You know you've been reading too much manga...

... and have been suffering too much from the heat, and generally have fed your weird imagination too much when...

...you wake up at a quarter to six in the morning after having dreamed that...

... you are working as an intern in a 5-star hotel, a sort of Roman villa, all columns and soothing colors and wide, breathing spaces. You're there with some friends that you've just made, and others that you've been friends with for ages: Winry Rockbell, Al Elric, and the main character from Vinland Saga (who kinda almost in the right light maybe looks like Ed, and therefore, for all purposes, /is/ Ed). Also, for some absconse reason, Reese Witherspoon, who's a nice enough gal, albeit a bit nose-up-in-the-air. (she's pissed at Winry and they generally have had words about who among them is the natural blonde)

You go about your daily business and it's all fun and games until a monstruous rain comes (kinda like how it rained here two nights ago), at which point you have to pack and go home, because since, of course, the hotel is /all/ open spaces, both you and the guests risk getting soaked. You have no idea where the guests will go, but that's none of your business.

While everyone is packing, you realize that you need to go to the toilet, where you learn that not only is it going to rain cats and dogs, but also that the Devil is coming. Hmmm... time to go then! But first... you have to find your damned /cat/, who, as per tradition, is hiding somehwere exactly when you have to pack her up. You chase the cat all around the Roman villa and, when you finally find her, you realize that you don't have the cat carrier bag with you, and you have to put the cat /somewhere/, because you need your hands relatively free, for your other luggage (that, and the cat is kinda on the fattish side). So you put the cat in your pocket calculator (which has a little top that you can snap on and off).

By the time you get to the point where you were supposed to take the bus heading for home, you see that everyone else was there, waiting for you. Everyone's a little worried that they might not have time to leave before the rain and the Devil get there, but no-one chastizes you. Instead, Reese asks you to go with her in her car, that she'll drive you home. By this time, you have put the pocket calculator, with the cat still inside, inside the cat carrier (but in your rush, you have forgotten to actually let the cat out of the calculator, where it's most definitely /not/ comfortable).

The only people who are not in a great hurry to get out of there are Winry and Al, whom you suspect are in love, and only have eyes for each-other (the fact that guy nr 3 is not really Ed makes this easier for your subconscious to stomach), and wannabe-Ed, who's keen to meet the Devil, because he has some questions about Human Transmutation that he'd like to ask him.

You get home, in Reese's car, while having just met /her/ cat (which is kinda like yours, only slimmer) and her bunny (which is a really cute, fluffy think which works part-time as a chef in Anthony Bourdain's restaurant). When you get home, you see that everyone is in front of your appartment buidling (but then, that's /home/ for everybody) along with your supervisor from your hotel, who's asking everyone to make reports. You remember to let your cat out of the carrier and out of the pocket calculator, and she promptly scratches you and complains she was uncomfy. You're glad, because at some point after having met the bunny, you'd begun to worry that your cat was actually dead.

Your supervisor is Italian, so the reports go a bit slowly and painfully. You explain, in very /simple/ English, what had happened. Reese's turn comes after you, and, in fluent Italian, she accuses you of animal cruelty towards your own cat. You understand jut barely enough to get the general idea, and you bust your brains trying to come up with the right vocabulary to explain to the si-senor-English-speaking supervisor what "attenuating circumstances" are.

At this point, wannabe-Ed saves you by suggesting that there /is/ evidence against Reese's claims, and that's reading the manga of all that had happened (which was being written as everything was happening). However, it was all /his/ view of what had happened, and since you had been in the car with Reese, the manga does not shed any light on the matter. However, it does distract the supervisor, who becomes much more interested in what Winry and Al were doing to each-other under their airplane-like seat tables while on the subway heading home.

Reese is a bit pissed, so goes away.

I woke up after this debacle for some reason badly craving this song. However, when I watched its video (for the first time), I started grinning and sniffling like a maniac - because they were so sweet, and because they seemed to have so much /fun/ on stage, live each moment so strongly, feel their own music so beautifully. And because that image, of Yoshiki falling to the ground, the same one started and stopped and picked up again throughout the video, is sooooo painful, until you see him getting up again, walking on.



Music to heal the soul. And RIP hide.

Lemming female in heat

...that being me, of course, though not in any reproductive heat. Just simply HEAT, bloody 42 degrees Celsius and /no rain/, /no wind/, /no movement of the bloomin atmosphere/.

So what does the lemming do when in heat? She gets a new obsession, of course. I should consider this a present to this blog, since it has just reached its hundredth (-and second, whoopsie :D) post.



Costumes - awesome
Performance - amazing
Video - (a tad strange but definitely) smexy
Engrish - priceless
Sound - twisting my brain into little knots of pleasure.


Blood - I remember you

That is all.

in which we revisit some obsessions, and hear a piece of news that makes the knees weak

The graduation thesis paper nightmare is looming closer, but as I have received my confirmation that I have performed like expected from the good little girl, it is no longer /such/ a drag.

Summer is killing me as per always, but I am resigned to bearing the heat and the perspiration and the attraction that gravity always multiplies on me when in such conditions.

