Your Event Has Been Cancelled

This was, unfortunately, the title of an email I was forward today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have some regrettable news regarding the FALL FORMAL.  As you might know, these past two weeks have been the worst of my life.  To those contributing tribute RECords re: my brother dan, you have my deepest gratitude.

I’m eager to get back to work, but I also feel like I’ve just had an arm chopped off and so I’m finding myself less than capable these days.

I’ve considered various possibilities on how to make the show happen another way – the Town Hall Theater has been so accommodating in figuring this out with us.  But in the end, I just don’t feel up to it right now and have decided to cancel the show.

If it’s any consolation, we hitRECorders can take heart in knowing that our production was on-track to selling all 1500 tickets – a victory in itself well worthy of ice cream.

Chin up, there’s still much to do and a bright future ahead.
Thanks again...
<3 J

JGL posted this on the Hitrecord site today. Unfortunately, due to his brother's untimely and sudden passing, he's not feeling up to putting on this show that I was so looking forward to. (He says this, obviously, but I will say it again for emphasis.)

I'm sad that the show was cancelled, but I can't imagine being in his position right now. If my sister died, I don't know what I'd do, but I definitely wouldn't want to get happy and perform for a bunch of people, either, not so soon after.

We'll all get over it, one of these days.

No Translation Necessary

(Blogger seems to have added a couple of random new features: Define/Translate and Add Location. Weird.)

I'm in a horrible mood for a number of reasons. 1. It's hot. 2. My back hurts, as always. 3. School starts in less than a week now. 4. I LOST MY iPOD. I don't even know how that happened! I didn't even GO ANYWHERE. I think Apple magnetically recalled it back to its original manufacturer so that I would have to buy a new iPod, because those were conveniently revealed yesterday. Too bad the new nanos are ugly as sin and the new Touches are outrageously priced.

Ugh. I hope I can go to the Apple Store soon and convince them to sell me one of their 4th or 5th gen Product Red nanos.

Anyway, because of school I'm probably looking at only writing about 10 new posts a month. 15 at the most. Thankfully, I have a brand new Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis to tide you over until the next time I post! This one has Sean Penn in it and is guest-hosted by Zach's "twin brother" Seth.

Enjoy or get out.

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Sean Penn from Between Two Ferns

Sticking To That Creepy Guy's Guns, Part II

I'm not really sure if I want to propagate this girl's videos and the bashing of them. Yes, they are disgusting, horrible; crude, depressing. But she's an 11-year-old girl, and 11-year-old girls are idiots. Everyone should know that! The things that little Jessi Slaughter did and said are completely despicable and idiotic; they're even more out of line than the average 11-year-old attention freak's comments. But she is still little Jessi Slaughter.

So instead of posting her original videos, I'm just going to post this relatively unbiased from my much maligned Good Morning America. It also features the trademark idiot Perri Kaplan. I HATE THAT WOMAN. She came to my school once. Apparently the high schoolers (I was in middle school at the time) accosted her, just as they should have. But ignore her part and watch the rest to get filled in on the Jessi Slaughter story that everyone on the Internet has been talking about for the past week or two. (Everyone has been talking about it, right? Yeah?)



At the risk of sounding like an English teacher, what do you think her videos/behavior says about what youth is coming to? Personally, I think kids are growing up even faster than they used to. This is pretty obvious, I think. It's hard to distinguish a child from a preteen (because there IS a difference) when their mouths are closed these days. It's sad. We should appreciate the youth we have. We shouldn't even know what a "glock" is (I still don't and I'm 5 years older than this girl!) and we shouldn't we going on the Internet at age 11 and telling people to "get AIDS and die." But once again, I want to make it clear that I don't support the bullying of her -- because it IS bullying -- and I do feel bad for her because of what the people on the Internet have done. They've made fun of her, brutally. And even though she wants to act so grown up, she is so obviously a kid. She can dress my age but she can't act it, and she can't think like it.

It's sad, really.

Things That Are Excrutiating

(That is probably not the best title for a blog that you are trying to get people to read, but, um, oh well?)

So. Hi. How are you? Yeah, okay, I don't care that much.

Let's talk about dubs. But first, a preface. I like a lot of things (hence the relative lack of focus in this blog), but two things I really like are video games and anime. YES. VIDEO GAMES AND ANIME. This may seem weird to you, but really, it isn't. I grew up during the height of the "anime with video game tie-ins" craze. People in the 80s had the anime "secretly" selling toys one, and we 90s kids had the anime secretly selling video games, toys, and, um, school buses one.

