Your Blood (Honey)

Decided to change it up for this one. Instead of film news and movie news, and the like. I decided to post a roundup of great videos I watched on the internet this month. It may slow loading time a bit, but it should be fairly enjoyable. Thanks for waiting

New video for Giorgio Tuma “And three parasol stars”. out on Elefant Records Video by Emanuele Kabu

A Humanoid robotic body developed by Kaist called ‘Hubo Humanoid’ has installed an animatronic head of Albert Einstein from a well known engineer David Hanson of Hanson Robotics. Those who fear the uncanny valley beware.

VIDEOGIOCO animation and concept by Donato Sansone

Trailer for the new documentary from the director of Helvetica.

Let’s Paint,Exercise,& Blend Drinks TV!

Chemical Brother’s Star Guitar music video by Michele Gondry

Trailer for a documentary about John Hughes

Trailer for a French cowboy film called Lucky Luke–they love cowboys over there. (the flash video player isn’t working for some reason, none-the-less, the link is visitable).
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There’s quite a bit more where that came from, but I imagine this already slowed the sites loading time way down. Enjoy.

I’m a week late, but here’s some news I enjoyed (selected from my del.icio.us feed, as usual), which is film related:

• There are a lot of interesting horror films coming out soon. Splice is one of them, you can see a sneak preview here. It looks truly strange. It comes out in November and it’s got Adrien Brody. Also, a film called Corpsey featured at this year’s DOCFEST, looks great.
• Best article on Twitch this month? Definitely, “Where are My Bleepy Crunchies.” A suggestion of the top five films integrated with electronic music. Number one is Pi, but I haven’t seen several of the others and they look superb.
• The new Fantastic Mr. Fox trailer gives the film just about as much “future of film” hype as I’ve heard about Avatar. Anyway, I think it looks sweet (a look at Wes Anderson behind the scenes in the previous link).
• Contenders for Best Picture of 2012, already? Yup.
• I saw two films this week in the theater: Jennifer’s Body, and Zombieland. Both really enjoyable, though I certainly favored the latter (which I’m biased toward because of the cameo [BR], which I won’t spoil in case you haven’t seen it yet, and the genre [I'm a big Zombie fan]). What I haven’t seen yet, and would really like to see is The Informant. Mainly due to, besides the good trailers and promotional materials, an episode of This American Life, that I’d strongly recommend.
• Herzog is hosting a series of lectures/seminars in L.A. about film making. I’d go, except it cost about $1500. It’s titled Herzog Rogue Film School. Speaking of Herzog, a reviewer at TIFF for Twitch has the first look at his collaboration with D Lynch.
• Thom Yorke went out of his way this past month to promote a film called The Age of Stupid. I’d link to the blog article from DeadAirSpace, but it doesn’t have permalinks…
• The villain has been selected for M Gondry’s rendition of The Green Hornet: Christopher Waltz. You may remember him from such great roles as, the best villain ever in Inglorious Basterds (this link is to Tarantino interviews which you may find interesting).
• Other Movies: Reviews for The Road look pretty favorable. Videocracy looks fascinating, though I bet it’s too late to have any useful analysis of the media publicity overhaul by the Obama Administration (could you imagine George Bush on Twitter?). Year of the Carnivore looks like a good indie romantic comedy. More info on Korine’s presumably-fucked-up-as-usual musical: Trash Humpers. The final trailer for [rec]2, hope it doesn’t “ruin the mythology” to quote Tarantino. Terry Gilliam’s got a film (Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus) that immediately makes me think of “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium”, but doesn’t co-star Natalie Portman, to my knowledge. Can’t find anything else about this film, but Я looks awesome (from the 15 seconds I’ve seen). Criterion collection releases a box set of Japanese Noir? You bet! And, they are re-making Plan 9, and I can’t understand why even in the slightest (wish they’d give up on the Barbarella re-make, too)
• One-liners from TIFF, Thanks Vulture.
• I discovered possibly the best food related film I’ve seen all year: Disappearing Manhattan from the always entertaining Anthony Bordain.
• The Best Cut in Cinema. Duh, from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In parallel, the greatest long takes in cinema history. Also, 100 years of Visual Effects (ignore the shitty music).
• Time Travel in popular Film and TV (Primer would be impossible to quantify on this map).

