My flight to Tokyo was to go from Houston to Minneapolis, pause for about an hour, then continue on to Narita Airport. (That makes sense. Really. The whole 'great circle' thing.) However, it seems that another flight headed to Minneapolis, intended to connect to the same international flight, is late, and thus we are delayed for an extra 2.5 hours or so. Due to being an addict, I found myself compelled to fork over the seven dollars necessary to access the Minneapolis Airport's wireless internet service, and now, ironically, find myself without much to do for the remaining hour. It's too early for many places IRC to be really active, I suppose! I'm attempting to download Naruto 92 on BT in the time I have, but I don't think I'm going to make it. Oddly, my upload speed is a lot higher than my download speed, which means one of two things I can think of. One is that the airport connection has the reverse of what is normal asymmetric allocation of bandwidth, which I find really unlikely. The other is that so many of the other people torrenting this file have choked their upload that it's simply unable to give me more than about 8k/sec regardless of my connection. I find that much more likely.

Don't choke your upload, fuckers. I mean, if it's killing your connection to leave it unchecked, then lower it to a reasonable amount, sure; but it's just selfish to put it down to the minimum all the time. Please?

...Yeah, that's not gonna download in time. I guess I should wait until I get to Tokyo, hope ANBU/Aone's is out by then, and grab that.

There're a bunch of Japanese people around here waiting to go to Tokyo, and I keep finding myself tempted to start talking to them to practice my Japanese. I figure I should hold off, though, coz for one thing, striking up conversations with strangers isn't something I normally do/am remotely good at/etc, and secondly, in under 24 hours (assuming no MORE delays) i'll have more such opportunities than I know what to do with.

Once in Tokyo, I'm thinking of taking a side trip to Akihabara if there's time. I need a cell phone, an electric dictionary, a wallet sized for Japanese money, a wireless hub, and an optical wireless mouse. ...Okay, 'need' gradually decreases in how appropriate a descriptor it is in that list. Perhaps I can cover the more crucial parts in Shinjuku, which, I think, is where we'll end up for the Tokyo Orientation--which lasts to Wednesday. Then comes the prefectural orientations, or so I hear--I've never been contacted by my contracting organization, so I don't really know what sort of things Chiba-ken might have planned for us. If they are indeed then, we'll take a trip to Chiba City, probably set up in a hotel there, and continue to do random workshops to cover things I imagine I know most of. (I don't mean to have excess hubris about my knowledge of Japan, but honestly, a bunch of people here don't speak any Japanese beyond yes, no, numbers, thank you, and good afternoon. And the workshops seem to mostly be aimed at them. I've been here before, so, you know, I might be able to miss some of them or something--'course, I'll then worry that they'll give us some piece of crucial information like where to meet our respective prefectural advisors, or whatever such people we might want to meet, in such a missed meeting. And, of course, it's not like I know everything... there's always a chance I might find out something new, so, I should try and hit all the workshops. ... Maybe. Oh, and they might have workshops on teaching! I should go to those, seeing as, despite both my parents being teachers, I don't really know a lot about the stuff.

Hmm, hmm.

[16:35:50] <You> man
[16:36:01] <You> i get such fucking weird computer problems
[16:36:09] <You> my laptop stopped booting last wednesday
[16:36:22] <You> it'd show the dell logo screen, then like, immediately it'd go to this dos-like screen that said
[16:36:27] <You> L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
[16:36:27] <You> etc
[16:36:30] <You> about half the screen
[16:36:42] <You> i tried running diagnostics: failure
[16:36:52] <You> today i finally took it into a computer help desk free for students on campus
[16:37:05] <You> they ran some shit, including a cd that apparently has some version of windows safe mode on it
[16:37:09] <You> it booted to the cd okay
[16:37:25] <You> ran chkdsk, found a couple bad sectors, but not related to booting
[16:37:42] <You> oh btw, i pulled the battery out once or twice when i had it at home, just in course of trying to fix it
[16:37:48] <You> eventually we reinstalled windows
[16:37:59] <You> and that has helped, though it still won't boot normally
[16:38:15] <You> (it'll boot from the "do you want to start windows now?" question after reinstalling, but not any other way)
[16:38:29] <Lakupo> Have you called Dell?
[16:38:32] <You> (so basically i have to reinstall every time i want to boot it, which means i need to get all my files off and then reformat)
[16:38:34] <You> no not yet
[16:38:35] <You> anyway
[16:38:42] <You> the most confounding part of all this
[16:38:47] <You> is that when windows finally did boot up
[16:38:50] <You> AFTER the reinstall
[16:39:07] <You> AFTER we'd shut it down completely, removed the power via disconnecting the battery, multiple times
[16:39:18] <You> it was all "Select User"
[16:39:22] <You> "Rob Hamilton: 5 programs running"
[16:39:28] <You> clicked, windows opened up
[16:39:43] <You> and mirc, aim, the shit i'd had running before i stuck it in standby just before this problem started
[16:39:45] <You> was all still there.

nose: chyimerasame
elbow: cxhimerasaaame
tongue: chimerasame
chin: cv hi9merqaswawmn er
feet: chimerasame
eyes closed and one finger: chimerasamr
back of hand: cfhuoim,ret5rsaesa,mr
palm: chimerassam,re
mouse: chimersame ... hah, at first i thought it meant to do this by c&p;'ing individual letters, and i was like "that's not hard!"
wrist: chyt8mjeraqswasm, e

Sometimes I get into this mood where I'm just not amused by anything. Donno what triggers it, really. People'll be their usual silly selves online and, unlike usual, it just annoys the fuck out of me. I don't like the mood much, coz it makes me feel guilty--I crack a lot of jokes myself much of the time, and many of them are pretty damn bad. In my normal moods, I don't really mind that sort of thing when other people do it--a bad joke isn't painful, really, just unfunny. Worst it can do is waste my time. Then I get in a mood like this, and find myself highly irritated by half the people talking, and I wonder how often other people are in similar moods.

Then I proceed to wonder, also, if this isn't really a mood at all, and, for the time being, everyone else on the internet is just being stupendously lame.

I'm not sure which is less disturbing.

I'm going to Chiba-ken, Ootaki-machi.
夷隅郡大多喜町 (isumigun'ootakimachi)
If I'm reading these maps right, it's within an hour or two slow-train-ride from Tokyo (the really fast train would probably take about a half-hour, but I'm not sure if it runs that route, and it may not be available.)

I'm in the left/south most of the yellow areas. I think.

Edit: Ah, here's one with english letters.

I ask anyone and everyone who reads this to post in here something they would LIKE to do with me SOMEDAY.

Then post this in your journal to find out what I want to do with you.

Not only advertising this wacky game to you guys, but giving myself a link so I can get to it from other computers I might be at.

