HOT & COLD

Jan.04-02 -- Well, it's been a while...

Much as I hate the heat of summer, I'm thinking I like a lot more about that season than I do about winter. (And no, not for the mere reason that I've kept all of my summers so far free of schooling.) I really do miss those long days when I could go outside in the afternoon and work heartily in the yard, usually on stopping with the setting of the sun at 8 or 9 PM. I'm finding how much I really hate the winter time table -- these short days just don't settle well with me, and I'm bloody glad we're beyond Solstice and the days are going to, slowly but surely, get longer back to the way I like 'em. I should probably read meself some Farmer's Almanacs or something, because I really don't know diddly about Solstice and Equinox ('they're video games... er, right?') and I probably should considering that I took long enough to realize they have a noticeable impact on how I experience The Year.

I just got back from a walk with the dog. I was feeling a little twitchy and guility lethargic, so I figured, eh, why not, both of us have been too much of nothing lately, we could use something resembling a workout. Walks aren't terribly fun for me in cold weather, though. Right now, my mucous membranes aren't doing so hot. Instead of getting spontaneous nosebleeds, my nasal passageways obstruct themselves with bloody tissue that dislodges itself if I try blowing my nose or, uh, try using a more direct method of clearing them out <<heh>>, resulting in my nose bleeding until it's blocked itself up all over again. Argh, I just can't win. And my lungs just feel all weighed down -- getting sick is a very rare occurrence for me, so I'm guessing the moisture-sapping winter air has something to do with that, too. The rigors of exercise, naturally, demand the increased function of my lungs, but inhalation is just a very not-so-fun process from the get-go. If I recall, the mammalian nose can function as some sort of buffer between the chill of the air and the toastiness of one's innards, but my nose has been in no shape to act as such, so during the walk I had to employ oral inhalation when my mitochondria were feeling especially greedy. Maybe I'm just disillusioning myself, but the windpipe in my throat still feels like it's colder than the rest of me. Sure, it's far from kaputt, but I wish my respiratory system didn't take cold weather so badly.

COUNTING CATHARTIDS

Aug.29-01 -- Thanks to the years of agony of having metal bits cemented to my teeth with wiring taut between, I have a pretty nice set of chompers. Once they were finally taken off, long ago, I was very happy... except for the necessity of maintaining their straightness. Just like anyone else, I'd have to clamp two flesh-colored pieces of plastic with little metal bits onto my dentition at regular intervals. I suppose this really isn't such a terrible burden. Heck, I actually get a kick out of wearing it sometimes -- when I put my retainer on for the first time in a while, I like that comforting tightness and feeling all of my teeth shifting in my gums back into proper alignment. My only real problem with retainers is not losing them.

I've never lost the top piece, but the bottom one... I've lost it not once, but twice. I can't even remember what happened to the first one (my folks' displeasure with me, on the other hand...). The second one I lost earlier this year, though because my memory is being like a steel sieve today I can't remember if it was before or during the summer... Egad. At any rate, it took me until yesterday to finally bother calling the orthodontist's office up, which, while patheticly procrastinatory, was also fortuitous -- the first available slot for me was the next day, that is, today.

The office is actually run by a different dude now than the last time I went, which is fine by me, as my memories of my old orthodontist are not particularly good ones. (I think he retired or something. Somehow. it wouldn't surprise me if it was to some condo on a Caribbean island where he would be under the constant dotage of "hot chicks" in swimsuits... Er, right.) Well, that doesn't matter, as I was attended by one of the female assistants rather than by the doctor himself. (I always hated that... A male on the top rung, younger females filling all other slots. Ick.) I got my impression taken, easy-peezy, and I go back on the 14th of next month to retrieve Mandibular Retainer #3.

On the way to the orthodontist, there was an awesome spectacle awaiting me on the road. The remnants of a young deer were lying in the middle of the left lane, and, naturally, they had attracted the attentions of the local clean-up crew... That is, our carcass-loving avifauna, namely, vultures. There were tons of them, right in the middle of the road, and they weren't avid about moving for cars. I wish I had had a camera with me then and there, but I didn't, and the circumstances didn't allow me to sit there and stare happily at the large birds, so I had to forget about them for the time. When I get back, I thought, I can get the camera and take pictures or something. Yep, sounds good.

The drive home seemed promising; I passed the site and the scavengers were still at work. The site was just a quick jaunt down the road from the house, so upon parking my car in the third garage (one household, three cars, four when my sister's around, and my Taurus is the smallest one -- something's rather wrong with American society, but that's beside the point) I grabbed the camera and went for a little walk.

I think I was gone for an hour, at least. Things went a little more rotten (hah-hah-hah) than I had hoped. When I arrived at the site, there was nary a cathartid in sight. The vultures hadn't seem to mind cars too much (but, then, they do owe most of their living to the four-wheeled gas-guzzling hunks of metal and why should they mind them so long as they can fly out of the way the exact moment before potential collision). They must not realize that humans operate the things, though, because I was almost certainly the reason why they had all vanished.

- linger suspiciously with camera, crawling and freezing to stare at things
- walk down driveway to where everyone was roosting, crows were very scary
- guy walking dog who knew what I was doing with that camera - arse
- didn't get any good photos in the end, but got to see a black one fairly close and a turkey vulture feeding from not too far away

Jul.28-01 -- Recently, I've wanted to write a great deal for Banter, but I've been terribly preoccupied. Both nothing and a lot are going on at the same time. (That must make absolutely no sense to anyone but me.) As the last entry indicates, I really have been up to "nothing". Even today, before dusk settled, I was outside getting dreckig, positively filthy. Mein Mutti was helping out for the first hour or so; we just traipsed about the yard and tackled the big guys that were growing in inappropriate spots.

Among these monstrosities are these things we call "rubber plants" -- I guess because they look like they're made of rubber and we don't know what their actual handle is. They have these big stems that are very hollow and "brittle", but as it goes their roots compensate for this seeming shortcoming... The roots are tubers, I'm told, and whatever the actual definition is they're a real beech to unearth. If they're really young, a good tug takes them out, but their elders are a bit more stubborn. One of the ones I tackled today had a very thick root that I needed to dig out (with a dinky little handheld shovel tool, at that). I dug for a while, but the root kept on going and was very much lodged in place. I was frustrated. So I got the big shovel. I am a total ditz with a shovel -- the two of us really do not get along -- but with a lot of pathetic struggling I dislodged something. Something big. A massive tuber, much larger than a potato, showed itself, but it was, alas, incomplete. I had inadvertantly severed the tuber from the part that went deeper still into the soil. But I was satisfied enough with the butchering I had accomplished. I filled in the hole I had just made and moved on.

"Hocus Pocus! Stop this insanity!"
Jul.22-01 -- Well, this last month has been more or less a waste... At least I've gotten around to digitizing sounds from 'analog' sources like I've always wanted. I have made recordings from VHS, Super Nintendo, NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, and PlayStation (well, DVD, too, but that doesn't count because one of my CD drives is also a DVD player, making it really easy to capture sounds and images). It can be quite a bit of work, whether I'm making sound bytes or creating music tracks from video games. The latter presents the most problems. Sometimes the games make it really easy to record the songs, in their entirety, without sound effects or anything, preferably by means of a sound test or similar feature. However, I've had to be very clever for a few 'tracks', but there are times when there is no way, in my knowledge, to record the music in a form 'pure' enough to bear listening to. I'll eventually make a list of the recordings I've made so that others may peruse it and the fruit of my labors shall be appreciated on a larger scale and, just for the record, detail the obstacles I encounter and overcame into order to get some of them, just so people can see how cool I am. ::>

Tetris Attack for the SNES is one of my victims. My sis picked up a copy while she was working at Blockbuster, and it remained hidden under many layers of debris in her room until very recently. I had previously heard some of the tunes in krippy SPC form and taken to a number of them (such as the great rearrangement of the endearing music box tune from Yoshi's Island), and it made me happy that I'd finally be able to listen to them in their original splendor. To my elation, Attack had a music test, which meant fast and easy plundering. However, a number of songs were, annoyingly, absent -- major victory, credits, and the four special endings.

