Day in the Life of an Idiot

I was supposed to go over to a friend's house for anime viewing tonight, but I had to cancel. Mason has some kind of farewell to the Robotics seniors at Washington tonight and he asked me to play taxi. Normally, I'd ask him to make his way by train or bus, but it's a bit of a hassle to get from his work (the Science Museum) to Washington and the longer he's in transit the less of the party he can attend. At the point, I might as well stay home to fetch him when he's done, too, so he can stay longer.

Otherwise, it's been a much slower week than last week, that's for sure! And maybe this is the other reason I feel so quick to cancel tonight. I could use the down time to just stare at the wall.

We're two weeks out for our trip to Michigan and Indiana. I need to spend some time (maybe tonight, now that it's free) plotting out our course in order to hit the most roadside attractions as possible. We're also entertaining taking the "slow boat" home, too, rather than just doing our usual fast push through Illinois and Wisconsin. This will probably end up being the big road trip the family will take this year. Mason has been making noises about wanting to do a big trip to California or the East Coast with just me, as well, but we'll have to see what time and money allows.

It is Wednesday, so I should probably remark on some of the things I've been reading/consuming. I've been in a weird mood, writing-wise. I haven't wanted to write much of anything, not even fan fic, and I can't tell if I'm feeling kind of done with Bleach (*gasp* is that possible??) or if I'm just having one of my occasional fallow periods.

I've been assuming the later, which means I've been reading and viewing widely in the hopes of filling the creative well.

Manga:

I read the first five volumes of Gokusen by Morimoto Kozueko but then decided I didn't quite care enough to read to the bitter end. To be fair, the person who recommended this to me, recommended the anime, which I believe is only one season. It's hard to find as an anime online these days, since it came out in the early 2000s (I think), and doesn't seem to have remained popular enough for Crunchyroll to keep it in their catalog, as it were. The manga was fine? Reminded me, in a positive way, of all the other yakuza out of water stories I've read, including Gokushufudo: The Way of the House Husband by Oono Kousuke (funny! Highly recommend) and Hinamatsuri by Ohtake Masao.

I also read on recommendation: Loved Circus by Asada Nemui which is a yaoi about a guy who ends up working in a brothel, which sounds way smuttier than this story actually is. I mean, it is that, but it also had a surprising amount of story and I liked it quite a bit.

I also caught up on chapters of Morose Mononokean / Fukigen na Mononokean by Kiri Wazawa, which has become a favorite. I'm watching the anime, as well. It's basically yet-another-magical-boy who can see yokai, but in this one he runs into an exorcist, the master of the mononokean, who's job it is to protect the yokai. There's also some intrigue with the Underworld and the characters therein, that I find compelling. I recommend it, but not if you're tired of this troupe.


Anime:

Thanks to the regular gathering I've been watching/sampling a LOT more anime these days. Normally, I just don't make a huge amount of time for TV in my life. Not for any particularly righteous reason, but I just tend to be more likely to go to a manga site than an anime one when I'm goofing around on the internet. Probably because I do most of my manga reading on my laptop, and watching on my iPad--which I have to make a conscious effort to grab/set up.

What I've watched:

Shonen Onmyouji : Because of a continued interest in characters related to Abe no Seime, we watched an episode of this, which follows the grandson of Abe no Seime who is trying to make his own reputation in a world where his grandpa is literally the most famous wizard ever (Abe no Seime was a real historical figure, but he's become a Merlin character in a lot of anime.) The master of the Mononokean carries the surname Abeno, so one assumes that we're supposed to make the connection (apparently Ashiya is a well-known sidekick of the historical Abe no Seime, and that's the name of our hero.) Similarly, I'm very hooked on Midnight Occult Civil Servants / Mayonaka no Occult Kōmuin by Yōko Tamotsu whose main character is a distant relative of Abe no Seime, as well.

Then, because they're a series of very short episode, we also watched all of This Boy is a Professional Wizard / Kono Danchi Mahou ga Oshigoto desu, which is apparently a part of a number of indie OVA all entitles "This Boy is..."

On my own, I've been catching up on the third season of Free! Dive into the Future which I somehow missed when it first aired. I'm on episode four or something like that.  

On our anime night, we also watched the first episode of Good Omens, which I enjoyed. I'll be disappointed if they continue without me, but I am the party pooper so it may be the wages of sin, as it were.

Podcasts: 

I am also all caught up on the Amnesty arc of "The Adventure Zone," a roleplaying podcast. I also listened to the first couple episodes of "The History of English," which was recommended to me by offcntr and which I'm enjoying.  

I think that's mostly it. How's about you? Read/watch/listen to anything good?

As I said, our MangaKast came out early because most of the weeklies did, too. http://mangakast.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/seventeen-came-early/

In it, there is a lot of silliness, accidental poetry, singing, and many, many spoilers (for Bleach 589, Toriko 285, and Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist 58, which I keep saying was 54.  There are also random Yowadepa references.)  Mason cries some real tears of feels.

