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general update, IRL and shigoto
Spicer-kitty yelled at me for 10 minutes upon my return, but he did forgive me. Yesterday he spent an hour and a half in my lap, which is very rare. Normally he'll snuggle for 10 minutes or so before jumping down. I guess having a heated mattress complete with massaging-function was worth the disruption of my need to shift position to renew circulation in my legs. :B
I'm glad one of my local friends will be visiting Spicer while I'm away later this month. He does NOT like being alone. After the new year, I will officially be on the hunt for a little brother or sister for him. Minimum age one year as I don't want to deal with a rambunctious kitten, preferred breed Maine Coon mix because they are awesome and I am selfish and want another one. Indoor-only cat, as that's what they will be for me and it's easier if they've never been outside since my apartment doesn't have an airlock system handy for pet catching. I'm hoping I can find a kitty through one of the inevitable "save this cat!!" posts that crop up on my fave Portland community. If all else fails, there's always petfinder.com, which is how I found Spicer-kitty three years ago.
Oh yes, my Montana trip! It was wonderful to visit R-chan and her hubby M-kun. They've done a great job with their house, it's quite beautiful! Their two dogs and two cats loved me on sight or warmed up to me in a few hours, depending. At one point, I was sitting on the couch surrounded by furbabies. Dog on my left, dog on the floor at my feet, cat on my right, cat behind me on the back of the couch. I was very warm. :3 The company was great, but Billings the city is waaaaay too conservative for me. D= I admit, I suffered from some culture shock. It will be interesting to see if my upcoming trip back to Texas strikes me the same way.
Book club last night was officially awesome. Everyone liked this month's book, The Lost Fleet vol 1: Dauntless, by Jack Campbell, which has never happened in my 10 months of membership. I think half of the members (so about 7 or so) already are or will be reading the sequels, including me. I wanna know what happens!!
Speaking of sequels, I'm a couple days away from finishing Inda, by Sherwood Smith. I've mentioned this book before, as I read it for May's book club meeting, and now I am reading it again. I have all the sequels this time, and damn it I want to know what happens, and now I can!! I plan to dive right in to book 2, The Fox, without taking a short manga break to read a volume of Nana or the newest "Jump" issue. XD Eeeheehee!! Pardon me while I indulge in some fangirly squees of joy. X3
Ah yes, that reminds me. Thanks to its run on Cartoon Network back in 2000 and the resulting legion of anime fans it created, Gundam Wing is required viewing for anime fans. I passed on its CN run since I refuse to watch dubs, so thanks the intrawebs I am now two episodes into my (subtitled) homework. I didn't realize the animation studio was Sunrise (of Cowboy Bebop fame). I haven't noticed a single instance of CGI in this anime, even with the Gundam mecha! It's all old-school hand drawn animation, made with CELLS, even. Eeee! So nostalgic!!! XD Makes me want to light some candles, grab a huge glass of ice water, and flop on the floor with a blanket, as that was how I watched many many hours of anime back in college. *wistful expression* Unfortunately my desire to know everyone's seiyuu (voice actor) spoiled me for two character's relationship, thanks to Anime News Network's helpful inclusion of alternate character names. Grrmph. Oh well. Now if it had been a spoiler for Skip, FMA, or Bleach, I'd be pissed. But GundamW? Meh. That doesn't mean I want anyone to spoil other things about GundamW for me, though. *gives you all a stern expression*
I took advantage of Borders.com's Black Monday sale and bought some Giftmas presents, once of which was for me. The manga Butterflies, Flowers. This is an actual, real-life JOUSEI manga, meaning its target audience is grown women rather than shoujo's teenagers. It will be lovely to read about an adult romance. *another wistful expression* I still enjoy my high-school teen dramas, but I can only take so much before I want to see some adult main characters. I plan to write all about volume 1 after I read, but let me stress now that if you have any interest in reading manga for older audiences, please buy this book! If it sells well, Viz would be more inclined to bring over MORE jousei titles!!! Please buy! Please please please!!!! Let us prove that adults like manga too, not just bishounen-crazed teenagers!! (Disclaimer: Yes, I am bishounen-crazed and have bought books because of the pretty men inside, but I haven't been a teenager for quite some time, and I won't buy all the volumes for shallow stories whose only positive point is eye candy. Unless it's really AMAZING eye-candy.)
R-chan and I visited the Billings Borders store before I left, and I wrote two new first chapter reviews. I completed a third one last night before book club started. For those interested in a second round of the mini reviews, keep your eye on my blog in the next few days. ^^V
My former fun computer, Utena, has been reborn thanks to my father and delivered to my door thanks to UPS! I haven't fired her up yet, but will in a few days. It's going to be interesting integrating her back into my work flow, as I"m so used to using Usagi (my laptop) now. She was drafted into service due to Utena's meltdown back in September '08... I'm thinking Utena2 will be used for prelettering and my own comicking and art, and Usagi will become purely for fun stuff, such as email, intrawebs, audiobook/mp3 playing, anime/movie/tv watching, etc. This means I'll have THREE computers on at once. Banzaiii! I am NOT a green power-saving person. (Best to keep this hushhush, as Portland is full of those crazy environmentalist people.) I picked up a new keyboard last night before book club, as Tsuwabuki (Utena's wireless keyboard pre-crash) isn't sturdy enough to handle my highly repetitive Photoshop shortcut key jabs nor my 100+ WPM typing.
While visiting R-chan, I took advantage of their DVD collection and watched movies I've been wanting to see but not badly enough to buy or rent. First up, Pan's Labyrinth. Good movie, but OMG the GORE!! O.o Very pretty soundtrack, though. (THE GORE!!! GAHH! I am NOT a gore person, mmkay??) The third film was 300. It was so...cheesy. I know Gerard Butler and David Wenham can both act, so I blame the script and director. *sad face* I won't be watching this one again, even with all the glorious male skin. Not only the cheese level, but...they kill the horsies!! NO! YOU CAN'T KILL THE HORSIES!!!! *cries* To end on a fun note, the 2nd film was Boondock Saints, which came to my attention some time ago due to the amount of slash fanfiction it seems to inspire. After watching...I get it. Oh yes, quite. ^///^ I think I'll be buying my own copy of this one. *cough cough blush*
And finally, a brief shigoto update: Naruto 48's conversion is coming along nicely, I'll finish the first half in about a week. I do have script for Natsume 3.2, and am about 12 pages in. Script for Nana 21.1 and Skip 22 are supposed to arrive sometime in January. Prolly the same can be said for New Title 5. It's all going to hit at once, looks like! Kyaaa! =D
Oh yes, and for a bit of an ironic laugh, I lugged Anthy, the drawing tablet I use with Usagi, to Montana with the plan of doing some work on my trip. However...I forgot to take the drawing stylus. And you can't walk into Best Buy or somesuch and pick up a replacement. So I lugged Anthy all that way as sheer dead weight. OOPS. *headdesk* I won't make that mistake again!