Trivia that matter
If you’re in the mood to procrastinate, you’re in luck. I’ve uploaded a few pictures to Jigsaw Planet and have embedded the puzzles in my photography weblog. I’ll be adding more. Click on the “ghost” button at the bottom left of the puzzle frame for a preview of the finished puzzle.
This is what the Wichita newspaper put on the front page above the fold on Saturday.
Crunchyroll continues to license interesting older anime. Recent acquisitions include the willfully eccentric Oh! Edo Rocket1 and Tatsuo Sato’s first major series, Martian Successor Nadesico. There’s also the exceedingly odd Cromartie High School. In all three, anything can happen.
I’ve compiled a short wish list of shows that the people at Crunchyroll might consider for future acquisition.
Dennou Coil — It’s available on disc, but I don’t think this classic Miyazaki-does-Ghost-in-the-Shell series has ever been legally streamed in North America.
Shounen Onmyouji — Protagonist Masahiro is the only shounen hero who doesn’t make me mutter “idiot.” The show was one of the last licensed by Geneon USA and was orphaned when the company went out of business. The later discs are virtually unobtainable.
Katanagatari — Also available on disc2, but I don’t think this eccentric and ironic chronicle of extreme swordsmanship ever been legally streamed here.
Crest/Banner of the Stars — Possibly the best thought-out dramatization of war in space.3
Pupipo — Short and funny doesn’t mean trivial.
Over the years I’ve watched my young friend Roger Netherton develop from a talented youngster to a first-rate fiddler. I’ve mentioned him numerous times, e.g., here, here, here and here; you can find additional mentions by searching here for “Roger.” He focuses on old-time music, but that’s not his only interest. He taught himself Japanese well enough that he was able to skip the first year of Japanese language class at college and start with the second year. He later spent a semester at a college in Japan. He did the translations for my notes on installing Hatsune Miku, which is the most-visited page on my website. Here he plays a melody from the anime Someday’s Dreamers, accompanying himself on piano.
Roger is finally ready to record an album. His Go Fund Me page is here. If you like old-time fiddle, you might want to check it out.
Like hell I’m giving these jackasses my phone number. It looks like it will be about two weeks before I visit Anime New Network again — if I bother. The encyclopedia is sometimes useful, and perhaps 10% of the news is actually noteworthy, but the rest is just a waste of pixels. I can do just fine without it.
A comment at Kim du Toit’s place:
Hearing/seeing Leningrad Cowboys doing “Sweet Home Alabama” marks the exact instant I knew we’d won the Cold War.
Bonus quote from Fillyjonk:
Five-year-olds, man. I had friends swear that after I spent time around the child I would want one of my own. My reaction is thus:
HA!
The cactus seedlings are six months old now and starting to show typical spination. There are more pictures here.
The cactus and stapeliad seedlings are half a year old now. These pictures are all stacked focus, with from 26 to 92 images in each stack assembled in Helicon Focus. They are all much enlarged. The Gymnocalycium above is the largest of the cacti; it’s about a half-inch in diameter. Click to see it larger; … Continue reading “At six months”
The cactus and stapeliad seedlings are half a year old now. These pictures are all stacked focus, with from 26 to 92 images in each stack assembled in Helicon Focus. They are all much enlarged. The Gymnocalycium above is the largest of the cacti; it’s about a half-inch in diameter. Click to see it larger; right-click and open in a new window to see it larger still.
New Zealand must have lax or poorly enforced copyright laws. An outfit called “Pixiluv” that ships from there advertises numerous calendars on Amazon.com. Many feature old art and advertisements that are, or should be, out of copyright everywhere, but quite a few others display recent illustrations, such as the Katanagatari calendar above.4
While cleaning house a few days ago, I unearthed the first piece of music I ever wrote. It’s a piano rag, written half a lifetime ago for the first music theory class I was able to fit into my schedule.5 I was curious to see how it sounded after all these years. I could barely play it when I wrote it, and I’m way out of practice these days, so I transcribed it into Logic and let the computer play it.
It’s not as bad as I feared, but not as good as I hoped. Don’t look for the score on my sheet music page. I didn’t really know what I was doing then6, and it shows. The title is “Hairy Toes.” Please don’t ask me to explain that, or what I had in mind in the penultimate section.
Update: Uploaded a recording with a different virtual piano.
… yet the weatherman thinks I’m from France.
On the way to work this morning.
On the way to work this morning. Click to see larger images with more vivid color.
On the way to work this morning. Click to see larger images with more vivid color.
What’s so potentially offensive that Twitter places a warning label on it?
(Via Dustbury.)
I spent part of the afternoon downtown today at the Air Capital Comic Con. Overall, the cosplayers were underwhelming — perhaps they wore their better outfits yesterday — and there was a surfeit of Spidermen and Harley Quinns, but there were a few who made bringing the camera along worthwhile. There are more pictures here.
At the Air Capital Comic Con, November 12, 2017 in Wichita, Kansas. (Update: the cosplayer above is now the subject of a jigsaw puzzle.)
At the Air Capital Comic Con, November 12, 2017 in Wichita, Kansas. (Update: the cosplayer above is now the subject of a jigsaw puzzle.)
