Bruno is now at the bottom!!

Jerksblog!

Date-Based Archive Two funny things

1. Everyone's always worried about technologically superior alien races invading earth, but I think the most embarrassing thing for our planet would be if aliens with technology less advanced than ours arrived. Our technological inferiors would totally laugh at us for not being able to find life in the universe and not achieving interplanetary travel sooner, because they managed to do it with the equivalent of a cassette-playing walkman and a TI-85 graphing calculator.

2. I decided last night that the most dangerous animal ever would be a rabid dog with a rusty nail stuck in its jaws. Think about it. You try to help get the nail out of the dog, and it bites you! Now you've got rabies and lockjaw. You'd be foaming out of your locked jaw! Plus you'd have to keep going to the doctors to get a series of giant shots for weeks and weeks afterward. N. wisely pointed out that the dog could also have ticks carrying lyme disease, and maybe some head-lice, just to be annoying. Also fleas.

I am off to Anime Expo very, very early Friday morning and will not be back until essentially Tuesday. So if you're trying to get a hold of me... well, good luck.

Posted by erin at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Who wants to see a movie Wednesday night?

I've got an extra ticket for My Neighbors the Yamadas for 8:15pm, Wednesday the 29th, at the MoMA that I'll sell to whoever wants to go. My brother backed out in favor of War of the Worlds.

You can read more about the Yamadas here and here. It's not like normal anime, or even like a normal Ghibli flick.

There is a special clause to this - if Derek writes me back, he has first dibs. Whoever else responds has second dibs.

Posted by erin at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Like some kinda freaking link factory

This video of Tom Cruise killing Oprah is pretty damned funny.

Those funny comics hanging on the wall at work are by Sean Mcbride. I have not located his funniest work on his webpage yet.

That comic I bought at Mocca Fest called Catfight turned out to actually be good! Even N. liked it! And N. hates everything.

Wizard People, Dear Reader was in fact, very funny. I'm working on burning a copy for myself, and others.

The Taste of Tea was a really great film, albeit quite long. My brother in particular liked it and vowed to purchase it when it becomes available.

Princess Raccoon did rock, as Hal claimed it did. It sucks that I had to miss 3 parties to watch it, though. But I couldn't let the New York Times win again.

Listen up, cats and kittens, because http://www.bugmenot.com/ is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Don't want to sign up using your email address for every freaking webpage you visit? Enter the URL there, and most times it'll bring up a log in for you to use.

This song from Bubblegum Crisis, "konya wa HARIKEEN (It's a Hurricane Tonight)" by Oomori Kinuko from the album "Bubblegum Crisis Complete Vocal Collection 1" is a classic of '80's anime. Priss!

Posted by erin at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Spam One-liner: My Oh My Assemblage

This week has been very busy, as I've been pulling together pieces for my Mai Hime outfit in time to be worn at Anime Expo. This will be the first time I've worn a costume at a con, I'll have you know.

Infinite thanks to KL for helping me, again. I will post pictures after the con.

I recently got a gift certificate for Forbidden Planet, and when I went there, I was horrified to find like no manga and no anime related toys compared to the last time I went there (although delighted to see some Dr. Who toys and a dalek T-shirt). I spoke to Ms. Wildgoose, who asked if I'd checked to the upstairs.

"What upstairs?" I asked. On a return trip to the store I marveled over an entirely new section of a very comprehensive manga selection, a decent shelf of anime, a small variety of toys, and a nifty magazine section. (And there were trading cards, but who gives a crap about that?) I picked up that new Yotsuba& book by the Azumanga Diaoh author, and the second volume of Cromartie High School and some issues of Kare Kano that I'd been pining after for a while. I also picked up the premiere issue of Shojo Beat magazine. It's some kind of answer to the American version of Shonen Jump. So far so good!

On Sunday I got gypped out of tickets to Princess Raccoon because the New York Times gave it a good write up so people from like, Minnesota showed up to wait in the stand-by line ahead of me. Screw you New York Times! I've been going to this festival for three freaking years! I will not be beat by Minnesota! I am seeing the movie tomorrow instead, and therefore missing not one, not two, but three parties I could be at instead, including but not limited to an anime watching party, a coworker's BBQ, and a birthday party.

On Monday I went to a meeting of an NYC area Doctor Who Club. There I met some really hardcore dorks, not the least of whom was my brother, but perhaps the most impressive of which was a couple on their honeymoon from Wisconsin.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the internet was down at work and I ALMOST DIED.

