Mysterious Girlfriend X Mysterious Reaction Y...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:47:59 -0400

I already mentioned that I'm trying to watch Mysterious Girlfriend X on Crunchyroll. Based on a long-running manga, the series is...unusual.

I just watched Episode 3. It's Smiley Time again!!!

At first I was like...

...and then I was like...

...but then I was like...

...and after that like...

...and now I'm like...

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb...

Just some links for Friday...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:09:05 -0400

Major Highlights in the History of Space Opera on io9

I think I've linked this one before: Solidarity is Illusion: The Political Economy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

You have probably heard some version of the story about The Car on the Titanic. But have you heard about The Car on the Andrea Doria?

I mentioned previously how good Puella Magi Madoka Magica is. Here is Brickmuppet's endorsement; and if getting a thumbs-up from the unluckiest human in the United States can't convince you, I don't know what will.

And finally Don, formerly of The Kawaii Menace and Scuffulans hirsutus fame, now of Zoopraxiscope fame, has a fascinating post up today about the Katmai/Novarupta eruption of 1912 (with links) and an 1848 photograph of Cincinnati which is much more important than you might think.

The Leg Lamp from A Christmas Story.

That's it. I'm spent.

Missed Voices...Andrea Robinson

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:35:00 -0400

Back in the '80's I was a minor aficionado of movie soundtracks, both instrumental and vocal. Something I picked up on quickly was the recurrence of certain names across many soundtracks. Usually an unknown singer; I had stumbled upon the completely-not-hidden-or-even-all-that-mysterious concept of the session artist/musician. I haven't kept up with the hobby, so I don't know how common this practice still is; but for decades a lot of really popular songs were performed by artists who received a paycheck but very little acclaim for their fine work.

Andrea Robinson is one such artist.

Andrea is, I would imagine, best known for providing the singing voice for Wendy Makkena's Sister Mary Robert in the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Sister Act (the little Novice to Kathy Najimy's left; the soloist):

However, you can also hear her voice in backup vocals on the semi-famous American-produced soundtrack to Project A-ko:

She also performed several songs for the soundtrack of the movie Crystal Heart:

Robinson also recorded a single and b-side for Mazda in Japan in 1987. I have never heard either song, and can't find them now. Anywhere.

If you look through her credits chances are you have heard her voice in at least one video game or movie. While Andrea never really made a name for herself in voiceover work, her singing in Project A-ko and Crystal Heart gave her at least one little bell to ring for '80's nostalgia.

Carroll Shelby...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:24:58 -0400

In honor of Carroll Shelby, a great Texan who died recently. You probably know who he is.

In memoriam...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:01:47 -0400

Donald "Duck" Dunn died today. You need to listen to this playlist of Booker T and the MG's.

Guild Wars 2 stress test screens...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:16:26 -0400

Arenanet had a stress test on Monday similar to the beta weekend. I grabbed a few screenshots today. The "look" of the game is very similar to Guild Wars. The polygon count is higher and texture resolutions appear to be at least doubled, if not more.

Click the pictures for larger versions.

I absolutely love how Guild Wars 2 handles skills. You're still limited to a skill set, rather than pasting all of your skills on the screen at once, but you now have ten rather than eight. In addition, some skills are now paired as a "toggle", which takes up less room. By example, the Necromancer's "Summon Bone Minion" skill toggles to "Putrid Explosion" after summoning. In Guild Wars, those were two separate skills. Also, as you can see, Healing skills are separated out. What isn't clear in this screen is that you get different base skill sets depending on your weapon set. I don't know how extensive this is yet; weapon swapping isn't unlocked until Level Seven, which I just hit this evening.

I found the "Shire of Beetletun" this evening. south and east of Divinity's Reach. Which is exactly where it is in Guild Wars, although it doesn't look like Beetletun is the main route East and West anymore.

Character ascetics are familiar. While you do have even more options in character creation than in Guild Wars, almost any given creation will look like a supermodel. Male or female. Or Charr, presumably.

Flying mounts would be such a gas in this world, but it's pretty obvious that teleporting is going to be the method of fast travel in Guild Wars 2.

Monday auctions show some trends...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:51:51 -0400

One seller listed a bunch of figures a few days back, five of which made my watch list.

