Wednesday, July 28, 2004

I have three purple hearts!
I don't really have much time, so I'll try to make this brief.

Half-Life owns. I remember telling Shin that I've never played a first person shooter that I really liked a little while back, but now I certainly have. The atmosphere created in Half-Life is intense, and despite the somewhat dated graphics, I still found myself on the edge of my seat.

I got a couple hours in (The Marine dudes are starting to pop up), downloaded Steam for the sake of Counter-Strike, but some of the files must not have transferred or something. None of the games would work- The computer couldn't find hl.exe. So, sadly, I uninstalled all of the Steam and HL files (CS too, but I never got to play it), reinstalled Half-Life, and I'm back at the beginning. I suppose I brought it upon myself, in a way, and I'm probably going to end up playing through the game a few times anyway.

I listened to all of the DDR soundtrack a couple days ago, and it was good, but I wasn't left with the sense that I had what I paid for. As strange as it sounds, there was too much techno/hip hop stuff on it. I really would have been happier if it were a compilation of all of the bubbly happy J-pop songs sung in squeakily high voices.

Strange, no?

In other news, my dad got nine straight days off. Such an event has not been seen since.. Well, my mom and dad's honeymoon, heh. He's had time off, but it's generally for weddings or funerals. Needless to say, he's quite happy.

As happy as he is insane.

I woke up to the sound of our local rock station as he was yelling "ROCK AND ROLL VACATION!!" I then slept for a while, as everything he talked about has "Rock and roll" as an adjective.

Rock and roll shirt. Rock and roll television. Rock and roll pants.

He then rudely woke me up, and I continued trying to sleep as he was playing my stereo's radio at rather loud levels.

My mom somewhat joined in, singing all of the songs and such, while freaking about our grandmother coming from Pittsburgh to visit for, like, a week. She's coming into LAX tonight, actually, and the schedule conflicts with Family Guy, hosted by the creator himself. Oh, and Reno 911. I can't believe I'm missing Reno..

Speaking of my personal life, I now have another cousin. He was born at 8:30 this morning, and we're probably going down to San Diego to meet him tomorrow.

After that, we'll be up in the San Diego area for a few days. So you all probably won't be getting your daily dose of Sennen.

I, however, live with the guy. *laughs at your misfortune*

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sit on my rock and roll ass and make some rock and roll waffles while watching rock and roll coverage of the Democratic National Convention.

EDIT: The new DS design is sexy.
Comments (2) | Permalink

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

New theme.
This theme took a while to get right. First off, the intro pic was way too big, so I had to figure out how to fix that, and I remembered that OB attatchments don't show up unless you're logged in, which is quite a confusing disadvantage to anybody not logged in. :|

I really do like it, though. It's sort of creepy, but hey, it's Silent Hill.

Half-Life and the DDR soundtrack arrived in the mail today. I was playing HL just now, and it's one hell of a game, though I'm not entirely sure where to go next. A map or something would be nice..

And the soundtrack is awesome. I'm listening to it right now.

I'll do a more in-depth review on the items later. I'm too busy.
Comments (5) | Permalink

Monday, July 26, 2004

Ranter's block.
Once the days during summer begin to blur together, and you lose track of the days and your regular sleep schedule, and you begin to wonder "How much longer do I have until school?" not to precisely calculate how many more days, hours, or maybe even minutes that you have left to spend enjoying summer, but how much longer until you get to go back to school.

In this strange gap between "Oh my God, Devil May Cry is so awesome" and "Yes, Half-Life is finally here," I am pretty damn bored. I have not done anything too desperate yet, but I'm certainly getting there. I'm designing shirts and listening to Launch Yahoo's Dance radio station, for God's sake.

Two days ago I was curious about DirtCheapSoftware.com, the website that I ordered Half-Life from, and I came across a site that lets people give reviews of the web stores they bought things off of. For the most part, Dirt Cheap Software's was positive, but there were a few people who never even got their products. Who knows how much of that could be contributed to simple theft, but the site doesn't let you find out where your product is. The site I bought the DDR soundtrack from emailed me on Thursday or Friday saying the thing was shipped, so I'm expecting it to be here today (I believe the place is in Glendale, only an hour or two away from here).

Nobody responds to customer service emails at DirtCheap. Bastards..

--

I watched Not Another Teen Movie on Comedy Central on Saturday, and I found it to be pretty hilarious. I love that kind of movie, where they shamelessly and blatantly satyrize a genre.

