Listening to: trf "Overnight Sensation"

As usual, I don't blog in weeks and weeks! Shame on me! What have I been doing? Hmm... well, as of last Friday, I quit my job at MCI. I hatehatehatehated it there. I am currently back working for an internet company, making advertising pop-under ads. You know, when you browse a website and close the window, only to find another somewhat large page with an ad on it underneath? Yep, I make those things. Well, somebody has to make them ^_^ I am very happy doing this work, because it pays decently, and I can work from home. No more dress casual or anything! I like working in my pjs ^_^

Lets see, what else... I have been a manga-ordering h0! I spend WAY too much time browsing bk1 and buying manga! They must know me there by now! ("Hey look, it's another order from that scary gaijin in Texas!") One amusing thing that has come from all my bk1 orders is that the orders arrive in these cardboard boxes that my cats LOVE. I have one open on my floor now, and it is the latest object for the nekotachi to have territorial scuffles over. If spike is sleeping in the box, Vicious has no problems walking up and laying down directly ON TOP of Spike. They look like layers of a neko-cake ^_^ It doesn't work the other was around though. When Vicious is in the box, and Spike wants to sleep there, he gets his way and Vicious has to move. It helps that Spike is like 10 pounds heavier than Vicious :)

It's almost time for Project A-kon! I am trying to decide on what artwork to do for the con. I have some rough sketches done, but no complete art yet. I am thinking I will do a few cells, and I want to try doing a painting of Chii from Chobits as well. I don't have much time left though, so I better hop to it! Enough procrastinating!

As for all the shows I reviewed below, I am still watching most of them. I really like 12 Kokuki. It's developing how I expected, but it's still entertaining. I also like Full Moon wo Sagashite a lot. Oh, another thing I recently watchedm and really recommend, is 'Hoshi no Koe' a story of a couple separated by war and space but connected by email. It's a really cool story!

I have been so busy, but I did manage to find some time to make my first 2 new winamp skins in 2 years. The first is a skin of Jing from 'King of Bandits JING' and the other is a skin of Chii from Chobits. Enjoy!

Moo! Sunday, May 12, 2002 09:03 p.m.

Listening to: "Let Me Be With You", Chobits OP theme

Well okay, here I go again, taking FOREVER to blog ^_^ But I have been somewhat busy... I have been getting undertime at work again, but I also have contract work that I am doing now (yay!) and as usual, OO takes up a lot of time. Also, it is now April, and it's the new anime season in Japan that I have been looking forward to so much! I have been watching all the new shows, and that has been keeping me distracted too! So I am sorry for not blogging much ^_^ To make up for it, I am writing out some brief summaries/opinions on some of teh new shows I have watched so far. I have not been reading any other blogs, so for all I know, everyone has already been talking about all of these shows, but I felt like talking about the too, anyway :) So, here we go, with a really long blog entry that will probably stretch this page down a long ways ^_^

12 Kokuki I really likes this anime, even though the heroine is somewhat annoying, and the plot seems familiar ^_^; It's about an average girl who is sort of a loner at school. She doesn't really have any friends, even though she is one of her class's officers. She is generally a quiet, introspective sort of girl. She begins having these really bizarre dreams she cannot understand. Then at school one day, a mysterious surly guy named Keiki appears in her classroom and tries to kidnap her! He goes on and on about how he needs her, and she is the only one who can help. She has no idea who he is, and really doesn't want to go anywhere with him, especially when things at her school start exploding. But when this giant bird monster attacks her school, she doesn't have much choice. Keiki has magical powers, and he summons this sword and tells her to use it to fight the creature. What annoys me about the heroine is how timid she is, and how in denial she is about the events going on around her. Even though this huge bird thing is about to kill them, and Keiki tells her the only way to defeat it is to use the sword, she STILL sits there, whimpering about it. I was ready to smack her :) However, she does eventually wield the sword (though not quite of her own free will). Anyway, from what I know about this series, Keiki will be transporting her to another world that only she can save. (yeah, sounds familiar) however, I really like the art and the music, and I get the impression that even though the heroine is wimpy now, this will be a story of how she changes from being the wimpy, introspective girl, to a strong, self-reliant girl. I look forward to seeing more! Oh, and have I mentioned that Koyasu Takehito plays Keiki? XD

Chobits Ahh, Chobits, the latest series from CLAMP. This is based on their shounen manga of the same name, and it follows the common anime trend of average guys suddenly getting their very own robot girl. The hero in this is a ronin (he failed the entrance exam to get into college, so he'll be working for a year until he can try applying again) and he is really poor. this story takes place in a time when people can have a 'persocon'to work for them. A 'persocon' is a female android-type robot and they are really expensive. Fortunately for him, he finds an abandoned persocon robot in the trash one day! What luck! He takes her home, turns her on (literally, and yes, her 'on' switch is THERE) and discovers that she lack an OS (operating system). This results in her inability to do much more than mimic him and say the word 'chi!'. He names her Chi, and tries to find out how to get an operating system for her. The animation for this series is nice (as can be expected from CLAMP series these days) and the opening song is insanely cute and catchy. Love the opening song, must play it again!

Tokyo Underground Yay, I am so happy that they made an anime for this series! I love the Tokyo Underground manga (by Akinobu URaku, published by Enix) and I hope that the anime will be similar in style. So far the first couple of episodes I have seen follow the manga rather closely, so my hopes are high. It's the story of a guy named Rumina who is one of those types who gets into a lot of fights at school. However his motivation is to impress girls :) One day Rumina and his best friend Ginosuke discover some unusual visitors at Rumina's house. Two girls, Chelsea and Ruri are tired and injured, and ask Rumina for help and shelter. It turns out that they are refugees, fleeing from some evil force chasing them. What makes this even more unusual, is that the place they are fleeing from is an entire world that exists below Tokyo, below the subways, down dear the center of the earth. Ruri is the 'Inochi no Miko' and Chelsea is Ruri's guard. Both of them have magical powers. The series follows Rumina's exploits as he gains some unusual powers through a rather tragic event, and joins Chelasea and others in protecting Ruri.

Full Moon wo Sagashite In case you couldn't guess from the character designs, this anime is based on a story by Arina Tanemura, creator of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. It's about a girl named Mitsuki who loves to sing. She has always wanted to become an idol singer, and she even made a promise to a childhood friend who loves teh sound of her voice. However Mitsuki is ill with some sort of throat disease. Because of this, she can't really sing very loudly or for very long without pain. Things start to get strange when two rather cutely dressed shinigami walk out of a poster in her room. Mitsuki is understandably shocked by this, and they are equally shocked that she can see them. It seems that only those near death can see shinigami, and one of them lets it slip that Mitsuki won't die for another year. Ack, she only has a year to live? How awful, now she will never be able to chase her idol singing dream. But one of the shinigami feels sorry for Mitsuki, so he works some magic that ages her so she looks like she is 16, allowing Mitsuki to enter a local talent competition! Will Mitsuki be able to achieve her dream to become a singer before a year is through?

Tokyo Mew Mew Another insanely cute magical girl series :) This one is based on a shoujo manga, and has a lot of similar themes as other magical girl shows. However here we have a strong sentai and catgirl influence that makes this series appealing to guys also ^_^; Ichigo is a normal genki schoolgirl who dreams of dating the most popular boy in school. She asks him out, and he actually agrees, but during their first date something strange happens. When they go to a museum, Ichigo has a strange vision and passes out. In the vision, she sees a cat that comes towards her and actually merges into her. Her date is such a nice guy that he stays with her until she wakes up. Ichigo is embarrassed, but things get worse the next day when she starts exhibiting unusual behavioral patterns. Ichigo can't stop herself from napping all day, and meowing when she speaks. It seems she is now acting like a cat! After school, Ichigo is in the park when something evil attacks her love interest boy, and Ichigo discovers, with help from two mysterious bishounen, that she now has magical powers she can use to save her boyfriend. The mysterious bishounen give her a locket that transforms her into Tokyo Mew Mew, a magical gatgirl dressed in pink. MewMew uses her cat-like powers to destroy the monster and save her guy. Yay! Yeah, this show has a lot of the tired old mahou shoujo themes in it, but the artwork is really cute, and I like Ichigo a lot.

.hack//sign I find .hack//sign to be one of the most interesting new series this season. It is sort of a combination of an anime and a video game. From what I understand, the video game is being released in several parts, and you can get an episode of the anime with each part of the game. The general premise of the whole thing is that sometime in the future, some company has created a very popular MMORPG (massively multi-player Online RPG) computer game called The World. EVERYONE, it seems, plays this game. However at some point, something goes wrong, and all of the monsters of the game get new powers and strengths and none of the players can move their characters forward or gain any new levels. One player, a guy named Kite, decides to go into the game and try to figure out what is happening. He is able to hack into parts of the game, and the actual .hack//sign game follows his adventures as he gathers friends and does his investigation. The anime is similar to this idea, but different at the same time... ^_^;; The main character of the first two episodes is a boy named Elk (or Shi, I think one is his RL name, the other his character name?) and Elk is rather disoriented and confused. He wanters around a fantasy-type of landscape and asks where he is, and how to get home. It seems that he is in the game, but is unable to logout from it. He meets some other players in the game, but from teh 2 episodes I have seen, he is still pretty confused. His character type is some sort of magician or possibly a cleric? I am not sure ^_^ The main things I love about this anime are the beautiful landscape shots and the amazing music. I have only seen 2 episodes, but I am already itching to get my hands on a soundtrack for this! The music reminds me a little bit of the music from Noir, except with a little bit more of a 'fantasy' element to it. Awesome!

PitaTen Can we say WAY TOO CUTE? PitaTen, pased on the manga by Koge Donbo (the artist who does all the characters for DiGiCharat) is beyond cute. The story and situations aren't very original, however the cutecute artwork almost makes up for it. The story is about a young boy who lives with his dad. His mother passed away when he was little. He gets a surprising new mother figure in the form of an angel named Misha. She looks a little bit older than him, but she is really really really cute, and has huge huge eyes and a very cutesy personality. She appears on his doorstep one morning, and then follows him to school. She won't leave him alone! Ahh, these poor boys with unwanted attention from cute, busty angels.

Tenshi na Konamaiki Yes! I was happy to see this manga become an anime series also! The manga for this is a lot of fun. The story is about a girl named Megumi who is not really your average girl. Sure, right now she has long beautiful hair, a charming smile, and all the guys at school are dazzled by her beauty. However several years ago, Megumi was actually a boy! She was a rather rough and rude boy, too! One day when he and a childhood friend were playing outside, he saved an old person from some ruffians. In thanks, the old person (who is actually a magician) gave the boy a magical book, from which a little pierrot type of figure emerges. The little pierrot thing offers to grand the boy a favor, but the boy is really rude and obnoxious, and doesn't get the wish he asked for. Instead, the little pierrot guy transforms the boy into a girl! And what makes matters worse, is that now as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Megumi has ALWAYS been a girl. The only one who remembers that Megumi used to be a boy is the girl who is his childhood friend. Now they are in high school, and Megumi is quite the hottie ^_^ However, she still acts like a tough boy, and has no problems with beating people up, including the tough guy in her class, who is both smitten by Megumi's looks and repelled by her boyish, violent behavior. Megumi can kick his ass :) Anyway, this is a very fun manga, with lots of action and comedy. Hopefully the manga will follow suit :D

Azumanga Daioh This is a rather random, yet fun anime that is based on a very popular 4-panel comic of the same name. It revolves around the daily life of some students and their teacher. The stories are all pretty episodic, though there are common themes. The class consists of several amusing personalities, like Chyo-chan, the 10 year old genius girl, and Sakaki, who loves cats but who cats don't like (poor girl!). The main teacher character is Yukari. She teaches English, but I don't think she is very good at it ^_^ She is always very stressed and spazzing. I really like this manga and anime, though it IS very random.

