Saturday, September 26, 2009

just a quick one.
hey folks. a quick update from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia!

Australia was a lot of fun, the weather was great and i did a whole lot of stuff. i saw the Opera house, and climbed the Harbor Bridge. i went to an aquarium and a zoo (and a wildlife center). i went to the blue mountains, and i went to the beach. twice. i also went up Sydney Tower. i also hung out with some awesome people too, so its been great fun.

From Australia i headed to singapore. Singapore is a nice city, very clean and easy to get around. not quite as beautiful or as friendly as Sydney, but it turned out to be ok. i went to the Singapore Flyer, which is a huge ferris wheel. i also went to an island called Sentosa Island, which has a beach and lotsa cool stuff to do. i rode a Luge, which is kind of a cross between a toboggan and a go-kart, and i also rode on a Segway!(sp?) which is a really weird sensation.

i got the train from singapore to Kuala Lumpur, which is where i am now. KL is an ok city, but there isnt a whole lot to do. The Hostel im staying in is pretty nice though, and i've met some really cool people there, fellow travellers like myself who have given me some good advice.
Today i went to the Petronas Towers, which are two of the tallest buildings in the world (not quite THE tallest though...) i went on the skybridge, which connects to the two towers. and tomorrow i might go up KL tower, which is higher then the sky bridge, but not as tall as the Petronas Towers themselves. it costs money to do though, whereas the Skybridge was free.

as you may have realised by now...i go up stuff a lot.

I've also seen the movies "9" and finally got to see "Up" recently too. "9" was ok, nothing really special. "Up" was fantastic, and some parts were really sad!

overall im doing pretty well, and im enjoying the trip. to be honest, i've been going through bad patches where im worrying about what im doing, and getting very anxious about my ability to do this. i dont know why, but it feels like im doing this trip all wrong, that i should be enjoying it more then i am.

it could be going a WHOLE lot worse though. i guess its because im on my own here in SE asia. not to worry! im sure there are many adventures awaiting me yet! and as i said, on the whole, its been fun. so far! ha ha!

hope everyone is doing well as we accelerate into the Fall.


till next time!

P.S: the town i was staying in in Australia was called "Manly". i thought that was an awesome name. "im getting on the Manly ferry!" "welcome to the Manly post office!" "im gonna hang out at Manly Beach" ...it sounded like a very masculine place. ha ha!
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Monday, September 7, 2009

from the Magical Kingdom to the Land Down Under...
hey folks. its been, what, a month since i updated? time for another i figure.

its been a hectic month. heck, when is it not? the final three weeks at camp were pretty busy. i had several challenge course groups, most of which were awesome-sauce, though very tiring. Salisbury University and Johns Hopkins University groups wee both two-day courses, low course one day and high course the second. very taxing on both mind and body, but tonnes of fun. those groups are always fun.

i also had a few smaller groups including a group that did the climbing wall in the rain!
and in my off time, i watched a whole bunch of different movies. i love hanging out with my friends, we had some real good times.

i've also been watching Solty Rei and Eureka 7 animes...Solty Rei was kinda predictable, but quite enjoyable, and Eureka 7 is great stuff, though Renton (the protagonist) annoys the heck out of me. i've only got through the first half of Eureka 7, so dont spoil anything for me!

i went to see "The Time Travellers Wife" at the cinema too. it was pretty good, although not a patch on the book. ;p

the last week i was at camp i was doing maintenance work, fixing up cabins, moving tents and doing the dreaded removal and cleaning of the inflatable splashdown equipment, thats been sitting in the river all summer. yeuch. but it was a good week, lots of hard graft, very fulfilling.

after a tearful goodbye (well...not really) i jetted across the country to Los Angeles to visit my brother.

now, i really dont like Los Angeles, but i gotta say, it turned out to be a good week. i spent a lot of my time with my brother and his girlfriend. we went to Disneyland for a half-day, which was fun. ^^ and we walked around Hollywood for a bit. we also did late night mini-golf and late night bowling. good times.

