Mare’s Soul

It took awhile (roughly 4 years) but I have finally done it. I have spent about (and the keyword is about) $1,000 on manga as of today. That’s right, I have finally bought the coveted 100th manga in my collection. What better manga to earn that right than Fruits Basket volume 19? If it weren’t for Fruits Basket, I may never have found manga to be so addicting in the first place.

I think the picture quality is good enough to tell what most of the series I have are, but for those of you who can’t make it out I’ll list the series! (That and the fact I have no life )

1. Ragnarok 1-10
2. Fruits Basket 1-19
3. The Legend of Chun Hyang (one shot)
4. The Wallflower 1-12
5. Angel Diary 1-5
6. Fullmetal Alchemist 1-15
7. Princess Ai 1-3
8. Mar 1-10
9. Nana 1-9
10. Vampire Knight 1-3
11. Death Note 1-4
12. Lovely Complex 1-5
13. Line (one shot)
14. Welcome to the N.H.K. 1-3

Most of them are exceptional titles. Mar is a bit too kiddish for my tastes, and The Wallflower has deteriorated into a gag manga. But everything else is fair game for anyone looking for a brand new title to read. Thought I must warn you that parental advisory notices are on Nana and Welcome to the N.H.K. due to the nature of their stories and some scenes may not be suitable for younger audiences.

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We have about a week or two until spring officially hits, but Old Man Winter hasn’t let up on us yet. Probably because he wasn’t doing his job in the beginning of winter. Today the county (and many other surrounding counties) issued a level 3 emergency; which means only emergency vehicles should be on the streets. A huge winter storm hit us yesterday and thankfully the snow has finally stopped. Total snowfalls in the city are anywhere between 15-17″ (we somehow ended up with most of the snow) and we have a snowdrift in our driveway that’s probably about 3′. Since we got a new puppy about two weeks ago now, I had to go out in the freezing cold and watch as the snow continuously fell and covered up all the shoveled areas. It was hopeless to shovel any of it during the day because within 30 minutes to an hour, it looked like you didn’t. However, the new puppy, Maggie, seemed quite infatuated with the snow (and oddly enough she has seen snow before) and continuously jumped into the deep areas of snow and appeared to be swimming in it!

Those pictures were taken earlier in the day. It looks much deeper than that now. I didn’t get a picture of our other two dogs (yes, we have a whopping 3 dogs in the house) in the snow, but Max (the oldest, a boxer) hates the cold so he’s in and out and Tara (the mini schnauzer) is like a black dot. Maggie’s a soft-coated wheaten terrier. Hopefully I don’t catch a cold from being out in the cold today!

I took the time today to do absolutely nothing! It’s nearly 10 p.m. and I still haven’t worked on my story. And I call myself an aspiring writer. However, I did manage to create 3 new avatars today. The avatar I’m currently using has a duplicate with an animation in the back instead of being a still, and the other features Princess Maddy from the upcoming Disney film, The Frog Princess. I got the picture from a Czech site and they called her Tiana. The last time I checked, she was called Maddy, so maybe they changed her name? Either way, Maddy/Tiana looks uber great. I can’t wait until it comes out!!

The movie rankings are in! Enchanted dominated the box office. Weekend sales for the movie were $35.3 million, and since its release on Wednesday, it has brought in a total of $50.05 million! That’s almost double the amount the number 2 movie of the week, This Christmas, brought in since its Wednesday release ($27.1 million).

Disney proves that animated musicals (even partly animated musicals) are dearly loved and can still win audiences over. Could this be the beginning of the animation department’s revival? Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best. We won’t really know until The Frog Princess makes its debut around 2009.