Celebrity Wrestling: Week 2

Time for a round up of what's been happening this week in Celebrity Wrestling.

Midweek
Disaster struck for the Warriors as Mark Speight broke his hand during Murderball training. He was informed by the doctor that he wouldn't be able to compete for the rest of the tournament and the Warriors had to bring in their reserve, Lee Sharpe. Other injuries included the full flaring up for Oliver Skeete's shoulder which he hurt in his match against James Hewitt.

Match Night
Round 1 saw Leilani Dowding for the Crusaders taking on Annabel Croft for the Warriors. Annabel completely dominated Sumo Slam right from the start winning easily 2-0. In Ram Rod Annabel again took a win but Leilani showed her determination but admitted to coach D-Lo afterwards that she wasn't giving it 100%. Finally in desperate need of a point Leilani showed what she could do destroying Annabel 4-0 with ease in Chain Reaction.

Round 2 was Iwan Thomas taking on new boy Lee Sharpe. When faced with the Masked Celebrity in Gate Crash Iwan's speed and reaction time helped to earn him an easy 2-0 victory, a feat not matched by Lee who went down 1-0 to another footballer, masked celebrity John Fashanu. Smart in the tuxes for Rip Wrestling both men showed cautiousness and defence but it was Iwan who took the point after just under 2 minutes. Like his Crusaders teammate Leilani Lee was now needing a point badly. His chance came with Armed and Dangerous. Despite Warriors coach Joe Legend's complaints it was Lee who took the game 2-0.

Round 3 gave Warrior Kate Lawler the chance to settle a score against Crusader Michelle Heaton. These 2 had been winding each other up all week and now were ready to tear each other's heads off. Kate drew first blood winning Wrecking Ball 3-2 and drew second blood winning Murderball 1-0. As the cage came down for Power Lift the Crusaders were defending a whitewash for the 3rd time in a row. An immense amount of grappling finally saw Kate take all 3 points lifting 9st of struggling Michelle Heaton clean off the ground to give the Warriors a massive lead. A fact not taken kindly by D-Lo Brown as the coaches clashed after the fight eventually being pulled apart by Warriors Marc Bannerman and Oliver Skeete.

Scores
After this week the Crusaders' lead has been eradicated.
Crusaders - 8
Warriors - 11

With everyone having fought now we can look at the individual leaderboards.
Men
James Hewitt - 2
Iwan Thomas - 2
Jeff Brazier - 2
Oliver Skeete - 1
Lee Sharpe - 1
Marc Bannerman - 1

Women
Kate Lawler - 3
Jenny Powell - 2
Victoria Silvestedt - 2
Annabel Croft - 2
Leilani Dowding - 1
Michelle Heaton - 0

Next Week
Friendly fire, James Hewitt takes on massive Marc Bannerman.
Model rivalry, Leilani Dowding vs Victoria Silvestedt
Badly proportioned, Jeff Brazier has a go at Iwan Thomas.

Gameshow Connections?

A chain of people link these gameshows but who links what?

Carnal Knowledge
-----
Scrapheap Challenge
-----
Grudge Match
-----
Catchphrase
-----
Jungle Run
-----
Ask The Family

So who goes where? Here are the 5 presenters who fill in the gaps. You try and work out who links what.

Domonic Wood
Nick Weir
Rober Llewellyn
Chris Jarvis
Lisa Rogers

There's Nothing We Can't Do

WE DID IT!! 50,000,000 downloads of Firefox 1.0

Major thanks to everyone who's downloaded through the Firefox button in the sidebar. You really have made me feel involved with this. They said we couldn't compete against Microsoft. What do those people say now?

Unshakable Feeling

I really, really want to start w00tworld Hentai. My collection size has skyrocketed recently and I'm feeling for it the same I was feeling when I first found it on the OCR forums. Added to that the fact that no-one listens to my hentai related posts on here anyway means I might as well put them somewhere on their own.

Must go, I'm expecting a monster yaoi drop in my inbox later. Look it up. I'm promised that this variant is unique.

FYI
Yes I bleeding know what yaoi is.

Pwnage

Spotted this on the Keshi Heads forum.

St Wankered Institute for the Terminally Stressed

I need to write this Romeo and Juliet thing today. Its the only piece of coursework I still need to do.

In other news Super Size Me is on tonight so make sure you watch.

Final Score

Liverpool - 0
Chelsea - 0

Its all down to Anfield now. We have to destroy Jose's ego at home.

Vintage NJ

There's a 'new' review around. Its actually one of my old PaletteSwap reviews but its also the first review I ever did.

Fine Again

Music: The Offspring - Original Prankster
21 Days Until E3 2005

Problem identified. My looming German oral exam was winding me up more than I thought. Sorry to everyone for being so cranky recently. Something else has cheered me up anyway. Coming home to see my beautiful memory card on my desk. My Cube looks right again.

Back to Square One

22 Days Until E3 2005

No matter how much better I feel there's always something on the net to make me blindingly upset again. Maybe I'm just unlucky. I find it really hard to have a decent time when I'm like this.

Celebrating the first short post in some time.

New and Worth It - May

So what new shows are worth watching on the tellybox next month? Let's see shall we?

Monday 2nd (May Bank Holiday)
PXG Day
From 9am
Jetix
Jetix's video game show comes in throughout the day. Reliable if your not watching anything else.

Friday 13th to Sunday 15th
Viva Las Vegas
From 8pm
Biography
Not following Challenge's lead are we?

Saturday 14th
Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi!
4pm
Cartoon Network
If you have a sense of humour you must watch this show. It's awesome.

Wednesday 25th
Pokemon Chronicles
4:30pm
Toonami
This series has a long way to go to repair the damage done by the nasty Master Quest. I hope it can do it though.

Saturday 28th
Robot Wars: The 8th Wars
7pm
Jetix
Can Tornado hold on to the crown it won 2 years ago? Robot Wars finally returns with the original team of Craig Charles, Phillippa Forester and Jonathan Pearce.

Tuesday 31st
Code Lyoko
4:30pm
Toonami
A definate unknown quantity here. Looks quite interesting, like a cross between Cubix and Megaman NT Warrior.

Poker Million 2005
10pm
Sky Sports 1
This year's competition is wide open after an astonishing number of players graduated from the internet to proper tournament play last year. Keep an eye on defending champion Donnacha O'Dea though.

Series Times
Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi
4pm every day

Pokemon Chronicles
4:30pm every Wednesday

Code Lyoko
4:30pm Tuesday and Thursday

A lot of stuff this month. Online The Amazing Race 7 has just about finished and the countdown has started to TAR8 with its 4 person teams. Tsubasa Chronicle has gained the inevitable following that is guarranteed to every CLAMP series, episode 3 was released today.

See you next month for June's edition of New and Worth It.

All times and dates are taken from the official Sky listings and are subject to change at any time.

Coming Soon on w00tworld TV
Every Friday
The Official UK Video Game Chart with ChartTrack
April 28th
The Official Anime DVD Chart with Silverscreen DVD Entertainment
April 29th
May's Anime Releases

Award Time

It's time for a w00tweb Award!! These are awards given to websites which are more awesome than they have a right to be.

Most bands have a fairly standard identikit website. Biography, track samples, wallpapers and other downloads. End of story. Being known for their animated personalities you'll have worked out by now that Gorillaz aren't most bands. And accordingly they don't have the website of most bands. A flash based job giving visitors a tour of Kong Studios, Gorillaz's cool as fuck home.

A quick links menu gives you instant access to the rooms of the 4 band members. 2D's electronic haven, Noodle's oriental paradise, Russell's comfortable mess and Murdoch's car park. Each band member has a number of things in their room from games to demo tapes to record players to minidiscs to pictures acting as links. The subtle focus in each room though is the computers. Each band member's PC contains personal links (cheap viagra is something I found on 2D's), pictures (Noodle has several pictures of his native Japan), random shit (Russell's recipe for soup anyone?) and email (Murdoch has a slight eBay addiction). These computers are all different. 2D has a standard PC, Noodle has an iMac (running the old Mac OS), Russell has an Atari ST (a look through his email tells you he's a fan of awesome ST emulator STeem) and Murdoch has a laptop. The bunker section shows the dark side with skeletons of forgotten members and a hellhole waiting for the brave.

Gorillaz's website is an awesome adventure and great fun to explore. Head over there and check it out but don't forget to come back here to tell me what you think.

w00tweb Award
Gorillaz Official Website
http://www.gorillaz.com

Weaver

I've got a hell of a lot of free time right now so I'm running through the Weaver's Week archives at UKGS. Man I've seen quite a bit. From the incredible excitement surrounding Greed (remember?) to the catchphrases of Shafted (anyone?) to Nick Gates/Brig Bother (you know him surely?) writing a guest column and being funnier than 10 Iain Weaver's in the process. Here's 2 great quotes from what is affectionately known (by Iain) as 'The Week'

"Catchphrases include 'you're off the show', 'will you share or shaft?' and 'where's the remote'."
on Shafted

"shooting on 1, shooting on 2, shooting on 3, soaps that should be shot on 5 and shooting worth watching on 4"
on the phenominal X-Fire

Now a question. Does anyone know when Channel 5's awesome quiz 19 Keys appeared? I'm desperately trying to find out but memory is blanking.

EDIT: Ignore that last bit, I got it. Was it really November 03?

FYI
Words can't describe how incredible 19 Keys was. It even impressed Weaver. A lot.

Ratings

Having been slaughtered in the ratings by just about everything Dick and Dom's Ask the Family took a victory this week. Ratings are gradually rising but the same can not be said for series 2 of Hell's Kitchen. The loss of Gordon Ramsey has hit the show hard as it lost more viewers between shows 1 and 2 than the aforementioned Ask the Family.

