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少年マガ (Shonen Magazine), '04 Vol 6
Currently a month backlogged on Shonen/Young. It looks like this and the next issue will feature new comics. This week's premiere is for "TOKKYUU," a comic based on ocean rescue, I guess. I read the beginning of it, but I not particularly interested in sports or, I guess scuba, themed stories. That's probably just me. Negima is off this week. Tsubasa: ２９ 不落の城 (Impregnable Castle): Big revelation! Sakura gets herself into a pinch while trying to help the kids that she saw in last chapter. Meanwhile, Shaoran is back at the village doing some investigation to each child disappearance and discovers that there's a person who has visited each of them before they get abducted. They confront this person and the truth comes out. Hamanaka Ai: ０１７ 旅館といえば (Speaking of the Lodge...): While the class president is taking another round in the hot-springs, the two tutors tease Masahiko and make him watch some adult programming with them. The class president comes back to find them watching that stuff and passes out. Next morning, she wonders if it was a dream. |
Title: 少年マガジン (Shonen Magazine) Vol. 6 |
The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Having enjoyed "Tuesdays with Morrie," I thought it would be nice to read his new work. I'm usually not the type to read "inspirational" stories, especially if they're contrived, but apparently people like it. When I was at the checkout at Borders, the lady behind me saw it and told me that it was a good book. Summary: A man discovers the meaning of his life after his death through encounters with people already in heaven who have influenced him and who he has influenced. The book is too short. Maybe I was supposed to read it slower or whatnot, but I felt like everything happened so fast that it didn't make much of an impact on me. The pacing of the book was staccato, with breaks every 5-10 pages. I didn't get lost in the book, but it did break up the flow a bit. The people and stories that the main character, Eddie, meets in heaven are interesting. Especially the last one which kinda sorta gives the story a twist ending. Being an inspirational book, it's supposed to teach and inform you about how to live your life a little better, even if it's just to make you think more positively. Maybe it works for some people, but a lot of the ideas the author tries to convey, I already hold and understand: everyone's connected and what you do affects someone else, sacrifices have to be made and there's no reason to disdain them, don't hold grudges, love is eternal, and don't live with regrets. Five People isn't as good as Tuesdays with Morrie, partially because Tuesdays was based on a true story, and this is fiction. While I didn't take much out of it, I can see how it would benefit others. |
Author: Mitch Albom |
S.W.A.T.
I'm currently watching the bonus stuff as I type this and I didn't know that this was based on a 70's TV show like Charlie's Angels. And I must say that I enjoyed Charlie's Angels a lot more. There are a few issues I have with the movie. First of all, the plot is very weak. I mean, c'mon, a guy in a orange jumpsuit says that he'll give 100 million to the person that breaks him out of jail, and everyone goes berserk (don't worry, this is the same stuff you'll read on the back of the DVD, so no spoilers). Are people THAT shallow and stupid? Sometimes I wonder. Secondly, I really didn't get the character's motivations. I mean, it's an action flick, so I didn't expect that much, but still, it's nice to understand why people do the things they do. My bad, there was one guy whose motivation was explored, but that was at the very beginning of the movie and unfortunately, it was easy to know what he was going to do later on. The last complaint I have is that the action scenes were too short, and the pacing was kinda slow. The climax of the movie, or rather, the main conflict in the film was way too short compared to all the buildup (i.e. training they were doing to be S.W.A.T. members) that was showing int he first 3/4 of the film. I do have to say that the bullets flying and gunshots didn't disappoint. However, overall, something else might have been better. Rating: 2/4 |
There's nothing better to utilize a 6.1 surround system than a nice action flick with a lot of gunshots and bullets whizzing by. So for my second (out of 10) free movie from blockbuster, tonight's is S.W.A.T. |
少年マガ (Shonen Magazine), '04 Vol 4/5 & ヤングマガ (Young Magazine), '04 Vol. 4/5
This week's feature is Inoue Waka with a special pullout 2004 calendar. As usual, just some bikini shots. The featured comic is a christmas chapter of Godhand Teru with first few pages colored. I guess I've been spoiled with the one chapter manga bonuses that have been showing up recently (Tanpo and Okitori), so nothing out of the ordinary in this issue. Negima. ３７時間目 ネギのキッスは誰のモノ？ (37th Hour, Negi's Kiss is Whose?): The give groups of girls competing for Negi's kiss all have found him, except that each is a fake (Negi created copies of himself last chapter). They find out about the fakes and make them disappear by kissing them. When the real Negi comes back, he bumps into Nodoka and Yue. Negi confesses to Nodoka that he loves all his students, but as he finishes, Yue trips up Nodoka and she accidentally kisses Negi. Nodoka's card then appears, but alas, the head teacher catches them all fooling around outside at night and makes them kneel in the lobby. Hamanaka Ai: ０１６ いざ合宿 (016, Time for Training Camp): The tutors and students go to training camp, which is just a front for a hot-springs resort. They pretend to all be siblings to get a discount and just mess around. Tsubasa: ２８ 二人の姫 (28, Two Princesses): Shaoran and company head to the abandoned castle to look for Sakura and the missing children. However, they are not to be found and tension arises rises between them and the townsfolk, since they're still under suspicious being strangers and all. However, they continue to search for her. Meanwhile, Sakura finds herself in the dark with her ankles in shackles and looks around to find a gigantic painting of who she calls a Princesses and sees children walking outside her cell.
Featured girl this week is Aya Matsuura, among others. Aya's photos are quite tame given the other girls in the magazine (Sakura Mizutani...for one). I didn't bother opening the sealed pages for the two other girls. XXXholic: 36: Last issue ended the Monkey's hand story, so this week's is just a mini, non-pertinent story before the CLAMP gals go on vacation until issue 9. Kimihiro stumbles upon this resturant run by a fox. The fox's child discovers a broken arrow tail in Kimihiro's bag and receives it as a gift. In exchange the fox gives Kimihiro a treat from the restaurant for Yuuko. Since XXXholic isn't coming back until the 9th issue and I haven't caught up on the other manga in the magazine that I'm reading, I'll just be posting Shonen Magazine stuff until then. |
Title: 少年マガジン (Shonen Magazine) Vol. 4/5
Title: ヤングマガジン (Young Magazine) Vol. 4/5 |
Wired, Feb '04
My stand is this: It's a shame that a lot of people are losing jobs in the computer sector, but having been though college during the dot com boom, I see it as stabilization. Early in my college days in CS100 and even before in high school, I would always be amazed at the number of people who want to do computer science but have absolutely no interest in computers at all. Their rationale was that it was where all the jobs where, and so rather than pursue what they were genuinely interested in, they would follow the money rather than their hearts. Hell, I was even good friends with some of them and they were nice people, but really didn't enjoy working with computers. So during that period, a lot of people got jobs in computer science, an abnormal amount if I may be so bold to say. But now, a lot of people are losing jobs, an abnormal amount. You add two negating abnormalities and you're left with normalities (analogy not applicable to psychological abnormalities). There's also a good point made that everytime some type of work has been obsoleted, there's always been a backlash like how computers relieved secretarial work, agricultural innovations reduced the number of farmers, etc... But if history shows anything, that means people just have to better themselves. There's always some skill that can't be given to outsourced in the near future, and those are what you have to anticipate. I like to call it "making yourself future-proof." You can always improve yourself in some way or another. Sometimes I see teens today who waste all their time doing frivilious things. Those are the same people who will be complaining in the future. Of course, I'm painting my opinion with a very broad brush, but that's how I see it. And a note about the journalism, the three highlighted quotes are: "People get top quality here, says one Mumbai coder. We're not just cheaper, we're better." "U.S. White collar-workers told blue collars 'change is good.' Now they're hearing it, too." "Does outsourced labor piss you off? Then it's time to return your iPod and your cell phone." The first quote would make Indians sound arrogant, a la a prick. The second quote would make Indians sound like they're taunting, a la a prick. The last quote would make them sound spiteful, a la a prick. Geez, I wonder what they want the readers to feel when they glance at this article? |
The feature |
$2000 Tax-Break for Hybrids...My Ass I've just been doing my taxes via TurboTax.com and was quite excited this year cuz of my new Hybrid, which was advertised to net me up to $2000. Well, I didn't even get 20% of that. Since I started my job in September, I don't have much money income for last year. Technically, I would be a low-income person (not low enough for the Earned-Income Credit, but pretty low). And since I'm a low income person, I would be receiving a lot of my money back anyway since JPL deducts a lot from wages. If they actually did deduct all $2000, I would have had to pay no federal taxes what-so-ever, which wouldn't have been nice. However, the government needs money to operate, so they would only let me take $300 from the potential of $2000. Grr... If I had it my way, I would have liked to pay MORE taxes and taken a bigger chunk of that Hybrid deduction because the clean vehicle deduction is money already set aside that wouldn't be used in any type of governmental programs, like NASA. However, the federal taxes that I am getting back does bite into governmental programs, which I would rather not do. That's also the same reason why I don't take deductions off charitable donations either. Oh well, $300 is $300. That doesn't cover my latest shipment for Amazon Japan though. |
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From a Posting on Slashdot For the media, bad news is good news (storywise). Here we have unprecidented sucesses of the MERs (and Mars Express - within DAYS of working it has found evidence of it's top mission objective), and now there's all this press about the "failures." Or has NASA been "asking for it," as they keep saying how "amazingly perfect" things are going, setting themselves up for scrutiny when they fail? My opinion: no, but what about you? If you actually knew what goes on daily with operations, both ground and flight... |
