Beckism.com

For whatever reason my girlfriend was a big anime fan growing up, and the other day she decided to revisit her formative years by watching Sailor Moon. Sometime during college she had obtained a season or two of Sailor Moon that weren’t aired in the U.S. (some guy in Canada evidently translated them and then sold them on the sly), so she pops one in and starts watching. Since my desk is right next to the TV, I’ve been halfway watching some of them, too.

I knew that anime could get pretty strange, but I wasn’t prepared. This is my favorite part:

Feminine-looking man (part of a trio of rock stars) wanders onto the scene of a teacher-cum-villain trying to discipline his erstwhile student. Rock star is justifiably pissed off, and decides to do something about it. Fortunately, he has the ability to turn into a Sailor Soldier.

I don’t know how familiar you are with the series, but from what I can gather, Sailor Soldiers are all female. So the dude transforms into a lady. A rather skimpily clad lady. Whatever, I can dig it.

And then he performs his (that is, her) super-power:

If you’re not sure you’re reading that subtitle right, feel free to click the image for a bigger look. And it’s not a funny translation, either. All the super-powers are English words, subtitled because the Japanese don’t really have the same sounds in their repetoire (”Sta Gentarue Utaras!”).

That Sailor Moon follows this up with a Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss seems like a bit of an anticlimax. Once you’ve been hit in the teeth by the gentle uterus, a honeymoon therapy kiss is a walk in the park.

The time has come to say farewell to what had previously been my favorite FTP program, Transmit. I started using Transmit because I was sick to death of Fetch, Cyberduck kept failing in the middle of transfers, and hey, thousands of fans can’t be wrong, right?

Of course, if I had been aware of Yummy FTP at the time, I could have saved myself $30. Unfortunately, I only discovered Yummy FTP a few days ago, but I am a solid convert now. Transmit was pretty solid; Yummy FTP is fantastic.

Although I was initially not impressed with Yummy (its interface is rather cluttered and nowhere near as streamlined as Transmit, or even Cyberduck), I tried it out because it was on sale at MacZot and because the feature list was a bit out of this world. So while I didn’t have love at first sight, I definitely had love at first use.

Yummy FTP is the fastest, most powerful FTP program I have ever had the pleasure to use. What it lacks in sparkle it more than makes up for in functionality. Yummy has snapped through beastly transfers that Transmit stumbled and choked on as if they were nothing. It isn’t a program for the FTP newbie; the power that it provides definitely would make the software confusing for a first-timer. But for someone like myself who uses FTP every day and needs a reliable and powerful tool, Yummy FTP is damn near perfect.

Not only that, but the developer is possibly the most responsive I’ve ever met. Before I registered the program I emailed the support email to ask about a couple features, and he replied almost immediately. I don’t think I’ve ever had a developer answer me that quickly, and certainly not in the middle of a sale and for someone who doesn’t even own the software. Then a few emails into the conversation he apologized for being so slow to respond because he was asleep. I hadn’t even asked a question; he was responding to an email that was basically all compliment.

Yes, he’s possibly crazy, but in such a wonderful way.

In any case, Transmit and I will be parting ways (perhaps one of these days I’ll write out a real comparison between the two pieces of software beyond my fan-boy ravings). I’ll leave it installed for a while, but Yummy FTP has stolen my heart. Farewell, Transmit. We had some good times.

Two of my favorite authors have released books within the last three days (within the last two hours for one of them):

Robin McKinley just released Dragonhaven, and Terry Pratchett just released Making Money. I haven’t read either one yet, but both are in the mail. Hot dang!

Also, I just discovered that Robin McKinley has a blog on LiveJournal. And I thought life couldn’t get any weirder.

In other news, Okkervil River’s new album The Stage Names is amazingly good, as is Stars’ new album In Our Bedroom After the War (both links lead to the iTunes store, but both albums are also available from eMusic; the bonus track on The Stage Names from eMusic is a great song, too).

I’m surprised how much great stuff has been coming out recently by authors and artists that I love. I’m behind on the times.

I’m pretty good about registering shareware. If I try a program and really like it, then I register it; operating system ease of use aside, indie developers are why I love the Mac. Out of the seven or eight programs that I always have running, only two are Apple software (Mail and iTunes). The rest are shareware (including such gems as LaunchBar, PathFinder, NewsFire, DeskShade, and MenuCalendarClock iCal).

However, I only recently registered MenuCalendarClock. I was only using the free features, and iCal integration wasn’t worth $20 for me. It was recently on sale at the MacUpdate Promo, though, so I picked it up as a thank-you to the developers (assuming they get any money from those deals at all). Before I registered it, though, I turned on some registered-only features to see how long I’d been running it unregistered:

908 days. 908 days. I think that’s some sort of personal record for me. The only rival is the amount of time I had Bubble Trouble unregistered back in the 90’s, but I think I still kept that under a year.

