The city sent out folks to check out the tree today, no fuss, no muss. I love Santa Clara. My tree is now all tied up and I no longer twitch at every breeze. The note left says they'll be back tomorrow to remove the branches threatening my neighbor's place and save the rest of the tree. I call this an all's well that ends well.

And now I go to wallow in hot water and pass out.

Tree in front of the house has a crack down the middle of it running three-quarters of the way to the ground. It looks to be a new crack, possibly from the big wind storms we had last night. I call the city tomorrow to, since it's technically their tree, pretty please do something about it before it splits all the way and falls on my neighbor's car.

I was fussing about not wanting the tree taken out and how I'll miss it -- right up until that unhappy part of my brain said "I better hope the city will take care of it. You know how much it's going to cost if I have to pay for it?"

I really hope the city handles it. Otherwise I'm going to be very, very, very most extraordinarily broke. And either way, I'm fussed because it's a nice tree for all that it likes getting into my sewer lines and tries to hide my property under leaves in the late fall.

Heard in the elevator at work: "That was so gay! I got killed by the mountain troll after it was dead."

Long day, long commute. Long week, come to think of it. But I can say this: For the first time in longer than I can count I have my DVR set to record WRC and I have confidence that something will record. That's pretty darn cool.

Still no idea what I'm doing for a Hallowe'en costume tomorrow. We'll see what inspiration strikes after sleep is done.

English subtitle: Tokyo, Japan

Flashing Japanese neon sign: Kansai

Me: *amused*

(Er... Since the icon is not obviously Ultraman related -- unless one cares to squint and wonder when the heck the Black Death turned companion to monsters rampaging to destroy Tokyo (it being an unlikely defender of truth, justice, and Japan's skyscrapters) -- the remainder of this post is related to Ultraman Moebius and unlikely to make sense to anyone who hasn't seen it. And quite possibly will make no sense even to those who have.)


So... I knew there was a time gap of several weeks between episode one and two in Moebius. What I hadn't realized is that the Gun Phoenix of episode two is not the same as the Gun Phoenix in episode one. In episode one it didn't have METEOR. It was installed in the time gap between the two episodes. This is based on Araiso commenting that METEOR was shoved onto the G.P. after the massacre with the Gun Crusader combined with it appearing that pretty much all of episode one takes place on the same day.

This random observation brought to you by madsqueeble asking me what I thought would happen if Mirai hadn't gone and fetched the rest of his pet humans the future crew. Which one day I really will write up my thoughts on that. Honest.


On an only somewhat related note, went back and rewatched the new long trailer. Words fail me at expressing how utterly cool this movie looks to be. 47 days... 47 days...
And ( spoiler )

New trailer, mostly new scenes. Actually, there's two new trailers, the second one is Haruna, is short, but also contains stuff that wasn't in any previous trailer.

Thanks, madsqueeble for the heads up!

And now I go pass out.

After over a month (nearly two, I think) of the media server not talking to the Xbox -- ever since the media server acquired a trojan horse (I think? It's a long story) -- I finally got all my kids to play nice with each other. It-- Oh, I-- *incoherent squealing* Oh, I have missed streaming downloads!

Gah, it must have been dead for nearly two months now. It started having problems during the time when we had a major database meltdown at work. Since I simultaneously had a minor plumbing meltdown at home, fixing the media server was not high on the list. Gah. Oh well, it's better now, and I can stop twitching that I can't get to my downloaded media easily. AND I can torrent Merlin eps rather than relying on Megaupload. Lo, there be joy here. Loads and loads of it.

Speaking of loads and loads of joy, my Minion delivered two lovely pieces of news to me today: First, Discovery HD is airing the WRC 2009 coverage. The only thing stopping me from going down to Costco Right Now and getting that new HD Tivo I've been coveting is that I'm still damp and smelly from going to the gym earlier today, and they close in 15 minutes. And I'm still seriously tempted to go even so. It's not like I'm going to see the people I run into at Costco again anyway, right? (Particularly not if in the future they see me first...)

The other lovely piece of news is rumors are flying that Ken Block is signing a program with Ford for a three-year run in the WRC, with Chris Atkinson as his teammate. It sounds like it might be a limited program for 2010, with a full run in 2011, possibly in the new Ford Fiesta WRC. This would be very cool as Chris sat out Rally Oz this year and I've been eager to get some news of what he's up to. (That, plus I have a high opinion of his talents as a rally driver and would love to see him get a chance in a car that doesn't suck. Yes, I'm a bad Subaru fan.)

Those last two pieces of news came up thanks to my boss's birthday being one day before mine. As is Chris Atkinson's. Life is weird.

Hm. I think 2x04 is one of the best put together episodes to date. The humor's back on, but better timed than it was in 2x01 or 2x03 (where it sometimes felt off-pace and a bit forced; still funny, but not as naturally integrated.) All the main characters get a moment in the spotlight and most of them get a solid, competent part. (Morgana in particular had been getting a bit ragged about the edges lately; it's nice seeing her back to being strong and competent again.) Progress is made on the love triangle without being overly cloying. And Lancelot is just love. Beautifully implemented as a character (and the actor, num!), managing to balance all the ideals of courtly love but still managing to stay a sympathetic character rather than an overbearing prat. (One prat's enough for the show, thankyouverymuch.) I still very much love their choice of making Guinevere a servant. It throws an interesting kink in the dynamic and ups the tension.

I like the random parallels they manage between first and second season for the episodes. The second episode of each season featured a tournament. I forget what the parallel is for the third -- I'd have to watch 2x03 again. And the forth episode revolves around Arthur risking his life for a servant. I suspect the next pair of episodes will break this -- though I welcome being surprised by it.

