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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 |
icarusancalion
|
3:26p |
Major virus attack to prevent file-sharing Augh! I was able to download the SGA episode last night. Now I'm trying to download the Merlin episode from a private server. Nothing's happening. I went to a Megaupload link to download from there. Got the countdown. Then, when I went to click the button to download, I got the message to save the file... and then nothing happened. Alarmed, I went to Mediafire to see if I could upload files. I pressed the "big green button" to upload files. Nothing happened. It didn't move me to the next menu. Then I went to YouSendIt, logged in, and tried to upload a file there. It wouldn't let me even browse to the file to upload. Remember the virus attack on Thursday that hit people downloading SPN's latest episode from mininova.org? That we weren't able to even access the mininova.org site afterward (and we still can't)? It's bigger than that. This is a major virus attack aimed to prevent people from sharing files. 1) Stay clear of mininova.org. That's where it started. 2) Spydoctor and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware both say my computer's clean. Obviously that's not true. 3) If anyone has any ideas how to deal with this problem, any at all no matter how far-fetched, please let me know. 4) Any ideas how I can get the Merlin ep? My friends? I was able to download the SGA episode last night, but it was labeled a .doc file. Maybe that gets around this. Is there a way I can watch online? Email it (can one email a 350 meg file)? This isn't fair. These are free TV shows I'm downloading. Current Mood: gloomy |
daily_snitch
[ furiosity ]
|
6:01p |
The Daily Snitch: Saturday, November 22, 2008 Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch! |
icarusancalion
|
2:41p |
Merlin fic brewing.... Okay, okay, so I swore I'd write no Merlin fic before its time. I'd finish my massive WiP first (which is getting close to done... ten scenes before I hit a major pre-written section from this summer... 20 scenes beyond that... visualize a bridge, with most of it built, and large struts sticking out of the water, it's like that). But just one little Merlin fic? After I write the next four scenes of Out Of Bounds? I'll be good. Current Music: gavin rossdale - adrenaline |
melannen
|
2:55p |
Holidays List List of Things For Me For Christmas ( Largely for the benefit of various RL people )Fandomy-things that would be cool: - fanart prints - fic or fanart based on any of these ideas or any of these fandoms or on any fic or art I have posted. - Feedback on any fic or art I have posted. What do other people want? (bearing in mind that I am deeply broke and there will likely be a lot of homemade-from-scraps presents this year. Deeply broke enough that I am not even considering doing Christmas cards except to first-degree relatives.) (I owe some of you stuff already. The books have been delayed again because I *found* the boxes that went missing! I just haven't got a chance to retrieve them yet. The D ficlets are in progress! ...they just aren't so much ficlets anymore. And then there's Yuletide...) Current Mood: Blessed |
| Friday, November 21st, 2008 |
daily_snitch
[ saraannette ]
|
8:46p |
The Daily Snitch: Friday, 21 November 2008 Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch! |
| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 |
leni_jess
|
12:45p |
Taking another little break Just long enough to bitch. I've been researching intensively this last week and more, for two stories, and I'm getting pretty tired of restarting my notebook several times a day because the memory has clogged up. Just think, when this one was built, half a GB was considered adequate. It's only two and half years old. Ah well, next time. I think I might go for 2 GB, when this one falls over, as well as a hard drive several times the size of the current 80 GB. (Thogh I do hope it will be partitioned; I've found it very convenient having two drives on this machine.)
