0/3

All three of my math classes were on the bubble at exam time. Now I have confirmation that all three were failures.

I loathe posting this because I know it will elicit pity. I would like everyone to know that these failures are entirely my fault. I am sure that I am capable of passing these classes and it is though my own laziness that my marks suffered. I could have studied more and handed things in but I chose not to.

Now certainly some of this is related to my desire for a program change but it is not entirely to blame. I tend to rely on my natural brilliance in place of hard work when it comes to school work. Clearly I have poor study habits and perhaps a correction is in order. As it stands these failures are not complete losses, though it would prove most irksome should it cause problems with my continued education.

On a lighter note, I’ve finished watching Ouran High School Host club. Damn that theme song’s catchy! I may need to find the soundtrack somewhere. It remained rather fantastic throughout and I may need to dig through the manga soon. I’m thinking of finishing Cowboy Bebop before trying I, My, Me! Strawberry Eggs again. I just hope the next episode isn’t quite as emasculating as the last… Maybe with a big, testosterone-fused fight scene? Not likely but I’ll settle for something that doesn’t involve dead parents or other tear-jerkers of that sort.

Maybe I won’t feel so bad if I stab a few things in Diablo II before/after.

KISS KISS FALL IN LOVE! (and then die)

Since it amuses me, I’m going to go through the process by which I ended up watching five episodes of Ouran High School Host Club last night. It begins after I’d finished writing some cover letters for summer job applications. In the interest of continuing my streak of productivity, I decided to clear the rest of my university stuff out of my room. As a consequence I had room to set up my computer (except my sound system but I’ve got headphones). After much searching for an extension cord and some minor assembly I had my computer set up. Needless to say I was giddy. A little later on I thought I’d watch some I, My, Me! Strawberry Eggs. As much as I love the show, the episode I watched was so terribly emasculating that I had to follow it up with an episode of Cowboy Bebop. Not really in the mood for Bebop, I decided to continue with the theme of cross dressing that I’d started with. Hence I watched some Host Club. Two of the episodes just happened to occur in a beach/resort setting. Fan service much?

Now that I’ve got that cheery piece out of the way, I’d like to balance it out with a little cynicism. Ahem.

Suck it, Earth Day.

While I appreciate the sentiment of environmentalism, I find the modern attitude towards it rather hollow. There are many people are all too ready to boast about what they’re doing help the environment. A great deal of these people idle in the drive-through, leave their computer on 24/7 and drink bottled water (which requires a surprising amount of energy to produce). I won’t claim I don’t do any of these things but I also don’t try to pretend to be environmentally friendly. The truth is that most people are only environmentalists when it is convenient for them. They latch onto the “green shift” because it makes them feel good about themselves. I find pretentiousness of it all rather bothersome.

So in conclusion:

Ouran High School Host Club is great, Earth Day not so much.

Quick, Get The Straightjacket!

In the interest of active blogging and mild exhibitionism, I’m going to throw a bit of a poem at you. It draws a parallel between Shakespearean tragedy (where everyone dies in the end) and life (I think you get the picture here). I strongly encourage criticism, particularly the kind that speaks to how ridiculously emo you think this is. Seriously, it amuses me.

And here we are.


Stage Hand

Of late it has occurred to me
All life is Hamlet
Marriage is no end
But the reaper
(A greedy little twat, he!)
Is all too willing to steal the show
And close the curtains
Lest some squeaky cherub seek its return

Great men have seen this truth
And in it great man drown
But being nothing great myself
It holds me up
As my curious eye scans its depths

This show carries a dark mirth,
Comedy in a newer sense,
Little princes and princesses
All chasing happy endings
Blind to the crashing curtains

A play without tragedy is incomplete
No ends are tied, no questions are answered
The conclusion comes on the headsman’s axe
On the sword and the guillotine,
The plague, the poison
Exposure, famine, war and disaster
These are the real ends

Play on you princes and princesses

I’ll bring a bouquet for curtains

                                                                     Travis T

For Jessica

Since Jessica asked so nicely, I’ll provide a brief summary of Genshiken.

It’s an anime about otaku. Wow, that was brief. I suppose I could provide a summary of the characters.

Kanji Sasahara

Sasahara is a university freshman just coming to terms with being an otaku. He joins Genshiken in order to get acquainted with other otaku and learn more about the lifestyle. Much of the series focuses on his introduction to otaku culture.

Saki Kasukabe

Not an otaku herself, Saki’s presence at Genshiken is a consequence of her otaku boyfriend Kousaka. She loathes otakuness on the whole and makes an effort to get Kousaka to give up the lifestyle.

Makoto Kousaka

At first glance Kousaka doesn’t seem like much of an otaku. He is very fashionable and the clear bishounen of the series. However otakuness is deeply engraved in his personality. He is particularly skilled at video games and is often shown playing Guilty Gear X.

Harunobu Madarame

Madarame is the most hardcore otaku in Genshiken. He is argumentative and is often seen arguing heatedly with other members over some small detail in a manga or anime. Taking otakuness to a dangerous level, he even cuts back on living expenses to pay for trips to the dojinshi store.

