Chasing After Rainbows

Today was one of the few rare days that I reached home very early. In fact, around noon. That's because I had no classes or club activities (that can drag on until night). Seeing that I have a lot of free time (and dont't feel like studying), I watched the almost the entire second season of Jigoku Shoujo (at episode 24 currently, about 10 hours later after starting) that I would normally not have the time for. Anyway, enough of that. It looks like if I hadn't joined the 生徒会, I could have had the time to find a part time job in the day instead of the evening or weekends... There is a running marathon in Singapore on the morning of the first Sunday of December (7th). My friends asked me to come along, but I'm involved with the JLPT (日本語能力試験) at a school near my house on the same day. The place will become very crowded. Closer to now is on the early-mid part of August, especially next week. There are too many things that I should be doing in that time...

Compare with these two images to see the difference between drawing and vectoring : At a glance, the obvious difference is the colours and the lines of the paper it was drawn on. Upon closer look, you can see the dirt left behind on the drawing whereas for the vectored one, you would see a transparent background ( blue or white if you are using IE6 ) instead. The 1st improved version (the one with my MySpace and Friendster URLs) didn't really make a difference other than the unwanted areas outside the drawn area removed. Unfortunately, the lines on the drawn area itself still appears. Improvements include the eyes, the area below the ribbon, both hands, and the details of the skirt. Now it looks better. If you haven't noticed already, I didn't shade (or colour) the skin or the faces on the drawings . The reason being that it would not look as nice like the one on the right. I tried to make shadows on the character, but I ended up making the skin darker. There are " w...

Lately, at the east main road near my house where I would usually alight at the bus stop when heading home from school via the airport , I noticed some guys with a hat normally found at construction sites running around that stretch on both sides of the road with an odd looking machine that seems to be digging through the ground beneath it. I don't know what's going on, honestly. Based on what I know and the map with a 5KM radius around my house, it could be possible that a new subway line could pass through that road with those strange machines (my father says that they are "digging for gold/oil") to check the soil conditions as part of the planning and pre-construction procedures. They are going to construct a station around there, but where exactly, I don't know yet. In any case, there is already a station west and another south (though further than the west) a short walk from my house. Another one I would like to point out is the construction site near the sta...

I went to the IKEA nearest to my house yesterday to buy a new computer table that is to be placed in the living room. That table is for the PC that is already in my room. The main reason why I am moving the PC from my bedroom to the living room is because I need my privacy, especially when I need to sleep or change my clothes. Another reason is that my sister would mess up my room around the area I should be studying at. As the current location of the PC is just 90 degrees left of my study desk. There is no other place in the house for me to study comfortably as all the other table surfaces in the house is occupied by heavy equipment or my sister's garbage.

Drawings that you see here and those listed in this post are only the exceptional ones. The rest are either did not turn out the way I wanted it to or are just scribbles ( like on the left , shortly before doing this ) that are done when I was bored (and may or may not appear in the image hosting album ). While drawing this, I wasn't thinking of what to draw, so I just drew what I felt like drawing. That's why there is a huge difference between this and this . More info on why I switch to vector from drawing

The problem mentioned at the bottom left 0f this image that has happened lately is still there. I don't know what the problem is, but I have ruled out things that are already on my other blogs (including one that looks very much like this blog ) but don't face the problem or when this blog is using the classic template. It has been there lately. I think I need to have a closer look at the code. I had also realized that this blog alone eats up a lot of bandwidth as my pre-paid dimishes from 1100 to 8 in less than half an hour of surfing. From now until mid-August there seems to have a lot of activities I am involved at school from my classmates to the 生徒会 to the library. What will happen: Next Saturday (Aug 2), my juniors of the 生徒会 would be organizing something at one of the parks near my secondary/middle/high school. I have no idea what will happen, but would be separated into groups with names from a few popular shows for children. HUH? celebrate birthdays of the people of A...

How stuff appears on my blog varies from messy to very nice. Generally, (as at 24 July 2008) what you seen in Firefox 3 on Windows Vista @ 1280*800 pixels with >5MB internet connection is the correct one. (Though a minor variation of the above would not make much of a difference). I have included text in the images, so I shall not explain any further. Here is what you are NOT supposed to see: (IE6 for Windows ME @ 1080*768) Here is what you are supposed to see: (Firefox 3 for Windows Vista @ 1280*800)

I had been helping with the library for the past few months making major changes to it. So major that the library has been closed to the public for more than 2 months, though it's due to be opened by 8 August. Lately, I have been seeing westerners running around my school. I didn't know what was going on until I heard that they are Australians (Brisbane, I think) for an act tomorrow, involving the students here. I really should get around to sleeping at midnight or earlier, but I end up dragging that all the way until 2am. My navigation bar at the top is too large... don't know what to do with it. Tried putting the source code of a .svg (Scalable Vector Graphics) file at one of my earlier posts, but it didn't work. I don't know how to upload an .sgv image file without converting into a .png file or know if there are different HTML tags involved in putting up a .svg file to that of a JPEG file.

