- Anime

Friday videos and links...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 03:28:42 +0000

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.

Links and Links...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:22:37 +0000

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'll just leave this hear...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:53:16 +0000

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

Are they links? Click and see...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:28:00 +0000

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.

Some more Scarlet Blade vids...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:11:34 +0000

Sunday links and stuff...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 01:07:00 +0000

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.

Figure for sale, reduced price...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:27:00 +0000

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.

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Music and links...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:04:54 +0000

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:

Your knife is the knife that will pierce the heavens!

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 03:17:15 +0000

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

Rockin' Sunday Links...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:54:24 +0000

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.

Black Lagoon question...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:31:40 +0000

Question for my anime-watching friends. I'm considering watching Black Lagoon, but I have some concerns. I absolutely adore stories with strong female characters that aren't stereotyped are subjugated to men in some way. A good example is the Nanoha series, where the female characters completely dominate. An example of something that frustrates me exceptionally is Tenjou Tenge, where the two female protagonists are absolutely killer...until it's time to face a man. More typical, of course, is that the anime series carefully explains from the beginning that even the most competent female action star plays second fiddle to the male. Now, as much as I'm a conservative traditionalist in some ways, I'm not denying the fundamental biological issues concerning muscle mass, proportion, etc. In action-oriented roles, men do have some built in advantages. But it is also patently false to adhere to the idea that any given man will naturally be a better fighter, athlete, etc. than any given woman.

Concerning Black Lagoon, I've heard it's a very high action, high violence series; and one of the main characters is female. What I need to know: Is Revy just generally awesome, or is she only awesome until a man decides to put her in her place?

Links at long last...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 19:21:44 +0000

After all of the adventures with Wordpress, I decided to stick with Serendipity. If I'm gonna have to program the damn thing myself, might as well stick with a platform I know a bit about already. I made a few upgrades I've been meaning to get to for a while...there is now a comments notifier at the top of a post, for example. The social media bar is a custom bit of code (sort of) that I put together myself. Unfortunately, because I want the bar to connect live each time, the load times are a bit extreme, so the social media bar only appears on the full post page now. The twitter and facebook integration may be complete. I haven't been able to verify travelling comments, yet. All of the rest of it works. I changed the image/portfolio plugin back to flickr, and moved it to the other side. Also, the random input box is back, on the right side below the twitter feed. The RSS/Atom syndication links are back as well, I honestly don't remember deleting that plugin, but I must have.

Moving on.

Atomic motor uses a single atom of Ruthenium as a bearing. Capable of clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation.

Rumors that Intel will finally give cable customers what they want: À la carte programming. Of course subscribing to individual channels most likely will be more expensive, not less. So, are you willing to pay more for more choice?

House Speaker John Boehner randomly tells Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go f*** himself. Seriously. Not that Reid doesn't deserve such an insult, today, tomorrow and yesterday...but it was just such an out-of-context event...

Showing pictures of starving children in Africa isn't doing the trick anymore. Could have told you that a few years ago. People get desensitized to such things. They can also have different reactions than what is expected. My wife says the ASPCA "Angel" commercials don't bother her anymore. They still bother me. Unfortunately, while I am a huge supporter of the ASPCA, the "Angel" commercials have angered me from the beginning. Of course I have the expected response as well; the commercials are very hard for me to watch. But such an obvious attempt to manipulate people on a raw emotional level triggers my self preservation instinct, and I get very angry. At the ASPCA. I've written letters, but it's pretty obvious that the commercials must be successful, as they're still going.

The masked monkeys of Indonesia. WTF???

Obama accomplishments chart. Political, but not partisan. Seriously. Nothing but facts.

How to sell anything ONCE by Sarah Hoyt. About how the comic book industry increasingly sells issues with shock value. Change a known character using race, sexual orientation or death to sell an issue or two. The problem is that the comics publishers seem to think they can maintain audience doing this. The problem, obviously, is that no one cares the SECOND time you kill a superhero. Going straight after you go gay isn't significant; just as changing race *again*(except back to Caucasian) isn't a big deal. The last two might create a few political stories, but after you've cycled a few times, even that won't matter anymore. Here's the article she is referencing.

I finally watched Girls und Panzer. Obviously set in the future, although I have a hard time accepting the setting. Apparently all schools in the future will be located on giant (GIANT) aircraft-carrier-like ships. These schools will educate a few hundred students, and will be supported by a small city of shops. The schools are nominally run by the student council. Sure, I know in anime the student council is always portrayed as being ridiculously powerful, but really? You're going to put three 15-17 year-old girls in charge of a floating city? I guess you just have to keep in mind that despite the show's real-world historical ties, it really is a fantasy.

I could go into how "tank arts" is "the sport of girls"...but I won't do that.

By "tank arts" (or in the Crunchyroll subs, "tankery") I mean the complete operation of World War II era tanks in mock battles, using live, if underpowered, ammunition. Maintenance is mentioned, but it also seems to get handed off to the "Auto Club" more often than not. So, Girls und Panzer is another anime based on the idea of "come up with a bizarre idea for a school club, then create a setting that allows for the club". However, as derivative as the idea is, the production team manages a good balance between the fanciful setting, interesting characters (although it gets a bit extreme toward the end) and awesome tanks. And really, that's why you would want to watch the series; the tank animation and information is fabulous. Unfortunately, the final episodes of the series have been delayed until March, due to undisclosed "production problems". There is some discussion that such a severe delay actually means the production run of the series is effectively over. However, there was already enough interest in the series for a sequel to be in planning stages, so I imagine there will eventually be more Girls und Panzer. Unfortunately, what is generally considered to be one of the best parts of the anime was left out of the Crunchyroll release because of copyright issues:

What is Katyusha?

