手術成功

剛才解剖了一隻老鼠，把内部清理乾淨之後再縫合
嗯，又像新的一樣了～

其實解剖了兩次，第一次沒成功
但是怎麼想都一定是那個原因，所以再試一次
第二次把所有能分解的零件都拆下，完全清理才成功

現在地方比以前小很多，猫毛密集度完全不能相比
所以以前的用四年沒出過問題
現在這隻用四年，滾輪就被猫毛窒息死了
不愧是白色惡魔

雖然有找出很久以前買的備用微軟老鼠
還是覺得現在這隻十元大洋的基本型logitech比較順手

話説我也很好奇「連邦的白色惡魔」一詞出處到底為何
看動畫時完全沒聽到過，但是講出來大家都知道是指什麼
所以剛才順便問了下親友Google…

原來是『ギレンの野望』遊戲中ガトー的台詞
據某站分析，1999左右時，遊戲開始有跟鋼彈對戰的場景
然後很多人的感想是，阿姆羅+鋼彈根本比last boss還強
即使是現在的遊戲，跟阿姆羅對決也算難關（我玩鋼彈無雙系列的時候也是這樣）
所以「連邦的白色惡魔」也成為玩家們與ガトー的同感

まあ、現在白色惡魔一詞也被用在很多其他角色
所以好孩子要記得指定全名「連邦的白色惡魔」才是阿姆羅駕駛的鋼彈喔～( ﾟ ∀ ﾟ )

有驚無險

星期五晩上在漆黑的森林中被兇惡的蜘蛛包圍，匆忙奔至光源處，瞄準並撃中光球！

同一瞬間，周圍所有的光及聲音亦消失無踪…！

還沒意識發生了什麼事，一眨眼間又恢復正常，看來只是不到一秒的停電
電腦跟PS3仍舊照常運行，燈也都亮著
除了電視螢幕一片漆黑，手中的duel shock則傳來被襲撃的震動
不過電視數秒後也完全回復，讓我得以找到落下的光球並逃離死亡
別的遊戲的話，這幾秒的lag也夠我死好幾次了就是 XD

當時聽到電腦裡傳出像什麼東西熄掉的聲音？
應該是錯覺…

STARGAZER(第三個HDD)不見了 orz

重開機也讀不到
device manager裡也沒看到
不會被電死了吧 orz
雖然大部分都是已經備份的東西
我全部的記録list、jukebox跟歌詞都放在那裡啊～～～～

急に何もかもやる気がなくなった…

剛才使出了最後的手段，把電腦打開重接線，順便把裡面噴一噴
因為另外兩個HDD都沒事，就只重接了我以為是STARGAZER的線

開機時看到有讀到，心中不禁雀躍了一下 XD
似乎只是斷電時接觸不良所以沒跟著恢復
不過不確定這樣會從哪個HDD boot，於是先進BIOS確認
…哪個HDD是哪個啊 orz

結果第一次boot到Windows XP的Coordinator(桌布是風之聖痕，不禁一陣感傷…)
第二次boot到STARGAZER，因為根本沒裝OS所以直接出現ERROR
第三次才成功進入Windows 7的Cygnus
所以我打開時重接線的是Cygnus orz

まあ、總之順利找回STARGAZER
以後備份到Sebastian的時候要記得把那堆list一起丟過去
三人（？）とも無事で何よりです～

不覚

For about a week, I noticed that my Niconico Live Broadcast programs were not able to stream smoothly and would pause every 10 seconds or so. As the days went by, the situation got worse and it would pause every 3 seconds. Obviously, this pretty much rendered the site unusable for me.

Yesterday, even loading text-based sites like Wikipedia was slow. While it's still much faster than the dial-up days, I'm on the Extreme package for my cable internet, darn it!

So I called up my ISP at 1am and explained my issue. A quick poke with a toothpick to reset the modem did it.

...I can't believe I didn't think of resetting the modem first!! ORZ

I was careless because it's a new modem I got not too long ago, but still... 何てざまだ…

SP1

With the way I work my computer, it gets the occasional blue screens due to memory dump (whatever it means). Because I rarely restart my computer, I thought I'd use the chance to perform Windows updates when I got the BSoD yesterday.