The rest of the Acen pics that I took have been uploaded.

Due to storms in Ohare's general area, the plane I was on (which had already been delayed 1 hour 5 minutes prior to takeoff) started to go into a holding pattern. We couldn't land; Ohare wasn't allowing landings. Then, we had to go to Indianapolis and land there, because apparently airplanes don't carry much fuel these days. I wonder how they get overseas! (Okay, so, I was in a smaller airplane than that kind. Still.) We were in Indianapolis for about 1.5-2 hours, then finally flew back to Ohare.. waited 20-30 minutes to get a terminal, and after getting a cab to the hotel (far too many people in line for me to wait for a shuttle), arrived at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare at around 11, roughly five hours later than I expected.

I'd met El, Vash, and Rich before, and have now also met Irenes, Kouban, Bikke, Bikke's sister Galindorf, Pokey, Jay, Clara, Andrea (rather briefly), Tami, and Haunter. And got a small selection of pics. El is that red mage viera, but the rest of the cosplayers are people I don't know--at least, at the time of this writing. That Jiraiya ruled, tho, as did the Sana's Mom.

Stuff from last night is detailed in my previous post.

I went to the Excel Saga panel, and someone asked all the panelists, "What was your favorite moment working on Excel Saga?" Nabeshin (real deal, Watanabe Shinichi, complete with real afro and everything) said "During the making of the show, I got married, and didn't go to work for a while. That was enjoyable."
Another Japanese guy said "During the show, Nabeshin got married, and he didn't come to work for a while. That was enjoyable."
Then Monica Rial, Hyatt's English seiyuu... spit up a good mouthful of tomato juice she'd just drunk onto a plate. It was awesome! They offered the plate to the audience afterwards, but I don't know if anyone took it.

I got a free Gravion DVD at the ADV industry panel for knowing that Nabeshin stood for Watanabe Shinichi. Being Gravion, the price was right, according to what I've heard. Ah, well. Not everyone can get the Azu DVD1+Box, or Chrono Crusade manga. Yes, ADV put the 'o' into Chrno Crusade.

Internet is 6 bucks for 2 hours, so I don't intend to hang around too long--or else I'd try and give more details. Perhaps I shall write more once at home!

[17:11:33] <Chimerasame> we spent a long time last night going to a restaurant that doesn't exist
[17:11:43] <peregrine> who's we
[17:11:46] <Chimerasame> uhmm
[17:12:01] <Chimerasame> me, bikke, pokey, irenes, b, tami, vash, koub, and jay
[17:12:12] <CronoDekar> how surreal
[17:12:25] <Chimerasame> walked for about 15, 20 minutes to where the acen book said a restaurant would be
[17:12:26] <Chimerasame> it wasn't
[17:12:33] <Chimerasame> asked someone, they said it'd been closed for two years
[17:12:43] <Chimerasame> we went to a denny's instead in the area, ran into rich and haunt
[17:12:54] <Chimerasame> they said that denny's was taking like 2 hours to get peoples orders out
[17:13:02] <Chimerasame> so we went to a third restaurant, who i had called on the phone
[17:13:11] <Chimerasame> <me> you guys are a restaurant that's open now, right?
[17:13:15] <Chimerasame> <lady> .. uhh, yeah
[17:13:31] <Chimerasame> <me> okay, what kind of food are you, just, like, generic american food, like friday's or something?
[17:13:41] <Chimerasame> <lady> yeah pretty much
[17:13:50] <Chimerasame> we go
[17:14:00] <Chimerasame> it's a steakhouse at which the prices were in whole numbers.
[17:14:07] <Chimerasame> we leave~
[17:14:17] <Chimerasame> and end up feasting upon appetizers in the hotel sports bar

I was recently talking to someone who personally "excused" the recent malicious actions of some Iraqi soldiers by saying that the terrorist threat, as evinced by the ~5,000 people killed in 9/11 and various smaller attacks in Israel and the like, is so bad that anything to deter "those fuckers" is justified. He then went on and--I'm not sure if he was being completely serious at this point, but it didn't seem he was really joking, either--said that we should use nukes as deterrents, as happened fifty-nine years ago in Japan.

I proclaimed that there's no way 100,000+ deaths could possibly be justified to potentially save lives on the order of 5,000. I added to this that lives of American individuals weren't somehow more important than lives of humans elsewhere in the world, and someone (a different person, who had taken a more neutral stance on the previous issue) argued with me, saying that yes, American lives are more important, because they're closer to home.
( continued )
I do wonder how many people feel similarly, though. Granted, my friends list isn't exactly a random sample of the population, but I'm interested in you folks' opinions. Try to answer from how you feel. (Seventh and Eighth answers included just for completeness.) If you feel the choices are still incomplete, or if you just have more to add, please comment!

Poll #292438
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which of these most closely matches you?

You know, whoever Carly Simon is singing "You're so vain, you prob'ly think this song is about you" to... is right!

Tokyo Godfathers owns.

Who all is hitting Acen?

There's me, el, koub, bikke, bikke's sister galindorf (i think), irenes, pokey, tabby..

And then, in other groups, rich, andrea, tami, and vash. That I know of. Oh, and Ronnie, I guess, whose LJ entry I just saw.
Anybody I don't remember or didn't know about?

Has anyone here happened to have played the Japanese version of FF8, and knows offhand what Ultimecia's accent was represented as, there?

I'm actually curious about any similar effect, really. Odine's, also from FF8, or Ayla from CT, etc. (I could probably find out about CT easily enough myself, come to think of it...) I suspect Frog from CT spoke in standard samurai-type dialect, as did probably Cyan from FF6.

For a while I've mused over the idea of making a page similar to Goog's Page of Rantings, but rarely felt the motivation to do so, especially after starting this LJ, which makes such a thing that much more redundant.

However, I finally came up with a way to compromise. Streamlined for your convenience!

(Yeah, this is sorta like LJ's built-in "memories" feature. But I like it better when I can control it more directly and exactingly.)

The vast majority of my friends are liberal--whether they're Democratic, Libertarian, left-leaning independants, or similar. But, a handful are conservative and/or Republican. I know one or two of you are on my LJ friends list and may be reading this journal--and there's one more guy in my IRL D&D; game (or was, anyway, until he took off to korea for a few months.)

Now, there're a lot of issues where, though I generally take the liberal view, I can see arguments for the other side. As such, I try not to criticize the few conservative friends I have too terribly much on their choice of affiliation. Affirmative action, economic policy, abortion, the death penalty... sort of grey areas, really.

