I decided to make a second post today, just for anime.
BIG news in Anne’s Anime World. After about a half year of deliberating, I have had an epiphany. After about eight years, Dragonball has fallen from Anne’s All Time Favorite Anime List’s #1 to be replaced by -drumroll please-One Piece. Yes, I finally saw from behind my rose colored glasses. Not to say Dragonball isn’t an awesome story (or at least the original Japanese storyline is… ), but One Piece is so much more. It’s not about just one guy saving the world, it’s about a whole team - or rather a family - realizing their dreams while defeating bad guys and corrupted good guys.

One Piece is compromised of ten+ (counting the Going Merry) lost, lonely and misunderstood individuals with dreams finding a family in a group of pirates. At first, it seems like a silly kids show, starting our with a teenage boy with a stretchy rubber body joining a bunch of random people together to form a pirate crew and go find the treasure “One Piece”.

At first, the character design, sight gags and the slapstick comedy had me thinking of moving on to the next show. About halfway through the second arc, I realized I hadn’t stopped watching yet and I wondered why. It seemed there was more to the story than was first apparent. Each and every character, while at first seeming cookie-cutterish, seemed to have something about them that defined them as very human. Everyone of them had past that, while tragic or not, had a very big role in shaping them and the entire crew.

******************Spoiler Alert******************

As an example, I will use Nami, the navigator. As a first impression, Nami comes off as a Bulma clone. She loves material possessions (a huge obsession with treasure) and seems to be somewhat vain and very selfish. She has a flirty attitude that says “Yeah, I just did something selfish, tee hee “. At first I didn’t like her. During the Arlong Park story, we learn that the reason she is so greedy is because she is trying to save enough money to buy back her village which has been held ransom by the pirate Arlong since she was a child. Arlong murdered her adopted mother right in front of her eyes and she doesn’t want anyone else in the village killed. She became a crew member under Arlong as a navigator, so she can earn the money. Her village shuns her because she sold out to become a partner of the one who killed her mother. She works diligently trying to save a village of people that she thinks hate her anyway. This is a far cry from the selfish, greedy brat that I originally thought she was.

******************End Spoiler******************

The story line is surprising and keeps you captivated, without a doubt. Every time something emotional happens, I feel the same emotions that the crew feels. If they feel ecstatic, pissed off or lonely, so do I. When there is a tragedy, like a death, I even get as upset at the crew. Imagine that, feeling like you are actually a part of a crew, or family, when they aren’t even a part of ‘reality’. Like I said in the last post, reality is overrated.

Listening to :: Sayaendou - One Piece

Wow, what a pretty blog. Wait, this domain is registered to me… I think it’s mine! How awkward. Brand new domain and I drop it for lack of time. Reality is overrated anyway. Seriously though, a lot of stuff has happened, and yet nothing at all has happened at the same time. ( I smell a paradox )

Well, let’s see. I finally moved, on November 1st of ‘07. Also in November, my mom flew me up to Alaska to surprise my brother at his wedding! I got there the day of and my mom and soon to be sister-in-law Elissa picked me up at the airport. Travis had called when I was on the plane, I had to wait until I was in the car to call him back, as I didn’t want him to hear the airport noise. I talked to him the whole way to the hotel, saying how sad I was to be missing his wedding. Mom and Elissa tried not to laugh the entire time. He had no idea. It was hard keeping it from him once we started setting up for the ceremony, which was at ‘Top of the World’ restaurant at the Anchorage Hilton. The view is awesome, you overlook the Cook Inlet and Parts of downtown Anchorage and then some. His face was priceless when I walked in just before the ceremony started.

I also really like Elissa, she has a similar personality to mine, so it didn’t get awkward hanging out just her, Travis, and I. They also have a darling huge Maine Coon kitty named Moo. When I sat down on their couch, he deposited himself across my lap and chest and promptly started purring. And this was before we had been properly introduced. It also snowed about 7 inches overnight, and then I had to pack when the power was out, by candlelight. I was sad I could only stay for 2 days, but I had a blast when I was there.

About two weeks after that I went to Florida for a few days to meet with family again. That was a ton of fun. Besides my parents, Travis and Elissa, the rest of my siblings were there too. My stepsister Allison and boyfriend were there along with my stepbrother Craig and his wife Linda. I hadn’t seen Craig in about 14 years, so it was like meeting him for the first time almost. Linda was also a darling. She and I had the idea that we want to meet up, along with Mom and Allison in Salem, MA at Halloween and go on some ghost tours and stuff. I hope it works out that we can!

