Current Ramblings
Saturday, January 31, 2004
I don't spend nearly enough time appreciating my Game Boy Advance SP. Sure, I gazed at it with big, adoring eyes when I first bought it, but within minutes I had put in Pokemon Sapphire and proceeded to ignore the design altogether. It's usually either in a very tasteful leather case or being played, and neither lends itself to a proper appreciation of the design. It's only when it's being charged or I've neglectfully left it on the coffee table that I glance over and realize just how nice it is. The GBA SP is an absolutely beautiful device. Folded, it's tiny and almost featureless, with only a seam around the middle and a small, silver Nintendo logo. It fits easily into my palm, and it weighs just enough to let me know it's there. At the back are two ports large enough to let you know this is a serious device. Open it up via a spring-loaded hinge with precicely the right tension, and you have a classic Game Boy layout, but simpler. Admittedly, I've always veered toward the translucent Game Boys, so the simplicity of the opaque SP is very striking to me. The buttons have a very satisfying clickiness to them. The flat design of the control surface, with depressions for the thin buttons so it can fold properly, is almost elegant. The tension in the buttons themselves is evocative of a folding cell phone, with a satisfying clickiness. Closed, the SP is as thick as the original GBA, but opened up it's evident just how much compacting had to be done for this design. A proprietary lithium-ion battery had to be used not just to provide enough power for the backlighting, but also because no half of the SP is thick enough to accept common AA batteries. Overall, it feels much more like an "important" device like a cell phone than it does a portable game console. I am still smitten.
posted@3:57 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Monday, January 26, 2004
I'm not usually one for posting song lyrics to my blog to highlight my moods or experiences. But I discovered that my newly-acquired FLCL soundtrack has translated lyrics, and I want to share the translation of the lyrics to "Ride On Shooting Star". I'll include the Japanese as well, to illustrate that this isn't just Engrish. Mostly. (Parsing is copied from the liner notes.)
Slide of an orange reflects in the sky / Orange no slido utsusu sora
Hanging on a pride of sponge / Sponge no pride burasagete
Spider
No need to hide / Iketotta sono yokanwa
The premonition of live capture / Kakusanakutatte iinda
It is like a colored dream / Irono tsuita yume mitaina
Ride on shooting star
I continued singing / Kokorono koede sandanjyuno youni
Like a shotgun with all of my heart / Utai tsuzuketa
A grunge hamster becomes more mature / Grunge no hamster otonabite
And accompanied by a lobster of revenge / Revenge no lobster hikitsurete
Sniper
What do you say that / Fuchidotta sono sekaini
You can see in that framed world? / Naniga mierutte lunda
I want to touch it before you aim / Neraumaeni sawaritaina
Ride on shooting star
I'm looking for you and I'm having withdrawl symptoms / Kimiwo sagashite kindan shoujyouchuu
I lied to you / Usowo tsuita
Ride on shooting star
I continued singing / Kokorono koede sandanjyuno youni
Like a shotgun with all my heart / Utai tsuzuketa
Yeah. Um, that's my angsty, misunderstood life, all right. Especially the part about the lobster of revenge.
posted@12:38 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Got the main site revamped and updated today.
Ohayocon was fun, but I think I would have enjoyed it infinitely more if 1) I hadn't still been suffering through this sinus infection and the related medicine side-effects, and 2) if the line for autographs from the Inuyasha panel hadn't been so darn slow. However, Scott looks the same as always. I had him sign my Fleer Jetfire card, which he hadn't seen before and was impressed by. Richard Cox and Jillian Michaels were really cool to meet, especially when Scott's line was backing up. I did pick up a FLCL soundtrack from the dealer room, but that and lunch depleted my meager funds. I didn't need any more plush toys anyway. I got a bunch of cosplay pictures, too, but...do you really wanna see those?
posted@10:52 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas and Guardian of my Tissues:
I'm gonna update the photo blog with Walky and my escapades in Graham's lab sometime soon. I promise.
posted@12:35 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Friday, January 23, 2004
Blargh.
