tithe of a little time

It’s time for another post filled with randomosity! (Which, admittedly, I haven’t had many of but feel like it’s about time for one.)

This morning, I was thinking about beverages, the consumption of. Well, rather I was thinking about the refilling of glasses and such. Now, when we drink something, usually there’ll be a little left over at the bottom, the dregs so to speak. And especially in Chinese restaurants the waiters are, I believe, paid to burn their patrons tongues (not to mention palettes) with permanently hot tea, and therefore top up your little cup as frequently as possible.

Thus, I wonder, every time you top up a drink, perhaps 10 or 15 glasses down the line, is there any of your original drink left over? (I know this is the basic tenet of homeopathic remedies, but when applied to a common beverage…) So, is there a part of your drink which never, ever gets drunk?

I know from statistical probability and turbulent flow theory and Brownian motion, that the bit at the bottom is unlikely to stay there due to convection currents (besides random particulate motion), but nevertheless, due to adhesion, some ought to stick to the sides bottom and therefore never come towards the mouth…

It’s a scary thought. This little bit of whatever it is, stuck to the bottom of the glass, like the entrepeneur who thought the dot com business was a good thing 10 years ago and still thought it when he was forcibly evicted from his apartment 28th storey penthouse.

On a sidenote, Twix is awesome. Another sidenote, Sainsbury’s is awesome for selling Twix. Another another sidenote, Sainsbury’s prices are great. ‘Cos when you can get seven (technically 5+2 free) twinpacks of Twix for £ 1.50, well YAY. And Schweppes Diet Lemonade was going at two bottles for £ 1.00. W0ot! And as usual, Sainsbury’s juices are sold at 3l (i.e. 3×1l cartons, any 1l cartons) for £ 4.

Oh, in this post I’ve written one ‘o’ as a zero. If anyone can find it you get… well, nothing concrete but you get a choice between a fuzzy feeling of satisfaction and an e-cookie.

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Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Mick Jagger’s mouth is huge! And Keith Richard is awesome!

Richards made a cameo appearance as Captain Teague, the father of Captain Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp), in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, released in May 2007,and won the Best Celebrity Cameo award at the 2007 Spike Horror Awards for the role. Depp has stated that he based many of Sparrow’s mannerisms on Richards.

- Wikipedia

I had no idea…

EDIT: I just realized Jack Sparrow’s ship is called the Black Pearl. Oh. My. God. PAINT IT, BLACK FTW!!!!! The Rolling Stones forever!

I found something on Newgrounds recently which is an example of fun ranting about bad movies. I.e. Twilight. Yes that Twilight. I read the book. Holy ****. At the time, I didn’t consider it to be much of anything, but with more and more hype and squealing fangirls clogging up the Interwebs due to the release of the movie, it’s high time someone said something.

Be warned, strong language – 15+.

The more I think about it, the more Twilight seems like an adolescent wish for a fantastic (and by fantastic I mean fantasy-like) life. By the time you get to the second, third and fourth books (which admittedly I have not read but have had to rely on my sis for summaries thereof), it just feels forced. Come on. Say it with me, ‘Die already, will you, you stupid useless sparkly hairy Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu oh for goodness’ sake prats!’

So yeah. VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES SHOULD JUST GET ALONG. Dammit. Besides, everyone knows Frankenstein’s Monster played by Robert de Niro pwns all.

Unfortunately I cannot take credit for the above title, because it comes from the lyrics for a Japanese (Engrish rather) song – ROCKY CHACK’s Wolf Whistling Song, which was used as the ending theme for the anime Wolf and Spice (Ookami to Koushinryou).

This is one of the most fun and relaxing examples of the genre I’ve seen, ever. The setting: medieval times, the Church is in power and wandering merchants ply their trade between the scattered towns and villages. In fact, many of the episodes have something to do with trade and the inevitable haggle. This may be due to the fact that the main character, called Craft (Kraft?) Lawrence is a trader. Basically, it is about the microeconomics of the medieval period. ‘What the hell,’ you say? Read on please.

In the course of wandering around trying to make a profit, he picks up a pagan wolf spirit called Holo (Horo?). She has been the fertility goddess of a small village for centuries, but now wants to return to the colder climes of the North where she was born (or something like that) since human invented planting techniques and such have made her obsolete. Of course, being the opportunistic bastard that he is (alright, actually he’s a really nice guy), Lawrence isn’t just going to let her freeload. Luckily she turns out to have a quick wit and deep insight into the human psyche, and manages to pull her weight. She appears mostly as a 15 year old anthropomorphic wolf (classic ears and tail stuff) but can transform into a 12 foot tall red wolf.

