A Small Step into the HD World

An early Christmas gift from my father arrived yesterday in the form of a Samsung Blu-ray drive for my PC. Since it came with PowerDVD 9, I was able to try out some HD movies on the system for the first time. TRON: Legacy is an exceptional visual experience, so I fired it up in the drive.

What a fantastic looking film it is in HD! While my monitor only goes up to 1680 x 1050 and is exactly between 720p and 1080p, it looked great. Just one problem. No way to do screen captures from PowerDVD and DRM prevents my usual utilities from working correctly. All I get is a black rectangle where the picture is.

Well, being the industrious and stubborn sort I looked for a way around this. While I eventually found one that didn’t cost money (for the moment), it is not the best solution because it involves backing the movie up as an MKV file. Some detail is lost on TRON: Legacy to my eye, but it seemed to do fine with Gammera: Attack of the Legion.

Click on the following for HD sized (1280 pixels wide):

The Disney logo looks sharp here.

Not as satisfied here, but scaling issues may be at work. Oh for a a 1080p monitor!

The film looks grainy, but is miles better than I expected. HD is fun for examining the model buildings that are always destroyed in these films.

It is very silly that screen captures are not allowed. Do the studios really think we will sit and takes stills of every frame to recreate the movies?

I probably will upgrade the PowerDVD software but I am still looking for a better way to do screen captures. AnyDVD is what a lot of people use, but the price of 80 Euros is exorbitant! MakeMKV did an odd job with TRON and there are waves of block distortions going through every scene. Perhaps the DRM is the culprit.

So my first step into the HD world has been taken and I am liking it, despite the screen capturing issues.

Odds and Ends 11-28-2011

It is sale time across the USA and things are wrapping up with today being Cyber Monday. Sadly the one deal I was most looking forward to today was not as good as expected, so now joy for me. Especially since the back up deal I was eyeballing sold out by today. Instead I got a set of Ginsu knives at Newegg.

Wish I had the money to pony up for this refurbished Samsung 27” monitor. It is the single best deal I have found on Cyber Monday. Maybe somebody else will see it here and get themselves a nice deal.

I did score several Blu-ray deals from Amazon before Black Friday officially began, so I am not empty handed. 2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the 1990’s Gammera trilogy will be making their way here. It should be fun installing the Blu-ray drive when it arrives. While my monitor is only 1680 x 1050, it can handle the HDCP copy protection protocols and does better than 720p.

A friend of mine also gave me Fallout: New Vegas as a gift from a Steam sale, so that has been fun. Mad Max meets 50’s radioactive monster movies is how I would describe it. Taking out giant mutant ants is like being dropped into the movie Them, an old favorite of mine. You can even set them on fire like in the movie.

Watching the presidential primary for the GOP has been painful. Cain’s implosion isn’t as much from the false accusations but from the disastrous handling of nearly everything by his staff. He is badly damaged by this and it shows they are not remotely ready for taking on the well oiled Obama machine.

Meanwhile, delusional conservatives have convinced themselves that Newt Gingrich is a true conservative and electable. Both are false propositions and they need to deal with reality. I say that as a very conservative man. How they can rally around someone with the immense personal and political baggage that Newt has is beyond me.

“Anybody but Romney” is not sufficient to explain this madness. With Mitt you may not know what you are getting as far as worrying he’ll betray conservatives, but with Newt you are guaranteed that he will stab you in the back, front, sides, and then bite you on the ankles. Just because someone is good in debates does not mean you ignore his track record. We already have a raging narcissist in the White House and replacing him with another is not going to go well.

Yesterday was a lost day again. Being very ill I ended up sleeping through most of it. Having watched a bad movie for Turkey Day, I decided to start rewatching Stargate: Atlantis over from the beginning. Oddly enough it evoked a feeling of better times and that is somewhat discomfiting.

UPDATE on Herman Cain:

Put a fork in him, he is completely done. At this point it doesn’t matter whether or not he is guilty, there is only so much damage that can be taken. It is also a cautionary tale in regards to Gingrich. Once the media takes him seriously his multiple infidelities will get a lot of attention.

Gratitude

Being more grateful for things is something I am always working on and I find myself needing to more this Thanksgiving.  For some reason, ready reasons to be thankful are fleeing me at the moment.

