That book meme

I’m currently at work, and will be until about 7am tomorrow morning, so what better time to take part on a meme no one tagged me in...

1. One book that changed your life? Well, I would have to pick the first sci-fi book I ever read as I doubt many other books have steered my life as much as getting into sci-fi genre has done. My mom gave me the book to read when I was ten or so as she thought I would like sci-fi (and boy I bet she has regretted that later on), and it was one of Isaac Asimov’s robot books – most likely it was Caves of Steel – followed by rest of the robot books and then the Foundation series. I never looked back.
2. One book you've read more than once? Unlike Dragon, I don’t actually often read books that many times. Lord of the Rings is probably my most read book, and that one I’ve read probably over ten times... and will probably keep reading, too.
3. One book you'd want on a desert island? Well if it wasn’t Lord of the Rings, I would go for Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It’s got to be one of my all time favourite books – and the only reason I’ve only read it once is that it was emotionally such a trip I’m not ready to go there again just yet.
4. One book that made you giddy? If manga counts, the last book that made me giddy was Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss (volume 1). I didn’t really like it – gothic fashion manga – until the last 20 pages or so, and the last few pages definitely made me giddy... now I’m forced to get the second volume. Beautiful artwork and story is getting interesting. Real books? Difficult question – the strongest emotions are often more on the sobbing side when it comes to books, and while we’re on the subject...
5. One book that wracked you with sobs? The last book that made me cry like baby was Orson Scott Card’s Shadow of the Giant, last of his Shadow saga books. I fell completely in love with Ender (of Ender’s Game) and then Bean, and last chapter of the last book just broke my heart completely. Another one was definitely Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – just plain wow.
6. One book that you wish had been written? I’m going to be really unoriginal and name the book Orson Scott Card has promised to write that will connect the Ender and Shadow books together. He better deliver, I need that book.
7. One book you wish had never been written? I’m not one to take anything away from other people... but I guess there has been a lot of hateful literature coming out lately that we could do without. Don’t ask names, I don’t read them.
8. One book you're currently reading? Just one? I’m listening to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander on my iPod, and I’m reading Justina Robson’s Living Next Door to the God of Love (which is our current book group book). Outlander is slow but atmospheric, and God of Love is just plain weird. In addition I’ve been reading tons of manga lately which I half-count as books – but since it takes under an hour to read one volume I’m not really “currently” reading any... Last manga I read was the latest Naruto album (number 11) which arrived yesterday from Amazon - Kishimoto is as superb as ever, one of the best volumes so far.
9. One book you've been meaning to read? Dragon’s gonna kill me for this, but I haven’t actually read one of his all time favourite books: Mika Waltari’s Dark Angel (Johannes Angelos). I would really like to read it one of these days.

I’m actually going to tag some people! My book devouring friend Sean, and my dearest husband – go ahead, share your book secrets.

Please Come Home

I know, I’ve been a bad blogger... Sometimes just real life takes over – in this case I’m spending every free waking moment with Chu and nothing else really seems worthwhile. I’ll share a moment with you, though. It was previous weekend at the con, and me and Chu were back at the mall in an organic coffee shop to buy some food. I was exhausted so sat down in a corner drinking water while Chu was making the purchases, and my gaze wandered over to a poem that someone had taped on the wall.

No other poem has ever touched me like this did. The poem is called Please Come Home and it’s written by Jane Hooper who wrote it while sick with brain cancer which eventually killed her in 2001. For copyright reasons I won’t quote the whole poem here – it was originally published in Branches of Light Fall 2001 Issue from Banyen Books (which is a Vancouver-based New Age bookshop). When Chu came back I was crying, and we sat down and cried together for a while. Sometimes life is very sad and beautiful at the same time, and this poem brought out lot of feelings I have kept inside. And the most beautiful thing is to be able to share it with someone who completely understands.

Please come home. Please come home.
Find the place where your feet know where to walk.
And follow your own trail home.

Please come home. Please come home into your own body,
Your own vessel, your own earth.
Please come home into each and every cell,
And fully into the space that surrounds you.

Please come home. Please come home to trusting yourself,
And your instincts and your ways and your knowings,
And even the particular quirks of your personality.

