Friday, July 29, 2011

My Blog Is Ugly

Really, I don't even have a header! All my other blogs had headers before they had  posts! What happened?

I 'll fix it eventually, I promise. I got no idea what I want it to look like though. It should represent me and this blog but just putting a cat and some manga in the header feels boring. I don't really want to have an avatar on my header either. I had that on Otakubin and that one was really awesome but for some reason I feel like I can't use that sort of avatar when I'm using the name Catzy and making an avatar that actually looks like me is incredibly boring.
This was my Avatar at Otakubin. The Rambler  (who I shared the blog with) drew it.

Hmm....
Or is it?
Oh well, I'll get some sort of header some day anyway, Look forward to it!!!!!!!!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Mushishi

Some live in the deep darkness behind your eyelids. Some eat silence. Some thoughtlessly kill. Some simply drive men mad. Shortly after life emerged from the primordial ooze, these deadly creatures, mushi, came into terrifying being. And they still exist and wreak havoc in the world today. Ginko, a wanderer with a sardonic smile, has the knowledge and skill to save those plagued by mushi . . . perhaps. (This is the Official Description, I don't feel like making my own)

Mushishi is mostly a collection of oneshots (at least so far, I'm on book 2 of 10) with a recurring main character but the one shots are all varied and interesting. The Mushi are very diverse, some look like ranbows while others look like snails, and it's very interesting to learn about the different types. Some stories revolve around Ginko trying to get rid of the Mushi and protect a human but just as often he just observes the Mushi.

Mushishi isn't much of an action manga, it's calm and takes care in building up an atmosphere. It's pleasantly strange and the stories do not feel repetitive, something that almost-oneshot-mangas often fall victim . The stories could easily have been played for scares (is that a real saying?) and well, sometimes it's still somewhat creepy I guess but rather than antagonizing the Mushi (which would have been very easy considering they sometimes end up killing people) the manga shows they are just creatures trying to live.

The biggest problem with the manga is the artstyle. Not that it's ugly or anything but it's very hard to tell characters apart and almost all oneshot characters look the same, luckily this is  not a big issue since the oneshot-characters rarely return after their chapter.

Mushishi is, like most things, not for everyone. If you do not like oneshots or can't stand strange things it's probably not for you, but I really líked it. When I write reviews I have a tendency to Accentuate the Negative (if you remember my Higurashi Spinoff Review, I thought that  book was fairly entertaining.) about every work I do not consider really awesome so that should say something about my opinion of the manga. I'll keep reading it!

Posting Trollface Makes You Popular

32 people have viewed my post about my trolling teacher today. The second most popular post is a tie between 4 other posts, all with one (1) view each. Since it's apparently getting views I think I should consider actually making it into a comic, sometimes in the future (read: never)

The Rambler wrote about something similar happening to her, with a trollface comic she posted ending up on the first page of Google Image Search and being her main source of "readers". Of course these readers aren't interested in our actual blogs, they just want Trollface.

Most people who find my post this way are probably going to be disappointed since they get here by googling Trolling Teacher and probably want to play a smart prank on their teacher, which is the complete opposite of what my post is about.
 Isn't this a very special 100th post? To be honest I don't see why the 100th post should be so special anyway...

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Make A Post About How You're Neglecting Your Blog

End up posting much more than usual

Is that irony or will I be flamed for suggesting it might be?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Story of Frans

Frans is a little red cat born about 5-8 years ago. He's been quite an unfortunate kitty all of his life but hopefully he'll be happy from now on.

At first Frans was my sisters cat and lived at her home together with another cat, the younger and rather silly-looking Nelson. Since I very rarely meet my sister despite us living  in the same town I didn't really see him a lot until the day my mom said she had to take my sisters cat to the vet and I asked to come with her.

This wasn't the brightest idea since I had to sit at a cold bench and wait for the doctors to finish whatever they were doing. I don't remember what exactly was wrong with him but I remember it requiring several operations and giving the cat medicine every day for X weeks.

Since my sister worked all day and apparently didn't have time to give her cat medicine mom ended up visiting him every day for these weeks and I often came with her, though I just as often ended up just playing with the younger and more energetic Nelson while my mom gave Frans his medicine and petted him a little.

