Son of a Witch

This book is about Liir. He was raise by the Wicked Witch of the West. It is not clear whether he is her biological son. The book takes place after the witch has been killed. Liir is young and inexperienced. He does not seem to know any magic.

I was expecting a book about a warlock growing up. This book was not about any magic like that. It is more a coming of age novel set in the backdrop of Oz. Barring that misunderstanding, the book was okay.

Liir is deathly ill in part of the book. He is cured by a young girl who plays a weird instrument. She eventually gets pregnant with his child. Liir goes out and gets a job in the military. Although he rises up the ranks there, he must flee after he is forced to do some evil deeds.

Liir aligns with the birds of the air. He gets involved in their battle with the dragons. He also has run ins with Glenda the good witch. Liir also meets an elephant who was transformed into a human to hide. She is near death and seeks assistance from Liir.

Initial D

For some reason, Youtube recommends that I watch a bunch of Initial D videos. I am not complaining. Saw quite a few good episodes. Most of them were subtitled. Let's start with Takemi coming up on Keiuske late one night. Takemi power passes him on a particularly dangerous double curve. Keiuske thinks Takemi is going to bite it. Keiuske is amazed when the AE-86 does an "inertia drift".

You would think Keiuske would have learned his lesson. He challenges the boys from the gas station. Unfortunately their leader is injured after he tried pushing himself too far during a practice. Iketani asks Bunta, Takemi's dad, to help represent the local boys. Bunta sends Takemi out instead, with a promise of use of the car on the weekend plus a full tank of gas if he wins the race.

Takemi comes up Mount Akina at the last minute. The gas station boys are puzzled why Bunta sent him up. Takemi amazed them when he declares that he already beat Keiuske once before. Ryoske, Keiuske's older brother, sees the AE-86 take off at the beginning of the race. He confirms that this car is not the secret weapon. He has an intuition that the driver is the real secret weapon.

On the downhill, Keiuske leads most of the way. Takemi uses a trick to take the inside lane on a curve. Normally that would spell down. But Takemi knows how to hook his tire onto the rut in the side of the road. That gives him the ability to take the turn really fast, and he powerpasses Keiuske.

Finally I saw Takemi battle Mako on her home turf. Initially they were amazed that Takemi could keep up with them. When they got to the most challenging curves on the course, Mako's partner realized that Takemi was out of their league. Foreshadowing of what is going to eventually happen in that race.

Genesis Survivor Gaiarth

Been watching some of my old anime videos recently. These things are on VHS tape. I got a new big screen TV. However my VCR is old and the picture quality is suspect. Perhaps it is time to upgrade them to DVDs. Regardless, I met Ital again. He was training hard under warroid Randis.

Some enemy came and destroyed Randis with ease. Ital now has to go out to avenge his adoptive father's death. This guy also needs to hone his skills and get more power. He spies on some hunters, which including the young Sahari. The hunters thought they were besting the enemy. But Ital saw it was a trap.

Ital show his courage and potential to be a hero when he saved Sahari, putting his own life in jeopardy. Fate was still on his side. In the belly of the junk beast, Ital meets Zaxxon. Zaxxon is a warroid whose parts are stripped. He reminds Ital of Randis. Ital has jump started Zaxxon, and I have witnessed that Zaxxon has mighty fighting skills.

These is pretty much just the intro. I have more to go in Stage 1. Got to locate my missing Stage 2 VHS tape as well.

Black Blood Brothers

I have decided to rewatch the Black Blood Brothers series. So far I have seen episodes one through four. We have met Jiro Mochizuki. He is an old vampire, an old blood. He is also known as the Silver Blade. Apparently Jiro has made it his mission to eliminate the Kowloon Children.

The Kowloon Children are some powerful vampires. They can quickly turn humans to vampires and control them. A group of Kowloon Children abducted Jiro's younger brother. Jiro used up all his strength defending against these vampire. Luckily Mimiko, a compromiser, gave her blood to Jiro to energize him.

Mimiko experienced the resonance, where she could read the mind of Jiro because her blood flowed through him. I don't know the full story. But it appears that compromisers negotiate agreements between the humans in power and vampires that want safe harbor in the Special Zone.

Katsucon 2012 Wrap Up

I have returned home from Katsucon 18, also known as Katsucon 2012. Memorable voice actors included Chrisopher Ayres, Greg Ayres, Richard Epcar, and J. Michael Tatum. Webcomics in the house included Phil Kahn, Onezumi, and Chris Flick.

There was some adult only features at the con. Titles covered adding eroticism to fan fiction, digital love, the hentai panel, and japanese bondage. There were many sessions I just could not attend due to time constraints. I would have loved to see webcomics are really business, steampunk to cyberpunk, make your own plushie, and guilded age.

Of course you got to love the cosplay. There was a Japanese girl there dressed as some sort of princess or goddess. She had a huge coin on her back. Who knows where that was from. There was another Asian girl. I could not recall her costume as she had really long legs on display, and used some costume tricks to make them even longer. A lot of people, including myself, liked some of the off-beat outfits like the Donnie Darko rabbit suit. That guy received a lot of high fives.

Online Promotion

I went to a short deck presentation on promoting your work online. The theme was that you are the advertisement for your work. So act professionally always. Be known for delivering the goods. Update social media on a schedule. Spend around an hour a day on this activitiy. Guest blogging can drive good traffic to your site.

Build relationships. Your fan base will most likely be people like yourself. Look and see who covers you in the press. Email them. Don't be discouraged if people say you suck. It is going to happen. Tweet during the business hours of 9am to 5pm. Reply to tweets frequently. Treat Twitter like a chat room. The months of December and January are going to be dry no matter what.

Try to reach the prime influencers. Look to Klout for determing who they are. Bloggers are usually volunteers. Help them reach their goals. Know that they want to do little work. Give them something they can cut and paste. Tell people what you want them to do. This is the call to action. It works.