A lot of fellow video game and anime fans, albeit much more grotesque and irritating ones (yes, there are indeed people more irritating than me!), whine about English dubs. Dubs are, of course, dubbing or translating from one language into another, and since most anime and video games (at least, video games that whiny anime fans play) are Japanese, they have to be dubbed into English. A lot of these fans think that the Japanese or original dub is "lyke sooooo much better desu." Personally, I like a lot of English dubs, or at least tolerate them. But the following examples would probably sound better in their original language.

ANIME THAT SOUND LIKE PEOPLE TRYING TO DIE

One Piece is really popular in Japan. It's one of the top 3 most popular anime, in fact. It never reached that same success here in America.

This is why.

Oh. Oh, dear. That...that isn't good, is it? No. Not at all. One Piece is one of the many anime that is well-liked in its original language by weeaboo masses that was mutilated by 4Kids entertainment. Chances are, if you've ever seen an anime on TV, it was dubbed by 4Kids, and that's exactly why you hate it.

I don't care about the show in the first place, though, so it's dub is more funny to me than anything else. That doesn't mean it's not horrible, though!

Cardcaptor Sakura, on the other hand, is actually a completely awesome manga, and the anime in its original language is also ah-mazin'. However, those darn Canadians decided to turn it into a pile of worthless junk. They called it Cardcaptors. 

You probably have no idea what's going on here. I could try to explain it to you but you'd probably start laughing at me the second I said "ten year old girl," so I won't bother. All you really need to know is that this dub is horrible, but I think you and your bleeding ears get that.

There's even a whole series on YouTube dedicated to bad anime dubs! Here's one example.

Cyborg 009! Bro, I totally watched that show on Toonami back in the day! It wasn't this dub, though; thankfully, they redubbed it to make it more tolerable. But if I was 8 in 1988 and not 2001 and was watching this dub instead, I probably would be in a psych ward by now. Well, maybe not.

OMG BONUS TAIMU DESU! That's what I would say if I looked like this. But I don't, so I'm just going to show you this bonus clip without introduction. (Although it's from that 4Kids dub of One Piece. That's all.)

VIDEO GAMES THAT SOUND SIMILAR TO A VERY ILL MAN'S PUKING

I'm going to get this one out of the way first. I love Final Fantasy X. I love it so, so, so much. I played it for ~20 hours in one week, and I never do that (with any game that doesn't start with "Pokemon," anyway). It is so good that I want to go play it right now!

The one bad thing about it? This scene.

I think I like how the user called Tidus "Baboon" the most about this video. Tidus is kind of an idiot, but I still like him. Um, except for in this horrible little piece of programming. Bleh.

Chaos Wars had no chance. Sure, it actually got some surprisingly decent reviews, but it was yet another faceless tactical RPG in a sea of already extremely niche PS2 TRPGs. Its dub really doesn't help, as it might very well be the worst I've ever heard (apparently it was done by some guy who worked at the publishing company's relatives!).

I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE CAN BE THIS BAD AT VOICE ACTING. And why does Uru sound so stereotypically gay?! "I don't really want yo' twisted love. I really don't." I MEAN, WHAT? Seriously. HORRIBLE.

Oh, wait, did I say Chaos Wars has the worst dub ever? I was wrong. This "game" does.

I could try to tell you why this is so bad, but it would either take me years or I would start frothing at the mouth in mere seconds due to my even speaking the name of this abomination. And this clip isn't even the worst of them! Any idiot who paid money for this adventure in wasting time is a sad, sad person and probably will never touch a video game ever again, which is too bad really.

I mean, technically, this isn't a dub in the same way that FFX and Chaos Wars are, but I think it's worth posting for its sheer mediocrity. Besides, the first time I saw it I thought they were dubbing it from some European language.

I'm sorry that I hurt your ears, but if it's any consolation, mine hurt even more -- I had to find these clips AND watch them all the way through AND I watched other clips in between. If you'll excuse me, there's a nice Vicodin with my name on it. (Not really! But there is a little stuffed Pikachu I can rest my head on. Good night.)

P.S. Please, remember that not all English dubs are bad. As I said before, I actually like a lot of them. But sometimes they really are undeniably horrible.