Kitkowskiland!

First, before I forget: Here’s the link to the names book, Beth: The Story Games Name Project.

Anyway, last night Jeremie bought the board game The Fury of Dracula, a revised version of the game that he played a lot as a kid in France.  The new version is pretty complicated at first, but very very pretty.  In any case, Jeremie was Dracula, and we miraculously managed to track him down and kill him by about halfway through the second day.
During this time, the Milk Challenge went down. Alan agreed to the terms (1 gallon of 1% milk in one hour, then no getting sick/throwing up for one more hour). Despite the odds, and some fairly close calls, he beat us. He won the bet. He gets a free dinner at an Indian restaurant and bragging rights.  He didn’t even get sick after the second hour (he was totally fine at that point), in fact, declaring “Just to show you fuckers”, he ate a bowl of ice cream afterwords.

The only thing is that he ended up going to the bathroom a lot (#2). I’ll spare the descriptions, but let’s just say that most of the liquid made it to his intestines, forcing all other liquids out. That’s what got him through the challenge.

So, after seeing all the attempts online that ended in failure, I will present some various facts about the event that will help the Next Person out there:

==For the DRINKER of the Milk==

* Alan reports:
“I do not recommend this to anyone”
“I’m never going to do that again”
“I think in the end it was my intestines that saved me”
“I had to go in the other room and lay down to not get sick from your taunting” (see below on Taunting

* Alan’s strategy:

Last time (when he failed) he had eaten pasta that day. He also paced himself. This time, Alan pretty much skipped food the entire day.

His strategy was “drink as much as possible quickly, until you can not drink any more”. He made it through 1/2 gallon in the first sitting, glass after glass after glass. Note that both half-gallons were in the fridge until right before he started, as he didn’t want to drink warm/room temp milk. The first half-gallon was done in the first 5 minutes or so.

Then he simply waited for the milk to pass through. Then started drinking from the second half-gallon about 20-30 minutes into the hour.

He almost gave up, almost didn’t make it. But he managed the last glass and a half in the last four minutes. We encouraged him on, but only because we thought our encouragement would cause him to fail. We were surprised when it did not.

And don’t forget the aforementioned bathroom trips. Alan’s an honest guy (too honest, maybe!) and between his honesty and the lack of sounds of heaving, he did not cheat. However, he was completely annihilated gastrointestinally for that period of time, the milk draining through him.

==For the People Betting against the Drinker==

*  If you add to the terms of the bet that *they can not go to the bathroom*, then you *will win*. However, in my opinion that’s just not a fair bet. Do what you must to make sure they’re not covering up getting sick (especially if there is a lot of money riding on it: At work last year, one of the coworkers tried and failed, and the prize pool was close to $200.00), but let them go to the bathroom. Else ready a bucket. Perhaps two buckets for simultaneous use.

* I saw on the internet that someone did the bet with Skim Milk. Skim Milk is practically water**, don’t plan on that bet. We thought we could get Alan with 1%. 1% was not effective enough. Make the terms of the bet 2% (or whole milk, but that’s probably too much). **BTW, with milk there’s no acidosis/water poisoning. With skim milk, dunno. But you’d probably have to drink a lot more than a gallon to get to the levels like that person who died in the Radio contest for the Wii.

* Be earnest with your taunting and jibing. However, do not bring out the big guns in taunting until the person is physically uncomfortable (for max effect).  We had some real big guns, but unfortunately we think we used them too soon.

* Find the weak spots in the armor.  Alan’s was GRAVY. He almost lost it when we started talking about gravy (incl “gravy milkshakes”, and washing one down with “glasses of warm butter”).

* This taunt was great, but unfortunately we used it too early. It only works if there’s a bucket. It almost worked, though.

(with a straight face) “Hey, (NAME), I’ll tell you what. If you throw up in the bucket, but then drink your milk-puke in the time limit, you’ll still be in; We won’t disqualify you.”

The above almost set off the rest of us. It could be the WMD in your bet, if dropped well, with a straight (almost “concerned”) tone of voice, and at the right time.
That’s it!  Alan proved the better of us, will NEVER do that bet again, and got a free dinner out of it. Plus, while that was going on the rest of us played The Fury of Dracula, which again is a seemingly fun game, but has tons of rules that are complicated your first time through. If you get it, I suggest trying to download a few extra copies of the rules from Boardgamegeek.com so that you don’t have to stop up the game if more than one person needs to read them, especially on your first game.

-Andy

So my friend Alan, not daunted by the last horribly failed attempt (”I ate earlier that day”), and the fact that it’s humanly impossible, decided that he is going to try it again:

Drink one gallon of 1% milk in one hour, and not throw up for one more hour.

