The grunge look is not dead in central Ohio. Maybe I'm a few years behind the times, but since I tend to dress for comfort, my idea of fall clothes is still jeans, t-shirt, flannel shirt, hiking boots.
(Seriously, it's damn near impossible to get me out of my jeans. I wear jeans everywhere. Class reunions, family holiday parties, fancy restaurants... although I do have a pair of BLACK jeans for really high-class occasions. I hate skirts. Never know when I'll have to climb a fence or fight a cybernetic ninja to the death.)
But, anyway, back to my point. I've always looked kind of askance at people who pay $40-$50 for a flannel shirt at LL Bean or Eddie Bauer or whatever. I got my three beloved flannel shirts at an honest-to-god farm supply store in rural Indiana. Three for $15, tough enough to survive a trip through a combine, one aisle over from the cattle prods and the horse bridles. I kid you not.
No, I didn't buy a cattle prod. My boyfriend and I picked them up and fenced for a few moments, but that's it, I swear. (In case you haven't seen one, a cattle prod is shaped a lot like an epee, with a two-pronged tip and a big canister-thing at the base for the batteries. Perfect for fencing and scoring a touch is a lot more fun. No one can argue that you didn't hit them when they're on the floor twitching.)

Heh, I suppose that makes me 'grungier than thou'.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 12:59 PM

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Those of you who have eaten at a Fuddrucker's may have noticed the large vat of molten cheese that they keep on hand for their customers; you can cover your fries or your burger with hot melted cheese. Heck, you can put cheese in your milkshake if you're so inclined.
So, anyway, the vat comes with a little metal sign that says CHEESE on it. But, since this is lawsuit-happy America, Fuddrucker's decided that certain people might not realize that melted cheese is, in fact, hot. So they added a big plastic sign that said CAUTION! HOT to the vat.
But at the Fuddrucker's near us, somehow the plastic sign got a little broken. Part of it is missing.
So now there's a big metal vat at the local Fuddrucker's with the ominous warning: CAUTION! CHEESE.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 12:57 PM

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Random Diablo 2 moments:
(My boyfriend creates a Barbarian character.)
ME: Wow. He looks like a cross between a pro wrestler, a wall, and five hundred pounds of steak.
BOYFRIEND: Yeah.

(Said Barbarian kills a unique critter.)
ME: (gleefully) BONGO SMASH!
BOYFRIEND: (aggrieved) His name is NOT Bongo. It's Markus. And 'smash' isn't right, that's not a mace he's wielding.
ME: (silent for a moment) BONGO CHOP!
BOYFRIEND: Argh.

(Barbarian runs across a pack of Carvers.)
CARVER: Ravamishu!
ME and BOYFRIEND: (immediately, simultaneously, and gleefully) RAVAMISHU!
ME: (often, over the course of the next five minutes) Ravamishu.
CARVER: Oppity bu!
ME: OPPITY BOO!

(My Amazon runs across a Hollow One.)
HOLLOW ONE: Tal Rasssha!
ME: Screw Tal Rasha! Eat trident!
AMAZON: Hoo! Huh! Aah! Huff! Huh! Huck! Whuh!
ME: Wa ha ha!

(I find field plate that my Amazon can wear.)
ME: Holy COW! Her... her legs aren't BARE any more! It's a miracle!
BOYFRIEND: Wow!
ME: Oh, wait... her elbows are still bare. Weird.

(Boyfriend's Necromancer runs out of mana, again.)
NECROMANCER: I need mahna. Out of mahna. I need mahna.
ME: Wow, he says that a lot.
BOYFRIEND: (aggrieved) I know.
(Two minutes later.)
NECROMANCER: I'm out of mahna.
ME: Hey, he's out of mana again!
BOYFRIEND: (extremely aggrieved) I KNOW!

