What WOULDA been...

So I would have written that Beat to Quarters post this morning before heading out to work, whereupon finishing and arriving at home I'd have sat down to finally read through "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and subsequently made a post on it (I think, in thematically obvious ways, that it would be a fine companion piece to Beat to Quarters), but what actually happened was that I had another rough time getting to sleep last night, laying there for hours before finally winking out, to ultimately wake up exhausted and a little sick feeling, and late for work, and not wanting to go at all.

I called in to say I wouldn't be coming in, which would have been perfect. Sleep until I'm back in fighting shape (that's a thing), write that Beat to Quarters post, maybe hit the gym when I'm feeling up to it, come home, read The Rime, do a final post for the month. Easy peasy. But that I finished my phone call with a "... unless you need me."

They, uh, they needed me. A lot of people didn't come down today, big shocker on that one, yesterday was 12 degrees, today was -5.

So I got up tired, no morning post, no milk in the fridge for my bowl of cereal that I naturally had already poured out, counting on the certainty of a milk-in-fridge-universe. No time to make my usual rice lunch, just the fibre bar for later.

On the plus side, the new shoes worked out fine. No slipping today. We'll see how that holds up when there's more of a resurgence of slush. It's just possible my feet were given a break.

Got home, rested up vis a vis eating leftover pasta which I proceeded to drench in alfredo sauce, and finally having my cereal after picking up milk (though someone else also got milk during the course of the day. Our fridge is now over-compensating.) Watched some Kamen Rider. Still have 5 episodes to watch until this season is done, so no post on that, but it's close.

Then I NEEDED a nap. Otherwise I'd have hated the burden of my blog forever. I was cutting things close, nap at 9pm, set the alarm for 10pm (dude, alarm clock, don't fail me now!) snoozed for 15 minutes or so, I forget how long exactly, but I did expect that. From that point on, I left the alarm on, that horrible, grating, cursed thing, to keep me on task. Since I've been up I've had to reach over to that snooze button every little bit to keep the lions roar at bay. This has been the case through my Beat to Quarters (uuugh it just went off again) post until now. Must be aware of the time.

The time is now 11:41pm. That's fine, in fact, as far as 11th hour 11th posts go, this is probably better than a lot of them I've had. In fact, despite my especially late start this month, I seemed to make my quota with relative ease this time around. See you next month!

Beat to Quarters

After watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with my brother Simon, I naturally looked the thing up on the tvtropes.org. Once there, I discovered that the director was pretty awesome. For one thing, he apparently had a 12 day limit to create the script that got approved for the whole thing to happen (part of which was done by piecing together from the scripts that had already failed to pass muster, but because of this act of piecing the dude didn't get a writers credit- boo). Well, HIS script got approved. Additionally, it said that in a meeting with the Paramount bigwigs, who asked if he could make a movie for "LESS THAN 49 MILLION !@#$% DOLLARS!", his response was "where I come from, you can make 9 movies with that amount." (I think it was 49 million they said, maybe it was 43. The point is they were upset by how much the first Star Trek movie cost while also sucking hard and not making the cash back.)

So this is a cool dude.

A final wrinkle is that this guy, the director for Star Trek II, acclaimed as THE definitive Trek movie, hadn't actually seen Star Trek at that point. To figure out what the deal was, he sat down and watched the entire series thus far (remember The Next Generation didn't exist at this point) and said, "oh. So it's Horatio Hornblower. IN SPACE."

This last comment necessitated a read of this Horatio Hornblower, with Beat to Quarters as the first book written in the series, though not the first chronological book story-wise. I guess the author, C.S. Forester, ended up writing prequel books before the term "prequel" was invented.

So I read it, and it was awesome! Granted, certain technical terms went over my head- and this book was chock full of seamanship technical terms, but the gist in such times is basically "power to engines/weapons/sensors etc. etc.". That's right, I read the whole thing in my mind constantly comparing things to Star Trek. That was fun for me.

Captain Hornblower himself is this fantastic navy guy (the book is set during the Napoleonic wars, which puts it at 1803-1815 according to a quick google search of Napoleonic Wars) who is really neurotic about his self image. He has very little faith in himself, and because of that he's always pushing himself to greater and greater heights just to be worthy of leading a ship. He goes on an "away mission" by himself to meet with this mad rebel leader the English wanted to team-up with against the Spanish, total Kirk move, but the degree of discipline he uses to not say something about some dudes he saw being strung up to die was a total Picard manoeuver (you know you're a Trekkie when you saw what I just did there).

