white christmas, indeed

since i didn't go anywhere while we've been having the snow of the century, this will have to do in lieu of pretty twinkling lights decorating people's houses.

went grocery shopping today and as expected, got stuck coming back up the driveway. a little shovelling and the judicious application of some cat litter bought for the occasion got the truck going enough to make it around the upper two curves, which were fortunately not as icy as the part where the tires lost grip and we just drifted almost orthogonally to the driveway. it was sorta fun in an odd way; i don't mind this happening in our driveway, and it always proves to me that i can still drive competently in snow and ice even though it happens so rarely.

finished hatenkou yuugi today, which at the very end suddenly became very interesting again after leaving me mostly scratching my head as to whether there was a real story behind the scenes, rather than just a trio of comrades travelling and adventuring together. it's shoujo, but doesn't have the usual stupid shoujo romance tropes.

the main character is a young girl named rahzel, who one day is kicked out of her house by her father with the command to 'see the world'. umm. that comes as a surprise to rahzel, but she's sort of indomitable and decides to just go for it. pretty much right away she meets a stoic, grumpy young man named alzeid whom she tries to befriend despite him not being particularly interested. they're like oil and water, but feel strangely drawn to each other anyway -- which might have something to do with their shared magical powers. soon they're joined by a flippant, musclebound talker by name of baroqueheat (oh, japanese anime names!), and the trio wanders about and helps people who're in distress.

it feels somewhat episodic, but there are clearly background stories alluded to, and over time we get to find out bits and pieces. but not enough to eally satisfy. anime does this a lot, and i hate it -- it's only a good whodunit for me if i can figure it out as we go along, but anime all too often choose the "info dump as denouement" instead.

so while i found the characters attractive and interesting, the lack of insight into what's happening makes me grumpy and leaves me feeling a bit empty. in the very last episode it becomes obvious that there should be a second season. i guess i could read the manga to find out, but first i'll just pout for a while.