Moo! Friday, April 12, 2002 12:29 a.m.

Listening to: "Peace" by Pizzicato 5

It's been a long, slow week. Lots of undertime at work this week, so I didn't have to go in very much. Of course, my paycheck will totally suck, but I have a bit of hope now. I have a possible graphic-design contract in the works that should help out my financial situation. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping I get that job. I love doing graphic design, so the thought of making money to do it once again makes me genki :) Wish me luck!

Concerning web page stuffs... I totally revamped and redesigned my Anime Art Page. It's been long overdue, and I had a lot of new artwork I needed to add to the page, and I pruned and trimmed some of the scary older artwork out. I am pretty happy with how that page looks now. W00t!

I also got in an order I made with animaxis, so I now have Fun Fun Factory volume 2. I am working on updating some of teh info on my Funfun Factory page at last. That project has been long overdue as well @_@ Ahh, it's nice to finally get some work done on my pages again after so much procrastination and lack of motivation. I need to do some more work on the funfun page, and, of course, I am still plugging away, working on the new Tokyo Underground page. Hmm, what else... I got in some more random shoujo manga. I still haven't updated the shoujo manga page, which I really need to get around to, now that I have new material to cover again. I think my procrastination has been the worst when it concerns that page n.n.

After paying off some more bills and such (it's always bill first, people! then fun stuff... but bills first!) I had enough left over to try placing another manga order. This time I tried bk1. It's a japanese online bookstore. I discovered that it is actually CHEAPER for me to order stuff from bk1, including the cost of shipping, than it was for me to buy stuff directly from kinokuniya when I was living in San Francisco. Even with shipping, bk1 is cheaper than buying stuff at the kinokuniya bookstore. Woo hoo. Granted, I selected SAL as my shipping option, so I am waiting a while to get my stuff. However, my online order cost me .75 less than what I would have paid at Kinokuniya. I bet that if I had selected a higher class of shipping, the total price would have been the same as purchasing directly at kino (which itself isn't all that bad, cost-wise) and would get here much faster. So now it looks like I'll have a reliable source for purchasing manga, here in this anime wasteland. Yay! I am very genki about that too :) But first I must take care of my bills before anything else. yup yup. *nods* It's nice to get things paid off :D

Moo! Saturday, March 16, 2002 01:08 p.m.

Listening to: "Spirit" - by Pamelah

Wow, It's been over a week since I have blogged. What's up with me? I need to blog more, really. Lets see, what has been happening... well, all I really do at the moment is go to work, come home, go to work, come home. Bleh. I survived last week at work okay, though I did get last Tuursday off for undertime. Call volume at work has been really slow, so I was asked not to come in last Thursday. Hooray for getting away from that call-center hell. Boo for missing a day of pay. THEN, all this week, call volume dropped even lower, and we have been leaving every day around 1pm. It's such a tough choice. I mean, I HATE it there and I am thrilled to not have to deal withe the morons that call in, but then again, I kind of need the pay. Ahh well. Today we were sent home at 3pm. Whee!

I finally started my Tokyo Underground page. What is done of it so far can be seen here. I also finally put up a different placeholder screen for the front page of piffleprincess.com. Not that I did much there, but at least it's something n.n Finally, I redid the layout on Okashina Okashi - Strange Candy. I sort of smoothed it out a bit. I worry about the loading time, but we'll see how it goes.