*re-opens research URLs*
*returns to writing*
*hopes current fic won't turn out too weird* Current Mood: determined (and ignoring stiff shoulders)Current Music: Purcell Ode for St Cecilia's Day 1692 (Hail! Bright Cecilia) (Alfred Deller, ct, Ambrosian Singers, |
schtroumph_c
|
12:03a |
Long post ahead! Okay, now I should have free time. Between school and nanny duty, I didn't touch my Nano since two weeks ago. I'm still at 9K. But, all the notes about this lesson are made, the DM (devoir maison, the tests you do at home) will wait Wednesday, I only have to watch Sam the afternoon the same day, nothing else to do before beside the usual, I will have two days alone at home just for me, so I just need to do one or two fandom things before using the rest of the time on Cristal. I'm, what, only 30K behind? Plus, the hiatus are coming. Short comments from lots of aired episode of a lot of shows, not even in a sense of order. (SPN, SV, Heroes, Bones, NCIS) ( Read more... )More detailed for the last Heroes: ( Spoilers for It's Coming )The last NCIS ( Cloak )Great. I think Sam gave me her cold. The last SPN ( Heaven and Hell )The last SV ( Bride ) Current Mood: sick |
| Friday, November 21st, 2008 |
icarusancalion
|
10:17a |
Catch it early, I said. Avoid the worst of it, I said. Thought I'd dodged the bullet when WG brought home the flu for my birthday.
Clever and wise, I opted to stay home in the early stages. Then, the thinking went, I would not get as severely, horribly sick. I had a live example in WG to convince me that this was a plague to be avoided. He moaned in his sleep. I still haven't forgotten last year's flu.
How well did my plan work?
Guess.
It might have been the miserable damp weather yesterday. I should have taken the car rather than stand in the rain at the bus stop.
Current Mood: ulllgh... |
| Thursday, November 20th, 2008 |
icarusancalion
|
10:55p |
Oh, what a lovely infestation I have. Oh, wonderful. I tried downloading the latest SPN episode from mininova.org and got a virus infected file instead. Threat name: Trojan.Downloader.NUS Threat level: somwhere between Kristallnacht and nuclear holocaust Bonus? Looks like it blocks me from going to the mininova.org web page. I can't warn anyone. Except you, of course. Currently cleaning it out with Spywaredoctor. Next I run AVG. Current Mood: annoyed |
daily_snitch
[ wieimmer ]
|
7:49p |
The Daily Snitch: Thursday, November 20th, 2008! - Actors and Movies:
Even more HBP photos have appeared online, including Ginny in her Quidditch robes, Dumbledore, the trio, Ron, and more! Film executives for Harry Potter have reportedly wrapped up scouting locations around Scotland for the upcoming Deathly Hallows two-part film. Danradcliffe.com has updated with several new articles about the actor, one of which he talks of his love for the books. Emma Watson has been named as one of the top 20 best dressed people of 2008 by Teen Vogue Magazine! You can also vote for her for the Best Dressed of the Year award 2008.
- Communities:
There's one week left to submit prompts for the hp_crackdealers crack!fic fest. Prompts can be submitted on Livejournal or on Insanejournal.
- Fandom:
PotterCast 173: Are You There God? It's Me, Harry is now available for download. Snitchseeker.com has uploaded almost 500 HD screen caps of the full US trailer for Half-Blood Prince, which can be found in their galleries.
- Have a Laugh:
A new 'Yes Man' promo image featuring the stars Jim Carey, Zooey Deschanel, Rhys Darby parodying the Trio has surfaced online.
- News:
Two new reports have emerged about pirated Harry Potter audiobook CDs and Blu-Ray DVDs.
- Polls and Discussion:
5k, 10k, 20k.... kestrelsan has a post and poll about on story length and reading habits.
- Searches:
The daily_snitch is looking for fanfic, fanart, communities and resources featuring Dolores Umbridge!
- Updates:
dmhgficexchange has posted its entries for the week: Sunday Nov 9th - Monday Nov 17th!
Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch! |
system
|
4:46p |
S2 Layout Issues Hi, Guys. I know a good many of the S2 themes are kinda hosed right now. Something changed with the LJ migration to their new data center. The Bloggish and Style Contest themes have their CSS hosted at LJ. That's by LJ's design, with how the code is distributed. The code is set to use LJ's CSS proxy to handle the access and display of the CSS settings. Since LJ's move, though, the CSS proxy has been kaput. But the CSS itself at LJ is still working. Until we can find a way around all this, a couple users have a way that you can use the Custom CSS in your customization area to get your layouts pretty damn close to the original for that layout and theme. You'll enter two sets of code in that area. The first one would be the code from this URL: http://stat.livejournal.com/sixhtml/themes/common/base-weblog.cssJust go there, copy it, and paste into the custom CSS box. And the second set you enter will be from the direct CSS URL for your specific theme. You can locate this URL by viewing the source of your journal in your browser (View Source code). If you scroll down to the <link rel="stylesheet" section of the source code, you'll see the direct url to your theme's CSS at livejournal. Go there, copy that code, and paste it after the base-weblog.css code above. Make sure you have "No" selected to use the included base code (it's a dropdown), and that the URL field above the custom CSS box is empty. Click to save changes, and your theme will display much as it is supposed to. There is occasionally an element like a border that doesn't come through, but it's pretty close.
As an example of the CSS URLs, this is the one for the Baby theme for the Bloggish layout:
http://stat.livejournal.com/sixhtml/themes/lilia/theme-baby.css
The CSS URLS will be start with
http://stat.livejournal.com/sixhtml with the rest varying by theme and layout.
I'll still be looking for an alternative to having to futz with custom CSS, but in the meantime, that method of applying the CSS will get your Bloggish and Style Contest journal themes put back together pretty well.
Thanks,
Robin |
| Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 |
icarusancalion
|
10:11p |
And the banana peel award goes to.... A banana in my backpack plus large, heavy books = not a good idea. Who knew? If people wrote fanfic about my life, well, these would be the sort of deep, meaningful lessons I learn. I like to think that John Sheppard does stupid things like this all the time, and only once he's with Rodney does anyone find out that, yes, John will put his shoes directly in front of the door and then trip over them. There must be fic. Entitled "Could Have Been In Mensa." Archive News, and my, that sounds officialIn other, less squishy, news: I'm uploading my fic to the beta version of AAOOO (An Archive Of Our Own). The tagging feature, when carefully thought out, is very, very cool. It will make finding exactly what you want so much easier. For example, I have 18 stories uploaded so far. If you remember a story that involves, say, sex toys, you go to my page, click Tags off to the right there, and then click the "sex toy" filter. "Sex toy" brings up two stories, Bacchanalian Circuit (SGA) and Lost in the Temple of Law (SPN). Now if you want to read someone else's "sex toy" centric fics, you click on the tag "sex toy." That brings up my two stories, plus two by Kass. Nifty. Let me know if my tags work for you. This is to save you trouble later on, make it easy for you to find what you want, and help create a base of solid, (correctly spelled!), carefully considered tags for everyone. Current Mood: thoughtful |
| Thursday, November 20th, 2008 |
daily_snitch
[ bewarethesmirk ]
|
12:23a |
The Daily Snitch: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch! |
| Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 |
venivincere
|
10:52p |
Auto Industry Bail Out? Only after a really big think. Possibly an unpopular opinion. In response to something idlerat brought up and this article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/business/19auto.html?hp=&pagewanted=all, I would agree that the auto industry needs some kind of help, but not the help it's looking for. Quoting from the article: “We are asking for assistance for one reason,” Mr. Nardelli said, “to address the devastating automotive industry recession caused by our nations’ financial meltdown, and the current lack of consumer credit, which has resulted in the critical lack of liquidity within our industry”, but that's a bunch of hoo haw. The auto industry as a whole has been hanging by a thread ever since around the time Lee Iacocca retired from Chrysler (1992). A lot of the credit for that goes to foreign car makers making their cars on American soil. These cars were better made, offered more of what Americans wanted in a car, and were generally cheaper. Nothing about that has changed in the 15 years since then. People buy what they want, what gives them what they need. While somewhat successful convincing rednecks and people who don't