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Jan. 17th, 2006 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThey made a live-action musical for Prince of Tennis, a fact which I've known for a while though I have never seen any video from it. Today, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cassandramorgan pointed me to a video for one of the songs from the live-action musical, which I watched and was amazed that I could tell, without any significant effort, which animated Seigaku team member each real person was supposed to be. It really is darling, if you're even the slightest bit interested in seeing actual human beings dressed up like cartoon junior-high tennis players and, er, singing about tennis in Japanese. Without subtitles. There are tennis rackets... (For the party poopers who don't think that would be very much fun, go look at this machinima using the song Internet Is For Porn from Avenue Q and World of Warcraft characters. It's catchy!)
I watched The Care Bear Movie last night. Let's get straight, at the front, that I'm thirty-five, childless, and entirely unlikely to be watching The Care Bear Movie for any reason other than to make fun of it. It was gag-worthy. I hated the whole color scheme -- it felt like it should come with a free insulin injection, just in case. The Forest of Feelings? Egad. However, now I know where JKR got the whole "Evil Talking Book" thing for Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.
I also agree with the view of brother-the-younger's (adult) household, that nothing would happen in Care-A-Lot if Grumpy Bear didn't exist. He's the only one who ever does anything besides run around talking about his feelings all the damn time. He also appears to be the resident geek, which is never an easy job. No wonder he's grumpy.
I kept wanting to re-cut and re-dub the movie to a different (better) plot... but I was torn between making the Care Bears drug dealers or members of a religious cult. I did, however, watch it all. Every bit. I didn't even knit through the damn thing. Nope, I gave it my full attention.
I watched as Idiot Bear hid under the Magician's desk. (Man, I SO wanted to redub that scene...) I watched as Nicholas got suckered into doing bad spells because his innocent child audience laughed. I got to see the appallingly cute baby care bears (Hugs and Tugs? Something like that.) mess with the keyboard on the Rainbow Rescue teleporting thingie. I watched the evil spell barracuda make a whirlpool to try to drag down the Care Bear ship. I saw the pink elephant. I saw the two (regrettably, I've forgotten their names) kids care at Nicholas to convince him to shut the magic spell book. I kept waiting for the boychild to lose the damn key, but he didn't. *sigh* What's the good of Idiot Bear handing the key to the boy and telling him not to lose it (like three times, Idiot Bear said not to lose the key) if the boy isn't going to lose the key? Have these people never heard of narrative expectations? *sigh* I watched the end-of-term feast where the Hufflepuffs (Heart-Critters from the Forest of Feelings) were inducted into the Care Bear family. I even watched the part at the end where Mr. Cherrywood reveals that he was the young Magician's Helper Nicholas and has since grown into a happy pedophile with a hat fetish. I read the credits and howled with laughter that The Tower of Power was credited. I have, unfortunately, read far, far too much gay porn to ever look upon that phrase without at least smirking.
Full disclosure: The Care Bear Movie belongs to my nephew, who is four and a bit. He is not so fond of it as all that because he was willing to loan it to me for an extended period of time so that I could watch it at my leisure.
Finally, today's issue of The Economist had a lovely set of pieces on Mr. Greenspan.
As all enlightened readers are aware, Mr. Greenspan, who has served as chairman of the Federal Reserve for the last eighteen and a half years, will be retiring at the end of January and turning over the reins to "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke. Ben's not getting an easy job and the happily-available-online Economist article explains why in a reasonably clear and cogent fashion. There's a longer piece, deeper in the magazine, that goes into more detail on the subject and discusses what the goals of central banks should be as well as the reasons that Mr. Greenspan supposedly gave for not doing something about the stock market and housing bubbles. That article, unfortunately, is not available online. Pity. Anyway, if you were wondering (and I'm sure all of you were) about what Greenspan was leaving for his successor or curious (as well you should be) about the challenges that Mr. Bernanke will be facing in the coming months, you could do worse than read the linked article.
However, if you are not going to read the linked article, read the following two highly informative sentences: When house-price rises flatten off, and therefore the room for further equity withdrawal dries up, consumer spending will stumble. Given that consumer spending and residential construction have accounted for 90% of GDP growth in recent years, it is hard to see how this can occur without a sharp slowdown in the economy. Oh, yeah.
All ya'll did know that the savings rate in America is negative, right? How can you possibly spend more money than you make? Mostly, by going into debt. I believe that the home-equity ATM has been fairly popular here of late. (Past performance is no guarantee of future results.)
