The forecasts swear that it will not rain again until Friday. I find myself unable to complain about how wet it’s been this year in front of my Irish co-workers, so I’ll do it here…

Dear Amazon Logistics,

I’m so old I remember when two-day shipping meant that I got my package in two days. It looks like the stuff I ordered from a Tokyo camera store via eBay will arrive faster than the small “next-day” item I ordered from Amazon US.

Always in the last place you look…

Three years ago, I changed my primary phone number everywhere I could think of, but kept it active on the old phone in case there were a few places I missed. When I bought a new phone recently, I considered finally retiring the California phone number, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. It was just sitting on a shelf, powered off.

Yesterday, I had to power it up and retrieve a two-factor-authentication text message. From my domain registrar (no idea how I missed that one…). I couldn’t log in to update my billing without it, and one of my idle domains is up for renewal soon.

(picture is unrelated but cute, and overdue for posting)

(oh, and if you leave an iPhone turned off for a few weeks, it loses all charge; good work, Apple!)

The promise of streaming?

I’ve been a good boy, paying for numerous streaming services, even though some of them are getting increasingly user-hostile, like Amazon switching to an ad-supported model even when you pay extra to not see ads.

I’ve held up my end of the bargain, but they keep letting me down by silently trimming their catalogs to the point that you need another streaming subscription just to watch the same movie twice. And at least half of those show invasive ads. And a lot of things are just gone.

In short, I just grabbed a torrent of Vividred Operation because it’s not available on any streaming service at any price (Crunchyroll dropped it four years ago, and physical media is only available at collectible prices from Japan). At least with a 24-year-old show like Rune Soldier I can just break out the DVD box set, but something 12 years newer has almost completely vanished.

File under peculiar the fact that you can still buy all sorts of merch from the show, including cosplay outfits if you have the ass for it, but you can’t get the show itself. Sigh.

Anyway, I just watched the first episode, and it’s really jarring how much more animated the animation is than the majority of shows airing this season.

(Miss Kuroitsu never got a US release at all, and only a limited-edition Bluray box set in Japan that currently costs around $200 with shipping)

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