Mahou Meido Meganekko

Dr. Heinous writes to alert me to this story (original story here), bubbling away quietly in the Austin tech community. Or not quietly, any more. Oh, I can only hope.

It’s no secret that things at Sony Online Entertainment haven’t been gumdrops and lollypops. While EverQuest has been a bonafide success, Star Wars Galaxies has been an enormous screw up. The massively-multiplayer online version of the popular George Lucas films has been a fiasco, costing SOE players and money.

A mole sends us word that Raph Koster has left the SOE to start up a new games studio. Cindy Armstrong, head of Business Development, has taken an offer to become the new USA honcho for Webzen. Moreover, Lucas Arts is not extending their Star Wars license. Yikes.

The rot has started to set in, and the mole implies that it’s only a matter of time before SOE’s prez. John Smedley is sent packing. “Place has been falling apart for a while,� writes our mole. “Smedley is not long in his job.� May the force be with you, John.

This should come as no surprise if you’re a fan of the game or read this blog almost a year ago. (The two linked articles were on the old Post-Nuke version 1.0 of the website, and have been copied verbatim to the new version for linking.)

As Dr. Heinous says: “It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.” Of course, his definition of “nicer” is “more deserving.”

Finally, to everyone wondering where their metro news and commentary went, don’t worry, it will be back! It’s just a brief phase I’m going through.

Steven DenBeste thinks I’m picking on him?

20060326.1730: Ubu Roi has a review up of the first DVD of Maburaho. I haven’t managed to watch it yet, but he used it as an opportunity to register his latest salvo in the “cheesecake frame grabs” challenge against me. (What did I do to deserve this?)

Maybe I should resort to nukes? NSFW ecchi bath scenes from Popotan? Or I should get my tail in gear and watch the first DVD of Divergence Eve and post some frame grabs from it. I dunno about this. Why is he picking this fight with little old ME? (Go pick on someone your own size!)

Sheesh, my own size would be someone with a tenth of that anime collection! Besides which, I surrendered after the UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie posts — that stuff’s further out than I’d post (my blog is read by too many people at work), and I can’t beat it short of hentai!

Update 2: And SDB counters with UFO Ultramaiden Princess Valkyrie. (Scroll down, then go to next page.) Sigh, I know when I’m whupped, I’m not topping that cheesecake short of hentai. And I don’t have any. (Wouldn’t post it if I did.)

(And by the way, since I buried it in the third update to the Godanner shots, thanks for the help in fixing my capture problems, Steven!)

Of course if you really want to post ecchi, don’t let a little thing like my surrender stop you — just warn us of the NSFW stuff.

Well, I was stuck at home tonight, so I decided to work up some more anime cheesecake to post, with a bit of a review to go with it. I had some more trouble with the aspect ratio, despite Steven denBeste’s help (see Update 3; it was just my own lack of attention that caused it. I spent an hour taking new shots and they came out much better.

Unfortunately, they don’t come out perfect. For that, I blame ADV, the American distributor. I hadn’t really noticed it until I started taking snapshots, but the transfer has issues with rainbowing, aliasing, and cross-coloration. It’s some of the worst I’ve ever seen. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ll see in pictures.

Speaking of which, lets get on to it. Warning, spoilers ahead! (The worst of the spoilers are blacked out, but I can’t get it to work perfectly; going to have to read up on styles a bit. Edit: finally got it to work. Highlight with your mouse to read them.) (more…)

I’m way overdue for an anime post, and there’s nothing better to break the monotony of more stories on corrupt city government than to indulge in a little cheesecake. So when I saw that Steven Den Beste had decided to post a bunch of pictures from the Ah! My Goddess! TV series featuring Urd, I figured, what the heck, I’ll see your goddess and raise you a bunch of robot pilots! I was going to save this for a week, but when isn’t it a good time for fanservice?

Ok, here’s the goddess: Urd, Belldandy’s half-sister. She’s got the enthusiasm to go with that outfit. (Oh fudge, I just realized he used that shot… I need another.)

Robot Pilot Babes below the fold . . .
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