Too much ginger

When the agreement between Disney and Studio Ghibli was announced a while ago, I never thought that it would include the entire catalog. There were a few films that I didn't think would come out in the US at all:
Pom Poko
My Neighbors the Yamadas
The former is all about tanuki in the woods outside Tokyo, whose home is endangered with a new development. I gather that tanuki are trickster/shapechanger figures in Japanese folklore, and the main reason I figured that it would never make it to the US is that they traditionally have enormous genitals.

Yes, that's right, enormous genitals, just like in Kentucky Fried Movie.

Yamadas is interesting for a couple of reasons—it feels a lot like the old Peanuts specials from back in the day, only with the art style from Mutts. The Yamada family is presented in a series of vignettes, only very loosely connected. They use a lot of haiku to illustrate the point of each story. The whole thing looks like a series of watercolor paintings, though I'm gathering it's just a very good cel shader.

In other news: I cannot make this shit up

So you may remember that woman who was taken hostage a while back, and managed to persuade her captor to give up by talking about Jesus?

Turns out that Jesus is evidently slang for meth.

In her book, "Unlikely Angel," released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, and she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead. (Emphasis mine)

Funny how that didn't come out earlier.

Also, One of the Supreme Court cases this year will be Anna Nicole Smith and her late husband's son, who are still fighting over hundreds of millions of dollars after six years.

Beats the hell out of ruling that corporations have the same rights as people.

Frog blast the vent core

I have mixed feelings about Joss Whedon. I never cared much for Buffy and the only episode of Angel I've seen involved the one where he's turned into a puppet. (If they're all like that, I may have to see more. But I imagine they probably are not...)

Anyway, despite that I loved Firefly. Even though Westerns in space have been done before (Cowboy Bebop, I vaguely remember hearing about a video game with the same premise, Space: 1889, etc.), there's something about the execution of the show that I really liked. Fox mangled the show by airing it out-of-sequence, interrupting it all the time, etc., but the cast and crew may finally have a chance to reach a bigger audience.

So anyway, I've been trying to figure out about how to talk about seeing Serenity last night without spoiling anything for you. If you're interested in the show in any way, I strongly recommend running to the theater this weekend. Close personal friend Maliceangst and I are both fans of the show and have seen the episodes several times. The guy next to us didn't know anything about it, but grew to like it as the movie went on.

It being Firefly, I can safely say the following things happen without giving away the store:

• Explosions
• Fighting
• Sexual tension
• Crazy people
• Witty dialogue with a smattering of weird Western idioms and Cantonese swearing

Malice and I had a couple of theories as to what happens next. If the film does well, there could be either a new series or a couple of films. Or it may get the bad mojo from the single trailer they had at the preview—a film version of Doom starring the Rock.

Now don't get me wrong. I dig on the Rock, he makes me laugh, I still giggle when I think of his appearance on SNL as Nick, the stop-smoking helper who punches you until you quit smoking. And I have to give them props for filming in first-person-shooter vision! Still, it's not as if Doom had a narrative more complicated than a grocery list. And I suspect the reason that the studio was giving out free passes to Serenity was to judge the reaction to the Doom trailer. If they were going for camp, the howls of laughter were right on the money. If they were looking for a serious film about hell and zombies and demons, well... there's not enough time to recut the movie for its October release.

I think if they're going to make any video game into a film, they should go for Marathon. There's enough backstory to fill years and years of a Web site. Holy shit. I've been reading that page off and on for ten years. TEN. That's like a millennia in giant robot years!

Anyway, doing Marathon for a movie would be at least a trilogy, plus it sets up the inevitable Halo movie, and then you could do Pathways Into Darkness as a prequel. And as Bungie is Microsoft owned now, there's an inexhaustible supply of money for marketing. My personal favorite reason is that I want to see another generation scream like Bobs. And Bobs with guns. "See you starside."

Serenity countdown: 50 minutes

A friend of mine gave me 2 advance tickets to Serenity.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Avast, ye scurvy-ridden cur

My favorite pirate is no more. Abbie has the story, which made me sob like a little girl.

It's been a rough weekend. Our stereo died a sudden death. (It's probably a bad sign when your search results are all people screaming about how they just had a $200 paperweight.)

Check it out. At least now I can start looking for equipment with a real subwoofer and main speaker.

Spent at least an hour today working on the site that just went live at work. Most of the comments are fairly negative, which doesn't surprise me much. I've fixed some of the earlier stuff.

Playing Ribbit King today, which is... um... kawaii. It's golf with frogs, only with a lot of pinball elements. One of the first games I put on my Gamefly queue, because it's cute. However, it's probably not something I need in my library.

Is it January yet?

So the "summer season" of Battlestar Galactica is over.

Allow me to pick my jaw up off the floor. I knew the To Be Continued... line was coming, and it was still quite a surprise.

Note: if you haven't watched it yet, there's one segment that has a parental advisory. They do go all Abu Gharaib for a moment, so they actually aren't kidding for a change. I'm a bit surprised that they got it on the air. OK, not too surprised. It's OK to show all sorts of nasty wounds and whatnot, just no skin.

The human body is evil and wrong, which is why you should never see it, ever.

I should go put a sweater and some mittens on. My hands are nude, just like Smiley Muffins.

BOHICA

Hard on the heels of a Katrina comes another storm that's one of the most powerful on record. And this time it's aiming at one of the main oil-refining regions in the country.

I should probably fill the tank before the weekend. And maybe a couple of coolers. I'm reminded of the old Bloom County cartoon about how the dog is going to drink unleaded from now on, since gas is still so incredibly cheap. As I overheard a vendor say at a show earlier this year, Starbucks coffee is like $30/gallon. Make that $60/gallon if you want milk in it. (Starbucks is in the business of selling dairy products, not neccessarily coffee beans.)

Perhaps I should look at the bright side: we'll soon have a Chief Justice where we know more about his movie-watching habits than his actual opinions. I think Bush's next nominee is gonna be Harry Knowles. Or Roper.

Ebert could cope with the blow of losing Roper by doing the whole rotating-chair bit again! This time he should drag people from the local weekly papers—David Walker in Willamette Week would totally bring down the ratio of easy-peasy "two thumbs up" ratings. He's a lot more critical of film. No, wait. I got it. Tasha Robinson from The Onion, who I've been reading since she was in the Daily Iowan. (Fun fact—her culture column was the first place I ever saw the glory that is Milk and Cheese.)

The Murrow Boys

Our old car, Victoria (so named because she was a "... cream thingy" like Victoria Tennant's car in LA Story) was an '83 Civic wagon. Evidently in 1983, FM radio was a luxury of sorts, so the only onboard entertainment that came standard was an AM radio.

For a time, my work commute consisted of listening to Dick Estell, the Radio Reader as he read Stanley Cloud's book The Murrow Boys, a history of early broadcast journalism. Murrow's team of journalists were a very different breed than the pretty talking heads infesting our airwaves today. They actually knew things and had abilities beyond reading off a teleprompter.. I may have to go find a copy of this book again, as it was interesting enough to keep me listening on a commute for months.

George Clooney's new picture, Good Night, and Good Luck is also about Murrow, and his decision to confront McCarthyism. The trailer is gripping, and I like their choice of not hiring anybody to play McCarthy, just using him in stock footage. I'm not sure there's an actor today who could pull off the rantings of Tailgunner Joe.

They shave my head every night

Last night was the season premiere of Arrested Development, which has been given the kiss of death by moving from Sunday night to Monday night. Eleven Emmy nominations this year, and Fox could barely be bothered to renew the show.

Some good bits last night, including a series of plugs for imoscar.com, in which Oscar Bluth attempts to prove he's not his twin brother George. Worth taking a look at if only for the haiku.

Arrested Development appears to be at the top of its form, and I love how the next few episodes will feature Oscar(tm) winner Charlize Theron talking with her mouth full. At least that's what she's doing in the teaser for next week. Still, nobody really increases their ratings with a move to Monday. Other than watching AD, I spent the evening watching The Spanish Prisoner.

Campbell Scott looks so much like his dad from certain angles.

Also, this is too late for yesterday, but: Avast!

Yarrr. Just, yarrrrrrr.

Yar, it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Tis a pity 'twere not tomorrow, for that is me usual drinkin' time with me crew. Perhaps it need to be "Talk Like A Pirate Year," if we had the corporate-sponsored time of Infinite Jest. The Year of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum.

There be at least one meetin, today. We'll see if some pirate-speakin' can liven it up. Perhaps I shall take me cue from Martha the cat, who is a MIGHTY PIRATE.

And it plays Advent Children, too

When the PSP was first announced, I was fairly non-plussed. It's certainly a beautiful piece of hardware, but the launch titles were... lackuster. The reports that a lot of units had damaged pixels and a dodgy button or two, well, that worked against them as well.

I'm not sure if Sony's managed to even out their pixel issues. I am amused at the battle between modders and the company, as each iteration of PSP firmware attempts to close out certain behaviors (Web browsers, Divx playing, etc.), which are re-enabled days later. And I still balk at the price point, a bit. However, the new crop of games are making the PSP seem more interesting. For example:

Suikoden & Suikoden II
A remake of one of my personal favorite games. On a handheld system. Throw in the sequel, which can easily fetch three-digit prices on eBay? That's pretty cool.

Did I mention the currency is called potch?

The first game had a lot to recommend it: there's the Pokemon gotta-catch-'em-all quality of finding all 108 Stars of Destiny to put the whoop-ass on the kingdom that your father serves. You get to build a castle. There are three types of fights (group, single-combat, and my personal favorite: army battles where stick figures clash and the losing souls fly upwards like so many cartoon angels). Your castle gets more complicated as you find people. Drama, intrigue, a killer soundtrack. And that's not even getting into the fun of having a weapon sharpened to increase its power. EVEN THE POTS AND PANS GET BETTER WITH SHARPENING.

The sequel had a not-always-reliable hook into the first game's saved game. So if you finished the first game, you'd run into your old main character in the second. The main army battles weren't as entertaining, but the castle parts were fun. You even had a suggestion box in your headquarters, so the characters became a little more real as they'd leave you notes about what you really needed to make the place worth living in.

Katamari Damacy
The second KD game isn't even out in stores yet, as far as I can tell. But so many people dig this game that they want to take it with them on the bus.

No polar bears on this island...

The Katamari Games have never been overly detailed, so the tiny PSP screen will do well. The idea of taking the Prince of All Cosmos on the bus, sucking up helpless civilians in the quest to make stars instead of listening to the kids talk about their teachers? That sounds awesome.

Not a PSP game, but still worth mentioning:

Dirge of Cerberus
OK, I admit it, I'm a huge sucker for Final Fantasy VII. Square-Enix should really really reconsider a remake for the PS3, as fanboys the world over will buy a game they've already played just to see it again.

Hand over the bandanas and nobody gets hurt.

The FF7 world has a lot more legs than, oh, FF8's universe. Cloud may have had spikey hair, but he was a lot more interesting than Whiny McWhinerson Squall. One of the few things I remember from Kingdom Hearts is that you get to beat the shit out of Squall for a few joyous moments. I also find it interesting that FF7 has generated at least two secondary games (this one and some cellphone game starring the Shinra Corp. Turks that you can only play in Japan) and a full-length movie, but nothing from some of their other properties. Chrono Trigger did get a sequel in Chrono Cross, but that's about it. Wait, Final Fantasy Tactics did sorta get remade as Tactics Advance, which appears to be the same world as the upcoming FF12. Xenogears may or may not be in the same world as Xenosaga, but I've never wanted to sit through hour-long cutscenes in a video game so I have not really found out.

This summer has been a really shitty time for new games. Now that we're coming up on fall and the holiday season, all of a sudden it's an embarrassment of riches. But who can afford all of them? Releasing every game in the last three months of the year must make sense to somebody, but it sure as hell isn't me. So many good games are lost in the shuffle, games that could have made money if they'd been released earlier in the year and had less competition for the same dwindling dollar.

Given the launch of new systems this fall, I expect to see a lot of stuff in the bargain bins in February.

OK, so now I'm confused.

That was one of the better episodes of Battlestar Galactica this season. The ending even made me verklempt.

(The promo for next week's episode made Kevin spaff.)

But I thought this season was 20 episodes long. But the Sci-Fi Channel is calling next week's episode the season finale. Hrm. I suspect they're doing it that way to drum up ratings for fall, as they're also claiming season finales for SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis.

I dunno—I like the idea of Michelle Forbes as the commander of the Pegasus (that stunt casting is working out well so far), but I really think the ideal person to play that role would be Dirk Benedict. OK, so I'll accept bringing him back as Starbuck's father. I would also accept... um... Tony Bourdain in that role.

Obviously I am wearing my Bad Idea jeans.

Bwu-huh?

So I'm chatting with my friend Laws about blowing up the moon, 'cause you don't mess around with God's America.¹ Then she sends me this link to a story about the s00p3r-s3kr1t Nintendo Revolution controller.



It's one-handed by default, and then if you want to play something that involves two hands, there are bits that plug into the back. I am simultaneously excited and confused by this controller. It would be ideal for games like Animal Crossing, where there's not a lot action going on. I remember that I bought an RPG-specific controller that looked a bit like that once, just to play stuff like Final Fantasy Tactics. Worked quite well, as they're not intensive games. It would also be good for something like Disgaea or Makai Kingdom.

Missed the big speech about the War on Hurricane Disaster last night, but I imagine I didn't miss much. Putting Rove in charge of the recovery effort screams cronyism, but when has that note been silent from anything the White House does? I also can't believe that John Robertshas been ducking questions like an Electric Evading Machine With Optional Cute Moppet Attachment, and nobody bats an eye. I got a bad, bad feeling about that one.

Maybe it's that he reminds me of the mass-murdering comptroller on Reno 911. I think it's the hair.

¹ - Obligatory Mr. Show reference

Dissecting a blog

I was perusing the General's blog the other day and I noticed a link to OrganicHTML. It takes a URL and generates a plant of sorts by parsing the HTML and CSS. (At least, I think that's where it's grabbing stuff from. Most of it appears random.)

I have looked through the image it created for my blog and have come up with the following breakdown:



Some of the other sites that are fed into the OrganicHTML page generate long columns, flies, or monochromatic flowers.

It's your stupid Web thing of the day. On the other hand, CATS IN SINKS.

TiVo, give that Grape Job sticker back

Tonight is the season premiere of House, which guest-stars LL Cool J and introduces Sela Ward as a regular character.

I really do hope they work Dr. Sassenstein back into the show, but they probably won't.

Looks like TiVo has decided to only hold some shows for a certain period of time. This seems... broken to me. I have been interested in getting one lately, but if they're going to retrofit machines like a thief in the night, I don't think I'll be as interested.

Instead, I'll be reading the latest Goon trade, which may be one of the best trades ever. It's got giant monsters, Hellboy, and makes fun of goth vampires.

Poking around on Television Without Pity, it looks like some fans managed to scrape up enough cash to get them to recap Farscape. I'm not a huge fan of the later seasons of the show, but the episode in question, Premiere, is one of the best tv pilots I've ever seen. The DVDs have been way too pricey to pick up—they were originally 2 episodes/disc with commentary, and then they dropped the commentary and extras, keeping the cost the same. Even now, they're doing weird collections, collected series, though the "Starburst editions" appear reasonably priced. Still not complete seasons, alas.

I found the soap opera elements of later seasons of Farscape kind of annoying, and once they dropped Zhaan for Jool, that was pretty much the end of my interest in the show. (Plus, Stark-as-plot-device bits shouldn't have made it past the writing room.) Probably one of the reasons I never watched the Peacekeeper Wars nor the new season of Stargate: SG-1. Browder and Black are now regular cast members now that they've lost MacGyver, you see.

I just wanted traction, is that so wrong?

Evidently I have a different definition of what athletic shoes mean than the stores in the mall. Every store I went to today had a wide variety of "athletic" shoes, but not a single pair of cleats.

I broke my last pair, and believe me: nobody was more surprised than I was. I've been playing kickball all summer, and my pair finally gave out. Then I thought about it—that pair was originally purchased in 1998, I think, when I was playing a lot of ultimate frisbee. (Yes, it was the story of Frisbee told in an entirely new way with Bendis writing and Bagley drawing. OK, that might not be true.)

Finally got around to reading the Powers annual, which was mostly worth it for the letter column, answered by Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn. I miss letter columns in general, if only for the extra bits from the writers. Without letter columns, would there have been an Invisibles past issue 20? I think not. (That was where he instructed people in the great Thanksgiving Wankathon—remember, there were no comics bloggers to speak of at the time.)

I think I'm gonna go watch The Transporter, as blowing stuff up sounds better than poking around aimlessly for another store that won't sell me the shoes that I need.

One of our guest stars is a Cylon, try to guess which. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised...

This has really not been a good month for robots or other living things. What with the clusterfuck in the Gulf, plane crashes, or the fact that I've had stuff spilled on my pants TWICE this week, I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

(Which is not to say that there haven't been bad spots—croquet on Monday was fun, and I finally saw the season finale of House, one of my new favorite TV shows. The other shows that rock my world lately are Lost and Corner Gas. Yes, one of these things is not like the others.)

It's a good thing that there's a new episode of Battlestar Galactica. Tonight's guest star is freaking Lucy Lawless, who I did not recognize until just today. She looks very different than her Xena days, mostly because she's blonde in this show and she's using something that sounds more like her native accent.

Kevin pointed me to this:

One of the several pages of the new All-Star Superman preview that came out this week. Damn, this looks good. It also makes me want to go re-read Supreme, if that makes any sense. I loved Supreme.

Whoopsi Gras

I think I've become a Dungeon Siege widower. We found the game and expansion pack on sale the other day, and we've been playing the heck out of it. OK, I've been watching the better half slay mightily. I must confess, it's totally derivative of Diablo, but it's also more friendly. You can have a pack animal to haul your crap. More spells, more units in your party. And it's fully 3D, so you're not limited to one camera angle.

OK, that last part is a mixed bag, as I've never really enjoyed the camera controls in any game, with the possible exception of Myth. And even that didn't go high enough for me in a lot of places.

I used to work at a company where 5:00 announced the startup time for Myth, Marathon, Half-Life, or StarCraft. If you're going to be stuck in traffic until 6:30 anyway, why not stay a little longer and play a game? You get home about the same time.

I totally miss those days. I may have to fire up StarCraft, just to hear an Archon say "Power overwhelming."

About the title: it's taken from the latest Mark Fiore cartoon, which rehabilitates my image of Flash. (Macromedia should do penance for making it possible to create some of the worst UI ever with their product.) His other stuff is good too, and I see he's got a DVD coming out. Rock on.

Sneeze and you'll lose it

The new iPod nano is cute and cool and makes me go squee the way most Apple products do, but man. I'm afraid that if I looked at it funny, it would shatter into a kajillion pieces.

And AppleCare probably won't cover looking damage.

What I really want is a Newton II that's a cellphone, plays music, and runs OS X. Plus comes with a free poney and won't raise my taxes.

I asked for a SKIM latte, you filthy slackass!

I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, but I think I know one woman who is evidently sleeping like a baby...

Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Talk about moving the goalposts. If having your home destroyed, corpses fill the streets of the city, and losing everything other than what you can take with you is working out well, I'd hate to see her worst case scenario.

I'm guessing it involves getting the wrong drink at Starbucks or something. Gods help the poor bastard who gives me decaf when I asked for regular, that much is for certain.

Spent a lot of time reading this weekend. Finally finished the new Harry Potter book, which is all about the smooches. There's also some plot about Death Eaters, a cameo by Tony Blair, and the worst performance by a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher ever.

In addition to reading, there was croquet. Our house rules involve the mandatory presence of a drink in one hand, and there's this bit about poison once you complete a circuit that I never lasted long enough to understand. It does make the game quite interesting, though.

Currently jumping on the internet bandwagon and reading Runaways. It's reminding me a bit of The Boxcar Children meets Top 10.

I could use some of this

It's very, very quiet today. Many people are tense and edgy after the clusterfuck in New Orleans, and I suspect a great deal of binge drinking is going to take place this weekend.

So hey, coffee:



Made with the Flickr Magazine Generator.

We laugh to keep from crying

Listening to Patton Oswalt's album 222, as every time I look at the news, I just want to punch the shit out of people.

As Bob Harris said, it's pretty sad that the only real accomplishment the Department of Homeland Security has to its name is that stupid-ass color warning. Helicopters sit idle for photo ops. The Secretary of State is too busy shopping for shoes to coordinate offers of aid from other countries. People, who were led to believe that going to the Superdome would be helpful, are dying in droves as there is nothing coming there. No food, no water, no medicine, no help. Nothing. It's like the administration is so pleased with how well Iraq has been working out, they're taking it on tour domestically.

Unacceptable. Simply unacceptable.

I'll be funny later, maybe.

Long before the Superdome/ Where the Saints of football play...

For some reason it's taken me three days to remember the episode of The Simpsons where Marge joins the cast of a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Now I can't stop humming the opening song, since it sounds like people really are in hell there right now. The streets are flooded, forces are being pulled from rescuing people to protecting doomed property from people who cannot wait for the aid that is forthcoming, and there are sharks and alligators swimming the streets.

Consider donating if you haven't already. There's an excellent DKos diary on charities, or you can hit the major ones:
Red Cross
MercyCorps
Habitat for Humanity
Humane Society

Fun fact: We're turning down international aid, despite the fact that tens of thousands of people are trapped without food, water, or sanitation. I suppose I'm missing all the good news coming out of this situation, like all the new habitat that will be open in the Gulf Coast for sharks, or the booming mosquito population!