Category: Photo gallery

Hanami

It’s blossom-gazing time, with sakura blooming in Japan. I did a little blossom-gazing myself yesterday at the local botanical garden, which has a few flowering cherries. Wichita had enough serious cold weather this past winter to trigger profuse bloom. Instead of a blue tarp, I brought my camera.

Okame cherry (Prunus x incamp)
Okame cherry (Prunus x incamp)

I arrived one windy day too late to catch this one at its prime.

Okame cherry close-up
Okame cherry close-up

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Waving as I pass by

Life is complicated these days, and anime is low priority. I’ve heard good things about Kimi ni Todoke — I gather that the protagonist is Aspie-ish, which could be interesting, handled well — and I plan to download it when I see a batch torrent. Otherwise, though, nothing else recent looks worth the time.

A few random notes:

Via Pete, here’s a look at a deluxe Russian edition of Haibane Renmei.

Many in the otakusphere have been writing about the decade in anime. Uh, guys, you’re jumping the gun. Just as 2000 was the last year of the 20th century, 2010 is the tenth year of the first decade of the no-longer-new century, not the first of the second decade.

Disappointing musical news: Kayo is leaving Polysics. The band apparently will continue to tour and record, but it won’t be the same without her robotic persona and bleepy synths. Who else can possibly shake the pompons in “Peach Pie on the Beach”?

I bought myself a Christmas present, the basic edition of Filter Forge. It’s something like Reaktor for graphic artists: you can download thousands of filters made by other users, or you can roll your own from the tools provided (if you get a fuller version). There are a couple of examples below the fold. Warning: they’re based on a snapshot of myself, and I am not cute. Once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

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