The battle goes down at my house on Thursday. We’re postponing gaming that week to make room for the mess. The rest of us will either watch movies or play board games as Alan makes himself sick.

I’ve researched it on the internet, and the only reference I could find for someone who did it was a guy who did it with skim milk, and he got horribly sick after winning the bet.

We’ve warned Alan at least a dozen times each time he said he was going to do it, but his stubbornness is supreme. Either we get a “Forever I Told You So” certificate, or he will totally show us up and get a free meal at his favorite Indian restaurant (on another night, of course).

What movies go good with stupid milk attempt?  I’m thinking Bubble Boy or Brain Donors.

I met him once at a lecture at my college, and loved the way he thought, taught and lived.  Coming from the philosophical tradition, he basically spent the 70s and 80s (and, well, the rest of his career) giving traditional “stump the freshman” philosophy a big fat middle finger, while at the same time used academic rigor and and open heart to follow in the footsteps of great American “doing real shit to help the real world” philosophers like Dewey and James, in basically creating a moral, right-thinking, good-deed doing society based on principles of humanity, entirely divorced from religion and “objective morality” thinking.

He was an a great thinker and an awesome, awesome human being.

Farewell, Richard Rorty.

The above is an awesome obituary which I’d urge people interested in him to give a look at. My highlights, which really summarize where he came from and what he stood for:

“Raised in a home where “The Case for Leon Trotsky” was viewed with the same reverence as the Bible might be elsewhere, Mr. Rorty pondered the nature of reality as well as its everyday struggles. “At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one’s life fighting social injustice,” he wrote in an autobiographical sketch.

Russell A. Berman, the chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at Stanford University, who worked with Mr. Rorty for more than a decade, said, “He rescued philosophy from its analytic constraints” and returned it “to core concerns of how we as a people, a country and humanity live in a political community.”

…

“The widespread notion that the philosopher’s primary duty was to figure out what we can and cannot know was poppycock, Mr. Rorty argued. Human beings should focus on what they do to cope with daily life and not on what they discover by theorizing.”

-Andy

1) After the catalyst of Stephen “The Hearts of Space Man Himself” Hill posting in my comments previously about subscribing to Hearts of Space, I broke down and did so. Well, it was more like arm twisting in the lightest of ways, in a direction I was heading for anyway. :-)

In any case, I’ve been pretty much listening to the weekly cast and the radio cast nonstop, even when I took a nap (which always starts spinning the weirdest of dreams). Later on I’ll troll through and hit up the Middle-Eastern themed sessions, the Lisa Gerard sessions, and then just roll around in it from there.

Anyway, I gotta say, if you like experimental/”space music”, I’m finding a subscription to HOS is pretty much worth the price.

Thanks, Stephen!

2) After Keith Senkowski’s glowing recommendation, I picked up and started reading Night Watch. I actually did like the movie a lot, and unsurprisingly I actually like the book more. It’s odd, because I usually don’t like books written in the first person, but this one is gripping enough that I don’t notice.  Plus, I think the horror genre gains points over me that override other dislikes.

3) Last week, I saw that a large gym opened up about 3 miles from my house. That was all I was waiting for. I signed up on Friday, and have been working out since. We’ll see if it lasts, but I have been thinking about going to a gym regularly for over a year now, the only thing stopping me was knowing that if it wasn’t near my house I’d stop going, and that I could hold the tide back a little with the small gym at work.

Anyway, we’ll see if I can stick to it.  I’m going to try to get back to my post-marriage pre-Cisco weight. Basically remove the last 40 pounds that stress and sedentary IT work (oh yeah, and the fact that I have No Self Control :-) ) have put on me. I picked up the book “Complete Conditioning for Martial Arts” a few weeks ago to basically build an exercise plan or three that are focused on a tight, athletic frame and not on “gaining beefcake”.

3) I forgot what the third thing was.

4) Organizing a house-con on a Saturday in early June to play some RPGs, board games and stuff with friends. If you’re in the RTP area and interested on coming by, let me know and I’ll make sure to keep you informed if you haven’t heard about it already.

Just wanted to throw down a post of various things going on:

Working a lot of 9-10 hour days lately. Pretty busy at work with the start of the new year.

In a month or so I head to the first of advanced linux (specifically RedHat) training.

Went to Dim Sum at Peking Garden in Raleigh. It was delicious, but we were the only people there so it was a little weird.

Lately, no notable food experiences outside of the home. Inside the home there’s been some real magic lately. Orie’s going nuts making new dishes, particularly seafood and Indian dishes.

Been under the weather a little due to allergies, so now I’m on Allegra. This is probably the first year that I’ve really been affected by allergies. It’s been pretty messy.

Over the past two weeks, with the aid of a chainsaw, I’ve cleared between 1500-2000 pounds of trees from my property. The previous owners were messy with the planting, and a lot of them were simply growing too close together to live without bending everywhere. This is also the first step to plant a bunch of cherry blossom trees in the front and back yards.

The previous owners also decided that a fountain in the back would be nice. It is, save for the baby rabbit that fell into it and died, and (way more importantly) the 10 billion mosquitoes that used it like a Zerg Breeding Pool. Bought a sledgehammer and demolished concrete and brick. Great exercise. Oddly enough, more than my arms, shoulders or back, the arches of my feet hurt the most after 2 days of sledgehammering.

Watched the first DVD of Avatar the Last Airbender. Turns out that I do like it a lot. Very fun show.

After working up the courage for years after hearing about it from my buddy Dave Gann, I finally rented Bad Lieutenant from Netflix. I should not have.

Still waffling on whether to go back to Japan this year or not. In any case, my passport expired this year so I need to renew it.

Reading? Not much literature (but very much enjoying the latest Sumomomo Momomo manga (I can’t wait for it to be released in English, it’s currently my favorite manga, and about a million times better than the anime), as well as Yuki-pon no Oshigoto, which is TURNING INTO A LIVE-ACTION TV SERIES?????????

Music: Getting more into soul and hip hop these days, although I managed to TWICE miss seeing Brother Ali when he came through on tour. Also I seem to keep missing the Sunday Hearts of Space broadcasts, so I’ll probably break down sometime and subscribe. As always, still into electronic and experimental, and currently on that front I’m waiting for my best bro to release some more stuff from his once-DC Area teamup with Tobias Kienle “Sixtus V”.

Punching and Kicking: Little. Trying to get back into shape. Still hitting the punching bag every now and then with some wing chun, but I might end up trading it in and buying a weight bench. I’ve been in a serious lifting mood for a while, but the company gym has no free-weights.

Tea: Yerba Mate, Vanilla Chai w/soymilk, Ruibos Caramel/Fruit

Movies: Scary enough, about one a week for the past few weeks. Loved Spider-Man. Hated Aqua Teen Hunger Force save for the first few minutes and one joke here or there. Next is going to be 28 Weeks Later with the gang.

Gaming: Holy crap, too much! Weekly group has one more session of TBZ to wrap up a small campaign that dragged a little too much. Bi-weekly group is doing Savage Worlds Conan for a one-shot (perhaps 2). The irregular meetup crew is looking for some time to meet up and play… ? And Camp Nerdly this last weekend was fun as hell, but very draining (I only got 4 hours of sleep a night, and no idea why). On deck: More TBZ, Beast Hunters, With Great Power, and at some point some good ol Dungeons and Dragons 3E (set in a mythical India).

This weekend: Finding a bedframe replacement. The one that came for free with the bed broke 2 nights ago, so we need to find a real frame now.

Replacing the old broken garbage disposal with an Insinkerator. That’s tomorrow’s plan.

Also: More yardwork, cleaning up rocks, redoing the natural area where the fountain used to be.

That’s it!

So, something that I’ve been meaning to start for a while now: An area restaurant review page. Orie and I specifically go out to eat once a week (sometimes twice) to area restaurants to try to find the best places, so I figured I’d start sharing with the folks in the area who also read my blog.

Here’s some quickies from the past two weeks:

Last week, we went to the new Five Guys Burgers that opened up less than a mile from my house. In short, we were pretty disappointed. This five guys place is hyped a lot for having delicious hamburgers and cheeseburgers and fries for cheap.

What I liked: There were a huge number of toppings available, all free (green peppers, carmelized onions, jalapeno peppers, and the usual stuff like onions, lettuce, etc). We ordered a “small fries”, and got about 3 pounds of fried potato.

What I didn’t like: About everything else. It wasn’t thaaaaaat cheap (they advertise themselves as “the best value”. Maybe in Chicago, where everything is monster expensive to begin with). Fries were greasy and nasty. Only American cheese for the cheeseburgers, which is loaded with fat and crap (I prefer other cheeses when possible).  The burger was so greasy that my tongue literally hurt from all the oils and crap on it. This has never happened at any other burger joint I’ve been to. No onion rings. Orie loves onion rings.
Final results: Mediocre at best.  If I want a delicious cheeseburger, the best place in the area is still Cook Out. Followed probably by Sonic. Then maybe Andy’s for the fact that they’ve got that unusual yet delicious “southern coleslaw on the burger” thing going (plus provelone as a burger option). Then down the list somewhere is Red Robin and Wendy’s. After that is Five Guys.
Can you believe I used to be a vegetarian, for like almost nine years? I’ve been heading back in that direction, but I will definitely go for a good burger once a month or so.

Recently, I decided that it was my turn to cook, cause Orie is the best cook in nearly the damned universe (save my cousin April, who cooks professionally in Hawaii, recently came back to the states to teach at Notre Dame), having been acting as the housewife/cook for her family for almost 20 years. Anyway, I found a mix for some vegan sloppy joe mix, and decided to go at it with fresh onions, and basil from our garden.

This isn’t going to be much of a review, because I can’t for the life of me remember the brand, can’t find pics of it online, and threw the box out last week.  But they were delicious. Orie had her first sloppy joe ever, and much fun ensued in trying to explain the probably origins of the term. Turns out that sloppy joes can be quite delicious: I’m not a fan of too-greasy meat, so I’d highly rec finding the vegan mix and hammering at it with fresh veggies.

An was a big disappointment. It’s gotten huge press these days for being New, Posh, Expensive and Delicious. Unfortunately, it is also FUCKING LOUD. I try not to swear on entries that my folks will read, but I couldn’t emphasize this enough: We went on a Friday, and there was some HUGE party thing going on in the entry between the three or so bar areas. Lots of people in suits and dresses, possibly a wedding reception, but everyone was of the 40-60 age range, so it was hard to pin down what exactly was going on in that huge area. Unfortunately, that huge area carries into the smaller dining area, and Orie and I had an evening of delicious food in what sounded like the inside of an active jet engine. We looked around for alternate seating, but there really was no way to escape the noise. Apparently the area reviews hammer An on this as well: Delicious food, but noisy as hell.

The food was okay, for a “once a year” kind of place. I ordered an amakuchi-style sake for like $12, and what came tasted and smelled like airplane glue. Like it was the opposite of amakuchi (that is, karakuchi), and whatsmore it just tasted like crap. I think if we go again I’ll bring my own and ask them to serve it for me or something.

Here’s the menu. We had “Buddha Rolls”, which were four index-finger sized relatively good spring rolls for $8. From there we had the Walnut Prawns and the Black Angus Filet.  The only things remarkable were the shrimp itself, and the wasabi mashed potatoes: Those were unique and delicious.

It’s expensive. The visual atmosphere and table spacing is wonderful. The price is forgivable for the quality of the ingredients, though the taste wasn’t quiiite there. But the atmosphere was utterly unforgivable. If this was a rare thing I could see looking over it (”it was our bad luck that the party was going on”, etc), but apparently every review says pretty much the same thing in that regard.

We might go back at the end of the year or so, but I would aim for a weekday, and I would absolutely call ahead to make sure that there are no parties or conventions going on. Seriously: It may seem like a pushy thing to ask, but it can ruin your experience.

Finally, yesterday lunch we went to “Asian Bowl”, a kind of Chinese-Thai fusion place that opened up near our house about two months ago, right next to Five Guys actually. Service, food, atmosphere were all pretty darn good. The food was pretty excellent, too… at least, I want to say that. We had Crab Wontons and Lettuce Wraps with coconut sauce, which were delicious. I ordered Buddha’s Feast, which is a real telling dish: If a Chinese place can cook up a delicious Buddha’s Feast (all veggies in usually a white sauce), then it’s a sign that it’s a Good Chinese Restaurant. Like Eggplant Parm at an Italian restaurant. Anyway, the Buddha’s Feast was… average.  Orie ordered some sort of Orange spicy beef dish, and that was actually outstanding.  I’m not sure if it’s a “veggie dishes are mediocre, meat dishes are excellent” thing or not. But in any case, they left a good enough impression on us that we’ll totally try again later and find out.

Note that Saturday and Sunday lunch, all appetizers are half off. The appetizers were, in fact, delicious.

Today, Best Hunters came in the mail. I totally forgot that I ordered it a few weeks ago (right when it came out, with the PDF bundle).

I haven’t had time to read it, nor have I been particularly attentive to the development threads on it. I just thought that the concept was cool, and Christian (author) is a buddy, so that was good enough for me: I’ll definitely give it a shot sometime and post some play notes.

Anyway, the point is that this book is gorgeous. Simplistic, yet artistic, and a real sense of layout and placement. I think the last book that struck me this way was Burning Empires.

That Fred Hicks (the layout guy) really knows what he’s doing.

I’m not going to say “buy it!”, cause I don’t give recommendations without playing a game (or at least reading through it enough to know how to play), but I will say that if you DID buy it already or were going to buy it anyway, the book format will not disappoint you.

-Andy

So my best bro Nikolai Sergei “Serge” Usack is making some moves. I’m so excited for him that I wanted to share.

First, his Milwaukee-based Eco construction company has just made some huge waves, the city alderman is doing backflips over the project, and issued city-wide press releases on their new projects.