But then, there are some others where the conservatives are just being total fuckheads. Whenever I see something like that, I have to wonder if any of said friends would agree with said fuckhead groups. "Do I have any friends that support mixing church and state to create a law (or amendment, even!) that unfairly curtails the rights of lots of good people, including some others of my friends?," I ask myself.

I generally give them the benefit of the doubt. I assume my conservative friends perhaps largely only vote that way for economic purposes. It makes it easier to get along with them.

But (yes, another but), even assuming that, my train of thought heads in another direction unfavorable to those folks. Since I'm not completely convinced either way is 100% "right" in the cases of things like economics or affirmative action, those things don't really matter to me as much. What ends up mattering are things that I am sure of my feelings about, like the aforementioned gay rights issue. And when a friend of mine votes for a candidate who has expressed strong opinions against gay rights--even if their vote isn't related to that, I have to wonder where their priorities are. If they're voting for the economic reasons, then are they basically saying they're willing to sacrifice the equal rights of millions of Americans if they can save a few hundred dollars with lower taxes? If so, is that really any better than the fuckheads at the linked rally?

I just don't know. If any of you reading this plan to vote for Bush, feel free to defend yourself. I really am interested in what makes you feel it's acceptable to (even indirectly) support an anti-gay amendment--the first amendment that ever will have written bias back into the constitution, if ratified.

I think this sort of thing would be better if we could all vote directly for this sort of law, instead of relying on a representative government. 'Course, I'm not sure about that, either. A large percent of the public seems to agree with these fuckheads. Not sure if it's a majority, at the moment.

There seems to be some sort of wacky meme going around where you post your favorite lyrics from 20 random songs that appear when you set winamp to random. Or something.

Man, my playlist really fucks this up.

1. And it started with a feeling that ended in a wreck,
2. (flute) 56 87 65 67 87 87 65, 56 87 65 67 87 55 4, 22 34 32 34 56 43 23, 22 34 32 34 56 87, 6, 5, 78~~
3. (oboe) 135~8~8~3 5 5 3~, 3~23432~1~, 135~8~8~3 5 5 3~, 3~23543~2~1~
4. We could be sleeping in the flowers, we could sleep all afternoon!
5. I wanna hold you close, I wanna push you away, I wanna make you go, I wanna make you stay
6. Couldn't think of any lyrics, no, I never wrote the lyrics, so I'll just sing any ol' lyrics, that come to mind, child!
7. When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am
8. [[the spaciation in this one can't properly be done with spaces and commas, etc, so i'll just say, the part where cloud kinda falls out of step and no one notices much]]
9. Fly me to the moon, etc etc (don't really have a fav part)
10. i don't speak italian! canta per me, somethiiiing~
11. "Speedy speed boy," just coz, haha, wtf
12. The bill collecter's drinking lighter fluid and says he'll tell our parents! Our feet start running at a furious pace, but we can't get away~
13. Praaa~~~ AAAAaaAAAa~aaaaAAAaAAAa,aa~~~ praaaaaa~aaAAaAAAAaaaa~AAAaaaaaaAAAaa (i think it means 'glory')
14. Broken-hearted old man of New Hampshire, flower-sniffing poet of New Hampshire
15. Daa da, dadada, da dadadadadada, Daa da, dadada, da da DAAAAA! (different notes)
16. DADADADA, DA, DA DA DA! DADADADA, DA, DA DA DA! (all the instruments in the orchestra, essentially (same note))
17. Sheya bucha shilihai, mimi jenbu shouchulai, bun tautau talyenai, sheya bucha bunyukwai, banau bun fau chi nau tai, yoli hotsogen fu bye bye!
18. 1~ 3~ 5~ 7~ 6~~~ 4~~, 4456~ 765 3 1 3 4~~~~ 3 4~~~~ 3 3~~~~~. (it is an overworld)
19. I built the shadows here
20. IKI ISOIDE, SHIBORITOTTE, MOTSURERU ASHI, DAKEDO MAE YORI, ZUTTO SOU TOOKU E, UBAITOTTE, TSUKANDATTE, KIMI JA NAI NARA IMI WA NAI NO SA!

Post a memory of me in the comments. Doesn't have to be the first memory of us meeting, just the first event that comes to your mind when you think about me. It can be anything you want.

Then post this in your journal and see what people remember of you.

Well, I sent in my reply form, saying that yes, I will accept the position offered to me by JET. I kinna wish I had done that a couple weeks ago, and just sent the part relating to medical stuff--which is what was delaying me--in a seperate envelope. But, sent Monday and arriving Friday should be easy enough given that I paid for priority mail. Priority certified mail. With verification of delivery.

UT's Student Services Building may be cheap, compared to a regular doctor's office, but man, in exchange for that you get to deal with their excruciating speed. Maybe it's just that I'm too picky about when my appointment can be. In the middle of my work schedule--that's just not good enough for me, is it! And, it'd better fit with my class schedule, too. (Never mind that each of the two appointments took long enough to make me slightly late for the work/class following them, respectively.)

And not only that, but the nurse practitioner that did the examination the first time wasn't even THERE the second time, so the physician who met me in her place kind of had to fudge it. "Er, yeah, an examination was done; I didn't do it, but I'm signing in her place." ... I imagine the doc would have had to sign something like that ANYWAY, since person #1 was, indeed, just a nurse practitioner, and the form requested a physician. Can they read? Is reading helpful in the field of medicine?

Hopefully it won't cause any major problems. I don't imagine it really could. Still, though--if I ever am in a similar position again, I think I'm just going to use a standard private practice doctor's office, if I can get away with it.

I left work early 'cause I was feeling sick, and had been for about an hour, at the time. And the occasional box-lifting I had to do there was making it slightly, but noticably, worse. So, now I'm at home, and I still feel a little sick, but not really sick enough such that if I were still at work feeling like this, I'd leave. Maybe it's because I'm not lifting any boxes here at home. Regardless, it seems kind of silly. Ah well, I only lost a couple hours.

Is it ironic to anyone else that everyone is talking so much about this 'Day of Silence?'

But, Chim, I haven't heard about it!

Well, then, not you.

I got one of those potatoes from the store that's like, inside a little plastic wrap, and ready-to-bake in a microwave. I felt kind of silly because it was 99 cents, and you can get a whole /sack/ of regular potatoes for not much more than that. But, then I tried it, and damn. That was one good potato! I don't think I've had a potato that good in years. Definitely worth the dollar.

guh.

Okay, I will obligatorily make a "three questions" post despite the fact that I can't think of any worthwhile questions for anyone else.

So, go for it, if you like!

( major buffy s5 spoiler, minor buffy s7 spoiler )

A third explanation is that Buffy is fictional, and Joss Whedon (or whoever wrote that ep's script) didn't really think about those two events as relating to each other in any way.