The summer plans have all been set out, and they contain certain elements which are making me giddy and happeh and expectant. But nothing, nothing could compare to what my dad propositioned yesterday.

We were at our favourite restaurant, pleasantly munching and having our "conversation of the season" (yes, I really /do/ only interact with my father, beyond the "hello/goodbye" only once in several months, as odd as that may seem, even though, yes again, we live in the same bloody house). When he got this brilliant idea (though I can't let him take all the credit for it, and I guess I did steer him a bit in the right direction). Now I can't even dare verbalize it, that delicious prospect which made my knees go weak and wobbly and my head spin gently. The plane ticket will cost a small fortune, of course but... Bloody hell, I might be going to China this summer!

The Great Wall, the Panda Reservation, and, of course, eating till my stomach pops in Beijing. I can't express myself beyond the KYAAAAAAAAAAAA that is bubbling in my chest. I've dreamt about it for so long, not only because of the distance and the glamour of dropping it into a conversation ("What's that? Go to a concert? I'd love to, but I can't. I'll be in China at the time. Raincheck?"). Gah, the loooove, the squeeness, the the the *faint. Not from the heat, mind you*

There's the visa to get, and our gracious host has to accept me coming there. And I'm so so so afraid of landing there, on that airport, after some 15 hours of trembling in my boots for fear of flying (ah, how I will be tested!), and seeing the traces of destruction, still there, still not all solved and packed away, and the wounds, and the pain that will be barely concealed, even in our gracious host's eyes, because their area was among the most affected. Not that I don't believe that this people is so hard-working and dilligent that they will have tidied up after that cataclysmic mess, it's just that these things cannot just go away so fast. After all, it will only have been a few months.

Go on, smile for me. Keep fingers, paws and ears crossed that it may happen, that everything will turn out alright, as it has had a knack of doing these past few months. Be my luckdragon.

In other news, the campaign that Antena 1 set up, to show support for the Romanians working in Italy by sending sms's with messages that will later be presented to the Italian authorities in an open letter, seems like the dumbest thing anyone could have thought about. Let alone that you get to be ashamed of your own nationality when visiting countries where "so many of our fellow countrymen earn a decent and, above all, honest living", because these fellow countrymen have managed to take our reputation so deeply into the ground that is may be currently found mining for Kryptonite at the center of the Earth. It's just so... wrong! Why flaunt a problem and pity some people that either (1) do not need pity, if they are truly earning a decent and honest living and (2) are there through their own decision and (3) have /nothing/ to do with the general populace?!

They are being turned into national symbols, when half the country does not want /this/ to be what represents them abroad. It's all just so lame.

However... "Etajul 3 s-a mutat la etajul 2" will probably be with me for the rest of my life.

Completely unrelated, the obsessions which I am currently revisiting (by that, read: dancing around the house on):

Starsailor - Faith hope love (ignore video - or don't if you're a One Tree Hill fan -and just feast on the song)


The music - Bleed from within

The Story of a Death

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This post contains spoilers. It also contains woe-is-me's and profuse sniffles. No wanty, no ready. Kthx

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Good morning, Vietnam! (or Ferentari. Or somesuch. Yes, I am procrastinating off my subject.) So it's morning, my eyes are puffy, my nose is being obnoxiously sniffly, and I'm feeling rather sleep-deprived. The reason being that I stood up late last night, finishing the last book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy.

So how does one prepare for death? Surely no-one wakes up one day and thinks "Today is the day I die." Yes, this is an old theme for me, and I am aware that I have rarely let my musings reach any further than this. But... I mean... it hits you all the more when you're unprepared for it. Painstakingly, cunningly, willingly unprepared for this.

The Amulet of Samarkand was an unobtrusive read, for all that stands. It seemed like light, pre-teen fantasy. So a little guy summons a demon (in this book - djinni). Because this is how their world is constructed. Ah... let's take a step back and watch.



Stroud's London is pretty well created, and there is just enough background information given to make it palpable and palatable. There is also just enough left out to keep the reader searching for more. An alternate universe 1950something Europe, where Britain is an Empire, where their biggest former enemy is Prague (there's a twist...) and America is still a blooming, though rather disobedient, colony.

Magicians are the ruling caste, with their power deriving from spirits from the Other Place that they summon and bind to their service for a certain period of time.

Cue wannabe- (currently apprentice) magician Nathaniel, who proves his talent and ambition by summoning the most caustic, cynical, infuriatingly hilarious djinni he could possibly find. This is also where things go a bit awry.

For one thing, Nathaniel's reasons aren't quite as innocent as his young age might presuppose: he wants revenge - for a spanking (of sorts)that, in all honesty, he had brought upon himslef. Bartimaeus, the djinni in question, is unwilling to put forth any gratuitous help, makes fun of the whelp, and generally spends amounts of time analyzing everything Nathaniel says or does, looking for ways to break his bonds and have a bit of a magician-snack.

But they do end up being heroes, of course, saving the day, saving the Empire from being devoured by a plot (and a mighty creature). And the action is fast-paced, with all loose ends nicely tied up, with incredibly funny footnotes and snide remarks from Bartimaeus. I tell you, the djinni grows on you.

