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In Mordor where shadows lie...
2001-12-19 14:41:27
Go see Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings.
I feel like something of an idiot saying this, as there really seems to be little choice in the matter. If you have even the most glancing interest in any kind of fantasy in any capacity, you're going to have to go to see the film or spend the half a year before it comes out for rental wondering if you'll like it. It's one of those REALLY BIG MOVIES that you can't really afford to miss, whether or not you like it. Unlike most of my friends, I've purposely avoided watching ANYTHING about the film on TV or in the movies (including the trailers) to avoid spoiling it for myself. I actually did read the first two books of LotR, but long LONG ago. I really think reading the books before watching the film sorta defeats the purpose of the film, since you'll be watching for omissions instead of just watching the film, so, unlike anyone else, I haven't been reading the books.
In the spirit of not spoiling the film for anyone, I'm not saying anything other than it was very good, and any complaints I have are really just insignificant nitpicks. That, and the part I was worried about the most was very well done. They did the Balrog right.
However, I will comment on two other things concerning the movie, but at the same time not...
It appears that fandom has learned from its experience with "The Phantom Menace." When I headed out toward the theater I was expecting a line out the door that had started four hours earlier (possibly with "ticket campers"), and costumers of every stripe. Apparently, everyone learned that they look like idiots when they do that, because at an hour and 10 min before the film, the line was only like 65 people long, there was nary a robe or wizards's staff in sight, and the height of nerditude that I saw was a group of six playing "Magic:TCG" to pass the time. They let us in the theater at that point, apparently realizing that there was no point in leaving us in the hall when the room was just sitting empty. This was both disappointing and heartening. Disappointing because I enjoy being the most normal individual in groups like that, but heartening in that, either fandom has decided to curb its most idiotic (and embarrasing) excesses when the public eye is likely to be around, or this was a different, calmer sector of fandom entirely.
Also, the Spiderman trailer is cool. The movie doesn't look like it's going to be as good as X-men was, but then X-men didn't look like it was going to be as cool as it was. -
"He's not for love and justice! He's just an asshole throwing roses!"
2001-12-18 17:07:58
Yah know what I hate? I hate it when someone comes on to a mailing list and asks a competent, if somewhat naieve question, and is then replied to by a complete jackass who treats the question as though it were the most idiotic presumption in the world that we should be bothered with replying to said question. I hate it even more when the replier's reply is, frankly, wrong. I hate this so much, that to alleviate the hatred I write up a reasonable off-list response to the intital questioner with a somewhat rant-y bent concerning the replier.
Ya know what I really, really hate? When I accidentally forward the message to the entire list. Erg.
Of course, I also hate when people rant about specific e-mail conversation individuals behind their backs in Journal entries, so I'm gonna stifle this train of thought right here.
The title quote above comes from ConScrew (http://conscrew.keenspace.com/d/20010921.html) an online comic I tripped over through a connecting link in Megatokyo. It's a little amusing in that it's an East-coast anime con parody and has cameos of various con personalities (Steve Bennet, Kevin Lillard, etc.) all over the place. Art is...uh...not good and I can't really reccommend it for any reason (all other parts of the comic/story being a little below adequate), but I just found that line to be absolutely hilarious. (It involves the de-masking of a lecherous Tuxedo Mask cosplayer.)
I do have to say that I'm surprised at Megatokyo, (www.megatokyo.com) though. They give a shout out to Fans! (www.faans.com) and the best thing Dom could do to promote their site was laud on their crossover with Knights of the Dinner Table? Hey, I like KODT as much as the next gamer, but considering the fact that Fans! is probably the closest thing in format (and a bit in story structure...being continuous and character-intensive and all) to Megatokyo, I would have expected a bit more familiarity. Plus, Fans! has also crossed over with the absurdly popular CRFH! to much better effect (www.crfh.net). If you stop by the Fans! site you're gonna have to start at the beginning of the archives just to familarize yourself with the large cast, but in brief the strip started out as an optimistically-planned comic book. After the first issue...didn't meet sales expectations it converted to an online format. It's on a MWF-schedule (IIRC, I've been a little behind), and follows the adventures of (what began as) the most wide-ranging troup of fandom sterotypes you're likely all familiar with. (Goth chick, hygenically-challeneged hacker and star trek fan, science nerd, demure asian schoolgirl manga artist, cosplayer, power-hungry club head, theater major, turned-up-nose outside observer, etc., and the protagonist, a "fandom will save us all" eternal naive optimist.) The story is surprisingly motivated by lavish, if straightforward, character development, and is nicely illustrated, although some of the story arcs fall a bit flat. Besides, the goth chick reminds me almost exactly of someone I knew back in High School.
