News teases

Okay, normally I try to avoid writing specific things about my job here, but I just have to share this tease for one of today's newscasts:

"And we have some email scams to tell you about. One of them involves a hit man hired to kill you. The other is much more sinister: jury duty!"

I love it.

This time, I'm not kidding

This is my new Yaris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It only took me ten months! ;)

The Subaru decided to give up the ghost on my way to work today. I had almost made it to my exit when I realized that despite my firm pressure on the gas pedal, the car was rapidly decelerating. Then smoke plumed out everywhere!

Naturally I pulled over and called Sean, and he came and got me and we set to work on getting me a new car. Toyota of Augusta found one for me in Macon and had it driven over. Sean and I went to work in the meantime. I hadn't thought to take a picture of the old Subaru when we cleaned it out, so I snapped one as we passed it when he was taking me to work.

*sniff* Bye, Subey! You were a great car. You lasted longer than I expected you to. You reminded me of Grandpa. And you were just plain awesome.

And welcome to my life, beautiful little Yaris! I know we are going to have the best time together.

I'll get some better pictures tomorrow, in the daylight :)

Ten years later

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has been sitting on my desk for some time now. Tonight, I decided what the hell. I'd watch it. Couldn't hurt, right? I'd passed judgement without seeing it, which is not the openminded thing to do. I should watch it. Since I had time, I'd go ahead and do it.

So I put it in.

And I watched.

For maybe ten minutes.

I watched as the main character and his lawyer walked out on a check, practically stole a rental car (or at least made it obvious that they were going to trash it), picked up a hitchhiker and proceeded to psychologically terrorize him--all, of course, while reacting in various ways to the drugs they'd brought with them.

When the lawyer got out a gun and started shooting into the air, I said, "Whatever," and closed the window.

I told Sean I'd watched the first part and turned it off. He immediately told his friends on Ventrilo. From his side of the conversation it appeared that they agreed with Sean that I was being retarded.

"I'm closeminded," I called obnoxiously from the closet, where I was returning the shoes I'd gathered from the office. "Maybe it comes from being [specifics omitted out of respect for all parties involved]. I just don't care about watching people get stupid and abuse other people. It's not my thing."

I decided to take a bath, and as I started the water running I thought about my decision. I was right--it probably was due to that. After all, after being on the receiving end of that sort of behavior, when all you wanted was for them to shut up and leave you alone so you could go to sleep--

As tears suddenly burned my eyes, it occurred to me that I might have some unresolved issues.

Detective Conan 399

Let me just quote exactly what I said, aloud, eyes wide, hands clasped in horror over my mouth: Oh no, no, no, don't do it, no, no...she's going to call them!

...and now I guess I'll find out...

Edit: Okay, so I was totally wrong. But that's good! :>

(Hell, she probably would have if Conan hadn't made that switch.)

Brooke just called me!

Her new life sounds like a vacation ;>

Seriously, it was so good to hear her voice, and hear what she's been up to. She and David went and saw As You Like It, and she said it was fabulous. (Mari and Kelly went and saw Romeo and Juliet recently, too. I guess Sean and I need to find some Shakespeare somewhere next...though with my luck it'll be Henry V or another one of the historical war stories!)

Brooke says she and David have hiking boots and walking sticks (actually she used another term that I promptly forgot) and that they're going walking tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing any pictures she might happen to take, since I have been assured that Sheffield does in fact have rolling hills. I think the closest I've seen to the Great Britain rolling hills in picturebooks have been out in rural Kentucky, like Cynthiana or Nonesuch. But I know they're not quite the same.

Sean and I should go to visit them sometime this year, but until I have my Big Decision made I won't be able to figure out when that'll be. We also still need to replace our passports, which were destroyed in the fire. I think probably we ought to go ahead and open our own safety deposit box at the bank for important papers. Sean's parents have one, but it's kinda full.

Anyway, it was so good to hear from Brooke, and I'm so glad she's adjusting to her new life. There are of course some cultural things that she might not get used to for awhile, but instead of letting it scare her into hiding at home, she's running out and embracing her new world. That's just like her :)

I should mention that David is obviously being great, taking her around and showing her stuff and thinking about her. But he'd be in trouble with me if he wasn't ;)

Tabasco!

This is brilliant.

"And this is my fist. You might remember it from Bloody Pulp, the amazingly true story of your face in five seconds!"

