Furby Wranglings

So far I've ordered Onglyza for me, and two different joint care supplements for Bel. That's not counting the heart-worm preventative for both Bel and Jethro which I will pick up from the vet at lunchtime today.

Mom fell on Monday; landed wrong against some furniture and broke a rib. She blames the malfunctioning artificial hip, which was supposed to be repaired back in March but got pushed back due to the COVID-19 thing because it was considered non-essential surgery. It was supposed to happen next week; now it looks to being postponed again for another month. This makes the 3rd time this month she's fallen because that leg is dragging. I worry because she's 90 and lives alone.  I was supposed to go out and stay with her next week after the surgery while she did rehab.  Now we don't know what's going to happen. Youngest sister in Texas is talking about driving north to stay for a couple of days as well ...

Been catching up on "Kyo Kara Maoh"  English manga scanlations --  wow, there's a lot that I don't remember from the anime! When we re-organized our anime shelves last winter, I discovered that I seem to be missing some episodes; I don't know whether they were lost/damaged during the move  10+ years ago, or if we never had them in the first place.  They were released back when anime was first becoming widely available in the U.S.; most anime series were released on DVDs that held 3, maybe 4 episodes, so a series that ran 26 episodes would be on 6 or 7 DvDs, each sold separately  -- so it was always tricky finding the entire series.  Later on, of course, the producers started selling combo packs and thin-paks.  When I had the money, I'd often replace my multiple DvDs, especially if it was a series I enjoyed and anticipated watching over and over.  I have incomplete sets of the first and second series of KKM, and have recently learned that both are now available again in combo packs, as well as series 3 and possibly 4? Alas, still on frugality measures, as most of the family stimulus check went to pay off half the property taxes this year.

The church has been holding Sunday worship in the parking lot the last two weeks; the forecast for this coming Sunday is 'scattered showers', so I'm not sure what the plan will be..... in the meantime I've worked ahead in anticipation of taking next week off to help Mom, so again -- not certain how things will work out.

Knitting: -- finished the 'leaf motif' shawl, including the borders and the beaded fringe. Haven't decided on my next project yet.

Hey, all.....

Haven't really been in the mood to post lately;

Took Husband out to see "John Carter" for his birthday -- we both thought it was well-done and had a shared chuckle when Tars Tarkas 'Gibbs-slapped' Carter. It's a shame the movie hasn't done better at the box office.

Daughter is signed up for an Intro course for Veterinary Assistants' Training at our local community college; starts this week, Tuesdays at the college for class work, then the practical/lab at the local animal shelter on Thursdays.

My sister *oddyssia* introduced me to Ilona Andrews' EDGE series, after I gave her one of the MAGIC books by the same author; I was surprised to find that I like the EDGE books, possibly because they are more adventure/supernatural/romance than supernatural/paranormal/adventure...
I've discovered that I have a low tolerance for what I sometimes refer to as Anita Blake Syndrome -- tough-as-nails female paranormal investigator with a SPECIAL TALENT who all the guys (vampire/lycanthrope/were/necromancers, etc.) either want to kiss or kill (sometimes both). Ugh.

Anyway, part of what I like about "On the Edge" is the way the main character is developed -- yes, she's tough as nails with a special talent, but the author takes the time to show why. And the 'special talent' isn't unique, just very strong and the character worked hard to build that strength -- and it turns out to be a really bad idea.... The second book focuses on one of the supporting characters, and from what I can tell the third book features a secondary character from Book Two (haven't read it yet).

I saw somewhere that supposedly the anime of 'Natsume's Book of Friends" has an American distributor and will supposedly be available sometime this year.... I've seen some of the subtitled version on CrunchyRoll, and I REALLY hope that "Natsume" gets a dubbed distribution because I love the manga -- but I can't find any more information on who and when. *sigh*

Anyway.... ANIME-Zing! 2012 looks like same-old, same-old; new location, same guests as last year. They need more variety in the guest line-up. Kind of the reason I stopped going to I-CON and Demi-Con.... same local Sci-Fi authors, year after year....

I'm still giddy from yesterday -so wonderful to know that 'grievng_pln' is alive and apparently well enough!

Other than that, life is pretty much same-old, same-old. It's SNOWING again. Husband has a wretched cold and/or flu; poor baby was totally miserable all weekend. I tried to convince him to take a sick day today, but.....

How miserable was he? Well, we'd originally planned to invite friends over for supper Saturday night, but had to cancel because Husband was hacking and sneezing and-- well, not a pretty picture! Poor Beldandy was quite upset, tried to climb into my lap everytime he went into a coughing fit. Not much knitting was accomplished, for sure, although I'm ALMOST finished with the scarf for Pastor. The colors in that varigated yarn are absolutely lovely; I'm glad I went back to the Discount Store and got another skein so I can make a matching pair of handwarmers.

In between the coughing and misery, we've been watching season One of 'Babylon 5' -- and rediscovering my love for the characters, especially Jeffrey Sinclair. I also have a couple of anime series on order from RightStuf -- 'Nabari no Ou' part 2, and 'Rental Magica' part 1.

Well, better get back to work. No mail delivery on 'President's Day', but I have Session Reports to put together, and the Ash Wednesday bulletins to type up and print.

My daughter has accused me of stalking both Eric Stuart and Illych Guardiola when buying/trying new anime... Moi? Hey, is it my fault most of the anime I've been attracted to are produced/distributed by ADV,Geneon, or MediaBlasters? Or that those anime dub production companies tend to use the same voice actors over and over....

