Anime Expo, Feminism, and the Geek Lifestyle

Today we had a kind of free day in Long Beach, and so I decided to go to the Long Beach Anime Expo. I'm not really into anime (To be honest, I think that I would really like anime, and I'm really into the Miyazaki films [which I don't think count as they're more "mainstream"], but it's hard to know where to start. As you'll see, going to an Anime convention probably isn't the best way to solve the, "I don't know where to start" problem.), but, the type of people who are into it are My Kind Of People.

Over FIFTY THOUSAND of My Kind Of People.

So, I walk over to the convention center while my dad and brother go off on their merry way. On my way over, I am astounded by my first sight of cosplayers, those who dress up in a COStume and rolePLAY their favorite anime characters. What had previously been just textbook knowledge of their existence now became full-on firsthand knowledge.

I have now completed a full paragraph and realized that I've adopted a horrified tone. But it's not so simple. You see, cosplayers come in many varieties. At the low end, you have the men who dress as women.

One of these horrors, who I thankfully did not see in person

Up the rung from these monstrosities are the ugly women who believe that they can dress up as attractive ones. These two categories contribute to the horror side of the cosplay scene. Much like the barrier between freshwater and salt water that exists at the outlet of a river into a saltwater body. there is a barrier between them and the next two categories.

This is an example of a Tier 2 cosplayer.

Next on our list are the men and women who have rad costumes. These are the folks who spent a lot of time, money, or likely both to produce a costume that fits their particular body type and build. These are the guys who make you go "Woah when you see them.


One example of a Type 3 cosplayer

Here is another rad costume.

And finally, most numerous and, my personal favorite, you have the sexy women cosplayers. This category makes up completely for the shortcomings and desire to burn your own eyes out with caustic cleaning solution that the first two categories give you. I'm not even kidding when I say that some of the costumes that were on display bordered on being an infraction of the Indecent Exposure laws. And, gentlemen, have no fear; there is something for everyone here. Do you enjoy lace, garters, and French Maid type skirts? Plenty on display! Perhaps you enjoy the radical stylings of a multitude of straps, with tiny, short skirts or tight leather pants. You will most certainly enjoy yourself here. Maybe you like risque fairy princess garb, with or without wings. You will not be disappointed. Girls with fluffy animal ears (cat and bunny being most common), Daisy Dukes, leotards, corsets (oh the corsets!), schoolgirl outfits, small men's dress shirts open 6 buttons down, with a tie loosely tied around the neck, and things that literally have no category, there is literally everything you can think of when it comes to hypersexualized costumes.


A Tier 4 cosplayer

Another Tier 4 cosplayer


And don't feel guilty for looking. I am a reserved, shy person when it comes to ogling women, but after seeing those far less shy than I, practically drooling due to the lascivious thoughts running through their minds, request pictures with the dames, and be replied to with, not a slap as I expected but an enthusiastic “ABSOLUTELY!,” I realized that these women do this explicitly for the attention that they will receive. And so, unless you are for some reason morally opposed to thinking about sex, feel free to look.

I know that it could be argued that what I'm doing is objectifying women and that I have exposed myself as being a person who does not ordinarily objectify women merely because I don't want to get slapped, but let me defend myself here. I have the utmost respect for women. I do not think that either men or women are superior in any way, shape or form. A part of this respect for women is respecting that ordinarily, females do no appreciate it when you ogle them. As such, ogling is not my personal default behavior, though, for other men, it may be. It's not that I fear getting slapped, it's that I don't want to hurt another human being by being disrespectful. That being said, in this situation where the women themselves are clearly putting their assets on parade, and clearly appreciate it when they receive the attention that they are so clearly going to receive, I don't think that you can blame any man for acting in a way that would ordinarily be considered misogynistic. Straight men enjoy looking at scantily clad, sexy women. This is a part of evolution. This is the way things are. As a corollary, straight women enjoy looking at sexy men. And, though this concept best belongs in a different blog post, men don't complain about being ogled, but women do care. Fortunately, we are able to reign in our sexualities, and can think with our brain instead of our penis.

But there are times when our brains can choose to give up the wheel for a while and let our base instincts take control For example, when you and your girlfriend/wife/whatever are getting frisky, there is a clear invitation from her to you that you are now permitted to have a good time. You're not going to get slapped for calling her a “sexy beast” or whatever it is that you get your jollies off on calling each other. So, I think, it is when a woman so clearly dresses and acts in a manner that not only invites but appreciates such attention.

