Warwolf, Tally Two Youkai, Angels High, Engaging!

I don't have anything new, but I needed something here.  Sorry.

So yeah, remember how I promised an update by the Thursday before last?  Yeah, didn't happen, and now I actually have some more Alstroemeria Records albums to talk about (but that'll be the last part).  No more Touhou otherwise though, I promise.  I still haven't found a not sketchy way to play any of the games anyway, and I figure I'd better at least beat one on medium, just so that it doesn't seem too ridiculous that I've read and watched so much about characters that I haven't even seen the original versions of.

Speaking of which, I went on amazon.jp out of curiosity, and browsed through some of their stuff, and man is everything expensive.  I don't know if it's just the dollar being weak against the yen or something, but wow.  I'm definitely not buying anything from there anytime soon, especially not with US shipping expenses, which I imagine must be enormous too.  Also, kanji, kanji everywhere.  There's a joke that four years of Spanish lets you read a novel comfortably, and four years of Japanese lets you barely stumble your way through a comic.  Except it's not a joke, it's probably just a fact.  How does anything ever get done over there?  Oh wait, it doesn't, their government is at least as inefficient as ours is right now.

What Have I Been Playing?
Next Tuesday, the answer is going to be Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.  I downloaded the demo last Thursday and I've been playing it, getting used to the new physics and mechanics.  Planes handle more or less the same as in previous Ace Combat games.  The yaw and roll and pitch are pretty heavy when compared to something like Ace Combat 5 or Zero, but it actually reminds me a bit of Ace Combat 04's more floaty sort of handling.  What doesn't handle like any other console Ace Combat game is acceleration.  Tap the right trigger, and all of a sudden you're going 1500 knots and about to overshoot the Flanker F you've been chasing.  On the other hand, tap the left trigger and you're falling out of the sky.  It's very weird to get used to, but once I do, I imagine it'll just make maneuvering into position all the more precise and swift.  Still, I'll often try to merge with too much energy, or start a series of high alpha maneuvers with too little, and end up dangerously out of position in a way that would cause me a lot of trouble if I were playing against a human opponent.

Maneuvering into position is at the same time more important and less important in Ace Combat Assault Horizon.  With DFM - dogfight mode - you can tap the bumpers and enter this sort of chase scene thing where the enemy is trying to shake your pursuit and you have to try and follow and get off missile shots.  It's the only way to efficiently take down some enemies, and it's actually very cool, but on the other hand, reliance on the new feature means that Project Aces has made taking out aircraft outside of DFM rather more difficult.  Missiles do not track very well at all outside of DFM, requiring very good timing, judgement of energy, and positioning to get hits on the more difficult enemies.  Normal aircraft in ACAH have very passive AIs that seem content to take it in the rudder while you sit behind them and shoot 20mm cannon rounds in their general direction.  This is probably for the better, since the cannon in ACAH does not compensate for lead outside of DFM, so getting a gun track on the target at anything except point blank range is very hard, and is not helped by the fact that it takes a lot more to take down enemy planes in this game than in any other Ace Combat game before it.  Missiles work just fine though, and I can take normal enemies out without any more difficulty than in any other Ace Combat game.

There are also so called "target leads" though, that are much more difficult to engage outside of DFM because the designers did not intend for players to engage them outside of DFM.  Their AI is pretty lackluster - about the same as a normal aircraft in any other Ace Combat game - but man, does the computer ever cheat.  Most of them are scripted to be invincible outside of DFM, even though you can still score missile and gun hits, and I always forget which ones are which until I'll be chasing one, maneuver into position, watch the plane disappear behind a wall of smoke and flame, only to emerge unhurt from the other side.  They also tend to spam flares if you get too trigger happy with the missiles, which can be very difficult to deal with, and will defeat even the most well positioned missile shot.  They're very much like the Yellow squadron planes in AC04's Lifeline mission, and like them, I can still score enough missile hits on any given target lead that I'm pretty sure it'd be dead if it weren't protected by plot armor without much of an issue.  On the other hand, they're very good for training, just scoring missile hit after missile hit in preparation for dealing with the AIs in the real game, and potentially for other humans.

See, my colleagues at Ace Combat Skies have come up with a master plan.  There's a game mode in ACAH multiplayer called world domination, where the player chooses a city to join, and compete to take control of all the other cities of the world by flying combat sorties on the offense to new territories and in defense of their own.  Most of the best and experienced Ace Combat pilots in the western world (my humble self included) are on ACS, so this is what we're planning: everybody on the forums joins a really unpopular city, like Dubai, so that it's mostly just us and whatever other people that region manages to get, and together we take the rest of the online community by surprise and conquer the world with our hundred-or-so player army.  First, we would take Tokyo for the sake of the Japanophiles, then we'd take Hawai'i to take control of the world's hula girl stockpile, and then, the world.  They will come to know and fear the ACS clan tag.  Or we'll start in Honolulu and work the other way around, but in either case, it'll be hilarious, this faction that has such a small percent of the online community taking over the world.