School starts back on Monday  here at IU, and my time for cinema will be pressed even further. Here, however, is some news I’ve gathered over the last month. This is what I thought was worth checking out.

• John Hughes died, and a wealth of information showed up on the internet in dedication to him. Molly Ringwald offers her memories, NYtimes had an interview right before his death on “The Brat Pack“, and then later offered a tribute to his style.
• Antichrist has leaked two months before it’s official release date. Torrent?
• So, what’s the difference between Widescreen and Fullscreen, well, everything. Here, directors talk about how pan and scan re-directs cinema.
• There’s a Barbarella re-make, and Vulture had a bit of news about it.
• Slate put together a fantastic taste of the many voices of Maryl Streep.
• Peter Jackson produced District 9, a film by Neill Blomkamp, which I’m sure you’ve already heard about. Check out this interesting article on the meaning of the film. PJ’s also got another film to be released soon called “The Lovely Bones,” the trailers out here. However, District 9 (apparently based on this short film), tied this week (for the first time on my weekly favorite movie section) with Inglorious Basterds. The final segment of this film is simply: dope. Anywho, check out Tarantino’s top 20 films of the last decade on youtube.
• Want to test your knowledge of cinema history? This quiz from NYTimes was really hard for me, hopefully you’ll do better. I particularly enjoyed the question regarding the difference between American film markets and foreign film markets (which I got right, notably).
• Other select news from “Twitch“: Full theatrical trailer for Astro Boy is out. I still want to see Ponyo. Also, the trailer for this crazy horror film came out: Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre. Plus, Absurda (David Lynch’s production studio), is putting out a Herzog film, and the trailer is up. Say What?
• Speaking of foreign directors, Haneke’s Palme D’Or winning film “The White Ribbon,” has a trailer out now, and it looks fairly historical, enough said.
• Finally, I Watched Idiocracy this week, and enjoyed it slightly more than last time, in perfect time for the release of the “Extract” trailer. Mike Judge, thanks, enjoyed you on Fresh Air while I was serving food at Scholars Inn this past week…

And speaking of public broadcasting, I’ll be working jib for the telethon that’s going on probably near forever, or until you all pay small increments of money so that I can keep my job and you get commercial free television. Donate?

I’m about 5 days late, but this is something new I’d like to try out. It’s a round-up of some of my favorite things I’ve found in the last month. Here’s the experiment:

• Pink Film – During the 50s film sexuality was just as repressed in Japan as in America. Their resulting product, the Pink Films, dominated cinema from the 60s through the 80s. It’s a fascinating blend of horror, softcore porn, and good old fashioned weird Japanese stuff. You can read more about it at Bright Lights Film Journal, check out a couple examples from a film festival, and/or you can download torrents for a couple example films.

• Rogue Learning Torrents - I’m surprised to find, on occasion, torrents that actually provide a large amount of educational material in one place. Unfortunately, all the good communities are invite only, and thus it’s nice to find free ones from time to time. I recently found this torrent, which is essentially a class worth of film on the Japanese New Wave. I’ll let you know how it is.
• Trailers and Upcoming Films and Reviews – Just wanted to note that District 9 is getting great reviews. The trailer for Fantastic Mr. Fox, aka. Wes Anderson’s favorite children’s story, came out. The trailer for Kubrik inspired In The Loop, was also just released. The Coen Brothers latest, “A Serious Man,” is reptative and promising. At Comic Con last month James Cameron showed up, and everyone forgot that he made Titanic to swoon over Avatar; meanwhile, Hayao Miyazaki made his interviewer friend from pixar gush in an embarassing but cute way–and all to push for Ponyo press. Moon didn’t see the rave reviews I was hoping for, but I still want to see it. And IFC releases another contrived top ## list, in this case 50, and regarding film trailers throughout history.
• Marvel has decided to explore anime with its heros. I think it suits them well, and that is tight. MadHouse, the animation studio responsible for the previously linked videos, are responsible for several Manga I enjoyed; namely, Trigun, and…er…Beyblade.
• Kodachrome died.
• And, were you curious about the end titles of Wall-E. The interview with their mastermind features this quote at it’s preface: “As time evolved so did the means of artistically replicating reality, from cave drawings…to engraving, to painting, to photography, and to its (thus far) most convincing form, cinema. In the task of duplicating reality cinema has surpassed all other forms of representation.” – From “André Bazin Revisited” – Donato Totaro