Click images for larger versions>

Here are the respective bid histories:

There are three "cheaper" auctions and two expensive auctions. There are several similarities in the bid patterns, but more significant is how many of the same people are bidding on these auctions. And I see a lot of familiar faces in the crowd, as well. A lot of the same bidders have been involved in the Asagi figure that keeps getting pulled, for example. Speaking of which, the Asagi figure showed up again today. Same bid pattern; it had fifteen bids within a few hours.

Sunday links...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:41:14 -0400

First, some music:

If you were ever in band in high school, you're probably familiar with James Swearingen. He has composed dozens (if not hundreds) of low to moderate difficulty overtures for wind band (the kind that only uses horns, bells and percussion; no strings). His credits are much broader than these simple but delightful pieces, but the beginning band compositions make him the closest thing to a household name among band geeks as you can get.

If you don't like that, try this:

Moving on.

Last August, Gamesutra documented Blizzard's shift in strategy with World of Warcraft. All of the evidence cited is anecdotal, but some of it is still compelling. A significant portion of WoW's recent player losses are attributed to Blizzard making more high-level and end-game content accessible to more players. As silly as that sounds at first, you may have noticed that more and more "casual" sources; i.e. webcomics, semi-related news stories, have included references to former WoW players who quit because they didn't feel "special" anymore. On the other hand, I certainly understand how one would feel under the circumstances. As mediocre a Guild Wars-player as I am; I worked pretty hard to complete (so far) the original Prophecies campaign solo. I know it's easier for better players than it was for me, but it was still an accomplishment. If Arenanet went back to Guild Wars and, for example, added mercenaries into the Prophecies story, I wouldn't be mad per se; but I would certainly feel as if anyone who came after that point didn't overcome the same challenge that I did. Apparently, though, many WoW players now feel that Blizzard has finally cheapened the game too much. As they say, it's ok for YOU to buy a Mercedes just like your neighbor Bob Jones, but if your other neighbor Phil Smith buys one as well, then it's garbage. It's not special anymore. The point being, there's room at the top for one, and the guy reaching for his ankle. If a third person shows up, they all fall down.

I never finished a series of articles about DC Comics and gender relations. Why? No point. You may remember I mentioned a survey that I took part in a month or two after the New 52 launch. Well, DC released the results of the survey earlier this year.

There really isn't much to say about it. DC had already raised eyebrows prior to the relaunch when they announced that their target demographic was young males (ostensibly because DC's primarily-male customer base has been shifting up the age brackets). Females and other comic-customer minorities were upset that DC wasn't using this opportunity to target different demographic groups. Unfortunately, the survey results indicate that The New 52 absolutely failed to capture a new audience of any kind. The most significant acheivement was compelling lapsed readers to try out the new comics. And I will put money on those readers not lasting (I didn't. Even Geoff Johns and Aquaman can only go so far.) Here's an interesting thread on the failure. FWIW, the first reply nails a lot of the problem dead on: DC was trying to fix a problem that didn't exist. Or rather, my own take is that the continuity problem DOES exist for some people, but DC didn't address the issue properly. DC didn't actually start ANYTHING over from scratch, they did a standard reboot/relaunch but called the new issues "#1's" and claimed it was for new readers. Which is the same thing as painting your car and claiming it's new, just like the last half-dozen or more times DC rebooted something.

And the second point; DC didn't actually do anything NEW or DIFFERENT. At all. They launched some good titles, but they're still created and run the same as they always were. Editorially, DC is still a huge mess. The only lingering question is whether DC intended The New 52 to be revenue-generating publicity stunt, or DC honestly thought they were relaunching these books in a way that would attract new readers. The point-of-view that hindsight offers is very damning; I don't see how everyone as DC "missed" the obvious; that they weren't doing anything new or different.

Anyway, I've said my piece now. Regardless of how good some of the new title are (Aquaman, Batgirl, All Star Western, Green Lantern Corps), I am NOT DC's target audience. I'm one of the guys they assume are fans anyway, when I buy at all. Sadly, they're more right than wrong; obviously this marketing scam prompted me to buy a bunch of comics from them. I won't KEEP buying comics...I don't how that fits into their plans. Instead, I think I'll go finish catching up on Gold Digger.

