… if only i could figure out what it was…

in other news, i am roasted like a lobster. the burns that i thought were bad last night are now hideous. my chin? is bubbling a little. just a little, but still. i woke up, like, why does my chin feel like plastic, and then i looked in the mirror.

anyhow, yesterday, we went on a boat. lars’s brother leif has apparently several boats. we went on the first one, which was docked right next to the second one.

it was a nice boat, actually. you could live in. it had two cabins, one fore, one aft, although we didn’t go in the aft one. the fore one starred a pretty large seating area with these nice blue cushions that i’m sure my mother will appreciate. leif is the vp of volvo trucks or something like that, so he can afford some pretty nice stuff. (^_^) and of course, there were some obligatory small steps:

anyhow, we were under way soon enough, and we passed some pretty cool sights on the way. for starters, there were windmills everywhere. well, not really windmills in the dutch sense, but those wind power generator thingies.

even edgar found himself enjoying the boat ride:

edgar and i were taught a few things about boating, such as how to unmoor ourselves, how to put the flag on the boat, and what festival flagging is.

i have, really, about 300 pictures. it’s kind of scary. i started out with 752 pictures available, and when we got home, i only had like 431 left. i guess that’s actually over 300 isn’t it. well, i had to take a bunch of pictures of the boat. well, the ship. mm? what ship? oh! the entire reason we went out there. the east indiaman götheborg, a ship that belonged to the swedish east india company and sank about 300 years ago, was found about 20 or 30 years ago, right outside the göteborg harbour. they couldn’t raise it very well, so they decided to build a replica, which they then sailed to china and back, copying the voyages of the original. yesterday was it’s official return to the göteborg harbour, so we sailed out – well, not really “sailed,” the boat had a motor and no sail, but – to see it come in. of course we weren’t exactly the only one’s with that idea…

and that’s just a small percentage of the boats that were there. i took individual pictures of some of them, but i’m kind of dreading having to go through all 300 of these pictures. it’s going to take me forever! what i’m really looking for are some good shots of the ship itself. there were so many other boats out there, it was hard to get a good picture.

then of course, were the people on the rigging.

oop- it’s lunch time. gotta go~

adjö!

Labels: sweden

they weren’t kidding. these are the pictures i took the other day. they didn’t turn out so bad efter alle. … after all. anyway, the top one was taken at like 0.30 or maybe 1. i was trying to get some sleep, and it just wasn’t happening. gee, i wonder why… (>_<) the second picture is the same view, only about 6 hours later. i would like to state for the record that i woke up at 4 this morning, and it looked almost exactly the same. i have ordered a custom sleep mask from etsy with the words "fuck off" embroidered against a black background. it's a good thing i'm staying with relatives. (^^;) today we went out on my uncle’s brother’s boat. it was alright. i liked the part where we went fast best, but there were so many other boats that there wasn’t really room for too much of that. i’ll get some of those pictures up tomorrow. at the moment, i’m so friggin tired, i’m literally getting dizzy. op, the dinner guests are here, guess i’m off~

Labels: sweden

dateline onsala. actually, it’s 9.30 in the morning, but since my clock’s so messed up, it’s not as bad as it usually is. also, i’m basically being left alone on the porch, so i’m feeling relatively alright. what’s really shocking is how bright it was, even at midnight last night. the sun never really set, and even at 11 pm, it was still light enough to read outside. i suppose looking back on it, duh, it’s sweden, not exactly like we’re terribly far south, but last night, it was quite a shocker. (^^;) this morning was the real kicker – it was uber bright outside. i took some pictures, but the one from midnight didn’t turn out that well, so i’ll have to try and take another one tonight.

today’s probably going to be the most obnoxious day of them all: there’s a graduation party for my cousin this afternoon. i’m am completely not ever in any way a party person, and it’s even worse when i know exactly no one. plus, they’re all going to be so much younger than me. well, “so much,” i guess they’re only like 18, and i’m only 25, but still. even one year to me seems like i’m an ancient. OLD WOMAN~ that’s right.

