With the month almost over, I am not impressed with my workout record.
Ten days out of a possible thirty is not a good ratio. I had good
intentions, but the weather and other factors kept getting in the way.
My last two rentals from Netflix have not impressed me. First there was
the odd offering of The Draughtsman's Contract from Peter Greenaway that
missed me completely. From what I have read online, the movie was an
allegory of a certain era of British history that I do not know very
well so most of the in jokes were lost on me. Not knowing the
background made the movie tiresome for me and I usually enjoy his work
such as The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. I should really
watch that one again to refresh my memory of why I like it. I remember,
vivid colors and some graphic sex and violence, but I am not sure if I
felt for the characters or not.
The second most recent choice was the Japanese sexploitation film Sex &
Fury. My primary reason for renting it was that I had read it
influenced the Tarantino film Kill Bill. Now having seen it, I can
definitely see the influence with its use of a female lead seeking
revenge, but overall the movie seemed flat to me. Martial arts fight
sequences from thirty years ago pale next to what we see in cinema today
and that really dragged the movie down for me. Plus most of the acting
was very wooden.
To offset these two viewing disappointments, I sampled episode forty
eight of the anime series Bleach and I have to say that I enjoyed what I
saw. At the moment, I have no real idea what is happening, but I do
want to know more and I see that as a positive. My interest is there
and I am eager to explore the rest of the iceberg.
Time Warner is pathetic when it comes to customer service and because of that fact I dearly wish that there were more alternatives for broadband internet service where I live. They are the big gorilla in the area and no one else seems to want to challenge them and they know it. Sigh.
Yesterday, I watched the final episode of the anime series Last Exile and must confess that I was a little disappointed by the ending. Yes, many plot points were brought to a close and the two main characters were given a happy life, but for me there were too many unanswered questions. For example, I did not understand how the Guild came into existence and why they behaved the way that they did. Were the people in the story descendants of colonizers from Earth? What happened to Dio? Plus I wished that there was more time devoted to the character of Maestro Delphine, because she is without a doubt the most interesting character that I have seen in anime in a long time. She was cruel and enjoyed being that way.
I suppose that I can find answers to some of these questions by scanning various anime news sites and message boards, but that will take some time and part of me would just prefer to move onto a new series.
Warren Ellis continues to impress me with his writing of the Marvel comic book Thunderbolts. Since its inception the book has prided itself on the use of former villains seeking redemption, but Warren has tinkered with that concept slightly by adding members to the cast who are not so altruistic. I find each issue to be exciting and far from predictable. Plus Mike Deodato is doing some of his best pencil work ever.
This is the first home that I have ever owned with a fireplace and I love it. There were some problems in the beginning, but that was not my fault. My place had been the model of the subdivision and from what the fireplace people can gather when they looked at it, is that someone from the builders scavenged my fireplace for parts and left it in a half assembled mode. Once that was corrected, I could sit back and enjoy the heat from the flickering flames. Now with the temperature dropping well below zero at night, the quiet heat is a welcomed bonus. Something about being able to see the source of warmth makes it that more meaningful to me.
I am proud of myself, because despite the fact that bitter cold has descended on the state and will linger for the next few days, I have managed to finish reading my first book of the year and kept a steady regimen of exercise going this month, both of which were goals of mine for this year. Having finished Pullman's The Subtle Knife, I am not sure if I want to continue right into the third part of the trilogy or not. I enjoyed both the first and second books, but part of me would like to switch gears into terms of pleasure reading.
Having just finished watching the twelfth episode of the twenty six episode anime series Last Exile, I have to admit that I am somewhat confused, but at the same time very excited by what might happen next. Claus and Lavie seem to be caught up in something far larger than themselves and that makes for some exciting storytelling as far as I am concerned. It also has a classic ring to it. I might go so far as to call Claus and Lavie the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the story. They seem somewhat important to the story, but in the end they are just characters on the fringe of the action. Perhaps that is a stretch, but I could see and have read that the focus of the series does shift away from them.
To keep things simple and to keep my attention focused, I decided to watch all seven discs of the series without interruption. Usually I like to stagger an anime episode with a foreign or independent film in my Netflix queue. In the past when I tried that approach it felt as though I were cheating myself when I limited myself to just one genre. Now I no longer feel that way, plus I can devote all of my attention to the story without any distractions.
Keeping focused seems to be my problem of late and that probably explains the bad dreams where I am either lost in a dorm or unprepared for final exams. My mind seems to be all over the place, be it work, planning for the wedding, trying to organize a trip or relaxing by reading comic books and watching anime. Simplification or narrowing my field of interest is probably what is best for me now so that I can feel like I am accomplishing something. Otherwise nothing gets completed and I feel frustrated. Quite often there are times, when I wish that I could press the pause button on my life. I need to take a break and examine what is best for me, before I lose control.
I did get a large amount of sleep, but I can not say that it was the peaceful kind. I dreamt that I was back in college and failing all of my final exams. I knew that the day had come and I was not prepared. Part of me knew the material, but I did not know it well enough. That sinking in my stomach feeling was still with me when I woke up.
