I don’t pretend to know how to write well. Certainly, I write better than I did, say, three years ago, but I know I can always improve. (The comma abuse in the last sentence proves that!)

However, I somewhat expect that a published novel, though based on a video game, would be somewhat better than something written by a squealing wai-wai 12 year-old fangirl without a proofreader.

Enter the .hack//G.U light novels. A light novel is basically the Japanese term for a young adult book; it’s not supposed to be brain-stimulating material, but it’s supposed to be a light read and a nice diversion. Tokyopop has been releasing a number of these lately, and since I actually liked the story in the manga, I thought I’d pick the first two up.

Continue reading »

Current Mood:Working emoticon Working

Okay, time to talk about real world stuff.

Library

Wow, having blogged about this in a while. Well, since the last update, we’ve bought a 40cm bookcase from Ikea and put it on the side of the room with all the manga — it really fills out the room! I’ve also bought a wall pendulum clock which will satisfy my need for some tick-tock in the room; it also has a Westminster chime, and it costs a fraction of what I’dve paid for a grandfather clock, so go me. That should be coming in on Saturday.

Moar Books

Chapters had their 20% off sale last weekend. We were holding off on catching up with our manga until the sale, but we still managed to spend $550 on books. I finally got the rest of the books I was missing from the Belgariad and the Malloreon, Sky got some more Dresden Files books (he’s caught up), among other things, and we got, sigh, up to One Piece 53 (from 43). By the way, Viz — cool it with the stupid releases. My wallet can’t take 5-6 releases a month. We got much more than that but details are fuzzy right now. (I’d say it was half manga, half “everything else”.)

Pets

Sky brought Whisper to the vet last week after his, ah, “aromatherapy” became too much. His glands needed to be expressed (it was gravel in there) so that was done, and Sky carted the old fart home.

Eris was NOT impressed. She hissed, spat and growled at him for three days straight, and I was seriously worried I’d have to cart one away. Whisper, for his part, was looking at him with a “WTF b*tch” look the whole time, though he seemed sick of it all by Thursday. She finally calmed down by Friday, and they were back to grooming each other by Saturday. Seriously, though…

Oh, and Eris snorts when she’s pissed.

That’s about it for now.

I think that’s the name of a bar in New York.

Anyways, the pics are crap because my camera’s crap:

The grandfather clock is going to have to wait a while — the one I want is $2,000. Ouch. So we’ll finish putting in bookcases and recover financially before we do that.

Looking good!

We’re still plugging away at the library. We have half of the books in, and what’s stopping us right now is lack of energy and a lack of shelves.

See, we have 8 (9?) Billy bookcases from Ikea… but the 60cm variety. We bought them when they were half off, and though we didn’t know it at the time, they were like that because they were being discontinued. That left us high and dry in regards to shelves (which only fit the 80cm ones), but now that we have a table saw and a dremel, we can cut ourselves some shelves and cater to our paperback habit.

Two Sundays ago, we bought that table I mentioned a few posts back. We also bought a nice red rug that can very easily be vacuumed. But we had a huge lighting problem — there’s no overhead lighting in that room — so we kinda despaired at finding anything until I saw some nice floor lamps at Ikea. So I got two lamp bases and these (I can’t link the base because it doesn’t seem to exist on the site anymore… go go discontinued stuff!) The shade is plain, but we want a nice classic look in the library.

Well, we set things up last night… and whoa. The lighting’s AMAZING and it really changed the room. It really adds warmth to the place, and it’s perfect for what we want the library for. (Tabletop gaming and, uh, reading.)

I’m a little worried the table’s too big, and with two more chairs, it’s just going to get worse, but we’ll see… everything feels crowded right now because we have the boxes from the table and the lamps, plus the old coffee table (which is going to Myrna), plus the tools… I won’t be able to judge until this is all cleaned up.

Now all we need is an overstuffed chair and we’re set. I’m tempted to peek at United Furniture sometime soon (where we got the upstairs couch) to see if there’s a matching chair.

Current Mood:Sleepy emoticon Sleepy

Work is kicking my ass today. Seriously. Anyways, have an update on the Cas. Note that there’s mention of poop from here on. (WoW players, this shouldn’t faze you, given how many quests revolve around the stuff. God.)

Pets

Eris was bunged up again, hence the puking. She had x-rays an enema done, producing the desired results that one expects out of the latter. What worries me is that ONE of the cats puked this morning, but I can’t tell who…

Reese is also better, and he’s currently Captain Destructobun with his new grass house. He’s on Oxbow food now (Bunny Basics) and he doesn’t have the poopybutt issue he had before. Just to give you an idea, I used to have to change his litter once every week and a half, and now I need to change it every two days. I think I have a healthy bun.

