Skylanders WiiU Review

So I got a WiiU. I got Mario with it. Mario is pretty much Mario, and if you've played any of the recent versions of it (New Super Mario Bros X, Y and/or Z), you've pretty much played this one. That's not a bad thing, but it isn't anything terribly new. My son is reaching the age (4) where he's eager to see dada play, but not ready to grab the controller himself. This is understandable, as we aren't in 8bit land anymore. Controllers are generally pretty large, and the concept of the Wiimote would be difficult to explain. The iPad is the best gaming avenue for him at this point, but he was excited about the new console in the house, and (the story for the wife, and I'm sticking to it is that) I wanted to get him a game we could "play together".

So I went out and got Skylanders Giants. And it's pretty frickin rad.



I never played the first (and may need to go back and get it eventually), so I was unaware of how it works. I had seen a demo kiosk at Target once or twice, but kind of just ignored it, assuming it was a blatant cash grab like Da Bratz games or whatever. Don't get me wrong, it IS a cash grab, but it actually works, and appeals to ol Ixo's now defunct WoW past, if you can believe that.

I'm still getting a grasp on how far this stretches out, but the little bit of it I've seen is a pretty robust system, so let's break down mechanics.

Skylanders' storyline I'll leave up to you to discover. It's whatever. Some guy did something, and now he's somewhere... it's actually pretty high budget animation, and has good voice acting, I'm just not going to bother breaking it down. The end result is that you're on some planet, and you command (as a Portal Master) an array of little dudes that you can send into combat (the Skylanders themselves).

You pop a guy on the magical light up USB platform that features a wonderfully long (10 foot maybe?) cable, and after a brief "ZOMG, I'M THE BIRD GUY!!1" animation, you control this guy on screen. If you want to swap the guy out, just grab him off the pedestal, the action onscreen pauses/zooms out, you pop another guy on, he does his little intro, and then you're controlling him. The swapping process takes maybe 4 seconds total. None of it is loading screens or progress bars, it's all fanfare. This is awesome, because you'll be swapping guys in and out depending on circumstances. If you've ever played Trine, or Lost Vikings, or anything like that where you have like three guys with different skills, this is the same concept, but the DYNAMIC of swapping your team in the physical world is huge. This is where my son comes in. He decides who dada is controlling, and with some gentle nudging (Hey! We need the BIG GUY now to break this wall!), I can steer him in the right direction.

That part I got, but what I didn't expect was the leveling up and upgrade system (oh boy WoW hooks, here we go). As you use your dudes, they level up, and you can upgrade their attacks and earn new ones. I honestly expected a pretty dumbed down character system, but am pleasantly surprised by the diversity here. A lot of people compare it to Pokemon, but I never really did the pokemon thing, so I guess I didn;t know what to expect. My understanding of pokemon's combat system is that it's a glorified paper-rock-scissors thing, and that you choose Pikachu's lightning attack, and he's strong versus plant pokemon (or whatever), and it's bascially like a Final Fantasy ATTACK / MAGIC / ITEM / RUN AWAY menu driven combat system.

Skylanders characters each come with two different attacks (that can be upgraded), and can earn a third. There also seem to be upgrades that you can find in the game itself that will activate other character abilities. I've found two 'upgrades' for characters I don't yet own, so if I were to buy them (cash grab, hi) they would come with bonus skill Z when I plunked them down on the Portal.

The diversity of the toons again seems well planned out. Not just "fire guy has a fireball and fire nova, and water guy has a water ball and water nova". I have an undead-type dragon that shoots lightning (meh), but also has this sweet ability that has her turn into a shadow, slide along the ground, and then come back out of shadow mode in about 10 feet. Ghosts also rise out of the shadow's path, and linger around afterwards. What I didn't get initially (I thought they were just neat animation effects) is that those are AoE attacks... she essentially blinks away and leaves a DoT in her wake. It's pretty awesome, actually. Her 'new skill' is the ability to launch into the air and rain down attacks from above. Her basic upgrades are longer shadow slide, more ghosts, and stronger lightning. She's completely different from an earth-type rock guy I have that can shoot lasers (meh), and throw down crystals in the ground (which damage on impact). The awesome part of him is that if you chuck a prism down, then shoot your laser INTO it, it refracts and becomes two beams. They also seem to "taunt" enemies, so it's hard to just just chuck five down and go to town. Enemies want to kill them, which you can use to your advantage in a pinch. It's not just "select laser, click yes", you're actually running around and trying to use terrain to your advantage.

I also want to buy new guys, just to see what attacks they have, and how they upgrade (hi there cash grab, how ya doin). It seems almost like League of Legends (which I've played once or twice, but not very good), where there are so many guys to choose from, and you find one with a playstyle that matches your own.

As you run around in the levels, you basically blow up everything, and rings and gems and gold fly out of everything, which you happily vaccuum up to spend on upgrades. AGAIN, the uniqueness of each character comes in. I plopped down a new guy, and was learning him, when I happened across the upgrade shop for the first time... I was like, sweet, buy a new skill, wait... where the hell is all my gold? Oh! This guy's wallet is empty... drop my tree guy back down, he has like 600 gold in his own pocket. I see. You can see this as farming fodder, but it honestly seems like you need to level each guy up individually. I don't have a problem with that. Yet.

