Balls and Walnuts
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Collectors
I’ve been bottom-feeding on eBay, snapping up modern-date proof coins for a fraction of their book value. It’s a sleazy job but someone has to do it. I don’t know whether a high grade proof quarter from the mid-90s will ever appreciate in value, but if I buy it at 25% book, I’m unlikely to lose money.
It’s a curious thing, what some folks collect. Yesterday, I asked a young disabled patient what he did with his time. He told me that he trades, restores, and customizes Hot Wheels. I described to him the one Hot Wheel I remember from my childhood: something Mod Squad-inspired, a metallic green sports car with a glass (plastic, actually)-topped cabin and an exposed engine on the hood. Instantly he knew which one I was describing, and even named it.
Blew me away. I never would have been able to recover that name, but the moment he said it, I knew he was right. Meet the Beatnik Bandit.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so surprised by his quick recognition. It’s a distinctive car, after all, and 1968 was the first year of issue for Hot Wheels. Not knowing the Beatnik Bandit would be like a coin collector not knowing the Booby Head Coronet Large Cent.
And here I thought I knew what a booby was.
Some people are collectors, some aren’t. I wish I had saved all my various collections because they’d have had considerable value by now. My 1975 Topps Manny Mota card must be worth —
$2.49? And not even a single bidder? Maybe my baseball cards wouldn’t be worth a fortune.
My collection of Orange Crush bottle caps surely must be worth . . . $0.99? And no bidders.
I’ll stick to coins.
D.
Where I grew up
The two homes I lived in as a kid still stand, although one is unrecognizable. The unrecognizable one is our first home, the one which the new owners uglified soon after my dad sold it. In the old days, we had a porch and a Dutch Elm (if I remember correctly) and some nice ferns and various other shrubbery that gave the place curb appeal. The remodeled home looks like a pastel box.
When I’m down in Southern California, assuming I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll drive by one house or the other. It can be depressing driving by that first house — disconcerting is perhaps a better word — because more often than not, I drive right past it. I shouldn’t have to check the street address to know, “This is the home where I pooped and peed a couple thousand diapers.”
Darker than Black
More anime-foo from Karen.
Hmm, not much response to my Skull Man post. . .
After watching Skull Man, I checked Wikipedia for other works by Studio Bones and found Darker Than Black. DO NOT read the Wikipedia entry on this, it will spoil the series for you.
I really loved DTB and went into fangirl mode after the sixth episode. At that point, I was scrambling to buy the DVDs and considering paying for next morning overnight shipping. That’s taking into account that I already knew all the episodes were all available online for free – but not in high resolution. I wanted to see every detail.
DTB is a sci-fi, film noir, espionage action-adventure about a highly skilled, paranormal assassin/spy named Hei, aka the Black Reaper, aka BK-201, aka Li Shun Sheng, aka the cursed contractor. That is a lot of names but it reflects the complex aspects of Hei’s character. At any particular moment, whom are you seeing? The spy? The other-worldly creature? The cold-eyed assassin? The tiny glimmer of a human being?
The basic premise is that a meteor hit Tokyo ten years ago. Investigators were immediately dispatched to the blast site and all but one ended up in pieces, scattered over the area. The stars disappeared, replaced by “false stars,†each representing a contractor, a human transformed into a sociopath with a paranormal ability. Governments, corporations, and mobsters saw their potential and quickly employed them as spies, assassins, bodyguards. Various intelligence agencies, CIA, MI6, FSB, etc., ruthlessly use them to gain technologic and scientific advantages. Basically, it’s a ‘John LeCarre’ world with science fiction elements.
CORRECTION! Karen asked me to add: the meteor crash site is referred to as Hell’s Gate, and it’s locked away behind a giant perimeter wall. You don’t find out about the meteor until episode 11 or 12.
Contractors each have one ability which varies from individual to individual; one may have control over gravity or another may teleport objects, and so forth. There is a price to be paid for the power, however, and the contractor is compelled to perform some meaningless or trivial (or not so trivial) act such as place pebbles in a particular pattern, eat strange foods, drink the blood of children . . . Look, there’s a reason the show is called Darker Than Black. There is a good deal of violence but I didn’t find it too graphic. Jake did, though.
So contractors are sociopaths with OCD, or at least, that’s what their employers prefer to believe. A show about sociopaths would be rather boring and predictable, however, and DTB is anything but. In the first few minutes of the first episode, Hei tortures and murders a rival agent. Did I mention he’s an anti-hero?