Following a meandering trail of links from lilleks, I wandered into this page: http://timblair.blogspot.com/ . In it, Tim Blair is basically tearing apart the technique of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Adele Horin in drawing rather outlandish comparisons between unrelated subjects. Most of her comparisons were rather silly, but the problem was, I agreed with a few of the other comparisons. I find it absolutely ludicrous that a man pretending to be a nobel-winning scientist working on a cure for cancer in a movie is paid orders of magnitude more money than an actual nobel-winner DOING so. Gahh. For someone so throughly integrated into the US entertainment spectacle, you wouldn't think I could be so disgusted with it. (And it's just the US spectacle out of familiarity. I'm sure I'd be just as disgusted with the entertainment industry in other countries if I knew more about them.) Thus endeth the rant.
I was going to update with the perfect example of why I don't report on my dreams here, but I've forgotten most of the dream by now. I remember it started having something to do with a massive meeting in a hotel conference center room that was about to begin, but I had to excuse myself to the restroom. When I got back, the room was empty and Quu (who was organizing something in the corner) didn't know where they went. I spotted several people who I knew were at the meeting (mostly members of the KOR group cosplaying) in the downstairs casino(!?!), but would only answer my questions with really snide remarks. Eventually I ended up sitting in a little cafe in the corner of the bookstore/casino (??) watching an advertisment on TV for a newly released animation DVD. Yup, I was dreaming about watching TV ads. How boring is that. I was disappointed when I woke up, because it looked like a really cool show.
In case you haven't guessed, I pretty much blew off the day. All my lab-mates have left for christmas break by now, and I'm to tired to try to research without staring blankly at the same page for 20 min. See ya. -
"...and there you'll find a Snap-dragon fly. It's body is made of plum pudding, its wings of Holly leaves, and its head is a rasin burning in brandy."
2001-12-15 17:06:38
As I stated a couple of entries ago, I was looking for a couple of gifts for our Japanese exchange student before she goes back to Japan, but was having some trouble spotting something distinctly American withouth weighing in too heavily on the cheese factor. Well, I finally hit on something. As she is an anime fan and was kind enough to give me a couple of trinkets from the new "Sen to Chiro" movie as well as some collected manga books, I thought I'd compile some of the best US AMVs on the VAT server into tapes for her. (Hey, I was getting desperate, and she liked the couple I downloaded at work.) As she prefers films in the Ghibi tradition as well as Kodomo no Omocha and the like, and her english really isn't that good, I've been scouring the server for good insrumental pieces of a milder theme, or some of the best dramatic or dance (as you don't really need to know the lyrics in that case) English language AMVs. Of course, now my mind goes blank when trying to come up with a list. Let's see, Caffiene Encomium, Why Me, Joe's Ghibli assembly, Rythm of the Heat, The Pony Man, Pen Pen's "My little Pony" video, "Believe," doki doki's "Right Now" and EK's "Failed Experiments" (yeah, lots of English, but what the heck, she still migh get it), Captian Nemo, Mamboleo and Happy boys and girls, Farewell to Arms, Far and Away, Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot, Learning to fly, Flood, and the best Five Star Stories video ever.
So what else am I missing? Any help and suggestions are appreciated, but if the video's REALLY brand new it won't be on the server and thus a little harder to get to.
So I see by my journal hits that I've bored everyone away by bitching about my job. Fair weather friends! (Just kidding.)
Not much else going on around here. Have to go to my boss's Christmas party in another hour or so. Faux Pass available at the door. *Groan* I've got nothing against my boss, but I really have better things to do than spend the night tiptoing around the subject of work for four hours.
In an odd turn, it looks like my school's anime club may be considering the transfer of all their old ratty fansubs and pirate tapes to DVD. To be fair, they've all been collected through the commonly accepted fan channels over the years, getting as-yet-unlicensed series at SASE from fansubbers, and the rest being donated, but as the club library is fast approaching 500 tapes, they simply don't have the ability to lug all those cases around or effectively store them. I hardly have a say in the matter since I haven't attended that club in nearly a year (they always manage to schedule it during a game or during another club's meetings) and nearly everyone who I knew in the club has since graduated or given up. I'm on good terms with those left, but there choice in showings isn't really that good. (Enough Kenshin already!)
I should have fairly ready access to the internet during the break, so further additions to my journal should be forthcoming. Possibly even (gasp) plans for my next AMV! I've noticed a sudden drop-off in the regular posts to journals. I'm betting that has more to do with those college-residents among us being denied the teat of T-1 lines than a lack of interest in the site, though. -
I don't drink......wine.....
