Every time I think I’ve seen everything when it comes to Hello Kitty, something comes along to remind me I shouldn’t give up hope yet. From the world of Antipixel:
Kitty-chan Sausages. The stomach rumbles as the mind boggles: Kitty-chan sausages (I kid you not).
mmmm. sausages.
I’m not a huge fan of Valentines day. But when reading my friends page on LJ this morning Colubra had a link to The Valentine Candy for the Dejected and Dysfunctional.
Superficial modifications to BitterSweets this year include an increase in the total number of designs available – from 15 in 2002 to 37 in 2003. New sayings include, ‘SHE COOKS’, ‘WRITE A POEM’, ‘UP YER DOSAGE’, ‘IT FADED’, ‘KICKED 2 CURB’ AND ‘C THAT DOOR?’. Another trivial improvement in 2003 was the identification of 6 specific flavors, “Banana Chalk“, “Grape Dust“, “Citrucel“, “You-Call-This-Lime?“, “Pink Sand” and “Fossilized Rolaid“. (Flavors were unspecified in 2002.) And perhaps least significant of all, the new 2003 BitterSweets label featured an entirely new PMS color and twice as many fonts.
I want these. Anyone wanna get me some?
It’s Steak and Blowjobs Day. I really don’t have much more to say about this, I just wanted to share it with everyone.
Bah, I just found out that Cowboy Bebop is showing out in Northampton today for some anime festival. I could have easily been up for driving out there and hitting Growroom Records. Oh well, it will be better to wait for the theatrical release of it. I’ve already seen the movie, I just want to see it on the big screen.
I said I was going to do this a while ago, but it took me a little bit to fully get around to it. Here are my top 10 shows for 2002. I wasn’t sure what to do about shows that started towards the end of 2002, but are still going. I think for the most part I’ll consider those for 2003 (since they haven’t ended yet).
What was my criterea? It wasn’t anything fancy. For the most part it was what I enjoyed. What I looked forward to seeing the next episode of. What surprised me. The number 10 entry is split because I enjoyed both shows equally. It was a tough one, because that spot either was going to go to that or Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai.
There are some good shows that run for 13-26 episodes and maybe a movie, and then they’re done, no matter how successful or good they were (Evangelion, Escaflowne). There are other shows (like Gundam) that blossom into extended chronologies, launching spinoffs that, even if sometimes are rather subpar (coughWingcough), generally retain some quality. Then there are other shows that spawn successive generations, only like a genetic experiment gone terribly wrong each generation is weaker and suckier than the ones that came before, leading into a terrible downard spiral (witness two of Pioneer’s cash-cows, Tenchi and El-Hazard).
So imagine my surprise when I found the new Tenchi show to be actually GOOD. And, as far as I can see, the oceans have yet to turn to blood. Freaky.
Well, I say “the” new Tenchi, although there’s also a continuation of the original OVA I haven’t seen (and don’t think it’s being fansubbed, or if it is, a casual search didn’t turn up the right files). The one I’ve seen is Tenchi GXP, or Galaxy Police. No, I don’t know what the X in the middle stands for, but I’m pretty sure it’s not “X-treme,” so that’s some tension let out right there.
Now, the basic plot summary: the unluckiest boy in the world, Seina, gets… wait, first I should define “unluckiest” better. Trouble doesn’t just go looking for him, it has his location marked with a big X (possibly the one from the title) and is sending bomber runs and is already planning the infantry invasion. If bad luck was money, he wouldn’t just have enough to buy the whole galaxy, he’d have enough to start taking over the ones next door. People who know him well don’t bother to plan for the worst, because they know he’ll manage to top whatever they can possibly imagine. For Seina, Merely biking a mile or two to his best friend’s house is long enough for several painful encounters, including trucks, a broken bicycle, a really painful ride down a forested hill, and a spaceship landing in the pond next to his sempai’s house, Tenchi Masaki.
