another drawing

My willpower made a deal with my incorrigible uselessness today. In exchange for being allowed a white russian to wash down my incredibly spicy Thai food (Twitch ordered the food specifically with the request "make us cry") I would create and post some piece of art to the internet. So here I am. Once again it's D&D character sketch time. It's not that I always play ladies... it's just that I enjoy drawing them more, I think.

[edit 2 minutes later] I looked at the posting I just made, and realized my new snake-blooded (third generation medusa) sorceress takes up a lot of vertical space, while the one lonely paragraph above does not. So let me tell you about the "willpower" with which I have made the aforementioned deal. Impossible, you say. Me? Willpower? And this skepticism is well-founded: willpower and discipline have as much chance of turning up in my life as unexplained cases of hundred dollar bills. There are even days when I think these two scarcities are related!

Anyway.

I've been reading a book by Roy Baumeister, a researcher whose stuff I read back in undergraduate Vassarland. He has very interesting things to say about willpower, which are better summarized in the amazon link I just embedded than they will be here. On the practical side, it means that I now spend a lot of time during my day willing myself to do meaningless things, and because of it I seem to be better able to will myself to do less meaningless things. Someday I may even work my way up to meaningful things, but I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. Drawing impractically-breasted sorceresses and preventing internal Thai-induced hemorrhaging of the stomach is about my limit right now. Realistic goals and all.

I'm watching the Occupy Boston livefeed, and the announcement just came that the camp isn't being cleared tonight. If my bike was functioning, I'd like to think I'd be out there. Realistically though, I suspect I would find another excuse. I'll continue my donations, my membership in organizations that forward the cause, and my limited social media support, but god damn I don't like being in large groups of people. I've spent maybe a total of twelve hours in the camp, and I am just amazingly bad at it. Maybe that willpower thing will come around someday. The people standing out there in the camp blocking the police from clearing the occupation out are mighty, glorious beasts. Thanks internet, and thanks fellow humans. The future will be awesome, and I love everyone who's helping it get there sooner.

Ha. Vertical space filled. Take that, enormous picture.

squibbidy bop dop blam

My program at Tufts seems to directly impact and address my life issues. Whether this is because I see the issues as I study them or because I choose to study issues close to home, I have spent a semester learning about creativity and motivation, and why I can't seem to lasso either of them into my personal existential corral. If there is one take-home message I've gotten from the whole thing, it is this: creativity does not come from moments of spontaneous inspiration. Waiting around for that inspiration that will lead you to write your bestselling novel and quit your shitty job at the office will not actually do either.

Which is not to say that inspiration never strikes. But like other things that strike (bowling balls; lightning; labor unions), ideas are more likely to hit you in a land where they normally dwell (bowling alleys; open fields; sandwich shops). If you want to be savaged by a pack of grizzlies, you should probably go to a grizzly den. If you want creative inspiration, you should probably spend time working and thinking in the same domain where you want inspiration.

Actually, if you want to be savaged by a pack of grizzlies, you probably shouldn't go to a grizzly den. You should probably come over here, so I can make you a sandwich and talk about why you want to be savaged by a pack of grizzlies.

They might not even come in packs.

But what DOES come in packs (segue, bam) is Five-Hour Energy. Packs of 12. Of which I bought two, platoons armed and ready to push the beachheads of academia and keep me functional. As with everything else I bring into my life, these inevitably got combined with alcohol, and I can tell you there is nothing good about this union. Chaining 5-hour energies and whiskey is the only way I've ever managed a hangover that lasted for three full days. It's good to know I have talents.

The picture accompanying was drawn for MeghanTwitch, who picked "leopard" when I asked her to pick an animal because she was folding leopard print undies at the mall at the time. Meghan has the distinction of being the only human in the world who can play the little spoon for an entire night without putting the big spoon's arm to sleep. This one's a keeper, ladies and gents.

new things

I have poured grad school into the pot and turned on the burner. Within a few weeks hopefully there will be bubbling, and then I can pour it into a bowl and keep myself alive with it for a little while longer.

Grad school is apparently canned soup.

To switch metaphors and help me along the way, I've bought myself a sleek and sexy technological companion to strut around campus on my arm: an iPad. Like any good trophy wife, it constantly wants to go shopping and wears a lot of leather. The shopping is for apps to turn what is essentially a device meant for consumer-whoring and looking at kitties into a useful academic tool for data organization; the leather is so it will survive the inevitable bike accident that's going to happen as I bike the serious business commercial roads to and from Tufts.

