Brent P. Newhall's Blog
Misc – Jul 2008

30 Jul 08 – The Amazing Tekkon Kinkreet

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I just watched the anime film Tekkon Kinkreet. I'm not going to review it.

Instead, I'm going to talk about its history. It was originally a somewhat sketchy manga, picked up by an expatriate American freshly dropped in Japan ten years ago. It hit him. Hard. Right between the eyes.

He'd just closed down his own company and moved to Japan. The manga told the story of an outsider, a kid, in a world that he no longer knew. It described this kid's dark side, and his power, and his tenacity.

This American ached to make a movie out of this. So, he worked his way up through the anime industry, getting to know folks, until he convinced the right people that he should direct an adaptation of this manga. And he got four million dollars with which to do it.

Anime films are rare in Japan. You'll get a yearly Pokemon or Naruto movie, and every so often something from Studio Ghibli, but outside of that there are precious few movie-length anime. So this was remarkable.

Then, halfway through production, the crew reviewed the movie so far. The film was confusing and muddled. Most of the animation was still incomplete. They suffered a major blow. I saw the video; they all looked like they'd just been told their mother died.

So they talked about it, and thought about it, and rallied, and moved forward.

And they made it. They released a film of beauty, depth, and emotional power. Oh, I could point out flaws; so what? He achieved his dream. And his dream is beautiful.

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22 Jul 08 – My Depression Lifts...Time To Rock

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And sure enough, my depression has lifted. I spent last night at my parents' house, talking over my finances, and I've decided on a course of action.

Context: I have about 2 months of expenses left in my checking account. While I've made some money from web development, it's a quarter of what I'd need to pay my bills. I've received a few emails from folks interested in tutoring, but none of them have committed. None of my short stories have been accepted yet. I'm not making enough money to continue this, considering my savings.

Resolution: I'm going to contact a temp agency, and look for part-time or full-time temporary tech work, at least for the next couple of months. I'll continue to advertise tutoring and submit stories to magazines, in the hopes I can build that up to full-scale income by the end of November.

I don't want to give up on freelancing. However, it hasn't worked yet, and I need to give it more time. So, this will do it.

Unfortunately, it also means I'm going to have an exhausting few months, as I'll also teach all evening Mondays through Wednesdays. But that's a price I'll need to pay.

Now, to move forward.

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20 Jul 08 – Personal Stuff

Lack of blog updates here. Mainly because I've been depressed lately. It comes in waves, and much of the time I've felt okay. But...all is not right, internally, despite all being well externally. I've no reason to complain.

But such is life. The mind and the heart are incomprehensibly complex systems. (I hesitate to call them "systems," as that implies reducible rules.) Emotions don't always derive from obvious causes.

So, as with so many other things, I must ride this storm out, and be stronger for its passing.

Once I do, this blog will resume.

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8 Jul 08 – Saalon, The Weekend, and Podcasting

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So Saalon came down last weekend to hang out. He DM'ed a D&D 4th Edition game for me and some friends; a grand time was had by all. We beat the X-Men arcade game, and played Super Gem Fighter Mini-Mix, and generally hung out.

One of the friends was Nick, so while we were together, we sat down in my studio and recorded a podcast.

So we clustered around my laptop, where I pulled up Audacity, hit the Record button, and away we went. 'Twas a strange situation.

We first started talking together when we all trooped to Otakon last year. We conversed with surprising ease, and when we agreed to try recording a podcast together over Skype, I was again surprised to hear our conversation flow smoothly and naturally. We respect each other. We can disagree and challenge each other, while really listening to each others' points of view.

So this was our first podcast recorded while sitting in the same room together. And it worked. Smooth as silk.

I'm a bit perturbed by the mediocre audio, but we were all leaning in to my laptop microphone. It's certainly audible, but I wish I had a good microphone. I wish I knew of a good microphone that costs less than $100. At least my studio has carpeting and one concrete wall, so there was minimal echo.

Overall, a great success, and I'm glad we did it.

(Oh, and this means that episode 4 of Otaku, No Video is out.)

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