In past news: Major American media conglomerates (Disney, Fox) have begun entering foreign markets where they have less of a foothold and fund/make localized products with native companies, instead/alongside of the traditional "pump and dump"-ing of American media products. See the Japanese version of Sideways, Fox opening a Korean branch, Disney making animated films based on local Chinese/Russian fables.

And now, a Chinese version of High School Musical. Zhang Jun Ning is starring, alongside some of the guys from BOBO, apparently.

If nothing else, this'll certainly be...interesting.

Other stuff:

- Neat DanweiTV report interviewing organizers of the Beijing Queer Film Festival.
- I am going to regret starting The Prisoner, aren't I? I know what TV show I'm going to obsessively watch and finish at work during the wee hours of the morning!
- Top 10 Bad Messages From Good Movies. I especially love 2 and 3.

This attitude of brazenly encouraging learned technological helplessness is exactly why I do not and never will trust Apple. They may make an aesthetic product, but if I can't open said pretty box up without fucking myself over for all eternity, then I don't want it.

Other bits from catching up on my NYT/NPR/etc. backlog:
- Marry me, Gail Collins? I clean up after myself and I make a mean curry!
- Review of Sarah Palin's book, "Going Rogue". I can only hope someone does a reading to equal those of Joe the Plumber's and Carrie Prejean's "biographies."
- Fun collection of Ramen-related memories.
- Famous authors read the funnies, via Roger Ebert. Garfield via James Joyce has a surreal quality, being so awkwardly true to its source material.

EONUS: A surreal moment, courtesy of Mississippi's gambling interests. Sorry, casinos, but the only thing I really want to know about Troy King is if he's really yet another conservative republican homophobe hypocrite.

Given I'm ignoring the fact I had my first "I am gibbering and losing motor control" panic attack in a year and a half last night, I feel it is time for me + kittens.

( Kittens! )

Got asked to signalboost this, so posting:

"As you might know, lately Girl-Wonder.org has been plagued by malware, the source of which is as yet unknown. After valiant effort at piecemeal destruction, the webmistress finally resorted to asteroid bombardment, and the destruction resulting is pretty extensive.

If any of you are experienced in civicrm, and could lend Betty a hand in putting everything back together, that would be excellent of you. Please contact her at sturdyandserviceable AT gmail.com

If you have as much idea of civicrm as I do (which is, it starts with a c) it would be great if you could signalboost this call for help."

All will be sent for free, and there may be more added the longer I clean/arrange my apartment.

Comics:
Birds of Prey #105, 109, 144
Venus Wars II #1-5, 7, 9
Ultraman Tiga #3 (no cover)
Legend of Mother Sarah: City of Angels #4

CD:
Watashi Wa, "Eager Seas"

Books: See BookMooch list.

One of the things I love about my stress management tactics my ability to continuously create absolutely asinine projects that will please only me in utterly pointless ways. In example, stress means lots of making myself 9 p.m. cocktails and thinking thoughts like, "Hmm, Amp and Everclear. The hangover would be beautiful. And vomitous."

(I will be trying this Lethal Electroshock Injection Friday night, because I am really curious.)

( But really, I just want to babble about Anime Weekend Atlanta. )

A moment of fandom crossover horror, brought to you by Hulu.

What Edward Cullen really shouted when Bella saw him sparkle for the first time: "Believe it!"

Finally, a post which (sort of) alls for the laser cock.

Recently, there was wank involving Ravenous Romance. Being an, ahem, big fan, I decided to risk e-mail spam to get a copy of their current free short story, Handsome and Petal.

We begin with a fundamental question posed by the protagonist: "Could a simple male experience such superhuman sex without losing his marbles?"

(Warning: There is a Jesus joke in here. An "I Am Going To Hell" Jesus joke.)

( I don't know! Let's find out! )

Last Weekend, in movies:
- Cutie Honey
- Bullitt
- Citizen Kane
- Xanada

( This weekend, in photos. )

Ways to tell if I will bookmark something in Delicious:
- Is it about food? More specifically, is it about beer?
- Does it involve globalization?
- Does it involve Asia?
- Does it involve comics or animation (in China)?

Then I've probably bookmarked it. (Sadly, there are no Chinese comics/animation involving the globalization of beer in Asia. But one can hope!)

So, I may be the only person left who's still working on 疲子英雄。 It's not exactly good, but it's gotten plenty Tropperiffic, a They Fight Crime with Triang Relations and a decent Conspiracy Kitchen Sink full of Super Soldiers at the middle. (A conspiracy, it should be noted, named after french president Sarkozy.)警察

I do love that 疲子英雄 managed to combine the classic soap opera tropes "Magic Plastic Surgery," "Incest is Relative," and "It's Personal" all in one character and still make him likable instead of annoyingly simpering. Which is a testament to Vic Zhou's acting skills, given he plays the worst Wingman ever when Mark Zhao's on screen being angry.

Which, it happens, is most of every episode. I like Mark Zhao as an actor, but his depth is largely limited to "HELLO I AM YING XIONG. MY NAME IS UNIRONICALLY PROPHETIC. I AM A SIMMERING BALL OF FLAMING JUSTICE WHO IS CAN'T KEEP HIS BIG MOUTH SHUT. YOU MAY HAVE SEEN ME IN EVERY BUDDY COP MOVIE EVER. NOW, IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME, I NEED TO GO SIMMER."

