*sigh* [Hikaru's LJ?] Ver 2 Options

[Tomoyo-san]

Wow, it sounds like you really did well Tomoyo-chan! *huggles* Keep up the good work!

Thanxs Shii-nee I really tried hard when i did my exams Yay!
It also seems like you've had a interestin day too You keep it up too okie
lol
xxxx

[Shiidou Hikaru]

*Gets out vacuum cleaner and cleans the dust out of this topic.*

Erm, well it's been three solid weeks since I've posted anything in my journal thread, and yes I've been really baad ... or just really lazy. On the other hand it's not all due to me being busy with other things. Ever since I'd started this forum, I'd always felt like I was its mommy and that it always needed my constant attention to stay healthy and active. But in the past few months I guess that it seems things here have been doing well without my constant nurturing, which is a good thing although I know that I must not distance myself and become alienated from this community unintentionally. Maybe this forum isn't the busiest place on the net, but most of us probably wouldn't want this place to turn into Gaia Online anyways.

Hmm, how have other things been ... work has been keeping me tied up a lot during the day and I've had very little time for any any online activities other than sneaking a few breaks here and there. After I returned to work from my vacation trip, the boss literally closed my door and told everyone to leave me alone because the project that I'm working on is so far behind. The original date that the sales guy had promised the customer for the delivery is like two weeks away now and I'm still not finished designing it yet. v_v I've made lots of progress, but being shut in my office all day with no visitors can be really lonely and boring after a while. It's been over a month now, so I really need to get this thing done and move on to something else ... *sigh*

Personal life things have been going pretty well. The kiddies have been going to a summer school program everyday during the week and they've been having a lot of fun going on field trips, playing games outside and doing craft stuff, well my daughter does that, my son just likes to play games in the gym mostly. :P The weather here has been rather normal for summer with lots of humidity and warmth, which is okay if I'm not outside pulling weeds or something like that. The air conditioning at work is soo cold that I have to run my space heater to keep from freezing, even when it's so hot outside. Other people at work think that I'm kinda looney for doing that, but I really dislike the cold and damp humidity. In the evenings I still try to spend time chatting and visiting the forums and playing online games, although the spouse still picks on me a little for doing online things so much ... but I get my revenge in other ways ... teeheehee! :P

[Tomoyo-san]

Erm, well it's been three solid weeks since I've posted anything in my journal thread, and yes I've been really baad ... or just really lazy.

No you haven't been bad It does seem hard keepin up with a large forum
So its very understandable (wow big word )

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Erm, here I am, back again. This time it's only been a week, so I must be getting a little better at this. Since last time, the weather here was horribly hot and sticky for the first half of the week, but later on things cooled off and became much more pleasant. Work has still been pretty intense and I've remained cloistered in my office again all of this week too. The prodigal job that I've been working on is finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, but at noontime yesterday I'd noticed that a lot of my work files had been deleted from the server, so I immediately found the IT guy so that he could restore them from the backup tape. He was still working on it when I left on Friday, so hopefully he was able to get them back. I'll really cry if I have to do all of that work all over again. v_v The kiddies have been having a ton of fun with their summer school programs, so for a little while I'd love to get away from work and go to a few of those fun things with them. Things have been going okay with the forum and there haven't been any problems ... except maybe Tomoyo-chan and Kagura-chan arguing over their compy, but my kids do that too and it seems rather normal to me. Today I was pretty lazy and didn't do much, but I love to get my rest on Saturdays. This morning I read some manga which I often do in bed before getting up to face the day, This afternoon I did go out and ride my bicycle for about 15 miles which isn't a whole lot but gave me some much needed physical activity. ;;

[Shiidou Hikaru]

v_v

Today I found out that my grandmother is really ill and in the hospital. They don't know if she will make it or not, so I'll be going to visit and probably not be around here for a few days. Hopefully things will be okay both there and here, but if anyone needs any help with anything here, remember to give Yuzuki-chan a gentle poke. ;;

[Yuki Fukurou]

Hikaru-san...I know exactly what you mean.

Because 3 years ago my mom had to head overseas to visit her mom who was really ill. Yet on the day of Thanksgiving was when I received the terrible news when she passed away.

I hope your grandmother gets well soon, Hikaru-san. I wish her the best.