It feels odd that I have to defend myself for simply saying, “OMG SO MANY HOT HOT SEXY WOMEN,” but in this public forum I feel a little weird simply saying that with no explanation. The fact that I find the need to explain that, no, I'm not being one of those “typical” men who send random friend requests on myspace that say, “Hey baby you're a hottie we should hook up some time” should be indicative of my state of mind and feelings on the matter. So, again, I say, I am not a misogynist, I do my best to be respectful of women, and, that, indeed, there were some FREAKING HOT cosplayers there today.

Seriously dudes, beautiful, scantily clad women EVERYWHERE. As you may have guessed from my previous comment, I found the corsets to be particularly attractive. However, I also enjoyed the two women I saw dressed up in, as I said earlier, “small men's dress shirts open 6 buttons down, with a tie loosely tied around the neck.” If you can't imagine how far six buttons down is, well, it's pretty far, and a LOT was on display. Very, very attractive.

Anyway, as for the rest of the convention, it was okay. Again, I'm not REALLY into anime, so it was difficult for me to judge exactly the quality of the convention. All it really did was reaffirm for me the idea that I had that anime is incredibly difficult to get into. There were tons of booths, each one selling a thousand different products. There were racks of manga, thousands of figurines and toys, tens of thousands of stickers and wall scrolls and posters of everything from Pokemon to Inuyasha to Cowboy Bepop to nudes. They had an “Artists Alley” where you could get commissioned artwork done for between 5 to 20 dollars. It was here I found the only thing that I purchased at the event (a Triforce decal for my MacBook).

It was really, really daunting to look at how much STUFF there is. If anyone has any tips on where to even START with anime, please, let me know.

Like any good geek event, there was indeed a tabletop game room. I made my way over there and played a game of Apples to Apples with a nice group of folks. I had the surreal experience of having a woman cosplaying help me to join a game. She had on red contacts, so I had this woman in an attractive costume (though, not hypersexual; she was some kind of wizard or something like that) with bright red eyes, talking to me about how friendly everyone would be and that I'd have a great time. It was surreal, and yet, comforting. I knew that I was with My Kind Of People; I had always believed that geeks of all types are totally accepting of their own kind, and it was very nice to be reassured that this, indeed, was true.

This was really one of the first steps in a new kind of lifestyle that I've decided to partake in. I've always been a geek, but I've never really had the opportunity to REALLY buckle down and associate with those who have the same kind of mental state that I do. My parents have never tried to stifle my geekdom, per say, and, have in fact, fostered it in a lot of ways (taking me places and letting me do things) but I guess because I've been young and always having to have them associate in some way with my life, I've never really been able to break free and be who I want to be. What I mean by that is, I now have the freedom to be able to make more choices about where I go and what I do; I'm not as shackled to my parents approval (and transportation =]) as I once was. I can go on my own to a convention, and not have to worry about sitting and talking with a person for an hour at a booth about something because my parents are waiting in the wings. Again, I really don't blame them for anything; they've been most supportive. But I've always had a psychological block about doing some things because of their level of involvement.

I'm glad that I can take these steps, do these things, and make these friends. I don't mean to disparage my friends, because many of them are themselves of the geek proclivity, but for example, I've never been able to seriously sit down with my friends and regularly have a board game night. I've never played a really serious game of D&D. Hell, maybe the issue all along is that I've never expressed the interest in seriously doing some of these things. Maybe now that I write this, John Mark and Matt will decide that we've gotta get together a board game night. But as of right now, for some reason it's hard for us to get together to even do something normal like, play video games.

I don't know, I've written a lot for a simple blog post about an Anime Expo. All I know is that I'm being honest with you guys: I crave the geek interaction. I think that college is going to be really good for me; I imagine it will be much easier to find a group of folks that share my particular interests. In the meantime, I'd love to go to the San Diego Comic Con, GenCon, Origins, or any other type of gaming, comic, science fiction, anime, or fantasy convention.

You know, just to get my geek fix.

And, also, cosplayers. :-)

Century 20 WiFi-travaganza!

Oh man, I was a half hour early for Oceans 13 today, so I whipped out my computer to play some Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and to my surprise it asked me if I wanted to connect to NETGEAR.

So, I got on, and am currently reading my RSS feeds!

The Right to Offend

A Mohammedan-Free Denmark? Is the Country Ready To Explode Into Violence?
Via www.dvorak.org/blog

I was spurred to write this when I saw a comment on the post that I linked to. The comment is thus:

I think they’re asking for it. I’m a Muslim, and I find this very offensive.
Comment by Ninja — 6/26/2007 @ 10:11 pm

What struck me about this short comment was how it so succinctly summed up the entire problem with whackjob religious views. Fundamentally, extremists fail to recognize this very simple truth:

People are allowed to say things that offend you.

