Yes! Finally!

Just to let everyone know, I just finished a review. I'll actually begin updating my site again on Monday. Oh man, it feels good to be back in the game.

Duel of The PotterCasts

Much like blogging used to be the "hip" thing for people with no lives to do (and still is...for awhile longer anyway), a new sensation is sweeping the teenage nation: Podcasting. So what is Podcasting? Basically they are online radio shows. However, Podcasting can be done by anyone who has the means to put together a show, not just professional companies. And the best part of all this is that listening to Podcasts are FREE!!! Now there are two new Harry Potter Podcasts online, MuggleCast and PotterCast, and now that I've listened to both of them, I can honestly say that both of these shows show people exactly what you should do when you make a Podcast, and what you should make sure you avoid when making a Podcast.

Just to let you know right now, if you are not a Harry Potter fan, don't worry, this blog isn't really about Harry Potter (which means you can continue reading this, oh wonderful, extremely patient editor of mine). First lets take a look at MuggleCast, which is the brain child of MuggleNet.com. This Podcast mostly features young, American teenage boys, talking about book theories, news, and answering fan mail. In many ways, MuggleCast is nothing more then a "Ebert & Roeper" with a Harry Potter twist, but I'll be darned, "Ebert & Roeper" is fascinating to watch and so is this...er, except we listen to this. MuggleCast will look at some (seemingly) very minor topics, then the three members will share their theories on the topic, they will talk about rumors, and they will dissect this topic like it was a science frog.

And the results are fabulous. Not only do they make you want to look closer at every single twist in the books, but they sometimes make it so that you'll want to read the books over again. It's fun to listen to these people share their theories, answer fans questions, and act as if this is something anyone can do. Oh sure, anyone can talk about the exact same things these guys do, but very few manage to make it as interesting as these guys. One would think that being almost nothing more then one long discussion, that the shows (normal) running time of around an hour would get tiring, but these guys are so lively that they manage to keep you interested throughout the whole thing (and even leave you wanting more). On top of that, the sound quality is GREAT for a fan made Podcast!

While it is not perfect (some of the fan voice mails are hard to understand), it is more then what I expected it to be. And then we have PotterCast, which was birthed from the first "real" Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron. Now PotterCast is definitely a different beast from MuggleCast. Since The Leaky Cauldron was the first major Harry Potter fansite to make it big, they have access to things that MuggleCast might not. PotterCast has a news section, a debate section, some advertisements (which means someone must be getting paid to do this Podcast), and the first episode even had a telephone interview with Bonnie Wright (who played Ginny Weasly for both of you people reading this that don't know who Bonnie is).

Oh, and the hosts are several adult British women (just for the record). From the sounds of things, PotterCast really should be kicking MuggleCasts butt...and yet, PotterCast looks like a big failure in comparison, and it's for various reasons. For one thing the audio for PotterCast sounds like complete garbage most of the time. Sometimes it's too loud, sometimes it's too quite, a round the table conversation had all the women at different sound levels. My sound knob received a workout like it had never had before, and I was constantly tweaking the sound for the whole hour of the show. On top of the various sound drop outs, some of the sound during interviews and stuff you can't make out. I should have been very happy being able to listen to Bonnie actually have an interview (which is something I've never seen), but the sound is so messed up I couldn't hear what Bonnie was saying 75% of the time.

Seriously, I know this interview was done over the phone, but the audio sounds like it was recorded in a trash can with a portable cassette recorder. Granted, I know I'm getting to listen to this for free, but since there was at least one advertisement, I would hope that some of that money would go to some good sound recording equipment. PotterCast also had a discussion on book six, but the discussion was SEVERELY lacking! Except for a couple of cute moments (two of the girls having a fangirl moment when Harry and Ginny finally kissed on page...something), but the discussion was just a little, I don't know...boring. They were doing the exact same thing the guys at MuggleCast were doing, but somehow they were doing it in a way that just made me drowsy. If it weren't for the fact that I had to constantly tweak the volume, I might have fallen asleep during the show.

