August 09, 2024
It lives!
Before I got my first smart phone, I was looking at maybe getting a drone, but they all seemed to require your phone to run. I never did get a drone, but I did pick up a cheap, $40 Naxa Android tablet.
It promptly died. Recently I popped it apart and discovered it had suffered from fatal battery bloat syndrome, like all super cheap Li-Po batteries are wont to do. In fact, I was also in the market for a replacement battery for my current (2nd) smartphone (A $30 Wal-Mart TracPhone, which does what I need it to do, which is virtually nothing). That had a nice, separate battery pack that was easy to pop out and replace. My first smartphone was NOT designed for replacing the battery. The pack in that one swelled up to the point that the screen popped out of the case. Still works, oddly enough.
So while I was shopping for a battery for my phone, I needed to fill my order up to the free shipping point. So I cracked open the old tablet, read off the numbers, and found a $10 battery with the same specs. It eventually got here, and I eventually got around to breaking out the soldering station, and I soldered the new pack in. And what do you know, it booted! It's sucking up a charge right now.
And I'm faced with a small dilemma. Should I just log in with my one and only Google account, or should I take the opportunity to create a new one on a device I doubt Google remembers I ever used....
(I still needed something else to fill out the order, so I grabbed a $10 endoscope camera. Apparently if one is stupid enough to follow the QR code in the manual, it gives you Chinese scam software and will sucker you into giving up your credit card # for "ID Verification". There's other software that will make it work with a phone, but it's not good with Android 11. Guess what my phone runs. Yeah, that was part of the reason for reviving the tablet. I wonder if it will work with phone #1?)
(I still needed something else to fill out the order, so I grabbed a $10 endoscope camera. Apparently if one is stupid enough to follow the QR code in the manual, it gives you Chinese scam software and will sucker you into giving up your credit card # for "ID Verification". There's other software that will make it work with a phone, but it's not good with Android 11. Guess what my phone runs. Yeah, that was part of the reason for reviving the tablet. I wonder if it will work with phone #1?)
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August 04, 2024
So this one time at Band Camp....
Bye Bye Earth - Ep. 04.
I kind of suspected, since the elite swordsmen were called "Solists" (Almost Soloists), and songs were magic (for things like construction, but probably other things). But seeing the army organized like a marching band, and attack waves organized into acts... yeah, I haven't seen something this musical since Symphogear or takt op.Destiny. Not sure how well that fits.
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06:57 PM
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August 03, 2024
Random pics
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July 30, 2024
Isekai Skikkaku - Ep. 04
Spoilers
So, Sensei DOES have a power. Fortunately he's not really cognizant of it, and he is so solipsistic that he doesn't care to abuse it. He basically has world-editing powers, whether it's talking Annette out of nominally permanent mind control with a simple statement, or defeating another otherworldly hero by writing his life story as one of his "Novels" and then declaring that it is not his masterpiece. We get to the alternate English title, No Longer Allowed in Another World, and that's what he titles the story of the current antagonist, which teleports him back where he came from.
I guess the cat-girl is stuck with the name Tama now. I do like a much more wild, rough and tumble cat girl more than the mewing kitten type. She kind of got the short end of the stick this episode.
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July 28, 2024
Bye Bye Earth - Ep. 03
Well, that just became a lot less straightforward. The Rabbit transformed into a rabbit boy, he's enigmatic, and I'm not entirely sure if he's malevolent or just cryptic.
Speaking of Cryptic, Belle's former master meets with the creator of his sword to get it repaired, and to exchange crypticness with each other about how Belle is the "Girl of Reason". What this means will be explained later, I guess, but she definitely has some kind of destiny set out for her that she is unaware of. Who will be trying to steer it and who will be trying to thwart it is not yet clear.
What is clear is that this is not just your run of the mill fantasy adventure.
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July 26, 2024
Finally released
Or is that Escaped? (Or did I put it on DA?)
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July 20, 2024
Huh!
