Devoid of Anything Useful

from the random folks on #miko @ irc.rizon.net

Details and proceedings:
- Prices are in SGD, Singaporean buyers preferred.
- Official communication (for queries/collection etc) would be done via IRC. (#miko @ irc.rizon.net)
- Bidding will be done via comments on this blogpost. No Cbox!
- Please state your name/nick/unique identifier, item/group as clearly as possible, with bid amount (in SGD).
- Bidding closes on 31st December 2009, 2359h. Any bid placed after that would only be valid if it is the only bid for that item.
- Minimum bid increase is SGD 1.00, unless otherwise stated.
- Additional Details in Catalogue available here -> http://www.mediafire.com/?ywvygmzwrt2
- There will be a part 2 soon-ish, with another closing date. Do check back!

For the people in this thread who do not understand what the above means:






What he said.

It appears I am only posting this because I have broken out of the loop of which I want to post a post but still fail in the end. Deja vu.

Rather than willingly spending time sitting down writing about something I am excited about doing, I feel that spending time actually doing it would be much better.

Chasing SeiZon, Kämpfer, NHnH2 and NyanKoi!, while watching e.f. (memories). It's the 7/8 th week of the fall season, and I must say relative to the shows those weeks passed quickly. Also following FlashForward, which is quite interesting, and supplements all that 2D I've been getting.

Scripts aplenty. I should start saying "There's a script for that". Reading Google Reader by spoofing the cookies using wget. grep and sed being my very good friends. Each script teaches me something new. Working on IRC bot with bash now.

AFA'09 Shortly. I must say it is more hyped up than last year, so they had better justify that 250% price increase. Danny Choo Stormtroopering over here was also lulz.

That Otaku Elimination Game thingy, I actually fully support it. I don't really appreciate the dilution of the "otaku" pool. I am no otaku, definitely not. Neither is anybody else who can survive in HCI able to justify themselves as being otakus.

Robocup is burning my HP with incredible speed. There is nothing else that makes me breathe acrylic, tin, lead and aluminium fumes more than this. Being cooped up in a room does things to you.

So, Endless Eight (Part IV) next week.

I'm ok with repeating. Just that a) 15,500? where did the light novel go? and b) Kyon did not even let Nagato get to the point where she said how many times they found out about the loop.

Koizumi saying the same thing 3 times saved it a little, though I thought it was something wrong with my comp.

Anyway, those who desperately wanted time loop in ep2, you got it. Many times too btw.

In other news, I have somehow lacked the urge to edit r9k already, so I shall package it nicely and hopefully send it off as version 1.beta soon (yes, anything before this was a pre-alpha).

With E-learning over, the loads on my HDD, RAM and clogged tubes are eased. For now.

Chromium alpha update - taskman added.


shall do post on can't create some other time then.

The melting iceberg had frozen over again, albeit to just a quarter of its original size. People who were clinging on to the shrinking chunk can stand and move on it yet again.

And yes, I just happened to notice that Chromium can do http authing now. One less reason to run Epiphany. And even now I watch youtube from Liferea since there is a mozilla engine built in anyway.


And some short words on events past:
RIPMJ: Sad that I only knew him for Moonwalk, Bleach, Nose and Pedo.
ELEARNING: Saved the asses of a few people I bet. But we will have trouble rising on July 7.
COSFEST: July 11/12. wth is this going to happen with h1n1?
ENDLESS EIGHT: Kyoani settles this in the most elegant manner possible. Applause. Not helpful or clever, but elegant.

zzz. After reading "Endless Eight" off Baka-tsuki, I can't help but think its rather fitting for them to have put things as such. But seriously, what was that snakey thing that Nagato had? It appeared to be just coming out in an endless stream from the ground. and her 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4 was epic lol, with Mikuru's many gutterballs.

zzz. new OP is ok, animation feels like that "Skittles" MAD (with Candy Pop), especially the part where the name comes out with the stars behind the person. And what's with the quantum terminology in the chorus? I see neutrinos, the different quarks, gluons, tauons, muons and electrons. wth. Then the street signs, "tomare" and infinity lol. My favorite is the last part where everyone does the retarded moves, incl. the minor chars + the computer society. And even the final running sequence has many references, I think I saw Planck's constant, Riemann Hypothesis and telekinesis. Oh, and kyon's ccc-combo breaker.

zzz. and with what coincidence that it was also the last 2 weeks of our "summer break"? (when it aired) Lets all hope it repeats 15498 times with some variations and we can all do homework together on the last day to break the loop. Of course pardon me if any IDEs are around, hopefully you can help us vary our activities a little so that it ain't that boring for you.

