Anime Iowa: Day Two

Another day of Anime Iowa, and yet another day of awesomeness. I had seen the light, and most of the day was spent in the video game room, playing yet even more Super Smash Bros Brawl. In fact, I signed up for a Brawl tournament. It was doubly elimination, so after losing my first round I went into the losers bracket. My second round I won, and the my third I lost, putting me out of the tournament. Yet, it was a lot of fun. I was about an intermediate level player, so I couldn't keep up with the very best people, but I was on par with most of the players. But that is when a weird thing happened. Age became meaningless. Suddenly someone five or ten years older than me treated me with the same demeanor as they would someone their own age. That was kind of nice.

And today I went to the dealers room. It was a large room filled with venders offering all sorts of anime-related merchandise. Some things were way overpriced, some other not so much. Excuse me if I don't want to pay twenty dollars for a tee-shirt. Also excuse me if I don't want to buy an eighteen dollar wallet that is made of cheap material, even if It has graphics of Fullmetal Alchemist. The again, some of the manga was reasonably priced, 20% off of the cover price. I think I might buy some on Sunday....

Also, I seem to be somewhat stiff in pictures now. I don't know if my picture was taken too often on Friday, or what. I'll try to be slightly more acceptable to pictures today. Speaking of pictures, we haven't taken many. Apparently me and my sister are to shy to ask people if we can take their picture....

Anime Iowa: Day One

So the Anime Iowa convention yesterday was amazing. I had a great time, and I am excited to know that I have two more days of nerdyness. Upon the sight of seeing so many people dressed with purple wigs and large fake swords, I couldn't help but feel proud of my people. Of course, wherever there is cosplay, there is crossplay. When walking past a person and you have thoughts about whether they are male or female, seriously, don't think about it. Seriously.

After walking around the hallways for awhile having people take pictures of me and my sister, watching a panel about translating anime and manga from Japanese, and hanging out with some friends of my sister from college, I went to a program called "Basic Cosplay fighting". It was a three hour workshop consisting mostly of fake grappling. So me and a partner for three hours had to run around fake wrestling. Now my poor, pathetic body wasn't prepared for such an athletic event. I hadn't even remembered that it was three hours, I thought it was one or something. So it was fun, but I am most definitely sore now.

In addition to some food you could pay for, there was a good amount of free junk food. Now we were cautioned that the junk food was not a replacement for a real meal. But do you know what? They lie.

Then there was the 24/7 video game room. After walking in my mind was blown: everywhere there was televisions hooked up to all sorts of video game systems, and everywhere there was gamers mashing buttons like crazy. It was heaven. Even though when I got there there was no no extra spots for me, due to the atmosphere of the room where people constantly sit down, play a bit, and then leave, I was able to play after waiting a few minutes. I'll tell you, nothing else feels quite like sitting down and playing Super Smash Bros Brawl next to Mario. Ah...

Anime Iowa!

Today I'm off to Anime Iowa, an Anime convention in Corralville. It will be from July 19th to July 31st, so Friday-Sunday. Anime, if you haven't heard of it before (which is unlikely), is Japanese animation. It really is hard to get nerdier than this? Did I mention that I am going to cosplay, which means that I am going in costume? Good stuff. In addition to cosplaying at the convention there is; a 24/7 video game room (YES), tons of different programs and panels (things such as "Anime toys: Now and Then", "Cats in Japan", and "Basic Samurai Swordsmanship"), and... Actually that's it. Kind of lame, if you ask me. Actually, there is tons of stuff there. I am really excited to be in a building with hundreds of people who are just as, and possibly even more nerdy than I am.

Procrastination

Procrastination. Terrible thing. It is the reason that I have 15 minutes left to write up a post for today. Awesome. Not to mention that I SHOULD be getting my sleep, I'm going to an Anime convention tomorrow. But that will be the topic of tomorrows blog. Anyway, procrastination. Waiting to do a task, just because you lack the will power to gain the motivation to simply do it right away. We are all guilty of this, and much of our work suffers as a result. And often, procrastination means that great things never happen at all. Because we either stop part way through, or we never begin in the first place.

