Mascot Roadkill Mark 2

So..

Now I'm in that post-game, post-holiday, post-useful period where I realise there's nothing I could actually be doing to help anyone other than sit here and wait for the pharmacist to drop of Mum's medicine whilst she's out. It's a lovely feeling, I can tell you. >_<

I have lack of purpose angst. I fell back to reality with a bump after spending the Easter weekend being lovely and cocooned in my world o' Dante, and it's rather depressing. I've been harrassing the job agency to find me some work, but to no avail. It looks like the only thing I'm going to have to do next week is going down to the Jobcentre. >_<

I could really do with a job, and more to the point, some money. A trip to America or Japan wouldn't go amiss either. >_<

dantedantedantedantedante

^______________________________^

I actually cannot contain the amount of glee I'm feeling because of DMC3. I finished it this afternoon, and it is actually one of the finest videogames I've ever played in my life ever ever ever. ^_________^

And the end of the game has happy happy DMC continuity fun!! ^____^ 3 is, of course, a prequel to 1 and 2, so I was eagerly awaiting how much of the end would be a nod to the original. Frankly, the fact that they had a "some time later" scene at the end with Dante in his DMC1 costume was enough to gleeify me for a very long time. ^___^ It's not that I didn't love him in his little DMC3 form, but he's so much more badass as slightly more biseinen Dante. ^________^

And now I want to be a devil hunter. >_< I'm not sure what they'll make of that when I have my interview at the Jobcentre, but hey, I'd be passionate about my job. Hello, yes, I'm Katy. Do I have any plans for what kind of job I'd like to do? Well, actually yes I do. I want to kill demons with a bigass sword and possibly also a guitar. Do you have anything in the devil-hunting line at the moment? ^_______^

Someone else PLEASE play DMC3! *weeps* I need people to glee with!!

^_________________^

DMC3 was actually the videogame made just for me.

Dante has a new weapon. A guitar. POWERED BY BATS!! ^___________________________________________^

*offers mad glompage at all and every member of Capcom's staff if only for this and the "Dante rocks out cheesetacularly with new guitar" scene*

Happy Easter Everyone!

I hope everyone is having a peaceful Easter with or without the chocolate, delete as appropriate. I've had quite a jolly day, which is an interesting change to most significant days of the year in my experience. The clocks going forward didn't exactly help attempting to get myself up for church at 9.30, but we made it by the skin of our teeth. o_0 Nice service in the only place worth visiting in Grantham, St Wulfram's. (That picture doesn't make it look half as humungous and/or impressive as it is, believe me. It's like some kind of escapee from Oxford. I love it. ^____^ Oooh, that's a bit better. As an idea of scale, I just about come up to the line halfway up the doorway. So. Awesome. ^____^) The vicar did, however, score amusing/frustrating points by starting his sermon "Be afraid, be very afraid" then asking the congregation if anyone knew where that quotation actually came from. I don't know! >_<

So after that we trundled home and got on with the doing nothing for the rest of the day. This mainly involved putting Humberto in his new hamster ball and laughing riotously as he attempted to destroy the kitchen cabinets in his little war machine. He's such a dude, I'm sure he thinks that thing's a tank. ^____^

Then, of course, maternal unit and I had to settle in to watch the Boat Race. Come on! ^_________^ It's actually quite sad the amount that I care about the Boat Race. I couldn't give monkey's about college rowing nor, indeed, national rowing but bring the university into the equation and I'm practically foaming at the mouth. It's like some twisted kind of patriotism to the great nation of Oxford. o_0 What's even sadder was my very, very strong desire to be sick all the way through the build up to the race (on ITV, ugh o_0). No, I don't understand either.

