An aphorism for every occasion

...You know, it should probably worry me that a lot of my views on life, love and all that fun jazz come from Fruits Basket's Tohru Honda and the novels/stories of Charles de Lint. XD

Still, I do think they're generally good idea to live by, and the fact that they came from someone else's brain doesn't change that. And the fact that neither Natsuki Takaya nor de Lint are great statesmen or philosophers or sports players doesn't make their message less valid.

This evening I watched Spirited Away at rathershady's house. As per usual Miyazaki films, it was excellent; sweet and full of wonder without being cloying. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Ghibli is going to do with Howl's Moving Castle - I have no doubts they'll pull it off, it's just how I'm wondering about.

Also, it's always interesting checking out the voice acting credits. Sen is played by Daveigh Chase, best known as Lilo and Samara from The Ring; Chihiro's father is voiced by the redoubtable Michael Chiklis, who I didn't even realize did voice acting but who has apparently been doing a decent amount of it lately; and Yubaba's baby is played by Tara Strong, who's been voice acting since she was like 12 and has been in every conceivable cartoon in which they used voice talent, but whose most notable roles are probably The Powerpuff Girls' Bubbles, Rugrats' Dil Pickles, and FFX's Rikku.

Afterwards, Vinnie showed me trailers for quite a few upcoming movies:

( Cut to spare your friendslist )

x_x

Gah, my brain's running on overload and I can't sleeeeep~

But here, have a list of retarded shoujo anime/manga cliches. I laugh and wince simultaneously, because I recognize the cheesiness of stuff like Marmalade Boy and Imadoki at the same time that I <3 it muchly.

OMG TEH DRAMA

Who'da thunk it? Apparently Konami of America has been sending "cease-and-decist" letters to the owner of a Suikoden fansite - or at least some pea-brained troll is trying to make it seem like it is. Somehow, I don't think Konami has yet been reduced to having to send their legal notices from a Yahoo! mail account. And you thought all the wanking was restricted to within the games themselves. XD

(And, apropos of nothing, have some completely nonsensical Luc/Fitcher fanart. OMGTHEIRLOVEISSOEMO)

Also, apparently the FameTracker forums have been disabled and abandoned. I hear it's due to the large number of trolls and psychos on the boards. (It's kind of funny, I always thought those were the board regulars.) This is quite sad, as I now have no place to get my fix of Lindsay Lohan breast-implant discussion or of people who think "OMG GWYNETH IS A SKANKY FISHSTICK, IF SHE GETS BACK 2GETHER WITH BRAD I WILL DIEEE!!1"

...Wherever will I go, whatever shall I do, without my daily dose of Internet wangst? I might actually have to go someplace with more hardcore wank, such as the GameFAQs message boards or, God forbid, Megaten Haven. And that could be bad and brain-breaky.

Edit: Oh, good Lord. About the time I originally posted this, we got a frantic call from my stepdad. See, we took him to the airport today to see him off on a flight to a scholarly conference in Tempe, a suburb of Tucson (or so he thought). The problem is, it turns out Tempe is actually a suburb of Phoenix. So he's currently trying to rent a car at the Tucson airport to drive over to Phoenix.

...this did not come as a total surprise. Today, as we were at lunch before taking him, he mentioned that it was in Tempe and I said, "Oh, that's the suburb of Phoenix that Crystal [my sister] used to live in."

"No, that's Mesa," my mom said. (Mesa is where my sister lives now.) "Tempe is a suburb of Tucson."

"Oh, OK...I guess I must be mixing the two up," I said. I figured, I thought Crystal had lived in Tempe but maybe I was wrong. Not so much, as it turns out. *insert smug "I told you so" comment here*

Now, I love my stepdad to death, but this is SO TYPICAL of him, not checking to make sure he was going to the right city (especially since the conference brochure said, in plain English, "Fly into Phoenix International Airport"). He's seriously like the original absentminded professor, the perfect example of someone who's very highly educated - two master's degrees and a Ph.D. - but who has little ability to deal with real life and commonsensical types of things. (Actually, the scary thing is, he's much better about it than he used to be.)

...Never a dull moment in this household. XD