Been nose-deep in Perl for the past few days. No doubt still messing with R9K.

Tried to add nick-stripping - Epic failded at getting the nicklist properly
Tried to add kick-logging - Epic failded at writing to the files

Tried to save time looping through huge logs by splitting according to line length
- Still ok. By analyzing what was the most frequent number of characters in a line (since I had logs already), I decided to split the files into x<20, x<50, x<100, x<150 and everything else. Currently as expected the x<50 file is the largest with the most number of lines.

Also, been draining my brain coming up with thrust vectoring for the Arduino. Secret project desu. All I can say is "arrgh, I do not want to see a Servo library again".

Seriously, I have not been able to clear a single backlogged ep these "holidays". Was even too busy to watch the other half of "Endless Eight" (which btw, I was late in getting) after I paused to reboot my comp after updating the kernel. And I just thought about the day I need to regex sentences like the previous one. ARRGH.

Yet another half of the remaining half of the iceberg has sunk into the icy waters, clinging on to the remainder is futile.

I consider myself to have been a hikki for most of my younger years, not going out except for schoolwork/family. It's not very much different now except that I do go and socialize a bit with my previous classmates and there are competitions and other stuffs. Also there is the ironical part of which I go out for anime stuffs like Cosfest and Latendo.

Of which speaking I just went to a while ago. I made a transit at Sunshine Plaza to check out the prices at KKnM before going to Kallang. I thought I would have learnt from my previous time on the same route that I chose; but apparently I got off at the stop which I did last time which was much further than the stop just before. Nevermind, a bit of exercise never killed anyone. Then I went to cross an overhead bridge and I soon found out that I didn't need to, as the bus stop was on the same side. Stupid mistake #2.

I wanted to get the baseball ver of Haruhi and Mikuru, but seeing that there was 3 sets of each I deduced that it was not too popular and I should wait for the price to drop first. The Tsuruya Maid ver and Mikuru Battle Waitress ver has 1 each, so I got them first.

I also preordered the Toradora Gashapon for some old friends. I said 3 sets and those guys lifted an eyebrow slightly lol.

(101th post)

I think I told some before, but I think a community effort would be better.

I don't regret not learning the piano, but sometimes I really wish I could play some pieces past "Mary Had a Little Lamb", especially OPs and EDs. Decoding by ear isn't very fun either. Rather than lament, I'm going to make use of that piano Dr. Hon left in the OTH Hall...

I want to print out the scores that I can get off http://josh.agarrado.net/music/anime/ and just "place" them there. Hopefully they don't get blown/thrown away and someone who is playing bothers to pick them up to give a try...

And by my wishful thinking people studying there would be doing their work with HHY in the background...

Also, after listening to the K-On! songs I still can hold off watching it, but most likely not for long. CoalGuys subs seem to stand out.

Planning a trip to Latendo tmr, most likely to preorder stuff and get figmas.

I met a 知音 at YDSP today. Irony that he is from RI, but he doesn't seem like the snobbish type.

I was playing stepmania, then he came over. Quite obviously he saw my OS and the song that I was playing.

He asked if I was a geek, but I daoded him a bit first. My troll filter was set on high just in case.

Then a while later while I was choosing a song he whistled one of the songs from Shana. I carried on from where he left off, then we lolled. After that he also did Imperial March.

Then he saw my taskbar, with "Gendou's Ani...". He said something about "illegal dls" I told him my house won't have enough space to put the cds. He also saw my wallpaper with Kona and I spun it around to show him the rest.

Slightly later on when I was playing motteke! sailor fuku he asked me if I knew the typing game, the I went "oh-yeah-typingmania". That totally hit the mark.

He doesn't seem to have FB (yet), so I shall get his contact or something. It also suddenly dawned on me that I forgot to get his name.

Danbooru (だんボール, from だんボールばこ or cardboard box) Imageboards are win. However, browsing through them is a nightmare. RSS feeds can help a bit. I did a bit of poking when getting them, and found that you can actually subscribe to multiple tags...and I dun have an account for nuts.

