efaardvark

This is something of a nostalgia trip for me. When I was in HS (yes, we had high schools way back then) there used to be a Shakey's Pizza down the hill that had one of these pianos. It was mostly used as a prop for the theme/decor of the place but one summer my neighbor across the street - who was a very good piano player - got a job there and convinced the management to tune it up and let him play it when he wasn't otherwise busy. We spent a lot of time at that Shakey's that summer. Fun memory.

If you liked that then you might want to check out Mashiro no Oto, aka Those Snow While Notes. Yes! Definitely on my ptw list.

It appears that quite a few titles have gone missing from Crunchyroll in the past few days. Of course there's nothing like a list from Sony, just promotional pieces about what they've added or will add this year. I do know of a couple however. I can verify that Gate, Flowers of Evil, Kokoro Connect, Kyoukai no Kanata, Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Golden Time, and No Game No Life are all gone from Crunchy. Anyone know of others? Is there a list somewhere?

Loud. Anything. The mathematically impossible description of something as being "5 times smaller" than something else. "One-fifth the size of" works fine for me. "20% as big as" is also great.

Rush hour on the Los Angeles freeways can be pretty intense too. Having to buy gas just adds another layer.

I really like the new terrain generation algos. I just started a new 1.18.2 game today specifically to check that out since one of the fun things I like to do in mc is explore and the views are awesome. At least in single player where you can push the render distance up and get some good panoramas going. Too bad the game doesn't let you do that in single-player. I can see why since the built-in render engine sucks performance-wise but it is still a shame. Fortunately some of the other terrain features are also cool and don't require large render distances to appreciate.

There's a ton of other stuff wrong with mass media in general, not just anime. Exclusive deals and limited competition. Leeches in the middle interfering with consumers paying creators fair value for their works. Regulatory capture creating copyright law misfeatures like the DMCA that hinder rather than ".. promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". If we could clear that stinking pile out of the way I'm sure there would be plenty of room to develop useful things like ranking systems, safety nets that keep obscure or niche works online and available, streaming services that actually have to care about customer service on both the creator and consumer side of the equation, and value-add services like reviewers that actually work for the consumer and aren't just labels advertising what's most profitable for themselves this week. What we have now however.... ick. Yeah, I have enough trouble just figuring out what I want to put on my own favorites list. I would not presume to try to create such for others. Still, it does help to talk about it at least. I value discussions here and elsewhere about what people like, especially if they include why they like something. (As long as they don't include spoilers of course. )

Even if you can tolerate the stupid advertising for the "free" viewing, stuff doesn't stay on streaming sites. Licenses can change or run out. If you subscribe then subscription fees can get untenable etc. If you like something enough that you would like to make sure that you have access to it for future viewing then you need to buy the disc. And I do mean disc. Or at least something either unrestricted or so poorly encumbered that you can trivially rip it to an unrestricted format. If it is restricted then you're again viewing "your" show at their pleasure. If they go out of business and you can't get to their server or if they decide that you haven't paid enough and instruct their server to hold "your" material hostage until you pay up then you won't be able to view stuff you've bought. I've had to deal with both situations. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice.... That doesn't mean that streaming sites are useless of course. I subscribe to Netflix, Crunchy, and Hulu myself. (And to spotify for music.) Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of everything is crap. I just don't know which is the other 10% until I've watched it at least once. So I hit the streaming sites to view stuff that looks interesting. Stuff I like I go ahead an buy on DVD, then rip the episodes to something like mkv format video files and put it/them on my video server on my LAN so I can watch it whenever and wherever.. even after the zombie apocalypse or if I'm halfway to Mars. As for ranking, that's what reviews are for. You don't need to find someone that you agree with or likes exactly what you like. They just have to be a reliable gauge of whether you would like it or not. Back in the days when movie theaters were the only way to see a movie and evening news was a thing there used to be a movie reviewer on one of the evening news channels that I totally disagreed with. He basically didn't like anything that was fun or popular and he loved stuff that was so "artistic" as to be boring and/or pretentious. I tend to like fun and unpretentious, so if he hated it I put it on my ptw list. He was very reliable & I made it a point to catch his reviews every evening. Seriously, I think a reliable reviewer is extremely valuable. I'm not even kidding. I would pay another subscription price for an impartial reviewer who I could rely on as an indicator of what I like. Like I said, 90% of everything is crap. I don't have enough time to watch every anime that comes out, and I don't have enough money to subscribe to every streaming site. I would pay (along with hundreds of other subscribers) someone a salary to dig through it all and send me, reliably and consistently, recommendations to JUST the 10% that I, personally, find most entertaining. Such a service would be worth it to me in time savings alone.

Haven't I mentioned? I live on a ringworld. That small bluish blob in the pic is the gas giant we orbit. I had to buy a fancy wifi router with a subspace communication module just so I can log in to AF. (Those aren't cheap either, let me tell you! You think GPUs are expensive? You could buy a dozen 6900xts or 10 3090s for the price of a subspace module and still have plenty of money left to fill your tank with gas.) (jk of course. Especially about having enough money for gas! )

Sunny and warm.

I just caught up on Dress up Doll. I tried. I wanted to like it, and it did have its moments, but ultimately the cringe overpowered the cute by a pretty wide margin for me. Now they're accidentally in a love hotel. She's even dressed as a succubus. Really? About the best I can say about it is that at least the fan service is a step above the usual panty flashes and inadvertent boob-squeezing. Even as close as I am to the end I don't think I'll bother watching the rest of it. I have way more anime than I have time to watch as it is. Moving on to the next in the list.

Just finished Mushoku Tensei. I have to admit that I didn't think much of this one at first. In fact, I almost dropped it early on a number of times. If it had kept going like that I no doubt would have. Fortunately it got much better in the last few episodes and the ending made it not only worth watching but I actually think it turned out pretty good. Might even be in the top three that I've seen this year.

Yay! Er, sorry.. maybe that didn't come out quite right. It is just that at 57 I thought I was the oldest around here.