So I've been reading a lot of manga lately and I've even started a little collection of my own. So far I've got:

Blood + Vol 1 & 2

Claymore Vol 1-12

Deathnote: Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Case (Not really a manga, more of a story but it's still fun to read)

Deathnote Vol 1-12 (I've got the whole series, I'm just missing 13 witch is like an encyclopedia of the world of Deathnote)

Kurohime Vol 1-3

Withcblade: Takeru Manga Vol 1 & 2 (I'm confused about this series because it only suposedly ends on Vol 2 but I've seen like Vol 12 and other numbers like that. So if anyone knows anything about this, I would really apreciate it. Thanks)

So just last 2 nights ago (6-29) I finished reading Deathnote. And I LOVED it. The whole story was amazing and I totally didn't expect the way that it was goin to end. I'm not going to say how it ended because I don't like to be a spoiler, but if you have read the series then you know what I'm talking about. So I would really apreciate your help on this.

***SPOILER***

Thanks in advance. And thanks for reading.

So after everything that has been goin on these last few months, I think that things are finally done. My parent's went into some intense counsiling for a weekend like a month ago and i think that it's paying off. They now try to talk things out before jumping into an argument. They are more calm about things and i actually feel much better now at school. We also started doing something that was recomended by one of you guys here on GS, we started to go out almost every week for dinner and we make sure that we spend a lot of time as a family.

There is still does ocassional fights, but it's nothing like it used to be. I would like to thank every single one that helped, that gave me advice, and that was there to support me. I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for everyones help, thanks again.

And now moving on to Firefox 3.0. Recently Mozilla released Firefox 3.0 that is loaded with great stuff. I didn't evern know that they were working on a new version until I read an article about the new version on Yahoo! Tech today while I was at work. (I was suppose to be working, but I got bored and decided to check out the Tech page for anything interesting. ) So as soon as I got home I went to the mozilla home page and I downloaded the new version. It's a little different but i really like it. I think that the article on yahoo does a really good job at explaing the basic features of the new version so i will just let you guys read it.

If you guys don't use Firefox, I recomend you that you switch over to it as soon as possible. It's is more secure and way better than Safari or Internet Explorer. If you are interested on downloading it just go to the mozilla homepage.

Well, thanks for reading my blog.

Sorry guys for not posting here for almost a month, I know that all unions depend on an active members but a lot of stuff has happened in the last few weeks. And I'll start off where I left off last time.

As many of you already know, my parents haven't exactly been getting a long and I have to say that it hasn't been easy. So now I'm almost sure that my mom isn't addicted to drugs. And I think that most of the stuff that has happened is because of my dad. Lets me explain.

So my dad is a great father, but when it comes to him being a good husband for my mom he needs a lot of help. Over the last few weeks, I've noticed that he is kind of paranoid and it's almost as he is trying to find something that will prove that my mom in cheating on him. I know that it sound weird but I think that it's true, I've seen him go through my mom stuff in her purse. And then he expresses himself really bad of anything that my mom does. I think that he might also be jealous of my mom, in the 2 following ways. My mom is a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) and she earns a lot more money than my dad. The second reason might be because my mom is surrounded my many guys that are always hitting on her (my mom works at a nursing home, where she takes care of elderly people that can't live on their own anymore).

So now my parents have talked to 2 priests and things have "kind of" calmed down. But the other day, they started arguing and my dad started to say: "Your sons have seen what you've done. They have seen that I've tried to make it better, but you always get angry. And they have stuff that they would like to tell you about the way that you have acted in the last few months." That is when my brother and I got angry because my dad was trying to use us for his argument. So my brother and I got out of the house and went somewhere else for an hour.

So I'm at the point that I just don't care anymore. I'm tired of hearing them argue and I think that I might even be falling in a little of a depression. I'm not suicidal or anything like that, but I just don't want to be where all the fighting is. I used to think that my family was a good one, but I guess that everyone has to go through a rough time to really appreciate what they have and not take everything for granted.

On other news, I'm done with my first year in college and I'm glad to say that I kicked but. I got: an A, an A-, two B's, and a B-. I think that I got like a ~3.2 GPA. I'm not going to summer school, I need my summer break and I can't wait until I get my vacations from work. I want to go somewhere that is not in my house, but I don't know where. But I'm still not sure if I can even afford it, but whatever. I also have 2 term papers that I wrote for my ****s that I'm going to post here in a while.

Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry for not logging in for a month. I promise that I will try not to let this happen again. Thanks again.

