Laura Seabrook's Ramblings

I just got home from theNewcastle University Gaming and Anime Club AGM. It was fun but went from 6pm to 10:30pm. My last bus home left at 6:05pm so I caught the lst 226 bus to Glendale and caught a taxi home from there. See, I can still have a social life, sometimes.

What'd we do? We watched an anime film (Tekkon Kinkreet), voted in the new committee, and had a quiz night. My team came fourth (out of seven teams).

It was mostly fun, but I was a little annoied at how the answers were given while we were working on the next set of questions. Also, the yellow subtitles on the film were very hard to read. But, so it goes.

I should be back for more, and have discovered that there are also FORUMS.

First, I borrowed from the libraries: the first season of Samurai 7, 1st volume of Azumanga Daioh, Ninja Scroll and Planet Terror. Got plenty to watch for a bit.Actually they had volumes 1 to six of Azumanga Daioh but I think I'll sample the first one before borrowing the rest. It looks c-r-a-z-y!

The second nice thing is that Kali and James phoned me from Tuntable Falls (near Nimbin). Together with Rainier they run Flowtrack up there (both being really good engineers). James is also one of the organisers of the Australian World Naked Bike Ride (you can see him riding in this work unsafe photo along with the rest of the photos). I used to visit them regularly before 2002. James said they were "worried about me", and I have to admit, I've been worried about myself. That being the case, I got an invite to come up in May for the MardiGrass (not to be confused with the Mardi Gras in Sydney).

Normally I have an extremely low tolerance (allergic?) for the weed - it gives me the shakes, a headache, and I pass out. But I like the idea of this. I've been to Nimbin festivals before and they are LOTS OF FUN!

And I think that's what I need just now.

I bought a double pack of the live Death Note films from JB's earlier in the week. Didn't notice until I got it home, but it had this sticker on the shrink wrap:

featuring
TAKESHI
"CHAIRMAN" KAGA
of
IRON CHEF

Uh, ok. I love Iron Chef (with dubbed lines like "Is he, yes he is - he's putting that sauce on the dish!") but I have to wonder who that's going to make a difference to in buying the DVDs. I don't know if there's a great overlap between fans of each show. As I suspect, Takeshi plays Light's father in the films - a vastly different role from that in Iron Chef.

Death Note (the anime) is such an entirely different kind of show (and one that obsesses fans) and I look forward to seeing what they do in Death Note (the films) and just deep the battle of wits gets between Light Yagami and "L" (who look like they could be twins on the DVD cover).

The whole first season of Hellsing finally came in at the library, and I've started watching it today. Very nice - everything I was expecting although a little cheesy too. The British accents are very odd, and one scene of Picadilly Circus has neon sign for "Loster's" beer!

I love it.

Anyway, Kevin was commenting about Neko and how it was a big thing in Japan. The most I'm familiar with is the cat's ears and tails I see on avatars in Second Life. I did a Google search and came up with all sorts of stuff.

The thing that first caught my eye was Neko for Windows - a program that adds a cute cat (or others) to your desktop which runs around chasing (or avoiding) your mouse cursor. Then there's It's Neko where you can do this on a web page. I was surprised however that Neko is also a programming language, though exactly what advantages it has over other languages remains to be seen. 

I was also surprised to discover it was a (Japanese?) gay slang referring to the femme partner in a lesbian couple. Mostly though it seems to be a Maneki Neko - one of those cat sculptures I often see in various restaurants (sometimes  one arm moves), which seems to have origins in Shinto. I always wondered what those were.

Seems the most popular meaning is an abbreviation of Nekomusume or "Cat Girl". That explains that avatars in Second Life, as this is undoubtedly what they're based on.

Mind you, I also found (or re-found, since I'd come across it via Pixia) the J-List. All sorts of stuff on this (as per below)!!!

I can't help it. I just discovered 8th Man Animé Archive!

This is an online store selling old animé series, like 8th Man, Marine Boy, and Prince Planet. Used to watch these in the 60s. Fold memories. It's so so tempting to get at least volume one of these, or even Princess Knight or Amazing Three (these last two are Tezuka creations).

Argh - temptation!

I've been watching episodes of Kyo kara maô, or "God save the King!".

This anime has all the usual fantasy trappings - teenage boy is periodically transported to an alternate work where he turns out to be King of the Demon Tribe. There's magic, palace intrigue, adventure and pirates, and slapstick all rolled into one. Apparently the anime series was based on a series of novels.

There's a running joke in that in the alternate world same sex marriages are considered acceptable, and Yuuri (the main character) accidentally becomes engaged to Wolfram von Bielefeld. While Wolfram is initially outraged, he later becomes jealous when Yuri sees other people. It's a nice touch because it's not making fun at same sex relationships (Yuuri could have easily become engaged to a girl instead) but at Yuuri's unfamiliarity with the local customs.

There are also lots of quirky characters - Gwendal von Voltaire is the tough hard-headed older brother of Wolfram who also likes knitting and plush toys! There's also the obligatory mad inventor who never does well, and others as well.

I love it - very light stuff, but lots of fun.

More serendipity. I was reading a friend's post when I saw a reference to Too Good to Last (they were talking about Firefly).  Turns out, it's all part of the TV TROPES WIKI, which talks about techniques and clichés writers use in Anime, Comics, Video games, Literate, Film, and New Media.

Funniest reference I found was Northern Exposure providing examples of Dropped a Bridge on Him. As in "When a character is permanently written out of a show, especially killed off, in a way that is particularly awkward, anti-climactic, mean-spirited or dictated by producer's fiat, they Dropped a Bridge on Him." In the first season of Northern Exposure, some dies when a satellite crashes into him! And of course it's called this because:

Named for the death of Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations, which should have been a key, climactic event putting an exclamation point to 30 years of adventuring. Instead, they, literally, Dropped A Bridge On Him. (And that's the improved version, mind you. Originally, and in the novelization, the plan was for the Big Bad to shoot him in the back, but for some reason test audiences didn't like it -- hence the improvement.)

Ha ha ha - well that was about the only way they could do it!

Other neat terms include Better On DVD, Lamp Shade Hanging, Spikeification, Clue From Ed, Freud Was Right, Too Dumb To Live, Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here and Anti Poop Socking. There's obviously much to explore at this site.

While I was down at Glendale yesterday I picked up a copy of GTR FIA GT Racing Game. This is a car racing game (as the title might reveal.

I got at Glendale early and hunted around for a "Need for Speed" game at EB games and elsewhere. I found the latest version of it (Pro Speed) and an older version (Most Wanted). The first was too expensive and I really didn't care for the theme of the second (illegal street racing) though I would have been happy with Underground after having read Initial 'D' recently (only, they'd better have a 'Tofu Driver' AI in it). Then I popped into Dick Smith's and found GTR on discount.

Gasp - the game uses up 1 Gb of hard disk space and has a security system that requires inserting the first disk every time you want to play. But, very nice, very nice indeed. It's visually stunning and has three modes, including 'simulation'. I shall fiddle around with the steering wheel later today.

Vroom, vroom!