Lunar Scribbles v2

I hate stupid and incompetent

I hate stupid and incompetent people. So we're thinking of buying a new car, and so at my uncle's recommendation, I decided to do it online. My uncle made the initial contact, and I was left with follow up. So I get an email yesterday saying that they got the request and asked me for some info. I give it with SPECIFIC instructions (numbered #1, #2, #3, #4). #1 was the quote of the specific car. #2 was the quote on the car they already have in the lot. #3 was a trade-in price for our old car. And #4 was information about financing. The response email I got had NO punctuation what-so-ever. It had lousy email formatting (i.e. paragraphs are separated with a space). And on top of that, he nicely ignored #1 and #2. God. If you're going to be selling something that expensive, at least make an attempt to look professional. I was about to give up on this dealership. But then, my uncle enlightens me by saying that car dealers don't necessarily have diplomas, so I can expect them to be as educated as a college boy like me. And as such, I have to treat them that way. I guess that makes sense. Never overestimate the stupidity of strangers, especially secretaries, phone people, and now car dealers.

After some peer pressure, I

After some peer pressure, I finally got around to buying the first book of Chobits. I was really holding out since I can't afford to start a new series (anime-wise), and plus, I think that I will like Chobits. But mangas are okay. I was pretty disappointed that Kinokuniya here in San Jose didn't have this weeks Shonen Magazine (Asahiya in NYC gets them weekly, almost the same time that they're released in Japan). But I was impressed they had the last three months of Shonen Special, which are hard to come by in NYC. Only Asahiya in NYC carries them, and they only get 1 volume in every month, which I believe I've purchased the past 4 months.

So I finally to spend some time with a few friends today. Guess what we did? We spent most of the day at the nickel arcade...which was pretty pathetic. However, I did manage to play up to the 4th level of Altered Beast, an old-school game that I could never pass the first level too. But that's because they set it at "free play" (there was a $2.00 admission fee).

No jury duty for Monday, or so says the phone recording! Wednesday is a holiday. I wonder if I'll get it.

My willpower was tested this

My willpower was tested this evening. On Yahoo Japan Auctions, the oh-so-rare Love Hina Friendship CD was for bid. It starts out at Y6000, and there's a buyout price at Y9000. I was so so close to buying it since that's the only thing missing for my Love Hina CD collection. I was 2cm away from clicking the button, but then I closed the window. For Y9000, I could buy quite a many things, heck, that's almost two Japanese DVDs! Plus, I don't even like that song all that much. Sigh. I was not at the concert, so I really shouldn't freak out about getting the CD. Maybe at some later date. Oh well, I should be getting some more DVDs tomorrow...

I must say that it

I must say that it was pretty impressive of me to finish 4 magazines on the airplane. Okay, so it's better to say I read three and a ahalf. I managed to kill off a Time, Wired, PC Magazine, and half of a New Yorker (which BTW isn't light reading). I think that's the most reading I've done all semester in one sitting, including the time I studied for midterms and finals. :)

There's a reason why I don't like to discuss politics. It's because there's so many conflicting actions that it's impossible to say who's right and who's wrong. Take North Korea for example. They've resently recinded from a UN sanction that says that they can't reactive a nuclear power plant they've had sitting dormant for the last 8 years. So now, all the media is broadcasting how bad bad bad NK is breaking a treaty. They're bad, we're (US) are good. But you know what? Our oh-so-great president also broke an even older treaty with Russia saying that we wouldn't develop a missle defense system. What's the president's explanation? We need to defend ourselves from the enemies of the US. Well, guess what NK is saying? THE EXACT SAME THING! Who's right? Who's wrong? And on top of that, why the hell aren't we going after NK like we're going after Iraq? There is no proof that Iraq has any nuclear weapons. There is proof that NK has nuclear capabilities, or at least very close to it. Hell, the NK goverment has said openly that they're developing nukes. And yet, G. Bush is still frickin' fixated on the Middle East. I used to be able to believe the propoganda that they're not in it for the oil, but it's impossible to hide the real motivation now.

IMO, if there was a choice, I think NK is a lot more important than Iraq right now because of location. Say Iraq shoots some missles, the only place it would want to hit and can hit is Israel, a small country. Say North Korea shoots some missles, it would undoubtably be pointed at it's closest neighbors, South Korea, Japan, and maybe Taiwan. I doubt they would be stupid enough to aim it west towards China or North towards Russia. Plus, I doubt China would take objections for a few missles lobbed in the direction of Taiwan. Anyway, that would take out a hell more than an Iraq attack. It would take out Japan, which is the world's second largest economy, South Korea, which is an innovator in technology (ever heard of Samsung?), and Taiwan, where most computers come from. What would winning the oil wells in Iraq be if there were no more Toyota, Kia, Lexus, Nissan, Honda to drive around, no more Sony, Samsung, Panasonic (Matsushita), Sharp, Canon, Nikon, Pioneer gadgets to play with, and Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway computers to suck up the electricity generated by crude?

I have to admit that I've never been a fan of Korea, mostly because of the northern country. "We deserve to have nuclear weapons," or so they say to that effect. But why? The country can't even feed it's own people, and yet they need nuclear weapons? To do what? To "protect" their citizens who are dying anyway from famine? Wouldn't it make more sense to spend that money into improving the country, rather than making arms that can destory another?

God I hate politics.

NOTE TO SELF: subtract three hours from time to compensate for Pacific Time.

I will be leaving in

I will be leaving in 45 minutes to the subway! And then to the airport! I've decided to only pack my Mao-chan lunchbox since that's all that would fit. I'm terribly scared that it'll get dented, but I packed it really loosely with a lot soft clothes. We'll see. I mean, after all, it is still replaceable (still order-able). My next order from Amazon Japan has been moved to "shipping soon" status. More Mao-chan! More Saikano! And best of all more Aoi...ahem, I mean Ai yori Aoshi. :)

It's the most wonderful time

It's the most wonderful time of year...when I have to decide on what to pack. See, I'm going to be leaving in less than 12 hours. Well, the flight is in 15 hours, but since I'm taking the subway (compare $40 bucks taxi or $0 monthly pass subway), I'll have to leave quite early. There's a part of me that wants to keep everything here. But I know that since I have an opportunity to ship things free via luggage, I should start moving some stuff back. What should I bring back? What am I willing to risk those lousy airport baggage handlers? I think I'll ship the Rikumao DVD Box #1 back since I really have not use for it. Maybe a few CDs (Kenshin box maybe?), and some DVD cases. I'll go check out my other room (home of all my garbage) to see what else I would need. But it's so hard parting with stuff.

So yesterday (meaning Saturday), I downloaded the trial version of Warcraft3 to see what the buzz was all about. It's the exact friggin' game as Starcraft, with a Warcraft2 feel and some polygons. Geez, I don't know why people get so worked up over it. I guess my time for video games has passed.

Word to the wise: Do not show an anime about idealized romance to someone who's had bad experiences with relationships. So a friend of mine, who shall remain unnamed, came over to my place because 1) to have dinner and 2) because she was interested in my ravings of "Ai yori Aoshi" and wanted to know the type of girl that I would fall for. Since she knows more Japanese than I do, she understood the show sans subtitles. During the middle of the second episode, my friend broke down in tears. And it's supposed to be a romantic COMEDY! Her reasoning was that this showed how first-loves are so idealized, and that's not how it happens in real life, as through her own experiences. I turned that thing off faster than you could say "shimatta!" I had intended to show her Love Hina too, but maybe she wasn't ready to handle all these romance series. So I instead put on a few episodes of Azumanga Daioh. She felt a bit better afterwards.

You see what happens when I try to drag someone into MY world? They break down in tears. Man...

