BSG Friday!

The fourth and final season of “Battlestar Galactica” starts this Friday.  After such a long time I kind of fell out of the rhythm of the show and to be honest I was a little worried I would have a hard time getting back in, especially since I’ve seen many good shows in the meantime.  I loved “Dexter,” “Friday Night Lights” has been amazing, and there aren’t words to describe how I feel about the current season of “Lost.”  So last night I watched the little mini-recap with Ron Moore and David Eick followed by the half-hour celebrity fan talk done in VH1’s “I Love the ‘X0s” style.  I love how there was a whole 30 minute block dedicated to how much these random celebrities (including “Buffy” mastermind Joss Whedon) love “Battlestar Galactica.”

Now I’m so pumped for this season to start.  I was directed to this girl’s list of her 43 favorite moments from the series so far and I was excited, scared, devastated, and depressed all within the time it took to get through the list.  Be advised:  DO NOT READ THIS LIST IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE SHOW!  It is basically a list of spoilers, and if you have any desire to experience this show the way it was intended you must refrain from reading it.

I was also reminded of the one thing that happened last season that caused me to grieve as though I’d lost a loved one.  I seriously was walking around my life depressed for about two weeks.  This show becomes a part of who you are because it makes you think about such tough questions, and as a result you also get so invested in certain characters because you can really empathize with the positions they are in.  Please watch this show.

Here’s the list.  Again, this is only for those who are completely caught up with the show.

Increasing my purchasing power through blogging.

Doesn’t that sound catchy?

I’m in the market for a new laptop.  Help me out.  It would also be appreciated if you explain WHY you have made such a suggestion.  I am looking for something high-end, to be used right now for school, but potentially being the only machine that goes away with me.  (I’m still worried about the state of my Sharon-rig – one of these days this awesome dude named Russ is going to come over and help me fix the heatsink, which we feel is the root of all evil, atm.)  Therefore, I need something with awesome specs now so I won’t feel the need to upgrade for a few years.  And yes, I do realize a laptop isn’t going to have the specs of a new box.

And don’t all tell me to get a MacBook Pro.  Give me some PC suggestions so I can compare and contrast.

Thanks in advance!

Yoko Kanno’s Discography, Lossless

As some of you may know or have at least gathered from your time here, Jordan and I watch our fair share of anime. (Him more than me, these days.) It was through this medium that I/we discovered the genius of Yoko Kanno. My first experience with Yoko was her soundtrack for the OAV of Macross Plus. I was 14ish, and my geeky uncle was living with us. In addition to teaching me tabletop RPGing, introducing me to FPSes, and possessing many boxes of Marvel comics which gave way to my obsession with X-Men, he had an entire box of anime. I watched Akira, first. It was in Japanese. Without subtitles. I was so lost. Then I thought I’d give Macross Plus a try, because the art on the front cover of the second VHS was awesome. I was hooked soon after, despite it being a giant robot anime. (Eventually, this would become the genre in which most of my favorites lie.) Anyway, that’s all well and good – then I find out he has the For Fans Only soundtrack. Copied on a casette off a CD of course, but lord, I played that cassette to death. From there it became a search for Yoko music. A friend sent me a few tracks from Memories, and then I discovered a few tracks from this show called Escaflowne.

I think we all know where that ended up going.

Anyway. I recently downloaded her entire discography in lossless format. The only album missing is Solid State Society, the newest soundtrack from GitS:SAC. I have had it for months, but never really listened to more than the few tracks that come up amidst the thousands when my winamp is on shuffle. But I’ve listened to a few, in the last day or two, and am -amazed-. It’s like listening to it live, and for the first time.

My new goal for this Spring Break is to listen to the discography in full. Expect a post that does nothing but gush.

I want all my music in lossless, please.

Comments to Posts: Part 2

I was in the middle of writing a response to slchapman’s comment on Charlize Theron Is Lady Vengeance?! when I noticed it was getting long… again! So here we are with another response to a response in the form of a new post.

