Comics

Dexter vs Death Note

Posted in Anime, Comics, Movies, TV Shows on August 17th, 2009 by Krunk – Be the first to comment

Wow! Another blog post! I’m on a roll!

For those following my tweets, you may have realized I’ve become a big fan of Dexter lately.

I’ve read the Death Note manga during college, watched the anime series shortly after (it’s now streaming from Hulu), and recently rented the 1st part of the Live Action movie from Netflix. When it mentioned the god-complex, it triggered a memory from a Dexter episode I recently saw and then I started noticing similarities.

Of course, they’re far from being the same story, but here’s a very few similar points:

  • Both kill evil criminals and believes the world would become a better place.
  • Both are part of the task force who are investigating the serial killer.
  • Both Dexter’s and Light’s father were good policemen, though they played very different roles.

Of course there’s a lot of differences. Since I haven’t seen Season 3 yet and the series hasn’t officially ended, I can’t really say where it’s going. But Season 2 of Dexter moved away from the formulaic of 1 new kill per episode and more onto the focus of the investigation and capturing of the serial killer, which is what Death Note was all about.

Searching online, I found this article (from April 2007): ‘Dexter’ and ‘Death Note’: Pop-culture cousins? which basically mentions the same thing I have above. And the author says and I quote:

However, I’d like to point out the obvious: If you’ve been digging Dex as much as I have this season, there’s a good chance you’ll devour all volumes of Death Note, and vice versa. The series is available in most major bookstores.

Argggh, after watching the movie, I realized Netflix sent me part 2 inside a sleeve of part 1. I was wondering why the movie skipped a whole bunch at the beginning and what they were planning to do with part 2 after this ending. Then I looked at the DVD and it showed Death Note II: The Last Name

A lot of things have changed between the manga/anime and the live action movie. I guess it was inevitable since they’re compacting such a long series into 2 separate 2-hour movies.

<SPOILERS>

  • It’s a battle between L and Light all the way to the end. Near and Mello were never introduced.
  • They merged 2 plot-lines together: the syndicate that was imitating Kira and the newscaster that idolized Kira
  • Swapping with a fake Death Note was switched to a different character
  • + a lot more

</SPOILERS>

All in all, the movie was still very fun to watch. Like those who have read Harry Potter books and then watched the Harry Potter movies, seeing how the movie was altered from the original works was a bit disappointing. But if I had never read the manga, I probably would’ve enjoyed it greatly.

Using Cell Phone While Driving

Posted in Comics on April 10th, 2009 by Krunk – 1 Comment

So for those who follow my Twitter or Facebook status, you might’ve seen that I posed the question:

Do you think most cell phone car accidents are caused by talking on the phone OR trying to type/read text or enter a phone number?

This all started awhile back when I read this comic strip from Real Life Comics:

Cell Phones
Cell Phones

This got me thinking… does the hands-free cell phone law make sense? What exactly causes cell phone car accidents? Talking on the phone? Holding your phone while talking? None of those sounded quite right.

I sent the following email to Greg as I’ve indicated what I believe is really the culprit to cell phone car accidents:

Hi Greg,

Long time reader, first time emailing you. I read your comic strip about talking on the cell phone while driving awhile back and read the follow-up rant today, and just wanted to share with you my opinion.

Honestly, banning talking on the cell phone or holding a cell phone while driving are both illogical. Talking on the cell phone is not that much different than having a conversation with someone else in the car. Having a conversation in person or over the cell phone can be distracting, but learning to deal with that is just part of driving.

And like many, I personally drive most of the time with 1 hand anyway, so I agree that the hands-free cell phone law doesn’t quite make sense.

What I’m getting at is the law shouldn’t be about hands-free, it should be eyes-free. I could totally be wrong about this, but I think the reason why there are so many cell phone related car accidents is because people are taking their eyes off the road. This could be because they’re typing in a phone number or trying to search for someone in their address book. Worse, there are people who actually text while driving. A friend just brought up the fact that you can now surf the web while driving. Every driver knows that taking their eyes off the road is very dangerous. Just imagine the time when you’re trying to reach for something that you have to look away for just a few seconds.

