Then I found this weird sculpture, tall, black, metal, segmented and jointed, conical, with parts that moved when you touched them. It wasn't a sculpture, but an inactive robot; and its twin came out into the intersection, announcing, "Find the labyrinth piece under the altar! Find the labyrinth piece under the altar!" It was a command to this section of the colony for everyone to go search for something. (The labyrinth piece? WTF is that?)
...I was surrounded by little people with weapons out of the old Doctor Who eps--actually, World of Warcraft gnomes, now that I think of it--and I was fighting them and trying to get away.
Then I woke up.
"What the hell was that about?" I asked myself crossly.
It's so typical: I'm dreaming about something wonderful, fantastic, beautiful...and it turns into farce, and then I wake up. (I'm not kidding; this world made Pandora look like freakin' Newark.) Then the gnomes and their stupid weird robots.
*sigh*
* * *
No, I haven't seen Avatar. But those nerds got suicidal over its non-existence, so I figure it's a beautiful world. And it's supposed to be "Gaia", you know. (I did watch that dude's review of it, the guy who shredded "Phantom Menace".)
* * *
Anyway, today's adventure: my brother took us out to dinner at Benihana's. It was his birthday yesterday and his wife's mother's birthday on Wednesday (she was with us) and his daughter had just finished modeling at a bridal fashion show. (For rep points, not money.) (WoW joke. Point is, she didn't get paid for it.)
We were supposed to meet at the restaurant at 4; Mom and I left home about 3:30 and got there an hour later, and my brother et al had not been waiting very long, so all's well with that.
The GPS served quite handily. I've been to that Benihana's about four times in my life, the last time being in 2000, so I needed a little help with terminal guidance.
Not actually Japanese food, yada-yada. But it's a delicious and entertaining (and expensive!) meal. Mom had been unsure she felt like going, but she perked up yesterday and we went.
The meal starts with soup. We ordered sushi and I ended up having an entire roll of kappa maki to myself, so from the moment they started serving the food I ate continuously: soup, salad, kappa-maki, shrimp appetizer, vegetables, steak...I was stuffed and had to bring some of it home.
I just ate the leftovers. Microwaved them in the container for 45 seconds; they were delicious. More importantly, it was something different, which I have been craving of late. Not Chinese, not fast food, not pizza, not pork chops, not chicken, not hamburger helper, nor spaghetti. Ahhh.
* * *
...I make better fried rice though. No, I didn't say so to the chef.
* * *
I regretfully logged out of WoW around 2 AM Sunday morning specifically because I knew I'd have to get up; well, I didn't have to get up until 2:30 PM, which is good, because I re-read Yotsuba&! 2-4 and then volume 5, and didn't actually turn out the light before 4 AM.
I really hope there are more than 7 volumes of this. There were 7 at Border's.
...somewhere ahead is this image of Fuuka, and I can't wait for the context, and NO DON'T FREAKIN' TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON HERE:
She's saying, "JYAN! JYAN! JYAN!" which is something like a fanfare; the small text in the last balloon contains too much kanji for me to decipher. I really hope this is Azuma's work and not from a doujin.
You know, but even if it's not, I am honored just to be in the same room as that image.
(I came across a doujin which extended the "busted bathroom lock" story. You know where Fuuka gets stuck trying to get out the window? This doujin just spliced in some more story--ecchi stuff--right there, and it nailed Azuma's art style.)
UPDATE: It's from a doujin. *sigh* Kanji reads: "It's my school swimsuit!" /UPDATE
* * *
Though nearly all anime babes are extra-cute, they are in fact not all supposed to represent people who are actually extra-cute.
An example from High School Girls: Eriko is drawn with the usual black lines surrounding blank space. But in fact the other girls refer to Eriko having dark skin; toning a dark-skinned character is a pain and takes too much time, so it's usually not done unless it's really important (such as if the character is a Ko-gal). Of course skin tone varies across the population and asians are no exception, so there are asians with light and dark complexions. Eriko's is darker, but not shown as such.
The same series shows some girls (the "otaku" or "freak" group girls) as being unattractive by doing some hideous things with the character designs; but then we get a closeup look at one of them and suddenly she's drawn cute.
Some artists manage this effect a bit better, but it's rare for any young woman to be drawn non-cute. (Rare exception: in Yawara! there are two attractive female characters: Yawara and Sayaka, and Sayaka is drawn less cute than Yawara is. The other female characters are non-cute. Particularly Yawara's friends, all of them.)
The way Azuma drew Fuuka, I was pretty sure Fuuka wasn't supposed to be particularly attractive. Fuuka's older sister Asagi is supposed to be a real babe; compare her character design to Fuuka's. Fuuka has such a simple (and slightly unruly) long bob for a hairstyle, and her eyebrows are thick, two cues which are supposed to say "plain" to the reader.
Yet she's popular enough with the guys that a guy tries to pick her up at the beach, and has had one guy at school confess his love for her. (At age 16, she's a first-year in high school.) So she is, in fact, at least "cute" and probably "pretty", and other people say so in the comic itself.
...in fact, in the chapter where Fuuka offers Yotsuba and her father their old TV, there's considerable mention made of "Lovely Fuuka". And I have to wonder if there was a pun they simply couldn't translate on "Ayase Fuuka", her name....
* * *
Anyway.
...logged out of WoW despite the fact that I was having a really good time. Ormus got promoted in the guild to "Noble", which gives him greater access to the guild bank and the ability to invite others into the guild. (This is a power I won't use.)
I've been dumping "bind on pickup" stuff--greens--into the guild bank because Ormus has 200 GP, you don't get much money for them from vendors, and I'm too lazy to auction the stuff myself. That's probably one reason I got promoted. Also, I've been playing Ormus exclusively since I created him, because I'm having such a good time--not just with the mage character class, but with the role-playing.
People have responded well to the role-playing, and it's fun.
If Ormus needs cash, I sell leather; I'm nearly to 375 in skinning and I skin everything I kill that's skinnable. Leather fetches a pretty good price at auction, particularly the higher-level stuff.
But Ormus doesn't need to spend a lot of money on food or drink, because mages can summon food and drink. (IMHO it violates the Laws of Thermodynamics to summon drink, because you get mana from drink, but WTF, it's magic after all.) Whenever I pick up foor or drink as loot, I sell it. In fact, most of Ormus' money goes to buy training and spell reagents (teleport runes, arcane powder).
I was having fun last night.