I managed to get the credits music, no problem, but the other five have thusfar eluded me. I figured the Versus Mode against the computer would eventually yield a special ending, so that's what I've been working on. I beat Easy. I beat Normal. I beat Hard -- well, after the loss of all of my friends and a pathetic number of continues. The less-than-optimum ending I got told me that I couldn't use any continues with Yoshi. Blast. So after much cursing and button-mashing in a semi-hypnotic state, and a number of failed attempts, I beat the tar out of Super Koopa daiou-sama (known to us non-Japanese as Bowser) with four friends to spare. I began to rejoice, but then I discovered I didn't get a special ending after all. The credits rolled and I considered what the heck I might've done wrong, and after it said "The End" a screen came up telling me how to challenge the Hardest mode. Excuse me?!? You mean I have to do all of that all bloody over again, and with the difficulty stepped up! ARRRRRRRRgggggGGGh. It's incredibly unfair to relatively-pathetic video game players like myself who just want to record all of the bloody songs. I'm guessing acing Hardest will yield a special ending, but, even if I do manage to pull that off, there'll be three more to get after that!!! Egad. At any rate, it's made me a tad bit upset. Just a tad.

On the upside, though, about a week ago I finished playing through SaGa Frontier's seven quests, again, in order to access the 2nd Division's music test feature. If my stupid brother hadn't deleted the original system data, I wouldn't have had to agonize through that bloody repetitive game all over again, but, well, I did, and I never have to do it again. I finally bothered to check out the jukebox in the 2nd Div.'s music room and, true to what I had heard, there was a music test after all. (Somehow, I had missed it the first time around.) I'm pretty sure all of the SGF music was there, too. The only things I cared about, though, were the songs absent from the soundtrack, which comes to a pathetic total of eight, but I have them now and that's all that matters. One of them was entitled, by the jukebox, "Riki", and I'm guessing this is the "Coon's Theme" that is supposedly hidden track 00 on the third OST disc, which I had never been able to access. My frustrations have come to an end!

For once, my outdoor labors have not been solitary. Yesterday meine Mutti announced her Project: Anti-Thistle and rallied up both my brother and I to participate today. We went out at about 3:45 and faced-off against a rectangular fenced area, once a garden but now everything but, an overgrown jungle of grass and various other plants I can't begin to identify, save the Prickly Pest. Well, I really don't consider anything to be a "pest" (except my little brother, naturally), and, as a fellow lifeform, I respect thistle (and everything else I uproot) wholeheartedly. Still, by submitting this flora to mass death and destruction in an environmentally-friendly manner, I am supposedly assisting in some higher purpose of my parents' devising and raising funds for myself as well. We started at the entrance of the garden and filled a large tarp with the corpses of the poor plants, calling it a night around 6:00. I'm starting to feel the effects of the work now. Mostly, I just feel like going to sleep, but I can't do that until I take care of a number of non-humans who rely on me to provide sustenance and Pokemon impersonations. Maybe if I find a source of caffeine I'll be able to get some more scanning done, as well.

It's a wrap for this piece of Banter. I was only intent on venting my frustrations with Tetris Attack before attending those things that demand my... attentions, so I've written more than enough for now. I have plenty of stuff to babble about, later perhaps.

[Now Playing: Something from the Sega CD version of Ecco the Dolphin. Whoever made the ID3 tag for this one didn't bother supplying a title, so all it says is "track 3". I downloaded a whole bunch of Ecco stuff because I was hoping to find a couple of songs from the Genesis version that had remained in memory, but no such luck. The Sega CD stuff is very nice, though. Mostly ambient in a cool new age sort of way, absolutely priceless for essay-writing, sleeping, and turning the first activity into the second. Spencer Nielson has my admiration.]

BLACKIE IST MEIN FREUND
Jun.27-01 -- 'Tis the wee, wee morning as I write this. 2ji gozen, actually. I'm such a naughty girl, but I can't go to bed just yet, as the sinuses in my brow region are aching mad and the dRuGs I took aren't working yet. My pain is just barely offset by the glee I'm feeling right now... I made yet another "EVA Discovery". That is, I just observed something new about the Evangelions. I exalt Anno-tachi for the detail they put into the beasties. Certainly, there have been some errors and inconsistencies (both Yui and Kyoko have had "variable" dentitions, EVA-02's blood temporarily turned red during her being cannibalized, etc.), but this isn't a terribly big deal. Even though they are hardly the spotlight of the anime, there is actually much to be learned about the EVAs for those who pay very close attention.

