Author: blueZhift

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

Yaoi On The Down Low

I wouldn’t call it an epiphany exactly, but on the way to work today I shifted a bunch of puzzle pieces in my mind and came up with a slightly disturbing result. My wife, the I’m not Gonna Blog WillowBrow, has been reading I Say a Little Prayer which just came out. Just prior to that she’d read On The Down Low. She told me that both of these are stories about the secret lives of gay black men. I thought it was interesting that she was reading this, but really didn’t give it any other thoughts until one other piece fell into place. I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XI lately and I usually play as a female hume warrior named Laureta, just my preference… I was joking with her about how most of the female characters are actually played by guys and she may some off the cuff remark about how they were gay guys. Well this morning all of these pieces came together and I thought, Ack! My wife thinks I’m on the down low!

Well, just to cut to the chase, I am not on the DL and she doesn’t think I am either…at least that’s what she said. Later I joked, What!? You don’t think I’m sexy enough to be on the DL! She told me that the books were interesting, but the romance scenes were a bit graphic. This immediately got me thinking about yaoi and all of the paddle waving fan-girls at anime conventions. There just seems to be something about attractive men in romantic relationships with other men that captivates some part of the female imagination. Perhaps it’s something about seeing men in a way they’re not accustomed to. Or maybe because the couples are men, there isn’t the same identification with the characters that there might be in a story featuring heterosexual couples which allows some freedom from whatever sexual constraints the reader may have. I strongly suspect that most of the readers of these books are women, as are most readers of yaoi manga. I’ve been to some yaoi panels and learned a lot (had a lot of fun too), and I still don’t completely understand the attraction. But I do greatly enjoy the freedom to discuss it! 😉 Apparently so will a whole lotta other people at Yaoi Con in the fall!

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

Another Blue Haired Chick

Is life imitating anime? On the way home I saw a young woman on State Street whose short black hair had been dyed blue. She was dressed in a short turquoise skirt and grey stockings that had a look of grunge and goth to them. All in all, a nice combination, so kudos to you! it’s been almost 2 years since I saw my first blue haired babe in the wild, anime conventions don’t count.

Categories
Games and Sports

Final Fantasy XI Crack Pipe

I still can hardly believe it, but I was up until 2am battling it out in Final Fantasy XI. I’d been soloing a lot lately, but out in Selbina after a tourism run to Mhaura I realized that I was not going to get any further without some help. Since there were a lot of people milling about in Selbina, I put up my seeking party flag and sat down to wait. It wasn’t long before my warrior Laureta got an invite which I happily accepted. Then it was off to the hidden beach for what turned out to be 4.5 very fun hours of leveling up and honing my battle skills. The time just went by and I still find myself in a euphoric (or is it sleep deprived) state this morning. And all I can think about right now is playing again! If they could cook this stuff into little rocks and sell it on street corners for smoking, it would be illegal! 😀

Categories
General

NU Suspends Women’s Soccer Team for Hazing

Okay, I saw the Chicago Sun-Times headline for this this morning, so I took a look on the web. In a nutshell, I think this is really only interesting because it involves young attractive women behaving badly, and there are pictures! So expect to see this all over the news. Yes, hazing, taken to extremes, is a bad thing, but if we start punishing young people for every little thing I don’t think we’re going to get the independent, mature, and creative people that our society needs to thrive. As it stands, I don’t think American culture in the U.S. has enough shared rituals. As a result we get scattered and sometimes abusive rites of passage like hazing in fraternities and athletics.

Click here to see the pictures for yourself on badjocks.com, rated PG, IMHO.

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

Otakon Mission Reupped

Well, looks like my attempt to rationalize skipping Otakon this year has failed! After determining that the source of my darkening mood today was rooted in part in having cancelled my hotel reservation, I decided that I would go after all. So I got a reservation at the hotel outside of Baltimore that I stayed at last year. It was okay, and will cost me half as much as the other place. So Otakon is back on baby! 😀 Trouble be damned!

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc cosplay

Anime Central 2006 Sayonara!

