Tag Archives: off-topic

Prepping for Wordpress 2.5 - Plugin Recommendations?

With Wordpress 2.5 expected to (finally) be released on the 17th, I was thinking of going through and doing a plug-in overhaul along with the upgrade.  That means axing any plug-ins I don’t need (that may depend on what comes with 2.5) as well as adding plug-ins.

One commenter has already suggested the plugin that allows commenters to edit their comments with 15 minutes (I found Edit Comments XT which looks like it does this, but I’m not sure if this is what most people use).

I was eyeing the PodPress plug-in myself for my podcast.  If I understand it correctly, it can create a separate RSS feed for my podcast, which is exactly what I want.   The All in One SEO Pack also looks interesting.

Category icons looks interesting, though it may be a bit overkill…

In any case, if you know of any useful plug-ins that you think are must-have, then let me know and I’ll take a look.

Meanwhile, plug-ins that I have that *I* find useful include Easy Tube, Google Analyticator, Google XML Sitemaps, and Maintenance Mode.

Josh’s Anime Blog Podcast Won an Award for…

“blandest title of a podcast ever” from OtakuJuice lol.

Well, what can you do? I named the podcast after the blog, which in turn has an admittedly bland name. If I were to start now and tried to come up a name, I’d try to come up with something catchier, but I wasn’t exactly expecting it to be anything big at the time (nor was I really expecting to last for over 2 years for that matter…). Well, with the blog now into it’s 3rd year….oh well I guess lol.

And no, I’m not taking this seriously.

Some anime review updates

I went through and updated the scores and reviews that are on my blog for several of the past anime series that I re-reviewed on my podcast.  Since I change some parts of my review and scoring for series when I re-review them, I usually need to go back and update those reviews on my blog as well, and I hadn’t done that for quite a while.  Those reviews should be updated now.

I decided to take another look and I re-scored my Rumbling Hearts and Last Exile reviews as well as re-reviewed DNA2.   The story with DNA2 was that I actually don’t have the written podcast re-review script for that series anymore, so I didn’t have anything to base re-reviewing that series other than listening to the podcast again, so I listened to my old podcast review of it and then sort-of kind-of based my re-review on it.

In any case, the reviews on my blog (as well as the alphabetical list and list by score pages) should all be updated now.

You may have noticed that I put up a review each day last week.  This is part of my project to catch up on my rather large backlog of reviews.  I was planning on doing it last month, but if you visited my blog very much last month, you saw that it ended up being a pretty bad month for me posting overall.  As a result, I’m going to try to post a new review every weekday in March, which will hopefully get me closer to being caught up.

Anime Theme Competition - Quarterfinal Set 2 Results

I thought I’d finally get around to finishing project after letting it age for…a while. In any case, it’s time to announce the results of the final two quarterfinal matchups. Clips for the last 4 songs in the quarterfinals are after the jump.

And just a reminder, I’m choosing these songs since I found that coming up with a top 10 list of favorite songs was a rather daunting task. So by “results” I mean “my favorite.” Just thought I’d mention that again.

The songs which advanced to the Quarterfinal/Seventh Round are in bold. Also, see the full bracket.

“Forever”
by Savage Genius
Elemental Gelad

vs.

“Naraku no Hana”
by Eiko Shimamiya
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

and

“Yoake Umarekuru Shoujo”
by Yoko Takahashi
Shakugan no Shana

vs.

“Hoshizora no Waltz”
by Minami Kuribayashi
Rumbling Hearts

So these two were about as close to routs as one could get at this point in the bracket. And so it’s Forever vs. Hoshizora no Waltz in the 2nd semifinal.

Next Sunday (theoretically), I’ll announce the winners of the two semifinal matchups, setting up the final matchup. The semifinal matchups are:

“Michishirube”
by Yuumao
Kashimashi

vs.

“Ameagari”
by Moeko Matsushita
Angelic Layer


“Forever”
by Savage Genius
Elemental Gelad

vs.

“Hoshizora no Waltz”
by Minami Kuribayashi
Rumbling Hearts

Web Stats for February 2008

Yes, it is here again…the post no one but I and a few other people in the known universe care about…the web stats post!

Read More »

And Plagues Swept Over the Land…

All I can say right now is that I’m glad next week is spring break for my class.  This past weekend I ended up having the double-whammy of both needing to take the 3-hour trip to go to my class (part of the arrangement, since I work away from where I’m getting my masters, is attending 5 classes a semester) as well as deciding to get a cold over the same weekend.

The first thing that did was make me unable to record my podcast on Friday like I was planning to (unless I wanted to sound like Darth Vader or something), and since I was gone the rest of the weekend, I didn’t get the chance to record it afterwards.  Since I was pretty much down-and-out over the weekend as well, I didn’t exactly feel like working on stuff like trying to catch up on watching or writing reviews.

When I finally got back Tuesday, I needed to finish some homework, so I wasn’t able to record my podcast then either, and last night I finally was well enough to actually be able to get a full nights sleep.  Finally, tonight I have the last of my homework before spring break to do, so I probably won’t get much done tonight, either.

So, Spring Break will end up being an even bigger make-up week than it was looking like even before, and here is what I would like to get done next week. Shows with an asterisk are episodes that have aired (or will air by the time they’re listed) but don’t have a sub out yet:

Friday (tomorrow):  Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino 5, Shana II 17, CLANNAD 17.  I already have screenshots for these finished (actually they’re already uploaded) so all I need to do is actually write the reviews.