think too much, the "Buy American" campaigns resurrected from the Depression Era and before by the Auto Industry in the 1970s just wasn't as successful with people who based their decisions on the state of their pocketbook. If Toyota manufactured a better-made car that got better gas mileage and did it for two grand less, that's what people bought. And since then, foreign market share has only increased. So, if we really want to support the auto industry in America, what do we do? Loathe as I am to agree with anything a Republican says, Senator Richard Shelby's right to say, “We need to know what the firms are doing to enhance their ability to compete in the future. How do they plan to deal with current management, labor, cost and quality control, and product development shortfalls?”Let's answer that: Automakers in America need to make a car that gets better gas mileage. They need to make cars that are not plagued with problems even before they're driven off the lot. They need to cut costs to stay competitive. The solution? Hard as it is to swallow, Senator Michael B. Enzi cuts to the chase: “This is not the only reason why domestic auto industry is in trouble,” Mr. Enzi said. “Labor costs, enormous legacy liabilities, and inefficient production have also contributed to the current crisis in the auto industry.”And he's right. I live in the Detroit area and I have lots of friends who work on the line for the Big Three. There are problems endemic to labor in the auto industry that have been entrenched for decades, for which there will be no easy fix. There is a mentality among the majority of people on the line that would cause failure in any industry. For lack of a better term to call it, I'll call it the culture of least effort. It's about never doing more than your neighbor and getting the most reward from the least amount of work. It causes people to sleep on the line, be high on the line, lie, cheat, lay blame elsewhere. It's only putting in three screws to hold a part in place when proper installation calls for six. It's spending more time bitching about your black neighbor on the line and how they're not doing their work and it's messing up your white-ass work. It's about filing frivolous grievances with the union. What it's NEVER about is making a quality product. For all the benefits employees get, it's all about getting more and nothing, I mean NOTHING about responsibility for their contribution, or even respect for it. It's behavior you'd slap a grounding on your kid for, or if you're smart, take them to counseling for, but you can't do it to an entire work force without making a major overhaul, and that just isn't going to happen with the UAW in place as it stands today. If the American auto industry wants to stay competitive, it will have to demand that its workers own their work. They need to be responsible for their mistakes, and they need to rewarded when they do a good job. They need to be given a reason to care about the cars that they build. Work expectations need to be reasonable (you can't speed the line up to the point where the worker only has 30 seconds to accomplish a task that takes 47 seconds). When something goes wrong and the line stops, the first response can't be pointing fingers and laying blame. It has to be a concerted, group effort to locate the problem, fix it, and find a solution so it doesn't happen again. But that's hard when, maybe, four out of a hundred workers actually give a shit about making cars, and even then, those ones spend half their time resenting and bitching about the other 96 who don't give a damn. With the union as it stands now, it is next to impossible to fire someone for fucking off on the job. I've heard tales of people who have gotten away with horrible mistakes, mistakes in production that could be potentially fatal for the consumer, and nothing has been done about it at all, because no one wants to spend the money dealing with the union and the lawsuit that's certain to be filed on the employee's behalf. Foremen know who can be trusted on the line to get things done, and those who can't aren't given as much to do. Which makes productivity decrease. Which makes management say things like "increase the speed of the line". Which causes more mistakes. It's a vicious cycle. With the right to organize, workers should also be held responsible for their work. They should fix the system so that Unions, while protecting their members from unreasonable action, must also hold the worker to higher standards. And while it would be ideal to rely on intrinsic motivators, I don't think that will work at first with workers who know nothing but the culture of least effort. But there's no reason why extrinsic motivators like bonuses shouldn't be contingent on the level of quality in manufacturing. And promotions, too. And raises. Workers should be held accountable for frivolous grievances (assuming, of course, an independent monitoring board). In return, the union will fight for the best possible contract and protect workers from illegal actions by their employers, which is what the union is supposed to do. This is the kind of reform that will halve labor costs by drastically increasing productivity and cutting unnecessary costs. But it's going to take a cultural change and probably a long, long legal battle with the UAW. I'd be willing to support any money spent on making this culture change work. Cutting labor costs by decreasing health and retirement benefits, in the long run, isn't going to cut it. I'm not even going to tackle legacy liability, but I will say, they need to honor their agreements. That cheap shot GM did by yanking benefits from retirees? That's NOT ON. Where was the UAW in that debacle? Not where they needed to be. I can sum up by saying that while the auto industry is quick to cite labor as one of the reasons they can't compete, and while my knee-jerk reaction to that is "WTFBBQ!" because their benefits have been decreased drastically and so many of them have been laid off, there is a grain of truth to it. But no one, the auto industry execs, the union heads or Congress is proposing a lasting means of cutting labor costs where the fat really is. Sorry if this is rambly. I'm exhausted but really wanted to get this out there. Current Mood: exhausted |
icarusancalion
|
6:54p |
SGA Fic: Out Of Bounds - John/Rodney - NC-17 I'm slipping this scene in, although it actually happens earlier than the stuff with John's costume. You can get caught up here: Out Of Bounds. Title: Out Of Bounds Author: Icarus Rating: NC-17 Pairing: John/Rodney Summary: There was no telling what ham-fisted third-rate crackpot Elizabeth would enlist as Melanie's new coach. A/N: Thank you to my intrepid and playful betas, rabidfan and roaringmice. Previously in Out Of Bounds: Known more for his jumps than his artistry, figure skater John Sheppard hires ex-skating champion and "artiste" Rodney McKay to be his coach. Their teasing friendship warms into something more. Rodney also coaches Elizabeth Weir's nine-year-old daughter, Melanie. After a run-in with Rodney's "no crying" policy, Elizabeth asked John if he'd be interested in coaching. John said no. Unequivocably. And unfortunately, complained to Rodney. ( Read more... )Music: Friend Like Me -- Robin Williams, Aladdin soundtrack (yes, I'm well aware this song is evil in this context) Current Mood: chipperCurrent Music: Aladdin - "Friend Like Me" |
| Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 |
daily_snitch
[ oddnari ]
|
7:02a |
The Daily Snitch: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - Actors and Movies:
Emma Watson turned on Christmas tree lights in London to mark the opening of the Somerset House Ice Rink.
Daniel Radcliffe appeared on The Early Show in New York to discuss his Broadway play Equus. His Inside the Actors Studio interview is scheduled to air on December 1, 2008.
In a new interview with Digital Spy, Tom Felton talks about some of the bizarre gifts he's received and the fan reactions he gets across the globe.
- Challenges:
pphp_challenge is a new community featuring Pansy Parkinson/Harry Potter. They have announced prompts for their first challenge.
grangersnape100 have posted their Week 45 Challenge: Grey Night Shirt.
colourful_bat have announced the Winter Solstice Challenge.
draco100 posted prompt #15: Shadows.
dramione_awards have opened have announced a special winter one-shot challenge.
- Communities:
draco100 made a round-up post for Prompt #14.
Nominations for the fourth round of have dramione_awards have opened and all are encouraged to nominate their favorite art and one-shots through Friday, December 4, 2008.
Only one week left to submit prompts for the Drapery and Snarco Fest. You can submit prompts at livejournal and insanejournal.
- Discussions:
iulea_linnea has posted a poll on fic prompts.
- Fandom:
The Leaky Cauldron has announced a major sale underway at the official Harry Potter shop, which includes pieces from the Tonner Doll collection and the Noble Collection.
heidi8 has made a post asking people in fandom to submit proposals for programmes for Azkatraz 2009.
- Hot Art:
First look at Mary Grandpré's art exhibition in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The exhibition also showcased an alternate cover for Deathly Hallows.
- Updates:
son_of_darkness has updated The Comprehension Series with Chapter 61.
elfflame updated The Sultan's Slave with Chapter 28 (Harry/Draco, Sirius/Remus, Harry/Tonks, others implied; PG-13)
bamachick updated Severus Snape Revealed Part I with Chapter 82 (Severus Snape; Mature).
- Searches:
mewmar is looking for bottom!Draco recs in German and/or Spanish.
daily_snitch are looking for fanfic, fanart, communities and resources featuring Dolores Umbridge
Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch! |
| Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 |
icarusancalion
|
12:36p |
Happy birthday to meeee.... Happy birthday to me... happy birthday to me....
WG has a pressie for me -- the flu!
I'm staying home, drinking juice, and hoping I can cut this off at the pass. But somehow I'm perfectly happy. I guess that's because WG's home too. And even though he's sick, he's here. And that makes me purr.
Ooo! Time to get him more hot tea.
Happy birthday to me... happy birthday to me....
Current Mood: bouyant |
trobadora
|
5:28p |
*tap, tap* Is this thing on? As we all know, LJ is down right now. And as if that weren't enough: - Twitter also went down just now (Twitter is currently down for database maintenance. We expect to be back in about an hour. Thanks for your patience.)
- the LJ status page is only loading intermittently
- and IJ seems to be having trouble loading as well.
LJ going down takes everything down? |
schtroumph_c
|
4:09p |
Almost freeeeeee!
Current Mood: hopeful |
| Monday, November 17th, 2008 |
daily_snitch
[ padme_kenobi ]
|
11:43p |
The Daily Snitch: November 17, 2008 Send your fandom news to Daily Snitch! |
| Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 |
painless_j
|
12:26a |
Anime rec: Antique Bakery  |
Antique Bakery (Seiyou Kottou Yougashiten) [] Based on manga by Yoshinaga Fumi, directed by Yoshiaki Okumura Genre: Comedy Josei Shounen Ai Slice of Life Status: Complete, 12 episodes, 30 minutes each Found: well, went looking for it and found :) Summary: Antique Bakery is a small bakery that's run by four handsome men. Tachibana, the owner. Chikage, who was send by Tachibana's family to watch over his childhood friend. Ono, the "demonically charming" gay master pastry chef. And Kanda, a former boxer and Ono's apprentice. DL: all episodes can be found in this post by neko_myka. Episodes 4 and 5 are a bit broken (you can watch about 70% but then it freezes). You can find all the episodes (not broken) at GalAnime. More about this mangaka can be found in fumi_yoshinaga lj comm.</a> | My notes: I've already recced the Antique Bakery manga here. Now I've watched the anime and want to rec it too. As usual, I didn't like it at first :D One thing I did like was that it was done in an interesting way, combining real backgrounds with animation. What I didn't like was that the characters resembled those of the manga only somewhat, in profile more than full-face. I lol at myself 'cos I remember how I hated Yoshinaga Fumi's character faces at first and now look how attached to them I have become! But come to think of it, this is the first time I came across an anime where I found the difference in drawing from the manga source visibly noticeable. Ono looks the most like himself, as for me, and Tachibana the least. And Chikage is Chikage whatever you do with him :P I don't know how well this anime works if one watches it with 'fresh' eyes, meaning if somebody who hasn't read the manga watches it. So if you are one of those and you give it a go, please share your impressions with me. It seems to me that in comparison to the manga, the anime brings forth the comical side and the detective subplot while losing some fine nuances of characterisation. But maybe I found the detective subplot clearer here 'cos I had to read vol. 4 of the manga alternately looking at raws and reading the translation in an MSWord file :) On the whole though, I think the anime is pretty adequate to the manga. I enjoyed it, especially, yes, Chikage whom I loved as much here. He's so awwsome. All things considered, watching this anime was a pleasant experience. It's neither too plotty and dramatic nor too light and comical but has elements of it all. Neither too long nor too short so it works well as a light-ish distraction for a couple of evenings. Lovely! |
| Monday, November 17th, 2008 |
leni_jess
|
5:03p |
Something new (to me, anyway) I'm reading this (otherwise quite good) story full of "too" for "to" and apostrophes in all the wrong places, and thought it sad I was grateful that the author can spell per se correctly, but what I wanted to share was this: its' as a possessive, as in I like its' looks [not a quotation]. When in doubt add an apostrophe, obviously.
Has anyone met that before? I wonder if it's in Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Must look sometime.
Yes, I am skiving off from writing exchange fics. Again, with two due Friday and only half finished. I sank a glass or two too much last night while watching Order of the Phoenix, so I spent the morning reading lolcats: about as much intellectual exercise as I could stand. Current Mood: grammar NaziCurrent Music: Soleriana: Passepied, Fandango, Contradanza and Bolero (Asturias Sym Orch/Maximiano Valdes) |
| Sunday, November 16th, 2008 |
icarusancalion
|
9:52p |
Icenetwork.com speaking, please how may we ignore you? Icenetwork.com has absolutely dreadful customer service.
