日本語で 話しましょ！

This fall semester I am back to studying Japanese. Now I am in the credited classes, JPN101, instead of the continuing education class I was taking before. It's a much quicker pace, 5 credits, homework, quizzes, etc. I am studying more, practicing more, and loving it. I really remember more from my previous classes than I thought I did.

Here's a set of study aids I use:
1. Denshi Jisho - Online dictionary, w/ Kanji lookup.
2. About.com Verb Conjugation - A quick reference for conjugating common verbs.
3. Japanese Verb Conjugator - A search engine for conjugating any verb.
4. Minna no nihongo renshuu - A nice practice site with great activities for reviewing your knowledge. Covers 101 and 102.
5. Talk Now! Japanese - A cheap software package, good for vocabulary practice. I have an older version I found on a discount rack for $15.
6. Learn in your car - An audio CD set for practicing vocab and phrases in your car or iPod.
7. Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary - A great dictionary for beginner's, includes notes on honorifics, conjugation, tense, etc. All in hiragana/katakana, but also gives the Kanji.
8. エリンが　ちょうせん　にほんご　できます - A Japanese TV show to help non-native speakers learn Japanese. Two things I really like about it is the immersion, and the kanji. It's 100% in Japanese, even though it is targeted at the beginner. And it shows kanji with furigana for everything, which I really wish they would do for all Japanese learning material. So when you finally start to learn kanji you have a foundation of familiar kanji because you've seen them again and again in the show.

Finally, if I can give any advice whatsoever, it would be to learn hiragana and katakana before you even start learning the language. Memorize them, it's not hard, and take all your notes with them and just skip right over romaji. Romaji is terrible, particularly some versions of it. The sooner you are in kana only, the sooner you will be reading/writing smoothly and quickly, and you will avoid some spelling pitfalls introduced by the jump from romaji to kana.

Rock Band 2

When I went to Pax 2010 with Admiral Nelson, we stopped at the local GameWorks and had a blast playing Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania. I was sold on the idea of a drum game, and I have since bought Rock Band 2. The price came down when The Beatles: Rock Band was released, so I got the package deal for $99 (drums, guitar, game). I absolutely love playing the drums on this thing.

Guitar in RB2 is not as fun as Guitar Hero, but still a good time. I say not as fun because the Medium difficulty is too easy (I actually struggle to stay awake while playing) but then Hard difficulty is a huge leap and just too difficult. In Guitar Hero, Medium had hammer-ons and pull-offs and other things to keep it interesting. RB2 doesn't really start to do anything interesting until Hard, but then it is all too much. It adds hammer-on/off, the 5th button, and way more complexity. Too much complexity for one step up in difficulty.

In any case, the game was well worth the cash, especially since my wife will actually play with me. She is saving her earnings to buy the ruby rings.

Mount Hood National Forest

This past weekend we camped out in Mt. Hood National Forest. It's pretty awesome out there. We just hung out, took a hike, drove up to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, took a ski lift up the mountain... all around good time.

Pics here.

Rafting the Deschutes

Back in June, the wife and I went rafting down the Deschutes river with a crew from work. It was a three day trip, starting in Warm Springs and ending just past Oak Springs. We had a good time, and we're looking forward to doing it again. I was in charge of happy hour. So I prepared some Mojitos in 2-liter bottles, brought a bottle of sake, and made watermelon margaritas. Good times.

I fucked up my back pretty good when I jumped from a 30 ft cliff into the river, which sort of ruined my Summer. I'm still healing, a full two months later. So while I won't be doing that again, I will be back on that river next year. Here's some pictures.

Genesis of Shannara

I'm just about done with The Gypsy Morph, the final book in the Genesis of Shannara trilogy by Terry Brooks. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Shannara is a high fantasy world, first explored in Terry Brooks' award winning Sword of Shannara. Since then, there have been a slew of books. There was a prequel trilogy, The Word/Void Trilogy, that takes place in modern day Illinois. This trilogy, Genesis of Shannara, takes place in the post-apocalyptic Northwest and leads into the creation of the Shannara fantasy world from the ashes of the Age of Man.

