Kimi ni Todoke Volume 1 Premium Edition and Ep. 1 Review

Karuho Shiina’s beloved romance manga is adapted into a beautiful anime depicting an outcast girl’s attempts to make friends in high school. When strange feelings stir in her after meeting the most popular boy in class, Sawako finds a whole new world opening before her. But will that world accept a weird looking girl who has little in the way of social skills?

In 2005, a shojo (girl’s) manga (comic book) debuted about a shy girl falling for the most popular boy in school. It is a theme done to death in the genre, but what set Kimi ni Todoke (From Me to You) apart was the execution and attention to detail regarding the characters. Only the second series by author Shiina, it ended up becoming a smash hit and won multiple critics awards. Being a slow moving character piece, it would not have been a surprise if the anime adaptation changed things considerably. Surprisingly faithful, it not only stayed true to the story, but rendered it with such care that it became a thing of beauty.

The Problem with Newt

Articles: The Myth of 'Newt The Great Debater'

John Ziegler lays it out like it is and I imagine he will take a lot of flack for it. One of the many problems with the extended primary debate season is that it has fooled conservatives and libertarians into thinking they are the only audience. The last I checked, 40% of the country consider themselves "independents" and they will decide who gets the Oval Office after 2012. People need to remember how easy it was for people to hate Gingrich the last time he was in the national spotlight. Toxic does not even begin to describe how bad it will get if he gets the nomination. While I have problems with Santorum and Romney, I would take either of them in a heartbeat over the walking and talking train wreck called Newt.

Stop SOPA and PIPA!

Contact your local Senator and Congressman to let them know you support free speech on the Web.   Allowing web sites to be taken down by the government simply based on a complaint from someone else about copyright violations is ridiculous. The whole idea of the world wide Web is to allow linking to other sites to share information and these bills would jeopardize the very structure of the Internet.

The Wrong Box (1966) Review

Featuring an impressive group of actors, this dark farce manages to be both satirical and whimsical at the same time. Set in the Victorian era, it is a classic comedy of errors involving a corpse, a box, and an eccentric family by the name of Finsbury. Expect bizarre situations, innocent romance, scheming relatives,  bird eggs, and the best butler ever in this very amusing movie resurrected through Warner Bros. Archive’s made on demand DVD service.

Every family has at least one film that somehow becomes a tradition to watch. In my family’s case, one of those films is The Wrong Box, an unfairly obscure comedy from the 1960’s. Long before I ever had a chance to see the movie, I had heard all about it and memorized quotes from it. It would not be until the 1980’s before I got to see it on cable TV. Thankfully, it lived up to the hype from the family!

For years I had looked for it on DVD to no avail. But thanks to Warner Bros., I now have the movie and it is worth the premium price I paid for it. It was a pittance to bring back some cherished family memories. Popping the DVD into the Blu-ray player, I wondered what the quality of the picture would be. To my delight, the very 60’s animated opening credits looked great as John Barry’s whimsical score started and so I settled in to watch this deeply, wrongly funny movie.

Wikipedia, Minecraft, Craigslist, and Reddit Go Black Tomorrow

While it is only the English language version of Wikipedia going black to protest SOPA and PIPA, it will not go ignored by millions of users there and at the other sites participating. WARNING: the link will have a video start up automatically, but the text also covers the details.

It will be interesting to see how much this affects things. I have to say that Dick Costolo of Twitter has it very wrong from reading that quote in the article. Of course, Hollywood types live and die by Twitter these days, so I am not surprised by his stance. I do not have a way of blacking out my blog so that will not happening here. Instead I'll let my posts opposing SOPA and other IP "protections" speak for themselves.

Ding Dong, the SOPA Bill Is Dead

Some good news that Eric Cantor has killed the bill in the House after a weekend where the author, Lamar Smith, started backing away from it and the White House came out in opposition. The latter shows what use an election year can be for activists to derail unpopular legislation. I highly doubt this positive outcome would have happened otherwise.

I hope the Senate version dies as well.

Health 1-16-2012

Burned out from the weekend, which means it was a good weekend. It is odd living a life that seems to play out as a reverse of most people’s. Most await the weekend to recover from the week and I await the week to recover from the weekend.

Crossword puzzle was longer than my usual, but within acceptable limits. Audiosurf, however, did not go well. Simply cannot concentrate properly and actually had problems keeping my eyes open. Today is also not a good pain day.

For the past week I have moved to using my left thumb to control the game on my Xbox 360 controller in an effort to strengthen it. Since late summer, the thumb has been stiffening and snapping, not just popping and alternates between a dull ache and sharp pain. So far, so good in strengthening it but have miles to go yet. Pain and discomfort have lessoned after seven days with flexibility starting to return.