Once again I have forgotten the exact circumstances but for some reason my sister couldn't keep her cats and both of them ended up living at my fathers house. His sickness as well as a neighbors cat bullying Frans had left him timid and careful while Nelson was silly and carefree. My father isn't really all that good with easily frightened animals and has a tendency to try and pick them up and carry them away whenever he feels like it and use a really loud voice when talking to them. This was fine with Nelson who thought getting attention and having someone to play with was like the best thing ever but didn't really work as well with Frans.
Frans at my fathers house.

Because of this Nelson quickly became my fathers favorite and he unconsciously begun to favor Nelson to the point where he thought the silly little cat literary couldn't do anything wrong (when my father found a shattered flower pot and Nelson next to it, covered in dirt he still thought poor Frans was the one responsible despite the older cat not even being close to the flower pot because, according to him,  Nelson never broke anything!) and with Nelson being a lot more social than Frans the shyer cat got sort of pushed away.

And one day my father was supposed to move in with his girlfriend (this didn't happen because he's got a job here and she lives two hours away and now he lives with my mom, giving me sort of a complicated family situation to explain to people, what's with my divorced parents living together despite not dating and the father having a girlfriend who's aware of it) and got rid of his home . This meant the cats had to find a new home since my fathers girlfriend has got a dog (a big and very playful dog).

Nelson ended up living with us (mom, dad, me) which was really fortunate since my father and the silly-looking cat ended up being reunited again but finding a home for Frans was harder. Of course we would have adopted him as well but the cat we already had (Sonic, commonly referred to as the meatball with legs or Beuf) hated him and the one time we had tried to introduce them to each other (a long time ago when my sister was on vacation and Frans lived with us) Frans got banished to the top shelf in the closet for a week with Sonic chasing him up there again every time he attempted to go down (we put up food and water of course and closed the closet so he would get to be alone).

Getting someone to take care of  a five year old cat of no specific breed and a history of diseases isn't easy and we had almost given up when one of my friends who already had two cats stepped in.

Soon Frans was moved from my fathers house to my friends house and I was the one to drop him of. At first things were a little chaotic and we had to chase one of her cats into another room with the help of a vacuum cleaner and I was a bit concerned about if it would really work. However looking down at Frans and seeing him actually rubbing his cheek against my friends leg, letting her pet him and purr I was reassured.

Less than a year has passed since Frans started living with my friend but I can tell he's happier than ever. Now he's got two considerate humans (My friend and her mother) who want nothing more than to make him happy and he's befriended both of the other cats. When I came to visit at first he would run away from me, perhaps because he thought I would take him away again, but now, just a few months after he started living with them, I can already see changes in his behavior. He no longer  runs away as fast as someone opened the door but now he comes to see who it is and sometimes even lets the visitors pet him, something that would've never happened a year ago. He's walking around the house and playing instead of hiding and comes to his owners seeking affection often. It seems Frans has finally found a home.

*All pictures except the 2nd one belong to Omia (Current owner of Frans) and are used with permission

Monday, July 25, 2011

My First Meeting With TVTropes

Written on the request of the Rambler.

Once upon a time a slightly younger Catzy, at the time called Charles, was browsing through an image site she'd found by mistake. Said image site was called E-shuushuu and is still regularly visited by Catzy because of it's worksafe material of high quality, but that's a whole other story.

In the comment section I found a link to a site I had never seen before, a site with articles full of potholes and weird words Charles did not understand. Charles simply closed this site without further investigation. (It seems that when Charles refer to herself in third person Charles wants to call herself Charles and since that was Charles name at the time I''ll just refer to myself as Charles in this text)

However it seemed this site followed Charles. It started popping up everywhere! On forums, on Google, even some internet friends brought it up.

Soon Charles had become curious about the contents of the site and decided to read something from it. At fist this was nearly impossible because of all the words (What's a Freudian Excuse? Who's The Scrappy? Poe's Law?) but within a few weeks Charles could understand every single one of them and completely fallen in love with the site.


And that was the story of how I, Catzy formerly known as Charles, first found TvTropes. Today I can not imagine a life without it, it has become the source of information, inspiration, recommendations (for manga, video games and books) and some way to say fun that ends with -ation! I have also introduced several of my friends to TvTropes with varying results and it has changed the way I talk. TvTropes even has a trope called TvTropes Will Ruin Your Life to explain the addiction it caused but in my case it didn't ruin it, it enchanted my life! Or something...

So there you have it Rambler, the story of how I found TvTropes. At least I think that's how it went.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Spinoff

Here's the first of the reviews I said I would do! Enjoy!

Now I love Higurashi, it's got mysterious and dark, nice characters and effective contrast between happy and scary. The spin off however... Not so much....

The spin off, whatever it was called, is quite a bit different from the rest of the series. First of most of the original characters aren't even in it and those who are aren't a central part of the plot. This is not a problem by itself but it requires the Author of the spin off to come up with and develop their own set of likable and sympathetic characters so the audience cares. This spin off did not do that.

It seems like too much effort was put into making the female main character the average girl that her actual personality was completely forgotten in an attempt to make the audience relate to her more. I have no idea if this works for the average girl since I am sure I am not average but since Higurashi is Seinen, aimed at men in their twenties, I doubt it was such a good idea.

No, actually, scratch that. The original higurashi was seinen, the latest spin off is definitely shojo. The art style makes it look like Tokyo Mew Mew and suddenly a classic shojo romance with prince charming and bland school girl takes a central place in the plot. Prince Charming, of course has got no personality besides being her boyfriend.
Is that Momoiya Ichigos twin sister? No, it's Higurashi, can't you tell?


To anyone who's read or heard about Higurashi a shojo romance might sound strange since Higurashi is usually dark and bloody and people murder each other. It is strange, very strange. It's a badly blended mix between a shojo romance and murder mystery where on one page Bland Girl is on a date with Bland Boy and on the next one Bland Girls grandmother is drowning puppies in the bath tub. Oops, spoiler.

Oh well, I am making this sound worse than it is. It's actually pretty decent and the dark parts are still entertaining even though there's boring shojo drama in between them and the characters are bland. Compared to the rest of Higurashi it's trash but for a shojo horror manga it's actually pretty good.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Sorry

I am neglecting this blog in favor of Homestuck. It just seems more productive somehow.
THIS IS MEANINGFUL

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Potato Chips! Potato Chips Everywhere!

As the title implies, the world seems to be showering me with potato chips lately!

Yesterday a friend found a half eaten bag in one of my drawers, of course I ate them after he'd left since I love potato chips. Today my friend and I decided to buy some potato chips to eat while watching a movie and now my mom randomly bought me another bag of potato chips.

I never thought I'd refuse an offer for tasty potato chips but I really can't eat anymore.
Or can I? They still look tasty! No, no I can't. I'm going to be sick if I do.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Oblivion, I Guess

The Elder Scrolls IV AKA Oblivion, I purchased it

In october last year, when my internet wasn't working and I had the worst freaking cold ever and couldn't go outside and had absolutely nothing to do.

I installed it today.

I feel a bit bad about neglecting it like that, I bought five games and the other four have been installed months ago, I can't help but wonder what made me ignore Oblivion.

As for my opinion of it I just started playing but the world seems nice and character customization too, the latter however is completely pointless as the game is played in first person view.The controls are weird, I do not understand how I am supposed to talk to people or examine things, all I know how to do is hit things (I should probably read the manual). Also I find windowed mode utterly pointless since the game crashes if you try to change activity, I man what?
The world is pretty, though I have barely seen it yet...
 Oh and one more thing, why are there two CDs of it? I only needed one to install and play the game so what is the second one? I am confused

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Hello

I am stupid. I visited the manga bookstore and bought 11 books today. Came home and realized I bought one of them last month  but forgot to bring it with me to Norrland. Is anyone interested in getting Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei 9 for free? Or maybe I should return it? I have no idea what I should do with it... I'm so stupid. Talk about waste of money. I could've bought Natsume's Book of Friends 7 or Mushishi 4 instead! Why!?
Ah oh well, I'll just ask my mom to return it and buy me another book. But ugh, I'm still stupid.

Monday, July 18, 2011

I'm Home!

