Highly Caffeinated Raven

Fox's flight arrived a little early and he's home safe now. And he brought back a metric crap-ton of food! We have something like seven bags of Kit-Kats now, including sake, green tea, dark green tea, mixed white and dark chocolate, and coffee. I love matcha chocolate so I now have plenty of it. He even found these cakes from some high-end bakery that are absolutely delicious - soft matcha cake with a chocolate cream filling. Everything was pre-packaged so he had no issues with customs. Unlike me, bringing back a bunch of hot dogs from Iceland, but that's a story for another time.

He also bought me two bottles of vending machine coffee. Vending machines are everywhere in Tokyo, and they can buy good quality bottles of tea and coffee, unlike the machines here that vend mostly soda and occasionally water at twice the price of a coke. Boss Coffee is famous (or infamous) for a series of ads with Tommy Lee Jones. So, how is it?

It's pretty good! This particular kind if nice and strong, but without the acrid taste of Starbucks coffee. It's okay cold, but warming it up really improved it, for me. There's another bottle of a different brand, but I haven't opened it yet.

I also have several new additions to my collection of cell phone charms - no lucky poop this time, alas. But they are owls, so that's cool. It makes me wish I had something to clip them to, but my phone case doesn't really have anywhere to do that. One of the owls is a small embroidered plush which I have, of course, dubbed Mr. Soft Owl.

You're Reading It Backwards

I have fallen behind on Black Butler. Ordinarily I'm the kind of reader who likes omnibus editions of comics or manga. Give me a free evening, a glass of wine, and a nice, thick book. But I picked up Black Butler almost at random after browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble, back when I decided manga was worth my while and I was going to read some, but had no clue where to start or what was good. I still consider myself a real n00b, but partly that's because when I just say, "I like manga," I don't want people to think I've been reading for thirty years and know all the authors, artists, and have super-refined tastes and a huge collection. When I say it, I mean I'm still somewhat starry-eyed in front of the shelves, and each series potentially holds my new favorite story.

Lo these many years past, when I was newly married and still lived in Louisiana, I actually managed to see the animated movie version of Ghost in the Shell. I haven't yet seen the live-action version. But I expressed an interest in it to Fox (I've since divorced that first guy, mainly for being an emotionally abusive jackass, which Fox is not) who picked up a copy of the manga in Tokyo.

He sent me a picture and I looked it up to discover he'd gotten a bilingual edition that reviewers on Amazon noted was "uncensored." Hmm, naughty bits? Yep, naughty bits. America is so weird about that. It's like we use porn to sell every conceivable kind of food or product, but if you just make porn for the sheer hell of making porn then you're obviously immoral.

Anyway.

I finally got to sit down and start reading this thing and I'm really taken with it. The art's terrific. If I weren't already working on learning Icelandic I would probably be pushed to take up learning kanji and spoken Japanese. One language at a time, though. But I've taken a break because I know we'll likely eat dinner soon, and I want to just have some uninterrupted time with this story. It's been so long since I saw the movie that I only remember the bones of the plot. The same friend who had a copy also showed me that Studio Ghibli film about the tanuki, which I still love watching from time to time. She also was a big fan of Bondage Fairies ... 

As a side note, I have a generally positive attitude towards sexually explicit material. I say "generally," because I don't believe everything sexually explicit is something to feel positive about, but that's again, for another post.

So I was just sitting here writing and I noticed that, unless she's on one I don't have yet, Grell isn't on the covers of any of the Black Butlers. I do have a Funko POP vinyl of her, but I also try not to own a lot of doodads that I have to dust and clean around. So I have that one, and TV series Hannibal. So yes, my tastes run dark. ;) I told my mom once I blamed it on her because I recall as a small child being read to sleep ... with Edgar A. Poe stories. I think I came by it honestly.

There are two volumes of the bilingual edition on Amazon - same as the one I'm reading. I don't know what other editions were like since this is my first time with it, but I'm really impressed and enjoying the hell out myself. Hopefully I don't stay up too late!