When a person's worldview becomes so warped that they reject this truth and replace it with:

People are not allowed to say things that offend me.

is when they begin to use force to push their beliefs on others.

Now, to clarify, what I found interesting about the comment in question here was NOT the second sentence, but the first. I have no problem with a person being offended by something: this is just the way life is, and we have to live with it. My problem was with the first sentence, the vague, roundabout way of saying, "these individuals deserve serious consequences." It betrays the mindset that permeates extreme religious thought. It proves that people who hold these views are not grounded in reality.

I theorize that those who oppose freedoms (in this case speech but others apply as well) think in a very limited manner. I have described it in the past as "One Way Street" thinking. The feel that freedoms should be limited because otherwise, their rights will be infringed. It's the argument of, "If people can say what they want, then they'll say mean things about my deity." But they don't consider the fact that freedom works universally. If we are free, then I am allowed to do what I want, and SO ARE YOU allowed to do what you want. If I want to rail verbally against your religion, you are perfectly free to rail against mine! If I exercise my freedom to watch obscene television content, then you may also exercise your freedom NOT to watch obscene television content.

People who are opposed to the legalization of drugs often say things like, "If drugs are legal then everyone will just do them all the time." But if you ask them, "So does that mean that the only reason you don't do drugs now is because they're illegal?" they will likely say, "Of course not; I wouldn't do them even if they were legal!" Of course, this directly disproves their previous point. You always have the freedom NOT to exercise your freedom.

But the extremists don't understand this. They feel that society needs laws preventing behavior and speech that offends them. Nevermind the fact that THEIR behavior offends people. They think in only one direction.

Remember: You have the right to offend others, just as they have the right to offend you. You have the right to be intolerant of others, just as they have the right to be intolerant of you. This is fundamental to the idea of freedom. But you CANNOT in any way shape or form force a person into changing their belief, behavior, or speech.

What it comes down to is that you are personally responsible for handling YOURSELF. If you are offended by something, then you move yourself away from it. You cause yourself to protest in a way that does not infringe others rights. Once you try to handle another person, and remove from them their right to handle themself in the way they see fit, you literally become as evil as you can possibly be.

The Office

Now, lets get something straight: I loved the UK The Office. Martin Freeman (Tim in The Office and Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Mackenzie Crook (Gareth in The Office and Ragetti in Pirates of the Caribbean) and Ricky Gervais are absolutely incredible. The comedic timing is absolutely perfect, and the influence that The Office had on shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm (one of my favorite shows of all time) just makes me love it to pieces.

That being said, I had a lot of doubts going into the American version of The Office. Every time that networks have attempted to bring over British shows, we have wound up with drivel that doesn't even approach the source material.

So, when Netflix put The Office up on their "Watch Now" service, I decided to check it out, and if it sucked, eh, at least I didn't waste a spot in my netflix queue.

I never thought that Steve Carrell could match Ricky Gervais's awkward narcissism. I never thought that John Krasinski could match Martin Freeman's awkwardness and subdued loathing of the office life. And I never thought that Rainn Wilson could match Mackenzie Crook's pretentious, arrogant lapdog to the boss. I was so wrong on two of those counts. I'll give you a paragraph of suspense before I tell you which cast member I don't think is as good as the original.

The writing, is awesome, and in some cases I find it snappier than the original. I don't know if my thinking that stems from the cultural references that an American can miss while watching the original, but the point still stands; I like the writing. It's hard to believe that this show was broadcast on one of the big three networks; it feels very much like something that might have been broadcast on HbO or Showtime. It's mature, it doesn't patronize the audience (lack of laugh track for the win!), and the comedy builds to a level of awkwardness that television has been loathe to put in front of typical viewers for far too long.

Now, for the stunnng revelation as to which performance I find not on par with the British version. Rainn Wilson as Dwight (the American Gareth) just doesn't have the same spark that Mackenzie Cook has as his UK counterpart. While Gareth was geeky, Dwight is TOO much of a geek. Gareth had his military bent, but Dwight is just a nerd, and so, I find him lacking a little bit. This isn't to say he's TERRIBLE, just, not as good.

But everything else, is. The other bonus: Pam (the new Dawn), being American, is far more attractive than her British counterpart. :-)

I leave you with this bit of wisdom from Michael Scott, General Manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin:

"The key to happiness is... joy. Remember that. *wink*"

~INTERLUDE IN WHICH I WATCH MUCH OF THE SECOND SEASON~

Wow. The second seasons of this show shows a LOT of heart. The Office manages to keep it's funny while incorporating a lot of tender character development. Incredible show.

