James Andrews

I was on Facebook today when one of the ads on the right sidebar was an advertisement for theplunge.com, a website dedicated to helping grooms, and groom’s men survive the wedding, and wedding planning process unscathed (well as unscathed as you’re going to get). The site was of particular interest to me because I am engaged and getting married in September, but unlike most grooms, I am actually planning the ENTIRE wedding (she lives in Japan, wedding #1 is here in the US, my family, my friends, my responsibility), and wanted to see what kind of advice, they’d give.

First off the site is fracking hysterical! I spent the entire afternoon reading article after article in tears of laughter. While the articles are sport full of comic relief, they have a lot of really useful information. Topics range from “Ring Buying” and “Popping the Question” to “How to stay just enough out of the brides way” and “How the groom’s men should behave at the bachelor party”.

My favorite articles so far How Every Groomsman Must Behave at a Bachelor Party and How Wedding-porn is brainwashing your fiancee.

First bullet from “How Every Groomsman Must Behave at a Bachelor Party“:

1. Keep him hydrated.

I don’t care if he’s running around buck naked with his Blackberry clamped between his teeth, screaming out lines from Jedi like, “The Death Star is fully operational! The Death Star is fully operational!” Even if he’s still demanding more shots of whiskey, make him drink water. In fact, Project Hydration should begin well before he turns into a naked Admiral Ackbar. Every other time you buy him drinks, also slip him a glass of water to chug.

Good stuff, though personally if he were a naked Admiral Ackbar he’d be running around yelling “It’s a TRAP!!!”.

Besides all the great articles they also have some real useful spreadsheets for planning the bachelor party budget (for the best man of course), and the wedding guest list. Which makes life easier for the bride or the groom.

Anyway, if you are a guy and getting married, or your guy friend is getting married, or you just want a really good laugh, you should check out theplunge.com.

Over the last 2 days I have managed to watch 102 episodes of a Japanese anime called “Naruto Shippuden”. I was able to do this legally online without having to pay to watch for each episode all thanks to the partnership between the Hulu and VIZ media corporation who are the license holders for Naruto in the US. There are a few things about this that really made me happy and I hope that some one somewhere in that industry reads this because I think they have a great thing going.

First off. I HATE Cartoon Network. As many of you may know CN is owned Time Warner when it was originally conceptualized the main idea was TW wanted a place where they could show all the old Hana-Barbera cartoons that they had purchased. That was all fine and good but it grew to be something more than that to the point where they were showing a lot of really great Japanese animation, as well as some great original material. Cartoon Network eventually started Adult Swim, which took control of CN’s airwaves after 10pm on weeknights and weekends. While they had some original programming based off of old Hana-Barbera media, they also had a nice collection of Japanese animation. Cartoon Network had become the leader in providing Japanese animation on TV despite ADV’s attempt at Anime Network.

Today’s Cartoon Network is a different beast. While they still do have some great original programming they have forsaken the Japanese animation even though there are still a lot of interest in Anime. With the exception of Pokemon which is played every weekday morning there is very little anime during the 7am-10pm hour. Adult Swim is a different story. For a while they had a lot of GREAT original programming. Aquateen Hunger Force which was my personal favorite and many others seemed to shine, but recently the shows have gone downhill in a menacing spiral and all anime has been pushed off to late saturday night/early sunday morning. A slew of [AS]’s mistakes include showing Family Guy to the point of it being unwatchable, shows like “Tom Goes to the Mayor” and “Tim and Eric good show great job”, and more recently the inclusion of “King of the Hill”, probably because some suit at TW felt that that horse hadn’t been beaten to death enough. They’ve basically ruined a good thing.

This is just one example of a television network screwing up and disappointing their viewers. Fox is notorious for scheduling changes that keep shows from becoming smash hits (ie Firefly/Family Guy), and I personally think that now is the time for the industry’s major overhaul.

NBC the parent company for Hulu is on the right track, but I still think they have a LONG way to go. Allowing the choice of what you want to view, when you want to view it is a great first step. Limiting the number of commercials per commercial break is AWESOME, even though I think they could do better in means of allowing the user a choice in the kinds of commercials that interest them. For example I don’t care about women’s products, don’t advertise them to me while I watch. The internet is empowering, allow the consumers the power to control what they want to see. There are so many times I turn on the TV and at 4am I can’t find a thing to watch because it’s all infomercials. Give me a world where I don’t have to watch banners at the bottom of shows advertising other shows. Give me a world where I don’t have to watch commercials about little blue pills until I need information about those little blue pills.

The state of television is dim, internet television’s future is bright, let’s do it right!

Well for over that last 12 years I have. I’d hear of something, and want it, but website either had no english access, or only took payments and orders to japanese addresses. I would like to introduce you to a new way of thinking. The new world order in buying stuff from overseas comes in a couple different flavors.

Enter Tenso.com. Tenso is a service that allows you to place an order on a Japanese website and have the item shipped to a Japanese address. In turn Tenso takes your ordered items and routes it to your address. You could be in the US, or the UK, or Antarctica, but they’ll ship it too you. Of course there is a small fee, an you do have additional shipping charges, but for many people who unlike me don’t have a fiance who lives in Japan, it’s a great option.

Contender #2 is a professional purchasing service. Though this site seems a little less professionally done, the idea is great. You find the item you want on a website, fill in the requested information and they then track down the item, quote you a price and they order for you, and ship it too you.

So in case you have something you want to get, here’s the easy way to get them.