Card Captor Sakura - episode 5

A new plush toy store has just opened in town and all of the Tomoeda Elementary School girls are all over it, admiring the wares and planning to buy whatever strikes their fancy. Maggy, the shop owner, is a little distressed by the fact that one of Sakura's classmate's stuffed Panda keeps popping up in the shelves among the other toys. As expected, everyone finds it strange that certain items keep reappearing in Meggy's store,and the adult woman resigns to the futility of trying to justify herself, that she doesn't know what's behind the unusual occurrances. On the other hand, Sakura sticks to common sense, which means that she suspects that it's the doing of a Clow card. Later that night, she and Maddison return to the aforementioned store and confirm if it's really a Clow card at play. Maddison has to stall the older unsuspecting character, which results in an amusing scene where she asks Meggie to teach her how to prepare tea, then proceeds to tell her a bunch of trivial facts, which range from Sri Lanka, camcorders, digital video formats and even encryption. Encryption? I knew at that point that Maddison was running out of things to say and Sakura had to hurry up and find a way to bring out the hidden Clow Card spirit. The mischievous card is easy enough to spot: amidst a stationary sea of cute soft creatures, the enchanted panda bear takes on a life of its own and evades Sakura's futile attempts at catching it. Before long, it summons all of the other plush toys to join it and the stuffed artifacts leave the store. The impromptu exit and the chase culminate in a bout to capture the Jump Card and allay everyone's aprehensions that someone may be personally returning merchandise to the store.

Sakura Card Captors - episode 4

 Sakura and Maddison had planned to go to the local amusement park but their schedule takes an unexpected turn when Sakura is reminded that she was supposed to do the house chores on the same day (she had already switched chore day with Tory so she couldn't back down). She balks at the prospect of wasting what is a promising Sunday to stay cooped up home. But she takes it on the chin and soldiers on. It doesn't take long and Maddison shows up to help her, arriving without notice. The girls encounter the elementals of two cards: wood and rain, which they believe are causing tree branches to sprout from the basement and entangle everything, including the laundry carefully done by Kero. The Clow guardian beast takes it personally and shepherds the young duo to descend to the lower floor to settle it once and for all.

This episode does feature a number of novelties: Two cards are caught at once, vice one, which is typical of most episodes. Maddison turns out to be a real friend, choosing to help Sakura and spend time with her. It makes for a wholesome picture, though opinions may veer towards other conclusions. The wood elemental is a cool spirit; it's a gentle card if one takes the time to talk to it rather than manhandle it and treat it like an uncaged beast. Surprising for Kero to take such a tender approach after what was done to his handicraft.

Card Captor Sakura - episode 3

After a short scene involving Sakura and her older friend Julian (Yukito) visiting an aquarium to provide background for everything we are going to be treated to, the plot begins in earnest. By that it's meant the major introduction of Julian.

He serves as Sakura's romantic interest although he's noticeably older than her. Thankfully, the feelings are one-sided and he also happens to be Tori's (Toya/ Sakura's older sibling) closest friend. So there are no awkward moments as everyone is comfortable with each other's presence. It's also here where another side of Tory is revealed: despite deriving joy from tormenting Sakura, he also deeply cares about her, to the point of taking whatever job it's necessary to keep a close eye on her. One of these days he's going to wake up and realise that constantly jumping from job to job doesn't make him look a steady employee, but the understanding that he devotes a lot of time to look after Sakura also makes it a noble endeavour. A possible explanation is that he's also in on the card capting business, but it's still too early for the series to give it away like that...At least his meddling comes in handy when he has to intervene to save a penguim from drowning in the pool and help everyone leave a dinner room post-haste when the water card threatens to wash everything away.

This is also the first episode where Sakura makes the requied capture mostly on her own, after having lured the water spirit to a walk-in freezer while everyone else was wondering how to trap it. However, it has to be said that Maddison was also instrumental in encouraging Sakura to think it through when the latter seemed at her wits' end before sussing out the best way to seal the Water card. Something that I love about Card Captors is how team's work is always a big part of it; the team makes its move purposely towards its objective and there isn't never a hint of disagreement between its members. Why can't other friendly groups be like this?