One thing I need to do is stop comparing my life to that of others around me. It will come up short 99% of the time as far as achievements go, so letting go of that benchmark would help a great deal. But that is easier said than done, so it may be a few more years before that happens.

Perhaps I should write some things out and hope to actually feel them a little more tomorrow.

Some things to be grateful for, in random order:

• Food
• Shelter
• Heat
• Electricity
• Indoor plumbing
• The Atonement made by Jesus Christ
• Friends
• Family
• Music
• Art
• Sunlight
• Books
• The Internet
• Cats (depending on patience levels)
• B Movies (Perfect for sick days)
• Gunpowder
• Kind words (even if they embarrass)

Well, I got farther than I thought I would, given the headache I’ve had most of the day. It is a start, at least.

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving and remembers what the holiday commemorates. From articles in the papers, a lot of people are not feeling the spirit due to economic problems. The pilgrims would look at what most of us have and think us wealthy beyond belief. So please, find some things to give thanks for!

To the Future… AND BEYOND!!!

I have no idea why I typed that title, but there it is. Working on posts for the future is the topic, it beats me what the “beyond” is all about.

Zulu is up for my next movie review and is currently in the first draft stage. Being a beautiful film, I took far too many screen captures and culling them too too long. There will be two companion reviews of the soundtrack, one right away and another to come later. Any excuse to play John Barry composed music is a good excuse.

It looks like I will be getting an early Christmas present of a Blu-ray player for the PC, which means redoing the screen caps for TRON: Legacy and the making of lots of wallpaper for my desktop. With Zulu out in an affordable and apparently brilliant Blu-ray, I will have to get my hands on that sooner or later.

Captain America: The First Avenger will be reviewed in the near future in DVD and Blu-ray. That will be easier than usual, since I have the in-theater review to work off of.

I will be starting reviews of one my three favorite animes of all time, Area 88. Besides Studio Ghibli’s movies, this TV series helped convince me that the format can produce legitimately good material. It has a film noir feel about it without being visually noir, strangely enough. It certainly is grim material, being a story about mercenary pilots fighting and dying in the skies over a fictional Middle East country in the 1980’s.

Sorting all my DVD’s into alphabetical order has shaken up what I planned to review yet again. The desire to tread down less seen paths is strong and that means my more obscure titles will get some attention. But do I dare review The Lord of the Rings movies as well? If nothing else, they would be good exercise in shortening reviews which is something I need to work on.

I am still working up the courage to review the worst movie ever made. Being one of the few in the world to actually watch the entire thing, I dread seeing it again.

Health 11-21-2011

Well, all in all that was a lost week. This year has been hard enough that I found myself surprised to be taken down by intensification of my CFS symptoms rather than a complication on top. Ironically, that may be a sign of improvement.

On to the new week.

Health 11-17-2011

Yesterday I was sure today was going to be a good day, one where I would get things done and be productive. Reality, however, disagreed with me once today arrived. The crossword puzzle was a warning, taking sixteen minutes despite being painfully easy. But Audiosurf went well so it looked good. Ah well.

No major health issues to report, other than the fatigue was bad from the beginning and even typing this out is difficult due to spacing out.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Numerical Uncertainty

Or how you never know what is really going on around the Web.

For my personal amusement, I have had Google Analytics running on this blog site for some time now with only a brief lapse of a couple of days when I changed over to the newer template. Thanks to things like NoScript and other blockers of content, I can never be sure how accurate the visitor stats are, but it does give me a rough idea of who, what, and where.

Being a tiny fish in a vast blogosphere, From the Sidelines’ stats are nothing to brag about. Still, it is interesting to me what gets looked at since I do not flog the blog in dreams of gaining wealth and fame. This blog has been up for over five years now, something that surprised me when I went back through my posts a little while back.

One thing that fascinates me is how Google Analytics and Blogger’s stats do not quite line up. Let us take a look at the top posts past month, October 16 to November 15, for comparison. Blogger is first, then Google Analytics:

Bleach Season 1: The Substitute, Episodes 1-2
Jul 26, 2011   
149 106 Pageviews

CITIZEN KANE (1941)
Jun 22, 2011   
132 102 Pageviews

Howl’s Moving Castle
Nov 25, 2009
106 80 Pageviews

Gojira (Godzilla 1954)
Nov 25, 2009
80 26 Pageviews

Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003)
Dec 18, 2009, 2 comments
61 30 Pageviews

Battle of Britain (1969)
Jul 22, 2011
56 85 Pageviews

Bleach Season 1: The Substitute, Ep. 2-3
Jul 28, 2011
43 44 Pageviews

Smallville: Absolute Justice Review Part 1
Sep 13, 2010
40 39 Pageviews

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidora (2001)
Dec 9, 2009
39 36 Pageviews

Only Yesterday (1991)
Dec 3, 2009, 2 comments
34 29 Pageviews

So there are some very large discrepancies between the statistics gathered. One pattern I think I am detecting is the blocking of Google scripts by people concerned about their privacy. All of this makes me wonder how in the world the advertising rates can be calculated for websites.

