Google doesn’t seem to celebrate Moa Metal’s birthday properly: the logo colors are all wrong. 😁

Fireworks!

In my dishwasher! Glad I ordered a new one back in May! Now it just needs to be delivered and hooked up!

Fortunately it had just finished the wash cycle before the sparks flew and the blue smoke escaped, so it wasn’t full of water. Also, remember that wall switch controlling the power to the dishwasher, something I’d never seen in a house before? Kind of glad it’s there now, so I didn’t have to run down to the basement and figure out which breaker to flip.

Why, yes, I did get a home warranty when I bought the place; since I already ordered the replacement, they’ll give me a credit toward the price.

Actual fireworks!

If I could get up onto my roof, I’d have the best view in town for fireworks, based on Saturday night’s show. As it is, it was still pretty impressive.

I presume the larger official shows were Saturday because the 4th is on a Monday this year.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Surprisingly, this doesn’t suck so far. Except maybe for the hair, which seems more Millenial than Regulation.

Having skipped Discovery, I was not aware that Anson Mount (who I had only previously seen in Mr. Right) had appeared as Captain Pike in that show. Reading a few episode summaries suggests that I will continue to skip Discovery, and not feel like I’ve missed anything worthwhile.

Unrelated: “Wide base to prevent loss”

Demon Girl Next Door 2.12

The big finish, with Our Demon Girl bringing everyone together to solve Our Other Magical Girl’s bad-luck problem once and for all.

Special bonus Crisis Management Form transformations included:

Komi 2.10

Valentine’s Day went so well that even the presence of Katai couldn’t ruin it.

Super Harem Version + OVA

Kadokawa’s solution to releasing a new isekai show where the whole point of the original story is Our Slavehumper banging his fantasy-race slave harem every chance he gets is to release it in three versions: broadcast, harem, and “super harem”. The Bluray/DVD box sets will contain the super harem version plus bonus I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-hentai OVAs.

(platonic not-a-slave-harem is unrelated)

Cast Off!

What cheat power hasn’t been given to an isekai hero yet? I was going to say the Most Common Special Attack, otherwise known as effortlessly stripping women like anime figurines, but then I remembered Those Who Hunt Elves…

Down to the wireACH…

I got a call from the title company that cleared up the current state of the house sale: the buyers simply didn’t understand how long it takes to get money out of a 401K, their loan officer didn’t explain it to them, and their explanation to the realtor (relayed to me) reflected this cluelessness. To put the cherry on top, the 401K provider didn’t wire the money to the title company’s escrow account this morning, they’re sending it via ACH, which adds at least another day… as we go into a three-day bank-holiday weekend.

So they asked me to extend the closing date until the 6th, while hoping to be able to do it on the 5th. Their loan is approved, all the paperwork is signed, and the deal is done… as soon as they hand over the money.

My mortgage payment on the old house is due today, but not considered late until the 15th, so we don’t have to redo all the numbers based on a change in the balance. Yet.

Shield Hero 2.13

Story time! After last week’s big, messy finish, they even skipped the opening credits this week so they could spend time having multiple characters reminisce, suggesting that they really couldn’t figure out how to get more than 12 episodes out of the roughly 3.5 books they covered (Ost shows up about 2/3 of the way through book 6, and book 9 finishes off the other-other-world story). So that’s 5.5 books in 25 episodes versus 3.5 in 12, which explains part of the problem.

Looking at the descriptions and chapter titles of the upcoming books, for October’s season 3 they pretty much have to either do books 10-12 or 10-14, and while the latter would be far more fan-friendly (13-14 are heavy on the Raphtalia content), they’d have to butcher their way through it even more aggressively than they did for season 2.

Turns out…

…what liberals really want is to abort fetuses right up until the end of the 360th trimester, especially if they’re on the Supreme Court.

New children’s book!

Soon to be required reading in school districts across America: Hunter Hired A Ho

Nothing jumps out at me at all for the summer season; I like the character design for the female lead in Mysterious Maid, but nothing about the concept, and I liked Weird ScienceMagic better when it was called Macademi Wasshoi!.

As for fall, so far all that looks promising is Flatcat & Sword. Shield Hero season 3 is supposed to be coming in October as well, but they did such a terrible job on 2 that I’m not interested. And I dropped Spy×Family pretty early, so its second cour isn’t on my list.

Maybe I’ll just have to spend the next few months cheesecake-blogging…

(Macademi Wasshoi! is still streaming on Crunchyroll, fortunately, since if it ever got a US DVD release, I can’t find it anywhere used; there are still a few seeded torrents, though…)

Unrelated,

Just noticed that Steven’s brother let the denbeste.nu registration lapse, so it now points to an ad-infested page with boilerplate anime contents in a language I don’t speak.

Skeleton Knight 12

Oh! Look! The loser backstory of a cackling villain is revealed just before he gets his ass handed to him! It’s been so long since I’ve seen somethng like that!

Oh, wait, no, that happened Wednesday, too.

I was highly disappointed by the frequent close-up shots in this one that revealed that they couldn’t afford gainaxing, just CGI hip turrets. You think they’d throw us a bone in the final episode…

They listed off all the uncashed plot coupons, but it doesn’t look like they have a second season coming any time soon.

Demon Girl Next Door 2.11

Back to school, setting up a big event for next episode.

