Dissecting Dr. Horrible

As of right now, you have just under 24 hours to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog for free at www.drhorrible.com. If you missed it, fret not, it should be available on DVD soon (we'll know how soon within a week, I'm sure). I, for one, will be picking up a copy as soon as humanly possible.

What I am going to talk about are certain elements of the characters that I found interesting and their relevance to the nature of the project as a whole.

Here's the proposition I'm going to make:
Dr. Horrible is the emerging culture of the internet (and online broadcasting). Captain Hammer is the traditional media. Penny is the consumer, being asked to choose between the two. The analogy is far from perfect, but here's my explanation.

Dr. Horrible has two distinct faces. There's, well, Dr. Horrible, who is trying to disrupt the status quo, rule the world, and enter the Evil League of Evil. And there's Billy, the quiet, lonely guy just looking for somebody willing to take the time to know him; but too shy to take the first step. At the end, we see that Dr. Horrible is mostly Billy. He's not misunderstood - he honestly does want to upset the status quo, simply because it's broken. Instead, he's misguided; turning towards the problem outside himself - the one he can "fix" in any number of ways - instead of the one inside - the one he needs to find a solution for. This leads him into emptiness and despair.

Captain Hammer is the definition of superficial. Beyond this, his only goal is his own glorification. He does what is "good" and says what people want to hear (even if sometimes poorly) because he knows that these are the things that will earn him the most praise. The response of the masses to his action is one that says the ends justify not only the means, but also the intent. He picks on Dr. Horrible because he upsets the status quo that honors him, and because most people are comfortable with the status quo and will perceive its defense as right.

Penny is superficially attracted to Captain Hammer because of his ability to do and say what she wants. She's utterly unaware that his entire motivation is his own gain. At the same time, while somewhat wary of Dr. Horrible - even without knowing him as such - she sees the value in him and connects with him on a more human level...she's just not willing to pursue a relationship - something she does with Captain Hammer because, on the surface, he is immediately able to meet her up front needs.

The internet has two faces. There's the internet: home of obsessed with piracy, who sit and work to disrupt the status quo because it doesn't agree with what they feel the world should be (free). And then there's the internet: medium for mass communication and shared expression that, despite its technological nature, is human and connecting. This medium allows artists the ability to genuinely be themselves and connect with fans at a strong, personal level and to derive support from the dedication this relationship instills. This is contrary to the traditional model of being as generally "acceptable" as possible so as to gain a larger, less attached fan base, whom you reach, for a price, through the media at large. As people better understand the way the internet works, this second face becomes more obviously the true one, but that first face still lurks, patently visible to anybody, its motivations threatening to ruin the more personal nature of the internet for everybody.

Big Media exists chiefly to promote its own existence and create profits for those whom are a apart of it. The programming it provides is intended to distract us - be it through despair or amusement - from our other options so that the money keeps rolling in. is constantly trying to manipulate the general public into seeing that first face of the internet as its true identity, make people understand it as an aberration that seeks to destroy this construct with which they are so comfortable, which brings them so much joy. They do this because the internet, by allowing people to form stronger bonds with those from whom they consume, threatens to damage the way they do business if it is used as anything other than a new means of the distribution of their traditional message and programming.

Consumers still love the traditional, Big Media, because it meets their needs at the most basic level. They are beginning to be attracted to the personal level at which internet based content providers can meet their needs, but, by and large, they aren't willing to fully invest themselves in the endeavor because things aren't as reliable, or as cut and dry.

Just as Captain Hammer's continued advances on Penny drive Dr. Horrible towards plots of increased violence against him, the Big Media's ever stronger advances towards the hearts and attention of the typical consumer - and their vilification of the (non-corporate) internet, drives the acts of piracy to greater desperation. And yet, if this piracy succeeds entirely - resulting in the fall of Big Media, it is at the expense of everybody. Without Big Media around, there's nothing new for the pirates to "liberate" except for the independent content creators, whom the pirates will then attack, preventing them from creating anything new; this kills the creative spirit of the internet, leaving it entirely devoid of its second, more powerful character; consumers are left with nobody to consume from; and the pirates, having completed their task, are left with nothing new to do beyond reinventing what they've already done. It's a dire situation for creators and consumers alike, one which leads to the fall of culture.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is, as much as anything else, a warning of what happens if we, the internet culture, allow our love of piracy and "freedom" overcome our desire for stronger, human connections and bold, new, exploits of creative energy. Doing so will certainly hurt Big Media, but at the expense of what truly makes the internet what it is. Joss Whedon and friends are helping to pioneer new ground in the use of the internet AS the internet - not merely a new means of distribution - in a new way of making a profit for creative effort. Please, support Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog; not only because everybody involved deserves to earn something, but because the internet is becoming more than we've let it be in the past, and we need to nurture that.

WTF, Nintendo

Last year, I wrote at mild length why I was really excited about the work Nintendo was doing with the DS and the Wii. After this year's E3, though, I'm more than a bit frustrated. The chief instigator is this year's "big" title: Wii Music.

Now, I'm all for casual games or "non-games" when they're done well (the new Animal Crossing game has me starting a new file in Wild World). I think that Wii Fit is a great idea and the Wii Balance Board has some remarkable potential applications. Wii Sports remains fun and the potential for increased movement correspondence with the MotionPlus add-on for the WiiMote has potential (too bad the only title demonstrating it is another Wii Sports game...). The issue is that Wii Music, quite simply, misses the point of music games entirely.

For one thing as a saxophonist, I'm legitimately insulted that they're trying to include wind instruments in this thing. There is no way that they can recreate the motion of playing a keyed or valved instrument with the Wiimote. With things like the drums or even string instruments (bowed or strummed), you can at least recreate the rudimentary physical motions. This isn't enough, though. There's a tactile sensation to playing these instruments that games like Rock Band at least make an effort to simulate.

In a nutshell, WiiMusic is asking you to pay money for a game that only lets you look like an asshole while you play in an airband (even worse, an airband where your hands need to be within a set distance of one another), mostly to music that nobody wants to form an airband to play. It's targeted at people who don't actually understand or care about performing music...and it's going to sell like wildfire.

