I've gotten addicted to wasabi. I used to despise the stuff, opting to eat the ginger instead and leave my soysauce untainted. But recently, I've come to enjoy the pain and the pleasure of eating wasabi. So much so that I have a tube of the stuff sitting in my fridge that I got from Marukai. One thing to note though is that wasabi doesn't go well with hot foods. Do not try eating potstickers with wasabi. It just doesn't taste right.

I finally started watching Stellvia today and finished episode one since I finished the first manga. Well, that and the fact that I have the entire season (24) episodes now, unwatched. I've had the first 12 episodes for more than 4-5 months already. It was enjoyable, story very similar to the manga. I shall be writing it up soon enough.

Sucks that Clark is off the ballot now. I guess I'll go with my second choice, Kerry. Anyone but Bush.

Did most of my taxes today, but hit a little snag. Will describe more in a later posting.

Title: 魔法先生ネギま！　４月：神楽坂明日菜 (Magic Teacher Negima! April: Asuna Kagurazaka)
Original Creator: 赤松健 (Ken Akamatsu)
Release Date: 1/21/2004
Catalog No.: KICM-3049
Rating: 4/4
To Purchase

The first of 12 singles cd featuring the girls from Negima. When this cd first went on sale, it hit #1 on Amazon Japan's CD rankings. It features 6 tracks, a 5 second track intro, a song that has 2 variations along with a karaoke version, a mini-drama, and then a message from the seiyuu, 神田朱未 （Akemi Kanda). First edition has an Asuna tarot card (read the manga to understand why).

The single song include is very catchy, titled いつだってLove & Dream (Always Love & Dream). The regular mix is catchy, the remix has more of a techno feel. Both are something I can listen on repeat.

The mini-drama a 3 minute episode where Asuna dials a psychic and gets a perverted fortune teller. It's pretty funny and is a good preview of how Asuna would sound like if (when) Negima is made into an anime.

I'm not sure about the selection of voice. When I think about Asuna and her personality, I expected someone with a bit of a lower voice. Something like Yui Horie and her job with Naru (Ho-chan is already booked as another character in Negima though). But according to the message on track 5, Akemi was chosen by Ken Akamatsu himself. Without having read the manga, she auditioned for the role and was immediately picked out. I guess I should trust the creator of the manga to know his characters.

12 CDs...it'll out-do my 8 Azumanga singles.

Spent the last 6 hours dealing with one of my most hated programming tasks. Browser/Javascript programming. I like server-side programming like perl/php/python because it's a contained environment. I know what server it runs on and I know that the output is always the same. However, you never know what you're going to get with client-side programming since everyone uses a different browser.

The sliding effect I have can only been seen with Mozilla (and Netscape 6+) and IE5+, I believe. The webserver automatically redirects you to the page, whether it is the regular or dynamic based on what browser you're using. I just hope it works well enough. I really do like the effect though.