Turned out the last time I did it was in 2010, so there were close to 100 updates I had to install, including two that were necessary in order to get SP1 delivered through Windows Update. While I was at it, I also downloaded the latest version of Panda Cloud and re-install the one I had that had seemed to stop running for a long time. Yes, in a sense, my computer was almost naked for over a year...!

The construction work was finally completed around 5am, so I went to bed, and only realized Panda installed the Yahoo toolbar when I was searching directly in the Firefox URL bar today. Can't believe I didn't catch that during installation. I guess installing software at 4am isn't a smart thing to do. orz

In conclusion, my PC is kinda up to date security-wise. Although SP1 and the updates ate almost 2GB of my HDD space. I need to watch more anime to clear up the space...

Offline

I was quite excited about my new ISP and the much higher cap, but I didn't get it enjoy it much before I got hit with a DHCP issue. Long story short, I was without internet for just a bit over a week and finally got back online last night.

The most annoying thing during the offline week was the inability to check the weather and temperature outside, especially with the very unstable climate this winter (er, almost winter).

Beside some effort to catch up on the fall season anime when I was offline, I only clocked about 7 hours on DQ V but read through the last ten volumes of Ouran Host Club manga. I also finished reading the first volume of the Denyuuden novel and was two volumes into the Chobits manga.

At one point I even considered actually starting to write Agion. Alas, my internet connection returned the night I was contemplating the idea. It's just not meant to be. Not that I really mind. The project's been ongoing discreetly for years, while the plot just progressed past the middle stage of the whole story in my head a few weeks ago... XD

Anyhow! I'm happy to be back online again. It's very nice to be able to check the weather, watch Niconico, read manga and novels, discuss ACGV (V for Vocaloid XD) with Neko-tan, basically just make full use of the higher cap of the new ISP.

Oh yeah, I need to try catching up on my reading of the sniper girlfriend story from 2ch, too. XD

300GB

I'm officially on the new ISP as of this afternoon! XD

My monthly bandwidth cap jumped from a measly 60GB to a whopping 300GB, with a slightly cheaper bill than my previous one! Now I can watch as many Niconico streaming as I want and download as much stuff as my hard drive space allows!

There doesn't seem to be a function for the user to check bandwidth usage with the new ISP, but I doubt I'd go over the cap anytime soon. Even in the unlikely event that I exceed the cap, it's only $0.5/GB rather than the $2/GB charge with the old ISP.

*ba la ba ba ba~* i'm lovin' it! (ニコニコ動画流星群の意味) XD

8GB

There seems to be a misperception among my friends that I'm good with computers. Well, I suppose I did use to sell computers and stuff, but not doesn't mean I know how to use the software.

So while trying to see what the graphic interface for Windows shutdown is like to compare to a Madoka fan art Neko-tan sent me, I clicked on the shutdown button in the start menu... And Windows just shut down by itself without showing me that interface. orz

(Now that I think of it, I run on classic theme, so the graphic interface for shutdown would be turned off...)

When's the last time I shut down the computer? Early last year when I was switching to boot from XP to use the scanner? I decided to use this opportunity to put in the memory sticks I got... oh, maybe a year ago? XD

Putting in the ROM sticks was easy. I also took the PC out to the balcony and dust sprayed it. Let me give you an advice here: it's not the brightest idea to wear a T-shirt and shorts when there's a wind chill factor (and it was just blowing gusts like crazy) of -2°C.

Anyway, I put the case cover back and plugged everything back. Switch on!

...what is that loud noise I hear? orz

Turned out I disrupted the balance previously achieved by the back fan casing and it was protesting, loudly. I had to toy with the four screws on the back for a long time to find that balance back. But I was very happy when I did! :D

Now my PC runs with 8GB of ROM, and every action is so much faster than before! I know 8GB isn't a lot in PC standard, but I went from 512MB → 4GB → 8GB. You can see it's revolutionary for me. XD

The two sticks I put in are actually slightly slower than the two originals, but unless I play high-end games, I probably wouldn't notice the difference. A lot of my PC games only run on XP anyway so the slightly slower speed also doesn't matter in that aspect.

Hopefully I won't run into hangs and crashes (I presume they were all memory-related) in the near future again. XD

老化

For the past week, my internet connection has been very flaky. Images often don't load properly and my downloads are incomplete a lot of the times. And if I run any torrent, I'm guaranteed to be kicked offline within minutes. Although my internet connection would be restored shortly after I close the torrent client, it's still a hassle.

