Eternity in a tin

...except for the part where I am -

Hi guys,
I hope you're all well.

I just wanted to say that I probably won't be around LJ any more. I don't know why I feel the need to make an official announcement out of this, after all it is fairly obvious that I haven't been around regularly any more anyway, but for 6 years everything revolved around this thing, so hey.

There are 3 main reasons for this. Firstly, my overall need to talk about myself in this capacity has just... vanished. I talk on facebook and I talk on twitter, but I never feel the need to talk in that diary-like way any more, "dear LJ, today I went to..."
Maybe my life is just not that exciting. I don't mean this in a bad way, maybe it never was, but right now on the internet I'm okay with a little flailing here and there and that's it.
I think that other than fandom-related stuff, I have stopped relying on other people's advice and opinions. Not that you haven't helped, and e-hugs are the greatest thing, but these days I don't assign a lot of importance to my everyday life to the point that I wanna write about it.
I mean this in an entirely positive way, I can not remember a time in my life during which I have felt as satisfied and as focused as now.
Those of you who have been with me for almost the entirety of those 6 years, I am actually not losing by doing this at all - we still talk on twitter and from that I have the feeling that I have a fair idea about what's going on with you, and for that I am very grateful by the way. You rock <3

Secondly, the fandoms that I used to associate with are not my fandoms any more. I am just not interested in Japanese fandoms any more. Doesn't mean I don't like Japan and everything that has to do with it, it is just not a fandom to me anymore.
When it comes to non-Johnnys stuff, even though you might not be able to directly compare these two services, I have the feeling of being part of much the same community or maybe an even bigger one, just by being on tumblr and AO3 these days.

Thirdly, since the LJ main page broke for me, navigating the whole site just is one huge pain.
I got a lot of very dumb suggestions on LJ support for my query, you know the kind... The one that says "oh you're a woman so of course you would suddenly be challenged by using the site you've used for the past 6 years" ...yeah.

Now and then I post on honeydextrous over at wordpress. I do this only occasionally because the posts over there are not spontaneous and take time, I want to start posting proper movie reviews on there as well, it is about about writing consciously over there instead of just going akslssjshdkgasdkhkal.

So here they are again, the various ways in which I can be contacted now:

facebook.com/the.tsubame
twitter.com/nightwrecking
wordpress.com/honeydextrous

<3!

Feel free to skip this while you are waiting for my other 5 million promised entries, shitty day, can't sleep, waiting for painkillers to kick in.
For a while now, a gifset of Robert Downey Jr. at the Actor's Studio has been around on tumblr, where they basically do a meme with him.
I really liked the questions, so I answered them myself.

1) What is your favourite word?
Fingertips.

2) What turns you on?
An honest smile directed at me.

3) What turns you off?
Dilly-dallying.

4) What sound or noise do you love?
Wind in the trees. It doesn't work with one tree, t has to be a lot of them.

5) What sound or noise do you hate?
Bones crunching.

6) What is your favourite curseword?
Twatman.

7) What profession would you like to attempt?
Event manager.

8) What profession would you not like to participate in?
I couldn't be a carpenter. I would do things over a hundred times, and I#d still be pretty shitty.

9) If heaven exists, what would you like God to say to you when you arrive at the gates?
You're very welcome indeed.

Hey everyone,
Thank you so much for your kind comments last time!
I wanted to update much sooner but LJ deleted the main page CSS I used to use (remember back in... 2006 or 07 when you could decide whether to stick with the old main page design to change to the new one? Well, apparently I was the only one who didn't change) so now I can't use any parts of the site that do not have customised CSS.
I posted a support request a week ago, but so far no one has helped me, which is why I am posting using Semagic now.

After all the recent drama I decided to make a very normal post with very normal stuff about The Honey that you guys either know, don't know or are not interested in, because I can.
This is part I, part II will have pictures (because I'm tired now.)

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Morning!

I hope everyone who is in japan right now had a great Golden Week and I hope the rest of you got into May alright!
I sure did! Went to the cinema and Osaka aquarium where I took maybe 5 pics that are not blurry, so just to be on schedule, the next post is gonna be a photopost with flowers and penguins and shit, and after that there will be Barton related fic-recs! ^_^ V

I also erm... got ready for summer, seeing as it is already 25°C on average here:



Yeah materialism!

I just felt like posting random crap before actually posting the stuff I promised I would post, mostly because today is a good day and I felt like it.
I got very good news regarding my university debt which I choose not to believe for the moment, but basically my debt has halved, meaning that with a little luck I'll be able to pay off the entire shazam in 7-10 years with a good job, which motivates me to do well now so that will actually happen ^_~
I mean, it sounds like a long time, but to pay off 4 years worth of debt in double the time is marvellous.

Motivation however, evades me slightly these days - my mum told me to up my dosage and I trust her more than any doctor but since then the apathy got worse...
Double-edged sword right there.

Other than that I watched The Avengers using what has to be the earliest appearance of a camvid in recorded history and no surprise there, I thought it was lovely <3

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Some tacked on Steve/Tony fic recs because the tabs are still open:

(First Impressions Are) A Work in Progress
Tony has a point system for the times he can get Steve to be less than perfect.

Scale and Perspective (The Technicolor Remix)
Tony had always appreciated Steve's art, but he didn't realize Steve's art had started appreciating him in return.

I am not even sorry, I love my perpetually blushing woobie!Steve.

I also took up watching jdramas without subtitles again for listening practice but I am already horribly behind, anyone else watching anything?

So, I promised pictures of Okinawa, and here they come. Very few though, not to overcrowd this entry.



This photo was taken on Miyako-jima, the main island of the Miyako-shouto peninsula. I didn't know Okinawa had THAT many islands.

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There were other things I wanted to talk about but then this got so amazingly long that I will save that until later.
I will nowmake some pancakes and watch more Homeland <3
See you around.

Spring is slowly returning to Kyoto. We've had 11°C for the past three days, which is really refreshing. I think one possible reason for me surviving -20°C winters at home when I thought I had to die here in 2°C, is the fact that in these areas of Japan (meaning everywhere that is not Hokkaido)it is impossible to find proper jackets, and since all the clothes are sack-like and mostly don't touch my body, well how are they supposed to warm it, then?
But on a day like today, when the weather forecast is wrong and it is sunny, I don't need to heat the room :D
It is the first sunny day in a while and will be for a while longer, and unfortunately I couldn't go out today because I was waiting for a postal redelivery. Leaving now is useless - with the amount of hours of sun, by the time I arrive anywhere in Kyoto I will have about 1 1/2 of light left.
Oh well.

I have barely left the house these past few days. Ignoring the usual slew of Japanese people not calling back/cancelling/people of all races ignoring me (this is only half-serious moaning, but this post will be long either way, maybe another time), I have tried my best to gather enough motivation to study for the JLPT, seeing as I have to apply in April and studying properly will be much more difficult once uni starts up again. Not that I am doing it properly now. T_T
The problem with finding things to do is not only that I have been broke since returning from Tokyo or simply not having the motivation recently to do things by myself all the time (even though I will go to an onsen before it gets too warm - never been to an onsen!!!), but also that even though I love Kyoto and I love temples, there are only so many times you can go and look at them before you feel like you need a break of temple-hopping.

Thankfully my calendar informs me that it is only a measly two weeks until Okinawa/Miyakojima, so I shall have to go out and buy sleeveless things! *_* I just hope it won't rain quite as much as it does now.
I would love to go on a trip during sakura season as well, as it is like the entire country at its best, but I won't get my loan in April plus I have uni so no going far...

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Speaking of cultural disenchantment, a blog on Japan I sometimes visit has made me aware of a book called "Hi! My name is Loco and I am a racist", which I think I will buy just because judging by my first impression, I disagree with the guy entirely, I have an entirely different definition of the word racism, and I am generally cynical enough to roll my eyes at everyone with a "Can't we all just love each other and/or become better people before we judge others first?" attitude. (this is so honeydextrous post +1, omg.)
It is difficult to describe what exactly it is about, generally this guy from Brooklyn lives in Yokohama and is self-aware enough to call himself a racist for various reasons.
Anyway, the book description is on amazon here and the interview with him is here.

I have also realised that I do not wish to spend my working life just using my Japanese, simply while being my only asset on paper, it is not the only asset I have. I do no want to devote my life to a country that is in no way devoting itself to me. I have not mentioned this to my parents, quite frankly I don't have to, but with everything they have put in my studies, I think they might take it the wrong way, but I don't wanna spend my life reading stuff to other people because they can't, by way of translating and such. I want to use my language experience in another field, so that it becomes useful but not the only thing I do.
Here we arrive at the same wish I have uttered from ages 10 to 16, which was when I did work experience at a radio station where I spent two weeks plotting murder and ways to get away with it, which kind of doesn't leave you unscathed -- long story short, video game journalism.
Terrible, terrible idea, seeing as game journalism is a good as dead, the interships start months after I graduate, and I would have to move. Again.
But I will look into it.

LIKE I CARE ABOUT THAT NOW!

Go and read Chameleon by velvet_mace

Sherlock, Sherlock/John, 12 chapters so far,

In a world filled with Sentinels with heightened senses, strength and endurance, and Guides, with seductive empathy, who knew that seeming "ordinary" could be John's greatest strength.

Read it, read it if it is the only AU you will ever read, I swear to God you won't regret it. I haven't read something as nail-bitingly exciting as this in years, I'm telling you.

I can't even, I have completely lost the ability to can here.
It made me want to write up a storm, just to make me acutely aware of my own inadequate scribbling. That plus the fact that my writing has been completely cockblocked now.

I have made another blog,

http://honeydextrous.wordpress.com

Why did I do this? Well, this LJ is a very private affair. I moan when I have problems, and I voice my thoughts in whatever fashion I feel like at the time, so it is actually very much like a diary.
In honeydextrous, I would like to talk about just about any topic in an orderly fashion, or at least practice how put a proper shape to may thoughts.
At my LJ, I often only talk about stuff that might interest other people, stuff that I have in common with you.
With honeydextrous, I want to have the freedom to talk about anything, because it does not have to be relevant in any way.
I might ramble and get off track, because this is something I have to train, too, but I will not ask questions or give answers, and voice everything in a more general manner than I would here.
If you are interested, have a look.
Writing serious blog posts sure is more work.

Pictures! These are only a couple of those that I took between Christmas and New Year, above is a view on the Maibara region, taken from the other side of Lake Biwa, the rest is from Nagoya, Ise and Kyoto.

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It is so fucking cold. I stopped trusting AniWeather a long time ago, which tells me it is 7 degrees outside, I'd lower that by four, but I know that technically it isn't very cold in Kansai because unlike basically any other area, we don't get snow. We had one day of it, one. Yet, because Kyoto is on a very flat patch of land surrounded by a ring of mountains, it feels actually just as cold as in areas where it does snow, and I know what I am talking about since it snowed in Nagoya and yet it was no colder than here.
What makes it worse is the fact that we basically don't have heating in our rooms.
There is an air conditioner above the single-glazed balcony door, and... yeah. I think you can guess what happens.
Now everyone else just started heating like crazy, but the money I can spend on bills is severely limited, so I basically sit up in bed all day with the laptop, counting down the days until spring.

Other than that I feel severely useless recently. I have nightmares about ending up on the dole after graduation, really bad ones. Out of panic I have kick-started by Japanese studying, thinking that not even my Japanese is good enough to be used for earning a living at this point, but I am basically paralysed.

I am looking at the internet and what is happeneing with ACTA and whatnot and all I wanna do is heave a big sigh. It's all a big crazy, isn't it. I feel like soon no one will know anymore what to do and say on the net.

I really miss my XBox.

I am already going to Tokyo next Sunday! Boy, when did that happen. Again I have nothing organised. It's even strange to go this far (7 hrs by bus)after having been here all this time.

Ok, so here are my two cents to SOPA, PIPA and the shut-down of MU.

First off, anyone who did not believe in this happening eventually is lying to themselves. Because it is the internet, there was no way to prepare for it and that it was coming does of course not make it better, but it did.
What several people opposing SOPA and PIPA have already pointed out however, still holds true - the bills will not stop internet piracy.
4 percent of content on the internet is a lot, and so the slogan "The world's leading file sharing website" was not just a couple of fancy words, it seems, but we all know that once they shut down one, somewhere else another one is opened. Now, that process might slow if people ever actually start being afraid of going to jail for it, but I have not seen MF and various toorent websites shut down today in a direct reaction to what has happened, have you?
Many people used MU because it was damn convenient, probably honestly the best file sharing website out there, but when was it about convenience if you really wanted something?

Fun fact: Demonoid, the torrent site that went down in August under load moans of the community, went back up yesterday.
At this point I don't even remember my login data anymore. See what this shows? A big source closed down, but I seemed to find another one just as well.

I would like to dedicate an eyebrow raise to two groups of nutters:

1) so after MU went down, I made a post in a comm asking if someone could reup this one drama that I really like, and that I know will be difficult to get at since the original uploader happens to be me. I got 2, in a word TWO messages of people saying they would love to help me, but they were afraid enough of going to jail as it is. All you get from me in response is this: ...

2) Tumblr. I swear to god, you can hear the cries of "TUMBLR IS NEEEXT" up to the Himalayas.
I know people on tumblr like to present themselves as the epicentre of the world, but of what relevance is tumblr, really? A website that has spamming other people with pictures as its main purpose. Jesus, there is no way to express in words the face I was making at this.

Judging by the uproar it is of course now obvious how many people were using megaupload, so do not worry yourself, duckface129761991, you will neither be first nor last.
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As an end note, I have cut half of my f-list in both people and communities, and only those that actively post or still know who the fuck I even am have remained. Turns out most of you are actually the people I started with, so thank you for that!