Review: Boomslack Designs and Shirts

~semi-paid advertising~

I caught wind of this via Tweeter - yep, finally came in handy for something.

Boomslack is a very cool site setup by some up and coming graphic designers.

It showcases their t-shirt designs as well as their design graphics. These run about $24 - $30 USD for each shirt with shipping depending on your location. They do not have a middle man, so you are getting them directly from the source - the Designers themselves.

I decided to actually drop some coin on them for the entire family and here are the designs we are getting.

My Shirt
(just damn cool design)


My Wife's Shirt
(she liked this because of the cat)


My Son's Shirt
(he likes bugs and thought it was neat)

If you can, support our local artists and pick up one for yourself or as a gift for a friend.

Here is some of the other awesome artwork that they showcase. Looks to me like we have some stunning up and comers to the anime / manga design scene.

You can check them at the many links below:

Main Site | Facebook | Blog | Flickr | Gallery | Tweeter

BTW: There will be a followup blog once the shirts arrive. Let hope they live up to all my hype :)

~semi-paid advertising~

Added a New Widget

I got a nice comment from Rayneholde on my Misa Amane (Death Note) Cosplayers blog. I have a habit of dropping over at the blogs of people who comment. I noticed she had a cool little widget of a Japanese Wind Chime. As crazy as I am, I decided to add the little to my site as well. You can check them out over at KuraKura Parts (in Japanese).


Now you can either have the chime at the upper right of your blog (as you see on mine) of you can have it in a box that sits with your other widgets. Like the one you see here on the right. The main difference I can see is that the boxed widget has the ability to turn the chime off. The large one at the top does not (but can be closed by pressing the black "X".

My main question to all of you is:

Which would you rather prefer?

Other questions:

• Does the Chime annoy you or is it just a nice distraction while reading?
• Would you rather have the ability to turn off the chime sound instead?

"Chime" in to let me know your thoughts and a big thanks to Rayenholde for dropping me a line so I could find this neat bell.

Anime Network updates their site

Wanted to get this quick blog out for those who may not of gotten the email. Seems that Anime Network has finally finished its updates and now has a new look.

In the email from Anime Network:

"Didn't think we were just going to do some back end stuff did you? Nah, nah, way too boring. Well, we kind of did, but mostly the maintenance time was so we could unveil our sweet new site! Everything's been upgraded and styled for today's modern Japanese Animation Enthusiast; in other words, we just classed up the joint. In fact, just writing an article for the front page makes me feel like a classy gentleman. So put on your monocles and top hats, hand your walking canes to your man servant and come along as we show you our new digs:"


I do like the cleaned up style and easy to find stuff now. My only "grip" is that they are using too light of a font for the titles and the normal lettering should be black and not that grey. My old eyes are having some issue reading stuff that light.

FML - Anime Style

I original blogged about this site in late June last year (FMylife - You thought you had it bad!). It is a site that people talked about stuff in their life that is fucked up. My wife likes to peruse it to see how bad other people have. She actually found an entry that talked about Anime. Here is the what it said:

"Today, I was rushed to the hospital because I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe. Why was I crying? My favorite anime character died. FML" [link to enty]

I did a search on "anime" and actually found 2 others listed. One was about figures and the other was in relation to cosplay.

Figures:

"Today, my boyfriend and were I getting it on in his bedroom where he had all of his anime models on display. I accidentally knocked over one of his models and it fell on to the floor. He got angry and kicked me out. Apparently, making his models look good was more important than us making love. FML" [link to entry]

Cosplay:

"Today, my boyfriend called me and I told him about the AnimeCon I'm attending, and that I wanted to go as Sailor Mars, he told me he had no idea what that was. After being mad for about ten minutes, I realized that I wanted to break up with him over not knowing what Sailor Moon was. FML" [link to entry] btw, the comments to this are just as funny.

Sailor Mars by Eireen

Anyone got something that could top these entries?

Additional Post Today - Pigeon Faster than Broadband

We have been passing this throughout our teams today. If you have any sort of broadband (ADSL - Cable), then you will get a kick out of this. I will never complain about the slowness of my DSL ever again after reading this.

I know from friends that internet access in South Africa is the worse than dail up if they have it at all. So that said, a company in South Africa took it to the next level. Here is the first paragaph of the news article >

"A Durban IT company pitted an 11-month-old bird armed with a 4GB memory stick against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm, Telkom."

Guess who won?

Source: BBC

Space Elevator - a Reality?

How many Anime's have we all watched with the infamous Space Elevator? It is destroyed or fought over by warring factions to the dismay of the general public.


Well hold onto your Gunpa, here is the reality. It seems that there are actually some people wanting to get this idea off the ground. I ran across an article yesterday at MSNBC that was titled "Space elevator faces reality".