Yet again, George goes into

Yet again, George goes into buying things from a Japanese shop. This time, it was a the "User's Side" store in midtown. So, I finally decided to get myself an electronic dictionary. I held out before because I thought it would be really helpful if I had to struggle with a standard book dictionary because it would help me learn the ordering of the kana better (which it did). Now that I consider myself to be pretty good at looking up words, I decided to go electronic.

Having already browsed the web, I knew exactly which I want. I go in there, and walk around. I look at the laptops, at which time a salesman comes to me and speaks to me in Japanese. I respond with a carefully prepared, "sumimasen, eego de hanashite kudasaimasen ka?" (Sorry, could you speak to me in English?). At which time he did I responded with a "I'm just looking." I then go to the front counter for the real purpose of my visit: to buy the dictionary. So I hail the guy behind the counter (who doesn't know I'm delinquent in Japanese) and he gets it for me. I tell him that I want that one, and let him know that I want to buy (quite easy, just say "kore ni shimasu"). At the register, he rings me up and then goes on and on in Japanese. Here's my interpretation of it:

Clerk: Blah blah blah blah this is a Japanese product blah blah blah blah if you want it fixed, you have to send it to Japan blah blah blah blah blah blah warranty not valid blah blah blah blah blah you have one week to return it blah blah blah blah blah blah please be careful.

George: Hai.

One of the things about

One of the things about going out to eat with a bunch of friends is about splitting the check. Usually, it's split evenly among everyone in the party. This has its advantages and disadvantages, obviously. If you order more, then you usually pay less than you ate. If you order less, you pay more. Tonight, for example, I went out with a few people and ate at a French restaurant in midtown. A entree was like $18, which in my opinion is EXPENSIVE (that's almost a DVD!), but they thought it was reasonable. Well, I just ordered the chicken, which was $18.75 and nothing else. They ordered stuff like dessert, wine, and coffee. I ended up paying $30 in the split. Blah.

What the hell? Richard Karn,

What the hell? Richard Karn, aka Al Borland from Home Improvement, is a host (guest?) for Family Feud (don't ask, I just turned on the TV). Talk about a career going downhill.

Time to enjoy a nice hour and then afterwards, maybe enjoy some more nice hours. School's over! I have to get ready to pack.

The Trent Lott thing is out of hand. As much as I dislike Republicans in general, I don't think he deserved basically be forced out of his position in the Senate. He slipped, he made a mistake, everyone makes mistakes. But I guess that's politics.

Arg! I'm trying to consolidate

Arg! I'm trying to consolidate all my music files and I realize that I haven't yet renamed all my Hand Maid May mp3 files. They all say Track01.mp3, Track02.mp3...etc. ALL 200+ OF THEM FROM 6 CDs. Long time tonight, and massive Kanji work.

It's over! No more school

It's over! No more school for a month. The last final went okay, I guess. I finished it and didn't look back.

Note to self: Do not buy anything from Kinokuniya if it's not old. I just got the January edition of Newtype, which was released a week ago. Asahiya didn't have it, so I bought it at Kino. Well, for things that are just released, Kino slaps on MASSIVE shipping charges. The magazine normally sells for about $9 bucks. They charged me $15! I didn't realize it because they had the "airmail" sticker at the bottom of the magazine. Live and learn. On top of that, reading that magazine isn't good for my anime habit since I've already pinpointed at least 4-5 new series due to come out on Japanese TV that I would be pretty interested in getting and watching.

Speaking of anime, I just did some more random statistics. If you were to play my entire anime/game CD collection, you would have to listen for 24 hours a day, for 5 days straight! If you were to watch my entire anime DVD collection, you would have to watch for 24 hours a day, for TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Mmm...sounds enticing. :)

Watched the Two Towers today.

Watched the Two Towers today. It was good, although I thought it moved pretty slow for the first part of the movie. I really liked how they weaved the different stories together though.