I drew the accompanying drawing with my finger on the iPad. There is potential here, but I wish potential meant "a larger canvas size."

Aside from the academic, there's one major new situation: with Ashlyn moved to London I've fallen off the good ship Cohabitation into the salty, sultry waters of singledom. The singles pool? Does existing metaphor say it's a pool, not a sea? I guess it doesn't matter; kids pee in both. Which is gross.

I haven't had real experience with hunting, dating, and sexing outside the college bubble of "I'm going to stick my head in the sand and pretend STDs don't exist because I (foolishly) trust the people in my circles to be intelligent and take care of themselves." So now I need to do that thing where you're intelligent and responsible. Fortunately I seem to be getting better at that.

Fish oil, biking, rigorous academics, and whiskey. These four things are keeping me consistently happy, and consistent happiness is new for me. Things Are Going Well.

holy mother of what

the fun.

First a note from real life, as a tip of the hat to the idea of "keeping a blog" as updates on one's actual doings: I am, in fact, going back to school in the fall. They have my money, I have a student ID number, and it's all very official and ivoried. In Celtic mysticism and the Tarot, fire is the element of inspiration, the start of the journey of an idea. I am now literally putting the fire behind me and moving on to the next stage. If the tarot is to be believed, I'm in for heavy rainstorms and will probably end up pregnant. Let's hope that's metaphorical.

And now, while I am on a watery note... a stream of consciousness. Pun! Pun! KaCHOW!

Tobie Bobbin had always suspected there was more to the toaster than met the eye. With two brothers dead in the war and his parents under a spectral, ever-present weepiness as a consequence, Tobie often found himself confined to the kitchen. The living room contained the uncomfortable silence of his parents' staring and sniffling, and his bedroom contained his brothers' ghosts, whose generally nasty dispositions had not been improved by traumatic, violent death. Tobie had tried to explain the situation to his parents after Compley, the eldest, had broken Tobie's model of the Empire State Building using ghostly telekinesis, but it only earned him five weeks of grief counseling and Compley's ghost ethereally peeing on him as he slept. This situation left the kitchen, with its mysterious toaster, as the main focus for Tobie Bobbin's hours and attentions. As the third day of continuous toaster contemplation drew to a close, Tobie was overcome with a sudden surge of understanding. He climbed inside, and played the saxophone So Hard.

The End. Suptacular, clopdandies. Which is a Shetland pony with a cravat. That is what a clopdandy is. Right now, on the other hand, is what bedtime is. Put that in your clop and dandy it.

yet another fantasy picture

Look, another D&D drawing!

rabbits from hats!

I just finished the only full-time work I've done since the beginning of the summer, working a week at a local arts center instructing YOUTHS! Or, as I have been known to say on camera for national television, YOOFS! I'm sure all my toys and equipment are now covered in a putrescent slime in which all manner of microtic biological transactions are taking place, a veritable United Nations of pediatric germs who are learning and advancing from this bounty of exchanged culture, in every sense of the word. I'm going to take a bottle of Lysol and empty it into the prop bag. Millions of voices will cry out in terror and be suddenly silenced.

In other news, I got into grad school. Depending on professional prospects and financial aid, I may be going to Tufts in the Fall. More on this story as it emerges. Also, yesterday I witnessed a goose fight, something I've never seen before. Three male geese were Having it Out with one another, roaring and hissing and honking and swelling up and tearing one another rather apart.

I have lost track of time and need to go make pancakes for a Circus Guild potluck. Time management, like so many other things, is not a skill I have.

naked lady

D&D character sketch go! We're trying out the fancy new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and Ricky's taking the Dungeon Mastering helm to chart a course into dice-infested waters. I, of course, am taking this opportunity to play a hot chick who transforms into toothy things like wolves, winged turtles, and velociraptors. When the transhumanist revolution comes, this shall be my ultimate destiny.

That wolf on the bottom is thinking about a double chocolate baconator. He's been thinking about it allll day.