I think that this is the most personal and most revealing blog that I've ever done. And I'm writing this because even if my college life and everything else is good, my family is breaking apart. This has been going on for a few months now, but I didn't really think that it was going to get to this point and let me start from the beginning so that all of you may understand what is going on. Please read it and help me out. Thanks in advance.

About 10 months ago, my mom decided to quit her job and studied to become a CNA (certified nursing assistant). She got a job at a nursing home and started working there very happily and everything seemed to be going really smooth. Then about 5 months ago she started to change a lot, I was at work and school a lot but my brother said that they fight a lot for the stupidest things. She worked there every night for about 7 months with a few days off every once in a while.

About 1 month ago things got worse because there was a thing going at my moms work that they were saying that she was having an affair with some guy at the nursing home. So due to this she decided to leave that place, and got a job also as a CNA in a hospital and things seemed to calmed down a bit. But right before she left the old place, my mom and dad got a new car together but they had agreed that my mom was going to pay for the car since it was hers. So she said that she wasn't going to make as much money since she wasn't going to work every night, so she decided to go back 2 days a week to the old place so that she could make a little extra money while her trail period was up at her new job and got a raise.

My dad and mom started to fight again and things have gotten progressively worse as time goes by. And here is where it gets really messy because I just get really confusing and I don't know what to do anymore.

My mom has told me that she doesn't understand why my dad has been the way that he is. She says that he has never had her back, she has wanted to do a lot of things in the past but he never helps her. She says that she feels like she is the one responsible for everything in the house, because my dad is very careless. My mom says that she sometimes feels alone and like no one is there for her.

My dad says that he doesn't know what's wrong with my mom because he says that it's been a while now that he can't really get close to her with out her getting mad for no reason. My dad says that this only happen once in a while, but that it's weird to him. Then he says that sometimes my mom just gets angry for no reason and she is always insulting him and all this other stuff.

My mom says that she has been trying to schedule and appointment with a priest but that the priest that she wanted to meet with wasn't available. So today (4-20) my dad talk to another priest and the priest now wants to meet with my mom. After we got home, my brother and I went to Sonics to get some shushes (drinks with fruit juice and crushed ice) and we talked about the stuff that's been going. My brother and I are already at the brink of this, he has been the one that has seen most of the fights that they had and he says that he can't stand it anymore. I told him that I didn't like it either and it's just making me disconcentrate from stuff that I should be focused on, like my final test this next week since the semester is over.

After we got back, my dad says that they had a huge fight. My dad says that my mom was really angry because he went to talk to the priest. She said that he shouldn't have gotten him involved. My mom says that she wanted to speak to a priest that they don't know, that way the priest can do a real analysis of their relationship with out being bias (spelling? With out taking sides or something like that.). My dad says that she told him that she might leave the house on Tuesday after talking with the priest, depending on what they talk about.

Now this is something that I really hate and it's driving everyone apart, I think that the only ones that are still "normal" are my brother and I. We don't want my parents to get divorced because we don't want to pick who we go with. Technically I'm 18 so I don't have to choose nor am I forced to go with anyone since I'm already an "adult". But my brother is only 15 (almost 16) and is still considered a minor so he would have to go with either my mom or dad and he doesn't want to choose nor does he want to be forced to go with either one. My brother and I have decided that if they do get divorced that we won't go with either one, we will move out and we will live by our selves because this a decision that we don't want to make. My brother will probably emancipate him self and will go to school and work just like me and we will find an apartment.

If we move out, is because we feel that if we go with my mom then we are betraying my dad and the same thing goes if we go with my dad. I don't think that this is a decision that anyone should make, and I really hope that this gets fixed soon.

One thing that I forgot to mention is that the priest said that the way that my mom is acting might be linked to drug abuse, because people can't work for months every night with out some sort of supplement that keeps them going. My dad has found a few pills that have the name of hydrocod/apap, which I read, are like Morphine or that is also similar to Opium. We (my brother and I) don't know what to think anymore and we just want this nightmare to be over because we just can't take it anymore.

We have also decide that we are going to do something for ourselves that will get them so pissed off that they will forget about why they were even fighting. Going back in time for a little second, my brother got a lip pierce about 3 weeks ago and that caused my parents to get really angry with my brother. So what we are thinking now is that he will get a second lip pierce (which are sometimes referred to as the "snake bites") and see if that gets them worked up again.

