I would like to say that I wanted to see if I could go five days without making a entry in my journal, but it simply isn't true. Several other factors combined to keep me from making an entry. First off, one of my little "addictions" got a tad out of hand for a few days. I'm talking about Dragonball Manga. Although I am a fan of anime, I have never really been willing to shell out the money for DVDs of Dragonball and DBZ, but I did start buying the Manga (manga is to comic books as anime is to cartoons--manga are Japanese comic books). I never mean to buy more than one or two at a time, but I read them so fast that I'll buy a few, and then read them all in a few hours one evening and then go back the next day and get more. Actually I have been able to limit myself to two bouts of this. The first resulted in Dragonball vol. 1-11, and the second resulted in Dragonball 12-16 and Dragonball Z 1-3, but I don't know if enough time has passed yet for me to consider bout #2 over.
The one thing that I have been able to do to hold myself back is that I have now realized that between the two of them, it is a 42 part series (in Japan there is no distinction between Dragonball and Dragonball Z), but the latest that has been released here is DBZ vol. 18, meaning that so far volumes 1-34 of the entire series have been released here. At the rate I have been going, one or two more "binges" will mean that I have purchased every available volume, and would have to wait for them to become available one at a time over the course of the next two years or so (It looks like they come out about once every three months so that there are four per year). According to barnesandnoble.com, volume 19 comes out in April, so I suppose by the time I had my next binge it would already be out, and then my next after that would be after vol 20 is available, but that one would probably take me through vol 20 and I would have to wait then three or four months at a time for the rest of the series.
The way I figure it, there are 26 volumes in Dragonball Z, and I have the first 3, leaving 23 volumes. If I can exercise enough self control, then I can "celebrate" the release of each of the last 8 volumes by purchasing the next three that I don't have yet. When number 19 is released I will buy 4-6, 20=7-9, and so forth, so that when #25 comes out I will buy 22-24, and when 26 is out I get 25 and 26.
The only thing that I'm not clear on is the relationship between Dragonball GT and the rest of Dragonball/DBZ, and for that matter the latter parts of DBZ the anime. DBZ vol. 18, based on the description on the back cover, includes the destruction of Cell, which means that there are only 8 volumes for the stuff with Babadi and the Buus, as well as any portion of DBGT that occurs in the Manga. So is DBGT a separate series that is not included the the 42 volumes of Dragonball, or is it only an Anime, or what?
In other news, my mail temporarily was stopped, and I have been dealing with the repercussions of that. Apparently, they don't like it if you let your mailbox get to full, but I rarely empty mine because I live in an apartment where the mailboxes are inside the front entrance, but my garage is out the back entrance, so I sometimes go weeks at a time without checking my mail. Usually, the realization that I have bills coming due prompts me to empty it, but in this case I received a phonecall from my phone company asking to verify my address because they had received some mail back. I have straightened everything out as far a bills go, but I haven't gotten it cleared up with some other places, like MediaPlay's RePlay program, and I think there should have been a couple rewards certificates in the mail that was returned.
To be completely honest, I did go a bit longer than usual without checking my mail, but I never got any warning whatsoever from the postman. I used to live at this other place with two other guys, and we rarely brought out mail inside, but instead would often just grab important things like bills that needed to be taken care of right away, and leave stuff that would likely go straight in the trash until we "had time for it". Finally, there was a note from the postman saying that if the box wasn't emptied in seven days, our mail would be taken to the central post office in our area and held for pickup, and we would receive no mail delivery until then. However, if I remember that incident correctly, the note was either on our door or on the outside of the mailbox, so that we could see it even if we never looked in the box. If my letter-carrier left such a note for me in this case, it was inside the box and I never saw it. Meaning I went so long without checking my mail that the box got full, it was taken to the post office, held for two weeks and then everything was returned to sender with no forwarding address. I need to empty that thing more often!
At any rate, dealing with that has also hindered my writing, plus that fact that I haven't played much in the way of games. That's why today I have downloaded all the maps I should need to finish Dragon Warrior II and I intend to use my day off today in order to do so. Wish me luck!
Oh, a little bit of a post script, too: Another reason I hadn't written was because I was embarrassed by the simplicity of my journal. I was looking at various features on GameSpot, and I found the Gamespotting weekly feature. I especially noticed the "Guestspotter" part, where a member of the Gamespot community has one of their journal entries featured along with the journals of various editors. Frankly, it got me just a teeny bit depressed about my own journal. There were all kinds of pictures and such in the guestspotter's, and there were even people who responded to it! Although I can deal with not having the ambition for pictures and all that for now, I couldn't bring myself to write another entry until I had something to say. And I think I said something here.
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