As some of you may have noticed, I disappeared from the internet for four days.
No, I didn't attempt to make my great excape (damn). I didn't do something to make my mother ground me from the internet. No, this was a bit more...unplanned.
So Thursday night/Friday morning, I was having trouble with staying online, and then I couldn't get back online. I checked the phone, and sure enough, there was noise on the line. Noise that prevented me from logging on. Netzero couldn't detect a dial tone (though there was one; it was just hard to hear with all the crackling, buzzing, and echoing), so I couldn't go online.
My parents checked the phone wiring throughout the house, thinking that the cats in the garage may have chewed a wire somewhere, and my dad rewired certain damaged portions of it, and after all that, it was the same. After some investigation work, they found out that the problem was outside, at the phone/electric pole just outside our house.
And since it was the weekend, the phone company said they weren't going to send anyone out until Wednesday.
Oh, yay.
I knew what I would do; I decided I would spend the time I would usually have on the internet on working on an AMV. I did this the last time this happened, though that time it was only out for one night; it resulted in this AMV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPDiHx_9dEw
Feel free to mock it. -_-'
But the worst part wasn't that I would have to do without internet for longer than expected; no, the worst part was that I knew my friends would be VERY worried about me, since I'm NEVER completely away from the internet for that long, and that my best friend Eva's birthday was that Monday and I couldn't do anything for her ;_;
(other than worry her to death TT_TT)
We usually talk on AIM on Saturday and Sunday, so I knew she'd notice my absence before anyone else did.
I made up for those feelings of guilt by throwing myself into this AMV project; a birthday present AMV for her, that I might not have gotten finished in time if this hadn't happened.
Almost like fate, isn't it? :P
But yeah, I would've called her, and Caitlin, and Stev, but I was afraid that they wouldn't have been able to hear me, and mom didn't really want me using the only phone card we have on an international call ._.
Got knocked offline in the morning while doing my daily free-donation clicks; couldn't get back on. I decide to work on an AMV in the meantime, which is what I did the last time this happened. (Which resulted in probably my worst AMV ever -_-' well, my most average AMV ever, anyway) That night, I continued work on the AMV, and watched Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. Oh, I love Bill Maher. It's probably evidence of just how liberal I've become, but I've found myself agreeing with him more and more lately. This time, at the end of the show, he discussed health care and how capitalism has fucked a lot of things up. Like, how some things shouldn't be for-profit, and how making them for-profit just screwed things up. Like health insurance, hospitals, and TV news. Once it starts being about money, they stop caring about the people and start focusing on their financial bottom-line, or in the case of the news, stations too afraid of their sponsors' disapproval refuse to air stories that may stir controversy regarding those companies, and start airing celebrity "news" to boost ratings. As long as corporations are allowed to have this much influence, things will always be skewed their way.
Republicans keep trying to scare people by saying this health care bill will be socialism; socialism doesn't scare me, capitalism does.
Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now... >.>
Saturday:
Phone still messed up. Continued work on the AMV. I got to have some small-talk time with my dad in the morning, in which I told him about the two movies I'd like to see in the next couple months. I told him about Ponyo first, since he actually seems to understand anime (he watched Speed Racer as a kid, and a few days previous to this, he pointed out a commercial to me that advertised an anime series). He seemed pleasantly surprised by the premise,that it was something cute and fluffy rather than bloody, violent or gory or whatever.
Then I told him about 9, which was a struggle at first. Try explaining that movie to someone without any visuals whatsoever. IT'S HARD.
But he seemed to understand it well enough. I promised I would load up and show him the trailers of it when we got our internet access back.
Then that night, dad and I got some time to ourselves again, and given that he seemed chill enough about anime, I decided to turn on Cartoon Network to see what anime they were playing (you never really know anymore with their schedule -_-'). It was Death Note. Which was awkward at first; heh heh, yeah dad, just as you were saying that at least I'm not into graphic, bloody horror things! ^^;;; But since it's my favorite anime series, I figured I might as well be up-front about it. Bleach was on the west coast channel anyway -.-'
It was the first episode, which was kind of lucky, even though it was at the shinigami world scene when I tuned into it -.-; So we watched the rest of it, me explaining a few things, and I think he actually paid attention to it. o_o
I complain sometimes that my dad can be annoying or weird, but honestly, sometimes I DO like talking to him about stuff. Mostly because he's patient and listens to at least most of what I say, doesn't try to mock it or make a joke out of it, and at least tries to understand what I'm talking about. Watching that with him and talking about that stuff was actually...fun. I have usually always watched my anime alone, so it was kind of nice to be able to watch and talk about it with someone without constantly worrying that they'll think you're a weirdo for liking that stuff.
