I like making lists

My least-favorite things about being an adult:

1. Paying rent.
2. Choosing a doctor, mechanic, dentist, etc. instead of going wherever your parents do.
3. Having a desk job: not because I dislike it, but because it decreases the time available for playing video games.
4. Lack of time in general to pursue non-productive interests like reading, learning new languages, writing the Great American Novel, etc.
5. Looking for a job. (Glad I don't have to do that any more!)

My favorite things about being an adult:

1. Going to bed whenever I want.
2. Voting.
3. Self-directed travel: to Japan, to the Googleplex, and more.
4. Being able to buy a new computer... and put it together!
5. In general, feeling secure and in charge of my destiny.

The strangest things about being an adult:

1. Being called "sir".
2. Getting carded for alcohol more than five years after turning legal.
3. Attending friends' weddings and seeing their children.
4. Using first names when speaking to people in my parent's generation.
5. Realizing that I am a twenty-seven year old lying on my living room floor and playing Final Fantasy XII for four consecutive hours.

The Agony and the... well, more agony

I'm now about 18 hours into my new computer setup. The good news: for the first time since I started building boxes, I managed to complete the entire physical setup without a single injury. I usually anoint a new computer with blood at some point of the process, but I seem to have passed that hurdle.

The bad: Vista stinks. Badly. I spent several hours last night trying to get my wireless card to work, but no dice. The install was bug-ugly at first, but improved a bit when I installed my video card drivers. It all felt pretty useless without a network connection, though. I abandoned my initial plan and instead shifted gears to Linux.

I couldn't get my card working in Linux either, but at least there the problem was clearer: Netgear hasn't provided good 64-bit drivers for this card. I hadn't realized this before buying, but there are actually 3 versions of the WG311, each of which has a different chipset and separate, incompatible drivers. Version 2 evidently boots out of the box on Ubuntu, but Version 3 uses ndiswrapper. My heart sank when I read that - I had to wrestle with ndiswrapper for hours on my last computer, and I was never very satisfied with the results.

Stayed up until nearly midnight trying to get that to work, then tackled it again this morning. I got closer after I removed the included version of ndiswrapper and installed it from source, but I still couldn't load the module. Finally, because I didn't have anything else to do, I plugged in my old, inferior USB adapter.

Surprise! It was automagically detected. Turns out that, starting in gutsy, they have a native driver for the WG111 (v2!), rather than the crummy ndiswrapper/XP one. I just plugged in my WEP information, and now I'm flying.

I'm currently downloading what feels like the entire world... there are a ton of tools I want on here. I figure I'll spend the weekend getting Ubuntu configured the way I want it, and next weekend take another swing at Vista. I love what I see so far, though. Other than gaming and a few programming tasks, I should be able to live in Ubuntu for the next few years.

Update: Well, I'm ready to declare this PC more or less complete and screw in the side panels. This is the quickest to date on any machine I've built, notwithstanding the time I spent/wasted on the WG311. And, hooray! I was able to get Eclipse and my development tools up and running. I was delighted to see that I can launch into my debugger in about 10 seconds, as opposed to about a minute under Windows on my old PC. Since that's the single factor that convinced me to upgrade, it's a welcome validation, even if it feels like half of my computer is still broken.

Update 2: Heh, wow... I just shoved the new tower under my desk, and ended up on an archaeological expedition. I was literally pulling out cables whose purpose I did not know. It's simply amazing what kind of detritus can accumulate over just a few years. Among other things, I found the jack for a cheap desk microphone that I had bought in my waning Kansas City days. I'd never been able to get it working properly and forgotten about it, even though it was on my desk the whole time. Since I've been on a roll, I figured I'd plug it in and give it another shot. Thirty seconds later, I was recording lo-fi sound clips in Ubuntu. Hooray! Man, it's going to be such a letdown when I return to Vista next weekend.

Weekender

Some random thoughts:

I'm really looking forward to the weekend. First of all, I'm still buzzing from Obama's victory in Iowa last night, and I think those positive vibes will be propelling me forward.

Second, we are at the start of one of the biggest Bay Area storms in years. I really like storms. So far, it doesn't seem bigger than the worst storm of any given year in the Midwest, but it's quite impressive for the generally placid Bay Area.

The one downside is that I won't be doing my typical hike tomorrow. The offsetting upside, though, is that I should have all my new PC parts here by the end of the day, and so I will be able to spend tomorrow geeking out on that without any guilt. I'm looking forward to plugging in my very first SATA cable, my very first PCI-e card, and setting up the new Ubuntu system.

For a while there, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do this tomorrow. I'd ordered my parts on the 30th, paying an extra $3 for rush processing and the standard amount for 3-day shipping. As of when I went to bed last night, some of my stuff still hadn't shipped. This morning, there was an email when I woke up: the package had shipped from Tennessee, where they upgraded my delivery to next-day air for free. It's now left Oakland and is heading for Los Gatos. I was prepared to write a post about how disappointed I was in NewEgg, but it looks like they've come through yet again. It was even worth paying CA sales taxes for!

Other random small notes:

"Paprika" is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It combines what I like best about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" with what I like best about "Millennium Actress." Can someone remind me again why the Academy didn't give it an award?

I'm a few stories into "Blind Willow Sleeping Woman" by Haruki Murakami and am darn impressed. There's a really touching introduction where he talks about his attitude towards short stories and novels, and it actually made me feel a little guilty for liking his novels so much. The best story so far is probably "New York Mining Disaster," though I also loved "Birthday Girl." And "The Mirror" almost gave me nightmares, no small feat for a story that's just four pages long and in which arguably nothing happens.

Finally saw "Hot Fuzz" after the rest of the civilized world, and I officially add my voice to its chorus of praise. I enjoyed most of the movie, but the finale took me by storm, and made everything that happened before seem all the funnier. We need more movies like that, and I can't wait to see how they follow up this and "Shaun of the Dead."

Oh, and a while back I finished "Clash of Kings," book 2 of "A Song of Fire and Ice." I'm still really digging the series. Martin continues to keep everyone on their toes, and I really like the way he keeps an arms-length distance from the mystical.

I never thought that I watched much television, so I'm a little surprised to feel so deprived by the writer's strike. I'm very curious what The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will feel like next week. It would be amazing if Colbert spent the whole show doing Formidable Opponent, and Stewart just read the New York Times.

Back to the election: I really hope Obama's momentum keeps him going. One cool quirk of the California primary: even though we vote on Super Duper Tuesday in February, they start mailing absentee ballots early next week. Every California voter is automatically an eligible absentee voter. Around 44% of all voters are expected to vote early. With a fresh Obama win in their minds, that could bode well for an upset here. Last I heard, Clinton held a 15% lead, but that's been steadily shrinking.

Right on our doorstep is Nevada the one early Western state. I really should volunteer to help the campaign there, but I can't help feel that I'd do more harm than good.

On the gaming front, I'm loving Guitar Hero 3. They haven't messed much with Harmonix's winning formula, so you don't really feel their absence. The song list has been really strong so far. My favorite tunes to play are probably "Even Flow" and "Welcome to the Jungle."

They need to rethink their "Legends of Rock" thing, though. I mean, the basic idea is cool. But come on, Tom Morello? Don't get me wrong, he's very talented, but if I don't know his name, he probably doesn't count as a "legend." I recognize that many of the true legends are dead, but what about Jimmy Iha? Keith Richards? Pete Townshend? The Edge? Johnny Greenwood? Freaking Eric Clapton? I just think their title bit off more than they could chew. Nice work on Slash, though. That was well done... not only does he deserve the title, he's a perfect boss.

I'm also playing Final Fantasy XII, and can't decide whether I like it or not. For a while I felt like, from a pure gameplay perspective, it's the best entry in the system. Most FF devotees hate the gambit system, but I love it. It takes care of mindlessly pressing "O" hundreds of times when you fight through endless battles, letting you focus on strategy instead of mechanics.

Where I am at the game now, though, it's just aggravating. I'm at too low a level to comfortably advance in the plot, and all the interesting side missions are too challenging. In order to have more fun, therefore, I'll need to spend several hours grinding through monsters for experience, loot and license points. People have unfavorably compared the game to an MMO, and I can see where they're coming from. The mechanics as such don't bother me, but the emphasis on nonstop combat and leveling does. In this respect, it feels like a step backwards from FF X. In that game, for the first time in an FF universe, I felt like the game was designed to advance my characters as they progressed through the story; I rarely needed to take a break from what I wanted to do in order to level up. I hate it when games make me do work.

