Nigorimasen! Blog

The deadline for nominating “web logs” in any of the Anime Blog Awards’ fifteen categories is next Tuesday, April 22nd, and I figured I’d write a post about it to remind any stragglers to submit their suggestions for the short lists. I’m also writing this under the situation that I haven’t been nominated once so far in any category. I’m not trying to be egotistical but come on, NOT ONE?!? *coughs* Perhaps I should chide myself a little for not making frequent posts or for not developing a substantial gimmick or personality with which I could market my blog. I would certainly agree I haven’t done anything particularly spectacular to warrant internet recognition through a group of my peers.
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I’m currently selling some of my anime DVD’s because I need some money for next month’s rent and also I want to free some shelf space. (Can’t believe I got myself in this situation in the first place…) Anyway, I already sold some to people in my anime club during the past few weeks but there are still a number of them remaining so I decided to just put them up for auction. The first group of auctions ends around 1:30am-2am PST 11/26, the other around 2:30pm-3pm PST that same day, all but one have Buy It Now options, and I’ll be shipping them by Media Mail. Listings below the fold!
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Later this morning, I’ll be heading to the airport to embark on a 26-hour journey to Düsseldorf, Germany, with layovers in Minneapolis and Detroit. Probably going to see a lot of interesting things during my month’s stay in Deutschland and take many pictures of architecture and scenery. This might also be the self-realization journey (like Takemoto’s bicycle trip except less physically demanding) I didn’t ask for as I travel outside the United States for the first time ever. Yep, haven’t even been to Canada yet.

I’m not going to be packing my laptop so I’ll have to use the computer labs at the university (free) or an Internet cafe (not free but gonna try it once!) to check my e-mail, upload pictures, and submit an occasional post. I still have to read a good amount of class material which I could probably make a dent in while I’m flying thousands of miles in the air.

I’m going to try to post at least once a day (except for the last week when I’ll be on a bus) to a specially dedicated blog I set up for this trip. The address is studyabroad.crumplednapkin.net (link is also in the sidebar under “My Other Sites”) and I hope I don’t forget to do it after the first couple days. I have to keep a hard-copy research journal that I have to turn in near the end so the entries I write in that notebook may overlap with what I write online and keep me on a schedule of sorts.

If you have been unable to access many aspects of this blog for the past couple days, that problem was fixed this afternoon when I upgraded the blog’s software to Wordpress 2.2. (It was previously on version 2.1). I made a post last night (please go back and read it!) and then realized I couldn’t access my own stats page or users online page so I decided to upgrade and although that happened to solve the problem, I doubt that was the actual issue.

Next, a little bit of personal news: I hurt my left elbow while biking to campus today and my left arm is now in a sling and my wrist in a brace with what the doctor at the student health center called a “radial head fracture”. I will attempt to continue making posts over the next couple weeks but it will take longer than usual as I will be typing (read: pecking at keys) using only my right hand. Perhaps I should try some voice recognition software…or just scan in handwritten stuff… Anyway, I hope that recovery will be quick so I can get back to my normal way of life.

Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion that I likely will not be able to finish the manga reading project that I set upon a couple months ago but I’ll try to read as many volumes as I can and write mini-reviews for whatever I end up completing.

Vinyl FTW!

Okay, this is an off-topic, shameless self-promotion, so you’ve been warned! Later tonight at 11PM [2AM EDT/12PM GMT/2PM Singapore], I will be undergoing on-air training at my college radio station KDVS and will play about 15-20 minutes worth (5 songs) of music from their library. This is in preparation for my weekly spot for next quarter as a newbie DJ at the station.

My show will be titled “Angry Fruit Salad” and I’ll be playing rock, punk, folk, and indie music for 2 hours starting from 4AM [7AM EDT/12PM GMT/7PM Singapore] early Wednesday mornings. You don’t have to listen live, of course — shows get archived to the website minutes after they wrap up — but giving me some feedback on my first outing on March 28th would be greatly appreciated and would help me smooth over some first-time jitters of being on the radio and managing a live broadcast.

