Dog days.

I think it's a sailor's term way back when there are no winds to push the sails. Pretty boring phase since you couldn't go anywhere.

Oh wait. I think the term was doldrums. Bah, too lazy to look it up.

Another thing that comes to mind is that during dog days, the star Sirius is way up high in the sky. Signifying summer? Sirius is the dog star. I believe it's in constellation Orion.

Wonder why am I connecting the two. Hmm.

~~~

I think I'm appreciating the placid pace my life is in. Home, work, home, work, few interesting stuff every now and then, play games everynight. I mean, while some would work for unholy hours just to get by, I'm pretty well off. I sometimes forget appreciating that ya know? Heck I'm not even that busy 'busy'.

Still, I'm looking at the far distance. What's out there.

Perhaps that's the reason why I keep moving on. I mean people have their raison d'etre. Something concrete and tangible like living for their families and all that normal stuff. I don't. I just want to see what's at the end. If there's any at all.

Maybe dream of a few things along the way. Huh.

I sat there staring at the reddish light up at the distance. Women in skimpy clothes plying their trade.

"I work there, you know."

Said a voice beside me. I don't want to look back into her eyes so I could avoid unneeded conversation. I just want to get my midnight snack and go back home at the condo.

The baker frowned at me. Trouble.

I could still feel her watching. I just do my well-practiced, you-dont-exist-in-my-universe stance and then I don't have to worry about strangers. When I could see from my peripheral vision that she glanced away, I dared to take a glance.

She has a childish face. Unlike some of the women 'back' there, this one isn't flirty or anything. She's just that. I don't want my over active imagination create stories about her in my head, profiling her whole personality with just a look.

Yeah I do that to people. It's a bad habit. I usually stay quiet anyway.

I'd like to crack a joke with lines like, "So, you uh, work late huh?" But tonight, I don't want to talk like that. Because as usual, I have somebody's face in my head. I have little love for strangers, my xenophobia as one of my most endearing traits.

I surprised myself when I did reply. "Yeah, I think you do work there."

She then turned to me with a playful look in her eyes. I was biting my lip. What the hell was I doing? But coolly enough, my other persona is taking over so I kept calm. The store is strangely crowded.

She sits across the table anyway, so maybe a conversation isn't so bad. Before I knew it, she's talking about herself, the stuff she loves and such. I don't know why she's telling me all this. I do sometimes give people the impression that I'm "someone you can talk about anything."

I give eye contacts every now and then. Taking a small bite out of the bread to signify that I'm still listening. The occasional "Uhuh" and nods. I'm not ready to give out anything about me at this time. Little by little, I'm beginning to say more. Not about me, but how I think.

I don't have grand theories about people, or women, or the world. I don't know everything and don't wish to. Sometimes yeah, I get drowned in my own little world, and sometimes I ask what all of this means. Sometimes I wish I don't have to ask questions anymore and just enjoy stuff as it comes.

What was strange about all this you ask? Well, she listened. Or maybe she did that to reciprocate me listening to her (or as I appeared to be).

Somewhere along the little talk I think I told her that I never thought low about her. People are people to me (perhaps I said that out of xenophobia). Getting your hymen ripped off don't make you less of a person now do ya?

After all that I bid farewell to go back home to sleep, she asked if I was married. I said no. And before my overactive imagination would finish off what she's about to say, she said something pretty cool and unsettling at the same time.

Naw, I'm not gonna say it here ;)

When you don't utter the name of person for so long, you forget about it dontcha?

Yesterday somewhere in Boni circle, I just came from a barber having another baldie haircut. As I was passing by RJ's bulalohan, almost just about to ignore things (like everything), I saw a familiar face -- only for an instant.

Then the person looked the other way, her hair covering her face.

I twitched my eye brow trying to recognize the person, and any bodily feature. Just when I passed by just enough to see half of her face, I knew who it was.

My ex.

I'm pretty sure she already saw me, she just didn't want me to recognize her. I would've said hello. But that's fine.

I went on, going my merry way.

You know, I think at some point in my life, I've stopped having moments and saying something like "This is greatest thing that ever happened to me" or "That was the most awesome thing ever".

When we're kids we have a lot of those simply because everything is experienced for the first time. And to some extent later in life, when we experience something that far exceeds what the original.

I remember an episode in The Twilight Zone where this group of people are looking for a clandestine shop where "you can buy back what you have lost". It can be anything. A memorable alarm clock, a childhood toy, even a feeling or emotion you no longer have.

Sometimes yeah, I wish something like that exists. But in a way, I'm glad it doesn't.

I don't know how important it is that my imagination is fed by music and the visual arts.

I mean, as just another mortal human being, all we really need are the basic necessities. Yet as a complicated creature, who, by sentience or the fact that we have a unique psychological profile (each and everyone of us), we have needs that far surpasses that of 'surviving'.

After we succeed in surviving, what is next, I wonder?

Once the most basic of needs have been met, we become more than just 'creatures'. We begin to think about the world. We romanticize.

And that is the stuff of music, of philosophy, and of all this art. Otherwise, all of that is really ... useless, in a pragmatic point of view.

~~~

Anyhoo, I've been looking for Fan art for Ergo Proxy in Deviant Art, just so I could satiate my visual hunger.

And shit, did I open a treasure trove!

Real Mayar truly is the most unconventional anime heroines ever. Like I said, almost Western. None of that cutesy-footsy stuff. And Ergo PROXY is the coolest, like in a The Crow kind of way.


I <3 Amy/Real

It's been a while since I've done a review on any anime. But let me take this moment to have just that on Ergo Proxy.

Set in a post apocalyptic era, Vincent Law, an immigrant from Mosque has come to Romdeau to seek a new life for himself -- to become a citizen. But he has a haunting past made worse by the fact he couldn't remember what happened during the desolation of Mosque.

However, a certain entity, identified as a PROXY, has been the subject of much of Romdeau's secret research. And it is somehow connected to Vincent Law.

In comes Re-l Mayar, an officer of the Informations Bureau hunting cases of murders by autoreivs, robots that has been infected by the Cogito virus. The initial symptom of infection is the autoreiv falling down on its knees and seemingly praying. After which it begins to act with a sense of 'self'. This is undesirable as far as the human populace of Romdeau is concerned. And as a task for the discriminated Vincent Law, is a job for him to disinfect and identify autoreivs that are infected with said virus.

Let me tell you first the reason I first bought the DVD: THE HEROINE, RE-L MAYAR IS MODELED AFTER AMY LEE OF EVANSCENCE. Please watch this YouTube video, the song itself is haunting too, fits very nicely ... and gothically:


You complete my fate, the world unwinds inside of me ...

I don't know who's the genius who did that, but it certainly worked for me. Man, seeing Amy Lee, er ... Re-l shoot guns and do action scenes or generally look spooked is fantastic. I couldn't help but go oohs and aahs.

However, the quality of animation all throughout is not that great. Re-l isn't drawn consistently since I think she's the most complicated to draw. Some odd renditions are just plain .. odd. I never really loved post acolyptic themes, being all dark and gray and sad. But it is the reality they want to portray I guess.

The story itself is not simple matter. I can even say, that minus a few chinks in the story, it's unlike any other anime. Or maybe it does but you have to think of animes like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Serial Experiments: Lain, or Neon Genesis Evangelion. Heck, I can say it's written by a Western author. One wouldn't notice that because of the anime nature ofcourse, plus the fact that Pino, a child robot/autoreiv, is oh so cute.

Truly, Pino has gotta be one of the most lovable little things out there -- really well done.

Vincent Law is of course, the object of the story. The fact that at first he looks like the universal loser, and become the focus all throughout may be too formulaic for most. Re-l, who's obsessed with the PROXY entity, is also quite interesting a character. A manipulative, selfish bitch, she would stop at nothing to achieve her goals. Using everyone, even her benefactor Daedalus, a boy genius in charge of the Research Bureau, and her Entourage robot/autoreiv, Iggy.

You'll find references to Buddhist terms and references inside here, so that should add some flavor to the story (as Evangelion itself got material from Jewish mythology). Also, the PROXY entity wears a Joker mask which he somehow manages to pull out of nowhere. And man do clowns scare the shit out of me. I think this visual aspect made me watch it all the more. It's like food that you initially don't like, but you got intrigued by the taste and you end up wiping the plate.

There's a definite twist in the end (and much more twists before the big finale). Oh did I mention that the fights scenes, even though not too many are actually quite good? That goes to show this anime is blood violent as well. But not too violent that it's perverse. Just the right amount of stuff if you know what I mean ;) (though the geekazoid in me wanted to see what a nude Amy Lee would look like, I digress)

I wouldn't watch it for the reason it's too ... post apocalypticky for me. But in contrast to that, I have more than one reason to watch it as well. I'll watch it only to see Amy .. er, Re-l in there :3

And the opening song, Kiri by Monoral, is haunting ... the scene where Vincent Law looks hopeless in the desolate wilderness is burned inside my head.

I hate it when that happens. They make me gloomy and happy at the same time. If anyone wants the whole song, just message me or look for it in an anime site.

The Kamael are a fictional race of beings in the MMORPG Lineage 2. One of the most popular ones out there, ofcourse it's Korean made. I haven't played it personally, but I will soon! So they now have Humans, Elves, Dark Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, and the Kamael.



Anyway, I couldn't believe someone would think about a race that represents my psyche :o Yeap, I have a fantastical thing for eudemons (angels), but couldn't quite feel having an affinity to them because they're 'purely good'.

The Kamael have only one (non-aero-functional) wing and when they reach a certain level, can develop a full set. Don't that sound like a fantastical being of my vein? Heck, my blog subtitle says it all. And it's there years before the Kamael was ever brougth to light.

Yeap. I'm a Kamael when I get into Lineage 2. Let's role play baby.

In other news, I've been watching animes I got off of somewhere, namely Trigun (which is a popular title in itself) and Ergo Proxy.

Ergo Proxy. Now what intrigued me about that one is that the protagonist looks like it's modeled after Amy Lee of Evanescence. Almost as gothy. Haven't finished it yet, but I will this weekend.

Yay. Something to do besides playing RAN Online. My int archer there is level 147 btw ;) She's pretty cool. But I haven't leveled her up for a week. Going to level 157 is hard work :/