Or so we hope.  It's actually more feasible than it sounds.  From what I've seen, most people, even experienced gamers who play flight games on occasion, really don't fly very well at all.  Heck, the professionals that play for the previews, who you'd think would be pretty experienced with this sort of game, fly horribly.  What with the influx of new people drawn to the steel carnage of Assault Horizon, the average opponent probably won't be much harder than the average AI.

Of course, if I wanted to take part in this glorious battle, I'd have to get Xbox Live Gold.  Which sucks.  Maybe if I pay my parents back, I can get a one month subscription, so I can help my comrades for the majority of the fighting.

Life?  What is this life you speak of?

What Am I Watching?
Drunk people outside my window, but that's not important right now.

No, but really, I've been watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Super Dimension Fortress Macross, but as I've already talked about both on here, and I don't really have anything more substantial to say about them, I'll leave it at that.  It did occur to me, however, that Legend of the Galactic Heroes isn't a space opera after all.  What it really is, is a historical epic that happens to be set in the future.  As the show's tagline says: Zu jeder Zeit, an jedem Ort, bleibt das Tun der Menschen das gleiche - in any age, in any place, the acts of men remain the same.  Holy crap is this show awesome, all the politics and history and personalities, and stuff, but of course, that's exactly why it'll never see the light of day stateside.  So ist das Leben.

how do i facial proportions plz k thanks

SDF Macross is still pretty good, like a slightly less stupid version of the original Battlestar Galactica, but that's really not saying much.  The characters aren't great, and the plot is kinda stupid at times, but it does have some genuinely great moments in it, and it's still something cool to put on during dinner.  It's also kind of funny just watching to find animation errors...which isn't that hard, because if I had a penny for every time someone goes off model or crosseyed or there's a sea of elementary school drawings in the background cells, then I'd be able to pay my own way through college.

On the Theoretical Basis Of Anime Clubs
I've thought about it a lot, and I've decided that I'm going to consider thinking about trying to start an anime club next year.  I've never run anything like a club before, and I'm not sure how one goes about starting one, but with all things, one must start with a purpose, and for something like an anime club, which you'd think would be more or less straight forward, there are some odd anomalies and contradictions that have to be solved to form a solid operating principle.  Here is how I see it.

Premise 1) Anime as a blanket concept has fans because there are things going on in Japanese animation that simply are not seen anywhere else.
- Anime itself covers a very wide range of formats and topics.  This results in many subfandoms; many people attracted to the same blanket concept of anime with very divergent tastes.
- Animation has certain inherent filmic qualities to it that are present across subgenres that nevertheless lend it to certain types of stories (mainly those dealing with subjects impractical or impossible to do in live action).
- Animation has certain inherent filmic qualities to it that make certain types of storytelling, character development, and atmosphere possible, whereas in live action it would be impossible.
- Anime undeniably has elements highly influenced by Japanese culture that inherently cannot be found anywhere else.
       - Interest in Japanese culture is not endemic with interest in anime.

Premise 2) Anime fandom itself is very diverse.
- There are many ways to be introduced to anime that each have their own canon of anime titles the fan is likely to be familiar with, and each attracting a different sort of taste.
       - Those introduced from Toonami/Cartoon Network will likely know things like Trigun, Cowboy BeBop, and Gundam Wing.  If they stayed around long enough, maybe FMA, FLCL, and Death Note.
       - Those introduced from the internet will have a very wide range, but will likely at least include Suzumiya Haruhi, and may also include things like Fate/Stay Night and Azumanga Daioh.  Madoka Magica may be on the list too.
       - Those introduced from film theory or a preexisting interest in Japan will likely know things like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and at least a few Studio Ghibli films.
       - There are likely many fans who haven't seen much beyond Shonen Jump shows, like Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece, but are still undeniably part of anime fandom.

Premise 3) Anime fandom shares the uniting factor of being a fairly small community.
- Anime is largely accessible only through the internet.
- Anime fans are accessible and common only on the internet.
- Common interest in something uncommon is a uniting factor.  Anime fandom is quite uncommon.

Premise 4) Anime fandom is largely self sustaining.
- Anime fandom has its own reference pool, and therefore its own set of in jokes and memes.
       - Anime fandom also has the big three sub-fandoms: Vocaloid, Hetalia, and Touhou.
- Anime fandom is largely self-contained.
- Such a blanket sort of fandom inherently cannot be defined by a singular source material and therefore must be defined by the conception of its own fans.

