Wednesday, April 12, 2006

   And now to do manual labour for another 8 hours throughout the night . . .
I'm probably gonna crash and burn from lack of sleep. Buuuut, at least I won't have to wear my uniform, so yay!
Translation: I'm doin' another graveyard shift last night/this morning.

While on the subject of translations . . . my article is up! So all of ya who wanna see what happens when you watch "Spirited Away" twice - once in English, once in Japanese - while taking notes all the while, take a click. I'm hoping it's interesting enough.
The Spiriting Away Of Characterisation (pt.1)
The Spiriting Away Of Characterisation (pt.2)

By the way, if anyone's wondering, the original unbroken term paper was titled "English and the Spiriting Away of Translation Anxieties". theO felt that might be too long, though. All good, in any case.


And now it's time to go to work. Peace!
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

   Irony (n.)
1.Finishing your last university term paper ever for the rest of your life early enough so that you don't have to spend all night writing it like the previous three this month . . .
. . . and then accepting a request to do a graveyard shift at work, 10pm to 6am. For two nights in a row.

2.Taking five years of schooling at a large, public university, eventually to enter the English Literature majors program . . .
. . . and then receiving an MLA writing guide from a prof in the final week of classes ever.

Dang.

On the plus side, I can now play Kingdom Hearts 2 freely and guiltlessly. Man, that game's fun . . . so entertaining . . . . .


Even better news, though: after almost a year's hiatus, SomeGuy of myOtaku.com has finally officially gotten BACK into article writing!!! Alright, technically I just took my term paper for "Children's Literature", chopped it into two halves, and submitted that . . . but still, it should be up in the next little while and that'll make me happy. Hehe . . . so everyone thank UBC's English 468A course now!

Man, I've missed writing for this site a lot . . . well, this summer I'll hafta make up for it, ne? So yeah, once it all gets through, the site'll have a brand new look at characterisation in "Spirited Away" and how it differs between the English and Japanese language tracks.

Excited? I hope you are . . .


Random SomeGuy Trivia: Can't remember if I've said this before . . . but since about grade 10, I've had a tradition of eating one of those big vending machine chocolate cookies before big exams. Before it was as a kind of "last meal" joke, but now it's just out of habit.
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Friday, April 7, 2006

   6:20am update
I finished with 4698 words. Close enough.

And then I chatted with a butterfly, a cousin, and a "Faramir". Good times.

And now time to shower for school.



Gick . . . . .
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Thursday, April 6, 2006

   Check the gate, watch yaself! Check the gate, show me whatcha got!
And so begins essay seclusion 2006, part 2. Don't expect much from me 'til maybe . . . Monday or Tuesday? I'll see you then . . . and 23 pages later . . .


I'm so screwed . . . . .


[EDIT:]
It's almost tomorrow. Anyway, just a reminder, that the 23 pages are between two essays.

And . . . . apparently my name's Ichiguy now . . .

[EDIT 2:]
April 7th, 12:36am. I think I'm not gonna shave before I go to school this morning. It'll be more exciting.
Anyway, for those of you who wanna keep track, I'm at about 40% of my gigantic 15-pager. Not a good sign, I know, but I'm basically going at it stream-of-consciousness style, answering whatever issues or questions that freely come out. We'll see what happens . . .

[EDIT 3:]
Alright, it's a bit past 2am, and I'm about 60% through now if not a little more (like, if I maybe miss the 5000 word mark by maybe 500 or something?). I'm too fried to do the math for whether I'll finish this in time for my final 9am class EVER this morning . . . did I mention that today is the last day of classes? It is, anyway . . .

[EDIT 4:]
Lessee . . . 3am, and about 4 pages to go. That's basically a page an hour. That is very doable . . . and sure, it's all stream-of-consciousness garbage, and sure this essay's worth 60% of the class' overall mark . . . but meh.

[EDIT 5:]
To quote Shakespeare's Katherine, I "am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep..." Hehe, ah "Taming of the Shrew", how I love thee . . .
4am. 4000 words written. I'm essentially down to the last two or three paragraphs. Good times. Just gotta finish before seven o'clock, is all . . .
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Tuesday, April 4, 2006

   Tick tock, tick tock . . . . .
See that above? That's time. And it's ticking away on me. I'm so screwed.

So yeah, today I have my 15 minute presentation about Canadian war poetry, specifically the difference between WWI poems and WWII poems. So far what I've gotten is that WWII poetry is a lot more bitter than the stuff they wrote in the first one . . . less rhyming, less metrical anythings, and a whole lot more "people are naughty" to it. I'm still deciding if I can actually put a handout together . . . that of course meaning I'll be working on this last night (gotta love time zone complications).

For fun, though, I figured I'd recite some homemade verse to summarize my points. Hopefully I don't end up being too sacrilegious with it . . .


Oh, speaking of school, I'm royally ticked off with that Children's Lit' class right this minute. You see, prof was sick yesterday so class was cancelled. That's fine, it's not his fault . . . . . BUT, that basically means that we'll only really have two lectures for "Spirited Away" because I don't expect we'll be lecturing too hard on the last day of classes on Friday (when most likely everyone'll either not be there, or drunk . . . all because of "Arts Country Fair", most likely - that's basically exactly what it sounds like, anyway). So yeah, ORIGINALLY we were designed to have two weeks of "Spirited Away", getting us six lectures. Now we're basically down to two and a half, if even. This upsets me.

Seriously, this was supposed to be my chance to really make a dent in the class discussions . . . actually, it was probably a lot of people's chances (I noticed a lot more people speaking last day than usual . . . all asian, no less, go fig) . . . now it's all over . . . grr-ness . . . . .