This is what Pragmatic Construction is making next over on 2800 N. Pierce St, Milwaukee:

More pics over here:

http://www.pragmaticconstruction.com/elementaltownhomes.html

And to follow it up, in October the date has been set for he and his wife Anna to adopt Chia-Yu Hu from China (Taiwan, actually):

More pics: http://benusack.smugmug.com/gallery/2634056#139136539

Rock on, Bro!

-Andy

UPDATE: OH MY GOD, A VIDEO!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZH6SaROFBk 

So my favorite show in the world is the Merrell MOC, “jungle color”:

I got my first pair right outside of GenCon (a gaming convention) a couple years back, and have worn them for everything from work, to walking, to hikes, to even running. They just are so much more comfortable, and offer even more support than running shoes. Anyway, mine are now worn to the point that they’re falling apart.

They’re size 10, but when I got a similar paid but a slightly different model on eBay in size 10, it turns out that they were too small. My foot is about 10.5-11, it turns out. Crazy thing is, for all other model of Merrell shoes, 10.5 will fit me, but for this model alone, size 10 is the better fit. So to make sure I didn’t screw up again, I decided to try out some Mocs (as well as look for sandals, as my old 5-year pair are falling apart too) at the local department store before Orie and I went out for dinner.

Turns out that my confirmation was correct: For all shoes, my size is size 10.5, even with other Merell shoes. But for this MOC style, my size is 10 or my foot slides around inside. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the Jungle color, just the black color which looks too hot to wear in NC. So I decided to try on some sandals.

I asked to try on two different models, and the rep came back with those models plus a third: “I don’t know if you saw, but we also have ECCO sandals. Here’s a pair.” OK, sure, the guy was trying to make a buck by offering a sandal that was twice the price that I was looking at. However, after last summer (see my Gatlinburg posts) and trying on dozens of brands and styles of hiking boot, the Swiss brand ECCO was the best, most comfortable yet sturdy fit, and the boots I bought, while a bit pricey, are the best pair of boots that I ever owned. I beat the hell out of them in the last few months and they are still pristine and fit like a glove without having to break them in over years like Timberlands.

ECCO made sandals? I had no idea. So I slid one on… It was like stepping into Foot Sex. I’ve worn sandals since I was 14 or so, probably had at about 7 pairs at some point or other in my life. These were hands down the most comfortable sandals I’ve ever worn. I had no choice but to pick them up there rather than price-hunt on eBay: The salesman totally nailed that sale, and I saluted him with that purchase.

Today I went on a brief hike with Orie: A few mile circle over at Umstead park on some worn but solid trails (I didn’t want to do anything crazy without ankle support) to see if they needed any “breaking in”. Nope, walking around in them felt like walking around in 4-year-old sneakers. They were again a bit pricey, but worth it. Crafted sandals like these will last me years.

Other news: Went to the Fondue Restaurant near my house for the first time (”The Melting Pot”). It was a lot better than I expected, but I think for the price it’s definitely a “once a year” kind of place. The other day I had the Korean BBQ set with my coworker-friend Steve at the Other Korean Place near work, and that was awesome.

I think in a bit I’ll have to categorize my local restaurant experiences so that my friends can keep in the know for what is good in the area.

So my buddy Clinton R Nixon (The “R” stands for “Indomitable”) is writing this game called “INUMA”, which is an Ainu word meaning “Treasure”. The game comes in a treasure box and has the following:

Three booklets: One tells you how to play the game, another tells you how to build a world, and the third is a directed scrapbook to detail your shared world and characters.

Glass beads, in several colors: Clear, Blue, Red and Yellow. About 25 each.

A bag to hold the beads.

A number of colored cubes: Two sides blue, two sides yellow, two sides red.

I won’t go into detail about the game itself (save that it was fun as hell), but the game has this setting creation element that is awesome.

Together everyone creates an equal number of Protagonists, Antagonists, and “Anchors” (people that fit in the middle: Important background characters with no direction towards either Good or Evil). When you play, there has to be at least one Protagonist, Antagonist and Anchor.  As you play the game, saying “Let’s get together and tell another story of The World of Anubis Sky” or whatever, you decide from your pool of characters which ones you want to play, who plays what, etc. Then you decide what aspects of the world/setting you’re going to focus on, and which elements from the setting are going to take center stage.

Every element of the character creation process was awesome, and then playing it out afterwards was magical.

If the idea of “True Story Game” is appealing to you, definitely check this one out when it comes out later (this year, IIRC). For me, it scratches some major gaming itches with roleplaying.

I just did my taxes the other day.  My Federal and State returns were accepted.

It turns out, the government owes me a lot of money.

A. Lot.

This is the biggest return I’m getting from the government ever. Even more than in 2001, where I got something like 4K back.

The problem that I face each year around this time is, “What do I do with this money?” The question literally eats at me for months.

