When I was younger, I used to watch a bunch of TV. I guess it was mainly because it was really the only form of electronic entertainment I had at the time, we had no game system and there was only one computer in the house; my dad's. I watched it enough to where my parent suddenly became convinced I was addicted to TV, which was something completely overblown and dumb, and in retrospect I really should've just grabbed a dictionary and pointed out what "addiction" actually meant, but that's something to talk about for another time.
Anyhoo, the point here is through the years I've watched a lot of TV, kept up with shows, eagerly anticipated the new season, so on and so forth. Then, some years ago, that went into a steep decline, however, my love for anime suddenly started to peak and now I watch a high amount of that. So what happened? How and why did one replace another?
It's not an easily answerable question. A factor in play here could be commercials, which I've become more and more disgusted with as the years go through. It's like you're watching something, commercials come on, and you think it's the worse one you've ever seen, and then two minutes later here comes something ever worse. I have no idea how they do it. Personally I think the entire oh, advertisement affects you whether or not you like it thing is a little shaky. I know it may influence some, but as for me, I find it more of as a source of information for some things I may be interested in. It can tell me when a new phone has arrived, or something like that, but just because I see a Big Mac on the screen 30 seconds at a time several times a day doesn't make me want to go to McDonald's any more since I find the place vile. Who knows, I may just be weird, but I still think that if you're influenced by ads that much, there's probably something wrong with you.
So, the complete inanity of commercials are a factor, but hey, there's the internet! You can easily watch TV shows now on hulu, or, if you're like me, through torrents (yarrrrr, I'm a pirate). However, I still find myself being less and less interested in the actual content of regular TV shows. Even shows that I enjoyed for a while like Bones and Burn Notice (hey, fuck you comedians who say no one actually knows and watches Burn Notice) that I just found myself getting bored of and not really caring to watch any more. And I think where the big contrast between TV and anime comes from.
See, usually TV show start with a genre and premise, and then it continues on for as many years as ratings are good enough, with no particular end in sight. Then, sometimes it ends because it gets cancelled, and other times it ends because the people in it want to move on, but for the most part these shows are never fully written out from start to beginning (obviously there are exceptions to this), which means that the writers keep on having to come up with more and more stuff to keep the show fresh, and at some point these thing either become totally asinine, or they just fail and it's boring anyways.
Anime, on the other hand, tends to have complete stories written out first, then is animated. Yes, I know a lot are based on manga that's often still ongoing, but even those series they try to wrap up in 12-26 episodes. And, shows like Bleach and Naruto (I watched like the first 40 episodes of the reboot when it started and said fuck it when I realized that they were still in the same goddamn fight and having flashbacks to things that happened IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE) which just keep on going forever start to have the same feeling as TV shows which drag on forever as well. This allows stories in them to be tighter and more compact, which a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Of course, some anime fails at this at that, but I can at least look at it and say yeah ok, don't waste your time with that one. And, since it was a limited amount of episodes, I don't have to wait through 6 seasons of something to figure out that it really wasn't worth my time. That's another point for anime btw, having 4 seasons through the year means that I've usually got something good enough to watch through every 3-4 months.
Something that I haven't explored here is the content that's in anime that may make it more interesting to watch as well, but I think that's a topic that merits it's own post later on. My point in this one was to muse about why my watching of TV has dropped to almost zero, while my anime devouring is at an all time high :)
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Things I hate #2: 'u'
No, I don't mean you.
Well, actually, it might. Chances are high that I dislike something that you do, and by extension, you. No need to feel bad about it, it's just how things are. But that's a subject for a different post.
No, what I mean here is when people shorten 'you' to 'u'. That if the most obvious example of what I loathe about the internet. Now, before you think I'm some sort of grammar nazi, I'm really not. If you read through my posts, you'll probably find numerous mistakes to point out, I acknowledge that. But, I cannot stand people who make themselves look like utter retards by shortening a three letter word to a single one.
