From the Media Department: A couple of interest…
From the Media Department:
A couple of interesting pieces of media have come to my attention in recent days. The first is a British Sci-fi Comedy series called Red Dwarf. Dean got the first six episodes on DVD and lent them to me. It’s quite good, and I understand it gets a lot better with the appearance of a new character, Kryton, later in the series. I look forward to that, but for now I am quite content to lust after Lister, one of the main characters. Damn, but he’s a sexy one!
The second bit o’ media is a Japanese animated film by the people who brought you Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. It’s called Pom Poko and features raccoon characters (“Tanuki”) who are not only cute, but have balls to boot. And when I say they have balls, I mean, these animated animals have actual visible testicles, at least the male ones. Not only this, but they’re magic testicles that can inflate into all sorts of shapes and sizes. A must-have for any collection, I would think.
I’ve also added two links to the sidebar, called Sight of the Moment and Sound of the Moment. The Sight is just whatever video clip happens to be up and the moment, currently the Beef Noodle Street one, and the Sound bit is a random mp3 song from my collection, probably mostly Chinese and Taiwanese songs, as those don’t seem to be as readily available in most of the world as English songs are. The song I have up now is none other than Wu Bai’s Hong Diong E Xio Ho (¥î¦Ê–·¤¤ªº¤p«B), one of my favorites. It’s a traditional song, and the lyrics are quite sad, involving a man who is reminiscing about a past, lost love. I love the atmosphere it conjures up. My apologies for having such large, unmanagable files. I’ve decided that if I am to get serious about manipulating media in a digital environment, I really need a Mac. It’s not just reading Lileks praising his Mac or watching Mindcrime gloating over being able to perform such stunts on his new Powerbook that’s convinced me of this; rather, it’s the long years of frustration working with PCs that’s really done it. Honestly, I just want something that works and doesn’t give me “A General Error Has Occurred Somewhere in Bolivia and Your Project Has Disappeared” messages all the time. So I’ve decided to stop upgrading my PC (except for a new graphics card because I promised Kirk he could have my old one for helping me with my book) and just save up for a Mac, be it a Powerbook or a desktop G4 (probably a G5 by the time I can afford one). I hear you just plug them in and they work! How is that possible?
Sword practice was good last night in spite of the rain. I’m getting into the difficult middle part of the 55-step form, which is all twisty and complicated. I do really enjoy it, though. Of course, getting into this form means that I’ve pretty much forgotten the other two forms I’ve studied, but I think I could recall them if I saw them again. I told my teacher I’d have to delay my payment until after Chinese New Year, but he seemed fine with it and didn’t send me packing. I also discovered that the group has its own website, but I should warn you that the cheese-factor is quite high (MIDI!!!), and it’s all in Chinese, of course.
In other news, tonight is yet another Wei-ya, this time for another group our department belongs to. I am willing to endure another one of these because I really could use a hong-bao (¬õ¥]), and there’s always a slim chance of happening across one or two at these things. Hopefully I’ll come away with at least some amusing photographs to show for it.
