Filler. Nice to see the other two guild members again, but it was just recaps of stuff that happened a while ago, except for the not-so-subtle hint about the upcoming tournament arc that pulls Our Hero into another game (again). And I really couldn’t care less about the conflict between the game devs that’s triggered by Sunraku’s unexpected victories.

Verdict: meh.

(Pencilgon strikes me as a bit high-maintenance for matrimony, so I guess New Gal is available)

The Three Behemoths, episode 5

Sorry, SuperKitty, but that one was your fault. You should have known better than to summon tentacles and wrap them around Your Highly Catsexual Mistress and Our Cat-Curious Catgirl Blacksmith. Now they’re openly discussing a Type 1 Tenchi Solution.

Our Cat-Thirsty Dragonewt Babymaker makes her debut as an adventurer this week, and she has some serious rough edges. It’s all good, though, since it leads to a naked titty-fight in the tub. The censored version must be entirely covered in steam for a full minute.

There is one thing I’m curious about: the ED has an elf girl in it whose breasts are not bigger than her head. What’s up with that? I can understand the dryad and the fairy having different builds, but I think it’s pretty firmly established that elf gals all have gigantic titties. Must be a mutant loli.

Verdict: unlike Guild Gal, they’re determined to keep the tone light and the fan-service heavy, so the surprise reveal of what they’ve been hired to guard doesn’t bother me. Even knowing how the story goes.

(needs a catgirl, I know, but… Grea!)

Solo Leveling 2, episode 4

Okay, Our Blonde Future Combat Waifu wasn’t what I had in mind, but she is easy on the eyes, even in full armor, and she needed to finally show up before he gets back to the secret dungeon where Esil is waiting. Pacing-wise, that means it could be as much as three weeks before we see Our One True Best Girl. Sigh.

Verdict: finally some characters introduced last season are actually getting into the same room as Our Shadowy Player.

(a little downtime between adventures…)

A-Rank Dungeon Harem, episode 3

Our Combat Harem is moving up the charts, although if they’d left the camera on for that brief bath scene, they’d be even more popular. Sadly, Dickhead and Slobber-Boy are still in the show, so screen time is being wasted on their evil-and-stupid plans. The one bright spot in the time spent on That Other Party is that the little blonde titty-witch is feeling remorse for having been a total bitch to Our Hero, and might someday redeem herself.

Verdict: they’ve scored the funds to buy a house big enough for the whole party to live together, so perhaps next week the gals will take the opportunity to show off their lingerie collections. That might be enough to offset The Continuing Adventures of Dickhead And Slobber-Boy.

(friendship lust is magic!)

Amazon Logistics-ish

Ordered on Wednesday, with “Prime” delivery promised for Saturday, but since it didn’t even ship until noon, it might get here by 10 PM on Sunday. Good thing it only cost $400; maybe I should have added a backhoe to the order to get the kind of service they used to have.

(“we’re here to find out why your package is late, Miss Clay”)

Literal Dream Girl Elf Waifu, episode 3

Our Sleepy Hero comes home from work, chats up His Clever Elf Waifu, makes gyoza from scratch for dinner, drinks her under the table, then cuddles her in bed so they can head back to her world. He talks her into another dungeon run, which ends pretty much the same way as the last one, with them getting flame-broiled by a giant monster. You think she’d learn to turn down these invitations.

Along the way, he impresses her with his mastery of unusual magical skills she’s never heard of, which are nearly as impressive as his ability to mix, stuff, and cook four servings of gyoza in the time it took me to write this sentence.

Anyway, we have a Big Batch Of Bad Guys armed with the power of a Jewel-Bearing Shota Cat-Boy. Next week, I guess we’re getting a big fight scene that will use all the special skills he showed off this week.

Verdict: we got a lot of walking, talking, and eating, followed by a very compressed cliffhanger crisis. What didn’t we get? Elf-service. I’m pretty sure she takes a bath every night before climbing into his bed, so…

(sorry, Sleepy Hero, this Elf-Waifu is taken)

The Apothecary Diaries 2, episode 3

This week, Maomao does her Columbo thing, complete with leaving out details that would drag her further into court intrigue if revealed to Jinshi. Sadly, she pays the price for her silence by losing something near and dear to her heart. No, not that price. Or that one. Just, y’know, a price.

