Last updated: 20 March, 2002.
Masumasu Anime is currently OPEN.
Well, Masumasu is alive and will continue to be for the forseeable future.
It very nearly wasn't. The usual problem I have, labelling and packing tapes, has reared its ugly head again and I very nearly decided to discontinue Masumasu. But I've found an alternative method of packing etc. so hopefully things will continue in a more timely fashion than they have in the past.
To everyone who has sent me e-mail over the past 3-5 weeks, which I haven't answered, I apologise. I'll be answering it as soon as possible, before the end of this week. Also, a big batch of requests will be going out in Tuesday's mail (i.e. 5 March) which will clear my decks of all old requests except those involving the Yami no Matsuei 4-6 tape (see below).
The problem has been, that packing is a pain. I always let recorded tapes build up until I bubblewrap and shove into postpacks a whole bunch of requests as a batch. Unfortunately this has meant that some requests get almost immediate turn-around while other sit on my shelves, recorded, for weeks. I have tried to not do this but I find that have not been able to. (It has not helped that I have been extremely busy, with house renovation planning managing to occupy almost every spare hour since Christmas... that is, when I'm not being yanked interstate for work. But that's a side issue. The problem is the packing of tapes; requests are almost always recorded within 2 weeks or so of being received.)
So, I have finally bitten the bullet and changed the way packing is done. I've located a supplier of cardboard boxes and, subject to seeing a sample box this week, from 3 weeks from today will be packing tapes 3 to a box with a loose single layer of bubblewrap around the tapes. This should actually protect the tapes better than the current system although I have only had one report of tape damaged in the post. Hopefully this also means I'll be able to drop a completed tape into a shipping box as soon as it comes out of the VCR, which should elminate the primary choke point in the process.
Costs have changed a little. Big losers are 1-tape requests, which cost $3 more, but 3-tape requests are $1 less than before. Most costs are very similar to before. Postage costs have been averaged to represent the actual cost to my most frequent request destinations (NSW and QLD). A more granular system isn't possible at this time, I would need to get motivated and write a computer system to fully implement the rather baroque postage calculation system that Australia Post use. :)
The good news is that since I will not be attempting to force boxes into satchels - they won't fit - existing policy about request numbers won't change despite intimations to the contrary previously.
Several requests have been delayed due to my problem with the Yami no Matsuei 4-6 tape. My efforts to obtain a replacement master have failed to date, so I will be contacting those people with YnM 4-6 requests to determine what to do.
Help! Somebody sent me a request letter and payment for request 0105AW. If you sent a request in June 2001 and haven't received it yet, this is likely to be your request. They didn't include name or address, nor did the envelope have a return address, and I don't have a record of whom I sent approval 0105AW to. Would the guilty party please e-mail me with (a) their name and address and (b) the contents of their request, the latter to serve as confirmation of identity. (Request received on or about 25 June, 2001.)
I ask requestors to write the name and address they want the package sent to for a reason, people! Please remember to do so.
The following list is out of date. It will be updated once I have completed packing of the 5/Mar mail shot. My apologies.
| NTSC recording queue: | PAL recording queue: | ||
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| Packing queue: [empty] | |||
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| Recently mailed requests | |||
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Tapes were mailed to the following people on 14 January, 2002:
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How to read the status chart: When requests are received, they go into either the NTSC or PAL recording queue. If you are looking to see whether your written request has been received by me, check there. Once recorded, they then go into the packing queue before being mailed.
For the curious, the NTSC recording queue is served by 2 pairs of machines and the PAL recording queue is limited to only 1 pair/triplet of machines since I have only one standards convertor. All of the 'record' decks are multistandard so things are actually somewhat more flexible than the above might seem, except for the limitation of the convertor.