I always thought Blue Box would have been a better story without the “living in the same house” angle, but seeing Wit Studio put the vision on screen is a treat in and of itself.

Tokidoki Bosotto Russiago de Dereru Tonari no Alya-san

This one was unexpected. I thought it would be a show rife with “misunderstanding” hijinks, but the language conceit cleared a path for more in depth character motives and backstories. To be clear, there are definitely hijinks to be had, but with more charm than I was expecting. Doga Kobo knows what they are doing and at this point, you should give every one of their shows a fair shot. Looking forward to season 2.

8/10

Make Heroine ga Oosugiru!

The attention, love, and care the production team put into this adaptation is breath taking. Incredible animation, environments, voice acting - An absolute tour de force. The story may be hit or miss depending on what you bring to the table, but the characters are more honest and real than most in this genre.

9/10

Forgot that the iPad version of Photoshop doesn’t let you edit the parameters of the crop box, leaving it exclusively to your meat fingers to try in vein to precise crop an image. No presets for you either. What a joke.

In spite of the heat wave causing delays this week, I got a chance to ride CalTrain’s new electric trains. Have to say, a very worthwhile upgrade. Still, a bit miffed that my stop was dropped from the limited service, but I’ll make due with the local train.

Mayonaka Punch

Great animation from PA Works with a heart felt (if not contrived) plot device. The Youtube/creator elements didn’t really resonate with me, so this one is probably just a hit or miss depending on your approach to the subject matter. Still, I enjoyed the show even if I wanted a bit more from the main couple.

6/10

Honestly, I think if Ulysses supported publishing to a micropub server I could make my POSSE system work. That realization is frustrating (I need a third party to make a change) but hopeful (it’s only a single piece of a puzzle and if I can find an alternative everything would work). I think I’ll give iA Writer a shot as a co-alternative (using both clients as the first step in my workflow) and see how far I can get.

It would be nice if there was there was an Espanso iOS app just for reference (no actual text expansion required). Things like forms or clipboard triggers wouldn’t work, but the simple replace ones could be available to copy & paste into other apps.

Considering 11ty as a hugo replacement: It has the requisite performance but would require a lot of config & front matter tweaking to get something that would work (anything that needs a manual forEach ultimately doesn’t make the cut). Probably not worth the effort unless I really wanted to rebuild it from the ground up (and at that point I might be better cutting my losses, archive the existing content, and start from scratch)

Going to overhaul my .dotfiles with stow

Grab a beer, enjoy a Friday night

I love POSSE as a concept and every few months I get fired up that I’m going to completely overhaul everything, only to be reminded that my main problem is I have history (existing posts dating back to 2003) that make things hard to do it the way I want. If I was starting from scratch today, I would consider Ghost (as long as I could identify a good mobiledoc to markdown converter for backup).

Maybe I should just freeze my legacy content and start completely fresh…

The new version of Reeder and Iconfactory’s new Tapestry project are both looking at what it means to be a Universal Timeline. For me, this won’t supplant Reader Classic for my RSS consumption, but it has opened up a possibility for a universal social feed, combining Mastodon and Bluesky. Ideally, a client like Ivory would pick this up, but it’s probably too much to expect of an app that is looking to be the premiere client for a single social network. That’s where Reeder and Tapestry come in.

Reeder is further along with a solid macOS and iOS experience. Tapestry is still in TestFlight and still very much focused on iOS. Both are read-only views into the social networks (which easily covers 90% of my usage) so require some additional workflows when you want to engage (including basic favoriting and boosting, let alone replying). I’ll need to think about what this looks like going forward, but it’s good enough at this point that Reeder’s timeline is my default view into social media going forward.

Oshi no Ko

Was waiting until the season wrapped and then got distracted. Holy Shit! So Good! Everything about this show is pitch perfect. Plan is the same for season 2 and I can’t wait!

10/10

Suzume no Tojimari (Suzume)

Amazing animation paired with a story that didn’t resonate with me quite as much as “Your Name” and “Weathering With You” did. Makoto Shinkai films are still a tour de force and incredible visual spectacles.

8/10

Promare

Is there anything better than Hiroyuki Imaishi & Trigger paired with a Hiroyuki Sawano OST? This film knows what it is and leans into it to perfection.

10/10

Seiyuu Radio no Uraomote (The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio)

A small peek behind the scenes (regardless of how realistic) is always fun. Felt more grounded than your typical “Cute Girls Doing…” show.

7/10

Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai (Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night)

Amazing original story with superb animation & direction. Doga Kobo really hit it out of the park with this one. Between this and Girls Band Cry, it’s been an amazing season.

9/10

Nokori Ichinichi de Hametsu Flag Zenbu Heshiorimasu: Zamaa RTA Kiroku 24Hr

An excellent, 3-volume manga that gives you all the comeuppance you could ever want in a villainess story.

8/10

I recently pulled my old Keyboard Folio for the iPad out of the closet, thinking that I would appreciate the weight difference when compared to the Magic Keyboard — I had forgotten how much I didn’t like the keys on the Folio despite the weight reduction (which is quite significant). I’m typing this to see if I could get used to the keyboard again.

My ideal iPad keyboard:

  • Folio form factor (no trackpad, no cantilever hinge, lighter, two fixed tilt adjustments)
  • Key switches from the latest MBP
  • Backlit keys
  • Small function row

I’m actually surprised how much the lack of backlit keys is bothering me… I’ll probably stick it out with the Folio, but if the iPad finally gets a legit Terminal or the ability to virtualize macOS, I’ll most likely switch back to the better typing experience despite the increased weight.

Yagate Kimi ni Naru Saeki Sayaka ni Tsuite (Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka)

Lovely side story and fitting capstone to the franchise. The third volume was way too short – is an OVA too much to ask for?

8/10