I've been thinking of getting a new, or a second, computer for a while. And since I loved my iMac desktop at the Lab, well...I think I'm ready to make a purchase on next month's credit card cycle. Damn you, Apple, for being pure desktop computer porn, and damn me for being a compulsive shopper!

I'm also thinking of getting a cat, but am fearful of opening the door to Cat Ladydom.

I said I would see Ninja Assassin, and I have kept my word. This holiday season, Ninja Assassin is sure to be the #1 must-see movie for people who enjoy stories about ninjas who are also assassins who assassinate ninjas.

Before you accuse me of sarcasm, I happen to enjoy this kind of story immensely.

It was a pretty good martial arts action film, really. The fights got a little repetitive (there are only so many times a man can dodge 50 ninja stars flying towards him all at once before the trick starts getting old) and the dialogue is, to put it kindly, rather goofy. But Rain successfully demonstrates his manliness with lots of shirtless scenes, scars, and stirring speeches. When I went with my brother, some male audience members, after a particularly tense fight scene, approved of Rain as being "badass," which is quite a feat considering that this is more of Rain's safety zone:

( rain believes he can fly )

So Professor Layton is some kind of subtle genius. His puzzles remind me that my brain is sorely subpar, yet, unlike Brain Age, he doesn't fill me with shame when I fail to get the correct answer; instead, I am more likely to shake my fist at the DS in rage and vow to move the red block across the grid to the opening if it is the last thing I do on this green Earth, which is, I believe, the reaction the game developers were going for. Well played, game developers, well played.

Anyway, I've finally completed Professor Layton and the Curious Village and have started the next game, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. Already the challenge of packing Luke's travel trunk according to Professor Layton's exacting and draconian standards (no two items can overlap?? WTF) has defeated me :(

From my LJ logs and mashed together:

Daniel Henney is a very good-looking man. He'll be appearing in this fall's Three Rivers, which I'm hoping to turn into a weekly viewing activity with Showa students. I thought it would be interesting to prep for the show by watching some of Henney's previous work, so I've been researching and downloading his Korean movies and TV dramas for the past three hours, and now have, somewhat creepily, a collection of Daniel Henney picture stills on my desktop.

( click this at your own peril )

I ordered the DVD of Ten Nights of Dreams the other week and finally sat down to watch it. It is the 2008 "omnibus film" adaptation of Natsume Soseki's short story "Ten Nights of Dream" (Yume Juuya). I first read it for a course on Japanese gothic literature, and it remains a favorite. An unofficial English translation can be found here, and the original Japanese text can be found here.

Because Soseki is a product of the Meiji Era and is widely hailed as the father of Japanese modernism, any criticism of his work inevitably includes the old "tradition vs. modernity" debate. Which is fine, it's definitely a major theme in nearly all his stories, but I get irritated with the debate in general because nearly everyone who touches the theme (hello, Hayao Miyazaki!) enters the fray seemingly already convinced that "traditional" = better. This was the dominant view in that class, with the professor (who was also my thesis advisor) positing that Soseki expresses a nostalgic for an "old Japan" that was literally disappearing before his eyes, pushed to extinction by a Japan that sought to remake itself in the Western model.

( unless we rediscover the magic of totoro )

I said a few posts back that my youth was wasted in not reading Slam Dunk. Only now that I have finished the series do I realize how tragically true that little bit of hyperbole was. To think I've missed out on ten years of mocking Mitsui's crazy-eyes rooting for Shohoku High! It seems I must point and laugh cheer extra hard to make up for lost time.

Things I like about Slam Dunk:

(spoilers spoilers spoilers! Not that you have to be warned by now)

( in no particular order )

I'm on duty today, which means I can't leave campus, so I grabbed Because of Winn-Dixie from the Showa library and settled down to cry my eyes out (Kate DiCamillo may be the reigning champion of the "heartwarming stories that blow the pipes on the waterworks" niche genre). It is a sweet, quick read and by a happy coincidence Showa also carries the movie adaptation. After I make the rounds of the campus I'm going to settle down with some leftover takeout, fire up the PS2, and spend the afternoon crying my eyes out.

Only one thing disturbs me, and that is that I originally thought the protagonist (a thoughtful, sensitive 10-year-old girl named India Opal) was played by little Dakota Fanning, but it turns out she is portrayed by another adorable blonde child altogether, someone named AnnaSophia Robb. Who? It doesn't matter. I can only process one precocious child-star at a time, and Dakota Fanning has been tagged "it," even though she's now, like, sixteen and paler than the vampire she's slated to play in the new Twilight movie.

I have only just come to terms with the realization that Jonathan Taylor Thomas is not every tween's dream anymore. It is always embarrassing when you say, "You know...from the Lion King" and have to be gently led away to a soft chair because you've just dated yourself horribly.

Thanks to a kind invitation from caitie, I've set up an account. As you can see, I am as hopeless as ever with usernames.

I'm not sure yet what I'll use this journal for. If possible I'd like to cross-post most entries with Livejournal, but I know from moving to LJ from Diaryland that one will probably win over the other. Still, as long entries get archived correctly, no regrets. Battlecry of the cautious, right there.