Ramblings and Musings of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

More strange dreams. In reality I've been worrying about fixing up the stray/outdoor kitty's sleeping space under our deck so that she has something warmer. (We did that this past night. I hope it's been good enough....) So I end up dreaming about that, more or less. And the kitty and I converse. We have some pretty epic conversation like best buds/sisters and hang out having adventures through the day and then go around to the front of the house, which now looks like the old house. But I'm pretty sure the kitty in the dream is supposed to be this kitty and not the kitty we tended to at the old house. They look eerily similar, oddly enough. But this kitty is a lot more timid and a homebody, while the other kitty had attitude and liked to roam. We felt so sad when the first kitty died and it was so empty, and then I think it was only several months later when this kitty came into our lives, like she was being brought to help us heal. And because we needed tabbies in our lives.

My dreams are so weird, though, seriously. And there's recurring locales and situations. And the house often seems to either be the old house or a mishmash of both or even a house that's completely one we've never lived in. But I kind of love my dreams, for the most part. I love and look forward to sleeping, both because sleeping is wonderful when it's needed and because I love seeing what my dreams have in store for me this time. Sometimes I kind of wish technology had advanced to the point that I could visit my dream worlds whenever I choose. Oh, I suppose there's some sort of mind over matter that might more or less cause that to happen, but I don't have enough drive to figure out how to manipulate it. There's plenty of more important things to put mind over matter to use in, rather than frivolous things like this. But still, I do love my dreams and look forward to when I have particular kinds.

And Crystal saw the U.N.C.L.E. movie and we ended up discussing it and the TV series a bit. In the course of that, we got on the subject of Napoleon's serial flirting and interest in women versus Illya's general disinterest in the whole matter. Crystal mused on wondering whether anyone has ever examined the idea of Illya possibly being asexual. I don't think they have and doubt that they'd be interested in such an examination. But then I couldn't get the idea out of my mind and ended up writing a conversational blurb with Napoleon and Illya that touches on the possibility. (Illya never really confirms or denies it. Typical Illya.) I'm not quite sure what to do with it, however, since I'm not sure I want to post it on FF.net or in any other fan community. Not only does it touch on that possibly touchy subject matter, it also implies that Napoleon isn't jumping in bed with all the girls he flirts with and it ends up dipping into Illya's backstory enough that a present-day time period is revealed. If I post it anywhere, I'm considering maybe just posting it directly on my website.

So yesterday I watched the first Lance White episode of Rockford, since I'm about to bring him into my story. I think the second episode was actually funnier, at least where he was concerned. It's not a favorite episode of mine, but Lance's goody-goody behavior was a howl.

Afterwards, I watched Ginger and Lou's scenes from The Queen of Peru.

Some time later, I had a nap. And I dreamed some bizarre thing where Ginger and Lou seemed to be living at our house/our house was their house. The old house again, not the current one. I was out on the lawn and had spread a blue-and-white quilt down.

Cats were everywhere. The current cat we feed was there, and many, many more. They climbed all over the quilt, ate the food that was put out, and wanted to be petted.

After a while, something seemed to be happening, some bad guy afoot, and Ginger and Lou needed to get out of there because the guy seemed to be after them. And me, apparently, because I got in the car with them and off we went. Or maybe I was just along because I wanted to help them.

Somehow we ended up at a cemetery and there was a blue casket that I was carrying (!!!). I don't think there was really a body in it. We were still running from the bad guy, and Mom and Dad ended up in the dream too at that point. There were several chapels right in the cemetery and we went in one, and there were about three different services going on in different rooms. It was a big place, and all the rooms were visible and open at once, kind of like they were all stages. We were pretending we were trying to get to a service, but not one of those. Eventually we ducked out of there and I think I woke up about then.

Weird.

And pondering on the Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah, which I said I usually think of as either Ginger and Lou friendship or Ginger's life in general, according to my backstory. I definitely lean towards the latter interpretation. I used it as the backbone of a Ginger monologue piece where he's thinking on things and wandering through his childhood home. That piece opened my 100songs challenge, which only has about 12 fics left, I think.

Of course it doesn't fit exactly (no song would ever fit anything exactly, I'm sure), but overall, it works. To break down the song and explain how it fits with Ginger, it goes like this:

First Verse - Ginger's life in general. Does he like music? A good question. Perhaps it's Lou thinking on Ginger's aloofness and how to unlock the side of his personality he's keeping hidden.

Second Verse - Ginger's clashes with Vivalene. Although he did not return her advances, she certainly made them many times and tried to ruin him.

Third Verse - Ginger and Lou.

