Wednesday, March 9, 2005

You don't have to be the lonely one.

So, you should really visit Miss Panda-chan's page. It's getting progressively weirder. But of course, I approve of that - I am happy to be the inspiration for grotesque cross-dressers and bizarre questions of the day. I wonder if Gail is actually the evil twin of a friend of mine...the two seem quite similar. This friend (her name's Beam -- isn't that cool?) is an insanely awesome girl from The Phillippines, who has amazing/wild fashion sense and who always manages to look like a real-life anime character. She also has a deliciously black sense of humor. (And yes, Gail, I'm very comfortable with my masculinity. More comfortable than should be possible, I suspect). ^_^; On an unrelated point, I want to stress something. If any of you - any of you, even if you feel you don't know me all that well - are having problems or needing someone to listen, please do not hesitate to IM me. It may seem like that came out of the blue, but...lately I've been talking to various people who have been having problems. And sometimes it can really help to be there to listen to a friend. I know I really appreciate it when others are there for me. So...in all seriousness, if anyone wants to chat about anything that's bugging them or something like that, please feel free to do so. I'm always prepared to listen to what people have to say; I really value everyone in our little community. You're all wonderful people. ^_^ And I guess that ends this crazy/silly update. Oh, except to say that I now feel obligated to start an Arcadia fan club. Her comments on my last couple of posts in particular just touched my heart in ways that she can't even imagine. Yes...heart. ~_^

Comments (12) | Permalink

Monday, March 7, 2005

Saddle me up.

I don't know what surprises me more: the fact that most of you actually seem excited be prospect of an A&J-developed S&M site, or the fact that most of you took me seriously. To be specific, we didn't discuss S&M. But Adam did link me to the following site (go there at your own peril): Suicide Girls. Now, there are several things I like about this site. Check out their groups page. Note how everything is organized so clearly-yet-stylishly. And look at the main page. There's a lot of data there, but it's all quite nicely arranged. And check out that awesome animated logo -- they actually pulled that off without making it annoying. How uber of them! So yes. I'm inspired by Suicide Girls and to a lesser extent, Manson USA. Having said that, this network is clearly going to take up the bulk of our time for the foreseeable future. And that's not a bad thing -- there is so much potential here that it boggles the mind. I don't think most people are really aware of how much we're going to be blowing the roof off this place within the next couple of years. But, it's something to look forward to anyway. In other news, check out my newly-uploaded song. Much smaller in memory and donated to me by the ever-lovely Mimmi. I now immediately associate this song with Mimmi, S&M and a friend who admitted being attracted to me yesterday. Isn't it funny how that can happen, even with songs that are sometimes totally unrelated to what you associate them with? o_O Oh and...Panda, you can strap me on any day. If we ever attend an anime convention together, I suspect we'll attract more attention than even Man-Faye (and a much better kind of attention I'd think).

Comments (4) | Permalink

Five o'clock shadow.

Thanks for your comments on my last post, everyone. I felt that Mimmi really deserved to be recognized. When I made this layout, I considered the idea of putting a little box on the right, where I could basically plug something each week. The idea was to, you know, advertise/promote things that people are doing in general (ie: I'd never plug my own stuff there). But I couldn't make it look right and I was unsatisfied with the result. So...maybe I'll figure something out. I kind of like the idea though. I also decided to take up Mimmi's myOtaku challenge. I agreed that one day I will randomly access her myO and give it a total makeover. So she'll come online one day and it'll look totally different. It's a really fun idea, I think. And it's a good challenge. I've already completed certain graphics for it; I hope she likes it. Either way, it'll be a fun exercise. Something like this was done before (I'm not sure if they wanted me to mention it or not -- but it had to do with entries on each other's pages, rather than graphics). I won't mention their names though, just in case. ~_^ But it's a fun idea. There's something odd and interesting about just hijacking someone's page and leaving your mark on it; that is, when you have permission. I'm hoping the Feds don't monitor myOtaku. >_> On this note, I've also been informed about our next big event at OtakuBoards. It relates to myOtaku. So, if you've begun dabbling in Alan's hacking tips, you'll be in a good position to enter that event. Not to say it's a requirement, but having a unique and cool design will definitely help. Anyway, the other day Adam and I were talking about web development in general. We were reflecting on theOtaku.com, OtakuBoards and myOtaku...and how we are happy with them and we've enjoyed the challenge (considering that neither of us never knew much at all about anime -- and still probably don't, compared to most of you). I told Adam that although making sites that primarily appeal to teenage girls is a lot of fun, I'd really like to do something totally different. Just as anime was a HUGE change for Adam (and for me as well), I thought it might be fun to randomly dive into something totally different. So we talked about it for a while and we decided that our next big project should be S&M-based. Adam showed me a really cool site about this subject (I loved the design!) and we agreed that it'd be a cool idea. If you don't know what "S&M" means, don't worry; you won't like the site anyway. For the rest of you, I hope you look forward to it. *cracks whip*

Comments (21) | Permalink

Saturday, March 5, 2005

I want to write your name on my t-shirt right about now.

