The Leader

Marisa’s lesson on how to “Spark”
Concentrate your mind
Mutter the spell to Mini-Hakkero tenderly
Aim at someone you don’t like
Now unleash your annihilation of love!

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So, up in Milwaukee yesterday I picked up a copy of The Leader at UWM. Reading the A&E section I ran across an article by Max Neibaur about the OC and pop-culture tastes of the masses.

Now, I don’t watch the OC. I don’t know what it’s about. That’s not important, because the article barely even mentioned it. It was just a rant about the terrible tastes of the masses. Of course, our hero and writer of this little tirade has good taste.

He also wrote this article.

First of all, he seems to lack understanding of what an entertainment medium is. The entertainment mediums exist to entertain. Thus, when a movie entertains it has served its purpose, and the more enjoyment that is derived the better the movie is.

Sledding and Prana

So, I was driving to work yesterday and caught a glimpse of that old sledding hill I used to go to every once in a while. That reminded me that I haven’t been sledding in a very long time.

So, I figured I’d just add sledding to my Saturday plans.

Just grab my sled and stop by the hill on my trip to Milwaukee and sled awhile. It will be awesome because sledding is so incredibly awesome.

In case you are wonder what prana is, it is a Sanskrit word. It means breath and refers to, essentially, ‘life energy.’ See the wikipedia entry. Why is it in my title, well, a few days ago I was reading a short rant on the term 魔力. A literal translation of this term would be ‘magical energy’ or ‘magical power.’ In the context of Type-Moon works it refers specifically to “magical energy” generated by a person. It is generally translated as ‘magical energy’ or ‘mana’ in this context.

However, I found this rant about a guy going on about how both terms are unacceptable. Another term is needed, so, like any sensible person he looks to Sanskrit for a good term.

The exact quote: “So I did what any reasonable person would do and used a Sanskrit word (Prana) because everyone knows that the world revolves around Sanskrit!”

Somehow, I found that awesomely hilarious.

Full website of rant (and associated rants)

In case you wonder, ‘yamareee’ (止まれええ) means, in this context, “Cut it out!”

Another amusing snippet: “Saber’s maximum speed + command spell boost is Mach 13.2.”

Mach 13.2 is 4492 meters a second. Yes, that is nearly 4.5 kilometers every second. You could circle the Earth in under 2.5 hours. It’s a little over Mercury’s ecape velocity. Almost twice the Moon’s. It’s about 40% of Earth’s escape velocity. It’s bloody fast.

Elitist Critics and Children’s Works

So, I was browsing amazon.com and looking at the Last Exile box sets. One of the reviewers caught my eye when I was further down the page. After reading the entry I was kinda mad.

“Well, if it is one of the best, then I am not a big fan of anime in general, and this movie in particular. I still find it OK as a kids’ cartoon, (and ships animation was good), but as an adult I was not much impressed.”

Madness came not from the reviewers opinion on Last Exile or anime in general, but on what that says about children and children’s literature.

Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it seems like this guy is saying that children’s stuff is the stuff that isn’t good enough for adults. Maybe it’s just referring to children’s cartoons, but saying that about one medium of fictional storytelling seems to imply that it would apply to all, for why would children’s cartoons vs. adults cartoons be any different than children’s X vs. adult’s X.

Children’s stories can be awesome. Some of them are in the realms of the best ever. Ender’s Game, Harry Potter, and Enchanted Forest Chronicles are all children’s books and they are all incredibly awesome books.

For something aimed at an even younger audience, and is a cartoon to boot, Lion King is absolutely fantastic.

Going for an even younger audience, and involving stop-motion animation, there is the awesomeness that is Thomas the Tank Engine. That show is awesome, and it’s for really young kids.

Or maybe I’m just really weird for being a 22 year old that loves a show for 6 year olds.

I Forgot This

I was going to add this to my last post, but forgot about it.

This amuses me because I took this screencap way back, went back over my screencaps folder recently, and got a good laugh because of all the B5 going on in my house at the moment.

Life Just Got a Little Worse

Today at work a new policy was implemented regarding when people take breaks.  Apparently someone complained about it being too crowded on third break, so now everyone has a set time that they are assigned to take break.

Well, the break I got assigned to does not have the people I normally eat with.  They are all the Nark’s people and I am Pam’s, so I sat down at an empty table.  This is not entirely bad.  Peaceful meals aren’t bad.

However, Enthusiast Lady is also one of Pam’s and she sits at the table I sit at.  However, she always took first break and I took last, so I didn’t have to deal with her everyday.  In fact, I almost never had to deal with her at all since I left the NAL cell. This is no longer true.  Now she and I share a table at lunch.  And I like my spot muchly and am not inclined to move to a different spot.  My family can attest to this tendancy within me.  So now either I move somewhere else or sit with Enthusiast Lady every break.

Ugh.

However, during small talk at the table, the unseasonably warm weather we had been having came up.  Lady mentions global warming as the cause.  People saying those kinds of things makes me so want to hand-forehead.  It shows such ignorance of what global warming is.