(okay, him seeing Death Note did make me nervous at first, but he didn't seem too weirded out, so that calmed me down a bit)
Soon after it was over (and after I'd changed the channel to the Bleach one [dad: "now that's weird", lol], since Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2 had come on; I do not like that show >.<;), dad went to bed. I'd fully intended on washing my hair right then, but one moment I looked at the TV and went "oh, it's Ikakku!" and went over and watched the rest of it. -.-' But it was cool, because I FINALLY got to see Ikakku, Yumichika (hehe, I can understand why people pair those two now ^///^), Renji being his cool, Axel-esque self (shush, I can't help but compare them!! DX), even when he's getting his ass kicked, and, uhhh...that guy who looks like he's crying green tears all the time...Ulqiourra? maybe. sheesh, that dude needs to cheer up; I wouldn't be surprised at ALL if I saw some pic on photobucket of him with the words "cheer up, emo kid!" above his head :P And I saw Grimmjow in the picture-slideshow credits, too. Damn, I need to get back to reading Bleach again...I have to find out why all these people are wearing those teeny Hollow masks on their heads... >.>
But yeah, when that episode was over, I flipped back to the east coast Cartoon Network channel which was playing the anime Cowboy Bebop, and washed my hair. I got to see most of the episode though, and I think it was the best/most interesting one I've seen so far o_o (I started watching it a couple weeks ago, so I've only seen like, three episodes of it, ha :p) It made me laugh my head off, swoon just a bit, and go "ohmygod, why?! D:" at different parts of it. Grr, now I HAVE to watch it next week... >.>
Oh, and do they always play jazz music in that show? Because if they do, that's awesome XD
*has an almost-secret love of jazz/saxophone music*
Then I mostly ignored the TV when Big O came on (yes, there's an anime called "Big O" -_-') and worked on my AMV.
Sunday:
I continued working on the AMV. At around 6am, the power went off. Because a summer just isn't complete without a power outage. -_- The electric company said it would come back on at 8:30am. I got out my drawing stuff and worked on one of my drawings in the meantime, and helped my mom with feeding the cats. The power came back on an hour and a half early, at 7, which was a relief. I got back to work on the AMV (which I was working on when the power went off; very annoying -_-), and later I made some more progress in my typing up/revising of my fanfic. It seems that my writing skills have improved quite a bit since I wrote that story back in 2007 ^_^
Monday:
Finished the main AMV. Started work on the credits. Felt terrible about not being able to do anything for Eva's birthday, and for worrying her horribly with my absence (and Caitlin and everyone else, as well). Mom called the phone company (the phone still worked but it was very crackly/echo-y and hard to hear) and confirmed that they wouldn't come out to fix the phone line until Wednesday morning. That night I finished the credits on the AMV. I found the anime that my dad had seen the commercial for (I think) and watched it. It was on the Chiller channel (a channel that shows all horror/supernatural shows, movies and series), and it was called Tokko. I'd never heard of it before, but it was kind of interesting. Way too many freaking commercial breaks, though >.< I wish it had been a bit more like Death Note in art style, with the mood-setting lighting and all, so I could take it more seriously, but eh, they can't all be that way, I guess. I've been spoiled ^^' But anyway, it's a horror series, and sort of a creepy one at that.
Though some of the dialogue was pretty bad, and sometimes humorous:
"That guy's one persistent cookie"
"I'm obsessed with your butts!"
XD
(I swear, I'm pretty sure that's what one of the characters said xD)
And as if the translated dialogue wasn't bad enough, they censored some of it, too. Bleh. :P I mean, jeez, it's airing at 4am, I think they can let a few swears through so the lip-synching isn't shit -_-
I don't really know who to blame for the crappy dialogue in the show; it may have originally been that bad, not all anime series can be good after all, but I still blame the people who dubbed it, since they could've changed the wording in some parts of the dialogue so it wouldn't sound so stupid/weird :| Also, I recognized NO ONE in the list of English voice actors, so that's proof enough right there -_- From what I've seen, a good voice actor doesn't just repeat what they're told to, they'll change the lines if need be to make it flow better and feel more natural.
