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  • More Proof That Hartford Sucks

    I was looking through the list of places where Ghost in the Shell:Innocence was playing in the next month and Hartford, CT was nowhere to be seen. Heck, there wasn’t even anywhere in CT it is showing. I guess I’ll have to see it in the Boston area (where it is showing at two different places). Anyone up for going to see it next Wednesday afternoon?

  • Dangerous

    A friend of mine over on LJ was posting some old songs and it put me in the mood to hear an old Depeche Mode b-side that I hadn’t listened to in ages. Dangerous (Sensual Mix) – Depeche Mode (aac). They really did have some nice b-sides to their singles back then. The other I remember liking a lot was Set Me Free.

  • More Proof That iTunes Reads Minds

    I just fired up iTunes because I wanted to listen to some music, but also wanted to hear one song in particular first. So I hit shuffle and then searched for the song. The scroll bar barely moved and I noticed that it was the second song in the shuffle. Coincidence? I think not.

  • A Little Bit of Forgiveness for iTMS

    But only a little bit because they didn’t get it all right. I have a few different bands I’ll search for on iTMS every now and then to see if they’ve made it into the store. An old favorite, Lard, had shown up a few months ago, but it was missing the album I really wanted: The Last Temptation of Reid. On that point iTMS has done well.

    On the other hand, when I go to select the album to buy. It gives me an Unknown Error and tells me to try again later. DAMN YOU APPLE FOR TEASING ME!

  • iTunes Music Store Inaccuracy

    I was poking around in the iTunes Music Store early this morning and discovered they had The Swing by INXS. I was quite psyched since that is one of my all time favorite albums. I remember my high school roommate and I used to have it playing on shuffle play all night long many many times. I clicked to add it to my shopping cart and did some more browsing. When I was done I was just about to click on ‘Buy Now’ when I noticed something. The version of “Original Sin” they have as part of the album is the wrong version. The listed time for the track is 3:46. According to allmusic.com, the actual length of the track is 5:19, which sounded more like what I remembered.

    The most annoying part of this is that I’ve had my eye out for this for ages and it feels like it is almost within my grasp. Maybe I should ask around to see if any of my friends have it.

  • More Anime Coming Soon to the Big Screen

    Wired has a nice article about three anime films making their way to the US in the coming months: Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, Steamboy, and Howl’s Moving Castle. I’m pretty psyched about all of them. The trailers for Steamboy and Innocence look stunning, and i am hoping to find a copy of one for Howl’s soon.

    The Giants of Anime are Coming

    In coming months, anime’s three most prominent directors will release major films in the US. Oshii’s Innocence will hit theaters in September. Soon afterward, Katsuhiro Otomo will debut Steamboy, an Indiana Jones-style adventure that takes place in an alternative Victorian age where turbo unicycles and pressure-powered jetpacks battle for supremacy. Then Hayao Miyazaki will deliver Howl’s Moving Castle, about a teenage girl who flees a curse by hiding in a gigantic mechanical castle that prowls about on insectlike legs. In addition, Disney will issue three older Miyazaki films on DVD early next year, two of which have never before been released in the US.

    The confluence of these films could finally put anime at center stage in a venue where success so far has been elusive: the box office. Even though Miyazaki’s Spirited Away won the Oscar for best animated film in 2003, it didn’t pack theaters. But unlike most previous US anime releases, these films have the backing of major studios. DreamWorks is distributing Innocence, Sony is handling Steamboy, and Disney is in line for Howl’s Moving Castle. Anime enthusiasts have argued for years that the genre’s fractured visions represent the most important cinematic movement since sex, lies, and videotape ushered in a new era of American independent film in 1986. Now multiplexers will have a chance to see what these fans have been talking about. [Wired News]

    Of course Innocence doesn’t even have viewing dates in CT yet. I hate this state at times, I’ll be sure to be watching it up in Boston.

  • Anime in the News

    Two interesting articles on anime related things.

    • An article on The strange but familiar world of a Japanese TV cartoon over at reason online. It’s from May and is about Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (One of my personal favorites of the last year or so). The author has some interesting notes on the subject.

      “Depictions of shapely, scantily clad women are standard in Japanese comics and animations, and this series gladly provides them. But the message is subtly subversive: These bodies are literal commodities, shells their inhabitants can exchange if they feel like it. Kusanagi is female only in the sense that she wears female bodies, apparently to complement her favorite watch. No longer the key to identity, gender becomes a convention.”

    • An article from Forbes.com about John Ledford, the creator of ADV Films. It tells of how the company got started and is a pretty amazing read. I especially like how Ledford got started by importing Japanese video game systems that weren’t available here yet and selling them with an obscene markup.

  • She had to leave… Los Angeles

    Yesterday I set out for Newbury Comics in search of two CDs and I was quite happy to find that they had both of them. Usually I feel like I go off in search of CDs and never find what I’m looking for and end up buying way too much stuff because I start browsing. So, yesterday’s purchaes were:

    • cover.xMake the Music go Bang! – X: I’ve been an X fan since high school and have about 3/4s of their CDs, but wanted to pick this up after reading a short article about the band on CNN.com a day or two ago. I’ve given a listen to the beginning of the first CD and still love their sound so much.

    • B0002IQML6.01._PE8_SCMZZZZZZZ_The Name of This Band is Talking Heads – Talking Heads: This is one of the Talking Heads albums I never got around to picking up. When I heard they were finally releasing it on CD I had to pick it up. The album was originally released in 1982 and had never been released on CD before. It has also been expanded with a bunch of unreleased material. I think this one will get its first listen today in the car, where I can turn it up really loud.

    Possibly more comments to come as I listen.

  • I’m not sure if this is real or fake…

    But either way it’s pretty damn funny.

    Doom 3 teenagers freaking out

    doom3freakout

    Cory Doctorow: This is a video of two teenaged boys playing Doom 3 — you can’t see the game, just their reaction. As Joey notes, these kids are screaming like hyenas as the boo-scareys lurch out of the Doom 3 shadows and leap on their characters. One of the kids actually gnaws a pillow when it all gets to be too much for him. Pretty cool endorsement for a game, actually. 7.8MB WMV Link

    Mirror Link (Thanks, Quentin!)
    (via AccordionGuy) [Boing Boing Blog]

     

  • Maybe If I Share It…

    trevor-animatedMaybe if I share this with the world it will get out of my head. Those wonderful wacky people at weebls have a little cartoon that I’m finding more addicting than Badgers. I mean, Everyone Love Magical Trevor. He makes cows disappear than reappear! I blame ladysissyphususerinfo for my knowledge of this.