Note: Blogger doesn’t list the home page for some reason. Google Analytics does and says it was visited 87 times for third place by its stats. It also has a whopping average time of 5:18 spent on it. Yes, that is five minutes and eighteen seconds. In 2009, the average time spent on a web page was 56 seconds. Something is very screwy with that number, methinks!

Now for some fun if probably inaccurate stats for the past year (12 months) from Google Analytics:

2,304 Visits

1,816 Absolute Unique Visitors

3,927 Pageviews

1.70 Pages/Visit

67.45% Bounce Rate

00:01:05 Avg. Time on Site

77.82% % New Visits

Browsers used to visit:

1. Firefox 1,120 48.61%

2. Chrome 511 22.18%

3. Internet Explorer 389 16.88%

4. Safari 205 8.90%

5. Opera 41 1.78%

6. Android Browser 11 0.48%

7. Mozilla Compatible Agent 11 0.48%

8. Playstation 3 5 0.22%

9. IE with Chrome Frame 3 0.13%

10. Opera Mini 3 0.13%

Firefox is still on top after all these years, but Chrome is gaining. Internet Explorer is fading fast.

Visitors came from 78 countries and territories:

I looked at that and I suspect that is a fair representation of Internet penetration across the globe.

What does it all mean? Well, not a lot but one thing that I have confirmed is that pop culture dominates the Net. Also, most of my hits come from people doing image searches, something I rarely do these days. That intrigues me.

I am pleased to report that the Citizen Kane review is one of the most hit pages on the blog. Battle of Britain is slowly climbing up and thanks to the Philippine aviation buffs at timawa.net Thirteen Days got a lot of attention. Bleach becoming hit so often is quite a surprise, since I would have thought reviews of it are done to death and images from it are abundant on the Net.

The biggest surprise is how popular the Smallville: Absolute Justice review has been. There are a lot more Justice Society of America fans out there than I ever suspected. It is nice to see those 1940’s comic book characters still getting some love seventy years after being created.

Smart Procurement: USMC Buys British Harriers

I had seen rumors of this, but this is the first confirmation I’ve run into. This is a great deal and gives the Marines what they want and need rather than forcing more F/A-18 Hornets on them. Having forward based aircraft is important to close air support due to the benefits of having very fast turnaround.

Since the new used Harriers will be rebuilt with U.S. hardware, I have to wonder if they plan to use the radars from the retiring Hornets to make some of them AV-8B+ configurations in the future. It is probably being considered but we will have to wait and see on that.

This is a wise investment for the Corps and I am pleased to see the U.K.’s folly being salvaged in some way.

UPDATED:

It looks like the Harriers will only be used for spare parts according to this report. If correct, it is a sad end to some still very useful airframes. It is still a smart move by the Marines and protects their AV-8B’s from being taken out of service.

Computer Insecurity

It was true in past decades that you could rely on brand names to guarantee quality, but it was always touch and go in the personal computer world. It has gotten far worse and one product I used to use and highly recommend has gone very bad. Lavasoft’s AdAware used to be a front line weapon against malware. Now it is owned by people who made their money scamming people online. The most galling fact about this purchase is that they used to falsely sell AdAware!

It looks like Malwarebytes and Spybot: Search & Destroy are the go to programs now. I’m waiting for the release of the gold version of Spybot 2.0.  These days I do not rely on such programs as much, mainly due to using OpenDNS to filter addresses and Firefox with AdBlock Plus and NoScript to further keep bad links out. While I don’t surf “bad” sites, there has been a growing trend of hacking big websites and ads. So nobody is safe right out of the box.

Thanks to my precautions, I do not get much malware found on my system, if ever. It has been years since I saw anything other than the odd suspicious cookie.

