But, but, but ... he's your brother

I feel like ranting...

So it's time to debunk some common social misconception: siblings

I sometimes get asked how my brother is doing. I can only guess the reasons they ask me rather than my brother himself, but if I had to make an attempt I would say it is due to their unwavering respect for his personal life, combined with their burning curiosity for other people's affairs.

This question usually gets answered with "Don't know" followed by a voiced or implied "don't care". (though I've sometimes used something impersonal such as "fine" to avoid having to repeat my arguments for the umpteenth time) Then I usually get some manner of lecture on how I should care more for my brother. So it's time to once and for all shoot these arguments down, in the vain hope that they stay dead.

1. he's your brother

So, I should care about my brother because he's my brother. Circular logic much? If I have to explain this one, there simply is no hope.

2. He's your only brother in the whole wide world

*casually points out the other brother* But I'm guessing you mean that he is unique and should be treated as such. Three other things that are unique: an ant, a cupcake and a snowflake. I hope you are (not) suggesting that I should char my brother with a magnifying glass, eat him and store the remains in freezer in a futile attempt to preserve it?

Straw-man aside, everyone in this world is unique in their own unique way and as such the uniqueness losses it's uniqueness. If you want me to care, you'll have to prove why this uniqueness is better than another brand of uniqueness. Which of course brings us toooooooooooooo....

3. The genetic link

False. first of all there is no reason why siblings should have even a single chromosome in common (If you don't know what a chromosome is or don't understand why this statement is correct you do not even have the right to invoke the genetic argument) With one notable exception: same sex siblings will have their father's sex chromosome in common.

So in other words, I share the male chromosome with my brother. Whoopty-freaking-doo, now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a nano-particle, small enough that when containing my joy it won't cause an implosion capable of destroying the universe.

Second of all, for most humans, the functional part of the genome is roughly the same. If not, you either don't get past the zygote stage, or you have a genetic disease. If you need to base your arguments on the person being diseased you might want to rethink your opinion. Most variation occurs in random areas that have no real significance (as far as we know).

And of course genetics isn't the only thing that determines a person, which brings us tooooooooooooooooooooo...

4. You grew up together

Indeed you got me there. We did indeed spend 20 years or so together. And indeed, you are completely right when you claim those 20 years of accumulated experiences should be overruled by your 1 minute impulse romantic vision.

Look just wishing for something to change and expecting it just happen overnight doesn't cut it. Maybe if you set up some good rites and put 20 years of praying in it may have an influence. Then again, by the time you're done with that I'll have another 20 years of experience for you to negate. As you can see, this is a lost fight. You're welcome to either try or give up, as long as it stops you from interfering with me.

Some of you might be thinking that I hate my brothers. This is untrue. In fact I'm quite okay with them, even if it's just for the fact that they have the good sense not to try to dictate my life and feelings to me. Like some assholes seem to do. It's them I hate, those delusional assholes.

There, now we can all get along by asking at least one less stupid question.

Happy Pi-day everyone. ^^

A tough question

When signing up for some site I often stumble across this really hard question, which they expect me to just gloss over and leisurely answer. However I find it hard to do just that; And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I sincerly hope that one day such questions will be either abolished; or properly expanded to fully grasp their profoundness.

Without further ado, the question in question:
(since the wording of the question may vary, I've boiled it down to it's pure essence, making it easier to understand and identify.)

"Hello there, I know you've suffered many years pondering this problem and it has had severe psychological effects on you such as depression and suicidal thoughts, and it will probably result in severe societal issues in your later life; nevertheless I would like you to choose one of these two heavily laden terms to better specify your place in our marketing mold, rather than true personalisation of your profile."

Anime Talk: Macross Frontier

Well, any content is good at this point and I've been thinking about writing about some other stuff here for a short while, so here is the first installment of Anime Talk. Perhaps some other genres will be made up, and I'm going to prod my fellow writer if he wants to rant about something, so stay tuned.

