Don't drink that poison! It costs four dollars a quart!

I get a kick out of older movies, and watching Turner Classic Movies today really improved my mood. Earlier in the day they aired Casablanca, a definite classic even if I know those who dislike it. Having seen the film only a couple times in its entirety before, I took the viewing today to concentrate on the background characters. They were all very entertaining and well acted, at least to their small roles in the film.

Post-Midnight, TCM aired a second movie I had to stay up to catch some of - A Day at the Races. It's a Marx Brother's film from the 30s, and the source of the quote above. The funny thing about the films (Not the ha-ha funny parts) was the musical numbers. The Marx Brother's films tend to have large musical numbers placed into the film at two or three points. They are all well done, and one can assume that in earlier films this was common practice. I guess that it was just something films needed - even Casablanca has a few moments where they stop to sing a tune or two.

We had some family friends over, and I sat with my parents and the guests and chatted with them for about 6 hours, which included time I spent working on a Sudoku High Five and a full dinner with dessert. I've always enjoyed talking with guests. It isn't rare of them to find my degree of speech fairly well developed. My little brother stayed quiet during the time he was at the table, looking around the room and peeling the logo from his beer, while I talked and listened with my parents and guests. Of course, I don't think I'm on equal grounds with the adults. They have far more life experience than I ever will. I mean, I can't really match them when they start talking about things that happened in the 60s...

Anyway, I have things to do tomorrow, so I'm heading to bed. Overall today hasn't been half bad, but I'm certainly tired.

Amazed

So, the stuff I was dealing with last week? All gone. Fixed. Good as new, as far as I know.

It doesn't 'cure' the past week, but what can you do?

I wish I could make a bigger deal out of this, but simply put: Haruhi is getting a second season. That's right, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu is going to be airing a second season starting this fall. Which means that while I will still be on campus at least 8 hours a day, at least 5 days a week, I will still make time between reading about Asian culture and contemporary literature to watch Haruhi.

The only thing I lack is friends to celebrate the news with. I wish I could drop by a friend's place and go: "Did you hear about Haruhi?" and they'd go: "What? No." "They're making a second season!" "Oh, awesome!" And then we would probably play a video game or hang out or talk about KyoAni or look up news on Haruhi season 2.

Yeah, that'd be nice...

Anyway, that's all for now. I feel like microwaved hell after working outside all day on the gardens and hedges, so I'm going to try to lay down and sleep without sweating through my sheets until I can't sleep at all.

Night all.

Dealing with it

Yesterday's lunch went well, but a combination of bad sleep and long travel times left me feeling a little tired by the late afternoon.

Then I was given some information and presented with a situation that easily soured any possible good mood I could have.

So I'm trying to deal with that.

If I don't post much for a while, it's because I'm dealing with that.

Wish me luck.

Appointments to Keep

Just a little update on how things are going.

I've spent a couple of days reading the blog of a very interesting blogger. I won't go into details right now, and I'd rather not send the two people I'm sure read this over there. Reading some of her material though is very... Enlightening. In a way, I guess.

Also, tomorrow I'm going to be going out to lunch with other graduates from my class. So, that's bound to be interesting to some degree. The biggest challenge will be making it down there in time for lunch. I'm not really a morning person and with my parents out the house is basically silent until the afternoon unless I get up early. So wish me luck.

I was thinking about writing a few things that are a little revealing and pretty depressing for myself, but I'm not quite sure of if I should bother again. This technically being my second blog, I'd like to try to escape from the ranting and bitching that was predominant on the first one. It also has a lot to do with the past, something I'd be a little happier to leave there.

Anyway, I hope all of you are without insomnia and doing well. That's all for this update.

Music Appreciation

You got the touch! Dun dun, dun dunn- You got the Power..... Yeah!

That's pretty much all the lyrics I know from that song, and it's also everything I know about the song, except that it's from the early 80s at the latest.

I think of two things when that song comes to mind - and by coming to mind I mean I suddenly think or sing those exact lyrics to myself for no reason. The first is AMV Hell, which had an Evangelion themed AMV to the song using footage from The End of Evangelion. It's the part where people turn to goo. It's pretty good since those are also the only lines the quick snippet-sized AMV uses.

The second is the 1986 Transformers Movie, the original cartoon one with Omnicron and whatnot. Now, I know almost nothing about Transformers, I'm pretty sure that the series was popular when I was born, and though I had an Optimus Prime at some point I watched more Beast Wars than anything else related to it.

Now, I have no taste for music. I don't know genres at all. When I'm asked for a favorite band one of the names that comes to my head is Fire Bomber, a pretty much fictitious band from Macross 7 (Though I do listen to the band's songs). What is weird though is that I have no problem burrowing away lyrics and musics from many, many songs.

When I take a butterknife out of the drawer to make a sandwich, I tap it with my fingernail rhythmically. To myself and probably myself alone, it sounds like the opening to Rush's YYZ. I will then often 'sing' the sounds of the song to myself, as it lacks lyrics. Recently, I found myself singing a lot because I had to house to myself. I am perfectly content to sit around and never make a single sound for hours, yet sometimes I just have to sing songs to myself to talk to my cats or sing songs to my cats where I make up most of the lyrics on the spot.

This is probably going way too far back into my past, but I used to be quite a skilled singer when I was younger. I was one of the few boys in my school choir, and I was actually quite proud of myself. It ended in ruins of course. Now, I feel like I've completely erased real singing from myself, to the point where my voice probably can't do it either.

This isn't really something that I talk about much. It was just something I did as a kid. Now, it's just kind of funny. A joke. Singing, that is. I have a thing I do for a close friend where I sing her name like it was part of rock song. Think Limozeen. She normally laughs and then shuts my mouth for me. Hilarity.

I really don't know what else to say about this love/hate situation I have with music. I hate it because I don't get it. I don't like criticism about music because I won't understand, and even 'good' stuff often sounds bad. I once found myself enjoying country music, which I know many people revile. But when the contemporary rap comes on, I turn it off. I can't stand anything about it, from the music to the lyrics to the image. I saw 'contemporary rap' because with my genre-blindness I'm sure I've listened to and enjoyed rap at some point.

So while my winamp is filled with songs I don't really enjoy anymore, and is weighed down with Fire Bomber and OSTs from The Slayers and animes opening themes, it doesn't mean that I don't like other musics. Since I don't 'like' music. It's all just kind of par for the course for me. Unless I hate it.

Does that make sense?

Have a good weekend, all.

Death by Summer

Blah! I haven't updated in a while again.

I guess the problem continues to be that I haven't been up to much, but I think I have something else to blame. Just recently, I've gotten back into some forum RPGs. It's fun to have something to do, but I spend a lot of time at the computer waiting for other people to post or responding to posts or whatever. It means that the fun little posts I used to put up about how I watched a movie that I enjoyed just aren't going to happen - since I feel the responsibility of being at the computer all the time I don't go to watch said movies.

Of course, I keep busy at the computer otherwise. Playing games, looking for work and checking classifieds, chatting with people - the usual computery things. I get bored a lot, of course, and I also get tired of waiting for people or waiting on people. But I've been feeling pretty happy lately. Upbeat in a way, I'm just enjoying myself in whatever I'm up to, for the most part.

This summer is going to be busy. Today I had to go out and pressure wash the back porch to clean it for painting I will also be forced to do. Oh, and even better - my parents are away to Texas for a week, and I'm being instructed to do this painting during said week. So not only do I have to do it by my goddamn self, but my parents are skipping town to get out of it!