Trip was nice, I ate weird but tasty pancakes, saw a waterfall and almost got stuck in the middle of the night 60 swedish miles away from home.

And I read manga, lots of it! I bought quite a few new mangas before I left and will review them as well as a stand-alone spinoff to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. This will be a grand total of at least four reviews! Look forward to them.

During my 12 hour trip home I also got a few ideas for scary stories, chances are you won't get to read them but I've changed my mind before.
I'll be reviewing this.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Things I Want To Do Before I Die

  • Become immortal
  • Become really rich
  • Become a cyborg
  • Have at least ten cats at the same time
  • Have at least three houses at the same time, in three different countries
  • Learn boxing (Or karate or something else, become really badass anyway)
  • Learn at least six languages (I already know 2 completely and am learning 3 so only one more)
  • Make a video game (I am already working on a simple Visual Novel)
  • Make a GOOD video game (Said Visual Novel does not qualify)
  • Invent something awesome

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Worst Earworms - Top 5!

As with everything, your mileage may vary!


5. Johnossi - What's the point (This one is definitely Your Milage May Vary . It's pretty bland and not as upbeat and simple as normal earworms but for whatever reason I can't get the chorus out of my head.)


4. Poker Face - Lady Gaga (Though that might be more for the fact that it was on the radio at least 6 times every hour for like half a year. I'm sort of tired of it know but it still gets stuck in my head each time I hear it. Haven't watched the music video but since it's Gaga it's probably weird as hell)


3. Electro Gypsy


2. Anything By Kesha (Even though she really can't sing. Catchy is not = good!)


1. World Is Mine - Hatsune Miku  (Though I guess everything by Hatsune Miku is really catchy this one is by far the worst. The second worst is Sweet Devil)

Friday, July 15, 2011

Unusual Opinions of Mine, Formerly Called "Things I Hate (That Everybody Else Loves)

Things I Hate That Everybody Else Loves:

-Swans. Gosh, anyone who's ever met a swan knows they aren't worth all the (positive) attention they're getting. They are the most evil birds in the world! I've been chased by a swan twice after trying to feed it. I mean they're always portrayed as wonderful and kind in stories, how was I supposed to know they were insane? Stupid birds.

-Soda. It just tastes so weird, it's like drinking something you created in chemistry class. I much prefer natural, non-bubbly stuff like orange juice and homemade lemonade.

- Babies. Uhm, I guess hate is a strong word but I really don't like them. It's not personal or anything but they can't even use the toilet themselves or eat properly and they scream all the time. I'm sorry but I find that gross, not cute. No offense to babies everywhere or their parents or siblings or something, I've been a baby too you know, I just don't like being too close to them.
This is soda, not a baby, but if I put it in it's proper place it looks strange.




ON THE OTHER HAND
I just realized I don't want such a negative post on my blog so I'll also list 3 things I love, things not many people appreciate.

- Social Science. If School only consisted of Social Science I'd love going to school. I like knowing how society works and learning things I'll actually get to use everyday, or at the very least once every fourth year. The assignment are mostly things I'll do for fun like debates.

  - Spinach. I really don't get why some people hate it so much. It's tasty and easy to eat and unlike tomatoes and oranges it doesn't hurt if you eat it after you've bitten your cheeks. And the little leaf shaped things make you feel like a rabbit or something when you eat them. That's a good thing, in this case.

- Spiders. Okay, this may be related to my love for things other people consider creepy but I don't think they're creepy. I mean they look funny with all their little legs and round body. And they have fur! I mean they aren't as cute as cats but for insects (or whatever they are) they're adorable. And friendly too, at least if you're bigger than them. They just sit in some corner and eat all those really annoying insects, you know like mosquitoes, the ones who actually get in your face and bites you for no reason. Uhm, this doesn't include the poisonous spiders in Africa and stuff, I mean they still look funny but only an idiot would call those friendly. This post mostly applies to the harmless kind found in old houses and stuff.

This is a Goliath Bird Eating Spider. I don't think it's scary but since it is one of the worlds largest spiders people have a perfectly acceptable reason of being terrified of it. The tiny things you are most likely going to meet however...

