Just when you thought you had the latest and greatest electronic gizmo to vampire away more of your precious life, Sony has decided to up the ante with it's newest device:
This will really put the pressure on Apple to invent an even better time wasting device. Oh wait, they already have:
HEH.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Feeling Better, but Not About The Stimulus
Yes, I am finally feeling a little better today, thank you very much! (No seriously, thanks for all the nice notes you guys sent via e-mail, I appreciate it!) I'm back to work but not pushing too hard this week, and I'm not too worried about my part of the scheduled updates and such to the store site - I'll ease back into that stuff over the next few days. We'll take care of the daily's and let the rest sort itself out later.
In the mean time, here are a few Odd's and Sodd's:
1) We got in a bunch of new figures yesterday, but I'm not going to let them post some of them until we have all the pre-orders sorted out. When that post does come, you'll understand why. :-)
2) I do plan on doing a regular newsletter this week, and I have a lot of content flagged for it so it should be a good read.
3) Recent schedule changes: The Case Closed Season #4 DVD Box Set got bumped to Feb 17th, but that's a moot point now since it came into stock early before I could tell you. Bandai has bumped the Gundam Seed Destiny DVD Collection #2 Boxed Set (Anime Legends) collection from Feb 24 to Apr 21, and the Wolf's Rain Perfect Collection DVD Boxed Set (Anime Legends) - Bumped from Feb 24 to Apr 7, which actually I may have already mentioned. Media Blasters finally gave us word that the previously MIA Voltron: Defender of the Universe DVD Collection #7 has been officially moved from Jan 14 to March 24, and I also just got word that Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit DVD #3 is running late and won't be shipping until around the end of February. I'm seeing other retailers post all sorts of new guesses for it from Feb 28 all the way out to Mar 17, but none of those are official and MB has only committed to shipping it as soon as they can. Bandai announced that they have killed the Limited Edition version of Lucky Star #6, but the regular DVD will ship as scheduled, providing further reinforcement that R1 Anime studios never die, they just fade away...
4) Much to my surprise, people are jumping all over the new Sam 7 BluRay box and the Akira BluRay releases. In fact, at this rate, we're going to be sold out of both in a couple of days and we've had to order more stock - a lot more! I thought the MSRP on both was a little too high on these, but apparently there are a lot of people who don't.
5) I was going over schedules in my sick bed over the weekend, and noticed that between the Jan and the Feb versions of ADV Films release schedule, their planned March releases went from a total of 18 to only 11 and all the Switchblade stuff disappeared along with a few other things, and there are no Switchblade titles scheduled for April now either. They've been releasing 4 or 5 of those \ a month since September, and I wonder if that line isn't working out, or if more trouble is brewing down in Houston. You know, one day ADV is going to roll over and you guys are going to go nuts trying to find UltraValkyrie or King Jing on DVD. Oh wait, I forgot, if that happens Funimation will probably re-release those as well. When that happens I'm going to fly to Houston personally to buy John Ledford's desk at the auction. HEH...
So onward and upward. And not to switch gears or anything, but I do want to soap box about a couple of non-Anime items:
First ,this stimulus bill they are trying to pass is probably one of the worst pieces of pork barrel spending ever crafted. We'll, maybe Bandai Visual's R1 marketing strategy might come a close second on the all time most ill conceived hit parade. I listened to the senate debates on C-Span (on my Zune no less) while I was sick, and just can't believe how bad this bill is. It seems like they have jettisoned all the good ideas out of hand and what's left is just the garbage (just REALLY expensive garbage). So I watched the presidential address on TV last night, as I'm sure all the rest of you did, and it struck me how frustrated Obama looked. I think if you read between the lines, he's not frustrated that the stimulus bill is taking so long to get worked out, I think behind the scenes he's frustrated with having to go before the American people and sell that lousy bill. He went to Harvard, he knows it's crap, but he can't go against the party. Or maybe I'm wrong about that. Welcome to Washington Barack, where helping people is not the consideration, only getting re-elected. Personally I think they should tear it up and start over as I've never seen anything good come when someone rushes to make a terrible mistake.
In the spirit of the Cuban Missile Crisis, remember that we never find out how close we came to disaster until six months later. Here is Rep. Paul Kanjorski of PA (a Democrat), who is the Capital Markets Subcommittee Chair telling C-Span yesterday how close we came to total economic collapse back in September, and what the original TARP money was really about. Pretty scary:
Those damn evil bankers with their big salaries and casino junkets - who can figure out why they don't want to loan any more money against assets that are still dropping in value like a stone. It's just like those damn R1 studios. Why don't they want to license titles that they will loose money on? Just another a bunch of greedy bastards...right? -_^
Oh, by the way, about those little, um, 'porky' amendments in the stimulus bill? Well Sen. Chuck Schumer says people really just don't care about those anyway....
In the mean time, here are a few Odd's and Sodd's:
1) We got in a bunch of new figures yesterday, but I'm not going to let them post some of them until we have all the pre-orders sorted out. When that post does come, you'll understand why. :-)
2) I do plan on doing a regular newsletter this week, and I have a lot of content flagged for it so it should be a good read.
3) Recent schedule changes: The Case Closed Season #4 DVD Box Set got bumped to Feb 17th, but that's a moot point now since it came into stock early before I could tell you. Bandai has bumped the Gundam Seed Destiny DVD Collection #2 Boxed Set (Anime Legends) collection from Feb 24 to Apr 21, and the Wolf's Rain Perfect Collection DVD Boxed Set (Anime Legends) - Bumped from Feb 24 to Apr 7, which actually I may have already mentioned. Media Blasters finally gave us word that the previously MIA Voltron: Defender of the Universe DVD Collection #7 has been officially moved from Jan 14 to March 24, and I also just got word that Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit DVD #3 is running late and won't be shipping until around the end of February. I'm seeing other retailers post all sorts of new guesses for it from Feb 28 all the way out to Mar 17, but none of those are official and MB has only committed to shipping it as soon as they can. Bandai announced that they have killed the Limited Edition version of Lucky Star #6, but the regular DVD will ship as scheduled, providing further reinforcement that R1 Anime studios never die, they just fade away...
4) Much to my surprise, people are jumping all over the new Sam 7 BluRay box and the Akira BluRay releases. In fact, at this rate, we're going to be sold out of both in a couple of days and we've had to order more stock - a lot more! I thought the MSRP on both was a little too high on these, but apparently there are a lot of people who don't.
5) I was going over schedules in my sick bed over the weekend, and noticed that between the Jan and the Feb versions of ADV Films release schedule, their planned March releases went from a total of 18 to only 11 and all the Switchblade stuff disappeared along with a few other things, and there are no Switchblade titles scheduled for April now either. They've been releasing 4 or 5 of those \ a month since September, and I wonder if that line isn't working out, or if more trouble is brewing down in Houston. You know, one day ADV is going to roll over and you guys are going to go nuts trying to find UltraValkyrie or King Jing on DVD. Oh wait, I forgot, if that happens Funimation will probably re-release those as well. When that happens I'm going to fly to Houston personally to buy John Ledford's desk at the auction. HEH...
So onward and upward. And not to switch gears or anything, but I do want to soap box about a couple of non-Anime items:
First ,this stimulus bill they are trying to pass is probably one of the worst pieces of pork barrel spending ever crafted. We'll, maybe Bandai Visual's R1 marketing strategy might come a close second on the all time most ill conceived hit parade. I listened to the senate debates on C-Span (on my Zune no less) while I was sick, and just can't believe how bad this bill is. It seems like they have jettisoned all the good ideas out of hand and what's left is just the garbage (just REALLY expensive garbage). So I watched the presidential address on TV last night, as I'm sure all the rest of you did, and it struck me how frustrated Obama looked. I think if you read between the lines, he's not frustrated that the stimulus bill is taking so long to get worked out, I think behind the scenes he's frustrated with having to go before the American people and sell that lousy bill. He went to Harvard, he knows it's crap, but he can't go against the party. Or maybe I'm wrong about that. Welcome to Washington Barack, where helping people is not the consideration, only getting re-elected. Personally I think they should tear it up and start over as I've never seen anything good come when someone rushes to make a terrible mistake.
In the spirit of the Cuban Missile Crisis, remember that we never find out how close we came to disaster until six months later. Here is Rep. Paul Kanjorski of PA (a Democrat), who is the Capital Markets Subcommittee Chair telling C-Span yesterday how close we came to total economic collapse back in September, and what the original TARP money was really about. Pretty scary:
Those damn evil bankers with their big salaries and casino junkets - who can figure out why they don't want to loan any more money against assets that are still dropping in value like a stone. It's just like those damn R1 studios. Why don't they want to license titles that they will loose money on? Just another a bunch of greedy bastards...right? -_^
Oh, by the way, about those little, um, 'porky' amendments in the stimulus bill? Well Sen. Chuck Schumer says people really just don't care about those anyway....
Friday, February 06, 2009
Feeling Like Ass...
You know Tuesday I was feeling just fine, and Wednesday I woke up with a terrible sore throat. It was so bad I thought it might be strep, so I haven't been into the office since so I didn't contaminate the place. I finally got into the Dr's office this morning and sure enough, full blown Strep Throat - which I haven't had since I was maybe like five years old. Now I'm on high dose antibiotics and I should be able to mingle again with the general population in a couple of days. As of right now, I totally feel like ass and I'm going to be spending a good portion of my day in bed.
So there will not a be an e-newsletter today. Perhaps Sunday if I feel up to pounding it out on the keyboard. There is a lot to tell you, so I'll try. Also, I'm not answering any e-mails right now that aren't directly about store business. Don't worry, I'll get to them, just not right now. Just letting you guy's know in case it seems I fall off the radar for a couple of days...
So there will not a be an e-newsletter today. Perhaps Sunday if I feel up to pounding it out on the keyboard. There is a lot to tell you, so I'll try. Also, I'm not answering any e-mails right now that aren't directly about store business. Don't worry, I'll get to them, just not right now. Just letting you guy's know in case it seems I fall off the radar for a couple of days...
Sunday, February 01, 2009
A Few Schedule Shifts / Cancellations from Bandai
In a very suprising move, they have 'indefinately delayed' the Limited Edition version of Lucky Star #6, and also the planned Gurren Lagann Best CD. 'Indefinately delayed' is just Bandai speak for 'canceled', or at least that's what we're assuming at this time. This was a surprise to us because the limitd version of Lucky Star 5 sold so well through direct retailers like our store, and is actually one of the few upcoming Bandai titles that still had the potential to sell in volume - but hey, what do I know.
Anyway, please note the regular edition of Lucky Star #6 will be released on schedule. Phew! :-) If you have the Limited version on pre-order, probably a good idea to drop us a line and let us know you'd like us to switch the order to the regular version.
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