I feel terrible today. Got another sinus infection. I'm desperately hoping I'll feel a little better before Ohayocon tomorrow, but these things usually take a couple days to run their course. I took today off in hopes of keeping my voice, unlike last time this happened. I think a lot of you know what I'm talking about. I still spent most of yesterday sounding a hell of a lot like Raven from Teen Titans, though. I think the moral is that I need to find a new doctor, one who doesn't just throw antibiotics at all my problems and will actually take a look at why I get these messed up infections all the time. I mean, who even GETS inner ear infections? I'm still not even 100% better from that one; I still veer violently off-course if I close my eyes while walking. I should probably just go straight to an ear-nose-throat specialist, if my insurance will let me circumvent the referral process. I think part of the problem is that I haven't had a regular doctor in over 10 years, and it's been about 12 since I had a proper physical exam. So when I tell the doctor that I've been having regular sinus and breathing problems "for a while now," he's probably thinking "a couple months," not a significant portion of my lifetime. I need a fresh doctor who has time for me to sit down and say, "Look, I have had these problems since I was a teenager and they've never been properly checked out. Please look into it." And then maybe I can climb the stairs to my apartment without panting.
Hopefully I'll have the new version of my web site up tomorrow, with or without a mascot graphic. Don't expect it to be more technically sophisticated than the current one; I still don't believe a person needs a web site that can't be coded in Notepad. I'm launching it with the Ohayocon report, which will ideally have a little bit of information from Scott and Kirby about Energon and possibly Gundam SEED and stuff. And picutres of the hot, hot voice actors. I'm going to assume I'll be feeling up to it.
For the, like, two of you who haven't stopped reading and skipped this entry now, let me take a moment to angst at you: Graham and I might be going to England this summer. The problem with this is the "might". It'll depend on him getting one of a shrinking number of research assistanceship grants from his school, because otherwise he'll have to teach. If we could go, it would be one of the happiest things ever for me, and I wouldn't be able to thank his parents enough for making it possible. But the uncertainty is driving me crazy. I already let my hope gets raised a little bit, and now I don't even want to think that we might not be able to go. It'd just be too great if we could, even if I'd still have to put a good chunk of money toward a passport and more memory cards for my camera.
posted@11:36 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
I'm on top of the world these days. If you asked me when I was 15 where I wanted to be in ten years, I'd probably say right here.
Okay, I would have either said I would doubtlessly be dead or I wanted to be a cyborg. I was fucked up.
posted@1:18 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
So today I found the Superfriends Aquaman/Black Manta two-pack from DC Direct on a really good sale at Comic Town. Like, marked down 70% from the original $50. (Yes, DC Direct is EXPENSIVE.) So I had to buy him. Anybody who has had to live or ESPECIALLY work with me knows that I think Aquaman is the funniest thing in all of pop culture. (Thor is a close second place.) I will openly admit that my most ingrained impression of the DC universe is what I got from watching Superfriends and Super Powers as a very small child. This is part of why I have this usually latent attachment to Cyborg, because I thought he was AWESOME, and I was thrilled to death to see him in the Teen Titans cartoon. By the same token, I've always, always thought Aquaman was a total goofball. He had no personality whatsoever except a vapidness implied by his grinning blondness, and a really lame power to boot. But then DC decided they wanted to make him this awesome badass and give him long hair and no shirt and a hook hand. And I was all like, "Um, no." I like Silver Age/Superfriends Aquaman because it's who he IS. He's this dippy nobody with a lame power, and no amount of 90s hardcore is going to change that. I like that image of him because it stands in the face of aggressive attempts to make not-camp out of something that can be loved for its campiness. They could have found a more subtle way to make him a good character that might have worked, and then I probably wouldn't think he was any funnier than Batman. I don't generally think Batman is funny. Good, yes, funny, not usually. Batman is probably the first superhero I had any real knowledge of, from the Scooby Doo crossovers I watched when I was, like, 4. By 5 I thought the old 60s show was serious action. Me and Batman go back a long way, and even now I don't tend to think of the older Batman cartoons as funny. When I watch it, it's hilariously silly, but I still subconsciously think of him as one of the more respectable parts of Superfriends.