anyhow, on to the pictures!

this is my aunt & uncle’s house. nice, ne? actually, it’s really awesome inside, although the rooms are pretty small comparitively. there are a lot of them, though. the room i’m sleeping in is actually my other cousin’s. it’s got a vaulted ceiling and joists showing and stuff like that. it’s really nice. his bed is fairly comfy, too, although it tends to sink. compared to my own mattress, though, i guess a rock is an improvement. (^_^)

then we had presento time. (just a note, my mother was actually the first one in the house to call them ‘presentos.’ i almost fainted i thought it was so funny. i’ll convert that girl to japanese-ism yet!)

the first is a quilt that my grandma brought for my aunt. she’s into quilting pretty seriously. trust me, you should have seen the massive pile of quilting fabrics my mother packed into my suitcase. it was an entire side of one of them. anyhow, the second one is some housewarming presents for my cousin sanna, who just got her first apartment. there was a celery bowl/spoon rest and celery salt & pepper shakers. actually, they weren’t as bad as it sounds. my grandma made them, so they were mildly cool. definitely professional looking. the third picture is emma, the one whose graduating today. what i’m really showing off is the earrings she’s got on. they’re wire-wrapped pistachios. my sister made them. actually, she’s got some for sale. … let me see if i can find that link… ah yes, here we go. listing one and listing two. emma loved them. she stuck em right in. actually, when she opened the package, she was like, “peanuts!” we were all like, “pistachios.” she kept calling them peanuts, though, so i guess the name is stuck.

— op, looks like i’ve gotta go help pick up some cakes and party supplies with sanna. ciao~

Labels: sweden

greetings and hello from onsala sweden. i am so bleeding tired, i could literally fall asleep right here. of course it doesn’t help that the conversation in the next room is the usual Relative faire – the state of the gardens, which aquaintences have died, quilting, et boring cetera. the state of disinterest is only hightened by the fact that i heard most of these stories during the day i spent at my grandmother’s house before we left the country.

but! enough of that! how’s sweden? actually warmer than i’d expected. it must have been 80 F or so earlier. oh, wait, i’m sorry, 27 C. i’m going to make a concerted effort to measure things in metres and celsius…es while i’m here. i didn’t take a whole lot of pictures on the way over, mostly i was too busy trying to ignore the tearing pain in my shoulder from the weight of my carry-on bags. i did manage to take some pictures, though. let’s see how many of them managed not to be blurry!

first up, every single mile between ohio and michigan:

literally, every single mile:

ok, well, upon going through the rest, here’s the one picture that wasn’t hideously blurry:

that’s me and my grandmother, i’ll let you figure out which is which, and this picture was taken… by my mother. yeah. all, every, zenbu, the sum, total, all of my pictures were blurry. this is what happens when i try to take pictures with one hand.

the coolest part of the journey really was the tram. the detroit airport is so big that they’ve installed a little elevated tram to take you from one section to the other. it was the closest thing to a metro i’ve been on yet in the states.

then i took some pictures in the terminal. warning: these are uber blurry. i was pretty lacking on sleep at this point, so i suppose i could use that as an excuse, but the fact is i own two tripods for a reason.

some guy on the flight over had some kind of diabetic emergency or something, so i got to hear that time honoured call: Is there a doctor on board, but other than that, it was mostly just me, a 7 inch screen and barely enough leg room for a midget. also, as noted earlier, descent makes me dizzy. ascent is fine, actually i like the way that one moment you’re on the ground, and then all of a sudden you’re not, but i get quite dizzy at the slightest hint of descent. i guess it’s nice to know when the plane’s going down, but frankly i think i’d prefer to rely on the pilot, rather than my inner ear, to tell me these things.

we got dinner on the flight, some kind of chicken thing that i couldn’t identify. it was pretty good, though. the carrots especially were juicy. the roll was hard as a rock, but what can you expect on an airplane. breakfast, on the other hand, was really good. a fruit cup, yogurt, and a little egg mcmuffin thing that was actually quite good.

on the way back, i’m claiming the window seat. grandma got the window seat on the way here, so i’m claiming it on the way back. also, planes are one hell of a lot louder than i’d imagined. i guess because my only contact with them has been on movies, where, if they put the actual sound in, we’d never here the dialog, but it was nearly impossible to hear anything. and my grandmother starts talking to me, and i’m like, grandma, the engine is practically right next to us, i have no earthly idea what you’re saying.

i took some pictures of the house, too, but i’ll leave those for later, my battery’s going. adjö~

Labels: sweden

par example, I’M IN AMSTERDAM!! RIGHT NOW!!! zomg. people are speaking all manner of languages, not too many of which are english, the airport annoucements are being made in a heady variety of british english, russian, dutch, and/or swedish. my favourite one is “Passengers X, X, and X, traveling to BLAH, you are delaying the flight. Immediate boarding please at gate #. We will proceed to unload your luggage.” that one simply cracks me up. the super funny thing is that there seems to be an awful lot of them.

speaking of an awful lot of things, there are only 10 seats in this waiting area for the gate, and four of us have laptops. it’s like a college computer lab in here.

alright, well, i’m sure i have things to do, such as emailing my sister to see if she wants to ship out some things for my etsy store, so i’ll be going now, but i promise, a biiig update later. trust me, i’ve been taking notes. lesson one? descending makes me dizzy.

Labels: facts

i need an umbrella. i’ve suddenly got one massive wholesale order and two stamp orders, one of which is fairly large, all at once. not that i’m complaining, mind you. on the contrary, i’m in love. i just wish it wasn’t all happening right before i go to sweden. it’s going to make it very difficult to get it all done before i leave. ah well, i suppose i shouldn’t complain. if i really cared that much, i wouldn’t have just spent an hour watching gackt on youtube. the problem is, he is absolutely hysterical. i wonder if that creepy sort of deadpan humor comes to him naturally, or, as i rather suspect, he cultivated it right alongside the other aspects of his TV personality. not that i mind. either way, he is hysterical. especially given our similar tastes. he was singing parts of the lupin theme song in one clip.

what’s really happy, though, is … I HAVE MY CAMERA BACK! oh yeah~ oh yeah~ oh yeah~ *does a happy dance* i have altered the case so as to avoid any future LCD screen/pokey-bit touchery, as that seems the most likely cause of the incident. and of course, having been sans camera for so many days, the first thing i did was take a bunch of pictures. (^_^) a bunch of crappy pictures, none of which you will ever see. (^^;) what you will be seeing are pictures of my happy new book that i discussed … last time? a few times ago? anyhow, here she is:
as you can see, i’ve already started using it (for translating tsuki no sabaku) and let me tell you: i need more of this paper. even after the coffee staining, the paper takes very well to pens and pencil. especially pencil. and it erases like a charm~ which is very lucky, considering how often i erase. (^^;)

speaking of pens, i was cleaning out my drawer o’ pens the other day – quite full, by the by – and rediscovered a black uni-ball vision elite pen. i’d forgotten how nice these things are to write with. they haven’t got any of those nasty rubbery grippy things that are all the rage these days, they’re just pens. they are apparently formulated not to leak on airplanes, but honestly, i don’t care if they do. i HATE rubbery grippy things. i hate they way they feel, i hate the way they look, i CANNOT STAND the way they interrupt the aesthetic of the writing implement. so i went out and spent $16 on a multi-colored 8-pack of the uni-ball pens. probably a bit rash, but, again, i don’t care. i like them. plus one of them has peacock colored ink. peacock blue, possibly the best color ever invented.

the bigger problem is that i lost my pencil. i had to go out and buy some new ones. it took me two trips to decide. i swear i sat there in the staples aisle for like half an hour trying to find a pencil that didn’t have a nasty rubbery grippy thing on it. i finally gave up and went to target, were i didn’t have much better luck. i ended up with a cheap-o 8-pack of bic disposables. perhaps they’ll sate me until i can find my beloved yellow click pencil. if not, then at leat they haven’t got nasty rubbery grippy things.

ok, enough complaining, back to translating!

… … … …

oh wait, my DS is charging. damns. Eh? What’s that got to do with it? … well, there’s a really surprisingly good japanese dictionary for the DS that i use all the time. it’s got loads of example sentences and entries in both english and japanese, and bunches of idioms and stuff, plus since it’s a DS you enter the kanji by writing them on the screen. i so love it. without it, i can’t proceed, because it takes five years to find any kanji i don’t know by other means. i’d play Lost in Blue 2 in the meanwhile (a game, which, by the by, is incredibly awesome. even more awesome than the first one, really) except it’s also a DS game. damn that electricity and my dependance on it~

Labels: facts

quite possibly the most genius idea i’ve ever heard. (^_^) actually, i’m quite psyched up for script frenzy. my current plot planets are revolving rapidly around a steaming sun of jewish mysticism and biblical apocrypha with just a hint of Realms of the Haunting spice. now if only gravity would take hold and melt them down into one cohesive plot, i’d be set…

speaking of RotH, i’m falling in love with it again. i’d forgotten how awesomely awesome it is. how creepily creepy. i actually jumped out of my skin last night while i was playing (in my defense, i was surprised by a couple of hideous wingéd gargoyle things. i was in their lair and i turned around to run from one and there was another right there.) despite the fact that i’ve played (and beaten) that game, that same game, some half-dozen times. that? is how awesome it is.

speaking of awesome, i got a commission for some thirty japanese stab-bound books. well, it’s not quite firm yet, so i suppose i should jostle the fates, lest the job collapse like the money-filled souffle that it is, but still, i’m excited. even at wholesale, it’s not a shabby amount. he wants thirty to start, with the possibility of more. i’m quite happy. plus, it’s for a japanese education center right here in ohio! yays! i’ll give out more information after the deal is firm, probably after i finish the commish.

what i can give more info on right now is this: Demian Syndrome! kalendal, the lovely lady who runs (co-runs?) the storm in heaven scanlation group, sent me a little email the other day like, i know you’re working on lunar desert already, but this demian syndrome extra is only 20 ppg and this one is only 6 ppg, so how ’bout? to which i promptly replied, i’ve barely even heard of demian syndrome. so of course, i had to go and read some, and now i’m hooked. the funny thing is, i just got Demian by Herman Hess off of bookmooch. i haven’t started reading it yet, but i feel like i should, just so i can do my absolute best on the manga.

speaking of (damn how many times am i going to use that phrase today?) books, i just finished Shutting Out the Sun by michael zielenziger. i bought it on tuesday, finished it late wednesday. that should probably give you a clue as to how awesome it is. actually, what it really is, is depressing. it’s basically 300 pages about how japan isn’t good at change, and isn’t good at individualism, and isn’t good at large doses of personal responsibility, and how all that is contributing to the downfall of the japanese nation. the entire chapter devoted to suicide rates was especially disheartening. it just makes me want to go to japan even more now. i put down that book desperate to go there. i should say ‘even more’ desperate.

for the moment, though, i’m on a countdown to sverige. i need to sit down and learn some more swedish. i’m not doing too shabby i guess, but i’ve only got three weeks or so to learn basically everything, so it’s going to be close.

adjö~

Labels: facts

anybody here remember interplay? probably not, they went belly up some time ago. which is surprising, because you’d think i, by my self, could have supported them into eternity. specifically, two cute little games called Realms of the Haunting and Stonekeep (neither one of which looks very good at all by today’s standards, and both of which are actually quite long) were my two favorites. looking at the installation guides is seriously a nerd’s comedy club. RotH says it requires a 486 processor. Stonekeep gives instructions on how to start the program with DOS commands. of course my other favorite old school game, Septerra Core (which interplay turns out to have had it’s hand in as well, coincidentally) isn’t much better. at least win 98 was out by then, but still, the Recommended System has 32 MG of ram and a pentium 233. hell, my gateway that i bought in 1999 has a pentium 500.

