Look, a journal!

Right, I've been meaning to post about various things for a while and haven't gotten around to it. So I could probably write a whole entry on any of these things, but I'm going to try to be brief.

- Went to see the new (well, new-ish) Harry Potter movie last weekend. I thought it was an improvement, actually. Or rather, I should say I enjoyed it more than I remember enjoying the book. I don't actually remember DH well enough to know what was changed -- besides the dance scene, since people made such a fuss over that. Personally, I have to say I don't really care whether the movies are pushing Harry/Hermione or not. I did think Nick Cave was kind of an odd choice of slow-dance music, but I like that song, I'm not complaining.

The Japanese subtitles were pretty cool -- the translators actually made up their own words for the spells and other invented language instead of just putting it all in katakana, which kind of surprised me. I can't remember any of it now, though.

- ... so I bought myself a PS3, finally. I waited until there were a bunch of games for it that I wanted, and I saved up for it and shopped around to find the lowest price, so it's not like it was some stupid impulse buy, but I'm still going "aaah I spent money oh god I hate spending money" about it. It's just kind of sitting there because I don't have any games for it, though at least now I can play my Japanese games without using SwapMagic.

- I bought the first volume of this old, obscureish manga called Leviathan (mostly because Sound Horizon did an album based on it) and, despite its... problems ("Evil foreign immigrants will destroy Japan!") I enjoyed it enough to want to keep reading. I couldn't find it at bookstores, so I Googled it hoping to find raws. Instead I found a scanslation, and now I'm wondering if this one is exceptionally bad or if I'd just forgotten how terrible scanslations usually are. Actual verbatim line:

"He was first and had a normal of pro-wrestling debut, then he was became stronger! I'm happy it was cool."

I kind of doubt this translator speaks either Japanese or English. I did find raws eventually and am kind of tempted to translate the thing myself, but this is a bad idea because (a) no one cares and (b) I like to start ambitious projects with great enthusiasm and then abandon them a couple of weeks later. This is why I'll never be a professional writer or translator. Well, that and a lack of skill and an inability to self-promote. Is it stupid that I still find that disappointing? I mean, naturally most people who want to do some kind of creative thing professionally don't succeed, so it's just a function of my white middle-class "you can be anything you want to when you grow up!" upbringing that I ever thought I could. Oops, tangent. Moving on to more positive things:

- My trip to the US is less than two weeks away! Exciting, though there are still several things that need to be sorted out. I'm going to be in New Jersey and then Washington DC and then New Jersey again, so if you're going to be in either of those areas and not horribly busy, let me know. Maybe we can hang out.

Finally did a proper update on Serious Blog that's not a crosspost from here or... just me being silly. So in case anyone's interested in a slightly more literary treatment of my stupid anecdotes, there it is.

Not much else going on right now. Tomorrow the JETs in my area are meeting up and having a Thanksgiving dinner, and I spent the entire evening (well, night, mostly) in a wild cooking frenzy out of excitement at the prospect of feeding people other than myself, but now I'm all worried that people won't like it. I mean, the vegetable soup might be a bit bland, and it's very chunky because I don't have a food processor. And I made a huge mess of the daigaku imo (about half of them are okay and the other half are really nasty, and I can't reliably tell which is which without biting into them, so if I bring them, I run the risk of someone getting a really nasty one). At least I feel pretty good about the cheesecake.

Haha, I think I've found a workaround for LJ being blocked at work. At least as far as posting goes. Still can't reply to comments or read anyone else's posts. Anyway, I was going to write some kind of long involved post about all the stuff that's happened lately, but right now I kind of hate everything so I don't feel like it. I just wanted to let you all know that I am

(a) in Japan

(b) not dead

(c) without internet except at work for the next 2-3 weeks at the very least

(d) really, really bored

If anyone could link some interesting websites of the sort that are mainly text with no/few pictures, that'd be great. It may sound nice to be paid to sit around and do nothing, but actually sitting around and doing nothing is really dull. I brought a book, but I've finished it now, and I don't have nearly enough to last me until classes start again anyway.