Happy Samhain!

Even considering the fact that I had a Halloween get-together on Saturday, it just seems like Halloween sneaked up on me this year. For some reason this year I don't feel like I've "captured the magic" of the holiday, so to speak. I feel weird making a Halloween post at 10:00 PM the night of, almost as if it's too late to be talking about it. But then that's silly; it's still Halloween for another two hours, and Halloween night lasts until 6:00 AM. There's still plenty of time to get my Halloween on.

There's even more time when you consider the sheer volume of Halloween-ish holidays centered around Halloween proper, to say nothing of the fact that the holiday it all sprang up around --- Samhain --- technically lasts from sunset today to sunset November 2nd. Actually, the number of holidays in general is something that kind of suprises me. From what I could find:

Samhain (Druidism/Paganism): Oct 31 - Nov 2
Halloween (Modern Secular): Oct 31
Chanté Messes (Vodoo): Oct 31

All Saints Day (Christianity): Nov 1
El Dia Del Muerte, Children (Mexico): Nov 1

Diwali/Festival of Lights (Hinduism): Nov 1
All Souls Day (Christianity): Nov 2
El Dia Del Muerte, Adults (Mexico): Nov 2
Bunka no Hi / Culture Day (Japan): Nov 3
Bandi Chhor Divas (Sikhism): Nov 4
Guy Fawkes Day (United Kingdom): Nov 5
Confucious' Birthday (Confucionism): Nov 6

So, as you can see, I have plenty of time left to celebrate....something.


As for the get-together Saturday, I think it went alright enough. It was mainly me and my friends getting together and role-playing for the night (Ravenloft seemed appropriate for the night, although I used the sequel to make sure none of the players were familiar with it ahead of time). People showed up in costume, although most seemed to agree mine was the best (I dressed up as a character of mine in another RPG we play, a sort of alcoholic Old West-style preacher). We had candy available as, again, it seemed only appropriate.

Anyways, I'm going to see if I can't make this Halloween night more Halloweeny. Happy Halloween everyone!

Absolutely Ridiculous

I have absolutely no excuses to offer. The only thing I can say in my defense is that I was testing out the Audioblogger feature, and I didn't want it to be bland.

(***don't scroll until you listen***)

Well...THAT Made My Day

So just now a random Asian guy hit on me at the bus stop.

Just, out of nowhere. Kind of cute, too. He got onto another bus before mine, tried to get me to come along or something(!). It kind of caught me off guard because (a) you wouldn't expect that sort of thing in so public a location, and (b) I'm not used to being hit on, at all (and usually don't recognize it when it's happening). I declined because, you know, I'm in a relationship, and I was tired from the day, and all that. I might've been a little terse, but that was only because the bus was leaving soon.

Nonetheless, this is the first time I have ever been 100% sure that someone was hitting on me.

And damn did that feel good.

Film Rant: Immortal

*WARNING: SPOILERS*

W. T. F.

This film has to be, without a doubt, the single most f&$%ed up film I have ever seen. Don't get me wrong. It's a good film...I think. But man, if you're looking for a film that you can watch casually, is this ever not it.

The plot --- as near as I can gather --- is that in 2095 a floating pyramid appears above New York City, which is the home to a bunch of Egyptian gods. They're there to test the god Horus because of "his rebellious nature" or something. As far as I can tell this "test" consists of beginning a new line of humans with divine ancestry --- i.e., get a woman pregnant. If he fails to get this accomplished within one week, he loses his immortality (hence the title, I guess). The woman for the job turns out to be a "mutant" individual named Jill, who has white skin, blue hair, blue tears, and blue...*er...let's just say she has a topless scene. This woman has her own set of problems, namely "becoming human," at the prompting of both the doctor researching her and what is apparently another extradimensional being, "John." Finally, we have an "accidentally" escaped convict (Nikopol --- and he actually has a good excuse), whom Horus picks as the vector for the "divine seed." There's also a bunch of side-story with some politicians and corporate heads that don't really come to anything (unless the point was to show the pointlessness of their actions? I don't know).

One of the things that has me liking this film regardless of it's "WTF" nature is the number of unrelated elements they jam into it. You have a transhuman New York City, filled with wildly divergent "mutants" and natural human "rebels." Add what was apparently an extraterrestrial invasion about a decade prior to the film, by a race called the Dahak. Add *John to the mix, whose origins (or, indeed, mere presence) are never explained outright, and the fact that he's responsible for turning Central Park into some sort of extradimensional gateway called Intrusion. Finally, give the finger to suspension of disbelief altogether and throw in a floating pyramid and the gods of Egypt. Facetious tone aside, I love this kind of thing.

