Let’s talk about Canada and October 14.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have problems with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Harper keeps a fairly tight leash on his party and its members. He governs as though he has a majority by forcing confidence motions. His party deliberately obstructs Parliament. His party ran attack ads for a year before the election. Beyond my problems with his ethics, I’m also not a fan of conservative ideology, whether fiscal or social. I just don’t believe that cutting services and taxes is a good idea.

Stephane Dion and the Liberals are a lot more interesting. I had my reservations about Dion, since he pretty much has no charisma, which is important to have when campaigning. I have no doubt that he’d make a pretty good Prime Minister. The problem, of course, is getting there. He’s reasonably smart, is a progressive, and doesn’t seem to hold contempt for democracy like Harper does. His platform has stuff that I can agree with, and while I’m not a huge environmentalist, I can understand that the Green Shift is a way to tackle global warming and poverty at once.

Finally, we have Jack Layton and the NDP. Much of the NDP platform is similar to that of the Liberals, except for their proposal to reverse corporate tax cuts. The most notable thing for me is that their stance on digital issues is a lot more firm than that of the Liberals. Jack Layton also has been a pretty good leader, if a bit aggressive in attacking the other parties. Of course, they carry the stigma of Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP, who managed to make everyone forget that and somehow end up as a prominent Liberal.

I will never, ever understand why people think that Arial is an acceptable choice to use for something that isn’t a webpage with lots of text. I get angry when I see it. Unless you have a very good reason for using it, and you will know exactly when that is, there are only two other possible reasons that you use it.

It takes all of about fifteen seconds to analyze the text that you’re setting and choose a more suitable font. It costs nothing to acquire a typeface that works better with your text. If you can think of a sans-serif font that is legible, then 90% of the time, all you have to do is use that font instead. And believe me, everyone should know at least two, unless of course, you are blind. Knowing this, if you still choose Arial, then you are lazy.

The other case happens when you actually like Arial and think that it looks good. I can’t believe that anyone who understands design honestly thinks this. So, if you do think it looks good, you probably have no business setting any text to type at all. You should probably defer the selection of any typefaces to someone more knowledgeable in these matters.

Toradora! was pretty entertaining and funny. It looks like it’s going to be solid. People say it’s like watching Shakugan no Shana or Zero no Tsukaima all over again because of Rie Kugimiya going URUSAI URUSAI URUSAI and all, but because I haven’t seen those, I can still enjoy it.

The Lucky Star OVA is everything you can expect from Lucky Star. The OVA feels like it’s just a longer TV episode, since it’s the same bunch of small stories stuffed together format. Because of that I’d much rather they did a second season instead. Still, if you enjoyed Lucky Star, you’ll like the OVA.

I can’t remember what I read to make me interested in Linebarrels of Iron, because I thought it was pretty terrible. It’s being streamed right now on Crunchyroll by GONZO. I don’t know what it is with GONZO and CG. They love it to death, but I can’t stand it. The only time that I thought it was cool was in Last Exile. Their CG Druaga ruined Tower of Druaga for me, which was alright because it was near the end anyway.

Casshern Sins was something that I wasn’t going to pick up based on the few promotional shots I’d seen of it, but once I saw the actual screencaps from some blogs, I decided to have a look. I really love the art and animation style. Everything else, like the plot and characters, are still a little cryptic, but I’ll be sticking with it for a few more episodes.