So where have I been the past few days…

First let’s go back almost 6 years ago. And then the present time. It’s no longer tendonitis, my arm was as close to falling off now if it weren’t for my skin holding it together.

Over the past weekend, I experienced severe neck pain, apparently I had nightmares about my work, causing me to move a lot while I was sleeping, when I unfortunately suddenly woke up on my right side, the broken shoulder side. The tendonitis side, which, why I never pushed to confirm that and x-ray it, just please don’t ask, but it looks like a complete breakdown of my shoulder joint, as yesterday I was literally playing with my ball socket in my shoulder, ugh the popping noises, the way I am able to bend my arm irregularly… I don’t want to talk about it anymore, but as you can see, it shut me down those long 6 years ago, and it’s happening again.

So that’s the update. I’ve forced myself to slow down my life, forget about anything that needs thinking, and just relax. So you’ll see a lot more about me, I have a lot of DS and PSP games to catch up on, and really, this is a long time coming, but I really need some rest, and I think now’s the time before I make the big decision to go with surgery, because it’s not just my shoulder now, it’s affecting my spine too, which I am still experiencing a really stiff neck at the moment, so the sooner I relax the better. I can live with the pain, I have been for a long part of my life, because I just can’t see the trade-off between stopping my work for just one day for, who knows how long recovery from surgery would need. Seriously, I consider my work important, to me, it’s my life, a task given to me about 17 years ago, I will not give in for this. I can’t give in….I believe we all have a destiny, and mine unfortunately involves the uniqueness of my brain, the fact that they were able to see that in spite of what a few pieces of paper said otherwise, I don’t want to let them down.

Not even myself.

But…

…Yeah I’ve been missing out on gaming. Sometimes I wonder why I buy these handhelds when I can’t even play them. Good thing the d-pads and joysticks for movement are on the left hand, I don’t think pressing buttons with my right isn’t going to hurt too much. No wonder why I have been using a trackball for 11 years, I can’t use a conventional mouse anymore due to the way you have to use your arm to move that around.

On the other hand, I tried to play a fighting game, and it hurt. Sucks to be me, but it looks like I can’t play that genre anymore unless I apply some serious painkiller on my shoulder.

I also wanted to apologize to some folks at XDA-developers for my delayed respones, I know I’m the only one who is willing to help you guys, and I’ll keep helping out, for as long as I have a computer.

Hello 2012…..what the heck? I’m capped even more?

Ah, what a way to start a new year. My banner has an all time low 4 girls only, due to the strange lack of 2012-series (bouncy) posters from Nyantype and Megami. Then I find some disturbing new info on why my internet connectivity has sucked major donkey balls.

According to the Philippine undernet (sorry, can’t post links, but citizens of this country would know which sites I am talking about), my wireless carrier (Globe) has made some frustrating new changes since last month:

-The blocking of ports due to abuse of cheapskate users has affected paying subscribers like me.
-NEW INFO: a new bandwidth limit of 400kbps (That’s a download speed of 40 KB a second for those of you who spend time on fiber optic lines and forgot what kbps means :P) has been imposed, time of day uncertain but according to my own tests, it happens around 9AM and well into the night.
-NEW INFO: it seems to be established by some folks (sorry, I don’t understand the language so I’m picking off what little english they use) that there is a 450MB data transfer limit from 10AM to 11PM. According to my own tests, this seems to be true as they royally lied about the 800MB limit that I never reached that they so graciously tried to notify me about.

What does this mean? It cuts into my anime time even more. And that was on rough seas since last year. Again, why don’t I use any other wireless carrier?

From one burning ship to another? No way. Reality is, the data plans and service in this country suck black holes. Now Hong Kong has better prepaid plans lol. (in fact I think they always did.)

Q & A with mangatron: Big ones, Small ones, and any in-between?

The post title is a joke from the Full Metal Panic manga, specifically the second one. I believe its volume 03, when Sousuke worked in a video rental store. I bought that manga in a US Army base bookstore back in 2006 when I returned to Germany, hence why it’s rather special to me. Except for the part where I left it in Germany.

