Continue reading »]]>

Important!

There was a really interesting article on laptopmag.com, featured on Yahoo! today. It was 15 current technologies that practically won’t exist are be widely used in 10 years or so. The writer is thinking about his soon-to-be born child, so perhaps even some of these predictions are for as soon as 5 years from today. I’d like to go through them and decide which ones I agree and disagree with. I hope to justify at least the ones I disagree with. I will label each one as Agree, Disagree or Maybe. Those labels are likely self-explanatory.

1. Wired Home Internet (Disagree)

If there are enough users like me who much prefer wired Internet, there’s no way this will die out in 5-10 years. The author himself even admits current offerings of wireless Internet cannot compare to the speeds of cable Internet. Speeds are one thing or another. Reliability amongst cable Internet is much higher, too. I don’t see this dying so soon.

2. Dedicated Cameras and Camcorders (Agree)

This one I can see coming because I personally have found myself less willing to carry around by bulky, heavy 26x optical zoom camera. I am proud of how far I can zoom and get far-away shots, but the fact of the matter is I am getting lazier about carrying it around. I had a friend come from America to Japan for a week, and I not once took that camera. I’ll still use it to record some HD video every once in a while, but I think even my iPod does that, which I always have with me. And when I get a better phone, the camera will always be with me anyways. Just as the author says, the average consumer will not have separate cameras. Obviously, people who like taking pictures more than I will continue with their dedicated cameras. Those are the people who know how to shop for lenses and what not.

3. Landline Phones (Maybe)

I don’t know enough about the trends to know if this will really happen or not. But won’t businesses still use landline phones? I can’t see the death of it in 10 years, though for the average joe, yeah, this could happen.

4. Slow-Booting Computers (Agree)

This one is very feasible. While my computer boots rather slowly, and it shuts down extremely quickly. I can see the day when this no longer is an issue.

5. Windows Operating Systems (Agree)

I do think that most users will be able to move on from the window-based setups that we are so accustomed to. It might take myself a little bit of time, but I will do my best.

6. Hard Drives (Agree)

This one is easy because it is common knowledge that solid state drives are quickly replacing hard drives.

7. Movie Theaters (Disagree)

I completely agree that many people have a good home theater setup. There are many other reasons why movie theaters will stay for a very long time. I really don’t understand how the author thinks that in 5-10 years all but art-house theaters will exist. Can you really imagine that yourself?

One of the reasons the author cites is high movie prices. While that is certainly a factor, matinee prices are still somewhat reasonable. Many grocery stores in my area sell slightly discounted tickets, as well. Additionally, movies cost more than $20 in Japan at theaters and people still go. I have seen entire families go to see a movie. Why would people pay this much?

I think the reason is obvious enough. Going to the movies is an event. Sure, you can call a bunch of friends over to your house to watch a movie at your pretty darn good home theater system. But there is something about movie theaters offering the whole gambit. Besides the talkers and texters, I feel it’s much easier to watch a movie without real interruption. I swear, and I don’t know why, but it’s like impossible to watch a movie all in one sitting with friends over. The ability to pause gives too much power, methinks.

Even if movies are just $10 for me instead of $20 (here in Japan), it’s still kind of a hassle for me to get out to go see one. However, I would make arrangements to see something like The Dark Knight Rises in theaters. There are some movies that are better in theaters, right? Can you imagine a day where a movie like that (or Inception) was only offered on-demand at home? There’s something about the event of going to a movie that makes me believe that movie theaters won’t die anytime soon. It may be only the car ride home where everyone offers their take on the ending, but home theaters will not replace movie theaters. Home theaters supplement movie theaters. It’s so that you can enjoy the experience that you (supposedly) had in a theater at your home. Anyways, there is my two cents on that (more like twenty cents, but…)

8. The Mouse (Maybe)

The days of touch-only stuff is coming, but will the ubiquitous double-clicker be gone in less than 10 years? I am not too sure about this one, so I won’t call it either way.

9. 3D Glasses (Agree)

While I wish 3D would just die altogether, at least the glasses part should die out soon enough.

10. Remote Controls (Disagree)

If we use our smartphones, isn’t that still a remote control basically? Now, voice controls, he has a point on. I, however, doubt that most TV users (aka everyone) will switch to voice-only in 5-10 years. Frankly, why would you want to use your smartphone to control your TV? What’s so bad with remote controls?

11. Desktops (Disagree)

The author gives no reasons why this would disappear except for there being a lack of the market for it. But the author said it himself-like wired home Internet, there will be enough people who actually see the value in desktops to keep it alive.