From what I know, though, very few NGE fans actually do. To them, the EVAs only matter so much as they relate to these fans' favorite human characters, and who cares how many pupils or nostrils EVAs have or what's on their foreheads or how their various pigmentation differ between themselves or whatever. I suppose it goes without saying that I am an incredibly "special" NGE fan, only currently aware of one other who finds the EVAs themselves as intriguing as I, whose favorite characters are the "maternal monstrosities." (I use such terms affectionately of them, by the way.) Is it at all possible that any other human beings are on this same ultra-eccentric wavelength? Could others have, independently, given considerable thought to such matters as the enigma of Shogouki's neck "gills" or the case of the German Blueblood? So long as I know it's just me and DRL, I shall have to revel in my weirdness.

Ah, and my "discovery", lest I forget. It's not a terribly big deal... Or perhaps it is, given it has eluded me for this long. Most people who have seen NGE probably don't know that EVA-03 had red irises or a black tongue. Only eccentrics like me would feel the need to watch Blackie's demolition over and over and over again, in slow-mo, just in case Anno-tachi hid something "cool" in there. Well, "cool" to me, as this would probably qualify as "gross" to almost everyone else. Wielders of the Slow-Mo Button™ can behold some of what had lay hidden under Sangouki's black mask, that is, until Yui bashed the skull of the unfortunate EVA, resulting in the lower jaw (black tongue attached), one eye, pieces of helmet, and lots of bloody gore flying out. But that's nothing new to me. Now that I have that episode on DVD, I've been able to take some nice screenshots in which I can see the details better than before, but I didn't see anything previously unnoticed.

I went on a snapshot binge for episodes 18-20. I started to go through the snappies a few hours ago, deciding which ones were worthy enough to join my big-but-not-big-enough EVA image library, converting the TIFs into JPGs as is standard procedure, checking the JPGs to make sure they weren't compressed horrifically before deleting the TIFs... I had, up until then, paid little attention to a screenshot from episode 19 of Blackie's mutilated right arm lying upon blood-splattered houses. I suddenly realized that, further down from the wrist, the "PVC" cover on the arm ends and flesh is visible, and even (what seem to be) a couple of arm bones are poking through! As mutilated as the naked arm is, that must still be skin on it. This means that my silly little theory about Blackie being an albino EVA is now defunct, as her skin appears to be ... brown. How typical. ::}

I feel strangely happy about it all... except about Blackie's fate, of course. She would've been a kicka$$ addition to the sorority, but, as things went, she didn't have a chance. Her entire physical body was invaded by that mutha*&$#@! Bardiel, who is just a glorified glop of whiteout who seems to have more in common with that mofrack [spontaneously-created curse substitute] Armisael every time I think about it. Gawd, I hate them both. (Did I mention that I hate the Harpies, too?) Anyway, I wonder if it would have been theoretically possible to drive Bardiel from Sangouki...? Perhaps a procedure similar to exorcism (except now you're spiriting an "angel" out of a "demon") would have worked. ["But Tousan, I've never even seen 'The Exorcist'!"]

Come to think of it, there must've been a way to avoid Zero's extremely unpleasant demise as well... Yui's tactic "If you can't beat them, eat them" is an interesting possibility. A prog knife made the stupid light-snake scream like a girlie-girl, so a combination of EVA tooth-knashing and heavy-duty slobber could have had some fun, blood-splattering results. [Rei: "Only 400 more meters of chewing to go... We can do it!"] I'm all set for some weird-a$$ dreams now! [And in case you're confused, I'm referring to the Director's Cut version of ep 23.]