So, check it out, if you wish.  Mason and I continue to have far too much fun with this.  

In a couple minutes I need to get up and do the dishes. These days that means watching a little "Samurai Champaloo" while scrubbing. Hulu+ did the weirdest thing with this show, though. It started with the show dubbed, which I was suffering through, and then suddenly, at about the fourth episode, it randomly switched to subbed (which I prefer.) It was almost like a test: Still watching? Okay, you get Japanese!

The only other interesting bit of news I have to share is that I got a call for an interview for a job I applied for. Yep, I kind of need gainful employment, alas. Writing isn't paying at the moment. However, this job required zero experience, so I figured I might be qualified. It's as an itinerant library page for the Ramsey County Library system. I go in tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.

Hopefully, between this, the odd dog walking and other work I can pick up here and there, we can make ends meet. That would be lovely. Money might be the root of all evil, but you kind of need it (which is why it's evil, in part.)

In happier news, I recorded more podcast on Monday night and spent a good portion of yesterday editing it. There will be another one up on the 29th, which is apparently our publication date (since that was when the first went up.) I'll post a link here, too, if you're curious and want to check it out. I have no idea what I'm doing with these, but I'm having fun and, as far as I'm concerned, that's kind of the point. This month we talk Torah with my friend Sean Michael Murphy (you were expecting something else with a name like Sean's?) The thing is, of course, is that Torah is one my fandoms, so I have no idea if anyone else will get as geeked-out excited as Sean and I. Because: angels (and we touch on satan, too. note small 's'.)

If nothing else, I may be inspiring myself.

It's good to be back home after the long haul there and back again to visit grandma in Indiana. Yesterday, however, I did suffer from something akin to jetlag, only without the jet or the time zone changes. Drive exhaustion? I ended up bailing early from my usual Wendesday Women of Wyrdsmiths, thanks in part to a raging headache brought on by too much driving the day before, AND the fact that our coffee shop had scheduled a reading of a local author. The author was fairly dreadful. I mean, maybe not, but I'm not at all a fan of memoirs, and it's nearly impossible to write one's own words while listening to those of another. I stayed long enough to chat with Eleanor and naomikritzer before bailing.

On the drive home I did get a chance to listen to some podcasts. I got through most of the ones I'd chosen from Escape Pod as well as those from PodCastle. I ended up very much enjoying T. L. Morganfield's "Night Bird Soaring." It's actually quite epic, and the ending nearly brought a tear to my eye.

Mur Lafferty's "Boxed In" intregued me, but the ending left me wondering what happened. I should probably listen to it again, because just as it was ending my family started arguing about where we should stop for food, so I may have missed something critical. A caveat: I have a strange love for stories about prostitutes and hustlers.

On PodCastle I pulled down Patricia Russo's "The Landowners No Longer Carry Swords," which was very powerful. It's was one of those stories, like a couple of other that I pulled down, that made wonder about short stories in general. When do you stop telling the tale? What is an acceptable/satisfying ending? Though this story ends, in effect, when things really start hitting the fan, I actually found the ending very satisfying (though I could see how some might not.)

Laura Anne Gilman's "Site Fourteen" (back on Escape Pod) had a totally awesome and unique setting -- deep sea station in the twilight zone, and an ending that struck me initally as AWESOME, but then I wondered about. When I explained it to Shawn, she said it sounded like the ending of a classic horror story. She's probably right, and I'll go with my inital impression.

On Lightspeed, I listened to a bunch that were sort of out of what I might normally think I'd like, but ended up really enjoying. I don't have a lot of tolerance, usually, for tongue in cheek science fiction (mostly because it always ends up sounding to me like a rip off of Douglas Adams), BUT I ended up quite amused by "Transcript of the Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor" by Grady Hendrix. I'm seriously considering attaching a link to this podcast for any students who sign up for my Loft on-line class for the day we talk about science fiction cliches.

Adam-Troy Castro's "Her Husband's Hands" should have been silly, but it was actually one of the most moving stories I listened to on the trip.

Speaking of should have been silly that turned out cool, "How Maartje and Uppinder Terraformed Mars (Marsmen Trad.)" by Lisa Noheallandi Morton ended up reminding me a bit of Eleanor Arnason's Big Mama stories -- something that skates the line between myth and science fiction. Surprisingly good stuff.

I still have a few left on my .mp3 player to listen to and perhaps I'll remember to tune in when I'm doing various chores. I ended up listening to music this morning, however, when I was raking leaves. While we were away our big maple decided to dump all its leaves all over the front. Our nearness to University meant there was also a lot of garbage tangled up in it, so I was disgusted enough to spend almost an hour and a half this morning picking up trash and bagging leaves. I think now I can hold my head up high when we pull up to the house.

Mason is home for Intersession, and we've been pretty lazy. His big discovery on the trip was Garth Nix. He LOVED the "The Keys to the Kingdom" series (the Monday..., Tuesday... ones.)

Oh, and Shawn's Christmas present arrived last night. The Kindle FIRE!!!