Eccentric Flower:200908/bogo
From Eccentric Flower
«August 2009 «Eccentric Flower
bogo (and other brief matters)
Today I walked past an athletic-wear store, as I always do in the morning, and there were posters in the windows which said
shoe bogo
selected pairs
The rendering in all lower case threw me a bit, but then I realized this was BOGO or Buy One Get One. And now that I think about it, Payless has used "bogo" as if it were a word several times in its signs over the past few years. Is this actually recognized vernacular now? Do young whippersnappers walk past this poster and instantly understand what it means?
My hunter character in LOTRO has a bow skill called Swift Bow. I fuss occasionally about how misnamed it is. Its induction time is twice as long as any other skill she has. She sits and watches the skill s l o w l y charge. Then it fires two shots. I suppose the second shot, which effectively takes no time at all to fire, is the "swift" part.
This is how buy-one-get-one sales work. You get one pair free, but they can do this because all the shoes in the store cost twice as much as they should have to begin with.
I am going to force any number of people to read today's XKCD. Not that I believe it will make any difference. They have taken it into their heads that some people have innate computer expertise that they don't, which is usually a lie. If they admitted to themselves that often it's just like the flowchart says, then they'd have to take responsibility for learning their own computers, whereas it's so much easier and lazier to just call for a wizard and say "Do this for me plzthx."
The problem is the wizards don't especially like being wizards, and have better things to do than point out that the "save" option is likely to be on the first menu on the left and it's likely to be called "Save." Every day. Ten thousand times.
I am anxiously awaiting word on how the third choice in this poll can possibly be a valid option. I am legitimately confused here.
Did you realize I am posting new photos again? (You may not have particularly cared, and that's fine, but I thought I'd note it in case you did care and hadn't noticed.)
Ponyo is a good film. It is definitely one of Miyazaki's younger-skewing films, but there's a fair bit for adults. If nothing else it is watchable just for the sheer beauty of it. I don't think I need to own this one - I may not even need to watch it again - but I don't regret having seen it at all.
I don't think Miyazaki has an ounce of ego in his body, but I admit that during the opening sequence - which has thousands of jellyfish, all different shapes and sizes, all moving, all animated ... I could almost hear Miyazaki's voice saying, This is how it is done, bitches.
What's interesting is that Disney has learned a few things. Not that their dubs of previous Miyazaki films were bad - not at all - but they have left this one alone to a degree they never have before. They don't try to make the settings not-Japanese or change Japanese usage (such as the boy calling his teacher "Sensei" with absolutely no clarification). They present it as what it is - a Japanese film set in Japan that they have happened to add an English dub to. They haven't indulged their nasty habit of filling the film's silences with additional dialogue or music or sound. And so on. Even the horrific song at the end is a direct translation of the Japanese-language song that was there. Its singer was eight years old too, so having the Cyruslet sing it strikes me as a fairly exact copy. Ridiculous in any language.
Of course I credit everything smart that Disney is doing with animation lately to Lasseter, which may be giving too much credit to him and not enough to others. I definitely credit him with going back to the 2D style of animation in the upcoming The Princess and the Frog - but note my phrasing.
Three years ago, I prophecied that Disney's decision to abandon cel animation was not going to be the end of the world and did not mean the end of their classic style. Yes, Disney was temporarily seduced by the commercial success of the CGI stuff, but the real reason, the lurking reason, was cost. Cel animation is no longer sustainable. No one can spend three to four years and that much manpower making a film any more. What I figured would happen, after the temporary love affair with CGI, was that the CGI tools would be used to speed up the process of making traditional-looking cartoons. After all, there's no reason you can't use the renderer to churn out frames that look like old-school animation ... and it's immensely faster than the old way. Princess and the Frog is only technically a 2D cartoon, as far as I can tell. Eventually, the boundary will get blurred enough that no one will care, and no one except a few hardcore will mourn the days of people painting painstakingly on sheets of acetate.
Miyazaki, of course, is hardcore, and a perfectionist, and will never make anything but a wholly hand-drawn film. But Miyazaki doesn't have too many more films in him. It remains to be seen if someone will be able to capture and continue his unique visual style after he dies.
P.S. Please notice the complete absence of any commentary in this section on the presence or lack of non-white characters in Disney films, with particular pertinence to The Princess and the Frog. Please maintain this absence of commentary. Thank you.
Findings:
Most people don't recognize sarcasm.
Most adults would prefer a good night's sleep over a good night's sex. Then again, with 30 million of us suffering chronic insomnia, can you blame them?
Elaborating on that second link: Early risers are mutants. I have always suspected as much.