It’s been a week since ACEN 2006 started and now I bid it a fond farewell. One thing I’ve noticed this year is that it seems that there is a lot more after-con interaction going on. The ACEN forums are still fairly active and there seems to be a thriving year round community there. As for me, my fun meter is still pretty full, and after going to 3 cons last year, I’ve decided to throttle back a bit this year and skip Otakon. Next year’s Anime Central will be the 10th, so I want to do something special. I’ve enjoyed taking pictures of cosplayers so much, that I think it’s time to join them! So as a parting bow, here’s a shot of one of my favorite cosplayers at ACEN 2006!

My Favorite Card Captor Sakura!
Categories
General

Dad’s In Town!

My dad, whom I sometimes consider to be an older version of me, is visiting us this weekend! I was worried yesterday about the timing of his arrival, but it all worked out. So we were able to take him along to World Language Fair at the kids’ school last night. Whenever my relatives or inlaws visit, I always like to give them a slice of our life, which I’m sure is not the norm by any stretch. Now if only the weather would cooperate…

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc cosplay

Another Anime Central In The Books

I’ll probably write more later, but another Anime Central is in the books. This was my third ACEN, and overall, I would say its the best one yet. The ACEN staff did a great job, and the Hyatt Regency staff were just fantastic. The only real bumps were mostly of my own making, but still it was a great con and my family had a good time. My oldest daughter even won 3rd place in the Children’s Art Contest! And the band Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re picked up a new fan (sore ga ai deshou…). They really rocked! Here’s a picture of me and the band.

Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re and a New Fan

Click here for my ACEN 2006 Cosplay pictures.

Categories
Anime, Manga, Etc

Little Stars Born

This past weekend my church had its first retreat in about 3 years. A lot has happened and a lot has changed since the last retreat, so it was nice to get to know the newer people and the new pastors a bit better. One of our traditions is a Saturday night talent show during which people sing, read poetry, do skits, and all sorts of other things. In previous years, I was just an audience member, but this year I decided that I had no excuse not to share something that has become very dear to me. Almost 3 years ago, I started singing Japanese anime themes at anime conventions. So with Anime Central coming up, I decided to share this part of myself with my congregation.

I decided to sing Sore ga Aideshou from Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, which is my favorite song right now. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but during my first practice it was so well received by the kids who were practicing a skit (and horsing around) that all of my nervousness went away. So with confidence, I did my piece and it was well received. It was also the first time that a Japanese song was part of the show.

What I’m most proud of though are my three youngest children, who lead by their 10 year old brother, performed City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2. The other kids thought it was pretty cool, and of course they all knew what the song was from, so right then three little stars were born!

Categories
politics

Illegal Immigration: The Heart of the Matter

I’ve been thinking a bit about the Immigrant Protest scheduled for today and all of the contradictions and conflicts embodied in it. I’m pretty sure that most Latinos in the U.S. and most immigrants in general, are a little uncomfortable to be tied to illegal immigration. I don’t think that anyone, even the illegal immigrants themselves would argue that illegal immigration should be condoned or encouraged. Nevertheless, I’m not sure that the true heart of the matter has been articulately expressed.

I think the real question that needs to be answered is, what rights and protections should people in the U.S. illegally have? In many countries, illegal immigrants have little if any rights spelled out in the law and are wide open to merciless exploitation and abuse. I would think that Americans would like to be better than that and I don’t think that any of the measures on the table right now address this fundamental question. A guest worker program will still leave many, if not most, in an illegal status. Granting legal residence after paying fines, etc…, still leaves a lot of illegals too. Either way, the question of what rights undocumented residents actually have is left unanswered.

There will always be people in the country illegally, and they have rights that should be protected by virtue of their humanity. The real debate needs to get focused on spelling out what these rights are before moving forward on any of the immigration proposals currently in play.

