I think I need a drink of something. Anyone wanna get me a drink?

I was just IMing with Lyn about this and was going to post something I just said to her about Robin. So here goes.

Robin’s been a very interesting show for me. Because it was looking like just an episodic show with a little bit of mysterious stuff going on. And I think that was really more serving to just fully set the scene. This is one of the things that has appealed to me in a lot of anime I’ve seen. I like that they don’t always feel the need to give you the whole plot right upfront. Some people complain that shows are too slow (and in some cases they are, .hack//SIGN for instance), but I don’t mind at all when there is a good story being told.

Now if they’ll just hurry up and get the latest episode out.

And after finishing episode fourteen, I have verily been smacked over the head with plot.

Yay!

I’ve been using this laaazy Saturday to eat goldfish crackers and catch up on my Witch Hunter Robin. I haven’t watched it in about a month, and with a show like Robin — in which the over-arcing plot and general purposes is so subtle, relying on a few enigmatic clues each episodes and some wistful but signficant exchanges of looks — it’s hard to get quite back on top of it when all you can really remember is that Robin’s a pyrokinetic with cute hair and Amon and Sakaki have probably groped each other on a drunken night of which they never speak.

But it’s still a good show, even if it does consider itself to be Very Serious Anime. The atmosphere is, of course, perfect — dark and gloomy and soft in the way approaching footsteps can be soft, and the characters are intriguing and real, if only because the series lets us watch what they do rather than actively explore them. I’m on episode fourteen now, and I’m getting the suspicion that The Plot is encroaching or has encroached. I’m looking forward to seeing where it’s going, and what the secrets will be. I only hope that Robin doesn’t consider itself above letting us in on what the deal with witches and hunters really is. I could very easily imagine it ending much too vaguely for my tastes. Not that I have much against vagueness in general, it just shouldn’t be a substitute for good writing and plotting, and it also shouldn’t be a cheap ploy to make internet geeks hypothosize (i.e. wank) about what really happened and therefore talk about it months after the series ends. (coughEvangelioncough)

Here’s an update on my cd ripping progress. It’s been a while since I posted (or ripped) anything.

• Killing Joke – Wilful Days
• Andrew Kerr – Rock Star
• Joy Division – Substance
• Just say Yes
• Just say Yo
• Just say Mao
• Just say Da
• Just say Anything
• Just say Yesterday
• Jesus Jones – Doubt
• Howard Jones – Dream into Action
• The Jams – 1987
• The Jam – Compact Snap!
• The Jam – Sound Affects

Some great stuff in this batch. The Sire Records Just Say series is one of the best sets of music and has some of the best remixes of tracks. I credit them with my finding out about a number of bands I hadn’t ever heard of before.

I ran across a great new flash game this morning. Cat Bowling is the latest craze. My high score is 102, but I keep finding myself wanting to play more and more.

Sir William Bragg. “God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.” [Quotes of the Day]

Did you know that Benjamin Franklin invented the first disposable safety razor. Two years after he first patented his invention, he had the idea of fitting bats with miniature bombs that would occupy the building. Really!

A friend pointed me at this list of fun facts that has been Markovized. Some of them are pretty funny. Here’s another: “During the film Don Juan, John Barrymore delivers a grand total of 191 kisses to a telephone pole or street lamp.”

This post over on Game Girl Advance left me quite speachless. Is this the future of home video games? (Note, not really worksafe).

I’d wanted to get Rez for a while, a friend of mine kept raving about it (maybe this is why). But being a single guy living a lone I think it might look bad.

Not as much stuff lately. I got sucked into GTA:Vice City for a few days, but I got stuck on a mission and have tried it around 50 times and can’t get past it. The game has lost some of its charm to be because of it.

I also needed a small break after powering through RahXephon. This morning though I watched episode 9 of Azumanga Daioh, which was insanely sweet and funny and made me worship Sakaki all the more. She’s definitely one of my favorite anime characters. Something about her quiet reactions to anything cute is just wonderful. I also took in the second episode of Kiddy Grade. The first episode was really kind of dull. One of those shows that feels like it could be good, but something just wasn’t working. Well, the second episode was a little bit better. I’ll probably watch one more and if it doesn’t make a big improvement will stop downloading.

On queue is GetBackers 4, which I’m getting into more and more, and Spiral 5, which I’m finding to falter a little (it’s still good, but not AS good), and GitS #3 when it finishes downloading.