[Contains Spoilers] In this 7th episode of series 5 of Doctor Who (or series 1 in the UK, season 31 for old school fans), “Amy’s Choice”, the Doctor, Amy and Rory are trapped by a man calling himself the Dream Lord, and gives them a difficult choice; choose the real world. In one world, it is 5 years later, and Rory and Amy are married, living in a quaint country village where Rory is a doctor, and Amy is pregnant. In the other, they are still traveling in the TARDIS. Both face dangerous situations. They must decide which world is the dream and which is reality. I liked the idea for this episode when it started, with the Doctor going back and visiting an old companion and all. Amy and Rory are living in the English country side in a quiet town. Their home is a quaint stone house with ivy and roses climbing around it, and geese running around in the yard. The scenes in this town had some good moments, including Amy trying to run whild pregnant (something I can relate to), and having old people as the enemy was just awesome. But these moments weren’t enough to…
Cons for the Holiday Two cons ran over the long Memorial Day weekend. Anime North is a Canadian convention, and blogger Lissa Pattillo attended. She has two extensive posts about the con, dealer room, and panels she attended, with a third for the last day possibly on the way. Over on the US west coast was Fanime. Several west coast manga bloggers attended and had a meetup. Deb Aoki has a photo gallery of her three days there. There were no big announcements from either con, but with Anime Expo and San Diego Comic Con coming up in a month, that’s understandable. Still check out the posts for what smaller, reasonable cons are like. Stretching the Manga Buck I’ve talked about Bookcloseout.com before several times. It a great site to get remainder books for a decent price. The problem with the site has been that it’s mostly only Tokyopop manga that ‘s been available. Not that I haven’t gotten some good titles at great prices, but some variety would be nice. Blogger Tangogant recently discovered another publisher has joined Tokyopop. Yen Press titles, particularly their Korean manhwa titles have appeared on the site. The books are available at 60% off,…
The first shot in the tablet wars began with Apple’s release of the iPad, and technology companies have responded. At Computex, a computer and technology show several companies were showing off new devices, some to be available as early as this Fall. The big announcement that everyone is touting is from the creator of the netbook, Asus. They announced three tablets. The Eee Pad will come in two versions. The EP101TC will come with a 10 in screen and the EP121TC will have a 12 in screen. Both devices will be able to playback multimedia, read e-books, browse the web, and with a keyboard can be used as a computer. Asus is promising 10 hours of battery life with these devices. Exact specs or release date haven’t been announced yet. The Eee Tablet is the Asus e-reader. It uses a reflective LCD screen instead of e-ink, and is in grey scale instead of color. It will include a touch screen and style for note taking. It uses Wacom’s pen input technology for more precise and accurate notes. Asus is aiming this device at students. It will include a webcam, microSD slot and USB slot. It will also have a 10…
It’s been tough to be a manga fan lately, with one bad piece of bad news after another, and publishers being yanked out from under us. But there is one company that’s weathered the storm of fans and economy and is slowly, but surely making its way back. Back in 2008, when Tokyopop did their whole restructuring, many doom sayers didn’t they could return to be the company they once where. That part is try, but in a good way, that’s a good thing. Tokyopop before the restructuring was a mess, stretched out too far, and using the “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” method of licensing. But after two years of streamlining, they have been coming back to life as it were, and bringing with it some titles some of the fans never thought we would see again. One of the titles I thought never be finished was Pick of the Litter, a B-grade comedy about cats and an alternate world. I really liked the comedy, but I’m sure it wasn’t a spectacular seller. Still, Tokyopop finished it last month by releasing the last two volumes in an omnibus edition. Another title that I didn’t…