Therefore An anime club must serve two separate imperatives.
1) An anime club must promote the concept of anime.
2) An anime club must promote anime fandom.

Things therefore entailed that an anime club must do.
- Meet.
- Watch anime.
       - Ideally, anime that exemplifies something inherently good about anime that all who appreciate anime can potentially enjoy regardless of what they're already familiar with.
- Discuss anime.
- Consume secondary media concerning anime.

Things therefore not entailed that an anime club do, but might be commendable.
- Hold events outside of itself.
- Attend events outside of itself.
- Collaborate with the Japanese club.
       - Anime as an interest is innately filmic rather than related to Japanese culture, but as the two are nonetheless interrelated, it might be in both our interests to occasionally work together.

Things therefore entailed that an anime club should never do.
- Promote ideals that are inherent to a specific subset of anime fandom but not applicable to a whole.  (in-joke focused shows like Lucky Star or any moe-for-the-sake-of-moe sort of shows fall under this category)
- Neglect moderation and leadership.
- Crossplay.


Practical concerns.
- We should probably not try to watch shows and OVAs longer than 15 episodes (so that they may be watched in three weeks or less).
- Unless it's unlicensed in the states, or unreasonably hard to obtain, we should only watch legal streams or DVDs, if for quality reasons alone.
- Meetings should probably be on Saturday so as not to conflict with homework or other clubs.
- Hentai would probably be a very bad idea.

First Three Things I've Unilaterally Decided We Should Watch
- Daicon IV Opening Animation (would make a good introduction on the first day)
- Ghost in the Shell (it's a truly great film with broad appeal that's not Ghibli)
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica (has things to offer to pretty much all types of anime fans, would introduce old school fans to what the new school has to offer, and fits perfectly into four episode arcs)


More Alstroemeria Records
Yep, there's more of them, and since y'all must have been so entertained by them last time, I've decided to do it again (don't worry, there's only two this time).


Harmony

"Yeah yeah, talk to the butterfly; I'm

gonna go to the ghost disco, but

not before I strike an elegant pose."

Well, it's probably not the best Alstroemeria Records album out there, but it's probably got the most awesome cover art, or if not the most awesome, the most descriptive.  I'll give you a hint: it's not power metal.

Alright, first off we have...wait...this is the right album, right?  Did I just accidentally turn on some mid 80s synth rock?  I dunno, but whatever it is, Cheek Colors has a pretty epic, 80s-tastic opening section.  It's pretty sweet...right up until the vocals start.  As much as I may complain about Nomico, at least she's accurate and has an interesting voice.  Haruna, the vocalist for Cheek Colors, very nearly ruins it, with one of the least charismatic, barely on key performances on an Alstroemeria track yet.  Anyway, still pretty cool, even if it's pretty pop-like for Minoshima.  I just wish the idea were done better justice.  After this are three songs I've already talked about because they were on Exserens (the compilation album): Dark Road, Alice Maestra, and Voile, The Magic Library.  After those three is Wind's Believer, a pretty good down-beat song in the same vein as the previous three, though also a bit more groovy with its baseline and percussion.  Misato also proves again why she's probably the best of the vocalists who contributes to Alstroemeria Records with a surprisingly effective performance.  The eponymous Harmony follows.  I gotta say, the grooviness of the track goes so well with the cover art that it's not even funny.  I get the feeling that this exactly the song the artist had in mind when he created it.  Following it up is Interlude, a Minoshima original and by far the most interesting track on the album, with its variable tempo, unconventional, almost tape-loop like vocal sampling, and general contrast with the rest of the album.  The next track is Maple Wizen (2007AW Re-Master), a very good example of Minoshima in laid back house dance mode, which is good, because it's seven minutes.  The last track is Suwa Foughten [sic] Field, and holy crap, did Minoshima san just figure out how to use nomico?  I mean, I call her helium voice, but she's actually pretty good when used right, like on this track.  Actually, I'm not sure Yuki Kajiura might not have had something to do with it.  Hmm...


Trois Noir

The god of nuclear fusion still

has yet to discover the secret

of how to sit in a chair.