Mirror’s Edge

Posted in Comics, Games, Music on December 1st, 2008 by Krunk – 4 Comments

I don’t actually own the game yet, but I’ve played the demo and I found it to be a lot of fun. You may then be wondering why I have a whole blog post dedicated to Mirror’s Edge. The main reason is because it ties in with a couple things I wanted to blog about but doesn’t deserve their own post at the moment.

I got the demo a few weeks back and it was extremely fun. As one of CAD’s sillies state: “I have never felt this much like an acrobatic asian chick in my entire life.

On the same lines, Penny Arcade also made a comic strip about Mirror’s Edge, but I didn’t really have much problems with the headaches, given that I’m pretty sure I’m quite susceptible to 3D motion sickness. For example, I was playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on Saturday and after just 2 missions (~30 mins or so), I felt a slight headache and had to stop playing. It could be that the demo was short and it didn’t have to time to get to me yet, but even with COD4, I was pretty sure I’d get a headache within minutes of playing the game, which I didn’t really get with Mirror’s Edge.

I was planning on getting it for the Xbox 360, but it looks like it’s going to come out on the PC in January, so I might pick it up then. PC games are usually cheaper to get and I’m not sure I’m willing to drop $50 on it quite yet, given that I heard it’s a rather short game.

Speaking of which, have you seen the trailer? Check out these trailers just to see how fun they look!

You can find more trailers here: Gametrailers.com – Mirror’s Edge: Reviews, Trailers, and Interviews

The music you’re hearing in all of the trailers are remixes of a song called Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky. No, this has nothing to do with the Portal song by Jonathan Coulton.

You can also watch/download the HD version on Gametrailers.com. Someone also posted the mp3 for you listen: Still Alive.mp3 (Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky – 4MB). I personally think the song’s amazing, especially with the piano keys, which for some reason makes me think it has some Asian background. I wonder if that has to do with the fact the main character you play as is Asian.

Graphic Novels

Posted in Comics on August 22nd, 2008 by Krunk – Be the first to comment

Whew, it’s been awhile since my last post…

So I was bored at work so I was reading random comic strips and landed on this Unshelved comic strip: Graphic Novels

After reading the strip, I thought to myself… does “graphic” in graphic novels refer to the fact it’s violent/sexual? I always thought graphic refer to the fact it contained pictures, a term to distinguish between comic book issues and graphic novels, which were more like books telling a full story.

According to Merriam-Webster, graphic is defined as: marked by clear lifelike or vividly realistic description

I confirmed with Ungsunghero that it does in fact mean graphic violence/sex. He said the term that means what I’m thinking are more along the lines of illustrated novels or picture books.

However, Wikipedia states there’s apparently some ambiguity in regards to this term:

A graphic novel is a type of comic book, usually with a lengthy and complex storyline similar to those of novels, and often aimed at mature audiences. The term also encompasses comic short story anthologies, and in some cases bound collections of previously published comic book series (more commonly referred to as trade paperbacks).

The evolving term graphic novel is not strictly defined, and is sometimes used, controversially, to imply subjective distinctions in artistic quality between graphic novels and other kinds of comics. It suggests a story that has a beginning, middle and end, as opposed to an ongoing series with continuing characters; one that is outside the genres commonly associated with comic books, and that deals with more mature themes. It is sometimes applied to works that fit this description even though they are serialized in traditional comic book format. The term is commonly used to disassociate works from the juvenile or humorous connotations of the terms comics and comic book, implying that the work is more serious, mature, or literary than traditional comics. Following this reasoning, the French term Bande Dessinée is occasionally applied, by art historians and others schooled in fine arts, to dissociate comic books in the fine-art tradition from those of popular entertainment, even though in the French language the term has no such connotation and applies equally to all kinds of comic strips and books.

In the publishing trade, the term is sometimes extended to material that would not be considered a novel if produced in another medium. Collections of comic books that do not form a continuous story, anthologies or collections of loosely related pieces, and even non-fiction are stocked by libraries and bookstores as “graphic novels” (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in “comic” books). It is also sometimes used to create a distinction between works created as stand-alone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of a story arc from a comic book series published in book form.

