Hellboy II and Other

I saw Hellboy II a little later than I usually do. Dylan and I discovered that the Metro shuts down at midnight on weekdays in DC - didn’t cause problems when I lived in Georgetown, but it certainly hampers any sort of mid-week nightlife if I’m anywhere that doesn’t have a movie theatre within walking distance!

So we went Friday. Barely made the showing, in fact, which resulted in our being stuck up at the very front. My neck is still sore. Was it worth it? Hell yeah.

This is not the same Hellboy as the first. Gone is the focus on super-secret supernatural badassery (mostly because Hellboy reveals himself to the press early on); but with that facade gone, the door is opened to a whole new identity crisis for our hero. He finds himself hated and feared by humans, rather than revered. Gee - raise your hand if you didn’t see THAT coming! Enter the bad guy: Prince Nuada, last scion of the “elves” (modeled after the Tuatha de Danann of Gaelic fame). He’s passionate, but ultimately not all that menacing on screen, prefering instead to dispatch nastier beasties to do his bidding. He DOES, however, prove to be quite a schemer - putting Hellboy, for instance, in the position of killing the last Forest Elemental, a being of great beauty and grace, just to torture Hellboy’s conscience a little.

The weakness of the main villain, however, lets the movie focus on the development of our heroes. We’ve lost Meyers, but gained Johann Krauss - a medium composed entirely of ectoplasm. Cool beans, right? Despite the vast potential for screw-ups, Del Toro actually manages to make the character believable; and even with his shorter screen time, we see the character evolve to become part of the team in a thoroughly satisfying way.

In fact, the whole movie is thoroughly satisfying. There is one scene in particular - around half-way through the movie - where Hellboy and Abe drink, and muse on life and love. It’s moving in its natural power, choreographed like a well-written symphony, all to the unlikely tune of “Can’t Smile Without You” (sung by Barry Manilow). It’s quite possibly one of my favorite scenes of all time.

For all that, however, the movie fails to truly wow. It meanders from plot point to plot point with very little tangible conflict; just one witty quip and fantastic monster after another. It’s a pleasure to watch, but hardly world-shaking. I recommend it to any fan of folk tales, lore, and the supernatural; as well as to anyone who just likes to watch a fun action flick; but don’t go in expecting anything profound. The first movie was probably better for that.

On the blog… For those of you who don’t know, tomorrow is my last day of freedom before I’m plunged into the “real world”. I’m sure it’ll go by quickly and without celebration: after all, I have to be in bed by 9 PM if I hope to get to orientation on time and still get a decent night’s sleep. That sucks, but I guess sacrifices must be made…

I expect the first week or so will be busy, and that this blog will suffer. I’ll write when I can, though - you know, for those of you who read it…

Tags

I forgot to mention (though it’s been a few days and I’m sure anyone who actually reads the site will already be aware)… I’ve integrated tags into the blog. Wordpress’ newest version finally caught up with the trend in the Blogosphere and included them as part of the default functionality.

Unfortunately, Vistered Little didn’t. Or rather, I think VL was built with Tag Warrior in mind, because the coding COMES with tag functions prefaced with “TW_”. Needless to say - since I don’t have Tag Warrior, and the integrated WP tags aren’t compatible with any other tag service (maybe?) - that pretty much spelled doom for tags. I found a work-around, though, meaning that you can all enjoy tag-navigating-goodness.  Still working on fixing the titlebar’s glitch…

Cool fact #2 is the “Tags: ” line at the bottom of the post. I may not have figured out how to move the social networking links to the end of the post, but I DID build that “Tags: ” line from scratch. Quite the accomplishment for a 素人 like me.

And see? I’m posting. Updating the twitter feed and the tumble too…

More updates…

You know - it’s funny. I go into every long weekend with a list of affirmative, productive things I intend to do during my free time.

Of course, none of these things are ever accomplished. I have managed a few updates to the blog, though. You can now see Twitter updates off to the right-hand side - just in case you ever wanted to stalk me. All the link-porn which previously cluttered the blog is now exclusively restricted to my Tumble Log . I’m working on a way to integrate this blog and the tumblr in a logical way, but for now I’m just going to add a link in the sidebar.

Chronos also promises to post at some point. We all know what that means…

Changes…

For those of you who haven’t noticed, the blog looks a little different. My boss pointed out this theme, and I kind of fell in love with it. While I still need to make some modifications in order to be 100% happy with it, at least y’all get a stable theme that looks good in the mean time.

This change has also come with Flickr integration, meaning that I can plop photos in much more easily like so:

Nifty, huh? All the original functionality is preserved as well! This bodes well for the blog!

Hopefully, the next few weeks will see more real posts instead of linkdumps, as well as some of my thoughts, etc… Until then, adieu.

Blogs? Tumblr?

So this isn’t working. I think that should have been obvious from a while ago.

I guess I just don’t have enough to blog about? That or I’m not committed enough? Something… So I’ve decided to explore other options. I’m going to look into alternate methods of blogging, etc… and see if I can come up with something more engaging. In the mean time, y’all can expect a few scattered posts…

News, etc…

So life has been a little more busy lately. Should be a little more free in the next few weeks, though, so hopefully I’ll be able to finish the coding on the site and post a little more.

Today in the news there are two things I’d like to share…

The first is the Modu. In a rather stagnant cell-phone market it’s good to see someone making something original and creative. I might actually buy this - I’ve always kind of preferred to carry something slimmer and sexier, now I can have a work phone and a personal phone without having two phones!

The second link needs no explanation other than, “Wait… Polaroid still exists?”. Apparently they have a whopping 150 employees!

Later peeps.

I’ll bet he does…

This link certainly is interesting.

Comments later… Job Search = Death for the moment.

*Update*

This article should be titled: “Well-meaning if inappropriate joke met with typical right-wing conservative ‘creativity’!” Don’t get me wrong - I love the Christian Right as much as the next guy; I mean, how else would I get my daily dose of laughter? But this is ridiculous. You just know some southern lawyer felt god had “asked him to step up and defend his name” or some such bullshit. That or someone equally “clever” (not necessarily right-wing, conservative, OR Christian) thought it’d be funny to add a tongue-in-cheek reply. Either way - the response misses the point of the message. Probably cost the system money in filing costs and getting the whole mess dismissed. Good job, whoever. Well done.

Oops?

So… I suck at blogging, apparently. I’m also trying hard to make it home alive… It will take a while, but I’m going to finish this site and get all my pics from abroad uploaded. I’m hoping to even do that before school starts (Yeah, right…).

As a peace offering, almost a month late, I present:

“My Crazy Weekend” or “Why I’ve decided never to drink again (again…)”, Part 2

So when we last left off, I was recovering from Saturday night’s (expected) hangover. Monday at school was somewhat anticlimactic after that epic a weekend, but I certainly wasn’t complaining about having some down time. I was even looking forward to the “Oishii Tenpura” that one of my bosses (Futori-san, the manager of the Tachikawa Office) had invited me for.

Just to set the situation, I have to explain in my defense that my boss told me that he and another intern who’s been living with him (Marc) were going for “Oishii Tenpura” (Tasty Tempura), and asked if I’d like to come. That’s all they told me.

So, with that expectation in mind, I trundle off to Tachikawa in a polo shirt and khakis and arrive late - ouch - meeting my other boss (Iwasaki-san, the manager of the Diet Office) and Marc at the entrance to Tachikawa Station, which is a pretty big place but still only has two exits (nice!). Once we’d found everyone, Iwasaki lead us to the restaurant where Futori was waiting…

… And that’s when I find out that we’re being taken out to dinner by an important supporter of the Representative we work for, and that he’s paying for dinner. Oh - and this tempura restaurant? This is the type of place where they serve you tempura one piece at a time, and where the five of us filled up 50% of the restaurant. Uh-oh!

Despite my being the only one not dressed in Business attire there, I did my best to provide witty and sparkling conversation. Through most of the night, the supporter - Tanaka-san - seemed to be getting along pretty well. He even defended me from Iwasaki’s attempts to make me drink as much alcohol as she could force me to drink, and sympathized with me an Futori about Japanese women and other things. Marc and I spent most of the night stealing furtive looks at each other as we tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Among the things that impressed me at this place were things like wine that was 24% alcohol, tenpura’d whole fish, tenpura’d whole clam (you scoop out the contents with your hashi - very tasty!), shrimp legs (apparently the shrimp used at places like this are such high quality that it’s okay to eat the shells too!), and tenpura’d anago (Salt-water eel? As opposed to Unagi, which are fresh-water eels?). All in all, it was probably one of the top-five meals I had in Japan.

By the end of the night, I was WASTED. Arguing with my boss, walking funny, and more… And Tanaka-san? He had decided I was a terrible person. A terrible human-being at that. He was railing against me so much as we left the restaurant that Futori and Iwasaki asked me to go ahead and head home ahead of them. Furthermore, his comments and the things he said revealed a generous helping of the typical “westerners can’t understand us” syndrome. After THAT tirade, “Japanese people who equate ‘foreigner’ with ‘two-year-old intellect’ or ‘derelict’” filled the vacancy left by the newly-redeemed “Japanese Banking System” as the “Most Annoying Thing about Japan”. He wasn’t really the worst example I’ve seen, but the other people on the train with me as I went home were enough to solidify my annoyance. They kept scooting over, as if a drunk person was something novel and new to them - they seem to do this every time I sit next to someone on the train, but the feeling is worse when I’m drunk. And they insist on speaking English to me, even when it becomes clear I can speak Japanese… Very annoying. The oddest thing about the night? Even while berating me, Tanaka-san kept asking me to go out to dinner with him again.

The Japanese have a thing about drinking: when you’re drunk, everything is excusable. No matter what you say the night before, the next morning everyone pretends nothing had been said. It’s the sort of tacit social construct that allows Japanese society to function like it does, and it helps explain why office workers drink together so much. I think Tanaka-san was doing this, but I think he also was interspersing his knowledge that westerners don’t work the same way - so maybe that’s why he was inviting me out to dinner again?

Apparently he was serious, because he extended to me an invitation to come eat Kobe Beef with him before I left. Sadly, the timing didn’t really work out. Hopefully the next time I make it to Tokyo he’ll still be feeling guilty?

I barely made it home. Caught the last train (…) and stumbled back to my room before chugging as much water as I could. Part 3? Is coming…

Almost there!

I’m done with finals, so tomorrow I’ll be posting! Ironic that a study-abroad blog didn’t happen because of study abroad… Some things just aren’t meant to be. I will, however, be updating the gallery, etc… retroactively with info about my experiences…

For now, another video (Right-click and select “play”):

More Youtube…

Sorry for all the movies lately. Been busy with Midterms, etc…

Tonight, I have one from Japan, and one from the US. The first falls into the category of “WTF?” more than anything else. I’m not sure why you’d build a robot to do this, but if you won it like these guys did I don’t imagine you’d really mind having it around!

The second… Well, no matter how bad I feel for Peter Cullen or whoever they had do the voice for Prime, this commercial is pretty hilarious!