Most people who use the Internet in some capacity are aware of what a weeaboo is, but for those who don’t, it’s basically someone who’s obsessed with Japanese culture. Anime, manga, some sort of incorrect image of old glorious Japan – these are the sort of things they go crazy for. If you’ve ever seen a picture of some white kids with an anime messenger bag, a Dragonball Z T-shirt and are trying to use words like kawaii or neko in their sentences, those are weeaboos. You can go look them up on Dramatica or something if you really want to, but you may go insane.

Anyway, as it turns out there’s a group that’s actually worse than the weeaboos. I don’t have a term for it, but it’s basically people who are obsessed with Irish culture. My girlfriend and I have been taking a basic class on the Irish language, and the people in the class are horrendous – far worse than those in our Japanese class. It’s funny how you can change the subject of a class but the people pretty much stay the same. There’s the one or two overly zealous people that chime in all the time because they know Irish from that guy at that bar; the guy who doesn’t say much but then out of nowhere goes on a ten minute tangent and tries to prove the teacher wrong; and of course, the deer caught in headlights.

It probably has to do with them having a cultural connection that others don’t have with Japanese. Someone’s mother or family was from County Mayo or County Cork or something like that – so that means that they have to reconnect with that culture somehow. It’s funny how these people instantly start using the term ‘we’ (i.e. inclusively) to describe ‘the Irish’. Learning how to properly pronounce “céad míle fáilte” or how to say “I’m drunk” in Irish doesn’t grant you that right. Similarly, that doesn’t mean that you get to blather on about the one part of Irish culture you read about on Wikipedia.

Urgh.

So the other morning I was on the train and saw a guy that had a tattoo that said 有限会社.

In Japanese, this means “limited company” – like an LLC or something. I don’t even know..

Man, they did an awesome job with Game of Thrones. Seriously well done.

First off, the title sequence was epic. I’ve never watched the opening of a show with more interest. I know it’s a relatively thing to praise, but their attention to detail shows through there, I think.

The casting is spot-on. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister, is every bit as smarmy as he is in the books. I seem to recall Cersei being a bit better looking in the book, but I think this actress is going to pull it off well. Sansa is well portrayed as the prissy little girl that she is, so that works well. I understand they had to make Daenerys older for a number of reasons (somehow taking a 13-year-old from behind would put HBO in dangerous territory, I guess), but GRRM said in an interview that portraying her as older makes sense in the context of adulthood, so that’s fine. Everyone else is fine too, I think.

But beyond that, everything else just feels right. The very opening was true to the book, as was the last scene in the first episode – even down to the dialogue. They did a great job explaining the story without getting into too much detail. And the stage has most certainly been set for what’s to come. For me, the hardest part is that I know what’s going to happen, so seeing everyone all nice and happy is a bit jarring when I think of their fates. For those who don’t know, some truly fucked up shit is going to go down.

So yeah, great start. Hopefully it keeps up and they get the chance to tell the whole story (whenever GRRM finishes the last two books, anyway). And who knows, maybe it’ll be good enough that they think about adapting other series, like The First Law or Wheel of Time. Actually, the former would be badass, though incredibly graphic; the latter would go on for three hundred episodes and nothing would happen.

I think the real question is, are people going to start calling out for “Friday” at concerts instead of “Freebird”?

I recently switched jobs and am now a commuter, so I thought I’d make short posts about things I’ve seen on the train. These are entirely true and totally undoctored.

This morning, a guy three people down from me was so entirely enraptured by his iPhone that he didn’t notice or feel drops of water splashing on his knee. The air conditioner right above him had some condensation on it (or something) and it was dripping down. I was on the train maybe half an hour, and the entire time he didn’t move or do anything to avoid it. Just kept using his iPhone.

(Side note: all glory to Uncle Steve!)