That’ll do it. I’m trying to keep it film related, and this is certainly not everything I saw, perhaps in the future I’ll expand it. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

I’ve been on a sort of hiatus for awhile. I haven’t had time to finish up describing my travels. I don’t know exactly how to capture the rest of East Africa, but the previous post gives a the general feelings of the trip. For further insight into the trip it might be best to check out my Flickr album, and my Facebook album, for a more complete picture. At this point I don’t think I have the patience to recount the entire trip. I do think that it’s, possibly, the best trip I’ve ever taken–certainly one of the most insightful and rewarding, if not always pleasurable and luxurious.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I also visited Germany. Pictures of this trip can also be found on Flickr and Facebook, and I encourage you to take a look at them if you’re interested. As I’ve began to do lately, the pictures are followed by longer descriptions than usual making it have more of a photo essay feel. Anyway, I think they capture some of my favorite parts of the trip.

So, my travels are complete. I captured them to the best of my ability, and I hope they are useful and enjoyable. Now, I’m back in Bloomington, and I’m looking forward to making new and interesting posts.

I described East Africa as like the old American Wild West. Why? Well, it’s pretty warm and dusty. The roads are pretty bad. The stores are all hole in the wall. Things are never what they seem, and things are rarely used in the way you’re probably used to. The law is there, but there are other powers in control, and justice is more complicated. You’ve got to always be on your guard, and you never know what’ll happen next. A lot happens in a month, and I don’t have enough time to write about it right now, but I just wanted to get started so that the ball will keep rolling. A full outline of the trip starts in Nairobi, moves towards Uganda’s Jinja, Kampala and Fort Portal. Then down to Uganda’s Southwestern cities before crossing into Rwanda at Gisenyi on our way to Kigali, and nearing the end with a long bus all the way back to Mombasa that took us 34 hours before making our way to the Funzi islands and then back to Nairobi for my flight home. Talking about the trip at this points works best as a stream of interconnected memories and facts.

First things first: Yes, according to contemporary knowledge, a vast majority of the individuals in East Africa live below the living conditions what we’re used to. The countries in this region have large gaps between the wealthy and the poor, and the poor are not treated very well by the government. However, things are changing, yes (for the better isn’t my field of study, but I’d like to hope that it is). Also, these are people, just like you and I, who are trying to live their lives. They don’t need you to always feel bad for them and express how you are more advanced than they are (in fact, it seems like some “development workers” [in quotes because it's a term I went to Africa with a vague idea of, and left with an even more vague idea of] are concerned with just this). Needless to say, it’s complicated there. So, that said, I really enjoyed myself, and I think anyone can. But it certainly is more dangerous, and not the average middle class tourist destination.

The clouds are magnificent. The national parks and reserves are absurdly expensive. ‘Absurd’ because the locals who live near them usually don’t ever get a chance to go, despite living near them their entire lives. On the flip side, Bill Gates flies in to see gorillas and then leaves before anyone even knows he’s there. This is the sort of disparity you get used to quickly, for better or for worse. You get called a Mezungu by everyone, it almost seems like it’s the only thing kids learn in school (if they all had schools to go to). Don’t fool yourself though, the reverse racism is not OK, it just fuels more problems later. Mezungu doesn’t mean “white person” it means “white person with money.” And so you often find yourself paying “Mezungu Prices,” unless you bargain down some. That said, things are still terribly cheap–unless you go to a resort bar, then you’ll be paying approximately 14$ for a Pina Colada (don’t ask how I know that). The wildlife is everywhere, there are monkeys at Red Chilli Hideaway Hostel (located in the huge capital city of Uganda: Kampala). Well, not everywhere. I visited Queen Elizabeth National Park and saw tons of wildlife, even on the way in and out of the park (even though, apparently, a large army came through and killed most of the wildlife about a decade ago). We even saw a lion at night on the road out. This is likely because the sun heats the dirt road all day, and at night the lions come and hang out on the warm dirt roads. We saw a safari vehicle in the ditch, drove past it, and viola! 10 feet from a lion (you’re gonna have to trust me on this, I accidentally deleted the ghostly dark picture. Also at Queen Elizabeth we saw: hippos, crocs, water buffalo, birds, and more birds. OK, I stand by my original statement about wildlife being everywhere. I occurred to me that on our first major bus ride from Nairobi to Kisumu (southwestern, on Lake Victoria) we saw zebras, and more monkeys just on the side of the road. I think at various parts on the trip I also remembered seeing black horned antelope as well. Speaking of wildlife and Kisumu, that reminds me of a story (one of the most memorable).

