Tengen toppa gurren lagann

Pierce the Heavens, Gurren Lagann!

Above is Shimón, whose name is suspiciously close to that of everyone's favorite Disney meerkat. Like the meerkat, he lives in an underground village and his place in that village is to dig holes. He's largely an outcast, particularly unattractive to the girls. He has a hand in causing quite a bit of trouble for the village. That's where most of the similarities end, though. Unlike our meerkat, Shimón is the best digger in the village. He's only dragged into the mischief of his buddy and older-brother-figure Kamina. The poor boy's parents aren't alive to be concerned about how he's treated by the village. The existence of a surface is treated as a myth by the village.

One last difference: Shimón's adventure begins at home. He often discovers neat knicknacks while digging, such as the little drill above. That's just one part of the find, though; he also excavates a big metal head in the ground. Before he can show his bro Kamina, a much bigger metal head crashes through the ceiling of the village, flooding it with sunlight. This face isn't inactive, though, and it starts to wreck the village. A girl with an energy rifle swings in by rope to help, adding to the confusion. After brief introductions - the girl is named Yoko - Shimón brings Kamina and Yoko to the face he found. His drill begins to glow, and he's able to activate the face with it; the three jet out of the tunnels inside atop the mech-head and manage to flying-uppercut the enemy head right back up to the surface. Shimón and Kamina see a view like they have never seen before.

This post-apocalyptic scifi anime just gets better from there, as Shimón leaves his home with Pumba and Simba Kamina and Yoko, adventuring into the big, wide world. This anime both expounds on stereotypes and blasts expectations away, providing a commendable balance of moments that you totally saw coming and moments that will likely blindside you. The world of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is slowly unearthed with each episode, the methodical madness woven into an impressive tapestry. Your biggest question may be, "Giant face robots, what the hell?" That actually does get answered, don't worry.

If you're still not sure whether to watch, how about giving the intro a play? I just love it.

So, that's all my words of praise! Watch this anime and I guarantee you'll be pleasantly surprised by it!

Memorial day

It sounds wrong to say, "Happy Memorial Day!" It's specifically a day commemorating our soldiers' deaths. Can't really be happy about that unless you're an anarchist or have no regard for a warrior's life. Makes sense to be proud, but Memorial Day celebrations aren't usually stoic in nature. Cookouts, alcohol, et cetera. Then again, perhaps indulging in the freedoms that the armed forces protect is an appropriate way to appreciate the lives given for it.

Mom grilled up some steak. We also slapped steak sauce on some veggie patties for me and cooked them on tin foil above the grill. When the patties were cooked, Mom set them on the actual grill to give them racing stripes. It's really crazy how much the flavor of the meat I used to eat was actually just the sauce! The patties were delicious. My brother enjoyed his fill of steak, so I'd say it was delicious too. Also had some white rice with peas and carrots. I've been avoiding white rice, but I piggily grabbed a few servings of the stuff. Mom also made a medley of vegetables, main ingredient being string beans. I ate that right up, too. Yeah, I didn't really limit my plate today. Heheh.

The only special part we made of today was making the food, though. We didn't all sit together to eat. Sorry, we're not that patriotic. Actually, it was my brother's idea to cook today. And he's supposed to be the unsentimental one! My mom thinks he was just thinking of the food, not the holiday. Probably true, but I'll choose to think he cared about the day. I finished yet another anime, Samurai Champloo. I really liked it, especially the soundtrack, but I don't think you'd care enough to watch. So I won't be writing up a recommendation for that one. I've still got Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to write up, after all!

What'd you do today? It wasn't too sunny, but did your uncle invite you for a get-together anyway? I hope you ate as much delicious food as I did and enjoyed time you spent with your family. Even sans family, you got today off from school. It's always nice to get time off school. It's been nice for me because for once I haven't had school assignment to worry about. Yep, it happens once every 10 weeks, haha. I get right back into another module tomorrow, though. Since my bro's back to school too, I'm assuming you are. Hope you've been able to relax!

Another outing with bro and mom

The passed day, my little brother and I took my mom out for shopping! First stop was the mall downtown and, within that, the food court. My brother neglected to eat before we left, so he was starving. I wasn't opposed; it'd been a few hours since I'd eaten, so whatever. First thing I noticed is that the Wetzel's Pretzels there was shuttered, its outside stripped! I instantly regretted not getting pretzels there while it was open just last month. I know that's sad news for you too. Let us mourn the loss of the dear store together. =[

My bro got some crispy shrimp, which he liked the taste of but which gave him a stomach ache. I had my first Panda Express ever: mixed vegetables with eggplant tofu and two veggie spring rolls. Well, that was the order. At first they didn't have fresh mixed vegetables, so I waited on that. When they got the vegetables, they only had one spring roll left over. I decided, what the heck, I'd wait some more. And so I waited such a long time that they gave me these cheese-filled scrumps apologetically. I ended up just taking the last spring roll. The food was delicious, even if the frying pans didn't align for me, haha.

Hitting up Hot Topic, I snagged a two shirts I liked on clearance. One has 12 of the Doctor's mugs lined up on it. I could have gotten a snazzy shirt with Clara and on it accompanied by words of mystique and praise in French. But you know that neither Clara nor French are my favorites. In retrospect, I feel bad that none of those shirts had Capaldi on it. I need to get a shirt with him on it as soon as I can, because I am really satisfied with his Doctor.

The other says "smile, your life is tolerable" (sans comma). I hope it's true for anyone that sees me wearing it. It's definitely more acceptable than saying life's good, and at the least it's funny in a slightly dark way. The shirt is more advice for myself than for anyone else, though. My little brother got a soft, light scarf decorated with police boxes. My mom got a pocket mirror with Arial on it. While the mirror is cute, why get something like that when you can use your smart phone screen these days? Anyway, there were a lot of other options, but we didn't want to drain Mom's purse too much.

Unsurprisingly, the World of Warcraft merch my mom was hoping for was absent at Hot Topic. Physical WoW products were also absent from the GameStop next door. We could have checked out a store called Comics and Stuff, but by that time my mom was too discouraged. Sorry Mom, I should have gotten you into a game that was actually cool. Haha. Anyway, we had more parking garage adventures. You'd think I'd have the structure down by now, but no. While we didn't get lost per se, we didn't really make our way straight back to the car. The thing is that we started in a weird place, but I made our way to somewhere I recognized from my previous excursions. All was well!

We went to Costco to pick up food for today, Memorial Day. We'll be making a nice little dinner, you see. My mom got really uptight about me riding in the shopping cart, so if I can help it I will no longer take her with me and my brother to places with shopping carts. >.> We also went to the bakery for sweetbread and donuts. Since I rejected sweetbread for myself, I instead indulged in a slice of carrot cake. When I opened the container, the carrot-shaped icing popped right off the cake and stuck to the lid. That was just somehow funny. The carrot had a weird texture! The cake was yummy, anyway, and everyone at home at least liked it. Sorry you didn't get a bite.

That's it for yesterday. I've been watching Samurai Champloo, and I didn't leave myself enough time for two messages. I started on the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann recommendation, but I realized that I wouldn't get it done so I switched over to this. That recommendation will come out today, promise. By the way, today is also International Towel Day, so I hope you know where your towel is! Take care~