I haven't seen tonights ratings yet but I think its gonna be a close run thing between Doctor Who and Gladi....sorry, Celebrity Wrestling.

CW was actually really, really, really good (really). The 12 celebrities taking part are split into 2 teams. The Crusaders in red and The Warriors in blue.

Line-ups (** indicates someone I've actually heard of)
Crusaders
James Hewitt**
Leilani Dowding**
Mark Speight**
Jenny Powell**
Jeff Brazier
Michelle Heaton**

Warriors
Kate Lawler**
Iwan Thomas**
Annabel Croft**
Oliver Skeete**
Victoria Silvestedt**
Marc Bannerman

In each episode 1 member of each team take part in a best of 3 series of games. The winners recieve points for their team. 3 series' of games are played in each episode. At the end of the 8 show series whichever team has the most points wins the championship trophy and the man and woman who have earned the most points win their respective belts. Watch a show and it will soon hit you. This is real. Take one game from tonight's show.

Sumo Slam
Hewitt vs Skeete
Nice and easy one, straight game of sumo. In game 2 Oliver Skeete had James Hewitt right on the edge with Hewitt clinging on for dear life. Simple push? No. Skette plants hit feet on Hewitt's chest and pushes landing on top of Hewitt. That has to hurt. Check it out next week, Doctor Who's repeated Sunday on BBC3, you can miss it. ITV has finally found the Who killer.

OLR

http://www.olremix.org
Hahahaha. Welcome to Overlooked Remix.

The Law in Their Hands

Hacker my ass. Check out the latest liberty taken by the music industry to eliminate file-sharing.

Hacker attacks file-sharers

[/obsession]

I don't expect most of you to get that. Listen to Mr Brightside and you'll see what I'm feeling right now.

Day Off

So we got a day off tomorrow. I'm gonna be drawing the first What We're Thinking to go up over the weekend. I've also got a nation to run over at Nation States. w00tworld dropped 6,000 places overnight due to my decision to not pay people to donate organs. Hopefully we'll go up today after organ donation is made compulsory *evil laugh*.

No Scan City

My reading speed is insanely fast. Some people think I only scan books but I've proved them wrong when I'm able to reel off the major and minor plot details. Some of my speed records include whipping through 300-400 page books in days or hours. My personal best however is my infamous demolition of Harry Potter 5 in less than 5 hours.

I regretted that the next morning.

When Orchestral Beats Hip Hop

Well I've seen One Piece at last and I have to say that Scott at VG Cats got it dead on. If you liked the english version of DBZ then chances are you'll like this but if you've even touched upon the japanese original then stay well away. 4Kids don't screw up every anime they touch.....ah who am I kidding. 4Kids Entertainment screw up every single anime they get their hands on due to extremely bad marketing. This is the UK, if a show is too violent out the blocks then put it in a later timeslot (The Big O is doing well in its 8:30pm slot I've heard) but for god sake don't water it down to make it more appealing to little kids. The original One Piece is extremely funny and a superb anime, the 4Kids version is appaling and doesn't do the series justice. Hunt down the manga instead, I think Viz are publishing it in the UK.

FYI
4Kids' bad marketing team let the awesome series Cubix go down the pan.

Quiz Time

Come on. Which dictator are you?

As dictators go, you're kind of pathetic! Instead of military coup or systematic persecution to get power, you just happen to be the head of the only party in the UK that isn't totally worthless! While not very impressive it is none the less effective! You can do whatever the hell you like without any chance of getting voted out of office! People know that the only alternative would have them eating their children if they ever got back into power! However, you still think that you are as loved as you were when you were first elected into power… News flash for you: You're not! What tin-pot dictator are you? Take the "What Dictator am I?" test at PoisonedMinds.com

Back to Addiction

Hentai Addict is the best hentai community around. I joined there November 04 and I've only just hit there as a regular. Great feeling to chat to hentai fans as usually they're so easy to talk to.

On another note, episode 2 of Tsubasa Chronicle has just hit the torrents. It's the Dattebayo and Live Evil groups who've teamed up to get this episode out first so if you're holding loyalty to the A-F and Solar sub (I'm not) then you've got a bit of a wait. A-F/Solar and Dattebayo/L-E both released their subs on the same day with mere hours separating them.

Also today Team Yugioh began their campaign for Tsubasa. Having gained a reputation for subbing the first series of Yu-Gi Oh and beautifully fighting off their critics by reminding them that the series hadn't been licenced these guys are geniuses. For the confused the first series shown in the UK was actually the second series. The first series took place in the Dueller's Kingdom and the Duel Monsters game played a far smaller part.

Stupid Links for Stupid People

Evenin'

Written Saturday to present to you good people Sunday. It's like The Friday Night Project but more live. And slightly funnier.

