The Gravity of Games

Twitter Sonnet #25

A tea bucket was followed by sake.
And an extra helping of wasabi.
Choked down big novelty sushi okay.
All of which helped me defeat a zombie.
Peace is static as a struck tuning fork.
Always humming for a sharp chance for change.
At his home King Kong knew a cartoon stork.
Who also saw Charlie Kane at short range.
Breakfast coffee was too much like water.
My lunch sandwich was three cucumbers thick.
It was worth the required chewing ardour.
Now for dinner I have a noodle brick.
A good plain meal is as boring as mould.
But yes my oatmeal's made of solid gold.

Had a bit of sleep deprivation yesterday making work on the next Venia's Travels script slow. I ended up writing most of it at The Living Room, where I had the cucumber sandwich. Supposedly it was a "veggie and cheese" sandwich, but really, it was a cucumber sandwich with a few slivers of other things. Sleep dep ruined my resistance to readily available internet distractions. I had to get away to get anything done.

Tried some new anime with breakfast to-day. But to-day's really more a story of attempting to watch anime.

It was only to-day I discovered the next new episode of Haruhi Suzumiya won't air until June 18th--this "second season" continues Haruhi Suzumiya's fascinating non-linear format in that this new season will in fact be a mega season comprised of twenty five episodes among which are included the fourteen episodes of the original season from three years ago. This is Rubik's Cube broadcasting. It's frustrating waiting for the next episode so long, but I can't help but admire this strategy.

I downloaded the first episode of the original Macross series from 1982, which, despite it being one of the big anime classics, I'd never seen before. I still haven't seen it because the episode was encoded so poorly the subtitles were all over the place in Media Player Classic, not even showing up in VLC media player.

So I also downloaded the first episode of a new baseball series called Cross Game. I must admit, the mere fact that it's a baseball series got in the way of me concentrating on it, but I downloaded it after reading the Wikipedia page for the manga's creator, Mitsuru Adachi, which says he, "has been described as a writer of 'delightful dialogue', a genius at portraying everyday life, 'the greatest pure storyteller', and 'a master mangaka'."

Quite an endorsement, and not without merit from what I saw. The first episode tells the story of Ko, a preteen little league player and his sort of girlfriend, Wakaba. The way Ko's shown trying to decide if he should describe Wakaba as the "cutest girl in the school" subtly and very nicely conveys a kid developing a manner of affection he's just beginning to understand. What I really love was how Wakaba's death, which occurs around halfway through the episode, is handled--Ko's drinking from a carton of milk when he overhears the story on the television news. He doesn't pause in drinking, finishes the carton, and throws it away. His general reaction is a sort of numbness for days, straight through the funeral, that was so perfectly accurate for an eight or nine year old boy. A lot of writers would have immediately had him burst into tears. That Ko doesn't cry until he sees the school bully crying about it was also completely perfect--I think I might actually keep watching this series.

I did watch the new episode of Natsu no Arashi, despite VLC player having a tough time with it after I had to pause it for a moment. This continues to be a good series, and the talent Jin Kobayashi displayed for lengthy character studies in School Rumble is starting to show, paired well with Akiyuki Shinbo's beautiful direction. I'm disappointed this thing's apparently only going to be thirteen episodes.

After Buffy the Vampire Slayer last night, I watched the first episode of Farscape, enjoying it more than I had in a while. It's not even one of the best episodes of the series, but I couldn't help noticing how much more subtly aspects of characters were communicated than on Buffy.

It's kind of funny how many fan made videos there are of The Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket".