Time Slip

Note to Self: Starting in on big long posts and then leaving them to be finished later is not conducive to regular updates.

Yeah, it's been a while and I'm sorry. I have had a number of things going on, but it's really no excuse. Right now, however, I'm at work without a whole lot to do (at least as long as the printer keeps telling me there's no black ink when my boss says she just put a new catridge in). So consequently, you get a long overdue update on just about everything.


Listen to the Toon Nerds

I think most of you know this already, but in case anyone doesn't, I now have an internet radio show. AnimationHQ's Animation Roundtable (we are trying to come up with a new name) can be found on ToonRadio Sunday nights at 8 PM Eastern and Thursday nights at 7 PM. (There's also a 4 AM airing on Wednesday, but I don't think many people tune in for that.) My co-host and I pick a couple of animation related subjects each week and discuss them. We also do a brief news segment and profiles of people in the animation industry. We've even had a guest host. I really enjoy doing the show, but it's been frustrating at times due to various problems we're still working out. Still, I think our content is good and I'd appreciate you tuning in.

More Construction

A couple of posts back, I told you about the completion of our basement bathroom. Well I'm now happy to report that our upstairs bathroom has been redone and is now virtually finished. We learned various fun things about our bathroom as it was being torn apart: there was no insulation on the wall facing the outside, the wall facing the attic stairs was nothing but insulation inside, there were several sizable holes in our floor under the tile, and our sink's poor drainage was due less to clogging and more to a lack of venting. Needless to say, the bathroom is now in much better shape and we're very happy to have a functioning toilet on the same floor as the bedroom again. Coming up next is the repaving of our very long driveway.

Movies

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was pretty awesome. Probably not everybody's cup of tea, but I was really glad to see Tim Burton doing a Tim Burton film again. It was also good to see some new twists on a story that most people already know. I cannot wait to see "Corpse Bride".

Most recently theaterwise, we saw "Broken Flowers" with Bill Murray. It was pretty good, but not quite as satisfying as I'd hoped. The film has a somewhat ambiguous ending and that's kind of tricky to pull off. I'd say rent it; it's not the kind of film that you need to see in theaters.

On DVD, we got "Pom Poko". It's a Studio Ghibli film, but it's directed by the studio's other major director Isao Takahata, not Hayao Miyazaki. (This should not be counted against it; Isao Takahata is also a great director of "Grave of the Fireflies", among others.) The American DVD release of "Pom Poko" came as a surprise to some people as the film has a rather odd reputation for being about shape-shifting raccoons who attack people with their giant testicles. While this is a part of the film, it's not really a fair description. "Pom Poko" tells the story of a tribe of tanukis - not actually raccoons, but native Asian canids with a striking resemblance to raccoons. The forest home of the tanukis is being destroyed by rapid expansion of the humans cities. As their habitat shrink, the tanukis decide to fight back through the ancient art of shape-shifting. Their attacks take various forms, some of which do include using the family jewels as weapons. (The traditional Japanese depiction of a tanuki include large testicles, said to be a symbol of good fortune.) But "Pom Poko" also features beautiful naturalistic and cartoony animation. The story itself is actually a serious and sad one highlighting Japan's huge problem of urban sprawl and loss of green space. I very much enjoyed it and I'm quite happy to see it being released here. (incidentally, the dub gets around the potential crudeness of the story through use of the word "pouch". The subtitles feature no such euphemisms.)

Time Bandits

That refers to things that eat up my time, not the movie.

I've continued to play World of Warcraft while trying not to be too unreasonable about the time I put in. Donna's computer is working again and she made a new character who's closer to my level. So we play together sometimes; other times we just chat. It's a lot of fun and leveling up isn't too difficult, which was my main problem with Final Fantasy XI.

I got a Nintendo DS, essentially the new Game Boy. I bought mine on eBay at a pretty decent discount and with a few games to boot. About a week ago, Andrew picked me up a copy of Nintendogs. It's kind of like a very sophisticated virtual pet. You pick out a puppy from a variety of breeds. The touch screen and stylus allow you to interact with the puppy: patting, training, playing, feeding, and going on walks. You can train your puppy for specific contests. Make it to the top three and you earn money for supplies, redecorating, or more puppies. I currently have a Shettland Sheepdog named Blue and a chihuahua named Chalupa. I'm hoping to unlock beagle puppies soon. (There are three versions of Nintendogs. Each has different starter breeds, but every breed can be unlocked on all cartridges.)

Trip

Next week, I'll be headed out to Portland, OR to visit my sister and Les and Jon. Andrew has kindly agreed to stay and watch the animals so we don't have to go through checking the sitter's availability. This either means that I owe him or I already did something nice for him and I forgot what. Probably both. I'm looking forward to seeing people I haven't seen for a while and checking out Portland for the first time. And trying what I hear is some really exceptional mac and cheese.

That's likely all you care to read for today, so I'll stop. Oh, if you want to reply, please notice that I added word verification. It's one of those things where before your post goes through, you're shown a picture of some letters and numbers and asked to type them. One friend of mine got 13 spam replies on one entry in his blog and another got a particularly tasteless bit of spam that start off talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, literally drops of mid-sentence, and starts plugging a site about co-op advertising. So I'm being proactive.