| (no subject) |
[Feb. 13th, 2009|01:55 am] |
My mom: I love you, Markie.
My dad: Of course you do, because I'm awesome. |
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| Otakon 2009 |
[Feb. 9th, 2009|01:45 pm] |
Preregistration is up and I grabbed a room at the Sheraton City Center (which I'm fairly sure used to be the Wyndham -- it's about 2.5 blocks from the convention center). We can cram a lot of people into that room, so think about it if you're interested... the con isn't until mid-July though = )
I also applied to run two panels -- Name That Tune, and a "Lost In Translation" panel that'd go over some things I've run into in anime that just doesn't translate well because of language differences. I don't know when I'll find out if I actually get to do them, heh. Last night I dreamt I was running Name That Tune and kept Rickrolling people. Sigh. |
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| Writer's Block: Open Arms |
[Jan. 22nd, 2009|12:56 am] |
I've gone to anime cons many times. Unsolicited hugs are, unfortunately, commonplace, and I am very against them :sweat:
I don't mind hugging friends and relatives, but random strangers? Not so much. (If I'm in costume and they ask first, that's one thing... but one time I was dressed as Emishi from GetBackers at Otakon and I literally turned a corner and found a Himiko cosplayer glomping me. It startled me quite a bit, whereas if she'd said "Hey can I hug you?" I wouldn't have really minded.) |
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| Hatsuyume |
[Jan. 4th, 2009|11:59 pm] |
In Japanese tradition, the dream on the night of January 1 is known as hatsuyume, the first dream. It's supposed to give you an idea as to your luck in the upcoming year. This was mine, as near as I can remember it.
I spent the entire dream as Togusa from Ghost in the Shell. In the beginning I was trudging through somewhat deep snow with a few other people (I'm not sure just who). It was night; the moonlight shone on the snow. A group of deer ran past us and I turned to watch them. When I turned back I saw a group of small cloaked figures with crossbows coming toward us. "Don't worry," one of the other people I was with said. "They're chasing those who hunt the deer. They won't hurt you." The figures had a pack of wolves with them, and one of the wolves came close to me, brushing against my legs and sniffing at me.
"I don't want to hurt them," I told it. "I'm just watching." Satisfied, it turned and left me alone.
I don't really remember any bridge between scenes, but next thing I recall I was in a sewer under a city. A reclusive group of super-humans lived there, and I didn't trust them; I was looking for Claire Bennet from Heroes, who had either gone to join them or been kidnapped by them -- I'm not clear on which.
A man kept appearing before me to help guide me. He was dressed in white and had long, flowing light brown hair. I didn't trust him at first. Eventually, though, he revealed a secret -- he was my father. (I was still Togusa by the way...) I didn't believe him at first, but then he showed me a photo of himself holding a toddler version of me, and I suddenly knew he was telling the truth. He abruptly vanished, and I forgot about Claire for a moment, running through the sewers trying to find him again. But it was useless. He hadn't been real in the first place -- he was just a holographic recording. The real man had died years before.
And that's all I remember. |
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| 151 to Frankfurt |
[Nov. 26th, 2008|12:27 pm] |
I was at an anime convention and went to a panel where the panelist (a voice actress, I think) spontaneously decided to just take us all on a tour of the convention. We wandered into a large room with a photo studio set up at one end and the guy running the photography asked if he could take a group picture of all of us. We all sat down on some bleachers that were suddenly there, and then for some reason someone said we should all since a song from Oliver -- the one that goes "Consider yourself at home, consider yourself part of the family..." I didn't know any lyrics beyond that, though, and was a little annoyed that I was expected to, so I decided to sing "Tomorrow" from "Annie" instead... but instead of the actual lyrics to "Tomorrow" I started belting "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, and it's shining at the end of every day...", which is actually the song that goes along with the Carousel of Progress at walt Disney World.
After this I sort of remember hanging around and chatting with people, and then there was something about aliens invading, but I was talking to a police officer who was assuring me that the aliens had all been driven off. I don't really remember this part.