There seem to be ways around it (to powerlevel other guys, and optimize the fun out of playing), but the game itself isn't punishing enough to matter really. Remember, this is a kids game! It isn't WoW, where you're rushing to endgame at breakneck speeds so you can begin to "really play". My daughter came in the room and stepped on a second Wiimote, and the game was telling me to put a nunchuck in it so I could play as a second player. This stopped me cold. I clicked in a nunchuck, pressed A, and was asked to drop another dude on the portal.

Wait... WHAT?! Two guys on the portal!? There I was, BOTH OF ME. I suddenly wish my son was 12. Grabbing bird guy off (but leaving the rock guy on) and putting my dragon down was smart enough to know "change P2 bird to dragon". I reckon if you took both off, and dropped two down, it might get confused as to who wants to be who.

The guys come with codes, which can be used online, to play in a rudimentary flash version of the game. You can either key in codes to have the same guys online, or just download USB Portal drivers, and hook the thing directly up to your PC. It's cool (I guess), but I was hoping the persistence would be there. Like it would KNOW my dragon was already level 2, and had 500 gold. The little figurines themselves actually DO have this functionality. If I brought my dragon over to Timmy's house, and plunked it down, it KNOWS what level I am and how much gold I have, plus what moves I've unlocked.

How shit hot is that?!

It actually has a chip onboard, and is constantly updating as you play, so as soon as you yoink it off to swap out, it's good. No need to save your progress. If you buy a used one, you can plunk it down in game, and reset it to "factory defaults" to start it fresh.

The game itself is adjustable from easy-medium-hard, and playing medium is actually a good time. I reckon if I begin to hate myself I can crank it up, or when my son begins to hold a controller I can tone it down. There are actually some pretty decent "events" that took me a few tries to get, and I've only barely scratched the surface. There are like gladiator events where you need to keep bad guys out of a circle in the center of an arena, and if at least 8 are in the area all at once you lose. As long as you can keep it at 7 or lower, though (with more enemies constantly swarming in), you're good. There are all kinds of side games that I haven't even unlocked yet, but once I do I can go back and play previous areas again to do more.

There are also areas that are off limits to me yet, as I don't have a water or robot figurine (cash grab? sup). There are 8 'types' of guys (water, fire, air, earth, magic, undead, life, mech), so having one of each will allow you to access all areas. They act as keys to cross barriers, so if you simply can't stand your undead guy, you can just swap to him to enter a zone, then pop back over to whatever. There are bonuses granted in each area, though... if you're in a spooky forest, your undead guy will do more damage, and earn bonus XP. The area type is clearly indicated in the UI, and the voiceovers even announce "switch to a LIFE skylander to cross this barrier", which could be cool for kids, I guess? Again, the voiceovers are well done, it's not detracting at all.

A starter kit includes the portal itself, the game, one giant (they can lift heavy boulders and break walls, there's one giant per element type), and two normal guys. It's on sale tonight at Walmart at 8pm for $38, which is actually a pretty sweet deal (normally $75-ish). There are three packs of guys for like $25, individual guys for $9, or individual giants for $14. I can see myself easily dropping about $200 on this before the draw wears out. When I played Yugioh, years ago, I dropped stupid amounts on dumb $4-5 booster packs. Not all at once, but spread out here and there. At least with these you know exactly what you're getting for $9, and can build a whole 'deck' without going broke. It's disposable income. Obviously food and shelter come first ;)

One upside to having so many guys is that you're buying extra lives... I had my dragon down to ~50HP, swapped him out, finished the pull (so to speak), and then swapped back in to heal up. It's really an interesting mechanic that needs to be physically played with to get the idea of the flow. It's a shame something like this can't be rented to try out. If you can find the starter pack before xmas for less than full price, I say just grab it.

All that said, this is the second game (Spyro's Adventure being the first). There are still guys out there that fans would already have, and it's good to know that those can be brought over to this one intact. Obviously, the new guys won't magically work backwards in the old game, but you could scoop up the old game and a bunch of dudes for it on the cheap if you wanted to try it out. The sequel has received consistently high marks across the board which is what drew me to it as a launch title to begin with (over a quick port of Black Ops II or something that would be better served on the PC anyway).


ANYWAY.

I guess in order for metacritic to give a damn I need to give out a score... That was a joke, but yeah. I would give this a 9.5. Seriously. The game itself *IS* that good. I'm not sure how I'd feel if I were single, being as old as I am (37), playing this alone after work, but with a kid in the cart to point at while you ring everything up at Toys R us, it's fully justifiable. I would play the shit out of this if I had a gamer roommate, too. There are all kinds of battle modes (not sure if online or not?), and the figurines are so portable that I could play it at home on my WiiU to level up my dragon, then take it to a buddy's house that has it on the xbox360 and still be good to go. I can't think of any other game that's so cross platform, but I guess that's the point (oh hey cash grab, didn't see you there! have you been here long?)

