I’m archiving the James Burke gifset project I posted to Tumblr years ago, since if Tumblr goes away I’ll have no record of what I did there, and this was really the only original content I posted.
I went through most of the episodes of The Day The Universe Changed and, later, the original Connections series, and made gifs for one or two bits from each one. Look, I had a gif-making program and an urge to do something ridiculously geeky with it. You know how it goes.
(No, I’m not going to post this whole disclaimer for each entry. You’ll figure it out.)
Against what might be called my “better judgement,” had I any to speak of, I decided to try out one of Right Stuf’s monthly loot box “Anime Haul” deals. They had my number this time, the theme being Music. (It was a rough week; I decided retail therapy was as good as any other kind.)
The box arrived yesterday. One Hatsune Miku manga (as yet unread), one soundtrack CD (Kamichu, and it’s… okay? generic orchestral ST stuff), one Blu-Ray (Sora no Woto / Sound of the Sky, which I remember liking a lot and look forward to a rewatch), a mug (tie-in for Your Lie In April, which I’ve never watched), and two cellphone charms, one of them is tiny and unrecognizable to me, and the other is… well:
Meet Nozomi Tojo, of the Love Live! franchise, apparently. Friend Wonderduck recommended one of the shows in the series recently, maybe this is a sign that I need to get on that.
I racked up a nice collection of gifts for friends as well. It’ll be nice to send gifts from places other than my usual daily commute, at least. Oh, and… I completed the special research tasks for A Mythical Discovery. All of them.
Yes, that means I have a Mew now. Boy howdy was catching that little twerp a pain in the backside. I didn’t know it was part Predator! It goes mostly-invisible (and you’re forced into AR mode) which makes for a helluva time when you’re out in bright sunshine.
Anyway. My day started kinda lousy, but walking it off (and playing mobile video games) helped turn it around. Huzzah.
After nearly twelve years in the same office at work I have shuffled over to a slightly larger, somewhat newer office. It features a standing desk and a window taking up almost one entire wall. (My old office could best be described as a “lightless cave.”) While we were figuring out what furniture should go where during the great migratory shuffling, I took note of a particular shelf unit and laid claim to it. Why?
Here’s why.
Lots of narrow shelves make for great display of geeky artifacts! Nobody can mistake this space for belonging to anyone but me, now… for better or worse.
40 cards in 8 stacks, 300 diamonds (in-game currency) to flip each card, and on the 32nd try I get this:
Admiral Nautica in her bathtime ducky costume
The game is Valkyrie Connect, a “gacha” mobile game of collecting fighters to defeat monsters blah blah blah whatever, it’s an amusing way to pass an hour or so per day, give or take. When this latest event appeared in which the publishers clearly expect folks to plunk down ridiculous amounts of money, my first thought was, “Like hell I will.”
My second thought was, “oh crap Nautica gets a rubber duck, I’M DOOMED.”
Turns out, I didn’t need to spend very much money. Ahem.
The weekly word working assignment is nearing the end of its first year. Overall, how did it go? I consider it a success. I never missed an update, I’m reasonably proud of most of the posts, and there’s a chance (however slim) that I may have led someone to watch something they might have overlooked otherwise.
Fine, fine… my readership amounts to maybe three entire souls. Slim chance, indeed. But capturing an audience wasn’t the primary goal. Forcing myself to get back into the habit of logging into this thing and flexing my writing muscles, that was the primary goal.
The remaining two 3WA posts for 2017 are in the bag. They’ll show up this and next Friday, right on schedule. I made sure to complete them before my mid-month vacation in order to dedicate vacation time to next year’s project prep. I chose a more challenging format, one which requires more work than just sourcing some screenshots.
It’s time to look ahead.
During the year two thousand seventeen, I wrote about fifty-two pieces of animation that brought me some measure of joy. In the year to come I intend to write about fifty-two music albums which bring me some measure of joy. Joy, as we established at the outset, is a key part of this ongoing project. The 3WA concept was born from a deep, desperate need to focus on the good things in life, and if the unrelenting hellshow of 2016 gave rise to this year’s project then what else could I do coming out of 2017 but to bump things up a level?
So, without further ado: Do you have a few minutes? About ten of them, actually? Because right here, right now, you can decide if it’s worth tuning in for 2018’s 3WA series.
Bonus points if you can name more than half the artists (without using search engines to cheat, mind you).
