Ninjas STILL can't catch you if you're on fire

THE GOOD TO EXCELLENT:
- Cheer-inducing links: I WANT THIS NECKLACE SO BAD. LIKE REALLY BAD AHHHH *_*, Yay Lady Gaga fanart!, TONY STARK FACTS FUCK YEAH, My inner 8 year-old is SQUEEING at this (western) live action Sailor Moon casting picspam, Another SPN genderswitch casting that I think has some interesting ideas of the Not Winchester characters
- It was a beautiful and sunny day, and I had lunch and hung out with Ex-Tutor Georg, Clemens and Wido at the Stiegl Ambulanz. Delicious noms (Kärtner Kasnudeln!) and a fantastic rambling conversation that quickly went off the tracks and turned into an exercise in who could say the most outrageously perverted things and tell the stupidest jokes. I am pleased to say that I scored a few good zingers and played a part in making two grown men cry from laughter :DD I also feel that I deserve bonus points, as we made Georg laugh through most of his sudden phone-call and be basically unintelligible to someone who turned out to be his date for tomorrow. WHOOPS :DD And when we parted ways I got a hug from him that lifted me up a bit (always thrilling when guys do this to me as I am not petite and light and thus never expect it) and a last parting shot that broke his brain (the fact that Vulcan peen is very likely green XDD)
- Saw A Single Man with Olga today, and what an amazing experience. An utterly gorgeous, intensely well-acted and wonderfully well-made movie that delighted, made you cry and even laugh at certain parts. Seriously, the last thing I expected going in to watch this was that I'd be laughing a bunch of times thanks to the sprinkling of jokes and moments of surprise levity. Colin Firth rightly deserves all the accolades he got for his role as George Falconer, he was spectacular. As was Matthew Goode (the flashbacks to various memories that George and Jim had together! AHHH sobsob). Nicholas Hoult seemed weirdly orange (probably because his hair was so light, too) and I spent a lot of time in his scenes staring at his faaaace and his fuzzy white sweater get-up and marveling at how tall he apparently is. Another thing that HAS to be mentioned is the score. OH MAN. I need to get the OST as soon as possible.
( Youtuuuuuube clips )

THE BAD TO EXTREMELY VEXING AND/OR RAGE-INDUCING:
- THE SITUATION BACK HOME. "Deadly blasts hit Bangkok protest" (helpful maps), "Bomb terror grips Silom" and Thai grenade attack kills at least 3". WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. This is just getting worse and worse. And what is perhaps the most creepy part of these attacks to me is that I know that area, and normally like spending time there (especially in the evening browsing the night market that is set up on the sidewalks... which, oh, was AROUND THE TIME THE GRENADES WENT OFF :|||). The BK Magazine office I interned at are basically also on the opposite side of the street where the grenades went off. As I've mentioned before, Bangkok is becoming more and more inhospitable for all the plans I had made for slowly getting myself settled there on my own-- living near Langsuan (a stone's throw away from the red-shirt camp), shopping and perhaps also working at Ratchaprasong (REAAAALLY smack-dab in the red-shirt camp) and now this happening to Silom? I've heard that the shopkeepers in the area are mobilizing and ready to defend their homes and livelihoods though, which is great. Though I can already see that this'll just end with more injured, and more dead. AUGHHH.
My plan remains reaaaaaally hoping for the Singapore thing to work out (the lady won't be calling me tomorrow after all, and I'll just be dropping by for a face-to-face interview on the 28th, since we're going to Singapore regardless. Yay birthday present!).

...I now forgot what else I was going to say. OH RIGHT I AM WAAAAAAAAAY NOT DONE WITH PACKING AND MOST OF MY LAST ERRANDS YET. FUUUUCK. So gonna stay home and try to get this done on my last night in Vienna tomorrow, I don't care how anti-climatic it is.