Neko-tan pointed out today it's likely the internet modem getting old and not able to handle the traffic when there's too many simultaneous connections and would halt the whole thing. Unfortunately, it's easy to just go into a store and buy a modem in LA, but not here. I'm considering getting a new modem when I switch ISP, but that won't happen for some time yet.

In the mean time, I've toned down the maximum connection setting for the torrent client in half, and only running a single queue at a time, leaving the bulk of the queue for when I go to sleep. It's helped a lot, but still annoying.

As a result of the unstable week, I wasn't able to utilize my already unlimited bandwidth effectively. Such as waste...

何と！

It's been a while since I did a Windows update, so I thought I'll do it tonight. While reading the details for each update, I realized there's an SP1 that would fix a lot of them.

Since it's been over a year(!) after the SP1 release, it shouldn't pose any issue after installation, so I proceeded to the Microsoft website to download it...

The required hard drive space is 7400MB.

That's more than my available hard drive space right now. Orz

I guess I need to do more media consumption/space clean up before I can get SP1...

イッツ・ア・ピーンチ～ Part.2

Before the Christmas weekend, I mentioned that my HDD had less than 10G of space left. Seeing how there's not as many new anime series for the winter season, I figured that I would be able to get it back up to around 20G.

Now I have less than 7G (even 5G at one point) of space on my HDD. orz

Coincidentally, I've also had the computer just freezing on me (along with the music freezing on the same note on Winamp) for a few times in the last month. I hope it's just simply insufficient memory due to extremely low HDD space and yet intensive usage.

This calls for some serious cleaning up, a.k.a. going through my ACGN (anime, manga, game, novel).

So I'm starting on the winter season anime today! XD

綺羅星☆

I programmed my Japanese IME so I can manually type out characters such as ∀ and Д and ω to make up the faces, instead of looking for them and copy&paste every single time. Have yet to figure out how to type the eyes in （ノ`Д´）ノ～～┴───┴, but this combo can be tricky with the up-turned table, so it might be easier to just search and c&p.

On a side note, there doesn't seem to be an official face for kiraboshi, so I've decided to experiment a bit here. I've only seen a few episodes so far (I know, 失格者だ。 But I do also watch each episode multiple times) and don't have the characters down yet; these are just the kiraboshi pose in general.

Smirking kiraboshi:
(下 ー ´ )～綺羅星☆
(⇛ ー ´ )～綺羅星☆
(≤ ー ´ )～綺羅星☆
(≡ ー ´ )～綺羅星☆
(∈ ー ´ )～綺羅星☆
(≯ ー ´ )～綺羅星☆
(≮ ー ´ )～綺羅星☆

Sad faced kiraboshi:
(下 Д ` )～綺羅星☆
(⇛ Д ` )～綺羅星☆
(≤ Д ` )～綺羅星☆
(≡ Д ` )～綺羅星☆
(∈ Д ` )～綺羅星☆

イッツ・ア・ピーンチ～

I officially have less than 10G of space left on Cygnus. orz

Planning to consume a large amount of stuff over the Christmas weekend, maybe finish a few current series while I'm at it. My goal would be to get Cygnus back up to around 20G or more. Will probably need a focused effort, though, as my HDMI cables might arrive before the weekend and lure me away to start watching my Blu-ray collections instead...

さあ、やるぞ！イッツ・ア・パーンチ！


...I can't really fit イッツ・ア・ペーンチ in anywhere. :x

Starting today, people all over the world who didn't jump at the Collector's Edition of Final Fantasy XIV will be able to embark on the new adventure with the Standard Edition.

I would have been one of those people if my video card was high-end enough. orz

The system requirement and specs for Final Fantasy XIV wasn't available when I got Cygnus, so I stupidly believed the sales guy that the video card would be able to run it. Such a bitter after taste when I realized it just prior to the game's release...

So I am going to get a new video card along with PS3 this Christmas!

I thought about getting a new monitor as well to replace my current 17" non-wide, VGA-only screen so I can get the best out of the new card (whichever card it'd be), but I think I will be able to pull it off by connecting Cygnus to my 32" panel via HDMI instead. I might need to get a new set of keyboard and mouse, which I have been planning to anyway, but it'll still be cheaper than a new 22"+ monitor.

Of course, I'll still need to get a new monitor when my 17" screen dies, but now I can wait until the time comes. The later the better.

Here's hoping to start gaming in 2011! :x

ドアホだ、わたし。 orz

I foolishly deleted a whole bunch of folders in Sebastian (the awesome 2TB external HDD) thinking those files were previously backed up on discs... but they're not!! I recorded those folders into the master list but failed to specified their location (thought about it but didn't follow through...)

Some folders I still have on Cygnus or Stargazer that I can just copy over for real back up, but others are already partially deleted and the files scrambled. I also need to go through the master list and remove the folder names, then record the salvaged ones into a new list.

Not sure how much longer this'll take, but there goes my wonderful Saturday afternoon... orz

I want to clean up Cygnus and run the benchmark tool for FF XIV, damn it! I need to clear up some serious space in preparation for the actual game, too. 15GB out of my current <20GB space would not work very well...

As mentioned before, I got my current computer last year and tentatively named it Sirius. It was meant to be a temporary name until I upgrade to Windows 7 and give it an official name.

Almost two weeks ago, I finally dug out my Windows 7 upgrade disc and got rid of Vista. A new start calls for a new name, and after days of neglect and procrastination, the C drive no longer displays "Local Disk".

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cygnus!

And here's how the name came about:
- Windows 7 ＝＞ 七
- I want something to do with stars (and thus the previous name Sirius)
- 七 + stars = 北斗七星　(Big Dipper) ＝＞　北極星 (Polaris)
- "宿命にはりつけられた北極星が燃えてる" from the song Northern Cross (actually listening to a guy singing the song on Niconico right this moment)
- Northern Cross = Cygnus

Straight forward, no? XD

omake:
- Cygnus ＝＞　白鳥座の氷河 = Hyouga
But my favourite Bronze Saint is Shiryuu, and I want to stay with the star motif, so the idea was scratched on the spot...

まさかクロはノラであるハズだったんだ...

I recently named my awesome owl hat Kuro after learning that the Japanese word for owl is fukurou, courtesy of friend-A. As I was thinking up an ID for an account today, I decided to go along the line of fukurou and did a look up on Wikipedia Japan...

...horned owls are not called fukurou in Japanese. orz

They are actually called mimizuku, though it's not taxonomically separated from the fukurou. Judging from the images on Wikipedia (I'm too lazy to look up the different species on Google), I think Kuro is closest to the Eurasian eagle owl.

To summarize, the Japanese for the Order of Strigiformes (Owl) is フクロウ目/梟目, which contains the Families of Strigidae (typical owl) and Tytonidae (barn owl), the Japanese of which are フクロウ科 and メンフクロウ科 respectively. Under the フクロウ科 (owl family), the Japanese calls the regular owl フクロウ(fukurou) and the horned type ミミズク(mimizuku). The scientific name of the Eurasian eagle owl is Bubo bubo; it's called ワシミミズク(washimimizuku) in Japanese under the ワシミミズク属.

See, I get my science(?) fix outside of anime, too. XD

So why was Kuro supposed to be Nora?
ミミズク --> のらみみ (never watched/read it, only knew the title) --> ノラ　(take a wild guess where I get this from... that's right, FF XIII)

Kuro was a no-brainer: フクロウ --> クロ

Kuro shall continue to be Kuro. I'll just name my next horned owl (if there will be one) object Nora. XD

---

Thought I'll just quickly document it here for future reference. I won't deny that my laziness of not wanting to write a detailed account in a separate post plays a factor here.

My stupid Vista was under a confused spell a week or so ago, so I (after some painstaking trouble shooting to determine the culprit) uninstalled some Windows updates to salvage the beyond-all-hope OS (I'm waiting for my Windows 7 shipment) without doing a format & reinstall. Vista dragged Winamp down with it during the poorly organized rebellion so I ended up having to download the latest version of Winamp and do a fresh install.

I completely forgot that Winamp and Google Talk try to kill each other when I display the current music track on Google Talk. orz

Here's the fix copy&paste from the Google forum post:
Step 1: Go to the root directory of Winamp which is usually in C:\Program Files\Winamp\
Step 2: Now create an empty file (Right click the mouse -> New -> Text document), so the default file would be like “New Text Document.txt”.
Step 3: Rename the above file to “winamp.m3u” and save.
Step 4: Close Winamp and Google Talk. Now open again and Your Show Current music track status should work like a charm !

There! Time to go back to my pudding ice bar...