2001-12-14 00:03:22
The human circulatory system is an amazing mechanism. Possibly the most dynamic system of the body, it regulates oxygen and nutrient delivery, controls vast arrays of signaling mechanisms from cell to cell and system to system, responds to the slightest provocation whether it be physical (temperature, impact), emotional (stress, embarrasment), chemical (NOS, selectins, vasoconstrictors), or defensive (T=cells, antibodies). In many aspects the system has developed to such a level of elaboration that exact characteristics actually work against externally-administered curative attempts through otherwise unrelated reactions, like the difficulty caused by the famous Rh-factor, so named for its initial discovery in Rhesus monkeys. Not the least of its many miraculous aspects is its amazing ability of self-repair. Upon disruption of endothelial monolayers and sub-endothelial tissue indicitive of lacerative damage, an elaborate cascade of chemical events goes into action in order to plug, seal, and regrow the damaged tissue. In addition to the signaling cascade, the shear differential experienced by blood flowing into a laceration and the exposure of plasma protines to external atmospheric tensions result in the activation of, your friend and mine, the platlet, whose production of lengthy "sticky" chain proteins cause the start of coagulation and clotting in exposed blood. The system is so internally self-supporting that blood samples taken from patients, even under the most non-disruptive conditions, will, given sufficent time, coagulate and clot spontaneously.
God fucking dammit.
OK, for those of you who don't know, my job involves working with human blood samples. The exact reasoning why is elaborate and boring, so I won't bother going into it, but suffice to say that in order for my work to progress I am required to recieve regular issuances from the hospital in the form of a bare few milliliters of fresh blood. I require this blood in LIQUID form. Yesterday, for the second time in as many months, the clinicians at the hospital supplied me with not one but two samples of blood. This is good. However, again, they supplied them to me in RED topped tubes. When the sample tubes are RED topped, it means that there is no anti-coagulent inside. Thus, what I recieved was no so much a sample of blood, as a sample of partially-melted blood JELLO. I am really, REALLY pissed at this because I have to keep on polite terms with everyone at the hospital since they really are doing me a favor by getting me the samples at all, so I can't rant at them, despite the fact it really is their fault. I can't rant to my boss, since he will then rant to THEIR boss, who will then rant at THEM, and it will look like I was complaining about them to their superiors. So I'm ranting here. Although I dobut anyone here really cares either. *mope* (At least I can be sure Hsien knows where I'm coming from with culture troubles.) Add on top of that my work in general came to an abrupt halt about a month and a half ago due to the fact that MVECS apparently REALLY hate being frozen down for storage, and I couldn't keep a batch alive to save my career. I'd just finished getting a different batch of HUVECs growing again to replace them when this happened and delayed any actual progress by another week. And the fucking incubator is contaminated, but due to the other incubator being hijacked by another lab that's low on space, I have nowhere to transfer my cultures to while I clean out mine. And we have three new students coming in next week that I have to simultaneously teach cell culture to. And the UV bulb is burnt out in the secondary flowhood. (OK, now I'm just bitching for the hell of it.)
On the plus side, "The Family Guy" parodied that bendy-armed guy from the "Where is the fishy" sketch in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life," ("Oh where did that little fishy go, I wonder where could it be?") making it one of the most obscure references I've ever heard on TV since MST3K stopped making new episodes.
Hmm. What else...
I recently finished up a couple of graphic novels by Brian Michael Bendis that I bought at D*C and have been sitting on my shelves awaiting attention. They were "Torso" and "aka Goldfish." Perhaps I've been spoiled by "From Hell," but these two didn't really impress me. If I had picked either of them up in serial format, I would've dropped them after the first issue. "Goldfish" is the fictional story of a two bit hood with a real big plan for a bit of payback and a bit of recompense from the "woman who ruined his life." The problem is that everything, the characters, the plot, everything, develops at a glacial rate. The "big plan" just isn't, everyone's depth is shallow (everyone is completely defined by the "tragic events of their pasts"), and the presentation is complete style over substance, which could be good, but I don't like the style. At points it got so stylistic that I couldn't tell which character was which. The story takes about 220 pages (they aren't numbered) to tell a story that could be told in half that, and ends with *SPOILER!!SPOILER!!* the female lead being shot (on purpose) by her 8-year old son. Who is then gunned down by the police. Whoo hoo. You could tell from the beginning that it was all going to end badly, but still, I want SOME payoff for slogging through this story.
