Don't Mind Me.

Mega Man Maker: Krion Conquest Remix Part 1.

Overturned Truck Blocks Interstate.

Truck Cuts it Closer than I Thought.

Walmart Employee Runs Out After Customers That Forgot Bag

Tim Wilson: First Loves.

I've discussed this before in the comments section of several posts, but I think it deserves its own article. When I click the stats link I am greeted with an overview that includes page views, posts, traffic sources, and audience in the form of a world map. Clicking the links brings up a page dedicated to each subject and then some.

Nothing too surprising here. The usual suspects are on top of course. For some reason that rant about yuri anime has been popping up for some reason. This topic is the most important of all. It tells me what brings people in. That's why on my personal blog I spent so much time talking about Rosenkreuzstilette, Rosario Vampire, and Discworld Noir instead of Oh My Goddess and Inukami.

This is very important for me as someone that designs his own web sites. You see each browser handles HTML, CSS, and JS in different ways. I have to program based on what people coming to my sites are using. Of course Google does all the coding for me here. Thank goodness.

Interesting if you have some desire to see what operating systems visitors are using. Really not at all useful.

Again only useful if you have some morbid curiosity about what countries people are calling in from. It does confirm that on my personal blog most people come in from England, France, and sometimes Germany to read about the werewolf private detective. Here on this blog the number of visits to Yuru Yuri and other anime related posts tend to match up with the number of visits from Japan.

Thanks to a yuri doujinshi site for the flag counter.

Fun fact: for the past eight years I had a “mysterious” follower on my personal blog. As soon as I mentioned these stats in a comment, that follower disappeared.

I'm Still Her Fan.

Not too long and fortunately before it was too late I decided I just had to tell someone that she is still has fans and that she is missed. After a couple months of searching I found her. In my usual brain damaged way I got my point across. She said she appreciated my efforts and she would really appreciate it if I would never bother her again. Then she took steps to make sure of that.

 I'm not bothered her reaction at all. It's not the first time I've ever seen something like that. Somebody abandons the Net and everything that came with it. Even going so far as to not acknowledge old friends. Remember Joanime? She was a very popular Flash artist and voice actress in the early and mid 2000's. I was perusing my flash videos folder and found a bunch of her stuff I had saved. I decided to check out her site. It was blank and the Internet Archive was blocked. I eventually found a forum run by an old friend of hers and he said he did find Joanime but she summarily blocked him. Something caused her to leave the Net. I don't know what and it's not important. I understand. I mean there are times when I feel my life would be so much easier if I were to flip the switch and turn everything off and just watch YouTube videos.

As to the subject of my fandom, I bare no ill will what-so-ever for being blocked. I do know of some of the bullshit she had to deal with a lifetime ago and my showing up out of the blue the way I did disturbed the peace she was enjoying and probably brought back a lot of bad memories. Then again maybe she doesn't like yuri, fox girls, cemeteries, or lesbian fox girls in cemeteries. I understand I was at fault and should have left well enough alone.

 I will continue to wait patiently for the day she decides to come back to the Net. I'm not holding my breath. But, I am biting my tongue. Someday when I flip out and quit I'll leave a parting message detailing all. Then again maybe if the right person calls I might spill all.

Was Sonic Boom Inspired by Johnboy and Billy?

Update to How Many Ears Does Amy Rose Have.

This is from the game Sonic Boom Fire and Ice, I think. Apparently the ears on top of their heads do work.

(Edit 1-24-21) Should have posted a link to the original article. Might make things a little less confusing.

http://panelmonkey.blogspot.com/2017/08/how-many-ears-does-amy-rose-have.html

Awesome Firework Display in the Middle of No Where.

Five Kitten Therapy.

Really Impatient Guy Runs Over Road Cone.

Nice Little Snow Shower in May.

Why is Firefox so Hell Bent on Forcing MP3s to Play in Browser?

The Incredibly Over Simplified Explanation to Star Wars Force Ghosts.

Force Ghosts appear to those that they have a strong attachment to and have a strong attachment to them.

That's it. Continue reading if you want.

Maybe I should begin by explaining my fan credentials of Star Wars. There's not much there. As of this writing I've seen all but Rouge One. I've had the Blu-Ray since it came out but instead opted to watch When They Cry for the second time in a year. (Pretty amazing plot holes in that series.) I've only watched two seasons of Clone Wars. Excessively boring and an excessive amount of violence. I've opted out of ever watching Rebels. (So much yuri anime out there and it won't watch itself for the third of fifth time.)

To sum up I'm more of a casual fan. The movies are all that I need. Plus some YouTube videos. There's quite a few good ones. But the ones that got me going on this essay are about Force Ghosts. They'll spend from five to fifteen/twenty minutes telling us all about non-cannon Star Wars lore to explain this phenomenon.

In all those hours of videos there are two questions never asked and therefore never answered. Who are the people that become Force Ghosts and who do they appear to? To the best of my knowledge only four people have ever become Force Ghosts: Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Anakin. There's a commonality to their appearances. Qui-Gon appeared to Obi-Wan. Then Obi-wan, Yoda, and Anakin appeared to Luke. (Maybe Leia, not too sure. Probably not.) Force Ghosts appear to those that they have a strong attachment to and have a strong attachment to them.

