Author: Heather Meadows

I watched episode 95 yesterday, and will watch 96 shortly. Something very very cool happened in episode 95 re: the redemption of Kashiwaba.

Coach Nishio showed up, recovered from his collapse. It was looking like the gig was up; Kashiwaba wouldn’t have the chance to exact his revenge after all.

But Nishio said he wasn’t coming back to coach the team. He said he wasn’t a good coach; that because of him, many players had left the team without realizing their true potential; that Kashiwaba had gone further than he’d thought possible; and that it took a real coach to get to the Koushien.

Then he said:

“I’m counting on you, Kashiwaba Eijirou.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!

I literally gasped and clapped my hands over my heart. “He knows!” I cried. “He knows!”

Now, it’s all in Kashiwaba’s hands…!

This is funny. (Via BoingBoing.)

Japan firm claims world’s largest gold bullion bar

Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials Corp. says it has produced the world’s biggest gold bullion bar, a 250-kg block worth about $3.44 billion at current prices.

How? Through alchemy? I mean, did they artificially create gold in a laboratory, or is it just extremely difficult to get existing gold to form into a bar?

Yes, I really am this ignorant!

I have always, for as long as I remember, had trouble discussing things with people.

When I was in my first year of college, my friend Stephan was talking with me and my boyfriend Chris about women in the military. I actually don’t remember what his position was; it had something to do with women being fighter pilots, but I can’t remember if he was for or against.

I honestly hadn’t thought about the issue much. I felt in my gut that what he was saying was wrong, but I couldn’t find any real arguments to back myself up. I got flustered, and finally just ended up walking away from the table. Later, Chris told me that Stephan had said to him, “I couldn’t put up with that.”

That pissed me off, but I knew he was right.

Since that time, I’ve had many other discussions go sour. I always seem to get to a point where I don’t feel like further discussion is going to do anything for me. And the other person’s arguments seem to build up higher and higher, oppressing me. It’s happened with Sam, leading to quite a few fights that fortunately didn’t end our friendship, and it’s happened with AJ, and it’s happened with other people who may not have even realized it was happening, because as I’ve noticed this about myself I’ve tried to hide how touchy I am about my opinions.

But hiding it isn’t working; I just get even more upset.

I always tell myself that the solution is to learn more so that I’m able to discuss my opinions in an informed way. But the majority of my opinions are based on emotion; it feels fake to go and search for facts that justify my feelings.

The better route, I guess, is to mistrust my opinions unless I know a lot about the subject already.

But this doesn’t cover my opinions about entertainment. When people say they don’t like something that I do like, I tend to want that to be the end of the discussion. I don’t want to hear them list all the reasons why they don’t like it, because that feels to me like they are dumping on me. Since my opinions are emotion-based, and entertainment is largely something that speaks to who we are as individuals, it feels almost like a personal attack when someone explains to me in detail why something I like isn’t any good.

This is something I’m going to have to fix about myself.

It’s pointless to get worked up over stuff like this. The other person does not mean to insult me by saying they don’t like what I like. They don’t see in it what I see. They’re not me. I can’t expect them to know how much things mean to me. I can’t ask people to censor themselves to spare my feelings.

I am going to have to change my attitude…if I can only figure out how.

That’s so ridiculous to say; it’s not like anyone likes cancer. But it’s all I can think of to describe what I’m feeling right now.

I’ve mostly overcome my own resentment about what cancer did to me, though that hollow ache will probably be with me for the rest of my life. But just because my cancer is gone, hopefully never to return, it doesn’t mean all is well. Cancer is still out there hurting so many people. So many people aren’t anywhere near as lucky as me.

All that happened to me was infertility. Look what happened to this family:

Susan [Torres] had first developed melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, as a teenager in Houston, but had been cancer-free for nearly nine years.

So when Susan began to have headaches and nausea early last month, Torres says, there was no reason to suspect it was anything more than the miseries of early pregnancy. On May 6, the couple made an emergency room visit, where Susan was rehydrated, fed some bland crackers and sent home to rest.

The next night, while he was feeding Susan, “she just stopped,” Torres says. Using techniques he had learned as a lifeguard, Torres restarted his wife’s breathing. Emergency medical technicians arrived in minutes. Four hours later, a still-dazed Torres was standing outside an operating room and hearing from a neurosurgeon that cancer had invaded Susan’s brain.

