February 04, 2016

A question of definition

I'm a big fan of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books. About half the books in my Kindle are from that series. But just now I ran into something I'd noted before, and I'd like to ask your opinion.

In Too Many Cooks we meet Marko Vukcic's ex-wife. And she

In The Black Mountain Archie describes Marko as being a widower. So that's the question: if a man is divorced and his ex-wife then dies, does he count as a widower?

My initial reaction is "no". A widower is someone whose wife dies while he's still married to her. But that may not be the only answer. What do you think?

UPDATE: The dictionary says:

a man who has lost his spouse by death and has not remarried.

But he didn't lose his wife by death; he lost her by divorce.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 01:40 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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January 29, 2016

Gate 2, ep 4

Something I thought I'd never write: I'm starting to lose interest in the GATE anime.

My problem is that I've been reading (and rereading) the manga, so whenever I reach some point where they diverge, I'm jerked out of the story. Not just because it's different, but because the anime is worse. It's always been worse. And a lot of the changes have been unnecessary. I wonder if there is animosity between the mangaka and the team doing the anime?

For instance, they've changed the character art for a lot of characters, and I like the manga versions better. For instance, Countess Myui of Italica:

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Sage Cato:

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And Delilah:

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I can't believe that the anime version of Delilah is any easier to draw or animate than the manga version would have been, with a bit of streamlining. Their reason for changing Cato is that in the anime he's a silly old man who only serves as comic relief, and the manga version is entirely too dignified. And I can't think of any reason at all for changing Myui besides Not Invented Here.

They're also abbreviating the story, too much IMHO. It's disjointed; they're leaving too much out and characterization and character motivation is suffering. They've done so much of that that the anime is close to being incoherent.

It feels like they're in a hurry. The next-ep preview suggests that That's where I originally thought this series was going to end, and it's going to happen in the fifth ep.

This isn't what I really wanted.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 04:24 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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September 29, 2015

Who is this Who?

To say that I'm not very conversant with "Dr. Who" canon is an understatement. The only Doctor I ever watched was #3 #4 (Tom Baker), and that was back in the 1970's.

However, the Doctor is a special guest star in the second and third parts of "Ensign Sue Must Die". A running joke in the third part ("Crisis of Infinite Sues") is that the Doctor keeps getting killed, and regenerates in another of his forms. Sometimes they don't last long.

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This one, for instance, only lasted one frame.

The final form, at the end of the series, is the one I'm confused by:

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Um... when was the Doctor a hot blonde? Is this canon?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 03:58 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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September 04, 2015

These are not the droids you're looking for

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In spades...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 07:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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August 30, 2015

A sign of the times

There are a lot of flash games out there for girls, entire web sites dedicated to that function. A lot of the games are dress-ups.

Here's one of the strangest I've encountered: "Pregnant Bride".

Just a few weeks before the happiest day of her life, that when she gives birth to her little bundle of joy, this mommy to be here is getting ready to enjoy the second best day of her life: her wedding day! She's relying on your skills for helping her look ravishing on this special day and for getting the wedding location a superb, dreamlike chic décor look, as well. Enjoy playing one of your future top favorite bride dress up games: Pregnant Bride!

You know, there was a time when this would have been a source of shame.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 12:46 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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August 29, 2015

Ensign Sue Must Die!

It's from here. And it's the last frame of the first part of the trilogy:

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We must identify all the Sues! Help me out!

I got most of them. The back row, left to right: a Jedi, a Sailor Scout, a Naruto-ninja, My Little Pony, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Supergirl. On the front row on the right is Marvel Avengers but I can't place the other three. Anyone got any ideas?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 08:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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August 24, 2015

Kindle Games

So I'm thoroughly bored with all my PC games and decided to see what might be available for my Kindle Fire.

And what do you know, there are a scad of games which are "FREE!"

But every one I looked at includes a warning that they contain in-app opportunities to spend real money for power ups. Which is to say the game is prohibitively hard if you don't do that, right?

Forget it.

UPDATE: So maybe I should visit GOG again? Problem is, I've bought seven games from them and only ever play two of them.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 09:13 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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August 23, 2015

Spa F1

So I happened to get up a bit before 5 AM, and having nothing better to do and not being sleepy, I monitored the "live timing (spoiler)" section of the F1 website and watched the race.

I'm looking forward to Wonderduck's writeup of this one because it was a lot more interesting than most of the recent races. There was actual racing going on this time, including spectacular passes, and a lot of real competition. (A lot of that is because this is one of the best tracks used in F1.)

It probably was a lot of fun to really watch, instead of just looking at the leader board and reading a live-blog, like I was. And even that was fun.

UPDATE: I feel like writing more. Huge spoilers below the fold.

more...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 09:37 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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July 29, 2015

I don't get this reference

In this arc of Cross Time Cafe, there's a reference I don't get. Cross Time Cafe is a group comic where a number of characters from different web comics are all together in an alternate universe and do things which don't affect their main continuity.

Anyway, this arc has them trying to sell CTC to Disney, who expresses no direct interest, but does hit them with a C&D because of a "mischievous little blue alien", apparently Sam Starfall.

What Disney character would be similar to Sam Starfall? I don't have a clue.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 11:18 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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July 02, 2015

John Kovalic is evil

Man, talk about bait and switch.

And it's all the worse because he got really busy with work and it took five months for him to do about 8 strips before his reveal.

Start here. The girl with the black hair is Gilly, the "perky goth", who once upon a time was Matt's girl friend. Then she moved to London and for several years now she's only appeared once in a while. But as of this arc, she's apparently back again.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 01:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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