Spring is finally just right around the corner and so is another year of car shows and autocross. The first major car show here in the Treasure Valley is the Boise Roadster Show starting March 12 and going until the 15th. This year Scott's dad is entering his 65 Mustang so Scott and I can get passes for the entire event for $12 instead of $9 per day so it'll be nice to break the current dead spell of automotive posts by going to this years show. I've been to the show before twice and this is what I have to say about it. It's a resounding big fat MEH. I didn't even go to the last two events because my dad was right when he told me that once you go you don't really need to go again because it'll be the same stuff every year. It also doesn't help at all that I'm not all that interested in that type of vehicle class. I don't care about some guys $100,000.00 trailer queen. So I end up seeing maybe one or two cars that really interest me there and the rest I couldn't care about.

So why am I going this year. Other than to break the automotive dry spell there's the need to test out the new lens. I still haven't done anything with the new 50mm prime lens that I picked up recently so I figure it'll be a good time to break it in so to speak and there might be a bikini contest (the show is called a "great family event" so I don't know if they got rid of that or not. Anyways I figured it would be a fun thing to shoot with the camcorder to post on YouTube to not only post something new (haven't posted anything since a LONG time) and hey it's girls in bikini's and that equals LOTS of hits (so long as they're cute) that will maybe translate into more people visiting here as well. At least I can hope right.

In any case I dug up some of my older pictures that I took at the earlier Roadster shows so that you could see what kind of cars I'm talking about. If they interest you great but for me I just took some pictures for my dad and long since forgot about them until now. This year will be a bit more interesting since Scott's dad is in it (I'll vote for him) and oh my yeah they are even going to have the original Batmobile (from the TV Batman show) there as well...I can't contain my excitement on that bit of news let me tell ya. Mostly I'll just be interested in the bikini contest for my own personal gain and your enjoyment as well.

Better news than the Roadster show though is that autocross will be back on March 28 so I best have my project Umbrella finished by then as well. All I need is a stupid photography light stand but I can only find them in pairs or short ones.

Short on anything really interesting to post my self today I was looking for something to post about and remembered coming across a bit of news that I thought was rather interesting. It was announced recently that a sequel to the oppai ladden yuri-esk anime series Koihime Musou is due out sometime (I'm thinking Winter season) this year. So not only are we getting what is said to be a very fanservice heavy OVA outing with Kanu and her rather well endowed friends but we are also getting another season of guilty pleasure goodness as well. Of course I'm still hoping (are you listening FUNimation? It couldn't be any worse than some of the other titles you've licensed) that someone would license the first season but so far nothing.

From what I read at Sankaku Complex it looks like the sequel will add even more characters from the games and will expand more on the franchise. While Koihime Musou doesn't offer much in the serious plot area it was a fun turn off the brain and just enjoy the eyecandy anime and I for one will be awaiting the OVA (April 1st I believe) and now the second season as well.

Coming to a theater near you some time in the near future a bunch of Hollywood Failbusters based on popular anime properties...maybe. This week is the release of the new Hollywood Blockbuster Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li based on the game/anime franchise Street Fighter a popular guy beats up other guy sort of thing (you can tell I missed the boat on that franchise) and to be honest I'm not holding my breath to how great it will be. I'll hope that I get to see the lovely Kristin Kreuk in a skimpy sexy chinadoll dress but I'm thinking that isn't going to happen. Later this month will be the release of the total failure of an anime movie Dragonball (with a sequel already in the works!) so one wonders sometimes what the hell is Hollywood thinking when they make these anime inspired movies. I sure do especially after I heard that good ol' Spike in the Cowboy Bebop movie will be played by none other than Mr. Matrix himself Keanu Reeves. What the piss indeed.

Well we know that there is a good chance that those three anime movies are going to have a hard time winning over fans who enjoyed the original anime series or will these movies fail not only with the old fans but with the new fans as well. Anyways I got to thinking the other day and started looking to see just how the other rumored Hollywood anime remakes were doing and to see how they were going and as it turns out there is quit a few anime shows in the pipeline to be remade by Hollywood (seriously did they just wake up one day and decide to raid the entire Asian movie/tv cookie jar and call it a day on thinking up their own ideas?) into god only knows what.

One I'm particularly interested in is the live action Afro Samurai movie if the bad ass motherfucker himself takes care of it it just might kick ass and take names so there's actually high hopes for this one.

While I'd rather see the animated version of the Macross Frontier movie on the big screen here there is a rumor that Spiderman himself wants to make a "Robotech" movie and with the awesome CGI effects in transformers they might be able to pull it off but will they stick with the Space Opera theme or just go for the action?

It looks like Leo the cowardly lion of Hollywood and his studio have not only picked up Akira (which is actually going to span 2 movies) but Ninja Scrolls as well. I don't know about these two so we might get something good out of this or they might just suck big time. It even looks like we might just get to see the first Akira movie during 2009 even.

A few far off titles that I've heard about are a Dreamworks version of Ghost in the Shell and a Joss Whedon helmed Sailor Moon (I kid you not it was news to me too) movie and the much delayed Battle Angel Alita movie. Of those three I'm really hoping that the GitS movie is great because I really like that franchise but I fear they just won't find a good enough actress to portray the Major like I see her. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way either. But really the surprise was the Sailor Moon movie that one came straight out of left field for me but what are you going to do about it right.