-ixo

[continue...]

Joon is Redeemed

Episode 17 he turns it around.

ZZZ.

Chalk it up as a win.

 Less then three.

[continue...]

Korean Drama: Love Rain

Should perhaps also be known by its driving plot synopsis: "Shit All Over Yoona Over and Over and Over (and Over)".

First, a little background.


I've been consumed by a small slice of k-pop for a year and a half now. I say small slice, because while there is a veritable cornucopia of k-pop out there for consumption, there are only five groups that I really listen to. In fact, they're basically all I've listened to since I posted about it back in June or July of 2011. Girls' Generation (aka "So Nyuh Shi Dae" as it's pronounced in Korean, often abbreviated as just SNSD) easily holds the crown, with T-ara, BoA, Wonder Girls, and f(x) all generally tied for second. There is no third place. There are also no Korean boy bands in the mix. I can say without hesitation that when it comes time to listen to something, I prefer hearing girls making beautiful sounds over boys.

Men making music have a place in my Google Music repository, but it's mostly hip hop. Hip hop has become harder and harder to listen to, though, as I'm just... worn out. When I get in a mood, and need to roll my windows all the way down and crank up something loud during a commute, almost any track from Red and Meth's Blackout album used to do the job, but now I'm finding SNSD's Paparazzi, Taeyeon/Tiffany/Seohyun doing Twinkle, or Taeyeon soloing Hush Hush (zomg...brb in 3.5 min) fits the bill even better. As a bonus, I'm usually in a better mood at the end of the Korean track than if I heard a bunch of Angry Black Man vs America.

There's something huge to be said for not speaking Korean, too. I just ... love hearing the noises they're making with their god damned mouths. I don't know how else to say it. I spent a little while where I looked up the lyrics, but find I actually enjoy not knowing (caring?) what they're saying, and just remaining unaware of the play by play / verse by verse.

There are exceptions, like Taeyeon being put on the spot to randomly perform something, and her just ... KILLING IT... with subtitles. The song actually starts around 3:00, but it's worth watching the buildup to just see that this guy is like "go. sing. do it." and she finally does.

This song is easily my favorite song on the planet right now, and it's a shitty YouTube. I've ripped an mp3 of the YouTube, and have it in my car / on my phone / on demand anywhere. I'm not sure if it's the fact that she just threw down and pulled it out of her ass on the spot, or if it's just because she's Taeyeon, and Oh My Muh Fuggin Gee She's Just Muh Fuggin Kim Taeyeon (!), but I would basically kill to have been in the studio when that was recorded. Hell, I'd likely kill for just a high quality version of it, minus the guy that puts her on the spot.

Here's me, in the black shirt and glasses, and here's you, offering me a Studio Quality Cut of I Have a Lover, As Sung By Kim Taeyeon During That Chin Chin Radio Session:

zzz


ANYWAY. This isn't a post about k-pop (fooled you, right?!). It's a post about Korean Television Dramas. If k-pop is the gateway drug, then apparently dramas are that blue shit they make on Breaking Bad. I began watching one a few days back, have been cracked out and staying up till 3am nights plowing through it after the kids have gone to sleep, and can say without hesitation:

Every wonderful thing I've said about k-pop in this post does not apply to the dramas. Love Rain, which stars Yoona from SNSD, is terrible. Yoona is a beautiful shining star of innocent awesomeness, but she gets so completely shit on over and over every episode to the point that the suspension of disbelief required to immerse yourself in fiction simply does not exist. In a blockbuster motion picture about space aliens, you go into the theater knowing that it isn't an actual documentary. You're presented with fantasy, and as long as the effects are believable (as believable as space aliens shooting lasers can be), you're able to enjoy the show. The fourth wall shatters when the effects are bad; you can tell it's just a guy in a rubber suit, or the green-screening was done poorly.

Love Rain features no aliens. We're meant to believe that Yoona is a woman on our present day planet Earth who would put up with being shit on by a douchebag repeatedly while remaining true to him. He doesn't beat her, it's nothing so overt... he just prances around in perfectly coiffed hair tooting his own horn and talking about how every woman loves him (his nickname is "3 seconds" because he can make any woman fall for him in 3 sec) while rubbing her face in it for liking him in the first place, which also comes to begin in such a ridiculous turn of events that -- again -- you can't believe that it would ever happen in the first place.

The impetus is obvious. We're supposed to feel sorry for Yoona, and cheer from the sidelines for her happiness, but I'm torn between wanting to slap the douchebag for being a douchebag, and slap Yoona for putting up with it. I guess this is me, being a man, not understanding why women want to be shit on by the "bad boy". In typical love story fashion, you need a spreadsheet to keep track of the love dodecahedrons, where guy A and B both like girl X, while girl Y secretly likes boy C, but is stuck dating boy D, who longs for girl Z.