Just more food for thought.

Speaking of comics, did you see today’s xkcd: Moving

Moving

Did I ever tell you that I paid an extra month of rent to stay at my old place, just so that by the time I’ve moved in, my new place was internet ready? I had scheduled an appointment with Comcast and you know that always takes like a week or 2. So after I confirmed internet was working, I requested help from friends to help me move. While helping me move, they also noticed that I had a cable modem on the floor with blinking green lights.

VG Cats Sketch – SO CUTE!

Posted in Comics on July 2nd, 2008 by Krunk – 2 Comments

So while I was working late tonight (till about 4am), I got bored easily and often needed to find things to distract me. I ended up on VG Cats site and saw this post: Professionals have standards.

Inside they featured a sketch drawn by Ian (artist of Three Panel Soul):

Ian McConville VG Cats

Three Panel Soul is a new webcomic I’ve been reading, though it’s been a hit or miss for me. Updates are pretty infrequent (sort of like VG Cats) and the jokes are a hit or miss. I do love their drawing style as everyone looks cute. I was introduced to TPS by Angel when I mentioned I missed Mac Hall (another webcomic by Ian) and she told me he’s drawing for a new one.

Aeris and Leo are just too adorable in the sketch!!! They are like in their chibi baby form! So cute! I wish I could hug and squeeze them!

They made wallpapers of it and I immediately made that the new desktop background for my laptop:

Speaking of cute, I recently purchased my first Woot Shirt. Some of you may have probably seen me wear it already: It’s Going Out Faster Than It’s Coming In:

It's Going Out Faster Than It's Coming In It's Going Out Faster Than It's Coming In

The t-shirt was definitely cute and only cost $10 when it was first posted. I like the little turtle and rabbit origami made from dollar bills.

Happy Mother’s Day

Posted in Comics on May 11th, 2008 by Krunk – Be the first to comment

I hope everyone got a chance to wish their mother a Happy Mother’s Day!

Calvin and Hobbes - Happy Mother's Day
You don’t get to be mom if you can’t fix everything just right.Calvin

Cute Cat Animation – Sequel

Posted in Comics, Computer on March 6th, 2008 by Krunk – 1 Comment

Thanks to Hjo3 for telling me a new cat animation is available:

Hey, BTW, a sequel was just posted yesterday.

Simon’s Cat ‘Let Me In!’
Simon's Cat 'Let Me In!'

A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to get indoors.

If you miss the original cat animation, check it out here: Cute Cat Animation

I also wanted to point out the fact that if you append &fmt=18 to the back of a YouTube URL, you’ll get higher quality video. According to RayAlome, the 2 settings for the fmt tag are &fmt=6 and &fmt=18, increasing the quality and resolution. You can find out more information about these flags at: Higher Resolution Videos on YouTube and YouTube Tests Higher Resolution Videos.

Regular:
Video Resolution: 320×240
Audio Sample Rate: 22050 Hz

&fmt=6:
Video Resolution: 448×336 (higher encoding)
Audio Sample Rate: 44100 Hz

&fmt=18:
Video/Audio Format: MP4 (H264 with AAC audio)
Video Resolution: 480×360

The Boondocks – Guns and Violence

Posted in Comics on February 18th, 2008 by Krunk – Be the first to comment

Thanks to RayAlome for sharing this comic strip with me:

the boondocks - guns and violence Huey – I don’t get this whole thing with video games.
Riley – What, you mean why you keep losing?
Huey – No. Everyone is worried about kids and violence, right? And kids using guns … So why don’t they go after the gun manufacturers and gun dealers instead of people who make video games. It doesn’t make sense.
Riley – Sure it does. Pretend you’re some stupid parent activist person … Who would YOU rather start beef with – some nerd who makes video games or some dude with a warehouse full of AK-47s?
Huey – You know … I’m actually MUCH more impressed by that point than I care to admit.
Riley – Of course. I’m deep. Just don’t tell nobody.

