jetblack's place http://jetblack.thebebop.net fresh, hot rants and raves -- open 24 hours Wed, 05 Jul 2017 10:36:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/cropped-favicon-32x32.png jetblack's place http://jetblack.thebebop.net 32 32 31954730 Demi-chan wa Kataritai http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2017/07/05/demi-chan-wa-kataritai/ Wed, 05 Jul 2017 17:30:12 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4736

Continue reading]]> Demi-chan wa Kataritai

亜人デミちゃんは語りたい (jp)
Interviews with Monster Girls (en)
2017 Winter
TV Series, 12 Episodes + Special
Genre: Comedy, Slice-of-Life, Supernatural
Studio: A-1 Pictures

The Premise: In a parallel Japan, monster-human hybrids have been recently introduced in society, administered by the government via a police-based agency.  These hybrids, known as demihumans or “demis,” being a recent development, are slowly being integrated into everyday life for the Japanese people.  At Shibasaki High School, biology teacher Tetsuo Takahashi learns that the incoming class of freshman will have three demihumans attending.  As a biologist, Tetsuo’s curiosity leads to his desire to know about them through a series of interviews, with a vampire, a Dullahan, and a snow woman.  His atypical reaction to their presence in turn leads the demihuman students’ curiosity about Tetsuo, and so an exchange of information begins.


This was a sleeper hit for me, as Demi-chan was a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend who had already seen the first episode.  Somehow, in my preparation for the winter anime season, I missed this one, instead casting my attention more toward the more prominent series such as Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2, Masamune-kun no Revenge, and (the previously-reviewed) Kobayashi-san Chi no Meidoragon.  I can’t lie and say that I didn’t begin watching this series without some set of expectations.  I will fully admit to having watched a fair portion of Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou, and concurrent to this series, Meidoragon.  My experience with Monster Musume was limited to the notion of monster girls being used as the basis for a super-ecchi comedy and that was the extent of my informed prejudgment of how Demi-chan might progress.

I was horribly mistaken.

Demi-chan turned out to be a warm-hearted and easy-going story, spending a lot more time on the development of the insecurities of the demihumans trying their best to make a life for themselves in a rather insular society such as Japan’s.  All throughout their lives, they faced varying degrees of prejudicial treatment, and when they arrive at Shibasaki High, Tetsuo-sensei’s reaction is quite different. It’s pretty obvious that Tetsuo is standing in for the “everyman” premise, being kind-hearted, thoughtful, considerate, and respectfully curious about who they are.  In expanding his own personal understanding of the nature of being a demihuman, he begins to try to help them feel more comfortable at school in order to provide them with the best avenue of success; an ideal we’d wish for any teacher entrusted with that level of responsibility.

The knuckleball pitch in the dirt is when one of the other teachers, Satou-sensei, is introduced as a demihuman herself.  She’s a succubus who goes out of her way to reduce contact with anyone who might find her attractive.  Satou-sensei borrows Yankumi’s tracksuit from Gokusen in order to dress down her appearance and remain as low-key as possible.  Tetsuo notices this and does his best to appear unaffected by her nature, but as it so happens in anime, incidental contact carries meaning.  A brief touch of the hands, or even bumping into her in the hallways made for some very subtle and understated comedy between the two.  Satou believes that she may have found the only man who’s completely unaffected by her pheromones, except as soon as she’s out of sight, he shows that he is utterly affected.  The manner in which this was played out in the episodes really elevated the level of storytelling being employed here.

My favorite characters out of the group were Kyoko (Dullahan) and Satou-sensei.  Both exhibited a deeper dynamic to their characters, where as the others were more caricature than character.  Kyoko’s depth came in her maturity over the others, and to a certain extent that appeared to be Satou’s strengths as well.  I found that my favorite episodes of the series resulted in a better understanding of those characters specifically, although I didn’t hate the other two and enjoyed knowing more, it’s just that I clearly favored Kyoko and Satou’s stories more.  Especially when we find out about Satou’s past and her involvement with the police detectives assigned to her case to ensure her integration into society.  Tetsuo’s curiosity about Satou leads her to believe that his interest is not purely academic, and given his (apparent) propensity involving her nature, she sees him as a viable candidate as a future romantic partner.  As stated earlier, there’s comedy to be had there, but I felt that Tetsuo’s obliviousness contributed to the proceedings.  This factors in greatly in enjoyment of the overall series, especially the recent summer episode broadcast at the end of June.

Technically, I have no complaints about the animation style.  After reading some of the manga published by Kodansha, the anime did its level best to approximate the art style depicted there.  The story itself allowed a non-reader to access the plot and the characters easily, and as they developed in each episode, those identifying with Tetsuo-sensei will begin to feel an emotional attachment to the demihumans and the obstacles they face.

Every time I turn around, there’s a new TrySail track that I must acquire.  High School Fleet turned me into a fan of TrySail’s, so I was enthused to hear them singing the opening theme, “Original.”  Unfortunately, I wasn’t as big of a fan of the ending theme, “Fairytale” by Sangatsu no Phantasia, mostly because I felt that the composition was pretty pedestrian as far as themes go, but ultimately you’re not watching an anime for the theme songs, right?  On the other hand, Masaru Yokoyama brought his A-game with the background music, however, and if you haven’t had a chance to listen to the soundtrack, you can pick it up at Amazon or CD Japan pretty easily.

In the end, Demi-chan turned out to be a solid series with emotional depth and a feel-good atmosphere.  If you’re not a fan of the “monster girls” sub-genre, then I’d recommend you skip it because the premise requires a buy-in that may not be available for full enjoyment.  I’ll be checking out a second season, if the rumors are true (as of this writing).  Hopefully we’ll have some good news for Demi-chan fans in October!

 

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Kobayashi-san Chi no Meidoragon http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2017/07/04/kobayashi-san-chi-no-meidragon/ Tue, 04 Jul 2017 18:44:28 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4726

Continue reading]]> Kobayashi-san Chi no Meidoragon 

小林さんちのメイドラゴン (jp)
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid (en)
2017 Spring
TV Series, 13 episodes + Special(s)

Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Slice of Life
Studio: Kyoto Animation
The Premise: It’s another day in the life of Kobayashi-san as she prepares to leave for her job as a coder.  As she opens her front door, she stares into the gigantic reddish-gold eyes of an enormous green dragon, who immediately transforms into a buoyantly boisterous and buxom blonde wearing a maid’s uniform.  As it so happens, the previous night after an alcohol-fueled excursion to the nearby mountains, Kobayashi encountered the same dragon.  Said dragon (Touru) had fled from another world/dimension for reasons not made clear (yet).  During their friendly conversation, Kobayashi invited Touru to stay with her, to which Touru readily accepted and out of a debt of honor, wished to repay Kobayashi’s kindness by offering her services as a maid (due to Kobayashi’s love of all things related to maids).


I loved this series.

A series like this with a premise like that doesn’t ordinarily make my radar, and it seems like the trend for the past couple of years has been around the “monster girl” sub-genre of stories being animated in Japan.  However, Meidragon is bit different than something along the lines of 2015 Summer’s Monster Musume no Iru Nichijō, Demi-chan wa Kataritai (which I’ll be reviewing later), or the offering from this season (2017 Summer), Centaur no Nayami.  In this series, rather than the characters being outwardly obvious as to the nature of their being, Touru’s transformation is done with the intent to hide that nature outright.  That adds a layer of comedy to the series that’s missing in the others, all of which seem to simply accept that Monster hyrbids or Demi-humans exist and are therefore receive governmental administration in some fashion.

Kobayashi, in her natural state.

The other aspect of this show that I thoroughly enjoyed was the fact that it is a predominantly female cast of characters engaged in the overall plot.  Any other similar premise would involve at least one male central character to give the hetero-normative approach typically seen in these cases.  In Meidragon, however, we have an adult woman being the central character which Touru finds herself hopeless devoted to (much to Kobayashi’s chagrin) was utterly refreshing.  I enjoyed watching that play out over thirteen episodes, and also appreciated the divergence from one of the tried-and-true settings of a high school or the fact that Kobayashi would’ve been hyper-sexualized in some fashion.

In fact, we see Kobayashi being a contributing member of society; doing her work and overcoming the adversity presented by her projects and the overbearing balding boss who seems to only speak in ALL CAPS all the time.  Her closest work associate is a closeted otaku, Makoto, who doesn’t seem to be interested in her other than as a confidant in their shared sociologically-shunned hobbies.  The relationships and conversation surrounding Kobayashi definitely pass the Bechdel test, which is pretty unusual for most anime.

As a character, I found Kobayashi to very interesting given the unusual living situation that she finds herself in as a result of her drunken expedition.  She’s level-headed, kind, warm-hearted, keeps her cool in tense moments, and often is the single voice of clarity and reason.  She is an ideal in terms of what’s needed for the purpose of telling this kind of story, but in that presents a strength of character not often seen in female anime characters.  She is neither tsundere or yandere, she doesn’t react disproportionately violent to comedic misunderstandings (in fact, the complete opposite), she doesn’t spend a majority of the anime pining over someone else, and she is perfectly fine with living alone and keeping her own company.  Over time, her typical desire to live alone is altered as she comes to enjoy the company of her new maid and friend in Touru.  The development of the Kobayashi character from the beginning to the final episode had me investing emotionally, and I cared enough to see the whole thing through to the end to find out what happens.

Where Kobayashi’s appearance is low-key, Touru’s is not.  Between the two central characters, Touru is definitely sexualized in that she’s busty and curvy, as you would imagine an anime dragon-girl to be.   In fact, three of the five dragons transform into super-sexy human analogues.  The other two are a butler-looking guy (Fafnir) and an elementary school-aged girl (Kanna).  Over time, though, even that visual becomes less of a factor for me (until Lucoa shows up and she went with a structurally unsound level of endowment).  The comedy surrounding the physical attributes is more in line with the comedy I’d find in a series like Oruchuban Ebichu than anything else.

Touru and Kobayashi’s relationship form the core of the series, and in this it begins as a standard fantasy component of the meet-cute between two people.  Touru’s upbringing as a dragon often serves as the basis for most of the comedy, which is fantastic because it shows the aforementioned cool-headed nature of Kobayashi in dealing with a dragon’s solutions to everyday human life in urban Japan. In the very first episode, Kobayashi’s meeting with Touru before work results in her being late.  Touru’s solution is to reform into a dragon and fly Kobayashi straight to work, while casting an invisibility spell to prevent those on the ground from looking up and seeing a huge green dragon flying overhead.  The visual tickled me and Kobayashi’s thought-process is revealed as she’s coming around to seeing the virtue of having Touru around.

Speaking from a technical perspective, I enjoyed the animation style a lot.  I thought it matched the style of the story perfectly, and the direction remained on point in presenting each episode’s halves.  The overall feel of the average episode reminded me of Azumanga Daiou, which forced me to go online to find out if Meidragon was also a yonkoma (four cell manga or newspaper comic strip).  It turns out that it’s not; it’s (still) a monthly running in Monthly Action.  I loved the interstitials they used to separate the individual stories, like the animated version of the horizontal line to make it clear that this is a line of demarcation.

Musically, I loved the opening and ending themes.  Upbeat numbers both, beginning with the opening song “Aozora no Rhapsody” (music video) by the band fhána, and matched with the ending theme of “Ishukan Communication” (ending animation) by the seiyuu of the series, Yūki Kuwahara, Maria Naganawa, Minami Takahashi, and Yūki Takada.  The slate of background music for this series delivered as well, composed by Masumi itou.

While this is supposed to be a “slice-of-life” genre series, the nature of the life being sliced changed from episode to episode.  I felt that at its core, Meidragon was almost a love letter to its manga fans, as a lot of the (sub)titles of the episodes seemed to indicated in-jokes to stories presented in that format.  Even under those circumstances, this was a highly enjoyable series, and accessible to wide variety of fans looking for an off-the-wall concept grounded in a sound premise.

 

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Anime no Omoide: Bubblegum Crisis http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2016/01/04/anime-no-omoide-bubblegum-crisis/ Mon, 04 Jan 2016 17:00:17 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1938

Continue reading]]> I’ve decided to resurrect an old series of posts called Boku no Anime no Omoide (My Anime Memories), discussing the various series and movies I’ve seen throughout my life that has had an impact on my fandom of this genre of storytelling.

BGCTitlesWay back in the days of my budding anime fandom, a dear friend of mine pulled me aside and said he had something to show me. It was called ‘Bubblegum Crisis,’ and he was positive that I would enjoy it. Now, of course, I had my doubts as to the veracity of his claim. After all, it was kind of a ridiculously absurd name and did not really pique my interest all that much. In response, he simply told me to ignore the name and try not to judge an anime based on the title. I was too tired to put up much of a fight, and after work we ended up at his place and settled in for an afternoon of anime watching.

Yeah, I was taught a rather valuable lesson that day. Had I gone with my instincts of begging off, I would not be the same person I am today. I think, along with many other early titles I watched, Bubblegum Crisis is a staple of anime fandom. At least, it’s a staple of my personal fandom. I’m not talking about the remake from Pioneer/Geneon in the late 90s, either. I’m talking about the late 80s produced original, where you could tell it was all hand-drawn and not computer-assisted. Along with classics like Urusei Yatsura, Choujiku Yosai Macross, Uchuu Senkan Yamato, Kimagure Orange Road, and many others, Bubblegum Crisis is a must-see for any anime fan out there. It’s a common frame of reference, a point of contention between fans over what constitutes a bad dub, and if you haven’t seen it, you’re punched right out of the conversation, I guarantee you.

BGCSyliaStringrayIn short, its summary is this: Four women battle against the out-of-control creations of the Genom corporation: one driven by revenge, one driven by boredom, one driven by excitement, and one driven by loyalty. Led by Miss Sylia Stingray, these Knight Sabers band together to crusade against the injustice of androids with too much power. Underground singer Priss Asagiri, Linna Yamazaki, and police data specialist Nene Romanova round out the group, wearing Stingray-designed hardsuits and kicking some serious Boomer ass through eight episodes of OVA goodness.

Can you sense my enthusiasm? Good.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this series. It delivers action, romance, drama, and a memorable soundtrack the likes of which has never been reproduced. Every character shows a level of depth that you really only got to see in much longer series. What a story like Crisis, it would take a series such as Full Metal Panic or Gundam much more than eight episodes to provide you with a clear background, and even then it took a sequel, Bubbblegum Crash!, to really screw the pooch. Which in a sense was an additional three episodes to the story, but you see how perfect the eight was? It really didn’t even need the full eleven, right?

Though… Crash had good music. What is it with all these series that are bad, but have kickass OSTs?

Not that BGC was any slouch in the OST department. Quite possibly the most recognizable set of vocal tracks in anime history belongs to this series, which includes the perennial Konya wa Hurricane and my personal favorite, Bye, Bye, My Crisis. The latter of which is just a fun song to chairdance to. Also, it took me forever to find the music in the pre-Complete Vocal Collection days. Essentially, the entirety of the soundtrack is an homage to the girl bands of the early 80s; specifically the overall sound and vibe from The Runaways, a band that was a huge hit in Japan in the late 70s.  I could write a full review on the music, itself, so I’ll cut myself short here. The bottom line is, if you haven’t yet watched this series, then crawl out from underneath your rock and get thee hence!

Character-wise, my favorites had to be Priss and Nene.  Priss is singing her heart out in the very beginning of the entire series, and you’re slowly introduced to the rest of the Knight Sabers.  But, I always felt that Nene got something of a bad rap throughout the series until the very last episode of the initial eight.  Priss was shown to be this ass-kicking woman of power.  Even Leon was unable to avoid her charms due to the sheer amount of confidence portrayed within the character.  Nene had a quieter strength that was often overshadowed by her fears.  In battle, she often tended to stay out of the way, or fire wildly while letting out a scream queen-esque shriek at the enemy.  In her own element of research, she showed her prowess, especially in “Scoop Chase.”

BGCNene&PrissThere’s even a scene where Nene is showing the police chief’s niece around in one of those Mini Cooper police cars, and she catches a speeding motorcycle.  A motorcycle that happens to be drive by none other than Priss.  The look on Nene’s face when she realizes that she’s just caught a member of her group and friend is priceless.  Given that the chief’s niece is watching with interest, she can’t just let Priss go.  Especially when Priss is taunting her to not give her that ticket.  Instead, she gather up her courage and issues that ticket, to Priss’ surprise and later anger.

Crisis’ writing did a great job of exposing not just the four members of the Knight Sabers, but some of the supporting characters as well.  Mackie, Sylia’s younger brother, gets his introduction in the first episode as being a bit of a creeper.  Later, he’s developed into a decent mechanic and even ends up with his own hardsuit.  I started kind of shipping him and Nene and I got a reward for that in “Scoop Chase,” where he refuses to leave Nene behind during a climactic scene.

The two AD Police detectives, Leon and Daley, even get a lot of screen time in working things from their angle.  A lot of their cases end up intersecting with the Knight Sabers, so the stories often show things from their perspectives.  Leon’s unabashed interest in Priss is used as a comedic premise and foil, respectively.  Daley is an interesting entry in the story because he’s openly gay, which I hadn’t really seen in an anime up until then.  I enjoyed his obvious flirting with Leon to see his reaction.

Bubblegum Crisis’ story is told and retold over the course of several series.  Beyond the original series, there was the aforementioned sequel (Crash!) and a prequel (A.D. Police Files).  Pioneer/Geneon decided to do a reboot/retelling in Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, which was far less impressive and focused far more on the drama than the comedy.  It, too, had a side-story called A.D. Police (known as A.D. Police: To Protect and Serve in the US).  And then back in 2003, there was an in-universe OVA called Parasite Dolls, which focused again on the AD Police.

Next Time on Anime no Omoide: Macross!

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12:00am 2016-01-01 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2016/01/02/1200am-2016-01-01/ Sat, 02 Jan 2016 16:00:05 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4660

Continue reading]]> This is a response to the Daily Post’s prompt: Stroke of Midnight

Where was I on New Year’s Eve? I was home.

The last couple of years, I’ve been keen to stay home an celebrate the new year privately with my wife and my best bud and roommate, Shon.  It kind of works out because I don’t get any invitations to go anywhere anymore (I must’ve pissed off too many people or something), as I used in the past.  So, we’ll stay up to midnight, alternate between Univision and KRON-TV.  Univision because Spanish Television is far more interesting than any of the major media outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc) and KRON because it is the last remaining local coverage of the San Francisco fireworks left on the air.  Univision’s ads for their programming is also entertaining as hell, and it makes me want to brush up on my Spanish so I can follow along.  Not to mention, the women on Univision (and Telemundo) are hot as hell.

This year’s San Francisco fireworks were pretty impressive; it looks like the city really went all out this year.  San Jose, on the other hand, had nothing.  When I was a kid, they used to do a huge party in downtown with the big black bowler hat coming down on top of the clock tower (I’m assuming as an homage to the ball dropping in Times Square) but I guess no one wants to pay for that anymore, so the city doesn’t do it.  That stopped happening a while back, actually.  The only city in the Bay Area that does any kind of major celebration is San Francisco.  Oakland, given their distance from the city, probably lets SF pay for their show and then everyone goes to Treasure Island for a front-row seat.  I know that it was mentioned that this year, it was an unusually clear night, so the fireworks weren’t obscured in the slightest.  Even through the shitty cameras of KRON, you could see how awesome they must’ve looked from the ferry building.

In years past, I used to host a huge NYE party with all of the friends that were around back then.  We had built up a gamers’ paradise tradition back in 1994, where we would hunker down at someone’s house and play games all night.  In those days, that usually meant bringing over your Pentium PC, or an N64, or your PlayStation (original).  My buddy, Ken, had his house in San Francisco overlooking City College with this huge balcony.  With the lack of visibility toward the bay, we couldn’t see any fireworks, really.  But we all brought food (I usually cooked), shared a lot of laughs, took breaks watching anime or sitcoms, and enjoyed the company until the wee hours of the morning.  As time went on, we lost touch with some friends, made new ones, but the parties continued through until around 2009, when we decided to do a trip down to Disneyland for New Years.

Disneyland is a whole other ball of wax.  It is crowded as hell.  In order to make it into the park, you need to arrive at the opening of the gates at 9am and then be prepared to hang out in the park all the way to midnight.  Disney’s California Adventure is a great alternative, though, and it also happens to be the one part of the park that serves alcohol.  If you’re looking to ring in the new year with a flute, then you have to go to DCA.  2009 was the first and best year we did Disney.  We went again in 2012, and it SUCKED.  It was so packed, you could not move anywhere by the time you got to the Hub (the big circle in the center of the park).  Kiss any semblance of personal space goodbye, because you were shoulder-to-shoulder with perfect strangers.  I kept my hands in my pockets, and sure enough, someone kept trying to reach in to grab my wallet… it was a pickpocket’s dream.

People were getting trampled as we were trying to get the hell out of there and over to DCA, because I knew that it would be far less crowded.  Sure enough, you could breathe over there.  After that, I think Julia and I made it clear that if we should happen to be down at the Disneyland Resort for New Year’s in the future, we would choose DCA over Disneyland.  A lot of fun, less people, you could get on a lot of the rides.  The only drawback is that after the New Year is rung in, they shut down DCA and force everyone to either go home, go into Downtown Disney, or take their chances back in Disneyland.  We went back to the hotel, obviously.

Next year, I don’t know where I’ll be to ring in 2017.  Maybe someone will put together a party and toss an invite, or maybe I’ll just be home again.  Either way, I hope that it’ll be the end to an amazing 2016.

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Happy New Year! http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2016/01/01/happy-new-year/ Fri, 01 Jan 2016 17:00:58 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4654

Continue reading]]> The current cap logo of the San Francisco GiantsWelcome to 2016!

Beyond the fact that this is an even-numbered year and I think it’s time that the Giants emerge victorious as the World Series Champions, I’m also going to be turning forty in June.  So, while the Giants are duking it out in the National League West in the heat of the summer sun, I will (hopefully) be celebrating with friends and family to usher in the new era of my life…

MIDDLE AGE.

Holy shit, it’s weird to see that in writing.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing what 2016 holds.  I’m going to try and put more thoughts down in this blog, which has been pretty dormant for a number of years. I’m hoping to put in some time and some discipline to seeing how far I can get.  I’m going to be following a list of daily prompts courtesy of WordPress.com’s Daily Post.  I’m kind of ignoring today’s prompt to do the setup on this renewal.

