Day 150: Year One: A Penny Arcade Retrospective (Signed w/ sketch)

I was a huge fan of Penny Arcade during college but I don't really keep up with them any more. It was a lot more interesting when I played more video games. These days it's pretty much just Rock Band and Xbox Live Arcade downloads. I've also been playing Dragon Age for Mac. I was looking for something a long the lines of Neverwinter Nights and several people suggested it to me. It has a good story and I like the gameplay for the most part although there are some control issues that I find frustrating.

Status: Dibbed

Day 149: Honey From the Tombs by Amy Millan

Amy Millan is the singer of Stars, my favorite band of all time. I have this policy. I don't often buy music but if a band I love comes to town I have to buy at least one piece of merchandise from them. Usually I stock up on their records first; I have three Stars CDs and a hoodie. The hoodie is part of my Sunday relaxin' uniform along with a teal scarf and jeans.

Honey From the Tombs is a pretty record but I never have the inclination to listen to it. It's mellow; a little bit blues and a little bit country.

Status: Dibbed

Day 148: At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie

One of these days I need to actually make a list of all the Agatha Christie novels I've read so I can figure out which ones I have left. Or maybe I should just start from the beginning again. By now it has been long enough that I probably don't remember exactly how they all turned out.

Status: Dibbed

Day 147: Japanese Idioms

I bought this book while I was studying Japanese at the University of Washington. I wanted to learn Japanese so I could read the original versions of manga. Kids these days don't know how good they have it. Back when I was an anime geek, manga was mirrored to read left to right, they were released at a rate of one to two volumes a year, the translations were poor, the selection was miniscule, and titles such as Ranma 1/2 costed $17-19 a volume. I collected Ranma 1/2 for more than five years before giving up and the translations hadn't gotten anywhere close to the end.

I'm leaving you with this adorable photo I took of my sister while in Japan.

Status: Dibbed

Day 146: Prince of Tennis Shonen Ai

I'm not feeling so well today so instead of writing I'm going to post one of my favorite photos of my trip to Thailand.

Status: Dibbed

Day 145: Yellow Gingham Fabric

I'm a bit confused about my attraction to fabrics like this. I bought this fabric to make a skirt. I got most of the way done with the skirt before I realized that I had cut it too small. The unfinished skirt with eventually end up on here as well.

Status: Available

Day 144: Skirt Pattern

A few years ago I almost never wore skirts or dresses. This might surprise some of you because now my taste is exactly opposite. It started with a few skirts off of the now defunct Boutique Ooh La La! website. Once I realized how comfortable skirts are - especially in hot weather - an increasing share of my clothing purchases became skirts and dresses. Unfortunately I wasn't in tune with my actual size when I bought those first skirts so they became earlier blog posts.

Status: Dibbed

Day 143: Oh My Goddess! The Queen and the Goddess

This is a one shot so don't let the lack of additional issues scare you off. Oh My Goddess! was one of the early manga to be brought over to the states and translated. Ordinary loser meets gorgeous goddess and they fall in love, blah blah blah... I knew quite a few men who were huge fanboys of this series.

It's always interesting to pay attention to the inspiration behind various manga series. This one is loosely based off Norse mythology - as evidenced by the characters' names: Belldandy (Verdandi), Urd, Skuld. Other manga I have enjoyed have been more absurd including one about competitive bread baking.

Status: Recycled

Day 142: Final Fantasy III

I love Final Fantasy games but I hardly ever finished them. I usually end up consumed by side quests until I get bored of the game. One of the few that I finished was Final Fantasy IX. This is strange to me because after I had put in over fifty hours my boyfriend accidentally deleted my save and I had to start all over again.

Reasons why I didn't finish the other FF games:
Final Fantasy VII: Played on a PC, it was slow as hell
Final Fantasy V & VI: Ported to PS, the load times drove me crazy
Final Fantasy VIII: Once I got the airship I kept getting nauseated
Final Fantasy X: Broke up with my bf and it was his copy
Final Fantasy III: Consumed by side quests
Final Fantasy Tactics: Distracted by other games

I guess I was mistaken as to why I don't usually finish Final Fantasy games.