Those are pretty much the ones that I'm currently aware of and as they are released I'll update on them however I'm not holding my breath on any of them being as good as if not better than their animated counterparts.

Whoohoo! Tons of anime property licenses have been announced from FUNimation lately and here is a quick run down of some of them that I've heard about that I'm looking forward to and some other random junk to toss in there.

First of all HELL YA! for FUNimation picking up Mnemosyne, that's on the must get list for sure. I really enjoyed that anime and was hoping someone would license it, now I just hope they hurry the hell up and release it soon (they say sometime this summer).

They have also announced El Cazador De La Bruja which was pretty good and I'll be looking for that to rent for sure on Netflix along with Blassreiter because even though I saw it legitimately on YouTube I want to see if the quality improves on DVD but it's so not worth purchasing when there are better things like Bamboo Blade to buy. Been enjoying reading the manga series of Bamboo Blade as well in Yen Plus. There is also a rumored second season (or at least everyone wants a second season) in the works. Another of the first legit YouTube anime series is also licensed as well with FUNimation licenses BOTH seasons of Tower of Druaga. I'm a little iffy if I want to buy it or just rent it though. Definitely worth checking out on DVD though.

Of course what would all these license announcements be with out some large fanservice moments and in this case it's provided by none other than that grand oppai show BOOBonaut er I mean Dragonaut. That's right I'll finally be able to watch that DVD special 26th episode that never got subbed finally. That'll be a netflix rental as well. Now we just need to pester the ever living crap out of netflix to get these releases when they come out since they seem to be a bit slow on acquiring new anime series. If you click that link it'll take to straight to the suggestion page of netflix. Hell they don't even have Baccano! yet and that's a freaking great show. That's all the shows that I'm aware of at the moment that have caught my attention, there's probably more and if you want to keep updated I'd suggest reading FUNimation's Blog.

As for when any of these will actually see store fronts and rental outlets well. I haven't seen any news on any release dates for any of these yet and good luck purchasing any of them at a Best Buy store near you since Best Buy is playing shrink a dink with their Anime title selections reducing if not nearly eliminating anime stock from their brick and motor stores relying more on online sales of DVDs which honestly isn't that great of an idea since there are much better deals on anime DVDs else where online like deepdiscount when they have their mondo huge sales.

Ouch! Not only does work suck the mondo huge one at the moment with even MORE work to do (to the point where honestly I get to work and I really feel like turning back around and just going home) but this week I had a lovely tooth infection thanks to biting down on something the other day that really didn't like my tooth. So yeah in pain and pissed off does not a good week make. Doesn't help that my roommate couldn't get either one of the RX-8s going this week one due to a dead battery (and now thanks to the anti-theft system we can't get it started at the moment either with a new battery) and the other one had a series flooding problem which required it to be towed to the shop for some much needed TLC. The green one is fixed but since the black one was still down we didn't go out to Firebird for pictures and because of the tooth infection I wasn't in any mood to go anyways. Also didn't go to the anime group either because all I wanted to do is sleep and nurse my poor tooth.

Yes I know balling like a baby isn't going to solve any thing and neither is whining about how pissy work is which is why I was looking for a job at work the other day instead of folding laundry (actually I finished the laundry anyways but still) so that's one of my goals for the week is to find or at least apply to some jobs and hopefully get out of this nightmare of a job. The other goal is to take pictures of all the cool stuff that I got with my tax refund since FINALLY everything arrived this week.

I guess the one bright point to the week (other than receiving the last package) is finally getting to see one of the new Nissan 370Zs in person and I have to admit that other than one horrible angle the car actually looks really awesome in person until you stand next to either the driver's/passenger's door and look down at the headlamps and seem them sticking up with a nice little 2 inch bump. Doesn't kill the car completely but is a definite ugh part of the car. And hey I fit in it better than the RX8 which kind of surprised me. Oh yeah and at least I didn't sit on the key when I got in car...kekeke.

Also enjoy more Moko.cc girls for this week. Due to the stupid work & Laundry issues blogging may change a little bit for the next little while.

Finally finished Xam'd: Lost Memories the other day after a pretty long break in watching it due to Sony pulling it off the PSN so that the Japanese Audience could play catchup. Once that happened I stopped watching it religiously when it became available. Hey I'd watch it on the PSN if I had a freaking Playstation 3 but I don't at the moment. Actually that's one of the cooler things that I think PSN has going for it compared to XBOX Live. Hopefully it'll turn a profit for Sony and they'll decide to offer more original anime (or other stuff) content and Microsoft will get the idea and start offering newer anime series (I mean really how many times can FUNimation whore out Kiddy Grade) than they currently do. Netflix is really nice on the XBOX though but their anime content is even more lacking in the newness. But I'm falling way off topic now.

I've read that a few people have tried to liken Xam'd to Eureka 7 in terms of the love story and how things pan out during the plot going from one plot to another to finally a third plot at the end. And definitely the way I watched it it really does seem to have three distinct Acts that play out during the 26 episode run. But really the only thing that really feels at all like Eureka 7 is the anime style and the characters I guess now that I think a bit more about it. It looks surprisingly a lot like Eureka 7 but only in terms of the people. The technology is entirely different Eureka 7 was shiny with straight lines and more machine like compared to Xam'd which was rounded and soft and much more organic like. The characters were so similar though.

So the anime happens in three acts the first the postal ship act is when our young hero finds him self being cast out into the wild world after being exposed to a mysterious crystal that turns humans into organic shape changing weapons. This is the hardship act where the hero must learn to deal with what fate has given him. This was an easy going act where we learn a lot about many of the characters. The second act is the self discovery act where our hero must take off from the postal ship and find his way through life to find out what he's really on the planet to do. It's also when the other characters are having to do the same thing unlike Eureka 7 Xam'd has three main characters Akiyuki the hero, Haru his long time friend and Nakiami who is the young woman with the troubled past and the most important future ahead of her who's responsible for teaching Akiyuki in the first act his abilities and reasons for going on. Akiyuki in the second act is separated from Nakiami and finds himself lost because he can't remember his name and ends up with a mask on for most of the second act while he is out and about rediscovering who he is with the help of a mysterious black blob. Haru ends up joining the military so that she can find Akiyuki but ends up having to face her other school friend as he spirals out of control then ends up being a prisoner of the military until she is allowed to escape in order to search for Akiyuki again. Nakiami in the mean time ends up acquiring another lost soul to save on her journey back to her homeland to find out what she must do in order to save the world.

The third and last act is the war act the coming to together of all the characters into one large battlefield as they each search out their final moments in the story For Akiyuki and Haru who was able to find Akiyuki it's the final battle with the Slumbering giant who is out to eat as many souls as he can turning the world into darkness and all that jazz. Haru is there to save her sister and stand by Akiyuki's side. Nakiami's purpose is to save all the lost souls who have gathered in a large dome to be killed and eaten by the Slumbering Giant. She ends up sacrificing herself and going into a 1000 year slumber herself but when she awakens it won't be a world of chaos (hopefully) because she has ended the cycle of chaos by sacrificing herself instead of all the others waiting to be killed. In the end all the cycles of life that we have been entwined in during the anime are easily come to their natural conclusion and end leaving pretty much nothing to wonder what happened with... There is still grief and growth 9 years after the end battle and I think that goes a long way to show just how much each of the characters have affected each other. Probably one of the better prologues of any anime that I've seen actually since they dedicate a good 30 minutes to it. Honestly I was tearing up a bit during that last episode and I can see why there was such outrage on 4chan for the week after it was subbed.

Of course that also makes this one of the better 2008/2009 animes so far it just sucks that it took so long to finish if it had finished in 2008 it would have been easily one the best of 2008 and I'll have to keep this one in mind for the best of 2009. You owe it to yourself to find this and watch it either on the PSN (for chump change if you don't go all HD on it but I'd suggest that you do) or by other means because I haven't heard any words of this being available on DVD but since Funimation did get the license for the Tower of Duaga there is still hope. We just have to wait for FUNimation's slow ass. Also this is a great starter anime to get others interested in anime as well.

Here is the final (maybe!) swan song of the Futurama franchise. Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder is the last of the Four direct to DVD Futurama movies. I just finished watching it and to be honest it definitely wasn't the best, if anything it goes straight to the back of the list of the four movies. At least in my opinion it does. There are some good chuckles here and there along with the hidden Easter Eggs and not to spoil the end things do get resolved for once.

What didn't impress me was the boring (compared to the others) intro and lack of really good laughs though out. There was a lot of recycled jokes and sometimes the continuity just didn't seem to work out. I think some of that may be because they will be chopping the movie up into four 30 minute episodes later to be aired on Comedy Central like all the other movies so they tried to get things into each 30 minute section so it might work out better that way who knows.

Knowing futurama I though going into the show that the Green Yonder it was going to have something to do with Solent Green but nope the Green Yonder is actually kind of two separate things really. The green part has to do with the main plot device of the movie called the Green Age. Sort of like a big bang theory really and during the Green Age we have two sides of an evolution the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys save the DNA from all endangered species and the bad guys want to destroy the last remaining good guy. The Yonder part is pretty much the very end of the show as our band of plucky heroes...and Bender find themselves traveling to the unknown by way of a large worm whole. A fitting end for the show really.

So how is the the bad guy going to destroy the good guy well he is going to have Amy's dad make an 18 hole mini(epiclyfreakinghuge)golf course out of an arm of the Milkyway system and to do that Amy's dad is going to destroy the arm and inside that arm section is the last remaining good guy (in the form of an egg) and of course it's up to Fry and his currently mind reading brain (or lack there of) to prevent that from happening. Along the way Lela, Amy, LeBarbra and a band of eco-feminists are also trying to prevent Amy's dad from destroying the arm.

Of course Fry and the gang save the day..world...freaking hell the whole universe really and stupid Zapp still wants to arrest them afterwards. Oh yeah Zapp's in this one as well along with a motley assemblage of the Futurama extended family. Which leads us to the end and I'm not about to ruin it because that would be just to easy...Fry and Lela kiss and tell each other "I love you"...FINALLY! Oh oops.

The DVD will be out soon (Feb 24th) and like last time I really hope there is some great stuff on the disk either case I'll be renting it when I can from Netflix just like every other one and more than likely watching it again (I want to see if it makes more since in the episode form) when it hits Comedy Central.

The latest Netflix anime that I just recently finished was Starship Operators. I would have been finished with it earlier had it not been for two broken vol 2 disks that I received in the mail. That's the one thing that can really suck about renting disks through Netflix are broken disks especially if you don't check them right when you get them.

