Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Toby Visits
We had Toby S. come over for dinner last night. It was the first time he'd been to our new place, and he seemed quite taken with it. The last time he saw Vanessa she was still a baby. Vanessa instantly took a liking to him and it was she who took him by the hand and showed him around the house.

He's looking gaunt, and seemed a little subdued, though there's still a mischievious glint in his eyes. I won't go into details, but he told us about the state of his health, which in his current state means that he cannot have any alcohol and needs to contact somebody at a particular hospital should he head out of town for more than a couple of hours.

It was nice just sitting dow with Toby on the porch before dinner, relaxing, admiring Erika's colourful spring garden and the cloudless blue sky, chatting away while bouncing Annie on my knee. Just enjoying the moment for what it was.

Bill W. joined us soon after and we dined on roast beast. I handed Bill a bunch of CD-Rs burned with copies of various shows he wanted, a la Kazaa.

At the conclusion of dinner, as it seems it is a rare thing when there is at least three members of Misc. "S" in one place, I gave Toby the "MP3 Whacky.com" award for "Killer Bee Picnic" (Toby originally sang the song, so it only seemed fitting that he get the award) and we mugged for a few shots from the digital camera, which I'll eventually send to the guy who sent us the award.

Toby is planning on heading to Montreal to see Bryce at the end of June. I think I'd like to go too -- there will probably be a mini-"S" session in the offing, though these days we just enjoy each other's company and strange senses of humour...

Watching "Samurai Jack"
After putting Vanessa to bed (Erika had already put Annie to bed earlier) and with Erika off to her trumpet practice I settled down in front of my computer to watch some "Samurai Jack" episodes.

I have to thank Kazaa for this -- the Samurai Jack cartoon series isn't (yet) displayed on any TV channel readily accessible to Canadian television viewers, so downloading a copy is about the only way I am readily able to see this show I've heard interesting things about.

It's by Genndy Tartakovsky, who up 'til now has been best known for his work on Dexter's Laboratory. I'd always liked that show -- the stories are cute but what caught my eye was the very stylized animation. Not at all striving for reality, but very cartoony. But the shows were ultimately aimed at kids (with a knowing wink at adults, admittedly). "Samurai Jack" is less kid-oriented, and is as stylish a cartoon series as you are likely to see.

The back-story doesn't really matter too much -- basically an evil immortal character (wonderfully voice-acted by Mako) transports our hero into the distant future, and it is our hero's quest to fight his way back to ultimately defeat his nemesis. Yeah yeah. But the setting gives the animator free reign to imagine new vistas. Basically each episode recounts some being’s quest for freedom (to which Jack can be counted on to lend a hand -- and a sword).

The animation style is stunning. The vast majority of cartoons ever made are based on outlined filled in with a flat color of paint. Outline the character, then have somebody else ink in the colour. Tartakovsky’s style is based instead on shapes -- few outlines are ever visible. The effect is often akin to a heavily stylized Japanese ukiyo-e print.

I'd be a liar if I said I didn't enjoy the inevitable fight scenes, but every now and then I found myself saying "wow" when some marvellously imaginative scene presented itself.

Great stuff. Would that more TV series in general (not just cartoons) were as impressive and ultimately as thoughtful as this series is.