Still, it is sad to see what happened to AdAware. If you do not stay up to date on what is going on, the possibility of being at the mercy of con artists, thieves, and other evil doers increases greatly.

Fortune Telling?

I just arrived home from a gaming session of D&D and while we were goofing off and ignoring the DM, I pretended to auger a fortune from a bowl of left over Halloween candy.

“You will have a short and painful life,” I predicted to one of the players.

He replied, “Did you say a short and painful wife?!”

Best line of the evening, by far.

Health 11-12-2011

Helping out on the move cost me three weeks of reduced activity so far. The usual infections are back and I am hoping to beat them down by the beginning of next week, which is probably optimistic.

H2O2 therapy is back at two doses a day and the results are like flipping a switch. More alert, the bowels better behaved, and a little more energy. It looks like this level will have to be maintained for months to come. At least I am getting faster at drinking the stuff.

Finally got my store of contacts laid in and I have to say I love the bifocals. While pricey, they are worth it to be able to breath! I switched back to a smaller font size on my pocket PC’s eBook readers too, so less scrolling needed.

Bleach Ep. 12: A Gentle Right Arm

While featuring the duel between Ishida and Ichigo, the real stars of this episode are Chad and Karin when a plague of Hollows attack Karakura Town.

After revealing himself to be a Quincy, an extinct race of supernaturally gifted humans, Uryu Ishida challenged Ichigo to a duel at the end of the previous episode. Insulting the carrot topped team worked like a charm and with his temper rising, he agreed. If there is one thing Kurosaki can be counted on to do, it has to be rushing headlong into things without thinking.

Condescending and acid tongued like a proper villain should be, Ishida explains the rules of the duel. The one who kills the most Hollows in 24 hours is the winner and proves his superiority. Quickly he initiates the summoning of the monsters and makes some pointed remarks about Hollows being drawn to humans with spiritual abilities that set Ichigo off running. But not is all it seems, as Kurosaki has misunderstood what the Quincy was hinting at.

Determined to protect his sisters at any cost, the substitute Soul Reaper has failed to notice that his closest friends have all begun to spiritually awaken too. For instance, poor Tatsuki now sees ghosts the way Ichigo did in the beginning and it is annoying her to distraction. But the boy is clueless to all this going on around him.

It is Karin that Ichigo is most worried about and sure enough she can sense something is wrong while playing soccer with a group of boys. Though it is more accurate to say she is intimidating them more than playing with them. It is clear she will be playing a big part in the episode, which is a welcome thing. Karin is one of the better characters in the series and isn’t seen nearly enough.

Her older brother slaughters Hollows on the way to her regular hangouts. One of the better Hollow battles to this point is a highlight of this episode, with Ichigo taking on three at once in a very fluid piece of choreography. While he is occupied slashing his way through Karakura Town, Rukia is still trying to get more information out of Urahara at his store. But her cellphone/Hollow detector won’t stop going off and its display is starting to look like an old video game…

With methodical precision, Ishida destroys Hollow after Hollow for a count far beyond his rival’s. There is more to his story and it appears that will be revealed soon. While scores of monsters rain down upon the town, Chad finds himself seeing something in the sky. This idling in the street irritates his starving musician companions for a comic break in the action.

But that rift in the sky is all he can focus on and when a Hollow drops from the sky his priorities change. Just one little problem – he cannot fully see the monster! Showing discretion, the large teen leads the creature away from the crowded shopping district.

That would have been brilliant, except he leads the Hollow straight to the playground where Karin is! Surprisingly, the two work well as a team when he tries to protect her, but a mere human can’t expect to take on a Hollow. Even a human as impossibly tough as Chad.

Another glimpse into the half-Mexican’s childhood shows how much he took his grandfather’s lessons to heart and in true shonen style it fuels his resolve to protect his friend’s little sister. A punch, a flash of light, and an explosion of energy follow as the gentle giant finds his own supernatural power. When the smoke clears, his right arm has undertaken a mysterious metamorphosis.

The battle continues and Chad shows how cool he is, though not everyone is positive about him being cool. It is a highly amusing moment and shows why Karin gets some of the best lines in the series.

But the danger continues for Ichigo’s family and friends as the Hollows continue to rampage.

Thoughts

This episode is a deft blend of comedy and action while throwing in some character development for Chad, Karin, and Ishida. Finally all the images from the opening sequence are explained and one would guess that all the main characters have been introduced. That person would be in error.

