tegan

So I special ordered Tezuka's Midnight through the library and picked it up today. I didn't recall ever hearing about an English release, so I figured it would be in French and I could fumble my way through (for whatever reason there's a lot of Tezuka stuff released in French). Nope! It was an actual Japanese copy of the first volume with no translation whatsoever. It's a series that I know very little about (I know it's about a cab driver who exclusively works the graveyard shift and that's about it), so I'm equally tempted to try following it with no understanding of the text whatsoever or alternatively track down a script or a scanlation and read it alongside the book.

Good news: I finally got to talk to someone about my long-term disability claim! Bad news: everything else. My actual case manager is on vacation apparently, so I was talking with some other lady. Apparently they sent me a letter several days ago with a thing that I need to sign in order to continue so that they can do some kind of background check on my medical history. The lady seemed kind of rude, and was saying as much to discourage me as possible; strongly implying that I won't get my claim approved and telling me that I should just go back to work. She also wouldn't give me any estimated turnaround time but said that I should be prepared to wait a long time. I understand that the whole system was designed with physical injury and illness in mind, but I really feel that my depression is being really trivialized. Incidentally, I really hate to keep asking like this, but if anyone wants to lend a few bucks I would really appreciate it.

Have you ever wished that you could google things in your own home? Like I can't find my ruler right now, and I'm utterly compelled to type "ruler" into my computer and be told where in my apartment it is.

Those Sega arcade games built into urinals and Rez, respectively. I'm not about to touch this argument with a ten-meter cattle prod, but totally worth noting: The Sims series has sold better than the Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, or Madden series and three times as much as Halo series. In fact it's the best-selling PC game series ever made, and is topped in overall success only by Mario, Pokémon, and the Wii _____ series of games. So, yeah.

Summer Wars might be my favourite movie ever. Just sayin'.

If I had a talk show, I would introduce famous guests by citing the thing they're least known for. Like Leonardo DiCaprio would be introduced as "the star of Critters 3" and Art Spiegelman would be introduced as "creator of the Garbage Pail Kids."

Is the Digimon movie on there? One of the three Japanese films it's stitched together from, Our War Game, is basically a prototype for Summer Wars, both by Mamoru Hosoda of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time fame. The visual design, major plot points and story elements, and super-flat animation style were all carried right over from one movie to the other. It's really cool to see.

I tried to watch Seinfeld for the first time ever last summer, and I only got halfway through the first season because all I could think of was how every single conflict in the show could have been avoided if everyone had had cell phones at the time.

So it's time to talk about Gravity Falls, the secret best TV series of this past year. Hog hug!! Hogarth Hughes! The first season just ended and the show's only just been confirmed to be continuing for a second, and I couldn't be more psyched. The season finale was absolutely perfect. So many great moments (like the infomercial Grunkle Stan watches and everything Soos does), tons of story payoff while still raising the bar for potential mysteries in the second season. Unfortunately I can't really talk about it without dropping massive spoilers. The series as a whole is exactly the sort of thing that I wish had been on TV when I was a kid: spooky overarching paranormal conspiracy stuff driven by quirky characters and funny dialogue. It's also super pretty. And the theme song is fantastic. Go watch it right now. Particularly recommended to anyone who liked the recent version of Scooby-Doo that I gushed about a few pages back.

This thread is secretly part of the ongoing plot to get Jake to buy a Wii U. Also, IIRC, isn't there a way to get the Pikmin to focus on one target, essentially fulfilling the same purpose as C-stick swarming?

The third part of Tropes Vs. Women's damsel in distress video series is up! Unfortunately I can't view the video without it immediately jumping to the middle for some reason, so I can't link it, but I'm sure you know where to find it.

E-ink displays work by placing a transparent sheet over thousands of tiny transparent capsules making up the screen's pixels. Each capsule is filled with teeny pieces of positively-charged white pigment and negatively-charged black pigment, with a grid of electrodes running beneath it. Whenever the grid produces a negative charge beneath one capsule, the positive white pigment is attracted to the bottom of the capsule and the black pigment is repelled to the top, making the capsule as a whole appear black. The opposite happens for a positive charge, and shades of grey are achievable by careful coordination. Because the display will naturally stay in place without a charge, it only consumes power during the exact moment that the display is being changed (like turning the page), so it consumes almost no battery life. Effectively, a Kindle's display is turned off basically all the time except when the image changes. Neat, huh?

This game is out today, and I am heartbroken that I don't have enough money to get it. Soon! Soon!

strap them to a chair Clockwork Orange style and make them play Journey

What's weird and fascinating to me is that they function better than some animals capable of autotomy (reflexive self-amputation). ie: many adult spiders can detach their legs, but their web-building suffers severely. Of course, housepets have people to help them along and such... Science fun fact: there are two species of African Spiny Mice that can autotomize their skin and regrow it; including cartilage, hair, sweat glands, etc. They're of interest to science because they're the only mammals that can autotomize and scientists think that the corresponding human genes might be capable of letting people do the same thing.

It's Electrode! Its signature move is to explode, killing itself and most opponents.

...Just one more.

I'm pretty sure it's public domain. One release of the DVD apparently has the phrase "almost starring Bela Lugosi" on the cover, which is the best thing.

So I started listening to Welcome to Night Vale and ended up going through the whole archive in two days. This is a really, really good podcast you guys.

You've never seen Plan Nine From Outer Space? But it's a cinematic masterpiece!

Is Dennou Coil on Crunchyroll? Because everyone needs to watch Dennou Coil. It totally counts as a comedy if you only watch the beard civilizations episode over and over again.

Hey subbes, I used to live next to a neighbour with a tripod cat who was otherwise perfectly healthy and happy.

goddamnit breckon now I can't stop playing solitaire AUGH

I thought he was talking about Barlaam and Josaphat.