Oddly December starts off warm.

In any case, I got a blog.

[link]

Uploading onto dA has been a hindrance since I've moved into new mediums in my artwork and I feel a weird pressure to upload only quality work ever since the inclusion of scrapbook. I've also never really been into the community aspect of this.

Whether or not my feelings are well founded it's certainly how I feel so a blog manages to put less pressure and hopefully lets me experiment more.

The only problem is you can't comment on the blog, I can't figure out if you can change that, and I'm pretty sure you can't unless the person has an account and every comment basically become an entry into your blog, so I might have to start looking for a new blog despite starting this, possibly, a day ago.

I don't really know how to put up contact information so I suppose I'll still continuously check dA to keep in contact with people but I probably won't be uploading here anymore.

UH.

Finals. I'm working on them. Hopefully I can start drawing more Vi is Manor soon but damn man, finals are insane. All of my studio teachers seem to forgot how a calendar work so instead of a month to work on our finals we got two weeks. And a half.

I'm kinda worried, I'm going to California soon and I don't really know how I'm going to keep up with the schedule then. Hm.

I've also been wanting to start another comic lately, comedy and drama is fun but I wanted to do a directionless adventure comic just so for when I have the urge to draw a comic so it'll be low pressure.

I was thinking either the Miles one that didn't work out between me and Alex or the one based off that picture I did of the kid and the crow on his head.

Eh, I'll figure it out. I'd also like to get started on that collab between me and Ashwara.

Hum, I think I'm out of things to say now.

-Vi

[link]

What?

Also, the reviews are so great.

[link]

Ahhhh.

[link]

Oh man, so bara.

Well, maybe behind Cho Aniki. Nah, definitely.

Who's ever heard of a shooter directed at homosexual males? The world of games is indeed vast.

Rgh, ok. So I guess playing Tales of the Abyss on unknown is impossible because all the frigging A.I die instantly on regular battles! And then on Very hard all the A.I.s die in boss battles.

Though I admit it is kinda fun killing 3 bosses by yourself but what isn't fun is when you die trying to keep everyone else alive. Jesus!

I can understand the difficulty in trying to figure out who well the A.I. should react but couldn't they adjust it based on the difficulty selection you pick?

Seriously guys, block. That's all I ask you to do, at the very least.

Alex, when we play it's on unknown all the way, alright?

Effin'.

Man, I am so behind on my music. Apparently The Hidden Cameras released a new album this year that I didn't find out until A.V. club. Dammit. (Speaking of awesome things, A.V. club knowing about The Hidden Cameras? Sweet shit.)

Also, The Wire. I wanted to watch it but every episode is one fucking hour. Not t.v. hour where there's 18 minutes of commercial, a full fucking hour.

5 seasons. Bastards.

It's 5:30 am and I haven't slept a fucking wink because the goddamned club is playing.

Actually, they shouldn't be. The club should be over.

I've called the cops 3 times and the situation has not been remedied, why is that?

It's 5 a.m., I go to the kitchen, pull out a knife, and walk downstairs to confront them directly.

There's no one there. They went home leaving their speakers on and playing this shit music to no one but a very infuriated me.

So that's how they want to play it, is it? I was thinking of pursuing this legally but now I think more drastic measures are needed.

It's amazing how much of an asshole some people can be and yet still not be murderers.

I really need to talk to Michelle about moving out.

I've always enjoyed how Halo, one of the most popular games, isn't really popular among gamers.

Shit, what?!

My mom just told me that my dad's girlfriend is pregnant.

...

FUCKKKKKKKKK.

FUCK.

Fuck.

FUCK.

FUCKING FUCK. Fuck.

Fuck.

So there's the rumor that my dad's girlfriend if Vietnam is pregnant and also the rumor that his girlfriend here is pregnant. So that's, what, two sisters (I'm assuming, it's always a sister) that I have a 20 year age difference with? And a total of four siblings where none of them share the same mother and father?

Damn.

I don't really have much to say beyond cursing.

So I went to go viist my dad and it seems his girlfriend is pregnant. Morning sickness! Woo!

So. What now?

I suppose at this point I'm more worried about the baby. She is, after all, in her late 40s, close enough to reach menopause. Will she manage to give birth without complications? Or will past events be repeated and she'll be forced to get an abortion?

Well, neither option seems that great.

In other news...

It's kinda interesting how lately some of the more well known bands have really changed their musical style, like All-American Rejects. Snow Patrol, a mellow band, has pretty heavy stuff for their new album. I haven't listened to Death Cab's new one yet. Franz Ferdinand is Franz Ferdinand (ah, love).

Hm, I'm trying to think. AFI seems to have made a call back to their old days of heavier music by combining it with their more recent style.

And Weezer? They sound sooooo incredibly indie. So adorable.

Ah, Weezer.

Uh. I'm currently drawing an action/adventure comic in my sketchbook. It seems post-apocalyptic war timey stuff is pretty popular recently. Or maybe in reference to Fallout.

Speaking of things, I just saw Killzone 2 recently. Pretty! And Madworld or whatever? Horrendously stupid but the style of the game is really pretty. Also Noby-noby boy? Incoherent.

I played Uncharted 2, that opening was really great when you played it. I haven't gotten very far. You know how you know you have an awesome 5 year old sister?

"So, do you want me to play barbie with you or something?"

"No, I want to watch you play Uncharted 2!"

Ah, yes. good stuff.

Yeah, it's fun. I'm hoping to buy Borderlands at some point and I know I'm really late but maybe I'll find Valkeria Chronicles? That one seems a little far fetched though.

But yeah, the comic I'm drawing. The country has been destroyed by a civil war and it seems no one is still alive so this one man decides he's the only one left he'll take it as his own.

Of course along the way he'll meet a couple of survivors. I have about 5 characters drawn up but I need to design some characters form other countries.

I was hoping to take a light approach with it so it'll borderline on the ridiculous. I need to add in more than one female character. Sigh.

I saw the new Prince of Persia trailer and... it's not a game that I ever really got into but I can't get over the fact that Luke is the voice actor for the prince.

Will they get him again? If so I really want it. His terrible lines in Luke's voice is fucking fantastic.

Oh god, I think my heart just died when I heard Jeffery Tambor did some voice work in Leisure Suit Larry.

Sir, why?

But yeah, Ryan and Jeff.

Final grades are in!

Computer-C Forgot to do the extra credit
Media survey-C didn't do work
Animation-A Ok, I'm actually really surprised by that.
Math-B Still didn't do work!

WOO.

My GPA is still below a 2.5 and I think I'm still on warningggg. Yeah!

D'awwwww. Why isn't A Boy and His Blob multi-plat?!

There are so many games that are so unnecessary as Wii exclusive! Guys, c'mon.

Oh man, you Japanese games. I've always assumed you've existed but never bothered to confirm my suspicions.

Thanks, everyone, for telling me about RapeLay. Thanks.

Also, Left Behind: Eternal Forces. The hell?

I dunno, can I really say I like kids when I get completely infuriated with spoiled brats?

The fact that I call them spoiled brats should be evidence enough that I haven't matured into dealing with kids in, I suppose, an adult like fashion. Which is both my greatest asset and my downfall.

Like when I tell a kid that it's rude to call my friends fat and then she gets mad at me because I yelled at her, the last thing I want is for her parents to tell me that I need to apologize to her.

I know it is your only kid and that is why I wish to dear fucking god that you have another child so you won't spoil your first one.

Dammit, I'm fucking livid.

Let's just say I've made enemies of her parents and leave it at that. Sorry guys but I really don't like your kid.

There's been a little family drama lately that resulted in my uncle and my aunt living apart. Apparently he's been online a lot and no one can figure out why. He also has a lady friend so oh, controversy.

As I've found out through him he's been playing Warcraft. And his lady friend is a chick he met on Warcraft.

Ah, life.

Laptop, why must you forsake me so? When did I wrong you that makes you process so slow?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Also, my sister's laptop has a frigging number pad! I am filled with envy.

I love dA's fantastic idea to have your earliest deviation show up on the first page of your gallery.

Eye gouging.

Shadow puppet animation? Hm. I figuerd since I was in animation I might as well try to think of different ways to animate and I hate myself for doing so.

Still experimenting with video.

I've only been working on comics during winter break since I haven't had a chance all semester. I never realized I missed it so much.

I strangely feel wistful when I work on them and I have no idea why. I suppose comics is that one dream of mine that won't happen.

In any case, The Three Musketeers is awesome. I'm a little more than halfway through and I can't wait to read Michael Chabon's book after this. And then what? Slaughterhouse Five? Hm... I also bought Don Quixote. Hmmmmmm.

Comics, comics. I'm so happy when I work on them.

FUCK. I was waiting all year for it and I fucking forgot about it!

The drunkduck secret santa, shittttt.

I wanted to ask for another drawing of a fifty year old man. Last year I got a beer belly dude, I should've specified for something more awesome.

Dammit.

So apparently the reason for my laptop being so frigging slow?

The battery wasn't in.

Great.

ATLUS.

RRRRRRRR. So much anger stirring in me at the moment.

Sigh, it was to be expected though, right? Sob sob. Stupid Namco.

In any case, I enjoy the stories for shin megami tensei immensely but the battle system for strange journey.... It looks a lot like Survivor (which I still need to finish, rggghhh) but they said they brought back the battle system for nocturne? Hm. The battle system for Nocturne made me extremely nervous the entire game.

So Heavy Rain! The end of this month anddddd Edgeworth coming out February. I'm trying to make a list of games I want to buy, expensive.

AUGHH. The one coin hetalia set is so cheap, 7.90 for 9. B-but I'm not even that into Hetalia anymore. What should I do? Arghhh. If I bought it I can buy myself that phone strap I've been wanting...

But look at this t-shirt! It is sooo pretty.

Sigh. I hate myself for being such a fan. Gahhh. What do I do?

Ah, I need to stop playing Persona 4 in front of my cousins. Yesterday I heard them yelling names for some reason, or naming something, and I randomly heard them yell "Charlie!" (which I named the protagonist, after Giantbomb), "Teddie!" (they really like Teddie) and the such.

Then I heard them telling each other, "No, you can call Charlie senpei or sensei." And my cousin was telling me, "I want to see Teddie say, 'I love you, Sensei!'" Etc. etc.

Biggest surprise today.

My cousin runs into the room as I'm drawing. "Vi, I started a new poptropica account! ANd guess what my username is?"

"What?"

"Dojima. And my password is Yosuke!"

Then I flush with pride.

Ah, Dojima. I never got this excited every time he showed up on screen. So cute! Dojima that is.

In any case, it's interesting how popular the Shin Megami Tensei series has gotten but it's actually still very niche. I wonder why? I suppose it's because there's no big deal when a game from the series is first being released like the final fantasy series has. (Or possibly because it was being released for PS2? Silly Vi.) I remember my unexcitement when I heard about persona 4 since I felt lukewarm about Persona 3 (yet was compelled by gameplay). And now I'm about to kill Atlus for not releasing any info on Persona 5.

Ah, Persona 4. Bad game, bad.

Sigh, Fujiyama Hyouta, no BL artist makes me as happy as you do.

That one shot was so fucking excellent, I want more.

Ah, the internet can scare me sometimes, like the P4 search engine? There's a category for BearxProtagonist. Peachy!

Kinda want to click it though... But some things cannot be unseen.

Speaking of things, I'm worried about the influence I'm having on my cousins.

"Hey, Vi!"

"What? I'm pooing."

"Can we borrow your headphones?"

"Wuh- why?"

"We're playing a game and Jasmine's Yosuke."

"..."

Ahhh. I want to go fanart hunting again but the kids are always following me. Sob sob, gotta wait 'til I get back home. Or I should just draw some I guess. (rolls around)

Brad, so cute! He picked Flower as one of his top ten games of '09.

And Jeff picked Rhythm Heaven? Aw.

Huh. All of them had Street Fighter IV on their list. Surprising.

Man, I've been wanting to play Shattered Memories but the lack of a Wii... and it seems to use the Wii controls well so I guess I'm buying the PS2 version? It worries me but I suppose I won't be playing it, I'm just here for the story, man. I'm making Michelle play it. Haha.

Ah, how great it is to have a roommate?

Y'know how you can come across party members who aren't in your party in the dungeon in Persona 4? Some of the dialogue is incredibly gay.

I mean, what's this?

Kanji:
Oh yeah, that officer who questioned
me the other day? He's still following
me around for some damn reason.
Teddie:
But one day, you'll go around the
corner, bump into that officer,
and fall in love...
Kanji:
B-B-Wh-I--Th-that's frickin' disgusting,
dammit! Why the hell would I go for
an old guy...? Gross!
Teddie:
Heeheehee... A perfect match then,
rawrrr.

D'awww. What's wrong with an oyajicon? So cruel, Kanji, how could you insult Charlie like that?

Kanji:
...I'm still a kid after all.
I didn't understand anything about
Ma and all that other stuff.
Teddie:
Kanji, you dunno what Ma means?
You're such a hopeless idiot.
Now listen up. A Ma- skill is like
a regular skill, but it affects
all the enemies...
Kanji:
...You don't have the first idea about
stuff in the real world, do you...?

Haha, greatest in game joke ever. But really, the dialogue when it's Kanji and the fox are the cutest.

I also got yummy gummy from Teddie, something I've never gotten before. The description was: "Cute gummies from Teddie". Or something like that.

FUCK. Stream the videos, dammit. Pleaseeee. Why?

Huh. So... Visiting some Japanese sites. It seems like P3P... Shinji doesn't die? What's going on with these screenshots?!

Also, what's up with hentai artist really digging the protagonist of P4 (and usually cross-dressing)?

It's kinda cute that they do though.

Just-just fuck you fusion. Fuck you.

Sob.

I like Vinny's idea of a point value system. Sigh. X, O, X, O. That's life.

D'aw. Cutest Engrish ever. "Copylight"

Fuck. I need to learn how to read "spoiler warning" in Japanese.

This is the only time I'd have prefer the text to be in Japanese. Sigh.

The fact that Shoji Meguro is the composer for SMT: Strange Journey eliminated any doubt from my mind that I should buy the game.

Also, being SMT, I expect a horrendously awesome story, ok? Ok. (Hooray for bonus soundtrack! Oh, Shoji Meguro. I love you so.)

I think I ran out of things to say for the rest of my life.

I am fucking exhausted.

By Friday:
-Sign up for class, first and foremost.
-Camera, foam.

Weekend:
-Respond to shits on dA
-Video footage
-Live person animatic
-Possibly Media survey video? I really don't care about this.
-Comic-first priority

If time allows for comic:
-Character list: Greg, Robek, Alex
-Extra comic per character

If time allows:
-Sound effects: Yelling, cat, bird, stomping, crashes

Video idea:
-Wearing clay down to reveal an object

At least I'm enjoying my animation finally. And my teacher really liked my video idea so that's cool.

Tired.

Oh man, I nearly shit my pants today when I logged onto the playstation network and saw Braid for sale.

It used to be a 360 exclusive and I was remiss that I couldn't connect to the internet via my 360 and I pretty much ever gave hope of playing it.

Man! I am so happy.

Also I think I accidentally downloaded the game without paying for it, somehow. Weird.

It's driving me crazy how lonely I feel all the time now.

I feel like I don't have any friends anymore and I can't make any either due to my near racist hatred for animation majors.

My friends, when I went to go visit Alex, it felt like I really didn't have a place, which made sense physically since I didn't have a bed. I dunno, so much of it is relatability and there's kind've nothing anymore. You think not having talked in a couple months there'd be more to say but so much of it is silence.

With no relatability I feel like hanging out with them or talking to them is mostly out of a sense of obligation now and not really out of a need to see each other.

I gave it a shot and talked about my interests but I feel like they fell on deaf ears, after all it can't be helped if my friends can't care about my own passions and I don't blame them for it. That's just the way things roll.

So now I have to enjoy myself and make sure I'm making myself enjoyable for my friends, I feel like a person that's nice to have around.

I'm having such a hard time with this. I guess being a video major doesn't help anything either.

In other news, I've really enjoyed running around and yelling, "Pee! Pants!" in the hopes to get someone to say, "Do you mean 'ee in your pants'?"

Also "pee, pants" is just fun to say.

I've been trying to listen to laughter lately and it can be very strange sounding, especially in short bursts.

D'awww. The guys on Giantbomb are so adorable. Dave especially.

"This game is pretty!"
"Talk to the cute fox!"

Sigh. I love giantbomb.

Anyways, I wish I had a wii so I can play Muramasa, the game is horrendously gorgeous. With such simplistic controls it doesn't make any sense for it to be wii exclusive, really.

In any case, the camera movement in the game? Fucking amazing!

Ok, I'm done here.

Augh! The intro to Persona PSP is so fucking gorgeous. It's, it's really, really, incredibly nice.

And holy shit! Flynn is totally voice acting one of the character! So strange!

In any case, I hope for Persona 5 they hire better 3-d artists. C'mon, guys. It's gonna be for PS3, right?

M-mangatraders! Why can't I download a damn thing from you guys anymore?! Assholes!

Why are you making me read my shits on mangafox?! Sob sob.

Augh! What the hell?! I'm actually missing physical pages from Vi is Manor. Shit.

Dude, it's not even, like, one page. It's the entirety of comic 54. What gives?!

Ah, I went to check back on the comic website and Alex, I think you still have the comic. Any idea where you could've placed it?

I hate Windows Movie Maker, that thing is just an abomination, what poor sap had to work on that shit?

I swear, this frame by frame button, where it supposedly goes frame by frame, is just "what's the smallest increment of time can we move this timeline forward?" button.

An exaggeration, it's definitely moving at 30fps but the movement of the video feels like you just fastforwarded then hit stop really fast.

Then programming made me realize how simplistic some of the games my sister played on certain websites. So simplistic that I could've made the game with my 2 and a half hour of lessons. Sad. Also fun! I still have a fall back career! Yay!

Doo doo doo.

Man, when I imported the videos from my camera for my final video project, the files got corrupted or some shit and I couldn't view any of them. That was terrifying.

I don't want to talk anymore.

Hey guys, I'm in a rush due to animation (which I frigging hate!) so this will be short and sweet. I will continue writing later.

First off I hate animation. Hate, hate, hate. I never hated it before until... well, not important right now.

Microsoft and Disney are fucking dicks. I need to read more Wall Street or at least business magazines, what they do affects my entertainment life, which is 90 percent of my life, and it's been pissing me off what they've done. I have my eyes on you two.

Most of the reason I'm writing this journal is to talk about how adorable Atlus is! I know I've said it before but geezus they are adorable.

[link]

I really want to work for Atlus now. Ah... Pipe dream, pipe dream.

[link]

I'm so frigging excited!

But why is Atlus so adorable? Sales projection. They are so cautious about it yet despite near abysmal sales in North America (they actually undersold the sales projection for P4, damn you P3 fans and your, "Oh, P4 must be a hack job) they continue to localize games and reprint and remake games.

Aw, you guys.

Man, I'm surprised about the story writing though, they just wrote it themselves? I don't think I could ever bring myself to write a mystery, it's tough work, man. I thought they did an excellent job! And despite being so small, they have someone as awesome as Shoji Meguro (awwwww) and Kazuma Kaneko on their team.

Man, Nocturne is a gorgeous game.

In any case, people have been saying that the Persona series is almost making headwind with the Final Fantasy series. Is that true? I'd like to see some sales figure but it does seem that way. It seems the gaming community is really catching onto it, even those who are not into JRPGs.

I've seen a couple people saying how they like Persona more than Final Fantasy, wow, really? And how worried they are about an action game Persona as good RPGs are so hard to come by these days.

In any case I cannot WAIT for Persona 5! Mannnn. I want it so bad.

I would like to buy Demon's soul but I'm shit out of luck on money. I hear it's difficult, which I enjoy a lot, and seems to frustrate others.

Mmm. Dying over and over. Then reaching the end of the game and knowing that the clock listed is actually half of the hours you've invested? Kick ass!

Dammit, why are video games so much love? So much.

But yeah, P4. Man. I need to stop effusing about this game.

I need to go finish this animation.

OCTOBER.

October.

Oh yeah, the third episode of season five of It's Always Sunny? I'm sure some people won't get it but that knife thing was an obvious parody of Cutco.

Godammit, Cutco! Give me back my wasted hours at your office enduring Rich Plaskon bragging about how rich he is! Fucking dick.

Dammit, Resident Evil! Would it hurt to put in some internal monologue? Any indication that maybe I shouldn't try to kill all of these guys. ANY. Or that those barrels are actually exploding and could help save me. Maybe. Just possibly.

Sigh.

I'm so tired.

Blah blah blah.

[link]

Man, whoever wrote this was sure angry at the religious zealots. But then again, when is someone not?

Anyways, aw, Canoe, Mates of States. I love you guys.

ARGH.

Hey guys! It's fall break. Let me dump four projects on you guys.

Ah, whatever. College, right? Yeahhhh.

So le'see. Over the weekend I have to do a turn around, a character presentation board for some fucking reason, on 11x17 no less, a storyboard. Blarghghhhhgghhgh. And screen play.

What if my animation was silent, eh? Eh? Yes? I like silence, most, if not all, of my video art turn out that way.

Oh yeah. We have to do a walk cycle too. Shit.

Speaking of the character, what do you do if you want to have a human character without revealing you draw anime?

Replace their head with a computer monitor or T.V. and everyone else with various animal heads? PERFECT.

In any case, I'm excited about my next video project, I've made a couple video with the footage I've filmed but considering the length they are only short clips. Then as I was editing my video I got a better idea so now I have to go get more footage.

I wish I could work on it but I lack final cut. And... I need to film the footage again, I can't really use most of it. Well, maybe. I'll have to scrounge around again.

Hm. I miss my systems.

And I'm sleepy.

But y'know... animation sucks.

I need a story, I made a character on the fly when I found out the assignment was due that day and we had to turn in the character right as he said it. Whoops.

I have a vague idea of setting and story, which I didn't like too much. Hm.

Then my video, I was trying to think of ideas for my last video project at the end of the semester but I've completely forgotten it. Dammit, I really liked it too.

What was it what was it?

I miss my games a lot.

HM. What the fuck was it? Argh, I need to draw the comic this weekend and lots of it.

What was it?!

Was it white fade in fade out? No, editing... Hm. Cropping? Matteing? Geezus. Uh. Content based?

Speaking of content based, directed at the majority of you in my video class, this isn't film class. Fucking get the difference already. Not only that but your stories were terrible anyways.

God damn, you can't make video art, you can't make stories, I guess all that's left for you is cameraman, huh?

Man, ok, sorry. That was mean. But geez, those stories were really bad. I can understand that the majority of short stories are written with a surprise ending but your endings weren't that surprising or done well, the lead up was too lengthy and made it anti climatic not to mention the resolution left much to be desired. The entire thing was a strange and the endings were predictable and bland.

It's like you replaced the rising action with the introduction, it was slow and the rising action was just the climax itself due to the terrible story telling.

Bah. Bah bah bah.

Sigh. You had wonderful camera angles and lighting though.

Oh my god, this is so awesome.

[link]

Man, this is why I have never stopped loving sesame street.

Oh man, Mike Rowe is soooo awesome.

[link]

(fart noises)

I am hungry.

Man, I am about to wet my pants from happiness.

[link]

Sighhh. Man, my admiration for Alton Brown knows no bounds.

"My knowledge will bite her face off!"

I wonder why super ridiculous comments are always fun?

Oh man, this show is awesome. So much indie music in the soundtrack. I don't recognize most of it but when Daylight by Matt & Kim came on...

MAN. Soooo awesome.

"What are you writing there?"

"It's a notepad."

"Yeah but-but what language?"

"It's probably arabic."

Man, that line was genius.

Man, that third episode of Community was stupendous. I was touched.

I tried watching The Office but for some reason I can't enjoy it. I can't find it funny.

Speaking of that, 30 Rock's season premiere? That was pretty bad. I could go deeper into why but who gives a shit.

The fifth episode It's Always Sunny was so great! It went back to the pacing and mood of the first season more so there was adequate balance of insane and not insane. Also that episode was just incredibly endearing, it went back to the kind of situational twist of the first season but not for humor.

Ah, good times, good times. I look forward to the christmas special being released November?

Sigh, since when has T.V. shows been a priority? I've taken to watch my shows on T.V. now not being able to wait for the online release, which is not too much later but it also gives me an excuse to watch commercials I've missed out on.

I guess I've been trying to study techniques and getting inspiration from editing techniques or just plain content and cuts. I haven't gotten anything yet, most of the commercials I've seen are uninspired, what's wrong with the advertising community? Geez, guys.

Then again, I'm not surprised.

ARGH. What the hell was my idea for my last video project? Shit. I can't remember anymore. Shit.

Maybe I'm watching more T.V. because I left my fucking DS at my apartment, the only system I was going to bring back with me from the apartment. Dammit! Are you telling me to do my work?! Fine, asshole.

Man, no video games. I brought the DS games but no system. What the hell, that was a terrible revelation.

Man, as we left the apartment I verbally said good bye to my systems and in the car ride I was obviously down. Michelle couldn't help but mock me at first by imitating my actions but later revealed that she will miss video games too.

She and I spent the entire weekend playing video games, a entirely too common experience for me and a completely new experience for her.

Ha. Haha. Hahaha! Oh Michelle, have I converted you? Hohoho, now you know all too well how I feel. Ah, I feel like I've done my purpose in life.

Oh A.V. club, A.V. club, A.V. club, you lack some gamer cred.

"I loved the game so much I even downloaded the soundtrack!"

T-that's a revolutionary thing for you?

C'mon, man! They publish CDs for the soundtracks of these games for a reason! For shame, for shame.

Sigh. Shoji Meguro. I got the soundtrack for Persona PSP. Mmm.

Also, what the hell?

[link]

Alex, buy it, buy it.

Also, have you guys heard of Cloud Strife eau du toilette? So strange. I love how this one guy described the scent. "Cloud smells fucking delicious."

