nice e-mail from the ID/credit card company saying that my refund has now applied. Now I can buy my textbooks tonight for those classes that need it now, and take advantage of good online sales for the Intrusion Detection class.

And I have remembered the Scrabble game! It's in my trunk right now. ^_^

Current Mood: cookies
Current Location: work

For the last two days, our propane tank's been empty. Yesterday's shower? Not so bad, a bit on the cold side. I took it just at sundown so I'm assuming I got to use the day's accumulated warm water from the well. Today's shower? Fucking COLD!!! Brrrr. I hope the tank got filled today and it's just the water heater that needs to be re-lit. Because I'm running out of clothes and the dryer's a propane one.

So today, I had the one class I had been dreading. It's the required project management class that everybody has to take near graduation. And it is as I feared. This class is going to make me a nervous wreck by the end of the semester. Well, maybe not this class alone. But all three together just might. The last of my new classes is tomorrow, along with the one class that is two days a week. I really, really hope that new one is a bit light. I'm going to need it.

(Although, this particular class' prerequisite was consent of the instructor. That doesn't bode well for a light class.)

Though I'm envious a bit at the classes I have already taken. Our professor tonight told us how they're beefing up the earlier database classes. The department changed a junior level, required by all to even start senior level classes, Access class to SQL programming. A senior level class that was teaching SQL was turned into a continuation of the earlier SQL class then halfway through the semester it shifts into Oracle. The Tech college even managed to get a database administrator to teach this class. *envious* I was supposed to take the old Oracle class before they started changing everything. I just couldn't take it in time as I was taking the two classes before that one. *Sigh*

Now that I have confused everybody.... Guess I'll find out tomorrow about how this other class will contribute to the semester that is going to eat me alive.

Figures this is how my last semester is going to be. And dammit, my minor is still listed in the records. I got permission to drop that already. Now I have to go get that fixed before I will apply for graduation.

Current Mood: cold

You know, the last time we went to Fanime con was the year that convinced me that DDR was fun. I was reading a blogger that was really into it (hi

kosquarepelli!) and seeing the Red Octane booth next to us at that convention convinced me to get a nice dance pad and try it. Never have regretted it. Though tonight has shown me why people will gather around the person playing will do what the arrows dictate even though they're not on a dance pad. Because I was totally doing that tonight. I was in the middle of cleaning up and I really liked the song running in the background and danced along with it. Silly, yes I know. I was in a good mood and felt good even with how tired mentally I was. :P

The hip is still bothering me a little but didn't hurt at all while jumping around and following the arrows. Silly muscles.

Hereforth, there be randomness:

I managed to finally sell back my I/O Psychology book back today and got $54 for it. Better than I was expecting. Depending on how much money I have left from my loan for school books, I may push this money towards the buying of new bookcases. (Yay Ikea!)

On the way to walk-in advising this morning, I was listening to the sports radio station (790 am I think). None of the other stations caught my interest and the guys doing the talkshow was funny. And they held a dumb questions segment, where no question was too dumb to ask. What sent me into a laughing fit was how one caller asked "In professional sports, is slapping the butt of another guy against man laws?" I, of course, was amused just from this question alone. The answer: "Of course it's all right. Only if it's professional sports." But one the co-hosts started in on how said slapping should be done and how he liked it to be done. I was glad the road was mostly clear around me then because I was too distracted laughing.

Seen through

sarcastic_elf and

cleolinda, Ain't It Cool has put up promotional art for Pirates of the Carribbean 3. May 25 is going to be an awesome Friday.

Have any interest in The Last Unicorn movie? Because of the legal dispute with Granada Media, Mr. Peter Beagle is not getting paid for any profits from the movie. There is going to be a 25th Anniversary edition of the movie released to DVD on February 6th, with supposedly muuuch better quality of video than the first DVD release. (Which, btw, I heard looks like a VHS rip. I own it but haven't watched the DVD yet.) So, if you have any interest in The Last Unicorn movie, please purchase it from Colan Press at this site. The are paying Mr. Beagle over half of each DVD sold. And you can have the choice of a regular edition and an autographed edition. :> (I have plans to buy it from this site. Because of the above and the better video quality.)

cleolinda goes over the dispute more in this post.

Now, off to sleep.

Happy New Year!

(I'm posting this now, since I have a feeling I will forget later. ^_^ Even though there's fireworks going off in my area already.)

I'll file 2006 under "okay". Not bad, but not all good. I was really wondering about my classes at one point, but I did manage to pull off some decent and even some good grades. (Apparently I write papers well at the last minute.) Got lots of books. Slowed down on game purchases some. Have awesome friends. And got to visit my favorite stores often. ^_^ I can't remember some of the bad parts of this year.