Get a Wii?  Buy a bike to commute to work?

Invest it? Save it for later this year, when I attempt to publish a book?

Look more seriously into house improvements?  Put it down for a car for when Orie starts working again?
And the list goes on. And I gnash my teeth for weeks, impotent to make a decision with this sum.

-Andy

Here’s some things I’ve been watching with Orie:

Idiocracy - Watched it last night, and I thought that this movie is gonna be a total cult hit (”I’m gonna FUCK YOU ALL!”). I actually wanted to see this in the theatres, but right when it looked to release they decided to go straight to DVD. A shame. The movie was originally placed on my radar about a year ago or so because… OK, Luke Wilson is a handsome man, and I was checking on IMDB to see what else he was in.

Quick update on the Zatoichi project (watch all the Zatoichi movies that I possibly can, then rank them):

The multi-disk TV series is very satisfying. Many come right in at an hour, some a little more, and the stories are great and imaginitive. My favorite thusfar (only 5 stories in) is the 2nd one, IIRC:

Basically, Zatoichi is massaging the shoulders of this older woman, a local yakuza gang boss. A bunch of hired mercenaries announce their presence:

“Hello! We are a few ronin travellers. We mean no grudge against you, see, but these guys across town are giving us room, board and money, and asked that we come kill you (the old crimeboss lady and her son).  So… here we are. We apologize that this is happening, but we humbly request you come outside so that we can kill you.”

Well, the crime boss/lady reminded Zatoichi of his mom. Bad sign. He goes outside with the mother and promptly kills all the ronin.  Except for one. The ronin trips, and Zatoichi turns around to finish him off…

And that’s when the bell rings.  It’s 6:00. Zatoichi sheathes his sword and walks away, and the ronin knows he got off lucky.

Why?  Because that ring heralds the anniversary of his mother’s death.  For that day alone, he Will Not Draw Blood.

And it only gets more awesome from there.

That’s THIS ONE, for those with Netflix:
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70040612

I recently watched Zatoichi in Desperation. I didn’t like it much at all, I think it is probably the worst of the movies I’ve seen thusfar. It has some good elements, and it’s definitely much darker than the other flicks, but I have to say it smells like they tried for 90s style Dark/Gothy but back in the 70s.  Among other things, there is:
* Psychadelic flashbacks of an old woman falling off a bridge
* A side-story of a young child and his young sister, both innocent, and horrible things happen to them and they die, without ever being part of the main story
* A gang of thugs molests and diddles the town retard, then beat him up when he ejaculates on them
On the other hand, it does have one of the BEST Zatoichi fights in any of the movies though. I’ll spoil it so you don’t have to go through the above:  Basically, the Bad Guy stabs a harpoon through both of Zatoichi’s hands, effectively fucking them up (”Put your hands on the table or this lady dies” sorts of things).  Then they let him go, so they can follow him and hunt him through the town.  Zatoichi effectively tears off the sleves of his robe, TIES his crippled hands to his sword, holds it in a really awkward way, yet still FUCKS. EVERYONE. UP.

Zatoichi’s Conspiracy, on the other hand, is awesome. http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70002454
Not “The Best Thusfar” (I think that will go to Zatoichi the Outlaw for now), but really sweet. Good story, hard moral choices, great battles.  Zatoichi the Outlaw has one element that I haven’t seen in any other Zatoichi flick, yet, and it’s great.

Basically, in all the other flicks, most of the underworld/yakuza (Zatoichi, too, is a member of the underworld) have “heard of Zatoichi”. Heard he was tough, etc, and usually recognize him before they fight.  However, they all fall back to “He’s just a blind guy, GET HIM!”

In Zatoichi the Outlaw, his reputation proceeds him in a way like in none of the other movies. Basically, he goes into a gambling den (as he does in well over half of his flicks, but IIRC he doesn’t do his Dice Trick to deceive the others… I can’t remember now), one where he knows he will eventually shake them down, get them to stop doing Bad Things.  A major boss character runs the den.  Eventually, someone puts two and two together, realizes that this guy must be “THAT Zato-no-Ichi”. EVERYONE gasps and draws back. Zatoichi gets up and starts a dangerous swagger, really playing up the idea that he is a Scary Fucking Badass (because… I mean hell, HE IS). No one screws with him, they let him pass without touching him, and basically spend the next scene cowering with fear (even the Boss) that Zatoichi is in town.

Frankly, it was a refreshing change of pace, and it was about time, too. He tears apart about a hundred dudes in every town he visits, and finally an evil badass boss treats Zatoichi with the amount of fear and respect that he should be getting in every episode. That was a pretty cool thing, IMO.

Anyway, more on the Zatoichi flicks later!