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Best Things About Summer (Vacation)

- Sleeping until noon

- You have time and energy to actually do stuff when you aren't in school all day

- You Don't have to bring a jacket with you everywhere you go

- You don't have to worry about falling on ice and die

- Summer vacation is a justified reason for both laziness and overindulgence in all things fun (or tasty!)

- If you're falling behind in any subject in school you have time to work with it (Yeah right!)

And pretty much everything else about summer. Summer is even more appreciated in Sweden and other cold places I think, since our winters are often painfully long. This one has to be a new record, the first snow came in like October and we even had snow in May, What - The - Hell?! After that summer is like heaven, even with the mosquitoes and the fact that everything will melt if you leave it in the sun too long.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Favorite Sites

  • TVTROPES! My beloved TvTropes where I can find entertaining and accurate information about any series without having to risk mind scarring! Also extremely useful when writing stuff since you can make sure to use, subvert, deconstruct, reconstruct, parody or avoid certain tropes. Oh, and it's really addicting and fun too.
     
  • Know Your Meme. Are you bored? Why not learn something? I am not talking about learning German or memorizing the periodic table, I mean learn something USEFUL! On Know Your Meme you can find every notable meme, complete with history, common uses and examples. With your newfound knowledge in memes you can go from n00b to LEET in no time flat!
  • Youtube. Youtube has got everything you could ever want. Want to see the music video to the latest Lady Gaga song? Youtube has it. Want a clip from a cartoon from the early 90s? Youtube has it.
    Want the english translation to a rather obscure Vocaloid song? Youtube has it. Want to see cute cats eating for fifteen minutes? people Let's Playing their own Mario ROM Hacks? People making fun of the person Let's playing his own ROM Hack? Youtube has it.
  • Cracked. The number one source of unnecessary, somewhat reliable facts! Who doesn't want to know about The 4 Most Homophobic Comics Ever Created or The 6 Most Wildly Irresponsible Publicity Stunts in History? And if all that text is too much for you there is always charts like The 7 Stages of Not Doing the Dishes, Caption Contests and Photoplasty Contests like If Everything in Life Listed the Side Effects.
  • Creepy Pasta Wiki. A wonderful site full of nicely organized after topic. Of course many of the stories are pretty bad but many of them are actually good as well. Not only are there stories, there are pictures and videos as well, and many of them too. Lots of good stories you haven't already heard a million times, all you need is the energy to find them!
  •  Microhorror. Uhm okay, so there is no way to casually browse through all the stories and they are not sorted in any way but if you have the energy to actually do that you'd probably just use the Creepy Pasta Wiki or some other site. MicroHorror is for the time when you want to read something creepy but have no energy to concentrate longer than a minute or something. All stories are less than 666 words long. Teheh.
  •  Mangafox. I remember a long time ago when I first started to read manga in English, I was amazed at how much good manga never got translated to Swedish! With mangafox even Americans and Englishmen can be annoyed at all the manga nobody ever makes an official translation they can read of! This, of course, goes for any site with fan translated manga but I choose mangafox because of the superior layout and advanced search system.
  •  E-shuushuu. I really can't decide! I must admit E-shuushuu's got a way better design and every picture is most certainly a picture of high quality, something that can not really be said about Zerochan. E-shuushuu's tagging system is also great and they even have a special tagging team who make sure everything is tagged correctly. A perfect image board in all ways except one: They forbid their users to upload any picture not featuring at least one female. Oh, well, you can't have everything.
  • Zerochan. The other Image Board I like. This one is clearly dominated by females, with 41K pictures of Hetalia and where more than half of the 20 most popular Haruhi Suzumiya pictures are yaoi. It gets a bit annoying when trying to find pictures of female characters but it's pretty much the only descent image board where not at least 90% af all pictures are pictures of Bishojos.
Huh

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

My Strange Habit

(At least some of them)

- Singing and shaking my head from side to side when I'm really bored. This has led to some people questioning my sanity when I randomly start singing in Japanese while we're waiting for our english teacher.

- Randomly snapping my fingers while walking. I did it all the time before but now I only do it every once in a while.

- Making weird faces when waiting for something/someone. Not mocking faces, just weird ones like pulling my lower eyelids down while squeezing my cheeks together and trying to smile.

