Sigh, I was afraid of that

With only a few weeks to go before the new season starts, a lot of shows still have only vague teasers up, so I was initially pleased to see that a proper trailer for Vending Machine 2 showed up today.

Initially pleased.

Lacking any source material to adapt, they’re picking up the “let’s fight the demon lord” plot that the author started before abandoning the series. While trying to show that they’re also going to be fun and whimsical. This does not inspire confidence.

(speaking of confidence, a lot of upcoming shows still don’t have any posted trailers; I started the Spring season with 9 shows and ended up with only 3, and right now I’m starting Summer with only 3)

Dear Apple,

If there’s no accessibility option that says “turn off all this transparent shit”, I ain’t installing the new OS.

Dear Sheetz,

What prison supplies your burger patties?

(this oni girl would surely kill everyone within miles if she were fed a Sheetz burger…)

Network Solutions? Again?

Apparently they’re on an acquisition binge, and bought up the company I’m hosting my primary email with, which has been bought up so many times over the years that I can’t even remember who I actually signed up with back in the late Nineties.

They swear nothing is changing now that my mail host is called, I kid you not, “iPage”, which sounds like an abandoned Apple product. The last time my email provider swore that there’d be no change, it took days to get through to someone who could fix it, and meanwhile half my incoming mail was bouncing.

But when they say nothing’s changed, they mean the login page for my account has changed, and the link they provide in the email goes through a third-party tracking site.

And it won’t let me login to the new control panel. And there’s no way to contact them. But basic mailflow still seems to work, so they’re at least that much more competent than the last bunch.

It seems that the migration email went out quite a few hours before the migration was actually finished…

Second-Longest drive since I moved…

[Update: somehow I forgot about driving to Chicago to take care of my sister...]

My mom had an appointment with a neurologist in Columbus. She hasn’t been able to drive on the highway for years, and 150+ miles of construction-infested driving was a bit much for my over-Ninety stepdad, so I took a day off. As a bonus, the comfy back seats of my Kia Sorento are easy for her to get in and out of, and being in back reduces the anxiety caused by her double vision and lack of depth perception in traffic.

Despite the Perpetual Lowest-Bidder Roadwork That Will Need Redone In Two Years, we made good time, and had left early enough to have a leisurely lunch. The appointment went long, in a good way, and they were both impressed with the doc.

Eight hours of my time, start to finish, but low-stress, and good company.

[Unrelated, anyone playing the current season of Diablo 4? I can't quite hit Pit 55 or take down Belial in Torment 3, either of which will complete the achievements for me so I can get the new cat pet]

[Update: suddenly realized I didn't need to beat Pit 55 before the clock ran out, just eventually; my problem was single-target DPS, not survival, so I just nibbled on the boss until it went down.]

The Apothecary Diaries 2, episode 21

It is often the case that Maomao solves a problem in a unique way. This may be the most Maomao-ish solution yet. It’s a small moment in an episode packed with dramatic revelations, which makes it all the more precious.

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 10

Idol concerts are the Demon Lord’s workshop, and those who do not have fluffy foxgirls are doomed to invent them by slipping some special shrooms into dinner. The chase scene was way too long and shouty, but the episode had enough Best Girl Beelzebub to pacify me.

(Pecora is best consumed in small doses, however)

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 10

Good news, bad news.

Good: a flashback reveals that there were a lot more cute gals in his dojo than we’ve met yet. Busty Blue-Haired Foreign Gal was apparently a much more recent student than the others, so there’s still a few in the pipeline. Not that Beryl’s laying pipe…

Also good: Our Father-Figure Hero is finally developing a danger sense about Thirsty McWhiteHair’s obsession with him.

Still good: more daddy/daughter bonding over dinner, dashing the hopes of certain fan-artists who want to see Mewi as a proper haremette (just saw a set of pics where the entire female cast was about six months pregnant, sigh).

Bad: the big fight scene was entirely CGI, with poor character art. Disappointing, since they’d been doing a good job handling the sword work with mostly 2D.

