The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

Melody of Oblivion has been licensed by Geneon. There was much rejoicing, followed by ceremonial roasting of parrots. Viva!

And the first disc is due out in June! At one point early in the series I wanted to describe this as Utena without the sexuality, with arrows instead of fencing. Then the next episode proved me badly, badly wrong. I can't wait to see the rest of this.

Profound thanks to meagenimage for pointing me to this brilliant entry, which reminds me of why I didn't want to be a teacher. Pity he didn't actually give these back to the students that way. Although I'm sure there would be complaints about papers soggy from dripping sarcasm.

[EDIT] Goal for the day: To use "sphinges" in a conversation with a coworker.

I have a new #1 entry on my "Most Hated People Ever" list:

People who create huge network maps (designed to be printed out and displayed at sizes that rival most posters) in Powerpoint. Ugh. Could this thing possibly be any harder to work with? I'm going to have to redraw the entire thing in order to do what I want to do with it.

Not that I actually want to do this, now. I'm supposed to be giving a presentation (that may lead to funding and other goodness) to the organization's Board of Directors. When, I don't know, but after attending one of them today, I'm kind of hoping never. Or, at the very least, no sooner than two months from now.

The poor guy giving the presentation today got eaten alive. It was...traumatic. Eaten alive by the O2 (except, you know, not actually military), no less, at about every other slide. And about half the people in the room joined in on the fun at the end. I suspect there were politics I'm not aware of coming into play there, but it still wasn't pretty to watch. I've never been so intimidated in my life.

So...yea. I'm going to have to make myself an expert in things only peripherally connected to my presentation on the off chance that I get asked strange questions about systems engineering and whatnot.

Gah! I'm a Networks (and security) geek, I don't care about the systems connected on either end of my wire! Unless, of course, they start causing performance problems, or other things that impact my network.

B, my new boss, gave me some Useful Data yesterday that I will sprinkle into my presentation to make it look like I care about the program impact, where this fits into a pile of acronyms I can't remember, who the PM is, what corporate benefit this provides, or any of that crap.

...Wow, reading back on that sentance makes me sound like a near-sociopath obsessesive geek-in-a-basement. I'm going to stop before I get myself in trouble.

-Order placed August 23, 2004 with an estimated shipping date of Nov 4-Nov 4, 2004: Not yet shipped, no revised shipping date
-Order placed Sept 23, 2004 with an estimated shipping date of Dec 4-Dec 7, 2004: Not yet shipped, no revised shipping date
-Order placed Jan 3, 2005 with an estimated shipping date of Jan 9-10, 2005: Revised shipping date of Mar 3-Mar 16, 2005
-Order placed Jan 18, 2005 with an estimated shipping date of Jan 22-Jan 24, 2005: Revised shipping date of Mar 14-April 1, 2005

What the hell? Is Amazon in some kind of financial trouble that I haven't heard about yet? With the exception of the first order listed, every single item here was a non-preorder at the time I placed my order, with the overwhelming majority (possibly all, I don't remember) "shipping in 24 hours."

Have I mentioned lately that Tutu is the greatest thing ever? My copy finally arrived, and it's wonderful. So long as you disregard both covers, which manage to take gorgeous art and make it fugly.

The dub is perfect, with the slight and possible (only possible, mind) exception of Drosselmeyer. I'm not sure that he's quite *mumble* enough, or properly *mumblemumble*. Other than that...

Chris Patton is the standout role in this, which is good considering how much I love Fakir. He just nails the character and delivers each line with sufficient venom to poison a small European country. Jay Hickman is wonderfully flat, but it'll be fun to see how he progresses. I haven't heard Jessica Boone's Rue yet, so the jury's still out there.

The narrator is wonderful - she captures a storyteller's inflections perfectly, really adding to intro bits, which I notice have quite a bit more going on in them then it first appears. God, I love this show. I want her to win a Best Actress award, but somehow I don't see that ever happening. Pity.

I also recieved in the mail today the Fullmetal Alchemist Box O' Coolness, a couple other DVDs, and the Megahouse Ichigo (from Bleach) figure, which is quite possibly the coolest figure I own. I'll take pictures at some point, but I have more Tutu to watch now.

Yay!

Hoi. Jeebus. God. Almighty.

If your collection for some strange reason lacks Kaleido Star, Kino's Journey, Angelic Layer, or Super GALS! (trust me on that one, really - it's awesome), you might want to look into correcting those grievous oversights. Prices like these don't happen often....

The Princess Nine Complete Collection is a pretty damn good deal, too. Oooo, and Kaleido Star. And all of Devil Lady for $20. Gah, just the first disc of Aquarian Age, though - I must be strong, I can resist until a bundle appears...

Pity I already own everything I'm interested in on that list save Aquarian Age.