Been watching some episodes of the anime adapted from this light novel series. It's not bad! The graphics are great, and so is the art style - though it could've used more originality. Production values overall are respectable. It's kind of a supernatural X-Files sort of thing with teenagers and young adults. A genki-type highschool girl is opportunistically recruited by a sexy cooldere highschool boy who's a ghost hunter, and they venture to investigate actual haunted houses at the behest of the owners... Other supporting characters include various exorcists and such.
Anyway, like I said, it's not bad. Take a look if you'd like. It's up on Anime Season, here.

As it turns out, there's actually a name for the phenomenon of those chaotic, beautiful cities in certain art that I love so much! Urbopunk. It's not very well-known, though. Mainly just a term used by Russians apparently.
The reason why I came to know this is from examining my hitcount stats at Photobucket (where I host all my images). Curiously enough an image by Imperial Boy - that day-and-night city, which I gave the filename "imperial_boy_city_full.jpg" - turns out to have by far the highest hit count, far more than what my blog should ever get, and regular hits from fuck-knows-where. I strongly suspect that it has been direct-linked (don't really care since it's not my bandwidth, but still curious). I've found it archived in some guy's folder at fotki.ru as well. Interesting. Wish I could siphon off some of that traffic to my little skidmark of an online presence.

On a related note, behold a low-tech urbopunk concept by Jesse van Djik. Would make for a magnificent fantasy movie setting. The man's art reminds me of Syd Mead's.

Taking a turn for some very common stuff that has been overlooked up to now (and possibly some repeats)... I'm really questioning the point of posting these, seeing as how nobody seems to give a damn, and better stuff is available elsewhere. Well, there's only something like a dozen to go. Mustn't give up now.

Check out EUDict, it's surprisingly good as far as online dictionaries go. Plenty of languages including Japanese - goes without saying. Allows to search in romaji, which is an important and essential feature.

幸: kou. Saiwa(i), sachi, shiawa(se). Happiness; blessing, fortune. I already posted this one long ago. But no matter, it's common and needs repetition. I'll add an extra kanji this time to offset the repeat.
記: ki. Shiru(su). Account, narrative; scribe. This has the 言 (gen) bushu, which is the same one used in the easily memorable 語 (go). 語 is probably one of the first kanji I learned, what with how it's part of 日本語 (nihongo).
朝: chou. Asa. Morning; dynasty, period, epoch, regime. Apparently it's also used to refer to North Korea or something. 朝ご飯 (asagohan) is a very common word meaning "breakfast", literally "morning food".
晩: ban. Nightfall. The reason I'm mentioning this one and not the obvious 夕 is the word 晩ご飯 (bangohan) - "dinner". Literally, "night food" or somesuch. The converse of the previous word.
業: gyou, gou. Waza. Arts, performance; vocation, business. Very pretty as far as kanji go, wouldn't you agree? It's one of those things that somehow resemble a spooky stickman type of pictogram. Incidentally, in its gou reading, it means "karma"! And also, 業火 (gouka) means "hellfire".
実: shitsu, jitsu. Makoto(ni), mi, misa(ru), mino(ru). Reality, truth. "Jitsu wa..." - "truth is..." seems to be a very common parasitic phrase. Learning parasitic phrases and particles (e.g. "ano ne", "sou, sou", "yappari ne", and so forth) is key to speaking like a true Mooninite.
現: gen. Arawa(su/reru), utsu(tsu). Actual, real, existing, present. 現実 (genjitsu) is "reality", as in the reality of a given matter; and 現実化 (genjitsuka) is "realization".
用: you. Mochi(iru). Utilize, use, employ; business, service. ご用 (goyou) is "order", as in "your order"; "goyou wa?" is something a servant would ask or whatnot. 私用 (shiyou) is "private business" or "personal business", i.e. something others shouldn't stick their nose into.
刺: shi. Sa(saru/shi/su), doge. Pierce, prick, thorn, stab, sting; calling card. Yes, that's right - calling card! To be more precise, the word is 名刺 (meishi), and it refers to business cards. In case you didn't know, business cards are a lot more prolific in Japan. Anyway, take a look at this post at Danny Choo's famous blog for some of his past business cards (it's not very interesting though).
忌: ki. I(mawashii/mi/mu). Abhor, detest(able); mourning, death anniversary. It's a kokoro (心) with this thing on top: 已. What is it? Hmm. Material for the next post!
側: soku. Kawa, gawa, soba. Side, lean, oppose; regret. "Soba ni iru" - "(I'm) beside (you)"; "kimi no sugu soba de" - "right beside you".