Alstroemeria Records is not the only Doujin circle that composes tracks based on Touhou compositions.  Two of the most prominent DJs besides Minoshima san to do so are Sound Online (Tsukasa) and ALiCE'S_EMOTiON (also known as REDALiCE), and fortunately for us, they all seem like pretty good friends.  In fact, they decided one day to do a project together: a three part album called Trois, that would be composed of Trois Rouge (ALiCE'S_EMOTiON), Trois Noir (Alstroemeria Records), and Trois Bleu (Sound Online).  So far, I've only heard Alstroemeria's third of the project, but maybe later tonight even, I'll check out Tsukasa san's.  I've heard one or two of his tracks, and they're pretty good, and much more trance like in style.  Should be interesting.

Anyway, just like most Alstroemeria albums, Trois Noir starts with an original Minoshima composition that leads into the first track.  This time, the opening is Showdown/For Lovers Not Fighters, which in true Alstroemeria tradition, features an English phrase (telling us, apparently, to "eat it") looped to a very deep electronic organ like synth riff.  It's an interesting track for its instrumentation, even if compositionally it's very much traditional PlastiQ World Plastik World era Minoshima, and it still features the trademark bland Alstroemeria vocals, though thankfully within a reasonable octave this ti...HOLY CRAP, DID MISATO JUST TRY TO HIT F7?  I would have forgiven Minoshima if he had decided to autotune that, but I guess he has standards too.  This is followed by Flight on Tears, which reminds me very much of something that might have been on Lovelight, with the synth strings and upbeat melody, and a this time quite good vocal performance by Misato san.  Next is 光の都 (City of Light), which...wait a second, this is adapted from the same composition as the opening to Memories of Phantasm.  This one is a lot less normal-anime-OP-style, which makes sense, since it's not from an anime OP.  Also, it's actually a Sound Online track, which would explain why it...well...doesn't sound like Minoshima.  After this is...wait...this is WAY the hell not a Minoshima or Tsukasa track.  Underground Bridge, REDALiCE's main contribution to Noir, is far more like something you'd hear at a rave than anything else on any other Alstroemeria Records, but for what it is, it's a very good track, and it definitely still has a place on the album.  Well, I say that, and the next track, Nuclear Fusion couldn't be any more different if Minoshima had been trying.  Nuclear Fusion is much more like alternative rock than anything else I've ever head from Alstroemeria Records, and it works quite well.  Following is Last Remote, a...the hell do you call this?  It's not house, it's not alternative, it's not tanzmetall, it's...really heavy alternative synth rock?  The vocals are by Ayumi Nomiya, and are actually excellent for an Alstroemeria track.  Why don't we hear her more often?  Then comes REDALiCE'S remix of everyone's favorite, Bad Apple!!.  Or should I say, Rave Apple?  It's not incredible, but it's pretty hard to mess up Bad Apple.  Anyway, Gallardo (I haven't the faintest), a pretty typical Minoshima original, comes next.  Fortunately, typically Minoshima original tracks are pretty awesome.  Finally, the last track is a Sound Online remix of For Lovers Not Fighters, which, well, sounds like Tsukasa's version of For Lovers Not Fighters.  Which happens to be pretty awesome, actually.  A very atypical album for Alstroemeria Records, but a pretty good one nonetheless.


And now, remember that thing called the conservation of energy?  Screw that, physics is for dorks!  This is what a world where car tires can have a negative coefficient of friction looks like.

Gumshoe Blogger

(Proper mood music)

Journal, February 7, 1941
Left my good trench-coat out in the rain again.  Second time this month.  The tailor's going to own my damn balls if this keeps up.  Not much progress since last Friday.  The man they call Mr. Picasso is still up in some damn hole, God knows where.  He knows I got my nose in his business, and he's not liking it.  The barkeep at his front on West and Small won't keep my tab open anymore, and I always got a feeling someone's just waiting for me to turn my back.  If someone offs me in the back, at least I want to be loaded.  Still, someone's given me a blank check to get the story on this Picasso bastard, like hell I'm going to just leave it on the table because people are looking at me funny.  I've been asking around, but the dames I got on my list of people who might know what the hell is going on ain't talking to me anymore.  Only one that'll speak for me is Fern, but she only speaks .44 hollow point.  I don't need her yet, but I keep her close to my chest.  If things go asses up, I may need her to do the talking.  She makes quite an impression.  Ryan called Edel, said he's got something for me.  Probably nothing I don't already know, but he's one of the few cops I know that can do their damn job, and do it without the holier-than-thou attitude (more often than not, they do end up hole-ier than me after they do something stupid).  Says he'll meet me at the bar down the street.  My bar.  The one that'll keep my tab open.  Hell, it's about time.  Maybe Edel will have the blinds in my office fixed by the time I get back.

So...only about 200% behind schedule.  If I said this was better than I expected me to do, would you call me a pessimist?  This is going to be much longer than I wanted.  Sorry guys.