See, acronyms like lol, brb, omg, so on and so forth are actually useful. They shorten otherwise long, common phrases which everyone understand. 'U', on the other hand, serves absolutely no purpose as it takes away a mere two letters. The same can be said for people who say 'wat' instead of 'what', 'w8' instead of 'wait', 'den' instead of 'then'. 'Den' is a place I might go when searching for a bear, 'then' is something completely different.
THERE IS NO REASON FOR THIS. What makes it ever worse is that people have trained themselves to type like that naturally! I thought about it once, and it would actually take me longer to find the correct ways to type in this idiotic fashion than it does for me to write like a normal goddamn person. And people wonder why kids fail English equivalency exams.
So, if you're the type of person who would write something like "dis iz wer dey r w8ing. wen u going?" (I'm not kidding here, it took me 5 minutes to write it that way and I'm still not sure it's incorrect enough), I hope you get finger cancer and they have to chop of your hands because I hate 'u'.
Well, actually, it might. Chances are high that I dislike something that you do, and by extension, you. No need to feel bad about it, it's just how things are. But that's a subject for a different post.
No, what I mean here is when people shorten 'you' to 'u'. That if the most obvious example of what I loathe about the internet. Now, before you think I'm some sort of grammar nazi, I'm really not. If you read through my posts, you'll probably find numerous mistakes to point out, I acknowledge that. But, I cannot stand people who make themselves look like utter retards by shortening a three letter word to a single one.
See, acronyms like lol, brb, omg, so on and so forth are actually useful. They shorten otherwise long, common phrases which everyone understand. 'U', on the other hand, serves absolutely no purpose as it takes away a mere two letters. The same can be said for people who say 'wat' instead of 'what', 'w8' instead of 'wait', 'den' instead of 'then'. 'Den' is a place I might go when searching for a bear, 'then' is something completely different.
THERE IS NO REASON FOR THIS. What makes it ever worse is that people have trained themselves to type like that naturally! I thought about it once, and it would actually take me longer to find the correct ways to type in this idiotic fashion than it does for me to write like a normal goddamn person. And people wonder why kids fail English equivalency exams.
So, if you're the type of person who would write something like "dis iz wer dey r w8ing. wen u going?" (I'm not kidding here, it took me 5 minutes to write it that way and I'm still not sure it's incorrect enough), I hope you get finger cancer and they have to chop of your hands because I hate 'u'.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Things I hate #1
There's going to be a lot of these, by the way.
So I was heading home yesterday, looking for a place to park. Now, in front of the apartment, there's a stretch of the street where three cars can clearly park. On this particular day, there's one car parked in that stretch. I'm heading up the other side of the street though and I don't really feel like making a U-turn, so I just take a spot on the other side of the street. As I'm gathering my stuff, I see some guy pulling into the spots across the street, and when I say spots, I mean both of the remaining ones. I watch as this car pulls forward, and then back to make sure it's close to the curb, and then it comes to a stop directly in the middle of the two spaces. The guy gets out (get this, Asian... shocker I know) checks both sides of the car, clearly sees that his car is taking up two spaces, and then decides that yeah, that's it, that's where he's going to park.
What. The. Fucks. What the hell kinda person does that? I mean, I could understand that if the guy didn't want to take the middle space because he didn't want to be boxed in or something, but then he could've just taken the front spot and let the next guy still have a chance to parallel park in! But no. This dick just went yeah, I'm taking both. I was watching this, stunned, and I really really wanted to take the soda I had been grabbing from my car and just pour it on his windshield (didn't, there were people walking around outside).
And I see this crap all the time. People just pull into a space and don't even remotely consider that they're now screwing over others who are trying to find parking. What the hells, man.
