Friday, December 17, 2004

Doot doot. So, yeah...I have indeed slept with two lesbians (a couple of weeks ago, actually). But please note that I said "slept with" and not "had sex with". Tsk tsk. You people and your dirty minds. ~_^ *tries to think of things to discuss* Oh! Yeah, the B-Spec version of Maverick Hunters 3 is coming along nicely. At least, the sign-up thread is. Perhaps this time it'll have a greater chance of survival than it did last time. I think that the content of the first page or two really has a lot to do with it, in terms of getting people interested. I'm still so disappointed that Flash and Warlock aren't continuing Maverick Hunters: Personification with me. Seriously, those have been the most fun RPGs I've ever been in at OB. And they aren't always beautifully written or anything, but somehow the characters and atmosphere are really appealing to me. *shrug* MH3: B-Spec is really a bit of a break in a way. I mean, it's really something I can casually participate in until one of my next big RPGs is done (whenever that will be, anyway). These days I have less motivation to do the big RPGs, primarily because of all the other things that have to be completed on the 'net. Speaking of which, I have long been considering a portfolio page of my own. Although I am involved with various web sites, I don't really have my own personal site that includes my resume and all of my work. So I have been thinking about developing my own portfolio site or something. The thing is, I don't know what kind of name/address it should have. I really really wanted to have www.j.com, but that appears to be registered. Does anyone have any ideas? I don't want to use my own name in the address or anything. In fact, I think I would rather identify my work by the "[J]" brand than my own name (considering that my name is about as common as "John Smith"). Considering that I've had a habit of labeling most of my work with my little logo (both online and in school), I figure that the site should really focus on that "brand". But finding a name is difficult. So far I'm calling the logo "J-Stamp", but I don't know if www.j-stamp.com is taken. And I don't know if it sounds right either. So, perhaps someone out there can suggest something cool, which isn't taken. ~_^ Other than that, I really don't know what else to talk about. If anyone here has Half-Life 2, I'd love to play with you sometime (~_^). I totally suck at the online mode (damn those Counter-Strike veterans V_V), but nevertheless, it's a lot of fun. I can definitely see why Counter-Strike has been so popular in Europe especially. It's yum. My name on there is "Dusty Blunts" if you ever see me around. Edit: Since my last theme was female, this one's male. I've had the intro image done for a while, but it was only today that I had the time to put it up. Now you can enjoy a little Australian currency while you're here. ~_^

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Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Quiz time. One of the few posts of mine to contain only a quiz. But a couple seem to have requested it (and I don't want to die painfully), so here it is. THREE NAMES YOU GO BY: 1. James 2. Jeh 3. Sexy Legs THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD: 1. JamesOtaku01 2. Desert Taipan 3. Sygnosis_X THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF: 1. My willingness to analyze things (and to self-analyze). 2. My legs (note the nickname above). 3. My overall craziness (life would be too boring otherwise). THREE THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF: 1. My nose - I've never liked it. 2. My inability to excel in things that I'm not passionate about. 3. My fickle nature with certain things. THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE: 1. Australian 2. German 3. Welsh THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU: 1. Fear. 2. Going insane (as in, losing my sanity). 3. Sydney Funnel Webs. THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS: 1. Coca-Cola. 2. Music. 3. Fun. THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW: 1. Purple "grab me" pajama pants, with orange octopi all over 'em. 2. Contact lenses. 3. N/A. THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS (or artists at the moment): 1. Overseer. 2. David Holmes. 3. Massive Attack (still). THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS AT PRESENT: 1. Skylight - Overseer. 2. I Against I - Massive Attack/Mos Def. 3. Almost Unreal - Roxette. THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS: 1. Sex on the beach. 2. Making a cool new site. 3. Making the RPG with the highest-ever FF (funk factor). THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP (love is a given): 1. Intelligence. 2. Sense of humor (preferably a black/dark sense of humor). 3. Trust. TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: 1. I love snakes. 2. I have slept with two lesbians. 3. My real name is Big Bertha. THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE/SAME SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU: 1. Dark features (dark hair in particular). 2. Intelligence/ability to converse. 3. Sense of humor/ability to enjoy Simpsons-esque humor (if you don't find Simpsons funny, you're not human, as far as I'm concerned). THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO: 1. Swim. 2. Play Aussie Rules Football (I never liked watching it and I hate playing it). 3. Make my tongue touch my nose. THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES: 1. Digital design (layout, graphics, whatever). 2. Catching movies at the cinema. 3. Listening to music as often as possible. THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW: 1. Sleep. 2. Play Rez (I have a craving). 3. Buy/make a Willy Wonka costume for next Halloween (even though we don't really celebrate it here -- I just want to wear that costume V_V). THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING: 1. Public Relations. 2. Director (of film/game/etc). 3. Bizarre web entrepreneur. THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION: 1. Dubai (UAE). 2. Japan. 3. North America. THREE KID'S NAMES: 1. India. 2. Nova. 3. Edan. THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE: 1. Create something that people have fun with. 2. Meet Shigeru Miyamoto. 3. Make a positive impact on someone's life. THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW OR DIE PAINFULLY: 1. Adam. 2. Justin. 3. Shy.