Hammer Of The Guild Gal, episode 3

Hmmm, I wonder why they swapped the ED and OP so that the episode starts out all fun and bouncy? Oh, yeah, there it is: the plot has arrived, and There Is Darkness. Tonal whiplash, oh how I’ve missed you…not. Murdered adventurers, flashbacks to childhood loss, and a new betrayal, just the sort of thing I was hoping to avoid in this show. That is, I knew the events were coming, I was just hoping they’d keep to the mood they’d established in the first two episodes.

Verdict: gosh, I wonder if that magic item Jade gave Alina will somehow come in handy next week… meh.

Spring anime that’s never been done before

Coming soon, Kicked Out Of The Hero’s Party For Being Useless, My Non-Combat Skills Are So OP That It Makes My White-Haired Tan-Elf Girlfriend’s Head Explode Three Times Per Episode. Fortunately the usual over-descriptive sub-title is attached to something easier to remember: The Unaware Atelier Master. (“unaware” looks like a compromise; a literal translation would be “misunderstood”, but the promo suggests the most accurate word would be “clueless”)

(10 light novels, 8 manga volumes, 0 fan-art…)

This week, Our Shopping Hero buys a house online and pats himself on the back over its affordability, having missed the “assembly required” line in the description. Fortunately, the gods of sheer coincidence send Our Blue Furry-Boobed First Catgirl his way with her minions, and they spend a month inserting tab A into slot B. In a surprising oversight, she isn’t shown giving him an overnight cuddle during the montage. Then he spends another month adding finishing touches before moving out of The Full-Service Inn without giving His Convenient Pillow Gal more than a quick wave goodbye.

Which is fine, because accidentally rescuing a forest cat from hostile dog-people improves his standing even higher with Blue, who rewards his cat-care with overnight cat-service. (now, as for how he somehow permanently scared off a band of experienced dog-people hunters with unaimed slingshot fire and a backhoe, we’re just going to pretend that worked because protagonist)

When he closes his item stall for a few more days to dig a well, Our Bouncy Blonde Merchant’s Daughter comes looking for him. Alone, with no guards, escort, or maid. Completely by accident, she shows up at his place after the city gates have closed for the night, and expresses a willingness to “platonically” share a bed with him, as wealthy merchant’s daughters often do (ahem). But first, she spots his bath, leading to our first real fan-service shot of the series as she climbs in naked.

Never mind that his house is protected by nothing more than a white picket fence and a slingshot, and he’s already had half a dozen dog-people try to murder him just for trying to live in the forest, and now he’s got a hot chick bathing outdoors at night. Afterwards, he chickens out on Her Very Obvious Offer after sketching her like one of his French girls, buys a second bed, and pretends to be asleep when she checks to see if he’s really not gonna go for it. Based on previous events, I disbelieve this entire scene.

She makes arrangements to frequently visit and spend the night, finally hitting him over the head with a naked clue-by-four to get her points across. He turns her down again, right before she leaves town for a month-long trading trip. I disbelieve this entire scene.

Oh, and what has Our Forlorn Future Daughter been up to for the past three months or so? Being kicked around by bandit slavers while being extremely grateful none of them are lolicons.

Verdict: it’s a good thing this show has plenty of cute gals, because the story is a ridiculous series of handwaves and coincidences that makes my head hurt. Even the growing realization that he’s not the only one who’s crossed over from Japan and started “inventing” things doesn’t count as a plot yet. Well, at least they’re not shouting all the time, so that’s one headache I’m spared.

(not the correct bouncy blonde, but equivalent in quality)

🎶 Raindrops keep fallin’ from my hood 🎶

Last night, something happened that I had never seen even once in my life.

I was making a quick stir-fry for dinner when suddenly a stream of water poured out of my range hood, narrowly missing the skillet. While my brain was still waking up to the concept, it happened again. Dinner was done, so I moved the skillet far away and watched as it happened several more times. WTF?

Oh, right: the night before, we’d had a small amount of very fine snow combined with strong winds that must have gotten into the exhaust on the roof, and I hadn’t used the range since. Once I started cooking, the warm air went up and melted it. My hood has a permanent filter made of stainless steel baffles, and the water pooled up until it found the lowest spot and poured out.

(picture is unrelated, but squeaky clean!)

(classical reference)

Now deploying Kool & The Gang

How does it feel to have a President again after four years of nameless unaccountable staffers taking turns shoving their hands up Joe Biden’s puppet-hole?

Like this.

And this.

Perhaps some of this.

Definitely some of this.

And of course there’s plenty of this.

True, true.

“…cross country data and six additional studies find that people with lower AI literacy are typically more receptive to AI.” (cite)

…and they vote, too!