Whatever it actually was, the comment got me thinking. Would I sacrifice myself, ever, for anyone? I donno about my family--I don't think I'm as close to them as Buffy is to hers. I'm not particularly far... I'm about to go drive home for Easter in a couple hours, which is probably more than a lot of people in this modern world would do, but there're certainly a lot of closer familial relationships than what I have.

So would I do it for a romantic interest? This seems more likely. A few years ago, I definitely would have said yes, because I was very idealistic, and had fairy-tale-like images about what romance should be. Not necessarily about the nature of the two individual people in love (prince charming and a perfect princess? pff.) but about the level of devotion they ought to have to each other, def. I'm not so idealistic now, but in all honesty... I miss the idealism sometimes, and I still hope to find a relationship that strong.

So what if it's romantic and familial? ... Get your mind out of the gutter, folks, I'm talking about married couples. Isn't that what marriage is, after all? "I love you so much I want us to be in the same family." In that situation--for my hypothetical wife--I think I certainly might. I could even see myself doing it for my kids, though at the moment I don't really have any interest in having kids. Ironic, that.

So, remember, folks, when I hear them, blanket generalizations are always bad.

Accepted, yo. Donno location yet. Woot!

I somehow got a song stuck in my head--part of it anyway, I only can remember the last few lines. The weird part? I don't think I've heard this song in like, six years.

~I want to share your laughter,
and wipe away your tears.
So if you love me,
meet me at Reno's.~~~

Anyone who gets the reference deserves almost as much ridicule as I do for remembering that much of it, so, identify at your own risk. :/

I'm not one to feel any great amount of shame for my nerdly interests. Most people who know me realize this. My livejournal is a dead giveaway, but even offline, I wear shirts with such images as Strong Bad, the Something Positive characters, and the green 1up mushroom from Mario Bros. However, shirts aside, I'm not really full of pride about it either. I don't go out of my way to bring up nerd-centric topics of conversation unless I know whoever I'm talking to is also interested. On any given nerd-related aspect of my personality, I'll admit it readily if asked, but generally I won't volunteer the information.

I'm pretty secure with who I am, and what my interests are, and I have little inclination to become more mainstream to fit in, or what have you. But nevertheless, it pisses me off when someone decides they want to bring on the hate.

I was at work today, listening to one of my generally weird mix cds. I think I was somewhere between Initial D music and a There Might Be Giants song, when I overheard some chick doing what was, as I say, "bringing on the hate." It wasn't about me, but it was about music--I turned down my cd player and listened. "Yeah, he's in there listening to video game music! I just don't get that. I mean, soundtracks are one thing, but I can't get how people can like.. [goofy voice] 'Hey, check out the soundtrack to the new Harry Potter game!'"

The dude wasn't listening to that, I happen to know--he'd brought in the Halo soundtrack and was listening to it in the scan room. Decent background-type music, I think--nothing spectacular, but far from the crap people apparently make VG music out to be. This girl went on for a bit longer, while the other girl she was talking to was sort of inconclusively agreeing, "Uh-huh, uh-huh."

I was sitting there with a mix cd which did, I believe, include some video game music. It had a track from Creid, anyway. And I was sitting with a cd folder with actual VG soundtracks in it--more than that other guy had on him, I believe (unless his own folder's been beefed up more since I looked through it.) Four discs of FF8, thee of FF6, two of XG (plus Creid), and a smattering of other stuff. I felt insulted.

However, despite what I say about me not really having the shame, I didn't say anything. I could've whipped out Creid and put it in the cd player to prove a point (someone was using it to listen to the radio, but I doubt they'd've cared), or I could've simply calmly remarked that I did in fact listen to that stuff. Or, if I'd been a little quicker, I could've been biting. She's dishes it out enough as it is; she ought to be able to take it. "Remember, kids, making fun of shit is cool, so do it as much as possible to come out on top!" But I didn't really do any of that; I just sat there. In silence. Went on with what I was doing--removing staples--and waited to see if anyone would say more. That was for a minute or so, anyway; then I turned the volume back up on my CD player, continued to remove staples, and left when my shift was up about half an hour later.

In some way, there is virtue in avoiding conflict, and I'd like to think that that's the main reason I didn't say much. It's vaguely similar to something Zen--but only very vaguely, because if it were truly zen, it'd have been that I didn't care, not just that I shut up about it. At least, that's my understanding of the whole zen bit. As it is, I did care, apparently, as you can see by my venting here in this post. I was, as I said, pissed off. I can't help but think that I should've said something to her about it.

'Course, if I do it later, then it'll be all improperly timed and shit, so that isn't really an option unless she somehow brings it up again. Sigh.

I got an email saying that Tokyo's responses re: JET should come a lot sooner than May, which I was expecting. Supposedly, "Late March or Early April." Well, I think we can rule out late march, seeing as that's almost up.. but if it's early April that'd be rather nice. I probably won't still find out where in Japan I'll go until May, assuming it's yes, but at least now I can more easily rest regarding the situation of "looking for jobs so late if it's 'no.'"

'Course, I don't wanna get my hopes up too much, in case it turns out to be a couple weeks later than they said--like it was for the whether-I-got-an-interview notification.

I got an email saying that Tokyo's responses re: JET should come a lot sooner than May, which I was expecting. Supposedly, "Late March or Early April." Well, I think we can rule out late march, seeing as that's almost up.. but if it's early April that'd be rather nice. I probably won't still find out where in Japan I'll go until May, assuming it's yes, but at least now I can more easily rest regarding the situation of "looking for jobs so late if it's 'no.'"

'Course, I don't wanna get my hopes up too much, in case it turns out to be a couple weeks later than they said--like it was for the whether-I-got-an-interview notification.

[00:30:56] <Chimerasame> man
[00:31:02] <Chimerasame> in the realm of uber-dorky things
[00:31:20] <Chimerasame> i was thinking the other day about what would happen if hidden leaf village got into a contest
[00:31:26] <Chimerasame> against .. slytherin, say
[00:31:28] <Chimerasame> in quidditch.
[00:32:05] <Chimerasame> i figure broom control is similar to chakra control, so sakura might actually be a competent chaser
[00:32:20] <Chimerasame> temari would be the best keeper ever if she had the fan, but i figure that's cheating (and also she's not leaf)
[00:32:32] <Chimerasame> the best part, tho
[00:32:36] <Chimerasame> would be lee playing
[00:32:39] <Chimerasame> with no broom.
[00:33:27] <Snow_> haha
[00:33:58] <DreamsPerish> oh my...is this like a naruto/harry potter cross over?
[00:34:12] <Chimerasame> "What the, you've got a squib on your team! ahahah-- ... ...... oh SHIT!"
[00:34:39] <Chimerasame> they're actually not too hard to cross over
[00:34:57] <Chimerasame> in the hp universe, they talk about how there're different magic schools in different parts of the world
[00:35:05] <Chimerasame> and local styles of magic are similar to what we'd expect from their cultures
[00:35:15] <Chimerasame> middle east magic involves flying carpets and lamps and the like
[00:35:28] <Chimerasame> all that really would need explaining would be like
[00:35:53] <Chimerasame> where exactly in modern japan do all these hidden ninja villages, and corresponding "countries," exist?
[00:36:11] <Snow_> heh
[00:36:22] <Chimerasame> it'd make a little more sense to put them on mainland asia, i guess
[00:36:48] <DreamsPerish> ....
[00:37:18] <Chimerasame> and to conclude this train of thought
[00:37:22] <Chimerasame> vote me for dork king 2004!
[00:37:35] <Chimerasame> (coz that's really the only possible goal i could have by talking about this, isn't it)
[00:37:38] <DreamsPerish> ok, you have my vote.

