insaneneko

As someone who loves the companion animals genre (Pern, Valdemar, etc.), the summary of the Sirens Panel called "Women who Run with Wolves and Dance with Dragons" by panelist rachelmanija was fun to read.

Made me want to reread that Sherlock BBC/His Dark Materials x-over I read a while back…And look for more awesome HDM x-overs, because dæmons are so cool.

Holy crap, the response by a company to some idiot ranting about their "misleading" ads about pads is so awesome.

The space shuttle going through Los Angeles in pics and time lapse video: so cool.

Been trying to study for an exam this past month. I'm hating every minute of it but it's the logical next step in my career. Wish I wasn't gripped with the dread that I will failfailfailfailfail because it makes me really unmotivated. It means that I'm doing very little in the way of fannish things, which is why I haven't been posting much. *sighs* I still haven't watched Sherlock season 2 (only have episode 1 anyways), so I've been avoiding all fanfics. Been collecting random links, though.

Love: Dragon made of plastic cutlery!

So cute: Dog with glasses

Oldie but goodie: I'm Comic Sans, Asshole

Loved the comments: 20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes. First they pointed out that the headline had a mistake. Then people pointed out most of the "mistakes" weren't grammatical in nature. And others mentioned that language changes and some of these mistakes are outdated or stupidandarbitrary.

Interesting: Color Blindness Test

Made of win: Music video of "Hotel Nacional" by Gloria Estefan. The song is silly (chorus is "It's time for hoochie-coochie", rhymed with "Susan Lucci" at one point), it spoofs a bunch of things including the "Rocky Horror Picture Show."

I can't believe how long it's been since I've engaged with anything much online. The last bit of 2011 was spent doing stuff with friends (good) and playing games on my ipad (bad bad bad). I seemed to have missed a bit of LJ drama? I guess I'll have to actually look at Dreamwidth since there actually seems to be even more migration now. My biggest hang-up is what to use instead of LJ for storing images. My problem with the usual suspects is that they don't like any kind of explicit images. *sighs*

I hadn't watched the last 7 episodes of Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, so in the guise of testing my new Blu-ray player (finally got one! more on that later) I finally watched them all. Will write more about it in another post, but I gotta say the Isaka/Asahina one was a bit tiring. Isaka is so young! So cliched! It was only my fondness of his older self that kept me watching, sadly. Glad that the rest of the episodes were all Takano/Onodera and Yukina/Kisa. I have so much to say about the Takano/Onodera stuff, but will save it for later. The only thing I want to say is...Yokozawa animated as he berates Ritsu forever gets old really fast. It's not that I don't get where he's coming from, to a certain point, but who appointed him as Takano's minder?!? And he's so blinded by his own desires he can't see the actual dynamics of Takano and Ritsu's current relationship. GAH. Seeing Takano firmly put him in his place was that much more sweet after that. I did buy his novel...while I have little faith in the writer's (non?)talent, maybe he'll come off better when he's not harassing other people so much. Oh, and I was glad to see that we get some clues that these couples actually engage in SEX instead of just fully-clothed, not-very-passionate kissing on beds. Look, a morning after where there are naked people in bed! I can't believe they animated that!

I want the next volume of the manga, already. *sighs*

I got a copy of the new Sherlock BBC episode! I haven't watched it yet, but I'm excited! Sounds like it was quite good. XDXD

I nodded along while reading this at NPR's Monkey See blog: The Big Bad Swap: The Problem With Replaced Music

( techie stuff )

Of course I downloaded this week's episode, just to see if they were getting back to Takano/Ritsu next week. I assumed they would since I don't think they spend more than 2 consecutive episodes on the other couples. I skipped to the end and was happy to see that they were! I'm already excited for next week!

On kinda meh news, Junjou Mistake is being animated? I'm not against this, I just want more Junjou Romantica anime and this would push any third season further into the future. It's going to be episode 6 of SIH, which sucks SO HARD. More Takano/Ritsu please! I'll definitely check out JM to see if I'll like the dynamics of the relationship despite what I've heard. Also in anime news, apparently Hakkenden will be animated? I'll be happy only if the art isn't crappy and the animation doesn't totally suck. That is a series that needs pretty good special effects! If they use the same voice actors as the drama CD I'll be a little sad because I didn't think Paku Romi worked as Shino.

The newest VF chapter made me laugh. How does Asami overcome Takaba locking his door? Use a gun with a silencer! So much more efficient and less work than breaking the door down! This series has become so fluffy I laugh reading every new chapter.

I don't even know who Ryan Gosling is, but he's pretty awesome when he's Feminist Ryan Gosling.

On the way home I saw a vanity license plate that said "Gaysha." At first I thought, "Is it a (bizarre) name?" Then I wondered if it was gay + geisha. I guess I'll never know...

Personally, I wouldn't read an e-book with a soundtrack. First of all, I don't like listening to any music when reading. Second, fiddling with the thing to adjust the music to match your reading speed sounds annoying. It'll be interesting to see if it takes off.

I've had fun going around reading reactions to Robert Lipstiche's article in the NYT, "Boys and Reading: Is There Any Hope?" I first read bookshop's reaction piece so my take might have been colored by hers, but the guy rubbed me the wrong way. :P

The Junjou Romantica anime. Yes, I finally watched them all (except the Nowaki/Hiroki eps). I wish there had been a third season!! If I have the energy, I'll do a squee post...Years late, yes, but I love reading really late to the bandwagon squee posts, personally.

Richard Dreyfuss Reads the iTunes EULA, especially "Effective until."

Via wednesday_10_00: Cartoonize My Pet...I'm obsessed with getting my cat just right (and failing).

Dear Photograph, a tumblr that shows old pics in the locations they were taken now. I love the idea!

Ninja Pins...Why did I find out about these AFTER I got back from Japan. ;_;

My iPad! Along with Google Reader and the app Reeder, I can keep up with the many, many blogs I follow so much easier. Transferring my bookmarks took forever, but once it was set up? Perfect!

I also learned a couple of (new for me) tricks to make things even easier. First, the switch next to the volume controls can be set to lock the rotation of the screen! I carry the iPad around all over the place and always got irritated when the screen turned to match the iPad even when I didn't want it to. Now I can keep things horizontal even as I shift around. Second, pressing the home button twice brings up the open apps. You can hold your finger on one of the icons to make them wiggle, which allows you to close them. Or you can just select one to go to that app instead. If you swipe to the left you get ipod controls, if you swipe to the right you get more open apps.

I am also even more addicted to Sudoku now. I need to find a good Kenken app, as well as good solitaire and mah-jjong apps.

(It's sad how many "basic" things I don't know how to do. The reason screen caps are showing up in my posts recently? Because I recently learned how to do screen caps on a Mac! After...oh....at least six years owning one. ^^; I never had that big an urge to screen cap, but learning to do it now just seems a bit pathetic.)

Less happy-dance and more thought-provoking: The Media's "Ugly" Women.

Flying Off the Shelves: The Pleasures and Perils of Chasing Book Thieves is an amusing account of shoplifting in bookstores. I must admit I've never heard of the first two authors on the list of most shoplifted books...

There was a hilarious review of Anne Rice's novel about Jesus on NPR. I haven't read any of Anne Rice's novels in forever, but hearing this guy completely gush over her novel as some stroke of genius just killed me (especially when he related some of what happens in the novel--it sounded like such bad fanfic)...It all made sense once I learned that he's not a literary critic but someone looking at it from a religious context. There's a link at the bottom to an actual literary critic that thought it was awful.

From The New Yorker: Counting Carbon, a thought-provoking talk about using economics and the markets to cut emissions.

These pens are so awesome.

Love the pic of the patio in the article on a famous local architect. I want to lounge on those couches, curl up with a good book, and enjoy the breeze (that I hope the area is situated properly to catch!).

Titanic: The Sequel Trailer
Amazing mash-up of movies to create a pretty credible trailer of an action-thriller sequel to Titanic. Check out the behind the scenes version to find out where all the scenes are from.

Lime-oncello Spritzers with Mint!

(Locked) post about translating manga set in foreign lands at free_manga asks about using "common" French words such as "oui," "merci," "bonjour" etc. for a manga set in France even though the manga doesn't contain any French in katakana....I have to say, I was boggled at the question. Why bother? I think we all understand that if the setting is in some country and the characters are from that country, that they are speaking in the language of the country unless there is some clear indication that they aren't. I'm glad most of the replies said not to do it, for various reasons.

I started to but quickly gave up reading another BL novel not because it was bad, but because I couldn't follow the narrative. It's really frustrating to read a story that can't even engage me on a basic level, that just seems like words on a page that don't add up to anything. I'm glad I've come across very few such stories.

Two blogs:

Ramblings From Japan is a new blog with pics and commentary on Japan.

Hello Kitty Hell is a blog featuring the scary variety of Hello Kitty merchandise, via the husband of a Hello Kitty fanatic.

Newspaper articles:

Tomiko Van (singer of the disbanded Do as Infinity) singing in Japanese production of Broadway musical "BKLYN". Never heard of this one, but I wouldn't mind seeing her in a musical...

The second coming of Shikao Suga chronicles how his current popularity is actually his second big break. Huh. I only knew him through anime songs and had totally missed his first time around in 1997.

Ikebukuro 'maidens' say being geek is chic is another outsider looking into the world of "yaoi." These articles always seem to mish and mash and mix everything up. ^^; BTW, anyone read the manga "Tonari no 801 [Yaoi]-chan" (My neighbor Yaoi-chan) by Ajiko Kojima the article mentions? Apparently it's a blog?

Looked up "fujoshi" for the fun of it, found an amusing interview with the boyfriend of a fujoshi here.

Toranoana main store having posters stating how they swear to carve the words of the great Ms. Ohno in their hearts, raise their power of delusions each and every day and stock all items to respond to every passion of their customers made me laugh. There's something earnestly tongue in cheek about it all. ^^ Ohno is the character in Genshiken who declares "there are no girls who hate gays (are homophobic?)."

Checking out the Japanese wiki entry on boy's love, I for the first time heard the term "yaoi ana" (yaoi hole). According to the entry, the receptacles of self-lubricating ukes and mpreg fall into this category as the anus can't really do either of these things.