Sundown

It's not easy to write certain minorities, unless one is motivated and invests themselves into knowing their cultures and writing characters that love as we love, fear as we fear, care as we care, but express themselves in their own unique manner. In the end, the audience has to connect with the characters as people-- and not just as a smattering of stereotypes. It's much easier to write to type (Token Asian Martial Artist or Scientist guy) or write against type (Asian slacker who's actually a skateboarding druggie guy). But neither make for a very compelling character. Cho's at least more authentic than certain other "representatives" for the Asian community, like Amy Tan, who repackages Chinese culture in a quaint Panda-Express box that tastes all sorts of funny to real Chinese folks. Not to mention that she's largely disowned Asian men as fitting romantic material for being too weak and passive, and if I remember correctly, has stated that white men is where it's really at now. While I don't have a problem with inter-racial dating and someone having personal preferences, she hardly represents the Asian community or even Asian women as a whole. And I take issue with her being a supposed face for the Asian community when she disowns half of it. Authentic and compelling Asian characters in American media are few and far between, but I am seeing some being written and portrayed with sensitivity, fairness and thought recently. In movies, we have Harold and Kumar. Harold fits the Asian stereotype to a tee, at first inspection. He's conflict-avoidant, law abiding, hard working, and gets dumped on by the white folks at the financial firm he works for and readily takes it. The movie owns up to the fact that these stereotypes are often true... but it goes on to show that there's more to him than these surface stereotypes. In some ways, it portrays an Asian character more authentically than films that just feature token characters playing to type, because Harold resembles more closely a real Asian American male someone might interact with than whoever Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, or Jackie Chan is supposed to be portraying. Harold even gets the non-Asian girl in the end, even if she's not technically and completely "white". And unlike Jet Li, he actually gets to kiss her. Jin and Sun, the Korean couple in Lost, are portrayed extremely well. While Jin seems at first the typical wife-beating, domineering, xeno-phobic Korean man, and Sun appears to be yet another submissive, docile, reserved and demure Asian woman, you find out as the show progresses that they are much more than that-- and that some of their stereotypical behaviors are the result of their unique situation. The writers pulled a fast one on me, and I didn't see that one coming at all. Jin and Sun's flashbacks look almost as if they belong in a Korean soap opera or movie, and the show allows Asian characters to express themselves as they really would without trying to pander to a non-Asian audience. Somehow, it still all works. The Last Samurai is silly in concept to the extreme-- a white guy is the last in the line of Japan's most esteemed warriors. But it does again portray Asian characters with a certain sensitivity and authenticity that allows them to come across as people with their own way of expressing what matters to them, instead of using them as mere plot devices and props. The irony is that in the movie Crash (which I love tons), a movie that focuses on racial tensions and for all the characters are able to do what the above movies and shows have done-- show that surface stereotypes are based on a good deal of truth, but that each person is much more beneath-- it fails to do that with an Asian character. The movie's writer appears motivated and capable enough-- he can write convincing white folks, black folks, hispanic folks, and even Persian folks. But somehow, he's not able to write a compelling Asian or East Indian character character despite the fact that the film is supposed to take place in Los Angeles where both ethnicities abound. What Asian characters we have are merely plot devices and props-- they're either run over by a car, packed in the back of a van, or should be run over by a car for how totally annoying they are. Ultimately, no Asian character grows in the manner other ethnic representatives in the movie do, and one is even deconstructed at the movie's end, losing much of the sympathy you had for him. But what can you do... Asians by large don't complain and raise enough of a ruckuss in real life to make for very interesting characters in a movie that's centered on tension and violent confrontation. They're so integrated and assimilated that all they can do is whine about unequal representation in the media, a little like I'm doing here now. =) But the only way to make progress in this area is for Asians to simply start producing and start entertaining. If Asians can entertain those outside of their ethnicities, they will be sought after and they will be written and worked into movies, shows, and the media at large. Even though Hollywood should keep an open mind and look for opportunities to portray differing ethnicities in a way that allows audiences to connect with them in a genuine manner, Asians simply cannot demand representation and demand that Americans find them suddenly entertaining as if it was an entitlement they were owed, and think that somehow, if they're angry enough they'll get a TV show or main character of their own. I have a more plausible explaination. As Russel Peters (an Indian comic) says, in the future, there won't be any races. No black folks, no asian folks, no white folks. Just beige. There are so many asians and indians that were all just going to interbreed with everyone else... so we might as well get started on that now. You can run, but sooner or later... we're gonna hump you. -Al