Wow, this is turning into a rambling thing. I'm gonna sleep. I really need to work on coding my new site tomorrow.
posted@1:53 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Monday, January 19, 2004
Top Ten Reasons Billy Should Move to Columbus:
10) There are companies here you could work for that stand a pretty good chance of being around in a year, plus they hire people outside of temp agencies.
9) Corporate radio's barely made a dent here. You can find an independant, locally-owned station for any genre, including two hard rock stations and a really good alt-rock one.
8) For that matter we even have competing cable companies. The one we're looking at switching to soon has a cable and broadband package for $60 a month. No cable monoploy here!
7) Rent is beautifully low. You could live downtown here for what you'd pay to live in Fairfax, and you're fucking downtown and not out in some lame suburb. Or for less than half that you could live in one of the other neighborhoods a couple miles from downtown.
6) Crime's pretty low here, and even if you venture into one of the worse neighborhoods, most murders here actually get solved. And our sniper only stays on the south edge of town and can't aim for shit.
5) You already know people here, and you've never even dated any of them, which saves you from that awkward situation.
4) For that matter there are plenty of people you could date. Columbus has a pretty big gay population, and some of them are pretty hot...
3) We have Tim Horton's. And a wide assortment of other really good fast food places, like Donato's and Charley's and Graeter's Ice Cream.
2) We have MEIJER.
1) Walky's gonna need a new roommate in a few months when Ron moves out!
posted@2:22 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Thursday, January 15, 2004
This is the forecast this week for where I used to live:
So today Mark, one of the managers (and possibly soon the main manager) at my store, took me aside before I went out to start my day and broke it to me that I've been taken off comics. It's a good thing I was in high spirits already, because there have been days when something like that would have made me cry. He reassured me that it wasn't because I wasn't doing well, in fact I was one of the best comics people they've had, but I had been doing the section for over a year now and he wanted me to direct that energy toward some other part of the store. Matt has been given the section, and I can't argue that he's not every bit as qualified as I am, though apparently he made some comments to the effect of expecting some kind of horrible act of vengance from me. Honestly, ever since we hired a couple more big comic geeks, I've been wondering when I was going to lose the section to one of them. It was easy when I was the only one there besides Mark (who is busy managing) and Sarah (who is busy doing warehouse ordering stuff) who was really qualified, but the competition brought by Matt and Aaron and Josh filled me with a bit of dread. Oh, but I still have SELF-HELP, thanks. Mark assures me that as soon as more thorough section reassignments are made he'll do something about that. Nobody deserves to run self-help four months straight.
I would go on for a bit about the first issue of Energon, but I don't want to spoil those who haven't read it. Maybe I'll have my feelings sorted out in a week or so, when anybody who's going to read it has been given a reasonable amount of time to do so. I will try to explain my paradoxical feelings without spoiling, though, now that I've had a workday to let them simmer. I like Energon. This issue had a very good pace for an opener, and it seems like it may get a chance to touch on some concepts and background that I really wanted to see in Armada. But in the process it has given me a great deal to think about, and some of my rock-solid personal concepts are getting an upheaval. I think it's mostly that Over-Run seems to be playing the role I always imagined for Sparkplug, and that's the most I'll elaborate. That gets me feeling a little...not upset, but pensive. My mind needs to restructure. Yes, I have far, FAR too much emotional investment in the Mini-Cons and their origins and their purpose, and specifically Sparky. Wanna make something of it?
posted@12:35 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Without spoiling, I will say that Energon #19 leaves me feeling a sort of vague hopeful angst, if that means anything at all.
posted@1:07 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Monday, January 12, 2004
Updated the photo blog with a bunch of new stuff.
posted@2:52 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Saturday, January 10, 2004
Things To Accomplish Over My Three-Day "Weekend":
* Get over this cough
* TAKE THOSE PHOTOS FOR GLEN!