[link]

A ha ha ha ha, I wish I could've gotten Alex this shirt.

D-damn it. I know it's going to happen and I'm going to hate myself with it but what else am I supposed to do with so much added content? (Including new tracks by Shoji fucking Meguro.) I'm going to buy P3P.

Damn it. I hate myself. Already.

Sob sob.

I'm really curious about playing as the girl but... Jesus Christ. So much pink. So much. The menu, even, is pink, just in case you forgot you were playing as the girl.

People often ask me, "Vi, why do you hate pink so much? Don't you think it's cliche for you to like pink? I thought you were all about being a unique rebel."

To that last comment, fuck you. To the first question, because people feel the fact that I am a girl I have to bombarded with that color in everything from my clothes to my laptop to my gaming systems.

Pink, it's like that friend of a friend of yours who keeps wanting to impregnate you and makes you feel uncomfortable.

It makes me uncomfortable.

In any case, I'm kinda curious about Shim Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, which seems to be set in space this time. The cast looks like all middle aged adults. And Westerners, for some reason.

Yes, I would like a break from the teenager having to balance finals with people rescuing.

Think about it, space AND demons?

In any case, it's for the D.S. Yep. And a turn base style similar to that of Devil Survivor, which I really need to get around to finishing. Stupid Keisuke, way to join our party with absolutely NOTHING.

In any case, I've been looking forward to quite a few games but I forgot to list them. Hmmmm. What were they? Damn you games, damn you.

Nin no Kuni was one, but that will be a longgg time from now. Man, I love their Engrish title. "The Another World".

Not only does it look incredibly adorable, and the graphics are sweet, but the gameplay looks intriguing. It seems to follow Okami with your drawing patterns to cast spells.

Mmm. Level 5. Man, working under them, their games are so cute.

Ok, ok, I need to get my shits done... Shit.

Ah, what? A Jiraiya (Yosuke's persona) plush? Hmmmm. Izanagi? I don't want a plush though. Figure, figure? Figure? Thanatos? Figure?

Man, I kinda lost interest in Pokemon after... a while. But, what? The remake of Gold and Silver you can have a pokemon follow you around? And it's bundled with a Pokewalker, the equivalent to that Pikachu pedometer?

MAN. Is this a North American release too because if so I will get the game just for that.

Just... for. That. If I ever regretted losing anything physical from my childhood, it was that pikachu thing. It was pretty damn sweet.

Sigh. Video games, you-you ruin my life. I'm not interested in games anymore, dammit. How do people make enough money to pay for all of these? I'm assuming not having a family and not cooking for yourself outside of instant noodles is staples of this plan.

If so I will enact this plan, it is worth it.

Worth it.

[link]

I dunno, man. These people seem to be enjoying it too much to actually be protesting.

Also, I never realized video games are that big an issue in the country. Are they still?

W-what the fuck. Did you know the newest Silent Hill game actually reads how the player plays the game and reacts to it? There's even a fucking psychology warning for the game.

Alex, play it, play it!

A-aww... The American release, you can't play with Gig in Disgaea 2 portable. Boo.

ARGH. I need to stop reading about... video games.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to dislike forced multi-player play in a game. Speaking of things though...

Nah.

I felt guilty downloading Persona PSP soundtrack considering I've never played the game, but I could kinda tell what was what, like which was the opening, which was battle music, which was walking around town music.

Then came track 19 of disc 1.

What-what the fuck is it? A-are those cat meows from crappy children's electronic toy piano I hear in the background?

Somebody, anybody, tell me what it is. The title are in Japanese and I can't even begin to fathom what it could possibly be. It is so bizarre.

Shoji Meguro, what the hell? I am so curious.

I want to buy the game just to figure it out.

What?! What the hell is track 21?! ARGH! This is killing me!

I'm kinda curious as to how G4 manages to continue to exist.

Argh! Guys, I just wanted to find an image of what a firefighter's uniform looks like! I really didn't need porn! Really!

Granted it's soft core porn but still.

Knights in the Nightmare! Argh!

Kinda weird to watch people cheering while watching a rendition of the Velvet room music.

Sigh, Shoji Meguro.

Dammit, this cut really hurts.

Video ideas:
-First Person (finished but redo)
-Scene, fade in/fade out white (small clip, continue. More scenes? Different speeds?)
-Diptych/Triptych, person split in two at first in the middle of the screen, then the camera changes to a different part and...
-Middle Walk/run, branch off in the shape of a V. (Transitions between different types of separate videos?)
-Current project, strips of a scene layered on top of another, purpose, walking, running, car
-Paper with slots/holes to obscure the camera lens
-Man squares create a kind've mosaic, move the camera to have the image move per square, disparity in timing to make it look like the image is moving. Filming: One image and crop it then place them displace them on the timeline or zoom in, record each and then put them together? The former sounds a lot easier. Subject matter: Still person, kind've moving, or a scene? Or objects? It'd be interesting to occasionally replace certain squares with other images. Must plan this out more, this might be my final video project.

Man, I have a lot of multiscreen ideas.

Video ideas to consider:
-Following personal philosophy: Can a camera be more than just a vessel? In what ways? (Cameras can reach areas we can't, P.O.V. we can't, movement we can't. Dammit, I can't think of anything else, to be honest I haven't given this much thought.)
-Transitions into art (Still image or have the transition give meaning between images? Videos or stills?) Look at: transitions, list, compare/contrast group, transition next to transition? Can these be layered? Interesting.
-Powerpoint into art piece (things to consider: transition between slides, words, images, sounds, timing which will be personally controlled as to make it a performance piece?)
-Zooming into art?

Animation ideas:
-None.

I don't like animation. I love editing though! Man, editing is the shits. I thought I could bullshit liking animation but I suppose not. I'm sucking it up just so I can work in the video game industry.

I've never really thought of video games so much until recently, especially creating it. I want to see if there's a way to blur the divider between RPG and real time styles which the Tales of and Eternal Sonata did well but they still have the repetitiveness of RPGs which is why they still only have a market in a certain area.

What's the problem here? Is it the customization? Michelle complains about too much plot but I don't care about that.

Also interaction with the environment, but that could be due to disk space, complex leveling up system or more complex environment interaction? I've noticed games like Prince of Persia and Devil May Cry have pretty simplistic fighting systems made complicated by the controls.

Knights in the Nightmare did a superbly crazy job combining strategy with real time. It was awesome.

Thinking of video games, I put plot last in my mind, the reason I've never thought of making video games like some of my male counterparts is because they worry about the story first and never think of gameplay, it seems they want to settle with turn based RPGs, which I have no problem with, sometimes simple changes can do wonder (ah, Persona 4).

Speaking of video games, Michelle follows one of my KI teachers on Vimeo and he likes a lot of interesting videos and one recent one was the trailer for Okami. I was in the kitchen and I heard the Okami soundtrack from Michelle's computer and I started freaking out and effusing about how awesome it is which I think disconcerted Michelle which caused her to close the window before finishing the viewing of the video.

Man.

I want to talk to my teacher now.

In any case, thinking of Michelle's complaint about plot and gameplay, I suppose I was trying to think of an interesting way to have plot without the person losing interest, which involves customization or I suppose the player's influence on the plot.

I missed the fantasy genre a little bit so I decided to draw Vi's Manor set in such a world, I split up the characters unusually and I did my usual thing of having many stories occurring simultaneously.

Even the supposed antagonist I have a soft spot for, then I wondered what it's like to play as the antagonist, something I've wished often as I've played games. Then I thought of how Eternal Sonata (though it's not the only one) split up the party and you had to switch between the two parties to move on with the plot.

Which if there were many small parties with separate plots going on? You can play as the villain and the hero towards some point in the game and then in the end you get to pick between the villain (man, I really don't like saying villain) and the hero to end the game.

But since there's multiple parties you get to switch between parties, and level them up. But then that could lead to the problem of the player keeping one party low so when they meet up with the other side they'll be too easy.

I wanted to have a loose play where the player could pick to be who and who to kill, I guess (though the end will have only one party left). Man, I wonder if that's too much information to try to put in?

Hm, I also wanted to play the villains as one really big and strong guy fighting against four heroes but I might scrap that idea since some of the antagonist travel in groups. Though it could be fun to have a villain like that.

I'd have to try to make them all likable as much as possible so the player doesn't feel the urge to keep one so underlevelled?

Also, how does this switching thing off work? I wanted the player to pick whenever they felt like it (if there's anything I like about western games it's the immense feeling of freedom you tend to lose in jRPGs, though I still prefer the latter) but how will that work? Can the plot only move on if they go and destroy another party? Hm. I could structure it in a way that's kind of like a pyramid, so let's say there's ten levels, each have their story, and when one party gets destroyed the plots of the others move on but you can't move on with the plot of one team unless all the others have moved up too. And the relationship between parties are revealed... when? Only during battle? No, that won't work.

Maybe a scene where the party learns of what the others are doing, but rather neutral and it's not until battle is initiated do you learn what the beef is?

Hmmmm.

In any case, I kind've have a world setting, I always thought the ideas of gods interacting with humans on a physical and human basis was interesting, so instead of God being a mysteriously invisible being, he's one that's all too real so you worship in front of him. Not that interesting but could potentially be. I wanted the story to have some conflict with that.

I'm kinda making this up on the fly, I have a general idea of what I want this all to go to but I don't really want to talk about it. This is kind've embarrassing even to write down.

Sigh, well, I think I'll think of battle systems while going to sleep tonight. Last night was BL, tonight, battle systems! Night after, video and comic ideas!

Man, I love video games. Why have I never loved them this much before? What the hell happened to me?

I'm not a gamer!

But yeah, I love them. Man! Love. Love. Man, they are awesome.

Ah, speaking of comic ideas, I came up with some but I think I've forgotten most all of them.
-Raining but no clouds. (Aliens trying to kill us by slowly drowning us? But what motive do they have? Rowdy alien teenagers?)

Ugh, I came up with others. What were they? Shit, I liked them too.

It's hard to remember them when people keep bombarding you with stupid ideas.

It's nice how people don't usually have an interest in my comics until they have an idea for a comic.

"Hey Vi, remember that time we got that waiter and he was soooo creepy?"

"Um, yeah."

"You should draw a comic about that."

"Hm... no."

"Or make it an animation! It'll be soooo funny! I'll voice act."

"Eh. I don't want to draw people. Remember? The anime."

"Oh, right. Well, you can make us all bears! It'd be so much funnier then!"

"What? How is that funnier?"

"Because we're bears!"

"But what does bears have to do with the joke?"

"Nothing, that's why it's funny."

"Wow, definitely not in this case."

In any case, I'm definitely happy to be in the major I'm in. Video art and video games are so incredible. I'm glad I never pursued comics, I still love them but it's so personal at this point I could never make a public career out of it. I'd prefer it to be a part of my private life. Man. So many ideas to think of so little synapses and neurons to actually think them up.

Man, I really like David LaChapelle's ad for Boot and his promo for Lost (season 1 in the UK) and Desperate Housewives was really good, I've never watched the shows but I had a good idea of the characters form them. Ah, good stuff, good stuff. It seems the slowing down is part of a lot of his work to give that surrealist feel? Very nice.

Woo! Virginia's governor election is upcoming and I am DAMNED exciting, it's been an exciting year for voting.

I am hoping to take this weekend to do more research, especially in the governor race. Then Lt. Governor... Hopefully my impending project won't get too in the way? Should be cool, should be cool.

Alex, quick! Keychain, which would you want? Canada or Latvia? Quick.

Holy shit guys! They discovered water on the moon! That's fucking incredible! Ah, I need to do more research on this! So amazing!

Speaking of amazing things, apparently I passed my summer class. What? Looks like my depression was wasted, lame. Nice to know that 800 dollars were not wasted! Hoorah! Life's going swell, weirdly enough.

I really like editing.

Why is there no save point? I've just invested 5-8 hours into the game and I refuse to turn it off.

I want to play other games! Let me save, dammit!

Vol. 3? Fuckkkkk yes! And translated by an awesome scanlation group? Good times.

I haven't read manga in so long CDisplay isn't even on the front of my start up window anymore. How sad.

SHITTT. I need Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water". Why is that video so difficult to find? It's so argghhhh. Amazing.

Wow, really? It seems that my constant rantings made my other journal too long so I have to continue in a new one.

Let me copy and paste what I wrote. I'd prefer it if readers of Vi is manor did not read this as there are spoilers for the current comic. Move along, move along.

--------------------------------------

Oh my fucking god! Oh my Jesus Christ!

Fucking... fucking novel!

Jesus fuck!

FUCK.

Hours later...

I just finished the novel and...

HOLY SHIT. Mother fucking... shit damn.

SHIT.

Shit.

My god, I haven't cried this much since... Maurice. I basically sobbed for the last 400 pages.

Sigh.

So yeah I'm never reading this book ever again.

Fucking... fucking fuck.

Fuck.

It's the day after and I still feel depressed. What am I supposed to do?

BAH.

And my dream last night, I'm pretty sure it was about the book because when I woke up some residual thoughts still lingered.