But what's better was that I paid $15 for lunch, which consisted of a cup of soup from none other than the SOUP NAZI! The place that inspired the character in Seinfeld is located between 8th and Broadway on 55th St. I got the crab bisque, which was really good (and expensive), but it was pretty funny because a lot of people who were ordering (lines were pretty long for such a small place) were scared of the guy (including yours truly). But it turned out okay. Funny thing was that he had some signs about ordering ("Have your decision made before you get to the counter. Have your money ready. Proceed to the left after ordering. LINE MUST KEEP MOVING!") in Japanese. It is a popular tourist attraction.

Now, it's time for some change. I'm going to clean up my bookmarks and creating new catagories for them. I've had a few links in here since my freshman year (about 6 years ago) that don't work. Time to do some housekeeping.

What a heartbreaker. In anticipation

What a heartbreaker. In anticipation for the sequel to Hand Maid May, I was looking on Amazon for "Hand Maid Mai" (the title of the sequel). You know what? There was a big warning that said you have to be 18+ to order it and it makes you go through this click-thru agreement stating you're over 18. As much as I loved HMMay, I have principles, one of which is to keep my collection "clean." Fan-service is one thing, 18+ material is another.

Just finished translating "Towa no

Just finished translating "Towa no Hana" and, well, that song also fits the show pretty well. Since it's a song I love, it's obviously a song about unrequitted love. I'm a sucker for those things.

Why do I always end

Why do I always end up liking songs that talk about unrequitted love? So I just finished translating the original intro song to Ai yori Aoshi, "Saigo no Hotaru" or "The Last Firefly." I love how the song sounds, and so I decided to spend the last hour translating it. Actually, this time, I made the HTML page with the kanji as well as romanji and translation. Pretty interesting how you have to specify the encoding on the HTML page just so it won't show up as junk on the browser. Anyway, the song is about not being able see someone and waiting for that person. I think it might even be a more appropriate song for the show than "Towa no Hana" but I have to translate that to find out.

I left my final exam

I left my final exam about 30 minutes early. It was scheduled to be a 90 minute exam, but after finishing it, I just left. I don't know how well I did, but I managed to put down an answer for everything. I didn't have to think too long on any particular problem, so I guess that's a good sign. Or maybe I really didn't do it right, but confidently thought I did.

Now to study for another test. Blarg.

I find it kinda funny

I find it kinda funny about this email I got. The person basically offered me the "missing" scene from the Love Hina Winter Special. Apparently, in the bootleg and/or digisub version, they left out a few minutes of the special and so there was this talk about the "missing" scene. The problem is, I have both the Japanese and US releases of the Winter Special, and so I'm pretty confident that I'm not missing anything.

Finished the last disc I have of Ai yori Aoshi...and it leaves me wanting more! But I have to wait until Christmas for the next shipment of DVDs from Amazon Japan.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Inquiring minds want to know. Why are Japanese DVDs more expensive? So I decided to do a little test. Since I have both Episode 25 and the Winter Special of Love Hina, I compared the file sizes of both movies. I took special care to not include the extras such as the trailer for spring special and final selection that were on the Japanese release of the shows. The running time were within 1 second after I cut the extras out. Here's the result.

The US version of Winter Special: 2.299 gigs.
The Japan version of Winter Special: 3.087 gigs.
The US version of Episode 25: 1.218 gigs.
The Japan version of Episode 25: 1.656 gigs.

If you do the math, 3.087/2.299 = 1.34, likewise, 1.656/1.218 = 1.36.

In short, the Japanese releases were ~35% better in video/audio quality than the US releases! Just for comparison, MP3s encoded at 192kbps are ~35% better than those encoded at 128kbps. Can you tell the difference between those two MP3s?

