The Presidents decision to cut short his Memorial Day speech in the face of a violent freak storm has elicited some criticism, but it absolutely was the right one. A prime example of a bad call would have been to simply slog through in utter defiance of God, nature and reason and risk having people in the audience killed by lightning or injured by the wind.

 Sometimes a failure really is due to bad luck or circumstances and not judgment. This is particularly true with regards to the weather.

As to those who complain that he was not at Arlington, give it a rest. He was at a U.S. military cemetery, one that does not get a lot of attention nationally, and its a pretty significant place for those who have loved ones buried there.

There is a lot to criticize about Obama but this is not one of them. He is also our president. Taking cheap shots is petty and does a disservice to those heroes we seek to honor on this day.

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Bojutsu Bear practices his kata.

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Of all the  &#*!ing #*%ed up busybody $#*! I have heard lately this has got to be the %$#*est.

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Oh my....

Well, THAT was meteoric.

After receiving a huge infusion of cash and clout following their acquisition by Navarre back in 2005, Funimation spent the last 5 years gobbling up the rights to a huge number of R1 releases, many of them from other distribution companies that were going under in 2005-7. Funi has been very very good about punctual, high quality  and respectful translations.

Now Funimation is reportedly up for sale.

I gather that the parent company, Navarre, is looking to focus primarily on software and...whateverthehellelse they do. Funimation is reportedly  taking money away from their primary business model.

As I understand it, Funimation is making money but that they require resources that Navarre doesn't want to develop. 

This is not necessarily the end of the world for them. In these scary economic times companies need to focus on their core competencies (assuming those competencies have a future) and husband resources.  Assuming Funimation is in fact doing well, it is possible that they could continue as they are given a buyer that wants to invest in the areas that Funimation needs development in.

 However, this sounds a lot like what happened with Geneon U.S.A., which was ultimately closed down (and became the source for many of Funimations region-1 acquisitions).

I know there are occasional readers of this blog who are far more knowledgeable of the industry than I am...so have at it in the comments please.

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste links to this article which contains this  passage :

Navarre is pursuing a more focused strategy. Now that we have substantially reduced debt and improved operating margins, we are focusing our efforts on driving revenue, particularly in new product lines. We are concentrating all efforts on our distribution and software publishing businesses where we have significant expertise and considerable systems and physical assets that can be leveraged. The Punch! acquisition announced last week strengthens our software publishing business and demonstrates a step in our execution of this strategy," stated Cary L. Deacon, Chief Executive Officer.

FUNimation Entertainment's strategy and capital requirements are distinctly different from those of the Company's core business. While FUNimation's recent results have generally met expectations, the strategies required to grow the business include co-productions of original anime content, social networks and digital broadcasting. The Company anticipates that those plans are best executed with ownership that has assets or expertise in those areas.The Company will be discussing its going-forward strategy and financial outlook in greater detail next week in connection with its FY 2010 year end conference call.

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I am currently unable to do anything with my banners due to having broken my blog some time ago. This has left me stuck with 2 uncredited banners up top.
So in lieu of adding watermarks.....

The artist of the  'fishy' dame is Tenhiro Naoto .

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Nearly two weeks ago I attempted to expand the Windows 7 partition on my iMac. This resulted in a total failure to expand the partition, loosing all data therein and having an inaccessible empty partition on my hard drive....which prevented me from making a new partition from scratch.

I finally ended up taking the machine to the shop, and while I was at it I upgraded to the TB drive. Upon unpacking it, I placed it on my desk to check it out and make sure it was working OK. However I need the desk for homework, so Saturday I moved it up to the shelf where it lives and made an important discovery.



 In the back of an iMac is a vent. Here you can see it very clearly not marked near the upper edge, above the Apple logo.

That vent is extremely sharp edged. So sharp that after the resulting cut bled profusely...into the vent. The machine began to make a really....odd...noise, which I took to be blood congealed on the fan.

Yikes!

The cut bled for 3 days and I ended up going to the emergency room, where I had it lashed up securely, was given a tetanus shot and was informed that I was not to do anything with my left thumb for a solid week. ( No work and associated monies for Ken). As an added bonus the tetanus shot knocked me on my heels.

Of course I also had to take the computer back to the shop and sheepishly explain this fiasco.
Here's the thing: The Mac guy mentioned that this had actually happened to some of his other customers and he'd sent a consumer alert to Apple.

