National White Chocolate Day!

This holiday was on Saturday. White chocolate seems to be its own thing to me. Not really chocolate. It's good in a lot of things, and adds an interesting flavor. 

Today's the second day of Sukkot, which lasts for 8 days. It's a harvest festival. We didn't put up a sukkah this year, and haven't in many years. I didn't want to. It's not nice enough out there to enjoy it. I do have good memories of sitting in the one we used to put up on the backyard patio, and inviting people over for dinners out there. Most of the guests weren't Jewish. Mainly neighbors. 

It's been a while since my last post...Hopefully, I can finally get back to posting on a regular basis. I was going to post yesterday, but my desktop suddenly shut itself off. It's always a little weird after being off for so long. Usually works its kinks out on its own. Just in case, I ran a disk scan (I think it's actually 'check disk'), and let it repair itself if it found any errors. However, it shut off all 3 times that I tried before it was finished. At least, it got through more of it each time. I ran a cleaning scan through CCLeaner, and fixed errors in the registry with it. Usually this helps with most problems it has. I might run other scans and defrag later. We'll see how this goes for now.

Recently got 4 new cool weather shirts. Most of my other shirts have holes, are frayed, or are worn out. Still haven't gone through them to at least get rid of 4, since these replace them. I think there's only one that's fine, and it's one of my oldest shirts. I got it in high school. It's warm, fuzzy, and long. Comfy. Also, it's gotten really big on me. Odd. I found out that I'm now on the cusp of medium and large in the regular 'women's' or misses section. That's quite a bit smaller than I used to be. 3 of the ones I found were L's, since I thought it'd be nicer to be a bit roomier than slightly tight. The last one is an XL, since it seemed to run a little smaller, but I also wanted it even roomier than the others. All 4 came from the same section, and there were a lot of options there. I thought 4 was plenty. All of them were 50% off, too. Perfect time to get new ones.

Recently, I posted something in an IBD group. Someone responded with referring to me as a chick. I said I'm not a chick. He said it wasn't derogatory. First, even if I was a woman, many women are offended when people call them that. Especially if a man said it. It might (and I stress on the might) be acceptable to use it with someone who's in their teens or early 20's. I'm quite a bit older, and he thought I was roughly the same age as him. He's 35, so it's not like he thought I was that age. Plus, to say it's not derogatory and no one should be offended by it...comes off as being entitled and childish. I tried to be as polite as possible with him, and said I'm not a woman or a man. I'm agender, and I know I'd get some hate for that. I was trying to go about it without saying I was. Anyways, he went on a long tirade about how biologically speaking there are only men and women, nothing else. Saying it was basic science. He also suggested therapy to help with my gender 'confusion'. Way to be with promoting conversion therapy. Wahoo! He said he just wanted to empathize and help me, but all I did was attack him. I'm sorry my existence seems like an attack on you. The cherry on top of this last comment was the "I hope you have a great day, ma'am!" part at the end. Making such a point to misgender me... He said not to respond to his comment. At that point, I decided to block him. I later saw an admin of that group post a somewhat cryptic message: "I got rid of him." I'm assuming they're referring to this guy. This was the first time online that I've actually corrected people. I think I'm going to do this in the future. It's easy online. They could throw a bunch of insults or apologize nicely. With the ones hurling insults, I could easily just block them. If this were in person, I wouldn't have bothered correcting him. I'm more nervous for my safety offline. 

I'm starting to get used to my new iPhone. The recent update has been better. I used to play escape games on my desktop, and recently thought about and how I miss them. They're usually full of interesting puzzles. So, I decided to find some in the app store. There was one that was AR based. It seemed 'real' this way. However, the game kept crashing, sucked battery life, and it didn't look that great. Trying some of Haiku's escape games has been a lot better. The first one was a murder mystery set at a manor. I like when they throw in a mystery/detective angle into it. The horror ones are interesting, too. That one was actually very short, and I figured it out in about a couple of hours altogether. The 2nd one that I'm on has been a lot longer with more rooms. The puzzles seem more intricate. You're a shapeshifter and a hunter of supernaturals has captured you. You have to figure out a way out of his mansion. If you touch an animal, you can transform into that form. So far it's only been a raven and cat. There was a hellhound, but they wouldn't let me touch them. With the cat, you can see remnants of ghosts and their items. There has only been one ghost so far, and I figured out how he died already. Maybe there will be another? Very interesting series of games.

