Hello, and welcome to my world of random thoughts. This world is where I'm going to talk about stuff related to anime and manga, and maybe a few other things. First, a few things about me.

I like cats, my favorite food is french fries, and I was born an only child.

Favorite Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sailor Moon, Tokyo Mew Mew, Card Captor Sakura, Vampire Princess Miyu, Code Geass, Digimon: Seasons 1 through 3, Pokemon (before they got rid of Misty), Gundam SEED, Strawberry Panic, Rideback, Full Metal Panic, and Slayers.

Other Anime/Manga that I like: Buso Renkin, Gurren Lagann, InuYasha, Kannazuki no Miko, Shattered Angels, Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Durarara!!, Spice and Wolf, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, Dragonaut: The Resonance, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Trinity Blood, Blue Gender, Eden of the East, Last Exile, and Soul Eater.

TV Shows that I like: Star Trek (Original, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager), Magnum P.I., Numbers, The Simpsons, The West Wing, Hawaii Five-O (Remake), NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, Doctor Who, Leverage, The Mentalist, Elementary, and The Red Green Show.

Favorite Musical Groups/Artists: Phil Collins, Genesis (the band that Phil Collins was with originally), Journey, Styx, Boston, Queen, Billy Joel, John Denver, Survivor, and Josh Groban.

So now that's all you need to know about me. In this world I'll be talking about notable anime news stories, maybe stuff about the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game for anyone who's interested, stuff about me that relates to anime and manga in some way, and I'll probably rant about a certain series or a bunch of anime and manga. Or I may just talk about my life in general, if I feel like it. I'm not sure how often I'll post something here, but I'll try to as often as I can. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy visiting.

~Darkarax

The Return of Sailor Moon

Those of you who visit the Anime News Network site probably know that the Sailor Moon manga is going to return to the U.S. this September. I'm now really looking forward to September. I've never read the entire Sailor Moon manga. Heck, I've never even seen the entire anime, just one season of it. Frankly, I'm surprised that the Sailor Moon manga hasn't been more available in the U.S. before now. Sailor Moon is such an iconic series. Without Sailor Moon, we wouldn't have Tokyo Mew Mew, or even Card Captor Sakura. Well, come September, we'll all finally have a chance to read the original Sailor Moon manga.

PBS Overtime

Last night was slightly frustrating. Usually what I do on a Saturday night is watch a couple of episodes of a little series called the Red Green show on Iowa Public Television at 10:00 PM. Then at 11:00 PM I change to Adult Swim to watch some of their weekly anime lineup. Last night was different though. You see, another show that I like to watch on Iowa Public Television is Doctor Who, which is on at 11:00. So I record Doctor Who while I watch anime, but last night Iowa Public Television didn't follow their regular schedule. Once or twice every year, Iowa Public Television has what they has what they call "Festival" which just them showing special programs which they interrupt repeatedly to ask for money. Whenever a public broadcasting station takes breaks in the middle of their shows to ask for money, they usually run long. Last night, IPTV was supposed to show a special episode of Doctor Who which I had never seen before at 10:00, and I usually have my recording device set to record from 10:00 to midnight in case I miss Red Green. Last night though, when I turned on IPTV at 10:00, they were still showing this british sitcom that went on until about 10:36 I think. So I thought to myself that maybe I should watch Doctor Who just in case my recorder didn't get the whole thing. It meant that I'd miss Bleach, but Adult Swim usually runs the same episode of a show twice in one night, so I thought I'd just record Bleach when it ran again at 3:00 AM. So Doctor Who finally came on, but about twenty or thirty minutes in, IPTV interrupted to ask for donations. They went on for what seemed like thirty minutes, repeating how important is was to donate money to their station and what people could get by donating a certain amount. They must have gone over that list of stuff one could get for donating about five times in that break. Finally, IPTV resumed the show, and than when there was probably only fifteen minutes left in the episode, IPTV interrupted yet again. By the time Doctor Who was over, I had missed not only Bleach, but also Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, which isn't one of my favorite anime shows, but it has grown on me a little. Anyway, I also had an extra load of laundry that night, so I forgot all about recording Bleach. Anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that all PBS stations need a new and better way to raise money. Who's going to watch a show when they interrupt it for thirty minutes to talk about the same thing over and over again? Thanks for reading.

Bent Package

Today was a nice, 60 degree day in the little Nebraska town where I live, so I decided to walk to the only store in town that sells Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. To my surprise, the store had restocked their supply of Storm of Raganrok booster packs. That store is usually terrible at restocking their merchandise. Anyway, I usually buy only two packs at a time, but as I took the first two packs off the rack, I noticed that the upper left-hand cardboard package of the fourth pack on the rack was bent. Now I'm a little superstitious when it comes to buying booster packs, and I thought that perhaps that bent corner meant something. So I took that fourth pack off the rack, bought all three packs, and went home. When I opened the pack that was in the bent package, the I discovered that the first card in the pack was damaged. The bottom was crimped. It probably happened when the wrapper was sealed. That was the only damaged card. Unfortunately it was also a card that I could have used to power up my Six Samurai/Obelisk the Tormentor deck. Still, the card was a common one, so I'll probably find another copy of it sooner or later. I put it aside and looked at what the other cards in the pack were. To my surprise, the rarest card in the pack was Odin, Father of the Aesir. It turned out that my feeling about that booster pack was right. I'll need to find the Nordic Ascendant Tuners before I can use Odin in a deck, but this was quite a find. Now my familiarity with Norse mythology is a bit lacking, so after I tried taking my cat out side for a walk (that's right, I walk my cat on a leash), I got on Wikipedia to find out more about the myth of Odin. I know Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source of information, but it's a good way to find out general information about something. Just don't use it to write your school papers. Anyway, her are some interesting fact I found out about Odin.

• He had two ravens named Huginn and Muninn who'd fly around the Earth daily to report information about world events.
• Odin road an eight-legged horse.
• Odin also had a severed head that foretold the future.
• He commanded a pair of wolves named Geri and Freki.
• Odin consumed nothing but mead or wine.
• He tore out his left eye to gain knowledge of the past, present, and future.
• Santa Clause is apparently based on both Odin and Saint Nicholas of Myra.

Quite the interesting mythological god, huh? Anyway, that covers the most interesting highlight of my day. Now for no reason, here is the full version of the song, Clear Mind, by Masaaki Endoh. Enjoy.

Birth of the Cosmic Synchro Deck

For those of you who may be interested, I was finally able to build a deck based around Shooting Star Dragon and Red Nova Dragon, which I'm calling my Cosmic Synchro deck. It's not perfect yet though. I there might be too many Tuner monsters in the deck. I'll try and smooth out the deck this weekend. Thanks for reading.

Promotions

Today I was promoted to the Otaku ++ rank here at TheO. Now I can finally issue wallpaper challenges. I have one going on right now. Anyway, it seems that I'm not the only one who got promoted today. It seems that a couple other people I know here at TheO got promoted as well. I guess today is just a day for promotions. Well, congrats to the friends of mine who got promoted today.