Are you familiar with OS-tan? Moon people love to anthropomorphize all sorts of things, usually as moe loli, as is well-known. OS-tan characters are personifications of operating systems, as abstract as it is!

Point being, turns out that Microfuzzy has cautiously stepped onto this obscure bandwagon by officially branding a careful exploratory batch of Windows 7 with an OS-tan, Nanami Madobe ("nana" is "seven", and "mado" is "window")... I actually rather like it. See some photos of the box in a store here, accompanied by (inscrutable) Moonspeak. Also, if you'd like the wallpapers from this version for some reason, get them here at Sankaku.
Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend. Hatsune Miku advertised the everliving crap out of Vocaloid, so perhaps MS is on to something here - if they do it right. There's a lot of potential for this to be done horribly wrong (and incur the fearsome wrath of fanboys, who not unlike old people have shitloads of time to burn and an incandescent motivation to smear the cultural offenders).
Go see a forum community dedicated to OS-tans here. There's hentai, too.

Thought that would be an appropriate (if unorthodox) term for these things. Man has always striven to develop the primal fantasy of having enemies explode in a swift and spectacular fashion; this is why hollowpoint and dum-dum ammunition was developed. Some of the late 19th century incarnations of these bullets were sufficiently vicious to turn a limb into a bloody ragged stump, and all of them were horrid problems for the surgeons to extract; as such, they got outlawed militarily by the Hague conventions. Of course, expanding bullets are simple stuff, and don't really try to cram air in front of them; that's a side effect. The air gap is minuscule, and most of the 'whoopass factor' comes from how they cause a hydrostatic shock front - as well as shatter and tumble, leaving chaotic wound channels. But what if you created a projectile which specifically tries to inject air into the victim, rapidly and explosively?
Well, there are two weapons which I'll point out. The obvious one is that Wasp knife. It is essentially a common tactical knife with a gas channel through the blade, emerging as a nozzle at the back of the clip point. Pressing a thumb button causes compressed gas to be violently expelled from the nozzle. The thing has enough pep for a single good blast, plus a few increasingly weaker ones, and must be recharged afterward with those little gas cylinders used for seltzer dispensers and paintball guns (or a special variety of that same tech). Naturally it still works as a knife after losing that pep. Contrary to what one may think, this weapon doesn't function on the idea of an air-filled syringe. Rather, it causes the wound to explode outward and open up more in the process (messy). Supposedly the knife is strongly marketed at divers as a means of shark defense. It can also obviously drop a wolf, if the wielder manages to operate the knife fast enough to prevent the mauling. It's not exactly lightning-fast, as the switch seems to be quite tense.
That knife would do much better as a ranged weapon, of course, and that brings me to my second point - the Farallon shark dart, which is a 1970s weapon apparently employed by the US Navy. I'm hard-pressed to find any information about it at all, but here are a few photos. As you can see, it has that little gas cylinder right behind the needle chuck. Apparently much deadlier than what the experts supposed; at depth, the gas didn't expand a lot, but it would paralyze the fish and in some cases cause its guts to come out of its mouth. Impressive. I'd imagine the expanding gases are very cold, too.
Overall, these types of weapons are probably much too elaborate to be used in any practical sense above water, unless you're stupid enough to try fighting bears at close range or something. Underwater, though, the advantages are obvious, and an injectile dart should do wonders.

About halfway into December, I've decided that this blog which nobody reads needs to get back to schedule. Hell, just for old times' sake... Ever since it has slipped into backlog limbo, it's been a lot easier to just sit back and maintain that situation. Since I'm consistently stuck at around 10 late posts, that means it's indeed possible to have daily posts... It just needs some effort. Take this to mean that there'll be some low-quality posts until the month ends. Hopefully this one isn't such! It's admittedly very quick and haphazard, snatched at random from my artist reference lists.

Anyway! Time for more art. This one is part of the "beautiful fantasy city" series, but I must regrettably say that it's not a drawing I want to climb into. Too sunny, and not chaotic enough. Also it looks like a high elf city of some kind - I don't like those guys, ha. Nevertheless, the architecture is quite inspiring in certain ways, and worth taking note of. We need more architecture like this IRL - not el cheapo brutalism or degenerate freakeries like deconstructivist 'art'. The artist of this marvelous piece is Kazuhi - see his Pixiv page here. The particular page for this piece is here. Enjoy!

So I figured I'd pimp my art.
I just created a zazzle store that has prints* of some of my art. The two Starr** pictures from EAST are there too, and all proceeds from them will benefit Art Garden.

My husband Bob has a store too, check it out!

They're running a free shipping special all day today too. The coupon code for that is zazzleground.

