Earthquakes

Earthquake this morning:
Local Date: Thursday July 27th, 2006
Local Time: 05:18 AM AKDT
Universal Time: 07/27/2006 13:18:00.556 UTC
Magnitude: 4.89 ML
Latitude: 61.1494
Longitude: -149.5856
Depth: 15 miles (25 km)

And it was only 35 miles from here (12 from Anchorage) which is super close for an earthquake. We've had 5's before that didn't feel as strong simply because they were further away. I was so tired, though, from being up half the night in pain that I fell RIGHT back asleep before comitting to memory how the quake had felt. So all I remember is that it was a hard one, that I heard it coming louder than any quake I'd ever heard, and that it happened. lol. My friend Cassandra sleeps through most quakes (they always seem to happen at night) but my family and I must be pretty sensitive because the sound always alerts us enough that we are awake to gauge the severity of the quake (i.e. duck and cover or not) until it is over and we roll over and fall asleep.

If you've never heard an earthquake, there is no real way to describe it. It's vast, mile stretches of hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of feet of rock, gravel, dirt, and who knows what, sliding and grinding against itself. But it's SO huge that you hear it where it starts and then as the earth around the epicenter shifts in domino-like fashion, outward like a ripple, you hear the sound get closer and closer, increasing in volume until it hits YOU. And that all happens in less than a second.
Sometimes the vibrations come casually, like a train rolling by, the ground and everything in the house (and the house itself) starts shaking.... dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah dah dah dah dah DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH dah dah dah dah dah da da

Or sometimes you hear it and then BAM!!! it hits and everything is shaking in a sneak-attack quake. Sometimes it is so fast that you don't hear anything at all until it hits.

But the sound itself is SO vast and so deep... It's like a sound that you aren't really hearing - you are hearing it with your body, with your skin, and with your 6th sense, not so much with your ears. The sounds are too high and too low. You know how sometimes in good silence, your ears can create roars that are only happening in your head, except that you can TELL they're coming from your head. It's almost like that in that you know you are hearing this sound, that it does exist, but it's not coming from somewhere normal or it's not being picked up in a normal way. And it's SO vast and SO heavy, it's literally the entire world. It is directional, for sure, you can tell where it is coming from, and the oscillation of sound can be different depending on the speed of the quake.

And this quake was particularly loud, probably because it was so close, and maybe also because it was on land rather than out in the inlet like they usually are.

I hate it when they have earthquakes in movies - most TV shows do a good job and I think it is precisely because of the low budget. Movies make the jolting too... I dunno... perfect and crumbly. Yeah things CAN crumble, I'm sure, but they just have the movement all wrong. They're loud but it doesn't seem like much is happening. Everything seems detatched from the sound that is occurring, and even though you're in it and things are moving and you can feel it, it feels like the quake is flowing AROUND you. Like standing in a river - you feel the river, it affects you, it jostles you, but it flows around you. And maybe because it IS -- the vibrations from a quake are directional, they are going by, not happening RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE - and that's how movies always make them seem. Bah. :P

So yeah... earthquakes... :P

Bakuretsu Tenshi (Burst Angel)

In short:
Awesome animation with smoothly integrated cgi, beautiful to look at. Cool character designs and fun spaghetti western genre/mood/palette. Fights can be repetitive but aren't dull and have some cool moves, good music, story could be better but there is a plot throughout (not the best, not the worst), psycho-bezerker killer bounty hunter chick (Jo)

Lots of people think lots of different things about this anime. Here's what it is and isn't:
• It does have an underlying plot throughout the entire series - even if an episode *seems* like a one-shot. Plots are not as twisted as GITS:SAC, but you might not realise they're related until maybe halfway through. There are some very superficial elements and some really superficial stories that, while they DO tie into the major plot, they still seemed kind of pointless. The story overall isn't the most stunning, but it isn't totally boring - and like most anime gets better past the halfway mark.

• It does have lots of fighting, but I found the fights way more interesting than, say, Kannazuki no Miko. Maybe not the most creative fights ever, though there are definetly some cool moments that had me saying, "Oh, wow!" out loud, heh. For the most part, if a battle got dull, I'd just admire the animation.

• The animation is beautiful. They use a lot of CGI but it's so well integrated that it doesn't stand out at ALL. Best integration I've seen so far in any anime. I love the western sunset palette.

• Fanservice: Not quite to a disgusting degree, but some of the female characters do have some amazing breast activity *rolls eyes*, and there are lots of panty shots. Not tons, but enough. Oddly, they manage to smooth it into the whole world so that I wasn't overly bothered with it at all.