WANT PIE NOW!

Destroy the sites you hate

Uh-oh

How to know you've got too much time

And again

Not even I would stoop this low

You kinda wish it was

And finally

Where I got all this from

MJ and DJBJ

All the Js. Just took a quiz I found over at Jon's blog to find out which Michael Jackson I am.



We also found Brett's DJ name. DJBJ!!

FYI
Michael Jackson is innocent.
Don't call yourself a DJ unless you got the vinyls to prove it.

Another 10

Top 10....Programs I Couldn't Live Without

10 - Trillian
My link with the people.
9 - Thunderbird
Best mail client. Not that I use it much.
8 - ePSXe
Can't do without my PSX emulator.
7 - SmartFTP
IfritRoms wouldn't work without it.
6 - DC++
Awesome file sharer.
5 - iTunes
Takes Winamp's crown as best media player.
4 - BitTornado
Must...have...anime...
3 - Picasa 2
Just see for yourself.
2 - Limewire
Best file sharing programme since Napster.
1 - Firefox
Well what did you expect?

Unquittable

Its been nearly a month since Numbus was forced to come back to admin duties at Hentai Palm as his replacement Chulyen hit the hospital. Numbus appears to be doing the job with far more humour and openess than ever. He's ranting, raving, laughing and cracking jokes in every single news post.

12th April 2005 - Just a Yawn
"*yawn*"

He's a much more entertaining person that's for sure. Maybe the time off did him good.

Top 10....

Seeing as everyone else is doing it I'll do it.

Top 10....Most Influential TV Programms in My Life
10 - The Mole
Gave me my investigative streak.
9 - Sub Zero
Gave me the internet.
8 - SM:TV
Best morning programme. Ever.
7 - Gamesmaster
Without it there would not be any Gamer.tv, WGA, Gamepad 4 etc....
6 - Jungle Run
I tried to buld my own version.
5 - Fort Boyard
I tried to build my own version.
4 - The Crystal Maze
We all tried to build our own version.
3 - Pokemon
Without it I would not love anime.
2 - Yu-Gi Oh
When anime translates to real life.
1 - Cardcaptors
The peak of my anime love. As good as its ever got.

Refreshing Familiarity

Just watched Tsubasa Chronicle episode 1 and man was it good to see the Card Captor Sakura characters again. Just as good was the fact that each of the characters had retained their personalities. The same relationships and storylines seem to have switched to this new story in this new place.

For those who don't know, Tsubasa Chronicle is a new story in a new world featuring pretty much every character ever created by the 4-woman CLAMP team. Characters from Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, RG Veda, Rayearth, xxxHolic (not what it sounds like) and X/1999 all make appearances in what is pretty much the definitive anime series for CLAMP fans. Tomorrow I have to get out my CCS videos. Or watch Air. Or Macross Plus. Or Princess Mononoke.

No. CCS is the only option.

FYI
Tsubasa Chronicle is being fansubbed by 2 teams. The Anime-Fansubs (A-F) and Solar teams have got together to ensure they do the series justice. There are 4 episodes in total and the 1st of them is now available from Anime Suki. The manga series 'Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle' is now out in the UK published by Tokyopop.

EDIT
This is only just not worthy of its own post.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/spankthemonkey.php
My record is 277mph.

Maybe....

I'll have to look through the TOS to find out if I can but I'm considering launching a hentai version of w00tworld. Don't say what you think as I know it all already. I would really enjoy having my own hentai site.

ICT

Did no work because I couldn't get on my area. So instead I just wandered around for most of the lesson. After a bit I sat on my ass and read Samurai Girl 2. We had a great time without you Ali.

Playlist - April 2005

Downloading - Air (batch torrent)
Music - The Offspring - Why Don't You Get A Job?

Moving from w00tworld Reviews to w00tworld Home the playlist is back for another month. For the uninitiated this is a monthly feature that I nicked of the short-lived Soap Sounds blog (which moved to the evil MSN Spaces) and then had nicked off me by Spork44. I tell you what's been keeping my ears happy this month.

Bloc Party - Banquet
Nothing like an awesome song for free from DLM.

djpretzel - Falling Down
From the unspoilt hunting grounds of Anime Remix comes this great chilled Naruto remix.

The Futureheads - Hounds of Love
It pisses my sister off.

Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
What a comeback!

HIM - Buried Alive By Love
I was not expecting to like this song.

QOTSA - Little Sister
Or this one.

Muse - Time is Running Out
Or this one.

The Killers - Mr Brightside
I was expecting to like this one.

My Chemical Romance - Helena
Don't like the band but I like this song.

The playlist returns next month.

Click

Go to the dA page and see the journal.
Then go to my old LiveJournal to see w00tworld School.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/njsykora

They're G-r-r-eat!!

Sorry.

Go and get Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze. Because its great.

