Last year, my parents informed me that they were planning on going on a cruise in the summer, something not out of the ordinary for them. What was out of the ordinary was what they said next: If I wanted, they would pay for me to come along and enjoy myself in Mexico and on the cruise for a week. It was an offer I would have been crazy to refuse.
And so, less than a week after last semester ended, I wound up driving down to Redondo Beach to spend the night before we got on our cruise. We walked the shops along the beach, ate at a Joe's Crab Shack, and went to sleep.
The next morning, something I hadn't experienced since I turned 8 years old happened: I boarded a cruise ship. Not much happened that day, mostly just wandering the ship, getting acquainted with it. We met up with people from an internet forum my mother is a part of, all of whom had kids around my age. All of them were excited to be entering college or starting their second year, babbling about which college they were going to, how much fun it was going to be, and the like. When it came to my turn, I told them I was already a senior in college. I was the oldest of them all. They all went dancing next to the pool on the main deck we were overlooking. I stood next to my parents and laughed quietly to myself, drinking the delicious alcoholic beverage none of them were allowed to order.
After another meetup with internet people, a gift exchange, more alcohol, a fairly boring day at sea, and toasting the captain with free champagne, we made it to Cabo San Lucas. Here, we took a quick boat tour around the area, wandered through the shops at the docks, and trekked a mile out to a glass factory. It was fascinating watching the glass-blowers practice their craft. We walked back to town, had some margaritas, and called it a day. Although we didn't do anything terribly exciting, Cabo would become my favorite port of call.
Our next stop was Mazatlan. An interesting note: Mazatlan is in a different time zone than Cabo. We, of course, forgot to reset our watches, and so missed our planned tour by an hour. A quick, $20 phone call later, the tour company gave us credit for another tour.
Instead, we grabbed a local tour guide, Jose, who drove us to a small village with a bakery in a house. The bread was delicious and cheap. Then, he brought us to a small furniture factory. There was little to do there, so we headed up to the mountains, where we visited a small town and saw a church that was hundreds of years old. After a near-death experience of almost hitting a bus, and having the car almost break down, we got back on the boat.
The next day, we cashed in our tour credit and went on a tour around Puerto Vallarta. We made our way to a small tequila factory, did a tasting and bought two $60 bottles that were amazing, and visited a place where Predator was filmed. Other than the tequila factory, it was a low-key day.
Another day at sea, and we were back home. Wandering around three major ports, shopping and drinking, was a perfect way to get away from home. If you have never been on a cruise, I highly suggest booking one, and take someone with you. It's relaxing and fun. While I'd love to get into more detail, this column is starting to run long, and I have to start planning for the cruise my girlfriend and I are taking to Mexico - Cabo and Puerto Vallarta - next month.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Saigon Bay, Pho, and Bubble Tea
The Saigon Bay, a Vietnamese restaurant on Sacramento State's campus, is surprisingly good, if a bit pricy. They are also one of few places in the area to sell bubble tea.
First off, the menu is fairly small, consisting of pho (prounounced more like "pha"), noodles in broth with your choice of meats or vegetables, sandwiches, and spring rolls. Being a small restaurant, the menu is on the wall behind the counter, almost like a fast food restaurant (and in thinking, who are they kidding? It is little more than such for college students.).
The pho took mere minutes (blink and the food is ready) to make, and there were plenty of tables both inside and outside to enjoy the flank steak pho at. The tables inside are fairly close together and it was difficult getting four people around the table.
The pho itself was delicious, but rather expensive. The styrene bowl of pho, useful for traveling on campus, costs a whopping $6. While the noodles and meat are delicious and filling, it feels like there should be more. It is reminiscent of a bowl of udon noodles, a fair Japanese equivalent, but udon noodles are much thicker and usually come with far more meat. For the same size bowl of udon, I'd expect to pay $6. The pho noodles are much thinner, and thus come off as cheaper.
Another point of contention was that Saigon Bay normally provides the large Chinese-style soup spoons for pho, but on this trip, only normal spoons and chopsticks. For those that like their soup spicy, Srircha sauce is provided in large quantities.
The other part of the meal - the drink - is where Saigon Bay shines brightly. They are the only restaurant near campus that sells boba or bubble tea. The name is a misnomer - there are no bubbles, and it's a smoothie, not tea. The "bubbles" are orbs of black tapioca that sit at the bottom of the smoothie. A much-larger-than-normal straw is provided to drink the smoothie and suck up the orbs. While a bit pricy at $3 for a single bubble tea, it's worth it. The tapioca balls are mostly tasteless, and are there for texture more than anything, so the only requirement to like the drink is enjoying fruit-flavored smoothies.
For the starving college student looking to have something other than Panda Express or Burger King, the Saigon Bay is an excellent choice. The food is good and the drinks are better, but the price is a higher than expected. It is more of a treat than a replacement for the student who normally eats at the Hive, something to splurge on and feel more refined than getting another Whopper or bowl of orange chicken and rice.
First off, the menu is fairly small, consisting of pho (prounounced more like "pha"), noodles in broth with your choice of meats or vegetables, sandwiches, and spring rolls. Being a small restaurant, the menu is on the wall behind the counter, almost like a fast food restaurant (and in thinking, who are they kidding? It is little more than such for college students.).
The pho took mere minutes (blink and the food is ready) to make, and there were plenty of tables both inside and outside to enjoy the flank steak pho at. The tables inside are fairly close together and it was difficult getting four people around the table.
The pho itself was delicious, but rather expensive. The styrene bowl of pho, useful for traveling on campus, costs a whopping $6. While the noodles and meat are delicious and filling, it feels like there should be more. It is reminiscent of a bowl of udon noodles, a fair Japanese equivalent, but udon noodles are much thicker and usually come with far more meat. For the same size bowl of udon, I'd expect to pay $6. The pho noodles are much thinner, and thus come off as cheaper.
Another point of contention was that Saigon Bay normally provides the large Chinese-style soup spoons for pho, but on this trip, only normal spoons and chopsticks. For those that like their soup spicy, Srircha sauce is provided in large quantities.
The other part of the meal - the drink - is where Saigon Bay shines brightly. They are the only restaurant near campus that sells boba or bubble tea. The name is a misnomer - there are no bubbles, and it's a smoothie, not tea. The "bubbles" are orbs of black tapioca that sit at the bottom of the smoothie. A much-larger-than-normal straw is provided to drink the smoothie and suck up the orbs. While a bit pricy at $3 for a single bubble tea, it's worth it. The tapioca balls are mostly tasteless, and are there for texture more than anything, so the only requirement to like the drink is enjoying fruit-flavored smoothies.
For the starving college student looking to have something other than Panda Express or Burger King, the Saigon Bay is an excellent choice. The food is good and the drinks are better, but the price is a higher than expected. It is more of a treat than a replacement for the student who normally eats at the Hive, something to splurge on and feel more refined than getting another Whopper or bowl of orange chicken and rice.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Top Gear is Top Notch
I'm not exactly what you would call a car person, having driven a 1997 purple Plymouth Voyager the past six years. Bear this in mind when I say that Top Gear is one of the best shows that has graced TV in some time.
Top Gear, a British show centered on cars that originally started in 1977 and ran through 2001, and was picked up with a new format the next year, is currently hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. While these names may not sound familiar to Americans, they are fairly well-known columnists and personalities across the pond.
But why in the wide world of motor vehicles would someone who is not a car enthusiast watch this show? Because it is far more hilarious than the majority of sitcoms clogging the airwaves. While there are the segments where the hosts, or professional driver "The Stig," test-drive cars, usually ones that I would never be able to afford, there are also guest segments, featuring celebrities from both America and England, as well as segments that challenge the hosts to complete tasks.
For instance, one episode had them building RVs out of normal cars. Clarkson created a three-story "apartment" that was not built with wind resistance in mind. May used a luggage-carrier on top of his car for sleeping. Hammond packing siding onto the sides of his car, and unfolded it all to create a mobile motel. The challenge ended with Clarkson being interview during breakfast, while his car/RV fell off the side of a cliff into the bay in the background.
Other challenges are absurd, such as transforming a Reliant Robin, a 3-wheeled car, into a rocket, with the intention of it being a spaceship. It would have worked, too, if they were able to land it properly after takeoff.
Another episode finds the hosts in the deep south of the States, with only a few hundred dollars to buy a used car and get from point A to B. They attempt to sabotage each other by writing slogans on the sides of each others' cars meant to infuriate the Bible Belt. Another trip, this time to Vietnam, saw the hosts driving scooters and motorcycles across the country, while "gifts" to each other - a small, weighty statue, a large painting, and a large wooden sailboat model - were strapped to the backs of the vehicles. None of the "gifts" - obviously meant to sabotage each other - made it through the trip unscathed.
Other episodes are races: Clarkson, in a Nissan GT-R, raced Hammond and May, on the shinkansen bullet train, across Japan.
There are few cons to the show. There are some segments, based on judging new cars, that simply won't hold interest for non-car enthusiasts. Thus is the miracle of Netflix and DVR.
Which leads to another pro - Top Gear is on Netflix On-Demand. Seasons 2-16 are available.
Be warned, however -The American version of the show is also available, and making it through a single episode of it was much less enjoyable. The humor just is not as funny as the original U.K. version.
In short, while there are some boring parts to Top Gear, namely where they test-drive new cars, the challenge segments, which sometimes comprise entire special episodes, are what makes Top Gear a hilarious show that just happens to revolve around cars.
Top Gear, a British show centered on cars that originally started in 1977 and ran through 2001, and was picked up with a new format the next year, is currently hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. While these names may not sound familiar to Americans, they are fairly well-known columnists and personalities across the pond.
But why in the wide world of motor vehicles would someone who is not a car enthusiast watch this show? Because it is far more hilarious than the majority of sitcoms clogging the airwaves. While there are the segments where the hosts, or professional driver "The Stig," test-drive cars, usually ones that I would never be able to afford, there are also guest segments, featuring celebrities from both America and England, as well as segments that challenge the hosts to complete tasks.
For instance, one episode had them building RVs out of normal cars. Clarkson created a three-story "apartment" that was not built with wind resistance in mind. May used a luggage-carrier on top of his car for sleeping. Hammond packing siding onto the sides of his car, and unfolded it all to create a mobile motel. The challenge ended with Clarkson being interview during breakfast, while his car/RV fell off the side of a cliff into the bay in the background.
Other challenges are absurd, such as transforming a Reliant Robin, a 3-wheeled car, into a rocket, with the intention of it being a spaceship. It would have worked, too, if they were able to land it properly after takeoff.
Another episode finds the hosts in the deep south of the States, with only a few hundred dollars to buy a used car and get from point A to B. They attempt to sabotage each other by writing slogans on the sides of each others' cars meant to infuriate the Bible Belt. Another trip, this time to Vietnam, saw the hosts driving scooters and motorcycles across the country, while "gifts" to each other - a small, weighty statue, a large painting, and a large wooden sailboat model - were strapped to the backs of the vehicles. None of the "gifts" - obviously meant to sabotage each other - made it through the trip unscathed.
Other episodes are races: Clarkson, in a Nissan GT-R, raced Hammond and May, on the shinkansen bullet train, across Japan.
There are few cons to the show. There are some segments, based on judging new cars, that simply won't hold interest for non-car enthusiasts. Thus is the miracle of Netflix and DVR.
Which leads to another pro - Top Gear is on Netflix On-Demand. Seasons 2-16 are available.
Be warned, however -The American version of the show is also available, and making it through a single episode of it was much less enjoyable. The humor just is not as funny as the original U.K. version.