At 270-ish pages in rather large print, it's not really a long book to get through, but it's so engrossing that you blow through it even faster than what that large print business would indicate. I'm definitely looking forward to the next book, though it'll be a while to get to it, I have a bunch of other stuff to read first.

This is poor article writing, but one last note. The narration of the book is so entirely focused on Hornblower's perception of things and his reactions, the book really takes advantage of the novels ability to take it's action from the goings on of a mind, that it's always a surprise to be reminded that it isn't written in first person. Instead, it's an omniscient narrator that can occasionally jump out to some other revealing event, the biggest and most heartwarming example being when we jump to a conversation between the first mate Bush and an unexpected passenger, Lady Barbara, about their ideas concerning Hornblower. Theirs is a very different experience of the man to the one he has of himself, and the truth certainly lies somewhere in the middle.

Cyke and Wolvie homage Green Lantern and Green Arrow

Well, I've started A Tale of Two Cities, but I'm thus far reading through the notes that go with it... so it's slow, slogging work. I really just want to nap right now.

Today, as you may have experienced, was warm. Springtime warm. But with the ever present weather reports about how the temperature will drop 15 degrees for tomorrow (back to the seasonal -2). I just kept thinking about those tragic stories about the coma patient that wakes up for a day, but then falls back into their coma. (oh, what's that movie? This one I know I have to look up... man, that was hard to find. Luckily, I was right in that it starred Robin Williams. The movie is called "Awakenings".)

The Earth had awoken, but t'was not to last.

Hugh. (pronounced as a breathy, sigh-ful "hug") I don't want to write anything here. So I won't. Let me find some cheapo picture on the interwebs to waste space. Sorry space, I've just been all over the place today, headwise. And technically travel wise too.

Okay, this one is random, but really cool, from http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=391387&page=17:

Irritant: angry honkers

The small street running parallel to Bloor over to Church St. is one way, and small enough that it's going to ordinarily have just the one lane of traffic. As I was walking along this road, a woman was trying to back into a parking space. The car immediately behind her vigorously honked at her before finally squeezing through and jamming on the gas to go forward...

...about ten feet, to where a post office truck and another car were blocking the way. The car in such a hurry began to obnoxiously honk again.

Coming up beside this car, as, again, it hadn't yet gone any real distance from me and I could EASILY catch up, I made a ridiculous horn honking motion, which somehow achieved the desired result of getting this guy to roll down his window.

"Stop honking," I told him, "you're not going to get anywhere faster!"

"What should I do? Just WAIT for these people to move?!?"

To which I immediately replied "YES!!!"

His wife/girlfriend, doing her best goofy Kristen-Wiig-as-a-specifically-moronic-character-from-an-SNL-sketch, leaned over, as though she was struggling to comprehend, and said "no, that's wrong."

Before driving off the driver said "I should honk at YOU!" Which is a ridiculous statement describing an action that, while already having minimal practical effect on another driver, would have even less of an effect on a pedestrian. I'm on a sidewalk, I don't have to move anywhere. What is this honking business? All it does is rile up the blood.

To make a long story short, I wanted a crowbar and licence to smash the guys window. That would have been a highly satisfying act.

If I'm in the car with you, and you're an excessive, angry honker, and I seem to be okay with it, that's just because I'm trying to placate you. I'm actually terrified for my safety.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

A week or so back the Metro had a smallish profile on this book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, which was highly positive, so I gave it a look. As a very quick aside, reading it before the start of a comedy show, my buddy and his mom had both heard of this book and were interested in what I thought about it. It was all very "literary society", I liked it.

Anyways, the book, yeah, it's the first of a series, but I have no desire to keep reading. Though I dislike labelling something "children's" or "teen" fiction- if it's well written, it's well written!- however, this story is way too simple, there isn't really any growth on the part of the female protagonist, and the star is an eleven year old girl.

Working against the notion of it being a kids book, the abundant use of chemistry terms would likely go over kids heads (then again, it would give them something to look up, which I'm all in favour of) and the thing is 373 pages long. Sure, the print is big, and it's not like length has ever stopped a Harry Potter fan, so maybe I'm grasping at straws on that one.

The book gets a great deal of praise for the main character, Flavia de Luce, 11 year old chemistry prodigy living in 1950's England. She certainly is precocious... too much so. She doesn't really sound at all like an 11 year old girl. It's almost like her age was an arbitrary choice to extend the length of her series, matching up with the moderately successful Harry Potter books. Oh, you've heard of him, have you?