In the first installment of Anime Talk I'm going to talk a bit about an anime series I've started watching recently, that is MACROSS FRONTIER.

Macross Frontier is the most recent series part of the Macross franchise, and celebrates the 25th anniversary of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series.

Prior to watching this series I had heard of Macross, but wasn't really interested as my mecha fandom only reached to Gundam series. But lately the visuals and idea behind Macross became more and more appealing so I've decided to give it a shot. And WHOW, I feel sad I haven't tried it sooner.

The first episode I watched left me shivering with anticipation and a whole puddle of drool in front of my chair. Yes, it's that good.

Visuals:
I now have 2 years of designer studies experience (one web, one graphical/gaming) and rarely have I seen a series where the design from technology, ships, mecha to culture, background (story and visuals) is so *good*, without appearing useless or over the top. The first time I saw a squadron of fighters sortie from the futuristic carrier I was amazed at the design of the carrier itself to holographic signs and visuals they used. Very stylish and at the same time functional.
Character designs seemed to be rather bland at first, but it gets better later on as see more and more. the costumes are not that original, but character visuals is not really what this anime is all about. World design and characters' stories is what it's all about.

Music:
the music is composed by Yoko Kanno, which was also a big attraction point for me, as I think she's one of the greatest modern day music composers. She made the music for Ghost in the Shell Series, for Ragnarok Online 2 (not that you people know it), for Wolf's Rain Anime, and so on. The music score for Macross F is a very poppy kind, somewhat unusual for Yoko in my opinion, but I still haven't heard a single song I don't absolutely love, 6 episodes so far in the series. I absolutely want the OST if I can find it here in Belgium. There are a lot of insert songs, which may or may not be a little disturbing for some people, but in my humble opinion it adds greatly to the aura and effect of the story, and frankly it gives me goosebumps. High score for this part too!

Story:
In the interest of not spoiling the entire story here, I'm going to be very vague about it, and just posting my general opinion here. The story is kind of a love triangle thing, set in a science fiction warfare time. The characters all have their respectful background stories and relationships to other characters and it adds greatly to the story. The background culture/world is very rich, which is probably also an effect given by the previous Macross series (this is a guess, as I haven't seen the previous series). The story contains an equal helping of drama, humour and romance and manages to balance these nicely, without the viewer getting the feeling of it being too much at any given time. It's really a 3 out of 3 with this!

So, here is my review/opinion about the Macross Frontier Series. Seeing as I am still new at this reviewing thing, I hope I haven't made too many mistakes. So there...!

Here are some relevant links!
A Gabriela Robin Site: News about Yoko Kanno, her (rumored) Alter Ego, and the music she makes (for Macross F ;)
Mendoi-Conclave (Menclave) Fansubs: The guys(/girls?) subbing this fantastic series! And other Anime, check em out!

See you next Deculture!!

--Warynn

Randomness breaking the silence

So, seeing as the school year is officially over, grades have been attained (or lost) and a flood of free time now bears down upon us students, I deem it more than due that I should post something here.

I realise I've been neglecting this blog up to the point that my fellow writer/blogger has come to me with the question "Is it still worth writing on your blog?". When I heard that I felt a quite sharp pang of regret and guilt that it should have come this far. True, I intended great things, and I have failed miserably due to my lazyness and fear of useful work, but still it came to me as a shock that he should feel it has come to this. So here I'm going to try to actually bring the interwebs some interesting content. Yay me... *sees some tomatoes flying, fists being raised, fingers being offered, ect...* okay....

I have been peeking in my old experience as a web developer/designer and have been reinstalling programs and tools needed to be more productive so my lazyness doesn't kick in immediatly, but my school/work related laptop has conveniently broken down and is now in for reparation. I don't know when to get it back, but for now, it's still same old same old. Hooray for back-up laptops. *little sigh*

So here is to a better blog, a less lazy person writing this blog, and more kicks in the asses by people.

--Warynn