This is an astoundingly good anime series. Damn good steampunk (and good scifi, besides).

This is a very odd and very well written book. I have mixed feeling about it. The downside — though it is a philosophy book, the author does not know very much about philosophy or science, and that gets irritating sometimes. He comes across as, if not anti-intellectual, then definitely anti-academic, and with that comes a weird smugness and posturing, not to mention factual errors.

But on the upside — his conversations on the subject of quality and excellence, are fantastic, and quite fascinating. It gave me a lot of food for thought, and gave me much to aspire to, both in my work (software development), and in life in general.

I highly recommend it.

Oh dear gods, this was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts:

http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/372782.html

I didn’t like this as much as Opening of Misty Beethoven, The Punishment of Anne, or Taboo 2.

I finished the audio version, narrated by Donovan (dear gods, that man can read, I could listen to him narrate a phone book, enthralled).

This was just a limited selection, unfortunately, and had only 6 of the stories by Hesse.

Nevertheless, they were quite well written and interesting.

I still really want to read Dune Messiah.

The audiobook version, however, read by Connor O’Brien, is terrible. I had to suffer through his rendition of Larry Niven’s Ringworld. His voice is very mechanical sounding, slightly whiny, and his inflection rises weirdly at the end of the sentence.

For a second, I even thought that this was a text-to-voice rendition of the book. But no, that’s just O’Brien, he’s done that on other books it seems.

So, I gave up on this book about half an hour into it.

Will still read it, printed (as this seems to be the only audio version).

Short, funny, sometimes insightful.

Ovid cracks me up — he has a great love for women and the courting game, a rapper’s style of self-aggrandizement (he frequently reminds us of all his conquests, poetic talent, sexual prowess, and that in general, poets are ideally suited for the art of love). This reads like an ancient Roman version of Cosmo magazine, and gives tips like “where to go to meet cute girls” or what hairstyles to wear, how to evade chaperones, and so on.

I recommend it, in spite of the light cheesiness.

One of my two or three all-time favorite anime series.

Starts out simple and goofy, but very quickly you start to see that there are dark and interesting undercurrents.