Argh, I don't want to say anything because it'd ruin it for Alex.

Sigh.

Oh man. I need to find something to do. Something that makes me happy. Hmmm. This is going to be hard.

I'm pretty sure there are no megaten games that can put me in a good mood, stupid series.

DURRR...

How would you describe my speech? It's not mature, as some college students seem to develop. Or witty. Is it... Adolescent? Yes? Man-dude?

Hm hm hm hm hm. Fanart? Man. I don't want to have to go through that song and dance again. I'm pretty sure once I do I won't be able to stop.

Sigh. Maybe I need to go outside but it's so foggy, oddly enough.

Ok, I need to stop sitting here in front of this screen. I'm out.

Oh man, I think the problem is I need to rant about this book to somebody. That's what it is.

When Cameron called me, the second I picked up I started babbling about last night and my experience with the book but he just kept talking about why that was he didn't read books.

BAH. Way to fucking piss me off.

And last night, as I was reading, and Michelle was hanging outside in the living room, I kept taking pauses to run into the living room, declaring to her my near endless love for the book, and she just kept staring at the screen where eventually her "uh-huhs" would turn to ineffectual silence.

Ugh. I guess that's why I really need Alex to read the book.

I guess after talking with Michelle made me realize what a good listener Alex was, even if she never responded she had an air of, possibly feigned, interest in my continuous stream of, possibly to her nonsensical, words.

Goddammit, is there a dictionary where I can type up a definition and look up words? Jesus christ, it's been a while since I studied a dictionary. I should probably pull that thing back from my home.

Dammit.

I guess because of this I've developed a habit of talking more about the feelings that welled up in me say due to art or novels rather than the actual aspects or technical details that make me feel that way, knowing that people usually don't have an interest in that.

It kind've hurts though to have them not be just perturbed by my effusive love for these things but also rather put off.

Is it really that bothersome or frightening for me to have such strong feeling about abstract form of expressions and not, say, an actor?

That bothers me, and pains me I guess, to have my feelings so looked down upon. It almost feels like people are disgusted by my passion.

I guess now it makes sense that people were angry that I was so angry that my aunt wouldn't let me read A Clockwork Orange. It's not difficult to just pick it up again at the library but the censorship of such an interesting books due to some petty scenes really pissed me off.

Sigh. I guess that's why I end up missing Alex quite a bit, even if she couldn't relate to it, her amusement by it seemed to make me more than happy.

Jesus FUCK, why am I crying? Could I fucking stop?

Oh shit, I realized Alex reads this.

Well, if you are creeped out consider this but happy revenge.

If you are not, well, you're a better man than I am.

Ok! So I've decided to read The Three Musketeers next. I'm hoping that manly adventures can only fill me with joy and excitement as they usually do.

That or Huckleberry Finn which I never got around to rereading.

Nah, gotta move forward. The Three Musketeers, where are you? Oh, there you are.

Ok, novel, you are going onto my shelf, never to be read again. Stupid book.

Man, I was totally going to play video games last night but I couldn't keep The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay out of my head, so I played as quickly as I could through a dungeon before tossing it aside, pacing my apartment anxiously as to try to figure out what could be the cause of my restlessness, realized it was the book, and sat down like I haven't in so long.

It was extremely gratifying.

Freshman year I do remember reading books in between class but I can't even remembered what it was I read so it must not have been very exciting.

I read 1984, which I abandoned halfway.

OH right! I was trying to read The Golden Notebook, which I eventually lost.

I don't know, I wasn't too terribly interested in the book's story, not being able to relate to such a feminine lifestyle, but it intrigued me, to say the least, with it's ideas.

It really opened my eyes to the types of feelings that can be evoked in women, I know that sounds corny or weird but it was, well, a feminist book that wasn't preachy, just kind've explained females more?

I know that could be potentially extremely sexist but I guess I've always felt there were females out there that I could never relate to on a certain level, especially when it came to the ideals of relationships, which the book was mainly focused on, and how that affected their motherhood even.

That's where I got the idea for Alison, Jeff's wife. I suppose it never occur to me to feel jealousy, or even dislike or disinterest, to your child due to a fixation on your lover/husband what have you. Or how normal it could be considered.

Though that was the inspiration for Alison, I felt a little guilty as she was the only major female character, that the story came off almost misogynist, as BL mangas tend to do.

I wonder how I could counteract that? I always felt that Alison's reactions were never her own fault due to the mere fact that Jeff's reactions were never his own fault but rather as a product of the society around them.

While Alison may come off as simply abusive and my treatment of her could be considered cruel while honestly I've felt nothing more than the greatest sympathy for her.

I don't know, Alex. How did you read Alison and my treatment of her, if you did at all? I suppose this is the one time my interest in your answer is more than just mere curiosity, so if you could really help me out.

In any case, I suppose that sympathy doesn't become evident until she shows up again after Jeff moved into St. Antoine but I don't feel comfortable with the fact that the reader might be left for a year thinking Alison's a bitch or that I was unfair to her.

I thought it was evident enough just from the fact that that's what I'm saying about Jeff. Hm.

I wonder, if need be, I need to get the point across in a more obvious manner? Short of internal monologues or dialogues, I've always that kind've a cop out because you're basically just writing what you think and not letting the story do it, although Michael Chabon, couldn't help but doing that a little, it was tied into the dialogue well so it was nice and subtle.

I usually do that too but I feel like that's all I ever do so I was proud with Jeff's story that I did not do that at all, that's why I'm rather proud of the story.

Anyways, all that is a major problem I'm having with Carl and Ben, I was hoping to try to figure out a way to get my point across before the comic started but it already has and I'm trying to rack my brain figuring out how to go about doing this before it gets to the major plot point.

Like I said, the story is like Maurice it that it kinda hopes that just from the characters alone that the reader would empathize with their plight and maybe change their views a little.

Though that is, of course, incredibly naively hopeful, especially when dealing with incest which is almost universally thought of as vile.

I'm having a lot of trouble, I suppose I could have events that could be making a point across to the story? But I feel like that's too heavy handed and probably inflates the story much more than needs be.

I suppose that's a reason I made them gay, other than the obvious reason I just prefer gay couples, in the hopes that parallels might be drawn, though it seems like a lot of the gay community really resent being related to incest, though I was hoping that the attitude towards homosexuality that the people are trying to achieve and not the idea of it would be drawn parallel but I'm not really sure how to do that, would people just find it disgusting sexuality on top of disgusting sexuality?

I haven't really given that idea much thought until now so the only thing I can think of having that put into the story is if Ben had a gay friend, Carl already has to deal with the incestual feelings without having time to worry about homosexuality that has grown slightly more acceptable in society.

But like I said, adding side stories like that is heavy handed, especially when I can't tie it in throughout for some significant purpose other than that one point.

I guess, now that I think about it, I regret not doing this as I did the written version. The reason I cut it short was due to time constraint, simply put, but I feel that Ben's brief encounter with homosexuality in his younger years and constant questioning as he got older not only helped to bring that point in but also would help make it easier for him to accept Carl which would also tie in to having the same attitude towards homosexuality as one would towards incest.

But it's too late now, I've already started the story and the best I an think of is Carl's inner monologue basically revealing the purpose behind the story with his trying to figure out how to best help Ben understand and accept his feelings.

I feel like this isn't too awful a solution, I think subtle enough that I would like it.

Sigh, I don't know. I feel pretty good about it but I wonder if the impact is as large as the previous version, I'd be more than happy to go with this but is it enough?

Man, I'm seriously freaking out about it over here, the though of starting it over is continuously reappearing in my mind.

I suppose it's silly to worry so much over a small strip within an already relatively unknown strip but I suppose I can't help getting worked up over story telling.

Man, but it's really bothering me and making me really nervous. I was already nervous putting this story out there but having to write it is even more nerve wracking.

I suppose that despite the comics rather unknown status for the time being I am pretty calm about it but the potential of many to see and the fact that it's linked to me with my name and everything makes me nervous.

Dammit, it's eating me up inside that I desperately need help but I have no one to talk to (a strange place to state that is on the internet), Alex is busy and probably unwilling. I'd like to be able to talk to my fellow story writer Ashwara but I don't know how he feels about this subject matter.

Man.

Sigh.

I suppose I'll have to take this weekend to think about it as I'm working on my class projects.

It's bothering me a lot.

Sigh, at least it took my mind off the book. I guess.

Oh shit! I forgot I never finished ranting about how great it was to just sit down and read again!

So as I was saying about books, less year none of the novels really interested me so I never felt the urge to want to read them, just the need to.

This year I read Brideshead Revisited, which was a disappointment, so it was great to come across a book I so desperately wanted to read.

Man. I keep thinking about how in freshman year we had to draw kind've our ideal life or something on a plate to print and I drew a picture of me in a room full of books.

I thought books weren't really marvelous to me until mid high school but now that I think about it I've felt this way all my life.

Thinking about it kind've hurts me, my elementary to middle school years where I barely read due to pure fear. How she would tear my books apart out of jealous and toss the pages and I watched as the floated before piling up on the stairs. I think when she forced me to pick them up was the worst part as I picked up each page and felt how worthless they were separated from one another like that.

And then in elementary school I was afraid to check out books to take home less I incurred her wrath, so I'd sneak it home to the best of my abilities and made sure to carefully conceal it underneath my mattress and pillow.

Of course that worked out not well at all when my stepmom went to lie down on the bed and felt something lumpy, lifting up the mattress and pillow to reveal 20 books and a flashlight.

I'm surprised I remembered this suddenly but she got angry enough to actually hide my books from me. In a fervor I searched the house, finding them piled in a cabinet, I was caught and she threatened to hit me if I were to ever take them out before she would allow me.

I would come home from school, before she or anyone else was back, and I would sit in front of the cabinet doors for hours, staring and once in a while tentatively reaching a hand out to the handle.

A few days or so I'd be brave enough to actually open up the cabinet and stare at the spines, afraid to pick one up and read it despite knowing she wouldn't be home for a while.

So it was a pleasure in 3rd grade when we had our own desks and I could just squirrel away library books in there without having to risk taking them home.

Middle school I remember reading a little, though there was always a fear. Weird.

Then high school and I lived with my mom and I could read to my heart's content, getting upset only when she said the book was too mature for me.

But the feeling of guilt lingered, even now I'm hesitant to let myself enjoy books so thoroughly and the thought of lying down with a book made me feel just that, which was why I paced the apartment, trying to make the book not a pleasure but a way to fill up time between classes.

I remember years ago taking pleasure in having free time where I had a method of reading all planned out, I would lie on the floor, a pillow beneath my head, and lie on my side, switching sides whenever I turned to a new page, with a bag of food handy and a glass of water, for hours.

Of course I never did this with sucky books so it's always good memories.

Hm.

Getting back to my regular, angry, ranting self, I really wish people would stop saying, "I love books."

"Oh, me too!"

"No, in a way you would not understand!"

"Oh. Ok."

Silence.

I try to calm myself down. "So, what books have you read lately?"

"Oh, I haven't read any in a year."

"I see."

Hey, thanks for already putting my feelings below yours, man. Why we gotta compete like that? I just wanted to discuss themes, motifs, symbolism, foreshadowing, and characterization with you, no need to try to put yourself as number one. I relish finding people with the same passion I have, why can't you? Is this a competition?

That's sad.

Or take this merry example from fucking yesterday.

Michelle: Wait, are you saying these are all the books you have that you brought?

Vi: Well, yeah the rest are comic books.

Michelle: Wow, I have more books than you.

Vi: ... Alright.

Michelle: Well, it's mostly Twilight and Harry Potter, haha.

Vi: Hm.

Speaking of that, she keeps fucking bragging to me that she has more music than I do.

I don't give a shit! Seriously, I don't know what could possibly make you think I could even give an ioda of shit to this.

Why would anyone ever give a fucking shit? Jesus Christ!

But yeah, hey, sorry me I couldn't buy novels until I was in high school, ok? Or that for some reason comic books don't count as books for you?

Gee, thanks.

And just so you know, Twilight does not count as a novel. I'm sorry. Nor does gossip girl so I guess that takes out about 3/4 of your books there, doesn't it?

Ok, sorry, that last comment was crude and uncalled for. I take it back in every form.

I know I shouldn't be angry that Michelle bragging about a collection that contains mostly teen romances, harry potter, and the only classical being Jane Austen but I really am.

Sigh, whatever. At least I won't die never having read The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay or John Steinbeck.

Ah, whenever I say things like that I keep thinking of that Twilight Zone episode with the man and his glasses with the piles of books and eternity.

Mr. Ondrof and I talked about it, me starting about how awful I felt for that and he agreeing.

Then we talked about our shared affectation for reading the back of ketchup bottles or scraps if no books are handy. I regaled him of the time I went camping and, having forgotten a book, I refused to throw away an empty bag of doritos for reading material and he how he went on vacation and just collected whatever menus, to read.

Dammit, I love Mr. Ondrof. I really want to send him a letter at some point.

Geezus, I sat around for three hours today with Cameron and all we did was talk about video games.