There is also, however, a distinct element of rape at one point that kind of threw me out of the film for a while during my first viewing. I watched it again with my roommate because she had wanted to see the film too; it was a little less disturbing then, and my roommate seemed fine with it, so...*shrugs* I guess I can see what it does for the film. Still a little unconfortable.

One thing it does do, though, and this is another thing I liked about the film, is that it helps properly convey that Horus is untouchable. Throughout the entire film, Horus is never harmed, and never held accountable for anything he does. At one point Nikopol is even treating him as a punching bag, and Horus tells him that it's good to let out his anger that way, "even if I can't feel it." It's a small thing, but if a film is depicting something it labels a deity, it's nice if that deity actually seems invulnerable.

The one element that had me the most confused while watching the film, and for most of the day afterwards, was the way they used CGI characters. About half the cast is represented by almost-decent CGI, and nearly all of these cast members could just as easily been represented by someone in face makeup and/or prosthesis. In fact, about half of them could've been represented with no face makeup or prosthesis whatsoever. This baffled me. Early in my first viewing I figured it must be for budgetary reasons, only being able to afford half a cast or something. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this couldn't be it. Voice actors couldn't be that much cheaper than live actors, especially when you'd have to do the CGI anyways, and especially when you'd have to integrate that CGI with live footage for half the characters' appearances. As if to drive it all home, they even used live-action extras in one or two scenes, which is not the sort of thing I'd expect from a film resorting to CGI due to budgetary *concerns.

The only explaination I can come up with --- and it's a really cool reason if it's true --- is that it was an artistic choice. Everyone represented with CGI in the film was "unnatural" in some way. All the humans represented with CGI were either "mutants" as the film defined them, or had been "improved" through cosmetic biological engineering. This produces an interesting effect, as the CGI characters just look wrong when you look at them, especially in direct comparison to live actors. They had me fooled exactly once at the beginning of the film, because I wasn't expecting CGI cast members. Even then, within a few seconds of seeing the person my mind pegged him as "wrong" in relation to the picture; the next close-up confirmed that I wasn't looking at a real actor. If the purpose of the makers of this film had been to use the CGI to show the altered humans --- regardless of how unaltered they looked on the outside --- as "unnatural" in a visual way, then I applaud them both for an ingenious concept and a job well executed.

This doesn't just apply to the humans, either. The gods had to be represented with CGI for obvious reasons, but they, too, would fit the "CGI = unnatural" paradigm. The Dahak shown towards the end of the film, again, had to be represented with CGI, but also fits with "which of these things doesn't belong." They actually took that one step further earlier than that with a human-Dahak hybrid, for which they used a guy in a rubbery suit, and which looked FAKE AS HELL. But it fits, because they even call it a "fake Dahak" in the film, and looks just as unnatural in comparison to the real Dahak as the CGI humans look in comparison to the live actors. The one "unnatural" person in the entire film who isn't represented via CGI is Jill, which given this paradigm and the fact that her origins are never clear makes one wonder just how "unnatural" she really is.

I'm Not Coloring The Pumpkins Anymore

It takes too long to take the little happy pumpkins into Photoshop and color them every time I want to put them in a post (like I've been itching to do). So from now on I'll just remove any blue lines that might show up and post them as "black and white" pictures.

...On an unrelated note, there'll be posts with actual substance to them a little later today.

Point of Ethics

I found out something interesting about myself yesterday. As I mentioned, the fudge incident was essentially the straw that broke the weekend's back. I was *ticked off yesterday morning, to put it nicely. You ever had one of those days where you just feel like throttling the closest thing to you? That was my morning yesterday. It was kind of one of those weekends.

And just as I am contemplating how dark of a mood I'm in, I get distracted by someone behind me saying "oh, thank you." It is at this point that I realise that I have, instinctively, held the door open for the person a few seconds behind me. I'm not saying I held the door open for someone who was entering directly behind me; this was a gap of time that no one would've faulted me for if I had just kept walking. I do this often, as a gesture of courtesy. And I had just done it, at a moment when my thoughts were running towards *ripping the planet apart in frustration.

It's caused me to start thinking on certain things. Specifically, is it a good thing that I have a capacity for "good deeds" that is automatic, instinctual even? Would it be better if I was consciously choosing to do good things, rather than relegating them to a conditional reflex? Or is the fact that it's grown to a reflex itself show that I've shown a consistent and conscious desire to do good?

Dangit. You see what happens when you throw your roommate's fudge away? ;P

Dammit

My roommate threw out my second piece of fudge. I still had two half-pound bricks of fudge from when I worked Geauga Lake this summer, and she threw the second piece away yesterday, without telling me. Of course that' trash is gone now, so I can't even try to recover it.

