I have no idea whether these will mean much to anyone except me. But hey, who cares. :)
First, on a somber note, this beautiful song about friends parting.







Funnily enough, I've read that the melody of this song was written by a Westerner but has pretty much been forgotten in the actual Western world. However, this song has remained popular in China long afterwards. This kind of thing - books, music, TV shows, bits of language, even entire cultures "dying" in their country of origin but living for much longer in another country - apparently happens quite a bit.

Another video: This is a song from The Little Dragon Boy, a kids' TV show which was popular in China in 1992 - right before I left for New Zealand. I did manage to see the show though, and was crazy about it, just like every other Chinese kid at that time. The quality of this video isn't good, but it brims with too much joy and childish innocence (not to mention nostalgia, for me personally) not to share.



On a lighter note, from Engrish.com: People at this park apparently need to watch out for careless divers who plunge into lily ponds.

1. Write to my grandparents, both on my Dad and Mum's sides, and mail the letters out.

2. Buy and send promised chocolate to some of my special LJ friends.

3. Get more presents for some friends I'm having an early Christmas dinner with...on Saturday. Yippee! :)

This Christmas I'll be having my first real holiday away from work. :D I'll be spending it with my family, as usual, and not going far. We'll probably travel around the rural regions of southern Auckland - but nothing's really been decided yet.

Today I was in town, and saw a local bar around here - a bar called, no kidding, The White House. I thought it was rather amusing:








They even parody the old "Uncle Sam" war posters on the door:



My first thought was I hoped they weren't conscripting the dancers and bartenders.

Funnily enough, if you go to their website you get a "only click if you're over 18" button, and clicking it gives you a Flash animation of Bill Clinton claiming that he did not have sexual relationships with that woman. Ah, raunchy bar humour and selective views of American politics. :)

Ranma 1/2-themed computer viruses.

I especially love this one:

"Kodachi Kuno virus: obsessed with tracking down the Ranma Saotome virus and
reproducing with it. Also shorts out the sound card."

Oh yes, HOHOHOHOHOHOHO....:D

An anime DVD set is not an investment. Unless you're waiting for it to go up in value and sell it.

(And yes, I'm far too picky about word choice.)

Via aikoheiwa:

ǝƃɐd ɹnoʎ oʇuo sIɥʇ ǝʇsɐd puɐ ʎdoɔ 'sʎɐs siɥʇ ʇɐɥʍ ʇno ǝɹnƃIɟ oʇ ɥƃnouǝ ʇɹɐɯs ǝɹɐ noʎ ɟI

This is probably true:








With a huge exception in, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien. He invented entire languages that made sense, and fictional histories to go with the languages. I think Tolkien was, if not the first, definitely one of the first ubernerds of the modern world.

If you even have the tiniest inkling of a thought that you might have something even slightly important to do today, never, never, NEVER visit the TV Tropes wiki.

You'll spend ages just browsing it. I promise.

...Pat yourself on the back every now and then.

I know, because I've been obsessing about everything I've done wrong or haven't done right (again). While totally forgetting all my achievements and good qualities. Even worse, I've been using my achievements and good qualities as a stick to beat myself with whenever I don't live up to a Platonic standard of perfection.

I mean, I can write stories and play musical instruments (although, admittedly, I'm very out of practise), have a science degree, have reached a very high level of philosophical thought, and can pass exams and assignments using the remnant of my energy and time. But all I've been thinking about is everything I haven't done or achieved, and comparing myself to other people negatively.

Okay, I've been blowing my own trumpet, I admit. But the real point is - that everybody, yes, YOU as well, should take time to appreciate everything good about themselves.

Well, it sucks. At least, from the first couple of episodes I've seen so far.

The trouble with it is they seem to be insistent on packing as much plot into every episode as possible, and therefore, moments which should be drawn-out and poignant are totally not. Also, too much is happening at any one time for us to really appreciate.

One of the best things about Rumiko Takahashi is the way she portrays people's emotions. She does it in a way as to really make you care about the characters, their stories, their loves and struggles, physical or emotional - even in a manga as silly and slapstick as Ranma 1/2, or as action-packed as Inuyasha. Sometimes, it comes across as a bit overdone, and the Inuyasha manga has been drawn out too long in the latter chapters, but even then you really feel the significance of important moments. In the Inuyasha anime, the creators jumped to the opposite fault - nothing is drawn out and given the detail it deserves. Not even moments as poignant as Kagura's final freedom, given to her at the same time as an extremely painful death (because Naraku is just Teh Sooper Evulz) - genuine emotion is sacrificed for too much story.

I've always had a theory that people often, when seeing the bad effects of a bad idea, jump to the opposite extreme which is 99.99999% of the time another bad idea. The way the new Inuyasha anime is being handled definitely seems like validation of that theory.

I don't browse around websites much these days, but just now I had another gawk at the Starlights merchandise at nenena's webpage. And found this adorable picture:







Yes, it's Stitch wearing a Starlights transformation microphone. Although I do not want to picture him in that outfit. No. :D

I'm in need of encouragement again, so if you can, please reply to this post with three things you like about me. In return, I'll reply to that with three things I like about you. :)

I'm not usually the kind of person you associate with cynicism, horrifying things that can kill you (both natural and manmade), and bizarre sexual fetishes which aren't safe to even think about. Okay, I can do the snarky thing quite well, I admit, but I generally prefer benevolent humour.

Maybe it's the same drive that motivates horror movie fans. Or maybe...After a small taste of the stomach-churning, frightening, dark and disgusting, the beauty and wholesomeness of...oh, just about anything else becomes so much more enjoyable in contrast. Maybe we need the bad to appreciate the good, to some small extent at least.

Still, there is a lot of clever, benevolent humour to be found on that site too - although you might have to sift pretty hard amongst the cynicism.

And I'm not even a wrestling fan. Hat tip Brickmuppet, although this picture is old.

On john_j_enright's advice, I looked around for writing courses...and found a correspondence course that sounds really good.

Unfortunately it costs $2000.

I hope the old Chinese proverb about cheap things not being good and good things not being cheap is true. Although there certainly are expensive things of poor quality, I can testify.

So...I sign up onto the virtual New Zealand stock exchange program to prepare myself, hopefully, for the real thing. (You can pretend to buy stocks and bonds, and what happens to your virtual wealth is dependent on how the real companies do.)

And they give me fifty thousand freakin' New Zealand dollars. Just for signing up.

None of this money is actually real, of course.

I wish this would happen to me in real life (but it hardly ever does, unless you have rich parents, or win Lotto. :D )

I have a steady job now, but I'd like to go back to university, on a part time basis, after a couple of years. Just because I feel like it.

Still, I don't know what I should do - I'm thinking of getting a Masters degree in science at last, but in marine biology, which would require me to take a few prep courses. Normally Masters degrees take two years, so part time study should take four - three, if I take a year off work to do research in the Year Of Actually Writing The Darned Thesis.

Another degree I'm thinking of is to get a separate Bachelor of Arts, majoring in English, because of that book I'd like to write. (I know you don't need to take university courses in literature to write, especially not children's books, but the work I'm thinking of would really be helped by a good extensive background knowledge of literature and philosophy from many cultures and ages.) Still, that one would take a full SIX years to complete part time.

I also might like to compose music...

...What am I thinking of? I still need a good few more years of work before even starting to plan this kind of thing. :D

Via aikoheiwa: Teacher shows how to make the concept of the impossible "1=2 equation" interesting.

And on Halloween to boot!

This is one of those times I regret I couldn't be a teacher.

Looking through an auto brochure for cheap cars, I found one that sounded good - only $4995 in New Zealand dollars (but still a big chunk out of my annual salary). It sounded good, until the ad proclaimed:

"Mitsubishi Lancer, 1.5L, auto, tidy clean car. Won't last."

...I'd rather pay an extra thousand for a car that's a bit more durable. :D