Well, after that introduction, the show insidiously begins to make you like Hei. He has a dead-pan sense of humor and he is very intelligent. I do not want to give too much away, but there is a lot more to Hei than just killing people in really cool ways. He is very cool, though.
DTB is an entertaining series with great emphasis on character development. But it is not a perfect show. The producers tend to info-dump and some of the tragic moments just didn’t work for me. The 7th and 8th episodes are essentially filler episodes, but do contain information crucial to the first season’s story arc. Subsequent episodes get back on track and the action sequence in episode 10 is great. The last 5 episodes (eps. 21-25) form the ending, which I really liked. Not surprisingly, Studio Bones doesn’t coddle the audience and you need to pay attention to some degree, but not nearly as much as with Skull Man. The English dub is surprisingly good, but I did prefer the subtitled version. Both versions can be seen on the Funimation website. If you like the first six episodes, you should buy the box set which encompasses the first season, $40 on Amazon, $56 on Barnes & Noble if you prefer to be politically correct.
Please, please buy this. Maybe there will be a season 3. (Season 2 was, well, problematic.)
K.
Skull girl
If my dear wife is a Civilization widow, then I am an anime widower. Today, Karen hijacks my blog to give you her intro to anime, with a review of Skull Man (episodes of which can be viewed free of charge here).
I’ve grown so bored with mainstream U.S. movies, I went to the other side of the world: Japanese anime. DirecTV makes it easy to download programs from “channels†like Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim and Anime Network. And thus began my descent into madness.
The stranger shows are available on Anime Network, with everything from kiddie shows to near kiddie porn. That is how I stumbled upon Skull Man, a complex mystery/sci-fi/alt-history anime for adults.
Like most popular culture media, anime has its tropes. The songs on the intro credits usually suck, imho, so don’t let that deter you; the soundtrack music may reflect a completely different genre. Flashbacks/flashforwards are common, so be alert to changes in music, appearances, etc., and the vast majority are set in an alt-history, science fiction universe, so assume that is true unless specified otherwise. Also, watch for changes in the intro or material tacked on after the end credits, especially during the last episode. Lastly, in action/adventure anime, or even Japanese movies in general, the fighting lasts a very short time (much less expensive to animate), with the emphasis on speed, accuracy and the perfect sword cut. For example, in Kurosawa’s film Sanjuro, the climactic duel lasts about 1/4 of a second, perhaps less. The arterial blood spurt lasts longer.
But back to Skull Man. Revered manga/anime pioneer Shotaro Ishinomori wrote a one-issue manga in 1970, which featured a decidedly anti-hero protaganist unconcerned with collateral damage in his search for revenge. With some retro character and set designs intended to pay homage to the original manga, in 2007, Studio Bones used the story as inspiration for a 13-part anime series. From Wikipedia,
. . . the story closely focuses on a journalist named Hayato Mikogami who returns to his hometown at Otomo to investigate strange rumors of killings done by a man wearing a skull mask. Tailed tightly by a young photographer, Kiriko Mamiya, the two soon uncover the many strings of connections between the victims, a local pharmaceutical company, a mysterious new religious sect and strange half human, half animal creatures, which roam the night streets for blood.
This isn’t Kansas and Toto would have gotten eaten, anyway. Moreover, the labyrinthine plot is deliberately confusing and complex, featuring a host of characters with differing agendas, references to Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Zoroastrianism, Shakespeare, and as an added bonus, excessive violence featuring monsters with three eyes.
I am amazed Studio Bones decided to produce this series. The targeted demographic must be male adult anime horror fans who enjoy paying close attention to details. Most of the time is spent on character development, particularly in the middle episodes, and the action sequences mainly occur in the last three. The plot is NOT spoon-fed to the audience and I had to watch the series twice to understand why everyone did what they did, how they did it, and when did it happen. Bones did play fair, though, with all the questions answered if you look hard enough, but sometimes you need to look really, really hard.
So, in general, I enjoyed this anime. It’s not perfect, e.g. I didn’t like the name “Cocoon of Chaos†which may simply not translate well. The general quality of the animation was good, with CGI effects blending well with traditional hand-drawn techniques. The original opening song sucked but was replaced with a better alternate in the version provided by Anime Network. You can watch the episodes for free, but if you like the first few, you should BUY the series so as to encourage the production of this type of program.
