Coffin Man

Mood:

From the first Kuroshitsuji or Black Butler soundtrack. This whole soundtrack sounds amazing, and has a lot of different influences in it.A large chunk of it sounds like they could be ragas or came right out of Bollywood. I forgot that was when they introduced Prince Soma and Agni. This one doesn't so much sound like it has an Indian flair. Although, the vocals in the background might...Can't tell.It gives an overall cool feel, though. It's one of the Undertaker's themes. Particularly when Ciel and Sebastian are in his shop. He's one of my fave characters. Maybe even more so now as I'm reading the manga. Other tracks have a distinct German feel, and others have an English one. The series is based in late 19th century England. Mostly in London. The composer did a pretty good job with the soundtrack. Didn't really care for the other soundtracks for the series, though.Ciel's in the vid. 

Just a few days ago, it was in the high 20s and now it's almost 60 degrees.Apparently it'll stay up around that temp for a little while. From freezing, to somewhat warm...We were colder than usual, and then might have set record highs for this time of year. Crazy!At least things aren't frozen over now. (Almost fell a few times while we were out shopping.) Although, we're also getting a lot of rain, and it was incredibly windy yesterday. So, there's a flood watch, wind advisory, and landslide advisory for the area. Apparently the wind is going to be even stronger tonight through Thursday. Since the lights flickered yesterday, I have a feeling the power will go out on Thursday. Oh joy. 

Ordered my next Jewish calendar from Amazon last Thursday, on the 4th. They told me I wouldn't get it until the 10th. I got it on the 6th. That's incredibly fast!I wasn't expecting it that quickly. I thought since I'll be using it in January, as long as it comes before that, I'm cool with it. It was delivered and put on our front porch, instead of stuffed in our mailbox. Stayed nice and flat with the way they packed it, as well. The calendar is put out by the same people that did my current calendar. From the back, it looked like some more interesting stuff from their museum. Might be better than the current one.So now I'm set for the new year's calendars. Yay! With the current year's calendars, I can make some pretty interesting posters out of them. I love doing that, and this way it gets even more use.The Italian one has a lot of small pics which will be a little different compared to usual, but that can be fun. Most of the 'posters' in my room came from calendars. I cut the pics out, and use Blu-Tack or some variant of it, and stick them to my walls and closet doors. Might put some on my regular door this time...Don't know. 

Last Friday, for my 'cleaning day', I cleaned a good chunk of the dining room. Used the vacuum to get dust and cobwebs from the ceiling and around the posters/paintings. Vacuumed the curtains, too. Then, vacuumed part of the windows, wood around the windows, and the window's screen. Lots of stuff came off of it, too. Not quite as much as my bathroom window's screen, but close. I didn't know how dirty the windows were until I used Windex. The paper towels I used would instantly turn black as I went over a section for the first time.That might have been harmful for us, but at least it's gone...

I started cleaning the china hutch (or is it cabinet?). Got to the top shelf, including all the glasses that it holds up there, the top mirror part of that shelf, the lights, the glass doors, and vacuumed part of the very top of it. It was difficult cleaning the very top part, and I had to use a step ladder. Took a while to do all that. Windex worked wonders!Now that top shelf and the windows shine. The glasses look usable again. They had a thick layer of dust. Broke one of them because of how tightly packed they were.It already had a chip in it, anyways. And, there were several others that had the same design. I was more worried about Rosie getting into the shards that had fallen on the carpet. She was watching me intently while I cleaned that room. She was good, and didn't run to it. 

I decided to do the rest of the hutch next time. On the lower shelves there's more than just glasses, so it'll be a bit more of a to do. (Silver, wood, etc. based things.) I did the table, challah board, and candlesticks as well. Windex made the candlesticks shine again, as well as the table. It's really cool to do all that, look back to see how nice it looks, and realize I did that.It motivates me to do more. I'll also vacuum the carpet in that room next time.

Been getting into Gaia's forums again. (Mostly during the weekends.) There are some pretty racist people on there, but I've noticed that the open-minded people might outnumber them.I decided to respond to someone's thread about race, ethnicity, and labels. They were far from being racist themselves, but some of the other people were posting racist things in that thread. Similar stuff to what had been floating around in other places, so I just decided to respond and kind of get on my soapbox, so to speak...I thought I'd get a backlash from the racist posters, instead I've been 'tipped' (if people like your post they can tip you, giving you a certain amount of gold each time. Gold is one of the currencies in the 'game') 3 times, and quoted a couple of times. The person who created the thread quoted me, and just said: "Well said! :D" I feel a little better than I did before. Kind of made my day. 

