Ok, folks. How long have we had the internet now? A little while, correct? I should not have to say this. IGNORE TROLLS! For the love of god! Trolls aren't just for usenet anymore! Thanks to trolls and the people that continue to try and respond to them, or, god forbid, reason with them, half of the sites I visit actually make me less informed. Well, they would if I bothered to read the flame wars. Fortunately I've learned to recognize them fairly quickly.

Just in case there are a few of you that don't know what trolls are, let me direct you to the entry in the Jargon File.

I think I might put together a pdf that contains a small card with simple internet use rules that you can print out and glue to your monitor... or forehead, etc.

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Many thanks to ++fathom for loaning me his copies of Trigun and Hellsing. I enjoyed both quite a bit.

Trigun is another western meets sci-fi anime ala Cowboy Bebop. Before I get flamed for comparing the two, let me say that they are very different. Trigun has a bit more of a philosophical bent. It is also considerably more humorous. Bebop is better. I have to say, I love the whole future western anime thing (Not to be confused with the whole future western bad movie thing). I can recommend Trigun. I think Vash the Stampede, Trigun's main man (Down, Wolfwood fans! Down!), despite being a little annoying, is one of my favorite anime characters.

Hellsing... hrmm. Hellsing is a vampire/dark future anime. The animation and the japanese voice acting were quite good. The story, however, was weak. It was still fun. Alucard, the baddest ass vampire ever, was an amusing character. This anime will be great fun for you phallocentrists out there. The weapons wielded by two of the three main characters are huge... and hard... and.. whew... anyway.

At this point I really want to talk about religious references in anime. In Neon Genesis Evangelion there were a lot of them. Crosses, the Sefirot of the Kabballah, etc. Both Trigun and Hellsing make heavy use of christian and pagan imagery. What interests me here is intent. In the case of Evangelion, the creators supposedly used the imagery they did for appearances. I read somewhere that had they thought it was going to be released in the states they might have done something different. What I wonder is do these images enjoy the same immediate recognition with japanese audiences as they do with american? To my sadly limited knowlege, christianity is fairly marginalized in Japan. I would assume the number of japanese jews is even smaller. Does this stuff just look/sound cool? I personally have never really thought so.

In fairness, a lot of anime is built on concepts that draw heavily from all of the world's religions. These were just the first few examples that came to mind.

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++fathom 's (wow... twice in one entry, man) former roommate Justin has hooked me up with a minidisc player. Don't laugh too hard. I've always wanted one... but not for full price. There's some part of me that craves obsolete-at-conception niche-market digital audio technology. I'm looking forward to playing with it. Thanks :)

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The INDUCE act. Wow. I'm sure glad I pay taxes. God bless our senators for protecting corporations from us, their evil customers. *tear*

Learn to compete you obsolete monsters.

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