Why am I signed up with these jokers again? Oh, yeah, right. I want to watch the Regionals and Sectionals.
If anyone can give me a better option to watch these lower eschelon competitions, I will drop Icenetwork.com in a heartbeat. Any ideas?
Current Mood: irate Current Music: Street Fighter - Vega Stage |
| Monday, November 17th, 2008 |
painless_j
|
3:34a |
Manga rec: The Record of the Yokohama Shopping Trip  |
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (The Record of the Yokohama Shopping Trip) (1995) ## By: Ashinano Hitoshi Scanlation Groups: MangaProject, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou Manga Scanlations, s.ADTRW Status: 14 Volumes (Complete) Genre: Drama Sci-fi Seinen Slice of Life Found: recced by a RL friend with the words, "My all-time favourite. Лично для меня это безусловный и невероятный шедевр, при том, что я такими словами стараюсь зря не бросаться. Вообще это slice of life в своем лучшем и законченном виде, с некоторыми элементами sci-fi, но несущественными. Critically acclaimed, too." ("My all-time favourite. For me, this is an indisputable and incredible masterpiece -- and I try not to say such words lightly. This is 'slice of life' at its best and most complete, with some elements of sci-fi but they don't matter much. Critically acclaimed, too.") Summary: [From MangaProject]: This is the story of Alpha Hasseno, an Alpha 7 M2 series robot. Left by her owner, she appears and acts fully human while running a small coffee shop named Cafe Alpha. It is a light-hearted story about the people Alpha comes into contact with behind the backdrop of a futuristic country-side in Japan. As we meet Alpha, she makes a shopping trip to Yokohama. A really nice review and DL. | My notes: This manga is pretty amazing but it doesn't get through to you at once. It's like a bud that you have to wait to grow. It's worth it though. You'll see a most unusual, beautiful flower if you are patient. I first thought it would be [] in my ratings, then it became # and in the end, I can't express my love for it in anything other than ##. Now to convert my impressions into words. This is a story where absolutely nothing happens for 14 volumes. This is a post-apocalyptic world. We don't know what exactly has happened but the end result is: the world as we know it is dying. The sea level is coming up; the human civilisation is getting swallowed by the rising waters and grasses. The humankind is radically reduced in numbers already and keeps dying out before our eyes as the manga goes on. An android called Alpha keeps a coffee shop running way out of the way in the country in Japan. She has a customer every couple of days, which days she considers very busy. The customer is usually an old man who keeps a fuel filling column miles from Alpha's or his grandson. The manga goes like this: Alpha takes her scooter and rides to some ruins to see the view from there. Alpha brews a pot of coffee. Alpha sits on the porch and gazes at the scenery around. Alpha drives to a city (which by that point looks like a village) for coffee beans. Another android delivers a parcel. A man with a flying fish wanders by. The title underlines this non-eventfulness of the manga. It's not that Alpha goes on a shopping trip where this or that adventure happens. It's, on the contrary, just one small event in a row of the similar insignificant ones. I repeat: nothing happens in this manga, at all. There's no plot. It's just a gallery of the small things of which the small lives that are passing away with the world consist and which Alpha is watching and sometimes recording with her camera. There are no villains. No bad characters of any kind. No drama. This manga is the opposite of plotty. But it's the definition of charming. It's so beautiful! By the middle of it, you begin cherishing those empty landscapes, roads being broken and taken over by grasses, abandoned houses, and more roads with nobody around for miles. It's beautiful and lovely and full of quiet sorrow; not a tragedy but a gentle, loving goodbye. There's also a hint of yuri, a very light one and as non-eventful as the rest of the manga. As a conclusion, highly recommended as one of the most charming and atmospheric things I've ever read! ( Here are a few pages from the manga (vol.1 and 7), to entice :) ) |
| Sunday, November 16th, 2008 |
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