In short, while there are some boring parts to Top Gear, namely where they test-drive new cars, the challenge segments, which sometimes comprise entire special episodes, are what makes Top Gear a hilarious show that just happens to revolve around cars.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Girl Gamers and You
There are no girls on the internet. This, I have been assured by the denizens of the web, is true. Obviously, it's not, but where are female gamers?
All around you, actually. That guy that just killed you in Call of Duty with a shot to the head? Girl gamer. Team slaughtered in League of Legends? Might've been a lady with mad rushing skills. Just resurrected in World of Warcraft? Yep, your healer could be a lady.
So just how wrong is the "no girls on the internet" statement? Well, according to CNET, a survey showed that 64 percent of online gamers are female. You read that right, over half of online gamers are female.
But how is that possible? It seems that the aforementioned Call of Duty is populated by 12-year-olds who are just waiting to insult your mother. Yes, there are a few female gamers - one of my friend's fiance loves to play Call of Duty, and my guild leader in Guild Wars is a middle-aged woman from New York - but you find most of them playing casual games. Ever hear of Farmville?
Brittany Bradley, the online photo editor at the State Hornet, Sacramento State's newspaper, said that she doesn't play online games like Halo because she has trouble manipulating the controller, which has dual joysticks.
"I have trouble running and shooting at the same time," she said. "I have trouble identifying which players are on my team. In a split second, from 20 feet away, you can't tell which is blue team and which is green team, and then your best friend gets angry for killing them."
Even more than that, though, Bradley thinks video games are simply not productive.
"It's a waste of time," she said. "I could be doing other things."
While the female population of shooter games like Call of Duty and Battlefield may be low, offline games like Angry Birds and The Sims 3 have found a large female consumer base.
My girlfriend, Alex, spends much of her free time playing the Sims, for instance. This is how I know the new expansion for the game, which introduces pets, came out last week. She spends just as much time on the fashion of her characters and the designs of their houses as I do shooting people online. To be fair, though, she also plays Guild Wars, which brings me to my last point.
The Massively Multiplayer Online world has sucked in females far more than other types of online games, save for casual. The role-playing games, or RPGs, like World of Warcraft, Aion, and Guild Wars see many women playing. It can be much slower-paced than shooters, and there is a certain sense of camaraderie between players. Alex logs on to Guild Wars sometimes to just chat with other guild members, and not to do any actual playing.
So to refute the claim that there are no women playing video games, they are actually all around you. They may be killing you but not announcing it over chat, or they could be shooting birds at pigs, or they could be healing you; they are just not as loud and obnoxious as the prepubescent name-caller.
All around you, actually. That guy that just killed you in Call of Duty with a shot to the head? Girl gamer. Team slaughtered in League of Legends? Might've been a lady with mad rushing skills. Just resurrected in World of Warcraft? Yep, your healer could be a lady.
So just how wrong is the "no girls on the internet" statement? Well, according to CNET, a survey showed that 64 percent of online gamers are female. You read that right, over half of online gamers are female.
But how is that possible? It seems that the aforementioned Call of Duty is populated by 12-year-olds who are just waiting to insult your mother. Yes, there are a few female gamers - one of my friend's fiance loves to play Call of Duty, and my guild leader in Guild Wars is a middle-aged woman from New York - but you find most of them playing casual games. Ever hear of Farmville?
Brittany Bradley, the online photo editor at the State Hornet, Sacramento State's newspaper, said that she doesn't play online games like Halo because she has trouble manipulating the controller, which has dual joysticks.
"I have trouble running and shooting at the same time," she said. "I have trouble identifying which players are on my team. In a split second, from 20 feet away, you can't tell which is blue team and which is green team, and then your best friend gets angry for killing them."
Even more than that, though, Bradley thinks video games are simply not productive.
"It's a waste of time," she said. "I could be doing other things."
While the female population of shooter games like Call of Duty and Battlefield may be low, offline games like Angry Birds and The Sims 3 have found a large female consumer base.
My girlfriend, Alex, spends much of her free time playing the Sims, for instance. This is how I know the new expansion for the game, which introduces pets, came out last week. She spends just as much time on the fashion of her characters and the designs of their houses as I do shooting people online. To be fair, though, she also plays Guild Wars, which brings me to my last point.
The Massively Multiplayer Online world has sucked in females far more than other types of online games, save for casual. The role-playing games, or RPGs, like World of Warcraft, Aion, and Guild Wars see many women playing. It can be much slower-paced than shooters, and there is a certain sense of camaraderie between players. Alex logs on to Guild Wars sometimes to just chat with other guild members, and not to do any actual playing.
So to refute the claim that there are no women playing video games, they are actually all around you. They may be killing you but not announcing it over chat, or they could be shooting birds at pigs, or they could be healing you; they are just not as loud and obnoxious as the prepubescent name-caller.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
T-shirts for nerds
I recently started watching Game of Thrones, the smash hit show based on A Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin. I was looking around for T-shirts based on the show, to declare to the world my new fandom, when I discovered two things: People are really creative these days, and I now hate websites that only sell shirts for a single day.
See that image I posted above? That's a T-shirt design. Take a moment, drink in how awesome it is. It combines the tagline from the show with the genius idea of making Ned Stark, primary protagonist, a weather forecaster. Who thinks of these things?
What's more, there's all manner of shirts on websites. Ghostbusters as Victorian-era steampunk "Spectral Smashers?" Check. Shirts as fake advertisements such as the "Save the Clock Tower Fun Run" from Back to the Future? Check. Combining two different geek fandoms to form a Portal/Dr. Who mashup? You best believe it.
In fact, that last one is today's shirt. What? Today's shirt? What does that mean?
Head over to Teefury, and you will see the aforementioned shirt. But, it's only on sale today. Teefury, along with a few other websites much like it, sell a single shirt design each day, often for only $10. Sure, you can find some of the shirts sold at RedBubble, but the price is often double or more. The tradeoff is that you can't pick the color of the T-shirt at Teefury, while you can at RedBubble.
The problem also arises when looking at the archives of what Teefury has sold. The whole one shirt, one day thing sounds pretty neat, having a limited-print shirt, until you realize how awesome some of the old, never-going-to-be-sold-again shirts are. Too bad, if you failed to buy it on the one day last year when it was sold.
Much like Teefury, Ript sells a shirt design each day, but also offer hoodies, kid's shirts, and onesies for newly-created humans. Prices are a tad high for everything but the plain shirt, however.
There's one more model of geeky T-shirt buying on the interwebs that is out of the norm: The Woot Model. Woot, a family of websites that sells things at discount prices for a day, is somewhere between the fleeting Teefury and the more permanent RedBubble. It sells a shirt each day, but keeps a backlog of the 20 most popular shirts. Every week, numbers 11-20 are eliminated in what they call the Reckoning, voted on using your wallet.
Shirts in the Reckoning are $15 plus shipping, and only last as long as people keep buying them. There is a grace period for new shirts, but chances are, they will soon be gone. In this way, a shirt featuring a binge-drinking Cookie Monster - it's milk - has been sold for an amazing 110 weeks as of this writing.
All in all, it's become easier to show off a nerd's love of a TV series, movie, book or videogame - or a mashup of any of them - with T-shirts. The artists have made shirts that will make any fanboy or fangirl laugh and don the shirt, provided you are able to buy it in time.
Now, if you will excuse me, winter is coming, and I need some new clothes.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
You occupy Wall Street, I'll be productive over here
The Occupy Wall Street movement, while having noble intentions, is much like the movie The Wild Hunt - it seems pretty good in the beginning, fizzles out, and then just leaves you wondering what happened.
Before I go any further, I must warn you: I am going to spoil the plot of the movie. Chances are, you don't care, and you will never watch the movie anyway, but I figured a fair warning was in order.
The plot of The Wild Hunt is that Erik Magnusson is losing his girlfriend, Lyn, to a guy at a LARP, or Live Action Roleplay. It's kind of like D&D, but acting all the parts out with foam swords over a weekend in the woods. It's a pretty big deal in some circles, as it is in the movie.
Anyhow, without going into much detail, Erik, with the help of his brother Bjorn, are able to convince Lyn to switch sides, "kidnap" her, and destroy the big event planned for the weekend. This, evidently, angers the group playing antagonists of the event, who then proceed to lose their minds, actually rape people, and kill Erik. As in, the main bad guy's lackey slices Erik in the face with elk horns and slams his face into rocks, until he is dead. And then Lyn jumps off a waterfall. And after the event is over, Bjorn takes a hammer to the main antagonists head.
If that left you confused, don't worry - I was too. A really good movie turned super dark in the last 20 minutes of the film, totally ruining an otherwise good movie. And, that last 20 minutes really didn't make much sense. Starting to see where I'm going with this?
Occupy Wall Street (and the local version, Occupy Sacramento) are much like the movie. Starts out with a pretty cool idea, 99% of people are not rich and demand something from the 1% who are super-rich in the nation. That's all fine and dandy, people need money.
But Warren Buffet, that mega-rich guy you've probably heard of, was already advocating more taxes on the rich, and taxing money earned from investments more. The ball is already rolling on that one.
So what is there to protest? Well, that's the part that no one really understands, even the two main websites for the movement, Occupy Together and OccupyWallSt.
There's no real list of demands, there's no real thrust of the movement to get something done, they are just milling about, demanding food from local businesses - which seems to go against getting the working man some money - and really are only making demands that they not be arrested for camping in Central Park (or Cesar Chavez Park, locally).
So what are the protesters getting done? Nothing, really. It's just a mass of discontent people with funny signs. It's like the Rally to Restore Sanity, only I have yet to hear about celebrities giving speeches in Central Park.
I've heard people around the water cooler say that this could be the start of a revolution, and that the people are going to take America back. Somehow, I doubt this is what the outcome is going to be. It wouldn't make any sense, just like The Wild Hunt's ending. For that matter, what's happening now doesn't make much sense. It's a protest without a real goal or aim.
So while the protesters are busy trying to camp in parks and not actually make demands, I'll be busy at my desk, watching movies on Netflix or finding some way to be a productive, contributing member of society. Just be sure to let me know if the bankers are coming, the bankers are coming!
Before I go any further, I must warn you: I am going to spoil the plot of the movie. Chances are, you don't care, and you will never watch the movie anyway, but I figured a fair warning was in order.
The plot of The Wild Hunt is that Erik Magnusson is losing his girlfriend, Lyn, to a guy at a LARP, or Live Action Roleplay. It's kind of like D&D, but acting all the parts out with foam swords over a weekend in the woods. It's a pretty big deal in some circles, as it is in the movie.
Anyhow, without going into much detail, Erik, with the help of his brother Bjorn, are able to convince Lyn to switch sides, "kidnap" her, and destroy the big event planned for the weekend. This, evidently, angers the group playing antagonists of the event, who then proceed to lose their minds, actually rape people, and kill Erik. As in, the main bad guy's lackey slices Erik in the face with elk horns and slams his face into rocks, until he is dead. And then Lyn jumps off a waterfall. And after the event is over, Bjorn takes a hammer to the main antagonists head.
If that left you confused, don't worry - I was too. A really good movie turned super dark in the last 20 minutes of the film, totally ruining an otherwise good movie. And, that last 20 minutes really didn't make much sense. Starting to see where I'm going with this?
Occupy Wall Street (and the local version, Occupy Sacramento) are much like the movie. Starts out with a pretty cool idea, 99% of people are not rich and demand something from the 1% who are super-rich in the nation. That's all fine and dandy, people need money.
But Warren Buffet, that mega-rich guy you've probably heard of, was already advocating more taxes on the rich, and taxing money earned from investments more. The ball is already rolling on that one.
So what is there to protest? Well, that's the part that no one really understands, even the two main websites for the movement, Occupy Together and OccupyWallSt.
This popular picture of David Silverman reacting to Bill O'Reilly telling him he can't explain why the tide goes in and out without God sums up my reaction to the whole thing.
There's no real list of demands, there's no real thrust of the movement to get something done, they are just milling about, demanding food from local businesses - which seems to go against getting the working man some money - and really are only making demands that they not be arrested for camping in Central Park (or Cesar Chavez Park, locally).
So what are the protesters getting done? Nothing, really. It's just a mass of discontent people with funny signs. It's like the Rally to Restore Sanity, only I have yet to hear about celebrities giving speeches in Central Park.
I've heard people around the water cooler say that this could be the start of a revolution, and that the people are going to take America back. Somehow, I doubt this is what the outcome is going to be. It wouldn't make any sense, just like The Wild Hunt's ending. For that matter, what's happening now doesn't make much sense. It's a protest without a real goal or aim.
So while the protesters are busy trying to camp in parks and not actually make demands, I'll be busy at my desk, watching movies on Netflix or finding some way to be a productive, contributing member of society. Just be sure to let me know if the bankers are coming, the bankers are coming!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Decline of Manga
The decline of manga is nigh. Nay, it is already here.
Manga, in America, refers to Japanese-style comic books. They read from right to left, and are typically a bit more adult than American comic books in terms of content. More violence, swearing, etc.
As I claimed in a blog post from a few months ago on another blog I rarely update, the "Golden Age of Manga" is over. Manga used to sell like hotcakes, flying off the shelves at incredible speed.
It seems obvious to me that the reason manga no longer sells as it once did is that the quality has dropped far below what it once was. Naruto and Bleach, once two of the most popular manga series in America, feel like zombies that should have ended long ago. Instead, companies demand that they continue on, even though ideas are being rehashed, just to keep the cash cow mooing. Sadly, the author and artist of Bleach, Tite Kubo, had a far better series that he created before Bleach, which was put on hold years ago.
After all, does any reader want to spend over $400 on a full series that seems like it will never have a conclusion?
Worse, new series have nothing new to offer. They are old, stale ideas that someone has tried to paint a new sheen on. The sheen does not last. I have not bought a volume of manga in a year. I used to spend up to $50 a month on the comics. Now, that money from my now-larger paycheck goes to food or the occasional video game. I'm now focusing on just filling old series that I never had the chance to finish. Sure, I'll probably have to turn to the Amazon Marketplace, and hope that someone has the old copies I am looking for.
It's entirely possible that my perception on the great decline is just a matter of taste, and the old manga of the late 1990s and early 2000s were more my style. And yet, these are known in manga-lover circles as classics, where none of the newer series have gained such acclaim. Maybe my tastes have radically changed since I started reading manga in high school.
Even new series by authors of classics are falling flat. Tokko, by Tohru Fujisawa, was nowhere near as satisfying as his earlier series, Great Teacher Onizuka. Six years ago, I remember standing in Borders, eyes wide, admiring the cover art of what I knew to be the last volume of GTO. The conclusion of the manga was amazing, as good as any big-budget Hollywood film in comic form. Tokko was the Japanese trope of "people with special powers fight demons." It was yawn-worthy.
It also doesn't help that Borders just closed all its doors forever. The number of shelves still carrying manga have greatly decreased. There's still Barnes and Noble, but they've never had quite the same selection as Borders. Comic book shops tend to focus more on American comics, if they carry any manga at all.
Gone are the manga that could only be described as "epic." Gone are the shelves that allowed perusal to find the hidden gem that might just be there, but in decreasing frequency. Gone is the Golden Age of Manga.
Manga, in America, refers to Japanese-style comic books. They read from right to left, and are typically a bit more adult than American comic books in terms of content. More violence, swearing, etc.
As I claimed in a blog post from a few months ago on another blog I rarely update, the "Golden Age of Manga" is over. Manga used to sell like hotcakes, flying off the shelves at incredible speed.
It seems obvious to me that the reason manga no longer sells as it once did is that the quality has dropped far below what it once was. Naruto and Bleach, once two of the most popular manga series in America, feel like zombies that should have ended long ago. Instead, companies demand that they continue on, even though ideas are being rehashed, just to keep the cash cow mooing. Sadly, the author and artist of Bleach, Tite Kubo, had a far better series that he created before Bleach, which was put on hold years ago.
After all, does any reader want to spend over $400 on a full series that seems like it will never have a conclusion?
Worse, new series have nothing new to offer. They are old, stale ideas that someone has tried to paint a new sheen on. The sheen does not last. I have not bought a volume of manga in a year. I used to spend up to $50 a month on the comics. Now, that money from my now-larger paycheck goes to food or the occasional video game. I'm now focusing on just filling old series that I never had the chance to finish. Sure, I'll probably have to turn to the Amazon Marketplace, and hope that someone has the old copies I am looking for.
It's entirely possible that my perception on the great decline is just a matter of taste, and the old manga of the late 1990s and early 2000s were more my style. And yet, these are known in manga-lover circles as classics, where none of the newer series have gained such acclaim. Maybe my tastes have radically changed since I started reading manga in high school.
Even new series by authors of classics are falling flat. Tokko, by Tohru Fujisawa, was nowhere near as satisfying as his earlier series, Great Teacher Onizuka. Six years ago, I remember standing in Borders, eyes wide, admiring the cover art of what I knew to be the last volume of GTO. The conclusion of the manga was amazing, as good as any big-budget Hollywood film in comic form. Tokko was the Japanese trope of "people with special powers fight demons." It was yawn-worthy.
It also doesn't help that Borders just closed all its doors forever. The number of shelves still carrying manga have greatly decreased. There's still Barnes and Noble, but they've never had quite the same selection as Borders. Comic book shops tend to focus more on American comics, if they carry any manga at all.