Stuff stuff stuff! I got an order of random shoujo manga from Book-mart this week. Woo hoo, my first manga in 5 months! I have been in such withdrawl! I am gonna do some shoujo manga summaries for some of the stuff I got. I'm having much fun reading through it! I also placed an order at Animaxis, and it shipped today. I wonder how long it will take to reach me. I have such a horrible postal impairment that magically bounces packages away from me, or delays them. *hops around impatiently*. I ordered vol 2 of Fun Fun Factory, and some merchandise... ahh, I can't wait. Living in this manga wasteland sucks though, I hate having to pay for shipping! *whine*

Moo! Thursday, March 7, 2002 07:43 p.m.

Listening to: "Runaway Horses" by Belinda Carlisle

Well, I finished my first complete, not-in-training-anymore week at work, and so far I must say... I hate it! Ugh, I knew I was not a phone person, and here I am, sitting on a phone apologizing to people all day. Seriously, Almost EVERYONE who calls in is angry or cranky or downright yelling and pissed off. It gets so depressing spending 8+ hours a day apologizing and telling people you're sorry! And of course everyone calling in seems to blame ME for their phone problems, as if I had anything whatsoever with what some telemarketer told them, or was the one who didn't pay their bill. Blah. I hate it at my job now, and I desperately want to find something else to do, preferably a job where I don't have to talk to anyone. Data entry is starting to sound appealing now. (or web-designing, but I have yet to see any more job openings that are similar to what I was doing before)

Anyway, about my first week of 'real' work- My supervisor is a pretty cool guy, even if he isn't around a whole lot. He is pretty busy and has a lot to do. And he does give out little cash prizes. And my co-workers in my new bay are pretty nice and willing to help me out when I don't know how to resolve someone's issue, so I am learning new stuff every day. But still.... I still don't feel comfortable talking on the phone with people and I know that I don't sound confident enough. Even though we are a service department, they are really pushing us to sell sell sell new phone services. It's hard to sell when all you get is maintenance calls. I really need to work on my tone of voice and sales pitch. I am still weak and can't counter people's arguments. Bleh bleh! I'll give it some more time, and hopefully I will improve. I'm just really depressed about work though. It's always on my mind. When I come home, I still have calls and plan stuff going through my head, and I still have work-dreams. I can't relax at all. grrr!

To take my mind off of things, I have been watching some VCDs of this j-drama called "Superstar no Koi" or as the cheezy English title on the box says, "Love With Superstar". It's subbed in Chinese and Engrish. No, not English, ENGRISH. It's scary how after watching it for a while, I no longer notice the Engrish so much. It's really bad though, a lot of things don't make much sense :) I am liking the drama though. It stars that Tsuyoshi guy from SMAP, and Fujiwara Norika (lets see how many hits this blog gets after I mention her name =). If the drama "With Love" is like a Japanese version of "You've Got Mail", then "Superstar no Koi" is like the Japanese version of Notting Hill. Tsuyoshi plays an average, mild-mannered, doormat of a salaryman who works at some sort of meat-products company. I think they sell ham, though the subtitles keep saying turkey. His life is pretty boring and lame, and his relationship with his girlfriend isn't going to well. All that changes when he randomly meets Hikariko, played by Fujisawa Norika. Hikariko is a SUPER famous actress and model. They meet by chance, but end up spending more time together after she decides to use our poor salaryman in a scheme to make the guy she's dating jealous. She randomly announces that she is now dating the salaryman and is in fact engaged to him! Soo poor salaryman's life is turned upsidedown from the sudden media attention on him, and his coworkers, etc. It's a pretty amusing drama, though the focus on ham-products is kind of scary, and the opening song, "Stop in the name of Love" is rather incomplete. I have watched 5 episodes of this so far, and I look forward to finishing this off.

Re: figure skating- I had been cheering for Sasha Cohen to win the gold medal, or Michelle Kwan. I have never been that much of a Sarah Hughes fan, but after seeing her spectacular skate in the free program, I agree that she is the one who deserved the gold. Her performance kicked ass.

