Anime

Today's video and music theme is Texas Rangers walk-up songs:

1st up, Lance Berkman uses "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash.


A thing that won't trigger nostalgia: Blockbuster Video.

Top 25 Epoch-Making Anime

The Lord of the Rings Family Tree project. Ambitious, and still not the easiest thing to follow.

7 Pictures of Tom Cruise being tall.

Brad Johnson: The Price of an NFL career.

The much-hated A.J. Pierzynski uses "Bullets" by Creed, "Set It Off" by Audioslave, and included below because it's the most interesting, "AJ Scratch" by Kurtis Blow:


MLB's State-of-the-art Replay System

The Giant Rubber Duck in Hong Kong; coming soon to a major city near you.

Political: The Brickmuppet sums up all of the scandals of the current governmental administration that started breaking the past few weeks.

Political/Cultural: The Part of the World That Shoots Back

And finally (for now) Adrian Beltre's song is "Pa Que Retozen" by Tego Calderon:


A video I really wanted to find, or a recording even, is George Chandler's cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway". Chandler performed the cover for an episode of The Benny Hill Show, and apparently never recorded the song otherwise. Which is a shame, because it was probably the best version of the song ever performed. I have video from the show, but I am somewhat reticent to upload, as Benny Hill related videos seem to be taken down regularly.

My current video game project, since hitting the level cap in Scarlet Blade (it's been upped since, and a new area added) is to use the free trial of World of Warcraft to level every class with every race to level 20, and to make judgements thereon. So far I've leveled a Warrior for Human, Dwarf, Gnome and Night Elf, and I'm working on Draenei. I won't do Pandas until the end. One thing I can tell you is that the Draenei starting area hasn't been optimized for the free trial. At least one quest chain requires access to mail, which is blocked in the demo. The four original races have all been streamlined to make the level experience to 20 quick and rewarding. In fact, it's probably a little "too" quick, and it's clear (especially in areas that I had previously visited with older characters) that a lot of quests had been cut, even though their resources where sometimes still in the game. This is an improvement in some cases; e.g. a hunting quest chain in Loch Modan has been cut in half at least. Originally you had to "kill 8 xxxxxx's" for four different low-level animals, then four different medium level animals, then four different high-level animals, then a boss animal for each. Each group was located in a different area; the entire quest chain could have you running over the entire area (pre-mount if you're doing it at the appropriate level) and can take hours and hours of work (days for a casual player). However, in some cases Blizzard cut off a quest chain half-way through, leaving a story half-finished, or cut out a quest chain that uses unique resources. A good example is in the human starting area, which cut out the quest chain involving one of the kobold-infested mines, even though the kobolds and mine are still there. Most of the quest chain involving the human bandits is gone, leaving this group of bandits that everyone talks about, but that you never really do anything about. But more about all of this later.

Yu Darvish strikes out Albert Pujols five times. (Sort of)...


Incidentally, the guy who created this has (allegedly) been given a contract with Fangraphs.

The fundamental problem with Tinkerbell

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: Either you first heard of this recently, or you will hear about it again soon. No joke.

Pictures of abandoned power stations @ i09

Helicopter drone video of Niagara Falls

Top 25 anime character designers

Otaku musician busted for Junior-High sex (and for not looking anything like his artists' renderings)

Christianity in anime. I think there's an aweful lot that can be written about Puella Magi Madoka Magica. But I want to watch the series again with my wife first.

Share and enjoy: Sad Josh Hamilton

Last night the home plate umpire at the Angels/Rangers game took a foul-tip in the worst possible place, which brought up mentions of The Nutty Buddy.

I probably should save this for a weekly post, but everyone needs a little bluesy funk every now and then...

This is hard. So bear with me. Those of you that have followed my blog for a while probably know that my sister posted comments here occasionally. Mainly regarding posts about the Texas Rangers; we were both life-long fans along with my Dad. We would txt each other during games, and I know it's going to be another shock when I don't get an expected txt message when Yu Darvish strikes out someone on a nasty pitch or Pierzynski (who seemed to be an emerging favorite of hers) gets a good hit. I didn't listen to the end of the game yesterday, so tonight will be my first attempt to listen to a game without her. The shock is starting to wear off, which means that I'm just starting to ache on the inside. I have received a tremendous amount of love and support, and I'm sharing that with my parents, so thank you all. Very, very much.