On the subject of whether people casually 'check out' people of the opposite sex (or same, what have you, etc--but for purposes of terseness I shall only be discussing straight people. and while i'm at disclaiming things, i'm referring to our general western developed-country culture, as I know little about most others.), some will argue that "All guys check out all women."

I do agree with that statement in general, though there are a few obvious exceptions I should point out. Some are barely even worth mentioning--for example, there exist women that are extremely unattractive, and probably aren't worth "checking out." Now, by this, I probably don't mean anyone reading this journal, but rather the very young, very old or dead, severe burn victims, and the like.

Another exception, perhaps a little more valid, is that there are men--straight men, ostensibly--who don't check out other women at all. Some women see this as ideal, and are disappointed when they find out that their significant other (or potential interest, friend, etc) is not a member of this minority--and it is a minority, much smaller than what I think most such women imagine it to be. This is really my main focus, here. If you are someone--male or female--who does not have such lofty ideals about what your mate--male or female--should look at, then I have few complaints about you on this matter. But if you do hold people to such high standards, then I want to make a public service announcement. For that matter, this also goes out to those people who imagine such ideals to truly be ideal, even if you don't actually hold people to it as a standard. (Though admittedly, that latter group is a lesser evil--if 'evil' is an appropriate word. I don't want to overstate, here, since I figure there might actually be people reading this in said latter group, whereas I imagine the former is a little rarer.)

So, what kind of man is it that claims to be one of the few, a "principled" man or something, who doesn't look at other women, masturbate to porn, etcetera? Most commonly, a liar, I imagine, but that's beside the point. Even among the ones that tell the truth, I think I can come up with what are probably the most common reasons for it, and rarely would they be conducive to a good relationship.

1) Closeted gay men. Even if you like yaoi, you don't really want one of these. I shouldn't have to spell this out.
2) Men not interested in anything sexual at all. Of the various things I shall list here, this is probably the only candidate I would consider remotely good for a relationship--and even then, only with a woman who has similar opinions. Some do exist. You can go on your honeymoon and lovingly enjoy walks on the beach and fireside chats, and he'll never look at another woman--or you, either. If you're content (or eager) to spend your life sexless, then by all means, go for it.
3) Men brought up in an almost puritan way, who likely have repressed most sexual feelings they have. Men such as this, I would guess, probably aren't all that uncommon... various philosophies abound in western society that make sex, or anything related to sex, out to be a dirty thing, except when done by a married couple for the express purpose of producing offspring. There are various degrees of this, of course--there're plenty of men that might not masturbate (devout catholics, perhaps?) but who would still look at other attractive women passing by. There is a grey area here. For the most part, though; I think men who are more in-touch with their feelings--sexual and otherwise--are more likely to make their mates happy. I could be wrong, maybe there're women among you who really like Vulcans.
4) Men who are so desparate to be what women consider ideal that they have forced themselves to stop anything that might remotely be considered lecherous--porn, glancing at other women's assets, anything. There's a certain amount of self-improvement-for-macking-purposes that's perfectly acceptable, and in general I'd say it goes pretty far. Work out to impress chicks, get a better-paying job to impress chicks, whatever--but there's a line. Curtailing your own sexuality to impress chicks is on the wrong side of that line, in my opinion, as would be changing your religion to impress chicks, say. Also, men who've done this to themselves for this reason are potentially going to slip back into standard ogling ways after a relationship has been secured, so be careful. I'd say someone honest about his desires is going to be honest about himself, life, things in general.

And are any of those something you really want? I suspect that the closest to the "ideal" some people like to think of is number 3--and I think suppressing in general leads to instability.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should all want to find mates that drool and ogle over people all the time. Far from it. However, if you ask questions like "Were you looking at her? Do you think she's pretty?" you ought to consider an honest answer the most "ideal" you should hope for. And you should do the same. I present this in one direction because that's the side of the complaining I'm more familiar with hearing about--but by no means do I intend to imply that it only works one way. Girls can ogle guys too. The aforementioned yaoi fans should go on loving yaoi--guys shouldn't try to suppress that, and I am ashamed for any guy that does.

haven't felt much like posting here lately.

I had my JET interview a little over a week ago. It went.. decently. Not great, but not terrible. I could've done better, but I think I did well enough to get placed--I've got my proverbial fingers crossed, tho. Don't want to count on it as a sure thing! Unfortunately, I won't find out until May, and even then I may not find out where in Japan I've been placed until early June or something.

Asked out a chick this morning who's in some of my linguistics classes. She said "I don't think so." I can't really blame her, I mean, what with me probably leaving the country in half a year and all, I almost didn't even ask. She's also leaving in August (for Denmark), so I figured since we were both in the same boat that might take the edge off. I've heard that relationships can be meaningful even when they're doomed to be (relatively) short-term, so I figured, hey, what the hell! We seem to have been getting along well as friends for the last month or so we've known each other, and she's been getting increasingly cute! (Which I'm pretty sure is a perceptual thing on my part, and not an actual change in her appearance. What am I now, a woman?) I thought I'd break my no-starting-anything-so-soon-to-leaving-country decision. But evidently she hadn't.

Either that or it's just me, and the timing had nothing to do with it. That wouldn't surprise me much either. I certainly do seem to be more of a friends-ladder type of guy than a dating-ladder. Even when I go and take the initiative. What? Bitter? No! >_> <_< >_> I'll probably go back to class monday and attempt to act like I never mentioned it.

1/3 semester midterms are over. I got a lower grade than I expected on the first test in the easy government class I'm taking, and a higher grade than I expected on the hard government class I'm taking. I wonder if I somehow decided to treat the "hard" one more seriously. Probably to some degree--I've been more thorough in the readings for it than for the easy one. Also, though, the "easy" one had a lot more emphasis on the essay part of the test (60%, as opposed to the hard one's 40%), and the essays seem to be where I'm losing most of my points. Friggin liberal arts. I can write just fine, but I need a computer and time, dammit!