So I have some plans. I'm calling for help! Even though they don't like me having people over when they're away, I'm not going to paint the whole bloody deck by myself in the sweltering heat of the summer for no pay, thanks or recognition. Particularly not alone.

I'm hoping the summer will go well. I can't do anything about the heat but I can work on what I'm doing in said heat.

That's all for now. I wish everyone a good summer, since it just started officially the other day. (June's weather fails to agree with the 'official start', but that's not really something I can fix.)

Night all.

The Sum of all Fears

Yeah, this is pretty much what I was worried about.

My week has been pretty dull. I went to the dentist, I was forced into some minor clothes shopping, I did some gardening, and... That's about it.

It's been a very boring week. I haven't had any problems to talk about, nothing really good has happened that'd make me want to talk about it... Things are borderline fine. Like stasis. Or the heart monitor during a flatlining.

I've been up to - brace yourself - Pokemon games. It's something to do, and catching and breeding the little critters is a way to spend my time.

That's all. Really.

Other people are out on double-dates, having fun weekends with friends or doing all kinds of wacky stuff. I'm playing Pokemon and watching Anime. [i]Aren't I living the dream?[/i]

Goodnight. I'll try to do something worth writing about.

Father's Day Weekend

Wow, I don't know what I've been doing for the past couple of days, but it obviously wasn't all important enough to post here.

Yesterday went fantastically, by the way. I got outside, had a fun time, I was relaxed and very little bad happened. POTC3 was good, by the way. Constant and fun.

It's Father's Day today, and since my older brother is celebrating his first real Father's Day, it's fairly important. We're only doing the usual stuff though, having a family dinner, we had brunch earlier, and we've got some small gifts and cards for my Dad.

It's interesting that people complain about Father's Day. They say that compared to Mother's Day, there's a lot less going on. I was chatting with my Dad about that, and he mentioned a possible joke that Father's Day has the most long distance calls with the charges reversed. Even if it's not true, I can still believe it. I know that around my house my Dad doesn't get the same degree of respect my Mother does, so I can't expect that every household celebrates an equal Father's Day as they do Mother's Day.

Anyway, I'm still really drained from yesterday and just trying to get through the day. I can promise a good update this week - my family is visiting relatives for a dinner and I'm going to be seeing two cousins I rarely do, yet share hobbies and interests with.

I'm going to sit back and relax today - at least when I'm not helping my father with something. I hope everyone has a good Father's Day.

High on (someone else's) life!

It was always an interesting situation that I had arise from the depth of my school days. I didn't have a lot of friends, though early on it was tough not to. People just gathered together and the people they talked to at recess or during lunch break were their friends. The one thing I remember about my late years in elementary school was that 90% of my 'friends' were girls. And they loved to talk to me about their problems.

I don't have any idea how it started. My class would have been filled with mathematical, scientific, artistic and literary geniuses. Some of them had no problem picking up French, going to city-wide geography competitions and had expansive projects during science. Yet I always seemed to be steady, mature and completely entrenched in hard logic.

When I got older and I met the 'normal' kids, I just got everything, intellectually. I looked like a genius, even if I didn't know all that much. They wanted me to solve problems and give opinions.

This really shone through during my highschool years. People have to make decisions about you at first glance, after all. I didn't want to talk to anyone in class, I asked questions to the teacher afterwards as if I was equal to them, and I was able to keep to myself and read during any break. The only people who I saw most often were the ones that had problems. Often girls. It figures with my luck in life that I'd attract the most troubled girls who just wanted to talk to me to make themselves feel better. I was like the psychologist for the school. By the time I was in my last year, people suffering from life issues and depression were referred to me. It was like having advertisements around the school.

So I talked to a lot of people. I'd like to think that I helped some of them. People would still come to me to ask what I thought about all kinds of things. Legalization of marijuana, political issues, religious issues. Whatever. I was even interviewed for a small-scale school newspaper. I held no position in the school except for being some kind of incredible logical genius who absolutely hated the school.

Anyway.

I've slowly started to realise that I really enjoy hearing things about people. Nice things, bad things, life-threatening things, dirty things - It doesn't matter. I don't get the feeling that I'm living vicariously though others so much as I'm watching stories unfold. They're not always interesting, my life story certainly isn't, but I really get connected to people and want to hear more and more, and I want to help them be happy.

Sometimes I hear about something kind of creepy and kind of weird, but it's all worth a laugh. I'm not going to come down on someone like a ton of bricks just because they're saying something strange.

Sometimes I hear things that really put me in a corner. I get connected to people and I don't want to tell them my truth. I won't lie to them about the facts as I see it, but it's hard telling someone when they need to better understand what they're trying to follow. Nothing is ever completely right, and that means that sometimes certain things are wrong.

Sometimes, I get so sick of hearing about a person's problems. The only thing I can't stand is when things are going well and someone has to throw a wrench into their own life just to bitch. Worse yet, when they decide that acting vapid and shallow is a response to important moments in their life that mean lots of responsibility.

Sometimes, I hear things from a person and talk back to them, and I feel closer to them. Just knowing them and relating back, it's a real high for me.

I'm in a really good mood today, and it's because I love being close with friends and getting to hear about them. It's even better online, because I can meet people who can be comfortable with me without their secrets ever having a chance of getting spread. Maybe this is just my addiction, or my personal misunderstanding of what a friendship is. All I know is that it makes me happy, it makes me sad, and it makes me feel needed.

That's all for today. I'll probably actually DO something this weekend, so maybe I'll have something interesting to chat about. That is all.

Oh what a world, what a world!

It's been brought to my attention, in the past, that I'm very warm and cuddly. This often includes that fact that - regardless of frigid temperatures in the outdoors - my hands remain very warm. Now, I'd love to claim that I have some kind of mystic Solar Hands, but really I think that I've just got a built enough upper body to keep the warm blood flowing.

It's great when it's -20C outside and I have to wander around or do some kind of chore. It isn't when it's 30C and humid out.

The summer is always the worst time of year for me. I sweat, I'm tired, and I'm burning hot enough to scorch my bed. This one is quickly proving to be no different, offering a course of heat-related insomnia, sweat-soaked bedding and an upstairs that is 10 degrees hotter than the downstairs - oh thank God I live downstairs.

Today was a very slow day. It's too hot for time to move any faster, nor for me to do anything interesting. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Goodnight all.

Legos!

That's right, for whatever reason I had the urge today to go and find my big bin of lego and play around for a while. I used basically every 2x4 block and some mountain-side pieces to build a prison which I then stored intact.

It's funny going back through all of the stuff we have stored. I found a box of some of my old schoolwork, including a booklet from the early 90s where I guess I was asked to answer questions. It had some really interesting points in there. When asked who I could meet, if anyone ever, I joked about meeting Elvis or the Aliens who captured him, and then said that I'd speak to Princess Diana to ask her about using her position of power to help the needy and earning a whole new degree of celebrity.

When asked what I thought was the biggest problem in the world, I answered, plain-faced: People.

Man, what a crazy little kid I was. I should really post all of those things up to try and get a little view into my development into the jaded and angry individual I am today.

My brother came to look too, and he really liked checking out the old mecha toys and other playthings we have stored away.

Oh! And I found a bunch of Marvel cards (Before everything had CCGs) and a bunch of my original Pog collection! My slammers are still mint!

Oh damn. I think I just spilled nerd all over my keyboard...

