(idea) by althorrat Thu Mar 03 2005 at 22:02:27
  • Saw Hotel Rwanda. Great, powerful film. I'll be noding it soon. I was totally going to go off on an anti-Oscars rant, but it seems it was nominated... twice. Didn't win anything, though. Anyway, the movie kinda piqued a morbid interest, so I went off to Borders and picked up Philip Gourevitch's book with the rather unwieldy title of "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families". It was apparently a New York Times bestseller when it came out in '98. I didn't know that, though; I picked it up because it was the only book Borders had on the subject. I also bought The Salmon of Doubt (because the HGTG movie is coming out at the end of next month, and to celebrate I'm going to reread all of Douglas Adams' novels), and the first volume of Azumanga Daioh, which I'll comment on a bit later.

  • I will never understand why people get rid of the jewel cases, and hell, even the instructions and CD inserts to games. I regret getting rid of my old PC game boxes as it is, but that at least was a space issue; I can't imagine having so little space I can't spare some for some jewel cases. Anyway, the EB at Arizona Mills mall apparently brought out its surplus Dreamcast games. If I had gotten every game there I wanted, I would've racked up a bill of $100 or more, but as it is I only bought Soul Reaver, Toy Commander, and Sonic Adventure. I paid two bucks extra for the Soul Reaver that had the front insert/manual. I suppose I could've swapped them real quick, but that would've been dishonest. On the other hand, once I got to my car, I realized the register biscuit had given me SA2 instead of SA1. All complaints I've heard about the former aside, it's a lot more expensive to get on the DC than the original, and I would've gotten it anyway to try out for myself. I may be scrupulous, but that doesn't include making up for the stupidity of others. Besides, it was a long walk back to EB.

  • The humorous thing about those "gay/lesbian interest" sections that are all the rage in bookstores these days is watching some guy stand right outside one, nervously looking around and shifting directions back and forth, as if he can't make up his mind what to do. It's never a woman you see doing that. Probably because lesbianism is a little more palatable to your average Joe and Jane Bagofdonuts, and so gay guys are likely to be more insecure. ...It's still funny, though.

  • I read through the entire first volume of Azumanga Daioh. ...I'd say that maybe some of the humor gets lost in the translation, but I don't think many of the people I know who rave about it read Japanese to any great extent. Don't get me wrong, there were some parts I laughed at, but most of it was just plain weird, not funny-weird. The fact that there's a lot of awkward language construction going on there doesn't help. Nor does the fact that I find it very difficult to tell many of the characters apart.

  • I don't know if I mentioned it, and I certainly doubt anyone cares, but I'm going to have a "new" car in about two days. Actually, I technically already have it; I'm just driving my old beat-up Malibu because I had a full tank of gas in it. It's a '94 Toyota Tercel. Nothing special, but better than driving a crumbling beast that's old enough to be my elder brother. Plus it was free, which is always a good price.
    • I like it!