I'm looking around my room right now, looking at all the things that I never finished. A tiny nine centimeter volcano is on a shelf. It is white, some sort of plaster. I got it many, many years ago, but I never got around to painting it. I think it was a baking soda and vanilla volcanoes.  It stands as a stark reminder of what I have procrastinated with.

And in my closet, a board game called Elemento that I got for Christmas one year. I got it a few years back when I was really into chemistry. I still enjoy it, as a matter of a fact. Might end up being my profession one day. Anyway, I never got around to playing this game. Oh sure, I would open up the box and read the instructions. But actually open the plastic bags and play it? No.

Perhaps when I am older and hopefully more mature (haha), I will learn to gain the incentive to do things without loads of motivation. Perhaps I won't see things like that volcano or Elemento again. Is it possible that I will outgrow this? Maybe. Maybe I'm outgrowing it right now. After all, I've been blogging, right? But what about when that stops? I should probably wrap this up now, I only have one (!)  minute left...

The Humble Indie Bundle #3

The third Humble Indie Bundle is out, which means that I'm pretty happy. For those of you unfamiliar with it, The Humble Bundle is a pay-what-you-want package of digital copies of five different games made by independent developers. These games are DRM (Digital Rights Management) free, which means that there are no restrictions on backing them or playing them on different computers. You can choose how to split what you pay amongst the developers, a tip to the Humble Bundle website (to pay for bandwidth and advertising), and two charities (The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play). Although technically you could end up paying as little as one penny for all five games, most people end up paying a decent amount. Some (like MineCraft creator, Notch) choose to pay thousands of dollars.

Actually, just like last year, I have never heard about the games being offered. I just trust that they are going to be amazing and I'm going to have a lot of fun. The Bundle is a good way to expand my library on Steam without exhausting all of my already ridiculously low funds. Now that I think about it, of those that read my blog most would either not care about video games, or have already heard about the Bundle. So this is probably not going to help anyone. Well, that's okay. Who cares about my readers, anyway?

Camp NaNoWriMo Plot Ideas

As I already mentioned before, the camp version of NaNoWriMo is coming up in a few days. Sadly, I am without a plot. I've tried to reserve time to think about it, hoping inspiration would strike,  but alas nothing of the sort has happened. At this point I wish to organize my thoughts, and try to decide the best one.

First of all, I know that I'm not going to going to do a fantasy novel. I'm currently co-authoring one with Ryan (as I have repeatedly mentioned in the past), and I wish for a change of pace, so to speak. To go into unfamiliar territory. You see, even though Camp NaNoWriMo requires the same amount of verbage as normal NaNoWriMo, I will always think of it as "practice". Thus, I am free to explore new ideas and fresh ways to write without being worried about quality too much.

I then asked myself if I should write a mystery novel. I do enjoy reading them, and the descriptions of people, places, and things could be fun. Not to mention having an intense plot. But, I'm leaning away from that now. First of all, I'm not going to plan for the novel. As I always do, I just write and hope that something somewhat literate comes out. Not to mention, I would have diffdifficulty accurately describing how a crime scene would be handled, because if I did a mystery I would want it to be of that sort of nature.

Next, how about a survival novel? Two of my favorite books are "Gary's Winter" and "My Side of the Mountain". Both of them describe living out in the wild. One being a tale of survival, and one of solitude and appreciating nature. But, what do I know of subjects like that? I could research, sure, but it wouldn't feel real to the reader. And I have a feeling that it would end up being pretty boring.

Now what about a silly story, with no plot? Mostly consisting of fancy words strung together in long and quite humorous sentences. Well, that too most likely wouldn't turn out great. That sort of thing makes a short story fantastic, but I think that longer novels are much better suited for more serious plots.