12. Phone Numbers (Disagree)

The author says when his son is in high school, so he gives this one more like 15 years. Even 15 years from now, we’ll still be using phone numbers. Yes, I get the point that we just look for a person in our phone’s address book and hit “Send”. But what is behind the “Send”? It is a phone number that the phone knows and is dialing out to. So, I think that there will be at least that much of the remnants of phone numbers, if not the actual numbers themselves.

13. Prime-Time Television (Disagree)

The author doesn’t really say what would replace prime-time television. So what if a lot of us watch shows online or on DVR? Many of us still like to see the show live because we want to know first what happens to someone, whether fictional or real. You can’t take that excitement away in just 10 years’ time. Remember movie theaters-events are things that people like to be a part of.

14. Fax Machines (Maybe)

He puts a convincing argument for this one, but I feel like my school prefers to have documents sent by fax anyways. I guess they could scan it, put it in an e-mail and send it. The person receiving it would have to print it out. It’s not too big of a deal, but it does seem like an extra step.

15. Optical Discs (Agree)

It’s only if I carefully think about this do I actually have to agree. One of my first DVDs I received as a gift about 8 years ago. Blu-ray is still a relatively newer technology that I won’t adapt to until summer of 2013 (yes, I have a date for it 14 months from now). I’d like to hope that I can get 8 years out of it after I purchase it. I guess we will see.

Thoughts?

Continue reading »]]> winnie this storyends Lyrics (歌詞)

Limitations of my mind
No more going back, you`re stuck with me
It`s you and me until the end
Ahhh…..

Limitations of my mind
You aren`t even really here right now
Everything changed overnight
Ahhh…..

Hesitation in my heart. Can`t accept it by myself. I see your past flashing through my eyes.

This story ends. Come, you break me down. Over and over, and over…
This story ends. Come, you break me down. Over and over, and over, so please break me down.

Limitations of my mind
No more going back, you`re stuck with me
Everything changed overnight
Ahhh…..

Hesitation in my heart. Well, if it was meant to be, I would turn a blind eye to your past.

This story ends. Come, you break me down. Over and over, and over…
This story ends. Come, you break me down over and over, and over, so please break me down.

You. You could maybe hide it, maybe go round…maybe hide it, maybe go round…maybe hide it, maybe go round…

This story ends. Come, you break me down. Over and over, and over…
This story ends. Come, you break me down. Over and over, and over…
This story ends. Come, you break me down. Over and over, and over…
This story ends. Come, you break me down over and over, and over, so please break me down.

Continue reading »]]> With Nintendo Power devoting an entire game on an unnanounced game, I am declaring it official that Pikmin 2 will be released in the US. It will also likely be as early as the end of June. This is excellent news for the 7 of us who were clamoring for this game. Honestly, the biggest perk for me is the widescreen support. I played the original Pikmin and then the Wii iteration of Pikmin. Since that was a year ago, I kind of forget what I didn’t like about the new play controls. There were some pros and cons, but I kind of forgot what those were. Overall, I didn’t remember too much wrong with the game. I actually played Pikmin 2 on the Wii (Japanese version) and the only flaw I can think of where the red and purple sprays were positioned on the controller, which was the 1 and 2 buttons. Since the reason I love Pikmin 2 is for the multiplayer mode, there is something about having the sprays at 1 and 2 that seems a little unintuitive. These are a rather crucial part of the game, so it seems a bit odd to have them there. The other flaw was that you had to be facing your enemy, if it was a purple spray, so it is probably a little tedious now because Olimar (or Louie) faces the direction of the Wii Remote, in essence. Players will simply have to be more careful.

Well, the link to the original article is here: http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=176074

Maybe this news will actually motivate me to finish the Pikmin 2 Battle Mode FAQ that I started a few years back. It was very close to being finished, but I have been putting it off for quite some time. It’s mostly finished, so when I am less lazy I can post a link to it here.

Continue reading »]]> The documentary movie “Bully” was rated R, and the distributors didn’t like that. So, it was announced today, in a rare move in the movie industry, that the movie would be distributed with no MPAA rating. Perhaps because unrated movies carry the stigma of other possibly explicit works, it is well known that many movie theaters will not show unrated movies. I suppose releasing the film as unrated was mostly in protest to the MPAA rating.

There are a couple of things going on here that are problematic. If the goal was to allow more people to see the movie, then why release it with no rating? It doesn’t make much sense to me. Furthermore, this is exactly the kind of movie that parents should not only see but take their kids to see. The “R” rating does not completely ban people under 17 from seeing the movie. They simply cannot see it by themselves. Of course, that is the issue that the distributor, the Weinstein Company, had with the rating.

This brings back memories of the film, “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”, a film I rather disliked (however, not for its attack on the MPAA system; I may do a post in the future on this movie). In that movie, the filmmakers challenged the way that films are rated by the MPAA and likened it to a form of censorship. I hope that people don’t try to make a comparison to the film being rated R as a form of censorship.