OK, next time, I’ll write about a more mainstream show (Darker Than Black), and I’m not talking about kiddie porn anime(s).
Balls
The weekend thus far
How’s everyone’s three-day weekend going? Except you Canadians, you don’t get a three-day weekend, do you? Nyah-nyah. And where IS everyone? I realize I never get comments on my game-related posts, but you folks have been quiet for several days now.
Yesterday, we took a drive down to LA to go on an eating binge. This is what we do for entertainment. If LA had the equivalent of a Roman vomitorium, we’d be there. Instead, we’ll indulge in anything from tasty holes-in-the-wall to snooty upscale eateries. Last night was more the latter than the former. Folks with long memories will recall that I’ve been jonesing for Ipswich clams, and Jar looked like a decent place to wallow in clamminess, so that’s what we did.
The group was: my wife and son, my sister, and my friend Mike. My family all liked Mike, which was great, since it’s never a given that your family will think your friend is as cool as you think he is. But he’s basically one of us (same age, not too dissimilar upbringing) which helps.
The food: yes, we had the clams. Two orders. Sadly, they didn’t bring enough; even two orders left us unsatisfied. My sister and I (the resident Ipswich clam experts) agreed that these were superior to every other west coast fried clam you might encounter, but still not up to 7E’s standards (a fried clam joint in New England). No bellies.
Karen and I had the soft shell crab special. Karen liked hers, but I thought it was a little disappointing. Soft shell crab is tricky; if they’re a little too old, the shell isn’t quite soft enough to crisp up in the deep fryer. We had some tasty French fries with it and some pea greens that were also very good.
My sister had sole, and while I thought it was excellent, I think it was a little undercooked for her taste. Jake had coq au vin (really, really good . . . in fact, I’m wishing we had taken home his leftovers) and Mike had a leg of lamb dish that also looked great. And we all did dessert. And we all lived to tell about it.
Come on, folks, chime in. You can’t ALL be doing fun stuff with families this weekend. I know some of you are on the ‘net.
D.
Top ‘o the world, ma.
I don’t write anymore, save for emails and blog posts. The drive isn’t there. I would like to know where it went, but no one’s talking.
Of course, this leaves me with spare time. Lots of it. And lately that time has been funneled into a brilliant little gem of a game, Civilization IV. Now, the Civilization series has been around a long, long time; the first version came out in 1991, and I remember, during my second or third year of residency, staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning, hooked by the “one more term” hunger like a junkie jonesing for his next fix. The AI is always asking you questions and it’s hard not to answer. What do you want to build in Constantinople? What do you want to do with this pikeman, with that panzer? Your stack of six tanks are at the walls of Moscow. Do you attack, or do you wait for your artillery to arrive next turn? You’ve finished researching Liberalism. Is it time for a revolution? Or would you rather research Fascism, first? Build the pyramids in Paris or use your resources to build an army of swordsmen instead?
One. More. Turn.
One thing I haven't done yet: nuke my enemies into submission
Civ IV has a much different feel to it than the original Civ. Civ III was yet another variation on the theme. Oddly enough, I skipped Civ II altogether, but Civ III consumed me for more hours than I care to recall. Thing about Civ III was that the games were long. Hellish long. Long enough that I finished very few of them. Oh, and then there was Alpha Centauri, the franchise’s science fiction version and one of my favorites because when you conquer a civilization, they don’t just vanish from the screen; no, you get a brief animation of the leader of that civ being “interrogated” (tortured) as a door slams shut much like the end of The Godfather (or The Prisoner). In Alpha Centauri, the game creators had the brilliant idea of giving each leader a unique political philosophy, so that when you conquered Sister Miriam, for example, you weren’t just wiping her smug prissy smile off the planet, you were destroying religious fundamentalism, too. Aah, so satisfying.
One of the improvements of Civ IV is that time flies by rather quickly, such that you’re in the 20th Century before you know it. And if you play a tight game with relatively few cities, say if you’re going for a diplomatic or cultural victory (rather than a military victory), your turns are not time-consuming.
My most recent game, however, was a big one. Large map, and I set out to achieve a domination victory. I had something like 67 cities by the end of it, and I had crushed the Mongols, the Egyptians, the Indians*, the Chinese, and most of the Roman Empire before the rest of the world acknowledged the inevitable. I only remained at peace with Huayna Capac of the Incan Empire.
