There be Dragons!

After yet another upgrade (tm) went less than stellarly last night, I ended up waking rather late this morning, but at least I'm catching up on sleep finally. (That is, until tomorrow morning when I get to go back to work at 4 am. Blah.)

So far my day off has been pretty neat--I watched anime (another entry a-coming), then got my butt out the house and went to the Asian festival and dragon boat race in downtown Tampa.

Now, one of my biggest gripes with Tampa has been that there are no central parks or such where people would typically congregate and have events. It appears that this is changing somewhat, though, as the new Channelside district appears to be a pretty nice place to stroll (and look at people with obscene amounts of money who can afford to live there), and there's now more or less continuous sidewalk all the way from Bayshore to past the Port Authority, apparently planned into Ybor. I hope the city will keep this up!

The Asian fest itself was pretty small, but it featured cooking from Japan, Korea, Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, the Philippines and China, and dance and cultural performances. People were friendly, smiling, and it was just overall a perfect time and place to mingle and wander. It's also the first time I've seen Thai and Burmese dancers in real life, and their costumes are just amazing. If they do this again next year, and you live here, do go.

And if dragon boating is for you, apparently there are plans to make the race an annual event, with teams starting to form in Tampa!

Anime and Sci-Fi

Here's are some titles I think are worth watching:

Anime

• Haibane Renmei
  
• Shingetsutan Tsukihime
  
• Madlax
  
• Full Metal Alchemist
  
• Full Metal Panic Fumoffu *
  
• Read or Die
  
• Read or Die TV
  
• Crest of the Stars **
  
• Banner of the Stars **
  
• Banner of the Stars II **
  
• Noir
  
• Witch Hunter Robin
  
• Gunslinger Girl
  

You may notice that none of them have giant robots in it :-)

* Now nobody can claim that I only watch gloomy depresso stuff!

** Space Opera at its finest and purest. Like reading a classic Sci-Fi novel!

Television

• Firefly
  
• The Agency
  
• South Park
  

What else... I saw The Punisher, and I recommend it to anyone who lives or has lived in Tampa since it takes place and was filmed here. That's about the only merit I can recommend it on. If you're bored and you want a B movie, catch it at a B theater or rent it. It's about on par with most Van Damme productions, but better than Seagal's stuff.