Ah, this is quite the arduous process. I still have no idea whatsoever what I am going to end up doing. Oh well....

With Great Internets Comes Great Responsibility

Sometimes I wonder why some people are allowed on the internet. For example, take a person you know who is intelligent and witty in real life, and have a conversation with them over the internet. What happens? They transform into a monster. Suddenly, all their sentences are run-on, fragmented, or (gasp!) not properly capitalized. "You" becomes "u", "are" becomes "r", and every sentence has a "LOL" attached at the end. Or maybe they become troll bait, giving trolls a hearty meal with their opinionated ideals that they cannot back up with any evidence. Or perhaps they will believe everything they hear.  No, that person with the username "hannamontanaforever1413" is not really Miley Cyrus. And no, you actually do not get a free pair of shoes if you like that Facebook page. Oh, and that program you just downloaded? That was spyware.

Who gave these people the internet? Didn't they know that they couldn't handle the responsibility? There should have been some sort of test, to ensure that they knew how to properly conduct themselves over the vast interwebs. Or perhaps a trap would work: if they try to use Internet Explorer, their computer automatically blocks the internet.

So to those who this post is directed to, I have some advice: put down the mouse, and step away from the computer, slowly. Go back to real life, you are better suited for it. Be a good person who contributes to society. That's better than what we who live on the internet can say, anyway.

The Comic Book Green Lanterns

In my previous post I gave a review for the movie Green Lantern. Overall, I was disappointed that the comic book Green Lantern was not given justice. Thus, I thought I would give myself the pleasure of writing about the real Green Lanterns, from the comic books. Now there has actually been multiple human comic book heroes that wield an emerald power ring and go by the name "Green Lantern". Thus, it can be quite confusing for some. So here, I wish to separate them out. Please excuse me for any errors I might make here.  Also, sorry that the information is presented a bit messily :(

Alan Scott

In 1940, in the Golden Age of comics, Alan Scott was the Green Lantern. His ring had the same powers as other power rings in addition to several magical abilities powered by the Starheart. One of these abilities slowed his aging drastically. But the ring has one weakness: it cannot effect wood. It was later revealed that Alan existed on Earth - 2, an alternate dimension to the Earth - 1 we know and love. In Crisis on Infinity Earth the remaining multiverse is merged together, thus Alan Scott now exists in the same reality as the other Lanterns. His ring is powered by a mystical, sentient being known as Starheart. Alan was never actually part of the Green Lantern Corps, as made apparent by his costume. However, the Guardian of the Universe did make him an honorary member.

Hal Jordan

The Silver Age Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, was given a power ring by a dieing alien named Abin Sur, and went on to become one of the most famous, respected, and powerful Green Lanterns in the Corps (He's the guy who starred in the movie). Due to "necessary impurities" in his ring, it cannot effect anything that is the colour yellow. After the entire destruction of his home, Coastal City, Jordan went insane. He was effected by the alien parasite Parralax (you know, the one from the movie) and committed cosmic genocide: Destroying the Central Power Battery on Oa and killing most of the Green Lanterns and all but one Guardian. He was partially redeemed when he gave his life saving Earth from the Sun-Eater. He later became the next incarnation of the Spectre, and finally he became a (thankfully good) Green Lantern again.

Guy Gardner

Of all the human Lanterns, Guy Gardner is by far the biggest jerk. The sort of guy that you wouldn't give a power ring. Actually, when he first became Hal's backup he was a fairly decent guy. But then some brain damage caused him to be unstable guy (hehe) he is today. After quitting the corps and renouncing his green power ring, he found a new power source: Sinestro's yellow power ring. It was later destroyed in a battle with Parallax. Again in need of a new powers, with the help of alien DNA Gardner became Warrior.