A day after, when it was clear Susan had survived surgery, Torres faced an agonizing choice: keeping his wife on life support, with a slim chance of producing a live though perhaps disabled baby, or allowing her to die.

Unspoken, but hovering like a cloud: Picking the first option would be hugely costly. He’d be ground down by unimaginable debt. The couple has health insurance but expects it will cover only a fraction of the cost, currently running at least $7,500 a day, he says.

It’s just so horrible…and it’s scary, too, that her cancer came back after 9 whole years.

I hate cancer. I just hate it.

So, while watching my Kyo Kara Maoh! DVD 1 from Amazon.com, I was horrified to see Conrad introduce himself as “Conrart”.

Conrart?!?!?

There is a line a little later where he tells Yuuri that people familiar with English have an easier time saying “Conrad”, and that Yuuri should feel free to call him that. I was aware of this line, and I started to wonder if that line’s existence was the only reason for the bizarro Geneon spelling. (The fansubbers didn’t do anything with that.)

However, I’m checking out NHK’s Kyou Kara Maou character page, and it lists Conrad’s name as:

コンラッド（ウェラ卿コンラート）
Konraddo (Wera-kyou Konraato)

So that would be two different spellings of his given name. The first is obviously Conrad, and the second?

Err…Conrart it is, then…

Seriously, they do use a long /a/ sound to get the English /r/. (Japanese /r/s are pronounced at the front of the mouth, just like our /l/.)

So, apparently Geneon wasn’t just making shit up.

So.

Yuuri’s dad, mom, and brother all know he’s the Maou. They don’t tell him anything about it, or give him any chance to prepare.

Murata knows he’s the Maou. He doesn’t say anything either. In fact, even when it’s revealed that Murata is the Great Sage, he doesn’t come completely clean, and often works subtle political machinations behind Yuuri’s back.

Conrad doesn’t say anything about Yuuri having Julia’s soul, until Adelbert is about to kill Yuuri–and then it’s only out of desperation. On the one hand, I can understand his reticence, but on the other, dude.

The three brothers all seem to prefer to sweep Stoffel under the rug rather than explain what happened with him to Yuuri. The same goes for Huber. Yuuri gets his information in very roundabout ways, when he could easily get it from the principal players.

Everyone seems to have a “protect Yuuri” complex. His brother certainly does, as evidenced by episode 42. Wolfram does. Conrad had one in the worst way–he confessed to Leila that he thought he was the only one who could protect Yuuri, but that after being at his side for so long he realized that it was actually Yuuri protecting him. (Jury’s still out on whether or not his complex is actually over, though ;>) And Murata does, to the point that he is willing to disobey the will of the Shinou/Original King/whatever you want to call that guy. (Though I think Murata gets a kick out of “disobeying”, anyway. After all, he was the Shinou’s contemporary. It’s kind of hard to suddenly be subservient to someone who was essentially your college roommate.)

What Yuuri has shown time and time again is that he is more than capable of dealing with problems himself. He was chosen as the Maou for a reason, after all. What he needs is support and information, not people who pretend to go along with his ideas and then run their own schemes behind his back.

In a way, I feel like all of these people are using Yuuri. Murata especially. They’re trying to keep him innocent. Perhaps to guarantee the purity of his rage–the only thing that has been shown to release his Maryoku. Some might say they don’t think he’s capable of dealing with things (Wolfram calls him a “wimp”). Some might think that he’s a pushover and try to deal with everything without having to involve him. But the court at Blood Pledge Castle needs to be careful not to turn into a bunch of Stoffels ;P

Fortunately, Yuuri doesn’t put up with this kind of thing. It may take him longer to get to Murata than to the others, but it will happen, damn it.

Of course, the fact that he keeps travelling from one world to the other doesn’t really help him get a good foothold in either place.

Mmmh…Kyou Kara Maou 44 was kind of disappointing after 42 and 43. I’m not really into the whole “wise child”/”800 year old person who looks like a child” thing to begin with, but this was such a filler episode. 43 was, too, but I dunno, it was more interesting. Plus, it wasn’t totally random. Also, it didn’t feature Conrad running around pointlessly.

(I have to say, it is weird to watch filler episodes with Conrad acting like nothing ever happened.)

I may go back and watch 42 again, though :> Because it was cool!

