Joseph Lieberman

So I've been reading a lot of Techdirt recently when I stumbled upon Joe Lieberman.  It's a name that rings a bell to me simply because of his past with censorship.  He's "concerned" about Video game violence, but all of the evidence (millions of people playing, very few incidents of actual violence) continues to disagree with him.  His newest fight has been about Wikileaks, rather than TSA's security methods.

Throughout Joe's tenure in Congress, I can't remember a lot of good things about him.  He always seems to be the first to ask for censure, the first to say that we don't have the right to free speech, and he's always been the one to act shocked that things don't go quite to his plans.

Looking at his Lobbying record, it's not hard to see why he isn't hard to be bought.  He has very little in terms of actual individual donations.  No, he's supported very heavily by insurance, banks, lawyers, and lobbyists.  To go off on a small tangent, it's interesting to see that Joe still doesn't understand the new world that is taking form.  Perhaps his bank lobbyists should worry.  Namely, Julian Assange has said that big banks are next.  I guess the Constitution is damned when you have something to hide as a Senator.

Perhaps Joe should look into new ways to find money.  Janitorial duty works wonders for all the things he's spewing.

The good stuff

So there's been some great thinks coming out recently:

Judge loses it in Xbox case

How to perform character assassination: Julian Assange

Leaking Black Ops: a Pirate story

Taking down a website? Internet provides solution

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I could talk about all of them but for now, I'll leave others to discuss this.

Scott Pilgrim: Best movie out there

I don't think I'm being biased at all by saying that Scott Pilgrim is one of the most refreshing movies to come along in a "romantic comedy" setting.  Yeah, I'm using that term loosely. Between the fight scenes, Wallace stealing the show, and Ramona not coming off as mysterious but more angsty, the romance really takes a backseat in this one.

*spoiler alert*
Before I get into the review, I might as well warn anyone paying attention, there are spoilers everywhere.  I make the assumption that you have seen the movie at least once.  If you haven't you've failed humanity.  Go see it NOW!  That is all.
*/spoiler alert*

So let's start with the protagonist himself:

Scott Pilgrim  (Michael Cera)
Rating: Awesome!

Scott starts out as a nice slacker.  The boy has been between jobs for quite a long time.  He plays the bass, mooches off of roommates, but is just so loveable that everyone kinda forgives his dickish behavior.  And yes, he IS a dick.

The actor playing him is great for the role.  Of course, we know Cera for playing loveable loser types but I think that the role of Pilgrim was made for him (doesn't matter that he was from Canada in the first place.  Eisenberg might do well but he's shedding the scrawny loser type in that Facebook movie).  Of course, being the internet, plenty of people hate on Cera.  Grow up folks, Cera plays a great role of a guy that has good friends helping him grow up in this movie.

Ramona (Mary Winstead)
Rating: Mysterious
Ramona was far removed from her source material it seemed.  She comes off as more aloof, not really doing anything but giving cutscenes to her exes.  I didn't get a feeling that she grew and matured in the relationship as Scott did.  This was one part that could have been done better, especially with a few minor tweaks.  Still, the Roxie fight with her in it.  Best damn fight. Period.

Seriously, I know that Mary can act.  I just don't think anyone did anything with her character.  The few blurbs she did get were left on the kitchen table so that others shine

Knives Chau (Ellen Wong)
Rating: Underage!!!
Knives came out of nowhere to really shine here.  If I remember right, she doesn't have as much of a presence in the comic.  Regardless, she does rather well for herself here.  Confused teenager that's growing up, thinking she likes the idea of a guy that's not what she seems.  But seriously it chills me to think that Knives is the idea that Sakura was chasing after Ken Masters from Street Fighter.

Ellen Wong did a great job here.  Knives was still a spunky counterpart to Ramona's calm/detached demeanor, but it works out that she can kick ass and take names.

Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkan)
Rating: Holy... !!!
Wallace doesn't do a lot of fighting.  In fact, he's too busy hamming it up with all of his escapades on camera! He turns a straight man gay (though that was debatable), he gets a song named after him, and all around he's a HUGE Goldheart - Jerkass.  Still he feeds Scott and makes him do things such as not play with the emotions of the girls that Scott gets involved with.

Exes
The best out of the bunch:  Todd and Lucas.  Even Gideon isn't as awesome as the Jerk Jock Lucas who has 7 guys that beat the everloving crap out of Scott until he beats them all.  What would have been great was to see them get it on.  What was funny as hell was seeing him bail in awesome fashion from that long ramp.

Then there's Todd...  What an jerk!  He's ignorant, ultra powerful, and he knocked the HIGHLIGHTS out of a girl's hair!  Gideon doesn't come close to being as awesome in comparison.

Of course, those are the best.  The worst of the bunch are the Katayanagi twins.  They didn't get any personalization, little to NO screen time...  Let's face it, they were just in the way.  I would have loved it if they could talk broken Japanese or something but we can only do so much with 2 hours and a serious condensing of six books.  Mayhap there's time in the DVD?

All in all, I loved the movie.  Yes, it has problems.

The movie will appeal to a really niche market for some obvious reasons. 1) Game references = male audience.  While a lot of people went to see Eat Pray Love, this one got shafted because it doesn't really look like a conventional romantic comedy.  2) Seven actors in Expendables = low sales.  All "real men" went to see Expendables first.  I'm sure going to give Scott my money to watch this again in theaters.

All in all, I'll definitely recommend it to others. With a great cast of known and unknowns, quick tempo, excellent music, and great over the top action, this is one to remember.

Chicken Adobo

This dish isn't really hard to make.  It's a great Filipino dish that you can use to feed a lot of people at one time.  Takes ~ 1 hour to finsh but you'll love the taste.  Promise.

5 lbs Chicken or pork
1 cup vinegar
1 cup soy sauce
2 cups water
6 cloves of crushed garlic
3 bay leaves
Black Pepper
Accent

Cut onions stir fry style.

Combine all of the ingredients in a big pot and boil down until sauce is thickened.  Add onions in last.

In our Sites? Be ready for a fight!

So recently, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a branch that colludes with FBI officials, took down 9 websites.  Now, supposedly, this is going to make America safer in some way shape or form.

I'm still scratching my head at the youtube post of the director.  He merely wants people to look at what ICE has done without a comment.  So let's go through the suspects shall we?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqGziXOPO2A

Alan Bergman - President of Walt Disney Studios.  Copyright = creativity

John Morton Assistant Secretary of ICE - "American business is under assault from counterfeiters and pirates"  Supposedly, criminals are stealing ideas and distributing them over the internet.  The big one?  "American innovation is being lost..."

"We will seize the websites, prosecute the owners, and forfeit the illegal proceeds"

So let me explain these things first.  Alan Bergman is the man in charge of Disney who believes that they should keep Mickey Mouse forever.  Let's forget about the vault that all of Disney's work goes into, only coming out on special occasions (which is what happens when you have a monopoly on a good...), let's not worry about the fact that if I wanted to watch "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", I would have to wait 10+ years to watch a movie that I grew up with.  No...  The very fact that Disney opened this ceremony is kind of what's mind boggling...  Why is a corporate executive in collusion with government?  Basically, you have Bergman giving an opening speech, which you know can't be good for the little guys.

Next, we have John Morton.  I doubt he's read the GAO Report (pdf), nor does he care to.  From what I understand, he had the MPAA, RIAA, and Disney in his ear, not understanding what's going on.  But a few things come to mind.  How can anyone steal an idea?  You can't copyright an idea.  It's similar to the recent Mattel vs Barbie (pdf), where the judge has soundly ruled against controlling ideas.

And another thing...  He harped on the fact that movielinkz had 3.3 million visitors in one month.  What does that tell them about the ways that ICE can come to ruin their lives?  Also, how does this information tell others that what they were doing was wrong?  It's misleading at best.  How many unique hits does Disney's website get?  Why does that matter?  If the tech bubble told us one thing, it's the fact that unique visitors don't mean anything to the overall well being of a site.  True, each of the sites was getting traffic.  Was this taking away from Disney's ability to produce movies?  Doubt it.  And yet, these 9 sites were destroying Disney's 36.1 billion dollars in revenue by posting a few movies and TV shows that people didn't want to watch at Hulu.com?  What's really going on here?

When I searched for each place, I found a community.  The places had people coming in and discussing their favorite TV show, where to find their one episode, and overall building the one thing that Hollywood and Disney seem to forget about.  Other people enjoyed the old A-Team show.  They can't afford the $50 for the physical DVDs but the people could afford to stream the show as if it were on TV.  Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that time shifting?  The technology hasn't changed all of the fair use rules.

