We did one-day AX on Friday, which included the AMVs, and because AX's willful stupidity when it comes to any category except comedy (and refusal to adjust their categories beyond adding new ones) is an annual irritant, I'm posting at great length about it. Other things - like Emma season two, the month-ago trip to Japan, and the fact we finally have a caterer, will all wait.

As ever, the people what pick the finalists don't seem to understand how drama videos work, or like them (the emcee made a comment about drama videos as making you want to slit your wrists. STICK TO GOOD DRAMA VIDEOS AND MAYBE YOU WON'T HAVE THIS PROBLEM.) "Action," as always, is defined as "video set to metal or some other type of music with a pounding bass line," while the "pro" or "AMTV" category means "videos more about matching visuals to music than about any kind of theme or development" - some I liked, some I didn't, but remember back when the category was created because "Wizard of Ozaka" and a subsequent video by the same guy were essentially stepping away from any of the existing categories, creating original storylines out of multiple series - essentially coming up with fanfic in animated form rather than anything based on the originals? This year, the "pro" videos would have worked better as action than the existing action videos did. Agh.

Also, they didn't have enough pencils for everyone. So I can do a tl;dr detailed tl;dr write-up because I still have my ballot! Woot!

So.

( Action )

( Drama )

( Comedy )

( Pro )

So, the highlights for me: Tick Tock, We Need You, Death Note Rhapsody, Assumption Song, and The Good Ship Lifestyle. The Nanoha and (both) Miyazaki videos were also good. Also, the fact that none of the best drama videos were IN DRAMA, that the labeled drama videos were not all that good, and that, judging by a comment on AMV.org, Death Note Rhapsody (a COMEDY) won drama. If by "highlight" I mean "LIRI SMASH" for that second part...

Citizens! We must rise up against the scourge that is Powerpoint abuse! Specifically, against the crippling Powerpoint addiction that grips some of my LIS profs! Because seriously, wtf summer cataloguing class instructor, you REALLY had to stick this week's "lecture" in 23 separate PP files instead of, like, a couple of Word documents? Or a handful of HTML files? Really, you can add chintzy clipart to a web page if it's that important to you.

I shit you not. Twenty-three. A couple of them may be redundant; it's a little hard to tell what with my HEAD EXPLODING. I do a lot of my work by diving straight into assignments and referring back to - well, in traditional classes, to the reading or the lecture notes. In online classes, to the lecture materials - which is why I prefer people who put their lecture materials in an easy-to-access format that I can search if I need to.

(Long travel post still to come. I just got sidetracked by this class's special brand of hell.)

Back from Japan (about a week ago, but jet lag got me.) I went with Mom; she wanted to visit my brother and his wife and meet my brother's new in-laws, likes to have company when traveling, and knew I'd always wanted to go to Japan. We stuck almost entirely to Osaka and the Kansai region (we went Kobe-wards on our last day, though) and for the first half of the trip were guided by my brother. We were going to be guided by him for the whole week, but he got a job interview!

The long version will be locked, so I can use real names. The short version: We ate amazing food, including a great deal of squid and some jellyfish, got two free bowls from a bakery near our hotel, visited many temples and a couple of castles, fed monkeys, high-fived otters, and got mugged by deer. Also, ate the best ramen in the entire world. We did go nerd-shopping; the toys weren't major bargains, but the doujinshi were (5 for about 1800 yen!) Also, though I didn't take a picture or purchase it, I found Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles yaoi. I mean, I knew it had to exist; I didn't expect it to be up on display, like "check out our awesome turtle porn!"

Oh, and also United lost my luggage for the first two days of the trip! And then made us think they'd lost all the luggage when we returned, because it arrived in Burbank before we did and so they stuck it in an office, locked it, and left for the day! And now I hate the San Francisco airport, as well as United. Woo.

Full post will be locked, so I can use real names, and go on at great length.

Okay, so for right now, bride-Lina's expression of distress reflects my mental state not because of weddingweddingwedding, but just because holy crap so much is going on. Class (only one this semester; this was a decision made back when I thought I'd have a job to occupy my time) ends May 9, with a big final paper. A few days later, my mother arrives, and we fly from here to, omg, Japan, where I will meet my new sister-in-law for the first time (did I mention this? my brother got married, three months earlier than originally projected, in a simple filing of papers that probably didn't even involve wearing a tie or anything, the LUCKY, LUCKY BASTARD, and while the rest of the family got to meet her when the two of them came to Oklahoma, I didn't) and while I'm excited, I'm also nervous, and worried I will once again destroy every camera I touch, as I did in London.

In addition, part of me wants to do another wedding info-dump, because plans are not real until I have expounded on them at length while people gnaw off their own limbs to escape, but you know, some of you need all your limbs. So I shouldn't.

So now I am thirty.

Last night I dreamed someone was asking us about a wedding website; we don't have one, and it freaked me out because obviously I needed to make one now. I don't even remember who was asking. Maybe Galadriel? Why was I talking to her? I stalled out of the LOTR books right after Tom Bombadil and haven't picked them back up yet.