If this show was all about haggling and bargaining, it would get rather stale after a few episodes. Thankfully, religion saves the day. Earlier I said the Church was in power. Now, having a pagan wolf spirit running around is going to ruin the credibility of anyone who promotes monotheism, and so we have a subplot about the two protagonists evading the religious authority as well as their economic partners who are hoping to get rewards from turning her in

Combine this with another subplot where a minor noble and his trading firm are hoping to make a profit from buying and selling coinage in anticipation of a city-state revaluing and reminting it’s currency and there’s quite a bit going on. And that’s just ther first half of this 13 episode series.

However the focus remains solidly on the relationship between Lawrence and Holo, and some business dealings of theirs, her obsession with apples, his obsession with eventually settling down and opening his own store, and so on.

At the beginning, the pastoral feel of this show really helped me relax after hours spent on solving equations combining Taylor expansions with complex numbers through judicious use of Euler’s formula (one of his formulae anyway). Then the characters started to capture my imagination and it went uphill from there.

The animation isn’t amazing by today’s standards, and Holo’s wolf transformation especially is done hastily and then skipped over by showing shadows and whatnot, but it serves it’s purpose as well as can be expected since it isn’t being done by a major studio (IMAGIN, which has never produced a full anime solo before). Lawrence’s character design is nothing new as well, and most of the side characters are generic except this guy with long sideburns.

Voice acting is not bad, with noted voice actor Jun Fukuyama (who’s really been working quite hard, I think he’s had half a dozen leading roles this year alone, Code Geass; Special A; Ghost Hound and aww hell there’s too many.) and voice actress Ami Koshimizu (Special A and Code Geass again, as well as School Rumble) taking the lead roles.

Soundwise, Wolf and Spice has a functional set of background music which tries very hard to go unnoticed and succeeds. It’s quite pastoral for the most part and works very well with the subject matter. The opening and ending are perfect for this anime though, possibly the best combination of the year. Opening every episode is Tabi no Tochu (In the Middle of a Journey) by Natsumi Kiyoura that’s a nice quiet J-Pop song. The ending, though is the most fun song done for anime in almost forever. Beatles-esque lyrics with a simple rhythm and soft vocals highlight the tone the creators wanted to portray.

Here it is: The Wolf Whistling Song by ROCKY CHACK.

Lyrics:
Seven apples on a witch’s tree
With seven seeds to plant inside of me
In springtime I grew a magic song
Then skipping along, oh I sang the song to everyone

I looked at the world through apple eyes
And cut myself a slice of sunshine pie
I danced with the peanut butterflies

Till time went and told me to say hello but wave goodbye
A thousand sugar stars
Oh put them in a jar
And then whistle round the world
Oh whistle round the world
I’m a little wolf inside a girl, you say
And off I’ll go from June to May
Oh whistling round the world

I met a golden swan upon the road
Who was a handsome prince, so I was told
I asked it the way to yesterday
Then I was a sailor, and through the day I sailed away

Bluebird seas I sailed
With mermaids riding whales
Oh whistle round the world
Oh whistle round the world
I’m a little wolf inside a girl, you say
And off I’ll go down Wonder Way
Oh whistling round the world

Through apple eyes
Oh there are rose-coloured skylines
Where flying silver spoons
Eat melting marmalade moons

Through apple eyes
I see for millions of miles
The sun’s a diamond shining
In the nighttime of a summer day

A thousand sugar stars
Oh put them in a jar
And then whistle round the world
Oh whistle round the world
I’m a little wolf inside a girl, you say
And off I’ll go (I can not stay)
Oh whistling round the world
Let’s whistle round the world
Whistle round the world

The piano bit at the beginning reminds me of ELO’s Mr Blue Sky up until the sibilant ’s’ which marks the the first word of both songs.

Oh, hooray for my second review piece. Also, I think this is my longest entry yet.

PS:

If you don’t get this, you probably haven’t watched: Space Pirate Captain Harlock

Or perhaps: Queen Emeraldas

—>     

I have stars too.
They’re in my head.
They call out to me.
Telling me to go to them.
They’re beautiful.
I try, but I’m too fat.
‘But you’re not fat,’ they say.
So I see myself again.
And I go to them.
They’re beautiful.