animeOnline goes DOWN

Holy crap.

Japanator reports/confirms that animeOnline has been taken OFFline. Needless to say, this was abrupt. The official line at the now removed aO is as follows:

We would like to thank everyone for supporting our beta test of animeOnline.

Though we are proud of our editorial work, there were a number of technical issues discovered during the beta.

Rather than frustrating our fans by cobbling together technical fixes and slapping them onto the site, we feel it would be better for us to fix the issues, evaluate all the items fans want and re-launch the site at a later time.

Keep an eye out for the exciting re-launch.

Thanks,
animeOnline.com

If any relaunch is happening, they didn't tell the current editors. I'll be keeping up with Gia's blog posts, & Dale went back to Japanator & Destructoid. The entire good bye 'epilogue/contact information' is posted at giapet.net. Read it here.

I have to say, this bums me out mightily.

Video Dump! (Manga, 2nd Life & Japanese tv)

Tokyopop has opened up a tv channel of sorts. It has the first episodes of some of their OEL (Original English Language) manga. Currently running is : Riding Shotgun, I Love Halloween, A Midnight Opera, & Bizenghast. So far my favorite is Riding Shotgun. Go waste time at http://www.myspace.com/tokyopoptv

Van Gogh's Starry Night has been recrated in Second Life. This is no small task. Heck, I had problems hanging pictres up on the wall properly. More info & video here.
via Boing Boing

Comedy duo Gaki no Tsukai go on some hysterical tirades about curry & Big Macs.

In unrelated news, dog sniffing. As in, people sniffing dogs.
via Japan Probe

Ayu is now single....

First it was Utada breaking up with her siginificant other, now Channel Ai blog reports that after 7 years together, "J-Pop Queen Ayumi Hamasaki and TOKIO vocalist and actor, Tomoya Nagase have announced the end of their relationship on the 13th July, 2007."
Bummer.

Read the rest at Channel Ai

Anna Tsuchiya Commercial

Kotaku found some interesting commercials for cell phone games. My favorite is the second clip with Anna playing cell phone bowling with her friends. That room is giving me Kamikaze Girls flashbacks. I keep waiting for grandma to come in chasing after a fly.

Here's another, stranger, cell phone commercial with Anna. Involves a mechanical bull. Oh-kay...

New Princess? Kind of.

Via Digg (who then promptly killed the site with too much traffic) then Wii Fanboy, a screenshot of a new princess from Super Mario Galaxy. Her name is Rosetta, she's very blonde and not replacing good ol' Peach. Hit the link for an image of her at WiiFanboy.

X-Men 204 (ARGH!)

I had a partial list of solicitations from Newsarama, but Rid @ Majoria's News clearly has a better source than I do. He's posted a link to the list as well as the cover to X-Men 204. (His July 17 post)

Gawddamnit....I'm happy about the lack of glove but effing infuriated about pretty much everything else. Thanks for encouraging abusive relationships Marvel.

"I know I tried to kill you more than once, dumped you in Golgotha, tried to screw Foxx while on the astral plane (in your head) possibly banged your mom, turned into a horseman of Apocalypse, tried to kill you AGAIN, killed your team-mate, & joined the Marauders...but...you still love me don't you, cherie?"

"Aw, I'm just a dumb hick shugah, of course I do."


*head desk head desk head desk*

She Hulk 19, probably still on shelves!

In less random news, go pick up She Hulk 19. It is awesome and fantastic and attempts to explain why Shulkie has been going rather slut-tastic these days. (yes, that's The Leader on the cover...Mallory is so evil.) It's equal parts amusing, aggravating and embarrassing. I had more reaction to this issue than I did to X-Men 200. Don't get me wrong, 200 was great, but you really feel for poor Jen in this issue. (also, possible return of Pug? Unfortunate facial hair, but still good news, I hope)

Dan Slott had some rough storylines on his She Hulk run, but the recent ones have been really good. I'm looking forward to Peter David, but I have to say that I'll miss Slott & I'm still bummed he's (essentially) taking the law firm with him. ;_;

Issue 20 drops on August 7th, so there's still time to get in on this storyline!

2 weeks later, the return!

In addition to all the personal stuff going on, & projects needing completion, I caught some sort of odd illness. Its like the Outer Mongolian Brown Spotted Racing Ostrich Flu or something. (Probably a stubborn cold virus more like.) I'm now on the road to recovery and one very, very large project has been completed. Things are moving forward and I can start posting on a more regular basis. So, to get started, have some creepy undergarment news with a dash of hug pillow and nom nom nom.

Freaky deaky antigravity pantsu. First seen on a ecchi figure, actually exist. (link ok, pics in link probably nws, but not too bad.) - source: Happy Soda

Gurren Lagann character Yoko will be the 'object' of affection this August as her image will adorn a 'hug pillow'.
-source Heisei Democracy -site is ok, don't click on the pics at work, k?

Great cat or greatest cat? Either way, this corn on the cob eating cat is ridiculous cute.
source: Japan Probe (work safe 99% of the time, but there is a giant bikini model article, so the cat link is safe, but the main link has bewbs upon scroll.)