Bah Weep Gra-nah Weep Ninni Bong.

It's the universal greeting. Or so both the old Transformers movie and Illidan Stormrage, of Warcraft fame, claim. Anyway...

Still unemployed, but I do have one promising application. Yes, I know the place is in Makati and I've professed on more than one instance just how much I hate the city, but I deal. For one thing, the company seems to be significantly more stable than, say, Intelligraph Corporation. If that piece of crap company with a damned fool for a boss is stable for the long-term, I'm Joshua A. Norton, First and Last Emperor of the United States.

The environment is also highly modeled after a call center from what I've seen, which is fine with me. I come from a call center background, after all, and I really have no complains about that particular industry as a whole. A few grips here and there about the nature of the work, but that's just because I'm not really cut out for helping people over the phone. Or in person, for that matter. The work looks like it doesn't differ too much from what I used to write at my last job, though I can tell the compensation is much better and, at the very least, the people higher along the chain of command have some idea of what the front lines are up to.

But enough of that.

I honestly can't believe I missed out on learning that the anime version of School Days has hit Japanese airwaves. Thanks to my newfound DSL and Bittorrent, I intend to grab each and every episode of this wonderful show as they are fansubbed. I doubt that they'll go with one of the endings in the game and they will likely decide to pull out a mediocre ending that's for the show only, but if they do decide to take a game ending, I want it to be the Conclusion of Blood one. That's a fun way to end an anime, even if horrible, horrible things have to happen to poor Kotonoha for this ending to be made possible. Of course, barring that, there's always this ending, which is the one ending in the whole game (there are 20 possible endings) where the jerk of a main character gets what he deserves: a sharp knife to the gut.

Yes, I really plan on downloading each and every last episode of this show. And buying a pirated DVD as soon as it comes out. Maybe even an original box set, if it comes with cool extras. Like maybe a figurine of Kotonoha, complete with the saw she used to slit Sekai's throat. This is actually the first show I've ever wanted to willingly spend a lot of cash for an original copy of, not to mention be willing to download fansubbed episodes off the Net for. What can I say? School Days appeals to me, and not just because of the violent possible endings.

Now, let's see...I'm still working on Darkness & Stars, which is a lot of fun. I've finally managed to start Chapter 20, which means once that's done, I'm a third of the way to completing the single, longest story I've ever written. Even now, it's already a little over 200 pages and it's still growing. The sheer size of it is starting to scare me.

I'm still not quite sure how to follow it up once I somehow finish it, but I'm sure I'll have to go with something significantly smaller. Maybe a compilation of short stories? I've done that once before, in the form of The Midnight Carnival (PDF download, mates), but that one was mostly not up to my usual standards. In fact, most of the stuff I wrote starting around 2002 to late 2006 aren't really as good as my previous piece, with this being the sole exception.

I'm thinking of using a consistent high fantasy-style setting (like Tolkien's Middle-Earth) for the compilation, but I'd have to work on the details of said setting first. Maybe something Chinese/Japanese in theme and nature, seeing as how most fantasy works tend to draw from either Tolkien or European sources, which can be tiring to have to deal with on a repeated basis. I'll have to ponder that for a bit, let the idea marinade in my head for a while.

Let me get back to you on that.