Wednesday for me is the one day of the week that I try to set aside for complete relaxation. I seldom drive anywhere and try to keep my household chores to a minimum. Today is meant to be a day where I indulge in some of my favorite pastimes such as reading and watching movies. Hopefully I can also squeeze in a healthy amount of sleep.
To start of my relaxing day, I watched the first four episodes of what for me is a new anime series. This time I chose to watch Last Exile and so far I am very impressed by what I have seen. Stylistically speaking, the animation is very different from the last series I completed. Where Fooly Cooly had some mecha elements mixed in with humor and fan service, Last Exile is much more in the realm of steampunk. The characters live in a Victorian era world with fascinating flying machines and technology relying heavily on flasks and tubes. In an interview, the production designer said that he had the world of Germany between the two world wars in mind when creating the look, but to me the clothing and architecture of the world are much more nineteenth century than early twentieth century.
Something else about the series caught me by surprise. Now that I have more than a handful of anime series under my viewing belt, I am starting to recognize some of the voice actors. I could not place her, but I knew that the woman who did the voice of Lavie was familiar to me. Then when I did a quick search online, I had my answer. Kari Wahlgren had done a voice in Fooly Cooly, Wolf's Rain and Witch Hunter Robin, all three of which I have seen and enjoyed. I also recognized the lead male character's voice and found out that that actor had also been in Wolf's Rain. As silly as it sounds, I think that being a voice actor has to be a fun job. Maybe I not aware of some hidden downsides to the job, but spending time in a booth watching great animation sounds like a good time to me.
Yesterday, an issue of the Marvel comic book Thor from the year 1970 was delivered. This is the only issue of Thor that I own that was created by the classic team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I have yet to finish reading the book, but the style is not something that is seen in modern comic books anymore. Stan and Jack made have caused a revolution in their day, but somewhere through the decades that magic has been lost. Maybe I am being overly sentimental, but I don't think so, because I did not grow up reading these books. I came into the hobby after Stan had stopped writing and Jack had fled to DC. Neither of the two men were what drew into the world of illustrated adventure. Now decades later I get a chance to see what inspired so many modern creators to get into the field.
Yesterday I watched the best science
fiction movie that I have seen in a while. Despite having read reviews
saying that Danny Boyle’s movie Sunshine was slow, I enjoyed every
moment of it. Yes, the ending did seem somewhat awkward, but the
beginning of the movie made complete sense to me and I was not bored by the pace. I will also admit
that the movie did not tread new ground in terms of story, but that
does not mean that it was a bad story. Personally I thought that the moral questions raised were quite valid. Plus I loved the overall look of the ship with its heat shield and hydroponic garden. Best of all, I completely believed the interactions of the crew.
Earlier this week, I resumed an old habit of mine that I had missed; I went to the library for the first time this year. Where I used to live the local library was in easy walking distance of my place and I took great advantage of that quick access. Sadly that is no longer the case where I currently live, but on my two quick visits to this new library, it also seems to be a worthwhile place to spend some time. I am not sure if I will resume my weekly habit of reading the current issue of Astronomy magazine or maybe an issue of Popular Photography, but I enjoyed knowing that it was there for me if I wanted it. Plus I was able to get some guidebooks on Romania, Russia and Ukraine.
Despite the warning that diarrhea is a guarantee when one visits Ukraine, I think that that country is my first choice for my sojourn this year. Russia certainly has an allure, but sometimes the sheer expanse of the country seems to overwhelm me even though I know that I would probably restrict myself to just Moscow and St. Petersburg. Then there is Romania who cannot decide whether or not to love or hate its Dracula heritage.
I can’t say how much trust I put in what I read in travel guidebooks, because what I see when I get to these places seldom matches what I was told in the books. Oh, the famous attractions might be the same, but my personal experience is usually quite different from the helpful tips and anecdotes found in the books. For example, nothing that I read in a guidebook fully prepared me for the experience of dragging my luggage through the JR station in Kyoto. I knew full well that my hotel was located just a couple of floors above the tracks, but that foreknowledge does not suggest a sweaty journey of weaving through crowds with kilos worth of luggage looking for a sign with my hotel name on it. Once I had been there a day or two, the layout of the building started to make more sense to me, but that initial exposure was quite confusing if not frustrating. For a moment, I began to doubt that I would ever find where I needed to go. Nor could I ever have predicted the quaint and touching limited English exchanges that I had in various JR stations when I needed to book various passages on trains. To this day, I am grateful for the patience of the Japanese staff that I met in the JR stations who were more than willing to help the American man who spoke no Japanese except for a handful of words gained from pop culture. All that I could say was thank you once the transaction had finally been completed.
Perhaps I sound somewhat angry about what happened, but that is not my intent. I learned so much about the Japanese people and myself from these experiences. Until the day I die I will never forget the young attractive Japanese woman in the hotel restaurant in the city of Hakata who literally carried the poster board size menu from the front of the restaurant over to my table so that I could point out what I wanted to order. It might have been slightly embarrassing at the time, but it solved our limited communication problem and I did not walk away hungry.
