Anotherblog

Some Japanese words with no English equivalent

Some Japanese words with no English equivalent
hingi/ringi
reaching a decision via a document circulated to all employees

ryookai
adjournment of a meeting due to lack of attendance

nodate
aristocrat taking a break during a trip in a palanquin

niramekko
game in which two children looking at each other try to make the
opponents laugh first

yaroojidai
throwing one’s weight around in a small group without knowing one’s
real worth in a larger world outside

reikanshooohoo
cajoling people into buying articles for an extremely high price by
claiming they will bring good luck

sen’yooshiji
curry favour by sucking pus from carbuncles and licking hemorrhoids

chitokotoba
language used toward customers by women in the drinking-world
establishment

tsujigiri
killing a passerby in order to test a new sword

iai
art of drawing one’s sword, cutting down one’s opponent and sheathing
the sword afterwards

Source: Edict (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html) via George P. at work.

Interview with the Coconut

Interview with the Coconut
Every year or so, Dave & Kyla put on a film night, in which we each submit a five minute section of a film, and then watch them all and rate them on the various film-night criteria. This year was “Interview with the Coconut” (all of these film nights have a coconut theme, in honour of the Coconut piggybank, which they inherited from a grandfather or such, and was made by him under a hospital bed during World War II. It is a very odd looking piggybank.) The criteria this year were “creepy”, “funny”, “direction”, and “dialogue”.

Anyway, I was desperately trying to find a copy of Hal Hartley’s film “Trust”, one of my favorite films, and which had a segment that fit the themes perfectly. However, the only video store I could find that had it wouldn’t lend it to me, as I wasn’t a local of the Glebe area. Plan B: “Bad Santa”, the scene in the boxing ring.

Other films shown on the night:

Svengali
Kyla’s tropfest film (in which she was an extra)
Curse of Dracula
Grosse Point Blank (the finale)
Doctor Who: The Empty Child (which I seriously considered bringing myself. They showed the bit with the Doctor and the gas mask)
…and a few others, which I have temporarily forgotten due to the quantity of white wine consumed on the night. Grosse Point Blank won, The Empty Child came second (which won a pope teatowel) and Bad Santa came third, winning me a Gandalf figurine.

Music
Also played much music and Anna made potato and leek soup, for Jon & Kate on Sunday. Much fun had, as we went over Eight Days A Week, though I was still rather tired after the previous days’ efforts. And the half hour jog I had in the afternoon, ’cause I wasn’t feeling quite healthy enough after missing badminton last week.

Badminton
However, got straight into badminton at lunchtime today, and boy did I regret going for a jog yesterday. Still, I won the first two games before collapsing in a puddle of crapness, which is more I’ve done against Ian in a while. It went rather well, really.

Ski trip
Busy trying to sort out the ski trip in NZ - looks like we might be able to move it to early September, which would be good because then there would be no conflict with the conference I’m going to in August. Hooray! I was really getting stressed that I might have to miss the ski trip altogether, or quit work, or, hell, something drastic. But things may well be coming together. I have excellent friends.

Magic: The Gathering
I forgot to mention some things from last weekend - firstly, that we had dinner with Craig B, my ex-boss (very nice food at Bogarts in Glebe) in which Bronwyn grilled me in a very amused fashion about Magic: The Wankering. I had no defence. It was especially bad because I had just attended not one, but two tournaments - the pre-release tournaments for “Champions of Kamigawa”. Which I thoroughly enjoyed. Andrew K. was with me on the Saturday tournament, and Andrew C. was with me on the Sunday tournament, and no, I’m not making these people up; they’re workmates.

Anyway. I did very poorly in the Saturday tournament: I entered in the “serious” area, but didn’t have a deck that could do much about flyers, so ended up in about 40th place out of 50 or so players. Sunday, however, was much better: the deck I got was excellent, really thrilling: a mono-blue thing with lots of flyers. It’s pretty rare to be able to go just one colour in a booster-deck limited tournament - you get given about 75 cards to make a deck out of, and have to use about 23 of them. Since there are five colours, and the cards are usually spread (in quality and quantity) fairly evenly among the colours, you usually have to go three colours. Instead, I went entirely blue with a small splash of white, and the deck did very well - I won the first two rounds, got beaten by the eventual overall winner, and drew the last match, to come in ninth place out of about 35.

