Anogete's Journal

Trader Joe's has hooked me up with a most excellent Tofurky Roast which I will be dining on this Thanksgiving. I've also offered to bring a green bean casserole to dinner at Jason's mom's house since she says "money is tight" this year. I made a small version of it this evening to have with my veggie sandwich. I would just like to say that I am a frickin' awesome cook. My green bean casserole is the most delicious thing you could ever have. It was probably helped by the fresh (not canned) green beans and mushrooms I used. I also bought the necessary ingredients to make a pumpkin pie and my famous pumpkin cake. I'd venture to say that I could make a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner that would taste ten times better than Jason's mother's dinner. Look at me being some sort of elitist cook now. I'd go on Iron Chef if they didn't make ice cream out of salmon half the time.

We only have three more episodes of Rome left. All in all, it has been enjoyable, but not nearly as good as something like Deadwood. I found the writing to be a bit fumbling and clumsy, especially when it came to jumps in time. They didn't have a good way to make those jumps effective and smooth. Instead, I felt jarred most of the time when one scene was in May and the next was taking place in November. Beyond that, I thought the creators bit off a little more than they could chew. They covered Cesar's rise and fall in a mere twelve episodes. They've shoved Octavian's rise to power into seven episodes. It would have been better had they tried to do less. Anyway, I like the series, but it isn't something I want to own and watch again in the future. Once is enough.

Fullmetal Alchemist is next in the queue. I'm quite excited about it, though Jason has reservations. He's still stuck on Ghost in the Shell and all the glory that comes along with it. I'm, too, loved GitS, but I can't spend the rest of my life afraid of other anime series because the first one I watched was a masterpiece.

First of all, damn all of you who have already seen The Order of the Phoenix. I'm not going until Saturday night. I had to smooth talk my way into getting Jason to accompany me. He's not exactly a huge HP fan, though he enjoys the movies with a passing interest. Everything I've heard has sounded fantastic - especially the tone of the movie. I'm not going to fret too much over inconsistencies with the novel or things that have been left out.

I started reading After the Long Goodbye by Masaki Yamada last night. It's actually a reasonably short tale that takes place between the first Ghost in the Shell movie and the second, Innocence. From what I've read thus far, it appears to be more of an in-depth character study of Batou than anything else. At the core of the story is the disappearance of Batou's dog, Gabriel. In Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Batou goes through long scenes without showing emotion. His behavior and mental state is shown in contrast to Gabriel, who shows so much more depth of feeling, despite being a dog.

The prologue of the novel made me tear up last night. I believe it was a combination of the beautiful simplicity of the statements (perhaps due to the translation from Japanese?) and my own mental state at the time. It speaks of the (imminent) death of a dog in an oblique sort of way, which struck me because of what happened earlier this week with Bean. It's rather short, so I typed it up for anyone interested in reading it.

( all i have is my dog gabriel. i have no friends, no lover. )

Beyond my interest in Batou as a character, I also found a great deal of information about cyberized bodies in the first chapter of the novel. I'm very happy I decided to pick it up, seeing as how it has cleared a few things up for me. Plus, (being shallow here) it's bound as a beautiful, little white hardback. Psalm 139 is printed in red ink on the cover beneath the dust jacket. Shirow Masamune (the creator) and Yamada (the author) both contributed to an afterward on the meaning of the novel and the second film.

If I didn't have internet at work, I would have more money. I got antsy yesterday and ordered the two Ghost in the Shell movies, and then I ordered the first season of the television show. It all amounted to about eighty dollars, give or take.

At eight-thirty last night, I decided that I needed to go to Borders and buy After the Long Goodbye, which is a Ghost in the Shell novel that leads into the second movie. It's about Batou and his dog, and everyone has given it rave reviews. I was on a mission to the anime section when I walked in the door of Borders. The only thing that could have deterred me was a book about Snape. And what was on the table by the door? A book about Snape. The Great Snape Debate to be exact.

So, I bought it. And the GITS book. And a Mother's Day card so I didn't look like a huge dweeb. Which didn't exactly work because the fanboy behind the counter started perving over my book choices and sucked me into a fifteen minute conversation in the nearly empty store. But no worries. I have love for the fanboys. They're cute and they have interesting things to say. Sometimes when I'm around males, I feel like Hermione Granger listening to Harry and Ron talk about Quidditch, which means I want to poke my eyes out.