So this morning I got into an AIM conversation with one of my friends from Japan, Ayaka, who I hadn’t talked to in ages (like, last July?) She directed me to her new blog, and I was reading and about to make a comment, when I noticed I had to fill in this text field:
It’s a Japanese version of one of those CAPTCHA images that computers aren’t supposed to be able to solve very well and thus ensure that users are human… anyway I liked this one, because it just has the pronunciation of the numbers written out in hiragana and katakana. So it would be a major hurdle to fill this out if I didn’t actually know how to read Japanese (or didn’t know how to count). Of course, I probably wouldn’t have a lot to say about Ayaka’s exclusively Japanese blog if I couldn’t even read the numbers.
I was unaware of the fact that such a thing existed, but apparently it’s considered impressive if one can eat 6 Saltine crackers in one minute without drinking any fluids. Teddy and Matt told me about this today at lunch, and I’m always up for a challenge…
The challenge is discussed various places on the web, like here, but in summary, I think the conclusion we can draw is that Saltines are really dry.
Teddy claims that the correct strategy is to eat one at a time, and that sort of makes sense if you want to maximize surface area contact between Saltine and salivation. Perhaps next time I try the challenge I will try it that way.
Alas, by the end of 60 seconds, I was chewing my 5th saltine, so I did indeed fail the challenge. I feel like I lost a few seconds here and there by sitting there and laughing at Matt and Teddy who were laughing at me trying to eat Saltines. Thanks to Matt, for filming it with his cell phone, which you can see here.
Next time I think someone should participate in the challenge with me, though. Contest, anyone?
Yamada Takayuki has bad luck. Every girl he falls in love with dies a few months later of a long-term illness.
Yamada has starred in two dramas of note, Sekai no Chuushin de, Ai wo Sakebu (2004) (abbreviated to SekaiChuu), which in English would be “Crying out Love in the Center of the World,” in which the object of his affections dies slowly of leukemia, and two years later in Taiyou no Uta (2006) (“A Song for the Sun”) in which he falls in love with, Sawajiri Erika a gifted singer/songwriter who happens to be allergic to sunlight, and is beginning the final decline into irreparable nerve damage, and ultimately, death.
Needless to say, these shows are downers, since you have to go into it knowing that the lead is going to die (there’s really no alternative here — if she made it, there wouldn’t be much of a story). However, in Taiyou no Uta, unlike in SekaiChuu, they manage to avoid making the drama 100% about Kaoru’s disease. In fact, the plot is surprisingly centered about her aspirations to debut as a singer/songwriter, and Yamada’s history in the music business with a pop star named Asami complicates the affair, leading to a somewhat involved subplot that gives the drama something to do besides sulk about the girl’s impending doom. Since she can’t go outside during the day, she simply just operates nocturnally, and all of her friends and family seem to be totally used to this (which I suppose they would be, after years of her illness), but the parents seem relatively unconcerned about her whereabouts. It’s also unclear when the parents actually sleep, since their daughter calls them in the middle of the night when she’s off galavanting, and yet they seem to be operating a restaurant during somewhat normal business hours as well.
Kaoru writes songs and performs them at night on some sidewalk (see clip below). The music aspect to the show has a pretty light tone, interspersed only with tension caused by Kaoru’s disease — the nerve damage arising in her left hand leaves her unable to play guitar, and she eventually suffers throat damage, which she mostly ignores. By the end of the final episode, Kaoru, Yamada, and their friends (the backup band) are about to go onstage to debut in their first public concert. Kaoru is dolled up like a Jpop star, and without the disease storyline, this would be the classic chick flick/Disney/Hilary Duff movie ending where the girl goes onstage and sings a great song, filling the viewers’ hearts are with bubbly warmth and happiness. Unfortunately, this was in fact, the last segment of the last episode of the show, so really, she didn’t have a chance.