Linguistics tests are going well, I think, though I've only gotten back one of the three. I got a 91.7. One of the remaining two, I expect a high A, and the final one--well, I have no idea, really. Nobody seems to know, or have any prediction, how the professor will grade these tests. All his homeworks have just been completion grades, so I'm not sure what sort of thing is supposed to be "full credit" for a given problem-type, what's "most-credit," etc, etc. Hopefully we'll get the tests back monday.

Even if that 3rd linguistics goes badly, it looks like I've got 3 As and 2 Bs, which I'm happy with. It'll mean I'll graduate just over 3.5, which will put me in Cum Laude. And, I mean, since I'm so close now (like 3.49999999--well, close enough, anyway), I figure it's worthwhile to try to be over that barrier. I mean, the words are funny, if nothing else. Cum Laude! Ha ha ha! (my inner middleschooler is strong)

Anime club is showing a pretty good lineup this semester, overall. Highlights, for me: Battleflag of the Stars 2, Scrapped Princess (though less so in practice because I've seen it all), Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. Chrno Crusade is looking like it might start to be a highlight as well. Hime-chan, Godannar, and Ultra Maniac are entertaining, but not things I'd go out of my way to watch. And, uhm, what's left.. Tsukihime looks like it'll be pretty good, but it's still in the formation stages of its plot. Or something. Yep.

Oddly, despite a lot of our shows being pretty good, there aren't really any OPs or EDs that stick out in my mind. I can't even remember what most of them sound like--except the ones I've heard the music for in past semesters (Hime, SutePri, and BotS.) Oh, and Godannar--who COULD forget that op, honestly? So over the top! Like the rest of the series. It's a pretty fun show, I guess, but since it's last in the schedule I'm generally too tired to appreciate it fully, I think. I ought to say something about that--not that doing so be likely to move the show to a different slot or anything.

Working about 16 hours a week now, from 4 to roughly midnight on Tues and Thurs. Sorry, Scar/Xer/CD/Gau. :( I unfortunately need the hours, and there's no real other time I can get them. There's a possibility that they'll run out of things I can do in the 9-midnight period (because at the moment I can't do data entry then very well, which means I have to scan or prep, both of which types of work are in limited supply), which is bad for my income, but good for Scarcamp. I'll come back if it works out that way! Or.. there's also Monday!

Mm. Indeed.

Rather indifferent.


How Easily Amused Are You By Internet Quizzes In Which The Final Result Really Ought To Be Quite Obvious From What Answers You Pick?
brought to you by Quizilla

But I finally made another one of these.

( IRC log, brief snip of Top Box Office Movies )

I find it interesting that despite the fact that six of the top seven are sci-fi/fantasy movies, the majority of the population has an aversion to these genres. Lots of people don't consider them mainstream, find them nerdy, etc. 'Course, I'm probably preaching to the choir, here.

Is anyone reading this the sort of person who just flat-out doesn't like the Sci-fi genre? Remind me why?

Is anyone else getting spam recently that seems to mostly consist of multiple paragraphs of a bunch of seemingly random words?

curvature ignorant cruise grosvenor vestry phytoplankton revenue crinkle cave paintbrush tapeworm tablecloth aviate redactor vernier anew powerhouse emancipate portugal finite pharmaceutic postfix turnaround pavlov coercive denominate consist eighty yaounde steer cartilaginous apatite
lombardy maxim brink obstruent palladium cumulate buick jump cordite impassive next sisyphus conservation pancho

What is this stuff? I assume it's generated in an attempt to get around filters, or something--at least, I can't think of anything else it'd be good for, unless it's some sort of complex code.

( Updating )
from the last time.

Recently I've been sleeping around 5am, 6am, or so, and waking up at 2pm, which is really going to be unacceptable pretty soon. So, sometimes, I try to sleep earlier. And sometimes, this is successful, like today, when I went to sleep at 2am.

However, as you can see, I am now awake again, and it is 4am. I woke back up--apparently my body thought it was supposed to be a nap, or something.

So now I probably won't be able to get back to sleep until around 6 or so anyway, wake up at 2, no real progress made.

Every once in a while I get kind of fed up with bandwagons, and so I've been kind of reluctant to make a post with New Years as a theme. I don't really know why I get like that. I thought about waiting a few days and posting something after everyone else had stopped, such that I might stand out a little more, or something, but I think that sort of thing (standing out for its own sake with no other goal) annoys me at least as much as bandwagonning itself. Perhaps I should make an endeavour to ignore bandwagons entirely--by which I don't mean "never pay attention to anything that's taking a bandwagon form," but rather "consider bandwagons neither negatively nor positively when doing things." Hey, maybe that'd make a good resolution! Train of thought comes full circle back to New Years'; how convenient.

I guess it wouldn't hurt to list a few, if I can think of any. There's that one, which could probably be more clearly said as something like "Don't try to fit in or stand out, simply for their own sakes."

There's the rather drab one that I could stand to lose a lot of weight. I don't really know what's a reasonable goal for an entire year, particularly since my dietary habits depend on what country I'm in, and I don't know what that'll be from July to December yet. I'll just say that I want to lose some weight, and the actual amount can be determined later. I suppose all that really amounts to is a resolution to not gain any, since the likelyhood of ending up exactly the same is pretty small. I wonder how much change I'd see if I did nothing at all differently except for replacing all my soda with water, or maybe tea.

Graduate with a 3.5 or better GPA. This one shouldn't be terribly hard, really. I'm borderline as it is, so it's basically the same as "Get 3.5 or better this semester." So, with five equally weighted classes, I think my options are AAAAA, AAAAB, AAABB, and AAAAC. Preferably one of the former ones.

Be able to pay, myself, for whatever shit I'm going to try to do over the summer prior to the potential Japan trip. I've got AX, Anime Central, and A-Kon coming up in several months, and it'd be awfully nice if I could afford to do all those things without having to borrow money. Also, whatever I can pay towards my laptop would be good, though not completely necessary--a couple months with a full time job afterwards should provide more than enough extra money to finish the laptop off. I hope. Oh, and I need a good J/E dictionary, too.

Post here more often, more meaningfully. My last few have been pretty decent, I think, even that drunken one. For long periods before that, though, I'd kinda just neglect this journal, except for a random quiz here and there, or a weird observation or comment, or just using it to read my friends' list. Not that there's anything wrong with using a journal only to read friends' lists, but I kinda like having a record of what I've been doing and what's been going on in my life, because otherwise I just forget. No, really. I suppose as an auxiliary to that, I could start making some private posts, for stuff I want to keep down but don't feel like having publically. I don't think I've made a single private post so far, and only one or two protecteds.

