Friday, March 16, 2007

   The Spartan Kick Continues . . .
Picked up "God of War 2" today.

Played it for an hour before playing online.

Gratuitous violence is bliss.
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Thursday, March 15, 2007

   Inertia Drift!!!
If you guys haven't watched "Initial D" yet, you need to. It's too much fun. Drift racing, Eurobeat, and tofu. Really, you could do a lot worse for anime.
Character designs are brutally ugly, though, though that's part of its charm I suppose.
The dub is balls; there is nothing charming about it.

Babel's a good movie, too. One of them slow, thematic & dramatic ones, but really well done.

I invaded Southern Italy with 320 Spartan Hoplites (units come with 80 soldiers, couldn't be helped). That was most amusing for me. Spartans are badass no matter what they're in.

. . . holy crap! "God of War 2" comes out like, this or next week or something! Haha, methinks this month's gonna be a means to satiate my current Spartan kick. Certainly couldn't go any worse than all of those "Lois & Clark" kicks from last year (SUCH a great show!).

I seriously need to get more into that job Bossman gave me. Heh, it's term paper season all over again . . .

I'm Bill Pardy.

Go vote on the poll, it's an easy question this week.


According to the song, no one sleeps in Tokyo. Or, he's commanding that no one sleep in Tokyo. Either way, it's catchy. Much catchier than "Hey hey you you..." . . . . . actually, that's not true, Avril's much catchier but for all the wrong reasons. Not gonna worry about it now, though.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

26 things I did yesterday . . .
Let's see if I can actually pull this off . . . this could take every writing power I've ever siphoned out of the brains of others . . . . .


Ate a Burger King Whopper Meal in an automobile as I drove along Marine Drive.
Bled spontaneously from the nose while watching "Babel" right before being called to dinner.
Chatted for a bit on my cell with my dad about a cheque.
Drove out in the damn rain to buy DVDs despite certain disks not delivering until next week.
Earned about eleven bucks (explanation later).
Forgot to bring more friggin' funds for gas.
Got reminded that getting myself to Europe ain't gonna be easy, and I gotta get on that soon.
Hoovered a hamburger hastily with one hand.
Iilluminated my ignorant stepdad in regards to "pagination".
J
K
Laundered my less bright laundry lest I leave with dirty work uniforms again.
M
N
O
Played "Rome: Total War" again, preferring to play as Greeks with phalanxes (probably because of "300")
Queried myself a question about when I would quit Superstore, and how quickly I could.
Recycled a really vast range of recyclables at the Return-it depot to which the rain really didn't help.
Slept soundly past noon for the first time since before Saturday.
T
U
Vacuumed my very dusty basement and vindicate myself from mother's villification.
Watched a wall clock tick while I wasted time thinking of more witty alliterations to write.
X
Y
Z


I got hungry and gave up. Take that.
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Monday, March 12, 2007

   7am weekend shifts are so wrong . . .
So painfully tired
Little sleep since Friday night
300 still ruled...

[rustling wind, taiko-drumming]



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Saturday, March 10, 2007

   Since Bellpickle asked . . . here's a SomeGuy Movie Review(TM) . . . consider yourself warned . . .
Right now it's 2am my time. Since I got caught in a closing shift at work, we were unable to watch anything before 10pm; further, when the other guys finally got out to buy tickets for this opening night showing, the 10:30pm tickets were all sold out. Thus, all thanks to me, we got to watch "300" at 11pm at night. I only just got home about half an hour ago . . .

Of course, since I was working and not planning a movie, things did not go completely as well as they could have. Like I mentioned, our intended showing was sold out by the time the boys got there to buy 'em. Furthermore, since they didn't think too far ahead, they didn't line up for seats until much later than they could have. Thus, we were all sitting in the front-left corner of the theater, just three rows away from the extreme front - believe me, if not for the modern genious of concave cinema screens, we'd have been epically screwed. Of course, this only furthers my assertion that few people truly understand what it means to watch a movie opening night. You wanna watch it first and you wanna watch it in style, you gotta put in the effort; you gotta buy your tickets several hours before the showing, and you gotta line up for the showing at least a couple hours beforehand if you want the best possible experience. Heh, not everyone's quite as suicidal about movie nights as I am, I suppose . . . not everyone's up to the test . . . . .


Huh, I guess that sorta segways as well as I could hope all things considering . . .


So now you know where I'm sitting in the theater. Here's where I talk about how I'm sitting. I know of Frank Miller graphic novels; I've only flipped through a few, but I get how he works. I also have a Minor in Classical Studies from UBC; I've taken a couple different classes where we discussed Greek History and the Persian Wars . . . heh, hell, I own Herodotus' "The Histories"! So I get where the story came from. I also get that Frank Miller changed a whole lot from the "history" to better make his comic . . . it's his story, I'll let him do it. So how does this translate onto film?

I'll put it this way: you know how in comics Wolverine's claws come out of his hands (and into bad guys) with a "SNIKT"? According to "myTelus.com", the graphic novel uses a lot of "KUNCH!" when swords and spears go into people. As for the movie . . . . . you feel every single freaking "KUNCH" they'll throw ya, definitely. You'll get "KUNCHES" going through all manner of body parts, and those same body parts flying in slo-motion through the air. You will see swords and spears go THROUGH people; no angle tricks, nothing . . . you see a sword go across someone, you're gonna see a sword mark in that person as it happens. The power of blue-screen, I tell ya . . . blood and film violence has never been so visually appealing.


As the excited, young movie-goer lookin' for a badass good time watching movies, you get to see a LOT of blood. This is some gruesome, gruesome work; it's war, it's like that. Of course, it's also comic book war, so it's gruesome but pretty all at once. Heh, really, when you have a director who intentionally tries to incorporate as many comic frames as he can into his shots, well . . . you get a lot of really nice desktop wallpapers. I think I might need to find me some, in fact. Beautiful cinematography, practically every shot.

But let's go back to the blood, since it's still flying around everywhere. The movie plays with time a lot, speeding up blows on the moment of impact and then slowing them right back down so you can watch the blood and the mostly-severed legs float through the air. And if you notice during some of those moments, they're all done in one shot, too. That's some well-rehearsed work on the performers' parts . . .

. . . oh yeah, speaking of the performers, I still can't get over how freakin' buff every single one of them was. It's almost unfair. Coming out, one of the first things I said to my friends was, "I feel like I've been wasting my time being here instead of working out more . . ." The whole movie is larger-than-life, and consequently, the Spartans are all larger-than-life as well.

And Faramir was a Spartan too. Didn't know he was in it, but it was cool . . . and, he was also freakin' buff . . .

The Queen of Sparta? Not quite as buff, but that's okay. Her scenes feel slower than the rest of the movie (being that she's not killing things the entire movie like everyone else), but y'know, you need those breathers. Besides, she essentially backs up all her early words as she does her Queen-type work (early on she tells that one Persian dude before he falls into the well, "only Spartan women can give birth to true men..." or something to that degree). She was badass, and really exemplified the idea that Spartan women were in fact badass (as mentioned last day, they had a lot more freedom than a lot of other Greek women of the time).

So yeah, it's pretty. Picture-perfect in its setup, gut-wrenching in its execution. Their talk is all pretty simple and macho stuff, but you're here to watch them stab things, not talk.


As the former Classical Studies student . . . there are times where I just got giddy as things happened. A lot of times they were just little offhand remarks, but I loved every single one. Leonidas refers to the Athenians as "philosophers and... boy lovers..." at one point, to which I snerked. Any paraphrase from the history I applauded, including those about "fighting in the shade", the epitaph ("Go tell the Spartans..."), but especially when the Queen gives Leonidas his shield, saying, "Return with this shield, or on it." It's that kinda stuff I really enjoyed seeing and hearing from this.

Historically, Spartan citizens were all professional soldiers, reared up solely to be soldiers. This was damn uncommon. There's a part early in the movie when Leonidas and his boys meet up with the other Greeks going to Thermopylae. The theater laughs because Leonidas questions a few of the other Greeks about their professions, which are most decidedly not soldier. MOST Greeks knew how to fight in a phalanx and they owned their own arms and armour, but they were only part-time soldiers who worked their trades half the year and went to war the other. They play this fact up for a quick laugh in the movie, but that is the kind of historical touch I'm talking about.

I also liked their portrayal of hoplite warfare, where you overlap shields as a single wall and work together. They take some liberties here and there so they can get some really crazy sword-choreography in there and stuff, but the general feel of it was in there: you fought as one, protected each other, and as that single force you were stronger than the others. Yes, the reaction to a Spartan "push!" command was a bit unrealistic . . . it's a comic book movie, it looked cool, no one cares. Again, the essence of the brotherhood, protecting each other, that's where it's at.

That said, I really liked how they worked that into the Ephialtes subplot. I won't say too much on this as it's probably a pretty big plot point in the big scheme of things . . . but I knew the history of this. I knew who Ephialtes was. He introduced himself and I immediately knew what was up . . . Frank Miller did something pretty interesting with this guy, and it works well for this story. He was well done.

So how about the Persians? Yeah, a lot of them were mutants and monsters and Mumakils and stuff . . . again, comic book movie, no one cares. The essence of a gigantic imperial army with soldiers from all over the world was well implied (though Xerxes didn't have any Greeks in the movie like in real life but ah well). Xerxes himself . . . heh, he's like, 12 feet tall with a booming voice. And yes, he was a little effeminate, but he's Oriental in the Greek sense, can't be helped . . . but yeah, Xerxes was cool. The man radiated arrogance, and that's what's good for him.

Now, I WAS sad slightly about how the Spartans handled their final stand (I hope this isn't too much of a spoiler to say that they LOST the Battle of Thermopylae). In other words . . . people died in a slightly different order in the movie than the history so you don't get some crazy Homeric rush/retrievals. For this movie, though, it worked. You wanna push the whole idea that Spartans were strong physically and emotionally, you gotta have moments like that last stand. Really, though, it was as nice of a stand as you could hope for.

So yeah, everything was huge and larger than life. Those Spartans could do things normal people realistically cannot. They fought monsters, hordes of spear-fodder . . . it's okay. Because ultimately, it's the version of a story as told by a guy who was there, hyping up his fellow Spartans for the next big fight. There's narration through the entire movie, and it all leads into the next bit of history that comes after Thermopylae.

Check out that last passage from Herodotus I mentioned last day, the one where Demaratus tells Xerxes that Sparta has 8000 more soldiers like the 300 that pounded his army around for a week. Yeah, that's what comes after Thermopylae . . .


After the movie was over, I just sat in my seat, big smile on my face, just feeling really really content and happy. "300" was freakin' badass on so many levels: as a comic adaptation, as a buffet for eye candy, as an interpretation of historical events, it totally delivers. See this movie. If you can, see it in IMAX (I'll try to do that soon). But see it . . . it's a story that's 2500 years old, and it's still just as badass now as it ever was back then.


And now it's 2:45am. I need to work at 7am. This sucks.
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Thursday, March 8, 2007

   I ever mention that I love Spartans?
I'm probably writing all this because "300" comes out tomorrow. What can I say, I'm excited. I love this story.


I had a Classical Studies professor who was quite proud of being contrary to others. I suppose it was partly in his blood, being half-Indian (feathers, not dots) among other things. He was the guy who probably opened my eyes up the most to the biases and contradictions of academia, like how textbooks are practically always written with some sort of motive aside from telling that apparent facts.

He talked about how our particular textbook started talking about Sparta in one chapter. Along with the regular stuff, it also made special mention of the harsh life, how unfit babies were left to die on the mountain, how they mistreated the Helots, and how there was Pederasty in there as well (y'know . . . it was EVERYWHERE in ancient Greece, but they mention it in the Sparta Chapter). Then of course at the end they talk about how the Spartan society was very much a proto-Communist one . . . while also showing the groundwork for later governments like Nazi Germany (whooaaaaa) . . . . . so yeah, not an especially opaque book.

