2010-03-29 20:35:00
You only think you know comics history! The epic - and insane - story of comic books, manga and graphic novels, told as a comic, in the inimitable, irreverent and award-winning Action Philosophers style, begins here!
That's the advertisement for Comic book comics as I read it in Comixology's Comics iPhone app. Having read a few installments of Action Philosophers (an illustrated and light-hearted look at the world's history of philosophy) I knew this could only end well! Combine comics, learning and learning about comics into one format and you can definitely sign me up! At 79 cents each it's a bargain. :)
Four chapters from the books are available as preview. I've learnt plenty already! For example, I never knew that: Popeye + pulp scifi + The Shadow + Scarlet Pimpernel + Zorro = Superman! Did you?
EDIT:
Nor did I know that the 1960's Batman TV series was -intentionally- camp. The overacting, the seriousness, the overdone BAM! ZOOM! POW! images: all by design in order to -be- camp. Huh! Live and learn! :)
kilala.nl tags: reading,
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2010-03-28 22:18:00
As the title says I've been spending less and less time with the intertubes the past few weeks. You may have noticed the frequency of blog posts has gone down. I've spent most of my time working the gardens, playing with Marli and Dana and basically relaxing.
But now it's time for me to pick up steam again! Starting tomorrow I will continue my preparations for my presentations at NLUUG and Anime 2010. I will also start on the many programming items on my ToDo list. And so on, and so on.
But now it's time for bed :)
kilala.nl tags: life,
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2010-03-28 22:08:00
The new anime season (spring 2010) is right around the corner and Japanator do their customary season previews. And as is custom they also take the piss out of it.
Sadly, K-On!! is the only show in the whole list that I would probably enjoy, with the possible exception of Big wind-up (of which I still need to watch season 1).
I guess this means it's time for me to catch up on classics and to spend my time on other pursuits. I see that they've continued fansubbing Ashita no Joe, which makes me all kinds of happy :)
kilala.nl tags: anime,
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2010-03-21 22:01:00
Earlier this month saw the release of Summer wars on DVD/BD in Japan. I'd heard rumours about the movie being great, so I decided to give it a shot. Rest assured that I will definitely be buying the EUR/US release once it hits in september. Summer wars is an -excellent- movie. I enjoyed it tremendously!
kilala.nl tags: anime,
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2010-03-17 10:28:00
Yesterday evening I spent an hour at a nearby garden center, getting the first batch of supplies and plants for our gardens. This batch consists of:
* 120 l peat soil, because the front yard requires acidity.
* 70 l cocoa pods, to keep cats from using our yard as a litter box.
* 15 pieces of heath, plus 4 "andromeda" heath
* 2 azaleas to complement the heath garden
* 1 magnolia tree, to put in front
All of this will allow me to decorate the front yard today/tomorrow. The back will follow next week. I really look forward to puttering about in our garden ^_^
kilala.nl tags: house,
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2010-03-15 05:56:00
Nothing to see here, just keeping track of stuff. Don't know the exact cause, might be my excitement about the gardens, or the nasty dream I was having at the time (something about betrayal, or somesuch).
kilala.nl tags: hyperventilation, health,
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2010-03-14 21:34:00
What a great day! I didn't do much housekeeping, despite my original plans, but it turned out to be a wonderfully productive day nonetheless.
* We worked out a design for our gardens
* We went to a garden center, to get inspiration
* I made a yummy steak pie
* We filed our 2009 income tax.
All in all our taxes took about an hour and we'll be getting back an additional 1600 euros. Score! ^_^ Today was the first time we did our taxes together, which is also great: Marli wants to be more involved with our finances, so she can pick up the slack if something ever goes wrong.
kilala.nl tags: life,
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2010-03-14 19:04:00
Half a year ago we completed the renovations of our front and back yards. They cost us a pretty penny, but we went from an unmanageable jungle, to a tidy and easy to maintain situation. However, there was still plenty of yard left to fill in and now it's time to take care of that.
Last week the guys from Muller came back to plant a buxus hedge at the front. On the one hand it'll clearly demarcate our land, putting up a mental barrier for those idiots who kept cutting through. On the other hand they immediately changed the look and feel of the front garden; it "feels" a bit larger.
Marli and I have also been thinking about what we'd like to put in, plants-wise. Early on we had decided that we wanted fruits in there, because they're yummy, fun for Dana and cheaper than in the shops. But you can only plant so much fruits in the borders. So, the above image is what we came up with.
In the front we'll plant mostly heath. In the back, on the left, we'll add strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, a currant bush and a cherry tree. On the right we'll add another cherry tree and then fill the rest with flowering hedges, like rhododendron. On the patio we'll add two big potted hydrangea (dutch "hortensia"), just because we love them so much. ^_^
kilala.nl tags: house,
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2010-03-09 21:35:00
Not only will I be presenting at NLUUG on May 6th, but I'll also give a talk at Anime 2010 on May 22nd. Like every year since 2002, we'll be attending the Netherland's best anime/manga/japan convention in Almelo and I'm very much looking forward to it.
On Saturday morning I'll have a session on the hunting for rare, Japanese collectibles, based on two real life cases from my own experience. On the one hand I'll examine buying rare toys through the Internet and on the other I'll examine my quest for a Suekichi Haruo watch, which involved traveling to Japan.
Scary, yet fun!
kilala.nl tags: geeky,
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2010-03-09 19:07:00
So, apparently a pizza delivery guy got robbed in our street last Saturday night. Around nineish so by no means "late at night". Two hooded guys made off with his money, phone and scooter.
So much for my squeeky clean image of our neighborhood.
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2010-03-06 18:59:00
I got the joke, so yeah: I'm still a geek.
Hint (search for "undead")
kilala.nl tags: geeky,
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2010-03-02 22:45:00
... here's a video of Dana eating a sammich!
I've been really busy with work, the white paper/presentation and all manner of other stuff. I've even been spending less and less time on the web the past two weeks! WTF? Hence the lack of any true updates...
kilala.nl tags: baby,
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2010-03-02 21:37:00
A few weeks ago I wrote about the then-current state of my home office. Since then I've managed to make some long desired changes.
Yesterday we paid a visit to the Amersfoort Ikea with Kaijuu, who works in the vicinity. We had dinner and took a quick trip downstairs to grab a Lack table for myself and to gawk at some plates and dinnerware. It was then that I remembered something I'd read at Japanator recently: Ikea has cloth with manga and Japanese designs, which are still a very new product. Luck would have it that the dutch Ikea also has access to these fabrics!
So! My desk's been cleaned up a lot, with a slightly modified Lack (5 euros woo! /o/) used to heighten my Macbook and speakers. All cables are tucked away neatly, as are the switch and USB/FW hub and my iPhone dock. On the wall is one complete section of the Ikea Charlotta Teckning fabric. Lovely!
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Thomas Sluyter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.