2020.06.26 Let’s All Go to the Mooooovies

I went to a drive-in movie yesterday!

The Calgary Underground Film Festival is on right now and they managed to salvage their festival by partnering with a brewery with a giant parking lot and making a drive-in! It was great. If the pandemic brings back drive-in theatres then it will… still have been completely awful and not worth it even a tiny bit… but, drive-ins are cool.

The movie was an indie horror-comedy road movie called “UNCLE PECKERHEAD” and it was a perfect thing to see in the venue. It was funny, gory, silly and full of heart. I enjoyed the hell out of it and if you ever get the chance give it a watch.

One negative of this adventure though was that I learned that I can eat junk food (in this case pizza) OR stay up past midnight, but I can no longer do both of those things. Today I feel like absolute shit. I assume this is what hungover people feel like. I’m tired, I’m dehydrated and I’m dealing with acid reflux like you read about. In short, I’m not a happy bunny.

Going to go gobble some more antacids and think wistfully of the old days which were obviously better, otherwise why would all these old people constantly complain about the newer generations?

2020.06.24 Figures…kating

I’ve got one episode left in Yuri On Ice and now I want to watch figure skating? This is an unexpected outcome. Also unexpected is that I would be so invested in the relationship between Yuri and his coach. I just want those boys to get married and be happy and skate together. I love all these skating boys. I want them all to win gold. Except Jean-Jacques. That arrogant Canadian doofus. He has a warm-up jacket and the logo on its sleeve is literally an upside-down Canadian Tire logo. I assume the producers googled CANADIAN and the first thing that came up was our stupid sporting goods store. Apart from that, it’s a very good show. I am looking forward to finishing it and the eventual movie.

So, there’s basically nothing going on this week. The tiny anarchists who live in my house are wrapping up the last of their schoolwork. A shame that they have to do it here as the final weeks of elementary grades were always the most fun. Fortunately they’re in pre-school and grade one so they don’t even know about the fun they’re missing and they seem pretty happy regardless.

My boat-wives are doing well, lots of levelling going on. I’ve always found grinding experience and farming materials very relaxing in video games so this stupid gacha game has been sort of perfect for me. I can watch my degenerate animes while I farm epic gear to outfit my boat-wives to my heart’s content.

2020.06.23 Waifus is Boats

Ahoy! From the deck of my battleship, currently docked on the shores of the Bow.

Yesterday was a very busy day. So busy in fact that I didn’t notice I hadn’t blogged until I was nestled, all snug in my bed.

I… I started playing this gacha game called Azur Lane. In it, as you do in most gacha mobile games, you collect pngs of waifus, but THESE waifus is boats. Battleships to be precise. What has become of me? I used to spend time thinking about art and slow cinema and reading challenging works of fiction. Quarantine has broken me. Now I just grind battles to upgrade my waifu boats. It’s only a matter of time before I start having opinions on various and sundry hentai and doujinshi… I regret nothing.

Currently Playing: Weird Al Yankovic – “Mandatory Fun”
Currently Reading: FLOWERS OF EVIL COMPLETE EDITION VOL 2, Shuzo Oshimi

Read Icculus in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama

1 Light Novel and 4 Volumes of Manga this week

RECORD OF LODOSS WAR: THE GREY WITCH, Ryo Mizuno
WITCH HAT ATELIER VOL 2, Kamome Shirahama
WITCH HAT ATELIER VOL. 3, Kamame Shirahama
DEAD DEAD DEMON’S DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION, Inio Asano
DEAD DEAD DEMON’S DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION, Inio Asano

Lodoss War was fun, I actually think the anime adaptation was better, but I enjoyed reading the book as well. Disappointed the further volumes haven’t been translated and released in English.

Witch Hat is a good story about a young witch apprentice, the best thing about it is the absolutely GORGEOUS artwork. Such beautiful detail and incredible backgrounds. That would be enough, but the story is also pretty engrossing and the cliffhangers each volume has ended on have been very good.

I’m a big Inio Asano fan, NIJIGAHARA HOLOGRAPH is one of the best graphic novels I have ever read and this series about a group of high school girls living in a Tokyo 3 years into an alien invasion. A gigantic flying saucer hovers above them and occasionally releases smaller saucers. The news is constantly abuzz with discussion of the invaders and the potential for armageddon and against this backdrop we get a real existential slice of life drama/comedy about these girls day to day lives. I’m loving it.

2020.06.19 Space Ships and Not Much Else

Did you watch that EA Play event yesterday evening? What was that? What a completely underwhelming piece of shit.

I get we’re at the end of the generation, but how does EA, one of the biggest game companies in the world have so little to show? The Star Wars game looks fine enough, I suppose, but come on! That had to be the most underwhelming and disappointing E3 (or in this case, NOT E3) presentation in a while…

Anyway, I finally started Yuri on Ice last night. What a great show! I’ve been singing that theme song all morning, prancing around my house like a beautiful graceful water-buffalo who sat crosslegged for too long and one of his legs went to sleep… 33 is not too old to become a champion figure skater, right?