- Wanting to rephrase sentences to avoid using "that" in the "wrong" way just because I don't like how it sounds. The "wrong" way is for example "The cat that loved cheese". "That cat loves cheese" is okay however.

- Making up stories for all the original characters I draw despite having no intention of involving them in any story. They're usually related to each other if they're on the same paper and most of them are insane. All of them have plenty of flaws, probably a bit too many...

- Always posting a picture in every post, even if it's an irrelevant one.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Day 30 - Your favorite anime opening/ending theme

The Final Day is here! I am actually far away by now. This is a scheduled post!

Pandora Hearts - Parallel Hearts

'
  
 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - Season 1 opening with the same name

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai - Naraku no Hana

Higurashi no Naku Koror ni Rei - Superscription of Data

Shakugan no Shana - Hishoku no Sora
Vampire Knight - Still Doll
Vampire Knight Guilty- Suna no Oshiroi

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (STUPID TEXT WON'T MOVE TO THE LEFT AUGH AND THE VIDEO WON'T WORK HOW ODDLY FITTING I SHOULD MAKE A COMMENT ABOUT HOW I AM IN DESPAIR BUT I DON'T FEEL LIKE IT GOOGLE THE OPENING YOURSELF BYE WHAT A NICE WAY TO END THIS 30 DAY CHALLENGE DON'T YOU THINK!)

Things I Want In My Residence When I Grow Up

  • Cats. Of  course. Lots of them! I want a whole pack! (<- I know you don't call a group of cats a pack, but I do)
  • A really large swimming pool, and by really large I mean larger than my house. And I want a large house.
  • A fountain. A large one with many layers or whatever you call them and with pretty sculptures. No actually I want many fountains! One close to the pool, one in the front garden, one in the hall and so on.
  • Chickens. A magazine I read said you could have them as pets. Apparently they are very friendly and personal and you can have them in your garden without any sort of permission. Also, free eggs (not that I care, I just want a funny pet)
  • My very own roller coaster. It's not a realistic dream, really, but if I ever get rich enough I'll build my own roller coaster, an awesome one. Way too many people spend their money on shoes and plastic surgery when they could be building an amusement park.
Stupid Hen refuses to go where I want it so I guess I'll just randomly put it at the end of this post.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Day 28 - A manga you think is so brilliant it’s like literature

Hmm... Well, I think many mangas reach the quality of ordinary literature but the ones that would actually fit as literature are already adapted into light novels.

Let's see... Baccano, Haruhi Suzumiya, Durarara, Missing and so on all begun as light novels and both Death Note and xxxHolic have spinoffs in novel form (or is the Death Note novel an adaption? I don't know) so yeah... I mean there are many good mangas which haven't been made in to novel but those are simply the ones more fit as manga. I mean a novel version of Natsumes Book of Friends would sort of fail since well, the visuals are sort of very important.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Day 27 - A manga you would never buy

Stuff like Negima! Okay, I bought it once upon a time after trusting the words of a lying friend and reading the very nondescript text on the back of the book but now I am smart enough to avoid such disastrous purchases. Hopefully.

I won't buy boring realistic stuff either, unless it's by accident.
Borrowed this one from Varelsen/The Creature once. Read like half of it, seemed pointless

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Day 26 - The last manga you read

Sanka Rea. It's weird, very weird. Description bellow from Mangafox!

Furuya's obsessed with zombies. He collects any figurines, watches any movie, and plays any game with the living dead, and is even only interested in zombie girls. When his cat dies, Furuya begins trying to raise it from the dead using an ancient book of the occult he bought from a shop. But what will happen when he sees the idol of a nearby all girl's school walking close to where he conducts his experiment, wishing to die and be reborn as a different person?

Most people can probably figure out what will happen to the girl.

I'm not sure why I like this manga but I do. I read like 6 chapters in a row when I only intended to check out the first few pages. It's got way too much fan service and there is a lot of Seinen Romance stuff in it but yeah, it's entertaining.
The Zombie Girl. Doesn't really look like a walking corpse, does she?

