Dig for the culture in your media

I love stuff like this. As much as I love Japan and its culture, I’ve really only scratched the surface of my understanding. I’d love to incorporate more of this understanding into my daily life. I’m not gonna try to open up my own onsen in the South, but perhaps more hot relaxing baths are a start.

Knowing the cultural significance of something in a game or other forms of media can add a whole new world of depth to your experience.  Whether it’s watching something as culturally dense as Spirited Away, playing something as obtuse as Metal Gear Solid 3, or watching a movie set in specific time and/or culture you’re unfamiliar; it can all lead to only a more positive understanding of what you’re enjoying.  And it’s far more beneficial to you than writing it off as “weird foreign bullsh*t”.

I highly recommend you check out more of Gaijin Goomba’s work.  If you have any interest in Japanese culture, or the cultural references in video games, I’d check it out.  And if you have any examples of how culture helped you understand something you enjoyed, I’d love to hear it.

Time for EVO!!! (out of the office)

It’s that time of the year again! Evolution 2014! It’s the biggest, most hype fighting game tournament IN THE WORLD! And I’ll be watching it this entire weekend! Now I realize this is also the early part of the Summer season, and there’s still a lot of anime I want to test out. All my blogs for that material will becoming out starting of next week on Monday. So things may be a little bare this weekend, but feel rest assured that things will start piling up soon after.

I’m a huge fighting game fan, though I have no actual talent, nor time to be competent at the games.  But for me, this is a sport akin to football in the Fall and basketball in the Spring.  The games I’ll be looking forward to are Ultra Street Fighter IV, Killer Instinct  UltimateMarvel versus Capcom 3, and of course I want to see the finals for King of Fighters XIII.  If you have not seen a finals for KOF XIII, then you’re missing out on some of the most exciting stuff you can see in a fighting game.  And it almost always comes down to a battle of Latin America versus Asia.  (Granted, there have only been two Grand Finals for that game so far.)

And finally there’s Smash Bros.!  That game has gone from a  pariah and a game that wasn’t even considered a fighting game, to one of its biggest attractions.  Personally, I’m not that big into the that community, but I’ll be rooting for anyone kicking ass with Jiggly Puff!

Just as a bit of a primer for whoever does decide to tune in, here are the players I’ll be watching for in USFIV.

• Team PIE’s Smug (Dudley specialist)
• Team PIE’s Zeus (Vega and Dictator player, the reason I decided to try Vega)
• Snake Eyez (one of the best, if not THE best Zangief in the world, it’s either him or Flash Metroid)
• EG Ricky Ortiz (likely the best American Street Fighter player)
• EG PR Balrog (right up there with Ricky Ortiz – PUERTO RICO!!!)
• Infiltration (a previous EVO two-time champ; the other championship was in Street Fighter X Tekken, and a SF grand master)
• Xian (last year’s EVO champ)

…and on and on and on!  Biggest fighting game tourney in world, and it’s full of nothing but killers!  This is my World Cup!

See you guys next week!

DKJ’s Don’t Starve Diary pt4: I saw the edge of tomorrow

I left the last post on a high, I was all arrogant and happy and full of spunk. But I have been humbled. I have been crushed and harshly weened from the teet of security. I HAVE SEEN SH*T MAN!

I ended my post last time talking about awesome Wendy was and how bloody OP she was once you got her going. Then I took a break from the game and got bodied.  My problem with Wendy was that I got too cocky and started believing too much of my own hype.  I took Abigail with me (I say “took” but she follows me everywhere) and I got into battles I could not win and got myself killed a few times.  And despite having found two touchstones, found myself reaching a final end due to Winter once again.  A profound level of sadness washed over me as I realized how badly I had mismanaged my character.  In the future, I’ll have to remember that Wendy isn’t very strong, and that Abigail isn’t invincible.  I can’t just point to a group of enemies and just have Abigail murdering everything on screen.  I likely would need a tallbird for that.

Note to self: don’t f*ck with Pengulls, large mobs of frogs or eye plants.

DKJ’s Don’t Starve Diary pt3 (Ha! Well Abigail, that went pear-shaped quickly didn’t it?)

My God this game is hard!  And the worst part is that I know exactly what I did wrong every time, but I figure that out too late – every time!  This time around, I literally watched my mistake come to life and kill me!

Hmm, where to start this time around?

DKJ’s Don’t Starve Diary pt2 (harrowing ordeals of my hapless heroine)

Well so much for the feel good part of this playthru. I died! I died hard. After surviving so well for so long, I made a crucial mistake. I knew winter was coming and I failed to do two crucial tasks: I failed to fill the chests near my TWO touchstones with the necessary supplies to keep me alive, or even to acquire resources. There was not chest at either sites to give me tools, or even flint and twigs.  Then I failed to set up a thermal stone before the onset of winter.  By the time I realized my mistake, winter had already set in at full force, and then I was beset by hounds!  Unable to fend them off, I was killed.  My next task after that was to be resurrected – TWICE!  Only to die rather soon afterwards of exposure while scrounging for supplies in the middle of winter.  An incredible first playthrough – DESTROYED!  All my work tossed to the wind in moments.  I’ve learned my lesson, and won’t repeat that mistake again in another playthrough.

DKJ’s Don’t Starve Diary pt1 (I think I’m getting the hang of this.)

Day 21 of Don’t Starve complete. It’s been a pretty fun few weeks (of in-game time). The first two weeks, I was incredibly nervous, scrounging for resources and just figuring out the game.  At one point, I managed to get three different monsters after my ass.  After that moment, I was sure my playthru was through.  But I’ve taken to this like a duck to water.

The trouble with keeping friends; is not always having the right ones.

There are some things I don’t, nor will never understand. I never before found this to be something worth discussing or even caring about. But I’ve been drinking quite a bit lately, and it gave me some time to think about certain things. My relationships with family, and with friends, and in this case faux friends. And also how many of them have piled up over the years.

It goes without saying to many people who know me personally, that I don’t actually get close to many people. Usually for me to make a friend, they have to come to me. That’s not to say I’m someone who is not open to conversation or greeting strangers. I live in the American South, and just walking by someone with out simple greeting is generally considered rude. I will give most people that much at least. What gets to me, is when I have a friend that I’m close with, and then there’s some strange falling out. It’s hard to describe, but what was once daily or at least somewhat regular conversation and contact just seems to suddenly fade away into nothingness. These people just stop talking, are cold or distant when they greet you, and pretty much seem to almost avoid, but never mention why. It bugs me. Not because of the distance exactly, but because that person never had the decency to say they didn’t want to be friends anymore.

If there’s anything I value (aside from money and my own peace of mind), it’s clear communication.  If you don’t like me, then tell me why.  You don’t want to talk to me anymore?  Sure, just let me know.  But don’t slink away like a coward never to have us hash things out.  Whether it be a relative, a high school friend, a college friend (most of whom I would never truly call friends), old anime and blogging buddies, or even friends at work, once you pull this stunt you’re pretty much dead to me.  There are no assumptions with me.  If you don’t tell me outright, then it never happened – not in my head, not in my imagination, not ever.  If you don’t speak it, it doesn’t exist.  I can’t understand something that doesn’t exist, especially a conversation.

I’ve had too much time lately to reflect on life and those connected to me to care anymore about former or faux friends.  Attempts to connect with these people are done, hopes that they’ll come around and explain themselves to me are gone.  I’m going to expend much more mental energy on those that actually make time to talk to me, and hang out with me.  Those coworkers that share my likes and passions; those friends that call me even though I rarely see them anymore; those family members that actually make a f*cking effort to be a part of my life; all those people will get a lot more focus and care.  And saying this feels like a huge weight coming off my shoulders.

This post is not for the friends that have left or disappeared; it’s for the few that have truly stuck around and supported me.  It doesn’t even having anything to do with this blog.  This has to do with me reflecting back on my mortality, and the events or my life and saying that I appreciate you guys, and that this post is a testament to that.  You guys are great, and I’ll never be able to truly pay back the time you spent speaking with recluse and weirdo like me.

Now there’s just one more thing I’ll have to make peace with, and I’ll be back to normal again.  Hopefully.  But that will take time.  And I’m not looking forward to it.

quick Minor Announcement 2

2014 has already shown itself to be a hostile year for me.  For those that read this blog regularly, I apologize for not posting regularly and on-time these past few weeks.  I have a host of excuses; the ice storm, work, and family issues.  But what matters in this context is that I’m just tired.  Life is beating me up a little bit right now, and I’m having trouble finding the time and energy to keep this hobby going.  I’m still very much doing my best to keep watching anime and reading manga.  However, it looks like I won’t be able to hop back on the horse and get this blog back to normal until March.  Until then, expect the only updates to be to KILL LA KILL and Golden Time when I can cobble together posts for each.

Please try to bear with me as things are busy and difficult for me at the moment.

Check-in Station: January Cooking Project Update

This has worked out more fabulously than I could have possibly expected or hoped. Though I also have to give credit to my wife for being able to read and follow recipes and instructions so well, as well as her natural talent for cooking. Our humble, yet ambitious attempts at robust and relatively healthy home cooking have born fruit. Big, fat, succulent, juicy fruit.

Here are the meals being covered:

• Ramen
• Yasai Itame
• Onigiri

Check-in Station’s Cooking Project 2014

Going back to my talk last month of resolutions, I did want to do to two things simultaneously. I wanted to expand, improve and diversify my blog, and I wanted to work on cooking. And I don’t find it too much outside of the realm of an aniblog to focus on food. Food is a huge part of any culture, and always will be. And when I watch anime you see that displayed on the screen in so many ways. Whether it’s some goofy shounen character’s love for a specific food, or a group of girls in an after-school club partaking in tea and pastries; it’s all about partaking in the pleasure of oral delights and indulging in a native or foreign culture. For me, that means that I will be focusing not just on Japanese culture, but on food culture in general and how I can be a better cook and person from it.

To help even things out, and make sure I don’t get in over my head while working on these never before tried meals, I’ve come up with a bit of a schedule. And I’ve planned it out a few months ahead.

January

• Ramen
• Yasai Itame
• Cioccolata Calda
  

  courtesy of Japanese Cooking 101

February

• Onigiri (rice balls)
• Tamagoayaki
• Vietnamese Coffee

March

• Fish & Chips
• Green Beans w/ Sesame Sauce
• Long Fog

April

• Vegan Breakfast Cereal
• Perfect Steak
• Slacker Shake

May

• Gyoza
• Vegan Movie Snacks
• Sorrel or Prickly Pear Limeade

The idea here, is to pick two meals/foods to try out and one drink. In the beginning, I’ll be starting off mostly with Japanese foods, but I’m also going with a seasonal feel where I can as well. This will be especially true for the drinks, with refreshments like Cioccolata, coffee and the London Fog being much better under frigid conditions, and the drinks adjusting as the seasons and temperature change. And if I can, I’ll even put in some personal recipes of my own. I’ve already gotten one recipe out of the way, so look forward to seeing the results of that effort soon.