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まほらば (Mahoraba) Vol. 3
And on goes the story about a boy in a an apartment full of female residents (sounds familiar? :) ) Cover features Megumi and Tamami in the foreground with the rest of the residents in the background doing some yard work. The covers under the dust-jacket contain mini-comics of the subcharacters (Ryuushi's classmates from art school). There's a summary of characters at the beginning with hosts Megumi and Tamami along with a bonus at the end where they observe the life of the manga artist. Book 3 features mostly filler stories, not too slow, but I had hoped that they would go into the story a bit more. The strongest points of this volume is the character development for Megumi and her relationship with Ryuushi as well as the introduction of Kozue's 5th personality. The whimsical intro summary was a nice touch. 12. 今この時を (Now, This Time): A short chapter that features regular comic layout and the 4-panel comic layout. Megumi decides that they should go on a picnic and the entire chapter is devoted to seeing how the antics they go through in order to wake up and prepare for a picnic. 13. ハル (Spring): A heartwarming story about a boy and how he deals with loss. This tory is actually a book within a book, and the story is Ryuushi's assignment for art class. 14. あの子 (That Child): Ryuushi receives a box of apples from his parents and he distributes them out to the residence as gifts. Kozue offers to peel and eat them with Ryuushi, however, as she cuts her hand, ends up in an embarassing situation, and switches to a new personality; one that is reclusive and shy. 15. 。。。かも (...maybe): The other residents know about this personality, however, none of them have ever been able to talk to her nor do they know her name. They try to strike up a conversation, but to no avail. Ryuushi finally breaks through and finds out that her name is Natsume Konno. 16. 想い (Memories): Megumi decides to ask Ryuushi on a date after having bumped into some old friends of hers. They go watch movies and such. At end, we find out that she has someone she loves and she just wanted to test herself to see if she could love another. 17. 部長 (Club President): At school, Tamami bumps into the president of the occult club which she is a member of. The club president gets invited to Narutaki apartments where she predicts the fortunes of the residents with tarot cards. When she leaves though, she reminds them that they have an infinte number of possible futures to live and the book ends with Ryuushi contemplating that though, sitting next to Kozue. |
Title: まほらば (Mahoraba) Vol. 3 |
Building 230
Anything that flies in space is controlled in there. |
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Nickel and Dimed
I've wanted to read this book for a long time, ever since I read my recommendations on Amazon that this was a book frequently purchased by people who share my reading preferences (besides comics). Granted, I haven't really purchased a book from Amazon in ages, they seem to keep track of whatever I click on and look up when giving me recommendations. Kinda spooky, albeit helpful. Summary: A highly educated, semi-affluent writer tries to live the life of a low-income working to explore the real truth about poverty. This is the type of book that I usually try not to read. I have a soft spot for the suffering of the poor. I don't mean the self-described "poor" who can't afford a CD or a DVD, but have a computer and a broadband connection download what they "can't afford." The poor I'm refering to are the ones that the author interacted with and worked with during her undercover investigation. There's something about people who struggle with hunger, shelter, and health - the very basic elements of life - that tugs at me. It would be so much easier if I just kept myself ignorant of these problems, much like some more wealthy businesspeople or politicians, but alas I don't. The author attempts to live the life of a poverty for three months as she compiles notes and data for this book. Maybe I had missed something, but I didn't realize until almost the end of the book that she did these three months individually, with several months of regular life inbetween. If she had done them in a row, probably leading a life much more similar to those she tried to mimick, it would have gained her even more credibility. However, from reading some other reviews, people have taken this as her being artificial. Not only does she not do them all at the same time, she sometimes doesn't even last more than a few weeks before giving up. But that says a lot right there. Despite the fact that most of educated/wealthy class considers themselves "superior" to the poor, thinking that they can do anything an uneducated and unskilled worker can, they in fact, can't. I certainly couldn't do it. So this superiority is nothing more than difference, and being educated and wealthy does not mean better in