Do Something This Weekend of Feb. 15, 2008
“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”1 So maybe you shouldn’t even be reading this.
Geek Out
Sulk. It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and judging by yesterday’s stereotype-reinforcing GameFAQs poll—a statistical tribute to loneliness—many of you would be happy to lock yourself in a dark room until this artificially sweetened delirium passes.
The New York Japan Society is selling admission to their big dark room, and they’ll even give you something to watch. Tonight at 7, they’re screening the “Propaganda” portion of their Dawn of Japanese Animation series, presenting a dozen WW2-era silent films (some with live benshi narration) that herald the glory of Mother Japan. The cuddly cute fascism of shorts like Sankichi the Monkey: The Storm Troopers ought to blow your mind long enough to distract you from your romantic concerns. Part four of the series, Music & Dance, shows tomorrow at 5 p.m., and a special screening of Orochi will follow at 7:30.
Further old-timey silver-screen fare can be found in Astoria, where the Museum of the Moving Image holds afternoon screenings of the 1941 film serial Adventures of Captain Marvel. The good captain’s 12-episode journey marked the first time a comic-book character was adapted for the big screen by a major studio. A new installment premieres every Saturday. Tomorrow’s episode: Time Bomb!
Geek In
Craft. The other day, one of my buddies picked up a knitting pattern from the coffee table (my wife designs them) and exclaimed, “It’s like a C++ program!” Indeed, sites like Etsy and O’Reilly’s Make/Craft blogs are a testament to coders’ and crafters’ ongoing discovery that they have a lot in common. Amid the din of rejuvenated enthusiasm for knitting and crochet, allow me to make a plug for counted cross-stitch, my mom’s craft of choice when I was a tot. A few bloggers like Sprite Stitch have noticed that the blocky pixel art of retro gaming converts perfectly to cross-stitch patterns, with a 1:1 ratio of pixel to stitch. A few simple Mega Man patterns would make a good starter project. Or you could just email the patterns to Mom and encourage her to get started on Christmas presents early this year.
Write the FAQing thing yourself. If you’re wondering why the results of the GameFAQs Valentine poll shake out the way they do, I present Exhibit A: the NES FAQ Completion Project. It’s a quest to create a FAQ for every known Nintendo game, and despite the many hundreds of games already documented on the GameFAQs site, a stunning 444 remain. Maybe you’ve played one. Check the list of unfinished business and see if you might have a write-up to contribute to this quixotic cause.
All contents copyright © 2007-2008 John Teti.