(Necromancer raises a whole bunch of skeletal mages.)
NECROMANCER'S RAISING SOUND: Hwuuh... hwuuh... hwuuh... hwuuh...
BOYFRIEND: Finally! Minions! Hey, where are they going?
(All the minions race offscreen in some random direction. Soon you hear the sounds of combat.)
BOYFRIEND: Wait for me!
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 10:19 AM

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So when we moved into our current townhouse, we picked one with a fireplace. Not just any fireplace, mind you... a gas fireplace. I'd never had one of these before... my idea of a fireplace is more along the lines of wood and matches.
But what makes this gas fireplace silly, to my mind, is that it's controlled by... a light switch. That's right. In order to turn on the fireplace, I simply flick the light switch to on, and poof! blue flames.
That's pretty funky, but it's not half as weird as the fireplace my friends used to have... it was a gas fireplace with its own remote control. Seriously. You could turn the fire on and off, and make the flames larger or smaller, with a little black remote control.
I've gotta say, I think that's taming fire a little TOO much.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 8:06 AM

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Another fun story from my past.
About eight months ago, back when we still lived in Indianapolis, I noticed flashing lights outside our patio door. So I went over and pulled back the vertical blinds, and sure enough, there were four or five police cars outside our window. All just... sitting there. There wasn't any noise; no screaming people, no shouting cops, no sirens...
I craned my neck but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on. But we were just about to go out to get dinner anyway, so we'd have a chance to find out.
So, anyway, we went outside and made our way through the cops and onlookers. And noted that someone had very carefully driven their car through the sliding glass doors into one of the ground-floor apartments.
It was obvious that they'd done this very carefully. They would have had to line the car up with the patio, go up a slight hill, miss both support posts, and THEN be up to enough speed to burst the sliding doors and get the car entirely within the living room.

Why? I never found out. Was it some sort of extreme robbery, or a jilted husband, or an assassination, or what? The room didn't seem to be disturbed, except for the fact that there was a CAR in it...
I guess it says something for the apartment complex that someone drove a CAR through part of it and we never even felt it, fifty feet away. Good solid building.

Personally, I think someone had parked in his reserved carport one too many times, and he snapped. No carport? He'll MAKE one!
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 6:54 AM

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A quick inventory of the toys and doodads around my computer:
A sleeping Meowth plushie, a large plastic tortoise. Tenderheart Bear, my sole Care Bear. A Gundam Sandrock, oddly misshapen in places, with oversized plastic sickles. A clay ocarina that doesn't really work, a wooden dragon, a handful of tiny animals carved from semiprecious stone, a pack of Gundam Wing playing cards. A large hunk of amethyst crystals, a mangowood box filled with weird beads, a red plastic flashlight. A blue and clear plastic yoyo with trippy holographic stickers on the sides.
A 'Thursday's Child' coffee mug filled with pencil ends. A huge teetering pile of music CDs and a couple of Jack Vance books I've been meaning to take back upstairs for months. A couple of game CDs, just for balance.
A massive kanji dictionary, a bottle of Rapidograph pen cleaner. A green plastic ruler. Three-quarters of a roll of Necco wafers.
A roll of Scotch tape and a hammer. A bottle of Windex. My 'Hello Kitty' tarot deck. A Harry Potter book. A fan made of sandalwood. A drawing sent to me by a friend.

Yes, every single one of these things is within easy arm's reach of me right now as I type this. I didn't include most of my drawing supplies, either.
If I ever want to scare people, I could inventory the toys and plushies on the bookshelves behind me. That would take forever.
So. What's within arm's reach of YOUR computer?
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 1:52 AM

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Well, I'm still playing Diablo II, but I no longer wish that my Amazon would say 'Die, bitch'. I killed a boss today, and next thing I know, I got to hear her say, in an extremely sarcastic voice, 'Good riddance. Freak.'
No Unreal Tournament sound bite can compare to that! Especially after you've heard all the UT sound bites five hundred times, like I have. It wears on you after a while.
So does getting shot with a rocket launcher by some smug twelve-year-old super-player. I'm twenty-eight, my reflexes are shot. Specifically, they're shot multiple times by UT players with rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and so on.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 5:12 AM

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'Life is precious'. Bull doodoo.

Life, in and of itself, is about the cheapest thing there is. Any two humans of the appropriate genders with semi-functional bits can create life. Sometimes even on purpose. 'You're -pregnant-? Oh shit.'

And it's cheap to end, too. ANYTHING can kill you. Air can kill you; lack of air can kill you. Water can kill you; lack of water can kill you. You can kill someone else with a $1.49 steak knife, if you work at it. Or ten cents' worth of wire. Or a bathtub full of almost-free water. Some day, someone will kill someone else with a AAA battery. Or a cotton ball.

