Well, I’m not going to get into the details, but the really, really bad news I got a month ago has turned out to be only mostly really bad, so I can be thankful for that much, at least. Best summarized by good ol’ MP: “Not quite dead yet!” (The situation, involving doctors, Medicare, feelings, and mistakes, is almost as ludicrous as one of their skits).
In the meantime I’ve played entirely too much WOW, watched entirely too little animé, and gone crazy at work. Pity my boss — I can’t complain because she’s had it even worse. Which means she’s been out of the office for almost all of August, and guess who most stuff landed on? Yeah, officially, other people were in charge to free me up for crunch-time on a major roll-out (and they handled a fair piece of it), but I ended up handling a lot of both jobs.
I haven’t watched any new animé beyond the 5th episode of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, plus a couple more episodes of Hayate no Gokou (Why did I drop it? It’s hilarious! Maybe I was in a bad mood that month, or had the wrong expectations…) And I finally hauled out Planetes and watched one more disk. The worst of what annoyed me about the first DVD seems to be over, but there’s still a lot of stuff I cringe: the too-eager rookie, the incompetent manager, the cynical and bitter old-timer, the social stratification… and the overall plot still hasn’t shown up. It wasn’t so annoying this time, but neither did it knock my socks off. I have to give it props for the OP though… it’s everything that Shingu’s wasn’t. Relevant, artistic, representative of the series (in a way) and the music doesn’t make your ears bleed. If anyone can recommend a freeware program that can extract/convert it, I might pull it off the DVD (assuming it’s not copy-protected) and YouTube it just for kicks.
Oh, never mind, someone already has…
Of course, if you want an OP that’s different, now this is the OP to watch. (Man, SZS is so not making it to Cartoon Network. They’d have to come up with something beyond Adult Swim… Geezer Walk, maybe?)
As for finding the Planetes OP online already… man, the internet is such an ambition killer. Every time I think of something cool to do, someone’s already gone and done it!
EDIT: Oh, almost forgot. Season opens for the Saints tonight, and most folks are predicting them and the Bears in the championship game. Sooooooooo….. We on again, Duck-boy?
Update: Ouch. That was brutal. Looks like I was right… last time. (Can’t find the link now, but I said the Saints would have one good year and then the party atmosphere would get them. Always does.)
Of course we’re on again, Ooooboooo. But what are you gonna do when the ‘Aints miss the playoffs altogether?