Thursday, January 22, 2004
Happy Year of the Monkey, everyone. Mom, Carlo and I had dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant to celebrate. If you haven't got any nice Chinese restaurants to go to or people to go with, you could still celebrate the lunar new year in an appropriately simian manner by going to 100monkeys.org and aiding the efforts of SCIENCE!
Oh, and I also managed to put up a new site design for that comic last night. Though most of the actual site stuff is still not there. Martians attacked at 09:13 p.m.! Where were you? ~
Monday, January 19, 2004
That new anime channel has started airing. I've just been sitting here the entire night, watching anime after anime. How the hell am I ever going to get anything done anymore?
I find it kinda funny that half of the series in their lineup seem to revolve around the concept of artificial life, or technology dominating human existence -- Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, Chobits, Astroboy, Cyborg 009, Cyborg Kuro-chan (heh XD), DT Eightron, and that "Texhnolyze" thing, as near as I can figure whatever that's about. Is it part of Sony's propaganda machine, to make us believe that robots are our destiny? So we'll all just roll over the day the Aibos rise up and conquer the world? Martians attacked at 11:26 p.m.! Where were you? ~
Friday, January 16, 2004
The boxed liquid refreshment known as "Magnolia Chocolait" no longer exists in this world. In its place is something called "Nestle' Chuckie". This realization makes me sad. Chocolait was my drink of choice back in grade school. And now I can't even remember how the jingle in the commercials went.
I think this trailer makes it official that it's impossible for Hollywood to make a non-cringeworthy movie out of a children's book I have read and loved*. They proved this with Tuck Everlasting and Matilda, and look set to do it again here by turning Ella Enchanted into "Shrek meets The Princess Diaries". Ecccchhh. Haven't seen the movie of Holes, but this precedent hasn't exactly inspired high hopes for it. (*Of course, this fails to account for the fact that I enjoyed both Harry Potter movies... ah, whatever.)
Van Helsing, though, is totally Vampire Hunter D. That hair? The hat? Come on. Also, throughout that trailer they kept saying it as if "Van" was his first name or something. Go on, man, you can say your first name. No need to be so insecure. The sexy vampire ladies won't think you're less cool and badass just because your name's "Abraham". Just don't ever let on that you're Dutch and not English, or there'll be trouble. XD Martians attacked at 11:34 p.m.! Where were you? ~
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
I've just put up the first new page of that comic for this year. Whee.
According to The Onion's latest round of horoscopes, Shinji Ikari and 50% of all anime heroes are Leo: "Your credulity will be stretched to the limit by the circumstances under which only you can control the giant robot."
Holy poopcrap. According to this article, "Smallville" was originally created as just a two-part episode in an ongoing TV series called "Bruce Wayne". WHY, GOD??? Why did they not go through with this young Bruce Wayne TV show??? I would have been a slavering devoted fan, I swear! They would've gotten some hot young punk to play Bruce Wayne, and some unjustifiably attractive middle-aged Englishman to play young Alfred, and they probably could've worked in some drama with a young Selina Kyle or young Joker or Dick Grayson's parents, or maybe young Bane could kick young Bruce in the shins... THE CRUEL FATES!!! THEY SHAME ME WITH THIS LOSS!!! ;____;
On a vaguely related note, I've been wondering lately why I find myself unable to watch X-Men Evolution. Every time I turn on the TV and find that show, it strikes me as a fairly interesting and well-put-together series, with nice designs and decent animation. Sure it takes liberty with the original comics, but so do the movies and the old cartoon from the 90's and I loved all of those; and besides, I haven't had a clue of what was going on in the X-Men comics for years.
Sure I tell myself all of this; but I still can't watch X-Men Evolution for more than a few minutes without feeling uncomfortable and changing the channel. I'm not sure why. I guess some portion of my brain just can't stop saying, "Beast is an adult and Cyclops, Jean Grey and Iceman are kids? Forge is a kid and Storm is an adult? The evil mutants are now kids too, and not evil, and Kitty Pryde is dating Avalanche because Colossus is off being a bad guy along with Gambit? What's up with that?" It's kind of the same with Batman Beyond; it seems like a cool enough show, but I just can't bring myself to call that skinny young punk Batman. Does this make me a crotchety, closed-minded, old-school curmudgeon? If so, why does all my soul within me burn for an "Adventures of Young Bruce Wayne" TV series? WHY, GOD??? Martians attacked at 11:54 p.m.! Where were you? ~
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
Oh my God, Thundercats is on! And it's my favorite episode of Thundercats ever, the one where Cheetara busts ass and Lion-O is a complete idiot (as if that doesn't describe every single episode). This is the one where the villainess of the week tries to seduce Cheetara and it doesn't work because Cheetara is straight, and this apparently comes as a huge shock to all the bad guys.
Cheetara has the greatest voice actress ever. For a character whose main gimmick is the ability to run really fast, she sure... TALKS... REALLY... SLOW. She also plays every single female character in the series. So at the end of this episode, the defeated villainess screams "IIII... OOOONLY... WANTEEEED... TOOOO... BEEEE... FREEEEEE!!!"