All of that said, I'm not the type to read half of a book and just stop reading it. I've watched 14 of the 20 episodes so far, and will see it through to the end. Maybe my next post will be how it was all worthwhile, but I doubt it. I know for a fact the reason I continue to even put up with it at all is because Yoona is so amazing that every second she's on screen everything else becomes secondary annoyances, buzzing about in the periphery.

Prior to starting this series, Taeyeon was my clear and away favorite member of SNSD. She's the strongest singer, easily, and ... well... is Taeyeon. Yoona is closing the gap, though.

I'll let you know if the ending works out any better, but unless the last scene is homeboy getting shanked in the gut and bleeding out in the gutter... Korea weeping at her loss, me cheering on the couch that he's finally dead... then I think we can chalk this one up as a loss.

Maybe seeing it without subtitles would have helped, that same way I enjoy their music... having no idea what's actually going on.

;)

[continue...]

So... ixobelle@gmail.com is shut down, I guess

Good luck trying to get in touch with Google if you need help. As a sad indicator of how successful they've become, you'll find (once you begin looking) there there are absolutely zero "email us" links to be found in their entire kingdom of websites. It always feels good when you grab an address or username that isn't taken. No one wants to actually be Walter567256@whatever.com. My beautiful, pristine ixobelle@gmail.com, which I used for everything that I didn't want to use rericksen@gmail.com for, has apparently been shut down. I'm not sure when it happened, only that this morning, when I tried to manually sign into it, it was gone.

All mail I got there was set to forward to my "real" gmail account anyway, and be flagged as coming from the ixo account, which was an elegant way of saying 'this came from the blog', or 'this was basically internet username-y related'. I use ixobelle everywhere I go on the big dark interwebs, from Steam to Tapatalk to Formspring to... whatever. It's available 99.9% of the time, as I was happy to discover when I went about making a blog, registering my URL, and setting up gmail.

Now one of those pillars has collapsed, and it's awkward in a very weird sort of way. I could happily register ixobelle01@gmail.com, but it isn't the same. Ixobelle is the name I've chosen for myself, and now the powers that be have decided I can't have that back. It's weird when you think of Google as the Department of Motor Vehicles, which they of course are not. But now they hold this... thing... out of arm's reach, but it's MINE.

I of course realize that it is not mine. It never was mine. In the same way Blizzard is entitled to do whatever they want with "their" purple (yellow now?) pixels, or ebay can happily shut down "your" account any time it damn well pleases. None of this is ours, and maybe it's a good thing they took this from me. I own the URL ixobelle.com, but it's sitting on google's blogger. I could host my own mailserver somewhere and give myself ixo@ixobelle.com, but setting up mail is a punishment I don't want to inflict on myself. In a twist, I could have gmail host my domain's email, but there we are again at the Department of Motor Vehicles... handing over more, when perhaps I should be scooping up and holding it myself.

I use Google for a bazillion things. They're my photo archival system. Every photo of my kids is up there on Google+, marked as unviewable my anyone but my wife and I, but UP THERE, in case my house burns down and all the DVD backups are destroyed. Videos are up on YouTube, similarly marked as private, but in *their* cloud. My email at rericksen@gmail.com dates back to ... ohhh... let's see.... sort by date... 5/10/06. The oldest being a message from my wife saying I forgot my bentou at home.

The recovery page is intentionally vague, and leads nowhere. I mean, it makes sense... who the fuck is Ixobelle? I could probably make a case that it is me based on WHOIS records for ixobelle.com, or the fact that address forwarded to my rericksen account, but imagine I lost jumpyfrog@gmail.com (not actually mine, but I'm sure someone has it), how the fuck could I prove I'M JUMPY FROG, DAMMIT?! Pseudonyms are a slippery slope, but where it used to be pretty rare, we ALL have handles these days. I still feel weird calling my old friend Roger Prindle, who I've never met face to face, anything other than "Tragedy" when we chat on skype or vent.

I can't even be upset at them from a customer standpoint, because how much do I pay them per year? Nothing.



Zzzz. Well played, Google.

[continue...]

If you aren't rapping to your phone yet, you're doing it wrong

If you aren't freestyling *at your phone* every opportunity you get, then how can you ever expect to be taken seriously as a rapper?!

Seriously folks: Text to Speech is the future.



I'M JUST SAYIN.




The very next text you spit,
(girl) it better be legit,
don't go back and edit it,
like some embarrassed little twit.

bilingual joints,
score bonus points
osaki ni, shiko ikitai-ii**
("pardon me for leaving early, but i really have to pee")

**android and iphones will both have issues with japanese... CRAZY I NO RITE?!

[continue...]

Limbo (...the game, not the place)

Although I suppose the game takes place in the.. uh, place. Maybe? I haven't finished it yet, even though I hear it's a short play. I hate knowing that a game is short and awesome ("5 stars, but I wish it was longer!" etc etc), and tend to poke along very slowly once armed with that knowledge.

I love (on the other hand) buying a game outright at the drop of a hat knowing only that "it's good". I had no idea what Limbo was, or what it would be, I just knew that it was beautiful, short, and ten bucks on Steam. I had nothing else to go on than "black and white puzzler". For all I knew it was a gorgeous monochromatic Tetris. I'm pleased to report that was not the case.

