For Rach

…and Anthy, if she reads this blog.

Defriending.  I would highly recommend against clicking around on that website, though.  Encyclopedia Dramatica has way, way too much stuff that no one ever needs to see.  That link itself is safe.

Today at work was stressful.  Lately, the SDNX robot has been working very crappily.  Today, though not nearly the worst day, was a very bad day.  Maintenance came over several times for the robot, twice specifically to fix the soldering issues, but it never got better.  And due to the amount of fixing I had to do, I don’t feel like I was doing well in the work, and that really doesn’t help my mental state.

So, I finally went to complain about that robot to my supervisor.

I went into Bel’s office and was like, “Something needs to be done about the SDNX robot.  Lately it’s been horrid and today was incredibly stressful.  Working with a robot that solders like a drunken monkey on crack is going to drive me nuts.”

I’m sure I got the “drunken monkey on crack” from something, but I feel like it sums up my feelings better than anything else could.

And it got a chuckle from my supervisor.

おいで鉈女。遊んであげるわ。 <3

And 見合い is such an awesome thing.  US needs more of it.

As soon as I get that essay for AEON done, I’ve got something on moé and anonymous and the internet.  Each long, and each fun.

Of Intercontinental Mail

I’ve always known that intercontinental mail wasn’t cheap. Especially when it came to anything more than simple mail. I’ve never actually had to deal with this before, as I didn’t use intercontinental mail. I talked to people across the world via the internet, which costs the same whether talking to your neighbor or to penpal in Whereverville.

The only time I’ve ever made an online purchase from some place across the great, wide seas was when I bought some books from yesasia.com, and they provide free shipping on many orders of over 25 dollars. This makes me think that they do intercontinental stuff in large batches–possibly privately–to their US offices and then ship from there.

I actually had to pay some intercontinental mail fees today.

Holy gadzooks. Okay, I did choose the insured method–which is also significantly faster–but ~30 bucks for 3.5 pounds of stuff is a little higher than expected.

I also failed to remember that paper is not light stuff. It pretends to be light by coming in such tiny packages. Getting enough of it together and it starts adding up quite quickly.

Oh, well. At least I did plan on absurdly high shipping in my 20 hours overtime goal for buying this stuff. Definitely means Shoot the Bullet will have to wait for some much later date.

Speaking of Touhou games, Shoot the Bullet has such an odd-man-out name to it. Highly Responsive to Prayers, Story of an Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, Lotus Land Story, Mystic Square, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Perfect Cherry Blossom, Immaterial and Missing Power, Imperishable Night, Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and Shoot the Bullet.

It fits better with Lotus Land Story and Mystic Square as a title, but those still have a more mystical feel to them. As one of them has, y’know, the word mystic in it and the word lotus is basically brimming with wonder and mysticism.

I think about that way too much.

And, today I got another piece of my new computer. A few pieces are already in my current computer and have been living there happily for quite some time. My poor, current computer is going to get gutted when I finally have all the pieces.

Sadly, I cannot put this piece into my current computer because my current computer fails to have an AGP slot, which is quite pathetic.

Oh well.

A Couple of Little Things

A nifty article about 300.

I actually didn’t know that pretty much the entire movie was filmed in front a green screen.  Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was also shot in a similar fashion, but I hear it was kinda cheesy in a bad way.

Also, it still used CGI for ‘realism’ as opposed to using it to symbolize.

I also checked out film.com’s page for Borat, since I heard about the movie.  I found it odd that the reviewers listed were having a little fap-fest over the movie and its showing of the US’s true hypocrisy and prejudice, when, due to its fictional nature, the creators of the movie didn’t have to work with anything real.  They could force their view of the US through without any regard of truth, even more so than a documentary creator can twist things to his view.

This does not mean that the view presented is false.  It does, however, mean that reality doesn’t even have to come close to what is presented.

But then, this is true of all film.  And just about all forms in which a person can communicate ideas to another.   Just because I agree with the viewpoint doesn’t make it anymore true than if my deepest enemy agrees with it.  Truth is independent of what people think the truth is.

Loving or hating a film based on the messages it sends is quite understandable.  But to make claims that a fictional work ‘exposes’ the reality of situation is little more than navel gazing.

Tsundere Linux and Other Random Items

One of the weirdest things I have ever heard of.

Commenter #7 is also quite right in that writing ‘Linux’ in hiragana just looks wrong.

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I’ve been getting an absurd amount of spam getting through Akismet. Luckily I’ve had moderate comments turned on specifically because of that issue, but three just tonight, That’s ridiculous.

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I found this quote a while back, but I like it so I want to share. Full context can be found here.

“Now in general, when you don’t have the time or background to judge the merits of a case, are you influenced by the demeanor and behavior of the claimants? I am. For example, if one party in a dispute screams insults, and shouts down those who have a contrary opinion (even taking steps to injure them unjustly), I am likely to think that that party is in the wrong and — at least subconsciously — knows he is in the wrong.

I might sometimes be mistaken, of course, but that is how I would tend to think. Is this not reasonable?”

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Worked another 4 hours of OT tonight. It’s quite draining and not fun, especially when my iPod’s batteries die half an hour into said overtime, but today I felt a lot better than after the last time I did a 12 hour. Probably because I wasn’t PVing A500s.

StrikerS

It’s so close I can almost taste it.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS airs April 3rd at 26:30 hours. Or April 3rd at 12:30 hours my time. This is the TV show I’ve been most anticipating since a very long time. I dug Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. I dug Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s even more. And now a new season is coming out, with twice as many episodes as either of the previous seasons. This’ll put the Nanoha series at having a grand total of 52 episodes.

I am somewhat concerned about it, though. The first two seasons each follow a pattern that was similar, but different enough that it did just feel like the same old same old. To get down to major basics it was, “Bad guys are collecting X to do Y. Good guys try to stop them. Much smack-down is laid and some chatting is done. Good guys make friends with bad guys and bad guys learn the errors of their ways. Unfortunately it is too late and Y has occurred. Good guys and bad guys team up and lay down some major smackings on the Final Boss. Everyone lives happily ever after. The end.”

This cycle, if allowed to continue indefinitely, would soon create an absurdly large cast. However, it seems StrikerS will be starting with new good guys that weren’t in the first two series. If StrikerS follows the same pattern the cast size will jump at even faster rates.