The only frequency I heard was you;

So apparently some people are in an uproar over President Obama bowing to Emperor Akihito of Japan. Even Miss Manners oh-so-smugly weighs in (not that she's usually relevant to today's world). I fail to see the grave offense; first of all, it is Japan. Everyone bows. Yes, the President isn't just anyone, but it's roughly equivalent to a handshake, and I for one feel that he shouldn't be below him to put forth polite gestures such as it. Second of all, he is the Emperor. Give me a break. Would such uproar take place were Obama to genuflect before the pope?

If one wants to criticise him, I suppose one could correct his form, which was rather awkward. But the simpering about how it either shows weakness or is just Not Done smacks of cultural imperialism, lingering insecurity, and stereotypical US-American arrogance.

In the USA, there is a ban that was enacted this year on the production by companies, import, or sale of flavoured cigarettes. This includes components for rolling one's own, as well: filters, rolling papers, and tobacco meant for use in roll-your-own cigarettes. However, this does not appear to apply to loose pipe tobacco which is sold as such. What else can pipe tobacco be used for? One guess.

Supposedly, the aim is to prevent teenagers from smoking. Oddly, I've never met anyone who started up on flavoured cigarettes that weren't menthol - which isn't banned. Whether or not it's particularly effective is up for debate; at least, I've yet to find an actual citation for surveys indicating that teenagers begin to smoke on flavoured cigarettes. Unless by flavour they do mean menthol, which is popular, perhaps for its numbing effect.

This doesn't effect the legality of hookah shisha, either. Hookah being wildly popular among college students and younger people in general (and carding being ridiculously lax at any hookah bar I've ever visited, in and out of Chicago, although those could be exceptions), I wonder when it will it will be the next target?

The prohibition feels somewhat toothless, given the menthol exception, and the possibility of an individual's ability to still wiggle past the law (as far as I can tell, it's not illegal to make flavoured cigarettes for one's own use; there's nothing keeping individuals from making their own mixes, nor flavouring tobacco themselves). I'll be curious to see if it has any real effect on smoking among teenagers.

While the plural of anecdote is obviously not anecdata, I suspect from my experience that it won't. I'd like to see the numbers, a few years from now.

Google Reader picks of the past week or so (a probably non-reoccurring feature; I just have a large build-up of starred articles, right now):

- Via Sex Crimes: Is Carrie Prejean A Sex Offender?
Part of me feels this shouldn't be in the public eye quite so much. This is an interesting discussion, however.
- Via Sociological Images: The Klondike Bar: Now For Dudes Only
Obvious sexism aside, why on Earth would an advertising campaign limit its aims like this?
- Via The Die Line: Before and After: Royalty [perfume]
I do enjoy packaging and advertising, though. This is very stylish.
- Via Japan Probe: Has international media coverage of Hawker murder peddled an ugly strand of uninformed stereotyping?
Answer: I'm rather inclined towards yes, in this case; also, don't read the comments.
- Via Jezebel: Are Gay Stereotypes Keeping us From Making Progress?
Answer: Umn... Obviously.
- Via Feministe: Chris Surette: Worst Person in the World? [possible triggers]
Even our paper isn't this bad.
- Via Jezebel: Rapists Admit Repeated Crimes [possible triggers]
My skin crawls.
- Via Picture is Unrelated: Rubber Ducky Overload
I want it.
- Via Sociological Images: Facebook Needs to Know
No it doesn't.

As I marathon Gilgamesh, I re-realise two things:

- Rewatching Kazamatsuri's scenes with later knowledge makes them more interesting. Particularly 'families can be broken', which seems like just some hollow, malicious wording on first watch, but... isn't.
- Toru seems a bit partial to Isamu. Perhaps it's an idolisation thing...

I'm also watching it in English with English subtitles and realising: The dubbers changed a lot. Now, I understand that this takes place due to lip syncing and other issues, but, uh... Some of it's really rather different. For one thing: Isamu's everyone's casualness is pastede on yey. (He They never calls him Tatsuya. He always call him Madoka).

I still can't keep the sausage festival Gilgamesh straight.

Also: QUALITY.

So, I'll be spending all of Saturday in the office, laying out the paper, looks like. That's scary.

At least I have Google Reader to keep me company.

ETA: I want to read this.

InDesign needs to stop hanging up when I'm trying to lay out the paper. It's getting rather annoying.

I woke up this morning to someone calling my name, but there was nobody home.

If you haven't grown out of your juvenile, petty, high school ways, then I have no use for you, and nothing to say to you. Backstabbing and gossiping maliciously with not be tolerated. I'll say it again as I have said before: My 'love life' is none of your business.

Nor will attacking me out of the blue for some misperceived slight in front of an entire office of people endear you to me.

Also, I just wiki walked on the Bureau of Justice Statistics' website.

For over an hour.

ETA: Whoops, left out a word. It was late and I was tired. (Now it is early and I am tired).

