I've been spending a ton of time recently watching this show I got off KAA about a month ago but never had time to watch. With spring break this week, I've had lots of free time, so I decided to watch it. It's called Planetes, and it is my new favorite show. It's a tough battle to kick Hellsing off the top, but Planetes earned it. This feels like the first show that I've watched with the production value of a full blown movie. The show begins and seems to be the kind of show that you can miss an episode and not miss anything, the next episode doesn't continue from it. It slowly gets a more involved plot, and by halfway they're throwing at least two parters, sometimes more. By the end, it's a dedicated show, and it turns out that episode you missed at the beginning was really important in the plotline afterall. I can't believe it. They develop the characters amazingly, each one has a history, emotions of their own, and interact with each other in some interesting ways. None is a cookie cutter of another. As far as I know, it's probably the only show that actually is right about space in every regard. The little things that you ignore in StarWars, like lasers making noises, and all the engine sounds, stand out in Planetes. They stand out because they're real. They don't make sound. In every space shot, it's actually done right. The audio is correct. The gravity is amazing. The ship designs are cool. The space suits are believable. The soundtrack is quality. It's the kind of music that blends perfectly. I believe the composer for StarWars actually said that a good sound track is the kind you don't realize you're humming along to, but a bad sound track stands out and makes the entire movie miserable. This was done right, and done well. The animation was done beautifully. I never had a problem with the animation. In some shows, you might notice that the timing is off--I can't quite explain it; it always seems to be a stuttering object that doesn't move quite right, and your eyes are drawn to it, which only makes it worse of course--but Planetes is perfect. Now that I've basically said that they did everything right, I'll give you a brief synopsis of the plot. Well. Maybe Wikipedia should do it. They did a much better job than I could.

Lastly, links to watch the show! This one is a direct torrent link. And for more stuff from KAA, check out this link.

Watch it! Believe me, you will not regret it.

Adion is currently listening to: Snow Patrol - Making Enemies [4:19]

I don't like new blogger. :(

So, I did go to UIUC that Thursday, and I did stay until Friday. I had a hella-awesome time. Twas a blast. Thanks to everybody who showed up and said hello and stuff, it was nice seeing you all again!

Unfortunately, the day after I got back I started to feel sick. I wasn't sure what was wrong with me. It might have been the flu, but I don't know because I never threw up, so... I felt like shit, everything ached, and then on Tuesday the aching had left me and I had a cold instead. I don't quite know what happened. I suffered with it for two days and then my Mom bought me some medicine or another that was supposed to keep my nose from running. Thank god, it did. And I'm almost feeling perfect again today. Bleh, sickness. I'm pretty sure I get sick this time of year every year... I thought it was later in the year by a month or so, because I thought I might have allergies to the pollen or something, but I dunno. I'll find out then I guess :(

On Tuesday my computer decided to be shitty on me. I was playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and was just saving when my computer locked up. Pandora Tomorrow has been pretty shitty to me already, so I chalked it up to bad port code. I restarted, and loaded back up Windows. Loaded the game again, and it died on the opening movie I was watching (for no good reason). This was curious to me, as I had watched the movie in the past with no issues. It had a sufficient hold on my system that I couldn't alt tab out, so I hard-restarted again. This time, I had lines on my screen. WHAT? FUCK! I loaded up Ubuntu, hoping maybe it was just a Windows problem. Nope. My computer locks up shortly thereafter, and I give up. I had basically decided my video card was shot when I went downstairs and bought a new video card on newegg. Expensive thing too. XFX NVidia 8800GTS 320MB. (Sorry Jordan, I'm a traitor. I don't want to upgrade again in a year, and I can't do Crossfire with this motherboard. And it supports DX10)

Earlier today, my mom was asking me to rip some of her CDs and reburn them on one CD (take multiple & put on one), and I was trying to think of the program I use that rips and encodes CDs really well. I couldn't think of it, so I resigned to look it up on my PC before it crashed again. I hit the power button, and nothing happens. WHAT? FUCK! NO! At this point, I'm notice that my computer actually smells a little bit like BBQ. Not kidding. I cried a little inside, "It was my power supply this whole time? I bought a video card for nothing?" I take the power supply out, and take it apart. Looks alright... Not sure what's wrong with it. (even now) My package arrives in the mail. Yay, my unneeded video card! At this point I was cursing myself for having to spend shipping both ways, and probably a restocking fee as well. What a waste of money. I wait for my dad to come home, and we go shopping for a new PSU. (power supply unit) I don't feel like waiting until Wednesday for my replacement to get in the mail, especially if I found out it was something else too, like my motherboard. We come back, I install the new PSU. Boot it up, and I still have lines on my screen. I'm not sure what emotion I felt at this point. Previously I was tempted to use the new video card just because it was new, and sell the old one if it still worked. This meant that I actually had to use the new one, and the old one was as good as trash.

So, now I've got the thing all up and running. I have to say that I really like the drivers for it, at least. And I'm happy that ATIs drivers are at least well programmed enough to uninstall when I tell them to. No obvious traces of them are left. To try out the new video card, I threw up Oblivion, at maximum spec's. It's breathtaking. I used to run at the middle, but like this it's really amazing. Literally, I can't imagine engines getting much more perfect than this. IMO, they should start focusing on getting the realism of Oblivion's engine on weaker machines. Optimise the code, etc.

I kinda like this "8bit music" genre. A friend of mine linked me a nice zip file of some songs, and it was pretty interesting actually. Basically, it's music from old games remixed into an almost drum & bass/hard house track. Plus the occasional audio drop from something else entirely. Interesting stuff.

I think I'll watch a couple more episodes of Planetes and then head to bed, so, good night all! Sorry my PC paragraphs were so long.

Adion is currently listening to: Kkrusty - imgonnabeatthiskidsheadin [2:09]