-Andy

…is that I’m so happy when I get home, my mind starts racing and racing and racing. I’ve been gone for a week, and now that I’m back… I’ve got work tomorrow, it’s 1:30, and I cannot sleep.

Currently thinking about LEGOs, work, setting up another linux server at home, exercise, AGON, learning PHP, Jeff Mills, and Kanji.

More on the fun geeky game stuff in a bit.

Eikichi - So I felt a bit of a disconnect with returning to Japan again this year (I usually go once every one/two years, but this time it will be three) after Satoru died (and more on that). I go back home to visit family (I have a niece now, and my nephew Riku is just turning two) and friends, eat at a lot of incredible joints, burn thousands of calories marching all over Tokyo with a backpack full of the latest Japanese study materials from Kinokuniya bookstore, etc.

Thing is, my best bro, the one that took me to all the crazy shit all over the place: The underground manga stores; the bizarre philosophy conferences where a PhD would break down robot anime into its contemporary sociological elements; the HG store with the silver mannequin with the leather gear on it.

Anyway, one of my best buds is Eikichi, who is also my wife’s cousin (and I guess mine). I first met him when I was out of college and he was in high school. We ended up hanging out a lot at family gatherings, and then just hanging out a lot in general. In my last two years in Japan we hung out weekly at my place, getting friends together for cards (poker, daihimin) and bizarre Japanese variety shows, etc.

Normally we just hook up when I get back into town: We’d crash at his or my place over in Gunma, or I’d stay with him in Tokyo when I paced the city again. But otherwise, we’d just lay low until we met again. But recently we’ve been hitting each other up over email, and it’s been fun. It’s also fun to get back into the habit of writing in Japanese again, as my Kanji skills have been slipping (even when reading and not writing, it’s easy to slip when reading and doing less writing). So that’s rocking.

Also, found some nifty pictures from the last time I went to Japan. That’s us at “Tambo”, one of the best restaurants I’ve been to. Anyway, that’s been on my mind these days.

Twleve Kingdoms - So for Christmas(ish), my wife and I just tend to pick up some stuff for ourselves and share it. This year with the help of an old gift certificate and Clinton’s Barnes and Noble membership, we scored the complete Twelve Kingdoms boxed set (in two parts). If you haven’t heard of this anime, it’s the Best Anime Series Ever. I once fought a guy with knives who didn’t believe it. The quick history:

1) This woman wrote a series of young adult novels about a Japanese girl whisked away to a fantasy Chinese(ish) land of magic and myth and (in the long run) maturity. They bust out like madness, and are pretty much the Japanese equivalent of the Harry Potter books.

2) NHK, Japanese public television (like PBS with an actual budget) picks up the series to turn into an anime. Rich budget, very artistically driven, and no panty shots. They even made changes to the screenplay that actually improve the story; adding two “friend characters”, which really crank up the awesome: Especially the friend-girl, who is basically the equivalent of “one of us” (a geek who is absorbed into fantasy literature and the like).

3) Unfortunately, the author was still working on the book series as the anime series was in development when she got sick somehow (sounds like an anxiety thing or breakdown). So she didn’t finish two of her novels when the anime was done.

4) So the anime has like 4-5 stories wrapped in it: Fortunately the main character’s story was wrapped up as per the author’s vision. But there were about two side-stories with dangling strings.

The only problem is that there are places where the Sino-Japanese words are a little thick. The novels… they’re not written particularly cleverly, but the author loves to slam all sorts of old Chinese words into the book. The anime doesn’t suffer from that too much, but there are some episodes (particularly in the “A Great Distance in the Wind, the Sky at Dawn” series) where the medieval Chinese verbiage is really thick, especially during introductions of various political offices and posts.

So on my last viewing of the series (what, the fifth time?) I decided that I want to make a complete printable episode-by-episode guide to the series so that it’s easier to follow. I’m also thinking of cooking up an RPG based on The Shadow of Yesterday. I’m backseating those projects until some translation work is done, but it’s one of my 2007 goals. We’ll see how far I get

PS: If you rent this series, for the love of all that is good don’t watch it dubbed. I’m not some weird “if it’s not dubbed it’s automatically crap” dudes, but this anime has a particularly bad dub. NHK paid big bucks for actors and voice actors to read the parts, and in the US they apparently found dudes who will work for meth to read their lines. Just a warning.

Zatoichi - I’ve been on a huge Zatoichi kick recently. Not the 2003 weirdness with Takeshi Kitano (which was awesome, save for Takeshi Kitano), but the classic 60s-70s media machine that produced something like 25+ movies and a 5-year TV series starring Katsu Shintaro. I’ve watched about 8 movies in the past 6 months, and I’ve gotta say: They’re awesome. For the most part, it’s a glimpse of high-action high-drama simple stories dealing with the yakuza underworld and, AND, a “slice of life” of Edo-era lifestyle.