If you're one of two siblings, and your sibling died before you were born, I could see you legitimately claiming to be an only child.
-- 17:05, 24 August 2009 (BST)
Synchronicitiously, Twenty-three Skidoo!
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Add "reinstall the operating system" to that chart, and you can graduate from local IT wizard to paid professional. Hey, someone's got to do it.
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I'm glad that Iain replied about the poll first, because on first glance it looked like the poll subject was, "A situation that is complicated for one person might be crystal-clear for another." And: my knee-jerk response was, "gosh, what a complicated question."
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I often forget to check the photo link, so it's nice to have the reminder.
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...apparently I don't have something to say about every single item in this post, after all.
-- 17:15, 24 August 2009 (BST)
My cousin has a role in The Princess and the Frog, which gives me hope that the New Orleans/S. Louisiana accents might not totally suck. Fingers crossed.
-- 17:19, 24 August 2009 (BST)
I was apparently being far too literal about the definition of "only child," and I stand corrected.
-- 17:26, 24 August 2009 (BST)
Fear my mutant superpowers! Rahhhhr!
Ahem. Anyway. I know, for example, a woman whose sister died when they were both very young. She is now in her 40s. Most of her life has been free of sibling, and yet she had one. Is she an only child? I would say no, but if she self-identified that way I would not argue with her over it. Or people who acquired step-siblings fairly late, or fairly early but never lived with them, or all of those family shape variations that pop up because humans go around not fitting neat little boxes.
-- 17:28, 24 August 2009 (BST)
"No one can spend three to four years and that much manpower making a film any more."
You mean in order to produce a "cel" animation, yes? Otherwise, I posit "Corpse Bride" as having taken many years to produce. I was astonished to learn that the puppets alone took 18 months to two years to complete.
I often tell myself "Oh, that was brilliant, you twit. Just brilliant." Does that count? I'm having a great deal of trouble not being sarcastic toward my aged mother, because sometimes it's the only way I can cope with her. "Sure, THAT makes a lot of sense, Ma," is not at all unusual. Funny, because I don't consider myself to be an especially cruel person, but there are times when one's patience can only be tried so far. Makes my standing as "the good daughter" seem a little shaky...
I'm still chortling over the comment about seal liver being an aphrodisiac and good luck to Greenpeace. Sometimes the comments are as entertaining as the article.
-- 18:04, 24 August 2009 (BST)
I have two half-brothers (one per side) whom I didn't meet until I was an adult. They are my brothers, but we each grew up as only children. I agree with Mrissa that you have to let people in the "complex" category self-define; if you don't, you'll step on a land mine.
I was truly hoping that the shoe deal was that if you bought one shoe, you'd get the second one free.
-- 18:14, 24 August 2009 (BST)
I can see where that third option could be valid.
I grew up knowing my grandmother as my mother, though I did not discover our true relationship until I was an adult. I am the only child of my biological mother (who I grew up with as and still call my sister) and father, but my sister has three children that I call niece and nephew but they are really my half brothers and sister. See? Complicated.
-- 18:52, 24 August 2009 (BST)
Stop-motion is as or more laborious than cel animation. I think all the stop-motion being done these days is basically a labor of love. While techniques to reduce the work needed have evolved in some small way, such as posable/interchangeable-part models (Coraline even used 3D printing technology to make its models) and the use of digital editing and production software, I don't think stop-motion will ever become efficient. Henry Selick knew Coraline was an enormous risk, and said as much.
-- 19:06, 24 August 2009 (BST)
About the flowchart, I was tempted to mention that Linux doesn't usually have all those helpful menu items, but then, anybody who would go near Linux probably wouldn't waste your time asking for entry-level assistance.
However, I often ask for help with applications, simply because of the time factor. I could probably work it out for myself, eventually, but I NEED IT NOW! It takes way longer to google and sift through all the "well, have you tried this?" responses than it does to punch Sean and say, how do you X?
-- 20:39, 24 August 2009 (BST)
i have accepted my status as the only person in my household who will be excited for a Miyazaki film. a trailer for Ponyo was stumbled upon independent of my suggestion and there was significant surprise that i hadn't been recently begun foaming at the mouth for it.
a trailer for The Princess and the Frog failed to push any of the proper buttons and actually pushed some of the wrong ones. animated stuff out of Disney proper feels far too processed now.
i'm holding on to the shred of a rumor that Miyazaki's studio-mate Takahata is working on another feature. <swoon>
-- 21:14, 24 August 2009 (BST)
Bunny, most of the apps the non-geek Linux users (no, that's not an oxymoron) I know use are cross-platform and pretty GUI, so I think it applies. And if you're using Emacs, well, all bets are off...