Go and get Samurai Girl: Book of the Shadow. Because its great.

Go and get a packet of Maryland Choc Chip and Hazelnut cookies. Because they're great.

Watch Tsubasa Chronicle. Because its great.

Watch Dick and Dom's Ask the Family. Because its great.

Buy some pants. Because they're great.

Buy Trackmania Sunrise. Because its great.

Have a wank. Because its great.

New Releases

Oh man. Some of you may have seen this in my dA journal.

Anime fansub groups A-F and Solar released Tsubasa Chronicle today. I really really really want to see Tsubasa Chronicle. I'm downloading Air right now so I have to finish that to download Tsubasa. I currently hate A-F and Solar dispite their track records. A-F have done Twin Spica and Macross 7 while Solar have credit for Gundam Evolve.

FYI
Fansubbing is the process of adding english subtitles to japanese anime series'. Different groups do different series' but it is not uncommon to see 2 or more groups doing the same anime. The competiton between groups is not unfriendly but groups can be rejected by the community if they are seen to be fansubbing a licenced series.

Coming Through....

Whoa, I forgot to log off Trillian when I left my computer this morning. Damn. Where is everyone anyway?

Anyhoo BitTornado loves me again (as does someone called Steve). Download rate peaked today at 36kbs from 5 seeds and episode 3 of Air has moved from an estimated time left of over 4 hours to under 50 minutes in less than an hour.

Morning Suckers

Aaahhh, sitting here in my chair is made better by only one thing. Knowing that all you lot are stuck at school. My sister made the great decision of staying in Gloucester for another day so I got the day off. The first day off too.

Anyway, stuff an' shit.
New review up for In Memoriam. Great game but not for the feint hearted or stupid.
At the time of writing only the ever reliable Tim Buckley has his new comic (Ctrl+Alt+Del) up.
Ever unreliable Scott of VG Cats apparantly has a new site design coming.
There's something to scare the kids with over at Ali's blog.
Lina Rydgebork (Lasaro) really scared me this morning.

Googlequiz: Sets

Those who have hung around IfritRoms.com for some time will know full well the rules of the Googlequiz. The idea is you use Google and your own knowledge to find the answers to 5 questions. The first person to email me with all 5 correct answers is the winner. Don't post answers in the comments box as that will give everyone else a chance. The catagory for this specific Googlequiz is sets. I will give you a set of names or words and your task is to find out what links them.

Q1) Who are these 4 people collectively known as? Nanase Ohkawa, Monoka Apapa, Mick Nekkoi and Satsuki Igarashi.

Q2) What links anime movies Steamboy and Akira?

Q3) What is the collective term for Iver, Groove, Tula, Hubba-Hubba and Roamer?

Q4) What links Players 1+2, Chef Brian and Lilah?

Q5) What game is associated with Jack Lorski and Karen Gijman?

Good luck.

Contrasting Opinions

David Bodycoumbe hates it.
The majority of the UKGameshows crew hates it.
I do not hate it.
Iain Weaver doesn't hate it.
Nick Gates doesn't hate it.

OK a bit of explaining. Here I'm talking about Ask the Family which returned this week with Dick and Dom at the helm. This caused outrage for the UKGS purists (most of us) and only a few people (which I've mentioned above) stood up for the show. David and the rest of the old timers including the creator of Ask the Family blasted the show endlessly but amongst all this there were those of us who had remembered our sense of humour. I was first to stand up for Richard and Domonic followed soon by Nick (aka Brig Bother). After that the topic kinda died. Now today (Sunday) Iain Weaver published his weekly column on UKGameshows.com and naturally he had to comment on Ask the Family. Firstly he started with a less than positive reminder of the old series. He called it hard to follow, unatmospheric, outdated and dull. Next he went on to pass opinion on Dick and Dom's version. Strangely (as Iain could be described as a purist) he likes it. Well kinda, he explains to the doubters that Dick and Dom's version has very little different from the original except the humour. He describes the rounds and incredibly shows the good bits of the program. Now Iain has confessed that he does like Dick and Dom (unlike seemingly every other member of the UKGS staff) and as such he is fair to the show. He finishes with "it's entertaining but I won't be watching for the rest of the run". He also points out that far from Ann Robinson levels of cruelty the silly ass forfeit for being the first to get an answer wrong is just a bit of good natured humiliation. Major kudos to Iain for actually giving the show a chance.

FYI
As far as I know Dick and Dom's Ask the Family is on all next week at 6:30pm on BBC2. Iain Weaver is a seasoned columnist for UKGS having been writing Weaver's Week for over 4 years. He is also an amatuer statistician. he also beat me out to a Bother's Bar Happy Hour prize of £20. Twice.

Oops

Just correcting something I wrote earlier. Air will not in fact be appearing on the torrent trackers this week. I've been informed that the series is complete. As far as I know Bleach and Beck will be appearing as normal. Thanks to Prutser.com and the Koi team for telling me that.

