Here are some links about the bootlegging problem. This first one is a great rant, this one is about how you can tell a Ghilbi boot from a real DVD, and this is about the criminals you are helping by buying boots.

I'm torn on the digisubs debate. On one hand, I don't speak Japanese, and would like to see the newest most innovative anime Japan has to offer, as well as older, unrecognized gems. On the other hand, I don't want to support the bootlegger mentality that some people just deserve anime for free.

I go with half measures, mostly, only getting unlicensed anime, stuff that is not available here, and then replacing the copies whenever possible with real DVDs. However, I am fully aware of the thousands who are too lazy to pay for a $15 DVD and in fact bleat that it costs too much, yet they are able to afford nice computers and fast connections to download with. Even worse, in my eyes, are people who give money to Hongkong bootleggers. It's one thing to rip others off for free, and yet another to waste money on it.

Hongkong bootleggers also give rise to the 'I'm not paying for this again" idea, which is pretty bad. So maybe they are even worse than just plain digisubbers themselves. Another problem is that many anime fans are young and don't understand how businesses work. They think that anime is beamed in from the sky by American companies. In fact, they have to pay to use the anime, and then pay to manufacture the disks, market them, pay voice talent and translators, and just general overhead. Not to mention they aren't getting as much volume as big box movie studios.

The character of fansubbing seems to have changed since I was a youth. Back then it seemed like groups were subbing to widen the appeal of anime and to work with the industry instead of against it. But nowadays, we have four and five groups that are subbing titles that have been liscensed from before they even were produced. So I don't know what's happened to the scene.

I can see the idea of spreading anime, but the problem is that many people are asshats and can not act responsibly. A problem with that is that things like this can't sustain themselves without money. It's not like comics where one person with a sharpie will always be doing them, it takes big companies and lots of talent to produce one 26 episode anime. I'd ask everyone to try to minimize the damage and buy what they have downloaded the whole series of, but people who would listen already do that, and people who won't listen, don't.

The word of the day is defensive pessimism. It may sound strange, but it really works. Think of the worst case scenario and find out how to avoid it. For example, if there was a test coming up, would you say oh, I'm going to ace it and not study hard, worry you were going to fail and thus study really hard or put panties on your head and race around the dorm? Well,...I think the second one is best, because you are in touch with reality. It may be cute to say you can change your reality, but getting something done often requires close contact with reality.

This site proves that maybe thinking happy thoughts doesn't cure depression, but bright colors sure do.

Got the New Moon article in. Now to fill out paper work and somehow gain a photo of myself.

Some people have recieved their box sets of St. Tail. St. Tail is cute, but not for me, but fans rejoice. And Haibane Reimei is coming. Hopefully, it'll be good. It is from the creator of Lain, but I don't know much about it.

Why are people so strange? Some random chick just knocked on my door just to ask me if I was black. Isn't it sort of obvious? The dark skin, the afro..I might as well have a huge sign on me saying that I am black. I know, I know, I don't sit around in the sun. But lots of black people are light skinned. Urgh.

I watched four episodes of Princess Tutu today, because I am too lazy to study. I love mahou shoujo (magical girl- a show that focuses on a young girl given a magical ability and her coming of age) shows that have just a bit of darkness to them. I think it is because for a fairy tale like story like many of these shows have- Tutu is full of old stories given a new twist, Fancy Lala seems like a Cinderella tale, and even Sailor Moon is taking off of the Snow Queen in the Nehelenia arc(the first 6 episodes of Sailor Stars, the 5th series of Sailor Moon), there needs a real villain for the story to have resonance.

Anime has more freedom than American cartoons, so I really don't get the fans who love Disneyfied anime with things being cheery and happy all the time. Give me drama, give me laughter and tears. I want something I can feel, not just something pleasant.

Today I had another dream. Me and some other people were wandering through this huge Victorian house, with over a hundred rooms. Then finally we got outside and were racing on motorcycles. One straggler's point of view was shown and I thought the camera angles really showed his sense of impotence.

It cut back to me and I was racing on a spiky road thinking of how I'll miss my film teacher. We stopped a blue car and a black guy made this long speech about the guy in the car being a murderer, but there was also a blue truck with pimp something on the side, and I had the feeling that it would be getting away just so we could have the thrill of the chase again.

Today I got all the mail that has been saved up for weeks it seems- a contributor
's agreement thingie from New Moon (wish me luck on the article writing!), a payment notification thing from my job ($16 wooo!), a Victoria's Secret catalog (how did that get in there?) and Happy Mania, a funny manga about a flake who is often used for sex. Not the best manga in the world, but I want to see the second one, so it was pretty good.