Oh... and "KAERU no TEEMA" from the "Chrono Trigger OSV" is Now Playing. (I actually own that album! Wow!!) "CT" is a good game, but I'm hardly a cultist fan. I worship neither the game nor its music, though 'Trigger has its own handful of timeless tunes (such as Froggy's song) thanks to Mitsuda-san's gift of song. "Chrono" arranged albums that took an approach similar to "Creid" would've been, ach, divine, but they're almost certainly not going to happen.

Jun.22-01 -- This weather sucks. Hot and muggy. Incondusive to laboring outside in the dirt and the tick-infested overgrown vegetation and making more money to be quickly exchanged for EVA merchandise. After my buying binge of yesterday, and the fact that purchases from years ago are still collecting dust in my parents' closet as they await being (finally) paid off, I may just have to be daring and work outside anyway; perhaps regular drenching with a hose would keep me from getting a stroke or something. If I feel guiltily lethargic later on today and I don't feel like driving to the gym, I'll have to give that a try.

Speaking of the gym, my attendance has been pretty poor so far this month. Maybe three or four visits so far. That's just pathetic, Rachel! And the strangest thing is I somehow managed to reduce my cellulite deposits further since I last checked. I am now happily under the 200 lb. boundary. Granted, 197 is a rather insignificant numeric difference that could easily drift back over the big 2-0-0, but I should give myself some credit here. I can't even remember the last time I weighed less than 200. To Dis with the numbers, though, I still have a bit of work to do. My gut has been celebrating its reduction, mostly by threatening to make my shorts fall off in public (oh my), though I won't be happy until I can see at least some sign of abdominals. And I'm still suffering from the Jello syndrome below my shoulders. And what's with that jiggly dewlap?! ARGH.

Also, need I mention, my triceps are so atrophied it might be an exaggeration to say I possess the muscle at all; they couldn't lift a pathetic 25 lb. of weight, or maybe I was just doing the exercise completely wrong. Wait, that means that I also have no biceps to speak of... Last time I couldn't even do 15 bleepin' reps with pathetic 12 lb. weights. I suppose it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say I had no arm muscles at all. This is one of those irritating female shortcomings I avidly aspire to eventually overcome, if only so I could, at least in theory, kick total arse with the skill, grace, and utter primality of my role model, Yui-gami. Role model? What the he11 am I talking about? I am absolutely insane.

In an act of complete randomness, I had my brand-new Kaiyodo Blackie mount my Guardian Force Cerberus and ascend from Hades' domain, red-toothed maw gaping, with the snarling assistance of her new three-headed friend. It's a spectacle that makes learning how to use my sister's digital camera a very tempting proposition (and then I would be able to make hilarious and grotesque displays like this one at Xenophilia, domain of one of my sister's demented cohorts). Sangouki and Cerb look eerily cute together; I think the former just made her new Best Friend (at least until I get the Kaiyodo Zerogouki Kai, with whom Blackie intends on having plenty of fun.... er, right...).

Well, aside from the red-eyed wonder, I now have two other Kaiyodos in my possession: EVA-04 (ain't she so pretty and silvery?) and EVA-01, of course. I am extremely pleased with San- and Yon-, save for the fact that their legs don't have the poseability I would've wanted, but Yui, while considerably better than my krippy Real Model, wasn't all I had hoped for. I would've preferred her armor to have been just its regular straight purple color (as opposed to it being "shaded" with black in places; I don't know how to explain it well). Also, the armor components that were supposed to be light blue-grey are silver (and it looks plain wrong), there is something very wrong-looking about the mandible, and her arms aren't poseable at all. Oh, and the horn broke off one of her two included heads. ("Aaaahhh! You broke my HORN!!! GwwwAAAAAArrr!!!! Prepare to die, shito scum!") And they didn't consider sickos like me and also include a head missing the front of the helmet, a la episode 2. No interchangeable naked arm, either. No removable core cover. No head with big white chompers showing. Curses. My lusting for the perfect affordable Shogouki model has yet to be relieved. My Gawd, that sounds so wrong. I'll just spare the world any more perversion for today and end this line of thought here and now.

Oh, and need I mention: ADV's EVA DVDs suck. Yui would go on a rampage if she saw how bad the stills of her demolishing EVA-03 looked. (She would also go on a rampage upon hearing how her Sacred Voice has been butchered and replaced in the dubs, something I was somewhat horrified to discover.) Regardless, the discs are infinitely better-looking and -sounding than the third-generation (something like that) bootleg VHS copies I have put up with all this time, not to mention a nauseatingly better deal than the video tapes. Still, I long to know how EVA is supposed to look, in all its original-Japanese-disc-format-release superiority...

[Now playing: "Søra" from the Escaflowne Movie OST. Short (well, it's 02:24, I suppose that's short) but very sweet. I love these beauteous mellow offerings from Kanno-sama. S˘ra is a little like "Moon" from Turn-A Gundam OS1, and it's similarly sung in some language that I cannot even hope to recognize (assuming it's a real language at all, as Kanno seems to have a penchant for fanciful lyrics). I enjoyed the anime series (Escaflowne) very much -- particularly Dilandau-sama's maniacal antics -- but I have had hesitations about seeing the movie, even though I could steal my brother's bootleg CD-burned-with-movie-file copy and watch it at any time. I will see it eventually, but not until I really need to.

Jun.21-01 -- Technically, it's the 22nd now (1:12AM as I start writing), but it's still Thursday to me, so that's how I'll date this entry. Today was quite an adventure for me. I went to my shrink for the second time this week (I went yesterday, in spite of the fact that, right before leaving, I looked in my schedule book and my appointment was clearly listed under Thursday, a striking example of my idiotic absentmindedness). I arrived a little on the tardy side, but there was enough time for plenty of babble. Afterwards, I made an uncharacteristic move for Rachel -- instead of heading home and letting my car sit in dormancy for another two weeks, I decided to go to the R Mall. (If I said its complete name, it would clue any scary web-stalker-types in on my general whereabouts in NJ.) I had never attempted to drive there before (previously, my folks had been the ones driving), so this was daring on my part, even more so because I had never traveled the route before and I have had many bad highway ventures in the past. But I did it. I found it (actually by accident, as it wasn't in the exit I thought it'd be, but when I took the next exit to U-turn, voila).

My car's rear right window is broken again. That is, it's stuck, meaning any jerk could just reach in and unlock the door no problem. It alarmed me at first, but I decided it was unlikely anyone would bother with my little kripp-mobile. My car is virtually bare on the inside and would only be appealing to a thief who also happened to like Pokémon (considering my dashboard's ornamentation). So I decided to risk it and go into the mall with my window down and all. Fortunately, all was untouched when I returned. My visit was worthwhile. The resident WB store was closing down (seems AOL owns them now and deemed that particular store worthy of the axe); with all Pokémon merchandise 50% off, for only a little over $10 I made off with a pretty decent number of keychains and mini-figurines. Babbage's had the 0:3 EVA DVD for $20, which is $10 less than the norm and a deal I couldn't bear to pass up, and since they had 0:7 (which includes the all-mighty Episode 19) for $25 I snatched that as well.

I was done at the R Mall. I knew how to get home from there, no problem, but I still felt daring. The L Mall was next on my itinerary, as it had a store rumored to have EVA figures and other places potentially harboring good DVD deals. Problem was, I wasn't quite sure how to get there, from the highway, from home, from anywhere. Much wandering and I found it. I checked out Hero Town, anticipating that they would have some yummy Kaiyodo EVAs. No such luck. They were not Kaiyodo, not even Real Model, something completely different and possibly even krippier than the latter. Completely unappealing (and the EVA-04 was grey! >P), except for the Sachiel and Evil Harpy shown on the back of the box but, naturally, absent from Hero Town's retail.