Currently Playing: That Yuri on Ice Theme over and over…
Currently Reading: ALTINA THE SWORD PRINCESS VOL 1, Yukiya Murasaki

2020.06.18 I Have Seen the Light (novels)

I’m getting close to the end of THE INSTITUTE by Stephen King, but I’ve mostly just been reading light novels. They’re the perfect things for the current state of my brain. They’re fun, they’re short, they’re easy to read and they’re easily available digitally.

I watched the finale of Kakushigoto. I really enjoyed the whole series. It was both very funny and quite sweet. The way they gave little tiny hints throughout the series about what had happened to the main character was handled well and the finale was different from what I expected without feeling like it cheated or anything. The basic premise of the series is that a mangaka doesn’t want his 10 year old daughter to find out that he draws a manga for a living and so the episodes are usually farces about him getting his comic drawn with his team of assistants while keeping Hime from finding out the truth. It’s worth a watch.

2020.06.17 Social Studies

I deleted my twitter account this morning. I have been active on twitter since 2007. It felt REALLY good to be rid of it.

It’s been so nice to see blogs and personal newsletters getting more and more prevalent recently and I hope it continues.

I lack the mental bandwidth for much of anything today so we’re gonna basically just draw a line under the day and try again tomorrow. Nothing worth reporting. Just reading manga and watching anime.

Currently Reading: THE INSTITUTE, Stephen King

2020.06.16 Salt is Eternal

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow

I took a look at the nutritional information on my favorite instant ramen. It has 25% more sodium than a big bowl of sodium. So, that’s not the best. I guess I will start using half a packet when I make the broth? It’s either that or I’ll be down with another kidney stone more’n likely.

I finished the first season of Fire Force in preparation for the second season starting up in a couple weeks. Now I’m onto season one of Re: Zero. It’s been on my Plan to Watch list for a while and the second season starting soon gave me an excuse to finally start it.

In an attempt to make up for some of the lost time during recovery I’ve been spending too much time each day in the chair. It’s beginning to take its toll, might be time to start looking into some kind of hybrid standing desk situation again.

Currently Reading: THE INSTITUTE, Stephen King

2020.06.15 Week 8,000

Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.

Here in week 8,000 of confinement we’ve reached the stage where time has stopped. I’ve been working at this desk now for the last 864 hours and it’s apparently not even 3 pm? Outrageous…

Biggest source of excitement today was discovering my favorite ramen noodles were back in stock when placing my online grocery order. I’ve got enough Gourmet Spicy Nongshim Ramen now that none of us will have to worry for a loooooooooooooooooong time.

Spending some time in the evenings with my backlog of manga and anime, will likely have some stuff to talk about in friday’s Read Icculus. Today I’ve been going through the back half of the first season of Fire Force. I stopped at episode 12 as it was first airing for some reason and with season 2 starting (barring Covid delay) next month I wanted to get it finished before then. It’s a good show to have on in the background. The story and central mystery is *fine* but the big stupid shonen action sequences are a lot of fun. Pretty decent little action show.

Currently Playing: Grove of Whispers – “Borderland”

Currently Reading: THE INSTITUTE, Stephen King

Abbott and Costello Meet Read Icculus

Despite spending much of the week recovering from surgery I read way less than I should have! YouTube and Anime largely monopolized my time, but I did manage to finish a short Light Novel and a Manga omnibus

RASCAL DOES NOT DREAM OF BUNNY GIRL SENPAI, Hajime Kamoshida
THE FLOWERS OF EVIL – COMPLETE VOL. 1, Shuzo Oshimi

RASCAL is the light novel source material that was adapted into my favorite anime of the last few years (with the same title). It’s almost impossible to describe, but it’s basically a sort-of science fiction romantic sort-of comedy about a high-schooler named Sakuta and the titular bunny-girl Mai. Sakuta encounters Mai in a library as she is wearing the eponymous “bunny-girl” outfit (that for some reason is extremely big in Japan?) and discovers that somehow he is the only one who can see her. The novel plays out as they develop their relationship and attempt to get to the bottom of what is causing her to disappear from the collective memory of everyone around her. I wouldn’t have thought a series like this would grab me as much as it has, but I love everything about it. It’s cute, it’s funny, it’s touching and it’s clever and conceptually original and deep. I eagerly await both the second novel and the first volume of the manga adaptation.

FLOWERS OF EVIL is one of the most uncomfortable reading experiences I’ve had in a comic. I can only read one or two chapters at a time before I need to put it down. It’s about a high-schooler who, in a moment of degenerate, teenage weakness, steals his crushes gym clothes. Unfortunately for him he is witnessed in the act by a classmate who I can really only describe as the embodiment of pure chaotic evil? She’s seriously a terrifying character who proceeds to TORTURE our protagonist. It feels dark and surreal in the way that David Lynch films do. Taking the angst and darkness that many of us feel as teenagers coming to terms with who we are and our place in the world and manifesting all that as horrific, nightmares that only continue to mount and cause you to squirm in your seat. Highly recommended if you can handle it.