Tale of the bid history (part continuing...)

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sat, 12 May 2012 20:28:00 -0400

UPDATE: The Yoko figure ended without any more bids. The Asagi figure received a few more bids, but was (shockingly) ended early with the message that it was no longer available.

Here are two very interesting bid histories to comtemplate:

First, a Yoko Littner figure by Alter. I talked about this figure in an earlier post.

I'm normally suspicious, at least a bit, of any auction that starts receiving bids immediate after listing. This one, however, showed up a few days ago and was looking promising until...

...that's very interesting. All sorts of warning bells going off, here. On the other hand, I wonder if, prior to the extreme bidding competition, we might have been seeing something closer to an actual sell value. Or rather, something in the neighborhood of half of the actual sell value. In my experience, auctions that actually draw multiple bidders tend to increase in value approximately (this is anecdotal; there is no proof that I am aware of) 50%. With multiple bidders, I further infer from the last minute bidding that one or more bidders fail to increase their bid in the final seconds of the auction. I therefore conclude that many, if not most, multiple-sniper auctions would escalate beyond the 50% increase. I have seen this happen several times when bids come in with just enough time to add another. Again, this is all anecdotal and circumstantial, but I personally am comfortable with these assumptions.

Then there's the Taimanin Asagi relist that I mentioned. All sorts of interesting things going on with this one as well.

I cut off the earliest part of the bid history, unfortunately. d***l put in the original bid of $2.00. m***u put in a bid of $50 an hour later; d***l bid up to $38 before giving up. You can see the rest.

While either bid history could conceivably be legitimate, I wouldn't bet on it. In fact, I'm not.

Don't argue socialism with former Russians...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:10:59 -0400

Conversation doesn't start until a few minutes in, maybe even halfway; I don't remember.

Some auction updates...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:07:00 -0400

HERE is the re-listed Taimanin Asagi figure. You can compare the bid history to the one from the previous listing of the same figure, a few entries down.

Guess what is was re-listed today? Same price and details; same seller:

Here's another interesting bid history:

The most interesting bidder is o***i, who started out bidding up by $1 several times, then by $5 once, then by $10 twice. Also consider the first two bids: The first bidder made the opening bid of $9.00, followed quickly by the second bidder who increased the bid by $1.00. And that was it. Those two bidders never returned. Then, of course, is u***r, who made the minimum bid five times until he was the high bidder by one dollar, then left.

My conclusion? Two or more of the bidders in this auction are stalking horses, tasked with jacking up the bid, probably until a minimum is reached.

This is the Orchid Seed Witchblade figure, from the Japanese Witchblade series. This is the figure being bid on above.

Click Image for a larger version:

The hair is a bit "plastic-y" to me, although the funny bumps are the slots where extensions plug in. Searching through completed listings, I found one that seems to keep selling over and over (and being relisted after being sold) for $169. The other recent samples were selling for $61 and $75. I think the $75 sell was legitimate, as I was watching that one at the time. It was a Buy It Now option about 12 hours after the entry went up. It's a nice-enough figure, although I think the price has already gone beyond what I would be comfortable with.

Remember X-Blades?

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:43:30 -0400

The Xbox 360 launch title that I reviewed (for PC) several months ago? The one that had heaps of derision piled onto it for it's simplistic gameplay, horrendous story, insipid dialogue and cell-shaded jailbait protagonist? The one that, despite all of that, I said wasn't too bad; was really kind of fun?

There's a sequel:

No, really, it's not an elaborate joke.

Some words to watch out for in anime figure collecting...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:49:12 -0400

A recent auction that I've been following for a few weeks inspired today's post. This auction for a figure of Mari Illustrious Makinami from the second Evangelion Rebuild movie has been listed three times in the last few weeks. The first time the auction was ended early, the second time the auction received a dozen bids up to, if I remember, $15; and the third time it was ended early again. The first and third listings received no bids. It would seem to be obvious that the seller is trying to get a certain price for this figure, which is fine.

The shipping is $4.00, the starting bid is $.99; considering the figure is supposedly new and is reputed to be a high quality figure, I might bid up to $6, maybe even to $8.50. Why so cheap? Because, while there is a very similar, high quality 1/10th scale figure that originally sold for around $60, this is an approximately 1/14th scale prize figure, valued at approximately $5. No more than $10. (At least, that's the best value I can find. I have been unable to determine the manufacturer or distribution, so I'm basing this information on similar figures.) A prize figure is a low-budget, typically smaller-than-normal figure used to stock UFO Catcher/Skill Crane machines (which are extremely popular in Japan), or for giveaways and other contests. These figures are produced in high numbers with Bandai's gashapon figures and Ichiban Kuji's prize figures, trinkets and toys being the most popular.

Some of these figures are actually very nice; currently all of my Evangelion figures are of this smaller variety. With Evangelion still being popular in the U.S., most of the larger figures still command a pretty high price. Most of these figures are 4 - 5 inches tall; their small size makes them highly (and cheaply) collectible for many people. Unfortunately, on eBay, the mini-figures are just as subject to price inflation as full-sized figures are. And because, as I mentioned earlier, there are frequently similarly-designed mini-figures and full-sized figures, you better make sure you know which one you're bidding on. Keep in mind the seller doesn't always know. Below is the same mini-figure of Mari. While the price is reasonable, you will note the shipping is not. Many, MANY auctions make all of their prifit through shipping, counting on people to not know how much shipping costs. I'll put it this way; I could ship this same figure, IN A BOX, tightly and securely packed, with a tracking number, for $7.00. Beyond that, I could ship this particular figure relatively safely in a padded envelope for about $3.50. I WOULDN'T do that, but I could.

I don't like Mondays...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:15:39 -0400

While you're readin':

I worked from 8 AM until 3:30 PM just to prepare and fix what I intended to be doing all day. Thirty minutes later a ten-pound, inch-think steel hinge breaks. That's Monday, alright.

Now that I have finally published the Kiddy Grade review, I really feel that I need to apologize for the last few paragraphs. I let it sit for too long and lost the flow; the final section is obviously disconnected from the earlier bits and I never covered some of the elements I had intended to. Plus the writing is of a poorer quality. Oh, and I probably should have posted the review in at least two parts after finishing it.

One thing I can cover quickly is Eclipse's Batman Gambit. Eclipse and Éclair go back a long way; no-one knows Éclair better except Lumiére. The story isn't clear on whether Chevalier is directly manipulating G.O.T.T. through Eclipse or if the Galactic Union council is bypassing the obstinate Financial Secretary (the G.O.T.T. would make an excellent tool for D'Autrich to combat the Nouvlesse without directly interfering; I imagine this might explain Armblast's extracurricular activities.) However, there are enough clues made available to determine that, while Eclipse does follow her orders, she isn't happy with the situation. To that end, every mission that Éclair is sent on is chosen to bring about Éclair's "awakening" to full power and her old memories as quickly and effectively as possible. Those memories that she shouldn't even have, according to the flashback we're shown.

Still, it kind of all falls apart in the end. So it's not much of Batman Gambit after all, I guess. Maybe just an attempted Batman Gambit?

What is the first thing you learn when you start playing MMORPG's?

I finished Puella Magi Madoka Magica on Crunchyroll. As did Cardcaptor Sakura and Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, Madoka literally evolves a new level of storytelling in the Magical Girl genre. In fact, one could say that Madoka is the logical conclusion of Sakura. Rather than duplicate the work of others, HERE is a link to a short but relevant discussion on the final few episodes at Chizumatic. WARNING!!! SPOILERS!!!

Along those same lines, I have avoided watching Bodacious Space Pirates because...well, "BODACIOUS SPACE PIRATES"??? REALLY?

I was wrong.

I'm sure I'll post some more about this series in the future.

In other news, that Taimanin Asagi figure from earlier posts was relisted. This time the auction has a different, but still odd bid pattern.

Finally;

Appreciating ASCII art is one of the marks of a true classic nerd.

But, animated gifs are the graphical equivalent of puns, right?

And posting pictures of hot chicks is an act of desperation...

So what's this?

Mysterous Girlfriend X Screen Grab 1...

nospam@example.com (Ben) — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:54:06 -0400

I believe in Rule 34 with all my heart, but is there really a "saliva fetish"?