While “Bully” will likely be an infinitely more important film than any film that is a dramatization of unreal events, it is perhaps curious to this blogger as to why it is getting so much attention. Well, perhaps it is precisely because this film is probably a very important one that the company would have preferred an MPAA rating of PG-13.

What the R rating would have done is prevented a group of teenagers who wanted to go see a movie this weekend from seeing this without at least one parent. However, let’s be honest-the average teenager is more likely to see a movie like “The Hunger Games” (if they hadn’t already), “Wrath of the Titans” or even “The Lorax”. Of course the (perhaps) wiser group who wants to see “Bully” will have to drag along a parent; as if doing that would be difficult.

So, I don’t quite see the logic in surrendering the R rating. With the unrated rating, many theaters will not have “Bully” shown. If they wanted to demonstrate their protesting of the rating, they had already done so by trying to get it appealed. There are times in life when we have to give in. I think the Weinstein Company made a mistake by not giving in.

I could be wrong about that, though. If as many theaters show the film as would have given the R rating instead, then this protest will not only have been a success for the company, but be a stepping stone for future films who want to appeal a rating. But if it was just to “stick it to the man”, as it were, then I think I have a problem with their decision to release it unrated.

Update (April 6th): The movie has since been edited to allow for a PG-13 rating, and a PG-13 version will be released in theaters from April 13th. I am assuming they did what network television has been doing, and are simply bleeping the strong words. This is probably the best choice as adults and probably most teenagers can take a guess as to what those words were anyways. I will probably get flack for supposedly supporting “film censorship”, but I stand by my opinion that they should have just released it with an R rating in the first place. To each his own-the film will make more money because of this rating, so this was probably the best choice.

Continue reading »]]> I was reading an article today that linked anti-social behavior with Facebook activity. This might seem a bit strange at first since it would seem Facebook is a medium for being very social, with several hundred friends. I would like to highlight here some of the perceived anti-social behavior here.

This one is particular was problematic for me. When somebody leaves a comment that I find offensive, I don’t know what to do. I remember that I am Facebook friends with them for some reason or another. I was once either friends with them or felt like I got along with them. But when somebody leaves a negative comment, I don’t know what I can do. Facebook is a medium that doesn’t allow for a kind of natural communication. One big reason for this is the lack of nonverbal communication.

Of course, lack of nonverbal communication is present in software like Skype, as well. However, in Skype, I am chatting with somebody live. If there need to be some clarification on a negative comment (such as whether it was sarcastic or not), it can be achieved. What’s interesting about this facet, though, is that if I am talking with them on Skype in the first place, then it probably means I get along with them in real life rather well. So I can’t readily use Skype as an example here.

If somebody leaves a negative comment on Facebook, it’s very awkward to try to talk it out. Some people would say that talking things out was something saved for schools and mediators; that is to say, adults can just “get over” the negative comment. I would like to suggest that adults should be entitled to some amount of conversation about a topic that offends them as well. Am I to let go of the offensive comment and perhaps my feelings? It seems that there is something amiss there.

I could write back on my wall where the original negative comment was, but my conversation with the person would not be private. So, naturally, I can simply send a message to them. That would solve the privacy issue, but then another issue arises. I have begun a separate transaction with them now. They would likely be surprised and likely offended for my supposed ‘overreaction’. But wait a minute. If we were at a party and you said that comment, I can at least explain myself further a little bit. It would only take all of about two seconds to do that even. We can have a mini conversation, of sorts, about your thoughts on my ‘status’. I might still be offended, but at least I wasn’t left feeling somewhat defenseless.

That is what I am trying to say about Facebook. I feel defenseless against negative comments. I don’t see any proper way to address them. I wish that people wouldn’t leave such comments in the first place, but don’t we all? When I become the person who is offended, I seem to be the person in the wrong. I still think a face-to-face interaction more allows me to quickly figure out where they are coming from and how to proceed for the rest of the time that we have.

I’ve talked a lot about negative comments. What about the concept of Facebook friends? I don’t know what to make of it. I realized that although the idea was to be friends with people mainly from high school, and past college graduates and the like, it seems that I really don’t talk to the people any more on Facebook than I would in real life. That is not to say I don’t care about them. But of 400+ friends, if I begin to devote some amount of time to even one person, I have lost time with other people. Therefore, I just wait for people to contact me. I am interested in continuing relationships with people who are interested in that with me.

This practically doesn’t happen, but perhaps out of selfishness I am okay with this. It would be an inappropriate move to unfriend somebody, especially for no real reason. But there is always the temptation. Recently, my idea for keeping certain Facebook friends was based on a certain ideal (and I am happy that others have approved of this ideal). I open up my home in Japan to visitors. This is essentially any Facebook friend. If I wasn’t comfortable with them staying at my home, then, really, why am I Facebook friends with them? This is probably a good start for somebody looking to cut down on their friends list.