Started doing push-ups yesterday in addition to my sit-ups. So, now I'm doing 20 sit-ups twice a day, and 5 push-ups twice a day. I'll add 5 every time each week. I haven't done push-ups in a very long time. Should be interesting to see if I can keep that up, too. Rosie really didn't like me doing them yesterday. She bit my feet hard at some point. I kicked her out of reflex, and she looked terrified. I didn't want to do that, and certainly didn't want to scare her. 

Been keeping up with studying Russian. Some of it's really coming back to me. I think what made me think of it as a puzzle was more because the sentence structure changes often. Also for someone to have something, you have to enclose the word for that person (ex: you, I, we, etc.) with 2 words, then put the thing they have at the end. Some words change depending on the tense. Like, the word for cat changes depending on if the sentence is negative, interrogative, past, etc. The plural version changes, too. Not to mention that some words are written/pronounced differently depending on the speaker's gender. It's a crazy but interesting language. So far I haven't encountered any speaking exercises for this one. I'm curious to see how my pronunciation of it is now. Maybe eventually they'll have it. 

Read more of Code Breaker yesterday. I'm not really liking this one. I'll probably drop it, and pick a new one next time. 

Managed to get to some more editing of Alliance yesterday. It's interesting reading the beginning of it all again. There are more mistakes than I thought. Hopefully, it won't take me long to get through it.

Finished drawing and inked the Dark Healer's head. Also, figured out a bigger more detailed version of his facial tattoos. They look cool to me. I might ink those larger versions next time. Might post that, his head, and his assassin to dA then, too.

Practiced my clarinet for an hour yesterday. Mostly played Irish tunes, and got to one Klezmer tune. I'm trying to break some of my bad habits with the Irish ones. For some reason, I have quite a bit only with those. Maybe because I haven't been playing them as often? 

Finished Satsuriku no Tenshi or Angels of Slaughter recently. It technically isn't the end, but they're making the last 4 episodes a special next month. It's at an odd point to do that. I've really liked this show so far. It is based on a horror escape game. Everyone in it is really twisted. The most twisted one might be Rachel. I'm still thinking that maybe she's imagining all of it. We still don't know much about her, besides her witnessing her parents' murder and it's implied that she sewed them together with thread afterwards. There must be something more, because after Zack found out the whole truth, he seemed unusually shocked. The viewers didn't get to see or hear everything that he did at the end.

Finished Kujira (Whale- I'm shortening the name, since it's long) last night. I started it about a year ago, then dropped it because there seemed to be better anime at the time. This one was very slow at the beginning. The concept seemed pretty original and the animation was interesting. The only reason I went back to it was 1. I had finished an anime from this season, and 2. I was very curious about how it was going to end. It didn't seem to have an ending. The plot was vague at times, too. It was just ok. I probably would not watch another season if it came out. 

Boku no (My) Hero Academia's 3rd season will end this week, I think. It doesn't feel like it's ending. They're about to introduce and fight against 3 powerful upperclassmen at their school. Doesn't sound like the way to end it. Plus, new villains have appeared, and they haven't really been introduced yet. I'm sure there will be another season, but there's been no word on when that will be. 

I think people who are into American superhero comics would get a kick out of this show. The creator even mentioned that he loves those and was influenced by them. Heck, All Might's (who at the beginning was the #1 hero) uniform looks kind of like Captain America's and all his attack names are based on states. Like, Delaware Smash. It reminds me most of X-Men. Only think 80% of the world are 'mutants' (have quirks in their world), and 20% supposedly have no powers and are 'average'. With that, people hold those with quirks in higher regard than those that don't have them. In X-Men, it seems the opposite. A lot of the quirks seem to be well thought out. Bakugo's quirk is essentially that he has explosive sweat. He sweats nitroglycerin and can detonate at will. The more he sweats, the bigger the explosion. He's one of the most powerful characters. It's interesting that quirks can depend on what type of quirks their parents have. Bakugo's mother can secrete glycerin from her skin. His father's palms can secrete oxidizing sweat. The main character, Deku (who Bakugo used to bully and is now a rival), was told as a little kid that he didn't have a quirk and was devastated. He later gained a quirk from All Might as his successor, called One For All. It gives him superhuman strength, speed, agility, and power. It seems to me like he has some sort of wind power. He used to injure himself every time he used it. Also, unlike All Might, green lightning comes off of him when he uses it. He's very intelligent and can strategize better than even some of the pro heroes. I think he actually did have a quirk beforehand. (That intelligence might be part of it.) From what we know, both his parents have quirks. His mother can attract small objects around her, like a weak form of telekinesis. (Not all the women in this have weak quirks...Not all the men have strong ones, either.) We know very little of his dad, but he apparently can breathe fire. That'd be an interesting combo. Maybe it's just been dormant, or the doctor he saw as a kid lied to him. The villains are interesting, too.

Youtube:

Boku no Hero Academia:
This one seems like a perfect tribute to Deku aka Midoriya:

Tribute to one of the main villains (Dabi from the vid above is also a villain that works for him), Shigaraki:

Tribute to Bakugo:

Mixed AMVs (I haven't seen Attack on Titan, and only a little of Hunter x Hunter. These are well done, though):


Satsuriku no Tenshi:

National Banana Lovers Day!

I love bananas! One of my fave fruits. I usually have one with my cereal for breakfast. They're very nutritious. 

It didn't really hit me until a couple of days ago that it's the month of Elul. I did make a post earlier this month with it in the title, but I didn't think much of it at the time. On the Jewish calendar, it's the month before Tishri. Tishri starts with Rosh Hashanah, or our New Year. It's lit. 'Head (of) the Year'. That's also the beginning of the High Holy Days (aka Days of Awe). It's a very important time for us. That ends with the end of Yom Kippur or our Day of Atonement. That's the most important holiday on the calendar. Then, later that month is Sukkot (lit. Booths), which is an 8-day long harvest-based holiday. A lot in one month. A lot of people do things to 'prepare' for it during Elul. 

I usually blow the shofar every morning during it. Except for on Shabbos (Yiddish for Shabbat). It's something my mom did with me, too. It's supposed to symbolize 'waking up' our souls for the coming holidays. It's a little thing, but I like to do it. There have been years where I completely forget about it. 

I'll probably 'attend' online services for the High Holy Days. The New York City one that I occasionally go to online is really good. Their synagogue is impressive. They also have interesting speakers in between services. There are only a couple of iffy things for me, but that's not bad. There are other congregations around the country that live-stream their services, too. It's a pretty cool thing. My immune system is still weird, I'm not comfortable (because of certain people) going to either local synagogues, tickets for going to HHD services are usually expensive, and it gets really warm and stuffy during them in person. That last one is because the synagogues are usually packed for every service. There have been years where there weren't enough seats. Everyone seems to feel that that is the time out of the whole year that they must go. Hence, why going online is probably the best option for me. I kind of feel like I'm there, too. The NYC one even has a pdf file online of their machzor or HHD prayer book. I might print that off beforehand. The last couple of years I've had to guess with some of it, since I didn't have it in front of me. It's pretty nifty that they've thought so much about their online audience. They even have a phone number you can call to hear the service translated in different languages like Spanish, German, Russian, etc. 

I managed to 'start' Shabbos like I used to last Friday night. Sang the blessings over the candles, juice, and bread. Didn't have grape juice, so I used cranberry raspberry juice. Didn't have challah, so I used the Norwegian bread that I like so much. It was a little different. Haven't done that in at least a year, I think. I also bensched after dinner. It's when we go through the Birkat Hamazon or blessings after eating. I forgot some of the melodies at first. If I do it more often, I'll remember. I also had my own service after that, using the prayer book I have at home. That was nice. I didn't do Havdalah, which is a ceremony that ends Shabbos. That's ok. I got to quite a bit. It felt good. Hopefully I can continue with Shabbos stuff again in the future. Make it a habit again. Good to do just before the HHD.

The air quality has been much better. It felt really cold a couple of days ago. The high was 60 degrees. Didn't feel like summer. We went from being in the high 80s to that...such an extreme. I'm much happier with it being chilly. Just wasn't really prepared for it. I love fall weather, and it seems like that's coming up quick. Today got up to 76, and tomorrow will get up to around the same temp. After that, it'll be in the mid to high 60s. Much easier to live with. Feels like we're finally getting a rest from the hot weather. Hopefully it won't come back until next year.

Both Alliance and Sweet Endless Terror have Select terms that end today. So, now all 3 of the ones I wanted out of Select will be by tomorrow. (The 3rd being Alliance: Dawn, which ended its term a couple of weeks ago.) I'm thinking of not turning on my computer until the beginning of next month. I want to make sure another heat wave won't hit in the meantime, and since it'll be close to a new year for me. Anyways, I won't prepare those 3 for submission to Smashwords until then. Once I do submit them, I'll have to wait a little longer for them to be approved for their Premium Catalog. Once that happens, it'll be distributed to a lot more places. It might end up being mid-September by then. 

After submitting them to Smashwords, I'll go back to writing Alliance 3. I've already forgotten most of it. I'll probably have to read what I've written already beforehand. To get back in the mindset. Can't wait to get back to it, though. Last year I ended up staying away from writing in July and August, too. I think this time I actually stopped in June. I've only stopped this year and the previous one because of the heat and smoke. It's not good for my desktop computer, and when it's on it generates quite a bit of heat. It's in my bedroom, so it ends up making it more difficult to sleep when it's hot out. I have more ideas for books, too. Will be nice to finally get to them after I finish A3. Not sure how long A3 will end up being.