Crap, crap. I'm not a gamer, I swear. I don't know what anything we're talking about is!

Sigh.

Hey, hey, what what?

It seems at the moment I'm pondering some serious shit but I need to get to work, but if I do I'm pretty sure I'll stop pondering these things and it will bother me for a while.

I wonder what I'm pondering?

Jesus Christ, can I think in words for once? Dick.

Hm, from my feelings I presume I'm pondering about open mindedness, opinions, and self entitlement.

Whatever, I'm tired.

Bitches and stitches, man. Bitches and stitches.

[link]

Whhaaatt?

I am slightly intrigued.

ARGH. But I'm not! The more I think about it the angrier I get, damn you novel! I will state it now, I am never watching this movie.

No.

Fuck, my eyes got watery writing that, dammit!

Here's how Estella tried to cheer me up, "Oh, it wasn't a true story? Then you shouldn't be so sad then, right?"

Argh?! How can you say that?! Michelle said the same thing to me and I got so angry.

Real or not that doesn't change the fact that my feelings for them are incredibly real.

Then Estella suggested the movie Milk to me.

"Why?"

"Well, it's also (can't ruin this for Alex) and it's a true story. It's really sad."

"What, would I cry?"

"Yes."

"Why would you suggest this to me then?! Dude, I hate crying!"

"But you said you loved the book!"

"Well, yeah, but, argh!"

So hey Alex, could you watch the movie for me? Seriously, please? Thanks.

Speaking of things it seems Estella is a BL fan but doesn't quite know it yet. I kinda don't want to introduce her to this because then she'd know I like BL.

T-that's so adorable.

i love professionals who thinks fan culture is awesome (aw, Henry Jenkins, you the man) and... Well. Here.

[link]

Ugh, s-shit. What the fuck, I can't believe I'm looking up fanfiction.

Stop, I need to stop.

Did fan culture become prevalent in America after anime and manga came in? It seems like that had a lot of influence on many things.

Intriguing. I would like to do research on this but I'm not Henry Jenkins.

I'm afraid to sleep because I'm afraid of wasting time but all I've been doing this past four hours is cruise the net for some fanfiction and post crap in Alex's old journal.

Man, I am screwed for class tomorrow.

I got the video done but I wasn't hoping to edit it over the weekend but I kept procrastinating and the lab isn't open Sunday so...

Sigh.

And by edit I mean redo completely. Dammit. Dammit.

Dammit.

My video's going to suck and everyone's going to diss it and I will fail class and ultimately college and for some reason I can't get a job anywhere or join the army so I end up unemployed and breaking a leg walking down some stairs in an abandoned house and because of that no one can hear me and then I die.

Dammit, my video really sucks.

AWESOME.

It's 11pm and my neighbors decided to turn on some loud metal. Frustrated, I started to pound on the wall and yelling obscenities.

Michelle and I were sitting around where we heard loud pounding in reply along with their music turning up and raucous singing from the vents.

So then I decided to pound right back and moments letter 50 people left their apartments, the music was turned down, and there were tentative taps from their wall. I replied and moments later they did it again and I replied.

Then all was nice and peaceful again.

Augh, shit. I lost my Ben & Carl story so I can't remember why or when Carl confessed.

I tried going through the notes but the earliest I can find starts off, "Carl in love with me? Gross!" or something akin to that awfulness.

Did I not label parts before that with Ben and Carl in the title? ARGH.

Sigh. I have to think this through again.

I think I'm stressing out over school more than I should.

Hm, I think I accidentally stole a T.V.

Hey, so, Modern Family.

Completely awesome! The first t.v. show I've watched in a while, actually the only, on the t.v.

Phil. I loveeee Phil.

...

I cannot effuse about how much I love this show, maybe because this is the first time I've ever caught a show at its start on my own.

It's also just really good.

It combines my favorite things to watch pre college, family sit com and mockumentaries.

I dunno! It's typical family sitcom situation but just done so well. Also, Mitchell? Awesome. "C'mon, Lily. Grab the block."

Sigh. Makes no sense out of context. But yes, I highly recommend it.

But geezus, Phil. How can you not love him?

Holy shit, genius!

So on the A.V. club you can post a comment once and make a temporary username for that comment.

So someone commented on the review of Modern Family stating how much it reminded them of Arrested Development but they didn't know why.

"Maybe it was just all the bikes."

"And all the lesson-teaching."

J. Walter Weatherman, "And that's why you always lock up your bike."

Ah, it's a you had to be there moment.

But yeah, I love this show.

Saying you're worried about me is the same as saying, "We really have no faith in you."

Out of curiosity Alex... would you like a dayman t-shirt or a Kanji tank? Sadly there were no nightman ones.

I really wanted the target tee for Persona 4 but it's pretty awful. I just really want a persona tee. Dammit, oh well.

[link]

Man, The Onion.

The Onion! You are so weird.

[link]

HOLY SHIT GUYS. It's Jim o'Connor! The guy who used to be on Food Network! Oh my god!

[link]

This is the second guy from Food Network I've seen on The Onion, what the hell? Sigh, makes me love The Onion all the more.

[link]

D'awww. Senator Cunninghams, you have always been my favorite.

Ok, I need to stop linking to these things because I love nearly all the videos. Man.

Here, Alex.

[link]

It's kinda strange, usually if I don't play a game for a while I lose interest yet not Persona 4.

Fucking game, why am I so obsessed with you?

Someone made an interesting point how marketability in Japan now is closely related to the amount of fan service, especially with the burgeoning yaoi fanbase. It's a sad thought. However I think Persona 4 manages to find a way around that.

Well, I'm tired so I suppose I'll yack about this some other time. I don't want to start a new journal that's just me ranting about Persona 4... like always.

[link]

D'awww. That cover.

I decided to not buy Persona PSP because I heard it's pretty repetitive, like Persona 3. No thanks, man. B-but Shoji Meguro. How am I supposed to live without hearing this soundtrack? Dammit!

Anyways, I am constantly curious by these books of Persona 4 on Amazon that are drawn by different artists. Seriously, what are they?

[link]

Namco, you guys are such DICKS.

In any case, there have been hints that Tales of Vesperia PS3 is being localized for the US but it's still only hints.

I hate you Namco but I can't stop buying your games!

Though I suppose I shouldn't be blaming Namco so much as Microsoft, eh? Seriously, 100 dollars for that? Thanks a lot, assholes.

Goddammit, I've never hated Microsoft with such a passion before until I bought a 360. I hate them so much.

Whoh, whoh, whoh. Protagonist, cool it with the spiel, man. You're supposed to be the "silent" protagonist, remember?

But it's cool, man. You having a personality and still being totally awesome is alright with me.

"Luke, stop it! That's his face!"

Ahhhh. Professor Layton. Speaking of the classy professor, did you know he writes in his journal with a brush, apparently? Classy!

Ah! Luke is so adorable! Geezus.

Man, there's some things I can't remember because I haven't played the first in a while. ALEX.

Whhhattt? A professor of archaeology? I thought he was just a professor at... puzzles?

Well, I suppose nothing else makes much more sense.

Oh, professor. You're such a maverick, withholding information from the fuzz. The two are so condescending to the police. I suppose it's not their fault, the detective did think the professor died of a heart attack by "turn(ing) on a light, took one look at the beast, and then keeled right over."

Goddammit, I love this game.

Yeah, I really shouldn't keep this journal open while I'm playing. I need to be working on my animation.

Other stuff other stuff.

I finally updated the comic. Hopefully I can continue to do so in the future, and I planned out my contest entry finally.

Geez, Vi is Manor was more time consuming than I thought. I started that comic, I think, mid-July? And just finished recently.

Bah, I need to reply to everyone's comment on dA but I've been so busy.

Speaking of busy, school has been really fantastic! I'm surprised how much I've grown to love art in general because of this.

Also, Henry Jenkins is a super cool guy.

I think I had a TakamixSakuraba dream last night, which is strange because I really haven't thought of those two in a while.

WHOH. Okami for the DS? Sometime soon, yeah? Ok.

You know what I like to do in my spare time? Read reviews for awful games, it's the best!

For gamespot I tend to look for reviews of 3.0 or less. "This game offers two player mode, but really, why would you subject your friend to this?"

It's strange that 2.0 seems to be the lowest score they'll give.

So school has been great! Really, really great. I look forward to class and I'm all around happy.

Does this spell disaster to come? You bet'cha! But for now let's just enjoy this.

Whoh, scratch that! I see a score of 1.4! It seems mostly racing games are subject to these low scores.

[link]

I like this one.

This has to be my favorite listing under the good: "You can use the game to see if your DS still works"

Hey, how do you have a tsundere cafe? I don't get it.

In any case...

Man, I wrote all that a couple days ago.

I'm spending this weekend doing busy work, organizing all my media files, catching up with people I've ignored due to not going on the internet, blah blah blah.

I'm getting a 1TB hard drive soon! I'm excited. I realized going into KI I'm going to need all that space for my video projects. Sigh.

It's been hard not having a mac since so many programs are Mac exclusive, luckily my aunt is lending me hers so until I get one I need to keep all my programs on the external hard drive.

Now should I name it Nathan or Kalyan? Or Mark? Hm.

Aw, Ninjapunk/bloodypunkred. I got all 6 of your fanart. I'm super flattered, man.

Back on topic now!

School has been really great. I love the KI program a lot. It's fun sitting around with people discussing art programs.

I'm only taking four classes this semester, Intro to Animation, intro to video, media survey, and algebra.

Ok, so algebra sucks. I wouldn't mind it so much if it isn't so horrendously boring.

I really dislike everyone in my class, except for that one guy. He's nice. But everyone else seems to be a business major/biology major, for some reason. Mostly biology majors. I'd love to make an anti-biology crack here but now's not the time.

The females in my class are the worst because they tend to be better than the males in the class and they are so fucking arrogant about it! I mean, Jesus Christ, you're taking Algebra in fucking college, ok? There is really nothing to be proud of that you can solve a word problem using a formula now of all times!

ARGH.

I hate them.

My other classes are really awesome though! My intro to animation class? Great! My teacher is always excited about animation so he's constantly talking and cheerful. He also talks to himself a lot when he's doing stuff around class, it's adorable.

I was really happy about the things he taught us, like different file formats for video and picture, which is something I've been looking forward to. We've been also going over a lot of technical aspects like with digital video, frame rate, different screen types etc. I was really looking forward to that part so it's good he went over it since he said no one taught him before.

We're just doing traditional animation right now and using the lunch box. My first animation came out pretty well but some people in my class are really amazing. It's obvious they've done this before and I feel a little behind but there's others in my class who've had no experience as I have but they're going into different fields.

Sigh.

Speaking of programs, why are they so fucking expensive? Final cut pro? 1500, 600 if you're a student. It's a stupendously awesome program though! Love.

He also shows us a lot of animations in class too, we watched a history of Pixar, which was interesting, some history of animation. 90 degrees was one I really liked, and that soundtrack was amazing. Ms. Putli Tutli was also gorgeous, sigh. Good times.

This is a lot better than AFO where we just went into the class and the teacher expected us to know it already (like time studio! Not that I did poorly but geez).

Haha, that reminds me. We were sitting around making fun of Microsoft paint in class.

"iMovie is the paint of video programs."

"No, windows movie maker is."

It really is.

Intro to video is really great too! Animation and video were the class I was most looking forward to. Next semester I have to take 3-d, which I'm also looking forward to, and sound, which I'm dreading.

Ugh. I have to do my best to pass that class. Yeah, I need to get off academic warning.

Speaking of things, when my mom heard me effusing about my classes she said, "Ok, Vi. Here's the deal, for every A you get $100."

"Whoh!"

"And for every C you... pay me $50."

"Whoh, what?! What if I got a D?"

"Don't."

Sigh.

But yeah! Video class, it's great learning about simple editing techniques in final cut since I spent time studio last year suffering through windows movie maker (shudder). My animation teacher and my video teacher are really young, probably no older than mid-20s.

My video teacher is extremely laid back. His lessons go akin to this:

"So... yeah. ... So don't do this here, because... that would just fuck it all up and you can't fix that shit."

However both teachers are really intense so I was nervous but it's been going well! In animation we haven't done much that we used mostly our own ideas in, just animate a bouncing/jumping ball or so but we've started to make our own videos in video class.

All of the assignments are really open, they usually go like, "Make sure you're in it for at least five seconds, and then do whatever for the rest of it. Just make it interesting."

I haven't done video in a while so I was nervous about telling him my ideas but he seemed to really like it, a lot! Guess I haven't lost the knack.

Sigh. I can't believe I lost all my videos from last year.

My media survey class is really great! It's basically an english class for KI majors so we look at media.

My teacher's neat, he knows a lot of interesting people from the interweb, such as Henry Jenkins.

Really great class.

One day some guy started talking about how hand drawn animation was more personal than say 3-d or computer drawn ones and everyone in the class got extremely upset. Good times.

Yeah, we've been watching a lot of slash fan videos in class.

I have three classes in a row two days of the week, from 12pm-7pm with only an hour between. It's not enough time for me to get to my apartment and back so I've just had to starve through it.

It's relaxing having that hour, I found a table in an alleyway on campus that no one seems to go to so I've taken to sitting there between class and read.

It's so nice to be able to read again since I had no time all summer. I've almost finished read Brideshead Revisited and I'm not really sure what to read next. Vonnegut? Les Miserables? The Three Musketeers?

Hm.

Since I got Professor Layton though I've been playing that between class. Whatever works!

Blah blah blah.

Friends... Are neat. I was walking around buying pens and I came across Cameron. Michelle's a really good roommate. Yadda yadda.

Rghhh. I'm sleepy.

Whatever. I wanna draw Vi's Manor.

Rghhh. Video games! when will I get to play you again? Sob sob.

I'd like to get that blog started soon.

FUCKING INTERNET CONNECTION. Submit, damn you, submit!

I had a dream last night that my dad took a rifle and shot at me.

Weird.

And then I was playing a really lame game that I thought was awesome. The entire game was basically a quiz, and you had to pick one of three choices always which always affected the outcome. So for some reason you had a child and the example on the screen was some long haired dude with full facial hair then you had to pick whether or not he liked a handkerchief you gave him, two of the choices were designs he might liked and one was he didn't like any. So I picked didn't and England became my child? Which was weird because I haven't thought of Hetalia in a while.

Then my dad kidnapped me with I think the intent to kill me.

Good times abound, everybody. Good times abound.

Speaking of things, why do people, fangirls especially, like to draw their favorite characters pummeling each other to near death?

I enjoy it too but I can't understand.

So.

...

My 1TB hard drive arrived and it's totally sweet!

Wanna see it? Wanna see it? I know you do 'cause it's that beautiful.

[link]

YESSSSS.

Speaking of awesome electronics... I bought some new headphones because my noise canceling ones were, well, smashed to death. I only had them for a year too, poo.

However, in replacement, I got one for 30% of the price with one hundred trillion times better sound quality! Ok, not that much. I bought noise canceling ones before just to block out my roommate's T.V. every night so now that they are gone it's not that big a loss, in fact it's almost celebrated because I really hate being detached from my surroundings.

In replacement I bought the Koss Portapro. I can't believe how great the sound is for such a price! Granted, not as good as, say, 500 dollar headphones (well, certain ones), but really, really awesome.

[link]

The second Michelle saw them she yelled, "Oh my god, they're so dorky!"

Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't be saying that if you listened to the sound quality! Go!

"Eh, it's ok."

Dammit.

Also, electronic wise, my aunt lent me her Mac so I can finally install final cut pro and istopmotion. But her mac is horrendously slow. What the hell did she do to it?

Since I dislike her, I really want to return it and say, "Thanks but I think I'll go without."

Nah.

So, as it turns out, staying up all night is not always a waste of time.

I procrastinated on my animation and I had drawn 11 frames only for a 60 frame project and it was the night before it was due.

So I went back, realized the rate I was drawing would be great for a 30 frame rate animation and not 15, so I tossed out half of them and ended up with 6.

So 56 frames to go. Ok.

I can't remember what time I started, pretty late at night. It was exhausting and I ended up with 109 frames. Whoops.

Hey, so it's 6 am! And class starts at 12pm! Ok! Oh, wait. I need to digitize it.

I didn't have istopmotion or any animation program so before starting on the animation itself, I spend a couple hours scouring the internet for a free animation program.

I got monkeyjam which gets the job done in that it can put out an animation, sadly only in avi format.

Then I had to capture my images but it was late at night and having to set up my camera, lighting, connection (speaking of that, I lost my firewire. Luckily, it was only 25 cents! Holy shit, awesome. Usually it's 20 bucks so yes, very awesome) seemed to take up too much time so I opted to scan in every image instead.

That alone took two hours. Bleh. I nearly fell asleep.

I don't have photoshop yet so I had to rotate and resize every image individually, since I had to do that I couldn't alter the image via... something something. Ugh, I'm too tired to remember. That, that thing.

Yeah.

The entire time I was too embarrassed to preview my animation, towards the end I had gotten hungry so I drew less frames than I wanted and rushed through the drawing. The cup had changed in volume during the animation too.

Once I got all that done I had to transfer it to my external hard drive to take to class.

"Error: Transferring will result in some lost of information. Transfer?"

"What the hell, why? Dammit, fine!"

Transfer.

"Wait, why is part of the file in my computer?"

I watched it and for some reason some of the frames didn't transfer.

With no choice I had to watch it to make sure it came out fine.

Then I went to class and my heart was racing to the near point of a heart attack as it got to be my turn to show it.

The animation came out really well.

The teacher liked it as did my classmates. It's interesting, before, like say in space, if people criticized my work I'd usually just think, "Yeah, whatever. Like I care about this." so it was nice to actually enjoy the criticism they gave me.

Is this how it feels to really love your field of work?

It was really fun! I put it in a lot of secondary and overlapping motion into the animation because that was something I was always impressed and luckily the class liked it too.

I thought I was average but it turns out I am slightly better than that? It was just because the first one we did was a bouncing circle, this time was a bouncing object so it was more complicated. Some people are really impressive though! It's obvious they've spent a long time with animation so it's fun.

One guy is really obsessed with dinosaurs. So far all his animations have involved dinosaurs and he always wears dinosaur shirts.

The dork talk is fun. Like during the viewing of my video he said to me, "You know, I have this really cool video for chipping. It's just objects chipping to help you animate."

"That's awesome!"

"It is."

In any case, I'm not sure if I love animation as I love comics or if I love it at all. I know I'm enjoying it but I'm not sure how to interpret that feeling. Am I happy doing this? I seem into it, does this mean I love it? I dunno. It'll take me a while. This is the first time I've done something new in a while. Will my interest wane?

Then there's my video class. For one day we just had to have an idea for our self portrait video and I didn't manage to think of one by the night before.

Sleeping was extremely difficult. For some reason I kept waking up in the middle of the night, almost twitching, and my heart racing. I was really nervous.

I went into class and sat in my seat in a glum. He left us to do something before calling us up one by one and I sat in my chair and tried brainstorming again. It was weird, the night before I couldn't think of anything good and then I kept thinking of new and new ideas.

I wasn't too impressed by them though and then it was my turn.

Luckily he did so then I got excited about it too.

I haven't finished it yet, I shot a lot of footage but a lot of them came out pretty awful so I need to reshoot it.

I had to change the idea a bit because my videos are usually just one really long shot with next to no editing. However we have a near month to edit this video so I decided to complicate it.

I had a vague outline in my head when I shot them but I made an outline recently and there seems to be a coherent line of clips finally. It was kinda directionless. The way I lined it up it seems like there's a story though, which I don't want. I feel like stories shouldn't be in art videos but rather film so I might have to mess it up again.

Hm...

Why is this so fun?

Art videos, this was the reason I wanted to go into KI.

I am confused about how I feel about art videos, I still have no idea how to... describe it exactly? I have a hard time trying to define how it's different from film or documentary. I guess art videos...

I know this makes me the happiest of all the art forms, making these videos, strangely enough. I think. I think my confusion on its definition also makes me confused about my ideas and videos. Why did I think this up? Why do I do it this way? I don't know, I feel like I don't understand the foundation of art videos enough to understand why a certain footage shot a certain way is beautiful or why this editing would make it nice.

Like for animation and comics I understand, there's the basic, panels or dynamic backgrounds and why simple actions are beautiful. But art videos? I have no clue. I have the vaguest idea of what I'm doing and apparently it's right.

The first art video I saw was a dada of rotating spirals which we also watched in time.

Some confuse me, like this one of this man singing backwards, which I understand better. But there was this one movie with beautiful colors, visuals, and shots but there was a story, granted it was incoherent things with random clips splicing it, but it was still linear in a way?

I guess I'm more impressed with those that are just of a man, standing, nearly tipping over, repeat. But would that be a documentary?

Which is why it frustrated me when in media survey today we started our unit on underground films. Maya Deren was my favorite, I think her work incredibly beautiful, and it made me angry that I could not express it in words.

Haha, speaking of that, it seems most people I've spoke with aren't interesting in art videos or sound very much (as my teacher said, "My classes are mostly those interested in animation and that one guy in sound.") and it's mostly animation and 3-D people want to get into.

Makes sense, it's hot stuff right now.

Because of that, most of the people in my class nearly had their eyes glazed over as they watched her videos.

Then we watched Kenneth Anger and before viewing my teacher said the video we were about to watch had very experimental cutting.

I grew uncomfortable as the video started, not being able to even begin to imagine what experimental editing would be like.

But I watched and marveled at these things that I cannot describe or begin to understand.

It's frustrating, I've never realized how important it was for me to express myself until now. Maya Deren I really love, when my teacher gave us the context of her work (the 1940s as a retaliation to Hollywood) I feel like I started to understand why her footage and movie was considered experimental.

(I tried reading reviews or descriptions of the videos to get an understand of the language and the entire concept of art videos in general but it didn't help. How can I experiment if I don't know the foundations? I seem to be doing it but I'd like to be able to think of new ideas rather than waiting for a sudden onset of inspiration as I've been doing.)

In any case, I'm slowly but surely starting to understand art videos, and I feel like I understand better when my advisor said this was a highly experimental major. (I remember a poster for KI saying that and thinking to myself, "No way could I do that" and here I am.)

The first time he said it, before I understood a little, I thought he meant with film techniques and technical things, like scratching out film. Then I come into class and all the videos are made digital and edited in computer programs so there was that confine, how could we be experimental?

I get it now, though and I'm happy to be in this field.

Speaking of complications, animation.

It's hard, our next one we have to have a transformation. I thought, "Easy enough."

"Also, make it appealing. Give it character. Here's an example, a sad pencil transforms into a sharpie and puffs its chest out triumphantly. Make a reason for your transformation, like having the sharpie parts fly onto it and attach to him and then the sharpie cap will come flying down, like a superhero outfit."

Then I thought, "Oh shit."

I realized what a difference of ideas I had about animation than the class. It's very... American? Is that it? American cartoony. Very.

I don't think of animation like that. I guess I'm very much a fine arts person because the things I want to do are experimental (in a way I can understand) or simply just motions that I find beautiful. Also, my idea of story is very different, more like anime, which I can't really describe the difference.

Well, the first one I did fit it, we had to draw a bouncing object and I chose a mug. I gave it a teabag and made it chip as it hit the ground.

In the end the teabag fell out of the cup as the cup bounced away so the teabag got up and bounced after it. Luckily people laughed at that and strangely found the teabag endearing.

"I'd like to see the cup rotate or at a different angle 'cause I had a little trouble telling it was a teacup."

"I'd like to see an animation of just the teabag."

Haha, yeah. I didn't put much thought into it so some of the things are ambiguous, like is the cup living or not? I never decided so it seems to be half that and half the other. Lame. I was also planning on having the cup rotate! But drawing cup handles are a pain in the ass so I didn't. Then I know how it tipped when it fell was off but that was because I had decided at that time it would be alive. Then I didn't so then it bounced normally and everyone got confused.

SIGH.

In any case, so I guess with that last animation I'm starting to get the idea? But I wanted to do more, I guess I have to use this word, "artsy" animation. (Bleh, I feel all dirty now.) I guess I want the beauty to be in the animation itself and not the story or characters.

Well, I guess I can do it since I did it with the cup? Ugh. I dunno, I'm having a really hard time with this. It doesn't help that my sense of humor doesn't delve that way either.

Rgh. This is hard. I don't know what to do.

In any case, animation is easier than I thought, and I don't mean this in a depreciating way. I thought it was more technical in trying to figure out the timing but it's actually a lot more instinctual than I thought, I feel the same animating as when I'm sketching a nude figure. Most of the understand on how the drawing or the animation will turn out is intrinsic knowledge, it seems, based on my visual experiences. It's interesting.

So those are my classes. Oh wait, Algebra! So... algebra!

It sucks!

So I get good grades very easily! And bad grades because I didn't turn my homework in on the right piece of paper.

Hey, I'm sorry I don't have any notebook paper. Those are not a requirement in my major, would you like a 600 dollar program though?

Also my teacher somehow manages to spend half an hour... on a problem. Not teaching a concept but a problem. I've taken to sitting back in the class now and playing Professor Layton under the desk.

But yeah. Art videos. I was thinking of taking a film class but for some reason I have the idea that won't help me to understand art videos since most aesthetics of that field doesn't apply. Weird.

Well, I'll take this year to figure it out.

I don't know if I love it or not, it's the same confusion I have with defining it. Why do I love it? I don't know. Guess I don't then. But I do because I really like it? HM!

Dammit, I'm sleepy. I'm going to stare at my hard drive and then go to sleep. I named it Nathan, by the way. I thought it was perfect.

Hey music! I always marvel at how happy some music makes me, and how some really anger me. (Kanye West! You and your really-not-that-great music video.)

It was great when Michelle played some music she hasn't listened to. "I download any free song on iTunes so this is my first time."

Some music plays in the car.

I make a face. "Hm."

"Hey Vi. Guess what the song is called."