The last match was drawn due to lack of time, but we played the last game anyway, and I won it handily. If that result had been counted, I’d have gone to ~4th place. In reterospect, rather than submitting a draw in the last round, one of us should have conceded the game to allow the other into the prize-winning pool, and then split the prize. This is apparently fairly common practice.

iPod: Kaboom!

iPod: Kaboom!
The new iPod seems to have internally fried in the same manner as the old one. I suspect the car radio attachment (the griffin Roadtrip) is to blame. Both iPods started going wrong only after I played them on it. Fortunately, I bought it from the same place as the iPods, so they’ll have a hard time convincing me that using the car radio attachment voids my warrenty. iPod will go in for repair this weekend, and the roadtrip will be returned. It’s a stupid big clunky thing anyway, and would be unnecessary if car radios had input jacks. Which is what I’ll be looking for next.

Other stuff
Stressing about work a bit, so I will keep this short. Saw Star Wars III. Didn’t like it. Watched new series Doctor Who. Did. Inclined to do film forensics on both of them, though Star Wars is likely to be difficult for me. Especially if I have to see the bloody film again. I go now.

Juggling Card Game

Juggling Card Game
Further to yesterday’s efforts, we’ve done a little bit more playtesting. Still a long way to go, but I thought it might be nice to have two more special cards in the mix.

The knife: 3 of Spades. Only play as a skillful throw. Cannot play an awkward throw to throw it. Treat as a club.
The flaming torch: 5 of Spades. Only play as a skillful throw. Must be thrown with a 5, 6, or 7.
The chainsaw: 7 of Spades. Only play as a skillful throw. Play any number of cards that add up to exactly seven to throw it. (Always throws seven.)

Juggling Card Game

Juggling Card Game
A two player card game. Each player is a juggler, juggling balls, rings, and clubs. The aim of the game is to make the opponent drop, or to end the game with more successful catches than the opponent.

Preparing

* Create a deck of cards, consisting of two lots of Ace - 7 of three suits (hearts, diamonds, and clubs), and the seven of spades, for a total of 43 cards.

* Create a board or play area with spaces for eight cards in a circle. Spaces should alternate black and white, for a dartboard-like effect. Also create two spaces (one marked black, the other marked white) for “Juggled” cards.

* Shuffle the deck.

* Each player draws seven cards.

* Place a marker on one of the spaces.

Playing

Each card represents an object that can be juggled. The number on the card is how high the object is being thrown. The suit of the card represents the type of the object: hearts are balls, diamonds are rings, and clubs are… well, clubs. The seven of spades is a chainsaw.

In your turn:

* One of the spaces on the board will have a marker on it. This is the “Current” space. If there are no Items on the Current space (such as in the very first turn), you put a card from your hand on that space. That card then becomes an “Item”.

* You must “Throw” all the Items (there will sometimes be more than one) that are on the Current space. If you cannot Throw an Item, you drop, and lose the game. To Throw an Item, you must play a card from your hand. There are three ways you can play a card:

-> Normal Throw: Play a card from the same suit as the Item. Put that card on your “Juggled” space on the board. Move the Item forward on the board a number of spaces equal to the number on the card.

-> Awkward Throw: Play a card with an even number on it. Put that card on your “Juggled” space on the board. Move the Item forward on the board a number of spaces equal to the number on the card. You cannot do an Awkward Throw if the Item is a Club and the card is a Diamond/Ring.

-> Skillful Throw: Play a card with the same number on it but from a different suit. Swap the card with the Item. Put the Item on your “Juggled” space on the board. Move the card forward on the board a number of spaces equal to the number on the card.

-> The seven of spades (the chainsaw) is a special case. You can only play it as a Skillful Throw. When the chainsaw is an Item, you cannot Throw it with an Awkward Throw. However, you can make Normal Throws with it as though it were a club.

* Refill your hand up to seven cards from the deck, if you can.

* Move the marker to the next space on the board. Note that one player will always be on the black spaces, and the other player will always be on the white spaces.

Ending the game

When you refill your hand up to seven cards, if by doing so you take the last card in the deck, the next turn is the beginning of the “Grand Finale”.

In the Grand Finale, if the current space is empty, you don’t have to play an item onto it. Also, in addition to normal play, you can “Take Down” any items during your turn. To Take Down an item, you have to successfully throw it. However, instead of moving it to a space on the board, you put it on your “Juggled” space.

If nobody has dropped any Items, the game ends when the deck is empty and there are no more Items on the board. Each player counts the number of Items in their “Juggled” space. Whoever juggled more items, wins. If this is a tie, whoever has fewer cards in their hand wins.

Strategy

Note that if you play an even numbered card, this is a “self-throw” - you will have to deal with the item again on a later turn. If you play an odd numbered card, you are throwing to your opponent.

If you want to make your opponent drop, try to get a lot of items onto one of their squares. Start by playing a seven on one turn, then a five on the next, then a three on the turn after that, and a one on the turn after that. They will have to deal with four items - not easy!

It’s good to have a couple of even numbered cards, as you will sometimes need to do Awkward Throws, especially when you have a lot of cards piled up. The even-numbered diamonds/rings aren’t as good as the others, though, because you can’t use them for Awkward Throws with clubs.

In the grand finale, it’s pointless Taking Down Items unless they’re going to tip the balance of Juggled Items - instead, you should concentrate on making your opponent drop.

Juggling

Juggling
Gave the seminar. It went fine. Now I’m feeling rather drained. I was up very late last night making sure I understood what I was talking about, adding slides, etc. and worrying about the fact that I hadn’t done a practice run-through. But people seemed to understand it - which was my main goal - and whenever people were looking bored I started (or stopped) juggling. So, reasonably happy but tired.

When I get home I shall play computer games, and then go to sleep.

Cloud Factory

Cloud Factory
We had a concerted effort at learning “Cloud Factory” yesterday, with some success. I still don’t have the bass line down, and the lead guitar fills are tricky, but Jon has worked out the rhythm guitar and Anna and Kate sing very enthusiastically, and are entering the fabulous world of vocal harmonising. So, good simple fun all around. Jon and I tossed around an idea of collaborating on a Doctor Who novel proposal from an idea of Jon’s, which would be fun if it works out - normally, Jon is the obsessive plotting type while his collaborator is the free-wheeling zany one. I seem to have carved new territory in obsessive plotting and analysis, however, of which Film Forensics is only the most obvious symptom, so Jon would get to be free-wheeling and wacky, which he is very good at but doesn’t always get to express (or when he does, people assume it’s the collaborator). Might happen, might not happen, it’s probably too early to even *mention* it, but it’s yet another thing I’m obsessing over at the moment.

Dancing
Not so obsessive for me is dancing. I’m trying to figure out why I hate dancing so much. There are some obvious things: I’m perfectly happy to dance to music I really like, but there isn’t much of that played at the usual dance parties; I often feel awkward and self-conscious; and I get frustrated and bored at the dance moves. The latter is, of course, my own fault and something I mentally connect with certain other creative acts: noodling on the guitar; playing “creative” video games that require sequences of trick moves to get points (eg. Tony Hawk, SSX); and drawing. With all these things I cling desperately to the moves I can do easily, and don’t venture far away from them, because that would mean leaving my comfort zone. And then get terribly bored because the results are stiflingly dull.

Anyway, Anna and I went to a workmate’s 20th wedding anniversary party, at which there was much dancing, and I went through my usual changes, but at least managed to enjoy a little bit of it: Anna loves dancing a lot, and at one point, when all the casual dancers had left the floor for all the extremely-competent dancers to show off, Anna managed to get me up and dancing with her in the middle of the dance floor, doing very silly moves. I hope the dancers didn’t think we were taking the piss.

Juggling
I’ve been trying to get back into juggling in time for the seminar on Wednesday, but I only really started yesterday, and I discovered I am shockingly out of condition. I’ve managed only fifteen throws of my five ball cascade, which I was able to get to twenty-five a year ago, and fifty three years before that. Must be getting old. Also, I am stressing muchly and stupidly, since it’s going to be a rather casual talk in front of sympathetic people.