The mystery revolves around who killed a guy Flavia finds out in their cucumber patch. Except, and this is what really kills this book for me, there was no physical indication the guy was murdered at all! She just finds the guy, he hasn't even completely died yet, he gets a last word out ("Vale!" apparently latin for "farewell") and Bob's your uncle, he must have been murdered. Forget that there's no blood, no wound- during the course of her investigations she even finds the guy is a diabetic and that he'd snatched a piece of pie from the windowsill. She never even seems to entertain the notion that the guy killed himself by slipping into a diabetic coma.

The police immediately treat it as murder as well, LONG before they're told of the actual means of execution which would certainly have slipped under their noses. Why? Perhaps theirs is an unnaturally busy police force: "Lieutenant, old old old old man Jenkins died last night!"

"Better arrest the neighbor, it's a well known fact that they'd been feuding for years!"

"We can't, sir!"

"Why not?"

"The neighbor died last month!"

"Another criminal gets away. Let that be a lesson to you- eternal vigilance!"

To be clear, the above exchange is my own silly invention, and not a part of the book here, but I think it illustrates my problem. The old 'reductio ad absurdem' trick.

Alan Bradley is a first time mystery novelist- and he's gone out the gate at 70 years old (or thereabouts), so I'd have been much inclined to cut the guy some slack. Good for him and all that! Until I re-read the bio at the back: "Prior to taking early retirement to write in 1994, he was director of television engineering at the University of Saskatchewan media center for twenty-five years. His versatility has earned him awards for his children's books, radio broadcasts of his short stories, and national print for his journalism. He also co-authored Ms. Holmes of Baker Street, to great acclaim and much controversy, followed by a poignant memoir, The Shoebox Bible. In 2007, Bradley won the Debut Dagger Award of the Crimewriter's Association for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the first book in a new series featuring the brilliant young British sleuth Flavia de Luce."

This is not a man just starting out at a writing career, this is someone well placed to take advantage of a lifetime of contacts to get a book published. Which is fine, I don't necessarily begrudge him that, but I do think this book should have been better considering his experience and the accolades of this Crimewriter's Association.

The Blind Assassin

Okay, so The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood is yet another book to talk about here. I hope you're excited, there's ever more to come.

I've had this page open for an hour at least, but I've been preoccupied with watching Kamen Rider. Clearly, I need to ease myself into this post.

While reading this book, there were a number of words that I was unsure of. I know I've looked up insouciant before, and I have a loose definition of plutocrat, but otherwise I think I'm striking at new ground here. So first up is a bunch of definitions care of dictionary.com.

Tonsure: Given the context, the book was using 3.the part of a cleric's head, usually the crown, left bare by shaving the hair.

Impecunious: having little or no money; penniless; poor.

Insouciant: free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.

Gambol: to skip about, as in dancing or playing; frolic.

Abstemious: moderate or sparing, especially in the consumption of alcohol or food; temperate

Lugubrious: mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner

Plutocrat: a member of a plutocracy. (helpful, ain't it?)

Plutocracy: a group comprised of plutocrats (I'm kidding, here's the real answer) the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy. (more straightforward than I expected, should have remembered it.)

And now I can throw out this paper that had all these words written on it.

*tossed* Wow, did I miss the garbage.

As for the novel itself (finally! Also, heavy spoilers.) I quite enjoyed it. It's written as the autobiography of an old woman, Iris, to her grand-daughter who may not ever come back to read it. Very Watchmen. The biography contains excerpts of an in-universe fictional novel "The Blind Assassin" which is itself the story of a torrid, pulpy love affair between a woman and a man on the run for his communist sympathies. The man makes some cash for himself by telling the story of the eponymous Blind Assassin.

Yo, I heard you liked novels in your novels, so I put a novel inside your novels novel. Novel-ception!

Yes, yes, I do like that. So point in the novels favour.

Not that it needs my approval, the thing got accolades galore when it showed up on the scene in 2000. So who am I to criticize?

Well, I'll criticize anyway, it's my blog.

The structure of the novel, or rather the "autobiography", is such that it runs against the grain of the character-that-is-author, Iris. We're told her story, we know her education, and I don't really believe that woman could write this novel. She's a straightforward, practical person, but hardly poetical. How then to account for the poetical style of the prose, its similes running throughout? I believe Margaret Atwood would write thusly, but not the character of Iris.

The big mystery at the heart of the book, why did Iris's sister Laura commit suicide, isn't revealed until the very end. Which makes sense enough for a novel, to keep the height of the action for the ending, but it doesn't make sense for what is essentially a letter to a grand daughter. Just say what you need to say! Your roundabout way of telling this story, it would sound like you were just stringing me along, were it made for me. A cruel little prank from beyond the grave.

Interestingly, this apparent disconnect between the supposed writer and the content of the book is used in the novel to illustrate why Laura isn't the author of The Blind Assassin. It had been asserted that this fictional novel had been written by this young woman Laura, it was published under her name after her death, but as time goes by and we learn more about Laura and Iris, Laura has little oppourtunity or temperment for novel writing. That's the twist, that Laura as the author of Blind Assassin was a lie, and that it was Iris herself that had created the thing. Iris even tells us immediately before she reveals this information that we should have figured this out already.

I just doubt the ability of either girl to write anything of renown. Another example of the tricky business of setting up a work in-universe that causes a splash, which upon examination doesn't really hold up to that idea. It's like the fictional universe we're reading about is populated by people with a different set of standards for genius.

Ah, but then again, it IS rather weird what becomes famous and much loved in this world. Rather hard to predict, what?

The book was 500 pages. Focus the book, make it three hundred pages (if you absolutely MUST make it that long), and maybe tweak Iris such that I'd believe her more as an author, and the book would be set for me. But yes, it doesn't have to be set for me at all.

Oh, I almost forgot another new thing I learned! The fictional novel "The Blind Assassin" contained within the actual novel The Blind Assassin is an example of a roman à clef, or rather, a fictional version of a roman à clef, which is when "a novel about real life (is) overlaid with a façade of fiction". For this novel, that means that certain truths were revealed to the public via the publication of "The Blind Assassin" that set other things in motion, the death of Iris's husband, the distrust betwen Iris and her daughter, and other things that I probably can't think of at the moment.

So yeah. "Roman à clef". French for "novel with a key". According to wikipedia.

A Study of A Study In Scarlet (not really much of a study, I just wanted to say that)

In anticipation of a trip to the Toronto Reference Library specifically to check out the Conan Doyle exhibit, I was planning to re-read the first Sherlock Holmes story. Problem was, I had read it, and it was... difficult.

Oh, not the first half, a fun intro to the detective and his faithful companion, Watson, but the last half of the story is a long history about some corrupt mormonites out in Utah, and I know the first time I read it I was pretty bored by it. Where's Sherlock? What is this? Library, I demand my money back!

But just as I was on the lookout for the book, what should I spy in the Locke branch of the library (I forget where that is... I like checking out different libraries... it's most likely this is the Yonge and Lawrence library) but a comic version of A Study in Scarlet!

The text is straight from the original story, and the art is a clear cartoon style, maximizing the effectiveness of each glance. It's "Sherlock Holmes: The Animated Series" and it's done as well as the medium can allow- which is quite well indeed!

Having the quicker read comic version in front of me was also useful as it cleared up some confusion I had about the original story. It was just a trifling matter of... wha-? How'd he know?

That old chestnut.

Er, hem, but now that it's been over a week since I read it (just that long? Feels like so much longer) I forget my main difficulties. I think the answer is "Holmes phoned the country where the guy was from for a name and description". But I'm not a 100% of the question. Well, close enough.

Check it out, especially if you've yet to read Holmes story.

Also, it's great how the narration from the original is all "oh, Holmes has a long nose, strong expression, big square chin, etc etc.- but rather a good looking guy" and in the story you see the same features, but when put together you're like, "oh, it's Batman, of course."

Or, as Harley Quinn would say, "I know you... *holds hand over top of face, only looking at chin*... why, you're Bruce Wayne!"

Too much slush. To the point, encapsulates the post quite well.

I've BEEN to 181 Bay Street before. Several times in fact. So why is it always so hard to find? It's just south of Bay at Wellington! I walked right past it, it's number (at least it HAS a visible number) is tucked away in a corner. It's so easy to miss. Trust me on this.

And every step was a death trap today. I've almost become nervous about my ability to walk around outside. I haven't fallen yet, but it's just a matter of time until I do. Frustrated, I angrily stamped down my boot, willing it to have the ability to stay firmly upright againt the slush. The stamping did nothing.

The precarious walking conditions necessitated a slower to and fro between destinations- I was practically waddling from place to place >:(
such that my second last stop I barely arrived as the office staff were getting their things on to leave, and my last stop gave me a condescending note about how their mailroom closes at 4:30.

