Zah Pillowz

After reading about this FLCL anime, I had to check it out myself. So I caught episode 2 on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. You can read even more about Fooly Cooly (as it’s also called) here. I have to confess that for the first 15 minutes of it I was in a state of mumbling “wtf…… is going on….?” to myself, but as the episode wrapped up, the bizarre show seemed to take on it’s own meaning. Although weird (what’s with the giant iron…?) and a little confusing, FLCL is definitely edgy and different in an interesting way (as opposed to an awful creepy BoogiePop Phantom way). The music, done by The Pillows, is excellent and a fresh flavor and departure from the standard J-Pop. No joke, the music is fabulous; it makes this series in the same way the music of Kajiura Yuki makes Noir. The animation is very nicely done and the pace is frenetic. The confusing and fast-paced nature of the show lends itself to rewatching too. I only caught one episode but I have to admit that I am very interested in what will happen next and I was left with a general satisfied feeling after watching it. Even the dubbing is pretty good, at least as far as I could tell.

Memories of Noir have inspired me to link to these lyrics to “Cante per me” . I also recently caught episodes of Betterman on Tech TV. I had thought from reading a little about it, that it would be a good series. However, I should have known to heed my friend Ender’s advice to avoid the series, but it was supposed to be like Evangelion (the first series I really loved) and plus he has been wrong before (ahem, Shaman King ^__~ ). So I watched some episodes. Wow, Betterman totally sucked. Big time. So add this to the Kabitzin List of Series to Avoid Like the Plague. I’m starting to think I’m not that big of a mecha series fan. Full Metal Panic is the only recent mecha type anime series that I liked. I’m also not a huge fan of the Loser Guy Without a Clue Gets Millions of Girls theme either. Is there any doubt why I didn’t like Vandread? I need more Naruto.

I did a little running today, though we only ran for a mile and power-walked the rest. My calves are a bit sore, I guess I’m out of shape. I think I had a bad hot dog at 7-11 today and so I didn’t want to upset my stomach further by sprinting for 2 miles. I hope it was a one time occurrence because I essentially live off those things. Sadly, I’m so cheap and lazy that hot dogs have beaten out rice as the chief staple of my diet =(. I also did some pencil work repairing a pic I started the other day. I made the guy’s head way bigger than the head of the girl he was standing next to. It was one of those things where the error isn’t egregious at first but the more you look at it, the more you hate it. But by that point, I had finished drawing his head so I was loathe to erase it and start over. Still, it bothered me so much that I had to just bite the bullet and do it. I’ll probably start using the colored pencils on the lineart tomorrow.

Lee-Jackson Run

Went running again yesterday, and might again today since it’s looking to be a really beautiful day. My roomie and I like to go along Memorial Ave. which is aptly named after the many statues along the street, the majority of which are Civil War heroes. We start at the house and the first general we see is Robert E. Lee , and the ending point is Stonewall Jackson. I’m starting to grow an almost Southern respect for them now because when you can see one of them it means that half of the run is almost over.

Concerning Naruto…wow. I’m so happy Sasuke managed to not totally wimp out and instead put up quite a feisty attempt against Orochimaru. I love how wonderfully choreographed the fight sequences are. There’s nothing worse than seeing animators take the easy route and simply draw some flashes and explosions, or use stock sequences, and then have the enemy fall down. The fights in Naruto are so much more entertaining! The music is luverly too ^-^.

In much less interesting news, I finally got tired of my partially deflated air-mattress and went out and bought some replacement D batteries. The poor motor that pumped the mattress had been dying for about a week and could barely manage to half fill the mattress with air, but when I put those new D puppies in, the motor roared to life. It was almost enough to bring tears of joy to my eyes, since it meant I no longer had to sleep (essentially) on the floor. As I sit on the mattress and type this now, I can’t get over the fact that the motor was powerful enough to fill the mattress with so much air that my rear is hovering suspended over the hardwood floor of my room. I feel like I should take a nap to celebrate. Life is good.

Running

Yesterday I went running for the first time in about 2.5 years with one of my roomates. We did about 2.2 miles and I was pretty proud of myself because I really felt I could have gone faster and done at least another mile or two. Unfortunately as soon as we got a mile out it started pouring rain. There was some kind of siren blaring a warning in the streets and the roads looked like those rivers you have to cross in that old computer game Oregon Trail. I was so soaked I wrung my shirt out over my plants to water them.