Except when you put him on screen with Ivy Chen, at which point he remembers how to act and have chemistry.

I may be looking forward to the hot sex scene.

In "News I Did Not Expect to Hear," Disney is buying out Marvel Entertainment.

Mickey + Spiderman = Profit??? I may lack a magic 8 ball, but I sense that the answer is "Ask again later."

So, it was brought to my attention that Tony Bedard has seen my post on the Great Ten and responded.

(If it wasn't clear: I am a white American, born and raised in the US.)

( Rebuttal. )

Without meaning to, this post basically became a long-form essay on Western cultural appropriation of Eastern Asia sphere cultures in American comics, the nature of costumed superheroes as a media commodity, and why exactly I hate the Great Ten and what they represent.

( 'It’s like English-Chinese food, take away the spices and add sweet-sour flavour.' )

This book, Searching for Whitopia: How the Whiter Half Lives, sounds absolutely fascinating. I'm curious to see if he looked at if the places he went were once (or still are) considered "sundown towns."

I'm also interested to see his argument that "the small government movement has always had racial components, beginning with white flight from central cities and public schools in the 1960's -- and a great deal of this is based on fear"--and then see if it would hold up against white Southern minds.









And in Authors Not Of the Time, SF author John C. Wright gets his crazy on, then when faced with overwhelming internet derision, declares, "Even though we are on opposite sides, I assure you that the real division in the world is not between Right and Left, not between Homophobes and Pervertarians, but between men of reason and good will, we men of the mind, and our mutual foes, the men of unreason, the men of mere emotion."

Also, anger at his opinions is is in actuality all about others' collective daddy/mommy complex, for "Those folks are all mad at their fathers or something, and wanted to say to me hateful things they never got a chance to say to the people they are really mad at."

Of all the things I'd like to say to my parents (and there's a lot), that some guy on the internet is an ass is not one of them.

UPDATE: Aaaaannnndddd he's back! Some choice quotes:

"If the incest is consensual, between adults, and sterile (so that there are no birth defects) on what ground can it be called illicit while homosexuality is called licit?"

I WONDER.

"Those of you who argued that sex with a sterile woman is the same as homosexual acts: this is both irrelevant and false. You are conflating the sex act with mere stimulation of the sexual organs."

Sterile people don't have sex, they are...stimulated. By...sex? Puppies? Dildos? Unicorn farts? I dunno!

One of the great "advantages" of my job is the fact I get paid to watch infomercials at 3 a.m.

Right now, we're on CCN, whose ineptness at selling you pointy, deadly implements borders on farcical. While HSN has the zoom-in voice-over down, CCN spends large passages zoomed out from the product piled on a table while the host rambles in concentrated Shatner-esque bursts just off-stage, audibly digging around in a cardboard box. He regularly forgets the prices to his own items, then announces blithely, "Why, I've never actually seen this before!"

Yesterday morning was Final Events of Biblical Prophecy, whose high school play theatrics, when combined with the budget of Bibleman, produce such important lessons as, "Rapture will give you superpowers and let you breathe in space!" and "Heaven is seeing everything through a drunken haze."

Cat: *rubs against leg and makes noise*
Me: Why Kitty make noise? Why does Kitty go *attempts to imitate noise, sounds like engine filled with mucus failing to turn over*?"
Cat: *ignores and purrs, demanding more pettings*

-

Me: *begins writing in "Positive Personal Statement of the Day Journal" So Cat, what do you think about today's statement being "My cat loves me"?
Cat: *meow of "Whatever."*
Me: *puts down "I learn from my mistakes."*

And, meme: Leave me a comment and I will reply with why I like you. If I don't know you, I'll either make something up or tell you why I like your LJ/DW. You must pay for the privilege by posting a message like this one on your LJ/DW.

Reason #842 why "Strike Witches" is creepy fanboy lolicon moe pandering: The second issue of Kadokawa Shoten's Nyantype magazine will offer a limited Strike Witches Pants Ja Nai Kubi Makura (Strike Witches They're-Not-Underpants Neck Pillow) to its readers on Thursday.

Yes. It is a young girl's crotch, which you wear around your neck.

*garglefargleteethgnash*

Kristen Bell, you have not reassured me that Astro Boy is not going to be American drek.

You have merely made my worries worse.

NEW GARO 3-D MOVIE FUCK YES!

THE CAPSLOCK WILL CEASE WHEN THE SMILE LEAVES MY FACE which is never!

- Apparently, Local Apartment Complex is taking lessons from Evony's advertising team.

( Large image warning. )

Of course, the last ad doesn't even bother having any information about the apartment complex at all.

- New Ping Your Spaceman post on Tampax's problematic "man with a vagina" ad campaign.

- I keep finding and purchasing Avatar: The Last Airbender DVDs on $3 clearance, all the while still having a huge existing show backlog already. And this is not counting the fact Avatar is a gamble for me, because I wasn't won over by the first few bits I saw, though it tried very, very hard.

I shall commit myself to getting at least half of S&A's last season done tonight if I can stave the guilt off long enough.