I meant to have this post up on Friday, but as it happened this weekend was a dog show weekend. Dog shows seem to consume my weekends, and I spent yesterday recovering. And playing Final Fantasy XIII, but I don’t count that time – as far as I’m concerned when I sit down to play a video game I step out of time.
I was going to pick up a theme and ramble about Final Fantasy X-2, but half way through I realized I didn’t remember enough about it – the last time I played it was several years ago, and all I recall is a general sense of dissatisfaction, and a fondness for the outfits. I can’t really talk about Final Fantasy XIII, because I’m not done with it yet which means all I can do is speculate wildly about spoilers. So here’s just what comes to mind.
.Walking
Now that I’m back from housesitting, and the weather is moving into the fabulous phase between yuckyd muddy and insect season[1. There is no 'Spring' in Alaska, so we take what we can get.], I’m back to my daily walks. My usual route is two miles roundtrip, and about 45 minutes at a brisk walk[2. Chai won't allow me to walk any slower.]. I take Chai with me to kept him exercised, and as a form of protection. I lost a lot of weight on this routine once, and I plan too again.
.Red River
So here’s this little manga that caught my eye years ago, not long after I started buying manga. It looked interesting, but I knew I was inexperienced and so was hesitant. Fast forward, and here volume one falls into my hands. Now I sort of regret not picking it up all those years ago because I am addicted – absolutely and utterly hooked! Naturally I’m out of money so I have to content myself with scanlations of debatable and varying quality until I can afford to catch up.
It’s the story of a girl magically yanked from the modern world into a distant, magic land, in this case it is ancient Hittite Empire, where she is drawn into the court intrigue and falls in love with one of the princes. Not a horrible unique plot, but what I really applaud here is the level of tension the story manages to maintain – no straw men there, though though enough convenient coincidences[3. and hot guys, and sparklely jewelry...] to remind me that it’s a shoujo manga. It’s a manga that hits enough of my ‘yay!’ buttons that I have a hard time recommending it to someone else. If I wasn’t arranging my bookshelf alphabetically Red River would end up next to my other guilty-pleasure manga – the soap opera-esque Bride of the Water God and paranormal romance Black Bird.
.Supernatural
I gave in and ordered all four seasons while they were on sale super-cheap at Amazon, and they arrived last Wednesday. Supernatural is a show I’ve been hearing about for years, and like Red River dispite all the indications that I’d love it I never got around to watching it[4. It's a confidence issue that I'm working on.]. I finally got around to watching it by watching the first disc with my friends, figuring that if it was bad at last we could make our own fun of it. It turned out to be excellent, and we sped through the rest of season one. I’m looking forward to hours of snarky tweeting and paranormal adventures with season two.
That’s all for now I suppose. If I don’t have another post ready for Friday I’m just going to go ahead and change my regular posting day to Monday.