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Entries for June, 2004

June 2nd, 2004

eri, rosen, zelda . . . links added

Like I said I would. Now let me get back to my nap. ^^

zelda: I think theres a lot of kurifuri progress . . . I just haven't been a part of it. ^^ Gome~n, tapi koq kayaknya lagi males berinternet banget. ^^ I need to update my kurifuri (CF crew) links. Theres a blog site and everything for CF updates, if you didn't know. Tendang mashi if things are slow. He's the furikuri mafia boss. ^^ *kicked by mashi*

mashi: sebenernya bukan elo magnetnya. yaoi=magnet, mashi=besi. soalnya yg ketarik kan elo ke yaoinya bukan yaoi ke elonya. ^^ *fisika asal* Cie~ akhirnya jadi juga cha page gwe. Apa semua CF links, gwe link ke elo aja? Biar bandwidth lo mabok. XD

eri: I did color it. Diqit sih. It's very pale and a little invisible because of the transparent background. But it is there. Gile, disamain ama anak TK T.T . . . . Sadiez. XD brarti anak TKnya prodeji dong? haha~ *digampar*

rosen: Ngomong apa ya ama rosen? Ga jadi deh . . . ^^v Ini linknya dah gwe pajang.

rurounibug ; 10:04 PM|fine, ignore me

June 3rd, 2004

Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn

Yesterday I went out and bought more books. I'll probably be back at the second hand shop before I even finish these, but thats got more to do with my skip-around style of reading than anything else. I eat through books with never any idea of whats going on. ^^

Anyway, Tad Williams:

The book I picked up was The War of the Flowers, which I hope will be more fun than I found Otherland. I just had to give up on Otherland.

Otherland, if I remember correctly, starts when a soldier--I think WW1--dies on the battlefield, but doesn't. Instead, he ends up somewhere Else. I never could make heads or tails out of it, but whatever.

This entry to flog Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, which I read ages and ages ago.

If you liked LoTR at all, try reading these. They're very, very different, but have the same coming-of-age, epic struggle of good against evil, etc. There's too much in the three (or four) books to go over but, just quick:

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is the name of the trilogy. If you go out hunting for it, the individual books are called: (1) The Dragonbone Chair (2) The Stone of Farewell (3a) To Green Angel Tower part1 (3b) To Green Angel Tower part2. Yes, it's a trilogy with four books. Just another reason to love it. XD

MS&T's protagonist is the scullion Simon, who lives at the old--and somewhat in decline--castle known as the Hayholt. As in Middle earth, Osten Ard has the feeling of things being on the way out. Magic seems to have once been about, but is now relegated to a folk tale. It's recent enough to spook people, but not so much that they fully believe in it.

This world's magical folk are known as the Sithi, and they are somewhat reminiscent of elves. Iron poisons them, and they have been driven nearly to the brink of extinction by the late king John the Prebyter, who had also set up giant "nails" to keep them at bay.

So Simon lives a rather dull, sculldrudgery kind of life in the dusty castle until the high king dies and releases an evil known as the Storm King. As the story progresses, all the history of the world we learn becomes entwined with what is happening--the history of the sithi and of man, and of three swords: memory, sorrow, and thorn, all having something to do with Ineluki the Storm King, and how to vanquish him.

At first, though, no one but the scholarly League of the Scroll have any idea of what is coming and Simon, apprenticed to a member of the League, is forced to flee the castle. Later, stumbling about in the forest, he almost accidentally rescues a Sithi prince and befreinds the Quanuc, Binabik, who is somewhere between a hobbit and a dwarf. Binabik rides a wolf when the rest of his people--who you get to meet later--ride rams. I wish I remembered what her name was.

Theres knights, priests, princes, kings, a witch (with an awesome bird-footed house), a girl, or course, and all manner or ucky evil things like bukken--who I imagine as zombies that dig through dirt like Digger bad guys but creepier--and trolls, and sick water dwelling things, all of whom you get to know quite well. This series was the first--and so far the only--to give me the feeling of a truly populated world without becoming overly intricate like Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. In MS&T, you got lost in the world, not in the book. Everything has something to do with somehting else, but somehow, it's not difficult to keep track of it.

And it comes off beautifully, from the Quanuc homelanf of Yiquanuc, to the fabric sithi city (heh) of Jao e-Tinukai'i, and damn I wish I had never read this series so I could be reading it for the first time again. T.T

It's really late. I don't know why I feel the need to tell you folk about books I read when I'm dying of sleepyness, but blame incoherence on that. I think I'm doing better than I did in the Cyteen "review" ^^; Maybe it's also the fault of the late hour that I'm deeply disturbed by the fact that I can't remember the names of my favorite charachters from a series I read in middle school/first year high school.