Dungeons & Dragons. What a great idea. I'll pour one out on the curb for you, Mr. Gygax. You did good work.

disgusting vocabulary, science, and dogs

A new scientific theory of observed human anatomy, based on personal experience while on a night-time run in late Boston January without the forethought of bringing along tissues:

the philtrum (the little ridge under your nose) acts as a remarkably effective and remarkably gross snot channel. In much the same fashion as some historians -and SCA members- postulate fullers on the blades of stabbing weapons to have functioned with regard to the lifeblood of a skewered foe, the ridge-and-dimple structure on our faces seems to flow nasal offerings right down into our mouth, where they can be conveniently spit out on the street. If that image didn't gross you out, hopefully the grammar of that last sentence did. But grossness aside, it gave me an excuse to use TWO vocabulary words: philtrum and fuller. Both things that people occasionally talk about but whose proper names are almost never known! The moral of the story is, bring a tissue when you go out in the cold.

And the title of the post tells me I should write something about dogs. They have wet noses. Which, now that I typed it and think about it, is remarkably relevant. Gross.

The Lagolier

Not to be confused with a "langolier" which is a Stephen King creature that never really made any sense but likes to harass people in airports. Homeland Security should probably look into that.

I wonder why so many of us start blogs and let them slip by the wayside. I suppose it's one more thing in the day (or week) that has to get done, but I think maintaining them is almost meditative. I know for me, whether I'm creating some slapdash oddity -the only type I'm capable of- or actually talking about my latest feats of sloth, it becomes self-reflective and I often find that I feel differently about something than I had originally thought. Or at least I am often surprised at what comes out when I open the bloggity-box.

That said, meta-blogging is NOT very interesting- posts of "I should post more" or "why do we maintain these or fail to maintain them" are apologetic and unproductive. I know that in four years when I go back and read this as a bit of grinning nostalgia, there will be things that make me slap my knee and say "I remember that chapter of life; that was fun!" I also know that this will not be one of them.

In closing:

Down under the plates of the hull, the anaerobic newt looked out curiously. It had slunk its way onto the reflective plates of the shuttle to bask luxuriously on the heated surface in the sun, and then had crept under the plate for its growth phase, having absorbed all the light and heat it would need to finish the metamorphosis to adulthood. The dark, narrow crevice was perfect- millennia of evolution told it that no predators would be likely to find it here. The newt's body had begun secreting its self-cocooning sticky silk, and with bonds like titanium it had woven itself a bed, held fast to the hull and hibernating peacefully through the final checks and double checks, the blast of lift rockets and the rush of flight. Now, a million miles above the surface of its world, the newt awoke and crept out. In the joy of newly strengthened legs and cramped muscles, it did an exploratory leap.

Cake Batter Geese

Harold forked another mouthful of bean salad past his teeth, and chewed it halfheartedly. It was cold, sour, and vinegary. When he was three, he had told his mother he wanted to be a cook, but thirty-two years later he seemed cursed to permanent and extreme culinary tragedy. Even after buying several recipe books and stocking his kitchen with the best ingredients an air conditioner repairman's salary could afford, he still bungled hopelessly anything more complicated than basting a microwave hot dog with a half pint of mustard. Bean salad. How do you manage to muck up a bean salad, he asked aloud. Harold tipped the barely-touched plate into the garbage and reached for a delivery pizza coupon. He found that had used them all.


Python oil! This excellent keepsake now proven to repel ticks and vermin, draw in wild financial fortunes, and make sure no one's making a squinty face in the family portrait. Keeps change in your pockets and God in your heart, yours for the low low price of $45.79 and the last whoop of the eighth inning. Don't be caught out in the dark without it, friend. Immigrants and carnivore heliotropes may lurk these parks. At the end of days, the signs will crackle and letters fade. PER TO & S OP will spell out the nightmare name of him that comes, and all will be paper or plastic.


"Here's the deal," said the devil, "I'm gonna tear your arms off and leave you to die bleeding and vomiting, flexing bloody stumps to move limbs that are only an agonized memory. Why? Because I'm the god-damned devil, and you shoulda took off running the second you saw me." He smiled, and snarled, and reached.

you must constrict additional pythons

Ashlyn and I started playing Starcraft over the weekend. It didn't last long, though it would be fun to play some multiplayer, even though that would mean buying the game again to be able to play on Battle.net. I just looked, and it can be downloaded for $15. Right under the download button, Blizzard has posted a quote from the New York Times: "The game has become practically the national sport for South Koreans under 40". I wonder how effective that is as an advertisement for North Americans who might be considering buying it. To me, it just brings back the memories of trying to play the game online and being handily buttrumbled by Korean hordes.