I love my desk, don’t get me wrong. But it is not set up very well for computing. There’s a roll-out keyboard holder, true, but not really anywhere good to put the mouse. I had it up on the top of the desk next to the computer, but ever since I’ve started doing web design and using the mouse a lot during the day, I’ve been getting pretty bad pain in my wrist (okay, maybe the unfortunately small Nintendo DS that I’ve been crouched over for hours every day wasn’t helping, either).

In any case, after eyeballing the amount of room I had on the keyboard rollout, I realized I simply couldn’t fit a mouse there unless I wanted to be constantly tracking. I decided to look into trackballs; they’re stationary, after all.

Turns out that it’s barely worth the plural. Local stores carry, at most, two of them; both wired, both Logitech, both very red and speckly looking. Okay, whatever. I bought the one for the thumb (Logitech’s optical Trackman Wheel), because I wasn’t willing to make a gamble on an online trackball that I’d never got to try.

Wrist pain pretty much instantly went away. I’m a fan of the trackball. I’ll probably develop some horrific thumb problem, but who cares? The trackball lets me hold my hand at a more natural angle than the mouse ever did and, even better, lets me keep it entirely relaxed. It was a bit squiggly at first, but it only took me about a day of heavy use to get used to it.

Two thumbs up. Well, maybe one thumb up, and one kind of limply sprawled nearby panting at all the extra work it’s had to do.

Alright, I’ll admit it. In a moment of weakness, I bought myself a Nintendo DS. I am not sure what made me start thinking about buying one, but I found myself peering at them through the glass at the local electronics store, perusing the games, and thinking to myself, “Should I? No! Spending money bad! But they’re so shiny…”

I held out for a while, but after reading the reviews online (highly positive), taking a long bus trip in my now car-less existence and watching the guy in front of me play PSP the whole way, and then agonizing over it for days I finally gave up and just bought the damn thing.

And wow. I’m loving it. Along with the system, I purchased Puzzle Quest and Mariokart DS. Today in another moment of weakness, I also purchased Final Fantasy III.

In any case, this is possibly the coolest piece of gaming equipment I have ever purchased. Granted, the handheld and stylus are slightly uncomfortable after extended usage in my much-larger-than-a-child’s hands. But it’s worth it. The dual screens are gorgeous, the touch-screen mechanic useful, the games that I’ve bought so far extremely fun. And integrated Wifi? It doesn’t get cooler than this.

I may be late to jump on the handheld gaming bandwagon (this is my first handheld), but I am a whole-hearted believer now. If only I had more friends with DSes so that I could play Mariokart against them online…

There’s always something to strive for.

Whew! After a little over three weeks, I’m at last back in the United States of good ol’ America. To recap (for anyone not aware), my dad had a sabbatical in France (because he is a hard-core Francophile, it seems), and as a graduation gift he brought me over here. Just for kicks, he brought my sisters, too. When we scheduled the trip, I wanted to go home after two weeks, but he pressured me into a month because he didn’t think two weeks would be long enough.

After having me grump around the house for the last two weeks, I suspect he’s regretted this.

In any case, I was in France from the end of May until the end of June, and am at last home. And about time, too. Before coming to France, I was pretty sure that I’m not a tourist. Now I’m certain of it. I really, really dislike wandering around other people’s countries consuming their culture. Especially when I’m surrounded by a language that should never have been written down.

Of course, that isn’t to say that I didn’t had fun. There are some good things about France (the baked goods and their approach to fruit—i.e., lots of it and without loads of sugar—are particularly praiseworthy. Seeing places like Fontaine Bleue was cool, and hot white chocolate at Angelina (near the Louvre) is good enough to die or kill for. But a month was still too long.

Since having me bitch constantly isn’t all that fun, here’s some other good stuff that has happened on the trip:

Going to Scotland (and very briefly, London). Scotland is a really, really cool place. Granted, everyone’s driving on the wrong side of the road, but they’ve got some very fun little castles (the best are the ones that are run-down, where they just let you explore the place on your own and don’t restrict you to the fancy, lord-and-ladies areas). We also got to see my cousin Laurie, who is one of my coolest cousins.

In London we got to see Avenue Q, which is amazing on stage. Just from hearing bits of the soundtrack thanks to Ajay I hadn’t thought I would like it much, but I was dead wrong. What a hilarious show.

Seeing Dad was really nice, too, since I haven’t heard from him much recently. Granted, a month in close quarters was a bit much, but so it goes. Family is there to drive you nuts.

I also enjoyed a number of things in France, but overall it’s just not my country of choice.

In any case, now I’m home and trying to make a living doing freelance web work. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get clients regularly enough to keep myself afloat, but we’ll see. If not, I’m planning on applying to some agencies like the one I worked at in Walla Walla. They always need workers, and I’m sure I could get a good reference.