Which means that I finally got the chance to watch the Korean movie version of Fumi Yoshinaga's brilliant, brilliant manga Antique Bakery someone put on YOUTUBE in its ENTIRETY (+IN ACE QUALITY!!)and honestly? IT WAS SO GOOD. I expected something shallow and fun, but was prepared to cringe a bit from the adaptation, but it was A-with-a-capital-A adorable, quite faithful and detail-oriented and just all around well-made. The casting for the actors! The fact that they actually didn't cop out on Jean-Baptiste and Sun-Woo (=Ono) actually kissing on screen! THE (ACTUALLY NOT ALL THAT BAD) FRENCH! The musical numbers, seriously! And I admit, the last few minutes of the movie had me tearing up a bit, just like every time I reread the manga. The sense of calm, of just moving on with your life-- kjafhk basically, Fumi Yoshinaga's work so owns my heaaaaaart. which is why I will NEVER EVER EVER watch the craptacular j-dorama, hissssssssss

IN CONCLUSION: IF ANY OF YOU GUYS FEEL THE NEED FOR A MOOD LIFTER, CLICK THAT YT LINK ASAP. OR TORRENT THE DAMN MOVIE. It is brilliant and full of hot guys and delicious cake and even more delicious plot and character interactions, and then you should buy the manga and I will then hook you up with the porny dojinshi that the mangaka actually continued with drawing, AND IT'LL BE ALL GOOD. I mean, I was in kind of a crappy mood, and hella tired to boot, but now I have watched the movie and am now quite cheerful! Still tired as fuck, but w/e~~

( AS A BONUS/PICTORIAL PROOF, SOME MOVIE POSTER PICS )

AND OF COURSE, the following meme, which is full of Truth and Moar Truth: If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Since I have been constantly neglecting my other hobby of maaaaaanga, I've spent large bits of yesterday evening alternating the now usual punditry/RBR and SPN with catching up on my old series on onemanga.com:

Koukou Debut/Highschool Debut: IT'S OVER NOW??? D:! Now where will I get my occasional cute and fluffy highschool romcom fix? But oh, on what an adorable note it ended! Haruna and Yoh's relationship is just so adorable and I think this will be a series I will reread just for sheer 'DAWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!1' factor.

Bleach 353: ...never has it been more obvious in these last few dozen chapters that Kubo Tite is clearly working on autopilot or whatever, because uggggggggggggh I still like the art a lot, but holy hell has it turned ever so boring. And loosely plotted. Poor Ishida for lying around getting [SPOILERED] whilst everybody else was getting distracted by Ulquiorra/Ukelelelele's [SPOILER]. The color spread for this chapter was pretty boobtastic though, and Rangiku/Orihime's bikinis fit this time! >_>;;

Fullmetal Alchemist 94: AND BY CONTRAST, THIS IS HOW GRIPPING AND AWESOME ENTERTAINMENT that is true to the character's development, fitting with the overarching plot and just damn fine to read is done. HOT DAMN, ROY MUSTANG, YOU CRAZY SCARY FUCK ♥ EPIC EPIC EPIC ♥ For more spoilery discussion of HOW FANTASTIC!!!!!!11 it was, please to be checking out this post. Hiromu Arakawa just keeps on bringing it, and on that note-- how great is it that Sarah Reese Brennan/sarahtales's book's Japanese edition is getting a cover drawn by Arakawa-sensei?? SO MUCH WIN.

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AND IN OTHER RL NEWS, I am currently headdesking-slash-being infuriated at the stupid shit that is currently going on back home in Thailand. WHAT THE FUCK, RED SHIRTS, WHAT THE BLEEDING FUCK. Forcing the cancellation of the ASEAN summit in Pattaya? Breaking into the hotel? Fighting in the streets? Good to see you have clearly given up on trying to have the "moral high ground", though in my opinion the actions of the Chiang Mai fraction what with their random beat-ups of radio guys who allegedly support the Yellow shirts and the way you forced the gay pride parade to be canceled (SINCE THAT HAS SO MUCH TO DO WITH GETTING THAKSIN BACK) totally lost that tenuous hold since at least last November :/// And now the country is even more down the drain, re: international reputation, good job! Also, way to ring in the Thai New Year :|||. Akjhfekjhsfa it is just so terribly frustrating, and I honestly don't really know how this will get resolved, besides there just being a constant wave of protests and counter-protests ad infinitum. I don't profess to have a full view of the situation, but I like what I have heard of Abhisit so far, and I do think that he is a good choice, especially since he is ARTICULATE and SMART-- but there is only as much as he can do, especially since the fact that about 95% of the current politicians in the country are just fat, lazy and irreparably corrupt and self-centered anyways. UGHHHHH.

