With hours to go to 2006, I wish every one a better year than this one. For some of our members, it’s already the New Year.
Looking back it was fun and more fun is in store for 2007. I’ll leave you with this one link to what I feel is THE song of 2006, Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton. One listen and you’ll agree.
I’ve also updated the blog calendar for our meetings for 2007.
It was over two years ago I started the bento OTAKU section on Anime London. The intent was to bring snippets of Japanese culture and other tidbits that were sent to me by a friend in Japan.
It was always interesting to see what odditity would come my way and try to make an article out of it. Sadly I have not kept up with bento OTAKU and the secion has gathered dust and neglect over the past year.
To that, I hate to say the quirky section of Anime London is dead. Dead but not gone. As if by some Monty Python skit, bento will have new life on this blog. I’m in the process of transferring each article over to the blog under the bento category.
I’ll be postdating the articles to match the original posts when they were made. Tedious task but worth the effort. From there , with the blog software, I can actually upkeep bento (OTAKU) in a more timely matter.
The first article, Saru Saru Go Away!, has been transfered and I hope to have the rest transfered by New Year.
Well with Anime London being too close to half gig mark, I started crunching numbers. Not that you out there will notice. I recompressed some of the jpegs in the review section which which took some 600K off the space. I was hoping that PNG would drop some bytes but 15K jpeg became a 146K PNG. No thanks.
While I look at other byte-saving means of keeping cosplay galleries online I put up two no anime or cosplay related videos. Have to keep in practice and winter has it’s own challenges. Usually I keep my other video private but here is two which I uploaded recently.
Obviously Christmas is a time of giving but also lights. Some people have little while some people go through more and more each year. I makes me wonder where they put their stuff when the season is over. There are several places that people just drive by then there is Victoria Park display which I went back to record close up.
Christmas lights in London, Ontario
For those in London, Ontario, this month’s only snowfall was dramatic. Around 2 feet of snow fell overnight here, leaving everything shutdown. I ended helping a friend dig out their cars and I took a video of their backyard.
Backyard somewhere under 2 feet of snow
I used Memory Stick Pro with my Samsung camcorder which allows better quality video over just plain Memory Stick though no where near that of miniDV tape. 512M MSpro equates into 12 mintues of video. The only real problem is SC-D353 sticks into autofocus using stick which means it is constantly refocusing. I can manually focus with tape. Still it’s a quick a cheap way of taking practice shots. This is good considering a friend who bought a more expensive camcorder that only saves pictures to SD memory card.
Well with Christmas dinners under way, (I head soon to a friend’s place for today), I wish all a safe and happy (no in-fighting) holiday.
I will be posting over the holidays some old school anime classics as our one shots for the Virtual Anime Club.
For those who have no clue of what the Virtual Anime Club (VAC) is. It is a weekly posting of videos off Youtube. (We post the links to the shows. We don’t post the shows themselves.) Too get the weekly listing you need to register to access the VAC.
Christmas Day’s old school post is TOUCH which was immensely popular during it’s run. It’s about a trio who grows up only to find that one of them has grown from a tomboy into a girl. This blog posting is a onetime posting.
Merry Christmas
TOUCH episode 1
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
The following is a listing of YouTube posts that consist of one episode of a series. One shot means we will watch only the first episodes. People are free to follow these series on their own. Please support the offical release when available.
YouTube TIPS
Some might be more ‘readabe’ if enlarge to full screen. Sometimes it’s best to pause to allow the video to transfers to complete. If choppy try clearing your cache and defragging your drive.
DISCLAIMER
‘Anime London’ itself nor it’s members post these videos onto YouTube. Nor do we condone or encourage their posting. Nor do we able to acertain their quality or validness. Nor do we insure that these links are valid. We’re merely viewing exsisting resources viewable publicly on the web for the point of discussion on this forum.
Feel free to join us in the forums.
I wasn’t surprise to get an automated email that Anime London’s webspace had exceeded it’s limit. I had stuck up a temporary file for a friend and opps.
Not that my provider of space cares. He knows our bandwidth and our site is hardly of his other clients. Site like this is mostly evening traffic while business traffic is mostly days. Our bandwidth is no where near a business client.
Still it is something to be hitting the half gig mark. Forums and blog hardly make a dent in that space. It’s pure pictures and some videos (pre-Youtube) that take up the space.