Anyway, it's damned hot out today, and tomorrow is worse. For whatever reason I'm blessed with a high overall body temperature, which is nice in the winter but not when it's 30 and humid.

That's all for tonight. Getting to sleep has been a trial all week with this weather.

It's Fran-ken-steen!

I'm really enjoying some of the movie networks my cable package gets lately. AMC and Turner Classic Movies play all kinds of good, older films, while Action, Diva and IFC occasionally have some rare finds on (though they always conflict with stuff I want to watch).

Tonight they aired Young Frankenstein twice, first it was merely the original version and second they played it on 'DVD-TV', which had the bottom taken out for a pop-up video type of thing that related information about the scene, cast, original script and various other elements. It was quite interesting, and I had to live with it as I didn't have the control over the TV to watch the earlier, unaltered version. Personally, I'd watch other movies with those little add-ins on AMC.

The movie is really quite funny, if mostly in the silly-spectrum. It's quite similar to other Mel Brooks films like Spaceballs (which did Sci-Fi jokes) and Blazing Saddles (which did western jokes), so I'd have to suggest it.

I dunno what's with me lately. I've really been craving the idea of sitting back and watching older films and just enjoying them. I guess it comes from not being able to see all the critically trashed sequels coming out. But I get lonely. I don't want to sit there with my brother or father, but with a close friend who I can just chat with. That's really a big part of the movie experience to me, or maybe it's just my general feeling about everything.

Anyway, I highly suggest seeing the film sometime, and you should check to see what's on TV. You never know what they might be playing when you just need something to watch.

Catgirls make everything better.

Everything.

So yeah, I've been having some trouble getting to sleep lately. Tonight, I was extremely hungry and it's kept me up until 6 AM. I'm not too proud of that, really, but that's just how it works.

I ended up spending time watching TV, and for some reason a 2 hour episode of Teen Titans was on. Teen Titans is, of course, the North American cartoon that uses a comic book team in a heavily anime influenced style of animation. The title of the extra-long episode was 'Trouble In Tokyo' and for the life of me I can't figure out why YTV would air a 'movie' episode of a fairly population cartoon series at 4AM.

The story was about how the team goes to Japan to stop the evil 'Brushogun', which I mishead about 30 times before they just spelled the damned thing out. He sends a single ninja to their tower and kicks their asses, so they decide to counterattack by heading to Tokyo to stop his creator. Ends up the Brushogun creates things from ink, yet the extreme weakness to water - explored when the first offensive villain 'disappears' - is never again explored. They fight in Tokyo, I'm pretty sure there are fire hydrants.

While Cyborg pisses off Japanese Chefs and Beastboy's karaoke attracts all the Japanese girls, the show is pretty much what was expected. The only minor shock was the use of actual Japanese, though it seemed to be basic language - I was able to understand parts, but it was also at talking-speed (After doing the whole 'fish out of water' bit at arrival, almost everyone speaks English). They get ready to start the next stage of the story, even though heavy-handed overshadowing has explained most of the plot, and start introducing a small team of evil ink opponents to fight the divided heroes. A yellow chef-bot, a small blue astroboy-thing, a 'scary' black cloak monster and...

...A magenta catgirl.

"Catgirl? Catgirl."

So yeah, maybe the show had my attention for the remainder, even if the catgirl, Nya-nya, was underused. Hell, when they were blowing up guys and beating the crap out of people, the copy-catgirls were mostly dodged rather than blasted. No one can resist catgirl charm.

There was also a good point as she was introduced. While fighting with Beastboy, she continues to talk in simple Japanese. He complained that he can't make snappy comebacks if he didn't know what she was saying. I kind of liked that line. From what I could get from it, she kept calling him cute, saying she liked him and I think called him tasty... One of her final lines, from my vague understand of Japanese, seemed to say 'This is going to hurt' before her big slash attack.

Yes, I was pleased by the stereotypical catgirl with designs drawn from what animators thing catgirls much look like. Catgirls will get me to watch almost anything. Hell, I watched the end of a Chaotic episode because they had a catgirl in it.

Anyway, that's about that. It's past 6 AM now so my brain can only recall the last couple of hours. Hopefully I'll be able to either get some sleep or eat a big sandwich today, I can live with either possibility.

Goodnight, everyone.

Sprung Spring

I'm not really one for manual labour, as much as I enjoy having a lawn out front I doubt that if I owned a home I'd be good enough to keep it very neat. My family - well, my parents - love having a lawn and garden and tend to work very hard to keep it looking great. My mother in particular looks after the gardens, with myself and my little brother there to assist.

Now, of course, this is a little different with my neighbors. Nextdoor lives a little old lady, a widow who has been a friend of the family for some time. After her husband died, my older brother - who was living with us at the time - got her permission to use her garage to park his car. In exchange he was on call for whatever she needed, and at her age that includes things like changing a lightbulb but goes all the way up to cleaning the eaves.

When my brother moved out, she continued to rely on the support of my family. We tend to do the odd things for her - I often shovel her driveway during the winter, help with taking the garbage out for pick-up, and things like that. Nowadays, her older son has returned to live with him. I've only met him on occasion outside, but he's pretty preoccupied with his recent ex-wife and his work (or search for it), so he doesn't get around to doing yard work much. For the past while, it's gotten to the point where my neighbor is more comfortable with hiring a company to mow the lawns rather than wait for her son to do anything.

Anyway, I was once again called upon to help, this time in the form of trimming hedges around the property. It's been a good growing season so a lot of them have grown too far out from where they should be. It took a few hours to get it all cut, but it was what I was doing Wednesday and Thursday. I'm bound to be compensated, my neighbor will often force money onto me for the smallest tasks, but I often try to at least get her to pay me less. Frankly, not getting paid for anything I do around the house makes yard work and the like seem like jobs not worth getting paid for. Her and my mother tend to do these transactions behind my back now. I guess I just can't accept the money for the easy work face to face anymore.

Oh, just an odd side note: You know when a bar you can fill in gives suggestions for prior searches or titles? Well for whatever reason mine is giving me a lot results I'm sure I've never typed in before.

Weird.

Well, that's all for today. I might put together another one of those anime overviews if I find some good shots.

Magical Chores

My mother is back again, which is nice, but at the same time the general carelessness of the rest of my family is kind of annoying. I don't expect a party or medal every time I do the dishes, but does that mean that not doing them shouldn't bother anyone? Or perhaps that saying 'Thanks' or something is too much?

Around my home, things aren't done - they happen. It's not "I cleaned out the dishwasher and scrubbed the pans" it's "The dishwasher is empty and the pans are clean." It isn't helped by the fact that things aren't generally done - when you see something, that doesn't mean you do it. You leave it for someone else to do it, since you're so busy.

That is pretty much what I've been trying to escape. I want to make my father aware that I know when a task must be done before it becomes a hassle to do it. I want my brother to know that he should be doing this stuff as well. When I finish dinner, I bring my plates up and put them in the dishwasher. If the dishwasher is full, I'll empty it. Then I'll tell my Dad and brother that it's cleaned - or that I cleaned it - so they know it's safe to bring their plates up without having to do the dirty task of letting them sit in the sink.

So far it just means that I clean up around the house more, nothing more. My little brother is too spoiled to think of doing any on his own, and my father doesn't really thank me for anything anymore. I guess the only upside is that without things needing to be done around the house, I get to communicate with my family as rarely as possible. Plus the independence makes me feel good for about 30 second, until I remember that the rest of my family is content to sit back and let someone else do work for them.

Anyway, I've been spending less and less time at the computer, and Disgaea is a good way to waste all of my spare time. I'm about 6 chapters in, my highest level character is 36 - she gained about 20 by accident when she got the killing blow on a high-level opponent. I love naming all of my characters, and I finally have the options to make catgirls - though I still need to reduce the cost to make them.

Well, that's all for now. Who knows, something interesting might happen tomorrow.

Laharl-sama! AH HA HA HA!

I know I had some more interesting things to discuss, but I've decided to go for a quick update on something else.

I haven't been at the computer much, with my World of Warcraft gamecard having run out and all my of RPG forums dead and likely waiting ressurection, I have little reason to wait around at the computer. Normally I'd spend a couple of hours a day just waiting for people to sign on so I could talk to them, but right now that doesn't seem like a great way to use my time.

So I went through some of my Nippon Ichi games, mostly because they are completely awesome. I thought about playing some of the other titles, ones I had left alone for too long and not completed. Yet, down at the bottom of the pile, another game called out. It was Disgaea, the first big N1 game that came out and led a line of releases that I adore.

Nippon Ichi games are all turn-based strategy games. Earlier ones like Disgaea and its precursor La Pucelle (Which came out after Disgaea - The game was so popular the unconnected original was in demand) are done on a simple grid while later ones like Phantom Brave (The second best after Disgaea - that I've played) are done on a far small grid, to the point where movement is technically free within walking range. What makes the real difference is the systems each one introduces. La Pucelle has a summoning square where character appear and path in the dungeons that can be directed and destroyed for equipment-building points as well as damage and area-range attacks. Disgaea again has the start square, but adds coloured sections of the stage that are effected and altered by special items on the stage. Phantom Brave forces the player to summon their combat characters in items on the stage such as swords, rocks and plants - each one provides certain bonuses and penalties.

The thing that they all share though is the flexible creation system - though I believe it starts more in Disgaea than anywhere. You can make a character of a certain type - say a Female Warrior - spend a certain number of mana (gotten from kills) to pick their power levels - 10 mana for 'Incompetant' is a good start, but provides only 1 point to add to them - alter their stats - like Defense or Attack - then name them - I picked 'Konata'. You've got a fresh, level 1 character ready to be equipped with a wide range of items - some which they are better at than others. Now, the real fun is where the system goes from there. Maximum level is 9999! And you can return a character back to level 1, during which they'll save their levels and turn it into more starting points. After a short while, you'll be growing exponentially with the characters you concentrate on - though you have to start them from level 1 time and time again. Even the items are levelable, you can enter dungeons inside each item or weapon to subdue creatures inside it to move to other items, raise its basic stat, or fight power 'item gods' that hold incredibly powerful items you have to steal from them.

I have a 93 hour game for Disgaea which I haven't touched in ages. The main character, Laharl, is currently level 2950 and has been reduced to level 1 quite a few times. The game really has no end. Even if you get all the way to max level, get one of the final weapons and defeat the final boss, you can still do it with any character you want.

Anyway, I logged a few hours into the game today. Playing through the story is just wonderful. It's funny, clever, and the Japanese voice actors (Yay for JPN soundtrack mode) are really skilled.

Anyway, it's getting late and I've been trying to get on a better sleep schedule, so that's all for tonight. I was able to sleep - badly - at 'appropriate' times like night and I don't feel any better for it. I'll keep you updated, as always.

This isn't Archeology!

With my mother away once again looking after my grandmother, my father has gotten into the same bored attitude he often has in the evenings. It tends to start early, as he never knows what to have for dinner and rarely suggests making anything. It's tough getting along without my mother when meal preparation time becomes either a selection of restaurants or sandwiches and snacks.

Regardless, this is really about the evening's entertainment - my father is always looking for films on TV, I assume it's often an excuse to eat popcorn, not that you need one in my family. After his constant prodding, and a long stream of suggestions he shrugged through, I ended up putting on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, my personal favorite from the Indiana Jones Trilogy.

The film really is an amazing one. When I watch most movies they have long scenes that take away from the action, try to explain things carefully and generally slow down the film. Some recent films come to mind, where you have a lot of favorite scenes and tend to forget about all the crap in-between. The Last Crusade is different. When I was watching it, every little moment was filled with enough content to keep me interested, even if it was a particularly slow moment (Like Indiana and his father taking a quiet moment on the airship) it was perfectly lengthed and set perfectly between other scenes (The 'No Ticket' scene and the airplane scene, in this case).

Now, while I can enjoy films on a number of levels, I have to wonder about why my father always wants to watch movies. Much like my mother, he has a tenancy to fall asleep during movies - tonight it was when the clock started to approach 10 PM and the incredible tank chase was starting. I realise that we're working on far different clocks (Says the jobless insomniac at 2:45 AM) but I still think that some sense of paying attention could be asked for if he wants to watch movies so badly.

If you've got a chance to see an Indiana Jones film, particularly Last Crusade, I'd suggest taking it. It isn't a deep or dramatic film, and it doesn't have the same bang or zip that newer action films have, but it's a film that has been so perfectly polished and balanced out. It's a really enjoyable experience. And hey, if you've seen it 20 times before just pay attention to what you want to. It's a fun film to watch on the side too.

I came up with a new topic to write on, chatting with old friends, but I'm going to save it for later. I'm going to assume that a little post about a movie will be more than enough for tonight.

31 Flavors of Anime

So I finally remembered what I was going to talk about earlier. The downside is that I've been getting small 15 minute naps all day to make up for the missing 8 hours of sleep, so you'll have to excuse me if I suddenly sounds a little insane.

Anime, as I'm sure you've noticed, is one of my interests and probably vices as well. Naturally, like any good anime fan / Otaku, I have to educate others on the wonder of anime. A few months ago, my family was visited by some friends of my parents, which is fairly common. While discussing some of my interests as small talk, one of them expressed recognition as far as anime went. She was a little misguided though, so I chatted with her a bit about anime. She suspected that it was made of two parts - television shows like Pokemon and cinematic movies like Spirited Away. I really have an issue with that.

You see, popular animation in North America is basically split on such a line. You have cartoon shows that are for children, mostly comedy or comedy and action mixed. Then you have the high-quality movies like what Disney has a history of making or like what CG movies are doing today. Sure, adults can enjoy it - the Simpsons or Family Guy are too 'mature' for most children, but they're still comedy shows at their roots. The only thing that pulls away from this are action shows based on toys or games like G.I. Joe back in the day. They're more pure action, but they're heavy in product placement and character recognition.

Now, I won't try and say that Anime is more noble and better than American animation. Anime is a commercial product as well, and if it wasn't for things like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh and Bedamon or whatever it certainly wouldn't be burying so deep into the American market.

What I will say, as I told that woman, is that Anime isn't a genre. When you think 'Cartoon' you might think Bugs Bunny or Ninja Turtles. It's true that not all American cartoons are that, but Anime has set itself up as a medium. Manga as well emphasizes that, the thick magazines they publish weekly or monthly are set towards obvious groups like young boys, young girls, older men (not porn) and older women.