最後って言ったけど、まさかほんとに最後になたとは...

Even though I used the words "last time" in the last post before leaving BC, I did not expect it to really be the last from Coordinator.

Roughly one week after my stuff arrived and the set up of my system, the tragedy happened. I was in the middle of using the computer when it suddenly restarted without warning, only to be stuck on the motherboard splash screen. Nothing I did can get it to go past that screen. After a few reboots (the power button was acting weird as well and would start the system automatically when I released my finger after the 6 seconds or so it took to shut down), the monitor wasn't even able to detect the video signal anymore.

I was overcame by a terrible sense of dread. Here I was, totally new in town and didn't know anyone. Without the computer, I couldn't check the internet for computer shops or try to Google for possible cause and fix. I couldn't even look for bus routes to get to the nearest computer place.

Luckily this was Saturday, and a couple from church was very kind and offered to drive me around town to look for a new computer. After a few stops, I ended up ordering a desktop from PC Cyber. Of course, my biggest concern was being able to get the free upgrade to Windows 7, otherwise I'd stay with XP. The guy at the shop checked for me and assured me it's fine, so I went ahead with the order.

Before I got the computer, I told bro that I think I would hate Vista. Almost a week and a half later, I still think I should have stuck with XP when I ordered the computer. Over half of my programs aren't compatible, and there's just so much quirks and annoyance that I'm still struggling with Vista everyday. Granted, there's a few good things about Vista, namely the ability to control the volume of all running programs individually, copying/moving files seem to be faster than XP, and the local search function actually works. The computer is running faster in general, but I think that's due to the much enhanced hardware specs.

Here's a quick comparison the hardware and software:

[Coordinator]          -> [Sirius]
Intel P4 @ 2.8GHz      -> Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66GHz
512MB DDR              -> 4GB DDR3
120GB + 250GB IDE HDD  -> 500GB SATA HDD + 120GB/250GB IDE HDD
ATI Radeon 9200SE      -> NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT
Windows XP Pro         -> Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
DVDRW + CDRW           -> DVDRW
AVG + Zone Alarm       -> Rogers Online Protection
Nero 6.0               -> Windows built-in burning
NJ Star Communicator   -> Google Chinese Input + MS Japanese IME

It's obvious it's a pretty bit jump from Coordinator to Sirius. I was already planning to get a new computer either near the end of this year or sometimes next year. By then, Windows 7 would be out, and i7 might be more affordable. The tragedy really happened at a bad time, forcing me to go with Vista... -__-

The software programs listed above are changed due to incompatibility with Vista or Vista 64-bit. Some programs I haven't found an alternative yet and are not listed. I haven't gone through all my programs and devices yet (yeah, I'm lazy...) so there's likely more. If there's more casualty, you'll surely hear me rant. My games better work...

So what did I do during my computer-less days after work, beside the usual chore? I finished watching Bleach DVD Box 1 and picked up my NDS again. I started on ワールド・デストラクション 導かれし意思 (World Destruction: Michibikareshi Ishi) but switched to Final Fantasy IV after a day. There's absolutely nothing wrong with World Destruction. I just got sucked in by FF IV after the initial play.

My only previous experience with the game was FF II for North America, which I learned was an easy type version. The DS version follows the same story line as the original SNES version, but the visuals are completely remade with 3D graphics, and there's event cut scenes with voice over (this is the reason I didn't go with the North American version). Right now I just finished fighting the water archfiend after Cecil transformed into a paladin. The event where Palom and Porom sacrificed themselves almost had me in tears. T__T

While it's more difficult for me to play it in Japanese, especially when I need to look for an item or spell during battle, I find the reading and voice over more engaging and thus allows me to enjoy the experience more. With the increasing number of games that have voice over, I think the few that I have right now (Chrono Trigger, DQ IV & V, FF III) might be the only RPGs I can get here. I'm seriously looking at buying stuff online now. There's NO place to buy Japanese media here, and the few places that sell anime DVD have rather meagre selections. If I can get past the obstacle of having someone there to receive the delivery, I can order anything online to my heart's content (and what my wallet can afford)!

Man! That was one of the biggest scares I've had in quite some time.

Being cheap and poor as I am, I've always just used the free Zone Alarm and AVG for my internet security. I had the chance to get a copy of Norton Internet Security through a vendor training program but was too lazy to bother. Anything involving a system restart is usually frowned upon by moi. That's how lazy I am. Plus, I try not to bog down my four-and-a-half-year-old Coordinator with too much stuff. Try being the keyword here.

