sethcheek.com

As the summer movie season seems to be wrapping up, I thought about what a good summer it was.  There were several that I will probably want to catch again in the $3 theater, since it’ll be the last time to see them on a big screen.  Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, Iron Man, Hulk, Mamma Mia, The Dark Knight, Wanted and probably one or two others I’m forgetting.

Now, as that slows down, fall becomes game season.  The summer is generally pretty slow, ‘new game’-wise, which is actually great on the wallet.  It’s also a chance to catch up on some games that got back-burnered from last year. 

So far, I’ve played through a really strong RPG called Mass Effect.  I don’t know what came out shortly after that distracted me from it, but it’s a very good game.  Lots of branching dialog paths and an intricate leveling-up skill tree, plus HOURS of well-done voice acting and good visuals make it a really cool experience.

Also I’m catching up now on Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, a superhero game where the teams you build determine your success in certain situations.  It can also be played co-operatively, so Sean and I have been going through a lot of it together, and I really think Luke would have fun playing it, too.

Though it might not be as big as last year’s holiday season, this one is going to be big.

• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (October 21st)
• Fable 2 (October 21st)
• Fallout 3 (October 21st)
• Gears of War 2 (November 7th)
• Saints Row 2 (October 14th)

I’ll be trading in several titles in the coming weeks, trying to keep the cash for some of these and still have enough for Christmas!

What games are you interested in?  Did I miss any big ones?

Seth Movies, Xbox

I’m back into an organized, scheduled learning mode for the first time since college, and I’m having MUCH more fun doing it.  I’ve decided I want to learn Japanese.  It was hard remembering exactly why I started getting interested in it.  My teacher said many of her students become interested in it after watching ‘anime’.  I’m not really a fan of that, though.  I’m sure there’s at least a small part just fascinated with the samurai/ninja/etc. history, plus the fascination with technology from there.  On a "deeper" level, I’m interested in how similar our cultures are in many ways, while developing on opposite sides of the globe.  (However, I’m very aware of SEVERAL differences in the cultures, too.)

My first assignment is to memorize one of three ways of writing the Japanese have.  There’s hiragana, a series of symbols equating to syllables, used for native Japanese words.  Then there’s katakana, which is a separate series of symbols equating to the same syllables, which is used for foreign or "loan words".  Then the third is Kanji, which is, from what I understand, a Chinese style of symbols equating to more complete words, phrases, or concepts.  There are approximately 4,000 of them, and apparently many Japanese people don’t even know all of them.

I’ve used a combination of a podcast, several iPhone apps and now travelling out to USI one night a week to get where I want to be.

I’m fairly confident now that I could get around, ask where things are, buy things and have a very basic conversation with someone, but I want to go beyond that.  When people are speaking Japanese on television, I want to not have to use the subtitles.  When I see Japanese writing, I want to be able to read it.

Do you have any Japanese learning tricks?  Any advice?

Seth Japanese

Seth Funny