( Explaining the *s )

Mateus Verdelho by Didio

by John Gress

Pinks by daemon-spyder.deviantart.com

by pixelwelten on Flickr

Kampfer is turning out surprisingly engaging. I thought it'd just be fanservice, but it's actually got an intelligent underlying storyline. Watched episode ten last. Wonder how it'll turn out, but already proud for taking an interest in this series early. Have a link, just in case.

Though it needs to be added that since I'm hammering this stuff out just about ten days later than the posting date, I also saw episode eleven already... It was a disappointment overall, mainly due to the altogether silly fight, but what can be done. Maybe I jinxed it, haha. Spoiler: ALIENS! At the very least, I knew there was something to it since the very start...

You should probably know of Kel-Tec. It's apparently the largest handgun manufacturer in the United States, oddly enough! Their designs may be best characterized as spartan in their utility, and also having a very aggressive appearance: all-synthetic, rectilinear, black, with Picatinny rails, shoulder things that go up and heat-seeking bullets - the qualities that make hoplophobes and other assorted weaklings quiver in their boots. Early this year, Kel-Tec also introduced the RFB, which is a .308 WinMag bullpup rifle with the looks of something out of Hitman. I like to show that video to British people, by the way.
Kel-Tec might have that majority handgun market share in no short part thanks to the P-3AT, which is an incredibly light and handy subcompact pistol chambered for the 9mm Short. Major competitors in this same category include the Ruger LCP, Walther PP, and also Makarov PM.

Well, recently I noticed that Kel-Tec has partnered with a certain conservatard whom I love to hate, and released a tacky signature P-3AT with integrated laser (yes, on a subcompact conceal-carry piece). I was carefully trying to decide on either the Kel-Tec or the Ruger for a concealed firearm (you know, for that indeterminate wonderful future when I actually get the opportunity to own and carry a gun). This disgraceful sponsorship deal with an abject imbecile of a demagogue on the part of Kel-Tec has solved that dilemma for me, haha. Oh well, I'm sure this'll mellow out one way or another.

If you're like me, you have a thing for war games. And if you have a thing for war games, you've probably at least heard of a defunct game maker called SSI - Strategic Simulations Inc. They produced numerous games, some of which I have sank a lot of time into - games like Panzer General, Fantasy General and Age of Rifles. There was always a keen focus on realism and accuracy in SSI games, even in the fantastical ones where you commanded unicorn cavalry or spaceships. Moreover, I was always a great fan of the hex-side map system, which I think tessellates well and depicts radii more accurately than the square-side map system. SSI was bought and sold several times by bigger fish, and eventually ended up in the clutches of the Ubisoft titan - which has long since let the brand name wither and die.
However, the brains behind SSI did not die with it. That would be Joel Billings. Together with two more extremely significant former SSI members - Gary Grigsby and Keith Brors - he has founded a new company, 2 By 3 Games. The title alludes to "World War II by three guys", as it says on their website. They're not kidding. I've gotten my hands on two of their games - War in the Pacific and War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition. Holy fuck. Perhaps I've been out of the loop, but I am not overstating this even slightly when I say that these two are by far the most complex war games I've ever played. It should tell you something when the game's manual is over 300 pages long with much of it being text. Everything is simulated - or at least everything significant; the game takes everything you can think of into consideration, and then some. Unprecedented realism. I'm also quite astounded that such a huge volume of information about WWII vehicles and vessels was put together by perhaps essentially one person; when I try to wrap my mind around it, it just reels from the thought.
There's a play scenario available (actually several of them) which concerns the entire war in the Pacific. As in, all of it - including several more oceans, a big chunk of the USSR, India, all of Australia, and so forth. You control the whole fucking shebang, from the factories on the mainland to the individual freighters fetching oil and resources from your gains. That level of complexity is, of course, ridiculous. I've so far only been playing the smaller scenarios, like the Thousand-Mile War and Guadalcanal. AI is tough, or at least comes across as such. Needless to say, I'm hooked.
Now, granted, these games aren't without their faults. The major problem has got to be bugs, as well as a lack of stability and forced full-screen mode. Admiral's Edition is a lot better in the former respect. Also, there's that complexity again... If there was only some way of compartmentalizing the different theaters of war, then the prospect of playing the entire war wouldn't be so ridiculous. Still, it's one hell of a thing, and I strongly encourage you to try these games. Their finesse is at the point where you'll actually learn things like strategy and history, for crying out loud. Meanwhile the world goes gaga about action games like Modern Warfare 2, where you fight with snowmobiles going down the mountain, or some other James Bond shit like that.