I'm aware that I haven't been (directly) talking much about my daily events, so here goes. I woke up very early in the morning, so early that the the sun hasn't even risen yet. I got up out of bed despite the temptation to head back to sleep. I then went to freshen up followed by breakfast. The sun was rising when I left home. I had always wanted to go to school by myself, but my parents keep insisting on sending me straight by car (since primary school), as usual. En route, while navigating through the heavy traffic on the highway, my father would talk to me about cars and mostly stuff that I don't understand or not interested in. Arrived in school about 45min before class starts (15min for the daily 生徒会 meeting). Today was one of the better days, apart from there being a test later in the day. For the test though, I actually find it easy than the usual I-don't-know-how-to-do-this-but-will-do-anyway test. At lunch, despite it being crowded, I actually managed to fi...

Lately, you might have noticed that since mid-July this year, I have used vectoring instead of drawings using the pencil . The main reasons why I'm moving away from drawings is that it looks a lot better than the scans of the drawings and also, they take up far less space than the raster (non-vector) version. An average .svg (Scalable Vector Graphics; viewing the file is supported in Firefox in Safari) file would take about 200KB while the scanned version would take about 2MB, on top of creating a copy for editing and uploading that can get troublesome if I were to edit it later on. Of course, I didn't do vectoring without any prior knowledge about it. Here is one of my earliest known ones I have done one of that was made exactly 2 years ago: Well, it isn't exactly vector because it was edited with Microsoft paint, but it was when I did the outline. It doesn't seem much here, but I had a nightmare editing the shoe and the bag as the resolution of the original was bad. ...

(let's pretend the previous post never happened) There are so many things that I want and so many things I have to do that would take place from now until the next 5 years. On top of that, I have to manage a lot of the existing things I have to do that are stacking up like a mountain. So much so that I don't know where to begin or how do I go around starting it. For grades in school, I have yet to score marks any higher than the current 40-55% I always been getting. Achieving a 70% (let alone 90%) is an uphill task to achieve. Everything around me seems to fly by like a year passed by in a flash. My reaction time is slow, so I need more time than anyone else to catch up. Another uphill task is learning another language that has a completely different writing system and pronunciation of words all the way until at a native level in addition to the above. I'm not sure if this will happen, but my parents (and possibly my elder sibling) would emigrate to somewhere. Not sure whe...

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(the previous post looks kind of messy, but if you can view the original Japanese and English posts if you are interested) After many years of whining about waking up for school when the sun is not even up yet, lately, I have tried to sleep around midnight. With that, I feel less sleepy and even wake up before the alarm goes off. To make that possible, I would try to avoid watching late at night and watch it later. If possible, I would try to convert the recorded videos to play them on my PSP or mobile phone. (Though the recent version of the converter I have been using is having problems with the audio being slower-than-normal) Thanks to that, I feel more energetic than I was for a long time. PS. I don't like places that are higher than 29℃ as I feel unconfortable, but with summer being around now and temperatures being able to easily reach 38℃, that is kind of unavoidable.

第２４話はクラナドのパラレルワールドです。 This episode is an alternate world of CLANNAD, そこでは、朋也と智代が互いと外に出ています。 where Tomoya and Tomoyo are going out with each other. 設定は学生協議会選挙のための票の日です。 The setting is the voting day for the student council election, そこでは、学校青葉を保護するとき、候補智代社長が始められます。 where president candidate Tomoyo is set out on protecting the school greenery. 毎朝のように、朋也は智代によって起こされます。 As with each morning, Tomoya is woken up by Tomoyo, where the usual opening sequence starts. 学校では、 At school, 票の結果が公示システムの上で発表されます。 the results of the vote is announced over the PA system, そこでは、智代が次期公式に命名された大統領です。 where Tomoyo has been officially named president elect. 智代の責任の前にある状態ではもうそれらの教室の朋也と春原と智代の昼休みを費やす時間を見つけることができませんは、 With her responsibilities ahead of her, Tomoyo can no longer find time to spend her lunch break with Tomoya and Sunohara in their classroom, 智代のお弁当を作り続けていますが。 although she continues to make their lunch box. しかしながら、 However, 智代は公示システムの上でうっかりの新発見の権威を乱用します、 Tomoyo inadvertently abuses her new-found authori...

Going to school and reaching home in the evening is quite normal. Even though lessons ends around 3pm, I would actually reach around 6pm. Part of the reason is that I am involved in club activities and my involvement in the 生徒会. At other times, I would head downtown (via either the long bus ride or the crowed subway ) to by stuff, explore, eat, and other things. Buying stuff in school, as compared to the nearby shopping area, is cheap, but it would be already be closed when my lessons ends. There are vending machines, but they aren't enough to fill my stomach. Speaking of food, I'm having my lunch break now. I should get going before it gets crowded.

Wind is caused by air moving from an area with high pressure into areas with low pressure. When rain is approaching, the air pressure is low. As there is a big difference of air pressure between areas that are going to rain and areas that are not, strong winds (from non-raining areas) happens. If strong enough winds from different areas collide with each other, a hurricane is formed. A tornado is caused by warm air from land at sea. However the effects of both are the same: they cause destruction. The former commonly occurs in areas with large open fields. The latter is caused by warm weather that could be attributed by global warming.

You might have noticed that the layout of this blog and another have changed temporarily for the past 24 hours. The layout range from the recent 5 posts that are bare (like the internet about 12 years ago) to layouts that strongly resembles a popular social networking website. Due to some complications, I decided not to forgo the changes and revert to the earlier ones. Why am I bothering with this? The images and widgets used previously took up too much memory and almost impossible to view it on a upgraded 1997 PC with Firefox 3 (it no longer supports Win9x) without massive lags. Heck, I'm even facing the same problems (though not as serious) with the newest PC bought last year. I have removed the "widget" that contained my 3rd Friendster account media box but I have added parts of it to here. As the YouTube videos were among those removed, the PC doesn't seem to take up as much memory (or the processer cooling fan being noisy). On top of that, I have replaced a bac...

Long queues for products like the 2nd generation iPhone (3G is the type of network) launched earlier today in Japan and several other places like Hong Kong saw long snaking queues that stretches for several kilometers that don't seem to have an end. Similar queues like this happened back when the PlayStation 3 was released or for any Comiket that is held twice every year at the Big Sight (Tokyo International Exhibition Center). Queues like this usually start a few days before the release. I don't like being in queues with 10-20 people ahead of me, but with hundreds of people for the same thing, I don't know. I could face the high likelihood of the product being sold out if I am at the back or even the middle of the queue. I certainly don't have the time to queue for long hours either. I would rather avoid this queue and go and buy the iPhone a few months later. By then, the queue would have become shorter and the amount reserved to those who pre-booked it lesser. It c...

The long trip home can be quite boring. Even more when I have nothing to entertain me and have no intention of alighting at the stations en route to buy something. I would usually listen to my iPod Shuffle™, watch videos or play games on my PSP, or read a book/newspaper (most likely manga). I would check for messages on my mobile phone from time to time. Without these, or when I don't feel like using them, I would find myself staring at people, looking out of the window, or be "amazed" when the trains departs and approaches a station with the train announcements or how the bus moves through the traffic and stop at the bus stops, the door opening and closing, and how many people boarding and alighting. For your info, there are about 20 train stations between the one near my school and the one near my house with the city downtown somewhere in between. The number of bus stops is double to that of trains but travels on the outskirts of the city or through other towns, dependi...

With my list of things that I want to do and buy, but have yet to do so, getting longer and costing more, I have to avoid spending some of the things on the list to make sure it does not eat into the money in the bank. However, what my parents give me each month is only half to one-tenth if my spending wasn't restricted. Even though my parents pay me for things like clothes, food, school stuff, cell phone bill, bus & train traveling expenses, and practically almost everything since I was young (yes, I am that spoilt) , I shouldn't be relying on them too much. What are the list of things that I want to do? Here's some: Buying stuff that I want. Well, my parents do buy me stuff like PC (made in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2007), a portable hard disk (2005,2008; 60GB & 250 GB) PS2 (1st gen), Gameboy Color, but I bought the Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, Gamecube, Nintendo DS (1st Gen), 2005 PC, another portable hard disk (2008; 150GB), iPod Shuffle (2nd gen), PSP (2nd gen...

I wanted to post something regarding the above screenshot. But I did it in Blogger draft on IE7 (instead of the usual Firefox 3) and was almost complete when the browser stopped responding and unexpectly closed, losing 3-4 paragraphs of text. It seemed that the autosave feature wasn't working... I am in no mood to type it again.

The above is a screenshot taken from the Blu-ray disc in Full-HD ( 1080p ) version of " 5 Centimeters Per Second " ( 秒速５センチメートル ). Due to the amount of detail (or the lack of), the size of this screenshot is about the same as that taken from a 2-megapixel camera. Due the HD standard being commonly being started broadcast in Japan, South Korea, North America and Europe barely a few years ago with Blu-ray defeated HD-DVD discs just months ago, older standards like NTSC (640x420; VGA) and PAL, both with the 4:3 aspect ratio, are slowly being phased out, but still common, as proven by analog broadcasting still around and 4:3 ads appearing in the middle of a 16:9 show like the image to the right of this paragrapth.Unfortunately, except for my laptop and the widescreen TV in the living room, I don't have anything that can display or plaback videos of any HD resolution (unless you count the 2005 PC with a 128MB video card, but its motherboard got fried shortly after I had the l...

Since yesterday, not long after posting yesterday's post , I found the layout mentioned for my new Japanese blog kind of boring and very limiting on expanding. I hunted around for the layouts online, but none interest me. I then decided to fool around with the blog's HTML, like replacing all the codes with only a few letters. I was expecting an error saying that some tags are missing as I was used to the current version (with adjustable widgets) instead of the classic one. But instead, I got a white blank page with the letters I typed earlier on the top-left section of the page. This leads me to wonder on copying the HTML source of websites. I decided to use my IMEEM profile (where the music playlist above comes from) as the theme of which, was changed just a few days ago. The HTML code seem to work on my blog, with it looking exactly like it, with some of the links not working and my posts not appearing. I then started major editing by removing stuff that don't belong to ...

Technically, it's not a new blog. It replaces " Archives of the School Papers ". No point letting it rot but create a new one from scratch. The current template is of the classic type previously used on one of my earliest blogs , so to modify stuff, I have to go to the lengthy HTML layout. I currently have no clear idea on how the blog will turn out though. Unlike the English and Japanese anime blogs (or Yukari 's), the blog's post will not have any direct translation of what appears here (and vice versa) which will appear randomly. I don't want to be preassured on doing both to the point that I don't post anything at all. As the URL of that blog will most probably change somewhere along the way, I shall not bother linking to it here. Just look out for the Japanese name of this blog listed in my blogger profile or click on the old link under the old name and hope it's still there. I also can't guarantee that it will ever get completed.

The above is a screenshot of my Facebook profile. Unlike Friendster or MySpace, Facebook is quite limited in terms of customizing the profile appearence. If you are to look at the bottom of the screenshot, you would see text from my earlier post . To do that (as RSS feed) and stuff from Youtube, Picasa/Flickr and Google Reader, just click on "Import" under the "Mini-Feed" header (labled in the screenshot as "インポート" and "ミニフィード" respectively). I have received too many applications that I might have probably added them and not bother with them. That was until the first time I viewed my profile after adding a mountain of them when it took a long time to load. I'm having a tough time figuring out what to remove, but I have remove quite a few so far, mostly game apps that I don't play. To my friends: If you have seen an invitation from me to add a particular application for a repeated number of times, forgive me. I wanted to get extra points ...

With the spring season coming to a close, summer has started with shows like ドウアーガの塔～the Aegis of URUK～ (The Tower of Duraga: The Aegis of Uruk) and 図書館戦争 (Library War) just ended and shows like コードギアス：反逆のルルーシュＲ２ (Code Geass: Leouch of the Rebellion R2), To Love-Ru (とらぶる) being carried over. The spring season saw many anime being dropped, with most at the first episode and some like Persona -trinity soul- (Winter 2008), Special A, Kamen no Maid Guy with more than half-way through the series. Shows like Duraga and To Love-Ru were previously classified as "Not likely to watch" but managed to watch it to the end or still watching it now. Besides テレパシー少女蘭 (The Telepathy Girl Ran), which actually belongs under Spring Anime, there isn't much new anime that interest me, but nevertheless, I shall list them anyway. Since there isn't much that interest me, I'll just list them (shows that actually caught my interest are in bold ): Ultraviolet Code044 Sekirei Slayers REVOLUTI...