I guess you do get what you pay for. This goes for bootlegs too. It's so naive to think that bootlegs give you the same quality if they stuff 8 episodes on a DVD. A DVD has a limit to its capacity. If you store more on there, you're going to have to reduce file sizes, and that means worse quality. Would you rather buy a CD full of 2000 MP3s encoded at 64kbps, or 200 encoded at 320kpbs? If you care anything about your ears, I hope you choose the latter.

Head hurts...Just watched another two

Head hurts...Just watched another two episodes of Ai yori Aoshi. I'm really sucking this stuff up! Ah, the pleasure! Ah, the pain!

I really should head outside, but I'm so tired. Spent the whole day programming my stupid program, and just turned on the TV an hour ago to watch some anime. Now, I think I'll go to sleep.

I wonder what's going to happen on Monday. They're supposed to have a strike so I'll be stuck without the subway to go to school in. However, Columbia is providing shuttle service from Penn Station, which is only about 15 streets away (not bad, maybe 30 minute walk). Oh well, c'est la vie.

Cornell found their new president today. He's currently the dean of UMich law school and a Cornell alumni. Thank goodness. Maybe he'll know how to keep the Cornell tradition...but Rawlings already destroyed everything.

Just finished another final project.

Just finished another final project. I'm getting sick of them...but at least it's the last one.

I was also listening to the CD Drama track (the second one, which didn't include Yui, but was still release about a month before the TV show). You know, Sakuraba Aoi has such a perverted mind! My god! You would never expect someone like HER to have THOSE types of thoughts.

So the female casts talk about their thoughts to each other. Being the listeners, we hear their thoughts in entirety, even if they deny it to the other characters. So when it cames to Aoi, her thoughts are something along the lines of:

(Something boiling in the background)
Kaoru: Urmm...oh!
Aoi: Good morning, Kaoru-sama.
Kaoru: Good morning, Aoi-chan.
Aoi: Did you sleep well? I'm preparing breakfast.
Kaoru: Yeah, but...(Kaoru grabs her into bed/futon)
Aoi: Kaoru-sama!?
Kaoru: Now, now, you're calling me that again. When we're alone together, what are you supposed to call me?
Aoi: Ah, umm, darling*...
Kaoru: That's right. Before I eat breakfast, I...I want to eat** Aoi-chan.
Aoi: Uhh, I don't think I can do such dirty things.
Kaoru: But I...I can't hold myself back. Is it okay?
Aoi: Yes...Darling...

(* She uses "anata" which is commonly used when wives address husbands. It means "you" literally and is used more often with people you're close to. It is considered a bit rude if you use it with someone you don't know since you're not respecting them by using their name (with a san suffix). The closest thing I could think of was "darling" although for effect, I could have used "daddy" as in "who's yo daddy!" :) ).

(** That's the exact wording he uses. Given that there's almost an equivalent in English, I don't think I need to use alternative definition =) ).

Of course, she doesn't tell any of the other characters on the CD these thoughts. So yeah, she's one sick puppy. However, my affinity towards her stays the same, regardless.

SPIOLER ALERT!

And just for the record, I did go see Star Trek yesterday. Very entertaining movie, although I did have the though "Oh gee-whiz, they're going to destory the Enterprise yet again." But I liked it.

I hung up on a

I hung up on a telemarketer today for the newspaper. If you're polite to me, I'll be polite to you. However, if you call me on a SATURDAY MORNING AT 11AM, a time when I'm still asleep, you're going to get the "END" button pretty quickly. I actually picked up the phone because I have a friend here who's traveling and it might have been him calling me from a payphone or his relatives, whom he's meeting, asking me when he left. But no, a stupid telemarketer.

So, yesterday was spent at the two museums here in New York City, the Guggenheim and the Met. The Guggenheim was a small quaint museum. They had an exhibit titled "Moving Pictures" which tries to acknowledge photography and video as art mediums. I still don't get them though. There was some guys passport photo enlarged to at least 10 feet high, and they called that art. They had a video of two people making out, and they called that art. They had some guy putting 9 reflective square plates on different surfaces (earth, sand, grass...etc), photographing it, and calling it art. Art is a strange thing indeed. The Met was a lot better. That place is huge and has everything. Saw a few of the most famous paintings in the word, including a study for my personal favorite, Seurat's "A Saturday Afternoon..." They also had an impressive collection of medival armor, European and Asian. Very nice place to be. I would have happily paid the $7 bucks admission to go, but it's free to all Columbia students.

Went skating at the Rockefeller

Went skating at the Rockefeller Center again today with my friend from California. I brought my own skates this time which made all the difference. The cheap plastic stuff they rent out blows.

But besides that, I got the Chobits 8 box, which is pretty, although not much help since I don't even have books #1,2,4,5,6,7. I'm tempted to buy another box from Kinokuniya though because those things are hideously rare, and maybe I might squeeze some money out of it sometime in the future. Maybe. I might go back there and get book 1 though, just so I can start on it.

All this nuclear stuff that's going on in the world is very scary. So the current CNN headline is that Iran has nuclear weapons now. North Korea doesn't want monitors anymore in their nuclear plants. What the hell. People can do so many great things, yet people can do so many stupid things.

Yet again I lied on

Yet again I lied on my front page of J*. That was NOT all I got this semester since I came home today with the limited edition (they're already out of print everywhere online, even in Japan) Chobits manga #8 box. :) Also got this week's Shonen Magazine.

Watching anime without the assistance

Watching anime without the assistance of subtitles is a strange mix of pleasure and pain. On one end, I get a lot more emotionally involved into the show if I listen to the dialogues rather than read the word (likewise, I don't get too emotional over books as opposed to TV/movies). So that's the good part. The other end of the spectrum is that after 2-3 episodes, my brain starts to hurt and I can't watch anymore. Translating Japanese in real-time is very brain-intensive and my brain quickly tires, much like doing a sprint rather than just a leisurely job. I just finished episode 1&2 and I've already decided that I'm in love with Aoi. If there were someone like Aoi in real life (with her personality and haircut....love that hairstyle), I would kindly submit. Okay, I think I can handle one more episode...

Box set craziness! So I

Box set craziness! So I woke up bright and early today to head to the post office to pick up one of my packages today. It was the super-limited preview disc. It also comes with an alarm clock, postcard, and a train ticket (part of the show) with the box number (mine is #7897/10000). After I watched the preview, I really wanted to see the series. And what do you know! The DHL man came by 30 minutes later with the other DVDs! But not all is happy in this neck of the woods. While I got the first pressing DVDs of volumes 1,3,4, and 5, I didn't get it for volume 2! Arg! What I'm missing out is a postcard and the disc is decorated with a flat matte color instead of the glossy color found on the first pressing discs. Very very tempted to put it on my watchlist on Animejungle and have them notify me when they get a used first edition volume 2 (and pay for the DVD again...I've actually done that with Love Hina Final Selection and KareKano OST 1). But I just need to repeat the mantra "I am not buying to collect. I am buying to watch. The content on the discs are the same. Calm down. That extra money can buy you another volume in the series." Sigh.

But on the uppity-up, I have all 3 boxes for the entire Ai yori Aoshi series. Like the first sentence in this entry, "BOX SET CRAZINESS!"

Front:

Back:

In order to procrastinate, there

In order to procrastinate, there has to be something to do. I just counted up all the MP3s I have for Anime. It comes to a grand total 5 Gigs, with 2000+ songs! The scary thing is that I own all the CDs that I encoded this MP3s from, all 118 non-bootleg ones.

What is it with soundtracks and the spoken tracks. I got two CDs in the package today: Rikumao OST and Ai yori Aoshi CD Drama (the very first one, released a year before the anime was released). Both contain CD-ROMs with sound clips for your computer (as it is, my computer currently has Naru telling me that I have mail, but I'm very tempted to change it to Aoi). They also contain a load of wallpapers. Very purdy ones. That wasn't my point though. My point is that they've got answering machine messages spoken...