Status: Dibbed

Day 141: Nine Queens

This is a fantastic Argentinian crime movie. The two main characters are both con artists who meet when one of them rescues the other from a scam gone wrong. They partner up and a once in a lifetime opportunity falls in to their laps to make a small fortune. I don't want to give anything away but it's a fun movie and I would recommend it. I own fewer than ten movies and this was one of them. Unfortunately, it was remade in to the flop called "Criminal." I do not recommend watching that one.

Status: Dibbed

Day 140: Yoshi's Island 3

I am generally understood to be a smiley person but not everyone is familiar with the various meanings of different smiles. When I get particularly excited I get this huge goofy grin and my tongue pokes out, kind of like the head of a turtle. On my birthday I invited all my friends to meet up at White Horse and I was in a fantastic mood. The bartender told me "You look like Yoshi, except hot." I think that was a compliment?

Status: Dibbed

Day 139: Leather Lotion

I love my leather boots. I have four pairs that are in regular rotation and I don't even put them away in the summer. Unfortunately I'm rather neglectful in their care. I have three different kinds of leather treatments and haven't used any of them. I need to buy some shoe polish and brushes. At least I'm good about resoling  them but I feel bad for not giving my boots the care they deserve.

Status: Dibbed

Day 138: The Boomerang Clue by Agatha Christie

I'm not exactly sure why, but quite a few of Agatha Christie's books were released under multiple names.  And Then There Were None is the most famous example I can think of; fortunately they didn't keep the original title which was Ten Little Niggers. The earlier British edition of The Boomerang Clue was titled Why Didn't They Ask Evans? This caused me some distress during my attempt at reading every Agatha Christie book in a summer. I had already read Why Didn't They Ask Evans? when I picked up The Boomerang Clue; oops.

Status: Dibbed

Day 137: Physics for the Utterly Confused

This book was a birthday gift to my sister from a friend in high school. She gave it to me to sell at my yard sale last year but I decided to keep it around in hopes that I could refresh my knowledge of physics. Unfortunately I was never particularly intrigued by physics and that hasn't changed. Chemistry was much more fun.

Status: Dibbed

Day 136: Ophelia's World by Michele Clise

Ophelia's World is a beautiful children's book full of photographs of bears in cute outfits. It is the diary of the main teddy bear, Ophelia, who runs a small shop in Paris. I didn't own this book as a child but I had another book by the same author called Ophelia's Voyage to Japan. The author of these books used to own a bear shop in Pike Place Market but I never had a chance to visit it before it closed. 

Status: Donated

Day 135: The Economist

At long last, my back issues of The Economist! I have been putting them off in hopes that I would still get around to reading them but this seems increasingly unlikely. I have subscribed for a year on two separate occasions. Once I convinced my dad to split an NPR donation and let me have the subscription as the thank you gift. Another year I received a year as a Christmas gift from my parents. Unfortunately, now that I walk to work I don't get in nearly as much reading time.

Status: Dibbed

Day 134: Fruits Basket art book

I've talked a lot about how I've moved on from my anime/manga phase but there are still a few series I love. Fruits Basket was my favorite series for years and was only recently displaced by the manga Skip Beat! I am holding on to the complete anime series and the complete manga series in English and Japanese. I'm letting go of this art book because the story is what makes Fruits Basket a wonderful read.

Status: Dibbed

Day 133: Freezepop CD

For Christmas one year, my old boyfriend asked me what I wanted him to buy me. I hate telling people what to buy me because it's like, why bother, I might as well just buy it myself. So I told him I wanted a Playstation 2. My intention was to say something unreasonably expensive so he'd be forced to think of something on his own. It didn't work, turns out some people would rather just pay up.

Fortunately I wanted a Playstation anyway so it was a pretty exciting gift. He had also picked up a copy of Grand Theft Auto 3 so we set up the console and started playing. I soon found out that he hadn't technically bought it for me because he was quickly hooked and announced he was going to buy himself a PS2 as well.

I ended up buying a copy of GTA 3 and also picking up the rhythm game Frequency. It was the first music offering from the popular game development Harmonix. One of the tracks on the game was "Science Genius Girl" by Freezepop.

Status: Dibbed

Day 132: Family Guy UMD for PSP

I should have packaged this with the Daxter PSP game because I don't care about it at all. It just happened to be small and in a large box of odds and ends so I never got around to getting rid of it. Fortunately I don't have many things like this left. I wish I had taken "before" photos of my room because it looks much cleaner already.

Status: Available

Day 131: The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

Day

This is going to be yet another tangential memory because you guys already know I love Agatha Christie.

My parents raised us on a diet of lots of beans, rice, and vegetables. My mom grew her own salad greens carrots, corn, broccoli, and other good stuff. Meat was a rare treat and my dad used to cook us steak about once a year in the toaster oven. There were many "normal" foods that I didn't try until I was in my late teens or adulthood.

I remember the first time I tried biscuits and gravy. My family was on a road trip back from dropping my sister off in Utah. We stayed in the Inn at Horse Heaven in Prosser. For breakfast they served mini biscuits and gravy. I'm not sure why more places don't serve mini biscuits and gravy, I found their size appealing.

Unfortunately I think mini biscuits and gravy was the only exciting dining experience from all our visits to Utah. Excluding, of course, when we were recognized in a diner from the documentary my family was featured in. I'll tell you about that another time.

Status: Dibbed

Day 130: Student's Vegetarian Cookbook

When I was a teenager I didn't eat any red meat. I wasn't foregoing meat for any of the standard reasons your hear; I basically made a bet to see how long I could go without eating it. I lasted four years. It wasn't actually that difficult since my parents rarely cooked meat. Occasionally we had roast chicken and on very special occasions my dad would make us a steak in the toaster oven.

Status: Dibbed

Day 129: Stoner Fluxx

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Stoner Fluxx is, as you might have guessed, the marijuana themed version of Fluxx. My best guess is that I bought it in hopes it would entice a boyfriend to play more games with me. I'm not sure I have ever used this copy.

I've enjoyed board and card games my whole life but the games I played with my old anime geek friends are very different than the ones I enjoy now. I can't quite put my finger on it but the games I used to play seem to be exclusively enjoyed by the type of geek who go to conventions (I was Sakura-con staff five years, my first year in attendance was 1999).

Games I used to play: Ninja Burger, Munchkin, The Big Idea, Lunch Money, Robo Rally. Games I've played since I stopped going to anime cons: Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Ricochet Robots, and lots of Dominion. Fluxx is part of the latter category. I think the games I enjoy now would all be considered more strategic, but if you have a better idea let me know.

Status: Dibbed

Day 128: Physics

I wasn't particularly thrilled with high school so I jumped at the chance to join Running Start. Running Start allows high school students in Washington state to take classes at local community colleges for free instead of going to normal high school classes. I took about two-thirds of my classes at North Seattle Community College my junior year and attended Seattle Central Community College full time my senior year.

Near the end of my senior year I applied for a job at Games & Gizmos near my school on Broadway. I dropped off my resume and started crossing the street towards the Rite Aid when suddenly I was knocked off my feet and found myself on the ground in the middle of the road.

I fumbled around for my glasses (they flew off but were unbroken), stood up, and finished crossing the street. I stood at the corner looking confused while the police arrived. The nice guy working at Planetary Espresso offered me water and I let myself be questioned and let the police drive me home.

I was fine until I reached my family's house and then suddenly I started bawling. The shock had worn off and it finally hit me that I had been in an accident. I came out pretty good, the delivery truck had been turning so it wasn't going too fast and it knocked me to the side. The side mirror had hit me in the head but I didn't have a concussion. We later found out that the driver had alcohol in his blood but my parents didn't press charges since I wasn't seriously injured. The biggest impact was that I was afraid to cross streets at intersections. I jaywalked as much as possible for months after that.

