Chasing After Rainbows

Out of curiosity, I went to search for things that I had put up. I normally don't do so because I don't need to. I typed "KOTOKO" (a Japanese Singer) at IMEEM search box and my playlist of it would be the very first thing to appear. I typed "asuna888" (one of my online nicknames) and obviously only my profile and one of my playlist would appear. Next up, using another search engine , I typed "autumn 2008 anime list". Well, mine did not appear immediately since there are more than 1.6 million in the results until I added "site:blogspot.com" (where this blog is hosted on) to it. Mine appeared 5 times, 4 of which are on the first page of the results, including one I posted earlier . I went to the Japanese version and typed "秋アニメ新番組" (New Autumn Anime) and mine would appear near the top of the third page, though the post itself is a year old. Add "site:blogspot.com" to the search terms would make that and a more rece...

(Note: For a brief description about the Autumn 2008 Anime by me, see an earlier post . For links to the official websites, check out the "New Anime" or "アニメ新番組" sections of my main and anime blogs) After watching several anime trailers in the past few days, I have mostly decided on what Autumn anime I would watch. There were some that had no trailers or were too short, but info I had found about those should be sufficient. Anyways, here's a modified list that Yukari posted on my anime blog . The ones that had been strikethroughed are where the trailers/description of the show sound so boring that I would fall asleep/absoultely not watch. I wanted to pick yellow or red to highlight, but some of the text are already in red and the background of the blog (at time of post) is light brown and may not be visible. List: 28 September 2008 (Sunday) Hakushaku to Yōsei - about a female “fairy doctor” who heads to London to see her father and meets a young knight-earl...

Left : Vector done earlier today Right : Pencil drawing of the same thing done 18 months (1.5 years) ago See also : This post If these two were to be viewed side by side, the improvements in the tiny details would be obvious. Besides what was already mentioned back in July , vectoring is better than drawing. Not only does the vector looks better, it also uses much lesser space for the raw version and can also be modified at a later date. Think of vector as the MIDI of image: they both only contain instructions on how to construct the output instead of the output itself and therefore take up much less space. With vector, I can easily zoom in to small details like the eyes or hair. With pencil, it quite difficult to do so without a magnifying glass or drawing the overall thing larger, the latter option would be impratical if a lot has already been drawn. Speaking of which, if a mistake were to be done in vector, I can easily correct it without affecting other areas, like what was mentio...

Since I was a child, I had been thought things without really knowing why or was given reasons that seemed reasonable back then. Now that I had grown older and know more than I knew back then, I have come to realize that some of them are for our own good without saying it directly, or are stuff that were not suitable or not ready for. However, there are also things that are just plain illogical or are based on one's belief on something non-existent and everyone else seems to be following it for reasons that I don't believe in. It's hard to say if I'm following trends or not, because I may follow things that happen somewhere far away but not the ones immediately around me. I don't know what you would see at the time you click on this link , but my blogs seems to have visits from a lot of places, mostly in North America, Japan and Europe. There are a lot of cities, but here are the places that I see most of the time: Mountain View, United States (I wonder if it's ...

(for your info, I did post something yesterday and mentioned that I am having a massive re-sorting the photos at Facebook . On top of that, I am also cleaning up my room and in the middle of vectoring .) For a list of the names of the Autumn anime and links to their official website (excluding OVAs), you can refer to here for the English names, or here for the original Japanese names. Some of the anime that are due next year (2009) on top of the Autumn 2008 ones can be found in the "アニメ新番組" or "New Anime" section. There are no anime carried over from the previous seasons for Autumn 2008, but there are returning anime like "Rosario and Vampire", "Clannad" "ef - a tale of ----." "Nodame Cantabile", "Shougo Chara!" "Jigoku Shoujo", "Vampire Knight", "Mobile Suit Gundam 00" and "Junjo Romantica". Compared to the earlier Summer 2008 or Spring 2008 ones, there are a lot of inter...

