The weekend has been an excellent opportunity to recharge. We were planning on cleaning out our storage space, but wound up being productive in many many other ways that didn’t involve leaving the house, thankfully.

Saturday I finally got around to wiring the library for audio and connecting the speakers and audio equipment, until I found that I’m somehow missing the power cable from one of the 5-disc changers that’s in there. All in all though, that’s pretty much finished. We did all the laundry, I cleaned up our computer room and mailed out packages of goodies we had collected from Otakon to a couple of people (most importantly cleaned off my workbench that had been covered with stuff, took photos of everything we were planning on eBaying, went grocery shopping, finished the laundry, tidied up the house in general, and made some delicious food. All this, and more! I think we did pretty well with ourselves. On top of it all, I took my car off to get her emissions inspection done (which she passed with flying colors…I’d never been through an emissions test before-seemed like the test took less time than it took to drive to the location, which is saying a lot since it’s something like a mile and a half from our house…) Which was called for, considering that for a short week last week, it was pretty hectic. This coming week doesn’t seem to be looking much more relaxed, to be honest.

Aside from being incredibly domestic this weekend, we caught up on sleep-something I’d been missing all week. I hadn’t been sleeping horribly well at the beginning of the week for a variety of reasons, and the weekend was a great chance to really slow down and relax. This weekend gave us a couple of new animes on Cartoon Network, which I’m always grateful for, in the form of Trinity Blood and Bleach. Trinity Blood looked particularly interesting; I’m always interested in stories that take place in the far future-not so much post-apocalyptic, but post-apoc post-revival; stories that take place after the end of our civilization and after the rise of another, that refers to our technology as “lost technologies.” That kind of setup is sure to bring me into the story.

Bleach, on the other hand, for as much as the fact that it deals with Shinigami (literally “death gods,” whose job it is to guide the souls of the living to the afterlife, my current favorite interpretation being in the mange DeathNote) and a young man who becomes one through various interesting circumstances, still strikes me as Standard Anime Plot Number 133: Remarkable boy with hidden powers is going about his daily life until at some point he’s put under enough duress for his Fantastic Powers to come bursting to the fore just in time for a massive tumult between Good and Evil. Doubtlessly there’ll be a huge battle somewhere through the series for which the boy’s Fantastic Powers aren’t quite enough and he’ll have to train to become significantly stronger through some mystical and equally Fantastic means-and he’ll gain his new powers just in time for the battle but be lacking in the self-confidence to defeat the Evil until he Believes In Himself. Do I have it pegged?

Still, I’ve heard such excellent things about the series, and I know so many fans. Still; the same could be said for Naruto and I can’t really deal with that series either. Maybe both of them would be better in Japanese-I mean after all, watching the first episode of Bleach (for which the opening sequence is amazing, let me just say) it’s hard to get past the fact that the voice actor for Ichigo is also Vash the Stampede.

Anyway, enough anime geekery. In other news, and for those of you lookign for more linky goodness, head over to this list of top 20 Japanese commercials, although not all of them are Japanese. Even so, they’re hilarious. It’s kind of like one of my favorite sites, TV in Japan, which I definitely suggest you spend some time at after you’re through with that 20.

Gamers in the crowd might appreciate Tricking iT 2, where the folks from Infinite Trajectory put their rocket-jumping and plasma climbing skills on display. The video’s literally 20 minutes long, but the skills required to pull off those tricks, the music, and the timing make it well worth the time spent watching. If you’re like me and spent any time playing Quake 3 Arena, specifically Rocket Arena 3, then you’ll really really enjoy it.

Anyway, it’s getting late. I should probably be abed soon.