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Thankies Yuki-san *Huggles*

We're all pretty sure that she's not ever going to fully recover from this. When I first saw her Thursday morning grandma looked really bad and she was really not herself, but that might have been because of the meds. She did get a little better while I was there and she is in a regular hospital room now instead of intensive care. The hospice people will be taking care of her soon if not already. Hopefully she'll hang on a little while longer so that I can take the kiddies down to see her one more time, maybe next weekend.

[Yuki Fukurou]

I hope so too.

I remember seeing how my grandmother looked in the hospital in the Philippines when my mom went to visit. Just seeing that gave me a sense of powerlessness.

[Shiidou Hikaru]

*Blows dust off of journal book and opens it.*

It sure has been a long time since I've written anything in here, so here goes. First off my grandmother has actually improved somewhat and is back in a nursing home again. We always knew that she was strong, but coming back from what happened a couple of weeks ago really is a miracle. I still need to take everyone down there to see her again, but our car died and we need to get another one. All we have is the old pickup truck and that won't due for a long road trip like that. Cars can be such a pain and an endless drain of cash. Those of you that don't need one for going to work or school are better off without it considering how many hours you have to work to pay for a car. >_<

School has started again and that's nice for me ... and for the kiddies too because they're not quite old enough yet to start complaining about it. A couple of weird things happened in my town today that you don't often see. When I first arrived at work I saw to the south a huge billowing cloud of dark gray smoke. Something was burning quite vigorously down there, but I just hope that it wasn't someone's house. Then later on around lunch time someone came back from wherever the went for lunch and said that there had been a bank robbery just up the road and he wasn't able to get his paycheck cashed I guess.

Work has been as busy as ever and I finally finished up that white elephant job that has been soo late. The fun part of building it is coming up next and that's always an adventure in the custom job shop world. Most evenings I've been playing World of Warcraft and having a lot of fun with that, so that might be why I haven't been dirtying up the forum very much recently. I also wrote a fanfic based on WoW and it's about 90% finished. Maybe I should go and post what is done in the Fanfiction section ...

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Ooooh lookie! Shii-chan is back to this and it's still the same month!! Teeheehee! ^_^ This past week has been a rather busy one for me, but not in a haphazard or chaotic manner so the days have been really zipping by quickly. It started out with a cool thing this Monday when we went out and got a new car after work. It's a dark red 2006 Mitsubishi and so far I really like it a lot. It's soo much better than the old clunker that died on us and we had that one hauled away yesterday. It's the first time that we've had a new car like that, so it's been really exciting for all of us. ^_^ Also think week I let Batou-san have a crack at rewriting the science fiction story that I did and for the most part he did a much better job, so I'm sort of embarrassed about that. ^_^;; At work I was able to get another project finished and sent out for approval which is always a good thing, because then I get to move on to something else. I also went to visit some friends last night to see their new sofa that they got. This one's a sleeper and their kiddies are already excited about inviting friends over for a sleep over. I'm not really sure what's up for tonight ... except what to have for dinner ... :P

[Shiidou Hikaru]

This time it's not the same month, but so far I haven't given up on this yet! Yesterday, I was thinking back on some of the good things that have happened for me this year and there were quite a few of them actually. I guess the big thing was our family vacation trip to England that was really an awesome once in a lifetime type of thing that I'll always remember and I'm sure that the kiddies will too. I also got a new car this year which is something that I've always wanted but could never come up with a way to pay for it. We also got two kitties which is something that I've really wanted to do for the longest time and they're so much fun to have around the house being all cute and purring all the time! ^__^ There were a few bad things that happened this year of course, but I've kind of forgotten them, so now all there is to remember is what I will call "the good ol' days" many years from now in the future.

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Eh-heh ... our house was child proofed as much as possible already, so a couple of kitties aren't much of an issue. And cats aren't nearly as destructive as human kids are. lol :P

[q3m]

Prepare to have everything scratched up.

[Shiidou Hikaru]

There's two ancient overstuffed (lol, not anymore) chairs in our house that the cats love to sit on and scratch up. Since they're so old and decrepit, it doesn't really bother me if the cats shred them up. The kitties love those iccky old chairs and I have a hard time getting rid of the old things. ;;

