| Rants! |
| Wednesday, September 25, 2002: |
| Feminism Something that really pisses me off is feminists. Today, in the main administrative building at Truman (McClain Hall), the feminists had a table set up right inside the door, selling cookies and other food. Fine. I have no problem with them doing a fund raiser. However, I do have a problem with people actively promoting divisiveness and hatred while claiming to promote equality. The price sign on the table read: Males: $1.00 White Women: $0.75 Minority Women: $0.60 Now that I have a problem with. My understanding of feminism is that the main goal is to promote equality for women. How is dividing peole up into categories accomplishing that goal? To promote equality for women, all of the prices should be equal! As a woman, I was insulted by that sign; I felt as if someone was trying to put me into a category for my own good, a category that I didn't want to be in. If it wasn't against my principles to give money to feminists, I would go back to the table and pay a dollar for whatever it was they were selling. As my roommate just said, the goal of feminism today seems to be male-bashing rather than achieving equality for women. One of my friends, Ben, said that he could definitely feel hatred toward men this week (it is also rape awareness week). Hatred should NOT be the goal of feminists, or of any organization. Ashley, Lillian (a girl from my speech class), and Jessica both feel the same way as I do about the feminist table. It is insult to women who are actually accomplishing the goal of being equal to men instead of bitching about how unfair the world is. I guess that's all for now. This would have made a good entry in my Writer's Notebook last year. |
| Sunday, September 29, 2002: |
| Lunchroom hours This rant will be much shorter than the one previous. The hours of our cafeteria are ridiculous! On most days, lunch is from 10:45-1. Noon is the generally accepted lunch hour. I don't have a problem with them opening the lunchroom early, but to stop serving at 1? But the lunch hours aren't nearly as bad as the dinner times. Dinner goes from 4:45-6:45. What the hell were they thinking? Are they on crack!!?!??!?!? Six is the generally accepted dinner HOUR, and they are ending dinner at 6:45! At home, I didn't normally eat until after 7:00! Now, we are forced to go to dinner as soon as the X-Files is over at 6:00. But that isn't even the worst of it. On Friday, the cafeteria closes at 6!!! The accepted dinner hour!!! Have you any idea how annoying and frustrating this is!!!! GRRRRR!!!!! Ok. I feel better now. |
| Saturday, November 2, 2002: |
| Star Wars commercials This is for those of you who have seen the new Star Wars commercial featuring Yoda. I just about threw myself (or my t.v.) out the window. The words "Who da man?" appear on the screen, followed by "Yo-do Man," and shots of Yoda fighting Count Dooku. "Yoda da man" also appears on the screen, along with a shot of Yoda appearing to Force-grab a copy of the soon-to-be released DVD. Whoever came up with that idea needs to be--well, I would say shot, but that would imply a threat, but you know what I mean. So do the people who approved the idea. Seeing that commercial just once is worse than seeing ten commercials for Bowflex in a row! I cannot express to you how awful it was. Hopefully you don't have to see for yourself, but if you do, I'm sorry. |
| Thursday, December 12, 2002: |
| Stupid T.V. Executives I have two major complaints about the scheduling practices of two t.v. stations. First, I will deal with the stupidity of TNT. They are running a Lord of the Rings special, on the making of the second installment, The Two Towers. By itself, this would be a good thing, in fact, a VERY good thing. Unfortunately, they are running it at the stupidest time possible. They are running it at 10 pm (central time). Who but hard core Lord of the Rings fans would watch the special when aired at that time? To get the maximum audience, the special should be aired much earlier. I would even sacrifice my viewing of "The X-Files" for a day to watch that special (better to loose it to LOTR than to golf...but that's and entirely different story). However, the channel is airing the special at 10. And that wouldn't be so bad--I'm sure a lot of people would tune in to watch if they were good fans of the movies. But TNT is showing this special on Tuesday the 17th! This is the night before the movie comes out! How many fans will choose to sit at home and watch a special about the movie when they could be standing in line to watch the movie itself! Talk about stupidity! On to the next network: Sci-Fi. Normally I don't pick on Sci-Fi. And actually, they aren't doing anything really stupid, it's more of a personal complaint that I have with them. After around two months of previous for their new mini-series, "Taken," I was SOOOO ready to be done with it already! Unfortunately, "being done with it" involves not being able to watch "Stargate" or "The X-Files" until the series is over. I'm fine with "The X-Files;" TNT is showing it, too, and I get more done without watching that many episodes a night. However, I have no other source for "Stargate." This makes me very sad. It's a wonderful show. If you haven't seen it before, tune into Sci-Fi once "Taken" is over. I think it will be on Monday nights. If not, and you are in the Des Moines area, Channel 8 has "Stargate" on after the 10 pm news on Saturdays. Anyway, I'm just going through "Stargate" withdrawl here, no other problems...other than the fact that I'm going to try to start jumping through things hoping that they are artificial wormholes to the Stargate universe... |