I’m not looking for any interaction, either.  I mean, it’s cool if someone wants to comment, but mostly I’m just going to use this to express myself a little and talk about shit that interests me.  Y’know, the usual typical self-absorbed garbage that makes up most blogs.

Enjoy, and happy new year!

]]> 4654 Picking Up The Habit http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2016/01/01/picking-up-the-habit/ Fri, 01 Jan 2016 16:00:25 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4651 Well, I’m going to try and pick up the habit of blogging, as I used to in the past.  I’m not sure if I can keep it up, but I’m going to give it a try.  So, stay tuned for more content coming soon.

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Soylent Project: Week One http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2015/01/21/soylent-project-week-one/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2015/01/21/soylent-project-week-one/#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2015 19:58:35 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4576

Continue reading]]> 2015-01-13 16.19.54

The choco-banana Soylent

After a full week of a mostly-Soylent diet, I wanted to report on how I’ve been feeling and my overall health.   I’ll start by saying that I have designated one day a week (on professional advice) to return to normal food; that day is Friday, as it’s a social outing night for me.  I also did not stick to a 3 Soylents a day the entire week or weekend, but I did make sure that I had at least one or two Soylent meals on those days.  In short, my log kind of looks like this:

  • Monday: Breakfast and Lunch (Soylent), Dinner (Carne Asada, Beans, Cheese, and Tortilla).
  • Tuesday: Lunch (Chicken, Broccoli, Iced Tea), Snack and Dinner (Soylent).
  • Wednesday: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (Soylent), Snack (Pollo Asado, Beans, Cheese, and Tortilla).
  • Thursday: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (Soylent).
  • Friday: Lunch (Pizza, Root Beer), Dinner (Salad, Soup, Lemonade).
  • Saturday: Breakfast (Soylent), Dinner (Pizza, Black Cherry Soda).
  • Sunday: Breakfast (Soylent), Dinner (Chicken, Fries, Iced Tea).
  • Monday: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (Soylent), Snack (Carne Asada, Cheese, Tortilla).

On each day, I make sure to consume at least 72 ounces of water.  Usually 24 ounces after every Soylent meal or with a regular meal.

Exercise Notes: I had gone to the gym late Sunday night, and I was feeling very sore on Monday.  Decided to skip until Wednesday to give my muscles a change to repair.  I stuck to cardio-only that night and returned to weights on Thursday night (I went a little lighter this time).

As a result of the exercise on Wednesday night, however, I noticed a problem.  I was starving after my workout, and this was three hours after my dinner Soylent.  Given that I burned 900 calories during my hour-long workout, I decided to have a snack.  I ended up staying awake until 1:30am as I ate at 11pm.  Even with the snack, I was still well under my net caloric intake for the day.

The following night when I added my weight training back in, I didn’t feel as bad as I did with the extra protein in my diet from the night before and I didn’t feel hungry after the workout.

On Friday morning, I had my annual physical scheduled.  I spoke with my doctor about the change in my diet, and she had never heard of Soylent before.  I sent her all the proper literature, including the breakdown of nutrients and what’s used to get those nutrients.  She was encouraged by this shift, but was worried about my electrolytic count.  She ordered a full blood lab for (she was going to do this for the physical anyway).  She asked for weekly updates on weight and BP, and I would return in about a month for another blood draw using this one as a baseline.

Over the weekend, I got my blood labs back (this was on four days of Soylent, so far):

  • Weight/BMI: 337 lbs / 49.74
  • Blood Pressure: 131/82
  • Pulse: 80
  • Glucose: Down 15% (Great, because I was worried about pre-Diabetic conditions)
  • A1C: Down a little, but within the normal range.
  • Sodium: Up 20%, but within the normal range.
  • Cholesterol: No change (below 240)
  • HDL: No change (normal)
  • LDL: No change (normal)

After I was sent all this information over the weekend, I got an email from her saying she was happy with the labs, and to send the update on Friday morning.  She recommended that I increase my exercising a bit more.

This morning, I weighed myself and I came in at 331 lbs.  I’m really hoping this is water-weight since I’ve reduced by weekly sodium intake by quite a bit, otherwise I’m worried that I’m dropping weight way too quickly for a weekend.

Recipes

In my last post, I talked about recipes due to the complete lack of flavor that Soylent has.  Again, the Soylent community has been instrumental in trying some of the different things you can do with it.  I’ve done two of the recipes so far, and I had to modify one of them at the request of my doctor.  Earlier, I mentioned the “choco-banana” Soylent that I modified by using Nestle’s NesQuik as a substitute for chocolate syrup.  When I talked with my doctor, she recommended trying a non-sugary alternative as the NesQuik introduced about 12 gram of sugar per meal.  My wife mentioned using cocoa powder instead, so now my recipe has changed to:

  • 1 scoop Soylent
  • 2 scoops water
  • 1.5 teaspoons of the Oil Blend
  • 1 large banana
  • 1 tablespoon Cocoa powder
  • 2 packets of Splenda
  • 6 ice cubes

I took some shots of it coming together, but I shot these when I was still using Nesquik; the concept is the same.  I also tried a another one, this time involving pears:

 

  • 1 scoop Soylent
  • 2 scoops water
  • 1.5 teaspoons of the Oil Blend
  • 3 pear halves
  • 1 dash of cinnamon
  • 6 ice cubes

Unfortunately, this did not turn out as well as I’d hoped.  The Soylent nothingness kind of overwhelmed the pear and cinnamon, which is pretty incredible considering how potent cinnamon can be.  I ended up going back to the choco-banana recipe instead.

Next up: Week Two.

 

 

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Soylent Project: Day One http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2015/01/13/soylent-project-day-one/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2015/01/13/soylent-project-day-one/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2015 18:24:34 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4568

Continue reading]]> As pictured, this is the basic package of Soylent with the oil additive (containing your Omega-3 and Omega-6), scoop, and release notes/instruction manual.  According to the Soylent manual, you’re supposed to ramp up the number of meals you replace over the course of five days.  On the first day, you replace one meal, then you replace two, and finally you replace all three meals.  Each replacement accounts for one-third the total amount of vitamins you’re supposed to intake per day according to the recommended allowances as determined by the FDA.

2015-01-12 18.37.40A manual-based Soylent meal is essentially 2 scoops of water and 1 scoop of Soylent.  You can hand-stir it with a spoon if you’d like, or you can blend it.  When you open the packet, it smells vaguely like vanilla and I was very happy about that.  Vanilla is one of my favorite flavors.

Two weeks ago, I decided to try a lunch of Soylent with nothing but the basics.  I ended up hand-stirring it and I was not pleased with the result.  It was extremely gritty in texture and had the consistency of extremely thin oatmeal.  Taste-wise… it tasted like nothing.  Given the amount of wheat in it, I expected it to taste a little sweet but there was nothing to it.  I was essentially drinking gritty water that I occasionally had to chew when I hit some of the clumps of Soylent.  Again, even when chewing, it still tasted like nothing… just dry powder.

My experiment taught me a few lessons…

  • Lesson #1: Do not hand-stir.
  • Lesson #2: Add something to give it a little flavor.
  • Lesson #3: Play with the water mixture.

Back on the Soylent website, they host a community for those who’re using the product and one of the most common suggestions there was to add a banana to give it some kind of flavor.  Soylent’s biggest drawback is that while you’re replacing a meal, you lose the satisfaction that comes from eating that meal as a result.  The lack of flavor has a large part in that.  So, to help, the top two recommendations were a banana or adding chocolate syrup.  When I got back from my trip (where continuing with Soylent was impossible), I decided to try both.

My wife and I went down to Whole Foods and picked up a bunch of bananas for use in the next meal.  We broke out the Ninja blender she bought a while back and I started putting together the first meal, which was breakfast.  The mixture/recipe I used was:

  • 1 banana, large
  • 2 scoops ice water
  • 1 scoop Soylent
  • 1.5 teaspoons of Oil Additive
  • 3 icecubes
  • 1 heaping tablespoon Nestle Quik (reduced sugar)

After blending, I could immediately smell the banana, but not the chocolate.  I ended up with more than the 16 ounces I was expecting, but that’s all right… with the additional water from the cubes and the addition of the banana, I did have a little bit more left over in the pitcher.  The taste was improved given that it was overwhelmingly banana but I tasted none of the chocolate I was expecting.  I’m not sure why, though it must be due to how the Soylent reacts to the chocolate mix.  I got a little bit of satisfaction from eating and it filled me up.  I wasn’t hungry for at least three or four hours.

About an hour in, I got a headache.  The manual did say that this was to be expected, along with some flatulence.  The manual understated this part.  As with the folks at Ars Technica, this was the one side effect I completely underestimated because I was clearing out the room by the second hour after my first meal.  I was glad that I was working from home because I felt like I needed to run to the restroom every so often given how my body was reacting to the mixture.  When I did my experiment a few weeks prior, I had a normal breakfast and then did Soylent for lunch… I had none of these side effects.  Replacing breakfast with Soylent obviously makes a huge difference in terms of processing it as your sole nutrition for the morning.

I took the second step and also replaced lunch, with the intention of eating a normal dinner.  I used the same recipe as above, except I added a second tablespoon of Nestle Quik and that brought the chocolate right out.  Not to mention that the color of the Soylent went from a cream color to light brown.  I finally had my chocolate banana Soylent drink and again, it settled me for lunch until I was ready to have a regular solid meal in the evening.  I did have another headache and I think I broke a damn hurricane afterwards.

The solid meal did a good job of settling my stomach down overnight, but passing gas was a problem.  I’ve read that this is normal when you’re making a huge adjustment with the Soylent and it should normalize after a while.  I guess we’ll find out on day two, after another 2-meal replacement.

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The Soylent Project: An Introduction http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2015/01/12/the-soylent-project-an-introduction/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2015/01/12/the-soylent-project-an-introduction/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:31:25 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=4564

Continue reading]]> I’d been reading about a new meal replacement system that attempts to replace the need for hunting and gathering by reducing the core components of what you need to survive into a powder form.  One of the writers at Ars Technica also wrote about his experiences with this product, named Soylent.  According to the advertising and the daily journal, all you needed to do was add water and some pre-packaged oil and you have a liquid meal ready-to-eat.  I went to their website back in July of 2014 and decided that I would try it for a week to see if I could stomach it (pun intended, sorry).

I visited their site to place an order and I didn’t realize how backed up their shipments were.  It looked like that for the $70 I paid out, I might not receive my first shipment until late September.  That’s no trouble, really.  After all, it wasn’t as though I were dying of hunger.  I just pushed off my plans until September.

And then September arrived and still no Soylent.  I received an email saying that they were tremendously backed up and that shipments were being sent out to current subscribers to their product.  New subscribers (myself) would get lower priority.  Made sense to me; after all, if you’re already on the plan, then you would need to have priority over people who aren’t.  This required me to have some more patience, though, as they projected another 10-12 weeks (4 months) before I would see my first bag of food-powder.

In between then, I flew to the United Kingdom on a work assignment and returned in late December to find my first shipment of Soylent waiting for me.