Okay, I'll admit that I picked up "This Ugly Yet Beautiful World" because I thought I recognized the voice of one of the main characters from ADV's dub of "Saiyuki" -- Yup, it was Brenden, all right, but that alone wasn't enough to entice me into buying the subsequent DvDs when the storyline left me going, 'meh'. And yeah, one of the reasons I was so antsy about my "Descendants Of Darkness" DvDs was because I'd learned that both Dan Green and Eric Stuart were VA's, but I'd become enamored of the manga before I even heard about the anime.... But honest-to-kamisama, I had NO idea that "le Chevalier D'eon" had both David Matragna (Sanzo, ADV Saiyuki) and Illych (Gojyo, ADV Saiyuki; Krad, DNAngel) in major roles.

Y'know, I could just as easily accuse my daughter of 'stalking' Dan Green and Greg Ayres, since they turn up in a lot of HER anime collection, or my husband of perv-ing on Chris Patton and Luci Christian for the same reason.....

But we DO have a lot of fun playing 'Name that Voice Actor' when watching our dubbed anime; I spotted 'Joey' from YGO in "Samauri Deeper Kyo" the other night....

Okay, Husband gets paid every two weeks, so we have our little 'go out to supper and hit up the book/DvD/used video stores' routine... So I hop in the car last night and Husband has this GRIN on his face, which usually means HE has IDEAS that I may or may not be thrilled with, but HE thinks are the greatest thing since sliced bread.....

Turns out this time I AM thrilled, because he got a glowing performance review at the shop, AND a RAISE!!! so we splurge..... alas, none of our manga are out yet, but BEST BUY has the Love Hina box set he wants, and I wind up with the Thin-pak Second Season of "Rurouni Kenshin: Legend of Kyoto".

And there was MUCH REJOICING!!!!!!!!

Aoshi in all his drool-worthy Glory, YES!!!!!!!!!!

*Dies Happy*

My "Descendants of Darkness" DvDs are finally here *happy dance, happy dance*

*Off to find the remote and a bag of cheese popcorn*

Add "Mirage of Blaze" to the 'what was I thinking when I bought this?' stack of anime -- unless it gets REAL interesting REAL fast, the entire box set is going to the used DvD store for credit next weekend.

Used Game/DvD stores are a god-send when your budget is tight, especially if the local shops handle anime! They're few and far between, unless you're into DragonBall Z or GX or watever the latest version is, but occasionally there are gems.... I picked up most of the third season of Rurouni Kenshin used, and approx. half of 'Legend of Kyoto' thanks to some generous person liquidating their anime collection. My husband scored 'Full Metal Panic' (1st Series) the same way.

Sometime, tho', you gotta do the math.... one of our local used stores has two of the Samurai X trilogy dvds, 'Trust' and 'Betrayal', each priced at $14.99 (call it $32 for the pair, with tax). However, BEST BUY has the complete set, thin pack, priced at $38.... Likewise, the Used shop had KH2 for $40 whereas BB had it NEW for $48; throw in the $10 off coupon for being a BB frequent shopper, and well, guess who got my daughter's hard earned cash? Guess which merchant will probably make a sale of SamuraiX once I have some money to spare? Despite my current disatisfaction with their arbitrary anime inventory methods....

Y'know, I see lots of copies of 'CRASH', and 'Capote' and other recent Oscar Award nominated movies at the Used DvD stores, but I have yet to see ONE discarded copy of 'Brokeback Mountain'..... coincidence? I don't think so!

Well, I am disgustipated. About two months ago I tried to order Eric Stuart's "BombshellShocked" CD through BORDERS and they told me flat out they couldn't get it.... so I tried BARNES & NOBLE, who said 'okay, no problem' --- well, yesterday while we were out and about, I decided to check in person after weekly phone calls that informed me it was on back-order..... my order had been cancelled, because it had been too long a time with no results! The gal at the desk was apologetic, asked if I wanted to try again..... I said no.... It sucks not having credit cards; seems like you can't order anything online without one..... at least The RightStuf accepts Money Orders via snail-mail, but all the GOOD sales discounts are only available if you order on-line with a credit card.

Well, we did it to ourselves, when we declared bankruptcy.... sigh.

The 2nd disgustipated occurance was 'This Ugly Yet Beautiful World' -- it looked good from the NEWTYPE sampler DVD, and the AmVA for the main male character is Braden Hunt, who also dub VA'd Hakkai on the ADV 'Saiyuki' series, so I shelled out 20 bucks at BEST BUY --well, I won't go so far as to say it's bad, just personally disappointing.

Number 3 is that Our local BEST BUY has no plans to carry 'SR Gunlock' in the near future "but I can order it thru the web page using my (non-existant) credit card...."

On the positive side: the "Tactics" DVD, which I bought on a whim, I consider well worth the money.... beautiful animation, intriguing period supernatural setting, and the main charater seems to be a combination Japanese 'Ghostbuster' and 'Sanzo-in-training-without the-cynicism' -- VERY nice.....

Actually, not as bad as I'd originally thought, because Husband picked up 'Ah!My Goddess #4' and 'Maburaho!' #7 DVDs over the weekend, but it's still gonna be painful. Still debating on if I really want the 2-disc 'Chronicles of Narnia' set as opposed to the less expensive single disc edition; I suppose it depends on if 'Loveless' #2 is in the shelf, and if there is a 2-disc special edition of 'Brokeback Mountain'.... if so, CoN:LWW can wait.

Did I mention lusting after the 'Mirage of Blaze' thin-pack?

And that's not including the manga: I especially want to get my hands on 'Cantarella' #1 -- supernatural/historical set in Rennaissance Italy starring the Borgias -- because I picked up #2 by accident at a 'buy4, get 5th free' sale last month, and now am totally in love with Chiaro, Rennaisance street punk/assassin, and Cesare Borgia's conscience! Also looking for 'Ghost Hunt' #3, 'YGO:Millenium World' #3, and 'YGO:Duelist' #14.

And thank you, God, that 'Gunlock' isn't due out until the end of the month....