On a related note, this week I will be sorely tempted to get a new game to test out my new computer. I'll try to hold out, but if I cave, it'll probably be for Half-Life 2. It's a few years old, but that means my setup will be able to soar with it. Best of all, I won't lose the months of my life that getting Oblivion would demand.

Update: Whoops! It looks like Paprika may be eligible for the Academy Awards this year. Cool. Ratatoille probably has it sewn up, so I won't be too bitter, but I hope it at least gets nominated.

Corrections have also been made in the text above regarding the proportion of absentee voters in California. One other interesting thing about our primary: the Democratic party, but not the Republican, allows non-affiliated voters to vote in their primary. That means that independents will be heavily recruited for this primary... and, as Iowa has shown us, Obama is strong among independents. I doubt he'll actually take the state - he has a bit lead to overcome - but if he splits the delegates here and continues picking up smaller states, he could be in a great position.

Meet the New Egg, Same as the Old Egg

For a long time I've been claiming that I wouldn't upgrade my PC until Spore came out. When I made that claim, though I was thinking it would be coming out in early 2006. I've managed to keep going for a surprisingly long time, in large part because I rarely use my PC for gaming, and even an old machine is perfectly adequate for the surfing and Linux administration I generally do. In the last few months, though, I've been increasingly working on more challenging development projects at home, and as a result I've decided it's time for a face list. Eclipse is a phenomenal IDE, but it is becoming clear that its developers have more powerful machines than I do. It still runs fine, but I've had to endure patient waits for all its time-consuming global searches, refactoring, and similar operations.

This being the end of the year and all, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and do the upgrade. In this case, "upgrade" really means "build a whole new computer". I knew this at the time of my last revision - my current setup is stretched about as far as I can go with the previous generation of technology, using IDE hard drives, AGP video cards, DDR ram, etc. Everything but the case would need to be replaced, and as long as I was changing the guts, it only seemed fair to give it a face lift as well.

It didn't take too much deliberation for me to decide to build another system. It's fun, keeps me in practice, forces me to become intimately familiar with consumer technologies, and provides a relatively smooth upgrade path for the next generation. I had a few tempting alternatives. I've seriously considered buying a Mac for about a year now; OS X looks like a great operating system, and I've been impressed by what I've seen of the internals of my iPhone. I also liked the idea of getting a high-performance, ultra-compact laptop. In the end, I found it impossible to justify either alternative. Macs are great, but pricey and hard to upgrade, plus as cool as they are, they don't offer me anything I can't have on Linux and Windows (excepting xcode). The laptops look really sweet, but there too, I couldn't justify the price premium. I have a solid laptop workstation from the office, and my iPhone is more compact than any laptop... I didn't see myself doing development on a tiny keyboard, so why bother?

I next embarked on a remedial reeducation course. I've been out of the hardware game for a long time now - I remember when Andrew was making his computer, and I hadn't even heard of PCI-e slots (in my defense, this was several years ago). I compared the current generation of processors, the competing RAM standards, hard drive manufacturers, and so on. At each point, I was making a value-for-money analysis as well. This tends to be most obvious when looking at video cards, where a top of the line will set you back some $700, while a solid choice can be had for around $200. I tended to shoot for mid-range options - I'm not willing to pay twice the cost to win a 10% performance increase, and would rather keep that money for an upgrade a year or two down the line when prices have dropped further. I'm convinced that buying a PC at the top of the tech curve is a game for suckers and the obscenely wealthy.

I was pleased to discover that my old stand-bys for hardware info, namely Tom's Hardware and Ars Technica, seem to both still be healthy and thriving. And, of course, there are the phenomenal user reviews at NewEgg. I am a strong believer in the wisdom of crowds, and would always at least check NewEgg even if I wasn't going to buy from them. Between these three sources, I felt able to suss out both the general categories I wanted to shoot for (DDR2 vs DDR3, PCI-E 1 vs PCI-E 2, etc.), along with specific makes and models that people have had success with.