In regards to what averts Americans from seeing/enjoying foreign films, I actually think it does have a lot to do with subtitles. I’ve often heard, “If I want to read I’ll pick up a book.” I think it may also have something to do with the very different, perhaps culturally influenced film making styles. It’s unfortunate, but after studying ratings of movies and especially television I’ve found that the majority of media consumers in the US are either really stupid or they want to be spoon-fed entertainment so they don’t have to think. This is why things like “Two and A Half Men” is still on and “Arrested Development,” “Veronica Mars,” “Friday Night Lights,” etc. don’t do well in ratings. Especially with things like “Arrested Development,” you have to be on your toes the entire time you watch otherwise you’ll miss stuff or get bored. (I haven’t actually seen “Two and A Half Men,” but from the ads, which are meant to entice viewers to watch, I just can’t understand why anyone thinks those jokes are funny.)

Then you have the whole dub market for foreign films, which I think is just ridiculous. They don’t do this much with live-action anymore, as far as I’ve seen, but it’s totally acceptable for animated films to be dubbed with either horrible voice acting or the voices of overly recognizable famous actors, both of which pull me out of the experience almost completely. And why does it always sound like it’s been dubbed? I mean, if I’m not mistaken, most movies have at least some post-production dubbing done, right? Sometimes it’s noticeable, but most of the time it’s pretty seamless. An English language dub always sounds like it’s not a part of the original mix no matter what. How hard can it be to match the audio quality of the original sound track? If I ever make it into the audio production industry I will be sure to revolutionize this broken method. Or maybe I’ll convince everyone that dubbing isn’t good.

I will agree, slchapman, that the distribution method is also to blame for limited exposure to the often superior original films foreign in origin. Because of this I am ever-thankful for Netflix. I find out about a lot of movies I’m interested in that are shown at film festivals and in small art theaters (theatres?) but I don’t always want to drive an hour and half to be able to see them. As upsetting as it was, I almost wish the WGA strike had gone on just a little longer (but not really because then we wouldn’t have seen a proper ending to “BSG“) because maybe it would have been enough to shake up the current standards for both film and television. I know content was borrowed from the internet for normal broadcast television, and even though it failed miserably at least it was somewhat innovative. And NBC was talking about scrapping its up-front presentation for the new season this year and adopting a year-round schedule rather than the normal fall to spring schedule. Production was back up, unfortunately, before any major changes were allowed to take hold though.

Maybe one day we’ll see some change. Maybe our generation, being more interested in cultural diversity (yes? no?), will be able to change Hollywood in the future. Or maybe we’ll just have to remain vigilant in terms of finding hidden and unique media.

Thanks for the comment, slchapman.

Japanese Cartoons Were Always Weird

Mickey Mouse makes two appearances in this clip.  I have to say, more surprising than the “evil” Mickey is the Mickey-headed tiger creature that can bend its legs all crazy-like while dancing.

Yay for Twitter!

Jor gave me a Twitter RSS feed. Now you can see what I’m doing all the time! If only I could refigure out how to make it update from IM. It used to work for AIM, but it seems it’s under perma-maintenance. Apparently according to Twitter, I need to be using Gtalk, Livejournal (what?), or Jabber. So I guess I will just update from the web and my phone, until I figure out which chat agent I want to use.

Probably just the web.

Off to bed I go!

Charlize Theron Is Lady Vengeance?!

Stolen from the sidebar there to the left.

WHAT.

First they’re remaking Oldboy – bad idea, it won’t travel across the pacific well, and now Lady Vengeance?!  It’s a fantastic movie all on its own and is VERY recent and does not need to be remade because American Audiences fear the subtitles.

I fear.  I fear  for one of my favorite movies of all time.

Sorry this post is incoherent.  It’s early in the morning, and I am outraged.

In Response to the Response… (Also, a pretty fly Zelda string quartet)

For the record, I totally wasn’t starting a debate. Just clarifying why I’ve been leary of Macs all these years. If you do notice, I do say I have considered and am considering still the purchase of a Mac. I think I might try to swing building my own. Iunno. I’m still on the fence. REALLY THIS POST WAS MADE FOR THIS

Also, Jory, I have been thinking about you a lot lately and how we have NOT hung out. I want to, soon. Now that my installation piece is up I can stop stressing about that. The last month or so, I’ve been lucky to get 5 hours of sleep a night. All the stress from work and school and family and you-name-it-its-gone-wrong, I’m bloody ragged. Spring Break is soon. (Next week.) I saw you pulling out of your subdivision after lunch today!

