Author: Don

Today’s mental picture

Banshee on Ohayocon:

And to make matters worse, the other events were a cheerleading convention and a Christian youth group convention. I mean, not necessarily antagonistic if physically separated… but apparently the Witchblade cosplayers kept walking into the youth group talks, and that’s just not going to end well….

She’s also been posting singable translations of the songs from the Natsume Yujinchou series. If I understand what she’s doing correctly, these are paraphrases of English translations she’s found.

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I’ve been doing everything but watching anime lately. I’ll get back to it — I’ve got Tokyo Godfathers sitting next to the computer, and I want to watch the rest of at least the first season of Natsume Yujinchou — but right now there are other priorities. In the meantime, here’s a curiosity: a piano version of a tune you might recognize.

[audio:http://tancos.net/audio/Kinjirareta Asobi.mp3]

Beyond Tortalia

A bit of good news: Kunio Kato’s recent animated short, “Le Maison en Petits Cubes,” will be shown in theaters across the USA this month — amazingly, even in Wichita, albeit at the library. Kato is the artist who created The Diary of Tortov Roddle, which has my highest recommendation.

Update: It’s on iTunes.

Update II: “Le Maison en Petits Cubes” won the Oscar for best animated short film,

Update III: Here’s a short interview with Kato, with a brief excerpt from “La Maison.”

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And now for something completely different: “Peach Pie on the Beach,” with cheerleaders.

Early start

daffodils020909

These are some of the daffodils near my front steps as they were on this early February afternoon today. If winter doesn’t abruptly return, they could very well bloom within a week.

Medieval head-bangers

If the regional Renaissance Faires would bring in bands like Corvus Corax, I might start attending them again. CC’s “best of” album arrived today, and I’ve been listening to it continuously since I got home.

Grrr

I spent most of the weekend installing and tweaking a new theme. It looks fine in my main browser, but I just discovered that in Safari, there are suddenly ads on my site when you click on links to particular stories. Expect more changes.

Update: Fixed.

Grrr

I spent most of the weekend installing and tweaking a new theme. It looks fine in my main browser, but I just discovered that in Safari, there are suddenly ads on my site.

Let's get recursive

I’ll see if I can root out the offending code this evening, but the chances are that I’m going to be looking for a different theme. Don’t worry; Pyun and Potaru will remain.

Update: It turned out to be an easy fix. I just needed to delete a few lines in three of the .php files.

Quote of the week II

I can’t help comparing [Whisper of the Heart] to Revolutionary Road … not because they are similar but because they are opposites. Revolutionary Road explores the dangers of not having a dream (while thinking that you do.) Whisper of the Heart is about what it really means to have a dream.

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I haven’t spent much time on anime recently, and I don’t know when I will. My current obsession is a collection of fiddle tunes. (([Link deleted because of reported virus.] If you’re in the Kansas/Oklahoma area in September, go to the Walnut Valley Festival and drop by Carp Camp. And if you are building a website, don’t use frames.)) It should keep me busy for quite a while. I’ll be back eventually — maybe — but don’t hold your breath.