Jet said that he figured out why the Easter Bunny didn't leave any chocolate eggs in the basement.  He said that the bunny couldn't reach the light switch, and was afraid of the dark, so he didn't leave any in the basement.  But he couldn't figure out why the Easter Bunny didn't leave any eggs in the office or the bedrooms or the bathroom.   *laughter*

( Watching the last of the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Bleach, ep 115-119.  Cut for really vague spoilers. )

Actually went outside yesterday, and did a ton of errands, got my shots, ran around and bought a bunch of things that I really have been wanting. Shelled out for the first two books of Fullmetal Alchemist, too many folks have been saying it's good for me to leave it; and also shelled out for GetBackers when I looked through the first seven books of One Piece and just couldn't get into it. Though I did *love* what I saw of Sanji.

I really enjoyed the sheer attitude in GetBackers.

( More Manga and Anime stuff. I really *do* like the One Piece anime, it turns out... )

For some reason Kuchiki-taichou is just really fun to draw....

I have three boys running around the house entertaining each other. It's good to have play dates on holidays.

( Cut for picture download. )

I'm sipping at Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, rather than gulping it down whole the way I did Bleach's first couple of arcs. The complexity and depth and... well, the half-mysteries of the episodes require greater processing, each on their own.

But I watch most of the opening sequence, and the aria from the opening resounds in my head, just a couple of measures play like a loop through my head. When I'm alone in the sanctuary of our church, prepping for stuff or other things, I find myself singing it as the acoustics in that room are just glorious.

Jet and I finished the first Sakura series with a bang. He and John went out to see the The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, and then they came home, and played some more chess, and then Jet and I finished the series, unintentionally. We were only going to watch the usual four episodes, but then the last one ended right near the end and pulled in the last big plot poinker and both of us were like AGGGGGHHH!!

Very good agghh. Very satisfying agghhh, but still... another two episodes of aggggghhh!!

Very fun, though. I'd highly recommend the original Japanese series, that has a GIRL as the central character. I can't even imagine what the American version is like to have Sakura not be the central character... I'm probably never even going to look. One interesting side benefit is that Jet started reading the shorter subtitles for himself. He was quite motivated to read... :-)

The three of us went to the church to help undecorate, but the whole thing was bare of Christmas stuff when we arrived! Meep. I then did stuff for the class tomorrow, and wrestled with a recalcitrant copy machine. It was hard, but we eventually won. And I got my copies. Then I came home, read a bunch of stuff for the class and wrote a few things, and I'm happy I'm writing anything again.

The boys went to their movie while I worked on stuff, and then we watched Sakura and John's cheerfully roasting a chicken and watching football or something. *laughter* Ah... it's a Seahawks game. Awww, they're not doing very well.

I might go play Devil May Cry. I finally succumbed and went for the "Auto" mode after dying eight times against the first boss. The only thing is that in the Auto mode, I'm plowing through everything with just a little management of resources. Even that first boss only took one healing to get through on the first try. But now I get to do all the puzzles and stories and secret missions and stuff, so it's been pretty cool. I like the puzzles and going up against hordes of monsters and learning more about how Dante fights. At least, now, I don't feel like I'm failing him. *laughter*

Tomorrow, John has like five different things he has to do at church so we're not going to be home for a very, very long time, so I'm not feeling guilty, at all, for an all AV Saturday.

Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance...

Anime Fever Org is fixed! Woohooo!! I zoomed through another four episodes (ending on 62, whew) and am far more impressed by Ni-sama than I have ever been before. *happiness*

And Ichigo is still very cool.

And now I can zoom through incandescens's fanfic, now and actually understand what's going on. *giggles*

The class went okay. The folks participating were what made it work, not really me, but it was designed to do that. So that was pretty okay. I wasn't very smooth about it and not terribly prepared for the timing of all the parts, so it is. Tonya will do better next week. I'll probably do better the following week and that should be good enough. Folks were just grateful the class was being presented at all, and I think everyone got something from everyone else's contribution, which was, perhaps, the whole point. John said that he got something out of it, so that was cool enough.

I also ran around making coffee before Sunday school and after for the Epiphany lunch. Then we went home with an extra kid and no John, as John had a meeting to stay for, and Orion and Jet decided to play together at our house. They did a great job of it, too, and let me read nearly six books of CLAMP's Tsubasa while they played. I really, really like Tsubasa, too, even more now that Jet and I have watched so much of Cardcaptor Sakura. Seeing Syaoran/Shaoran in a completely new light was really neat. Same heart and personality, but with a completely different past and base. I love seeing CLAMP pull it off in a way that is as interesting as it is.

It's fun to recognize the brief bits from xxxHolic as well, but I think they kept a pretty light touch on that, enough so that the synching isn't that much of a problem. Plus it's not necessary, just fun.

After Orion had to go, Jet and I watched on episode of Sakura while dinner was cooking, and then we watched a few more after until he had his hot tub play time and then a shower to clean off the chlorine before bed. He was very happy that I got to go through his night time routine with him. Then I got in a few more Bleach episodes and am content to know more about Rukia's past and see Renji again. I will admit that I don't like the filler/comic relief episodes at all with Don. Blech.