There were quite a few good running gags, including the innocent girl with Tourette's, the obese football-playing farmboy and his concussions, and the spitting/"Damn it!" football coatch, but the one that took the cake was the slow clapping guy.

I utterly despise movies that put in a scene where one guy stands up, starts clapping, a few more people stand up and clap, and pretty soon the whole room is applauding the little blind boy who came in last in the race. But I love it when movies make fun of the slow clap.

Guy: *starts a slow clap at the most inappropriate time*

Melissa Joan Hart: Whoa, whoa, you can't just do a slow clap at any time.

Guy: I can't?

Melissa Joan Hart: No, it has to be the right moment.

Guy: Well, how will I know?

Melissa Joan Hart: Oh, you'll know. You'll know.

Good stuff..

--

Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel like making a much darker myOtaku theme or something. I'm out.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Raging Drag Queens.
Comment Commentary

Shin- Meh. I don't know what to think anymore.

James- *keeps that in mind* Shin shook my faith in VII, but considering he did the same thing to VIII.. :P

DDG- I have a rather weak prescription, so I don't have to worry about that. My dad, on the other hand.. Heh, I won't get into that.

Mimmi- Hey, I calls them as I sees them. :P

Mal- Do not! >:|

--

My brother slept over at a friend's house yesterday, and you know what that means..

I could watch whatever I wanted instead of listening to him whine about wanting to watch Ed, Edd & Eddy while asking me to hug him all night.

I watched some stand-up comics on Comedy Central, and they were all pretty good. The first guy was treating the audience like a group of small children as he sang songs about hermaphrodites, how his alcoholic father brought a new mommy home every night, and his childhood best friend who was "special."

The next guy bored me for a bit, so I flipped through the channels. QVC, the Home Shopping Network, is apparently doing a Christmas in July thing right now. Well, they were trying to sell this "game console" for $21. It was called the Game Maxx, or something like that, which boasted fifty piece-of-crap games and graphics somewhere between NES and SNES quality. The controller was a blatantly a knockoff of Gamecube's, with the same color scheme and button placement. The only thing that was different about it was that it was about the size of the old Xbox controllers, with some sort of steering wheel placed in the middle.

Most of the games were little knockoffs of old arcade games, but the guy seemed to put particular emphasis on the Speed Racer games..

I ask you, when was the last time Speed Racer wore a red costume and raced random people on a motorcycle?

Point is, the thing totally blowed, and the QVC people were praising it as if it was the epitome of entertainment. They were praising the "vibrant" colors (Think of Game Boy Color) and the "fun" games.

Fifty year old housewives were calling in and talking about how they were buying two for their nephews. They then brought up how it was so easy that even grandparents could play with their children.

Let me tell you something, QVC. Go sell some Playstations or a Gamecube. Hell, if you want games to be simple enough for grandparents to pick up and play the games, put out some Super Nintendos. Better yet, try on Bubsy 3D. If Speed Racer on a three miles-per-hour motorcycle is so great, then Bubsy must be the Mona Lisa of gaming.

In short, QVC, you suck. Tell your host people to become movie critics so they can praise every romantic comedy that's released.

--

I then watched a little more I Love the 90's (I can't get enough of the Resevoir Dogs segment), and went back over to the TV Guide channel. It said that .hack//DUSK was going to be on at one. I had not seen any of the series before, and because I read the manga I have no desire to buy the DVDs, but I felt I may as well watch it.

The beginning was pretty dull. The opening song was rather boring, and the opening scenes were just some recap. It certainly felt light-hearted and cheery, like the manga version, and the dub was solid, but the only part I really liked about it was the hot spring scene (Ooh la la), but the plot twist at the end was cool as well.

And that's all I have to say today.
Comments (2) | Permalink

Friday, July 23, 2004

Oh my Gaw!
What is wrong with you people? Not commenting on a perfectly good post.. >:|

Well, now that the moment is gone, I remember what I was going to talk about yesterday.

My mom decided that I needed an eye appointment a few days ago, so we went to this little eye doctor place in the more downtown middle-of-the-desert area. I found it rather funny that everybody in the waiting room was either horrendously obese or old. In fact, a good number of them were both. Days of Our Lives was playing on a big-screen television in the corner, and my brother had his first taste of a non-Dragonball soap opera. :P

"Mom, they've been in the shower doing that for three commercial breaks now."

