Monday, January 25, 2010
Back The Way You Came...
Here's a paragraph from an article about being a non-white nerd which I found interesting:
"I dug Firefly a lot, but was annoyed that Whedon predictably relegated Asian culture to a neo-Yellow peril future where the extent of China emerging as a superpower means that people throw in a couple of badly pronounced Mandarin words into their everyday conversations, and despite the idea of this looming Asian culture, there are no actual Asian characters to be seen."
This paragraph hit me more than anything else in the article (although I recommend reading the whole thing) because I didn't actually notice the abscense of Chinese characters in Firefly (or any Asian characters, for that matter) until I read this. The basis for the Firefly universe always intrigued me - as hokey as it is - but I never really asked what should have been an obvious question. It seems that it's all too obvious in Firefly to have some characters who could pass for being Chinese. Instead, there are characters with Chinese-sounding surnames but wouldn't you know it, they're all white. What do we have instead? Blink-and-you'll-miss-them Asian extras.
Well, occasionally.
"I dug Firefly a lot, but was annoyed that Whedon predictably relegated Asian culture to a neo-Yellow peril future where the extent of China emerging as a superpower means that people throw in a couple of badly pronounced Mandarin words into their everyday conversations, and despite the idea of this looming Asian culture, there are no actual Asian characters to be seen."
This paragraph hit me more than anything else in the article (although I recommend reading the whole thing) because I didn't actually notice the abscense of Chinese characters in Firefly (or any Asian characters, for that matter) until I read this. The basis for the Firefly universe always intrigued me - as hokey as it is - but I never really asked what should have been an obvious question. It seems that it's all too obvious in Firefly to have some characters who could pass for being Chinese. Instead, there are characters with Chinese-sounding surnames but wouldn't you know it, they're all white. What do we have instead? Blink-and-you'll-miss-them Asian extras.
Well, occasionally.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Home Recording FTW
Check this guy out. Also, check his other stuff out. There isn't a style that he doesn't seem comfortable with.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Nerd Fort
Our house is now a great deal more secure. Not only do we lock our side gate now (Suck it, potential burglars from an era gone by! It wasn't before!), but our front door is so impenetrable that even we can't open it.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Also...
Blah, Blah, Blah...
Two CDs purchased: Don Caballero's American Don and Extra Life's Secular Works. My life just became 48% more complicated.
Looking for a job over the next few weeks. Savings should hold out quite nicely until then. Bought a cheap delay pedal, which is due to arrive any day now - Slowly collecting delay pedals is something I'm apparently doing. It sounds frivolous, even to me, but I can take comfort in the fact that a lot of these things can be resold for almost as much as I got 'em for, assuming I don't be productive with them by cranking out sounds (which, to me, is a better way of justifying the expense).
I have my eye on a $800-ish preamp, which you can gaze upon here. What does it do?
Well, it means I can plug my instruments into things without using an amp first without it sounding horrible. It also means I can have two parallel effects chains at once, rather than everything in a series - or I can feed things back through delays/loopers that they've already come through for more crazy.
In practical terms, that means...not much, sound-wise. I may blog what little it does mean in the other blog I never update.
I'm actively avoiding games. Captain Forever (thank you, Lucas), Forza Motorsport 3 (please don't tease me - driving really quickly can get nerdy as hell and this game goes there...so many stats, numbers and variables to consider!) Red Faction 3 (which I started playing heavily but stopped when Phil bought Forza...on the hardest difficulty, it was nicely challenging) and The Witcher (which Craig bought and has been talking about. The few glimpses of the game I had were promising. I think I'll track down and read the books first).
So, I guess to a certain extent, self-discipline is kicking in nicely. Not writing as much music as I'd like*, given the time I have on my hands, but that should hopefully change soon.
Getting much reading done, which hasn't happened lately - and the last one was a Discworld, of all things, it being Sourcery. Found it more enjoyable than I remember Discworld being. Also read Ringworld, by Larry Niven (no, not a discworld ripoff), which was awesome. Sorta had Fifth-Element style quirkiness at times, but was otherwise sufficiently laden with both geekdom and realism. Will attack the rest of the books on my six-year-old 'To Be Read' pile.
*still writing, though. Cranked out some stuff which may not be too annoying for the rest of the band peoples.
Looking for a job over the next few weeks. Savings should hold out quite nicely until then. Bought a cheap delay pedal, which is due to arrive any day now - Slowly collecting delay pedals is something I'm apparently doing. It sounds frivolous, even to me, but I can take comfort in the fact that a lot of these things can be resold for almost as much as I got 'em for, assuming I don't be productive with them by cranking out sounds (which, to me, is a better way of justifying the expense).
I have my eye on a $800-ish preamp, which you can gaze upon here. What does it do?
Well, it means I can plug my instruments into things without using an amp first without it sounding horrible. It also means I can have two parallel effects chains at once, rather than everything in a series - or I can feed things back through delays/loopers that they've already come through for more crazy.
In practical terms, that means...not much, sound-wise. I may blog what little it does mean in the other blog I never update.
I'm actively avoiding games. Captain Forever (thank you, Lucas), Forza Motorsport 3 (please don't tease me - driving really quickly can get nerdy as hell and this game goes there...so many stats, numbers and variables to consider!) Red Faction 3 (which I started playing heavily but stopped when Phil bought Forza...on the hardest difficulty, it was nicely challenging) and The Witcher (which Craig bought and has been talking about. The few glimpses of the game I had were promising. I think I'll track down and read the books first).
So, I guess to a certain extent, self-discipline is kicking in nicely. Not writing as much music as I'd like*, given the time I have on my hands, but that should hopefully change soon.
Getting much reading done, which hasn't happened lately - and the last one was a Discworld, of all things, it being Sourcery. Found it more enjoyable than I remember Discworld being. Also read Ringworld, by Larry Niven (no, not a discworld ripoff), which was awesome. Sorta had Fifth-Element style quirkiness at times, but was otherwise sufficiently laden with both geekdom and realism. Will attack the rest of the books on my six-year-old 'To Be Read' pile.
*still writing, though. Cranked out some stuff which may not be too annoying for the rest of the band peoples.
