This Article Has Not Yet Been Rated

Going forward I wanted to let you know of a change to reviews on the site, there is now an extra section on each one called Parental Advisory, being a parent now, I understand the concerns about what our kids see and hear, and even if its the parents/adults buying for themselves they need to be aware of the content that comes into their home. In addition there are a lot of folks who find certain content objectionable and I am concious of that fact so I decided to make this slight change.

Have a good one folks!

One For All

I don't think that I will personally ever forget waking up and finding out a good portion of Japan had been wiped out by a Tsunami, let alone the images of the devastation, seeing all those people covered in dirt and ash, in a place that I have personally visited, brought tears to my eyes.

As we near the one year anniversary of the disaster, Japan is still rebuilding, and the process will still continue for many years to come yet, this is why I am encouraging all of my readers [especially the Dollfie Fans!] to go to Volks and get one of their buttons, all the proceeds got to the Japanese Red Cross.

You can find all the details on the Sumika Times blog.

Happy New Year: 2011 in Review

First off I want to wish each and every one of you a happy and healthy New Year, hopefully whatever your entertainment last night you made it home safe and sound. 

Now onto the year that was for the blog...

2011 was an interesting year here for me at the blog, I tried to be a bit better about keeping to a schedule and content creation, and that well, failed abysmally, it wasn't through lack of desire or trying, but after doing a lot of research and soul searching on my part I found that I got more stressed and frustrated trying to stick to a schedule and it made it much harder for me to develop content for the site, so consider that a lesson learned.

This past year also marked a milestone for the blog, monthly traffic is now averaging over 200 hits per month, I want to thank my readers out there who are making that possible, I know that this thing has tended to stay barren for long stretches of time and I want to be better about that, Dollfie posts still lead the way on traffic and I am still working out a way to provide more of that content for my readers so we will see what happens there. 

2012 is going to be a blast, I am going to try to get to the point of smaller posts with fun content more often, little snippets here and there rather than great walls of text, hopefully that will keep my juices flowing and at the same time not burn me out trying to write a 3500 word article each week. 

In short, thanks for sticking with me, I am looking forward to a lot of fun yet to come and getting to know you all better, thanks for the traffic and the time out of your lives!

Merry Christmas!

Just wanting to wish my readers a safe and happy Christmas weekend!

Wherever you are, remember to hug the people you care about and tell them you love them, you never know when it could be your last time.

Peace on earth and goodwill towards men.

I am away for the holidays should be back just before New Years.

Looking backwards and forwards...

I always find it amusing to take a look back at blogs and see where they came from, what origianlly was intended versus what they became, you can see where an author started out with an idea and as traffic and interestes changed moved into a totally different direction, sometimes quite suddenly. Blogs are organic things and its amazing to see how they grow, sometimes completely out of control in ways that aren't expected.

This past week I did the same with my own humble piece of Cyberspace [do people even use that term anymore?] and found a fairly similar situation, what started out as an art blog with an anime influence, morphed into a full blown review and commentary site, and now is struggling to find its identity again with the advent of all the Dollfie traffic its been getting in recent months.

As I looked back I also realized all the FLUFF that I had posted, appologies for lack of updates, breaking schedules etc. and like a comment on a recent post pointed out, all that does is make the blog look bloated and me like a goof, so thats why in this last month there weren't any new updates, I was busy with a wedding, honeymoon and the holidays [although I am sorry for missing my Happy Thanksgiving post] so I didn't get any new content developed. But instead of posting about missing it, I just waited until I had something to post and insert a small appology.

The site content has been fascinating to revisit, from my early Manga and DVD reviews, to my most current VIZ Manga App review I saw the shft in the clarity of the writing into something more than just words, but it also brought forth the reality of writing reviews when you aren't on companies comp lists, it can be tough, you deal with your own budget and what you can gert your hands on at the time so it can be a bit sporadic. The shock is still the amount of traffic I get from the Dollfie articles, I am always scouring the net for new and exciting posts about this very niche hobby, sadly though there isn't always a lot out there that folks haven't yet seen.

So I am going to keep fighting the good fight, three years on the blog has changed formats and content but the passion is still there, I look forward to three more great [and productive] years!

Of Comments and Communication: Shout it Out!

For every blogger out there that lauches a professional career from their hobby, there are probably 10,000 that write for the sheet pleasure of it, their only gratification being the hits they get on their sites and the feedback of the community, so where does that leave the reader, and is there a responsibility to post comments? Step past the cut for a discussoon on blogs, comments, communities, and keeping a blogger posting.

Back from vacation...

Sorry I haven't posted any updates here recently, I was off on vacation to Canada for the better part of a week and then got busy when I got back with work and wedding preparations.

Give me a couple of more days and I will have some new content up and rolling for the site!

Talk you you soon

We shall never forget....

On September 11th 2001 the United States was attacked in one of the most cowardly acts of violence possible, when four planes were hijacked, two destroying the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, one hitting the Pentagon, and a fourth crashing in the fields of Pennsylvania after the courageous acts of gallantry of the passengers onboard, preventing the final plane from reaching its intended target.

On that day nearly 3000 Americans and some foreigners lost their lives in the most brazen act of hatred this country has ever seen.

