Burke's Joystick

This is going to be a first for me: I am actually going to review some anime!  I never really thought this day would come as I am not "otaku" for anime (the Japanese equivalent of being " cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" ).  Truth is, prior to this show, I've only ever watched TWO complete anime shows in my life, the first being the superlative Cowboy Bebop (in my opinion, one of the finest pieces of science fiction to ever grace the small screen - when will we get that live action version ?!?), and the sadly mediocre Claymore (it started off great with a dark and gritty tale about monster slayers, but then lost its way and became a mindless monster mash).  And that is it.  Truth is, I find most anime to be little better than the after-school cartoons I watched growing up as a kid...an experience I have no desire to repeat at my age.  So this is why I am amazed to hear myself utter the following words (and by "utter" I mean "type"): Girls un...

In the much revered martial art of "Tankery", they say that "you don't choose the tank, the tank chooses you."  I have found this to be true...well, at least it is with Wargaming.net's World of Tanks . Going into World of Tanks with its over 200 armored vehicles is a lot like stepping into a Walmart:  I mean, where do you turn first?  There is so much to choose from that picking just one from the massive pile of tanks often comes down to an arbitrary criterion.  For me and WoT, that criterion was simple patriotism:  if I was going to have a favorite tank, it was darn well going to be an American tank!  With that in mind, I decided to go with the WWII light tank classic, the M3 Stuart: Some background:  built by Cadillac, a total of 13,859 vehicles were manufactured from 1941 through September 1943.  Initially, it was armed with a 37mm M5 gun, and five .30-06 Browning M1919A4 machine guns, but later the main gun was upgraded to a slig...