Cardcaptor Sakura - episode 2

Sakura is still coming to grips with the new reality she suddenly found herself in. This includes getting used to Kero and his comandeering presence, ever reminding her of her role as a card captor. Kero makes a big deal of keeping his existence a closely-guarded secret, meant to be kept only between the two of them. This measure applies equally to the Clow Cards and their powers. Still, when Sakura's favourite camcorder-toting friend Maddison (Tomoyo in other versions) inqueries her about her last night's exploits, Kero just decides to pop out and say hello. No reason why he shouldn't have, as Maddison didn't require much explaining to learn about the Clow Cards and how a tiny yellow animal capable of self-propelled flight is also in possession of speech faculties. Maybe this makes sense; if a set of magical cards can cause mysterious occurrances to happebn and give power to its user, a tiny talking creature isn't so far-fetched after all.

Maddison also proves to be quite useful in the card collecting business, coming up with solutions to entrap the card's spirit. It's also here where we get a first glimpse at Maddison's welathy background: pressed by Kero to go to school at night to investigate the shenanigans of the Shadow card, Maddison arrives in a transit van, scouted by a bevy of beauties who also happen to be bodyguards. As best I ca determine, Maddison finds fascinating in everything that Sakura does, and what better way to retain the élan of all of those precious moments than record them on camera? She's also assigns herself the role of providing Sakura with a suitable battle dress whenever she's about to caputure a Clow Card. Our heroine might be a bit reluctant to don some of her friend's fashion statements, but Kero absolutely loves it! He is always eager to try on new costumes and Maddison has no problem indulging him in his wardrobe tastes.

This is Kero voiced in the Nelvana version of Card Captors and, personally, I find him more amusing with this voice-aciting. His boisterous and loud attitude jives in perfectly with his informal deportment. The other dub is also decent in keeping close to the original version, but giving Kero a personality that matches his unrestrained never hurt anyone's feelings

Cardcaptor Sakura - episode 1

A heroic and brave 10-year old girl, Sakura Kinamoto is fated to become the master of a mysterious deck of cards that bestows upon its user unbeknownst powers. Inhabiting the town of Tomoeda in Japan, where she attends Tomoeda Elementary School, she is energetic and cheerful, with little concern to the duties of a card hunteress. That is, until she hears a weird sound and decides to go over to investigate the source of the unsettling noise. 

 

Compelled by her curiosity, she descends the steps leading into the basement of her house, where a multitude of books and volumes are neatly stacked (her father is a college professor, so it's only natural that he is in possession of vast amunts of reading material). The beckoning air vibrations takes her to a particular book titled "Clow", which issues a glowing aura. As if by instinct, Sakura holds the mysterious tome in both hands and casts a slight peek inside, causing a card with the inscription "Windy" to slip out from within the pages. True to its advertised element, a strong gust soon sweeps through the cosy in-house library, scattering all over other hidden cards in the book. Last to exit the book of Clow is Keroberus, a tiny flying creature capable of speech and emotions. He explains that he was entrusted to keep the cards safe inside the Clow book, until Sakura unwittingly opened it and sent them to the winds. The one card she had got hold of provides the improptu duo with the means to "seal it", the process of which consists of wielding a magical wand and hitting the card with it, shortly after its elemental beast/creature is subdued. In typical Sailor Moon fashion, the magical animal is in charge of furnishing the protagonist with everything to succeed: the Wand and the due explanation of the duty that awaits our heoirne. And so Sakura captures the first card - Fly.

Since it's the first episode, there isn't much of a plot. We are introduced to Sakura's close family: her father and brother Toya (Tori, in some adaptations) and we get acquainted with some of the common elements of the series: dream sequences, her romantic interest etc. The remainder of the characters are introduced piecemeal throughout the following episodes.