i mention all this because when i went to play RotH last night, i discovered that it won’t play properly under XP. i tried compatibility mode, but that was no help. there is a fancy little thing called DOSbox, but even that has trouble identifying my sound card. so, alas, i had no choice but to set up my old delight with windows 98 and play the games on that. the room i’m in right now? the den? there are currently four computers in here. it’s like nerd heaven. (^_^)

actually, the process went rather well. it brought back all sorts of memories. i haven’t reinstalled any version of windows since XP came out, let alone 98. i got it up and running with remarkably little fuss. finding drivers has been a bit of a chore, especially for my 3dfx voodoo video card (that’s right, it’s so old, it doesn’t even have a number), but at least it’s do-able (hint for the weary? plug the serial number into google). suprisingly, finding a driver for my garage-sale-find monitor (which is a 19″ dell charmer, by the by) was easy as pie. lexar even has a 98 driver for my firefly flash drive. how cool is that! … how nerdy am i!

anyhow. in other news. i got an email from kodak to say that they’ve received my camera and have put it on the line for repair. hopefully, i should get that thing back before long. i miss it. the pictures you see above were actually taken with my cell phone. a kyocera slider remix. well, actually a slider sonic. it’d be a really great phone if virgin mobile hadn’t basterdized it. for now, i’ll have to take what pictures i may with this thing. i can’t wait to start taking real pictures again. i haven’t listed anything on etsy in over a week, and i’m starting a new shop there in june. theplushiefoundry. i’ll be running it with my sister, so it should be fun. plus, the plushie’s i’ve been making are SOOO CUTE~ *ahem*

Labels: facts

oh my god. why did gackt’s Last Song just pop up on my mp3 player… (T_T) this is absolutely horrible. i have, literally, not the faintest idea when the hell i bought this thing. it has to have been less than a year ago, which puts it firmly within the warrenty period, but if i can’t find my receipt, it’s kind of pointless! hells! i don’t even know where i bought the thing, let alone when. jeeesus. and i’m right in the freaking middle of a tutorial! damns! plus! plus plus plus! i have no pants! (^^;) not as in, i’m half naked right at this moment, i do have my pjs on, but rather as in, all my pants are dirty and mine brother is downstairs still asleep probably ten feet from our extremely noisy washing machine and seeing as i’ve already trudged up and down those stairs about four times in search of a) breakfast, b) pants, and c) above-mentioned worthless camera, i figure i can wait for pants. oh! and alas! how i cannnot wait to get my own apartment.

on a lighter note, — oh wait. i got that camera for christmas. crap. i wonder if my mom would still have the receipt…

anyhow, the lighter note. i sent along the last chapter of warawanai the other day. we’ve decided to just release it all at once rather than doing each chapter individually. it’s a pretty obscure little manga, so it’s not like we have to worry about other groups doing it while we’re waiting, and it’ll only be a month or so to finish editing and proofing the last three chapters. anyway, i think it’ll be cool to release them all at once.

do you wanna know the most obnoxious thing on the planet? a piece of hair down your shirt. the only thing more annoying than that is if it happens while you’re at work and you can’t fish it out w/out risking that upstanding image you’ve worked so hard to cultivate.

when kalendel asked if i had any specific manga i’d like to work on next, i thought briefly of a manga i just got from [the eternally blesséd] bookmooch, kimi sae ireba or something, but honestly i’m a little put off by the sheer amount of page-time penises get in that manga. i don’t mind if they have sex, even a lot of sex (and let me tell you, these boys are like rabbits) but this manga turns out to be a little more H than i normally like. plus, kalendel was like, i’ve got this manga that i’ve fallen in love with and i’d love to see it done, so i said, hey, fork it over. it turns out to be about a wandering priest and some adorable little boy. actually no sex at all in this one, it’s just (well, i suppose i don’t know exactly, seeing as i’ve only barely started reading it, but) light shounen-ai. i’m not so much for adorable little boys (unless they’re quite frisky) but i am 100% FOR wandering priests, and the manga really is beautiful to look at, so i’d say, so far, i like it. i used up my translations notebook with the last of warawanai, so, oh woe is me, i had to make a new one. i had some extra coffee stained paper (no, not that i spilled coffee on it, i intentionally dyed it) hanging around (from the tutorial i’ll eventually be putting up) but of course I CAN’T SHOW IT TO YOU BECAUSE MY CAMERA’S DEAD. damn. coz it’s awesome.