We arrived late night is Kisumu and we were pretty tired. We got a tuk-tuk to a resort from our guide book. By the way, whenever I say “we” I’m referring to my friend Jack Killen and myself. Jack Killen studies African Development work, and has been in Kenya for something like 8 months. Back to the story, a tuk-tuk is a sort of large motorized tricycle with an enclosure on the back for passengers. Generally speaking there are only a few types of transport: the tuk-tuk, the boda-boda (motor cycle, or bicycles with seats on the back for passengers are both referred to as this), the matatu (a small bus that fits about 12 people, but is often crammed with more [I once was crammed into one with 25 people, 5 kids, and a goat], and which plays loud rap or pop RnB music), and a regular old taxi. The middle of those four are the cheapest, and what Jack and I usually used. So we got on a tuk-tuk and made our way to the resort. It was rainy season, which I think varies from country to country because the climates are quite different, but it was in Kenya–and as such, it was not tourist season. We usually had our pick of the properties as a result (whether hotel, camp site, or hostel beds). When we arrive we picked a dreamy and romantic spot for our tent and set it up. It was the first night we were sleeping in the tent, and only 2 or 3 days sense I had arrived in Kenya (this is sort of another story, but Jack wasn’t really happy in Nairobi, and decided it’d be best to leave sooner rather than later). We then went to the restaurant on the grounds, only to discover after trying many selections, that our options were limited to two: Fried Fish with Ugali, or Fish with Sauce and Ugali. We had that, and a beer. Ugali is a sort of maize based carbohydrate. They eat it as a main staple in their diet throughout Kenya (in Uganda it’s Matoke, a plantain dish that is strikingly similar to Ugali). It’s sort of like white, bland, playdough. You smash it in your hand and use it as sort of utensil to pick up other food on your plate. Throughout Africa the diet is quite limited most people eat ugali or rice and then one of several things: sukoma (green cabbage stripped and boiled with spices), cabbage (white cabbage, similar to sukoma), chicken, beef, or fish. Then there is chapati, which are like savory pancakes with tons of oil, and some other bland fried dough things. And, that’s really about it as far as the staples of most folks diets. So anyway, we had a beer and some ugali and fish. After this meal it was getting pretty late so we decided to turn in. I fell asleep and woke up at about 2AM because of strange little pinches (very little, almost like a piece of dirt just rubbed a hair on my skin the wrong way, or something). I didn’t have my glasses on, but I sat up and looked at the top of the tent. It was swirling with dark grey shadows lit by the moonlight above, I think it was almost a full moon–but not quite. For a second I just sat there, because I knew whatever it was was bad, and I was going to have to deal with it, which I was too tired to do. So eventually, Jack leaned over and asked me what the deal was. I tried to tell him that there was a million insects on top of the tent and we were probably going to have to do something about it, then I put on my glasses, and realized they were ants. Must have been millions of terrible crawling ants of all shapes and sizes. How they got into the tent, which was well sealed, I have no idea. We were only in our boxers at the time. At first Jack was like, “just go back to sleep man,” but apparently my side was worse than his. I asked him to switch places with me to see how what it was like, and the ants did not like this, the began to attack us (note to self, do not move until absolutely necessary). So, we grabbed our pants and ran out of the tent at full speed, the ants had one the first battle. There were bandas (I think that’s the word for little square open-air sitting areas), so we hid under one of them. We put on our pants, only to realize an instant later that they had already be infiltrated by the ants. We literally had ants in our pants. So we danced to get them out, but that failed, so we took them off. We then spent the next hour or so trying to fend of mosquitoes and figure out a way to get the ants out of our tent. The best options ended up being to take the tent, un-stake and shake it out, and move it under one of the enclosures–but even then, there were some residual ants we had to sleep with that night.