Anyways on with the anime that I just finished. Starship Operators is a 13 episode series that centers around the battleship Amaterasu and it's cadet crew. The cadet crew sign off on becoming a reality TV show for the Galaxy Network in order to keep the ship and fight the gov't that has taken over their planet. The Galaxy Network purchased the ship and pays for the supplies in order to get live coverage of the space battles that the kids have to fight against the military organization that is after them for taking the Amaterasu. During the 13 episodes the cadet crew grows from fresh newbs into seasoned and professional space combatants who taken on the over competent soldiers of the military who think the battles will be easy because they are only fighting kids. There is a bit of political intrig along the way as the Political power in exhile aboard the ship tries to get other planets to stand beside them and fight. While the Amaterasu crew doesn't lose many of its crew members to the battles it do loose more than enough to show you the pain and suffering that happens during the battles.

Often times you're not really sure which side if any the Galaxy Network is on since they mostly just want to see the fireworks and carnage that happens during the space battles often adding sounds and visuals that aren't there in real life. So the show within a show is more about the battles than a real reality show being more like a fabricated news program. Like all good things there is a twist the Earth federation who the Amaterasu thought would be their salvation turns out to be a bigger thug than the original gov't that they were fighting against. Not only did the Earth Federation take out the gov't that was after them (coldheartedly I might add) they shut down the Reality TV program and started broadcasting false information while trying to take out the Amaterasu after dealing with the last remaining military battle ship that was fighting the Amaterasu. The crew of the Amaterasu were able to escape the embattled ship and still manage to take out several of the Earth Federation ships while also showing to the world just how big of a Thug the Earth Federation really was.

Not bad for a plucky bunch of wet behind the ear kids. Makes it one of the better space battle animes that I've watched that's for sure. Definitely a show I would suggest to those who are interested in space battle animes a bit more realistic on the what would actually happen during a space battle. That added greatly to the reason why I liked this show it had guts and glory a good hint of reality that you don't often find in some anime shows. Apparently next on the list is another Space anime Stillvia since I'm still waiting for the "LONG WAIT" and "SHORT WAIT" animes of Lucky Star and other newer shows that I've been wanting to watch as well.

After looking about for pictures and information about it one of the fun facts about the show that I sort of new some about is that the ships are all named after either real life battles or other historical military names.

Another month half over and another week gone. February sure is moving right along. Other than the fun of the Special Olympics there wasn't much else going on. Finally got two of the last three packages that I've been waiting for and the last one should be coming in a few more days. Actually kind of surprised by one of the items I ordered because I thought it was going to be a magazine with colored pictures sort of like Megami Magazine but it turned out to be a large manga collection like Yen Plus. Of course since it's all in Japanese I can't read it just look at the pictures but maybe it'll get me more interested in learning to read Japanese a bit more. It did come with a moe lil' figure though. Anyways that's what I get for buying something just because of the cover (which was of course a nice Yoko from Gurren Lagann shot).

I also pre-order the new Figma figure of Makina from Shikabane Hime Aka for my birthday present since she'll be released in April. So far that has been the only MUST HAVE Figma figure that I've seen. The girls from Ikkitousen are nice but I'm not OMG I have to have them and the same goes for the girls and guys from Lucky Star and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. But when I find a good deal on her I'll probably get the Bunny Version of Haruhi in the Revoltech Fraulein series. If there were Bunny Versions of the MoHS Figmas I'd probably might get them then.

In other news, you can just call me Laundry Bitch because that's how work has been this last week. Everyone is supposed to help do laundry however every one decided to just leave it for me to do. A laborious two to three hour job that really does suck and not just because it takes away from my anime watching time either. Thankfully there wasn't any today and I had to go into work early so I managed to watch a bit of anime today. Actually finished Xam'd: Lost Memories so that was nice. That's really about it. For the hottie of the day I think I might just have to post up some lovely Moko Top Girls this week since a lot of them have started wearing things other than the white top and white granny panties lately. Looking very hot indeed.

Or for those of us who are single...happy single awareness day as well. In either case I hope you all have a nice enjoyable day with you're significant other or with friends. Just remember guys make this a very special day for your special lady so that she will return the favor on March 14th which I'm sure you all know is Steak and BJ day.

That's all I have, oh actually how about a lil' present a video of three lovely ladies celebrating a bit of Valentine day spirit. Thanks to Really Cute Asians.

While national news coverage may suck there has actually been something GOOD going on in the states this last week called the Special Olympics World Winter Games here in Boise, ID and other winter wonderland cities through out Idaho including McCall and Sunnvalley as hundreds of teams from around the world have gathered to take part. But thanks to the national news sucking some major balls (Obama's in particular) there hasn't been much coverage of it at all aside from our local news and the world press. Even the Vice President visited the games (for all of 3 hours) and that still didn't garner much news attention at all. So to say that the news FAILS is an understatement but that's only a small part of what is going on here.

The big part of what is going on here is the awesome and fun time these teams are having and the interesting learning experience that a good majority of local people are getting from having the Special Olympics here this year. I know it's been interesting for myself having the teams for Trinidad & Tobago and Yemen staying at the hotel I work at. The first day of course was a huge cluster fuck as people didn't know what was going on what to do and what to tell people. It didn't help that the Manager had turned off and locked the juice machine the night before and took the key home leaving the teams with out any juice for the first morning. When the bus driver showed up to pick up some folks to take them to an important meeting no one was ready or new that they had to leave at that time. Then they couldn't even find one person because it turned out they were from a different team staying at an entirely different hotel some where else. Both teams came down at the same time for breakfast demolishing it in seconds and getting impatient because we couldn't get food out fast enough for everyone. In the middle of all that one woman started having an epileptic seizure thankfully it was taken care of before we had to call anyone. At that point I was able to leave though so I was able to escape the madness.

