omg dimensional vortex absence

I can't believe the last thing on here is me bitching about Indonesia in October. Let's see, in the interim I went to Japan, formed a local girl posse, got my ass kicked by H1N1, did my first christmas in Asia, spent a few days on a tropical island in Malaysia where they filmed South Pacific which is, like, FREAKIN BALI HAI I'M NOT KIDDING and mail-ordered a skort. Yes, Dee in a skort. That's how hot it is on the equator.

(Also, on Tiomen Island-- Bali Hai, above-- they have have the world's smallest runway. So you come in at 9 thousand miles an hour from Singapore for, like, 25 minutes then you turn RIGHT and then you LAND, ERRRRRT. Then you get on a boat cause roads on Tiomen are optional and all the Tamil-speaking guys stare at your hair the whole way...)

But before I get started on the catch-up I'd just like to say one thing. Back in Boston I was like WISH WE COULD GET ANIMAX, MAN so I could watch tons of anime, which, I know absolutely nothing about anime being much more into comics, but I'm like, all the Studio Ghibli stuff is awesome, what else is out there? Well here I am, after midnight on a Monday night and I've been toning chapter 19 of Nightschool all night and I take a break and turn on the tube and LO! it's on Animax, which is a throwaway freebie here on cable, and I have just have to say, IT SUCKS. Or more specifically, YOU SUCK ANIMAX.

So, yardstick of suckatude, here's a list: first the translations. >_< <-- this is the face of me cringing. Are there people who work for this company that actually speak Japanese or is it just a bunch of monkeys with typewriters? Then follow that up with what we in the states call "Voice Actors" and what other people on the rest of the planet would call "Frat Boys" or maybe "Your Cousin Who Could Use a Partime Job" or maybe just "People Who Can't Act"... so the 'Voice' part is right, such as it is, but they should definitely take the 'Actor' part off that job title cause it IS THE LYING PART.

Also, all the frat boys who do these gigs get REALLY uncomfortable doing those roles where the bad guy is one of those archetypal ass-kickers who's definitely in touch with their aesthetic side, if you know what I mean, and I think you do, the badguys with the thorny roses and the fur colars, right? Have you noticed that? Like the character Howl in Howl's Moving Castle except Cristian Bale is actually a real actor, so he doesn't have this problem. So they give these characters this freaky bizarre inappropriate clown voice because, well, you know, the guy who's doing the lead male is like, RIGHT IN THE ROOM WITH ME, so it's like AWWWWKWARD. Voice Actors, feh. MY BUTT. I turn the sound off. At least the explosions are still pretty. Don't order Animax. Buy more comics instead. Unless you want something to mock. Then do it. But it's kind of a lot to spend just for mockatude.

"Darn yooooou!11!!11!!!!!!!" <- actual quote

Stop. JUST STOP.

Anyway, what was I going to talk about....? Oh yeah, Japan. I was in Japan for 10 days, we all went to Comitia and it was AWESOME. Comitia was AWESOME GUYZ. A huge convention center, packed to the rafters with original work. ORIGINAL WORK. No Bleach fanart, no FANART, no fan comics, ALL ORIGINAL WORK, those are the rules. And not pinups either. COMICS. Table after table of original comics by people who make COMICS not drama and who are all INTO it because they have a story to tell and want it enough to self publish it. It was like a comics creators' heaven. I would have cried... except I couldn't freakin READ anything of course so let's not get carried away. Still, I got what I could from art, which was heart-felt even when it wasn't experienced and even then spoke to you clearly over language barriers and geological barriers and whatever barriers and makes me reflect on US cons, with their tiny little AAs full of Final Fantasy dA pinup divas, in an unkind way. Or am I being too honest, pardon me.

But it was great, working the table and talking to the other creators if they could speak english or at least buying their stuff to show your appreciation, which, I have a ton and have all their websites bookmarked :D I think, too, creators may share a common language. Thumbs up, 'your book rawks, dude, can you sign it for me please?' seems to be a universal. It's a good thing.

