Friday, August 31, 2007

Yes, I've been gone awhile. When I get on, I'm usually reading manga, not blogging. Last time we went to B's, I think it was last Saturday, I got the latest issue of Shojo Beat from Walmart. About 25% more happiness than Shounen Jump there. Shoujo are the girl-oriented mangas. Shounen is for guys. So is ecchi, only it's for older guys. Theoretically.

I haven't been watching any anime. I like to watch my episodes all at once, and since nobody's supposed to be on I can't even minimize, so I'm still in the middle of four different animes, including Full Metal Panic.

Starting Rex Stout. Nero Wolfe and Archie are fun. Mom says I have to survive the weekend without anything new, though.

Anyway, I've been boxing books. It seems pretty likely that we're moving to Montana in about a month. Dad will have a pretty well-paying job with Hank, and Doug can earn ten bucks an hour working for Rick. We're probably going to spend the first year or so in a rental house, where we won't be able to have any livestock. I'll have to save the money from selling the flock so that I can buy some purebreds or something. Doug says that we're going to restart our goat herd with purebred Saanen ladies if he has to use his own money to do it. Which he probably will. We're going to ask B and Darrel to take Baby and Samantha in honorable retirement, and Susan goes to the sale with the sheep. The chickens will go along too. Dad thinks that B will give me a horse and pay for riding lessons. He presumes much, and how the heck am I supposed to bring it up? "Oh, B, Dad wants to know if I can have one of your horses to take to Montana, and will you get me some riding lessons in the month before we leave and I'll be too busy packing to take them anyway?"?!! Probably. *inarticulate noise of frustration* Doug is planning how he's going to smuggle his Bionicles, which should be fun. My own contraband ought to be a bit easier. We're going to B and Darrel's tomorrow, which will give me a chance to ask stuff.

And when we get there, Dad's going to get us a YMCA mem'ship and sign us up for karate lessons. And we're going to be meeting people. Like Hank's kids. And classmates. *screams* And you are going to post a comment and say that it will be good for us, and I will tell you to shut up. Right, Phil?

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Drat. Wanted! has only gotten to four chapters, it seems, and Toraware no Minoue is about the same. So far. Maybe it's the uploader's fault. Now I get to try to find Haru wa Sakura.....

Mom left some paperbacks from the library behind. *evil grin* Right now I'm reading Bolo! by David Weber, and she can thank Mercedes Lackey's tendency to write short stories for other universes that I'm not reading the romances first. Syrupy......that's what they are.
My mental alarm clock needs work. I wanted to get up at eight-thirty, and I woke a little after seven. Oh, well. Yesterday I finished Meru Puri, now I'm reading Wanted. Remember the Dread Pirate Roberts? His name has been changed to Scar, his distinguishing mark is a Death tattoo on his chest, and our little Buttercup signed onto his ship while searching for Westley, whose death she very reasonably refuses to believe in. He was taken prisoner a long time ago by Captain Scar. Who really ought to look older, if he hasn't been replaced, right? Armelia's name even comes from a flower too.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Dad is being sadistic. It's our last day on the net, and he keeps kicking us off. Peter is struggling through math right now, and at two we have to write essays on the verse "Fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man." I'll manage all right, but Peter and Owen are going to be in pretty bad shape.
Hino Matsuri is a mangaka. She is very bad for me. Wheeeeee!!

Read up to Chapter 31 of VK. Chapter 2 of MeruPuri.
Gurk. We're getting the wall ready for Dad to patch. *groans*
The main scanlaters of Meru Puri so far is the sweet-lunacy team. So very appropriate. Their slogan is "Where the madness is honey-sweet."

Monday, August 20, 2007

Manga, movies, novels, fanfiction........Men never seem to realize that being told that he didn't mean it, or he got carried away, or he wasn't himself, DOESN"T MAKE HER FEEL ANY BETTER!!! If you're gonna kiss a girl, you can apologize. Fine. But don't. Ever. Tell. Her. That you didn't mean it. And yet, they always seem to do that. Okay, not always, or there'd never be a resolution or a denouement or anything. But it happens bloody often. And the girl always feels awful at the thought.
Finished all my books. We were cleaning out the barn loft a bit this morning.