Komi 2.9

Most unrealistic episode ever. I mean, three high school girls fed the deer in Nara, and not one of them got mobbed or mugged by the greedy beasts.

Oh, and Komi made two new friends, The Chessmaster and Sukeban Deka.

Next Friday seems to be the day for the summer shows to start showing up. Nothing that looks good to me yet.

Umbrella Academy, season 3

Apart from the gender roleplay affirmations that take up a fair amount of screen time in the first few episodes, this was pretty good. I think I nodded off for a bit in the middle while watching the entire thing in one sitting, and there’s plenty of filler I’d skip in a rewatch, but on the whole, not bad.

Yes, the show explicitly writes in El Page’s decision to LARP manhood, which is enthusiastically embraced by the other characters. Yes, in a season about erasing people, they erased straight Vanya from season one and lesbian Vanya from season two, so she could become the he she always was but just couldn’t see until it was trending. No treatments of any kind, just the haircut and announcement(s) were sufficient.

If you can get past that, though, season 3 also delivers characters that are fucked up in entertaining ways. As usual, Klaus and Five are the standouts, with Dad close behind. The rest are a mixed bag, although Gravity Barbie was an amusing and highly decorative addition. Diego was less interesting than in previous seasons, thanks to his daddy issues being replaced by daddy issues. Only a few of the Sparrows were fleshed out, making the rest obvious redshirts, and they left Grace’s unusual behavior a complete mystery.

The ending pretty much closes off the possibility of another season, which is probably for the best.

Restauranting

A few days ago we went to the Chiapas in Moraine because my parents like the Chiapas in Centerville. That was a mistake.

Last night, on the other hand, we ordered takeout from the CJ Chan’s that’s a few doors down from them, and that was excellent.

Everywhere a sign

Well, perhaps both dates were correct, since I completed my half of the closing Thursday with the mobile notary, but haven’t heard from the title company yet about the buyer’s signatures. Or money. Fingers crossed; also toes, eyes, arms, legs, and zombie assassins.

Oh, wait, that’s a crossover.

“When it’s over, YOU get ice cream!”

Joe Biden held up his meeting cheat sheet so that it faced the cameras, and someone got a clear picture. I’m less concerned about this particular stay-on-target reminder than I am that they have templates like this for structuring all of his interactions.

Shield Hero 2.12

It ended as it began: a jumbled mess. Except that there’s apparently a post-epilogue episode next week, in which they’ll do what, exactly?

Bonus Melty (who has a brief, silent cameo at the end):

RPG Real Estate 12

…and it’s done. They put you through more bullshit melodrama, despite telegraphing the happy ending in the episode title.

Bonus Beach Real Estate:

Unrelated, I rewatched the final episode of Endro! last night, which was better than this show in every way. I still liked RPG-RE, I just wish they could have skipped the plot and just kept the cute-girls-selling-weird-houses bits.

Today I Learned…

…that the Japanese title for the Karate Kid movies was ベスト•キッド = “Best Kid”.

Dear Joe,

Will you help retail employees find new jobs after Apple closes that store, or will you leave it up to the Machinists union?

Mixed messages…

This morning, the realtor asked for an extension to Wednesday the 29th while the buyer gets her wire transfer sorted out.

This evening, the title company scheduled a mobile notary for closing on Thursday the 23rd.

Kind of hoping they’re the ones who’ve got the date right.

(tumblr seems to have decided to restrict access to logged-in users after a very small amount of scrolling, but direct links still work. For now. What’s that sucking noise I hear?)

Shield Hero 2.11

The return of Our Scenery-Chewing Asshat, an awful lot of talking, and a sudden cliffhanger. Blah-blah-blah. Only good part was the introduction of a luscious redhead with a ponytail, who’ll probably never show up again now that she’s served her single role in the plot.

RPG Real Estate 11

Too. Much. Plot. And I’m not a big fan of spontaneous melodrama.

Next week, posthumous exposition!

Skeleton Knight 11

I could do with less scenery-chewing over-the-top cackling villains this season. Pretty sure this one will be dead soon, fortunately.

In other news, if you had any doubt that Our Lung-Hung Elf Gal wants the B, in this episode she gets prickly after catching Our Bony Hero in the arms of another woman.

(related fan-art is finally showing up that does not involve the early-season gang-rape scenes)

Demon Girl Next Door 2.10

In which Our Demon Girl trains hard, both really and virtually.

Bonus: “You got your tanuki child bride in my demon girl!”

Komi 2.8

Field trip! Pillow fight good, homoerotic muscle-boys bad.

Dear Adobe,

Did you hire away Apple’s QA VP? I ask because the latest Photoshop update failed twice and then pretended it had succeeded, leaving me with a thoroughly broken app. Fortunately the uninstall still worked, and preserved my preferences for the reinstall.

Count Dr. Olaf Horrible vs Who?

Neil Patrick Harris has been announced as the antagonist for new Dr Who Ncuti Gatwa when Russell T. Davies takes the show back over.

They’re really trying to signal that they’re going to make a decent show this time, bringing back David Tennant, Catherine Tate, and possibly even Bernard Cribbins for the 60th anniversary.

Recently overheard…

Someone on an executive search team: “I’m sorry we weren’t able to hire a diverse candidate”.

I’d have been strongly tempted to reply, “so you hired di-better one instead?”

Well, shit, we’ve lost another good one. More later.