Granted, I should point out that while MuggleCast has had three episodes in the can (with a forth coming out this weekend), PotterCast only has one, and there's a very good chance that PotterCast could iron out many of its problems in the future. Still, it's just strange that PotterCast, with all it's resources, turned out to be quite a dud, while MuggleCast got everything right right out of the box with very limited resources. So for all you Harry Potter fans out there, MuggleCast is the Podcast to listen to. And if you are not a Harry Potter fan but the idea of Podcasts intrigues you, then just download iTunes and check out their selection. I'm sure you'll find something there that suites your needs.

One of Those Nights

Sometimes you just aren't motivated to write anything. My computer has been up and running for several days now, but for some strange reason I have had no desire to write any reviews or anything. It's like a job almost to write them right now. I'm not even completely sure why. Is it because school just started and I'm stressed? That may be it. Maybe all the stuff I have to review at the moment just doesn't lead itself to a good review? That may be it too. All I know is that when I forced myself to start to write a review for "Tokyo Boys & Girls," I stopped half-way through the review, as this was some of the worst crap I had ever written, and there's a good chance you'll NEVER see it on my site...ever!

I know I have to update soon, or my loyal readers will get frustrated with me, but I would rather not update with anything then update with a horrible piece of writing. My reviews may not be Pulitzer winners, but they must be entertaining on some level or else I wouldn't have readers at all. So here's my vow (however frustrating it is): I will not update the site until I get that "spark" that I feel I've been missing back. Hopefully this won't be too long though, as I hate taking long vacations from writing. Hmm...Borders is having a "Buy 4 Get The 5th Free" sale. Maybe picking up something there will inspire me with what I need to start writing again. I can only hope.

I Need Cash

eBay Seller: comicbookreviewer

If you would love to help me pay for school books this year, feel free to check out the various books, manga, and DVD's I'm selling on eBay right now. More to come soon.

Read Em' And Weep

The Official Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Website

Warner Bros. has updated the forth Harry Potter movie website with the lovely PG-13 rating in the lower right corner. I can hardly wait to see this film.

Hi Mom

I just wanted to give a shout out to my mom, who I found out has been reading this blog.

Darn It

eBay: BONNIE WRIGHT Autographed 4X6 with coa (item 6551898852 end time Aug-14-05 11:54:20 PDT)

And yet another one gets away. There's GOT to be an easier way to get autographs then this!

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

IGN: Madden NFL 06: Where Do You Stand?

Here's the deal: I hate sports. Since I hate sports, it should come as no surprise that I hate the Madden games. When EA Games announced last year that they had acquired a five year exclusive rights deal with the NFL, I was mad as heck. While I do not play Madden, I was furious because this deal essentially created a monopoly on football games, and it was as bad as if Valve had acquired exclusive rights to the FPS genre. It just didn't work for me, and this meant that companies like Sega and Microsoft XSN were, all in all, screwed. EA made this deal shortly after "ESPN Football" started to steal some of "Madden 2005's" thunder. What happened shortly afterwards is pretty obvious: EA bought out the competition.

Some of my friends and brother were excited, saying that EA made the best sports game ever, so this deal wouldn't effect them at all. I warned them that it would, saying that EA will have no reason to make the perfect football game anymore, as they have a monopoly. After all, why worry about quality when you have the only product on the shelves? Well, "Madden 06" (as they're calling it now) is out, and the reception has been lukewarm at best, with people claiming its still a good football game, but that it offers no improvement over previous Madden games. Gee, I wonder why THAT is?!

Nightmare In Computer Land

So I blow out my computer, reinstall everything, I figure everything's cool and I'll be able to start updating my website again sooner then expected, when low and behold I find out I can't find my Dreamweaver disk. For those who don't know what Dreamweaver is, it is basically a website creating program, one that makes updating websites a bit easier for me since I only have to copy and paste the review (as opposed to the earlier days when I would type in the review, and then go through the whole thing and place brackets in the proper places). Hopefully I'll be able to find the disk soon, but until then updates for CBG.com will most likely be put on hold.