After hearing one of my colleagues praising the speed and leanness of the new 2009 Norton, I decided to give it a try last night. With the product key in hand, I downloaded the trial and started the installation. It immediately detected AVG and Zone Alarm and asked me to remove them first, which I complied. Then as soon as NIS kicked in, I lost my internet connection.

No matter how many times I rebooted or tried different things (I even went back to a previous restore point), I could not get it to work and get a proper ip address. Some searches online (with bro's Midori) led me to the Norton removal tool. You can imagine what went through my head when I learned that Norton actually provides a tool to completely remove their product from the system. Exactly.

Anyhow, I used the tool and cleaned all traces of Norton from Coordinator and just turned on the Windows Firewall. By this time, it was already late and I was nodding during the process. So with a heavy heart, I went to bed.

BTW, it was around 2am when I gave up. The system didn't pop up with the time change notification so I was a bit unsure as to whether I should set my alarm clock an hour earlier or later. Thankfully, Little Black's notification came up (yay for Windows 95!). Little Black's been living at a faster pace (about 30 minutes faster) for quite a few years now, but the hour was all I needed to determine the correct time.

It was a little difficult for me to focus during the Sunday service since I was always going over the few hands I had left to try. At last I had to throw in the towel and leave the matter in God's hand in prayer.

With much anxiety, I returned home and settled in front of the computer. My stubborn nature refused to give up, so I re-enabled the LAN and waited. Lo and behold, the Gmail notification bubbles popped up! I'm online again! I'm baaaaaack! XD

I tried installing just the Norton AntiVirus after getting back my connection, but it asked me to remove Zone Alarm so I just cancelled the installation. If you're an anti-virus program, stay an anti-virus program and stop meddling in my choice of firewall program, damn it! Lesson of the day? I'm sticking with my Zone Alarm and AVG.

I still have two extra sets of product keys for the NIS and NAV. Having had to go through the ordeal makes me hesitant to try putting it on Mum's computer, as much as she needs it. We'll see. I don't suppose most people would be as 'lucky' as I was, so it's probably safe to give them out. I hope.

SP2!!
Yes, that's Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2.
Yes, I finally installed it today (well, it was really midnight yesterday) after the error message while trying to update my anti-virus software engine.

Man, did that take forever or what? I even went for a shower during the install. Well, I was planning to use Little Black to pass the time, but my attempt was met with the 'Operating system not found' message that I used to see...

I'm hoping it's just a side effect of having it on for months and just sitting there doing nothing. Maybe I'll be greeted with Windows 95 again when I turn it on. Don't really have the energy for this. Maybe next week. Updating a whole bunch of stuff requiring SP2 is hard work and very time consuming. Not to mention it takes quite a number of restarts. -__-

So I have IE 7 now! Haven't fired it up yet to see what it looks like. I'll probably do that after Little Black comes back to me...

七月初的時候好不容易完食了 Gundam SEED DESTINY, 本來要寫感想跟評論的, 不過一直沒時間, 寫了幾行就沒繼續寫, 導致之後原本想寫的東西也一直沒動。以前的 SEED 感想也是這樣, 結果就常常有好長一段時間什麼都沒寫。為了破除這種壞習慣, 這次就先寫別的, 有空的時候再補完 SEED DESTINY 的評論好了。

そういうわけで、このポストは7月の総集編。XD

月初的時候終於看完 Gundam SEED DESTINY。如前文所說, 評論以後再補上。

SD戦国伝天下統一編　四代目頑駄無大将軍 見參! 之前組 BuCUE 的時候還不覺得, 這種時候就會很希望有塗漆可以用啊... 雖然是1991年出品的東西, 做得很精細又很帥吶。BB戦士最高！XD 照片等我有空想到的時候再補上, 先看官方照片吧。

