Bella at Scandia stairs

My lovely daughter being herself. :)

Casey is back.

He's got a story to tell.  I haven't had a chance to watch it yet so I'll just post the video and a link to The Blaze's story on it. From the snippes describing it, the kid sounds like he went through hell, and a body slam is the least the bullies deserved!

AUDIBLE?! Lina's voice changed!

For those of you who know me, I'm a long time anime fan.  I've been a fan since back in the VHS days when the "Sub vs Dub" wars raged on.  Back then they were a major discussion point because you had to buy a separate tape for the Subbed or Dubbed version of a show, and even worse the subbed tended to cost more. ($25 vs. $20 if I recall correctly.)  During the height of the war I came up with a simple rule:  "Whatever you heard the show in first, was the way you should always watch the show."  Which is how I ended up watching Neon Genesis dubbed all the way through, yet Orange Road was Subbed all the way.

One of the shows I used to watch that fell into the Dubbed category was Slayers.

 

Slayers was a simple, comedy/fantasy show featuring Lina Inverse as the crazy overpowered sorceress and her sidekick Gourry Gabriev the idiot swordsman with a magical weapon of immense power.  I ended up taking a lot of ideas from the Slayers universe and incorporating them into my role playing. (The Merge came from it directly) Slayers, Slayers: Next, and Slayers: Try plus all sorts of OAV's were bought and watched.  Even after the switch to DVD's (which mooted the Sub vs Dub debate as both were on the disc) I still watched the dubbed.  Yes, even with the changing of voice actresses for Amelia I hung through and enjoyed it.  

Then in ended....

Dashboard Camera captures Tsunami Impact

What's REALLY scary about this video is someone is driving this car when it happens! Luckily he seems to have gotten away. A helpful YouTube commenter summed up video with these notes:


Notes in 500 char:
Takes place Chiba Prefecture, Asahi City
0:40 Tsunami much bigger threat than the earthquake.
0:50 Showing damage to houses & roads, etc.
1:24 Showing how far water came up on house.
2:17 Driver describing feelings. Started to panic. Waves around 2m high
2:26 Afraid if leave car get sucked away by waves, waited.
2:37 Driver waited waves recede then ran away from car. Escaped to high elevation.
2:43 Driver mentally fatigued. Was terrorizing. Hasn't calmed down yet. Very scary.

A Victim no More, "Casey the Punisher"

So I'm a bit late in actually commenting on the "Cassey the Punisher" video because some of the story was still developing.  That and I tend to go "radio silent" on my weekends. 

That said start off here to check out the video:

Spilled Beans: Coming to America

Spilled Beans: Coming to America: "Sounds just like that Eddie Murphy movie right? ha! if only i had his money though .... So in 2006 I met my husband through daz3d/artzone ..."

Why America?

Roger Kimbal over at Pajamas media asks a fairly simple question today, "Where are the Americans?" While his article is a pretty scathing indictment of the Obama administration it brings up a different one to me, "Why America?" 

My lovely wife isn't from the good old USA, she's an Aussie.  Even more than that, she also spent her teen years in South America in the country of Uruguay. So needless to say she's not an "America First" kind of person.  In fact every time she hears a character or politician praising America or calling it "the greatest nation on Earth" it really irks her.  I understand completely and she does bring up a good point as well, "What makes America so great?" 

So "why America" and "what makes America so great" are two big questions I want to touch on today.

No Nukes? Really?

Japan's Crisis Sparks review of European nuclear projects.


Really? Now don't get me wrong nuclear events are big deals but do we always stop production of new products when really old versions fail?  I mean this is like stopping productions on new Cadillacs because a 1967 (the year Fukushima was built) Cadillac killed it's passengers after hitting a train, going 100 miles an hour, in the rain.  


What is it about Nuclear power, or nuclear anything that makes people go guano crazy every time it is brought up?  It has been 44 years since Fukushima was built, it was hit not only by an earthquake several times (I believe 7 times) more powerful than it was designed to withstand, and on top of that was hit by a tsunami shortly afterwards.  So after all that how many workers at the plant died?  How many nuclear blasts have their been?  How many new Hiroshima's have there been?  


Well hearing the reactions of some you'd have thought both plants had blown sky high and the entire island of Japan was glowing green right now with Godzilla rising from the surf to terrorize the survivors.  

A little perspective

So I just got back from the local job fair out in Hesperia, CA.  Let me start off by saying it was a total joke.  Now I don't have much experience with job fairs so for those of you who have please forgive me if I seem hard on them.  See this "job fair" was nothing more than a bunch of tables for a few companies, several schools, and one government agency set-up to hand out flyers directing everyone to their websites.  Seriously?  I've BEEN to most of the job websites out there, I have a college job placement system sending me job openings daily, so what the heck was the job fair for?  Those who don't have computers?  (Hence defeating the idea of going to their websites.)

Add to that the sheer lack of actual openings even from those who attended, the poor showing of businesses advertising, and running into former coworkers who have been out of work for the last two years really brings home how hard the job market is right now.  9% unemployment sounds bad, 20% underemployment with those who have "stopped looking for work" sounds worse, seeing it in person just puts it all into perspective.

Another striking perspective I just heard?  Japan vs. the National Debt.

Meteorological Musings: Nuclear Power in Perspective

Meteorological Musings: Nuclear Power in Perspective: "There is no question that the events in Japan are ongoing and serious. That said, I believe a lot of people are being misled by much of the ..."

I'm not worried about Japan's reactor either.

This post is in reaction to this one that was tweeted by Tested's Will Smith. (http://www.tested.com/)

The original post is here:
http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

While it's not the best written (Build instead of Built kept popping up to bother me) I think it does a fair job of explaining some of the factors of the current situation in Japan. Does the author know all of the details? Hell no! But the general premises and physics of a nuclear power plant are sound.

To me the funniest part of the blog were the comments. While I didn't read it until after comments had been shut down, I find it hilarious how afraid people are of nuclear power. For instance:

"Nuclear energy is not 100% safe and the risks it takes if something goes terrible wrong are not worth it in my opinion…"

Seriously? Nuclear has a terrible reputation due to the 60's and Chernobyl. It's like sharks, thanks to Jaws everyone is terrified they'll be eaten by sharks, yet more people are killed by cars than sharks yearly, yet we don't fear cars like we do sharks. (It'd be funny getting to work if we did!)