That was the really good piece, too. Cherry vanilla. The piece I intentionally didn't eat first because I wanted to save it for last. And now it's gone, because my roommate carries the idea that amusement park fudge goes bad after a month in the fridge.

I worked the fudge shop multiple times this summer. There were pieces that had been sitting out in the open air for weeks in the middle of summer and we were still selling them. And I have never heard one complaint, or one instance of someone getting food poisoning from the fudge. This fudge was from pretty much the last batch made before I left, and have been in the fridge for most of that time. That fudge was perfectly fine. She threw a perfectly fine half-pound piece of my fudge in the trash because she felt it had been in there "long enough."

Normally I wouldn't talk about problems I'm having with people "behind their back" like this, as it were, because I hate it when people talk to me about other people. Normally, too, I wouldn't get this worked up over something so seemingly trivial. But, dammit, this is about the tenth thing that's gone wrong for me in the past few days, and I'm getting real tired of not letting it get to me.

Even More Tinkerings, And Some Announcements

(EDITOR'S NOTE: On second thought, let's stick with this shade for now.)

Well, as you can see, I've been busy prettying up the sidebar and such. I got bored during Astronomy class and started doodling these little happy jack-o-lanterns on a spare sheet of paper. That paper is now covered in these little guys, and most of them are all costumed up in one way or another. Rather than let them go to waste, I've decided to give them a home in the blog to keep all the text company. While I was at it, I went ahead and came up with some other images to fill in space, which will be forthcoming. The result is that I may have gone a little overboard, and I have concerns over the future picture allotment I'll have available. But, eh, whatever; I've got a bunch of smiling happy pumpkins on my blog now, so it's all good.

I'll also take this opportunity to say that I'll be holding off on the megaposts from here on out, as they're causing problems when I go to do the topic archives. It may mean multiple posts in the same day, but I'll try to at least stagger them so they're not uploaded one right after another.

Tinkering With Blog Options Again

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I believe I like this shade of orange better.)

A sample of text from early in the fiction blog I've started reading:

After some weeks in the forest, Heinrich and I are at last approaching the clockwork labyrinth. It’s possible that this wasn't the best way to approach, as we are nearly a month’s journey from the nearest village where one can purchase supplies, but the other rumored entrances included one in a swamp some thousand miles to the south, which would have required boats, and one in the mirage-shrouded Pfong Desert, which would require camels. Heinrich does not like camels. He does not much like our mule, Mirabelle, either, but Mirabelle makes up for this by not much liking Heinrich. ("From the Journal of Eland the Younger")

I generally tend to love the work of Ursula Vernon (the author), and it doesn't look like this will disappoint.

The Bus Schedule Lied To Me

"Express Service Schedule 8:00 am - 10:15 am every 15 minutes" my eye! More like "Express Shuttle comes around 15 minutes past the hour, then waits around another 15 minutes to pick up the 9:30 crowd while they're at it!"

On a similar note of things that have gone wrong today, I somehow missed the fact that I had an Astronomy 162 midterm today.

I mean, it's Astronomy 162, which means it's literally only a slight step past "this is the solar system, and we have nine planets...", but even so, it was a little tense there.


On an interesting side note, though, that nine planets thing is now just a tad outdated.

Gamer Blog Genre Analysis, Part 3

Part 3: True Identity

or

Will The Real Blog Please Stand Up

Now comes an important question that until now has been somewhat glossed over. In the introduction of this analysis, I hinted that the definition of "blog" may not be entirely appropriate for a few of the websites I have studied. Here I take a critical look and attempt to answer the question: "Are these really blogs?"

As I've mentioned, Scott Kurtz (creator of PvP) regularly reffers to his "rant" section as a "blog" (note the use of the words "Old Blog Entries" to refference the archives for his rant). As a result, his "blog" is just that if we accept self-identifying terms as indicative of what a blog is and isn't. Unfortunately, I have also mentioned the great similarities between his rant section and that found at Penny-Arcade, and that in the past that site has shown they do not share this self-identification; their comments on blog micropayments identified themselves as a separate entity in their view. Thus, the self-identification factor cannot be considered 100% accurate.

Another factor to consider is that neither site has a function considered basic to the form of the blog: The ability of others to leave comments on a post. Even this, however, can be considered a false statement when one considers the fact that both sites have message boards wherein others may potentially leave comments on the most current post (the "Community" button at PvP, the "Forums" tab at Penny-Arcade).