( Weirdest missionaries ever. )

Aha. Baffling missionary encounter probably explained. Seventh-day Adventist offshoot.

"Much apathy was shown." - Government report circa 1876, on an early law attempting to promote school libraries.

Government reports are my main source for this paper, so it's good that they're less coma-inducing than you'd normally expect of government reports. There's the inflation effect - $10 annual budgets! - occasional snarkiness, and the reports from the 20s inexplicably use "fixt" and similar constructions, like the proofreader got confused and thought it was actually the 18th century.

So... I keep writing up long LJ posts - about school (Second Life is OMFG CREEPY), about Wedding (....), about illuminated manuscripts (not just Christian religious texts copied by monks in Ireland!) about Watchmen (haven't seen it yet, not that that will stop me from talking about the book!) And then I wander off, distracted by something or other - some random shiny object, the need to do things for school instead of writing about school, a haircut, a raid, beer, whatever. Days will pass, Windows will update itself and restart without asking me, and the post is lost forever. So, you know, you're not missing much - just the stuff I post to amuse myself.

We're going off to meet a photographer in about 10 minutes, and I have a paper due on Saturday, so I'm still not posting anything major. However, I have to post two things. The first is a pointer to my brother's description of the Curse of the Colonel on the Hanshin Tigers. The second is an NPR story on the rediscovery of the statue.

We have an officiant and a date now. We sort of have a dress, but it's complicated.

On a related note, do not go in for wedding dress fittings while PMS-ing! Some women do not have PMS, or have it very mildly. I am not that lucky.

I have also learned over the years not to do long LJ posts in this state, so that's it for now.

I've been reading Indie Bride, mostly because I was doing another round of depression-induced Googling* and "feminist wedding" or "wedding sexism" brought me to their discussion board. It's one of the few wedding sites that doesn't make me want to throw up, mostly because they're not actively pushing a particular type of wedding.

There are two broad wedding schools - kingdoms or phylums, maybe. One will give you elaborate checklists of everything you should be worrying about, takes it for granted that you're inviting over a hundred people, hiring a DJ or live music, etc. On the Knot website I saw a description of a wedding that only cost $20k. Seriously. To be fair, I couldn't stomach clicking on the link; it's possible that the "only" was relative, like they invited many hundreds of people and did a really elaborate thing that cost twice that. But really, the only context in the world in which "only $20k" applies is if you're talking about, I don't know, salaries, or funding government programs.

The other is "frugal." They accept you may not have a huge guest list. They propose some ideas that are good though not terribly original, like hosting the wedding and reception at someone's house, or using your iPod or computer for the music. However, they still expect you to invest quite a bit in your wedding; it's just that they propose using your time instead of your cash. Buy your flowers wholesale and arrange them yourself! Have someone (maybe a relative, so that you can underpay them to a criminal degree) sew your dress for you! Enlist your family, or your partner's, in cooking for the wedding, crafting decorations, or making the wedding favors!

( HATE. )

I don't want to put a lot of effort into this, or force people into slave labor on my behalf. Nor do I want to pay a lot; even at the small scale we're doing this, we'll likely be spending at LEAST a couple of thousand dollars, which is money I would far rather put towards buying the bed I've been coveting for two years, or a trip, or several hundred books.

Anyway, I started out talking about the Indie Bride forums. I've learned that the wedding-industrial complex phrasing has been around for a while (I thought I was just playing off the military-industrial complex; maybe I picked it up by osmosis from elsewhere.) I found a bed & breakfast that we will most likely be staying in post-wedding because Flurf may die of sadness if we don't. (The real honeymoon will, I hope, be in Kyoto, but we want to get away for a few days post-wedding, too.) I found out about the Vitamin String Quartet, which would probably please me more if I listened to more music that isn't ten years old, but I can still crack up at a strings-only version of "You Shook Me All Night Long."

Now I must clean. And hang up some things on the wall. Because my mother is coming for a visit and my time is no longer my own.

* Depressed Googling is like my new hobby. My search history tells the tale: "WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I FIND BRIDAL PANTS" (from a brief, ill-fated attempt at finding an alternative to dresses) "wedding sexism" "feminist wedding" "weddings are evil, sexist bullshit" "elopement" "I hate my wedding" "angry brides." (If only I could find an angry anime character in a wedding gown...)

Siiiiiiiigh. I have a folder for "Wedding and Honeymoon" in my bookmarks between a folder of WoW general-info bookmarks and another folder of tankadin-specific bookmarks. You know what the most romantic words in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE are? "What are we waiting for? Let's just run off for a few days and get married." And I will never hear them. Ever.

You know, "Teh Boyfriend" or "Fiance" worked when I was making passing references to him and posting once or twice monthly. Now that I'm posting at length about something that involves him in every way, not so much. So he gets to be Flurf from now on. Anyway, he's been actually calling officiants, though I still have to go along with him to meet them. His next job is the chuppah, but he seems to be perfectly satisfied with having reached the decision to crochet it, and not to mind in the least that we don't know the size of the frame we'll be using, the source of the frame we'll be using... he hasn't even purchased the yarn yet!