Anyway, to tide over the grr-ness, here's a video that's sucking up my life because it's just silly . . .
Kids get an N64 for Christmas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFlcqWQVVuU


And back to presentation work . . . . .
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Sunday, April 2, 2006

   For the record . . .
I'm aware that I was nowhere near as elaborate with this year's April Fool's thingy than I usually am around here. Essays, y'know . . . been busy.

That said, Naruto fillers are gonna go on for maybe a few more weeks (supposedly). As for Bleach fillers . . . those might actually go on until next fall, I'm not sure. Maybe not though, ya never know . . .
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Saturday, April 1, 2006

   Holy shit!
Naruto fillers are going on until December?!
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Friday, March 31, 2006

   Holy crap, the dub IS different!
So two days ago I watched "Spirited Away" in English to prepare myself for the upcoming lectures.

Yesterday I watched it subbed and in Japanese. Every now and then I'd notice little translation discrepancies (which I expected) . . . but then some REALLY BIG discrepancies would come up a lot later! THing is, I really really don't wanna turn into one of those anal otaku who complain about every little difference, because the "Spirited Away" dub is actually quite good. It just gives new meanings to old scenes . . . some of which just aren't as interesting, we'll say.

But meh, it happens. I quite appreciate English voice actors who dub anime, and find that they really do have their work cut out for them.

Heh . . . I feel like I might post my term paper as an article later on . . . which would be scary in a way because it'll be 8-10 pages, 12-font, double-spaced . . . . . maybe I'll break it into parts . . . . . just sayin', 'cause I haven't written anything for this site in a long time.


Aaaaanyways, I slept from about 6am to 4:30pm today. That was nice after that graveyard shift. I missed out on chatting with some of my most favourite Europeans in the world, but well . . . soon. Meantimes . . . maybe I should do some essay research . . . . . I've got a 15 pager due next week, after all.


Random SomeGuy Trivia: This one's almost too obvious to post, but . . . I am a ridiculously sentimental kinda guy. The room tour above probably reflects this a lot . . . but yeah, I'm quite partial to knowing who or what I will think of from a song, nickname, item of clothing . . . kung-fu medal . . . . .
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Thursday, March 30, 2006

   Graveyard shifts are fun!
So as we all know, I live on the west coast, meaning the myO time change happens at 9pm for me. That said, as I'm updating right now, I'm about to go to work for a graveyard shift. It'll be short, so it'll be alright. 'sides, graveyard shifts are fun. No uniform, no customers . . . . . 'tis the life. Y'know, aside from the whole "falling asleep at the wheel" part.

But that's what double-doubles from Tim Hortons are for!


So let's see, news, news . . . . . um . . . I sat on my iPod headphones yesterday. That makes me sad. I need to get new headphones now. 'Cause those iPod ones are comfy . . . . .

We're starting "Spirited Away" in Children's Lit' starting Friday, so that's gonna rock. I expect this could be my chance to really shine in the discussions. I hope so, anyway. I was really quiet during the "Subtle Knife" lectures . . .

Uhhhh . . . . . oh! So you all remember my brother the police officer? He recently got into E.R.T. (Emergency Response Team) school, which is quite exciting. In fact, since this week they've actually been doing exercises around my neighbourhood (since it's just a few blocks up from the Justice Institute). Heh . . . so yeah, yesterday my bro' came home for dinner. He had a big duffel bag of equipment (the ERT body armour is hella heavier than the regular kevlar!) and freakin' camo-facepaint! Heh . . . seems he was crawling around in the bushes or something. Yes, all very exciting for this family . . .

. . . and then he reminded me that I need to look into Canadian Army Reserves as part-time work or something . . . heh. "Better sooner than later," he says . . . . .

. . . . why does my whole family keep bugging me about my future work?

. . . . . don't answer that, I know.


Alright, time to go to Superstore and redo the tools plano . . . peace!


Random SomeGuy Trivia: More often than not my preferred coffee extras involve 2 creams, 1 sugar. Unless I need an extra kick, in which case I'll get 2 sugars.


[Edit:] Turns out it was a six hour shift. We had more work than we thought. We did get out for a quick midnight Gundam Seed game, though . . . in any case, it's 4:45am now, and . . . yeah, I'm sleepy.

Oh, and butterfly, that was a great clip. I didn't see the MTV movie awards that year, so this is great. Thanks for sharing!
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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

   Enough is enough . . . I've had it with these snakes . . . . .
http://www.tagworld.com/snakesonaplane
I know Shinmaru broke this story a while back . . . but seriously . . . best. Movie. Ever. Gonna be.

Best cartoon episode you've never seen, meanwhile . . . the pilot that never came to fruition: "Pryde of the X-Men"!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0-2TDSaTQ
(The show may have flopped, but the arcade game was wicked cool with the 2 screens and 6 players . . .)

And then in case you didn't see it last post, I'm still plugging my buddy Paige because she has a cool voice:
http://members.shaw.ca/paigemillar/Index.html


I think that's enough linkage for one night. Time to go to sleep for like, 12 hours straight now. Buh-bye.


Random SomeGuy Trivia: My starting strategy for "Oregon Trail" was to play as the farmer from Illinois (triple points at the end), and then buy 4 yoke of oxen, 13 sets of clothes (2 per family member plus 3 to trade), two of each wagon part, 10 or 15 boxes of bullets (20 bullets each box), and then usually very little food if any at all (I had faith in my hunting ability). That's right, I still remember this stuff.
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