The other thing that disappoints me about Nintendo lately is the simple fact that they're not talking about the DS (the best selling game system of all time) at all. Where in the hell is our new Metroid DS game (classic style)? Like the DS Castlevania games, this is one of those series were just making a solid game and using the top screen for a map would be more than enough. No dramatic touch support needed. What about Smash Bros DS? Keep the stage effects simple (and preferably fewer hazards) down and you could probably have a less laggy online play than Brawl. Hell, if you learned your lessons from Brawl, this could probably become the premier smash game. Pikmin DS? The success of strategy games on the DS proves that this is just begging to be made.

The Wii has asserted its dominance, you don't need to focus entirely on it. Sony is really promoting PS3-PSP connectivity. With the release of the PSP slim, it's gaining in market share on you...why in the hell aren't you doing anything to remind people why the DS is worthwhile? Right now, the only company doing much for you is Square Enix (I'll probably wind up grabbing The World Ends with You, the FFIV and DQIV remakes, and the Chrono Trigger rerelease, and I'm still eagerly anticipating DQIX). I suppose if you're going to let a console rest on the livelihood of one developer, this is a good one to have in charge, but you need to pick the ball back up and give us something good.

Anyway, I just thought I'd throw that out there. Microsoft and Sony didn't show much of worth (at least that we hadn't already seen) either. Not owning any of the consoles, I'll admit that I was the most impressed by Sony's show...but I'll also admit that I'm still a complete sucker for all of Sony's 2nd Party development teams. As much love as I have for Square's and Enix's SNES and PSOne era games, the announcement about FFXIII being cross platform did nothing to me. I was turned off to FFXIII from the very first video. Without Hironobu Sakaguchi or Hiroshi Minagawa (who gained my trust with Tactics and Vagrant Story) invovlved, there's very little keeping me attached to the series.

WALL*E is too good for words

Ummm...yeah. WALL*E met all of my expectations of quality without being quite what I expected in terms of a movie. All I can say is that any review taglines you've seen for this movie are going to be misleading; but it is absolutely wonderful and more than worth your time and money. I'd be happy to see this movie at least once more in the theaters.

I do want to touch on one thing. A lot of people seem to think that the movie had an environmentalist agenda. Those people are full of shit. There's certainly an anti-consumerist agenda, but it's generally hopeful and shows immense trust in the basic instincts of humanity once we push through our sensory overload.

In any case, I think I have a new favorite Pixar movie. I honestly think that WALL*E is worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. I don't know if it could win the award (I don't even really know what's down the pipe yet this fall), but it does so much with so much love that I wouldn't be surprised.

I've Been Reading

I've always enjoyed having eclectic tastes, and as I get back into the habit of reading and expanding my library, I'm finding that this habit is spreading to that area, too. Books that I'm planning on buying in the future run the gamut from Richard Stallman's Free Software Free Society to Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic series to Aquinas' Suma Theologica to the complete writings of A.A. Milne to the Feynman Lectures on Physics to The Tale of Genji.

On the immediate list of summer reading, though, we have:

Free Culture (completed)

The Geek Gap, (completed)

The Life of Pi

Neverwhere
edit 7-3-08: (completed)

WLT: A Radio Romance

Atomic Robo & The Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne

And probably a few others that I either haven't thought of yet or have momentarily forgotten my desire to read.

That said, I thought I'd share some brief thoughts on the first two on the list, as they're the headiest of my currently planned reading...you know, and the two that I've finished.

Free Culture is a very interesting read. Through stories and examples, Lessig shows us the history of copyright law, the challenges it faces from P2P file sharing and the internet in general, and how publishers and major content owners have encouraged law makers to completely overreact to these threats in an effort to even further expand the power of copyright holders over the development of culture. Being written in 2004, it displays remarkable foresight about how the internet and user generated content could affect the mainstream culture, but it's a bit out of date, too, with most content providers have learned to work with the internet. Copyright is still a major issue, but at least the potential of the internet as a means of distribution has been embraced. These days, I'd be interested in hearing more of what Prof. Lessig would have to say about the DMCA (which is only discussed briefly) and Net Neutrality.

Obviously, I'm more than a bit of an academic and something of a Lefty Lucy; so I tend to be a major supporter of the concept of the public domain. Those of you who are more artistically inclined may be interested to see how things like the current Orphaned Works legislation draw directly from Lessig's ideas for "improving" copyright.


The Geek Gap has been similarly enlightening. It says a lot of things about technologists that I've been noticing a lot lately, but wasn't certain how universal they were (for instance, a general tendency to focus on process over product). If you want to better understand the geeks in your life, you may want to check it out. It could be helpful for geeks trying to understand the business environment, too; but most of the geeks I know tend to be able to comprehend that mindset, it just takes a conscious refocusing.

That's about it, I guess. If you have any suggestions for reading, I'd love to hear them.

edit 7-3-08:
Additions to the list:
Brave New World
Snow Crash
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Japan Revisited

So, a good friend of mine is in Japan for the next couple of weeks; and in thinking about it and wishing well for her, I can't help but think back to my time there 5 years ago. It doesn't feel possible that it's been that long, but it has. Roughly twice a week while I was there, I sent out long winded emails to people. In cliché fashion, I titled these The Japan Saga, and each volume had 2 or three versions (one for family, and one each for a couple of friends).

For my memory and your amusement, I'm going to edit these different emails together here. In advance, I would like to apologize for some of the random, poorly conceived notions about Japanese culture that I had and some of the randomness. 5 years ago I was even less clever than I am now, and yet I was even more enamored with my own writing (amazing, I know). But, without further ado, I hope you're ready for a lot of text:

The Japan Saga Part 1

So, I am in Japan. Don't expect my normal perfect spelling and grammar. The shift and apostrophe keys are in very strange places on these Japanese laptops, so i don't bother looking for them. Also, don't be expecting any Japanese in my emails. When you're surrounded by a language you don't know, the last thing you want to do is pretend you do. The flight was long, but otherwise uneventful. I didn't sleep at all, so I was tired when I got here (it was 10 pm) so I was able to go to sleep then and I don't have any jet lag. Two days down, 26 to go and things are starting to look up. Shige speaks English better than when he was in Winona, so he can tell me what people are saying when i cant figure it out so the language barrier isn't too bad. i cant wait until i can understand and speak Japanese better though. Shige's mom is very friendly and helpful, although her English is only slightly less limited than my Japanese. His sister is being a great help, too. His father, while very polite and understanding, is kind of scary though. he's a Japanese teacher at the school and keeps trying to quiz me and teach me new Japanese words on the spot, which makes it very hard to remember. School seems like it will be alright, the four of us from Cotter are in all our classes together I think. The group from St. Johns Prep ended up not coming, but a girl from Cathedral High School in St. Cloud is arriving on Wednesday. We are going to a glass factory tomorrow, so that should be fun.

All in all, I've noticed three main differences between japan and America. First, there are a lot more Japanese people, speaking, and writing. second, they drive on the left side of the road and van doors are on the left side of the vehicle. third, advertisements are much more entertaining. I also now understand why Shige slept so much. When you hardly understand a word of what people are saying around you, you don't really care if you're around, so you keep to yourself, and that leads to overwhelming sleepiness. im very glad i brought four 400+ page books. They should last me the first three weeks, and hopefully by week 4 ill be able to semi-function. The food is a mix of good and different (read bad, but it could grow on me as i adjust and am forced to eat it) i find myself eating less than usual. little Shigemitsu ate as much as Chris Flynn and myself combined today (our host families went out together), which caused the two of us much laughter. As indicated above, I've found no end to the strange signs and products here, and will probably waste at least one roll of film on just that. We've seen things like anatomically correct dolly key chains that squirt water from their privates (they're boys), to billboards for an "ion revitalizing drink" called Pocari Sweat, to a CD by and artist named Mr. children. I've got pictures of all of them. I felt like shit yesterday evening, it just hit me that I'm here for a whole month. I've never been away from my entire family for over a week. today though, i realized i have a new family here, and its gonna be a lot of fun.

Peace out,
Jon, a minority for the first time in his life and loving it

Oh yeah, another difference, clothes are VERY expensive here (the cheapest shirt i saw was about thirty dollars and the most expensive was about 100), they sell ties with samurai fighting on them. I might need to buy one. Also, they show ninja movies in the department stores here.



The Japan Saga Part 2: Tofu Ain't Half Bad

So, it was my first real day of school today, and i think i learned more than in my last 3 years of school combined.

I learned flower arrangement isn't emasculating.
I learned how to get two octaves out of a recorder (the right way) in our junior high music class.
I learned that katakana and hiragana (the two writing systems) are the first things I'm actually going to have to study since elementary school.
I learned that girls are girly wherever you go.
I learned that a lot more Japanese people speak English than American people speak Japanese (the majority of the students we tried to interact with new at least a little English).
In Home Ec, I learned that I am good at guessing what people need me to do or are trying to get in a kitchen.
Also in Home Ec, I learned that once you get used to the texture, tofu isn't so bad.

They eat SO MUCH food here (and tempura, one of the more popular traditional Japanese foods, is way over rated. It's just fried whatever. It's like America with dipping sauce, and it sucks if it gets even a little cold*). Yesterday we went to tour a glass factory and the peace memorial park along with the family that Chris is staying with, and at lunch, there was so much food that Chris and i ate only about half our meals each, but all these other much smaller people ate their meals. Little Shige ate as much as Chris and i combined. Today, though, i found out why. the school day just takes a crap load out of you. There are six floors of stairs (twelve smaller flights) to take in the morning, and while you really don't climb all six again in the day, there's an average of three floors or so each class. And its hot, close to 30 degrees Celsius - about 85 F – with extreme humidity. If everybody from here acknowledged that it was hot, it wouldn't be so bad, but most of them were wearing jackets in class. We were ready to cry at the thought of it getting hotter. Nek said it best when he describe it as a mouth.

We probably wont be learning Kendo. We do have the option, but we wouldn't get very far, and there are only three other people in the club, all of them advanced, and we don't want to get in the way there. We might try the karate club, because Nek and Tucker both have strong basis in it and could help Chris and i if we needed it. The instructor and his senior student both speak very good English (the senior student just got back from a year at St. Johns Prep). I'll probably see what the band program is like because they got everybody excited about me. At the welcoming party we had after the meal in Home Ec, they talked Nek and I into singing after one of the Japanese students did because Janet mentioned that we could. This opened the door for Tucker to mention that he "just happens" to play the guitar. It wouldn't be so bad if he would play and quit, but once he DOES quit, he just goes off about how much he knows, and later he fakes humility... oh well, I can stomach him. You'll be disappointed to know that we don't get to wear those "cute" little uniforms. During the summer we just get to wear grey pants and a white polo shirt with the school logo on the front and the sleeves. They got ours specially made with our names in katakana, and we can take them home with us. Did i mention it's a mouth here? The food is mostly good. Some of the seasonings and spices take some getting used to, but it's good. We all already rejoice whenever we see coke that we don't have to pay 110 yen for a can (thats just under a buck. 120 yen to a dollar is the generic exchange rate), so we're glad we brought food from home. Whenever I crave something familiar, I just grab a few Cheese-its. I figure that I can have one Pop Tart a week, so I'm using my stash sparingly. The other guys brought a lot more food than I did, but I'm not as hungry here, I'm too busy to be hungry. Did I mention that they eat a lot? They do. I rarely finish a meal.

Shige's dad doesn't scare me anymore with his sudden, obtrusive Japanese lessons. Every night around 10 he does that (he doesn't get home till around 9:30). Mom, don't worry about trying to talk to them on the phone, Noriko would understand very little of what you say and Shige's dad would kind of scare you. He's nice, but his voice is kind of sudden and loud. I'm starting to love it here. i got my first view of the ocean from the Peace Park yesterday. Goodness gracious was it beautiful there. I'm glad I had my camera. I made a glass at the glass factory too, but I didn't get to keep it. They keep it and sell it.**

This thing is getting long...anyway, school should be fun. It's a long day, but i don't have much else to do here anyway. We have a lot of junior high classes because the language is easier and they are really excited to meet us, too (the junior and senior high schools are in the same building). We also get to help Janet teach some of them English. We all wish we had History instead of Biology, seeing as three of us have already taken biology and the other is next fall and we get pretty much no Japanese history in school; but we cant change that. I'm having a good time. We're the first Americans most of the students have ever met, and Yui (Nek's homestay person) and Miname (tucker's) are having a grand old time introducing us to all sorts of people. We are bound and determined to break all sorts of positive stereotypes about Americans, so pray for determination for us. I've gotta go study. i love you guys. bye. I'll give you guys a rest until something new and interesting happens, could be tomorrow, could be the weekend, I don't know.

Love,
Jon – who would write his name in Japanese symbols, but he doesn't know how to get katakana on the keyboard and doesn't know any hiragana yet.

P.S.
Yesterday, “Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head” came on the radio. Shige's mom and I sang it together. She knew it better than I did, and she was just parroting the English. It was fun.


*Note – not part of the original emails. I have since redacted this opinion of tempura. In Okinawa, they use a slightly different tempura batter that leaves things a bit soggier. Normal tempura still rocks.
**Note - this was a bold faced lie; I just didn't know it at the time. The crappy, lop-sided glass that I made is still sitting in our china cabinet.


The Japan Saga Part 3: Daily Life

Mom wanted to know some basics of daily life, so I thought I might as well tell all of you.

I get up in the morning around 6:30. Conveniently, I usually wake up sometime between ten to 6 and 25 after. At 6:30 though, I go downstairs and eat breakfast (Shige is usually still asleep and his father is gone by this time, so it is either just me or me and Mayumi and Shige's mom kind of serves us). Breakfast is often pretty American. We eat cereal or eggs, and once we had pancakes (Sunday seems like a month ago, not half a week). Then i shower and get into my school "uniform" (I just throw on a t-shirt and shorts for breakfast). After this, I have about twenty minutes to myself, so I usually check my email. Then we go to school and i spend a long long time there. We get there a bit before 8 and i usually don't head home until 6 or so at night. When i get home i hang up my uniform and put on a t-shirt and shorts and check my email before dinner around 7. Oh yeah, Shige's mom very kindly makes me a lunch everyday. i tried to tell her that we brought money to pay for it, but she just insists. i don't argue it anymore because apparently the school lunch is horrible. the Japanese students don't seem to mind (Shige eats there, he doesn't get a home made "bento" or lunch box). They have two types of school lunch. First is a bento type thing in a canister that the students just take to wherever in the school they feel like eating. This is what Chris and Nek complain about and what the majority of the students eat because cafeteria seating is limited. Then there's a cafeteria lunch that looks slightly more edible, but space is limited. Tucker also usually receives a lunch from home, and Nek's home stay mom has started making him one. We usually eat all together with our home stay sibling people.

Like I said earlier, Yui likes to kind of show us off when were around. They're trying to call me Johnny and laughed hysterically at the face and voice i made when they asked if they could, and they keep trying to get Nek and I sing again (They especially like him. They say he reminds them of Justin Timberlake). They're just boy crazy here, it's getting a bit annoying. Don't worry about me, though. I'm mostly used as a stepping stool to later talk with Nek or Tucker when they're otherwise distracted. I don't mind, though. Being a celebrity is hard enough, I wouldn't want to be a sex symbol too...or at all for that matter. Anyway, we laugh about it when they're not around. Some of the girls asked Nek to bring a picture of his girlfriend to prove that she existed, and that thing took about half an hour to get back to him. I think the fact that Ry is Korean somehow inspired hope in some of them or something. Tucker is digging himself a pit with all his big talk, a lot of which is becoming more and more fictitious, so we're just waiting for him to fall in it. I'm nice to him though, somebody's got to be. Nek and Chris are very grateful that it's me.

We decided not to do kendo, as in the month we'll be here we wont get to do much of anything (something like 6 practices) and we'd probably just be a distraction. Most of the guys are going to do the karate club, and i might as well, but I'd also like to see the band program (G Thug would kill me if i didn't bring back any info after i told him i would). Anyway, after dinner I write my email for the day, and then I go study/read depending on how focused I am. I've already passed my quota for symbols learned for the week, 1.5x as a matter of fact. Now we finally have sheets on grammar and conversation, and it seems like basic Japanese wont be too hard, we just need to expand our vocabularies. the only strange thing is that once something has been established as a conversation topic, it can be left out of all subsequent statements until the topic changes...like a pronoun, except it doesn't exist. If I get bored with that and am not too sleepy, I will play the piano or my Gameboy. the former more often than the latter. Shige leaves right after dinner for cram school and doesn't get back until around 10, same with his sister. His dad is a sensei (generic word for teacher) and doesn't get back from school until 9:30 or so. The last couple nights I've gone to sleep without seeing either of them, but tonight I'll probably stay up and visit some. I'm not fortunate enough to have a family where everybody speaks English or the mother makes gourmet meals and the father is an incredible guitar player or the little brothers allow me to inflate my already massive ego, but my family is awesome in its own way. As little as i can communicate with Shige's mom (I don't know quite what to call his parents so I avoid calling them anything, I think Igei-san would be proper for either of them, but I don't know*), we get along okay and I'm busy enough that I don't notice much anymore.

Dinner is usually a mix of Japanese and western foods. today we had some sort of light soup thing, a Chinese type dinner (the word she used was i think the same word they used as the Japanese word for Chinese food in cooking class the other day) with soy sauce in the rice. I'm not a big fan of soy sauce but i was full before i had to eat too much and it wasn't bad. For dessert we had this great peach mousse. Again, the food here is good. Vending machines are kind of expensive, but not too bad. for about a 17 ounce can of coke its 110 yen, or just under a dollar. The milk is REALLY thick and creamy, I don't mind it so much, but Chris hates it. i don't really worry about the vitamins because i eat just about anything they put in front of me unless i know i can't stand it. I'm even eating my carrots, so my nutrient intake from my food is high, I consume very few empty calories here. The miso soup isn't too bad, but I'm not a big fan. It's too bad that most of their soups are miso based.**

In case I didn't mention before, the best way we've come up with to describe Okinawa's climate is a mouth. It is hot and muggy and sticky, and it feels like you're ready to be dropped in gastric juices and digested. This weekend, however, I guess were going ice skating with a group from school and going to the beach (they have beautiful beaches here, unsurprisingly). that should keep us out of the heat. They have really weird toilets here. the "Japanese style" toilets are like a glorified ditch that you have to squat over, and most of the western toilets are like thrones with all kinds of buttons. We don't have either at my home, but Chris and Nek tell me they have "ass jets" in their toilets (I think that that's self-explanatory). They haven't tried them, but in the words of Chris "Part of me is afraid I couldn't shut it off, but another part says... hey... it could be fun". That's really all I've got to say, so I'm done.

Love,
Jon - whose name the Japanese mispronounce Joan because of their simple and straight forward phonetics


*Note - new commentary. In retrospect, I wish I would have just used the Japanese words for mother and father. I bet they would have appreciated it. I'd also like to note that, in retrospect, I feel like an ass for ever complaining about my host family, because these people were absolutely amazing and are responsible for shaping my notion of hospitality to what it is today.

**Note - again, new addition. I would later describe miso soup in this way:
Each time you have miso, you go through the same routine. The first spoonful, you think "this is awful". The second spoonful, you think, "eh, it's not so bad". The third you think, "hey, this stuff is pretty good". This summation was met with amusement and a fair bit of agreement from those with whom I shared it.


The Japan Saga Part 4: Let's Go, Mutant Healing Factor!

Not much new here. last night i had my first sleep over at which members of the opposite sex also spent the night AND my first chance to decline an offer for alcohol. Let's go, morality! Nothing really happened. Shota, Flynn's home stay dude, is pretty femmy, so most of his friends are girls. Thus, at his little party yesterday, which was a sleepover, there were females, and most of them slept over. There was really good food. Lots of meat. We miss large quantities of meat. Again, the girls all love Dominick. They pretty much leave Chris and i alone. People just love to poke his (Nek's) muscle. it makes us all feel a bit inferior. Chris` home stay father kept pointing at Nek's arm and saying muscle and then pointing at Chris' and saying mosquito (he's covered in bites). I had some, good quotes, but most of them were just making fun of myself or expressing our mutual frustration at how much of an unintentional glory hog Nek is. He can just do all the stuff they want him to do and hes perty. We ain't. At least I'm tied for a distant second with Flynn. What, with all our high-pitched happy noises and confused looks they think were "kawaii" or puppy dog cute and funny. Tucker, on the other hand, just seems too desperate; and he's also throwing himself at the first attractive girl with good English skills he found. We make fun of him a LOT.

The rest of the weekend was similarly eventful – with most of the events consisting of me coming to physical harm (thus the title of this installment).

We went ice skating the other day. Most of the people were skating for 4 hours. I skated for 45 minutes before I decided that the having fun should not cause that much pain. I needed the largest skates they had, which were hardly large enough, and the laces weren't nearly long enough to tie all the way. The skates had no side support to keep my ankles upright, so with my crap ability with skates, I just killed myself. I have big cuts on my knees from their horribly maintained ice and a large raw patch on the back of my right ankle from their inadequate skates. Fortunately, I still found ways to have fun. I walked around on the ice when the staff wasn't around, and I talked with people from the side and when they came off the ice for a break. I got some good pictures.

Worse, though, was at the beach yesterday. In short, life is not a video game. As such, falling in ankle deep water wont kill you. Thus, if you're clinging to jagged rock face exposed by the super low-tide in order to avoid walking in said ankle deep salt water, for the love of god, if you slip, don't try to catch yourself, especially with your dominant hand. The end result of this stupidity was 12 cuts on my left hand. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me, and by the time I got home, you couldn't tell how bad (and manly) it originally looked. The beautiful scenery is really the bigger reason that my lack of a camera is unfortunate, though.

Oh, yeah, we were special guests at the English Speaking Society meeting, so they wanted to teach us a Japanese game. it was a rhythm type pointing game, but it was called chekydacho...which we eventually realized was actually run together english for "check it out yo". We cried, and then we laughed, and then we cried some more. It's really sad.

That said, I'm checking out...yo,
Jon – who is feeling manly with all these cuts and potential scars



The Japan Saga Part 5: It Burns!

Hey all, it was a busy week for me, so heres a nice long update for you.

First and Foremost, though, a serious warning. The rumors are true, the ocean is filled with water, but this is no ordinary friendly water. It's satan's second favorite toy (his first being the recorder). It lulls you in with its beauty and promises of "fun" and "the origins of life", and then it turns on you. That's right, the nightmarish stories you've heard are true. THE DAMN THING IS FULL OF SALT. Oh, you may have heard this before, and thought "how bad could it be"...well... its bad. You go in and it feels cold, so you decide to go under to adjust to the cold, accidentally taking some in as you go. As you arise, you taste it and spit, "Good God, its salty!" then, you make the fatal mistake... you open your eyes...and as this fiendish liquid finds its way in, you can't help bu cry out, "IT BUUURRNS!". You subconsciously lick your lips to get rid of some water, only to find yourself spitting for minutes to get that wretched taste out of your mouth. the salt doesn't leave though. It is now a part of you. It has fused with the very essence that forms your soul, forever mocking you for falling for its deception... or untill you take a shower... or scrub off your flesh with a towel. However, this brings me to the second part of my warning: I you decided before this unholy incident that putting sunscreen on your face wasn't too important because you wanted to be submerged for the majority of your water time, so you did a half-arsed job of it. IMMEDIETLY RETURN TO SHORE AND APPLY GENEROUSLY... AND ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR SHOULDERS. Once my tussle with the salinity of the ocean was over, our closest star decided to take its turn for torment. and now, lets just say that my forehead matches my cheeks and my shoulders match my forehead.

That was yesterday. Over the weekend, our homeroom at school took a little overnight trip to a lodge by the ocean, so on Sunday morning we went to the beach. On Saturday afternoon when we arrived, most of the kids went to a gymnasium and had some free time, but Chris, Nek and i decided that we could do that any time, so we kind of explored the area. We probably walked somewhere between 6 and 7 kilometers. There were lots of pineapple fields and some nice woods and a mangrove swamp. That night we had a little grill out. there were also fire works to play with....mmmm....fire....

After my ordeals Sunday morning, Shige's mom picked us up early and we met his dad and sister and all of us went to the aquarium. it was REALLY cool. Apparently it is one of the largest in the world. They are the only aquarium in the world to have live adult whale sharks. Their big tank was about twice the size of the tank at the MN zoo, maybe bigger. They had several "smaller" tanks that were huge too and lots of exhibits. Shige's dad insisted on getting me a present, and the shirts were all in excess of 20 bucks, so I talked him down to an 8 dollar pen, but it turned out to be worth it. It's a black pen, a red pen, a mechanical pencil, and a stylus all in one.

After that, we went to dinner at what had to be one of the nicest restaurants in Naha (i felt kind of like an idiot because i was still in my beach clothes when all the waiters were in tuxes, but everybody else in there was pretty casual too). It was one of those spinning places, and I was feeling really out of it and confused and hoping for something familiar. When you can only pick out one or two words of every few sentences people say around you, you start to feel really dazed. Just then though, the piano player (i discovered that it was a live player about half an hour later when our table rotated into sight of it) started playing the piano arrangement of "Eyes On Me" (the main theme and vocal track from Final Fantasy VIII) and I was happy as a clam. Nobuo Uematsu (the composer of the Final Fantasy Soundtracks) is often referred to as the John Williams of Japan, i guess. I'm told that even some people who don't like video games listen to the OST's here. Then she played "loving you is easy because your beautiful". I was happy. The food was delicious. They served a cream soup that was about the best soup I've ever had. The beef was wonderful too. i felt guilty though, the cheapest meal (which is what most of us got) cost SEVENTEEN DOLLARS! wow... everything is pricey here.

Today was a holiday (Okinawa memorial day) so we didn't have school. Shige's mom took Shige and i to Shuri castle (the capital of the former Ryukyu kingdom) which was cool. I took a few pictures, but most of it was a museum and photography wasn't allowed. Then we went to an electronics store and i got Final Fantasy Tactics Advance in Japanese. I've played a little without trying to read much of it and it's possible, but with time it should make a great teaching tool. I'm going to need a sheet with some kanji on it though. they do use some of the basic ones though most of it is katakana and hiragana. When I get home I'll probably be spending a lot of time in front of the translation guide at gamefaqs.

Thursday we got to go to a touristy place thats modeled after a traditional Okinawan village that had this HUGE (and insanely beautiful) natural cave. apparently it is the largest of its type in Asia. i think the brochure said that there are over 200,000 stalactites. I took some pictures in it. the Okinawan village had some interesting craftish stuff, not too much to write home about, though, so i wont. They did, however, have a brewery there where they used habu (a very dangerous snake indigenous to Okinawa) to make some sort of alcohol. I took a picture of the holding vat.

Oh! Yeah! At the aquarium souvenir shop, I saw what has to be the most powerful item every wrought by man... a four dimensional puzzle. That's right, not only does it take up space in our limited three dimensions, but IT CAN CREATE A FISSURE IN REALITY AND MAKE TIME AS WE KNOW IT ITS PLAYTHING!!! I didn't get one out of fear that either
a. I would use the power wrongfully and unjustly oppress those who hadn't realized the puzzles full potential.
or
b. It doesn't actually work this way and i would have wasted 5 bucks on a crappy misprinted box instead of a nifty multi-headed pen.

Again, I took a picture.

I'm done now, love you, bye
Jon – now with 30% less man boob


The Japan Saga Part 6: Midgets, Marshmallows, and Trampolines

Hello again... don't worry, none of the objects in the title are related in any way to the last week, but nothing in the last week inspired a zany title for me, so i made one up... on to the update...

So... Tuesday was a pretty uneventful day... there was a Japanese speech contest in the afternoon that we got to miss, so Chris, Nek, Tucker, Janet, Madee, and I took a walk through a park and across a long bridge and to a store and across another long bridge and back to school. At the store i picked up a present for Jesce which I won't spoil here, but I will say it's not much but I think you'll like it.

Wednesday (is that spelled right? i can never remember) was even more uneventful. Instead of PE., Yamagata-sensei took us to a different part of the gym and taught us some basic kendo and karate. After that we went to a meeting of the English speaking society where we played musical chairs. It was kind of a waste.

Thursday we did even less i think. we had kendo practice during PE again... i think mom got the pictures in email, but I may be wrong and that was about it. Over the course of these three days I read EXCELLENT sequel to Ender's Game titled Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind are such great books that I bet even mom would like them despite all the sci-fi stuff. Orson Scott Card writes ethical dilemmas better than anyone.

The action started on Friday. After school we went to Kitanagagusku village (which is where Winona might start a sister city relationship, mom. not with Okinawa. Okinawa is a PREFECTURE (the Japanese equivalent of a state) not a city) where we visited with some students, many of whom apparently spent a week or two in Winona last August at the SMU De la Salle language place. we ate barbecue, which was so-so. Then we watched some traditional dances and preformed the one which we had been practicing after school every Tues and Thurs since we came. Didn't see that one coming, did ya? Shige recorded it and i think they're making copies for all of us to take home. It was fun. After that we went home and three of the girls who came to Cotter with Shige are friends of Mayumi's and spent the night. They made me play old maid with them for an hour, during which time there was only one game that i didn't lose. Then they made me teach them a card game so i taught them how to play gin rummy, in which i brutalized them. YAY. Then i went to my room, played FFTA for a while and went to sleep before midnight.

Saturday was busy too. i woke up and ate some Captain Crunch because my host family is wonderful. Then the girls tried to get me to play some cards with them again, but they remembered that i had mentioned owning a Super Famicom (the Japanese name for the Super Nintendo), so they dug that out of the closet and I played Mario for awhile and dazzled them with my "mad skeelz". After that i spent 20 minutes waiting for the water to boil so i could make Velveeta shells and cheese (once again because my host family is wonderful) for Shige, myself, and Chris, Shota, and Dominick, whom i was abruptly unformed were coming over. They also ordered Shakey's pizza, which brought back nostalgic memories until i looked at it, smelled it, and (apparently correctly according to Chris and Nek) decided not to taste it. Most of the pizza here sucks.

Anyway, after that the five of us walked to a karaoke place about a mile from Shige's house where we met Madee (who in case you don't know is the girl that came from St. Cloud) and a friend of Shige's. Fortunately, Tucker was too busy violating his contract (by going out on a “date”) to join us. We did that for two hours until our alloted time was up and then we went back home. From there, Shige and i went to a concert of the JMSDF (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (they're like the Coast Guard, except they have destroyers)) band along with Tucker's home-stay sister Miname (where they laughed at tuckers expense, O think). It was good. They started with a traditional Eisa dance (that thing they did when they were in Winona), then they had a smaller group play behind some Vegas-esque lounge singing type act which was good. Then the big band played and they were REALLY good. Unfortunately, they played mostly Disney songs, and i still hate Disney after the pops concert. When we got home, we ate dinner and visited some and watched a bit of TV and then i practiced my sax some and read and went to bed.

Today, Sunday, I woke up around 10. That felt good. then we ate breakfast and I lounged around some before Shige and i went to Kokusai Street, which is basically where they have all their neat little shops. We met up with Chris and Shota (again) and we looked around and had some lunch (traditional Okinawan soba noodles) and i finished my shopping for the family and I've still got 15000 yen (over 100 dollars) left and i haven't even used my checking account. I saw the most offensive store in existence that wasn't blatantly a porn store or the like(which is saying a lot, I dont even know how to describe it), and Chris bought some "amazing clockwork boobs" for Brendon at a different, less offensive store if thats any indication. They also had a "walking pecker". They were pretty much small rubber breasts and penis respectively that had little feet and you wound them up and they walked around. Lots of tastless stuff here. They also had boobie balls at another store. It was very disturbing. When we got back, we met Shige's father for dinner out again at a nice buffet. The food wasn't as good in my opinion, but thankfully it was cheaper than the place last weekend.

And thats it. My sunburns on my face peeled and stopped hurting by wed. and my back started peeling Thursday and is almost done now. i think I've lost a fair amount of weight. My boobies are very noticeably smaller. I admit it, i just wanted to say boobies there, but it is true. I'm done now. I'll send the last installment on Wednesday and I think I'll edit it all into one document when i get home and print it off for people who want to know "all about" my trip and test their commitment.

love you all and I'll be home soon,
Jon



The Japan Saga Part 7: The Black Helicopters are Coming...the chipmunks told me so

I'm on auto-pilot right now and in a hurry to get packing, but I promised a conclusion to the Japan Saga. and so be it you'll get one.

On Monday we got to leave school all day and go on tours of castle ruins all along the south side of the island. We saw three different ones and it was really cool... I hadn't found my missing fourth camera at that time so I only took a few pictures, but I can describe it to you and I've got some brochures too (i have them from all the places i went that had brochures)... If I had access to a scanner I would make a powerpoint out of this trip for the stupid people, but I don't. I was hoping to get to go right home after that, but a bunch of the students wanted to go get pictures taken with us at those picture booth thingies (they're really popular here, they basically turn it into a game... we've seen like little groups of punks going into them and getting pictures done...it's funny). We all found that to be rather silly, but we complied...or most of us did...Tucker went on a tirade about how no one in his host family tells him anything in advance and they all hate him and he had had a deal to help teach an English class for money (which I think would be illegal and he made himself miss it by not simply explaining the situation, sticking to his plan, and taking a cab)... so we waited and waited for him to finish so everybody would go, and we ended up going to a manga (comic book) store and waiting. For 100 yen I got peter a cool birthday present (the first book of Rurouni Kenshin), so that was cool. Anyway, at the place we went to three different picture booths and got pictures with Hinako, Yui, Natsume, Shige, Shota, Chris, Nek, Maddee, and myself (they all have different options, and they wanted a variety). We started this about seven and didn't finish until eight. Then we needed to figure out how to get home. While we were waiting for Shige's mom, we ate at McDonald's, which was right below the shop filled with photo booths. It's incredible, even McDonald's is healthier for you here... they have vegetable juice you can order, nice little gelatin type desserts, and everything is way less salty. We got home around nine and I did very little.

Tuesday we had kendo practice in the morning with Yamagata-sensei (who IS the coolest old man in existence, but I'll explain that at home, once again, the impact wouldn't be there in typing). he brought his practice sword (a real katana without a sharpened blade) and showed us some iaido (a sort of meditational form of iaijutsu, kind of like kendo is to kenjutsu) which mostly taught the art of drawing your blade and striking in one lightning-quick motion. then Kishaba-san surprised us and told us we were going on another castle tour in the northern part of the island. We ate lunch in a little park and went to see the castle. It was cool because it was this huge place that was destroyed completely (meaning nothing left, not even walls) that has become some sort of archaeological project. The foundation was still partly intact and they found records of its being built, so they are putting everything back together the way it was, hand-laying each brick as they search the earth for artifacts. It's cool mostly because it probably took at least 50 years to build, and in the last 15 with far less man power than was probably present at the original construction they have got the walls probably more than half rebuilt. Afterwards, we went back to school and got ready for the sayonara party. It was fun. we each made a short speech (about 30 seconds) in English saying thank you or whatever, and we got little certificates, and the principal and the vice principal both spoke. then a few of us did a little talent thing and ate food and had lots of pictures taken of us. i played the bari sax they let me borrow, and I got lots of compliments. the vice principal plays drums in a jazz ensemble and he complimented my tone quality numerous times. I played somewhere over the rainbow and autumn leaves. I was thinking of just starting some rocking improv, but decided against it. Shintaro surprised a lot of people by making them aware of how sturdy I am by randomly jumping on my back when I wasn't looking several times, and later Tucker jumped on Fumiyoshi's back and I picked up both of them and carried them around a bit because i needed to lift something heavy (Fumi and Shintaro both spent the last year at cotter).

Today we spent about the first hour answering a questionnaire long answer style and then waited around for awhile to go out to lunch with the vice principle and Kishaba-san and Yamagata-sensei (the coolest older guy alive). We went to a Japanese restaurant called the King Kong that had Stonehenge as the background on their accounting computer thing... talk about multi cultural. I cant remember the Japanese name for the type of restaurant it was, but it's like a buffet and you pick up some refrigerated meat and cook it over a grill thing at your table. It was cool. They would NEVER be able to open one in the states with all the sue happiness, it would be way to easy to intentionally under-cook something and give yourself food poisoning or burn yourself.... stupid capitalism. Then we got back and Chris and Nek got to go home because they knew when we were getting back early somehow and their host families picked them up. We waited around for awhile and then were told that the principal would like to have a meeting with us, so we did that and it was cool. Then we went back to the office to wait for school to get out so we could go home.