What am I playing?
I went and did something stupid last Sunday.  I went home for the weekend, and forgot to throw my backpack in the car when we went back.  The backpack with my laptop, textbooks, The Tolkien Reader (see last entry) and notepad.  And that's terrible.

So I'm writing this on my school PC, which I don't normally use for much.  I do, however, have Steam on this laptop, which I never installed on my Mac.  Because of this, I downloaded the Mass Effect 2 demo.

I'm commander Shepard, and...well..you know...

Why did I download the demo for a game I already have and love and beat twice?  Well, the PC interface is different, for one.  It's more adapted to playing with a keyboard and mouse than the Xbox 360's power and weapon wheel o' doom.  In fact, I'm tempted to say that it's slightly easier to use, but since they use entirely different input methods, the comparison is impossible to make in an objective way.  Of course, I'm playing with a trackpad instead of a mouse, which makes things much more difficult, especially since it won't let you hold down two keys at once and move the mouse at the same time.  This makes walking around corners difficult, as well as quickly ducking into cover.  Not to mention that it's more difficult to aim whatsoever.  Still, it's almost got me sold on PC shooters (no, I'm not calling Mass Effect a shooter).  Not that I haven't played a game with shooting mechanics on a computer before.  I still remember Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, as well as Tron 2.0.  I'm not sure you could call them exactly the same thing though.

There's another reason to play the demo.  There are six classes in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, but playing through the entire game as all of them takes a lot of time.  Time that - even though it's spent on a very, very good game - you're never getting back.  The demo, on the other hand, presents you with a variety of types of combat, and is only about an hour or so worth of play time.

After playing through the demo as a soldier, I can't help but feel sorry for all the poor saps who play as nothing else.  Sure, you get your assault rifle, which is handy with some upgrades (and next to useless without), your sniper rifle, and your additional health, but...it's just so bland.  You shoot stuff.  You're pretty good at shooting stuff, and you can shoot stuff to your heart's desire, so long as you have some people on your squad with engineering and biotic talents, but...gah!  How can you play a whole game like that?  I got weary of it before I was done with even two combat missions.  I'm sticking with the vanguard and infiltrator, thank you very much.

And yet people played as the soldier more than all the other classes combined.  I am disappoint.

Bioware did a good job with the demo, though, because now I want to do another play-through of Mass Effect 2.  I was probably going to at some point before Mass Effect 3 comes out anyway, but this settles it.  Now, I have several options as to what I want to do with this playthrough.

- Continue my previous playthrough: A few months ago (I think back in October), I did start a third playthrough as a paragon infiltrator iirc.  I was intending to make sure everyone survived and to court Tali, destroying the collector base.  The thing is, I've already done it as a paragon infiltrator, romancing Tali.  The only reason to do it again is because I was initially going for morally gray and didn't have enough paragon or renegade points to keep Miranda loyal, so I ended up losing her and, unfortunately, Tali.

- Perfect canon Shepard: There's a tragic story behind my first play-through, importing my ME1 save.  First of all, I bungled the romance and accidentally ended up with Miranda instead of Tali as I intended because I accidentally picked the wrong dialog option and didn't want to risk losing her loyalty by backing out.  I was this close to getting everyone out alive, but I sent Grunt back with the crew because I figured we'd need someone who could deal with a large threat on his own, so everyone else's chances were lower at the hold-the-line segment, and Tali got herself killed because of it.  I could go back and play through using my ME1 save again, with the foreknowledge of what I want to do.  I also have a better understanding of how to work the face editor, so I can make my Shepard less ridiculous looking.  As an artist, you'd think I'd have known something about how facial proportions work, but no...  Then again, I would be playing an identical character type as I had already done.

- Renegade Shepard: There's a game's worth of dialog options I've never heard before because I've always been playing as a nauseatingly idealistic Shepard because it seems you have to go one way or the other in order to get the most desirable outcome.  Then again, I don't want to play as a total dick either.

- Female Shepard: I might possibly combine this with renegade Shep if I do one or the other.  No real reason to do this other than to go with one of the male romance options.  I hear Garrus is rather hilarious, not to mention I'd get to hear more out of him than "Can it wait for a bit: I'm in the middle of some calibrations."  He's one of the most interesting characters of the game, and they gave him all of three full conversations for a male Shep.

But whatever I decide to do, I may not do it right away.  Playing on the TV in my dorm is kind of a pain in the neck in a very literal way.  I may have to find a different place to put the TV that I don't have to stare up at it from my bed, but my printer and work is all on the desk.  But I'm not talking about redecorating my room, I'm talking about manly, manly games.

