Best Animated Short - 1937

Well, in another week and a half I will be taking my COMLEX Step 3 exam. You'd think I'd be so busy studying that I won't have time to write these reviews, but well, I am studying, but you do have to have study breaks. The good thing about going to q 2 week reviews is that I won't have to take as many of these study breaks or something to waste my day on reviews. I mean, it's fun to do these reviews and all, but I hate how I spend an hour reviewing each film because I have to look up some interesting facts that often times don't have anything to do with the film.

Meh. I've got nothing to say about 1937. Let's just go on to the Oscars from that year.

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300 Win Club - 125th anniversary

Are you enjoying my switch to two weeks between reviews? No? Tough, because I like it. It's giving me time to focus on my work and to work on some other projects, like this 30,000-word post about the 300-win pitchers on the 125th anniversary of the dedication of the 300-win club. It's kind of like the post I made back in June for the 4th anniversary of Randy Johnson's 300th win, only without graves. Maybe I should have ranked the 300-win games this time, but I suppose I can save that for next year on the 5th anniversary of the milestone. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy.

300-Win Club: the 125th anniversary

Randy Johnson's 300th win - 4th Anniversary Special

Well, today is the fourth anniversary of the day Randy Johnson became the 24th pitcher to win 300 games in his major league career. I was at that game, and that experience was the apex of my time as a baseball fan. Now that four years have passed since that fateful day, am I going to do something to do something to commemorate the occasion? You betcha! I've been visiting the graves of the dead 300-game winners and trying to meet with the living 300-game winners for the past two years now, and I've compiled them in a post on my other blog along with mini biographies of the players and my commentary on the action. So go read, please?

Here is a link. Now I am going to watch his 300th win again.

Meanwhile, you can read my other posts about Randy Johnson's 300th win
Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Rainout
Part V: The Game
Part VI: The Aftermath

Module 13: Japan (and the Rest of Asia) and Computer Animation

Hoo boy. This was a MASSIVE module, mainly because it incorporated two huge topics that probably warrant their own modules: Computer animation and Japanese animation. Computers have been a major tool in the production of animation since the 1970s, giving the ability to produce rendered animation with a 3 dimensional look or vector animation. It has taken over not only the field of animated films but also the production of many live action features. The technicalities of computer animation is way beyond the limits of my understanding, but needless to say it has completely transformed the animation industry.

And then there's the realm of Japanese animation, which has gained a massive following of its own. While animation has been in production since the 1910s and 1920s, it didn't really start to take off until the efforts of Osamu Tezuka, who is prolific in both the production of manga and anime. From then it expanded into Japanese culture as anime films and series became a big source of entertainment for the Japanese. And now it is becoming an international interest. I'm a big fan of the films of Studio Ghibli, and from that people seem to think of me as being an anime buff, but I've really cut back on watching anime since getting into the Oscar nominated animated shorts,* while my sisters have taken on the title of true blue anime otaku. It's still an interesting field for me.

*I really should come up with some abbreviation for this term, like ONIS.

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Randy Johnson's 300th Win - 3rd Anniversary

And now for something completely different.

My other interests besides animation is baseball, and one of my favorite things about baseball is keeping track of pitcher wins, even though that has become one of the most useless stats. In addition to following the baseball scores every night, I also make sure to pay attention to the winning and losing pitchers so I can follow their career record, as they make the long and often futile trek to the most glamorous and also most elusive of the pitching milestones: 300 wins. Well today is the 3rd anniversary of the last time any pitcher reached the 300th win milestone, and I had the opportunity to be present and witness baseball history. This would be something nice that any baseball fan would enjoy, but it was extra special for me because I had been a die-hard fan of the 300-win milestone since 2005. I obsessed over the moment for around a year afterwards, collecting as much memorabilia from the milestone as I can (including the crown jewel: a game-used baseball), and watched the game enough times to remember every single play (although never to the point where I recall every pitch.) The furor reached a point where I wrote a massive six-part series on my other blog coinciding with the 6-month and 12-month anniversary. The fascination has died down since then, and I don't feel like writing another 80,000 words anymore. However, on this the third anniversary, I would like to share my posts about the milestone from back in 2009-2010.

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-up
Part IV: The Rainout
Part V: The Game
Part VI: The Aftermath 

Pictures from the big day after the cut.

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