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| I remember when I couldn't talk about my hobbies at school, because video games and anime led to ostracism. Liking Star Trek in particular was a sort of deathblow to one's social status, if word got out.
Aerosmith? Black Sabbath? Who are they? Why would you listen to that?
Who likes science?
Then along comes Guitar Hero.
And Cartoon Network showing anime on TV (besides dragonball and sailor moon).
And the Wii.
And the Star Trek movie.
All of a sudden, all the stuff that was synonymous with wedgies is ...cool?
Even science... the big bang theory is startlingly popular and is at least bringing some of that sort of thing to the masses, so to speak. Maybe Geek really is the new chic? (For the record, I've never really watched it... don't have the time.)
But now eyes don't glaze when I say I like Metallica, or Zelda, or Kenshin. Not only that, I can talk to others about these things.
I'm sure there are purists who want to denounce the newcomers as posers and whatnot. In fact, I know it (vulgar, if you mind that sort of thing). I say welcome to the fold!
(As far as the comic is concerned, I'm aware that not every game coming out now is great. Of course, it's not like there was a steady stream of great games before 'casual gaming' took off; there was just a steady stream of samey drivel geared at hardcore gamers instead of casual ones. What I like is that the interest is there, and in a broader market. In other words, I like that awareness is spreading.)
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| Here's what's going on:
1. I start research tomorrow. So far, what I know of my duties is "show up."
2. More or less settled into my room, and planning on getting used to Austin this coming week.
3. The Asian market here is huge. And awesome. Only problem is that it's pretty far away... oh well. I figure I'll just go once a week or something.
That's it for now. I've been mostly getting set up and settling in the last couple of days... I can finally start running and cooking normally tomorrow. Hooray!
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| I'm not sure when this happened, but at some point I think I became quite attuned to the cadences of spoken language. More likely, it's been a gradual process and it only really comes to mind when this little sensibility is elated or particularly offended.
It's one of the reasons I've become so fond of just listening to spoken Japanese; it flows together so well that the speech itself seems to relax me. When it's spoken well, as far as I'm concerned it's like listening to classical music.
I feel the same way about shakespeare; the natural cadences that come out when one reads it fluently are gorgeous, and are why I like it so much. Interestingly, I think this is why I hated studying it in high school: breaking every line to analyze every bit and piece of it, as far as I'm concerned, is like scratching a record every line and talking in the middle of a song. It's irritating.
Normally I don't feel the same way about Chinese; the tones in it tend to make it sound dissonant to my ears. Today, though, was the East Asian Lang. & Cultures graduation ceremony, and there were a few readings of classical Chinese poetry along with some short speeches by graduating students. I could've listened to them all day, especially the poetry....
さまざまな
こと思い出す
桜かな
edit: Just for the record, the ending is a haiku by bashou and is Japanese. I haven't taken total leave of my senses.
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| i feel bad for lesotho, all surrounded by south africa like it is.
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| I've been a Star Trek fan for a good long while now, although it's been largely in remission since high school. My dad rented me a copy of Star Trek VI (if you want the subtitle, chances are you already know what it is  ) from the poland library, and thus was spawned a semi-obsessive geekdom.
Of course, where I saw aliens and starships, everybody else apparently, and I later, saw an older, overweight William Shatner delivering often-silly dialogue in a jilted cadence, hackneyed writing and bad special effects. I dunno, when I was younger, that just never bothered me; it was more the futuristic setting, the distinction of the alien races - yes, I know that they were physically distinguishable largely by the amount of stuff on their foreheads, but they actually had consistent overall cultures and were more than eye candy; how many Star Wars aliens actually do anything other than look neat on camera? - that made the show and films for me. As for the hackneyed writing... if you had to write thirty or forty years worth of scripts, chances are you'd recycle some plots every now and then too.
Anyway, you can probably see where I'm going with this. I won't say too much about the new film for fear of putting in inadvertent spoilers, but I think it's safe to say that they kept the bright spots and got rid of the overweight Shatner. It's been a while since a Trek movie could've gotten a 96% on rottentomatoes, even for a little while, so I think I'm not the only one who feels like the series got a much-needed shot in the arm from this movie. We got the familiar characters and aliens who look like... well, Eric Bana with tattoos, without the long scenes of dialogue that looked and sounded like it was read off of cue cards. Oh, and good special effects; turns out that getting a facelift goes a long way for a sci-fi show, not so much for its own sake, but because believable special effects (like not being able to see wires holding planets in place, for example) help create and maintain a futuristic atmosphere.
Granted, we're not talking Citizen Kane here, but if you've been watching Trek movies expecting Citizen Kane then you're probably used to disappointment and are still hoping for the next season of Firefly. I generally disapprove of deus ex machina plot devices, but I think in this case the end justifies the means (possible spoiler: I refer to time travel here); as I said, I haven't been a die-hard, borderline obsessed fan for years, and so my knowledge of the Trek canon had understandably withered somewhat. As a result, I ended up with the same knowledge of what was going to occur as everybody else: nothing, but with some character familiarity thrown in. I'm happy with that, and judging by the reactions of the audience, most everybody else was too. (Yes, there were diehard fans in there, and you could pick them out by the simple fact that they clapped, a lot, whenever a reference was made to the old shows/films. The uninitiated who went with me also seemed pretty happy with it when they left.)
So, all in all, if you like science-fiction, you could do worse than the new Trek movie. It sure beats the heck out of the Star Wars prequels.
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