I was saddened last night when I heard the news of Steve Irwin’s death. I have a nostalgic fondness for his television series The Crocodile Hunter as it reminds me of my time in college and the early days of the relationship with my most recent ex.
I cannot help but think of Steve Irwin as being larger than life. He seemed to me like Paul Hogan’s character "Crocodile" Dundee ripped from a celluloid womb and shoved into a real person. I can picture Steve and Terri walking the streets of New York and being accosted by a herpetologist street gang (if herpetologists are going to form a street gang anywhere it would be New York, NY). Terri would say, “Be careful Steve he’s got a croc.” Steve would chuckle, “That’s not a croc.” He’d whip Aggro out of his belt and say, “That’s a croc. Isn’t he a beaut.”
My expectation of what I think an Australian man should be like has been inexorably colored by Steve’s TV persona. Consciously I know that is silly, but never-the-less Steve forms a large portion of my view of the stereotype of the Australian man. The other major portion of this stereotype is formed by David Morgan-Mar (creator of Irregular Webcomic!). Ian Thorpe also contributes to a small portion to this view, but that is mostly because “Thorpedo” has got to rank high among the greatest nicknames ever. So yes I subconsciously expect Australian men to be astrophysicists and conservationists with a sense of enthusiasm for their jobs equaled by their obvious knowledge of their fields of expertise. I also expect them to have a wicked command of puns, good computer and photography skills, and a great nickname. I expect them to wrestle crocodiles and unruly gamers with equal aplomb. I probably expect them to be good swimmers too.
As I’ve frequented my usual haunts on the Internet I’ve been cognizant of the ones that mentioned Steve’s untimely death. When the subject has been broached condolences for his family have been practically universal, a sentiment along the lines of I thought he was invincible was quite common, but what surprised me some was a strong minority view that his death was inevitable. This view was sometimes intertwined with the idea that Steve was foolishly reckless. I fail to see how being killed during a freak accident with a stingray (only the third such know incident in Australian history) is in any way inevitable or the result of reckless behavior. Even if Steve had been killed by a crocodile, I would have seen that as unfortunate, maybe even sadly ironic, but hardly inevitable. That any job involving the regular interaction with wildlife (especially predators, and venomous animals) is dangerous is a given, but filming wildlife documentaries is not a death sentence.
Anyway in brief:
There is nothing particularly new going on in my life. City of Heroes continues to be quite enjoyable, and I’ve managed to keep my playing time down to a reasonable amount as opposed to the every-waking-moment-I-was-not-at-work that I indulged in for the first few days I owned the game. However still nothing new to report on the Tenjho Tenge front.
I did watch some The Prince of Tennis on Toonami Jetstream. The site is pretty interesting, but I’m annoyed that it doesn’t support Firefox (you are also SOL if you use a Mac). Naturally the available anime on the site is dubbed, but The Prince of Tennis dub wasn’t all that bad as dubs go. In any event, I found the four episodes of The Prince of Tennis I watched to be pretty enjoyable.
I’ve got a few ideas that I’m working on for future posts. I’ve got some HeroClix related news I’ll be talking about soon, and I’d really like to do a post on comic books. I'd also like to write something about webcomics. I’ve actually spent some time working on a post about how I became a fan of anime, so expect that pretty soon. I’m also likely to be posting about music soon; probably a “what I’m listening too now that I’ve got a computer, and iTunes, and what not” post.
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