After making my selections, I hunted around online to find the best prices. I was stunned to discover that, here as well, NewEgg remains on top of the heap. I had a hard time even finding some items elsewhere, and when it was, the prices would not be better than what NewEgg had. This was even true after considering that I now have to pay sales tax on NewEgg purchases - something I never needed to worry about in Kansas City. The one exception was my case, which after paying for tax and $15.99 shipping was about two dollars more expensive than it would be at Fry's, but in the end I slapped that into the order as well. Hey, I'm not sure if Fry's even carries it now.

Here's a quick rundown on what I ended up selecting, along with my rationale.

Processor

Previously: AMD Athlon 2200+
New: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz)
Rationale: I've been a partisan AMD user since the late 90's, so this was a painful decision for me to make - I don't particularly like the way Intel does business, am suspicious of their ties with the software industry, and have a tendency to root for the underdog. If I'd held off for another six months I probably could have gone with AMD's upcoming quad core solution, but for today's technology, AMD doesn't have anything to match the Core 2 Duo. Its performance is excellent, plus it runs cooler and uses less power than the equivalent AMD chips. On the other end, a year ago I would have been tempted to stick with a 32 bit architecture - you can get phenomenal prices if you can find the chips - but 64 is the way of the future, even if a lot of software currently performs worse on it. As a developer, I need to be able to write native 64-bit apps, so that choice was easy to make. Finally, the rated speed here just seems like a sweet spot. 3.0 GHz chips are available, but cost notably more. I can park on this for a year or two, then switch to a quad core when they come down in price.

RAM

Previously: 768 MB DDR Ram
New: 4 GB DDR2 800 Ram
Rationale: DDR3 is the way of the future, but based on all the reports I can see, current versions actually under-perform DDR2. Specifically, bandwidth increases, but latency increases as well. Down the line they will eventually win, but in the current generation only 1600-speed DDR3 beats the performance of DDR2, and that RAM is DARN expensive, as are boards that can take it. The only affordable DDR3 is 1066 or lower, which, again, is worse than the corresponding DDR2. So I went with DDR2. My board (see below) can take up to 1066-speed RAM, but there aren't many offerings at that level, so I opted to go with the 800 instead. I was going to get 2GB, but NewEgg had a phenomenal price on a 4GB pack, so I went with that. Between my desired OS and the fact I'll be doing development on it, I'm sure I'll never be able to have too much ram. (Incidentally, the fact that I'm using this much RAM also means that, for the first time in my life, I NEED a 64-bit processor.)

Motherboard

Previously: Asus something-or-other.
New: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L 775
Rationale: This was another tough choice between brand loyalty and performance. I've been using Asus ever since I started building computers, and have never once regretted it. Their boards are stable, feature-rich, and best of all, they have excellent manuals. Still, I couldn't find an Asus that matched the features I wanted. The most advanced boards have DDR3, which I'm not interested in, and the older boards had too slow a FSB speed. A handful looked promising except for disappointing reviews on NewEgg - I hope Asus isn't slipping. I haven't used Gigabyte before, but this particular model was well-reviewed and met all my needs.

Hard Drive

Current: Seagate 120GB.
New: Western Digital Caviar SE16 750 GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0 GB/s transfer
Rationale: Back in the day, Seagate was the only sufficiently quiet hard drive for me. WD was really clackety, and IBM (yes, they used to make hard drives!) were whiny. That seems to have changed, and WD now are rated about as quiet as the Seagates. I'm tempted by some of the ultra-fast drives - you can now get 10k or 15k RPMs - and my first upgrade may be a small, fast drive to load my OS on. That wasn't feasible for an out-of-the-box system setup, though, so I opted for a solid midline performer. I vacillated between the 500GB and the 750GB, but the price was good enough that I went for the larger drive. It's far more space than I can use, but it also will allow me to relieve stress on my 300GB drive in my media PC, which has been bumping against the limit for several months now.