This is going to be a pretty shitty "review" of the game, mostly because in my mind I'm tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. The reason I've gotten so much simple pleasure out of the game is because I came into it with so little to go on, and I don't want to spoil that for you. Don't go look up videos or screenshots or ANYTHING. Just go get it. The less you know the better.

Digging around on the web now, I see it was given Downloadable Game of the Year 2010, or some such other awards, but I just don't follow the gaming site newsfeed like I used to. Every once in a while I sort Metacritic by PC games by highest score descending and go down the list and look for anything I don't already know about. I guess this got in under the radar, but probably everyone reading this has already played it.

If, like me, you hadn't yet, then do yourself a favor this weekend and treat yourself. You deserve it. Play it at night, when the kids are asleep. It's available on Steam, or DL on the console of your choosing. I play it on the PC with an Xbox controller, I will ruin one surprise and just let you know that a controller is the preferred method of input. If I didn't have that controller for my PC I would be clunking around with a keyboard, which would significantly diminish the overall ability to just lose yourself in the ambiance of the environment they've created.

Again: treat yourself this weekend. Grab it tonight, and burn through it during the weekend. It will give you something beautiful to reflect on while sipping coffee Monday morning.

[continue...]

Ugh

Christ, I don't even want to deal with it.



And here's me, not even bothering to write about it. Good night. Sleep well, young prince. This is all very ridiculous.

gzzgagsHasgaHHHgnn~~~ I'm sure this can be viewed one way or another, but --honestly-- I think I'm basically over it. As a whole. I'm more interested in configuring our college's eval PA-500 than playing "Dante air-juggles Thrall in Amalur". Perhaps I'm bitter? Everyone from Penny-Arcade to the bagger at Lucky's is wetting their collective pants over Reckoning, but I may just be over the entire enchilada. Like, as a whole. Maybe I just need sleep. Who knows slash cares... zzzzz... maybe I'll take another stab after the sun comes up.

I apologize for the rambling. This has been a tremendous last few months. I may be Director of I.T. coming up here very shortly.... or I may not be. It's all very ridiculous. LE SIGH. I load up my blog in Chrome, and push "new post", then close the window and turn away because I'm not sure what to write anymore. I don't play WoW anymore, and that was the BBQ sauce that drove my McNuggets towards the PUBLISH POST button. I could switch it up on everyone, and begin to write Stupid Powershell Tricks on my blog, but at that point I reckon it's time to retire Ixobelle.com and fire up Rericksen.com or something equally boring no one will care about. Know that if you're reading these words that I love you, and I know you've been with me through the thick and thin, but I just don't want to crap out ... crap... like I'm crapping out right now, and call it a post. That's why 4 months off the charts.

There are games that inspire (Hero Academy for iOS, Limbo for Windows) so I guess I need to just focus on that, and get back down to brass tacks, as they say... Things have been spiraling out and about, and feel like wheels are turnign that are beyond my influence to control.... did I mention the Director of I.T for a Digital Arts College thing..? Jeez Louise... talk about double edged sword of opportunity/responsibility crashing down like an Unstoppable Force of doom on my face. At least I still got the alias to vent on.

I need to remember that. This is catharsis. This is why I type into the white text field.

I'll be back with more, and I promise it won't be so heavy.

LESSTHANTHREE.

[continue...]

Warrior Stances, and... basically every other class

Why do warriors get fury, defensive and battle regardless of "spec"?

Fury is basically Berserker, Arms is Battle, Prot is defensive... why break it the warrior into 9 "classes"? How come the druid can go bear form as a moonkin?


I propose 3 "stances" per class, changeable at will. Why should I sit around as a Mutilate Rogue and force the group to sit around for this next pull because I want to go "Combat"... why not just make it a stance and be done with it? Why not give rogues AoE, Single Target, and Stealth "stances" that don't require being out of combat to activate?

Mages can have Frost, Fire and, Arcance stances, and can popped in and out of at will?

Priests can focus heal, group heal, and go deeps as the need arises... why limit yourslef PER PULL? WoW seems so full of ideas that are half assed.

Why STOP. WAIT. DRINK. in order to swap roles? C'mon Blizz... You've made it *ALMOST* so easy to swap roles... why not go all the way?




Pushing out the rough draft of this post in order to gauge feedback (and also because I can't be fucked to proof it all right now... if you can't see what I'm driving at by now, more words won't crystalize it all...)

Look:
Druids = ANIMAL. Moonkin. Tree.
Shamans = Melee, Ranged, Heals)
Hunters = Uhhh... Dog, Cat, and Pig? No, seriously... AoE, Single, and Pet? I honestly haven't spent any time in the Hunter Trees, but I reckon a theme can be drawn from each...
DK = Tank, Deeps, Debuff-o-riffic?
Locks = Pet, Curse, Nuke


...you see where I'm goign with this?

Why force a respec at all?




Why not drop it like it's hot?



