Author: Andrew Huey

Too much anime, again

I decided today to make a list of all the anime DVDs and Blu-Rays that I own but have not yet watched. I have DVDs and Blu-Rays scattered around the apartment in several places, with no real system, but I have a general idea as to where most of them are. I just went through them all (well, most of them) and made up a list in Evernote.

My list contains 16 entries, which doesn’t sound too bad, until you realize that most of them are series with 4 to 8 DVDs. And a number of the items on this list from 2006 are still unwatched, which is kind of silly.

I’m kind of in an anime mood right now, so maybe I’ll start watching some of this stuff again. But, then again, watching too much TV might raise my risk of Alzheimer’s. I wonder if that would apply to subtitled anime, though. It seems like that would stimulate the brain in a similar way as reading a book. (At least to a certain extent.)

Akira

I just finished reading the sixth (final) volume of Akira. I read volumes 1-3 quite some time ago, and decided to read 4-6 just recently. I’m not sure why I waited so long between 3 and 4. (Volume 3 was a good breaking point though.)

I find myself wondering if there’s some really deep meaning to Akira that I’m missing. There’s definitely a lot going on, and I’ve seen various people drawing out various themes and metaphors from it. I stumbled across this video today, which doesn’t really get into the deep stuff, but does do a good job of summing up the narrative of the manga vs the anime.

And finally finishing Akira makes me think back and realize how long it’s been a part of my life. I first read Akira via the Marvel/Epic color series, from the late 80s and early 90s. I didn’t read the whole series, and I don’t remember exactly when I stopped buying it. But it was definitely the first major manga I ever read.

I can’t quite remember the first time I saw the Akira film either, but I distinctly remember buying a pirated version of it on VHS back in the early 90s, at a comics convention. (I know I’d seen it before then, but I’m not sure where. I don’t think I could have seen it when I was in college, since it wasn’t released until after I graduated.) Either way, I’m pretty sure that it was the first anime movie I’d ever seen. (At some point, not too many years ago, I bought it on DVD, and have watched it at least once; I think it’s due for a repeat viewing soon!)

I bought the six Dark Horse black & white volumes a few years ago, at a con, probably San Diego or WonderCon. I’m pretty sure I got them out of somebody’s discount box, possibly TFAW‘s. (I’ve gotten some good deals from them.)

I gave the first three volumes, and the Marvel/Epic issues, over to Superheroes for Hospice, when I donated most of my collection earlier this year. I’ll likely donate volumes 4-6 next year, assuming I can talk myself into going through the piles again and donating a few more boxes.

I thought it might be cool to have a digital version of the Akira manga to maybe reread at some point, but it’s not available on the Dark Horse site or on Comixology. (Apparently, Kodansha now has the license for the manga, not Dark Horse, and I don’t see any sign that they’ve made it available digitally.)

Now that I’ve finished Akira, I have no idea what to read next, but I have a few things in mind. I never did get around to finishing the Rurouni Kenshin manga; I have several volumes of that series gathering dust. And I have a random sampling of Oh My Goddess! volumes waiting to be read. That would make for a nice change of pace from Akira!

Trying out Blogo

So now I’m trying out Blogo, another Mac blogging tool. It’s kind of nice, but there doesn’t seem to be any option to view/edit a post in HTML; there’s only the rich-text WYSIWYG editor.

So I think maybe this would be a good tool for someone who didn’t want to get too fiddly and just wanted to stick to WYSIWYG editing. But I know I’m going to want to at least look at the HTML once in a while.

It’s kind of a shame that it doesn’t have HTML editing, since, otherwise, it’s got a really nice user interface. But, I think MarsEdit is more my speed, if I’m going to use a desktop editor at all.

trying out MarsEdit

I’m writing this post in MarsEdit, just to see if I like it better than the normal WordPress admin interface. So far, it works fine, but I’m not sure it’s that much better than just using the WordPress admin. I think maybe if I could memorize the keyboard shortcuts, it would be quite nice.

I’ll keep it on my Mac until the trial period runs out, at least, then make up my mind if it’s worth spending money on.

I’d heard of MarsEdit before, of course, but hadn’t really thought about it much lately. I was reminded of it when listening to MPU 264 with John Gruber. He uses MarsEdit with Movable Type, which I did not realize was still around and being used as a viable blogging platform. (Shows how little I know!) I’ve never been that interested in Gruber’s blog, Daring Fireball, but he does have an interesting history, and has been involved in some interesting work, so that episode of MPU was definitely worth listening to. And of course his big thing is Markdown, which the MPU hosts also love, but which I’ve never been able to talk myself into trying. I like the general idea, but I just haven’t been able to find a good use case for it, for myself.

a little more SDCC news

I haven’t been paying too much attention to SDCC news, but I did spend some time today looking at CBR, Newsarama, and Comics Alliance. In looking at the list of Eisner winners, I see a number of creators and books that I’m familiar with, of course, but I haven’t actually read any of the stuff that was published in the last year. I’m definitely interested in some of them, though. Meanwhile, there’s a live stream of a Doctor Who panel that should be starting up in a few minutes, so I should get ready for that!

Not at SDCC, 2015 edition, day one

I feel like I need to write a short “not at SDCC” post, since today is the first full day of the con. As usual, I’ll keep an eye on news coming out of the con over the next few days. The LA Daily News has a good article listing some of the big panels, mostly TV and movie stuff.

There’s also plenty of actual comic book news coming out already, including the news that Jim Starlin is working on a new Dreadstar mini-series, just to pick something at random.

Automatic car adapter, second gen

I bought an Automatic car adapter back in December. I thought I had written up a blog post about it, but I can’t find it now. So either I didn’t write it, or I spelled “Automatic” wrong in it, or something like that. Either way, it’s a somewhat useful little device that lets you track your car trips, gives you some feedback on your driving habits, and can show you the actual diagnostic codes when your “check engine” light comes on.

It connects to the iPhone via Bluetooth. The adapter I got worked fine for several months, but it started getting finicky lately. It frequently fails to connect to the iPhone. This, apparently, was a pretty common problem with the first-generation adapters. They came out with a second-generation adapter recently, which supposedly uses a more reliable form of Bluetooth, and also has some new features that the old adapter didn’t have. They didn’t offer much of an upgrade deal for existing owners: just the same $20 discount that you can get through any of their advertising deals (see sixcolors.com, for instance, which usually has a link for $20 off). Well, I really didn’t want to spend $80 on a new adapter, but I gave in today and ordered one. I’m hoping it will work reliably.

Hopefully, I can remember to write up a little review after I receive it and have a chance to use it for a while.

iTunes 12.2

I’ve got today off from work, since tomorrow is Independence Day. I really didn’t make any plans, so I’m sitting around at home right now just reading a book and messing around. I wanted to do some stuff in iTunes, but geez, the new version of iTunes is a mess. The audiobook section is messed up (none of the books show up in the “authors” view). And trying to get to the “apps” section locks up iTunes entirely, and I have to force quit it. Other people are reporting really major screw-ups with their music libraries, like having millions of copies of the same song randomly added to a playlist, and stuff like that. (Luckily, my music library seems to be fine, for now.) Here’s hoping they get a fixed version out soon. (And that they maybe learn from this and do a bit more testing next time?)

I guess I should turn off the computer and get back to my book. Or, better yet, go outside!