I've made it to the last unit, titled Feelings, for Chinese. I'm almost through their course...It's been fascinating to me. I might still catch up with the review part after I finish it. Then, I'll move on to another language. I'm close to that. I'm still debating whether I want to take the Duolingo Russian course or something else. I'm curious as to how much I remember from taking Russian in college. I loved it. Duolingo's course will probably be better for it than it was for Chinese. I'm also tempted to go back to French, which I took all of the classes that were available in high school. Or, maybe on conversational Hebrew? Or, Italian? So many choices.

Started reading the manga, Code Breaker. I'm unsure if I like it. Despite it being a long first chapter, there's not much to the story yet. Not sure if I like the main characters either. With some manga, I instantly like it after the first chapter. I'll give it a couple more, and if I feel the same way I'll drop it. I still have quite a list of interesting looking manga that I want to read. There's bound to be some duds. This one also has an anime adaptation. I haven't seen it. 

Practiced my clarinet for an hour today. I played a lot of an advanced Mozart book, and a miscellaneous solo one. I tried to push myself with some of the most difficult Mozart pieces in that book, and ended up frustrated at times. I wasn't too bad, but what made it frustrating was more of what was written. Like, many were in half time, or something like 6/8. Oh, and changing time signatures multiple times in one piece...Some were agonizingly slow or seemingly impossibly fast. The one piece that he made specifically for clarinets, is especially frustrating. I think Mozart loved to mess with people. Some of it's fun to play, though. 

For cleaning, I got to the cat stuff, did laundry, took the trash and recycling bins in, swept my bathroom floor, and cleaned my bathroom mirror. More than I thought I would get to. Rosie wasn't too happy with me cleaning the bathroom. I had to lightly tap her on the butt with the broom in order for her to leave my bathroom. Couldn't sweep the floor with a cat there. She decided to lay up against the closed bathroom door, so whenever I came out she was right there. She didn't like when I sprayed the mirror with Windex, too. She got really nervous and turned up her face. She usually doesn't get 'involved' like this when I clean. 

For drawing, I looked up pics of eye/cheek makeup or tattoos. I have a vision of what the Dark Healer's facial art design is, but I have a hard time imagining it exactly when I go to draw it out. Some of the ones I found were very close. Many of them were feminine looking. I want it more masculine, because he's a man. There was a cool masculine looking facial tribal tattoo. I might use a combo of that and others. I'll draw a semi-simple one for his face, since the face is rather small. Then, I'll draw another more complex version by itself. A closeup, essentially. In my head, he has quite a lot of tattoos. A couple on his face, on his arms, chest, etc. Interestingly in my mind, I imagine Doina, who's a Light Healer, has tattoos as well, but they're more hidden. It's not like I demonized tattoos (Dark Healers may be considered 'evil') or glorified them. They're cool and intricate. 

Yesterday I went back to watching Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau or Children of the Whales. I put it on hold a year ago, because there were more interesting shows that came out at the time. It had a very slow start, and after watching 2 episodes yesterday, it didn't progress much. I'm halfway through it now, so at least there isn't much more. The art is rather unique, and even though the story has been super slow, it's been interesting. Interesting enough to keep going with it. It seems like they wanted to turn this into something bigger than it ended up being. At least, so far. Maybe it picks up at this point. 

So many things happened with Gintama. It was intense. They may have killed off a lot of beloved characters. Everyone kept fighting to save Earth, even after being slashed up. Sadaharu seemed like he faded out of existence at one point. He's a huge alien dog that's Odd Jobs' pet. He came back somehow, though. It seems like they defeated Utsuro at the end. However, the spaceship (I think it's called Heaven's Cradle), made it through Earth's atmosphere and crashed. It's huge. There was a bright light and then the ending credits rolled. What a way to end the episode! Luckily, there was a segment after the credits. Apparently, it was 2 years into the future. It was almost like how the first episode of the entire series started. Except Shinpachi was playing the same role as Gintoki. It was kind of like an inside joke. I hope they didn't kill off Gintoki, and that it's not really like they showed in that last bit. They did mention in the preview that we'll find out who died and what exactly happened after the crash. They also did mention that it'll be 2 years into the future. It feels like it ended already. There's no say on how many episodes this last season will be, but even if it's the usual 12 for seasonal anime, we still have at least a few left. I have a feeling they'd make more than that. So what else is left? (Besides finding out who survived and how things are now.)