I decided to dedicate this post to Mimmi. I recently received a most generous package in the mail from our favourite Swedish celebrity. It contained...everything! Various Swedish chocolates (and we all know Sweden makes the most creamy, delicious chocolate), Naruto episodes, a ton of Swedish music (including a LOT of Roxette), a beautiful letter, multiple plushies (Pikachu will be happy about that), an article of clothing and the list goes on! So, I thought that I'd use this post to talk about Mimmi. First of all, we all have stories about Mimmi, don't we? I mean, any Otakuite worth his or her salt, has had some sort of postitive/funny experience with Mimmi during her time here. I think that I first encountered Mimmi-chan through myOtaku here. A few people seemed to know her but at that time I don't think she was the kind of celebrity that she is now. Somehow it snowballed. Actually, I shouldn't say "somehow". It snowballed because Mimmi has never ceased to be one of the coolest members we've ever had. Her polite and lighthearted demeanour, combined with her intelligence, sense of humor and general naughtiness, have made her very famous around these parts (and rightly so). I thought I might leave the floor open for comments. You should use my comment box to tell everyone how awesome you think Mimmi really is. ~_^ myOtaku/OB definitely wouldn't be the same without her!

Comments (14) | Permalink

Thursday, March 3, 2005

I want to fly into your sun...

Just out of interest, I wanted to ask everyone something about OtakuBoards. I am planning to do a particular type of skin for 7.5, but if I get time I'll do a second skin. I was thinking of doing something like the design you see on myOtaku lately (this design and the previous one) - ie: mostly black and white, with pink bits. Would that interest anyone? I doubt it'd be as popular for the default skin, but I personally like the colours and I think I'd enjoy doing a darker skin for OB as an option. I know I'd use it, anyway. So if that interests you guys, let me know. Implementation work on 7.5 has begun; that work will go as fast as I can, for the most part. So I really hope to have most of it done in a fairly short timeframe. Anyway. Last time I believe Mimmi asked about anime. So I thought I'd respond to that. Generally, I've never been a big anime fan. That isn't really to say that I don't like anime itself, it's just that a lot of anime doesn't particularly appeal to me. And I guess, generally, I find a lot of anime out there to be fairly low quality. But there is definitely some anime that I like and I've definitely had exposure to it for a long time. I'm not sure what the situation is in America, but in Australia, anime has been a part of morning cartoons for a very long time. In fact, in the mornings before school, I can never remember a time where there wasn't anime. So from a young age I've grown up watching a variety of anime and western animation in the mornings. In that sense, anime is nothing especially new - that's probably true for anyone who's grown up with it in that sense. However, I've never really been passionate about it. There were only two series that I ever really enjoyed. One was called Teknoman; I believe some OBers know of it, but it's not a widely-known anime. Unfortunately I haven't seen it in a long time. But I have very fond memories of it. The other series that I ended up enjoying (and I'm now forgetting the name of it again), was basically an anime version of The Wizard of Oz. I think it was called Return to Oz or something, wasn't it? Someone out there may know. In any case, it was (obviously) childish, but very cool. And being that it was a series, it was a whole lot more in-depth than the original story. There was a lot to it and it was like this big magical spiral, with so many different adventures. So I definitely enjoyed that. But other than that, there hasn't really been anything that has really grabbed me. Then again, there's also a lot I haven't seen. I really enjoyed Battle Angel Alita, which I saw once on SBS (local TV station). Again, I only saw that once and it was a while ago, but I was quite happy with it. I'm excited about the prospect for a live action version, anyway. In more recent times I've really enjoyed stuff like The Animatrix; though this is possibly because it was largely written and organized by the Wachowskis, which could be one reason why the production values seem so much higher than a lot of anime I've seen. I don't just mean in terms of raw animation (though that's a part of it), I mean in general, it was a very impressive package. I'd love to see an entire film done like Detective Story. That grainy Film Noir with the subtle CG work was simply gorgeous. Apart from that, I own very little anime though. I also own Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Spirited Away and .hack//SIGN (the entire Japanese box set). Vampire Hunter D was more or less an impulse buy. I enjoyed it, but not to any great extent. I felt that it had potential and it started well, but...as it went on I became somewhat bored of it. It was nice though; reminded me of Castlevania, lol. Spirited Away was simply wonderful. I think I appreciated it a lot more upon second viewing though. That bath house...there's something very appealing about it. I can't quite say what it is. Maybe the fact that all the characters were only up at night and this made it like one giant slumber party? That could be it. But somehow it just had this atmosphere of incredible fun about it -- it made me want to visit that bath house at night. Does anyone else feel that way about it? Something about that combination of night time activity and the location by the water and everything -- it was just very appealing somehow. .hack//SIGN was something that I didn't buy (I received it via theOtaku.com so that I could write about it). I did some very detailed episode summaries, but never finished them. I feel guilty about this, however, there were two big problems. One, my version has terrible subbing. Terrible. So bad, in fact, that it's hard to know what's going on at all. Secondly, the US version had been released and various names were changed (for both characters and objects). Combine that with the fact that my version had lousy subtitles and you have a recipe for disaster. I felt it would be hard to seem authoritative on something that I really have a lot of trouble working out. So I didn't want to risk it, with that. So there you go. There's a general post on my experience with anime. There's a lot more to say about the subject itself, though. But I will leave that for later.