I meant to do something else, probably be all productive for uni and all, but then I reread 'Good Together' AND IT BROKE MY HEART ALL OVER AGAIN. Waaargh, Asapin TAT. Was hungering for moooar afterwards, but shame that 95% of the rest of the Karekano fics on FFNet continue to kind of well, suck. But I guess it's one of these fandoms that don't actually leave much room or give an urge for fic-writing? I remember being on Rhoddlet(of HP fic fame)'s webpage once and seeing a Karekano section on her fic page and there was this ficlet that featured the trio? Or referenced to Asaba's interest in Arima and I wanted so badly to click it but the link was incorrect or something like that, and I was so very bummed, heh. It is obviously one of the great fic losses that will forever haunt me, much like how I wish Rage Point's "On Moonlight's Leash"(HP AU, what-if James Potter didn't survive coming between Snape and Werewolf!Remus during the night of the Prank and the rippling effects this would have had on everybody. Super gritty and very noir-ish and exceedingly awesome) was a)continued and b)still be able to be found in some form on the Internets. Ahh :(.
But back to Karekano-- got around to reading some of the later volumes again and besides admitting to myself that I was kind of let down by the later bits/the end resolution, I was also kind of sad to note how Masami Tsuda's art style seemed to be getting blander and blander. Could hardly tell some of the characters apart and I must say that the 'not showing the eyes of a character because the ANGST/undefinable emotion is so strong' tick is fine and dandy, but not when it's executed as such that it looks more like the mangaka forgot to fill in the eyes. So I guess the point of this blather is that I will always love Karekano with a fierce love, Yukino, Arima and Asaba are just such great and lovable and interesting characters-- but my selective-perception shutters fall after around the halfway point of the manga, with certain scenes in the end being well and good, yet. I always wonder how it all would have been shown in the anime version, had it not sputtered off and died in the end a la GAINAX...

Theoretically I am not all that ill-prepared for my Umweltssoziologie test on Thursday.

I am HORRENDOUSLY unprepared for Step6, Step4 and Sozial Psychologie II next week though. And I have to be awake in six hours for the latter's last session and also need to wash my hair as I will be death warmed over later in this morning. :/

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BUT! Had a delicious dinner followed by DVD watching at my place with Clemens tonight~ Pasta with cream sauce and prawns and artichoke hearts with a lovely italian white wine aaaaand dessert: choco pudding interspersed with forest berries premade by yours truly earlier during the day. :D Dude better have appreciated my culinary attempts XDD Cooking really is more fun when you're not alone ♥
The DVD of the night was 'Ali' and I was pleasantly suprised at how awesome it was, especially the soundtrack. Fantastic music and Will Smith was great in his role!

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Spoiled myself for the end of Honey and Clover yesterday and jeeeesus shit when I was watching that scene from the anime version on Youtube the TEARS were rolling down my eyes like kajfhkjfh aaaaah HURTS SO GOOD. PERFECT INSERT SONGS. SIMPLY DIVINE. Ganked some off random LJ comm hoppings and shall probably be uploading em in the next post or so... AHhhhh *bliss*

...here I am, sitting in Ma's apartment, typing away online in the wee hours of the night. Before we even had a little squabble about when I'd drag my ass in the bathroom and take a shower. ...I-it's like I NEVER LEFT FOR OVER 6 MONTHS ahahahaha AWESOME XDD

Long story short, the flight from Wienna was better and quicker than expected, although I will always hate the last two hours before you actually land, because that's when most people start to get restless and twitchy, myself included lol. The Suvannabhumi airport, for all it's grandiose size still seems to be incomplete at places and as per the news tonight even has pock-marks on some runways? Oha oha... Also it just pissed me off like hell that immigration took so damn long.