Therefore, I begin this project with this shipment and hope to report on what it is doing to me over time.  To properly introduce my vitals, I am rather obese (330 lbs) for my height (5 feet, 9 inches).  I’m not looking for this to be a silver bullet, but I am interested in simplifying a way to eat healthy in order to maximize the exercise program I’m going through.  For reference, I am switching off cardio and weight-lifting every other day with the following routine:

  • Day 1: 40 minutes cardio, 5 minutes cardio cool down.
  • Day 2: 20 minutes cardio, 20 minutes weight-lifting, 5 minutes cardio, 20 minutes weight-lifting, 5 minutes cardio cool down.

I will continue to post under this category and tags to track my progress.

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Weekend of Frustration http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/07/16/weekend-of-frustration/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/07/16/weekend-of-frustration/#respond Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:40:43 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=2187  

[dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”]L[/dropcap]ast Friday, I ordered a RAM upgrade for my gaming rig.  I built it about two years ago and thought I was styling at 8 gigs, but since I had opted to buy an upgrade for my wife’s Mac mini, I figured that I could use another 8 gigs to bring me to 16.  I ordered both of our upgrades off of Amazon, since I had a gift card that needed burning.  I expected it on Tuesday, but they delivered it on Saturday morning, to my surprise and elation.  I did what anyone would do; I installed the RAM, ran CMOS and saved the new memory configuration and then rebooted it.

When the machine came back up with a listing  of 16 gigs and launched into Windows, I was pretty confident that I wasn’t going to have any troubles.  Unfortunately, after about ten minutes of use and the launch of various programs that I start up every day, I was met with the following BSOD:

BSOD

Close, but this is from Windows XP. Also, mine specified different files.

It dumped out into the BSOD and then came to a halt, long enough for me to get down the specific STOP code, which I was partially familiar with.  I did what any good tech would do… I rebooted into safe mode and started working on it.  I ran the various checks and utilities, I reset the page file size to reflect the new RAM total (for the record, take your pagefile off of system-managed, and set it to 1.5 times your physical RAM).  And then I rebooted again into normal mode.  I got a different BSOD complaining about IRQ not being equal, which kind of raises the ol’ eyebrow.  At this point, I was getting a little concerned and feeling my frustration level rise.  What if Amazon shipped me out some bad hardware?

DIMMs Bad

3 of the 4 DIMMs failed a majority of the tests.

I downloaded Memtest86 at Josh‘s recommendation, and I find out that there’s a forked project called Memtest86+, which will now allow me to use a flash drive to install it and use it to boot up in.  I run it, go to sleep that night and wake up to the screen you see at the right.  Yeah, that’s a fuckton of errors, folks.  Covering addresses for three (that’s right, THREE) of the four DIMMs that Amazon shipped me.  They failed six of the ten total tests per pass, on three separate passes.  I was absolutely livid over this.  Because, it’s not like I went over to a brick-and-mortar and picked up bad hardware that I can drive and return to in order to get a replacement or a refund… I have to RMA this box of DIMMs back to Amazon and wait for them to receive it via UPS Ground, first.

Also, it was well after 2am on Sunday morning, so I was screwed until Fry’s opened up at 9am.  I took out the RAM, put in the original DIMMs, rebooted.. and Windows worked like a champ.  No errors or BSODs.  At least I had a working machine to play with until the sun came up over the horizon.  Which I did, because nothing alleviates frustration than tearing others a new asshole on Tribes for hours on end.

I was at Fry’s only two minutes after they unlocked the doors.  Now, under normal circumstances, flagging some poor working schleb over there is kind of a crap shoot during their prime hours.  They usually ignore me unless I stare someone down, or go to the desk and ask for assistance.  However, when you’re the first person in the store, it’s like you’re a celebrity.  I was walking through various departments to get to the computer component area and sales staff were all over me, asking me if I needed help.  I guess they were all looking for that first commission of the day or something.

So, I made it to the right area.  I was looking at the DIMM prices for the one I wanted, and within ten seconds, I had one on me asking me if I needed help.  The thing about Fry’s is, never ask these guys for advice.  Never.  If you go in knowing exactly what you want, take down the Fry’s PLU number and then say, “I want one of ######.”  They’ll go right to their computer, print out your little receipt so you can take it to the cage in customer service and buy it.  If you don’t know what you want, then call a friend on your cell, look it up on Wikipedia, Google for it, do anything except ask these chuckleheads for advice.  They don’t know shit about shit, other than making a sale.  They will smell your lack of confidence and jump on you like a starving man at a free all-you-can-eat buffet.  Anyway… I got the DIMMs and picked up a couple of cans of compressed air to I could clean out the case, then left the store to return home.

Don’t get me started on the bitterant, either.  That shit is nasty.

Old Ram

The old set of RAM, the original 8GB I had installed.

I replace the RAM again, go through the whole thing.  I clean out the case, which desperately needed it.  As soon as I bring up the computer, I get a BIOS checksum error.  I go into the CMOS, save the new memory configuration and reboot.  Same thing, checksum error.  It’s Award BIOS, I use my laptop to find out how to correct it, and it turns out that I never activated the backup recovery option when I installed it.  To make matters worse, I’m running Revision 3 and the site says they’re up to Revision 11.  Another RAM swap back to the original, I download the new Rev and apply it using the Windows flash utility.  I restart the machine, the computer gives me ten short beeps and it shuts down.  I restart it again and launch into CMOS, this time it seems to load fine.  Save the config, restart.. ten short beeps and it shut down on its own.

Fuck!

I try restarting it, and it comes up, but it freaks out over the configuration.  So I just reset the whole thing, delete it and flash it back to default.  I don’t bother to save any of the old configuration files.  It comes up again, this time with the full Gigabyte full-screen advertisement about the board.  I jump into CMOS and reset the boot order, all the normal stuff.  Get rid of the quick-load screen, I want to see POST, damn it!  Finally, I got it back in order, I shut it down after I confirm it can load into Win7 without difficulty.  I put back in the new RAM, just to be sure, and the same thing happens again.  BSOD in Windows.

New RAM

The package the new RAM arrived in.

Now, I’m thinking I have two bad sets of RAM and I’m about ready to drive back to Fry’s and replace it with a new set.  Something in the back of my head tells me to try it one more time.  I let it reboot, and I get three short beeps and then it shut downs.  I go down the hall to let my wife know that I might be heading out to buy a new motherboard when I hear the Windows 7 startup sound chime in.  While I was out of the room, it turned itself on and successfully started up.

I think it heard me.

It was running fine, now.  I logged in and started doing some stress-testing, using HeavyLoad and DXDiag.  HeavyLoad managed to get me to 75% RAM utilization and 100% CPU before I stopped it.  DXDiag ran the little floating box test and I had no problems, there.  I sat back in my chair, completely flabbergasted by the sudden development.  Then again, given my long history with Windows, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

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First Look: Tribes Ascend http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/07/13/first-look-tribes-ascend/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/07/13/first-look-tribes-ascend/#respond Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:20:06 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=2158 [dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”]I[/dropcap] have had a long-running affair with the Tribes series since Dynamix and Sierra announced it as part of the Metaltech series back in the mid-90s.  I had gotten used to the Sierra Games’ sim, which was based on FASA’s Battletech games, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to like the switch to a first-person shooter.  After all, my experience with that kind of gameplay back then was limited to iD Software’s Doom, Quake, and of course, the original FPS that I played, Wolfenstein 3D.  Although I might not consider it a first-person shooter, I feel that Descent falls into the same category. The feeling of being in a mech in the original Earthsiege (1994) games was awesome.  I played them off and on, often times I would return for replay value.  Later on, after Tribes was released, they came out with the mech sim game, Starsiege, which featured the same universe/backdrop that the rest of the series does.

Loading screen for Starsiege Tribes

Ah, the good ol’ loading screen for Tribes.

My first entry in playing Tribes was when it first came out.  I played through the solo tutorials, but although you can shoot these dumb bots and get a feel for how the different armor classes work, and jet-packing all around the map.  The very basic aspects of the game are transferred, and then after that, you’re on your own.  The only way to really enjoy the game is to jump on a multi-player server and have fun.  And of course, fun is relative.  The fact is thatTribes is probably one of the most fast-paced FPS games out there, if not the fastest.

Dogfights are quick and utilize a wide array of weapons, from spinfusors (basically, glowing blue discs that impact with a nice-sized damage AoE), to plasma guns and cannons, mortars, mines, grenades, flares, and of course, my favorite… turrets!  The original Tribes came with only three sets of available armor: light, medium, and heavy.  What I always though was the best aspect of playing the game, was the mods… oh, the mods!

My clan (Clan Oni) was very much into two mod types: Rengades and Shifter 1.1/Shifter X.  I wish I had kept all the videos I shot during those days, so I could put then online.  Instead, I did a quick search on YouTube and found the following video that I think adequately shows the various classes from Renegades:

And here’s one from the Shifter mod:

Anyway, I wanted to give you a proper understanding of what Tribes is before I launch into my look at the latest incarnation.  Do we all have a better appreciation for the game, now?

Login screen for Tribes Ascend

The login screen for Tribes: Ascend.

For those of you who don’t want to waste any time, let me just say this: Tribes: Ascend is a worthy successor to the lineage.  After wasting my time with Tribes 2 and feeling better with Tribes: Vengeance, I feel like Ascend is what I had hoped would come next after playing the original for so many years.   It carries on the speed, and picks up some of the better aspects of Vengeance that I thought were great changes (skiing, for one).  Although they do add a lot of the mod changes into the base game, they’ve also integrated some of the ranking systems that we’ve come to expect from our FPS’, such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, and even Halo 3.

Ascend is a Free-to-Play game that really means it.  While you have the option to pay for Gold in order to unlock more classes, weapons, and add-ons, you can also unlock the same items through gameplay.  I started out a free player before I went VIP, and I did pretty well for myself with the basic weapons and earning experience points.  Gold is the quickest way to get those unlocks, as the ratio of Gold to XP is kind of skewed.  But play enough, you can rack up about 150,000 XP and spend it to unlock a few weapons or classes.

The Thumper

Since I play with my Technician armor the most, I equip this weapon every time and I ended up mastering it fairly quickly. Click on it to see the various bonuses.

Once you’ve acquired the various tools of the game, as you use them, usage allows you to master them.  More exposure to them in the field will elevate the bonuses that you have with each one.  Armor experience unlocks more health, or faster regeneration.  Some of the toys you use, like the light turrets, will have a higher armor class and gain damage bonuses when firing at the enemy.  When I play my favorite, the Technician class, my turrets will allow me to gain a lot of kills as people try to jump into my generator room to take it out in order to shut down the base guns and the radar dish.  If they destroy my prized turrets, I’ll deploy them in a new spot just to keep things interesting.

As with the originalTribes, players recognize defensive and offensive patterns, so you have to vary it or else predictability is a killer.  Just ask the Heavy Armor that insists on taking the same route into your gen room, and is surprised when you set mines down along his skiing path.  Or the light armor that boosts toward your flag and then goes SPLAT against your sudden deployment of a forcefield on the other end.  Those things are like brick walls to them, and given their speed, well… they leave a nice little splotch against the field and then I get the points for flag recovery.

Defending the Generator Room on "Crossfire."