Okay, that's ... five. I think that's a fair number. It's good to have more than one or two, because that way if you have to compromise on one for whatever reason later, you can still think to yourself that hey, you've got the majority of them. 'Course, if you make really easy ones, that kinda cheapens that--maybe I shouldn't count that GPA one in my estimation. Not that it's SUPER easy, but I think my courseload next semester is going to be something I can kinda coast through with minimal studying. It will help that I've got a couple hours every MWF day on campus between classes, when that minimal studying is about the only thing I can do to pass the time. (I say that now, but I wouldn't be surprised to find myself in the habit of lugging this laptop around and IRC'ing in those time-gaps...)

Ooh, maybe I can boost up the difficulty of that GPA one by making some resolution about not skipping class due to oversleeping. Or at least, due to intentional oversleeping. ... I don't think I want to make that resolution, though, because I'm pretty sure that the mentality I'm in in the few minutes after the alarm clock goes off is such that I wouldn't care about a resolution in the least. I hate alarm clocks. And yet, I couldn't get by without them, much of the time.

There is one more I just thought of, which I ought to add: keep up my Japanese skills. I need to be speaking Japanese online, really--though unless I start up FF11 (a dangerous-sounding prospect, that'll make the sleep issue just get worse) I don't know where I'm going to find Japanese chat that I'm interested in. There must be Japanese IRC channels out there somewhere, but all the ones I've been in were either almost-always-idle or just dead. I need to keep up my spoken Japanese, too--I ought to make sure to spend plenty of MWF afternoons at the conversation club.

I suppose the second generic characteristic of a New Years' post (in addition to resolution commentary) is talking about the previous year. However, I don't really know what I'd be discussing in that--I don't really even think anything much happened this year. I'll have to think about that. Maybe I'll end up making an unusually late New Years' post after all, in addition to this one.

And I can't forget the third generic characteristic of a New Years' post either. Happy New Year!

I generally don't get angry very easily, but I did a couple days ago. I mean, a while back I thought I was gonna be fired from the job I just got, for internal politics that weren't my fault, and being used as a scapegoat coz I was new. I don't even know now if all that was true--maybe the real reason they were talking about firing me at the time was that they wanted someone who could work full-time. Anyway, I'm glad they didn't, but that's not the point, the point was more that even in that time, I don't think I got particularly angry, just worried and frustrated.

But a few days ago, I got angry. It was Christmas night... I suppose after midnight, so technically this didn't happen to me on Christmas day, but due to the general way I percieve days as being "those things between sleeping," it felt like it was--and I'm sure that added to it. The actual thing that happened? A seemingly new fansub group, FFS, released their copy of episode 64 of Naruto, but it wasn't real.

Now, I'm on dialup, so downloading is hard. Downloading ~150 megabyte files is harder, and downloading them off a BT is harder still. It is fortunate that I didn't try to do that, because I might have been even angrier than I was. On the 24th, which was a Wednesday, which is the day Saiyaman usually posts their raws, I looked to see if their torrent was up. Oddly, it wasn't. I checked AnimeSuki as well, and saw no Saiyaman Raw (I realize now that that would've been impossible, since AnimeSuki doesn't have raws, I don't think), but I did see what was apparently a new, and fast, fansubber. Generally I get the raw and wait for ANBU's subs, but I decided that the timing was important for what I wanted to do, so I decided I'd settle for an unknown subber (ought to give new guys a chance, right?) and check out this FFS group.

Bad move! As I mentioned, I didn't want to download the file myself, being on dialup, but fortunately, hasakiw lives nearby and I was already planning to meet him the evening of the next day (Christmas evening) to watch some anime or play some Settlers of Catan or something. He obliged, being on a more powerful connection than I, and I was grateful. He burned a CD of the file for me on Christmas, and we even checked the file to make sure it wasn't corrupt or anything. The file wasn't corrupt... and even the first few seconds looked like the Naruto op! Yep, I had Naruto 64, on Thursday, only one day after I usually get it (since usually I'm not on dialup, I'm on DSL), and I was happy!

Until I started watching the file.

The opening was fine, but then instead of actual fansubbing of the material inside some text appeared on the screen, with the episode as background, for about a minute and a half or so. I cannot remember precisely what this text said (I didn't bother keeping that CD around), but the basic gist of it was: If 20000 people download an episode that's 150 MB, it wastes 3 terabytes of bandwidth. There are better series out there than Naruto. Think before you waste bandwidth.

Now, there're going to be a few people reading this post who don't like Naruto. You guys, as far as I know, are fine. You don't have to like Naruto. But most of you don't go out of your way to piss off people that do, and that's the difference between you and the assholes at FFS--which I can only assume stands for "Fake Fansubs." I say fake, because not only did they fail to provide fansubbing for the episode (I could have dealt with that, I watch the raws, after all), but they actually replaced almost all the content with about 20 minutes of music videos.

Okay, so, let's get this straight. You want to make a statement against people wasting bandwidth, and to do so, you force them to waste a bunch of bandwidth. Great move. Breaking your own moral code to get people to stop breaking the moral code? Sounds like a Bush thing to do, really--break the decisions made by the UN to get someone to stop breaking the decisions made by the UN. FFS should run for office! (I digress.)

I thought about going onto the forums at animesuki to complain--not to complain at animesuki itself, because it's not their fault, but just to complain about this event in general. I discovered, not surprisingly, that many people already had (because many people acquired the episode much faster than I did.) What was really maddening is that some of the Naruto-haters out there actually saw this as evidence of "the stupidity of Naruto fanboys." Oh, yes, we trusted animesuki to have links to fansubs. How dumb of us. We decided to give a new fansubber a chance? What morons we were! I decided not to post, because I wouldn't really have said anything that hadn't been said already--and because evidently in the climate of those forums, I would have just been labelled stupid... for my trust in humanity and in the fansub community not to be fucktarded. I suppose that trust was misplaced.

In the end, I think all FFS really accomplished was pissing off a very large number of people, and causing the general level of trust in non-established fansub groups to go down--thus making it even harder for the new guys to get anywhere than it already is. Great work, there, guys. Naruto fanboys look stupid? Nah, if you changed anyone's image with this, you just made Naruto haters look like total assholes.

Not that it became impossible for me to see the real episode (I got ANBU's version later, painstakingly downloading it with my dialup), but y'know, it's something I look forward to every week. I'd been anticipating being able to watch it for a while--looking forward to it almost as much, I think, as some of the events of Christmas day. Yes, I am a Naruto fanboy. So, yeah, all that made me rather angry, and on Christmas (virtually), too.

