Pleiades Rising

Wait, you mean no one was ever like, "Yeah, I'm leaving this site...right now! Just watch me go...I'm going now, so don't hold me back." You know, the person who no longer believes in anything and emphasizes it by firmly sticking to that belief. Also, I like the little conversations that go on in the profiles. Who knows where they'll lead, ya know?

One mecha series that I enjoy is [i]Gasaraki[/i]. It's full of political intrigue, social unrest, mecha action, and mythology that spans the ages. It all adds up to one of the more underrated mecha-anime series of all time. As for that whole overrated-underrated thing, the usual suspects that are deemed overrated have their functions, I'd say. I know of many people who first got into anime because of those "overrated" anime (and where is the line drawn when we can clearly say that something is overrated, anyways - [i]Death Note[/i], or an easier target like [i]Naruto[/i]? Is it mainly when something is commercially successful? If so, how do we approach [i]Fullmetal Alchemist[/i], which defies such seemingly arbitrary labels?). One of the first anime that [i]really[/i] hooked me was DBZ. From then on, I've been sampling almost anything that interests me, whether it be popular or not. Of course, some of the anime deemed "underrated" is such for a reason: they're not very good, e.g. [i]Mahoromatic [/i]and[i] Ikki Tousen[/i]. Nevertheless, some anime does go under the radar of those more inclined to keep up with the popular anime. But in due time, I suspect they'll take those nice little roads which lead to pleasant discoveries. Heck, I'll give 'em credit and say that some of them at some time or other have watched - and liked! - both [i]Inuyasha[/i] and, say, [i]ChaoS;HEAd.[/i]

So, you've made it one revolution around the Sun, huh? May you have many more revolutions! I'll admit that I've kept track of this site on and off (more off than on) as a non-member for some time now. I have a difficult time keeping up with too many sites, so I just designated theO as my site of choice in which I hang out. Still, some kind folks have occasionally tossed me links to interesting threads on here, so that always kept me interested in this site. Now I've finally joined years later, what keeps me coming back to OB is the level of civility on here (I'm sure others have had horror stories about other boards and forums), not to mention the quality of some of the more in-depth posts I've read here. I guess it's the quality that keeps me coming back. And you, CaNz, were strange enough to befriend me, for some reason or other.

How could I forget about this one: [i]Dragonball GT[/i]: Warriors back for adventure (cash)!

Book Lover's Day? I think I've extended that far into my life so far, and it shows no signs of ending. Still, books shall be read on that finest of days! It reminds me to hit up the library again, to prepare for the celebrations (e.g. I'll [i]read[/i] about cakes, ice cream, and fireworks...in silence, of course).

Actually, both of them seem to be punishment. Sorry, Yuki and Yomiko. My deepest apologies. I've read some of Wagner's tortured prose, and it ain't pretty (or intelligible, for that matter). Still, as a contest, I couldn't think of anything more strenuous to read than Wager's slap-dash essays. And one more for the road. Motoko, you're up again! [b]Motoko Kusanagi vs. Lain Iwakura:[/b] A staring contest for the ages. (Especially as Motoko is rendered in the first film.) The winner receives a lifetime supply of Visine eyedrops. The loser gets Kool-Aid crystals blow in her eyes.

Despite my love of all things Eva, I side with Nagato on the cuteness factor. [b]Proxy One vs. Motoko Kusanagi:[/b] Start your philosophical discourses! First one who gives an answer that takes less than 10 minutes to explicate loses that match. Winner gets an ice cream. [b]Yuki Nagato vs. Yomiko Readman:[/b] Whoever successfully reads all of Richard Wagner's prose is declared the "winner". The loser is given the entire [i]Twilight [/i]saga. [b]Guu vs. Excel Excel:[/b] The person who keeps a straight face the longest shall be declared the victor. Loser has to get acquainted with the village elder's mighty chest hair. [b]Fafner pilots vs. Eva pilots:[/b] first group to fall into a shame spiral wins the Robot Romanticism award. Loser gets an awkward handshake.

Though it didn't completely shatter my past youth, this choice viewing of mine sure left some noticeable cracks in its foundations: Around a month ago, I decided to re-watch an episode of the old [i]Transformers [/i]cartoon (I think it's called "Generation 1", nowadays). The episode's called "Carnage in C-Minor", from Season 3, and of all the episodes to watch once more to relieve those magical moments - it had to be that one. The good thing about it was that it had the ultra-cool Galvatron (!!!), but that's pretty much the only good thing it had going for it. The plot involved the Transformers crash landing on an alien planet where the elf-looking inhabitants "speak" in a very sing-song manner . . . and holy moly me oh my does it go downhill fast the minute they start sing-talking. (Actually, it's laughably bad, so it had [i]something[/i] going for it.) Top it off with some laughably bad dialog like, "I don't want to see your ugly face; just the button that says erase!" (a true facepalm moment, if there ever was one), and primitive animation (did they move the cels by hand just to make a character jump into screen?), and you've got the makings for completely scrapping the concept "nostalgia" altogether. At the end of it all, I had that a [i]Wonder Years[/i]-ish voice inside my head lamenting the fact that a piece of my childhood was forever gone and tarnished.