Gone are the manga that could only be described as "epic." Gone are the shelves that allowed perusal to find the hidden gem that might just be there, but in decreasing frequency. Gone is the Golden Age of Manga.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Of MMOs and Guild Wars: Rubi Bayer
One of my greatest loves in life - besides my girlfriend, of course - is the world of video games. My favorite is Guild Wars, and Massively Multiplayer Online game, in which I have spent a staggering 3,000 hours - or 125 days - playing. Naturally, my favorite columnist writes every Monday about the game.
Rubi Bayer, a columnist at Massively.com, loves Guild Wars as much, if not more, than I do, having spent even more time in the game. She is somehow able to come up with a different topic about the game every week, and, for the most part, they are all rather interesting.
Many topics delve into the gamer culture specifically surrounding Guild Wars, but sometimes branch out into MMOs in general. As a gamer, it is something I appreciate and find interesting.
She also writes on another subject that is close to my heart, Guild Wars 2. When any new scrap of information is released about the upcoming sequel to what is obviously the greatest online game ever - eat your heart out, World of Warcraft - she dissects and discusses the tidbits, often interviewing the game's developers.
Strangely, for having a writing style that is easy to identify with and seems casual, she does not have many credentials. That is to say, her only job, according to her LinkedIn profile, has been at Massively, where she became an editor in 2009 and is currently the community manager.
She did, however, graduate from the University of Indiana with a broadcast journalism degree. She also maintains a blog on the side about mothers who play video games, as well as writing other articles for Massively.
Perhaps she was lucky and fell into what I would consider a dream job, or perhaps her LinkedIn is not complete; there seems to be no other information floating around about her previous writing jobs.
She does not limit herself to just her column and articles, but also puts out two podcasts with Massively editor-in-chief Shawn Schuster. The first involves MMOs in general, but the second revolves around Guild Wars. The latter acts as a supplement to some of her columns, going over the information with another perspective involved, while adding more topics about Guild Wars.
While I had thought of profiling Rick Kushman of the Sacramento Bee, who has a column on entertainment - my other dream job - and of the hosts of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, I decided to go with something that I've read consistently over the past year, as well as something I've dedicated many hours of my life to. It was not a very hard choice.
In short, Rubi Bayer is not only an excellent columnist, in my humble opinion, who writes about something close to my heart, but also has something I would consider a dream job. Not only does her column interest me with topics that she chooses each week, it also provides a glimpse into what I would love to do in the future.
Rubi Bayer, a columnist at Massively.com, loves Guild Wars as much, if not more, than I do, having spent even more time in the game. She is somehow able to come up with a different topic about the game every week, and, for the most part, they are all rather interesting.
Many topics delve into the gamer culture specifically surrounding Guild Wars, but sometimes branch out into MMOs in general. As a gamer, it is something I appreciate and find interesting.
She also writes on another subject that is close to my heart, Guild Wars 2. When any new scrap of information is released about the upcoming sequel to what is obviously the greatest online game ever - eat your heart out, World of Warcraft - she dissects and discusses the tidbits, often interviewing the game's developers.
Strangely, for having a writing style that is easy to identify with and seems casual, she does not have many credentials. That is to say, her only job, according to her LinkedIn profile, has been at Massively, where she became an editor in 2009 and is currently the community manager.
She did, however, graduate from the University of Indiana with a broadcast journalism degree. She also maintains a blog on the side about mothers who play video games, as well as writing other articles for Massively.
Perhaps she was lucky and fell into what I would consider a dream job, or perhaps her LinkedIn is not complete; there seems to be no other information floating around about her previous writing jobs.
She does not limit herself to just her column and articles, but also puts out two podcasts with Massively editor-in-chief Shawn Schuster. The first involves MMOs in general, but the second revolves around Guild Wars. The latter acts as a supplement to some of her columns, going over the information with another perspective involved, while adding more topics about Guild Wars.
While I had thought of profiling Rick Kushman of the Sacramento Bee, who has a column on entertainment - my other dream job - and of the hosts of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, I decided to go with something that I've read consistently over the past year, as well as something I've dedicated many hours of my life to. It was not a very hard choice.
In short, Rubi Bayer is not only an excellent columnist, in my humble opinion, who writes about something close to my heart, but also has something I would consider a dream job. Not only does her column interest me with topics that she chooses each week, it also provides a glimpse into what I would love to do in the future.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
A week most terrible
I have suffered terrible losses this week. The death of not one but two anthropomorphic friends has rocked my very core, and threatened my way of life.
The first, and arguably most important, is my laptop. Laptops are not only important to being a student - say writing columns and articles - but is in the center of what it means to be a geek.
Imagine, for instance, where humanity would be without the advent of lolcats, those funny pictures of felines that have been humorously captioned. Or, even worse, without online games.
Already, it has proven hard without saved bookmarks to go through my morning ritual, checking websites for news and new webcomics. It also didn't help that the first version of this column was sitting on the hard drive, waiting to be edited. Instead, it must be rewritten entirely.
Thankfully, losing that column has provided perspective, and its loss will not be mourned. The loss of all the other files I had not saved to my external hard drive, however, will.
But, I mentioned another friend I have lost. That friend is a store.
Imagine a young man in middle school, on vacation, walking in to a bookstore with a vague goal in mind. He wants a comic book, but nothing Captain America or Spider-Man. Nay, he wants a manga, or Japanese comic book. This kicks off a decade of collecting and reading Japanese comics.
From there, he continues to go to the branch of the bookstore near his home, spending countless hours perusing comics, both Japanese and American, while looking for the latest rule books for tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons.
That bookstore is the former giant Borders. This is the last week it is open, and has sales that are 80 to 90 percent off. Don't bother going to buy books, though, as there are more shelves for sale than books left. It leaves a giant hole in my heart.
Both of these can be replaced, but not without cost. The computer might be fixed, hopefully, but if not, it's a blank slate.
A new computer, with no files, nothing that I previously had, everything gone in the wind. Saved game files? Nope. Word documents? Negative. Funny pictures I had saved from the internet? As good as deleted.
Borders, meanwhile, can be replaced by the internet and a comic shop. The internet is a great place to buy manga, if you know what you want. Half the fun was browsing, though. A normal comic shop sells western comics, if you enjoy being harassed for not buying anything while browsing and trying to make a choice of what you want.
Or there is Barnes and Noble, the other giant bookstore, which is 40 minutes away from my house compared to the 10 of the old Borders.
All in all, it's been a rough few days. The loss of my computer this morning has hit hard, especially since it's as close as I have to a child as I have right now. With any luck, it'll magically turn back on like last week, but I'm not holding my breath. Nor am I holding out that a bookstore will replace Borders anytime soon.
So rest in peace, friends. You will be missed.
The first, and arguably most important, is my laptop. Laptops are not only important to being a student - say writing columns and articles - but is in the center of what it means to be a geek.
Imagine, for instance, where humanity would be without the advent of lolcats, those funny pictures of felines that have been humorously captioned. Or, even worse, without online games.
Already, it has proven hard without saved bookmarks to go through my morning ritual, checking websites for news and new webcomics. It also didn't help that the first version of this column was sitting on the hard drive, waiting to be edited. Instead, it must be rewritten entirely.
Thankfully, losing that column has provided perspective, and its loss will not be mourned. The loss of all the other files I had not saved to my external hard drive, however, will.
But, I mentioned another friend I have lost. That friend is a store.
Imagine a young man in middle school, on vacation, walking in to a bookstore with a vague goal in mind. He wants a comic book, but nothing Captain America or Spider-Man. Nay, he wants a manga, or Japanese comic book. This kicks off a decade of collecting and reading Japanese comics.
From there, he continues to go to the branch of the bookstore near his home, spending countless hours perusing comics, both Japanese and American, while looking for the latest rule books for tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons.
That bookstore is the former giant Borders. This is the last week it is open, and has sales that are 80 to 90 percent off. Don't bother going to buy books, though, as there are more shelves for sale than books left. It leaves a giant hole in my heart.
Both of these can be replaced, but not without cost. The computer might be fixed, hopefully, but if not, it's a blank slate.
A new computer, with no files, nothing that I previously had, everything gone in the wind. Saved game files? Nope. Word documents? Negative. Funny pictures I had saved from the internet? As good as deleted.
Borders, meanwhile, can be replaced by the internet and a comic shop. The internet is a great place to buy manga, if you know what you want. Half the fun was browsing, though. A normal comic shop sells western comics, if you enjoy being harassed for not buying anything while browsing and trying to make a choice of what you want.
Or there is Barnes and Noble, the other giant bookstore, which is 40 minutes away from my house compared to the 10 of the old Borders.
All in all, it's been a rough few days. The loss of my computer this morning has hit hard, especially since it's as close as I have to a child as I have right now. With any luck, it'll magically turn back on like last week, but I'm not holding my breath. Nor am I holding out that a bookstore will replace Borders anytime soon.
So rest in peace, friends. You will be missed.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
College and its effects on perspective
When asked to come up with what is good about college, a few obvious ideas popped up: Friends, education, connections to the "outside" world, techniques for making instant ramen into a five-star dish. But none of these seemed right. It wasn't until looking at previous blog posts, made two years ago, that it hit me in the face like a burlap bag filled with ravenous, angry weasels. What's good about college is that it provides perspective.
That is a vague term, so some elaboration is needed. Friends come and go, but there is no real sense of what a friend is until you are trying to make lasting connections for the rest of your life.
Rhetorical question: How many friends have you kept in contact with since high school? Middle school? What about your best friend from elementary school? Would you recognize him or her on the street?
This was put into perspective when a Facebook notification informed me that it was my best friend from elementary school's birthday. Navigating to his wall, nothing appeared, except for his family and photos. No wall to post on. There was a sinking feeling when the realization dawned that I was not given access to my once-close friend's wall.
On the other hand, at both colleges I have attended, I have made lasting friendships that I keep, even having barely seen some friends for two years. Granted, I am going to their wedding in October.
What about perspectives on education? For most of elementary through high school, learning was not exactly fun. It was rigorous and supposed to "prepare us for how hard college will be."
And yet, a class where each week a Japanese film is shown and then discussed was fun, informative, and not nearly as boring as 90 percent of my high school classes. Surely a class where the creative merits of Joss Whedon are discussed is better than the high school class where Shakespeare is the sole topic.
But the thing that is most put into perspective is time. It seems like just yesterday was high school graduation, but this December is college graduation after nine semesters. Ironically, one of the friends from the first class this blog was created for has been lost to the sands of time and lack of communication. Two years have gone by since I transferred from Monterey, yet it feels like I was living in the dorms last week.
Time seemed to pass incredibly slowly in high school. In college, it has flown by. Had someone told me that college would happen in the blink of an eye, unlike high school, they would have been met with laughter and derision.
That is, of course, what college is good for - making me think and forcing me to reevaluate perspectives on life, the universe, and everything. The passage of time, friends and acquaintances, and even the learning process have changed over the past two, five, and nearly nine years of high school and a transfer between two colleges.
That is a vague term, so some elaboration is needed. Friends come and go, but there is no real sense of what a friend is until you are trying to make lasting connections for the rest of your life.
Rhetorical question: How many friends have you kept in contact with since high school? Middle school? What about your best friend from elementary school? Would you recognize him or her on the street?
This was put into perspective when a Facebook notification informed me that it was my best friend from elementary school's birthday. Navigating to his wall, nothing appeared, except for his family and photos. No wall to post on. There was a sinking feeling when the realization dawned that I was not given access to my once-close friend's wall.
