I was supposed to be out shopping for a gift at the bookstore as well as picking up this month's Animage and Newtype as I don't have a subscription due to the closing of Asahiya (although my subscription to Shonen and Young have been transfered to Torrance because I paid for a year of it up-front). Anyone, I was minding my own business nothing that they restocked dramatically since Sunday when I was there last (I was looking for those magazines, but they hadn't come in yet). And what do I behold? An artbook that Amazon Japan says is out-of-print, one that I really wanted too. So as you can see, it's mine...and the gift will have to wait until next week or later. The book is still in it's shrinkwrap (like my other 75+ DVDs, and 100+ manga) so that's why there's those white bubble-like things on the cover.

I'm even more in negative territory in my budget, but that's okay. I got a nice infusion from my tax refund (saving at least 50% of that for savings, the other half is fair game).

So I spent a lot of time last night redesigning the layout of this page again. Now, rather than the segemented look from old 'scribbles, it's a typical three pane, but the middle pane (content) is now continuous with color gradients between different colors! (ooh, ahh!) Wasn't terribly difficult as ImageMagick already has the gradient function built in. I like the look, but looks don't make web journals! Content do! And so now I'm off to finish off two more manga.