import

I've been home for the last couple days due to illness. I don't regret missing any of it as I have the notes and handouts that I need and there weren't any tests. The family just got a new printer which does anything you could possibly want a printer to do, so, despite having to run around getting it working on our USB 1.0 set-up, it's good. I'll be working with babies in the morning tomorrow, which pretty much dictates my energy level for the day: low. I've got my English essay, due tomorrow, printed and nearly flawless. I also have a Creative Expressions test tomorrow which likely isn't going to be much fun, though it will likely be a short class. And then on Saturday I get to go do my First Aid/CPR training. T_T I am pressing to get the Anime Night disk done before I go to bed, which should be doable, but I really have do download more AMVs for next week. The ones I have are getting old. A raised can of root beer to productivity!

I had a pretty good day today. The toddlers I was working with were enjoyable and not terribly behaved, I got giant toddler hugs from two of them actually. One of the Teachers I was working with was pregnant. I have only one episode of Haruhi to watch before I'm caught up and can join a Haruhi fangroup. I also got two Sakuya from friends of mine to add to my collection of virtual dolls, I now have 8/100. The wife made an awesome open faced turkey sandwich dinner, too.

Life seems so good sometimes.

I get the feeling that this Hideshi Hino's Theatre of Horror is a sucky TV hour in jp just as Friday the 13th is in N America. I saw Lizard Baby from the same line of movies and it was terrible. It wasn't suspenseful and reminded me of an ep of the Twilight Zone except it didn't have a twist at the end. Maybe I will try watching the Ringu series or Ju On next instead of subjecting myself to this series.

I have been watching a show called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱) and it's really pretty interesting about a girl named Haruhi and her obsession with supernatural occurrences. Haruhi seems like some kind of catalyst for a larger plot involving alternate space, time travelling and the Earth coming into existence four years ago. At any rate it is still airing in jp and I have four more eps to watch before I am caught up to the current story line (the last ep aired was 13.) It's based on the Nagaru Tanigawa's Suzumiya Haruhi series of novels which I haven't read and, indeed, don't even know if it's been translated officially, unofficially or at all. Though if I actually do enjoy the TV series enough I will seek them out. I am actually learning a bit of jp. じょうずじゃありません。。。 But I'm not very good. If I get good enough I am thinking about doing some translation for a fansub group or two.

I just finished watching a movie called Dead Girl Walking which is a japanese horror movie about, well, a dead girl.. Walking. It was rather like a french art film (not that i've seen many of those) in which the main girl is put through travesty after travesty. It is done almost entirely in black and white and has a rather low production value, which I like. There are no real twists or anything, just a few very powerful images (it's not a gore fest or anything, so i don't mean dismembered girl bits strewn all over the place.) It's part of a series of movies produced or at least endorsed by one of my favourite mangaka, Hideshi Hino, called Hino's House of Horror or something equally obvious. I would recommend it, though I don't think it's actually very widely available. I got it in an obscure corner of a not so obscure imageboard and it was, luckily, subbed. I also got another movie called something something blah in the same line of movies that was absolutely terrible and boring. Low budget horror walks a very fine line, it seems.

Also, Mushishi is an anime I have been watching. About a race of creatures that exist somewhere between life and death and can be inexactly described as ghosts and the hunters who try to understand and kill them. It is rather well written and well drawn, more so than most anime, I find. It has only been subbed up to ep 21 though there are likely supposed to be 24-26 episodes in the series. I wish one of the numerous fansub groups doing a lesser anime would finish the hell up and resume work on this masterpiece of a show. Maybe i will just d/l the japanese language versions and hope that it is self explanatory enough to follow the story.