Oh, yeah, we're sailing straight into Interesting Times, you betcha, and with a brand-new captain at the helm. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for DDR.
cassandramorgan pointed me to a video for one of the songs from the live-action musical, which I watched and was amazed that I could tell, without any significant effort, which animated Seigaku team member each real person was supposed to be. It really is darling, if you're even the slightest bit interested in seeing actual human beings dressed up like cartoon junior-high tennis players and, er, singing about tennis in Japanese. Without subtitles. There are tennis rackets... (For the party poopers who don't think that would be very much fun, go look at this machinima using the song Internet Is For Porn from Avenue Q and World of Warcraft characters. It's catchy!)I watched The Care Bear Movie last night. Let's get straight, at the front, that I'm thirty-five, childless, and entirely unlikely to be watching The Care Bear Movie for any reason other than to make fun of it. It was gag-worthy. I hated the whole color scheme -- it felt like it should come with a free insulin injection, just in case. The Forest of Feelings? Egad. However, now I know where JKR got the whole "Evil Talking Book" thing for Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.
I also agree with the view of brother-the-younger's (adult) household, that nothing would happen in Care-A-Lot if Grumpy Bear didn't exist. He's the only one who ever does anything besides run around talking about his feelings all the damn time. He also appears to be the resident geek, which is never an easy job. No wonder he's grumpy.
I kept wanting to re-cut and re-dub the movie to a different (better) plot... but I was torn between making the Care Bears drug dealers or members of a religious cult. I did, however, watch it all. Every bit. I didn't even knit through the damn thing. Nope, I gave it my full attention.
I watched as Idiot Bear hid under the Magician's desk. (Man, I SO wanted to redub that scene...) I watched as Nicholas got suckered into doing bad spells because his innocent child audience laughed. I got to see the appallingly cute baby care bears (Hugs and Tugs? Something like that.) mess with the keyboard on the Rainbow Rescue teleporting thingie. I watched the evil spell barracuda make a whirlpool to try to drag down the Care Bear ship. I saw the pink elephant. I saw the two (regrettably, I've forgotten their names) kids care at Nicholas to convince him to shut the magic spell book. I kept waiting for the boychild to lose the damn key, but he didn't. *sigh* What's the good of Idiot Bear handing the key to the boy and telling him not to lose it (like three times, Idiot Bear said not to lose the key) if the boy isn't going to lose the key? Have these people never heard of narrative expectations? *sigh* I watched the end-of-term feast where the Hufflepuffs (Heart-Critters from the Forest of Feelings) were inducted into the Care Bear family. I even watched the part at the end where Mr. Cherrywood reveals that he was the young Magician's Helper Nicholas and has since grown into a happy pedophile with a hat fetish. I read the credits and howled with laughter that The Tower of Power was credited. I have, unfortunately, read far, far too much gay porn to ever look upon that phrase without at least smirking.
Full disclosure: The Care Bear Movie belongs to my nephew, who is four and a bit. He is not so fond of it as all that because he was willing to loan it to me for an extended period of time so that I could watch it at my leisure.
Finally, today's issue of The Economist had a lovely set of pieces on Mr. Greenspan.
As all enlightened readers are aware, Mr. Greenspan, who has served as chairman of the Federal Reserve for the last eighteen and a half years, will be retiring at the end of January and turning over the reins to "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke. Ben's not getting an easy job and the happily-available-online Economist article explains why in a reasonably clear and cogent fashion. There's a longer piece, deeper in the magazine, that goes into more detail on the subject and discusses what the goals of central banks should be as well as the reasons that Mr. Greenspan supposedly gave for not doing something about the stock market and housing bubbles. That article, unfortunately, is not available online. Pity. Anyway, if you were wondering (and I'm sure all of you were) about what Greenspan was leaving for his successor or curious (as well you should be) about the challenges that Mr. Bernanke will be facing in the coming months, you could do worse than read the linked article.
However, if you are not going to read the linked article, read the following two highly informative sentences: When house-price rises flatten off, and therefore the room for further equity withdrawal dries up, consumer spending will stumble. Given that consumer spending and residential construction have accounted for 90% of GDP growth in recent years, it is hard to see how this can occur without a sharp slowdown in the economy. Oh, yeah.
All ya'll did know that the savings rate in America is negative, right? How can you possibly spend more money than you make? Mostly, by going into debt. I believe that the home-equity ATM has been fairly popular here of late. (Past performance is no guarantee of future results.)
Oh, yeah, we're sailing straight into Interesting Times, you betcha, and with a brand-new captain at the helm. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for DDR.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 02:28 am (UTC)Or... if you're just interested in cute bois, still go check it out..
Well, I think they're cute, anyway. Not everybodies taste, perhaps..
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 04:34 am (UTC)But your commentary was *hysterical*! Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 10:39 pm (UTC)I suppose its sorrow quotient depends entirely on how old you were at the time.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 01:22 am (UTC)