My Technician-class armor character setting up defenses in the Diamond Sword generator room on the “Crossfire” map.

Before, I mentioned how fast the game can be.  Ascend injects nitrous into the speed of gameplay, and seeing some of these guys float in and zoom by, you have to adapt and keep up as much as possible in order to successfully play and give as good as you get.  Otherwise, you’ll be spending a lot of time respawning, and that’s no fun for anyone.  The greatest thing about the game though, is that if you don’t think you can keep up with the speedsters, you can opt to defend the base or the flag through various means.  The game gives points for defense and repairs just as much as kills and captures.  And while everyone else on the game is more interested in taking flags and flying across the map, they’ll need someone to defend against the raiders who’ll baserape like crazy.

Skiing!

One of the best parts of playing is being able to ski!

And they will not hesitate to rack of generator and turret kills, people, trust me!  On certain maps, there are numbers of choke-points for entry, and if you know the maps well enough, you can set up your defenses in the proper areas.  Drop a turret in a spot they won’t see until it’s too late, but then get ready to have it destroyed the next time they come through.  Make sure to set down some motion sensors/detectors to combat those pesky stealth guys, because you won’t see them until it’s too late.  Or even at all… man, they’re sneaky bastards!

Dogfighting out in the field takes on a new dimension with the ability to ski.  Skiing is essentially letting your momentum carry you along the slopes/angles of the map.  If you fire your jetpack at the right time, when you land, should you do so on the downward slope of a hill or a mountain, you will pick up speed with you engage your ski thrusters.

All in all, though, I love this game.  It has mixed everything I loved about the original with spectacular graphics and excellent features.  I found this great video on YouTube that does a great job of portraying what I do on a nightly basis, now (courtesy of Gamespot):

If you’re interested in playing Tribes: Ascend, then feel free to use my referral link to download the game.  I appreciate it!  I’ll leave you with the full set of screenshots from my gameplay, below.

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WTF: Show Discussion Thread – 2/24/2012 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/24/wtf-show-discussion-thread-2242012/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/24/wtf-show-discussion-thread-2242012/#comments Sat, 25 Feb 2012 04:18:40 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=2056 Here be the discussion thread for tonight’s WTF Show with me!

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WTF: Show Discussion Thread – 2/17/2012 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/17/wtf-show-discussion-thread-2172012/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/17/wtf-show-discussion-thread-2172012/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2012 04:00:33 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=2047 Here be the discussion thread for tonight’s WTF Show with me!

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WTF: Feedback http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/11/wtf-feedback/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/11/wtf-feedback/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:54:11 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=2003 With the show having returned since last September, I was wondering if any of my listeners cared to give me some feedback. When I return, I’m intending on making some possible changes to the format of the show, but I wanted to solicit some advice from the people who basically help make WTF possible: the listeners.

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STO: Impressions of Odyssey http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/06/sto-impressions-of-odyssey/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/06/sto-impressions-of-odyssey/#respond Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:50:08 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1959 [dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”]L[/dropcap]ast week, Star Trek Online held their second anniversary event.  As I did with the previous year’s anniversary event, I was there waiting in line for the events to begin along with what seemed like everyone else on the game.  This year, however, with the release of the new Free2Play portion of the game, the crowds to even get onto the server were so large that it took more than a few minutes to actually get to the character select screen.  Once you were in, though, you could earn the new class of ship, the Odyssey-class, through a mission pickup right outside of Admiral Quinn’s office, from an NPC.  As soon as the NPC popped for the event, the crowd swarmed this guy and suddenly everyone was off running that mission to test out the newest class to hit the game.

[quote type=”center”]… this is not a recommended class for Tactical or Science officers.[/quote]

Odyssey with Borg gear

My Odyssey-class USS Bonhomme Richard, with full Borg gear (in-game screenshot).

I want to make one thing clear; there are several different “original” classes of ship within Star Trek Online.  Most of them are variations on the canonical classes, such as the Thunderchild-class (redress of the Akira-class), the Bellerophon-class (redress of the Intrepid-class), and then there are several truly original classes that have no basis whatsoever, such as the Avenger-class and the Dervish-class.  My reactions to the 100% original classes has not been positive.  In fact, although I did use the Dervish for my Tactical Admiral for many months, I only used it because of the benefits rather than the design.  I personally think the Dervish (and the variants) design is lacking in many ways, and honestly believe that Cryptic needs to hire someone who knows Trek a little better before trying to strike out on their own.

The new Odyssey-class is not a Cryptic design.  They opened up a contest a little under a year ago where players like you and me could submit designs for this new class.  The winner was Adam Ihle, which was, quite frankly, the best-looking design out of the others that were submitted to Cryptic.  If you take a look at the link, you’ll see the ones that came in second, third, and fourth… and all I can say is, if they had gone with any of the others… blech.  I think they made the right choice, but Odyssey isn’t without its problems.

I’m going to quote from the website regarding the design and the canonical information they’ve disclosed, so far:

The Odyssey class is the largest vessel ever created by Starfleet. Its massive size makes it very resilient, but its turn rate is reduced by the bulk of the vessel. The Odyssey’s unique split saucer pylon reduces subspace turbulence which allows higher warp speeds and increases the duration the ship can maintain Slipstream Drive. The Odyssey is designed as an extreme long-range vessel, and can operate for long periods of time away from support. Because of this, it is the most versatile cruiser ever developed by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and features a Universal Lieutenant Commander Bridge Offer Station that can by operated by any Bridge Officer class. 

— Stephen D’Angelo, Executive Producer, Star Trek Online.

Odyssey-class orthographically displayed (Adam Ihle/Cryptic Studios)

Click for a closer look at the Odyssey-class design...

Again, I want to stress that this is not a Cryptic design.  But the explanation for the various design choices are nothing short of bullshit.  Okay, granted, Star Trek itself is fictional, but there’s a certain standard of keeping to the established explanations for How Things Work within the universe.  Over time, you have a large number of references to pull from, and I often think that Cryptic is either too lazy to use them or just phones in some of the explanations for why a ship looks like that.

The split-saucer pylon, which is more commonly referred to as the “neck,” is a design element borrowed from an earlier design of the Oberth-class frigate.  The Oberth-class was shown in the form of the USS Grissom from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  This class also uses the same concept, which is kind of cool since its a stylish departure from the normal solid neck look of the Galaxy, Excelsior, Sovereign, and of course, the original Constitution-class starships.

My problem is with the explanation for why this element is used.  I quote from the blog excerpt above, “The Odyssey’s unique[sic] split saucer pylon reduces subspace turbulence which allows higher warp speeds and increases the duration the ship can maintain Slipstream Drive.”

Okay, first of all, what a crock of shit.  That’s like saying that the Space Shuttle’s wings make it easier for it to fly in space.  It doesn’t.  You don’t determine higher warp speeds based on the design of the ship, you base it on the ability of the warp coil to sustain a higher energy output to allow a ship to enter the subspace interfold layer at a higher rate.  You could form a subspace field around a brick and as long as the coils generating the field are solid, you can hit higher warp speeds, no problem.  I think Cryptic needs a lesson in Trek’s mechanics before they approve drivel like this.

[quote type=”center”]… as my engineering admiral… the ship is a match made in heaven.[/quote]

Bonhomme Richard destroying a Negh'var

Bonhomme Richard packs a punch in combat.

My Trekkie (or Trekker) rant notwithstanding, within the game itself, there are a few hazards I’ve run into with the class during combat.  First of all, this is not a recommended class for Tactical or Science officers.  Tactical officers need maneuverability and DPS.  Science officers get maneuverability from the smaller classes like the Nebula and Intrepid-classes.  The Odyssey is the aforementioned brick: it doesn’t turn on a dime, but it has a really tough hull and can tank like no other class on STO right now.  It does come with a Universal Lieutenant Commander bridge officer station, which makes it usable by Tactical or Science, but the fact that the only Commander-level station is for Engineering seals the deal for me.  I’m only going to use this with my Engineering officer.  I can’t justify switching off my other characters to use this class because there’s just too much of a sacrifice to required abilities within combat and flight.

Playing as my engineering admiral, however, the ship is a match made in heaven. Even though the cruiser lacks the swift handling of the Sovereign-class, this is easily corrected with a Rare (blue) or Very Rare (purple) RCS Accelerator console.  Double them up, if you need to.  Once I installed that console, I found that I could turn as quickly as I could while helming my Sovereign or Galaxy-X vessels.  The only drawback to the Odyssey as an engineer is the loss of the extra tactical slot from my Sovereign-class ship.  Otherwise, it’s still a four-fore and four-aft weapon ship, four ship devices, and a four/three/two on consoles.  It carries +10 to both Shield Power and Aux Power, with a maximum warp of 9.996 (faster than any other ship on the game), and the new Advanced Slipstream Drive will blow past the normal Vice Admiral Slipstream by nearly 30% (Warp 28.00).  The duration of the ASD is also increased; you can fly the entire length of a sector without having to cool down, but once you hit the edge, there’s a two minute cooldown period before you can use it again.  With the addition of the Borg warp drive, the max warp still hits 14.00, so there’s no advantage there.  But for Aegis, MACO, and Omega users, you will see a big increase in warp speed.

Additionally, what makes this class even more of a tank is the additional hull points on top of the standard.  A stock Odyssey comes with around forty-five thousand hull points, but when you add on all your bonuses?  Well, I’m rolling around in STFs with fifty-six thousand-plus hull points.  I’m going toe-to-toe with Tactical Cubes and can hang in a firefight for much longer, especially with all my health buffs and abilities.

I’ve pretty much decided to switch to this class permanently for my engineer.  What I’m looking forward to the most is Cryptic’s class variants for Odyssey, because right now, there’s only one skin available.  But the size of the class provides a big opportunity for Cryptic to make a little money by selling off more ship costumes for it.  I’m very curious to see where they go from here.

And I’m still waiting for my damn Ambassador-class!

Link: Star Trek Online

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WTF Show: Short Break http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/03/wtf-show-short-break/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/02/03/wtf-show-short-break/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:11:22 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1950 [dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”]T[/dropcap]his week I went to the dentist to get my first check-up in quite some time.  My family dentist, who was in his seventies, decided to hang up his shingle a few years ago.  Between that and trying to work out a way to visit the dentist on my busy schedule and somehow overcoming my tendency to procrastinate, I finally got around to making an appointment and heading in.  Unfortunately, the news from my new dentist was not pleasing.  Thus, I will be out of commission for a few weeks as I undergo a series of appointments over the course of the next two to two and half weeks where I will lose my wisdom teeth among other corrective procedures to bring things into a healthy state.

What this means is that the WTF Show will be on a short break until after my last procedure.  I apologize to my listeners, but this is necessary.  Better I be out for a short time than offline forever, which is where things were headed had I not gone in.  But feel free to use this post as the weekly WTF Show post, at the very least… I can respond in text, if not on the air.

Also, don’t forget to head to Japan-A-Radio’s subscribe link and become a subscriber today!  JAR needs your support, now more than ever!

 

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WTF Show Discussion Thread – 1/27/2012 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/27/wtf-show-discussion-thread-1272012/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/27/wtf-show-discussion-thread-1272012/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:28:53 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1928 Here be the discussion thread for tonight’s WTF Show with me!

