Pick Your Poison
2008.01.31 | 17:39
location: A notebook
mood: Ridiculously long
music: Something from marching band
My readership appears to be at an all-time high (apparently at least two regulars!), but I've accumulated quite a lot of stuff during its absence, to say nothing of my sloth and the fact that I've built up a lot of new things due to year's-end-and-beginning splurging. So, I'd like to see if you have any requests or suggestions. What I've got in the works is as follows:
( Ridiculously long notes )
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"Prepare to Be Assimilated" —Cheney
2008.01.09 | 16:26
location: Some estate
mood: Futile
music: Generic? boss BGM from FINAL FANTASY VII
Apparently I've been reading too much of ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
blitzcon's LJ, because I was working alongside Ron Paul, a guest star in Star Trek: Necropunk and some other show I don't remember.
Last night, I instead had a dream about The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, in which the female PCs had to keep casting mind-affecting spells on the men to get them to actually try to advance the quest.
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TV Meme from lordjubatus
2007.10.18 | 22:25
location: In a tube
mood: Squawky
music: Playlist (trimmed to 173 items)
I've done some cleaning up on this one.
Rules:
- Bold each of the following TV shows of which you've seen 3 or more episodes.
- Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode.
- Asterisk if you have at least one full season on tape or DVD.
The Addams Family
The Adventures of Pete and Pete
Alias
America’s Next Top Model
The Andy Griffith Show
Angel
The Apprentice
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Are You Being Served?
Arrested Development
The A-Team
The Avengers
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beauty and the Beast
The Beverly Hillbillies
Beverly Hills 90210
The Bionic Woman
Blackadder
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Public
Boy Meets World
The Brady Bunch
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Caitlin’s Way
Chappelle’s Show
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Clarissa Explains It All
Columbo
Commander in Chief
The Cosby Show
Coupling
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Daily Show
Dallas
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
Dawson’s Creek
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
Dead like Me
Deadwood
The Dead Zone
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Dinosaurs
Diff'rent Strokes
Dirty Jobs
Doctor Who (1963)
Doctor Who (2005)
Doctor Who (2006)
Dragnet
The Dresden Files
Due South
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
The Famous Jet Jackson
Farscape
Father Ted
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Firefly
Flash Forward
The Flintstones
Forever Knight
The 4400
Fraggle Rock
Frasier*
Freaks and Geeks
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Friday Night Lights
Friends
Futurama
Get Smart
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
The Golden Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Greek
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hardcastle & McCormick
Heroes
Highlander
Highlander: The Raven
Hogan’s Heroes
The Honeymooners
Hill Street Blues
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House M.D.
Hunter
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Instant Star
Inuyasha
Invader Zim
Invasion
The Invisible Man
JAG
Jackass
Jeeves and Wooster
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
Joey
John Doe
Just Shoot Me
Keen Eddie
Knight Rider
LA Law
Laverne and Shirley
Lexx
Life on Mars
Life with Derek
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
The Love Boat
The Lucille Ball Show
The L Word
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters
The Muppet Show
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Magnum PI
Malcolm in the Middle
Mama’s Family
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
Married . . . with Children
Melrose Place
MI:5
Miami Vice
Millennium
Miracles
Mission: Impossible
Monk
Mork & Mindy
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My Name Is Earl
My So-Called Life
My Super Sweet 16
Mythbusters
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
The Nanny
News Radio
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
North Shore
Numb3rs
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Phil of the Future
Pokémon
Power Rangers
The Pretender
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psych
QI
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (UK)
The Real World
Red Dwarf
ReGenesis
Relic Hunter
Remington Steele
Rocko’s Modern Life
Rescue Me
Road Rules
Robotech
Rome
Roseanne
Roswell
Salute Your Shorts
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs
Seinfeld
The Sentinel
Sex and the City
The Shield
The Simpsons
Six Feet Under
The Six Million Dollar Man
Skins
Sliders
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
The Sopranos
South Park
So Weird
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Superman
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor (Nope, but I have seen every episode of Born Survivor. . . .)
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70’s Show
That’s So Raven
3rd Rock from the Sun
Third Watch
Three’s Company
Top Gear
Torchwood
The Twilight Zone
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Veronica Mars
The Vicar of Dibley
The Waltons
The West Wing
Whose Line Is It Anyway? (US)
Whose Line Is It Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
Wings
Wiseguy
Without a Trace
WKRP in Cincinnati
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Xena: Warrior Princess
That was quite a variety (although perhaps a bit heavy on the Nickelodeon)—It took me back to when I didn't have anything worth doing, so I watched sitcoms. Also, my copies of the L word aren't on any such mainstream media. I don't remember precisely which ones broke the three-episode barrier, so this is only a rough approximation.
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九乃七
2007.09.15 | 16:10
location: Spawning Nursery, Mikazuki HQ, Mannheim
mood: Firstborn
music: Playlist (trimmed down to 71 items)
Another one on in this batch was Na*na*ki!! Vol. 1, which I chose to read early on so I could decide whether or not to buy the sequel before it goes out of print. Upon looking it up, it turns out that the illustrator started out as an assistant to the famous Ms. Minekura Kazuya, but judging by this (and the fact that she's also published another series), she's graduated fully to professional status. The heroine uses "friendship" as pretext for her glomping, but the badass upperclassman (who doesn't have a cover shot yet because she's only the heroine's third-best friend) has quite a following as well, with one groupie in particular having dropped the "k" word in an emotional moment. I am indeed looking forward to more.
Meanwhile, you may have noticed from things like Ran, Sakura no Kiwa, Shimai no Hōteishiki, and Project Homuncupunk that Japanese names often include numerals, and these are often used to denote the order of birth of siblings. However, today's comparison is a bit more specific.
You'll also notice that only one of these three actually has the numeral character in her name—In the other two cases, the seventh is the exception. Also, it's only natural that the ending character is different in the case of the Kinjō family due to the differing genders, but the -nami family all have names ending in the same character, and at least one of Ms. Mar[k]ioka's elder sisters' names also ends in the same "-ki."
Edit (2007.09.15): Ah yes, and Ms. Marika has a very affectionate elder sister, but she seems to see her as an annoyance.
Edit (2007.10.01): Upon closer inspection, the odd-numbered Makioka sisters all end in 「姫」, while the even-numbered all end in 「葉」. I can't make any judgments about the previous generation, as only one example appears so far. You might think that this wouldn't work, as the mother would have been born into a different family, but judging by the heavy X-chromosome-bias of the current demographics, I imagine they might have used this method. Also, I've updated the information on the Sasano family above, resulting in slightly less correlation—although they still have a big-ass house and at least one servant.
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Every Tom, Dick, and Harry
2007.08.12 | 15:49
location: Starbuck's longboat
mood: Um, um, we want rum
music: "Dancing Mad" (non-electric-guitar version)
He didn't mention that they used the analogy again in a later film.
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How Geek Are You? Meme from Ms. mizuno_youko
2007.04.24 | 12:59
location: Geek Squad HQ
mood: Half full or half empty
music: ?
( ミカエル、一生の不覚 )
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「そして今日もわたくしのために輝いていますか」
2007.04.05 | 15:27
location: 只今登校いたしました～
mood: ノーリアクション（困るな）
music: Something famous that I don't remember
I actually had to wade through the awful scanslations (I'm pretty sure Romanizing 「しんゆう」 as "yuujin" isn't Hepburn or Diet-standard) to get a proper picture because that damned
blitzcon is still hoarding my copy, despite the fact that he claims he doesn't have time to read it because he's too busy working and watching cartoons (which also means that I probably misquoted all the lines scattered liberally across this post). Well, it's a good reminder of why I avoid these things in the first place.( Pointless, yes, but I have little better to do )
Speaking of comparisons, when looking up this, I decided to read the entire first volume again. I haven't reread any of this (other than the three chapters I saw scanslated in the first place), but the first one is all right, as it shows the first meeting between Ms. Readman and Ms. Sumiregawa, and the Donny is kept to a minimum (compared to the other three). I had also forgotten that Ms. Inc. calls Ms. Readman "sexy," and also licks her cheek at one point. Her use of a conjugation of "iku" (with 「イッ」 in katakana) is also rather suspicious. A few nice moments, even though Ms. Inc. is talking about their respective "true loves" throughout.
Incidentally, it's pretty obvious if you read them, but the moods of the ~DIE and ~DREAM series are really different. Case in point: In the latter, only one of the three heroines has a ridiculously large bust, but in the former, all three do. (Unsurprisingly, my favorite picture of the Kami San-Shimai is the guest illustration by Yamada in the afterword of Book 1.) In THE TV, they brought both groups into the styles and situations of the former.
I'm running out of things that I want to reread, but it is April, so I'm raring to go with my next order, complete with the smallest gift card yet. I'd like to turn it in next Friday for good luck, but with two weeks to go, VOL.8 still isn't on amazon, so it's not set in stone. Anyway, you know the drill. You want something, just say so.
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Observations
2007.04.04 | 15:55
location: The howdah
mood: Inhuman
music: Theme from The Writers' Almanac
Here are a few things that I've noticed recently:
※
arifyn may remember that when I was going to work for him, I saw at the airport that some bodybuilding magazine was censored by putting a plastic sheet in front of it. Well, at the Borders at Wabash Landing, all the Playboys, Penthouses, and so on are put in the back and plastic-wrapped so you can't read them without buying them. I don't know if the latter, as most of the video-game mags are wrapped, too, and Maxim is, but FHM isn't. But it's probably not proper that Heavy Metal was in the front row and unwrapped, as, upon cursory examination, it seems to have plenty of full-frontal nudity, sexual intercourse, and graphic violence (although all illustrated rather than photographed).※The comment cards for Pizza Hut in Indiana are addressed to someone named "MR RICK OLIPHANT."
※I haven't mentioned before that I've been thinking: I'd like to see exceptions to the convention that in major fantasy franchises (Star Wars, D&D settings, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, etc.), "hew-mons" (or "Men" in the original fantasy setting) are the chief sentient species of established civilizations (although not always dominant, as seen in Dark Sun). The exceptions I'd noticed are children's media (the Tales from Redwall) and furry fandom (Ironclaw) and a few where humans are tied for the most powerful faction (Warcraft). However, while I was eating lunch today, it occured to me that this was not true for a lot of video games (Zelda no Densetsu, SUPER MARIO BROS., etc.). Of course, I haven't done very well fighting this pointless* phenomenon, as only one of my projects doesn't follow the same pattern. On the other hand, I have one that addresses other races' views of the infestation, and one that questions a version of normal human society from the viewpoint of an outsider. In fact, none of the main protagonists of my projects are the H. sapiens we know today, with the exceptions of the ones set on modern Earth.
*I have long ago observed that, other than childrens' media, series wherein the protagonists are not very human-looking (Hobbits/androids/vampires, perhaps, but not Orcs) just aren't counted in the mainstream. Part of it is undoubtedly the difficulty of relating to someone who has an alien appearance, but there's also the lack of broader sex appeal. That's why I discarded my old story about rats, for instance, and even the animal-descended races of Project Umbra are more like the beastfolk in ESCAFLOWNE than actual furries as in Slayers. Also, I've avoided the stereotypes—again, hearkening back to Tolkien—that inhuman or dark-skinned races are the "bad guys." (Even Sauron lost the ability to take a "fair" form after he was somewhat killed in the destruction of Númenor.) A lot of the stereotypes of usual fantasy settings are present for the dark elves, lizardmen, orcs, and so on in Project Artificer, but, once you get to know them, you see that human morality just doesn't explain them so conveniently.
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First Son of Soong
2007.04.02 | 12:31
location: Omicron Theta
mood: Emotional
music: Something from Braveheart or Mononoke-Hime
It's been a ridiculously long time since I promised these two posts, so here's one.
For those of you not familiar with the franchise, Warcraft background has so much of a following that it's acquired its own name: "lore." Yet, perhaps due to the less-than-respected medium of video games, the designers have seen no problem with constantly retconning it to facilitate each new release—as much as Warhammer, but all crammed into a much realtime history of a fraction the length. To tell the truth, I applauded the complete overhaul for Reign of Chaos, as it elevated the setting from a cheesy Tolkien/D&D ripoff to something unique, both through the introduction of new races and the retcons to old ones, particularly the orcs. But in other cases, they just don't seem to care. For instance, in Reign of Chaos, most gnolls used flails, an element which allowed them a bit of individuality in the Manual of Monsters, even though they were blatantly stolen from D&D. Yet in World of Warcraft, they for some reason decided to arm almost all of the gnoll models with swords and axes. What necessity could there have been for such a change? Since most of the fan community doesn't care about anything more than playing cool video games, this has been mostly condoned.
The chief changes in Reign of Chaos that brought forth innovative ideas are the orcs and night elves (although, admittedly, the trolls were already unique). As far as I know, this is the biggest franchise to ever posit that orcs are not intrinsically evil, or that a dark-skinned, nocturnal race isn't either. The latter race is also different from any other version of elves I've seen, as you can see from their huge, muscular, hairy forms.