So far everything is sort of not-so-serious and even the girl's abusive parents are played for laugh half the time, as is Furuya's Zombie Fetish. It's sort of Dude Not Funny but still it sort of is funny. God, I don't even know. All I know is I somehow ended up finding it entertaining, sue me. Hahah, if only I had found this a few days earlier and I would have had a proper answer to the question about guilty pleasure manga.

Day 25 - The best manga oneshot

Hmm, well I don't really remember most oneshots I read but Crimson Shell (by the author of Pandora Hearts) was pretty good and so was The Enigma of Amigara Fault (by Junji Ito). I only own Crimson Shell since The Enigma of Amigara Fault isn't available in english but yeah, it's a tie! I've already answered this once on Otakubin i recall.
I'll use the same picture as I did back then because I'm lazy!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

On The Subject of Haunted Houses

I hope to visit an authentic one someday. You know, one with a dark and horrible past with rumors about real hauntings. I don't think I'd want to go on a group tour or something because being with too many excited people really destroys the mood. I'd be happy to just bring a friend and walk around on my own in some old castle with a history of murder and where screams and whispers can be heard at night.


 So far, this is impossible. The reason for this is that I don't know anyone else who's interested in creepy stuff. Or well, there are some guys I know over the internet but yeah, I've never actually met them and I really don't feel like bringing them with me to an abandoned house and they live 20 to 80 miles (swedish miles, 1 mile = 10 kilometer) away from me.

I mean I've been trying to get someone to visit Gröna Lunds haunted house in years and I've been there with at least five different people but all of them refused, claiming that it was too scary. They are awesome people but I really need a friend who loves creepy stuff.
Putting a non-creepy picture so nobody has to lie awake thinking about smile.jpg or something.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Day 24 - The best long manga series

Hmm... How long is "long"? If it has to be more than 20 books then the answer is Full Metal Alchemist but if about 15 books is enough it is rivaled by Higurashino Naku koro Ni. Now that I think about it 15 books isn't that long. So yeah, Full Metal Alchemist it is.
I have no pictures of FMA though so I'll put a Higurashi Picture here instead.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Day 23 - Best anime villain

Oh, come on, you know who this is. I've already dedicated three posts to the trolling, phonestamping, awesome but evil Izaya Orihara. Also, Izaya and Yuki are the only characters who have their own tags on this blog so far.


So Yeah, Izaya Orihara it is!

Gröna Lund For The Win!

Gröna Lund is a Swedish amusement park. I visited it with a classmate called Felicia (not the Tsundere Queen Yokohime in case anyone who knows her and me thinks so, another Felicia) and it was awesome!

Apparently Alice Cooper was at Gröna Lund at the same time, me and Felicia agreed it was better than Erik Saade or something but as Gröna Lund started to get more and more crowded and the lines to food and rides started to get ridiculously long we considered going home.

However this was not needed as all the lines disappeared once Alice Coopers performance actually started. In other words, once Alice Cooper started singing we had the whole park (well, save for the music scene and the restaurants next to it, as well as two rides which they closed so people could stand on them) for (almost) for ourselves! Yay!
We, however, ignored most of the park and just rode the light blue roller coaster Jetline like 200 times


However, all these things fade next to the fact that I got someone to visit the haunted house with me! I am so happy! Really Really Really happy! All of my other friends are scared to death of mildly scary stuff like haunted houses and survival horror and creepy pasta and even though Felicia mostly ran through the Haunted house and I couldn't stay to study the design of things or check out everything it was still fun!

I mean sure, it's not really creepy and the people (/"ghosts") just look kind of cool and not really that creepy it's still pretty fun. I would have probably enjoyed it more if not for the fact that The Haunted House somehow ended up really crowded and I sort of got pushed along when I would have rather explored things. Haunted Houses are lovely anyway!

<3!

Of All Things

A friend who haven't been over since last Christmas was here yesterday. She saw my main Image Folder (with about 10 pictures which do not fit into any folder) and wondered why I had a picture of trollface on my computer.
OMG TROLLFACE. Soooo random :O


I have a picture of a dromedary, an empty photo frame, the molecular structure of CuSO4 and an evil dandelion in the same folder. Is trollface weirder than those? Really?

Well, duh. Everybody's got pictures of dromedaries in their image folder these days. It gets old.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Day 21 - A manga that deserves more recognition

Uhm, Oh Wow.... Lots and lots...

