This is the date on the Jewish calendar. It's also the year 5777. The 15th starts tonight, since it's based on a lunar calendar. I mentioned last time that I was going to switch some of the future titles to Jewish calendar dates, and still do holidays when they pop up. For new months on that calendar, or on Rosh Chodesh for each one, I might give more info about that month. We'll see.
Started watching Barakamon on Monday. Handa-kun was basically a prequel to this. Yet, at least, the anime version of it came out after this one. Handa is now in his early 20s, and is a master at calligraphy. An elderly curator at an exhibition criticized his calligraphy. Saying it was too unoriginal or like you'd find in a textbook. Handa gets angry, and punches him in the face. His father tells him to go to Gotou island to cool his head. The title means 'easy-going person' in the local dialect. He's anything but at the beginning. Through interacting with the villagers and being in a different environment, he starts to find his own style. The kid in the pic is Naru. She's 6 at the beginning, and likes Handa. She ends up visiting him every day to play. I think she's what really changes him. Although, he gets annoyed with her often. People were commenting that he has a totally different personality in this. To be honest, I don't think that's really the case. He's matured, he knew about how his 'friend' manipulated him at the end of Handa-kun, and realized people actually cared about him. So, it makes sense that he's not as stand-offish, trying to isolate himself, scared if he'll say the wrong thing, etc. I think I like it so far. The villagers seem really curious about him.
Re:Creators has been interesting. There's a lot of talking and preparing at the moment. Not much in the way of action. The military has realized that characters from anime, games, etc. are appearing in our world. They plan to gather all the characters and their creators. They think that they can find out why characters are appearing in our world this way. The more that appear and stay, the more our world becomes unstable. Eventually, it could destroy our world, and therefore others along with it. So, with gathering them, they figure they'll find some way to stop it, and stop the character dressed in a military uniform. Although, it's difficult since some characters' creators have passed away. Like, with Meteora. She really wanted to meet him and thank him for creating her and her world, but he's dead. It was supposedly an accident. At the end, the main character (of this story, he's really like a creator) was thinking about why the girl in the uniform recognized him, and she looked familiar to him. I really thought he created her. They showed flashbacks of a girl with glasses that had jumped in front of a train during the first episode. A girl he apparently knew. Don't know if she survived that. But, he remembered glimpses of the uniform girl, I think, being created by her. He might have had a hand in the project. Still don't know where this is really going, but it's got my attention for the time being.
Tried an episode of Yu Yu Hakusho or Poltergeist Report. I know it was shown at our college anime club, but I think it was during one of their marathons. I only went to those a few times. It was like the first Saturday of every month or something. The entire day devoted to anime. If I did go, I couldn't stand more than 3 hours of it. Anyways, this anime started in 1992, which is only 3 years after Ranma 1/2 started. I think Ranma's one of the oldest ones I've watched. Might go back to that one. I just couldn't get into Yu Yu Hakusho. I know it was only the first episode, but the style isn't that great to me. If I can't get used to how the characters look and the overall animation, I shouldn't just slog through it. It's another long anime. (Just over 100 episodes.) It's supposed to be a classic, though...Oh well.
I'm really liking One Piece now. Skipped quite a lot of 'filler' episodes recently. I'm glad I can do that, considering I'm not up to date on it. I'm still pretty far behind. I like that they have an archaeologist on the crew now. Especially, since I was majoring in anthropology, and archaeology is a branch of it. I was going to focus on cultural and possibly linguistics, though. We did have to take an archaeology 101 class for it. She's pretty cool. She's also one of the most powerful of the crew members. In the most recent episode I watched, she and Luffy almost froze to death. They were frozen by one of the 3 admirals of the Marines. Chopper slowly warmed them up, and saved them. They make him seem so child-like, yet he's an excellent doctor. Usually pretty intelligent when he's put in life threatening situations, too. He's always looking for medicinal herbs and when they're not exploring islands, he's studying medicine.
For the past few days, I've noticed a huge lump forming behind my left ear. It seems to only be getting bigger. I thought one of my earrings had infected it or something. It wouldn't be this big, and would start further up in my earlobe. Instead, it's only on part of my earlobe, but more so behind it and down the outer edge of my jaw. It feels like there might be liquid in there. I don't really know. I like to sleep on my right side. When I do that, it feels like a weighted balloon filled with stuff is pushing down on my inner ear. The fluid feels like it can move around, but only in that area. It never feels like it actually drains. If I sleep on my back, the pressure on it is still pulled back, too. Sleeping on the other side, it hurts even more. So, yay! Another thing affecting my sleep. I'm also scared about it. I'll bring it up during the phone appointment with my primary. (Still haven't scheduled that...)
I managed to write more of Alliance 2. Might have finished the first chapter, although I'm unsure about that. On Monday, I managed to play my clarinet. Haven't done it in a while. I don't think my mouth was used to it anymore. The left side of my lips, at some point, started to not be as tight and a lot of air kept coming out. It was like the muscles on that side of my lips were suddenly too tired to 'seal' that area. I wanted to practice for 50 minutes, but almost didn't make it because of this. Maybe I should practice for a less amount of time, until my mouth gets used to it again. Have to exercise those muscles more. Got back to learning kanji on Monday. Haven't done it this way in close to a year. So, it was nice to do. This time it was on a really common one, so there were quite a lot of compound words.
I have an urge to make a youtube vid about being aro ace. It'll be about what it means, my experiences, and coming out. I guess, I could say it's my coming out on there. Although, I don't really have friends on there, and I've come out to pretty much everyone I know in various other ways. It doesn't feel like there are that many vids about being ace, or even just about coming out as one. Let alone being aro, as well. That's another layer to it.
I'm also thinking of talking about IBD in another one in the future. Just watched some vids on it, and I could really relate to them. Some were showing them getting remicade for the first time, and that's one of my most likely options for looking at other meds. I have a lot of scarring in my colon, and it can help heal that scarring faster. So, even if you're in remission, it can still have benefits besides keeping the disease in check. That's pretty cool. Remicade is done by infusion. Depending on how well people can tolerate it, it seems to take 2 to close to 4 hours. You apparently take some extra strength tylenol and maybe a steroid through the IV beforehand. It looks like if I have it done, I'll have to go to a local hospital for it. Not really sure, but it's most likely. I'm not too fond of that hospital at the moment. People can have allergic reactions to the med up to a week afterwards. That scares me. The other med that's a high possibility is humeira. That's done through shots. A nurse has to do it for you at the beginning for a few months. Then, you do it on your own. I highly doubt I'll be able to do it on my own. Needles really disturb me. I've passed out during a blood draw before, and it was mainly because of the needle. With either one, I'd still have to have other people do it for me at the beginning and wait a while. Again, at the beginning, with humeira, even though it's a shot, you have to wait a little while afterwards so they can treat you if you have an allergic reaction. Both are heavy meds, and I'm scared of either one. Remicade would probably be easier for me, and it even says it can help with the scarring. I don't think humeira does. Good to see some of those vids. Just to see people going through similar things is good. I didn't watch them before, because I was too scared to know more about it. I'm trying to get over that. I still have this weird feeling that it's happening to someone else. I'm just an observer to watch for side effects or something. For a while, I wasn't paying attention to side effects, so that's a big change in itself. It's a weird feeling, like your body's not really yours. The more I take part in discussions in the closed fb IBD group and watch these vids, I think that will change.
I used to hate cheesecake, until I had some with a topping while I was at a Jewish summer camp. Fell in love with it afterwards. I think it had strawberries on top. Cherries are awesome with it, too! Fruit in general usually goes well with it. I think when it's plain, it's too rich of a taste for me. There needs to be something that cuts through it. A few months ago, I remember having a black cherry (they were baked in, not as a topping) and chocolate cheesecake from Safeway, and it was one of the best I've had. I think their cheesecake is supplied by the Cheesecake Factory, so that would make sense. They know their stuff.
Wow! This is the 900th post to this blog. That's a milestone. I want to post more often, like I used to. This month seems to be the best, in terms of posts this year.
Sweet Endless Terror is now available in print on Amazon! Yay! It's now linked up with its ebook version. It wasn't for a while. Here's the direct link to it: Sweet Endless Terror. This version isn't quite available to all the global marketplaces yet. I noticed it's in the UK and German one. They did say it might take up to 72 hours to fully be distributed globally. This doesn't take into account their distributors within those marketplaces. So, it'll take a while. I did spread the info about it to several places today. So, maybe people will be interested that way.
For some reason, I was feeling really down Friday night. Some of my friends are into Snapchat, and I decided to download it and checked it out. Many of the pics my friends have shown have been cute and funny. Why not add a little humor when you're feeling down. Perusing the filters was interesting. I did take a pic with, I think, a bunny with ears down. Some sort of animal, anyways. It had big droopy ears, made my eyes bigger, added a pink nose with whiskers, added more blush to my face, and hearts were floating around. My shirt was crooked, but oh well. I thought it was funny looking, and probably the best one for my face. I don't know. I posted it on fb, and I don't think anyone reacted to it. I've had a couple of people on Instagram like it. Again, not many. It must have fallen under the radar with people. It's rare for me to not have anyone at least like something like that. Now that I think about it, with almost everything I posted Friday night through Saturday (which wasn't much), had no reaction. Weird.
When I posted a reminder yesterday for the local ace group on fb, I got 3 quick likes. Interesting. I hardly ever get reactions to my reminders. It might be that those 3 people will be available, and are interested? That'd be cool. It's an unusual one, considering it's the 5th Saturday. For the local trans group, they have the 5th Wednesday as social/potluck/movie sort of thing. There has only been one other member that's shown up to the local ace group meetings so far. So, I wouldn't do anything 'special' for this one. Not sure what we could do at a cafe that would be different.
I've tried some of the new anime this season, and quite a few felt like duds. A couple of them I thought would be great if they didn't have just 5 or 10-minute episodes. (Normally with most anime, without the op and ed theme songs, episodes are about 20 minutes.) I can't really get into those. Apparently, a lot of people were complaining that so many shows are that short this season. I wonder why they are? I ended up keeping only 5 of the 'new' anime.
Uchouten Kazoku or The Eccentric Family's season 2 started. It's just about as weird, interesting, and funny as it was during the 1st season. They do 'weird' right in this series. It seems even darker this time. Although, last time the humans wanted to eat the tanuki. One of the brothers, who has been stuck in a well as a frog for years and can't transform back, might finally be able to get out and return to normal. He was recently given a special medicine that might help. He seems to be the wisest of the brothers, yet something is keeping him down there. I think during the 1st season, they mentioned it might be a mental thing for him. The son of the tengu that Yasaburo takes care of has returned to town. He's very into English things, teatime, dressing in Western clothes, having certain furniture, etc. He doesn't approve of his father. It seems if everything isn't perfect or he doesn't get his way, he snaps and becomes violent. He's extremely polite the rest of the time. Seems really dangerous.
Seikaisuru Kado or Kado: The Right Answer, has been very interesting. The animation's a little weird, but the rest of it has kept me from dropping it. It seems like, what I like to call, a very cerebral show. It's constantly making you think. It's basically about an alien that arrives in a cube, that immediately engulfs an airplane as it lands on Earth. The passengers and crew are going to be stuck inside this cube for a month. Apparently, it takes that long to amass enough energy for that many people to be pushed out. The cube is called Kado. The alien's, Yaha-kui, main objective is to advance mankind. He didn't plan on absorbing the plane in his cube. One of the passengers just so happens to be a well-known negotiator, named Shindo. Yaha-kui is only taking him outside of the cube to help him communicate with the Japanese government. He tried communicating with that negotiator at the beginning telepathically, but all Shindo 'heard' was loud screaming. So, Yaha-kui, learned the basics of how to talk by putting a smartphone in a mini cube and analyzing it briefly. He apparently can make small cubes appear anywhere he wants. He also was first shown naked. I don't think that human form is actually what he looks like. He just uses it so humans won't be afraid, and to appear more 'normal'. Anyways, he recently showed that one of the ways he wants to advance humans, is by using little balls or wam that have an infinite amount of energy. Like batteries, but they never run out of juice. It'll be interesting to see what the government does with them. He wants them to share the wam with the rest of the world. I wonder if there are other things he wants to give humans? He seems very peaceful, but what if he changes his mind or gets pissed off somehow? Or, what if the wam are really something else?
Kabukibu has been interesting, too. I didn't think I'd like it, but it's growing on me. It's about a kabuki school club. At the moment, they're having difficulty getting members to join. I've noticed that they seem to be breaking gender norms/roles, which I think is pretty cool. One of the members used to really be into dance. At some point, he dropped it, thinking it wasn't 'manly' enough. He forced himself to be hyper-masculine (trying to be tough, into weightlifting, etc.), and wasn't happy. After some talking to, he broke down, and showed his feminine side. He finally agreed to join. They're also going over the history of it. It's thought of as an all-male production, but was actually started by a woman. She acted as both genders on stage. Another member that finally gave in to joining is a woman. She has a very masculine look, and is often mistaken as a man. She's also into sports and things that are considered more 'masculine'. One of the clubs she's apart of already is drama, and she's into acting. She wasn't sure if it was ok to join, because most people think only men can do it. She thought the story of the first kabuki actor was cool, and joined after that. The one that wanted to start the club the most has never acted nor danced, but seems to be obsessed with it. The other member that's helping him recruit others is very quiet. Still not sure about his interest in it.
Re:Creators has been better than expected, too. It's about characters from anime/video games/books/etc. that suddenly appear in the real world. They call the real world the Land of the G-ds. They know their creators live in that world. One of them, I think, might be planning to gather all the 'characters', and have them kill their creators. She's attacking everyone, though. I think she might actually be the main character's (from our world) 'creation'. He just doesn't recognize her. He draws in his free time, and one of the incomplete drawings looked a lot like that character. Still don't really know. He's just helping a couple of those characters at the moment. The first character he met, just found her creator and interacted with him. They think their creators can help put them back in their worlds somehow. Also, many of these characters have powers, but when they use them in the real world, they follow this world's physics. So, something that might not have hurt people in their world, might kill them in this world.
Boruto has been decent. Again, I'm mainly watching it to see what happened to the characters from Naruto. Who got together, if they had kids who are they, what are they up to now, etc. After seeing that stuff, I'll probably drop it. It's interesting that the next generation seems to be more talented. However, a lot of it is kind of recycled stuff. The first few minutes of the first episode, showed a much older Boruto fighting someone. It seemed like Konoha was deserted, and Boruto ended up being a rogue ninja. That does sound like it'll be a different 'thing', but it's a while into the future. How many episodes will it take to get to that point? Are they thinking of making this really long like Naruto? I don't know.
Almost done with Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan, or the Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo. I've really liked this one. Although, they talk super fast. It's apparently going to have a 2nd season soon. So, that'll be nice.
Almost finished with Handa-kun, too. I'm conflicted with this one. There's a lot of misunderstandings, and even if there weren't, it still seems like his classmates are cruel to him at times. He's paranoid of everyone, and thinks everyone hates him. The only person he trusts is a childhood friend, but I think he's the worst one towards him. He essentially created this complex that Handa has, and thinks it's funny. (Although, there have been moments where he felt horrible about it.) To everyone else, Handa is the most popular, some worship him, he has his own fan club, and people think he says amazing uplifting things. In reality, he's constantly trying to figure out ways that'll keep people from bullying him (in his mind), and people will leave him alone. He's not trying to sound profound or anything. This is apparently a prequel to another series, Barakamon, where he has an opposite personality. Or, that's how some have described it. They say it's better, too. I might watch that one in the future.