Things are only just beginning to get rolling, I am pleased to say.

A Gentle Right Arm is a good example of Bleach’s ability to blend action, drama, mystery, and comedy into a satisfying whole.

Odd and Ends

After having to come up with new titles to posts all the time, I decided to reuse this particular title for my more trivial posts. Recycling is good, or so they say.

Raccoons are nasty, vicious, and unsanitary critters despite the washing food thing they do. We have been afflicted with a rarity around here, a stealthy raccoon. Multiple times I have entered the bathroom to see its tail in the cat door as it silently escapes after raiding the cat food in the kitchen. Hopefully, the new smaller cat door will keep it out. It is also elusive once outside and hunting it down has been a futile quest.

What does the English custom of tea have to do with computer history? More than one would think as this article on LEO, the first business computer, shows. I would have thought a bank would have built the first one, but reality is wonderfully stranger than fiction.

After becoming dissatisfied with the quality of screen captures from VLC, I have switched back to WMP12 for the time being. I probably need to do more research into setting on VLC, but so far I have been unable to get it to use the ATI videocard’s built in deinterlacing that is superior to the software options. At least the Bleach screen captures will look better from now on.

With Call of Duty: MW3 and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim coming out in the same week I am very grateful not to be a hard core gamer. Game prices are ludicrously high at release these days and often you are paying so that the bugs will be fixed for the bargain hunters later on. Class me as one of the bargain hunters. Only Mass Effect 3 has me tempted that way and it isn’t due to March. More time to build up resistance, right?

Watched Will Penny thanks to Netflix last night. What a great movie. I think it is one of the few to really portray what it was like to be a cowboy and that ending was perfect. Anybody who thinks Chuck Heston couldn’t act needs to watch this film.

Is Episode 4 of Squid Girl season 2 the funniest of the entire show? It has to be of the second season so far. The first part focusing on learning English is hilarious, but the other two segments are top notch too.

For those who have given up on Bleach, now is the time to try it out again. The current arc is worth checking out and Episode 342 is where to begin. Even if you have read the current arc in the manga, a lot of fleshing out and expansion is being done, apparently with the creator’s involvement.

I am hoping to take advantage of the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcasts to theaters in the near future. Unfortunately, I was not able to go see Siegfried from the Ring Cycle when it ran last week. Faust is the next one up that interests me, so we will see.

This archive has some stupendous photos from the heady days of high performance flight including shots of the A-12, YF-12, SR-71, XB-70, and X-15 among others. Man, the Valkyrie was a beautiful aircraft.

Squid Girl Episode 5, Season 1

UPDATE September 4, 2018

More DMCA take downs have hit the blog despite screen captures long being considered fair use. Due to my not being able to afford a lawyer, I have no choice but to remove them or have the blog suspended. Only the words will be left.

TVTokyo is proving to be foolishly draconian in targeting posts meant to get people interested in seeing the Squid Girl anime and perhaps even purchasing it on DVD or Blu-ray. Being anti-piracy myself this is infuriating that they are targeting posts I wrote hoping to encourage people to try out a delightful show.

Another identity crisis due to mistaken identity, the perils of inkvading high school, and a surprising final segment start off the second disc of set one. The usual laughs and insane situations are there, but don’t be surprised if you come away with a tear in your eye rather than a smile after watching this episode.

Are You from Planet Calamari?

Proving that the previous episode’s mild fan service was no fluke, the first third starts off when an impossibly proportioned blond in a bikini enters the Lemon Beach House. We can tell she is a great beauty because all sorts of sparkles emanate from her hair as it waves in slow motion in the sea breeze. Well, that and the male customers completely lose their cool at the sight of her.

Immediately sizing her up as a foreigner, Eiko panics. Once again showing her sadistic streak, Chizuru forces the teen to wait on the newcomer. It soon turns out that Eiko’s command of the English language leaves much to be desired.

Luckily for her, the blond is fluent in Japanese and is here for a very specific reason. It seems there are rumors of an alien having been sighted at this location. Now who could that be?

And so Cindy Campbell, M.I.T. graduate and alien hunter extraordinaire joins the cast of loonies. Squid Girl is understandably rather upset with being called an alien and even more so with Cindy’s nearly Sanae like desire to haul her off to a laboratory. Not only does the American look good in swimwear, she is a true mad scientist – and mad scientists don’t take no for answer.