P.S. SNSD = Taeyeon and 8 other random scrubs, AMIRITE?
P.P.S. The new album got pushed back SLASH CRY

[continue...]

I'm the Gayest Straight Guy I Know

I'm not really the kind of guy that needs to have music on 24 hours a day. In fact, having earbuds in at all tends to make me feel claustrophobic, like the music is *too close*, and it's shutting out the rest of what's going on around me. I listen to NPR during my commute, but finally knuckled down and burned 6 cds full of MP3s, since my car stereo can do that, and I actually got the 'decent stereo' option when I bought my car, with a sub in the back yadda yadda. So (here comes the gay) I have about 7 jpop albums all packed onto one CD, and have been happily belting out Utada Hikaru or Bonnie Pink with the windows rolled down while I get to and from work, rather than listening to Michelle Norris and Robert Seagul drone on about how depressing the economy is, etc etc.

Growing up, I listened to rap. I listened to rap before rap even had a tape section in the music stores. Yes, there was some variation in there. It wasn't completely N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton 24 hours a day, but they did have like 4 albums, and when Ice Cube broke off to go solo, he had about 5 or 6 of his own to add to the rotation. Ice-T, EPMD (and subsequently Redman when they got him on), and all sorts of Bay Area groups, too... Paris, East Palo Alto's Totally Insane to Vallejo's whole E-40, B-Legit and the Click, to S.F.'s Dre Dog (Andre Nikatina) and Young Cellski. Master P and the whole No Limit label... there was plenty of rap to go around.

Not all of it was angry black men hating upper middle class white people (i.e. me), there was the whole Tribe Called Quest "Buddy Buddy" thing going on with De La Soul on the sidelines, too, and Ice Cube's cousin Del (the Funkee Homosapien) used to work on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley at Leopold's. His earliest album was just stuff about missing the bus on the way to work, or having a deadbeat friend that used to sleep on his couch and eat all the cereal. Then he had a whole spinoff with Heiroglyphics and Souls of Mischief, and his stuff got a little darker, but for the most part I never really did the AC/DC or Metallica thing. I listened to rap.

And it wears you out a bit. I imagine Metal to have the same effect eventually. You can only be so old and have your music be someone screaming at you. Whether it's screaming about Niggas Fucking Bitches, or The Devil Raping Your Soul For Eternity, it just gets tiresome.

Part of getting older is realizing that a large portion of what you used to do with your friends was pretty ridiculous. I began growing up, and fell into a huge Bjork phase (the name Isobelle, which evetually changed to Ixobelle, is a reference to a Bjork song). At this point in my life, I used to listen to it "on the side". If I put on some icelandic woman oooh-ooh-ing in the car while we went to the liquor store to get 40s, my friends would have thrown the tape out the window and told me what a fag I was.

I didn't really have a good group of friends growing up. Happily, I can say now that I don't hang out with any of those people anymore.

What was liberating, though, was the ability to find something beautiful, and just enjoy it for its beauty. Bjork has an... extensive collection. Currently, on my mp3 drive, i have 318 songs in 17 folders, and this was just what I bothered to re-get after my previous drive took a crap on me. I remember at one point printing out a collection of the remixes of songs from her album Debut, and it was 9 pages long. I discovered her right as Napster was in full swing, and the internet was my oyster.

One crucial album of hers was her Gling Glo album, where she sings in icelandic while her late father accompanies her in a jazz trio. It's this... amazing... CD that she will never perform again because after her father died, she didn't want to dilute the recording of that session. And it's all in Icelandic, except for I think one song at the end (Ruby Ruby). I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, I just liked the sounds her mouth was making... it was the human voice as an instrument. I know the whole album inside out and can basically sing it all, purely phonetically.

From there I began to poke around with Japanese tracks. Around that time I had picked up some random job at an Anime shop, and we had all sorts of music on the shelves along with the videos. It was a similar experience to Gling Glo, where I had no idea what anyone was saying, but the sound of Japanese voices was so... compelling. I really don't know how to describe it. Utada Hikaru's album First Love became one of me new favorites, and the deal was sealed.

From a musical standpoint, I'm sure a lot of people will still turn up their noses. A lot of it is 'throw away' pop tracks with beep-boop beats in the background, and I'm sure if I was 100% fluent I'd be rolling my eyes at the cheesy lyrics, but I've stopped caring. I'm not trying to impress a bunch of douchebag "friends" anymore with how rad I am. When I put it on, it makes me happy. I also eat those little powdered donuts from the vending machine at work from time to time, because they FUCKING TASTE GOOD. I'm not going to deprive myself of something delicious because I'm worried what someone will think if they see me eating them.

I dunno. Where I grew up (Orinda, CA), it was all extremely... "like that". I'm happy to be free of that.

ANYWAY.


