Just upgraded my old Panasonic BDP-30 to a BDP-65 and wow. I don't know if it's the BD player or the Madona Sticky and Sweet blu-ray that I bought, but the sound is fantastic.

Watched "It Might Get Loud" last night....terrific documentary with wonderful sound

Just finished watching “Banner of the Stars” a 13 episode (about 25 minutes each) on 3 disk scifi drama anime and the sequel to “Crest of the Stars.”

Anime News Network’s review pretty much sums up my opinion of it.

Banner of the Stars

I would consider “Crest of the Stars” a 5/5 but would only give “Banner of the Stars” a 4/5 manly because the series strong point, character interaction, is sidetracked by space battles which are to long and drawn out for my taste.

I've heard a lot about Dexter but have never seen it. I put the first season in my Netflix watch instantly queue, so I'll check it out tonight.

Just finished watching “Banner of the Stars II” a 10 episode (about 25 minutes each) scifi/drama anime on 3 disks. T.H.E.M Anime gives a pretty good review:

Banner of the Stars II

“Banner of the Stars II” gets back more to the dialogue driven drama of “Crest of the Stars” but do to some lengthy “recap” scenes and limited interaction of the two main characters it only climes back up to a 4.5/5 for me. And part of that improvement is based on the 1.78:1 aspect ratio and improved animation.

I also finished “Banner of the Stars III.” A two episode OVA which just finishes up the story giving the series a nice ending though there is still room for other sequels using the same characters. I don’t know the original video format for this OVA since I watched downloaded MKV files. AFAIK it hasn’t been dubbed to English so it was subtitles only.

Anime Planet give a nice review of “Banner of the Stars III.”

Banner of the Stars III

Most notable for me was the greatly improved animation and the 1.78:1 aspect ratio. I didn’t care for subtitles only because reading them really detracts from the story for me but it was better than not seeing it at all.

Today, my family watched Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip on Netflix streaming in our St. Louis, MO hotel room (which is two blocks from the Gateway Arch). It felt fitting as we entered the final week of our own month-long road trip. I really enjoyed it. It really put our trouble-free (so far!) drive over paved roads into perspective.

Watched Drag Me to Hell on blu-ray tonight. A good horror flick.

I need to re-watch that. It made me laugh.

It was fun! I laughed quite a bit too. I can imagine some people must've been kinda confused with that movie.

I watched She's Out of My League the other day. It was as crappy as you'd think. There were a couple of funny moments, but the directing was just horrible. The same material probably could have done better if the person at the helm knew what they were doing. As it was, it just felt dumbed down. I like Jay Baruchel, but he needs some better projects.

Otherwise, I've been working on Baccano!. I'm not really sure what I think of it yet, and I'm on the second disc. I'm hoping the story really comes together at some point, because right now it just seems to be skipping around a lot and not having any real wow moments.

I started watching that even though I was in the middle of Basilisk and Ouran High School Host Club. I really need to get back in the habit of watching one thing until I'm done with it.