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Okies, well it's been a little while since I've done one of these, but it's also been a little while since I've had anything interesting to talk about too. This past weekend they held the little anime con that we have every year in my town so that's why I wasn't online very much this weekend. It's certainly not anything like Otakon or AX, but we're lucky to have one at all in a little town like mine. The staff said that there were about the same number of attendees as last year, however I did notice that there were loads more cosplayers than I had ever seen at this con (Bakuretsu Con BTW). Maybe because it was the weekend after Halloween and everyone already had costumes available because of that ... I'm not really sure. There didn't seem to be as many vendors in the dealer's room as last year, so I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a lot of DVD's and manga to look at. There were a number of anime showings, so I'll see if I can remember which ones I watched. Friday night I saw a few episodes of Tsukuyomi/Moon Phase which I thought was really weird at first. The opening for the show is very cutsey kitty ears stuff, but the show itself immediately went into the dark world of vampires and the occult. Sort of imagine Hellsing with the Tokyo Mew Mew opening. XD By the third episode you start to get good development of the character Hazuki/Luna so things start to make a little sense by then. She's rather cute, but also whiny and bratty at times and reminds me very much of Usagi-chan from Sailor Moon. Her "friend" (I hesitate to call him love interest) is exactly the opposite. Kohei-kun is quiet, calm, and to be nice ... dull. So put the two of them together and you get an interesting chemistry going, so I'll probably look into this series a little further. ^_^ After that I saw a couple episodes of Mai Hime which I've seen in the past, but never really gotten interested in though. It seems like a good show, but for some reason Mai Hime just never really lit any kind of spark with me. Friday night was also the night for the AMV contest, and I always like to watch those. There were a number made from Final Fantasy material, which make for good subject matter but are technically not anime, so it kinda bothers me that they allow them to be entered. I know that the bigger cons do not allow game based AMV's, so perhaps there should be a separate category for them.

Day two was partly taken up because I bring the kiddies bowling every Saturday morning, so I didn?t get to do any anime con stuff until the afternoon. First I went to see see some episodes of Full Metal Panic Fumoffu because it?s hilarious and one of my favorite anime series. Sosuke finds a strand of hair on his shoe locker which leads to suspicion, paranoia, explosives and ? *BOOM!!* The guy doesn?t believe in taking any chances. XD After that I got to see something that was a real treat for me. I didn?t know it, but recently the old classic series Voltron is being released on DVD now, and they showed the first 4 episodes at the con after FMP. It was the first time that I had seen Voltron in more than 20 years, and a little to my dismay I discovered that I had forgotten how much I had loved and adored the show at the time. A ?blast from the past? is too mild to describe it, it was more like a reunion with a best friend that I hadn?t seen in 20 years. By today?s standards Voltron?s artwork is certainly classic and the dialog at times is a little cheesy, but Voltron contains all of the elements to forge a great series. It?s the show that for me opened the door into the universe of Japanese animation for the first time. I?m sure that not too many people that visit here can remember living in a world with no internet, no cel phones, no DVD?s, no CD?s, no VHS, only the rich had Betamax because Beta's were so expensive, no cable TV for us (mom and dad couldn?t afford it) and those that did have cable only received 13 channels. So try to image seeing a Japanese TV show of any kind under those sort of conditions, and the only answer that I come up with is to fly to Japan and watch TV there. ^_^;; So for me, the Voltron series was the most fundamental step ? to really experience anime for the first time and I?ve been totally hooked ever since. Now that I know that I can get the DVD?s I can acquire the series for myself, hopefully all 72 episodes. ^_^ After Voltron, I went to the dealer?s room again and bought a few little goodies like fans and keychains and a Mokona plushie too! ^__^

The last day yesterday wasn?t very long, but I did get to see a couple of shows. I was only able to see a little of Genshiken, but it looked kinda funny and show specifically about Japanese otaku is probably quite interesting. I might see myself as one of the characters, so I?d better be careful about watching more of that lol. :P Another series that I saw that seemed good was Basilisk, a story about ninja clan conflicts in the Edo period of Japanese history. Some parts are quite violent, but there are also subplots of romance and political intrigues and the show seems to be quite well written. While I?m not one to really enjoy bloodbath gore anime, Basilisk is a step above that and I think that I could really like it. The only other viewing that I attended was a showing of 12 Kingdoms which I?ve already seen all of, but it?s such a great anime that I love to watch it at any opportunity that I can get. ^_^ After that was the final closing ceremony, and then to my mom?s house for dinner last night. So from this year's Bakuretsu Con I think that I've found two promising new series that bear some further viewing - Tsukuyomi/Moon Phase and Basilisk.

[Dr. Casey]

I remember when this thing was updated every day. XD Ah well. Still a cool topic.