Saturday: Podcast, Shion 16, Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino 6*

Sunday: Shana II 18, Clannad 18.  More if I’m up for it, but we’ll see.

Monday: Shion 17, GSG 7*

Tuesday: Shana II 19, Clannad 19*

Wednesday: Shion 18*, GSG 8*

Thursday: Shana II 20*, Shion 19*

Friday: GSG 9*

Saturday: Podcast, Shana II 21*, CLANNAD 20*

From what I can tell, CLANNAD didn’t air this past Tuesday (lucky!) , so that’s one less episode to catch up on.  Also, Triad is slow putting out subs for Gunslinger Girl, so even though I have episodes 8 and 9 listed, I doubt I’ll actually post them (and maybe even episode 7) due to lack of a sub.  That gives me at least a little breathing room if I need it, as well as the fact that I’ll probably be able to post more on Sunday than I’m listing, though I may use the rest of Sunday to catch up watching other shows.

And I don’t think I’ve seen any of these episodes, past what I have listed for Friday.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve even downloaded most of these (to say nothing about the series I’m watching but not blogging).  My ISP is gonna come kill me after I grab all of these lol.

I’m still alive!

Yes, I’m still alive. I just had a really, really busy week with non-anime stuff, so I’ve done basically zero anime things in the past week (thus the lack of posting).  I haven’t even gotten around to watching a couple of Netflix DVDs I got a couple of weeks back yet.

I hope to get some stuff posted later today to start catching up.  However, I haven’t even checked to see what fansubs are out or whatever or even where I left off, so I can’t really tell you what episodes to expect at this point.

I also had planned a spectacular “New Series Review per Weekday” thing this month, but you see how that’s gone too.  I may try to post some of those through the month, but I’m obviously not going to get to post as many as I wanted.

I hate to combine episode reviews (i.e. do two episodes of a series at a time), but if I can’t catch up sufficiently over the next week or so, I may end up having to start doing that to catch up.

Luckily I won’t need to be going back down to attend an actual physical class until the end of February.  Hopefully I’ll be caught up by then…

Web Stats for January 2008

Yes, it is here again…the post no one but I and a few other people in the known universe care about (thus the off-topic tag for anime-nano)….the web stats post!

Speaking of Anime-Nano, as probably more people than wish to know knows, having my blog added to Anime Nano definitely helped my web stats for this month.

Read More »

New Poll: Podcast and Series Reviews

I decided to post a new poll asking about series reviews. It’s been a while since I’ve posted one (October actually), but I have quite a few lined up to add. However, I’m wondering about whether people would rather have me post reviews to the blog first, and then re-review them during my podcast later (how I currently do it), or review shows on my podcast, and then post that review on my blog afterwards. Or maybe a mix of both?

The plus for the first option is that I may be able to do a better review in the podcast if I re-edit one I’ve already written. Of course, the negative to that is that it may take a while for newer series to be reviewed on my podcast.

In any case, I’ve put up a poll to see what people can think. If you think it should be a mix of both (keep posting reviews to the blog first, but feel free to review a new series on the podcast), you can select both options. The poll will close in a week, and you should be able to track the poll’s results on the sidebar.

Which series are you looking forward to most? (up to 3)

  • Someday’s Dreamers: Summer Skies (13%, 16 Votes)
  • Slayers REVOLUTION (12%, 15 Votes)
  • Blade of the Immortal (11%, 14 Votes)
  • Zero no Tsukaima ~Princess no Rondo~ (9%, 11 Votes)
  • Hidamari Sketch x365 (8%, 10 Votes)
  • Natsume Yuujinchou (7%, 9 Votes)
  • Birdy the Mighty Decode (7%, 9 Votes)
  • They all suck (7%, 9 Votes)
  • World Destruction (6%, 8 Votes)
  • Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (5%, 7 Votes)
  • Sekirei (5%, 6 Votes)
  • Strike Witches (3%, 4 Votes)
  • Antique Bakery (2%, 3 Votes)
  • Ultraviolet: Code 044 (2%, 2 Votes)
  • Ryoko’s Case File (2%, 2 Votes)
  • Neo Angelique Abyss -Second Age- (1%, 1 Votes)
  • Mission-E (1%, 1 Votes)
  • Koihime Musou (1%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 128

Loading ... Loading ...

Anime Theme Competition - Quarterfinal Set 1 Results

It’s time to announce the results of the first two quarterfinal matchups. Clips for the last 4 songs in the quarterfinals are after the jump.

And just a reminder, I’m choosing these songs since I found that coming up with a top 10 list of favorite songs was a rather daunting task. So by “results” I mean “my favorite.” Just thought I’d mention that again.

The songs which advanced to the Quarterfinal/Seventh Round are in bold. Also, see the full bracket.

“Waltz”
by Kanako Itou
School Days

vs.

“Michishirube”
by Yuumao
Kashimashi

and

“Presence”
by The Indigo
Ai Yori Aoshi ~Enishi~

vs.

“Ameagari”
by Moeko Matsushita
Angelic Layer

So Michishirube from Kashimashi and Ameagari from Angelic Layer make it to the final four and will face off in the first semifinal in two weeks.

Read More »