Freyburg

Wired has an article about how three of the titans of anime will be releasing cel-based goodness at the same time soon. Though I’ve long since tempered my love for Japanese cartoonery, I have to admit this crop of filmic goodness looks pretty tasty.

And I also have to say that, despite the inherent nerdiness of anime and much of anime fandom, a lot of good things have come my way since I popped “Project A-ko” into my laserdisc player more than a decade ago. Either directly or indirectly, I’ve made lifelong friends (who I still talk to every day on MSN, and who I’ll be staying with in Vancouver on the long weekend), been best man at my best friend’s wedding, been to Japan twice, and been published on Shift.com and in the Prague Post, all thanks to anime.

Of course, I just sold my A-ko laserdisc on eBay, and Lillerant will soon get my laserdisc player to further his Star Wars preservation madness. And as I’ve gotten older and my tastes change, my tolerance for plotless crap that happens to be from Japan has withered a bit. And the fans are by and large an irritating and spoiled bunch. Back in the day we had to work to find this crap! But I guess that’s just part of growing up.

The new iMac. Snazzy.

The New York Times (!) has an article about why Star Trek is sucking, and how maybe it should be put to bed for a while. Can’t say I disagree. I always liked TNG, but the new shows seem to be more plotless profit grabbers than engaging stories with interesting characters. Of course, sexy Vulcans ease the pain.

I’ve been running my ass off with work, but I might as well throw some decent links at all five of you.

Bookslut, a blog/review site that will appeal those of you with a literary bent, is sometimes off but mostly on.

Gothamist is a website devoted to New York. I’ve never been to NYC, let alone lived there, but somehow it’s interesting to see what goes on there day to day anyway.

And this guy always has some interesting stuff to share.

Foreign Affairs is one of those grey, thick magazine-ish tomes that inexplicably show up on the shelves of Shoppers Drug Mart every once in a while, chock full of insightful analysis and not much in the way of star profiles and pictures of Brad Pitt.

Another great thing about them is their tendency to fire major articles onto their website. As you can well imagine, Osoyoos isn’t a hotbed of foreign policy debate. I’ve even been criticized for putting “that political stuff” in my columns (though by a few people in town, not my employers). There’s also a group of expat Brits who are cool as ice with my mumblings on current events, so it’s not a total loss.

Anyway, the point I’m meandering towards is this great story about why Iraq’s occupation has been a dismal failure.

I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that I dislike practically everything about driving. Being a reporter in a small town means I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter, but the least I can do is point you fine folk at some fine anti-car resources. Here’s a parody of the American anti-drug ad campaign, with the evils of the car substituting narcotics. And here’s a link to a bunch of lefty agitators who nonetheless share my contempt for internal combustion.

I had a bunch of things to post about today, but work and productivity somehow got in the way. So here’s excerpts from an interview with Neal Stephenson, whose monstrous brick of a tome I am currently reading.

I’m busier than hell this weekend, but here’s a funny timeline showing how an Apple product gets created. (courtesy of Lillerant)

Even though the site is a libertarian cornerstone and generally smells a little Ayn Rand-ish, this rant about highfalutin’ art types is kind of funny.

And for all three of my fellow Mac buddies (four? five?), check out the musings on Daring Fireball. This cat puts some thought into the Mac’s current state, rather than leaping all over the latest “thenew iMac will use magical Apple power to float above the keyboard” ramblings.

Here’s an article from the Atlantic about a journalist in Kabul who managed to snag one of Al Queda’s hard drives. Seems there were emails from Osama and all sorts of other goodies on the beast. Makes for some interesting reading.