24 Dec 02

Like Nietzsche, I too am funny! Because I misspelled Nietzsche in my last entry during a segment ABOUT somebody misspelling Nietzsche! HOW HILARIOUS IS THAT. But I don't feel too bad about it, since like half the web pages about him also spell it "Nietzche" and not "Nietzsche." In fact, there was so much division I had to check the encyclopaedia to be sure. ;o

Today is Christmas Eve! Although, like the Christmas Eve entry I wrote last year, it's actually being written TECHNICALLY on Christmas. But who cares about that. Poo. My Christmas Eve present was--- the world's cutest stuffed dog. He's really soft and there's nothing special about him at all, which is why I love him so incredibly much. For some reason I'm really drawn to things that aren't special. ;o I named him Hector, and now I need another new stuffed animal to call Achilles! See, I saw this dog at Wal-Mart when Dad, AnJa and I went to get some replacement Christmas lights for ones that were broken and I picked it up and went "Awwww, there's nothing special about it at all!!!" which gave Dad and AnJa a good laugh. And I asked Dad please could I get it and he said no. But that was just 'cause he was thinking I could get it for Christmas anyway! Anyway, I knew I was getting it because AnJa and I went to Wal-Mart again after school on Friday and got it ;o It's the present from her to me. I got her the Muppet Show soundtrack. We bought them and wrapped them together. Tee hee. For Dad we got a box of Hershey's Pot o' Gold stuff cos that's good. For mum we got a pretty candle and some orange-scented bath stuff. For both of them, we get The Jerk on DVD, because it's a hilarious movie! Anyway, tonight Dad opened the DVD, mum opened the present from Richard and Brady (chocolate popcorn, mmmmm), AnJa opened LILO & STITCH (hurray, I love that movie!!!) and I opened Hector. If there's a present that I know what it is, I usually open that one on Christmas Eve so that Christmas will be nothin' but surprises. But there won't be too many big surprises this year since once again, I'm pretty sure mum and dad pretty much just got me stuff I asked for. The surprise will be which of them I get. XD() Har har, almost everything under the tree is in the shape that means it's either a video game or a DVD.

Continuing chronicles of Rachel's broken GCN: I still haven't got it back, grrrrr! See, the guys were like "we'll have the new one shipped to you." And that was over two weeks ago and it still isn't here. Anger. Buuuuuuut, mum and dad got ANJA a GameCube for Christmas (so she can play at her apartment, since she's usually there and not here) and they gave it to her early (yesterday) so we can play GameCube games again until mine gets here ^_^

NEW WEBCAM PICTURES AAAHH. (EVERY TIME I TYPE 'WEBCAM,' I ACCIDENTALLY TYPE 'WEBCAME' AND HAVE TO BACKSPACE)

... It's over.

Since my GameCube broke, I've been playing the original Legend of Zelda on my NES emu ;o That game is FREAKING DIFFICULT! If it weren't for such things as online walkthroughs and Save State, there's no way I would ever have developed the patience and skillz necessary to beat this thing. As it is, I'm on level 8 (The Lion, I believe?) wif 15 hearts, the Magic Shield, Magic Sword, and Blue Ring. Yes. I am cool. Actually, the guy who wrote the FAQ I'm using is cool.

I watch Monk now! I <3 that show. Mum and dad have been watching it for a while and they always wanted me to watch it too, only I never would. That's because I knew I would love it if I watched it and then I'd have to always watch it. :o() Yes. Monk is teh goods ahosw1

Well, my grandparents from my Dad's side visited us weekend before last. For most of that weekend, I was extremely occupied elsewise making my comic for the Tokyopo Rising Stars of Manga contest (more on that later). So I didn't see much of them. But during what I did, it seemed like a good visit. :o I reread some stuff I wrote about them last summer, and about not loving Grandma... I don't think I feel that way anymore. It's just that I never really thought she loved me. Only when she and Grandpa were kind of being interested in what I was making, and wanting to see it and wondering how I was and making sure I wasn't working too hard and stuff... I realised they do care... and... yeah. So that was nice. Now I'm not a horrible "I HATE MAH GRANDPARENTS" anymore. Not that I ever really was, but yeah.