Thankfully for the most part after that day it's been pretty peaceful minus the one black out when we did need to call the paramedics to come take a look at the athlete and of course calling 911 is always fun when you're trying to answer their barrage of questions when you don't know any of what's going on with the athlete. Some of the more interesting things is that we have a couple cute ladies working and they have been getting hit on by the bus drivers (they also came from all over the states to help) and I'm sure the athletes as well as one of girls kept getting waved at and smiles from the athletes and I told her that I'd bet that she'd be under a pile of those Olympic pins by the end of the week but I don't know if she's gotten anymore of them since that one but last night they all wanted to take pictures with her and when she told me about it she warned me about it I told her that since I'm not a cute girl I didn't think I had anything to worry about. Sure enough never got bothered while folding those sheets. Oh yeah you can just refer to me as laundry bitch for now and I'll tell you more about that during the weekly review.

The Special Olympics end today and all of the teams head home on Saturday I haven't kept track of the actual sports that have been going on but then I'm not into a good majority of the sports at the Olympics and I sleep while they are going on so I haven't been to the actual games but it's been fun and interesting have the teams from Trinidad & Tobago as well as Yemen and I wish them the best of luck in their future adventures. Now someone just needs to go slap the collective news organization of the United States of America for ignoring something that is both interesting and wonderful happening here in the states. I couldn't find any good pictures of the Special Olympics so this picture of Asian hotties in ski gear will have to work OK.

Gundam 00 season 1 just ended it's run on the Scifi channel this last Monday. At this point I have to be honest and tell you that I'm not a fan of Gundam never did like the earlier series and I really couldn't careless about most of the Gundam universe crap. If it wasn't for the massive amounts of fanservice that Gundam gets I probably wouldn't give it any notice at all. However, when it first started airing in Japan many moons ago an anime girl in a chinadoll dress started getting huge amounts of fanservice (an example of which is posted here) and as a big fan of the chinadoll dresses I thought to my self that when it comes to America I'd have to give it a shot and check it out at least for the chinadoll dress anyways. Thankfully Gundam 00 found a home on Scifi and I started watching it hoping for some great chinadoll action. Now imagine my surprise and disappointment when I found out that that much fanservice was devoted to a dress that was in one episode for a small bit of time.

So with the chinadoll dress bit out of the way I just watched the rest of the show and was woefully underwhelmed. While not nearly as bad as the first Gundam show I watched I still just couldn't care for the characters and found myself being more annoyed at some of them than liking them. Not to mention the horrid plot as well. About the only interesting thing about it and the only reason I could see for watching it is the battles between the various Gundams and other mechs. It was better muted as well so you didn't have to listen to the prattling on of some raving mad lunatic or another. But here's the huge kicker it was still better than any of the other crap that polluted cable during that time. Gundam 00 or CSI Miami hard decision isn't it. I did miss a lot of it because once again it wasn't anything that couldn't be missed for something else...like castle crashers or dish washing.

The good the bad and the ugly about it is that hey if you like Gundam I'm sure you'll love this if you don't care about Gundam like myself then you definitely wont miss anything by not watching it EVER. A good thing about the show I guess is that you don't have to pay to see it to see if you like it and you don't even have to feel like a bad bad downloader because not only was it on SciFi but now it is being streamed for free on Youtube for your enjoyment.

The ugly part about all of this is that with the end of this series Scifi is going back to airing older Anime movies (that we've all seen a million times) and will re-start airing Gurren Lagann (not such a bad thing really) in March so for the next two months at least Scifi doesn't have any new anime during their anime block. Of course that also means that they may rebroadcast Gundam 00 as well. I'll probably check it out again to see episodes I missed because I'm sure there still wont be anything else on at that time that is even remotely more interesting.

Been meaning to talk about My Anime List for a while but just haven't gotten around to it until now I guess. So what is My Anime List will that's quit simple actually it's a social network site for those who watch anime and read manga that helps you keep track of your watching and reading habits so for me it's a great tool to keep up to date on things that I've seen and need to see. You can find my profile here for your amusement. I don't do much there at MAL besides keep track of the shows that I'm watching but MAL has a lot to offer those looking to take full advantage of all that MAL has to offer including the forum and the ability to join clubs and add friends. It even offers news about the anime industry and other otaku'ish things like upcoming cons and what have you.

The interesting thing is that this isn't the first of it's kind. There was one before this that was supported and created by one of the anime companies here in the states and for the life of me I can't think of the name but it didn't last much more than a year at best as they shut it down and posted a don't mind us while we work on improving the site. That never happened of course but now we have something that is independent of the anime business (I believe it is anyways) that is ten times better and a lot more interesting. I say check it out and join and then discover just how much of your life has been devoted to watching anime as you look at the statistics that they list for your over all anime watching. You can also tie it into your blog with RSS feeds of what you're watching and other things as well.

Now I just need to find a nice suitable anime cutie to post with this blog....hmmm how about a dark haired Sheryl Nome from Macross Frontier.