I tend to find myself enjoying rather obscure manga, things not even translated into english. I've alreade written about Baccano! which is a rather mild example, and I wrote a post about the lovely and strange Fuan no Tane.

As for something I haven't already written about I really liked Ibitsu, another horror manga. It's about a boy who encounters a Strange Lolita girl at the trash dump. Way better than it sounds but I don't have the energy to explain what happens while avoiding spoilers.

Another very underrated manga (once again, horror, though this one is more a thriller than anything) is Doubt. It was one of the first mangas (or whatever the plural of manga is...) I read.

It's about a group of teenagers who all play a game called Rabbit Doubt, a game where the players are rabbits and one of them are randomly assigned to be the wolf and hunt down the others, who must find and kill the wolf before they die. These players decide to meet up in real life and get involved in a real life version of Rabbit Doubt. Will they find the wolf before time is up?
Read Doubt here to find out!

Neither one of these have been translated but Baccano is a lot more popular than the others, followed by Doubt, Ibitsu and then Fuan no Tane. Fuan no Tane doesn't even have a TvTropes-page and that's sad.

The Sims 3

I can't learn to love it the way I love The Sims 2, I just can't! I am really trying, spending time and effort on creating my very own world in the incredibly stupid and overly complicated world creator program provided by EA Entertainment to get the feeling that I am creating a world of my own but it's just not the same thing.

You see, for me The Sims was never a Simulation of Real Life, to me it was about playing god. Creating my very own town, decide the destiny of everyone living there and so on. This is utterly impossible in The Sims 3.
Pictured: A world better than what I am creating. Credit to the creator of it, it probably took months (yes, really)

You can only control one family at time just like in The Sims 3 but the difference here is that you aren't supposed to play on more than one family in each neighborhood, making it nearly impossible to make your own individualized worlds. You can create several families for each town but while you're playing with one family the other families are off ruining their lives by choosing retarded careers (they do this even if you turn off story mode) or leaving their wife to live in a crappy house in the mountains together with three babies, apparently the sims children despite no woman being involved in their birth.

The Sims 3 has got many good sides, the interactions are realistic and the Traits you can choose for your sims are awesome, if you're comfortable with not being in total control of everything and like a "living world" I'm sure it's great but for control freaks like me nothing will beat The Sims 2.
Pictured above: Awesomeness!

Friday, July 1, 2011

Day 20 - A manga you started out enjoying but ended up not liking as much

Have I not answered this question with a slightly different wording a few days ago? Well, whatever...

I must say I am disappointed about how xxxHolic is turning out. I haven't changed my mind about the first books, they are still very awesome, but the Tsubasa-stuff really destroys the series. While The Creature got that feeling a long time ago I only recently started to see it and after reading some spoilers on the internet I'm very disappointed. It turns out Watanuki is just Syaorans CLONE! Why!? That makes the whole series some sort of weird spinoff of Tsubasa, and also how is that even possible? In what way is he a clone when he's nothing like Syaoran? What the heck?

The art style is nothing like Tsubasa, why involve Tsubasa in it at all really?

Dresses

I've been wearing them.

Last monday was the first time in more than ten years that I wore a dress (I'm sixteen, I started hating dresses because my mother loved dressing me up in them. Hahahah). It feels quite strange but I like it, I wore one last wednesday too! I still haven't gotten used to it but these are my thoughts so far, compressed into a nice little list of pros and cons of my dresses (they are all the same model, these pros and cons may no apply to all dress types):

Pros:
-Comfortable when it's hot outside
-You only have to put on one article of clothing in the morning
- The flowing fabric of my dresses is funny
- Soft materials
- Easy to buy. No trying on 100 different models to find one that fits (like what you have to do with jeans)

Cons:
- Disables some comfortable sitting postions (in public at least)
- You have to fix the dress (pull it up, straighten the fabric or whatever) more than you have to fix pants and a t-shirt
- You freeze to death if it starts raining because of the soft materials and stuff

Uhm, I fail at finding a picture of the dress type by the way. It's sort of just flowing but with a bit of stretchy stuff and little shoulderstraps.