Not much...

Im just enjoying myself tonight. After tomorrow, my summer class will be already halfway over! Its flying by really quickly, but I'm not worried. I just makes it so I got to get things done on time! Previously my main email account couldnt send my assignments to my professor, but I used my alternate one and it went through fine! That was a big sigh of relief. Now I can get the work and get it in on time without worrying about turning it in the DAY OF.

I recently came across one of these Tetris Cubes and I have to say...ITS WRACKING MY BRAIN! Its really tough, since all of the pieces are different, supposedly there are over 9000 ways to put it back together! The best part is...I got it for 1$. Yep from a Dollar Tree close to where I live. I wonder what people would do without dollar stores...I am getting better at it though, when I use the packaging box the pieces came in; it makes it much more clearer...and also frustrating at the same time. I can make a cube...but most of the time it will spots missing or not in-line with a plane.

Just wanted to update you guys with a random tidbit of info...OH! now that I think about it, Sony revealed their TV/Movie side of the Playstation Network! and I managed to get a hold of a brand-new Anime called Xam'd Dawn of War! I only managed to watch it once, since it had a rental time of 24 hours. Expect the review soon!

Anime Reivew: Gurren Lagann

I had heard bits of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann(TTGL) for some time before Anime Expo, but getting there and meeting some of my fellow roomies, two of them were cosplaying from this wonderful series. Another thing that turned me to the series was a very well made AMV using the song "Be A Man" from Disney's Mulan.

The series follows Kamina, a hot-headed, 'no guts, no glory' kind of guy, Simon who is a kid still learning the ways of the world. They start in an underground village where the people have been living for untold generations when Simon discovers a small drill. After an attempted breakout by Kamina and his rag-tag of misfits, Kamina winds up in jail while Simon continues to drill to expand the village, but comes across a large face. Simon comes to rescue Kamina from jail who wants him to see the giant face when a massive earthquake rattles the underground village; falling from the ceiling is a massive monster!

Seriously, that's just in the first 15 minutes or so! Least to say, this episode got me hooked to watching the rest of the series. The motion of the characters and the attention to detail to backgrounds is astounding. Looking through the end credits of the DVD set I found a multitude of other Japanese animation studios that worked with Gainax; for example Production I.G. and Studio Ghibli.

with the release of Gurren Lagann here in the states, I expected the disk to have English voice-overs like most Anime does. However, after everyone started conversing, I found that they were all speaking Japanese; looking to the Language feature on the disk revealed that the only language is Japanese! I believe this is a bold step for Aniplex and Bandai, but I am in favor of subtitled series, since they retain the orginal meaning when translated. Another thing about the two disks, was that they are a little bit cheaper than traditional one disk with dual languages. The English version of the series will premiere tomorrow on the SciFi Channel at 11PM, so if you have cable, check it out.

For anyone getting into Anime, or a longtime Otaku, I recommend this series to all.

Fat Princess

Is a game that is coming out for the Playstation Network sometime in the near future, the object of the game is to rescue your princess from the dungeon of the foe. Only problem is that they stuffed the Princess with sweets, meaning you will need lots of people to get her out. While this has drawn lots of attention for wrong reasons, I cant help but write a story about the game....Its my creative juices at work. Im going to put it in my blog first then update my Fanfiction.net archive.

"Counselor, we have discovered the location of the Princess!" A young man burst through the door, causing everyone in the room to turn to him, "Where is she lad?" The older man asked, beckoning him to him; the man walked into the room, standing in front of a table with a map covering the entire top. "Here, she is being held at their castle just cross the river..." Tracing a line with his finger from their castle to the other on the map. "You have done well Simon, we must do a covert operation to retrieve the princess at once! Simon!" The Counselor turned to him, "you found the location; you shall lead the team." Simon bowed, "Thank you." "WAIT!" One of the men spoke up, "What if that location is a trap?"
Bowing his head the Counselor spoke, "for the sake of the Kingdom, that is a chance we must be willing to take to save Princess Aleta." Lifting his head, he spoke again, "All those who are going to perform this task must meet at Dusk outside the gates of the castle; that is all." Simon walked slowly out of the drafty room, through the stone passages of the castle and finally reached the top; looking to the west to the other castle where Princess Aleta was. Simon had black hair and dark eyes, he proudly wore the crimson uniform of the Kingdom of Forland.
Dusk finally came, and a group of six men gathered outside of the castle walls when the Counselor appeared, "You know where Princess Aleta rests, deep in enemy territory, if you have any objections; now is the time." He said, looking over the group, "very well, go and retrieve the Princess." With that, the group left, being led by Simon; after several hours of walking they crossed the river and the enemy castle came into view. "Keep quiet now...their guards might be keeping watch..." Simon whispered to his companions, and the chatter dulled to silence; they slowly made their way to the castle. Breaking into the castle, they grabbed several torches, lighting the way down the dark hallways. "Wait..." Simon whispered after hearing footsteps, the group quickly dispersed, fleeing into the darkness.
The sun started to rise while the group had searched nearly every inch of the castle, "maybe this was a trap..." they began muttering, when one of them heard something and shushed them. Walking slowly, they came to a solid wall; Simon came to the front and started feeling the wall this his hands and found a block out of line with the wall and pushed it in. Slowly the wall rotated, revealing Princess Aleta. The entire group, including Simon had their jaws to the floor, their beautiful princess had become large and heavy! Simon was the first to approach her, "Princess? Is that you?" She nodded, various portions of flubber bouncing with it, "yes, however I am unable to walk very far since they have fed me nothing but sweets..." Simon looked back at the group, seeing that the majority of the group was in their older years, he turned back to Aleta, "I..." He started, "I don't believe we have enough manpower to get you out of here Princess..." She tried to stand, but could not get herself stable and fell on her bottom, "then you must capture their princess and do the same to her! Then come back with enough men to take me home." Simon's gaze fell to the ground, then he looked up to Aleta and nodded, "As you wish Princess," turning to his group, "You heard Princess Aleta, we are going to capture the Princess of Utsuho!"

HA! Killing two birds...

With one Stone! Well, I enrolled in a summer course at Lane this semester and one of the things the textbook suggests to do is to keep a Journal. Hm...Im pretty sure my blog counts as one, and also it says to just start writing about anything that comes to mind. Thats why its killing two birds with one stone: I get to do some of the extra credit for my class and updation for you guys! It totally works and I love doing it.

No joke, I could sit here all day and do nothing but update my blog. Sure other things happen in my life that I make a note of and it gets placed in here, and thats the best part: I get to write more. People who know me say that I can describe things very accurately while being 'On The Spot'. I really do not have a clue why I started my Major as Computer Programming....I suppose the dream was to make a Final Fantasy/Mario/Zelda/any name brand video game. But after a while; I realized it took much more programming savvy to even come close to what they do on a daily basis. I mean, I can make a simple webpage and a low-key game, but not like what they are doing: I feel its way beyond my grasp. Also I think the motivation was monetary gain; Computers are here to stay and companies need the skills from people to program the software and hardware to make everything work.

After taking several 'real' Programming classes at Lane I began to doubt what I really wanted to do in my life. Writing Algorithms(fake code) on paper is really easy for me to do; but when I actually put it onto the computer, it totally falls apart and its quite difficult to fix. It could be just me: I had a hard time understanding my professors, they pounded Syntax into my brain, but not the actual language. So there was a trade off, I could write Algorithms all day, but putting it onto the computer...was my Kryptonite.

Well....I think thats going to do it for right now.

Movie Review: The Dark Knight

All righty. I went to go see this movie; and I will say this:

This movie is AMAZING.

If you have not seen this movie, I HIGHLY suggest you go and see it. Christian Bale and Heath Ledger make an amazing pair onscreen. You can literally feel the crazy oozing from the Joker, its really intense. One scene is where the Joker makes a pencil disappear and its GOLDEN. There are some predictable parts of the movie that I will not spoil here, but all in all, this movie is very well done. Its broken various records even the 'Midnight Opening' record held by...I don't know the movie off the top of my head, but its impressive for any movie.

OH! Another thing I saw was a trailer for an interesting movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still. I have watched the orginal, and I cant wait for this one.

Best thing I saw all day...

Was a bumper sticker saying: HONK! if you like peace and quiet.

I was rolling on the ground laughing after I saw that on the back of a beat-up truck. Even thinking about it now makes me laugh really loud... Thought I would share the funniest thing I saw today; I'm going to make that into a regular thing, because I happen across lots of funny stuff that only I see for some reason.