Is our tentacled protagonist really a Squiddian invader from outer space?  Can Squid Girl find her way back to normalcy? And just what is normalcy for her anyway?

Want to Join a New School of Fish?

One of my favorite things about Squid Girl is how everyday events become  epic adventures for our blue tressed heroine. If you were wondering if her adoptive family had lives outside the beach, wonder no more. Summer vacation is over and Eiko proudly dresses in her school uniform. After some confusion over cosplay, Squid Girl demands to come along. Rebuffed, she sneaks into school anyway to do some reconnaissance like a proper inkvader.

Exploring all the empty rooms she can get into, it becomes clear to Ika that this is a military training facility. Why they even have a place to take care of the wounded. It is a perfect base to stage her takeover of the surface world from! Or at least that is how she sees things.

Violence, hostage taking, and PA announcements lead to a potentially deadly situation. Can this be peaceably resolved or will the inkvasion finally begin in earnest?

Who’d Like a Pet Squid?

The final segment is a big change of pace and is original to the anime. I do not want to give too much away, but the nearly dialogue free story shows a deft touch while tugging at the audience’s heartstrings. It all begins with Eiko finding a mini Squid Girl in a jar on the beach one rainy day.

What follows will be familiar to anyone who has raised a pet, especially if they have wooed a feral kitten.

This story shows what heights the animators are capable of rising to as what should be a simple overdose of cute becomes something deeply touching instead. It was so popular that two shorts were done starring Mini Squid Girl for the Blu-ray release in Japan along with figurines.

Thoughts

Squid Girl is a light hearted series that occasionally will surprise with sharp insights or genuinely sweet moments. It is the latter that you will remember from this episode. It is something of a sucker punch and all the more effective for it.

I have to praise the English language voice cast again. They have done a bang up job and I also have to give the dub writers a hand for how they rewrote the scene between Eiko and Cindy. It was cleverly handled.

This and Episode Six are the only episodes on disc 2 and for some reason the same extras from the first disc were repeated. I have hopes that the second set coming out later this month will have the Mini Ika Musame shorts on them as they are very cute.

Taking Care of Business

Today was all about the title and it went well for a change. There is nothing like clearing out unexpected bills and realizing you will have more money than you expected left over. In this case it was a dental bill that hit me out of the blue and had me worried.

It has been an interesting several days. Rampant silliness during Saturday night’s gaming session seems to have been a good beginning to it all. We were dangerously close to “shoe drop” territory all night so much fun was had.

Sunday was quite the day at church. When I arrived a tad late due to a combination of starting out slowly and then being in slow traffic (harvest and hunting season at the same time), I found myself in the overflow section. Which promptly overflowed and required more folding chairs brought in! It has been a long time since I’ve seen that.

Fast and testimony sacrament meetings are always different and once again I felt prodded to go up and give my testimony. Unusually, the Spirit had me scripture diving beforehand and had a very direct push for me to talk about fear. Specifically, how we are to fear not despite all that is going on. Since my fears are on the selfish side I did not go into them, but it is clear I need to work on that.

I can say that I transitioned to fight mode from self pity mode while driving to church, so something is up. Don’t know what and probably don’t want to know what.

Anyway, I was called and set apart to be an Elders Quorum instructor in addition to staying as a ward missionary. In fact, my first lesson to teach is this coming Sunday. It might be a good idea to find out which lesson we are on since I confuse chapter places with Gospel Essentials class. Having taught every lesson out of the Gospel Principles manual, I could probably do it in my sleep. However, one needs to prepare no matter how versed they are.

This morning, I ran into a deal at Amazon for The Greatest Video Game Music album by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for a whopping $2.99. There were multiple tracks I wanted so I got the whole deal and it is well worth it. Standouts for me are Mass Effect: Suicide Mission, Bioshock: The World On His Shoulders, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and Modern Warfare 2: Theme. Others will delight in the full orchestral versions of classic console games such as Final Fantasy and Super Mario Bros. It was a nice way to start the day off.

Time to up how much H2O2 I take in daily. Another attempt to taper off has resulted in negative consequences. It appears I can’t get below two dosages a day without things going backwards. Ah well.

At least I was able to be out and about three days in a row again.

