I find it strange, now that I’ve situated myself in Virginia with a stationary mobile home, and a kick-ass low-wage job; that I’m being so indecisive about buying a washer and dryer set; when without a second thought I easily fork over 850$USD for manga and a WACOM tablet. A washer and dryer is something I actually am in dire need of and can be used for years down the road; and the other is something I may never touch, much less use.

I guess it has something to do with my huge pay-cut, and the fact that clean clothes never seemed an issue to me in such cold weather. I don’t sweat so why should I care?

Oh yea, something something SOPA… but in more important news, Twinkies may disappear off the face of the earth.

Imagine how beautiful and magical it would be if all across America people took two dollars out of their wallet and marched to hostess HQ to drop it at their doorstep? We’d call it the march of Twinkies and forever immortalize hostess in the pages of history. Then the president can fly down in Air Force One and declare them a national landmark and keep it alive with tax money.

Maybe I should go back to covering real news. About… anime or something?

The American government today took down the file sharing site Megaupload, a site where people can upload and download files for free or with paid subscriptions for better speeds and features. Companies, celebrities, people sharing perfectly legal files, and people who share pirated media there including anime and scanlations of manga used the American hosted site. The Federal government is charging the executives of the site with more than $500 million US dollars of lost revenue of copyrighted content and have been arrested along with several other employees who reside outside the US. Official Department of Justice response can be found on justice.gov which is or was down when writing this along with many other sites by denial of service attacks from Anonymous.

Removal of Megaupload has interesting timing since attention of Internet censorship laws SOPA and PIPA have grown after sites like Wikipedia and thousands others blacked out their sites in protest. It would be pretty easy to suggest that Megaupload isn’t a good example of sites that shouldn’t be protected since majority of its use surely was involving copyright infringement, but perhaps it will create an example of what’s to come. There was no due process for the site’s removal as actions were taken with no way for the company or people behind Megaupload to dispute their case. It could have been a blog, news site, or a small hole in the wall. Perhaps having one larger site taken down before any sort of voting in a governing body will create enough stir to stop SOPA, PIPA, or future laws while showing how this can affect people outside of the US.

With one of the largest file sharing sites gone there’s still the issue of the lack of new licenses for manga, innovative ways of distributing product, and other ways of pirating taking its place. There are currently a lot of sites out there with broken embedded videos and links to manga chapters with many of those links to countless little known anime and manga that were never translated or licensed by Western or even Japanese publishers.

Publishers and distributors of media need to adapt and provide better service to combat piracy as opposed to lashing out against their own consumer base. I cannot argue against the removing of Megaupload, but I know for myself that SOPA, PIPA, and Megaupload’s removal won’t get me to buy more than I do. It instead makes me question the morality and ethics of buying. The next time I tell someone of something wonderful to watch or read, I may just stay silent on how to buy it or if there’s a sale and reluctantly concede to arguments about buying versus pirating when in discussion.

This censorship problem can be seen much larger than what it may appear. It’s the merging of government with corporations and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision by Supreme Court of the United States making way for more laws like SOPA and PIPA to come.

I moved to Virginia. I’m writing this through my Motorola Xoom tablet so I have to stop after every sentence for the buffer to catch up. So you’re probably wondering how I’ve managed to keep up with anime… Actually I haven’t. Actually, I hadn’t been keeping up with anything save History’s Strongest Disciple Ken-something-or-other, which I secretly enjoy reading. I guess the fact that I capitalized the title on a keyboard as laggy as this means I like it, or I am a neurotic perfectionist.

I’m looking for a place to live and so being a crass procrastinator I ended up watching War Horse. Those trailers were misleading, that goddamn horse is cursed. Nearly everyone who rode on its back died an untimely death. Clearly the message or moral or whatever is that horses make good glue.

So just

Happy New Year’s and all that good junk.

So I just finished watching the Fate/Zero anime… the first half anyways. Two things come to mind:

1. Wow, the mages in Fate/Stay Night must have been pure crap, because there is a huge gap in power levels between the servants in Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night.
2. Wow, changing animation studios really powered up those servants.

I think Rider is my favorite character. I especially like how he put that stupid bitch Saber in her fucking place. Go back to the hole you crawled out of you false king! Speaking of Rider, I think the Banquet of the Three Kings was one of the coolest ideas this show has surprised me with since Irisviel laid Ilya.