Look! I'd have been here sooner, but the ground is trying to kill me, also, the guard at 200 Bloor St E is absolutely the worst at giving directions to the mail room. How hard would it have been to say it's one building over? That would have been too clear.

I didn't sleep well last night, so I started off the day exhausted, and this slipping around has really frayed my nerves. My normally good humour aaaa isn't a so good right now.

This better be the best, most relaxing weekend ever! What's that? I agreed to take Jordan's Michael Kors shift?

*Car horns blare geese honk thunder rings out*

A Christmas Carol, 11 months early

Okay, maybe I was actually just late with this one. I STARTED reading it Christmas Eve, but then family stuff got in the way (don't worry, that was supposed to happen- the book told me so!).

Everybody knows the story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. If you haven't read the book, and you probably haven't, then you've seen a movie version, or a modern retelling with Bill Murray.

At the very least, you've seen the Muppet Christmas Carol.

It was under this supposition of familiarity that I crafted (crafted is a strong word... briefly thought up) a prequel story for A Christmas Carol. It was my thought that, if Scrooge was getting this second chance to lead his life for the betterment of mankind and avoid that afterlife in shackles, then Jacob Marley must have gotten just such a chance, only to reject it. Fair is fair, right?

I still think telling that story would be an interesting addition to the Scrooge world, but after actually reading the story, it looks like that would run counter to something Dickens wrote.

(Sidenote: word 'story' and 'story' in the same line, and wanted to use 'actually' again too. The stylistic portion of my brain is almost entirely out the window right now.)

It seems Marley has a line where he specifically states that he had to somehow pull some spiritual strings to get this intervention for Scrooge. How that was done was left up to the readers imagination, but I imagine that would ALSO be quite the tale to tell, given that we're told how all the human ghosts wandering the Earth are people who lived selfishly, and must now not only wander the Earth, but do so with a tremendous desire to help their fellow man. To want to do in death what they never did, but could have so easily done, in life. That being the case, there would almost certainly be constant spiritual petitions from ghosts to whomever is listening to intercede on people's behalf...s?

Behalfs.

All the peoples behalf.

So Marley must have made an extra strong case for why Scrooge should get the help.

Therefore, telling a story about Marley getting an intervention would be a little out of line with how Dickens told this originally. It'd be cool though.

The version of A Christmas Carol I picked up had an extra neat-o feature: some dude wrote about Dickens giving a reading of the 'Carol, how into it he was, all the different voices and whatnot. It sounds like Dickens was pretty cool.

I already thought he was, but this is just another side of that coolness I suppose.

Ryuki episode 27 & 28 (my 8 button isn't right... :( it doesn't push down properly)

An hour before I got home I was energized with fresh purpose. I'd do this-and-that-and-some-of-this writing. It was a mighty good feeling. But then I got home and my energy evaporated;(semi-colon, I've been avoiding you lately. I've grown trepidatious about your usage*) I had a "health choice" microwaveable dinner, a glass of water, and a can of pears, then promptly fell asleep for three hours before DINNER dinner was served. Or waiting for me, whichever. I spent a good deal of time whilst sleeping moaning at various pains in my legs. Suffice it to say, I will be sore tomorrow.

*I have, however, spelled "trepidatious" right, apparently.

Better luck in the near future, as far as writing projects go.

I've stepped up my game as far as watching this latest Kamen Rider goes though ("oh good", you're thinking, "at least he isn't wasting his time.") I usually watch an episode over breakfast, but I managed to throw one on while eating that bit of pre-dinner supper. Both were actually quite interesting pieces of fiction/television for reasons that I'm about to get into. Obviously.

The first one, episode 26 of Kamen Rider Ryuki, is about this young boy that gets targeted by the monsters of the mirror world, and so when one of the Riders saves the kid, the kid gets to see the Rider transform and chase after the monster back into the mirror world. The kid can't actually SEE the fight, as only those people that are Riders/have the transformation trinket or are otherwise specially powered can see the goings on of mirror world... wait, I think that's true... I may have just spotted a continuity error on that one, because in a previous episode... you know what? It doesn't matter. For the purposes of THIS episode, what I've stated above is the truth.

So the monster gets away, and the Rider pops out of mirror world, only for that kid to be standing there, all excited and talking about how that was the coolest thing ever. A pretty understandable response. The kid blackmails the Rider (his name is Ren) through use of screaming in public about the guy being a pervert (stay classy, kid) to get taken back to the cafe that mostly serves as the home base for this series, where he meets the titled Rider Ryuki, whose name is Shinji. (Boy, I'm cutting myself off at the knees if I want to do a post about this series later. Whatever, it'll just be a series overview anyways)

The boy is still being targeted by the mirror world monster, by the way. That was the other reason that Ren kept the kid close, I forgot that part.