After two beers, I thought I was full, and then I had two more beers, and then I knew I was full. At that point it was time to start with the Goldschläger. (I know I'm not that drunk yet, since I managed to remember the alt code for the ä. 'Course, I had the advantage of having typed it in IRC not long ago. At that time I had to figure it out from scratch--going up from 129. Fortunately it didn't take long, coz it's 132.) So yeah, I've had two double-shots of Goldschläger. The reason I'm doing doubleshots is because I only have one shot glass, and it's a double-tall shot glass.

Sorry, Tomoko, I accidentally put one of them in the dishwasher, and the paint all ran and stuff. :( Did I tell you about that? I didn't want to, y'know, make you worry about it or anything, and I also felt kinda bad about it. But I still have one! And I'm glad, because otherwise I'd have zero shot glasses, and I'd have to drink this goldschlager ouf ot normal glasses, which would be really annoying, or the bottle, which would probably be worse.

Anyway yes relatively drunk. Sorry Ren! I know you don't really care for drinking, but in my defense all I really seem to be prone to doing is talking a fucking lot and apologizing an unusual amount. At least I haven't started apologizing in really polite Japanese yet. I heard I did that once. It's about the only thing I don't really remember from being drunk--the rest of my drunken times have been surprisingly clear in memory, given what most people say about drunkenness and memory. Maybe it's not really true--but it does seem like something I'd be likely to do. Anyway, I don't really know everything in your life, Ren, that happened involving drunkenness, but I think I'm fairly secure in saying I am a harmless drunk, and I hope it doesn't offend you or anything.

Mouhsi wake gozaimasen!

It'd be better if I could type that in hiragana/kanji, but it seems that my hiragana/kanji typing software (The IME) is down, and I don't know how to bring it back at the moment without rebooting, which is a little mendoukusai (it is a hassle) to do. I could do the LJ entry from my laptop, but that would be even more mendoukusai because I would have to copy over alllll this text I've already written.

Have I made any typos that I didn't correct? I seem to be correcting most of them as I go along--see, there, I typed 'correctig' and 'ther' and corrected those to the proper 'correcting' and 'there.' I guess I must not be drunk enough. Optimal is drunk enough to typo a little, but not drunk enough to barf. Barfing is bad news. I did that in July, and it is my intention to control my drinking to a point such that I never do it again. Incidentally, I don't think I've been as drunk as this since July, which, given that it is december, seems like a good thing. I sometimes tell people that I really only get drunk once every month or two, but hey, it's now five months! That's not a bad amount of time. Drunk every five months means drunk about five times every two years, whereas "drunk every month or two" probably is more like sixteen times every two years. So, I'm doin' alright! But, I'd probably rather be drunk more like once every two months, just coz it's rather entertaining to be drunk, and it's amusing to see the sort of things I'll try to say, and the sheer /amount/ of things I'll try to say (I sure do talk a lot (even though this talking is in text)) when I'm intxicated. Okay, I'm not fixing that typo. The goldschlager (no umlaut!) is setting in heavier now, I guess there was just some lag. Ha! Lag! See, I took an internet term and made it apply to real life! I could write a webcomic about it, like the 09384098 others on similar subjects!

Okay, there needed to be a paragraph blank. I ahould probably give up on this venture and hit the 'post entry' button pretty soon, but it occurs to me I haven't filled out the 'Subject' or 'Current music' lines. I'm not really listening to any music, so I think I can get away with leaving that empty. As for a subject, well, I'm pretty drunk, so I guess I could put something abotu being pretty drunk in there, but instead I think I'll leave it blank too, because honestly, anything I thought of now would be less than clever, and anyone who reads far enough (IE to this point) to know the details behind the subject line would, uh, wait, this sentence is too long, I forgot the end of it.

Heheh, I typed, 'the end of ti.' before correcting it, and thought of the end of titania. Given what I know about what she's done and tried to do to people, that is a somewhat pleasant thought. Most of you probably don't know her, though. Oh well

Signing off!

Okay, it's fairly clear what an antimagic field would do to some types of undead creatures--skeletons, say, would instantly fall to the ground because they would lack any muscle mass to make them go. Zombies have muscles, so one might argue a zombie could continue to move for a short time, but really, their brains don't work, so if you're being true to science a zombie shouldn't last more than a second or two in an antimagic field. A Lich has an operative consciousness, but many of them have far less muscle tissue than zombies (at least, based on the pictures I've seen.) Most Liches would likely fall to the ground as well.

The best candidates for remaining operative in antimagic, as far as I can tell, are things like Ghouls and Vampires. They have blood, their brains and muscles work--they can't nourish themselves in antimagic, and their bodies should rapidly deteriorate, but they ought to keep moving for a much longer time than the aforementioned zombies would.

It occurs to me that a number of undead creatures of this type consider themselves "cursed with eternal life" and want to rid themselves of it. Okay, so there's antimagic fields. Why not just go into one of those and have some nearby undead-hating adventurers hack you up?

If the multiverse is fair in punishing these eternal life-cursed creatures, then their malady should return as soon as any antimagic field is lifted. Vampires turn to mist (if they're D&D; vamps, anyway), and their bodies reconstitute, etc. But this situation makes me wonder something else: what happens to these creatures' sould while the antimagic is still up?

Or if you don't like "soul," their consciousness. That thing which, when a normal human dies, generally goes to their god's realm or their pantheon's death realm or whatever. Is their consciousness just suppressed while the antimagic is up? Is it like what happens when we sleep without dreaming--we simply don't perceive the passage of time in any fashion? If so, why do the laws-of-magical-physics distinguish that from a normal dead human?--why should they not drift to the afterlife if they remain fully dead in antimagic for a long enough time?

Maybe antimagic prevents the passage of a soul to the afterlife, but if so, what happens to a normal human who dies in a long-term antimagic field? (Say, the aura projected by an Iron Colossus who has been instructed by its creator to guard a certain location for milennia, and it continues to do so.) Are they just fucked?

Considering the number of adventurers who are likely to meet their doom at the hands of such an Iron Colossus, if one existed--or just died in the aura of similarly permanent antimagic fields for different reasons--there might be a great many souls across the multiverse whose souls are in limbo (lowercase l, not Limbo, where some might ironically be intended to go). It seems to me that a bunch of the death gods, especially lawful ones, and other patron gods of various adventurers, might take a strong dislike to this sort of occurance--there could be a multiversal task force whose job it is to make sure the deaths occur in the proper manner.

It'd be an interesting campaign idea, for a very high level party.

From raincrystal who got it from nowa_talutah: Sum up your year in twenty words or less.

Shit, only twenty?
Whoops, there went three, and here go nine more!
Well, with the last eight I'll ...
....
it's over.