Then there was a very long sequence where I was watching a movie called "151 to Frankfurt". The movie starred Jodie Foster supposedly playing a grown-up version of her character from "Taxi Driver", except that everyone called her "Clarice". I was mixing Jodie Foster roles apparently. Anyway. Clarice lived in a small motel room in the middle of nowhere. She didn't really have any friends, unless you counted the guys who worked at the convenience store nearby where she always bought food. She was in hiding, apparently, from a guy played by Al Pacino who was some kind of crime syndicate boss, and his subordinate, played by Zachary Quinto. But one day they showed up at her motel room door as if they'd always known she was there, and she wasn't all that surprised to see them.
I really don't know what they wanted with her since all I can remember after that is that she and the Zachary Quinto character -- his name was Karl; I know because in the dream I looked it up on the IMDB -- had apparently had a relationship and she'd had his son. The son had been given up for adoption and they both went to find him; when they did he was playing in a field with a big black dog and three or four other kids. I got the impression that Jodie Foster's character didn't know she'd had a son, though I have no idea how that would be possible.
And that's all I remember. |
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| Writer's Block: When the Boss is Away… |
[Nov. 12th, 2008|11:48 pm] |
Well, I work in a clothing department, wandering around folding clothes/hanging stuff up. I can't exactly goof off on the computer. What I CAN do is write dirty porn stories in my head. And I do. Often.
(I write other things in my head too, but that's the most common.) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|12:51 am] |
Wow. I spent all day with this terrible knot of nervousness in my stomach. Partly from school, but mostly... well, you can guess XD
The really weird part is that I was actually fairly wishy-washy about Obama. I voted for him because I liked him all right and I really didn't like McCain or Palin. But when I watched him give his acceptance speech a little while ago, I think I fell in love a little bit.
He's got a lot riding on him though. Let's hope he can fulfill his potential. |
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| I need to stop dreaming about shows I've only seen twice and know nothing about. |
[Oct. 23rd, 2008|12:28 pm] |
I was in love with Dr. House. Even in the dream I knew that this was probably not a great idea. I worked at the hospital with him, though I don't know what exactly it was that I did, and honestly it didn't look at all like a hospital. I never saw any patients, just a lot of offices that I wandered back and forth into a lot. House, of course, had no interest in me at all, but was still very hung up on Wilson (ha).
Somehow I found out that this guy who was some kind of hospital administrator was blackmailing House into sleeping with him. I really don't know how I knew that. Later on, House met some young guy who dressed in Jane Austen-era clothing and claimed to be some kind of lord. (...did this come from my subconscious remembering that Hugh Laurie was in "Sense and Sensibility"? I do not know.) Anyway, he fell for the lord, quit the hospital, and moved into the guy's estate, even though none of us at the hospital trusted the guy at all and thought House was making a huge mistake. I tried my best to get over him, but one day there was an article in the newspaper about the lord dying in a mass murder at his estate. The receptionist lady who discovered the article and I were both horrified, wanting to know if House was involved, but the article was written in an old-fashioned 18th-century-esque style and took us a little while to decipher. We finally realized that House had not been involved and was completely okay, which was a relief.
He ended up coming back to the hospital, and everywhere he went he dragged after him a little cat-carrier-looking cage-thing on wheels. Everyone seemed to be mildly disgusted about his pet, but I could never see into the carrier to figure out exactly what it WAS. But then, randomly, I found out it was a ferret, and I was ecstatic, because I love ferrets and find them adorable. I found House and started gushing at him about how great ferrets are, and he brightened up and was so happy to have found someone else that liked his ferret that we ended up talking about ferrets for ages. I was on air. I had finally found a way to connect with him!
...but then for some reason the dream ended on a scene where I was at a party and pretending to be Russian so I could trick some spy into giving me some information. It had nothing to do with anything that had come previously in the dream. |
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| I wish I remembered more of this dream. |
[Oct. 15th, 2008|11:30 am] |
I recall bits and pieces of the early parts. I remember my dad reading some kind of ultra-summarized version of the last Harry Potter book because he wanted to know what happened, heh. And I remember being at work and trying to find an open locker and being unable to. The break room, for some reason, was full of books, games and DVDs that employees could check out, just like a library. But the only really clear part of the dream came after that.