I am perhaps a rare breed-it seems people are interested in having more Facebook friends. I don’t quite understand why. I’d rather have a few true, strong relationships than hundreds of relatively meaningless and non-progressing ones. Because of this, I don’t mind cutting down a little bit. At this point, however, I am not convinced that Facebook is doing me any real good.

There is one more topic I would like to address, but I will do so briefly to avoid too long of a rant. I can’t help but feel excluded when I see pictures of ‘friends’ hanging out somewhere and having a good time. I can’t help but feel that they are having this great time, and I am not. Actually, there was an article a few months back about this reaction that people have. It turns out that it is very common-to the extent that even the people who are the end of one’s envy are also envious of pictures they see or events they hear about but weren’t invited to. A little bit of human nature kicks in with everyone, it seems.

If Facebook is fostering this kind of feelings, then again, I have to ask myself what Facebook is really doing for me? Perhaps the only thing it is useful for now is to have the ability to contact and be contacted by old friends. This is helpful across oceans because I seem to move around all the time and change my cell phone information and such. Facebook can be credited for inadvertently streamlining this kind of information. It is undeniable how easy Facebook is for contacting people. It’s almost too easy, but even this feature is not enough to keep me interested.

There’s a lot more that needs to be said about Facebook, but it would take more thought than I am willing to give. So for the sake of ease, I am not dealing with Facebook anymore, as a practice. Like I was saying just before, Facebook is a great tool for easily contacting someone, and I plan on utilizing it those times that I would like to contact somebody. But to save myself the grief of feeling isolated, feeling offended and feeling left out I will keep myself away from Facebook.

I could end this post here with that declaration. I don’t want to keep this so trite. I hope that people who use Facebook (and if you are reading this, you probably do) will think about some of these things and consider if it’s worth it for them, too.

Continue reading »]]> I feel that a little background information on me and Wendy’s is necessary (especially if I am going to marry it).

I think people have this idea that I have always liked Wendy’s. Well, it can be said that I’ve never really hated Wendy’s. But I really didn’t start going to Wendy’s as frequently as I seemingly do until more recently in my short life.

I think the first time I went to Wendy’s was when I was about 12 or 13. My father took me to Wendy’s after a local high school basketball game. Our family was never a big fast food family, but when we did go out, it was usually to McDonald’s. Even then, I think I always had their chicken nuggets (the first Big Mac I ever had was in Japan when I was 16). When we went to Wendy’s, my father had commented he thought of the big three chains-McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s-that Wendy’s had the best burger. Needless to say, he was right.

This was a time that I rarely had burgers, so I was a ketchup only kind of guy. They often still put the cheese on, and they honestly never got my order exactly right. But I still liked it for whatever reason. It’s not like I went often at all. The only other time I can vividly recall being young and going to Wendy’s was when I wanted to buy the second Golden Sun GBA game. I had to wait nearly two hours in a clothing store with my older sister and mother who promised we would go to Target shortly after. We did, but they didn’t have the game in stock. I was rather upset. So my mid-afternoon present since I was a little bit hungry was a very small junior burger from Wendy’s. It cheered me up.

So Wendy’s was deemed my favorite fast-food restaurant. But again, it wasn’t like I went often or anything. It’s just that if I could have a say, I would choose Wendy’s over something else. When I went to college in Hawaii, Wendy’s was quite sparse. I only went once my entire freshman year in Hawaii. This was over the winter break, which meant I went without Wendy’s for well over 4 months. The one time I went I thought the taste or something was a bit off, and I never went back in Hawaii that school year. That summer (2008) I went to Japan for about 5 weeks, and didn’t even know Wendy’s was in Japan. I didn’t even think to look it up online, though when I actually did, I found out there were some. That summer I got very addicted to McDonald’s Mega Mac, which is 4 patties instead of the traditional 2 patties of the Big Mac. I went to McD’s over 15 times, but Wendy’s only twice.

When I went back to Hawaii for my sophomore year, the chance to go to Wendy’s once more arose. This was a couple months after being in Hawaii. This second time that I ever ate Wendy’s in Hawaii was actually very good. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I went about 5 more times that school year. I even tried once to go with several friends and we were literally on our way when our RA requested us to be back to the dorms earlier for an event she was holding. The trip would take nearly one hour by bus, so we quit only after a couple bus stops and stopped off somewhere else.