(nice touch having Mewi reluctantly ask for help reading; it’s a realistic problem for a girl raised on the streets, and it makes sense that she’s afraid her classmates will look down on her if she reveals it)

Getting a piece

…of dinnerware, that is. Years ago, after a visit to my house in Salinas, my sister ordered my mother to go in with her on replacing my dishes. “Oh my god, mom, he’s got Corelle!!!”

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A-Cup Alchemist, the novels

The yuri subtext seen in the anime has finally become straightforward gay-marriage-of-convenience in the recent novels. Not that it will necessarily stay convenience. Most of the cast is clearly open to the idea of sharing a big bed; it’s just not likely to turn into onscreen lesbian porn.

This one needs two cours…

…for its deep, penetrating story, if it ever gets licensed:

That Time A Forty-ish Office Worker Who Reincarnated As The Logistical Genius Who Got Kicked Out Of The Hero’s Party Stumbled Across The Hero’s Mom At A Slave Market, Banged Her Silly And Made Her His Wife, Then Went Back To His Hometown To Wife Up The Moms Of The Other Hero Party Members, Who Despite Having Adult Children All Look Like 23-Year-Old Supermodels And Used To Be S-Rank Adventurers, So Now His Harem Is The New Hero Party.

I might have left a few things out. I’d have to actually read it to be sure.

(hot cosplay teacher is unrelated)

Shorter headline: “investor promotes investment”

Jony Ive’s OpenAI device gets the Laurene Powell Jobs nod of approval

Seriously, OpenAI and Jony Ive are trying to summon the persuasive corpse of Steve Jobs through the medium of his widow, who has a financial interest in The Magical AI Thingy’s success.

(who else is on board?)

The world’s tiniest violin is bigger on the inside

For those old enough to remember when Doctor Who was a thing, Russell T. Davies has been desperately pandering to that nostalgia while simultaneously offering to feed you a shit sandwich and promise you’ll love it. It’s gone so far downhill that I think the only person watching the show is the one writing episode reviews for Engadget.

And even that poor sucker finally couldn’t find enough hot sauce to mask the flavor.

Anyway, Gay Black Doctor is out, Billie Piper is in, but there’s no audience and nobody willing to write checks to produce another show, so there’s not actually anything for her to be in.

Repeatable

The best part about my xTwitter “for you” feed switching to Japanese-hottie mode when I scroll to the end, is that it’s not a bunch of heavily-manipulated photos from click-farming bots with random account names. It’s feeding me tweets from the official accounts of actual recognizable professional models, some of whom I’ve mentioned here over the years.

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 9

Last week ended with Our Heroines about to brave the depths of a dungeon filled with undead to… convince another undead shut-in to come out. Surprisingly, they didn’t send for Our Busty Undead Catgirl Gamer to join the quest. Fortunately Best Gal Beelzebub is around, and Our Queen Of The Undead turns out to be a nerdy cutie. Second half has Our Legal Loli Plant blossoming; it seems concentrated fertilizer makes everything grow.

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 9

Red seems to have grown out of her crush on Our Daddy Figure, and to signal this, the show went out of its way to avoid some very obvious opportunities for fan-service. She still dresses for it, but despite all the action as she horsed around in the woods, they even skipped showing her heaving bosom when she was sweaty and out of breath.

White, on the other hand, is still easy to rile, such as when a brand-new contender for Most Affectionate Former Student suddenly appears.

Verdict: Beryl is a total dad now, buying school supplies, saving up for Mewi’s future, and even walking her to the school bus carriage on the first day. He even works in a dad joke. The only flaw is that we didn’t get to see hot teacher.

(Mewi’s uniform and bustline are both much more modest than this, but she’s getting good nutrition now…)

The algorithm is learning…

I scrolled my xTwitter “for you” feed all the way to the end, and it filled up with half-nekkid Japanese gals.

Then when I went back to the top, it had more of them. Finally, AI I can live with!

All is revealed, and the players take the field. The most interesting thing to happen, though, is that we get to see things from Shisui’s point of view for once.

Fan-service rocks!

Another announcement for the summer season establishes the “cute girls finding cute rocks” genre, with a teacher whose boulders bounce. Cast and crew are mostly inexperienced, with one true first-timer counterbalanced by Raphtalia.

Not going on my list unless something goes really wrong with the three (sigh) shows already there.

Unrelated, I would support this adventuring party

It might surpass the limits of my carry weight, but somehow I think I can keep up.

Just got an ore-ore scam phone call!

First time in years. “Hey, Grandpa, how are you?” It was such a change from all the Medicare/Medicaid scam calls I get that I kinda wish he hadn’t stopped talking after I laughed at him.

Fantasy Life i

This newly-released slow-life RPG on Steam looks interesting, with a wide variety of things to do, but it’s infected with a mandatory third-party “anti-cheat” malware install. If you don’t care about playing online, there’s a way to prevent “Easy Anti-Cheat” from ever being installed, but you have to re-disable it after every update to keep it from trying to install.

Or wait for the Switch 2 version, which relies on Nintendo’s closed platform for security.

Note that player avatars are not shaped like this; in fact, it follows the common trend of pretending that gender is all just a fashion choice, and allows you to freely mix-and-match parts on your pre-adolescent character. For the realism, I’m sure.

Never mind that as soon as you get the story going, you meet a king and his princess sister, who exhibit stereotypically male and female behaviors, because that makes sense.

Just another government database…

Japan Post has announced a digital address system. No, it does nothing to overcome the deficiencies of Japan’s baroque block/intersection addressing schemes and help people find places quickly and reliably. What it does is assign a random code to anyone who requests one, which users can then type into shipping forms instead of typing their actual address.

If customers don’t ever type the code wrong, and if vendors update their databases to store the code instead of a multi-field address, and if the customer moves and remembers to update their record in this government database, then they will not have to also update those vendors’ web sites to ensure that future orders go to the right place. They will, however, have to remember which vendors didn’t accept the codes the last time they placed an order…

(vendors will of course also cache the actual address, because they don’t want all of their logistics to depend on real-time calls to some random government-maintained API)

The funny thing is, taxi driver GPS systems have been doing this for years with phone numbers, because it can be a pain in the ass to type addresses in Japan and make sense of them. I make pre-perforated inkjet business cards for planned destinations before our trips to Japan, and always prominently include the phone number.

(people have already thought of a bunch of other potential problems with this system; probably more than the creators of the system have thought of…)

“German-inspired craftsmanship”

There’s a brand of home & commercial cookware being sold on Amazon, Wagensteiger. It name-drops Germany in the ad copy (with a “brand by GERMANY” rollmark on many of the products), and even uses a cute little line drawing of a farmer to reinforce the image. In reality, the company is 100% Korean with much of their manufacturing in China, but they’ve hired Germans to do some design work.

It’s not hidden on their web site, but you won’t find it stated on Amazon, just the weasel words. Which is kind of sad, because these days South Korea probably has a better reputation for quality than Germany…

(I bought this bowl/strainer set for $21, by the way, and it looks quite well-made)

Action!

Somewhere on a dusty VHS tape, I have someone interviewing a nude model, answering a question about what her job is like. She laughs and says (from memory) “‘more titty action!’, photographers shout it at me again and again, having me run and jump and make them bounce around; it’s all they want”.

In that vein, while reviewing the extras on Matsuri 5, I found an ad for Matsuri 4, where they had her jumping rope nude. Poor gal must have had bruises after every shoot of her career.

TL/DR: train wreck in progress.

Coming soon on Netflix, something I learned only because one of the songs is done by members of the girl-group Twice.

Department of faint praise:

Note that this is not from any of the writers, directors, animators, or actors involved in Across The Spider-Verse, just from the same studio. At best, maybe the animation team used the same rendering farm.

If they had confidence in the production, they’d say, “director of Wish Dragon” and “writers of Gabby Duran & The Unsittables”.

(not a lot of literal “trainwreck” pictures on Pixiv, and “cute girls jumping in front of trains” isn’t on my list, so I’ll go with a less bloody disaster to get some girls into the picture)

Unrelated AI bullshit

Hype: “Our new AI refuses to let us shut it down!”

Reality: sudo killall justanotherllm

Seriously, “agentic AI” is a random sentence generator that can make API calls, nothing more. You can deliberately create a function that lets it run arbitrary commands and then watch it cut-and-paste from Stack Overflow with all the grace and style of a junior intern who barely speaks English, but that’s only if you’re an idiot.