Man, they just can't make cartoons like this anymore. Martians attacked at 10:52 p.m.! Where were you? ~
Monday, January 5, 2004
Holy poopcrap. Something called "Animax" has appeared on our cable lineup, and is apparently going to be a 24-hour anime channel. Starting January 19 they'll be showing (among other things) Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, GetBackers, Chobits, Urusei Yatsura, the new Astroboy... holy poopcrap.
Starting from New Year's, I've sort of started writing in a diary, so that's at least one partial excuse for my lapses in writing here. Still trying to figure out what sort of inane drivel goes here and what sort of inane drivel goes on paper.
But here's an example of something I just have to share here: one of the weirdest bits of spam I've ever received. You know those mails -- the ones with a subject header like "IMPORTANT BUSINESS PROPOSAL", purporting to come from the widow of the Prime Minister of Uganda or the daughter of the former Secretary of State of Nigeria or whatever, with some story about how they have a jillion dollars in some bank somewhere and they need YOU to get it out for them. I'm sure everyone has gotten one of those at some point. I get about fifty of 'em a week. But this one...
From: mrrssjjjoseph@netscape.net
Dear Friend,
My name is LOI C.ESTRADA,The wife of Mr. JOSEPH
ESTRADA, the former President of Philippines located
in the South East Asia. My husband was recently
impeached from office by a backed uprising of mass
demonstrators and the Senate. My husband is presently
in jail and facing trial on charges of corruption,
embezzlement, and the mysterious charge of plunder
which might lead to death sentence.
The present government is forcing my husband out of
Manila to avoid demonstration by his supporter. During
my husband's regime as president of Philippine, I
realized some reasonable amount of money from various
deals that I successfully executed. I have plans to
invest this money for my children's future on real
estate and industrial production.
And so on and so forth about how she needs YOU, her trusted personal confidant and foreign business partner, to contact her or whatever so she can give you a bunch of money to invest in stuff. Aside from the curious use of singular forms (apparently Erap only had one supporter during his term as president of the Philippine), the very existence of this mail gives me a weird feeling. Like all of a sudden, we're that "exotic", "OTHER" country. I start to imagine some rube living in the States receiving this and going "OMG I cn gett money from teh prezident of PHILIPPINE in teh South East Asia!!!!!1"
...Not that that's ever going to happen. I mean, nobody's dumb enough to actually fall for these e-mails. ...Right? Martians attacked at 05:53 p.m.! Where were you? ~
Subject: urgent
Thursday, January 1, 2004
So, yes, we got back yesterday afternoon. Baguio was AWESOME. I spent all my time sleeping, ordering room service, eating, and watching various exotic cable channels we don't get at home. (Okay, so we did leave our rooms once or twice. Maybe.) It was indeed pretty darned cold -- too cold for me to get nearly as much drawing done as I had hoped to. Instead I curled up in the chair in the corner and read 'Perdido Street Station', which I'm more than halfway through now.
And last night, we had our annual family New Year's Eve dealie in Tito Kaiku/Tita Vickie's house. It was nice. Relations who were in Hong Kong over Christmas brought me a stuffed monkey (Year of the Monkey thing), whom I have named Ricchan-san and who now sits next to Goemon Ishikawa and Guyito the Carabao atop my monitor.
Everyone seems to be doing some sort of Year in Review write-up, but I'm just not feeling inspired to. I try, but for some reason no noteworthy events pop into my head. Apparently there was some kind of war in some country somewhere, and some sort of plague wiped out the entire population of China, and some woman wrote some book called 'Order of the Kleenex' or whatever that seems to have sold a few copies; but who knows anything about all that? I can't think of any profound reflections to make on any of it.
I guess the one thing in 2003 that stands out for me, that I'm truly proud of, is starting that comic. I haven't done a very good job of updating it consistently or prolifically. In eight months I've drawn 29 pages, which is a pretty paltry number. But it is the greatest number of pages of a single comic that I have ever drawn, ever. And none of it existed twelve months ago. That's gotta count for something. Martians attacked at 08:25 p.m.! Where were you? ~
E-mail: daedalus@icarusfalls.com
Website: Icarus Falls
Age: 21
Location: Manila, Philippines
Material Desires: see here
How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down?: 42
FAQ:
Q: What the heck is that?
A: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a cool steampunk-ish comic series by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill which has several prominent literary characters banding together to form a Victorian-era superhero team. Aside from the principal characters, the series also contains cameos and references to just about every bit of fiction ever written in the Victorian era. This layout features the cover from Volume 2, issue 3 of the series. And now that I've finally read the issue in question... LOOK OUT, MINA! Don't run into any invisible and brutally violent psycopaths plotting to sell England out to the Martians! Oh God... X____x
Q: No, I mean this thing. What is it?
A: Oh. Well, it's my weblog. I write junk in it.
Q: No, THIS thing!
A: What, that? That's a walrus. Careful, they're very territorial.
Favorite Stuff:
Other Blogs:
Rings and stuff:
« ? otaku blogs # »
«
?
CLAMP Logs #
»
«
?
X Logs
#
»
<
#
HP
Fan Logs ?
>
<<
!
what a dumbass!
*
>>