Also on Wednesday I went to another freaky New York-Tokyo event put on by that Taeko chick. It was a Shojo night, with screenings of stuff I'd seen (and not much, at that, it was a small event). The weird thing was there were some real Del Ray industry types there, hyping their manga and giving away some free books. It was a very odd event, par for the course for Energy Fest and the mysterious Taeko.

I've been reading the book of Howl's Moving Castle all week. It's a very cute book, and a fast read! I can't decide how I feel about a certain chapter, which I will discuss with those who've read the book.

Posted by erin at 07:05 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive I made some science!

Posted by erin at 03:26 PM | Comments (1)

Date-Based Archive Another Bullet Dodged

So I reported to Center Street for Grand Jury (NY State Court) this morning, 8:50am sharp, and waited in a tremendously long line to go through the metal detectors. There were hundreds of other jurors there with different types of Jury Summons. It took a long time, and I got a lot of the book Howl's Moving Castle read while I waited in line, and then in a large court room.

The man in charge - who had a perfect NYC accent - explained everything while a text version of most of what he was saying scrolled by on a periodically failing Powerpoint presentation on TV monitors. I learned a lot of facts that seemed to allude me previously.

Grand Jury Duty lasts for 4 weeks, but fortunately, it's only a half-day schedule. You can choose from 10am-1pm sessions or 1pm-5pm sessions. Once your name is in the Grand Jury name pool you pretty much have to serve (unless you have a medical excuse, move out of the county, or are a resident alien, etc.) - sure, you can postpone it a few times, but it's really difficult to weasel out of.

Grand Juries are different from Trial Juries because they don't sit through an entire court case - instead they listen to evidence in small presentations to decide if there's enough evidence for a case to go to court. So unlike what my brother insists, you can't have a "hung jury" in the Grand Jury. The presentation of a case can take a couple hours or a couple days, but usually not more than two days. They give you $40 a day for jury duty - but if you think about it, $40 times 4 weeks isn't so bad, even after taxes. Particularly since they're half-days, it wouldn't interfere too terribly with my current job.

I was a little worried because although now is the best time job-wise for me to have jury duty, I am flying out very early on July 1st, a Friday, and would have to take that off... from the jury. It turns out you can be absent once or twice if you explain it to the guy in charge of the jury when your service starts. Hearing that made me feel a lot better. I would not have to commit a crime in order to attend Anime Expo.

So they went through all the rules a few times, then called names from a giant rouster of namers - to which each person was to respond "APPLICATION" or "MORNING" or "AFTERNOON". Application meaning they're still trying to get out of it, and morning or afternoon being the time you're volunteering for. The room was crowded with probably over 200 potential jurors. There were no more seats and some people had to stand up against the wall all morning. Even so, only about half or fewer of the names called represented actual people present in the crowded room.

After that, the clerks formed 5 grand juries, each consisting of 23 people. Three were morning juries, since most people (like myself) picked morning, and two were afternoon juries, which were a little short on people (short by only 3 or 4), and more people volunteered to switch to afternoon when asked.

Boy am I glad I didn't say afternoon! My name was never called! I'm free! Free!! BWAHAHAHAH!! Another bullet dodged!! Looking at the numbers, I'd say I had about a 50/50 chance of getting called, but I totally lucked out. I think (but I'm not entirely clear on this) that I won't get called again for another two years. Had I actually served I wouldn't be called again for at least four years.

But whatever. And yes, Halifax, you can volunteer for jury duty if you feel like it (and for you it'd pay a month's rent).

Posted by erin at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Batman and so forth

Plans for a podcast are well under way. More information to come.

That new Batman movie was alright by me. There were many quotable very funny lines, and some rather ungood lines at some point - it seemed to show at the seams the work of several different writers. I totally bought the costume-creation bit, and there were many other praise-able moments in the film.

But to make a long story short: NINJAS. NINJAS NINJAS NINJAS.

Batman (in the first 20 minutes or less) attends and graduates from some kinda ninja university, and the graduation ceremony is totally held in the armory, which proves to be a mistake.

In the meantime, the bad luck trend continues. I got home on Tuesday to find that the water in our building would be shut off at 9am Wednesday for routine maintenance, so I'd have to get up a bit earlier to shower. The box of $5 manga I ordered turned out to be in Japanese. You bastards at Anime-Gamers could have fucking mentioned that on your website. Worse than that, our subways are being shut down this weekend from 96th to 149th St and replaced by shuttle busses. This happens once or twice a year, but it's always such a pain in the ass!! It doubles or triples the time it takes to get home all weekend long. It's like the MTA giving you a long, slow, painful wedgie while 100 of your closest passengers bitch about it.

All this, and then Grand Jury Duty starting next week. Ugh...

