Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

Wow, a lot’ve stuff’s happened lately. I’ll just talk about today though because I don’t really think there’s been much interesting stuff. Lately I’ve taken to watching Final Fantasy AMV’s which is weird because I’ve never had anything to do with any version of Final fantasy, never watched or played it or anything but the songs that some people put to them I quite like. This current one is titled “Tribute to Dirge of Cerberus Tasogarenoumi” I looked up Tasogarenoumi and came up blank but at the end of the video it’s split up into Tasogare no umi and I googled it. It was tricky to find. It seems to be the ending theme for an anime called “hack//SIGN”. In all honesty I don’t understand a word of it but I just seem to like it. This particular AMV is focused around a particular Final Fntasy character too but I don’t know anything about him either, all I know is that he wears red, has dark hair, shoots stuff and his left hand makes me think of claws . Seeing these things it makes me wonder, I’d like to know the stories of these characters, though I doubt I’d play the games, I guess it’s like when I looked up Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger just because I wanted to know the stories, though I doubted I’d ever see the films because I hate horror.
You know how this all started? Ghost in the Shell: SAC. There’s AMV’s with the theme tunes which I particularly like, one was linked to a Final Fantast AMV and suddenly I find myself humming Tasogare no umi constantly .
Anyway, you don’t really want to hear that do you? What’s so spooky you ask, it’s a bit early for Halloween. Well, I’ve been having a spot of bother with my laptop. It’s not a serious problem, well, it doesn’t seem to be one, but the bottom left corner of the screen keeps going black and when I touch it it’s hot and I feel that if I left my hand there for too long it would give me a slight burn. But when I do put my hand to it the blackness of that corner shrinks back and then grows back again. It’s weird. I’ve told dad about it, he’s looking into it. I sincerely hope we don’t have to take it somewhere for repairs because I’d rather not be without it here, I’ll get so bored, and I don’t want to lug it to where ever and back in case it gets stolen, call me paranoid if you like, Sara does, but I don’t care. If being paranoid of things keeps me away from them then I’d say it’s working just fine.
So, dad said to use it sensibly, not sitting on it for long hours, about 2 hours at the most and then turning it off and if I still need to use it then letting it rest for an hour or so and coming back to it later. I ran the battery down and turned it off to cool down and decided to leave it for at least an hour to cool off before turning it back on and charging it up again. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not used to laptops, I’m used to spending five or so hours on a typical PC that’s constantly plugged into the mains and sits permanently on a desk that I have to be careful of if I swing round in my chair to fast in case I hit it with my foot and make the side panel fall off, which happened once, I tried to put it back but it wouldn’t fit properly and eventually I remembered to ask dad to take a quick look at it. He’s the expert in the general installation and programs and stuff and I’m the expert at finding all of the useful tricks in the software and mum’s the general novice who only uses it for solitaire, well that is until I put a puzzle game I downloaded ages ago onto her username, I still catch her playing it in the mornings, when I get up in time .
Anyway, I’m digressing again, I’m doing that a lot. While waiting for something to do I decided to go for a walk around to stretch my boots.... Hang on, that was on Monday, you wouldn’t know about that, better have a quick flashback here.
On Sunday we got me some new boots. I’ve never really worn boots, wellies yes but that was quite a while ago, though I’ve been toying with the idea of boots in my mind for years. A lot of my characters have boots in their wardrobes, varying kinds too, knee high, ankle boots, practical clodhoppers that get stained with mud all of the time. I’ve been toying with the idea for ages. So I brought them back, we weighed the boots with my trainers and found the boots, obviously, heavier so I ended up wearing them back. Unfortunately I left it so late to leave, about 4ish that I hit rush hour, because I keep forgetting that it’s a Monday, not a weekend, it may be another day off for me but not for everyone else. There were delays at Russle Square. At first I think they said because of someone trespassing on the tracks but then it was “technical difficulties” which resulted in about an hour or so delay that I was standing up for most of which in these new boots that kept pinching my ankle. When I got them off I discovered a strange sore. I don’t know if it’s a cut of or a bruise or what but it’s red outside and there’s a darker patch which could be either. I call it a bite. My boots bit me. Yesterday, when I pulled my sock up I scratched it and it hurt so when I got back I put a plaster on it and changed it this morning.
So, some time before turning off the laptop I decided to put on my boots again (I’d already done this earlier, I think it was two days ago but I stuffed a sock around the rim to protect the ankle, I was relying on the plaster this time). I made myself a hot chocolate, the first one since being here, though I let it get cold . Anyway, after I turned off the laptop to let it cool down for an hour I was bored so I decided to go out, along the corridor and stretch my boots a bit. I looked out of the window and then went down to the other end which I’ve never really been because I’m at this end. I saw the other kitchen, it seems more claustrophobic than ours, there’s no windows there. I met a few of my housemates and explained my reasons for being out, seeing as it’s a strange occurrence for me to be out of my room. Most of them, it seems have dealt with boots before so understood my need to stretch them. Then I went back to the other end, walking backwards to see if that was any different. When I got to the window I thought that going outside would be a good way of stretching them, especially going up and down those two flights of stairs. So I rushed back to my room, grabbed a cardigan and went outside. I don’t really know why, it was just on a whim. It’s the first time I’ve done that since being here, gone out without a real reason and without my bag. I walked to the little gate nearby, even though I knew it would be locked at night, I just wanted to look out. Then I turned, before I started looking suspicious. I looked up at the sky, I did that last night too but I’ll tell you about that later. It’s a better place to see stars, over here, there’s less street lamps though it’s still well lit so you can actually see the sky. I love looking at stars. Then, so as my head didn’t start spinning, I headed back to the house, slowly, I didn’t really want to go in just yet but I didn’t want to go anywhere else either. Then I heard a noise, a ringing. It sounded like a fire alarm and it was nearby. I proceeded to the steps slowly and cautiously, trying to pinpoint it’s location. Then I saw people coming out and it was confirmed that the alarm was going on in my house. Ella was one of the first out, barefoot and half in clothes and half in pyjamas, she was freezing. I’d have lent her my cardigan but then I’d have been cold. It’s quite freaky that the first time I go outside just on a whim and there’s a fire alarm. It meant that I got to stay out longer which I’d wanted and I got to tell Ella that I’d be going home for the weekend again so it was strangely beneficial to me, spooky huh?
Now, about last night. I told you I joined the Japanese Cultural Society didn’t I? Last week? I remember it specifically because it was straight after that first meeting that I came back here and started looking around for anime and found Blood+ and got hooked on it. Well, that’s on Tuesdays and now they’ve arranged complete beginners Japanese classes which is great. Sara’s doing Japanese classes but it’s the same time as my life writing on Tuesdays so I couldn’t sign up. To start with I was the only one who showed up besides Ripton (The president as of this year and our temporary teacher for that day) and two friends of his who turned up for moral support. They were watching 300 because they got bored waiting and I checked that this was Beginners Japanese. But when more people came Ripton stopped 300 much to our disappointment because a battle scene was just about to come up.
I probably still need to work on my pronunciation but I can say a simple hello, what is your name, my name is Emma and I am an English person. Although when I had to say I am an English person I got a bit tongue tied and therefore flustered and I must’ve been beetroot and had to ask Ripton to move onto someone else. I felt so stupid.
About an hour later more people turned up for the anime sampler which was so that we could see the first episode from a small selection of anime and vote on which one to watch for next week. I thinking of putting in a vote for Elfen Lied because I know that, I looked it up a while ago and I saw a later episode about a year ago, haven’t seen it all though. When it comes to the next lot of hopefuls I think I’ll throw in Blood+ and maybe even GITS: SAC. The conditions were it has to be Japanese with English subs, at least that’s what all of the samplers were and Ripton purposely switched from English to Japanese with English subs for one of them and it mustn’t be an OVA, which , after looking it up basically, as far as I can make out, means it was only released on video. Apart from that it seems all contestants are welcome. Also, for films, when they come up, I want to throw in Battle Royal because it’s the only Japanese film I can remember and I quite like it, Sara said it’s a manga too, she’s the one who persuaded me to join while I had that cold, seeing as I expressed a liking for anime when I first met her I guess.
I’m not sure what else there is. I’ sure there’s more. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll remember later.
Let me get the spelling of this right.
Sayonara.
(That’s how Word spells it)

Bluebiird out.