So I was up until 4am last night

Trouble is, I wasn't out with Tyler Vivian. After writing my last post, I put his birthday present (a 26er of El Jimador) into a Bookstore shopping bag (are there any laws about bringing unopened liquor to public places?), and walked to the gym where he usually has his games. As I enter the doors, I hear the familiar pounding bass of the warm-up music. I walk down the stairs to get to the gym doors, and see a bunch of players warming up. The weird part is that they're all using brown volleyballs. This isn't a species I'm familiar with. Also, they should be doing the drills I see in the middle of the court at the net, not down at the ends where I can see them. More puzzling, on reflection, is the fact that while the team is still wearing Warrior colours, they aren't the same uniforms the volleyball team usually plays in. As I get closer, the reason for the discrepancies between my expectations and reality becomes apparent: This is the basketball team. A puzzling turn of events to say the least, they could be playing somewhere else, but I remember reading on this gym's bulletin board that they were playing York here today. I head outside to check and am informed that the game happened at 2 this afternoon. Hmmm. That would explain why Tyler thought it sounded significant when he said he was going to start drinking right after the game. So I walked home and called him again. And his girlfriend. And another guy we know named Willis. Answering machines every one, but there was really no point in leaving a message if they'd already gone out for the evening. So I came home and instead of the mildly drunk socializing way, I prepared to enjoy myself the Ghost in the Shell way. Which, believe me, is as good or better (depending on the quality of the socializing) than the former.
There are 5 pieces in my Ghost in the Shell collection: 2 movies, 2 TV shows, and the music garnered from both. As of last night I had sundry albums, the first movie, the second TV show, and all but 2 episodes of the first TV show. I set about on DC++ trying to fill in the holes. I found a source for the TV episodes, and one for the movie. I sat down to watching the first film. It was animated in 1995, and as soon as it started I realized something terrible about myself: I am an anime snob. I've viewed both the TV shows before, and they are in japanese with english subtitles. I didn't realize how much I liked this until I saw the movie, which was either dubbed into english or was an english production, and the voice acting was terrible. Literally wooden, read off the page, no feeling, or even proper emphasis. I could tell how the lines were supposed to be read, even as the actors muddled them terribly. Who knows? Maybe they gave the Japanese voice-actors lessons in American accents, and taught them to read english phonetically without ever explaining what the words meant. In any case, the movie itself was visually superb. It is totally brilliant, and I very seriously was dumbstruck by more than a few snippets of the future it represents. Also, it scores major points for being able to have both screaming-fast raging fight scenes and making them fit into a much more serious look at what life means, what life is, and how anyone can know it for sure. The first part I will dwell on, the second I will leave for Josh (or Sycron as you may know him. He lives at the Doors of Perception, which can be accessed via link from Nick's or Granite's sites). Dude, the fighting in this movie tears your scrotum off and nails it to a tree in an attempt to warm others. And the heroine either fights in sweet armour, or completely naked. But she's a cyborg, so it's not real nudity. Kinda like if I decided to fight crime in an anatomically correct female body suit. If any of you popped a chubby from that, I'd be worried. The climax of the movie is absolutely amazing, but the very end leaves something to be desired. But it could just have been the terrible voice acting that ruined it for me.
Anyway, after that, I started in on TV show number 2 (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig. The first one is just Stand Alone Complex, or SAC), which I'd already seen about half of back in October. Trouble was, I thought the show was only 15 episodes long, not 26. So I had shelved it until now. The show is good, and there are interesting things, but the serious thought provoking aspect is gone. This is just a cartoon. Albeit a cartoon that rips scrotums in it's own right.
When that was done, I turned my attention to SAC, which I had downloaded the remaining 2 episodes for. As I put the files in order (downloadeing different file formats from different users means they generally aren't in numerical order) I realized that I was still missing one episode. I found a source and went to bed with my computer running. After all, it was 4am, who would be on now but not for the rest of the night? Apparently this guy. It didn't matter though. It was episode 25 of 26, and right now I've only watched until episode 12.
AAAAAGGGHH!!! In other news, it is extremely amusing (read devastating) that episodes 13-19 inclusive don't work. this is odd given that they are exectly the same as 1-12, and are almost exactly the same size. The data is there but it isn't playing. Episode 13 has terrible video quality, episode 14 has a 1cm square video screen, and then causes the player to die after 5 seconds. The rest are simply audio tracks. I am now officially unhappy. After leaving the comp on all night to get the last 3 episodes last-minute, I now have to find 7 more.
In happier news, my Fear and Loathing download is back. This is actually very good news. I started dowloading F&L in December, the day before I left to come home. I left the comp on all night then, and got to about 60%. When I got back my source was online and I got to 96% finished. He didn't come online again untl tonight. I would have been able to live with 96% of the movie, except that until the whole file is downloaded DC++ doesn't convert it into a video file. It lives in the Incomplete folder as a DCTMP file, which isn't playable by anything (not surprising since DCTMP presumably means DC++ Temporary). I'm surrently at 99.2% and rising.
Oh, and the only other thing to happen to me today was Mike Wood calling and telling me I didn't make the jazz band. There was another man. Apparently he is a piano player who just switched his major to music, and wanted to try some drums. Mike said he would have rather had me, but since the kid is a music student, he had to let him into the band. The only way to get me in would be to convince the guy to join another ensemble (and the only other ones are choirs), or prove that he wasn't good enough. Since neither of those have happened Mike has offered to give me lessons every two weeks after the rehearsal. This is a sweet deal in my opinion because I sill get to learn without having to slow down an entire band while I do so. Also it is free. I don't know where I stand in terms of getting a credit since I'm not in the band, but I'm sure that if I work at it he'll give me something.
Now to find a source for the rest of that show...