I like how our heroine doesn't have to be a good role model here. While most of us understand intellectually that a guy isn't going to be better just because he's hot, it takes the rest of our bodies some time to catch up to our brains. I remember being asked by some silly sisters if the guy I was going on a date with was hot, first question out of their mouths. I just said no, to confuse their pea brained perceptions. The sad part is that we're in college, not high school.

Today is a great book day. Today I got Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain. Hopefully I can learn how to draw. I also got a new issue of Bitch magazine. God, I love this magazine- there's just so much stuff in it, and all so great. It's a woman's magazine without that boring shit about buying shit or makeup tips. Instead, they debate whether sex work is feminist or not. I still haven't decided on that one, actually.

In the future, I might buy some books that the Yuricon folks are publishing. Basically, this is girl/girl amerimanga. Amerimanga is American comics in a manga style. Sounds intriguing and for ten bucks, well, it's worth a try.

It's final exam rush time. Now for something confusing.

More Peter Bagge.

Quote of the Day: "Debt is Slavery"

Anime picture collection. Warning: some boobage.

Note to nice guys- no matter how many average girls you ignore or scorn, ten hot supermodels will not fall from the sky and offer you blowjobs. You may blather on and on about levels and how you shouldn't settle, but let me tell you something- the females that are attracted to you are your level. If supermodels aren't begging you to let them give you a blow job, you are probably not on the same level as them.

You may have seen Love Hina or some romantic comedy in which the beautiful woman falls for the guy because of his essential goodness. Don't believe it. There's a reason why it's a movie. If you can't accept the girls on your level, don't complain about it.

I love whining. I love to gripe, complain, whinge. But there's a limit, and Oh poor me, supermodels don't want to fuck me, is that for me. You know all those guys wandering around with girlfriends? Making you feel like shit? You know how they got those girlfriends? Not by saying OH MY GOD, I couldn't be seen with you! So the bottom line is guys with standards are celibate, and guys without get laid. If you'd rather be celibate than date a normal woman, that's your choice, so shut up.

Unfortunately, I seem to be non too clever (the contact link on ennh's blog seems to give me 'enter your own email' as the address) so I will say this here. I only mentioned ennh to say that he/she had mentioned me. But the whole rest of it was unrelated, and had nothing to do. Uh..well...for some of you, sexylosers, (warning, sexual content) for the rest, americanelf!

Just a story on how Bush is undermining women's reproductive health. I don't get why politicians are always so against women making their own choices. It's almost like they want people to suffer. I mean, it's all well and good to feel morally superior, I enjoy a good bout of moral superiority in the morning, but if you have to endorse needless suffering because you wanna feel superior, what's the point?

I'm not saying you have to like a woman having a right to decide what to do with her body, but come on, if it was up to some of these loonies, we'd be fucked if the condom broke or even if the pill failed. They may say no premarital sex, but it's not like even married women can afford to keep popping out babies like it is nobodies' business, the culture has changed, and the days of four and five children households, well, that's craziness. Actually some think we shouldn't be using the pill at all, but that's too crazy to be creditable. Hardcore Catholics may disagree, but..

Yes, mental torture does cause mental illness. To morons who think mental cruelty is just a 'few insults'. No, it is not. It's being insulted over and over for years. It's being exculded wthout mercy, being treated like you are subhuman and just being shat on from a high height. You can't beat up a bully- YOU'RE GOING TO GET IN TROUBLE, NOT THE BULLY. Not to mention, you'd get beat up, but zero tolerence only works against victims, and for bullies. The bullies aren't going to stop their cruelty and now you can't even choke the bully on the hall floor. People who are 25 and 30 crack from mental cruelty, and you expect a 12 year old to pretend it doesn't matter?

Although, it is somewhat better then because at least you can pretend bullies will ultimately fall. But I think bullies just keep doing it for the rest of their lives, spreading mental illness and disabilty like noone's buisness. I think bullies should be shot. I mean, it's THIER mental problem, not the victims. Why would you sacrifice someone who is decent for the sake of someone whose only use in life is causing suicide? So all you sticks and stoners, do me a favor, put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.

YES! It seems Hana Yori Dango manga is hitting in July (under the names "Boys Over Flowers" YES! and only 9.95! (Also, Wedding Peach which is sweet, but not as exciting as Hana Yori Dango)

ennh says that my blog makes him/her wish that blogs were around when he/she still cared about ranting. While he/she is entitled to his/her opinion, I'd like to use his/her words as a jumping off point to say a few words about bullying, because the thing that pissed me off was not just the rampant homophobia, it was the idea that people deserved to be harassed for any reason.