Perhaps most telling, however, is how the rest of the blogging community feel. Two separate searches in Google's Blog Search tool reveal that Penny-Arcade is here considered a blog, while PvP, though a popular topic of other blogs, is not. Another site, Blogshares, seems to embody the same opinion. Again, however, their inherent similarities cannot be discounted, and this method cannot be treated as a final determination.

It is thus the proposal of the author that all methods be taken into account, in part. Thus, while they certainly qualify as blogs on some level, they cannot be considered quite the same as the more "traditional" blogs such as game girl advance.

Gamer Blog Genre Analysis, Part 2

Part 2: Multiple Authorship

or

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

On a note somewhat different and yet somewhat related to the previous theme of reliance on other people, is the gamer blog with multiple posters. I'm not here reffering to the comments a person may leave on one's blog, although this can also contribute to the topic. I'm reffering to a blog in which there are multiple authors. This doesn't crop up in PvP, but I've noted it in both Penny-Arcade and game girl advance, and it seems to somewhat set the gamer blog apart from other subgenres.

Penny-Arcade, for one, has regular posts by both the creators of the webcomic. Much of the time, the first (and largest) post of any given day is made by the strip's writer, with the artist contributing smaller posts later on. Oftentimes the artist does not contribute to the blog at all, while at other times the two will have conversations with each other within the blog. Very occasionally the artist will make the first post, usually when the writer is unavailable for some reason. In the past, the two have even allowed others to post to their blog, although this hasn't been true for some years now.

game girl advance also makes use of multiple authors. In fact, the original author herself, jane, has not posted to the site since June of this year (although she has contributed to other sites; note the article is on an event put on by the creators of Penny-Arcade, a coincidence I'm not sure how to classify) The majority of recent posts on this site have been by ClockworkGrue and matt. A look at the "masthead" portion of the site shows at least eleven people involved in the site's production --- in addition, it seems, to matt.

So what does the presence of multiple authors do for a gamer blog --- or indeed, for a blog in general? Well, not much by itself, but it does point out one aspect of the blog that sets it apart from other forms of media: Multiple perspectives. Where other blogs are concerned, this doesn't mean much, as one can just as easily achieve the same effect by sampling a wide variety of blogs, some of which may even be linked to by the blogger. PvP and Penny-Arcade, for example, have been directly addressing each other on their blogs within the past few months. One can also see multiple perspectives in a blog's comments section. The fact that these are common in blogging helps show how the weblog is distinct from more traditional forms of media.

On to Part 3.

I'm Not In The Closet, I'm Just Antisocial

Today is National Coming Out Day! In honor of this, and to clear up any confusion that may have arisen already, I'll state that I myself am bisexual. Oh noes, now my secret's out!

Have a good day everyone, and to all you straight people out there...don't be intolerant!

Gamer Blog Genre Analysis, Introduction and Part 1

Introduction

For my genre analysis I have chosen the "subgenre" of the gamer blog, that is, blogs related to or revolving around the hobby of playing electronic video games. All three of the blogs were chosen not only for their relevance to the gaming hobby, but also because they have at times served as more personal blogs for the authors; these three blogs are game girl advance, PvP, and Penny-Arcade. The last two choices may seem unusual to anyone familiar with them as they are primarily seen as webcomics. This is generally considered to be a separate phenomenon on the Internet, and indeed the creators of Penny-Arcade seem to share this view. However, the author of PvP, Scott Kurtz, identifies the "rant" aspect of his website as a blog, and the Penny-Arcade rants embody many of the same aspects as Kurtz's; hence, even if these are ultimately found not to be truly representative of the blog medium, they bear looking in to. I have been following these three blogs for the past three weeks, but I have also browsed through their archives, so some refferences in this analysis may be more recent than others.

A final note: I conform to the convention on the Internet of reffering in text to other sites by how they reffer to themselves, regardless of percieved errors in syntax, grammar, etc. Thus, PvP will be reffered to with the ends capitalized, and game girl advance will remain uncapitalized throughout the text.

Part 1: Dependence and Uniqueness

or

Giving It That Personal Touch

In this first installment, I'd like to focus on the nature of the average gamer blog's relationship with other gaming websites on the Internet, be they other blogs, news sites, company sites, or what have you. All three of these blogs, to some extent or another, deal with news in the video game industry. This can range from news on the development or release of video games themselves, to other events in the gaming industry, to "current events" related to video gaming. However, like a good number of other "news blogs" in general, gamer blogs are rarely the initial source of the news itself (though, with these three at least, there have been exceptions in the past). This has the effect of making the blog redundant in terms of mere delivery of news to the audience, as readers can just as easily access the relevant sites. What, then, makes it worth the reader's time to visit these blogs?

It may be that blogs tend to have a more personal, informal feel to it than a news site. Most of the time a blogger will share his opinion of the news he is presenting. This can often be much less formal than one would expect even of relatively informal news sites:

"There's an option [in the game] that you can vote in to make everyone auto-ready after a short interval, which really argues for itself in my opinion. Waiting for Bra$$Munky to set down his bong has never been - to me, now - a good time investment." --- Jerry Holkins, a.k.a. "Tycho Brahe"

Another thing to consider is a blogger's reactions to the games they actually play. Less constrained than a formal game review one might find at other sites, these can be as short or as long as a blogger feels, on any aspect they feel like commenting on. For games that see continual play by the blogger, these reactions can also extend for much longer. Note the number of refferences to the game World of Warcraft in the PvP blog archives for this past August.

On to Part 2

Tinkering With Image Options

Just a quick update, I've beeen learning how to play around with images in Blogger. This little guy is from my Elfwood page. The image links to the larger image on that site. Ironically, I think he might actually look a little better reduced to this size, as it "cleans up" the image a bit.

There's been a lot of irony today, hasn't there?

Oh well. Mayhaps this will be become a regular thing. Who knows. At this point I'm just writing to prevent dead space at the bottom of the post here. ;P I'm an artist, after all.

Black Black Has Betrayed Me

I think the time noted for when I posted my last post last night and the time noted for the post I'm making now say it all.

Ironically I'm going to be using the last two sticks today to make sure I stay awake through both my classes.

Let this be a lesson: Don't play with caffienated candy the night before you have a 9:30 class.

Whoa, Since When Have I Had This Blog?

Seriously, though, very busy week; I'll try to avoid such things in the future. To make up for it, I'll be tinkering with the sidebar a little immediately after this post.

EDIT (10/10, 4:20 AM): First tinkerings finished! Check out the new topic archives in the sidebar!

Adventures With Alcohol, Part 1: The Hangover!

So a week ago I mentioned that I finally bought alcohol, in the form of Mike's Hard Lemonade. I hadn't had a chance to try any that weekend, and feeling uncomfortable about drinking on a weekday led to me waiting until last night (Saturday) to try some. I had one bottle, at approximately 3:00 AM, while surfing the Internet, figuring if it put me to sleep it wouldn't be much of a waste on time. I have to say, it didn't taste all that bad. Still getting used to the taste of alcohol, and I don't think I was awake long enough to get a proper "buzz" out of it or whatever, but all in all not bad at all.

This is, of course, until I woke up at noon the next day with the Hangover from Hell.
Boy was that ever fun. I tell you, there's nothing like waking up with half the day gone to the tune of your brain trying to judo it's way out of your skull after only one freaking bottle of hard lemonade. To say nothing of the humor others found in the situation. Or the fact that this didn't stop my roommates from vaccuuming the apartment. Even worse, this "hangover" managed to persist in some form or another throughout most of the day; I had to take Tylenol twice and lie down at least three times in between driving people places.

It wasn't until later in the day that I realized the good news: The headache wasn't caused because I'm an unbelievable lightweight with alcohol.

It's just because I'm physically ill.

It's not even one of those illnesses you can really put your finger on. In fact, aside from the headache I haven't really experienced any signs of being sick --- except for the touch test. When I've touched something cold today, it's cold. Cold enough to realize just how warm my body is in comparison --- and to realize that that warmth is greater than it should be. Hopefully, this won't last too long (or get much worse). As far as my opinion on drinking goes --- well, there's still five bottles of Mike's Hard left. Perhaps we'll see next weekend.

On Top Of That, I Didn't See Serenity Again Today

After I got my hopes up and all. Apparently it fell through because people who don't just drink for pretend got legitimate hangovers, along with other general alcohol-related incapacitations. This is another reason I don't drink, by the way; I hate waking up as it is, I don't need any further encouragement along those lines.

Abridged Film Rant: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla

Odd bit of trivia: There are three series of films within the overall series of Godzilla films. The first series, or Showa-era (named because they were all filmed during the Showa-period of Japanese history) had one continuity stemming from the first Godzilla film in the 1950's, and is the one most Americans are familiar with. The second, or Heisei-era series, started an alternate continuity with Godzilla 1985 (though still based off the original 1954 film); the third, or "Millenium" series (all within this century), have each had their own continuities branching off the original film (with the exception of this film's sequel, Godzilla: Tokyo SOS). The reason I mention this is because the title Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (or the slight variant of that in the title to this film) is the only one that has appeared in all three series.