Someone please explain to me *why* Humberto appears to have taken up acrobatics? o_0 Dear, the top of your cage is not suitable for hanging upside-down on. o_0 You're going to break a leg soon and I don't have money for vet bills. @_@ I'm going to have to buy him climbing gear at this rate. o_0

And a slight change of pace

...from my previous, more meditative entry, I can officially tell you I will be getting *no* sleep tonight. @_@ Why? BECAUSE I GOT MY COPY OF DMC 3 AND HAVE BEEN PLAYING IT NON-STOP SINCE TEN THIS MORNING!!! ^_____________^

Fantastic. ^_________^ I do, however, have a self-imposed no videogames rule for Easter Sunday, just because it means I might spend a bit more time with the family. So no happy shiny cheese crack for me now til Monday. >_< But what shiny cheese crack it is! ^___^ It actually beats seventeen shades of supreme cool out of the first two games, which is saying something given how much I enjoyed (and re-enjoyed) both of them. It's definately cut from the same cloth as the first game, which should please just about everyone who played both (*I* liked DMC2 :p).

Now of course, I could sit here and do a big old review of the gameplay, graphics and all those other things they talk about on proper websites, but frankly I know my audience better than that. You just want to know about Dante and Vergil. ^___^ Dante appears to have been the supreme cheesemonger we know and love all his life, and may actually have been at his peak in his younger years. Really? Were you expecting it to be any different? ^____^ I'm not entirely keen on his voice actor for this game, although he does appear to have an interesting dub pedigree (...Kerberos in the Cardcaptors movie and more Digimon than you can shake a very big stick at. o_0). I mean, I know Dante's meant to be younger in this game, but you didn't have to lose the gruff entriely. o_0

Vergil, on the other hand, is a nasty, nasty man. o_0 Ohhh yes. I'm sure the fangirl legion will not be disappointed on this front. I, however, being of the Dante Luff, think he's a bit of a pooface. He's not very nice to Dante at all. >_<

Oh, and you: there's a character in it called Jester, who is, in fact, a jester. I'll try and get you a picture. ^_^

And just because I'm doing reviews, the new Doctor Who was decidedly ok. Granted it's only one episode in, but so far, Christopher Ecclescake is amusing, Billie isn't, and the plotline's a bit too comedic. But it's still a darn sight better than most things you'll find on Saturday night television.

...

Feeling a bit under the mental weather today. Which is odd because I've been doing a great deal of gardening, and I thought exercise was meant to make you feel good.

I'm generally quite fond of it being Good Friday too. Seems like a very odd thing to say, I know, but the way I tend to see it, it's about the only religious holiday we have these days that hasn't been trampled over by commercialism. Fair enough, supermarkets cram us full of hot cross buns weeks in advance, but at least that's a bit more traditional than the other Easter-related shenanigans.

I know it doesn't mean a lot more than just that to many people these days, but it sort of figures in my head that you could recognise the importance of Good Friday regardless of what you think of Christianity as a whole. Jesus was a bloke who was around about 2000 years ago, that's proven, undisputed fact thanks to various non-Christian sources. He got killed in just about one of the most unpleasant ways people have dreamt up, all because of what he believed in.

That just strikes me as an idea you don't have to be a Christian to appreciate; it's essentially an extreme example of philanthropy. Whether you think he was right or not, Jesus believed he had to die for the good of everyone who'd been, was, or would be alive. And, y'know, I think that's the truth because it's my religion, but even if it weren't, I think I would still recognise that as an impressive feat. It's just like that's something everyone can appreciate, regardless of what they believe, such a massive act of self-sacrifice towards all of us.

I don't desparately want to sound like I'm soapboxing it, because I think that's possibly the worst ever way to get a point across on something as delicate as religion, but I think everyone who reads my blog knows how much I hate the commercializing of religious holidays and I just feel like there ought to be more to think about. So anyone who did get this far through Katy rambling, cheers, and I hope it makes sense.

Stupid lack of pictures...

Why can't I find a nice-sized full picture of Spinel Sun from CCS? I mean I *know* Suppi-chan doesn't appear in proper form all that often, but you'd think Clamp wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to draw many pictures of their angry butterfly-winged leopard just on pretty terms. But nooooo.