Dad's on the phone and......yes......it sounds like it's a job! He'll be out of the house for a bit! Sounds like it's an estimate, for the moment.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Finished Clairvoyant Countess and Serpent's Shadow. Yesterday B and Darrel took us to the pool. I finally went on the long slide, because Easton wanted to and the lifeguard didn't say whether Owen could. Owen made a friend, Nick. He's pretty hyper. And we ate at Runza. Pete and I had double cheeseburgers. :p

Friday, August 17, 2007

Finished One Piece. The next non-filler episode come out on the 19th. I think that's Monday. Which means I'll be able to watch it, because the Net won't have been pulled yet.

Mom got me The Clairvoyant Countess and the Elemental Masters trilogy. Reading Countess right now. She and Doug left this morning before I got up.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Just finished OP 315. Coby and Helmeppo from when Luffy picked up Zoro are back, and Coby says that someday he's going to capture Luffy, whom he persists in calling "Luffy-san". Grandpa Garp has been training them. Man, the reactions when the crew found out that Luffy hadn't just spontaneously generated, and that furthermore his father is a revolutionary, the man most endangering the World Government, and that his father is Vice-Admiral Garp of the Marines, nick-named "Garp the Fist"--well, the faces were priceless.

Into a rant. When Mom gets home on Wednesday, the box will be permanently pulled; Internet to be used only by Mom, for school. Dad and us are all kicked off. What is wrong with him??? A spirit of mortification? And how am I supposed to survive with neither the library nor the Internet? Arrrggghh.......

Mom and Doug are leaving tomorrow at three am.
I found a website that has all three seasons of Full Metal Panic. Unfortunately, there's no point starting The Second Raid until after Doug gets back. If we get to watch before he goes, it'll be Noir or Rurouni Kenshin. The site

Too late.

If I'm very persuasive, I might get Mom to give the thirty-three, but it'll take some luck. I hope Dad gets that job with Halliburton. I understand the pay is very good, and he'd be gone for two weeks, then home for one, and he'd stiil get paid for the week at home. But in the meantime, I'm out nearly four hundred bucks. And it would have taken me a very long time to spend it all. Dad suggested that I buy more ECU. Is this in that distant and fantastic future where I am reimbursed? They owe Doug two hundred, too.

Annie, the Schultzes' collie mix, is driving me nuts. She nags me to go upstairs, my room being a safe haven, and she tries to stay next to me all the time. Furthermore, she has to go outside in the middle of the night. And she's a really nice dog, which makes it worse.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Aaaaahh. I happy. The check for the sheep came today....! Val went for $69, and the ewe lambs averaged $112.77 apiece. The total came out to $407.30, and after deductions I get $383.38. Rejoice with me. I never let myself hope for more than two hundred, and nearly four hundred!! I can definitely afford those books, at least.

In the middle of OP 110. All that's left is extraction.

Dinnertime.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Well, we finally finished 5. We're on ep. 5 of Noir, too.

Mom ought to have gotten me some books tonight, dunno if she did. She did return the others, since I've finished 'em.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Yeeessss! We finally took those of the sheep that were to be sold to the sale barn! That was Val, since Tag's replacing him, and the three ewe lambs. We haven't enough land to expand the herd, so I didn't keep any. That leaves Tag, the girls, and the two meat wethers. As soon as we get the check I can update my records.
Dad wasn't very happy to learn that we have to pay the sale barn to tag their ears. Federal regulations, instituted since we sold Johnny and the kids. That's the thing about NAIS--it's voluntary, but you have to have it. As Dad likes to say. And he's gotten another job in Firth, fixing another washing machine. Yay! Doug's groaning that he has to go with. His education is suffering, though it really depends on which education we're talking about here. He's learning about fixing things, but he's not starting Spanish or doing his math. And tomorrow we're taking the hogs to slaughter, eight months late. Another yay. And finally, if we're really lucky, we might actually finish ep 5 of RK. Hopefully I'll finish the other two while Doug's in CO this weekend again. Bleach and One Piece are nagging at my conscience.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Grrrrrrr.