It's sort of funny to me that both this drawing and the last feature very unhappy looking people. This pixel-lass is Clariet, who is a very unhappy girl. She was supposed to be the heiress to a badass magical family, but has discovered that she has no magical spark whatsoever. Though she had tutors, textbooks, and a castle full of magical apparatuses to learn from, she can't magic her way past a graham cracker. Which is fine, since should one ever be presented with a graham cracker as an obstacle, there are probably more efficient ways of getting past than magic.

Summer has remembered that it's supposed to be hot. I wish it hadn't.

Break out the combover and black spidey suit

because it's EMO TIME. It's actually not emo time, but it IS stream of consciousness time, and this stream has a current like a hot cross bun. Which evokes an image of trying to swim through a river of piping hot currants, which I imagine would be agonizing. And sticky, and dark. You would emerge on the opposite bank discolored from sticky fruity napalm juice and your own burned flesh.

And with that, we take a cliche metaphor and an antiquated pastry, and turn it into an image suitable for nightmare. Somehow whenever I start typing into the blogobox this is the result.

I don't imagine many people still check our tiny cross-linked blogosphere of Vassar expatriates and Boston folks, especially now that we've all more or less stopped updating, but I'd love to know who is out there. Aside from the tigers. Tigers... I know you're out there, and I'm watching you.

So life update, because that's what blogs are for. I'm adjusting to cohabitation, living with Ashlyn living in the same room. It's a very different existence. Anyone who knows me at all probably suspects -correctly- that I do some fairly strange things when I'm alone. Now, "strange" does not mean "twisted and obscene," just odd little irrational nonsense. The state of "being alone" is something that is gone now, and that fact has changed my existence profoundly. One of the side effects has been that this blog has fallen by the wayside. It's not a bad thing, and I can certainly still find ways to be alone, but it is a big change for me.

I've got ten million (actually around eight) projects that I'm working on, everything from a young adult fantasy romp in the style of the Lioness Quartet, to a wordless solo street performance routine that would ideally, theoretically, allow me to travel to foreign countries where my vocabulary consists of "thank you" "bathroom?"and "please remove the handcuffs, I did not kill those people" ("Kérjük, vegye ki a bilincs, nem én öltem meg azokat az embereket" in Hungarian, according to Google). I will try to use this blog to post progress on these projects, as a way of forcing myself to work on them. Comments, encouragement, and harassment are all highly encouraged.

The lad on the right is named Oswald. He is a doctor's assistant who had the grave (har har) misfortune of digging up an infamous thief while on a routine search for cadavers in the name of medical science. He tried on one of the thief's perfectly preserved gloves out of curiosity, and has discovered that it has a mind of its own, often leading him to pilfer things when he's not looking, and filling his mind with all sorts of burglarly knowledge. What's more, no matter how he tries, he has found that the thing is utterly impossible to take off. Oswald was originally one of the illegitimate children hatched by myself and Sally Slade, but he's had a major overhaul since then. Next up you will meet Clariet.

Throw down, Moses. Way down in Egypt land.

Photoshop photoshop ooh laaa la photoshop, photoshop!

Ba doom doom doom doooooom. The computer and I continue to improve our relationship, though I think professional counseling could speed the process along. We've worked out the "pressure-sensitive tablet pen" issue and are now working on "starting up when I goddamn tell you to."

Last night as we were driving back from Spin Jam we observed a license plate, "637 EGO." Someone suggested that perhaps this gentleman (or lady) had intended to spell Eggo™(see that alt-key combination there? Windows and I are high-fiving.) to brag about how many instant waffles (s)he has consumed over the course of a lifespan. But thinking about it further, we realized that 637 is actually not that impressive a waffle body count, as far as lifetime achievements go. I've only been around 24 years and I think for most of my K-12 years I ate Eggo™ waffles at least once a week, and at least two at a time. All those waffles add up. We do a lot of insignificant things, and we build up some pretty impressive numbers in our lives, if anyone bothered to take note. As Ricky pointed out, I wish the user interface of life had a statistics-tracking feature that let us see exactly how many pine cones we've kicked, dandelions we've blown, and foreign objects we've accidentally hit ourselves in the eye with. Oh no here comes the dangling preposition wagon to take me away to grammar jail get in the grammar foxholes and fetch me a grammar bazooka colonel. Grammar thank you.

who radishes the radishmen?