Video Card

Current: PNY GeForce 6600 AGP 8x.
New: MSI GeForce 8600 GT 256MB RAM 128 bit PCI-E.
This is the one component where I went super-cheap. I was tempted by the 8800's, which can be had for around $200-$250 and offer snappy performance. This is a budget card in comparison, but I have a hard time justifying spending any significant cash here when I have a lot of PS2 games that I haven't played yet. And, with a possible PS3 purchase ahead for me in 2008, it's just dumb to dump a lot into the card. This will still be a notable update of my current card, which in turn is the newest component in my PC - I picked it up specifically for Civilization IV over two years ago. Anyways, this card will be fine, it should let me play the games I've been wanting - Oblivion and HalfLife 2 - and, if need be, I can have this be my upgrade when Spore comes out.

Optical Drive

Current: DVD-ROM and CD RW
New: DVD+R
Rationale: Wow, I've been carrying around that DVD drive for about a decade now. It's never failed me. The CD drive has served me nearly as long. I don't burn discs, but it makes sense to move up to a DVD burner, just in case. The Samsung is well-reviewed, plus this way I can collapse both features into a single drive.

Network Adapter

Current: Netgear WG111 wireless + integrated 10/100 Ethernet
New: Netgear WG311 wireless + integrated gigabit Ethernet
Rationale: Gigabit ethernet is just stock with motherboards these days, and for my humble home network it doesn't make any difference, especially since this particular computer is not even plugged in. I love the form factor of my current WG111, but its Linux support is only middling... I had to wrestle with ndiswrapper for a while to make it work at all, and it still periodically poops out on me, requiring me to physically unplug it and put it back in. The WG311, by contrast, takes up a whole PCI slot, but it sounds like its Linux support is better, and it may have a better range.

Case

Curent: Antec something-from-the-stone-age
New: Antec Solo
Rationale: Are you familiar with the idea of "Grandfather's axe"? "This is my grandfather's axe. Its head has been replaced two times, and the handle three times, but it's still my grandfather's axe." That's sort of the way I feel about "Aule," my current computer. Literally every component inside it has changed since I first built it in 2001: new motherboard, new CPU, new RAM, new video card, etc., etc. The one constant through all that has been the case. It's been a fine case, but it's an ugly beige, and the USB ports are hard to get to, so I've decided to make a switch. I love the Antec brand, so I wanted to stick with it. I'm not a LAN gamer, so I don't need a lightweight aluminum case. I'm not much of a gamer, period, so I didn't particularly want a flashy case. This won't be a server, so I wanted to go with a mid-tower instead of the much bulkier full tower. With all those requirements in mind, the Solo offered the most reasonable price and had good reviews.

Power Supply

Current: Some non-brand 350W
New: Thermaltake Purepower 500W

Rationale: The power supply is the noisiest component in my current system, so I knew I wanted to replace it. The "silent" power supplies are all really expensive, though, so I reluctantly compromised on a quiet supply instead. 500W is probably overkill, especially with my video card and single hard drive. Still, better safe than sorry.

Not Upgraded

Logitech Optical Mouse and IBM Keyboard
Rationale: If it ain't broke... I've been happy with both components, and there really isn't much innovation in either field. Both are very simple without extra features, just the way I like them. As an aside, I think the optical mouse was probably the best investment I ever made. I bought it after two consecutive Logitech MouseMan mice died in the space of about six months. This one has now been with me for eight years with nary a complaint.

Operating System

Current: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon and Microsoft Windows XP
New: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon and Microsoft Windows Vista Premium

Rationale: I love Ubuntu, so that was a no-brainer. I hope I'll be able to boot into it more often now - the aforementioned network problems I had were annoying and made me turn to XP more often. The XP-versus-Vista is one of the great debates of 2007, and my selection proves that what's good for the goose is not, in fact, good for the gander. I've recommended to everyone who's asked to stick with Windows XP. XP has better driver support, runs faster, and has fewer networking problems and more supported software. So why go with Vista? Mainly because I'm a masochist. I want to see for myself just how bad it gets. Also, though, Vista is long-term going to take over, and I figure I'd better get used to it sooner rather than later. I'm not a Windows developer, but if I need to use a new Visual Studio in the future I'll probably be wishing I was in Vista. Now, if I had to pay full price for these I'd probably still have stuck with XP for now, but NewEgg sells system builder (nee OEM) versions of Vista at a substantial discount. You can upgrade to a higher version of Windows after you install it through Microsoft's upgrade tool, so I didn't feel compelled to hit Ultimate out of the gate. Since I was getting Vista anyways, it would have seemed pointless if I didn't have Aero, so I opted for Premium.

