THE END IS NIGH. I am both totally thrilled and utterly depressed.

If you will be at the Ann Arbor Borders for the Release Party, I will be there with quidditch goggles on. No, for reals. Also a Gryffindor cloak. And a "Weasley is Our King!" shirt. It was my Halloween costume last year, see?

Gah! So I am alive; I have been horrible at keeping in touch with you all and I feel awful; and I miss many peoples. Here is the Cliffs Notes (all the facts, none of the substance :) )for the past month:

Battlestar Galactica: Best show ever?

Buffy, yay!

New bikes!

Anniversary!

Halloween Party!

Still working too much!

Still sleeping not enough!

More later, now I'm late for work.

So Sunday was a normal day until I walked out into our living room to discover this scene:



Groggy Sir and cuddly Kitten!



Sakura poses, the Sir still sleeps.

As is clear, I giggled like a schoolgirl and ran to grab the camera.  The scene was ruined when I accidentally forgot to turn off the flash on one shot after changing modes.  Alas!

Shaun and I are now Netflixing.  We are now watching Battlestar Galactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Overloaded sensors.  Too.  Much.  Good. TV.

Buffy satisfies my inner snark, while Galactica is so intense I feel winded after every episode.

noysh posted some stuffs again.  He is cute.  I think I'll keep him and his gentlecreatures.

We just got back from a weekend trip to Chicago.  25 years ago this week, my father was on a team called the Chicago Sting...and they won the Soccer Bowl.  It was a big deal, they even threw a parade in downtown Chicago.  Well, the Chicago Fire, the current MLS team, did a pre-game and halftime thing to honor them.  Here's some links:

Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Fire/MLS newspage

It's kind of weird to run google and find people talking about your dad.  He's just Dad.  To anyone who knows him, he's just Pato.  But seeing all of these people cheering and stuff...was kind of surreal.  He's been out of the high-profile loop long enough that it really brought home the fact that he was, well, famous.  World-class.  To more than just his family.

After the mini-game, he ran all the way across the field and shouted for Nick.  Nick walked down the stairs, and my dad took off his commemorative jersey and put it over Nick's head, then ran back toward the other players, waving to the crowd.

I couldn't help but think that I have the coolest dad in the world.

Congrats, Dad.

</span>

Forgive the quiet, the Sir and I are in the process of moving into a much more "us" sized place.  But I have to share this story!

Last Sunday was a bit of a rough day, we were still recovering from a very busy week and Saturday had not provided the rest we had hoped it would.  Alas.  So, we usually go over to my parents' place on Sunday, where they give us delicious free food, and we, in turn, show the kids some more Card Captor Sakura.  On the way out, we stop at the local coffee place.  We like the place a lot, but we haven't been in the while 'cause it's not on the way to work.  But when I get up there, the guy remembers my drink!  Which is a medium soy vanilla latte on ice.  He said it's 'cause he drinks the same drink.  But seriously, Shaun and I haven't been there in at least a month.

So I was riding high on that experience when we hopped back in my car to continue the drive to the rents.  At the stop light, I'm doing the usual "check out what's going on behind me" thing when I notice the drive behind me is laughing and clapping.  This is a little odd to me, so I turn around to look at him.  I catch him hitting his wife's arm and pointing at my car's butt.  He catches my eye and gives me two big thumbs up.  Realizing what's going on, I also laugh and give him a thumbs up. 

You see, when I got a car all my own, I wanted to give it some subtle dork personalization.  This is my liscense plate frame:



Drive on, Mr. Browncoat.

My day was considerably improved.

That's prettttttttty good!

So, life goes on as usual.  You should check out noysh for some of what I've been up to lately, but be sure to come back here after you're done.  I have some pictures from the Gamesday stuff, but there was an unfortunate incident that included my mac's harddrive going buggy and/or the operating system quitting on me that required an unexpected reformat.  I had totally just downloaded a bunch of new icons, too :(.  Alas, one moves on.  I had done a backup about a month ago, so I didn't lose anything really important.  In other news, speaking with my boss about movies, I found out that her sister-in-law was one of the extras in the Italian restaurant. EDIT: in the totally awesome movie Tanpopo.  ...I forgot to mention this in my excitement.

I have the best job ever.

DOUBLE EDIT: 

So I am now part of the 23 crowd.  It's a bit odd to me, because as I was contemplating my age (as one is wont to do on one's birthday), I do actually feel a little older.  Shaun says it's because I pay my own bills now.  There's that, but there's something else I can't quite put my finger on.  Not entirely a bad thing.

I noticed I have been thinking about Harry Potter a lot lately.  This was probably sparked by his birthday, which is 3 days before mine.  Summer is also the time of Harry Potter for me, as I first read 'em in the summer, and ever since have gotten an inkling to reread them whenever it's opressively hot.  Potterish thoughts have been augmented by the recent hoopla over a certain Mr. King and Mr. Irving begging for Harry's life.  I have so much to say about this!  I have been boring Shaun, I am sure, with my detailed theorems about who will make it and who will bite the big one.  I will save you the details, unless you ask.  Then, be prepared for a long discussion!  To be short, though, she will so totally not kill Harry, but it certainly is good PR that she might.  None of the trio will die, mark my words.  I am planning on rereading them soon.

For my birthday, partially at the glowing review of one of my former professors, Shaun got me (among other things)  the first volume of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men.  You can tell it's Joss becuase everyone is a smartass, even Scott Summers.  It turns out, it is really fantastic.  The art's not the best ever, but the writing more than makes up for it (though I'm sure, because I've only passed my grade 2's in X-Men lore, I missed about half of it.  I did have to wiki a few folks, namely the bad guys at the end of the book).  So read it!  If you've always pooh-pooed them, it'll make you look at superhero comics in a new light, I think.

matta ne~

I was talking about painting minis, and I realize, "Shaun has a little thing which he tells no one about:  noysh"

Go make him post more pictures.

I'm trying to paint this model up for a painting competition. The big regional one, Golden Demon. I've already given up winning anything, but I can't give up now. Oh well. I will post a picture of mine when I'm done.

Yes, I made a promise to post more. Also, I need to show off icons for something.

Here is a picture of my new nephew:



Idn't he a cutie?

And now are pictures of my kitten (though she's not much of a kitten anymore)!





This was how we discovered she has a drinking problem.

She has this strange fascination with water. Anytime we flush a toilet, she comes running in like mad to do what she did in those pictures. Then, when we're in the shower, she climbs inbetween the outer shower curtain and the clear one inside. Apparently, today she jumped in too far and couldn't figure out how to get out until after she got very very wet.

I luff her.

So, it all started when my fellow front-desker up and quit out of nowhere. Life got pretty hectic. Nothing I can't handle (in fact, it's a little easier without the dead weight), but a big change in schedule. A week later, I found out another coworker, who I get along with quite well, will be leaving for Georgia at the end of July due to her husband's job. She's been at the office for a long time and practically runs the place, so we've been working on training preparations for her replacement, all while I am quite depressed because I'll honestly miss her. Then, the girl who was going to replace her, another very cool chica, had to accept another position due to some personal issues (not with us, but she has to juggle time with her boy's daycare and whatnot that she didn't have to worry about a month ago). This is also sad because we get along well, and the situation changed very suddenly.

We saw Brick at the State, and I can't reccomend it highly enough. Snappy dialogue, compelling noir story, great acting, writing and music. We also saw Superman, but it wasn't nearly as cool.

