Couldn't get back to sleep this morning (thanks, intestines), but I had some thoughts on translations that I decided I should post. Maybe writing this will make me tired enough...
Working on Ask Dr. Rin! with Live-eviL has been interesting, since apparently Tofusensei and I have differing opinions on how, well, seriously a script should be taken. I tend to lean towards the literal side of translation, while Tofu likes to use casual expressions and catchwords. (I've actually run into a problem at some point where I've never heard of an expression used in a script, and thus the meaning of the entire line was lost on me.) I do feel that translation should never be word-for-word literal, and lines -should- be written in a way that best conveys the original intent. But there's a limit to that...
I would hope Tofu gets where I'm going. It's not that I'm flat out against the use of common expressions, as long as they're not drifting too far from the original intent, and that they don't make the script seem excessively silly. I'm not a fan of adding connotations when they aren't really present originally, such as making ditzy people talk like valley girls when their Japanese speech is perfectly normal. Of course, context is everything, and I can't make a general rule in how I prefer to have scripts written. Perhaps this is why things go so much smoother between myself and A-F when I work on Twin Spica - our opinions on how things should be done in general sync up a lot better, and we don't have debates over as many lines. Twin Spica is also a much more serious show than Dr. Rin, so all the casual sayings that get thrown into the latter would just be completely out of place in the former.
There was one notable case in the R1 DVDs of Louie the Rune Soldier, where there's a line that reads "Nice to do ya!" in the subtitles. I think the Japanese is something like "yoroshiku" or another generic line like that - but the image of the line was brought up in a sexual context, and if Louie's pants were visible in the shot, I'm sure they would have been on the floor. I do think the line is stretching it a bit, but the Japanese line was open-ended enough that I probably would have let it slide. Besides, I laughed. =p
I get the feeling I wanted to write a bit more on the subject, but it's slipping my mind at the moment, so I think I'll just try to go back to bed for a little more sleep. I'll actually get back to journal writing someday... maybe.
Yeah, I can't even remember the last time I updated this. Surprisingly, I only had to deal with 12 comment spams upon logging in, as opposed to the usual 500.
So, I guess I'll just start with what happened over the past week.
After class on Tuesday, I ate a quick lunch and drove from MC Rockville to UMBC to meet with an advisor in the Information Systems department. I basically learned that the stuff about not having to take Accounting and Economics anymore was BS and I do indeed have to take them. >.> (Yep, have to go through BS to get a BS...) Currently, I'm on track to transfer to UMBC probably in the Spring of 2006, to graduate with an Information Systems BS degree in Spring of 2008. Eight years after I finished high school, and two years after most of my more successful classmates will have finished their graduate programs. =p
Not that I'm in any hurry to try and join the mess that is the computing workforce. But it would be nice to be done with classes finally.
On Friday afternoon, I ended up visiting Alison's house for a bit, finally getting there around 4pm thanks to horrid traffic as usual. I watched her brother play some Robotech game, then Alison play Tekken 5, then a bit of the IIDX bible DVD, and the three of us watched a chunk of the final episodes of RahXephon. I left my DVDs there on the offchance that she'll get time to actually watch it.
Alison said she was feeling tired, so I departed from her house at around 8pm and headed to SF. Met up with Kevin and Ek, watched Kevin play a lot of Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune, I played one round of DDR (which ended prematurely as usual since I'm so out of practice), and Kevin and I went to IHOP for a quick dinner. I also brought the IIDX bible DVD into the restaurant and we watched it on Kevin's laptop. Not knowing what side items to get with my dinner as usual, I end up with fried shrimp, with my sides being hash browns, mashed potatoes, and red potatoes.
Yes, as Kevin put it, "potatoes with shrimp".
On Saturday morning, plans for going to the Sakura Matsuri were most definitely not made. I passed on going down with my mom and brother to see if Alison needed a ride or anything. Suffice it to say, she didn't. Chris had decided not to go, and since Josh was leaving early to go to SF due to DC being -really crowded-, I decided to also go to SF for the second night running. After picking up Chris on the way, we finally made it there at around 6pm. Kevin, Josh, Kevyn, Pakman, Pedro, and Billy were already there. I actually decided to finally start playing Wangan myself, though I sucked -really badly-. I also managed to pick a cobalt blue Silvia, which is exactly what Kevin picked on one of his cards.
At some point, Chris had gone into the mall and found that GameStop still had several PSPs in stock. Telling Pakman this, he immediately went over there to buy one. Chris, Billy, Pedro, and I also went to GameStop after a while, where Chris picked up one himself, but didn't get any games to go with it. (Pakman picked up Lumines with his.)
Kevyn had left on his own, but sent me back to the arcade looking for something he accidently left behind. I think I found it (either that, or I just ended up filching someone's stuff), but I put it in Billy's bag and forgot to take it back out at the end of the night. Oops.
Pakman, Kevin, and Josh had driven off to the Best Buy to look for more PSP games and to see if they had any launch PSPs with the Spider-Man 2 movie included, and we soon followed. We didn't actually enter the Best Buy though, but went directly to the nearby GameStop. (Why there are two GameStops so close to each other, I have no clue.) Chris had been looking for a copy of Ridge Racer for his PSP, but didn't find it here either. After it took Billy ten coin tosses to decide he didn't want to go buy Marvel vs. Capcom 2, we all drove over to Starland, where Chris finally found a copy of Ridge Racer. (Of course, it was the last copy they had.) We all browsed the store for quite a while, but no one else bought anything.
At this point, we decided on going for dinner. After getting a call from Jonny (sp?), we ended up waiting around while still not being able to decide where to go. IHOP was ruled out by the fact that Kevin and I had been there the night before. Billy wanted to go to Bennigan's to eat a Monte Cristo, but no one else really wanted to. We ended up driving over to Friday's shortly after Jonny arrived and demonstrated his parking skills. =p Although it was discussed, we didn't actually attempt to form a multiplayer Lumines game across two cars.
Dinner was filled with... PSP action. Josh still had the Namco x Capcom trailer loaded on his memory stick, so that was watched a few times by those who hadn't seen it yet. We also had all three PSPs going up until food reached the table - Pakman and Josh on Lumines, and Chris on Ridge Racer (at least, until his battery ran out). After dinner, Pakman dropped Josh off at the Metro station (which led to some confusion as I thought I would be dropping Josh off on my way home) and took Kevin back to the mall, while I dropped Billy, Pedro, and Chris off at their homes, then finally headed home myself.
Spent most of Sunday reading and sleeping, instead of doing some work I still had to finish. I also ended up going out in the early evening with my mom and brother to buy new luggage and to eat dinner. I finished the night off being completely unproductive.
The unproductivity streak carried into this morning, where I pretty much just went to class, and then ate food and continued more unproductiveness until I went to the computer lab and finally finished my part of a group writing assignment. Thus, I'm still in the computer lab waiting for the parts from the other group members to arrive.
And I think that pretty much summarizes every event of importance over the last week.
And hey, one of my group members just walked into the computer lab and sat down without seeing me. I'll take that as a sign to finish up this entry for now. I'll have to get back to what happened in the weeks before later. (Some details are being omitted because I consider them too private for this unsecured journal. Check my LiveJournal for these entries if I have you friended there, but even then, I'm still leaving some details out for now.)