Some always blame yourselfers will go around trying to say that it is your fault you're being bullied. Don't listen to them. Noone needs to be tied up in knots trying to blame themselves for what others have done. It's just plain silly; people at advanced ages like 30 and 50 still feel hurt when people reject them or make snotty comments, and they are more mature and can at least quit. When you're in high or middle or even elementary school, you have to be in that building every day and can't escape. Your self image is also more delicate than it is when you're older.

So the next time some 'blame your selfer' tries to blame your childhood abuse on you, say that personal responsibility goes both ways. I'll apologize when I have done something wrong. And no, reading books or not being pretty does NOT qualify.

Today in sociology, I watched this movie, and it made me so mad. It was about Gays in the workplace, and how some bigots can't keep their moronic ideas to themselves. It's not so bad to be homophobic if you want to waste your time hating someone or maybe just mutter a prayer for their souls or something. But if you think you have to put their faces on triple x photos and put them in the company breakroom or paint someone's car with anti gay slurs or beat someone up or fire perfectly good workers because they might want to lick pussy in their spare time, you have a problem.

Not only are you a worthless loser of a human being, you don't have good economic sense. You're running off workers who are qualified and competent just so you can indulge your little hate party. If a lesbian wants to cook food and is doing it as well as anyone else, I don't care unless she's licking pussy on top of the food! And as for the 'children', what if the children are gay? What if you have some little 12 year old who is just waking up and finding that yea, guys are hot? What are you supposed to do then?
And all you people trying to use religion to justify hate, just stop it. You're ruining good religion. Religion can be used to help people and here you are using it to justify your hate crusade. God, homophobics make me sick.

Today I cut off my hair. The (black) stylist asked me over and over if I wanted it done, and I said yes. I guess it would seem strange to some people who had aspired to shoulder length hair for years, but my hair wasn't doing much for me underneath a hat. Interestingly enough, a white lady was supportive telling about how she was nervous about cutting her hair.

I bought some head bands at CVS. It feels good to walk around without a hat. (It's 80 degrees here) I am pretty interested in not having to fool with it for a while.

Yesterday, I received two mini comics, which are self published comics with usually a small print run. The title of both of them was Nonsense (#1 and #2). The writer/artist is a guy by the name of Steve Clark. The first involves his creepy man who is naked yet has no genitalia and his mental state. I liked the funny pay offs in both of the stories, one of which involves the man going to the mental hospital for a suicide attempt, and the other involving the man's general solitude.

The second which I enjoyed a lot involved the man's dating problems. The first story was about a young woman with mental problems whose boyfriend abuses her. The other characters in the story are represented as rabbits. To me, there were funny bits, but maybe I have a weird sense of humor. The other story was about how the man watches unrealistic love comedies and then totally misinterprets a lady not being attracted to him. I thought this was funny, but then again..

The drawing style is pretty good, clear lines, and such. I obtained them by writing to his email (Jihad4bush@hotmail.com) and requesting the comics. Since they don't cost anything, there's nothing to lose by trying them. Sometimes I wish I was good enough to do a mini comic.

.This site explores the idea of black women accepting their hair. Many people may not know this, but Caucasian hair is held up as ideal in American society. Turn on BET and you'll see a lot of black women with bone straight hair, but that is not natural, and requires a lot of processing.

If you have ever seen a woman or a man with an afro, that gives you some idea what black hair actually is like. It is pretty kinky, and while versatile, some people think it looks ugly in its natural state. I think it looks fine, and want to get back to my natural state, since I hate having my hair relaxed.

This is pretty awesome. I didn't even know that this existed til a few minutes ago. Well, there goes my calc homework.

I have had several dreams lately, but I remember only fragments.Today's dream involved me in fields of grass and concrete, searching for pieces of songs. I remember being in a car with my brothers, one of their friends and two guys I have never seen before and they were in a band. I remember the big performance, too.

The band was both performing and watching the performance. My oldest brother had a chorus line of girls dancing next to him, and some guys in the front were getting pretty crazy. Some of my schoolmates( black, one clad in a head wrap, wrap around shirt and long skirt) were painting glittery textiles. The friend of my brother remarked we all smoked because of his brother.

Another dream involved me living with my Japanese teacher. I kept spilling bowls of rice and having to vacuum it up with an ineffective dust buster.