If you read my last post, you’ll find I’m in favor of small, sporadic posts instead of once-a-blue-moon big posts, and to continue that, there are much questions going about that my PM inbox at the Animesuki forums cannot contain. Seriously, I have to empty that almost twice a season XD So today I’m going to tackle a question that has arisen a number of times the past 3 seasons: Who is that girl in your avatar?

Q: Okay, it’s been going on for awhile, but why the bouncy avatars?

A: It’s a fairly recent thing. I’m not really known for it, but as usual something happened and it ended up being a habit. It all started with the Anime version of Astarotte’s Toy, and Lotte’s well endowed mother. Specifically, episode 05. And I made it no secret my love for my Queen, but I had the fun idea to take it a step further by placing her in my avatar, perhaps a first for a mature woman such as her XD

The avatar that started it all

Of course, it made a heavy impact: at the time, my “lolitron” nickname was as prevalent as ever, then all of a sudden a bouncy woman resides in my avatar space? Shortly afterwards, I never failed to receive a PM/visitor message about “Who is the girl(yes she has been called a girl) in your avatar” during this time, and I thought “Oh, there’s not many viewers for this show, maybe I can recommend a lot to it” and I proceeded to pounce on any chance I can get to animate her screen time.

The second Mercelida avatar from episode 09

From that point, I have had a “big” avatar since. If there wasn’t a new pair of big ones that week, the avatar remained. The best part: I have had so many PM’s about questions of what series my avatar came from, and I have directed them to the appropriate thread, thus making them watch a series they never would have had it not been for my avatar. Thus, the story of my bouncy avatars, why I continue to use them, and why it remains the #1 PM I get XD

Just some of the avatars I’m responsible for since Spring 2011:

This one deserves special mention. My favorite, one that lasted for almost a month, and the most controversial avatar I have used that brought smiles and a headache to mods and regular members alike, which was also responsible for making me clean out my PM inbox twice: R-15’s Chief-chan.

Up next, is… actually, I think I should finish that tutorial first. I was also hoping to resume 7DA afterwards.

A little update

Usami finally reveals her pantsu in the disc release for Mayo Chiki!

I think I’ve been here before. The part where I thought small, quick posts were a lot better than dead silence. And that’s why I’m writing this post on the last day of November to inform those 600+ readers that have come by the past several weeks. First off, November has been a very unhealthy month for me. You might recall that Charlotte Dunois photoshop in the early weeks of this month. That job cost me in several ways, including days of writhing pain in my right wrist, which led to me frequently using a cast/splint more often, as well as repairing my Trackball mouse I half destroyed almost a year ago for use once again, and completely ditching the conventional mouse altogether. Ah, both good things and bad things never happen by themselves, and not long afterwards, real life comes back into my life, and that’s where we’re at the final weeks of November, where that second-hand smoke incident earlier in the year happened again (old man neighbor continues to smoke despite suggestions he stop), resulting in the past 5 days with me continuously inhaling menthol 24/7, something one might also know as aromatherapy.

I’ve had free time to watch about half my Fall 2011 Anime list, why not the rest of that on forums and my blog and what not? I do also participate in XDA-developers ROM cooking duties, and this is the main part of my update that I felt should be shared. My time on XDA-devs is important, and not just for me, for others too who depend on the skills I utilize as a ROM Chef. Why not share that knowledge so others can take up the slack? Sure, I did, my work has brought in 2 Chef’s, but those ended up being basic ROMs, with bugs no less, and it ends up as there’s something only I can do, which for some reason no one else does, and instead they look to me, the godfather of this line of phones. You know that feeling you get when you have a good idea, and try to do it?

I never try to think about what to do if I fail, but this is one of those many situations where I also cared not to think of the consequences of when I succeeded, and the impending expectations others place on you. But with blog post drafts piling up, time does not smile upon me, and if my health gets the better of me, my time may run out before I know it.

The broadcast of Mayo Chiki episode 05, where the chicken’s head conveniently covers what HAS to be seen XD

A decade ago: September 11th, 2001

Los Angeles, California. I went to bed the previous night thinking the next day would be like any other, but I was awoken by my brother calling me saying “did you hear?” And so I groggily went over to the ol’ tube television and saw the towers burning.