first mm? what’s the manga called for goodness sake? uh… er… um… you know, i don’t remember… hell. ah! tsuki no sabaku. Lunar Desert.

second mm? you’ve got a tutorial to show us coffee staining paper? don’t you just toss a cup of coffee on the stuff? well, it’s not specifically about the coffee staining. actually, it shows you how to make a regulation Indiana Jones Grail Diary.

me/ hordes nerd points.

Labels: facts

mostly of verbs in today’s case. i’ve been avoiding the last chapter of warawanai like the plague, despite the fact that — oh! spoilers! nevermind! well, let’s just say, i’m certain you’ll be pleased with the angst quotient in chapter four and leave it at that. the problem is, i’ve been having the hardest time understanding it. i don’t know why, they’re not speaking particularly differently from the earlier chapters, and i have the added bonus of being relatively familiar with parts of the subject matter, but for some reason, i’m having the biggest mental block. i’ve been putting it off and putting it off and putting it off, all the while ashamed of myself in the deepest manner. this morning (zomg am i actually awake in the morning!?) i’m stuck at the doctor’s for five or six hours (no, i’m not deathly ill, i’m participating in some clinical research) and so i promised myself i’d figure it out. it’s just me in this nice, clean, quiet little room with my laptop and some wifi intarwebs, so i said to myself, self, sit your ass down and figure that thing out, or it’s never ever going to go away. so here i find myself at the doctor’s office, in what has got to be the most uncomfortable overstuffed recliner ever known to man (not that i’m a big fan of overstuffed anything to begin with. it’s european simplicity for me all the way, baby) with my goregeous wonderful delightful laptop and the doctor’s blisteringly fast intarwebs, and so i sat down, trying to ignore the nasty sticky silcone whatever things that they have to stick on you when they do an ECG, and pushed my way past the worst of the unintelligeble crap that this chapter seems to be turning my brain into. in the process, i discovered the following phrase:

それに こうしてると 変な人だって すぐ覚えてもらえるし

which is pronounced, roughly, sore ni koushiteru to hen na hito datte sugu oboetemoraeru shi, and means, also roughly, besides, doing it this way, even if a person changes, he can be instantly recognizable. the fancy part, the part i wish we had in english, is the verb, oboetemoraeru. it’s actually two verbs smooshed into one in the glorious fashion of the japanese gerundive. the first, oboete, comes from oboeru meaning to remember, as in “oh i’m sorry, i’d forgotten what my password was, but i remember it now.” the second verb, moraeru, is actually the potential/passive form of the verb morau, whose meaning is somewhat more difficult to explain. it’s receiving, but not like someone gave you a book or a pen. it’s like someone did you the favor of handing you a pen. morau is like receiving the fact of someone doing something nice for you. the potential form makes it something like, I am able to receive blah blah blah, or In the future at some undetermined point, I may end up being the recepient of you doing something nice for me so thanks. … yeah. so, oboete-moraeru, in it’s most literal sense, would be, At some point in the future, I may be able to receive your doing me the favor of remembering me. in the above example, it is, specifically, At some point in the future, when I meet that jerk of a guy again and we work it out at damn last, I’m hoping that this broken watch I’m wearing will cause him to do me the favor of remembering the fact that I damn well have had the hots for him since I was fourteen and he damn well knows it.

didn’t know you were going to get a japanese lesson when you started reading this post, did ya? (^_^)

Labels: facts