Absolutely gorgeous, Cap. Could we possibly get a line scribed down the center of the heatshield? Was a bit of a bummer seeing Yamato release the new CF-1A without the correct heat shield detail... and one of the things that makes the 1D stand out is how its heatshield looks different from the rest. My other critiques are that the disks that form the "ear" lasers seems much too small, especially compared with line art and how the head is interpreted in other VF-1D models and toys, that the head seems too short in back, and that the vent at the back of the head seems too large vertically. But the work's definitely beautiful. -Al

Someone somewhere said that it'd have been interesting to see Topher as Ben Reily (Peter's clone in one of the arcs that took over the role of Spidey, and even convinced Peter at one time that Peter was the clone.) -Al

He's busy NOT doing an Excelsior series, that's where. *fistshake* -Al

Topher as Venom... O_o. I keep wondering if Topher would have made a better Parker than even McGuire. At least he might have made a better Spiderman, with his dry, sarcastic wisecracks. But Venom?! I wish they'd have saved Venom for a fourth movie, just so we can see more of black Spidey, and even get used to the idea, with the movie ending with him in his new "costume". -Al

That's like comparing batman to superman. Batman uses his mind, honed skill and training. Supes uses his powers. (he is an alien) Max although just a normal person may be the genius he claims to be and just uses that natural skill. (kind of like how you see genius children in the world outsmart most adults because of thier gift) Actually, that's more like comparing Batman to a Batman who hardly ever punches his enemies, hardly ever uses any of his martial arts, and just dances around dodging gunfire, attacks, and sings other supervillians into submission. Probably not unheard of for a comic character, but then again Basara's singing isn't some sort of superhuman power. He's just really, really passionate. And as far as I understand, Basara isn't an alien from Krypton who's powers are enhanced by the rays of a yellow sun. I have to agree that Basara survivng scores of battles without shooting is implausible, and certainly isn't realistic, if by "realism" we mean similar to something that actually happens in real life. There is no record of a single combat pilot who has survived scores of engagements without firing a shot, evading all attacks merely by manuevering and using defensive countermeasures. Shooting back is pivotal to any pilot's survival, and enemy pilots having to maneuver against the constant threat of his attacks is what keeps them off a pilot's own six. Max is a combattive genius, of Basara's skill or better. But we stretch his exploits and survival in SDF to implausibility if we change it so that he never actually fires his gunpod or shoots a missile in the many, many battles he participates in. Yet this is what we're being asked to accept in M7. The implausibility of it all only increases when we also add the fact that Max is also singing to his enemies the whole time. Somehow this just doesn't rub me as particularly "realistic". Oh, yeah. What I like about M7. -The music isn't too shabby. Planet Dance isn't even that bad in mild doses. -Milia with a cute short hair cut. Short hair's my fetish. Sue me. -Milia's VF-1J, the Monster run by old geezers, and basically everything that harkens back to SDF with exception to the VF-1's painted like clowns in that very same episode. -Character development and interactions. They were entertaining to watch, and Mylene's somewhat fun. -Al

Thanks much! Has a certain nostalgic Chunky Monkey charm to it... and the canopy's proportions without the thick heat shield actually make it look more anime accurate, except for the problem of it being clear, of course. -Al

Okay, I take that back. I just tried seeing if I could easily fix it in Photoshop by mucking with the hue and color balance controls. No fix would allow me to fix the skin tones without making the other colors blatantly incorrect. I... have no idea how this is possible. The rest of the image looks too passable and competent, even if it's no Miyamoto or Amano, for me to think that the artist isn't aware that his main character is pink. Unless it's a lighting/mood effect gone terribly wrong... -Al

You'd think so... Is there a possibility that this image is just a bad scan or has its color values all messed up? The magenta bits on those green fingery bits are also pinkish, and I wonder if the whole image's color value somehow got skewed to the red end of the spectrum. -Al

The suck! Hope you can get it fixed somehow... but so your misery isn't a total loss and without some amusement value, how about some pics in battroid next to the also-shieldless 1/55? -Al

I finally figured out who new-old-fart-Snake reminds me of: The threeway bastard love child of: Sam Fisher Nick Fury and J.J. Jameson Kind of ironic and a little sad that Snake now resembles Sam Fisher in look and gear, when MGS was in fact the original and Splinter Cell the derivative. There was that early MGS4 video spoofing Splinter Cell by having Snake carry around his weapon slung on his back like Sam and one of the characters using the distinctive 3-lens nightvision goggles from Splinter Cell. I'd thought that Kojima was mocking Splinter Cell in light jest, but MGS4 actually takes design steps that make it resemble Splinter Cell more instead of moving in a different direction. -Al