My prof loved the Spartans, though. It might have come partially just because most scholars like to like Athens because it was all Democratic and happy (y'know . . . aside from the whole slavery thing), but he did enjoy pointing out how awesome it actually was to be in Sparta. Women had tons of rights and owned almost half the land while their husbands were on campaign, girls got married later in life (like, 16-20 as opposed to 12 or 14) so that their bodies could better survive childbirth . . . y'know, stuff like that.

I wrote my term paper that semester about the Lacedaemonians (other name for 'em, and why their shields have a big "Lambda" on them). I did well on it. Prof' liked it too. It was probably a wonderful twist of fate that I never realised that the essay topic sheet was double-sided, or else I might have written about King Phillip's Macedonian military reforms instead . . . Spartans are just so much cooler.


Let's get into the romantic gushing about them, now. They were the best warriors in the Mediterranean for a long time, masters of hoplite warfare that the Greeks preferred. From childbirth onwards, men were trained to be strong, brave soldiers willing to fight for victory or death. As the saying goes, a mother would give her son his shield, telling him, "Return with it, or on it." Really, that's just badass. They had the reputation, yo.

Everyone respected that reputation, too. Herodotus, Greek historian who is one of the main sources of the period, gives quite high praise for the Spartans. I mean, it's hard to take everything he says at face value . . . but he gave the number of Persian and Persian-allied fighting men at Thermopylae as being . . . hehe . . . 5,283,220 men. Probably impossible, but makes for a good story. 'Sides, it wasn't just Spartans fighting in the mountain pass; there were about 4,000 Greeks altogether (including 700 Thespians who chose to fight to the end with the Spartans and 400 Thebans who were basically forced to fight against their will as people feared Thebes might have Persian sympathies . . . suckers).


Let's look at all the awesome quotes and stuff from Herodotus now! You might recognise some from the trailers . . .

"...They withdrew again into the narrow neck of the pass, behind the wall, and took up a position in a single compact body... Here they resisted to the last, with their swords, if they had them, and, if not, with their hands and teeth..." (Herodotus, 7:225)

"Of all the Spartans and Thespians who fought so valiantly the most signal proof of courage was given by the Spartan Dieneces. It is said that before the battle he was told by a native of Trachis that, when the Persians shot their arrows, there were so many of them that they hid the sun. Dieneces, however, quite unmoved by the thought of the strength of the Persian army, merely remarked: 'This is pleasant news that the stranger from Trachis brings us: if the Persians hide the sun, we shall have our battle in the shade.' He is said to have left on record other sayings, too, of a similar kind, by which he will be remembered. (Herodotus, 7:226)

"The Spartans have a special epitaph; it runs:
Go tell the Spartans, you who read:
We took their orders, and here lie dead." (7:228)

"Xerxes, when the battle was over, summoned Demaratus to ask him some questions. 'Demaratus,' he began, 'you are a good man - the truth of your words proves it. Everything has turned out as you said it would. Now tell me - how many more Lacedaemonians are there? And how many of them are as good soldiers as these were? Or are they all as good?' 'Sire,' Demaratus answered, 'there are a great many men and many towns in Lacedaemon; but what you really want to know I will now tell you: there is in that country a town called Sparta, which contains about eight thousand men. All of these are the equals of those who fought in this battle. The other men in Lacedaemon are not their equals - but good soldiers none the less.'" (7:234)

And then Xerxes shat himself.


Damn, I wanna play Rome: Total War again . . .


[And now to plug the new poll on the front page: Omae no 'tou-san wa dare?!]
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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

   A buncha funny stories . . .
Sunday night, stayed up way too late reading all about how Rosie O'Donnell doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut. It's amusing, in a slightly sad kind of way. Any other night this would've been fine for me, except . . .


