Talking Soup

So we got a new dog. She's a German shepherd mix, 3 years old, very big and very loving. Her name is Shasta.

It's nice having a dog in the house again. She has her own crate in my parents room and there are dog toys strewn across the floor once again, as well as muddy pawprints on the hardwood. She has a lot to learn, and so do we, of course. She's a lot bigger than Shadow and a lot younger. Less boisterous than he was at her age, but his nose didn't reach the edge of our counters. She's also had some trouble with the whole "peeing outside" thing. But she's sweet and adorable and her ears are really soft so it's all okay. We're actually going to train her this time, unlike we did with Shadow.

She looks a lot like a German shepherd--same coloring and shape--but her head is boxier than a shepherd's and her ears do this curl-over thing that's really quite adorable. I almost wonder if she's got some pitbull in her, but who knows.

Ahh. She's a great dog so far. We've only had her a day.

In other news, California is drowning. It rained all day today, to the point that we needed sandbags because water was coming in the garage. Our yard is a lake, and out back where the broken sump pump is there's a veritable pond. It's supposed to continue like this for the next two days, I hear. The water's up to the edges of our house in some places. It's never gotten like this that I can remember, at least not while I was here. Now if only we had something like this during the fires. Maybe this is Nature's way of making up for it.

I've been relaxing for the most part. Chillaxing. Going to the gym. Making cookies. After a semester like the last one I think I deserve a few days to just hang. Gonna start work as soon as Blockbuster gets back to me (I'm going to call them tomorrow and find out what's going on). Watching Shasta is going to take work too. In the meantime I've been catching up on all my manga and have used up my Border's giftcard.

A new character has been introduced in Monster--Wolfgang Grimmer--and I think I love him. He's pretty damn awesome. It's such a shame that the anime sucks so much. It really could have been awesome. True, Monster doesn't have a lot of action in it, but they pulled it off with Death Note...there aren't enough awesome mystery animes out there. The Monster manga doesn't even compare to the anime; it's without a doubt my favorite manga right now. Even though Naruto is awesome. To tell the truth, Monster is the only manga I read that still really, really catches my interest. I've kind of fallen out of D. Gray Man and Fullmetal Alchemist, Fruits Basket, Bleach, Mushishi and Re:Play take way too long to come out, Black Cat I'm shaky with, and Naruto is brilliant but I've read it all before.

I love Monster. And Grimmer is seriously the shit. Probably my favorite Monster character, even though I still love Tenma (he's so cute now with his long hair and kicked-dog expression). And Johan remains one of the most frightening manga villains ever.

I finally found the Shippuuden OST and HAVE IT. XOMG. The music is SEX. Sex for the ears. Musicgasm.

Also, I've caught wind of an anime called Dennou Coil. I've seen the first episode and it looks pretty promising so far. It has a similar look to Haibane Renmei...I haven't researched enough to find out if it's the same people. It's similarly confusing too, but I'm hoping things might be explained. It's a cyberpunk sort of show--a world that seems to coexist with cyberspace, where there are pets and other things made out of data and people who wear special glasses that enable them to see those things.

The things I learn on fandomsecrets, lol. It's like my favorite internet place ever right now. It's so wanky and amazing and fun. It's also a great source to find out what shows/mangas/movies people in the fandom world are talking about. Certainly some of the fans are completely insane or slash-happy or shipwarriors, but usually if people are buzzing about something it's worth listening to. The community is how I found out about Gurren Lagann, Baccano!, Nodame Cantabile, Dennou Coil, Tales of the Abyss. Heh, it also taught me which things to avoid.

Check it out. It's pretty hilarious most of the time.

Also, apparently I'm one of the moderators over at ya_fsf_con. This one you definitely should check out. This is Julie and Tammy's brainchild--the idea is to establish a con that caters to YA fantasy, since there isn't one and since YA is sadly lacking at other literary cons. Also, while fantasy writers get looked down on by "literateur" writers, YA fantasy writers get looked down on by other fantasy writers who consider themselves "legit." What better than to have a place where we feel welcome, happy and safe to talk about the stuff we like? I'm doing what I can to help them make this happen, but so far I've had trouble putting on my mod-hat. I'm in charge of leading the search for grants, since this little adventure is going to take a lot of money. Right now, federal grants aren't looking to good, but I'll keep searching--but I think we're going to have to look at foundational grants, which is good since they tend to award money more often.

There are a lot of people out there with more skill than me, though. I probably won't end up writing the grant or even doing most of the fund-hunting. It looks like there's already a lot of people who know what they're doing more than me. *shrug* I guess I just feel overshadowed, but I can't let that get to me. I am a moderator, after all, plus I'm part of this.

I'm going back to Ithaca on the 15th--not on a red-eye this time, thank God! Lol, I'm also going to end up with Julie on the flight from Detroit into Syracuse. My dad and his travel-finaggling abilities.

For everyone who hasn't heard it yet:

THE NARUTO FILLERS WILL END FEBRUARY 15TH.

Yes. According to Naruto Central, which I consider pretty reliable. They say the fillers end the 15th with an hour long episode that will contain the Kakashi Gaiden.

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Finally!

Everything good is happening in February, has anyone noticed? Lost comes back, Avatar comes back, Naruto comes back, lots of books and movies come out. Oh snap.

Well, anyway. Still at it in Okami though I'm getting close to the end. I've gotten a little writing done, though not half as much as I want. That should change tonight, though, since I'm at The Fight. This is probably gonna be the second biggest fight in the book, a three-way fight between the two main "evil organizations" and our heroes. I'm gonna get to work on that in a few minutes. Meanwhile, tomorrow the the 'rents and I are going to Ano Nuevo to see elephant seals. Whee...still, it should be interesting.

My grandparents dog, Dougal, died last night. He was a sweetie--a huge golden retriever. Purebreds tend to have a lot of health problems, though--apparently his spleen ruptured, probably from a tumor. It's sad. This is the dog I've known since he was a puppy, when everyone called him Lion Paws because his paws were so big. This is the dog that then got so big that he was able to drool all over my own dog's head ^.^ This is the dog who would pick up his stuffed lobster and bark at you through it, so he sounded kind of like "mmff mmff mff!!" whenever someone came to the door. And now he's gone. Hearing the news made me lavish attention on my own dog.

...

I just really don't want to get a phone call while I'm at college. Shadow is about 12 now.

And now I'm all depressed again...

I gotta remember that I still have my dog and he's still crazy and adorable, even if he does smell. ^.^