There are samurai movies. There are gangster movies. There are ‘historical piece’ movies. I love all three genres. The Zatoichi series is all three in one, which is quite rocking.

So I’ve made it a small side-goal to watch as much Zatoichi as possible, then go back and rate them. Maybe find, like, the “top five” to recommend to folks. Currently, my favorite is “Zatoichi the Outlaw“.

I think that’s all I’ve got going on lately for now. More later!

Christmas came and went. For the most part it was a good year. Normally I’m not into the holidays; I hate to go shopping during the holidays, I hate the Santa commercials and Polar Bear Coke CMs, etc. But I like that “it’s cold outside but it’s warm inside” feeling, and this year we played it up.

Basically, last year I worked through the holidays (as I usually do), but Xmas came and went without any pause. The bad thing is that the holiday work ended up being pretty rough. Everyone else in my workplace got to refresh and relax, and came back to the office ready and renewed: And I was strung out. This year (well, 2006), it was similar, but this time I had a lovely Christmas tree (with equal parts Hello Kitty, Star Wars, and Fist of the North Star decorations), Christmas lights, and was able to go through the whole experience of being in a warm, warmly lit living room while it was cold (NC cold, but cold) outside. I worked through the holidays again, but it really wasn’t as bad this time around, as I had that nostalgic “warmly lit, comfortable home” thing to return to.

Christmas rocked. Got a gift certificate, an Avatar the Last Airbender LEGO set (I’ve never seen this cartoon, but have been told by friends I must. Did I mention I’m 31?). I also got myself an “All-Ett“, which is an awesome invention. I quickly adapted to it, and it’s the best wallet ever. Got one for my dad, even. I also managed to snag a 320gb external USB bookcase drive by Western Digital from www.buy.com for $100, which is an incredible steal (even for buy.com). It now only has 1.2 gb free, as it stores .
For my far-away friends and family, I drafted up “The Best of 2006″ holiday letters. I’ll convert them to PDF and put them up here later. Just a quick newsletter summary of the major events of 2006.

So it’s coming up on my B-Day, heading to the 30 + 2. Interesting thing I just realized: I’ve now lived in this same house for two years, plus a week or two.

This is the longest I have ever lived in one single place since 1991. Seriously. I haven’t lived in any place longer than two years for over fifteen years. It actually feels weird to settle into one area. I constantly have that thought that I need to be ready to pull up roots and move at any given second. But I think I’m pretty much over most of that.

Weight loss: I’m making it a resolution to lose 20 pounds this year and keep it off, basically the stress weight gained over the past two years. I haven’t really taken it too seriously. Now, realizing that I’m 50 pounds bigger than I was when I graduated, it’s time to put on the breaks, back the fuck up, and get healthy again. I can honestly say 10 of those 50 pounds are muscle, because I can press and lift more than I could back then, and have been doing a lot of strength training on and off recently. But I’m not fooling myself with the other 40. Time to cut back.

Writing: My other goal this year is to finally finish and release the Tenra Bansho game I’ve been working on for the past three years. I’ve been lazily going through the motions as I hadn’t set hard limits. Now I have, and these past few weeks/months have been a blur of movement towards that goal. It’s falling together, but still kinda far. But this year it will be out in stores.

Langauges: After the above, all my other goals fall into a distant second place. But I’ve been playing with the idea of getting back into languages. Brushing up on Japanese, perhaps finally taking the 1-kkyu test (the highest general language test). Also, I want to start slowly and learn a third language to at least the “where is the bathroom?” level. I’m waffling on returning to Russian (which I haven’t taken since high school) and Polish, which for some reason I’ve been thinking about lately.

Work: Is cool. I’ve been picking up a mad amount of new skills. We recently made #6 on the “Fortune Magazine Top 100 Places to Work”, which I dunno if it’s accurate, but it’s nice to be recognized. This year I’m digging hardcore into fiber channel, linux, nfs performance, and network engineering. We’ll see how far I can get. Most likely looking towards a promotion this year as well.

I got off the weekend shift and went back to 8-5 a few months back. One problem with that was that I noticed that I stayed until 6:00 anyway. I don’t know what it is about this place, but because of the workload and other random factors I found myself working 9, 10 or more hour days regularly, working for several hours on the weekend, then crashing for most of the weekend (as I would run on 5-6 hours of sleep a night).  Last week I changed back to my old regular 9-6 shift, and damn my work schedule snapped back to regular mode. I’m still working 9 or more hours a day regularly, but it’s not as out-of-control as it was for the past few months.

Trying to think of what else is going on… I’ll post this for now and return later if I think of anything.

-Andy