So I guess what matters is what you DO... your life is precious because it's YOURS, not because it's a life. I do my damndest not to get killed, but I do swat mosquitoes. You're here, which is great, but you could cease to be here at any time, for the flimsiest of reasons. Deal with that.

I'm sure I'll hear from someone whose idea of debate is 'if life is cheap, then how about I kill you, haha'. Obviously, they weren't listening. My life is precious to me, because it's mine. Of course I don't want to die. Nothing wants to die. Don't believe me? Try bathing a cat.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 1:37 AM

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No real blog today, because I've gone insane playing Diablo II. Of course I'm playing the Amazon. I just love running around as some pantsless blonde chick, puncturing sacks of gore with a giant fork.
And she gets paid for this. Well, she finds a bunch of blood-soaked clothing and coins. I guess that counts.
I miss the voices from Unreal Tournament, though... I have this real need to hear my Amazon say 'Die, bitch.'
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 1:35 AM

~Blather Back!~

Well, Diablo 2 has the most obvious setup in the world. Gee, the hero from the first Diablo just couldn't keep Diablo contained, and now he's free again to wreak havoc.
Well, gee, we knew that was going to happen. The ending movie from the first Diablo was... not awe-inspiring.

Let's see. For sixteen pain-filled levels, the hero of the game obeyed you utterly. Walk into a wall? Face the Death Clan without your armor on? Shoot the other player? No problem! The hero gladly does everything you tell him to.
Then you beat Diablo and get his horn. And for the first time, your hero slips your control. He makes a decision that you didn't make for him.
I think his internal dialogue went something like this. 'Wow, this big sharp pointy object has a really vicious Lord of Evil embedded in it, but it can't get out as long as it doesn't have a body to inhabit! I think... I think I'll JAM IT IN MY FOREHEAD, POINTY END FIRST!'
And he does. And screams. And the player screams right along with him. 'What the FUCK did you do THAT for, idiot?'

So, now, for SOME reason, Diablo's taken over his body. And killed Wirt (yay!). Well, he's done a lot of other bad shit too, but killing Wirt... man, I could almost forgive the guy.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 3:49 AM

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Sometimes I can't decide what's worse on a web page: auto-start MIDI, or frames. I think I'd have to go with auto-start MIDI, because it IS possible to do frames well. Barely possible.

I -despise- auto-start MIDI. I tend to listen to the radio while I'm online, and having my favorite song interrupted by tinny MIDI is not good. What's worse is those sites that manage to turn your computer's volume all the way up before the MIDI starts.

Not only that, but an auto-start MIDI seems to be the hallmark of terrible terrible GeoCities-type webpages that feature lots of l33t-speak and far too many exclamation points. Webpages that use many different font colors and sizes. Webpages about nothing but what the owner likes, dislikes, and spends his time doing. Webpages with hideously cluttered backgrounds. Webpages with thousands of animated GIFs that have nothing to do with the content of the page. Webpages with no real content at all.

But the saddest is when an otherwise good webpage uses auto-start MIDI. Because you know that these people have taste, otherwise. Maybe they -like- the MIDI, or maybe they think it's the final touch. And maybe it is, but I still don't like it.

For crying out loud, do us all a favor and let silence reign on your website.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 6:22 AM

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Rambling story. I promise it has a point.

When I was a little kid, my mother always insisted that we have vanilla ice cream in the house. 'Homemade Vanilla' by Blue Bell... yay Texas. Anyway. I -hated- that. Chocolate ice cream was barely acceptable; for ice cream to be truly worthy of my time it had to have ribbons and chunks of stuff in it. Chocolate chips, Oreos, caramel, fudge, something like that.

But most of the time, thanks to my mother's insistance, there was only vanilla ice cream. And usually nothing else. So I'd eat it, but not happily; I remember on several occasions dumping packets of hot cocoa mix on my ice cream to make it taste less like vanilla. (Not recommended, but it was all we had.)

So, anyway. Tonight I went out to get Japanese food. And my combo box came with a free dish of ice cream. Vanilla ice cream. Just plain vanilla, with its usual yellowish-white color. No chunks, no ribbons of caramel, not a hint of chocolate.

I ate it. And I liked it. It was really good vanilla.