EDIT: WTF IS NOT SAVING MY EMBED PLZ SEND HALP

In Response…

This response to mythezza’s comment started to get far too long. So I decided to just write a new post.

a.) If I wanted to tamper with my computer I wouldn’t have gotten a laptop.

b.) I don’t use those anyway. Plus a lot of stock (i.e. free) apps on Mac are things you have to search around for and download if you want to do something similar on Windows (Garage Band, iPhoto, etc.).

c.) “Guts digging” can be done, but most of the time you don’t have to do anything like that. It’s either all done for you or completely unnecessary. Plus if you get the right apps you can just use scripts other people have written to customize your Mac to do all sorts of neat things.

About the price for macs, I did several comparisons between laptops, made up to be at least similar in specs, on sites like Dell and whatever else and the price ended up being within $100 of the MacBook Pro I was looking at. Now I got the cheaper Pro, so that makes the difference about $500 cheaper than a comparable PC. Sure if I would construct my own computer I’d probably be able to get the price down, but that daunting (impossible?) task of making my own laptop wasn’t even a consideration.

I don’t know where Matt got his new power cord, but they’re only $79 at the Apple Store. And as far as I know, all notebooks can crap out on you right after the warranty is up.

I have absolutely no problem with Windows. I’m by no means a “Mac Person” now. I think the whole debate is kind of stupid actually. It’s all about personal preference, and everyone is entitled to like whatever they want. The only thing that bothers me is when people won’t even consider that there could be benefits to using one over the other. I appreciate it when thought is given to an alternative. But when points are made about one being better there are usually counterpoints. Just call it what it is: It’s your opinion.

You know, my brother and one of my friends started debating about the “betterness” of Halo 3 vs. Call of Duty 4. My brother likes COD4 and my friend likes Halo 3. Call of Duty 4 is an very realistic military simulation game whereas Halo is much more arcade style with superhuman jumping and futuristic (obviously) weaponry. In other words, these games are completely different from each other. So after a few minutes of listening to them going back and forth I had to stop them. The saddest part is that this lame debate is rampant in the annoying, forum-trolling/posting video game community. This is the exact same debate:

Person 1: “Mmm I love black olives! Black olives are better than any food in the world.”

Person 2: “You are so wrong, I hate black olives. Chocolate is so much better, that’s the best food in the world.”

Person 1: “Noooo! I don’t know how you can possibly think chocolate is good. Black olives are so fun to eat. You can just pop them in your mouth and eat them, or you can put them on pizza or in a salad! You can do so much!”

Person 2: “But chocolate can be used in all kinds of desserts. And eating chocolate by itself is such a fancy treat!”

ETC……

Debating this kind of thing is so stupid I can’t handle it. It’s even worse when olive lover has never even tried chocolate before.

Here’s what I say about most things: Don’t knock it ’till you try it. And if someone you know and trust and admire in any capacity likes something, by all means try it! Even if you are pretty sure you won’t like it at all, you’re friends with that person because of some similarity in interests, so just give it a shot. Halo 3 is great. Call of Duty 4 is great. Mac OS is great. Windows (sometimes/in older forms) is great. Chocolate is great. Black olives are gross.

Like what you like and let others like what they like.

PS – Wow, sorry this is so ranty. I’m usually a pretty easygoing person; I like to let things just slide and I try not to get too worked up. Sometimes opinion shoots out of my brain like a rocket though, and you all are experiencing the effect.  And this is not even close to being directed directly at you, Katy.  You should see my computer though/call me to hang out sometime soon/get my sweatshirt back to me finally!

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

So I’m sitting here in the room above the garage with one of my friends, her sister, and their cousin along with his fiancee. They are all playing Rock Band and I’m sitting here using my new toy trying to figure out if it’s possible to edit blog posts without being connected to the internet. (After just being asked why I’d want to do this I find it rather difficult to come up with a good reason. I still can’t really think of anything, but I’ve wanted to be able to do this for a while now. So here we are.)

Here’s what’s really important right now, though.