The rest of the world deserves a good laugh too.

Anime Review: Rozen Maiden

I figured if I am doing reviews about movies, why not do them about Anime? I recently picked up a series called Rozen Maiden and I have to say: I like it.

The basic storyline opens with the kid named Jun who spends his days indoors, away from the rest of the world, buying paranormal items from various sources. One of these paranormal things however is a doll; but not an ordinary doll. Her name is Shinku, and she informs Jun that she is a 'Rozen Maiden' doll with the sole purpose of defeating 6 other dolls of the same make and becoming 'Alice' the perfect doll. The first episode begins with Jun buying junk online, while his sister tries to relate to her estranged brother with the mere mention of school, Jun becomes unstable. What happened is never fully explained; but left to the imagination. After answering a query if he will 'Wind' or 'Not wind' a mysterious box appears and inside he finds a expertly crafted doll.

After winding the it, the doll begins to move on its own accord, and suddenly springs to life, informing Jun that her name is Shinku. After a short while, another doll comes with the intention to kill Jun, since he awoke Shinku. She informs Jun that a pact must be made in order for him to live; the pact is a ring that he wears allowing Shinku to derive energy from Jun to defeat the doll.

Can you believe that's just a brief summary of the fist episode? All that happens in the first 10 minutes or so, and I got hooked and decided I needed to watch the rest, and found it online. While some of the backgrounds are a little lazy(various objects having fuzzy or saturated lines) the quality of the animation is excellent.

*whew* My first Anime Review! I plan to get in the groove of these and start posting more reviews from the long list of Anime/Manga/Video Games I have in my collection.

Car troubles....

soon to be fixed! I'm taking in my car to a auto shop to get it fixed. The price is a little steep, but if it means having a reliable form of transportation, then price does not matter. I'm glad my car has lasted this long...Its been through lots, driving across the Nevada desert, multiple trips to Portland and driving between Lane and home. I still haven't repaired the doors on it...those are way too costly to fix and finding another set of doors could be quite a daunting challenge. Truth be told...I can always find my car in a parking lot due to its 'battle scars'.

In slightly different news, My college class starts next Monday. I am nervous but at the same time, I know its definitely needed. Especially after what happened last time, but I am going to change my major; from Computer Programming to Journalism. I like to write and its one of the things I am good at. Working freelance and writing about Anime, Manga and Video Games...

Immigration.

Its no secret I was not born in the United States. I know everyone is making a big deal out of the Immigration movement. Seemingly everyone is worried that 'Spanish will replace English' with the influx of Spanish speaking peoples. I recall debate if English should be the official language of the US; historically, when immigrants from other countries where English was not their first language, they have gathered in various communities like Little Tokyo or Little Italy. The point I am trying to make is that peoples from those various countries settle into portions of cities where their heritage takes precedence.

Although that was just a round-about way of saying: it will take care of itself. It has for the pat 232 years this country has existed.

I'M BACK!

Yes its true. I am back from Anime Expo. I came into town around 3 in the afternoon and I feel pretty good since I got plenty of sleep on said bus ride. Taking a Benadryl helps. Anyway, you are all probably wondering about how the convention went: One word accurately describes it AWESOME.

There were so many people wandering around in Cosplay it made me smile. The video game room was nice and spacious without the fanboy funk that accompanies it most of the time. Also on a less happier note the AnimeMusicVideo(AMV) contest disappointed me. The majority of the effects found in the videos were either copied, ripped directly, I mean tastefully reproduced from another source. But in all seriousness, most of them were pretty good. I especially liked the Ghostbusters FF7AC spoof. The creator of that video is a genius.

I got to catch up with all my friends, even ones that I had not seen for quite some time, the Seamstress of this site recognized me from a crowed and came and talked to me! I was really excited to see her again, after falling out of contact. I promise not to leave her hanging again! With my roomies I learned about a really cool series called Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann which I'm hunting for episodes online to watch. The Phoenix Wright gathering we had went really well, many people took lots of photos and we all had a great time. I dont understand why AX cant be held year-round? I love being at AX. Or any con for that matter. But just the fact when I start talking about Anime that other people respond with conversation not just 'huh?' 'what are you talking about?' Anyway, I thought I would let everyone know that Im back from my Anime convention...though I might take a look at the school schedule and see if I can maybe -MAYBE- attend another con this year.