John Stewart

While Guy Gardner was seriously injured, John Stewart took over as Hal Jordan's backup. He will probably be familiar to many, as he was the Green Lantern in the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. Just like Hal, his ring cannot effect anything that is the colour yellow. Although apparently he was supposed to make a cameo appearance in the new Green Lantern movie, I was disappointed to notice nothing of the sort.

Kyle Rayner

Ah, the infamous crab-mask Lantern. After Hal Jordan as Parralax destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, the last Guardian of the universe, Ganthet, gave a human named Kyle Rayner a power ring. This ring had no weaknesses, either to the colour yellow or wood. Kyle ended up stopping Hal, and has since been known to clean up after his messes. There was quite a bit of debate by the fans on whether or not it was a good decision to replace Hal with Kyle, especially considering that Hal's sendoff was not that of a hero's, but a crazed maniac.

Green Lantern Movie Review

I recently watched the movie Green Lantern. Overall, it seemed over hyped. Now this might be because I'm a bit of a fan of the comics, and anything deviating from them is despicable in my sight. It also might because it is bland and followed the same formula as every other superhero movie ever made. And the occasional profanity certainly didn't help. Now I had big expectations, I wouldn't say they were dashed, but the movie certainly didn't fulfill them.

The Guardians of the Universe, little blue men that resemble smurfs, employ green spacecops who are devoted to making peace in the galaxy. These "Green Lanterns" wield power green rings that allow them to create anything they want, only being limited by their will power and imagination. One of these lanterns, a purple alien named Abin Sur crashed his spaceship on Earth, after being mortally wounded by the being Parallax, who uses the yellow power of fear. In his dieing moments Abin Sur gives his ring to a irresponsible and cocky fighter pilot named Hal Jordan. His ring can allow him to fly, create green forcefields and constructs, fire energy blasts, it's all good.

I won't get into the rest of the movie, to prevent spoiling it for those who have not yet watched it. It's suffice to say that it wasn't amazing. First of all, the actor who played Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) didn't fit the part, really. He looked like the comic book Hal Jordan, but he didn't have the right feel, he couldn't capture the essence of the character. A shame. As for the actual use of his ring, except for an energy blast or two he usually stuck with making green constructs while in battle. Swords, miniguns, racecar tracks, catapults, that sort of thing. It usually didn't work very well, and in my opinion didn't do his powers justice. Speaking of powers, the makers of the movie decided to leave out one little detail: the power rings are useless against the colour yellow. Now this might be because a main theme of the movie is that power of will (green) is greater than the power of fear (yellow). But still, that is essential to the capabilities of the ring. Now if they had Kyle Rayner's ring.... Oh wait, am I getting fanboyish? Sorry about that.

So to sum up, the movie isn't terrible, but it isn't great. You can find better ones.

Writers Block

Writers Block. Good stuff. As I'm sure you know, the last few days have been ridiculously hot and humid. Sadly, these things give me writers black. The inability to write, or at least taking much longer to get an idea to fruition than otherwise. Although this mostly applies to my writing with Ryan, in which my continued procrastination and then taking forever to write anything, now that it is time to blog it applies to this too. It's kind of sad, really. The last few days I didn't have much trouble finding ideas to blog about, and then expanding upon those ideas. Not so today. But, all writers have to live with this. At times under fits of inspiration, the language pouring out of you onto the page, it is a great thing. And then I get to periods like this... when I can't think... and it's not fun....

But hey, inspiration can still come my way, despite the lightheadedness from all the heat. Take this beautiful thunder storm, for example. Now I do my best writing when I feel what my characters feel, imagining what it would be like. Well, during this thunder storm I can't help but want to write a portion of a story with rain in it (sadly, I didn't get around to it. The lightning illuminating everything around me, so that for a half second it is as bright as day. The thunder, noisy and disruptive. So loud that you can't think. But then, the storm is over. it passed. The once enormously loud thunder is but a faint rumbling in the distance. What was it like? Can I even remember? Can I take back that intensity and put it into words? No, not right now. Not in this state of mind. Why writers block, why?