Okay, I must say this: Considering the site we're posting in, claiming things anime or gaming related as the nerdiest things you've ever done is kind of like walking into a dog show and saying you've got a pink poodle - and you see blue, yellow, and red poodles here and there, amongst other dogs of various styles. I know you all can be nerdier than that, my fine friends! But seriously, the nerdiest [i]anime or gaming[/i] thing I've ever done was pay over $300 for the [i]Evangelion Perfect Edition[/i] Boxset. (This was years ago, when the market was cashing in on the sudden rise in popularity of anime.) Nowadays, you could get 6 to 8 slimpack boxsets for that price. Heck, nowadays, I'd probably spend that loot on books about paradoxes or relativism or something along those lines. Nevertheless, that was my finest otaku hour.

Simple: I bought a dictionary of Mathematics . . . because I wanted it! That's right, it wasn't for a course or anything like that, but I just thought that I could sharpen up some mathematical concepts. (I also own a couple of books on Formal Logic, often considered a branch of mathematics.) Owning an insane number of anime related stuff is nerdy, folks, but not as nerdy as this helpful definition: [b] Aleph-null: [/b]The smallest infinite cardinal number. The cardinality of any set which can be put in one-to-one correspondence with the set of natural numbers. Such sets are said to be countable" or denumerable. . . .

It shatters my day when I'm eating with family or friends and they get fortunes in their cookies, but mine is empty. I've had that happen to me, and it cast a shadow on my day. I'd rather have gotten something like "You are always wrong" instead of cracking open that cookie goodness to find the empty space of disappointment. It's like having Santa wake you up on Christmas night just to show you the gifts you aren't getting from him.

Just groovin' to the mini album [i]D.I.S.C.O. [/i]by Uhm Jung Hwa. It has only 6 songs on it, but most of them are pretty solid. Of course, the title song has a nice Daft Punk sound to it, and you feel the urge to sing along with the chorus right whenever you hear it. My favorite on this, however, has to be "Heujegon (feat. Perry)", with its old school disco dance floor beats. Now where did I put my platform boots...

Though I wouldn't exactly say that I was expecting to not love this series (I had absolutely no preconceptions about it at all), I felt that I had stumbled across something captivating when I first watched [i]Mushishi.[/i] A good friend recommended it to me, and I'm ever thankful that she did! The only thing I knew about the series was its name and how the main character looked. Other than that, I knew next to nothing about it. When I finally watched the first episode . . . I knew and [i]felt[/i] that I was hooked. Almost everything about [i]Mushishi[/i] is beautiful, from the art to the music (I like the reedy sound the Mushi make when moving through the air. It's so haunting, yet wonderful in all senses of the word). [i]Mushishi[/i] is one series that I'm very glad to have seen.

There's a couple of good podcasts out there that I enjoy listening to now and then. When I'm traveling and I want to stimulate some thoughts, I'll listen to a podcast. Even when I'm just sitting down relaxing, I'll play one of my favorite podcasts stir the imagination. Of course, my likes tend to be more academic oriented (read: boring as hell), but here they are anyways. [i]Baggini's Philosophy Monthly[/i], or [i]BPM[/i],: As the title says, it's a monthly podcast dedicated to philosophical issues, hosted by Julian Baggini. I first became aware of this one around a month or two ago, so I'm getting acquainted with it myself, and I can't comment on the quality too much. However, it seems pretty solid, even though they clock in around 30 minutes per show. They pack in some thoughtful content in a fairly short time for such demanding subject - just more than enough to give you a taste. The one with my pal Daniel Dennett was not bad, so I'll have to listen to more of Baggini's podcasts. [i]CBC Radio Podcasts[/i]: Now they've got an entire roster full podcasts on their site. From Radio 2's [i]Beethoven Nine in 9[/i] to [i]The Best of DNTO[/i] to [i]Ideas (Highlights), [/i]CBC has a wide selection to choose from. The last one on the list, [i]Ideas[/i], is my favorite podcast to listen to. The topics range from the sociological, philosophical, scientific, to whatnot! For those who love to think, these are the podcasts to listen to. My favorite that the [i]Ideas[/i] series has done is "How to Think about Science", which studied the methodologies, aims, goals, and movements in science. This isn't available online anymore (it comes and goes, on their site), but I was lucky enough to grab all 24 podcasts when they made the entire series available for download. Thanks to these podcasts, I've found some more thinkers to stimulate my thoughts (Ian Hacking and Lorraine Daston now have books on my shelf). Fantastic stuff!

I [i]was[/i] watching [i]Code Geass[/i], until I realized that the person who lent it to me had given me the second season - and I didn't see the first. Oh well. However, I did finally finish [i]Haibane Renmei[/i] (I no longer marathon any parts of a series, but I did watch that last 2 dvds in one evening. The joys of library returns and not having enough time to watch anything leisurely anymore!). It's a very quiet series, and some would probably consider it to be slow. Still, I didn't consider it to be such; I rather liked how they paced it over the span of 13 episodes. I thought it was a nice tale of friendship and some of the struggles that come along with it. I did manage to watch the first episode of [i]Gunslinger Girl[/i] not too long ago, and it looks promising (the fantastic song for the OP sure didn't hurt its chances either). I'm sure I'll add this series to my list of things to watch, too.