1) Grab the main url (For a list of Danbooru-like boards, see here)
e.g. http://danbooru.donmai.us/ or http://moe.imouto.org/

2) attach "post/atom?tags=" at the end
e.g. http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/atom?tags= or http://moe.imouto.org/post/atom?tags=

3) Find what tag combo you want, via the cheatsheet searching guide (Its available for the other boards too but its the same anyway)

4) Add a "+" between each tag
e.g. rating:safe+~shakugan_no_shana+~zero_no_tsukaima+~toradora (for the tsundere freak, sfw)
e.g. suzumiya_haruhi*+-kyon+rating:explicit (for haruhi H without Kyon)

5) whack the string from step 4 to the end of step 2
e.g http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/atom?tags=rating:safe+~shakugan_no_shana+~zero_no_tsukaima+~toradora
e.g. http://moe.imouto.org/post/atom?tags=suzumiya_haruhi*+-kyon+rating:explicit
(they actually work ok...)

6) Put that url in your RSS reader. Then you are done! Unless you want further mashup via Yahoo! Pipes (that was how I found out about the ?tags= hack anyway).

Another oxymoronic productivity tip brought to you by randName();

I realised something. I get angry when people somehow wreck what I have spent much effort to do. So to eliminate most of that kind of anger, I don't work so hard for things that I won't want to put effort in...

Also, I don't know why I found this and why I am putting it here but let me just do.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Kyon – 170cm
- Suzumiya Haruhi – 158cm
- Nagato Yuki – 154cm
- Asahina Mikuru – 152cm
- Koizumi Itsuki – 178cm
- Asakura Ryoko – 160cm
- Tsuruya-san – 160cm
- Taniguchi – 170cm
- Kunikida – 166cm

...and so, I let 25/5/2009 slip past me just like that.

Recollecting the past year, I did a lot of firsts.

First time I went to an animu event (Cosfest'08), of which would mark my frequent trips to such events (STCC'08, AFA'08, SOYA'09).

First time I queued up for very long (STCC'08) to get a free gift.

First time I went Pulau Ubin (OBS).

First time I installed Ubuntu on a Laptop.

First time I joined a Line Control competiton, got a 3rd for Gas.

First time I queued up for very long (AFA'08) to get tickets.

First time I got a figma (Kyon), which was at AFA'08, which would mark my growing collection.

First time I used NXT for a robotics competition (FLL).

First time I chased an Anime on TV (ZnT3) and on teh Netz (Clannad AS).

First time I juggled in front of a crowd I didn't know (CIP).

First time I took a plane (BSC), gone over 900km/h ground speed etc.

First time I lived in dorms for an extended period of time (BSC).

First time I had school on my Birthday, and that I was relatively well (I still had slight flu)

That is the title of SHnY 2009 ED, if you were wondering. No dance ftw.



HHY was obviously superior, but this was good too. So let me try very hard to pretend that HHY did not exist.

First thing, the flashing was irritating. Can cause seizures...
They put the characters in, but I don't think most noticed they were moving till the Haruhi one.

The time lapse style was ok when the Danchou band was being drawn. That I can take it.


That flashing part was still mildly ok... but the art was not too bad.

Biggest peeve: K-ON! similarity.

Was that mikuru or tsumugi?


Was that haruhi or yui?

Nevermind, did I do anything other than post 3 screenshots? no.

I am going to do a hit and run here.

Becoming one of my many usual selves (or should that be "selfs"), I am going to calmly state that there were at least 3 hentai opportunities in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, and what disappointment I had when a Google search for "bamboo leaf rhapsody hentai opportunities" led to nothing useful...
(If anyone is interested, they are: When Mikuru was asleep, both when her elder self was around and after Kyon helped chibi-loli Haruhi; then there was in Nagato's guest room.) If anyone is willing to illustrate I can try to come up with a half-assed story.

priceless comment is priceless:

“Hey do you know what is the true reason we had to wait for 3 years?”
“No clue”
“Our male lead and one of the main characters have slept for 3 years. That’s why”

Back to another of my more mild selves (damnit I'm going to stick with "selves"), Mikuru when Kyon woke her up was priceless. Head moving left and right in such a robotic manner, supplemented with the stuttering, then feeling herself for her TPDD, and finally mass murdering everyone via nosebleed with the moeblob "aiyo" (my mother actually asked if they really go "aiyo", I'm not too sure myself...) and crying.

