"The husband forms the head, the wife forms the body, and the two form- (one flesh)."
"Voltron."

Some days I love being me.

Especially with all the sleep deprivation I've had in the last 24 hours, which I can also attribute to a possibly religiously heretical Batman metaphor.  Two papers and some side projects consumed nearly my entire day, so tomorrow I'm either going to go back to extensive noveling or relax and mess around with Advance Wars for a bit.

And speaking of noveling...

Day Five:

 

13376 / 50000 words. 27% done!

Number of people killed: one guy, twice.  Misfortunate in that he's all but superfluous in context, so he'll probably get cut during revisions.  Such is the life of the literally immortal extra.

And somehow Nazis, a bizarre cult, and copious knives in suitcases worked their way into my backstory footnotes.  Hooray for the creative process.

Who's dat, who's dat, dog put that sog.

Yeah, that's right.  You heard it here first, or probably second considering how chatty I get around fellow NaNoers.

Day One:

 

5521 / 50000 words. 11% done!

Compared to how last year went, not too shabby an opening! I'm trying something a bit looser in terms of plotting this time around, letting me experiment with character relationships to some pleasing results. Unfortunately, this is partially due to subjugating my editor cravings, so the impending rewrite is going to be severe in some cases (SASHAAAAAAAAAAA~).

Also a little tricky in that each chapter is narrated around one particular character (and not necessarily in chronological order either), but I don't want too much overlap or it gets repetitive. They're all likable people of course, to one degree or another, which contrasts nicely to the fact that most of them do thoroughly reprehensible things for a living, in a sort of purposeful mood dissonance.

A good portion of my November is probably going to be drowned in near end semester writing projects, so wish me some measure of success that I can keep this up.

As an opening note, I'd like to state that I've signed up for NaNoWriMo again this November.  I'll probably lose again this November too, but keep that creative process spinning, man.  Still trying to work the kinks out of what I'm going to write exactly, so stay tuned for a smaller post on that .

ANYWAYS, the entry.

I do not think I have ever seen what the world looks like at 7:30 in the morning on Saturday. I honestly couldn't tell you. But this Saturday I was roused from a good sleep for just this purpose. Honestly it was pretty cold, but California soon fixed that. I boarded a bus for a museum event arranged by the history chair, a visual presentation on The Dead Sea Scrolls and Coptic Texts. It was honestly pretty interesting. Not that I wasn't making obscure in-jokes to Evangelion no one will ever understand (no, I wasn't).

Anyway, besides giving Gainax license to troll millions of television viewers, the real gains from the Dead Sea include various degrees of complete/incomplete scrolls from the Torah and related scriptures (A.K.A. the Old Testament), some of which are in surprisingly good condition, including some near fully comprised copies of some of books. Particularly interesting was the language comparison, revealing all those years of scribes copying stuff down actually went a long way for preserving texts many of them never even saw the original to. Neat stuff.

Here we broke for muffins and coffee, except that I hate coffee. What followed was a discussion of some Egyptian Coptic texts, which I remember more fondly for the fact that religious scholars are apparently crazy about writing (and occasionally doodling) things in the margins of their notes, including some thoughtful footnotes and endnotes ("Though the hand that writes this now rots in the ground, these words will live forever").

I would only like to accent this by noting that it was bookended by the afternoon before and after spent discussing (1) the serious application of super powers within limitations (or: Why Fire Extinguisher Man is Undefeated and Pyrokinesis Man Shouldn't Walk Down by the Pier), and (2) Shere Khan being the best Disney villain.  And a milkshake at Denny's.

So yeah, pretty awesome weekend.

There probably isn't a better way to spend an intermittently rainy afternoon you just walked home in than taking a hot shower and relaxing in comfortable clothes with a drink by an open window while playing a virtual golf sim badly.

This is, of course, talking about yesterday.  Not today, when California suddenly woke up and remembered it was California and snapped back into character.  Oh California, if it isn't the heat deathrays its the hatched nest of bugs by the tennis courts.

THAT

JUST

HAPPENED.

Given Arakawa's copious track record in this area, I'd sooner presume the worst and be pleasantly surprised, instead of being dashed against the jagged rocks of Oh Yeah, No, They're Dead.  Yes, "They," in the plural you guys.

Holy-

On the plus side, Submarine Bradley will return.

Apparently there's some sort of parent-teacher conference going around this week in the local elementary school district. It's tailing last week's yearbook photos, all the information is in a flier they've sent home with my child.  This is the seventh recorded message on the subject I've received in eight days, so I'm guessing it's probably important.

I have no idea who these people are, but I wish they'd stop calling me.

Man, you guys...

In other news, the Umineko no Naku Koro ni OST has 111 tracks.  One-hundred-and-eleven.  This is a lot of music.

Summer 2009

General Ed Credits Taken: 9 (3 per class)
General Ed Classes Aced: 3
Cigarette Fumes Inhaled On Campus:  4+
Number of Practicing Muslim Professors: 1
Number of "Almost Publishable" Pieces Turned Out: 2 (Paper Tigers, How to Kill a Man)
Watched the Same Episode of Def Poetry: 3

Number of Times Read and Reread Chapter 98 of FullMetal Alchemist: 4
Number of People Directly and Indirectly Inspired to Read JoJo's Bizzare Adventure: 5+ (Eric, Eric's Friend, Jim, John, Mary)
Days Spent at Comicon: 2 (Friday and Sunday)
Money Spent at Comicon: $9
Money Almost Spent at Comicon: $69~93
Japanese Games Advertised I'd Already Played: 1 (Bunny Must Die: Chelsea and the 7 Devils)
Number of Midvalleys Actively Involved in Concert Accompanied by Pirates: 1
Episodes of Giant Robo Rewatched: 5
Episodes of Giant Robo to Watch: 2
Double-Rider Kicks Witnessed: 1