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Hehe, I guess that used to have a lot more to say than I do now, but I'm happy that someone thinks I'm a cool person to read about. *Huggles Casey-kun*

This past week was a very busy one for me, especially at work. For some reason a whole pile of things just came at me all at once, but a couple of things worked in my favor. I had just come off of a week of vacation, so I was more rested than usual, and the load of design work that I have now is very small. So after all that I sent out probably 20 units this week, which is a LOT for me. ;; So I guess that I feel like I've accomplished something this week. XD Yesterday I did get some bad news however. My grandmother that was sick since last summer passed away quietly yesterday. We all pretty much knew that she wouldn't be able to hold on much longer, but it's very sad that it actually happened. v_v She was loved very much by all of us and will be missed a great deal. Tomorrow, I'll have to take a trip to go to the funeral, so I'm not going to be around here for a few days. I'm sorry about the bad news ... v_v

[Shiidou Hikaru]

This is so sad that I haven't posted anything new in my journal thread since my grandmother died last December. T_T I'm not sure if I've just been lazy or just thought that my life isn't interesting enough for people to want to read, or if I have just been too busy with other things like work. (I used to write a lot of these when I was at work). Today I saw that Batou-san started a journal of his own and that reminded me of this sad, lonely book collecting dust in the corner, on the second page of the Grand Bazaar. Trying to play catchup from last December is probably pointless because my airy little head has forgotten most of it anyways, so I'll just start from the present.

Yesterday was my first day off for my vacation this week, so that meant not getting up early and getting more rest. The kiddies are all done with school, so no need to get them ready for that either. After a lazy morning and lunch we all went to the cinema to see the penguin movie Surf's Up which I really enjoyed. The story wasn't all that original, but the way it was told and presented was quite different and the characters were SOOO CUTE!! ^__^ I loved every minute and I want to go back and see it again. XD After dinner the kiddies wanted to watch Monster's Inc. on the DVD player, so we did that because I like that movie too, well I like almost all of the Pixar movies lol. It's one of the fun challenges of being a parent - finding movies for the kids that I like to watch too. It's probably a good thing that I am an anime nut ... and bad people (anime haters) say that being an anime fan will never be good for anything. :P Then after the kids went to bed, I stayed up to play World of Warcraft for a while. I did a few quests with a friend and chatted for a little afterwards, and then it was too late for me to stay awake anymore ... snooze. So, a good day yesterday. ^_^

[Yuki Fukurou]

Heh...that's what many say about anime...that it won't help as much. Even my parents say that.

However...I agree slightly, but disagree in the sense that I'm able to compare the certain topics and themes discussed and shown in the series, whatever it may be.

Basically...I can easily connect anime to literature in a way...considering the way the story is told and some of the common themes that many of us fans find.

Though...not many seem to talk about it in that sense.

Heck...since when have they ever?

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Erm, I think that does make sense Yuki-san. Anime and written literature are both made on essentially the same blank sheet. In both cases the final product is, quite literally, limited to the imagination of the author. Live action TV and movies have an abundance of physical limitations because they have to be produced in the construct of the real world. Although nowadays, CGI technology has allowed the blending of real world film and CGI animation seamlessly so that the audience can hardly tell that they are watching animation. So next time anyone bugs you about anime Yuki-san, ask them if the liked any of The Matrix or Lord of the Rings movies, because there is lots of animation in all of those.

Umm, let's see, what happened the rest of this week? Tuesday we went to the bowling alley and we had a good time there. My son loves bowling and will do it all day, but my little girl is too easily distracted by other things like the candy machines. But instead of chasing her around I just bowled her games instead lol. It was a pretty warm day too, but these wasn't anyone else there except us which is kinda weird. On Wednesday we went to see the Nancy Drew movie and it was a bit kookier than I was expecting. My son wanted to see it more than my daughter, which is a little backwards I thought, but he is the older one and maybe the movie appeals to older kids more than younger ones. It was pretty good with an odd mixture of modern and retro styles, but I don't remember Nancy being quite so obsessive-compulsive in the books. ^_^;; On Thursday we went to a local pizza and game place and both of them just loved that. I just give them tokens and they go nuts playing the games, teeheehee! I saved a few for myself so that I could play the spinning platter games. Those are easy because all you have to do is time it correctly and you can win lots and lots of tickets, which I did and used them to get prizes for the kids afterwards. Yesterday we went and saw The Evan Almighty movie and that was pretty funny I thought and it was a good film for kids to see. It wasn't a very intelligent film, but quite few good laughs. ^_^

Eventually, I'll think of some more things to add to this I think, lol