It was really the summer of 2009 that I, for whatever reason, started frequenting Wendy’s. And it was quite often. I went probably 2-3 times a week that summer. I occasionally would order their triple, which tastes quite good if I skip lunch and have it for dinner. It happened that this was the summer before I would study abroad in Japan. I discovered there were Wendy’s locations near where I studied abroad, which was in Kobe. I ended up going to Wendy’s about 2-3 times a week in Japan for a while. Like McDonald’s that summer of 2008, having an American restaurant in Japan is something of a ‘safe’ thing for Americans. I could have just as well gone to McDonald’s as often, but why would I go to McDonald’s when I could go to Wendy’s? It’s not that I love Wendy’s, it’s more that it’s just slightly better than McDonald’s. I’d rather people know that I love cheeseburgers, because that is more true than I love Wendy’s.

Of course, no matter what, when Wendy’s closed all of its restaurants in Japan when I was there, I was saddened. I slowly began going to McDonald’s more often, and even now I go to McDonald’s about once a week. McDonald’s isn’t Wendy’s, but they do serve a decent hamburger. Both the Big Mac and Quarter Pounder have their good sides, though I usually order Big Macs more often anyways.

It’s true that I wanted to go to Wendy’s a lot. I think it was to be able to share the great experience with others. Wendy’s was kind of ‘my’ restaurant to show people. After all, it started in my home state of Ohio. I think the summer of 2009, which is the summer that truly kick-started my love for Wendy’s, is when I took more pride in being from Ohio. So, Wendy’s is a part of me in this way.

It all starts with this kind of blog post. Because I can hear it already. “You’re obssessed with Wendy’s because you blogged about it”. Isn’t that too easy, though? There are other ways to make the argument, but why even make it? I can perhaps admit (yes, I used the word ‘perhaps’) that I am addicted to Wendy’s. But I don’t think any more so than the way some people are ‘addicted’ to alcohol and proceed to tell everyone else about their drinking stories. Or the people who always talk about their horrible roommates on Facebook. I am not going to point fingers. Because I don’t care. If they can talk about that, I should be able to talk about Wendy’s, right?

Continue reading »]]> It’s already Oscars time, and for some reason I feel less connected this year than other years. It might be because I’ve seen very few films nominated for any category this year. I apologize for not getting this list out sooner. I always want to get it out more than just a few days before, but in any case, here it is.

1. Best Picture: “The Descendants”
2. Best Leading Actor: Jean Dujardin, for “The Artist”
3. Best Leading Actress: Viola Davis, for “The Help”
4. Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, for “Beginners”
5. Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, for “The Help”
6. Best Director: Michael Hazanavicius, for “The Artist”
7. Best Original Screenplay: “Midnight in Paris”
8. Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Descendants”
9. Best Cinematography: “The Tree of Life”
10. Best Editing: “The Artist”
11. Best Art Direction: “Hugo”
12. Best Costume Design: “The Artist”
13. Best Makeup: “The Iron Lady”
14. Best Original Score (Music): “The Artist”
15. Best Original Song: ‘The Muppets’ from “The Muppets”
16. Best Sound Mixing: “Hugo”
17. Best Sound Editing: “War Horse”
18. Best Visual Effects: “Hugo”
19. Best Animated Film: “Rango”
20. Best Foreign Language Film: “A Separation”
21. Best Documentary : “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory”
22. Best Short Documentary: “Saving Face”
23. Best Short Animated Film: “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”
24. Best Short (Live Action) Film: “The Shore”

As usual, I will comment on some of my predictions below. Every year, I tend to comment on a lot, so we’ll see how many of them I feel like talking about. The numbers below correspond to the categories above, which are numbered.

1. This has to be one of the toughest years to predict this category. I was very close to saying “The Artist”. It may come as a surprise to not pick an obvious choice like that, but here is my reasoning. Both “The Artist” and “Hugo” are vying to win this award. I can’t see the Academy giving either film the award easily. That’s not to say they won’t win-in fact, they probably have a better chance of winning than my pick does. However much my pick is a dark horse, “The Descendants” does have many things going for it. One of the most important things is the film’s nomination in directing. Though I don’t think it will win directing, the nomination itself is telling. It’s very rare that a film wins Best Picture without at least being nominated for directing.

The next thing that is has going for it is the tale itself. I haven’t seen the film, but it seems like it is telling a story that many people can relate to. This is not some whimsical adventure or a time away from us. This is a modern tale of a struggling family. “Up in the Air” felt close to winning, but perhaps too much sentiment kept it from winning. Here we have a film that was beloved by most critics. It is rare that so many top critics on Rotten Tomatoes have given this film a perfect score that it’s hard to ignore the idea that it will win the big Oscar. Did I give this choice much thought? No, but I probably gave it more thought than most others who will simply check off The Artist because many others are vying for it to win. Hey, it probably will win. But I am going with my pick-do or die.

2. Some people are saying Clooney. I am saying as much as I and everyone else likes him, he is doing the same type of performance that he is known for. I think the Academy will like to award somebody new this year.