Imagination

In my post titled "Not Rushing Beauty" I addressed one thing that could be done while alone, appreciating beauty in unconventional things. I would now like to address something else that, in my opinion, is best in solitude: the use of one's imagination. Just thinking, day dreaming if you will. Not about problems, but about life. About extremely rare situations that will never happen to you, but if it does you will know how to react; about stories. But not normal stories. No one would bother reading them if they were on paper. There is no plot twists, and nary a plot at all. There isn't an eloquent manner to this narrative, and there wouldn't be many interesting characters. Aside from yourself (and maybe a bad guy or two). Oh sure it would be exciting, almost entirely action except for possibly a witty piece of dialogue or two. But, it keeps one entertained. I can spend hours upon hours just thinking. There are so many things to think about, and yet we are obsessed with entertainment. I am as guilty of this as anyone, but still, what happened to meditating on your own thoughts? Not rushing, but simply being content with who you are?

"I'm bored" or "Are we there yet?" are common sayings of little children (and even some big children). It is because we have all have been raised with the idea that we have to be doing something. And if we aren't doing anything then the few minutes that we wait for that entertainment is pure torture. Take books. Often thought of as jumping stones for our imagination, and rightly so. We can try to make the story real in our heads, or maybe go into the story, and become a part of it, interacting with the characters all within our imagination. This is a wonderful process. Yet how many times do we read a book, and then simply move on to the next activity before even thinking about what we learned?

If The Stars Only Appeared Once Every Thousand Years

While staring up into the night sky, you might be struck by the magnificence and great number of the stars that adorn the heavens. I won't go all Louie Giglio on you and spout facts of how gigantic our universe is, I won't even talk about specific stars. I simply want to ask what it would be like if stars only came out every thousand years. To quote Ralph Emerson, a 19th century poet and lecturer:

"If the stars would appear one night in  a thousand years; how would man believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their smile."

In a short story by Maurice T. Brackbill titled Once In A Thousand Years, the idea is eloquently expanded upon, trying to guess how people would react if the stars only came once every thousand years. Here is a brief summary of the story (by the way, it is one of my all time favorite short stories, right up with The Land Of The Lost Socks and Tales of Napoleon the Stub): Stories of the stars are passed down from generation to generation. When the calculated time approaches, the people are separated into two groups: The Pro-Stellarists, who believed that the stars coming was a matter of historical and scientific fact, and the Anti-Stellarists who believe that the stars are simply a myth. There would be much debate about who was correct, although the majority of the population agreed with the "Pro's". In preparation for the day when the stars come out people travel to places where it is expected to have no clouds. The government would outlaw lights except with permission, so as not to disturb the sight of the stars. Hospitals wheel the sick onto balconies, prisoners in solitary confinement are allowed a few minutes under guard in the courtyard, those on death row that are sentenced to die a few days before the stars come out are given a stay of sentence, all so that the stars can be seen in all their glory.
And when the star arrive, the spectacle is excitedly witnessed by all. But, when the last star disappears from the night sky, it is wished that they could see it just one more night, and how amazing it would be if they came out every night. Alas, it is not so, and it will be another thousand years before the stars are seen again.

 Yet, the stars do come out every night. We are privileged to partake in them at our leisure. And yet do we? They have become so commonplace we hardly give them a second thought. You have to wonder. If the stars did only come out once every thousand years, (assuming we were lucky enough to live at the point when they came out) as a whole would we humans appreciate them more on that once occasion than we do now, when they come out every single night? Or have we so taken them for granted that we do not recognize their wonder?