On a brighter note, until I DO find the disk, I'm writing my reviews with Word Perfect, so I'll have something to post on my site when I do get around to updating it again. Man, that program cost me $125.99. I hope I didn't lose it for good.

No Potter For The Kids (This Time)

Breaking News - [TV Guide Online]

It's official: "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire" will be the first Harry Potter film to receive a PG-13 rating. I have a little bit more hope now that the ending will be just as dark the ending for the book. November 17th can't come fast enough.

eBay War Update

Just for the record, it turns out that the person who outbid me on the Harry Potter triple signature photo didn't want to pay the $91 he bid on the picture, so the seller contacted me to see if I wanted to buy it. I said I would buy it for $60 (plus shipping) and he agreed! I'm getting my Harry Potter autographs!!! I'm also getting a replacement copy of "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire" since I let a friend borrow it some time ago, and of course he lost it, and if his life wasn't so messed up I'd ask for a replacement copy. But since he's a bit of a wreck at the moment, I figured it would just be easier (and in some ways, cheaper) to just buy the replacement myself.

Oh well, I don't mind. "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire" is my favorite book in the series, and I can't wait to re-read it again. I'm also looking forward to seeing what they do with the movie (how ARE they going to fit 750 pages into two and a half hours). On a final note I've decided to re-read the entire Harry Potter series and try and get a better idea of how the final book will be. It will especially be interesting when I get to "Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban," as I haven't read that book again after I read it the first time, which was almost five years ago, so it will be interesting to see whether or not the book is still as bad as I remember it being.

This Post Is Pointless

I'm just updating this blog to let CBG.com visiters know that I won't be updating the site next week since my computer has to be wiped clean to get rid of spyware. However this blog will be updated during the week since I will still have internet access on another machine. Like I said, pointless update. Check back later this week for a follow up on my eBay drama.

eBay Bidding Wars

eBay: HARRY POTTER - DANIEL RADCLIFFE/GRINT/WATSON SIGNED (item 6550915381 end time Aug-05-05 19:47:12 PDT)

Ever since coming back from the San Diego Comic Con I've been bit with the autograph hound bug. People who are autograph hounds tend to be considered annoying nerds, people who's lives are a bane on people's exsistence, because they stalk all the celebraties in hopes of getting an autograph from someone even remotely famous. They do have some useful purposes though. The main thing they do right is provide International Comic Con a reason to get celebraties over in autograph booths, as these hounds are willing to pay money for movie star sigs. The other useful purpose they serve is that once they waste all their money on autographs, they sell them on eBay.

For awhile now I've wanted signatures of the kids who are in the Harry Potter films. This includes Emma Watson (Hermione), Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), and (to a lesser extent) Rupert Grint (Ron). One guy was selling several of these autographs: A Radcliffe sig, a Grint sig, a Radcliffe and Watson sig, and all three of the kids on one picture. There were no bids on any of them, so I put $5 bucks on all of them, thinking that if I got outbid on all of them, I would focus my energy on just one. Well a few days later the Radcliffe/Watson photo went past $5. Now I still had bids on all of them, but I did really like this one, so I bid $15 on it. Shortly afterwards I was outbid on the Grint photo.

I didn't bid on it again, as I just didn't care as much for his sig as much as I did Radcliffes and Watsons (I actually don't really think Grint is all that great an actor to be honest with you). I notice the bid goes up for the Radcliffe photo, but it only goes up to $4 dollars, so I'm still safe with that one. A couple days later I get several e-mails saying I've been outbid on ALL the auctions! Now this is natural, and I kind of expected it to happen, but the way it happened actually annoyed me quite a bit. You see, if this was a bunch of random bidders I wouldn't mind too much, but I lost the winning bids on all the photos by the EXACT SAME PERSON!!! Not only did one person outbid me on everything, but this was the same guy who already outbid me the last two times.

Well, I can live without most of these, but I still want the triple signed picture and the Radcliffe/Watson pictures (though to some credit, the later was becoming less important to me by now). I bid $30 on each of them and just barely manage to outbid him. Then a couple hours later he outbids me again. I decide to focus all my energies on the triple signature, and I bid $50 on it. Then I get outbid on that again. This is getting ridiculous. This guy is already winning a three other photographs at this point, and he's already GOT a complete set of the kids sigs! So why is he still fighting with me on this one photo? This is starting to tick me off since he doesn't need this photo, and I'm sure I would appreciate it much more then he would.

I e-mail this guy explaining my view on things, that I understand that this is a bidding thing, but asking if he would just back off from this one item. In exchange, I even tell him that I'll back off from the other photographs, since all I really wanted was this one in the first place. His response was, in a nutshell, "Screw you! I'll big whatever I want to." This actually makes me mad, and I put $60.00 on the triple photo, and I bid on the all the other photographs he's bidding on. I know I won't win them, but this will jack up the price of the photos if nothing else. Finally, someone OTHER then this guy outbids me on the photo I want. The price it at $69 dollars at this point. I, at long last, admit defeat.

I'm sure I could've gone higher, but at that point it really wouldn't have been worth it anymore. I could have gone up to $100 dollars, but that would buy me food for a month, so I'm better off saving my money at this point. Still, I really did want that photograph, and I'm annoyed that some prick (who's never actually bought anything on eBay before) decided to be a greedy jerk just for the fun of it. I'm sure I'll have other chances to get these signatures, but this was one bidding war that got ugly. And to think this was the biggest problem I had this week. God I need a life.

Anime Briefs

Recently I've watched (and in some cases finished) several anime series that have been sitting around my house. Just because I can, I'm going to give you my two cents on the stuff I watched:

Neon Genesis Evangelion

I know, I know. This series is ten years old, and chances are if you are even a little bit interested in anime you've seen this show. This is one of the classics of anime, and people still talk about it despite its age. Strangely enough, despite the fact that I've been watching anime since 1997, I've never seen "Neon Genesis Evangelion" until now. A couple of months ago Right Stuf was having a 40% off ADV stuff sale, and I bought the entire series in one swoop. Then I let the DVD's sit on my shelf for a couple months. When I finally got around to watching it earlier this week I ended up watching the whole series in three days. When the series was over only one thought lingered in my mind: What the heck was THAT?!

Not since "The Vision of Escaflowne" had I been so engrossed in an anime series. "Neon Genesis Evangelion" is not only one of the best anime out there, it is one of the best shows I've seen PERIOD! This is the kind of show that redefines what TV, shows, animation, and storytelling can be. It's a feast for the eyes, food for thought, and it's EXTREMELY (and joyishly) twisted to the core! And then there was the ending. You know, I had been warned about the ending for a long time, read every piece of information about how it still puzzles people to this day, and I can honestly say that now that I've actually seen the ending, that it was all 100% true. Regardless how many people warn you about it, you're just never prepared for how this series ends.

I'm not sure whether the ending makes or breaks this series, but it was at least one more sign of how unique this series truly was, and there is a reason we haven't seen anything like it since.

Koi Kaze

Now on a little bit of a different note, "Koi Kaze" is one of the most controversial animes to be released in years. It is about nothing more then two people, a twenty eight year old man and a fourteen year old girl, falling in love with each other, only to discover that they are really brother and sister. It is controversial, it is confusing, you're never completely sure what it is you're supposed to think about the situation, but it is always interesting. I can't say I like the show. I can't say I hate the show. I can't even really tell you if I agree with the ending or not, and even after I had finished the show I was trying to sort everything I had just seen out in my head.

This is a show that is hard to recommend. You can't really recommend it to just anyway, as I'm not really sure if this show was even meant to be entertaining. I do know that it does keep you interested if you have the patience...and an open mind. The entire series has been released by Geneon on three DVD's, and whenever there is a Geneon sale going on you could make far worse impulse buys. So whether you decide to check this show out or not, just keep this in mind: When was the last time an anime made you think so much about life in general?


That's all for now, seeing as how it's getting late and I need to go to work in seven hours, but stay tuned, as I've got more anime I want to talk about in the near future.