every regard. Another point she hammers is the cost of living compared to minimum wage and welfare. While the current Republican is advocating a larger government...err...military trying to "help" the people other countries, why not point the finger back back domestically and "help" the people of this country instead? (Yes, I know the answer already, so no need to provide it for me). As the author experienced, minimum wage is NOT enough to get by with rent, food, and transportation to work. I find it surprising that she mentions employers are much more willing to give perks like free breakfast or coffee rather than raise wages, simply because it's easier to cut them out when needed. Yet again, it's the same thing with all those rebate gimmicks retailers use to "lower" the price of a product. This is recommended reading for those who really want to know how it is to be poor, or at least how hard it is to even try to be one. |
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich |
What a Night I just came back from "work" and it's now about 2am. Although I'm not on the MER project, I wasn't on the front lines when the data started flowing in. However, since I'm working on the ground communications side, I could see the data as it was coming in. On the first landing, someone was wrong with our program and apparently data didn't come though in real time. So while people were celebrating on TV, we waiting 2 minutes before we were able to confirm it. However, this time around, we got real time data and it was quite neat seeing it on our computers and then hearing the people on TV confirm the same data. Very neat. |
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Landed I'm sitting here in a conference room at JPL watching monitor data and the nasa tv at the same time. We landed! And how coincidental that Al Gore and Gov. Arnold pop out after it was announced that the rover got to the Mars. But as of now, it's still rolling. |
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To do tonight
Something tells me I should clean my room. |
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Buy a Candidate How ironic, Amazon.com now has a section where you can "Buy a Candidate." Okay, so it's just contributions, but strange none-the-less. Anyhow, I've been wanting to donate to the Clark campaign as he's the one I support. So since Amazon already has all my information, that makes it that much easier. |
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No 'mo Rover The big thing in the news today was that JPL apparently lost communication with the rover, at least the part that transfers all the science data and telemetry. Funny thing is that last night my supervisor told me that he was over talking to the MER people (what I work on is related to any and all missions in general, so they're one of them) and they told him that there was some anomaly with the rover on the ground (actually, a little more detail, but anyhow). Didn't expect it to turn out to be such a big problem. |
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Just Another Day Just another day of pounding away at the keyboard. Worked from 8-8pm, and then came home to fix up some more features for 'scribbles. Moblog entries have a special column now on the left with onMouseOver index images. And the best part is that it's fully automated. I send a picture from my cell phone, the scripts on the server do the rest including resizing, doing grayscale, adding noise, and adding the appropriate javascript code. Very neat. Too bad all that work leaves me without much time to write anything significant. Had a discussion with a co-worker on why I don't particularly celebrate holidays. Basically I don't believe...arg, my head and eyes hurt. Maybe some other time. |
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State of the Union
Since I don't have live tv in my apartment, I can only watch it in the gym. Let's see what lies he spews this year. |
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The Return of Lunar Scribbles Officially, it should be the fourth revival of this journal since it's inception way back when. But in fact, I started on this revision last August and I just stopped working on it. As such, I have a 6 month gap since the last time I entered some serious stuff in here. I'm not going to lie and say I won't do it again, but there's a part of me that feels a bit wasteful since I'm paying $20 bucks a month to have this domain name and hosting, but I have absolutely no intentions of fixing or working on any other part of my site. Work occupies a lot of my time, and when I'm not there, I'm at home studying Japanese. Mostly vocabulary now since I think I'm proficient with the grammar. I know who's doing what to whom, but still have problems with the who, what, and whom. All in good time. Anyhow, that's all for tonight/this morning. Got work later today at 8am. |
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The New Lunar Scribbles
Screenshot of the page. |
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