Anyway, there's a new trailer out of Ace Combat Assault Horizon, which really doesn't show us any more of what the actual gameplay is like than either of the other two identical trailers.

All they show is what their Close Range Assault mode looks like on novice controls.  Are the controls always like that?  Is CRA optional?  What the heck is going on here?  It looks pretty - the artists obviously had a lot of fun on this one - but from what we've seen, it doesn't look like Ace Combat.  Whatever it is, Keiki Kobayashi seems to be at his prime, if the music in the trailer is any indication.  I'll probably buy it when it comes out.  Unless it gets savaged by the review sites and community.

Come to think of it, I don't have any really good flight games for the Xbox 360 except the thoroughly mediocre Ace Combat 6, the totally forgettable Blazing Angels 2, and the just plain bad HAWX 2.  I've been considering getting IL-2 Birds of Prey if I see it at a bargain bin somewhere.  I remember it coming out, getting good reviews, and slipping under the radar.  There aren't hardly any youtube videos of online gameplay, for crying out loud.  It'd be interesting to see how a fairly realistic game that's on the border of becoming a flight sim works on something like an Xbox controller.  I can't imagine it'd be horrible, since you've got a joystick and rudder pedals right there.  I'm also tempted to check out Apache Air Assault if I see it at a low price somewhere, but even though flying a chopper could be fun using the two sticks for the collective and cyclic, I'm not sure from what I've seen online that the actual mission design and execution is very good.

I wonder if anyone's ever wondered why there's no IL-1...

There needs to be a spiritual successor to Sky Odyssey with next generation graphics and physics.  It'd sell next to no units, of course, but if there's a game that deserves to have an update with high definition graphics (and some more fleshed out mission design and voice acting for that matter), it's Sky Odyssey.  Nobody here's ever played Sky Odyssey, I can almost guarantee, so I digress.

Another game I've been thinking about picking up for a while is Civilization V.  I'm a huge fan of Civ IV, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm just as happy playing that as I would be with Civ V.  I'm still learning things about Civ IV; it hasn't nearly reached obsolescence yet.  After all, just a few days ago I played my first game of Civ for a long while and barely got 6000 points as the Ottomans with a space race victory on chieftan.  I obviously have something to learn (though to be fair to myself, I wasn't playing to the Ottoman's strengths at all for some reason, which hurt me.)  I've played the Civ V demo, and it's pretty fun, but it's nothing that grabs you by the shoulders and slaps you in the face until you go buy the full version.

Besides all that, I've been playing some Starcraft 2 here and there.  And Portal 2 is looking more and more awesome.  But I haven't been playing too much, so that's about it.

Finally.

What have I been watching?
Not a whole lot, but like with the gaming segment, it's been a long while, so this'll probably be a long section too.  Here we go >_<

I've been watching Fractale as it's being Simulcast on Hulu.  It's a science fiction anime, but not military science fiction.  At least not so far.  It's set in a world changed forever by the Fractale system, which seems to be - at its basic level - a persistent computer network populated by AIs and "doppels" represented by holograms, superimposed by implant on the real world.  The doppels are the virtual doppelgangers of real people who may be living halfway across the world in real life.  The show seems almost as much an exercise at world building as it does a story, and so far this is where the show shines.  We're only on the third episode so far, so the focus could easily change (and it appears to be doing so), but as of yet the characters aren't so much undeveloped as they are underdeveloped.  There's more to them that the show isn't exploring yet.  For that matter, there's much more to the world that the show isn't exploring yet, but we're almost certainly going to get answers about that.  Whether we get answers about the characters is another matter.

As a seinen show, it's much more reserved in the way it handles itself than the average anime, which suits the show well.  Since it's set in a fairly far (how far isn't made quite clear) future Ireland mostly untouched by industry and civilization as we know it, there's a lot of scenery porn, which is always welcome.  It's no Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, but it adds a lot not only visually, but to the world building elements.

And as a seinen show, there's quite a bit of moe thrown into the mix.  Some of it is unnecessary and silly, but oddly enough, a lot of it goes to genuine character development, and even what may prove to be some foreshadowing.  I can't discuss it in detail so as not to spoil it or pink elephant anyone else's theories, but it has to do with how doppels work.

The first two episodes aren't especially gripping, but they're interesting enough to make me want to watch more, and the third episode starts bringing actual drama into play.

I had a lot more to say about Fractale, but as I'm writing this about things I did over a two week period instead of right after I watched it, I can't recall all of my mental notes.