Hmm Alias is on tonight, yay. I like that show, even though I think most of the guys in it are dipsticks. Vaughn is a dork and Will is a moron. Dixon is cool, and I like the guy who plays Sydney's dad. I think they need a stronger love-interest. I like the action though.... hmm, I like this Nike commercial, the one that is just background music, and a bunch of scenes of people playing different sports edited together so that the motion blends from one scene to the next.

Anime-wise... lets see, I finally managed to watch Animation Runner Kuromi. I have been wanting to watch it for a while, and I am glad that I got to see it at last. It's very funny, and nicely animated. I want them to make more adventures of Kuromi :D Also, I ordered some manga from Book-mart. Most of it is random shoujo stuff! Yay! I squeezed a little money out of my paycheck after paying bills. I look forward to seeing what the manga I ordered is like :D I'll make a report once I get it. As for specific stuff I want- I am still kicking myself for not getting Azumanga Daioh when in Japan last year. I want vols 1-3 of that... and I am behind on the Read or Die manga (need vol 3!) and I need the rest of Yuuwaku healing, HanaKimi, Katte ni Kaizou, etc.

Ahh that reminds me. Mangascreener opened their Katte ni Kaizou section. They took their description of the series from my Katte ni Kaizou page without permission. Gee, how nice. Granted, they DID link to my Katte ni Kaizou page a couple of times, but it would have been nice to have been asked first. I am against the idea of scanlations in general (I don't mind them if it's just a chapter or two at the beginning to whet people's appetite for the show so that they go out and buy it for themselves) but when an entire tankoubon or series is scanlated, I just cringe. My Kaizou page has been getting more hits lately though. I have updated pages I need to upload to the site. I have been working on it, I just haven't uploaded the pages yet. I have a coupld of things left to do before uploading, then the page will be more up to date than it is now :D

Anyway, I think I'll go make myself some hot cocoa now :D
Moo! Sunday, February 24, 2002 07:02 p.m.

Listening to: 'On Your Mark' by Chage and Aska

Okay, my new layout seems to be working. Yay!

Alrighty then. Another week of work is over, and another weekend too. Hmm I seem to be blogging only once a week now. How sad! Anyway, Last week of work went okay, I think. I got a little better at handling customers on the phone. But now, starting tomorrow, I go out into the phone bay that I'll be working in. Training is over. Wah! I am nervious about getting out onto the floor because I don't know how much support I'll get. I can handle some calls, but there are still many that are a bit out of my league, and I require help. I hope the people in my bay are nice ^_^;;

I watched more Rahxephon this week. Yay, it's spiffy! I also watched some really bad hentai pr0n (watch the hits on this blog soar now...). It was called 'Angels in the Court' or something, and it was this realy bad volleyball pr0n. A team of cute sex-crazed volleyball girls get sex0red by their coach constantly, and can only win games when buzzing from the sexual excitement of having just shagged their coach. Hahahahaha! It was so bad! Lets see, what else did I watch.... Arcade Gamer Fubuki, Shinichin no Nana, um.. I forget... At any rate, there isn't much showing in Japan right now that I want to see. I am waiting until April, when there will be like a dozen series I will be drooling over XD Damn, I gotta remember to make that Tokyo Underground page...RAR!

I have been watching the Olympics all week, and after all that fuss with the pairs figureskating, I am glad they decided to give them a gold medal too. Their long program totally rocked, and deserved the gold. The men's competition was okay. I was cheering for Alexi, and he won. Yay :) As for teh women.. I am not sure who I want to win! I am cheering for Michelle Kwan, but all the other US girls are really talented too! I wouldn't be mad if one of them got the gold (unless there was an obvious judging error)

Hmm I have a headache -_- And I am thirsty. I guess I'll go take an advil or something *oof*
Moo! Sunday, February 17, 2002 06:26 p.m.

Listening to: 'Bloomin' by Tommy February

Okay, I finally changed my layout again. Testing to see if this works....
Moo! Sunday, February 17, 2002 06:21 p.m.