Dear LG VX8300,

Well, this is it. This is our last night together. In four and half hours I will be meeting my new love affair. No offense but, do you know how freaking excited I am?!

I can barely contain it!

Sure, in the beginning everything was swell. You stepped into my life all new and shiny and made me forget about my last phone, whose maker I don't even remember (I think it was a Samsung). I was able to enjoy playing video games, personalizing my own ringtones and happily ignoring uh, "enjoying" all of Verizon's...ahem, special attributes that you had. Sure, I had to do a lot of workarounds with Bitpim, and I probably violated your warranty, but I lived with it at first.

But after a while, something happened. You weren't special anymore. Typing text messages on you was a chore. I couldn't really check email other than that craptacular VZWmail account which is just really pointless, since it's just one step up from SMS. And you kept turning off when I wanted to turn you on, mainly because your batteries kept wearing down. No way to show your love there, baby.

Secretly I couldn’t wait to break up. But I’m one of those guys that just can’t be alone, you know? I couldn’t just go solo. I needed a suitable replacement first. I’ll admit it – I was using you.

And then along she appeared. I took notice. At first I thought “no way”. She’s one of those hotties that you just can’t have. Way out of your league. She couldn't possibly be coming to my network. I could flirt from afar but that was it. But now. Now! She’s opened her arms wide. She’s available and willing.

It was love at first sight. And second. And 50th. I’ve spent day after day, night after night, watching videos and drooling at pictures galore. I feel like we’ve known each other forever. There is no denying it. We’re meant to be. Soul mates.

My calender syncing won’t be  a problem, bad phones or not. Downloaded apps will stay mine. Tons. Free ones. I’ll have a device that can record a video that’s not limited to tiny sizes and time constraints all while dimming to something unbearable in all but the greatest of light. I’ll be able to actually use my email and...oh forget it. I could go on and on but you don’t wanna hear it.  You’re probably not even listening. Hey, look at me when I’m talking to you.

So this is it. Enjoy your last night as my main thing. What will happen to you, you ask? I haven’t decided. Your fate is unknown. Will I smash you into tiny bits? I dunno but that’d sure as hell be fun! Will I sell you off? Probably not, as there is probably someone more needy than I who would want you.

Either way, you'll be gone soon, and I'll be loving a new sweet young thing.

(thanks to the guys at Phandroid for helping me with the courage to write this very difficult letter.)

Wow. What a way to start off September. And no, I'm not talking about Disney/Marvel. I think that's overblown, and DC has done fine for years under Time Warner's ownership, so why worry? No, if anything, I'm talking about the collapse of one of the biggies of the anime industry. Ladies and gentlemen, AD Vision is no more.

Expect war. I agree with Roger Morse's statement made on the ACML about the death of ADV, that "I'm thinking this is part-economy and part-anime bubble. Fansubbing and for-profit piracy has definitely hurt the anime industry, but I don't think it was quite enough to bring it to it's knees like this. If anything, the economy weakened it severely and things like fansubbing and for-profit piracy sapped any money they could have made from the "hardcore fans". In visual terms, the economy sunk the boat, fansubs removed the life-preservers", but I don't think that the remaining anime companies (Viz, Funimation, Bandai, and especially ADV's successor company Sxion 23) will see it as that way. Expect war, RIAA style, to be declared against fansubbers from this point on.

And don't give me any spiel about how "information wants to be free!" or crap like that, or how "greedy moneybarons want to squeeze everyone dry." Yes, I think a lot of times that fansubbers cue the rights of what is to come next. But I also think that in doing so, they've also destroyed the market for anyone wanting to watch the show, so that it's impossible to recoup the license fee once the show hits outside of Japan. Yes, I know there are ethical fansubbers out there, and those aren't the ones I'm complaining about - God knows there are quite a few series I would have never have been exposed to if they didn't exist, and quite a few that I wish I'd had been warned via fansubbing. But the Naruto/Bleach "at any cost" fansubbers and pirates trying to make a buck off the companies have gone too far. We're now seeing people's lives disrupted by this (while there are reports of virtually everyone at ADV being hired by Sxion 23, there's no hard proof, and even so, what about those who worked at CPM?) Whether you cared for him or not, John Ledford turned a small store into an empire, and watched that empire crumble, not entirely of his making. Part of it had to do with pirates.

That being said, it's also not entirely the fault of the pirates. There have been too many shovelware series coming stateside. Physical media, so beloved by anime companies, is being greatly shoved aside in favor of digital downloads. And with a few exceptions, the handling of anime as a television medium has been bad at best and laughable at worst - remember when the Anime Network was supposed to be the 24-hour anime on cable destination? That worked out rather well, not. The surviving companies are currently battened down and have to really rethink their strategies of how to operate in a day and age where anime is no longer the "next hip thing" but just now another mainstream entertainment function.

But I don't expect any of the current companies to see that anytime soon. Instead, I expect a Sherman's March through whatever websites hold fansubs, followed by wholesale boycott wars against said companies. The ultimate victor will be the one that finally figures it all out. So far, that looks to be Funi, but that's no guarantee; it was only a few years ago that people were saying that about ADV and look what happened.

+5 Wedding Anniversary bonus!

Four bells to port - CAPT Speicher, arriving.

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard

And hushed their raging at Thy word,

Who walkedst on the foaming deep,

And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood

Upon the chaos dark and rude,

And bid its angry tumult cease,

And give, for wild confusion, peace;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

O Trinity of love and power!

Our brethren shield in danger's hour;

From rock and tempest, fire and foe,

Protect them wheresoe'er they go;

Thus evermore shall rise to Thee

Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly

Through the great spaces of the sky.

Be with the travelers in the air,

In darkening storms or sunlight fair;

Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,

For those in peril in the air!

Aloft in solitudes of space,

Uphold them with Thy saving grace.

Thou Who supports with tender might

The balanced birds in all their flight.

Lord, if the tempered winds be near,

That, having Thee, they know no fear.

Oh, Flinkie.... You might find this of interest....

From iPhone Apps to Beer Cups, Killer Accessories for Your Guns

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Just a few things that have been swimming through my head lately, and I thought I'd just share them with those that care to read. Nothing pithy or the like, probably more akin to me just dumping what's on my mind.

( So here we go! )

Happy 4th of July, all! And please, don't forget to thank a veteran. They got us here.

Okay, I often don't wax nostalgic about my childhood, but here's one time where I'll get to do so. 

Growing up in LA when I was a kid, there were really only two stations in town worth listening to: KMET and KROQ.   (okay, there was KIIS, but only because of Rick Dees).  Fast forward to the present, where KROQ is still as awesome as it has ever been, but KMET is long since gone (in 1987 it was replaced in "the Valentine's Day Massacre" with smooth-jazz station KTWV) and a station in Banning now calls itself KMET (A TALK STATION, for cryin' out loud!).

Until July 10.

For one day, the station that defined insanity in the 70s on the West Coast, the station that mattered to just about everyone in LA, the station they made a movie about - the 1978 film FM was based on KMET - will make its return via other station KSWD 100.3 ("The Sound" - not familiar with the station, as it seems to have popped up long after I moved away).  But bravo to them, as they are planning an onslaught of the original KMET airchecks, several of the original DJs, playlists, the works.  I may just have to take off of work and veg in front of the interwebs radio for this one.

PS - No, the image is NOT upside down; that's how KMET used to market itself!

UPDATE: Now with the official "Finally a KMET Friday" website!

Just reading about this incredible story in my old hometown newspaper. Incredible, to say the least.

OC Register:( Pixar grants girl's dying wish to see 'Up' )

Sad to hear that David Eddings has passed away.

He was a major influence on my writing style. I grew up reading his works, and there were many a time while at sea when the best thing for me was not watching movies on the messdecks, but rather curling up in the rack with an oft-worn copy of one of the Belgariad novels. When I wrote fanfiction, the second-highest honor I have ever received (the first, of course, was meeting my wife) was that someone said my stories read "like an Eddings novel." More than Tolkien, more than Lewis, more than anyone, David (and his wife Leigh) were the ones who inspired me to put pen to paper, or to start fingers flying on the keyboard.

I don't think I would be even a portion of the writer I am (yeah, as if that's saying a lot) if it weren't for the Eddings having come beforehand, and I can only hope to be a fraction of the success and inspiration to someone else that they were to me.

It was once noted that in an interview with Read magazine, he said that once people were no longer challenged by his works, the reader was free to move on to "somebody important, like Homer or Milton." Should the day come that someone ever interviews me about my books, I hope to say that should the reader ever find my books no longer challenging, they're free to move on to someone more important.

Someone like David Eddings.

Just got back from seeing Up, the newest Pixar film. Words cannot describe what an absolute joy it is. I mean that. The film brought me to tears, then raised me to the highest levels five minutes afterward.

Quite possibly the best film this year, and only that because Coraline was just as good.

In any case, go see it, especially in 3D - you'll be seriously missing out otherwise if you don't.

I swear, I'm such a typography whore.

Yes, Easter is always Good News, but there's a good news of a much more earthly bit today.

All I gotta say is, Fuckin' A Ditty Bag! ^_^

Ho-hum, rainy day. Yay.

Meanwhile, I think I'll just a few disjointed thoughts that are rumbling through my head. Nothing major, just a few "stream of consciousness" sort of things that people have from time to time.

• Why on Earth is there advertising on the Metro reminding us all to use the $1 gold coins instead of the traditional bill? I haven't seen one in years (I think the last time was at Otakon back in 2006).


• Why did Adobe allow the installation process for the new version of Creative Suite (CS4) to be so incredibly bad? Who thought that allowing race conditions for multithreading environments, when the future of computing is MULTITHREADING ENVIRONMENTS, was a good idea?


• Robotussin's new DM Max forumla WORKS. After I had that wonderful bout of stomach flu last week, I decided I wanted to muscle it through because I really don't care for overmedding onesself. By Wednesday, I decided, okay, maybe I should take something. Regular Robo seemed to do most of the trick, but for the past two days I had a relapse that felt like the onset of pneumonia. Since Becca was sick as well, I opted to go to the store, and that's when I saw the new stuff. It WORKS. Ended everything in a couple of hours.


• Finally got to hear a song by Nirvana UK. For those of you who don't know, they're a 60's British prog/psychedelic rock band that had the name well before Kurt & co., but went into hiatus after the onset of disco. When Nirvana (US) started recording, there was a temporary fight over the Nirvana name, but it got sorted out; officially both bands are just "Nirvana", but most people tag the "UK" onto the older band since they're not as well known to people, especially nowadays. In any case, to show there were no hard feelings, Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos recorded a tounge-in-cheek version of "Lithium". (here's a clip of the cover, sorry that I don't have the full version). They're not bad, but obviously not good enough to have been the stars in their heyday that the Seattle boys were in theirs.


• Probably have some other things to mention later, but can't think of it now.

I'm getting ready to make a variation of one of my first fonts available for sale. Right now, it's called Vocaloid (after the Yamaha products and icon, though it has really nothing to do with that). However, if I'm readnig TESS right, I could be running into a possible trademark violation with Yamaha.

I'm wondering if I should change the name (I'm thinking of renaming it to Shibuya Dancefloor, though I'm open to suggestions), or if I should see if Yamaha will either send me a C&D (likely) or will just allow it (possible). As I'm brining up Megami into official LLC status, tussling with a major company would be the least thing I need.

Any thoughts on this?

In case you're curious of what the font looks like, here's the page for the free version. The pay version has a lot more in it.

Well, several friends and I went in and saw Watchmen last night. As I'd been reading several negative reviews about it leading up to last night, I really didn't know what to think; I figured it was going to be better than Street Fighter: Let's Humiliate Chun-Li but that doesn't necessarily mean it was going to be a good movie. Let's be honest: whether you like him or not, Alan Moore's films do not translate to the screen very well. V for Vendetta was a bit overblown, and frankly, I'd probably have to do a Diogenesian-style search for anyone who liked the movie based on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

( Spoilerific text to follow! )

Created by Train Horns

Well, this I already knew was going to be painful - my hearing is good enough that I can hear in the 20000 Hz-plus (dog whistle) range, but man! that REALLY FREAKIN' hurts (or hertz, take your pick).

Imma go get me some aspirin now....

Because you haven't watched enough weird stuff as of late, I bring you the disco gods!

For all of those who know why, yeah, I'm hiding.

For those who don't, nothing to see here, keep moving