Search Engines

Search engines: The tools that help make navigating the vast interwebs possible. As most people are these days, my search engine of choice is Google. It finds what a need in a simple and easy to read format. Not to mention that I adore Google's other ventures, such as Gmail and Google Chrome. But recently I've tried to get into the habit of using GoodSearch. This engine, powered by Yahoo, has a great concept: for every search you make, GoodSearch donates half of the revenue made by the search (approximately a penny) to the charity of your choice. The charity that I chose is the "Office of Letters and Light", the non-profit organization that runs the National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo) website. Okay, a good cause, but not quite feeding starving orphans in Africa. Okay, I'm sorry. I want to help them out, but I'm too stingy to make a donation. So I use a search engine instead. Sadly, because of the fact it is powered by Yahoo, it is very annoying to do searches. Which means occasionally I waste time switching to Google and then switching back....

Camp NaNoWriMo

Besides my daily writing with Ryan, I figured that I would have a rest from frantic writing until November, when I am writing a 50 thousand word novel in a month as part of National Novel Writers Month. Well, I was wrong. Apparently there is a CAMP version of NaNoWriMo, which means I will write ANOTHER 50k novel in a month. Which means I will be writing two 50 thousand word novels in two different months. So, including Camp NaNoWriMo, normal NaNoWriMo, and the novel I am co-authoring with Ryan, I will have written three novels this year. If it all works out, anyway. This year alone I will have written many times more words than the rest of my life COMBINED. That's a scary thought.

My Thoughts On Romance

Hormones: Despicable creatures that attempt to alter one's perception of the world. Luckily, if one has been in the routine one's whole life, they can easily be ignored.

That pretty much sums up my view of love. As I progress through the teen years, more and more friends begin "relationships". I of course see it as quite silly. First of all anything of that sort, either courting or dating, is usually meaningless in the teen years. Try college, guys. Or even better, stay single your whole life. Wouldn't that be cool? I'm probably the only person I know that has (and still does) seriously considered being a hermit in the wilderness. The only hindering factor right now is that I couldn't bring my laptop. Perhaps if I found a quaint cave near a McDonalds...

And what about on Facebook? On your profile there is an "interested in" option. You can either check the box for "Men" or "Women". Now the fact that you would even be able to check the same box as your gender completely disgusts me, but that's not the point. I, and many other people, simply don't check a box at all. But why isn't there third option that relays the idea that relationships aren't your thing? Why do they assume that you want one?

Still, my kind isn't that uncommon. There are plenty of teenagers out there that agree that relationships, proms, dances, crushes, break ups, they are absolutely ludicrous. But, eventually they will "mature", so to speak. Join the rest of the population in thinking that romance isn't actually bad. But, what about the holdouts (like hopefully myself)? It's easy to say now that you never plan to get married, but how many people will actually stay that way? I am deathly afraid of the day that I'll wake up from bed and think "Hmm, I think that my zero-tolerance relationship policy is odd, I think that I'll change that." Perhaps I am too young to make an opinion. After all, how many people believe the little boy that says that "Girls are icky" will stay that way is whole life?

So, drop me in a inhabited stretch of jungle with my laptop, an internet connection, and a companion cube. Then I'll be all set :)

Art

I can't draw. Literally, not at all. I can do stick figures, but they aren't that very good so I doubt that they count. Do to my inability to draw even a straight line, I don't do art that much. On the other spectrum, I have several friends that can draw life like things very quickly, in any situation. In the meantime I sit in the corner and groan about my lack of talent in this field. But, as anyone will tell you, there is more to art than just drawing. Someone who is really "artsy" might say something along the lines of it being a way to express one's creativity. Thus it is not confined to things that you feel, see, and smell. How about art with words? Writing? A common adage is "A picture is worth a thousand words". I disagree. A picture can put you into a scenario, thrusting you into what the creator envisioned, and making it seem real. But a well written selection of words can do so much more. It can explain feelings, emotions, pulling you into the world that the author is describing. People, places, things, they are all wondrously and intricately put together into what we call a story.  If done correctly, good writing allows the reader to use their imagination to explain all the wondrous things that they are reading about, instead of it being set in stone with a picture.

More artsy than I intended... And no, I did not exaggerate the descriptions of my artistic talent. It's sad, really.