-also known as Justin’s last possible rant-

-more after the jump-

My God, where the heck did the semester go?

Anyways, my last late blog post. My last blog post in general. But this blog may be re-purposed into something more. Or nothing at all, kept for good old times. But anyways, the future of animation seems bright. If anythign to prove it, past the overly commercialized shows that air on networks like Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network, Animation isn’t a wholy American form of media. The shorts we watched last Tuesday and Thursday allude to the future of animation. Small, innovative ideas, coupled with impressive storytelling and rehashing of old techniques. There is also the whole innovative drive that produced films such as Avatar and the likes.

In short, this is probably going to be a slightly off-track post. If this blog gets re-purposed, it’ll be focusing more on politics or the like. So in that, I guess I should go back to some of the more memorable pieces of animation I actually devoted time to.

Avatar: I still say it just looks pretty. I will unrepentantly side with the humans, and await a more realistic sequel where the U.S. Military or a U.N./N.A.T.O. task force of starships return, bombard known pockets of resistance after setting up orbital stations, and return en-masse to mine the critically needed unobtanium.

Bad Apple!!: I touched off on two animation techniques with this post. Bad Apple!! was a pleasurable display of ingenuity in its already original video, employing computer generated shadow art to seamlessly turn into a character in the overall Touhou-project series. The stop-motion, flip-book style added horizontal and vertical references by either placing it within a backdrop of a room, black tabletop, or on a cutting/modeling grid, thereby enhancing the overall feel. A sign that animators will always look at old ideas with a new and interesting perspective.

Kino no Tabi: A favorite, the series wouldn’t feel out of place in a psychology or sociology class, and some actually can fit in with Government classes. Besides providing entertainment, Animation provides also a sort of commentary on modern issues. Starting with the earlier filmmakers focusing on modern life, Kino no Tabi and other animated works like it, either through subtle or direct means, comment on a whole host of issues, both common issues and philosophical, deep thinking ones. And the beauty of it is, it still entertains.

Well, those posts were what I considered the best. The rest would build from those four in terms of their themes and concepts, and there is my interesting series of Anime in views of Industry, Ethics, and Fan Base. But for now, it be 0118EST. I best be hitting the hay.

Quite anticlimactic for such a honorable blog post. But I guess I can make it up with the self evaluations.

I tried for looking for any memorable quotes. But I guess I’ll rip this one from my GOVT 327 Blog

“What’s next for me over that horizon that we call ‘future?’ “

Happy Trails Folks.

-more after the jump-

There is no use in denying it. This was supposed to be my Coraline post. As in, the post I write the week we aired that lovey film. I already knew what to write, and it seemed like a good set of videos. But that didn’t turn out to be, so I write these last two posts, hoping to preserve some aspect of thought or whatnot. Now then, on to the videos. The videos are called “There She Is!!“, a series fo Flash animations created by a Korean group called SamBakZa, featuring a lovestruck bunny (Doki)  and a realistic cat (Nabi). The first video is totally fun, setting the background for the two characters, from Doki’s playful and obsessive love tactics to Nabi escaping yet eventually giving in, showing that there are redeeming qualities that Doki has.

Now, the next few videos in the series, it seems best that one take time to watch em all, before continuing to the…hopeful meat of my posts.

Now that the reader has, hopefully, watched through all the videos, and they were fairly well made videos, amazing use of Flash animation. But that’s not what I would write about. I know little to nothing about the stuff, but chose to look ‘deeper’ as some teachers would like to say. Had I relied on my normal ‘right-wing-nutjob-extremist’* attitude in watching these, I would’ve been compelled to just say I watched these because it was aired in ‘catgirl’ night at the GMU Anime Cub a few Fridays back.

But no, even in the initial showing at the club, I saw something else. It might be that this right-wing-nutjob getting his screws a little loosened, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, but also something else. The issue of race and racism. In this it is represented by the whole inter-species conflict where a highly ridgid society imposes a set of societal norms on the people within its borders. It reminded me a lot about the 1960s, where African-Americans fought to be recognized as something more than a first class citizen. It also brought to mind the rigid social structure trope used a lot in other productions, animated or not, visual media or print.

Heck, here is the TVTropes page. Which is much more ‘accurate’ than the wiki page.

