Kyuuki-chan
My own health still isn't back to what it was and dealing with recent changes to my insurance policy haven't made it any easier. They suddenly decided that my lyrica was going from the covered name brand list to the non-covered name brand list, meaning now instead of paying $30 like I use to they only cover a small percentage of it, leaving me to pay $140 for one month's worth of it. It took me several calls to the insurance and my doctor to get something worked out. It ended with me switching from lyrica to gabapentin (also known by the brand name neurontin, lyrica is the brand name for pregabalin which is kind of a more refined version of gabapentin). Annoyingly I have to take this 3 times a day instead of 2, as I really dislike taking pills, but on the good side of things this only costs me $4 a month. It's kind of ironic that even though I hate taking pills I wind up taking so many, ah, to have been born with better genetics and not need to take them. People, if you are healthy, enjoy it. There's people like me out there who aren't as lucky who would give anything to be able to stand and walk all day and work multiple jobs and take a full course of college and not need to pop pills several times each day.
Since I'm still visiting mom every day (except for Sunday when I spent time with a friend whose birthday it was, since mine was a week before and I had no party she made it a double party for both of us) I've decided to drag out a series I haven't read since before I got sick two years ago. That being David Edding's Belgariad and Malloreon series, each 5 books long. I wound up with them (and Belgarath the Sorcerer) several years ago as a birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law, arguably one of the better birthday gifts this bibliophile has ever received. While the story presented in them isn't completely original it's well written and well presented, explores its themes well, and is an utterly enjoyable read. It's an epic tale of a boy who is the universe's key to setting right something that went wrong before the creation of the world. It's filled to the brim with well done tropes, trope subversions, with some lampshading done for good measure. It also has lots of characters which are quite badass (each in their own way) and well written. If you like high fantasy with sword and sorcery then this is something you really shouldn't miss out on. I'd say Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress, two spinoffs focusing on the named characters, are something one can skip as there's a lot of overlap between the material in the series proper, but there are some parts in those two which add depth to the series as well.
And now for a little anime ramble. A new season has begun in Japan, and of course I have to check some of it out. We've got new seasons of Beast Player Erin and Shugo Chara and while I'm still catching up on Beast Player Erin on Crunchyroll I've checked out the first new Shugo Chara episode. We've got a new character introduced who can see guardian characters even though she has none of her own and has somehow managed to befriend x-eggs. The live action bits and the bits focusing on fluffy bits about the guardian characters are utterly skippable, but the main segment, Shugo Chara Doki Dokki, seems like it's more of the same fluff from the first two parts. If you're sick of that then that's a bad thing, but if you liked that fluff enough to want more then you'll be satisfied with it.
I also checked out Book of Bantorra which seems very interesting, altho I'm not quite sure about several things in it. It seems a little convoluted, but I'm looking forward to watching more and trying to figure things out. The premise of the series is kind of interesting, that humans when they die become "books" - book-shaped slabs of rock that hold the memories of the person's life - and there's a "library" where people collect and care for those "books." there's also "librarians" which are people who collect, protect, and care for them. There's also some strange religious society involved as an antagonist and their business of calling some people "True Men" and others "Mock Men" (who are, of course, considered inferior to "True Men").
I'm still waiting to check out Sacred Blacksmith, Kimi ni Todoke, and the new Darker Than BLACK, the first two I plan to check out later tonight, the other as soon as it's out and subbed.
