June 2014

Pirate merchandise


Given the mid-August release, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing a Blu-ray of the movie around then.

Bentenmaru ring

Also, in November, Marika bikini figure.

Not ebooks yet?


Why not? Isn’t rescuing this sort of thing what modern technology is for?

MASH goes to Vienna

Dear Amazon US,


Please don’t tell me why the results of a search for the Bluray edition of The Seven Samurai included the Japanese edition of Kick-ass 2.

Even more baffling is the import of the Samurai Champloo box set that showed up in the results, for more than ten times the price of the US release. The product description suggests that this isn’t a case where the Japanese set had significant extras:

Draw a rare journey of Foo daughter of cafe Liquidambar genius swordsman Jin era drama action animation! Wild boy infinite Shinichiro Watanabe "Cowboy Bebop" and "Animatrix" time as director! 3-Disc Blu which recorded all 26 episodes -ray BOX.

Dear Adobe,


In your lengthy Creative Cloud survey (in which you mistakenly addressed me as a former customer), I was struck by what was missing in the list of possible answers to the question “how did you learn to use Adobe creative tools?”: books.

Apparently the kids you’ve got running the game now are so hooked on the web that they’ve forgotten that Adobe software used to ship with manuals, and that third parties used to write entire books on how to use the stuff. Or perhaps they’re too young to have ever known.

Also, I was amused when the surveydroids referred to the process of installing the CC tools as “onboarding”, and then immediately had to explain their jargon, but what the fuck does this statement mean, which I’m supposed to rank my agreement with: “I have been able to meet the objectives I set for using Adobe Creative Cloud”? The correct answer would be “you stopped selling products, so I had to start renting them, which I’m not a big fan of”.

And I love this question toward the end:

“What methods would have been helpful to you in getting started to use Adobe applications or use the applications more?”

  • A call from customer support to provide more information
  • More emails explaining the benefits of applications
  • A learning game
  • Live chat online to provide more information
  • A five minute how-to video
  • A prominent 800 number to call Adobe customer support
  • Included access to a 3rd party training provider such as Lynda.com
  • A social network connection e.g. via Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc.
  • Step-by-step tutorials (just text and graphics, rather than "how to" videos)
  • Online or in-product tutorials
  • Access to an Adobe learning resource center
  • Links to CC user forums
  • A 30 minute webinar/online seminar
  • Other (specify):
  • None/no other resources needed/none would be helpful

Odd how none of these options are related to the quality of the documentation, which defaults to online help pages these days. In fact, you have to manually download the actual PDF reference manuals separately from the CC applications; it isn’t even a clickable link in the help options.

Not that I need one, you understand...


…it was just one of those random moments of googling, and I was saddened to discover that while there are plenty of panther-claw t-shirts, there are no Panther Claw t-shirts.

Panther Claw disposable goons

Hmmm, what about a nice “Keep Calm and Honey Flash” poster?

Dear AKB48 Costume Designers,


Kinda tame, but I can see that you were raised in the same hell dimension as the Hello!Project designers. The Legos are a nice touch, though.

Sayaka Yamamoto

“Need a clue, take a clue,
 got a clue, leave a clue”