What brought this up is mostly MuchMusic (It's like Canada's MTV [not to be confused with MTV Canada], but they still have music videos), who have been playing BECK in hour-long blocks at least a couple times a week. BECK, you see, is about young Japanese kid who gets caught up in the start of a brand new band that ends up going all the way. The series takes place over a couple of years and expands his personal development with other people as well as his development as a guitarist, singer and songwriter. I watched the anime when it was originally released in Japan and I really enjoyed it, and the dub is fairly good (though it loses a lot of its early flavor since everyone speaks English - originally there was a lot of fun Engrish). Where else could you have that, really? Need a new music series? I can think of at least another high quality series, NANA (Though it concentrates on relationships). Need realistic Sci-Fi? Cartoony Sci-Fi? Re-imaginations of classic literature? Racing? Team sports? Fantasy series? A show about bread? There's an Anime for every possible genre.

Now, filling Turner Classic Movies with Anime films is asking too much (Though they occasionally show some Ghibli works). Anime just seems like it's underused and misunderstood. People see animation and they suspect that it's either for children or, if it's really violent, gory or full of cursing - older boys. If people weren't afraid of watching, they could get into the drama of a series like Honey and Clover, or enjoy the investigative drama of Stand Alone Complex.

One of the big things that I'd like to see change is the realization that while girls watch 'boy' series with action like Naruto or Inuyasha (Though the latter is like DBZ for girls anyway), you might be able to pull in a larger female audience and sustain a male audience with girl-targeted shows. Fruits Basket comes to mind, Zannen.ca always seemed to be pushing for it, and I think it's a series that could really attracted viewers on, say, YTV's Friday night anime blocks.

Right now, I'm watching so many new animes from Japan I can't always keep track of them. It's up and down from the new-style harem anime Airantou to the otaku slice-of-life Lucky Star and the parody-filled comedy Hayate no Gotoku, back to the hyper-realistic, dark Bokurano, up to the mystic Reideen and further to the wackiness of Gurren-Lagann. Then I can watch some Shonen action from new episodes of Naruto and Bleach, then pull back to the drama of NANA or the situational comedy of Lovely Complex. When I'm in the mood, I'll sit through and episode of the developing Darker Than Black or the gory action of Claymore before loading up the next part of Sola or Rocket Girls. Really, with that kind of selection how can you complain? There's at least something for everyone - as long as you can stomach interesting characters and an intruiging storyline matched with excellent animation from some mere 'cartoon'.

That's all I can say really. MuchMusic's programmers really got my intrigued when they introduced BECK but YTV's regurgitation of Adult Swim is getting tiring as well. And could someone explain to me why Teletoon won't play a single anime series, but fills the evenings with Adult Swim's hand-me-down hit-and-miss 15 minute episode series?

That's all for tonight. Thanks for your time for my ranty little attitude today.

Lost to the Ages

I had something profound to talk about. The topic has completely escaped me in the past several hours and now I fear may never return. So just know that somewhere in the aether is a really good post.

Aside from that: Gurren-Lagann episode 09 was good. Good enough for me to keep watching. So I will continue to suggest the series as a wacky Gainax mecha anime.

Movie Night(s)

Well, so today was pretty much a day of rest for the family. With everyone home, my parents wanted to look around the house and make sure that nothing interesting has happened in the gardens, and my little brother is still in a pretty pissy mood, though I'm not sure if that's much of a change.

The really big thing is that my Dad is repeatedly asking to go see Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End. The last time he brought it up, he couldn't remember a single thing about the second film in the trilogy. When he got back from his trip, he suddenly remembered having watched it and now wants to go see the third one.

This creates an interesting issue for me. I want to go see POTC3, but I have someone special I'd like to go with. I don't know when I'll get out to see the film under those circumstances, and unless I get busy this weekend, I'll be dragged out (or at least guilted out) to the film.

I really hope I'm able to get out to see the film. I know that if my parents see it my father will try to be funny and ruin the whole damned thing. Naturally, he'll make fun of my bad attitude when I ask him politely to shut up. He gets like that when he's having a good time.

Here's hoping I can get out to the movies.

Moving Pains

Well, sorry for not being around, but I had a pretty strenuous weekend so I've been taking it easy.

On Saturday I went out to help a close friend move, and it was almost just one trial after another. Getting to sleep was far tougher than usual. I ended up getting an hour and a half just after midnight, then suddenly couldn't sleep for the next seven hours. I got up again an hour afterwards and was able to shower, shave and eat before heading out about noon.

May is weird. Everyone seems to be moving this month. Could just be a Spring thing.

Anyway, I didn't feel too useful, quite a circle of friends had been gathered for the moving effort, and I often felt like an extra body to shuttle back and forth instead of packed stuff. I'm also not a take-action kind of person, particularly when I'm in someone else's old apartment. I can take orders really well - unpacking a car, loading a car, cleaning a room - that's all fine. But I'll often just stand around when a job's done rather than jumping into a self-made task.

What really felt like a pain in the end was some of the helpers. There were a few that were just around the new apartment to help, so they were useful when they were needed. But everyone was really prone to smoke breaks. It really stretched out packing when cigarettes were handed out every 30 minutes. Also, a few of them - my friend included - had been moving stuff for a different move just yesterday. One among them in particular was in a far-too-usual foul mood, and an expected breakdown stalled the entire event by close to two hours.

Regardless, lots of things were moved and the new apartment looks like a comfy little space, though it needs work to be completely livable. When I finally got home 11 hours later, I felt sick to my stomach, I had a massive headache, my feet were trying to figure out if they wanted to be sore, swollen or bleeding and my legs were cramped up. I pretty much found something to eat while walking past my kitchen and ate before I sat down for more than five minutes. I pretty much crawled into bed and let my legs lock up - I wasn't planning to move for the rest of the night.

Today was more of the same, since strain is always worse the day after (though I suspect tomorrow might be bad). I took some advil for my pain and some other stuff for my still-crazy stomach, and pretty much relaxed the morning away (For some reason, when I'm sore and tired I get small amount of sleep, but when I'm fit and fine I'll oversleep forever).

The rest of my family came home this afternoon, and they're all doing well. My little brother attended Anime North, the biggest (good) convention around here which I couldn't attend due to a complete lack of funds (I spent the last of my money, pretty much change, on Saturday for a Sobe drink and a muffin during one of the long waits for a shipment of packed stuff). My parents returned from their own trip, fairly pleased with whatever went on. Even with the family around it only means that if I talk out loud it's not just to the cats. We weren't very ready to be a family again tonight, it seems.

So right now I'm just relaxing still. I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a nice cool day and I can... Well, do whatever it is I do.

Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann

I've decided to go ahead and try talking a little about an anime series I've been watching. This is a first attempt, so I'm just testing to see how smoothly it all goes. The pictures and descriptions are bound to contain spoilers, so bear with me. The screencaps also include timestamps from when it aired on TV, so I can't help them. Enjoy a look into one of the newer animes from Japan.

It's one of the big series I'm watching new this season, Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann has all the makings of a worthwhile series. Now this season is really overfilled with mecha animes, so having something stand out like Gurren-Lagann does is a nice touch to a season with other series I'm enjoying. Another one of Gainax's works, it has a fluid animation style I can best connect with Re: Cutey Honey. The style and design of the robots is quirky but top-notch, overall leaving you with a good visual experience.

The story starts with Kamina and Simon (or 'Shimon' as a lot of the forum-goers prefer), who live underground in a world where the surface isn't a place they go. Kamina, leader of his Gurren Brigade, looks to the ceiling and cries out for a means to go to the surface and see the sky. His prayers are luckily answered fast, as two visitors from the surface shake things up in their little village. One of them is Yoko, a human from the surface who fights the powerful Ganmen, giant robots (That are mostly giant heads with arms and legs) that are piloted by the evil Beastmen, who are out to destroy mankind.