| Saturday, September 6, 2003: |
| Fire Alarms Yesterday, the fire alarm went off in my dorm, for the second time within three days. The first time was the obligatory fire drill that every dorm went through. However, yesterday when the fire alarm went off, it was around five in the afternoon, and there was no readily apparant cause. And, to top it all off, I WAS IN THE SHOWER!!! There are several things about this situation that pissed me off. One: I couldn't even hear the fire alarm from in the shower. Who knows how long it had been going off before I heard it? I think the fire alarms are quieter in my building this year than they were last year. Two: I was in the shower!!! I don't think I need to say anything more about this, but I will. I was not done with my shower, so I still had conditioner in my hair. None the less, I left the shower threw on my pijamas, and went outside...BAREFOOT! So, that's my story, and if someone pulled the alarm, I'm really pissed off at them! |
| Wednesday, September 24, 2003: |
| My Fantasy Class I'm not sure if anything has ever made me so mad before that I've actually had to count to ten in multiple languages to calm myself down. And even after doing so, I still had the marks on my palms from my fingernails for over two hours. And I still haven't said what I'm pissed about. When the year started out, I was so excited about my fantasy class. I was looking forward to this class above all others. If you know me, you know I absolutely love to read fantasy. All went well for the first couple of weeks. Our first book was a solid fantasy novel, and while the professor (who will remain nameless simply because I can't remember her name) wasn't my favorite, I didn't dislike her. Then we got to the second book. It was sort of a hybrid between fantasy and sci-fi, which I didn't consider too unusual because of how blurred the lines are between the two genres. However, it was during the discussions about this book that she first made her political opinions known. Randomly in class, she brought up the English Only bill from several years ago that didn't pass, and tried to relate it to our book by going on about the ignorance and intolerance of the people who promoted the bill and comparing them to the people who opposed the main characters in the book. But this was far from the worst thing... Our next book was one I would barely consider fantasy. The only fantastical elements present were the two talking, intelligent cats who had decided they were going to fix their owners' financial problems by gaining money through online trading. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds. I later realized that our professor knows the author of the book. Go figure. I didn't like this book because there wasn't enough fantasy in it for my tastes. For some reason, I don't think the professor understood my reasoning. She seemed to think I just didn't get what was going on. But, that's not my only complaint about the parts of class dealing with the cat book. In class, as our professor was trying to find a deep, hidden meaning to the book, she simply remarks that she thinks the cats are right that humans aren't civilized, making some comments about the war... GRRR... The FINAL STRAW was the last book we read. It was even less of a fantasy novel than the cat book, if you can imagine. This time, the book was an alternate history--what would have happened in World War One if the South had won the Civil War? Outside of this fact, the book was a historical fiction novel. I didn't mind reading it; in fact, it was a pretty good book. However, I didn't want to read it in a fantasy class. And, there was the *MINOR* point of the constant, cutesy historical references the author added: Gone With the Wind, Woodrow Wilson, William Falkner, Adolf Hitler, Mata Hari, Ho Chi Minh, George Patton, and possibly some I've missed. By the end of the book, when the main character had killed Hitler, I'd simply had enough of the book. What truly got me pissed off enough to write this, however, was the in-class discussion on Monday. Our professor basically accused Fox News of repeatedly running a false story, insulted President Bush, and made the snide comment that our country was no longer a democracy because of him and the Patriot Act. It's a fucking shame that the class I'd looked forward to ever since I'd signed up for turned out to be a complete and utter waste of time and energy, ne? And I'll bet you're all shocked you didn't see a swear word until practically the last line, too. Well, that's because I'm still furious with the bitch--that kind of scary, quiet, calm, white-hot anger-- and you may be hearing more about her soon. **10-22-03: UPDATE** If possible, I'm even angrier with her now than I was before. The first thing, when we got into class today, she talks about the California election...in a sort of disapproving way, but without really giving an opinion on it. Ok, I'm fine with that. But then, she starts Reagan bashing. And that is where I draw the line. I'm seriously thinking about taking this up with the head of the English department (who happens to be my counselor) when I go in to talk about my classes for next semester. That BITCH has no right to bash politicians in *any* class, let alone a fantasy literature one. Of course, from Reagan-bashing, she moved on to Bush-bashing. I really hate that class now. |