"And they'll be in there for three more, now be quiet and draw."

There was only one chair in the examination room, so we stranded my brother with the fat, old, soap opera-going people in the waiting room.

It all went pretty quickly. My vision apparently hasn't changed too much since two and a half years ago- the stigmatism has just worsened a bit.

The doctor was originally from Germany, and was telling us about European football and American soccer.. My mom brought up how her nephew "Was sent to an all German-speaking camp" when he was in college, for his German class. In a very, very sadistic and un-funny way, I found that hilarious.

When we came out, my brother was in shock from the fat woman tapping her foot, chewing on gum, and gasping every time somebody said something on Days of Our Lives.

I found that equally hilarious.

The next day we went to the mall, with the goal of finding new frames for my glasses in mind.

I like my glasses. I don't want a new frame. These have been through so much with me. ;_; Nevertheless, the jerky Lenscrafters dude was saying "No, no, these glasses are bent", so I "needed" a new pair.

It was pretty hard to find a pair that I liked. Most of the glasses that were half-rimmed (like my current ones) didn’t hold very rounded lenses, and those strange stylin’ plastic ones don’t fit me (Well, now I know I can’t look like a media gadfly..).

Eventually we found a nice pair that had rounded lenses, like these, but had an interesting frame. It’s sort of hard to explain, but it’s almost as if the lenses are dangling from the frames without any support on the sides.

The weird salesman guy, Bob, also convinced us that we “need” prescription sunglasses. There was this really cool gray-to-black gradient pair, which I scoped out from across the store. Sunglasses are awesome.

My parents then picked out their pairs, and we went over to the strange salesman’s little booth, where the classic sales bump move was executed. Even with the Blue Cross discount and everything, my non-sunglasses pair cost a very painful $250. My parents didn’t even ask for their prices, and we left pretty quickly.

My dad, being an experienced salesman, gave me a critique of Bob's skills. Apparently, the poor guy wasn't executing the deal immediately, or getting us hyped about the items, like a good (..Good as in "skilled," not "moral) sales man should.

We went to a few other glasses-selling stores, without any success. I then sauntered over to the arcade, found that the mall-rat DDR-goers, Kuroneko hats and all, were doing their thing on the crappy bootleg machine (Megamix = No). I then remembered the DDR EXTREME over at the movie theater, and played a few songs.

The left coin slot was jammed, so I had to play on the right side of the screen, which is still somewhat alien to me. It’s not that much of a difference, seeing things on the right side of the screen, but my habit of looking at the left side was a hard one to break.

Surprisingly enough, I failed Tsugaru, a song I am very familiar with, in the first ten seconds. I tried again, got to the galloping part, and failed again. I did this for a while until I realized the right and up arrows, despite looking nice and new, were either laggy or busted entirely. As I walked away, some odd teenage African American girl walked by and said, in a voice intended to sound mock-menacing, but was simply annoying, “You failed. Failure!”

I was going to flip her off, but.. Eh.

Today I went to Target looking for blank shirts that I will iron my own personal messages on, but I only picked up one white shirt with black three-quarter length sleeves. I sort of have an idea of what I’ll put on it, but this one shall be the prototype shirt. I’m probably going to mess it up somehow, so I may as well give an excuse by calling it "prototype."

I then walked around the corner to Gamestop, and found that they had a nice copy of Final Fantasy VII in their bin of leftover PS1 games, in the original case with the instruction manual in perfect condition. I didn’t bring my wallet (Only ten dollars I spent on the shirt), so I ran back over to Target, asked my mom for some cash, and ran back.

I was under the impression that all copies of Final Fantasy VII were $17, but it turned out to be $20. Desperate for some role-playing goodness, I ran back over to where my mother was, got a few more dollars to cover the tax, and went back.

Well, turns out that they didn’t have a copy in stock- just the case. The salesguy said that somebody either stolen it or bought the game without the case.. I didn’t like the looks of him, though. I bet he was keeping it for himself. Stealing my game.. That bastard.

Oh well. I think I'll pick up VIII first, when I come across it. Shin's views on VII seem to make sense- the game may have been revolutionary for its time, but plenty of better games have been released since.

*scoffs at fanboys as he drinks Mr. Pibb out of an Eva mug, spills some on his .hack//QUARANTINE shirt and calls his brother a n00b out of rage*
Comments (4) | Permalink

Thursday, July 22, 2004

You know you really have too much time on your hands when you find MP3s of Aqua Velva's Barbie Girl in Russian and German.
Oh well, it will probably come back to me later. Until then, I'm just going to BS my way through this post.

This computer is outdated. There's no way around it. It barely gets along without crashing when I'm doing all of my stuff (Last time I checked, it only had 13% of its system resources available).

Thanks to a severe lack of anything to do, I wrote a little list of things that I should make the computer store dudes do to my computer. I'm seriously looking into doing more PC gaming, which means that RAM and a much, much better video card will be needed, along with a spiffy video card.

..Well, that was a big duh.

My parents are off in San Diego today helping my aunt with more deceased-grandmother things, and they were extremely worried about leaving me here with my younger brother. They have never gone that far away from us before, and my mom's rather afraid I'm going to blow something up.

White parenting. Sheesh. :P

They woke me up around ten, and I have just been sitting here all day listening to music with nothing in the background distracting me from typing. My brother's still asleep, and it's now 2:00, but the longer he keeps from annoying me, the better.

Another funny little factoid: My mom bought these iron-on Dark T-shirt transfers, which I am probably going to waste a lot of time working with.

There are plenty of cool shirts out there, yes, but how often can you actually make one that says exactly what you want it to?

I have a few ideas, the best one probably being "I hate everything, and that's why I'm so cool!", but I'm not above making my own cheesy licensed game shirts that are all discolored like at flea markets. :P

Maybe I'll make a Deathbaby shirt..

And now I shall go make some Easy Mac, the food of the Gods.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Bah.
I just spent forty-five minutes clearing out the Temple of the Hidden Faythe in Final Fantasy X, only to find that the faythe decides that you need to give him hefty amounts of cash for his services.

There were two other options besides "Let me summon you because you were so frickin' cool in that last battle," but apparently you can't change your answer. If you try to re-enter the room, he just says "What do you offer." Then, unless you give him 300,000, he says something along the lines of "You expect a phoenix, yet you offer chicken scratch! Maybe next time." I then decided to go look for 145,000 more Gil (I had just purchased all of the enemy-capturing weapons, which didn't help my lack of cash for the ghost), when a Tonberry came after me. God damn those Tonberrys. If you don't kill them in four turns, they do.. God, I don't know what they do. I've never let it happen to me before. Well, this particular time I didn't have the ability to run away like a frightened little girl.

I then decided that Auron, Lulu and Yuna had nothing to live for between then and my last save point, so I just turned off the PS2.

What's that Faythe going to do with 300,000 Gil? Spruce up the room that they sit in all the time as Summoners pray? Get a 35" high-definition flatscreen with surround sound? I think not.

--

Well, the Half-Life collection and the DDR soundtrack still haven't come in. It has only been two business days since we ordered it all, after all. I'm just starting to want to play the game rather badly, as well as Counter Strike.

I'm coming into the HL stuff a bit late, considering the game is now six years old and the sequel is being released later this year. I had never really put too much thought into the series, or PC gaming in general, until I saw what was going on with Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. That probably sounds very n00b-ish, but it's the truth. I had never really looked in to what Half-Life was, or what it was about. I was under the impression that it was purely an online game (I dissected the title ever so carefully- Half of a life, a virtual life, online character's life). Well, now that I know better I have finally ordered the game, and I shall experience the highly proclaimed coolness of Half-Life.

..If it ever gets here.

--

I was in a rather artistic mood last night, so I decided to make a pretty little wallpaper. I really, really like this one, for some odd reason. I didn't really put that much work into it- just about forty-five minutes of cropping, pasting and toying with opacity.

What I didn't realize however, was that I made the wallpaper seventy pixels too wide. After spending twenty minutes trying to get the credits at the bottom perfectly aligned and in the right positions, I finally said, "..Screw it. Just screw it" as I resized the image without keeping the aspect ratio.

:o I'm a bad person.

--

Comment Commentary

Shin- Yeah, you'd better read it. >:|

Aleia- Yep.

Ben- Yeah, this would be just like that.. If I didn't know this person. :/

*skips himself*

Azure- I thought we have been over this. First I asked you about ripping music off of CDs, and I asked you if CDs had region coding.

Bastard. >:|

--

Anyway, I think that's enough complaining for now. I'm off to lust after PCs (This totally decked out Sony Vaio with a speaker system and everything in Costco for $2,300, for example) that I will probably never own.

..Well, I wouldn't really care about the Vaio if my dad ever decided to stop saying he will take the computers in for upgrading this week, but never do it.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Monday, July 19, 2004

Hm.
I know I had a lot of interesting things to talk about, but I can't quite remember what they all were..

Well, the first one that comes to mind is my sudden flow of money. My parents paid me back for the 100 dollars they have owed me for quite a few months, along with the three months of allowance that has somehow eluded me.

Yes, I keep track. I have a nice little calendar with allowance days marked off, and I put a special mark on them when I am not given my promised five bucks in a timely manner.

Well, they finally paid me back. The $100 are going towards my 8th grade class trip (Washington DC in '05, baby!), so I then had $80 to spend on whatever.

As luck may have it, a nice cheap online anime store put their Dance Dance Revolution soundtracks on clearance. Seventeen bucks. Nice deal, no?

And then, magically, Kaz IMed me about Half-Life. I mentioned my sudden money-having, and he suggested buying the Half-Life/Counterstrike/other HL mod compilation, off of a nice little store.

And so I borrowed my mother's credit card, ordered the stuff and sat giddily at the thought of the DDRMax2 OST and Half-Life.

Too bad my computer's lame. Otherwise I would try to buy Half-Life 2, once it comes out. I am, however, slowly convincing my dad to go upgrade our laptop. It wouldn't take much to advance the desktop, too.

Honestly, I don't think my computer's video card or amount of RAM would be the problem with running it.. My hard drive is just starting to get cramped. If we just get a secondary hard drive, or at least an external one, I think my comp would be fine.

..As long as I don't play on the highest settings.

--

Last night, out of nowhere, I became re-motivated to enter the next Rising Stars of Manga contest. I came up with some interesting new ideas and twists to an old short story of mine, though most of it is visual. It's going to be pretty awesome, if I put as much effort as I can into each and every frame.

Not to sound pessimistic, but I still doubt I will win anything. All of the winners so far have been much older and more experienced than myself.. Oh well. If nothing else, it will be fun to do.

I also wrote the script out ahead of time, so I won't worry about having to come up with dialogue on the spot (When that happens, 90% of the time it's corny). Unfortunately, I'm still not sure how I should end it. I have a certain thing set up right now that could be the end, but it would be a bit anticlimactic. There are two more little segments I could do, but both of them are a tad sappy and/or cliche.

I want this to be my best artistic achievement so far- there's no way I'm going to be lazy and do anything below awesome.

And I now end this post with a nice conversation I had with a friend of mine, who is always good for a laugh.


aznballa22: hi
OtakuSennen: Hello.
aznballa22: hi
aznballa22: what's ur nmw?
aznballa22: name?
OtakuSennen: Gerald Limpskins.
aznballa22: really?
aznballa22: whoa that's a real different name...
aznballa22: do i know you from somewhereE?/
OtakuSennen: Yes, from a past life.
OtakuSennen: We were both ring worms, you see.
OtakuSennen: And we met in a Doberman's stomach.
OtakuSennen: And you were all like "hi" and I was like "hi" and then we were all like "hi."
aznballa22: omg..
aznballa22: really?
OtakuSennen: Yes.
aznballa22: i was a ringworm?
aznballa22: wow...
OtakuSennen: Yeah, but I also met you when you were a badger.
aznballa22: are you still a ringworm?
OtakuSennen: :| You were quite testy.
OtakuSennen: Yes.
OtakuSennen: Yes I am.
aznballa22: whoa
aznballa22: how do you type if your a ringworm?
aznballa22: i was a badger?
aznballa22: did i die alot then?
OtakuSennen: Yes. I was a badger ringworm.
OtakuSennen: And I'm typing through the power of my superior ringworm brain.
aznballa22: wow
aznballa22: do u have parents?
aznballa22: is one a ringworm and is the other a badger?
OtakuSennen: Unfortunately, they live in a different badger now.
aznballa22: what?
aznballa22: how do they live in a different badger?
OtakuSennen: I'm a sexually transmitted badger.
OtakuSennen: You see, when a mommy badger and a daddy badger love each other very much..
OtakuSennen: Ring worm. I'm a sexually transmitted ringworm.
OtakuSennen: Anyway, when they love each other very much..
OtakuSennen: They hump each other relentlessly for about ten minutes and never talk again. :| Only during mating season.
OtakuSennen: And they don't mate for life. >:o
aznballa22: oh...
aznballa22: so your half badger half rigworm?
OtakuSennen: No, I'm just a ringworm that got sent to a different badger when my initial badger got hot.
aznballa22: wait so what is a badger?
aznballa22: isn;t it a animal?
aznballa22: ?
OtakuSennen: http://www.mammal.org.uk/badger.jpg
aznballa22: i know that that was a badger but why did you say this then?
aznballa22: OtakuSennen: I'm a sexually transmitted badger.
OtakuSennen: You see, when a mommy badger and a daddy badger love each other very much..
OtakuSennen: Ring worm. I'm a sexually transmitted ringworm.
OtakuSennen: Anyway, when they love each other very much..
OtakuSennen: They hump each other relentlessly for about ten minutes and never talk again. :| Only during mating season.
OtakuSennen: And they don't mate for life.
OtakuSennen: aznballa22: wait so what is a badger? In response to that, I showed you a badger.
aznballa22: i know but then why did you tlak about that?
OtakuSennen: I am a sexually transmitted ringworm.
aznballa22: okie...
aznballa22: what is that?
OtakuSennen: And I was explaining how Sexually Transmitted Ringworms-
OtakuSennen: What do you mean, "what is that"?
OtakuSennen: You sat through the same Family Life I had to, two years straight.
aznballa22: what is a sexually transmitted ringworm?
aznballa22: lmao
OtakuSennen: When badgers don't use contraceptives during sex, they transmit ringworms through their..
OtakuSennen: Um.
OtakuSennen: ;-) You know.
aznballa22: oh..
aznballa22: so wait when you said you were gerald limpskins are you a badger or a human?
OtakuSennen: I am Gerald Limpskins, ringworm extraordinaire.
aznballa22: oh...
aznballa22: now i get it...
aznballa22: i was never a ringworm!!!!!!!!!1
aznballa22: were ou ever a herpe?
OtakuSennen: I suppose we have all been a herpes sore, at one point.
aznballa22: what's a herpes sore?
OtakuSennen: ...Do you really want to know?
aznballa22: yes
aznballa22: ...
OtakuSennen: ..Do you want a visual aid?
aznballa22: what?
aznballa22: okie...
aznballa22: is it nasty?
OtakuSennen: No, not at all.
OtakuSennen: ..Ew, nevermind.
aznballa22: okie
aznballa22: what is it?
OtakuSennen: x_x I'm too queasy to find a picture.
aznballa22: what is it?
OtakuSennen: You see, Herpes is a sexually transmitted disease.
OtakuSennen: Instead of a ringworm.
OtakuSennen: And it's a nasty rash.
aznballa22: oh....
OtakuSennen: That makes guys feel like they're peeing fire.
aznballa22: oh
OtakuSennen: :O And if you're not careful, your genitals will stop working.
OtakuSennen: And fall off.
OtakuSennen: Even if they're internal organs.
aznballa22: omg...
aznballa22: that;s scary.......
aznballa22: what did elizabeth have that mad her get surgery on her stomache?
OtakuSennen: Herpes, probably.
OtakuSennen: :| You can be born with it, if your parents aren't careful.
aznballa22: oh..
aznballa22: and you can see it through your skin?
OtakuSennen: >:| Yes, and it's no laughing matter.
OtakuSennen: Stop laughing.
aznballa22: i wasn't lauhing
OtakuSennen: Don't lie to me, I know you were.
aznballa22: no i wasn't
aznballa22: !
OtakuSennen: Nuh-uh.
aznballa22: you were laughing!
OtakuSennen: Ringworms can't laugh. >:o
aznballa22: lmao
OtakuSennen: I'm gonna go now.
aznballa22: okie
OtakuSennen: Goodbye.
aznballa22: bye bye

Charming, no?
Comments (5) | Permalink

Saturday, July 17, 2004

This calls for a lame celebration.

Yes, after 11 months and sixteen days of trials and tribulations, I have finally hit the 2,000 visit mark. I can't believe it's been almost a year already. It seems like it was just yesterday that Adam announced his crazy scheme that would supposedly revolutionize theOtaku.

My mO page started out very small and un-good. If I recall, every other sentence had a smilie in there somewhere, and most of the time it was either ^_^' or -_-. Fortunately, nobody had to endure that too much, because my posts were.. Quite short and irrelevant.