And I want pictures for making wallpaper and/or icons out of. I'm having a fairly mangey day and right now pixels would help. Stupid being bitten by hamster/doing gardening/going to jobcentre/taking coma-inducing antihistamines day.

I think I'm going to outgeek myself and make some icons of Firefox-tan.

Helen-chan!

Happy birthday! *squoosh*

I know you have the same attitude towards birthdays as I do, but I do hope something nice happens. ^__^

There are good things...

...and bad things about being allowed to gorge myself on Jane's comic collection. Good - huge amounts of Deadpool at my disposal. ^___^ Bad - IF I SEE ONE MORE COMIC BOOK CHARACTER HOLDING A PAIR OF SAI WITH THEIR FINGERS INBETWEEN THE BLADES I'M GOING TO SCREAM.

>_< Now I don't have the right to be pendantic about many things in this world, but I *have* learned how to use the sais. Heck, I even have my own pair. Which appears to be more than can be said for the average comic book artist. So allow me to elaborate. Sai are for trapping swords, that's why they have the little trident-type blades coming off the sides. If you put your fingers inbetween those blades, right were you intend to trap them there swords, you're not going to have fingers much longer. You don't see characters holding swords by the business end, so please, comic book artists, stop messing with MY favourite weapon. >_<

...but other than that, Cable and Deadpool is currently hilarious. ^____^

AHAHAHAHA!!

Internet loves me!! This may be the absolute most shameful personality quiz I've ever seen, but the result amuses me. Placate me with flattery, internet, PLACATE ME. ^___________^

-Perfect- You're the perfect girlfriend. Which
means you're rare or that you cheated :P You're
the kind of chick that can hang out with your
boyfriend's friends and be silly. You don't
care about presents or about going to fancy
placed. Hell, just hang out. You're just happy
being around your boyfriend.


What Kind of Girlfriend Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

No, I didn't cheat. o_0

There is a reason...

..for the sporadic bloggage at the moment. I think my head's in a few too many places for me to come up with a coherent summary. I've been feeling sort of groggy at the world since I finished work experience on Friday, which may or may not be my body's way of telling me we've been doing far too much compared to our usual regime.

It's very nice to be in Oxford, despite the slight ming feeling. Yesterday was particularly enjoyable, running off into the Cotswolds with her and her to look at big scary birds at a falconry centre. I got to fly a harris hawk, it was fantastic! When my camera is feeling a little less petulant, I'll put some pictures up, including the snowy owl that looked like a big angry football. ^____^ We liked him, and the naughty falcons that really just did not feel like doing anything their handler said. ^___^ My respect for falconers have increased a million-fold for the amusing comments about how lazy birds of prey are and how plain dumb the average owl is. ^___^ Animals glee. ^____^

The rest of the weekend/today has included fair amounts of Cardcaptor Sakura (I must watch all of the Sakura Cards arc in two days!) and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I knew there was a reason I brought my Dreamcast down here. ^____^ Production values of a teabag, but incredibly amusing to play.

And now I believe I'm meant to be eating noodles so I should probably cease the computing for the moment.

So, um bloggage, that'd be an idea

It's not that I don't have millions of things to blog about at the moment, I just don't have the energy to do it. @_@ Marauding groups of eight year olds tend to sap one's energy a little. Which is not to say that I don't love every single one of them, they're just...a handful. @_@

But yeah, I like teaching. I'm rather sad tomorrow is going to be my last day at the school because I've grown quite attached to my class. They're a year three class, but they're the lower stream of pupils because they're not really that bright. They're not dumb, they just take a bit more teaching than the other kids. ^__^

To be honest though, I really like looking after the ones that are a bit more work. There are children in the class who really struggle to keep up with the rest, and quite often I'm put with them just so they've got someone on hand. But the thing with all these children is, they really seem to appreciate it more if you try to help them. I don't know if I've just got a nice class or it's true elsewhere, but at that age they seem to get a lot out of teachers paying them attention. And alright, when I do finally get to be a teacher I'm not going to have time to give each of the children as much attention as I can at the moment, but I think I'd rather work with children like that than the "gifted and talented" brigade. They're not quite as precocious as the smart kids, either. o_0

*falls on keyboard*

Mumpfh. o_0 I've had One of Those Days. Just a lot of hard work and noisy children when I didn't want it, nothing serious.