So I was heading home yesterday, looking for a place to park. Now, in front of the apartment, there's a stretch of the street where three cars can clearly park. On this particular day, there's one car parked in that stretch. I'm heading up the other side of the street though and I don't really feel like making a U-turn, so I just take a spot on the other side of the street. As I'm gathering my stuff, I see some guy pulling into the spots across the street, and when I say spots, I mean both of the remaining ones. I watch as this car pulls forward, and then back to make sure it's close to the curb, and then it comes to a stop directly in the middle of the two spaces. The guy gets out (get this, Asian... shocker I know) checks both sides of the car, clearly sees that his car is taking up two spaces, and then decides that yeah, that's it, that's where he's going to park.
What. The. Fucks. What the hell kinda person does that? I mean, I could understand that if the guy didn't want to take the middle space because he didn't want to be boxed in or something, but then he could've just taken the front spot and let the next guy still have a chance to parallel park in! But no. This dick just went yeah, I'm taking both. I was watching this, stunned, and I really really wanted to take the soda I had been grabbing from my car and just pour it on his windshield (didn't, there were people walking around outside).
And I see this crap all the time. People just pull into a space and don't even remotely consider that they're now screwing over others who are trying to find parking. What the hells, man.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Let's Go Fly a Kite, and an Extestential Question
A long time ago, when I was still in elementary school, my grandmother came to visit my family for a couple of months. It was a summer of doing many different activities with her, everything from going camping to trying out the lawn bowling place down the street from my house, to going to Tai Chi classes at some center (senior? asian? can't remember) nearby. One of the things we found that year, is an annual Kite Festival that was held down at the Marina.
The Marina was one of my family's favorite places to go to when we were kids. We'd take the dog down there and let her go swimming, play on one of the numerous playgrounds, invent games, get stung by a bee on the bottom of my foot as I'm running across a lawn barefoot, then go to the restaurant that was built mostly over the water and have hot chocolate. While there, I had always seen kites being flown, but we for some reason had never seen the Kite Festival before my grandmother came. And let me tell ya, it was awesome.
This wasn't just the stupid diamond shaped kites with one string that you run with trying to get into the air but failing miserably either. This had huge, extravagant kites in all sorts of shapes, there were dragons, there were pirate boats, there were solar systems, who knows what else. And, throughout the day, there were showcases of people using double stringed stunt kites, making the most wonderful noise ever as the wind ripped against it. And, seeing how much I enjoyed it, my grandmother bought me my own stunt kite.
Now, this wasn't one great quality ones. It was plastic, but it had a tail and two strings, and after a short tutorial of how to use it, my grandmother and I would visit the marina and fly the kite for hours at a time. Then, my grandmother left, and the kite flying stopped as it broke soon thereafter. Flash forward about 10 years, and now I have a car and a job, and one day I think hey, I really liked flying kites, I'm going to get another one. I wanted to get a good quality one, and after searching around and finding that some of these things cost hundreds of dollars, I settled for a mid-range price one. After I got it, I would head down to the Marina again on my own, pop on my ipod, and fly my kite for hours again. People would walk by and watch, sometimes clap and cheer, but I was mostly doing it because it was enjoyable, and relaxing.
Then, my kite broke. In several places, actually. It's something that I tried to patch up, but it just didn't function in the same way again. Flash forward another five years, and I'm driving by some beach, and see several kites being flown, and I once again get a nostalgic feeling to do this once more, but then I realize that I'm broke, and don't really have the time to go kite flying.
And that's when I realized this. I'll know that I'll have made it when I'm able to buy one of the several hundred dollar great quality kites, and have time to fly it. That's it, to me, that embodies all that I want. I know it sounds silly, but then I realized, hey, everyone's gotta have something like that right? Something simple that they'd like, that when they're doing it that's when they know their life is good. And I don't mean something like your absolute dream of I don't know, traveling across the world. That's too big. I mean something small and simple.
So, what's your thing?
