John borrowed Cowboy Bebop: The Movie last night and I got drawn into watching it. The animation is really stellar, very textured and nuanced, with quite a bit more motion than typical anime fare (which I’m not overly into, I just grew up watching badly dubbed Japanese cartoons after school in France).
I got new glasses today. I’m going to have a good hard look for my digicam when I get back to the apartment, and if I can’t find it I’ll just borrow Donald’s. It’s nice to not have to squint at the screen or while driving any more.
I had a moment of automotive providence in the parking lot of the optometrist’s office over lunch. My car (the Audi) has a peculiar quirk to the fuel system that if you let the car die by itself (bogging accelerating from a standstill, etc), it won’t start for another hour or two. It will crank strongly, but it won’t catch, not even trying. It’s something to do with the fuel pressure in the lines–I have a couple of theories but haven’t ventured to fix it yet. In any case, I walked out of the eye doctor’s office with my new specs on, hopped in the car, and started it. It caught, revved, but died soon thereafter, since I didn’t feather the throttle to “clear the car’s throat” so to speak. So of course it wouldn’t start again and I was stranded in the parking lot, half an hour away from the work I needed to get back to. I tried starting it for a few more minutes but wasn’t making headway, so not (yet) being the owner of a cell phone, I went back inside and called about five people to inquire about the possibility of a ride. Obviously no one picked up, and I didn’t want to leave a message and sit there. I asked the receptionist if I could come back in in five minutes and use the phone again; she generously agreed. I futzed around the car for a minute, tapping the fuel pump and checking the wiring, to no avail. In desperation I consulted the owner’s manual (WITH the car–I didn’t pay $1200 for nothing). There weren’t any troubleshooting procedures that would be of any use, I thought, but the section detailing the fuse box did catch my eye. I decided to try it. Popped the hood, found the fuel pump fuse, and pulled it. Got back in the car, cranked it… It started, but died immediately. I was elated. I got out again, reinserted the fuse, and the car fired right up and settled down to a nice idle. I prayed a quick prayer of thanks and told the receptionist that I wouldn’t be needing to use the phone, and drove back here to work.
It’s nice when things work out like that for a change, instead of the constant automotive frustration that seems to accompany me like a cloud of tailpipe smoke. I thought about the incident on the way home, and how if someone had been with me I probably would have looked like I knew what I was doing when it came to cars… But then I thought, no–If I really knew what I was doing that wouldn’t have happened in the first place, since I would have fixed it weeks ago, and the car wouldn’t be emanating smoke from an over-rich condition and cutting out momentarily around the turns, among other things… So I resigned myself to the fact that my little automotive victory just evened things out and I returned to parity on the scoreboard of mechanical struggles.
isn’t it nice when things work for once? it reminds me of the satisfaction you get after finding something you’ve been searching for: even though you’re just back where you started, it’s still satisfying.
& i was lent cowboy bebop by a friend several weeks ago, and have not yet watched it. your review makes me think that maybe i should.
It’s definitely worth seeing, if for nothing else than just a change of pace from all those live-action movies. The music isn’t half bad either–something of a jazz/rock ‘n’ roll fusion. Just make sure you watch it with subtitles (not dubbed) to get the proper experience :o)
oh, of course. subtitles is the only way to go.
“I used to get stoned and watch Cowby Bebop for hours…”
PEA ESS
that’s from one of my professors, not me.
haha :o) I was wondering about that… Which professor is this?
Photography…