Because, in keeping with the Cyteen garbled ranting, I was going to tell you about my favorite chrachters, other than Binabik, and his wolf. The sithi Simon rescues plays a large part later, and while I'm fodn fo him, my favorite two charachters were the Prince Joshua's knight, whose name I belive started with a D, and the duke of some dukedom whose mane starten with O or had O in it. It says something about the scale of the story that these charachters, although they are central and play a large part, never meet each other. A lot of important people never meet, but their actions have huge effects as Ineluki's influnce spreads and spreads until the sithi have to decide whether to join forces with the humans who'd massacred them or not. Taking into consideration, of course, the part their history played in setting up the situation, their kinship to Ineluki, and the shared threat.

Find it. Read it. 'tis awesome. I miss Osten Ard, talking about it. The world is huge, HUGE, I say.

You see, once, even after being the last dumb kid in my 1st grade class to actually learn to read, I wanted to be a writer. I still sort of so, even if my love of anime-physics probably won't translate well into words. But when I see stories like this and background work like CJ Cherryh's ship-by-ship, cargo-by-cargo, leaving, arriving, docking, refueling, station building, fixing, revamping, project funding, birth&death, azi tape desgining record I get kind of discouraged.

Well, more than kind of, because I sort of suck at keeping track of things. For an example of what I mean, check out the mis-links on my fiction page and how I can't remember why I started writing that WK fic steel in the first place. I know there was a reason and that the reason had something to do with Aya-chan, but damn if I can recall what it was.

And thats a relatively simple fic--fan fic, based on a lot of pre-work someone else has already done--with a small number of charachters, who move about in a relatively small world. Tokyo, beign on Earth, and better, on present day Earth, already has the rest of creation sort of implied. I don't need to bother with it.

And still I forget plot and story and they whole damn point of it, even if I had an outline.

More Books That Discourage Bart the enxt time I'm up too late.

ephi You know, it occured to me too, that I have a double of Cyteen1. I'll see if I can find find Cyteen3 before I ship it off alone, though. Theres a baby on the front of C1 that I like to think is Grant, even if its probably Ari2. Maybe its even Justin, though it seems to be getting tape. Which would almost have to make it Grant, the other two beign CITs . . .

Geez, I'm going to bed. I am so not going to sit here till five am comtemplating 80s cover art.

It is, btw, 4:30 am.

Damn it.

rurounibug ; 01:30 AM|2 replies

June 8th, 2004

science-fantasy?

Anyone who wanders in here, feel free to drop your two (or more) cents. Please. I suck at numbers (spectacularly suck, btw) and any help would be appreciated.

That said; I recently picked up a book that mentioned sci-fi physics, and declared that any story featuring faster-than-light travel in a manner such as Star Treks warp drive was blatant disrespect of the known laws of physics and space-time.

He does list 'possible' means of travel such as ships that travel in a possible speed range, with each generation carrying on until they reach their destination. Time-dilation, where the ship travels near the speed of light, and through the laws of the relativity theory, time slows down so much that the travelers don't age significantly, so charachters can travel far distances without aging too much. The problem: Charachters traveling at different velocities, or left behind would all age differently. Good luck keeping track of that. ^^;

Then theres cryongenics. Freeze people, wake them when they arrive. Again, no synificant aging. Again; other chrachters age at different rates, people not travelling with them would get old and die so going home becomes impossible. Also, the goverment (or whoever) sent the ship would be gone or much changed by the time the crew of the ship could return, making the whole thing pointless.

There are other things listed; but they all have their problems. So, the question is: How to overcome the light-speed barrier without turning sci-fi to fantasy? Does it matter? If you read a sci-fi, do you care whether or not the travel is scientifically possible as per the known laws of physics? How else can one have space travel that makes sense? And by that I mean, charachters can travel without sacrificing their whole life (or that of subsequent generations) to the trip, and can return without everything they know being gone or radically altered.

My solutions are: Smaller distances, as in space stations or planet colonies that aren't light-years apart. And travel will take however long it takes. XP

Jumps, like Cherryh's 'folded space' (Although she has dilated time, too, so differences in aging apply, I guess.) or Star Trek's wormholes. But then, I'm foggy how all of this would work. It seems like it would be extremely difficult and need a hell of a lot of energy to fold or alter space-time.

The Alcubierre Drive looks promising as a way of light-speed barrier, but I suspect time-difference between travelers and non-travelers would still be an issue.