| Friday, January 23, 2004: |
| Textbook writers...or perhaps just politically correct morons in general So it's around twelve thirty and I'm trying to get my Anthropology reading that I'm two weeks behind on finished. It's not my fault I'm behind, mind you, I just got the books two days ago...stupid bookstore. Anyway. I come across this: "...5000 B.P. (before the present)." Ok...what the hell is that? Before the present???? That is the most idiotic measure of time I've ever heard of. The "present" is constantly changing! You can't date something as being five thousand years before now, because the date that it is *supposed* to signify will keep changing!!! Ok, yes I do know what they meant. They don't want to offend anyone by using the term "B.C." Heaven forbid we make an allusion to Christ that has been used for centuries. Hell, in most textbooks, it's still used! However, if you want to make sure you don't want to offend the non-Christians (because by using anything other than B.C. you're going to offend some people, namely Christians. I mean, I'm even slightly affronted by the use of other measurements, and I'm generally not too sensitive to that sort of thing), at least use a term that makes sense! There is one in existance; it's not like the book writers had to make one up. Just use B.C.E. "Before Common Era." Honestly! How hard is that?? Idiots. |
| Tuesday, April 13, 2004: Frats Yes, I�m sure I�ll have much more to complain about next year on this subject, right now I have a specific instance in mind. First, I should explain that organizations on campus, such as our Anime Club, can reserve this really nice room that has stadium seating and a projection system for two hours at a time. We have it reserved every Friday night from 7-9, technically, but nobody ever reserves it after us. Well, a couple of weeks ago, some frat did, and we weren�t informed either! You�d think, that the school would at least send us a notification saying that we needed to be out of the room by nine o�clock because someone else had it reserved�but no�of course not�So these two frat guys show up like a half hour early, while we�re watching a series. We take a break, and then they tell us that they have the room reserved and we need to leave. Naturally, we decide to check the website to make sure (I mean, would you believe them?), which pisses them off. Sadly they were right, so we started moving our stuff out. At this point, it was still ten minutes until nine, but they started coming down to the front of the room and getting in our way, and one of them, WHILE I WAS UNPLUGGING MY COMPUTER, actually asked us to finish leaving! What the bloody hell did he think we were doing??? Anyway, Jill locked the computer system as we left, and hopefully they didn�t know the password. That would have been sweet justice. The worst thing about this was that we were just about to show the end of a really good series: four episodes, the last two of which had just come out, and no one had seen yet. We ended up having to go wait for the DDR tournament that was going in another dorm to get over, and then use one of their projectors. And, of course, the speakers on the projector were crap, so I had to get mine, and the outlets in the lounge were old, so we had to modify the plug on the power strip (i.e. break part of it off�). :::sigh::: But, an hour and forty-five minutes later, we were finally able to watch the end of R.O.D. the TV. And boy, was it worth it! Still�damn frats. My suitemates I don�t think it�s any secret that I didn�t like one of my suitemates last year. She did drugs, hardly ever went to class, slept around, didn�t return things that she borrowed, and was just, in general, a person that I didn�t along with too well. However, the suitemates that Lindsey and I have this year are infinitely worse. Neither of us even knows which one is which, nor what their names are. We�ve never held a conversation with either of them when they�ve been sober. And they�re in the shower ALL THE TIME. At the beginning of the year, when we moved in, they had their door closed. Well, we figured that we didn�t want to bother them when they were getting settled in, so we just left our door open so they could come over when they were ready. Only they never did. Ever since, they�ve been totally hostile to us. Last year, between the three of us, we had a general schedule worked out, and before any of us went to take a shower, we�d make sure the other people didn�t need to get in the bathroom. This year, the attitude is just so negative that I certainly didn�t want to go talk to them. And we could deal with that, at first. But