( Setsuko, Nanjo, Mark, Brown, Kandori, Nyarlathotep, etc. )

In other news, I've been entertaining myself by putting entries on my friendslist into this, just to see what it spits out. I have no idea what the algorithm is, though. Mostly, it seems to be fairly accurate, for whatever reason: I wonder, then, what words/sentence patterns does it go off of? And why do men and women use said words/patterns differently, if they really do? It seems likely to me that it is because of socialisation, but I will have to do some research, as I am now quite interested.

It doesn't handle fiction writing well, however, nor is it meant to.

I want to check character dialogue now, nevertheless, and I wonder: will my female characters read female, or male, like my own writing (and, I assume, transcribed spoken dialogue) does? And will my men be estimated to read as male, as well? This should be interesting.

(This entry was 'weak male' until I wrote some more and rechecked it. It is now 'MALE'. It appears that the longer an entry is, the better feel the checker gets, which makes sense).

Spotted today in the locker rooms:

'Lock it or lose it!
Public Saftey:
[number]'

I wonder if anyone else has noticed yet...

I want my pessimistic premonitions to stop becoming true.

Feeling recovered, and I'd like to go outside and work out instead of staying in, but the weather here has prevented it entirely, so I'm still playing Persona when I'm not doing homework. Homework is boring to post about, generally, resulting excesses of posts to this end instead of any substance. Regular programming will commence, er, eventually.

Anyway, so I was on Wikipedia, looking up various Personas Personae, as the first game in lacks an informational function. (Or it may have one, but I still haven't found it). I like to learn about the various mythologies that Atlus draws the demons and personae from, being a mythology geek... I've learned about the mythologies of peoples I didn't even know existed this way. Anyway, I found this:

In Vajrayana Buddhism and in the esoteric Tendai and Shingon sects of Japanese Buddhism, Rāgarāja (Aizen Myō-ō, 愛染明王 or 愛染妙王) is the deity which transforms worldly lust into spiritual awakening.
_[...]
According to the Yogin Sutra attributed to Vajrabodhi, he represents the state at which sexual excitement or agitation becomes enlightenment and passionate love becomes compassion for all living things.

So... This is what Nanjo's initial Persona is based off of. Oh yeah, and it looks like this. (May or may not be entirely safe for work). I will not read into this, I will not read into this, I will not read _{too deeply} into this...

Also, I think I may already like Reiji Kido, and Yosuke seems decent, as well as being the pronto-Daisuke. (I see what you did there, Atlus).

_{I need to polish off Eternal Punishment, though. Why haven't I? I think it may be because I suspect that someone is not going to survive the ending. (At least I know Tatsuya doesn't die, though, as he's apparently a Who's Who guest in Persona 3). That, or because I'm about to fight the metal duplicates and Was Sugawara and am not ready. I always seem to be about five levels behind...}

Oh, yeah, one other thing: I'm pretty excited for NaNo this year. I feel like I can take it on and have a chance at getting anywhere; maybe this will be the year I actually make it past a fifth of the way.

( I swiped this video game meme from someone on the f_w friendslist who noted that every time FFIX came up, readers should take a drink. For me, it's more like every time Persona 2 comes up, a drink should be taken... There are spoilers in here. )

... And believe it or not, my username was taken from the psychological concept. The games too, but mostly the concept.

I've played Persona for four+ hours so far (I've been sick in bed, and while I'd rather not miss any classes, I don't want to make anyone sick), and picked the SEBEC route.

First of all: They seriously made Mark black in the original USA port? Slang-talking, dancing, stupid, womanising, authority-shunning, always-in-trouble, graffiti-artist Mark? Uh... Really? Thankfully, Atlus seems to have realised how utterly stupid and racist they were being.

That said:

- Naoya has a little personality, though it comes from the perceptions of others. (E.g., he's not studious, Yuki thought he was a pushover, etc). I think Tatsuya has spoiled me on main characters, bursting with personality as he is...
- In an inverse from Persona 2, in which I like everyone except for Ginko and Ellen, I dislike most of the characters so far, excepting Naoya, Yukino, and Nanjo (... somehow). Oh, and Saeko.
- Philemon became retroactively hot and looks quite similar to how he appears in Persona 2: Innocent Sin, with an added lab coat, a cravat, and black hair. So, what I want to know: What does he look like under the mask?
- Yuki was one of my favourites in Innocent Sin, and I wish she were a regular party member.
- The battle system is really good. Everything flows smoothly, and I like the tactics aspect, although attacks can't be stopped until everyone's gone, both demons and humans. It wasn't hard to learn at all, because it's so similar to Persona 2's system, and either way is quite intuitive...
- ... Whereas the Persona creation system is a touch on the clunky side. It's best described as being a combination of Persona 2's contact command system (though it's not as entertaining - no contact combinations) and Persona 4's card fusion system, but with quite a few other variables which probably seemed like a good idea at the time but aren't really necessary.
- My only real complaint: Augh, the mazes, why would you ever? They make me dizzy sometimes.
- I did have some trouble getting used to the controls in the rooms, though. The angle threw me off.
- Oh, and the encounter rate needs to be turned down.
- And I know this makes me a bad fan, but I like the music quite a bit.

BRB.

If I friend you, you're probably posting about something that is important to or relevant to me, or, alternatively, we've known each other for a good while. At any rate, anything said here is not to be repeated elsewhere. Thank you.