Another nice element that I note is the diversity of faiths/religions/beliefs. Unlike, for instance, D&D, where almost everyone has a single patron deity (except in Dark Sun and Eberron, for which I give the creators kudos as well) as part of one or more pantheons, Warcraft also has a prominent philosophy and a lot of animistic sorts, as well as pure druids, a few patron deities, agnostics, and people who don't really care about religion.
As noted already, the series is exceptionally cheesy. This hearkens back to Orcs and Humans itself, where they had already implemented the idea of the units saying silly things if you click on them repeatedly. Other factors include Samwise's exaggerated character designs, numerous in-jokes, and ultraviolence used for comedic effect. With the big III, they also suddenly bumped up the technology level, to the point that we have fully foolproof bipedal walking robots, which as far as I know have not been developed to proper utility on Earth even now. (The RPG may explain that with chaos energy, but who pays attention to the RPG, anyway?)
Like another multimedia franchise, they didn't bother to make up a proper calendar for the history of the world, instead just saying when things happened compared to the first volume in the series. There have been actual calendars mentioned (such as in the Tides of Darkness instruction booklet), but it's impossible to retrofit, as each published timeline retcons dates, with no apparent rhyme or reason. Also, as a fantasy/space opera staple, the history is ridiculously long, without much advancement in technology or society. This is often explained by saying that the "elder races" never change, but considering that (as a variant in most settings) the humans learned the ways of the high elves several thousand years ago, you'd think they'd have gotten a bit further. Still, this phenomenon is prevalent in even respected works (including the father of all modern fantasy), so I guess I can't complain—but it must at least have a name!
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From the Sequel to Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee
2006.12.28 | 16:11
location: Blackrock Spire, Azeroth
mood: Ripped
music: "Beethoven's 5th"
After dropping
blitzcon off back at his parents' house after his guest appearance in one of my numerous D&D campaigns, I lingered for a while, watching ladybronwyn play WoW and occasionally checking on blitzcon, who was hysterically laughing at various videos. Well, seeing random Japanese people running from a dust devil and some insane Fox local weatherman was fun for a lark, but I found the MMORPG experience much more diverting.ladybronwyn was joining up with her party (which, incidentally, consisted of two Forsaken priests and a Forsaken "rouge") and going to the instance at Blackrock Spire (a very nostalgic place to anyone who played Warcraft II). It was interesting seeing her BF scout all the areas (with the priests watching via spells [When they were looking out through troll territory, I happened to spy a couple of lumbering brutes on patrol. From the size and build when I first saw them at a distance, I guessed them to be ogres—they were far bigger than the orcs and trolls who were the standard fare for [this wing of] the instance, and had blue skin, which is, I believe, rare among tauren but reasonably common among ogres painted for war—but this was refuted by the fact that the one I continued to observe was hunchbacked (as ogres tend to stand straight, despite their varying numbers of tiny heads) and he actually had huge, muscular arms instead of a paunch. As he closed for combat, I spied tusks—too long and thrust forward for orcs, but he certainly was several times as wide as any of the usual lanky trolls. Nonetheless, further inspection confirmed that it was indeed a troll head—this* is the new face of berserkers (no more axe-throwing—not agile enough anymore). In the end, I reasoned that if they can regenerate at ungodly speeds (even if it is still a nonmagical ability in D&D), and if Christopher Lloyd is a Klingon, I can understand a bit of variation in body type. (Come to think of it, I'd forgotten the fact that they were alchemically altered.)
*Hey, would someone mind grabbing me a screencap of one of those ridiculously buff berserkers? I don't have WoW myself, and I failed to find one online.
Incidentally, these two examples also gave me inspiration for the appearance (and, in the latter case, bloodline) of new characters for the WoW real RPG and Star Trek.
P.S. Now that you mention it, my résumé itself is absurdly outdated.
P.P.S. "Mind Controlling the berserker in the previous room to tank Voone will not work. he loses the MC the moment he attacks Voone."
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Inconceivable Meme
2006.01.29 | 21:33
mood: Inconceivable
music: "We Want Candice" (HGTV)
I hadn't realized it was "fantasy/sci-fi" rather than just Star Trek: TNG (as suggested by what I'd seen of the meme before), so at first I thought I was going to be Lore. Then I realized that there's no name listed in the picture anyway, so how would you tell the difference from Data?