I'm not an anime fan, but this weekend I had an unplanned marathon screening of all 37 episodes of Death Note.
If your only exposure to anime is tweens piloting giant fighting robots, thinly-veiled lolita porn, and coming-of-age-male-humilation cartoons (or a mixture of all three), that's all the more reason to watch some Death Note, as an antidote.
The story is great, and the anime adaptation is a well-paced with good visuals. I'd characterize it as primarily a sort of superhuman battle of wits, like a more compelling Holmes vs. Moriarty, further complicated with a network of ambiguous and changing allegiances. The series is at its best when the characters make logical inferences that the audience had enough information to make themselves. Also a crowd-pleaser is when L and Light Yagami flick around rapid applied game theory as if it were nunchaku.
Not as appealing to me, the series also makes use of flashbacks to reveal gambits that had been kept secret from the audience and that result in major plot twists. The climactic resolution in episode 37 unfortunately relies on one of these, which made for good dramatic suspense, but I felt a little cheated by not having been given enough information to forsee the twist.
There's also a healthy dose of morality, with the series falling on the side of rule of law. However, there's also several civil rights abuses by the heroes, including torture, which are not condemned, as well as several instances of main characters willingly submitting to abuses out of a sense of duty. The series also takes a shot at the US, having the characters criticize it in one scene for disillusioning them by giving in to terrorist extortion. These messages weren't what interested me on first screening, but I did notice them.
One thing that struck me during the marathon is that I liked the writing of Death Note better than that of Lost or 24. Not only does coherent logic reign in Death Note, but there was no pandering to N different US prime-time demographics. Additionally, unlike early 24 seasons, the hero isn't sabotaged every other episode by his bratty airhead daughter.
Also of note (pardon), Death Note preempts slash fanfic authors with an unmistakeable homoerotic scene late in the series. Take that, K.
In summary, recommended.
Despite my international reputation as a rugged streetwise adventurer who fears nothing and is regularly called upon to kick butt and take names, I prefer to be the cleanshaven variant of that icon.
From grade school til I was 21, I shaved with a series of Norelco three-head rotary devices. Then, prompted by my girlfriend drawing my attention to how poor a job my last Norelco rechargeable (800RX?) was doing lately, I switched to disposable blades.
After many years of razor nicks, and trying various strategies such as shaving only every two days, I decided the latest public-facing career role I had in mind precluded bloodstains on my shirt collars. At least, not my own blood.
Yesterday, I was all out of disposable blades, so I skimmed the Web for electric shaver reviews, printed out some lists, headed to Target, and picked up a Braun FreeControl 1775.
I'd seen the 1775 rated by some credible accounts as the best in its class. It was also among the least expensive at Target, and a very small and elegant package. I decided to go with this cheap one, rather than a much more expensive one that was regarded to be a bit better, since I had no idea whether paying 2-5 times as much money would get me any significant benefit. Worst-case, I could treat the 1775 as a $35 stopgap measure while I mail-order an expensive model for around $35 less than it would cost me in Target, then eBay the 1775 (sans DNA'd blades) for $20.
After giving the 1775 the prescribed 4-hour charging, I tested it on 24 hours of growth with winter dry skin. First impression is that it's clearly not as close a shave as a blade, and that shaving with it actually took longer than with a blade, since I had to make more passes. On the plus side, no bleeding, only slight irritation, and no more throwing away disposables.
The documentation suggests that skin takes a week or two to get accustomed to the shaver, so hopefully it'll start working better. After trying it completely dry for a while, as the documentation recommends, I might try one of those pre-shave lotions that some people recommend.
So far, I'm happy with the 1775, though I was thinking it might give a bit closer shave than it did.
I was thinking about sofas, and suddenly wondered where in Google Image Search my KLIPPAN sofa snapshots appeared.
IKEA is a huge international retailer that has sold 1.5 million
KLIPPAN sofas, not to mention numerous other KLIPPAN family products, yet
somehow I have the first Google Image Search hit for klippan.
I'm not entirely sure where my Google mojo comes from, though over
the years I've had top ranks on many keywords. My favorite was the couple
years I had the first image search hit for fire trucks.
Someday, I'm going to stop using my Google karma powers for Good, and consequently start raking in the dotcom millions.
If I ever have a kid, when we're having a father-kid outing day, I'm going to make it wear a custom T-shirt: SEED INVESTMENT.
Site © 1994-2008 Neil Van Dyke neil@neilvandyke.org XHTML 1.0 Strict CSS2 Legal
