And I'm back/To let you know/I can really shake 'em down...

Glad to be back, everyone. Here is what happened while I was away (for those who care):

• I started my second job at my former internship (so basically, doing what I did before, only getting paid). 15 hours a week. Noice.
• I finished reading The Atrocity Exhibition (liked it), BITCHfest (fricking loved it), and A Plague Upon Humanity (really liked it). 
• Got back into writing Invisible, now I'm stuck again.
• Found myself addicted to "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson. Y'all, I heard God in this song...
• I thank Kanye West for getting me into that song. And yes, "Power" is awesome.
• In lieu of this piece of news, I made an attempt to make my own Volcano Burritos. While they weren't exactly the same, they tasted better. (Yes, I'm going to stop going there. Same goes for Chick-fi-la.)
• Found myself only going on the Internet for a few hours at a time, instead of being constantly on.
• Saw The Green Hornet (liked it okay), Origin: Spirits of the Past (didn't like it), and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (really liked it).
• Learned more about what's going on in Egypt (it's looking rougher by the day...). Check out Mother Jones. Power to the people!

So, back to the regular schedule and back to what I do best: rant about writing and reviewing books.

It'll be like I never left.

*checks sidebar*

Maybe not.

Small update

Hello everyone, it's your favorite unpopular blogger coming to you from a computer I'm borrowing at the moment. So far, I've only updated some things on my Tumblr and Facebook, but nothing here. I'm happy to report on the swift moving of Part 2 of Invisible. I'm also planning to submit poetry very soon to various magazines, so I'll update you on that.

As for the Murakami challenge, since the moderator welcomed me so kindly (hi tanabata!), I've finished Sputnik Sweetheart and will not begin on after the quake, but Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World instead. I read somewhere that it's a book to read if you liked Inception. Hey, I liked Inception! So why not? And yes, I will do a review. In fact, for those in the challenge, I plan reviews of Hard-Boiled and 1Q84. So there you go!

I'm gonna sign off for now. Bye!

Okay, here's the situation...

Yep, the repair guy confirmed it was a dying hard drive. Thank God I saved everything I did. Don't worry, Invisible and Blues and everything else I've talked about are perfectly safe. I'm happy to report that. According to the repair guy, I won't expect my beloved laptop to return until early February. Until then, I'm using an older personal computer (in which the Internet is about as slow as a snail on tundra). So obviously, I won't be on the Internet as much as before. I hope to do some major reading and writing in the meantime during this 'Net downtime.

Until then, I will try to make some appearances, but I'm not promising anything. Take care and see y'all next month.

Whoops, we borked...

Y'all, I'm having some computer issues: overheating, clicking noises from hard drive (?), and battery problems. My updates will be intermittent until I get the problems taken care of (see: getting computer sent off and fixed).

BTW, if it is true my hard drive is clicking, I'm gonna thank God I saved everything when I did. 'Cause it meant it was dying.

Yikes.

Apologies all around, we'll be back soon to our scheduled programming...

OMGwat, about time, right?!

After dragging my ass on getting back to writing Invisible and thanks to a sudden bout of "I don't wanna sleep for more than four hours for some reason"; I finally finished Part 1 of the novel. As I predicted a while ago, there will be a Part 3. Whoop-whoop.

Hell yeah, onto Part 2!

And so... it begins

Today, marking Haruki Murakami's 62nd birthday, I shall begin officially the Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2011.

To my fellow bloggers also on the challenge... best of luck! I aim for the Sumire level, since I own 10 of his novels, but I
May
Go
All
The
Way!!

Given that 1Q84's English translation comes out this year, along with me possibly getting the six books I'm missing from my collection.

I begin with the perennial favorite: Sputnik Sweetheart, followed by after the quake.

Aaaaannnndddd... go!

*falls over at the starting line*

I meant do that... *paces away*

You're tearing me apart, Rhinovirus!

So yeaaaaah... my cold that I had since mid-December relapsed. Atop that, I've been ginormously lazy. But after a lull of no reading, I got very interested in the Pacific Theater of World War II, primarily the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (then about atomic power and history, then about Japanese war crimes [primarily Unit 731 and Nanking], and then about the Japanese-American internment camps...) So I'm doing some historical research while battling a damn stubborn cold. Atop that, I'm trying to work as much as I can at the bookstore and hoping for future opportunities (in fact, there may be some).

I should take the time to note the obvious: this ain't ever been a review blog. It will never morph into a review-only blog. It may seem that it was going that direction, which wasn't what I intended. Truth be told, I'm having some issues with getting back to writing. That is my own damn fault, so don't feel that writing reviews had done it.

Just letting the blogoverse know what's been up with me... whee.

Nooooo... tes!!

You probably got a gander of my page recently and saw something about a Haruki Murakami challenge of sorts. Since I want to challenge myself to do more stuff, I decided to sign up for it, a first for me. I'm very excited to be part of a community. I plan on reading everything that I have (which amounts to 10 books), plus whatever I don't have and of course, the upcoming English translation of 1Q84 (whoo).

~

I also decided to tally up how many books, movies and albums I've experieced last year. The answers:

82 books read
82 albums listened to
63 movies watched

That is a lot of media. No wonder I have frequent headaches now...

~

So much to look forward to. Lots of movies, music... but not so much on the book front. Other than the Murakami, I can't think of another book to look forward to. Oh well, maybe I'll find some to look forward to.

~

As for blog-related matters, I will continue as I always have. Since I like the schedule, postings here will remain on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays until I get tired of it. I will conclude the "24 Reviews in 24 Years" by the eve of my 25th birthday, and also decide once and for all... the "Best 25 Songs (That I Have) of All Time" list. I will post reviews (even some for the Haruki Murakami thingy) and random writing posts. Expect more writing stuff.

Hell yes.