Modified Fourth Verse (altered it so it's ambiguous as to whether it refers to a sexual encounter or something else) - Ginger and his childhood friend Cynthia, with whom he had a falling-out. (Alternate interpretation: Lou thinking on how aloof Ginger has grown by the time of the Borland Diamond robbery.)

Fifth Verse - Ginger's cynicism and bitterness due to betrayals (such as Cynthia's).

Sixth Verse - Ginger's religious views, or lack of them.

Seventh Verse - Ginger trying to have some hope in his life, perhaps during the time he and Lou are in prison. He's hurt Lou and is regretful. He wants to do better.

Verses below the cut, including the modified verse 4. It's the first time I've shown it anywhere.

( Hallelujah )

I don't think I've mentioned, but I've finally had the chance to read some of the Full Moon manga. I have four volumes now, 3-5, and 7. And I adore it. X3 I like what that one person said, that the manga and the anime are really two different stories with the same characters. I'm extremely happy to report that, contrary to my initial impression from what I'd heard, Meroko has much, much character development! And while Izumi has the best anime voice he possibly could, his manga persona is so much better! And I'm even starting to like the Izumi/Meroko pairing. It's kinda twisted. XD And sweet.

I still like the anime, too, though. I dunno, it bugs me when I see people completely slamming the anime versions of things. -.-; The anime versions have good things too, even if they're not always as good as the manga! My favorite Full Moon episodes are still ones later on the series, when it got more serious.

And the fact that I like Ran seems to be loosening up my view on Kaoru. I think I may be getting to where I can finally forgive her for losing her temper and throwing things at people. XD I saw this wallscroll of her and Kenshin at Borders, and I thought it was really sweet and cute. X3

I've actually managed to get almost all of the Christmas requests done! I just need to do Lizzie's request of Kaito and Heiji. **sigh of relief.**

We went out shopping on Wednesday and Friday, and on Friday it was snowing most of the time we were out. It was lovely. X3

I like the fact that Troll dolls are becoming popular again. I've always had an obsession with those things. I think the multi-colored hair is what attracted me. ^^ That's probably why I like My Little Ponies, too.

As I do periodically, I got nostalgic for my old DOS computer games and tried and failed to find the discs of my Shareware copies. XD; They're mixed up somewhere with Dad's discs. Then I searched online and have managed to download almost all of them! Some of them have even been released online in full. So that's a treat. I love those games. I had Holiday Lemmings, Trolls, Capture the Flag, two Skunny games (Desert Raid and Kart), Pac-Man, Pako 2, Micro, Clyde's Adventure, Clyde's Revenge, The Last Knight.... I've found all but Micro, Pako 2, and The Last Knight, and Clyde's Adventure won't play right on this computer. But that's okay, because Clyde's Revenge is better, anyway.

EDIT: Completely forgot I wanted to mention about how beautiful the cemetery was last night! People came and lighted candles around the graves, and Dad and I took a walk to look around at it all. The snow was really deep, too, and I got it all in my boots. XD

It's amazing how bright little candles can be. We can see some of them from our house, and I see now that some burned all through the night. I think it's really neat that that's done. ^^ I just wish there was a way to honor the people who died so long ago that there doesn't seem to be anyone to light candles for them. The whole sight was melancholy, but perhaps especially the old and bare graves. I had originally thought that there might be a candle lighted in honor of everyone in the cemetery, but I didn't see anything like that. It seemed to be done on an individual basis.

One grave had candles in a heart shape, and another had a wreath with two red ones, then two big white ones on the grave, and little white ones all over in the snow. I wish I'd taken pictures.

Also, we saw three of the fluffy kittens when we came home from church and from delivering cards! Did I mention, there seems to be another cat family in our carport? XD These look like Ragdolls, or Birmin, and they're so adorable! I did get pictures of all four of them earlier in the month, and I hope to post them soon. ^^

Yesterday we finally got to take my aunt down to Salem with us to look around and have a picnic. We've been trying to do that for months and stuff just kept coming up. >___>;;; So we browsed around, saw some nice houses, and some kitties. X3 I even think one of them was a Ragdoll. It walked across the street and into a yard we were parked in front of. It was cute! Then we also saw a Calico, and a gray cat curled up in a "cat ball" on someone's porch.

Afterward we went to the Taylorsville Wal-Mart. They bought the building where Home Base used to be, and they're making a humungeous Super Wal-Mart there. They're going to tear down the original one soon, and use that space for parking. ><; That's really annoying. In some ways, I prefer the original Wal-Mart to the Super ones. The Taylorsville one almost always has had better selections of stuff than the Super ones. If that changes when it goes Super, I'll be really ticked off. XD;

And here is a quiz thingie.