Somehow I totally missed that there was a 25 episode, second season of Tsuki ga Michibiku Isekai Douchuu that JUST wrapped up in the spring season. I recall liking the first one in 2021. I only realized this because LiveChart had a notification that season 3 had been added to the database.
Also of interest were announcements for another season of Kaiju #8, Go Go Loser Ranger, and Jobless Reincarnation.
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Substack post: The Importance of Research
Read it here. It's also an excuse to post my second favorite Sam and Max reference.
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July 13, 2024
A Girl and her Sword - Bye Bye Earth - Ep. 01
A small town around a lake is having a problem. A gigantic sea monster (A Fish Flower type called a Negroni) has taken up residence and it's polluting the water in the process, killing off the fish they depend on. The young bulls in town were no match for it, so the mice sent off for a Nomad to help. Well, the nomad sent his apprentice to take care of it, a young human girl named Belle, and there are well, rumors about her. First of all because nobody's ever seen anything like her, she has no fur, or tail or horns or anything, she's so blank it freaks them all out. She also got kicked out of a major city before the Nomad took her in.
She has this gargantuan fantasy sword named Runding. You can be forgiven for thinking it's Erewhon (it says so in old English type right on the side). She agrees to take it on (somewhat scandalizing the assembled townsfolk when she says that Fish Flower meat is her favorite food).
Battle ensues, much collateral damage occurs, but everyone is happy when the beast is vanquished. She takes a chunk of the tentacle, and the promise to deliver the reward to the Nomad's home.
The encounter leaves her feeling philosophical about the meaning of home when she gets back to the Nomad's cottage. Belle is homesick for a place she's never known, with people like her, whom she's never seen. She flashes back on some of her earliest memories, where superstitious townsfolk say she was born from a rock, and everyone is weirded out by her "featurelessness". Although bullies find out the hard way that she is exceptionally strong. A couple had kindly taken her in, but she's very aware of their cat-ears and her lack thereof. One day she felt a strong pull to the city's castle, and manages to walk in undetected, and climbs a tower to a storage room where Runding is suspended from chains. She says it's her friend, and she ALMOST makes it out of the castle with it. Mind you, at this time it's bigger than she is. They lock her up (WITH THE SWORD?!) and then the Nomad comes to take her, saying he will teach her to use the sword. I think the folks in the castle know what's up with the sword more than they let on.
(Also pretty clearly the sword's sharpness is purely magical, given by all the time she handles it by the edge without getting cut)
The next day after her flashback/dream, she announces to Sian, her mentor, the nomad, that she will go and take the trial to become a Nomad herself. They had discussed this before, but she made the decision more quickly then he expected. As his final lesson, he tells her things that probably would have affected her decision. Nomads are driven by a curse, which is passed down by blood. She is undeterred, since the Nomad's life means that she may eventually travel to find people like herself. They do a blood exchange by cutting their thumbs with their swords. He has her declare what her quest is. And then, suddenly she can no longer see his face. To go on, she has to forget him. He is removing himself from her memories, which really pisses her off. She loves him, but he says she will find a much better man.
This is beautifully drawn and animated. It's a straight fantasy, rather than some Isekai. I am a bit leery of the upcoming Trials, but I pray it doesn't degenerate this quickly into a Shonen Tournament arc.
And the funniest thing is that in a world full of catgirls, the most interesting girl is a human....
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July 10, 2024
Isekai Shikoku - Ep. 01
I'll write more later because it's late for me, but I just want to get this out there.
This is hilarious. From the way they hang a big freaking lampshade on the Truck-Kun thing and lampoon heroes with cheat skills, to the way the bodacious cat girl keeps getting cut off before she can say her name. There are probably a bunch of Japanese literature references I'm missing, but in any case, this is funny shit!
This is hilarious. From the way they hang a big freaking lampshade on the Truck-Kun thing and lampoon heroes with cheat skills, to the way the bodacious cat girl keeps getting cut off before she can say her name. There are probably a bunch of Japanese literature references I'm missing, but in any case, this is funny shit!
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