Somewhere between very intrigued and very annoyed. It seems that Kojima is zealously committed to the cause of denying us the ability to play as Solid Snake set in present time ever again -- you know the one that we'd fallen in love with through all of the original Metal Gear games up to the meager first part of MGS2. Instead, we're forced to play either a blonde androgynous wannabe, his genetic predecessor from the 70's, or him as an old ailing fart. Three major titles without "real" Snake as the main star. And no, turn-based card games on a portable don't count. Argh. *shakes fist at Kojima* Unless it's another one of Kojima's feints, and we do actually get to play as the more familiar Snake somehow. Well, I can hope. -Al

Dreamcast -- Best analog triggers EVAR. Rest of the controller was pretty spiffy too, and some uses of the VMU were just brilliant. -Al

How about a more proportionate chestpiece for the GBP when it comes out? *bats lashes* -Al

Really? Well I imagine that the body has to switch to metabolizing fat at some point, or someone in "starvation mode" would suffer complete muscle atrophy and be incapable of even basic movement before he began to lose some of the fat. There's gotta be some switchoff point before the muscles are completely digested... or else starvation would leave us quivering and invalid blobs of fat at some point. For those six meals, are they pretty small portions? I've noticed on a trip that Europeans seem a whole lot thinner and fitter than Americans, and it's not that they don't eat much or don't know how to enjoy food. It's that they don't eat gigantic portions and instead favor a variety of smaller courses over a huge helping of fat, grease, and carbs in one sitting. -Al

That got me wondering too, but I'm guessing that we burn muscle before fat in "starvation mode" because muscle itself consumes energy even when we're inactive. In order to deal with that, our bodies limit energy use by trimming down the amount of extra muscle we're carrying around, so we're not wastefully burning all our fat away sitting around waiting for our next meal to walk by. I suppose that after trimming down our muscle mass to more efficent levels, the body switches back over to burning fat. Neat trick. Agent One probably knows a whole lot better so hopefully he'll correct me if I'm off here. -Al

I think in that scenario you described, the parents are precisely the ones responsible. The kid found a way to get GTA:SA only because his parents weren't concerned enough to even glance at the rating or find out what the game was about. Saying people shouldn't be held responsible for their kids because they don't know and they don't care just seems... well... silly. Signed, Captain Obvious

Oddly, I sort of like the premise to the game. It doesn't seem like you're the bully, at least on the outset-- but that you're supposed to be standing up to the bullying, albiet in less than civil ways. I'm digging the game's art style and ambience... ruddy British-looking reform school kids rumbling on the school grounds. Being able to take vengence upon your foes with the red-rubber-dodgeball o' fear. It's like Harry Potter but with fists. Of course, knowing Rockstar, they're likely to take the game in tasteless and insensitive directions. -Al

I don't think these guys would randomly walk down the street in their medieval-nerf gear either. Their events look pretty organized from the scale of things. Not to mention that we airsofters regularly go full gear to little events in the woods-- all without the pomp, organization, and sanction of a full on reenactment or ren faire. Sort of like these guys. The only thing slightly silly about these folks is that they use nerf bats, are a little more hammy, and that they sometimes do it in a park within eyeshot of bystandards. But then again, they can. We airsofters are liable to catch real lead if we tried that sort of thing. I mean seriously, why should they wait until a ren faire to do the sort of wargaming they enjoy? On the off chance that they might offend the cool sensibilities of someone who's not even interested in the sorts of stuff they do in the first place? Err, I beg to differ, and have the scars to show for it. Regardless of what sort of rules you play by, hits to sensitive parts do happen. Same go for close range hits if you're doing CQB or some such. And while you can wear some protection, gear like full paintball masks wear at the visual realism of the whole sport. And then there are those folks with upgraded guns shooting at the field's maximum fps. Owie if they hit you somewhere soft. A bad hit can puncture skin. Nerf doesn't tend to do that sort of thing. Make no mistake. Most normal folks would roll their eyes at both hobbies. Airsoft isn't some sport for the hip elite. It's us guys still playing "soldier", albiet with more expensive toys and more sophistication. It certainly doesn't automatically put us at the top of the dork-food-chain regardless of what we'd like to believe, especially when we spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on what are in essence toy guns. And I imagine that there might be folks out there who think 20-30 year olds still playing with robot toys from old cartoons need a sound thrashing. Yes, I'll concede that what they do is actually pretty dorky. But it actually looks like it'd be fun if you could get past the corniness of it all. But us thinking our hobby so much higher on the totem pole of geekdom is sort of like the Chess Club wanting to kick the crap out of the kids playing D&D in the corner, just because they're oh so much cooler. That sort of thing wasn't even cool when the jocks were doing it. Well, at least it hasn't been since the 8th grade anyway. -Al