• The theme of the series, the mood, is a WESTERN. The way stories unfold, the fights, the clothing - it's a western. And it's FUN. The end of the series is also totally so very spaghetti western in style. I love it. Though don't let me fool you - it takes place in a futuristic Tokyo filled with high-tech gadgetry. The attitude (and tons of guns) and the other things I mentioned make it a western in everything except tumbleweeds, horses, and saloons. Although, there is *one* horse...

• Some things seemed pointless, like Kyouhei, or whatever his name is, the chef. He had no purpose. I think originally he was going to be there for the whole harem-style group of characters with him being the fish out of water norm-boy, but that definetly died a quick death within 3 episodes.

• Music is good. I like the "bad guy is coming, we're gonna fight" theme. :D

• It has humour that isn't obnoxious or over the top. Kick-ass type of humour, not goofy humour.

Yuri content: is there or isn't there?
Ok, I don't know WHAT people are talking about: they say they watered it all down from the manga and hid all the subtext between Meg and Jo. If that's so, then I must have super yuri-goggles because I got a lot more than I was expecting. Sure, there are obvious outright occurences (well, one) but these women live for EACHOTHER and they say as much. Often. Kind of a Xena/Gabrielle type thing where you know they are 100% loyal to one another and live for one another, though you could argue wether or not they are actually in passionate love. More than best friends, less than lovers. Yikes - I do sound like a hardened Xenite, adamant in the relationship. Maybe that's where I get my ability to find subtext. ;)

More yuri than: Noir, ROD the TV, GITS:SAC,
Less yuri than: Marimite, Strawberry Panic, Simoun, KnM

Perhaps less in terms of obviousness, but I say the quality and pervasiveness of it makes it way better than, say, KnM, Noir, and Strawberry Panic.

Meg and Jo
Meg and Jo are the most fun duo since... since I dunno when. Very Xena/Gabby in that Meg is always getting kidnapped and Jo is always going bezerk, killing a zillion people and going through anyone and anything to rescue her, even if its good guys. Gotta love that kind of devotion (otherwise it'll annoy you to tears that Meg gets kidnapped so much). And they go back a little ways, which is what the manga is about (which has been liscenced and will hopefully be available soon as there are no scanlations). Also in the Xe/Gab fashion, Jo is the dark warrior who has obviously seen a LOT whereas Meg is more happy-go-lucky, "let's have fun". (Ok, think early Gabrielle...). Though Meg DOES have the capacity to kick butt (wish we'd see more of that).

Other stuff
Other characters are fun. Sei is cool - her breasts get huge in some eps which annoys the hell out of me, and some people rather hate her reverse-cleavage outfit but I rather like it. Her character gets more interesting as the series progresses but we don't find out enough. I don't think they really plotted her character too deeply though they easily could of. Kind of like Youko in Marimite. Amy is the computer hacker kid and she's so-so. I don't care either way about her character.

Some of the one-shot-ish stories were really fun; I particularly liked the girls school ep. and the obvious backstory eps. :D

All I can say is I want the damn OAV to be released! I dloaded the artbook, too, which has all the episode commercial cut-shot art in it, too. Some good stuff!

Quote that made me laugh: "Those who jump over people's backs don't live very long." -- Jo (it was funny at the time...)

Conclusion: It's a fun series - Watch it for the prettyness and for Meg/Jo slashyness. And possibly the fights, though as far as sharpshooting goes, as good as Jo is, she doesn't hold a candle to Kirika. You may have to leave your brain turned 'off' for chunks of it - it's not a particularly smart anime and is low on character development or deep, emotional plot. In the way that I prefer deep, requires-lots-of-brain foreign films, I do still like to watch fun action flicks. That would be Bakuretsu Tenshi.

Haibane Renmei

No spoilers.

I just finished watching all of Haibane Renmei. Wow.
First off, it's beautifully drawn. If anything, watch it for that.
Secondly, what a wonderful story. Just... It's not goody-goody, but it's not overly dark. Nothing happens beyond reason - as in, there's no drama for drama's sake, so by that I guess I mean it's very life-like. Which is funny coming from me, since I tend to *like* drama. :D

I tell you, though, the first episode right off the bat punches you in the gut. My eyes went wide, "I didn't know Haibane Renmei was like THIS!!??" heh. But nah, that's just... well... you have to watch. Just watch it, dammit!

Anyway, yes. 5 stars out of 5, possibly the best anime I've ever seen - yes, maybe even better than Maria-Sama ga Miteru (gasps, I know, beat me with a stick for saying so!) - but I say that on grounds that Marimite's animation wasn't always evenly done across the board, and it isn't a finite story (yet). But still...