So guess what Dad's done now? He's forbidden me to go to the library. At all. One of the two public places I really enjoy going to, restaurants discounted, and I'm not allowed to go anymore. Mom will have to smuggle books in. I'll be completely unable to browse. I bet bookstores would be banned too, if I went often enough for them to occur to him. The ironic part is that all he did when he was young is read. Grandma says she wishes she hadn't let him. Well, if she'd tried to prevent him from reading, I bet it wouldn't have mattered. This is annoying, and provoking, and it's not going to make a major difference.

Nearly finished episode 5 of RK. New character: Sagara Sanosuke. Every time I hear his name, I just can't help thinking of Sagara Sousuke, who is completely different, quite a bit younger, and in the habit of paying when he eats at restaurants. Sanosuke is a rebel type, although when he was a kid he was a sort of soldier, and he has a quite a grudge against the government--which Kenshin helped install. Fortunately that misunderstanding has been cleared up, mainly with the information that Kenshin got a job offer from an old military friend in the last episode, and refused. Heh. I hope Zanza/Sanosuke is here to stay. Also, if somebody needs to die, he can do it. Kenshin doesn't kill anymore, at all. Mainly because he used to so much. His sword even has a reversed blade, so that the edge is on the back of the blade. If he holds it normally, it doesn't cut. Anyway, Gohei, the problem from the first ep, hired Zanza to kill Kenshin. Zanza, not being an assassin, was very straightforward about it, especially because he'd already expressed interest to Kenshin in fighting him.
I seem to have gotten back into the habit of talking about the plot. Eh. I'm gonna go wrestle Doug into watching, and if that's unsuccessful, I'll go finish The Silver Gryphon. At least I still have Kaleidoscope for tomorrow, and on Tuesday Mom goes to work. Maybe she'll get me some more. I hope.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Just got back from B's. Finished The Black Gryphon, am partway through The White Gryphon. The series is Magewars. Watched ep 2 of Rurouni Kenshin. That is a funny series, though I don't think I'm quitting Noir. Went for a walk out to the lake; picked up some ticks. I felt kind of gleeful about going swimming, because no way could they have survived that, even if there were more than the two I found. There wasn't anything on TV. Just junk. There were two series we like on, and what I saw of the episodes wasn't very good. I think the boys may have been watching The Pink Panther, right before we left for the pool. It was the Beatrice water park. It's a pretty good pool. Two slides with a four and a half foot landing area; two diving boards; and a pretty good shallow end with a kiddie slide. Easton had lots of fun, and Owen is surprisingly good with him. Oh, yeah, and I found the latest issue of Shonen Jump at Wal-mart. The English edition is way behind: the One Piece chapters were way back on Drum Island, when Chopper joined the crew. Pity we couldn't get the last issue, though. It had some funny stuff with Zoro.
Rurouni Kenshin is really funny. He's a really good swordsman, legendary but incognito. Rurouni means wanderer, and Kenshin is his first name. I think the anime is pretty old, though. The style is old, and the sound quality is pretty awful sometimes. I bet it's older than Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet. Kenshin has red hair and purple eyes, and so does Alanna the Lioness. I refuse to consider that an anime this good borrowed something from Tamora Pierce. The other name for the series is Samurai X.
Well, I expect 3 has loaded.

Friday, August 10, 2007

So, yeah we went to town today. Shopped, and then Mom took us to the library, where we were supposed to stay while she went to her meeting at SCC. But Dad freaked out about us spending two hours or so at the library sans parental supervision, so he drove all the way to town with Doug and got us. Boy, was I mad. I haven't been to the library since before I went to Colorado. But then he took us all to Zesto for ice cream cones, which we really can't afford, but it was nice. Owen got ice cream all over his shirt, and since he got chocolate it showed up really well. And then Mom stopped at the library before coming home and got me a trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon, and Kaleidoscope by Dorothy Gilman. It's the first of two about Madame Karitska, who, I believe, is clairvoyant or psychic or whatever. If it weren't Gilman I wouldn't read it. I forget what the title of the trilogy is, but it's Valdemar before its founding, and the titles are The Black Gryphon, The White Gryphon, and The Silver Gryphon.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Standards? Huh?

Um, no, not really. But, you know, when one or two characters have no sense of humor, you can have plenty of ROFL moments, maybe more than otherwise; but when nobody has any sense of humor whatsoever, even LOL moments are rare. Interesting. Anyway, Doug wants to average an episode a night. We're only on 2. Sheesh. I think I'm gonna start Rurouni Kenshin, and then I can watch that the rest of the time.

Tomorrow we're going to town. I've done my chores in advance. This'll be the first time I've been to the library since the Colorado Springs libraries. Gonna have to stock up.......as if they'll last. Mmmm. Mercedes Lackey, hopefully Patricia C. Wrede, can't think of anything else.

Coming out this September: Full Metal Panic: Fighting Boy Meets Girl on the 11th; Making Money by Terry Pratchett on the 18th; and Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley on the 20th. You just gotta laugh at the FMP title. Which is the point, of course. I've been thinking about the liklihood of their coming out in hardback first, which would be a pain, 'cause it'd come out to something like forty-five bucks. Come to think of it, is that the English release date or the American for MM and Dragonhaven? Hmm, how many things can we think of to worry about?

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Okay, Noir is cool, but it isn't funny. We made it through the first episode without laughing once. Doug says he doesn't think we did for the first ep of FMP, but he's very forgetful. I don't think he remembers the entire episode. Anyway, it's a professional assassin who's probably in her twenties and a schoolgirl with no memories. Let's go, folks.
It seems we've given up on Season 3 for the moment. Doug wants to watch Noir next, which means it's what I'm doing next. Doug doesn't watch on his own time. Is irritating. All I know about Noir is that it's anime, has great music, and has a mystery theme. Except that that's just what Doug says: we'll see. We'll see whether I want to watch more than one ep. Actually I wanted to start Rurouni Kenshin before Peter and Owen find it. Phooey.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

I've been looking at the names in FMP. The organization Sousuke works for is Mithril: the precious metal mined in Moria. The submarine Tessa captains is the Tuatha de Danaan: a possibly Irish name for elves. Getting a bit paranoid here, there's an extremely minor character named Dr. Goldberry: Goldberry is Tom Bombadil's, uh, wife, though it doesn't seem to fit her, also from Middle Earth. And Gauron's name is very similar to Sauron. The first two are indisputable references. I won't fight for the other two, though.

Doug and I have finished Season 1 and are trying to find a reliable source for Season 3. Nobody seems to have the vids. Veoh has two or three, and they're very available in, say, Italian, but not English. Strange.

Oh, yes, and Gauron the Immortal finally died. I think he was insane. Certainly a creepy weirdo.
Somebody has been goofing around on Ebay: Assault Rock.

And this is my 100th post.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

AUUGGH!!! Sousuke beat Gauron again and he's still alive!!! People are starting to say he's like a cross between a cat and a cockroach! Grrrr.......What is he, immortal?!

Let's see. Episode 310 of One Piece, whenever I go back. Actually it's on hiatus until August 19, to give the manga a chance to get further ahead without using filler. Filler is annoying. And I'm on episode, um, 121? of Bleach. I have got to finish those. I'm probably not going to until I finish Full Metal Panic. Meh......
Okay, on ep. 15, been watching with Doug. Peter's turn is next, 'cause it's so convenient that he's on 16. We're in Sousuke's homeland, Helmajistan, tring to assassinate Gauron. Again. This makes the third time, though the first was years ago. The first time Sousuke shot him in the forehead: he says he survived 'cause he had a metal plate there. I forget why. The second time was in the Arm Slaves, and we don't yet know how he survived. He has a lovely new scar all down one side of his face now, though. Stuck with some grownups who don't want to take Sousuke's advice, even though he's fought this guy before.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