Every one in the otaku'ish blog sphere knows about Dannychoo.com's mascot Mirai and her lil' sister by now and a good number of other bloggers have started adding their own mascots to their blogs as well it seems. Well the other day I happened to be thinking about those mascots and how it would be nice to have my own mascot for this blog as well.

The main problem with that idea though is the simple fact that I can't draw worth a damn and even attempting something like that would turn into a colossal failure of epic proportions. To solve that problem of course I'd just farm it out to someone who is doing commissioned work that I like.

So what ideas do I have for my mascot? First we would start with a nicely endowed long legged asian hottie with mid back length jet black hair. Then we would add denim overalls that only went to about mid thigh skip the shirt and maybe have her wearing thigh high fishnet stockings with stiletto heels. Top it off with a straw hat and an assault rifle or other fun interesting weapon. Oh and maybe a cute pair of glasses as well. I was looking around on danbooru to see if I could find something like what I was talking about first of all but I couldn't find that was just right but the picture I included kind of has a good start to it just take off the shirt add some black hair and the other stuff and you have a very rough idea of what I'm thinking about for a mascot.

So I'll probably be on the look out for someone to work with on that idea who knows I might or might not even do it, it's just a random thought of the the day really It'd be nice I'm sure but something that just isn't a "have to get" at the moment.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programing... The week is back on track and on the right work schedule so now it's time for the weekly review. What a week. Nothing of interest happened for the most part during the week other than the change in my schedule and a few more items that I ordered showing up. Sadly the battery that I ordered for the camcorder is toast and will need to send that back. Didn't do anything during my days off except play a little Castle Crashers which is a fun lil' XBOX360 game and I also tried out Fear 2 because we don't have gold membership at the moment and can't download the demo for the new Halo Wars game dang it. To be honest though Fear 2 did creep me out just a bit during the school ghost level. Which means A+ in my book for the game.

While it's not getting nearly the press that it should all things considered the Special Olympics Winter World Games started this Saturday and at work we are hosting the teams from Trinidad and Tobago along with Yemen. Because I work at night I don't know a lot of what is going on but I got a nice crash course in it on Sunday morning with the largest cluster fuck ever but I'm going to save all that for it's own blog post.

I'm just going to keep going on the random hottie of the week for now and I'm still awaiting three more packages before I post up my mighty tax refund haul. One thing that has sucked about this week though is that I've had to come into work at midnight so that I don't get any overtime which with the messed up days off and everything really has me out of sorts but thankfully everything goes back to normal tomorrow (well minus the S.O. as they are here until the end of the week) but anyways I was so out of sorts that I actually drove into two closed places thinking they would be open to get something to eat and normally they would be but nope not tonight. I'm also missing out on a bit of anime viewing as I've been coming in later than usual and I have an extra hour or two of folding laundry to do as well which mean I'm getting even further behind on my shows. Speaking of anime shows I'm now awaiting my third DVD of VOL2 for Starship Operators as the last two DVD's were cracked and unplayable if I was a betting man I'd take the odds on either getting the first cracked disk again or having to wait several more days for a copy from another place. There's also just the good odds that I'd get another cracked disk as well. So VOL3 sits on the counter waiting to be played.

Well that's really it for this week and with Special Olympics taking up the majority of the next week it will be very interesting to see how that all plays out.

Time to review the latest movie release in the Kara no Kyoukai series. At just a little under 2 hours long it's the longest (that I can think of) of the movies so far and there is good reason. A lot happens during this movie and a lot of it is mind fuck goodness. The fifth movie in the series is entitled Paradox Spiral and the more you get into the movie the more it makes since as every bit of the movie has something to do with a spiral including the time shifting during the movie which at first seems random but by the end makes entirely to much sense.

If you didn't like the movie Pulp Fiction for it's jumping around the story line than you will absolutely hate Paradox Spiral. Actually if that's the case then you probably hate the entire series as it is. Anyways! The main plot of the movie is that the man introduced at the end of the fourth movie (also a little bit in the second one as well) Souren Araya a mage who knew Touko is out to pretty much end the world by finding the Spiral of Life (origin) in order to do so he builds a large Apartment complex that is used to capture people's tormented deaths and replay them over and over again so that Araya can find the origin. He realizes that he also needs Shiki's power of seeing death lines and that she is the ying or yang to the puzzle of the origin.

Which brings us to Tomoe a resident of the spiral apartment who believes he killed his parents and escapes from the apartment and during a fight with old high school bullies ends up meeting Shiki after she beats the crap out of the bullies because she wants to give the key back to Tomoe that he dropped. Shiki ends up letting Tomoe stay with her and later even takes him back to his apartment to find out what the gimmick is. There is a lot of stuff going on before Shiki and Tomoe visit the apartment but it's at that point where things really take off and the action starts to escalate. After visiting the apartment Shiki is actually captured by Araya after a crazy fight with the other dead residents of the apartment (probably one of the better fights of the series even) Araya lets Enjou escape and he goes back to Shiki's place

During all this Mikiya and Touko and themselves investigating the Apartment complex and the lives of those living there. Mikiya visites Shiki's place and encounters Tomoe and after a nice little visit they leave to save Shiki from the Apartment. Also heading to the Apartment is Touko to confront Araya and his accomplice the man in red (Alba). Mikiya and Tomoe split up Mikiya goes to the lobby to distract Alba and what not and Tomoe breaks in by way of the sewer system and finds himself in the basement. A basement full of brains where Tomoe finds his own brain and even though he already knew he was a fake it just cemented the fact. He has a nice little discussion with Araya ends up yelling that he has a mind of his own and jumps on the elevator to confront Araya. This leads to Tomoe's quick death as his puppet master turns Tomoe to ash after he tries to attack Araya. Mikiya wasn't having much a better day was he ends up fighting with Alba and has his head repeated bashed into the wall. Thankfully Touko shows up to save him and kill Alba