Then comes the "travelling forward in time via freezing oneself". I've seen it a few times, but none as subtle as this. The tankazu part is quite obviously a time loop, but time loops are apparently treated as completely normal in SHnY. Not that it hurts anything, but over-reliance on them to solve the plot is not fun...

Overall, watching with the Light Novel translation as subs was really no problem, except when they were talking too quickly for me to see which line they are on. But it was easy to catch up. I did watch with subs later on, ignoring the troll subs.

The ED video gave me a headache, but not too bad. The chorus is nice, but seems familiar. Haruhi looked too much like Hirasawa Yui in the closing shot, and the other characters looked K-ON!-ish as well. Wonder what the OP will be like.

Next ep possibly in 4 weeks, after Remote Island Syndrome II. Also, I'm sure everybody noticed that Haruhi S1 was also "3 years ago", around this time...In fact, May 21 '06 was the Original air date of Remote Island Syndrome II.



EDIT: I suddenly remembered this also:

There are two date-related lines in episode 2; "In the process, we reached the first day after Golden Week." and "So that makes today Wednesday." Considering "the first day after Golden Week" is May 6th that is Wednesday, the year of the story is estimated as 2009, thus "Three years before" is 2006. The anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya became a big boom in 2006, and we actually saw the "information flare" caused by Haruhi Suzumiya on the net (like this page or Youtube, for example).

Yeah, yeah, haruhi overrated. But I guess it was not shitty at least.

Ok I lied about the hit and run. But does anyone want screenshots?

Back from BSC for 2 weeks, fit in with SGLife...

3 days before my tanjoubi and I get a long overdue gift from Kadokawa/KyoAni

Watching raws with Light Novel translation is fun.

Reviving this instead of posting on s--n--s was for the lulz

Lets see if I get to do more later

Call me a noob or something, I don't care.

After reading Ascaloth's review of Clannad AS 22 on Riuva, I actually shed some tears. Of exactly what I do not know.

After following it like how anime was supposed to be watched (weekly), now I sort of understand the attachment people get. I am not as devoid of emotion as I thought myself to be.

The last time, I got shat when I watched Colbert die with wishes unanswered. But in the confusion of the not so mega-ecchi that ZnT had, coupled with his Doctor Who style revival, I do not think those were true tears.

But just reading the ending reviewed by someone, I think it removes external context of you watching it, and instead forces you to concentrate on what happened.

Aww nevermind. Not that I did not want those tears anyway. Dango full ver somehow did not alleviate the situation too.

Bilingual post :-p

我从3月30日到5月8日会在北京，就是我们的”卫星校园“（其实只是从北京师范大学第二附属中学借来的几间课室与设施罢了）。
我选择去是因为:
1) 我在这个时期没有任何重要的比赛
2）这个时候北京的气候不会太冷太热
3）在 Robotics 的几位重要人物都在忙着 SLC （Student Leaders Convention)， 就趁机在他们忙的时候走开；不然我出国他们也出国，课外活动就没人在了。

就因为这些原因碰巧符合，我就去好了。这也会是我第一次乘搭飞机，真刺激。

我看我在那里的几个大问题是：
1）上网可能有些困难（The Great Firewall of China)
2）找电插头给我膝上电脑充电
3）心理上接受那里的食品
4）冷天气
5）空气的素质
6) Clannad After Story 的最后几篇我可能下载不了

就那么几个罢了，也不是什么大问题。

Back to my normal life (or lack thereof), I have found Yahoo! Pipes (which helps me filter and combine feeds so that Liferea actually functions well), and TinEye, an image search engine. For the most extreme example I can offer of its ability, search for this image (source) gave me this.

It seems like I've been forced out of hibernation. Well, doing episode reviews are so donotwant and doing reviews of shows that have passed for so damn long are even more donotwant but I shall still do them anyways.

Let me start with a simple one. Jigoku Shoujo (or Hell Girl as I prefer calling it for some weird reason since I usually call by the Jap name like SHnY instead of TMHS but nevermind I'm sidetracking like shit).

