Monthly Archive for December, 2002

Stew Reviews Cowboy Bebop

Published
by
Benjy
on Thursday December 26, 2002
in Anime and Reviews
. 6 Comments

Over the last couple of days, I watched all 26 episodes of Cowboy Bebop. It's ridiculous that I've been borrowing these DVDs from Pi for the last year and just finally watched them, and now that I've seen them I wish I'd bothered to watch them sooner. I don't have a lot to say about, but I do have a few things I wanted to say.

The biggest thing that this series has going for it is style. Lots and lots of style. The animation isn't innovative or anything, but the whole thing is fantastically choreographed with a groovy soundtrack. I'm considering trying to find a soundtrack, I liked it that much.

The setting is very much space western, as you'd probably guess from the name. If you saw any of Firefly, Cowboy Bebop reminded me a lot of that, though they're far from identical. The story follows a loosely knit gang of bounty hunters who experience very mixed luck. The most common story element by far was food, or more specifically the lack thereof.

I laughed often, too. In most anime, I'd find a character like Edward incredibly annoying to the point of grating. But in Bebop, Edward actually did her job and regularly amused me without ever getting annoying. While Edward's humor was ridiculous, the humor from everyone else was much drier -- just like I like it. In this respect, its dialogue again reminded me of Firefly.

I actually watched the dubbed version, so that I could do other things at the same time. I don't know if it's because I haven't watched any anime for awhile and I'm comparing the dubbing to awful video game voice work I've been dealing with lately, but Bebop's English audio seemed really good. There was nothing annoying about it. Also, compared to Spirited Away's dubbing, I thought Cowboy Bebop's dubbing was at least as good.

As for the DVDs themselves, they were fine, but I wished the chapter indexes had been more fine grained. Finding certain scenes I wanted to re-watch took me way longer than it should have on a random access device, because I still had to scan through half the episode looking for something. That's a general gripe I have about most DVDs, though, so it's not something that *just* these DVDs did wrong: Most DVDs piss me off as soon as I want to find a specific scene.

If you're an anime fan and you haven't seen Cowboy Bebop, you should absolutely see it. If you liked Firefly, you might consider checking out Bebop. And if you just don't like anime or cartoons, then you're not going to like Cowboy Bebop, either.

Stew Reveiws The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Published
by
Benjy
on Saturday December 21, 2002
in LotR, Movies and Reviews
. 1 Comment

Okay, I honestly don't have a lot to say about The Two Towers. I enjoyed it probably about the same as The Fellowship, because Fellowship's narrative was just much cleaner -- and that's not the fault of this movie because it's just what they had to work with. I did enjoy it, and I'll probably see it again in the theater (once I see The Fellowship again, because I haven't seen that since the theaters last year), but it wasn't perfect. 4/5

First of all, while I was amused by the idea of how much time Frodo would be off-screen, Merry and Pippin were the two who were really left out. And that's not unreasonable, really: They were my least favorite characters in the books, and their story is comparatively less interesting to moviegoers than everything else going on in the movie. People these days are more interested in "the hotness of Aragorn and Legolas," or even Frodo if you're into Elijah Wood's "young boy" look, than they are in the story of two little people having a big person's adventure instead of giving up and going home. Besides, all Merry and Pippin really brought to the first movie was a bit of comic relief.

But the comic relief in The Two Towers came from several unexpected places, and I thought The Two Towers was significantly funnier than The Fellowship. The only scene I remember the entire theater laughing at in The Fellowship was the scene at Rivendell with Bilbo and Frodo and Bilbo's little "episode" -- which wasn't even supposed to be funny. But at The Two Towers, people laughed at Gimli, people laughed at Gollum's arguments with himself, people laughed at Gimli's and Legolas's exchanges, and people actually even laughed at Merry and Pippin a few times.

If I were a dwarf, I probably would have been offended by the stereotyped portrayal of dwarves (through the jokes by/about Gimli), especially considering there were no jokes with elves as the target. Uh, luckily I'm not a dwarf, so i got to laugh.

Finally, I was a little surprised that there were no affordances in this movie for people who (for whatever incomprehensible reason) did not see the first movie. That's nice for the future, when we'll all just sit down some weekend and watch the whole trilogy, but it did feel kind of weird to just be dropped into the thick of it. The short story is, if you're planning on seeing The Two Towers and did not see The Fellowship of the Ring, for the love of god, go rent Fellowship first or you'll be ridiculously confused. Hell, I was a little confused at times, and I've read the book and seen the first movie a couple of times.

Accordion!?

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday December 20, 2002
in Embarrassing, English, Music and Stupidity
. 3 Comments

Oh, damnit, I've been spelling accordion wrong for the last couple of years, and no one told me that it was spelled accordion and not accordian!? Some friends you all are. ;-)

Short attention span review of Star Trek: Nemesis

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday December 20, 2002
in Movies, Reviews and Star Trek
. 2 Comments

So, I finally got a chance to see Star Trek: Nemesis at a matinee today, and I did enjoy it. Here's the bullet point review of the movie, with the most "reviewlike" substance being in Act III. Spoilers will be in white, so if you don't want the movie spoiled, don't highlight them. Of course, if you don't care, have at it. And one of them in Act III is highly embarrassing for me, so maybe that will lure you in. ;-)

    Act I: The previews
  • First of all, Oh, Daredevil! Well, to be more honest, Oh, Jennifer Garner. She's hot. I miss watching Alias, but I like Malcolm in the Middle better. Apparently my co-worker has all of this season's Alias so far in some computer format that she's going to let me borrow after break, though, so that's a win-win.
  • The only other preview I remember was The Core, which... HAHHAHAHHAHA. Sorry, that's about all I've got to say about it.

    • Act II: General nit-pickyness about the movie
  • One of the first things I noted was that (just like in the other movies) the makeup seemed to be much more extreme in the movies than it ever was on the TV shows. Data's eyes are that much more alien looking, and the Romulans had that much more pronounced forehead ridges, the Remans were pretty out there, and so on.
  • I was amused that the Remans looked so much like the first evil's vampire that's been in the last couple of episodes of Buffy. Of course, that could only have been coincidental, but I'm still amused.
  • The jeep scene was pretty silly, but it occurred to me that maybe it was Halo inspired. Everyone talks about how cool driving the jeep is in Halo, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that Paramount thought a jeep in Star Trek would be just as well received. Except, unfortunately, it wasn't. This is one of the scenes that I would have stripped almost entirely out of the movie. It was just there for the sake of having an early action scene.
  • The other main thing I would have cut out completely was the boarding party and the subsequent fight with Riker, which basically caused Riker and Worf to disappear completely for the last sequence of the movie.
  • They did at least provide a good reason for everyone to be on the Enterprise (in particular, Worf) and in the right place at the right time (AKA, near the Romulan neutral zone). It's always nice to have a believable premise.
  • But speaking of Romulans... Damnit, the Romulans have always been my favorite race in Star Trek -- there are so many promising stories there -- and yet, the Romulans always come off as looking gullible and/pr useless, and this movie was no exception. Bah.
  • Heh, now we know why Federation ships have such knifelike noses. Ramming speed! ;-)
  • Okay, how ridiculously stupid was it of the Enterprise to not only fly into the rift that would fuck up their sensors, but also that Picard didn't even *know* that they had plotted that course?

    • Act III: Overall Impressions
  • Honestly, I did enjoy the movie. As long as you're able to overlook the baseline Star Trek silliness, it was an enjoyable Star Trek movie. But in the end, it was still just a Star Trek movie, so you'll need to enjoy Trek to enjoy the movie.
  • I was a little upset that the movie basically turned into the Picard and Data show. While their parallel stories worked well from a narrative standpoint, it basically pushed everyone else out of the way. Geordi, Crusher, and Worf had zero character development, and Geordi and Crusher didn't even have any memorable scenes. And Worf's only memorable scenes were all comic relief (though at least it was funny this time. Contrast with Insurrection's humor). Riker and Troi were a little more involved, but they were still playing a very quiet second fiddle behind Picard and Data.
  • Okay, I admit, I cried when Data died, and I cried again when Riker recounted the first time he met Data. Despite the obvious Wrath of Khan parallels, and despite the fact that it was pretty obvious that he was only as dead as a phoenix, I still cried, because there was so much invested in the character, and it was done well enough for Star Trek. Okay, yeah, I'm embarrassed to admit that I cried over Star Trek, but I am a geek, afterall.
  • I read somewhere that the first cut of the movie was nearly 3 hours long, and they had to cut out about an hour of that (including Wil Wheaton's appearance). And that reflects my overall impression of the movie: That it was good, but that it was the shell of something better. And it's not that it felt jumpy or anything -- it was well edited, and I grant them points for that -- but it just felt like the tip of the iceberg.
  • In the end, while I enjoyed the movie that I saw, it was mainly an action movie with relatively little character development for an ensemble cast that we all know and love. I couldn't help but feel like I was missing out on something.
  • I give the theatrical release a 3/5, but honestly, I would recommend against seeing it in the theaters. Instead, I would wait for a DVD, hopefully with at least deleted scenes, though a proper director's cut would be really cool. I'm not holding my breath for anything that extravagant, though, and I'll be plenty happy with plain old deleted scenes. Man, they'd better at least give us all the deleted scenes. (And I'm making a big deal about this, because the other recent Star Trek DVD releases have basically sucked, and none of the new ones have had deleted scenes. Not that I had any desire to buy any of the other DVDs, but I would want a good DVD of Nemesis, which says something about the movie.)

Counting Crows at the Warfield on 12/17

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday December 18, 2002
in Concerts and Music
. Closed

Last night was Counting Crows at the Warfield. Adam said they were playing "a different kind of show" tonight (as opposed to the night before, apparently). But I wasn't there the night before, so I don't know what was different.

What I do know is the show was divided up into two "acts," with the first act being more acoustic and the second act being "electric." The other most notable thing about the concert was that it was basically entirely August and Everything After and Hard Candy. There were only two songs from Recovering the Satellites, and Hanginaround was the only song they played from This Desert Life. Anyway, considering they're doing some ridiculous number of shows at the Warfield this week, it's a very good thing that they're mixing up the sets.

Toad the Wet Sprocket opened, but I kind of missed them entirely. I was waiting in Berkeley for my partner in concertgoing to call me, but I finally left at 8:10 and go there at about 8:50. By shear luck, I ran into her within five minutes of getting there. It turns out there was just a slight miscommunication, and in the end everything worked out fine.

I was actually really surprised by how old the crowd was. A significant majority of the crowd seemed to be thirtysomethings, and honestly, they were more annoying than the average younger crowd I'm used to. On my voicemail, my friend said "everyone and their fucking mom is here." I'd like to object, and assert instead that instead everyone's mom was there. In particular:

To the lady standing to my left, wearing the clip on flashing light on your right ear: I want to take that light and clip it on your eyebrow for the next concert to see how you like having something like that flashing in your eye.

To the guy, unable to keep a beat and yet still swaying endlessly to the music and bumping. into. me. every. other. beat: The repeated elbow in your kidney meant stop, and it wasn't meant as a term of endearment. I did not want you to continue dancing near bumping into me, but you did anyway.

And to the lady standing behind me, singing off key: My baleful glare did not mean "sing louder."

Anyway, highlights of the show for me (in an order that has nothing to do with neither the order of the set, nor song favoritism):

  • They played their cover of Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi, which I like a lot. It was also amusing that someone apparently said something funny into Adam's earpiece, because he messed up the big yellow taxi verse and had to give it another go.
  • A Long December was very good, and he stopped in the middle of the last quiet verse to explain what the song was about.
  • They closed with Holiday in Spain, which I really really love.

Before introducing Goodnight L.A., Adam talked about how many of the early songs were written in, and hence influenced by, Berkeley (cheers), and then went on to say how many newer songs have been influenced by Hollywood (boos). Then Adam said, "Y'know, that's something y'all are wrong about. It's not a competition, it's just a city."

Of course, they then went on to open the encore with Streets of San Francisco, but knowing about their "world domination" plan (mention as many cities as possible in your songs, because you'll get the live crowds to cheer for you that much more) (also, read the last couple of paragraphs of this press release about Hard Candy), I wouldn't be pulled in by their ploy.

And my last note is that I was endlessly amused by "Charlie" (the pianist/accordionist) and his endless "trying to be sexy" poses. I swear to god, that guy must spend hours standing in front of the mirror, practicing his "leaning against the speaker and playing the accoridan," "sitting on the other speaker and playing the accordion," and "standing with one leg on the speaker and playing the accordion."

When video games become too immersive.

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday December 16, 2002
in Apartment, Games, Laugh and Zelda
. 1 Comment

Yesterday I got finally an email from my former roommate after months of silence, but unfortunately he didn't have anything to say about my missing Gamecube controller. Also unfortunately, he said that he didn't have the apartment keys, and that he just had the garage door opener. So I mailed him back, somewhat concerned, asking him if he was sure he didn't have the keys, because I knew he hadn't given them back to me. I also asked him about my Gamecube controller for the fifth time.

His reply proves what dorks he and I are:

    "I did a search around my room pushing on blocks, walking into suspicious places on the walls, killing all the bugs I could find, and eventually I heard 'doododuhduhduum' and suddenly a tiny treasure chest appeared in a puff of smoke on my futon mattress. Anyway, needless to say I found the key (too bad the boss's chamber is ninety miles away). Assuming it doesn't disappear when I use it, I'll bring it back on Thursday."

So he has the key, and I finally have an explanation for the random courtyard in my building: It's a chamber for a boss fight!

Of course, he still didn't have anything to say about my freaking Gamecube controller.

And speaking of Zelda, the upcoming Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker just got the fourth perfect score that Famitsu has ever given in Japan. Who's excited? I'm excited.

Two articles about Internet Fraud

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday December 13, 2002
in Internet, Links and Macintosh
. Closed

First of all, I read this great article about a Mac user who sold a PowerBook (kinda) through eBay, got scammed, and got revenge the right way that was posted to seemingly every website I read today. My favorite quote by far was:

    "I asked for help again in the Mac boards. Two Chicago residents replied, and the next morning, courtesy of Tim, I had 23 pictures of the house, the cars in the driveway (with license plate numbers) and the neighborhood. I'd like to see a Dell user do something like that at 4:30 in the morning for a complete stranger a thousand miles away."

Anyway, reading the Metafilter thread about that article, I came across this old wired article about a boy who was killed by a mail bomb after he scammed someone over the Internet. It's a fairly interesting read, and I spent awhile contemplating the narrative implications of the story's lack of any heroes. Also, the last two paragraphs are notably poignant. It's long, but it's worth a read.

Update, Sun Dec 15 18:28:30 PST 2002: I finally fixed the mac link and the mefi thread link above... Sorry about that.

School vs. Perfect Attendance

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday December 9, 2002
in CS 160, CS 172, Ling 106 and Perfect Attendance
. Closed

One of my goals this semester was perfect attendance, but when the day was done, I didn't quite make it.

I actually missed my first three classes way back on Wednesday, November 13th. I had a 172 homework assignment due that due that was giving me fits, and by 10 am that morning I hadn't made much progress. Instead of go to class and split my attention between lecture and my homework, I decided to stay home and focus on my assignment. I'm going to console myself that I missed those classes because I was working on a homework assignment.

Looking back now, I never would have made that choice. The assignment was due at 2:30 (the beginning of class), but I figured I had until 4pm (the end of class) to turn it in. At 3:30 I only had three questions answered. I needed to turn in what I had, so I started out the door for a brisk walk up campus to Soda. When I got to Hearst and Euclid at 3:55, I got vaguely worried when I saw a few of my classmates walking onto campus. When I got to Soda, I found the classroom empty, and the teacher gone. I don't know if my clocks were off or what, but that finding incredibly frustrated me.

I suppose I could have tried to email the instructor to turn in the assignment, but between only having three of the problems done, and not wanting to contest the instructor's "no late homework" policy, I didn't bother.

To make things worse, that night, I had a Ling 106 assignment to do that also gave me fits. In retrospect, I suspect going to my 106 discussion that day would have helped me significantly in writing that assignment.

Just as I predicted, once I missed one class, I missed many more by the end of the semester. I missed two more 106 discussions, missed a 172 discussion, and missed every 160 discussion. I also missed every one of the last four 160 lectures, and 3 out of 4 of my last 172 discussions.

But, I went to every Ling 106 lecture this semester. Of course, Shannon claimed that I missed a lecture at Raleigh's after Ling on Thursday, but Jeremy backed up my claim of perfect Lakoff attendance.

I'm pretty sure that I never managed perfect attendance in even a single class before, so attending every Lakoff lecture feels like at least a partial success in my goal of perfect attendance this semester.

Two to go.

Published
by
Benjy
on Friday December 6, 2002
in School: Finals and School: Homework
. Closed

I slept for three hours off and on this morning before finishing the term paper. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the final result, because I basically grabbed the first bits of "data" to prove my point that was remotely in the neighborhood -- I didn't have time to find the proper supporting evidence I should have dredged up weeks ago.

I really liked the topic, and I wish I had had more time to work on the paper. And by "more time," I mean I don't mean I wish I'd just had "another week." Rather, I specifically wish that given what I just wrote, I wish I had a week to revise it. But it's not like I'm going to mess with that now.

Anyway, with the completion of that term paper, I just turned in the last assignment of my undergraduate career. All that's left now are two finals. And those are more than a week away, so they're the least of my worries.

Something more interesting later, perhaps. I might be mostly done, but that doesn't mean that I don't have anything I need to do.

Twelve hours and nine pages to go.

Published
by
Benjy
on Thursday December 5, 2002
in Gaiman, Inspiration, Ling 106, Pratchett, Quotes, Research and Stephenson
. Closed

Okay, my term paper is due in almost exactly 12 hours, and I've written about 3.5 pages out of 12-15. Not bad, all things considered, but I've been sidetracked for the last couple of hours researching as much as possible the history of property laws. It's been years since I've done any research like this, and I'm really enjoying it. Everything I read dangles some other carrot in front of me that I want to go investigate.

It's very inspiring, and it reminded me of an interesting comment that Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett made in this online interview. They said:

    Neil-Gaiman: But, for a writer, fiction gives you very little you can steal from.
    Terry: Whereas you can open an old history book and — bingo!
    Neil-Gaiman: Whereas reference books give you huge huge unmined fields to go and explore.
    Terry: And no one else reads them now, except us...

Another example of this is Neal Stephenson, who does a ton of research for his novels. Check out Nadia's story that her CS professor told her about Stephenson's research (for better or for worse).

Anyway, I'm enjoying my research, and I'm sad that I'm not going to be able to do nearly as thorough a job of it as I'd like. I feel bad that I can't go back to the original sources on this material, and instead I'm relying on papers that are referencing the original material that I should be using.