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What Should I Watch? (Winter 2012 Edition) http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/26/what-should-i-watch-winter-2012-edition/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/26/what-should-i-watch-winter-2012-edition/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:31:58 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1902 [dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”]I[/dropcap] was taking a look at the anime line-up in 2012, and I realized that I don’t really have much of a clue as to what I should be watching.   I mean, the last newest series I watched was Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai, the first part of it.  I really loved it, too.  But that was over a year ago, and I feel like I’ve lost touch in the anime world and I don’t know a whole lot about the series that are coming out this season.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  I actually know of only one series I know I’ll be excited for, and that Zero no Tsukaima F.  My buddy, Todd, is a huge fan of Zero and always had been, so I know he’s looking forward to it (if he’s not watching it already).  My former Unwound co-host, Jesse Barredo, recently suggested Ano Natsu de Matteru to me, so I went ahead and placed that on my Crunchyroll queue.  So, I started taking a look at some of the other shows coming out for Winter 2012, and I wanted to get an idea of what suggestions there might be for me out there in blog-land.

Zero no Tsukaima F

I should be watching Zero no Tsukaima from the beginning...

I read through the list and a few titles kind of leapt out at me.  There’s Nisemonogatari, which is the sequel to Bakemonogatari.  I’ve never seen the latter, because I kept waiting around for my pal Dave to spend some time with me to actually watch it.  I have it, I want to see it, but when a friend says, “Hey, don’t watch that without me,” I try to accommodate.  It’s been months, but whatever.  The sequel looks pretty cool, but without having seen the first part of it, I’m not sure if I’ll actually get it.

Another title that caught my eye was Moretsu Uchuu Kaizoku.  I know nothing about it, but the images I’ve seen from the series lead me to believe that it’s right up my alley.  All I see is a cute starship captain with an even hotter executive officer/sidekick.  I know that sounds superficial, but look… my eyes are connected to my brain and my brain enjoys looking at women, animated or otherwise.  Half the appeal of anime sometimes is the sexy quality of a character or two that acts like a hook.  This is how the industry makes most of their money.  I’m not immune to it!  Anyone have any information on this, and whether I should be watching or passing?

Another looks a little too creepy for me.

Inu x Boku SS I want to watch, but again, I’m not sure if it’s for me.

Eiga K-ON Movie

After the second season, I don't know if I should be excited to see this or not... (Eiga K-ON!)

And then, I stumbled upon the announcement of the new Eiga K-ON! movie, and after sitting through a few of the episodes that was the second season of that show, I’m not really sure if I’m going to be disappointed or pleased by what I see.  Knowing myself like I do and how much I may bitch and moan, I will most likely end up watching this in spite of my reservations, because I love all-girl rock bands since The Runaways and I think I always will.  K-ON! the first season was nothing short of amazing, and I still watch episodes of it from time to time.  Perhaps they’ll go back to that formula for the film?  Who knows.

In any case, I look forward to hearing from my readers.  What are you watching this season?

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Boku no anime no omoide: Den’ei Shoujo http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/25/boku-no-anime-no-omoide-denei-shoujo/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/25/boku-no-anime-no-omoide-denei-shoujo/#respond Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:43:38 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1825 [dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”]A[/dropcap]round the same time that I was running through Maison Ikkoku, the previously-mentioned Ken Lau introduced me to another series that had piqued my interest.  Maison Ikkoku was a rather bittersweet story and so I guess he felt that since I was really liking it, he should try to pour on another, but much much shorter series with equal parts bitter and sweet, romance and comedy.  What resulted for me was this experience that I’ll always look back at and remember how awesome this show was.  I invite you to come back with me as we take a look at Video Girl Ai (Den’ei Shoujo).


Amano Ai

Amano Ai, as she appears in her video, warmly kind and sweet...

The premise of this series is that a teenager who is pure of heart (Youta) was recently rejected by the object of his deep affection (Moemi), when he found out through casual conversation that she was pining for his best friend (Takashi).  When Takashi spurns her advances in that same conversation, Moemi runs from them citing a previous engagement, but Youta notices her tears as she runs away from them.  He weeps for her unhappiness, feeling her pain within himself, and in doing so calls for this very special video shop called Gokuraku (Paradise).  The video store only shows itself to those who’re worthy, of which Youta was deemed so by the people who run it. On its shelves are cassettes of video girls promising to comfort him in his time of need.  The store clerk recommends he try one video girl with the title of Amano Ai.  He leaves and returns home to play the tape, on his VCR which is kind of on its last legs.  He watches the tape and about part-way through the little speech she gives him to try and cheer him up, the screen bursts forward with a warm and pleasant light, and the girl pops out of the screen, to his surprise.  Unfortunately, because of the fact that he used his failing VCR, she appears in reality vastly different than her on-screen personality: uncouth, rude, and violent.

Angry Ai

... but, play her on a broken VCR and Ai turns to anger and violence!

She explains that her goal is to help him win the affections of Moemi, to be with him and comfort him as much as she can.  Throughout the series, she educates him on what appeals to a girl and in doing so they spend a lot of time together.  Of course, Ai’s feelings toward Youta at the beginning are rough and playful, almost as through they were brother and sister.  Over time, though, Ai’s treatment of Youta becomes more tsundere in nature: keeping up her hard exterior with him, but it’s clear through her eyes that she’s letting herself fall in love as she’s trying to him win Moemi’s heart.  This, of course, puts her in conflict.  Not just with her mission, but with the fact that video girls aren’t allow to fall in love, period.  By the virtue of having been played on a broken VCR, though, there are “errors” in her “programming” that make such an occurrence possible.  She works hard to hide this fact from Youta and everyone else, because you see… she only has until the end of her tape and then she disappears forever from his life.


Den'ei Shoujo broken VCR

When you do free a video girl from her tape, try not to use a broken VCR to do it.

After I watched it for the first time, I was left in tears.  The last episode of Den’ei Shoujo is so gut-wrenching and heartstrings-tugging on anyone with a soul that one cannot help but completely lose it.  I didn’t even care that I was openly weeping, just kind of left there wanting more from the series.  And that’s when Ken told me that it was actually based on a longer-running manga (by Katsura Masakazu, who also wrote/drew two of my other favorites, DNA2 and I”s).  Unfortunately, it was only about up to about the third chapter in VIZ’ Animerica magazine, running in parts every other month.  I didn’t have the patience to wait for it to finish up, so I guess I kind of forgot about pursuing the manga altogether.  It wasn’t actually until recently that I finally picked up all the released VIZ volumes of the translations of each of the tankoubons that were released in Japan and read every single one of them over the course of two days.  If you’ve watched the series and need more from it, absolutely hit up the manga to give you a full and complete story.  It’s totally worth it, but keep a box of tissue handy.

[quote]When I went through a bad spell financially, I had to sell some of my DVD collection to make ends meet. There was a short list of DVDs that I absolutely would never part with, and Den’ei Shoujo was on that list.[/quote]

One of the other cool parts of this series was that at the end of every episode was a little super-deformed short simply entitled “Omake.”  In it, they would poke fun at Japanese culture in their own way.  One of the omake episodes had to do with the voice acting itself, which was very cool.  There was also an interview with the singer of the opening theme, “Ureshi Namida,” Sakai Noriko.  I’ve taken the liberty of embedding the opening video for your enjoyment.  Speaking of the music, the soundtrack and vocal tracks are memorable. I’ve purchased both OSTs for this series at least twice since 1996, the first time because it was among the CDs that were stolen right out of my car while it was sitting in front of my apartment.  The second time around because I lost it outright in the middle of a move in 2002. I’ve own it three times, but it’s amazingly good, as you can tell from the opening theme.  Okada Tohru composed the music for the series, with its hauntingly sweet melodies that’ll stick with you for days as it burrows into your mind.  My personal favorites as “Kimi no Niji,” “Ano Hi Ni,” and “Suki Nan Desu.”

When I went through a bad spell financially, I had to sell some of my DVD collection to make ends meet.  There was a short list of DVDs that I absolutely would never part with, and Den’ei Shoujo was on that list.  Yeah, that’s right.  I would rather starve than turn it in for cash.  Man, my priorities are kind of fucked up… or I’m just an obsessed anime fan.  I think that if you ask my wife, you’ll find that she’ll say I’m both.  I won’t deny it, either.

I was wondering if the younger generation would find it as appealing as I would.  When my nephew, Tim, was staying with us last year, I showed him the first few episodes of the series and he blew through the whole thing in one night.  Also, Shon was visiting at that time and he hung out to see how it ended, as he was wrapped up in the story just as much as Tim was.  I think one of the coolest things about that night was that even though we were already through the first episode, the story was compelling enough to draw in someone who just happened to catch a few minutes of the last bit.  I thought that was a true testament to how awesome the series is.

It’s still available on DVD from VIZ Media, as of this writing.  Check it out on Amazon.

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SOPA, PIPA, and Me http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/20/sopa-pipa-and-me/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/20/sopa-pipa-and-me/#respond Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:02:27 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1493

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“You know, there are some words I’ve known since I was a schoolboy: ‘With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.’ Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged.”

Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Drumhead.” Written by Jeri Taylor.

STOP SOPA

We need to put a stop to SOPA and PIPA. (image lifted from gas2.org)

[dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”] W [/dropcap]ednesday, many freedom-loving and liberty-conscious sites went black. It was a voluntary blackout in protest of Congress putting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) on their domestic legislative agendas. Sites that joined the blackout included Wikipedia, Reddit, and the entire Cheezburger network. Google posted a large, attention-grabbing banner on their front page, and urged visitors to sign a petition that would be sent to Congress on their behalf. Also, this blog went black to stand in solidarity with the other thousands of sites that did the same. Not that anyone missed much; to be honest, this blog is so low-traffic. But if even one person who visited managed to contact their congressional representatives on the issue, then going dark for those twenty-four hours was entirely worth it. Besides, it gave me a chance to use the time to perform upgrades and design changes without the need to down my site. Let’s face it, even in the face of crushing legislation, I’m still always going to be a system administrator at heart.

Should you have been avoiding all news and press yesterday and the day before, and you still don’t know what SOPA and PIPA are, allow me to educate you with this awesome video from AmericanCensorship.org:


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

By the way, my favorite part of the above video is when they use Justin Bieber as the pawn of evil under the “Entertainment Industry” umbrella. Priceless. Also, I want to post another video, this time The Daily Show, where Jon Stewart manages to deftly present the SOPA/PIPA issue with the usual comedic flair.

I did my part by reaching out to my Congressman and both Senators on Wednesday and Thursday. I called my congressman’s office here in the city, and I emailed both senators and have been posting on their Facebook walls and tweeting in reply to their accounts. Thankfully, my congressman has been against SOPA since Day One. Unfortunately, both my Senators are being asshats and apparently ignoring the outcry of their constituents in continuing to support PIPA. What’s appalling is that in spite of the protests and calls, emails, tweets, and other methods of expressing their displeasure, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) is not only ignoring us, but fast-tracking the bill for a Senate vote. As of this writing, the tally is 41-59 in favor of passing PIPA.