I also perused the small collection of laminated posters; all but two of the EVA ones were familiar images I had no special desire to plaster on my wall These other two were completely unfamiliar. The first would have been fairly cool if Shinji wasn't at the bottom with naked Rei and Asuka crawling all over him; the rest of the pic involved Zero and Kyoko, apparition-like, looking especially freaky with jaw armor absent and teeth showing (and Kyoko with inaccurately straight rows), crossing lances. Floating in the very background was, of course, Yui-sama, looking all divine and demonic and glowy. The second scroll I didn't even realize was EVA at first, as the characters were a bit off-model, but it had a premise I thought was especially intriguing. It depicted a scene occurring after the end of End, Asuka still bandaged-up and Shinji now wearing Misato's cross around his neck. The sky is once again blue and the water pristine. Lilith is nowhere in sight, but two of the shiroi oni loom in the background, seeming to have petrified, the closer one eerily resembling "Kaworu's statue", save with armor and without wings. Endearingly enough, Asuka is looking back at Shinji with an unmistakable fondness, a glance he is returning. Has all been forgiven? Do Shinji's recent vices -- his dishonorable action by her bedside, not giving aid in a battle that resulted in the deaths of both Sohryuus, and his spontaneous attempt to strangle Asuka -- no longer matter? If only Asuka and Shinji looked completely like themselves, the poster would've joined my purchase, which ultimately was composed entirely of Pokémon stuff on clearance. (I am ever the shrewd opportunist...)

That entry was sadly devoid of anything personal, but there's no reason why I cannot record any experiences and little adventures that I have on Banter as well... I'll have to share impressions of my newly-acquired Kaiyodo EVAs and first-time viewings of English-dubbed episodes 9-11 and 18-21 another time.

[What the bloody biscuit was playing in Winamp when I wrote this? Was I even listening to anything at all? Okay, well, to make up for that, the Chrono Cross track badly translated as "Shore of the Dream ~ Another World" (I didn't change the ID3 tag to the true title in all its romaji glory, dangit) was just playing. Wait a minute... This is BANTER, not HISTORY! I guess I'm so used to blathering away on HISTORY that I forgot I have a page exclusively for ranting now. Ah, who cares, I'll archive the utter 4000-track randomness of my massive Winamp playlist on this page, too. Some strange trends may yet emerge.]

Jun.11-01 -- I've been going through boxes of old stuff in my room, mostly papers, much of it old writings of mine. If I had any doubts about whether or not I really have improved over the years, reading some of that stuff quenched them completely. I have mellowed out beyond belief. I consider myself a rather mild person these days, more aware and considerate of the feelings of others, more understanding, more accepting, less argumentative. Back in 'the days', I actually managed to make people PO'd at me. I got HATE MAIL. And I don't blame any of those people for sending me the stuff. I was a pugilistic little demoness and I deserved every bit of it.

Oddly enough, one of the things I regret the most was a rather opinionated letter I sent to the author Piers Anthony. I had once been a massive fan of his, but then I suddenly turned around and starting loathing all of his books. I thought they were idiotic, though this was no reason for me to insult him on a near-personal level as I had. My letter was fatuous, arrogant, and unwarranted. For whatever reason, though, Piers actually read it. He sent me a personal (albeit typed) response. He even published it in his newsletter. It was not the reaction I expected, but, looking back....

I rather despise the girl who sent Mr. Anthony that letter. Still, it is evidence of how far I've come personality-wise. These days, my thinking is, sure, Piers' "Xanth" series is very silly, juvenile, even idiotic, but that's how it's supposed to be and the author is quite aware of it. Not all of his writing is so ridiculous, but my younger self though so because it contained various adult and human aspects -- things I couldn't accept back then, whether from book, from movie, from real life, whatever. To be truthful, I respect Anthony-san: From everything I have been able to ascertain, he is a wonderful person. He cherishes family and friends, he respects and preserves nature, he relishes the company of non-humans, he's vegetarian, he has done beneficent acts for unfortunate young adults, etc. Maybe one of these days I'll give his books another try.

Ah, how far little Rachel has come...

Mar.13-01 -- I have myself in a fit. I watched "End of Evangelion" again. Well, I watched "Death and Rebirth" first, since it does have some content that isn't in the TV series. I also like to see if I can find any differences, however minute, between "Rebirth" and the first half of "End". I was watching "The Revival of Nigouki" in Rebirth, thinking, "Wasn't Kyoko vocalizing quite a bit more?" Indeed, that is one of the differences between Rebirth and 25': Kyoko is pretty much silent in the former, but she makes some cool noises in the latter. I'm nuts; I love it when the EVAs decide to speak up. (Though I'm still wondering whether the sounds coming from berserk Zerogouki were from her or of mechanical origin.) 01, 02, and 03 all have the same quality to their, uh, voices, but they're also distinct. I wish I knew how the sound bytes originated; naturally, I like to think they are recordings of wailing, etc., women, modified, of course, to fit something as immense as an Evangelion. Soon as I get my pathetic microphone working, I want to see if it's possible, albeit with my significantly lacking sound facilities. (The cry of EVA Reichugouki!) Gawd, I love those battle cries. Pure insanity.

