Most US animated features are just derivatives of live action sitcoms (The Simpsons, Family Guy, etc.) or purposefully aim at a younger audience as a means to market toys. That’s not to say the Japanese don’t do it. You only have to look as far as Bandai and Gundam to see they do it too, but at least some of the series they’ve produced aren’t dumbed down and actually have recognizable (if not Oscar-caliber) character and plot development (Gundam 00, Gundam 0080, etc.). Which is why I applaud Warner Brothers for taking a queue from Japan, when they produced Animaniacs and the more recent DC Comics series. It doesn’t hurt to put some smarts into your shows. Same goes for Pixar. Nickolodeon takes the crown, though, for their epic series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s appealing to adults the same reason Harry Potter is; it’s just good old fashioned storytelling. Not since The Mysterious Cities of Gold has Nick had such a great show. To put things in perspective, it was 15 years from when MCoG ended to when Avatar started, and MCoG originally began airing in 1982!

In any case, even though I do prefer smarter, more mature animated features, I do occasionally watch shows that don’t fit in that category. For example, I’ve watched Kanon 2006 and I’m currently watching Clannad and Shakugan no Shana. They have a high level of production. I’m also in the middle of Spice and Wolf (English). It’s something to watch as the winter season winds down and until the spring season starts. It doesn’t hurt that the characterization of the female protagonist appeals to me—sassy and smart. Plus being a wolf goddess and cute, I was inspired to turn her into a Firefox icon—a small piece of functional fanart. It gave me a chance to flex my (meager) Photoshop skills. Those who watch the show will recognize Horo from the ending credits where she’s hugging a giant apple. After making the icon and I can’t help but think that a complete Spice and Wolf Firefox theme would be kind of cool, or perhaps a full Gnome/KDE theme. Maybe someone can take this icon and run with it. The zip file contains .png icons at various sizes and should be compatible with Gnome and KDE. I don’t feel like making an .ico file for Windows. A Photoshop 7.0 file is included. The file can be imported into The GIMP, but you’ll need to adjust the saturation of the top layer to something between 60 and 80 to match the Photoshop setting of 40.

 firefox-horo.zip

Enjoy!

I got dragged into playing World of Warcraft the December after it launched. As the group of us did not have any other alternative we could all agree to play for gaming night, WoW filled the void. During that period, the most fun we had was milking the auction house. Suffice it to say, we got bored after about 6 months. Unfortunately, we exhausted the replacement games too. And so we got pulled into WoW once more. Part of the problem with our first stint, we attributed to picking pansy Alliances characters. We also researched our classes a heck of a lot more and twinked them like crazy using our Alliance funds. G-zan FTW!

We also made the game more challenging. We concentrated on instancing only, leveling to the point where we’d be high enough to go into an instance and finish it in one run (where possible) but be low enough in level that we didn’t overpower the mobs and bosses. Our best was when we 3-manned Sunken Temple with one death during the fight with Eranikus. Playing this way made the game much more enjoyable the second time around, but shows that it was only fun because we found a way to make it fun, bringing me back to my original point.

Since we could level however we wanted in between instance runs, I opted to do PVP because the Warsong Gulch rewards were easily attainable. Plus I missed playing FPSes and this was the closest I’d get. Eventually we exhausted all the instances we could 3-man and that was pretty much the end, which left me to decide whether to continue with PVP or not. I did get what I originally sought after which was an epic mount. As much as I liked the fact that we completed instances in such a way that we got a sense of accomplishment, I ultimately decided it really wasn’t enough. So I figured I had the skill and time to push for High Warlord. I also realized it was also an investment because once a High Warlord always a High Warlord, and the PVP gear automatically upgrades as the levels expand which means every 10 levels of expansion I can simply buy one of the top three items in the game depending on the content at any given time. Being HW means never having to care about a drop again. Update: Blizzard changed the honor system such that honor is now treated as currency instead of a measure of rank which is a welcomed change but it just means only my title is worth anything. So no easy upgrades for me. At least my weapons lasted me til 70.

So seven months after I started PVP (Remember what I said about it being lucrative for the publisher?), Polio attained rank 14. Of course props go out to Maskimxul, Nelgrath, Black Raiders, Starshadow, The Asylum, and everyone else who offered support. It’s good to be the king. It’s also good that I could walk away feeling I accomplished something. Granted it’s much more a measure of time played versus skill but that’s a whole other topic.