ZedneWeb
e + 1 = 0

August 23, 2000

You'll notice some changes to the site organization today (despite what I said the last time I made changes). ZedneWeb has evolved considerably over the years (and one of these days I'll repost my original front page, just to demonstrate that). When this section started, I intended it as a simple update list, but it expanded to include interesting links and general commentary. For a while I tried to split the commentary into separate articles, but the only effect that had was to prevent me from ever commenting on stuff. So instead I've gone the "weblog" route. Will this work out? Stay tuned.

Of course, a mere change in style wouldn't account for the fact that suddenly there's a bazillion pages with little calenders on the bottom. That came about because I decided to use computers to make the updating job easier, and then I figured, "Hey, if some Perl script is going to handle putting the most recent news on the front page, why not have it do harder stuff that I'd never bother with if I had to do it by hand?" Plus, it turns out that many Unix platforms have a built-in calender-generating tool; which makes production of those little tables almost trivial. (Of course, now it's really obvious how rare these updates are.) #

Escaflowne Followup

Since I discussed the changes to Escaflowne on Sunday, I've had a chance to look through the anime newsgroups. Turns out there's a Fox executive (or an amazing simulation of one) who's posting anonymously on the group. He seems like a reasonable person and he generally agrees that the changes are irritating (especially for him, since he's a fan of the show). Unfortunately, a lot of them are required by Fox's rules about these shows, particularly the changes to the music.

Anyway, they supposedly tried to air the uncut version, but it fared poorly in focus groups. (This is probably because their target audience is 6-11 years old, whereas Escaflowne was originally aimed at teenagers.) None of this makes the changes to the show any less irritating, but I find myself willing to give them more of the benefit of the doubt. I can even sympathize with the predicament of having to make some of the later episodes appealing to a younger crowd.

And who knows? Perhaps if it does well, we'll see the real first episode shown as some sort of "Lost" episode. And if not, at least the uncut tapes are available. #