You've mentioned you lived in San Francisco, what do you personally like about the city, tourist traps, etc?
It's nice that you can get around easily without a vehicle, maybe moreso than with one - big change from the subutbs. And the diversity is great, we've got an awesome variety of food. Bahn mi, bulgogi, burritos, burgers, crepes, KFC, pizza and sushi can all be found within blocks of my house.
What about looking at it from a geographical standpoint?
I dunno, it makes a pretty good place to do a mass transit case study? :p My education's been more focused applied geographic techniques, so I haven't actually looked at it that much from either a human or physical perspective. I imagine the diversity makes it a pretty interesting place to study as well, but that's not my area of interest.
How did Batman thwart the Red Hood?
Beats me. I never did get around to picking up the other volumes. So far I suppose he's only thwarted Onyx getting herself killed out of stubbornness by showing up at the right time.
In your layman view, what could American comics gain from studying Japan? Vice versa?
Well, I haven't read a great deal, but my impression is that American superhero comics lack focus and approachability, if that's the right way to put it. The constant cameos by characters I'm not familiar with make me think I'd have to have grown up with them to fully appreciate the read, and I feel that they're to the detriment of some series like Sandman that could have stood on their own. (Then again, Sandman also had some fantastic issues that were technically 'cameos,' like the Prez short - I guess the big difference was whether they got shoehorned into the central plot or not.)
Vice versa, I think Japanese media could learn a lot about applying the principle of 'show, don't tell' from American comics.
Do you play MMO's?
Only when a friend drags me into them - then they lose interest and so do I, because MMOs are never much fun alone. Most recently (disregarding a brief venture into Vindictus, which I thought pretty much sucked, even with friends) I played DFO for a couple of months. I think my overall favorite was the original Mabinogi.