Tokyo, btw, outside of Tokyo Big Site and Comitia was ehhhh okay, but Kyoto was omg amazing and the best night I had (outside of Comitia) was at this cramped mom-and-pop off the main drag in Kyoto by the river, which looked just like one of those little canals you see in Zatoichi movies where the mobsters are staging an ambush, where we all piled into a back-table and drank beer and ate endless rounds of fried stuff on sticks for hours with the people from there. I have a lot to say about that trip, it was amazing... a proper post about this coming up with pics...

twinkly stars on the other side of the world

The air smells like smoke. It has intensely for the past couple of weeks - a yellowish smog most every morning here on the southwest coast. This time of year there's a temperature inversion that traps it close to the ground, too, and makes it worse. The smell wakes me up in the middle of the night thinking that the building is on fire. But apparently it's just Indonesia.

At work I consult my office buddies. WTH, smog?? say I. And they're like, Indonesia! "EVERY year we ASK them NOT to burn up their island", a friend said. "But do they listen? Nooooooo."

It makes me feel like we're all one great big neighborhood here in southeast asia, dealing with a douchebag neighbor. Turn the gd stereo down, INDONESIA, we are TRYING to sleep over here.

So anyway I open the grill on the windows in the living room and lean out, just making sure the building isn't on fire and happen to look up. Stars! Singapore, you understand, is just like Boston with the degree of light pollution. And you rarely seen see one or two stars, excepting planets-- Venus or Jupiter, which can be quite bright. But here, tonight, I see Orion's belt! And maybe his head ... or is it his foot, whatever. What a delicious surprise! Here is my ignorance: I wasn't even sure I could see constellations here from my former side of the planet.

And the stars-- the most I've ever seen-- are twinkling like crazy. The atmosphere is on the move and there's a good breeze. It'd be perfect sleeping weather if it didn't smell like a housefire.

We're gonna get a home weather station and install it here. When you arrive in Singapore you're like, oh geez, the weather never changes here, it's hot and humid all the time, there aren't any seasons, I'm trapped in a perpetual MargaritaVille endless summer with extra monsoon, omg plz help. But after a while you come to appreciate the little shifts in wind, in temperature, in humidity, that you'd hardly notice at home. And be thankful as hell for them too because a degree Celsius and 10% less humidity here will make you feel like falling to your knees and weeping your gratitude to the beneficent sky.

After midnight and my neighborhood gets darker. We all go to sleep about the same time every night because the fierce sun gets us up at the same time every morning. One by one the the lights in the flats around me go out...though we'll never have complete darkness here, the lights in the corridors of the apartment buildings are always on.

Goodnight, Singapore.

Shut the hell up, Indonesia!

woah, earthquake in indonesia

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1008365/1/.html

We didn't feel anything, though apparently some people in S'pore did: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1008370/1/.html

how dee's day is just the same. but isn't.

same: Today I got up and got ready to go to work.
isn't: I'm awake at 7am. ME. 7AM. (People who know me well may now wish to pause to let this sink in.) Cause EVERYONE in S'pore gets up at dawn. If the sun, a piercing orange DAGGER OF LIGHT directly into your EYEBALLS does not wake you up at the crack of dawn, then the garbage-man, the leaf-blower man, the street-sweeper man, or the dreaded cart-man (ARGH. Empty lorrie driven back and forth over speed bumps on our road all morning... why... WHY) will do it instead. Or the neurotic non-trained and no-walked trophy dogs next door. Or the massive biblical-grade thunderstorm.


same: The busdriver was heavy-footed this morning, barely slowing down for the speedbumps.
isnt': they're not bumps, they're humps. Srsly. The word "humps' is spray-painted on the road. Causing me to uncontrollably start mentally singing the Black Eyed Peas song EVERYTIME I see a speed ... hump... which means that at least 4 times a day -- back and forth on the bus-- I am singing MY HUMPS MY HUMPS MY LOVELY LADY BUMPS in my head.


same: The nice glass of wine I am enjoying is an okay semillon from Australia.
isn't: the bottle cost $47 bucks (SD). o_0;;;;;


same: Catching a ride home with a friend this evening, some guy cut us off in traffic. Our driver yelled at him.
isn't: Saying, with a complete lack of road-rage, "Oh LAH. Your grandfather build this road or WHAT."