In stark contrast, Yamda’s girlfriend in SekaiChuu literally spent all 11 episodes dying, rather than putting it off to the last minute. She also wanted to go out with style, insisting that she visit Australia with Yamada (at this point she was unable to walk, talk, or really even breathe), and there is this incredibly disturbing scene with him carrying her over his shoulder through the airport, until he has no choice but to take her back to the hospital.
So while SekaiChuu is a little heavier, and Taiyou no Uta a little more fun, in both shows, Yamada is the same sweet, devoted, serious, and truly nice guy. In fact, his character in Taiyou no Uta was so clearly the same person as from SekaiChuu, that during the beginning episodes of Taiyou no Uta, I was fairly concerned that he was still upset about the death of the girl in SekaiChuu.
Kaoru in her element, episode 2:
SekaiChuu I watched last year in something like under 24 hours (recommendation: never do this. Afterwards, shock), and Taiyou no Uta was watched this week in ~5 days (a more reasonable length of time to watch such a show). Normally I avoid tear-jerking, depressing dramas, but since this seems to be Yamada Takayuki’s forte, I think I can make exceptions anytime he comes across such an ill-fated girl.
I am now addicted to this game, after discovering it from beforebreakfast.net. Pretty soon, I’m gonna be the the master of every prefecture in Japan. Catchy music, too.
However, the dog/professor (??) is a harsh critic — last game I played, I got 30 prefectures and missed 1, and apparently that was, “Not good but not bad.” One day I will gain approval!
So Audrey Hepburn’s couch in Breakfast At Tiffany’s is pretty great (view here) simply because it seems to be constructed out of a bathtub. I am, however, a little skeptical about the comfort of such a couch.
And then yesterday, I was watching 貧乏男子(Binbou Danshi), one of this season’s most important dramas, in which Oguri Shun plays an overenthusiastic and friendly college student who has fallen into huge debts (the polar opposite of his usual roles: calm, cool, collected rich guys). In in a scene in the second episode, he is eating with his neighbor, played by Miura Haruma (who I will only ever be able to see as the insecure boyfriend who managed to impregnate Shida Mirai last fall in １４才の母)… but anyway, I noticed that Oguri Shun seems to have this really great table in his place, made out of a skateboard:
I’m not sure it’s completely true that poor people just substitute random items like bathtubs and skateboards in place of furniture… but I pretty much want that table anyway.
This week has gone by extremely fast, and the weekend even faster. Granted, Monday there were no classes, so really the week started from Tuesday, but it was still remarkably fast to the point where I am starting to doubt my ability to judge the passing of time. I made several enlightening discoveries this week that were of, at, or relating to school… so I think I’ll share.
Tuesday’s discovery: It’s completely and totally necessary to eat lunch. I sort of forgot about the whole eating lunch thing, until I realized that I had class from 12-5 with no break. Oops. By 5pm I was not in a good mood, but I had chinese food leftovers to eat and my mood quickly improved. Lesson: keep food with you at all times, especially on Tuesdays.
Wednesday’s discovery: Actually, I don’t think I discovered anything particularly amazing on Wednesday, except that there is a nice small time block after my physics discussion section in which I can do fantastic things like go buy batteries for my calculator, etc. Thrilling.
Thursday’s discoveries:
1) As great as the song “She Don’t Use Jelly” is, actually applying that concept to a sandwich is less than ideal. I had my bagel in my dorm room, and actually remembered to pack myself food (after Tuesday’s failure). I spread peanut butter on, at which point I discovered that I didn’t have any jelly. This was a thoroughly depressing moment. But there was nothing to be done, so I just brought my PB&J-hold-the-J sandwich and went on my way. Later on though, I ended up having really yummy chinese food, which certainly helped. Twice this week, really bad or nonexistent meals have been followed by chinese food. I approve of this trend.
2) Conveying knowledge is the hardest thing in the world. I always had some idea of this, but now that I actually am attempting to do this as a JOB, it seems much more essential that I discover how to do this. Also, despite the fact that I haven’t even known this material for very long, it’s a difficult thing to know what other people don’t understand yet (not that it’s even very easy to know exactly what it is you don’t understand when you’re taking a class yourself). Gaaah.