Anyways. Back to what I saw in it. Discussing the series with a friend, we tossed around areas of the world where society imposes a set of norms, standardizing love and interactions. It can easily had been set in America, past or present, as there are still people who claim such immoral or indecent (anyone proclaiming that group of people being Tea Party members better say that to my face :/ ), while it also reminds me of India. The whole rigid cast system may had been abolished, but such acts are still frowned upon. Japan itself may be part of it, or most of the older generation in East Asia, as I’ve been told by friends of horrible things happening when their parents, of different social lines, marry.

Usually happens is a clusterfrak and the something like a Hatfield marrying a McCoy during the height of their feud. Romeo and Juliet is another example, but I chose the more American and somewhat legendary feud because it brings to light the eventual peaceful end of There She Is!!, where the two characters live peacefully, and while there still some signs that the protests continue, they are willing to set those differences aside for their love, similar to the two families signing that symbolic peace treaty after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In all, the animation was well done, the music well selected, characters are easy to relate to and love (including the gang of delinquent bunnies), and it provides, at the very least, a lesson on people. That regardless of what society requires, each younger generation in contemporary times would find ways around it.

* – yes, I first resented that tag, but I wear it somewhat proudly now. Why? Because I do. Kinda like calling myself fat. I know its true, a fact of life, and I guess its just acceptance. Why should I bend over and take everything my more left-leaning associates say. That stifles my own individuality. Kinda like people who prefer Macintosh/Apple stuff. They seem to be the ‘trendy’ and ‘hip’ people. In reality, that trendy and hip lifestyle goes completely against my own views. I see them more as people on a bandwagon. Gone were the days when Apples could be counted on to be user friendly and user workable. Nowadays, they’ve become a corporate empire not-unlike Microsoft. At least Microsoft can still call itself a personal computer, seeing that PCs can be torn apart and rebuilt, or built from ground up, and use different types of operating systems. Try doing that with a MacBook. /endrant

-more after the jump-

Another late post. I’m falling behind. But anyways. It seems the class already figured this one out. Disney is very good with their animals, but not their people. I’ve heard that Belle from The Beauty and the Beast was an acceptable exception, but in many of its movies, Disney always did well with animals.

Let’s take for example, Miko. THE ONLY redeeming feature of the movie Pocahontas. He stole every scene he was in (including half of Jamestown) and was able to express a lot of his character without being able to speak.  The other animals, the hummingbirds and the pitbull, seemed more like sidekicks when compared to Miko, but important ones at that. What didn’t seem natural was that the pitbull would easily change like that in the end. But I guess it’s Disney.

Other movies make use of animals to be great characters. An American Tail, Finding Nemo, and numerous other movies. There is also a series of animated shorts called ‘There She Is’, done by a Korean team and becoming a hit back int 2004.

Even without any real features, and even without any of the visual cues, we can sense what the characters featured are feeling and what they’re trying to convey to each other and the audience.

I’m not entirely sure why animals are better than humans when being animated. I guess it’s because they use body language and expressions rather than words to try and explain their intentions, and animators can draw that to their advantage, enriching the story and entertaining all of us.

Also, Miko must have a strong belly, able to eat hardtack and like it. :/

-more after the jump-

Ah limited animation. We’ve covered this certain technique in class awhile back. Basically, since Disney was freaking rich and was able to afford it, each and every shot required a completely new redraw. Then the strike happened and UPA came along. Now, I didn’t know UPA was an animation studio until I took this class, considering I had heard their name mainly after watching Godzilla from the 1950s. So I did a little check on wikipedia, it seems that UPA was the American distributor of the old monster films. But beyond that, UPA’s pioneering of limited animation was particularly helpful. It’s evident in their works as well as the numerous Saturday morning cartoons that I grew up to, like Scooby Doo and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

An example that I found on youtube would be walking cycles. People, prospective animators and the like, even those who do it for fun, rely on limited animation for running, walking, etc… It allows people to reduce the amount of drawings and reduces the workload and time between keyframes. This allowed animations to be done quickly and in a reduced budget. While looking this up in wiki, I found out this interesting tidbit.