House

I’m slowly in the process of bringing the books downstairs. The library’s looking pathetic and I want that fixed.

We bought a nice cushy red rug for the library that is easily vaccuumable. My plan is to take out the coffee table (anyone want a coffee table?) and put in a table where we can play board games, tabletop RP, card games, etc. I’ve got my eye on this table in brown (hoping it’s not too big), but ironically, it expands to be bigger than my kitchen table, so my library might turn into a dining room when we have company over. We’re definitely keeping the couch, though, and I want a big cushy chair in the corner, so we’ll see how things go.

We should hopefully have the baseboards done the weekend of May 1st, come hell or high water. I can borrow an air compressor and I’m going to buy a nail gun (instead of renting) so that we’re not zomg stressing over returning it on time.

Health and Exercise

I had a… “condition” last week that forced me to take antibiotics. (It’s a sulfa med, so astute Googlers can figure out what it is if they so choose.) I’m allergic to both penicillin and Tetracyclin, so that pretty much was my only option.

Hoo.

If it’s listed as a side effect, I got it. Nausea, lethargy, stomach cramps, rash, the runs, lack of appetite… the list goes on and on. It also causes ANOTHER condition in me (that’s thankfully treated with OTC meds), and it was that time, too. So yeah, not a happy camper, but I took my last dose today.

Other Video Games

I got Pokemon HeartGold… and haven’t played much of it yet. I’m serious, I have a Chikorita and a Pidgey and that’s it. I think it’s because I’ve already gone through Crystal…

I’m enjoying watching Sky play through Disgaea 3, though. Damn, the music’s good in that game!

FFXI

The above and other things resulted in my not giving a flying crap about FFXI last week. As most of you know, I’d been going a little crazy trying to get Seveneyes, and this resulted in me staying logged into the game practically 24/7 with a thing that would send a very loud sound through my speakers if certain people sent me a tell. It’s a little nuts, but with all the maintenance going on, and the fact that the NM pops every 48-72 hours, I kinda wanted to get this over with.

I had no luck, but by Wednesday, I was sick of the whole thing and stopped trying. I had Myrna sign me in on Thursday night and I went to sleep.

When I woke up, I saw I had three messages from her: one saying that the NM popped, one saying simply “…” and the last saying “Check Dar in the morning :D

And sure enough… (Click to make bigger.)

What you’re seeing there is actually my “town” gear (as in, the gear I run around in when I’m not getting killed by stuff). Not a lot of people wear town gear, and it’s often the subject of ridicule since people thing I fight in that stuff full-time, whereas the reality is that I fight wearing bits and pieces of that stuff and look like a mismatched buffoon.

I know it’s really weird and narcissistic to say this, but I really think I look awesome in this stuff. I also look great (in a nerdtastic way) in my Scholar AF and Relic attire. I idle (as in, when I’m in battle but just standing there) in my SCH Relic (except for the hat); people look at me funny, but I gear switch so often that they really can’t complain.

So anyways, how does Seveneyes perform? Well, it’s an interesting weapon in that it has a chance to reduce the cost of my spells. I’m swapping it in for my spells that don’t require any particular stats from a weapon (e.g Storms, Protect, Shell, Raise, Regen, etc.) and… I’m not seeing a noticeable difference, mostly because I don’t know how much MP all my spells cost, and I can’t do math in my head. Oh well. However, the weapon is ACE in Campaign. It’s a very fast wand, so add an en-spell and I’m doing damage like it’s no one’s business. I’ve only done a couple of Campaign Battles with it so far, but I like what I’m seeing!

Aside from that, I got 5k to DRG 69 (from 67), and Ithan-Yuran from SCH 37 to 42 in one night. That’s 30,000 exp in 4 hours. I love East Ronfaure. I love it so much. I’m really, REALLY behind on Ithan-Yuran’s spells, though, including Aspir. (I have all the bits and pieces I need to get that, it’s finding the time…)

We also did the Viridian Urushi onry Hagun ENM… and actually got a Hagun. Woot! We’ve been lucky lately with the two Toreador’s Rings and Hagun we got. I used the money to pay off part of my debts. Now I technically owe Myrna 2 million (1 million for Seveneyes, 1 million for my Ebon Frock), but I think it’ll be a challenge to get her to accept the money. >.>

Okay, back to work for me.

Current Mood:Sleepy emoticon Sleepy

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