The Marina was one of my family's favorite places to go to when we were kids. We'd take the dog down there and let her go swimming, play on one of the numerous playgrounds, invent games, get stung by a bee on the bottom of my foot as I'm running across a lawn barefoot, then go to the restaurant that was built mostly over the water and have hot chocolate. While there, I had always seen kites being flown, but we for some reason had never seen the Kite Festival before my grandmother came. And let me tell ya, it was awesome.
This wasn't just the stupid diamond shaped kites with one string that you run with trying to get into the air but failing miserably either. This had huge, extravagant kites in all sorts of shapes, there were dragons, there were pirate boats, there were solar systems, who knows what else. And, throughout the day, there were showcases of people using double stringed stunt kites, making the most wonderful noise ever as the wind ripped against it. And, seeing how much I enjoyed it, my grandmother bought me my own stunt kite.
Now, this wasn't one great quality ones. It was plastic, but it had a tail and two strings, and after a short tutorial of how to use it, my grandmother and I would visit the marina and fly the kite for hours at a time. Then, my grandmother left, and the kite flying stopped as it broke soon thereafter. Flash forward about 10 years, and now I have a car and a job, and one day I think hey, I really liked flying kites, I'm going to get another one. I wanted to get a good quality one, and after searching around and finding that some of these things cost hundreds of dollars, I settled for a mid-range price one. After I got it, I would head down to the Marina again on my own, pop on my ipod, and fly my kite for hours again. People would walk by and watch, sometimes clap and cheer, but I was mostly doing it because it was enjoyable, and relaxing.
Then, my kite broke. In several places, actually. It's something that I tried to patch up, but it just didn't function in the same way again. Flash forward another five years, and I'm driving by some beach, and see several kites being flown, and I once again get a nostalgic feeling to do this once more, but then I realize that I'm broke, and don't really have the time to go kite flying.
And that's when I realized this. I'll know that I'll have made it when I'm able to buy one of the several hundred dollar great quality kites, and have time to fly it. That's it, to me, that embodies all that I want. I know it sounds silly, but then I realized, hey, everyone's gotta have something like that right? Something simple that they'd like, that when they're doing it that's when they know their life is good. And I don't mean something like your absolute dream of I don't know, traveling across the world. That's too big. I mean something small and simple.
So, what's your thing?
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Aaaand here we go...
On the off chance that anyone ever reads any of this, hi! Welcome to a blog that I made months ago and then never did anything with. I've always wanted to make one (and become totally e-famous), mostly because sometimes I like to think that I'm witty and can actually write well. We'll see if this holds true, most of the things I do I'll usually just end up looking at and thinking good god, that's just the worst thing ever. My own worst critic? Maybe, who knows.
Anyways, as my profile indicates, I've been mostly sitting around and feeling generally miserable. I've always believed that hey, everything will generally end up going well enough, so I really shouldn't stress over not having a job that doesn't involve pushing carts at Target (yes, I did, during the holiday season, and it sucked real bad). However, it's now been a year of things almost working out but then not happening or backfiring at the last moment, and so I've gotta try to do... something else. I guess I'll talk about what I want for my future sometime later on, this here is just an intro.
Anyways, this here will be a place for me to put down things I think of. Sometimes it will be amusing, sometimes it will be thoughtful, other times it'll be a bunch of random. But hey, I'm not expecting anyone to read this to begin with, so... who really cares, right?
-V
Anyways, as my profile indicates, I've been mostly sitting around and feeling generally miserable. I've always believed that hey, everything will generally end up going well enough, so I really shouldn't stress over not having a job that doesn't involve pushing carts at Target (yes, I did, during the holiday season, and it sucked real bad). However, it's now been a year of things almost working out but then not happening or backfiring at the last moment, and so I've gotta try to do... something else. I guess I'll talk about what I want for my future sometime later on, this here is just an intro.
Anyways, this here will be a place for me to put down things I think of. Sometimes it will be amusing, sometimes it will be thoughtful, other times it'll be a bunch of random. But hey, I'm not expecting anyone to read this to begin with, so... who really cares, right?
-V
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