Random thought of the moment is that it’s been a while since I’ve gotten hooked on an anime series. Most anime series are like most other media - made for the casual masses with lots of (random action/overdramatized romance/weirdness for the sake of being weird/make-’em-laugh-at-any-cost comedy). Then there are people who can create something with these elements and actually do it well, sometimes even putting some interesting thinking into their projects (but oh so rare). If you know of a recent series that fits in the last description, let me know…

So I was totally surprised when I was hooked on a straightforward series, Naruto (anime people can tune out now since you’re probably sick of hearing about it ). It’s nearly finished with it’s second year, currently up to episode 102 (but once you start watching, they’ll fly by - really). The animation quality is high, and it’s the first thing that hooked me. Most of the series that I’ve been hooked on were created before computer animation was well-integrated or used at all - so watching something a little more modern has been a treat. Also, it’s a lot of fun watching a beautifully subbed episode knowing that it had been aired in Japan only a few days prior (I love computers - and of course, the fans who work hard to translate and subtitle each episode every week). The surprise was how great these subtitling jobs are - usually much, much better than the subtitles on US-released DVDs.

Naruto is a lot of fun. It’s already passed the non-anime people test (friends who didn’t watch much anime really liked this one). So go download it (it’s free and legal until it’s licensed in the US) and watch (get the episodes released by Toriyama’s World, and AnimeOne/Aone for the rest).

A few non-life related things. For one, photos are online in a new gallery system…so when you see me running around with my camera and wonder where all of those pictures went…they should be online now, or shortly. I’ve been scanning a few decades worth of negatives, and with the new gallery online, it’s pretty easy to share pics. The fun part is that I don’t have to keep making runs to have copies made of prints…every photo can be ordered as a print automatically.

It’s over there on the right, called Picturefest. I really don’t know why I’m still hanging onto that name…years ago I wanted something non-generic, but with the current explosion of blogs and galleries, being non-generic is fairly generic. Aside from the name, the rest of the gallery is purely set up for functionality - like being able to see photos at whatever size looks good on your display, being able to leave comments, pretty easy navigation, full searching by people in the photo/date/title/etc, ordering prints directly, and a few other little perks. So I have a decent lens, a decent scanner, and a decent gallery. Time to start taking decent pics.

more fun - the music server. I’m pretty much done testing it out. It works..woohoo! (for most people…sorry nasser, I have no idea what’s going on ) So if you get a song stuck in your head, don’t have it on your system, and need to hear it RIGHT NOW, get on the server, click on the song, and it’ll start playing in around two seconds.

I’m really on the look out for some of the really great classical recordings made in the past 40 years, so if you have something that isn’t already there, let me know. With a new place and sound system set up, the huge dynamics of excellent classical recordings are REALLY AMAZINGLY FUN to listen to.

It’s strange…though it doesn’t seem like it, I think about posting updates here fairly often. As in, once a day or so. But I’ve always felt the need to quash these instincts. For some reason keeping (friends/family/blog) up to date constantly just isn’t something I do - rather, I’ll hold out until some branch event of my life has wrapped up neatly, at which point it can be packaged and presented.

So here is a latter-year’s resolution to let go of this incessant need for a complete story and let the fragments fly as they come around. (Of course, the psychology of relating this resolution by name to the oft-broken new year’s resolution is tell-tale…)

Let’s see…currently unconcluded events…

Summer. Summer was pretty much a lot of studying and lectures/rotations for EMT certification. There are some good stories there. So if you stop breathing or pushing blood around, let me know. I’ll convert ya, no sweat.

Why unconcluded? I still need to take a national exam to finish off the certification and actually practice. I went into it thinking I’d want to work EMS/911, but the life of constant calls to life-in-danger events was just a media-induced fantasy. In reality, most of the time is spent at the station with little to do, and 95% of the calls that are actually run require little in the way of medical care. Of course, it’s that last 5% of people for whom you’ll need to use ALL skills available, so the work does balance somewhat. Then again, each and every call was a rush when you first get into the ambulance and let the sirens fly…

(more to come)