Summary: About $960 total, including Vista but exclusive of tax and shipping.

And that's that! All components have been ordered, and I'm hopeful that they will get here before the weekend. I'm looking forward to putting this puppy together. It never goes smoothly, of course - this is the story of my life. Still, if all goes well, I'll be able to spend the next week migrating data over and reinstalling, and may get in a few levels of HalfLife 2 before I get back to work in Eclipse. 2008, here I come!

Hey, Hey, Human Sucker

I enjoy anime, but usually am reluctant to say so. This isn't because of people who dislike anime - I'm very used to enjoying unusual things, and actually take a sort of perverse pride in finding something that most people don't like. No, my reluctance comes from my knowledge of how little I know about the genre, a neurotic kind of shame that when my tastes are lined up against those of the true anime connoisseur, they will be found lacking.

I guess you could call me a codependent anime fan. I have friends who are much more into anime than I am, and so I can use them as a kind of screening team... they watch all the mediocre shows for me so that I don't have to. After enough people enthusiastically recommend a particular series to me, I'll take the plunge, and I am invariably pleased with what I find. This means that I have an inflated view of the quality of anime, since I only watch the best. It also means that I have a limited view, and will never be the first person to watch something. (*)

Whenever I meet a new anime fan, and admit to being the same, one of the perks is catching up with their favorite genre shows. Justin is a fan of shoujo anime, so a lot of the shows I saw from him have very bright colors, upbeat songs, and silly, humorous plots. Kate's tastes run more towards adventure, so through her I got to learn more about the darker, more violent animes. And so on.

All that to say, I've now gotten to watch a whole new series, and wow, is it ever good. Levon has been infecting the office with a passion for Death Note, an extremely new series that ran this year. (I'm used to at least a five-year gap before watching a good anime series.) Death Note is a far cry from the first anime I watched, but it is fully enjoyable.

So what is Death Note? Before getting into spoilers, I'd describe it as a psychological horror series. There is very little gore and virtually no fighting, but there is a deep and sinister sense of violence that permeates almost every minute of the show. It contains elements of other genres, including fantasy, mystery, and even school comedies and romance, but all of these are steadily consumed into the bleak yet compelling force that drives the action.

Who will like this? Any anime fan who isn't turned off by violence will probably enjoy it. People who enjoy smart horror movies (think more "Silence of the Lambs" than slasher) will also appreciate it... the series does adhere to some standard anime tropes, but fewer than most such shows, so it should be watchable even by those who usually don't enjoy anime. (Some of the remaining tropes are done so well that I think it'll make watching other shows more difficult... for example, the "put one character in a static frame for several seconds while they prepare to take an action" tendency is here, but I never once found myself thinking, "Come ON, just do it already!")

What's so good about it? It is an incredibly intelligent series, tightly plotted and dense with story, but it does not have the Lain-esque tendency to make you feel dumb. It is also a beautifully designed show. Most of it looks hand-drawn, with a fine attention to detail and gorgeous backgrounds; the cityscape in particular is very compelling. There are a few computer-animated sequences, most notably vehicle shots, and these are very cool - there's a neat effect where a car will blur and stretch as it speeds up, sort of like the Enterprise before it enters warp speed. More than anything, though, it is a surprising show. Hopefully I am not giving much away by just saying that, but I received the same information before I started, and I was still unprepared for the twists the story took. The show inverts archetypes and storytelling conventions, making everything that happens feel fresh and new.

There is also a real moral ambiguity that runs through the show. This is far more common in Japanese fiction than American, but even for that, this show is unusually unclear about its message. You can sit back and enjoy the show, but the more you think about the action taking place and its implications, the more disturbing it can become. The effect is not unlike what I often feel watching the new Battlestar Galactica. As I've mentioned before, that show puts me in the uncomfortable position of making me feel sympathetic towards a fascist point of view in a fictional world that is opposite of the liberal perspective I take in real life.

