Winter

Winter is such a nice unique sort of time of year. The only time of year when your hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows will freeze along with your nose and everything in it. The snow drifts are growing larger, like some diabolical monster from one of my video games. It just gets bigger and bigger and the only viable way of killing it involves a healthy dose of flame-thrower. The only upside to all of this right now is that there isn't any ice. Ironically enough, it's too warm. Cold enough to snow every day, just not enough to create the usual layer of ice hiding under the snow. That's nice and all, but now instead of the cars sliding on ice they just get stuck in the snow. It's an interesting trade-off and I don't know which one I'd prefer. But for now I get to deal with treading my way through the snow piling ever higher and measuring how high it is today (about to the knees now). It's more fun to look at it from the comfort of my living room. The couches are nice. :) And I can sit here and think about the fact that I don't have to walk to school in the dark and the snow until Tuesday. Happy Weekend!

Epic

I have read more than a few manga ever since I discovered just how awesome it is but there are few that have really made an impact. But, the other day when I was stuck on a shuttle for a few hours I was reading some and I came across another one that just makes you sit back and go "whoa..." Now, that doesn't happen very often. Bleach and Naruto have had a few moments that get a close reaction to that, especially recently. But I think that there are only a few that can really say they had the "whoa..." factor going. One would be One Piece. Not the whole thing mind you, just a handful of chapters when Luffy's brother, Ace, is captured and the Navy tries to execute him. Luffy comes to save him, and the chapter after Luffy has set Ace free and the two of them are trying to escape was good enough to deserve the "whoa..." in addition to a "holy...." I just stared at it for a while. And there haven't been very many manga chapters that have done that except for Ichigo's Mugetsu chapter and the flashback chapter about Naruto's wicked awesome dad fighting Madara. But it's important to remember that those are only about one or two, possibly a handful of chapters within the entire series that's good enough to warrant that. One Piece has so many chapters now I don't even know how high it is. Just the epic chapter that had serious "holy..." going on was number 574 and it's still going. So, I have to wonder if Naruto and Bleach can pull it off again. Bleach has failed to seriously interest me or impress me since the Mugetsu chapter but Naruto is making a noble effort to see how many characters can have epic boss fights and that's good, but still lacking the "whoa..." or "holy..." factor in any degree of significance. At the top of my list for any manga and certainly for the "whoa..." factor would have to be Fullmetal Alchemist. There were plenty of chapters that had the "whoa..." or "holy..." factor, but the final chapter had both with a generous dose of "gggpoiehpotviutpjqoklpaojkmnkaoerhggppyyytthhhickkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It was just that good. I was at a loss of words and that does not happen often, anyone who knows me can tell you that. But the last chapter of Fullmetal Alchemist was just so epic it reduced me to gibberish. Rurouni Kenshin had a pretty epic ending too, but didn't have the "reduce to gibberish" factor. Still, overall, Kenshin and Fullmetal Alchemist are the best shonen manga I've ever read. As for shojo, well, I rarely read it and usually grow very tired of it. But, still, there has to be a best of what I have read, and I think that's Fruits Basket. It has good balance between the romantic comedy/drama without getting melodramatic. And it ended the way I wanted and that gives it serious brownie points. Some day I will finish reading Tsubasa and make a call on that one, and I get the feeling it will get some serious "whoa..." "holy..." and "oh wow..." points. At any rate, it's pretty much one of the best shojo just because there are so many swords in it. Can't go wrong with swords.
Now, I understand I've left some out, more than likely because I haven't read them yet, but this is my take on the ones I have read. Death Note doesn't make it up there just because it was more of a mind trip than anything. Plus it ruined the ride when L was gone. So, there it is. We'll see where the chips fall after this.

Odd thoughts for today

It's interesting, being in college. You hear and see much more interesting things as you walk to class. For instance, today a bunch of people were dressed up for Halloween. Including a Mr. Incredible, the green teletubby, a witch, a teddy bear, Naruto (^_^), Dorothy, a girl with her pants on backwards, and Mario. It makes your day much more interesting. Plus, there's the interesting perk of walking through the bookstore and hearing two white guys who are obviously American speaking fluently and happily in Chinese to each other. You can substitute in Spanish or a half a dozen other languages for that too. It's interesting that way.

And a fun quote for today, courtesy of my roommate:
"Mmm, it smells like cookies! ..... Oh my gosh, I'M making cookies! There's like ten seconds left!"
It's been a fun day. :)
I spent a good chunk of the morning/afternoon with the author whose manuscript we've been editing and it was a blast! It's so much fun to just sit down and talk to an author and have fun eating lunch together and laugh over how awesome Firefly is. Nerdiness never felt so good. :D

No Resemblance

I have come to the odd realization that I don't look much like my younger brother. Before now I always thought we looked pretty similar, considering we're siblings and all, blood related, etc. But ever since he came to school and people saw the two of us together they keep saying how we don't look a thing like each other. Is it because he's blond or something? I know, it's his beard, right? I don't get it. But maybe it's because I've seen him for years and years and I see more resemblance or something. Either way, it makes for fun conversations with people.
JP: So, what's your name?
Me: Alison.
JP: Where are you from?
*I point to my brother*
JP: Uh.. wha? I don't...
Daniel: She's my sister.
JP: I really don't see the resemblance.
Me: He's got the defective genes!
Daniel: I'm not defective! I just got the BEST genes.
Me: You're blond! And your eyes are the wrong color!

