Unprecedented early BBQ? Not quite...

I see back in April 2006 (when I actually used to write on this dang thing) I grilled a whole 4 days earlier. But today was a gorgeous rare 80F day in late-April, so I washed my car, took a nice drive, and now I'm about to grill up some steak. And some bacon-wrapped sausage. I've been wrapping a number of things in bacon lately, go figure...

The bugs are thick and annoying right now, and a bird deigned to shat on my shorts, so I'm feeling a bit squicky, but a few more beers and a change of pants is alleviating that.

I've actually been watching a whole lot of things, and even have a few post ideas to start on. But there's that ol' inertia in the way. Like I've said before, it's easier to not-blog than to actually blog. But it's nice, I've got great tunes blasting, and I'm in a good mood; so who knows?

Big surprise! "Phantom" licensed by FUNimation... for online streaming

(h/t AlexShadow on the forum...)

I was a bit shocked to see this so soon, but FUNimation is posting subtitled streams of Phantom episodes. In the case of episode 4, hours before it's actually aired in Japan!

Over on ANN, in the comments section, a Funi rep clarifies that the license is for streaming-only; DVD releases are a discussion for another day.

Oh, and US-only? Yeah. That's the way it works, I guess.

I guess I'm going to follow along with what I'm doing with Shangri-La and will watch it exclusively through the official channels. As much as I find the FUNimation video player's constant *buffering* an incredible annoyance (leaving it paused for an hour or so to pre-download seems to be the solution), plus the Flash player is rather choppy and blurry when trying to play it fullscreen at 1080p. Oh well, all the more incentive to buy BluRay discs when they're released!

Onward, progress!

"Phantom" has aired, fast fansubs follow

I took a peek at the raw of the episode, and was pleased! The "Hand of Mashimo™" is strong in this one. *grin* A hi-def version of the fansub has already hit the torrents, so I'll probably catch that tonight.

More over on the forum, of course. And more later when I'm not actually blogging from work.

(Link updated to point to the new Phantom-only board)