Hmm. The fingernails on my right hand are getting quite long. I shall have to clip them soon. I'm so stupid-- I've now even figured out a way in which I can STILL bite my nails. I gnaw them off with my molars. O_O()() But it's still nothing like before-- I usually do only one or two, and only when I'm actually stressed and not all the time like before. And this happens only once every two weeks or so. So I'm stupid, but I could be stupider. At least my toof is not further chipp-ed.

So! Tokyopop contest. I've been planning to enter it ever since I first heard about it, which was like... August or something ridiculous like that, only I kept having mangaka's block and not being able to decide what I wanted to do for it... then I finally decided I wanted to do something biographical about Frederick the Great. I knew I wanted to do his escape attempt and aftermath thereof, because it's the most dramatic and action-packed part of his early life XP And it had to be early life since he got ugly pretty soon after becoming king. >.> <.< But anyway, even after I decided this, I still had creative blockages because I couldn't manage to start writing the script at all... and I was also inanely busy with college applications and junk during that time. And then, a week and a half before the contest deadline, I finished my college applications. And then, a week before the contest deadline, I got my inspiration. Yeah. That was sort of an "ouch." I had like six days to finish 21 pages. (for those of you who don't regularly draw comics, that's a lot.) So I quite literally spent EVERY moment of spare time that entire week (and weekend thereof) doing nothing but working on the comic. BUT I AM COOL BECAUSE I GOT IT FINISHED. Oh yes, you'd like to see it, wouldn't you? Too bad! Ha ha ha. I jest. Stop crying. Geez. Just move that little pointer over and click here. To anyone who reads it: I <3 comments. A LOT. I am well aware of quite a few problems with the artwork because of talent-related limitations (bleh) and the time constraint, but that doesn't mean you oughtn't to point out anything that stands out to you as being particularly good or bad anyway in the script or artwork. Whee, I love Frederick the Great. About the title: Frederick once signed a letter to his sister Wilhelmina "Fédéric le pfilosophe," meaning "Frederick the Philosopher," only he misspelled "philosopher" as it should be "philosophe" in French. And no, Frederick was not French, he was Prussian (the equivalent of German), but he liked French stuff better than German stuff and always wrote in French. ;o In fact, he signed that letter "Fédéric" because he thought it looked French. His actual given name was "Friedrich." How German! So of course he didn't like it.

I went to see the Two Towersa fjdklafsk;v Spoilers follow, so if you don't want to see them, hover over the fast downscroller until you see a paragraph break (the fast downscroller is FAST, and Veneliza freaks out when her mouse is over it). If we're on the topic of my onmouseover scrollers anyway, I've got this to say: I LIKE ONMOUSEOVER SCROLLERS, SO SCREW YOU ALL. Fine, I promise that next Glucose layout won't have them. Bleh.

