jlh | Entries tagged with manga

Two big links that lead me to two big thoughts on two big issues, but really really, if you care about either issue please follow the links.

First, my pal

kalichan wrote an amazing post about a week ago: What's Love Got To Do With It: My Thoughts on *fail that everyone who's interested in such matters, especially in the way social justice is interacting with fandom, should read right now.

( related thoughts on fail and shame and love )

The Pop Culture Happy Hour Podcast this week was at least partially about comics, specifically super hero comics, where the three folks on the podcast who aren't comic readers were given two recent Batman comics by their fourth podcaster, who's the comics editor at NPR, and came back with their reactions. Lots of great conversation about barriers to entry, and within that one of the readers noted that if one wants to get the entire projected 5-year story in these monthly single-issue installments it becomes incredibly expensive, not just as money spent but also in cost for the entertainment gained (at least, in terms of time) when compared to buying movies/music/tv shows/books.

In terms of that, I'll say that I look at the $250 I spent on 23 volumes of Fruits Basket and yeah, I'm not sure I really got my money's worth. I mean, I can't even take those books on the train with me (where I do a lot of my reading) because I can get through a volume in about 20 minutes. I have a whole entry in me about how much culture used to be free or pretty low-cost versus how much we're expected to spend nowadays, but I'm having difficulty framing that conversation in a way that doesn't sound like I'm advocating theft; I'm more saying that the model we are moving toward at the moment where people pay directly (rather than advertiser support) is probably untenable in large ways.

Current Mood: hopeful
Crossposts: http://jlh.livejournal.com/597851.html

This entry isn't about one thing that one person said, but probably about five different things I've been told, by many different people, in the last little while.

The other day I was at Target, and as I sometimes do, I went over to the music section to see what they put on sale, because sometimes you can get amazing deals since indie rock tends to go unsold at a place like Target. And I found the new CDs by The National and Erykah Badu both on sale for $10, so I bought them.

And that $20 I just spent on CDs that I wanted? Was probably a complete and utter waste on my part.

( I am really trying to support the artists I like, and also my friends. )

I don't know, you guys. I have a headache.

Current Mood: guilty
Crossposts: http://jlh.livejournal.com/570590.html

I haven't been on chat lately and I'm not sure when I'll be back on, for various reasons. If you want me, email, and I'll be happy to come on! Or if you have any questions, I'm just an email away!
I don't have anything to say about Idol tonight, and won't until tomorrow night, except that having Scott around would certainly make group sings even more cheesy and ridiculous. That, and I'm glad I watch for Ryan and Simon rather than the actual singers. I hope some of you are still around for the polls starting next week!
The only good thing to come out of Top Chef 5 was Colicchio's diet coke ad, so I'm really NOT watching the reunion show, except to zoom through it to find out who got fan favorite.
I'm halfway through BSG 4.09, for those keeping track at home. I'm really sad about the cat, but cheered by the reappearance of the dog.
I went away this weekend to visit a friend and saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist which I liked quite a lot. I'm not surprised to see that it was based on a book co-written by the author of Boy Meets Boy and I'm definitely buying and reading that book when I go to pick up the new Fruits Basket later this month.
It makes me sad, but the renewed racefail makes me glad I'm not an SF/F fan. I'm amazed and somewhat angered, but not heartbroken. Between that and some encounters I had last week, I'm starting to be less and less surprised at the crazy things that supposed non-racists think is perfectly okay to say and do.

Current Mood: awake

Okay, so a friend is in this anime au rpg where her character eats a lot of Hot Pockets and of course this made me think of Jim Gaffigan's brilliant Hot Pockets routine, so I looked it up on Youtube to send to her: Hot Pockets Routine. But imagine my surprise when I put in the search "jim gaffigan hot pockets" and found not one but several anime vids to the Hot Pockets routine: Search results. There's Naruto plus some others that I don't recognize, which isn't saying much.

So the question, and forgive me if I don't quite have the brain cells to make up silly answers to post a fun poll about this, is: What is the secret connection between manga or anime and hot pockets? Discuss!

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Schama on Bernini

Meta: I'm a big fan of NPR's On the Media and this week they have a focus on audience responses, with pieces on citizen journalism, video blogger Ze Frank, Henry Jenkins on Snakes on a Plane and HP Fanfiction, and Brooke outing herself as a Trekker, including a discussion of Kirk/Spock by Jenkins and an interview with that woman who went to jury duty in her Federation uniform. Great stuff.

Talking about Snakes on a Plane, Jenkins posits that fan culture may be better at creating college interest and DVD sales than blockbuster openings. If he's right, and it sounds like it to me, this may be where Firefly went wrong. (That, and that the preview screenings were WAY too early for the buzz to be sustainable through the opening weekend; to many of us it seemed like our Browncoat friends had been talking about this movie for the better part of a year.) The movies that pushed up from indie to major market success started small and grew over time and through word of mouth, like Blair Witch Project. I think word of mouth can make you money, but it won't give you a monster opening weekend, mostly because no one has seen the damn movie yet! As the model hopefully moves from blockbuster to the long tail, perhaps we'll see fan groups able to move something from the tail to the middle of the head.

Music: ( Making mixes for myself this time )

Manga: I just finished vol 14 of Fruits Basket and, um, wasn't something huge supposed to happen? Are the volumes off from the Japanese ones? My vol 14 ends with chapter 83.

Anyway, in honor of new Furuba, ( your Shigure/Hanajima drabble )

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Ben Allison | Respiration

For those of you that knew, I finally got a relatively good night's sleep last night. Still woke up in the wee sma's but I'd gone to bed at about 1145 and woke up at 530 so that's really pretty close to my usual sleeping time.

The good thing about waking up briefly is that I caught the whole TeniMyu "we will report you to the appropriate authorities" post that

ina linked to earlier, and while yes, these people were heavy handed and ridiculous, my real reaction is:

There's a Prince of Tennis live action musical? Seriously?

bhanesidhe, you would tell me if there was a Furuba musical, wouldn't you?

When I fell back to sleep, I dreamt of a Japanese bus driver taking me home and making me paper flags . . .

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: On the Radio | Donna Summer

Mother's Day:Brunch::Valentine's Day:Dinner. Which means around here, brunch without a reservation is difficult unless you're going for dim sum. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms on my flist! (Yes, I emailed my mother this morning; she's hard of hearing so I can't call her.)

You know, it's almost comforting the way Anne Rice continues to be crazy. She even looks a bit off in the picture accompanying the article.

The Vatican forces out Father Thomas Reese from the editorship at America, the leading Catholic magazine. Well, this isn't good, though unsurprising. I'm not sure why, in the wake of the abuse scandal, the Vatican thinks it's time to alienate moderate and liberal Catholics. The Pope says he wants Europe to return to its Catholic roots but this really isn't the way to make it happen. And with the rise of charismatic Protestant movements in South America, he can't even count on the brown people. I don't know, man, they're going to kill this thing if they aren't careful.

I haven't seen the GoF trailer yet and I doubt that I'll go out of my way to see it. It isn't that I'm not looking forward to seeing the film; I am, very much. And it isn't that I don't want to be spoiled; as I doubt they will significantly change the end of the story, I sort of already know what happens. While I have not so much disagreed but been saddened by some editorial choices in the films (I had a glimpse of the bookstore scene in CoS last night and damn, I wish they hadn't cut the fight as now Arthur just looks like a pussy) I'm not really the sort of person to get up in arms about it. After all, film is a visual medium and they sometimes have to make choices for visual reasons. Also, I think the unfortunate reality of Hollywood is that Hermione is going to be kind of a babe. The most we can hope for is that she stays just as brainy, bossy and borderline annoying as she ever was.

I'm so excited over Fruits Basket moving to a once a month release schedule! The English manga will be caught up with the Japanese manga! Then I can talk about it with Val and not worry about spoilers which is excellent. Also there is new anime in the works . . .

Peter Rodino died today—here he is in a photo with John Dean. He was one of those figures that rose to the occasion. Rodino was an somewhat obscure Democratic Representative from New York, the head of the House Judiciary Committee which investigated Richard Nixon's involvement in the Watergate break-in and ensuing cover-up. I'll admit it: I'm a liberal, of liberal Democrat parents who were very politically active from the 50s through the 80s, and Watergate fascinates and amuses me; there could only be nasty reasons for the little hit of glee it gives me. The House Judiciary Committee is one of my favorite bits of the whole story, perhaps because some of the story was told to me by a key player: my former representative and later senator (and even later, Clinton's Sec'y of Defense), Bill Cohen, who was a very young Republican representative at the time. Each of the Democrats and impeachment-leaning Republicans took one of the Articles of Impeachment and with their staffs, made their case to the committee, which ultimately voted to impeach and to send the Articles of Impeachment to the House floor. During that final vote, Rodino had a cold, so his vote of "yes", the final vote as he was the committee chair, was in such a hoarse, sad, tired voice—it captured the mood of the country perfectly.