Also, trying to educate people more about Judaism, when those sort of threads pop up. The most recent one was with a Messianic 'Jew', who was getting nervous because she wanted to be closer to her 'roots', and not celebrate things like Christmas. I almost had a fit just reading it...You can't be both Christian and Jewish. You can admire, study, go to ceremonies, etc. for one and be the other, though. Saying you're both is odd, since they are so different. It's not like comparing Catholicism with regular Christianity. (To me, they're of the same religion, just different branches.) It's like comparing Christianity to something like Hinduism, for example. That's how odd it sounds to me. I said if she really felt like exploring Judaism, and that it might be more for her, she should study it, visit a synagogue, talk to people who are, etc. And, you can't just convert, there's a long process. I'm also a bit weary of Messianic 'Jews', because they've tried to convert my Hillel group (a Jewish group) in college several times while I was there. They'd wait until the meeting was over, and then hound us. So, my view of them is not good...
  Also, been selling a lot of my old stuff on there. Part of the site's 'game' is it recreates a marketplace. It has its own economy, you get your own store, etc. The dress up part of the site ties in with this (you have to pay for those dress up items somehow...), as well as your own house, car, game tokens, aquarium, and more. Since they did away with zOMG (an extra mmo game), I have a ton of items that are useless to me. But, people can still use them in alchemy (there are recipe lists for some things, and when you have everything, you can craft something new), and some can equip them to their avatar. There are also things I've found in Dumpster Dive (you have someone dive into a dumpster for you...When people donate, they go to the 'dive'. I donate quite often) that are very expensive, but I don't like them. Or, things I've gotten through Daily Chance (above every tab you go through, you win something if you click on the DC machine at the top once each, a day), or what my fish give me, or event items. Some have never interested me, so why not give it to people who want it?Well, I've made quite a lot lately...Just a couple of years ago I thought 7,000 gold was a lot. I currently have almost 556 million...The economy has been haywire too. Everything is super expensive. There's a suggested range for selling each item. I try to go with the lower end, but even that can be high. I just sold something (I think it was a scarf that has a few options to change how its worn. Hated the color. It was like Pepto-Bismal pink. Yuck!) for 60 mil. That's a lot! And, I was selling it at a lower price than the lowest price in the marketplace for that item. I've seen some things that are being sold for billions on there. Some of the main shops, are pretty high up there, too. Lots of people are still complaining about it. I'm not sure if I'm complaining, or just amazed by that. They introduced GoFusion charms recently, as well. As soon as I was 1 charm away from being able to get an item I've wanted for a long time, they decided to do a huge overhaul and drop it.They added a few things since, but I don't want those nearly as bad as I wanted that. I still can get a good number of things from it, but collecting charms takes a little longer...

Started watching Tales of the Abyss. It's based on a video game, and set in a fantasy world. It kind of feels like those shows where the characters are stuck in a game, only these started out in the game. So, it's more real for them. Just similar fights, 'magic', character designs, etc. I'm giving it another episode to see if I really like it enough.Tried a few others that were rather short, too. None of them interested me. I'm almost done with watching Hero, so I'll have another one to look at. And, the only ones that are left on my list are really long shows. I consider really long to be over 100 episodes. MAR's the next one on the list, and it's 102 episodes long.Looks interesting, though.

Lately, I've been trying to go to bed earlier again. Before I wasn't sleeping too well. But, I'm starting to feel better. I was going to bed around 11 and sometimes midnight. Now, I'm trying for around 9 or 9:30. That's helped quite a bit. I was feeling very run down before, like someone hit me with a truck.Not feeling like that as much, now. Might still be recovering from it. I don't think I fully recovered from being sick because of going to bed so late. So, this has helped with that too. Still sneezing every so often. Maybe I do have allergies now? I've never had those before.I have a chemical allergy, but that's different to me. (And, for most of my life, it's been the only type of allergy I've had.) 

Wrote more of the 12th short story to my nightmare anthology. It seems even more unexpected than the others. Although, this one's the only one that's not really based on a nightmare. It's really about an odd (really annoying) sound I heard coming from inside my ears. I have Eustachian tube problems, and sometimes that creates some interesting sounds. (Also, have an excess of wax problem that kind of messes with it, too.) But, as I've been writing it, I've also added other elements that were actually from real life. Plus, I'm thinking this will be my last short story to it, so things have to be a little wonky for it...Not sure how close I am to finishing this story, though.

Played my clarinet. Did some Klezmer and Mozart tunes. Realized a little while ago that the reed I was playing with had been badly warped. It was really hard to play with it. It surprised me, but I have been playing it more than I used to, so it makes sense that it would conk out at some point. I switched to a new reed the practice just before this one. It was a lot easier to play. I kind of felt like my clarinet needed a checkup (it's been a while since I've had someone look at it) or something, but it was all the reed's fault. 

日本語

Studied the kanji: 官, 管, 関, and 観. 官 or かん (kan) means: bureaucrat, the government. 管 can be pronounced either as かん (kan) or くだ (kuda). かん (kan) is used more with compounds. It means: tube, wind instrument. 関 pronounced as せき (seki): barrier, gate. As ぜき (zeki): (suf) (hon) (sumo) honorific added to names of makuuchi and juryo division wrestlers. As 関わる or かか.わる (kaka.waru): to be affected, be influenced; to be concerned with, have to do with; to stick to (opinions). As からくり (karakuri): (usually kana, instead of kanji. Or 'uk'): mechanism, machinery, contrivance, device; (uk) trick, dodge. 指関節 or ゆびかんせつ (yubikansetsu): knuckle. 関西 or かんさい (kansai): Kansai (South-Western half of Japan, including Osaka). 観 pronounced as かん (kan): (suf) look, appearance; spectacle, sight; (suf) outlook on..., view of... As 観る or み.る (mi.ru): to see, look, watch, view, observe [the same as 見る, also pronounced the same]; to look over, look on, assess, examine, judge [same as 見る]; to look after, keep an eye on, take care of [same as 見る]; (usu. just for 観る) to view (e.g. flowers, movie); (uk) (usu. after a conative verb as ~てみる) to try, try out; (uk) (usu. after an aconative verb as ~てみると, ~てみれば, ~てみたら, etc.) to see that..., to find that... 観念 or かんねん (kannen): idea, notion, conception; sense (e.g. of duty); resignation, preparedness, acceptance. 

Youtube:

The first Log Horizon amv I've liked. (Although, I haven't been looking for them...) It's a really cool show! And, the song really fits the series.

An interesting vid featuring the male version of Belarus from Hetalia. I think he only shows up in the manga, normally Belarus is shown as being female (she makes it into some of the pics). I like the male version, though. (Not sure if he's better than her...) The song is actually in Belarusian.

Another interesting vid featuring England/UK (they have him as one character) from Hetalia. The song fits perfectly historically.

A funny scene of Gintoki and Hijikata in the sauna, from Gintama. I miss this show!