The first meetings with Ganmen are quick and excellent battles. Simon's personal mini-mech Lagann is impossibly durable and carries a natural affinity to drills, much like Simon does with his work drilling underground. Once on the surface and better introduced to the interaction between Ganmen, Beastmen and humans, Kamina quickly attempts to earn his own mecha, one that he calls Gurren. The fact that humans can't use Ganmen and lost on him, and he quickly finds out the secret to piloting one.

The story continues and the battles continue to grow bigger and bigger as the opponents get more dangerous and the threats get higher. By episode three the title is better explained as Kamina forces the two human-run Ganmen into a single robot, one he dubs Gurren-Lagann!


The series gets really interesting around episode 4, but only behind the scenes. One of Japan's biggest message boards 2channel was getting pretty annoyed with some of the minor details of the series, but episode 4 really got them talking. The animation for 4 was completely different, it really has to be watched to be understood. It looked very similar to BECK, a style that fit well for that series but ultimately looked horrible in the bright colours and unrealistic forms of of Gurren-Lagann.

Well, to answer the concerns, Takai Akai, one of the men who was there before Gainax really existed, was quite rude and generally didn't hold much respect for the complainers. After the complaints for episode 4 arrived, the 2channelers found the original comments and made a huge scene out of it, leading to the producer's resignation. It was a pretty horrible scene, since it was basically a bunch of idiots from a website complaining, but he really should have known better than to sink to their level and throw insults. I mean, you tend to expect a little more from people in important positions, but they're human after all.

With that all cleared up and a Takai Akai removed from the credits for episode 5, the anime continued as before: Full of robot battles. Episodes 5, 6 and 7 were fine episodes, introducing new characters and more information. Personally, I really started to wonder where they were going to go from here.


Episode 8 stopped any train of thought faster than an anti-tank missile. I won't breath a word of what happened, but if you watch the series watch it up to episode 8. Wait, watch it up to episode 9. I haven't seen it yet but it will make or break the series at this point.



Overall, I find that Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann promises a wacky, Gainax-level anime. I've seen many of their series, both their original creations and works they just had a hand in. Even series that people barely know about. It's always interesting to see their work, particularly since they seem to love their company as much as other people do.

Check it out, you should know the usual channels to find it with.

That's all for today. I suppose next time I'll cover Lucky Star, depending on how I feel about this one later. Goodnight!

First Break

Wow, I've really been doing nothing lately, so it kind of hurts my mood to blog about stuff.

Well, Sunday I played more WoW and rested alongside my family. After that party we had to host, we were all too tired to do anything. The day ended only on a high note with the new Simpsons (400th Episode special) and the Family Guy and American Dad that followed. I swear, I never watch Fox except for the Sunday new animation block and the occasional show like House (That's on Fox, right?).

Oh, guess what? My Dad left about a dozen sausages from Saturday's part on the grill. Outside. All night. They looked a little shriveled and unhealthy, but they were quite edible and I've yet to have my stomach explode.

Monday was pretty dull as well. I played more WoW, including my last battlegrounds for the weekend, a 1 hour, 47 minute long heavy-defensive game where the opposing team basically locked out offensive attempts for an hour. To boot, I started the battle 30 minutes late, which is just my luck.

My Mom headed back north to visit my grandmother again, so us men were left to look after dinner. It turned out pretty well, Ribs with baked potatoes and some packaged broccoli with cheese for my Dad, while my little brother had leftover Salad from Saturday on top of it all. Apparently my Dad's dinner plans for the week also include another trip to Mandarin on Wednesday. <_< Fat chance I'm going there twice in a week's time.

If you don't get Discovery Canada or don't have access to it otherwise, you're missing out bigtime on Canada's Worst Handyman 2, the sequel to the reality-type show where a group of clueless handymen (and women) attend a rehabilitation center for their problems. I liked the first one a bit more, style-wise, but the series is worth watching every single week. It's not that I get an ego boost out of watching idiots do dumb stuff (If I did, I'd just watch Youtube or America's Funniest Home Videos or whatever Caught on Tape and crap like that), it's really interesting to watch people in a serious workplace and how they act and how it reflects on their work. I'd like to be on the program, not because I'm some horrible handyman, but because I'd really like to see if I could compare to the half-assed job they're all doing. The sister series to Worst Handyman is Canada's Worst Driver, a show of similar concept but with big dangerous cars flying around. It's going into its 3rd season, and my little brother says he'll sign me up (Since I don't drive, I'm therefore the worst person at it. Har har).

Today was another average day. I ended up skipping dinner since I had a lunch (This 'one meal a day' thing shouldn't be so habit-forming), though I'm not feeling hungry over 14 hours later, so I don't mind much. I found out that my weekend is going to be very, very boring. My entire family is out for one reason or another, and my plans to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End have fallen through just this afternoon. It means that from Friday morning to Sunday evening it's just me, the cats, and the interweb. Sounds nice and all, but when I'm trying to turn my life around just a bit a weekend where I won't be able to get out of the house or even see other people is more depressing than normal.

Oh, I had planned to do something big for Monday, maybe make it a weekly thing. I was going to write about a new Anime series I was enjoying. This week was Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, but after episode 08... I don't want to spoil it, but my will to cover the series was dashed to pieces. Maybe I'll have more to say when 09 comes out, or at least some sense of if Gurren-Lagann will be the most genius piece of anime work I've seen in ages, or a confusing muddled production Gainax did to keep themselves busy.

So until then, I'm going to just update when I feel like it, about what I feel like. Maybe I'll be able to put together something more regular to look forward too.

Oh so tired

We havd a bunch of guests over today. *Ugh* I feel almost exhausted from it. About a dozen or so kids, 17-18, came over for a kind of rest meeting.

Aside from a lot of attempts at Wii Sports, Guitar Hero 2, some spilled glow-stick liquid and food for 20, the afternoon was basically one big set-up and one big clean-up for me.

I'm just going to lay back, turn on some anime and probably get to sleep at a 'normal' time.

Goodnight everyone.

World of Warcraft: Warsong Gulch Weekend

For those of you who don't know, back around December a couple of friends pulled me into the World of Warcraft so that we'd be able to spend more time together and adventure and whatnot. Well, against all fears it hasn't consumed my soul, but I do find it an excellent distraction during the average day, and it's fun playing online with friends or going onto an alt (alternate character) and adventuring alone.

Well, 'WoW' has two sides to it, player versus player content - such as killing other people's characters, participating in wide-scale battles, etc - and player versus environment content - fighting monsters and beating dungeons. While I don't like world PvP, where level 70 (The maximum) characters kill on anyone lower than them they find (since they can't put up a fight), and people wait by your body for you to respawn after death so they can easily re-kill you (which some people have been known to do for hours), I do enjoy the controlled wide-scale 'Battlegrounds'.

The Battlegrounds are set into level brackets for fairness' sake, but in a 40-49 bracket you'd normally only find level 48-49 characters, as they have the most advantages as far as equipment and stats go. There are also different kinds, the two which are available right now to my level bracket are a resources collection battle (Arathi Basin, where you tag bases and gather resources based on how many you have) and a standard Capture the Flag game (Warsong Gulch). Warsong Gulch - or WSG - is my favorite of the two. This weekend, from Friday to Monday, they hand out additional 'Honour Points' for participating in WSG.

So, even though I'm level 45, I decided to try my hand at participating. Even just winning I earn about 100 honour points and 3 honour 'marks', both which are used as currency to trade for special rewards from WSG. I don't think myself too great or anything, but I was pretty happy after the first battle when this came up:

Even underleveled (and personally I think undergeared), I was still able to kick my way to the top of the charts (At least Horde-side).

I'll probably be playing more tomorrow and the following days until the weekend is over. Today's count was 10 wins, 1 loss and 2000 honour points. Something about 300+ kills probably as well (I reached over 1000 lifetime today.) I figure that by Sunday night, at this rate, I'll have more than enough for what I have my eye on. Monday will be me just being greedy.

Wish me luck! For the Horde!

All You Can Eat

So my little brother is up at some cottage on a lake probably drinking himself stupid (stupider?) while playing Guitar Hero 2. My mother is meanwhile north of here with family watching over my grandmother, who has taken a turn for the worse recently after surviving for two weeks after a different turn for the worse.

Now, my father isn't lazy. It's just that when he comes home my mom already has plans for steak, potatoes, salad and beets or something ready. So when he comes home to a house that's basically empty with me downstairs in my corner room, he only has one thing on his mind.

"Let's go out for dinner."

Well, he said this last night as well, but I was in no mood. He had sandwiches and complained about it. So tonight I decided to go out with him and we'd have a meal somewhere. We ended up deciding on the Mandarin, an all-you-can-eat Chinese-based restaurant.

Man, I'd really like to explore some of the research that goes into perfecting the all you can eat restaurant. Smaller plates mean more trips, less food outgoing at one time, and also a lowered chance for waste from full eaters. Smaller drink glasses means more (free) refills, more waiting, and more consumed (cheap) water. It'd be interesting to see where the psychology of the restaurant goes to work on the consumers. Or maybe I'm just over-thinking things.

I was almost immediately amazed by how welcoming everyone there was. Of course it's mostly an Asian (If not Chinese) staff, but they all turned to say hello when you arrived, and goodbye when you left. They knew where to be at the right time, and they were also constantly on the lookout for people to assist. I was really quite amazed by the amount of work the staff put into everything. There was a gentleman standing by the grill-table who would dish out the steak, chicken and sausage that they cooked there. He would happily load up your plate, thank you as you left, nod as you passed... I could never do something like that. If I had to see someone once every 15 minutes I might be able to handle it, but the idea of having a person pass by every 5 seconds and come looking for food every 30... It'd drive me insane.

I ate a lot, of course, as you should at such a restaurant, and though I was careful in my picks each of the three times I went up for the main course - other than the delicious grilled sausage - I don't think I ever had seconds of something. I should have saved more room for dessert as Lemon Meringue Pie, my personal favorite, was there in plentiful numbers. Instead of having more of it and more Jell-o squares - as there's always room for Jell-o - I decided to have some small cake and brownie slices instead.

I don't have to feel bad about eating a lot. I missed dinner last night due to, well, a lack of quick things to eat and I didn't eat today either. My lifestyle was meant for this kind of thing.

My father enjoyed his meal a lot as well, which was good, since he won't feel the need to go out there again for 6 months or so. He also went to bed pretty early, he was ready to sleep as soon as we came in the door! He always tends to feel a little down when my mother's away, so he bugs myself or my brother for some quality time. So I don't much mind getting 'hassled' with having a meal with him.

I'm probably going to lay down until my stomach stops complaining. It enjoyed the meal too anyway.

Interweb RPGs

So, as some of you may be aware, I've kept myself busy on the internet for, hmm, about the last two years with forum-based RPGs. It started a long time ago when I followed a link from a fansubber's forum onto a One Piece RPG, which unfortunately was awful. But from there I met a lot of people and played in a lot more games that has pretty much been left as a shattered trial of failed sites and wasted time.

Well, just recently another forum I was on succumbed to a lack of activity and was shut down, and with a very short list of viable games I've had to look to the future.

Over at the AMRN there have been plans made for a Cowboy Bebop game, and with a character concept and the whole series on hand, I'd say that I'm into the idea so far.

My IRC games may start anew as an Exalted game with Lunar characters moves from real-life in Windsor online due to the moving of the GM and one of the players, both close friends of mine.

I also recently created a rules system for - try not to laugh too hard - a Digimon based freeform RPG. I liked it, but everyone else just rolls their eyes.

So it was recently suggested to me by a close online friend (As well as fellow forum RPer) that I should create an original RP concept. So the first thing I did was find something to copy.

I know, I know, I'm awful. I don't tend to have completely original ideas ever, but I'm really good at adapting things and expanding on specifics, particularly when its based on something broad like a genre.

I ended up picking Magical Lyrical Nanoha, though my concentration will be on the world and style, not on the characters. I played on a forum RP directly based on the anime before, but it fell through mostly due to the style of the players. I'm hoping that, well, 'stealing' elements of the series will give me a quick and simple system for players to enjoy. Besides, most of the players I know of are used to Naruto, and if you just arm the characters and get rid of their Ninja stuff it'll be almost the same. The main difference? Not having to tell something they can't copy the Uchiha or use Rasengan.

I've only got a little bit worked out, and the only thing I ever have a problem with is making and designing the forum - every time I make a new site I have to relearn what the hell everything does. It'll be just another distraction for me at the computer, but at least I have something promising to work on.

I'll keep you updated.

Autumn 2007 @ UofT

So great news, everybody! I got my mark from my Introduction to the study of English literature and was able to uphold my passing average in the 80s! I'm going to the University of Toronto full time this fall!

I've spent a while going over the possible classes for the next semester, so I'll cover some of them here.

Introduction to Anthropology:
This course is pretty self explanatory in nature, but its purpose is a little more complex. While speaking to my professor, he suggested it over classes like Sociology or Psychology for the Social Sciences credit I require for a BA. There's only one class for it, so it's bound to be large, and it's an evening course at that, so it'll be interesting attending.

Introduction to East Asian Civilizations:
This is the requirement for an EAS Major or Minor, both of which are options I'm looking into, depending on my skill in the language course. It's another evening course, with multiple possible tutorials to apply for. I'll have to pick one based on my other courses.

Modern Standard Japanese I:
This is going to be the toughest course of all, from what I hear from students, because language courses are always difficult. I can luckily take this the same day I do Intro to East Asian Civilizations, but there are three tutorials a week taking place at varied hours, so it'll be important to pick from those. If I fail to learn Japanese, I'll switch my major in EAS to a minor and probably pick up a minor in Anthropology, so this is fairly important for further decisions.

Literature for Our Time:
Where my Intro to Lit covered plays, prose and poetry over the ages, this class concentrates mostly on 20th century writers. My professor originally suggested the course due to the professor in charge of it, but sadly that gentlemen isn't listed for the courses at all this semester. It's still the best class possible for what I'm looking to study, literature, so I'm taking it anyway.

The rest...:
Well, taking a Bachelor's Degree means that I need 1 Science Credit, 1 Humanities Credit and 1 Social Sciences credit. Since my area of study will be the Humanities, that's not a problem, and Anthropology will take care of my SS credit. The only thing left is a Science credit, but I know full well that I'm not a great science student. I wouldn't mind taking a course in Geology or Astronomy or whatever, but I doubt I could get into any of the courses due to my lack of high school credits in things like calculus, physics or really anything mathematical or scientific.

