I. I'm four minutes into "The Western Air Temple," and I can't resist posting--how did I forget how good this show was during my breaks from it? How beautifully it handled story-telling in general? I may have to get the DVDs and rewatch the whole damn thing. Despite all the other things I want to watch.

II. Speaking of those other things...I have discovered another reason TVTropes is bad for me. It makes me go, "ooh! This is so my kind of thing! *DOWNLOADS*" Acquired so far for this reason: Red Garden (twenty-two episodes) and Murder Princess (six episodes). I may watch the latter soon, since...it has an ass-kicking princess and lesbian subtext. How can I resist? I also have Mnemosyne, which is similarly short and also has lesbian subtext.

I tried to watch another episode of Princess Tutu last night, but I couldn't get sound from my DVD player. Dammit.

III. Am I the only one who genuinely ships Kureha/Shinbashi (in that order)? I made the mistake of venturing into fandom while looking for scanlations, and it seems like most of fandom either ignores Kureha, hates on her, or sideships her with Shinbashi (even though he's "creepy" according to them...and Sou isn't?) to get her out of the way of the glorious, perfect Sou/Mashiro.

( Spoilerish bits. )

IV. I recently discovered my old copy of Garth Nix's Sabriel, which I read as a kid and really liked. I barely remember any of it, though, and I've heard lots of good things about the whole trilogy, so I'm considering rereading it and then picking up...the others are Lirael and Abhorsen, right? I haven't actually read those; by the time I even heard they existed, I'd long since forgotten most of Sabriel.

V. I was deeply weirded out by today's Penny Arcade. For a while I thought I actually had the same birthday as Gabe, but then I looked it up and realized that his is actually the 25th. So I guess I'm safe.

I'll be getting chocolate from the fancy place after dinner, too!

VI. And now I'd better get back to watching "The Western Air Temple" before I get any more distracted. It's just too good.

Back from Pittsburgh. I have many things I could or should be doing. Instead, I busied myself with putting together a playlist and uploading it for all.

( PLAYLIST: THE MEANING OF LIFE )

There's a disproportionate amount of Sondheim on that list. I wonder what that says about me. No, I don't think I want to know. I've uploaded and shared several of the above songs before, because they're among my favorites, but you'll take the repost and like it.

Things I want to do before NYAF:
--Finish the Simon/Nia essay (and with it at least one of my two planned Simon/Nia fanfics).
--Get my Gwendolyn application in at stoppedtrains.
--Work on an application for sigillums.
--Read the driver's manual. Sob.

Does anyone know if the latter half of After School Nightmare has been scanlated? From what I've heard, it hasn't, and while I hardly care to know more about Sou, I really want to see more Kureha.