Anti-Vehicle Rocket

Renowned anime director, Miyazaki Hayao makes some potentially controversial comments about the current Japanese Prime Minister emphasizing his liking for manga, anime/manga/games/etc. as a cultural export, and the dangerous effect of media on Japanese children. Also, the dangers of nationalism. Over at Anime News Network forum, people discuss this. Some agree with Miyazaki, others disagree partly or completely, some people express disappointment in Miyazaki and question the quality of his works, but overall the discussion is quite civil. The harshest comments so far:

"One keeps promoting manga.
One keeps making shitty anime. (...)"

"The political comments are just elitist bs. (...) if he has stated publicly that other people's work in anime is crap, then that definitely qualifies him for a big [ignore] tag."

Nothing too bad, right? Well, according to penguintruth, the thread is full of fanboy outrage and people are making "absurd, baseless accusations" and twisting Miyazaki's words "into a personal attack on them so they can get all riled up for no reason." And as we all know, "Making assumptions about Miyazaki based on a pretty reasonable statement and not supporting those assumptions with anything of substance is what we call "trolling", and it is the result of either willful ignorance or the intent to stir things up needlessly."

Knowing the ANN forums it might be worth keeping an eye on this (unless a mod steps in).

Han Solo originally had a Wookiee wife.

Screenwriter Lenny Ripps (Star Wars Holiday Special):

What was interesting to me was that Lucas started talking about Star Wars as if it was a real world. He said things like "Well, you know Han Solo is married to a Wookiee. but we can't say that." Now that was 20 years ago [in 1998], so my memory may be wrong.

According to starwars.com's Ross Plesset, however, his memory is surprisingly good:
As outrageous as Ripps's recollection sounds, there is evidence supporting it. Pat Proft corroborates it and an early draft of the Star Wars script (January 28, 1975) has Han Solo living with a furry female creature who he kisses. Proft also remembers learning that Han was raised by Wookiees, which is verified on pages 46 & 131 of Laurent Bouzereau's Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays.

I have a friend who is quite new to fandom and like me, is a total masochist. This is where you guys come in. I need some badfic. Horrible, yet hilarious Mary-Sues, inaccurate and terrifying sex scenes or just plain crazy pairings. EVERYTHING IS WELCOME.

Especially the Care Bear fic where one of them contracts HIV and another bear says, "Jesus-Bear is punishing us." I will give my first born to whoever finds that.

LJ links preferably, since we're both intending to save every link to our memories to pull out on a rainy day, but if there's none, then we'll make do.

snapedom never fails to bring the lulz.

severed_lies made this post here:

( The Punishment of Severus Snape )

Twilightmoms.com now has a movie review forum and a movie discussion forum.

Here is some gold from "I didn't like it" thread:

( Read more )

I just... I don't even know what to say.

Teen wins 'Twilight' car on 'Tyra Banks Show.'

The Vampire Volvo. In a pie-eating contest. While Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner watch in disbelief. No video yet.

Also, here be sparkling, although you can't see anything worth a damn. Warning: not safe for brains.

ETA: Finally, Pattinson agrees to bite someone. (OMG VIDEO)

JKR has spoken to Melissa about fan entitlement. With mentions of shipping and characters!

( Read more... )

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work today, and "Marketplace" of all things had a story about Twilight.

Specifically about how Twilight is, shockingly enough, causing a huge boom in the teen markets.

Nothing really new here, but I found it really funny to listen to the Marketplace reporters talk about Twilight like it's actually something important and novel.

Girl, 16, drafted to play pro ball in Japan.

I think this is the first time I've ever seen a real news story where the headline started out "Japanese schoolgirl."

Polish tests "confirm Copernicus"

Researchers in Poland say they have solved a centuries-old mystery and identified the remains of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.

The Twilight movie's reviews are starting to come in, and they look kinda like you'd expect.

Artistically-spelled comments on negative reviews are starting already.


(Also, I'm seeing mention of a Southpark ep that mocks Twilight? there's a South Park ep, Ungroundable, devoted to mocking the epidemic of wanna-be vampire kids.)

Dr. Pepper to honor free soda promise.

"The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday."

I'm so getting my coupon.

Hi, Guys. I know a good many of the S2 themes are kinda hosed right now. Something changed with the LJ migration to their new data center. The Bloggish and Style Contest themes have their CSS hosted at LJ. That's by LJ's design, with how the code is distributed. The code is set to use LJ's CSS proxy to handle the access and display of the CSS settings. Since LJ's move, though, the CSS proxy has been kaput. But the CSS itself at LJ is still working. Until we can find a way around all this, a couple users have a way that you can use the Custom CSS in your customization area to get your layouts pretty damn close to the original for that layout and theme.

