It departs now to Iskander

 Holy cow. I'm 500 words into the last chapter of Part III. I've been mainlining brass bands, though.

Because of the "Embassy" scene (a black-tie fundraiser at the Imperial Hotel Tokyo). It is about school athletic programs (long story) and so I was hunting up theme-appropriate music for a big band. I mean, I knew I was going to use "Gonna Fly Now," the Maynard Ferguson version (which is basically a show-off for lead trumpet players). And because I'd been following a couple of trumpet players on YouTube I knew you could do a good cover of "Go the Distance" from Hercules. I did find a couple fascinating jazz covers of John William's 2014 Olympics theme but it didn't really work for me.

Oh, and I rewrote the end of the Hikikomori Nights. It was just a little too convenient for Penny that it all worked out. So I adjusted so what really gets the Otaku singing in unison is the theme to Space Battleship Yamato. Which I listened to a lot of covers on, including quite a few by the Japanese military (sorry; "Self-Defense Force.")

But finishing the romantic Christmas dinner -- a bucket of crisp and greasy KFC -- is going to have to wait. 

I'm not sure how the 20% pass is going to go. The Tokyo chapters are most out of control. I think the Kyoto chapters are fairly manageable as far as how much "stuff" is in them. And the Cult chapters are up in the air; I want to put across the idea that the cult has built this elaborate Ancient Aliens theory around key artifacts given to humanity as part of their Uplift effort, but I'd like to do this with name-dropping as little Ancient Astronaut Greatest Hits (Nazca Lines, Yonugi Formation, etc.) and artifacts.

But I'll see. If I could somehow keep going at this weekend's pace I'd be finished with the raw book in a couple more weeks...

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Oh, yeah. And the bass part for "Commander Shepard" is pretty much there. Still an annoying amount of fret noise, though.