Comments (9) | Permalink

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Bang.

Hm, I suppose I should perform a little comment commentary, eh? Aiyisha: Well, the big question right now is whether or not he'll actually come back to Australia anytime soon. I've heard conflicting reports on that, but obviously no tour dates have been announced. If he does, though, I suspect that I will be going as either a) Wonka or b) in a Golden Age suit/costume. But who knows. Mostly I'm just hoping something gets announced for Australia. Kei-chan: Good question. ~_^ PT: Never! Juu-ness: A cone. That way you can suck the melty bits out and eat the chocolate at the tip. Doc G: What does the real Jeh look like? Some know, some don't. Maybe I should post a picture of myself in a costume and force you to guess. Shinmaru: Well, I will keep this actual layout for a while. But will the theme itself change? Who knows. Probably! I have two reasons for frequent theme changes. One, I like to keep this place fresh and I enjoy making the art. And two, it gives me an excuse to produce graphics for my upcoming folio. Enjoyable and practical! Mimmi-chan: I'd have to be careful what I let her take pictures of; she's very likely to make me blush. Change your layout? Hm. You know, part of the reason I feel so comfortable doing my own is because I am not afraid of totally turning people off. At worst, I'm just hurting my own page, which is okay. But I'd hate to do something on your page that you didn't like! However, it's definitely an interesting challenge. I have ideas about that already... J-Dawg: You only say that because my illegal activities turn you on. ~_^ Miss A.: That's a really good question. If I were men's underwear, I'd have to be some kind of boxer-brief. If I were women's underwear, I'd have to be some kind of black lacey lengerie. As to who I'd look best on? I'm not really sure. *considers the recent chat with Mimmi and Annie* Hm...perhaps they could answer that question. ^_^; John: You'll have to visit Alan's Dead-Seraphim forum to learn about such tricks. Bio: Ahh, nice to hear that it works with FireFox. Apparently a few people had had problems with the music on here for whatever reason. Hopefully that's fixed now. Apologies to those with dial-up; the MP3 is somewhat large. But the next one won't be. Shinji: Thank you. But I'm not entirely sure what your second paragraph means. So yes. Thank you for your comments, everyone (as difficult as some of them were to respond to ~_^). I was kind of hoping that someone would come up with a topic for me to discuss in this post, though. It's surprisingly difficult to think of things to discuss that are relatively non-controversial. Also, I've put a new MP3 up already. It's still somewhat large, but that's due to the physical length of the track mostly. If you remember dodgy video game movies, you may remember this track. ~_^ I like Orbital, but as with most artists, I find him to be a mixed bag. Some tracks really stand out as being quite amazing, some are okay (and a whole lot better in remixed form) and some just don't tweak my music-gland at all. However, I do find his version of the Dr. Who theme to be quite cool, despite not being a Dr. Who fan. At any rate, this should be a change of pace from my last track - the music is somewhat like Curve I suppose, but that's still a stretch, as there are no real lyrics to speak of. Still, it might be something interesting that you haven't heard before.

Comments (11) | Permalink

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

I'd really love to sell you.

So here we are, bitches. A hacked myOtaku. Someone had to come along and do it right eventually, huh? *evil laugh* Uh, that's about all I have to say right now. Why not ask me some questions? Give me something to post about.

Comments (11) | Permalink

Sunday, February 27, 2005

If you build it, they will come.

If you haven't already been, you should really visit Alan's Dead-Seraphim.net forums. It's a cool place and Alan is offering to teach you how to modify your myOtaku in slightly less-than-legal ways. That alone really makes it worthwhile, especially if you have questions about how to achieve certain effects. I remember saying to Adam a while ago that I'd like to see more precise controls for styles on myOtaku.com. Adam expressed a concern that the uh..."lower quality members", so to speak, might create sites that are simply unreadable as a result. But I told him that they will do that anyway; just look at the sites with millions of quizzes on their front pages and so on. So in an effort to push that agenda a little, my next myO update is going to see a combination of Alan's hacking support and my own design ideas. It'll be similar to this design in terms of colours, but it's going to feature edited graphics and HTML code. I hope that the end result will be pleasing, if only to demonstrate how far it's possible to go on myOtaku.com as it currently stands. I have also had something on my mind lately, in regard to OtakuBoards. As you know, theOtaku.com has never really had a history of affiliation. Many web sites get very involved in affiliation and so on, as a way of advertising for free and building up their visitor base. Due to our current size and growth, it is unnecessary for us to link up with other sites in this way. Obviously there are benefits to that; we are able to very carefully control the kind of content on our network and so on. However, specifically in reference to OB, I am interested in looking outward. I don't actually intend to have any kind of affiliation program through OB or anything, however, I would like to consider expanding our Community Events forum, so that we can develop cross-site events with event partners. I see a few advantages to this. One, OtakuBoards is a pretty tight-knit community. We're very independent and proud of our uniqueness. But at the same time, we are part of a vast sea of anime and gaming-based communities on the Internet. Obviously there are varying levels of quality, but there are still quite a few sites out there who have a similar attitude to quality as OtakuBoards. So, I'm interested in seeing if we can expand our community-wide events to include other friendly sites. There are already several online communities who are engaged in this type of activity. And not so long ago, there was an opportunity to do it on OB -- unfortunately, the other site was a Gran Turismo site (of similar size to our own), but I didn't feel that there were enough hardcore GT players on OB to justify any kind of competition. Still, it's something I am thinking about. Of course, if anything like this goes forward, you can bet that I'll be very cautious about who partners with us on such events. Afterall, I am more concerned about OB's quality and integrity than anyone else. What do you think, anyway? Are there any sites out there that you think would make good candidates for this type of thing?

Comments (11) | Permalink

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Redux Before I say anything, I have to point you to the coolest RPG ever! I remember reading the thread title and not thinking much of it, but Shy convinced me to actually read the Adventure Inn thread. And wow. What a cool and wacky concept! Ozy, I salute you. And I urge everyone to go and take a look. In other semi-related news, I've just launched a new little thread in OB Anthology: Return to Wonderland. I have no idea if it'll gain any sort of popularity, but hey, it can't hurt to try. So there you go. That's about all I have to say for this update. Thanks to everyone for your comments on my previous post. ^_^

Comments (7) | Permalink

Monday, February 14, 2005

Many miles, many roads. Whoa, feels like ages since I've posted here. Either there's less going on in my life lately, or less I'm willing to talk about. Probably the latter (those who know about the nipple candy spillage may understand). I knew I wanted to update my theme again (it's nice to rack up all those intro images), but I really had no idea what subject to choose. After some consideration, I decided to do a Madonna-themed skin. Why? Well, it's a bit of a long story I suppose. On Saturday night I heard the Oakenfold version of "What it Feels Like for a Girl". I hadn't heard it in a long time. And it made me remember the video clip -- you know, the one that was apparently banned in the USA (wasn't it available late at night on MTV or something?) I remembered how upsetting that video was. Not due to the violence, mind you. But due to the whole message of it -- basically, a woman frustrated with living in a man's world...and venting her anger in a night of violence against men, that ultimately leads to her own suicide. It's a pretty harsh message. But it's something that I think a lot of people can probably relate to on some level (though not as extreme, and not necessarily if you are female). So, I was looking for images that might give me ideas (thus the one in my intro). But I also did some reading. I discovered that Madonna's "Music" album was a collaboration with Mirwais, a French house artist, whose music I've actually had up on myOtaku here before. I believe I had Disco Science playing -- my favourite Mirwais track, with an awesome video clip. I read that Mirwais favourite song on the album was a song called "I Deserve It". So I tried downloading it and, lo and behold, I actually like it quite a lot. It reminds me of Madonna's collaboration with William Orbit on the Ray of Light album. I still think that was the pinnacle of her work, probably. I've never been much of a Madonna fan -- I've somewhat liked a song here or there, but I've never really followed her career. The Ray of Light album had a lot of songs that I warmed to after a while. It was very...earthy, while still being fundamentally electronic. Very unique. Apparently she is collaborating with Orbit on her next album too, which can only be a good thing. In the midst of Britney Spears collaborations and American Life, I have lately wondered if Madonna has been singing her last breaths. Afterall, some of these latest songs and collaborations have been really questionable, especially after the relative greatness of Ray of Light. But it looks like Madonna still has some life left. This song and a few of her recent works tend to remind me that she's still a pretty remarkable artist -- if she can still somehow lure me in on occasion, she must be doing something right, I think. Oh, and, normally I do vector drawings for my intro images. At least, that's been my trend lately. But since this one is a photo manipulation, I thought I'd post the original for you to compare:

Comments (11) | Permalink