“Limited animation in anime is frequently used in action scenes such as mecha battles or transformation scenes. Limited animation is seen most frequently in television serials, but the aesthetic is so grounded in the medium that even bigger-budget feature films make use of it. Most Japanese animation is significantly less expensive than its American counterparts as a result, with Katsuhiro Otomo’s Steamboy (the most expensive japanese animated feature film yet produced) costing only $26,600,000.”

Another example on limited animation was actually a fan-made video of a game series. Mostly featuring running cycles, it is safe to assume that the person that did this didn’t really do much work in animating most of the scenes, except for the few frames where somethign happens besides the people being chased by an evil, overworked maid.

So yeah, limited animation does have its usefulness. And that brings me to the main thing about this post. I decided to make a small animated gif for my project, and found that limited animation was my friend, allowing me to create the gif in a time-span of 3 hours, from drawing the frames to creating the gif file.

• Title: Gif for History of Animation
• Date: 4/5/2010
• Frames (initial): 60
• Frames (final): 40-50ish
• Notes: Cut out a bit of inbetweens between sentences to cut down the time lag between sentences. Start of loop: “Lights!”

-more after the jump-

Last week we watched An American Tail, a movie that I haven’t seen in a long time. The story is about a mouse and…wait, why am I writing about the story? The history man, the history! Anyways, it was a particularly interesting take on European immigration. It is hopeful yet realistic in a way, showing that while the European mice dream of a new beginning in America, where there are no enforcers or various undesirable authority figures.

Oh boy, nice surprise eh? The cats in America to me seemed at first the nativists, who were opposed to immigration on the basis of these pervasive cultures coming to America, their inability to be ‘American’. This brings to mind what Woodrow Wilson said about them, that “any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.” Try as they might to be American, the Mousekewitz family are trapped into a life of destitution that doesn’t seem all that better than their life in Russia. Meanwhile, a female mouse that was seen speaking up in the marketplace is similar to the activists who understood the plight of the immigrants. In the scene where we are introduced to the main anatagonist, we see conmen trying to convince the newly arrived immigrants to buy seemingly important pieces of Americana, such as the apple and used ticket to Chicago. There is also the fact that Fievel was sent to work in the sweatshops.

In the end, we see the eventual reuniting of Fievel and his family, but the film also had many accurate depictions of immigration into the United States, namely that of New York, where the great majority came from. Although I want to know, when exactly are we going to see a similar story about Chinese immigration during this time period?

…

Short post is short.

-more after jump-

So, I’m 3 weeks late. I’m surprised someone actually reads my stuff. XD I thought the constant ramblings on about Japanese Animation would push others away. On to the blog. Two weeks ago when I should’ve been writing this blog, we were watching older 1950s cartoons, namely Rocky and Bullwinkle. I remember growing up to these shows, and laughing at its comedy. What I remembered most about the day we watched it in class was me groaning at the cartoon.

It was that moment of realization that something funny went stale.

Rocky and Bullwinkle was good for its time. And probably for its audience. The adults can finally laugh a bit, watch caricatures of the enemy fumble and make mistakes, as well as be beaten by undoubtedly American characters (I thought the Moose was a Canadian animal…) and catch the little jokes and references here and there. The animation was annoyingly choppy. Someone who is used to the Japanese style of Animation, where even limited animation techniques (to be covered in Blog Post #10) was much more flowy and smoother.

An old cartoon that I used to enjoy as a kid but now barely managed to watch an episode posted on youtube was Roger Ramjet.

It brings back memories. But there are so many horrible jokes and references. 20 Atom Bombs for 20 Seconds? That seems degrading and making fun of the actual destructive power of the weapons. Since the villains just ended up surviving. Another comment I found from youtube or some other site was that Roger was practically taking steroids and popping pills whenever he needed to. I can see that. Popeye at least promoted healthy eating via Spinach being his powerup, but a small white pill for Roger.

And that’s really all I can say for that. It was an unbearable experience to try and rewatch these cartoons.

-more after the jump-

-warning, link heavy; links are important to understand the post-

In my previous blog post, I touched on the issue of fansubs mainly because, well, I’m a part of it. I don’t profess to being one of the translators (Professor Fujiwara here at GMU would laugh her head off if I attempted to) or one of those in the team. I’m just one of the many people who watch the fansubs. I profess, I am a poor fan. I do not have the cash nor the budgetary justification to buying DVDs of shows I watch. But I do devote one shelf to the precious few books and DVD collection I have. There is though, the issue that there are just some shows that I will never see in the United States, and fansubs are my only choice at ever seeing them.