I'm too tired for real life, I'm going to indulge myself in lots and lots of CCS manga.

HOEEEEE!!

My Weekend, in Pictoral Form

Since I am too tired/braindead to write, here is a mainly pictoral description of my weekend.

1. Humberto. Humberto is my new friend. Since Trevor was named after Trevor the mad wife beater from Eastenders, Humberto was named after Humberto, the impotent playboy (no, really, I didn't miss out a letter there, he actually is o_0) from my beloved Mexican soap opera, Amor Real.

2. I can safely say that I have spent far too much time this weekend playing with these. Some are better than others, thanks to the limitations of Candybar's long coat wardrobe.

Now I have to go to bed in preparation for executive child-minding practice.

^__________________^

I HAVE A NEW HAMSTER!!!

^_______________________^

GLEE!!!

^_____________________________^

PICTURES SOON!

^_________________________________^

*flash of lightning*

I remembered what I was going to tell you last night. I'm so incredibly addicted to Phantasy Star Online now that I've started doing the Hunter's Guild quests. o_0 My room was just like Rag Rappy carnage central last night. ^______^ (For them wot don't know what one of those is, (to your shame :|) they're a bit like fat, evil chocobos. They are a most satisfying thing to wallop on the head with my super magical Force cane. ^___^)

*sighs* Everyone should play Phantasy Star Online. It's like the sequel to FFVIII we will never have. It's shiny and futuristic and lets me play dress-up with the character maker. It's a shame it only seems to get sporadic releases/ports compared to its correct-spelling behemoth friend...

Dolls!

This dollmaking challenge is like crack. I sit at school thinking who I'm going to do next. o_0

Dolls, both mine and D's.

Too Much to Blog About @_@

I have had an incredibly busy few days. o_0 Some of it fun, some of it just busy. But mostly fun, I'm glad to say.

Whopping great highlight of my week back in the country was going to see the collective in Oxford. You have no idea how much I enjoyed it. ^____^ It's nice to be in America, and obviously I love being with Daniel and his family, but sometimes you've just got to get back to the 'ryu. It's sort of like getting my internal battery charged or something.

But anyway, much to our shame, the Hatebox was played, but only because it supplied us with Dead or Alive 3 crack. And as Phinn and I reasoned, sucking at Xbox means being cool in real life, therefore we must be cool.

Essentially, the whole day can be summed up in one photograph, that photograph being this. We are the ninjas of the night. OWNED! ^________^

Incredibly huge thanks and supreme glompage goes to her for buying me the best present ever. Anyone who's even been to the art shop on Broad Street with the downstairs will probably have had pointed out to them the incredibly beautiful cross stitch picture of a griffin on the stairwell wall. Griffins being the best mythological animals ever, I've wanted it for the longest time, but they've never had it in there to buy, just the picture of it. But *somehow* Jane managed to get the kit for me. ^_______________________^ And now it's sitting on my bed looking more and more like a picture of a griffin every day, thanks to my old lady-like love of cross stitching things. @_@

The other huge thing I have to talk about is this whole work experience thing. I started yesterday and happily things are going well. It's incredibly tiring, but the children I'm working with (year 3, 7 and 8 year-olds) are all extremely cute and hilariously funny. ^_____^ At 7 and 8 they're at that age where they have the ability to say all the really bizarre things that come into their head without the mental censor to tell them, "Wait! I sound like a freak!" So much fun. ^___^

On last thing, here is my entry to the dolls competition. Well, one of many, I should think. The dollmaker is too much fun. ^____^

AAAAAAAARGH!!!!

