Hindsight

I’ve had credit card debt since a college bookstore employee threw in some Citibank handouts along with my first textbooks. On and off I’ve used eBay to sell (and buy) things. Well, it is finally time to sell whatever I can.

There is a bit more than what is pictured above. A slew of auctions start off tomorrow at noon. I schedule them so that they will end during noontime on a weekend - when bidders are actually awake and browsing.

A lot of my crunk is a mass of collected games. Things dating far back into the PC and console areas. Lately I’ve felt no attachment to these items. And it’s time for all of them to go into the hands of new, prospective owners. I could use the money - in the last several months I’ve knocked off about two thousand dollars from my credit card debt. And it feels good. I never needed any of these things. The only things I need to keep are those games which I worked on or were given to me as gifts.

Less is more.

Masamune Shirow’s “Ghost in the Shell” was produced as a feature film about 9 years ago. I’ve since lost my DVD copy, most likely to a friend who forgot to return in. Nevertheless, there were a lot of images from the film that remain in my mind to this day.

Two years ago, the “Ghost…” property was made for [Japanese] television in the form of a 26-episode season. It was titled “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex“.

Fansubs (or fan-subtitled videos) were quickly released into the net. For those who craved the series, they didn’t have to wait if they had a broadband connection and some free time.

Over the last year I was fortunate enough to catch a few episodes here and there. Yesterday, Saturday, I finally watched the latter 11 episodes. Back to back.

I never watch TV, or DVDs, in a marathon fashion. But today was a good day for it and I was able to be pulled in by Stand Alone Complex to its season’s end. I even had fansubs of the second season of GITS SAC, known as “2nd Gig” (nice double meaning). The fourth episode was fantastic.

Recently, work [unfortunately] took up my entire life… any free time I had was gone. I worked one hundred and fifty four hours in two weeks, recently. I insist that you avoid this at all costs. I certainly don’t ever want to do that again. I actually got sick because of the stress caused by work about a month ago. And not having any medical insurance made my medication the equivalent of buying an X-Box.

I think (and hope) the worst of work is over, and regular hours should be coming in. I’m looking forward to the coming weeks.

I’ll be frank. I’ve had a hard time concentrating on anything: I have three games that I bought… that I can’t sit down with for more than half an hour. I don’t even plan on going to this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. The only time I am interested in something now is by sitting and watching a DVD. Otherwise I am preoccupied, pensive or blue. The recent [financial] family situation does not help either.

“It’s like seeing someone for the first time, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there’s this kind of recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person’s gone, and it’s too late to do anything about it.” - Jack Foley (George Clooney)

March came and went by so fast. I spent a lot of nights at work, pulling twelve-hour shifts with others. Last week I came into work at 10am and went back home 8am the next day. The industry I work in is sometimes too much for even me to handle. It puts a bit more perspective into daily life… when I wish I could spend more hours not working. I didn’t quite ask for the 24-hour bit.

I cannot say “it’s been a great month” or “I’ve been quite happy” as of late. Distant from that right now. Just distant. There has been quite a lot professionally and personally that passed in March. I am just very tired, to say the least. Tired in all aspects.

http://quruli.d4k.net/

Quruli’s latest album, Antenna, is definitely more intimate and approachable than their previous albums (Zukan, Team Rock, The World Is Mine). It’s almost entirely rock. As in, pure guitar, drums in the spotlight. A subtle hint of a digitally created sound here and there, but almost nothing. It has to be their most minimal album. But it speaks so much. They have a new drummer now, Christopher Maguire. And I like his work, as traditional as it may be. It’s still solid. I think he is also their first non-Japanese band member. I think Quruli is composed of four people right now.

“Good Morning”, the first track on the album, relaxes me but makes me quite blue at the same time. Yet I prefer to think of it as a security blanket song. That sort of thing.

I think it’s admirable, really. Their previous albums had their variety of rock as well as pop tunes. “Bara no Hana” was the first song I heard by them and I wanted to make a music video about it for years. Later, “Guilty” (from their album “The World Is Mine”) was a good opening song and possibly an even better song for some opening sequence.

Now, they revert to a simpler sound. But it has so much energy and warmth. I wonder where they will go with their next album?