On the other hand, what I found both fascinating and disconcerting is that, by comparison, Nathaniel does not. It would be rather hard, since he is outlined only by his motives. Practically, that's all that makes his character. We know hardly anything about his physical appearance, he has no mannerisms, no distinctive speech patterns. He's so poorly drawn that he does not strike you as a main character in the least. More like he's built by everything else around him creating his outline in compensation of his lack of substance.

Cue book two. Where Nathaniel gets his right reward for putting his neck on the line and is now, at the tender age of 14, in a rather powerful position and rising fast in the Government. But... um... that is a 14-year-old?! Those are what his thoughts, ambitions and worrie should be?! Damn, three quarters of the Globe's population must have been retarded when they were 14, and none of my friends had to deal with intrigue, politics, reading character and having insightful insights before they even hit puberty properly...



However, the second book was heart-warming. Nathaniel begins to discover a bit of his mistake, of having so complacently settled into his life as a magician when the non-magical populace is treated little better than slaves. Cue also the entrance of a new "main" character. Kitty, Resistance fighter, girl about his age. Are you seeing what I'm seeing happening in the near future?

I found the Golem's Eye gratifying, if only for the fact that I almost guessed at the plot (and by this I mean the "plot plot plot" plot, not the literary one) before it was actually revealed. Though, whether I'm getting smarter or the book was predictable is up to everyone else who read it. TP was impressed by a couple of points I made, as far as I remember, so that's my pat on the head for the year.

Also, towards the very end of the book, several more revelations are hinted at regarding Bartimaeus' past and connections with his most important master, Ptolemy of Alexandria. Aaaah, says I, so the book is finally getting some depth... Well, yes, they were heroes again, they ended up saving the day yet again, albeit a bit unwittingly. But this series of adventures had a certain empty feeling to it.

It was like stick figures were drawn, given names, then put into several disjointed pannels that fed their adventures' climax up to the final two-page spread (manga readers will prolly know what I'm talking about) where they can be glorious heroes. As a reward to them behaving so well, the writer adds a bit more color and shading to their stick-figure silhouettes.

But finally, finally, the book was gaining a third dimension! It has depth, and a certain something. Sure there's a voice at the back of your head singing how you were set up for it, what with all the emphasis of characterisation and the like being placed almost solely on Bartimaeus, but what the hell! A character with a secret, with a past! With a sequel!



This being the sequel. The last book. The frigging bane of my existence! (or at least, of whatever inspirational energies should have been aimed at perfecting my thesis paper.) Ptolemy's Gate.

Nathaniel dies. The pattern manifests itself not only in the rise and fall of empires, but at an individual level as well. He relives the fate of Ptolemy. He redeemes himself but still dies for it. Kitty makes an incredible sacrifice to form the ultimate bond with Bartimaeus. Nathaniel welcomes the djinni in his own body, and together they lead an almost-epic battle (which, again, rather lacked depth, but was action-fun all the way). And in the end...

In the end, Kitty is left aimless. Nathaniel does not honor his promise (in fact, he had no intention to). He gives Bartimaeus the ultimate gift a human could to a djinni. And he thanks him for being a good servant. After which the bicker a bit, like in the good days.

What do you say to something like that?

And I ended the book crying my eyes out. Telling myself to slow down while reading its final pages. I couldn't bear the thought of the gaping hole in Nathaniel's side. And I also ended the book hating Bartimaeus. He's the king of escaping! He could have come up with a goddamned plan!

And also, and lastly... he had one more charge. He was charged by his master to say hello to Kitty for him. He had to do that one last thing for him. Deducing from a footnote where he was saying "I forgot to ask Kitty how old she was then. Now I'll never know", he never did what he was charged to do.

He got to live for another 5000 years, maybe, carrying with him the memory of two masters who had died and let him live. Somehow, no matter what the romantics will say, that does not strike as punishment quite as it should.

I don't know why I wanted Bartimaeus to do somehting more. The books had not been built like that. It's just that... There was no closure, only the open wound. Nathaniel was dead.


Lemming OST: Angtoria - Six feet under's not deep enough. Somehow unfitting...

Smut with a twist

Oh glory me, you will not believe what I found while surfing the web! *cough* instead of studying for my Financial Analysis exam *cough*.

Yes, lords and ladies, gather round and prepare to gawp, for, before your august gazes, I unveil the most orgasm-inducing pictures ever to come before me (haha, get it, a pun to make Nanny Ogg proud *dork*)

Anyway - go here and if, by the last picture, you don't have the brain-writhing chill-up-your-spine of your life, then I can pack it in and become a snail farmer in the South-West of Romania.


(without exaggeration, I was in tears when I saw the last one. I don't care that I might be PMS-ing, and therefore emotional, and you shouldn't let it bias your view, either)


Best to be accompanied by an audition of Gackt - Fragrance, for maximum fangirly effect.



.

Genki much?

I'm not very happy today.



Nope, not at all. In fact, today has been decreed "sucky day". And I've only been up for a few hours. But there's no reason to cry. No girl in her right mind would cry. I say, you over there, stop laughing your ass off, thank you very much.



At least there will be pizza.