I remember it like it was yesterday, I was startled awake when a dear friend called and vomited information about what was going on, that we were "Under Attack" I went and turned on the TV to see the first footage of the towers being hit, less then an hour later they had both collapsed, the true magnitude of what was happening finally sank in, I felt sadness, anger, unmitigated rage at what had happened, I wanted revenge, to make any and all involved pay for these acts of wonton cowardice of attacking civilians.

Now, ten years later, Bin Laden, the cold mastermind of the attacks is dead, but the War on Terror rages on, with no end in sight, we must never forget the day the towers fell, and those who continue to sacrifice for our freedom.

"September 11th 2001, We Shall Never Forget"

Happy 4th of July!

Carrying the theme from earlier this week! Happy 4th of July to our American readers, may you, like me, have a safe, high explosive filled day of merriment!

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everyone! This is just me hearkening back to my Canadian roots :)

Please have a safe and happy holiday folks!

Calming down again...

Well once again life kinda threw me for a loop, the good news is that I am back employed again full time at a great company, but being that company does technical support for tax software, the months of January - April get a little dicey, add into that a crazy busy personal life and you get left with a blog that doesn't get updated in months.

However all that is over now, and I am going to once again try and get this thing back and rolling, I have decided to not try and make and content promises or anything going forward, that only seems to land me in content development hell, and you guys with frustrations when I don't get something posted as promised.

This all being said I look forward to getting back in the swing of things and continuing our voyage into the world of Anime and Manga

Preview for the week of 12/13/2010

Ok, last week was a minor victory all things considered, I managed to get the VIZ Media Manga app review posted, given how crazy my life has been that was an accomplishment in of itself.

That all being said, here is the preview for the coming week:

Wed: Gundam Garage will finally make its debut with an introduction to SD Gundam, and my own project journal.

Thur: The Dollhouse kicks off with an article on getting started in the hobby, with some useful links and tips

You will see that the Friday figure news update isn't listed, I am having some issues with getting the informaton reliably in English at the moment, I am working on a resolution, until then we will just be going with the two feature posts a week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just want to wish all our American readers a happy US Thanksgiving, have fun and be safe!

Where Danger Lurks

This feature article is going to be a little more sobering than a lot of the ones that I normally write around here, but given recent events, I felt it was needed, no matter how uncomfortable it is to write.


Many of you out there may be aware of the situation that has recently come to light in the state of New Jersey, where the organizer of an after school Lego program has been charged with molesting four young girls, it's a terrible situation and one that has rocked the adult Lego fan community to its very core.

Past the cut we will discuss how adults with unique hobbies can protect both themselves and the young people we come into contact with on a regular basis.

UPDATES - 11/22/10 - New schedule and changes

Ok, so here goes, this is the "Proposed" schedule for site updates for the forseeable future:

Mon: Preview the week ahead
Wed: Feature Article/DVD Manga Review
Thur: Gundam Garage/The Dollhouse
Fri: Figure News

So thats it, we have a 4 day a week update schedule, as always its subject to change as needed, but I am going to try to adhere to this as best as possible going forward.

New special feature Gundam Garage

Well after adding the Dollhouse special feature [the first of which should be published this week] I am going to be adding a second figure/model related special feature, Gundam Garage this feature will focus on Gundam modelling in all its forms, and also where I will be keeping my own kit building journals.

The first installment will premiere later this work, with a look at the unique world of the SD Gundam model kits.

Forums update!

Well given the number of hits that the note on forums has generated I have decided to go ahead and start getting those setup, it will be pretty basic to start with and will be hosted offsite.

They should be up and running in the next week, and I will do a post here when they are ready to go, thanks for your patience on all of this.

Changes...

Ok, so no matter how many plans I make it seems that something is always conspiring against me, especially when it comes to this blog. Life has been abysmal these last few months, and I have neglected this blog horribly, I honestly had been considering shutting it down for good, but then I looked at the hit numbers and something struck me, I am getting a lot of traffic, not sure why since this isn't the most content heavy Anime site on the net, but obviously someone out there is enjoying what I write.

So first the bad news, I am going to try to get as many reviews as I can done, but since I am only able to review what I am able to buy and right now that isn't much that is going to be a bit of an issue. I will do what I can, just bear with me on how sparse reviews are for the moment. If we can get a real rapport with readers and show how interested people are, then MAYBE we might be able to get on the comp lists for a few companies, will have to see how things go in that vein

The good news, you noticed the word "we" above, I am going to be brining on another member to the staff here soon, right now they are getting up to speed on what I expect and need, but rest assured that once they get going that you will see more and more content hit the site.

The Dollfie article proved to be a hit, apparently there is a huge interest in this, so we are going to be trying to cover that hobby in more detail. Keep watching this site for more and more Dollfie news as we can get it!

Other than that, look for some new content over the next couple of days, and once we have the staff up to speed we will get back on a permanent schedule.

Take care, and thanks for reading!

UPDATES - 5/19/09 - Life kicks

Ok so the last month hasn't gone too good, my contract with the new company was terminated 6 weeks in, no real notice, actually no notice.

So needless to say I have been busy dealing with those issues, along with keeping my head above water. I am going to be busy on the job hunt front here pretty soon, but I am going to be maintaining the content of the site, so there will be new stuff coming through constantly.

Thanks for your support!

UPDATES - 04/23/09 - Schedule Update

Ok, so its been awhile since I did an update on the Term of the Week, but FINALLY there is a new one posted!

With that out of the way be looking for a new feature article tommorow, and a new review on Tuesday next week.