Strategy Meeting...

Minmay Admits She Doesn't Mind Paying Japanese Prices

It Ruined Me Too...

Actually, I Always Did Mind the Little Things...

I have a little rant today, which I rarely do anymore, so I hope that's OK.

So, Jamie and I ran through Vampire Bund last weekend and we are revisiting a few eps this weekend now that we finally have a little extra time. We'll, if you've watched your DVD you know it has the little Cashern promo before you get to the menu, and the first time around I just let it run and didn't think anything of it. This time, I loaded the disk and wanted to get right to the episode menu, so when the Cashern promo qued up:

1) I hit the 'menu' button on my remote. "X" Denied. S#$T.

2) So I hit the 'skip' button on the remote. "X" Denied. F@%K.

3) So I hit the 'fast forward' button on the remote. "X" Denied. G$D@&%IT!

This also applies to the Moon Phase trailer on Disk 2. Seems Funimation is quite determined that I should watch that damn trailer every time I load the DVD no matter if I want to or not. Yes, 'top menu' does allow you to skip the trailer, but disabling the other functions? Very irritating if you ask me, and bad disk authorizing too.

Wagnaria Premium Edition Restocks Delayed - Now Scheduled for Late May

NIS America has been assuring us - as late as last Friday - that the final pressing of the Wagnaria premium collection would be shipping to retailers on May 11th, so we expected to have it sometime late this week. They even worked in some other restocks to ship on the same date.

We'll, in the typical fashion of only a Japanese run US based studio operation, they informed us today that the final pressing of Wagnaria will be delayed until around the end of May:

"It has come to our attention that there occurred a problem in manufacturing process for WAGNARIA!! Premium Edition 2nd batch. In order for us to build and deliver perfect products to our customers, we have decided to postpone the schedule for a certain period. Current estimate of the dispatch will be the end of May, we will update you once we had a fixed date."

Can you hear me banging my head against my desk? Since we have so many pre-billed back orders and hold tickets currently sitting on the shelf waiting for the set, this is obviously going to cause us about 2,000 headaches and if you listen to the talk around the office this morning you'll know that NIS is not our favorite company at the moment, temporarily replacing Bandai (for a few days at least) as the largest source of angst for us as a retailer of Anime DVD's. I've been e-mailing customers constantly for the last few days assuring them that we would be shipping these sets in a few days, and now, of course, I feel like a complete idiot for trusting in a date given to me by a studio. After about 7,480 missed dates over the years by just about everyone, you'd think I'd know better.

Anyway, if you currently have a multi-item order holding for this set, we are going to modify your ticket today so that we can ship your other items out now, and we will place the Wagnaria set on back order for you and will ship it (at our expense) once they do finally arrive - whenever that is. I also want to apologize to everyone for this. I don't like it when we make a commitment to you and then can't meet it, even if the situation is out of our control. If you have any concerns about your order for Wagnaria, please don't hesitate to drop us a line so we can address it.

Sony Admits Total PSN Security Breach - Hackers Have User Info

If you are like me, you have not been able to log onto the PlayStation Network since the middle of last week. What you might still not know is why - it's because the PSN got hacked, and it looks like it might be one of the largest single consumer security breaches in history.

Sony finally came clean today about the "external intrusion" that took PSN down, and admitted that all 69 Million PSN user accounts have probably been compromised. Here is the data that Sony is SURE has been compromised if you have a PlayStation Network Account:

-Your name
-Your address (city, state, and zip)
-Country
-E-mail address
-Birthday
-PSN password and login name

Sony says it is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained,". While the company claims that there is "no evidence" that credit card information has been compromised, it won't rule out the possibility.

Best bet is to assume that the hackers have your credit card information too and cancel the card you use for that account. If you stored your debit card information on PSN - well, shame on you - you should DEFINITELY cancel it and get a new one.

Even Sony said:

"If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained."

Sony really is VERY sorry about all this, and they do apologize for the inconvenience.

Yet another reason why we DO NOT allow customer accounts on the RACS store site, nor do we allow you to store your personal and/or payment information on the site. Sure that makes it easier to shop and checkout, but if PSN can get hacked, anyone can. Best way for us to secure your personal information is not to store it at all.

UPDATE: Sony released an FAQ blog post that said credit card data was encrypted and separate from the other data, which was not encrypted but was "behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack."

UPDATE 2: 2.2 Million Credit Card Numbers From PlayStation Network May Be Up for Sale

Dilbert on Tax Policy

This strip seems to, um, fit a lot of different narratives that have cropped up over the last couple of days:


Funimation Sues 1337 Bittorrent Users Over One Piece...

You Can't Be 'Just a Little Pregnant'

Steven DB, who abandoned legit Anime releases for torrents awhile back, seems to have found his guilty conscience - but in a rather odd way.

Steven abandoned the R1 industry a couple of years ago because no one here 'could produce what he wanted when he wanted it'. OK, fair enough. It certainly is hard to participate in the hard core Anime 'geek' community if you are relying on DVD releases. But now he is having issues downloading Anime torrents - but only from groups that rip off Crunchyroll.

Really Steven? You know what they say about being 'a little pregnant'? -_^

I think Steven's logic here is bit obtuse. He's all in. Why would he feel guilty about anything at this point?

The Hypocrisy of Marketing

I've been working on preparing a post about our switch to the more 'eco-friendly' corn starch bio-degradable loose fill for order packaging. Having switched over to them over a month ago, I'm in no hurry though. I wanted enough of you to start getting orders packaged with them so that when I do post about it, you'll be able to give us some reliable feedback about their effectiveness. See, I'm mostly concerned with this material's usefulness as a package protection, with the environmental aspects being a necessary, but secondary perk.

Anyway, this got me to thinking. We do a lot of stuff to help protect the environment in the course of our business. We recycle all of our cardboard and chipboard waste (we have a special dumpster for it), we recycle our paper waste, we use a very efficient natural gas based HVAC system (we paid extra for the highest efficiency rating), we use recycled materials whenever possible in our order processing and packaging processes (and we try to use vendors that do the same) - hell, we even keep the thermostats set low in the winter and bundle up, and turn the light off in parts of the warehouse we are not using during certain parts of the day to save energy. Jamie and I commute back and forth to the office (most of our driving) in a fuel efficient little Kia Soul. The Bimmer mostly stays parked at home. Lots of other little things.

We do this stuff out of a simple common sense approach that any responsible company should take in their attitude toward environmental concerns. But it has never really occurred to me to make a big deal about it as some sort of 'marketing point' to promote our company - like printing that we do it on our boxes. Making folks aware of what you are doing is good, but making it a point of contention in your marketing propaganda, as if to say - "see, my company is better than yours because we recycle" - well, seems a bit adolescent to me. I really don't think smart people can be bought off by those sorts of concerns - I mean it's 2011 - people should EXPECT companies to do whatever is economically feasible to be environmentally friendly. Why wouldn't we. Anything else would just be irresponsible.

So it also occurs to me that in this digital age, when you already consume plenty of electricity to spin the hard drives that make your digital catalog/online store available 24/7, don't you think it's a little hypocritical to sell people on what a green company you are, but still mail out tens of thousands of tree killing paper product catalogs every quarter? Can you imagine the extra fossil fuel burned by the delivery trucks as they carry thousands of pounds of these paper catalogs? And the energy and resources consumed in making the paper for and printing those catalogs? Even if you use recycled materials, you know the endgame of these is to just become landfill fodder after their usefulness is over.

Frankly, while I think they are completely unnecessary for an online e-tailer, if you feel like having a printed catalog is an essential part of your online business, so be it. You gotta do what you gotta do. But if you do, don't turn around and start making a marketing pitch about how environmentally friendly your company is. If you don't mind, please sell stupid somewhere else.

I'm Alright...