The Revolution Starts Here

OK, ok. Posting like an anime nut today but I need to say this. It is with great pleasure that I exited the columns of Neo this month. Last month I left them rather depressed. Jonathan Clements insulting the 100 greatest cartoons list on Channel 4 (which you may recall he contributed to) and Paul Gravett telling me that manga is one of the biggest selling types of book in France of all places. Well this week Jonathan was as uninspiring as ever but Paul was talking about the London Book Fair. For the uninitiated the London Book Fair is the biggest trade show for the UK book industry. Everyone from Random House to Waterstones sets up there, its the E3 of the book world. Now manga is viewed with something bordering on hostility by most major bookshops (so extra kudos to Ottakars, Blackwells and Borders) but this year the UK Reading Agency was out to change that. Yes you read that right the UK Reading Agency. The biggest authority on UK bookselling was there to change negative opinions on manga, those back to front comics from full time nutjobs the japanese. Their seminar title was to the point. 'How to Profit from Graphic Novels'. Most manga fans would see that as something negative but remember we're dealing with major corporations here. The only language they understand is profit so this is a natural way to explain manga (and how to milk it) to the suits. It seems this is a full blown mission for the Reading Agency, on their website (www.readingagency.org.uk) there's a resource pack available for schools and libraries. It's quite comprehensive and contains banners, posters, stickers, postcards, all the labelling a library would need for a manga section and most importantly a big book. This book contains everything a retailer or library would need to know about manga. A big annotated list of 150 major manga titles along with their related animes and games, a manga reading guide (I know how tricky reading right to left is), the history of manga, important websites and magazines and finally 10 tips for marketing manga. I see it as immensely important that something like that has been put out there (the closing date for orders was January 28th). Apparantly Waterstones has been seeing immense success with manga and as the UKs #1 I hope that will encourage everyone to sell it. Here's to the future of manga in the UK!

FYI
If you fancy getting some manga not released in the UK then check out my 2 favourite BitTorrent trackers at www.prutser.com and manga.bakaupdates.com

Legally This Time

I've been downloading music again. Thing is I did it legally this time hovering around OCR, Anime Remix and Download.com Music.

DLM
Apostles of Hustle - Kings and Queens
2/5
Not good. Don't bother.

Beaner - One of These Days
3/5
Better. Bother.

Snatcher - No Win Situation
3/5
Loud guitars and shouty lyrics does not a good song make. This just about escapes as it's actually an alright song.

Stars - Ageless Beauty
3/5
The only thing I don't like about this song are the lyrics. They just don't fit.

Bloc Party - Banquet
5/5
Yes it's their new single. Yes it's on Download.com Music for free. Yes it's fucking awesome.

Anime Remix
djpretzel - Falling Down
5/5
The Wind ending theme from Naruto series 1 gets the DJP treatment. He still maintains that he can't sing but his lyrics are showing more and more maturity with every outing. Consider it essential.

OC Remix
Snyder - Electric Gear Solid
4/5
One of my favourite mixes. Snyder's take on the MGS2 theme (which is one of my favourite game tunes anyway) is superb soft electronica.

So now my playlist looks like this.
Bloc Party - Banquet
djpretzel - Falling Down
The Futureheads - Hounds of Love
Gorillaz - 19/2000
The Killers - Somebody Told Me
Blink 182 - Stay Together For the Kids
The Bravery - An Honest Mistake
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
The Killers - Mr Brightside
Snyder - Electric Gear Solid
Beaner - One of These Days
Blink 182 - First Date
Snatchback - No Win Situation
Stars - Ageless Beauty
Apostle of Hustle - Kings and Queens

Laters all, my wrist really hurts.

This Week on TV

So what's worth watching this week? having flicked through the listings here's what's worth your time.

KEY
[show name]
[type]
[channel]
[day]
[time]
[description]

W.I.T.C.H
Shoujo Anime
Jetix
Saturday and Sunday
4:30pm
I only just remembered this was on today. The trailers for this new anime have been interesting me for a while and I'm happy to say it's lived up to it's promise. The manga was licenced by Disney at the same time as the anime. Don't scorn this, Disney were the ones that brought the awesome Spirited Away to the UK and have a surprising record with anime. Look out for the W.I.T.C.H manga in shops this week.

Teenage Kicks
Gameshow
Sky One
Saturdays
10:30pm
This looks interesting. Described as a Home Alone style gameshow. Hopefully its as good as another Home Alone style gameshow on CITV (the superb Scary Sleepover).

South Park
Comedy
Paramount Comedy
Weekdays
9pm
Series 8 of the fantastically immature comedy appears on its new home Paramount Comedy.

One Piece
Shonen Anime
Toonami
Monday
5pm
Yarrrr. The ever-naive UK mainstream press have described this as the new Dragonball Z. In the same way Yu-Gi Oh was. And the same way Outlaw Star was. Anyway, this is awesome pirate comedy and you should watch it. I can already guess what the mainstreams are gonna call Naruto when it inevitably hits the UK.

Scrubs
Comedy
E4
Wednesday
9pm
E4's It A 9 Thing slot finally comes up with something worth watching. Series 3 of Scrubs kicks off. You may have seen it already as Paramount Comedy nicked it off Sky One early this year.

Derren Brown: Trick of the Mind
Entertainment
E4 and Channel 4
E4 on Monday and Channel 4 on Friday
9:30pm
Charismatic, witty, entertaining and unbelievably honest. He can't read your mind but he can sure fuck with it. After the superb Russian Roulette, the ill-advised (but so good to watch) Seance and critically ignored Messiah Derren turns from the big stunts to the much more entertaining Trick of the Mind series. Playing showman like tricks and Paul Zenon style pranks on members of the public and celebrities. Can be watched with either an open or skeptic mind, you'll still be impressed.

Have I Got News For You
Comedy Gameshow
BBC1
Friday
9:30pm
A nice move by the beeb to take on Mr Brown. More Gordon Brown than Derren Brown here. Ian Hislop and Paul Merton return to the captain seats and who knows who's gonna get the host's chair. I'm still hopeful that Angus Deayton's coming back.

ONLINE
Quite a bit hitting the BitTorrent networks this week. Look out for Air, Beck and Bleach on AnimeSuki. Check out Viva La Bam series 4 and Amazing Race 7 on BTF-Net.

Must go now, Doctor Who's on.

FYI
Shounen and Shoujo are Japanese words used to refer to genders. Shounen is male and Shoujo is female. When in anime and manga terms they refer to the target audience. This basically means something like One Piece is referred to as Shounen (the original manga was serialised in a magazine called Shounen Jump) while something like W.I.T.C.H is known as Shoujo. Most manga scanulation groups and anime fansubbing groups stick to one type or the other. The same is true for most manga artists and anime directors. The most famous exception to the rule is the 4 girl collective CLAMP. Famous for the shounen (X/1999), the shoujo (Card Captor Sakura) and the god-knows what (Chobits).

Look At What You Could Have Won

Look! A new Bullseye board game! It has a magnetic dart board and loads of question cards!

Bullseye article at UKGameshows.com
http://www.ukgameshows.com/index.php/Bullseye

New Bullseye game at Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007KQSBI/labyrinthgames/026-9081262-2532449

FYI
Bullseye was a gameshow made for ITV (and the Central region in particular). It ran for 14 years between 1981 and 1995. There was allegedly a 5 year waiting list to be in the audience. Bendy Bully's are among the most prized consolation prizes of all time rivalling a crystal from The Crystal Maze, the Blankety Blank chequebook and pen, the Blockbusters dictionary and the Wipeout paperweight.

Jumping

http://www.minitrackmania.com

The Official UK Anime Chart and Release Scedule

The Official UK Anime DVD Chart comprised by Silverscreen DVD Entertainment

01 - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Volume 2 (Manga UK)
02 - Akira Ultimate Edition (Manga UK)
03 - Fist of the North Star Volumes 1-12 (Manga UK)
04 - Ghost in the Shell Special Edition (Manga UK)
05 - Ninja Scroll 10th Aniversary (Manga UK)
06 - Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend (Manga UK)
07 - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Volume 1 (Manga UK)
08 - Blood: The Last Vampire (Manga UK)
09 - Spirited Away (Optimum)
10 - Cowboy Bebop Volumes 1+2 (Beez)

Well a good spread this month. Manga UK releases dominate and 3 of the animes which placed in the 100 Greatest Cartoons get a boost too. Pretty reassuring to see Cowboy Bebop place so soon after release.

Notable Releases in April
So what's worth buying this month? Here's your guide. I consider entries in bold essential.

4th
Dominion Tank Police Acts 1+2
Gungrave Volume 1
Haibane Renmai Volume 1
Kiddy Grade Volume 8
Yu Yu Hakusho Volume 2

18th
Angelic Layer Volume 7
Kino's Journey Volume 4
Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum Edition Volume 2

21st
Witch Hunter Robin Volume 1

25th
Cowboy Bebop Volume 4
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Volume 3
La Blue Girl Returns Volume 1

No your eyes are not decieving you the majority of this months main releases are essential. From the insane (Bebop) and the classic (Evangelion Platinum) to the mature (Witch Hunter Robin) and the unbelievably beautiful (Haibane Renmai). Hentai fans especially watch the shelves for the long awaited return of La Blue Girl.

Sleepwalking

I find I do this a lot. I did it last night and here's how I know.

I woke up this morning in my bed. I didn't get in my bed last night.

According to my sister here's what I did last night. I was asleep in my chair when she came in to say we had pizza (Domino's). Apparantly when she said that I got up, got undressed and got into bed.