In another, I was wandering around the mall. I think I was looking for the platonic shoe ideal, and a hair dresser. One said they couldn't do my hair there, it was closing, but gave me a list of all the chain in the area and their phone numbers. I was eternally grateful.

Today has been a great day for links. We Love The Iraqi Information Minister is full of hilarious quotes from our favorite reality challenged Iraqi.

Also, I find the idea that there is some sort of ideal vagina pretty strange. Also, the weirdest part about this site is that someone has some sort of vested interest in making people feel bad about their vaginas. A quote- "Men are not interested in female genitalia which present deformities, although most men will have intercourse with a woman who presents some degree of labial deformations. They will not seek a long term relation ship with her because of her abnormal vagina."

I can just imagine the conversation:

Man: Our relationship..it's great...

Woman: Yea?

Man: This really has been the best six months of my life, but..

Woman: But?

Man: It's your labia, they're asymmetrical.

Woman: And...?

Man: Under all that hair...oh, it's so coarse, god, your vagina..it just isn't pink..

Woman: I'm black, fool.

Man: Ooh, I just can't go on!

"Words come and go, how did nigger last so long?"- comic on comedy central.

IThere is a difference between laughing with and laughing at. 2 stories:

We were playing cards in the sci fi club and in this game, we matched cards that seemed alike or that seemed funny. Green card was the word we were trying to match. Red was our card. Green card was outrageous, and my red card was Bangkok. The guide was tickled and I was winner of that round.
A guy siiting next to me was like you crazy bitch!
and we all laughed.

Another story. At a school dance, I was taking a break from badly gyrating my body to horrible rap.
I stumble across two people- a guy and a girl who I had been slightly acquantanced with over the last semester.
He greets me in a mock southern accentas and she tries to hide her snickering

Which is laughing with and which is laughing at?

In a spirit of boredom, I have decided to modify a small portion of the Communist Manifesto. Maybe the sharper among you can guess whose voice it is 'speaking'. The modification is in brackets.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

[Oh, you're such a drama queen!}

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-masterand journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another

[It takes more muscles to frown than smile!]

, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

[Me, me, me, that's all you talk about]

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank.

[Stop whining!]

In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

[You'd be happier if you lightened up!]

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms.

[Just get over it! It's not that crucial!]

It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

[Happiness is a state of mind!]

I don't feel well today. But this page is cool.

Blogging is great. It allows everyone to attempt to get their voices heard, on a daily basis. Sure, many can't spell or write, but they can at least try to get their thoughts out there. For me, personally, I am aware that my writing is not good enough to be in magazines, to inform the masses, and in real life, my voice can not be heard over all the shouting of others.

On a completely different note, one of my pet peeves is someone who gripes when you 'whine' and then starts talking about themselves. It'd be alright to be mad at someone for whining if you never did it yourself, but if you're telling someone to shut up about how their grandma was run over by a trolley, and then ten minutes later, start to talk about how horrible your hangnail was, what was the point?

It seems more like you are saying I am more important than you, than anything about the content of that person's thoughts. That's ridiculous. Noone human being is more important than any other.

And I'll leave this with an old and busted fable spruced up in new clothes: Once a man gained the ability to see heaven and hell. In hell, he saw the usual fire and brimstone, but in one chamber, he noticed a pot. All around it were broken spoons and the bodies of the denizens of hell scattered liberally. Around him, all he could see was the flurry of bodies and all he could hear were groans of pain and assertions of superiority.

He didn't like it there, so he went up to heaven. The air was cool and clean and filled with quiet conversation. Among the clouds, there was a pot, same as there was in hell. However, there was peace, as the denizens of heaven all fed each other. The man asked about this, and was told " Who can be higher than his brother?" The man was enlightened, from that day on.

I guess that wasn't a very good story, but I just made it up in two seconds. Give me some slack.

This is the fabric I bought to patch up my jeans. They are ripped to the knee, so if I fail in patching them, it is no big loss. And here is a heart warming blog about a guy's fight against anxiety.

A very moving site about some people's struggles to educate Japanese doctors about AIDS.

It's pretty obvious our culture is not a nurturing one. Millions are popping Prozac, and many take solace in TV and shopping. I wish there was something I could do to make our culture less toxic, to make it less based on who is 'cool' - i.e. the biggest asshole, and more based on helping each other, supporting each other, making the world better.

I don't know what to do, some people try to combat it with religion, but that is just as full of folly as our culture itself. Noone listens to me, and I have no particular talents. Some people of course will wonder why I am writing about it instead of making some intuitive leap and being able to do something. I find that I must clarify what I am looking for to be able to find it.

