If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I mean like their No Strings Attached music video when they’re all hanging around (or out! ha-ha-ha!) on strings and stuff.

Just a thought.

Actually, I don’t know exactly what that means, but it seemed to be an appropriate title for a post detailing things I want to eventually have in my residence (wherever that will be). Just for reference, I don’t plan on living in anything other than a small apartment. Cleaning things up is a bitch, you see?

I’m gonna try to list things that are relatively specific, so I’m not gonna write things like “a toothbrush” and stuff.

A 30-40″ 1080p LCD HDTV attached to a decent computer and speaker system for a home entertainment system, so I can sit on my couch and compute or watch things on… well, TV.

A convertible tablet laptop. I’m actually hoping to get one sometime later this year, as they’re slated to fall in price with more manufacturers entering the market. Regardless, they’re cool little things. You can draw on them for heaven’s sake, what else can you ask for?

A big whiteboard in my room to write down things that I need to remember, like kanji or something.

Futon instead of beds. They’re cooler and you can fold them up when you need space.

Two woks. I cook for myself a lot, and I find myself thinking “dammit, I wish I had a wok” a lot. Two is just because I use two of everything so I can leave it in the sink and still have one to cook with when I’m lazy, but prevents me from being lazy twice in a row.

A Gameboy DS. I’ve actually found myself using computers for computer things lately (aka, not that much gaming) so I’m wondering if a DS will keep me entertained. Or whatever’s out by the time I actually have money to afford this crap.

Uh… I’ll think of more later.

Darker than Black is my pick for this season for possible inclusion into my dubious hall of fame. Crisp animation, fast action, and intriguing world concept. And no sign of any quality failure in the near future (or hopefully, at all).

Oh, and I love how the OP animation in general, and how it scrolls the title which is just as cool. “Now I’ve lost it, I know I can kill, the truth lies beyond the Gate.” Darker… than… BLACK!

Lucky Star is the other series I’m watching, one part because I’m a KyoAni fanboy, and another part because its nice, easy viewing with nice crisp animation. It’s actually casually funny, too, kind of in the everyday sort of way. There’s not a lot that’s amazing about it, but almost nothing that is wrong. While we’re judging anime by OP animations, its caffeine-charged OP also has the most awesome parody opening ever.

Since I’m on the topic, can I just say I don’t understand the KyoAni/Haruhi hate? Although I don’t quite understand why people want to put Haruhi on a pedestal and worship it, it ranked among the top-class of its contemporaries, without question. Unless you’re blind, or retarded, and then there’s no saving you.

On the other hand, it wasn’t absolutely amazing, and I can name a few series that were actually far better I-M-not-so-humble-O, yet I see almost nothing about those. This weird dichotomy of people that think Haruhi was the second advent of Evangelion in terms of influence (it’s not) and people that think Haruhi was trash (it’s not) confuses me.

People are stupid. I think it’s just because Haruhi was the first top-class animation that wasn’t something super-established like GITS – in terms of all aspects – to hit a widespread audience, and it really put KyoAni on the map for people that don’t pay attention to that stuff. Then they were like, “omg best anime evaar” despite the fact that there were many anime that are considered top-class; they just haven’t seen them or don’t want to. And because people are stupid, a bunch of people had to be unique or some shit and follow each others’ asses to the absolute other opinion, for no other real reason than to have that absolute other opinion and be morons about it as well.

Lucky Star isn’t as good as Haruhi, but it’s not a bad series; hell, I’ll say it’s better than most of the ones being released. Yet, people are bashing it both because they loved Haruhi and it’s not as good, and because they hated Haruhi and it’s not as good. What the hell?

Diethylene glycol is a compound used in hydraulic fluids and as an industrial solvent. It was also used to cut corners in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

If you’ve owned a pet before, you might have heard warnings about making sure that antifreeze leaks and containers are not accidentally accessed by your dogs and such. Because the substance is sweet, they tend to lap up a fatal amount of it before they realize its poison. However, we expect things like cough syrup to be sweet because of the syrup they put inside it, not because an antifreeze substance was used instead.

This Times article is a report on some irresponsible corner cutting in the manufacturing process of Chinese ingredients, which eventually ended up dumping diethylene glycol into the bloodstream of people in Panama and China, and possibly other places as well. With the recent pet food fiasco (in which, by the way, we still don’t know what was doing the actual poisoning) this almost doesn’t come at a surprise, but China’s reputation as a source manufacturer continues to be tarnished by questionable ethics and faulty business  practices creating dangerous products that are then ingested by living creatures. Just as bad is the shirking of responsibility both before and after the fact; although some cases get prosecuted, others are ignored, and officials don’t seem to care that much about China’s export.

Even if it is poisonous.

We all knew she does some retarded things, but it seems this time she really is going to become someone’s bitch.

After getting her license suspended for something, she got a DUI and was sentenced to 45 days jail time starting sometime next month. Don’t worry, Paris, everyone makes mistakes. It’s just funnier when a skank does them!

Well, not really. But it’s a little close for comfort.

Polysorbate 60 is a major ingredient in some sexual lubricants, and sorbitan monostearate is sometimes used as a hemorrhoid cream. Both are found in Cool Whip. It makes the sex and food fetish all that more interesting, I say.

Children in Japan and China discuss the relationship between the two countries.

I thought it was interesting in how this tiny sample gives ample evidence of cultural and economic trade, but even schoolchildren know about the political and historical disconnect between the two powers.

I’ve always been skeptical of the general-ness of these things, but this is surprisingly accurate on a quite specific level… lol.

Sign up here.

Ah, the Consumerist is such a great site.

I can rent any tux cheaper than you can
I can rent any tux cheaper than you
Fifty bucks
Forty bucks
Thirty bucks
Twenty bucks
Twenty bucks, twenty bucks? Your tux sucks!