Of course, one could always simply ignore those rules. because I am rather fond of the way Disney's treasure Planet has flying space-boats, people wunning around on-deck without any worry about oxygen availability, gravity, of anything else physics bums us out with.

Then, my favorite, just pretend a way was possible, never explain how and why, and get on with it. Assuming, of course, travel physics isn't an integral part of your story.

Does this then make the whole thing fantasy rather than sci-fi? I'm getting fonder and fonder of my little moniker "science-fantasy". But then I'm not sure that a thing like scientasy ^^; isn't just a lazy way out of physics.

Here's some links in the off-chance you were actually interested:

faster than light

and, of course,

faster than light

rurounibug ; 07:15 PM|fine, ignore me

June 9th, 2004

back to our roots

Because I haven't talked manga in a while. And also because Mashi is apparently uninterested in space-time. ^^;

Today I picked up Chrono Crusade, which I'd given a pass before, mostly because Chrono was so reminicient of other chrachters, at least in design. (Namely, Vash, and the two-headed dragon guy from Star Ocean EX.) It must be the coat.

(And yeah, the title made me think it might be a tie-in to Chrono Cross, the game, which sucked.)

The girl he hangs around with (and you just can't trust the American translation names) is a lot like a sweeter *shudder* Moka. Or maybe a slightly less kooky Excel. (Excel-nya Excel Saga, Moka-nya Moka. Yang pake nanya bolot, ah.)

He's a demon she's a gun-toting nun. And iof that's not the worst description . . . . ^^; But it's cool, really! The story is set in the 1920s, and the affluence of the era is attracting dark creatures. Her order banishes them, and she is a professional exorcist.

Enter Chrono. (dundunDUN)

Chrono is a demon whos made a pact with (Esme something. I could get the book. Hang on.) . . . Rosette? Is that original or changed? Anyway, Chrono made a pact with Rosette (that name sits odder by the minute) that he would be sealed and not use his powers. Why? I don't know. I only have vol1. "Next time" they promise at the back of the book. I dunno know. I've heard that before.

It's cute the way Chrono's actually very powerful (and possibly old), but has this young kid form. It's also kya-kya level adorable the way Rosette's always protecting him even if he is far more powerful than she is. Two or three times in book one already. *nyengir* (Kya is indo for Squeee, or other fannish exclamations, if that doesn't creep you out.)

Next time:

Harlem Beat translated as "Rebound"? Naruse Toru is "Nate Torrez"? *chokes on annoyance*

Meitantei Conan is "Case Closed"? Shinichi is "Jimmy"? Ran is "Rachel"?

Or: why Bask hates american translations.

Other notes (AKA: sos blog)

Sorry this place loads so long, 'Shi-san. I think the maps have a big resol or something. *kicked* 'Ntar juga diganti layotna.

AI-ers and Yayu Shrine-ers who wander here, the 'tugas' was the Gbook at my site: the scattering. The link is also in the left column. ^^; Mashi si ga usah. Dah cape liatnya. XP *waves WP around* *smacked by mashi*

rurounibug ; 09:22 PM|fine, ignore me

June 14th, 2004

hontou pic

Just ignore the title line.

This my pic for rosen-chan's "Innocent . . . hontou ni" (or something) pic comp thing. (A pic that looks innocent to non yaoi/yuri fans, but not so much to said fans.) Mine's not as steamy as mashi-san's but I don't think his pic looked very innocent to anyone. XD

I know it screws up the page, and I could have just given you the link. I did the same thing to AI. *smacked by AI-ers*

Heh. Watch me not care. Or be too sleepy to. I'll fix it next time. Or not.

Thank you tokiya for fulfilling the "tugas". *glares ta others* As soon as I have those WP I'll be handing them out . . . . *misuse of power* XD XD XD



(edited to make pic smaller, if less sharp. bigger, slightly sharper version can be found here.)

rurounibug ; 09:26 PM|fine, ignore me

June 19th, 2004

hangups

My computer is full of crap. Not just the admittedly weird crap I save and download, but search engines, porn scans and the electronic versions of vendors hawking wares. Oh, and navbars.

Navbars I never saved or downloaded, but that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. And I'd erase them, but they all have file names like 'msprodu' or 'fileserv' or even 'anmn3' and I can't really remember what was there when I first got the computer and whats an unneccesary addition thats just decided to make itself at home in my programs folder.