Oh well, later today I'll have The Official UK Anime Chart up for your viewing pleasure.

Watch. Now.

Are you watching Dick and Dom's Ask the Family?

If yes then good job on spotting an awesome remake of an extremely dull show.
If no then leave here now and go watch it.
If you hate Dick and Dom then leave my domain and never return.

FYI
Dick and Dom's Ask the Family is on BBC2 at 6:30pm weekdays.
Their full names are Richard McCourt and Domonic Wood.
Richard's brother James presents Glory Ball on Challenge.
Domonic is the youngest person ever inducted into The Magic Circle.

I Swear

http://miss--misery.blogspot.com/2005/04/just-for-you.html
I could swear this was just to annoy me.

Internet Observations

Sound - BBC News 24
Downloading - Air Prelude (anime)

Just spotting stuff around the net.

The season premier (1st episode) of the 7th season of The Amazing Race was the 2nd highest rating show of the night. It was just beaten out by American Idol.

The fucking pope manages to get on my nerves even when he's dead.

David Stewart has a very very (very very very) punchable face indeed.

Broadband is awesome.

Xhibit's real name is stupid (it's Alvin Nathaniel Joiner).

Vincent Margera (Don Vito) is one of the funniest people alive.

World News Tonight with Peter Jennings (ABC) hasn't been with Peter Jennings for some time.

The new iraqi president's name is worrying. It's Jalal Talibani in case you're not paying attention.

That's all, laters.

PS: Visit this poor excuse for a satiric blog.
http://superblog2.blogspot.com

A Love Greater Than Ever

Music - Background Noise
Downloading - Cool Devices 1

Something happened earlier this year which threw a great, long standing love into doubt. A great man and one of the greatest personalities to ever be blessed on that community gave up his post as one of the most powerful people in hentai to persue a job in the real world.

He's back.

Here's a quick explaination. Numbus left the Hentai Group collection of sites to go for a job in the USA. In his place came Maelstrom from the UK to look after Hentai Palm while Barros took over everything else. Problems quickly came though as Maelstrom fell ill and Numbus had to come back until he got better. Numbus is still in charge and being a lot more open and friendly about the glut of emails he gets every day. There was a quirk though as he got to co-ordinate the Hentai Group april fools joke 2005. A fake contest to win 1 of 30 GT Hentai Keys. Absolutely fucking hilarious some of the entries I'll tell you. I might post some of them later.

Anyway a combination of things including being without hentai for a few days has brought my love of it to new heights. It's great being back.

I've Had Enough Now

Music: Bloc Party - Helicopter
Downloading: Angel Blade 1

RANT INCOMING

OK, this is mainly centered at my friends who read this blog.

Quit your fucking whining.

So you chose the wrong subject. So did I but I'm not complaining.

So you're behind with coursework. So was I but then I channeled all that complaining energy into actually doing the work and now I'm sitting here chilling knowing I just got the exams to worry about.

For god sake Ali, Knighty, Jon, Lina, Bev, Nat and Britt. Some people are willing to help you with your problems and usually I'm one of those people. Thing is now I've got sick of constant depressing stories about someone else's life falling apart. Just give it a rest and keep it to yourself.

Adjustments

"Download rate - 59kbs"
That's what I'm talking about.

"Connected to 26 seeds"
That's what bittorrent is all about.

http://www.nescapades.com
This guy is my new hero, he has a total games collection of 5303 games. Check out the game room page (props to Ali for the link).

I'm Back

Hey all, I'm back home now and ready to have some fun with this connection.

New Feature

April's feature is a preview of Trackmania Sunrise. Check it out.

April Fools

The internet is where you find the good April Fools jokes.

OCR - Now EAR
http://www.ocremix.org

Google - Try their new energy drink
http://www.google.co.uk

Think Geek - Some cool new products today (look below the navigation bar)
http://www.thinkgeek.com

Wikipedia - TAKEOVER!!
http://www.wikipedia.org

2600 - Smarten up (top news article)
http://www.2600.com

Sonic HQ - Out of the Shadow
http://www.sonichq.org

Simpsons Archive - Huh?
http://www.snpp.com

Little-Gamers - Struck down
http://www.little-gamers.com

Fark - Moderator for the day
http://www.fark.com

Some excellent gags this year. Well done to everyone.

EDIT - Gmail users check your new features. And your inbox space.

OCRAPRIL01

Mr Lloyd you get better every year.

2004 - Nobou Uematsu creates a shit OC Remix and gets it posted.
2005 - EA Remix.

The OCR April Fools Joke gets better every year. And I fall for it every year. Only fell for a few minutes before the date dawned on me.

EDIT: I really hope Ormgas had the same idea. (http://oc.ormgas.com)

Cooking on Gas

"Tiscali is now connected
Speed - 2.3Mbps"

YYYYYYEEEEESSSSS!!!!