* Watch:
1) the Chobits DVDs I got for Christmas
2) the DVD of Bend It Like Beckham I've had on loan from work for close to a month now
* FINALLY see Return of the King
* Read:
1) Shirahime-syo
2) Digimon 02 manga Vol. 1
* Get back to playing
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
* Figure out what's wrong with the remote FTP login at Fateback
* Get some sleep!
posted@10:18 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Friday, January 09, 2004
A couple weeks ago a co-worker of mine commented that I always seemed a lot happier when I was working on comics than when I was stocking self-help. "That's because I never look at a comic book and think, 'I have that problem'," I replied.
posted@11:46 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
I finally got the #wiigii! New Year's party pics online. I'll have a lot of new stuff in my Photo Blog once Fateback stops being cunty. It's just up enough for me to upload the picture sites from their web-based uploading, but I'm still having trouble logging in from a remote FTP, i.e. Blogger.
Today I put in for time off to go to Ohayocon at the end of the month so I can pester the always-amazingly-cool Scott McNeil. Kirby Morrow will also be in attendance, so it'll be neat to meet him for the first time. I'll definitely have to pack the camera - these guys are serious beefcakes. And I suppose in addition to ogling them I should also see if they can let me in on any news about Energon, since both of them will presumably be revising their Armada roles. It'll probably be some kind of special exclusive. Who else is gonna be reporting from Ohayocon? I'm sort of dubious about the whole thing, admittedly, because I've never been to something that is less a simple anime con than a thing devoted to all things otaku. I know some of the others here are thinking of not going, but I can't pass up Scott right here in Columbus, even if it means going to a convention full of otaku. Maybe I'll put on my cat ears so I can blend in. Yeah, that's it...
posted@12:09 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
This just in: Bush Daughters Horrid Little Bitches
I'm sitting here drinking hot liquids to soothe my throat and taking a 500-song survey for CD101, the local really good radio station. I signed up for their occasional survey about new songs a couple months ago, and apparently they like to do a big one for most of the backlist at the beginning of the year. You get points for it, which you can use for T-shirts and stuff, so I'm wading through it. I already coded some host pages for all my #wiigii! New Year's pictures, but Fateback's being hard to get along with, so I can't upload them right now. I'll let everybody know when those are up. I'm also updating the photo blog with some silly toy pics and random other stuff once I'm able to.
posted@11:30 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Retro is so surreal.
I was at Target today, even though I'm supposed to be staying at home because I'm sick. For those who want too much information, I had to go buy TAMPONS. But of course I went to look at the toys first. I've gotten used to things to a certain extent now. I'm not startled by the Care Bears or the Strawberry Shortcake, and I've been buying a lot of the My Little Ponies. And yes, there's TRANSFORMERS, which only sort of count as retro because they never properly went away. What I was not expecting was to find, on the same day, was both Rainbow Brite toys (which actually I thought were a Hot Topic exclusive) and Muppet Babies plushies. Neither seem to have exactly had a big makeover, either. At least Strawberry Shortcake's a bit of a tomboy now. It's not like all this retro business doesn't WORK. Yeah, I wanna go buy a Rainbow Brite. But it's still startling and surreal.
I'm not all that sick, in case you were worried. I've been having a bad cough, brought on by a kind of clenching irritation in my throat. I had it for a month last spring. I noticed it came on when the weather suddenly got really warm and humid for a couple days, and it got better after a good's night sleep two feet away from the gas heater only to start up again when I went outside. So I suspect it'll be clearing up now that the weather's drier again. I went to the doctor and he said it was an infection again, but given that antibiotics didn't do a damn thing last time, it seems to be clearing up already, and he didn't seem to put much work into coming to that conclusion, I'm not going to bother with the hassle that is antibiotics unless it gets worse again. Still, just to be on the safe side, I'm taking today off, staying inside where it's dry, and taking extra vitamin C. Maybe I'll even use this time at home to code a page for the New Year's pics.
posted@3:05 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments
Saturday, January 03, 2004
I'm still too worn out to give a proper rundown of the New Year's get-together, so in the meantime...Smohscreen.
posted@12:48 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments