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Interdependence Day

If I’m going to celebrate anything about today, it’s the continuation of an experiment.

I’m working my way toward fifty years of age and I don’t have a lot of what one could call “patriotism” left. The country’s a mess, its ideals under attack from without and especially within, by the rich and the powerful and the willfully ignorant, by those who are gaming the system to the breaking point so they can win ongoing perpetual rule and control. But the ideals stated at the start of it all still mean something. Maybe I’m naive to hold onto that belief. So be it.

If I’m going to celebrate anything, it’s those ideals.

Not for the troops, because as soon as we decide that a uniform and a weapon automatically make a person superior then we have ceded a level of personal responsibility, but for the kind of people who choose to take up arms specifically for the cause of protecting those who cannot protect themselves. Not for the flag, because crass symbolism has become just another wedge to divide us, but for the kind of people who see the flag as a reminder of the importance of those naive ideals that started this whole grand experiment off in the first place. Not for the history, because boy howdy is this country’s history full of greed and corruption and outright evil swathed in lies meant to convey respectability and holy purpose, but for the future that I hope we still have the chance to make together, a more inclusive and honest and understanding future for everyone.

Not for independence, but for the hope of interdependence.

4 July, 2019
Shinji’s Harem

I’m led to understand by some folks on Twitter that Netflix’s new translation for Neon Genesis Evangelion changes one particular line from one particular character, and what this tells me is that the folks behind Netflix’s new translation are blissfully unaware that NGE is, at least in part, a harem anime.

I mean.

Shinji collects three of the four more prominent haremette types over the course of the show.

1) The tsundere. Obviously this is Asuka.

2) The cipher. Obviously this is Rei.

3) The childhood friend. This role is basically left un-filled.

and

4) The vamp. Obviously this is Kaoru.

At least one of the three is honest and direct about their feelings, right? (Somebody in that benighted band of broken children might as well be, and guess who that ends up being.)

24 June, 2019
Passing The Days, June 2019 Edition
My life itself isn’t anything to write about, as it’s really just “eat sleep work lather rinse repeat” for the most part. I decided to share a bit of how I spend my leisure time lately, though…

Reading
- I finished Martha Wells’ “Murderbot diaries” novella series (starting point: All Systems Red). I cannot recommend it highly enough if you’re at all into Sci-Fi style adventure heavily seasoned with snarky commentary and a few musings on the place of non-human sentient beings in a mostly-human society.
- I… keep trying to finish Cat Valente’s Space Opera. I see rave reviews and while I get why people love it, I suspect it’s better for folks who can handle audiobooks as the writing style is clearly meant to be read aloud. It’s a love letter to Douglas Adams as much as it’s anything else, and I can’t deny the craft. It’s just… a bit too much. I can get through a chapter at a go, then I have to walk away from it for a while. Weeks, sometimes.
Playing
- I dabbled in Warframe and Diablo III on and off this past few months, and that’s about it on the PC side.
- My phone has AFK Arena, Pokemon Go, and Egg Inc installed, only one of which takes very much time on any given day.
- My (new) tablet runs Valkyrie Connect and King’s Raid, both “gacha” style games, as well as the superb match-3 game, Gems of War. I can also recommend mobile version of the Ascension deck-building game.
Watching
- We just started the new Aggretsuko season (so far so good) and after that we’re probably going to tackle Good Omens.
- I took Kyla to see the new Godzilla movie in the theater for her birthday and bought her the Blu-Ray of Shin Godzilla, so we’re having a grand kaiju-loving time, indeed. (We enjoyed both, quite a lot.)
- Also in the theater, we saw Captain Marvel (loved it) and Avengers: Endgame (not so much).
- The only anime this season I’ve cared about at all is the Fruits Basket redo, which has been a delight thus far. Everything else has left me cold.
Listening
- I delved into the back-catalogs of Mono Inc (2013’s Nimmermehr) and Assemblage 23 (2004’s Storm) and so far I’m pleased with both purchases. I don’t expect to go much further back, however. I like where each act is headed, musically speaking, more than I’m interested in where they’ve been.
- I finally broke down and forked over a lot of money for Yuki Kajiura’s Fiction II which… was not as good as I’d hoped. Sigh.
And that’s about that, entertainment-wise. If I forgot something, hey, that’s fodder for another post…
21 June, 2019
Just one bit of punctuation…

I cannot possibly be the only person to look at this sign and think, “Wow, if you insert one bit of punctuation here, the entire meaning changes.”

Right?

28 May, 2019
Pulp Pulp Culture Culture

I should know better than to tag songs on “best-of” albums.

It’s an okay song, I just didn’t necessarily want to hear it twice within half an hour.

What we’ve got here is ~~failure to communicate~~ the result of my ratings-tagging both the Thomas Dolby record Aliens Ate My Buick and the Thomas Dolby best-of compilation record Retrospectacle. I use MediaMonkey to build random playlists. Some are for specific bands or genres, others boil down to “give me X minutes of songs with a Y star rating or higher.”

The above screenshot is from my “MEHs Haul” playlist: 90 minutes of three-star tracks that haven’t been played in the last few weeks. I’m used to getting studio and live versions of the same song, especially in my workday-length random playlist. The same studio recording twice in relatively rapid succession, though? That’s my own danged fault.

Maintaining a digital music library is an ever-ongoing task, apparently.

29 April, 2019
The Carol Corps

We are, one is forced to admit, a Funko Pops household. Like, we’re not addicted to buying all of them, nothing like that. But the “I can quit any time” line is just that, a line. Case in point:

Some time ago, before the movie was anything more than wishful thinking, I picked up a Captain Marvel. Cool! Onto the shelf she went.

Then the movie happened, and I picked up a Vers. Okay! I had two different Captain-Marvel-ish Funko Pops on display. Fine, fine, no problems.

Then my birthday arrived and I found myself with another variant. Boy howdy did Funko go nuts on these or what?

Then came the Captain Marvel “blind box” (Vyx ordered it, not me!) with two more. And a sixth arrived from… look, I don’t even remember, okay? But that one glows in the dark. Bonus!

End result?

All the Captain Marvel Funko Pops (with bonus Voltron crew)

Look! I have my very own Carol Corps!

(For fun, and at Vyx’s suggestion, I took another quick pic:)

(It may or may not be good to be the king…)

Edit: I was putting away dishes, which included a Captain Marvel glass (part of the aforementioned blind box) and, well:

We’ve had a set of “naughty words” glasses for years and years. In a way, this was inevitable.

21 April, 2019