Linkstew

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.

The latest TMBG announce email had some new tour dates for their summer tour to promote No!. Notably, there are some west coast dates:

• 7/19 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
• 7/20 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theater
• 7/26 Los Angeles CA - John Anson Ford Theater
• 7/27 Anaheim CA - House of Blues
• 7/28 SPECIAL KIDS SHOW Los Angeles CA Storyopolis

They better announce an SF show or two in that gap between Seattle and LA, because I already planned two other trips in July, and as much as I want to, I don't really have time to take a third trip to socal to go to a couple of TMBG concerts.

Hm. Though if I didn't go to AX, I'd have the time and the money to go to those socal concerts... And I'd be going to AX more to hang out with my Bakersfield friends than for the anime content... But if I went to the TMBG concerts, I don't know if I'd have anyone to go with me. Blah, I suppose I should figure this out soon.

Blahhh...

Basically, my final didn't go very well at all, and I'm looking for things besides the final to worry about. Let's put it this way: 16/100 points on the final were for being able to recite the details of 2 phase commit, the details of which I did not to commit to memory. It was purely memorization, and didn't test our understanding of it at all! In contrast, last year's final said "Here is how 2 phase commit works. What happens if it fails at this point? This point? This point?" Last year's question actually tested that the students understood the concept, while this year they just tested to see if we could recite the stupid thing from memory. 16 points! And another 4 points were for knowing what caused a particular bug in a particular processor that he only talked about in lecture. And so I'm not a very happy camper. I could have gotten an A in the class if I'd done well on the final, but now I'll be happy if I get a B.

I should be at Anime Expo right now.

Clearly, I'm not. And why?

Well, there are lots of reasons, I guess. I'm really busy at work, as always. I can't really afford it, as I have a new security deposit to make. And my bastard "friend" hasn't paid me the money he's owed me for two years, and yet he's going to Anime Expo himself.

And well, I'm less than impressed with the current faddishness of Anime. As I've attended Anime Expo over the years, I've seen the event grow and grow and grow. And it'll likely be even bigger this year, because of things like Cartoon Network's Toonami, and so on.

And finally, Anime seems to have become part of the me that I'm trying to leave behind.

And so, I chose not to go this year. I wouldn't have minded spending the time with my friends from Bakersfield, but... At times I feel like I should even leave them behind. I could have gathered my ducks in a row, and made everything work, despite the financial and vocational issues, but I didn't want to. I hemmed and hawed for weeks, telling Pi I'd let him know if I could make it, but in the end I just didn't say either way. I didn't want to make the decision, but in my indecision, I had decided.

This page was recently linked to by several blogs, and all of them that I saw had generally discouraging remarks about the practice of cosplay. I'm not going to offer forth a stance one way or the other, but instead, I want to comment on what seemingly happened. memepool linked to it. Shortly after that, lots of other logs linked to it, all with pretty negative comments. It seemed like the first set the tone that everyone else picked up on and added their own personal thoughts on. Poor alisa-chan, fashionably disliked.

New Transformers in Japan. Maybe I'll stumble across some at AX.

Back when I went to my first Anime Expo, I bought a Tenchi Muyo shirt. When I looked at that receipt, I noticed that the store from which I bought the shirt was based in Berkeley, and so, as I'd be going to Berkeley that fall, I placed the receipt in my wallet so I'd remember to visit the store that fall. The receipt was forgotten, and I eventually ended up at the store anyway with my roommates.

After not having worn the Tenchi shirt for about six months, I was sitting in the office with it on and my wallet on the table. When I picked up my wallet, it spilled, and I put things back in. However, a little later, I noticed I'd missed one item -- a receipt for a black t-shirt featuring Tenchi.

So I was walking down Telegraph, and I walked by Hot Topic, and glanced in the window, and saw some Anime shirts and scrolls. This disturbed me. That is just not good. Anime does not a product for Hot Topic equal. It's just wrong! Why does this always happen to me. But on the bright side, it was mostly the "popular" Anime stuff that I don't like anyway, like Dragonball Z and Akira. Er. Yeah, Akira is good, but it's still popular, and I don't think it's as great as some people would swear it to be. But anyway, it's still wrong. Hopefully this doesn't mean bad things for the status of Anime in America.

Bad Bad Bad.

So, during the break between EE42 and EE43 today, I loitered around Terrace for awhile. I was frankly totally unsure of how to get something to eat there, because I have never eaten at any of the campus restraunts. So I was standing there, when I ran into Michael, who was going to get some Orange Juice to use his missed breakfast swipe. So I followed Michaels lead and learned how to use my swipes at Terrace.

Apparently a friend of his got the AX Music Video's from 96, 97 and 98, and hopefully he and Keith and I will get together and watch them. So I sat there for the next half an hour telling myself "I get knocked down, and I get back up again, and you're never gonna keep me down."

Well, I survived Anime-Expo, and I even came in under budget, to boot. Once people everyone pays me for the room, that is. All the same, it was cool. I'm glad I didn't have to work like Scott was doing all weekend. He missed a lot of Expo because he was working on gathering content for the AX Live Site. A lot of the cool things from the show can be relived there, if you're so inclined, and next year it should be even cooler. Anyway, I saw a bunch of great Anime, saw a lot of nifty toys, saw a lot of neat costumes, figured out what I'm going to dress up as next year, and generally had a great time. The various Anime which I saw will eventually be summarized on the Enjoy :: Anime page. In the mean time, the ones I enjoyed most are listed there.

Six and a half days, and counting. Anime-Expo approacheth! Less than seven days until a whole ton of fun! Less than seven days until I get to take a real break, and not think about anything. I'm looking forward to it. I'll get to see Tenchi Muyo! In Love 2, which is the third Tenchi movie, to be released here as "Tenchi Forever". I'll get to see a whole ton of other cool, and occasionally not cool, anime. I'll get to see many people dressed up and making the occasional fool of themselves, including Pi. I'll get to see nifty anime music videos, and maybe this year I'll make it to the Masquerade. I'll get to see all kinds of spiffy things.

This is going to be cool.

And lucky me, my Kodak expansion pack came in the mail a few days ago, so I now have even more space to take pictures of all the nifty things that will be going on, and of my goofy friends, and I also have an extra set of batteries, so that I will have to worry far less about running out of power.

This is going to be cool.

So yesterday was the Fourth of July. At least, that's what my calendar says. For me, it passed without making much of an impression on my mind. The fact that it was the fourth is something was something that I was only vaguely aware of.

The source of this problem undoubtedly has to do with the fact that I'm used to being in Anaheim for the fourth, not in Bakersfield. Due to scheduling conflicts this year, however, AX doesn't happen for another two weeks.

Which means that my mind and body will be telling me that it should be the fourth when it is July 17th, which means, after AX, I will get back to Bakersfield and the rest of July will apparently collapse upon itself. What should be four weeks long in my mind will last two.

Which means my mind will be traveling with extra momentum going into August, meaning I'll probably hit Berkeley like a sack of eggs hitting a brick wall.

Or like a rubber ball hitting the street at the base of the Empire State Building.

The latter is more likely, I expect. But.... We'll see... We.. Will See.

That puts Anime-Expo in about three weeks. That should give me the relief I need from Bakersfield until such a time as I get to go back to school. Anyone know of any good 3 or 4 unit classes at Berkeley I could take? I need one more besides Enlglish 1A, Math 55 and EE 42 and EE 43. I've considered taking just those, and then doing Lab Assistant for 61a or 61b for one unit.