The subsequent being picked-up by Ma and then later dinner at Central Ladphrao (JAPANESE FOOD IKURA HOKKIGAI TAKO BEEF TERIYAKI MHH MHH MHH) and manga buying extravaganza lifted my spirits like hell, though! SO many new titles and new volumes! Bleach is up to v23, Nodame Cantabile to v6! ES21 to god knows where! There's Pluto from Naoki Urasawa! And new shoujo volumes like Hanakimi 18 or NANA 13 ooor stuff like Gokusen 10 and 11 that I'd been waiting for! AHHHH ♥ And all this for the price I'd pay in Wienna for ONE MANGA gawd.

Am sadly typing this w Ma's kinda crappy laptop though, but am hoping to get moaar internets on MY laptop sometime tomorrow! PS Kaaat that's why I didnt get to send you the promised picspam yet as the dorm took me too much by my word and froze my net there for the month of February, as requested, buuut they started counting ab 00.01, which was unluuuukcy for me >_<;;

Hrrrm I do think that this must be Taktik by the Opposition then...if that last sentence didnt make sense to you, OOO JOIN THE CLUB!!

IT WAS ZERO DEGREES TODAY. ZERO FUCKING DEGREES. And I had to brave the throng of other last minute shoppers at the Mariahilfer street, gooood why didn't I just get my ass out of bed during the week? But! Got some retarded kiddie music CD for Sara, a Paris-map satchel for La, wrapping paper, ribbon aaaand legwarmers for me to wear under my jeans because OMG COLD. ...went looking for the other half of what Kat requested but they seem to have JIMI HENDRIX calendars of all things, yet no US5 D: Duuude, whut. Shall check again with La in Swizzieland too then. Menno, that really annoyed me. Decided to get Opa and V's presents there too, arrgh last names to go!

Also discovered that I should probably cut down on the McD's since my stomach doesn't seem to be agreeing with it.(BUT I HAVE FREE COUPONS FOR APPLE PIE)... And actually I should probably just stop eating altogether, as I seem to be cursed ever since I made the mistake of reheating those damn burritos. CURSES. :/

Was overcome with the odd urge to plug in the old graphic tablet and faff about with Photoshop aswell when I came back and thus, I present the results!

( Hikaru no FASHION )

( This one's for you KAAAAT <3 )

( Something from last week )

Tomorrow will be the last gettogether of the year with Anja and Carmen and theeeeen I shall be nervously packing and chugging back cokes to STAY AWAKE until leaving for the airport on monday morning AKA 4.30AM WAKE UP aaah and if I come back from Anja's place at ten I DONT TRUST MYSELF TO WAKE UP IF I FALL ASLEEP aaaaaah... D:

KAT: ...I MET UP WITH NAT TODAY~~!!

And guess what: SHE READS MANGA(well okay she borrows from her friend Olga, who ...is apparently my manga reading soulmate as far as we compared series lol. Nat reads the girliest shoujo ever tho, hee)
...oh and the best part:SHE LIKES OURAN(!!!)and knows about shounen-ai/yaoi too cuz this Olga really digs it apparently. She was all 'ahh my friend also really likes these gay comics*shifty look over to me*' and I'm like all *DYING INSIDE and alksflfglk keyboardmashing in my mind* and '...ahahahaha. Um. Duuuude same here ahahah. Hah'. So that makes her the first person (kinda) from school that knows about my deep dark SEKRIT LOVE. Haaaah XDD

We just met up for some eats, ice cream and strolling around the admittedly quite packed for saturday streets in the shopping area of town. Aaand dropped by the Thalia bookstore under the pretense of getting a book that Nat needed for school and both ended up walking out with a haul o' english books. :D

MY HAUL:
__ Lewis Carrol, 'Alice in Wonderland' ...always wanted my own copy! And 'The Jabberwocky' is possibly my all time favorite poem in english :D

__ Collected Sketches of Monty Pythons' Flying Circus ...was kinda hearing a Chrissie-voice in my head telling me to buy this. Must pester him to burn me the DVDs or something

__ Dave Eggers, 'You Shall Know Our Velocity' ...I know I already have this in BKK but dammit I needed a second copy~

__ Dave Eggers, ''How We Are Hungry' and other short stories' ...I think I kind of shrieked when I saw this in the bookshelf. AHH. Bought it mostly for the short story 'After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned', which is from the perspective of a dog and I can't even begin to describe it adequately but this story never fails to make me cry a bit everytime I read it and has my favorite description of heaven, hands down. BLISSSSSS

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Oh and the 'clubbing' yesterday? A resounding 'meh'. Alt-rock, whilst normally something I love to listen to, is in no way something that you can dance too. The Flex(...which can really be summed up as a 'DRECKIGE SCHUPPEN' o god eww) was full of weird people just standing around bopping their heads. GIVE ME CHEAPASS COMMERCIAL HIP-HOP ANY DAY DD:
So, whilst I did end up at home at 5.30AM I was still stone cold sober and had sore feet cause someone thought it'd be fun for us to walk from the club to the WUK('nother club thing), which turned out to be ...heck, I can't tell but normally something like 11 busstations/2 districts away. Good thing I had my sneakers on lol.
Hopefully the next times will be better!

Have been a bit preoccupied lately, I wish I could say doing things of consequence, alas...no. Although some of the things could be deemed as such re: Matura happenings and yay!friends-related things...
Am gonna be off to Ma's again for a bit and thought I'd whip together some links before I leave my lovely computer with it's lovely bookmarks...D:

Manga links!:

_Ouran Highschool Host Club (Volumes 1-4) ...KAT you haaave to read this! It is beautiful and lovely and on all sorts of crack, which makes it ultimate mood-lifting material after tests etc.! There is an anime which looks utterly fabulous as well, alas I haven't managed to get my hands on it yet. Have dropped a line to Ginger tho, maybe her sources can come up with something...
Hrmm, PLOT: Haruhi is a scholarship student from a 'common' background at the prestigious Ouran Highschool, where the offspring of the (filthy) rich and fabulous go to get their education. One day she comes across the school's resident Host Club (where the various young misses of Ouran come to get tea and entertainment from the six very attractive members). Stuff happens and BAM she accidentally knocks over an 8 million yen vase, which means she from now on has to work off her debt by joining the club. *DANDANDAN* Hijinks ensue! ...my shitty summary aside, this really is good fun- Haruhi is one of the more memorable heroines, so practical and sensible...in great contrast to all the other oddball rich kids in the series. ALSO: I LOVE TAMAKI. The twins are awesome, Kyouya is scarily cool, Honey-sempai is cute and Mori-sempai is nice ...but eeeee! Tamaki is King ♥ Such a spazz! Yet with a lovely sensible side that peeks out every now and then and reading his antics just make me happy ♥

_Bleach (until most recent chapter) Shinigami/God of Death action par excellence!
...:DD! If it doesn't strike your fancy at first, the art and plot improves at least by volume 7. But I felt that the awesomeness of Bleach really was cemented after Ishida's appearance ca. volume 4 or so (chapter 34 onwards)...♥ Aaaand it's an online viewer, so double yay for practicality? You can d/l from there too apparently~
(*enaaables youuu* come faaaangirl with meeeee)

Recent (fic) reading:

_Ashes, ashes ...Naruto fic. GAAAAAH. Creepy concept and realisation. *twitches*

_SNAFU:The World According to Schuldig ...Weiss Kreuz. Fucking hilarious XDD. Moooore~~ (rec from daegaer)

_Visiting Hours ...SV. Rereading this, or anything by Pru is always a joy. Arggh some people have just a way with words and it is embarrassing how often I actually teared up reading this series >_>;;

_Two Houses, Both Alike in Dignity ...HP. Another take on Slytherin!Harry, this time with Harry/Ron as the later pairing. The author has an interesting spin on things and there is still alive!Sirius and lots of nice details on Pureblood customs and details. Especially re: the Potters. Had loads of fun plowing through this, eventhough I don't really go for Harry/Ron most of the time...

_campfuckudie is utterly fun to follow now- especially now that the KH2 cast is mostly there (Roxas! Axel! Sora! and new arrivals: Larxene! Demyx! and Riku!). And the Tamaki there continues to make me squee, as are Gwendal, Wolfwood, the Ishidas, and well [insert list of usual favorites here] :DDD Oooh and Kami-sama is there too! *glees*


...aaanyways! It is now 3.30 AM and since I am supposed to get up in less than 3 hours I prolly should go to bed now :DD

Enjoy~~ ♥

Have been plowing my way through the massive pile of manga I managed to buy over the last two days...and eee! I love this feeling ♥ (I have no ...poor impulse control...)

Ouran Hostclub 1-5:
Haaah Tamaki is such a darling! First character imprinting go! But have slowly grown to love the twins(Oh! Volume 5...) and have an odd fondness for Mori-senpai. Kyouya is intimidating, but oh so interesting to observe, and the bodyswitch omake with Tamaki was comedy gold~ ♥ Wonder if Ginger has the anime burned? Because argh I need to see this~~

Kimi wa Petto 1-8:
...I was certainly blown away by how much awesome this is! Sumire is a kickass, successfull hot lady protagonist, yet her issues about revealing her 'true self' to everybody else keep her from even thinking of entering Mary-Sue territory. I just adore how her relationship with Momo is...I mean of course, viewed from an outside perspective it is plenty odd and reeks of escapism from both sides but...! Agh I wibble and make awww sounds nonetheless. Hasumi-sempai too, is one of the most oblivious yet goodhearted characters ever...I am torn between rooting for Momo and Sumire to get togther or for Sumire to just let the mask drop in front of Hasumi.
(It's a sign of good shoujo for me if it's hard to 'hate' one of the characters or take sides)
Also, I think the art is beautiful, in it's own unique way. Say whatever of the faces, but Ogawa-sensei's anatomy is lovely, all slenderness and clean lines. (It's extremely easy on the eyes too- sometimes the art in shoujo like some of the Clamp works or even Ouran is too much for me...)
The chapter covers are always fun to look at as well.
And if that wasn't enough I was sold on the fact that Lucifer's Call is mentioned in a throwaway remark- Momo goes "Welll I have to free Hijiri from the Amala Network anyhow..." when Sumire gives him the cold shoulder for something. HEE ♥ I wonder what beasties Momo'd have in his party~

Cromartie High 7-9:
....BWAHAHAHAHAHA Gorillas everywhere! One of the best parts of this manga are the chapter outtakes, too- Kamiyama's received New Years Wishes! Childhood essays! XDDD

Other:
_BOOM : Yay for three Bleach chapters! And for the news that the gazillion colour pages in Volume 19 will be printed in the thai version too! Only have to pay like 10 baht more or something...(Oh and daaaamn Ichigo's lookin' mighty fine on that cover ♥)
_random BL manga: ...still need to read it ahehehe

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Other than that- went up-country today to Ratchaburi to pay some respects and meet some distant-ish relatives. There was a cage full of seven kittens at the temple too, presumably dumped there by someone. They were sooooo cute! And very hungry so we kept feeding them some of the left over food that we didn't give to the monks... Ahh, the whole place was over run with animals actually- cats and dogs(tiny scraggly pot-bellied puppies, who were quite gutsy when it came to defending their food from the older dogs) and chickens, all running about.
My idiot cousins were fascinated the most by the kittens and started poking at them with sticks, along with some other stupid brat that I ended up smacking because he was such a punk ass. I mean, poking kittens, yanking their tails and trying to pour ice tea over them as well as trying to pull them out of their cage is just plain cruel and unneccessary- especially if they're still young. With older cats, they can still defend themselves at least. So we all ended up keeping a careful eye on that brat. (The kittens were later taken under the wing of one of the nuns there)

Oh and I have blue painted nails now ♥! Friday was facial and manicure/pedicure day~~