Jeff Bezos recovers some rocket engines from the floor of the ocean. We once used those to send men to space.

The last great worldwide sailing expedition.

Rob Delaney explains March Madness. I would watch his version.

View from the top of the great pyramid.

A little-remembered monument used as a prop on a reality television show sparks outrage. (the monument is wreckage of a B-52 in Vietnam. What it represents is a lot more than "there was a war there")



And now from Japan:

Teacher punches thirteen-year-old girl in the face; administration promises discipline (short of firing, arrest, etc.)

Teacher hits pupil fifty-three times for eating sweets, receives 10% pay cut.

Japanese schoolgirls perform superhuman energy attacks (with a camera, and timing)

Zero no Tsukaima (Familiar of Zero) author dies. Noboru Yamaguchi had previously come close to death while struggling with cancer.

And now for something completely different: Girls of the Israeli Defense Force.

NSFW:


Sarah Hoyt: Digging Under/Building Under

Viking "Sunstone" found in shipwreck.

Pocket Princesses

"Hair Archaeologist" discovers how to recreate (realistically) the fabulous 'dos of antiquity.

Hat-tip to Anthony Cagle's Archaeoblog for some of the links.

I went and dug up some more AMVs after WonderDuck did an AMV post. First up, WonderDuck's own "Angel" based on Kanon.



Here's one I found. This video is short, but is waaaaay better than I expected it to be. Very tight editing with good timing. Surprisingly effective use of Nichijou.



Alamo links:

The Alamo siege chronology.

The Mission San Antonio de Valero

Alamo images

The Last Days of Davy Crockett

Michael Lind's The Death of Davy Crockett

Tour of The Alamo. Doesn't work very well, but has some interesting information.

A video shared by WonderDuck, "Gratuitous Violets" featuring Revy from Black Lagoon and Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex:



Shinji's a bitch. (It's an old conversation, but this is the first time I've seen it in comic form.)

The third ClimateGate document dump has occurred. I bet you heard all about it on the news this week, didn't you?

In the spring, a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. To wit:

Readers of El Goonish Shive have been speculating for a long time that Elliot's relationship with Sarah was doomed, and it seems Dan Shive finally started the final ball rolling when Elliot was thrown into long-term proximity with Susan. Of course, Elliot didn't have a clue, until...

Jeph Jacques has stated that he doesn't plan Questionable Content in advance; he just rolls with what feels right. He seems to be rolling into finally having Marten enter another relationship. Specifically... This could be interesting. Claire is high-strung and craves affection for who she is, and just doesn't click with people. Whereas Marten is basically a wimpy, less-glib version of Matt LeBlanc. Jacques has made it clear that Claire has a crush on Marten, but Marten's feelings are more circumspect (he wants to love and please the entire world, of course.)

In Girl Genius, Princess Zeetha has her hat set on Mr. Higgs...

But on the other hand, Order of the Stick just had one of the saddest moments ever. However; well done Mr. Burlew. Excellent writing.

Speaking of excellent writing. Macross Frontier debuted five years ago. I haven't watched it. I'm scared. Other than Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Robotech I have seen Macross Plus and some of Macross 7. Plus was OK, but I didn't really like 7. However, in a fit of extreme nostalgia that occurred while I was sick earlier this week, I decided it was finally time to watch Frontier. So far, I've watched the three versions of the first episode, plus the second and third. I have some concerns, but some high hopes as well. Frontier is very much an homage to the original, but they've certainly messed with the characters a bit. I like the male lead, Alto; but I'm not too thrilled with the two female leads, which are, at this point, Lynn Minmei split into two characters. Older Minmei is "The Fairy of The Galaxy" Sheryl Nome, and Younger Minmei is high-school student and wanna-be singer Ranka Lee. There isn't enough separation. The other big problem is that they really have to rush the story (it's only 25 episodes). I will be talking more about Frontier, I'm sure. Oh, love the art. Love it.