Animal Crossing Tragedy

Posted in Comics, Games, Music on November 19th, 2007 by Krunk – 18 Comments

So I saw this on Digg: Animal Crossing Is Tragic (mirror) (mirror 2)

I wouldn’t exactly call it a tragedy, but it was really touching and sad. I typically don’t find YTMND sites to be that interesting, but this one truly has been nicely done and the soundtrack they added is a true tear jerker along with the story told by comic strip panels.

Anyway, as with most things, I get obsessed with finding the source. The story itself is already touching, but if it was indeed true, it would make it feel that much more real. I noticed the comic strip text was replaced with English and and the original text was whited out. On one of the panels, there was some Korean text and that gave me an idea of where to start searching.

I found the source story: 동물의 숲과 한 북미 유저의 이야기. It is indeed a Korean site and story, but English translation was provided:

About two years ago, I bought the game Animal Crossing. It was fun for awhile, me and my brother played it for about a month, then got tired of it.

I’m always trying to convert my parents to videogames, however, and thought that Animal Crossing would be simple enough for them to get into. I let my mom set up a house, and she soon got into the game in a big way. (As a kid, she had polio, and now she had multiple sclerosis. She was largely homebound, except for the once our twice when she’d either leave to go shopping or to church.) Spending all day at home in a wheel chair bored her, so the relief Animal Crossing provided her was kind of amazing. She’d spend so much time playing it, that it became something of an obsession. She played it so much that she was constantly getting kidded by the family. She payed off her house in the game, she collected all the fossils, etc. Whenever I saw her playing, I thought that the game must have long since stopped being interesting to her, yet she kept playing- even after me and my brother had long since stopped.

Her condition got progressively worse, and she eventually stopped playing. About a year ago, she passed away.

I had forgotten about Animal Crossing, I hadn’t played it in over a year and a half. Today, however, I decided to visit the village again and see what was up. Weeds had grown everywhere, the villagers wondered where my mom and I had gone.

Then I came to my mailbox, it was full of letters with presents- all from my mom. Every letter was pretty much the same. “Thinking of you. Thought you’d like this present. Love, Mom” Even though I’d stopped playing, she continued to send me presents. I look back now at how I made fun of her for playing even after she’d done everything, and I realize now that she was probably spending her time getting presents for me.

Anyway, I know it’s probably cheesy, but I was just amazed at how much this affected me and I thought I’d share. Show your parents as much love as you can, while you still can guys.

Going through the trackbacks in the comment area, I found the original comic: 한 북미유저와 동물의 숲. Different music was used with this page, but it was equally sad. The original comic is located on thisisgame.com, but I have a backup copy here:

animal crossing tragedy comic strip

It appears this is from a comic called This Is Game. This particular strip is #18 and titled: 동물의 숲. According to Babelfish, that translates to: Forest of animal, probably something related to Animal Crossing.

This story turns out to be quite old. Given that the original story was posted on December 14, 2005 and the comic strip was posted on January 2, 2006, I guess someone just happened to have come by this recently and made it into a YTMND page.

If anyone can tell me what the music is, I’d really like to know.

UPDATE: Thanks to DefaultName, Vudhai, Jake, and Mike for pointing out that the music is the opening sequence from Final Fantasy X. It’s titled To Zanarkand. You can listen to the music performed by an orchestra in this video: 03 – To Zanarkand. This was apparently taken from the Tour de Japon DVD.

UPDATE #2: According to Dan, the Japanese version of Animal Crossing was called Animal Forest, and the Korean version might’ve been named the same way. According to Wikipedia, Animal Crossing in Japan is called どうぶつの森 (Doubutsu no Mori), which does indeed translate to “Animal Forest”. どうぶつ is the hiragana form of 動物.

UPDATE #3: DathVader, the owner of blog that posted the comic states the story is indeed true.

StarCraft 2

Posted in Comics, Computer, Games, School, TV Shows on May 29th, 2007 by Krunk – 2 Comments

OMG! StarCraft 2 is coming out! *drools*

Check out the trailer and gameplay videos: Starcraft 2 Gameplay Videos & Cinematic Trailer. You can also download them directly off Blizzard or GameTrailers. I just realized that if you download via Blizzard, you’re actually downloading via Bittorrent. They download is an exe file that is a bittorrent client + the hash and tracker information. Interesting idea.