3. Let’s be honest-Meryl Streep has another chance, like she does every year. Was there anyone who really felt that of all the times Streep was nominated that her performance for “The Iron Lady” puts her over these other performances? Like many others, I am going with the favorite to win, which is Viola Davis for “The Help”.

4. All I have to say about this one is this: why was Max von Sydow nominated? It seems like he is a go to guy for a somewhat mysterious, tall, old guy. Okay, so he doesn’t really talk in his performance this year, but there’s just no way he is going to win. That being said, I’ll go again with the favorite and say, Christopher Plummer.

9. Having only seen “The Tree of Life”, it’s hard to know which one will win. I trust Janusz Kaminski did a fine job with “War Horse”, as he always does for Speilberg. I can see “The Artist” walking away with the win if the Academy felt that Schiffman accurately captured this time period well enough. Even “Tattoo” could see a win here-frankly, I was captivated by the setting of the film. Perhaps the camerawork is all too conventional in “Tattoo”, but it obviously did enough to garner a nod. However, after thinking about it for a while, I think “Tree” has this one. It might be a close call, but then again, there was never really a favorite for this category to begin with.

15. Since when has this one been a two-man race? Last year was hard, but I am just going to go with Man or Muppet on this one. It’s kind of amazing that Man or Muppets got nominated. It works for the film, but the lyrics are a little crazy for winning the Oscar. But it was nominated, so it kind of makes you think it will win. I am not a huge fan of “Real in Rio”, and it seems like it would have the edge here. It is slightly annoying, but is also slightly more complex than the Muppets song. Nonetheless, the Muppets song could not have been nominated without a reason.

17. I am getting tired of losing the sound categories. Though I won last year when predicting “Inception” for both, I lost the year prior when I predicted “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” came away the winner. It really hurts having not watched this year’s films, but I am going with “War Horse” and hoping for the best. The reason for “War Horse” is that when a war film is nominated in Sound Editing, it tends to win. Before I had my blog, I correctly predicted “Letters from Iwo Jima” in this category, even though many others thought that different films would win. So, I am feeling confident enough about “War Horse” here.

18. This one will be really close between “Hugo” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”. “King Kong” won over “War of the Worlds”, perhaps for its length being an hour longer than “War of the Worlds”. But the work in “War of the Worlds” was phenomenal, in my opinion (though the movie itself was less than phenomenal). So many people are thinking “Apes” for this one. It hurts that I have seen neither, especially because I am hearing that “Apes” looked that amazing. However, I have to stick with the precedent set that a film that was a Best Picture nominee will win visual effects over a film that wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. “Hugo” is the only one that fits the bill here.

20. It’s the only foreign film nominated for two Oscars, so it’s the obvious choice.

22. I don’t know if I have mentioned before how I choose the shorts categories and especially the short documentary category. I simply decide by the summary of the movie which one will win. Why? Because think about it this way-it wouldn’t have been nominated if it wasn’t a quality movie. So, I go with the topic that people would most likely resonate with. Having seen the trailer for “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom”, I just don’t see it being the last word on this tragedy. While the cherry blossom is an important part of the Japanese culture, I just don’t see how surviving cherry blossom trees after the tsunami really gives hope to these people who are still cleaning up, even a year later. So, I am going to go with “Saving Face”-a film that chronicles Pakistani women who lose their face to acid blasts to the face. I feel like “Incident in New Baghdad” will be a close second, so let’s see if my prediction will win.

I tend not to comment on how well I do after each year, for some reason. I probably won’t this year, but last year I think I only missed 5 of my predictions. Let’s see if I can get it down to 4 this year.

Continue reading »]]> Since this is the only film I have seen of the Best Picture nominees, I thought I’d make a post about which of its three nominations it is most likely to win. It should be noted that it has a chance of winning all three, but there’s perhaps one in particular that I am thinking of.

Let’s first consider Best Picture. Even though there have recently been as many as 10 films nominated for Best Picture, that doesn’t mean the competition is more fierce. One of the best indicators of which film may have a shot at Best Picture is if it was nominated for Best Directing. Of the 9 films nominated this year for Best Picture, “The Tree of Life” is one of the 5 nominated for Best Directing. That is a start, to be sure. However, Best Editing nominees also seems to be an indicator. Not surprisingly, this film was not nominated for that. In any case, I really don’t see it winning Best Picture. While most critics liked it, the movie does seem to lose focus as to whether it wants to be more about plot or more artistic. It almost would have done better to have been more artsy. When the film made jumps for the audience from caring about this family to caring about the eras of time, it confused more than stunned. If enough of the Academy are blown away by this narrative, it has a chance. But by the looks of things, its nomination was its award.