"What?"

"'The Death of Love', and the band is called The Lovemakers."

I start laughing. "Are you serious? That's an awful name." I paused to listen to the song. "This song is really crappy, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is."

"It's really... basic."

"I know, it sounds like every alternative rock song out there."

"I think you should delete it."

"I will."

"Think of what it'd be like if they were your favorite band! You can say, 'I love The Lovemakers!'"

"Hahaha! 'Yeah, y'know those guys. So awesome.'"

Speaking of lovemaking, there's a condom right on my windowsill outside and I have no idea how it made it there. Also, you can't open the windows. Did it come from above or below? Fucking club.

Michelle and I were sitting around, tired from lack of sleep, as the club continued on below us.

"Y,know," she started "I'm sick of the club scene."

"Same here."

A tired silence.

I continue. "And I've never been to a club."

"Same here."

Michelle is kind've the perfect roommate, she doesn't care when I leave my laundry out in the living room, or have milk curdling in my room, and she's willing to clean it all. (No, I don't make her. I help too. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I do! Yeah!) We always cook for the two of us and we hang out a lot, like say a free weekend, she'll play video games with me!

How do I say this? It's very relaxing, there hasn't been a tense moment yet.

We went to IKEA and we bought a huge roll of paper which we then cut and partially covered the walls for us to draw on. I also covered part of the wall next to my bed so I can draw whenever. Michelle wondered why since I had sketchbooks everywhere.

Whatever, man! It's the principal of the matter! Principal!

Ugh. I'm sleepy. I need to work on the comic.

I decided to not enter the contest since I'm enjoying KI a lot. I don't want a job right now.

If I'm this happy about KI, and it's going smoothly does that mean bad things are to come? What could happen? I suddenly revert to my lazy apathetic self, scornful of my classes, and do none of my homework ultimately failing all my classes?

I wonder. I think enough bad crap has gone done already this year, right?

Ugh, I do not look forward to sound. I don't even know how to record sound without also recording a video. What do I do? Well, at least I have a kick ass sound editing program but what am I going to edit?

Woo! Let's remix some songs!

Bleh.

But seriously guys! It's impossible to look smart while arguing how P3 is better than P4.

This is not opinion, this is fact.

Also, turn off your fucking high beams!

Man, you have no idea how relieved I am to not try out for communication arts. I can't even remember what my second and third choices were even. Was communication arts one of them? I think so, for the comics. Art education! Right, I was thinking of trying for it again next semester but I don't think I need to anymore. Even if I can't work for an animation company I can always animate crappy children's commercial, right?

Speaking of communication arts, it's become something of a joke in the apartment.

We'd be talking about art and then Michelle might add, "Unlike communication arts!"

Like, "This is so fun, unlike communication arts!"

Michelle is scornful of realistic rendering.

Yeah, thinking in terms of that and painting, what say, made me understand more why KI is experimental, yet again in a way that I cannot put words to it.

Michelle is also thankful she didn't get into painting. She said they painted a lot of still lifes, which I thought was idiotic. Considering how much modern art (would you still call it that in this case? I'm pretty sure that's only the most popular usage but not technically correct as it refers to that art movement but people use it to refer to abstract art these days. Sad. It's not modern, ok? We're in post-modernism now, man, so shut your trap and stop insulting Rothko. Thanks, dudes) is prevalent, why would the class choose what subject matter you draw?

Sigh. Stupid. I can understand teaching art techniques but...

Ok, I understanding needing an understanding in the foundation, the history, the basics but I still don't feel you need to master it in order to paint abstract. Do you understand? Those skills are not applied there, only the techniques.

I always felt it important to understand history because that gives us the context for everything now.

Besides the point there, sorry. Well, I feel making people learn how to render while they are interest in abstract is counter productive to the art community. The reason abstract artist painted that way is to get away from classical art, they were sick of having to always draw figures or mythical/biblical themes so they created a new form that was pure without symbolism.

Sigh, you guys are undermining history here.

Speaking of things, I know some people have said abstract art is stupid because it requires explanation for great ideas and if it requires explanation it's stupid because art should be visual.

I know this also aids your argument but you're viewing it incorrectly, not there is a right way to view it. It's kind've a vicious circle this but abstract art was meant to apply the most basic concepts of art, like composition, and express composition visually you interpreting it as a story.

In other words, you view abstract art not by trying to apply art terms to it, but by just experiencing it. Abstract art wanted you to experience art without the conventional ideals.

I know you have to understand how to view it in order to view it but with something so unconventional maybe you should throw out your conventional understanding first. Or isn't that made obvious already by just how it looks?

Comparing the new to the old is a worthless pursuit because the present is the current past, the past has changed into what it is now, things will never be like the old days because it's not the old days anymore, it's the old days but altered. I feel because of this we can appreciate the past and the present while looking forward to the ever changing future.

Jesus Christ I'm ranting about art a lot. Cease! Cease!

G'night.

Yeah, I'm so thankful I didn't get into communication arts. I'm pretty sure I would've hated my life if I did. Ugh, illustration. Give me my image sequences, bitches.

I need to brush up on my art video history.

Oh Jesus Christ, I can't believe it took me this long to figure out why the protagonist is paired up with Izanami.

Because of Izanagi! Geezus.

Sigh. I'm so ashamed.

Haha. Andy Warhol invented porn.

No seriously, he did.

Man, Media survey is awesome. Except for all the porn I have to watch. Sigh.

Wow. I haven't read such a stupendous book in a while! Nor one that I've wanted to read in my spare time instead of drawing.

I finished Brideshead Revisited and I was really eager to finish it in the end mostly because I was almost done with the book and not because it was particularly good or exciting.

How do I say this without seeming extremely racist? The book is very British. Story style wise that is. Drove me insane. The description was also very flowery but that was due to the time the book was written in.

I dunno, I wasn't too impressed by it, really. I felt the ideas very simplistically told? Everything was really obvious. Sigh, I was really bored reading it and I didn't find the story itself all that compelling either.

Meh.

Man, I really love Remainder. RGH. I wanna read it again. I wonder if Mr. Ondrof ever read it after I suggested it to him? He seem interested. I want to discuss it with him!

Man, I love him! He said the greatest thing to me. "Vi, you were my worst student but you were also my favorite."

Sigh. He was really awesome.

In any case. What was I talking about? Hm. Oh yeah. I guess Charles and Sebastian being gay with each other helped? Though Sebastian basically disappeared halfway. And became a monk. Yeah.

Sigh. It was obvious Charles and Julia would get together very early on. C'mon man, c'mon. The Brits always do this to me! Hey, he's gay! But only for a little while.

Oh yeah! Back to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and clay. Mmm. I was in a horrendous mood after my shitty class discussion in Media Survey where nearly 2/3rd of the class dissed experimental videos.

(Speaking of that, everything suddenly makes sense. We've been watching art films. That's why there's a story! Ohhhh.)

Luckily, me and a very few, got upset.

"Seriously, what's the point of this experimental video? Like, 'Ohhh. Look at me make something new and now I'll put it out.' and then what? It's worthless."

Like, geezus christ. The exact same can be said for mainstream films. What purpose do they have? They add nothing new. But they do. As do experimental videos and mainstream movies use a lot of experimental video techniques in their movies. Jesus Christ, they even mention these artists in their video.

One guy that I like since he seems to have the same attitude as me said, "It's for aesthetics. Obviously. What else?"

Because aesthetics is a purpose, whether or not people want to see it as one.

"I know her stuff was good at the time but it's not now. So I don't like it. I would like it if it was made now."

Are you fucking serious? Are you fucking serious?

You just mentioned how much of an idiot you are for saying this but continued to say so anyways. Do you actually recognize that you are an idiot or have you heard it said to you so many times you thought you'd mention it just to stave that off as an argument? Because it doesn't. It's still a valid argument.

"I'd rather watch Transformers than this."

Well, good for you. I'm glad that you like awful sex jokes with terrible astronomy factual errors.

I really hate people who cannnot understand the merit of other forms of art. I'm perfectly fine with the fact that you don't like it but yyou cannot just diss it. You can say, "Well, this doesn't click with me but I can see it's importance." No, you don't even see it! What is wrong with you, dick? How did you get this far into the art world without even understanding the importance of abstract art?

And the entire time my teacher, and art video maker himself, gave up very patient responses, and seemed to ask them further why they felt that way. I admire him a lot. I guess I could never be a teacher if I can't keep my own feelings in check like this.

But really, opinions. Do they have merit? In certain cases, like when you're trying to appeal to the mass. But in most cases? Not really. There's nothing concrete, factual, measurable, solid about it, it's just one's own opinion so in the same way you don't give a shit how well people can argue about their stance, no one gives a shit that you can argue yours.

So hey guys, relax instead. Instead of saying dick things why don't we just say it without flaring people, alright?

Chill, guys. Chill. I can understand your passion but you need to keep an open mind about things.

Also fucking stop using the word elitist. Fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking stop.

Why am I elitist? Is it because I'm part of a group of people that likes something? And what, you aren't? You think everyone likes transformers?

In what way am I elitist? Because I argue with technical terms about the merit of the things I like and diss things you like just because you like them?

Look, I like things just because I like them too. It's not my fault that we had to invent words to explain why it is we do. Just because our vocabulary does not fit your ideal of likes and dislikes does not lower your interests anymore.

I'm sorry some people do see it this way but you know what? They're dicks so ignore them. Just so you know, you do the same too and no one is happy either ways.

Sigh. It kinda hurt me that Michelle didn't relate to my anger well. It seems like I'm more passionate about art that she is. Dammit.

In any case. The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier & Clay. By Michael Chabon.

It's beautiful. I can't believe how great the story telling is, the order of events is so perfect. And the characters are absolutely wonderful, I can't wait to read his other novels. I think I have one more by him on my shelf. Oh, no I don't. Well, I would like to buy the Yiddish Policeman... something something.

Despite the title it's a wonderfully deep and moving story, set during the era of World War II with Hitler's cleansing underway. The major characters, Josef (otherwise known as Joe) escapes from Prague to Chicago to live with his aunt and cousin Sammy. It's also about comics.

I was only fifty pages in when I was completely awed by it, not that I wasn't before, but super... awed. I love the characters, so good. And the combination of Joe and Sammy is awesome, not that it hasn't been done before in American culture, but I love them all the same. They also act really gay together (even the book said so).

Sammy is wonderfully serious and passionate and Joe's also serious and really sweet. Man, I loveee them. A lot.

Also Joe and his younger brother Thomas are really adorable. They even kissed on the lips once. However I have the feeling Thomas and their parents are going to die before the book is over. Damn you foreshadowing, damn you!

Sigh. Man. I love books so much.

It seems like there's people out there who think it's... cute? or cool? in a way to have a passion for books without really having any themselves.

Man, what can I say? You guys are lame.

Man. I really want Alex to read this book.

What the fuck is going on?!

There have been constant screams in the apartment building! It is really freaky dude! Is someone getting murdered? Dude, I would feel terrible if someone got murdered and I did nothing about it.

What the fuck is going on?

I thought someone was playing a horror movie but it's been happening since last night. Whhhatttt the fuck! I don't think I can sleep tonight.

KI sure is interesting.

Did you know the technical name of whatever this is is hairy pet wind screen?

ARGH. I need my Giantbomb! Site, why must you always be down?

I can't get over the pure awesomeness that is known as The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay.

Ugh. What do I do? I hear the soundtrack for Persona PSP is really good. Oh, Shoji Meguro. What do I do? Should I buy it?

D'awwwww. The Endurance Run is over. What am I supposed to watch while drawing now?

But anyways, back to the book.

So excellent, the order of the story.

A backstory always more interesting than a story where you learn about the characters first and then continue on with the plot, right?

But... the backstories came really early on in the story so it's like a straight forward story nearly but since it switches between the two of them... ARGH. Because he needs their backstory to explain how Josef manages to pick locks really early on in the novel so he does it via a backstory but having an establishing scene and...

Geezus, I read this part a while ago so I don't remember it very well. I just remember it was genius.

And also the backstory with Sammy with him and his dad was so sad. From the beginning of the novel you knew Sammy was living with his mom and then the backstory came where he kept begging his father to take him on the road and his father was hesitating so you think the father will say no, right? But then he says yes and...

Man.

This novel has really awesome foreshadowing, it's not too obvious and it makes you look forward for the outcome.

Oh man, I don't know, I'm so in love with this book. I can't wait to keep reading as soon as I get time.

ARGH.

but yeah, the contrast between Josef and Sammy is awesome, Sammy with his feigned confidence and Josef with his actual confidence. I really love it.

Man, Cod-face. You sure know how to pick your books.

Ok, you DICKS. I am suddenly feeling racist right now. Why?

The Nocturne they released in America is a limited edition version containing Dante, but they released one with Raidou in replacement of Dante in Japan ONLY.

RGHHH.

I don't want Devil may Cry TWO Dante! Gimmie 4 with his superbly cheesy Lucifer weapon!

MAN.

Man.

Raidou.

Sob.

I know Devil Summoner isn't extremely excellent or popular but geezus, Raidou. So kickass.