On "bogo", the association I've got is what my bogometer measures, and it's pegged right now.
-- 21:56, 24 August 2009 (BST)
My dad had a son by a lady who wasn't my mom, years before I was born. That boy grew up to be extremely troubled - apparently rather dangerous, in fact - and the whole time I was growing up I was aware of this mysterious "half brother," but I never saw him, nobody ever talked about him and I had no curiosity. I was effectively an only child. But sometimes I'd see stuff on TV where people talked about half brothers like they were, you know, BROTHERS, and that weirded me out. I suppose I thought of my half brother the way pessimists see the glass as half empty. He was an optional relation, and I opted out.
So. Am I an only child? Gosh, what a complicated question.
-- 22:34, 24 August 2009 (BST)
I know someone who is an only child, but his sister isn't. It's very weird to watch, because that behavior is really not usually asymmetric. (She was adopted when he was in his mid-teens and already not spending much time at home--so her "always" and her "never" and all of her other base level assumptions are those of someone with an older brother, and none of his are someone with a younger sister.)
See? All these examples, all these opportunities for me to be a complete jerk by saying, "Oh, Robert, those people aren't REALLY your brothers," or, "Oh, Ursula, that's REALLY your BROTHER and you should feel x, y, and especially z about him." Option three was me attempting to pass up the opportunity to be a jerk.
-- 23:22, 24 August 2009 (BST)
Mrissa, one of -- perhaps the -- thing that makes you wonderful to me is that I know you'd you'd never choose to be a jerk of any magnitude, let alone a complete one. I hope you know I'd never choose to be one to you, either, and that our disconnects are simply that, with no unkind intent on this end whatsoever.
-- 03:55, 25 August 2009 (BST)
I have three fathers - bio and two steps. I am my mother's only child, but not my father's - he has a daughter five years younger than me. (We did not meet until I was 26, and we've seen each other 5 or 6 times.) I have three step brothers from stepfather #1, we get along fine but are not close. I think of myself as an only child with siblings among the fathers' families. Complicated indeed.
-- 13:21, 25 August 2009 (BST)
I am only an only child in my head when I am in a bad mood. "Poof, you all just disappeared! Ah, the life of an only child is a lonely one, indeed."
I am stupidly excited about a new Miyazaki film, particularly one that skews young, although we won't see it until DVD. My kid can watch Totoro all day long.
-- 13:43, 25 August 2009 (BST)
This is not, I think, as good as Totoro. But then, few things are.
My favorite Miyazaki film is one that not too many people have heard of. He made it before his name became known over here, it definitely skews to an older audience, and I wish adults in this country didn't think animation was for kids, because there's a whole lot of grown-ups who like Casablanca and films like that who really need to watch Porco Rosso. The best way to watch it is the French dub with English subtitles. You don't have to understand the French; it's just that the sounds of the voices are perfect in that dub. Despite it being made in Japan it's set in the post World War I Mediterranean, and has a very European feel to it.
-- 15:36, 25 August 2009 (BST)
Mel:
I kind of hated Porco Rosso. But then I'm not a huge fan of Casablanca, either. (I mostly just think it's overrated.)
It's possible that I would like Porco Rosso better if I watched it again now that I know what to expect. I've only seen it that one time.
-- 04:30, 26 August 2009 (BST)
I am not a huge fan of Casablanca (the essay on why will have to wait for another day). In a strange way, Porco Rosso is what I would have liked Casablanca to have been. To me, it goes into much of the same territory, but does it better and with a lighter touch. Of course, I'm aware that I'm besmirching a film that some people think is the best film ever made. But, eh, tastes do vary.
-- 14:11, 26 August 2009 (BST)
I looooved Porco Rosso. Really really really.
And yes, Robert, I know that none of our disconnects have come up because I thought you were being malicious. Set your mind at ease there.
-- 22:05, 26 August 2009 (BST)
Iain:
I am anxiously awaiting word on how the third choice in this poll can possibly be a valid option. I am legitimately confused here.
Eh. I can sort of get it. For example, someone I graduated college with had an older brother and sister, so she was not literally an only child. On the other hand, her youngest sibling was 25 years older than she was (she was a late life "what do you mean, that's not menopause?" baby), so functionally, she was an only child. I think that happens when the gaps between children are large enough; my mother used to say that my aunt had four only children because the gaps between her children were so large that they couldn't really relate any other way until they were adults.
Early risers are mutants. I have always suspected as much.
...So apparently I not only have delayed sleep phase disorder, but I've also got a mutant sleep gene. Good grief.
-- 16:47, 24 August 2009 (BST)