Posted by erin at 06:36 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Things I have dropped today

Things I have dropped today:

• Chopsticks
• Dumpling
• Pen
• MY FUCKING $75 UNLIMITED METROCARD WHICH I GOT VIA TRANSITCHECK AND IS THEREFORE NOT REPLACEABLE
• Not to mention the card-holder it was in!!!
• Which also had my gym membership card in it!!
• And all of this happened in Chinatown where there's no fucking way I'll see that again!
• Actually I think it might've been stolen.
• Still it's so fucking annoying, and $75 to boot.

That trip to chinatown was wholly unsuccessful. I found some things I need for the costume prop I'm trying to make, only to discover that my first choice of material was hopelessly to expensive and my second choice was not available at the moment, they have to wait for a shipment. Also the paint I hoped to be able to use apparently is much more viscus that I had hoped. In the end, it's complicated and I hope to solve my problems with glue and glitter. Or maybe paper-mache.

What looked so hopeful yesterday looks so much less hopeful in 90 degree weather with a stolen metrocard and impending grand jury duty.

Posted by erin at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)

Date-Based Archive Howl's Moving Castle

I don't see why you didn't like it.

The universal report of my friends who saw Howl's before I did - be it in raw Japanese or some pirated version - was that they didn't like it. In some cases violently so (Kerry) and in other cases a more neutral kinda "meh" opinion, and in Alison's case, a kind of reproachfulness and hopefulness that seeing the film with some kind of translation would make more sense of it (she'd read the book).

Now that I've seen it, granted, in the English dub, I can't venture to guess why everyone was so lukewarm. Howl's is an absolutely delightful film. It's not the best Miyazaki movie, but I liked it better than Spirited Away. Spirited Away might be a better film in terms of quality and substance, but Howl's is so darned enjoyable - I'd much sooner show Howl's to a non-anime fan, my parents, or anyone at all (although I might show them Totoro first).

I heard several reports that the film was very confusing. The English dub must have some modified script - because the version I saw made perfect sense. Apparently it's jarring to read the book first, as several characters are conflated into one and some scenes from the movie are totally absent from the book.

The way I saw Howl's was remarkable - I sent my brother to go wait in line from 9:30 am on at MoMA in order to by tickets (which went on sale at noon). Some finagling and sending of someone from work meant we were able to procure several more tickets. Why go to all the trouble for tickets to the premiere? Because MoMA touted that Miyzaki himself would be present. Which he was. Miyazaki didn't say anything, he only got paraded in front of the crowd, introduced, and shuffled off. He's quite short in real life. I heard a rumor that Blue Sky Studios was awarded two tickets for the premiere that also included dinner with the man himself!

I could only get a few tickets, so I'm really sorry about not getting more for my friends who are die-hard anime fans who got me into anime and probably deserved tickets more than other people, etc., etc. You know who you are. I feel bad about that. But at least you only missed the dub!

The real downside to seeing the premiere was the insanely tight security. Cell phones and cameras all had to be checked into plastic ziplock bags, prison-style. There were metal detectors. It was crazy! And all this just to see the dub. Naturally I'd rather see the subbed version - and I will, when it comes out on the 17th (supposedly).

Getting back to my opinion of the film... I can see why Kerry didn't like it - not enough cute girls. Consequently that's why he also didn't like The Cat Returns, because the protagonist of that film spends a lot of time transformed into a cat. Howl's protagonist (come on, this isn't a spoiler, it's on the freaking poster) spends her time transformed into an old lady. I had read an article here and there to the effect that people with money distributing Howl's here are worried it won't do well stateside since most other Miyazaki films star a cute girl. Those who are worried are idiots - Miyazaki's films aren't great because they usually star a cute girl! They're great for a million other reasons that have been written about by people more eloquent than myself.

Howl's is unique among Miyazaki films for a number of reasons, but perhaps not the least of which is that there is a very cute guy at the center of the film. Bishounen are a staple cliche of many anime series, but are notably absent from every Miyazaki film up to Howl's. Is Howl himself a bishounen? He prances around like a rock star in tight pants. He is very vain and has a lot more hair than other males in the film. But compared to regular anime bishounen, Howl's got almost no hair at all. I've provided this chart for comparison:

The guys on the right are all from Utena. From the bottom row we can tell Howl and Saionji are good with the ladies. For a rather hilarious chart including several bishounen pics, follow this link.

Takuya Kimura, the Japanese voice of Howl, was voted Japan's sexiest man in several magazines. He's also starring in an upcoming Wong Kar Wai film. Christian Bale does the voice of the American Howl. Is Howl a bishounen? Maybe. Who knows? I'm sure that reading the book could clear up a few things.