It looks like I need to clean the lens. Doesn't matter, the camera I took this from is quite old and most of the shots of the place were taken from my mobile phone which has a higher resolution. Taken at the 第１８回星蘭祭  at 早稲田渋谷シンガポール校. Okay, I am damn tired and only slept for 3 hours last night. On top of that, I was walking all over the place the whole morning and afternoon with no air-conditioning on top of the hot weather, except for the rooms in the above photo and while in transit. Most of the places I go to are not crowded in the morning, but was later jammed packed in just a few hours. I don't know if I should talk about the above later...

Note: It's not complete. As you can see on this blog, there are a lot of things. There is a long list of links to my friends' blogs, and it's in a table format using HTML. In fact, there are a lot of things here that uses complicated/advanced HTML codes, including the HTML (classic & XML) layouts of all my Blogger blogs, which stands out from the average blogs. Some of them even look as though it's hosted elsewhere as I leave their images and links intact and hide the Blogger navigation bar. On top of that, if you are using recent versions of internet browsers, you might also notice an icon next to the URL and/or the title of this blog at the tabs that replaces the default blogger icon. Other than editing HTML, I might be writing stories , drawing/vectoring, hunting for images all over, re-editing stuff I have already done, go out to somewhere, and whatnot. Speaking of "hunting for images", the ones you had seen me using so far are only a small percentag...

As a celebration of the 250th post here, here are some videos of a nice scenery with matching music of the countryside in Europe somewhere. One of the scenes features an Norwegian Fjord1 ferry called "M/S Skagastøl". Part 1/2: Part 2/2: To tell you the truth, this is actually a replacement of a bloody scene of "School Days" and the above videos are where the term "Nice Boat" became popular when a ship mentioned at the top was shown. If you are not ready to watch the video, here are parodies for you to get ready (If you are, scroll to the bottom of the post): Parody 1/2: Parody 2/2: And finally, here's an uncut footage that caused this event:

After using the vector program for quite some time, I have only found out yesterday on how to form the curve. This is quite useful as not many nodes (points) of the line is needed to form a curved section, or making sure that a circle is really a circle and not multiple amounts of straight lines so that it looks nicer. Earlier on, I have also found out on how to have a colour gradually becomming another colour (or transparent), as you might have noticed for the ones from August 8 this year. I have been editing all the vector that I had done from 20 July this year to improve on it. The whereabouts of the original files of vectors that had been done earlier ( like this one done 2 years ago) are unknown as they are either not saved after exporting as png, sotred on a disc somewhere, or is on a PC that I hardly use now. Anyways, here a vector of the same thing. One is the version immediately after completing it, and another is after what was mentioned earlier. Try to spot the difference:...

Not long after classes have finished, there would be a lot of students leaving the school heading to somewhere. The school would then be eerily quiet and deserted compared to earlier on in the day where there would be a lot of people around with activity everywhere. The only people seen around the school after everyone has left are the school staff (including non-teaching ones), students staying back for studies or club activities, or even "I-have-no-idea-what-they-are-up-to" kind of thing. What is interesting is that you can get to enjoy the peace and quiet. If you are lucky enough, you can also hear music clubs playing their musical instruments (good or not is another question). However, even these people would leave the school by nightfall. The rare occasion where a lot of people would stay behind would be on the eve of a major (school) event where many people would (hopefully) help out with the preparations. Of course, the planning itself dates some time back. It seems th...

Not counting the part travelling on public transport, the distance to walk is great enough to be considered an exercise. On top of that, when boarding a crowded bus or train, I would find little opportunity to find a place to sit. It's even more tiring when carrying bulky or heavy stuff like groceries (without plastic bags) or my laptop around. On rare occasions, a box full of stuff nobody wants. That might explain why I can run faster than most of my classmates with little effort during Physical Education classes: my leg muscles are developed with all that activity. (Speaking of sports, I am terrible in it. For sports like badminton, baseball and basketball, my aim seems to be always be off and always seem to miss.) Except during bad weather like thunderstorm, I would always take the most direct/straight route. I would rather go around a hill through the park rather than a shorter one on the map that involves climbing up and down stars and through/around buildings and carparks. On...