Which would still be okay, if my spyware, virus, shareware scans could find them, but as programs I guess they get passed over. So, in short; compie full of crap, can't find/figure out file in order to delete. And when I do, they tell me they're in use, and then my file manager hangs.

Which gets me to the topic f hanging. Holy crap, even my old laptop with the screen hanging off by five wires and one finger of cracked plastic didn't hang this much. And that comp shocked me good whenever I touched it. ^^;

Not sure what to do. I could bring it in somewhere and get if cleaned out, but its full of slash and yaoi as well as advertising junk. Maybe there's some good spyware, virus, worm, advert scan program I can get somewhere?

rurounibug ; 05:42 PM|fine, ignore me

June 19th, 2004

late night book mumble--CJ Cherryh's Foreigner

Because Tabulas ate the rant. Blogger used to do that a lot, but its a first here. Maybe I brushed the touchpad or something.

Anyway, standard up too late procedure is to tell you, via whining and tyypos about books I've read, thought about reading, and almost read, and I was halfway through telling you about CJ Cherryh's Foreighner series, when entry-eating happened.

So, here it goes again.

Foreighner (and I can only hope I'm spelling that right one out of three times) is a series, still on going, about human-alien interaction. Or, I guess human-human-alien interaction. Or something like that.

The story goes a little something like: 200 years ago a human ship got lost, and its population split in two. One part, the workers and technicians, stayed on a space station built in orbit of a habitable (and habitated) planet, while the other, the ship crew stayed with the ship to seek out brave new worlds or the old one they lost. After a while, when the ship didn't come back, and the station started to deteriorate, the station folk took a chance and landed on the planet they'd been orbiting.

Now, 200 years later, they've been through a war with the native atevi, whos technology trails humans due largely to an obssesion to make all number make sense before doing anything based on them. (And anyone who has number problems like I do know they'll never make sense XP ) So, at the time of human landing, atevi has steam engines, and some railroads. Humans gave them television, the game of darts, airplanes, guns, and all manner of other lovely toys. Mmmmm tech.

But right, the war. The result of the human-atevi war is that humans are relegated wholesale to the island of Mospheira, while the rest of the world is atevi. In order to keep the peace between all and sundry, Bren Cameron, a human paidhi--interpreter, diplomat, go-between, etcetera--is appointed to Shejidan, or, more precisely the aiji. Pretend that means 'atevi king' and you should be okay for now.

Three pages into book3, (I read slow, folks!) the ship is back, and has sent paidhis (paidhiin?) of its own to interpret for it's interests. I was enjoying it if not as much as Cyteen, but with the arrival of Jase Graham, things are looking up.

See, the problem is, the human goverment of Mospheira is pokey and stubborn and a little bit dumber than one might hope, and Atevi don't think at all like people do. Although they're not the cold-cruel-emotionless-alien-we're-used-to, (Thank God!) atevi have no concept of freindship, love, or most other things humanity waxes poetic about. Instead, they have a sense of innate loyalty as deep-rooted and DNA coded as love or freidnship. Atevi have no buddies. Just man'chi. Or they do, but man'chi comes first. Or something. See why this is complicated?

And oh yeah, assasination is legal in atevi culture.

See how it can get more complicated? Problems keep cropping up, and Bren-paidhi has to keep fixing them, running interference between people who don't get on among themselves, let alone interspecies.

I give it a "very good" to Cyteen's "Yipppeeeh!" But then, I skipped to all the good parts in Cyteen. ^^;;;

And now for the part we call pet peeves!

1. Mospheira. The name seems out of place in amongst names like Maidingi, Shejidan, Taiben. It sounds to me like a godzilla bad-guy name, but that could just be me.

2. Paidhi School. I really, really wish Bren would stop talking about Deana Hank's scores or anyone else's scores, for that matter. I know paidhiness is ranked by grade, but get over it, man! Many a brilliant person has flunked classes they were smart, talented and informed enough to pass. I know beign paidhi is a complicated matter necessitating math skills, language skills, antropology skills, and so on, but to talk about grades years after you're in the job you wanted . . . . I find it a bit jarring and irritating. It makes me want to smack Bren.

3. The Jago Thing. Christ. Everytime Bren and Jago start to sort it out, a pocket com goes off or an alarm sounds or someone starts shooting. It goes something like this:

Bren: Jago-ji, I meant no offense
Jado: One know that, one meant only to say
*interuption*

Same thing for everytime an interesting talk about atevi minds nad man'chi laying where it should or shouldn't or simply where Bren should let it lay. Something. Always. Happens.

Arrrghhh!!!