Categories
Games and Sports

Why Wii Is Good

Since Nintendo announced the new name for its next video game console, there’s been a lot of pissin and moaning from what I guess are the ranks of hardcore gamers on boards like Slashdot and around the blogosphere. That’s expected, I don’t think any console’s official name has met with much enthusiasm. But I think that these people are missing the point. I don’t think the code name “Revolution” was an accident. Nintendo has stated over and over again, that they want to open up the ranks of video game players wider than it has ever been before. Doing that means doing something different, and doing something different usually makes someone unhappy, at least in the short run. Nintendo wants to redefine how people think about games and where they fit into their lives. The naming is just a part of that overall marketing strategy. And since they’re still playing catchup to Sony, what better way to pull off a coup than to redefine the terms of the conflict?

With the naming today, Nintendo has thrown down the gauntlet and is saying louder than ever that they don’t just want the hardcore, they want your mom, who’s playing Bejewelled, too. They want your little sister, and your grandpa too! Sony and Microsoft had better watch out because there’s just a chance that Wii could be the next iPod. It’s probably no accident that World War II, WWII, and Wii are similar. Nintendo will publicly deny that I guess, but it’s pretty obvious to their competitors.

Categories
Games and Sports

Wii! The Revolution Begins!

Nintendo has just announced that its new video game console will be called Wii (pronounced like We). Oh boy, I just imagine my kids screaming that right now because I want to too! 🙂 Anyway, with built-in Wi-Fi, backwards compatibility to the GameCube and downloadable classics, plus a sane price, I think I’ll give the Wii and its funky controller a shot. I especially like the idea of being able to consolidate nearly all things Nintendo in one nice little package. All I can say is Wii!!!!!!!! 😉

Categories
politics

Another Dumb-assed Anti-violent Games Bill

It looks like there’s plenty of room on the stupid-assed politicians bandwagon. The Oklahoma senate has passed an anti-violent games bill that makes it illegal to sell violent video games to anyone under 18. Never mind the fact that laws like this have been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional in state after state. So it seems to me that any legislator that supports such a bill at this point is at best uninformed, and at worst a dumb fuck! Sorry about the language, but it is sooo frustrating for our elected officials to be wasting time and money on things like this when real work needs to be done. Our energy and education needs should be more than enough to keep them busy, so dumb-assed legislation like this just proves how morally bereft our system has become. We have no moral right at this point to even suggest that countries like China, or Iraq should adopt the same system that continues to spew out bull crap like this!

Categories
General

The Ten Commandments

Last night I saw The Ten Commandments: The Musical performed by The Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus. First let me say that it was a bit disconcerting at first to see Moses parodied given that I grew up watching Charleton Heston playing Moses in the epic movie every Easter season on TV. But I also grew up watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus poke fun at all things holy as well, so this discomfort was very short lived and I found myself laughing at a very witty show. I was at the show because my wife works with Jonathan Verge who played Dathan and nearly stole the show with his great stage presence and expressive performances.

So I enjoyed the show, but I also enjoyed a chance to see and mingle with people that are far too often villified in U.S. society, namely Gays and Lesbians who made up (judging by the pairs at least) a good portion of the audience. I could see for myself that they’re just ordinary people like me and we were all out to have a good time. Yeah, this should be obvious, but if that is so, then why do we have so much trouble with it? As for the cast, they were a rainbow of size, shapes and colors. Aside from Jon, my favorite performers were George B. Smart as Moses, Jeremy Hilborn as The Burning Bush, and Will White as Nefretiri. The Plague Balladeers were good too. Some of the show’s humor does depend on the fact that many of the performers are gay, which I felt was signal to the audience that it was okay to acknowledge the fact that most of the performers were gay. I think this was as liberating for the audience as for the performers themselves!

Categories
Games and Sports

OMG! I’m Yuna!

In my strangely continuing OMG series, I take a what Final Fantasy character are you quiz and am labelled Yuna…LOL I ran across this one while scoping out some of the Final Fantasy XI forums for info on the new expansion. My characters are all pretty low level right now so there really isn’t anything in the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion for me. But with the expansion and all of the new Xbox 360 players, it may be easier to get some pick up parties going to gain some levels. So I’m kinda excited about that!

Which FF Character Are You?