Yesterday, I went digging around on YouTube trying to find one track that was playing all over the radio while I lived in Japan. I couldn't remember the name of the song... I thought it was "Lucky" or something. I had a very rough semblance of the rythm in my head, but nothing else to go on, so I poked around until I found some site that listed Japan's top 20 singles per week, and began rummaging around until I found it... Smily by Otsuka Ai, number 5 on the charts for May 2005:



(1:32 only, if you want the full version, view it here)

If you were at a stop light, and saw a grown ass man bumping this shit with the volume turned to 11 and la la la laa-ing what are you going to think? Zomg, totally gay, right? I know! I think that's why I love it so much! ;)

Anyway, last night I began digging into korean youtubes as someone in trade made an offhand comment, and I figured what the hell, right? Korean guy bands are still a bit much for me. Hell, Asian guy bands in general. There's a magazine in Japan called "Men's Egg" that I always used to see in the convenience store that invariably had some guy on the cover with way too much mousse in his hair. I have a hard time taking them seriously.

I found a group called Girl's Generation, though, that uhhh....

Ahem.

Yowza.

It's uhh... Nine Korean girls... all of them impossibly hot, and uhh....



Yeah.

That was the first one I found. Then I wound up on "Gee"... which they apparently do in Korean:



AND in Japanese:



I can't decide which version I like better... probably the Japanese because I can understand most of it now, but the Korean is back to that "just the sound of their voices over the music" which was initially one of the big draws.

Catchy as all hell.



Totally gay.



I love it.

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GRfagfmmalslmmbl

I just woke up. It's 5:45pm. Yesterday I went to sleep around 6pm. Pretty soon my sleep schedule will sort itself out, I'm hoping. I'm not sure what time it is in Japan, but I'm not the kind of guy that keeps referring to two clocks during times of jetlag. I don't care what time it's *SUPPOSED* to be. I look at the clock on the wall in California, and know only what time it *IS*.



I'm alone at home with my cat, Macho. He disappeared at some point early on during my ten day absence, much to the dismay of the 12 year old down the street who was tasked with keeping him fed for six dollars a day. He came back last night around midnight, though, and I let him in and went back to sleep.


Japan was a good time, ruined completely by the presence of my mother.

My father in law has stomach cancer, and underwent an operation to have his entire stomach removed. This was a while ago, not during our visit or anything. He now has part of his upper intestine playing the role of stomach, which means he can't eat a whole lot. He's lot a lot of weight. I *think* he's done with radiation therapy, but it's not really a casual dinner conversation thing, and is buried among the layers of Japanese etiquette on top of all that. I'm not sure my wife even knows the exact standing, and I'm pretty sure even *his* wife is being kept out in the dark. He doesn't want everyone doom and glooming, and would rather just put on a happy face when we visit.

We respect that.

The Japanese have a word for enduring something in silence: Gaman. If you're feeling rundown, or tasked with something you feel is impossible, you just put your head down and do your best. In English we think of this as 'having a stiff upper lip', or just sucking it up and doing what we can. For Masaru (my father in law), this means swallowing the fact that he may very well be dying of stomach cancer, and trying to show my parents a good time. We all understand this, in silence, and appreciate all the... perseverance... going on behind the curtain.

All of these concepts are completely foreign to my mother, who complained endlessly about the trip there, and all of the activities undertaken while there. She, to me, sums up everything that foreigners probably expect Americans to behave like in any given situation. I remember chatting on Skype with a friend of my wife's who is Canadian, and at some point during the conversation she told me she was surprised how nice I was; when Satomi told her she was dating an American, she thought I would turn out to be an asshole. Thanks!

We had ten days in Japan, and my mother made it clear before even boarding the plane that she would need "at least two days to recover from jetlag, maybe three" and to not plan anything for those days. I won't get into the day by day breakdown of everything, but suffice to say there were two day long excursions, one to an owl park, and one to miyajima's famous tori, all of which required of my mother that she "sit in the car while I drive, and then get out and enjoy yourself".

My mother is not an evil person. I know evil people, and she isn't one of them. She doesn't *try* to be an asshole, it just usually turns out that way. She has this tendency to latch onto people that she's never met and immediately pounce upon them, hammering them from all sides with a barrage of conversation options they're completely uninterested in having. She usually begins with a throwaway compliment on some itme they're wearing, then she asks them their name. This is not because she wants to know it; within seconds it will be forgotten, this is so she can tell them *her* name "I'm DIANNE, hun", which is the beginning of the avalanche. God forbid you are asian, as you will soon learn my own entire life story, and that of my wife, and the names and ages of our two children, and oh my god when will it stop i'm walking away now, good luck with that.

Nothing can deter her. Nothing will make her pause or hesitate. From "I'm DIANNE, hun", the only thing you can do is walk away and hope you aren't called into the conversation, or kill yourself on the spot.

Anyway.

She's over excitable. She overreaches regularly. She pounces (I believe I've used that word already). If you're in front of her in line, you will need to be prepared to explain every purchase in your cart to her in detail, but not because she's interested in what YOU'RE buying, but so that she can eventually turn the conversation back towards her cart, and from there it goes on to how she has a Japanese stepdaughter named Satomi, and two grandkids blah blah blah blah blah.

This trip has filled her ammunition supply, and she will soon be spraying every intimate detail to complete strangers just as soon as humanly possible.