The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is currently in that wonderfully legally ambiguous state where it's out on DVD over in Japan, but not in the US, so fan subs of the movie in high definition can be on youtube legally.  Not wasting a moment, I watched it.  All two and three quarter hours of it.  It's not a short movie, and on top of that, it's a movie mostly of people walking, talking, and occasionally running through the halls and down the streets of Nishinomiya, Japan.  So in order to enjoy the movie at all, you have to be already invested in the characters, because otherwise it has the potential to be deadly boring.

However, if you are familiar with the characters and invested in them, the movie is really, really good.  There's a very good reason it's the second top rated anime on ANN.  The music works perfectly, the cinematography and animation all works very well for the atmosphere, and the voice acting is, as normal, quite excellent.  The story itself is one of the great examples of how to do time travel in fiction.  It was somewhat spoiled for me because it's hard to read tvtropes and not know what's going on (though a few minor twists still proved very entertaining).

Not that it's without fault.  I've always considered Yuki Nagato to be possibly the prime example of how moe should be done (that is, as a natural extension of the character), and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is, among other things, very much an exploration of Yuki's character.  However, they seem to go a bit overboard with the moe-ness here.  The way she carries herself and her expressions are too over the top to be taken credibly, and a lot of the potential emotional impact (and there's a crapload of potential for emotional impact) is taken away by it.

And yes, even though I'm a huge fan and love the characters, even I think IT'S TOO FRACKING LONG!  I'm not sure what scenes I would have cut, were I the director, but jeez...

Overall though, I'm quite impressed.

Did you know I don't just watch anime?  I watched The Battleship Potemkin a week or so back, as well as Commentary: The Musical of Dr. Horrible's sing along blog.  And two episodes of Battlestar Galactica.


I'm sure that whatever I have to say about The Battleship Potemkin will have already been said much better at least a half century ago, so I'll leave it at "it's superb."  It's a classic for a reason, and unlike Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey, two excellent movies that I appreciated but will likely never watch again, I genuinely enjoyed watching The Battleship Potemkin.  It's a propaganda film, of course, so if it weren't entertaining in the conventional sense, it wouldn't be very effective as a propaganda film, which it is.  The propaganda film makes excellent use of montage theory, in which the propaganda film was an experiment.

Did I mention it was a propaganda film?  Because it's really, really, really obvious from frame one exactly what it is.  It's so over the top it'd be funny if it weren't so scary.  Fortunately, it's enjoyable as an exercise in montage theory and as entertainment.  It's really uncanny how much later films borrow from it.  The most prominent example that came to mind when I watched it was Interstella 5555, believe it or not, since any movie that has to convey a sense of urgency without dialog has to live and breathe montage theory in order to work.  It also seemed similar in principle to several scenes in Neon Genesis Evangelion.  I later learned that someone wrote an essay on the matter, though it's incomplete and maybe a bit too rooted in the usual writing and presentation style of Eva's not quite intellectually solid fandom (if any of that fandom is reading this, yes, I agree with a lot of what V says, even if I don't agree with V himself).

Commentary: The Musical was funny.  Really funny.  No seriously, I just can't really think of much to say about it other than it was an awesome idea that they executed well and managed to be informative at the same time.  The story of how Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog came into existence is rather fascinating, as is most everything else about it.

So anyway, not much to say about Battlestar Galactica either except that it's a brilliant show, and nobody's hands are really that shaky.

What am I listening to?
Well, a number of things, among them is Royksopp (spelled with an umlat over the first o that I would be able to type if I were using a mac but that I'm too lazy to memorize the number sequence to get it on a PC).  As I often put it, they're the music you hear at upscale housewear stores, only ten times more awesome.  Most of their work is classifiable as house, but for the most part (at least on Melody A.M, which is the only album I own completely) it's a sort of easy listening house, with interesting instrumentation and musical ideas built around the standard house framework that make for nice listening.  I'd heard two of their songs before, actually, both from Melody A.M.  Poor Leno was a track on SSX 3, and evoked weird nostalgia for an excellent game from a part of my life I'd rather disown.

Watching that video, I forgot how funny the banter was in SSX 3.  I really wish I knew where my copy of the game went...  Fitting that a Norwegian group should be featured in a snowboarding game, perhaps.  It certainly worked in-game.  A short excerpt from Eple (Norwegian for apple) was partially used in the intro video to Mac OS 10.3.  Oh so clever, Steve Jobs, to put Eple on the Apple.  Actually, make that three songs.  A short excerpt from Remind Me was used in a Geico caveman commercial once.  I had forgotten about that because most of the cavemen commercials sucked.  Geico's commercials are so hit and miss, always have been...  But anyway, they're no Daft Punk (and they don't try to be), but they've got a lot of good ideas.