3) I am completely and totally inferior to Sean’s antbuster skills. I spent like 40 minutes on this, only to have my cake stolen by ants a mere one level before Sean’s *awesome* record.
[click on picture to play]
Sean dares you to make it past level 76. I promise the music to this game is really great too.
Friday’s discoveries:
1) So I had a quiz in Japanese, which involved translating some things into english. Normally I dislike translating into english because it’s so difficult. This stems from the fact that English and Japanese are so different, and the year I spent there, no one was asking me for a direct translation. Anyway, on this quiz we didn’t have to translate entire sentences, but just some words and phrases. I studied the appropriate material, but then on the quiz one of the words we were supposed to translate was せっかく (sekkaku). Now, if you asked me to name a word that exists in Japanese and simply doesn’t at all in english, I probably would have picked that word. I can only really attempt to explain the meaning by example. One of the sentences I said during my speech about my new years resolution to be better about replying to emails, could be translated to:
“I don’t want to inconvenience the friends who [sekkaku] wrote emails to ME”
I.e., my friends went all the way out of their way and did this really great thing by writing email to me, I should at the very least try not to inconvenience them.”
Example 2 (from our textbook): The sentence was something like “Then this person loses the sekkaku enjoyment of eating a meal with their family.”
So in short, I have no idea what it means. It seems to be a particularly Japanese sentiment, at times related to obligation… but really, there is no translation.
So after class I pointed this out to my sensei, asking what translation was expected, and that even though I am confident I know what sekkaku is, I am entirely unable to translate it. A few hours later an email came saying that everyone gets credit for that problem, because it’s too hard to explain.
I just thought that the fact that we don’t have to translate something because it’s IMPOSSIBLE is really fantastic.
Now it’s time for sleep, and I’m not going to attempt to describe the weekend anyway. Tata.
Yesterday, second chapter of the manga I translate, was finally released ^_^
The manga is called Sugar Pot, by Takasaka Yue, which is a ridiculously sugary sweet (girly), but fun story. I think the translation on chapter 2 is about a zillion times better than chapter 1, so there’s always lots of room for improvement. So if you’re interested, please read it!
I finished watching Nobuta wo Produce a couple days into 2008, and let me tell you it was great. Released in fall of 2005, at first this appeared to be another typical high school drama (though, I’ve never actually run into an unremarkable high school drama… they’re all special in their own way).
The story: There’s a new transfer student in school, a girl named Nobuko (Horikita Maki), who is quiet, awkward, kind of morose, and all-around creepy — greasy looking hair covers her face, she shuffles around, and avoids everyone. The most popular kid in school, Shuuji (Kamenashi Kazuya), has a calm, cool, and collected exterior, but on the inside is extremely bored with his life. Akira (played by Yamapi) is a crazy kid who decides to bother Shuuji until Shuuji accepts him as a friend. Akira and Shuuji decide their project is to make Nobuko into a popular girl, such as in Pygmalion, My Fair Lady, and She’s All That. There were many similarities in these stories — they try changing her appearance, manner of speaking, etc. to make her “popular”. However, there were several significant differences from these classic western makeover stories:
1) Nobuko never becomes beautiful. She cuts her hair, tries changing her clothes (but ultimately sticks with her original clothes), she never stops stuttering, and never acts kawaii. There was no scene where she spends a day shopping, going to hair salons, getting makeup, and comes out looking fabulous. She tries all of those things at times, but in the end the look that suits her the best is what she’s comfortable in.
2) Nobuko never ends up with Shuuji. You know from the first second of the show that she is going to fall in love with him, and after about 3 or 4 seconds that Akira is going to fall for Nobuko, but all of these relationships are left entirely in the potential form. The characters’ feelings for one another drive them to act the way they do, so the direction of the plot results from these feelings, but there is no final love story that wraps up the whole show. In fact, Shuuji and Akira end up being separated from Nobuko — we see the depth of friendship between the three of them, but the fact that Nobuko doesn’t need them anymore is a measure of their success in teaching her to have confidence.
3) Nobuko is able to achieve true popularity without changing herself. The other kids grow to like her, even in her quirkiness. Nothing is superficial about her popularity, so she never has an existential crisis about, “look what I sacrificed to gain popularity,” since she has not really changed herself at all.
4) Way more cute pigs. “Nobuta” is a nickname for Nobuko, and “buta” = “pig”, so almost everything in the show is pig themed. In a couple of episodes, the trio decides to make a bunch of little keyholders in the shape of these cute pink pigs, which catch on at school and become a huge fad. Shuuji’s mom brings back little pig paperweights or something from a trip as omiyage, and these pigs become the symbol of the trio’s friendship.
5) It was kind of surreal. Luck, spirits, superstition, and dreams play a major role in some episodes. Examples: there are these kids at school who help out the trio in the culture festival, who turn out to be ghosts of former students — everyone just seems to accept this as normal. At one point, four of the characters have the exact same dream at the same time, so they all rush to school (the location of the dream) and make sure everything is okay, but some remnants of their dream seem to be lingering in the real world — weird stuff, that again, everyone seems to accept.
6) Akira’s manner of speaking is ridiculous. You probably have to know Japanese in order to understand this, but he ends almost every sentence he utters with なんだっちゃ for emphasis, which is… well it sounds really stupid. If there were an english equivalent, it would perhaps be ending every sentence with, “zors” or something. Yamapi is really ridiculous.
7) The theme song to Nobuta, “Seishun Amigo” is pretty catchy too. I sang it last week at karaoke ^_^
Anyway here are some stills:
Akira (Yamapi) and Shuuji (Kamenashi). I really do think Kamenashi looks like a death god — if he showed up in the middle of the night I would probably die of fright. But by day, he’s just a classic KAT-TUN prettyboy.
Nobuko in her natural posture. The guys want her to cut her hair, and she points to a store with extremely ugly clothes, and says, “Could you wear those clothes?” “I wouldn’t be caught dead in those…” “That’s what cutting my hair would be like.” So the guys wear the clothes, and convince Nobuko to cut her hair.
Cutting this creepy doll’s hair for practice (yes, at a salon). Yamapi also looks stupid!
And, bonus bento shot:
At the beginning, Shuuji is dating this girl, Mariko (Toda Erika). She makes bento for him every day, brings it to school (or cooks it there) and the two of them eat in one of the cooking schools at room. Oh bento….
However, the best thing about this show is possibly the phrase I learned. Whenever she was lacking in confidence, Nobuko would say,
野ブタパワー 注入！ (Nobuta power! Infusion!)
Which is just pretty great. Some dude compiled a video of a bunch of times she does this (starting with the first time Akira comes up with it). I think it’s gonna be my new power-up as well.
Now that 2007 is over, I would just like to look back and reflect on some of the great jdramas of the year. As the primary thief of my free time (besides school, of course), I certainly spent several days in 2007 JUST watching jdramas, and when I couldn’t, I wish I could have. Many were actually on-air this year, but I managed to go back and rewatch some old classics I’d never seen. Below are some blurbs on the three most recent I finished.
Dramas I watched in 2007 (in somewhat chronological order, links go to the D-addicts Wiki):
And for the most recent three, which I started over Thanksgiving and finished during Winter Break:
Orange Days (2004): A cute story about five college students trying to find out who they are. The main character is Kai, a guy who falls for a deaf girl named Sae. She was a musician before (violinist) but is now struggling with what she should do now that she is deaf. She has a strong, defensive personality, and communicates solely through sign language, much of which is angry and rude. Kai is able to help her get over her insecurities, but the whole friend group is supportive and represents an idyllic time of youthful happiness.
The best part of this show is by far the sign language conversations. They’re subtitled in Japanese, but since you’re seeing it, it’s a lot harder to ignore than purely verbal subtitles, and as a result you pick up some signs as you watch. Japanese sign language is fairly closely related to the spoken Japanese language (I think), and unrelated to American Sign Language, etc. So unfortunately, I’m not sure learning would be particularly useful, but as of now, I have a vocabulary of commonly used phrases, including: “Really”, “Good,” “That’s wrong,” “But,” “Are you ok?” “Yummy,” “Go together,” “I love you,” and my personal favorite, “I’ve said too much.”
Great Teacher Onizuka (1998):
GTO is a classic hit; manga, anime and drama. It focuses on this slightly gangster guy, Onizuka, who decides to become a high school teacher. His teaching methods are more forward and direct than the other teachers (and students) would like, but soon after, he finds a group of loyal followers among his students, and eventually wins over the hearts of everyone. It’s a little cartoonish (due to its manga roots), but there’s actually less fighting than I expected. This drama is the forerunner to an entire genre of gangsters-in-school dramas — the insanely popular Gokusen is essentially the same story, but the lead is a *female* gangster (part of a yakuza family), Dragon Zakura (which features another gangster teacher, but this time the focus of the story was on academics, surprisingly enough), and My Boss My Hero, in which a gangster poses as a typical high school student. This almost seems to be a fantasy of the Japanese entertainment world — that in a completely normal school, a fellow teacher or student could be a gangster. The juxtaposition of the carefree gangster type, the proper schoolteachers (particularly the female lead, played by Matsushima Nanako), and the cutesy, silly schoolkids, is amusing. Bonus: GTO features a REALL young Oguri Shun (like, his voice hasn’t changed), playing one of the students in Onizuka’s class.
Yamato Nadeshiko (2000):
Another classic drama: a romance about gold-digging stewardesses. Matsushima Nanako is a flight attendant from humble roots, completely obsessed with finding the richest man she can, and marrying him. She is engaged to a doctor, and yet goes on group dates with the other stewardesses (actually, she arranges them), looking for status symbols like designer suits, pins, keys of expensive cars, etc., spending an evening on a date with them, getting some kind of expensive gift out of the situation, and then never calling the guy back. She mistakenly falls for a guy who she believes to be rich (he’s borrowing clothes from some rich friends, etc.), who actually is a former mathematician who has taken over his deceased father’s corner fish shop. Once she hears the truth, she begins to hate this guy, and yet they seem to keep being involved in each others’ lives. In the end, she’s not as shallow as even she thought she was. Her shallow, gold-digging moments are some of the drama’s best though — she likes to tell everyone, particularly younger flight attendants, that “Yes, money CAN buy happiness.” The line she uses on every rich guy she sees is, “I have the feeling I’ve met that special someone tonight.” It’s cheesy, and yet it works. One of the best scenes is when her apartment is burning down, she wants to run back into it to gather up some expensive clothes she’s spent so long collecting. Shinichi (the main guy), runs in for her, almost dies in the process, but brings back one dress of hers. He’s coughing on the ground outside after being rescued by firemen, and her reaction is, “this is the ONLY thing you got?? What about all my other clothes?!” Another great thing about this show is that the fiance, who is an important character throughout, is not a bad guy. He fails to notice her running between dates with him and several other men, always accepts her excuses, and allows her to push him around with threats of canceling the wedding, but aside from being a little bit naive, he’s a good guy, and eventually comes through in the end to help her out.
It’s been a great year for dramas. Based on the fact that most shows are 11-12 episodes long, and are basically 1 hour long, I can safely say I’ve spent over a week total just watching Jdramas. Here’s to 2008 is just as drama-filled!
So apparently Japan has an award for popular phrases of the past year. Pink Tentacle has translated them all and explained the references, in case anyone was interested. Many of them I did come across in my time there, and currently keep hearing. One of them, 干物女 (himono onna: dried fish woman) came from Hotaru no Hikari, a drama I watched this summer. And, I was only vaguely aware that this had to do with some comedians, but a few times people did shout, 欧米か？！ (oubei ka) at me, which is #24 on the list, and basically means, “Are you a westerner?!?!” But the phrase really refers to the stereotype of completely clueless, stupid westerners. Anyway, just browsing through the list gives you a pretty good sense of what was/is going on in Japan.
Yesterday I went to the bathroom before one of my classes. There was a woman standing in front of the sink and I paid little attention to her. When I was washing my hands, she had gone into a stall, and a second woman had come in. They started talking and I immediately zoned out, because they were not speaking english.
Except about three seconds into their exchange, at which point it was already over, I realized that I was actually following it. It went something like:
Woman 1 inside bathroom stall as Woman 2 enters the bathroom. Woman 2: Aren’t you done yet? Is it #2!? Woman 1: No! I just went into the stall!!
At which point I realized, “oh, that was Japanese.”
This was really great, of course because they didn’t know I knew what they were saying, but also because this ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS with Japanese.
Within the past month, I’ve gone to two excellent concerts. The first was Bright Eyes on October 21.
Some Bright Eyes pictures:
The most fun part of the Bright Eyes concert was that I am part of the group that brought them here (Star Course), so we showed up that morning to unload several trucks worth of band equipment, set up their speakers, the wiring, the stage lights, etc. Then in the evening we show up again to guard doors, watch opening bands, and finally get to see Bright Eyes. Their concert was pretty excellent, and I quite enjoyed the live version of “Lover I Don’t Have to Love,” among several of my other Bright Eyes favorites. However, I felt like, after the concert, that I had previously had a misunderstanding of the tone of Bright Eyes songs. Clearly they are not entirely serious about their songs, but just by listening to their recorded stuff, I always thought they were only about half serious about what they were saying. But after watching them live, I felt like they were maybe 80/20 ratio of serious to not serious instead of 50/50.
This Wednesday was the Mountain Goats @ the Canopy.
The opening band before them, the bowerbirds were pretty good — and indie enough to not have a record label (just making their own cds and selling them). Their guitarist broke a string during the middle of a song, so they had to stop while he restrung it. The singer had to entertain the audience while this went on… clearly a stressful situation. “Does anyone have any questions?” So people asked where they’re from (North Carolina)… and then “What is the meaning of life?” And she didn’t have a good answer, until, inevitably, an audience member or five shouts out, “42!!!” Eventually the guitar was restrung, they made it through the rest of their set, and we got to see the Mountain Goats.
Since their music is so chill, and, if anything, underproduced (almost exclusively the lead guitarist and… his voice) I was interested to see what they would be like live. They actually surprised me, in both how low-key they kept some songs, while being able to completely rock out on others (their drummer is actually really good!) At some points, the singing was so soft that you could hear the people talking at the bar louder than you could hear the song.
The way John Darnielle sings is kind of crazy — if you listen to the intonation of his voice in the recorded tracks you can tell, but he’s just really intense live. And yet, unlike Bright eyes, I didn’t feel any unnecessary or unexpected seriousness to it, despite his evident passion about the songs, and importance of the lyrics.
Based on what he talked about between songs, I can conclude that almost all Mountain Goats songs were written because he was in pain from being very very cold (one song was written during a stay in Alaska… and he had several other examples). What a nice creative motivator, being cold.
Since they play pretty quietly (on some songs), the video I took with my digital camera actually turned out watchable (usually it’s just too loud to record anything well)… so here is a bit of “Dance Music”, the chillest performance I have ever heard. Excuse the strange zooming (we moved closer to the stage later, but here you can’t see much).
So while I have been able to see four great concerts this semester, there are still a lot on my to-see list. Two of which, the Shins, and Sufjan Stevens, are actually playing this winter at the same club in Shinsaibashi, Osaka. How cool would that be?! And, of course, I missed the Mr. Children concert in September (also in Osaka), which was apparently amazing (duh)…but at least going to concerts here is a lot cheaper — it cost about $40 total for my tickets to all of those shows total, whereas one ticket to see Sufjan or the Shins at club Quattro in Osaka is listed as 5800 yen (about 50 bucks). Alas.
As I was surfing the web today during my lunch break (yes, I actually have a lunch break on Tuesdays, hooray!) I came upon this ad — what can be more wholesome than Oguri Shun telling you to eat corn soup in the morning to a Hirai Ken song?
And then I found this which is basically a documentary on 200 days in the life of Oguri Shun. You even see great footage from that octopus commercial I posted on here a while ago. The entire theme of this show is that Oguri Shun is dreadfully overscheduled, and I can believe that. It shows you his calendar, and, well, at least it makes me feel like I have a lot of free time. He also smokes way too much.
The cafeteria is clearly a place of great creativity, particulary when it involves making tall stacks of things. Engineers hard at work.
Not only that, but the cafeteria has become a great place of constant waffles, now that we got a brand new waffle iron. Waffles are my new official favorite dinner food.
I didn’t really realize beforehand that I would actually be playing Mario Kart with Randall Munroe last weekend.
To backtrack — last weekend, ACM (the group that has taken over my life) held its annual Reflections|Projections conference. Taking over Siebel and DCL, the weekend involved tons of computer science related talks, presentations, a job fair, workshops, competitions, plus more free food than I could even hope to eat, and most importantly, Randall Munroe.
Two months ago when I was told that “the xkcd guy” was coming, I flipped out. (Still flipping).
The weekend, in chronological order:
Thursday at noon, the Yahoo Hack Day competition started. Ford, Boyce, Jessa (a CompE girl Ford knows from her dorm), and myself, decided to form a team. After Boyce and I attempted to finish puzzlecrack, another contest going on last week — though we never actually solved any past Monday… it was kind of consuming.
We stayed up all night, trailing between the basement of Siebel, my dorm, and Siebel again. By 9 am on Friday, Ford and Boyce had gone to class, and Jessa and I managed to debug things. But I was tired, had class to go to, a tour to give, and no chance to nap before that evening’s events (lots of caffeine). But conference had begun. I missed the job fair due to class/giving my tour, but I was around the office in the afternoon, went to the Hack Day presentations (some people came up with some interesting, and some pretty ridiculous stuff, among them name my job…)
And then suddenly, I’m at the front of 1404 in a group of people having a conversation with Randall Munroe about velociraptors. It was pretty unexpected. He gave an awesome talk, which you can watch here if you haven’t already.
It was a sizable crowd — there were enough people to pack the place and they had to actually keep people out — who just watched the talk on the giant screen(s) out in the hallway.
And my laptop is pictured in my previous post, which is what was happening in the picture on the Wikipedia Article for Randall Munroe.
And a little celebratory animation + Jurassic Park theme music:
Saturday I went to a bunch of talks, recorded one, and after events were over for the night, Siebel transformed into a bit of guitar hero + mario kart (on gamecube), which only continued at the after-party for conference.
Sunday morning, I ended up recording like four hours of talks, sitting alone in the tech room, which was nice:
xkcd is so wildly popular, and yet at the same time such a specialized audience reads it, that pretty much anyone I mentioned this to who wasn’t directly involved with conference was like, “who? what?” Of course at this point I completely disregard them and just say “go read xkcd”.
On the flip side of that, everyone in the loop was pretty thrilled. The fact that he was hanging around the ACM office all weekend too, playing pinball, going to talks, etc. was kind of ridiculous. Imagine a celebrity sighting, except that after the initial freak-out stage, it just continues. For two days. And you play a bunch of games, walk around your campus, and go to parties with said celebrity. Kind of weird.
The fact that we, as a group, were so uniformly excited, hit me on Sunday morning while perusing facebook — when almost all of my friends’ facebook status is either directly or indirectly referencing Randall Munroe, you know you have some sort of phenomenon on your hands.