So the kid steals the transformation trinket belonging to Ryuki and runs off with it, because he wants to be a Rider too. The two Riders chase after the kid and catch him just as the mirror world monster makes its reappearance. Ren lets the kid hold onto Ryuki/Shinji's transformation trinket so that he could see the actual fight in mirror world, so the kid can see what being a Rider is really about. It's a brutal fight, with Ren taking a lot of hits. Shinji, realizing that Ren is playing it up a bit, allowing himself to get hit more than he would have been for the sake of showing the results of violence to this kid, goes along with it, saying to the kid "This is what it is to be a Rider." The kid even tries to hand back the trinket so he can stop watching (unless I'm adding that in my own mind) but Shinji doesn't take it back at first. Two other Riders appear in mirror world and start blasting away at Ren (yeah, the Riders aren't really friends in this series, it's sort of a Hunger Games situation) and that's about when the kid says he doesn't want to be a Rider anymore. Shinji lets him go, transforms, and goes off to join the battle.

This seems like a pretty daring thing for a Kamen Rider episode to do. They make their bread and butter selling toys of these characters to kids, and selling wearable paraphernalia so the kids can pretend to actually BE these characters, but this episode is all about why that's a bad idea, and about the serious effects of violence, that it isn't something to be taken lightly. A pretty great lesson for kids all over the place.

Episode 28 was about a new, mysterious Rider showing up (technically he shows up at the tail end of the previous episode), completely overpowering the other Riders, and then using a time card power thing to throw Shinji into the past, to back before he became a Rider. He has all of his memories, but no one else knows him yet, which is in itself a nightmare I've had. His memories then fade in and out, preventing him from effecting any real positive change on the events of his life, all he can really do is relive the events of the series thus far.

That's right! It's basically a clip show!

Shinji only keeps enough of his memories to be hurt even more when his comrades fall in battle AGAIN. (well, the one guy was his friend and was awesome. I was really hoping he'd get saved this time...) it all leads up to the moment when they've caught back up to the present, and the only thing that changes is that Shinji is able to land a punch on the guy that did the time card business to start everything off. The scene cuts to the newspaper/magazine Shinji works for and the cafe he lives at, and we see both locations are littered with post-it notes that all say "when you see gold feathers- punch behind you!"

It's sort of a Memento moment, and it is awesome!

The punch doesn't really do anything, and the time guy Rider says what's needed to change has changed, and you other Riders don't need to know what that is, then Shinji says one other thing has changed... "I'm now twice as determined to protect people and my fellow Riders!"

A very cool sentiment, and a very tough job too. Again, these guys are in a Hunger Games scenario.

We then cut to Kanzaki Shiro, who is the guy that gave everyone their powers and, as far as I know, is the bad guy of the show, and we see that the whole reason he had time turned back was so that this time around this picture his little sister drew him didn't get accidentally destroyed when a vase of water spilled on it.

Truly, that was indeed the darkest timeline.

Coolest clip show ever.

Gone to draft

I've waited too long to try and capture whatever moments from the end of December I wanted to immortalize and share. I'll get to a Medieval Times post at some point though.

The problem has chiefly been running out of energy by the time I get home from work. Last week was okay for that, I had done a better job getting my lunch made to go out with me, and hopefully not more importantly, I slept in a bunch and started the day later than I should have.

I just got my phone bill reflecting the cost of working as a courier. I've been telling people that I've been hemorrhaging money working this gig, and never has that been more true than right now. Yeesh, I had a worse case scenario in my mind, and the reality managed to double it. Not fun.

I've got a few options going forward, changing my phone plan is something high up on my to do list, but ultimately I will have to give up the courier thing really soon. That's a bummer, being out in the city has been really cool- you know the service elevator at 22 St. Claire Avenue East looks like a holodeck? That was a great surprise. The elevator wall panels end about a foot from the top of the car, with mirrors lining that top remainder of wall, with a grid of glowing red lines running across the ceiling, necessarily running off into infinity thanks to the surrounding mirrors. Holodeck.

My last two times at the gym I went a bit too hard, now my back is sore. Certain heavy items carried through the week probably didn't help much either.

I'll be back soon, I've read a book or two that needs talking about. And maybe I can jam through the last half of the current Kamen Rider series I'm watching before the month is through (highly unlikely, this season hasn't grabbed me like the others)