Why do I watch fansubs? There are those who hold the opinion that fansubs take away from the overall experience. Often claiming that the fancy work and sometimes either too literal or inaccurate translations (sometimes both?) take away from the overall viewing experience. As this blogger points out (be sure to watch the 30 minute Michael Moore-style documentary), fansubs are more or less a hit or a miss. I don’t want to repeat Natrone’s well written viewpoint-from-a-teacher-who-watches-anime blog post, but he more or less provides a counterpoint to the documentary.

But that isn’t why I’m writing. It would be an act of plagiarism if I did, since I am not that great of a writer. What I came to write about is my own personal experience with this. And why I continue to do it regardless of the signs that the industry is failing and is doing little to help stem the tide. But there is hope for the industry, if they can spot the main issue why fansubs are popular though.I watch fansubs because there is sometimes no alternative for me to view shows, especially for shows that seem to only hold a small niche of the fanbase.

An example of a show where the sheer logistics of dubbing and distributing, as well as retouching and getting the actors to play the part, would be Legend of the Galactic Heroes. A massive undertaking, several movies, a prequel series, and a 110 episode long series. A massive cast of characters, from the simple civilian to a one-scene soldier fighting in the front, up to the main characters, have been voiced by their own particular voice actor. In fact, many of the voice actors are well-known in the industry. It is a beautiful series full of political intrigue and drama that has had it compared to Romance of the Three Kingdoms or War and Peace. Certainly something to watch if one is a fan of politically driven anime, thought-provoking anime, or ‘historical’ anime. (Historical as in the series provides a fictional history of the world from the 20th century to the series setting in the 35th century)

Unfortunately, due to the reasons above, the costs of working to bring this series to the United States would far outweigh any profit gained from the small group of people who advocate the release of the series here. I’m one of those people, having been introduced to the show (called LOGH or Gineiden by fans) by others who loved the series, and although the animation isn’t as clean as modern-day shows, and there are garish German  and English translation errors in the anime, I still love it because it delivered on the plot.

I guess that doesn’t fully account for why I still watch fansubs. And it’s just one show out of close to a hundred now, of shows I’ve obtained from fansub groups that were eventually released in English, or never released at all. But it seems, refreshing,t o provide a counterpoint from my earlier post, which I felt was more in line with the industry’s view on things. It seems, regardless of what happens to the general anime industry in the future, especially during the recession, I believe as fans get more mature, there would be those who realize that anime is no different from, like, The Simpsons or Ed, Edd, n’ Eddy here in the United States. It’s just the fact that it is an animated medium from Japan, and there are going to be some work in order to find a market and then release it here, an English-speaking country. Fansubs may seem as a stopgap measure for me now, after I’ve sufficiently delved into the legal aspects of it, something I haven’t done 5 or so years ago.

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll actually go back and study/relearn Japanese, and watch Anime in its original language. Or I earn enough money to buy DVD collections or pay a fee to watch the official subtitled versions in the distributor’s websites. But for now, I guess I’ll keep utorrent up and running.

I may make this a series of posts. I’m not sure.

-more after the jump-

Ah the magic of Hayao Miyazaki. Him I credit as one of the big names to introduce me to anime, the others being Tadao Nagahama (Voltes V), Shoji Kawamori (Macross), and Yoshiyuki “Kill-em-all” Tomino (Gundam). But wait. The last three were all directors most notably known for their mecha/robot series. Why have Miyazaki on my list? Well, Miyazaki has always held a special place in my heart due to My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro). It was that lighthearted series that first interested me in Anime. It was different from the other cartoons, and it…well, it was just different. At this time, I watched looney tunes and whatnot, bugs bunny, and there was this…similarity. This sense of “I can relate” to the initial anime I grew up watching to. So, when I was given this awfully difficult task of blogging on my spring break, I took time from watching a particularly well done space opera, to watching a lighthearted family movie. So, what about my thesis. It’s just looking at the latest of the Studio Ghibli film, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (Gake no Ue no Ponyo). In it, Studi Ghibli continues their tradition of headstrong leading women, an environmental theme, and most importantly, keeping me entranced with their beautiful and well done animation, down-to-earth characters, and story.

In Ponyo we are introduced first to a rather strange sight. A submarine with flippers that resemble those of seaborne dinosaurs, with a large bubble where a man is supposedly making jellyfish? We are then introduced to the titular character. We know it would be her mainly because she is the largest of the fish-girls, and seem to be taking extraordinary care of her sisters, hiding them from her dad when they ventured out. She would then go explore the world, eventually ending up stuck in a bottle to be found by our main male protagonist. It was during this scene, where Ponyo evades the fishing vessel that trawls shallow water of both fish and debris. It touches on a point that Studio Ghibli often makes. About the interactions of humans and their environment. In here we see the main character nearly suffocating to death after being trapped in a bottle. Kind of a subtle scene.

Ponyo, having been saved by her future love, licks the boy’s finger after its cut, something to have repercussions later on in the film. After some initial interactions with other people, Ponyo would end up being recovered by her father, the weird fellow from the beginning of the film. Its here that we find out her true name, ‘Brunhilde’, after the Shieldmaiden and Valkyrie of legend. We also see how she got that name, her father has become something akin to Captain Nemo, someone who detests the humans above the surface for polluting the world. But all this comes to naught as Brundhilde prefers to be called Ponyo, trying to break free of her sheltered life. This can be seen on screen with her attempts to turn into a human and breaking out of the protective water bubble in which she is placed into. Finally as her father wins this small triumph, her sisters come to free her from her bubble. In a chain reaction in which the well that is slowly being filled for the return of the sea back to the Devonian period is filled with a massive ammount of water, leading the way towards an imbalance. This would be seen later, after Ponyo reunites with the male lead. After experiencing human life for a night, she starts to reverts back into a fish. In the end though, regardless of the consequences of turning into a human would bring to her (no magic, dying to be comes Sea Foam as in the original Little Mermaid), she nonetheless decides to live out her life as a human.

Wow…kinda of long winded. In the end, Studio Ghibli returns to give us a rather excellent film. Ponyo is a quirkly little fish-girl that gets into trouble but works hard to be adventurous, the environmental themes was there, going so far to show the pollution in shallow water. But the true reason I watched it?

It was a Studio Ghibli film, done by Hayao Miyazaki, and that just clicks in my brain as something that says ‘quality’ and ‘childhood memories’.

-more after jump, warning, content may offend-

Our past few classes have been remarkably filled with cartoons that featured a crass sense of humour that some may not think of being acceptable, somewhat, in today’s society. This crass sense of humour has been pointed as something not acceptable to the middle class. This could be that, as stated in class, its primary audience was meant for immigrants. The working class people who sought to belong in America. Animation today may seem to be heading down that road, as seen in shows like Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Dad, and such. But when I was growing up, I’ve already been exposed to these rather uncouth styles of humour, or at least had an inkling thought of what it meant. Looking back, and with more resources in my hands, I can definitely say that we are still either regaining or rediscovering our old 1920s-30s cultural heritage of unwanted behavior in Animation, Japanese Animation by contrast is seemingly way ahead of us in pushing and blurring the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

Now, people nowadays can say that Family Guy or The Simpsons are way too dirty for young minds, or such things. People can also point out it would be animation like The Simpsons that either pushed the limits of what was considered the norms back in the 1980s-1990s. But it was not without controversy. Particularly, Homer Simpson was seen as a bad role model while Bart seen as a bad influence for children. Nowadays, they seem tame. We have Family Guy with a talking baby who has homicidal tendancies towards his mother and dreams of world conquest. Crude racial jokes and the rather famous chicken fights. All part of the now common teen/young adult animation.

To me, this seems tame in comparison to anime that is being aired for the same age group. As the image below would show, well, how much animation in Japan is different.

-Image from the Anime Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Yes. There is a difference between American and Japanese Animation. Take for example, when the anime Sailor Moon was brought over from Japan to the United States, there was material present in the original Japanese version that was heavily edited out. Deaths, social interactions deemed inappropriate to American viewers (back in 1990), plot points or characters that was inappropriate, as well as aspects of Japanese life that viewers would not get. This over time changes as the American audience matured, and calls for less editing eventually became louder, but Anime still had to conform to FCC codes as well as the standard show airing, allowing enough commercial breaks and what not.

