I've looked for this previously and it wasn't available. But it seems that you can now get the old D&D animated series on DvD. I'm so pleased. I think this was one of my very favorite cartoons growing up.

I thought the into was pretty darn cool, but the outro song during the end credits brings a smile to my face even today.



The X-men cartoon was another favorite -- the first one, not the second one, mind you! When the first X-men movie came out, I felt it needed to be at least as great as the original cartoon series. Sadly, it didn't come close.

On the topic of the movies the second one was okay, but the third movie? I took Dawn to see the third movie when it came out. I'm sure glad she loves me a lot.





Anyway, I'm going to have to buy this box set. I'm not going to do it tonight, because I'm feeling frugal. But maybe when Dawn heads out again and I need some Chicken Soup for the Geeky soul I'll have it sent. Amazon Prime is a great thing.

[[Edit: Tom is totally the Barbarian character with Uni the unicorn. :-)]]

Not having recently posted to the blog is bugging me. And I don't really have time to post tonight, so I'm posting this video instead from the second Ghost in the Shell movie. None of the follow-ups to the first movie even come close to matching the brilliance of the first. However, the lighting in this video is dramatic and brilliant, and I want to share it here.

I love how Japanese animators often mimic photo-realistic lighting and effects in their works. I remember the first time I saw a Japanese Anime that incorporated depth of field into the animation, as though you were really watching a film and not an animation. I was blown away; these aren't the cartoons I remember as a kid.

Around 2:14 when the poem continues "...flowers in bloom..." I love how the light begins to wash over the temple. The dynamic range is awesome. The light is bright enough that there are "blown" washed-out highlights everywhere. At the same time, while you have deep, deep shadows of pure black, there are enough midtones that light feels right. If you somehow saw this during a parade, it would be a very special moment, and that feeling comes across in the animation.

Last but not least, the imagery is pretty cool. I like the idea of gods who descend to Earth, forgetting their godhood while they go about leading their lives -- though I might be reading a whole lot of optimism into a rather depressing song:

Through day and night, the moon not coming,
In grief, Nue will sing.
When I look back,
flowers will fall away.
The heart of solace, having withered.
In a new world, Gods will descend,
the dawn will break, and Nue will sing
Flowers in bloom, pray to Gods.
Lamenting over their being in this world of life,
their dreams having faded away, flowers grieve and fall.

Never mind that though. I love the music. I love the lighting. And I sometimes listen to it more than once.

--Still sitting here pondering away on colors and the meaning of life. I have iTunes' new visualizer going on my other monitor. Up until this very moment I've been lukewarm about it. The effects are good, but the "AI" remains a little dim witted sometimes. And for some songs it just doesn't jive at all.

Well, I stumbled (virtually speaking) across "Arjuna: into the another world" in my library and gave that a turn. Wow. This album is making the new visualizer do things I haven't seen it do yet. Very, very nice. The algorithms seems to work very well with this music -- nice transitions and such.

Doesn't look like you can buy it anymore, so I have a copy if anyone wants it. Dawn calls is "space alien whale music," but it's actually pretty good. This YouTube clip has a couple of the main themes; I especially like the one toward the end of the clip. The whole album is different though from song to song. Very diverse, fantastic album. The amine itself, well it's no Haibane-Renmei, but I'm game for anything that doesn't have shooting mech robots.

(Check out the "part two" clip for the type of music Dawn is talking about.)

[[Edit: You have to click through each picture to really get the best view.]]

The rainforest weather is gone. Today was as hot as hell in a frying pan. And a neighbor tells me that it's pretty much gone for good this summer. Oh summer showers, I barely even knew you.

But you know what we still have? Spiders. Our yard has been overrun with creepy Hellraiser spiders. Spiders, spiders everywhere. In fact, I've even seen a few in the house, though fortunately they weren't of the variety that I photographed this morning.

I've always thought these spiders were a little on the creepy side. Well let me tell you, now that I've had the pleasure of viewing one for an hour through a macro lens, they are more creepy that you imagined. Those little black spots? Well, they look like some kind of horrible, scabby, oozy spider disease. The red spikes are over-the-top, even from a distance, but up close you notice they have little hairs on them -- so they almost look like jagged spikes.

And let me tell you about the head and legs. They're black. But they're not just black. They're so black that they absorb light. That's right, you heard me. This spider is part black-hole, part Hellraiser character, part morbid mystery disease, part stegosaurus, and did I mention it was a spider? I don't think it worries about being eaten by anything.


I heard that spiders inject a venom into the victim's body to liquefy the insides and they sucked out the juices. Not this guy. When something flies into his web he just rolls out of bed and eats it whole.

Seriously, I can't figure out why someone hasn't made a horror movie about this guy yet.

If you need something innocent to clear your mind after looking at these pictures, I recommend Susan Christie's "I Love Onions." Although, the song is a little surreal, so it could make things worse.

Or if you're an anime fan, I found an anime award site that has reviews that I actually agree with: AGB Anime Awards. This is my new go-to list for shopping new shows.

I've never had the "pleasure" of viewing the underside of an
Arachnohellspawn before.

Amazon Prime is heavenly. My seat cushion came today. I've been having to sit on a pillow because I've decimated the padding in my chair by sitting for 18 hours at a time. Eventually I'm going to get a HermanMiller Mirra chair. But I have to figure out if I need a B or a C size first. Apparently getting the wrong size will result in numb legs…. The new cushion is good though! I'm feeling a difference in my back already if you can believe it. I measured my chair and got the larger size so that it fits perfectly.

Speaking of cushions, I'm still loving my Micro Bead pillow. I think when Dawn comes back she is going to steal it and I'm going to have to order a second one. :-)

I broke down and bought a labeler to replace the crappy little one that thought it was always running on low batteries. I always dreaded getting it out, and this week I couldn't even find it so: Brother PT-2700 Desktop Labeling System.

And last but not least Planetes came at the same time as my seat cushion. I got a little bug to watch some new anime and this looked interesting. It's a story of a group of people who have to clean up space debris. Should be campy and fun.

Nothing will ever replace Haibane Renmei or Twelve Kingdoms though.