The next morning we asked the guy who rented the space to us about the incident, he said it didn’t happen all that often, but they were called “Safari Ants” and sometimes even attack houses. Yeah, how about that. Anyway, it was a good story, even though we only got like 4 hours of sleep that night. Overall, there is definitely a lot of wildlife, everywhere, in Africa–it can’t be underestimated.

I have to leave in a few minutes to get to Berlin. I’ll be spending a few days there with Monica before we have to part, and won’t see each other again until back in Bloomington. I really can’t wait, but I wanted to get a start on this before I felt guilty. I’ll try to post more about East Africa later, but I’ve got other things I’d like to write about as well, including Berlin probably by the time I get back. Also, the first of two installments of photographs from the trip are up on my flickr page, so I hope you have time to enjoy them. To Germany!

“There’s now a buzz on the Kentish cheese scene.”

So I had just got done having a conversation and working for a British woman in Whitstable, and I’m walking around the seaside town on a beautiful day, when suddenly a cheese shop catches my eye—The Cheese Box. So Matt (my partner in crime) and I go in, and the clerk asks if we want to try some of “Kelly’s Goat.” Duh, we do. Somehow I find myself buying some, without even trying anything else (one taste = sell), and he hands me a pamphlet and tells me to check them out on youtube (he also asked if I was “much of a cheese head,” I can’t say I am. But I want to be, now!). Well, I couldn’t find them on youtube, but I did find them on KentTV. Wow, what an amazing cheese. Honestly, one of the best cheeses I’ve ever had. It tastes like nothing else, it’s sort of cheddery, farmy, but sort of has a blue cheese tangyness with a creamy texture while still remaining solid—It’s all local too, produce and sold in Kent. Plus it’s of the goat variety, which is easier on the digestive system. I only wish I had discovered it sooner.

Today warrants a special post—I visited Britain’s oldest brewery. However, It’s been awhile sense I updated what I’ve been up to in general. Well, I just finished another film titled ‘Conatus‘. I’ll post that in a separate post, soon probably. I’ve been mostly procrastinating working on a paper, and hanging out with my friend Matt who’s staying with me over the break. I’ve also been preparing to go to Africa, which has been a fairly painless process. I’m still quite looking forward to going home, and it’s not too far off now. I’ve been killing Mad Men season 2, which I highly recommend, as well. Lot’s of filling time, though. It’d be super lonely without Matt around (missing Monica hardcore). One of the time fillers, mentioned earlier, is the transitions to the blog. I started going through all the old posts and categorizing them correctly, and tagging them correctly. I’m only on November 2007 right now. In the end the blog will be much easier to navigate historically and categorically for all, and probably, hopefully, increase traffic. At this point my most popular post is still the one where Andrew birds musical instruments are mentioned. [Side Note: I actually changed the tags of this post. It used to be all clumped together, incorrectly distinguishing the words as tags. I will have discovered that separating words can hurt a posts meta-reference value on the internet by changing this if the post stops getting so many hits. Anyway, I find it interesting.] So, now on to Faversham’s famous brewery.

Shepherd’s Neame has been around sense 1698. The banners around the brewery haven’t been updated since 1998, where the 6 in “Established in 1698″ is also a 9, symbolising their 300 year anniversary in 1998—thus making them 311 years old. Beer, however, is probably at least 8,000 years old. Faversham is a pretty standard town, we didn’t see anything too special. However, in the Kent area there are 375 local pubs or bars that they stock as subsidiaries. Though, there are 890 pubs in general that have their beer on tap in England. They have four seasonal beers (naturally), and some other ales they produce year round, not to mention being Britain’s major producer of more common beers like Asahi, Oranjeboom, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Etc. They also have an attached micro-brewery which produces cool special ales for one-off events and occasions (for instance, they have a special beer every year around Christmas).