Only took me one title line of eight words to get to my point. Then three paragraphs of about 239 words and an hour's worth of research and typing to not explain my point.

Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Talking About this Yuru Yuri Mistake.

There was a back and forth going on between me and some people about another post. I promised to make a post about how I'm unarguably almost always some of the time right about mistakes in Yuru Yuri and everybody else is unarguably almost always some of the time wrong.

In researching another mistake I found this. Now let me get this straight, Yui, Kyoko, and Ayano have been going the same middle school for over a year and never met Chistose's twin sister Chizuru?

The Ikeda home seams to have changed quit a bit between seasons one and three.

Just hammering home the point.

This is a mistake because at no point in time are we the viewers ever told that Chitose and Chizuru moved to a new place. In fact in this very episode a flash back makes it look like they always lived there.

Spelling suggestions for Chitose and Chizuru: Schistose and Zurich.

Customer Loses Cool at Fast Food Joint.

Anime Mine: Kotone Noda 2.

More Mistakes in Yuru Yuri.

Sakurako makes a map to her house. Presumably for Chinatsu.

So why does Akari have the map later on? She's been to Sakurako's house before.

On top of that her house is completely different than before.

Now take another look at that map, then look at Sakurako's houses.

Anime Mine: Kureha Tsubaki 1.

Furry Doll Maker: The Foxgirls April and Bonnie.

In what seems my never ending quest to find lost sprite art I come across all sorts of things.
Like the Furry Doll Maker by geN8hedgehog.

    

I finally get to see some of my characters in a form other than sprite. I must admit I have pipe dreamed about getting fan art.

Since I'll never get any, I'll make my own.

Included in that account is the Anime Face Maker.

Toki and Jessica anime style. Wow.

Missed Mistakes in Yuru Yuri.

How did I ever not notice these the first hundred times I watched Yuru Yuri?

In the first screen cap we see that Chitose, Akari, Chinatsu, and Sakurako are wearing old type style school swimsuits. In the amount of time it took to switch cameras they must have ran back to the dressing rooms and changed into new type swim suits.

Did Kyouko take her North Korean Flag wrist band off to dance around? Then put it back on a second later? Why did I miss these so painfully obvious mistakes before? My guess is that I'm reading the subtitles while all this is going on. That's one of the reasons why I prefer dubbed anime. Then again would I want to listen to hours of names being mispronounced? A-kar-ree. Kee-o-ko. Chee-nots. Sa-kur-ra-ko. Hee-ma-war-ree.

Anime Mine: Liz Thompson 2.

Japan is as schizo over censorship as America.

In this video you often here the narrator lament about how Nintendo censors video games coming over from Japan. What is never explained is why North America, more specifically the United States tends to be more conservative than the rest of the world (it seems.)

It goes back to who it was that settled America in the 15 and 1600's. Starting in the 1500's you had the Protestant Reformation. From what I understand is that an ever growing number of people grew tired of the excesses of the Catholic Church and wanted to go back to more simpler ways to worship. Like the Christians 1500 years earlier who were persecuted by the dominant Roman religion and state the newly formed Protestants were also persecuted. Groups of people had had enough of this and decided to make a go of it in the new world.

All these Protestants, Pilgrims, and Puritans came here to America to worship as they saw fit without being too interfered from the homeland. Now keep in mind these are people who were to uptight for even England. They wanted freedom of religion for themselves, not for anybody else that had some different ideas on how to pray to God. They were just as vicious as the Church and the states they fled from. (What was it that Jesus called people like that?)

(One, two, skip a few, 99, 100.)

Now back to the title of this post.

With two screen shots of a very popular anime (and one of my favorites,) Yuru Yuri I shall prove my point. (How popular is it? You can by the soundtracks on the American iTunes.)

Why tuck, fold, and constantly change the length of a skirt if she is wearing shorts underneath?  I do thank the animators of Yuru Yuri for NOT ever giving us a constant stream of panty shots of 13 year old girls.

In an aside, I do know that Yuru Yuri is a satire on the yuri genre, but was it ever really necessary to have a woman wear her sister's underwear on her head?

(One of my favorite voice actresses, too.)

Anime Mine: Kotone Noda 1.

Two Years Ago, or More Precisely...

In 2002 I was visiting one of my favorite stores the Anime Cafe to pick up some manga and ironically enough anime, when one of the clerks told me to look at this:

My introduction to sprite comics made from graphics ripped from games. I had never heard of this but I was immediately hooked. I had to know where these came from. Up to that point all I was doing was fanfiction in the hopes that one day I would get MiSTed. I had always wanted to do comics based on my favorite video games like Mega Man and Final Fantasy. Maybe even mix in my favorite anime like Tenchi Muyo and Sailor Moon.

Sprites opened up a whole new universe for me. I can now do the stories I always wanted to do but couldn't because of my total inability to draw. First I had to find where all these sprites came from. After many an MSN search. (Google wasn't much of a factor then.) Following links and suggestions on forums I found myself here:

Panelmonkey.org, The People's Sprites. I was in heaven. All those game rip and public domain sprites all for my use. They even had the legendary Dr. Wily sprite made by Deccus.

From 2002 to 2009 it was my number one place to go for sprites. 2009. We all know what happened. I don't need to get into it because I know about as much as you do.

I started making a daily pilgrimage to The People's Sprites that soon turned into every other day. Then once a week. Every other week. Once a month. Every other month. To about a couple times a year. Finally when ever I saw a link on someone's site I happen to come across.

In May of 2014 I was raiding the Internet Archive for sprites from dead sites to include in my sprite site, The Sprite Cemetery. I was on The People's Sprites trying to figure out how to mass download all the sprites when it occurred to me, I should check to see if panlemonkey.org is back. It wasn't, but this ad from GoDaddy was there:

(Oh how I despise GoDaddy. That's a story for another time.)

I couldn't resist so I looked into it. You can get a free account. That's a good selling point. It hooked me. To hire a negotiator was $70. There's a lot I could do with seventy dollars. That's a mighty fine couple or pizzas or five gallons of gas. I thought “What the hell, why not? The opportunity is too great to pass up. Think about all those sites still linked to panelmonkey.org. All that SEO could be mine. What's the worse that could happen? The owner says no and I'm out $70.”

After a week or so I get an email from GoDaddy saying there hasn't been a response and they are trying again. A few weeks later with no response I pretty much gave up.

Anime Mine: Liz Thompson 1.

Turn a Video into an Animated Gif.

Programs you must have:

GIMP- GNU Image Manipulation Program

https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

GAP- Gimp Animation Package

http://photocomix-resources.deviantart.com/art/GAP-2-6-for-Gimp-2-6-Windows-135464357

Additional programs you may want:

DVD Ripping software of your choice. (I prefer DVD Shrink.)

Freemake Video Convertor.

Export Layers plugin for GIMP

http://registry.gimp.org/node/28268

A GIF making program you like. Gimp does the job, but I like JASC Animation Shop better.

 

I have been working on the self inflicted wound that is Anime Mine for a couple of years now. I've grown fond of making animated GIFs instead of just posting stills. (They sometimes get a like.) For an upcoming post I want to show case a moving image of Tamami from Angel Tales.

 

Normally I would use VLC and take snapshots every frame. This is exceptionally tedious. Unfortunately I have yet to find a program that can easily make an animated GIF from video, or just extract the frames I need. I have found a process that is long, almost as tedious as VLC, in fact can be very frustrating, but does work.

 

I already have the DVDs ripped. Now to import the episode to Freemake Video Converter to isolate the exact scene that I want. You only want to deal with the frames you need, not the tens of thousands that will be made if you don't edit it down.

Drag and drop the episode into Freemake and click the scissors to the left.

 

 

Now we have the video editor. For expediency I won't go through all the controls. In fact I'll skip to the scene.

 

 

Now to import to GIMP.

Click on Video and then Split Video into Frames. Next click on Extract Videorange.

 

 

 

That will pop out and extended view. Take the slider marked in red and slide it all the way to the right. Then don't touch anything else on the right side. It's buggy and will mess up if you do. Under the slider is a number. That is how many frames are in this clip. You need to input that number in the "To Frame" box. Next check "Create only one multilayer Image." Then click okay.

 

I don't really like the way animated GIFs look when made with GIMP, so I'll export all the layers as separate images. Go to File and Export Layers, click the button oddly named “Export Layers,” take the slider for Compression level to zero and hit export.

 

(Looks like a bad frame, now is a good time to take it out.)

 

Now I will fire up JASC Animation Shop to make the animated GIF, but this has gone on long enough and I'll save that tutorial for another time.

Not so fast.

I guess I still have a few things on my chest. Stay tuned.

The Grand Experiment Finally...

...Comes to an end. You've seen this before. When someone quits doing whatever is they are doing  one of many reasons are given. Mine is a little different, I got it out of my system. I'm all talked out. Sure there are tons of stuff I never got around to saying, but that can keep by me. I've said what I've needed to say, I don't need to say much more.

I'm not abandoning the blog. I will check in once in awhile to see how things are going. Respond to a comment that might come in once, maybe twice a year.

I'm still going to occupy my own little corner way down in the deepest, darkest, dankest, dorkest parts of the internet. Ravy Comics is going nowhere anytime soon. I've begun production on the 2015 run of comics. No idea where that's going to take me.

I did get a couple of things out of this. I think my writing has improved. I think about what is I'm trying to say, what I need to say, what I want to say, think twice and thrice about actually saying it. Search Engine Optimization is the other big lesson I learned. I can talk about whatever I want, but if I want people coming to my sites, well, I think I need to talk more about Rosenkreuzstilette, Rosario Vampire, Zook the Hero Z, and Discworld Noir. Thanks to them for all the inadvertent SEO.

Thank you to all that came here for the reasons that you did. 

Remember: Spill chucks wont cats gamma.

Unofficial Official Ravy Comics Theme Song.

Unofficial Official Ravy Comics Online Blog Theme Song.

(Caution: There's A LOT of cursing in this.)