Which is about where his luck gets… if not better, at least different. Seina is given a way to enroll to become a Galaxy Police officer by a policewoman with an operative style reminicent of Mihoshi (although not quite THAT stupid, she just talks a lot and jumps to conclusions and has a hard time listening. She’s not a complete moron, just halfway there). Suddenly, the whole universe opens up for our hero, as he gets the opportunity to break down supposedly failsafe systems across the galaxy merely by attempting to use them.
So, Seina gets to head into space to assemble his very own harem, although it seems like they’re mostly hanging out with him out of pity at times. Despite that, the show manages to do a lot of things pretty well. First off, it ditches all the original Tenchi characters except for a brief cameo mention here or there (my favorite so far is “Washu’s Tiny Hole”). It’s about time, really, since as much as I love the crew, they’re a bit stale at this point (65 episodes and three movies do that to you, especially when so many episodes are of rather questionable quality). Another good thing is that there’s an actual plot progression, although it’s not terribly fast, at least it isn’t just a whole bunch of episodes with them trapped in a small house. Beyond that, probably the best part of the show is that, despite the physical-comedy nature of a lot of the jokes (revolving around Seina’s eternal bad luck and various things hurting him), hillarity still somehow manages to ensue. I blame the director, Nabeshin of Excel Saga fame (for the 1% of you not onto the joke yet, his real name is WataNABE SHINichi. I think you can figure out the rest on your own).
So, in short: if you liked the hyper-crack stylings of Excel Saga (and that would probably be most of you), this is like a slightly less hyper version of that set in a surprisingly faithful interpretation of the Tenchi universe (actually, it has a firmer grasp than many previous Tenchi products have had). It’s not going to make you ponder great questions of human morality, but it will probably make you laugh. At the very least, it can set up countless nerdy debates about which girl is the best. (My favorite so far is Mitoto. Not as a girlfriend (oh god no), I just think she’s the coolest character.)
I’ve noticed that I tend to go for long periods of time with no posts, then come back with a several page essay. Quality over quantity, that’s my motto! Anyway, next time maybe I’ll talk about some of the news shows they’re starting. Of course, to do that I’ll need to download a few more of them, but hey, that’s what an otaku’s life is all about.
Nathaniel Borenstein. “The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That’s where we come in; we’re computer professionals. We cause accidents.” [Quotes of the Day]
So I said I’d write something about the new .hack series called .hack//Legend of the Bracelet of Dusk (aka .hack//DUSK). I have to admit I was highly skeptical about this at first. As I’ve mentioned here before .hack//SIGN didn’t do much for me. I saw a great opportunity to tell an interesting story and I just think they did a really poor job of it. Nice character designs, a nice soundtrack, and good production just won’t save a poor story. I’d even avoided the OVA based on my feelings about the show.
So, when .hack//DUSK came along I wasn’t sure what to do. In the end I decided to download the first episode and see what I thought. First off. It’s cute. Like kinda super deformed cute. Secondly, it just has a better feel. I’m not sure if I can explain it exactly, but the first show seemed to be missing something, and the second show has it. They jump you right into the story, giving you just enough of an explanation of what ‘The World’ is to set things up. So far I’ve seen the first two episodes and the show is just plain fun. I’m pretty interested in seeing where they go with it so for now I’ll keep watching.
Of course now I’m going to have to go back and check out the OVA also.
I’m not a huge fan of CD/DVD changers. The biggest reason is that once you fill them up they aren’t really any more useful than a normal CD/DVD player. And it takes a bit of effort to keep things organized. But this one from Sony is getting there. Now all they need is to give it a rendezvous enabled web interface and it would be pretty cool. (But you’d still have that whole issue when you fill it up).
Part of me wishes I could go into business making things like this. I think so many of the products out there are so close, but just not quite there yet.
While looking at my referer logs I saw a couple of hits that came from Boston Common. It seems that someone’s scanning through Boston based blogs and forums for interesting tidbits of news. It’s pretty neat. I’ve found a couple of links to interesting restaurants I wouldn’t mind trying.