Monday morning, I had to get out of the house before 8am so I could go to the passport office for my brother (who'd be in school). So giddy from lack of sleep and with a iPod charged for 15 minutes (d'oh), I was off.

A bit of explanation . . . those of you not in Canada or the US, our border has recently gotten locked down a whole lot this year. Before it was okay to cross if you had a birth certificate, citizenship card or something to go across the border. Now, it HAS to be passport. Thus, right now, there's a whole lotta people getting passports. Lines are long . . . . .

And then I saw the passport line that started outside the building's door. And then I saw the line go around the corner. And then I saw the line snaking around the little courtyard area. Damnit.

Oh yeah, it was raining, too. So I listened to iPod for about an hour, feeling cold, switching umbrella-hands now and then so I could pocket the other hand fairly . . . then iPod died at about the 1 hour mark. Luckily the 1 hour mark is also about the same time that you start randomly chatting with people around you. You all talk about how it's cold, how the line sucks, and basically anything else that'll be funny. You do this for the next hour, learning about how the one woman's toes are gonna be really cold in bed that night and her husband'll have to put up with that and her cold butt . . . baha. Someone came with free coffee randomly, though, so that was cool.

Into the building, more lines, less rain. One hour later, they give me my ticket to wait in the "sitting down" room queue. I started "Memoirs of a Geisha" there . . . quite enjoying it, and am looking forward to reading more of it now that the ochibi-chan has sanctioned my reading in that one little room where I do all my reading (I was hesitant to since it's not my book, you see).

So yeah, brother owes me BIG time . . . ESPECIALLY since I paid for it with my Chinese New Year lucky money! I mean, paying for a passport with lucky money? Almost as bad as paying for GAS with lucky money!


Four hours altogether, that whole passport ordeal. I was lucky it wasn't any longer, though, 'cause I had to go to work right afterwards. So yeah, very light snack-lunch, hauled ass, got to work . . . and this is where funny story number two comes up . . .

The Richmond Superstore is on a big main street in Richmond; intersecting that road is a smaller street that goes directly to Superstore. This smaller street has 2 lanes: one that goes straight and right, and one that goes only left. Well, as I drove to work there was a car from the left lane driving straight, next to me . . . someone not paying attention to the rules . . .

Yeah, it was a driving school car. Furthermore, it was a car with only one occupant; it was the instructor! Hah, shows what it means to be a Richmond driver . . . . .


Next funny story is after I swiped in to start my shift. I was in the office when a manager paged, "Code 77 to the ramp, code 77 to the ramp..." You see, "Code 77" basically means, "I need back-up, there's a shoplifter or something." Immediately, all the supervisors light up and get into ass-kick mode . . . I followed even though I'm not supposed to (it was just too funny).

Guys got away, but not with much if anything at all . . . they dropped two toothbrushes, a chocolate bar, a small bottle of milk, and a TAG body spray. Oh, the milk and the TAG were in the guy's jacket . . . and yeah, he dropped the jacket when the security guy grabbed it. Other guy lost a shoe.

So think about the logistics: two toothbrushes, a chocolate bar, a milk and a body spray for a JACKET and a shoe? These are not smart people . . . and don't forget, it's raining outside . . .


I didn't learn about this until later, but apparently about 5 minutes later a couple girls came to the host and told him that "their friends lost a jacket and a shoe here, and that they wanted to get them back."

Wow . . . . . stupidity everywhere . . . . . host calls out security guy. Security guy tells girls that their friends were caught shoplifting - girls are shocked, fake or not. Security guy tells girls that if guys want their jacket and shoe back, they can talk to him.

Girls leave. We hear no more of this incident anymore. We instead laugh.

"Heroes" was badass tonight, too.

So Monday got better after all.


Yesterday I did squat all. That was nice.


"300" coming out on Friday! And yes, that is the movie about the Battle of Thermopylae. I'm excited - I've even cracked out my Herodotus to read about it (Classical Studies = win). Good times . . .