The whole putting things on the ipod project has got me listening to stuff I haven't in quite a while. tea_and_toast commented on my last entry about this whether I actually listened to all this music, and I said that having it so accessible meant that I probably listen to much more of the depth of my collection than I ever used to—especially with shuffle. I've rediscovered Robbie Williams and Veruca Salt. Right now I'm listening to ABBA Gold and I can say with certainty that Chiquitita and Fernando are in fact the same song.

I'm very proud of myself for being disciplined and writing 2600 words yesterday. I'm using my S/D icon in celebration.

Current Mood: productive
Current Music: ABBA | SOS

I'd say this was a GIP except there's a whole post here. However, regard the icon!

So on Tuesday I worked and then CC and I had mediocre sushi (good fish, too much rice, bit bland) and good bubble tea and then watched two eps of Veronica Mars. ( This is a little spoilery. )

Wednesday morning I took Veda to the vet and surprise, she was good as gold! She didn't want to go into her carrier, but at the vet she stood nicely on the table and let him look at her, and weigh her, and let the assistant hold her while the vet gave her some shots, and then put her back in her carrier. I didn't even recognize my own cat she was so good! Then I worked and saw my friend S for dinner, who is going to have another baby in November, somewhat unexpectedly. S: "If you have unprotected sex, you will get pregnant, even if you're nursing!" I think it also surprised her since it took them a while to get pregnant the first time, so I don't think she was thinking of herself as particularly fertile. Her son is crawling around like a demon and starting to remember me from my semimonthly visits which is exciting.

Thursday consisted of 16 hours of sucking, so let's not discuss that. However, at 5pm, about two hours after she'd given birth, Heidi pings me asking me to upload a picture to LJ for her as it's tough to do remotely. Then she says:
H: Wow, I'm hungry.
C: Heidi, YOU JUST HAD A BABY.
H: Well, yeah.

Yesterday was much better—I worked and then went to the bookstore to get Fruits Basket 8 and the market for a few things that I couldn't get via Fresh Direct. After dinner I ate a bowl of left over sponge cake, two containers of Cozy Shack chocolate pudding, a half pint of raspberries, and whipped cream. I'm sure you can tell many things from that.

( A minirant about today's Weekend Edition. )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Weekend Edition on NPR

Man, I'm grouchy. My phone got busted this weekend so I ran out to get a new one--just a little cheapy, I don't need anything fancy. Well, I left it in a fucking cab last night. I guess I'll just have to get another cheapy when I get back home later today. It could have been worse; I could have lost my ID or my wallet, and lots of people just gave me their numbers again so there wasn't much in that phone to be lost. But still, annoying.

Speaking of annoying, is there a reason that people have to manufacture wank where there is none? No wonder we can't have a civilized discussion around here any more; two friends have a polite and respectful debate and suddenly there is side-taking and general silliness. Please, people.

I read the rest of Fruits Basket Vol 7 last night and this morning. Uo-chan reminds me of

bhanesidhe especially now that I've read all that groovy backstory. Val is, of course, fucking awesome. But I owe

tea_and_toast some ( drabble )

Man, no new Veronica Mars last night. What a week.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: The Beekeeper | Tori Amos

Got seven tops and a cute belt at Old Navy today, and finally found some brown sneakers at Sketchers. Let's hear it for tax free week! Tomorrow after brunch I'm grabbing a new post for the cat and the new Fruits Basket. *thinks dangerous thoughts about Hatori in his bedclothes* I owe

tea_and_toast drabble, but as she hasn't read through vol 6 I've been holding off a bit. Vol 7, though, might be very inspiring.

You know, I always knew that LJ quizzes and memes were really like those chain letters, but now an actual chain letter has become an LJ quiz. Silly, really. My results are nearly always the same. However, as was said elsewhere, this is me telling 37 people.

This morning I bought food for Super Bowl tomorrow while my delicates washed at the laundromat. Then I brought in my regular laundry for them to do and faffed off to shop. And now, I'm going to get some dinner and start cleaning up this place.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Maltese Falcon on Turner Classic Movies

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Page Summary

linking and thinking. like picking and grinning, only less Hee-Haw.
so i'm actually not sure what to do
some wednesday things
Hot Pockets!
Geeking out: Meta, Music and Manga
Leipzig is calling you names
Eight things for a Sunday
My week
Furuba drabble!
Shopping!

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Consonants and vowels all together, equally

Evil is boring. Cynicism is stupid. Despair is lazy.

Entries tagged with manga

linking and thinking. like picking and grinning, only less Hee-Haw.

so i'm actually not sure what to do

some wednesday things

Hot Pockets!

Geeking out: Meta, Music and Manga

Leipzig is calling you names

Eight things for a Sunday

My week

Furuba drabble!

Shopping!