You'll enter two sets of code in that area. The first one would be the code from this URL:
http://stat.livejournal.com/sixhtml/themes/common/base-weblog.css

Just go there, copy it, and paste into the custom CSS box.

And the second set you enter will be from the direct CSS URL for your specific theme. You can locate this URL by viewing the source of your journal in your browser (View Source code). If you scroll down to the <link rel="stylesheet" section of the source code, you'll see the direct url to your theme's CSS at livejournal. Go there, copy that code, and paste it after the base-weblog.css code above. Make sure you have "No" selected to use the included base code (it's a dropdown), and that the URL field above the custom CSS box is empty. Click to save changes, and your theme will display much as it is supposed to. There is occasionally an element like a border that doesn't come through, but it's pretty close. As an example of the CSS URLs, this is the one for the Baby theme for the Bloggish layout: http://stat.livejournal.com/sixhtml/themes/lilia/theme-baby.css The CSS URLS will be start with http://stat.livejournal.com/sixhtml with the rest varying by theme and layout. I'll still be looking for an alternative to having to futz with custom CSS, but in the meantime, that method of applying the CSS will get your Bloggish and Style Contest journal themes put back together pretty well. Thanks, Robin

So, OTW has a new policy, which when I first read about it, it sounded pretty damn cool.

B. Fannish next-of-kin

Registered archive users may designate a fannish next-of-kin. A next-of-kin agreement allows the transfer of content maintenance in the case of a user's permanent incapacitation or death.

Both parties to the agreement must be registered users of the Archive.

The Archive's role in this agreement is only to act as a facilitator. If the person designated as the fannish next-of-kin activates the agreement by sending a message to the Archive, the Archive will not do any independent investigation to confirm the necessity for the transfer.

A fannish next-of-kin agreement is confidential and accessible only by designated members of the archive team, who may only use it for purposes of implementing the agreement.

And then you get down to the FAQ...

12. What if my fannish next-of-kin decides s/he's tired of being my fannish next-of-kin?

13. What if I decide I don't like my fannish next-of-kin agreement?

14. What if my fannish next-of-kin does something I wouldn't like?

These are all perfectly valid questions...but could you IMAGINE IT?
( Cut for hypothetical capslock of rage. )


ETA: Link

Okay, not really! Morbid move by Summit to hype up the hype some more?

A friend of mine recently got her car towed for a bullshit offense (her parking sticker wasn't in the correct place, but it was ON THE CAR.) This reminded me of a post that I think may have been in either fandom wank or one of the "lounge" communities, where a guy who had a similar thing happen wrote an "open letter" to his city officials that basically consisted of a bunch of macros. I think this also may have wound up being linked in the Somethingawlful forums. Anyway, I wanted to link my friend to it to cheer her up, but I can't find it now. I was wondering if anyone had it in their memories.

Thanks!

Actually, now that I've given it a bit of thought, I have to say it might be a little unfair of me to compare this to the book since it's well-written, intentionally funny and displays a clear lack of taking itself seriously. Then again, tripping over the cat and bruising my ribcage on the edge of a bookcase was also better than what I've read of Twilight, so make of that what you will.

Thomas Kinkade's 16 Guidelines for Making Stuff Suck

There are a lot of amusing things about this piece, which describes the guidelines that "Painter of Light" (TM) Thomas Kinkade laid out for the makers of his direct-to-video film The Christmas Cottage. ("Create an overall sense of soft edges, strive for a 'Barry Lyndon' look." Or, "Hidden details whenever possible, References to my children (from youngest to oldest as follows): Evie, Winsor, Chandler and Merritt. References to my anniversary date, the number 52, the number 82, and the number 5282 (for fun, notice how many times this appears in my major published works).") You can also boggle over the fact that somehow they got Peter goddamn O'Toole to work on this thing.

Of relevance to Fandom On the Internets, however, is the fact that this thing stars Jared Padalecki. One wonders what, if anything, the SPN fans make of it.

"We have to love the person in the New York Times who says mean things about our book. We have to love him. We have to have an attitude of love and not one of competitiveness, or vengeance, or anger, or spite." -- Anne Rice, speaking of her return to Catholicism (From her interview on Interfaith Voices).

Apparently, you're free game as long as you're not in the NYT! Oh, it's good to know that even though the hot new kids like Twilight have sought to dazzle us, the oldies-but-goodies are still kicking.

I had to share this. I regret nothing.

You remember that article about Twilight in the New York Times? There was an entry about it posted here on Monday?

Well, I have a paper for my writing class due tomorrow and we pretty much have to find an article in the New York times and write our reaction to it or an analysis or something.

You probably guessed which article I'm using. <3

My thesis? Twilight fans are crazy.

I hope my writing teacher doesn't fail me, ahaha.