Okay, that was all pretty spoiler-free, right? Now for the meat. The next section should be safe to read if you're a few episodes in and don't mind hearing about characters and events you haven't encountered yet, though I'll try to be vague about those. The mega spoiler section should only be read after you've finished the series. Got it? Okay, now let's start the

MINI-SPOILERS

My favorite character is Light. In any other series it would be Ryuuzaki - I love his eccentricity, piercing intelligence, vulnerability in the real world. But Light is so unusual and complex and compelling that he seizes first place. (As you know he would want to do.) Even though Light's physical posturing is always reserved and mild-mannered, while Ryuuzaki's is attention-grabbing, Light dominates any scene he is in. He comes across as a charismatic psychopath, but one that I can't help cheering for.

My favorite scene contains almost no action at all - just Light and a woman walking down a sidewalk together. And yet, the drama and tension caused by this conversation were so intense that I could feel my heart beating. The show maneuvers you into an ecstatic and probably unhealthy emotional place, so that by the conclusion of the scene, I wanted to cheer and felt ashamed at myself for it. Not coincidentally, this scene also embodies everything I find compelling about Light: his intelligence, ambition, and ruthlessness are all on display, bubbling below the surface of his public facade.

The overall rhythm of the show is phenomenal, at least for the first half of the series. The game of cat and mouse has been done before, but probably never done to this level, and it's hard to think of two adversaries more capable and completely matched than these. The intricate back and forth between L and Kira is a kind of dance, a violent dance.

In an odd way, I found myself thinking of "Cryptonomicon" while watching these early episodes. In that historical novel, the codebreakers at Bletchley Park are hard at work trying to break Enigma and other German ciphers. Neal Stephenson creates a wonderful visual image of the geographical situation: information is flowing into Bletchley Park, in the form of intercepted coded messages; and yet, at the same time, information is also flowing out of the park and back to the Germans, in the form of actions taken by the English in response to decoded message. There are really two problems that need to be managed during the war. The first is a largely technical one: breaking the codes on the incoming flow. The second one, though, is far more nuanced, and more psychological and strategic: managing the flow of information out of the park, in order to keep the Germans from realizing that their cipher has been compromised. That often means making the difficult choice of allowing the Germans to win a battle - for example, not protecting a convoy after learning that it will be the target of U-boats - in the service of winning the larger war.

That same sort of tension is on constant display in this series. Both Kira and L are highly intelligent, but intelligence alone won't win the day. Kira can easily take actions to hide his tracks, yet any time he does so, he is creating more evidence. Who could know about this threat? Who had the time to take action? By asking these questions, L can draw closer to Kira with astonishing quickness. Thus, Kira often needs to deny himself the best action, and deliberately make mistakes in the hopes of throwing off L.

The music throughout the show is wonderful. My favorite song is probably the opening theme from the first half of the series. And, wow, I couldn't help but jump when they switched songs halfway through. That may be the first time I've ever heard J-metal. Fascinating stuff. Anyways, the music within the show is great as well... Kira's theme is probably my favorite (the one with the bells), but it's solid throughout, always well-matched to the action.

I don't really have a favorite minor character, but as a class, I'd say it's the policemen. Matsuda is sweet and fun, I love Mogi's turn as the manager, and Aizawa is just cool - the 'fro is awesome.

I was struck by the portrayal of America in the movie, and especially their depiction of the President. It kind of reminded me of the President in "Read or Die." In both cases the President is cowardly, weak-willed, overly confident in his military strength but craven once he realizes how little good it does him. I... I can't say that I'm offended, exactly, but it is very interesting. I'm used to generic American Presidents being portrayed in a positive or neutral light, and it's just kind of funny that that's never been the case in any anime that I've seen. To be honest, though, I can't remember any Japanese prime minister receiving positive treatment in an American movie. This might be a kind of jingoism at work, or perhaps I'm making too big a deal of it.

MEGA SPOILERS

I think you could divide the show into rough fifths. The first section deals with Light's transformation into Kira, as he learns his powers and flexes his strength. The second section is the Light/Ryuuzaki dance, starting on the first day of college. This is where everything moves into the open, and at the same time becomes more concealed. The net grows tighter and tighter with every episode, even as Kira's standing rises. The third arc is what I think of as "Good Light," when he surrenders ownership and fights for the team. The fourth, short arc is the restoration of Kira and his vengeance. The final arc is the Near/Mello competition.

Of all this, I thought the middle third was probably the weakest... not bad, but I really missed having Kira around. Every minute in that arc, though, added to the big payoff when Light retrieves the notebook. I already admired his cunning; seeing the entire elaborate plan and how it came to fruition, though, nearly took my breath away. It would have been far less impressive without that more hum-drum intermission.

Boy, the show sure has guts in killing off L. It's kind of surprising how rarely main characters die in these shows - at least, without being reincarnated or cloned or otherwise restored. Anything less than a full victory one way or the other would have been a disappointment, but I was still prepared for it. And they totally made the right decision on who should win.

I'd alluded to moral ambiguity above. Obviously, the problem is this: is what Kira is doing "right"? It's essentially a return to a more powerful, but more primal, form of justice. The rule of law is swept away, and Kira becomes the embodiment of justice, judge and executioner wrapped into one. What's hard to argue with (at least in the context of the story) are the results of this approach. Crime IS down, and people are generally happy with Kira's actions. So what's the big deal? Is it really a sin to murder the guilty?

The first warning sign is that Kira's motives are not pure. He is not carrying out this work as a servant to humanity's wishes. He wishes to become a living god. Wow, talk about primal justice! And, on further examination, we may need to reconsider how much better the world is. People are committing fewer crimes, but the change is due to a fear of punishment, not because people are getting better... one gets the sense that evil is hiding, not defeated.

To pick a more extreme analogy: I have no idea what the crime rates were like in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, but let's suppose that they fell compared to those in the Wiemar Republic and under the Czars. Nobody would say that the Gestapo and KGB were acting for good, even if the level of crime dropped.

But, to choose a counter-example, it sounds like many Iraqis were more happy living under the cruel Republican Guards than they are in the lawless chaos of today.

So, it's a complex situation. And that's what makes this show so great. The characters are compelling, and the problems make you uncomfortable.

Also, I was fascinated by the relentless, ruthless push of Light's personality and intelligence. This was most striking to me in the scenes where he is seducing Takada. I suddenly realized that he no longer had any notebooks, did not have the eyes, could not kill... and yet, he still WAS Kira. His minions worshiped and followed him even when he had passed all of his power to them. That is, Light is still Kira even when he does not have the Death Note. It was a powerful revelation.

I felt only slightly let down at the very end of the series. I was kind of expecting it - I'm usually not fully satisfied by the way animes end, and I had the feeling they wouldn't give me the ending I really wanted (Kira ushering in a new world). I found myself still hoping for another layer of reversals (ending in a Kira victory) or two (ending in a Near victory). Two fake-outs felt a bit anticlimactic, three or four would have sold me.

Ever since the first episode, I've thought I had a good read on Kira's ultimate fate. Ryuuk says something like, "Do not think that anyone who uses this note will be able to enter heaven or hell." My theory has been that those who use the Death Note will become Shinigami themselves: immortal and otherworldly, but with all humanity stripped away from them. From what we see in the final episode, I'm guessing I was wrong about that, but it's ambiguous enough that I could still pretend it happens.

END OF SPOILERS

All in all, it's been a fascinating ride. I'll need to re-watch it in order to pick up on all the foreshadowing and allusions. My shoot-from-the-hip analysis is that this will wind up as one of my top three animes. Its genre isn't one I particularly enjoy, but the incredible intelligence of the script and the unmatched technical excellence more than make up for that. The deep amorality of the show makes me hesitate to recommend it unreservedly, yet for people who enjoy quality fiction, it's hard to resist.

Update 12/29/07: I forgot to mention: there are multiple iterations of Death Note floating around. If you want to get into it, I'd strongly recommend starting with episode 1 of the anime. There is also a "Director's Cut" that is floating around. It is basically a highlights reel of the whole anime run; it's kind of interesting, but shouldn't be viewed until after you finish the anime. There are also some live-action movies out there, a concept that fascinates me. I've heard that they aren't as good as the series, but are still decent. They may be a viable option if you want a more compressed version of the story.