Now Steve Jobs has the most crackerjack industrial design team in the whole frickking world. Therefore it beggars belief that this is actually a design flaw. Thus I can only conclude that this is deliberate and iMacs are actually designed to collect DNA samples as part of a bloody biometric phishing scheme or perhaps they simply feed upon the blood of the unwary.

Anyway, beware. Steve Jobs wants your blood.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that some of my fellow Mac users may take violent and murderous offense at my post. Rather than proselytizing in the comments section of this post I suggest that you instead go here and ask yourself, 'where is your Jobs now?'

UPDATE2: Although it is ready, I still don't have Holo back yet due to the fact that I was not able to get through yesterdays obnoxious southeastern Virginia traffic before the store closed.

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Shocking revelatory revelations to be revealed within 24 hrs...if I still live.

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Frank Frazetta has died.

Few had as big an impression on the look of our fantasies as this man.

May he rest in peace.

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I'm appalled, but not surprised...not one bit.

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The upcoming Space Battleship Yamato movie continues to look like it could be one of the most awesomest things in the history of awesome!

^{I see that Dr. Saito Sane is female now but she's still got 'spring water'. They've even got Mimi!}

People often wonder why this old show made such an impression on some of us.

 To a 10 year old, adrift in the vast wasteland that was the UHF programming of 1980, Starblazers ( the American title of the show) was nothing short of astonishing. It was a 'cartoon' that did not pull its punches, had an intelligent and engaging story and was a science fiction show that had the space battles that Star Trek often lacked. The translation while not literal was very good and because it wasn't on the major networks it was able to slide things past standards and practices (like characters dieing dramatically). It was a show about honor, courage and heroes who willingly faced genuine peril. This was something almost nonexistant at the time.

Now why then is a 40 year old going all full metal fanboy over this? Well, partly because I'm a nerd, but also because this film looks to be a very faithful adaptation. This means it is aimed at least in part at those of us who ran home from school to see this show some 30 years ago.

 _{In other words it's aimed at my age bracket...so for once I need feel neither dirty nor old.}

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UPDATE: All day long we waited while they poked her and did tests. The biopsies were completed today and between that and the additional pictures they took it appears that the mass that showed up on her X-ray is in fact fluid and scar tissue from the previous surgery.There is still some concern due to the fact that the incision is still experiencing fluid build up and additional scarring 9 months after the surgery, however, the scaring does appear to be just scar tissue and not cancerous.

No cancer.

Yay!

This does suck as it is causing her intermittent pain....but damn that is a relief.

*********************************************end update

My car  auto-cannibalized itself last week, the internet has been twitchy, due to utility line work , I managed to screw up my iMac when I tried to increase the size of the Windows 7 partition and school started today...except that my teacher didn't show up.

All of which is utterly trivial now...

 Last Thursday my Mom, told us us that her vision was blurry. She then  complained of stabbing chest pains and developed great difficulty breathing.

She was rushed to the hospital and after a day of tests she was determined to have...a severe kidney infection...which did not at all jive with her symptoms, but her heart was OK.

Today, she went to a doc-in-the box for a follow-up on her infection, and it seems to be well on the way to oblivion. The duty doctor was still perplexed about the pains and asked the Hospital to send over the X-rays they took the other night. They had been focused on the heart and so had apparently missed the gall stones...and the huge mass in her left breast.

She had a close run thing a while back with cancer on her right side (which is still clear after her second surgery last year). This thing is big and has come on very fast. (Since January)

We contacted her surgeon and he's seeing us first thing tomorrow. We won't know anything until then but he had the X-rays forwarded to him and he said to make preparations to go under the knife very quickly. I'm guessing Friday is the soonest because of the Kidney infection. 

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Squaemous, cyclopean, non-euclidian, eldritch, ghastly, foetid, tenebrous, rubbery, grinning madness.

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 As I type this Times Square is evacuated due to an unexploded car bomb. Not much info right now other than that the bomb was incompetently fused.

 Oh...and there is no terrorism here, no sirree.

A federal official said that domestic security officials had been informed that the event did not appear to be a terrorist threat.

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   This girl has them.....

Because of Kerner's alleged sexual activities with other men and animals, the informant, who had dated the woman, and his Jack Russell terrier both contracted sexually transmitted diseases, court documents state.

 

^{Completely unrelated...and there is much rejoicing over that fact}

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...but I agree with the sentiment.

Update: Oh yeah....the actual solidarity part.

^{Cox and Forkum...hitting on all cylinders with this one}

More from Zombie who, in this rather interesting post, takes a moment from blaspheming to point out that this particular bit of asshattery (no images of  Mohammad) is actually a very recent development.

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