Ramblin' Rosen

As I posted recently, I’ve had a lot of problems with spam recently. Spam is bad enough for those of us who can see, but have you ever thought about what spam is like for the blind and visually impared? I hadn’t, but spam has become a real problem for those using screen readers. Unlike sighted people, they cannot just visually scan a list of email topics in their Inbox but instead have to wait until their screenreader reads each one to them, a slow, irritating and potentially embarrassing process, considering the subject matter of some spam. Fortunately in many cases, server-side spam filters help for now, but filters are not a long-term solution.

In addition to the problems with receiving spam, some of the methods used to fight spam are hurting the online blind community, especially the image-verification that many sites now use for those registering accounts or subscribing to mailing lists. For instance, YahooGroups now requires people signing up to a list to decipher a distorted word in an image. Unfortunately, this method stops blind people from signing up without assistance from others, and it also isn’t stopping the spammers anymore, as I know that lists I’m on are starting to get spam again, even with this system.

So what’s the solution for stopping spam? Personally, I’m fond of killing a spammer for Christ, but realistically most of us don’t really have time to deal with all the spam we get daily, so expecting people to figure out where each spam message comes from and reporting it isn’t very realistic. Perhaps we should just consider bombing Boca Raton, Florida, the spam capital of the world.

The forthcoming new Doctor Who series is starting to get publicity in the strangest places. It’s been put in the ‘hot’ category of the latest coolest things in the August issue of Marie Claire’s UK edition (on page 137), along with the hip-hop group Goldie Lookin Chain and an egg-shaped mini fridge.

For those outside of the UK who cannot read the blurb for itself, here’s what MC has to say about the new series:

Tardis times

We didn’t expect to be excited by Daleks and timelords, but Christopher Eccleston and Bille Piper make the new Doctor Who a must-see.

It’s weird to think of Doctor Who as cool again, something it hasn’t been since the Dalekmania of the 60s. When I was in the US, it was more underground and seen as nerdy by those who had actually heard of it. In the UK, it’s perceived as something that people watched as children. Loads of people remember fondly, although the 80s period is often scoffed by people too old to have watched it as a child, and many have fond memories of watching it behind the sofa. My husband to this day still has an irrational fear of Cybermen. Still, most people probably wouldn’t call it cool, per se.

Publicity like the mention in MC can only be good for the new series. If it is to succeed, it has to appeal both to veteran Whovians and the mainstream public. Being perceived as cool once again means that the mainstream will definitely check out at least the first episode and hopefully they will want to stay and watch the rest.

I hate spam! OK, I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I’ve recently had to change my email address that I’ve had for over eight years because the amount of spam I received had gotten ridiculous—I was getting thousands of spam emails a day, and each week it seemed to be increasing.

So as to avoid drowing in spam again, I no longer publish my email address on my website. Instead, I now have a web-based feedback form. There’s an icon linking to it below the Bloglines icon in the left-hand column on this page.

I hate having to keep my new email so private, as one of my favourite things about the Internet was the ease there used to be in contacting such a wide variety of people, but unfortunately, the spammers are ruining email for us all. I don’t know what the solution is to stop spam, but it will have to be stopped, since it is really destroying the use of email.

Harry “Chippy” McNeish, the carpenter on Shackleton’s polar expedition of 1914-1916 was denied a polar medal because of Shackleton’s anger after he questioned his authority after their ship, the Endurance, was lost. On top of that, Shackleton also shot his cat Mrs. Chippy for food (along with the dogs). McNeish never forgave Shackleton for that, and according to his grandson Tom McNeish, ‘I think the cat was more important to him than the Polar Medal.’

Now at last, in death at least, he is being ‘reunited’ with his cat—the New Zealand Antarctic Society is placing a life-sized statue of his cat on his grave. Mariska Wouters, the chair of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Antarctic Society, said, ‘We can’t go back and give him a Polar Medal but this is one way of recognising what he contributed to the expedition. ‘

Thanks to my husband pointing out this story on Laban Tall’s Blog

The other day I decided I needed to update my avatar on Anime on DVD, so I did a search for an avatar site. I found a few with avatars on them, but what I found that really exicted me was Anime Galleries dot Net. It doesn’t have any avatars on the site but instead has an archive of loads of images that can be cropped and edited in order to make avatars.

You don’t even have to know how to use a graphics program in order to make avatars with the images because the site has an Avatar Maker. With this tool, you can crop images to any size, resize the images themselves and can add effects like borders and text.

Even though I know how to use Photoshop and other programs, I still found it faster just to crop the bit I needed of the image into the size I wanted. Personally, I don’t think I’ll use the effects or text tools that much, as I’d rather do my own custom ones in Photoshop, but the cropping tool is really handy, and it’s good to see something that allows those who don’t know how to use Photoshop the ability to make their own custom avatars and banners.

Below you’ll see my latest avatar for AoD that I created using Anime Galleries dot Net’s Avatar Maker. Please don’t take it to use as your own avatar. Instead, go to the site and make your own—that’s much more fun anyway.

I have been wanting to read the manga version of Prétear: The New Legend of Snow White (mangaka: Kaori Naruse, creator: Junichi Satou) since I first watched the anime. (I’ve watched the Odex release, not the more recent release from ADV.) The anime is a great mahou shoujo series that I have enjoyed more each time I’ve watched it. It is short for the genre at only 13 episodes, but that length means that there are no filler episodes, something many longer magical girl series are guilty of having, and its story is both complete and well-paced.

So how does the manga compare with the anime? I think the anime was developed before the manga, and the manga seems more of a typical mahou shoujo series than the anime. This doesn’t mean it’s bad, but so far it seems to lack some of the depth and the interesting twists of the anime, and from what I’ve read comparing the two, some of my favourite plot elements are different or non-existent in the manga.

In the first volume of the manga, its basic premise is set up. Himeno’s father Kaoru has recently married the very rich Natsue. Before his remarriage, Kaoru was a poor formerly-successful writer, and he and Himeno had lived alone together since her mother died. Now Himeno’s life has completely changed—instead of living in a small apartment, she lives in a mansion. Her step-mother Natsue is overbearing and controlling, and she doesn’t get along with her two step-sisters, the snooty Mayune and the aloof Mawata.

One morning on the way to school, she meets the seven Leafe Knights, and she finds out she is destined to be the Prétear, a magical girl who can merge with each of the knights individually, who must fight the Princess of Disaster who is trying to destroy the world. Each knight has power over a different thing, and each form of the Prétear inherits that knight’s specific power.

Both the anime and manga are primarily a retelling of the fairy tale Snow White, with quite a bit of Cinderella thrown in for good measure, but the manga so far seems to be going for stronger references to the fairy tales, as the stepmother Natsue comes off much more ‘evil’ and malicious in the manga, whereas in the anime, she was more just spacey and didn’t pay enough attention to the protagonist, Himeno.

The presentation of the manga over all is good—the colour pages are reproduced in colour, the effects are left in Japanese and also translated on the page, and the translator has provided some good notes at the end. Only one minor translation decision really grates on me. Hayate, one of the Leafe Knights, accuses Himeno of being a kogal, a trendy Japanese girls’ and young womens’ subculture. It’s translated in the manga as ‘valley girl’, though the notes explain the original reference. Personally, since it had to be explained in the notes anyway, I’d have left it as ‘kogal’. Kogals are fairly well-known among anime and manga fans, plus valley girls haven’t been around since the 1980s and aren’t really the same thing as a kogal.

Overall, the Prétear manga is fun and enjoyable, and I plan to buy the rest of it as it comes out. The second volume comes out in August. For those who like the anime, the manga will probably be a good addition their collection, but for those who haven’t seen it yet, I recommend to watch the anime first and then read the manga if you are left wanting more.

Recently at work, everyone in my team was asked to make a list of eight things people should know about him-/herself because the UK part of the team has a new manager starting soon, and it will be helpful for her to get to know everyone more quickly. I thought I’d post it here, as I thought it was a good, albeit work-safe, overview of me and my interests.

1. Languages: I love learning new foreign languages and am interested in linguistics in general. One of my BAs is in German, and I also have studied French and Dutch. My whole family has a gift for languages, and I’’m the only person in my family not to have studied Latin. I’’m also the only person in my family to have studied Dutch.

In the future, the modern language I most want to learn is Japanese, and the ancient languages I am most interested in are those from the Ancient Near East, especially Biblical Hebrew, Akkadian, Phoenician, and Sumerian.

2. Pets: I have a cat named Pussolini and two cockatiels named Fred and Vic. I’’ve been a cat lover since I was a child, but I only recently discovered how wonderful parrots are.

I hate to admit it, but I think my tiels are smarter than my cat.

3. Music: I play electric violin (as well as regular acoustic violin). I’’m not currently in a band but play off and on with Sleeping Pictures and Sol Invictus. I’’ve played violin since I was 5, and I also play keyboards sometimes.

My other BA is in Music Theory.

4. Big cats: Someday, I want to pet a leopard. I was watching a show on a big cat sanctuary, and one of the people who worked there was explaining how you can feel a leopard’s rosettes (the “’spots”’) when you pet them. So now I want to feel it for myself.

5. Nationality & residency: I’m American, but I live in England. This is the fourth country I’’ve lived in, including the US. I lived for 9 months in France when I was four, and I spent a year studying in Germany as a student.

I’’m originally from Kansas, and, yes, I have heard that Dorothy joke before.

6. Mythos: I am fascinated by myth, folklore and fairy tales, both in their original forms and modern retellings of them.

7. Gadgets: I have a Treo 600 (a mobile phone/Palm OS PDA in one), and I love it. I use it for all kinds of things, including reading books on it with eReader.

Before the Treo 600, I never thought I’’d want a phone/PDA combination, but I’’m now a convert. Only things I wish were better about it were that it was high resolution and had a decent camera (decent by phone/PDA standards, that is).

8. Décor: Last Christmas, my Christmas tree was a pink artificial tree with a winged Hello Kitty plushie as the angel on top.

Chrono Crusade 1 by Daisuke Moriyama is one of the first two books by ADV Manga that I have bought. (The other is Prétear 1 that I will be reviewing in another post.) Overall, I’d heard good things about their releases, and I am definitely impressed by the ones I’ve seen, and I won’t particularly worry if they license I title I like in the future. Some of the features I really like are that they translate the effects and leave in the original Japanese, and they have translator’s notes at the end. Also, the colour pages are reproduced in colour, at least in the first edition. Some fans are bothered by changing the spelling of Chrno to Chrono, but it really isn’t a big deal, especially as the licensor requested it, and it does not change the pronunciation—how would you pronounce ‘Chrno’ anyway?

Before reading this manga, I’d seen the first 7 or so episodes of the Chrono Crusade anime in digisubs, and I’d really enjoyed what I’d seen of it. I’d heard that the manga was even better, so I was very excited when I heard that it was licensed to be published in English. I’m not sure if I’d say the manga was better than the episodes of the anime I saw—in fact I felt it was very similar in feel to the anime, although it differs in some plot points—but it was definitely very enjoyable, and I plan to buy the next volume when it comes out in August.

The series takes place in an alternate history version of New York in the 1920s, an atypical setting for manga. As in the real-world version of NYC of that time, World War One has ended and the Great Depression has yet to start, but in this version, many demons have invaded and are causing lots of trouble. The two main characters are Sister Rosette Christopher, a nun and exorcist of the Magdalan Order, and Chrono, a demon who is bound in a contract to Rosette, the main details of which are revealed in this volume. Rosette’s unorthodox methods usually get the job done, but the damage incurred on the job often cause her to be in trouble with her superior Sister Kate.