then the showers started. On any given day, between the two of them, there is an average of probably three showers. WTF?? They aren�t athletic, apparently they just *really* luck using the crappy, low shower we have. Ok, fine. They shower a lot. Work around it. Sorry, no can do. This hasn�t been a problem for me as much, but they have seriously adjusted their schedule so Lindsey can�t get into the bathroom before she has class to wash her face, put on her contacts, etc. And they�ve done this both semesters. Yeah, about this time, we came to the realization that they�re bitches. Wait�maybe we realized this when we had the minor war over whether to leave the bathroom window open, starting the very first we were here. They would take a shower, then leave the bathroom without opening the window, so the entire room would be damp. Yuck! (we don�t have fans in our bathrooms here) Then, at the end of last semester, we got into another little war�over toilet paper. One time when I was in the bathroom, I noticed that we only had three rolls left, and I was going to get some at Hy-Vee when I went. Unfortunately, I forgot to write it down, so I forgot. The next day when I went in the bathroom, all the extra rolls of toilet paper were gone. Lindsey ended up buying some when she went to Wal-Mart, and we ended up keeping it in our room, and carrying it into the bathroom whenever we went in. And they were obviously doing the same thing. Of all the childish, annoying�GAH! Eventually, I think we gave up, or they did, so we�re back to sharing, but honestly! And then there�s the fact that they will. not. talk to us. I�ve seriously only had one conversation with one of them, and she was totally drunk at the time. This was several months ago, when the fire alarm went off at three in the morning or something. The girl had just gotten back, and was wearing a black dress, and a black feather boa. Yes, that�s right, a boa. @_@ But she actually talked to me, even though the conversation mainly consisted of �God, I am so wasted,� as she kept trying to walk straight. A few weeks later, Lindsey and a friend who was visiting her and staying in our room were coming back from a party kind of late (I�m not sure when, since I wasn�t there that night, though I wish I had been), and they saw her in the lobby, flirting (really badly) with the night check-in guy. She talked to Lindsey then, proving our theory that she had no clue who the people around her were when she was drunk, and would talk to anyone. Well, they ended up back in the room right after the suitemate got back to hers, and they could hear her talking through the door. Apparently, her roommate had been asleep, but the drunk girl woke her up, saying she was going to make pancakes (which we really can�t do in our rooms, since we lack the basics of things like�oh, say�an oven). She kept asking her roommate if she wanted some pancakes, and said that she�d be happy to make them for her because she was her roommate and she loved her. O_o Right. One last thing�last semester, Lindsey had been for part of the night, and she came back not feeling well (I guess I sleep rather soundly, �cause I missed all this). She was in the bathroom, and threw up. After that, she unlocked the door so they could get in, and lay down on our floor, since she didn�t want to go up the ladder to her bed in case she had to throw up again. One of the suitemates came in, looked at her lying on the floor, and then locked her out of the bathroom, without even asking if she was ok. Of course, she was in there forever, so Lindsey ended up having to throw up in her trashcan because she couldn�t get in the bathroom. Oh, they are such lovely people. >_< |
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| Monday, September 7, 2004: |
| VIZ I wasn't intending to write this, but as I was going around updating the banners, I realized that I *did* have something to rant about! VIZ! They have the license to what may be my favorite manga, Naruto. And they're just doing such a crappy job with it! I don't know hardly any Japanese, but I know enough to know that they have utterly butchered the attack names. I'm used to watching/reading fan translation of Naruto, where they leave the name of the attack untranslated, except at the beginning of the series. This helps give the feel of the manga, since it's about ninjas, and there are a lot of different jutsus (techniques) used. In addition to the fact that they're translated, they're translated WRONG!!! Very, very wrong. The first one they butcher is "bunshin" which means CLONE. They translate it as "doppleganger," which is totally wrong. In no way does that word relate to a CLONE. Dopplegangers are people like the aliens on the X-Files who can transform into others! Plus, they don't really differentiate between Kage bunshin and bunshin, when the former is a "shadow clone," something entirely different. And then there's the fact that they changed the name of Kakashi's book (originally Icha Icha Paradisu) from Come Come Paradise to Make out Paradise. Boo to that. And right after that, :::sighs::: they turned "1000 years of PAIN" into "1000 years of DEATH." How do you have 1000 years of death? Huh? And how does it fit the technique? At