We went to Olive Creek Lake, or whatever it's called, for dinner. Doug and Owen wore camo, against, Doug said, bug bites. Well, I've got plenty of those.
Doug drove us home. I think it was his first time driving at night, and the only mishap could just have easily have happened in broad daylight, and probably would have. He came into the driveway off New Hampshire, and didn't quite manage the turn into the driveway. The Buick is now sporting a lovely scrape and a broken taillight. Dad actually swore. He didn't lose his temper or anything at Doug, though, just carefully explained that there are certain things he tries to avoid, and one of them is having to turn into the driveway. Mom said he should have seen that coming.
Which reminds me that Dad rented Shooter, and watched it several times. It went back today. I've learned a lot of the plot. :p And no, I haven't seen it myself.

Friday, August 3, 2007

Oh, okay. Fumoffu is just the goofy bits and is based on the manga. There are twelve episodes of that. Then ther'e s simple Full Metal Panic, which has plot and is serious, relatively speaking. Twenty-four eps of that. Fewer contests picking up girls and more terrorists and kidnappings--though Kaname got kidnapped twice in Fumoffu. It's just that the situations were generally resolved in an absolutely hilarious manner. There was also the time when Sousuke thought she'd been kidnapped, but she'd just gone off with someone without telling him 'cause he hadn't complimented her on her new swimsuit. :D It doesn't count.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Interesting. I'm on ep 6 now, and there doesn't seem to be very much ongoing plot yet. I mean, they like each other, Sousuke is Kaname's bodyguard for some reason, complete with a faceless command that showed up only once, and he's actually a sergeant. In the first ep there was this snapshot of him at the age of ten or so, wearing a burnoose or something, holding a submachine gun. Heh.
I need to kill the boys. They've found another absolutely hilarious anime that could almost be tailored for this family, title Full Metal Panic. High schoolers again. Sousuke is this insane military genius who is also a walking arsenal. He's designed and trained for a certain environment, specifically a battlefield, and this isn't it. He has trouble wrapping his mind around this simple fact. In the first ep, there was this girl who had a crush on him, and wrote him a really soppy love note and put it in his gym locker. He noticed that the locker had been "tampered with" and blew it up, just to be safe. There was enough left of the note for him to decipher that the writer wanted to meet him behind the gym after school. Kaname, the heroine and the girl he's supposed to be protecting, suggested that it was a love note, and he said "What's that?" She stammered and didn't really answer. Anyway, what happened was that she hid behind the gym, watching the girl, until some guys came along and started roughing the first girl up. Kaname tried to help, but it didn't go so well, and then all three guys were shot with rubber bullets, and we find out that Sousuke has spent the entire afternoon behind the gym, in a ghillie suit, with face paint, covering the girl who has a crush on him. When she realized all this, she ran off crying, cured. Kaname slugged him. She does that a lot.
Owen's going to B's until sometime tomorrow. Oh, yeah, and B and Darrel are going to buy one of the hogs, which lessens the cost of slaughter enough that we're able to send them to the butcher. Finally.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

119 is Ikkaku's history, or a bit of it, and he beats the Arrancar. Also, Renji thinks he should become a captain, to replace one of the three traitors. Ikkaku got Renji to leave him alone, though, with the information that he wants to die under Zaraki's command. Heh. Coming up is Hitsugaya.
I kept ice on the sting, and it didn't swell much. Now there's just a little red mark on my neck. I went for a walk again, blowing off steam after math, and the insect showed up again. I didn't give it a chance to land. Oh, yeah, and I saw Mr. Buhr when I went past, and he says I sound like Mom. I don't know what he based this on. For one thing, before he said that, all I'd said was "Hi." Maybe I sound more like Mom than I sound like he remembers me sounding.
I'm reading short story anthologies by Mercedes Lackey. Werehunter had some good ones, including the title story. Right now I'm on Fiddler Fair. Still haven't gotten to the title story.
Mom's got Doug and me reading Plutarch's Lives for school and summarizing what we read. Today we finished Lycurgus, and tomorrow is Numa Pompilius.