I've struck a deal that allows me to use RAWs for Spiderman, so more episodes are on the way. First, though, I'm going to be rereleasing the two episodes I've put out thus far, and from there I'll release more episodes depending on my speed. Now that I finally have my mitts on some episodes--and DVD quality at that--I can at last put out a few more episodes for you guys.

I just wrote a review for Wolf's Rain. I'll put pictures in the review sometime in the morning, if I have a chance to get around to it.

I've just finished uploading both episodes of Spiderman 1978 to Google Video. I've posted a comment containing the links.

For the most part, spam has been completely eliminated from the site (I'll finish up the message board when I get some free time), although I have noticed one or two minor bugs thus far, although the majority of them involve editing comments, which also involves the forum in some respect.

I'm also trying to locate the third episode of the Japanese Spiderman, which I will subtitle as soon as I can. I have the fourth episode as well, which I will work on as soon as the third episode is done.

Tonight I completely cleaned out all of the spam from the guestbook and the forum, but I know that I deleted a few good messages as well, so my apologies if you're one of those unfortunate victims.

Also, I put a new anti-spam measure into the guestbook and forum, so this shouldn't be a problem again. I'll be removing this particular anti-spam measure as soon as I can implement a more elegant solution. I'll probably use something like a simple arithmetic problem (2+2=... or 1+0=... or something like that). I might also keep what I have now, but request the user to type the characters in backwards.

Update:

The guestbook form now requires the user to put the characters in reverse order. Also, keep in mind that soon you won't have to deal with it at all if you're logged in to the forum.

Since the second episode isn't as readily available as the first (just do a search on youtube for it), I've decided to make it available for direct download. I've included the link in a comment in this news post.

I don't know how many people still look at this site and hope to see an anime review pop up, but I'm sure that number is nowhere near how high it used to be. Spam has pretty much killed the one feature that I felt really brought people in: the comments. Also, university life has pretty much destroyed my ability to competently review things.

Anyway, next week, up here in Canada we get this thing called "Reading Week", but it's really just our version of spring break. I'm going to use that as an opportunity to fix the website up and, hopefully, write at least one anime review.

In the meantime, I found three videogame reviews that I wrote while up here in Canuckistan and never got around to putting up, so think of that as a possible return of the good old days. Unfortunately, I don't remember the plots from these games particularly well, so I just grabbed the synopses from various internet sources.

What's a total pain in the ass that's been wreaking havoc upon the site for the past six months? Spam, that's what. Long, long ago, I'd log in to find maybe a viagra spam message or two, totally innocent. Eliminating the spam was just something that I did naturally, almost as if it were an afterthought to maintaining the rest of the website. But now, removing spam has become a horrifying chore that I've come to dread. After being away for a week on vacation, I checked the database and discovered, much to my shock, that my innocent little guestbook had received over two THOUSAND spam messages. That's a two, followed by three zeros. That's how big the problem is.

Well, it's obvious that the anti-spam systems that I've coded are doing very, very little. My filters are only eliminating 10-20% of the spam, and that's a number that I absolutely cannot tolerate. In addition, that percentage is shrinking day by day.

Now then, I have a few options available. First, I can make it so that you need to register on the forums in order to comment. This would probably be the easiest, and most effective means to combat the spam, but it would remove the attractiveness of the comment feature. Second, I can continue making almost seemingly pointless additions to the banned word database that I've created. Third, I can remove the comments altogether... or not. No, never going to do that. Fourth, I could program the comment forms to ask a random question, which the user would have to correctly answer. Lastly, I could put an image containing a confirmation code--much like the one you see when you register for a forum account--in each comment form. This would be a pain in the ass for people who want to just post a comment, but it would do a heck of a lot to mitigate the amount of spam.

Really, as I see it, the easiest way for me to beat the spam is to tie the comments to the forum. I really, really don't want to do this. If anybody has any suggestions, please give me your input. As I write this message, I'm still deleting those 2000 spam messages.

Also, if I don't get rid of this spam, who will see what I masterfully did to dante's comment in the Scryed page?

Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything back from the people that originally offered me the DVDs for the Japanese Spiderman, but my wonderful RAW provider (who presented me with such classics as Love Love and Legend of Duo) just gave me episode 3 of Spiderman.

Give me a couple of weeks to finish it. It's a doozy!

Also, I'm sure that a lot of you are concerned that I haven't reviewed anything since Voogie's Angel, which was quite a while ago. I just want to tell you now that that WILL change in the near future. This past year, I stopped going to college in the United States and went abroad for my education, and as a result had very little time to devote to writing reviews, which is one of my favorite things to do (especially if it's a really, really BAD anime!). Anyway, after a needlessly long hiatus, I've been getting back into the anime-watching groove and, once I finish a series (I'm currently working on Digimon), a review won't be far behind.

After nearly two years of being abandoned, wasting away in the pits of obscurity, Toei's Spiderman 1978 has made its triumphant return!

Here are just some of the few things that you'll find in this episode:

* A brief summary of the life of the Spider Soldier
* A lounge singer performing the Spiderman theme song
* Much, much more!

Hurry up while you still have a chance! Download the second episode now!