I Want to Be a Ninja Air Dancer

It makes me mildly sad that I don't see billboards etc declaring, "Otogi - Myth of Demons is the prettiest video game EVER!"

'Cause it is.

It's not so much the beautiful environments and character design as it is the fact that the main character, (a tall slender samurai-type) can leap insanely high, and instead of plunking back to earth, he drifts, like a cherry blossom petal, his hair streaming fluidly out behind him. It's like watching the best dancer ever, in low gravity. If he engages in swordplay mid-air, he actually hovers as twirls and slashes. It's graceful. The environments give a sense of an intricate stage--or some underwater feudal Japan.

Also fun is the ability to interact with almost everything in the environments - mainly by demolishing things into massive mounds of rubble in clouds of dust.

President Kim II Sung is Alive in the Hearts of Humankind Forever!

I've been browsing around North Korea's brand spankin' new web portal, obviously. As much as I know Communism is alive and well in certain parts of the world, it's sort of strange to see it floating around the ether of the internet. Red on the Web!

For those of you know are not aware of Kim II Sung's credentials, I'll quote the website:

"Our leader is indeed the greatest leader of the working class. He personified unusual intelligence, outstanding leadership and lofty communist virtues, which nobody has ever possessed, and opened up and shone modern history with his profound revolutionary theories and great revolutionary practice. He is a benevolent father of the people, who brilliantly covered the whole distance of the prolonged revolutionary struggle with boundless devotion to the revolutionary cause and with warm love for the people."

That says it all, I suppose.

In other news, a fortune cookie I got the other day insists that I will "suceed in my pesant plans."

Well, then.

The Rocket's Red Glare...

It's the night of July 3rd, and from our balcony I can see five different displays of fireworks. The big display is the annual Sylvan Lake show to the southwest, putting out colorful pyrotic pom-poms so huge that the THONK-THONK of the send-ups rolls across the lake and echoes against southern Pontiac like thunder.

The rest are indie displays, made possible in part by Fred the illegal fireworks salesman, and viewers like me. It's been quite lovely. The people 2 doors down have been putting on nightly shows at dusk for the past week. They must spend thousands of dollars. Maybe it's worth it to them since they know the neighbors are all on their porches, balconies and lawns, enjoying it along with them. After particularly flashy pops, one can hear clapping and sometimes whistling from all the nearby streets. It gives me a warm feeling about our neighborhood. The people a couple streets in either direction have decided to give our street a run for the money, with their own illegal displays. Hurrah! More pretties! For some reason our neighborhood is just bursting with either patriots or pyromaniacs. Or both.

I get too excited about fireworks, I think. I find myself grinning and clapping my hands like a 4 year old. Fortunately, I've gotten to see a whole bunch this year. I'm excited for tomorrow night. That ought to keep me til next summer.

It's okay. I'm disturbed by it too.

I just discovered my phone camera could do this. And now Nihao's a surprised looking nun. Nunhao. Blessed be.

When the cat's away, the mice will...sit up behind the tv in a plastic bag.

Just finished reading Patrick O'leary's book, The Gift. It's the most satisfying read I've had in a while. I'd put it into the same category as Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy etc. That goes to show there's nothing like a well crafted, intelligent fantasy novel. O'Leary's book is perhaps more "traditional" in the sense that it contains dragons and wizards etc, but he manages to make them unlike anything you've read before. All really good fantasies have elements of the real in them, and this is no exception: the significance of Names, how storytelling is essential to our humanity, etc.

One more point in the book's favor is that fact that unlike the woeful majority of fantasy literature, it actually has interesting and beautiful cover art. Not the melodramatic schlock that (God knows why) publishers decide to slap on even the best (i.e. poor Robin Hobb) fantasy books.

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The other day I was at the pet store and on my way through the checkout line, I decided on a whim to buy one of those small toy mice made from real rabbit fur for our cat, Boo. Once I got home, I didn't actually remember it was in the bag until I caught him sniffing and pawing where I'd left it on the kitchen floor. As soon as I gave held it out to him he got hunter-eyes (you know--when something enticing is twitching and suddenly your cat's pupils are like dinner plates), snatched the mouse and ran off, joyfully tossing it and worrying it. And this went on. ALL DAY. The next morning I was slightly disgusted to find the ragged husk of what was left of the "mouse" on my bathroom floor. All there was was a small patch of mostly bald rabbit skin with many, many holes in it. As I peered at it, Boo flounced through and whisked it away. Ew. I decided that since the toy had been such a success, I ought to get him another. I found a MEGA pack of them at Meijer for a fraction of what I paid at the cat store, so brought it home, gave Boo one mouse from the package, and carefully wrapped the bulk of them back up and set them up behind the tv.

Let's spring ahead a couple days, shall we? But first let me say this: we are unusually blessed with good cats. They excrete ONLY in their litter box, they scratch only occasionally on our carpet-never the sofas- and they NEVER climb up where they shouldn't be and cause mass destruction by knocking things off bookshelves and mantles and kitchen counters. Our cats are generally the models of restraint (except when it comes to wet food). This is why I was shocked (and highly amused) to reach the bottom of our stairs one morning and find our living room awash in a sea of half-gnawed, bedraggled, colorful mice, with Boo lying, exhausted and slightly guilty looking, on the couch. He had carefully jumped from the couch to a stack of DVDs on top of the shelf, to the top of the speaker (also covered in stuff) to the top of the tv, and without disturbing the plant, had pilfered the bag of mice, gnawed it open, and had a wild party. All this without disturbing any of the precarious piles of stuff that cover that area. Single minded, determined, and only a LITTLE naughty cat.