#!/usr/bin/girl once again alerts me to important news:
Freddy and Jason…and?
I’m not sure if I want to laugh or cry about Freddy vs. Jason vs…Ash.
[#!/usr/bin/girl]
My personal feeling? I will only allow this if Ash gets to kill them off for good. Or at least send them out to another dimension or something.
Relaxation Combat Team Valerian, at your service! That seems to be the battle cry of these superheros in a new creation by CLAMP called Sweet Valerian. I personally think this is just further evidence of drug use on the part of people producing anime. This show is like the Powerpuff Girls on Acid and E at the same time. In the second episode they fight a cell phone monster and defeat it by drowning it in water. My brain hurts.
Further proof that they’ll make a sequel for just about anything (and keep making them).
Though I have to admit, it’s definitely original. I’m also amazed that there is still any life in the Chucky franchise. [via 
jwz]
I decided to play around with iCal today and found myself entering all the upcoming anime DVD releases into it (through 9/7/2004) based on the information at AnimeonDVD.com. I published it so that it can be viewed via the web or 
subscribed to in iCal (I think Mozilla Calendar lets you do this also, but I’m not sure).
I’ll try and keep this updated with around a month’s worth of information.
Today while looking for a wireless mouse I picked up an Airport Express. For those of you who aren’t aware of this device, it is Apple’s mini base-station, music streaming, usb printer sharing, network extending device. Currently, I have it set up downstairs hooked to the stereo and had it cranked up while I sat out on the porch. Currently, any mac in the house can stream music to it from iTunes. In some ways it’s not a perfect solution, since in my parent’s case they’d have to go upstairs to their mac to start iTunes. But for someone with a laptop or a laptop and a desktop it just plain rocks. And I’m not the only one who is loving it.
Here’s where I think Apple was smart with this device. They’ve made it so easy to want more than one of them. I’ve already got one and can easily justify two more. The second I’ll use in my room as a print server/wireless client. The third will go on the third floor hooked into the home theatre setup. At around $130 each it isn’t something I’ll pick up right away, but once I get my laser printer I know I’ll be eyeing it.
Of course, then I may want one for when I’m on the road. MacMegasite has a neat article about using the Airport Express in a hotel room.
I’d been looking to pick up a new DVD player recently, since my old one croaked on me recently. After doing some hunting around online I decided on the Philips DVP642. I decided on this one for a few reasons.
First, it supports DivX. This was a big deal for me because I watch a lot of anime that is encoded in this format. Second, the price was right. At $69.99 it wasn’t too expensive a risk. Some of the reviews indicated that the DVD playback wasn’t that great, but I figured at $70 even if it was good I’d be happy.
Today I picked up my player at a local CompUSA (the only place locally that had them in stock). Initial setup was easy, as was updating the firmware to the latest version. This entailed downloading two files from the philips.com website and burning them to CD and starting up the dvd player letting it read the CD. I haven’t tested a DVD yet, but I did test with a DVD-RW that had a few files on it. The good: it read the DVD-R and could play some of the files. The bad: it couldn’t play them all. I’m trying to figure out what the differences were in the files it wouldn’t play, but so far nothing is jumping out at me.
I’ve also set up a page on my wiki about this player so that I can keep notes on what works and what doesn’t. If anyone has anything they think would be useful to add, please let me know.
Thanks go out to Suw for two posts that I’m pointing at tonight. I blogged about this last month, but here’s some more information about Mr. Shatner’s effort to revive his singing career (ew).
William Shatner does something unspeakable to Pulp’s Common People
You remember James T Kirk… er, I mean, William Shatner's last foray into musical endeavour? His stunning – and that's 'stunning' in the same way that a sharp blow to the head is stunning – rendition of The Beatles'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds? Think that's the depths of JT Hooker… er, I mean, Shatner's depravity?
Think again.
Shatner has teamed up with Ben Folds, of Ben Folds Five, to record a slew of new tracks. According to XFM, the new album, ‘Has Been', will be released on the Shout! Factory label this September.
Earlier today I heard Shatner's cover of Pulp's Common People, and I can assure you, it will blow… you… a… way…, featuring as it does Shatner's thespy spoken-word vocals and Joe Jackson, (yes, that Joe Jackson), doing the wail-y impaled art student bits.
You really, really do need to listen to this. You absolutely must. I have scoured the web for a link to a full length version, but all I can find is this (fairly substantial) snippet. (Quicktime. Other formats available.) [Chocolate and Vodka]
Today’s song is one that I tend to listen to when all my health issues get to me and I’m feeling a bit down. Off of Boingo Alive, here’s It Only Makes Me Laugh. Because darkness can never last too long, when you laugh in its face.
Here’s a music video made my synchronizing Soul Calibur with a dance track:
Music video made with Soul Calibur video game footage
Dance, Voldo, Dance is a music video made by synchronizing the movements of gladiators from the game Soul Calibur with a dance track, so that they appear to be getting down with their nasty selves to the music. It’s quite good![via Boing Boing Blog] [via Waxy]
There’s also notes about it linked to from the video. Pretty cool.
There’s a new online DVD rental service called rentanime.com that I’ve decided to give a try for their two week free trial. It’s a neat idea, but I have a feeling Greencine will still have them beat (at least for me). Some issues I already see with the site. There are some very noticeable holes in their selection. No original Bubblegum Crisis. And they’ve only got the second OVA of Fushigi Yugi (I’d thought this might be a good chance to check out the series since I’ve never seen it).
So, the first marks against them are for selection, but I’m willing to cut them some slack since they first opened. Beyond that, the site itself feels like it needs a bit of work. the design feels a little rushed. And it’ is missing features that other sites have. For example: Can I queue up a full series and get them in order? Doesn’t look like it. Can I easily request things they don’t have? The don’t say. There are lots of little details that I think they need to look at if they are going to survive. Especially when there are services like Greencine that have a kickass anime selection and a great site overall.
I’ll report back more when I’ve got my first selections from them.
Crossposted to An Unnamed Anime Blog.