Parent's Old TVs Moved Up To Room: 1
Japanese RPGs Finished: 4 (Odin Sphere, Final Fantasy IX, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2 - Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon)
New Japanese RPGs Obtained: 2 (Rogue Galaxy, Dragon Quest VIII)
Old Japanese RPGs Barely Touched: 1 (Dark Cloud 2)
Overrated Games Obtained: 1 (Okami)
Underrated Games Obtained: 1 (Mole Mania)
Number of Times Attempted to Download UC's Demo: 3
Number of TImes Attempts to Download UC's Demo Failed: 3

New Novel Premises Ascertained: 2
Total Novel Premises: 8+
Novels In Progress: 2+ 

Things Learned to Cook: 6 (French toast, fried eggs, fried eggs sandwhich, scrambled eggs, nachos, ?????)
Things Learned to Cook Directed Related With, Including, or Revolving Around Eggs: 50%
Awesome Shirts Bought: 4
Trips to the Bookstore Ruined by Terrible Inside Music: 1
Number of Times Sent in Laptop for Repairs: 2
Number of Times Laptop Returned Repaired: 1
Pages of Dune Read: 17
Words Written Backwards to Show Up in a Mirror: 3
Headshots: 7
Sacred Urns Toppled: 0

GOOD END GET.
How was your summer?

So I've been taking a side course in creative writing lately.  Partially to see if I can't brush up on my writing skill, but chiefly because my college transcript says I'm 9 general credits short for some reason.  So after dedicating a disproportionately large block of time to poetry (seriously, like five straight weeks), we move on to prose.  My field of choice.  So I'm pretty happy, except that we're swapping out groups, and I'd grown fond of my poetry guys, but I'm sure things'll be fine with someone else in the class, right?

No.  I am so entirely wrong.

So Sammie, this guy I get moored with on this literary isle, along with a couple other reasonable people; I only found out his name because I realized we hadn't been introduced.  "Hey, I didn't get your name."

"I didn't give it."

Okay.  He's not the most sociable person.  I can understand that.  One of those days, or weeks.  Or courses of natural lives.  But whatever, we're meeting again in a week to critique each others fiction pieces, and since "Brohan" here is so quick to speak up in class about his opinions on other stuff (parenting, family, parenting, his practice writing, parenting, some more parenting), perhaps he's the type of guy who just gives off a cold impression but has a lot to say on paper.  I'm sure I'll look forward to reading his piece.

If I had read it.  He didn't write it.  Or he did, in class, write exactly one copy, of what I can only presume was something vaguely resembling short fiction, to turn in directly to the teacher.  Not very welcoming, but maybe he's just one of those guys who values the feedback of the instructor over the instructed, you know?

You can just tell I'm trying so hard not to assume stuff about this guy.  Harder still when he flips over my own piece and merely writes at the bottom that I apparently have no idea how story structure is suppose to flow, and telling me I need a space somewhere.  I coolly turn to ask him if he'd care to expand his comments at all.  He really didn't.  He was trying to "Save time" it seems.  This particular strategy of saving time involved him sitting there looking particularly menacing at me while saying nothing about his piece or anyone else's for the rest of the class.  Peer review groups, yaaay.

( I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. )EDIT: Also, I just now realized Susumu Hirasawa composed both the soundtracks to Berserk and Paprika, something that would have completely forgone my notice had I not listed them under music for two conveniently subsequent entries. Atlas shudders.

So here is a rough summary of the first two chapters of Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Burned, and what transpires in them:

Everyone's favorite Daisaku is shaken from a dream on a transatlantic flight by a suspicious looking man he has never met before but who has apparently been seated next to him this whole time.  The man tries to poison Daisaku's drink while he's not looking, only to have it spilled on him by a clumsy flight attendent who invites him into the back to change his pants, by which I mean kill him and escape the plane on a jetpack because the stewardess is secretly Ginrei.  Unfortunately, this leaves Daisaku is deal with the consequences, as he is arrested after landing by Interpol on charges of conspiring with his father, Dr. Kusama, a top BF Group scientist.  HOWEVER, during the transfer to a better secured location, their automobile is halted by a Mysterious Figure.



( Everything for Big Fire! )

I'm back.

I think what I really needed was time to cool off, have a little Fish time you know what I'm saying?

Couple things have gone down while I've been gone:

• Papa (my grandfather, dad's side) passed away.  I still don't know how I feel about this.  I got his pocketwatch, so I carry it around from time to time.
• Working on a second book even though my first is only a third written and badly in need of a rewrite.  I swear, I'd better get this down.  On the plus side, I now have an idea for my NaNoWriMo 09.
• Sister went to France and back, brought back some French comics.  This gave me the opportunity to explain to her that France is actually the largest comic book consumer in the world (America is second, and Japan third I believe).  She was born on Bastille Day, so she got to celebrate it there.
• Sent in my laptop twice to get fixed, and by this point they might as well have sent me one fresh out of the box.  Works like a charm.
• Burned through Odin Sphere and Persona 4 and still managed to work in a perfect playthrough of Final Fantasy IX in about two months.  And Jak and Daxter.  I am seriously on fire.
• A friend of mine picked up a four day pass to Comicon, but apparently is going to be burned out after Thursday, offering it to me for the entire weekend.  Not sure I'll go every day either though, so I may lend it to yet another friend for a day so he can make it.

So yes, I am back.