I had a thought today as I was putting on my shoes in the living room. The thought was: "If a doberman jumped at me out of that doorway right now, I would now be prepared to kick it in the mouth." This thought immediately went to a man reviewing security footage of my living room in this scenario and wondering "man, I wonder how that kid was prepared to kick that doberman in the teeth. That's some reflexes, that is."

I am always prepared. Unfortunately, the things I'm prepared for (fuck you grammar) never happen.

I am adorable.

I decided it was blog post time, because there are a few things that have come up that I want to yell about from my tiny soap box. First and foremost, I bought Ashlyn a tarot deck so she can start playing with all fun hobbies a tarot set allows: spiritual reassurance that it's okay to have another cupcake, and turning over the Death card at small children while saying "booga booga" are the big ones. To commemorate the event I also drew an aww-thats-precious picture in Vaguely Amazing style. You can see it off to your left. Yes, it's precious. I also think it's Neat, which is why it is here instead of back in my private life where it belongs.

(I realized after posting this that "Vaguely Amazing style" might be meaningless to some of you -how many of you are there?- who only met me recently. Vaguely Amazing was a factually-impeccable autobiographical account of Ricky and my Vassar years in web comic form. That adventure can be begun here if you're curious.)

Secondly, on the A Different Spin front, we have decided that our America's Got Talent audition will consist of the four of us going on a diet of nothing but food coloring (one color for each of us) for the 24 hours preceding the audition, and then urinating a full-color map of the United States of America all over the floor of the studio. We'll show them variety talent. Even if this act doesn't get us a spot on America's Got Talent, I'm pretty sure Stephen Colbert would give us a luxurious all-American yacht fleet in appreciation of our art.

Along the same vein of humor... an earlier discussion among the house regarding highways and sexual deviancy led to one of my patented Bad Idea google searches, and this gem came out in the wash.

There. Pissing all over public television and adolescent sex jokes about highway numbers. Is all the Adorable gone now? No? Alright, well then here's an alternate picture. You can just imagine I put it up instead of the tarot card.




My google ads are all about odor removal. The things that show up on that little side bar never cease to amaze. I really hope someone stumbles on this blog by accident while looking for "Septic Smells" or "Soup Recipes" or "Children's Sleep." A little befuddlement is good for the brain.

Hi-Ho Cherry-O was a great game.

It taught counting, and colors, and introduced the idea that birds and dogs can take away everything you've worked so hard to build, instantly. I've never trusted them since.

Last night at Spin Jam we had a serendipitous and surreal experience: some of the other performers there had responded to a Craigslist ad for America's Got Talent, and are going to audition this weekend. This prompted a conversation in which we wondered whether we might also Got Talent, and whether we should go in to audition too. Opinions were mixed. We probably would have decided not to, except that Mooch immediately got a phone call from America's Got Talent, asking us to come in and try out. Apparently Johnny Blazes had recommended us, and (s)he has some connection that makes hir opinion count over there. Neat. Maybe if all goes well, you can make fun of us on national television. You can even put on a Simon Cowell hat. And if you do, I can beat you to death with a golf cart.

And then I'd probably get arrested.

Anyway, we're apparently going to try to merge our literal circus of juggling and fire calamity with the metaphorical circus of the national media. This union, like that of Pasiphaë and the Cretan Bull, will probably spawn a monster that will consume entire generations of young Greeks. I'll make sure to bring a ball of yarn to the audition to make sure we can find our way back out again.

flippin out with the pancake squad

So. When I graduated from the Vassar machine I was pretty confident that that was it. There would be no more extravagant evenings of liquoring up, bizarre forms of Twister, smooching on strangers, and wantonly flinging balls of flame around one's body. Fortunately, it turns out that in the city of Boston there are wonderful creatures that are more than happy to continue these traditions.

We have friends! We go out to see people, and people come to see us! I love when things work the way they should!

[The picture accompanying was drawn by me as an entertainment during a neverending game of Risk: Godstorm™ and colored by Katie. It is a loverly birdimal.]