Holy shit. I'm a grownup.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 12:25 AM

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No blog today. I've got my usual about-to-be-winter illness and I just don't feel like being funny. I feel like sleeping, dammit.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 3:28 AM

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Well, just to change the tone a bit, it's time for a true story from my own personal past. No, no, wake up, I promise it's at least somewhat funny. And if you don't think it's funny, you can probably work up some outrage.

Anyway. It was the summer of 1995, and my boyfriend and I had just graduated from college in Texas. He'd been accepted to graduate school at The Ohio State University, a drive of about two to three thousand miles away. And there was no question that we had to take the car; we couldn't afford to replace it. Plus, we had two cats, who had to go with us. Chloe, our older cat, couldn't care less. She liked the car. But Chessie... Chessie HATED being driven anywhere.

So, having doomed ourselves to a three-day-long car trip with two cats, we decided that it would be prudent to get some cat tranquilizers for Chessie, so hopefully she would go to sleep and not be traumatized by the trip. We went to the vet, who gave up a little bottle of pills and directions on how to use them. So far, so good.

Moving day arrived. The van with all our possessions in it left for Ohio. Chloe was already asleep in the cat carrier. And I picked up Chessie and soothed a tranquilizer pill down her throat. Soon, she'd go to sleep, and we could be on our way.

Yeah, right.

The vet apparently hadn't taken into account the fact that Chessie was an extremely fat cat. Therefore, there just wasn't enough tranquilizer in her system to put her to sleep.
It was awful. Chessie completely lost control of the back half of her body. Her third eyelids got stuck halfway up. But she was wide awake still, and now she was terrified; so she started frantically dragging herself around the apartment, lugging the inert back half of her body around by the sheer strength of her front legs, yowling in terror every three and a half seconds.

It quickly became obvious to us that Chessie wasn't going to get any sleepier, and I didn't want to give her another pill, since it might have been an overdose. So we calmed her down as best we could, and put her in the cat carrier with Chloe, and loaded them up and took off.

We drove for ten hours that day. The weather was freakishly hot; a swath of 100-degree temperatures from Texas to Ohio. Our car's air conditioner died about half an hour into the first day. And the terrified Chessie yowled loudly. Every three and a half seconds. For the entire ten hours of the trip. I have to wonder if she was hallucinating.

Needless to say, we didn't give her any more tranquilizers. And she still yowled constantly on the rest of the trip. Every three and a half seconds. In hundred-degree heat. Without air conditioning.

In the end, the only use we found for the bottle of cat tranquilizers was this: it was the perfect size for Chloe to pick up and tote around, like her kill. Occasionally Chloe would bring us the pills, and we'd ask her if she wanted one. She'd always look at us and say, 'Myowl.'

I think that's a yes. Or, possibly, knowing Chloe, it was 'Like, far out, dude. Turn on, tune in, drop out. Gimme that little slice of heaven.'
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 8:11 PM

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So, anyway, I know this is my second blog in a day, but I thought I might as well be unoriginal and talk about the election.
Did you know that here in Ohio, coroner is an ELECTED position? And Republicans and Democrats OPPOSE each other to be elected coroner? Maybe I'm wrong here, but I thought that this was a scientific job, not a political one. I can't imagine people wanting this job, unless it's a sinecure with a big salary and no responsibilities.
Not that I've looked into this carefully or anything, but for all I know, you don't need to know anything about biology to be the coroner of Ohio. You just need to be a politician with... strange goals.

Do you think a corpse cares if the person doing her autopsy is a Republican or a Democrat?

I think that in four years, my boyfriend and I are both going to run for coroner. And we'll get a lot of media coverage by having heated debates and trying to strangle each other on the evening news. And then, whoever gets elected will be the most famous non-qualified coroner in the US! Vote Mie for coroner! Free autopsies for all!

(What, you didn't think I was going to talk about the presidential election, did you? Gross, dude. I have more respect for my webpage than that.)
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 2:26 AM

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'Money can't buy happiness'. Bull doodoo.

Well, granted, you can't go to Wal-Mart and trade twenty bucks for a big box marked 'Happiness', then go home, open the box, and spend a couple of hours in a state of bliss. Heck, you can't do this at Neiman-Marcus either. I suppose you can approximate it by using alcohol or certain drugs, but that's cheating, really.
What money CAN do, however, is remove a large number of the problems that CAUSE unhappiness. With sufficient funds, you never have to fret over where next month's rent is coming from. You never have to decide between a winter coat and paying the electric bills. You can avail yourself of entertainment that isn't television. You don't have to live in fear of your car (which you depend on) breaking down.

