What are you listening to/watching?

[Lambuzhao]

Ha!

Casio, casio, casio.

This was my superold Casio keyboard's demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP7SrNupkDc

Shakatak - Night Birds

Oh boy…

[Lambuzhao]

Whoops! Before I forget,

Yesterday, I watched Flushed Away.

A very cute film that helped me get thru some tough times back in 2006-7.
Thank you, Millicent Bystander!

My son also started making his own video mockups of Ultraman kaiju, Gormiti and Fallout monsters which he designed on Spore.

Spores the Terrible (Gormiti) danced to Things can only get Better Howard Jones
Reicubas (Ultraman) danced to Break My Stride Matthew Wilder. This crustaceous kaiju had some killa swag!
Tormentor the Torturer (Gormiti) danced to "I'll be Around" The Spinners. And he really let his backbone slide!
and the newer, clearly Garthim ripoff Myrelurk (Fallout) danced to either "Pumped up kicks" or "Seven Nation Army".

Funny & ridiculous, with all the halcyon abandon of Summerswane.

[Lambuzhao]

Carrapicho - Tic Tic Tac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqUEbhlRKX4

Kaoma - Lambada (Chorando se foi)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyLdoQGBchQ

Carrapicho - Festa de um Povo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3WtyqJzLAI

Jorge ben Jor - Taj Mahal (Tete tere tere)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfrpOhC6858

Hot Summerswane days remind me of my Piura , where, in the heat of the night, brothers and sisters would fire things up a couple notches yet more.

¡La mais linda historia de amor~
Bate forte o tambor!

♫ ☮

[Lao Kou]

-- Watching NASA live coverage of the eclipse. Very exciting, but the female host seems to have a head full of straw. Murkans, paisan', what are you doing?

If I hear any more warnings about not looking directly into the sun and/or wearing appropriate eye-gear, I swear to God I'm going to scream. Still, I can imagine emergency rooms across the country will be filled with clueless wonders with damaged retinas.

-- Oh my God, eclipse schmooze

Covering it like the Tournament of Roses parade.

-- Okay, guess I've seen it. Apparently, TV commentators are simply incapable of just SHUTTING UP for the two minutes of totality as opposed to screaming at us how unique and singular it all is. Wear your special glasses, gosh, aren't the brats delicious. Oh,and wear the special glasses. Extended coverage of elementary school explanations, shrieking excitement, minute-by-minute gasping of how amazing it all is. I'm done. Put your special glasses on.

[qwed117]

Watching NASA live coverage of the eclipse. Very exciting, but the female host seems to have a head full of straw. Murkans, paisan', what are you doing?

If I hear any more warnings about not looking directly into the sun and/or wearing appropriate eye-gear, I swear to God I'm going to scream. Still, I can imagine emergency rooms across the country will be filled with clueless wonders with damaged retinas.

Oh my God, eclipse schmooze

Covering it like the Tournament of Roses parade.

Did you remember to put your eclipse glasses on? Remember, looking at the sun is bad for your eyes.

[Lao Kou]

Did you remember to put your eclipse glasses on? Remember, looking at the sun is bad for your eyes.

Lest you forget, put your special glasses on.

[qwed117]

Did you remember to put your eclipse glasses on? Remember, looking at the sun is bad for your eyes.

Lest you forget, put your special glasses on.

Put your eclipse goggles on. You can suffer from retinal damage due to extreme sunlight.

[Lao Kou]

My eyes! My eyes!

[qwed117]

My eyes! My eyes!

You should put on your eclipse goggles if you are going to look at the sun.

[Lao Kou]

My eyes! My eyes!

You should put on your eclipse goggles if you are going to look at the sun.

As it turns out, there is a word in Géarthnuns for "retina", but not one for "retinal crisps", a tasty snack capturing the magic of those who saw (not anymore) fit not to wear their special glasses today. Ah well, I guess we can revisit that lexical item in 2024.

[lsd]

WonderWoman

[Lambuzhao]

Enjoying probable neighbors' viddies of the Eclipse.
Never was I so happy to have an event marred by thick clouds, which actually made the event all the more visible (?!).
Go figure!

Short view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuYU0JOcZtA

Long View (I wasn't the only one who called it Pac-Man )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0w3O1AZmUc


Anyway, this was well nigh the selfsame sights that we saw, except from over our shoulders, Medusa-wrecking style

[Lambuzhao]

Albeit late,
some tunes for the eclipse:

Pink Floyd - Brain Damage/Eclipse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVQ3-Xe_suY

David Bowie - Somebody Up there likes me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4a9ppLMx3I
Don't ask me why; I think it had to do with our good fortune at seeing the event against the odds

Davide Bowie - Blackstar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

Police - Invisible Sun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHgmXJLpa5o

Foals - Black Gold
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJBGwMOmFvc

Yuridia - Eclipse total del amor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbcxRflekhI

Beatles - Blackbird
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qK5IN9eMWw

thanks to kiwikami & elemtilas for mentioning those eclipse-psychopomps in merling murmuration

[lsd]

Charles Trenet - Le soleil et la lune
Mecano-Hijo de la luna
Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart
CELLAR DARLING - Black Moon
Klaus Nomi - Total Eclipse
Indochine-j'ai demandé à la lune

[alynnidalar]

Watched Sailor Moon Crystal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Spoiler:

If anyone's actually interested, I think it's generally a pretty decent show. The original anime suffered pretty seriously from pacing problems; it took soooo looooong to do anything and all the filler led to weird plotholes and pacing. And of course the infamous reused animation was painful because it'd take up like a quarter of the episode with the EXACT! SAME! transformation or attack footage you've seen fifty times before.

