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*whisper* *whisper*
2002-12-19 12:39:34
I have now progressed from "coughing all the time" to "not coughing as much, but unable to speak." It's, uh, interesting. I've never had laryngitis before. It does make work somewhat less stressful when I don't have to drop what I'm doing 20 or 30 times a day to answer the phone. (That's not an exaggeration. I have to log all my phone calls, and that's the average daily number during busy season.)
I've run into a snag, video-wise: suddenly VirtualDub locks up every time I try to import a DVD2AVI file through AviSynth. I upgraded DVD2AVI but it doesn't seem to have helped. *sigh* I'll worry about it when I get back from my holiday trip.
In anime news, I decided to blow my Christmas money (plus a bit of my own cash) on the Kimagure Orange Road box set. I ordered it this morning. That should take care of the post-holiday letdown! Now I just hope it doesn't have the same wierd interlacing as my other AnimEigo discs, because I have two or three KOR video ideas floating around in my head.
And I'm off tomorrow morning for Minnesota, to relax and celebrate and hopefully get my voice back. I wonder what flying is going to be like with this cold. Oh well. See you folks in a while! -
*COUGH* *HACK*
2002-12-10 13:04:48
I've been sick for the last week now, which really puts a cramp in my holiday preparations. I'm on my second bottle of cough syrup already!
Due to the cold, I stayed in all weekend and worked on the huge MiSTing project which I have to finish this week. Only one more chapter to go!
I've also been playing around with some Christmas anime footage, since the LOTR video seems to be stalled. I doubt I'll finish a whole video before Christmas, but it's fun and it helps get me into a holiday mood. -
Back from Thanksgiving
2002-12-02 12:53:53
I had a great 4-day break visiting my mom in Minnesota. For once there was no snow at Thanksgiving, and I didn't even get picked for extra security screening on the flight. I have calculated that, of all the times I've flown since 9/11/2001, I have been picked for extra security screening on almost exactly half my trips (counting each half of a round trip ticket as a separate trip). Either they think I look suspicious, or they're picking me for screening just so they can say, "See? We're not prejudiced! We don't pull only Middle-Eastern-looking men for extra security--we pulled this WASPy-looking woman too!" So this time I figured I'd be ready for them. I carried almost nothing but paper onto the plane with me, and I wore loafers so I could slip them off quickly for shoe-bomb testing. And for the first time in probably 5 or 6 trips, I didn't get pulled! Guess I just can't win. Maybe I should try the same strategy at Christmas.
We had our big turkey dinner and annual after-Thanksgiving shopping trip to buy imported German cookies in New Ulm. Aside from that, I basically just ate, slept, helped with the dishes (my mom has no dishwasher) and watched travelogues for the whole break. It was great. I was also able to pick up 4 anime DVDs that I had pre-ordered and had delivered to my mom's place. I got Fruits Basket vol. 1, Trouble Chocolate vol. 1, Revolutionary Girl Utena vol. 3 (The Black Rose Blooms), and Card Captor Sakura vol. 12. No postcard in the CCS, unfortunately.
I came back to find that my landlord had put a "For Sale" sign up in the front yard. Peachy. Now I'm going to have potential buyers running through my apartment on short notice like they did when this landlord bought the place about a year ago. But if it gets me a better landlord, I'll put up with it. -
Weekend Movie Reviews
2002-11-19 14:59:05
Well, now that I've cooled down about the necklace, on to some comments about this weekend's movie watching. The short version is that I enjoyed both "Chamber of Secrets" and "Spirited Away." I'll try to avoid spoilers.
I think I liked "Chamber of Secrets" about as well as the first HP movie. Neither one is as good as the books IMO, but it's nice to see stuff on the big screen instead of just picturing it. Kenneth Branagh is a stitch as Lockheart; excellent casting there. They cut the Deathday Party and the Haunted Hunt, which is too bad because I hoped it would settle the question once and for all of how long Sir Nicholas has been dead. I liked the computer-generated Dobby. I think I got a better sense of how powerful house-elves are from the visual portrayal than I did just by reading. He seemed more like a comic bumbler in the books. Oh, and Lucius Malfoy was a big surprise! I didn't expect him to be so cool and stylish. He looked like the villain from a Regency Gothic with that cloak and that ponytail and that cane. I was a little disappointed in the flashback scene, but probably nothing would have been as good as the pictures in my head for that one. I still don't like their Hermione much, but fortunately she doesn't have all that much to do in CoS.
Has anyone ever made any Harry Potter music videos?
Now then, Spirited Away. I LOVE this movie. I think it's my favorite Miyazaki of the ones I've seen so far (basically, all the ones available in the US--Mononoke, Kiki, Totoro, and Cagliostro are the others). This was my first chance to see the dub, and I liked it very much overall. There were only a few minor line changes, mostly for clarity. And while I like to hear the original version, it was also nice to be able to sit back and enjoy the visuals. What a gorgeous, gorgeous movie. It's beautiful, thought-provoking, and a great adventure story too. When is it coming out on DVD?! Can't be soon enough.
Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for The Two Towers! - Addition to Previous Rant 2002-11-17 23:26:13 Forgot to mention that before I chose the pendant, I asked the woman if the broken thing really did cost $200 and she said no. So I don't know how much it really cost, but it wasn't $200. Also, as far as I could tell, only one thing actually broke.
JOURNAL: kaitoujuliet
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