Basically, it's like this:
My parents both have dark brown hair and blue eyes. I have four older siblings, all of whom have brown hair and blue eyes. My older brother has hair so dark it's black. One of my older sisters was born blond, but it went dark by the time she was three. I have the brown hair and blue eyes too. Add to this that we all sunburn. We'll tan eventually, we just have to get burned first. A lot. Both my dad and I are pretty inflexible too. Inflexible to the point I can't reach my left shoulder with my right hand. Can't scratch my own back either. And that is REALLY annoying.
Then, there's Daniel. Blond hair, green eyes, so double-jointed it's almost disturbing, and has a perfect tan 365 days a year. Seriously.
So yes, he looks different, but I didn't think it was THIS different. Not so different no one can tell we're related unless we tell them. My roommates agree as well. Genetics are so funny.

Rice Crispies

They're the most pointless cereal ever created. Other than sticking the stuff together with marshmallow, they have no great purpose in life. The only real substance you get when eating a bowl of the stuff is the milk you put with it. Lame, that's what that is. Stupid excuse for a cereal. Gimmee back my Golden Grahams.

Summer: An ode to how much I loathe you, you worthless, horrible, miserable excuse for a season, why won't you die and stop making me so miserable?!

I am bored. In fact, I have been bored ever since I got out of school back in July and have become exponentially more bored as time has gone on. At this point, I'm down to about two weeks and all until school starts again, but still, I'm bored. And I hate summer. People tend to give you strange looks when you say that, but I LOATHE summer. It's hot, miserable, sunburn-inducing, and there's noting I can do about it except hide in my "lair" with the air conditioning. My brother calls my room my lair. I like the sound of that.
But, back to the subject at hand: loathing summer and the boredom it causes. The long break between semesters is too long to make me happy and too short to get a job and be productive. No one hires you for six weeks unless you're a ninja assassin. And I retired from that years ago, so I'm stuck for seven weeks with nothing to do but read comic books and catch up on the writing I didn't do during school due to stress, misery, and sleep deprivation. I want to find whoever had the idea to institute this and kick them repeatedly in the shins. Two weeks is fine, I can handle that, everyone can. But seven? What am I supposed to do for seven weeks?
I've even resorted to watching old episodes of Star Trek! The old one from the 60's where you have episodes with titles like "Spock's Brain." (His brain got stolen and they had to get it back. Science Fiction doesn't get any better than that.) Don't get me wrong, they're entertaining and I like them, but you have to have a lot of time on your hands to decide to devote your entire afternoon to watching them. They got shot into some wonky alternate dimension thingy at the edge of the galaxy by some nutter on their ship and my brother aptly dubbed the colorful vortex they got launched into "the seventies." Swirly purple and pink place, yup, good name for it. Still, Spock and Kirk are the best thing that happened to Star Trek besides Riker's beard and splitting the Enterprise in half. And Data, because adding an android makes nearly anything better. But, overall, besides the entire season of Star Trek I found, I have been bored out of my mind. Had a nice roadtrip with Goober and that was fun :) but the problem with that is that afterwards I had to come home again. Lamsauce. The trees here are lousy and there are only two seasons: summer and something that's somewhat like what everyone else considers fall but we call it winter. And sometimes we're lucky enough to get two weeks of spring. Lousy stinking miserable desert. THIS is why I hate summer. Who could enjoy this? Nobody enjoys heatstroke! If it weren't for Netflix I'd have gone out of my mind by now. -_-'
Fourteen days...

Bad Influence

My mother claims I am a bad influence on people. I called her today to inform her that I'm getting a ride home with a friend of mine, and she said it would take 12 hours. I disagreed and said it would only take ten, because not everyone drives as slow as she does. Then, of course, she started talking about how my friend shouldn't drive too fast and I had to assure her that Adam doesn't do that because he's too mellow. He's about as laid back a person as can be. But then my mom said if you put me in a car with someone, there's no telling what I might make them do, that I'm a bad influence on people. I tried to argue with her, but Beth went and agreed with her. My own friend turns against me! And offered evidence that I was a bad influence on her.

Now really, how bad an influence can I be? All I did was make Beth watch some awesome movies because she's deprived. No one should go through life without having seen Cinderella Man and Henry V. And I doubt I could inflict my terrible influence on Adam fast enough to make him drive to Vegas faster. I mean, I could try, but come on