blueZhift Blog

Despite reminders everyday of the selfishness that humans can express, I think that fundamentally we want to share ourselves with one another. I think everyone wants someone to understand what they are about, even if we aren’t sure of that ourselves.

To that end, it was with great pleasure that I got the chance to watch Mobile Suit Gundam III with my wife last night at the Columbia College Asian Animation Film Festival. She only tolerates my love for anime, manga, and various elements of Japanese pop culture, in part because she’s Chinese. So getting her to go see a feature length production with me was no small feat, but I think she’s been trying to be nicer to me lately. <3

The good news is that she didn’t totally hate it at all. She said it was interesting, and I really had fun filling in the details of the various characters for her and expounding on how many of them are repeated in the many parallel Gundam series. I hope that maybe she has just a little better picture of what makes me tick, through the things I like. We’ve been married for a long time, but even now there are so many things left to learn about each other.

Maybe I’m just too sweet a guy or something. Or maybe I should practice being more obnoxious… I was looking over some lab results and noticed that the sex in the records is incorrect! I’ve been involuntarily transgendered! Hmmm, this might just explain something weird that happened yesterday. It was minor, but I’d better get this cleared up before any further hilarity ensues.

I ran across the ad graphic below yesterday, and as proof that sex sells, I’d love to get one of those, especially if the girl comes with it (dirty old man face)… Of course the association of the hardware with sexiness collides with a harsh reality as I recall seeing an old man wearing one of those yesterday as well! I may just wait for the implantable ones to come out in a few years.

Over the last week I’ve witnessed not one, but two downtown Chicago promotions that involved lots of people dressing up in costumes and making a commotion. The first had people dressed as fruit shouting and carrying picket signs for Naked Juice (and giving away samples, yum!). The second featured perhaps hapless employees dressed as orange and white cows (yes it was cowsplay) for ING Direct. I got a bad cell phone pic of the hapless cowsplayers. The people were probably not regular employees, but it still takes some guts to get dressed up like that even if you’re getting paid. I wonder how many of them actually do cosplay for fun? Hmmm, I wonder how many may actually be turned to cosplay after this gig?

Morning time is not the time one expects to get one’s socks blown off. Indeed, during most of the morning one usually isn’t wearing any socks at all! Nevertheless, I find myself having go and put another pair on at what I just witnessed.

I got a rare (for me anyway) peek at one of my youngest daughter’s drawings in progress. She’s a little smarty-pants perfectionist who usually won’t let anyone look at her drawings before they are completed, and perhaps not even then. But this morning, I was allowed a peek and was totally blown away. Looking at her drawings of scenes with various Naruto characters, I could easily mistake them for the work of her older brother. So in a very short time it looks like she’s caught up with him! I can’t wait to see how her own unique style develops as she continues to draw!

Perhaps it was only vanity if not cosplay per se, nevertheless, I think I may get some more years on the planet out of the deal. It all started with the crazy idea, fueled somewhat by my experiences at Otakon this year and the creative enthusiasm of my son, that I should do cosplay. So one of the first things I thought about was weight. I’d been trying to lose weight for a while previously with limited success, but now I was doubly motivated to do so. I got really serious, and the pounds have begun to come off. Next, the character I’m doing doesn’t wear glasses, so it was time to get contacts. I hadn’t been to my eye doctor in ages, so I was overdue. Little did I know what this would lead to.

My doctor checked me out and she noticed that my prescription had changed significantly in some weird ways. So she said I should go get a physical and some tests. This didn’t seem to be good news at all. But, I had been planning to do that sometime this year anyway (yeah right…) so I went ahead. To make a long story short, the doctor found some things that needed attention that are being addressed. So the cosplay can go on, and I get to live a few more decades in good health! Yeah, I’m putting a nice spin on this, but I really really hate being reminded like this that I’m not a kid anymore!

I had some extra fun on the way to work this morning. I was poking around in iTunes 7 when I remembered that I thought I’d seen something somewhere that said that Ayumi Hamasaki albums were available on the iTunes US store now. So I checked it out and w00t! Ayu albums on iTunes! So I bought one of the RMX remix albums and the Fairyland EP. Then I quickly burned the RMX album to a CD to play in the car on the way to work. Yes! <3

Well despite a lot of moaning and complaining over on Slashdot about the quality of the original version of Star Wars: A New Hope on the newly released limited edition, I went ahead and bought them anyway. I have the original trilogy on VHS, but I can’t even remember the last time I used the VCR and I have no plans to pull the thing out again either. So I finally have the originals (more or less) on DVDs that I got for $20USD per episode at Borders (less 10%, w00t!), which I consider to be a good deal. Yeah yeah, some people want everything absolutely perfect for $5/movie, but life is short and I was tired of waiting. So if the original trilogy is ever digitally remastered, then I’ll pick it up again. Ka-ching for George Lucas!

All of that said, this is a bit like a dream come true. I never got to see the original in theatres. I still remember being in line as a kid only to have the show sell out with just 5 or 6 more people in front of us. Later I’d watch it many times on HBO, but on a TV that had really wonky color. I even recorded it from the TV onto audio cassette tapes which also got quite a work out. So fast forward to now and widescreen edition DVDs with a boatload of extras and you’ve got one happy fanboy.

I’m sure there are thousands of blog postings around the internet concerning the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks. I remember the day as being one of great anger for me. I was angry because I’d just been laid off the Friday before 9/11. And as I watched the first tower collapse on TV, I was almost in a rage because I felt that the the stupid unilateralist policies of the Bush administration had set the stage for these horrific attacks. Five years later, I don’t really think the government’s policies or who the President was would have made any difference at all. The attacks were the result of hatred of the other, the not us. There’s no reasoning with hate, but returning the hatred doesn’t work either. It’s become a cliche, but we really do need to find a way to love our enemies. If war can’t conquer hate, then that only leaves love.

The day began here overcast, cold, and rainy. It’s a dreadfully grey Monday, and my daughter missed her bus stop and ended up being late to school. But am I down? No Way! I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I am having a blast working on my projects in Eclipse because today things are just working the way they are supposed to. The icing on the cake is Subclipse, the Subversion plugin for Eclipse. Installation and setup where just flawless, perfect for the blah blah Monday I could be having. I am one happy geek right now!