Brooks is a solid author. While some books are better than others, they are never bad. This trilogy, while not his best, is still a good read. Light and entertaining. Some of his earlier Shannara books had better characters; people that were real and I felt invested in. The characters in this trilogy, with a few small exceptions, never quite come to life. There are a couple supporting characters that I feel are alive, specifically Panther and Owl. But the main characters are a bit two dimensional. In any case, the story itself is serviceable. There's a few plot devices that felt like cop-outs. Like the owl that guides Logan. Where was this nifty owl for the previous two books? Were the faerie creatures out of mana points and recharging?

In any case, I can't recommend this particular trilogy unless you are a fan of Shannara. If you haven't read any Shannara yet, then start at the earlier books (Sword, Elfstones, etc). They're better. If you become a big fan then ultimately you can read this trilogy, but otherwise, give it a pass.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I was a huge GI Joe fan as a kid. I read the comic, watched the TV show, and collected the toys. I would miss my school bus because I was watching GI Joe repeats. I loved GI Joe, I think maybe more than any other toy line. And I still love GI Joe. Just last year I bought a comic. And I have a couple of the newer action figures.

So, like Transformers, making a live action movie based on something so fond from my childhood is dangerous. You are almost guaranteed failure. The hate was quick to surface, long before the movie was released. I didn't like that they made it an international force instead of an American one. I hated the first character shots. Everyone was in those terrible black outfits that Hollywood slaps on all super heroes. Storm Shadow looked retarded in his white outfit. GI Joe was going to suck, and it was clear from day one.

But somehow, it didn't suck. I saw the movie despite my jaded attitude. And it was fun. In fact, I really liked it. In fact, I will admit that I almost, almost, loved it. Movie Bob over at The Escapist hit the nail on the head. The movie was a lot of fun. It was like all those battles you had with your GI Joe figures and vehicles came to life on screen and did all the wild shit you imagined they did. There are some character changes that purists will surely whine about. But at the heart of it is exactly what every kid loved about GI Joe: good guys and bad guys tearing it up with real and imagined military technology.

Go see it.

And Baroness is HOT.

Ninjato

When my mom dropped $200 cash on me for my birthday (a big surprise BTW) I had all kinds of things I could spend it on. But I tend to look at cash and gift certificates like this: spend it on something you normally wouldn't buy. Because that's usually what gifts are. You don't buy someone a gift certificate for an oil change for a reason. Gifts are superfluous, fun things. So I bought a ninja sword.

Like I said before: I'm a geek, through and through.

I've been thinking a lot lately of another visit to Japan: our 5th anniversary is coming up next year, I'm enrolled in Japanese language class at the local community college, and I just had a blast playing Tenchu Z. I love my katana that I bought in Kyoto four years ago, and I plan on getting another one next time I visit. I certainly do not plan on getting a ninja sword in Japan, not to mention it would be hard to find. The Ninjato as we know it never existed. It is a construct of Japanese film, Hollywood, and anime. The exact origin of the straight sword and square tsuba design seems to be unknown. But it is known to be not historically accurate by any means. So this sword is purely a celebration of the pop culture ninja. So that's why I would feel silly buying a ninja sword in Japan. Instead, I bought a Hanwei Ninjato.

Hanwei is a Chinese company that manufactures many functional historical swords of all types. Martial artists actually use Hanwei swords because they are functional, rugged, and much cheaper then true Japanese swords, or nihonto. So practice and destroy the cheap ones while the authentic ones sit safely on your wall. This sword is made for business. While not folded, it is differentially hardened, and it has a real hamon to prove it. The guys at Sword-Buyers-Guide.com did a review, and they have plenty of video to show how sharp this thing is. I've read that folding is only a matter of tradition today anyways. They used to do it to improve the carbon content of the steel, but that is unnecessary today - though it also makes for a beautiful effect on the blade. Point is, a lot of swords made today are as good as the classics.

So this sword is kick ass. It has all the details that make it feel like a "real" ninja sword: black colors, hamon, flat black saya, square tsuba, and it even has a kamasu-kissaki (the striaght line tip, where others are traditionally curved). More pictures here.

Oh and BTW, I'm adding Edo Wonderland to my todo list for Japan. The ninjas sold me, lol.

And I never posted a pic of it, so here is my Kyoto sword: