Azureas and the Router From Hell?

Posted on January 10, 2007 by Ubu Roi

I was going to write an article triggered by Steven discussing feeling a little left out (20070109.2030 entry), and even had it half done, but I’ve gotten sidetracked thanks to being utterly fed up with my connection issues. I’ve been having problems for around a month now, and they’re getting worse.

Here’s the short recap: I use a wireless-enabled Linksys router attached to a Speedstreem DSL modem. My main system (Rogue) is wired, but my 2nd system (Stratos4), the family system (Soupbone) and my laptop (Zod) all use the G-band wireless. For some reason, I’ve had increasing problems with my net connection seeming to drop out, and generally slow craptastic download speeds while using this router. When I switch back to an older all-wired model, these problems USUALLY disappear. At the least, they’re not as severe.

Bittorrent seems to be related to the problem, but exactly how, I don’t know. IIRC, the whole issue started when I noticed my downloads were often being rejected with a message that port 6881 was blacklisted by thus-and-so tracker. Firefox seems to default to that port, so I stopped using it for DL’s and shifted everything to Azureas (2.4.0, later 2.5.0), customizing it to a high port #. Shortly afterwards, the random connection losses started. “UPnP: Lost connection to service ‘WANIPConnection’ on UPnP. I get this message 3-5 times in quick succession, and all downloads and uploads stop. In the course of an overnight run, this will happen at least 100 times. (I came home from work one day and had 500 such messages waiting) Some of the messages are different:

“UPnP: Mapping ‘Distributed DB (UDP/port#)’ has been reserved by xxx.xxx.xxx.101′ – Please select” (truncated)
“UPnP: Maping UDP Tracker Client Port (UDP/port#) has been reserved by xxx.xxx.xxx.101′”

The port numbers are the ones I selected for Azureas and have the router forwarding to my system. However, I’m sure that *sometimes* the forwarding is wrong, because my system might be given a different IP by the DHCP service. It seems to make no difference though — I still get the messages, and the downloads work…after a fashion. Uploads are totally unaffected, as far as I can tell, until the network loses connection to the internet. Moreover, when I lose it, so does everyone else on my network, and the systems can’t even seem to talk to each other. The lights on the router go crazy. Net storm?

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Posted in Administrative, Technology | 6 Comments

Haruhi Dethroned?

Posted on January 9, 2007 by Ubu Roi

A week ago, I’d have named the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumaya as the top anime of 2006, bar none. I may have to eat those words, and it’s not because these girls wear their garter belts on the outside.

I cannot, for the life of me, recall who said something about Simoun being good but hating the mechas. Don, Wonderduck, Andrew…Might have been Pixy. (I took a look around but couldn’t find the reference.) That sort of brief statement tweaked my interest, because from what I remembered seeing somewhere, the mechs looked pretty unique. So I set about downloading it to take a look. Within a few minutes of the opening, I was asking myself, “Are they SURE it’s not hentai???” because Simoun throws you off the deep end immediately, and it’s sink or swim. That is one problem the show has; the first episode is pretty rough sledding because you’re hit with how different their culture is.

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Posted in Fansubs, Series Reviews | 10 Comments

Worst of 2006: Honorable Mentions

Posted on January 8, 2007 by Ubu Roi

Good grief. I thought I was never going to finish this post. I’ve been fighting router issues and a crabby server (well, unresponsive, so it’s probably the router again, actually) for the last five hours. Just getting a single picture uploaded was hard enough, then I’d have to fight to get the text to upload so I could see the picture. I’ve been dealing with this problem for the last several weeks, and now it’s getting to the point that I can’t download much anime, unless I switch routers to the non-wireless model. And if I do that, the rest of the family is cut off, and they complain, so I have to switch bac, and download at 1/20th the speed, suffering constant connection failures. What a pain in the arse. Anything (in the article) that’s still broken at this point is staying broken. Edit: fixed a few typos.

So don’t expect me to write a humorous intro to this list of Worsts that didn’t make the top ten of 2006. That was it.

10. Worst (Ugliest) Character Design
The Winner: Red Garden, for having the worst-looking women I’ve ever seen in an animé.

This is their good profiles.
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9. Worst “It’s Not Like That” Excuse by the Leads
The Winner: Busou Renkin, for Kazuki and Tokiko explaining that they can’t be boyfriend and girlfriend because Tokiko is Kazuki’s sister…

…to a group that contains Mahiro, his actual sister (on left, with her back to the camera).
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8. Worst Theft From Another Source
The Winner: Ghost Hunt, you have a call from Tim Burton. He wants the theme music from Sleepy Hollow back.

Sometimes this show gets fairly creepy…File #3 was was pretty good. One thing that impresses me: the show hasn’t taken the obvious tack of giving Mai (center left, comforting the other girl) some kind of super power. So far, she’s just an ordinary teen working an extraordianry job. Her very normality accents the weirdness of the others and the situations they find themselves in.
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Posted in Random Nonsense | 11 Comments

Ubu Roi’s Worst of 2006

Posted on January 4, 2007 by Ubu Roi

Well, 2006 was a totally insane year, which makes it about average, I suppose. For me, it marked the year I got back into animé seriously; although I bought some over the past few years, it wasn’t until last year that I got serious about staying with it, and ended up blogging on it so much I had to start Mahou to keep from filling Houblog with animé. I blame the internet, Steven DenBeste, AnimeNewsNetwork, and Robert, in that order.

Well, I’m sure you didn’t come here to read about me talking about myself again (although you might be here to read another SSB story–sorry to disappoint), so I will cut to the chase and give you my list of the “Worst Moments in 2006 Animé” If you get the feeling while reading this list, that I am picking on a few specific animé, it is not your imagination.

10. Worst Animation of an Unripe Cantaloupe
Winner in a runaway (in fact, the only contestant) for this category is Crescent Love.

How bad of a picture of an unripe cantaloupe is that? It’s a head of lettuce. (I think…) This series has got to be one of the worst examples of “animation quality drops” ever. ‘Nuff said.
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From this point on, I don’t guarantee anything to be safe for work, although no actual nudity is involved. (Thank Haruhi, in a couple of cases….) Proceed at your own risk. (The Management Is Not Responsible for Any Damage to Your Mind or Eyes.)
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Posted in Random Nonsense | 12 Comments

Buy A Robot Today!

Posted on January 3, 2007 by Ubu Roi

Via Instapundit, The Top Five Robots You Can Buy — Today! I want #2, and I’ll take the optional wrist guns, targeting system, eyebeam lasers… wait, what do you mean, “those aren’t available yet?”

Sadly, “Screeching Chewbacca,” a Jr. High science club product of (who else?) The Stainless Steel Brat, is not among them. You see, apparently she got paired off with a couple of loafers that just half-assed their part of the job, so the wires to the controls got reversed, and moreover, the rubber drive wheel was in contact with the metal frame, so the first time they fired it up….well, you can imagine. So she named the robot.

Well, anyway, the story had myself and Dr.Heinous in stitches in a restaurant; I’m sure the other patrons thought we were demented. Not to say that they were wrong, that is. I mean, we did consider putting together an entry for “Battle Bots” a few years ago. Never got past the talking stage, because (p)Resident Evil moved to Austin.

Perhaps the SSB just needed to be a little older at the time….

Posted in Random Nonsense, Technology | 3 Comments

The Important Things

Posted on January 2, 2007 by Ubu Roi

So, Steven DenBeste’s been watching Girls Bravo lately, or rather he’s been fast-fowarding through it, looking for ‘the good bits.’ He’s not really impressed with it at all, but after reading his comments, I’m a little disappointed in the review.

We understand that the Fukuyama character sucks. We understand that the tropes and clichés overwhelm this story. We understand that the male lead is a putz who gets beaten up a lot, often by the girl next door, and that the tastelessness of the series overwhelms the humor. We get it, already, Steven! Now tell us the important stuff:

Is the banana scene as good as Chris says???

Inquiring minds want to know….

Update: No, no, no! Not the encoding artifacts, the banana blowjob from the second episode! Sheesh…. (ok, I admit it, my inner geek was happy to see an explanation for the fuzzy pictures, and wonders if it was the same problem caused the fuzzy scenes in UFO Ultramaiden Princess Valkyrie Steven complained about before. But my geek is like that.)

Posted in Random Nonsense | 6 Comments

Picked up Recently….

Posted on December 31, 2006 by Ubu Roi

Yesterday: DVD’s 1 and 2 of Shakugan No Shana. I’ve got the full fansubs of it and the first time I watched it, I detested the ending. There were about three things wrong with it, one having to do with the some character motivations during the final arc. (I’m avoiding spoilers here, because there are quite a few twists and turns in this tale). After Steven remarked that he was watching it and had gotten hooked on the first DVD, I happened to be bored and looking for something to kind of “come down on” after watching Misaki Chronicles, so I queued up Shana and re-watched all 24 episodes. Lo and behold, I noticed something blindingly obvious that I’d missed a the first time through, and it completely changed one of the characters. In turn, that changed how I viewed that person’s actions, which impacted the last arc hugely, and in a positive fashion. (Some actions I’d thought were “wrong” for the character now made a lot more sense). I’d mentally given the series a C, maybe a C+, but it was worth a full letter upgrade. I’ll hold off doing a full review until sometime this summer (when the series is fully out) but it’s a worthwhile series, even if I still have a few problems with the ending. In part, they’re forced by (as usual) the fact that the manga is ongoing. In fact, there’s an OVA (released this month) and a movie (pending) that will continue the story of Yuuji and Shana.

Last week: Serial Experiments Lain, as a Xmas present. Haven’t begun to watch it yet; I’m saving it for after the new year.

Two weeks ago: Planetes. It may be #83 on some Top Anime list in Japan (it even got beaten out by Bobobobobobo-boob), but it’s not going on my list. Too close to home. Loaned it to DrH. and told him I’d pick it up next time I went to Dallas. Maybe I will.

Posted in DVD Reviews, Random Nonsense | 3 Comments