Time.com is very interesting today. It is good to see people covering dissent without kneejerking into 'well, they MUST be anti-American, or most ridiculously, 'they don't support the troops' (which is pretty damn stupid, if they didn't support the troops, they'd want the troops to die, not to come home safely and be with their families)

There is also an article on the difference in Arab and Us news coverage of the war. Hopefully this will open some people eyes, so they realize that there is always more than one side of the story. Realizing that different people can be correct at the same time may take some doing.

Two opposing views can be true at the same time. Saddam can be evil, at the same time, liberating people with bombs can be a silly idea. Personally, I can not march for peace today, because as usual I am worried about my calculus. I should just get up the courage to do it, but I feel so weak. I simply can't understand it at all

However, I would like to caution against thinking of people as all evil or all good. People who thought that way were the real perpetuators of 9/11. All us infidels needed to be destroyed, not seeing that the 'infidels' were good and evil and most in the middle. Good and evil doesn't see the complexities of life, how both good and evil can live in one person, without one winning over the other.

Wallpaper of the week. Lain this time, of course.

(slight spoilers for Lain) My favorite part of Lain is her multiple selves. I have always felt as if I had multiple selves. I guess it started as I became aware of how others perceived me. I was something strange, an alien, but I did not internally feel that way. When gossip was added to the equation, it became even creepier.

I don't know why, but I feel slightly uncomfortable with the idea that behind your back people are forming this whole self for you that has nothing to do with you. That people are not reacting to you, but this different self they have created for you inside their heads. To me, it feels like someone who looks like you is roaming around the country and doing despicable acts, and everyone thinks that it is you.

It is like the alter lain here. This horrible diseased personage that can not be killed. The worst part is that the truth will not dissuade others from believing what they want to believe; the sounds of their own minds drown you out. Somehow the need for a scapegoat, for blood, for ritual slaughter of the enemy, real or imagined, overwhelms the truth.

I hope I'm just making this all up.

Today I feel pretentious, so I'll remark on how each day never comes again. There will never be a day with exactly this feeling. Even if I oversleep my calculus' teachers office hours again, it will probably not be with the same reason-my alarm clock did not go off) or with the same threat of the test.

Even if I pop into the Women's Center trailer again, it won't be with the same sense of adventure, the same easy summoning up of the courage to ask about the massage therapy.

Even if NPR is on all day again, the news will never be the same, for each day is different. I'll never read Writing Down the Bones again in the dorm bathroom, dubbing 'doing your calculus' in for 'writing' as the author urges us to 'cut through and write'

I think my spell has passed. Oh well.

I really like NPR lately. Not only is there interesting programs (right now I am listening to the author of 'Teaching Lolita in Tehran' talk about her experience in Tehran) one can just relax and take it in. Although I don't have a TV nowadays, so NPR is in TV's place right now.

I normally do not watch much TV, actually. I like DVD better because it works on my schedule, not theirs. But I hear about all the great programming on Cartoon Network like Futurama, and I wish I could see it.

Here is a link to a site listing some self published comics. Warning, some are not for children. Later, Sequential Tart's new content will get a look.

Now girls, remember not to douche. It can cause vaginal infections. Also, this is merely a worthy site filled with infomation that all teens should know, about stds and suchlike. So remember to donate so that the infomation can get out there. This is not such a good time to be a teen, what with the war and the rampant conservativism, so...

I have no sense of humor so I don't like April Fool's Day. Then again, if I was the lucky person who never was the butt of cruel 'humor', I'm sure I'd love it. Although something awfulis actually pretty funny this April Fool's Day, opting to be funny instead of stupid and unfunny.

I actually like humor, but only things that are funny. I don't like slapstick humor much or grossout humor. Slapstick is ok if the gag is well crafted, but I'm not going to be all ho ho ho that guy just got kicked in the nuts. Grossout humor, well, I never really was ever fixated with my bodily functions, so when someone farts, I'm just thinking 'oh, someone farted. That was supposed to be funny?"

I like word based humor best, also character based humor. However, those are the most rare types of humor because they are much harder to do, than other types.Humor based on a character's human foibles must be set up and the character must be developed, which is much harder than having a baseball hit someone in the nuts.

My most disliked type of humor is humor with hostility behind it. Everyone knows the type. This person will say the most horrible things about someone and then hide behind 'it was a joke'. Well, people like this, you are not funny. If you have something to say, I think it is better to either have the bravery to say it right out or the sense to keep your trap shut.