same: Every purchase I make is ensconced in a plastic bag. No matter how small. Sometimes double-bagged.
isnt': you will never, ever see one stuck in a tree. Or blowing across the highway. Or discarded on the ground. It's just something that doesn't happen here. Like snow.


same: It's a clear September evening, a bright half-moon in the sky and maybe even a couple of stars visible through the haze of city lights.
isnt': it's 31 freaking C in here. *hugs the fan*


I just realized how long I could go on with this. This is one of the reasons I'm really enjoying S'pore. It's just like home but slightly, weirldly sideways-- not too much-- just enough to occasionally, gently, freak you out.

what have you been working on, dee??

Comics!! Chapter 16 of Nightschool is finished and away as of last week, Svet's outdone herself this time, the series just gets better and better, everybody go pre-order #2 it's so gonna rawk. Tones for Odd Thomas are next on the agenda, but this weekend was consumed with slacking, unpacking the rest of the boxes, cleaning AND EATING DIM SUM AT H.V. OMG, and also we found corndogs in Tanglin mall. No, for real! Corndogs and they were awesome!!! Why didn't I take a pic, that was dumb, I have no proof... eh, well, I'LL BE BAK. CORNDOG EXPEDITION PT. II RETURN TO CORNDOG.

(Seriously, succulent corndogs ... I never found corndogs in Boston the whole time I was there. And do not say Summer Shack to me, bleah those do not count.)

Anyway, oh yes, dim sum quite good for big "sunday" breakfast, although no one liked the pork buns but me... which,TOTALLY TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM, I heroically ate all three, yes, it's true, I'm all about the self-sacrifice for the good of others, thanks.

At Crystal Jade I had soya milk for the first time here. And it was awesome! Bean-y deliciousness! Of course I've had soy milk in the states but the stuff in the carton is bland and character-less, almost as if it's ashamed to be what it is and trying to pass itself as something it's not-- skim milk. Boo on you pale, bland, low-self-esteem soy milk! The glass I had at CJ was full of the Pride of Beans! Even had a slight texture. I liked it very much. C. says the restaurant makes it themselves.

The face Al made when we made him take a sip was priceless. Sadly no camera deployed. Classic case of pearls before swine. Won't eat his porkbun, won't drink his soya milk, sheesh.

...inhaled the prawn dumplings, though. Like a Hoover with attachments!

What was I talking about, oh yes, comics. Here's a page from Tacto and my entry in the Journeys anthology to be printed in Japan for us to sell at our table at Comitia this year, yay! So many wonderful contributors to this book, it's really gonna be amazing!
I really think this turned out so beautifully, really the best work we've ever done. Pencils by Tacto, inks & tones by Dee. And the setting is the 1964-65 World's Fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows, Queens! Dee's favorite obsession!

i haz a birthday

We iz at The Prime Society eatin' dey Australian cowz, nom nom nom.

Also, ice cream there quite good. And the fizzy wine from Austria, delish!

btw, woks and stuff

Yes, you can make marinara sauce in your wok. You can also pop popcorn in it. (I learned this from the demonstration lady in the basement at Tangs who also cooks cakes in hers. I haven't tried cakes yet. Cakes? Hm, really?)

Woks are amazing tools, under-utilized in the States because our cook-tops are not set up for them. Here we've got a gas stove with a reserved space for a wok. And the gas is like FWOOOOOOSH RAWR BURN, very intense, so you can get the temp up to where you need it for a decent stir fry. And speaking of cooking, fresh green veg here are plentiful and cheap and you can buy a huge bag of bean sprouts for 19 cents. NINETEEN CENTS. And that's at Cold Storage, the Whole Food-esque grocery store! I guess if you got your sprouts at a wetmarket they'd fall to their knees and beg you to take them and be healthy.

The fruit and produce here are amazing. It seems very easy to eat well and we've both lost weight and have a rosy glow in our cheeks -- despite all the Tiger beer -- from all the walking (no car), the pool downstairs (!!!) and the good food entirely free of bullshit high fructose corn syrup. You go, S'pore.

Alright, the sin tax on alcohol sucks... 25 bucks for crap chardonnay out of Australia, urg, but still...