I don't think myOtaku really got too much credit until OtakuBoards was down for a week or two during the v7 transition. Everybody who spent most of their time typing up stuff on the forum vented that need to write toward myOtaku, and that's where things started picking up. A little while after that Adam introduced the color scheme editing feature, which gave everybody another way to express themselves on their sites (I always thought light blue wasn't appropriate enough for Ken's site). My first color scheme was gray, much like the gray I have right now, with a black background and orange text everywhere. I had a Witch Hunter Robin avatar-icon thinger (Amon off the second DVD cover with orange background instead of purple), and a scan from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac that I colored. It turned out okay, but I re-did it later on (which looked even cooler).

I recall getting a lot of positive input for the Amon avatar, which was more simple to make than most people thought at the time, but that input motivated me to do more web graphics.

The next theme that stands out in my mind was the infamous green FLCL thing. I hope I don't have to explain it. The point of the thing was to stick in people's minds, and if people know what I'm talking about without hearing a description of it, I did my job.

This was back in the days before they changed the myOtaku MIDI feature, and we could put MP3s on our sites. Mine always had rather cool songs, but I remember Witch Hunter Robin's opening theme (Shell) and FLCL's ending theme (Ride on a Shooting Star) most. Those were good times..

I miss putting MP3s on. It added another layer of coolness to the site.

And now, in the spirit of retrospective rants, I shall make a list of my favorite mO pages and what I like most about them. Lucky you.

A list of my favorite myOtaku pages, in no particular order

Shinmaru- Good old Shin always has insightful and silly rants going on. It's fun stuff to read about, and his site has the coolest shade of red ever.

Syk3- All of his themes have always been so perfectly executed. IF ONLY HE WOULD UPDATE MORE OFTEN. >:O

Ken, aka DeathKnight- Thought provoking posts. Very cool guy.

James- James always makes the most kick-ass themes. Plus, it's always cool to read his little teaser hints at his future projects.

Karmi- Sometimes mentally stimulating, other times silly and good giggling material. Oh, and for the record, o Queen of Waffles, I had the most wonderful waffles today. ;_; So crisp and buttery..

There are many, many other mOs that I don't read too often (Mimmi's, Aleia's, Azure's, if he would ever friggin' update), but I really should. Don't worry, guys, you'll get your praise at 3,000. :)

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Well, now I'm in a retrospective mood. I think tomorrow I'll do a long, image-heavy post chronicling the history of me and web graphics.
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Friday, July 16, 2004

Ten more visits before the 2,000 mark..
Better get a humorous graphic ready.

I don't really have too much to talk about today. I'm really glad that everybody else seems to enjoy VH1's Decade series as well- I was afraid that I was going to get ridiculed for enjoying it.

We went to San Diego yesterday, much to my dismay, because I have found absolutely nothing to do there. Because of my grandmother's death, all we do down there is go through her old stuff.

And God, that is boring.

The highlights of the day were the two restaurants we ate at. The first one was this roadside cafe we always pass by on the way down there, and my dad decided to finally drag us in there. The food itself wasn't that great, but the restaurant had original arcade editions of Asteroids, Ms. Pac-man and Street Fighter II. My dad and bro decided to have a two-player Asteroids competition, as I played Ms. Pac-Man. Surprisingly enough, I got into the top ten scores.

Between Space Invaders on Group Sounds Arcade and that, I've truly realized what James was talking about on IGN a while back. More complexity in a game isn't equal to more fun.

The other restaurant was this nice Mexican fish-house that had the most delicious Chicken and Shrimp fetuccini (I hope I spelled that right) I have ever had the pleasure of eating. Their garlic bread was exquisite as well, but I only got one slice, which made me sad. :(

Other than that, however, the day sucked. My parents said that next time they go down there I will be able to stay behind, leaving me free to do my regular stuff: Gaming, internet-going, and eating a bunch of uncooked crap.

I'm getting eager to go back to school simply because I miss it. The school that I whined about all year, and the people that made it rant-worthy.. I actually miss it. o_O I find that a bit weird, but another part of me really doesn't. Annoying people just make things more interesting.

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I was bored a little while ago, so I drew this. I don't know where the inspiration for this really came from. I saw a girl in a commercial with hair and eyes like this, thought "She would be fun to draw" and.. Well, there you have it.

Her head's too big, and, as Shin so generously pointed out, her right hand is disproportionate. I also have a problem with the alignment of her eyes, but that's not as noticeable.

I'm not putting this version up on TheOtaku's fanart section, but I'm going to re-draw it soon. It was just that much fun.
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