Chasing After Rainbows

As mentioned in my last post , the links to the e-book versions (epub, mobi, PDF) of the stories I post here were broken as Dropbox (where the files are hosted) has changed how publicly-shared files work. I have since fixed this issue. I'm aware that the files of the restored links are dated 2014/2015, but since no new modifications were made, those are still considered the latest version. I have also updated Getting Around Tokyo page to include additional infomation on using Suica with an iPhone that was launced recently that may appeal to you guys who may want to carry less cards, or want to use less cash. P.S. You can do the card transfer outside Japan. The last thing that I have yet to update is the FAQ page. I've ran out of time after updating the other stuff. Not sure what I'll update there, but that section about my PC specs is certainly out of date.

These days, I spent more of my time on twitter , so this blog has been neglected. But as the link to this blog is the most prominent thing, the increasingly dated blog layout has been bothering me. I've updated my blog to the new layout. What elements on the interwebs has affected this blog since then? How public links on Dropbox/OneDrive work: Public folders has discontinued and has become a regular folder. Instead, a specific file/folder has to be specified to share publicly. That means links to my stories in e-book format may not work. Photobucket disallowing off-site linking: You may have heard of this one. It is still technically possible, but that requires upgrading the account to a certain paid tier. People find that even the lowest tier that allows this can be too much. What about the links to my other blogs? Well, those have been more neglected than this one. So those has to go as part of improving the blog layout. Seriously, it's too much to manage on my ...

Having used my Kindle 4 for half a year already, I enjoyed reading on it. Well, apart from not being able to read in some dark places due to the absence of built-in light, but being able to read under room light without hurting my eyes, or bright sunlight outdoors, which are primary advantages over an LCD screen, are big advantages. Well, the problem with reading my stories on my blog is that it requires a constant internet connection if you were to read more than one part of it. On top of that, neither the desktop nor "mobile versions" (iOS and Android versions actually) offer a comfortable experience of reading because the text is just too small, and zooming in doesn't re-flow the text and requiring to pan around, only to start over when heading to the next page. So, I am proud to announce that I will be making an e-book version of all of my stories (except the 5th story). To make this accessible, I will also include a QR code so that you can use your smartphone to ...

It has been 25 days since the kindle arrived (Seemed longer to me) and in that time, I have finished reading 2 Harry Potter books, plus quite a number of manga volumes. These, however, form quite a small number of the amount I had already loaded on to it. Since then, I had figured out how to take screenshots on my kindle.  How to take the screenshot varies on which version it is (press and hold the keyboard and menu buttons for mine). If you do it correctly, the screen would flash and the screenshot would appear in the documents folder when you connect it to the PC. Of course, the Kindle has a hidden feature where you could view images: just create a "pictures" folder in the root directory. To make sure it is optimal for the screen, make sure the image is as close to 600*800 (3:4) as possible in monochrome, though images could still open if you didn't do that. The loaded images would appear on the main menu in the same way as a normal ebook, but using the folder name ...

Back in 21 December 2012, I ordered an Amazon Kindle from the US store, along with other problems that followed involving the delay of delivery due the holidays. Anyway, it arrived at the delivery center closest to my home on Friday, 4 January 2013. I knew Saturday deliveries are only by appointment. The day it was delivered (6 January 2013) being a Sunday, I wasn't sure if I should be expecting it to arrive since it's the weekend until I saw on the courier's tracking page earlier that day that I saw it being delivered. It was a good thing that I wasn't planning to head out that day, though I did on Saturday. The Kindle is packaged in a "fustration-free" packaging that uses minimal resources. The only things inside was the kindle itself, a microUSB (or was it mini?), and a card containing some basic information. (Why include a very long printed legal information anyway?) I opened it up and was presented with several languages to choose from. (Japan...

The Kindle I mentioned earlier has been delivered to forwarding service with US address at 5am on the 27th of December 2012 (JST). The forwarding service took two "business days" to process it (sort it out from other people's packages that arrives at the same time), and then another two "business days" to prepare to ship it to me. In between these two events, it is held at their warehouse for up to 30 days (for free) so that I could wait for other shipments to arrive and ship everything from the US address together, which I didn't have any. The state it is located in, Oregon, has a 0% state tax at the moment. Unless the shipment comes with information regarding its value, you would have to declare its value (in USD) before you are allowed to ship it out. Then they charge US$11 (international shipping) + cost of fuel (based on actual weight or volumetric weight, whichever is higher) + "mandatory" insurance (based on some percentage of the t...

I have created a Tumblr blog somewhere in July, but never get around to announce its launch. I have been aware of tumblr for quite some time prior to joining it but I didn't really know what it was about. I tried various themes and some modification of those to see how that would fit. Layout What you are seeing now is the third theme I have used that allows me to show multiple reposts at ones and auto-scale the images at random, but in the order I reblogged them, so that there is little wasted space. However, it doesn't handle video and audio well if they are not at the top. The previous layout did allow me to manually adjust the size, and even as large as the whole screen or the original image size (whichever is smaller). The problem with that is that it only shows the first image of a photo set unless viewed individually. I may change again due to the video / audio problem, but finding one that you can scroll without ever needing to click on a "next page...

So much has happened since the last update that I have to split into multiple sections to make things clearer. Story 1 (An Original Story By Me)  3 years since publishing Part 15 as the original ending, I did feel that the ending did see kind of abrupt. After watching the 2011 K-On! movie (which came out on Blu-Ray in mid-2012), I felt that I needed to insert something that is to do with graduation and yet feel the impact of it. All the newer stories I had written would not fit it well either because it's too early in the story's timeline to put that in, or the graduation idea was already used, which wasn't as impaction as what I am planning here. This story fits with that idea well, but the problem is that, with a 3 year gap between Part 15 and Part 16 , my memories about the characters and setting might have become rusty. Story 2 (Alternate Dimension)   I mentioned something about "affecting the entire population" (everyone) being turned into schoolgir...