I also went to Arizona in January, for my birthday, to hang out with Mom and Lee and just do nothing. Turns out, some rude lady that sat next to me on the plane there gave me a nasty cold because she repeatedly did not cover her mouth when she sneezed. I spent almost the entire week there sick. I missed out on a cool little breakfast trip to a place with a casino that the rest of the flight park went to, because Lee (and I found myself agreeing) said that I shouldn’t be flying in a cold plane at a high altitude when I had a bad cold. Oh well, I still had fun relaxing. Last time I was down there was that three months that I used to get in shape for the Air Force, and the house wasn’t finished yet. This time it was, and I got to re-explore it. My second cousins, Kathy and Steve came to visit from Minnesota and we all took turns riding in the Helicopter with Lee. It was very cool. The day I went home, I completely lost my voice for a week.

On the home front, not much aside from moving. I got a few new furnishings for the apartment. There is a new couch and comfy chair set my roommate and I bought off a friend. They are a tan microfiber and super comfy. I also got a new pillow top queen mattress which is ultra squshy. The bestest things I got were the Samsung 42in Plasma TV and Blu-ray DVD player. Those are my babies. Seeing Hi-Def TVs playing Blu-ray in the stores don’t do the things justice. It can’t beat the way it looks in one’s bedroom. Yes, I said bedroom. No point in me buying a TV like that, if I can’t watch it whenever I want, now is there?

Listening to :: Hey! Say! - Lovely Complex

Well, Va1kyrie.net is now LIVE! Banzai! Banzai! Banzai! Everything that was on Majinblue and more is now on this domain. The last thing to be transfered was the Qbee page. The only reason that it was last is because I had to make a database for it. You would think all that transferring would be easy, but you would be wrong. Even if I got a code to look good at my old site, I still had problems over here. Oh well. More visitor content, too. (of the music kind)

Some new things in my life too. The very biggest thing is that my little brother (little meaning 26 ) is getting married! It’s exciting and I’m very happy for him! It’s still very weird to me, though. I can’t seem to wrap my mind around that fact. He hadn’t even met her that last time I was home which was Christmas. Mom says that she likes her, so that’s good enough for me. My mother is an excellent judge of character. I get to meet her when my family meets up in Florida in December. I’m excited. I’m also more nervous about what she’ll think of me as a sister-in-law. People I meet generally like me, but I’m only truly myself around my family. My family loves me, but I know I’m very eccentric and self-contained. It’s like all of a sudden I have a new adult immediate-family that I didn’t grow up around. I guess I’ll try to be myself without acting too anti-social. That being said, I don’t want her to feel left out either. I’ll have to try extra hard to include her. It’s funny, usually it’s the one marrying into the family that’s the most nervous.

Other news. After much struggle, we finally got an apartment reserved! It’s about a hundred bucks more than the last one that we tried to get, but it’s bigger and on the top floor with vaulted ceilings. They said it’s one of their best apartments. Our move in date is November 1st, and boy am I excited. No more living in a place that oughta be condemned. Just today, the hallway lights outside the apartment all stopped working. And I know it’s not the bulbs because it’s all of them and they were just changed a month ago. My roommate had to knock on the door because when she tried to unlock it, she couldn’t see. It’s not safe in this kind of neighborhood. It’s not what I would call the ghetto or the slums, but it’s dirty and old and I don’t like going out after dark around here. It doesn’t help that I’m on the night rotation again. Think happy thoughts, Anne! Less than a month left until I move!

Listening to :: Kinjirareta Asobi - Rozen Madien

So the site is mostly live. Finally. Unfortunately it doesn’t like ie6. I can run ie6 and 7 on my mac by using virtualization software (a.k.a. resource hog) so I tested the layout using every browser I could get my hands on. The sidebar navigation div was misaligned in ie6 so I fixed it by making a separate stylesheet for ie6 and below. This fixed my problem, or so I thought.
While it looked fine on my mac’s rendition of windows and my dell’s ie7, I decided to test it on one of the ultra-super-mega crappy xp systems at work. Guess what didn’t work? I have no idea why. If it works on one computers ie6, why wouldn’t it work on another with the same exact browser. OS shouldn’t have anything to do with it, because in both instances, ie was running in what it thought was a windows environment. If anyone has any clue as to why this is like this, or even to tell me if it works in your browser, please let me know.

On a happy note, Va1kyrie, for the most part, is finished! I have a couple things to add like sidebar content and my quilt, then it’s time to go live!

Listening to :: Up Side Down - Kaitou Saint Tail

…But I don’t regret it.  Dreamhost has been dangling by the last thread of my patience for the last couple of months.  Every time I want to update something, the damned site is down or running so slow, it might as well be down.  If anyone had asked me a year ago if I would ever change domains, I would say “Hell no!  Majinblue for life!”.  But here I am.  I feel like I’ve abandoned the other domain.  I feel guilty.  I’s not like it’s a living creature.  I’m like the little girl who can’t favor one stuffed animal over the others lest they get lonely.  I still haven’t decided what to do with the other domain.  It hasn’t expired yet and all my content is still there with the domain name branded all over it.  Maybe a slow transition, or a network.  Either way, I have a ton of stuff that I need to do here before I officially stand the domain up.  Like content.  Stand by for more…