Anyways, despite that opening salvo don't really have that much to rant about with this film. It was enjoyable, to be sure, but little was really rantworthy about it. Oh, except for the fact that the Mechagodzilla that appears in this film was built as a shell around the recovered skeleton of the original Godzilla killed in 1954 (apparently this film's Godzilla was a different one), and used DNA from the bone marrow to make a DNA computer system for the robot to run on. This effectively makes Mechagodzilla (or Kiryu, as he's called in this one) a sort of giant undead cyborg. I love Japan.

Speaking of loving Japan, I just have to close with saying that I could eat Yumiko Shaku (Akane in the film) with a spoon.

This One's Not About Food Or Movies

So I finally got the rest of my posters hung up today. I had a bunch of posters at the beginning of the quarter that I'd had for a while, but for most of them I'd never been able to hang them because dormmates had always managed to get to the prime poster spots on the walls first. I got lucky with two of them my freshman year, but that was it. So naturally when I started this year with my own bedroom and a surrounding apartment full of blank walls, I went overboard. I actually bought more posters to go with the ones I already had, which had two interesting results. One was that now I didn't have room for them all in my room, so the largest of them all became general apartment decor. The second result was that the amount of sticky-pads I had bought to hang my posters was now too little to hang everything with. Well, today I finally got more sticky-pads and hung my remaining posters, so I've decided to rant on my eclectic taste in wall decoration. Be warned, gentle reader: my taste in posters is far more random than my taste in beverages.

The two posters from freshman year are one of a red dragon in the night sky over a burning port village, and a surrealistic poster of...something. It looks sort of like a waterfall draining into a black hole inside a cathedral, or something. These are now flanking my window. Nearby is the poster my boyfriend got me for Christmas two years ago that I can finally admire on a wall. It's a poster of all five chromatic dragon species from Dungeons & Dragons, along with the five metallic dragon species.

Next we have the movie posters I got from one of the 24-Hour Ohio Sci-Fi Marathons, one for X-Men 2 and one for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I was a little reticent to put up the League poster after the film turned out only so-so, but whatever. In a similar vein is the poster of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings on the inside of my door, accompanied on the other side by a promotional poster for the anime FLCL and a small (8"x11") poster of an M.C. Escher painting.

Okay, now for the really random ones. Way above my desk is a small poster of some random anime character from a series I don't even recognize, a birthday present from my sister one year. To the side of my desk is another 8"x11" poster, this one of that one man drawn by Leonardo da Vinci. Of similar size is the poster of The Wave above my desk (considered by some to be the Japanese equivelant of the Mona Lisa). Hanging next to that is a poster I bought while attending Body Worlds 2, featuring two halves of a man riding astride a skinless horse with a random planet hanging in the background. Nearby, appropriately adorning my closet door, is the poster "Kiss" that will be familiar to many people who have walked down High Street within the last few years.

Only two posters couldn't find a place in my room (aside from the two on the outside of my door). One is a large poster of the Earth at night, compiled from satellite images and showing quite strikingly just where all the major modern cities are on the planet; this is currently hanging over our dining room table. The other is a huge map of Middle-Earth done in Tolkien's original style that's been over our couch from day one, and has garnered many a compliment.

>Finally, Black Black Is An Awesome Gum

I think that says it all right there.

Three Foreign Film Rants

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's orange for the rest of October.

Film Rant 1: Santo: Contra La Hija de Frankestein
Language: Spanish
Nation: Mexico

For those who don't know, there was an entire genre of Mexican film in the late 1950's-1970's of "luchador films," which consisted of luchadores (Mexican wrestlers) in starring roles, protecting the innocent in their off-time by fighting crime, thwarting sci-fi villians, and wrestling monsters. No, I'm not making this up. I love Mexico. Anyways, one wrestler in particular kick-started the genre with three films in the late 50's (which also have the added distinction that their filming wrapped up mere days before Castro took power), and he ended up being (arguably) the most popular luchador from that period. That wrestler was El Santo ("The Saint"), and he made somewhere around sixty films throughout his career.

In this film in particular, "Santo vs. The Daughter of Frankestein," Santo fights the woman of the title, who despite her age is still kicking around doing evil thanks to a temporary (and painful) youth-restoring serum she invented (and that it's implied has blood as a primary ingredient). Along with her gang of old-men-restored-to-youth minions. Plus a monster she made from body parts because, hey, she's the daughter of "Frankestein." ...And a man who was mutated by replacing his blood with that of an ape...somehow...for some reason.

Like The Valley of Gwangi, this film had a number of elements that when thrown together really make for an interesting whole. Aside from the mexican wrestling twist and the gleefully hodge-podge of a premise, the music was an interesting mix, evoking gothing horror, 70's horror, and 70's sci-fi all within a minute of each other. The upside is that if I wasn't turned on to the luchador genre before, I certainly am now. The downside, of course, is figuring out where the heck I'm going to find even one other luchador film in Columbus, OH.

