A random update of sorts
So all this week I have been home all alone because my car was getting fixed. My mom and sister were in Syracuse, and I had no way of getting to work, so I had nothing but World of Warcraft, Kamen Rider, and my cigarettes to keep me sane. Finally got my car back today and it’s still acting up. Also, in the course of “fixing” it, my radio reset itself and now I can’t find the security code. Great.
I geeked out for a bit yesterday, and installed ubuntu on the broken PC. I love how linux handles the NIC flawlessly, while windows continues to not acknowledge it, even after running the driver install. Thanks Microsoft! Even got it to share the printer with my Macbook Pro, which is great!
Tonight was really the first social interaction I’ve had all week, which was interesting. Photo editing the yearbook will be kind of cool.
Tomorrow I am off to Atlanta for my cousin’s wedding. So follow me on twitter if you care about those kinds of things. By the way, if you don’t have a twitter account at this point (which means everyone but Elyse), then you are officially behind the times. Facebook and blogs are like so 2 years ago. Get with the times already!
I got the new Weezer CD today, along with the bonus tracks (not all of them, only the 4 US tracks and one of the UK tracks). I love how every time they make a new album, I am reminded of how hard they rock! I plan on listening to this while I wait for my plane tomorrow. Apparently they play around with roles in this, with Rivers playing drums on at least one of the songs. Should be interesting.
Other things? Kamen Rider Hibiki has changed my life. No really, it has struck me. I love how a dumb kids show from japan that revolves around transforming super heroes and fighting demons can have such a powerful message in between all that. I think it really has helped me with what I have been feeling lately. If you watch only one imported japanese tokusatsu series, make it hibiki.
What else? Call me sometime? I’m free most weekends, and usually bored. Need to see some old faces this summer
Why you should watch Tokusatsu
As many of you already know, I am a big fan of Tokusatsu. Which for most people, can best be explained as “The Power Rangers” and related shows, in their original Japanese forms. From Wikipedia:
Tokusatsu (特撮?) is a Japanese word that literally means “special effects.” It is primarily used to refer to live-action Japanese film and television dramas that make use of special effects.
The term “tokusatsu” is a contraction of the Japanese phrase “tokushu satsuei” (特殊撮影?), meaning “special photography”. In production, the special effects director is given the title of “tokushu gijutsu” (特殊技術?), Japanese for “special techniques” or “tokusatsu kantoku” (特撮監督?), which is Japanese for “special effects director”, the title usually used by English language productions.
Tokusatsu entertainment is often science fiction, fantasy, or horror, but movies and TV shows in other genres can sometimes be classified as tokusatsu as well. The most popular types of tokusatsu are kaiju monster movies (the Godzilla and Gamera film series), superhero TV serials (the Kamen Rider and Metal Heroes series), and mecha dramas (Giant Robo). Some tokusatsu television programs combine several of these subgenres (the Ultraman and Super Sentai series).
Tokusatsu is one of the most popular forms of Japanese entertainment, but most tokusatsu movies and television programs are not widely known outside Asia. In recent years, however, tokusatsu has begun to develop a small but loyal and growing fanbase outside of Japan
My fasination started of course when I was in like kindergarten, when my favorite shows were Power Rangers, VR Troopers, Big Bad Beetle Brogs, etc. These shows are classic, and I don’t care how old you are, You can still go back and watch your favorite shows from when you were a kid. But it wasn’t until recently that I discovered, in the true magnificence of the internet, that these shows had been imported VIA fansubs.
I had watched fansubed anime before (Ragnarok the Animation), but the thought had never crossed my mind that people were fansubbing live action shows, let alone the originals of my favorite kids shows! I always knew that Power Rangers was adapted from a Japanese TV show, because every time they morphed, the footage suddenly got darker, the fighting suddenly got much more intricate, and the character stances suddenly changed. But watching the original footage, with the original characters and story lines, it was like my favorite TV show had been redone and taken to the next level.
Super Sentai still reaches out to the same audience in Japan that Power Rangers tries to reach here. The main difference I suppose, is that they aren’t taking an original show and trying to re-work it for an American audience. It’s the original work (always better) for a Japanese audience. Which think is better, because here all parents do is submit complaints to the FCC that their kid’s shows are too violent / homosexual. Really Power Rangers these days might as well be Barney the Dinosaur fighting off the boogey man with huge explosions
Joost Beta
So I just signed up for the Joost beta, which hopefully I will get into. Joost promises to be TV on your computer. Which has been the promise of a few projects lately, and I haven’t been really impressed with any of them. Hopefully this one will change my mind.
Just a quick stab at it, is there anyone reading this with a beta account that can send me an invite? If you can, there will be many thanks.
Television Channel Confusion.
I’m sure this is my third post on this topic. But everytime I see it happening, i have to say something.
Television started with the main networks. CBS, ABC, NBC and so on. Then cable companies said hey, lets charge people for extra channels. Thats how specialized networks such as CNN, MTV and The Weather Channel were born.
But then those networks said, “Hey, people are watching. Lets get some shitty shows on our network that don’t nessicarily pertain to our target audiance”. That’s when Cartoon Network started showing Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Sci-fi started showing ECW Wrestling, and G4 started showing Star Trek and Fastlane.
What the hell? Forgive me if I am wrong, but ECW is not nessicarily Science Fiction (you can argue about it being fake all you want, but it hardly has anything to do with science). Fastlane doesn’t have anything to do with Video Games, Or technology last time I checked. It wasn’t even that good of a show. All this crap does is make the “Specialized” Networks more watered down, and make me less inclined to watch.
This is part of the reason that i have stopped watching TV all together. Pretty much I will only watch Adult Swim, Family Guy on Sundays, and South Park if I remember it. So I am sure that there is alot more of this crap showing up on “Specialized” Networks these days. Leave some in the comments that disgust you.
See my older posts on the subject:
http://korun.blogspot.com/2006/02/television-shows-on-wrong-channel.html
http://www.xanga.com/Korun/337803070/item.html
