Long Vacation.

I had my last day on July 31st and officially became unemployed starting in August. For some reason, I've felt quite at peace about the whole thing, and it feels like a long overdue vacation for me. My passport's even expired for over 6 years... Yes, a vacation is in order. Maybe not one involving those giant metallic birds that can take you across the oceans, but a vacation nonetheless.

Of course, I have plans beside looking for my next job during this time of rest. Some will become part of my daily life, while some will be accomplished over a period of time. I haven't gotten everything laid down yet, but here's some of the things I plan to do:

[Devotion time]
One of my biggest goal during the long vacation is to read more Bible and know more about God, which I've neglected for a long time. I think it's time for me to go back to the origin and start afresh. To boot, I'll challenge myself and start with the Old Testament. All those background readings for various ACG series should be good enough preparations. I can do this.

[Sleeping earlier & Walking]
Yeah, it's no secret that my health sucks. The only saving grace (or not) is that I can go on with just few hours of sleep, but that obvious won't last, and my body's been protesting (craaaaack) since last year. Now that I don't have to spend close to 10 hours out everyday, I can go to bed earlier. My goal over the next month or so is to make 12am so I can get up at 8 and hopefully be out walking by 9 if the weather permits.

[Anime]
Entertainment is an essential part of rest for me, so that's where anime comes in. A large chunk of time will be devoted to job searching during the weekdays, so I'll probably keep my anime watching to the weekends. Maybe an additional episode or two during meals a few times per week.

[Game]
Frankly, I don't see myself playing much. I'll probably just finish the Alice in Clover game and call it quits. Maybe the occasional online casual games and RO once a month. I kinda lost my appetite for CLANNAD after someone told me that the Tomoyo ending, the only one I'm interested, is a bad one... Little Black is still in a coma so I can't touch the DQ III save file in there. :(

[Translation]
I've talked about this for a looooong time but never got around to actually do it. I'm planning to use this chance to put the proposed writing/translation blog into action. If all goes well (I'll be using the same template for it so I want to find out why this blog is not indexed by Google...), it should be ready for posting by the end of the month. I don't really have anything to offer yet, but eventually I'll post Agion (original work in progress) and the English translation for the Saiunkoku Monogatari novels. Be warned, though, that I have no formal Japanese education and everything I know was picked up watching anime...

[Plamo]
Over the years I have accumulated over a dozen plamo (the number will likely increase once I get a chance to watch Gundam 00) and only managed to build three. My hands are itching with anticipation, but I guess I'll have to re-arrange my room again (oh, man...) to make room (pun intended) for them first. My goal is one plamo every two months.

[Learning]
I love learning new things and I have a wide array of totally unrelated interests, so I'm definitely taking the time to learn something. I really really really want to play with the VOCALOIDs, but they're so expensive, especially KAITO... orz

One can probably guess that I'm not an outdoor person. What a boring Canadian, eh? Anyhow, this is my initial plan for the long vacation. We'll see how it goes. :)

Bro borrowed the TMNT movie yesterday from a friend and we had a blast laughing at the plot, the design, the dialogues, and the overall lameness. OK, he didn't find it as lame as I did. I'm just spoiled by anime... Our experience of the TMNT consists of the 2nd NES game and bits and pieces of the cartoon, so the 3D movie was totally new to us.

The movie was all right and entertaining enough... That's all we could say about it. One thing that hit pretty close to home was when Donnie did the IT tech support. I used to ask those questions when I was at Staples. You'd be surprised by some people's replies. Bro just liked the big turtle head Mikey used.

While there's plenty of actions and fights, I couldn't help but compare and comment on how slow and clunky a lot of those looked. Bro thought it's because I've watched too much 2D anime, but he had to agree with me when I cited 3D games.

When Winters floated up and turned to light specks near the end, I commented to bro that it would be better if: Winters ages -> his hair turns white and his skins dry up and turn dark like that of a mummy's-> his skin and flesh flakes off and reveals the human skeleton (proof that he lived and died as a man) -> the skeleton turns to ash and get blown away starting from the left side (from the turtles' POV) -> the armour drops to the ground and breaks into pieces before turning to ash and getting blown away. The turning to light thing seemed too super hero to me and left no after-taste at all.

Never mind me. Like I said, I'm just too spoiled by anime...

Just finished The Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of URUK (ドルアーガの塔 ～the Aegis of URUK～) on the YouTube channel, and I must say it's unexpectedly turned out to be one of the better shows out of the spring batch.

My hope wasn't too high as the series appeared to be a parody and comedy at first, and I actually considered dropping it two or so episodes in if it wasn't for the heavy seiyuu cast and Gatou Shouji (he's the reason I had my suspicion of this being just a regular magic & sword dungeon crawler). I'm glad I stayed and look forward to the next season in 2009(!). Too bad Ishida-san's character didn't survive the season. Maybe I'll look for the NES game in the mean time. Apparently the ropers are actually quite tough in the game, despite their gag appearances in the anime. Absolutely love that roper dance, btw. XD

On the same note, I've been keeping up with Blassreiter on the YouTube Blassreiter channel as well. The latest episode (ep.12) was pretty dramatic. Of the original XAT Team 2, I didn't expect those two to be the surviving members... The 3D renderings still irritate me sometimes, but I'm kinda used to them by now. The show is pretty dark and the viewing number is way below that of The Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of URUK~ on YouTube. To be frank, I might not have tried it if it wasn't for the cast... Most of them are out of the picture now, but there should be new characters showing up soon. We'll see how this turns out.

Firefox 3 was released with a bang on June 17th, aka Download Day, and made world record for the most number of download for a software in 24 hours. I joined in the effort with two downloads, one for my PC (Coordinator) and one for the work laptop, but I wasn't able to really play with it until a couple days later, when I got my new glasses.

Glasses? Yeah, the frame of my 5-year-old glasses snapped in the middle the night before the Download Day and, being a heavily myopic person, I was half-blind for the days that followed. I managed to download Firefox 3 without problem and immediately gained a new appreciation for the improved zoom feature. I don't usually go beyond a single zoom level, but in my half-blind state, I had to zoom in at least 4-5 times, and boy was I glad to find things still smooth and readable after several Ctrl+. However, I probably needed 8-9 zooms to really be able to browse the websites somewhat so I pretty much gave up using the computer. The Windows magnifier was too bothersome and only covered a small area to be useful to me, btw.

The fact that I was pretty sick for the week didn't help much, but at least I had something to do away from the computer. Sleep! I slept almost 11 hours a day! The last time I did this was when I was quite sick a couple years ago...

Zooming back (pun intended) to after I receive the new pair of glasses. Finally, I got to play with my pet browser!

First off, all but one of my add-ons were updated. I'm still missing Converter as of now, but this one used to be Mozilla only so I can bear the wait. My brother wasn't so lucky and kept checking for updates everyday, and he finally either installed alpha versions or forced the version to go with Firefox 3. He couldn't live without all his add-ons, it seemed. We both use Personas so no issue with the themes.

The active tab wasn't distinguishable with Personas at first, but that was quickly rectified by the latest Personas version. The Japanese rock festival pack was also included in the update, which for some reason failed to install when I tried manually before. I've been sticking to Groovy Blue on Coordinator, but the one I used on the work laptop was nowhere to be found... It's changed to Foxkeh Kodomo no Hi at the moment.

One of the most discussed feature of Firefox 3 is probably the Awesome Bar, and I agree. It was also the first thing my brother complained to me about (I was half-blind at the time and just told him to figure it out himself). Now that I've used it, I have to say it's a bitter sweet experience thus far. On one hand, it does make going to some places easier which might have otherwise taken me a couple minutes, but it can be annoying if you usually just visit certain sites regularly. It also reveals a lot more about one's surfing history, which explains why my brother was extremely against me using his laptop to go online while waiting for Coordinator to finish some CPU hogging tasks. Totally understandable.

I'd say without any tweaking, the Awesome Bar is a great tool for someone who's jumping to places online and not so useful for someone who's staying within the boundaries of certain domains. On the basis that you're not sharing the computer with someone else, of course. Maybe this is solvable by just simply setting up different profiles? I'll never know...

One beef I have with Firefox 3 is that it doesn't warn me when I close the browser with multiple tabs if I enabled opening previous tabs at the browser start-up. While it's true that the tabs will still be there when I start the browser, it takes time to load all of them. Considering that I typically have 20 or so tabs opened, it can be irritating, especially if there's Nico Nico or YouTube in there. Hopefully it'll be fixed in 3.0.2 (3.0.1 should have frozen already and I don't think the fix is there).

Firefox 3 doesn't change that much for me, but it's the little things that make an impression, such as the better rendering of text and graphic and zoom, the search function within the add-ons manager, and download time shown on the task bar. The resume download thing is a hit and miss for me so far, but my brother has no problem at all. But then again, he doesn't usually download large files like video and game demos so he rarely have to pause it in order to load a streaming video. As for the other thing that people tend to talk about, the key hole interface, it doesn't really affect me. Yeh for Personas and small icons. XD

On a side note, I recently learned that the Taiwanese pronounces YouTube as you-to-be (as in the words "you to be" in English), and the Japanese pronounces it as yoh-tsu-bei. Interesting, eh?

Canada Day! A day for celebration for a wonderful country! (OK, so I missed it by a day...)

For a lot of British Columbians, though, Canada Day this year would probably be remembered as the day our gas price breaks the 150 mark, no thanks to the 2.4 cents gas tax starting July 1st. I paid $55 to top off the tank the day before, which will hopefully last me until the middle of next week. I don't want to think about how much my next gas receipt will show.

+ + + + + + +

Just finished watching 図書館戦争 (Toshokan Sensou) and it's easily a top 10 contender. Originally, I was going to wait until I have all the episodes before watching 'cause I figured I wouldn't have much time for the new series this spring. I took a sneak peek one day and got instantly hooked, and I couldn't wait for the next episode to come out. It's like GunParade March all over again for me, in a good way. The story is good, the anime quality is great, and the characters are outstanding. I've watched every episode at least twice or thrice, in raw, Chinese subtitle, and English subtitle. Extremely recommended!

I was going to order the original novels for Toshokan Sensou, but they're still in hard covers so the girl suggested I wait for the paperbacks. I ordered the first eight books of 彩雲国物語 (Saiunkoku Monogatari) instead. Can't believe I forgot to ask about 十二国記 (Juuni Kokuki)... orz

+ + + + + + +

Quote of the day
Bro *looking at the cat*: Are cats of the tiger family?
Me: .........Tigers are of the cat family. *thinking: You asked for it. I'm so going to post this.*

It's been some time since I write about anime, so I'll briefly write about They Are My Noble Masters (君が主で執事が俺で) that I finished about two weeks ago.

At first glance, They Are My Noble Masters appears to be a harem series loaded with a ridiculous amount of fan service (the most I've seen to date, in fact, but I don't usually touch this type of shows so I don't know how it compares to other ones). I was a bit hesitant to watch it, but the seiyuu cast was kind of attractive so I gave it a try.

I decided to continue after the first episode, despite the amount of skins shown. What do you know? It's actually a neta series. XD I especially enjoyed the G Gundam and Kamen Rider Kabuto neta and found the other ones entertaining as well. There were some I didn't get so kudos to the fansub group for putting in the notes. It's a shame they didn't get the Kabuto ones, though.

While the show is laden with jokes and gags, the background and feelings of the various characters are properly explored (as implausible as those may be), and the last couple episodes are especially emotional. Not bad for a harem series based on an eroge. Not a must watch, but if you have some free time at hand, can stand the excessive fan service, and appreciate the various neta, give it a whirl. I gave it a grade of B-~B.

Previously I mentioned a couple methods to get my music fix during work. This week I discovered yet another one, also through Nico Nico Douga. The key word is 作業妨害用ＢＧＭ/作業用ＢＧＭ(BGM not/for working).

I was casually browsing through the anime section on Nico Nico during lunch time one day when I came across an anisong medley video that states if you recognize so many songs out of this many tracks, your life is over (No, my life is far from over. I barely got half.) As I played (as in playing a game) a couple of those, I noticed the BGM tag on top. Things just kind of rolled from there. So far I've listened to medley of anisong, gesong, boss fight battles, tear jerking songs, folk and fantasy style songs, hot-blooded songs.... The choices are endless and will take me a long time (if ever) to go through all of them.

BTW, I finally solved the jumping vocaloid video mystery. Apparently there's vocaloid album collaboration projects every so often, and if a video belongs to the current album, it'll automatically jump to the next one and loop through all the videos in the album. An interesting way to find more good vocaloid songs. XD

The biggest news for the Vancouver community today is probably the official retirement of the Canuck everyone will remember, Trevor Linden.

I started watching hockey just before the play-offs in 1994 and got pretty hyped as the Canucks, the 7th seeder, defeated higher ranked teams and advanced to the Stanley Cup finals, fighting to the very end in game 7 against the New York Rangers. I got the names and faces of everyone on the team down at that time and collected the posters in the Province newspaper. I even drew a series of pictures titled 'Road to the Cup' using the team logos. No, I couldn't find those sketches anymore and maybe I threw them out during a room cleaning. Yes, I'm pretty mad at myself for this act of stupidity...

Anyway, Trevor Linden has been a favourite of mine since.

Admittingly, I didn't follow the Canucks as closely after Mike Keenan came into the picture and merely checked their progress after the turn of the century unless they made play-off. But I still got excited whenever there's news of Trevor, and I was thrilled to have him back in Vancouver in '01. Here is a player with class, compassion, and action, both on and off the ice.

It's sad to see such great man leaving hockey. You will always be in our hearts, Trevor! Best wishes and blessings to you and your family!! :D

On a side note, many of the players I grew up watching are now retired... Thank you all for being a part of my youth! :)

What a game! A great closure for the 2008 hockey season. Congrats to the Detroit Red Wings for winning the Stanley Cup, and applause to the Pittsburgh Penguins for putting up a fight against the best team in the league! Kudos to the players on both teams!

The last few minutes of the game were pretty intense and dramatic. I was really hoping to see that attempt get through by the Penguins to tie the game with 2 seconds left. Alas, game 5 was not to be repeated. XD

Sir Stanley will be in Detroit this year. Will someone please bring it up north next year? I'll settle for anywhere that spells 'neighbour' properly. Vancouver would be nice. ;)

What a game! I wasn't that terribly interested in the series at first because Detroit seemed to have no trouble at all killing the Penguins with two straight shut-outs, so I merely followed the series' progress and didn't actually watch any game on TV.

I got home tonight just as 1st OT started. Apparently, the Penguins tied the game with less than a minute left, giving a whole arena full of crowds and my brother a disappointing big surprise. I sat down to watch it with my bro... until the game ended in the 3rd OT with the Penguins taking the series back to Pittsburgh.

My brother wasn't very thrilled, of course, being a huge Red Wings fan, but he was too tired to say anything and just felt relieved it was over. He didn't remember it, but I reminded him that Canucks had a longer game last year that went into the 4th OT. That was long.

Props to Fleury for making 55 saves tonight! Without him, as my brother commented, the Penguins would have lost 50 times already. I look forward to the next game.

Mystery solved!

Being the lazy person that I am, one of the first things I do after installing Firefox is to set up keyword search. This way, I can just type in whatever in the URL bar and out comes the result page in my chosen web services.

Being the poor person that I am, I use AVG for anti-virus. Not long ago, it popped up with a reminder that the then current version will not be updated after certain days and urged me to upgrade to the next version 8.0, which I did.

I haven't been playing around much in Firefox lately and mostly just used the bookmark to go to selected sites. I used the URL bar to search occasionally but those were all in English.

That's why I didn't notice the problem until today, when I tried to search 'Kagamine Rin' 'kokoro' 'kiseki' in Japanese. As soon as I typed in the terms, the "xxx has encountered a problem and needs to close" message jumped at me. All my attempts ended with the same error message and the Talk Back agent window. Time to troubleshoot.

It didn't happen when I search via Ctrl+K, only when I used the URL bar. I tried English, no problem. I tried Japanese, crashed. I tried Chinese, crashed. I went into about:config, nothing wrong. I tried rebooting the computer, same thing. I tried Mozilla Suite, no problem.

Then it dawned on me. During the few times that I searched this past week, I remember vaguely that there's some kind of green mark beside the search results, an indication that the link is deemed safe by AVG. I thought it might be the security toolbar I agreed to install at the time of upgrade. Not seeing an option to uninstall the toolbar by itself, I uninstalled the whole thing and reinstalled it minus the toolbar. Same thing.

I was at my wit's end and was considering switching to a different anti-virus software. As a last effort, I opened the suspect and tried to see if I can find a setting for it. Then my eyes landed on the LinkScanner icon. I clicked on it once. Nothing. I right-clicked on it. Nothing. I finally double clicked on it and got the option to appear. There's no mouse over description as well. Not too friendly to an UI dummy like me... -__-

Anyway, my keyword search is now back to normal after I disabled the LinkScanner. I'm so happy...（つД`）

Lessons for the day are
1) It can be a pain and sometimes downright frustrating to use non-English characters in an English software environment. It shouldn't be like this, especially considering that Windows XP (and I assume Vista as well?) is UTF-8.
2) Make your UI more friendly for people like me please!! I could have resolved the problem with a few mouse clicks and saved the time I wasted uninstalling and reinstalling and rebooting
3) Don't install all features by default! If you offer a customized route during installation, makes all features beside the core component (in this case the anti-virus part) available for choosing. And have clear descriptions for the features and let the user decides. I wouldn't had enabled the LinkScanner if I had the choice.
4) Stop ranting on and on and making the post so long...

人はやばり光と希望を求める、そして誰でも救われるを信じたいかな？

Having experienced numerous ACG works in various genres over the years, I've come up with a pet theory on human nature, which basically encompasses the above rhetorical question: Humans, after all, seek after light and hope, and want to believe that anyone can be saved. I'm not good at translating my thoughts into words, so I'll just briefly summarize it with a few general scenarios.

Case 1. The 'bad' guy usually started 'good' and innocent until something drastic happened to him and caused him to be the way he is. After clashing swords a couple times with the protagonist, he is touched by the protagonist's personality and is reminded of the good side of human nature and get converted.

Case 2. A character from a 'bad' faction grew up 'bad' because that's the way he's supposed to be in that given environment. After numerous encounters and conflicts with the protagonist, he is attracted by the protagonist despite their difference in background, value, and status. Those around still condemn/fear him, but the feelings between him and the protagonist, whether it's love or friendship, will allow him to leave his old way of life and be with the protagonist.

Case 3. The guy decided to behave in a certain way on his own accord. He may act all bad-ass and mighty, cold and merciless, or not caring about anything, but he is lonely and longs for something deep in his heart and subconsciously. The protagonist brings him out of his own confinement, and he has a change of heart.

The 'bad' guys in those cases may range from a new recruit for the opposing side, an infamous killer, a leader, a user of supernatural power, or a Mazoku/monster/youkai/spirit/ma. They all chase after something. If the something is of light in nature, they would obtain it and be saved. If the something is of darkness in nature, they would end horribly should they obtain it.

Sound familiar? They should, as these are basic elements and staples to a lot of the ACG works and overused to the point of cliche. Yet people never get tired of these patterns and themes, and they continue to create and consume works built around them. Why? This is where my pet theory comes in.

I believe that since the day that Adam and Eve were ousted from the Garden of Eden and separated from God, there exists a void and desire in the human heart that can only be filled by that which is from God. That's why we seek after light and hope and believe in such power. That's why we want to see people of darkness be saved and pulled back into the realm of light. By seeing a good ending for those people, we hope for the same for ourselves.

There are people saying they're fine being in darkness and rather stay there, including a number of my friends, but I do think they're bluffing themselves and/or ignoring what their hearts are telling them.

Personally, I have nothing against such themes, and I'm sucker for those to a degree. The only instant where I will not tolerate this is when the subject in question is a devil or satan itself, as I believe their paths cannot be changed once they chose to rebel against God and got thrown down from Heaven. Other than those, I'm good with any variation of the said themes.

I used to be pretty dark, btw, without anything drastic happened to me. I may not be completely in the light now, but I'm definitely and surely going there. With the help of my good Shepherd, of course. :)

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...

ココロ(Kokoro/Heart). This is the song, or rather, the PV that lured me into the fantastic world of Vocaloids.

I've briefly mentioned how I came to know this piece of wonderful work, so I'll skip it here and focus more on the emotional side.

To be frank, the plot scenario isn't that original to begin with so I wasn't too enamoured by it until seeing the PV. I'm a daydreaming (XD) type of person so it's always that much more meaningful when something is associated with visuals and a story. I teared up when I saw the PV, and the tears threatened to spill over when I saw the PV for the answer song, ココロ・キセキ(Kokoro Kiseki/Heart.Miracle), by the same author. And I actually cried when I saw the PV for ココロ＋ココロ・キセキ.

ココロ, by itself, is like a gracefully woven story between two star-crossed lovers (i.e. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet), but with ココロ・キセキ, the tragedy is elegantly transformed into a beautiful romance (i.e. Gonzo's Romeo x Juliet). OK, I'm stretching it as I'm currently watching the anime, but bear with me here. (I'm only halfway through the series, but I'm assuming it won't end like Willy's version.)

Ahem, back to ココロ. While the robot of miracle ceased to function at the end in both songs, ココロ leaves a slightly melancholy aftertaste, and ココロ・キセキ's is tinted with a small happiness. Together, the two compliment and complete each other. To pack so much emotion into these short minutes also reminded me of Hoshi no Koe, or the lingering feelings in the first Inu Yasha movie.

I was watching Bleach ep.160 yesterday and it had a scene where Kaien was explaining his view of 'kokoro' to Rukia, that 'kokoro' exists between two people when they connect with each other, and that the 'kokoro' is left with the other person when one of them is no longer there. I only nodded my head and thought it very true when I read this part in the manga, but seeing it in the anime after ココロ was yet another experience. I immediately related the concept to ココロ, how the 'kokoro' was obtained because there's a relationship between the scientist and the robot, and how even after the scientist dies, the 'kokoro' was left with the robot. The robot stopped in the end in both songs, but the 'kokoro' is now left with all those that have viewed and been touched by the songs and the PVs.

On the other hand, when one dies alone with no one to leave the 'kokoro' with, it's a lonely thing. The lonely scientist in ココロ died before the robot obtained the 'kokoro', so he still ended lonely. In ココロ・キセキ, the robot obtained the 'kokoro' while the scientist was still alive. Even though the scientist still died before the robot, he was able to leave the 'kokoro' with the robot. He did not end lonely.

Another thing in the same episode that resonates with ココロ is when Rukia was reflecting the various emotions she's come to experience, like the robot who came to realize joy and sadness once she obtained the 'kokoro'. Rukia actually resembles both the lonely scientist and the robot. When she was adopted into the Kuchiki family, she was distanced by those around her and was alone until Kaien came into the scene. Her heart was closed again after Kaien died in her hands and she became cold. After she met Ichigo, her heart slowly opened up and she became, in Renji's word, human. Just as Kaien had left his 'kokoro' with Rukia, Rukia will have someone to leave her 'kokoro' with when her time's up. That's what nakama is for.

See. I told you I'm a daydreaming type of person. XD

*All the links in this post are from Nico Nico Douga. I think the video are also available on YouTube in a lower quality.

KAITO はすごいね。ていうか、アニメですごいね... え? 何のはなし? 島唄よ。(KAITO sure is amazing. Actually, anime is amazing... Eh? What am I talking about? Shima-Uta/Island Song.)

Not making sense? OK, let's backtrack a bit. Well, it'll still be in somewhat reverse chronological order, but you'll (hopefully) get it by the end.

I was introduced to the famed VOCALOID Kagamine Rin(鏡音リン)'s song "kokoro"(ココロ) on YouTube via an ACG-oriented Chinese forum. My impression of VOCALOID songs were denpa and pop, neither of which were my cup of tea, so I didn't have much expectation. But I was near tear after I watched the PV. (I'll leave the details related to "kokoro" for another post.) Two weeks ago, I signed up for a Niconico Video account and searched for the PV, and eventually linked out to the author's mylist page. From there, I watched his PV for "Byakkoya no Musume"(白虎野の娘) and was instantly captured by the song.

That was the first time I heard KAITO sing, and I was thoroughly amazed. I started searching for KAITO's songs on Niconico, and I hit Shima Uta. (While I'm typing this, I found another Shima-Uta by the same KAITO + Fuuga Naoto, which is awesome!) Unfortunately there's no mp3 available for this version of the song, so I can only listen to it using Songza or Niconico. On a whim, I searched 'Shima Uta' on Songza and various tracks came up in the result. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. Including KAITO's, I now have 5 versions of Shima Uta in my Songza playlist.

So that explained the KAITO part. What about the anime part? Well, Shima Uta is Japanese folk music, and this type of music isn't usually liked too much by the masses except for old folks (pun intended). Nor is it something that can be heard anywhere, especially if one lives on the other side of the Pacific from the island nation. I, for one, had never come in contact with any Japanese traditional music until my interest in ACG blossomed.

The Inu Yasha anime opened the door to Japanese traditional music for me, and the genre quickly grew on me. Then, while watching Samurai Champloo, I heard Asazaki Ikue's "Obokuri~Eeumi." It might had been the atmosphere of the series itself, but I took a liking to the song instantly. While I don't actively seek out Japanese folk songs, I've been very open to the style since. If I didn't watch anime, I'd probably never be interested in the Japanese traditional and folk music.

On a side note, I recently learned of the meaning behind the lyrics of Shima-Uta. Time has changed, but the emotion remains. Rather than the vestige scarred by war, KAITO's Shima-Uta seems to convey a wish for peace after stormy times. The version by KAITO + Fuuga Naoto, on the other hand, connects both expressions in an act of oyako performance. It's simply great.

You'd be surprised by the scope and diversity of all things I've come in contact because of ACG. XD

Continuing from a previous post, here's more first impression on some of April's new series.

狂乱家族日記 (Kyouran Kazoku Nikki) ep.1
I wasn't too sure what this is about, but I decided to check it out anyway. The lead female isn't very likeable and reminds me of the bossy side of Suzumiya Haruhi, but I'm guessing it'll change later, perhaps even related to something dark and painful from her past? The children seem normal enough to me, and I'm all for the non-human ones, i.e., the lion, the robot, and the pink jellyfish. XD The scene where Ooka was scolding the robot that a child shouldn't attack his parent, I was more bothered by the fact that he was pointing a gun at his child. Sure enough, he was later scolded by Kyouka for that very reason. The cast is a bit on the younger side, so I'm not keen on seeing any kind of romantic elements. The art style is bright and colourful, fitting for a comical series. I'll keep an eye on this one.

Vampire Knight ep.1
I've read some of the manga and heard the LaLa subscriber service drama CD before, so I'm somewhat familiar with this series. I'm glad they're using most of the seiyuu cast from the drama CD, which is on the heavy side, but why is Koyasu Takehito absent again? Same in Zombie-Loan... :( The actual animation is better than the preview image on the website, and it didn't inherit the awkward human skeletal frame from the manga, so that's good. The manga is still on-going so I'm not sure up to which volume the anime will be. I'll be watching this.

Chi's Sweet Home
Technically, this isn't a full-size series, as it only runs about 5 minutes everyday like Damekko Doubutsu from before. I'm a sucker for animals, and cute kitten is right in my alley. Nothing much to say about this, except that I highly recommend it.

Fireball ep.1-3
Another mini-series that runs for about one and a half minute per episode. This one was recommended to me by Neko-tan, and I instantly fell in love with it. The 3D modelling and motion are excellent, and the script is full of neta and hilarious. It's really hard to imagine Disney has a part in this. I can't count how many times I've rewatched each episode. It's that good. You'll regret it if you miss this. I mean it.

Special A ep.1-2
I've read the manga before and found it interesting enough, so I sort of decided to watch it when the news of the anime came out. I haven't seen much of Goto Yuko outside of Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, so it's refreshing to see her as a bright and energetic girl full of fighting spirit. Not a big fan of her singing, though, so I'll pass on that OP... The ED is fine, but nothing special. Fukuyama Jun sure can act, but same thing, I have yet to hear a good song from him. The show seems entertaining, to say the least. I'll be watching this.

More on the April new series later.

Neko-tan dropped me a note last week recommending Shigofumi out of the last batch of anime shows, of which I replied back in email with some thoughts of my own on some of the ones I recently finished. I didn't go into too much detail in the reply, but since I already took the time to start it, I thought I'd follow-up with a proper(ly summarized) post on the topic.

もやしもん (Moyashimon)
This one is quite interesting in terms of concept. Having the ability to see and interact with microbes in such a unique way is an attractive idea for me. There's lots of germs involved, but they're packaged so cutely that you just can't resist the lopsided grin when you see them floating around and hear them speak. The cast is on the heavy side considering the nature and the length of the series, and the omake microbe theatre at the end of every episode is pretty informative. I also have an affinity to agricultural universities due to my childhood dream of becoming a vet, and such setting is rather fresh for an anime. The bit about Kei dressing as a girl was weird, though.

Moyashimon didn't inspire me to actively learn more about microbes, but it's entertaining and fun to watch. BTW, I failed microbiology, one of the required courses for pre-vet, in university before switching to earth science. I don't dislike it, though. Just didn't study enough and joined the failing 50% of the class population.

Recommended unless you must have your fix of fighting and abnormal cast. XD

破天荒遊戯 (Hatenkou Yugi)
This is a very typical girl-goes-on-journey-with-friends-she-meets-on-the-road story. The only highlight for me is the male cast, as I'm not familiar with the seiyuu for the lead female. I don't really have much to say about this show since it didn't leave much of an impression on me. It may be just me, but I feel Kino no Tabi is a better 'travel adventure' show, even if the overall mood is more melancholy.
Not recommended unless you dig Sakurai Takahiro or Miki Shinichiro.

魔人探偵脳噛ネウロ (Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro)
OK, I admit that the seiyuu cast was what convinced me at first, but the interaction between strongly portrayed characters helped keep me to the end. The 'regular' cases are typical enough and even fun sometime for a show in the suspense genre, but the 'X' cases can get pretty graphic and bloody. More so than a lot of the other war and fighting themed shows I've seen, actually. My brother got a glimpse of the second last episode (the nastiest episode in the series) and saw the screen filled with broken bodies scattered about in blood in a dark and ominous place, and he immediately cried murder and questioned my taste...

Recommended if you're into this sort of thing. You have been warned.

Rental Magica
This I really watched purely for the seiyuu cast. I'm fine with magic and supernatural power, but focusing mainly on said power is not. I was never into this kind of stuff to begin with... Without the cast that it has, I wouldn't had touched it. The OP song isn't bad, and the slow version is even better.
Not recommended unless you're into seiyuu like me.

狼と香辛料 (Wolf and Spice)
I know this is not Code Geass, but having Fukuyama Jun and Koshimizu Ami as the protagonists feeds to my delusion of Lelouch x Kallen... Ahem. This is an interesting show in that merchant business, something I usually stay away from, plays a big role. Frankly, I get lost easily whenever someone gets into some theory about the way of business (which is the majority of the series), but it's fun pretending to know what they're talking about.

Anyway, I was intrigued at first because of the 'wolf' in the name (wolf is my favourite animal) but I was left a bit disappointed in the lack of decent wolf design. On a side note, the first thing that caught my eye right after I rolled the video, was a shot of Holo slowly uncurling herself in the beginning of the OP sequence. That looks just like a flipped image of the Firefox logo (minus the globe... but she's embracing the field)! XD

It's hard for me to do the recommendation line for this one since I don't really have any feelings for it, but the original light novel seems well received... Recommended only if you like the main seiyuu or the original work?

NOIR
When I saw the 1st episode many years ago, I was completely blown away by the unique style of the OP sequence, the beautiful choreography (Kirika's awesome whenever she moves in for the kill!), the amazing and realistic scenery, and mood swaying music (this is where I first heard of Kajiura Yuki). Of course, having my favourite seiyuu as one of the leads helped as well, although she never get to speak much. Neko-tan warned me of the distorted character art in later episodes and the weak ending, but I was so impressed by the 1st episode that I decided to give it a try. And after all those years, I finally managed to finish the series.

Neko-tan's warnings were fair and well deserved, as there were more than a handful of episodes with very notable character art distortion, and the ending was indeed on the weak side. I've seen worse, however, so it was bearable. The plot is really the biggest flaw, which is fatal for any series. For this reason, I've come to view NOIR as an artistic piece composed of art, style, and music, with some kind of story in the background. Yeah.

Recommended unless you're the type of person who can't stand going to art museums or similar musical venues and must have a strong story. In which case, do at least watch the first episode.

I'm not a musically talented person, but I usually like to have something playing in the background when I'm on the computer. My kind of music, of course. And I wear earphones at work so I don't disturb other people.

At home, I have my 'Jukebox' located conveniently in Stargazer (the 2nd HDD) so there's no problem. But I can't possibly load all my music unto the work laptop which I leave at the office, and 8hr/day & 5 days/week is a pretty long time to fill. So what's one to do to rid of the silent boredom and avoid playing the same tracks over and over?

Well, first of all, there's web radio. There's a couple web radio sites with seiyuu as personalities that I listen to, but my Japanese level isn't good enough to be able to write (in English) and listen (in Japanese) at the same time. Besides, seiyuu may speak perfectly clear Japanese when voicing over characters, they can speak really fast and mumble quite a bit outside recording sessions. As a result, I can only listen to web radio when I'm doing more routine work or data punching. And the radio programs that I listen to only get updated on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Next there's Songza. As mentioned before in a previous post, Songza is pretty neat and friendly. The only things is, it usually grabs the source files from YouTube, so you sort of have to know what to search for. It's a great resource to hear some only-on-DVD live performances, though. My current Songza playlist includes a couple Mizuki Nana's songs from the 2006 and 2007 Animelo, a few tracks from the Sound Horizon Triumph live (especially love that duet by Yuuki & Revo), a few Vocaloid2 songs (more on those in another post), and a few Kageyama Hironobu live songs (e.g. Pegasus Fantasy in Portuguese), Kamen Rider Kabuto's OP, and three versions (piano, original Russian, and English by Ed's VA) of Brothers from Fullmetal Alchemist.

Today I found a new way of listening to music at work. From an unlikely source, too. Nico Nico Douga XD I'm very new to this and right now only listen to the Vocaloid songs, but the site is full of treasures. For example, I'd search for 'KAITO' and play the results one by one as BGM. I'm not sure what I did this afternoon, but it just automatically started jumping to a different Miku's video after finishing the current one. I believed I started with a Kaito + Miku one, and it just sort of went out of control afterwards. I'll have to find out how to do that. :D

I used to do last.fm while going online on foreign (i.e., not my Coordinator) computers and play 'my radio station.' However, I soon found out that my music taste was a bit too skewed and it quickly returned with a no more new track available message after a short while. I think the site's got a whole lot of music recently so I should have a better chance now, but I think it'll only play each track at most 3 times? Not gonna work for me if I just want to listen to music when not on my computer. Besides, I still doubt it'll have much selection for my taste...

Before this all, I used to do shoutcast and listen to the anime stations. The selection is usually pretty varied, but that represents another problem for me. I don't just listen to any anime song, so while I get to hear some nice tracks that I don't have, it's relatively easy to encounter music styles and artists not quite my taste. And it can get annoying when people request a whole line up of songs like this. Lastly, the connection can be scratchy from time to time, and the sound quality may fluctuate sometime.

So at home, I have my ever expanding 'Jukebox' to rely on. At work, I alternate between the music I loaded, the web radio, and Songza, depending on what I'm doing and my mood. I'll be adding Nico Nico to the mix from now on. Should be fun. XD

ハチミツとクローバー (Honey & Clover) Japanese drama version

I've been somewhat skeptical since episode 1, and here's my verdict after watching the series.

It's a nice adaptation of the original manga, however, the project is an ambitious one and isn't really suited for a 11-episode drama series. Because of the scope of the original story and all the interweaving of the character background and relationships, it'd be much better to break it into two seasons like the anime version. As such, the coverage is relatively shallow and, while most of the issues introduced in the drama are resolved at the end, leaves something to be desired.

Of course, I said the above because I've already read the manga and watched the 1st season of the anime. For someone who has never come in contact with H&C, the drama would be a good watch with themes of friendship, love, and even goals in life. The slightly altered setting doesn't impress like the original, but the story still retains a pretty reasonable mix of ideal and reality. Great for young adults or anyone who has some level of experience.

I ended up liking Hagu the best out of all the cast, followed by Nomiya. Hagu is gentle yet strong like the original, and Nomiya is the mature voice like the original. Miyako is pretty otaku, and Mayama isn't half the pervert of the original. The others are fine, but no one really stands out except for Yamada, in a not-so-good way. She's the only one I can't get used to. It's simply too hard to compete against the extremely beautiful art of the anime. Morita? He's changed too much for the drama so he doesn't count anymore... The same goes for Romaiya-senpai. orz

I gave the drama version a B. If I've never seen H&C before, I probably would have given it a B~B+ or a B+. Recommended either way. First impression can be difficult to beat... Maybe I'll do a quick comparison for the mixed media series I've seen when I have time.

PS. I was browsing the ja.wikipedia page for the drama version just now and guess what I saw? There's going to be a Taiwanese drama based on H&C coming out in May! Yeah, I'll be checking it out for sure. This will be my 1st Taiwanese drama. XD

If you had ever stumbled into this absurd corner hidden deep in the web maze before, be it by design or accident, you'll notice something different.

Yes, I abandoned the Asuran Theme and its variant which I had been using since 2003.

Yes, I upgraded the classic template and had to pick one temporarily. Didn't like any of the templates but didn't really have time to make one myself, especially considering all the reading I'd have to do.

Yes, I finally found a template which layout is simple enough for me to modify without going through too much hassle.

Yes, this is the theme I'll be using from now on till I get bored and have a lot of time on my hand. Thus I present you Paw Wow v.3!

No, I don't have a name for the theme this time. I didn't have anything particular in mind when I picked the colours out of whim.

Yes, I will be using this as a basis for the writing/translation blog that's been waiting for its debut for years. Only God knows (literally) when that will be...

April. It's that time of the year again, when a slew of new anime shows start. I haven't time to get through even just a handful of them (heck, I only just finished NOIR less than 2 weeks ago, and I had it since it came out in 2001!), but I'll post my thoughts on what I've seen so far and follow up with more posts later.

First off, the ones I'm looking forward to the most are Code Geass R2 and Macross Frontier. Those are sure bets so I'll just grab them and wait till I have time to watch them, which, judging from past history, will be a good couple months away, if not longer...

The other ones that I'm not familiar with but will probably receive the same treatment are Toshokan Sensou (図書館戦争) and Soul Eater. The former seems very interesting and I like the clean feel of the artwork. The latter is based on a manga which I've seen but never read. I'm guessing it might be similar to Shaman King or Bleach in terms of background setting. Should be fun.

Now let's start on what I have seen so far for the new shows.

紅 (Kurenai) Ep.1-2
The OP is pretty hip and cute, and it's of a completely different tone than the anime itself. The pace is okay and the overall mood feels a little dispirited, mainly due to the relatively depressing protagonist. He's not like Shinji type of depress, though, just a bit too accepting. I rather enjoy the interaction between him and Murasaki. This is when he acts like a responsible big brother. There's still too much enigma about the whole setting and character background. I haven't decided what to think about the anime yet, but I'll continue to watch it. We'll see how it turns out.

イタズラなKiss (Itazura no Kiss) Ep.1
I watched the 1st episode purely because of Mizuki Nana, and she was indeed the only highlight for the show and not enough to save it for me. Well, Park Romi also plays the little brother, but she simply doesn't get enough screen time at all to be a factor! The art is outdated and the plot and the characters feel flat. I tried reading the original manga a long time ago and forced myself through two volumes before deciding not to torture myself anymore. My brother got hooked by the Taiwanese drama based on it and even bought the DVD box set and the soundtrack CD. I sampled bits and pieces walking by the living room while he was watching it. The Taiwanese drama version is altered enough to actually be watch-worthy, but I can't stand the way the heroine is acted out. If it's Mizuki Nana's Makoto in the drama, I'd probably watch it. But for the manga and the anime version, I don't really see any way to save them. A drama CD with a different cast (but leave Nana and Romi-nee in there!) might interest me, but I'm dropping this anime.

隠の王 (Nabari no Ou) Ep.1
I read the manga quite some time ago and found it fine. Okay, I can't remember a thing from the manga except that the different ninja tribes are trying to get the thing (whatever it's called) from Miharu and fighting his little group of comrades. Watching the 1st episode refreshed my memory and at the same time brought a fresh look for this series. The art is good, and the fighting sequences are awesome and way beyond Naruto's level. I was unsure about having Kugimiya Rie as the protagonist, but she pulled it off very nicely, not to mention when Miharu went into intentional teretere mode. Interesting story, good characters and cast, great fighting scenes. You can bet I'll be keeping this one.

BLASSREITER Ep.1
This one feels like Devil May Cry to me, only that now there's an official group fighting the demonica(?) beside those with special powers. The 2D art is good, but I have trouble swallowing all the 3D ones. The cast is pretty good, and having Itou Shizuka and Miyake Kenta in the same team reminds me of Pumpkin Scissors (which I'd really like to see a sequel of for the anime version). It's intriguing that the main guy hasn't really entered the scene and keeps watching from a distance. I'm guessing Matsukaze Masaya's voicing him 'cause I heard him in the episode preview at the end. A truly exceptional thing about this series is that it's actually available on YouTube, with pretty decent English subtitle. I have to hand it to GONZO for this bold and brilliant move. This is most encouraging and hopefully it will open the door for many other studio to promote their works this way. Like I said before, with the ridiculous price per anime DVD disc here, there's no way I'm buying anything unless I've watched it and liked it. And I know a great percentage of the anime watching population in NA feels the same way. Again, props for GONZO!

Monochrome Factor Ep.1
I can't believe I watched this. Is this suppose to be BL? The title rings a bell so I think I might had read a chapter or two of the manga before, and I don't do BL... It's got a pretty good cast, which is the only thing keeping me at the moment. The art is okay, but Shirogane's character and the infamous kiss scene are really pushing it for me. I actually looked around online to check if this is BL. It's not, thankfully. So I guess I'll stick around for a few more episodes.

I think this is long enough for a single post. More to come later.

Let's see... Spring officially started last week so it should be all nice and warm now, right? I mean, this is just Vancouver, not Toronto or Winnipeg.

Think again. This is, after all, Vancouver we're talking about here.

It only lasted about two hours, but it snowed today. Yup, a flurry with huge sticky snowflakes. It wasn't anything major, but I don't recall it snowing this close to April, at least not in the last 15 years.

Just want to leave a record here. :)

ただいま機動戦士ガンダム第1話を見終わりました。そう、あのファーストガンダムよ。

やあ、感動しました。実はめちゃくちゃカッコイイではないか！(≧∇≦)

次回も楽しみに！

PS. 仮面ライダーカブトもいいね...

很久以前寫過一篇聽得出來的聲優名單, 如今已隔數年, 來更新一下名單吧。

這次分開男女聲優及本命, 看是男聲優多還是女聲優多(我覺得應該是男聲優...)

[本命]
桑島法子　　　　　石田彰
朴路美　　　　　　関智一

[通常不會聽錯]
浅野真澄　　　　　秋元羊介
伊藤静　　　　　　池田秀一
井上喜久子　　　　伊藤健太郎
植田佳奈　　　　　井上和彦
大谷育江　　　　　うえだゆうじ
緒方恵美　　　　　大川透
岡村明美　　　　　大塚芳忠
折笠富美子　　　　置鮎龍太郎
甲斐田ゆき　　　　小野坂昌也
かかずゆみ　　　　小野大輔
勝生真沙子　　　　柿原徹也
川上とも子　　　　神谷浩史
川澄綾子　　　　　岸尾だいすけ
釘宮理恵　　　　　草尾毅
小島幸子　　　　　小杉十郎太
小清水亜美　　　　小西克幸
斎賀みつき　　　　子安武人
坂本真綾　　　　　阪口大助
高橋美佳子　　　　櫻井孝宏
田中理恵　　　　　笹沼晃
豊口めぐみ　　　　白鳥哲
野田順子　　　　　杉田智和
能登麻美子　　　　杉山紀彰
林原めぐみ　　　　鈴置洋孝
久川綾　　　　　　鈴村健一
日高のり子　　　　諏訪部順一
平野綾　　　　　　関俊彦
堀江由衣　　　　　高木渉
松岡由貴　　　　　立木文彦
三石琴乃　　　　　谷山紀章
皆川純子　　　　　千葉進歩
皆口裕子　　　　　辻谷耕史
南央美　　　　　　遠近孝一
矢島晶子　　　　　鳥海浩輔
ゆかな　　　　　　中田譲治
雪野五月　　　　　成田剣
　　　　　　　　　浜田賢二
　　　　　　　　　速水奨
　　　　　　　　　檜山修之
　　　　　　　　　福山潤
　　　　　　　　　藤田圭宣
　　　　　　　　　藤原啓治
　　　　　　　　　古谷徹
　　　　　　　　　保志総一朗
　　　　　　　　　松本保典
　　　　　　　　　真殿光昭
　　　　　　　　　三木眞一郎
　　　　　　　　　水島大宙
　　　　　　　　　緑川光
　　　　　　　　　宮田幸季
　　　　　　　　　宮野真守
　　　　　　　　　宮本充
　　　　　　　　　森川智之
　　　　　　　　　森久保祥太郎
　　　　　　　　　森田成一
　　　　　　　　　矢尾一樹
　　　　　　　　　山口勝平
　　　　　　　　　遊佐浩二
　　　　　　　　　吉野裕行
　　　　　　　　　若本規夫

[臺詞夠多時能認出]
浅川悠　　　　　　石井真
天野由梨　　　　　石川英郎
大原さやか　　　　石野竜三
川村万梨阿　　　　梅津秀行
菊地美香　　　　　緒方賢一
後藤邑子　　　　　神奈延年
小山茉美　　　　　私市淳
榊原良子　　　　　佐々木望
佐藤朱　　　　　　陶山章央
佐藤利奈　　　　　高橋広樹
篠原恵美　　　　　チョー
清水香里　　　　　寺島拓篤
進藤尚美　　　　　飛田展男
高山みなみ　　　　中原茂
田村ゆかり　　　　中村悠一
長沢美樹　　　　　浪川大輔
小林沙苗　　　　　野島健児
根谷美智子　　　　橋本晃一
潘恵子　　　　　　日野聡
広橋涼　　　　　　平川大輔
渕崎ゆり子　　　　堀秀行
松井菜桜子　　　　松風雅也
宮村優子　　　　　三宅健太
水樹奈々　　　　　安元洋貴
清水愛　　　　　　家中宏
　　　　　　　　　山崎たくみ
　　　　　　　　　山寺宏一
　　　　　　　　　西村知道

果然不出所料, 男聲優遠超過女聲優... 一來看的東西應該有關係, 二來男聲優大多用原聲, 但是女聲優大多會變聲。不過若論歌聲及歌唱力, 男聲優就被比下去了。

I dropped by BestBuy yesterday hoping to find the missing AIR TV DVD volumes. Guess what I found? They stopped carrying it without ever getting volumes 2-4.

Am I peeved? You bet. Like I had mentioned in a previous post regarding copyright, it's really the availability, or the lack thereof, that's keeping my wallet closed. This is the fourth series I have trouble completing the collection because the stores have ceased carrying the titles. You think this will do any good to the local anime industry? I think not.

I'm really losing faith in the local stores.

And I ended up buying Kanon (2006) DVD volume 1 yesterday. orz

Finally got a chance to watch Tales of Earthsea last night. I've been anticipating it for a long time, but, sadly, it didn't quite live up to the quality that I've come to expect with the Studio Ghibli name.

I've never read the original work the film is based on so I'm judging only the movie itself. The art work is excellent, as expected from Studio Ghibli. The character design is familiar, with a touch of distortion when the character is overtaken by fear and rage. I warmed up to the yakuru-like steed immediately. XD

The music isn't composed by Hisaishi Joe as most other Ghibli works, but Terashima Tamiya's music here is just great and fitting. Overlooking the panoramic scenes with the orchestra playing in the background really gives off a sense of majestic and depth.

So what let me down? The narrative. Artistic alone does not make a great tale. It has to be woven skilfully with a compelling story. This, to me, is what the film lacks.

While some of the ideas are interesting (having the "light" portion of the heart as the "shadow" chasing after the body, for one), there's too many loose threads and unanswered questions. The film focuses on Arren and his change of heart during the journey, but the quest feels really one-sided and the background setting somewhat shallow.

While the friendship between Arren and Teru is good and all, I have trouble figuring out the significance of dragons in the human world, and if Teru being one means anything. Needless to say I was disappointed when the 'END' word appeared on screen. It's not satisfying and left much to be desired. Maybe Miyazaki Gorou isn't quite ready for prime time...

At the end, though, I still gave it a B~B+. The narration may not be complete, but it still managed to establish a main storyline with lots of character growth. That, and I really liked the art and the music.

I look forward to the next master piece from the master himself, Kage no Ue no Ponyo.

今天天氣: 晴時多雲偶陣雪

這個冬天目前為止就數這次的雪最大, 20幾公分而已, 遠不及去年某次。不過已經足夠讓我被強制上班請假了。
(中午過後的路況似乎沒啥問題, 可是我不想為了三個小時而開/塞一個小時半來回 -__-)

早上還沒被禁止出門前, 很認命地在飛舞的雪花中剷雪。看著一片白茫茫的積雪, 邊剷邊希望我也能有個秋子阿姨幫忙剷啊... 這裡應該沒有他們那裡冷, 路邊也沒有供應防滑的砂子。不過我有一次因為車子非加油不可, 晚上下班的時候用微波爐熱了一杯水, 澆在加油孔的蓋子上融冰, 不然打不開沒辦法加油。

但是話說回來, 名雪學校的制服真的設計很怪, 那麼冷還是穿短裙, 連那個萬年感冒的傢伙都穿那麼薄。女性角色設定跟地方天氣實在一點都不協調啊...

Continue on my view in response to a previous post, here's my take on the music front.

I'm never one for pop or secular music, but I consider my music taste normal enough. At the very least, I know there's a lot of people out there listening to similar genres. Unfortunately yet again, anime and game OSTs are rarities here, and anime theme/character songs CDs and seiyuu CDs are by and large impossible to find. Not to mention that doujin music, which I've taken a liking to lately, circulates only within the island of Japan.

So ACG music-wise, Internet is my main source. My taste in music has been greatly broadened these past few years thanks to the downloads. I've only bought a few seiyuu CD and an old doujin bootleg CD (I think this one's out of print already) so far, but I do have a long list of CDs on my shopping list. It'll be a while before I get a chance to go to Taiwan or Japan though...

Are those downloads lost sales for the music industry? I can assure you not. Growing up, I wasn't a music listener to begin with. In fact, the only music I could stand and amuse myself with was BGM from various NES games. In short, I didn't care for music at all.

But the anime and music downloads have changed the scene. If I've never seen/heard them, I'd never know of them, and I'd never buy them. Even if I haven't bought them all, those are all potential sales. Availability is the number one deterrer for me. This is why I don't download Christian music CDs because I can buy them in the store.

On a side note, I discovered Songza recently, and I love it! The interface is excellent and intuitive, and the search speed is "Google fast." I was able to pull out quite a few songs and artists during the test drive, but those accounted for only a fraction of what I'd like to listen to. It's definitely worth trying and using.

My bottom line for music is this: I download music, and I buy the ones I like, or wait 'til I have the chance. I won't buy it if I've never heard it or if there's only one or two good tracks on it. I didn't used to listen to music at all, and I can just easily live without it. I do have my piles of Christian music CDs to pick from, after all. I see a very slime or no chance for the type of music I'm mostly interested in (seiyuu, drama CD, doujin music) to enter the market here, so these pretty much have to be imported. The Japanese music industry and artists may not be getting the money now, as much as I'd like to pay them, but they have someone who'd potentially spend lots. If only I get the chance to go to Taiwan (I heard some stores would order from Japan for you) or Japan...

嗚嗚嗚～好傷心啊～～～（；´д｀ ）

人家這麼期待終於可以看到初代鋼彈的說, 都忍受了必須開 IE, 然後再 update Adobe Flash player, 居然在我按下第一話之後給我跑出來限定於日本國內放送的佈告..........

Yahoo Japan 我討厭你... 為什麼不事先說明啊～～～(￣д￣)

劇場版AIR... こんなのAIRじゃない～～～～～～（≧ヘ≦）

Just finished watching the movie version of AIR... and I felt like betrayed. Give me back my youth (wrong)!! I already knew the movie is nothing like the original game or the anime from ja.wikipedia, but it was still a big let down for me, especially considering that I gave the anime series a grade of A-~A and the Summer Specials a B+.

Given the relatively short time frame of a film, it's understandable that the story line would have to be narrowed down to focus on only few characters. However, the pace still seemed rushed, and the love relationship just blossomed too abruptly and felt forced. I mean, a week? They didn't even talk or interact that much. Not to mention that both the plot and the characters were altered quite drastically, for the worse.

While it cleverly weaved the Summer episode with the present through Misuzu's field work research, the story for the mutated Summer episode was so lame, it reflected on the present plot line and killed much of the emotional elements that made the title. I didn't shed a single drop of tear, nor did my eyes get moist during the movie. The festival day was pretty good, though.

The character design deviated a lot from the anime version that I was so used to, and I never got around that to the very end. It just looked generic to me for some reason. Design style aside, the art was good when it's good and bad when it's bad. And by bad, I mean bad. The difference between the good and the bad was so great that you'd think it's produced by two separate teams. Toei Animation is clearly no Kyoto Animation, and the artistic gap is painfully apparent when they both make the same title. It also didn't help that I watched the Summer Specials right before watching the movie... Orz

The overall film was rather static, and quite a few of the 'action' scenes resided on the bad side. I did find the use of the traditional art board drawing a nice and interesting touch.

The seiyuu cast and the music were the only highlights for the film, though those were basically from the original game/anime and weren't enough to save the film adaptation for me. Midorikawa Hikaru's Yukito felt a bit like Zelgadiss, gloomy and people/self-loathing, while Ono Daisuke's Yukito had more spunk. Not having played the game, I can't say which is closer to the original Yukito. But then again, the main character of an H-game is usually invisible anyway, since the player is him... I was also pleasantly surprised to hear Miki Shinichirou and Okiayu Ryoutarou.

I'd go see it in the theatre, but not buy the DVD. I can imagine people watching this because they had played the game or seen AIR TV, but I can't imagine people get converted because of this. I gave the film a grade of B-, which, despite all the above bashing, is still a decent score. I don't see myself watching this again, RIP...

Honey & Clover drama ep.01

I wasn't planning on watching it so soon, but I couldn't resist. After all, the anime was what introduced me to the world of H&C and is on my list of top 5 anime. I was stung once before by the movie version, so when I saw the news of the series being dramatized, I was excited and afraid at the same time. I recognized a few names in the cast list (after linking out to their ja.wikipedia pages for the list of roles), but that did nothing to pacify my anxiety. So with much tentative anticipation, I rolled the video.

And the 1st episode left me with mixed feelings.

Of course the casting wouldn't even be close to that of the original, and I feared for the worst. The drastic opening only aided in building up dread. It was relatively easy to get used to the drama Takemoto, although I find his monologue lacking. I do remind myself, however, that I'm comparing the drama against the anime version with professional seiyuu, so this can be overlooked.

It took me almost half-way to acknowledge Mayama and Hagu, but I find them well suited and have high hopes for them. Romaiya-senpai is interestingly different, but he doesn't seem to have a big enough build for the amusement park mascot role. XD Rika looks physically able and not as fragile as in the original (she even appears a little too not fragile), but I think she's got the Rika role right. Miyako doesn't seem as eccentric, but that could change when her air time increases. Nomiya... I can't tell from the less than one-minute screen time he has. XD

Notice that I left out two main characters? That's right. Morita and Yamada, my favourite male and female from the series. Morita is probably one of the most difficult characters in the series to portray. I think the drama Morita is doing a good job, but he's still a bit too refined and not crazy enough for me. XD Yamada, on the other hand, just doesn't have the air as the original. Except when she kicks. In other words, she has all the tsun but none of the tere. The drama Yamada also looks older than the rest of the main student cast. I even think Takahashi Mikako would be a much better Yamada...

The story includes some episodes from various stages in the original and adds its own ingredients and flavours. How that'll turn out, only time can tell. This is only the 1st episode, after all. As the 1st episode usually provides the story and character backdrop, it's too early to say anything at this point. I shall continue to follow the series.

I was reading (again, trying futilely to catch up) my RSS feeds when I came across a Bits Debate on the topic of copyright and technology, the first in the weekly series.

The arguments from both sides, while valid at times, seem a bit vague and general. Maybe just warming up for the first day? In any case, the comments are what's really worth reading and provide much insights for both parties, especially the nay side. I haven't the time to go through all of them, but the ones I've read so far spurred me to write a little on this matter myself.

Granted, I am no business major nor am I expert in law and history and whatever may be affected by the issue. I can only offer my meagre two cents based on my experience and practice as a consumer/end user, within the confines of anime (video), music, software, and touching a bit on books. Seeing how I tend to rant on and on, I'll break this into several posts over the next few days, each pertaining to one category.

[Anime (Video)]

Living far away from the land of the rising sun and its yam-shaped island neighbour, anime-related stuff are hard to come by. Even when they do, they're usually charged for a premium. Quite a few of my friends know that I watch anime and fewer still share similar interests (eg. Japanese/Taiwanese/Korean drama and Tokusatsu). As a result, I can't rely on friends for anime support and have to buy them myself.

With the wide range of anime genre and the sheer number of titles, picking out ones I'd like while not emptying my bank account is no easy feat. Due to the high price tag for anime DVDs, I generally only shell out for the sure bets. Nine out of ten times, the sure bets are series that I've already seen. The odd deviations so far are G Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and Char's Counterattack. Yeah, they're all from the Gundam family. Go figure, eh?

So how do I get to watch a series before the DVD purchase? Fan subs. I can't speak for the other people, but my anime DVD collection has grown from nil to close to a hundred ever since I started watching fan subs. Sure, YTV's been showing a few anime these past few years, but those offerings, with the sole exception of Gundam Wing and Fullmetal Alchemist, haven't been successful in keeping me in front of the TV at all. I couldn't really stand the English voice acting for a lot of the other series, and I stopped watching all together after the 1st re-run of Bleach about a dozen or so episodes in. I much prefer my anime in Japanese.

As far as I know, all North American anime DVD releases have to have the English audio track. I imagine that's included in the price tag and thus the reason of them being more expensive than their Taiwanese counterpart, which only has the Japanese audio track. If it wasn't for the region code issue, I'd import a whole bunch of them from Taiwan. Not to mention that there's way more choices and stock over there.

With the high cost and less than scarce availability of anime titles (I'm still bitter that Geneon ceased distributing Fafner in the local retail stores here without ever releasing all the volumes), I'm not spending my hard earned cash blindly. Because of fan subs, I know what I'm getting when I put down the money for my anime purchases, and I'd happily and readily contribute to the North American anime industry. Because of fan subs, I absolutely refuse to buy bootleg anime DVDs, no matter how cheap or how fast they can come out, and I strongly encourage my friends to only buy legitimate discs. While it's not exactly legal to download and watch fan subs, it makes no sense to help fatten the pocket of bootleggers if you're going to pay.

Fan subbing has done wonders in North America for the anime industry in general. Not only does it help drive DVD sales and related products like model kits, figurines, and accessories, it's also free and viral marketing. Neko-kun mentioned in a blog post that during an anime convention panel session, the seiyuu Yukana was asked by someone from the audience about the future development of Code Geass. The question greatly surprised her since the series is not released in North America yet. I can bet you, though, that a lot more fan sub watchers will buy the DVDs when they come out than people whose only source of anime is Cartoon Network (US) or YTV (Canada).

My bottom line for anime (video) is this: I watch fan subs, and I buy the DVDs if I like the series. I'm not buying it if I don't know whether I'll like it or not, because anime DVDs are expensive, much more so than movie DVDs. And bootleg is a definite no-no. In the North American setting where anime is niche market and far from being mainstream for the near future, fan subs actually help the industry and contribute greatly in terms of customers, sales, marketing, and overall anime evangelism. Fan subs downloaded are not lost sales.

Personas for Firefox from Mozilla Labs! Ever since the post went live, I've seen many follow-up reviews from various sources. Having just recently switched to the goo Green Label theme at the office and been using the green cat theme at home forever, I was somewhat reluctant to try this. Call it old habits die hard or simply laziness on my part, I didn't want to bother.

Then something hit me and I took the plunge yesterday at the office. Why do I always make these kinds of changes at the office first, you ask? Well, first off, it doesn't constantly have a few dozen tabs opened and thus makes it easier to restart after the change. Secondly, my home computer runs on customized Windows chrome and therefore doesn't blend in as well with certain colour themes, and certainly not when there's transparent elements involved.

Anyhow, I decided to give Personas a try... and I fell in love with it instantly! It's just a face change, but look at all those cute and adorable "skins" for the choosing. And they're not even inside my computer! It was difficult for me to pick a favourite, so I went with the Firefox Logo one yesterday and Foxkeh Hanami today. I'll probably use something else tomorrow. XD

Having now experienced the magic of Personas, I boldly ventured in and installed it on Coordinator last night. Alas, it's as I feared, a lot of the skins clashed with my Windows chrome theme. A couple did seem to be fine, thankfully. All the menus and font sizes had reverted back to the default theme (with the Slime Green flavour), which appeared larger than the green cat theme UI, but I could live with that. So since late last night, my Firefox on Coordinator has been sporting its new Groovy Blue look, and I'm proud of it. :D

On a quick side note, I just showed my brother the new look and demoed a few other ones, and he immediately got all agitated and shook me to demand the URL. Knowing his taste and style, I knew he'd fell for it. XD

After three hours of hard fought battle, they're all done! May I present you my 2007 Christmas card (use the magnifying glass to view it in full size)!

It's basically a combination of the ones I did in 1998 and 2001. It's easy to see my growth over the years, eh? orz

I've always wanted to do a Christmas story parody using Firefox, and I finally did it this year. Not sure what got into me. Must be all the frustrations that's been accumulating for the past months...

I did 12 of these, one of which I'm keeping for myself, and right now my right hand is feeling really sore from all the writing. It's so much taxing to write Chinese than English. Though, I also have a reputation for messy English hand-writing, which explains why no one ever wanted to copy my notes in school...

I discovered goo 検索 Green Label yesterday from a Japanese news article and played around with it for a bit. At the office, I installed the add-on, enabled the goo Green Label theme, and started using the search bar. So far, I have grown 2/10 goo tree.

After the [always] horrible visit to the dental office, I came back home and installed the same add-on on my computer. I was going to just use the goo Green Label theme, but it didn't look as good because of my "slime green" Windows chrome, so I had to revert to the green cat theme I've been using. The goo tree icon is still there beside the Home icon.

Then came the big question. Would the goo tree grow only when I use the search bar, or would it work when I use keyword search from the address bar? Numerous attempts and many searches later, I confirmed my fear: it's tied with the search plug-in.

The search bar is always one of the first things to go when I install a fresh copy of Firefox, and I've always just type in the address bar directly to search on Google. But I guess the search bar that I dug out for this experiment is here to stay. I'll remember to type Ctrl+K when I search from now on.

Dental story. Yeah, it's mine, unfortunately. And it's starting to hurt.

One of my molars started acting up a few months ago. I've known that one to be a bad case, and there was no saving it this time. Well, it might had been salvageable, but it's more than I could and willing to afford. Anyhow, after some consideration, I decided to take it out for good.

Hence my current condition. The anaesthetics has worn off for the most part, and I've stopped using gauzes to clog the gap. Those tasted awful. I'm counting on my almost-non-existent bodily health system to stop the blood from oozing out. I have to use a straw to sip water from a cup, and I'll probably have to settle for instant noodles for dinner tonight... Not sure when I'll be able to return to my regular diet, but I imagine just two or three days should do it. At least this is much better than what I had to go through last time when I had all four wisdom teeth taken out. That was just bad.

There's now a big hole on my bottom left side, and it'll take me a bit more time getting used to the sensation of having my tongue miss the teeth and hit the big gap. This is what you get for not taking care of your teeth properly... orz

I came across an article today about the state of teleporting research while trying to catch up on my RSS feeds. A few terms jumped out during the reading, and I couldn't help but immediately think of ZegaPain. Even to a total amateur like me, the connection seemed to be there, and a rather strong one at that.

Fast forward to a couple minutes prior. I was watching ep.9 of ZegaPain, and it hit me when I got to the part where Chris explains to Kyo the basis of their data transfer. Wait, didn't I just read about this quantum computing thing today!? I was so surprised and thrilled that I just had to pause the video and write about it. This is what I call "applied knowledge (not)." XD

I'd probably use this as an example to show how one can gain knowledge from watching anime if I had watched the episode before reading the article. What a shame...

Okay, enough blabbing. I'm going back to the episode. Just thought I'd share. XD

Wedding Story. Not mine, of course. It's one of my high school buddys'.

Having played through our (okay, just mine) high school years and went to the same church together after that, it took me some time for the event to hit home. On the other hand, though, it felt just right. He's always been a homely type of guy, and I had teased him on a number of occasions to be a good husband and ready for marriage. I only realised today at the wedding that we've known each other for over ten years! He's the first to get married out of my classmates. Wonder who's next? XD

The bride was also from my church. I haven't gotten to know her much (which is a shame, for she's a great cook), but from what I've seen of her, she's very sweet, gentle, and full of care and love. The two are a perfect match. I'm so happy for them!

I was pleasantly surprised to see Pastor Wu as the witness, and I was equally glad to see some friends that I haven't seen in a long time. A couple of songs were performed in the couple's (pun intended) honour, and the young adult cell group (me included) did one as well. We never got around to get together for practice, but I think we did reasonably well. The wedding ceremony was well arranged and cozy, and the reception was quite fun. Too bad we couldn't get them to kiss mouth-to-mouth for over half a second. He kept dodging the penalty games and picked less desirable places to kiss. So sly! Ah well, just like our good host for the reception said, it's just their first day...

やあ、本当によかった。二人でお幸せにね！:)

Snow! 1st snow this winter! (Well, there was this one night when it sorta snowed in the area, but it was gone before the night was over and didn't really count) The weather forecast was actually spot on for once... Right now, Weather Eye shows -3°C, the lowest this winter so far. However, temperature might go up to 13°C next week...

Someone posted some CG cutscenes from FF VII Crisis Core and I eagerly grabbed them before realising what format those were in: PMF. Since this was the first time I've encountered this type of file, I didn't anticipate this being a mission impossible. If you've some experience with PMF playback on Windows, you can probably guess. Yup, no audio. After much anguish and frustration, I let out a scowl and unwillingly admitted defeat.

Luckily, I found a web site that streams those cutscenes in one video. As long as I timed it right, I could watch the PMF videos with sounds in the background. The few CG movies weren't enough to sate my appetite, though. Having seen the trailers on the Square Enix web site, the lack of the flower girl's appearance in those cutscenes was disappointing. I checked Youtube and managed to find two clips of Zack x Aerith. It's really cute but with a tint of sadness when you know their final outcome...

I had found it odd that the two seemed to be on familiar terms when I watched FF VII: Advent Children, and my doubt was somewhat answered when I saw the trailers for Crisis Core. I really should find time to play FF VII, eh? As far as I know, Zack's story is only told in CC, so unless Square Enix does a port, which is highly unlikely but would be totally awesome, I won't be able to 'watch' it like I did with FF X & X-2. :(

Speaking of the trailers from the Square Enix web site, part of the fun was to try and distinguish the seiyuu. With AC, I recognised Cloud, Kadaj, and Aerith. I wasn't familiar with the voice of Morikawa Toshiyuki at that time and therefore wasn't able to tell him apart with just that one line. With CC, not counting the characters in AC, I was pleasantly surprised to recognise Angeal and the Shinra guy with blond hair. Genesis was a tough one. I struggled and went through all the notable voices in my head but still couldn't come up with a matching name. A quick trip to the Japanese Wikipedia told me why. Genesis is voiced by Gackt, who is a singer but not a seiyuu. This is the first time I've heard him beside the theme songs for the Zeta Gundam movies. His voice is... unique.

Final Fantasy VII's story is probably one of the most complex out of the FF franchise. (Though, who am I to say this, when all I've played are III to VI, and III isn't even beaten yet) I think I'll make playing FF VII one of my New Year's resolutions for next year. Wonder if there'll be an EC coming out for the FF VII series?

また、久しぶりだな... いろんなこともあったな。

換了新工作、完食好幾部動畫、脂肪比例直線上升、鬱卒指數也將近爆表、連電腦螢幕都長眠了。雖然外在看起來沒什麼變化, 其實裡面的起伏之高低又豈是三言兩語就能講完的? 未來的事也需要仔細的考慮清楚吶...

想做和必須做的事有如奧林匹斯山那麼高, 不過還是一步一步按照自己的步調走吧。

---

Again, long time no see... Indeed, much has happened.

Got a new job, finished quite a few anime series, the percentage of fat has gone up, the frustration index has sky-rocketed, even the LCD bit the dust. Although it hasn't appeared to be much change outwardly, the internal tumult can't be described in just a few sentences. There's also the matter of future to be considered...

What I want to do and must do are piled up like the Olympus Mons, but I'll keep my own pace and walk it.

There's lots I'd like to say, but I don't know what to say anymore. We lost. The hockey season is over for Vancouver. I guess we won't be seeing those car flags out there starting tomorrow...

Minna, yoku ganbatta na. Mata rainen ne.

Taboo words for tomorrow: hockey, Canucks, Ducks, Luongo.

On a lighter note, the food battle between the seafood curry and the eggplant & mince meat curry on Shin Dotchi no Ryouri Show was intense and very mouth watering. The eggplant looked so interesting, it almost tempted me to put eggplant curry on the menu for this weekend if it wasn't for the fact that what we have in the fridge is nothing like it. Just you wait, I'll make it some day. With my original recipe, of course. XD

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言いたいことはいっぱいあるけど、もうなにを言うべきがわからない... 負けました。もうシーズンは終わた。再也看不到飄揚的車旗了...

みんな、よく頑張りましたな。また来年ね。

明天的禁句: hockey, Canucks, Ducks, Luongo.

換個輕鬆點的話題, 新料理東西軍的海鮮咖哩跟茄子肉醬咖哩對戰實在很精彩, 令人垂涎三尺。我對那個茄子非常有興趣, 甚至到了想把冰箱裡那兩根弱枝茄子拿來做咖哩的地步。不過老弟提醒, 那兩根恐怕已經快到保存期限, 所以這次就算了。下次吧。下次來加些叫人意想不到的東西。XD

No, the self-restriction hasn't been lifted. I just thought I'd take a breather. Not writing for too long gets me frustrated...

So we start off with the YOU'VE-GOT-TO-BE-KIDDING-ME result of the game tonight between the Canucks and the Ducks. We were leading 2-0 when we closed the store. How did it get to 2-1 by the time I got home, 2-2 after a few minutes of watching, and 2-3 OT just after I finished making supper!? Come on, people! That's two straight lost at home! We're down 1-3 going down to Anaheim! That means we'll have to get to game 7 to win! And we were all so positive you'd won for sure tonight... -___-

Started wearing steel-toes today for work. They actually feel quite all right, just much heavier than your normal shoes. Every step takes more effort to make, giving me the illusion of training my feet like in those martial arts manga... XD

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不要懷疑, 自主性限制還在實行中, 我只是上來喘口氣。太久沒寫東西的話, 我會鬱卒...

首先來看本日最令人火大的消息: Canucks 對 Ducks 的比賽。關店的時候還是領先 2-0, 我回到家的時候變成 2-1, 看了幾分鐘以後變成 2-2, 然後做飯做到一半在 OT 被進分。你們在搞什麼啊～! 連輸兩場 home games 耶! Series 變成 1-3 了耶! 這樣就非打到第七場不可了! 大家本來對今晚的比賽都信心滿滿的說...

今天開始穿鐵片鞋上班, 感覺還好, 只是比一般的鞋子重了些, 每一步都要多花一點力氣抬腳。不禁想到七龍珠等穿重物訓練的格鬥漫畫... XD

Finally finished tagging all the posts. Such a tiresome job... Being the lazy bone that I am, I limited all labels to one word and had rather broad coverage for each label. Out of the 300 posts prior to this one, there're 116 tagged Life, 100 tagged ACG, 51 tagged PC, 17 tagged Blogger, 11 tagged Mozilla, and all other ones have fewer than ten posts. You can sort of tell where my interests lay. Of course, this isn't comprehensive at all, as I've been too lazy to write about a whole bunch of other stuff, not to mention the lack of updates.

I'm somewhat paving the way in preparation for the day when I'll be able to post regularly, hopefully within a month or so. Assigning labels is only the first step. Next will be re-designing the template. This will take longer so I don't know when I'll get to that yet.

On a side note, Paw Wow's archive was absent when I viewed the last post. Apparently, the script I used was dropped years ago, and the archive section broke when I switched to Beta. Koinu has no such problem 'cause it was created a little later. Since I have to change Paw Wow's scripts, I'm kinda using it as my experimental ground, as I have big plan for Sora. I can't wait to start writing Agion...

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吁, 終於 tagged 完所有文章了, 真是累人啊。懶人屬性的我很自然地把所有標籤都設定為一個字, 涵蓋的範圍也蠻廣的。這篇不算的話, 三百篇裡 Life 佔了 116 篇、ACG 佔了 100 篇、PC 佔了 51 篇、Blogger 佔了 17 篇、Mozilla 佔了 11 篇, 其他一些雜七雜八的標籤各佔不到十篇。大概可以看出我個人興趣的分佈吧? 當然, 有很多東西我都沒寫, 又常常消失, 所以這些標籤代表的並不完整。

這些都是為了近期內能恢復寫作習慣的那日(希望是一、兩個月內)而做的準備。加上標籤只是第一步, 再來是重新設計 template。這個比較花時間, 所以什麼時候會做還不清楚。

順道一提, 上次 post 之後看了一下 Paw Wow, 發現左邊的 archive 不見了, 查了一下才知道我用的 script 早在數年前就被遺棄, 轉到 Beta 以後就壞了。Koinu 是後來才開的, 用的 script 不一樣, 所以沒事。既然都是要改 scripts, 乾脆就把 Paw Wow 當成實驗場, 為以後的 Sora 鋪路。好想趕快開始寫 Agion 啊...

Gee... How long has it been? Something like half a year now?

Unfortunately, this post doesn't indicate the end of the update drought. I just decided to make an effort to churn out something this morning after discovering that both Coordinator and Little Black have adopted the Daylight Saving Time at long last.

On a different note, even though I switched to the beta new version of Blogger for Mozilla Links Zh, I haven't actually looked around to explore the new features yet. Maybe I'll do that...

Starting from this post, I'm hoping to present everything in both English and Chinese whenever possible. I consider this as practice for my writing/translating skill. Haven't decide whether to translate the old posts yet...

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呃啊... 好像有差不多半年沒出現了吧?

很不幸的, 這篇文章不代表我回來了。只是今天早上發現 Coordinator 跟小黑的時間終於跟 Daylight Saving Time 同步了, 欣喜若狂的同時也決定要逼自己寫點什麼來記念。

話說回來, 雖然因為 Mozilla Links Zh 的關係把帳號換到 beta 新版本, 至今倒是第一次進來。不知道有哪些新功能, 有空的時候看看吧...

發現了嗎? 以後如果有可能, 我希望能儘量走雙語路線。算是同時練習中英寫作/翻譯吧。舊的文章... 看情況再決定要不要翻。

Firefox 2.0! XD

I just installed it a few minutes ago and browsed through the new menus and such, and I find it quite swell. Here's a quick walkthrough.

First of all, extensions and themes are now collectively called add-ons. Right off the bat, Firefox told me which add-ons have updates available for 2.0 and installed the updates. Out of the eight extensions that I had for 1.5, three were updated, two are shown to be not compatible, and the rest work fine. undoclosetab (incompatible with 2.0, of course) is now built into Firefox so I uninstalled it. I haven't used BugMeNot (incompatible with 2.0) in quite a while now so I also uninstalled it. Neither of the two themes I had were compatible so I'm using for the default theme right now. Being a somewhat skin junky, I've never used the default theme for both Mozilla and Firefox. Surprisingly, it's actually not too bad, especially when I have Windows running the classic theme and tweaked the colours to my liking.

Currently installed extensions:
Context Search 0.3
DictionarySearch 2.0
MeasureIt 0.3.6
Paste and Go (still waiting for update)
ReminderFox 0.9.9.3
text/plain 1.1.8

Some of the big things for 2.0 involve better web browsing experience. undoclosetab is built in, so is session restore. undoclosetab is self-explanatory, but I've never used session restore or the likes so it's a new thing for me. So far it's useful when I needed to install a dictionary or update something that require Firefox to restart. When it came back up, voilà, all my previously opened tabs are there and accounted for. I haven't encountered a crash yet (and I can probably count with my fingers the number of times Firefox has crashed on me in the past few years) so I can't tell how well it works, but I think I'm in good hands if it should happen. At the far right corner of the tab bar sits a little arrow, which renders a drop-down list of the tabs opened. I can see myself benefiting from this, seeing how I had over a hundred tabs opened the last time I was browsing through ff.net. XD I do find one of the new additions galling, however. The little cross on the tabs for closing. I close tabs via the context menu or Ctrl-W. Having a cross on the tab itself would mean a heightened risk of hitting it by accident. Even with the built in undoclosetab, having too many accidents can still be annoying.

As I type this, the inline spell check works wonderfully well. It underlines the questionable words with unobtrusive red dots, which is a lot easier to ignore than the ones in Word. You can easily add the words to the dictionary or select from a list of suggested spellings. When I type, I tend to just pound away on the keyboard and it's not rare for me to misspell words. The built in spell check is definitely a plus for me. Too bad it only works in Firefox and doesn't extend to Notepad... The only thing with the spell check is that I had to install the British English dictionary instead of the US one. I hate it when my "neighbour" gets corrected.

Other noticeable new features for 2.0 include Live Titles, search suggestions and a search engine manager in the search box, and improved RSS function. I'm skipping those because I don't use them. I'm sure someone else will cover them.

So what's my verdict? Well, there's still room for improvement (what software doesn't?), but it's worthy of the 2.0 label. What are you still waiting for? Rediscover the web with Firefox 2.0!

As I sat on my bed this morning, wrapped in my blanket in a lame attempt to fend off the cold air, I pondered on the topic of writing. A lot of my recent posts are in Chinese because it felt more natural due to the ACG-related topics. The more I write, the more familiar I become with the language and the words once again. But there're still areas where I have difficulty.

Technically speaking, my Chinese reading is much better than English, so shouldn't my Chinese writing be better as well? Not necessarily. While I do have better grammar in Chinese, I did most of my higher education in English. On one hand, I communicate with my family and friends in Chinese. On the other hand, the majority of professional knowledge come to me in English. This leads to an interesting split in my writing. For anything technical or paper style, English is my language of preference. With the long history and richness of the Chinese language, my casual posts are usually more descriptive when I write in Chinese.

There is a third area where I often have to struggle with both languages before compromising and settling with one. Fiction/Fanfiction writing. I first attempted writing my own fantasy stories back in '96. Obviously, there was no way I could have pulled something like that off with English given my level at that time. As with a lot of people, my little projects took off... and then kind of evaporated. Some due to writer's block, some because I kept changing the setting or story concept. I still have all the scripts and read them from time to time. I love reading my own writings. XD

Anyhow, a few years gone by without any organised writing on my part. Then I encountered anime and entered the realm of fanfiction. I put my imagination to work and started writing fanfiction, this time in English because that's the language of the medium that introduced me. Again I kicked off countless little projects like mad, but to this day, except the ones too outrageous or crazy for others to understand so I just keep them to myself, only a small fraction of them are posted. I've had a number of posting hiatus, but the stories continued to progress slowly in my head so I do intend to finish them all. If anything, then at least for peace of mind when I plunge in for my next original story project, which planning already started a few months ago.

This is where the dilemma comes in. I do better description and action scenes in Chinese, but I have not the ability to make the story flow in Chinese. I have more experience with composing stories in English, but I suck at description and action. Worse yet, I've been watching anime in Japanese for a few years now, and Japanese often pops in my head when the characters talk in my head. This annoys me greatly as I have yet to find satisfying translation for some Japanese words and phrases. Sometimes it's easier to translate it into English, but since Chinese and Japanese have closer linguistics, Chinese is usually the desirable language in most cases.

I have a habit of doing the setting and, at the same time, having the characters go ahead and play out the story in my head. This is usually a bad thing for me. If I get too caught up in all the details for the setting, the story gets stuck and isn't able to progress further. If the story moves too smoothly in my head, I have to make up some background info at the spur of the moment and by the time I'm able to actually write the story down when the settings are finished, I forget half of the middle part already and only remember the opening and the ending. The latter is what happened to Heir of Light and Slayers SEED, which explains why it takes me so long to get the chapters out, 'cause I've forgotten what's played out.

For now, I've decided to do the project, codenamed Agion, in English. It's not hard to imagine the three-way tackle match though: settings in English, characters sometimes talk in Japanese, and action scenes blur by in Chinese. I can't wait to get started on the actual thing! XD

也不知道到底在忙些什麼, 可是最近一個月就是沒有寫東西的動力跟時間。所以, 讓我們來回顧一下還存活於記憶中的九月大事吧(對, 又是總集篇, 而且這次大概還漏了不少...)

九月最大的事莫過於 9/7 拔智齒。那種可怕的經驗, 我絕對不想再經歷一次。果然大學的時候就應該去拔掉, 別讓它們根深蒂固這麼多年, 變得更難拔。不過老實說, 我對那時候在看的牙醫的技術不是很信任, 所以還是現在拔比較好一點吧? 總而言之, 真的只有一個字可以形容那個過程: 痛! 我的牙齒本來就很硬, 據說這種比較難拔, 但是最重要的是, 麻醉對我不是很有用。沒打夠? 拔之前就打了十幾針(四顆牙), 中途又打了五針左右, 結果還是痛到眼淚都流出來了。我都不記得最後一次因為痛而流淚是什麼時候的事了, 真是一世英名全毀啊。

痛歸痛, 畢竟也不到兩個小時。更麻煩的恢復期還在後面吶。拔完牙第二天, 母親大人就跟朋友到美國去了, 然後我那天小發燒。拔過智齒的人應該都知道, 之後最少兩個禮拜沒辦法正常進食。話說拔完後三天, 教會的小家要辦火鍋。連嘴巴都不能張很大的我要怎麼吃呢? 當然是不能吃。結果大家很快樂地選購食材及大快朵頤, 然後我很可憐地在旁邊慢慢地細吞著蛋糕吐司。最哀怨的是, 大家的食量都不大, 結果剩了一大堆一大堆打包回家! 我也想吃啊~~~ 哼, 即使是已經什麼都可以吃了的現在(不過因為種種因素, 右邊還是不怎麼能咬硬的東西; 從小就一直都是用左邊在吃比較多), 回想起那段只能每天吃麵類, 不能吃肉跟很多種青菜的日子, 還是令人唏噓不已。

順道一提, 在我拔牙的那個週末, 店裡的顧問之一也因踢足球弄傷腳踝, 結果 MIA 了三個禮拜, 一直到這禮拜才回來。所以我拔完快一個禮拜的時候, 就被拖回店裡上班跟代班。還好那時候已經過了最忙的 BTS, 不用跟太多客人講話。

在拔智齒的恢復期中, 把絢爛舞踏祭 ザ・マーズ・デイブレイク看完了。位於火星地面下的海盜尋寶的故事, 実に面白い! 各個城市船、不同海盜們及軍隊的做法、機械及人物的設定、火星跟地球的關係, 這一切的設定也都非常有趣。當然, 関智一和桑島法子的主角配對也是一個 plus, Vess 的主題曲「深海の空」亦是我很喜歡的一首。夜明號上的人們, 各個都有自己的目標及夢想。正因為他們是海盜, 所以他們可以任性地追求自己的夢。只要行得正坐得穩(まあ, 雖然職業是海盜, 其實他們算羅賓漢一類的義賊吧), 比起被一大堆規矩和面子束縛的軍隊, 他們追夢的日子豈不愜意得多? 最後神之石回歸火星的海, 一點一滴地將生命力灌注進去, 也將對未來的盼望帶進人們的心中, 很棒的結局呢。

除了絢爛舞踏祭, 另外一部在看的是機動武闘伝Ｇガンダム, 還剩一片(四話)就看完了。雖然是 1994 年的作品, 又是 AU, 但是很不錯吶。爆笑有時、熱血有時、感動亦有時。島本和彥加関智一, 果真除了熱血還是熱血啊! 唯一美中不足的是, 因為是北美版的 DVD, 字幕都是英文, 所以東方不敗流派跟 Sai Saishi 的招數都變成魄力不足的 romanji, 害我還得去找對應漢字(這種時候, 日文的 Wikipedia 就很有用)。Ｇガンダム果然跟一般鋼彈, 甚至是 AU 作品, 完全不同類型, 不過不是很歡樂嗎? 熱血啊, 沸騰吧! 為了地上的愛和正義!

咦, 為了地上的愛和正義而戰是女神的聖鬥士的工作吧? 沒錯, 所以我第一眼看到冥王神話的時候很興奮... 然後又失望了。還好冥王神話有兩篇, 至少有一篇是可以看的。「什麼跟什麼啊?」是我弟聽我說後的第一個反應。也就是說, 車田正美老師的 The Next Dimension 畫爛了, 手代木史織的 The Lost Canvas 可以當少女漫畫版的聖鬥士看。不曉得冥王神話的走向會怎麼樣, 不要連故事也寫爛了。只要故事好, 絕大部份的畫風我都可以接受。拜託了, 兩位老師!