"Chris says hello"

...on the CD tracks. Given the massive amounts of junk phone calls I get, I'm tempted to put that as my voicemail message. I mean, the people who would call me know I'm an anime fan, and only those people (besides telemarketers) would call me. I wonder what people would think if I used a message spoken by a middle-aged woman sounding like an 8 year old girl from Osaka (complete with the accent).

Imagine my surprise when I

Imagine my surprise when I got a buzzer this morning. I thought it was my friend John, who was supposed to be staying at my place last night, but I guess had too much of a good time last night (I went with him to the birthday dinner party of another friend of ours. I then stayed for a bit at the bar with them before I got fed up with the headache inducing music and smoke from cigarettes). Anyway, he still isn't back, which means either 1) he got lucky or 2) he's staying at another friend's house. I suspected #2.

Well, the doorbuzzer was from the USPS! It's Sunday! Yesterday, I was supposed to get another package, but they just left a note. That one was Ai yori Aoshi DVD #0 (the super duper limited edition that I was fortunate enough to snag). Today's is the box set package with Ai yori Aoshi Box #5 (#1, as well as Disc 2,3,4 are coming tomorrow via DHL), Saikano, and two soundtracks, Ai yori Aoshi CD Drama and Mao-chan's soundtrack (both of which include bonux CD-ROMs!). Now for some anime watching...and then more work to do.

So I'm watching 20/20 and

So I'm watching 20/20 and they're having this segment about the ultra-competitive nursery schools in NYC (and the scadals that parents do to get their kids in there). The most elite they say, is the nursery school at the "92nd St. Y." They show footage of all these celebrities who managed to get their kids into the school. GUESS WHAT? That's where I lived last year. I never knew they were so arrogant.

Frickin' annoying. The power keeps

Frickin' annoying. The power keeps on going out! So about 2 hours ago, when I was working on my project, the power just went out! Fortunately, I've already learned the hard lessons of not saving, so I've already developed this instictive reaction to press "Control-S" anytime I want to do something. Nothing lost. But then jsut now, it happened again! Frickin' annoying. Well, at least I have a laptop with a battery, which didn't go out when I was typing...but the network dies cuz the cable modem box needs power.

WTF? I have Fox News

WTF? I have Fox News on, and when I looked over from my computer, I see a commercial for a morning program on CNN. How messed up is that? It's like ABC promoting a program on NBC. Strange.

Finally bought a comforter today. Also got the Lord of the Rings trilogy from B&N. Will go to bed soon and start reading in my warm warm down comforter. I also bought a new bath towel since I'm expecting guests the next two weekends. I go to the register at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and the clerk asks me if the towel is for my girlfriend or me. I said it was for me, and did all the courtesies. Strange how she thought it was for a g/f since I probably wouldn't bother cuz I'm not even done spending money on myself, much less anyone else.

How frickin' rude can people

How frickin' rude can people be? I'm sitting in the library reading in between classes. On the door to the library, there's a big sign that says "turn off cell phones!" But just now (like many other times), the guy next to me has his phone go off, and the guy is talking! Even mentioning, "yeah, I'm in the library." Bastard. It's okay if you forget to turn it off, and quickly do so when it rings. But I really want to kick this guys ass since he's doing it deliberately.

Wow, my printer is still

Wow, my printer is still printing my assignment. I think it's getting kinda old since it basically ripped two sheets of paper as it was trying to suck it in. Oh well.

It's amazing what treasures I can find in my encoded-from-CD mp3 collection. So I decided to put on the songs from the Vocal Collection of Saber Marionette which I bought in April of this year and discovered that there's a song I really like in there titled "Dakishimete LOVIN' YOU" which means "Embracing and Loving You" sung by the three CVs for the marionettes. Very nice song. Maybe I should listen more closely to all the CDs I buy.