I guess I should do some housekeeping. That what’s Christmas time usually is for me. Fixing the site again. While I ponder wheither to cut older galleries or simply rewrite or re-enocde is a question.
Should I take the older galleries offline? Hmm?
D-TAC galleries and con report are up
Yes it took sometime but the picture galleries and con report for the December Toronto Anime Con.
It was a fun though tiring event. It was good to spend some time with Andrew Nagy and Risu-chan from our forums.
I also finally joined everyone else by calling the event D-TAC as oppose to T(winter)AC even though it started snowing as I returned home.
I do now own a laptop… an old laptop…. a REAL OLD laptop but a laptop. Sharp, 150MHz, 64meg ram, 10 gig drive which it can’t see. So a friend installed 2000 so it would see 10 gig. At least it has a USB port, a single USB port. The battery doesn’t hold a charge and the AC adaptor is flaky. It runs… just runs.
Sound is terrible but then I have an external sound card… USB. No NIC but I have a NIC card… USB. So what use is it? Well I can put a firewire card and connect the camcorder. At least, I can try timelapse photography with it…. oh ya, the battery doesn’t work. Need an extension cord….a LONG extension cord.
I could use it to edit pictures, I guess. Oh ya, no CD burner on the laptop. Sigh. Video? forget it.
Still no doubt I’ll find a use for it.
Well… here’s the deal.
Date is set as January 20th 1pm to 3 pm at the Covent Garden Market outdoor skating rink. This is a PUBLIC skate so we’ll be skating with the mundanes.
We’ll have to bring our own music and our own music system. I have a ghettoblaster for this purpose. Wheither we can get an electric outlet is another matter, might have to run off batteries. I’ll be prepping a couple of CDs with a fix mix.
(I’m not happy since I’ll be babysitting the music to prevent someone stealing the ghetto. Yes, it has happen at other events at the Market. Make sure any gear you have be not left unattended, we’ll not be responsible for it.)
Because of insurrance issues, this is NOT an event, just a meet. We would have to buy the insurrance. $$$. NO PROPS on ICE! NO WEAPONS or PROPS that look like a WEAPON PERIOD!
If the rink is close there is an upstairs seating area we can go to. There is a Japanese restaurant in the Market with anime stuff for sale.
Cameras. Avoid taking pictures of other people. We still have the infamous incident where security took cameras from tourists at Storybook Gardens (theme park). They sued, they won, they still haven’t got back their camera.
Hopefully if there is about dozen show this would be success. If others wish to setup their own in Toronto or elsewhere. Be my guest.
Okay enough…. enough snow.
I help with a friend’s parents while he’s away with some yardwork. Yesterday, I did some light snow shovelling and went home … then one of the worse snow storms hits London. Over night, practically 2 feet of snow fell. Even when I went out for coffee, about an inch fell.
Next day, no busses, no sidewalks. I ended spending most of my afternnoon just digging out their vechiles with push broom and shovel. At least, they can walk out. The laneway is still plugged. Waiting for the truck to plow out.
To this, I still don’t have the pictures of December TAC done… I’m just too wiped.
Well it’s nearly 11 PM and I’m finally back from December Toronto Anime Con. There was tons of people who all tried to get into the dealers room to start their Christmas shopping with anime and manga.
Sadly, I didn’t have enough DVDs of the Fan Expo masquerade to hand out. Gomen. Some were glad to get a DVD which is okay to copy but not for sale, rent or auction.
I did meet one the Black Moon group who actually wishing she could show to the Cosplay Skate here in London when whenever it happens.
“Nothing in Orillia” she said.
I think it’s just a matter of finding people though I’ve never been to Orillia. With practically 8-10 anime clubs officially in London if you count those registered at Neo Tokyo, I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a group in Orillia.
I took 225 pictures but they all fit on one 512M card. I did break out the camcorder for some pans of the dealer room but only used the memory stick as oppose to using tape.
Not having alot of cash, I finally decided on a ‘real’ poseable anime action figure as oppose to all the ‘inaction’ figs which were everywhere. There was massive amount of manga available…. more than DVDs at this event.
One of the treats at this con was Andrew Nagy of Ill-Intent (4 Koma Project artist) and Risu-chan from our forum both showed up near the end. We ended up going to neat small Japanese restaurant on Younge street which hasn’t fallen into the sushi trap.
I hope everyone else had a good time. I’ll have to leave more for the con report.