That'll be all for now, I think. Later!


{{{(>.<)}}} (o.o) \(^o^)/
(Get it? It's Hiro! Haha . . . from his "blog" on the NBC site)
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Monday, March 5, 2007

   Huh . . . this was unexpected . . .
Seems "BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad" is airing on MuchMusic this Friday. This is a North American anime premiere, and it's happening on the Canadian music channel. That's funny.

I'm gonna be watching "300" that night, but luckily they're marathoning the first five episodes for like, the whole rest of the week all over the place.


This is ridiculously amusing to me on so many levels . . . and this is big news and I should make an official news story about it, except I traced the story back to its source and then decided I didn't wanna do it anymore. Heh . . . I've some conflicted feelings about that particular website . . . ah well.

But yay! BECK!
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Saturday, March 3, 2007

   And now, to rape your childhoods just a little more . . .
So take a big-name, big-money Japanese franchise. Clearly the kids love it. So let's see if we can't make some money over in the west! Let's do it! But first, how can we make it so it'll speak to our audiences a little more . . . . .

Yes, I'm talking about Sailor Moon.

No, I'm not talking about the dub.


Here's where you'll love where I'm going with this story . . . Toon Makers bid on the rights to Sailor Moon before DiC did. BUT . . . . . their plan was to make their own version of it! Not just dub a new language track and stuff, no, they wanted to make their own version.

And it was gonna be half animated, half live-action.

And there was gonna be a black girl and a wheelchair girl.

I couldn't make this stuff up. I'm dead serious.


So they made a 2 minute promo to which some people like to erroneously refer as "Saban Moon" (y'know, Power Rangers style):



Surprise surprise, this never flew. The reason? This show would cost more than just dubbing the original show (that's the official reason, anyway . . . I'm sure someone else realised the idea sucked diarrhea as well).

Hehe . . . suddenly the Sailor Moon dub doesn't seem so bad anymore, nya?
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Thursday, March 1, 2007

   Badaaah, la la lee la la-, la-, la, la Katamari Dama-shiiiiii . . . .
I found a fun surprise on my digicam last afternoon. I had only just then uploaded all my pictures and stuff from the last lion dance performance on Saturday because a guy from the club wanted them, so I wanted to burn them all off for him that day. Never got to, but still . . .

So before I tell you this bit, I'll tell you a story about Saturday . . . I was in the lion head, doing a "choy chang" for Tommy Hilfiger (incidentally, the asian girl there called it a dragon . . . she = fail, regardless of hotness). The aniki happened to be my tail for this one . . .

Long story short, after we finished, I traded off the head with someone else. I watched as the lion (with the aniki still under the tail) moved on to the next store. I figured, hey, I'd best get my camera out and see if I can snap any pics or videos . . . . . of course, when I reached back to my camera pouch on the back of my belt, it was gone!

Now that camera was on me when I went into the lion, and it was completely zipped up and secure . . . well, it didn't take long to guess where my camera had gone . . . . . that's when I saw a flash underneath the lion tail/cape . . .

My idiot brother burgled my camera while we were lion dancing!!!

Going quickly through the picture previews on the day, I saw a picture of my butt from under the lion . . . it was pretty funny, I conceded, as you pretty much never get pictures from the lion tail's point of view.


So this brings us to yesterday . . . finally uploaded the pictures and stuff to the computer, looked at them to make sure they were all okay and stuff . . . . .

Evidently, my brother did not just take a picture while he was under there . . .



Funny, huh? And yeah, he kept yanking me back as I approached the pile of oranges (Richmond Centre has a phobia with lettuce) because he didn't notice the bowing at the beginning or something. He eventually accepted that we did, though.

So yeah, that's my idiot brother and the kind of conversations we have.


Other than that, I made a poll out of an old Anime Con' question.

[EDIT:] Oh yeah, and then I made a non-entertainment news post on theO's homepage a little while after that. Let's see if THIS gets me fired or not . . .
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