蒼穹のファフナー RIGHT OF LEFT。這算是蒼穹のファフナー的前傳, 還沒看之前就知道是幾乎無人生還的結局, Peace of mind 的 striking 度也比 Separation 要高得多, 早就想到大概會是催淚作, 不過還是沒想到會哭這麼多地方。好像很多人都拿這部跟 EVANGELION 或 RahXephon 比, 雖然還沒看過 RahXphon, 但是ファフナー跟 EVA 給我的感覺相差十萬八千里。看完 EVA 會覺得 "good for you" 可是有點空虛, 看完 End of Evangelion 會覺得想翻桌(我非常討厭陰沉或無奈絕望的東西), 但是看完ファフナー會覺得看到希望之光, 即使是 L計画全 38 人無一生還也是一樣。想當初蒼穹のファフナー的消息剛出來的時候, 我本來還因為人設的關係跟角色臉上的效果線(long story...)差點不打算看。好在後來還是抓了第一話, 然後就決定追下去, 現在在我的 list 上排名於前十五名。順道一提, 我對ファフナー的聲優都蠻陌生的, 可是 RIGHT OF LEFT 最開始僚在畢業典禮結束後跟一個前輩講話, 忽然讓我聽到環的聲音, 原來都是宮野真守呢。後來看了一下, 他還配了 WOLF'S RAIN 的キバ, 讓我更期待了。(對, WOLF'S RAIN 就是那個目前為止我只有在它剛出來的時候看了第一話, 之後就沒時間看, 可是就因為這麼一話, 將之排到前五名的傳奇作品 XD)

很久以前就想再買另外一顆 HD 做 media/data backup, 不過這裡不比台灣, 任何電腦用品都貴得要命, 所以一直都只是想想而已。終於, 在一次偶然地機會(其實是去找看有沒有ファフナー的DVD)看到某店的 250GB HD 在大特價, 立刻以比平常半價還要低一點的價錢買下, 很高興地捧回家。雖然是第一次裝 2nd HD, 過程還算是順利, 沒出現任何火花或電波(大概)。到了該給它取名字的時候了。如果按照之前的慣例, Prototype、NewType、Coordinator, 難道要叫 Extended 嗎? orz 不, 絕對不行。別的不說, 出場的 Extended 全員戰死, 而且還有導致暴走的禁句, 一點都不好啊～～ 想了30秒後, 決定叫 STARGAZER。因為正好是 G drive, 就變成 STARGAZER (G:) XD

上個禮拜, 一個朋友一邊看著店裡用32吋 HD LCD 放的 Matrix, 一邊讚嘆著其拍攝跟 CG 的手法。第一次看到 Matrix 的時候, 的確是有一點覺得拍得不錯, 動作的 choreography 跟其他片子完全不同, 還蠻有創意的。不過最近幾年來也算看了不少動畫, 其實 Matrix 裡的拍法在動畫裡都是很常見的。不, 應該說動畫在這方面上仍是遙遙領先。單就戰鬥及動作畫面來說, 最近看的 Final Fantasy: Advent Children 跟 BLACK CAT 就是很好的例子。尤其是 BLACK CAT, 之前看漫畫的時候還不覺得怎麼樣, 本來還不太想看動畫的, 沒想到看了以後覺得很棒, 最後給它打了個 B+~A- 的分數。Combined with the awesome graphics & music, the gripping story telling, the boundless imaginary settings, and the spectacular seiyuu voice over, it's no wonder why I much prefer anime over shows or movies acted by real people.

以前一直認為 ACG 裡會怕打雷的女主角只是一個傳統的設定, 到今天我才知道, 像ハルヒ那樣聽到雷鳴會動彈不得是真的有可能的。最近炎炎夏日, 如果不開著窗戶, 在一整天西曬又有電腦的房間裡根本沒辦法睡。就這樣到了凌晨(?)被雨聲吵醒, 正在想說這個雨怎麼聽起來比站在蓮蓬頭下還要大聲, 突然百葉窗外的黑夜一閃, 然後不到一秒就打了一個驚天動地的雷, 感覺好像整個房間都在震動, 嚇了我一大跳。接下來的時間, 除了持續不停的傾盆大雨, 每十秒一個小雷, 每三十秒一個大雷。每次一看到閃電就開始緊張, 深怕又是一個可怕的雷響。我包在被子裡, 數著每個閃電的時差(多於三秒就可以放心, 只是個小雷), 不禁想到ハルヒ。連我都會有點怕了, 如果小的時候一個人晚上在家, 遇到這種雷雨交加的情況, 一定會造成永久性的恐懼症吧。想了想, 閉上眼跟耶穌禱告, 請祂把我受到的驚嚇跟恐懼除去, 又沉沉睡去。有耶穌真好。:)