(this was evident in the Ouran High School Host Club outtakes, which I watched in entirety since it was included on the DVD of the show I rented from Netflix ^_^)
So these were probably not good voice actors. Their performances were alright, I suppose, though. *shrug*
Another anime came on after the two episodes of Tokko called Descendants of Darkness, but my mom had gotten up then so I couldn't watch it then. Though, it looked to be from the same distribution company as Tokko (Starz; as in, the movie channels? :/), so it was probably adapted the same, terrible way. -_-
Tuesday:
Got the whole AMV finished, then felt incredibly bored.
The phone rang; it was some repair guy from the phone company, and when he was about to say when he was going to fix the line, he answering machine cut him off -_-
I told mom, and she came down and *69ed the guy, and when it sounded like he was going to fix it TODAY, I was like "asdfghjkl! omg, yay! 8D"
Then I was like, "shit, I've gotta save this video and write the description o_o' "
The guy came, went up to the pole just outside our house, came down and talked to my mom. Wanna know what caused the problem?
Ants.
That's right. Ants.
Apparently, a whole colony of black ants had formed around this covered wire. With the rain that we recently had, and the ants chewing away at the wire, it was damn-near disconnected -_-
But the guy got rid of the ants and fixed it, calling us back when he turned it back on.
...YAY! :D
I didn't log on then to do stuff because I was tired, but I did later that night.
So yeah, that's what happened. I'm back now, and the phone line should for at least the rest of the year (the repair guy thinks this might've started in the spring). Which is good, since I'd rather not have to go through this again o_o Though, I did figure out that a good time for me to work on AMVs would be in the morning, since I usually get an hour or two with the computer alone and most of what I do online then is mess around anyway (I'd still have AIM and Windows Live Messenger up, though), so, why not?
And of course, the AMV I made during this whole ordeal? Got blocked by youtube. Yaaaay. -_-
Yes, I did the fair use copy-paste thing -.-
Oh, WMG, how I hate you. >.<
BUT!
I uploaded it to mediafire this afternoon ;D
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?tkkuzj0mlmg
Now people can watch the original version, AND I don't have to worry about it being stolen and somebody claiming it as theirs, because they won't be able to post it anywhere! :D
*sigh* Things were so much better two years ago...back when youtube didn't give a fuck...except when you used a song by Prince... U.U
No, I didn't attempt to make my great excape (damn). I didn't do something to make my mother ground me from the internet. No, this was a bit more...unplanned.
So Thursday night/Friday morning, I was having trouble with staying online, and then I couldn't get back online. I checked the phone, and sure enough, there was noise on the line. Noise that prevented me from logging on. Netzero couldn't detect a dial tone (though there was one; it was just hard to hear with all the crackling, buzzing, and echoing), so I couldn't go online.
My parents checked the phone wiring throughout the house, thinking that the cats in the garage may have chewed a wire somewhere, and my dad rewired certain damaged portions of it, and after all that, it was the same. After some investigation work, they found out that the problem was outside, at the phone/electric pole just outside our house.
And since it was the weekend, the phone company said they weren't going to send anyone out until Wednesday.
Oh, yay.
I knew what I would do; I decided I would spend the time I would usually have on the internet on working on an AMV. I did this the last time this happened, though that time it was only out for one night; it resulted in this AMV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPDiHx_9dEw
Feel free to mock it. -_-'
But the worst part wasn't that I would have to do without internet for longer than expected; no, the worst part was that I knew my friends would be VERY worried about me, since I'm NEVER completely away from the internet for that long, and that my best friend Eva's birthday was that Monday and I couldn't do anything for her ;_;
(other than worry her to death TT_TT)
We usually talk on AIM on Saturday and Sunday, so I knew she'd notice my absence before anyone else did.
I made up for those feelings of guilt by throwing myself into this AMV project; a birthday present AMV for her, that I might not have gotten finished in time if this hadn't happened.
Almost like fate, isn't it? :P
But yeah, I would've called her, and Caitlin, and Stev, but I was afraid that they wouldn't have been able to hear me, and mom didn't really want me using the only phone card we have on an international call ._.
But I'm back now; yay! :D
So, here's what I did for those four days, in case anyone's curious:
Got knocked offline in the morning while doing my daily free-donation clicks; couldn't get back on. I decide to work on an AMV in the meantime, which is what I did the last time this happened. (Which resulted in probably my worst AMV ever -_-' well, my most average AMV ever, anyway) That night, I continued work on the AMV, and watched Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. Oh, I love Bill Maher. It's probably evidence of just how liberal I've become, but I've found myself agreeing with him more and more lately. This time, at the end of the show, he discussed health care and how capitalism has fucked a lot of things up. Like, how some things shouldn't be for-profit, and how making them for-profit just screwed things up. Like health insurance, hospitals, and TV news. Once it starts being about money, they stop caring about the people and start focusing on their financial bottom-line, or in the case of the news, stations too afraid of their sponsors' disapproval refuse to air stories that may stir controversy regarding those companies, and start airing celebrity "news" to boost ratings. As long as corporations are allowed to have this much influence, things will always be skewed their way.
Republicans keep trying to scare people by saying this health care bill will be socialism; socialism doesn't scare me, capitalism does.
Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now... >.>
Saturday:
Phone still messed up. Continued work on the AMV. I got to have some small-talk time with my dad in the morning, in which I told him about the two movies I'd like to see in the next couple months. I told him about Ponyo first, since he actually seems to understand anime (he watched Speed Racer as a kid, and a few days previous to this, he pointed out a commercial to me that advertised an anime series). He seemed pleasantly surprised by the premise,that it was something cute and fluffy rather than bloody, violent or gory or whatever.
Then I told him about 9, which was a struggle at first. Try explaining that movie to someone without any visuals whatsoever. IT'S HARD.
But he seemed to understand it well enough. I promised I would load up and show him the trailers of it when we got our internet access back.
Then that night, dad and I got some time to ourselves again, and given that he seemed chill enough about anime, I decided to turn on Cartoon Network to see what anime they were playing (you never really know anymore with their schedule -_-'). It was Death Note. Which was awkward at first; heh heh, yeah dad, just as you were saying that at least I'm not into graphic, bloody horror things! ^^;;; But since it's my favorite anime series, I figured I might as well be up-front about it. Bleach was on the west coast channel anyway -.-'
It was the first episode, which was kind of lucky, even though it was at the shinigami world scene when I tuned into it -.-; So we watched the rest of it, me explaining a few things, and I think he actually paid attention to it. o_o
I complain sometimes that my dad can be annoying or weird, but honestly, sometimes I DO like talking to him about stuff. Mostly because he's patient and listens to at least most of what I say, doesn't try to mock it or make a joke out of it, and at least tries to understand what I'm talking about. Watching that with him and talking about that stuff was actually...fun. I have usually always watched my anime alone, so it was kind of nice to be able to watch and talk about it with someone without constantly worrying that they'll think you're a weirdo for liking that stuff.
(okay, him seeing Death Note did make me nervous at first, but he didn't seem too weirded out, so that calmed me down a bit)
Soon after it was over (and after I'd changed the channel to the Bleach one [dad: "now that's weird", lol], since Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2 had come on; I do not like that show >.<;), dad went to bed. I'd fully intended on washing my hair right then, but one moment I looked at the TV and went "oh, it's Ikakku!" and went over and watched the rest of it. -.-' But it was cool, because I FINALLY got to see Ikakku, Yumichika (hehe, I can understand why people pair those two now ^///^), Renji being his cool, Axel-esque self (shush, I can't help but compare them!! DX), even when he's getting his ass kicked, and, uhhh...that guy who looks like he's crying green tears all the time...Ulqiourra? maybe. sheesh, that dude needs to cheer up; I wouldn't be surprised at ALL if I saw some pic on photobucket of him with the words "cheer up, emo kid!" above his head :P And I saw Grimmjow in the picture-slideshow credits, too. Damn, I need to get back to reading Bleach again...I have to find out why all these people are wearing those teeny Hollow masks on their heads... >.>
But yeah, when that episode was over, I flipped back to the east coast Cartoon Network channel which was playing the anime Cowboy Bebop, and washed my hair. I got to see most of the episode though, and I think it was the best/most interesting one I've seen so far o_o (I started watching it a couple weeks ago, so I've only seen like, three episodes of it, ha :p) It made me laugh my head off, swoon just a bit, and go "ohmygod, why?! D:" at different parts of it. Grr, now I HAVE to watch it next week... >.>
Oh, and do they always play jazz music in that show? Because if they do, that's awesome XD
*has an almost-secret love of jazz/saxophone music*
Then I mostly ignored the TV when Big O came on (yes, there's an anime called "Big O" -_-') and worked on my AMV.
Sunday:
I continued working on the AMV. At around 6am, the power went off. Because a summer just isn't complete without a power outage. -_- The electric company said it would come back on at 8:30am. I got out my drawing stuff and worked on one of my drawings in the meantime, and helped my mom with feeding the cats. The power came back on an hour and a half early, at 7, which was a relief. I got back to work on the AMV (which I was working on when the power went off; very annoying -_-), and later I made some more progress in my typing up/revising of my fanfic. It seems that my writing skills have improved quite a bit since I wrote that story back in 2007 ^_^
Monday:
Finished the main AMV. Started work on the credits. Felt terrible about not being able to do anything for Eva's birthday, and for worrying her horribly with my absence (and Caitlin and everyone else, as well). Mom called the phone company (the phone still worked but it was very crackly/echo-y and hard to hear) and confirmed that they wouldn't come out to fix the phone line until Wednesday morning. That night I finished the credits on the AMV. I found the anime that my dad had seen the commercial for (I think) and watched it. It was on the Chiller channel (a channel that shows all horror/supernatural shows, movies and series), and it was called Tokko. I'd never heard of it before, but it was kind of interesting. Way too many freaking commercial breaks, though >.< I wish it had been a bit more like Death Note in art style, with the mood-setting lighting and all, so I could take it more seriously, but eh, they can't all be that way, I guess. I've been spoiled ^^' But anyway, it's a horror series, and sort of a creepy one at that.
Though some of the dialogue was pretty bad, and sometimes humorous:
"That guy's one persistent cookie"
"I'm obsessed with your butts!"
XD
(I swear, I'm pretty sure that's what one of the characters said xD)
And as if the translated dialogue wasn't bad enough, they censored some of it, too. Bleh. :P I mean, jeez, it's airing at 4am, I think they can let a few swears through so the lip-synching isn't shit -_-
I don't really know who to blame for the crappy dialogue in the show; it may have originally been that bad, not all anime series can be good after all, but I still blame the people who dubbed it, since they could've changed the wording in some parts of the dialogue so it wouldn't sound so stupid/weird :| Also, I recognized NO ONE in the list of English voice actors, so that's proof enough right there -_- From what I've seen, a good voice actor doesn't just repeat what they're told to, they'll change the lines if need be to make it flow better and feel more natural.
(this was evident in the Ouran High School Host Club outtakes, which I watched in entirety since it was included on the DVD of the show I rented from Netflix ^_^)
So these were probably not good voice actors. Their performances were alright, I suppose, though. *shrug*
Another anime came on after the two episodes of Tokko called Descendants of Darkness, but my mom had gotten up then so I couldn't watch it then. Though, it looked to be from the same distribution company as Tokko (Starz; as in, the movie channels? :/), so it was probably adapted the same, terrible way. -_-
Tuesday:
Got the whole AMV finished, then felt incredibly bored.
The phone rang; it was some repair guy from the phone company, and when he was about to say when he was going to fix the line, he answering machine cut him off -_-
I told mom, and she came down and *69ed the guy, and when it sounded like he was going to fix it TODAY, I was like "asdfghjkl! omg, yay! 8D"
Then I was like, "shit, I've gotta save this video and write the description o_o' "
The guy came, went up to the pole just outside our house, came down and talked to my mom. Wanna know what caused the problem?
Ants.
That's right. Ants.
Apparently, a whole colony of black ants had formed around this covered wire. With the rain that we recently had, and the ants chewing away at the wire, it was damn-near disconnected -_-
But the guy got rid of the ants and fixed it, calling us back when he turned it back on.
...YAY! :D
I didn't log on then to do stuff because I was tired, but I did later that night.
So yeah, that's what happened. I'm back now, and the phone line should for at least the rest of the year (the repair guy thinks this might've started in the spring). Which is good, since I'd rather not have to go through this again o_o Though, I did figure out that a good time for me to work on AMVs would be in the morning, since I usually get an hour or two with the computer alone and most of what I do online then is mess around anyway (I'd still have AIM and Windows Live Messenger up, though), so, why not?
And of course, the AMV I made during this whole ordeal? Got blocked by youtube. Yaaaay. -_-
Yes, I did the fair use copy-paste thing -.-
Oh, WMG, how I hate you. >.<
BUT!
I uploaded it to mediafire this afternoon ;D
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?tkkuzj0mlmg
Now people can watch the original version, AND I don't have to worry about it being stolen and somebody claiming it as theirs, because they won't be able to post it anywhere! :D
*sigh* Things were so much better two years ago...back when youtube didn't give a fuck...except when you used a song by Prince... U.U