The Effectiveness of Circular Firing Squads

One amazing thing to me is how the Republican Party manages to destroy itself via internal warfare on a nearly constant basis in recent years. The current race to be the presidential nominee is a textbook example of this foolishness. Campaigns cannot wait to tear each other down and provide ammo to the opposition in 2012 with the conservative side of the party being the worst offenders.

Furthermore, we have candidates who are even more adept at shooting themselves in the foot than their opponents. One thing for sure is that none of them can shoot straight and stay on target. So the end result will be having a moderate to liberal candidate again, just like in 2008. In this case it will be Mitt Romney, who by a small degree was just to the right of McCain.

I have not enjoyed watching conservative candidate after candidate implode. Yes, the media is working against them, but far too many “own goals” have been kicked into the nets.

The latest is Herman Cain and his sexual harassment scandal just got a lot worse. If he is innocent, his campaign has handled this the worst possible way. If you are Machiavellian about it and he is guilty, they still have handled it the worst possible way. This goes well beyond inexperience and most likely is the beginning of the end for him.

Perry is going nowhere due to his abysmal debate performances and the fact he is not that conservative in the first place. But it is the debate performances that have killed him. Supporters claim that debates do not matter, but that is where the voters usually make up their minds. Most people do not follow things until the last minute and only pay attention to the flashiest of events.

Bachman is done. Her lack of wit and inability to go past talking points sank her like a rock. Big fish in a small pond syndrome is what happened here and she has yet to realize it. She better before it damages her back at home in Minnesota.

Santorum simply does not have the personality needed to make it on the national stage.  In the days before television, he would have done much better. But appearances and performances are everything today.

Newt is unelectable. He is the prototype for what was done to Palin and is still toxic all these years later, despite having some good ideas and excellent debates. But he is not that conservative and some of us have long memories. He is good VP material at best.

Ron Paul is unelectable in every possible way. There is no way the country will hand over the keys to the crazy uncle who has been drinking too much from the conspiracy punch bowl.

Huntsman would make a good challenger to Obama – in the Democratic Party primaries. ‘Nuff said.

Which leaves us with the establishment’s choice, Romney. He carries a lot of political and social baggage. Just a few months ago, I talked to activists that sat out the last election due to McCain being too liberal and they said they would vote for anyone, even Romney, over Obama. I do not know what changed, but the atmosphere is slowly becoming one of sitting out again.

That does not necessarily mean Romney will lose. I also have talked to Democrats who would cross over to vote for him and he will get most of the crucial independents. It will be an ugly race though, with many evangelical Christians opposing him due to his being a Latter-day Saint. Having to deal with that prejudice on a regular basis myself, I can say it will be a factor.

Meanwhile, supporters of various candidates are busy vilifying other candidates in blind hero worship. This voluntary fanaticism is just as dangerous as any demagoguery can be from a politician. The passions being shown are more akin to what we used to see in party versus party elections.

It is that kind of internal strife and failure to unite against a common foe that has damaged the GOP greatly in recent times. You would think with things as bad as they are that the factions would come together. But I am not seeing it and in fact it is getting more fractious with the consequence of reasonable activists becoming burning out due to it.

Why all this division?

Perhaps that desire to deny how bad things really are getting is clouding minds. We are about to enter a time of widespread economic and social chaos around the globe. There will be wars of all kinds breaking out in the next decade.  Those of us who can see it are alarmed, but unable to affect events. The inertia of the masses is too great, the power of denial too strong, and the maintainers of the status quo too entrenched.

It is said there is a flee or fight reaction when confronted with a physical threat. What goes unmentioned is the third reaction which is paralysis. Perhaps that is the biggest problem of them all – that there are too many people who act like deer in the headlights of an oncoming semi.

Whatever the cause may be for all the internecine warfare on the political right it does not matter. I am sick of it and the unwillingness of people to deal with what is happening. I am also sick of watching the entire system self destruct.

Boy am I glad I live in the countryside watching the way the world is going.

Bleach Ep. 11: The Legendary Quincy

After an episode of nonstop comedy, an air of menace slowly comes back into the series when a mysterious stalker with an axe to grind appears. But comedy is still the main focus at this point.

Bleach can be very predictable at times, but only within its own strange rules. New viewers will find themselves surprised often in the early going before it settles into its normal pattern of weirdness, especially in the “canon” storyline. That is to say, the non-filler main storyline.  Filler is the dreaded way of keeping an anime adaptation of a manga going while waiting for the original author to produce new content.