Crystal does away with a lot of these problems by ruthlessly cutting out the filler and severely limiting reused animation in the first two seasons--while transformation sequences use the same animation, they cut down how frequently these scenes occurred (in the original anime, it seemed like nobody could ever transform off-screen, but in Crystal, it happens all the time), and the attacks generally don't use reused footage. All of this really helped the pacing, and made fights actually exciting and fast-paced. The third season unfortunately had a lot more stock footage (could Moon Spiral Heart Attack take any longer) and in consequence the fights weren't as interesting. One thing that helped here was the music. In the original anime, the music for each transformation/attack sequence never varied, which led to a weird disconnect where exciting or tense music would suddenly cut out for the same ol' music you've heard fifty times before that doesn't fit the scene. In Crystal, even if the footage was reused, the music generally was not, which helped tie the footage back to the rest of the episode.

The visual design was kind of a mixed bag. Everyone has noodle arms, which is never more obvious than during the transformation sequences when they all flail around bonelessly. It's weird and occasionally creepy. On the other hand, the animation was pretty slick; things actually had backgrounds unlike the original anime where all the fights took place against contextless swirly colored backgrounds (to make it easier to reuse the footage later). And especially in the third season, I actually grew to like the art style. Music and sound design generally seemed pretty good. Can't comment on voice acting--I was watching the sub--but what was up with the translator for Season 3?? Seasons 1 and 2 had perfectly fine translations, they were natural-sounding with few flaws, but Season 3 had all kinds of misspellings, slightly wrong words (no, Sailor Moon is not being aroused, she's being awakened), and ungrammatical phrasing. It was all still comprehensible, but your audience shouldn't be googling "halation" and "domically" to find out if they're actual English words. (yes, both of them are. no, neither of them is something a teenager would use in casual conversation. no, not even Ami)

OK, so... how about the actual story? Crystal is based pretty closely on the manga, which I'm in the middle of reading at the moment, hence why there's little filler. But I can't help but think that you miss out on a lot of the fun interpersonal stuff from the original anime, and don't get the same sense of the girls' personalities. For one example, Rei seriously creeped me out with how nice she was to Usagi... the two of them always had a more antagonistic friendship in the original anime. I wondered if this was just how the manga was, and if all that had been made up for the original anime, but nope, in the manga Rei and Usagi argue a bunch as well. The Inner senshi just all felt a bit generic. Oooh, Ami's the smart one. Rei's the psychic one. Makoto likes plants and cooking. Minako is uh... we'll get back to you on that one. (the poor girl's exceptionally generic in Crystal) The only people who had actual personalities were Usagi, Mamoru, Chibiusa, and... Hotaru, I guess? And none of the villains have much personality at all; they're very interchangeable. That's a definite advantage the original anime has over Crystal, in my opinion--way more characterization of the villains.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Crystal. It sure was a lot easier to watch and less repetitive than the original anime, and felt less "childish". I just kinda wish there'd been more character-related stuff. (plus--maybe this is verboten--but I really love the ending of the first arc in the original anime, even if it didn't follow the manga at all. It's so dramatic and sad!) I wouldn't say it replaces the original anime, but it's probably easier for a newcomer to swallow.

Random other thoughts on the original anime vs. Crystal:
- I wanted to stick Chibiusa's head in a blender in the original anime, but I actually like and am sympathetic to her in Crystal. Good job.
- Tuxedo Mask is still useless, but in the original anime he was somehow still treated as if he was useful, whereas here his uselessness is acknowledged and everyone's aware his only value is to give Usagi pep talks and babysit Chibiusa. So that's nice.
- I'm super glad they used the manga age for Mamoru because while it's kind of weird for a 17-year-old to date a 14-year-old, it's really weird for a 19-year-old to date a 14-year-old (which is his age in the original anime, God knows why)
- wow Usagi is really, really bi

tl;dr: it doesn't suck; if magical girl anime is your thing, then watch it.

[idov]

I just watched the Conlanging documentary. When it comes to listening to music, this here has been my companion.

[KaiTheHomoSapien]

Can't stop listening to Reol. Love her voice, and the music is electronica/trap meets J-pop:

Reol - YoiYoi Kokon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IK6eLTNV1k

[Dezinaa]

Sevish, a microtonal music artist. I think it's really cool, like learning a new language for music. Once you get used to hearing all the new notes, that is.

Sevish - Ask Yourself
Sevish - Droplet
Sevish - Moonopolis

[Inkcube-Revolver]

"Jane" by Jefferson Starship:
https://youtu.be/sXmrMMYpQL4

"Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra:
https://youtu.be/s7dTBoW5H9k

"Jessica" by the Allman Brothers:
https://youtu.be/yRDivUb5EeA

"Clocks" https://youtu.be/MIHZBKl7KPw
and "The Scientist" https://youtu.be/RB-RcX5DS5A
by Coldplay

and I didn't *just* listen to "Rhiannon" by Fleetwood Mac, but I love it all the same: https://youtu.be/U_aYibUx1B8

[Inkcube-Revolver]

--Watching NASA live coverage of the eclipse. Very exciting, but the female host seems to have a head full of straw.

That's disappointing that the coverage kind of took away from a stupendous moment. I loved the eclipse, especially how cool (in both ways) and purple~ish and dark it was (I had a partial eclipse, not a total one)!

Next time I won't forget my special sunglasses -- and hopefully you won't forget your special sunglasses --
so I can catch when the next one comes rolling 'round. Does anybody know if eyesight can heal after more than 10 minutes of staring at the sun? I can't afford the surgery so I need alternative methods that'll give results!1