The good stuff.

Well, according to the poll results from about a week and a half ago, I should pick the Hellsing wallpaper. Since Liz just put up an image of Touga from Utena, I think I'll wait another week before changing it to the Hellsing wallpaper. But that's definitely the next one up. ^^ Thanks to those who voted!

Many things have happened since I last updated. On Wednesday, Angelica and I met in the village to go shoe-shopping for a bit before coming back to my house. She was looking for a particular sneaker, X18s - really cute badass sneakers with spikes on the bottom (plastic; they're not cleats), that are imported from England, and have been quite difficult to find recently. In any case, we first went into Wheels of London, our favorite cool-shoes/boots place, and guess what? They were having a sale: buy one, get one half off. Trust me, in this store, it's an amazing deal. We looked around; the platform shoes that I really liked were marked down to $150 from around $200+. Of course, I couldn't really consider getting those, but I did find a pair of knee-high lace-up boots with a zipper that actually fit me! (It's amazing 'cause I have big calves and knee-high boots never fit 'cause they usually have zippers, not laces.) And even more amazing -- they were marked down to $60! So, I had to get them. The only thing I dislike about them is that although there's no heel, it seems as if there is. I love platforms, but there's a chunk missing under where the arch of your foot would be, and I generally dislike that look. I didn't take any pics from the right angle, but you can sorta tell in the pic with the flash.

No flash | With flash

You do remember that this was supposed to be a shoe-shopping trip for Angelica, right? ^^; But I figured that I'll use the boots for my Schreient costume for Yuricon. And basically, I couldn't leave knee-high boots that fit me for only $60. Even if they don't have a solid platform. Chances are I'll never find as good a deal again.

Hmm... Louie met up with us and I ended up buying the boots. They walked me to the subway (I had to go pick up my father from work), and proceeded to go from store to store looking for the X18s. They did find them (which is cool), and then went back to Angelica's house. Meanwhile, I got to Rockefeller Plaza about half-an-hour early to pick up my father, so I watched the people tourists ice-skating (or at least, trying to). It was fun. (I was bored.)

When I got home, Louie and Angelica came over and we... did stuff. Uh, I actually don't really quite remember what we did. Oh yeah! The four of us (w/ Liz) watched the hockey game! I think they won that one; impressive.

After the game, we went downstairs to my room and watched Buck-Tick's Climax Together concert -- the one where Atsushi has such kirei long hair (it's to die for!). After that we saw the first two volumes from Picture Product, which contains all of B-T's PVs from Sexual XXXXX!, up to Glamorous. That'd be the third time I've watched those tapes through. It's great. =D

After that, we went to sleep listening to Buck-Tick. Yes, it was a very satisfying marathon. When we woke up the next morning, we watched the fifth volume in Picture Product, which has all the Six/Nine PVs on it; they'd been released as a movie in theaters in Japan. That was very nice; Six/Nine is my favorite B-T album.

Of course, all this combined with the fact that I just got B-T's new album, Mona Lisa Overdrive, and I'm just overflowing with B-Tness. But it's fun 'cause Louie, Maryann, and Angelica have all caught the fever! Muhahahahahaha!

In other news, an odd 1x2 sighting... right in our own place of employment!
HEY, SHARON! (Did I get your attention?)
Take a look at this; ::snickersnicker:: it's one of our new boys' spring outfits, available in sizes 2T up to 7 (basically 2-6 year olds)...

Front with close-up detail
Close-up of back with full-shot detail

Now, those pics were taken on Monday. Angelica had priced and tagged the clothing on Saturday and told me all about it, so I promised I'd bring my camera in to work on Monday and take some pics for Sharon & DC's benefit (and any other Gundam Wing fans). So by the time I came home on Monday, I just forgot to take the camera out of my bag 'cause I don't always just randomly carry it around with me. But maybe I should. 'Cause Tuesday I also forgot to take it out of my bag, and here we are at Wednesday, with the camera still in my bag, and who should Angelica and I run into on the way to the post office, but Aleza's mom?!

Aleza's a really close friend from high school who also attends NYU. And her mom said that she was meeting Aleza at a restaurant up the block in a few minutes, so that we should stop by. After going to the post office (we couldn't delay that 'cause they had Angelica's Weiß Kreuz cels from Japan and it was to be closing in five minutes), we stopped by the restaurant and sat down for a few minutes just to say hi, etc. Luckily, I remembered that I hadn't taken the camera out of my bag, so we got to get a picture of the three of us taken! I was really happy about that! And it's a good one, too!

(left to right) Angelica, Aleza (who's actually quite a few inches taller than she appears in this pic), Sara

The bad stuff.

Besides all this good stuff, everything's really been up-and-down on a day-to-day basis. I hadn't mentioned it before, but apparently at some time during the last stay in the hospital, my father had a heart attack (and hadn't realized), so now his heart's in poor condition. His eyesight has been getting worse, probably because of the mild blood thinner he's been taking since the end of January for that blood clot that he had, so now he can't really see to do his work. He's taken this week off as vacation after an eye-doctor appointment last week (for laser surgery), but if it doesn't help, he's probably going to go on half-pay for a few months, and then on to retirement. At least it isn't an early retirement 'cause he's just turned 62.

On Wednesday, that same night that Angelica and Louie came over, my father had been having chest pains -- my mom was at a late meeting, and we called her to let her know. She wanted us to call and ambulence/bring him to the hospital, but he wouldn't let us do that. It was really weird -- not knowing if he was having a heart attack or what (diabetics may not know they're having heart attacks because diabetics' sense of touch/pain is dulled from the disease). Not to mention that Angelica and Louie were there, and supposed to be sleeping over.

Eventually, my mom came home, and I explained stuff to Angelica and Louie, saying that I'd completely understand if they wanted to leave (to go back to Angelica's house which is a short bus-ride away, as opposed to Louie's house, which is in the Bronx, whereas I'm in Queens). They said it was up to me, and I said I'd like them to stay, but only if they wanted to...

Does that seem callous? I told my mom that if we were going to bring my father to the hospital, that was one thing, but if we were just going to stay home and wait, then I'd rather have my friends there -- rather than just sit with nothing to do and ruminate over if my father's going to die tonight or not.

In any case, all this prompted my mom to actually get in touch with a notary public who could make a house call over the weekend in order to notarize my father's and mother's wills (which we'd downloaded from online and filled out during my father's hospital stay at the beginning of the year, but never had notarized). So on Saturday night, Angelica came over after she finished work and my mom's friend Paula came over to act as the two witnesses to the notarization. It took about half an hour. What a relief, though, that it's done.

It hasn't been easy lately; my father's bad health, my mom's completlely stressing out over my father and her own work deadlines...

::sigh::

Help with a translation?

But getting away from the depressing stuff...

Someone recently emailed me to ask if I could transliterate Buck-Tick's song, 君のヴァニラ (Kimi no VANILLA), and also translate it, if possible.

So I told her I'd definitely do the transliteration, and I'd work on the translation. So I completed the transliteration and did a really literal translation. But I'm just not confident enough in Japanese to change the literal translation into something that sounds more like vernacular.

If anyone is interested in either translating, helping to translate, pointers/tips, or just starting the translation so that I have a sort of example to work with, I'd really appreciate it! I know that windbourne has done some B-T translations previously, but not if you have the time to help with this sorta thing. ^^; And I know that gokumew2 is familiar with Japanese, but not to what extent... (which reminds me, I've been meaning to ask you exactly how you did get so familiar with Japanese that you're actually understanding stuff from dramas/BBS/radio&TV shows, etc.). We can talk over AIM, or you can email me if you like. ^^

Incidentally, if anyone's interested, the romaji for Kimi no VANILLA and GIRL are now up on my site.

http://bucktick.koyasunomiko.com