"He was in Dangeresque parts 1 and 2!"

Injured

This is one of the best things I have ever seen.

My funds of US$15 Million has been approved!

From: Prof Alex Smith [prof2@webstation.cz]
Sent: 2/22/2007 7:53:00 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: PLEASE REPLY

This is to inform you that your funds of US$15 Million has been approved for immediate delivery to you.

For the purpose of clarification,you are advised to reconfirm your Full Names,Direct Telephone Numbers,Physical Address with Zip Code so that there will be no error during the delivery of the funds to you in your country of residence.

Your quick response will be highly appreciated.

Professor Alex Smith Chambers.


Manchester M27 5FX,
United Kingdom.

Awesome!

What is UP?!

Thought I'd drop a quick line and tell you what's going on with me.

1) Brooke's wedding was beautiful, and this past weekend I saw her off at the airport. She's coming back next month though, so it's kind of like she's just on vacation...especially since her apartment still looks like she lives there ;)

2) Sean got a new job. He started yesterday. So far it looks pretty good. He works my same hours, 10 to 7. This morning I got up and made us both a lunch :) Assuming things work out, we will be buying my new Yaris around the middle of March.

3) My mom's older sister is going through a difficult time with some medical issues, so my mom is flying driving up there to take care of things. I'm just hoping everything will work out. I wish my aunt would move to Kentucky and live near my mom.

4) Water is dripping from the apartment above directly into Sean's shower. I guess it's good that it's not seeping into our floor! The maintenance guy showed up this morning at 8 o'clock. I was still in bed.

5) I have a BIG DECISION that I have been weighing for weeks now. I think I've almost made it, but I'm still waiting on some information before I commit. Certain things that are happening in the meantime are making the new venture more and more appealing...

6) I love art blogs. One relatively minor goal in my life is to make enough money so that I can buy a few pieces from my favorite art bloggers.

7) Lately I have really been wanting to buy a Japanese-style hot water heater, some green tea (the actual tea, not a tea bag), and a teapot. The water heater would be the most expensive, but I've wanted to have one ever since I first went to Japan. It's just that in the past few weeks, I've really wanted to have the option to brew a pot of green tea at work without having to microwave the water.

8) I'm getting over my cold.

Brooke is moving to a land of mutants!

Fortunately, they're awful cute.

Well, Brooke's leaving tomorrow

Moving to England, if you're not in the know.

For some reason I thought I had another week before she left. My mistake. I'm not sure where I got that idea.

But because of that, the only times I've talked to her since the wedding have been by phone. I was thinking I'd give her a week to deal with packing and then try to hang out some.

So much for that. Good one, Heather. This is what assume does!

Anyway, I'm going over there now, at least.

cf. Detective Conan 219

I am pretty sure it's impossible not to be a hardcore fan of Kaitou Kid.

But never fear...Kudo Shinichi will always be ichiban.

Ah, sweeps

The girl who does our news promotions videos, heretoafter referred to as Promotions Chick, has her office in a space, little more than an alcove, off the hallway leading to my second door. (My expansive office, now known as the Breezeway, offers quite the contrast.)

Promotions Chick has been working twelve-hour days to get out spots for sweeps stories, and when she's finished she exports them to mpeg and sends them to me too. Today, suddenly, promo videos started filling my inbox.

Me (calling down the hall): I've got promos out the wazoo in here!

Promotions Chick: Eww, gross.

Me: (laughs)

Promotions Chick: That can't be comfortable.

Me: I do what I can.

Bad fansubbing

I have been watching a particular anime series that is quite long. No one fansubber has subbed everything, so I have seen translations from a number of different groups.

One group had patently horrible subtitles. The English was broken and often made no sense, and pivotal vocabulary was incorrect. Names were wrong or in Chinese--apparently the translator had a Chinese version they used to translate it--and the timing was completely off.

But despite all those problems, this wasn't the worst fansub job I've come across.

I'm into a different fansubber now, and this group bothers me far more than the other. Their English is fine--well written and perfectly comprehensible.

But they don't write what the characters are actually saying!

Characters in this anime are extremely precise, but this fansubber will leave out entire sections of information. They will also add in dialogue that isn't there. For example, a character thinking "From the condition of the body, the death is definitely due to poisoning" is subtitled, "Who is the one who committed the murder?" (This line of thought continues, "The most suspicious is that person, and there should be evidence," but the subtitles say "There's something about that match, I know something's wrong." >_<)

You can understand what's going on with these subtitles, but if you think about it, they're telling a completely different story. A story in which the main character has hunches instead of deductions! Which is ridiculous.