Then Shaun and I decided we wanted to move somewhere smaller, a little cheaper, and closer to town. So we went apartment hunting and found a place...real nice, on the north side of Ann Arbor--closer to downtown and to all of my friends on the metro-Detroit side by about 15-20 minutes. Then the lease I had on the truck was almost up, so we had to go car shopping. I now have a lovely blue little Focus which is zippy and reminds me in many ways of the happy old Neon days :)

Yesterday my cousins Lisa and Steve finally got to say hello to their little guy face to face. He is a little guy (it was a surprise until he was born) and his name is Anthony Vincent. He's actually quite cute, a big guy who does not suffer at all from the alien-looking wrinkliness of most newborns. Very alert eyes. Today I got to hold him and tell him that he finally got to meet his favorite aunt. Shaun declined holding him until he is a little bigger and "less breakable." We bought him a very cute little Classic Pooh outfit and a onesie that says, "Instructions not Included" There will be cool gifts (aka toys) once he can hold 'em. We intend to be favored relatives.

Today was also the first of my two and half weeks alone at work--Mutsuko, my amazingly wonderful boss (seriously, she's one of the neatest and most generous people I know), is going to Japan with her son and his best friend, leaving me ALL BY MYSELF. She gets back the day before my other coworker leaves.

Then it'll be my birthday...and then we'll have a month to pack up and move (we're moving beginnining of September, so...)

That there's my excuse

I like all of you still, and miss you all very much. Drop me an email, we'll make it work :)

*EDiT* ADDITION: I just found out that for the low, low price of prostituting my livejournal to ads, I can be in a beta program that gives me 9 MORE ICONS. I will sell my blog for icons!

More later, but the festival kicked ass, just as last time. I feel all learn'ed and stuff.

I love icons. A whole heap. I sometimes contemplate getting a paid account so I can have as many as I want...but that would be the only reason, so I go about switching the 6 I'm allowed every so often. Like today. Hurrah new icons!

Tomorrow Shaun and I go to Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing which is pretty exciting indeed, 'cause Salman friggin' Rushdie!

Perhaps some of you may be interested:

Wedding Pictures!

Mostly, though, both Shaun and I were totally nervouse looking at the pictures. We remember too much of our nerves around that time. Here's the trick for us: being married=not so bad; getting married=SCARY.

Anyway, enjoy!

I am horrible at updating this thing, because my life is sorta boring, and I always lose my train of thought if I'm thinking about something. I feel I should be better about this thing, and I'm trying...I suppose there are a couple of blogs I read that are good enough, you know, I'm not as clever as spinooti or as thoughtful as quirkybird...but I guess that's not what it's about, huh? Right?

What arethese things about? The world of techno-communication is confusing to me. We can be as connected as ever, to people we don't even know (the two above cases, in particular, are a good example); but what do we say? It's interesting to me. Public forums of communication have been, I think, a place to say your serious, important things, or to perform. Since this whole internet thing, there seems to be a new glut of people willing to and actually participating in with public debate. This is a good and a bad thing. I think people should participate in the world around them. I think acting and reacting to the world around us, especially in conjuction with others around us (i.e., discussion and debate), is the way to live - that's what education is essentially about. At least, it should be. Whether it is or it isn't is a different question entirely. Here's the catch, though. It turns out, being academic/intellectual in nature means I am a total snob, and I resent the glut of, "OMG, taht so totally sucked, imho!!11!!one!!!" the internet has brought to the public forum. A double-edged sword, methinks. Such is life.

This is what you get when you let me livejournal! Someone take the computer away!

Moving on from that far too stream-of-consciousness stream of consciousness, I'm reading Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses right now. Rushdie is so fabulous. He has such a sense of play in his writing, even though it's so dense and I know I'm missing half of it, I'm just having a blast. I do have to say though, only being halfway through it, I sympathize with Saladin Chamcha, who is seems is becoming a devil, way more the Gibreel Farishta, who may be an angel. We shall see how it goes. On another note, I wasn't quite sure why this book almost got Mr. Rushdie killed, and then I got to "Part II: Mahound," and was no longer surprised. Shaun keeps being afraid the ninja assassins that are now following us everywhere because I read such controversial material :)

IN OTHER NEWS: The damn French are too good to be allowed to paint miniatures anymore!