I was out with my roommate and we were looking at a huge display of dolls in a store. There were two different dolls that caught my eye. The first was a female doll with long brown hair that came in a sleek gold dress and held an umbrella. She came in a few different varieties and had a huge number of extra dresses you could buy. The second doll only came in one variant. It was a blond man wearing an aqua-colored vest over a white shirt with poofy sleeves. The female doll came with so many extras, and had a yellow umbrella just like mine, that initially I picked her. But then suddenly I realized that the male doll was modeled on a famous composer, and I abruptly picked him instead.
And then I WAS him.
I lived in a dirty, polluted city with no greenery. (It actually looked like a slightly lower-tech version of Midgar from Final Fantasy VII.) I had a small room with a piano in the corner and made a small living off my compositions, and would occasionally play in a bar for some extra cash. However, I usually quickly lost all my money at the racetrack. I had two close friends. One was a completely generic guy whose face I don't remember at all, and one was Kazuki from GetBackers. Kazuki was in a relationship with Juubei in the dream, but I never actually saw Juubei. I was happy for Kazuki but also a little bit jealous because he was so happy and I was so lonely. I was in love with Generic Guy (GG from now on) but he thought I loved Kazuki.
The one scene I clearly remember involved a scandalous tabloid article asserting that I had previously been married but my wife had left me after she caught me having an affair with another man. GG came to my room and showed me the article, and I was horrified. I wondered who had told the tabloid the story and why. GG couldn't believe that it was actually true. He was appalled that I would marry someone and then live a lie behind her back. "I needed money," I said.
This just made him even more angry. "It's still adultery!" he shouted. "Selling your body is still adultery!"
"That isn't what happened!" I said, but he stormed off, leaving the paper behind. I sat there alone in my tiny, messy apartment, staring at the article and remembering the truth behind the incident in question.
Except that I don't actually really remember the truth behind the incident, because around then one of the cats decided that he REALLY wanted to get up on my dresser and see what was behind my Fushigi Yuugi wallscroll and maybe knock some action figures over while he was at it, so I woke up. |
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| Ever had a dream you didn't want to wake up from? |
[Oct. 1st, 2008|01:05 pm] |
I had a completely AWESOME dream last night. Unfortunately I barely remember it now! I know that in the beginning I was trying to escape from some type of military-prison-looking thing, and for some reason there were a lot of animals there too and I could talk to them and we helped each other get out. But the awesome part was that later on I was on this Japanese mountain with some old lady and we were trying to get help from the spirits that lived on the mountain, or something like that. I guess the mountain spirits liked that I had worked with the animals to escape and helped them. I don't really remember the details except that the forest was really beautiful and that Ginko from Mushishi showed up, and that at one point I saw this figure in the forest that I knew was the god of the mountain (it looked just like the latest tengu pose from the Yama no Tamago on Gaia) and Ginko kind of nodded to him and that's when I realized he could see him too, heh.
It's hard to explain why this was a cool dream XD It just was. Trust me. |
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| Dreams, continued |
[Sep. 21st, 2008|12:23 pm] |
All right, so yesterday after my class I was very sleepy so I decided to nap on the couch for a while, and I had a very long, vivid dream that I only remember snatches of in retrospect.
I was in what was either a park or a golf course when a boy approached me. He seemed to be about 10 or so and was dressed like a "gangsta" -- lots of necklaces, really baggy/saggy pants, a gigantic t-shirt, and I think he had cornrows. He told me that he was my son. This news did not phase me nearly as much as it should have. I was a little skeptical, but not nearly as skeptical as I would have been in real life... I mean, if I gave birth to a kid when I was about 16 I really think I would have remembered it! Anyway, he told me that he was aspiring to be a rapper and that I had to listen to his rap. For some reason, the thought terrified me, and I ran away, even though there were alligators lying around that I had to jump over.
