Tokyopop: A Farewell
It's been fourteen years since Tokyopop first came into existence. Paving the way for a manga revolution that was destined to storm the US. Sadly, Tokyopop will soon close its doors.
Hourou Musuko Review
Hourou Musuko revolves around a group of middle school kids and how they and those around them deal with situations like cross dressing and gender identity disorder. I admit I wasn't terribly drawn in by the premise of the show at first, but it was a part of the noitaminA time slot I gave it a chance. I'm certainly glad that I did as its easily one of my top three animes from the winter season.
Review of “Let England Shake”
PJ Harvey's "Let England Shake," is both a love letter to her home and an intervention. War is the theme here, violence and death predominate in the lyrics and the music veers between glittering menace and hypnotic dirges. What else is new?
"Let England Shake" is probably a better introduction to the artist than nearly anything released in 10 years. While very different in tone and sound from her early period, these songs nevertheless return to some of Polly's favorite motifs: catchy, circular guitar work, theatrical vocals and multi-layered instrumentation. 'All & Everything' shines in particular, surging and sagging like the tides of Gallipoli, bearing the shattered bodies of England's patriotic dead.
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? Review
This one is a bit outside of my general genre preference. I tend to overlook most moe/fanservice/harem type animes that filter through each season, but for some reason or another I found myself watching the first episode one day. The premise is Aikawa Ayumu is killed by a serial killer and then revived by the necromancer Eucliwood Hellscythe. Ayumu decides to become her protector so she starts living with him. Shortly thereafter two more girls move in to complete the harem. One of them is a vampire ninja and the other is a self proclaimed genius mahou shoujo.
“Future Imperfect” at the Boston Underground Film Festival
My brother's movie 'Robotic Panic' was accepted into the "Future Imperfect" short film collection showing today and tomorrow at the Kendall Theater as part of the Boston Underground Film Festival. That was reason enough for me to go see the collection but I also wanted to see what the future looks like in 2011.
In short: grainy, grimy and grim.
DIY Drones
From thermal imaging to prosthetic arms, from computers to Hum-Vees, military technology has regularly been adapted for civilian uses. This process has been going on since Roman times so it should be little surprise that the current crop of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have bequeathed their own technological advances. One could argue that drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are the signature weapon of the past decade. Now these automated spying and weapon platforms have been adopted by a growing community of hobbyists and there are indications that this technology could soon find commercial application.
PAX East Day 3
I was feeling pretty on top of things Sunday. The alarm went off and I staggered over, hammered the button and slept until 7:45. Woke up, got everything ready to leave, glanced at the clock, saw that it said 8:27. Feeling really good at this point. I'm trying to decide in my head if I want to sit down on the hard concrete of the queue line again or pretend to be waiting on carpet for the opening of the Wyvern Theater for some presentation I don't know if I really want to see. I pull into a nice parking spot about a block from the BCEC and realize two things.
I forgot about Day Light's savings and I'm a complete idiot.
PAX East Day 2
So I had to wait until Saturday to go to PAX, which sucked but I did get there early and left late so I feel like I got at least a taste of the convention's awesomeness.
The opening of the PAX East, standing in enormous roped off lines is how I imagine a colony world being evacuated in the far far future. When the word was given, in a gentle, loving stampede, the nerd herd advanced into the convention area. There was a great rumbling cheer that spread through out the crowd. There were far fewer steampunks here than Arisia; the dominant visual meme appeared to be these orange traffic cones from plants vs zombies.
I walked through the table top area first before taking a dip into the expo area. This was my first gaming industry con so I just did the whole gap mouth tourist thing blundering from one epic line to the next looking at the enormous pretty screens. There is just a stupid number of upcoming games, and eventually I realized I had entered the shell-shocked state of a walking coma and decided to find something else to do.
PAX East Day 1
So it's 2am and I'm really tired and must get geared up for tomorrow, but here are some picture highlights of Day 1 at PAX and I will provide more details at a later time. (Click for larger images)
Tagging Your iTunes Songs
By adding a list of tags to the songs in your music library, you can easily create playlists for every desired theme, mood or purpose. I use this technique, Comments Smart Playlists, when I set up background playlists for my RPG games. Tagging each song's comment field can also be used for a wide variety of uses such as presentations, movie soundtracks or simple amusement.