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"We don't have all the questions, let alone all the answers," Michael Laine, head of the LiftPort Group, told an audience of about 50 people on Saturday during the 2009 Space Elevator Conference on Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Wash.

Here is a site that has an actual countdown to the day > LiftPort Group

Conceptual View by NASA

Otakai Figure Society

I have joined another cool Figure site for collecting figurines. As noted by the title, it is called Otakai Figure Society.


This is another site where figure collectors can meet to discuss figures and even sell or purchase from fellow collectors. I usually drop by every so often during the week to see what is going on and to see if anything is for sale that I want. I like the way you can see the newest figure posts so I usually get a quick look at what is coming out soon.

If you have the time, stop by for a look and join if you want to stay longer!

Site Screen Shot

BTW: Sorry for the short post, but we started the Lean version of P90X last night and I am bushed. OMFG - I could not get past the first 25 minutes before my body went down. Hell, the warm up almost took me out. This shit is not for the faint at heart and my fat arse needs to get moving.

Manga Share

I was doing some research on my manga collections. I came across this site and thought I would share it with you as they shared with me. The site is called Manga Share and it has full translated manga volumes.


This is another fan created and supported site that is free to sign up for. What I like is that this is all done by other readers who took the time to translate and post. They also have the raw version of the manga. They make it easy to see what language it is translated in by showing you a flag of that country. You are also able to filter by English language specifically if you want or even by series.

You can actively Contribute either the Raw or a "Scanlation" (scanned translation) of a series. They also have a cool forum to review and talk about your favorite manga. You can also fan clubs, enter art contests and many other topics.

You can also check out their sister site:


As note on the site: "Please support the publishing companies by purchasing the official volumes when they're available in your language."

PhotoFunia

While perusing through Danny Choo's site, I came across this link for PhotoFunia. I must say that I spent 45 minutes on this site having a blast. This site will take your portrait photo and place it into numerous photographs. It uses a face detection system and then masks your face into the photo. They even have some gif files that you can use which is even cooler.

I took a couple of my son's photos and had fun placing him in odd places and on peoples faces. He was on a billboard in Taipai, on a poster outside the Odessa Opera House and on a shirt that is being worn by Madonna. What he really liked was being Captain Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and as Jedi from the Clone Wars.

Now these are not hi-res pictures which is fine for a free service - yes it is FREE! They do average around 500 x 500 to 700 x 500 pixels in size. I think this is a great size to print and send to family.

So if you have some free time and want to get a laugh at someone elses expense - you have got to go to PhotoFunia.

Here are some examples from the site:

FMyLife - You thought you had it bad!

Now kiddies, this is not a sight for you junior associates. So please get Mom or Dad's permission before going forth into the darkness.

FMyLife is a way to waste minutes in your precious life with witty banter about how screwed up your life is.


If you have not figured it out by now the "F" stands for "Fuck" (ooooo - you said a bad word!). Now I know that some of these may be made up - but who the hell cares, they are funny! They even have the posting broken down by categories: See All, Love, Money, Kids, Work, Health, Sex and Miscellaneous. So you can see they have something for everyone.

Here are some examples for you:

"Today, I heard my sister masturbating in her room. I took the dog around the block to get out of the house, and I came back to see her leaving her room . . . my electric toothbrush in her hand. FML"

"Today, my boss called me into his office to show me the web site of a potential business partner. When he began to type "virginia" into Google, it auto-completed his search with his recent search for 'virgin boy assholes'. I have to go on business trip with him tomorrow. I am a young guy. FML"

"Today, my boyfriend and I decided to try anal sex, When he was done, I turned around to see him holding a strap-on with a smile on his face and said 'Now, do me'. FML"

That is just the "tip" of what people write, so waste some time and brain cells and take a look. I sent this to my co-workers and we wasted the day trying to find the funniest one!

Japanese News on the Internet (in English)

One of the things I wanted to see was news from Japan. I wanted to be able to know what was happening and how much the culture really was different from the US. I was amazed how things were reported and how the US (or Obama) was viewed by another country.

One of the first sites I visited was The Japan Times.


One of the coolest sections is Life in Japan which has a great number of columns to read about life living in Japan (hence the title). They have one column called "Views from the Street" where they as a question and pick about 6 people who responded. They use a wide selection of people from "Gaijin" to natural citizens.

They also have a column done by a "Gaijin" married to a Japanese wife and what things he experiences. It is written by Thomas Dillon and titled When East Marries West. It is a good read and a fun & witty look at life in Japan from an "Gaijin's" perspective.

Another site I cam across was Japan Today.


They have a different layout and stories you may not find in The Japan Times. IThough they do not have a "Life in Japan" column, they do touch on more issues related to Crime and World.

What is interesting about the Crime section is the diversity of the stories like about a shoplifter (male), trying to walk out of the store wearing woman's shorts under his pants. The World section really dives into Obama sometimes which is something that shows me world views of our President.