Work's doing well and I was shocked by my boss's remark that he doesn't like how the customers are treating us. I thought that was normal for our customers and for retail around this time of year. Huh. I do know we hate several customers. (Now there's a new one on the dislike/hate list that I call Mr. Idiot. Remember the post I had about knowing so much about anime? Well, said customer came by yesterday and returned three discs and tried to exchange two others. Which that would have worked if they were shrinkwrapped. So we got to tell him no on those. But highly annoying after all that. I hate it when customers don't let me know that they no longer want the item they ordered AFTER I have ordered it for them. Especially on items that do not sell well at the store.) So yeah. It's improving a bit. We'll see how it goes in the new year.

So stay home, drink whatever, and enjoy the upcoming new year. Or go out and drink with a designated driver.

(Woo! It's calendar changing time!)

Current Location: home

Right now, I have all of my cats sleeping in my room now. One on my lap, one on the back of my chair, one on the stuff behind my chair, and the last one on my bed. They followed me in after I got home and just kinda ended up in my room. ^_^ As long as I can keep the grey fluffy one on the chair back to keep from trying to eat my hair again, I'm good. (No, I don't know why she likes to do this. But she does.)

So, I survived my paper. Even got it to eight pages, which was something I was struggling with last night and most of this afternoon. Luckily, it made it to eight pages after corrections and some extra sentences here and there. I ran a little late for class trying to finish it up, but it's been turned in. And I already had my last class day too. Didn't realize today's was the last, but it was. So now, it's to concentrate on reading the business law chapters I've been ignoring so I'm reading for the final. Then back to I/O psych chapters for the final on the 11th.

There's a nativity story movie. Huh.

And speaking of movies, Pirates 2 DVD comes out on December 5th. So I'm getting that one, if only to make up for having a final exam on my birthday (aka the 6th).

Still speaking of movies, I sadly have not watched the Order of the Phoenix teaser trailer. How sad is that. Must remedy this soon.

In the course of writing my paper, I think I've seen Antz ten times yesterday. I think. I just hit play again after a while in order to keep me writing on it.

I'm also pretty sure that I've missed a couple of registration days for Spring. Now the paper's done with, I'm going to go check that out.

I should visit the dollar store soon and see what Christmas deco I can get for the store. (Before we're forced to put up the sucky deco that had been in the last flood.)

And I think that's it. Just a random mix of stuff today.

Oh! Before I go, Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity is getting going, so if you are interested in donating, please go here. (I've got to remember to do this this year. After I get my card done just a little further.)

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: home

So, because I felt like updating or saying something, here's a post.

Inventory is still going on. We're almost done with the English books in the front of the store. Then the Japanese manga comes next or I decide to attack the nightmare of books in the back of the store. Even I don't know where everything is back there. Though I have a good idea where anything might be. But its looking a lot like my room bookwise. You know, if my room had a fax machine, central air, and tables. Oh, and fast internet. Definitely don't have that in my room. *grrr* Hands and arms are bothering me as well, since I had that test on Monday that had essay questions and work is handling lots and lots of books and yeah.

Want to see an interesting PS3 RPG? Check out the gameplay trailer for White Knight on 1up.com. I just watched it tonight and man, even though I don't plan to get that system any time soon, it was an awesome trailer to watch. The battle system was very interesting.

I also need to update this machine if I'm going to keep running videos and playing City of Heroes. I'm still having some weird video problems with playing videos and I know having more RAM in this machine would be helpful, but the memory slots for the new memory are a bit messed up.

And I'm totally procrastinating tonight instead of working on the job analysis project. It's due on the 2nd and I'm mainly working on the categorizing right now. I'm wondering if I can send a rough draft to my professor by tomorrow and still get feedback in time. I'm just really, really tired tonight but don't quite want to go to bed yet. Might very soon though.

Current Mood: restless

I got woken up this morning by a loud crash at 8-ish a.m. One of my cats tried to climb my desk, therefore knocking over a pile of CDs and a small figure. No damages, luckily, but I let the one cat that really wanted out out and went back to bed. Was woken up at 9 a.m. because of something, checked to see if that cat wanted back in, let in the other cat that was outside already, cleaned up the CDs on the floor, and went back to bed. I know I got up to hit snooze on the 10 a.m. alarm and to answer the phone when my dad called.

Well, at 11:15 I dragged myself out of bed and found something to nibble on to keep me awake. And I stared at the Weather Channel for 5 mins trying to wake up and figure out what time it was. I was totally out of it. It took me that long to figure out, "Hey, the store opens at noon, right? So why is it 11:20 a.m.? Is that really 11:20am or is that the Eastern time one?"

Yeah... I had to scramble to get to the store to open it and even then that was 15 mins late. *sigh* Got an unexpected artbook though today: Higuri You's Jewel. So pretty! And of course the newest volume of From Eroica With Love. ^_^

Also

sarcastic_elf! I get the 23rd off. And I have something to try selling on eBay! (Show me how? Please?)

Random linkage:

I want this figure.

Square-Enix gets more money from me. So four new RPGs announced, including a Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts II. Dammit. Going to have to buy that one too.

Ichioka's Sleep Gallery Pretty interesting really. Photos of how people tend to sleep.