Posts from — April 2008

Over the weekend, I saw Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden. It was good but it’s tailored for those who do not know much about worldly affairs. If you know the results of the “War on Terror,” that actual people with feelings live in Muslim countries, and that the population at large in these countries don’t really care for Bin Laden, then you don’t really need to watch this as it is dumbed down for the average person who doesn’t know much of anything. It’s effective for this specific crowd though and fulfills its purpose.

There was one part that cracked me up and I thought I would share it with all of you. In the beginning, Spurlock went through defensive training by an organization that prepares civilians traveling to Middle Eastern countries. The class even taught people what to do in case they are taken hostage. In one scene, Morgan Spurlock is crouched down on the  floor with his hands behind his head while an instructor play acts as a terrorist. He holds a gun to Spurlock’s head and asks in a threatening voice: “Are you going to convert to Muslim?”

Convert to Muslim?! Hahaha.

*shakes head* Oh the humanity. . .

Years ago, I used to read Superman comic books. One comic came out every week and I got all of them. I did that for 5 and half years. While I never stopped being a Superman fan, I didn’t want to keep reading because the weekly comics just didn’t hold my interest anymore. However, reading Superman comics was tied enough to my identity that I wondered what would happen if I stopped reading and collecting them. I know, I know, that sounds a bit weird but if you have doubts, check out the comments in my high school yearbook. Almost everyone mentioned Superman as if it were some kind of inside joke or something. Actually, wait, don’t check out my high school yearbook.

After I stopped actively collecting comics, I would still venture into a comic bookstore now and then (if I happened to pass one by) and maybe buy a trade paperback if a story looked interesting. But those times were few and far in between. I never really got sucked into anything that I had to read.

That sort of changed last week. I heard aboutY: The Last Man from various places and wanted to check it out. This story, about all the males on the planet dying off at once save for one guy, Yorick Brown, seemed intriguing enough that I wanted to see what it was all about. This finite series consisted of 60 issues, which started in 2002 and just ended this past January. Most of the comics were collected in trade paperbacks - 10 different volumes including the final yet to be released volume containing the last issues.

I read the first volume at the Borders by work during my lunch one day last week. Since they didn’t have the 2nd volume, I walked over to the nearby Barnes and Nobles to see if they had it. They did.

So during my lunches for the past couple of weeks, I was reading all of the volumes of Y: The Last Man, switching from Borders to Barnes depending on who had what. Getting closer and closer until the end, I didn’t give much thought about how the final issues won’t be compiled into volume form until June. “I can wait,” I told myself.

Turns out I couldn’t (and didn’t want to) so yesterday I ventured into a comic bookstore in Fremont that I had never been to and hoped they had copies of the last 6 issues. They did. The guy behind the counter said that the ending was sad but that he wasn’t really giving anything away because, really, what else would I expect. I figured he just spoiled for me since now I knew to be prepared.

And yet. . .

Even though I crammed the entire length of the series into two weeks as opposed to the people who had read it over the past 5-6 years, I got really attached to the characters and so the final issue carried an emotional impact. I won’t spoil it or anything but I did sort of get a bit sad and a twinge depressed.

Fiction is so weird sometimes. You know these people aren’t real. The situations may not even be realistic as it was in this case and yet it doesn’t even matter because it will still get you, y’know?

Yeah.

As an aside, I’m wondering why I don’t feel any shame by the fact I didn’t buy most of the series, that I read most of these in bookstores so I didn’t have to buy them. Oh well.

I’ll do a post soon about all the post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve been reading. Stay tuned.

So Flickr just added the ability for pro users to upload videos up to 90 seconds. This works for me as I don’t really want to use YouTube for the things I’ve taped using my digital camera and I can’t bring myself to upload them to Facebook. Most of videos are of my nephew but here’s the first thing I uploaded - an 18 second Karachi street scene taken by me from a car. We spent most of those precious seconds talking about salad:

I have more footage of Pakistan on my camcorder but I wanted to try this Flickr video thing out sooner rather than later.

EDIT: Here’s another video - this time one of my cousins explaining Pakistani water to my sister and another cousin. The conversation started because my sister mentioned that we couldn’t drink tap water. There is a lot of background noise so, yeah.

Last night I watched Justice League: The New Frontier, the latest animated straight to DVD movie released by Warners Animation. The first one released was Superman: Doomsday, which I wrote about previously.

The movie, based off a comic book, was animated in an old style manner to mimic the art of the Golden Age. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to it since I’m a huge fan of the modern Justice League animated series, but it worked quite well.

The plot of the move revolves around The Centre, an initially unseen enemy that wishes to eradicate the human race because of their destructive ways.

The movie takes place during the Red Scare in which in addition to fear of communists, the public maintained a fear of superheroes. Because of possible ramifications, the superheroes in general are hesitant to use their powers. However since fending off The Centre required the joining of forces of both the American military and various superheroes, an understanding had to be reached. To deflect a standoff between the two groups, Superman gave an impassioned speech as to how they all needed to let go of their fear of each other and band together to fight the common evil.

I really liked the movie - good plot, good animation, and better than the Superman Returns movie (but like I said before, anything is better than that). It makes you think though - maybe what this world needs to combat the constant fear of one another is a common alien enemy. But that wouldn’t be practical, would it.

The next animated movie due to be released straight to DVD is Batman: Gotham Knight, an anime-style Batman movie in which Batman is voiced by the original Batman voice actor from the animated series, Kevin Conroy. Woohoo!

I spent my lunch drinking a mocha on a bench alongside the Bay. It was nice.

I composed a poem to talk about the event:
I’m kidding.

The bench depicted in the picture is my bench. You know what I hate? When people are sitting on my bench. Granted, my name is not on it. And I don’t sit there every day. And it’s actually a 10 minute walk away from work. But still, it’s my bench.

Last year, I wrote about how my camera broke . Today, I was going through my closet and found my old camera. The battery in it was still somewhat charged so I turned it on and took a picture (with my newer camera) of the cracked LCD screen.

Check it out: