BIG FUCKING ANIME POST

Well, it's time to fake being an anime blog and list what I'm watching with bazillions of screencaps, harharhar.

SERIOUS ANIME #1
First off, we have Fate Stay Night.
Series I've been sounding off for a while.
Best selling Japanese game of 2004, blah blah blah.
Starts off slow, but is now starting to move at a brisk pace.
I like the story, even if some crazy PHD computer science shotacon fangirls don't.
Curious as to how the series will pan out in the long run.
Saber, Rin, Rider, Ilya, I pretty much like every female but Sakura. And Caster.
Archer is awesome, Shirou less so, but still good enough, sort of meh towards the other males.





STUPID ANIME #1
Pani Poni Dash
Fucking crackfest.
Not like Excel, more like, it's hard to describe.
About an 11 year old genius teacher (half jp half american righttt) from MIT and her class of weirdos.
Ok scratch that, the entire frikkin SCHOOL is filled with weirdos.
Every class, not just hers, are just weirdos upon more weirdos.
The amount of references is staggering, yes this is the anime with the Chuck Norris Reference.
The last episode I watched had a school bus driving through Mario, Space Invaders, Xevious, Galaga, Parodius, and finally Gradius before being blasted by Kamineko lasers onto a ledge, where they remained for pretty much the entire episode precariously perched.
Yeah, if you didn't understand that last sentence you won't understand this anime.







STUPID ANIME #2
The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi.
So I was digging around for Itou Noizi art(The Shana artist, boy did that series end ever so meh) the other day, and I found out that she (SHE??) is a pretty big illustrator for a game (HGAME??) company.
Yeah, so I had triggers on Winny downloading anything with her name on it, and this manga called Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuu Utsu (aka The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi) showed up.
It was definitely weird, but funny, and I liked the art (Itou Noizi! Come on!)
Anyway, I mentioned this in #Shrinemaiden and turns out there's an anime being made.

This anime takes two episodes to get into, unless you're like me and stupid shit amuses you easily.
Then it will take only one episode.

Episode 1:
Yeah so there's this bunny waitress from the future who travels back in time for some guy who has magic powers that some witch from the future also wants and ok erm whatever.
Episode one is a complete joke, as it is a movie within a movie, and obviously an amateur one at that.
No detail is left unnoticed, from the crappy lighting angles, to the characters all looking like they are reading cue cards, to the crappy special effects, to the ridiculous midi music, to the uncomfortable pauses that are supposed to commercials, to people showing up in scenes when they are not supposed to, to actors completely unable to say their lines with a straight face, and well yeah, the final effect is a "so bad it's good thing."








Episode 2:
The series starts proper.
Honestly, this is a slice of life show of how a boy and his encounter with a bunch of random lunatics alters his life outlook.
The secret factor here is the narrator.
His commentary and dry wit are really top notch, and I think are what carry the show from decent to really good.







Oh right, opening song has nothing on the ending.
Then again that ending is best silly fun ending I've seen in a while.
ENDING NONSENSE

Fate Stay Night 14

FUCK?
IM SORRY PEOPLE
WOOPS, MY BAD.
So spoiler 1 fired.
And spoiler 2 looks like it's going to fire.
Yet we're only halfway.
WHAT IS THE ANIMATION STUDIO GOING TO DO FOR LATER o_Oa
I guess path 2 is out, even remotely as a melding of paths.
I guess it's goin to be path 1 and path 3 combined then?
Yet, yet I don't know, some things can't even happen in path 3 now.

Unpimp my car

V DUB
IN THE
HAUS!

FSN13

Illya casts Power Word: Oniichan and we're at the first truly crucial moment of Fate Stay Night.
Why do I say crucial?
Because, it's at this point, in the Fate (Saber)'s path of Fate Stay Night, that two gigantic spoilers happen.
And these two gigantic spoilers are so large that, if they do happen exactly as they do in the game, they make the other paths utterly impossible.
One is archer dying against berserker.
Again, I don't think this is plausible, as you don't know jack about him yet, and for him to die without knowing more about him would just be a cop-out shame, but that's exactly what happens in Fate.
Moreover we're only on godamn episode 13!
I think there's an easy way around this, just make sure he DOESN'T DIE (escape, wimp out, but I HIGHLY doubt he'll be the one to beat Berserker, as they've already hinted at who is going to be doing the crazy shit next episode.)

Frkncrzyazn: OMG IS HE GOIN TO TRACE HER SWORD?

The OTHER spoiler is rather hard to get around.
For one thing it is rather crucial, as otherwise, Saber will disappear.
However, if they DO go that route...certain events in other paths become HIGHLY unlikely.

MORE DOTS

WoW is serious business!

Patchu Patchu Patchu Patchu!

I have been playing IaMP (Immaterial and Missing Power) netplay almost every waking moment I can, mainly against people on the West Coast.
I use Patchouli Knowledge.
Isn't she adorable?
Anyway, she's a bookworm/magician/youkai who "lives" in the Scarlet Mansion's library.
Meaning she's a nerd.
I have a feeling if she had internet access she'd never move from her chair.
Master of elemental magic, her strengths and spells vary with the days of the week (because JP calls the days {mondays, tuesday, etc} by "elements", such as gold/metal, wood, fire, water, moon, sun, and earth. Wind is under wood, in case you're wondering.)
Patch first appeared in "Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil", the first Touhou shooting game for modern PC where you go to the Scarlet Mansion to smack the vampire Remilia for being a dork and blocking out the sun so she can go out in the day time.
However she has almost never appeared after that, but does show up frequently in endings.
Her second appearance, however, was IaMP.
Her third appearance is in Shoot the Bullet with very annoying spellcards (i.e. trick spellcards instead of dodge spellcards)

Patchy in IaMP is very good.
Second best good?
I'm not so sure about that...she has her weaknesses.
She lacks good anti-air, for one, and when trapped in a corner has very few answers besides bombing her way out.
Her projectiles take less spirit than everyone else, and combined with some heavy hitting melee she can play a modified rushdown style (i.e. spam projectiles then chase them with overheads)

Anyway, the people I play who can take games off of me are:

flandre aka kalciane aka bellreisa aka owner of eternal romancia before he killed it off: Uses Sakuya (knife maid), reckless knife rushdown, very good, currently can pull about 50% on him, last spellcard of his (time stop) I think is the deciding factor in our matchups, though he denies this. Reads patterns easily, recently won a match with almost only two moves to punish my lack of variety. However it came down to spellcard in the end with him doing time stop again. One of the people I play regularly.

CR aka Chronoreverse: Uses Yuyuko (hungry fan ghost), Yuyuko is ANTI-PATCHU, meaning she counters patchouli's style. I HATE fighting yuyuko, stupid jA, stupid guard crushing jB, stupid guard crush period, so little effort involved on yuyu's part and so much on Patch's part. Currently at about 33% win rate, though when I first played him I lost 50 matches in a row. The second human I ever played, and pretty much the only reason I've improved in such a short time (one week). The other person I play regularly.

Sakuya-Izayoi aka Survive: Uses Suika (drunken tree ogre loli). First human I ever played. Also won 50 matches in a row when we first played. However I win about 70% or more now after figuring out how to fight Suika (basically by playing and losing to CR over and over). Uses the fire kick a lot for stupid damage, however really easy to counter with Patchouli. Suika strikes me as a very inferior yuyuko, with no triangle jumps, and completely weak to patch's As when airborne. Has backed off playing me for a while.

Yukari-Yakumo aka Raven: Uses Reimu (traditional? shrine maiden). Haven't played him much recently, but when we first played (pretty much coming off of CR) I took about 50% of the matches. A large part of Reimu's game is her projectiles, but patch's projectiles are just better, her C can just knock Reimu out of anything she throws, so Reimu is forced to go close for a chance to win. Now that I have been playing against complete rushdown characters (Yuyuko, Sakuya, Youmu), I think I'd win at 80% or more, as Reimu's melee isn't rushdown worthy and her far game is dominated by Patch's far game.

Blitzwing: Uses Youmu (half ghost samurai gardener) Has taken a couple(like 6) matches out of 50+ or so so far, but he can at least win sometimes. He's getting better, but I think his character will prevent him from ever putting up a serious fight against Patch, as Patch counters youmu pretty badly. I don't exactly learn from playing him, but he learns from playing me, so I play him when I can. Because honestly I would be no where as good as I am if CR didn't keep killing me over and over.

The rest:
wongexe aka pocketmancer aka that guy who made gunbound comics lah!: Uses China (no her names not really China, it's Hong Meiling, but everyone forgets her name and she's constantly picked on. She guards the Scarlet Mansion gate)(how appropriate), but China is a very bad character -_-
Kuik: Just starting to get into the game, he kept saying "this isn't mvc2" and how gimpy it was, I think sending him the tournament replays opened his eyes. I hope he picks up Remilia seriously, because SOMEONE needs to be broken ass Remilia. As of now I'm the only one who uses her semi-seriously, and usually when I am angry at losing to Yuyuko for the umpteenth time. Currently using Youmu/Remilia.
linalys: Sort of a famous name (I think) in doujin fighter gaming. Has recently picked up Iamp after being purely MBR and EFZ player. Plays Youmu, I think he will get very good very quickly if he practices, because he is a good player overall.
Dyne-Yakumo: Alice? player, not entirely sure, actually beat survive before, but for some reason I can handle him with ease.

As you can see I am hoplessly addicted right now.

Fate Stay Night 11

I was getting worried.
For a second I thought Shinji's character would be left somewhere and not dealt with.

But this is awesome.
HE WILL DIE.
He has to die.
This episode foreshadows it, he's a pure bastard and he must die.
Also, the MOMENT Shinji uses up all his command spells, if he's still alive, Rider WILL kill him.
Rider's alignment is natural good, you have to wonder how Shinji ever got control of her, even temporarily.
I sort of hope actually that it ends that way, Shinji dying by Rider's hand.

Immaterial and Missing Packets

Ok, for a while there was a netplay patch for Immaterial and Missing Power.
However, the lag was pretty atrocious, and the highest frame rate I got was 45 and still able to do moves.
You could get 60 frames, but lost all ability to do a command (cause of frame skip).

ANyway, a new netplay patch has appeared, that COMPLETELY rapes the old one. (Different programmers).
I can play 60 fps to people on the west coast, and lose to more people than ever before.
Plus playing at normal speed makes it a lot closer to the real game, instead of 0 frame blocks and seeing crap coming 900 miles away.
Lol it's like everyone has rediscovered IaMP again, this is HOW good this netplay patch is.
It even lets you spectate.

Only cons are many desyncs.

Status

Anyway, job I thought I had is being argued on in the courts i.e. higher chambers i.e. between my referrer and his boss.
Shana 23 and Fate 11 are out.
Our family has been pretty sick lately.
I got tricked into doing a video edit job for three of Keshine's classmates (girls).
I think they use him as some sort of slave or something, it's very odd.
Haha little did they know that was pretty much my first edited video of ANYTHING (I've done cuts and song placement, but nothing like a 10 minute string along this into this into this debacle).
It was actually pretty fun, but...there was this odd sense of duty to get it done, like I was in high school again and it was MY project or something.
Kudos to Kenton for picking out songs while I was half conscious in the morning.
Slops to Windows Media Maker for RECOMPRESSING everything into shitty divx when I was already using Xvid clips and lame encoded audio.

The Judge

Opened up Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

HERE is a link of me beating the final boss, Sikieiki the Judge, on EASY.
Yes, that is easy difficulty.

Planes on a Snake

It's reallllllllllllllllllllllll =D

Touhou

A bizarre bizarre experiment in roleplaying groupthink.
Short stories on main page, daily going-ons in friends.
Medium chosen of course, for the sheer ridiculousness of it.
Feel free to browse through.
Just a note, all characters are attempting to act as how they are portrayed in game.
Certain one's have taken liberties, and those familiar with the series will quickly figure out which ones, but for the most part, this is how they are.

You use potion on zombie! Zombie takes 100 damage.

The first reports from Japan are in.
It seems that Potion...tastes horrible.

<Toyoch-Yakumo> it tastes quite awful.
<Toyoch-Yakumo> I'M NOT GOING TO GET ANOTHER ONE

<Toyoch-Yakumo> some people said like "I felt my HP decreased, I'm like an undead" on their blogs

Maybe hi-potion will have an upgraded taste.

Wow teaches wrong things.

I'm not going to link to the Sirlin article.
If you know who he is, you've read it.
If you play WoW, you've probably read it too.
Instead I'll include today's quote of the day:

HopkinsExpress: I know a JHU grad who turned down a job offer because it interfered with his raid times.
HopkinsExpress: He leads a miserable existence.

Final Fantasy XII Suntory Potion Commercial

Oh those wacky Japanese.
Edit: Higher quality downloadable version HERE
Please right click and save as.
And oh, firefox hates xythos, what a pain in the ass.

Fate Stay Night 9

Quite a bit of fighting, and we get to see Assassin/Caster in action.
And yes, he's THAT Kojiroh.
The "sheath" he asks Saber about is a sheath of wind that creates a vacuum and also refracts light.
Anyway Saber attempts to release the "Wind King Bounded Field" as a projectile, which is one of her attacks.

You PISSED HER OFF REALLY BADLY this time Shirou you moron.
Plus the reasons she's having so many problems is cause you suck =O
Then you go and say I'd rather fight than have you fight.
Rin nails it on the head, he cares more about other people than he does himself.
Cough, though secretly, both Rin and Saber admire this attitude a lot.

Actually, the problem is when you have two of those types of people together, they get mad at the other for trying to do everything alone.
Such is the case with Saber and Shirou.

CURRENT Funny spoiling hint numbers (# in parenthesis are numbers I am pretty sure will change soon):
Number of masters: 7
Number of servants: 8
Number of servants controlled by people at school: 4
Masters who control more than one servant: 1
Servants who control a servant: 1
Servants who have lost a master: 1 (2)
Male Servants: 5
Female Servants: 3
Male Masters: 4 (3)
Female Masters: 3 (4)

Next episode looks to be o_O
There's...Illya love? AND Saber love?
=O =O =O =O
I'm looking forward to this one quite a bit.

Shakugan no Shana 21

DO NOT WATCH THE PREVIEW FOR THE NEXT EPISODE. (i.e. episode 22)

BIG MAJOR CHANGE.
First off, Shakugan no Shana will only be 24??? episodes.
Second off, no signs of a second season yet.
Third off, MAJOR MAJOR DEPARTURE FROM THE NOVELS.
Anyway, this entire episode is just wacky newness and craziness.
In short, everything caught me COMPLETELY off guard as up until this episode they had been mirroring the novels almost perfectly.
I'm mixed on this.
Instead of making a longer, awesomer show they are going with what they have.
Then again, the things they've changed are HOLY SHIT DRAMATICS.
That being said, they did a pretty crazy good job on this episode.

Anyway, since it's obvious they're not going to follow the novels, now in their 13th? or 14th volume anymore, I can spoil freely about the future which they won't go into.

First off, the enmity between Wilhelmina and Yuji takes time to grow, instead of being a one-sided termination affair.
In the end, Wilhelmina attacks him a second time, but at this point Yuji has had a time to prepare, and manages to focus existence power plus use Blautsauger (incest twins defense penetrating sword) to stab her through her shield and attacks.

Volume 10 is completely a flashback ARC to Matilda (Wow the TV series doesn't even get to reveal her name), the former flame haze, Merihim, and Wilhelmina's past, who they were and what happened.

Volume 11 is back in the present.
Wilhelmina seems to have recovered mostly, and I think she's rather impressed or at least tolerant of Yuji (who can fight now).
The rest of the volume is about a school play and all the silliness of who gets to be the prince and princess and what not =D

Volume 12, new villain/character interrupts school play, was in love with the man SEALED within Reiji Maigo.
I think sees a LOT of that in Yuji (Oh noes a third girl? and manages to piss of everyone else at the same time).

And that's it for now, so here you've heard everything BUT stuff on episode 21, and it shall remain that way until you watch it.
BUT AGAIN DONT WATCH THE PREVIEW FOR THE NEXT EPISODE.

Spore

Holy crap.
This is why I want Peter to sneak me into GDC (Game Developer's Conference)
Seriously I was amazed.

Speeding

Fate must be conspiring against me this week.
Anyway, first speeding ticket woohoo.
First, I stay on that road at most 15 seconds.
Second, 5 seconds of the time on that road is a steep hill.
Third, when I was on the road today, I HAD to completely stop at the bottom of the steep hill cause some guy with a STOP SIGN pulled across anyway in front of me.
In short, I got a speeding ticket for 5 seconds of 45 on a 30 mph road while going downhill.

Playing to Win

This is an old old article, but it still rings true, even today.
Case in point, Ragnarok Online.
I play on a private server run by Soojin over there on the right side of my links.
There is something in RO called WOE, aka War of Emperium.
Basically, you try to walk into a house all the way to the back and break a stone.
Then you get the house.
This can be repeated until WOE ends, and then you have to wait till the next WOE.
You can buy defenders and what not, but on a server with 10 people max and max level 255, they almost do nothing.
So what it comes down to is duels.
Guess the person's weapon element wrong, or just have a wrong build against him, and you can see how this becomes stupid.
Holding a hall is almost impossible, and requires you to time yourself for the last 5 minutes...or other methods.
There is an item called bloody branch, which summons 1 MVP monster.
MVPs are tough, they can at least damage level 255s, and 5 at once will pack a punch.
My idea? Use 50 of these branches inside the house to hold it after I kill the stone.
Anyway, turns out you can't use them inside, which is unfortunate, but you CAN use them outside.
So I use them right at the entrance, die, warp back to the exact point and reuse them.
When I've used 50 branches I keep warping back to the exact entrance to ensure they stay there (Also to test if I can get in my house without dying).
Perfect defense, or so I thought.
The person who I was gunning for had a GM(Moderator) account.
He went on his GM account and despawned ALL my monsters, then changed to his regular character and walked in and broke the stone.
First off, using GM characters to benefit your normal character is probably the ONLY rule on this server, or on any server.
Anyway, he also comes up with a trademark line, "I see no MVPs" when I flipped out and went ballistic.
Later on he argued all sort of stupdities, like WOE takes skill, WOE should be player vs player not player vs monster, he'd have gotten in anyway, general stupid bullshit.

In short, a scrub.

Fun with PSP loading times

Randomness

Experimenting with video codecs and compressions

I'm the JUGGERNAUT, bitch!

Fate Stay Night 8

Needs.
More.
Saber.
Love.
Now.
Shirou and Shinji don't fight it out, disappointed.
I want him to fuck Shinji up already.
It's obvious he's a lying evil shit.
Rider is too awesome, hurry up and get your real master already.
Rin...moves in with Shirou o_Oa and managed to piss Sakura off at the same time.
Shirou makes Saber horribly mad (and hurts her feelings whether he knows it or not), so she goes off to fight assassin alone.

If the creators would just SHOW A LITTLE MORE SABER love I could enjoy this show a lot more.

Shana 20

The hell.
How could they...do that with my opinions!
ARGH
In short, the first part of this episode basically...removed my hate for Yuuji.
I mean he's a good guy and all, his heart is in the right place, it's just that he made Shana cry.
And I almost forgave the seducer too.
It's like her confession and involvment cemented Yuuji's decision to leave the city to protect it along with Shana (that and he likes her of course more).
In fact, things would have definitely turned out for the better if Yuuji had gone and told Shana his decision immediately.
But, things never go the way you want them to.

Wilhelmina, once viewed as a Yuuji beater and savior, is showing up at the ABSOLUTE WORST TIME.
In short, if no Wilhelmina, Yuuji would go to Shana and say I'm leaving with you anyway, Shana would go, "Really?" with pretty eyes, and then tralala happy fields.
Instead, Wilhelmina steers Shana into believing in the most "effecient" path, duty of flame haze blah blah, that is, kill Yuuji, take Reiji Maigo for themselves so Balle Masque doesn't get it.
STRAIN.
Their relationship was so close to repair, and honestly what some might consider a rather boring first half of dialogue in fact made me like Yuuji again, but gah Wilhelmina!

Ah well, things rarely go smoothly in anime, what can I say?
LET THE YUUJI VS WILHELMINA CONFLICTS BEGIN.
/me waves flag!

Shana 19, FSN 7, random nonsense

Shana 19.
Yuuji is a moron.
Wilhelmina is going to beat the SHIT out of him, and for that I am eternally grateful.
First, it will refocus him back on his relationship with Shana, which he had started taking for granted. (You love her idiot, yet you somehow conveniently ignore it.)
Second, it will make him realize how much of a liability he really is to Shana sometimes. (Learn to fight instead of hiding behind that amulet.)

FSN7
So much Rin love!
Stop ignoring Saber, Shirou T_T
She WANTS to win this thing too you know, it's not like she's just fighting for your sake.
Her wish is a pretty damn important to her!

If you type startkeylogger into irc, people running irc and norton's firewall will disconnect from the internet.
Fun in large channels, however may get you banned if the ops are running norton (Your fault for using that POS really)
Changing your name to startkeylogger is just fucking evil.
If no one is affected, it could mean that everyone in the channel is actually smart and doesn't use Norton!

Also, ahem, Disgaea 2 in JP is out.
We have to wait till August.
Being the impatient person I am, I broke down and torrented the DVD image from some Chinese gaming website.
I will get a fliptop, and then we will see how it goes... (>o<)b

On that note, the voice actress for Rin for Fate Stay Night wrote on her blog that, "Fate Stay Night get! The download is almost finished."
HUGE no no XD.
In short, the voice actress blogs on how she's pirating the game the anime she's starring in is based on XD. (For me that wins some extra points actually =O)
Anyway, it was changed two days later to, "Fate Stay Night get! The INSTALLATION is almost finished."
Most likely her sponsors/company gave her a legit copy for damage control ^^;;;

Fate Stay Night 6 subbed

Well, I'm an idiot.
Yeah, FSN was a text heavy game, so a text heavy anime is to be expected.
Thing is I LIKE the text I'm reading, now that I have subtitles.
My poor Japanese fails on the complicated script of Fate Stay Night.

Anyway, Rider wins for BEING relatively nice for a servant under the control of a shitty master.
"I'll kill you gently."
"How brave, you constantly choose the most painful options."
There's some real respect in her voice there when she's fighting Shirou.

Archer, on the other hand, is an asshole -_-
But it's to be expected...cause well he's archer!
He wouldn't be half as bad ass as he is now if he wasn't an asshole!

Shakugan no Shana 18

I didn't say abandon it already =O
I just say the general pace is well, I don't know, how have you people found the pace so far?
You've enjoyed it still right?
Don't quit now!

In other news, SCREW YOU SEDUCER, EXCEPT NOW I REMEMBER YOUR NAME AS YOSHIDA MISAKI FOREVER.
And Yuji, you are a dork, stop being so nice.

Everything's coming together wee!
And hey, now I know where Blautsauger went (Marjorie had it).

Fate Stay Night 6

Fate Stay Night, as I have said already, moves SLOW.
SLOW SLOW SLOW.
The action is pretty good and stuff, but god it has the pace of an audiobook.
Then again the game has a ridiculous amount of text, I think 3000 pages worth or something.
Anyway, Rider has a very nice voice.
Hurry up and die crappy temporary master, bring on the new one already.

o_O

So at the place where I volunteer, I learned some unsettling news.
Turns out they "let go" the previous network administrator/computer networking teacher last week.
This is troubling for a bazillion reasons:
1. Who the hell is MAINTAINING THEIR NETWORK? From what I've gotten this guy ran EVERYTHING. I don't have passwords to ANYTHING, so I can't help with ANYTHING that requires permissions yet. This is like...ALL the computers (regedit has been disabled, c prompt has been disabled, you get the idea)
2. I don't know if I'd want a job here, and it sort of sneakily sounds like they're preparing me for it? I've been given more and more computer related crap (finally though, I hate data entry) to do, which is peachy, but I'm really really honestly not sure I'd like to spend long here.
3. Currently this is for a recommendation/experience. If I bail out, what happens to that if they really are ninja training me as a replacement =O

Fate Stay Night 5

Shirou takes a deep dive and just introduces everyone to Saber.
Foreign girl!
Living in my house!
For a while!
Please accept situation!

Tiger goes wtfux, even Sakura is shocked.
Saber says something like, his dad told me to protect him from all enemies.
Tiger's crazy logic dictates they must fight, and if Tiger wins, Saber leaves.
And well...


Anyway, Archer really questions Rin's motives, as she is trying to go for the strongest opponents first (someone sucking up the school student's energy), while a weak one (Shirou), is right there.
So Rin decides to off...well more like smack Shirou up.
Their "fight," while dangerous to Shirou, is still ridiculous XD, as Rin is such a silly.

Yes, Shirou did not catch her when she jumped down the stairs AFTER HIM TO ATTACK HIM, so she's mad.
Shirou counters that well...if I helped, I'd have seen up your skirt, which makes her madder.

Anyway, Rider shows up.
Previews are interesting, looks like Rider is currently under the loser's control, not her real master.
So this is really following first branch Fate...
However, I think temporary master will die, and the real one will take its place.
BUT, Rider does give Shirou his first handy dandy excuse to fight it out.
I hope she lives to the end though, Rider's a good girl =D

Yes, she has square pupils under her mask.

Shana 17

Kamishin aka Tuner Shota aka one more good guy shows up in town.
Silly dork girl will get a bigger part.
Dork girl fans rejoice.
Shana fans boo. (BOO, YOU SEDUCER!)
Anyway...I spoiled my self completely on volume 9's novel.
For the longest time I thought Kamishin was the one going all angry and stabby on page 235, but after reading the surroundings, turns out it's YUJI.
Yes folks, you WILL see an angry crazy Yuji, using Blutsauger (the sword the boy incest twin had) to stab someone.
But uh, it's spoilerific like crazy.
I already told one person -_-a cause I couldn't keep the implications to myself.
It is truly a WTFUX moment.

FSN 4, RMT 11-12, Shana 16

ANYWAY, Fate Stay Night 4.
Shiro gets squashed by Berserker.
Illya, being the good imouto she is, withdraws after squashing Shiro.
Leaves Rin and Saber alive, isn't she a nice girl =D
Shiro magically starts healing (cough, his powers are not magically healing, they're different, but you'll see.)
Anyway Saber goes normal clothes and warns against jumping in front of Berserker swings, then she goes into the mode Saber is well known for...completely starving Saber.


Rozen Maiden Traumend 11-12
Behold, the guilty pleasure I kept hidden from people all this time cause it was silly.
Second season of Rozen Traumend end.
Well, let's see.
I think this is best summed up in, "WTF? WTF WTF? NO. NO. FUCKING NO! She DIDNT! IVE BEEN TRICKED. Deus ex machina. Season 3?"
Suiseiseki forever.


Shana 16
One word.
AWESOME.
Damn, I'm glad I waited till I was coherent to watch this, otherwise I'd have missed all the juicy subtelties.
FIRST OFF.
Shiro aka Merihim is bad ass.
Second off.
Wilhelmina liked him.
Third off.
LOVE TRIANGLE POSSIBLY MIRRORED IN FUTURE? (Volume 10 of novel goes into the backstory, I'll make a serious effort to read it.)

Random analysis time.
When Shana/Alastor first meet Yuji, they mentioned that Mistes can change into Tomogara.
Merihim is a bad ass Tomogara, and he and the former red haired flame haze (spoiler: Matilda) loved each other, but fought each other in the end it seems (I think he fought to keep her from destroying herself through Alastor's oath).
Wilhelmina was...friends? who knows to both.
But she liked him, if you see that flashback and her comments.

I can see this triangle being MIRRORED in the future, considering the tuner shounen finally shows up seeking Misaki.
And I can see Yuji becoming a Tomogara on purpose to become stronger.
I hope Shana doesn't go blow herself up though.

"あなたがいた森 Anata ga ita mori" by Jukai

Allan finally got the Shuffle! ending theme out of his head...
Only to be replaced by the Fate Stay Night ending theme!
Hence the title of this post.
Unfortunately the ending single is not out yet, zannen da yo (too bad).

Anyway, spoiler time cause I can't hold things in.
So far the anime is following the first branch, Fate.
That is, Berserker is the largest immediate threat, as opposed to Caster or True Assassin.

First path AKA Fate is mainly about Saber.
Second path AKA Unlimited Blade Works is mainly about Rin and Shirou.
Third path AKA Heaven's Feel is mainly about SpoilerIcantsayhere.

ANYWAY, Rin has ten of those red pendants that basically function as a decade's worth of mana.
She used the one her father gave her on Shirou, which explains her apology.

That's all for today.

"Work"

So here I am at fakey work (read: volunteer) for a tech school, completely bored out of my mind from data entry .
When will the damn computers come in?

There is a student here who has spent close to three hours looking at...the Stop and Shop homepage.
The mind boggles at how he can view a supermarket's homepage for so long.
Maybe it's the...completely sparse interface or the blue confirm button that's keeping him so enthralled.

Also, I've returned to private server Ragnarok Online (oh noes), specifically Soojin's private server.
1000x base exp/1000x job exp/50x drops, max level 254.
Uh yeah I already have two level 254s, someone has to quickly remind me that I hate RO again before this goes too far.
It's funny how I can't resist gimpy competition, no matter how stupid a medium (an MMORPG).
I have a feeling that one of the main reasons for me disliking one of the FOUR other players or so on the server is that he is the only other one with a level 254 (he would have been first, but I ninja leveled during supposed down time) and he is the only one who has remotely any idea how to play.
Then again, it could be because he's a hypocrite and an idiot.
Ah well, he's not so bad I guess.

Now as for that kid who abused his beta GM account by giving his legit character massive amounts of items and who InSiStS oN tYpInG lIkE tHiS...that kid has to die.
Now.
I am surprised he was allowed to stay at all, cause holy CHRIST is he a stupid fucker.
Now he just asks noob questions 24/7 and makes names like EdWaRd_ElRiC.
Fucking Toonami generation.

Record the Bullet

New recording software, new recording codecs, new compression (XVID), same old.
Experimentation so far has been pretty good.
8-1
8-5
10-1

Fate Stay Night 1, 2 and Shakugan no Shana 14

Yay #eclipse, always subbing stuff that's already pre-liscensed by Geneon like Shana and FSN.(FUCK YOU GENEON).
Anyway, Fate Stay Night.
Best selling game in Japan for 2004.
Best selling visual novel of ALL time.
Doesn't qualify for best selling doujin game of ALL time because it was made after Type-Moon turned professional, meaning Type-Moon's Tsukihime still holds that title.
Well, and now there's anime.

Key points:
1. Faithful art style.
Tsukihime's anime style weirded me the fuck out.
All the voices were also...not from Melty Blood, which I honestly thought did an amazing job.
So I was unsure as hell about it and couldn't exactly stand it for long.
Fate Stay Night's art style seems extremely faithful, this is good.

2. Faithful story?
Herein lies a dilemna.
Ok, it's started out faithful (Tsukihime did too.)
But it took Tsukihime like 2-3 episodes for people to realize, WTF no reversed Shiki, lame.
Fate's main character, Shiro, wants to be a champion of justice, that's actually his sort of naive goal.
The thing about Fate Stay Night is that it has three paths.
And in each path, there are people Shiro just can't save.
In the first two paths, Shiro chooses the path of a hero anyway and tries to save as many as he can, but in the third path, Shiro chooses to protect one person above all else. (And thus the most amount of people die.)
It varies from path to path, but these are all people Shiro cares about.
Plus, his allies are different in each one. (Except for...Rin. Such a good girl =D But come on you guessed that already right?)
There is a fan disc called Fate Hollow Atarxia, which is basically the sequel to Fate Stay Night, IF some magical happy ending existed where everyone lived.
I wonder if they're going to try for that.

3. Characters seem faithful, but what's going to really matter is how they change (again see above about the story paths.) Rin'll smile more, Archer will stop thinking everything's useless, Shiro will get stronger, Saber will get cuter, Lancer won't be as homicidal, Illya will be nicer, Rider will be nicer, who knows?

Anyway, episode 1 starts out slow, but episode 2 speeds up quite a bit (He finally summoned his servant).

Meanwhile, Shakugan no Shana has slowed down again, this time going into Shana's past.
Maid ribbon Wilhelmina introduced ~de arimasu, cough Yuji will be getting a new addition to his household soon (cough complications DO occur later, as Wilhelmina isn't as kosher with Yuji as she appears), but yeah I really wonder if they can do this series in 26 (more seasons I say, don't try to compact it).
Wilhelmina rules however ~de arimasu.
Maids always do.

10-1

Cough, dirty little secret time.
I slowed down some of the stages in Touhou to unlock higher levels when things were looking absolutely grim.
I went back and did most of them, but still 8-3 and 9-2 remain with 67% slowdown XD
HOWEVER, I did reach level 10 legitimately (three level 9's that weren't 9-2 and that weren't slowed down), so I'm happy as hell now.
Only 22 fucking more stages to go till extra.

Shakugan no Shana

I watched 13 episodes of this show in a row.
It was originally a novel with some illustrations, then a full manga, and now an anime.
It's a good complicated plot, really nice characters, lots of good development, and pretty battle scenes.
However, there is one thing about it...
The main girl is lolicon bait.
Like she's I don't know, ageless?
But Christ the creators really know what they have, they basically have the perfect Otaku definition of "moe".
Shana is so moe that it's almost impossible not to notice it.
I can't ignore it either...
I mean hell the show has so many OTHERS merits, but the writers go that one extra step which I guess approaches fanservice.
And so you have mizugi Shana, or sukumizugi Shana, or kimono Shana, it's ridiculous.
She's still a great character though, and that scene where she flips out and starts screaming at a girl who's already frozen inside the field was amazing.

Nani su no yo!!
What do you think you're doing?
Nani jyama siten no yo!!
What are you interfering for?
Sugu ni kikaseteyaru! Watashi no kimochi o,
I'll let you hear my feelings right away!
Omae nanka, zenzen, Yuji wa, watashi to, zutto, motto, takusan arun dakara!!
You're nothing. There's much more between Yuji and me!
Omae nanka ni, zettai ni makenai!
I'll never lose to you!
Zettai!
Never!
Makenai!
I'll never lose!

Funky Cat Maybe

Disgaea Anime

Magazine Scan
My bad, not just an OVA, my ghetto Japanese rapes though.

I AM JAPANESE

No I'm not, but godamn it feels good to get to level 8.
Vids of level 7:
Youmu's easiest card. Trust me, the rest of hers are ridiculous.
Ring around the Remilia ^^
Remilia rose
Time stop!
Pictures of level 8:

Shoot the Bullet

Wasting lots of time on Touhou 9.5.
I'm using it as bullet dodge practice for when I get a full version of Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil or Perfect Cherry Blossom or Imperishable Night.
However, SOMETIMES IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DODGE.
I'M LOOKING AT YOU TWO, ALICE AND PATCHOULI.


Oh yeah, video of ZUN (Creator) taking down Remilia.

Comiket 69

Now that I've been like fully absorbed into stupid doujin culture, I can make a post like this.
Comiket 69, in short, Comiket is a fucking huge ass convention each year right before New Year's in Japan.
This year was December 29-30.
Lots of stuff comes out from official and unofficial companies like music games comics figures whatever.
Anyway, being the savvy media pirate I am, I'm along for the ride.

Currently have:
Gunners Heart:
Cute, somewhat short, but pretty well done plane shooter type thing. Link to a demo.
RBO 2nd Scenario:
I never got the first scenario (Until today), but I'm sure certain dorks, i.e. people not me who still play RO, are going bananas over this.
I'll have to pick it up again (Made a level 20 fmage, owned everything, but never made other classes)
Touhou 9.5:
Hell I don't even have the other Touhous besides 7.5, and this one just sounds weird (taking picture of attacks? the hell?), but it's Touhou.
Touhou Remixes, like 30 of them:
Touhou music owns, and for the most part, Touhou remix music owns.
OTHERS shooters:
I don't even feel like listing them, I'll give them all a whirl eventually. One's based off Nekoneko soft, Tsukihime, Fate Stay Night, blah blah blah.

Shuffle! 23

If I hadn't spoiled myself, I wonder if I would have been able to figure out what Rin does in the end.
She doesn't want to use magic, even at the cost of her life.
He wants her to live.
He has to get her to use an enormous amount of magic.
How?

GGmail

Hello,

Thanks for your report.

Gmail takes the privacy and security of our users very seriously. For this
reason, we can't reveal any further information about this account.

Please note that we aren't able to provide you with information about
attempted logins to your account including, but not limited to, the IP
address from which the attempted login was made, and the time and date
attempted logins occurred.

If you wish to pursue the matter further, you may want to contact your
local authorities.

We appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Gmail Team

Wow, they value your security so much that they won't reveal your account's IP logs to you, even when your account has been compromised.
That is amazing dedication to user security.
Look, they're even so helpful as to suggest contacting the local authorities!
...
...
...
What the hell is this shit?

Hackers 2

He had my gmail account password.
That's how he knew the reset password, and that's how he got my account.
Luckily he is stupid and I rule and ninjaed the gmail account back.
I've changed every password on every forum/game/program I own.
I'm not going to say how I ninjaed the gmail account back, but let's just say this.
BITCH YOU ARE GOING DOWN.
GOOGLE WILL HAVE YOUR IPS, ARENANET WILL HAVE YOUR IPS, AND I HOPE YOU GET FUCKED IN THE ASS IN JAIL.

OMGWTFHAX

Wow, someone hacked my Guild Wars account.
Amazing that they cared enough.
My password had enough numbers, I thought it wasn't that bad...(Word+numbers isn't too bad)
Anyway, so Peter has been asking why I've been playing Guild Wars without talking to him.
Well, that's not me.

In FACT, if any of you in Guild Wars see someone on by the name of Mia Toma, THAT'S NOT ME, IT'S A HAXOR.

Shuffle! 23

No I haven't seen the episode, but yay 2chan for funny pictures.

How to Eat Sushi

An instructional video.
Everything in this video is accurate and true.

Shuffle! 22

The power of Christ compels you!

Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked

Counter

I'm in the market for a new site counter as webstat went crappy on me and started spamming iLead ads.
I had them auto-blocked and was wondering if it was malware on my home system, turns out they weren't.
I'm sort of bored, so I'd prefer the count to be customizable, so I can put my own images as the numbers.

Gamers versus Normal People

Recently a friend of Kenny's was put under investigation by Pokerstars, as they claimed very very few people could play 25 sit and gos without being some kind of robot/AI.

A sit and go is a minature tournament, basically 9 or 18 people sign up, each pay some amount of money (maybe 5 dollars), and then a small tournament is held, where usually the top three make money.

Understandably pissed off, he offered to webcam himself doing just that (probably in his normal hilarious trash-talking way), playing 25+ sit and gos at once.

Little background, this guy was the closest to a professional Starcraft player I ever knew; he got taken out in a WCG qualifier to someone worse than him though and sort of gave up BW for a while to play poker.
He's actually resuming BW though it seems, just to try to get to Korea once, then he says he'll quit.

Hello Hevad,

There is absolutely no need to be condescending, really.
We take the security of our games seriously, and we have to know if you're using AI before allowing you to continue to play.
You offered a chance to expedite the review... and I accepted.
It's really as simple as that.

Indeed, I will be suitably impressed once I see the video of you playing
those games.
It is certainly beyond my capability (as I've already said), and should be beyond the capability of most players.
I'll certainly congratulate you and welcome you to continue to play on PokerStars once I've seen that you are indeed not "most players".

Pending reception of the video, I have to say that I'm now leaning toward accepting your defense, though I still want to see the video.
However, no matter the end result, I won't be able to apologize as I've simply been doing my job -- ensuring that our games are free to automated robot players.

And I do have some thoughts about how to pay off that crying call on the river.
I can't freeroll you into the TLB, and I can't compensate you for the downtime (this has actually been a pretty speedy review -- sometimes it can take a week to complete this sort of thing).

Let's talk about that once you've sent the link to the video, shall we?

Best Regards,

Jeff
PokerStars Support Supervisor

Hevad is a madman.
Oh yeah, he came out $150 ahead at the end of this particular session.

「気持ちの行方」

Um.
Wow.
Yeah.

Shuffle! Music

So my Shuffle! music torrent is slowly winding down.
Original Soundtrack
Perfect Arrange
Perfect Arrange Bonus CD
Character Themes
Yuria Rainbow Remix
Yuria Anime Opening Single YOU
5 Drama CDS, Sia, Nerine, Kaede, Asa, Primula
Hashimoto Miyuki Anime Ending Single Innocence

Hashimoto Miyuki Anime Ending Single Innocence
(1.19 gigs, FUCK, YOU EITHER GO WITH LOSSLESS or LAME STANDARD!
NOT 320CBR, ARGHHHHHHHHH!)
Talk about waste of space, but whatever.
Anyway, managed to snag the ending theme single CD first
(I like stopped the torrent and restarted with just that song selected...yay bitcomet.)
That song rocks, in case you didn't see the massive links in my profile and away message.
(The one named Innocence.)
Not sure if the other song on the CD, Time Has Come has been ever used in the show.
In fact I have no idea where it's from.
It's ok, I guess.

Character Themes
Going through the character themes, I'm wondering...
Did they have the actual voice actors do the themes?
I mean that would mean they can all sing...
Unfortunately, the themes are themselves standard fluff.
Repeating, long, boring, and sort of annoying.
Honestly, Green Green's character themes had some really good ones, though probably not with the voice actors singing, these all sound the same...crappy.
Except one, Maou and Shin's.
It's actually a two guy duet (Which is why I'm curious about who the singers are of these), and I think it's decent.
Actually two.
I DID NOT REALIZE YURIA was AMA'S voice.
Wow I'm a MORON.
Anyway, Yuria does Ama's character theme, and well since she's a singer first and a voice actor second, of course it's good.
She catches that eternal optimism really well.

Perfect Arrange Bonus CD
Checking the others, I learn that In The Sky is the name of the song Nerine sings on the swing.
The version I current am listening to is on the Perfect Arrange Album Bonus CD Himiwari.
It's done with quite a lower natural range, and a mellower singer, I wonder who she is (SCREW YOU MP3 TAGS, USELESS AGAIN!)
Himiwari itself I swear was used in the series also, probably pertaining to Licorice.
It's this sweet little tune with xylophones.

Perfect Arrange
On the Perfect Arrange Album, listening to Happy Run is sort of nostalgic, I think it was used as the "daily happy life" music in the series.
One problem I have is with the encoding though.
This isn't just my normal bitching, a lot of noise was picked up here, it really ruins the guitar in some places cause of oversampling.
Anyway it's a good song, cause hey, it's classical guitar!
While listening to Twin Fairy, I'm worried the entire encode of the Perfect Arrange soundtrack has this kind of noise.
Twin Fairy is...I think really good!
Moody cello and piano combination for the win.

Asa DRAMA CD
Holy shit yes, drama CDs!
I could just listen to these all day!
Of course I listen to Asa's first (Sorry Nerine =X).
(Though, 320kbps for speech files...ok you're REALLY pissing me off encoder.)
Kareha has her own special sound effect already in place =D.
Wow...already in Asa's drama CDs..."Am I betraying Kaede's feelings?"
Interesting...Kareha's plan is for Asa to ask Rin Kaede to go to an amusement park, and Kareha will lure Kaede away somewhere during it.
So all four go...and Nerine, Sia, Itsuki, and Mayumi show up.
(Asa: "Not just Kaede...huh...-_-")
(Nerine's scared of roller coasters.)
(And Kareha makes her move by asking to sit with Kaede, and...stupid ITSUKI asks Asa.
MAYUMI, of all people gets to sit with Rin.
Kaede faints on the coaster, Itsuki freaks out and does Itsuki things "WHERE ARE YOU TOUCHING", Asa bashes him.
And now the fathers are stalking along too?
Geez, this is like a side story of the anime.
Wow, honestly, Asa's drama CD, Asa spends a lot of time worrying about betraying Kaede. Buuuh.
Yay another chance, while the demon's and angel's parents are busy stalling the girls, Asa lures Rin away!
AGH, Rin's stupid.
This is just the drama CD, but still!
She offers to go alone with him, and he's like the others will get worried.
No, when he says others, he ACTUALLY says "Kaede-tachi blah blah blah."
What a moron -_-a

Yappari...Kaede no issyou ni no hou ga ii no ka na...
O?
Boku to hutari kiri zya....dame ka na...

Translations:
I knew it, being with Kaede makes you happy...
What?
Only the two of us...it's no good is it...

Ok Rin redeems himself!
Goes with Asa on the ferris wheel, says flat out I don't like Kaede That Way since Asa keeps mentioning it.
Asa really is hung up on betraying Kaede...is this how she was in the game?
It's sort of sad.
And of course, as he's about to say something, bzzzt, ride stops.
And the two stooges start calling his name on the loudspeaker.
ATTENTION, RIN-DONO. RIN-DONO.
Asa's like ah well, too bad, we should return.
Rin's like screw that, let's stay together a little longer.

Original Soundtrack
Irony, I listen to songs on the original soundtrack last.
Anyway, With You, good piano, not sure if it was used in the series.
Little emotional piece.
Yuria's Mirage Lullaby(Half Size) was used as the opening for the game?
It was used for the ending of the Prologue.
I'm unsure, all I know is that it's pretty good when listened to in original form.

Yuria Anime Opening Single YOU
Ok the OST was second to last, er wait third to last.
I still haven't touched the Rainbox Remix.
Anyway, this is the anime opening.
I like the ending better, but the opening isn't bad.
It's a good energetic theme, the electric guitar really does well.
The second song Karafuru is a reallllly upbeat song.
I guess well, it IS by Yuria, aka part of I've Sound.
It's sortta weird, I'm not sure what they were going for.
It's like a song you play when you win something.

Yuria Rainbow Remix
And we finally hit our final soundtrack.
Course the first song I chose was Mirage Lullaby, remixed by none other than Hosplug!
Hosplug does his funky dance sprinkles, and the resulting piece is catchy/weird at the same time.
There's this part where heavy heavy synth bass comes in, and it's pretty nice.

Edit: Future edits and impressions will be categorized by their CD.
CD order was determined by which random song I listened to first, then second, then third, etc.

Dilemma.

I...just read a friend's post.
It's dated two days ago, when I was glibly recommending Shuffle! to anyone who'd listen.
She's the only one who took the bait.
If she reads this she'll know.
Episode 19 and 20 can be gotten from #Kazenokoefansubs, so don't go to #AnimeU!

Anyway, her post was about...one's path in life.
I don't know, the post strikes somewhere deep in me.
Something rings back out when I read that line:
"I wanted to study language and become a translator."

I graduated this May, and I now have a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science from JHU.
I'm unemployed.
Am I really looking?
I don't really know.
I think when I first graduated I tried pretty damn hard.
I had more than half a dozen interviews all over the place, I was getting calls regularly.
I didn't land a single job.
My parents go apeshit EVERY SINGLE DAY because I am unemployed.
Nowadays I mostly sit around, browse the job websites, check my email, waste time on the web, and work on translating Utawareru Mono.
I've started watching anime again.

Do I want to be employed?
Would I rather be installing operating systems, or programming in java, then say...translating a game, as I am now?
I don't know.

「ここで魔法を使ったら、ボクは人間でなくなっちゃう．．．．．．」

Shuffle! Episode 20.
Breaking point.
She went all out.
People bash for Rin for not realizing her feelings, but do people fault her for not realizing Rin's feelings?
It's like they want to simultaneously hope nothing is wrong with the other.

Anyway, I wrote I gigantic post on animesuki, and I'll repost it ONCE YOU CATCH UP TO ME.

Anyway, I've said this many times before...but I felt what he did at the end of Episode 20 was the only thing he could have done, and the right thing.
He had to "break the flow."

Meanwhile, I have so many spoilers about 21-24 by virtue of the game that I'm dying everytime I read some ignorant post on animesuki or statement in #KNKF.
I guess I can't really call them ignorant, as they don't know...well spoilers!
But still, it's like they ignored EVERY GODAMN HINT the series gave, and there are a lot.

Allan, if you pick this up, don't read my last entry either.

Also, the title of this post is ANOTHER spoiler, it's said in Shuffle! the game, and it refers to what's happening in the series now.

Shuffle!

This will be long, we'll start with the first and work toward the most recent impressions I had of this show.
I WILL hide names occasionally because I WANT people to watch this show without getting spoiled; it is AMAZING for what it is (Best damn harem show I've ever seen -_-)
They will be referred to as: Rin(Guy), Sia(Angel), Nerine(Devil), Rimu(Little Girl), Kaede(Childhood Friend), Asa(Sempai)

Episode 1:
Character introduction.
Kaede is REALLY subservient. Almost scarily so.
Asa is wow. A surprise. Second favorite girl already after the one that drew me into the series.
Itsuki (Best male friend) is AWESOME.
He rocks. "Welcome to my heart" indeed.
Mayumi (Female friend) is ALSO AWESOME.
It's nice to know you can interact NORMALLY with females in these types of shows.
Sia is cute, but well, I'm not into characters like her.
Nerine is <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 sooooooooooooooooooo cute <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3.

Episode 2:
Primula/Rimu is <3 <3 <3 <3 ok I shouldn't put so many hearts cause now I feel wrong.
Don't know where to rank her, let's just say I can't because that would be wrong -_-.
Very interesting how she knows his name already and clings to him like glue.
And here we see a very small hint (If you knew spoilers) about Primula and Ama (Sempai's mother).
Also larger hints with Primula and Nerine.

Episode 3:
Sia focus episode.
She's ok enough XD.
Hates studies, math especially, likes rain (because of the romantic implications?), cheerful, a bit low self esteem.
Childhood meetings, ooh clichetastic!

Episode 4:
Nerine focus episode.
Good in studies, weak physically?, quiet BURNING kind, good singer!, scary when mad (attack magic is off the charts)
Wow. She's bad at cooking.
Well, least Asa taught her how to make omlettes ^^a...now if she would only learn something else -_-a
Childhood meetings, clichetastic^2!
That line she says at the end, "Let me love you more and more," was just fantastic.

Episode 5:
Kaede focus episode.
Wow, Nerine is bad at EVERYTHING. Cooking, cleaning, anything remotely housework related.
How...opposite of cliche expectations XD.
Kaede however, is good at everything housework related.
Hm...the relationship he has with his childhood friend is so...odd, but it works.
His parents and her mother died in a car accident, and her dad works to support them both now, so they live together.
That's a pretty choice setup for her.
She's STILL so subservient though, it's really odd.
Gets jealous easily, but is really good at not showing it.

Asa is...really something.
She coaches him in every girl situation it seems, gives him advice in her awesome flirt/teasing way.
I like her a lot.

Episode 6:
Primula focus episode.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
I feel wrong -_-a
Anyway, turns out being the wandering weird strange girl she is, she has almost no good clothes to speak of.
This includes underwear, and you can already see where this is going.
All girls going out to help buy some make it worse...
Rin flees pretty quickly.

Episode 7:
Asa focus episode
I was actually waiting for this one...because her character is sooo good!
Flirty, helpful, older sisterish, cute at the same time.
Hm though, they changed animators for this episode, and it shows.
Seems like it's something Japanese animators do amongst themselves and their friends for fun.
Style is DIFFERENT, but not unpleasant.
I guess you could technically count Sempai as a childhood friend, they've known each other from junior high.
Helped Kaede learn to cook. (She's pretty damn good, so Asa must be amazing)
Chef material it seems!
Also has the dubious honor? of being one of the girls Kaede absolutely trusts, to the point that when Rin goes over to her house, she thinks nothing of it. (Kaede also has gone over for cooking many many times and also to eat with Rin)
Has a rather interesting attitude toward relationships, just wants to enjoy what she has a while longer.
I think she's the most similar to Rin in this regard, because Rin doesn't exactly want to start breaking hearts yet.
And that scene at the end...that was close!
You have to wonder about her...

Episode 8-10:
Sia makes the first move!
And what a move it was.
I'm curious here as to whether or not Episode 9 was influenced by her magic or not, there was a very weird quality to the entire thing.
Episode 10 is TENSE.
The rumors have changed the status quo, and everyone is feeling it.
In the end though, Sia "takes one" for the team to return the situation to the status quo and give everyone more time to think =O, which I was really surprised at.
However, her evil self showed itself, and I think we'll be seeing more of her.

Episode 11:
Ooh, a very good sidestory episode.
Goes over the two females who AREN'T in love with Rin (Where are you Kareha -_-), the teacher and Mayumi.
Mayumi is downright hilarious, it's easy to like her.

Episode 12-15:
Devil world arc.
Very well done, Primula takes the cuteness cake, and eats it too.
Plus, we see exactly Nerine's reasons for coming to Earth.
Multiple personality disorder one shows up, and wow it encompassed a lot.
Her singing, her love, it's no wonder that after she disappears things tone a bit down with her other half.
I am still rooting for her ^^;;, but I think Asa has more of a chance now.
Speaking of which, Asa was in amazing form.
She couldn't go with them to the devil world, but giving her ribbon, and her teary performance before they left were really good.
It's hard not to like her more and more.
Also, Episode 14.
KIKYOU comes out!
I did not even notice that, but the voice and the eyes were obvious as hell.
Damn you Shuffle! animators.
You gave so many godamn hints.

Episode 16-17:
Not ONE of these girls is normal.
Oh yeah, I know there's an angel, a devil, two spoilers and a human in one mixed up world and what not, but at least they seemed normal personality wise, if a bit devoted.
But no, EVERY SINGLE ONE IS HALF crazy, minimum.
Anyway, after the devil world arc, Sia has noticed IMMEDIATELY the change in Nerine.
More open, happier, but at the same time, NOT AS ONE-PERSON devoted to Rin.
And it worries her, that her friend has found a sort of happiness in this, because her selfish self can't understand the concept of "Happy as long as he is happy" mentality.
Multiple personality disorder 2, more crying, and I think we've narrowed down the "winner" now.

Episode 18:
The long awaited date episode!
However, things never go so smoothly, and he ended up hurting her quite a bit.
I think that's one of the main themes now of this show; you can't just let things go on as they are, you have to start making choices.
The longer you stall or let others push you, the more it hurts the rest.

Episode 19:
HOLY FUCK. Psychotic. With a capital 'P'. She is fucking psychotic.
On rewatching early episodes, she's very cute when jealous, or reserved, but mother fuck watching this episode was a wakeup.
S-C-A-R-Y, her young self is straight out of a horror film.
I always wondered why she does EVERYTHING for him the way she does, but obviously it is a NATURAL extension of her psychotic personality.
This type of person is...really scary.
To switch from facade to insanity to facade like that, this is NOT a normal girl.

Summary for now:
I think...I think we might have another Mia-like psycho on our hands.
No wait, even worse, cause holy shit what she did when she was younger to Rin was just twisted.
She's so bound to him because of her guilt that if she loses him she will most certainly self-destruct AND take someone down with her.
And now that Rin's basically made his choice, and it's not her, but one of the people she trusted the most, she's snapped.

That last episode was sickening/heartbreaking as hell.

Kid

Boku wa kiddo!

BAND.

How...odd.
I managed to get banned from the [Lunar] anime forums after TWO posts.
TWO.

I don't see how that's even possible, I didn't even say anything remotely insulting.
And hell, I was all excited that one of the main translators was JHU '05!
Ping pong club vice president no less.
(I think Kenny's in that job now? I'll have to ask him)

But yeah, talk about sort of depressing e-drama.
Bleah.

KITA!!

ｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━ｯ!!
Holy shit I've been waiting on this volume FOREVER.
For the uneducated this is official Tsukihime manga volume 3.
The picture is Shiki from volume 2, when he's gone into Nanaya (assassin) mode.

AirRade-Air-

This has been my new distraction for a while, I'm just late in posting because I wanted to unlock more things for that pretty screenshot.

Anyway, it's a sidescrolling shooter with Air characters.
It is hard.
As in "easy" mode is hard.
As in MY FUCKING GOD I HAVE TO BE JAPANESE hard.
Summer mode alone takes approximately 1 hour and 18 minutes to get through, and this is with no heals and only 9 hits before game over.
Yes I used a trainer to get through summer mode, and that's why I have Kanna and Yao Bikuni =D

So far I have:
Misuzu
Kano
Minagi
Winged Misuzu
Crazy Kano
Haruko
Hijiri
Keisuke
Uraha
Kanna
Yao Bikuni

Hijiri rocks, her knives are amazingly powerful with a good spread.
Winged Misuzu is Misuzu on crack, too good.
Haruko sucks -_-a
I have not played with Crazy Kano/Keisuke/Uraha/Yao Bikuni yet.
I suspect Yao Bikuni is broken as well.

Edit: Holy SHIT Yao Bikuni is amazing.
Her punch FIRES A PROJECTILE THAT STILL COUNTS AS A PUNCH and kills almost everything in one hit.
Her fully upgraded shots form a GIGANTIC CIRCLE around herself before moving out at a target, sort of like a cone.

Dead or Alive...mostly Dead

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAOMFGTHEYCANTBESERIOUS

Fresh from the powerbook of another Hollywood hack! I want to work at a theater. Just so I can punch the face of every last man, woman, child, and invalid that goes to see crap like this. I don't discriminate who I'd sucker punch. Equal opportunities... FOR PAIN. Unless they're much bigger than me. Then it's just a stern fist shake... When they're not looking. Naturally.

-Scott Ramsoomair

Edit: Link updated, hopefully it works now. Warning, Rapidshare ahead.

Impatience is the devil.

Call of Duty 2

So I finally caved in.




Random thoughts:
The Thompson is ridiculous at small-medium range.
I can not snipe for the life of me.
I am totally unsure if there is leading at far ranges, as I haven't HIT anything at far ranges yet.
Search and Destroy is ridiculously hard for me as of now.
Shotguns are powerful.

Double KO

Wow, Sony is STUPID upon stupid.
Remember the CD protection that allowed people to install malware without tripping anti-viruses?
Turns out LAME source code was embedded deep within the copy protection.
LAME is open source under LGPL (not GPL), and by open source I mean if you use the code, you have to make your application open source.
So basically Sony used it without permission.

Turducin

chioyoung: they had a Turducin
SibladeKO: turducin
SibladeKO: what is turducin
chioyoung: = duck stuffed inside a chicken stuffed inside a Turkey
SibladeKO: you just blew my mind
SibladeKO: wtf

KBILLY's super sounds of the '70s just keep on comin...

Reservoir Dogs is an awesome movie, the soundtrack only used '70s music, but there's something infectious about the entire soundtrack.
I think it's all the horns and trumpets and real instruments blaring like crazy along with the ragged guitar.
I'm a sucker for real band/orchestra instruments.

I heard Creed's cover of Magic Carpet Ride before I heard the original one by Bedlam.
And of course you have Stuck In The Middle With You, which puts you in that oh so fun homicidal mood.
"Clowns to the left 3SKBITCH of me, jokers to the right WTFUSELESSHOG, here I am stuck in the middle NOIDONTHACK with you."

I find it amusing that centrist political bloggers like this phrase enough to make up more than 70% of the first page hits when googled (the phrase, that is).

Curses!

On Wed, 16 Nov 2005 23:31:11 -0500
Kevin OYoung wrote:

> すみませんけど, utawaml.exeはCDバージョンだけか？
> DVDバージョンじゃない？

作成した当時にCDバージョンしかなかったため、CDバージョンしか対応していません。
また、DVDバージョンは、CDバージョンとはシステムが異なるらしいので、
今のところ対応する予定はありません。

--
m-akita(m-akita@m-akita.sakura.ne.jp)

In short, I had found a script ripper app on an obscure but still updated JP website.
However, it was for the CD version, not the DVD version, so I emailed the guy asking if there was DVD version.

His reply basically says no DVD version, and no plans to work on one at this time due to the differing formats of their ..a files (compressed txt files).

Anyway, at least Oh! Text Hooker works so I can ghetto script rip (Stupid repeating sentences ugh.)

OY!

Slowly but surely converting the layout.
Frikkin rounded corners are built directly into the gifs half the time.
Ugh.
Also, I need adobe photoshop back -_-

Revived

Progress is slow, but finally starting again on Utawareru Mono's translation!

Wish I had a script rip, it'd make things so much easier than doing it myself.

Adel is innocent.

I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken. The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later.

via Mefi, which shows it CAN be useful sometime.

Oh yeah, absolutely fucking horrifying.
I hate to say it, but I'm glad I'm not a Muslim in this day and age.

Untitled States

GG KANSAS

You lose Kansas.
Heck, even the pope supports evolution over intelligent design.
Now excuse me, I have to set my calendars back one hundred years or so.

That's Half-Baked!

Found a new diversion, a site to throw your uncreated ideas/inventions around.
There are actual practical ideas, and then there are the slightly insane people ideas.

Antivertising is one of the latter.
Slightly insane people to look for are wagster, benfrost, 2 fries shy of a happy meal and squeak (who writes everything in limerick).

Summon Suffering

If you were "in the know" you'll notice I've updated the right side with a link to people's Soul Calibur 3 character creations, including my own.
I only have two at the moment, Unlimited Saga's Laura and FF4's Rydia.
I think I'll post Last Blade 2's Hibiki next.
And then...I might be stupid enough to attempt Stephen Colbert.

Sweet Kitty

Hello Kitty has a pet cat.
This strikes me as wrong on no less than two levels.

Glitch on the level of Roll Cancelling found in SC3

G225, G885
I don't really think this makes everything dead.
First off, you have to basically EXPECT a GI.
No one expects a GI really, but how many people expect Re-GIs?
At high play, a lot.
The Re-GI wars were hilariously annoying, this cuts down on them.
Honestly Kenny learned to GI my Talim pretty quickly, I'm sure if I learned to Re-GI consistently it'd get stupider.
I think it actually gives the initial GI-er an advantage, cause unless you FULLY BAITED A GI (i.e. mindgame aka depth), you're not going to expect it.
And when you try to counter with a GI of your own, they will buffer with G225 and retain advantage.

I have yet to make judgement on the ability to G225 out of stances and throw escapes.
Stances still unsure...throw escapes well...it's like punishing a throw with an anti-throw.
I think it's more mind games again .
(Have to guess right first, then perform the buffer input, then counter with something that will hit fast enough)

I think though this will make high level SC3 very hard for me to even crack -_-a
Like roll cancelling, I still can't do that shit reliably.

EAT YOUR JAM 2!

Behold the son of EAT YOUR JAM!
EAT YOUR JAM 2!

Sooolll Kaariba...Tsuri!

Today first serious unlocking run in Soul Calibur 3.
Thanks to the folks at gamefaqs (specifically some user named Ninja99), I unlocked all the character classes for create a fighter.
Now I don't have to use the fucking 8 move gimped character classes, I can use Soul of Xianghua!
Dress as a ninja, and still level 1 with pitiful HP, but it's still X, and she still rapes.
Until I hit a level 60 Soul Calibur character. (Curse you 60 Ivy and 60 Cervantes)
Least she doesn't suck like OTHER characters.

I am woefully deficient in clothes however, MUST UNLOCK THEM ALL.

Oh shit I SO have to recreate Hibiki with Setsuka's soul.

Edit:
Setsuka is fucking broken.
Cancellable B throw glitch allowing you to DO ANYTHING TO THEM WHILE THEY ARE IN FALLING ANIMATION, INCLUDING ANOTHER CANCELLED B THROW?
Yes please.
I think I found my new main.
Yes she has more than just throws, her 33_99B is fucking amazing.
Her Counter Hit combos all do 100+, etc etc.
X will probably still be alt.

EDIT FOR LAZY PEOPLE:
Fast Unlockables Oh My!
Infininte money glitch
1. Get some cash.
2. Buy as much as you can in the store.
3. Press select+start to return to start screen while in the store. DO NOT SAVE.
4. Load up a Chronicles of Swords save.
5. Lose as fast as possible.
6. Choose return to title, save your CoS game, notice your money is now back!
7. Repeat 2-6.

Fast discipline/class unlocking (Relatively)
Requirements: 2nd controller
1. Create two different custom class fighters.
2. Change your versus options to one round.
3. Have your fighters play standard vs at 0% (one hit deaths) until you hit 100 matches.
4. Repeat with each pair of classes.
5. Screw gaining levels!

And this is basically how I unlocked lots of stuff on the first day without even getting past stage 5 in chronicles and only beating Tales 5 or so times.
Least my Xianghua was able to get to Night Terror and win =D

EAT YOUR JAM!

More notes.

Talim was already low tier?
Why'd they kill her even more.
Anyway, WC evades less than it should, WC into A+B, B seems to be everyones favorite combo, from there the B stun CAN be mashed out of, so the launcher follow ups are rather risky.

Quick updates.

Tasofro has updated Eternal Fighter Zero to 4.01 AKA Memorial.
Two new characters (Akiko aka Nayuki's mom and awake Nayuki) and Kanna is now selectable without haxing the game.
Kanna is still cheese, and she banned from all competitive play because she is cheese.
Akiko's level 3 desparation super (No longer called overdrives, now called final memories) is fucking hilarious.

And, away we go!
All stolen from that grump Kalciane, I can't believe someone managed to convince him to keep Eternal Romancia alive =D
Good for them I say.
Nayuki Minase (awakened)

V-Type Thrust: 236+attack
Somersault Spike: 623+attack
Nayu-chan Twister: 214+attack (air-capable)
Nayu-chan Kick: 412+attack (air-capable) [this is a typo; it's 421]

Eterny Special
Ground to Air Freezer: 236236+attack
Super Nayu-chan Kick: 214214+attack (air only)
Memories of the Snow Rabbit or some shit: 641236+attack [F, HCF]

Final Memory
Totteoki no Collection: 236236+S

Akiko Minase
Freshness of the Food is Important: 236+attack
Let's Finish Preparation Quickly: 623+attack (repeat two more times for normal, 5 times for EX) [NOTE: The first two inputs are done on the same side, the third input is reversed. For the EX version, the first two are done on the same side, and every subsequent command is alternating, so if you were facing right, you would do 623C, 623C, 421C, 623C, 421C)
Don't Panic No Matter What: 214+attack
Cleaning Briskly: 41236+attack

Eterny Special
Let's Fail Next [what]: 236236+attack
Mischief is Useless?: 214214+attack
This is the Secret to a Second's Approval: 641236+attack [F, HCF]

Final Memory
Times When It is Not Sweet: 2A2BC

Character Changes
Ayu: Air EX 623 changed, scimitar goes down now.

Shiori: EX 214 changed, only one snowman comes out and he turns into a cold vortex.

Kaori: You can use Leg Smasher now (2C while in 66) [Haven't been able to get it myself, and the few times I did what looks like a normal sweep]

Makoto: j.C changed, and now has an added normal j.2C which was her old j.C. Nikuman is now 263S.

Mishio: Moves added. She now has elemental-aligned 623 (will drop the element once done) and 6C in Fire mode, a natural launcher. This move is quite good, I played around with a bit.

Mai: Loli Fireball is now Loli Electric Spark. Ugh, nerfed. (Loli Punch is also now Loli Stick Whack, but that was too minor for them to document, apparently)

Sayuri: Magical On Stage is now 22AD not 22AC. Also, Starball only hits once regardless of distance. What. (The multi-hitting Starball was actually neat, why'd they change it)

Mizuka: Smash and Sympathy (the hopping attack) is now 421, not 63214. Pitch and Bend (236 without violin bow) has a C version; it pushes the bow away from you. Tone and Setup B and C (F note) are changed: B will create a single treble-clef note that can be popped once, and C creates a triplet note that bounces around scattering more notes.

Nanase: Her Overdrive (Final Memory) deals 50% less damage when in red life. (Whose redlife, it doesn't say.)

Akane: Aegis Reflector changed. Only hits once for high stun, and doesn't home in but has set distances.

Misaki: Reversal is now 22A or 22B. Air 214AB added.

Mio: Short-range: B Whip added. You can continue this into A Whip. Long-range: Press S to fly briefly. You can keep doing this and you don't lose airdashes from it. Storm-style runaway! Gay.

Mayu: 236A only goes into Ferret Uppercut or something now. 214A followups are altered somehow. Overdrive is now 23693S, not something insane.

EX Mizuka: Followups to 236 were added to the air version. Fly glitch removed (undocumented).

Misuzu: 421 (Poison) is changed; they both send sparks far away that drift to the enemy. A sends them upwards, B sends them behind, C sends two upwards. Feather super is 1-level only now. Book activation area is larger (undocumented).

Kano: Dives nerfed majorly. Something happened to her 236, 421, and 214 moves, but I'm not sure what.

Michiru (no, not Minagi): 623 moves added. Headbounce is now 421. 236236 changed. Dash C is an overhead. EX Michiru Kick wallbounces if close enough. Michiru Kick knocks down.

Doppel: You can add right or left to her throws now. Jin-Mode causes your super meter to remain constant.

There are no notes for Sleepy Nayuki or Ikumi. I know for a fact Ikumi's dust loop has been nerfed, though (see previous post). VMan says her clone supers are different in terms of timing/spacing, but this doesn't really make up for it, and they seem to be the same to me.

The guard meter system seems to be gone completely. The bars are at the top, but nothing changes them.

Soul Calibur III

WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO THE TALIM?
AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!???
I DON'T KNOW YOU ANYMORE /CRY

WHERE'S THE AA AUTOSTEP WIND CHARMER?
WHERE'S THE 33A OUT OF WIND CHARMER?
HELL, WHERE'S WIND CHARMER 2?
WHERE'S 33A'S RANGE?
WHERE'S BB INTO WIND CHARMER?
HELL WHERE'S BB ANYTHING?
NO A, DODGE, OR K FOLLOW-UPS BB YOU ARE USELESS!
WHY DOES 3A NOT GO DIRECTLY IN TO AA ANYMORE?
IS AAfBA SUPPOSED TO REPLACE AA?
DO THEY REALIZE THE LAST A IS DUCKABLE NO MATTER WHAT?
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO USE WIND CHARMER WITH THAT LAME SHIT IF I KEEP GETTING DUCKED ON THE LAST HIT AND PUNISHED?

MUCH GNASHING OF TEETH.

I always felt guilty being with you, having fun, while the rest of my race was dead. At least I can...join...them...now...

Yeah finished Riviera a couple days ago.
I could wish for a longer ending...but whatever.
<3 Serene, I will absolutely have to draw something, even when I'm so lazy already.

Now that I have finished Riviera, I can turn my eyes toward a long delayed project...
A full translation of Leaf's tactics game, Utawareru Mono, translated as Not Quite Human.
This means I will attempt to translate every little bit of damn kanji and hiragana in the game, from options to omake to the battle system to the tutorials.

I have no idea how long this will take me, I've translated the entire starting screen options and their sub-options with the exceptions of the tutorials.
I also have the basic script up to the first choice translated, good thing the choice doesn't really matter at all.
Thank god this isn't one of those multi-ending things; I don't think I could tolerate multiple playthroughs.

Edit: Oh, I finally have a PS2...hell if I'm going to play it any time soon (Ugh, must relearn to solder or something for mod chip -_-)

FF3 DS

Watch me directly link an image from Insert Credit, thus owning their bandwidth.
Oh wait who am I kidding, no one visits here.

Anyway, holy shit.
DO THIS FOR FF6 ALREADY!
NOW NOW NOW NOW!

Harvest Moon PSP
Same deal, crazy 3D graphics of old loved games on hand helds.
PSP and DS are scarily powerful.

FATALITY

Blood on the Carpet
The main site is comprehensive though.

For the sake of science

You killed Nano! You ARS bastards!

Buri

OMFG<, Yukinose finally has returned to GGXX!
Who cares if it's to play SLASH now, BOUT TIME DORK!

Bang!

Hunting Ducks.
Yes, this is old.
Sue me.

New GBA game by Sting.

Screenshots and stuff of the madness at GameWatch.

How do they find people to do such adorable character designs?
Seems like the cards used to battle are being designed by the Riviera artist, Sunaho Tobe, while character designs are by some new guy Satoko Kiyuzuki.

Gundam

The first Japanese space tourist wants to go into space wearing a Char Aznable (Gundam original!) suit.

Are you OK?

SNK has gone and made a KOF dating sim for cell phones called Days of Memories.

Gainax is releasing a figure line of the angels as cute girls.
Kaworu with boobs included.

Vote on which is more disturbing!

Spaghetique tomatique basilique!

Look at me, I'm a wanna-be Allan.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
(3 turns around the pan)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. bay scallops, drained well (you honestly might want more scallops)
salt and pepper to taste
1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes, drained well
2 cups fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips (nothing wrong with dicing them)
8 oz. angel hair pasta, cooked until al dente

Place a large skillet over medium heat.
Add oil and heat 1 minute.
Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add scallops, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 3 minutes or until opaque.
Add tomatoes and basil and heat for 1 minute.
Remove from heat.
Add pasta to the pan and toss to combine well.

Tada.
By the way, the title of this post comes from a French comedy about homosexuality, which I have forgotten the name of.
The main character has an infinitely dorky, according to his son, way of talking about the only dish he can make.
Hence, "Spaghetique, tomatique, basilique!"

Hori

Hori makes a bloody PORING mouse.
I know at least half a dozen people squealing right now.
Ragnarok Online is Satan people!

I do love noodles...

Oldest noodles found in China.

Shaman King

So I heard Shaman King was/is pretty good, and went out and downloaded all the translations I could find.
Then I realized [UR]DAN of #lurk had 32 volumes of raws, so I got all the raws after the scanlations finished.
I avidly read/picture skimped/dictionary used through all those volumes until 32.
At 32 I basically went, "Huh?" and then checked JP and english sites.
Seems like 32 was the FINAL volume.

And so...I am left with this hideously bitter taste in my mouth.
The manga just CUTS OFF at volume 32, with like a couple pages of epilogue.
The main villain is never confronted, they're in the middle of a series of fights which just STOP after they all go to sleep, and the manga just STOPS.
Did the guy really need that much of a break?
People blame Jump Shueishia, but I don't buy that bullshit, I think the guy burnt out.
BUT STILL, he could have paused it until he was ready, not fucking cut it off in the HORRIBLE HORRIBLE way he did.

I feel robbed of the time I invested in this manga and its characters and story line.

Think of Bleach ending when "Bad guy mysteriously vanished and everyone lived together in Soul Society happily ever after."
It's that level of getting kicked in the proverbial groin.

BAH.

Unicef bombs the smurfs

I, I don't know what to say...


And:
An American in chains

Ugh.
Whenever I hear how badly the war in Iraq is going, I instinctively get annoyed, because it had valid points, and because no one said it would be easy.
They're fighting the good fight over there.
Leave that place alone and you get more planes into buildings.

But shit like the second link doesn't sit well at all with me and my view of the government.