I have to admit that a steady diet of at least four episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura:The Book of Clow and four episodes of Bleach every day for the last few days has done something to my dreams. I'm not doing any work dreams any more. *laughter* But it all starts as Bleach dreams every night, but then melds into pretty much vicious shadow battle dreams with side lines into cooking, crushes, and dramatic fashion statements. It's far more amusing and less frightening than the work dreams.

But Jet is really, really into the Cardcaptor anime, a lot a lot. He will take the time to update John, nearly every morning, with quick synopsis of the best parts of what he last saw. He is also telling me, now, to NOT READ THE WORDS! In just that tone. But then, ten minutes later he'll ask me what's going on, and I'll try and do a quick synopsis and then miss something... *giggles* But one can get by with at least "Hai!" "Baka!" "Ohio gozaimasu" "Konichiwa" "Kawaii!!" and "Matte!" along with a knowledge of everyone's names with remarkable efficiency.

We've been relatively busy since the New Year. Jet had nearly a full day with Bonnie and her kids on the 2nd, as he went with them to the Rec. Center and then to the new McDonald's on Main. John and I went to Food Share and got only 400 pounds of food, the post-holidays slump is kind of frightening, as the warehouse is nearly half empty. We just didn't have that much to pick from that the OUR Center really needed, and they were pretty high on storage stuff anyway.

The 3rd was my massage, and John and Jet went up to Ft. Collins to get one of Jet's birthday presents and a part for the hot tub.

We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast today, and played with the TinTamJam on his XO laptop. Once I showed him how to link things with loops he was happily head bobbing with his ear phones one as he jammed away with all kinds of sound elements.Today was Jet's last day off from school, so he got to pick a special thing to do, and he really wanted to go back to the McDonald's and so we went there for lunch. John read a newspaper and I knit on one of Jet's socks while he played and met up with some old Kindergarten friends. We also managed to get all the class materials put together and copied at the Church office.

He and I watched Sakura while John had a meeting at church. I heated up a very nice shepherd's pie from Colorado Cupboard, and John and I ate nearly the whole thing. I got some time to watch my Bleach episodes while John put Jet to bed, and it's been good.

( Cut for possible spoilers of Bleach Through Episode 45 and those not interested in Bleach. )

Best get to bed and see where the dreams go. *grin* Good night, folks.

I was very surprised to find Judge Dee taking justice pretty much into his own hands, once he was convinced of the guilt of a guy he would never, for political reasons, be able to get in court. Wow. Not even a shred of the Western "you have to trust the system and use it even if you know it's not going to work" kind of thing one sees in all the police dramas.

He just tricks the bad guy into a room with an angry bear and says, "It's in a higher court than mine. I'll let Heaven judge you."

This is in The Haunted Monastery, and wow... I really enjoyed it. There's something very different about the stories, and a lot of it is the whole set of assumptions, from his three wives to his constables and the whole basis and crux of his authority. It's pretty intriguing.

I also got to watch two of the three Mushi Shi disks that amberley sent, and they're utterly gorgeous, lush, intriguing, and while all the bit players look nearly identical, each of the stories, themselves, are wonderful and so different and haunting in many ways. I'm looking forward to the last one quite happily.

I've also gotten to watch a few more episodes of Bleach and now understand why they want to go to Soul Society. *grin* It's going to be interesting.

I have the Bleach opening credits theme song running through my head, in Japanese. 

I think that the funny thing is that the rap bits are clearest.

Bah.

I found Anime Fever and wandered through the first episode of Bleach very, very happily. I'm probably going back for a lot more. *grin*

Ah... kinda cool... there's a daily limit to what one can watch, but it resets every day. After that it's pay. Interesting...

amberley has been lending me all kinds of anime, lately, including the Kamichu series. Which I went through in just two days straight. I really enjoyed them. They're about a girl who's suddenly become, for no given reason, a god, a middle-school girl as a god makes for some interesting stuff going on.

I really enjoyed the series, for the detail in the animation, and the imagination behind all the spirits and gods in the whole thing. Plus, the personalities of the people involved really drove how things went. I enjoyed that a great deal.

I finished that so fast, I was mildly jonesing for more, so I went back to the Saiyuki DVDs that incandescens gave me a long time ago. And wow... the first two are so much fun I wish the second set of DVDs had the subtitles better synched to the actual speech of the animation. Ah well. I'll keep peering as I go.

I still need to see the angel anime that folks gave me, too. I've just been saving it, but maybe I should just go for it.

Plus, Fruits Basket 9-16 landed on my front porch this afternoon. RightStuf was having a sale. I've resisted opening it, as I have class tonight. And as much as I might intend to ration it I'm sure I'm going to just go tearing through it like a house on fire. I am now tempted to see how the Saiyuki translations have been doing for the manga... oh, man... so there's the movie, reloaded, and reloaded gunlock.... *laughter*

Plenty for me to buy after the holidays, I guess. Always more...

I have only been home about a week and in all that time I only got most of yesterday to do exactly what I wanted all by myself. And even that was eaten by going to the church to help collate, fold, sticker, and label a big batch of newsletters for mailing. That was fun, though, as there were six of us who all worked very well together. I enjoyed helping with getting something done.

( The week in short. )

incandescens' package from the U.K. arrived last night.  You are a temptress.  A really thoughtful and cool temptress, but one nonetheless!  Having read just one Bleach I'm now happily hooked by the DVDs.  Amazing stuff.