I'll never give up forever!

via kaiserkehl: LIFE-SIZE GUNDAM

Mommy, can I have one?


All it needs is a functional sword.

and a whiny, emotional pilot.

(no subject)

oh hey, anyone watching the Confederations Cup with USA vs. Italy? I started watching from the 30-minute mark. Feel free to spam with comments; although I am US-biased, I want someone other than Donovan to score so that my mother doesn't continue thinking that he's the only US player worth caring about


ETA: after the game
I should have said "someone other than Donovan but still on the US team
Sacha almost made it in, though.

ETA 2: so the guy who scored two goals from Italy IS FROM NEW JERSEY
I don't mind too much if people apply for other teams, but this guy's case was iffy

take a look it's in a book

from this post at book_memes:

You are a professor of literature at a prestigious university. You have a class of first-year students, all highly intelligent, but not great readers of literature, in fact they are majors in a completely different discipline. Your job, as professor, is to instill in these students a love of literature so that after this course, even if they never take another literature class, that they might enjoy reading throughout their lives. The class is made up of both males and females. You are to assign approximately 15-20 books over the one year course. What books do you assign? They can be from any time period and any genre.

I think some of you guys should comment with suggestions.

My list is a bit weird, long, and aimed at American students. It is seriously lacking in pre-1900 literature, for while I do like older books, I had to keep the average college freshman in mind.

oh hey croakvegas if you have time you probably have some great pre-1950 suggestions that students will like. no pressure though

My list, sans explanations
1) The essential haiku : versions of Bashō, Buson, and Issa edited and with an introduction by Robert Hass.
2) Jim Henson's The Storyteller by Anthony Minghella
3) The Devil and the White City by Erik Larson
4) I, Claudius, by Robert Graves
5) A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
6) The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I was all conflicted choosing between this, H.G. Wells' Invisible Man, and Frankenstein.
7) The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
I forgot to add in my comment that focus on characters may help ground the story for those less sci-fi inclined. Also, alt-history is probably more mainstream-acceptable than spaceships and lasers
8) Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow
9) The Bird's Nest, by Shirley Jackson
10) Epitaph for a Peach, by David Mas Masumoto
11) Soccer in the Land of Sun and Shadow, by Eduardo Galeano
12) Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind
13) Suspects, by David Thomson
14) True Grit, by Charles Portis
15) Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari), by Novala Takemoto
16) World War Z, by Max Brooks

I was also considering Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but decided never mind