Then there is Directing. While the chances are probably higher here than Best Picture, I still think that “The Artist” with its DGA win will pull this one off. So we’re left with Cinematography. You can read my Oscars post to see if I think “The Tree of Life” will actually take this award away come Oscars night, but what I will say here is that if “The Tree of Life” is to win any, it’s going to be in this category. Often, genuinely good cinematography is overshadowed by movies that do more fantastical imagery. “Pan’s Labyrinth” won over “Children of Men” for movies in 2006, and it seems a bit surprising when considering the long and technical shots of “Children of Men”. “The Tree of Life” doesn’t seem to sport as many lengthy takes as “Children of Men”, but the same cinematographer from that movie shot “The Tree of Life”. He utilizes the camera in a rather mystical way here. The movie does the job of taking the audience to many different places and times. The cinematographer should do the job of showing us unabashedly the world that the director wants the audience to inhabit. We’re not even quite sure what we are looking at sometimes, but it is still shot with technical awe that certainly earns the film this nomination.

I would probably like to see “The Tree of Life” go home with an award, but it might not win any. Read my full Oscars post to find out.

Continue reading »]]> I love trains. However, I don’t quite love this train game. I would be the person who would love this game, but I’m going to explain why even I don’t like Densha de Go! 64.

I think most people wouldn’t have the patience for this game. While I am not writing this review for said “most people”, it still needs to be said that this is a game that was made for a certain audience. There’s a reason this game was never released in America-it wouldn’t sell. But even in Japan, I can see some train freaks like me not feeling like this is a great game. There are a few reasons why.

Apparently, this is one of the first renditions of the series that features a Beginner’s Mode. Here, the rules can be explained and you can then practice a few of the missions with practically no score limit (I’ll explain that in a second). While these are helpful to get acquainted with the controls and operation of the trains, the practice mode is surprisingly  not helpful overall. Nothing is really explained. You’re better off revisiting the ‘study’ mode to be guided through the rules again. Perhaps this game’s instruction booklet does an excellent job of explaining things. That’s too bad because it’s too difficult to find this game with one anyways. Besides, a game cannot expect to fall back on an instruction booklet that many people are not going to read (although I certainly would if I had one).

The scoring system should be explained. It’s basically a health bar, that begins at 60 seconds. For every second you are behind schedule when either stopping at a scheduled stop at a station or passing a train station on the faster trains, you are penalized one second from your 60 seconds. This’ health’ needs to last for the entire mission. There are other penalties, like stopping too far ahead of the proper position to stop and accelerating at the train station that you are supposed to be stopping at (i.e. you should only use the breaks). These penalties become harsher as the difficulty increases.

Those rules are understandable. However, here is where the game gets particularly frustrating. There are two types of speed limits that may suddenly be required. One is a signal limit and another is a track restriction. The latter is consistent and expected because since obviously any particular track will not change and the restriction will have to apply. If that doesn’t make sense, think of it in this way-a sharp turn in the track will require a slower speed to compensate for the turn. Again, this is understandable. However, here is where the game is nearly broken in my opinion. It involves the signal limits. At random, a particular signal that you may be approaching can suddenly change to a dreaded yellow light, which is a deceleration signal, requiring a speed no greater than 70 km/h. If you pass this signal going even just a few km over, an emergency system kicks in to stop the train. While they may not be designed this way in real life, you’d think that it would simply apply the emergency breaks to get the train to below 70 km/h, and then perhaps require the player to apply an override to that system that would then penalize them.

So that doesn’t even bother me. The real issue is this-if you are going over 100 km/h or so, you can forget about getting to below 70 km/h for that signal limit. That means a sudden emergency stop. Once again, this doesn’t necessarily bother me. However, it is basically a Game Over. The reason is because it’s absolutely impossible to catch up to the schedule after that. In fact, the game then encourages the driver (you) to then rush to the next station just to make the schedule. As much as rushing is probably a part of the real thing, it’s somewhat nonsensical here. It’s one thing for a game to throw an obstacle in your way that is hard to dodge. It’s another thing when a game throws an obstacle that is essentially impossible to dodge. And what makes it particularly frustrating is that instead of just killing you right away, you have to slowly make trod your way to the next station where your ‘health’ will surely be depleted for being late.

That’s not quite the end of it. If you are running late simply passing a station, you lose health. That makes no sense whatsoever. Shouldn’t that be more of a guide to tell you, for example, that if you are 5 seconds behind you should consider speeding up a little bit to make the actual scheduled stop? It doesn’t make sense to penalize you during the journey; should it not at least see if you can catch up to the destination station (which I usually do)? It simply is asinine.

