It seems that I’m not the only one out there determined to have the best summer ever. Haruhi Suzumiya, whose on-again-off-again anishow recently restarted with repeats interspersed with a seemingly random splattering of new episodes every so often,1 has been doing her bit by enlisting the assistance of her ever-so-loyal SOS Brigade in their latest episode, Endless Eight. Much like my mental to-do list (the completion of which these Best Summer Ever posts seek to log), Haruhi brainstorms a series of events and activities (such as hitting baseballs with baseball bats, going fishing and appreciating fireworks) to do within the final two weeks of their holiday together.
I'm sure that this is a reference to something, but I'm not sure what.
This week’s adventure proved to be one of Haruhi’s less supernatural endeavours, providing a refreshingly down-to-earth episode with nothing out-of-the-ordinary to be found. No idea why they called it Endless Eight, though.
Watching Haruhi and her merry friends get up to all kinds of vaguely summer-related antics (in the space of only two weeks!) has made me realise that I haven’t been making the most of my time. This week did NOT live up to last week and I didn’t manage to do everything that I’d planned. Also, I forgot to bring my camera, so don’t expect any further images for the time being.
I became curious as to whether the flavour of the week at the Ripley Ice Cream parlour at the Valley Gardens in Harrogate was the same as the flavour of the week at the Ripley Ice Cream parlour at Ripley. So I walked down to the one at the Valley Gardens. This week’s flavour: Lemon. Hmm. So I walked on until I found a bus stop and a bus on its way to Ripley. I found them both, and after a short journey on a busy bus, I arrived just outside Ripley’s flagship “world-famous” ice creamery. I thought that I’d just pop in and pop out again, as the bus back’d only be a couple of minutes away. This week’s flavour: CHEESECAKE. Cheesecake flavoured ice cream!!! I had stumbled upon The Greatest Known To Man. Without thinking, I immediately ordered a handmade rolled cone with a fudge stick and a hot chocolate dip. (I’ll go into the ice cream extras in a later post.) They wouldn’t let me on the bus with the ice cream (yes, I tried), but it was worth it. Or so I had thought. Maybe they pulled the wrong handle, maybe it was just a poor flavour. Either way, I couldn’t distinguish it from vanilla. Probably serves me right for something. I’d better stick to mixtures of the two flavours in future to be on the safe side.
Then I went to Knaresborough. I saw some wonderful things. I forgot to take my camera. Maybe I’ll go back with my camera and take photographs of wonderful things.
Every so often, I eat fast food to remind myself why I don’t eat fast food. It was for this reason that I stopped off at the only KFC in the area on the way back and treated myself to what they call the “Fully Loaded Meal“: one piece of fried chicken, one fried chicken burger, one side dish (I chose corn), chips and one drink (I chose Diet Pepsi). I’m used to having my chicken roasted, so the fried chicken surprised me with the tenderness of the bones. I was able to chew and swallow them with almost no problems. The corn was incredibly hot, the chips were distressingly plain and the burger had too much mayonnaise. Whatever my opinion about the meal itself, I’ve had cravings for fast food ever since. Next time I’m in Leeds, fast food’ll be on the agenda. Oh dearie me.
The only other times I left the house this week were to pay in a cheque and to visit Newby Hall with Father. These times, I did remember to bring my camera. But I didn’t take that many photographs. They’re on Flickr, but they’re in the wrong order because Flickr Uploader is rubbish.
I finally got around to playing those Wallace & Gromit games I got ages ago. I was disappointed that a British license was being developed by an American developer — Telltale Games, famous for the Strong Bad point-an’-click-em’-ups and the recent Sam & Max serieses — and, sure enough, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures Episode 1: Fright of the Bumblebees {gasps for breath} paints what is unmistakably a foreigner’s view of England. It didn’t help that, with my experiences with their games, Telltale is notorious for releasing bug-riddled glitchfests. In this case, I managed to unwittingly trigger a game-breaking bug in the very final scene, meaning that I had to go back to my last save point and sit through several minutes of unskippable cut-scenes. Employ better testers, Telltale. Hopefully you’ll’ve learned your lesson before the release of Tales of Monkey Island.
I started watching Kiddy Grade again. Now that they’ve got all of the character introductions out of the way, the plot is the focus the focus is on the plot. And, for the sake of said plot, the series has taken the radical direction of firing Lumière and Eh! Claire from their GOTT jobs. I’m not sure what the economic climate is like within their expanded universe, but it’ll be interesting to see whether or not they find employment. Missing the point aside, I’ve really been been really enjoying this series. I’d do a full post on it, but there’s nothing I can really say about it that’s much more substantial than “standard science-fiction (but that’s okay)”.
I now have copies of the only four volumes of the Corrector Yui anime ever released in English. I may never watch them.
I flicked through the first few lines of Ever17 again. That racoon-dog haunts me. Never played it? Fix that. It’s less than £20.
Brother made a new blog post. Read it.
Uh… That’ll do. The upcoming weather forecast looks good enough. Maybe some rain. I welcome it. ㋼
- The original Japanese broadcast of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was out-of-order. This new episode order sorts them out chronologically, meaning that any new episodes that take place in between the older episodes have to fill in the gaps. [↩]