*drools* some more.

Random Crap:

Colbert Knows Why Pro-Torture Responses Got Loud Applause at GOP Debate (from Digg) – Colbert adds his two cents in as to why the GOP candidates’ answers on torture were so warmly received and slams McCain for being soft on torture “enhanced interrogation techniques.” My favorite part of this clip was when one mentioned of them mentioned, “I’m looking for Jack Bauer at that time.”

Speaking of Jack Bauer. 2 of the TV series I’m watching this season has aired their finale: Heroes and 24. 24 didn’t have much of a surprise, but you know his father’s still alive. What scary is the thought that he might still have the Russian component, and you know that’s going to come back to haunt them later. Why the heck didn’t Jack Bauer get the component back before leaving his father to die. It’s as if he was allowing him to escape WITH the component. But Keith Sutherland’s signed up for 2 more seasons of 24. We’ll see how that goes.

As for Hero’s finale, I thought it was okay. The final fight was disappointing, but I’ll let my comment on Ungsunghero’s blog described what I felt:

To be honest, “Save the cheerleader, save the world” came out of future Hiro’s mouth. After the episodes where Hiro meets future Hiro, those words really didn’t have any meaning anymore.

As you said, that phrase was meant to mean to keep Sylar from taking the healing ability. I wouldn’t think that Hiro had any underlying meaning to it. If Hiro was an oracle and offer tellings with ambiguous meanings, I may believe, but future Hiro himself was confused when Sylar was still alive.

Another interesting thing was the introduction of Simone’s father. Obviously he has some powers. Linderman mentioned about an old group of friends (himself, Mama Petrelli, Hiro’s father, and Simone’s father so far).

We know what Linderman’s power is, but the other 3 are still up for grabs. We know that either Mama Petrelli or Simone’s father has the power to dream the future and past (you might remember Peter’s dreams about him blowing up, or how he saw Nathan get into a car accident). I’m leaning towards Simone’s father, but I thought that was an interesting twist in the end by bringing him back.

RayAlome tells me that both Nathan and Peter got their contracts renewed for season 2. That doesn’t mean they don’t die (maybe one has only an episode or 2, or maybe only shows up in flashbacks), but we’ll see.

If heroes were going to die, I would think Parkman with 4 bullet wounds has a higher chance of dying than D.L., but maybe both will.

Speaking of Sylar, if 4 bullets doesn’t kill Parkman immediately, I don’t see how 1 stab would cause more damage. Honestly, I was mad at Hiro for celebrating that too early. I was expecting him to stab, then chop off Sylar’s head.

I was totally expecting dinosaurs too. Awhile back, a preview showed a painting of a guy with a sword fighting a dinosaur. My guess was that Hiro would be the one to transport the bomb out of New York back into the Jurassic age and kill off all the dinosaurs.

However, I guess they needed a way for Nathan to redeem himself.

And like you, I honestly thought the fight was weak and too few powers were used during their fight. I was totally expecting a fight like the future one that was about to happen when future Hiro got killed.

I’ll end this with a comic strip from Real Life.

15 Useless or Even Dangerous Eyesight Myths (from Digg) – It’s important to separate fact from fiction, especially when the topic is eyesight. And old wives’ tales abound about the eyes. Many of these have no basis in fact and, for that matter, can be dangerous if you followed the advice put forth. An interesting list and I’ve heard of quite a few on the list. I wonder if the masturbation would make you blind has ever deterred anyone away from *cough*.

Family Guy vs. Capcom (from Ungsunghero) – What button makes a random pop culture reference again? What if you had a fighting game which involved Family Guy and Capcom. This video shows a fight between Peter and Sakura. Really hilarious.

Hershey sues man who made pot candyThe Hershey Co. has sued Affolter, 40, for giving his marijuana goodies names like Stoney Rancher, Rasta Reese’s and Keef Kat. Each came in packaging similar to Hershey’s Jolly Rancher, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat candies, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

I saw this video awhile back: oc spoof-dear sister, however the title was a bit different before. It just said something along the lines of SNL Short – Dear Sister. I had no idea what it was spoofing and although I found it a bit amusing, I didn’t find it exactly funny. I finally found the origin: The source for the “Dear Sister” SNL spoof. Apparently it’s spoofing the season 2 finale of O.C.