More accurate cosplay would get her arrested…

Meanwhile, in the AI Nanotech Blockchain Virtual Tulip Hype Labs

Much excitement is being generated by the MIT-licensed release of the Chinese-made Deepseek models. Let’s see how they do…

TL/DR: the results are terrible, but the detailed “reasoning process” is fucking hilarious. Reminder, this is supposed to be the good stuff, the first time pro-grade AI models have been released for offline use.

more...

Okay, Our Busty Glasses-Elf Mage Gal is now tied with Our Tasty Private Ogress Secretary for best girl; sorry, Tail Red, but elves bounce. Well, a little. Occasionally. When they’re not wearing disguises.

Verdict: I’m getting sick of the “let’s settle this account” catchphrase, and Our Office Hero doesn’t seem to have the slightest curiosity about how all of his solutions come from an imaginary neighborhood bar that plays 50-year-old pop music. They really need to break out of the monster-of-the-week mold.

(hmmmm, I seem to be running low on pictures of busty glasses-wearing hot-elves; I’ll have to work on that)

Blah, blah, blah, DearS?!?

Discotek is releasing all sorts of old stuff on Bluray in 2025. I wouldn’t have bothered reading the article if the headline hadn’t mentioned DearS.

I liked DearS. It was a rather obvious fan-service harem remake of Alien Nation, and it had dancing chibis in the ED, which is always a plus.

(those chibis had more gainax power than most entire seasons these days)

Our Hero’s Reward is… not quite what he was hoping for. Our Heroine’s Reward, on the other hand, is enough to send her to the moon; seriously, this gal desperately needs a vibrating attachment for her VR headset. We now enter a new chapter in The Adventures Of An RPG Fool. Next week, get kraken!

Verdict: I like the fact that the regular boss fight they have to clear to reach the city is just handwaved away. We needed a break after the big multi-episode battle, and so did their budget.

(So, has Pencilgon figured out yet that her friend’s little sister is head-over-heels for her guildmate? I’m thinking no, because she’d be sure to set him up in some way…)

Born for invisible handcuffs…

Usually when you see a model dressed up as a schoolgirl and tied to a pole at the beach, there are tentacles lurking in the water. Fortunately for Musubu Funaki, Hello!Project usually doesn’t sacrifice their girls until they’re old enough to renegotiate their contracts, so the pose is an anomaly in this photo shoot (site NSFW; disable Javascript).

And, yes, her first name is the verb “to tie (something)”; her parents meant it in a good way, since she was born the day after they got married, but in the idol biz…

(Everia Club has been on a repost kick for a while now; this shoot is from 2018, and she’s been out of the business since 2020, when she turned 18)

[Crunchy running late again today…]

$erial Killer

Just noticed that the Isekai Prime manga is available for Kindle, serialized at $3/chapter. That’s… “not cheap”, especially when you realize that the 8 volumes available have a total of 60 chapters. Even given premium prices for a standard translated edition, that’s a $100 markup for 8 books worth of chapters, cha-cha-cha-ching! Or perhaps more likely, given the almost-completely-absent reviews, “yo-ho!”

I took a quick look at a fan-translation of the original webnovel, and stopped dead when Our Shopping Hero said, “Blimey, what’s all this then?”. Either the first chapter was written rather floridly compared to the rest (“well, butter my biscuit”), or the translator was in a goofy mood.

The Three Behemoths, episode 4

As expected, last week’s cliffhanger didn’t take long to resolve, and didn’t change the status quo, except… A Wild Dragonewt Appears! And she wants Our Mighty Kitty’s D even more than the other two gals! Equally important is the flashback that reveals that Our Cup-Runneth-Over Heroine comes by it honestly, barely able to hug Her Equally Endowed Mom when she left her village.

Once she’s fully recovered, the reward money from the adventure (and the bonus for the dragon materials) is enough for Cat-Blacksmith-nya to outfit her in armor so high-level that she has to shave to wear it.

Verdict: there was a brief moment at the beginning of the bath scene where I wondered if they’d decided to tone down the fan-service a bit, but then the nipples came out to play, and the show’s focus was renewed, complete with some steam-blobs to hide their shaving patterns. Pity we also have to put up with way too much skin shown off by the guild’s “eccentric” receptionist.

(not Our Heroine, but an adequate if slightly overdressed substitute)

Solo Leveling 2, episode 3

This week, a whirlwind tour through 75% of That Big Dungeon and 2/3 of the ingredients acquired to save Our Hero’s Mom, a little bit of fan-service from Our Future Blonde Combat Waifu, a brief human moment with Our Rich-Kid Sidekick (who’s nearly fulfilled his dream), and the debut of a Very Important Person.

Verdict: next week, the dungeon gets harder. And with any luck, a whole lot cuter.

(last week’s Rescue Kitten that we’ll probably never see again was cute enough to get at least one piece of fan-art)

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 2

Y’know, I’ve completely lost interest in the concept of a high-ranking party whose members are too stupid and arrogant to grasp basic preparation and logistics; it really feels like the authors of these stories are taking out their office/classroom frustrations on the world. The sooner they write these assclowns out of the story, the better; it will leave more time for the camera to slowly pan across Our Tasty Hot-Pants Dark Elf Gal. The redhead’s not bad, but her low-level armor covers far too much skin.

Anyway, we get the joy of meeting a slobbering noob who’s been trying to “recruit” our gals into being his party favors. Sadly, I’m sure he’ll turn up again, along with the bozo party.

Verdict: get the catgirl onscreen soon, and shove all the losers into the background. And while I’m dreaming, get the dark elf into a hot tub.

(more appropriate attire for a 17-year-old dark elf maiden…)

Velvetised for your protection

Hotel Chocolat is a British chocolate retailer that commissioned a custom-skinned Dualit hot-chocolate maker as a vehicle to sell their products at an even higher markup in single-serving sachets. The Velvetiser itself runs £100, and the ~35-gram sachets are £1.50 each. Their first attempt at a broad launch in the US failed, but they still have an online store offering bundles and subscriptions that cut the price a bit from the marked-up $150 (+23%) and $2.50/sachet (+37%).

But retail price is the number I’m interested in, since I’ll be comparing it to the Nespresso Barista Recipe Maker, a quirky but much more versatile device that retails for $169.

The Velvetiser is only capable of (wonderful) hot chocolate, and only with chocolate shavings not much larger than the ones HC sells. There are third-party shaved chocolates sold in larger containers in the UK (I brought some back; my parents have a Velvetiser), but they’re still more expensive than bulk chocolate.

The BRM is capable of a variety of hot or cold drinks, and can also crush ice and smoothly blend chocolate squares (although doing both at once would probably jam it up good), and a number of Youtube videos rank its hot chocolate texture just-slightly-below the Velvetiser when compared head to head (and I agree).

With the caveat that officially the BRM tops out at 4 ounces of milk for blending, and only supports 8 ounces for warming milk without foaming it. A lot of people on various forums complain about the BRM overflowing out the top when you put too much liquid in, but it only happened to me once before I figured out the 100%-effective method for preventing overflow: twist the lid as you seat it. It’s that simple.

With that out of the way, I took advantage of the BRM’s ability to work with larger chunks of chocolate and went looking for something that suited my tastes. Squares are still pricy, so I tried larger chocolate bars, and while they worked, I wasn’t thrilled with the flavor (unless you really like dark chocolate, most US chocolate bars are over-sweetened and full of “non-chocolate ingredients”). I found something quite promising on Amazon, however: a 5-pound bag of Ghirardelli Melting Wafers for $44.

Hotel Chocolat’s sachets contain 35-37 grams of shaved chocolate. The Ghirardelli wafers weigh ~3.78 grams each, so 10 of them is just about perfect for the same strength of hot chocolate. You get about 600 wafers per bag, so that’s $0.73 per mug of hot chocolate, a considerable savings. And it’s good chocolate.

I just bought my second bag of the stuff, and I’ve found that it’s even better when you add some espresso into the mix. I’m up to two Nespresso pods per mug, and I’ve found that a lot of the pods I don’t care for alone or as cappuccinos are terrific when diluted in a full mug of hot chocolate.

This is important, because the temperature will be dropping back to 0°F tomorrow night (-18° in French units).

Side note: pretty much the only way to jam the BRM is by evenly distributing the solids across the bottom in enough density to keep it from initially spinning up. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, you want to dump all the solids on the same side, creating an “unbalanced” load.

Well, admittedly there is another way to jam it, but that involves Xanthan Gum…

(“ask me how I know” 😁)

“But why?!?”

Media Blasters is releasing a Bluray of Amazing Nurse Nanako. I greet this news with the same enthusiasm as I did the re-release of Eiken. That is, none whatsoever.

(given her age, this is one anime gal who might actually grow up to approach Eiken size, although I’m sure hers won’t be as sloshy)