I've also been watching Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!, my own (very poor, I'm sure) translation of which is "Despite Chuunibyou, Love is Wanted"...or to use the translation on Wikipedia, "Even (chuunibyou) want to experience love." Chuunibyou is a Japanese slang term which translates to "Middle School 2nd Year" syndrome. We might express the idea in America as "Junior High Syndrome", characterizing the crossover period from childhood to adulthood. The concept is used to describe both young children who act older than they are and look down on their peers as "children"; as well as middle-school and older children who act as if they are magical, supernatural or powerful beings. I'm not sure if the term applies only to those who literally "role-play" their lives in such a manner, or if it also applies to older children who still engage in fanciful, imaginative play.

Anyway, enough of that. The set-up for the series is another "think of a bizarre idea for school club" story, although that tiring cliche is only briefly introduced. Thankfully, the focus is much more on the characters. Wonderduck has written a bit on the series, and suspect may have more to say in the future. I don't really have much to add that isn't brought up by Wonderduck, although I have really been taken by the idea that the series is a kind of "anti-Haruhi". However, my primary interest along those lines is in Yuta as an "anti-Kyon".

Later.

Happy New Year 2013!

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:58:53 +0000

Saturday Links and stuff...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:46:18 +0000

I've got a handful of links, and some commentary on eBay because of a recent nice experience.

I find the video to be distracting for this mix, but the song is good.

eBay introduced, several years ago, the "Second Chance Offer" buying mechanic. The stated reason was to reduce fraud via unofficial transactions; the real reason was to just flat out prevent unofficial transactions of any kind. eBay was having a problem with auctions being ended early when an acceptable price was reached. Or more commonly, the "reserve price" option would be used. Once upon a time, there were very few auctions that did not have a "reserve price". The reserve price would be set ridiculously high, then when the auction did not end successfully, the highest bidder would be contacted and the item sold through a means other than eBay. While this practice certainly introduced an element of fraud for the consumer, it mostly resulted in eBay not making money. So, they made "Reserve Price" an option you had to buy and introduced the "Second Chance Offer." In conjunction with these mechanical changes, eBay started a massive advertising campaign warning about the dangers of "off-site transactions" and email offers. eBay's efforts appear to have been successful, as I have received dozens of second chance offers in the last few years and no off-site transaction offers.

Anyway, what brought this up was that I recently received an unexpected second chance offer. Most "second chance offers" are received within thirty minutes of an auction's end. Either a huge number of bidders win an auction then contact the seller to let the seller know they won't be paying, or we're getting back into the shill-bidding problem I've written about before. The seller shill-bids the auction up, then contacts the second-highest bidder and informs them that the winning bidder backed out (something eBay strongly discourages and supposedly punishes if you make a habit of it) and offers the item to you at the winning bid (not your highest bid). I would imagine this would be a fairly successful tactic, psychologically. So it really surprised me when, a week after coming in second best in an auction for a figure, the seller sent a second-chance offer at the price I had bid to. It was so surprising I had to go back and work through the auction bid-by-bid and re-verify the seller before I accepted.

Photographers climb Russia's tallest structures.

You may have heard that the Kyoto Treaty is now officially dead, and all attempts to replace the treaty have failed as well. The failure may be because of this man. For what it's worth, I agree with Lord Monckton that most of the DOHA delegates had never heard anything he said before.

A new Sena Kashiwazaki figure, based on the "Monster Hunter" episode.

Are you a fan of Super Dimension Fortress Macross/Robotech? Then you will want to keep an eye on the new manga by Haruhiko Mikimoto (the original Macross artist) retelling the original Macross storyline. Unfortunately, it's not available in English, yet.

A friendly warning to, primarily, "journalists": Get your facts straight before spewing garbage from your pie-hole.

Chuck Rothman discusses the curious history of Steve Kaczorowski. And another page detailing some of the research involved.

Leave John Boehner alone!

Know what? I tried really hard to find Christmas song mashups. There aren't any good ones. In my opinion. However, I found the WORST one:

Favorite anime (sort of) and music...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 03:35:25 +0000

Back in the golden age of anime importation, there was a company called Geneon. If you've been a fan of anime as long as I have, you know that Geneon was originally Pioneer-LDC, one of the movers and shakers of early anime fandom in the U.S. Something a little more widely known is that early anime imports frequently had as much Japanese as possible removed from them, even if the programs weren't intended for television broadcast. One way that this effort manifested itself was with opening and closing songs. Most often, if the import in question had lyrics, the opening and endings would just be replaced with instrumental versions of the original songs. Failing that, a new instrumental opening and closing would be recorded, and occasionally (and usually hilariously) a completely new song would be written and recorded.

Geneon, however, had a habit of creating English versions of the Japanese openings and endings. Below is the original Japanese opening to Kiddy Grade:

and now the same in English:

If you look up the Japanese lyrics, the English version does a decent job of recreating the song.

Sometimes the English version would actually be an improvement, in my opinion. Below are the Japanese and English openings of Phantom Quest Corp, a little-remembered OAV series that was originally released in the U.S. on laserdisc. The four-episode series is generally considered a cash-in by Madhouse in regards to the popular Ghost Sweeper Mikami series. I haven't seen Mikami, but the setup is certainly similar. Phantom Quest is charming enough, though, and it's a shame the series never made it past four episodes. It's biggest flaw, in fact, is that you never really get to learn much about any of the characters...an issue that supposedly would have been addressed had the series continued.

Japanese:
You will have to click the link to YouTube; the poster has disabled embedding. But you'll do that, won't you? You want me to make my point, don't you?

English (and again a problem; this video goes well beyond the opening. Watch as much as you want):

If you ever get a chance to watch Phantom Quest Corp (and I believe the whole thing is available on YouTube), I wholeheartedly recommend it.