I HATE YOU NETWORKING!!!

*fumes quietly in corner*

FUN!

I've added some more quotes to the quiz below, just because it amuses me. Knock yo'selves out. ^____^

...but I'm still disappointed no one's got 1 yet. o_0

Aqui estoy...

Back in England, once again. Long dull flight, Chicago snowy, full of people; San Antonio warm and infinitely preferable, not only for presence of D and Dog. What happened to the weather in this country?? It's absolutely _horrible_! More so than usual!!

In important announcements, I'm going to be doing work experience for the next fortnight at my old primary school. I'm entirely weirded out by the thought of being allowed in the staff room. I feel like I ought to be made to eat my lunch in the playground. ^_____^

Oh, and by the way, I fixed that link.

Since I require fun things to do at the moment, you can all play with this meme I stole from Grantham Helen. ^__^

Guess the Film Quote

Pick fifteen quotes from films you like. When people guess them correctly, cross them off. (...and if any one of you IMDBs/Googles all of them I will beat you with many sticks. :p)

1. "Oh good, my dog found the chainsaw!"

2. "LET'S ROCK!"
Vasquez, Aliens. Answered by Jenny.

3. "Tina, you fat lard, come get some DINNER!... Tina, eat. Food. Eat the FOOD!"

4. "If his unpleasant wounding has in some way enlightened the rest of you as to the grim finish beneath the glossy veneer of criminal life, then his injuries carry with it an inherent nobility, and a supreme glory. We should all be so fortunate. You say poor Toby? I say poor us."
Sphinx, Gone in 60 Seconds. Answered by Tasha.

5. "I wonder where I'll go now. The net is vast and infinite."
Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell. Answered by Daniel.

6. "Want some candy?"
Predator, Predator 2. Answered by Daniel.

7. "The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping."
Holden, Blade Runner. Answered by Jane.

8. "Well, yeah, it is a good thing, 'cause this is like finding Moses' DVD collection"
Alien vs. Predator. Answered by Helen.

9. "...except for Elizabeth, who is, in fact, a woman."
Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean. Answered by Jane

10. "What?! No! We can't stop here! This is bat country! "
Raoul Duke, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. CHEATED by Tasha. :O

11. "But what does it MEAN?!"
Jack Skellington, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Answered by Jane.

12. "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood. NOBODY"
White, Dodgeball. Answered by Daniel.

13. "We take Pete's car, go around mum's, go in, deal with Phillip - "Sorry Phillip!" - grab mum, go to Liz's, pick her up, bring her back here, have a cup of tea and wait for this whole thing to blow over."
Shaun, Shaun of the Dead. Answered by Jane.

14. "No. I'll shoot the cook. My car's parked out back, anyway."
Agent Sands, Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Answered by Jane.

15. "Joe, is it O.K. if I leave the couch? 'Cause I'm gonna leave the couch now, okay? My ass is falling asleep, so I gotta go. I'm leaving."
Lucas, Empire Records. Answered by Jane.

Go on. I think there's at least one other person who's seen it for each of these films so someone's got to have a clue. ^_______^

Extra bonus points quiz questions!!

16. "AM I NOT MERCIFUL?"
Emperor Commodus, Gladiator. Answered by Andrew.

17. "Here's your orange sher-bert..."
Random security guard only remembered for being played by Christian Slater, Austin Powers. Answered by Liz.

18. "Sell my guitars? Would you tell Piccasso to sell his guitars?"
Dewey Finn, School of Rock. Answered by Laura (impressively, since she's not seen it! ^__^)

19. "Your body's dying. Pay no attention."
Lestat, Interview with the Vampire. Answered by Jenny.

20. "We'll have to work fast. A pair of quadruple whiskies and another pair of pints..."
Withnail, Withnail and I. Answered by Ian.