Yeah, it's finally done. I can go to sleep now!

Fun fun, the National Weather

Fun fun, the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for NYC. Does that mean we'll get some snow? Hooray!

And while I'm waiting for my completed assignment to print out, I've concluded my DVD purchasing strategy from now on given that I'm purchasing more and more R2 Japanese DVDs.

First off, I will not re-live history. If I already have the US release, I will not repurchase the Japanese release just because it looks better. This goes for Love Hina (the OVAs were already released before I even knew about Love Hina), Strawberry Eggs (which I really would love to have, but it's a waste of money since I've already started it) and so forth. HOWEVER, if I do not have the series started in the US release, then I'll buy the DVDs from Japan. However, when the US releases come, I will not buy them immediately unless there's a pressing need like if it comes with a box (remember, my box philosophy is that if I have to buy it *separately*, I won't). But yeah, if it's a regular release, then I can delay it until it becomes cheap and comes with a box, or just when it comes cheap since I already have the R2. I'm currently following 4 different R2 DVD series, SaiKano, Ai yori Aoshi, Azumanga Daioh, and Rikumao. That's actually a handful.

Mission Failed! I was out

Mission Failed! I was out today trying to find the "Ai Yori Aoshi" manga at the three bookstores, Kinokuniya, Asahiya and Bookoff! Problem is, I forgot who the publisher of it was, so looking for it was a pain in the ass. Manga is usually ordered by the publisher and then by the author. Problem is, I didn't know who the author was either. On top of that, I'm too proud to ask (your typical guy behavior), so I just left. But not before I picked up another manga from Bookoff and this week's Magazine from Asahiya. Speaking of which, I paid 10 bucks for the $4.60 Magazine and only got 40 cents in change. Last week, I was fast enough to mention it to them. This week, I was outside for more than 10 minutes when I realized the error. Oh well.

It looks like the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was today since they had a ton of people, a ton of NYPD, and camera crews there.

On my way home, I stopped by the usual Sushi place to pick up a bit. The lady clerk spoke to me in a foreign language, which wasn't Japanese nor Chinese nor English. Being that I don't admit my Japanese ability, I quickly rebuffed saying that I don't speak Japanese. I then tell her that I'm Chinese, but was born in the states. She replies that she had in fact thought I was Korean. Well, that's a first. I've been told I look Japanese too. And when I was in Taiwan, I was told I look like a foreigner. Well, anything's better than looking like an idiot, which is what happens when I try to speak in Japanese.

The publisher to "Ai Yori Aoshi" is Hakusensha (not a big one, like Kodansha and Kadakawa) and the author is "Fumizuki Kou."

They say that art soothes

They say that art soothes the soul. I have to agree. I spent the better half of tonight scanning a poster for my wallpaper. Since the poster came in a magazine, it was folded up, so part of the fixing up was to remove those creases from the image. Not easy, but I learned something useful. Using levels in the adjustment layer really helps out if the color in the scan isn't evenly distributed. But despite the fact that it's tedious, I find it relaxing to do it. Dunno. Maybe it's because I've had a crappy week so far, and I just needed something mindless to do.

So here's my new wallpaper. Risque, you say...but it's only on my home computer, Desktop Sakura.

It's from Ai yori Aoshi...for which I should be receiving the first 5 DVDs from Japan sometime next week, along with the first disc/box of Saikano.

I refuse to work on Hinastar until I'm done with "the project." Need to finish before Christmas.

Seems like I haven't been

Seems like I haven't been keeping up with the journal...tsk tsk tsk. So my Turkey weekend was good. I didn't go to the parade this year because I overslept. Parade ended at 12pm, which was 20 minutes before I woke up. I have a bad habit of waking up at noon everyday on my non-school days, but I realize that my body knows best. If it needs that much sleep (I usually sleep around 2-3am), then so be it.