( Weddings eat puppies and kittens. AND HAPPINESS. )

I do, seriously, still believe that weddings represent virtually everything wrong with this country.

Well, I guess now that I don't have a job anymore, I can post about it without jinxing it! Details will be in a locked post - all those NDAs I had to sign still make me paranoid.

It sucks; my brother got the perfect job, as a translator at a game company (small company, the name of which I don't remember,) where he was encouraged to bring his DS to work so he could play during downtime, and met, probably through coworkers, both the guy who translated Watchmen into Japanese, and the one who voiced the "Sho-ryu-ken!" sound. He was only too happy to tell me about both, of course. And then he got laid off when the company closed the office where he worked. I get my perfect job, and lose it when the project gets shut down. I hope my sister doesn't love her job too much! Our curse is spreading from TV shows to work, so perhaps I should get back to watching TV for the sake of job security. Maybe by killing Dollhouse I will appease the gods and can get a stable job after grad school is done.

Three Four years and some change ago, my sister got married (it's a locked post.) This was a lot of wedding; while relatively small, it was more wedding than I ever wanted to experience in my entire life. At one point during the reception, my father offered to give me the amount he would otherwise spend on a wedding for me to run off to Vegas when my turn came and not put him through another wedding. I was totally down with this. Shame I picked a guy who isn't.

Btw, my sister, after her ridiculously early marriage, went on to drag her husband out of credit card debt, buy a house, and graduate college right on schedule. So all that submitting stuff the pastor trotted out during the ceremony did nothing other than freak out the immediate family and give Merc a good reason to link the Brick Testament.

So we're trying to plan a small wedding, which is still about twenty guests' worth of wedding more than I want. If I had my way, we'd pull in at the wedding chapel and notary service we pass on the way home from work.

( The stuff we agree on. It's a short list. )

( WEDDINGS = PATRIARCHY (long. very long) )

( Everything about this wedding makes me want to curl up in the fetal position (even LONGER) )

Minor bright spots:

- When I registered him at Brides.com, the username "Ihateweddings" was already taken. Hee. (Aaaaaaaaaaallll the registrations at wedding sites are going to be in his name. This is HIS IDEA.)

- No one so far has tried to tell me I need to invite my evil grandmother! (Her latest charming behavior: Telling my brother-in-law, at Christmas, that he looked like a terrorist. Because his beard had gotten a bit shaggy. I shit you not.)

When people talk about fairy tale weddings, they mean the Brothers Grimm kind of fairy tale, with birds pecking out Cinderella's stepmother's eyes at the wedding. Or the Robber Bridegroom.

At least, it's what I'll mean. Should I ever use the phrase.

I have a job through at least the end of February!

When I drove to work this morning, I turned on the radio just for something to keep me awake - normally I carpool with teh boyfriend but he took today off - and discovered that his irritating tendency to turn every radio to NPR was actually a good thing for once. Then I reached work before the actual oath of office. I walked inside, figuring I'd watch it online later, to find every single person in the office gathered in the lunchroom to watch the inauguration.

On the other hand, we're planning a wedding. But it was otherwise a good day until we went to eat dinner at the future in-laws' place, so I'll save the posting about weddingweddingwedding for another day.

Remember how I used to complain about my coworkers' Xmas music selection back when I worked for the city? If by "complain" you mean "tear my hair in impotent homicidal rage," that is. For those who don't remember, my coworkers basically had two holiday CDs they played endlessly, which weren't entirely my type of music to begin with and which earwormed me relentlessly when played multiple times daily for a month. FUCKING LUTHER VANDROSS AND HIS FUCKING RENDITION OF THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, AGH. At my current job, they gave everyone a mix CD of Xmas songs. RuPaul leads directly into Frank Sinatra. The version of "Little Drummer Boy" on this one is by Tori Amos. There is NO LUTHER.

For Xmas this year I want to keep this job. There's a lot more I like about it than the music selection, but it works nicely as a symbol of all the ways this job is better than any I've had previously. More on that in a locked post - between the tight security situation and the two NDAs I had to sign to work here, I'm way too paranoid to post anything about it publicly.

IT'S OVER AND I CAN SLEEP NOW.

I just read "codices" as "codpieces." Do not pull all-nighters, kids.

Maybe I should develop a drinking problem. It wouldn't make all this crap I'm juggling any easier, but I wouldn't be so freaked out!

(20-page paper due Sunday. Tanking Naxx Saturday. Final assignments for two other classes due the 10th. Job. Anxiety about focus of studies and future employment. Fiance worrying non-stop about my deadlines and whatnot even when he claims he's not. Buying gifts for everyone. Grades, once my assignments are all in.)

omg I think I have a job finally.

(Details in a locked post to come)