It has now been over a week since I got my brand new, updated trackpad/graphics card/processor MacBook Pro. The transition from Windows to Mac has been a long process. I’ve basically been contemplating this switch for over a year, and every time I got close to deciding one way or the other I would consult both Mac and PC people to have them try to convince me which was better. Then I started to realize: I like clean, smooth functionality. I already use iTunes and an iPod. If I have access to Microsoft Office there is absolutely nothing else I need that can only be found on Windows. I certainly don’t play any games (except I’m interested in that Spore game, but I can play that on here too).

I’m really enjoying my experience so far, and I have a feeling it will only get better as I learn more. That’s the thing, though, I still have a ton to learn. I’ve been joking with one of my friends (the main Mac user I’m in touch with) that someday soon I’ll be the one giving him tips on how to use his Mac better. He says that will be in about a week, but I feel so overwhelmed right now I’m thinking more like a year. I guess maybe I’ll give another update on my learning status when there’s something worth talking about. I’m interested to know what people think (without getting to vicious or snobbish) about the two platforms. I know one person who is very upset that I would even consider getting a Mac (Katy). I’m really happy with it, and I’m so glad it’s a laptop. Who knew how much it could change the way I do things. The one bad thing is that I actually use my computer more often than before. Maybe that means I’ll start posting on here more. I just think it would be nice if I found an offline blog editor that actually works for me.

Wondering When They Start?

Here is the list of when TV shows restart this season (from Watch With Kristin).

Sunday, Mar. 2
Aliens in America (CW)
Dirt (FX)

Tuesday, Mar. 4
New Amsterdam (Fox)

Monday, Mar. 10
Canterbury’s Law (Fox)

Tuesday, Mar. 11
Beauty and the Geek (CW)

Wednesday, Mar. 12
Top Chef (Bravo)

Friday, Mar. 14
The Return of Jezebel James (Fox)

Monday, Mar. 17
The Bachelor (ABC)
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Dancing with the Stars (ABC)
Two and a Half Men (CBS)

Tuesday, Mar. 18
Miss/Guided (ABC)
The Riches (FX)

Sunday, Mar. 23
The Game (CW)

Monday, Mar. 24
CSI: Miami (CBS)
Greek (ABC Family)

Tuesday, Mar. 25
‘Til Death (Fox)

Sunday, Mar. 30
Cold Case (CBS)

Tuesday, Apr. 1
Hell’s Kitchen (Fox)

Wednesday, Apr. 2
Criminal Minds (CBS)
CSI: NY (CBS)

Thursday, Apr. 3
CSI (CBS)
My Name Is Earl (NBC)
Without a Trace (CBS)

Friday, Apr. 4
Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi)
Ghost Whisperer (CBS)
Numb3rs (CBS)

Monday, Apr. 7
Samantha Who? (ABC) 

Tuesday, Apr. 8
Boston Legal (ABC)
NCIS (CBS) 

Thursday, Apr. 10
30 Rock (NBC)
ER (NBC)
The Office (NBC)
Scrubs (NBC) 

Sunday, Apr. 13
Desperate Housewives (ABC)

Monday, Apr. 14
Bones (Fox)
One Tree Hill (CW)
Rules of Engagement (CBS)

Tuesday, Apr. 15
Law and Order: SVU (NBC)

Thursday, Apr. 17
Smallville (CW)

Sunday, Apr. 20
Brothers & Sisters (ABC)

Monday, Apr. 21
Gossip Girl (CW)
House (Fox)

Tuesday, Apr. 22
Reaper (CW)

Wednesday, Apr. 23
Law and Order (NBC)

Thursday, Apr. 24
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
Lost (ABC)
Supernatural (CW)
Ugly Betty (ABC)

Friday, Apr. 25

Moonlight (CBS)

Batman Anime

This looks so cool to me. What I loved so much about “Batman: The Animated Series” was how mature it was (or at least how mature it seemed to me at age 11). This looks like it could potentially be a cool new take on the style of Batman cartoons, because I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of those old-time cars like ’20s gangsters used to drive.

More pictures

***UPDATE***

This movie is called Batman: Gotham Knight and bridges the gap between Batman Begins  and The Dark Knight.