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Showing posts from 2008

Review of Autumn 2008 anime

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(sorry, Winter 2009 is not yet ready) The Autumn 2008 anime season has ended with the Winter 2009 around the corner. Some are 22-26 series that would continue into the Winter 2009 season (hence, fewer new anime) but I would still count them as Autumn 2008. In no particular order, I would group these anime according to my likeness. (OVAs and live versions are not counted) Didn't watch at all or dropped at the first few episodes: Penguin Musume Heart 2nd Club : It's a second season of something I didn't watch. Battle Spirit & Mach Girl : Just looking at the pictures alone tells me not to watch Bonen no Xamdou & Hakushaku to Yousei: Doesn't seem to be my type to watch. Noramimi 2nd season: Looks like a kid's show and I never watched the first season. Rosario and Vampire Capu2: Had dropped in season 1 as there is no real storyline and the colours used were awful. It had a colourful opening though. Casshern Sins: remake of a 1970s anime. Good storyline, but

Alternate Dimention (Part 17)

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*thud* I find myself lying on the floor next to a bed. Where am I? I tried to look out of the window only to be blinded by the light outside. The state of giddiness I'm experiencing now means I was sleeping heavily earlier. Oh yes, I'm in my bedroom. Yesterday was so bizarre that it seemed like a dream. I headed to the kitchen only to find that I am low on food, bottled drinks and many cleaning solutions. Current supplies would only last me until the end of the week. I noticed that I was running low on stationery and the summer holidays would end soon. Though I'm somewhat reluctant to do this by myself, I have no choice but to head to the supermarket downtown as the stores near at the train station near my house where my workplace is has limited variety. Looks like I have to get ready to go out. As I left my apartment complex, I tried to look for my mobile phone and my bicycle that is usually parked at the usual place, but they aren't there. Thinking hard, it felt

background of v0030 changed

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Earlier today, I have modified the background of the v0030 vector I did at the beginning of November to add more detail on top of the current version. Click on the images to view them at the actual resolution. Old: With this kind of background, I do feel that something's missing. New: Now it looks a lot better. The background from earlier is modified slightly and is positioned underneath the newer additions. As this is just a modification to an existing work, it would not be featured as a new drawing. If you were wondering why the resolution of the older version is larger than the newer one, please read here .

Mistakes spotted

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Looking through my vectors and the numbering of my stories, I had spotted several mistakes that had already been put up but did not notice them until later on. v0038 : Date was written as "2008年11 日 20日(木)" (Thursday, 20th November 2008). The character for 日 in red is supposed to be 月. Looking back at the version before I changed the font to the current one, this problem was already there, but was not so obvious there. v0045 : Day of the week in the date was written as 金 (Fri), but 13 December 2008 was a Saturday (土). Corrections has been made to the primary image. The corrections has been made to the images and respective images would be changed. Initial versions and outlines of these would remain unchanged due to the location they are uploaded to and for the former, it's supposed to display what it might had look like when it first came out and compare the differences (major or minor) with the current version. As outlines are introduced to the drawings blog recently, v

Alternate Dimension (Part 16)

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As my original body fell asleep back at home due to boredom and insufficient sleep from the night before, I actually found no difficulties moving the other around as I rode my bicycle to the train station, even with the violin case on me. It was not long ago that this same body would easily slip off from the other me on this bike after riding for just a few meters. Of course, it hurts when I fell onto the pavement back then. For some reason, I saw it happening from a 3rd person point of view when it happened, or was that the view from the other me? I dropped by my workplace to store the device that those escapees might be after for safekeeping. I noticed that I had a pass holder contain my spare old work pass lying around at a forgotten corner in there, so I should bring it along. Since there is space for another (pass holder is large), I placed the current one on the top of the other since there wasn't another card holder for this one as I left. The manager happily waved at me

312th post: Bringing in the crowd

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Whenever I go to a quiet area of a department store for a while, browsing through the things there, I would notice that there would be more people than it would be just earlier. An example would be earlier this week, I had went to a bookstore to by a book. The queue was rather short when I entered. After picking a book and headed to the cashier to pay, there was suddenly a long queue of people waiting to pay. I went to the other end of the store (it's very big), but to my dismay, it's quite long too. Good thing the queue moved quite fast. Latter that day, I went to another store. As Christmas is getting nearer, this would mean the place having a larger-than-usual crowd. I look around the store and then grabbed some food and drinks. At the cashier, there was another long queue of people waiting to pay. I looked through the batteries to see if I have the need for battery sizes other than the regular 単3形 (AA size) batteries. That was when I noticed a cash counter hidden from view

Alternate Dimension (Part 15)

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With the events that happened earlier behind us, I decided to have Mamiko examined during the remaining amount of days in the summer break. There never was a proper examination of her body since she was clonned from me. Apart from the student council and some clubs preparing for the upcoming school festival to the general publc, the school seems generally deserted. There are people playing around at the dormitories in the school. Generally, they are filled with foreigners and people who live outside my region, most of which are studying at the college department. Mamiko is now able to move, but is still quite weak: she can walk around unaided, but would collapse if she were to do anything more than that. Her mind is just as energetic as mine, but her body don't seem to reflect that well. I arrived at science research and development building, but had no idea where to go from there. The design of the building reminds me of an old European building built in the middle ages bu

progress of v0046 and about "Alternate Dimension (Part 15)"

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This is the vector I started doing this yesterday, 14 Dec. A large majority of vectors I had done on average takes about a day to do so as I normally do only one person, and there isn't really much details on the characters and a basic background. Either that or I omitted/simplify those. Right now, I'm only doing the background (which is incomplete) and have yet to even start with the outline. It seems that I can't simplify this without compromising the quality. For the leaves, I made several small circles in different colours that overlap each other to form the leaves. This may take a while to complete. The amount I had done right now is only about half of what is on the waiting list The extra-large signature you see would be replaced with the regular version when it's done. I was planning to put up part 15 back on Friday, but didn't like that version partly because, storyline-wise, it does not really get anywhere. It's hard to come up with an exciting storyli

resolution of vectors changed

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After I had done putting up the outlines of the vectors I had done and correcting the mistake I made (13 Dec as Fri instead of Sat) of the most recent vector , I had noticed that as my most recent vectors are more detailed than when I first started ( v0003 was edited later on ), which results in the file sizes ranging from 500-900 kilobytes. Largest I have is 1.44 megabytes. As these appear on 4 of my blogs, including here, they can take up some time to load due to the size. More noticeable on computers with slow connections. Images larger than 1MB on most image hosting sites would be reduced to a smaller size. I have been aware of this for quite some time, but wasn't sure if I should do something about it. I would be reducing the width or height (whichever is the largest) from 1800px to 1280px. I don't need it to be so large anyway. I had tried 1600px, but was still too large. 800px and 1000px was also tested, but found it to be too small. I'm not sure how much space

Alternate Dimension (Part 14)

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(continued from part 13 , storyline from part 12 ) Except for the 3 of us, everyone (including Mamiko) wanted to go straight to the hotel to rest and then explore various places in the country. Well, they do seem to be tired from the commute from hometown that takes about half a day to get to. I wasn't sure what *****'s parents told Haruna, but it seems to last for several hours. During that time, Haruna was at first shocked several times about something and then started crying around the end of the entire conversation. I kind of know why this guy with us by the name Kyousuke chose to remain here unlike the rest: He has known Haruna since they were kids and saw ***** as a rival, but did not want it to end this way. In fact, I think he did propose to her quite recently. As it was quite late, we stayed over there that night. The bed and bath they prepared was nice and comfortable. That night however, I had a strange realistic dream: I was lying on the floor helplessly for

similarities I noticed

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I noticed that in the most recent anime episodes, there are noticeable similarities with the stories that you see me posing here. What's even more amusing is that it happened some time after I wrote them. 喰霊-零- Episode 9: Yomi Isayama (諫山 黄泉) in the hospital, unable to speak. とある魔術の禁書目録 Episode 10 : Mikoto Misaka (御坂 美琴) having a clone (20000 of them according to the novel). There might be more, but I don't remember/watch them. But there are some, however, are based on something rather common: Going to the beach, amusement/theme park, or traveling during the summer holidays going to the city to hang out after school (if it's a short ride away) etc. I might have made changes to earlier chapters without mentioning, but I would add " [revised on (date) at (time) ] " at the top. If it's already there, the latter date would be reflected there.

Some HD videos

With what I mentioned earlier about YouTube going HD , I would put some of them here. I would mention what the contents of the video are here, but you know what the power of the internet search engines can do. Note: Videos are highly subjected to deletion.

Alternate Dimension (Part 13)

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I don't know what happened during the conversation, but Haruna, Saeko (my original self), Aiko, and someone called Kyousuke, stayed behind to stay behind. The rest of us took a train to a hotel in the city area before heading out to explore the rest of the country during the rest of our stay there. At that time however, a white light seem to come from my wrist and I suddenly found myself in some office of what appeared to be the the hospital I was warded at not too long ago. The place is filled with mountains of books and research papers lying all over the place. This isn't the first time that being suddenly transported to another place and time has happened to me, but it is in this cloned body of myself that I now find impossible to move, including my facial expression or using my vocal cords to speak. Unfortunately, the wheelchair that helped me to communicate with others has disappeared off to somewhere, so basically I am lying on the messy floor helplessly like a dead bod

filling up optical answer sheets

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When filling up optical answer sheets with a pencil, I am tempted to select the option that I had not selected after a few questions. The options are usually 1,2,3,4 or A,B,C,D and the details of those options in the questions are usually found If I had discovered a mistake later on, I would have to erase the shaded option. The problem with this is that there would be a mark left behind and options for the neighboring questions might get partially erased too. Checking what those options were by referring to the question is quite troublesome as I can forget what I was even doing in the first place. I think my come-of-age day is either just on the first Monday of next month or the following year, I'm not sure which, but time sure seem to have flown by so quickly...