On the other hand, at both colleges I have attended, I have made lasting friendships that I keep, even having barely seen some friends for two years. Granted, I am going to their wedding in October.
What about perspectives on education? For most of elementary through high school, learning was not exactly fun. It was rigorous and supposed to "prepare us for how hard college will be."
And yet, a class where each week a Japanese film is shown and then discussed was fun, informative, and not nearly as boring as 90 percent of my high school classes. Surely a class where the creative merits of Joss Whedon are discussed is better than the high school class where Shakespeare is the sole topic.
But the thing that is most put into perspective is time. It seems like just yesterday was high school graduation, but this December is college graduation after nine semesters. Ironically, one of the friends from the first class this blog was created for has been lost to the sands of time and lack of communication. Two years have gone by since I transferred from Monterey, yet it feels like I was living in the dorms last week.
Time seemed to pass incredibly slowly in high school. In college, it has flown by. Had someone told me that college would happen in the blink of an eye, unlike high school, they would have been met with laughter and derision.
That is, of course, what college is good for - making me think and forcing me to reevaluate perspectives on life, the universe, and everything. The passage of time, friends and acquaintances, and even the learning process have changed over the past two, five, and nearly nine years of high school and a transfer between two colleges.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Lost in Sacramento and other pitfalls
I began my fifth first day of the year in college at 5:30 a.m. Earlier than my normal 6 a.m., but I had to deliver my girlfriend to the high school she was student-teaching at in an unfamiliar part of Sacramento. A noble cause that will net me boyfriend points, but also the first mistake of the day. Nay, the first mistake of the week.
Getting my girlfriend to school was easy. Getting back to Sacramento State's campus proved a greater challenge.
"It'll be easy," she said. "Stop worrying, you'll get there fine," she said. "It'll take 20 minutes," she said.
I got lost twice. Being directionally challenged, I took not only wrong roads, but entirely wrong highways. My girlfriend said I should be back to campus in about 20 minutes, but it took a call to my student newspaper's editor-in-chief and an hour to get back. I was able to make it to my first class with quite literally two minutes to spare.
But the day was not done. I still had to help out with production night at the State Hornet, the aforementioned newspaper. My last class got out at 4:15 p.m. I didn't leave campus until 9:30 p.m.
With the first day at an end, I had hoped that my bad luck was at an end. Wrong again.
Tuesday's classes went well enough, save for finding out that I will have to read a book each week. The real trouble came when the editors under my care had to upload their stories to the Hornet website. The editors caught on quickly, which was good, but the uploading itself proved glitchy and uncooperative. Being that the online news editor had classes, I uploaded his section for him. It took six hours. For reference, when I was opinion editor last semester, it would take me between 30 minutes and an hour to do it each week.
Two days of bad luck. One would think that after having done this four times already, I'd be prepared for the inevitable rush of things not going my way on the first week of classes. Sadly, I don't seem to learn. Thankfully, this will be the last time I have to live through what I like to call "Hell Week."
Also thankfully, my luck changed. Wednesday was an ideal day, and nothing went wrong. I even got home before the sun went down, was able to hang out with friends, and relax.
But that was the eye of the storm.
Thursday morning, I was given the task of doing something no one had figured out since the Hornet started using computers: Connect to the server from home while on a PC.
Instead of whining and moaning about how terrible my week had been and trying to pass it off on someone else, I hoped that my luck would turn around and I'd figure it out. The universe must think it has a sense of humor, because I regained my stride and figured it out.
While I would love to end this column with a profound lesson I've learned, say something along the lines of "life is a roller coaster, deal with it" or "experience does not always make you prepared," but the only lesson I've really learned is that having a staff parking permit helps immensely when one arrives at campus with 10 minutes before class starts.
Getting my girlfriend to school was easy. Getting back to Sacramento State's campus proved a greater challenge.
"It'll be easy," she said. "Stop worrying, you'll get there fine," she said. "It'll take 20 minutes," she said.
I got lost twice. Being directionally challenged, I took not only wrong roads, but entirely wrong highways. My girlfriend said I should be back to campus in about 20 minutes, but it took a call to my student newspaper's editor-in-chief and an hour to get back. I was able to make it to my first class with quite literally two minutes to spare.
But the day was not done. I still had to help out with production night at the State Hornet, the aforementioned newspaper. My last class got out at 4:15 p.m. I didn't leave campus until 9:30 p.m.
With the first day at an end, I had hoped that my bad luck was at an end. Wrong again.
Tuesday's classes went well enough, save for finding out that I will have to read a book each week. The real trouble came when the editors under my care had to upload their stories to the Hornet website. The editors caught on quickly, which was good, but the uploading itself proved glitchy and uncooperative. Being that the online news editor had classes, I uploaded his section for him. It took six hours. For reference, when I was opinion editor last semester, it would take me between 30 minutes and an hour to do it each week.
Two days of bad luck. One would think that after having done this four times already, I'd be prepared for the inevitable rush of things not going my way on the first week of classes. Sadly, I don't seem to learn. Thankfully, this will be the last time I have to live through what I like to call "Hell Week."
Also thankfully, my luck changed. Wednesday was an ideal day, and nothing went wrong. I even got home before the sun went down, was able to hang out with friends, and relax.
But that was the eye of the storm.
Thursday morning, I was given the task of doing something no one had figured out since the Hornet started using computers: Connect to the server from home while on a PC.
Instead of whining and moaning about how terrible my week had been and trying to pass it off on someone else, I hoped that my luck would turn around and I'd figure it out. The universe must think it has a sense of humor, because I regained my stride and figured it out.
While I would love to end this column with a profound lesson I've learned, say something along the lines of "life is a roller coaster, deal with it" or "experience does not always make you prepared," but the only lesson I've really learned is that having a staff parking permit helps immensely when one arrives at campus with 10 minutes before class starts.
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