this point I'll also complain that they translate the honorifics after everyone's names. That never works well. It's generally far easier to put a glossary in the back with more detailed definitions of sitational usage than try to find a word that kind of fits for all the situations. Like how they used "master" as a translation for sensei, which, in this context, means teacher. And they also translated the ninja ranking system (genin, chuunin, jounin), and the result just doesn't sound right. Instead of translating once then using the Japanese like they do for words like shinobi or ninjutsu, they continue to use the ackward English words. Ok, back to the awful translations... In later chapters, they commit such attrocities as calling the Byakugan, which is a name and could as such remain untranslated "Evil Eyes." Yes, that's right. Evil Eyes. Not only does it sound stupid, it's utterly inaccurate. Byakugan means "white eyes." Along a similar vein of totally changing attack names, Ino's Body-mind switch technique was renamed to the utterly unrelated "Valentine technique." What the hell? That makes no sense at all!! She's causing her mind to take over the body of someone else for a few minutes. How is this a "valentine technique?" In addition to the poor attack name translations, sometimes just regular sentences aren't very smooth, such as this one, commonly translated by fans as being "A shinobi must be able to read underneath the underneath." Now compare that to the VIZ translation of "Shinobi read the hidden meanings within the hidden meanings." It's wordier and just doesn't flow as well. In the second volume, there is a map of the different shinobi countries. It's just...wrong. The country names are totally translated wrong. There is only one country that is translated correctly, and it's probably the second least important one on the map. Everything is "Land of the..." when they could simply say "______ Country." That works so much better! There's one spot where they had previously given the definition of a term--hitai-ate, forehead protector--and they go on to say "his hitai-ate leaf headband." Talk about redundancy! Back to another comparison. Which is cooler: "I foresee your death" or "Your future is death"? If you said the first one, you'll be happy with what VIZ has done, but I think the second one is far better. And right around that same scene...I just can't see Kakashi saying "Way dead." Ok, last phrase comparison. And I don't even think the VIZ one makes sense, but I'll give it to you first: "To know what is right and choose to ignore it is the act of a coward. Like master, like man!" And then we have the fan translation: "To abandon your duty is not courageous. Below the courageous there is nothing." Come on! How cool is that! One last thing (Gah, I sound like Columbo or something :p) There's one place in Volume three that they just did...totally incorrectly. Zabuza is thinking about how Kakashi made him see himself reflected, and it says in big letters over the illusion "COPYING NINJUTSU..." Great. Only it's GENjutsu, which is illusionary techniques. It's quite plain in stating that in the Japanese. Just another example of things being changed to suit some weird standard they must have had in mind. :::sighs::: BTW, I wrote an angry letter to VIZ on this very subject, but I was quite polite and pretty much suggested that they leave certain things untranslated and put a glossary in. Otherwise, I'm sure it would have turned out like this... ^.^;; One thing I did think was pretty cool was that in the Zabuza and Kakashi first round fight, they left the long string of original kanji intact. Plus, I think they made a wise choice in leaving words like shinobi, ninjutsu, hokage, chakra, etc untranslated. I wish they had just done it to more words... **2-3-07 UPDATE** About a year or so ago I sold my Naruto because I couldn't stand the translations... |
| February 3, 2007: This news story has been around for a couple of days at this point, but it deserves to have the full story preserved. Turner Broadcasting is being federally prosecuted because of an ad campaign for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. About three weeks ago, in several major cities, including Houston, Seattle, Chicago, and Boston, [Adult Swim] had "devices" put up to promote the ATHF movie. Some idiots in Boston, at the beginning of this week, finally noticed, and thought that these "devices" were bombs. The city practically went into lockdown mode. Police searched for the rest of the "devices" and arrested the two who had put them up. The story made nationwide news. What didn't make nationwide news was the fact that these devices were freakin' LITE BRITES! The kind that children in preschool play with! (Lite Brites). The "devices" were just images of a cartoon character flicking off passersby on a LITE BRITE! This is simply unbelievable. (1) The devices were in other cities. No one else complained. (2) The devices were up for TWO WEEKS before anyone noticed them. (3) The gorram "devices" were just freaking Lite Brites! I don't think they in any way resemble bombs. Although, by now, I'm sure someone has gotten the idea to turn a Lite Brite into a bomb... Way to go, Boston. |