Please come home. Please come home and once you are firmly there,
Please stay awhile and come to a deep rest within.
Please treasure your home. Please love and embrace your home.
Please get a deep, deep sense of what it’s like to be truly home.

One last time

Ok, this is the last time I'll bother you with Anime Evolution (well, probably anyway). I spent few hours last night sorting and choosing photos from the con, they are available on Flickr as always. They are mostly meant for people who were there and are probably not of great general interest, so I'll just offer you some of my favourites... hope you like them.

Evolved

Since I'm far too tired to write or edit the photos from Anime Evolution, you have to do with some more podcasts. I would really appreciate comments from peeps who actually bother listening to these...

Me and Chu talking about Naruto cosplayers (1:32 min, 0.9 MB - in Finnish) on Saturday, recorded on the steps where cosplayers hung out. There's a saxophone player on the background who we fell in love with.

Brief soundbite from Saturday while watching Anime Chess (0:49 min, 0.5 MB - in Finnish) by me and Chu.

Our thoughts on cosplay experiences, Dragon talks about his own cosplay as Bryan Fury (2:14 min, 1.3 MB - in Finnish) from Tekken and me and Chu talk about cosplay we've seen (2:49 min, 1.7 MB - in Finnish), recorded in the car on Sunday night.

American Bishounen - Why Angel is not a man's man (8:50 min, 5.2 MB - in Finnish), our thoughts on Dr. Antonia Levi's panel on Sunday comparing Josh Whedon's works on similar works from Japan. Recorded in the car on Sunday night

Things you learn....

Apparently in anime circles, Finland is known for young men dressing up as Japanse schoolgirls in public. As heard in the "Yaoi Zowie, I think they're gay!" panel held by Dr. Antonia Levi at Anime Evolution.

Later: First podcasts for your listening pleasure are available. Firstly me and Chu reviewing the Saturday's highlights for us (9:53 min, 5,8 MB - in Finnish), then Dragon reviewing his best experiences (2:41 min, 1,6 MB - in Finnish). Both recorded in the car on Sunday, so there's some background noise.

Roar Lions roar!

My first podcast (4:18 min, 2.5MB - in Finnish only, sorry). It's a bit noisy (it was us and 33,000 other Lions fans) but I think the quality is acceptable - let me know what you think. And if you guys like it and would be interested, I'm planning to make some more this weekend from the Anime Evolution con we're going to in a few hours time.

Samurai 7

I think we’re quite lucky with Dragon that both of us like the similar style of storytelling: heroic men and women, friendship and sacrifice, tough choices in difficult times - these are the kind of themes we enjoy. So picking up Gonzo Digimation's anime Samurai 7, the sci-fi adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's classic film Seven Samurai was kind of a natural choice for us.

The plot follows fairly faithfully Akira Kurosawa's film (so much so the show is actually officially called Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7 even though of course he had nothing to do with it) – it's a story about a village that is ravaged by bandits who collectively decide to hire seven samurai to take care of the problem. The main characters are therefore the seven samurai: the leader, disgraced but noble former general Kambei, his former lieutenant Shichiroji, young and naïve Katsuhiro who wants to become a real samurai, the cunning and skilled Gorobei, the smart techie Heihachi, the fool Kikuchiyo and the cold and mysterious Kyuzo. There are also host of anime-only characters that give the story a slightly different flavor and towards the end a totally different storyline.

This is one of the most expensive anime series ever made, 26 episodes for around $300,000 (USD) each, so we expected something pretty spectacular, if for nothing else how it would look. Considering how much money has been spent, the series looks remarkably ordinary and at times downright shoddy - and I have two big issues with the animation. Firstly, the computer generated parts – especially the mountain-sized mechanical samurai, the nobuseri, but also explosions and smoke - stand up from the traditional animation like an eyesore. They look like they’ve been slapped on top of the drawn animation without any attempt to integrate the two - and while I understand that they want the nobuseri to look quite distinctive (and at times it works) most of the time it just bothered me. The second gripe I have is with the general art direction - the quality of the animation and consistency of the characters is extremely uneven. They would literally change the animation style for 10 minutes without any reason, and the come back to the original style in the middle of the scene. Especially the look and feel of Kambei changes quite a bit towards the end which really bothered me as he has a very distinguishing look, and is the most important character in the show. I don't really know where they managed to spend all that money, and I'm not even that picky when it comes to animation quality as for me the storyline is the most important part.

So, does the story rescue the series from the annoying animation inconsistencies? Well, at times. The series starts off quite slow with maidens Kirara and Komachi leaving the village to the city to look for samurai to hire, but once the first few are found the series picks up speed quite a lot. The best episodes are definitely in the middle where the samurai travel to the village, set up the village to protect itself and the first battle against the nobuseri. After the battle (where the movie ends) the series goes on for another 10 episodes or so with its original story which has some nice moments too. Overall though, the ending is kind of a disappointment - there is a nice build-up, but then the last three episodes are rushed, both with storytelling and shoddy animation (but then the last few minutes are excellent again).

It's worth nothing also that the character design in Samurai 7 is awesome. All the characters - especially the samurai - have a very distinctive looks that work very well. I really like the noble Kambei - he's got white robes, flowing long hair and solemn face, but my favourite is probably the young samurai Katsuhiro who wants Gambei has his teacher - he's got green hair and the really expressive beautiful face.

The whole 26 episodes is available on region 1 DVD from Funimation. I've been really impressed with Funimation's Fullmetal Alchemist DVD releases but Samurai 7 doesn't quite raise to that level. The dubbing is nothing special - and although we always choose the Japanese track I like to check out the dubbing as it's a different interpretation of the series. But the subtitles are not very good either - they are at times confusing and grammatically incorrect, and at those times the dubbing is even better for clarity's sake. The sleeves that come with the DVDs are first rate though (like they are with FMA), but there are literally no extras on the disks. If you loved Samurai Seven, you'll definitely appreciate the homage this series pays to it - it doesn't raise up to the movie in an epic scale (but hey, not that many works do anyway), but it's an entertaining series.

Screenshots from Samurai 7 screenshot gallery.

Babies

My boss brought his six day old daughter to the office the other day. She was just a totally amazing person, those eyes were like nothing else I’ve ever seen... And it’s really funny what kind of reaction she got from the office crew: people just gathered around in silent awe, just looking at her and smiling. Pretty special.

Another child I met yesterday was Ella, when we me and Chu went to lunch with her parents Timo and Sirpa. Ella is like an arch typical Finnish child - very serious and contemplating, and definitely wasn’t in a mood for socializing with us. One great thing about Canadians is that they love kids - Sirpa was saying that wherever she takes Ella people are always smiling and talking to her. She compared it to Finland (where they were last spring) where she said the response in public places was downright hostile - not only on the streets where walking around with a buggy can be slow and therefore considered a deliberate nuisance, but also that restaurants seem to think that bringing kids in is despicable. Hearing things like that is very sad...

If you’re wondering about lack of updates, it’s just that I’m spending all my spare time with my dearest best friend. Like she was never gone, she’s by my side again.

Earthsea disappointment

As Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books have always been one of my favourite fantasy books, I was thrilled when I heard my favourite anime studio Studio Ghibli was going to make an adaptation of it. I was slightly disappointed to hear that it was going to be directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro - who has never directed a film in his life - instead of him, but I was still optimistic about the project. I understood that it would be a very heavy adaptation and that most of the original story was probably not going to be there, but Earthsea is such a wonderful world and has such a beautiful mythology that would surely be used in the film.

I followed the film’s release in Japan, and read the reviews, feeling slightly nervous but still looking forward to it. But after I read Le Guin’s own response to seeing the film I think I will need to lower my expectations even more… She had trusted Hayao Miyazaki to make the film and has been disappointed – the gentle moral finesse without preaching that she has in her books, the same one that I’ve also always loved in Hayao Miyazaki’s films seems to have escaped Goro Miyazaki.

Shame.

Weekend

Weather is turning cooler, and although this weekend was definitely nice, the hottest weather seems to be behind. Laura and Chris came over yesterday for some fun and games... I made racks of lamb in the oven with garlic and rosemary together with rosemary and black pepper potatoes, and we ate cupcakes, played Carcassonne and watched some anime (well quite a lot actually). Dragon had gone to the dentist earlier on so he was in pain, but otherwise it was a really nice evening with friends.

Today I was supposed to take couple of rolls of film to be developed and do a bit clothes shopping, but ended up spending about two grand on furniture. Really nice and very much needed furniture that's gonna last a long time - but still I'm a bit dazed. We've been running out of shelf space for about a year now, and while you can find new places to put books it's finally coming to a point where all possible surfaces have been used so new book shelfs were pretty much mandatory if we want to keep the apartment in any kind of order. I'm also itching to put some of my tea pots on show and this new shelving system should offer a chance to do that too.

Chu is coming tonight, her flight should arrive in about an hours time... I think I need a nap before that.

Of Dragons and Chimpanzees

Of all the wildlife sanctuaries in Africa, Tacugama chimpanzee rescue sanctuary is closest to my heart.

Despite being situated in a country ravaged by terrible civil war, Sierra Leone conservationist Bala Amarasekaran has created one of the most thriving chimp rescue centers in the world. Bala is one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever seen –he can communicate fluently with the chimpanzees and he is in charge of rising up their young who, as victims of illegal pet trade have not had a chance to be reared by their real parents. Unlike any other conservationist I’ve seen, Bala is even able to communicate with the large males of the troop –no mean feat considering that any of them could kill him in an eye blink.

Bala is also a man with a vision: he works with the people of the country to stop the illegal trade of the chimps and employs local people to work in the sanctuary, thus providing income for the community. If Sierra Leone is ever to recover, it will be due to efforts of man like Bala.

Thus as you might imagine, I was shocked when I recently heard that 31 of the chimpanzees of Tacugama escaped from the sanctuary under unclear circumstances.

Unfortunately during the escape Bruno, the alpha male of the chimp group, also killed a man, almost certainly because of feeling threatened and due its traumatic experiences with humans during the Sierra Leone Civil War. Chimpanzees are many times stronger than even the strongest humans, and as an alpha male it is Bruno’s duty to protect the other animals from any perceived danger. It is a testimony to the people of Sierra Leone that instead of trying to kill the escaped chimps, the people are working with Tacugama sanctuary to recover them.

Bala and his staff have now recovered all but five of the chimpanzees, but due to danger posed by the chimps at large, the Tacugama sanctuary is still closed and is struggling to feed its inhabitants without the income from visitors. Bala is working incredibly hard to recover the chimpanzees, but he is of course running out of funds.

I want to issue a challenge all Dragon/kolibri readers: please, please, pledge some money to help Tacugama. Sierra Leone is incredibly poor, so even 5$ will go a long, long way to feed the chimps and perhaps save our closest relative species that is teetering on the brink of extinction due to human actions.

The link to the donations page is here.

So ready for the weekend

This week sure has been busy.

On Monday night about 1:30 am my boss' second daughter was born, slightly ahead of schedule... So just when we were about to start one of the automation team's most important pieces of work so far, our boss started his paternity leave - leaving us holding the baby (pun intended... I kill myself). But me and Don have done really well, and we finally managed to get the test running today with very interesting results. But thinking and working so intensively for four days in a row, plus the yoga classes... and I'm just totally spent. It just makes me appreciate the work my boss does that much more - and more sure that I'll never ever want his job.

The Precipice by Ben Bova

What can one say about Ben Bova and his books? This guy writes political and scientific hard core sci-fi happening in the near future, and if that's your genre what's there not to like about The Precipice, first book in the Astroid Wars series. In The Precipice Bova's theory is that the greenhouse effect has become a greenhouse cliff, a sudden turn to the worse in the climate with disastrous consequences, and man's only hope is to turn to space. The story's hero is Dan Randolph, the head of Astro Corporation, who wants to save the human race by mining the asteroid belt.

I found that the book had interesting ideas and that it was slightly entertaining, but also totally forgettable. Characters were pretty one-dimensional and stereotypical heroic good guys, femme fatales ("oh I'm so pretty no one understand me") and evil rich bastards... the only thing that really kept my interest was the science and the dystopic world. The plot was very straightforward, and at times silly (invisibility suit - come on!) but held interest till the end.

Good enough listen, but I don't think I'll be going for the second novel.

Good karma

Not only did I get to teach a yoga class, I also took with me several kilos of cherries freshly picked from Okanagan Valley today. When the previous class was finishing one of our student's husband brought in almost 10 kilos of cherries that he wanted us to have... we managed to divvy up most of them between people who came by but I was still left with few kilos by the end of my class.

My class was really small this time, only three people - but you know, at this point I don't really care, I would have probably taught a smaller class too. I don't even know how much I'm getting paid for this - and it's not the point right now, I just want more experience. And it just feels so right - when I was leaving and locking, turning off the lights I just stood there looking at the warm empty studio in the light of the streetlights, and it felt so... home.

First time

Oh yeah, I've finally taught my first "proper" yoga class! I met Michael at the studio beforehand (I of course forgot the keys he gave me so I had to knock my way in) and he showed me the ropes... to be honest I've seen it so many times before albeit from the other side there wasn't really anything new about it. Luckily no one wanted to pay with a card, but even that looked quite simple.

Before I opened the doors I just had to take a photo of the class sheet - look, it has "instructor" on it and then my name next to it! First person to come in was Vincent and he was totally "OMG I can't believe you're teaching" and the next person who came in he just immediately blurted out that it was my first time as a teacher... not the effect I was looking for, but hey, she didn't seem to mind. All in all eight people came, which is actually quite a sizable yin class.

I forgot two things right in the beginning - I forgot to introduce myself (so I did it in the end) and I forgot to ask anyone had any injuries... one lady had come to me before the class to tell me she had a foot injury, but the others looked healthy enough (I hope)... I'll do that tomorrow! Otherwise the class went pretty much like I had planned it. Yin is such a lovely quiet practice and I wanted to give people their space - lot of people just turn inward almost immediately. Such a peaceful place to be, watching peaceful people.

So. No one died, no one got injured, no one got angry - and I even got some praise! Vincent told me that I did a good job - and he's not the kind of guy to mend his words so I believe him... also the lady with the injured leg said how good it had felt and since I had told everyone that Jason was going to be back next week she wanted to know if I taught any other classes she could attend! I have to say that did warm my heart... All in all, really nice experience, albeit not perfect... but hey, life isn't. Again tomorrow!

My third career

I spent good four hours with Jesse today taking photos for him. It was a lot of fun - I was a bit worried that I wouldn't get along with him but he's a really easygoing and funny guy... I guess he's putting on a show when he's teaching as he really isn't a twat at all outside classroom. We took over 150 photos of basic poses he wants to use as a training manual for his private students, and then we went outside to take some "fancy" promotional photos for his web site. Looking at them at home I'm really pissed off as it looks like my lens is dirty that really shows in the outdoor photos... nothing that can't be removed with some post-processing, but damn. I need to mail him and apologize, I'm really disappointed.

Then it was time for the trade and Jesse did a postural analysis for me which was very interesting. I'm doing pretty well - I have some imbalance in my hips from always leaning on my left side, my head has a tendency to stick to the front, and yes my core needs more strength. Two first ones were news (or when I think about it - maybe not so much), but I'm quite aware that my core is the weakest point in my practice. Jesse made a program for me to strengthen and balance the issues I have, and I'll have a another appointment with him in about three weeks time.

Practice, practice...

Dragon was working today so I took the opportunity to start preparing my yin classes next week. I read Paul Grilley's book and watched his newest DVD to look for some inspiration (and Paul is sooo inspiring) and came up with two different classes, one concentrating on hips and other one on the spine. In the spirit of never experimenting with your students, I then practiced the spine program and timed it to make sure it would fit into the 1 hour 15 minute slot... it turned out to be pretty decent.

I'm actually really looking forward to teaching the classes... I think I'm much more intimidated about tomorrow - Jesse, the guy who taught us anatomy at the teacher training, really like the photos I took and has asked me to take some yoga photos for him for his web site. Yoga is something I take quite seriously, but photography is just a hobby so I'm much less confident about it. Jesse is also, well, he's quite intensive so I really want to take good photos for him... It'll be fine once we get going, I'm sure. Funny enough, Sue also wants to use some my photos for her web site... some kind of serendipity going on here.

More celebration

Tonight it was time to celebrate Michele's birthday who had sneakily almost not told anyone about it... but we have our ways of finding these things out, and the whole gang (minus Abir who's still in Israel) got together for some cake, champagne and fireworks.

We spend a lovely evening at the beach and saw the final fireworks display which was by a newcomer Mexico - I think I preferred China, but Mexico sure gave them run for their money. They had beautiful coordination to the music and their finale was just superb with the huge sky-filling golden showers and multi-coloured lights. In the end Mexico won the competition, and I can't really complain - they most certainly stepped up to take the prize.

I also had a really interesting conversation with Laura about Enneagrams, but I'll write more about that later on.

Genshiken

I've been a fan of all sorts of things all my life, and I don't mind looking silly or getting overexcited - and so many people look down on people like me thinking that they are somewhat better because... well, I don't really understand why as fandom is the spice of life. I (still) quite openly call myself a Trekkie (instead of Trekker... whoever came up with the distinction...), and lately I've also become a total self-confessed Narutard. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words I can just take and own - more the power to me.

But once and a while one comes across people who truly appreciate fandom: Kio Shimoku, the author of Japanese manga and anime Genshiken is truly one of these people. Genshiken is a story about a bunch of university otakus (someone obsessed with anime and manga... in Japan the word has negative connotations while in America it's more of an affectionate term) and their daily lives. Different clubs and circles are be-all-end-all in Japanese school and university cultures and Genshiken (short for The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture) is the name of a club who specializes in manga, anime and games - and in the start of the year the competition for new members is fierce... Except for the Genshiken guys who would rather just sit around in their club room talking about the latest episode of Kujibiki Unbalanced, which is the incredibly cliched anime about a high school and magic mushrooms they are obsessed with. They do gain two new members though, the shy Sasahara who is yet to totally embrace his otaku-dom and sweet gaming geek Kousaka with his otaku-hating girlfriend Kasukabe in tow.

I would like to describe Genshiken's plot to you but there really isn't one. It's just a warm and light-hearted story about fellow geeks and their geeky lives, and it's a coming of age of various young people growing up. For Sasahara it's about finding his sexuality and courage to be himself, and for Kasukabe - who really is the central character of the story - it's about accepting people as they are and looking deeper than the surface... something that every geek has at times come across with.

While otaku is not a term I would apply to myself (others might disagree) and this series requires a certain amount of otakudom to fully appreciate it, pretty much all the aspects of Japanese fandom will open up to a hard-core geeks like me and Dragon. So let's look at it:

Manga = comics and books, obviously. While I've been reading increasing amounts of manga lately, I can relate to this from western point of view too. Talking about the art, the characters, the storylines... and yes, I did just start a book club too.

Cosplay = LARPing. Making costumes and researching the characters to get it the mood. Less posing in LARPing but only because that's considered "out of character", not that people wouldn't want to show off their costumes and be admired... in a way there's much more honesty in cosplay as that's all it is. To quote Ohno talking to Kasukabe: "I was hoping to really coach you about how to portray the true essence of your cosplay character. To really get into character, I'd need at least three weeks... one week just isn't enough."

Model kits (especially mechas) = miniature wargaming. I've had tons of friends camp out in our living room building and painting miniatures before grand tournaments back in England. All the phases of building and painting the kits, plus who gets to touch them and how is painfully familiar. To quote Tanaka explaining model building to Kasukabe: "Plastic models and toys are totally different. When you build it piece by piece, you put your soul into it. It creates a bond that can't exist in a mere toy. You might think that these kits will end up looking the same no matter who builds them... but the kit actually accentuates the differences in skill and personality of the builder."

Games = games. Well, games are always games. Dragon, who also has worked in the gaming industry for the past 10 years, is a total Kousaka and at times I can relate to his girlfriend Kasukabe so much it hurts. I found especially the scene where she wants to try games and plays a game with Kousaka and ends up totally losing so realistic – I too had to give up hopes of ever playing anything against Dragon because he's light-years ahead of me and always will be... I just don't have the love of games that he does to spend the time to get even close to his level. Or try having a discussion with him when he's playing ("When Kousaka gets really into a game his eyes stop moving.")... And like Kasukabe with Kousaka, I also came to accept him as he is early on, the only way to date a geek (and marry him).

Anime = TV shows. This is where my fandom background is, in TV sci-fi – it's basically 1-on-1 mapping. The amount of time I've spend analyzing sci-fi with my like-minded friends, and just recently I've had tons of deep and interesting discussions about differences between certain manga to the anime, just like Genshiken gang does. Yep, been there and done that indeed.

There is one big difference between these Japanese otakus and us western geeks, and that's porn. Not that my friends are not users, some of them super-users, but porn in Japanese otaku-culture is something completely different. Big part of otaku culture are erotic computer games and doujinshi, the fan-generated manga and fanfic which is usually erotic in nature. It typically takes the much loved characters from manga, anime and games and puts them into explicit sexual situations, and it's absolutely huge in the otaku circles. Let me just put this into perspective so that you understand how huge doujinshi is... Comiket, the biggest of doujinshi conventions that's held twice a year near Tokyo, has 35,000 sellers and over 350,000 attendees over three days. No fan convention in the west comes anywhere near this... So porn is a big part of the Genshiken guys' life, and they discuss it much more openly than any western geeks I've met (Henri you don't count), although they do tone it down when girls are present.

Genshiken is available both as manga and anime. There are 12 episodes of anime and 6 volumes of manga (with couple of more still to be translated and published), manga being the most extensive and deeper one of the two. Both come with excellent references and side notes to the numerous otaku references the series contains, but I think Genshiken works very well as a geek comedy too with it's wonderfully ironic and funny characters.

But if you want some real world irony, here's something for you. There was a promise of a second season of Genshiken from Media Factory earlier this year, but they recently changed the announcement and said that what they actually will be doing is a whole series of Kujibiki Unbalanced. Now Kujibiki Unbalanced is the lame-ass fictional anime series that Genshiken is so obsessed about that was intentionally made as silly and cliched as possible by Shimoku - the fact that has apparently completely escaped Media Factory. Hey - as a fan I always say live and let live, and someone else's fandom is not taking anything away from me, but in this case I can't but to despise Media Factory as they literally are denying me the second season of Genshiken because of Kuji-un. The DVDs contain as extras three episodes of Kuji-un as it was made for the TV series, and it's just as horribly bad as it's supposed to be.

I could go on for another two pages but I doubt many people even read it this far as it is... So I'll just say that if you're a geek at all interested in anime (and even if not), Genshiken should be mandatory viewing. It's available in a sweet box set published by Media Blasters, and the first 6 volumes of the manga are published by Del Rey.

It's really happening now

I had an honest "OMG LOL" moment when I opened up my email today... there was an email from Jason in my inbox asking me to be a substitute teacher for Kiki's classes at Flow next week! Firstly my heart skipped two beats, and then took it all back and banged like crazy for a while... scared as hell, but it's no way I would say no to this.

Ladies and gentlemen - someone is actually not only going to pay me for teaching yoga, but people are going to pay to be taught by me. That's a scary thought. Classes are both yin, which is really slow where I have an opportunity to talk people into the poses a lot more - and I feel I have a lot to say and a lot to give. I spoke to Jason briefly (and Jack had something to say too) - they are on their way to spend couple of weeks of well earned holiday after the TV shoot has now finished, and are leaving the studio to... well, I should say "us", since I am now part of the team.

Wow. It's really starting to happen now.

And the list goes on

Oh, it's great to be 32 - my birthday celebrations are still going on. Dan and Michele got stuck in traffic on Saturday and couldn't come to my party (they saw the fireworks while stationary on the bridge) so they wanted to get together today... so we went out tonight as well to celebrate my birthday. And we're planning to do it again on next Saturday for the fireworks finale - and call it still my birthday just for the sake of it.

Who said getting old is boring.