Castlevania is funny because they all use whips. ._.() Oh, right. This is s'posed to be a Two Towers paragraph. SPOILER INITIATE! Okay, I admit I laughed at them too, but midget jokes *aren't* really that funny. Dwarves are short, get over it. I'm also a little peeved by the portrayal of the whole Legolas/Gimli thing-- the way it seems they want to show Legolas as the death cool bad-donkey, and Gimli as kind of goofy. In my opinion, they should have left in the fact that Gimli is actually the one who won their killcount contest at Helm's Deep. ^^() Legolas is insanely yummy, though. The horse-mounting thing. Eeehehe. I wasn't too thrilled by his medieval skateboard thing, but to each his own ;o Ents = HOORAY. How great was the Ent who put itself out in the undammed river?? The whole industry = evil theme was heavy-handed, but so it was even in the books. Umm, what else. Faramir came off as too much of a jerk, but I thought he was very handsome. I'm still bitter about Sam's chubbiness, but I'm getting over it slowly. Oh em gee, I freaking LOOOOVE Gollum. He's so cute o_o() OH! Rohan totally 0wnz me. Instead of standard medieval European looking, it was specifically ancient Brittanic and stuff. I found that incredibly smooth. Probably another offshoot of my having read The Dark is Rising sequence. I am still hopelessly, unscientifically in love with Bran Davies. I've been trying to draw fan art but it keeps not coming out. Boo. I also, quite by accident, discovered that such a thing as Will/Bran slash exists. AAHH. I had to claw out my eyes after I saw that, but modern medicine is quite wonderful and I can see again *pleasant smile* RIGHT, OFF TOPIC AGAIN. Those easterlings sure had pretty eyes. :o Also, OLIPHAUNTS! OLIPHAUNTS! OOOOLIPHAAAUNTS. And the battle scenes. Egads. Stunning. Gorgeous. (Gorgeous is a weird adjective to describe a battle scene, but it's what I feel.) I mean, DUDE. Wow. I teared up when Gandalf rode down the hill with Eomer and those other Rohirrim :o Speaking of, Gandalf's high-powered white light when he takes off the elven cloak rawks my world. Haw haw haw. Also, cursed Théoden was awesome. In fact, Théoden was just sort of awesome, period. Go him. Jinjo does not agree that Faramir was good-looking, but, unfortunately, she is wrong. SPOILER STOP

I'm increasingly drawn to minimalism. Also, I <3 Naraku's BGM. I don't <3 the way they call Sessho-maru-sama "suh-SHOW maroo" in the dub. I know the "o" is long but it's said like "SEH-sho MA-ru." Not "suhSHO maroo." Blah. Erm, what else. Prince Tricky. He's hilarious. I love him because he's all retarded. XD()() "Let's play!!"

So like, I read House Harkonnen a while ago. It turned out I was supposed to read House Atreides first, only I didn't. But now I've read them both! And as I learned from the afterword to House Atreides, this is going to be a prequel trilogy... I'm guessing the third will be called House Corrino, but who knows? I learned from the same afterword that Frank Herbert's extensive notes for a seventh Dune book were found and they know how we was going to end the whole series and I don't know if they're going to write a grand finale for the series as well as these prequels or if they'll just heavily imply how it might end. But yeah. When I read that afterword I got like, really overly excited. XD()() I have another guess to make! I think the Honored Matres were running from thinking machines! Yes, I think those are back. I mean, the original series never made so much of WHY there was a Butlerian Jihad, only that there was one, and since that and the Ixians are the only things being much much more emphasised in these prequels than they were in the original, I'm THINKING that must be important. I love Prince Rhombur. I want to marry him. :o I also love Duncan Idaho, awww he was so cute when he was nine! It's kind of funny that he was not described as at all handsome in the original Dune ("goat-hair" and whatnot) but then he suddenly turns hot when he subsequently appears in all the rest ;o He's the only character who's in EVERY Dune book. That too is important, but I can't figure out quite why. Also uhhh... uhhh... kinda lost my train of thought. Oh yeah! There's a theory that Frank Herbert didn't write the original Dune, and that a student of his wrote it. At first I was like "yeah right." But now I think it might have something to it. Kind of bad since the original was the best one =D()() But there are some notable differences.... Like, I think Frank Herbert wrote some of the stuff a little too elevated, a little too "look how smart everyone is in the future".... the characters are always making weird connexions that the reader doesn't always fully get. If Cooper ever reads this he'll be like "well I got all of them!" Shut up, Cooper XP But the first one is like... you still understand what's going on, but the characters still seem really smart. Like, Paul makes some connexion and you're like "WOW HE'S SMART!" Not "... uhh, how'd he get that now?" So. Yeah. I guess I should also warn people before I write a long paragraph of Dune spoilers... but that's not as mainstream, so I feel good about it. Wah ah ah ah.

I watched Moulin Rouge! Egads was it ever stylish. Nicole Kidman has a BEAUTIFUL complexion! I'm jealous! I dug the way there were like, no original songs, they just sort of put together existing songs into a way that fit the story. That was cool. John Leguizamo is cool. Yes. OKAY! I have run out of stuff! Entry over!

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