Well, I'm the kind the person who would not do well when practicing, but will when it comes to the actual thing. For mathematics, I would understand stuff like 8.90419868=(3432+34904)/((2130*2)+(590/13)) but not a=(b+c)/((x*z)+(y/d)) or average number of cars sold per month=(this month sales in $ + total sales in $)/((cost per unit * number of units sold)+(amount of water bought) Same goes for the names of how words in a particular sentence in a language is constructed. I don't understand things like: (thing) + (action) + (thing which the action done on) but I do know how to form words like: "I went to the table to eat an apple." Looks like I can more easily learn complicated things more than the simplified version of the same thing. I'm not sure why myself. When it comes to recalling things, memorizing them would be of little help. But I can remember every corner of the games I have been playing, including the vastness of the "GTA:SA" game. Sometimes, w...

(video is unrelated to this post) I spent most of my time today doing a makeover to one of my most neglected blogs . It's based on the "Ocean Mist" template I found somewhere . The HTML code for it is for the Blogger XML version (newer one, where you can move widgets around). If you were to look at at the above link and the above screenshot, you would notice very little resemblance. That's because I made the images of the template myself and edited the code so that it would fit in nicely. However, it's still not complete, because I can't seem to find the code for the width of the post as I had increased the overall width from 750px to 1000px. Because of that, widgets that are supposed to appear directly below the posts would appear in the empty space between the post and the sidebar on the right. (The area where you see " Yukari Takahashi's network " in the screenshot above) So far, this only happens in Mozilla Firefox. Because this code...

Not wanting to wait until morning, picked a route that I felt like going. I tried to cycle, but I didn't seem to enough strength and my sense of balance was different from what I remember. I ended up getting off and pushing the bicycle. Along the way, I saw lights of 24-hour shops I normally walk past. This must be the right way. I can hear the sound of thunder from above me and sudden flashes of light that made the place look like daytime. I finally manage to reach home safely and parked the bike inside the house, at the doorstep. I don't want my stuff to get wet, but at the same time too tired to unload. I had this feeling that someone was following me all the way from the train station until I opened the gates of my house. It was raining heavily with lighting when I started to bathe. I opened the window to let the air in. I was thinking  about what I should do since Kyousuke confessed to be but thinks it's Haruna because I'm in her body now when all of a sudden...

(this post was created immediately after the previous post , not 23 hours later when this post is published) I don't really know why myself, but my perception of the same thing may be different depending on the language, accent, dialect and my immediate surroundings. It's like " I would do/think of the same thing if I were them " kind of thing. Well since I-have-no-idea-when , apart from the local culture, I have been exposed to so many different cultures, TV documentary/movie/shows, products, music, history, languages (and writing systems), traditions, geography and how they live to the point that they don't seem foreign to me at all. What I do lack however, is experiencing those first-hand myself. I wonder what opportunities I have missed that I would have otherwise gotten if I had done certain things some time back. I will never know because it did not happen. I hope I won't miss out on future ones, but the problem is that they are like hard to tell and wha...

To tell you the truth, I don't really know what I would do after graduating from school next year. Well, obviously I should enter a college institute, but what if I were not be able to or end up in a course I wouldn't do well in? In any case, the places where I go to school seems to get further and further away from home. Kindergarten was only a few meters away, primary school on the other side of town, and secondary education (junior and senior high schools) 2-6 towns away with open areas and/or the city downtown area in-between. Colleges that I could go into can range from the next town to the other side of the country or even overseas! In any case, I have to do something for about two years. I don't know when it will happen, but it can range from next year to 3-4 years from now, depending on my studies. I can't say what it is, but I am most likely not be able to blog regularly (a few times in a year) due to commitments to it. Speaking of being in the final year, othe...

[ 6 February 2009 edit: Updated the 1st link] ( originally posted here , 16 days ago) Yesterday (24 August), I had played through the entire "Little Busters! Ecstasy" visual novel game. I have forgotten how many hours I had played, but it seemed quite fun playing it. For example, the image on the right is from the good ending of Saya's Route (沙耶ルート). After the ending, she woke up from the dream. However, playing this game is quite hard to play...　(・。・) Here are some more screenshots: Hot Springs at the school's Basement level 4 (B4F) That's a lot of words... Masato and Kudryavka (Кудрявка) "Riki! Go and do your best!" School Backyard What is up with this cat? And is it Rin's? School Basement Level 8 (B8F) Who is this girl? It's definitely not Saya (沙耶)...