You may not be able to trade money directly for happiness. But money helps clear your path to happiness much more directly than any number of lessons in meditation or creative visualization.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 6:42 PM

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What is it with people who claim that Pokemon is 'not anime'? Is there some ultra-secret definition of anime that I'm missing here? Somewhere out there on a very definitive website that I have not read yet, does it say that anime is 'really high-quality animation from Japan which hopefully involves schoolgirls and tentacles'? Is it only anime if this guy likes it? If so, I want his job. I'd love to be in charge of deciding what's anime and what isn't. 'Okay, let's see. Sailor Moon... not anime. Outlanders... not anime. But Transformers... yes, Transformers is now anime. So mote it be!'

Those of you who make this sort of aesthetic judgement - get over yourselves. Pokemon is animation from Japan that follows most of the basic stylistic concepts of anime. Therefore, Pokemon is anime, even if you don't like Pokemon. Sailor Moon is anime, even if I hate it. Dragonball Z is anime. Digimon is anime. Just because a series is aimed at children does NOT mean it's not anime.

Granted, I'm not the pickiest anime watcher. I can't tell the difference between shoujo-style fingers and regular anime fingers. I'm not entirely clear on what shoujo style IS. Except I think it involves big eyes.
So maybe there IS some definition of anime that I haven't heard yet. Maybe every other anime fan in the world is laughing at me right now because I don't know something. Maybe, before a piece of Japanese animation can be 'anime', it has to have three cel painters named 'Hiiro'. And everyone knows that but me.

But you know what? I kind of doubt that. I watch anime, I play Japanese RPGs, I read manga. Maybe I'm not entirely clear on all the terminology, but, for crying out loud, Pokemon IS ANIME.

Furthermore, I wish to declare that I LIKE Pokemon. I have the games, I watch the show. I have a handful of little plastic Pokemon, and there's a Meowth plushie on my computer as I type this. Sure, there's a lot of hype, and I hate the hype as much as anyone. But it doesn't keep me from liking Pokemon. Sure, the hordes of empty-eyed drooling children that slavishly follow the show and collect the cards disturb me. But it doesn't keep me from liking Pokemon.

James - now THERE's a reason to watch Pokemon. What a babe!
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 8:06 PM

~Blather Back!~

So I went to the ATM and pulled out some cash. And what I got was a handful of new American twenties. There's nothing wrong with a twenty-dollar bill, I think; it can still buy a fair handful of stuff. Three good breakfasts, a bunch of groceries, a couple of packs of bristol board, or two thousand gumballs.

But the new American bills are just ugly. Not that American money has ever been pretty. But Americans love money. Money is important to us. Money makes America go 'round. I think that's why American money is so imposing. Heavy, high-quality ragstock, intricate designs printed in sober dark green and black. It looks like an important document, something you should frame. Perhaps having such grim money is what makes Americans so leery of foreign currency. We can't bring ourselves to take pink money seriously. 'Money shouldn't be cute,' Americans think. 'Money is too damned important to be cute.'

I'm digressing here, I think. My point is that the American government took money that was familiar, if a bit ugly, and paid some of that good money to make it uglier. It IS uglier. It looks cheaper, less impressive... I know there are anti-counterfeiting measures imbedded in the money now, and that's important, but why make the money uglier at the same time?

I think it has something to do with America's fear of crime. Instead of doing something positive or intelligent about crime, like putting waiting periods on gun purchases or realizing that marijuana maybe isn't the world's evillest substance, our lawmakers decided on a radical new plan. "If we make our money uglier, really TRULY ugly, maybe criminals won't want to steal it any more. Maybe counterfeiters will be too repulsed by our new money to make any of it. Maybe people will spend ugly money faster, to get rid of it, and stimulate the economy."

Actually, in at least one respect, I can't complain. I like the new state quarters. I think those are cool, even if I don't buy a cardboard map of the US to keep my shiny state quarters in. And I hope the new dollar coin catches on. It would be neat to have a coin that's actually WORTH something.

*sigh* At least they didn't make our money pink.
posted by Mie Tsukikoushi at 1:30 AM

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