2006 February 26

When you want to find a specific Anime feature or Manga book, chances are Right Stuf has what you are looking for. The company produces a few titles and distributes thousands through their mail order service. Recently, Chris chatted with Shawne Kleckner, founder of Right Stuf, about the basics of anime, the company background and the recently launched Anime Today podcast. With a new episode every two weeks, Anime Today provides some compelling product reviews, background on what it’s like to produce, license and dub anime titles and RightStuf.com specials in every episode. There’s also some background on traveling in Japan for those who might be planning a visit.

Hear Shawne Kleckner in MP3 Format

Hear Shawne Kleckner in Windows Media Format

Continued from Day 1, Day 1.5, Day 2…

• Had to get directions to the W Hotel in downtown Seattle. Yahoo! gave me a map link for “W Hotel Seattle” as well as an “availability” link for reservations. Cool! But when I clicked on Yahoo!'s map link, I got a map of downtown and *ALL* the hotels in the area (as well as tourist spots). Overkill for this task. Also frustrating that I can't dynamically drag their maps yet (only available in a difficult-to-find beta).
• For grins, I try “W Hotel Seattle” in MSN. I can get routed to an astoundingly outdated “MSN Maps & Directions” site, or I can find “Local listings: 'w hotel' near Seattle, WA.'” Clicking on the former link, I can drill down further to specific destinations, with the first one being the W. Doesn't have the “reservations” feature, which I found rather nice (although it should be linked to a rate comparison tool).
• I try the same initial query in Snap.com. Indeed, it brings me to a page that has the proper results. Although, I'm mildy annoyed by the “click click click click click click click” sounds on the front page as I key in my query. Par for the course, the way Snap has this thing set up (here's where AJAX would come in handy).
• Moderated a panel discussion in front of a good-sized group of public radio figures, including panel member Maria Thomas, VP and GM of NPR Online. When I needed to illustrate a point, I had to ask her to drive (after explaining why) - and I think there may be a story to come out of this experience.
• Needed to find the Peet's in Seattle's Freemont district for a lunch meeting. Typed “peet's freemont seattle” and found the address (to copy and paste) into a new query from the sixth query down. “3401 Fremont ave N. Seattle, WA 98103″ gave me a direct map, and instant way to start mapping TO the location. Nice. The directions pages gives you the option to use the new Yahoo! beta mapping service, but the info I had already entered was not pre-populated if I switch from Classic to Beta (major bug).
• Forwarded a funny image to a friend, who asked where he might be able to buy one (or two) of the items pictured. A quick Yahoo! search for “boob mouse pads” gave me the site I was looking for in the #1 slot. There's something you don't see every day.
• Needed to find “Seattle Influencers” and was suprised by the #1 result on Yahoo!.
• Was on the go (meeting a friend in Fremont). Ponzi wanted me to stop by a shop that she didn't know the name of! What the hell is lettuce soap!? Anyway, I only had my 2125 with me, so I fired into lettuce-soap-fremont.gada.be - and it kicked back a list of results, including posts from Ponzi's blog about it. One article on IceRocket lead me to Burnt Sugar - where they were out of lettuce soap. Gada.be worked thanks to IceRocket.
• Not related to search necessarily, but I learned that I could drag & drop any string of text into Maxthon and have it open up. For example, I highlighted a non-hyperlinked URL in Firefox and dropped it into Maxthon and the page opened in a new tab. I love Maxthon.