Riding Griffins, Horses, and Motorcycles

I decided to download a couple of the top searched for shows on Tokyo Toshokan to-day so, with breakfast, I watched the first episode of a tokusatsu series called Kamen Rider Decade. It's live action, and the episode opened with a pretty girl in a sooty, frilly pink dress in what looks like maybe a quarry. After a moment, a flood of explosions, motorcycles, flying buildings with screaming Godzilla heads, and enormous mechanical monkeys were onscreen. There was an uncontrollable smile on my face.

The show's hero, whose name, apparently, is "Decade" uses trading cards and a large belt buckle to activate his awesome powers.



It occurred to me that I could buy trading cards. Lots of them, and even a belt like that wouldn't be outside the realm of imagination. As the show flashed images of power and martial arts initiated by the cards interacting with the belt buckle, I thought about how imposing I would be and how capable everyone would consider me if I walked around with such a belt and cards always at the ready--like, a big deck that I could supplement with daily stops at the comic book shop so there'd be a card for every occasion. And then people would notice those who didn't have many cards and everything about such people would suddenly seem foolish and possibly diseased.

And look at the female lead's grandfather (there, on the left);



That's how one ages their hairstyle without shame.

I watched the season premiere of Angel's second season last night. I've said I think David Boreanaz is a bit bland, but I gotta give him props for this;



And that episode introduced so many of my favourite things about the series--Lorne, Gunn as a cast member, and I was surprised at how happy I was to see the hotel. Although the fifth season is my favourite, I always thought there was something really cool about the characters having an abandoned hotel as their base. The surprise yet understated appearance of Faith at the end of the episode, when Angel visits her in prison, was also nice.

Last night's tweets;

In the land where linen and apples heal.
Rum and watermelon just keep giving.
You never know what mobs might be a meal.
Secret agents relocate the living.

I managed somehow to finish drawing and inking a page rather early yesterday, so I dropped by Tim's house and spent some time with my human rogue in World of Warcraft. Tim showed me a bunch of the cool, really nasty things one can do as a rogue, and I proceeded to do two quests the wrong way--first a stupid messenger mission where I couldn't deliver the message to its intended recipient because I ran to Stormwind instead of flying there on a griffin. Then I had a cool pickpocket mission from Stormwind's spy organisation, "SI:7", but after spending time picking off each of my target's lackeys and bodyguards, I botched the thing by just assassinating the guy instead of robbing him, which evaporated, I guess, the contents of his pocket. Fortunately he respawns really fast. From what Tim told me, there are a lot of ways in which Blizzard really didn't prepare the game for the wide variety of options a rogue has for accomplishing his or her objectives. Which is too bad.

I'd say I'm enjoying the rogue more than my warrior except I'm dying all the time.