OMG, the otaku are gonna freak…
While looking up info on the American version of .hack, the multimedia series, I discovered that Harmony Gold is planning a new Robotech series for 2004.
Technology marches on
Thanks to Jaguar, QuickTime 6, and DivX for Mac 5.0 Alpha 3, I can finally watch DivX .avi files now. Time to catch up on those “Chobits” episodes I was loaned!
Found a streaming server for Japanese anime music and j-pop… http://japanaradio.com/. Listened to it this morning while getting dressed – it was nice background music. I would listen to it here at work to annoy everyone, but our ISDN connection isn’t fast enough. Besides, the only other person who will be here today is my coworker Adam, who wouldn’t be annoyed by it at all – and how much fun is that?
As near as I can tell, the only game shop in Roanoke that has available stock of Mechwarrior: Dark Age is a little place called “Ground Zero” that doesn’t even have a phone. We got our figures, though… but then Rain had to stay at work until 10pm ’cause of a stupid virus outbreak on their machines. We’re not even sure what time she’ll be home tonight. So no playtesting. 🙁 The figures are nice looking, and we got a Unique Hatchetman and an Elite Centurion in our first boxes. (For those not familiar with the game, those are two of the most playable mechs in the original Battletech.)
Gonna be hot and sticky again today 🙁
Telling no real story
Well, we watched our first NetFlix last night – we both sat through Storytelling, and Rain watched Ghost World. I actually was a big fan of Daniel Clowes’ “Lloyd Llewellyn” comic, but i just couldn’t deal with the “quirky teenager” movie after watching the “I couldn’t think of anything, but I had to spend this money before they pulled my grant” movie.
Sometimes, I read a book or watch a movie, and I finish it with the horrible feeling that, somewhere, the author or filmmaker is laughing hysterically at having tricked me into wasting part of my life. That’s different from, say, the Battlefield: Earth feeling where I end up feeling very sorry for the filmmaker, actors, crew, and backers of the film. Not this time! The creator of Storytelling should be smacked around.
Oh, well. I picked out a couple movies I wanted to see, Amelie and the new anime Metropolis. Haven’t found many more yet, but there’s time.
“Yum”, the iMac girl
Relating to my post about Macs and B&D, here’s the “dojinshi”-ish graphic that some were asking about:
You can find a nice desktop / wallpaper sized image here, as well as Yum in the fruit flavors.
http://www.polycount.com has a model of her that can be used in Quake 3 and Voyager: Elite Force.
So, like, I had a long post almost ready yesterday… but I had to slot a Zip disk to check a reference. I should know better. The Zip driver for OS X crashes the desktop every time (no big deal, the process restarts automatically)… but this time it locked up the whole machine, I had to do a hardware restart. Lost my post, and just wasn’t up to re-typing it.
Anyway.
Figured out the last problem I was having with the special effect for my friend’s wedding video. Rain wants me to change the timing slightly, but that will just be an evening’s work. I’m learning a lot – maybe I can be meiran and raininva‘s special-effects tech when they are famous moviemakers.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is very hard in single-player. Hey, game designers – some of us don’t play Quake 3 Arena 40 hours a week. The easy setting is supposed to be… easy.
Yes, I enjoyed MiB 2… no, it was as good as the first one.
Got the final “Robotech: Macross” boxed set this weekend, thanks to Rain. It even has the “Robotech: Sentinels” pilot as an extra – a film that made Macross purists howl. Only four more boxed sets to go before I have the whole Robotech series… then I can get the UFO set… then Monty Python’s FC… then Thunderbirds… what do you mean they’re already released ST:TNG third season?
MPEG-2 is going to be very expensive to me, I can see that.
Ooops… my boss’ laptop is throwing a kernel panic… won’t boot off the hard drive or the CD. This oughta be fun…
The more things change…
This train of thought began as I watched Adobe Photoshop go through a complicated scripting sequence without any assistance from me… I began thinking of Rick Deckard’s wonderful photo-processing “Esper” machine. (Yes, I want one.)
So, I’m thinking about Blade Runner and the fact that, in an unscientific poll of science-fiction fans, I’m one of the few viewers who prefer the theatrical release to the director’s cut. (Voiceover, less uncertain ending, and all).
I’m not going to debate the merits of the two versions here, though it has occurred to me that it is the theatrical release that made Blade Runner one of the classics of SF film (and made it possible to produce a director’s cut release, before DVDs made such releases common).
However, the discussion of the versions made me think about how we revise things in our heads. I watched hours of the old Robotech series last weekend, but used the remote to skip over the dull, boring, or actually painful parts. (Yes, I’m referring to Minmei.) The Internet produced the “Phantom Edit” version of Star Wars Episode I – in many opinions, a superior film. Douglas Adams himself wrote multiple variants of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – all official, and all contradictory.
Then, while looking up information on Apple’s “Final Cut Pro”, I found this web page that compares such revisions to the Bible itself, where the Gospels contradict each other and concentrate on the parts that the individual writers found interesting. And I realized that people have been arguing about this for nearly two thousand years.
So, the next time I go to a con and find an earnest discussion of how Enterprise has re-written the established history of the Star Trek universe, I’ll be less likely to jump in with both feet. If we’ve been revising our most sacred texts to personal taste for this long, Kirk and Picard don’t have much of a chance. *grin*
Wardrobe
Tuesday night, while waiting for one of my co-workers to catch up with what I’d done, I looked over kittenchan‘s Project A-Kon costuming pics. Really nice work, but I’m a bit disappointed that I only recognized one or two of the anime characters. I’m so out of touch.
I’m also realizing that I miss costuming… I really don’t do it much any more, because of the time and expense, but I probably should, ’cause I love it. Nothing like getting to be an exhibitionist in another skin; free to act totally different for a little while because you aren’t you.
I’m sure a psychologist would have loads of fun with that. 🙂
Anyway, I did go ahead and post my 2000 and 2001 Halloween costumes to my Elfie site, as I’ve been meaning to for ages. (Yes, that includes the maid’s outfit.) If anyone has pics of some of my earlier con or H’ween outfits, please let me know… I can’t find my photo album at the moment, and I’d like to post more – especially the White Tiger Ranger, which I’m kinda proud of.
I do plan to make the party Saturday night, but since Rain will be out of town with my car, I may need a ride… meiran, how would you like some gas money? 😉
Mood Swingin’
Yesterday, after a day that wasn’t my favorite lately, an incredibly cool thing happened to me. Backstory: over ten years ago, some jerk stole my Canon AE-1 Program camera, probably for his drug habit. Yesterday, Rain shows me my birthday present she’d just bought on eBay. Guess what it is? It even comes with more lenses than I had!
Rain is simply the coolest person I know. I was practically bouncy for the next several hours (a rare condition for me!!)
My work today is trying hard to get my goat, but every time I start getting irritated (and it’s been several times so far today – I have a bad feeling about the day) I just think about getting to play with my camera soon, and I’m smiling again. It should bug the heck out of my co-workers.
Today I loaned Nick one of the copies of the Dirty Pair anime movie that Jerry, Rhaps, Cindy, Beth, Tony and I dubbed all those years ago: “Project: EDEN”. I hope he’ll be kind. 🙂
I wish my work phone had speed-dial. I don’t think I have a shot in Hades of winning those Rod Stewart tickets for Rain (but I will keep trying!!!)
TJ just showed me a photo of the movie-quality Imperial Stormtrooper costume he used to own, and just sold for $900. I always wanted one of those… but not that badly!
Yeah, yeah, I know… back to work.
