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Jerksblog!

Date-Based Archive More Updates Soon, I Swear

I'm very busy moving into N.'s place, so I haven't posted in a while.

I'll put an update up soon and fill you in on the happenstance of the Call of Cthulhu campaign I just joined.

Posted by erin at 02:24 PM | Comments (4)

Date-Based Archive Delicious Tomato Salad

On Sunday evening I had some film friends over to N.'s for dinner. I made Weight Watcher's tofu skewers, Iron Chef Challenger Kobayashi Katsuyo's tomato salad, and Sam's Cook's Illustrated berry pie. I did pretty well with the pie, although the crust went a bit funny, but it still tasted great and floored everyone. It's probably the most difficult thing I've ever made, despite how the recipe goes on and on about wanting to "keep things simple!" The chef was clearly lying - there's a part where you're almost making jelly.

Anyway, the Kobayashi Katsuyo (she won the New Potato Battle!) tomato salad recipe was super-easy and extra tasty, and only 60 calories, that's just 1 point, per serving!

3-4 ripe tomatoes
1/4 of an onion
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey

The hardest part is skinning the tomatoes - what you do is stick a fork in the top of each tomato and plunge it into boiling water for about 6 seconds. Then you can dip it into cold water, and then the skin peels right off.

Next you chop the onion and the tomatoes. Mix the honey and rice vinegar in a separate bowl, then drizzle it over the tomatoes.

Since I was using pretty big tomatoes, I doubled the dressing (2 tablespoons each) and I used half of an onion. I also drained some of the juice off the tomatoes before serving.

Oh, it's supposed to make 3-4 servings, but I served 6 people with some leftover. It's a really nice cold dish for summer.

Posted by erin at 02:12 PM | Comments (2)

Date-Based Archive Japanese Girl Scouts

Cutest thing ever?

When I was in 1-6th grade, I was in Girl Scouts. I didn't like it much, but I did not really aquire the free will it took to quit until 6th grade. That said, I recently had an idea, based on Mary M.'s story of "Goth Scouts," for an "Anime Scouts" outfit. I have about 50 1-inch pins that I plan to use as badges, and I'm considering making Murakami cookies that look like eyes:

Anyway, check out the Japanese Girl Scout homepage, it's much cuter than the Girl Scouts of the USA homepage.

Posted by erin at 02:58 PM | Comments (2)

Date-Based Archive Not Quite So Busy

OK, so, neither internship has actually started yet, and I am expecting a call tomorrow about one part time job that wouldn’t start until next week, and I have a second interview of sorts on Friday night. So basically, I’ve had the week off. And maybe next week, too. It’s OK, because I have just enough money for August’s rent, but this isn’t exactly how I was planning my schedule, either.

Fortunately, the time off gives me the time I need to finish Jerksquad! The Movie, (the screenplay). It also gives me the time to watch lots of anime.

Princess Nine is about an all-girl baseball team. I could see Maggie and Ryan liking it.

Neo Ranga is about three sisters who happen to have inherited a large mecha/monster/god from their deceased brother. Or something. The episodes are weirdly short, and there’s a lot of nudity in the theme song that’s not actually in the show. It’s OK. It’s certainly not as bad as:

Rah-Xephon which has nice music, but is otherwise a total Eva rip-off. So much so that it’s really distracting. It might be an OK show if you’ve never seen Eva, but that’s it. This is disappointing because it’s by Studio Bones, which did Cowboy Bebop. The Rah-Xephon art is really pretty, but goddamnit, the writing sucks.

Slayers is totally awesome D&D anime with an all-star Japanese voice cast. It’s funny, it’s fantasy, it’s classic anime.

I Can Hear the Ocean turns out to be the weakest movie in the illegal Ghibli archive box set. First of all, I can’t hear the ocean. Second, I have some questions, for example, why does the protagonist like that girl? I mean, she’s a total bitch. And third, why does it take him the entire movie to realize he likes her? Maybe there was something in the manga that got lost in the translation. Maybe it’s so Japanese I don’t understand it.

The Big O has been on Cartoon Network all week at midnight. It’s style is huge rip-off of Batman the Animated Series, but that doesn’t really bother me. Even if the protagonist is, indeed, a copyright infringement on Bruce Wayne, the show has other things going on and is overall very enjoyable (except the end theme song, which is horrid). Hell, the Big N. likes this show.

Kikaider. Dear Cartoon Network: Please stop showing Kikaider. It sucks. The art is bad, the plot is bad, and I’d rather see the live-action ‘60’s Kikaider on which the anime is based.

The Animatrix kicked my ass. It was awesome! Some of the stories were bigger on design than storytelling, but I can’t get over the awesome design. They really did get all the best animators in Japan for this DVD.

Gunbuster, which is early Gainax, also kicked my ass and took names. Rick is correct in his praise of the show, even if there is a lot of fanservice.

Posted by erin at 12:03 AM | Comments (16)

Date-Based Archive Busy Busy Busy

This week I have been very busy. I have gone to two interviews for part-time jobs to supplement my income during my internship(s). Both interviews went quite well, and I was called back to second interviews for both of them, but I don't want to go into a lot of detail and get my hopes up for jobs I might not get.

My last week at work has been a blur of leaving work to go to job interviews, backing up all my files, going to an exit interview and a going-away luncheon, and other things, like waiting for 20 minutes at an ATM machine when my workplace didn't bother to direct deposit my final check. (Damn you Citibank at 4th and Ave. A!!!)

It's also time for me to start thinking about moving. I'll be moving in with N., as many of you already know. I hate moving so very, very much. For some reason, N. really likes the whole moving process, so he's somehow volunteered to pack all my stuff. Which, although generous, is completely crazy.

I'll be moving the weekend of the 25th, if anyone wants to volunteer to help. I have only very tiny furniture and not a whole lot of stuff, since the loft bed isn't coming with me and the couch only needs to go to the curb. I was going to hire those Chinese movers, but N.'s apartment charges a move-in fee that is actually more than the cost of the moving service!! We'll be moving stuff on the sly ahead of time to avoid the fees.

Mostly, I'm really, really glad to be leaving my job. I would call for heavy drinking on such an occasion, but my weight loss has slowed down to the point where I really don't have that kind of leeway anymore.

In a bit of randomness: To save money on Metrocards I've been walking from 1st to 6th Ave. every day to and from work. In the past couple weeks I've walked past a bus picking up little kids for some kind of day camp. It's really cute, because the parents are all waiting by the bus, seeing the kids leave. The first day the parents were all worried-looking. They are pretty small kids, and it is extra cute.

P.S.

Don't forget to only use my non-work email address from now on: e r i n @ e r i n f i n n e g a n . c o m (spaces added to thwart spammers.)

Posted by erin at 03:59 PM | Comments (6)

Date-Based Archive Spelling Bee

A while back, my spelling was called out as being exceptionally bad. Shortly afterwards I made a list of words that the spell checker was fixing for me, words that I know I've misspelled a lot of times. Here's my list:

• occurring


• consistently


• entries


• vegetables


• indefinitely


• cylinders


• opinion


• business


• successfully


• disappearing (the word that killed me in a spelling bee in 4th grade - I've never been able to spell it before or since)


• embarrassed


• simultaneously


• absence


• presence


• inconvenience


• phlegm


• rhythm


• exercise

Some of the words are terribly embarrassing. In fact, in the course of writing this entry I spelled the following words wrong:

• embarrassing


• exceptionally


• misspelled

Posted by erin at 05:20 PM | Comments (5)

Date-Based Archive Hikaru No Go Overdose

No one has really asked me what I did over the three-day weekend, you know, in that chit-chatty way that coworkers tend to ask things. I have systematically excluded all such people from my worktime.

Nevertheless, were anyone to ask, I wouldn't hesitate to tell them: I watched 24 hours, that's 48 episodes of the 75 episode series of, you guesses it, Hikaru No Go. N. and I had already watched episodes 1-24 before our massive marathon. The only episodes remaining are 74 and 75, which were a bit tricky to obtain since the fansubs were completed at the same time the series was licensed.

For some reason, watching a lot of anime makes me want to eat Japanese food. So, before the marathon N. and I dined on sushi at Sapporo East (located at 11th Street and 1st Ave.) where the sushi is always excellent and the music is always 80's rock. The tattooed chefs there serve up the freshest tuna cuts in all of the Village, and at a reasonable price. It's gourmet eating to the tune of Crazy Train.

Then we stocked up on ramen and Pocky and Morning 2 Midnight (12th street and 3rd Ave) and hunkered down for hours and hours of hot, hot Go playing action.

I highly recommend green tea-flavored ice cream mochi. The mochi are small, and only 1 point per piece! It's like a flavor explosion in your goddamn mouth!

I also purchased sugary cereal for Saturday morning Hikaru No Go watching, specifically, Mud and Bugs, which is some kind of Kellogg's/Disney Timone & Pumba cereal. I highly recommend it. I'd also suggest buying it up, as it will probably be discontinued. Despite the marshmallow bits, the cereal is vitamin enriched and only 2 points per cup.

The marathon ended at midnight on Sunday. Although the long-term effects of so much anime-watching are probably unknown, the short-term effects include having the incidental music stuck in my head at all times and a burning desire to play Go. I've also found myself wanting to be a professional Go player, although these thoughts are completely accidental. I intend to play Go, but I don’t want to play it for a living. I don't think you can play it for a living in this country. Even if you could, I wouldn't want to.

Posted by erin at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Hot, hot Go-Playing Action!

You people seriously don't understand how good Hikaru No Go is. What if they showed it on Kids WB?! MY GOD, PEOPLE, GO PLAYING WOULD TAKE AMERICA BY STORM!!! I'm telling you, invest in Go-manufacturers in America now, because this game is bigger than Yu-Gi-Oh in Japan (see yesterday's link for more info).

Anyway, today's Hikaru No Go fandom on my part includes:

• Planning a trip to the New York Go Institute.


• Adding Sai as an Avatar on Jerksquad.


• Searching endlessly for good Hikaru No Go wallpaper and IM icons.

Posted by erin at 04:24 PM | Comments (14)

Date-Based Archive HIKARU NO GO! Just in time!

AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!

Hikaru No Go has been liscensed!! There was an announcement earlier this week that the manga was going to be distributed, so I worked extra hard to download all 71 fansubbed episodes - well, that and I lose this computer with this job, so I had to get them anyway...

Regardless, read this article! Watch this show!! Hikaru No Go has rapidly become one of N's favorite series, and we all know how high his standards are. Hikaru No Go is definately top-tier anime, an ownable series. Apparently it revived Go playing in Japan, which is great, because Go seems harder than chess.

Posted by erin at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)