Speaking of not-so-excellent writing, I'm trying out the new free-to-play MMO by Aeria Games, Scarlet Blade. This is the western regions release of Queen's Blade Online. If you're familiar with Queen's Blade, you know what that means.

Here's a short video with very little content. I'm still learning to play.

I still have four three two one figure for sale on eBay. I've been able to drop the shipping a couple of dollars. Let me know if you're interested in any of them.

Remember Michelle Jenneke, the Australian track star who won fame for bouncing up and down and shaking her butt before an Olympic race on international TV? It got her a gig with Sports Illustrated.

James Lileks: Everything you know about the 1920s is wrong.

Visual timeline of the One Ring.

Vernon responds: Letter to "The Breakfast Club" explaining why they failed their detention assignment. And have to come back next week.

Hat-tip to Kaedrin for the previous two links.

Sarah Hoyt tackles group identity, why racial and other divisions in America are a "first world problem", and how people self-seperate and seek support in truly difficult circumstances. When The Chips Are Down.



Imperial Incompetence: The Battle of Hoth

U.S. Judge overturns lower court's decision: Sea Shepherd are indeed "pirates".

Watt's Up With That looks at Global Cooling media of the 1970s. It looks...familiar.

The Soviet Union got the cream of the intelligentsia, Vietnam got the hottest actors and politicians...North Korea gets Dennis Rodman.

Rachel Maddow busted for Twitter spam trend manipulation. No comment from Twitter, but they have suspended all of the accounts.

The Sequestration in one chart. It's in the upper-right-hand-corner. Highlighted in RED and CIRCLED. And you still might not notice it.

"Yume no Naka e" from Kare Kano. Original music done right.


Same song by ZONE:

For the first time ever, I have tagged the subjects of Anime and Texas History, thanks to links by Brickmuppet and a subsequent comment by Wonderduck, found here: Alamo blogging

100-year-old photos found in 112-year-old camera.

Turning Vincent Van Gogh's self-portrait into a photograph.

Japan's second-oldest man found to be a mummified corpse; family was still cashing the pension checks.

Stealing magic tricks, the honor system, and Teller.

Working with Lindsay Lohan is similar to working with a lit stick of dynamite. Nothing we didn't already know, but this article makes you laugh and shake your head in wonder.

Hat-tip to Mark at Kaedrin for the previous two links.



The video isn't so great IMO, but I love the song. The artist is Aya Hirano, who spent about five years as the top voice talent in Japan and one of the best voice actors evar. Now people just make fun of her for being a nut.

Dragon Season breaks down the Guild Wars 2 personal story from the general to the specific for every possible choice in the game. It's a little less impressive when you look at it that way.

Russian family cut off from all contact for 40 years. Apparently an old story, as the family was discovered in 1978.

WARNING: Political Links below:

Reagan through liberal eyes; re: the upcoming Reagan biopic.

Drinking Their Own Ink by Sarah Hoyt. Confirmation bias on the Left. Spawned a later post, because in the comments NPR was included as an example of the mainstream liberal media, to which an NPR listener took exception. After refusing to engage with facts, he apparently left a $1 tip and a snarky rant for Sarah, which was returned and prompted another post.

Chief Greek statistician threatened with jail for revealing true size and scope of Greece's financial problems.

The following video is NSFW (language) but if you don't mind that, you have to watch it. Not just listen to it, watch it.


I mentioned on Twitter that I stopped my World of Warcraft subscription. There are so many free-to-play and buy-once MMORPGs now that I felt foolish still giving money to Blizzard while trying out all of the other games. And that's without the penchant to suddenly load up GTA: Vice City. I've gone through the prologue in TERA with the controller; I think I'll try it again with the keyboard. Opinion seems mixed as to whether the controller is adequate. I have The Secret World loaded, but haven't tried it yet. I played through the prologue of Rusty Hearts months ago but haven't returned. And of course, I've still got Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 and Age of Conan loaded as well.