I’d never really thought it would happen, but I also got a cell phone to help out with the whole being a business thing. It’s very strange having to think about carrying it around with me. I’m having a minor dilemma trying to figure out how to put both it and my keys into pockets (since I can’t very well put them into the same pocket or I’ll scratch up the phone). Life is a trial.

I’m also trying to do some writing, although I haven’t really dived into that yet. I’ve done some writing for the book I always meant to write first, but nothing substantial yet. I’m thinking of re-implementing the daily word requirement for myself. Without a deadline, I think I can set it low enough to be low-stress, and it certainly helped me get my thesis written.

And that, I think, is enough of a monstrous update for now.

Maybe a few months after my girlfriend and I started going out, we wanted to eat out and I suggested we head down to the local Applebees. They’ve got a relatively wide range of food on their menu, and I’ve had some tasty dishes. “No thanks,” she said. “Their food’s all soggy.”

Well, this was perplexing, but whatever. We went out somewhere else.

Eventually, though, I was finally able to convince her that Applebee’s food can’t all be soggy. Surely one or two soggy dishes can’t be enough to put you off a restaurant for all time, I said.

We’ve gone a few times since then (the most recent being last night), and the odd thing is that her food is always soggy. It’s really perplexing. I’ve ordered any number of dishes there and not a one has been soggy. But we go there tonight, she orders a wrap, and when our food gets there picks it up and the whole bottom of it is covered is drippy grossness.

It’s really quite bizarre, and calls out for some empirical testing. Do redheads always get soggy food? Is it just her? If we ordered the same dish, would one be soggy and the other not?

These questions plague my soul.

Sometimes I’ll be trucking along, editing someone else’s short story or whatever, and I want to give them advice or whatever on the “said” bit. You know, like in “I’m ignorant,” he said. That last bit, where the sentence identifies the speaker. But I don’t know what the damn thing is called.

I’ve tried searching, but the internet has failed me. There has to be a term for that part of the sentence, but it eludes me. Oh, the humanity!

That’s right! After what seems like far more work than it should have been, I have finished my senior thesis and turned it in!

What is it? It’s a fantasy novel that I started writing in September, finished mid-March, and have finally finalized (although without anywhere near as much revision as I wanted to give it; it’s pretty first-draft stuff). Because the library is an asshat, the printed copy for them was a whopping 400 sheets of paper (plus the second copy, of course, for an even 800). Probably about 390 of that was solid type (the rest being table of contents, references, titles, etc.). Yowza! How the hell did I write this much?

When I delivered it, the librarian said that she thinks it’s the largest she’s seen yet in her career. I don’t doubt it. I beat out the last thesis-cum-novel by at least 100 pages, if memory serves. Good luck binding it, suckas.

Entitled Tantalus Chine, the novel takes place in the fantasy land of Lakuna where humans are rebelling against their slavemasters, the elves. This is not standard fantasy. The elves are neither nice, nor do they live forever. They do, however, have pointy ears, so thank goodness for that. If anyone is interested in reading the novel, you are welcome to, but I warn you that it isn’t worth it. It’s first draft quality, and not a particularly good first draft at that. Should I try to publish it (as if any publishing house would want it; it wouldn’t sell well given how many molds it intentionally sets out to break), I would first want to do some pretty serious revisions.

In any case, I am really, really happy to finally be done with it. I still have to do the oral defense, but I’m not too worried. I think it might actually end up being fun; I have a great thesis committee, and as long as I get enough sleep before-hand and do a little reviewing of my past three years of Soc, I should be able to show off my ability to pull crap out of my ass quite nicely.

Now on to other projects! I can’t decide what to do first. I’m definitely going to start trying to get some web work with One Crayon, but beyond that I’m not sure. I’ve been wanting to try and get into Cocoa programming for a while (the native Mac OS X stuff), and I’ve got an idea for a program that would be 1) relatively simple and 2) something that I would find useful that nothing else can do, so maybe I’ll try that. Then again, getting a little more into Flash is always good, and I’ve got a couple ideas for browser-based games that could be really sweet. And there’s always the novel that might actually have a chance of getting published that I need to write, now that I know that I can write a novel.

It is still kind of crazy to think that my big project is over. All I have left now is Creative Writing and a paper for my independent study (which will hopefully be low stress). And dance and percussion ensemble, of course, but whatever. I’m still reveling in the sense of freedom before reality asserts itself and I realize that I’m way too good at keeping myself busy.

And in my final exciting news, I have decided to order Adobe CS3, web edition (Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, and some other stuff). I have the credit available, and I discovered something amazing: student versions of Adobe software can be used for commercial work during and after school, and can be upgraded as if they were the full price commercial version! That means that I can buy a suite of software that will be central to web work at $1100 less than the standard price, but I have to do it within the next month and a half. Legitimate version of Photoshop, here I come! I’m really excited; I hope that it ships before I head to France.

And now, I should probably go to bed. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get through the story for Creative Writing that I need read by tomorrow, so perhaps I should plan on waking up during the morning sometime.