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It's fun to stay a the A-X-N-Y !!!!

Well, I'll still be at AXNY when this is posted (if it's a little late, I apologize. I'm not sure exactly when I'll have a chance to do the update). I'll say more about that once I get back home and have recovered from it. In case you haven't realized it yet, I usually write these rants earlier in the week. I don't like to rush things too much. Also, it gives me a chance to revise things.

So, to tide you over until I finish reconnoitering AXNY (and of course the propaganda assult), I'll treat you to some more random thoughts from my mind.

I saw "Signs" this past weekend, and I was a wreck at the end of the movie (this is a good thing). All I have to say is M. Night Shyamalan is a genius. He manages to break so many rules in writing and telling an effective story, but the final movie still maintains cohesion. It's amazing that the movie holds together at all! There are so many things that just don't work. There are things that are things that are obviously contrived, things that are inaccurate and things that are outright impossilbe, but Shyamalan manages to fool you into believing it anyway. It's like a mass Jedi-mind-trick! I know that the movie has gotten mixed review, and I can understand where a lot of the critics of the film come from, but IMO, they're all missing the big picture. One should view signs as one would view an impressionist painting. It's not the intent of the artist to create extreme realism. If you look at it too closely, all you see are rough enigmatic brush strokes. But if you take a step back and see how all the elements work together, you grasp the themes and ideas that the artist is trying to convey. Although some people like to analyze the individual elements, the piece was never meant to be viewed that way. The beauty is not in the elements anyway, it's in how they interact with eachother to make an awesome film.

Well, I guess that's it. Tune in next time for the amazing adventures of Joe at AXNY!

Currently updated weekly every Monday.

September 1

• Page 16 is up
• the info page should be fixed. Why wasn't I told sooner that it was broken?!?!?!

August 26

• Page 15 is up

August 19

• Page 14 is up
• EZBoard Forum is up (see link above)

August 12

• Page 13 is up.
• Links page is up along with some mini-banners if you want to link to us.

August 5

• Page 12 is up
• Character page has been updated

Well, while Joe's off partying at AXNY, I'm stuck here working away on pages. Well, it's not all bad. Being Labor Day weekend, I don't have to work Monday, woohoo!, so the page is a little behind schedule, because I was slacking off. I hope you'll forgive me but all these Labor Day movie marathons are so damn distracting!. Also I was in Philly this weekend, and made a much needed Pocky run at Chung May in Chinatown. Oh, it's been so long. I saw Giant Pocky Sticks. I didn't even know they existed. I wanted some, but I had to settle for the normal variety. Unfortunately, my Pocky seems to have melted together to form Pocky clusters, but it's alright. It all ends up in the same place anyway, right?

Well, the fall season is upon us. The weather is starting to cool, all the kids are heading back to school, and new tv shows are upon us. Yeah! This summer was kind of boring but the fall season looks to be promising with a hoard of newcomers. I'm really excited to see Inu-Yasha come to the States (bless you cartoon network!) though I need to get used to the voices. Also Big O 2 should be on its way soon, and I managed to catch the debut on Friday of the two new Toonami additions, Transformers: Armada and the new He-Man. Admittedly, the jury's still out on whether or not I actually like these shows but at least it's some fresh blood. I think I could grow to like them. Watching He-Man brought a wave of eighties nostalgia over me that made me feel like I was in my jelly shoes again. My memories of the old show are probably a bit biased since I was like eight when He-Man was last on the air. I'm sure if I watched it now, I'd be aghast. Still, the new show is....well, it's hard to describe. To begin with, Adam's kind of a punk. He misses the golly-gee innocence of the old prince Adam. And the action sequences, oh the action sequences. In the opening sequence of the first ep, we see Randor, Adam's father and future king of Eternia, battle Keldor, who will eventually become Skeletor and looks very much like a blue Ming the Merciless wannabe. The ensuing battle has an overabundance of camp, like the animators were sprung on pixie stix. Watch, as Keldor spins his double swords in hand, leaps through the air, performs a triple axle twice, and lands before Randor. Watch, as in EXTREME slow motion, he launches a capsule of acid at Randor, which shatters on the man's shield and ricochets back into his face. Oh the humanity. This, presumably, is what gives Skeletor his present visage that we all know and love, but for heaven's sake, why are they hiding it from us later in the show? As if we didn't know? As if they haven't shown thirty-thousand commercials showing his skull face? Hmmm. Well, don't take all this to mean that I don't like the show. Some apsects certainly didn't impress me though I was taken with the modern interpretation and appearance of many of the He-man universe characters. And, God help me, I shouldn't talk because I still love Orco. When you think about it, he's really a distant cousin of the Black Mage. How could you not like him??? Anyway, I'll certainly give the show a chance.

Well, that's all for now. Joe will probably have his take on the AXNY for next week and hopefully I'll get a page up for the Otakon report soon. Finally, and maybe I'm the last to know this, but Spirited Away is coming to the U.S. September 20th! Go see it. Support anime in the theaters!