At the end, you get a number of screens showing your progress in the game you’ve just completed. My previous game took 10 hours. This one seemed a little longer. Had I spent 12 hours at it? Fourteen?
Try forty.
My wife is a Civ IV widow.
But the best part was the animation screen showing my progress relative to the other civs. I played as the most ruthlessly bellicose civilization in human history, the Americans. FDR to be exact. And my color was blue. On the world map, you at first see small blossoms of color: my blue Washington, China’s purple Peking, and so forth. Additional blooms appear as we founded our secondary and tertiary cities. The color spreads like ink stains as our cities extend their cultural boundaries. Soon, each of us had our fair share of the globe.
And then FDR went ballistic. I began nibbling away at the Kublai Khan (muddy brown) and Hatshepsut (yellow), gaining momentum, until my blue wave grew to consume one-third, one-half, finally two-thirds of the screen. Like Pac Man on a binge. Like metastatic melanoma.
I rule.
D.
*Don’t worry, it was Asoka I crushed, not Mahatma Ghandi.
Hey Jake! You’re learning.
Huffington Post reports on a new study demonstrating the learning benefits of video games:
“People that play these fast-paced games have better vision, better attention and better cognition,” said Daphne Bavelier, an assistant professor in the department of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester.
That’s the meat of the article. The rest is sprinkled with tired old canards — first from the game-haters,
Gavin McKiernan, the national grassroots director for the Parents Television Council, an advocacy group concerned about sex and violence in the media, said that when it comes to violent video games, any positive effects are outweighed by the negative.
“You are not just passively watching Scarface blow away people,” McKiernan said. “You are actually participating. Doing these things over and over again is going to have an effect.”
and then from Bavelier herself, who turns out to be, um. Well, um . . .
Bavelier said games could be developed that would harness the positive effects of the first-person shooter games without the violence.
“As you know, most of us females just hate those action video games,” she said. “You don’t have to use shooting. You can use, for example, a princess which has a magic wand and whenever she touches something, it turns into a butterfly and sparkles.”
Oh, yeah, that’ll sell.
D.
“All the blooms are off that tree.”
So said my Dean Witter stock broker back in 1982 when, for the first time in my life, I had more money than I knew what to do with. With my six-month internship at a Richmond, California herbicide company, I earned something like $2000, and it was burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to put my money into what was then one of the sexier young stars on the horizon.
Alex specialized in penny stocks — itty bitty companies that would wither and die in less than a season, but would often run up a double or triple before they inevitably plummeted. After making a quick few hundred on my first transaction, I developed some misplaced trust in Alex. Turns out he was lucky, not good. If he was good, he wouldn’t have dissuaded me from investing my money in a young company that thought it could market personal computers to the masses. At the time, they were torn by infighting over whether to market first the Lisa or . . .
Yeah. The Macintosh.
Berkeley undergrad Kyle Conroy has tabulated what your money would be worth if, instead of buying an Apple product, you had invested in Apple stock instead. $5700 on the Apple PowerBook G3 250 in 1997 would be worth over $330,000 today. That’s 1997. And I wanted to buy Apple in 1982.
Apple stock has gone through a lot of swings in 30 years, so there’s no telling how long I would have hung onto my shares. But now, this very week, Apple stock has a net value greater than that of Microsoft stock. Apple is huge, and I could have gone in on the ground floor.
Reminds me of my thesis adviser, who did some consulting work for a little known biotech company back in the early 80s. They had yet to go public. He was offered cash or potentially worthless shares. He took the cash.
In 2009, Hoffmann-LaRoche bought them out for $46.8 billion. Guessed it yet?
Genentech.
D.
Quickie for the teachers
At HuffPo, funniest test answers ever.
Some of ’em are pretty damn funny.
D.
RIP
Art Linkletter died today. They said on the radio that he was 97, and that he had published yet another book three years ago. Amazing, isn’t it, how some of the big personalities from my childhood are only now winding down? Jack LaLanne turns 96 this year, and he still looks great. John Rovick turns 91 this year (Sheriff John). I wish Bob Keeshan were still around, but he passed away just a few years ago.
For Art Linkletter’s sake, I hope there is a heaven, and he’s visited every day by the kids whom he met on TV.
D.