In real life, there is at least some amount of grace for these circumstances. Nobody can help if the signals say 70 km/h, or in some even harsher cases, 45 or 25. But I am still expected to make the stops on time. Of course, if these signal limits pop up, and they truly are random, I will inevitably fall behind schedule. Why in the world should the player be penalized for this? In real life, if I get a signal of 45 km/h when I am used to going upwards of 110 km/h, it would not be realistic to make the stop on time. Surely there is some understanding for this? But if this game is telling of real life, then I would never want to be a train driver. I hate to think that any amount of pressure like this could cause a train accident, but it already has in Japan. Perhaps these kind of circumstances could apply to harder difficulties, but I am playing on Easy mode for crying out loud.

All of that being said, I happen to have a lot of patience for this game because I like trains so much. There are still unfortunately a few other flaws. I personally don’t think the graphics are that bad considering the time (1999 or so), but you can certainly see where the cut corners. While it’s nice to see all of the scenery, it loses a little bit of consistency when you see a certain part in the distance just fade away with no explanation other than the animators got lazy. Other than that, they actually got the areas pretty accurate to their real-life counterparts.

But accuracy is one thing. This is a minor flaw, perhaps to make the missions less drawn out, but some of the stations are too close to each other. The Yamanote Line feels accurate, but particularly, the Tokaido Line from Osaka to Kobe is very wrong. Having commuted from about half of the latter part of this section of the line every day for 9 months, I happen to know firsthand that some of the distances are incredibly short, sometimes half of what they are in real life. Again, this may be to relieve the player of the boredom of long stretches of straight sections of the lines, but it does make it less realistic.

Having the train controller is actually quite fun, and I really cannot imagine playing without it. It allows for precise control of the breaks and accelerator. It perfectly complements this game, and may in fact be the best part of the game, which is sad. That’s all I have to say about that.

The gameplay has probably been thoroughly revealed by my ranting about how poorly it is designed. I want to use this example-imagine fighting a boss in any given adventure game-say, Super Mario 64-and that boss, at random, used a theoretically unavoidable attack that froze the player and then killed the player very slowly. Imagine that this freeze attack only occurs some times that you fight the boss. Other times, this attack is not used and you can just beat the boss normally. This is in effect what Densha de Go! 64 does to the player. If this signal appears and I am going 120 km/h (because the game told me to go around that speed to stay on track with the scheduled time), then I just quit so I spare myself the shame of what IGN calls a blood-curdling alarm and sudden stop of the train that will, like I said in the example, kill me slowly. It would be one thing if this was present every time you play, but it isn’t so I can’t even prepare for it in advance. This is extremely frustrating. If I have invested 10 minutes or so into a mission, why should I be screwed by the game?

The Yamanote Line has become my favorite mission because of this fatal flaw of the game, The stops are so close that I rarely have to worry about this random, unavoidable occurrence. But a game cannot be just one mission. Some people might still not see why this is such a big deal. One of my favorite games, Perfect Dark, gets very difficult on the hardest setting, where I might have been playing a particular mission for 15 minutes and then am killed by an enemy. However, I always have a chance to get myself out of a hard situation in that game. It’s part of the challenge to be able to survive a mission that long. There are avoidable things, even if they are hard to avoid. In this game, unlike Perfect Dark, these signals are simply unavoidable. How can a game be so unforgiving?

This game would also be better if it had a little bit more variety. How about instead of driving the train, having another mode of being the operator in the back who controls opening and closing the doors on time and as to avoid hitting a rushing passenger. Since this rendition of Densha de Go! also uses the Japanese voice recgonition unit (VRS in Japan, for whatever reason), this would also give players a little bit more usage out of it. I got tired of trying to use that microphone and also trying to control the train, to be honest. Even if it wasn’t a full-fledged mode, perhaps having a bonus mini-game of closing the doors properly would suffice. Speaking of which, there are bonus missions that are also, not surprisingly, triggered randomly that allow the player a chance at extra health. The developers are once again fools for making it random rather than consistently available.

This game is one to be hated if only because it has so much potential that is thrown away with broken game design. I will still continue to play at least the Yamanote Line mission, but that gives the game a much more limited replay value. That is sad considering it doesn’t have all too much to begin with. However, like I said, this game is designed with a particular audience in mind. You really have to be an extreme train freak-more than I am, which is probably a feat in itself-to like this game. How unfortunate!

Continue reading »]]> One of the recent posts on Desiring God quotes G.K. Chesterton. I can’t quite figure out what the point is, yet I think it is interesting.

I understand the first three paragraphs, and I thought that was interesting enough. But the final paragraph just throws me through a loop. Here is the quote:

“When we are very young children we don’t need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough.

A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is exicted by being told that Tommy opened a door.

Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales — because they find them romantic. . . . This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement.

These tales say that apples are golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”

Here is the link to the original post, which interestingly didn’t provide any further development on the quote. You decide what it means (though when I figure it out, you’ll be wrong and I’ll be right, hehe…)