Pac-Man’s skeleton (from Digg) – Ever wonder what Pac-Man’s skeleton would look like? Well apparently so did the artist that created this. What do you think, did he capture the spirit of the true Pac-Man or is it just a circle with teeth?

10 Reasons It Doesn’t Pay To Be “The Computer Guy” (from Ungsunghero) – I tried to for seven years. I’ve worked in the computer industry in various ways — help desk support, web design, consulting and sales, field technician, freelance computer specialist, and whatever other fancy name you want to give “the computer guy.” I stopped enjoying it. There were certainly times when I enjoyed myself, but most of those times were when my computer talents were still developing. Once I stopped learning new things on the job, I would become fidgety and want to move on to something else. My favorite reasons include: Reason #7 – Your Talents Are Forcibly Undervalued and Reason #5 – People Ask You To Perform Miracles. For #7, it’s not so much as monetary value as they take what I do for granted. You’ve probably heard similar phrases as, “Aw, come on. It shouldn’t take you too much time. You probably can do it with a hand tied behind your back.” Of course I may have exaggerated here, but helping people like that always gets on my nerve and I usually don’t repeat the mistake of ever helping them again. As for miracles, I’m guessing it’s because people don’t have an understanding of how computer works and assume everything is fixable and everything can be recovered.

Software Notebook: How does Gates shape up as a seer? (from Digg) – Interesting statements made by Bill Gates, but what really made it interesting was this:

What Gates didn’t predict: One quote frequently attributed to the Microsoft chairman is that “640K of memory should be enough for anybody.”

However, Gates has long denied ever saying it, and no evidence has ever surfaced to show that he did. In 1996, when Gates was writing a syndicated newspaper column, a reader asked about the quote, and he replied, “No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.”

“I’ve said some stupid things and some wrong things,” he wrote, “but not that.”

I had always thought he DID say that. Interesting…

Girl calls for police help over messy roomA nine-year-old German girl was so upset about having to tidy her room she put up a sign in her window urging passers-by to call police for help. Pedestrians in the central city of Braunschweig saw the girl crying in the window, holding up a sign up saying “Help! Please call the police!” Next to her sat a small boy.

Start school later in the morning, say sleepy teens (from Digg) – A survey of sleep-deprived teens finds they think that a later start time for school and tests given later in the school day would result in better grades. The survey was presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Sunday, May 20. The survey of 280 high school students confirmed what most parents with a teenager know: they are not getting enough sleep. More sleep would translate into improved academic performance, according to the teens questioned. They all attended Harriton High School in suburban Philadelphia, where the school day begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 2:25 p.m. Does starting the day later really change things? Assuming you still have the same amount of homework and allocate the time you spend playing and working, you’d still end up with the same amount of time to sleep. However, it is true, some people work better at night (i.e. me).

The Top of the Class – The complete list of the 1,200 top U.S. schools (from Digg) – Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement, Intl. Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2006 divided by the number of graduating seniors. All of the schools on the list have an index of at least 1.000; they are in the top 5 percent of public schools measured this way. If you have 2006 data showing that your school should be on this list, please contact Mathews at challenge@washpost.com. For complete coverage, visit NEWSWEEK’s Top High Schools section. Another year, another list. Mark Keppel ranked 570 this year. What’s interesting is now they have a search function you can use to search the city, state, or school name. A lot easier than going through the entire list looking for your school.

“I Think We’re Dead.” (from Digg) – I like when news anchors break character. And snort. A recorded telephone call about a police officer and his wife getting high off eating brownies with marijuana. They reportedly claim that time was going really slow and he thinks they’re dying or dead.

‘He Looks Like A ‘Bob” Is True (from Digg) – For example, when people hear the name “Bob” they have in mind a larger, round face than when they hear a name such as “Tim” or “Andy.” Robin Thomas, associate professor of psychology, and colleagues not only show that this link exists, but they also show that if people try to learn face-name pairs that go against their expectations, they have a hard time doing it. I knew you always looked like a Robert!