The second book, "Torso," is much better, but still suffering in a few aspects. It re-narrates, in much the same way that "From Hell" did, the tracking down of a serial killer that was never caught. The killings were real, and occurred in Cleveland in 1939. There were something like a dozen killings, men and women, over a couple of months, but the case is hardly ever remembered, possibly because it was the one that ruined the career of Elliot Ness. Yeah, the "Untouchables" guy moved out to Cleveland after putting Al Capone away, and had this case drop in his lap. During the case, in one of the most inexplicable police actions ever, Ness ordered a shantytown by the riverbed evacuated and burned to the ground. No one's ever really been sure why he did it. Most of what I liked about the book was the light it cast on a mysterious and ugly corner of American history. What I disliked was the shadows it cast on it. Unlike "From Hell" that had over 40 pages of end-notes telling you exactly where the author took liberties, made stuff up, or was following facts, this book gave no hint at where the author left the track of history. I know that there were some amazingly weird facts in the case, but the book gives us stuff that I don't know whether or not to believe, including a "everyone knows who did it, but he's outside of the law" ending. Really infuriating trying to figure out what's fact and what's fiction.
I keep writing this much, and I'll run out of things to tell ya'll. -
I'd tip my hat to you...but I haven't got a hat. (Ba ba baba bum bum bum bump)
2001-12-10 01:50:37
Neglect, neglect, and I say again neglect! Gahh.
Why is it I only get inspiration for serious writing when I have a final approaching? Is it some kind of internal defense system for procrastination? "Warning! Stress levels reaching critical! Deploy shiny object that has nothing to do with the test subject!" Eh. Mostly I'm using this journal as an operative area just to keep in practice with the physical mechanics of writing without producing anything substantial, for those rare occasions when I actually have something significant to say. (TJ's gonna kill me when he finds out I've been doing that here instead of at my webpage, whose sole reason for placement was writing practice.)Most of the stuff I produce is way too long to stick in one of these anyway (I mean, you see how much I write when I'm just dickin' around...), but I was watching a movie tonight and came up with a couple lines of prose that feel...adequate. I'll have to consider if I actually want to post them here, as my stuff tends to be a bit...extreme, and freak out my friends.
Anyway, life's gotten a bit weird for me here. We have a japanese transfer student whose been working in the lab with us here for several months. We always go out in a group for lunch and stuff like that, and when she first arrived she gave each of us a packet of little presents. Japanese snack foods, a Miazaki CD (she knows I'm an anime fan), etc. Now we were always planning on throwing a party for her before she leaves and loading her up with presents, etc., but we were having trouble spotting presents that were distinctly american without being cheesy as hell. Today she surprises me (and only me, AFAIK) with an EXPENSIVE gift. Awquard city.
Couple of individual responses (if rather belated):
Bowler: Re: DK2, I always have to view works like this from something of an angle. In my middle-comic book years experience (ie. after I'd given up on them as kid's stuff, but started reading them again (standing up)when bookstores started carrying graphic novels) I'd actually skipped over the Dark Knight books multiple multiple times after a flip through showed lots of boring text, not enough detail, and blah grey coloring. When I finally did read the books all the way through (after being bored and disgusted by the story progression, or lack thereof, in the very beginning, and several false starts) I suddenly found that I really liked the works as a whole. I think Frank Miller's stuff suffers in the serial format, as he tends to pace for a broader scope than a typical issue, and I for one can only really appreciate his stuff once I've read all of a particular series. Thus, my enjoyment of the DK series thus far is really predicated on what I think is coming, and where I think it's going. That said, I did like the ending fight sequence, as it's been so long (in the real world) since the last series, that it was necessitated just to reset everyone's clocks back to the last 20 pages of Dark Knight Returns. Hell, I haven't read it in so long, I needed the entire first issue to re-establish Miller's take on Superman in my mind. With the art...I never really liked his color work at first glance, so I'm gonna hold off on judging it thus far. As far as the "naked news"...maybe Frank Miller's having trouble coming up with ways to make the news MORE facile and vapid than it already is? :)
Incidentally, to anyone watching the JLA cartoon...are they all getting dumber, or is it just me?
"Aquaman is dying! His life signs are failing! Batman! What should we do?"
"Put him in water."
"He's SAVED!"
I mean really...
Greyduck: Re: "journals are the new forums"
Actually, I've been reading a collection of HPL's letters, and what this format reminds me of more than anything else is the old letter circles of that day and age. Letters were sent out in a kind of continued conversation, and individuals were directed to write or read others outside the group or comment upon the comments of others. Letters would arrive out of order, or would be sent in bunches to save on postage, leading to a sort of chaotic essayist debate on any number of topics simultaneously. 'Corse, there's no postage here, and this is a better paralell format than e-mail, as that's taken up with spam or mailing lists from people you don't know on subjects you don't care about. No one here can throw open their Journal in someone else's face, no other way is possible other than actually going and looking for it.
JOURNAL: MCWagner (Matthew Wagner)
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