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Star Wars Analysis by Neal Stephenson
Over at the NY Times: Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out The first “Star Wars” movie 28 years ago was distinguished by healthy interplay between veg and geek scenes. In the climactic sequence, where rebel fighters attacked the Death Star, we repeatedly cut away from the dogfights and strafing runs – the purest kind of vegging-out material – to hushed command bunkers where people stood around pondering computer displays, geeking out on the strategic progress of the battle. All such content – as well as the long, beautiful, uncluttered shots of desert, sky, jungle and mountain that filled the early episodes – was banished in the first of the prequels…
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Luc Besson is a fucking sell out
I mean, is the guy hard up for cash, or what? I sure as hell couldn’t forgive him back in 1994 for whoring Nikita out to Hollywood for an effortlessly crapalicious remake starring Bridget Fonda, and titled, most appropriately, “Point of No Return” (presumably referring to the instant a person bought a ticket to see this shitfest at the theater). But now he’s really gone and done it with the US remake of his car-action masterpiece, Taxi. For fuck’s sake, this is the movie that inspired me to request a white Peugeot 406 at Charles De Gaulle airport (and do multiple doughnuts in the parking lot in protest when all…
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On the Crossvader
In a way, hearing these breakbeats over the Imperial March was better than the entire second trilogy.
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Cooperative Art
This is most interesting when there are people who can draw on the same page as you: The Scratchpad I chose pad #2 because there are hordes of 13 year olds drawing penii on pad #1, and there were only a few people on pad #3. I suck at drawing, but it’s still fun anyway. 😉
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The Cow Says…
Found this really cute site featuring onomatopoeia performed by children in different countries: ***bzzpeek***** (hint: click one of the symbols around the main window there to start things off)
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I am a Molam Singer
My fiane is currently finishing her doctorate at Osaka University in the field of linguistics, which we both studied at Tenri University. She is writing her dissertation about Molam (alternatively spelled, “Morlum,” or, “Mawlum”) which is a traditional form of Northeast Thai singing, originally from Laos. I’ve been translating excerpts and summaries into English (from Japanese) for her along the way, and have really gotten interested in the actual music while looking for what’s available online for her. I discovered that most interesting aspect of this music for me is that it sounds a lot like rap! It’s hard to explain? But there are definitely some similarities in the verse…
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Uniformly Wrong
Gatson came by the house last night to install the English version of MS Project, and he told me about our new work uniforms, which we will be issued around the end of the month and have to wear from July 1st. I came into work today and confirmed the new design with the other guys in the office: – Pink shirts with red collars – Light green pants An alternative title for this post is, “The REAL Reason I’m Leaving This Job and Country.” Apparently there is a leak at our company at a higher level, because they are ripping this decision to threads over at 2ch. Pretty funny…
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Fingerprinting Correction
Did I say something about doing away with mandatory fingerprinting of gaijin yesterday? Sorry about that, what I actually meant to say is that they are doubling it: Japan plans to expand fingerprinting requirement for foreigners
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Blame the Gaijin
Another reason I’m definitely leaving Japan next year: Japan to have all foreigners carry IC cards for crime control The LDP and the government claim the new policy is aimed at keeping track of foreigners as part of measures to prevent terrorism and crimes. Well, it might be especially effective if they decide to embed RFID chips to enable remote scanning. I can just imagine all Japanese police cruisers equipped with gaijin detectors on the dashboard. Perhaps they can include a dye packet and/or taser function to help out, as well. I imagine this also has to do with the recent spate of counterfeiting and identity thefts – I’m told…
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Resurrection
I decided to check around on some of my favorite “dead” sites – ones that people quit updating some time ago due to job issues, necrophilia rehab, deep vein thrombosis, etc. – and was most pleasantly surprised, inspired even, in fact, let me ask you this: If a retarded kid falls in the forest, does it make a slapping sound? SHE’S BACK.