The tour was pretty interesting and rewarding. I recently got two new batteries for my camera, but neglected to charge any of them, and so (much to my dismay) ran out of batteries just after the first 15 minutes of the tour. So there aren’t any pictures, and I’ve been slacking in this department lately, in general. Regardless, I can assure you that I learned a lot, and it was a pretty dang cool experience—one I hope to have again (note: there was some seriously obsessed guys on the tour that looked and sounded like they should have been from the movie Sideways. Calm down guys, seriously). I think probably the most memorable part of the tour was when we tasted three of the four ingredients they use for their beers. We tasted several different types of malted barley (different roasts and flavors), some hops (which were really gross, but now I will never forget what it means when something is “hop-y”, and of course their wonderful “liquor” (A.K.A what brewers call the water they use for their beer. In our case it was just water with natural minerals from a really really old well). They also have these massive storage containers that are used to “lager” some of the beer (which requires a second “storing/”lagering” process of fermentation, and results in beers called, duh, “lagers”). In these containers are approximately 1.25 million pints of beer; which the tour guide used for in this punch-line, “that’s a fact, not a challenge.” And, of course, there was a great tasting session at the end. My favorite was “Early Bird,” but I tried a few others as well. Bishop’s Finger is the name of one of the beers, by the way. As are Spitfire (named after world war two planes, and the advertising of which was both controversial, and highly successful—This coupled with the beer actually being really good eventually caused the intended limited run to span into the present). I’ll close with two quotes I found on the tour:

“Give my people plenty of beer, good beer and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them.” -Queen Victoria

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” -Benjamin Franklin

Japanese is no Navajo or even Basque, but it’s still pretty damn hard. There are plenty of “harder” languages, but this one has been particularly difficult for me. I feel like I’m still at intermediate, and have been for the last 3 years. I’ll be going to third year college level Japanese next semester at IU, and I have to say, I’m a bit worried. I’m out of practice. With that bad news (for my personal academic life), there comes good news. The internet has improved, and offers a lot of help for students like me now—a lot of which, I wish I had when I was first starting. Here is a collection of my findings in three sections:

1. Personal experience and foresight. “I wish I knew what I knew Now…When I was younger.”
   • Alright. Flat out, and this is sort of paradoxical. Don’t have any goals or expectations, er…well. This is hard to explain, but basically, Japanese will take you ages, you’ll get sick of it, don’t give up because you expected something to happen that didn’t. If you ask me this is sort of a metaphor for a lot of things, but particularly for lifelong learning processes like secondary languages.
   • Here’s a testimonial. This is pretty good information just to brace yourself for the learning process. Don’t be too disillusioned. I particularly like number 17, in that regard, because it exemplifies that, though not everyday and every moment, the experience should be fun.
   • Getting into the culture is the understatement of the year. But, if you ask me, it’s not too hard to find a way to fall in love with Japan. Watch  movies, read books, check out blogs, photographers, artists, history, politics, whatever. There are plenty of tools that can help which brings me to:
2. The Internet
   • I really don’t think you can learn Japanese through just one method. Just listening to a Podcast, or just watching anime, or just reading books, will not do it. Podcasts, however, can fill in the gap between semesters if you want to keep your ear tuned in (and like me, don’t have proper connections with native speakers). I find that podcasts aren’t that rewarding, I find reading and writing a lot more rewarding (while talking out loud). Regardless, here’s a compliation of web resources I use:
   • JapanesePod 101. You’ll notice that they really want you to sign up, and to charge you. It didn’t used to be this way with this resource. That said, you can still get them easily on iTunes without login information (I’m pretty sure). They are pretty funny, incredibly quirky, and at entertaining at the very least. I’ve tried a couple other ones, but this one’s pretty much the best.
   • I would highly suggest installing the English to Japanese keyboard input converter on your personal computer. It makes things a lot easier. Once you’ve installed this, and turned on the Japanese input methods, you can type romaji and it will automatically convert it the the proper hiragana. Then, when you’ve typed hiragana that make up a kanji character you can press space and a small list of kanji possibilities show up to choose from to replace the hiragana. It’s crucial. I use this off and on to ‘journal’, which basically means to try creative ways to use my resources and new knowledge.
   • Alright, so now what to read on the internet? Well, anything, blogs, whatever. There hasn’t been precident for this sort of thing before. There weren’t everyday blogs to read by random Japanese people 10 years ago like there are today. I think it’s valuable and quite rewarding. There’s newspapers, too, of course, which are fantastic resources.
   • But, whoa, that’s way overwhelming, right? Right. So, here’s what you do. First: Get Firefox. Trust me. It’s the best. Got it? Good.
     • Now get this extension: Rikaichan, once you’ve installed it, make sure you’ve got the dictionaries installed too (same page). If you are unsure of what any character means, just turn this on via right-clicking in the window, and then whenever you hover over a character, or set of characters, it will reveal the reading and possible definitions of the word.
     • If you need even less help than that, you can also install this: Furigana Injector. When installed it will place the reading above the kanji when displayed on any webpage. It’ll help a lot, and you’ll speed through articles a little quicker hopefully.
   • Then, there’s always helpful “learning” websites. I don’t usually trust these things. Ideally, I could just be in school, or have a proper book. But, right now I’m depending on these. All my books are at home, with my notes, and I don’t want to buy anything to take back when I have to come home from England, so the Internet is my only resource. This one is nice for grammar patterns, and simple sentences and lessons. I’ve never used this one, but it’s the first thing that showed up on Google when I typed in “Japanese Grammar.” You get the idea.
   • Other online dictionaries. Sometimes I use WWWJDIC, or I’ll cheat and look up english words to convert here.
3. Classes, Books and Other Resources
   • It’s not uncommon that you don’t have the internet. But you still want to study Japanese. So, get books. I’m not really sure what the best. But I can tell you what I’ve used in class are the Genki textbooks. I found them really great for the classroom setting. Other than that, I don’t know.
   • Once, in class, my teacher recommended some software. I can’t remember exactly which one it was, but the idea still remains: you can get a dictionary for your computer to use offline for free. Try here.

Anyway, it’s fun to try and figure out ways to learn for yourself too. Finding a way to make it a fun habit is very rewarding. But, if you get a chance, take a class, it’ll probably be easier that way.

At this time I will share with you the quintessential 15 X-Files episodes that you must see, and are my favorites (in order of season within which they appear). Note: none of these are part of the overarching conspiracy storyline(which is summed up by Chris Carter in this illegal copy of the hidden track from the x-files album), which I do like, but don’t think it constitutes the shows best episodes. You can probably enjoy these at this website, until it gets taken down:

1. Squeeze and Tooms (2 part series): These two episodes track a genetically mutated man who can eat livers, use some kind of bodily substance to build a cocoon, and extend his life by 30 years at a time (if I remember correctly). It’s super creepy, and when I was a kid, I found it quite (pleasantly, upon reflection) disturbing. Note: the man can squeeze through things like an octopus; in other words, be afraid of your toilet. There are plenty of other good moments in season 1, but I think (besides the Jersey Devil one, where the sexual tension is at high, and the Pilot where Skully gets naked for Mulder) it’s my favorite.
2. War of the Coprophages (Also Season 3): This is underrated in my opinion. I love it because of the sexual tension. Basically, Mulder investigates something and Skully decides not to come, but when Mulder finds an attractive girl who likes cockroaches more than humans, Skully gets jealous. It’s pretty brilliant. I won’t spoil the ending, but it does involve an eccentric and secluded old cranky mechanical engineer turned inventor.
3. Jose Chung’s From Outer Space (Season 3): This is an instant classic. It’s unbelievably meta. It’s a story about a man investigating a UFO abduction for a book and trying to decide on the story for it. In the process we even get to hear the story from the aliens perspective (sorta), there is a second alien race that lives at the center of the earth and has massive orgies, there are men in black, and Mulder eats like an entire pie at a diner. It’s so crucial. If you only watch one, I’d suggest this one.
4. Home (Season 4): If you haven’t heard about this episode, then you probably haven’t heard much about the X-Files. It always comes up. The show was aired only twice on fox, once when in its normal slot, and another time during a special Halloween showing where it was given a TV-MA rating (and no doubt Fox had to pay a bunch of money to the FCC). It’s about an imbred family, and rivals the original “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in horror. I won’t spoil it, but if you want to be freaking creeped, check it.
5. Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (Season 4): I sure wish they kept his name as “cancer man,” it sounds way more bad-ass. Anyway, this is another one I think is pretty underrated. It’s told as a story from two of the Lone Gunman (hackers and engineers who distribute a subversive magazine about conspiracies as a hobby), which already gets it high up on my list of favorites. It reveals a lot of awesome back story that involved the background mythology of the television show; like for instance, the Cancer Man is responsible for several nationally recognized assassinations of major American public figures.
6. The Usual Suspects (Season 5): I really only included this because it explains Mulder’s association with the Lone Gunman, a group of individuals who eventually got their own spin off show.
7. The Post-Modern Prometheus (Season 5): In all black in white, this is a TV replica of David Lynch’s Elephant Man (which I recently watch and enjoyed very much). In fact, until today when I looked it up on the internet, I was convinced it was co-directed by him (it wasn’t to my research, and makes much more sense because it’s too funny to be D.L.). Also, it takes place in Bloomington, Indiana—home of Indiana University (holler). That, and it’s got a great song by Cher in it, and a cameo by Jerry Springer.
8. Pusher and Kitsunegari (Season 3 and Season 5): I included these two episodes because they are some of the cooler psychological-thriller, real FBI, type episodes. Just really enjoyable stuff, quite suspenseful.
9. Bad Blood (Season 5): This another one of my favorites. It’s a comedy one, and features Luke Wilson. The story is told from several perspectives (similar to Jose Chung’s), which is where a lot of the comedy comes from. Hands down, another brilliant one. If you don’t want to be scared, and just want to have fun, then watch this one and Jose Chung’s first (though there are a couple other funny ones, too). This is Gillian Anderson’s favorite, too, in case you were wondering.
10. Dreamland (Season 6, two part series): Another funny, and quite genius, set of episodes. In these Mulder switches bodies with a middle-aged man having a mid-life crisis. Another comedic one, maybe not the best, but certainly a couple more of my favorites, no less.
11. Arcadia (Season 6): Another funny one (you can see where my favorites lie). The comedy is quite absurd. Mulder and Skully must pretend to be suburban newlyweds in a planned community. Need I say more? My favorite line: “Woman! Get back in the kitchen and make me a samwich!” Too bad about Skully’s lab equipment, and Mulder get’s in trouble for playing basketball at night.
12. The Unnatural (Season 6): This was the hardest one for me to choose because I was debating about two other episodes in the season that I also enjoy (the Christmas episode “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas,” and “Monday,” which would have been self-indulgent because its about time travel). But, this one is crucial. It marks DD’s (David Duchovny’s) director and writer debut. It’s funny, and also has a warm feeling to it. It’s a real nice story about some aliens who just want to play baseball, and there’s a little bit of old-fashioned cinematic time travel in there, too.
13. Field Trip (Season 6): Ever wonder about the mysterious power of mushrooms? Well, Mulder and Skully found out just what they can do. They end up hallucinating, I’ll say that much.
14. X-Cops (season 7): I almost didn’t include this one, because I haven’t seen it in a ridiculously long time. However, a friend (Liz) told me it was good, and I love the creative use of the reality-TV aesthetic. Anyway, I threw this one in, obviously.
15. Je Souhaite (Season 7): Mulder finds a genie in a carpet and gets three wishes. Believe it! Well, he wishes for world peace. But in the end, the episode has a tight philosophical punch. A great one to end my favorites with. The title is French for “I Wish.” (Edit: Liz specified, this one is WAY cheesey, you should be warned)

So, that’s the fruit of years of television research. I’ve got two more posts in the works, and a lot of time to work on them, so expect them soon.

I want to believe.