I mean, we finally get to meet Yuuri’s brother Shori. (Should I just give in and spell it “Yuri” like everyone else does now?) And Shori is very cool, and he knows what’s really going on, and he’s set to be the next Maou of Earth…

Bob, the current Maou of Earth (what is it with guys named Bob?), met the brothers when they were young, and told them that he was a friend of the Shibuya family’s from long before the two of them were born. What does this mean? :D And he told Shori that Shori could be in a position to help Yuuri, who would have to go to a faraway land and face dangers and difficult decisions, if Shori would succeed Bob as Maou of Earth. Is there something particularly special about the Shibuya family that we don’t know yet? :D :D :D

Plus, we got to see some humanization of Murata Ken, what with Dr. Rodriguez showing up and all. (I still say the good doctor didn’t do poor Ken any favors. “Chase the sun,” he says. “Try to be the moon,” he says. Well, what if the sun is chasing someone else? Ever think of that?! I mean, isn’t it a little creepy the way Murata keeps telling the Shinou “I like Shibuya” in that cold, serious voice? …Ahem.)

You can see how after so much new information, it was a little off-putting to watch an episode about a baby who wanders off so everyone has to freak out and look for her (gee, that plot’s never been done before), and then positively annoying to watch an episode involving nothing but a shrine priestess acting out.

Here’s hoping for more cool plot stuff in episode 45.

Just watched the end of Friends season 6–the two-parter where Chandler’s trying to trick Monica into thinking he doesn’t ever want to get married, so she’ll be surprised when he proposes, only Richard shows up at the most inopportune moment and tells Monica he still loves her, and wants to marry her.

“Fair would be if you wanted to marry me then, or if Chandler wanted to marry me now. Nothing about this is fair. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.”

But it all turns out right in the end–without even a cliffhanger this time! And they cry and say how much they love each other and kiss and get engaged…I was totally in tears, just like the first time I saw it.

Man, I’m such a sap :> But…Monica and Chandler!

:)

Everyone made a big deal in this episode about how Huber and Nikola’s baby had Maryoku (demon magic). Apparently there was an ancient legend that sometimes a child born to a human and a Mazoku would have amazing Maryoku. Except for the legend, this was unheard of–Conrad and Yozak, for example, don’t have any magical powers. Murata stated that he’d never actually seen such a child, in all his 800 years.

Uhhh…Yuuri was born to a Mazoku father and a human mother, and he’s got freakishly strong Maryoku.

Does he just not count because his soul used to belong to a full-blooded Mazoku?

Or have they just conveniently not mentioned that oh yeah, his mom’s a Mazoku too?

Yeah, so I guess some guy in North Augusta has a baboon on display? And PETA isn’t too happy about it.

They’re far politer than they’re depicted in pop culture, though! I mean, they literally say

Bonner has applied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a license to exhibit Bobo. Please write polite letters to the USDA and ask the agency to deny Bonner a license.

Assuming that the information in PETA’s press release is true*, then that baboon really shouldn’t be at a pet store.

To be honest, I don’t like most of the pet stores I’ve seen, with these little two foot, brightly lit windows where animals lie around depressed all day. The worst one by far is the one in Augusta Mall. Those cages are tiny. I can’t stand to even go in there.

Update 6/18 10:00pm: I have some new information in the comments that should be of interest to everyone. Assuming this information is correct, PETA really dropped the ball (again).

Update 6/24 10:38am: PETA has written another article, which makes Bonner out to be unreasonable and greedy. Bleh :>

There are many excuses not to write. Try using writing as an excuse not to do other things.

Iiiiiinteresting.

I’m still working my way through all the entries (there are like a zillion of them). I haven’t come across Jeff’s yet, but I wanted to point out a couple that I thought were cool and possible contenders for the prize:

First, a picture that kind of steps on what Jeff was planning to do with one of his pictures. Jeff’s, to my understanding, is a maiko with a cell phone, so maybe the white face makeup will push him over the edge.

Second, though, is this fantastic drag queen. I have to say, that is definitely an example of “unseen Japan”. :> (Nice penis!)

I’ve been enjoying Friends season 6 (thanks Mom!) and I just watched the one where Ross tries to convince Phoebe and Rachel, who have just taken a self-defense course, that he’s got “unagi”, which he claims means “total awareness”.

Ross is such a doofus :D

Mmm, unagi…

‘Lois & Clark’ actor Lane Smith dies at 69