Yesterday I finished Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's and Blue Drop. Now I'm not sure what I'll watch in their place.
Blue Drop is a big angsty in spots but I can't recommend it enough. It skimps on a few details here and there, choosing to concentrate on the characters and their situations rather than spend a lot of time on exposition for the backstory--but if it's an imbalance, it's a minor one, and a reasonably intelligent viewer should be able to "fill in the blanks" without much mental effort.
The ending made sense, anyway.
Bamboo Blade continues to be fun, too.
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I'm a bit low on wisecracks today, sadly.
Cops caught speeding in police cars in non-emergency situations refuse to pay fines. At least their boss is considering disciplinary measures.
Vox Day opines on the relative threats which religion and "womyn's studies" pose to science in the United States.
Climate dissent. We'll see how things go. At least Al Gore's "eco-police" didn't show up and arrest anyone. Yet.
("Al Gore doesn't have 'eco-police'," you say? You know, I think it's only a matter of time....)
Boortz today on Hillary's hints that she'll sign Obama as VP. I agree with him; it won't happen if Hillary gets the nod. I think his analysis of the situation is spot-on.
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Much of the cast of Bamboo Blade:
Left to right: Yuuji, Kirino, Saya-chan, Miya-Miya, Dan-kun (short guy), Satori.
Saya-chan's my favorite. She and Kirino are the best, particularly when they're together, because of how the characters interact.
Miya-Miya and Dan-kun are going out. She's ga-ga in love with him, for reasons which are meant to be mystifying. (It's not difficult to see why he's in love with her, though.)
Saya-chan is sometimes referred to as "that random girl". She sends Kirino a text message saying, "I'm going to die!" which Kirino shrugs off. When Kirino later tells their kendo teacher, Koujiro, about the message, he shrugs it off, too--they're used to Saya's antics.
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You know, I had "TSA-approved" locks on my luggage for my trip to the Philippines, and yesterday I discovered that one of the key locks had been damaged to the point of no longer locking. You can just pull it open.
This is in addition to the combination lock (with TSA keyhole) which was ripped off my big suitcase, by the way.
What's the point of having locks which the TSA can open easily if they don't fricking bother using the fricking keys?
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I hadn't realized that James Randi was also in the business of debunking audiophile hokum (Monster Cables, cable "burn-in" devices, etc). I guess it's an incremental cost for someone who's already known for being skeptical of psionics, homeopathy, miracle cures, etc, etc.
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Yesterday afternoon I had a chance to fiddle around with a Nintendo DS, and I'm sorry to say that I might end up buying one. *sigh* I don't know WTF I would do with one except play a few games on it (Tetris, and...?).
This would put a damper on my plan to replace the DVD recorder with a newer unit (which would also be capable of receiving HDTV signals...) of course. Well, it would delay that plan. Which might not be such a bad idea in itself, considering that I expect HDTV-capable hardware to drop in price over the next 12 months.
Good old analog NTSC TV goes away next year. Sales of HDTV hardware will increase as people discover they can't just set the VCR/DVD-R to record anymore; and rather than deal with an external box they'll go out and buy stuff.
But it's not just recorders; TVs are going to drop, too, because people are going to decide that if they have to buy a special box to watch TV, they might as well just buy a new TV--it'll be fancier and nicer than the old glass bulb, anyway, and maybe even give 'em back some space in the living room.
Increased demand will lead to increased supply as retailers and manufacturers swoop in to take advantage of the booming market. But that in turn will lead to some overcapacity, which should tend to force prices downward as the supply begins to exceed demand.
It won't be a serious drop in price--you won't be buying a 73" plasma screen for $950--but they'll be lower than they are now.
LG markets a rather nice 50" LCD and Best Buy sells it for around $1500, which isn't bad.
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Scary stuff: I've had this computer for a year. And I've had the monitor for 362 days as of today....