Souichiro Tanaka

Tanaka loves cosplay and model building. He is very skilled at making costumes and designs all of those worn by the girls in the series.

Mitsunori Kugayama

Kugayuma is overweight and quiet (he has a stutter). While he is a skilled artist he lacks motivation and confidence in his abilities.

Kanako Ohno

Ohno comes to university after spending (five?) years at school in the US. She’s very quiet much of the time but comes out of her shell whenever the topic of cosplay comes up. She often tries to convince Saki to cosplay despite her adamantly voiced rejection of the idea.

That’s about it (for the first season anyways). It’s quite fantastic and comes highly recommended by me. Perhaps we’ll get together and watch it sometime this summer, yes?

What I Lack Is The Courage To Accept Myself For Who I Am

I went out to the Cheeky Monkey yesterday with Ross, Trish and Bryan to catch Wellington’s Record Store Day performance. It was a nice, relaxed acoustic affair with Kirk & Chris, quite enjoyable. While there I acquired that for which I have titled my blog (that's right, I WASN'T just being completely emo). For those who are unaware, here’s what I’m talking about.

Genshiken’s pretty up there as far as my favourite anime series go. I think it may have beat out Trigun for my #1.

So we headed back to Ross’s house & watched the first two disks. It’s only season one and it doesn’t have the OVA’s so I’m going to keep my eyes open for those.

I’ve been rather popular since I got back. Within hours of getting home I was invited to head over to Becky’s house to play Rockband. Between that & yesterday I really haven’t been home much. After getting home on Friday, much of my time was spent sleeping after exhausting myself by hauling around a lot of wood (not a euphemism). So today is really my first whole day at my house. I’m all alone because the rest of my family went out to a horse clinic. Perhaps now I’ll work on some of the things that I’ve been meaning to work on since I finished my exams.

That is for now. Stay classy my friends.

Week in Review

Much to the chagrin of my enemies, my week-long blogging absence is not due to my untimely death. Quite to the contrary, I have been rather busily alive.

The beginning is a little hazy. I do recall downloading I, My, Me! Strawberry Eggs, procrastinating and eventually producing two essays for final projects. That brings me to Friday. I think I kicked out pretty early that night. Saturday involved some Mega Man 7 (I think) and anxiously wondering when we were going to watch Repo! The Genetic Opera. I think I’ve been watching too many things with exclamation points in the middle. The movie is odd to say the least, everything I’d expect from a rock musical about the repossession of organ transplants. I returned to my room at some point, intending on sleeping until TB prodded me to work on some Infinity Rule plot. I believe I got to sleep around 6 AM.

I was awoken at 1 PM to a knocking on my door. I was then presented with the choice of heading out on my floor trip or going back to sleep. As it would happen, the trip was completely worth it. We headed down to Dooley’s for pool, which turns out to be unlimited for $5 on Sunday. Since only 8 people came, we had tons of left cash to spend on refreshments. We even went to Dairy Queen afterwards without going over the money provided to our don. On return I headed to the lounge to hang. We watched the Cat Returns, reminding us all of how absolutely bizarre it is to see inside the mind of Miyazaki.

Also, a cat is fine too.

On Monday we went to all you can eat sushi. It was quite delicious. Afterwards we headed to the mall to pick up a few things. I went to the bookstore to get a late birthday present for my dad. After picking one out, I went to find everyone before we left.

I didn’t. They left without me. Jerks!

OK, it wasn’t so bad. I just can’t believe they completely forgot about me. Now I know how Nick feels. After I got back, I proceeded to fancy myself for our last house dinner. It was quite the affair, full of end of the year nostalgia. I’m pretty sure our floor was the highlight of the night, as we managed to get permission to knight our don with a real sword. That’s why we’re awesome. We got our yearbooks around 9 and I purchased one of the snazzy t-shirts they were selling. We watched another Miyazaki movie, My Neighbour Totoro this time. I was pretty tired, I actually fell asleep during the movie. I went right to bed afterwards.

And now I’m here. I should really study for linear algebra tomorrow. Not failing would be nice. I think I’ll find Jesse and get on that. I will report back again when relevant information prevents itself. I hope you can amuse yourselves until then.

Edit: I forgot that I attended my friends' housewarming party on Friday. I left with the first wave as I'm not really the party type. It wasn't too bad but not really my thing.

Recharged!

The April 1st and you know what that means!

My bandwidth is reset! It’s download time!

I’ve already blown a quarter my 12Gb already downloading the rest of Zero’s Familiar. Now I must consider what comes next...

I finally managed to make it to lunch today, only to sleep through dinner. Most unfortunate since lunch wasn’t that great. I woke around 10:30 & spent most of my time on the computer after that.

I’ve been organizing my music collection over the past few days. In the process I have taken something of a special interest in the Gorillaz. As such I have stumbled upon a couple things that piqued my interest.

First off:

I thought these were just awesome. 2D reminds me of Kirk.

Also:

It’s the biography of the band, cartoons though they be. Needless to say I hope to acquire these sometime in the future.

That’s about it, though I feel I’m omitting something. Something about what day it is... Wednesday?

The significance is lost on me.