Siteswap

Siteswap
I’ve promised to give a lunchtime seminar at work on the topic of “Mathematics and Juggling”, which means the mathematics behind a rather cool juggling notation called “Siteswap”. I have already given a talk on this topic, a long time ago - I think in Adelaide - but of course I don’t have any of those notes any more, and I’ve forgotten a lot of what I knew, and my juggling is very rusty too.

Hence, the inability to sleep last night, while I ran through the talk over and over again in my head, then got up at 2:00am and did some more research and downloaded lots of video clips of jugglers doing complicated siteswap things.

On the bright side, I did come up with an idea for a card game based on juggling (and siteswap). It’s a simpler varient of the duelling mages game, and as such, should be much easier to get going.

iPod
New iPod, same model as the dead iPod. Three weeks since the old one broke. Much enjoyment of all the music I had been missing.

This month’s challenge
…is going very poorly, I’m afraid. I’ve done bugger-all work on the script in the last couple of days, despite taking Tuesday off work. All thanks to “Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance”, which is now a smidgen away from being finished - which I may not even bother doing, as I suspect it is one big battle with the main baddie, then not much more gameplay after it. And I can’t be bothered. Unfortunately, the last couple of bits of the dungeon were very “monty haul”ish - they gave me the best weapons, armour, etc. thus ignoring every bit of work I’d put into building up my character’s goodies up to that point. I was kinda hoping I’d reach the final room, only to discover that every bit of good stuff I picked up in the Tower turned into dust. Something like that would have been cool.

Anyway, I’m not sure whether to continue trying this challenge at all, or just take a few week’s break. I am feeling rather stressed about everything.

Change at work?
I’ve had a rather interesting offer at work that would involve a lot more overseas travel, to the tune of 4-8 weeks a year, including quite a bit of time in Japan. I’m intrigued and worried. There’s a lot of responsibility with this new role, and no extra pay. On the other hand, exciting and new stuff. On the other hand, midnight teleconferences with people in Europe and the UK. I’m not certain about whether I’ll take it, but odds are looking good at the moment.

Music

Music & Movies
Hm, lets see… played a bunch of music with Anna & Jon & Kate on Sunday. Swapped the bass guitar for acoustic, and practiced “Eight days a week” over and over again, such that I can almost now play it. Didn’t do enough work on the Cars script, but showed it to Jon & Kate who had many suggestions as to how to drastically shorten the film - the current plan is to make a five minute short and expand it later.

And I bought the old PS2 game “Balder’s Gate: Dark Alliance” and played it for many hours, which probably accounts for why I didn’t get so much work done. I’m taking tomorrow off. Partly to catch up on my projects, but mostly to pick up the replacement iPod and play some more Balder’s Gate.

Cars

Cars
I’ve been steadily plugging away at the Cars script, gradually improving it an hour a day - until last night, when I had the sudden urge to write a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Film Forensics, which I did. I’ll post it some time tonight, thus alleviating some of the guilt I was feeling for not updating FF in over a month. And then I’ll get back in and do the Hulk review and… well, we’ll see. I had a brief but encouraging exchange of emails with the Partially Clips guy, after which I realised that at this stage, FF needs quantity more than it needs quality. I spent a very large number of hours over the most recent FFs, and the mere two hours on THHGTTG felt like a huge mental relief: my FFs don’t have to be perfect. That’s what the comments section is for: it’s much easier to add further observations later in the comments, than get it absolutely right the first time.

Anyway. Cars. I’m pretty pleased with some of the jokes, and it is definitely coming together, but it’s also very high on my list of things-I-feel-guilty-about, a list that is just getting longer and longer. So I do feel the pressure to come out with something good to justify the amount of time I’ve been spending on it.

Badminton
Smashed by Ian again on Tuesday. I have noticed two distinct modes in which I play. One is focussed internally - trying to do the best possible shots, watching the shuttle, getting swiftly about the court, not really analysing and acting on instinct. In that mode, I always lose. The other mode is when I focus externally: I watch Ian’s shots, and concentrate especially hard on playing a smart game: hitting the shuttle where he isn’t, concentrating on his weaknesses, and so on. For some reason, I usually feel extremely calm in the latter mode. And I invariably do better, too. I suspect it’s because I’m not paying as much attention to my own mistakes, which would otherwise irritate me.