on the last day we went to Santa Monica beach. i actually like Santa Monica, and the beach is very nice. there is also a British themed cafe/bar/store, so we bought some english food too. ^^ yummy.

the rest of my time i spent relaxing and catching up with Shugo Chara Doki online...its getting to climax of the series! i also bought this week a couple of manga novels...FMP vol 3 novel and Eureka 7 vol 1 novel. makes a change to be reading about their adventures rather then watching them on tv, or reading the manga versions. ^^ i also got Pumpkin Scissors vol 5 manga, which is great stuff as always. ^^

so yeah, it was a good week. it was nice to see my brother again, seeing as i dont see him that often during the year. the next time i'll see him will be at christmas!

on sunday i jetted off across the Pacific ocean and i landed at Sydney, Australia this morning. yes, i was in the air so long, i lost Monday. Monday 7th September 2009 is now forever lost to me. Thanks alot International Date Line. XP (EDIT: i am well aware this post is displayed as Monday 7th, but its already Tuesday where i am...just not where the MyO servers are, yet. )

but now im in Sydney! im taking today easy to get my body clock back on track ((@_@)), but then the fun begins. i've never been to Australia before, so this should be fun!

i had a really good time in America and im really gonna miss my friends. but i got a whole new adventure lined up for me in the next few months, culminating in a visit to japan! one of my life goals!! heh heh.


well, till next time my friends. whenever (and wherever) that might be!


ciao.


P.S: lots of the americans thought i sounded australian...what are the australians gonna think i sound like (probably american...i've picked up a whole lot of their slang whilst i've been here!)


P.P.S: i definitely been in America too long...when i got picked up at the airport this morning, i went to get in the car on the right side of the car...which is the passenger side in america, but the driver side here in Oz (and at home too...sheesh!!)

;p later folks!!
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Saturday, August 8, 2009

phew
so I tried updating yesterday, but then the sketchy camp internet ate my post, and i didnt have time to rewrite it. so here i go again.

its been a while since i last updated. i mentioned in the last post that it was going to start getting hectic. and, well...it did! i was pretty much swamped with work for the last 4 weeks, and im pretty dang tired right now.


i cant remember everything i've done over the past month, but its been pretty awesome. i've been to D.C, I've been to a county fair, i've done two 22-hour shifts, i've lost a lot of sleep :q i've been all over camp doing pretty much everything. i've read a number of great books and watched a large amount of good movies. i've hung out with awesome old friends, and made some pretty sweet new ones. i've been sick, i've been frustrated, i've been elated, i've laughed, i've shouted angrily, i've sweated and i've drunk a LOT of coke. i've done the most awesome Giant Swing, several times, I've climbed trees, sometimes in the rain, i've driven busses around, and golf karts too. i've praised God with wild abandon and i've taken some quiet time to myself to play the harmonica. I've painted quite a lot of things, and recieved lots of hugs and warm fuzzies. the weather has been pretty good for the most part, but there have been a few times where i've sat in awe of the power of a thunderstorm.

Last night i went out to the end of camp Staff Dinner, which was awesome and i got a lot of pictures of all my friends, a lot of whom clean up nice! ha ha. and afterwards i went to a beach party, which was fun too.


and now Camp is over for another year. I'll be lying if i said the end wasnt welcomed by a lot of people, but im also a little bit sad too. i too feel as if this year, as awesome as it was, hasnt quite been quite as good as last year, but thats down to a number of factors, and i still enjoyed myself.

of course, Camp isnt quite over for me just yet. i still have about 3 weeks of challenge course work to do. and even after that, i still have several weeks before i go home. Australia and South East Asia beckon. im really nervous, but im sure i'll be fine.

I hope you all have had a most wonderful summer and are well rested and ready for the autumn.

the next update will probably be in L.A or in Australia, so stay posted!

Till next time!!