But first the major WTF! moment of the movie. Before Mikya and Tomoe find themselves at the apartment Touko arrives to battle Alba and Araya. The only weapon she brings is a suitcase. Thankfully that suitcase contains a spirit beast cat thing that makes quick work of Alba and does defeat Araya only problem is that Araya was a puppet and OMFG WTF!!!! the real Araya punches Touko from the back through her chest ripping out her heart. And smashes it in front of her before ripping her head off and destroying her body. Araya gives Alba Touko's head in a jar and lets him do what he wants with it knowing the Alba's fate has been dealt to him with giving him the head. Now Alba has Touko's head and Mikya enters the lobby which takes us back to Mikya getting his head smashed up pretty good and the second Touko pissed off from being called a dirty red (and for being killed) and we find out that it was a clone. She also has a second suitcase this time with a different monster in a suitcase that devours Alba.

It's pretty much by this time that everything has fallen into place and you have a pretty good idea of the huge scope that this movie was going for. It's also at this point that Shiki has woken up and is fighting her way out of the trap that Araya put her in. Shiki pretty much cuts Araya down to size with a katana that Tomoe brought with him to give to Shiki when he saved her. In order to escape Shiki Araya throws himself out of the apartment complex so that he can crush it down on top of Shiki in an attempt to kill her. Of course that doesn't work and she follows him right out of the apartment complex as well killing him when he lands on the ground and because he hadn't made another clone of himself he finally dies and the gang is all back and heading off to their next adventure.

This is by far one of the better movies of the series and will leave you wanting to watch it several more times because you realize what you've missed the first time and want to see it again so that it can make much more sense the second and third go round. Can't wait for the next movie. Oh and honestly if you want a much more in depth look at the movie you can read this blog entry about the movie as well.

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Sitting here pretty perplexed at the moment as I really feel like doing my weekly review since I've just come back from my two days off and with my normal routine that would mean it's Sunday (which it's not) and the end of the week. Thanks to lovely work scheduling issues I had to take Wednesday and Thursday off instead which leaves me feeling a bit out of sorts. Since I don't feel like posting my review of the 5th Garden of Sinners movie right now I guess I'm just going to have to something random instead.

So what's random well I've actually finally had a problem with buying something on eBay. The battery I ordered for my camcorder arrived DOA and doesn't work now I get to find out how to get it replaced. Not so easy when the place I bought it from was in Hong Kong. Other than that I'm only awaiting three last orders to arrive so knock on wood they all arrive unscathed and in a timely manner. That's right actually the entire Tax Refund has been spent so as soon as everything shows up I'll have a post on all the refund swag I picked up. It'll be big. I both love and hate February.

It seems some of the Internet that I visit daily has found it self in a timewarp of sorts. Fakku got fried and the latest back up was two weeks ago sending everything back in time two weeks. Kinda really sucks actually as the motemote battle forum had to disappear (to keep those clannad fanboys from changing the results I'm sure) and a ton of C75 ecchi goodness links simply disappeared as well. Oh well what can you do. Otaku.fm has also been going through it's own timewarp issues as well only updating blog entries once a day during the hours of 1pm and 2pm. And that's super annoying really. So you wont see this post until sometime after 2pm tomorrow in all likely hood.

That's all I have for today really as I need to get back to work and feed a bunch of track and field kiddies (OK college students) breakfast and whatnot. Tomorrow I try to dissect the 5th Garden of Sinners video. It's awesome and epic and freaking long at just under 2 hrs so be prepared for a long post.

Congrats to Mizore for winning the 2009 MoteMote battle. A winner takes all Moe battle royal done by Fakku in order to find the cutest anime girl of the year and this year it goes to Shirayuki, Mizore of Rosario + Vampire fame. It was a major fight considering how much fandom fakku members have for the Clannad girls (well that's what I heard) who made it all the way up to the semi-finals with landslide wins but got creamed when they came up against the girls from R+V and Hayate no Gotoku. I'm happy about the win even though I voted for Moka-chan instead in the final battle.

Not to leave well enough alone Fakku started doing bonus battles with the girls that they wished where in the final battle and no surprise there it was the Clannad girls vs Horro who slaughtered the Clannad girls yet again much to my enjoyment. It seems like they will be doing a few more bonus battles (just started another one actually) during the week.

You have to be a registered forum member of Fakku to participate in their MoteMote battle and I'd highly suggest joining so that you can participate in next year's battle.

Should have done this a while go but hey better late than never right. This winter anime season seems to be a bit on the busy side for me as I've been so far behind on the shows that I've been wanting to see and some are taking forever to be subbed. Not to mention the number of shows from the previous fall season are still there as well. Since I have tomorrow and the next day off I think I'm going to have to do some catching up on things especially since I've had a busy day at work and haven't been able to watch anything during my usual two hour down time today either. Anyways here are the actual shows that I've been watching this winter season and a quick what I think about them.