I bought a custom domain in August last year for the main blog, which is takhsiru.net . However, while creating a new tumblr account today (4th July 2012) did I realize that I could use the characters that come before that for other places with just editing the DNS settings of that same domain. I have changed the domain for most of my blogs. Entering the older URL still works , but would be redirected to the new URL. The names of each blog affected listed below are in bold . Chasing After Rainbows (existing; here) the1iam.blogspot.com → www.takhsiru.net or takhsiru.net 虹を追いかけて xn--n8jos8fqkx000ci6n.blogspot.com or 虹を追いかけて.blogspot.com → jpblog.takhsiru.net Neverending New Beginnings takhsiru.blogspot.com → anime.takhsiru.net 終わらない新しい始め asuna888.blogspot.com → jpanime.takhsiru.net Profile and Blog Updates the1iam-updates.blogspot.com → up.takhsiru.net にじとき nijitoki.blogspot.com → art.takhsiru.net Injuration injuration.blogspot.com → tech.takhsiru.net :;...

Happy New Year everyone! I was hoping that 2011 would be an uneventful one, but as you are aware, there are so many events taking place more than the previous years combined. It was also the year where I travelled to quite a number of countries, and got more active on twitter. You could say that it was a fun year. If you're wondering about why this is post number is 583, and not 584, remember that the numbers are based on the order I created them. That means that the previous post (S2P81) is technically the 581st post that was first created before the (numbered) 582nd post.

As mentioned , I will be listing the names of places mentioned frequently in my stories that had not been explained earlier. Do note that the phrases used here do not use the exact words mentioned here. Green : Names that were given as I typed the parts they were first mentioned or gave indirect description of an actual place/company. Blue : Names that were not given in the beginning, but were already given prior to this post Red : Names that I made up while typing this post or later on. Black : Unknown/Forgotten where the name came from, not part of the name in question, mentioned earlier M ix e d : Parts of the name known/given at different times. Colours are as mentioned above. Story 1: School the protagonist and Yukari went to - Mihara Academy , High School section ( 三原学院 高等部 ) Hospital the protagonist woke up in at the beginning - Hatsuya General Hospital ( 筏谷 総合病院 ) "Girl 3" - Saeko Hisakawa (久川沙江子) . Story 1 itself takes place in " the other dime...

Time seem to fly by rather quickly for me lately. 2006 seemed not too long ago, "Clannad: After" seemed recent, " K-On! ep1 " seemed like yesterday. I still can recall what I did in primary school and what places looked like back then. I mean, looking back, time seem to pass by very quickly. I thought we are still in November 2008 . Well, the lack of significant events and doing things that pass time does make it seem fast. Last night, I had the intent to head to bed at 11pm, but did not actually do so until 3am, a full 4 hours later. I did take a nap of some hours earlier though. I'm doing so many things, I'm loosing track of what I'm doing. I may revert back to the previous version for the anime watchlist (without episode titles) since finding the titles itself is time consuming. My room is noticeably messy, no appetite to eat... Speaking of not doing much, I did do some vectoring, but they aren't complete. On the left (v0079) is something you migh...

I know I haven't been vectoring much for almost half a year now due to me having the lack of time to do them. Some of them include: My job (it's a mental torture out there) Typing my stories here and an organized (not necessarily corrected) version of it at Wordpress Some updates here and there Twitter ing (though mostly when I'm out) Some game at Facebook Accumulated unwatched anime because of no. 1 Organizing (and playing) music and video files Traveling, because of no.1 and where idiots colleagues, friends, and family drag me to ニホンゴノウリョクシケン (no really) Eating and sleeping. Although I eat at the computer or while doing other things, I don't know why I my body needs 9 hours of (uninterrupted) sleep even though I'm almost an adult. And that feeling from the lack of sleep (or continuing on when my body wants to sleep) is a torture. not in the mood too freaking complicated and might give up mid-way Finding a suitable theme for no.2. I like the current one with...

(written on 6 Sep 2009) The above is the screenshot shortly before I change to the current layout on 30 August. However, it's not as ready as I thought and need to do some small changes that can't be done in the Layout Draft s blog such as the contents of widgets that can't be copied as one large chunk of code. Problems I'm facing now is the header image, colour of the text over it, that weird border surrounding the top links and a redesign of the right navigation menu (that version is even older than my other blogs). ( link to post of above image ) Lately, Blogger seems to be acting up and doesn't render things properly. Also, embeeded videos (.ogg in the [video] tags, introduced as part of the HTML5 standards) seem to be rendered in a weird way. I'm supposed to be seeing this interface: I don't know what the problem is. I'll go check on other PCs and OSes. Using different browsers don't seem to solve the problem, but I noticed that I can save chan...

[Yukari Takahashi (who also helped me with my japanese language blog ) would kill me if I put up the full size version in colour here because she already has a reputation / large fan base somewhere. She said it's fine if I use one of my images on top of the one you see here. Don't ask how I get to know her.] I'm quite blur when it comes to vector drawing. At first, I don't even know how to create it. Now, using inkscape , it looks alright, at least, for 2d people and basic things like a box. I'm still unclear on how to do something as complicated as a city scenery. I have done at least a few and uploaded some of them online. It's been a long while since I have done vector tracing since I have use the pencil (erm...) to do the same thing, but in monocrome. To find the earlier vector art, you have to dig deep since it was a long time ago. You can try looking through my 1st blog  (that blog used to have the same url as this blog until around April 2007 ) or image...