I should probably get back to work now, so to wrap things up very quickly: Howl's Moving Castle has a few flaws, most notably magical tears at one point. There are a few great MST3K-style jokes to be had, such as the very fat witch whom N. quickly named "Jaba Yaga". At one point, Howl rides the bomb, just like Dr. Strangelove - but it's really fast so you have to watch for it. The title of the film can be joked about in a number of ways, such as,

• Howl's Moving Slum
• Howl's Risky Real Estate Investment
• Howl's Mobile Home
• Howl's pimped-out '70's van with a bed and a "magical" unicorn poster inside
• Howl's Kind of Crappy Skateboard
• or, as N. wrote on our markerboard, "Howl, move your castle!"
• which leads to: "Howl, you left your lights on in the parking lot.

Posted by erin at 12:16 PM | Comments (1)

Date-Based Archive Alright listen up!

Alright listen up!

1. My brother is looking for a job in the NYC area. He just graduated, was a comp sci major, and he has a great resume. He's looking for programmer/developer stuff, so if you know of anything, email him at matt (at) golfgolfgolf.org (he doesn't really like golf). Maybe he could be your company's summer intern!! Think about it!

2. I've written a refutation to Rick's comments on Star Wars and you can see it below, in the extended entry.

3. Anime Central Pictures!! I have 'em here:

> But do you know why I love the original trilogy?
> Because of my childhood love for it. If the original trilogy were to be > released today you would be complaining about it (and I would be too).
> All of your criticizisms of this movie would apply to the originals if > they weren't shielded by your nostalgia for them.

I'm not so sure that's true. I wish it were possible to rewatch Eps. IV-VI as an adult and be able to accurately say whether or not I'd be able to take the cheese of some of it without much complaint, but a lot of the cheese comes directly from the '70's. In order to give the film a really fair chance, I'd have to actually be an adult, in the 1970s, who'd never seen it.

I've thought over the nostalgia factor a bit, and I'd like to bring to light the case of the new Doctor Who series. I have a childhood love for Doctor Who and a ton of nostalgia about it, but I never watched Doctor Who in the 1970s, when it came out. After something like a 15 year absence from television there's a new season of Doctor Who this year, and I like it. I'm so giddy about having Doctor Who back that I'm willing to forgive a lot of things about the new series. For some reason, I'm taking a much less harshly critical stance on Doctor Who than on the new Star Wars trilogy.

> Leia had quite a few outfits in the original movies that you weren't
> mentioning, her ice planet hoth outfit, the outfit she was wearing when
> she met Billy Dee Williams and probably a bunch of others that I've > forgotten. But her various outfits were an obvious attempt to sell more
> action figures and were all a million times more noticeable than > anything in this movie.

Leia's outfits were always more practical than Padme's, though. My favorite Padma outfits were the red robe from Phantom Menace, which we all remember, and her pregnant star-fighter pilot-looking suit, which was reminiscent of the original Star Wars costumes.

>
> Yeah the movies have stupid dialogue and the originals may not have
> anything along the lines of "Don't let that kiss become a scar upon my > heart" but they did have an awful lot of mystical crap about the force
> and were never what I would call an example of good dialogue.

A New Hope in particular had choppy, hard-to-say lines, but you know what? No midiclorians. I waaaaaay prefer mystic crap to midiclorians.

> C3PO's whining and bumbling is at least half as annoying as Jar Jar
> Binks was in the first movie.

That's a pretty extreme stance to take and I think you're just playing devil's advocate - in fact, I think your whole counter-review is just playing devil's advocate. That said, C3PO whining isn't as annoying as Chewbacca's whiny-growling. As a kid I really like C3PO, but I've never heard of any kids liking Jar Jar Binks.

> This movie had the hot Sith on Jedi action that we all craved, so stop > complaining. If you want to watch good movies have N. make you watch
> something by Bunuel.

I can't say that was what I craved at all. It turns out that I what I really like is the Joseph Campbell consultation on the film. I think watching those Bill Moyers interviews on PBS is the way to really fill my Star Wars craving. That and reading the Hobbit again.

I've seen enough Brunuel movies, so go fuck yourself.

>
> As for your mother's question, the dialogue was >
> Princess Leia: Luke, what's wrong? > Luke: Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
> Princess Leia: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young. > Luke: What do you remember?
> Princess Leia: Just... images really. Feelings. > Luke: Tell me.
> Princess Leia: She was... very beautiful. Kind, but sad. Why are you asking me this?
> Luke: I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.
>
> And the official answer from fanboys on the internet is that Leia
> remembered her mother through the force and yes that is incredibly lame.

Posted by erin at 10:24 AM | Comments (1)