4. Goverment Interference. I have a personal peeve with goverments that stand in the way of their own people. This is the same I problem I have when CSI people (Crime Scene Investegations, the tv show, for those that didn't quite catch the topic leap.) get hauled up for searching without a warrant or burning the lab, or having dodgy pasts, etc. Inner Goverment Dealings. Bleh. Keep those damn phone lines, open damn it! (This is back to Foreigner, again for those that didn't follow.)

5. The Jago Thing Again. For a different reason. Whenever Bren and Jago are in the same room, I hear the disney mermaid crab song (nanana, kiss the girl, damn it!! or something similar.) and yet I can't figure out how this would work. Humans are atevi-child-size. Can't wrap my head around it. Don't know if I want to.

6. Damiri: They dream nightly of you doing something improper, Bren-ji. We keep getting comments like this. Are people really attractive to atevi or is this simple teasing. But then, some people really do seem attracted to Bren. (And by people I mean atevi.) I need some whys and what fors. Again, theres never enough explanation on the really interesting parts.

7. Jase Graham. Or just Graham. This ones ludicrous, and not relaly justifiable, but I can't get the Indo parts of my head to want to read this name properly. It refuses to ignore whole syllables, so that I end up reading it "Gre-YEM", "GRA-Ham", "Grey-am" or something similar when I suspect it's really "gram" or maybe "grahm."

8. Man'chi. Actually, I liked the concept. It just bugged me that every higher life form functioned on it. Look at earth. Theres lovey-freindly-mammals, solitary mammals, hive mind bugs, solitary bugs . . . . Lets focus on mammals, since Cherryh says nothing about bugs so far. family structure mammals, solitary mammals, herd mammals, female groups and solitary male mammals, flocking ones (or whatever youd call what bats are) and thats not even getting to reptiles, because thats what I figure wi'itkitiin are.

I just wish something on that planet didn't run on man'chi. As much so Bren would stop moping about the lack of love and salad as that I doubt atevi, wi'itkitiin and that thing that Nokhada and Babsidi are--that thing that looks like a tusked camel on some illiustrations--would all function on man'chi.

I think she said wi'itkitiin did.

Er. Must check again. Actually, I just like to say wi'itkitiin. ^^;;

oh, and 9. Anyone else who wishes Bren would just shoot something? Anything? I prefer an anyone, myself, but I'm willing to settle. XP

I was going to say 10, Hanks, but I know we're supposed to dislike her. Just . . . I really dislike here. Barb, too. Grgarr.

I actually really like this series. Its a lot of fun, and more so as it goes on. <--post-rant apology for ranting. ^^ I start kvetching and can't stop.

Yeah.

And before I go:

mashi: Your drawings innocent? *nosebleed* Ga mungkin. Yg Kanone tampangnya itu innocent? hauhauhaua. High Speed terus sih.

Eh, kalo lo High, gwe Slow, gimana toh? Masa lo mau ninggalin gwe? O iya, bagi blog readersnya yaa~ XD

rurounibug ; 10:12 PM|fine, ignore me

June 22nd, 2004

see you later, space cowboy

As I'm sure you've all heard by now, the first privately built and funded ship has gone into space for a fraction of what NASA would spend on such a mission.

The designer and pilot were on the Jay Leno show tonight, and I have to say, their SpaceShipOne monogramed shirts would have been a lot cooler had they not been denim, but whatever. XP I guess when you're "the crazy old guy in the desert, building a spaceship" (Leno) you can wear what you like. especially if said ship actually makes it to space where, being privately owned, the pilot is then free to set plain m&ms afloat in the cabin.

Pilot: You know, I'm too old to fly a jet liner and they won't let me carry passengers.
Designer: I chose him to fly my ship because he does everything world-class [. . .] he's the best damn stick-and-rudder pilot there is.
[. . .] Thats a damn sight harder than sitting there with your hands folded and letting computers fly for you. And he's in damn better shape than most people normal age-d.

(Bask: normal aged? XD)

Pilot: And when he builds a ship and says it's safe to go, I just go!

If these guys were in their twenties, they'd be high-fiving and yelling 'too old to fly what, byy-ach!' ^^; But then, I guess thats the general mood when you do the impossible.

20 million and a stick and ruder system can either pay Russians to take you to space, or build you your very own SpaceShipOne.

Its the stick and rudder that just kills me. A couple of old guys with old tech. Just goes to show, I guess.

Hey, maybe I'll see you in space someday. Holiday Inn Mars. We'll watch the earthlight and eat m&ms. Plain, not peanut.

rurounibug ; 09:35 PM|fine, ignore me

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