The kind of thing that leaves you not knowing if you want to smile or cry. :')

The Devil Wears Prada [film]

In short:
• good acting
• 3-D characters
• story that could of been ultra cliché was not cliché at all.


First off, Meryl Streep was awesome. Her character is such a bitch but Streep manages to bring humanity to her character. Even though this woman is a complete devil, she's got emotions and she has motivations for the way she acts and you do see it slip out here and there, but not in a cheesy way, either. Very subtle. Streep is amazing to watch anyhow; she can convey so much with just the twitch of an eye, for goodness sakes.

The gal who plays the main character did a good job as well. I had seen her in The Princess Diaries and was afraid she might bring a bubblegum cliché performance to the film but she did not. She was human and she does evolve but while staying true to herself.

Which is what the film is about - staying true to oneself. So many films are about some girl starting out frumpy, heading for sucess, and along the way they're taught how to be fashionable and how to get the cool guy or whatever -- like in films like She's All That or even in the Princess Diaries - and dozens of others. And our main character, Andy, *does* start out frumpy and heading for sucess, and she does learn how to dress fashionably and gets to be cunning at her job. And in the end when she realises that there are limits to what she'll do before she's no longer being herself, it's a realistic realization. There's no huge change -- she keeps what she likes about what she learned, like keeping some of the nicer clothes for instance, but it's toned down. Just... more "normal". And she gets the kind of job she wanted in the first place - she doesn't settle, but she's equally not going out there for some hot-shot position for the status or money of it.

And the romance in the film is treated the same. It's just all very human, with humour, style, and then some. It may not be blockbuster-stuff, but it is a smart film, intelligent, with little trace of bubble-gum, if any. I found myself on the edge of my seat, rooting for Andy. And if a movie can do that, if it can make me really care, then I give it a thumbs up. :D

3 new anime

So I started in on some new anime today:
• 3 eps of Simoun
• first ep of NANA
• 6 eps of Strawberry Panic!

Simoun
I read about this at Okazu and have been interested in this series since then. The background on this over at Wikipedia: Simoun (anime) tells a bit about it better than I can. To be very basic, the story happens on a different earth-like world where the people have very different technology from us - very stylized/art nouveauish in a way. Anyhoo, the people of this world are what is left of a very powerful, ancient people and they don't know how to use any of the technology that still survives today. The one kingdom that has all the technology protects it with the use of simoun, an aircraft powered by the ancient technology that is flown by a pair of pilots.

The people of this world, though, are all born female and they do not settle on a gender until they reach the age of 17 at which point they go to this holy spring to either stay female or become male. Due to the technology of the simoun (aircraft), however, only non-adults can be pilots.

I only saw the first three episodes. Basically we learn about the star lead pilot, Neviril, a girl who loses her copilot while attempting an extremely difficult defensive maneuver. The pair were definetly romantically involved - and that is NOT subtext, no yuri-goggles required. The ancient technology is partially powered spiritually -- pilot/co-pilot pairs kiss the green orb that powers their ship before taking off in order to turn the orb on. Neviril and her original partner unintentionally started the trend of kissing eachother before kissing the orb on their simoun craft. So though their kiss was genuine and passionate, not all the other pilot pair kisses are.

So far the series doesn't seem to be *totally* using the yuri angle as fanservice. Everyone is kind of ambisexual all around so there isn't that "service" tension so many other series have. The gender ambiguity is refreshing to me, particularly because even the gender of adults is difficult to determine as female seiyu voice the male characters, who are also drawn rather femininley.

The animation itself is pretty good, though I'm not a huge fan of combining traditional and digital animation unless it is seamless. I like the style as well -- the not-so-technologically-advanced peoples seem to have a kind of 1920's/30's level of technology which is inventive - I'm a sucker for old-fashioned/steampunk technology. :D

WANT MORE!!!! XO


NANA
NANA is about two girls named Nana who seem to be total opposites whose paths keep crossing, leading the two to become roomates - and most likely eventually friends as well. I only saw the first ep so it's hard to tell.

I'm not sure how much yuri content there is going to be. There's enough for the ol' yuri-goggles as far as the "normal" girl oogling the cool and dark girl but that's all I've seen so far and it's not enough to make a person watch it just for yuri content.

The animation is clean and angular, the music so far is pretty good as well. The opening credits make the series seem like it's going to be much more serious than it is - goofier than Marimite, slightly more serious than Azumanga Daioh. Both Nana's are 20, which is refreshing, although the regular-girl Nana looks younger than she is, which is getting old (WHY can't people be drawn their age?!?)

I only have the first 5 eps out of something like 26 I believe, so who knows. I'll watch the rest and then decide whether I want to bother with the rest. Wikipedia makes it sound like there's hardly any yuri to be had, and while that's not my only criteria for an anime, I certainly relate more to queer characters and I've got enough yuri-endowed anime that I could be watching instead. ;)


Strawberry Panic!
Fun seiyu facts:
"Etoile" Shizuma is voiced by Hitomi Nabatame (Eriko in "Marimite")
Nagisa Aoi (our protagonist) is voiced by Mai Nakahara (Mai in "Mai-HiME") who sings the opening theme

There's good and bad for this series. And mixed, too, I suppose.

First, the main "pair", Nagisa and Shizuma, are a Yumi/Sachiko, Yumi/Sei, Himeko/Chikane, any famous kohai/sempai rip off. Nagisa is like a slightly more mature Yumi but with more confidence and never cries (so far). She, like Yumi, gets chastised for running in the halls, learned piano years ago and can sort of play now, and isn't too sure about her feelings for a certain sempai but is in deep nonetheless.

Shizuma is a perfect cross of Sachiko, Sei, and Chikane. She talks JUST like Chikane from Kannazuki no Miko and has a wild mane of lion-like hair like Sei. She's happy in the presence of Yumi/Himeko/Nagisa but has some kind of sad past, sad eyes, mysteriousness - like Sei and Chikane. Also like Sachiko and Chikane, Shizuma is great at piano and is the star of the school. Similar to Sei (at least in reputation), Shizuma is a playgirl, making out with girls left and right, never keeping one for more than a month apparently.

This, and other elements, lead to total element ripoffs from Marimite. For instance:
• Nagisa's first stunned run-in with Shizuma that leaves her heart blindsided and stunned
• Shizuma fixes Nagisa's crooked tie - ever so Marimitely (except Shizuma tries to kiss Nagisa after)
• Middle-ground in the greenhouse. Just like Yumi/Sachiko in their greenhouse, and Himeko/Chikane in their secluded rose garden.
• Piano duet! Complete with Nagisa messing up her part, just like Yumi
• It's a Christian/Catholic type school, complete with prayers and a Maria-sama statue!

Shall I go on?

Despite the fact that this series is a total rip-off of so many other anime before it, there are elements keeping it interesting. Like, if you ever wanted Yumi to have more guts, then you'll appreciate Nagisa. Or if you wanted Sachiko to kiss all the girls, you'll like Shizuma. There's a ton of "loser-fangirl" service moments, too. Apparently half the school (all-girl, mind you) is sleeping with one another - there's lots of sex in the manga, apparently; the anime focuses more on relationships. But Shizuma tries to kiss Nagisa at least once per the first three or four episodes, sometimes more than once in an episode. With such a strong start, the 4th-6th episodes were boring as hell with the highlight being some of Nagisa's friends cleaning stairs and having a tea party. Yay. (sarcasm)

The animation is similar to Kannazuki no Miko only less colorful. The plot is only interesting when Shizuma is involved (well, for me). A lot of the characters are a little over-the-top -- "ohhh!"ing girls with high pitched voices, a school prince who is VERY Rei-like... It really makes Marimite shine even more in comparison. So I'm going into this focusing on the fanservice, because being shallow is about the only way to make it through this series without melting my brain.

I'll definety watch the four other episodes I have and I'd probably want the rest just so I can see where this thing with Shizuma and Nagisa go, because they're hinting that Nagisa is more than a fling for Shizuma. Perhaps high drama will ensue. Woo.

Edit to add...
Oddly, a bonus for me in Strawberry Panic! is part of the dynamic between Nagisa and Shizuma. Whenever Nagisa catches Shizuma's gaze, she completely freezes, can't talk, can't think, can't move... totally stunned. I used to think this sort of thing was silly until I had the very same experience with a girl myself -- I did the exact same thing around her (well, I could move...). It wasn't any one thing in particular about her. I generally can't shut up around people and can usually speak in an orderly, concise fashion. Not around this girl, however. I'd get around her and I couldn't think of anything to even think ABOUT, I couldn't speak - and when I'd try it came out very badly, and I am uber-concious of my body and movements. Of course, we've since had a very bad falling out and I know she's no good for me at ALL, but I can't help but still feel some of this if I'm around her. Grr. How very Phèdre/Melissande of me.

So, um, yes. Though it pains me, I relate. Shizuma better treat Nagisa right or I'll smack her both sides up and down. XO

The Sky Unwashed

Just got done reading "The Sky Unwashed" by Irene Zabytko.

Amazon.com gives this synopsis:
inspired by the true story of villagers who defied the forced evacuation of their Ukrainian town after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the 1980s. The narrator is septuagenarian Marusia Petrenko, a hard-working grandmother who lives with Yurko, her only son; his wife, Zosia; and their two small children, Katia and Tarasyk, in a tiny house where only a thin curtain separates Marusia's quarters from the rest of the family's. Like many of the townspeople in Starylis, Zosia and Yurko work at the nuclear power plant in nearby Chernobyl. The drama begins one spring weekend in 1986, when several of the village's men do not return home from their shifts at the plant. One by one, the people of Starylis begin to notice a strange metallic taste in the air and to suffer from itchy, watery eyes. The official word is that there has been "a fire" at the plant, according to the militsiia who round up villagers for evacuation to Kiev. But in Kiev things are not much better. The Petrenko family is eventually separated: Marusia stays with Yurko, who is suffering from radiation sickness, and Zosia takes her children to Moscow in hopes of a better life. Over the months that follow, Marusia battles to reunite her family and to return to Starylis, which has been declared uninhabitable due to radiation. While readers may find the English transliterations of names in both Russian and Ukrainian a bit confusing (the city is Kiev on one page and Kyiv on the next, for example), this is a minor irritation in an otherwise quietly insightful novel about a indomitable individual defying the state in order to return to her home.

I'm generally not a big "normal" fiction reader. But, being fascinated by nuclear disaster and survival stories as well as true(ish) stories, this was a good, quick read that really gave some good insight into the lives of the people directly affected by the Chernobyl accident. And as far as nuclear-survival fan-girlness goes, this gave a nice picture of what it could be like to try to survive in a radiated land, albeit without protection.

Theatre of Tragedy

Theatre of Tragedy is a gothic metal band from Norway. Interestingly, I found them through another gothic metal/folk metal band called Leaves' Eyes. Leaves' Eyes is fronted by Liv Kristine, who used to be the female vocalist for Theatre of Tragedy. :D

Theatre of Tragedy started out as a gothic doom metal band often credited as the first of its kind to feature dual male and female contrasting vocals, influencing an entire generation of European metal that followed. Another distingushing element to ToT's music was that they originally wrote all of their lyrics in Old English.

ToT's first three full-length albums are completely in Old English and are thoroughly doom/gothic metal. The first two albums are darker and not as well polished as their later work and include harsh male growls and grunts, which I'm not overly fond of. Liv Kristine's vocals are high soprano, fragile and secondary to the male vocals at times.


This all changes with their third, and best liked, album Aégis. Aégis loses the male death grunts and instead Raymond sings in a kind of narrational sort of way. The album has a theme of women of European mythology. The songs are more accessible than their previous albums with more polish, stronger song structure, and choruses you can even sing along to (if you can remember odd lyrics in Old English, that is). They've added string-sounding keyboards, which almost make this album 'symphonic metal'. The result is beautiful, dark, well crafted album that has become one of my favorites of all-time.

After Aégis, ToT went on to evolve their sound, focusing more on keyboards and programming, and dropping the Old English completely for modern English. Their next album, Machine is a kind of techno-rock with some good songs here and there. After that came Assembly where the shift in style is complete. Gone are any hints of metal - this is a pop rock album with heavy synths. "Superdrive" is a perfect example of the shift the band took.

Unfortunately, Raymond's vocals remain front and center for most of the songs, always as a kind of narrator, never actually singing. After a while it gets really old - particularly when Liv Kristine's voice is the best part of the music. She's almost audibly being pushed to the side.

After Assembly Liv left the band to concentrate on her own project, Leaves' Eyes, with her husband - a folk-metal band focusing on Viking and nature imagery. Meanwhile, ToT returned to their metal roots, probably due to the resurging popularity in the genre due to bands like Within Temptation and Lacuna Coil. They hired a new female vocalist who sounds remarkably like Liv and recorded the album Storm.

It's a solid album - the tracks purposely flow into one another in a jarring manner, not too sure what I think about that. Storm takes what was best in Aégis and combines it with the successful polish and structure of Assembly for an updated version of their own metal music. It'd be like Lacuna Coil adding epic keyboard synth strings to their music.

A highly inventive band, for sure. Their successes are strung out across several albums (except for the entirety of Aégis) but in a lot of ways I think other bands took what ToT started and made it even better (Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil..)