Sigh, Shin Megami Tensei series, see what you have done to me? See? I should have never bought Persona on a whim. Never should have bought it ever.

[link]

Raidou, you're such a dick with your sword, I love you.

It's kinda funny, considering the battle system in summoner is real time, so every time he shoots his gun is takes so long, as with the sword. You know what's also great? Silent protagonist meets silent protagonist! How will they speak?

Hey, a talking cat!

Convenient!

Jesus Christ, I know they're demons and all but... do they have to be such huge dicks? ARGH. Stop stealing from me!

Mutter.

As much as I love Professor Layton, the story and plot twists are, how should I put it? Ludicrous.

They need better writers. Hey, how about whoever did Persona 4? Yeah, yeah!

It's also kinda amazing how worthless Flora is, incredibly incredibly.

I always forgot she was there. the dynamic between Luke and Professor Layton is perfect so the dialogue manages to keep up with the two of them, so the rare time she does speak up it's usually, "Oh, how cute. Hey Luke! Ever heard of this puzzle?" Which was, like, twice.

Then she "got sick" after hanging with us for a total of 20 minutes (half a minute of actually showing up) and so she just kinda hung out in the hotel, sick.

And then, holy shit, that's not her, she was kidnapped!

"Oh no, Professor! Do you think Flora's safe? What should we do?"

"Don't worry, I'm sure she's happy playing with the cows.

"Oh, ok! Then let's keep going then!"

Then you never see her again.

Terrible, but I laughed at that.

Ending cutscene!

Flora: "Mm!"

"Hm!"

She reminded me of Protagonist.

I always loved when in cutscenes he would just make noise rather than actually say words. He's that classy!

In any caseeeeeee. Video games are addicting business.

Lately I find myself not being able to stop drawing Dante. And it's always with a rose in his mouth.

And then every time I look at the picture, I can't stop laughing.

Oh, Dante.

I got my video done but I don't really like it... Mmmm.

Ok, man. Why do I keep having dreams about idols? I remember I had quite a few in high school that were incomprehensible due to the fact they were about idols and I have absolutely no interest in them.

I remember in high school one was about some idol that liked me and followed me around and a bunch of girls were jealous and I figured why not, it's funny.

I think.

Weird.

This time I helped some idol out with car problems. Afterwards he tried to thank me but since his English totally sucked instead of saying "amazing" he ended up saying "awful" so the entire country (how did everyone know about this?) tried to kill me or have me arrested.

The second he said, "awful" I was like, "shit, I'm fucked!" so I drove a Taco Bell away.

I think I was driving a Taco Bell thanks to playing Devil May Cry right before bed! Dante, you and your stupid Pandora weapon! RGH.

SO the mass populace tried to kill me, police followed me in their helicopters/cars. I remember trying to pretend I didn't notice them as one got caught in traffic and I flew in the taco bell over the cars.

Then it cuts to shots of my roommate saying, "Where the hell is Vi? We were supposed to hang!"

and my stepmom and family saying, "Where the hell is Vi? We were supposed to cook!" And my family started watching my chase scene on T.V. and laughing.

Then I ditched the Taco Bell and got a tricycle instead.

Then it cut to one of those white cop black cop scenarios, the two guys were trying to chase me, and for some reason too poor to eat anything but macaroni. Then they come across a young detective, old detective combo who were also trying to find me, but were richer and managed to afford to pay for glasses of free water.

Then I stumbled into wherever they were and they were like, "YO! If you pay for our water you're free to go!"

"Oh, well, ok."

Then I spent the rest of the dream on a toilet, strangely without the urge to defecate, reading a book on Japanese shadow puppets.

So in conclusion, idols suck.

Holy shit, I love this.

[link]

I have no idea why.

I feel really bad for localizers sometimes.

"Let's see, the motto of Junes is... 'Everyday young life'."

"... How the hell are we supposed to translate that?"

"Well, 'Everyday' works."

ARGH. I really wanna show Alex my Persona 4 fanart folder but how am I going to show it to her? HM.

I love looking at fancomics online because sometimes they just have one really long comic, length wise. It's awesome, I find it a gorgeous technique.

I love Naoki! I find him completely endearing.

Rghhh. I don't know if I can ever stop effusing about how awesome The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is. (Damn title.)

Before I get started on that, a couple things!

Fujiyama Hyouta's new manga. Yay! I wish she'd finish Dear Green though. C'mon, c'mon! Sigh, way to leave us hanging.

Michelle is quite a shrewd observer. First she made a joke today how I can't handle zombies yet I'm perfectly fine with walking around Richmond after midnight. I mean, yeah, there was a guy running around with a gun outside our apartment last week but... whatever man. Whatever. Yeah.

Journal by Canoe, a song I can't stop listening to. Stupid song. It's also incredibly sad. Good times.

This morning Michelle said, "Wow, you really hate animation, huh?"

"What, no I don't hate animation! I love it!"

"But you don't seem as interested in it as you are with your videos."

Man, she got me good.

I am horrendously in love with video art, I still have no idea what the hell I'm doing half the time. I guess compared to how much I love video art, I seem to really hate animation, ha ha. Deh.

Yeah, art videos. Guy Ben-Ner is really awesome.

ARGH. I don't want to work.

Fucking animation.

I dunno, it's nice but I don't feel as satisfied doing it. Maybe it's because I have to write stories that I'm not interested in.

In any case back to the book!

I loveee Sammy and Joe, they are so frigging adorable together, I mean, geezus, they fell asleep in each other's arms. And then Marty just covered them with a blanket and left.

But the characterization is so superb, Sammy is kind've my ideal! He's the type of person I've always wanted to be.

In the novel he's a lousy artist but a superb writer, something I've always felt myself to be, so he gives up on drawing as they're working and instead he helps the others with their plots and characters. It's awesome. He's so gung ho about it, it's adorable.

Sigh.

If I was better at writing, I'd want to do something like that but I feel like my writing only deserves my artwork, haha.

I dunno, I guess I've never felt so satisfied with art so much as the idea behind it, maybe that's why I like abstract art so much. And maybe that's why I like video so much, it's so mechanical, so long as you have a good understanding or vision it is easy enough to produce your work so long as you have the know how but inherent talent, such as rendering, isn't so much needed. What can I say? It's perfect for me.

But yeah, writing. I do enjoy drawing but writing has always been my favorite, that's why I come up with stories more than I draw them. I know it's true for most people but they lack ambition in both fields, I feel.

That's why I'm always so eager to work on a collaboration project with Alex! I feel like my artistic ability isn't up to snuff to my vision. Like, I can work with it, but it's not what I want. Man, I really want to work on a collaboration with someone but Alex is always busy with whatshit.

Maybe in the future? It'd be great if I could work professionally with someone like that! Hm!

Thinking about it makes me giddy.

Aw, Sammy. So awesome. That's the type of person I want to be.

In any case, without much choice, I've decided to brush up my talent more. I've been coasting on my ideas alone but since at the moment I'd be the only one to execute it, I'll have to get better. I've been practicing CGing and I think I'm doing well. I can't do that high contrast I so admire but I can do the soft shading well? Almost pastel, and I've gone back to my old ways of mixing tons of colors in but I've matured my style a bit by limiting the color palette more so it's not a constant rainbow.

Also I've decided to apply my techniques of layering and underpainting, it's less instinctual for me with the CGing so I can't get it to look as good as Makoto Shinkai does it. I need to start practicing on backgrounds too.

Considering the fields I'm going into, I actually don't need artistic talent anymore but it's handy I guess?

In any case, Sammy. I could relate to him when he berated the artists ideas, and plot holes. It's interesting, so he gives them an idea that he made and they go with it, they work on plot, get stuck, he elaborates for them but lets them their way on certain things.

Collaboration is hard, eh? Y'gotta know when to give. I need to practice that.

In any case, being an ideas person is fun. That's why I've always entertained the idea of being a ghost writer. Mmm. I won't consider myself a writer 'til I can master the basics of story telling! I have the ideas but telling them is another thing.

MAN. I really want to work on a collaboration with someone. I've always wondered what it'd be like to be the person on the other end, the artist, where most of what you do is execute someone else's ideas. Thinking about it makes me bored to death. Maybe someone enjoys it? Who knows.

MAN. Sammy.

Sammy and Joe.

Aw.

And Joe's so, well, brotherly to Thomas. Except he's gotten scary intense now, are Anapol's words a prediction for the future? Probably. The novel is also super depressing right now.

Man. I can't wait to continue reading it but I need to draw Vi's Manor! And that's fine too!

Any artist out there who'd find joy in drawing my shitty ideas? Anyone?

Sigh, Endurance Run. Going through my Persona 4 fanart folder makes me reminisce about it.

Vinny and Jeff were great, during the cultural festival I was surprised about how gung ho to be the female and cross dress. It was awesome!

Then it was interesting what they said about Rise. That they weren't too interested in her because it was juvenile to want to date the idol because apparently that's normal for high school males to want to date someone like that if they were in the school?

Really? That's weird.

I can't wait to get my blog started so I can start posting crap!

ARGH. This is so hard! I haven't drawn Nine in nearly 80 years.

Interesting! There's a song I've been listening to a lot, Osaka Loop Line by Discovery, with a little research I found out Discovery was a combination of Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend, a very popular band now it seems, and Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot. I'm fond of both bands and I really like Discovery, I think the sound's more experimental than the other two.

Yadda yadda.

I'm hungry.

Blah blah, animation. I need to get half of it done this weekend and I don't want to. Sigh. I just wanted to work on my video and then play some vid games, yeah, vid games, man.

Video games, food. I'm hungry.

Ok, I think I should stop.

Oh man, it's been so long that I've read a book so incredible written it made me cry, I think the last one was Maurice?

Aw, E.M. Forster, I love that guy. He was such a humanist and it was so evident in his novels. He's the sweetest author I know.

In any case though, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, dude. I'm crying just THINKING about it.

It is soooo good.

I think half these tears are happiness really, half of it was just that sad plot twist, the other half is just, "Jesus Christ, how the fuck do you write this well?!"

I cannot believe how amazing his foreshadowing is! It's... it's incredibly stupendous! I am so in love with his foreshadowing, really. Oh man, oh man. It's... oh geezus, it's so good. I really can't get over it.

I think I have to edit my favorite author's list now because seriously, just for the foreshadowing alone is enough to love Michael Chabon!

Alex, if you don't fucking read this book, I think I won't be able to forgive you for this because it's really that incredible.

You don't even have to read it all! Just up to page 256, OK? Seriously, trust me. Please, please please. I know you're busy but if you could maybe set half an hour before bed each night? Or the five minutes you have before class starts? Please, I'm begging you. You will not regret it.

Oh man, I have to go continue reading this.

Oh, looks like I added Michael Chabon a while ago.

Ha, but of course but of course. I'm glad you caught on Vi.

My teacher's friend was visiting him in class today, of course my teacher had to, well, teach, so his friend sat quietly in the corner for a little while. Eventually he gets up to leave.

My teacher turns, "Oh, you leaving?"

"Yeah."

"Well, see ya."

His friend blows him a kiss.

Everyone stares silently.

"Well, that was weird."

"What was?"

"I don't know why I did that."

The class gives a relieved chuckle as my teacher says, "Aw, gimmie a hug."

The class continues to laugh as his friend embarrassedly closes the door behind him.

Geezus, that was the most adorable thing I've seen all year.

Man, I am constantly astounded by this book, it's amazing how deliberate everything he writes is and how purposeful. It's really nice, really nice.

Also, Sammy. Man. I love him so much. As for Tracy Bacon, man. I love that guy!

But Sammy. Sigh. If this was a comic I'd probably draw tons of fanart for him but since this isn't I'll think of a way around it.

I was thinking of drawing fanart for him. But yeah, Sammy. Such a great character, it's too good.

Oh my fucking god! Oh my Jesus Christ!

Fucking... fucking novel!

Jesus fuck!

FUCK.

Hours later...

I just finished the novel and...

HOLY SHIT. Mother fucking... shit damn.

SHIT.

Shit.

My god, I haven't cried this much since... Maurice. I basically sobbed for the last 400 pages.

Sigh.

So yeah I'm never reading this book ever again.

Fucking... fucking fuck.

Fuck.

It's the day after and I still feel depressed. What am I supposed to do?

BAH.

And my dream last night, I'm pretty sure it was about the book because when i woke up some residual thoughts still lingered.

Argh, I don't want to say anything because it'd ruin it for Alex.

Sigh.

Oh man. I need to find something to do. Something that makes me happy. Hmmm. This is going to be hard.

I'm pretty sure there are no megaten games that can put me in a good mood, stupid series.

DURRR...

How would you describe my speech? It's not mature, as some college students seem to develop. Or witty. Is it... Adolescent? Yes? Man-dude?

Hm hm hm hm hm. Fanart? Man. I don't want to have to go through that song and dance again. I'm pretty sure once I do I won't be able to stop.

Sigh. Maybe I need to go outside but it's so foggy, oddly enough.

Ok, I need to stop sitting here in front of this screen. I'm out.