It's going to be interesting to see how all of the legal statutes unfold.  I'm very interested to see how this specific part of the government is allowed to take down sites at will, as well as be under the corporate thumb, so to speak.

Background on my love of manga

As a Generation Y, I grew up with manga for a long time.  I became disinterested in the ongoing back log of stories within the US, simply because after 40 years of Wolverine, I found him to be nothing more than the penultimate Mary Sue.

The trip to Japan didn't help matters all that much.  After learning Japanese, I got to enjoy a new type of comic.  It was one that actually ended!  Think about it, a story that I can pick up, read, then move to the artist's newest imaginings.  It was quite revolutionary a concept.  I'd yet to hear about some of the comics that actually had these concepts like Watchmen or Wanted.  That would come later.  My young adult life was all about Marvel and DC.  Let me tell you, both were absolutely boring to me.

Enter that trip to Japan as I began in my second paragraph.  I would sit at a cafe, learning new hiragana that I would ask my teacher about just to have the chance to read it.  I would take time out of my schedule to pick up a Japanese- English dictionary to try out some of the older manga and decipher these damned kanji impeding progress.  I'd sit down for hours, sometimes in a cafe, discussing a few kanjis and what they meant with friends of mine, sometimes alone deciphering the things.

I got better at it and my Japanese is quite fluent.  Then I heard about the online communities.  The droves of people that came together to learn about these fascinating new worlds.  Of course there were the older generation with their Dragonballs, and their Atom Boys.  But there were new stories being told, not the same stories about mutants having to deal with the same tired villains.  Who knew that someone could craft a story about pirates that is not only fantastical in nature but downright entertaining?  Who knew about the world of Soul Eaters or the insanity of Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo?  Who knew these things existed?

And so I joined quite a few.  Toriyama's World was one such community that has changed and become quite small.  Eventually choosing to read the manga online, I stopped learning Japanese as much.  I probably should have done better but why?  I'm no longer in Japan and I may not be able to go back in the next 4 years.  As it turns out, more people are studying and better at Japanese than I was.

Eventually, this all is coming crashing down.  As it stands, most of the "professional" manga translators have decided that these communities are destroying their profit.

Here's where I rant and rave about online piracy:

First, I used to buy One Piece almost religiously.  My problem was twofold.  Money that could be used to eat and sheer volume.  Let's forget the fact that I have yet to watch the anime because it was botched by 4Kids (this has since been corrected by Funimation).  Let's see what's going on with anime and manga in general and is it really killing the industry.

First, you have a lot of people learning Japanese, Korean or whatever language the comic is in.  These people are doing it for free.  This is always a good thing because it allows people to figure out a way to communicate.

Second, people have to buy the books.  It boggles my mind how people believe that online sites are destroying the industry when they're actually helping it!  It allows people to see if a manga actually appeals to them.  Young children can't necessarily go to Viz, pay $5 for a pdf file (which I truly don't agree with but hey, it's their business decision) and then they get a license to read the thing.    Or, the other option is to put up one chapter in a series with 500 chapters.

Somehow, I don't believe the fancy Business Degrees and corporatism are understanding what they're doing.  People come to enjoy these stories.  Taking down one site isn't going to just stop people from reading online manga.  Rather, the practice will more than likely go underground.  Not only that, but it becomes that much harder for the ones translating a manga to gauge which ones are good to bring from Japan and which ones are more niche.

And yet, that's exactly what these people are doing.  Driving the art of loving manga underground:
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/07/16/japan-to-us-stop-manga-piracy/
http://www.siliconera.com/2010/06/12/japanese-and-american-publishers-team-up-to-combat-scanlations/

I recently saw the CNN expose on anime piracy.  Supposedly some of the smaller anime makers are hurting because of the internet.  "We've been doing it (animation) this way for 30 years, and we don't want to change."  I may not be the smartest apple out of the bunch, but don't you think it's time for a change?  "But we have Koreans we've worked with for X amount of years!"

Ok, work with them, but why not make new friends?  Why not make your own community and put up your vids and stop relying so much on a publisher?  Why not figure out how to be your own middlemen instead of relying so much on tradition to carry you through the day?  Good gracious gravy grain, get up and DO something other than depend on stopping your fans!

In such an interactive world that we live in, it's depressing that we have so many people looking to set back the time on the clock to the 1980s.  Taking down all of these manga scanlation site won't kill the industry.  But it will set it back as more likely negative press of the takedowns will result in less sales.