Barely 2 weeks has passed since I had changed the URLs of 2 of my blogs (there's also another notice here of that ) when I accidently clicked on a link on one of my earlier post . ( here's the corrected link I was supposed to lead to ) To my horror, the first thing I saw was a " Possible Blogger Terms of Service Violations " notice. The same goes for the other. The line " If you're an author of this blog , please follow the instructions on your dashboard for removing this warning page. " made me worry. Upon clicking on the " Proceed " button, I noticed that it's not even my page, since I have obviously changed the URL earlier. There was a blue background. At the top are links to various products with images of it to a well known online store . But when I look below that, I saw a long list of some strange links (I didn't click on any) to some funny website. Next to it are about seven paragraph's worth of sentences that don't mak...

I'm really busy right now. There are so many things that I should be doing and so little time to do so. I should sort out my priorities: the first thing I should do now....... (looks at the time) ....is to sleep! Good Night! ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Whenever I head out of the house, I would very rarely come across people I know other than the places I would normally met them. I don't remember the names or faces that I had met back in primary school, but even if I do, they might have looked different as it was almost a decade ago. Even so, I never even come across those I do know on the streets. They might even be at the places that I was/will be at not long ago/later. They might even be in the different carriage of the train I take at the same time and did not meet because of the crowd or board/alight at different stations. In any case I don't see them around where I live as they live near the school I go to, which itself is quite some distance. Getting there usually range from 15minutes to 2hours, depending on the mode of transport, the route I take and traffic conditions. This does not include detours I might take along the way. Everywhere I go, I would only see a lot of people whom I don't know, mostly people who a...

Using the same program to create my vector drawings and overlaping & resizing of images that I have extracted so far, along with a photo as a background, you can get the above as the result. I'm busy preparing for something from now until Wednesday night, so I won't be blogging much. Btw, I think what happened the most recent part of the story I'm working on is happening kind of too sudden that I don't know how to contunue. In fact, it seems that I got sidetracked too much. But then again, continuing it would again leave me with choices that are earlier mentioned here . Since it got too messed up, I think it would best that I were to redo from part 4 or end there and start another. Also, I can't stand doing this story: it makes me want to touch certain parts of my body and feel strange when just thinking on what to type. Maybe that's why parts 6 & 7 turns out to be like that. I shouldn't let images that I put up at posts influence what I want to ...

( i'm still at it: 2386 left now ) When major exams are around the corner, the atmosphere of the days leading to it and the day itself don't seem to kick into me as if it's just another day. Same thing when the PS3 was released, a new shopping complex/district less than an hour away by train being open or more recently, the release of the iPhone . The excitement of wanting those aren't there. Jokes don't even seem funny too. It could be because I haven't been happy for a long time like: When was the last time I go further than the 50km radius of where I live? (more than 3 months) What countries/cities have I not  been to? (a lot) When was the last time I was paid  to do something? (never, or was below my monthly allowance which itself is 50 times lower than a office worker's monthly salary) Most exciting thing that has happened recently? (nothing) Receive the best grade for a test? (don't remember: they are mostly in the 45-65% range) Went out with a clo...

(I'm typing this with the all new  Google Chrome ! So far, it works better than Apple Safari) So right now, I'm in the middle of extracting images from the game I have been playing . Here's are some of the recent code that I have been entering in the command prompt. It's quite monotonous and there doesn't seem to be a quicker way. There seems to be a total of 7000 files but now I have 3720 files left. (about 2500 were skipped as they contain only names and icons) C:\Windows\system32>cd \Users\Ha....\Desktop\rldev-1.40-win32\bin C:\Users\Ha....\Desktop\rldev-1.40-win32\bin>vaconv -d DIR F:\G00 Fatal error: exception Sys_error("F:\G00: Permission denied") C:\Users\Ha....\Desktop\rldev-1.40-win32\bin>vaconv Vaconv 1.40: VisualArt's bitmap format converter Copyright (C) 2006 Haeleth Usage: vaconv --help display this usage information --version display Vaconv version information -v --verbose describe what Vaconv is doing -d DIR --outdir=DIR place o...