303rd post: Receiving Spam From Myself

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When looking through the inbox lately, I would find messages in the spam folder with the sender address being the same as mine ("me" in the case of Gmail). In fact, I have also seen the same for my other accounts. I don't remember what triggered this to happened, but one thing's for sure is that I haven't entered my email address anywhere other than to sign in recent days and all are web-based providers (eg. Yahoo! Mail, Google Mail (Gmail), Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail). It's hard to tell if changing the password would make a difference. PS, I'm feeling sleepy as I'm typing this, so it would be best if I end here for now.

background in one of the vectors added

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I was originally trying to fix the problem mentioned here by transferring the outline onto a new layer and removing the stroke fill, including those at 0px, so that the problem would be fixed, especially in Google Chrome. As my vectoring skills have improved since then (like bluring, colour gradient and overlapping), I have added a background image to one of the vectors that I did back in July this year. The old version was somewhat plain. No visible changes were made to the original, though the dpi of the exported version (.png) has increased. Old version: New version: Apart from this ( v0003 ), I have also make noticable changes/additions since the original completion date: v0015 (background colour, shape of book on the left, improving the face) v0018 (colour, rotated clockwise, added bottom half and right arm) v0020 (added white background) v0022 (used previous background colour as the shadow, white as the new background) v0023 (changed skin colour) v0028 (made hair longer) v

Alternate Dimension (Part 12)

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Ever since I accidentally cloned myself (with that clone being in an accident later that day) everything around me has taken a different turn from my already-unfamiliar way of life barely a quarter of a year ago where things like my family house and even my body were completely different before, people have been staring at me (though at my wheelchair clone more) like something is wrong with me. During times like lunch, I had to leave my clone behind in class, because bringing her around with me would be more of a hindrance as, even though she is me, I can't really do the things I would normally do like to the restroom, running around the campus, or when I need to be alone. On top of that, most of the places have the staircase as only direct route to get around (and she's heavy to push. Am I that heavy too?). I know she would complain on how bored and lonely she would get, but what can I do? According to the director, my clone don't seem to need to drink or eat at all for

300th post: YouTube in widescreen and high resolution

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(Yay! 300th post on this blog!) Youtube has recently allowed higher resolution videos and more recently increased the width of the page as to look fit nicely on a 1028x768 screen. In the past (around 2006), uploading a widescreen video would add black bars at the top and bottom to fit the 4:3 aspect ratio and would be in low quality. This is still present on old videos uploaded under the old standard and videos that already have the bars when uploading. This is quite noticeable when viewing full screen or re-size the video player. There are currently 3 video quality levels. The default would be the low quality mentioned earlier. The other two are high quality, though one is lower than the other. Unless the original video is low quality or uploaded a long time ago, selecting "watch in high quality" would give the second quality level. The highest is only available if the video it's uploaded from is in 720p (1280*720). Embedding the higher quality version however, requires

a bit scared

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Just a few days ago, I witnessed several lightnings throughout the entire afternoon. It was like a thread of light from somewhere in the sky among the clouds to the ground with bright light. I don't know exactly where it struck, but I did hear the thunder several seconds after I saw the lightning. It was so loud that I can feel its vibration. I don't know if my house is strong or how long it can last, but it was built just a few years before I was born and moved in it when I was in the first year of primary/elementary school. Thankfully, there are lightning rods on top of almost all buildings and structures in addition to the street lamps along the roads.

Alternate Dimension (Part 11)

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As I had met my original self and, with help from her, rely on ourselves. I was soon discharged from hospital the following day, though in a wheelchair. (Someone seemed to have installed a radio speaker on it for me to talk via the airwaves and be able to move the wheelchair with just my mind, though the latter tires me out easily.) At home, I agreed with the me that was not involved in the accident to have me take up Mamiko (麻美子). The name Saeko (沙江子) wasn't originally my name anyway before I entered this dimension anyway just a few months ago anyway. I had also agreed to have a different hairstyle. What is even more strange is, unlike my original, I can live without breathing, drinking or eating at all. Well, I can't anyway, even if they fed me or put some weird contraption to aid me. Would I be involved in that accident if I hadn't played around with that cloning machine, with me being the clone? Well, there are so many possible answers to that question and the only

Losing Identity (Part 11)

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Inside the elevator, an old man wearing a lab coat (do all the staff here wear that?) appear to recognize me, except that I don't recognize that face. Professor: Oh, Kobayashi-san! I haven't seen you since you were discharged last month. May I know who the bloody hell are you? Of course, not wanting to be rude, I instead said: Me: I'm sorry, I don't remember. We got out of the elevator at some random level that don't seem to be the ground floor. Professor: Well, I was the one who was present when you woke up in a coma back in February. When you arrived here back then your body was so stiff that we have difficulty straightening your body. Well, here's a photo that was taken on one of the first few days you were admitted here. I was shocked, but felt like laughing out at the same time: He showed a picture of me wearing the school uniform sitting in a chair in the hospital ward in front of the empty bed. It appeared as though I was wishing for someone