Really, it is a pain in the butt to lose an hour. The sir and I have been off kilter all day. I would prefer always gaining hours. It is my prescription for world peace.

It is Shaun's birthday in 6 days, and I have not yet planned birthday things. I am usually on top of these things, but apparently I have become neglectful upon marriage. Those of you who read this, I will be sending out an email probably tomorrow. Because though my body tells me it's only 10:30, which means "Not Yet Bedtime," this strange hangover from the War tells me it's 11:30.

Which roughly translates to "This is nice!" or "I feel good!" or (Happy Sigh). This weekend has been really pleasant. Both of us have been sick, but by Saturday morning I was over it, and Shaun was mostly over it. Yesterday Shaun and I spent most of the day walking around and just wastin' time. We had dim sum for lunch, and worked off our energy at Pinball Pete's playing all those crazy motion-sensitive Japanese arcade games. It was an Animania weekend, too, so we got to see some more ParaKiss. Later in the evening, we did Bubble Tea. All around, I am a content lady this morning. Today promises to be another lazy, relaxin' day.

We had to drop off Sakura to be spayed on Friday. She made it out okay, in fact, they called us to pick her up a little earlier because she was being very lonesome and noisy about it. Being a giant pushover for my little baby, Shaun and I raced on over there. Jiji was a mess when she was gone, and had dropped all pretenses of being his usual aloof, independent self. He was jumping all over and and purring and sleeping in the kitten spots. Of course, the moment she came home, he was like, "Whatever, geez, kitten." But he can't fool me. He's back to his normal self today.

Shaun and I recently finished watching through the entire Cardcaptor Sakura series. It's the sort of show that, if it was explained to me, I would totally dismiss. However, MAN. I love that show very much. CLAMP is very good at what they do--they are excellent storytellers, character creators, and designers. They're also quite funny when they want to be. We name Sakura after the main character for good reason. Sakura (of the card-capturing variety) is happy, energetic, brave, and compassionate. Usually these characteristics make for a trite, cliche heroine. But something about how she's written make her convincingly genuine.

Which brings me to Whisper of the Heart, a film from Studio Ghibli, just released on DVD (along with Howl's Moving Castle and My Neighbor Totoro), which has not been officially available in the states yet. It's fabulous. On the surface it sounds like every other Junior High love story, and it uses "Take Me Home, Country Roads" as a motif, which would usually be strikes against it. But Hayao Miyazaki adapted the screenplay and it's absolutely magical. Add to that Studio Ghibli's detailed and quite accurate portrayal of life (I was only in Tokyo for a week, but the movie made me totally nostalgic) in Western Tokyo and it's a good ride. Give it a go, and you won't be disappointed. I promise.

This has been a very anime post. Ah well. Matta ne.

Ah yes, sweet intraweb. I love thee. Now you can all hear the theme song ^_^

So, Shaun and I (as well as Chris and girlfriend Sarah) are semi-regulars at UofM's anime club's monthly screenings. They're free, big-screen projection showings of shows not yet released in the the US. There are many misses, but usually, there'll be one or two hits. The current hit: PARADISE KISS (ParaKiss)

So, the first episode kicks in last month. There are photo images with wierd creatures animated into the scene (for example, an inchworm wriggling across a sign). A slightly smartass, bitter voice does a voiceover. I am confused. Is this the whole show? Then the theme song kicks in. Electro-pop done by Tommy February, the lead singer of the Brilliant Green, one of my very favorite bands out of Japan. Then, the show actually starts. It's about the fashion underground in Tokyo. It's full of loveable characters, pretty animation, and good music. It's also ridiculously sexy. In both the sense like, "Wow, that was cooooooool" and in the sense of feeling a bit flushed after watching. And then, the ending music kicks in. I shit you not--it's Franz Ferdinand "Do You Want to?" We've seen six episodes and I'm totally hooked.

So, you know, check it out or something.