Chrono Crusade 1 is loads of fun with hints at a bigger story to come in later volumes. It’s not the deepest series out there, but it is definitely one of the more entertaining ones. I can’t wait to read the next volumes, and I also look forward to the DVDs of the anime when they are released.

I’ve made a couple of changes to this blog today. First, I upgraded to WordPress 1.2. One of the new features is a spam detector that prevents most spam from being automatically posted. Because of this, the blog is now set to post your comments automatically, and if a legit post is accidentally categorized as spam, I will approve it as soon as I can.

Also, you can now subscribe to Ramblin’ Rosen with Bloglines. This service is free and allows you to see headlines from all your favourite blogs and other sites with feeds in one place. If you want to subscribe to this site, just click on the Bloglines icon at the bottom of the righthand column.

As I mentioned in my review of Tokyo Babylon 1, I recently purchased first volumes of various newly-published English manga translations. This post will cover the first volume of Tsubasa: RESEVoir CHRoNiCLE and xxxHolic, two of the three (or four if you count X) series by CLAMP currently running in Japan. I’m reviewing these two manga together for two reasons. First, they are both published by Del Rey, a new entry into the manga publishing field, though not a new publisher by any means. Second, these series both cross over with each other, with some of the same events happening in both manga but from different viewpoints.

These are two of the first four manga published by Del Rey, and if these two volumes are indicative of the way they plan to publish in the future, then they will quickly become one of my favourite manga publishers. Both books have been done exceptionally well, with lovely quality printing, translated sound effects beside the original Japanese, honourifics left in with a detailed explanation of them at the beginning of the book and extensive notes at the end on other related CLAMP works, primarily Cardcaptor Sakura. The colour pages have been printed twice—once in colour at the beginning and then again in black and white at the start of the main body of the manga. I assume this is done to make it easier to produce later versions without the pages in colour.

For those who have read or watched Cardcaptor Sakura, many of the characters of Tsubasa will be very familiar, as they include Sakura, Syaoran (the spelling used in this book) and Tomoyo. The versions of these characters are not, however, the same versions from CCS but are instead their equivalents in alternate worlds.

In this world, Sakura is the princess of the Kingdom of Clow, and Syaoran is her childhood friend, a commoner from another country who is in charge of an archaeological dig in Clow. After an act of sabotage by a mysterious figure that occurs at the dig, Sakura’s heart/memories have been spread across multiple words, and Syaoran must travel to the Space-Time Witch in order to be able to travel between the worlds to rescue all of her memories and save her life. Tsubasa also includes alternate versions of characters from other manga, including Chobits, Magic Knigths Rayearth and X, plus a quick cameo by Miyuki-chan.

xxxHolic makes it clear that the world(s) that both it and Tsubasa take place in include both these alternate versions of these familiar characters and their “original” versions, at least for the CSS characters. The main two characters in xxxHolic are Yûko Ichihara, the Space-Time witch mentioned before, and Watanuki Kimihiro, a seemingly ordinary teenager who sees spirits. He has been tricked into working for Yûko, as payment for her granting his wish to no longer see spirits, which she will grant after she feels he has worked enough to earn it.

Some people have criticised the artwork in xxxHolic because it is very different from previous CLAMP artwork. Other than the colour pages, the artwork is completely black and white with no shading or screentones. Personally, I love the artwork, partially because it is so distinctive, and I find it just as attractive as more typical CLAMP art. The artwork in Tsubasa is also lovely, though the character designs are much more angular than their CSS counterparts, and it is strange seeing Tomoyo with such different eyes, and I found her the least recognisable of the characters “borrowed” from other series.

Both Tsubasa and xxxHolic can be read on their own, but they are more enjoyable if they are read together. I think they’d still be enjoyable even without much familiarity with Cardcaptor Sakura, as both stories are very different from CSS. Of the two, so far Tsubasa is the more dramatic and xxxHolic the more comedic, but things could and probably will change in future volumes, knowing CLAMP’s love of twists and surprises. Both are highly recommended, and I’m waiting impatiently for the next volumes to come out this autumn.