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Monday, December 13, 2004

Chewing gum is really gross, chewing gum I hate the most. I am glad that I was involved in one of those insane OB chats today. I guess it wasn't too insane, but no matter -- I was directed to Yahoo Movies, which I never visit. But oh, it was so worthwhile. If you go there, you'll find the trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Yum. At this point I should probably mention a few important points. 1) Roald Dahl is my favourite children's author. J.K. Rowling, while still good in her own right, is nonetheless a pale imitation of Mr. Dahl. 2) Tim Burton is one of my all-time favourite directors. It's very difficult to find anything produced by him that I haven't adored. 3) Did I mention that Roald Dahl is a brilliant author, with an incredible imagination? Charlie and the Chocolate factory is one of my favourite novels; I must have read it dozens of times as a child (and I read its sequel a few times too - Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator). So, I'm very excited to see that Tim Burton is making a film based on this novel. I have known about the existence of this film for some time, but to finally see a trailer...it's pretty exciting. I noticed that a couple of people had seen the original movie and were somewhat disappointed by the trailer. But I think it's best not to judge this new film in relation to the original (which itself was fantastic). It's probably better to judge this new film based on the novel. The novel is, of course, even better than the original movie (and will probably be better than the new movie). I can only hope that the new film does it some justice. It would also be very cool if someone (Burton or otherwise) would make a film from the sequel. Remember the glass elevator that Charlie and Wonka fly around in at the end of the movie/book? In the second novel, they go on an entire adventure through space, in that little elevator. It's fantastic. There is a sense of adventure and wonder about those novels that can be tough to find. I thought the trailer was so funky that I even made a new wallpaper. It's under Original Anime, which is probably the closest thing we have to "movies" at the moment. Or something. The original version is a 16:10 ratio image, for my own computer...so I've had to cut the sides off a bit, to accommodate the resolution requirement. Still, I think it comes out okay. I pretty much just did everything except Wonka himself (the background is a combination of different photographs, with brush effects and so on). So, if you're in need of a little craziness on your desktop, look no further. ~_^

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Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Step inside. Well, here I am, updating myOtaku from my shiny new laptop. I've never owned a laptop before and although I knew what I'd ordered, I was a little worried about a couple of things. The main thing was definitely the screen. But it turns out that the screen is fantastic; I'm very happy with it. It's a 16:10 ratio screen and it's very sharp and vivid. Yum. I'm also really happy with the performance of both the Pentium M and the Radeon Mobility 9600. I tried running Unreal Tournament 2004 on this thing, and it worked beautifully. It looks particularly good on this screen too, which is nice. Of course, I still have a lot to do. I have to set up two computers, and I still have to move everything over to this one. So hopefully I can do that within the next couple of days. Thanks to everyone for your kind messages in response to my last post. They're very much appreciated. I don't tend to talk about relationships very much here primarily because I'm more interested in discussing things that relate to this network. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with having a 100% personal blog on here, nor am I sure how interesting that would be. lol

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Monday, December 6, 2004

Almost unreal. Does anyone remember that song, by Roxette? I love it. I've been listening to a lot of Roxette lately, for some reason. o_O I seem to be posting less frequently here at myOtaku. Maybe I'm just imagining that, though. Or perhaps it's because I haven't really been online so much lately. Being in a relationship again (after too many months of being single) is nice; it's nice to have someone to devote time to. I guess the unfortunate thing is that I'm kind of in limbo at the moment, as I wait for this new computer to arrive. The sooner I can move all my stuff off here, the better. It'll allow me to get on with everything. In addition to those things, OtakuBoards is needing my attention right now. Unfortunately quite a few staff are pretty inactive at the moment and I've been trying to allow a really generous grace period, I suppose. I mean, I recognize that everyone has their own commitments and stuff. But I'm going to have to actually let the hammer drop before the end of this month, I think. Too many things need to be done that aren't being done. I don't mean to say any of this in a way that actually blames these people -- the truth is, everyone helps out as much as they can. And that's cool. I mention it more as a failing on my own part; I've left it a bit too long. But no matter, OtakuBoards has mostly been running pretty smoothly. It's mostly just that new initiatives aren't coming along satisfactorily. I had also planned to be starting Killing-Bill this month. Or should I say, finishing it this month. But it looks like that won't happen. I have mixed feelings about that, though. On the one hand it's a disappointment. But on the other hand, I've really enjoyed all the other work I've been doing online. And there's no rush. For once I am not doing something based on someone else's deadline, which allows me to just go at my own pace. I also think that this myO theme won't last long. This whole design-by-music thing is just too addictive. My next theme will have similar colours to this one, but it'll have a male character rather than a female. And then I'll do another female after that, or whatever. Right now I am actually working on a series of wallpapers for the new myOtaku backroom...to kinda introduce it, I suppose. They are taking a while, mostly because I'm doing a really complicated vector drawing on them (well, complicated for me, but probably easy for some others). Anyway, that's my rambly update for today. I really shouldn't update when I'm tired.

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Sunday, November 28, 2004

Noticing new birds... If I hear Bill Clinton say "I notice new birds that I've never noticed before" one more time, I am going to take out my very largest trout. And believe me, it's quite capable of knocking down a former president. Ahem. My weekend has been both good and bad. Good, in the sense that I went on one long extended date. Bad, in the sense that I haven't progressed with myOtaku, as a result of not being home. However, things are bogging down this week to some degree anyway. You see, my dad's computer in his office has finally given up. Or at least, it's very close to doing so. So on the weekend he said that he needs a new computer urgently; he wants me to format mine and set it up for him. It's a good deal, given that mine is only a year old and given that I look after my things with insane care. But considering all of the work I have on here (some of it very important -- for example, I really can't afford to lose all my layered design files for sites like myOtaku), I obviously can't go without a computer for too long. So, he offered to buy me a new one. Don't you love it when someone comes to you and says "You need to buy a new computer this weekend, I will pay for it."? Admittedly, this is the first time it's been said to me, but I enjoyed it. ~_^ I considered my options. My last two computers were bought from Dell. For me, it's a happy medium. I can choose just about all of the internal bits and pieces, and still have a lot of security (ie: very extensive warranty and so on). Also, Dell offers some great freebies (for instance, I got $500 cash back on my new computer). So, I considered what type of computer to buy. And I thought I'd take a bit of a leap (for me, anyway). I'm going to get a notebook rather than a new desktop. A few things motivated my choice. For one, my desk in the study here is reasonably small. I have very little room to open out A3 pages and things like that -- and when you're doing any type of design work, that's a pain. I don't want to put my keyboard to one side and all that junk. So, a notebook would help there. Also, we have wireless Internet a home. And during summer, this study (with its poor ventilation) gets extremely hot. So...being able to be on the 'net and work anywhere in the house (or even outdoors) is a very attractive option for me. In any case, it should be good. All in all, the notebook will be similar to my desktop I guess. Its processor isn't as fast, but it has more RAM. And it has the very best ATi video card that was on offer (which I'm forgetting the name of right now, other than that it includes "Turbo" in there lol). So that'll be good as well. However, this means that I have a lot of work this week. I will have two computers to format, and I will be setting up all of my dad's business things in his office downstairs, which will be a little annoying. There's a lot to do. One of the benefits is that I'll finally have a DVD burner (I never got one on this computer, due to it being slightly over my budget). So that'll be funk. Also, on an unrelated note, I finally saw Hero on Sunday. I recommend it to everyone, especially if you enjoyed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (and even if you didn't, it's worth a look). It's worth watching for its gorgeous visuals alone, not to mention the moving story. But I am guessing most of you here have seen it by now. What did you think of it? I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts.

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Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Cool morning. I don't know how long it's been since I've woken up early (ie: around 5am/6am) and felt so good. For once, I had a proper night's sleep. It's very...satisfying. And the weather is beautiful this morning. Yesterday was very, very warm and this morning the air is a little cool and very crisp. Perfect. I've changed my theme here, yet again. I still have a few little things to fix/tweak (including a new music track, to suit this style ~_^). I wanted to use pink, since so few people use it. The person who seems to use it best is Tony; I admire his respect for the colour, hehe. It can be very funky when used in certain ways. I don't know how successful I've been here, but yeah. Also, since I used a male silhouette in my last style, I thought I'd use a female this time. As it turns out, my inspiration was kind of based on Feel the Magic, for Nintendo DS. I ended up combining that with a musical theme, or something. Okay, I've just added the new song. Somehow, I feel like I need something that suits this style. You may recognize this track from Jet Set Radio (or Jet Grind Radio, for you guys in the US).

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Monday, November 22, 2004

Cool morning. I don't know how long it's been since I've woken up early (ie: around 5am/6am) and felt so good. For once, I had a proper night's sleep. It's very...satisfying. And the weather is beautiful this morning. Yesterday was very, very warm and this morning the air is a little cool and very crisp. Perfect. I've changed my theme here, yet again. I still have a few little things to fix/tweak (including a new music track, to suit this style ~_^). I wanted to use pink, since so few people use it. The person who seems to use it best is Tony; I admire his respect for the colour, hehe. It can be very funky when used in certain ways. I don't know how successful I've been here, but yeah. Also, since I used a male silhouette in my last style, I thought I'd use a female this time. As it turns out, my inspiration was kind of based on Feel the Magic, for Nintendo DS. I ended up combining that with a musical theme, or something.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2004

myOtaku: Redefined Well, I've been talking about the new myOtaku backroom a little within recent weeks, as you know. But I haven't really mentioned many details. Although it's still too early to give much away (and although I really want to avoid that anyway, to maintain some of the surprise), I thought I'd release a small tidbit for those who are interested. That, my friends, is the new myOtaku.com logo. Well, that's the graphics portion of it anyway. There is also a text component, but I'll leave that for you to see when everything goes online. Although we aren't actually developing a new "version" of myOtaku right now, the new backroom will have several key advantages. For one, it will have a massively updated design. The colours in the above logo represent the Cherry flavour, which will probably be default. However, myO users will be able to select multiple backroom flavours, to suit your own tastes. In addition, it'll allow us to move on to the next significant myO update. And that will be very cool. Among other things, you'll have a WYSIWYG post editor for your Otaku Life, as well as a post preview feature (which Justin has mentioned at OB, in response to a suggestion). That should make myOtaku a little more like OtakuBoards, in terms of ease of posting. And then...there's the rest. So much more coming in the future. I can't even begin to tell you how cool this place is going to become, when all is said and done. ~_^ Anyway, there you go; a little visual tidbit. I'm thinking about doing some myOtaku wallpapers in the various flavours, with a very large and sharp version of the logo. If you guys are interested in that at all, I might put it up for you. Oh and, I do want to say one thing before I go. This post that you've just read is dedicated to Panda. Her myOtaku is always a delight to read -- it always brightens my day. So, please, pay Panda a visit and wish her well. ^_^

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Sunday, November 14, 2004

I've come to make you feel good. More Curve? Hell yes. Awesome lyrics in this track, too (as if you expected any different). ~_^ I bought Sonic Mega Collection today. It was a great buy, save for a few problems. For one thing, the emulation is a bit shifty in some areas (most noteably the music). And some of the extras are deceptively crappy. For instance, there is a video menu which has a video called "History of Sonic". So here I was, preparing for a documentary with some cool interviews and stuff. But no. All I get is a quick and crappy splicing of Sonic clips, which don't even include all of the Sonic games. V_V Oh and, my biggest frustration with this collection? It includes the beginning and ending videos for Sonic CD, but does not include the actual game! Why has Sega never included this title in any of their compilations, even though it's often regarded as the best of the 2D games? Argh. Someone at Sega/Atari needs to be slapped with a particularly large trout. Although the games themselves are great, you just get the sense that the whole thing wasn't put together by someone who really loves and understands Sonic. You know? Sure, you get artwork. And you get the original manuals and all that stuff. But seriously, there so much more stuff they could have included - even little things - that aren't hard to do. It sucks that they missed the opportunity to create a really definitive Sonic collection. Oh well. Maybe one day someone (Sega or otherwise) will get it right. We can only hope. ~_^ I will write a more substantial update when I can think of something that is worth discussing. Yeah. Edit: Go to Naughtiness' page and check out all of her cool bits and pieces. By that I mean, the cool images she has made. ~_^

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