If it doesn’t seem all that clear, I shall post two clips. One is from Family Guy, which needs no introductions. Particularly the scene where Stewie Griffin beats up Brian for money. Let it load to watch interrupted.

Now, that was pretty intense, right? Blood and cartoon violence. Set on fire with a flamethrower and shot in the kneecaps. Stuff we know that he’ll survive because he’s a recurring character. Now for a change of pace, this is from the Anime adaptation of the Japanese manga called Claymore, it is the third part of a rather plot-important battle:

Now this, well. In comparison to the cartoon violence, this is an anime of a similar age group (teen/young adult) and it is necessarily darker. Dark, well, I kind of skipped to the end. This wasn’t my cup of coffee if you catch my saying. The same could be said for sexual references. In American animation, or is the term ‘cartoon’ more appropriate after viewing the difference between the animations. In American animation, sexual acts tended to be implying the act. A blacked out screen with eyeballs and noises. In Anime, there are shows built for fanservice, one of which is Strike Witches, a historical fiction show set in the second world war dealing with the concept of mecha musume drawings. Having watched the show in its entierty, there are times where I laughed due to the sheer effort by the producers and animators to add as much panty shots and similar into the show, even airing a censored and uncensored version. A current show, Seikon no Qwaser, takes this to the extreme, with…well, I’d rather you just read the wiki entry . (You’ve been warned. The author will defend himself from pitchforks and torches outside his home with appropriate responses ranging from running around in panic or opening fire with an airsoft gun.)

Now, before I deviate any further. My point. Well, I’ve illustrated the differences between American and Japanese animation, at least select few shows. Animation is a diverse medium, and seems rather…bad if I grouped Japanese Anime into one category or stereotype and American animation into its own group. But the more I think about it, I just come up with more questions. Are we really pushing the envelope in what seems proper, with shows like Family Guy in the United States and Seikon no Qwaser in Japan,? Are we ‘returning to our roots, something to like Mickey’s Follies and Steamboat Willie? Are we growing more insensitive to these kinds of behavior?

I’m not sure, I’m no philosopher.

-more after the jump-

Animation is a highly versatile medium. Primarily used for entertainment, it provides a handy way to teach as well. Normally, explaining how complex machines work often becomes a matter of going through manuals and breaking apart or at least allowing trainees time and hands-on experience in a machine built specifically for training. This time-consuming and rather material heavy process would often only allow a few people at a time to learn how a machine work. Using Animation to cover the general parts of a machine or processes of a job will increase training time and reduce costs.

This few training videos work on explaining a rather complex machine such as a ship’s fire control system, into a relatively short (forty-two minutes) video explaining the basic machines and calculations that make up the important machine.

Part 1

Part 2

The videos may had seemed slow and way too talky for people nowadays, with no jazz or some sort of enthusiasm we’ve come to expect of animation nowadays, but the video is an excellent snapshot in how people were taught their jobs. Although not fully animation, placing drawings and using animation adds some welcome relief to the eyes. It also shows how far technology has gone in the sixty years we’ve had since this video was first used.. Back then, computers were large, mechanical contraptions that cost thousands of dollars, while the average student had to use slide rules and what not. Nowadays, one would be hard pressed to find slide rules and not calculators being carried around by people. The mathematical functions the fire control computer shown in the videos can now be easily done on a $85.00 Scientific Calculator, or even a cheap, $5.00 calculator, if one is willing to work out all the problems. There is even an iPhone application for a ballistic calculator, although this is for small arms and not shipborne weapons, but the basic metaphor sticks.

While this short video (was it truly short compared to Blog Post #3?) may had been talk and information heavy, it is just one example of why animation is quite versatile. Not only can it bring us to the edge of our seats in anticipation, it can also bore us to death in the same seats. Well, that was what I expect would happen to some people, I quite enjoyed it myself. But I’m the weird person who was actually looking for this information in the first place.

Kudos to The Firearms Blog for posting the link.

EDIT: I was reading the blog post where the videos were posted in The Firearms Blog and apparently a commenter posted a link to the actual manual… Eh, nothing to see here folks, just one guy who gets all giddy with fire control systems and whatnot.

I commented on Andrew Steward‘s and James Davis‘ blogs.