The Polar Express

I watched The Polar Express today with my dad.

It wasn't that good.


The plot was stereotypical (read: Not Pixar's) kid's movie fare, but the worst part for me was the animation.

It's a 3D computer animated movie, but the interesting thing was that it was essentially rotoscoped. They had actors play all the parts, did digital motion capture on them, and then drew the 3D skins over the top of the captured skeletal data. One would think that this would make everything fluid, and beautiful.

BUT

The problem is is that general motion like walking is very fluid, and the skins look great. But the finer motions, like hands, eyes, and manipulating objects do NOT look as good as the other types of motion. Because you have such realistic looking animation for certain actions, the hokey, poorly done animation on other actions really pop out, distract you, and look, honestly, creepy.

Nevermind the fact that there is a sequence where they have to steer the train, like a tank, by stopping and starting the engine on either side of the train. Trains don't work like that, people!

The movie also sets the record for the most "roller coaster" sequences in a movie. There is a part where the train goes down "The steepest grade in the world!" another sequence where some of the kids ride in a pneumatic tube transportation system, flying at high speeds through the North Pole city, and a sequence where the same kids ride on conveyor belts and ramps through Santa's factory. It was like they were trying to make a motion simulator ride out of this movie!

I wouldn't see it again.

MacintoshBook - AKA MacBook

Why do I like this thing so much?

Some stuff I've done:

Totally customized the OS, keyboard and mouse settings to my liking.

Downloaded tons of widgets, like, Gmail inbox, Wikipedia search, Skype, iStats, BART Scheduler, and Google Apps.

Downloaded tons of apps like VirtueDesktops, Adium, Growl, Skype, MarcoPolo, Caffiene, and DOSBox and ScummVM for playing old adenture games like Kings Quest and Monkey Island.

Gotten used to the design philosophy.

Played around with the UNIX Terminal.

Gotten the cutest desktop background ever!

And done some other stuff too!

I think it's prettay cool. Prettay, prettay, prettay cool.

BEST POLICE OFFICER EVER

Okay, so, basically, a kid fed his classmates pot brownies, and Sgt. Steve Clark of the Santa Cruz police had this to say:

"The fire and ambulance crews arrived, and diagnosed everyone, medically cleared them there at the scene, everyone was fine, fed them cheetos..."

So awesome.

AHHHH GODDAMMIT THAT WAS MY IDEA!

Hello From the Car In Front


"Researchers are turning cars into nodes that 'talk' to each other, forming a new type of wireless network.

As cars enter the mobile network, drivers can download multimedia - including movies, images and songs - or get real-time information about traffic.

"Say you are driving and a car that is [5 kilometres] in front of you spots an icy spot on the road. It can trigger back a signal saying, 'Look, there is an icy road'," says Dr Giovanni Pau, from the Network Research Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Such a network could also give emergency first-responders a reliable channel if a natural disaster destroys communication towers or access points.

The system uses a vehicle's onboard computer, GPS, low-cost sensors, custom software written by the team, and existing wireless channels."


THIS WAS MY GODDAMN IDEA! I EVEN HAVE AN ENTRY IN MY LITTLE JOURNAL ABOUT IT! I'VE EXPLAINED IT TO MR. BOYD AND OTHERS! THIS IS MY IDEA!!!!!!!!!

Laser Swords

Bring it.

Know what I did for my first full day of vacation?

Cleaned up my GMail account, made some Google calendars, figured out how to sync Firefox extensions and bookmarks across computers, installed and patched the Kings Quest Collection, watched the lame Apple keynote (though that Quick Look thing in Leopard looks hot; Spaces is still a ripoff of Linux), podcasted-ed, ate some M&Ms, drank a Pepsi, bought and played the Pac Man: Championship Edition on Xbox Live (which is like Pac Man 2.0, so pure), talked to Suzanne, ate some salad and chicken for dinner, cleaned my desk, read 80% of the book they gave us at graduation (gonna read the rest before bed), watched the new Diggnation, cleaned up my hard drives, changed my desktop wallpaper, changed my PHONE wallpaper, updated all my software, threw away a pen, cleaned out my manpurse, researched Carl Jung on wikipedia, cleaned out my wallet, got a Netflix (School of Rock) ready to send, sorted my dice, retrieved all the Make Magazines from around the house, read today's Penny Arcade, read today's XKCD, read today's PvP, listened to some funny old podcasts, ate a cup of ice, thought about rocket engines, and determined that my favorite type of button is the kind that has a stiff spring, a long and fluid motion and a solid click at the end of the press.


(cross posted from a comment I made on Matt's myspace, but I thought it was funny enough to repost here)