It's been a very Scandinavian two weeks, because I've also discovered the song Wishmaster by Nightwish.  It's a good song with lots of energy, but it's fascinating for its lyrics in two ways.  First of all, it's a heavy mithril song, that is to say, heavy metal, but ten times geekier.  The lyrics might well have been written in character at an especially long D&D game, supposedly talking about warriors and elves, and referencing Elbereth of Tolkien's mythos.  I say "might well have" and "supposedly" because through the thick Finnish accent, it sounds less like

Master!
Apprentice!
Heartborn seventh seeker!
Warrior!
Disciple!
In me, the Wishmaster!

And more like

Monster!
Horrendous!
Hard corn seething seagull!
Warrior!
This rifle!
In me, the Witchmaster!

And the refrain is the most comprehensible part of the song.  Good luck trying to figure out what the rest of it is actually saying without looking up the lyrics.


What am I reading?
Well, not nearly enough of what I'm assigned to.  But that's neither here nor there >_>  Seriously though, been reading a lot of romantic poetry for class.  I'm actually liking it much more than I expected to.  In my mind, I had the mental image of Spanish romantic poetry, which I remembered being just horrible (La Poesia es Tu...give me a break), but Wordsworth and Blake are actually saying some interesting things in very beautiful ways.  I won't discuss it here because I've already discussed it during class so much, but it's cool.

I'm still reading a lot of Foreign Policy Magazine.  Since it's a website with a broader pool of contributors, sometimes the lower rung bloggers who contribute there are obviously talking out of their sensationalist asses, but even when they do, they're talking crap in interesting ways.  And yet I've never seen a physical copy of the magazine.  Odd.

Recently I finished re-listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on audio CD in the car on the way back to school.  There's a lot of stuff I'd like to write about it, but I don't particularly feel like doing it right now, so maybe next entry.  Suffice it to say I quite enjoyed it; it's stood up well to time.  I think I finished listening to it the first time back in early 2007.  It's got problems, but it's a very good example of what YA literature should be.  In fact, one of the things I plan on writing about is how it might be useful to use Harry Potter to explain Shounen anime and manga to people who don't watch it, as this sort of obviously-for-teenagers-but-complex-and-enjoyable-by-adults thing.  Makes me want to finish watching Fullmetal Alchemist.  Never did get around to that.

What am I doing?
A lot of things, really.  I've been getting actual homework now, though not as much as last year.  I think it's the nature of the classes that I'm taking that I don't normally get much homework, unless it's reading, or a paper or writing assignment.  The exception, of course, is Japanese.  You get a lot of homework there, and when you're not doing a workbook page, you're studying for a test.  I'm good at picking up grammar and figuring out vocabulary, but in order to actually do well in the class, you have to put a lot of work into it.  Maybe it's arranged that way on purpose.  But that doesn't matter.  Writing is still awesome, CIE is still interesting, and Intro to Music is still probably going to kick me in the ass one of these days when I least expect it.

Speaking of music, I'm teaching myself how to play the synthesizer on the computer.  It's not the same thing as knowing how to play the piano, of course, but it's helpful in understanding music theory when you know what the hell the teacher is talking about.  I've figured out how to play Funkytown, the cello part for Pachebel's Canon in D, the main theme of Halo, the lead guitar part for Moskau, and I looked up how to play the Ode to Joy theme in Beethoven's 9th, 4th movement.  None of them are particuarly complicated (the cello part for Pachebel's Canon in D is kind of ridiculous), but hey, it's not useless.  It's next to useless, but it's not useless.

I notice your oeuvre is monochromatic.

So, something we get a lot of in Pennsylvania and not so much in Northern Virginia is snow.  Lots and lots of snow.  In fact, many early morning classes get canceled because even Pennsylvania's somewhat efficient plows haven't come yet.  Not my 8:00 class on Mon, Wed, and Fri though.  Know why?  The professor lives on campus.  And he'll quite literally never cancel class unless the school does.  I've woken up, looked out the window, and seen a foot of snow and ice on the ground, and realized, clinging to the radiator, that we still had class.  It was not a particularly pleasant thought.  I rather felt like Calvin in one particular Calvin and Hobbes strip when he refused to go outside until it was as warm outside as it was inside.  And I'm someone who doesn't mind cold too much.

Of course, it's also a heck of a lot of fun.  I'll have the internet know my snow-fu is unmatched this side of campus.  Except not, because I'm too tall and my style is too energetic to sustain for longer snowball fights.  Our hall is also pretty cool with the snowman building and other snow shenanigans, for instance, building a snowman on the previously mentioned professor's doorstep.

It's also presented a lot of photographic opportunities which I have totally ignored so far.

I suppose that's it for now.  Maybe I'll be on time next week.  Maybe.