All right, I have heard that people didn’t like the Metallica Guitar Hero, but I was making a concerted effort to try as many Guitar Hero games as possible while I was with GameFly. I have discovered a few things: Guitar Hero improved considerably since its first inception, I really like GH2 and 80s as well as GH3, Guitar Hero Metallica is AWESOME!
Yes, you heard me. I really like Guitar Hero Metallica for PS2…. except the fact that it doesn’t recognise my songstar microphones.
Posted by niaskywalk on Dec 28, 2009 in Books, Media
I was going through some notes and thought I would take the time to note the books I have bought to learn Japanese over the last couple years. My official Japanese school books at the point are the Minna no Nihongo series released by 3A Corporation, but they aren’t the only books helping me to learn:
Writing Hiragana: An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook by Jim Gleeson (Tuttle) ~ Excellent for repetition of the Hiragana plus some words, sentences and phrases.
Writing Katakana: An Introductory Japanese Language Workbook by Jim Gleeson (Tuttle) ~ Katakana is the script used for foreign words and emphasis. This is also a great book for repetition of the characters. Plus words, phrases and locations.
The First 100 Japanese Kanji: The quick and easy way to learn the basic Japanese Kanji by Eriko Sato Ph.D. (Tuttle) ~ I am currently using this to supplement the assigned Kanji in class. This is not as great as the kana books, but still awesome for the repetitiveness.
Minna no Nihongo book 1 (3A Corporation) ~ School Books, very conversational, some translations leave a little to be desired, but overall a fun and informative series in the classroom.
Minna no Nihongo book 2 (3A Corporation) ~ School Books, see above.
Write Now! Kanji for Beginners (3A Corporation) ~ From the company the does my schoolbooks. It doesn’t coincide with the lessons, but it is a nice book. It lists a certain amount of kanji in each lesson and by the end of the chapter you are that many more kanji richer in knowledge. As the name suggests, it gets you writing and reading kanji immediately.
Kana de Manga by Glenn Kardy and Chihiro Hattori (Manga University) ~ a simple book, fun, but essentially I found it useless. The book comes with the kana, Hiragana on one page, Katakana for the same sound on the other, a little bit of information and a pronounciation guide plus a few squares for practice. the back of the small book has more blank pages. For someone who learns well and quickly this is great, for me not so much.
Kanji de Manga vol. 1 by Glenn Kardy and Chihiro Hattori (Manga University) ~ I like the book, it has some cute scenes and explanations in it, but until I was actually taking a class, listening to a podcast and playing a video game all teaching me, I couldn’t understand what it was telling me. Again if you learn quickly and well, a quick explanation that is not in the book would make this series awesome for you.
Yesterday was my last Japanese class of 2010. Since we had dinner with the teachers on Thursday Dec 17, 2009, I didn’t expect anything of import on Tuesday. After all, it was only a class before a break and not the end of a session.
The evening started off innocent enough, if odd. The Raffies were not present and the cultural center was unnaturally silent. After greeting the person behind the desk, I inquired if there was a class. To my intense relief he indicated in the positive. I then remarked how “…empty…” the place was, he counter-remarked with “and QUIET”. I burst out laughing and the laughter was swallowed by the overpowering silence. I move to one of the accustomed waiting posts and sat to practice my kanji. I sat close to the classrooms and I could hear lessons, it was a nice murmur amidst the silence. After a while, I was joined by another student who also marveled at the silence and fell to something more interesting.
Moments later, the silence was shattered. The Raffies had arrived.
For the next five minutes, the silence did not return to the cultural center and for all I know the noise remained out there when I entered my classroom. It was a typical class day.
I entered my classroom and awaited the half of the Raffies that is in my class, the other students and the teacher. I got comfortable and was guessing much work wouldn’t get done. I was wrong, but that was beside the point.
The teacher walked in with mini-cupcakes from Crumbs, saying it was a shame that one of the students who constantly brought a cookie to share from the same place was absent. She offered the amazing cupcakes and ran out to get napkins. While she was gone, one of the students pulled cookies out of his bag and offered them to the class. To our astonishment, another student pulled out cans of soda and offered them as well. Our teacher returned and saw the additional food and drink. She wondered if it would be okay to open the soda. I wasn’t gonna wait. I initiated the impromptu party by opening my can.
Kampai! we called when the teacher shut the door.
After a few moments, the lesson started as usual and it was actually productive. I wonder…. should we always start our classes with impromptu parties? It certainly worked for me
Note: Once again it took me too long to post, so this post is going up as is… as if anyone cares anymore.
In my last NYAF post I went on and on about cosplay, costuming, the sales floor and halls. There is more to the festival than just costumes, sales and displays.
In the back of the hall, in the most open area of the festival, was a live performance stage dubbed the Apple Kissa Stage. On stage throughout the festival various acts vied for the attention of the self-entertaining folk of the fest. Unfortunately for me, I missed almost every performance due to scheduling, wandering and demos. However, I have seen nearly all the acts numerous times at various venues. The one act I did chance to have time to catch was the IchigoPantsu Dansu (IchiP) dancers Para Para dance class. The group of cosplay dancers arrived on stage and many fans of Para Para dancing ranked themselves around the stage and learned moves for a couple songs.
Para Para Dancing, for those of you who are wondering, is basically a Japanese dance club group dance similar to line dancing where each move is precise and everyone does the same movements. Watching it done with only a few people such as when the IchiP Dancers put on their performances, is a wonderful sight to see and it looks and feels energetic. Watching a whole group of people doing the same movements is simply astounding. I don’t have any pictures of this phenomenon, but they can be seen across the internet. Here is a video of IchiP on the Apple Kissa stage:
You can see more of IchiP’s dance moves on their YouTube channel: IchiPDansu
In addition to IchiP, there were also performances of ‘test cutting’ from the Byakokan Dojo, comedy by Uncle Ho, a skit elaborating on Vampire Knight by Alone Together NYC, dancing maids… a LOT of dancing maids, zombie survival class, a concert by AKB48 and a Neo-Victorian Fashion show.