Feel free to post any requests and I will try to see if the station has it (probably not if the artist is mainstream). I will try to play at least 50% “currents” but that leaves me with room to put in stuff I found poking around the racks or something interesting from home. The rule for playing non-current music (that is, more than three months old and not in the “Currents” bin) on a weekly show is no more than twice from the same artist/band per quarter, which still allows me to play some of my personal favorites while forcing me to explore and find new music as I have been doing for the past couple months now. Wish me luck and I hope you tune in sometime!

P.S. I’m going to attempt recording another episode of Amateur Otaku Radio on Talkshoe at 1:15PM PDT tomorrow and talk about the upcoming spring season among other things. I’m not trying to compete with the Scattered Cels podcast but I feel the urge to make more episodes in a futile attempt to make money.

UPDATE (1:46 PM PDT): I got so frustrated trying to load the Talkshoe Java app and failing to log in properly that I decided, from now on, I’m going to just record AOR on my own and then upload it after the schedule TalkCast time passes. Sorry to anyone who tried to listen in this afternoon but I’ll try to compose the spring-related episode for the next couple days and have it up by Friday.

OK, on Friday I turned into the Education Abroad Office at my college my enrollment packet for a summer abroad program (Japanese Culture in Film) to take place in Kyoto, Japan, from June 29 to July 28. I was told I am fourth on the waiting list since it filled up quickly so I’m hoping people drop in the next couple months. Not damn likely but I can still hope.

So my backup plan for overseas learning this summer is Düsseldorf, Germany, during the month of August and taking a course called “Germany under Hitler’s Third Reich”. And I know a good amount of German so that might help me get around there better than not knowing kanji and walking around Japan. Still, I know a friend who was the first one to sign up for the Kyoto trip so I’d prefer to go there than Deutschland, at least for this summer.

Anyway, I set up a separate blog to document my attempts and experiences with the study abroad program. There’s only one post there now but it should pick up around mid-April as more stuff happens. Wish me luck, guys (and gals)!

Maybe the pure power of the aniblogsphere can influence the situation…or not…

For a while now, even before I started blogging, I wanted to have my own domain for hosting AMV’s, short movies and other kinds of stuff. I had decided a couple months ago that I would use one of those $97-off promo codes for Dreamhost and work during winter break on setting up my new website. Hitting my image quota has just quickened my resolve to go ahead with it but I’m slightly reluctant because of all the connections I’ve built while at this URL. I suppose another reason could be hitting the milestone of making 100 posts but whatever.
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This afternoon I submitted my entry into the sixth semi-annual AnimeSuki Karaoke Contest and reminded myself that I’m not that good of a singer. *sigh* I’m my own worst critic.

Anyway, I heard about this contest on Omo’s blog and decided to give it a shot. I don’t think I’m going to win but I had fun trying to find songs that (a) I have the instrumental versions of and (b) have a managable pace I could keep up with. The two tunes I settled on were “Puzzle” from NHK and “Hanabi” from Bleach. After initially planning to do both and submit the better-sounding one (or rather, the one that sucked less), I decided to just go with “Puzzle” and hope for the best.

If YOU would like to submit an entry, you have until November 29th midnight EST and your song should be full-length and come from an anime or game. The entries will be broadcast some time on Dec. 2nd via Shoutcast (check the thread for updates), people will vote on them and winners will be announced on Dec. 9th.

Oh, and if you want to hear my attempt, go ahead but listen at your own risk as you may experience eardrum trauma.

My so-so meatball lunch at the IKEA restaurant

Over the past two days, I’ve been moving stuff into my new apartment and tonight will be my first night sleeping there. My roommate’s cool but I have a couple problems right now: there’s no Internet and one of the outside windows is broken. It seems that I’m not alone in the lack of connectivity department; I heard some guy down the hall (Mike, I think?) calling a friend about it. So right now I’m using my university library’s wi-fi connection to post this. I’m also going to file a repair request tomorrow to fix the window. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently received an e-mail from YouTube informing me that some of my videos had been “rejected” for copyright infringement. The company that reported the infringement was none other than Yomiuri Broadcasting. The videos rejected were an short clip and the entire episode it came from, which was posted after many requests from other members. The short clip was posted to demostrate how numbers on Japanese license plates could be read as words like “yoroshiku” (46-49). Read the rest of this entry »