Anime blathering

The Cartoon Network seems to be running some kind of Cowboy Bebop marathon or something tonight — six episodes in a row, though not in order. They started with the first episode at 11 PM, then followed with the fifth, “Ballad for Fallen Angels”, which is one of my favorites. Now I’m watching “Jupiter Jazz, Part One”, and according to The Jazz Messengers (a Bebop fan site), it’ll be followed by the second part, and then by both parts of the final episode, “The Real Folk Blues”.

Oh! And Big Apple Anime Fest will be premiering the theatrical release of the English dub of the Cowboy Bebop Movie on August 30th! Consolation for not being able to afford Worldcon!

According to last week’s TV Guide, last Saturday night they ran three hours of something it calls “Yuyu Hakusho”, though the fans sites I turned up with a quick googling seem to prefer Yû Yû Hakusho.

And some more googling reveals to me that an English release of Kareshi Kanojyo no Jijyo (His and Her Circumstances) should be recently out on video and DVD. Cool! I saw an episode or two of this shojou romance anime at a Parsons Anime meeting a year or two back, and liked it a whole lot. And apparently TokyoPop has the translation rights to the manga, but I don’t know if the manga has all the cool presentational stuff I loved in the anime.

Damn, what was that other anime show I really liked? My problem is that after I saw this stuff, I raved about it in a letter to mamishka — an old-fashioned dead-tree letter, meaning I have no local copy I can use to prop up my ailing memory. Woe! It was about, um, a bunch of young people who use magical powers to fight evil creatures. (Yeah, that narrows it down.) It was set in Japan in the 1960s (or maybe 50s or 70s).

Lasagna

Making a mock lasagna last night seemed like a good idea; I hadn’t made one in years, and I picked up the ingredients when my parents took me shopping on Tuesday. Had one helping last night, fresh and piping hot, mmmmm. Had another cold this morning (I like it cold), and resolved to eat nought but fruit the rest of the day. Then I got hungry again around 7:30 PM, and had another. The last three servings are in the freezer, where they’ll keep for a while, and will be inconvenient to restore to an edible state.

The key to what I’ve been thinking of as “the quesadilla diet” is to have just one real meal a day (or two smaller meals), and graze on fresh fruit and veggies for the rest of the day. I call it that because one of my common meals is wonton soup and a chicken quesadilla at the Chinese Tex-Mex place over on Flatbush. It seems to be working — I think I’ve shrunken my stomach to the point where I’m satisfied with less food than was the case five years ago. Two helpings of lasagna is too much meat and cheese and pasta for one day. I still can’t handle temptation. (And I had a chocolate brownie frappuchino at Starbucks! But only a tall, where I used to order ventis all the time, so that’s some small improvement.) (And who came up with that size naming scheme anyway? The smallest size is “tall”, and “grande” is medium? What drugs were they doing?) Well, maybe I can handle temptation a little, since I’ve barely touched that pint of mango sorbet that’s been in my freezer for five days.

I weighed in at 285 yesterday, but I figured that was temporary weight loss due to being a little sick Friday night. (I should probably tell the story about the evil mutant space dog emitting psychic diarrhea radiation, but it’s not nearly as interesting as you’d think from that description.) I was 286 today, and didn’t go to the gym.

Oh, mock lasagna is pretty much just like regular lasagna, but it’s not separated into layers, and you make it with ordinary noodles (shells, elbow macaroni, rotini, whatever).

More about the quesadilla diet

I should probably have pointed out somewhere (and am therefore doing so now) that the quesadilla diet is not for losing weight on, it’s for not gaining weight on. For losing weight I have to go to the gym and lift weights at least three times a week.