I didn’t catch the shows, but I did happen to cross the stage area near the end of several of these events. Regretfully, I watched the endings or just watched the stage as I hurried past on my way to some other event or panel.
Posted by niaskywalk on Dec 22, 2009 in Annual, holidays
Not too long ago, I used to hate how meaningless and generic ‘Happy Holidays’ seemed to be, so I thought I would try something new at the time. I looked up all the winter holidays I could get my hands on and I sent out a ‘Happy Holidays’ note unlike a great many I had encountered. It was a long and denoted dates–and some times–of many of the holidays I could find. In recent years, I haven’t really had time to do it, but I do kind of pay attention in the background.
Since I have been more active in posting recently, I wanted to do a ‘Happy Holidays’ post again, showing my new audience the bounty of holidays these seemingly generic and so called ‘politically correct’ words encompassed, but alas, I again lacked the time to do the proper research. I hope after you have read this post, you will take the time to explore the various holidays that surround you. It is a world rich with culture, events and holidays! Once you know just how many are happening all at once, it becomes more difficult to wish anyone anything other than ‘Happy Holidays’.
With luck I will have a better Holidays Card next year, in the meantime, here is a list of some holidays that have already occured or will occur soon:
Ramadan (Occured much earlier with Eid al Fitr at its end)
Chanukah, Hannukah, Channukah and other spellings Happy Chanukah!
Since the time of my first winter holidays explorations where I discovered mean and dangerous creatures alongside the benevolent beings most residents of the USA know about, I have ever been curious about how people around the world celebrate their winter holidays. If you read this blog, please share your traditions and holidays with me. It would be greatly appreciated.
With all I have stated in mind, I want you to know whenever I wish you Happy Holidays, I really do mean what I say.
This year, I attempted to do NaNoWriMo again. Although I didn’t win, I did beat all previous attempts combined and that has satisfied me for now.
Originally, the title of my novel was “Lady Mathilde Gabriel’s Abaddonian Knights” and it was supposed to be an adventure through my version of Abaddon. However, when Mattie arrived in answer to her Daemon Lord’s (Fenrisithian) ‘summons’ the story took a different turn. I found the dialogue and interaction of Mattie and Fenrisithian was too rich and dynamic. If I left her in the world, Fenrisithian and Mattie would’ve had too much happening between them (NOT romantic. Not ever.) and it would’ve ruined any story.
I recently read a blog where the author was asked to do a blog review of a book. She was given a couple copies of the book by the publisher. The review became a giveaway as well. From what I could tell, the entries to be the winner were pretty big and I know for sure that I entered myself. I didn’t win, but I can’t be picky. I wish the winner well with their prize.
The review itself was simple. She told the reader what was in the book and how it was put together, then she proceeded to indicate her thoughts on the title. The review ended up being only a little less than favorable, but it was fine because that was also my opinion of the book which I had paged through in stores.
Over all, it seemed like a decent review and giveaway. Story done, continue along.
Except… I saw a comment from the author on twitter indicating the publisher may have been less than pleased with her version.
This led me to pondering. What is a review if it isn’t an honest report from the perspective of a user or professional? If the review hits both positive and negative points as well as an overall opinion, why should marketers/publicity stick their two cents in anyway? I can understand in the case of near liable and slander, but a negative review isn’t necessarily slander or liable.
There is no real injured list in our gymnastics class. It is a class and not a team so the people and the numbers fluctuate drastically. I am one of the few regulars in the class, and I am on the injured list…. that doesn’t really exist. It seems I continue to forget… if I don’t do anything particular with certain muscle set in a month, those muscles go away. I was traveling and the preparations before and after made it so I didn’t attend any gymnastics classes for a month. This resulted in my knee regressing to unusable. It may be the joint, but I doubt it. It is the muscles around my knee that need strengthening again. The knee issues are genetic. This time it was aggravated by not having the right kind of shoes as well. Bad shoes + no focused conditioning for a month = injured. Fail. Read more…
Recently, a new variation on Bye Bye Birdie hit Broadway, starring John Stamos, Gina Gershon and Bill Irwin. This Thanksgiving, I had the pleasure of being able to attend the show from the orchestra level of the Henry Miller theatre. Our benefactor–my whole family attended, thus Our–is due enormous thanks and gratitude! Thank you very much!
I have been a sometimes fan of Bye Bye Birdie since our grade school put on the production. The songs were just a lot of fun and I found myself addicted to many of them. Among my top favorites are “Kids”, “Telephone Hour”, and “Put on a Happy Face”. After seeing the amateur version, I was eager to watch the movie version starring Dick Van Dyke and I found I enjoyed his version as well. I saw the show in a variety of places, mostly amateur, until the 1995 movie aired on television.
The movie version, starring Jason Alexander, Vanessa Williams and George Wendt, got a bit of flack, but I found that the songs were more upbeat, more singable and a lot more fun. They also adjusted a few monologues into song, which I found fantastic and allowed the story to continue without many of the lulls that could appear at those points. I bought my soundtrack soon after the television debut and have listened to it many times and often.
When the 2009 Broadway revival was announced, I was excited. I would try to find a way to get to see how much more fun it would be with professional actors on stage. With trepidation, I awaited the day I would finally see John Stamos on stage singing and dancing. I knew ‘Uncle Jesse’ could sing and dance a bit, but I was beginning to hear reviews of how the play may not be all that great. Yes, I was a little nervous, but I reminded myself that I had seen a great many presentations by community theatre groups, this would by default have to be better.
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