I'm in the process of re-watching all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and lemme just say, five to eleven years later, the show still kicks ass. Was Spike always this hot?
ps. I just got my new driver's license in the mail. Three weeks without any form of government-issued photo ID in my wallet made me feel so nekkid. But this new version of the license in all its monochromosity is just fugly as sin.
pps. Got me a job downtown around the Eaton Centre. If anyone's in and around the area and feels like buying me lunch, I'm always available :)
7:56 PM
1:12 PM
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!
You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don' t
Because, sometimes, you won't.
I'm sorry to say so
but, sadly, it's true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.
You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.
And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That's not for you!
Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
With banner flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. there are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don't.
Because, sometimes, they won't.
I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.
And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!
-O, the Places You'll Go
Dr. Seuss
11:30 AM
-Thanks, Nat!
Forget the no name Saturday lineup. Holy stacked Sunday, Batman! Mucc, D'espairsRay and the Big Three all for only 14,800 yen!? That's a crazy deal.
Personal restrictions stop me from making it :( but if anyone's going, I want to hear about it. And 'cause the Yosh is sure to have overpriced recordings, posters, and other paraphernelia, I'll be sure to snag a DVD or something. Or, I'll watch it on YouTube, 'cause I'm cool and cheap like that.
6:11 PM
muzak: Kanye West - "champion"
I wear granny panties. That's right. And I'm not ashamed of it.
It all began this past weekend when I did a load of laundry and mistakenly left a nice cottony white pair in the dryer. I'm not going to lie, I owned up to it. And any girl that tells you she never wears granny panties is a liar, I say, a liar!
I have an assortment of colourful undergarments ranging from the sexy lace barely-there to the cartoonish/striped/polkadot low-rises to the wedgie-inducing boyshorts. And yes, even the big butt-embracing underwear.
Before you jump to conclusions, which I'm sure you've already done, you jerk, granny panties are ridiculously comfortable. Dudes, let's see you wear a thong every day. For those blah days, or the days on the rag, the grans are convenient. And, I've found, the quality is longer lasting than other cute underwear.
So fellas, there you have it. I bet even the sexiest of the sex goddesses has a pair in her repertoire. It's the same as having a simple white cotton t-shirt in your closet. And if people can wear Uggs, Crocs, and other odious trend-du-jours in public, then girls shouldn't be given flack for wearing the equivalent of men's briefs under their jeans where nobody can see them.
1:11 AM
In a room inside a section of a building within the heart of a city, a world of living cartoons thrives. Schoolgirls with bubblegum pink hair talk to ninjas with gravity-defiant hair. Lolitas sit to eat lunch with psychotic geniuses. To these characters, life is about animation.
“My name is Shelly Gray, and I’m dressed as Sheena Fujibayashi from Tales of Symphonia,” says one girl with a bow tied around her waste long enough to reach the ground. Her entire ensemble was handmade by friends.
Gray’s not the only one willing to spend months of her time and hundreds of dollars on custom-made costumes. The Metro Toronto Convention Centre was home to the annual AnimeCon hosted by FanExpo on March 15-16. Thousands of fans gathered in full costume, paying homage to their favourite Japanese cartoon character.
The convention is a place for fans of Japanese animation, more commonly known as anime, to come together to share their common interest. This year, more than 3,000 guests checked in, up a thousand from last year, said James Armstrong, organizer of the show.
“Anime has always kind of grown in popularity,” he said. “They haven’t had that backslide. It’s always going up or staying the same.” Shows always get popular and lose steam and another one is right behind it ready to create another wave of fandom, Armstrong said.
Not sure what anime is? Get out of your own bubble and take a look at YTV’s programming where much of the weeknights and entire Fridays are devoted to dubbed cartoons imported from Japan. Look for the shows that look more aesthetically pleasing. Exaggerated features like big eyes, elongated limbs, and elaborate shading give the characters a more visually pleasing appeal than the simplistic crudity of Spongebob, Homer Simpson, or Peter Griffin.
The audience’s voracious appetite for anime almost rivals Trekkies and Star Wars fans. “It’s similar,” said Armstrong. “The fans probably have more in common with Trekkies than they realize. Since they’re both into different material, they’ll probably never admit to something like that, but yeah, I see similarities there.”
“It’s just something to do,” said Amanda Rihal, a vendor at the convention. “The cartoons here in North America just didn’t appeal to me. They seemed really dumbed down.”
The fluffiness of North American cartoons has made cartoons seem suitable for 5-year-olds. Many North American shows are centred around school life and popularity, while imported shows range from high school kids taking on the role of the Grim Reaper to futuristic alternate universes. The plots are extremely complex and characters are highly developed as they battle personal dilemmas and giant robots.
The diversity and fresh plot ideas are what draws the large crowds. “The TV exposure’s bringing younger kids in, but I’m also seeing a lot of the older people getting into the newer things,” said Jody who was selling comics at the convention for the fifth year. “It’s a market that was never tapped. Part of the problem comic books has had is it has never geared itself towards women. And that’s one thing Japanese comics really have.”
The comics, inked in the same visually pleasing style as anime and known as manga, beg for readership through the pages, and it works. Characters drawn with large eyes and the ideal physique draw readers in, with a plot that often complements a cartoon series.
“Manga’s starting to sneak into the comic book industry,” said Armstrong. Anime fans have begun to gravitate towards the comics, and the publishers love it even though the typical superhero has foundered. The surge of popularity for Japanese artwork is like a second coming after the death of Superman. “Probably in a few years, the anime/comic connection is going to be a real relationship.”
The popularity has even spawned the American version of anime (which was once supposed to be influenced by American animation, ironically). Avatar: the Last Airbender emulates the anime style with artful scenery and anime-style drawing.
Meanwhile, American cartoons like South Park and Family Guy have made gags and parodies with characters speaking in poorly dubbed English, or adding the words “ha-HA!” to the end of every sentence.
Knowing the fickle nature of television-watching audiences, it’s hard to really predict the road that anime will go down. Reality television is doing well too, but you don’t see conventions celebrating their greatness. And what reality show’s fans would be willing to sew their own costume to look like their favourite pop star du jour?
“The name’s Pierre, and I’m dressed up as an akatsuki ninja from Naruto,” says a guy wearing long robes and a rice hat. He’s been into anime for almost 10 years, and he doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.
“There are so many reasons why people are drawn into anime. It could even be video games or manga. There’re so many categories, but basically, it’s all anime.”
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