If Technology and Gadgetry are more your thing, then I highly suggest making Akihabara News one of your favorites.


As noted by their site description: "Your Leading News provider on Gadgets and Hi-Tech stuff from Akihabara in Tokyo Japan and in other Asian Countries". Not only do they have the latest news on tech coming out soon, but also some of the coolest gadgetry for any anime fanatic to want of need. Some of the write-ups are short, but the photo details make up for that.

Question: What online news source do you read on things from Japan?

Looking for Anime Music?

I had a heck of a time finding my favorite anime soundtrack movies. Also known as Original SoundTrack or OST's. I had some, but could never afford the imports from Japan which ran $35 and up for a single CD. I finally came across a site called AnimeOSTs! Best part is that it is free to join and hang out.

They have an extensive list of not only anime ost's but also singles. I have to say that this is by and large the best site to find those hard to find songs. Not only can you sample the songs, but they have links for you to purchase them from as well. I like to sample some of the songs so I do not get stuck with a CD for only one song.

This is actually the third incarnation of the site (that I am aware of since joining) due to the site domain running out and some dummass cybersquating it. I have freely uploaded some of my OST's to them so that others can check out the tunes.

I have also enjoyed the forum to review things with others. I have even assisted with some of the signature pics and avatars. One of their contests I actually came in third for which was a pretty high honor for me.

So if you can not find that song from that anime that you really want > then check them out as they probably have it. If not, ask on the forum if anyone has it.

Anime on the Internet - Part Duo

So I wanted to pickup some new DVD's from RightStuf, but do not have the cash. So I decided to do a little surfing around. I was looking to pickup Kiba as I heard it was a cool anime. I stumbled upon a new site called veoh. Free sign-up if you want, but not needed.


Just from the homepage, you already have these great anime's to watch:

• Mushi-Shi
• Aquarion
• MoonPhase
• Jyu-Oh-sei
• xxxholic
• Ghost Hunt
• Glass Fleet

I have actually been watching Kiba which is cool. The best part is that after on ad in the beginning, you see the whole episode. No split parts, no ads showing up mid way, just the full anime.

Another nice site that I was not sure of is Hulu. Seems to have the same Funimation epsiodes as veoh, but a little more. I also noticed that some of the anime is under "Animation and Cartoons" & "Action and Adventures".

Some anime that is on here is:

• Naruto Shippuden
• Deathnote
• Bleach
• Ikki Tousen
• School Rumble
• Shuffle
• some old school cartoons ( Brave Starr, Astro Boy, He-Man and Speed Racer)

So now I have more time to waste my life away on anime

Tsuki-board - My Figurine Collection

Got a collection of Japanese figures and statues? Want to see others who have the same interest as you so you do not feel "weird". You have to come by and join Tsuki-board - My figurine collection. I found this from visiting other forums and liked what I saw.

Here is my small setup at my desk

It is nice to get information from others the World over on new figurines, sales at website and to just see how big your collection really is. I posted a widget that you can create from them for your blogs and websites. Lets everyone know you are a serious collector (not sure how serious you can be with "toys").

Some of the key points about this are:

• Meet new Friends
• Join Clubs that have similar interests
• Get the latest info and views of figurines
• A Huge Database of Figurines with great information on each one
• Find out what is being bootlegged
• Cool way you can view your collection and the labels that tell everyone your collective tastes (sometimes not always in your best interest - my biggest label is "ecchi" - LMAO)

I can go on - but really once you stop by, you will see why this is a great site. Why are you still reading this - click and get on over there . . . NOW!

Anime on the Internet

So in this economy you are cash strapped and cannot pull the funds for new anime DVD or Blueray. If this is the case, then there is always the Internet (and I do not mean illegal downloading). There are several sites that have old and current anime coming out of Japan. As we know, not all the anime we want to see here in the States ever makes it to distribution for us to watch.

I currently have 2 "Sponsors" for my free anime needs. One being Anime News Network and the other is YouTube. Both are free to subscribe to and have some great anime for your enjoyment.

Anime News Network currently had added School Rumble: 2nd Semester. I am currently catching up on Naruto Shippuden (uncut) and Gintama (all 103 episodes). Only grip I have with them is the fact they keep having commercial ads every time you watch an episode. You usually have to watch 3 of them per episode sometimes.


YouTube on the other hand does not have this issue. Only thing here is that you have to watch an episode in 3 steps. Still not bad and the sub-titling is well done on then too. Here are some of my current Subscriptions on YouTube:

• rosariovampireseries (Rosario + Vampire)
  


• spiceandwolfexclusiv (Spice and Wolf)
  


• seito123456 (BASQUASH! and K-On!)

I know there are many more sites you can watch, so what are your favorites?