I cant wait to come home tomorrow, I was so excited that while we were waiting i started to regress (meaning i make silly voices and noises and say and laugh at stupid things) in order to conserve mental energy. We were coloring, and i couldn't draw an ear, so Maddee made fun of me as a joke, so i said i was angry, so i was going to draw a bad bad man who would hurt her, so i drew an evil man with blue hair and a beard and a naginata and scars, and everybody said he wasn't scary, so i covered his clothes in red and drew red along the blade of his naginata, and said it was the blood of their families (i know thats terrible, but we were all feeling like intelligent 6 year olds at the time, so nobody was offended and the English speaking office help was laughing hysterically at the antics of Tucker, Maddee and myself)... then she was drawing a picture of the ocean and wanted to draw an island and decided to use black, and tucker said there aren't any black islands and i said "there are black helicoptors...they come for the dead..." and we giggled at the broken logic, and people started to think i was crazy (that was where the first part of the title comes from) and then just to prove their point we started making strange noises as a competition, and Tucker mentioned that his dad could make this really weird noise, and that he always said that it came from "when he was little he was the fat kid and the chipmunks were...". To that I said "The chipmunks tried to talk to me once, and I told them 'the doctor says I'm not supposed to listen to you anymore...' " (and thus the second part of the title)...yeah... i had regressed, remember? So then i made a subliminal message because tucker was trying to get me to drink some pop that i didn't need, and I told him that if he could figure it out, I would drink it... but then they told us we could have the pop so i told him what it was and he said it and I drank about a cans worth and am saving the rest for the plane ride (its a 1.5 liter bottle). and then we said goodbye to a bunch of people, and I came home and started writing this and ate dinner and finished it now. They put corn EVERYWHERE IT DOESNT BELONG. they put it in tacos and pizza and spaghetti sauce.

Bye until tomorrow...mwahahahahahaha.

Jon, who still feels like hes six because hes on autopilot until the family gets home so he can take pictures finish packing and GO TO SLEEP.


THE END

So, as you can see, a lot of things were "cool" and the food was simultaneously good and awful. I saw a lot of things; didn't take nearly enough pictures; and was either envious of or irritated with half of my companions. I didn't realize how awesome my host family was until long after I fell out of contact with them...it was probably the best month of my life. Thanks for putting up with the space.

Thoughts on Indiana Jones IV

There were good things to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There were more not so good things. I'm going to go point by point and be relatively brief on each one, because that's going to be the best way to do this. First, the good.

Harrison Ford still gets this character. He was fun to watch, and the escape from the warehouse at the beginning was (mostly) classic Indy. When it worked, the banter was fun. Unfortunately, it didn't always work.

The first part of the movie in general (I'll be generous and say up to the point where the titular Crystal Skull is found) was a solid experience that mostly remembered what made the series great. There were a few missteps even in this portion, but they fit into broader categories and will come later.

Kate Blanchet and Karen Allen were both great. Obviously, Allen's Marion Ravenwood was nowhere near as feisty as in Raiders, but that's to be expected; and the new tone of the banter between her and Indy worked about as well as possible. Kate Blanchet needs to play the villainess more. She seemed to enjoy the opportunity, even if her Ukrainian accent occasionally allowed a bit of British to slip in.

Now for the bad:

The whole issue at the beginning of Indy being a security threat is never really addressed. I mean, at the end of the movie, everything is fine, but why? They didn't prove a damn thing about his involvement. There's no evidence at all of what happened in South America, and even if there were, it's largely unrelated to what got him in trouble. The whole issue was stupid in the first place and didn't even serve as a catalyst for much of anything plot-wise.

Mutt was just a poorly defined character. The ridiculous greaser moments with his comb or switchblade were distracting; and he just seemed to fall into the adventurer role too naturally - noticing things or making realization he shouldn't have the experience to notice; things that Indy is allowed to do because he has the background. Obviously, they're trying to make his status as Indy's progeny as blatant as possible, but it just doesn't work. Not only did they actively take what could have been bad ass Indy moments and instead make them stilted Mutt moments, they didn't make him a likable enough character to legitimize the sequels that Lucas has already stated a desire to make with him.

Speaking of George Lucas, WTFCGI? Ground hogs? Monkeys? Where the hell do these things come from? What purpose do they serve other than to be blatantly computer generated frustrations that detract from the goings on by breaking the mood for no reason? Dammit, Lucas, stop being so enamored with technology and learn to use it as a tool, not a medium.

The Crystal Skull itself was ridiculous. Instead of being a fun, religious MacGuffin, it was just an omnipresent Deus ex Machina. Sure, I'll admit that the artifacts in the original three movies did act as Deus ex Machina come the end of the film; but Spielberg and co. just kept on attributing random powers to the skull for no good reason. Also, while it makes sense that the Russians wouldn't be seeking religious artifacts the way the Nazis were in the previous films; it still felt a bit that by using an alien relic for this film instead, they were equating religion with science-fiction.

Bringing us to the final point; the entire alien thing seemed contrived in general. The scene in the antechamber was, like much of the film, awkward and even more nonsensical than was necessary. The utter confusion of the proceedings made it amazingly anticlimactic at the same time.

All in all, the film was still fun, but I think I was expecting a bit too much when I went in hoping for another Temple of Doom at the worst. There are fun action sequences all around, and the character of Indiana Jones is still very much alive, even if not everybody remembers how to tell a story around him.

Whoo! Iron Man!

Saw Iron Man tonight, and I was blown away. Considering the critical reception, I was prepared for something good; but I didn't know what exactly, and I'm glad for that. In short, Iron Man is everything its genre should be, and in a word, that's fun. The action sequences are spot on for the character, the humor is built on sight gags that actually fit what's happening rather than breaking from the action, and the performances are excellent. Unlike the Spider-Man movies, especially 3, where characterizations are uneven - sometimes completely over-the-top, sometimes relatively believable - everybody here fits into the same genre convention mold. And because everybody obviously exists within the same general, larger-than-life style that comic book characters belong in, it's easy to accept their characterization as such.

Sure, the plot is a bit thin; but that's to be expected for a number of reasons. Iron Man is in no way intended to be a single film. Even if the franchise doesn't continue individually, Marvel has confirmed that they are setting up for The Avengers. This film provides a back story and a personality for Tony Stark in the exact fashion that we need if we're going to see more of this character - and more importantly, it makes us want to see more. It's also important to note that Iron Man's solo career hasn't left a whole lot of memorable material; his legacy is his character and the way he interacts with the rest of the Marvel universe.

I think that the film's strength is displayed perfectly in the sequence where Tony is perfecting the flight of the Mk. 2 suit. The look of exhilaration on his face as I learns to control his motion is spot on - the strange mixture of raw terror and pure joy is indescribable. In that moment and throughout the entire rest of the film, Robert Downy Jr, is Tony Stark.