Film Rant 2: Kaena: The Prophecy
Language: English Dub
Nation: France

I'm glad I finally got to see this film. I've known of it's existence since at least the turn of the century, when it was still in development. This, coupled with the fact that I could actually recognize the names of some of the English voice actors (Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris) lead to my caving in and watching the English version, rather than the original French in English subtitles. It's not a decision I regret.

Kaena is France's first CGI film (and Europe's first, I think), and I enjoyed it despite the plethora of bad reviews it's garnered across the Internet. Some of this, however, I attribute to the common problem among reviewers, both professional and amateur, to judge certain foreign films according to inappropriate standards. True, complaints about certain plot elements (or lack thereof) are probably justified, but whenever I see a reviewer gripe about SFX standards or "confusing endings" in a foreign film, I take it with a grain of salt. As I mentioned, this is the first CGI film to come out of France, and given that the animation is just fine. Some have complained about a "raw" or "substandard" feel to it, but I think this was deliberate on the part of the animators. It's a good combination of near-realistic CGI and certain stylistic choices, and personally I enjoyed the juxtaposition it created. As for the whole "the ending doesn't make sense!" complaint...these people need to watch more anime. After watching Akira, Neon Genesis Evangelion, RahXephon, Casshern, and any number of other anime films, I can tell you that when American films have endings that make sense, they're invoking a privelage, not a right.

Film Rant 3: Godzilla vs. Hedorah
Language: Japanese
Nation: Japan

This flim was from the original Godzilla era of films, and Hedorah is considered by many to be Godzilla's most powerful enemy from that era. Normally I'd watch Showa-era Godzilla films with the English dubs, since most of those are ludicrous to begin with, and the atrocious dubbing only makes it funnier. A friend of mine advised me to watch in Japanese with subtitles, though, as this one was "more serious."

In hindsight, that's mostly a lie.

Oh, it's true that the enviromental message of the film was serious enough. You see, Hedorah is essentially a creature made primarily out of industrial waste and other forms of human pollution, and the point is made several times in the film that the creature only gets stronger as more pollution is dumped into the oceans and the air. This allows the film to capitalize on the fear of rampant industrial pollution that was just starting to form in the early 70's. It's actually a pretty neat contrast when you think about it: Godzilla, a creature that reflected our fear of nuclear war and weaponry in the 1950's, finds his greatest match (at the time) in a creature that reflected our then-greater fear of pollution in the 1970's.

The way this all sounds in concept, however, is much, much different from how it was actually played out. Weird psychedelic sequences that served as music videos for Japanese youth bands. Cartoon sequences of Hedorah destroying civilization between certain scenes. And what was with that trumpet-fanfare theme music that accompanied Godzilla himself every other time he was on screen? Were they trying to go for humor there?

The best (or worst) part, though, was when Hedorah is flying away from the scene of battle at one point. Godzilla begins using his infamous atomic flame breath on a patch of ground for some reason...then rises into the air and begins flying backwards using the flame breath as jet propulsion.

I'm sorry, but even for a Showa-era Godzilla film that right there jumps about 500 sharks. While doing an Ollie Impossible. With a motorcycle. On fire.

Busy Weekend

If You See One...

So now we have roaches. Fan-FRICKIN-Tastic.

Not just roaches, either. Oh no. Not five minutes after seeing one crawl across our rug we find a centipede hiding in a corner of the wall. Centipedes prey on pest species rather than eat food scraps, so, you know, it was actually doing some good there, but that's a small comfort when you've just found out your apartment is supporting an entire uninvited ecosystem.

We've vaccuumed the carpet and put all the food on high shelves in a vain attempt to banish the cockroach spirits from our abode. Honestly, I don't think we could afford an exterminator at the moment, and even if we could our options of places we could stay in the meantime are limited. For now, it's a problem we'll try to fix ineffectually by tossing a few roach traps around and hoping for the best. Here's keeping our fingers crossed.

Easton Mall

So I went to Easton Town Center for the first time yesterday. I have to say, that was the first time I'd ever been to an outdoor mall. It was also the first time I'd encountered what I insist on reffering to as a smaller mall inside the mall movie theater. The whole place was impressive overall.

I've noticed a trend towards these "mega-malls" in recent years. They built like three of them within short driving distance of each other out where my boyfriend lives. They've even got a sort of mini-mega-mall over on High Street now, just off South Campus. The one with all the blue lighting set into the sidewalk for no apparent reason other than to look nice.

