Good News
Today, as noted in the Federal Register, the EPA reclassified the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area as being in attainment for the 8 hour ozone requirement for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (concentrations as measured by monitoring stations rather than direct emissions). The rule is available online in PDF and plain text (my sister tipped me off to this; I certainly don't browse the Federal Register on a daily basis).
The 8 hour standard for ozone means that the "three-year average of the fourth-highest daily maximum eight-hour average ozone concentrations" cannot exceed .08ppm (it's a messy way to calculate this kind of thing, but that's the law). It does mean that certain regulations for permitting are relaxed (this is a complex issue to say the least!).
To be true, I'm not particularly satisfied with the distribution of monitoring stations in the area, although I suppose it can be controlled for to a certain extent. But this is certainly good news. Hopefully the area can stay in compliance.
METAR KIGX 262056Z 31508KT 10SM BKN080 06/02 A3000 RMK SLP161 60001Labels: law, meteorology
End of Scrapped Princess novels?
A poster on ANN's message board indicated that he received an email from Tokyopop's director of marketing, who indicated that Tokyopop has not licensed any further novels from the Scrapped Princess novels, and thus they won't be releasing any more. The fourth novel had a street date as recent as last June, but it gradually got pushed back until August (maybe July?), and then was missed completely, with limited official word except that there were licensing issues that could not be commented on.
I could be positive and hope that they will be releasing #4 at some point (#3 was released in April, so it hasn't been that long a gap). And this past weekend, a Tokyopop rep said that it might be shelved indefinitely, but wasn't actually sure. But should this email be authentic, this would practically put the nail in the coffin. Sure it might be possible for someone else to release the remaining novels (I think the planned adaption had nine more novels), but without having the first three, it would likely make other companies lukewarm to the prospect. Not to mention the fact that this has "not selling well" written all over it.
Meanwhile, the second Kino no tabi novel has been in limbo for nearly a year now (it had a January release date pushed back). Right now it has a street date of February 2008, but the word is that that date has little chance. It too had a licensing issue, but as I recall (I don't have the quote anymore), they were a little more effusive in their praise and wanting to publish #2. However, I've seen indications that this issue might not be an issue with it not selling well, which may be harder to resolve.
A little positive news though: it seems like the second Twelve Kingdoms novel is on schedule for its March release (hardback), and the paperback version of volume 1 will come out in February. A year certainly seems like a long time between releases, but Tokyopop seems to think it's necessary.
METAR KIGX 110256Z 00000KT 8SM CLR 16/13 A3027 RMK SLP248Labels: anime