Overcast Orange with a whiff of sewage

Orson speared the last of the fish creatures. It gurgled a fluidy protest as it clutched the weapon sticking out of its gut, as if to argue that Orson's move had not been entirely fair, and if it had just been ready, the fight might have turned out more in the fish's favor. Orson emphatically kicked the shaft of the spear, sending it and the attached monster splashing unhappily into the slime of the bay. He swung his leg back over the seat of the bike and wiped a smear of fish blood off his leather sleeve- hopefully the smell wasn't permanent. Shaia gunned the engine and in the usual choking cloud of foul, particle-filled smoke, the two sped off down the dock in the fading, dusty light.

When they’d finished telling Dodd about the ordeal, back at the lounge, two hours and twelve beers had passed. Dodd gave a heavy sigh, leaning back on the cracking green fabric of the booth and peering across the bottle-strewn table. “Sixteen fish-men, and all of them carrying weapons. Spectacular. At this rate, next time they’ll probably have semi-automatics.”

Orson leaned forward. “Making gunpowder under water…” he began. Shaia sighed loudly to cut him off.

“We stopped them before they made it into the city at all,” she said, “they still don’t know anything about us except that we kick their asses every time they decide to come up to the surface. What I don't get is, why do they keep coming back?"

“I don’t know,” said Dodd, “but they’ve attacked the docks five times so far, and there’s no reason to think they’ll stop. We just need to be prepared, and make sure they don’t steal any more supplies. They may not have our resources, but they’re inventive with what they get their hands on.”

“You sent out submarines last week after the first attack though.” Orson said, “did you see how many of them there are, or where they live?”

“The water’s still too polluted,” Shaia sighed, “I took a sub down there myself, and it’s nothing but sludge and radiation. I can’t see anything, and the sensors just get scrambled. I say the fishes don’t understand us, but we don’t understand them any better. I can’t imagine how they can even survive down there, let alone communicate and hunt. I don’t like how little we know about them.”

Dodd stood up. “Neither do I,” he said, “but our hands are tied. They can come into our world more easily than we go into theirs. We just have to wait for them to make their next move. I’m putting three volunteers on watch tonight, and installing a heavy gun down there first thing in the morning. You two should get some sleep. Make sure to get a patch for that cut, Shaia. Rations are tight, but we don’t want you getting infected with whatever bacteria the fishes might have to offer.”

"Another beer first," Orson suggested, "I'm not quite ready for the night to be over."

Dodd grudgingly agreed, and the conversation changed to lighter matters from there: the pulley rigging in ship house D and the mongrel dog that Haskell found hiding in his mail bag. By the time they each had drunk another two rounds, the worries of the skirmish on the docks was far from their minds.

horrible adventures in the snake world

I've started a new part-time job at an after-school program for troubled yoofs. Helping kids with homework at the 2nd grade level sounds incredibly easy and as intellectually stimulating as stapling one's own finger to a turkey sandwich (challenging) but I'm actually having a lot of fun. Watching the concepts develop in their mind, and seeing the difference in rational thought and reasoning between an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old is something that my other work with kids has never shown me. Plus I get to spend 2 hours a day doing whatever I want, so naturally next week I'm running circus workshops, and after that we'll be populating islands with fantastical hodgepodge creatures. I'm sure it ultimately will get boring, as all "jobs" do, but for now it's a solid source of income, and something I'm happy to do every day.

For my next trick, I will mix slapdash art with meaningless photoshop layering, and excrete it into the public eye, off to the left. I will then ponder the fact that you already looked at it two minutes ago as soon as the page loaded, and I will point out that this "next trick" therefore must have involved time travel. Ta-DAaaaaa.

the land is doomed

I may at last have joined the ranks of the motivated. This might have something to do with the fact that I have definitely joined the ranks of the poor. I am a rank-joiner. Wikipedia informs me that "a joiner differs from a carpenter in that he cuts and fits joints in wood that do not use nails."

Free health clinics are a new and interesting experience: waiting for 5 hours in the waiting room of a clinic and finally being told that you can't be seen today, despite what they told you on the phone, is pretty awesome.

I've got a 3-month gift subscription to Netflix, courtesy of my family. This means I can stream any movie they have, any time I want. Unfortunately, the movies they have available for streaming are usually ancient, technicolor beasts that lurch their way to 2 and a half stars before their budget expires and they slurk back to their fetid back lot spawning pools. Amidst this metaphorical swamp, I found a neat little anime called Paprika, whose soundtrack has been going through my head nonstop ever since. I also watched Kevin Costner's The Postman, and found it quite satisfying.

There are no more unrelated paragraphs of irrelevant autobiographics. We are both free to go.