I'll admit, though, some of it seems just a tad bit...excessive. I worked the merchandise department at Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom over the summer, and we didn't have anything half as nice as what I saw at Easton. In the entire park. Do we really need malls nicer than our amusement parks now? Actually, the malls almost are amusement parks; I saw that GameWorks center in the movie theater. Heck, I grabbed an actual souveneir map of the mall on the way out; maybe the parallels are intentional on some level.

Serenity

On Thursday I went to the midnight showing of Serenity. For anyone that doesn't know, that's the film based on the sci-fi series Firefly, the one done by the guy who did Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's had a very strong cult following despite the fact that it was cancelled not halfway through the first season for reasons relating to "ratings."

I won't give away anything about the film. Doing so in even the smallest way would only serve to detract from the experience of going to see the film. I will, however, say that based on this film, I would be willing to bear Joss Whedon's child.

Nevermind the fact that that's a biological impossibility. The film was that good.

This One's About Food Again

Went to Marc's again yesterday. I drove with my roommate and her visiting sister, which proved somewhat interesting. Situation: Three people, each with their own means of payment, and each with their own consumer prefferences. Two are also purchasing for a shared living space, neither of which really wants to buy "for everybody." Result: Peculiarities such as there being a grand final total of three full boxes of Frankenberry cereal and the three of us only deciding who's paying for the sweet potatoes when it came time to check out. I think we each uttered the phrase "wait, who's (product) is this, is it mine or..." at least once.

Speaking of which, it amazes me that they brought back the Frankenberry and Boo Berry cereals to go with Count Chocula (I'm easily amused). I'm wondering what thought processes had them suspend their production of the cereals in the first place, and even more so what made them bring them back again after more than a decade has passed.

So after shopping at Marc's we were driving back to the apartment, and made the mistake of stopping at the Seafood Japan grocery store. I call it a mistake only because I hadn't planned on spending any more money that day. The place is located in something like a little nexus of Asian commercial buildings, right across the sidewalk from Restaurant Japan, right next to the New Japan gift shop thing, and across the parking lot from a more generic Asian Grocery. I ended up spending something like twenty dollars in there, the majority of that on Japanese candy. In retrospect, perhaps not a wise decision, but I was caught off guard by the presence of several candies I had previously assumed one in the United States could only purchase through online sources.

Enough ranting about my poor sense of fiscal responsibility, though. Let's talk about my imminent adventures with drinking.

I am now in possession of numerous beverages of varying type and quality that I will have to drink my way through in the coming week or so. Some of these I have tried before, some are wholly new to me. Combined, they sketch a portrait of my tastes, and it is the portrait of a madman.

First, there still remain several two-liter bottles of Diet Coke that my parents left me with after move-in. These have remained unopened due largely to the fact that (A) I preffer non-diet pop, (B) I preffer to drink things straight from the bottle/can, and (C) half of them are Diet Coke with Lime, which is like a double-turnoff. As we are running out of room in the refridgerator, these will have to be consumed soon.

Then there's the "ghetto juice," as me and my friends call it. Dairymens makes a decent variety of juices in gallon and half-gallon plastic jugs. Their pricing is comparable to that of one-liter bottles of pop, which encourages us to treat them as such --- i.e., each buy a jug and drink straight from it. It's a great deal if you don't hate juice, as it'll usually last you through the day. The only downsides are that, well, it usually takes you a day to get through it, and when you're not drinking it it eats up space in the refridgerator. Thus, the jug of blue raspberry currently in there is second on my Have To Drink list.

There was also an impulse buy of a gallon of apple cider yesterday, but that's not as interesting as the alcohol I'm about to mention.

Yeah, I bought a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade yesterday (hey, I'm 21). I've never done much alcohol drinking (aside from Church communion), and I'm trying to develop a taste for it (at least, a taste other than one I identify as "Church"). I've heard that it's intoxicating effects are subtle, yet effective, and curious to see what that's like. I'm usually wary about alcohol, since if I ever get to the point where I drink it the same way I drink carbonated beverages I'll be a chronic alcoholic in no time. I'm already addicted to caffeine, and that's good enough.

At the other end of the spectrum is the can of Red Bull I also bought yesterday. I've been wary of energy drinks for similar reasons, although in this case it's an imagined case of them accellerating my heart rate to "hummingbird" that keeps me away from them. This is more a case of conquering a phobia than anything else, I guess.

In between are the two bottles of ramune (Japanese soda) currently in there, along with the Jolly Rancher soda I got today from Big Lots. I've had ramune before, so that's nothing big, but I'm always wary of discount food items, especially ones without expiration dates, and especially ones I've never heard of before. If I don't make another post for about a week, then it might be because I drank year-old discount soda.

Or my heart exploded from one can of Red Bull. Whichever.