This blog is dead.

This blog is dead. Don't come back.

Initiate Launch Sequence

It's a while since my last post, but that's because I now subscribe to the content method of writing my articles, compared to the episodic method I once favoured.

Regardless of the reasons, I will now make another monumental announcement:
I shall be leaving Balik Pulau, for Kota Kinabalu.

After six months, I finally received confirmation of my acceptance into Universiti Malaysia Sabah to study International Tropical Forestry.

How and what does it mean by "International", when I can find no in-depth details of the programme on the UMS homepage, remains to be seen.

How will this affect you? Well, it means I am one step closer to becoming Environment Minister of Malaysia, whereupon I will do everything possible to make your life a living hell if you so much as toss a plastic bag onto the streets.

Finally, a link to a fascinating blog discussing the issues of anime fansubbing. I would prefer you read it and understand the issues before you download your next anime.

In fact, I hope you will forever be dogged by feelings of guilt (like me), about downloading anime. But that would mean I would expect you to care.

LOL.
ROTFLMAO.
LOL

The EverAnime Stink

I wish to share something personally painful.

My pride and joy.

My first Cowboy Bebop CD, is a bootleg.

Okay, the pictures:

Here's Cowboy Bebop: No Disc

Here's another view.


And here's the moneyshot.

Know why?

Ever Anime is a known bootleg producer, as refered to from this site.

And here's the EverAnime wikipedia entry.

Don't make the same mistakes I made.

Avoid EverAnime (and also SonMay) like a Taliban fighter touring the USA.

Gunslinger Girl Bootlegs in Queensbay

Gunslinger Girl, as everyone who has experience the discomfort of listening to me talk about anime knows, is my all time favourite must-watch-must-buy anime.

So before we proceed with my latest findings, please visit the wiki. Trust me, you will be referring to it in a while.

Queensbay is home to an anime shop on the same floor as the cinemas, you can't miss it.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon the latest season of Gunslinger Girl (Il Teatrino, with all 13 episodes no less!) being sold for not more than RM20.00.

The Japanese television broadcast (on Tokyo MX TV) for the series, as you can read in the wiki, ended on the 31st of March, 2008.

This is an important date, because Japanese broadcasters demand a 90 day monopoly on the anime series being broadcast:

"When we're dealing with a TV series, very often Japanese TV networks...[demand] a 90-day monopoly on that product. From the day that it premieres on whatever TV network in Japan, for the next 90 days, absolutely no one is allowed to show that product anywhere else in the world,"

In essence, this explains why most legal anime you see being sold come in blocks of 3 episodes, as the 90 day limit lapses on each individual episode.

While this is a moronic distribution method, it is absolutely legal.

So unlike the bootleg 13-episodes-in-one-DVD Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino (with a Gun X Sword logo emblazoned above it for some nefarious reason), this would be what a typical legal DVD box set from Japan would look like.

Of course, I checked this site out to view its legality, and you can read the ratings here.

Though the reviews are rather disparaging, the words "illegal", "piracy", and "bootleg" do not appear.

In conclusion, don't buy any illegal or pirated software. Okay, I know the majority of you folks out there think it's your god-given right to buy cheap VCDs and DVDs.

But the truth is, you can survive without these item, because they are being purchased with DISPOSABLE INCOME. The moral thing to do if you believe the item is overpriced is not to buy it at all. Being a software/web design company employee has made me regret many of the statements and actions I have made regarding pirated software, and I am now striving to rectify these mistakes.

What galls me isn't the prevalence of pirated products, but pirated products being passed off as the real thing... in large national book stores and video outlets. This essentially means consumers don't even have an obvious choice for legal products.

It may be a difficult decision for many, but the choice to purchase pirated products is one of those tiny judgements in life that defines you as a person. For:

Though the soul be single comprehending,
Man is but the sum of things him.