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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

a lull
Hey folks. just another quick update whilst i have some time and some decent internets.



its now the third week of camp, and things have been going pretty well. truth be told, we've had a few dodgy moments, we've had to let a few staff members go and a few stressful events, but overall it seems to be going good.

the first week was kinda hectic, everyone trying to get into the swing of things. the kids were mostly a great bunch (with the exception of one program, but they were off site for most of the week). i got to hang out with a group called "Leaps of Faith" all week, which is a challenge course based program. they were an awesome bunch of kids, and we had a lot of fun and got a lot out of the week. the only bad part of the week for me was that i had a head cold that week (not fun when you're trying to work a high-ropes course) and it was pretty wet and stormy weather that week, which made it difficult to do stuff outside (again, real hard when your program is mostly outside based work!) but it wasnt too bad, and as i said, i had a great week.

last week was mini camp week, so a lot of junior campers (grades k thru 4 i think) and only a few specialty camps, which meant i didnt have a whole lot of challenge course work to do. and, to be honest, the few groups i did have were terrible. ^^; but i spent a lot of time life-guarding out on the river on the camp's giant inflatable equipment (a trampoline and a huge inflatable iceberg, to name a few) and so i kept myself busy.

and this week is Special Needs week, so again, not a lot of work on the challenge course to do. im enjoying the lull though, cuz i know its gonna get crazy busy starting next week!


so yeah. life is good. the weather has gotten better, and every day brings more laughter and fun. there's a whole bunch of places one can end up during the summer, but i sure am glad im here again!

i finished my novel i was reading (i had a lot of free time!!!) and i really enjoyed it. it's called "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman, and it was a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable read. my colleague is currently reading it, and he's almost finished, and i know of two or three more people who wanna read it, so i guess i made a good choice! ha ha!

i also got given a fridge to put in the Boys Staff House, where im staying this summer. so i now have a mini fridge in my room ,whom i sharing with the Maintenance Manager, and its stocked with soda and chocolate. good times!

the rest of my days have been filled with hanging out with good friends, eating ice cream, watching Disney Movies and occasionally writing some more of my stories. oh, and i work too, apparently! ha ha!

hope all is well with y'all. i wanna know what you are all getting up to this summer! i hope you enjoy it!


till next time!

PS: I may or may not have said this before, but the sunsets here are like nowhere else in the world. i love each and every one. ^^

PPS: i think i might be experiencing a slight mecha withdrawal. :q
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Friday, June 12, 2009

greetings from Maryland. if you dont like the weather, dont worry! it'll change in about 5 minutes!
heya folks. just a quick update to let you all know that im safe and sound. its been a busy few weeks since i got here, but its been fun too.

the flight went well and getting to camp went off without a hitch. the first week was Challenge Course training, which i've done twice before, so it wasnt to difficult. we got a pretty good challenge course crew this year, and im looking forward to working with them.

the second week was Leadership Training, and this is my first year doing it... its was tough! we were going from 9am to around midnight everyday doing Leadership skills and tests, AND we had to prep and plan the basic running and programming of the summer in addition to that! lots of work, very tiring. there were some cool parts too though, like a team building day at the beginning of the week. we also too the Myers Briggs personality/temperament test. for those of you who know about it, im an INTP: Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceptor...what it basically breaks down to is that i like things to be clarified and expect people, including myself, to work to a rigid set of standards, but at the same time i hate planning things and working out the nitty gritty details...so you can see why Leadership Training week was so hard!!! ha ha!


This week just gone was regular Staff Training week...all the staff are on site now and we're ready to go! Staff Training week was long and hard too. not only did we have a lot of training sessions to go through with the regular staff, i also had to do CPR training, and the other day i had to help out clear up camp...we had had a pretty fierce storm the night before and it blew away some of our giant inflatable equipment we had anchored in the river!!! i had to set off in a boat with another Leadership team member and the Head of Maintenance staff to retrieve it and re-anchor it in the river. i've also had to sorta mentor some of the first time staff too, and thats been kinda draining.

so yeah, all in all, its been a hectic couple of weeks...and camp hasnt even officially started yet!!! the weather has been crazy too, lots of swinging between crazy hot and humid and thunderstorms. it makes it hard to do stuff round here!

its not all been hard work though...i've been hanging out with awesome people too; meeting up with some great friends from previous years, and meeting new people too. i think its gonna be a good summer!


thats all i can think of at the moment. Camp properly starts on Monday, so its gonna get even busier round here for a few weeks till everyone settles into a routine. i'll probably update again around week 3 or 4, after Special Needs week.


i hope you are all well, and i apologise for not being able to visit. Camp Internet is kinda sketchy. ^^;

take care! till next time!
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Friday, May 22, 2009

Hello and Away I Go!
heya folks. ^^

i've been kinda quiet recently, mostly cuz i've been away to Devon this week with my brother. We took a tent and his car and headed down to a tiny little town called Umberleigh for a few days.

