The Roman Empire » Personal

I Have Sense Enough To Be Lazy

hroman — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:50:04 +0000

I still need to do an update proper, but I’m going to postpone that for a few days yet (I know, I know).

Until then, here’s three of my favorite Salinger short stories:

A Perfect Day For Bananafish.
For Esme – With Love And Squalor.
Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes.

RIP, Mr Salinger.

Cuz I Been Sitting On My Butt All Day Playing Video Games, That’s What

hroman — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:48:14 +0000

Picked up the New Super Mario Bros. Wii game, and it is ridiculously fun and addictive. But it’s going to take me a while to get up to speed with these “Super Skills.”

In particular, the following is a video-grab of four people playing World 1 Level 3 with the help of Yoshi. If you notice, Luigi is quite lazy!

That was impressive.

You Must Avenge My Death, Kimba… I Mean Simba

hroman — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:21:10 +0000

On one of my sporadic trips to the outskirts of the interweb, I learned of the striking similarities between Disney’s 1994 The Lion King¹ and Tezuka’s 1965 anime series Kimba the White Lion. The so-called “controversy” is chronicled here (kimbawlion) and touched upon here (wikipedia), with the most striking similarity being the whole dead-father-appears-in-clouds-to-console-son scene.

Admittedly, much of the evidence is at times anecdotal. Still, there is enough material there to form a conspiracy theory. From what I can tell, quite a bit of imagery from the Lion King looks borrowed from Kimba, although not much of the plot is. In fact, the Lion King is really more a re-hash of Shakespeare’s Hamlet than anything else – which is itself a retelling of ancient precursor legends (i.e. nothing is original).

But none of that really matters to me. What I love about this controversy is that I finally get the joke in the Simpsons episode “Round Springfield” where Mufasa’s ghost appears alongside the ghosts of Bleeding Gums Murphy, Darth Vader, and James Earl Jones and says:

“You Must Avenge My Death, Kimba… I Mean, Simba.”

Proof once again that the writers for the Simpsons, seasons 3 to 8, were (notice past tense) second to none.

The Lion King is probably my favourite Disney movie, with Aladdin a close second.

My Pictures and Stories

hroman — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:46:53 +0000

A few months ago my parents bequeathed to me a box containing “things” of my past. Without my knowledge, they had kept everything I had ever done since I was 3 – including report cards, drawings, letters, pictures, etc (my father took great pride in this, which tells you a lot about the man).

Among those files was a story I wrote in Junior Kindergarten – well, co-wrote, as the handwriting will shortly reveal. I want to share it with you, so here it be, in all her glory:

Page 1

(Page one does not disappoint, with a poignant self-portrait not seen since the likes of Picasso. It also reveals the date this was written: sometime between September 1985 and June 1986).

Page 2

(The caption says “I made a snowman.” Not only am I flying, but my snowman is red and the snow-covered ground is brown.)

Page 3

(My family is eating dinner in this one. Meatballs, soup, and rice. And a second table full of rice. Take note of the food theme. It shall return.)

Page 4

(“My people was home.” I saw “suns.” This was my early rapper phase.)

Page 5

(“The next time I went home, my mother was cooking.” More food. This is where my “Everybody Loves Raymond” complex develops.)

Page 6

(Coloring is fun. So is having your mommy cook you dinner.)

Page 7

(The End)!