1. Favourite scent: Hmmm. Food cooking. XD

2. Favourite way to relax: Saturday mornings watching TV, role-playing/writing/drawing hurt/comfort stuffs, shopping for things I like.

3. Favourite movie you own: Just one movie? -___-; **thinks.** I really don't own any movies unless I love them. I'll pick the extended Return of the King.

4. Favourite movie you don't already own: Star Wars Episode III, The Cat Returns

5. Favourite male movie stars: Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin

6. Favourite female movie stars: Carrie Fisher, Liv Tyler.... Anyone noticing a pattern here? XD; Really, I don't watch very many movies any more, hence, my fave live-action stars are mostly from Star Wars and LOTR. I also like certain voice actors.

7. Favourite book genre: Manga (especially magical girls stuff and some action/shounen series), Mystery, Star Wars (that's a genre all its own!). I don't like Sci-Fi in general, so I didn't want to put that.

8. Favourite clothing store: Ehhh.... Not into fashion. Down with fashion!

9. Favourite non-clothing store: Borders, Barnes & Noble, Media Play, Toys R Us, Wal-Mart

10. Favourite cartoon character: I don't like American cartoons much anymore either. **thinks.** I like Starfire, Raven, and Robin on Teen Titans. And I like The Joker on The Batman. Really, he seems to offer the show's most intriguing insights. For a nutcase, he's really philosophical sometimes. I also like Flora and Bloom on Winx Club.

11. Favourite CD you own: ... My Japanese anime soundtracks. And the Star Wars and LOTR soundtracks.

12. Favourite CD you don't already own: How I do know if it'll be a favorite CD if I don't own it? Well, actually, there are a couple. -.-; I want the first American Sailor Moon soundtrack. **has the music from the other two.** I checked the first one out from the library, but I can't find it to buy anymore. ;__; Every time it turned up at Media Play, I didn't have the money.

13. Pass the torch and tag five of your LJ friends!:

amanechan

roene

kit_black

hatori_sama

dai_atlas

It's interesting.... There was a stretch of time when I wasn't watching anything on Saturday mornings. That was because there was nothing on that I was much interested in. XD; I think that went from about 1996 or 7 to 2002. There was a slump in Saturday morning TV show quality during that time. Also, if this makes sense, for a while I felt like, in the realm of entertainment/media, that I was wandering about, confused and lost. XD; That started to change in 2001, when I rediscovered my love of certain Disney shows (such as Darkwing Duck, Talespin, and DuckTales), and it really changed completely the following year when I found YGO and anime. I feel as though I've graduated from American cartoons and that now I need something bigger and better to whet my appetite. Anime does that for me.

There's only a few non-Japanese cartoons that are mature enough to occupy my attention and interest. I think the reason is this: I'm more serious now, and I need stuff that's more serious/intelligent to watch. A lot of American shows don't meet this criteria for me, because they're too light-hearted and ridiculous. There's also some Japanese shows that are often dumb too (Ultimate Muscle and the recent seasons of Pokémon come to mind), but the majority of Japanese shows seem to be good, while the majority of American cartoons seem to be stupid. Or maybe I'm just not exposed to very many of the really good ones. ^^;

I'm just getting really tired of the American cartoon clichés (which, admittedly, are occasionally present in Japanese shows too). Even the best American cartoons have such clichés. Jackie Chan has them, in the ways that Valmont and Daolon Wong have been dealt with in their later appearances. In one episode, it ended with Valmont being wrapped up in a package and shipped off to Mexico. That is STUPID. It doesn't serve as a real-life solution to the problem he was causing. That's just a typical cartoon resolution of the type that's been overdone for years. **mushrooom sigh.** The problems caused by Team Rocket on Pokémon are solved in a similar manner. There's no reason why, even though the shows are aimed at children, the shows have to be so annoyingly dumbed down like that.

And speaking of Team Rocket.... What has happened to such wonderful characters? They're being shredded to pieces by the writers. The Team Rocket I used to know doesn't even seem to exist anymore. They're brainless wimps! Someone I know called them The Three Stooges recently, and I have to agree. The writers took characters that had awesome potential and have ruined them. I eventually stopped watching Pokémon because I couldn't bear to see such idiocy from the characters who brought me into the show in the first place. The last time they showed any backbone or brains was when they were trying to protect their Pokémon near the start of season 6! And I was very surprised by that episode, since they'd already been going downhill before that. **shakes head.** Team Rocket got killed and they were replaced by brainless clones! XD;