The one glaring detail she will gloss over, though, is how she completely blew it, and is now and forever cut from my team.


Let's go back a step and cover her hobbies. There's sleeping, knitting, and taking naps. Did you see how two of the three involve sleep? My own wife cooks and cleans and does all the housework. I lend a hand when needed, but she's pretty adamant that I have my role (go to work and earn money) and she has her own. My mother sleeps, knits, and in between those she takes naps. Oh! And she complains about my father working all the time. Earning money.

blah blah blah, all is going swimmingly in Japan. She's harrasing women in the yarn store there, over-exuberantly bowing to EVERYONE on the street, and trying to carry on the conversations she's used to having with every hourly employee she crosses paths with (nevermind the fact they don't speak English, and she knows three japanese words). On top of the fact she's pointing directly at every little girl or boy she sees in a school uniform and OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH SOOOOOO BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLL!!!!-ing at the top of her lungs. She's also trying to hug and kiss every relative, and Japanese don't even really hug or kiss their own kids.

yadda yadda yadda, after every event, when it's 'just us Americans' again, she literally collapses in the car, and demands a nap. This is all too much for her! She's so exhausted!

The entire trip has primarily been 'a celebration of Dianne', but in her own tiny little mind, it's just been too much. Every event has been aimed at her. From the owl park and miyajima (two places she specifically requested to visit), to dinners at each of the relatives own houses, because she wanted to meet them all. My wife's older sister is up on the schedule today, but mom is tired from shopping at the yarn store (again) today. She's literally groaning in the car, and saying she doesn't think she can do it. I tell her (somewhat sternly) that she needs to get her shit together and suck it up. Haruka will be expecting her to do beading, because every single time we bring up the word "Haruka" mom explodes into some big thing on how she wants to bead with her.

Mom decides she would rather take a nap. Satomi and I exchange glances, drop mom off at the hotel, and all hell breaks loose. We come to find that Haruka had left school early that day, which required special permission from the principal. Yukie and Keiichi (the mother and father) also came home early to prepare. Working overtime every day in Japan is generally the norm, and for them to home home at a normal hour is unheard of. They do all of this in silence, as they want to put on a happy face to entertain my mother. Then she phones in a nap, and just cancels outright.


Dear Mom,

I hope that nap was worth it, because you're cut from the team.

Regards,

Your son


They all keep their happy faces on, but you can tell they really don't get the excuses we're giving for my mother. Excuses have to be made of course, because just saying she's a selfish slob that would rather sleep than do some beading with your daughter would put them on the spot of having to react to that news. Where's the Gaman? Where's the part where you suck it up for others? So what if you're tired, Masaru has stomach cancer, you don't see him phoning in bullshit because he's sleepy from being driven around all day. Kids are cancelling all kinds of club activities and telling their friends they have family business to attend to, but you don't see them phoning in any bullshit.

Next day she expects to go see the other sister's family like nothing happened. We told her that you don't really get to pick and choose. If she were to go see Tomoe's family after ditching Yukie's, that wouldn't really fly. I don't think she even really understood that. Family aside, we had some other visit lined up with friend's of my wife that we can't flake on. I don't know if she wanted to cancel that or not, but before she had a chance we told her that she was going like it or not.

That went well, and I think my mom made the mistake of thinking my wife didn't want to stab her at that point. At no point during the day did my mom apologize for Yukie's. At no point was there any sense of "I fucked up".


I'm beat, and I'm not sure if I'm getting the full gist of the emotion out there in this little text box. There's a whole sense of sacrifice that the Japanese will endure on so many levels to put on a happy face when the time calls for it that I've grasped well enough in my time there to know when it's happening, and to try my best to pull off as well when it's expected of me.

I don't expect people to grasp it on the Japanese level, but I expect adults to behave as adults when it's expected of them, and my mother excels at being a petulant child instead. She steamrolls over people in conversations, and generally doesn't give a shit about anyone but herself. One example that keeps coming to mind was an exchange we had after eating chinese one night. She kept bowing to the waitress and saying ARIGATOU!! ARIGATOU!!

I told her the waitress was not Japanese. In fact, the Japanese and Chinese generally hate one another. She looked at me as said "oh I don't care". I told her that wasn't the point. The point was that the waitress probably cared, to which she told me "I don't care if she cares".

That pretty much sums it up right there.


My job back in the states is to find a house to purchase before my wife comes back home with the kids (and her mom, and possibly one of our nephews) in tow. My mother probably thinks everyone is over it, or that it wasn't a big deal in the first place. I mean, it wasn't a big deal to her, so how could it be to anyone else?

There are times in families where cuts are made, but it's usually in-laws that get the axe. I suppose in this case it's the same. My wife has cut off my mother, and I generally see myself as standing on the same side of the line as Satomi. This last incident certainly isn't the only one, but it illustrates all the various ones before it pretty well. When she asks why we don't visit, or won't let her visit us, I'll tell her I don't care. When she tells me she cares, I'll simply tell her that I don't care she cares.


Good luck with that. I hope that nap was awesome.


Zzz.

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