To me this series holds particularly endearing value; it's just so well done that it's almost impossible to do it justice in any attempt to describe it. I must say that this is the best bang for your buck as cartoons go. At least this style of animation and genre. It also has a timeless depth to it; causing it to feel recent whenever I watch it again. I can't pinpoint what gives it this tantalising quality, but it's there. And it always makes for an impressive experience.

Throwback to the supposed Windows XP successor

Codenamed Longhorn, it was Microsoft's most ambitious operating-system development effort in over a decade, entailing both an extensive redesign and a major overhaul of the application programming interface (API), the underlying set of services the OS provides to programmes. Despite the significant changes, though, Longhorn was far from a complete rewrite; it built on the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 code bases as well as the .NET framework − Microsoft claimed that maintaining compatibility with existing applications was a priority.

 

As evidence of this commitment, the 2003 Professional Developers' Conference − Microsoft's annual confab for third-party Windows developers − included a demonstration of Longhorn running VisiCalc, the classic DOS-based spreadsheet application from 1981.

 

Longhorn's goals were numerous: make Windows more productive and engaging, improve security and reliability, and provide support for a new generation of rich, media-aware applications. That was just to name a few. To get a taste of what Longhorn had to offer, a sample team of professionals installed and worked with build 4074, which was released at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in the following year's spring. Microsoft developers had also been quizzed to unveil some of the inside track on what's still to come.

 

While it was too early to pass judgment on Longhorn, which wasn't expected to ship until 2006 or 2007, the users were hopeful about the direction Microsoft was taking with its new OS. The new 3D user interface was thought to be useful and fun. Users were optimistic about the prospects of the WinFS file system, an ambitious and appealing effort to better organise, categorize, and expose the masses of material on modern hard drives. (And it was hoped that Microsoft had learned from its missteps with the object file system in the Cairo project and its other efforts to recast the file system.) It was expected that developers would appreciate the steps Microsoft was taking to simplify the Windows programming model and to make it easier to write graphically rich applications.

 

Perhaps most of all, weary of combating exploits and applying hotfixes, we were looking forward to the increased security and reliability that Longhorn aimed to offer from day one.

Une lettre à ma femme

C'était par un bel après-midi d'automne que moi, assis sur mon lieu de travail, j'avais vu ma vie transformée alors que j'aperçu une porte daquele sort une femme entourée d'une étrange aura. J'ai tout de suite appris qu'elle était la personne qui pouvait changer la voie que ma vie avait prise. Le prochain matin, á mon réveil tout cela ne sembla qu'une illusion, puisqu'il j'étais au travail à nouveau et je fut m'occuper de mes tâches professionnelles. C'était à ce moment-là que j'ai noté une présence un peu trop familière. La créature de rêve aux proportions parfaites m'a fait percevoir la ressemblance avec la femme que j'avais vue la veille. Mes soupçons ne se dissipèrent pas avec le temps, puisque dès la fin de ce jour de travail j'ai constaté que il fallut approcher cette femme mystérieuse qui était en train de sortir du travail. Une fois timide et doux, j'ai finalement trouvé mon courage pour faire l'approche et dire la vérité à elle. J'avais pendant un longtemps tenté d'oublier mes limitations en me noyant dans la rêverie. Néanmoins, le jour où je l'ai recontré finit pour boulerverser cet état de choses en me faisant mûrir et grandir. J'apprendra à dévélopper mes compétences professionnelles et académiques en mettant un terme à ces complexes. Ce processus avait aussi pour effet améliorer mon niveau scolaire aussi que mes rapports avec mes amis. Sans elle, rien n'aurait pu arriver. Aussi naive que gentille et intelligente, elle va tout faire m'aider et m'aimer, allant jusqu'à se marier avec moi et découvrir mes motivations et m'aider à remporter des importantes victoires en m'aident avec sa beauté et soutien. Pour cette femme, je suis infiniment reconaissant.