Still The Best Version of That Dragon

Y'know, I'm mostly neutral on the old Hobbit cartoon, but one thing I did rather love in it was the depiction of Smaug.



In fact, in terms of presence and personality, I can't think of more than, oh, one other dragon with the same degree of presence as Smaug has here*, with the strobing spotlight eyes and the booming voice. Having watched a random clip of the Hobbit trilogy Smaug, I had to respond "what's up with this weird flat little hissy guy?"

(Also still holding out for David Kaye doing a dragon character voice, seeing as how his BW Megatron voice was basically an ideal dragon voice already.)

*Draco from Dragonheart; much as I love Granamyr from the He-Man series, he's got the presence of a huge old man, not a furious dragon. Which kinda fits; he's a lot more scholarly than the average dragon, and his main claim to extreme dragonlike power comes from the fact that he's the most powerful wizard on a planet crammed with extremely powerful wizards**.

On the subject of voices of dragons, on the extremely unlikely off-chance that I was ever casting current voices for a He-Man cartoon, Hector Elizondo, who voiced Wan Shi Tong in The Last Airbender and Viragor in the Thundercats remake would be my ideal Granamyr voice.

**A relatively mid-range pair of Eternian magic users combined their magic to create a spell that knocked one of Eternia's moons from its orbit. Granamyr was unambiguously much stronger than another individual who was ambiguously stronger than an individual who was stronger than either of them. Which is to say Granamyr's a really powerful wizard.

-Signing off.

You Won a Few Points Back, Voltron

So I've been unable to develop any interest in the most recent Voltron series, just because it doesn't look like my proverbial cup of tea.

Then I see this trailer for an upcoming and apparently mostly or entirely unrelated Voltron series:



Hot dang, I want to see that (which is unfortunate, because it's a Netflix thing and I don't have Netflix). It almost makes me forgive Voltron for draining resources that would have gone to producing more GaoGaiGar dub*.

Almost.

*I should note that the animation style of the transformation sequence is very reminiscent of the seminal Sunrise super robot anime, which would have drawn a comparison even if there hadn't been that previous link between the two series.

-Signing off.

HUGGA WUGGA BUGGY MUGGER

I really love surreal skits, such as this particular random Muppet skit.



You know, "Hugga Wugga" may be a rather nasty bully, but his song's definitely the best.

-Signing off.

Pöpcørn (Can't Really Improve On That Title)

I don't know why I love Swedish Chef segments so much, but I do.



(I also love how, since he's a Muppet, Waldorf is typing so frantically that it appears that about half of his keystrokes are hitting his number pad.)

-Signing off.

This Makes Me Smile

In some respects, it's kinda astounding that The Muppet Show is a thing that actually happened.

This chunk of the series' pitch especially shows how audacious it could be, in a way that rather defies its roots as "just" a bunch of puppets for kids.



Also, I heard recently that Jim Henson's default answer to not being sure how to end things was generally mayhem. That... explains a lot about the Muppets in general.

-Signing off.

McDonald's (In Japan) Made A Cute Ad

Why must you do this to me, McDonald's (in Japan)?



Goodness help me, but I ship it now.

Nobody ruin this for me by translating it, plz.

-Signing off.

I Am Always On The Lookout For Good Free Stuff

So I found myself hunting around for programs to simplify playing tabletop games without needing as much physical space (because of reasons), and found a site called RPTools.

There are other applications and things for the purpose, but this site's MapTool is one that 1) is actually functional, and 2) doesn't cost anything or need registration for the basic level of use.

Such as this random stupid "battle" I staged in a couple of minutes using the included database.

(For the sake of making things look a little better, I made everything at least a bit bigger than the default size. You may want to view at full size to get a sense of how things look.)

The site's also got a DiceTool and a few other tools which are largely intended to be compatible with each other.

So if you're interested in tabletop gaming, you might find this tool useful. You might also just like playing with the virtual miniatures.

-Signing off.

It's All Inferior To Getter Robo, However

I've only seen a few bits of the overall Mazinger family of mecha (not counting Getter Robo, because I'm a bit of a Getter Robo purist and like the versions of it that are less related to Mazinger better than the ones that are more related... though Getter Robo has my unending affection in all its forms), but out of what I've actually seen all of*, this short is easily the best.



(Side note: God Mazinger, the rather pharaoh-esque robot with the sword, had his own technically completely unrelated show, and from one episode of it comes this amazing clip. Also, I've learned [well after my initial investigations of this short] that the modestly ugly Mazinger lookalike with the assault rifle, Govarion/Gobarian/what'sitsname, is actually a construct created through its pilot's psychokinetic powers, which is amazing in its own right.)

Out of the broad family of Mazinger media, the next best part I've seen from one end to the other is Mazinkaiser SKL (not to be mistaken for regular-brand Mazinkaiser, who is terrible-and I know because I watched the OVA, thank you), which is a movie that can be found in its entirety on Crunchyroll and probably other legal streaming sites.

It's... still got some more-than-a-little skeevy bits (which are my biggest problem with regular-brand Mazinkaiser), but to nowhere near the same extent. Granted, the ostensible main characters are... let's call them boring as hell, but if you're just watching for ridiculous action sequences? This is a lot better than regular-brand Mazinkaiser.

*The best Mazinger thing was Shin Mazinger, which was ridiculous and funny and cancelled too soon for this world.

I'd link the time I embedded a video from it, but the video's gone. The video involved an animate giant robot** throwing his own severed arm at someone because he saw Mazinger Z's rocket punch and thought it looked like fun.

**Who was 1) much bigger than Mazinger Z, who could ride comfortably on his shoulder, and 2) was supposedly the mythological Zeus***.

Easily the best reinterpretation of that jackass ever, right?

***Considering that the Mazinger mythos involves ancient an extremely technologically advanced civilization popping up next to ancient Greece and having influence on Greek culture, that actually kind of follows.

-Signing off.

One More Black MIDI For The Road

Once again, this is a thing.

I probably should have noted that it's probably a bad idea to watch these black MIDI videos if you're at risk of epileptic seizures; they've got a lot of flashing colors (and enough to give other people a headache if they watch too long).



I think it's really funny that this piece is a number joke (3.14 million-ish notes, i.e. pi).

-Signing off.

The Title of This Video Is Incorrect

This song is not named Death Waltz, although that is apparently a thing. (Reminder: Black MIDI is a thing.)



The actual name is "UN Owen Was Her." ...No wonder everyone wants to call it Death Waltz.

-Signing off.

Because the Best Way to Do Computer Music Is to Make Impossible Music

How did I not know black MIDI was a thing?



Because it's a thing that's right up my alley.

-Signing off.

I Don't Even Care About The Character Whose Theme It Is*

So I come across this remix of the Imperial March and think "that's pretty cool."



Then I see that the same guy did a remix of Duel of the Fates and went "that's awesome."



Because much as I love Imperial March and think it's a pretty iconic piece, Duel of the Fates is my favorite Star Wars composition by far, and never mind that it's from what many argue is the worst Star Wars film.

(Out there somewhere, there's somebody who gauges/used to gauge the Star Wars movies by the number of hands cut off in the particular movie in question, and points to Episode I's lack of any such as a sign of poor quality. My sister suggests an alternate scale: Rating the Star Wars films by music. Since Episode I is the only film with Duel of the Fates, it is by this scale clearly the best.)

*Darth Maul, if context doesn't make that as clear as I think it does.

-Signing off.

I'm the (Sexy) Bad Guy

I know very little about this show*, so I'm not entirely sure how to approach talking about this clip.



Beyond something like "dang she's cute."

*The title is Wander over Yonder, and if the video is removed at some point, the song is titled "I'm the Bad Guy." Mainly what I do know is that many people were shipping two dudes in this show, and that this character showed up and turned into something of a slap to the face to that idea**, almost as if the show's producers were saying NO NO NO, NO GAY SHIPS. ...Awkward.

**Knowing nothing about the show beyond what I've seen other people say, this is where I heard about this specific thing. That blog is also where I first saw a slightly shorter version of the clip, so...

-Signing off.