I don't know how many of you have watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" but we are going to try something that we saw in one episode. Rays mom and his wife were so angry at each other that they couldn't talk to each other anymore. The whole family was getting separated to the point that they all felt tired of all the fighting between both women. So Ray's brother decided to "convert" to a cult. They had an intervention for Robert (Rays brother) and then because of that both women managed to get over both their differences and were happy again. I don't know I explained it good, but basically my brother is going to be the scapegoat (but in a good way) to see if my parents will get happy with each other. I guess you can say that we are sort of manipulating both of them, but it's a necessary evil if we wish to keep our family together.

I really hope that our plan works, but most of all I want your opinion or advise on what we should do. Thanks for reading this really long blog.

I have a dilema, and I don't know what to do. In my MacBook Pro I currently have Microsfot 2004 Studen Teacher Edition (its the one program that has Word, Power Point, Excel and all that other stuff). Back in December I got my program and there was an offer going on that if I bought a 2004 verison then I could get the 2008 version for free, the only thing that I have to pay for is Shipping and handling wich is only like 10 dollars. So now I'm geting my copy of the 2008 version in a few days and I'm not sure if I should upgrade to it. I've read in the internet that its slower and it has a lot of glitches so I'm just wondering if I should wait a bit febore installing it or if I should just upgrade and wait for the updates to come up. What do u guys think???

Ok, so lately all I have been posting is my essays that I write for my film class and other classes. So here is another essay from my film class that I had to compare simular but seperate film characters so I decide to do it on Basic Instinct and on Basic Instinct 2. I had to talk about how the director makes us like these guys in the movies instead of hating them for their actions. I think that i did a good job, so I hope that you guys like it as well. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

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The Lonely Men

Films have to be realistic in order for people to be able to identify with the characters and be able to watch the whole thing with out getting bored and keep them engaged with the progression of the story line. But there is always that one character that people identify with the most and that is why they enjoy the film so much, because they can see that the film isn't just a story that someone made up and decided to make it into a movie. People love to see different types of characters in films and that's how our personal preferences are developed and how we decide what films we want to see. But the one character that I want to focus on is the "lonely men" that we sometimes see in films. I'm not talking about men that are alone because they have no social skills, I'm talking about the men that choose to be alone because something tragic happened in there past. There is to film that project this "lonely men" picture and it's Basic Instinct (Verhoeven, 1992) and Basic Instinct 2 (Caton-Jones, 2006). It's interesting the way that director makes us fascinated by the behavior of these men. Normally the actions that they take during the film would get people arrested for "stalking", but we sometimes find ourselves defending their actions and their motives.

While it may seem that I'm comparing movies that are the same, let me just say that it isn't true; both of these films where directed by two different directors and have different storylines. While they do have some similarities, the story line is essentially different and it's perfect to be able to compare the two "lonely men" in the films.

In Basic Instinct, a detective named Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) in charge of a murder chase gets involved with a book writer named Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) who is the prime suspect in the murder case. And in Basic Instinct 2, a psychiatrist named Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey) who has to do a psychiatric analysis of Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) after she is accused of the murder of a famous British Football player. In both films she is a very cunning women that always gets what she wants, no matter what she has to do, and since she is rich and famous she has an enormous amount of resources that she can draw upon at any given time making her a very powerful person. While it may seem weird that I'm going into so much detail about Catherine is because she is a key part in the behavior of the men on both films and it will all be made clear in the following paragraphs.

In both films, Catherine likes to toy with people, but in particular with Nick and Dr. Glass. She seem to get a certain pleasure from tormenting them and this is what drives them to act in the way that they do, and now let me explain. In the Basic Instinct Nick started out like any other guy, he had his job and he seemed like there was nothing bothering him. He had a few issues, but if we look at it from a realistic point of view everyone has their own issues so at first glance he was relatively "normal." Then there was a murder and he was the detective in charge of the investigation and they had some clues that were leading straight to Catherine. They interrogated her and she didn't look intimidated or nervous at all, instead she started to turn their own statements against them and out smarting them in their game. When they took her to Police Station to question her regarding her relationship with the murder victim. It even looks like she enjoys making the men inside that room feel uncomfortable and acts in a way that gives her the upper hand. An example of this can be seen as soon as she walks in the room she lights up a cigarette and when a cop tells her that she can't smoke in the building she answers: "What are you going to do? Charge me with smoking?" This just shows how powerful of a character Catherine really is just like Karen Rutter says, "On the surface, her attraction could be said to be purely physical. But a large part of her appeal lay in the fact that she was dangerous in ways which weren't stated obviously, but more subliminally amalgamated into her character: an economically independent single woman, a person unafraid to challenge society's ground rules for gender behavior." (101)