Being the cognitive person that I am, the first thing that came to mind: “The world will change forever”

Despite in my opinion that strangely worded sentence (which was in English, not German or any other language), it didn’t take long to see how the world will change. I knew the Americans wouldn’t take this sitting down, that they wouldn’t let it go (at this time I was still involved in Military Strategy), and this was the first time in my life that I saw a country practically stop to a standstill for about a day. It was this event which unfortunately delayed Full Metal Panic, and airport security never was the same again. Due to the massive combat experience of the US Army in the past decade, the Drone Wars truly have just begun. Though many experts and analysts agree that the Drones cannot win a war on their own, it is without a doubt the insurgents in Iraq and Afgahnistan have accelerated the development of UAV’s.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this day 10 years ago, to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice: their lives, so that many of us can enjoy the freedom we have today.

I may not have directly been affected by the events on that day, but one assuring thing I know of: Osama Bin Laden did not last 10 years afterwards. I now wonder if Full Metal Panic will rise up in its greatness again. I haven’t gotten myself involved in that series since Tessa’s Second Raid OVA >__>

Happy Birthday Houki!

Due to various nefarious obvious reasons (take a wild guess), I was only able to post this today. But who cares, I did that other important post yesterday (albeit painfully), so all’s right in my world.

When was the last time I posted something like this… oh bugger, maybe Dog Days’ Yukikaze is next, wowser I love that girl 😀

HOUKI IS MY WAIFU AND NONE SHALL DEPRIVE ME OF THAT FANTASY! There,  had to get that off my chest XD

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July update, health stuff and… stuff

Oh well, the jollyness of the days when I did the Dog Days Photoshops
seems to have been short-lived, as I have come across the same stomach
illness over the past week. I'm doing better of course, but a lot of
things I needed to do has once again been backed up, and it's not
helping when this country is giving me an even shittier time. If you
thought my internet was bad, now it's 45KBs-throttled bad. I mean
bloody hell, why in the world are they (Globe) doing this? There was
no warning whatsoever, no advisory, and yet they have to pull this
crap especially when they already have unstable Saturday connections
and DEAD connection Sundays, on top of DEAD zones every day from 9PM
to 11PM-12AM, 504 errors enough for you to doubt the connection
stability, forcing you to disconnect wasting your top up load, not to
mention all this happening…. when they were the “first” network in
this country to… wait for it… roll out their 4G network. Ok. Let
me get this straight. You upgrade your network with the sole intent
for better speeds, and you throttle down everyone (remember, this
isn't just me affected) to dial-up speeds? WHAT… THE… Fudgsicle is
this Keebler….

Ugh, you have no idea how bad it is. Because I sugarcoated the above
passage leaving out this one all important detail: it is 45KB/s SINGLE
STREAM. Uh huh. You read that right. A single connection. Why is this
imortant? Well, you know how web browsers are these days opening up 8
or more connections per website so as to speed up page loading. So
what happens when you visit a ridiculous image laden site like Sankaku
Complex? Well, instead of getting at least 30KBs of each 8 browser
connections, all 8 connections will take a giant dump on your speed
and try to fit all 8 browser connections into the 45KBs limit. That
means if 1 of the 8 connections tries to load a large image at 40KBs,
the webpage will timeout because all the other page elements could not
load their elements in time, which eventually leaves much of the page
with a highly fragmented looking half loaded website. A vampire has it
easy, at least he sucks on purpose. My connection? I wish I can take a
Nerf gun to it and fire a sucking dart at it, but I don't even feel
like it… +2 for me for the double pun of Nerf and Suck 😛

It just doesn't look good for this country. Just yesterday there was a
3 hour blackout all because of… dramatic pause… some Aria-killing
thunderstorms. Now I know the power station wasn't hit because whoop
de flogging doo it happened like this several times in the past few
years, and I refuse to believe this country is as incompetent enough
to get hit by lightning everytime it strikes. There's no way someone
can't learn from that…right?

Storm-front = no daily blogging

Well, a storm recently rolled into the Philippines over the weekend,
right when I thought daily blogging was a possibility. The reason why
my connection is extremely crappy is the technical mumbo jumbo related
to 3G signals and atmospherical conditions. It's a bit complicated to
explain, and not really something I feel like doing, but it basically
boils down to 'perfect weather = good connection' and 'bad weather =
spotty connection'. I miss Germany already.