Asu no Yoichi!: I've downloaded every episode so far but haven't been able to watch any yet due to the backlog of all the other episodes that I still have to get though but from the images I've seen from 2chan it looks to be pretty fanservice friendly.
Chrome Shelled Regios: From what I've seen of this show (2 episodes) it looks like it will be really interesting and yet again a bit fanservice friendly.
Kurokami: Ah yes the subbed and dubbed anime of the season actually I've only seen the subbed version so I don't know how the dub is going but this is one of those lets see if this works by releasing it all at once to the world and this time even throwing in a dub that's released days later. I like the show so far.
Minami-ke Okaeri: Yeah more of the girls but what the hell it's weird that the Opening and Ending sequences are in the middle of things. It goes story opening story ending story preview. And while the animation quality isn't the best I still enjoy the show because it's funny.
RideBack: ZOMG! ballet princess kicks ass at riding bi-pedal robotic transforming super bike of the future. So far pretty cool show animation reminds me a lot of Initial D though.
Shikabane Hime~Kuro: More awesome killer Corpse Princesses kicking ass and taking names. Lots more fanservice than previous season too.
Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo: Hey look even more fanservice and a robotic maid piloted by "Baked Potato" (if you watch the show you'll get it) actually pretty fun show to watch and the Quirky AI ship is awesome.
Tetsuwan Birdy Decode~02: Only been able to watch the first episode of this one so far and still it's more of cool Birdy and a bit more fanservic as well from the images that I've seen on 2chan.
Tower of Druaga - the Sword of Uruk: Again more awesome D&D type fun adventuring show and yet again a bit more fanservice than the previous season as well. Do I spot a trend of winter season shows doing a bit more fanservice to warm us all up during the cold season than normal?

Also still watching from previous season are Blade of the Immortal, Bleach, Candy Boy, Chaos Head, Kurogane no Linebarrels, Kurozuka, Michiko to Hatchin, Soul Eater, Toradora!, Xam'd: Lost Memories and finally Zettai Shougeki ~Platonic Heart~. That is a lot of anime some of that I have the complete season of I just need to finish it. It also kind of sucks because the Spring Season is just a month away so I really need to get on the ball and finish some of this stuff up before I start in on some new stuff.

It's already that time believe it or not to look at what is coming up during the 2009 spring anime season. There is usually a lot of good stuff that comes out during the spring season and this year is no exception. While your idea of what to watch might be entirely different than mine after looking though this V1 These are the shows that I'm most interested in watching this next season.

Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Another go at a good story but this time based off the manga should be good even if you've watched the original on a million times on [adult swim] like I have.
Queen's Blade: Supposed to come out last season but looks like it'll be this season instead in any case this is the purely guilty pleasure of the season with more fanservice than you can shake a "stick" at.
Phantom ~ Requiem for the Phantom: I don't know it just looked and sounded like it would be good so I'm going to give it a try.
Valkyria Chronicles: Pretty much everyone was talking about the game and the anime so it's a must watch one thankfully it looks good anyways.
Shangri-La: Two words Range Murata
Koihime†Musou OVA: Another postponed OVA from last season and another Guilty Pleasure
To-LOVE-Ru OVA: ditto on the Guilty pleasure but I really need to finish this anime first.
Dogs-Bullets & Carnage: Another one that just looks like it will be good. Read a little bit of the manga and I liked it so should like this as well.

There isn't any reason to list the movies that will be released during this season as it will be some time before they'll be released on DVD then by fansubbers but that also means movies from the prior seasons (say like the first Toppa Gurren Lagann movie) will be getting released along with a some other anime shows that I've seen listed in other people's Anime 2009 lists and I've provided some links to those sites so that you can check out all the other stuff that is being released as well. Now I'm just waiting for the V2/3/4 of the above image.

Links for everything else:
Hikikomori Den
AnimePH
Zomg Forums
Jimm Pantsu

Just like that January 2009 is gone and done with already, ushering in the short month of February and a crappy couple of paychecks. Anyways the last week of January was pretty good actually since I got both of my refunds from my taxes that I was able to go on a bit of shopping spree and not so patiently await my goodies to arrive. I'll have a goodies loot post coming up when I actually get everything in.

This week was also Superbowl week and since the Superbowl is way over I should congratulate the Pittsburgh Stealers on their 6th Superbowl win. It was a pretty boring game up until the last quarter when it finally got interesting with a couple bad plays and fouls. However I'm not much of a Football fan and I didn't care anything about either one of the teams so I mostly watched it for the Superbowl commercials the one time a year when companies break the bank to make some seriously awesome and epic commercials that people will be talking about at the cooler in the morning. Or that's how it's supposed to go but this year there was honestly more MEH! commercials than epic ones. Sure most of the movie trailers where EPIC but others dear GOD no. I'm very much looking forward to the Baroness in the G.I.Joe movie even though I don't think the movie will be that great the eye candy that is the Baroness looks to be yummy. If you want to see all the Superbowl Ads you can check them out on hulu or at NBC. Personally I'm a fan of the Audi and Hyundai ads and I really hated the Doritio ads this year they really sucked well not nearly as much as the McGruber one...ouch.

The rest of the week was pretty typical fair and I'll be doing a pretty random Hottie of the day this week and it doesn't look like I have any plans for next week yet so should have some time to trim my hair (it's getting to that length again) clean the house and cross your fingers take some pictures of all the goodies that I've gotten with my tax refund.