I liked the horribly-broken, poorly-timed subtitles with the occasional mistranslated word of vocabulary better because I could simply glance at them and use them as a reference while I listened to the Japanese. With these "perfect" English subtitles, I have to read them, listen to the Japanese, and filter out which subtitles were wrong or incomplete or added in for no apparent reason.

I'm not to a point with my Japanese language comprehension that I can just watch this show raw and understand everything. I depend on the subtitles to guide me through the hairier parts.

So these subtitles are driving me crazy.

So much for the fever

I needn't have worried; the fever broke overnight, and my temperature upon awakening this morning was a cool 96.3. I've got the occasional cough, but nothing so serious that I can't work.

I'm now drinking orange juice. And it's good!

I'm actually sick!

I even have a fever. It's mild--100.9--but still.

I've taken some Advil, and I'm going to bed. If I'm still feverish in the morning, I guess I'll call in ;P Hate to do that though, I get so behind...

Good one

I have been informed that there's a woman performing a striptease on the PETA website.

Yeah, that's a good way to get taken seriously!

(I personally feel that animals should be treated well, from the time they're born/hatched until the time they end up on my dinner plate.)

Koi wa Thrill Shock Suspense

Koi wa Thrill Shock Suspense ties with Nazo for my favorite Conan OP song.

However...

[the video is gone now.
it was Conan doing a
very serious dance
during the opening titles.]

Would Kudo Shinichi really do that? Really?

Fortunately, there are plenty of YouTube goofs who enjoyed the little dance.

(Actually, that dance would be a good cosplay performance. You know, if you're into that sort of thing...)

An observation

The Mouri family is always on freaking vacation! Man, I need to become a meitantei ;P

A thrill of love

As I stood at the front of the church, I was struck--hard--by the singularly beautiful moment of Brooke coming down the aisle.

"Oh my god," I said, and then I was shuddering with sobs I fought to force back.

It wasn't sadness. It wasn't the loneliness I expect to feel when my best friend and I are parted by the sea. It wasn't mourning at all.

It was amazement. It was bliss. It was my primal response to ultimate beauty.

The organ music surged through me as one of the most amazing women I've ever known floated up to the altar. Dorothy rubbed my back to calm me as I gasped for air, blinking back tears of joy.

My husband is awesome.

We've been married four years, but I still learn new things about him all the time.

Today I learned that Sean Meadows can give one hell of a speech.

I guess I assumed that because I'm terrible at giving speeches, Sean would be too--that it was just part of our personalities. Even now, I sometimes forget that we are not the same person.

"It's your turn," David said. Sean forced his way through the pain of his rental shoes up to the front of the room, where Brooke and David stood with champagne glasses in front of their wedding cake.

"When David turned 30, he told me he wanted to be with someone," Sean said. "He said he was lonely and unhappy.

"As his friend, I of course had to tell him the truth. 'You're not going to get anywhere on that talking to me every night.'"

Sean paused while everyone laughed. Then, "I was wrong," he said.

"Brooke and David hadn't met yet, but one day I said, 'Do you think David and Brooke...?' And Heather said, 'No.'" More laughter.

"It didn't happen until right after Heather and I had a personal tragedy. David came to visit and they finally met.

"They didn't waste any time."

Sean's speech was especially good because it complemented David's speech quite well. I don't know if they planned that or not. David mentioned briefly how it happened and spent most of his time (rightly) on his relationship with Brooke; that meant Sean was able to go back and fill in the gaps.

What really impressed me was the fact that Sean didn't "write" his speech. He thought about what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it, and then he went up there with no notes and just told it all conversationally. He never seemed to fumble or forget what he wanted to say, and he paused at just the right times.

There were a couple times when I wasn't sure if the people in the back could hear him, but that is the only problem I can think of.

I love hearing good public speakers. I never imagined that I'd married one!

(Note: Because he didn't write his speech out, I had to write it from memory. I'm sure I got the wording wrong here and there. I wish I had managed to get it recorded with my camera, but unfortunately I had to change batteries right when Sean went up to talk ;P)

Why can't people write?

I'm not talking about injecting voice into prose; I'm talking about spelling things correctly, using correct verb tenses, and having enough of a vocabulary to not misuse common words. These are professionals, people with important jobs, community residents who want to get their voices out there. These are PIOs for nationally-affiliated organizations.