So what do you define as "wannabe"? Someone who doesn't actually draw for a published Japanese manga or professional anime studio? Or someone who's work doesn't match the style and quality of what you would subjectively consider "real" manga and anime? But then that's like saying you can always tell if someone doesn't draw quite as well and as professionally as the professionals who've made it. Or that some drawings just aren't as up to par stylistically as others in your eyes. You can tell when something isn't up to your expectations? Wow, that's profound. And to that we would say, err... thank you Captain Obvious! I would probably have agreed in part with your original statement. Western artists copying anime's style often miss the mark and produce something that's still recognizably Western. But your backpeddling here in an attempt to keep your original assertion relevant has rendered your new statement meaningless-- except as one expressing generic derision towards all amateur fan artists themselves. -Al

I had the chance to hear Burt Rutan speak here in San Jose. Was very ambivalent about the SpaceShipOne project... rocket propelled plane thing, barely getting out of the atmosphere... whoopiee. But after hearing about it and his thoughts about privatized space travel, I came to appreciate the project a whole lot more. Rutan's well aware that there's still much to go and that SpaceShipOne was only breaking some of the initial ground... and that currently, it's only good for a short, scenic, 0-g ride in space. I had a feeling that SS1's reentry methodolgy was probably limited in application, but it was a very neat idea, using the thin upper atmosphere to slow yourself down before you hit the hard stuff. -Al

No offence intended, but that seems only slightly less nerdy. And what it lacks in nerdiness it makes up for in mean-spiritedness. 317028[/snapback] Feh, beat me to it. Being an airsofter myself, I know that there's an inherent level of geekiness to the whole hobby. I mean, there's just something silly about grown men shooting at each other with plastic bb guns. The image of them shooting at defenseless misfits who just want to have a good time is even sillier. And finally, the idea of real-deal ex-military guys dignifying what resembles middle-school bullying seems the silliest of all. I don't remember anyone in the video asking, "please pepper us with 6mm plastic death." More than likely, by their yelps of pain, they would be asking to be left alone. Isn't it nice to know that Otaku No Video featured an airsofter as one of their geek specimens of note? Other distinguished members include a guy who built electronic glasses that would allow him to sort of "see past" the mosaic censoring when watching his voluminous collection of Hentai anime. Nice to know we're in good company. Speaking of women, I noted in the video at least one very attractive woman willing to associate with these folks, and another passable one willing to engage in oral contact with one of these guys. I've never encountered a single woman close to being that attractive in airsofting unless it was someone that I'd brought. What are they doing right that we're not? -Al

Who also moonlights as a powered vehicle. Vroom! -Al

Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne that won the X-Prize had an interesting way of dealing with reentry. The whole tail assembly was hinged and as the craft reentered, would fold upwards, doing what they referred to as "feathering". This significantly increased the drag the craft experienced at high altitudes, and by the time the craft encountered thicker atmosphere it was already slow enough to not worry about burning up. Thus it didn't need to follow precise reentry trajectories or carry heavy heat shielding. The craft's weight distribution when "feathering" also naturally caused it to stay upright, so there wasn't much worry about it coming in at the wrong angle or orientation. It would just eventually right itself. Of course this was with a low-orbit craft that barely left the atmosphere. Not sure how practical it would be in other applications. -Al

Wow, I was wondering about exactly that, thinking, "wouldn't eraser crumbs pose a problem?" especially having heard that crud doesn't fall nicely to the floor waiting to be swept away in 0-g, and thus compartments have to be kept pristine. I've heard jokes about Nasa's pen, but never thought it was developed to avoid just that problem you'd have with pencils. Err, these figures have to be off. If 15 out of every 100 commuters get involved in an accident daily, we would be reduced to 10% of commuter cars not having some sort of accident damage within two weeks. One single week if we're actually counting their return trips home. And since the death rate of any accident is about 1 in 160, within three months, half the commuters would be dead. I, making two trips a day, should also be dead several times over since I've been driving. Looked around on the net and found that the chances of being killed in a auto-mobile accident is 1 in 5,000. The chances of being in an accident are a few times higher, but they don't begin to approach 1 in 100. Chances of dying in a plane crash is 1 in 400,000. On a train, similar statistics. So turns out that space travel is one of the most dangerous, not the safest. -Al