For most of the week it was raining. -_-; and we got a little soggy. but we made the most of it. we went to a Glass Blowing Factory, to a small railway, to a couple of beach towns, to a combat vehicle collection, we played pool and bowls, we had lots of pub food. good times.

Ironically the day we came home it was very sunny and we spent a good portion of the day underground in caves. go figure.

so yeah. we had fun.

now i haveta unpack all my stuff and repack for america, which i depart for on sunday. im really looking forward to it, another long summer with good friends and good times. ^^ and afterwards im planning on travelling around certain parts of the world, which, quite frankly, is terrifying me. i've never done a trip of this magnitude on my own before, so im kinda stressing over what i need to pack and so on and so forth, but i think i'll be fine. i hope so anyway. ^^;

so this is my last post in the UK for a while i guess. the next posts will come from America (camp internet allowing...)

i dont really have much to say today. just trying to get ready. ^^


hope y'all are well.

ciao.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

You can't take the sky from me...

Heya folks. its not going to be a very long or interesting post today, but im just gonna churn a few things out. keep y'all updated.


in all actuality, nothing has happened since last i posted. life goes on as normal. go fig.

im pretty much all ready to go for my trip this year. i cant believe i leave in 2 weeks! less than that, in fact. its madness i tells ya. i still need to get insurance, but im gonna try and pick that up today.

i actually finish work this week (yay!) on saturday, and then next week my older brother and I are going camping in north devon. i hope the weather is nice. its been kinda windy and damp this week, but it was pretty nice last week, and im hoping it'll be nice next week.

our new assistant manager started work this week. apparently she used to work for one of the other stores in our area, and some of our staff who used to work for that store also before coimng to work for us have told us that she's a real bitch. lots of stories about how horrible she is. i havent seen any evidence yet (she's only worked one day so far) but it doesnt particularly bother me, since im leaving on saturday. :p

yesterday was actually a weird day at work. for starters, i turned up at work at 9am because when i wrote my shifts down, that is what i was due to work yesterday. EXCEPT, when i got to work, i found out it hd been changed and nobody had told me. i was actually meant to work the 11am shift. there was no point in me leaving and coming back for 11am as i live too far away from the store, and all the shops in the local area are closed at 9am in the morning. so i worked yesterday from 9am till 8pm. my boss said he was gonna pay me for the two extra hours...he'd better! i dont even know why we have a rota, it keeps changing all the time.

anyway, the day got a bit weirder later. my boss had another one of his "great ideas" and wanted us to pitch up a tent on display. which is fine, we have a couple of tents out on display anyway. except he wanted us to take the tent upstairs to the main floor and pitch it UPSIDE DOWN on the CEILING.

well, who are we to argue. so we took the tent he selected (Which ended up being quite a big tent) and attached it to the ceiling. i have a nasty feeling that it wont stay up there very long (and will probably take someone out when it comes down) and also, to be honest, it looks...rediculous. but hey, we had fun putting it up. sorta. XD


so yeah. weird day yesterday.

i bought a whole bunch of stuff the other day. i managed to find some choice items in Forbidden Planet. i got a couple of novels, Wolfs Rain OST, Yozakura Quartet manga vol 4 and i also picked up the "Firefly" boxset.

i had seen the movie "Serenity" first, and quite enjoyed it, and recently, whilst re-watching the movie, i decided to try and find the original series on DVD. "Firefly" was cancelled after only one season, but i dont know why...its really well done. its written well, the actors are good, the special effects are pretty good, its very funny, the music is good. i guess FOX had a reason, but it cant have been a very good one. im glad they made the movie, despite the series being cancelled. its been very interesting watching the original series, all of a sudden some of the nuances of the movie all make sense. ha ha!
i've got a couple more episodes to watch, but its definitely become one of my top five favourite sci-fi series...