While the previous installment of Bleach introduced what seemed to be a filler character, Don Kanonji, it turns out there is fallout from the epically silly events. Very silly fallout, of course.

Teenagers fear being summoned to the principle’s office and the entire group finds themselves there.  Being lectured to by the gym teacher who appears to be in a steroid induced rage, they are in it deep. You see, due to Ichigo and Rukia being seen on national TV causing trouble the school has been embarrassed.

Showing there are limits to friendship, everyone correctly dumps the blame on Ichigo. Attempts to get out of being lumped into the punishment are played strictly for laughs with Rukia being particularly amusing. Her ploy works all too well and there is an impression she has done this kind of thing before.

What would Bleach be without random Hollow problems? When the latest alert goes off, the group take notice of Rukia and Ichigo running off. Orihime is watching very closely and speculates about their relationship to the ire of the boys. But someone else is watching too as the sinister music plays…

There are a lot of good character moments in episode 11 and Rukia gets the best ones. From being bad cop/bad cop all by herself (wait, shouldn’t good cop be in there?) to her rant against her cellphone, the diminutive Soul Reaper is a bundle of annoyed energy. Those bits and the fake sob story she employed earlier are great fun.

I do believe I wrote that an air of menace is to be found and so it arrives. Though our hero’s do not know it, they have been followed all episode by a strange figure wearing a long jacket and glasses. Finally catching Ichigo and Rukia by themselves, he emerges from the night to reveal himself.

He is Uryu Ishida and has supernatural powers himself. They are nearly as impressive as his acid dripping condescension which is most impressive. His mockery culminates in a statement of hatred towards the substitute Soul Reaper. Just like that, Ichigo has a new menace to deal with and it turns out to be a classmate – though he doesn’t remember him. And just what is a Quincy – what Ishida calls himself?

For once, Ichigo decides to check things out before going into conflict. Just one little problem: he has already forgotten Ishida’s name. Fortunately for him, Orihime knows Ishida, since they are in the same handcrafts club. Handcrafts club?! I am not sure if that is more or less menacing to know.

The scene that follows is a hilarious spoof of fighting animes, when we are shown Ishida’s fearsome sewing skills. Like every other character in the series, there is something off kilter about the boy. But you have to admit, he is good with a needle and thread.

After school, Ichigo and Rukia split up to pursue different leads on the new threat because we all know it is better to divide your forces when confronting an enemy. Ichigo counter stalks Ishida and Rukia heads to Uruhara’s for intel. Veering off into slapstick comedy to break the mood, we are presented with Jinto bullying Ururu again. It isn’t very funny, in my opinion.

This short sequence is, however. But then again, I like utterly random silliness when it is played straight. That is probably a result of watching too many Pink Panther movies growing up.

As the mystery of the Quincies begins to unfold, it looks like Ichigo and Rukia will have their hands full…

Thoughts

The Legendary Quincy is a classic setup episode without any real action in it. That said, it is still a lot of fun as the sense of mystery is back after the previous story. Here is where Bleach’s universe begins to open up more with hints of being more complicated than previously shown.

Ishida is an interesting character, a calm and collected nerd who is incredibly arrogant. His powers are an interesting contrast to that of the Soul Reapers and he is positioned to be Ichigo’s perfect foe.

The voice work on the English dub rings wrong once again, with Ishida’s voice sounding too old and too monotone. Despite his air of maturity, the character is still young and the Japanese voice actor nails that perfectly. I will concede he is a complex character and difficult to portray.

2011 Come Back Here!

So it is November already. This year has flown by with most goals I had set out for the new year unmet and quite a few not started. Oddly, I am not alone in this and almost everyone I know have experienced the same thing. There is a modicum of comfort knowing that.

After a lousy week with health problems, this one is a bit better. Still not where I need to be, but I did survive an active weekend including a Halloween party. So far I have not escaped the need to nap in the afternoon, but I have hope that will change shortly.

I had the cheapest Halloween costume yet. It consisted of a ratty long sleeve T-shirt, jeans, and an empty box of Trix that I ran through multiple times with a kitchen knife. Yes, I was a cereal killer. I actually had something else planned but had a last minute flash of inspiration while talking to a Kwik Trip clerk.

Odd place to get an idea, but I’ll take ‘em where I can get ‘em.

The Trix rabbit’s eyes still haunt me, though.