As I was driving home it started snowing hard, and it was at this point that I realized I was dreaming. I decided to fly home the rest of the way, and I just sort of phased through my seatbelt and the car's windshield, but even though I couldn't feel the snow or wind on me, I wasn't very good at flying. I kept just hopping and gliding a little ways.
I went to Trader Joe's to stock up on food for the coming storm, and found that they had completely rearranged their shelves and I couldn't find anything. They'd also discontinued most of their specialty brands and just carried name brands. All I ever reallly saw were big bags of Lay's potato chips. It was very disappointing. At some point during all this I ran into the boy again, who told me solemnly that he had to stab me if I didn't listen to his rap. I didn't want to be stabbed, but I especially didn't want to hear the rap, so I ran away again.
Later, I was at home sitting on the futon (the exact same futon I was napping on in real life) when I heard rapping from outside the window. I realized that the boy was in the parking lot, and got really scared. His rap seemed to be all about golfing and golf courses for some reason.
When I woke up, and was actually on the futon where I'd been sitting in my dream, I was really disoriented for a few minutes. There was no actual rapping going on in the parking lot, though. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 21st, 2008|12:12 pm] |
Had a dream last night where a teenage girl in a tiny village fell in love with a mysterious drifter who was passing through... but it turned out he was a vampire. He started slowly turning her into a vampire too, because she wanted to leave with him, but I don't recall the process involving any blood-drinking; it was more like some kind of magic ritual. Anyway, the last night before she was fully vampire, a huge storm rolled in, and somehow the girl ended up falling out a window and dying.
Many years later, I was living in the house that used to be hers, and the vampire -- who had aged and looked like he was in his 40's; don't ask me how a vampire can age -- wanted to buy my coffee table. Apparently it somehow had the girl's soul trapped within it. It looked exactly like the coffee table we actually have in our living room. Well, I ended up selling it to him, and rode in his car with him to help him take it into his house (I don't know why -- the thing isn't heavy at all; I could carry it myself if I wanted to.) While I was in the car he offered me a cigarette, and I accepted. I've been having dreams about smoking all summer for some reason, which baffles me because they're very vivid, but I've never so much as taken a single drag of a cigerette in my life. And in this one, I was smoking while the vampire told me the sad tale of losing his love, and then when I finished I really wanted another cigarette, so I got one.
His house looked really normal, by the way, though I was surprised at how clean it was.
Then there was a scene where I was poking around at a Goodwill store and found a really fantastic hat. The hat was purple and had a long brown feather in it -- I wish I could describe it better, but I just don't know much about hat types, haha. Anyway. It had a tag on it saying it was $14 and I couldn't decide if I should buy it or not, because I didn't really think I'd have much chance to wear it, but it was really cool.
And lastly was a scene in which I was working at Trader Joe's and a lady asked me where the "rice dust" was. I assumed it would be next to the rice, but then I couldn't find the rice at all. It was very frustrating.
...oh man, and I totally forgot to post about the even weirder dream I had yesterday while napping! I'll make a seperate entry for it, I think. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 16th, 2008|02:57 am] |
I only remember a few things about my dream last night, but here they are:
I could turn into a man at will. My male form looked exactly like Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist, and I was apparently married to his wife, too, weirdly. (I only recall seeing her very briefly in the dream though.)
At one point, this very sexy bishounen guy who was apparently some kind of god showed up and tried seducing me away from my wife. I was a little bit distracted, though, because I was so worried about finding a job. I ended up getting a part-time job at a party store, and blew up a lot of helium balloons. |
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| Youmacon! |
[Sep. 10th, 2008|10:55 pm] |
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Youmacon is sneaking up on us! This year the convention runs from October 31 - November 2 at the Hyatt hotel in Dearborn. Yes, I realize that's Halloween weekend... but if anyone wants to go, I may be able to fit you in on my futon or some floorspace, since I live about 30 minutes away now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 31st, 2008|06:50 pm] |
Just got back from a very spontaneous overnight camping trip to Ludington State Park with the family. Walked a trail, hung out in the boat, got a little sunburned, grilled some burgers... it was pretty fantastic, and the weather was perfect, though the park was so busy today it took us ages to get out.
We stopped in town at The House of Flavors, a local diner-type restaurant/ice cream parlor. While we were sitting at the table enjoying the air conditioning I heard an incredibly familiar piece of horn music play. It made me smile instantly, though I wasn't sure why at first. "What the heck IS this?" I was wondering. "Why do I instantly feel like I like it? And why is it making me think of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bigbigtruck?
Then I realized it was that "Papa Loves Mambo" song from Failed Experiments in Video Editing and I had to fight to keep from laughing out loud, since I would have had to explain it to the parents and it would have been overly long-winded. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 27th, 2008|07:50 pm] |
I found this on Solia in someone's sig. This one's for you, blak:
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| Weird dreams involving shows I don't even watch |
[Aug. 27th, 2008|12:45 pm] |
I had a REALLY long, cracked-out, strange dream last night. I will post the parts I remember as best as I can.
The beginning of the dream was very RPG-like. I was wandering the countryside with a couple of other people looking for heroes to join me in defending my castle -- rather Suikoden-like. At one point we ended up at what looked like a railyard, where a team of people was attempting to dig up some kind of blue rhinoceros-sized creature with a large toothy mouth that was mostly buried. My group hid behind a ledge to watch; we assumed the creature was dead, but once its head was entirely uncovered, its eyes opened and it looked around, which is when we realized that the other people were digging them up in order to use them against us. Unfortunately I don't really remember anything else about that part.
Later in the dream, Earth had apparently had some kind of weird apocalypse happen, because civilization was destroyed and I was living in a tiny community of shacks in a swamp, and various monsters roamed the earth. I was in the swamp for some reason with a small group of people when suddenly a giant bony arm raised itself out of the swampwater beside us. I recognized the arm as belonging to some particular creature (I called it the "Death Sloth" or something; I guess its face was kind of sloth-like but its body was mostly just bones, and it was probably about 50 feet tall.) As soon as we saw the arm we dove into the swampwater to mask our scent and then ran onto a path and started running. It was chasing us, though, and we knew we didn't have long.
However... up ahead there was a formation of juniper trees in a perfect circle, and in the center of the circle a strange light was shining. As we got closer I could see that the light was a phone booth, somehow illuminated and perfectly preserved even in the post-apocalyptic world. Well, APPARENTLY, I somehow knew this was the TARDIS, because I thought it would be brilliant if we all ran into it XD Luckily I was right. (By the way, I've seen like three episodes of Dr. Who in my life and two of them were with Nine, so I have no idea why Ten was the Doctor in my dream. I actually liked Nine better. Unpopular opinion, I know!)
Apparently one of the guys I was with actually knew the Doctor (somehow) and convinced him to take us to alternate dimensions until we found one we liked. I guess we all kinda figured that our world sucked so bad that we might as well move to a different one XD Unfortunately the guy who knew the Doctor kept running into parallel-universe versions of himself right away, including one who was evil, complete with a little evil goatee.
That's all I remember. It was weirder than it sounds, I think. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 10th, 2008|12:10 pm] |
Had an extremely long, convoluted dream last night that I don't remember very well, except that a lot of it took place at a swimming pool, and there were two scientist guys playing around in a swimming pool and one of them tried to drown the other's armadillo and when the other guy realized he snuck away on the sly and hopped a train to get out of town.
...it didn't really make sense. |
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| So I moved! |
[Aug. 5th, 2008|08:10 pm] |
We're all settled into the new apartment (mostly -- there are some boxes left to be unpacked, and I left some odds and ends, and I'm still jobless). So far I kinda like it here. We've had fun the past few days exploring the area and eating at various new restaurants. Still nervous about the jobless thing and school starting, but I think I can deal. Also, I went to Pastry House Hippo today and got some anpan, melon pan, and coffee cream pastries. Delicious!
Also: Here is a present that is mostly for Rob but anyone can get it if they want.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig -- I Do |
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