its the little things that make "Firefly" a winner for me... like when the crew are in space and the camera does a fly past of the ship, or something explodes, theres no sound...because there wouldnt be in the vacuum of space. its probably worked out like that to reduce the budget on sound effects, but it kinda ends up adding to the realism.

the other part is the off-beat humour and clever writing. Joss Whedon sure knows how to write a good series. parts of this show have had me rolling with laughter. ^^

so yeah: Firefly = Good. i know my good friend Ooukumae likes this show...i can see why. ^^

well, thats it from me.. i guess it turned out to be a decent length post from me. ^^;

hopefully next time i'll have some comics or something to show y'all.

till next time!

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...

- The Ballad of Serenity
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Tuesday, May 5, 2009

hey hey hey
heya folks. so im updating again. yay!


if you read the last post, you would have read that i was going to an Anime All Nighter in London on saturday.

well, it was brilliant!! amazing. i got there at 11:30 pm and passed the time by drawing a little picture of Rei on the "manga wall" they had set up. ^^

then we went into the first movie. they gave us goody-bags (more about this later) then they started off the evening with the trailer for the new Bleach movie, and they also showed an episode of Bleach (i dont know which one) and then right after that we watched Ghost in the Shell VERSION 2.0! basically it was a digitally remastered visuals and sound and overall improved version of the original GITS movie. it looked as sweet as.

then we had a short break, and i stocked up on Red Bull and Ice Cream (which was complimentry throughout the evening). we also had a little pop quiz. the questions were fairly easy, but i got picked to answer one ("name two female protagonsits of the Tenchi Muyo series") and so i got another goody bag! ha ha!

after that we watched "Origins". if you read my review, you'd know that i wasnt particulalry impressed by this movie, but seeing it on the big screen with digital surround sound was pretty impressive. ^^

then we had another short break and then we watched the third Naruto movie. it was english dub and to be fair, kinda lame. but it got a few laughs from the audience, particualrly the bad guy "Shabadaba". everytime a character cried out his name, the audience went into hysterics.

another break and then we watched "Afro Samurai: Resurrection". another english dub, but this one was better. to be totally honest, i kinda slept through the middle of this movie, so i missed most of it, but i saw the beginning and the end fights, which were pretty impressive.


one final break (by this time its like 7am) and then into the final movie of the night: Hayao Miyazaki's "PANDA GO PANDA!" XD

"Panda" is from 1972, and you can almost consider it to be a prototype for Tortoro, the character designs and story being kinda similar. basically a panda and his child come to live a little girl called Mimiko. its kinda trippy, especially after you've been awake all night watching more serious anime. ^^; it was another english dub, not a brilliant one, but the entire thing had the audience laughing so hard, mostly cuz it was so rediculous. but it also had all that crazy Miyazaki formula to it, so it was kinda enjoyable too. a good end to the night. (if you are curious, you can watch Panda Go Panda in english on Youtube...just see how hilarious it is!)

of course, its now 9:30 am and i hadnt had any sleep, so i went home and straight to bed...i slept for about four hours, then i got up and went to Kung Fu Stick class. ^^;


so yeah. it was good. the goody bags werent bad, mostly full of sci-fi books and b-movie dvds. i also got a poster, an address book, a Voltron DVD set, a computer mouse and an Afro Samurai OST sample CD. and in the second goody bag (for answering the question correctly ^^ ) i got a Berserk T-shirt, a Vash the Stampede key-chain, and FMA manga vol 1! not too shabby huh?


so yeah. it was a very good night. ^^

anyways, im gonna show some pictures now from when i was wandering around London last week.






that last one was taken from the top of the monument. im gonna post the rest of the pictures up on Facebook, but those were some of the better ones i took. ^^


over the weekend i custom painted a Gundam model i had lying around (it was a spare i had from a Mobile Armour kit i bought a while back) and i gotta say, im pretty impressed with how it turned out.