Status: Dibbed

Day 127: Fatal Frame III

In my Fatal Frame II post I mentioned the innovative gameplay of this series. A fourth installment was actually released on the Wii but it is only available in Japan. There was buzz about this game for years before the Japan released so when I discovered that it was not going to make it to US shores I was crushed. I think the game would have worked well with the Wii controller.

That leaves me with one other game that I want strongly enough to possibly buy a Wii for. I played Okami on the Playstation 2 and fell in love with it. The entire aesthetic of the game is beautiful and the story is engaging. You play the goddess Amaterasu in wolf form, battling demons and revitalizing the barren land with your calligraphy technique.

Status: Dibbed

Day 126: Teal Fabric

I think this is about two yards of gauzy teal fabric. It's much prettier in person than in this photograph. I purchased it for a Gods & Goddesses party; I draped it around my body and told everyone I was a siren. Gods & Goddesses was probably the most successful and fun theme party I've attended.

Status: Trashed

Vacation!

I will be traveling for a couple weeks so there is a possibility that I won't get a post up every day. I have already written up enough posts to last through my entire vacation so you guys shouldn't notice too much disruption. Maybe I'll even post a few pics from Thailand :)

Day 125: Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme

My cuticles are one of the few remaining parts of my body that I'm somewhat self-conscious of. I used to take issue with my profile and try to avoid letting anyone see me from that angle. I didn't feel very comfortable baring my legs or wearing a swimsuit. I'm pretty much over all that stuff. My cuticles though, they can be pretty raggedy. I suppose I could get manicures but I have to clip my nails whenever I feel like playing guitar so they wouldn't stay nice very long.

This cuticle cream is unused.

Status: Dibbed

Day 124: Warioland 4

I was never much of a fan of Wario until Wario Ware for the Gamecube came out. And then Wario Ware for Wii came out and it was even better. I'm such a sucker for weird mini games that force you to assume funny poses.

Status: Dibbed

Day 123: Apples to Apples

My sister and her boyfriend picked up this copy of Apples to Apples for me - the same day I bought myself a copy. It still seemed like it would be cool to have a smaller, more portable copy so we opened it to play a game. To our horror we discovered the game designers to be grasping at straws for new words. There were considerably more celebrity names and half the cards were actually pairs of words connected with ampersands. E.g. "Sugar & Spice," "Pork & Beans," and "Lock & Load." Absolutely unacceptable.

Status: Dibbed

Day 122: Assorted Buttons

I don't really like buttons. It makes me nervous to poke holes in my things. Yet somehow I still manage to accumulate them. I bought the Blue Monday pins because I thought "Of course, I just have to have these because I love Blue Monday!" and then they just sat in a drawer for like 6 years. Fortunately, all the other buttons were free.

Includes: 1 KEXP pin, 3 Blue Monday pins, 1 Yelp pin, 1 Obama pin, 1 Okami pin

Status: Blue Monday Buttons Dibbed, Others Available

Day 121: 14 Hooks and Eyes

I purchased these for a skirt I wanted to sew. Unfortunately I sized it too small and the skirt was not going to fit me. It's now sitting, unfinished, in a bag in the closet. The fabric is pretty so I'm going to post it on here later in hopes that someone will want to finish it.

Status: Dibbed

Day 120: Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

After my grandfather passed away a few years ago we all pitched in to help clean out the house and prepare for my grandma to move to a condo. Their house was always spotless to the eye but when we started opening drawers and cabinets we discovered that everything was stuffed to the brim. The most plentiful possessions were books.

I thought about bringing home some sci-fi or mystery books but what I ended up with is this copy of Mein Kampf and The Agatha Christie Companion. I made it through a couple chapters before I got distracted by something I was more excited about reading.

Status: Dibbed