This kind of behavior just drives Nick insane, and I think that it's because he has never meet a women that has so much trouble for him. I think that this started to wake up some feelings that he had stored away inside of him to the point that the just had to let them out. These feelings weren't of love or anything cute and cuddly, they were violent and they made him want to find out why he had those feelings. "Strong violence also acts on the mind by refusing it glib comfort and immediate resolutions. If successful socialization depends on a neutralizing of extremes, then violence of this kind amounts to a rent in the curtain of rationality, a glimpse of the ultimate questions one spends a lifetime denying." (McKinney, 17) This kind of means to me that depending on how strong the violence is in some films, it can actually start to make us feel uneasy inside which starts to make us question our own integrity.

In Basic Instinct 2, Catherine is still pretty much the same person that she always has been. Still smart as ever and there doesn't seem to be anyone that can stand up to her and uninitiated by anyone, the only thing that changes is that by the time of this second film she has moved to London. The thing that set the whole movie in motion is the death of British Football player like I mentioned before, but the thing is that he died and he was last seen with Catherine. This puts her as the number one suspect and they quickly take her to Scotland Yard and start to question her, they try to pin stuff on her so that they can arrest her but she makes quick work of the accusations and is let go. Before her trial, she has to have a psychiatric evaluation to make sure that she isn't a risk to herself and others. Catherine is appointed to Dr. Glass as her evaluator since Dr. Glass has been very successful and is renowned in his field of study. He testifies in the court that she is a very dangerous person and that it's addicted to risk, to the point that she might one day take a risk so big that it will end her life and even the life of others. And this is where it all the commotion starts for Dr. Glass.

Dr. Glass starts to take Catherine as his patient and learn a lot about her past and he starts to get more and more interested in her. She starts to toy with his mind just like he did to Nick in the first movie. I think this is what drives him nuts because he just wants to make sure that nothing bad happens to Catherine. I think that Catherine also got to Dr. Glass because after a while he couldn't think of nothing else but Catherine; he also seemed to get more and more violent as time when on for no reason. Since there is some stuff that both Nick and Dr. Glass share, it would be pointless to repeat something that I already stated above, so for the sake of this paper lets just assume that both characters are almost identical with a few minor variations.

We can clearly see the connection between both Nick and Dr. Glass, which are the following. They both are being manipulated by a woman to the point of insanity, and they both have a past that torments them. Nick is guilty of killing bystanders in a police shoot out, but he never went to jail for that and still felt guilty all the way to the end of the first movie. Dr. Glass had a patient that killed his girl friend and Dr. Glass feels that he had seen it coming and did nothing to stop him from doing it. But I think that the director manages to get us to actually b e fascinated by these guys even if they behave like "stalkers." I think that this happens is because of the positions that their characters have in society, Nick is a detective and Dr. Glass is obviously a doctor. They both have a position which is respected and that we may even look up, these people are suppose to try and help us as much as possible because that is their job. This may have become the images of how they view them selves, and subconsciously they probably thought that they were actually helping Catherine. They really cared about her and the must have thought that it was their jobs to protect and help her, just like its their job to help everyone else. I really think that to them it didn't seem like they were doing anything wrong, and they only had the purest intentions at the beginning. But as time goes on, that dedication that they have for their job warps into an obsession that drives them insane and to the brink of a total brake down.

The way that character like Nick and Dr. Glass act makes like them and not hate them because of behavior is due to the fact that the films are realistic and that we ca identify our selves with the characters to the point that we ma even see or selves in the screen; "when a film artist makes us cry over spilt blood it can start to seem like the project is worth it." (McKinney, 22) By this I don't mean that we are al bad people or anything like that, I just mean that we all have our own issues that we have to deal with. We just have to be careful with those feelings; because if we aren't careful, all those feelings that we have bottled up might explode to the point that we might go out of control.

Works Citied

Basic Instinct. Dir. Paul Verhoeven. TriStar Pictures, 1992.
Basic Instinct 2. Dir. Michael Caton-Jones. Sony Pictures/MGM, 2006.
McKinney, Devin. "Violence: The Strong and the Weak." Film Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Summer, 1993), pp. 16-22. Jstor. 7 April 2008.
Rutter, Karen. "Stoned Crazy." Agenda, No. 20, Politics, Power and Democracy (1994), pp. 101-103. Jstor. 8 April 2008.