No new episode next week, and the one following, I'm told, is a two-parter.

I swear, Merlin fandom is making me lazy. I know the location of something that shows up in the episode before I even see the episode. The castle is Caerphilly Castle. Unsurprisingly, it's in Wales, not far from Cardiff.

On an unrelated note, I will not stay in Cardiff, for all that it is convenient and has a castle of its own. The city is a bitch, and whereas with my handy A to Zed it may now be my bitch, it's still a bitch nonetheless.


Edit: Ooh, it's got working siege engines! (The castle, that is, not Cardiff. Not that I necessarily put working siege engines past Cardiff.)

Ah, and I suspect parts of the moat were used for bits of 1x13. Behold.

So the Brazilian Grand Prix is next weekend. Wouldn't it have been cool to have found this out early enough that I could have downloaded this week's Merlin episode (which was not pre-empted for the Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying, said qualifying not happening until next week) early enough to watch it before bed? Ah well, I have an unexpected surprise, so I shan't complain too much.

The following video made me giggle a whole bunch, so I share it here.




And because I'm me, Abergavenny is in Monmonthshire, near the Welsh border.

That is all.

What do you get when you make a toy out of mammoth, a T-rex and a triceratops? Well, when the triceratops' horn ends up in the middle you get the world's most phallic kid's toy. Just to share the fun I present you Exhibit A and Exhibit B.


I so can't wait to hear Jan's comments on that.

They can be found here. Amazingly they play even outside of Japan! Not a lot new but a little bit.

I want to read this post on Guinevere throughout the various versions. Just not right now, since it's late and I'm tired. Tired enough to mis-read something as "Colin Morgan - News for 'The Sex Change'". (The correct word was, in fact, "sea". Eyes crossing now.)

Also, based on the promo pics it looks like the jousting episode is the next one. Yay, pillow fight!


Randomly, WTF is with restricting episode trailers by region? Seriously, people. I thought it was only the Japanese who were engaging in that particular bit of stupidity. But now I've caught the BBC doing it as well. Why, people, why?

So it turns out sometime yesterday my phone got turned off. Not the total power off I can see it's a brick kind of powered off. The "I want to use my smart phone on the airplane but want to make sure the phone stuff is disabled so I don't make us crash" kind of way. Which is to say, turned off in the kind of way that I didn't even realize it was turned off.

Yesterday I finally got around to buying my plane ticket for Japan. I tried a new and different site to get the tickets, and realized that in the process I hadn't specified my seat reservation. (Those who remember my earlier post should be laughing up a storm at this point.) So I decided to call the place first thing this morning and see if I couldn't get that settled. I'm working from home in the morning since I'm expecting a phone screen for a job I want, so I used my cell phone to make the call rather than placing it from my desk phone like I normally would. This was pretty cool, since that meant I noticed that the phone was disabled and, y'know, fixed it.

Did I mention the phone screen today for a job I really want? I think having the phone on so the interviewer can contact me is a really nice thing. I'm very glad I missed specifying my seat reservation on that ticket.

Apparently sweet potato produces bright magenta mold. It looks most unnatural.

...


Feel free not to ask how I know that. I'll just be getting back to doing the dishes now.

Through sheer coincidence I happened to be staring at my countdown clock as it counted down to the start (in the UK) of Merlin season 2. I glanced down and noticed it was at 0 days 00 hours 00 minutes and 32 seconds, and was rather surprised. How did that suddenly happen? Now it's counting down to the new Ultraman movie, which will be in roughly 84 days 00 hours 52 minutes and 21 seconds, not taking into account what time the show times are, and the fact that I'm too lazy to do the math to account for time zone differences plus Daylight Savings Time. (Do you get the impression I liked that trailer?)

But all that reminded me of what I really wanted to post about. ( It involves neurosis and plane tickets, and my friend and I, at least, found it amusing. )

I wanted to synopsize the charlie-foxtrot meeting I had to attend earlier today in the form of a Greek tragedy, but alas, it's been so long since I've read those classics that I can't remember the style well. All I've managed to come up with so far is: "I would not shame my throat with shameful lies. And yet, in truth, I cannot say we are retesting because we have not yet, in truth, tested." That meeting needed a Greek chorus.

... Plus, I seem to have completely blocked the meeting from my mind. All I can remember at the moment is:

1) I spent a lot of time laughing in it. Just about any time my boss said something it made me laugh. And not in a good way. In that "you've freakin' GOT to be kidding me" kind of way. I'm glad he was on the phone and couldn't see me giggling.

2) Exchanging snarky comments with fresne in AIM, along the lines of "this is like watching a traffic accident", and something about it being a tragedy, and tragedies really ought to be Greek.

3) Watching the trailer for the new Ultraman movie over and over and over again. Are they still talking? Yes? Does it still make me want to pound my head on the table until blessed unconsciousness has ensued? Yes? Let's watch the trailer again! Damn, that looks cool! Oh, sorry, were you saying something?


Eh, it's probably best that way. As I commented to a friend, a year from now I won't care about what my boss said. I will still care about that trailer.

So anyway, my thoughts from the trailer... ( Contains possibly spoilery speculation and wild fangasm. )


Oh, and since it was pointed out to me earlier that I wasn't very clear... Yes, I'm going to be in Japan at the time the movie's opening. That's partly by sheer coincidence (we had a trip already planned for that time period) and partly by a combination of planning and state budget crisis. (Because we were planning on leaving a few days before the release, but then it worked out that we had to leave a week later. Darn.) So since I'm going to be there anyway, hell yeah I'm seeing it on a big screen opening night.