On the right is the original Gundam Dynames. On the left is the Gundam Dynames Solar Swashbucklers Custom. (Or Dynames SS for short)

The black/red colour scheme is the official colour scheme used by the Solar Swashbucklers, a rogue pirate group in my original Gundam Fiction.





the only down side to painting this model in matt black and red colours is that the paint got on some of the joints, which has gummed them up. i have to be careful about posing the model.

but even so...



it looks effing awesome, if i do say so myself.


well, thats all i have time for today. take care y'all.



PANDA! PA-PANDA! KO-PANDA!
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Saturday, May 2, 2009

uhm...hi
i know i know i know i KNOW...


i havent updated since Easter, and there really is no excuse...just a sheer lack of motivation. ^^;; gomen.


so what's been happening in the last few weeks? well, i have both my flights and my visa sorted for my trip to america (and beyond) this summer. i just gotta sort out insurance and my innoculation jabs for the second half of my trip.

i also bought myself a new DVD player, which is good cuz my old one was on its very last legs. which, considering it was a cheap one bought in 2003 (i think) is pretty darn good. my new player also comes with a hard-disc and dvd burner for recording stuff, AND comes with a digital TV tuner so i can get Freeview Digital TV in my room now. so when they turn regular TV off, i have nothing to worry about! ^^

of course, the big con to this wonderful piece of machinery is that i spend all my time watching Digital TV and going through my old DVD collection...i havent had much sleep of late. ^^;;



my lil comic project is coming along slowly..i've published the first three parts on DeviantArt and i've penciled the next two pages but thats about it. ^^; im doing pretty crappy.

the weather here has been pretty nice, i've been heading outside and doing stuff. i took this last week off of work cuz i needed some time to myself. my parents went away to New York for about a week, so it was just me and my little brother in the house. we got along ok, and most of the chores got done, so no big.

this week i had to go the airport TWICE to pick up some people...i travelled up on Monday to pick up Megan and Megan (dont worry about it), who are two of my friends from Camp. they're visiting England for the week, and i've hung out with them a couple of times.

The other person i had to pick up was my older brother, who i picked up on wednesday. he's home from L.A for a few weeks, and its nice to see him again.

i went to see Origins: Wolverine this week...a pretty good movie, but it was hyped up WAY too much...i was vaguely disappointed with it. it was pretty neat and all, a good prologue to the X-men trilogy, but lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. i blame the hype mostly, and i also blame the fact i had read the original "Origins" comic before...there's a few ties between the comic and the movie, but mostly the film does its own thing...canonical to the movie trilogy, not to the comics i guess. ^^;


yesterday was a real nice day, so i travelled up to London's Docklands and walked from there into the City centre. The docklands starts in Greenwich, i began in the heart of the docklands which is the Isle of Dogs. Its mostly a big financial centre, and just off the Isle is Canary Wharf, home to London's tallest building; 1 Canada Square. from there into the city, if you stick close to the river, its mostly regenerated land, full of houses and apartments. a few areas are a little bit rough, but a whole lot of it are luxury apartment buildings right on the river. and the biggest thing you notice is how quiet it is... its hard to believe you are in the capital city of england. since it was a nice day there were a lot of people relaxing on their balconies or in the parks, soaking up sun. i haveta admit, i was a wee bit envious of those rich bourgeious bastards living in their expensive apartments by the river... *Achem*

eventually i got to Tower Bridge, and from there i made my way to the Monumet, which, as the name suggests, is a Monument. more specifically its a coloumn which you can climb up the inside of and get some pretty neat views of the city from the top (although its a heckuva lot of steps!!!). its a monument to the Great Fire Of London, which began on a small street near the monument, but went on to obliterate a large section of London in 1666.

after that i made my way to a Docklands Light Railway station and headed home.

so yeah. a good afternoon out.


today im going to a party at my friend and colleague Dave's house. its going to be a Barbeque hopefully. of course, if i dont manage to find his address, i guess i wont be going. ^^;

the other big thing i have planned for tonight is in Picadilly Circus. As part of London's SCI-FI weekend, they're doing a whole bunch of films and talks and stuff. tonight they're doing an ALL NIGHT ANIME FILM FEST. it starts at midnight and finishes in the wee hours of the morning. one of the films they are showing is a remastered version of the original Ghost In The Shell. good stuff. ^^ i managed to get one of the last tickets...unfortunatly its right at the front of the movie theatre, so im going to be all @_@ tonight...y'know, on top of trying to stay awake. :q

but it should be fun! *fingers crossed*


anyways, thats all from me today. hopefully it wont be forever before i update again, so it wont be as insanely long post. ^^;;

take care!
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Sunday, April 12, 2009

"He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"

please can someone out there recognise that quote...




anyhoo, heya folks and Happy Easter! w00t! the day of the ressurection, not to mention chocolate eggs and long weekends and stuff...

well, sorta long weekend... i had friday off, had to work yesterday, have today off (in that we dont even open the store today) and then im working tomorrow, but have tuesday off. go fig. but i degress.


hope everyone is doing well. life here is going ok. not too great, but not too bad either.


this week i was hunting for easter eggs (as you do) and i almost left it too late (i.e: YESTERDAY) to pick up my parents eggs. the supermarket had almost nothing left, so i picked up two eggs that were sorta ok, but not brilliant. Fortunately there is a Thornton's (Chocolatier's) near where i work and they had some high quality eggs available (and quite a lot of them!) so i got a couple of really nice ones for my parents, and ended up sharing the not so great ones with my co-workers. XD
its great to work in covent garden...its a real nice area and there are some awesome shops near by. XD


i also purchased "Black Lagoon" vol 5 manga on thursday, which covers the part of the story where Rock and Revi are in Japan. this is equivilant to the final episodes of the anime, but i know for a fact there are a few more volumes of the manga to go, so it will be interesting to see where the manga goes from here. There is still the "Greenback Jane" arc to cover but thats not a good story to finish on, so i suspect there will be a final story in the manga that wasnt covered by the anime. we shall see.



yesterday i watched "Persepolis" on the tv...i have seen the DVD available before, but its never perked my interest enough to buy it. i actually quite enjoyed it...its not something i'd usually watch, and i doubt i will be adding it to my DVD collection, but it was very well done.

for those of you who dont know, Persepolis is an animated autobiography of a young Iranian girl (Marjane Satrapi, the film and book's creator) growing up in the 1970-1990s during the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. (not to be mixed up with the Gulf War). the film is primarily in black and white, and the version they showed on TV was the original French dub (Marjane having spent most of her teenaged and adult life in France) so i kinda had to concentrate to follow it. the animated aspect does vaguely take the edge off the violence of the era, but it doesnt hide it either. the whole situation, as viewed by the young Marjane going through puberty, is really well handled, both harrowing and exuberant. and, despite the frequently dark situations, actually kinda funny. i literally laughed out loud during the sequence where Marjane overcomes her depression in a Rocky-esque montage of exercise and study...she is literally singing "Eye of the Tiger", albiet with a french accent. XD

The art style is simple (it emulates the original graphic novel that Marjane produced first) but very well animated, a definite visual treat.

for those of you who'd like to try something a little bit different from "typical" animated shows, or who want to get a deeper insight into the Iranian culture, Persepolis is a film i'd recommend. (and like all foreign films, i recommend you watch it in it's original French Dub with English subtitles). be warned though, it is something you have to actively be engaged with and pay attention to...its not a film you can stick on and veg out to.

i'd also like to see "Waltz with Bashir", an animated documentry on an Israeli soldier (also semi-autobiographical) involved in the 1982 Lebanon war. i find it very interesting that animated movies are becoming a medium to convey parts of our history that we otherwise might not be aware of. i think "Waltz" would be a very interesting and engaging experience, much like Persepolis was.


*pauses to go eat Pan au Chocolait*


mmm. delicious.


so yeah. thats been my two cents for this week.

hope everyone has a great easter and also has a good week.


take care!
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