The unfortunate part of this equation is that while I did nothing to lift a finger to help re-elect Senator Dianne “The RIAA/MPAA’s Puppet” Feinstein, I did vote for and contribute money to Senator Barbara Boxer’s campaign. Now, I’ve always disliked Feinstein; her politics and mine have only had a passing familiarity at best. Boxer, on the other hand, up until now, we’ve been in lockstep for the most part, which is why I wanted to do all I could to help her get reelected in 2010. I’m regretting that right now, especially since she’s gone quiet on the issue at a time when we need our legislature to sit up and listen to the people they claim to represent.

I’m not wanting to draw a line in the sand on this one, but it seems to me that this is just another chip away at the freedom of expression that’s supposed to be protected in the Bill of Rights. In fact, I was withholding my precious free time and financial support for the Obama/Biden campaign in 2012 until I read that he was finally coming down on the right side of the issue. I’ve already signed up to volunteer again for his re-elect. If Boxer votes to pass PIPA, I will actively campaign against her in 2016 and push for a primary challenger at the nominating convention in Sacramento. Not that I have any political clout whatsoever, but this is one of those issues that I feel will have lasting and possibly irreparable consequences against what it means to be an American, and more concretely, affects my ability to thrive in this industry as I have been doing so since 1997.

Both bills threaten the way business is conducted in my industry. If a startup begins to remote threaten another, more-established business’ sales, they can sue under PIPA or SOPA to shut down their website… with NO due process. This would not only hinder any new business’ chances, but the entire market will adjust to a point where investing in any startups in the tech industry become riskier than it was before the bill’s passage. This means less startups, less jobs, and should I ever need one… I could possibly be screwed. So, while I want to keep pursuing this as a high-minded issue, there’s a real hit to my bottom line, here. I’ve worked for seven different startups in the last thirteen years; some have failed, some were successful, some were bought-out. These bills could really sink a startup before it even has a chance to let the free market decide what to do with it, and that’s a real shame for everyone.

Imagine if Facebook were sued out of existence by mySpace using PIPA? I know it sounds crazy, but under that bill, it would be easy to make it happen.

This is one of those times where if you don’t care now, you will care very much later, if it becomes law. And then, all that’ll stand between the net you know now and the net the Entertainment Industry wants… is the Supreme Court.

“A man once said this, ‘Decisions are made by those who show up.'”

The West Wing, “What Kind of Day Has It Been.” Written by Aaron Sorkin.

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Facelift and Update for 2012 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/19/facelift-and-update-for-2012/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/19/facelift-and-update-for-2012/#respond Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:24:55 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1506 Since we’re now into the year 2012, I’ve decided to upgrade the site to 3.3.1 and make a slight change to the layout and the header graphic.  Let me know what you think in the comments.

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Everything Old is New Again http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/17/everything-old-is-new-again/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2012/01/17/everything-old-is-new-again/#respond Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:16:19 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1482

Continue reading]]> [dropcap style=”font-size: 55px; color: cyan;”]E[/dropcap]ver since I was a little boy, I’ve followed the (mis)adventures of the San Francisco Giants.  My father took me to my first baseball game when I was in the first grade, about six months or so after my first San Francisco 49ers game.  When I was that young, I think being able to take off from school to go do something with your dad that didn’t involve a doctor or dentist appointment was pretty special.  I remember the atmosphere was different from a football game, but being able to ride up what was the longest escalator I’d ever been on in my life up until that point to the upper deck behind home plate thrilled me all the same.  My dad taught me what he knew about the game, and I honestly couldn’t tell you what he was saying because it was really loud and I was in over my head with the action on the field and the reaction of the crowd.

Giants' lettering from 1983-1993
Giants’ lettering from 1983-1993, courtesy of SportsLogos.net
Giants lettering from 1994-1999
Giants lettering from 1994-1999, from SportsLogos.net

Over time, the more time he and I spent watching the Giants (of both San Francisco and San Jose), he taught me about the game that I would eventually follow closely.  I was taken with all aspects of Giants baseball, from Candlestick Park and the way the wind seem to swirl around the bowl, right down to the uniforms.  For some reason, I was fascinated by uniform design and as I got older, when the uniforms changed, I always thought it was really cool to kind of see the directions in which the teams would go.  In 1982-1983, the Giants had introduced a new uniform that switched from the familiar script to a block/small caps logo, and their road uniforms were a simple copy of the cap logo, the intertwined SF they’d been wearing since their move from New York in 1958.  In these uniforms, they would win the NL West division twice (1987, 1989), and the NL pennant once (1989), and they were the first uniforms I’d ever see the Giants wear in the acolyte phase of my baseball fandom.

In 1994, the Giants returned to the classic old-style lettering that they used from 1947 in their move west.  It was awesome, and conveyed the maturity of the franchise.  The cap logo also received a classical treatment, as they added serifs to the SF.  I loved it.  The feeling of watching the team in the older-type uniforms was that of watching a team back in the Golden Age or something, even though it was the mid-1990s.  They got a bit of an adjustment in 2000 when the team departed the Stick for Pacific Bell Park, but ever since they’ve been the same uniforms.  We’ve seen some pretty cool alternate and special event uniforms arise since then as well; my favorite is the Hispanic Heritage uniforms with the block “Gigantes” on the front.  The team has a .950 win percentage in those uniforms.  I’m not fond of the Orange Friday alternate home uniforms, which sometimes reminds me of a CalTrans crew working those late nights on I-5, and the stadium turns into a giant construction zone with the heavy orange-colored attire everywhere.  I do own an orange Giants tee for games that land on Orange Friday, but I tend wear it under my black dugout jacket and my cream-colored home jersey from their 50th anniversary in San Francisco.

1986 SF Road Uniforms
1986 SF Road Uniforms, from SportsLogos.net
2012 Proposed SF Road Uniforms
2012 Proposed SF Road Uniforms from SportsLogos.net

Anyway, last night, I was looking through SportsLogos.net for Giants logos I could transfer to my iPhone.  Spring Training begins in less than a month and I’m already kind of hurting for some baseball. While I was there looking through the logo gallery, I happened to notice that there was a new entry to the list with specific notation of a new alternate road uniform.  When I looked at it closely, I was instantly brought back to my childhood. I talked with Julia about it and she said these aren’t officially announced, but SportsLogos.net is pretty good about maintaining their site integrity, so I don’t know if this is a rumored/proposed uniform design or if SportsLogos has some inside information (that site is nothing except logo/graphic design and design news for all sports teams on the planet).  Regardless, if the Giants are intended to wear these, I’m looking forward to seeing them in action, again.  Take a look (click on the images to see them in their full view) and compare the two uniforms, because I think this is an awesome move by the Giants.

I don’t think I would be equally thrilled to see the old 80s block Giants uniforms, and given that these are going to be alternate road uniforms, that means they will be in occasional use outside of the current road uniform with the block “San Francisco” on the front.

I’m sure it seems like I’ve gone on enough about my fascination with baseball uniforms.  Maybe, one of these days, I’ll share some of my designs for some of the fictional baseball teams that I’ve written about in the past.

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Boku no anime no omoide: Toppu wo Nerae! Gunbuster! http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2011/05/05/boku-no-anime-no-omoide-toppu-wo-nerae-gunbuster/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2011/05/05/boku-no-anime-no-omoide-toppu-wo-nerae-gunbuster/#comments Fri, 06 May 2011 04:09:17 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1442

Continue reading]]> To start in on Gunbuster, I’d need to talk about Ken Lau, first.  Ken was someone I’d met while working at Acer America back in 1995; we both worked the grave shift in the technical support department, though he was in a smaller group that handled online requests, while I was in a larger group that handled phone calls.  Anyway, we met, we hit it off, and thus began a friendship that I still tell stories about to this day.  Ken introduced me to a wide range of anime, and I recall that he had a love for one particular anime: Mamono Hunter Yohko.  But I’ll talk about Yohko some other time.

Gunbuster title card

I didn't know it then, but this was going to be burned into my memory forever...

Toppu wo Nerae was one of those series that I had little to no information about beforehand.  This had a lot to do with the fact that I trusted Ken’s tastes in anime.  Nearly everything he put before me to watch, I ended up liking.  Gunbuster was no exception to this, in fact, it might be the defining moment.  And before I continue on, as I dive back into my memory, I remember how close he and I were before I got married to my first wife, and I regret that we drifted apart.  I was in a horrible place then, and I thoughtlessly pushed him away and never heard from him again.  It’s one of those times I wish I could go back and change, but I’m sure he’s doing well for himself.  But, if he ever happens upon this site and reads this, I want to make sure he knows that I miss him.

Anyway, if you’re completely unaware of Gunbuster, and it seems the Naruto Generation generally is, then let me begin by saying that this is, for all intents and purposes… a parody.  A parody of what?  Pretty much every giant robot/space pilot story I’d seen to that point.  This includes Gundam, Macross, a handful of others.  This is a story about a duo of space pilot girls (right away I hooked) of differing ages.  The youngest is the lead, Takuya Noriko, the daughter of a famous spaceship admiral who died in combat against a ferocious enemy named only as “Uchuu Kaijuu,” (Space Monsters) when she was eight years old.  This story gets going as she’s attending the Okinawa Space Pilot Girls’ High School in order to train and follow her late father into space.

So far, the plot sounds pretty pedestrian, right?  Nothing to write home about, and with the additional information of it being a parody (ie: it probably won’t take itself seriously), you’d probably pass on watching it.  Well, not so fast.  In six episodes, Gunbuster manages to tell a compelling story with surprisingly dynamic characters without resorting to a breakneck pace.  If you’ve never seen it, I wholeheartedly recommend that you do.  And to prove that it can speak to younger anime viewers, I showed it to my young nephew (20 years old), and he loved it.  Head to Bandai’s site and find it, buy it, and enjoy.  Tell them I sent you.

Of course, back then, the version I saw was the one released by U.S. Renditions, which was translated by Trish Ledoux & Toshifumi Yoshida.  The reason I mention those names is because I had actually met Trish then Toshi on separate years of the same convention (Anime Expo).  Crazy as it may seem, I was astonished that both of them remembered me years later (especially Toshi when we ran into each other at Kumoricon in Portland a couple of years ago).  I had kept up a lengthy email dialogue with Trish while she was working on Ranma at VIZ.  Thinking back on that, I don’t know from where she must have summoned the patience to put up with my incessant questions about anime production and translation work, but she did… and even now, I shake my head and chuckle to myself as I remember months of talking about Ranma and Gunbuster.  I honestly don’t know if she remembers those emails or not, but I do.  It was amazing to get that perspective on how anime is produced and really opened my eyes.  So, a special thanks to them for being so kind to me when I was 18 and learning about anime.  It heightened my appreciation for the work done on both sides of the Pacific.

Noriko meets Kazumi

When Noriko (left) met Kazumi (right)...

Back to the story of the anime itself… Noriko’s sempai is Amano Kazumi, whom everyone refers to as “Onee-sama.”  They meet, and Onee-sama gives some very encouraging words to Noriko, after she’s been mistreated by some of the closed-minded students who think less of her because of her father.  Kazumi is considered a shoe-in for one of the two slots for a special space program (The Machine Weapon Advance Assault Squadron, aka the “Top”).  And to choose those two lucky students, is Coach Ota.  He appears on the scene in dramatic fashion, with his sharp, no-nonsense tone and his strict regimen of exercising the students.  When Noriko fails to execute his command, he shuts off her RX-7 machine and makes her run laps on her own two feet to the amusement of the rest of her class.

The conflict for the first episode comes when Noriko is selected along with Kazumi for that special program.  The entire school is turned on its ear as no one can figure out why Noriko was selected.  Then, the accusations fly: Obviously, because she is the daughter of Admiral Takuya, she got special treatment from the Coach.  Even Kazumi’s surprised that Noriko was chosen.  Kazumi wanted Kashihara to go with her.  But Coach is adamant that Noriko was the right choice, and tells Kazumi to shove it.  After all, he decides who goes and who stays, not her.  But it’s clear from the scene, their discussion alludes to a deeper relationship than instructor and student.  More on that later…

Noriko (with her friend, Kimiko) is now training harder, but simply being there is difficult enough.  The other students have marked up the announcement with libelous remarks about her, they covered her RX-7 machine in graffiti with unkind things, and to put the cherry on the sundae, a sharp thumbtack was waiting for her scantily-clad rear end when she sat down to pilot said machine.  This drives her tears and she approaches Coach to reconsider his selection.  It’s one of those pivotal character moments, when Coach convinces Noriko to stay the course.  He uses Kazumi as an example of how hard work and disciplined training could turn her from an inept pilot to a skilled one.  He even shows her how Kazumi trains, and then Noriko gets the determined shine in her eyes.

Noriko and Coach training

This is all set to a thinly-veiled homage to the music from the movie Chariots of Fire.

Coach helps her train and soon she becomes skilled enough in her RX-7 to do pretty anything she could do with her own body.  She does push-ups, lifts things, and runs along Coach on his little scooter against a scenic sunset on the beach.  She has grown into that selection of being sent into space ahead of her peers, and Coach is proud of her accomplishment.  But, Kashihara isn’t too happy and she tells Coach that she feels she’s superior to Noriko.  Coach tells her he doesn’t answer to her, and even Kazumi says that Kashihara is acting unseemly.  Well, Kashihara with the crazy eyes and unseemly behavior decides to take matters into her own hands and challenges Noriko to a straight-up fight between their RX-7 machines.

In the beginning, Kashihara is wiping the floor with Noriko using some strange tactics.  At one point, she even slaps the head of Noriko’s RX-7 machine as though it were a bare-fisted match.  Anyway, Noriko’s machine is now down in a supine position, and Kashihara is just stomping the shit out of the chest of Noriko’s robot.  There’s a kind of a “Use the Force, Luke” moment with Noriko whiles she’s being rattled inside like a pea in a tin can and she decides to turn off all of her monitors so she can’t see what’s going on.  This impresses Kazumi, Coach is dispassionate, and for some reason this totally enrages Kashihara.  In a dick move, she decides that now is the time for the Mortal Kombat “Finish Her” move and whips out a long blade with the intent of totalling Noriko’s ride.  Noriko, on the other hand, somehow senses this and when Kashihara’s blade comes down, she jumps up with her machine out of harm’s way and does an acrobatic maneuver.  Noriko rights herself and brings the leg of her machine down while screaming, “Inazuma Kick!”  The kick is the deciding blow, as Kashihara is now sitting in the remains of her machine with the realization that Coach was right.  Noriko’s selection is now no longer in question and she and Kazumi board a shuttle to take them to the orbiting space station where they will be working from now on.

I don’t do the actual story justice, and if I seem like I’m belittling the anime it’s not because I hate it.  I guess, while rewatching the first episode I forgave a lot of the absurdities of the parody part of the show.  I feel that you have to in order to let the story take you where it wants to go, but trust me when I say that the show will not disappoint you.  By the time I got tot he end of the sixth episode, I was a mess.  I was crying openly, and just left there to try and compose myself.  Any story, written or acted, if it invokes an emotional response then the production has reached me.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the seiyuu.  Noriko and Kazumi were played by seiyuu from Ranma Nibunnoichi, Hidaka Noriko (Tendou Akane) and Sakuma Rei (Shampoo), respectively.  Coach Ota’s voice came from Wakamoto Norio (Oskar von Reuenthal from Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, among many many others).  If I were to use any anime to state my preference of why I love the Japanese seiyuu over North American voice acting, Gunbuster could quite possibly be my Exhibit A.  I cannot imagine any English-speaking actor to pull off the passion and emotion equal to the Japanese voice track.  There are rare occasions where I might prefer English over Japanese (Ranma, Taihou Shichau zo!), but that’s about it.

Gunbuster was directed by Anno Hideaki, who needs no introduction.  But, just in case he does, he was the creative force behind several Gainax projects, including Fushigi no Umi no Nadia and Kareshi Kanokyou no Jijyou, but most notably, Evangelion.  I should also point out that he worked as an animator for the original Macross series, and was the animation director for Oritsu Uchuugun: Honneamise no Tsubasa (The Wings of Honneamise).

Kouhei Tanaka composed a brilliant score for Gunbuster.  In my opinion, I think he’s as good a composer as Kanno Yoko (Escaflowne, Macross Plus/Frontier) or Shiro Sagisu (Kare Kano, Evangelion).  Maybe not quite as spectacular as Hisaishi Joe (of Studio Ghibli fame), but nonetheless, his score for Gunbuster lives in my memory as helping to make the whole show as powerful as it is.  If, by chance, you get a chance to watch Gunbuster, I invite you to pay special attention to how stirring the music is as the scenes play out.  There is no question in my mind that the ending would be as impacting without that gorgeous track, “Toki no Kawa wo Koete…” (“The End of the Endless River”) playing underneath it all.  Like so many other anime, the music is essential and necessary to everything the story is trying to do here, and I can point to that last episode and present it as an essential example of why I love the music of anime as much as the anime itself.  Of course, personally being a musician helps my appreciation of that aspect of any visual media, not just anime.

Toppu wo Nerae Science #6

Sailor Noriko shows off her fandom! (click on the image for the animation)

In addition to being a great story, Gunbuster also had a series of shorts to explain the science behind the technology and the history of the war between the humans and the Uchuu Kaijuu.  It was hosted by super-deformed versions of Noriko, Kazumi, and Coach and managed to make me laugh as Noriko played the dunce and Kazumi the straight man of the duo.  I especially loved the part where Noriko’s going through the planets of the solar system and changing costumes to the various senshi of Sailor Moon as she does so.  Obviously, Sailor Stars hadn’t come out, yet, because she only does the inner senshi.  When she moves to naming the planets of the outer solar system, thee’s no Sailor Jupiter, Saturn, etc.

The point of the shorts is to flesh out some of the reasoning behind why Noriko and Kazumi would never grow as old as their peers that remained on Earth, thanks in part to Einstein’s theory of Relativity.  During our email chats, I recall Trish telling how difficult it was to translate those shorts because of all the heavy technical talk (I think).  Even now, after my brief Japanese courses at Foothill, I could hear some of the language used and try to sound it out, but it was way way way above my level of understanding.  So, thanks Trish and Toshi, for all that hard work!

In summary, Gunbuster remains one on a list of anime that will be with me until I die.  I just wish that I held onto my original U.S. Renditions version… but along with several other tapes I had in storage, it was damaged beyond repair when a storm of mice ate several boxes.  Apparently, our next door neighbor in the storage place was keeping food and it attracted vermin for miles until he got evicted.  I lost a box of old anime tapes when they chewed through them and actually managed to chew the cases up pretty bad, rendering them unable to play.  I nearly cried when I was informed.

Anyway, this ends yet another post about anime from me.  If I have time, I’ll try to work on another one.  I would love to hear from you all on your thoughts on Gunbuster, in the comments here or on Facebook, where this will get cross-posted.  Thanks!

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Baseball on Film http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2011/02/15/baseball-on-film/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2011/02/15/baseball-on-film/#respond Tue, 15 Feb 2011 18:14:03 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1357

Continue reading]]> In honor of pitchers and catchers reporting yesterday, I feel like putting on a baseball film festival in my home this weekend.  I’m trying to figure out which films to screen on Saturday and Sunday, and I’ve come up with a partial list:

  • Stealing Home
  • It Happens Every Spring
  • The quintessential baseball film.

  • For Love of the Game
  • Mr. 3000
  • Bull Durham
  • 61*
  • The Sandlot
  • Mr. Destiny
  • Summer Catch
  • Mr. Baseball
  • The Natural
  • Major League
  • Bang the Drum Slowly
  • A League of Their Own
  • The Pride of the Yankees
  • Field of Dreams
  • Eight Men Out
  • The Scout

I, of course, left some movies off the list.  Movies like Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch and Angels in the Outfield were cut because either I thought they were ridiculous or I just wasn’t that big of a fan of those movies enough to want to watch it again.  And Fever Pitch is left off due to my lifelong hate of all things having to do with Boston-based teams.  Some of these may not even make it to the party due to time constraints, but I wanted to make sure that my semi-annual homage to baseball movies is complete with the must-see films like The Natural, Bull Durham, and Major League.

What movies did I leave off?

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Game One Recap http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2011/02/10/game-one-recap/ http://jetblack.thebebop.net/2011/02/10/game-one-recap/#respond Fri, 11 Feb 2011 04:23:58 +0000 http://jetblack.thebebop.net/?p=1341

Continue reading]]> We played our first game last night, and even though we didn’t win, I thought it went pretty well.  For a team that hadn’t practiced together ever, this was quite the learning experience for my teammates and I.What was my line, you’re asking?  I managed one hit in two at-bats and that was it.  It was a sharply hit leadoff single between 2B and 3B, with both defensive players diving for it and not getting to it.  I didn’t care.  I was mad scrambling to get to first base like someone had fielded it cleanly and was going to make that throw.  I move pretty fast in my cleats for a guy my size.  I made it to second on the next at-bat, which was a BB issued to my boss.  I was thrown out at third on the next play, a squibbler that barely made it to short, but I was the easy play so I made it back to the dugout.

I batted third in the lineup, which was a nice change from my previous position in the lineup last season (7th).  I usually like to bat cleanup, but given the wind conditions and the fact that I wasn’t making the most solid contact I could, I had to make do with what I had.  My first at-bat was a clumsily-hit ball to second base, and they made a double-play off of me and the batter ahead of me.

On defense, I was catching, and I had to handle two different pitchers.  Both of whom didn’t have much in the way of experience, but I settled them down the way a good catcher should.  Eventually, they started putting the ball over the plate, and of course, the batters were killing it.  Also, I mentioned the wind earlier.  At Twin Creeks, the fields all kind of face the south end of the bay, so we catch that bay breeze pretty good.  But the wind was carrying the ball southerly, and since the batters were facing northeast, a shot to center would invariably land in right field.  So, our defense was kind of running around trying to get to the ball, not realizing that it was for naught, while the right fielder was being pelted by these pop flies wandering into their zone.

I had to position myself behind the plate in such a way that it would make the most sense.  The wind would turn every pitch into an involuntary curveball that would get pushed to the outside half of the plate.

All in all, it was fun, and I’m looking forward to next week.  My legs are SORE.  Holy crap.

Also, I had to buy my own uniform tonight.  I’d post a picture of the proof, but I can’t release the image until after next week because the logo is a surprise for the team.  I don’t want to take the chance that someone will see it prematurely and ruin the surprise.

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