Has it always been this way? Have I just been shielded from it by not working in large organizations or seeing dozens of horrendous news releases every week?

Japanophiles like to make fun of Engrish, and to haughtily suggest that in this 21st century, Japanese companies could surely hire a native speaker to write their copy.

But I wonder if a native speaker would truly be any better.

Look at that weird thing

I've added a Twitter box to my sidebar. (I also moved the search box to the top. Now I'm thinking I'd like to put the search into the header somewhere, but I'll worry about completely redesigning my template later ;P)

Twitter is basically a quick way you can let people know what you're up to. Now I won't have to put one-line posts on my blog anymore!

Don't worry; I'll still do it. But maybe not as much?

Conscience, conscience, conscience

This morning, as sleep and the fact that I couldn't breathe warred in my stuffy head, I dreamed a House episode.

He was operating on someone and made one of his comments, but what he didn't realize was that the guy could hear him. This guy had a habit of getting treatment from doctors and then taking revenge on them for perceived slights. Later, after he was discharged, the patient saw three letters on the huge glass pane of a store front: USE.

"You'll pay for what you did in surgery, Dr. House," he muttered.

House was on his way home when gunshots rang out. But they were nowhere near him. He stepped into his darkened apartment. "3...2...1," he said, and immediately the phone began to ring. "'Oh, did you hear those gunshots? What happened?'" he said, mocking his neighbors. But the crazy patient was hiding in the shadows.

Of course, since this is the most exciting part, I have no idea what happened. I think it was at this point that I became aware that I was trying to wake up, and was unable to do so. I hate that feeling. Especially since I really wanted to sleep some more--my alarm hadn't even gone off!--but my body didn't seem to want to let me.

The nature of the dream changed. House was in my parents' backyard, talking to a friend of his through the big bay window in the basement (which has been boarded up and is now hidden behind layers of soundproofing, so opening it is impossible). You'd think the friend would be Wilson, but it wasn't. It wasn't an actual House character. I'm not sure who it was.

The friend was talking about how "Tsukushi" was relieved that House was okay after the incident with the crazy patient, and how she'd given him an admonition to be more careful. I'm not sure, but this part of the dream may actually have been in Japanese.

Tsukushi, of course, is the main character of Hana Yori Dango, and in this dream she used to live with House.

"If Tsukushi came back, how would that be?" House mused. (I think the last part of that sentence actually came out "wa dou da?") I vividly recall the friend leaning on the windowsill as House said this, looking out into the green grass of the yard.

I think my labored breathing must have interrupted dream continuity again, because the next thing I remember was House snarkily debating his life with a fellow doctor--a psychiatrist. House was arguing that he had no redeeming qualities.

"I'm the pinnacle of what everyone aspires to be," said the psychiatrist. "A specialist." Then he started pulling FedEx mailers out of his briefcase. "Conscience, conscience, conscience," he said, each time smacking a parcel on the table in front of House. Somehow I knew that all his notes were in those mailers, and that he meant he had ample documentation of House showing he had a conscience.

Then my alarm did go off. I strained out of sleep like I was drowning and fighting my way back to the surface.

My Super Bowl XLI joke

Grossman! Fries!

Convenient!

It's certainly a good thing for Clark that everything that happens in Smallville causes amnesia.

Look, I'm on the new Blogger!

And you can't tell!

That's because I have a custom template that doesn't include any of the new Blogger stuff.

At some point I'll have to fix that...

Edit: Oh dear god look what they do with the post labels! Yes, definitely need to do something about that...

Never forget

Via Merujo.

Last night was nice

After unwinding with some Detective Conan, I snuggled into the couch with Sean, and we just talked and flirted for awhile. He talked about the new game and what a good job Sam's doing organizing it. I told him about my day and complained about a few things and he weighed in. We held hands.

"There's some rain coming, and a cold front moving in, so lots of schools have already canceled or delayed," I told him.

"So we can expect some sleet, eh?"

"Actually, the chances of it hitting our area are like, zero."

"Zero, huh? So tomorrow when there's icicles all over everything and the roads are frozen, I'll come back to you and say, 'Zero'."

"That would be awesome! If that happened, I wouldn't even care that I was wrong."

"That," Sean said, "is what's wrong with you."

I responded innocently, "Is that all?"