If I'm remembering this correctly, I noticed another difference between Rebirth and 25' today; in the latter, right before Nigouki's eyes light up, the scene with little Asuka in the woods ends with her and Kyoko finding the other's hand. Awww... And, if Kyoko was indeed saying "I can't let you die yet... Let's die together..." -- her dialogue to Asuka may have differed between the two versions -- I figured another way to interpret this. Last time Kyoko was talking about her and Asuka "dying together", it was a reflection of the selfishness of a double suicide, even though Kyoko hung with herself the surrogate-Asuka doll and not her actual daughter. This time, though, Kyoko may have meant it a bit more heartfully, as in: "The way things are going, you're going to die all by yourself! Don't die yet! If you're going to die at all, it will only be if I go down with you! So, come on! Let's get moving, mother, daughter!" Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm nuts. ::)

This viewing of EoE makes me loathe (perhaps even hate) the EVA Series more than ever before. I hate what they did to Kyoko. It was beyond any concept of "revenge". It was hateful. It was despicable. It was not unlike the utterly gruesome assassinations that Europe used to see (my sister studies European, namely medieval, history, and once described some of these killings to be in vivid detail). Maybe it was worse. And that it could happen at all, given the utter patheticness and despicability of the EVA Series... Sure, life isn't fair, but this is far beyond "not fair."

Feb.24-01 – I got woken up in time for Pokémon today. Good thing, too – new episode! It was about some kid (at first, I could’ve sworn he was a girl…), with a Scizor, who never brings the poor bug out because of his laptop. The little nerd had a giant database of trainer data on his machine and never battled anymore because he could always predict the outcome (always in his favor, of course), thus rendering a fight unnecessary. I wanted to shove that laptop up his navel, the arrogant little pissant, especially when he was using it during the battle with Ash. That’s kind of like cheating, if you ask me. Good thing Heracross kicked his little computer-geek booty.

After that, I watched Alien3, of all things. I suppose it can’t be such a bad movie if I feel like watching it every now and then. (Or maybe it really is a bad movie and my taste in films is thus questionable.) Technically, it was well done, but it was a heck of a letdown after the all-mighty “Aliens”. They killed Hicks and Newt, two very cool characters (though I probably miss the former more). I suppose Newt’s death had some purpose, but it would’ve been very interesting if Hicks had survived the crash. (I like making these scenarios…) If it had been so, odds are Ripley wouldn’t have gotten as close to the Doc as she had. ::ahem:: (I must be a lot less dense that I used to be, because, this viewing, it was actually very obvious to me what Ripley and Clemens did…)

I don’t know how the Queen managed to lay some eggs on the Sulaco – and then one got on the EEV, too? (I could’ve sworn I saw one in the foreground, right before the camera went to the Facehugger.) Very curious… (Plot devices tend to transcend the boundaries of logic and sense.) I’ll give them credit, at least, for exploring the possibility of embryo implantation in non-humans, in this case, poor Spike. (“Did somebody do this to you? … What kind of animal would do this to a dog?”) Still, I think the “dog alien” could’ve been done better. Sure, it walked around on all fours sometimes, but it really didn’t strike me as being particularly dog-like, whereas previous Warriors’ human traits are apparent. In the very least, they could’ve given it a canine dentition (note how the human-born Warriors have very human-like teeth, albeit considerably more formidable). Well, whatever. The whole alien-takes-on-traits-of-host bit fell flat in #4, where the designers decided chicken-legged Warriors would look cooler – why have plain ol’ human-legged Aliens when they can be stomping around like Velociraptors? ::facetious:: Sheesh.

rachel.k.clark@comcast.net

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