Ok, basically you heard the story countless times, and after watching you would somehow get tired of it like I already am. And here I shall refer to season 1 first

Here is the stuff she says, translated and paraphrased so we don't die of boredom:
"Take this" (uketorinasai)
[Ai gives doll (Wanyuudou)]
"If you really wish to take revenge, you must pull the red string. Your target would be sent to hell immediatley." (bla bla hontou ni bla bla akai bla bla bla)
[Insert animation of person almost pulling]
"However, you make a contract with me. When a person is cursed, 2 graves are dug. You will also go to hell." (bla bla futatsu bla bla)
[Insert animation of person scared and reconsidering]
"Of course, that is after you die"
[Remove Enma Ai and present disappearence]
"The rest is up to you"

And the text on the website, "Your revenge, cleared" (anata no urami, harashimasu)

So that is pretty much what happens in almost every episode, plus minus a few lines for each case.

The template for an episode is pretty much like this:
1) Person gets bullied/wronged/etc that is caused by someone
2) (Optional) Person hears of Jigoku Tsuushin
3) Person accesses it. Optionally insert struggle process
4) The above transcript, give and take some details
5) Person uses doll (accidentally or not)
6) Revenge is taken with nice effects, method depending on what the target did.
7) Target on boat (nice boat?) with Ai, usually struggling etc
8) Ai says she will "ferry this vengance to hell"
9*) Candle appears in candlepool with Person's name, with Ai saying what is on the website.
10) Resolution, involve showing the mark on chest of Person

*Note: can sometimes be last, just before ED.

And after episode 8 comes a complication, where the Shibata family comes in.
Insert after 1): Tsugumi recieves contact
Insert after 4): Hajime tries to stop, usually not arriving in time/cannot persuade properly

Then there is Episode 13, where the past is explained. At the end of this episode we see someone who sent his friend to hell go to hell himself, but without torture.

Also, the last 3 episodes are very different. Basically its still their history in detail.

I shall not talk about the OP and ED since I have no such licence, but I must say the OP is some catchy shit and the ED is for curing insomnia.

So this is the post for the whole of Jigoku Shoujo 1. Even if I have time I may not do 2.

Hmm. It seems like the weekends are free-ish. Let me rumble more then.

Last week's FLL failure was partly my fault. Had I started work earlier I could have perfected the design of that cargo-thing that can lift the house (and I should have gotten the full points). Of course, I can actually have peaceful slumber because I know Tribal was too imba (and in this case it actually really means imbalanced).

Of course, not one to brood over matters (actually, I don't brood. Bad things come back to haunt me in short bursts, like my realization that I have not been ordering student meals for the last 2 years (of which when there was that option (means not weekend) I think there were less than 50 times, so its not that zibei)) (And yes that's a lot of brackets)

My imageboard feed backlog has been cleared (at least the accumulated ones), and I dunno how long I can keep it under 200 each (Konachan.com is not that much of a problem. Its Danbooru and Sankaku Channel that is constantly bombarded).

If some know I have been doing research on dolphin waxing, and results have shown its not that horrible thing like drugs or cigarettes that the higher beings call it to be.

Word has been spreading that I watch H3N741. Yes, I did Bible Black (all except for the sequel) and Discipline: A record blah blah etc; but seriously, I don't have much time now that school started. And yes, I dislike 3d that much.

Currently I am only actively watching Clannad After Story, and even that is like what, weekly? If I actually have free time I actually want to do homework, but by the time I'm done it will be the next slot on my unwritten schedule. even if I'm done I feel guilty sitting there doing nothing so I end up clearing my feed backlog.

In the time I've written this, I guess at least 2 cycles have passed. The thing is that you will feel compelled to read the feeds. I guess it can provide something for you to live for, but I guess I should let it decelerate for a while.

Well, this is a pretty long post for the current state of events. I think I should reserve some time to do this in the weekends. Somehow I feel slightly better.

On a lighter note, I guess feeds have brought me something.
(http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/mariogravity.shtml)
Of course, while I'm posting links: Invisible Tetris.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwC544Z37qo)
And finally, don't worry. All the links that I post on this blog are SFW unless otherwise stated. I am, however, not responsible for you getting caught slacking off reading this while you were supposed to do something important.