Hindsight

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.