The answer is choosing a Science Seminar. They're like beginner's classes on a topic, so broad and simple that you'd be able to understand without being a student of that type. So there are courses for the Sciences like "Time", "Plants As We See Them", "Astronomy on the Frontier" and "Thinking About Planet Earth", to mention a few. All I can do really is pick one that doesn't sound awful, figure out where it goes on my schedule, and then pick up the credit. You see, you can only take one full credit in Seminars, and you're also only allowed to take them as a first-year student. So it's take it now or fight my way through a full course later.


There are two main problems with this schedule, you see. The first is that I'd have two classes on Monday, tutorials Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, a seminar on Tuesday (Likely), a class on Thursday, topped off with a final class on Friday. This would leave only my Wednesday evenings free, which will be tough to get used to. The second problem is that I'll be going from a single simple credit with 3 hours of class a week to 5 full credits with maybe 15 hours of class a week. When you count that I'll be taking a language course as well, that's a massive increase of workload. Add in that I'll be commuting to school 5 days a week now... It's a lot to take in. The Autumn is going to be a very tough time of year for me.

I really hope I'm up to it, because I want zero failures, no excuses. Well, that's it for now. I don't even sign up for classes for a couple of months and I'm not attending until September, so I've got a lot of free time I'm trying to fill in with work in the meantime.

All about Docu-Games

For those of you who are into video games, game legislation, censorship, politics or want to keep up with the insanity of Jack Thompson, I'd suggest heading over to GamePolitics if you don't already.

I'm not sure how many of you heard about 'Super Columbine Massacre RPG', a documentary-style look at the Columbine school shootings realised into a 16-bit downloadable game, but I'd suggest not getting outraged if it's only the first time. Released in 2006, it caused a lot of complaints from people who felt it was a complete betrayal of all of the suffering of the shooting, and still gets used as a case against actual videogame developers, even though it was made by a single man on the internet. I've never played the game, but descriptions of it is that it is quite fair to the incident, based on real events the occured during the shooting, is extremely hard and does not at any time make light of the incident.

SCMRPG is still brought up today due to it's controversial subject matter, and often raised as a first piece of 'game art', where touchy subjects can be explored. People even compare it to film documentaries such as Bowling for Columbine, though it can't be claimed to be as professionally done or anything of the kind.

Well, GamePolitics has a lot to say about SCMRPG and the aftermath of it, including when it was forced out of a game competition due to the controversy around it. They've also covered more games from the internet that have caused more controvery, such as a cheap flashgame about patrolling the American-Mexican border that was decidedly racist. So I didn't really bat an eye when they made mention of a new game that a flash artist had put together was released, titled 'V-Tech Rampage', the topic which should be quickly obvious.

Like I said I didn't care too much for it, since it seemed like another cheap grab at people's attention by releasing something just for the controversy. Obviously people would compare it to SCMRPG due to its nature, but at the same time it was cheapened by the creator's attitude, the low quality of the work and the stunt he pulled just recently - demanding money to remove his game.

Now he claims it's a joke, but people don't have a great sense of humour after you make a cheap flash game about a mass-murdering. So instead of his game being treated as the usual controversy-creation games, he had to turn it into a big story about what a dick the guy has to be. Really, I've met a lot of people who like to create friction in order to get some attention - hell, I've played the devil's advocate more than once in High School to keep students from nodding their heads for 70 minutes - but you really have to wonder what goes through people's minds when they produce some of these games. It probably comes down to getting famous for something, even if its stupid, and getting all those links, diggs and page hits from the frothing public.

I don't want to get into the whole issue of the web-going gaming public constantly sabotaging the mature, aging gamer population in the eyes of the politicians and news circles who are always looking for easy targets for scaring viewers, I'll have to save that for later. Until then, I just want to say that the V-Tech game sucked. It was slow, I was bored, and I hope the creator of it grows up a bit and doesn't try to revel in his controversy like a pig.

Regardless, I'd suggest reading GamePolitics for updates on news stories like this and related topics with video games. Sometimes the legal scene really heats up but you wouldn't know it without a dedicated source.

Stargate Fanfiction

It figures that the first post I'd decide to make on a blog with a Sci-Fi name would be about a Sci-Fi movie. Don't get used to it.

For those of you who haven't seen it, Stargate is a pretty average Sci-Fi film about a, well, Star Gate. The American military sends a small team plus one Egyptologist with some wacky theories into this gate to another world - where it ends up Egypt's gods were aliens and the people are still around, just somewhere else. Seeing that it was made back in 1994, which is when I first saw it, it's pretty interesting to see just how much more cartoony films are today with their overuse of CGI for everything from crowds to buildings to characters (I'm looking at you, Star Wars Prequels).

Stargate has always stood out to me as a good sub-genre of science fiction - where technology is not only alien but historical in nature. I mean if you look at something like The Fifth Element where it's another ancient but alien threat, I get similar vibes, even if the film is completely different in a number of ways. There's just something about visiting some locale on Earth and discovering 'Hey, we just solved an unknown mystery and it's going to unlock the secrets of these aliens'. (I'm also reminded of when Optimus Primal in Beast Wars came across Stonehenge, but that show has a lot more connections going for it.)

One of the reasons that I really find Stargate an interesting two hours of film to watch is probably because of the hundreds of hours I've spent watching Stargate SG-1, a TV series based on the film that's been going since 1997 and should be coming to a close soon, even though it's already created another spin-off. Now a lot of you wouldn't have read any of the fanfiction I've put together, but you can at least understand from various RPs I've participated on: I love writing additional materials based on the premise of other universes. SG-1 is basically that, fanfiction for Stargate that they just happened to get approved and filmed and whatnot. I love the show, so calling it fanfiction almost feels like an insult, but they're really how I've gotta look at it. I also don't know how much the original writers of Stargate did on the series, but with 10 years of episodes I doubt they were there penning every last one.

It's funny that Stargate has always been one of those movies I've been meaning to rewatch, but never get around to. If you've watched even a dozen episodes of SG-1, I'd really suggest going and rewatching the original movie to see where they started and how the plot was ballooned by professional fanfiction writers.

The Dyson Sphere

Welcome, finally, to The Dyson Sphere.

It's pretty silly now, thinking that just over a week ago I decided that a good way to improve my lifestyle was to have fresh locale for my blogging and whatnot. Yet I did it anyway, and frankly it wasn't easy coming up with a name. 'The Dyson Sphere' was just one of many suggestions in the end, but it was one that really jumped out at me.

I should probably start by how it's fitting at all. I've been on the interwebs for a while, and when you start on IRC like I did you get attached to a handle pretty fast. 'Dyson', which has become as commonly used for me as my own name, was picked out at random from two locations. First, it was stolen from the name of a family friend, second, it was close to the name 'Dysan', which was sitting on a diskette box on the desk. It's a name that sounds more respectable than 'NinjahunterX334' and it's quick and easy to say or write, so I've stuck with it almost everywhere (Except at UNSpacy, a Macross-based RPG - Macross Plus having an 'Isamu Dyson' in its cast).

A Dyson Sphere now, is a little more complex. The basic idea is creating a massive sphere around the sun, and using solar panels to collect all the energy at once. It's a big Sci-Fi thing and I know they had it on Star Trek: TNG once (The episode where Scotty returned). That's what you could think of this blog as. It's going to try to collect everything I think up all at once.

Isn't that fitting? I've come up with more bad excuses for the name, but it doesn't matter because I like it and it's already made.

Hopefully I'll remember to update here more often, and I'll try to put together something interesting for people to read about. I think that of all things, this first week is going to be the toughest for making this site what I want it to be. Wish me luck and stick around!