Ah yes…it’s official. I am finally moving to my own site. Woot! Then again, you’ve probably heard about me moving since last month, and much more recently from Kanzeon. Looks like I’ve become infamous lately. Funny how people I’ve hosted moved way before I did.

Anyhow, my new blog address is

http://exce7ion.kokidokom.net/

For those people who have been so kind enough to add me on their blogroll, please replace the URL with the new one.

Feed URL on my aggregators will be changed within the next 12 hours or so.

So yea, see ya’ at the new site.

A couple of weeks before the official start of the season, I was looking at the different shows that will be airing this Winter – how very disappointing! I can’t believe I was spending a lot of time looking around for shows that have a potential of tickling my fancy. I hate to admit it, but the previous season is a lot more better than this, mainly because I could easily distinguish which shows I’ll definitely be interested in from the ones I’ll probably die of boredom, just by taking a quick glance at their promotional pictures and a few words of their respective synopses. Pretty much, watching shows from Winter 2009 is like taking  a gamble, therefore making it (at least for me) a partial if not complete failure.

Shows that simply aren’t my cup of tea

Shows that have an ounce of being potentially interesting

Shows that are interesting but can’t watch because of existing previous seasons

Just as biankita mentioned in her post, I too wish it were spring already.

So another year has passed…honestly, I could care less but what the heck. I’ll just go with the New Year spirit – basically, another chance at life New Year resolutions? What a joke. I have yet to find a person who completely went by their resolutions.

I originally wanted to write about Anime moments from 2008 like almost everyone else is doing, but heck I didn’t watch that much anime until around Fall of that same year when I started blogging. Even then, I got interrupted by RL necessities like school and health that I had to take a hiatus. So my selection of these so-called moments is pretty much zero, zilch or nada. I instead decided to put down my floor plan for the year.

Real Life

During May of this year, I will be finishing up my years in community college  so that I can transfer to a university. Things will get a little hectic for me this Spring since I’ll be spending a lot of time and effort to get in to this one particular university…that is, the one by where I live. Dorming here cost a shitload of money (about $10k per year)…so in essence, I could solve that dilemma if I can get in to that school. It’s not like it’s some average university either…it’s one of the good engineering schools in the state.

So yes…the early months of 2009 will be reserved for appeasing the gods known as admission. Furthermore, I need to do it with as much money I can get. With tuitions ever increasing, my ineligibility for financial aid, and my refusal to take loans, I am only left with scholarships. And what does that mean? It means applying like there’s no tomorrow and trying to make your transcript as pretty possible as if it were entering a beauty pageant. There goes the first few chunks of the new year…

Blogosphere

There’s always room for blogging, maybe not as much time as before but there’s always going to be room. So for the winter of the new year, I plan to blog at most, three series. Two series for my own blog and one for somebody else’s blog, plus the ongoing ones from Fall 08.

I am getting frustrated with the limits of the free version of WordPress. That is why around mid-January, I will be purchasing hosting along with a domain so that I can move into self-host WordPress. This I decided while at least considering to join ‘networks’ that offer free hosting and a subdomain. It was a good idea at first but nah…it ain’t worth the things you have to go through to apply. I’m not the kind of person who waits under an apple tree with my mouth wide open, waiting for the fruit to fall. F*ck that shit.

So yes, if you’re one of the people in my blogroll who’s been contemplating to move into self-host WP but can’t afford to or is not willing to spend, use the contact form to get to me. I’m willing to provide hosting since I’m getting so much for so little anyway.

And that my friends, is my floor plan for the year 2009.

Bleh….when I thought I’ve finally had the chance to catch up on one of my favorite series for the Fall 08 season, I find out it’s only twelve episodes long. It is rather unfortunate that I have to yet again move another anime from my ‘Currently Watching’ list to my ‘Past Series’ one as we say goodbye to Chaos; Head.

Nevertheless, here’s the run down…

The Good

I personally enjoy anime that employ pseudo sciences as an essential element to the plot; and nothing exemplifies that better this season than Chaos; Head. For the most part, it lives up to its title, Chaos; Head…driving you absolutely nuts with verbose explanations and dictions the common person most likely have never heard or never will hear in his/her life – pretty much things I’m more accustomed to. I also liked the mode of confrontation among protagonists and antagonists – ethereal swords and delusional battles are simply out of this world!

If it so ever happens that such sci-fi thrills do not peak your interest, you will be scratching your head as to why bizarre events such as finding a fetus inside a dead man happen in Chaos; Head. Perhaps the other thing I enjoy about Chaos; Head is the manner it plays on a person’s demand for an explanation. Using disturbing often gory images to depict strange phenomenon in the plot, the viewer will more or less find him/herself asking questions like ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ as to how these events came to be before realizing, he/she would have been already too consumed by curiosity to, well..stop watching. This is very much evident across the blogosphere right after episode 7 when people ranted on how the series sucked right after that specific episode. Interestingly enough…these same people watched the series to the very end.

Coincidence…or an intended attack to the human curiosity? Hmmm…

And oh, I love Rimi’s piano insert song, as well as the OP sequence.

The  (Not So) Bad

Ah yes, the bad. To be quite honest, I’m having a hard time thinking of anything to say in this aspect. But push comes to shove, I’d say the series is somewhat lacking character development. I do wish to have learned a lot more about the pasts of the six female Gigalomaniacs. The way I see it, the goddamn series is already full of questions just trying to understand the plot and the mechanics of the pseudoscience in it which it runs on. Trying to get past all of these just to understand their origins is a bit too much in my opinion. If anything, it would have been better (at least for me) if C; H went a bit more liberal with character backgrounds, digesting it into easy-to-remember and easy-to-understand bits and pieces. I watch C; H to relax…and although I do not mind working my cranial CPU a little, the last thing I want to have is to feel as if I’m taking a board exam in engineering right at the convenience of my own room.

I also thought the whole delusional concept was a partial disappointment. The science of Chaos; Head was good up to the part where Taku ‘awakened.’ After that point, everything just fell apart to Deux Ex Machina; Taku suddenly becoming almost omnipotent laying waste on those who opposed him (Inspector Sui) and the fact that Noah II, a machine that’s supposedly almost impossible to grasp physically (with the exception of Norose Genicchi), was destroyed with he aid of a mere river….I cry foul play.

Even more foul play, the godly equation…..fun^10 x int^40 = Ir2. You’re kidding me, right?

The Ugly

The thing that bothers me the most is the likelihood that this series could have potentially eliminated its bad aspects given more time. Twelve episodes are most certainly insufficient for a tightly-packed anime, considering the shitload of brain food, a lot of key characters (mainly the six female Gigalomaniacs), and a rather potentially interesting plot. If only C; H were aired in twenty-four episodes instead of twelve, character development could have been better and the Deux Ex Machina could have been minimized, if not completely eliminated.

Closing Remarks

The next time you may want to consider watching scientifically fictitious on the premise of having a little bit of something different, you may want to consider watching Chaos; Head….that is, if psychological thrills and mind-boggling phenomena float your boat. Due to its addicting nature and short span, Chaos; Head is a lot more suited for watching whenever you decide to take a break from a daunting task such as studying. I do not recommend watching the series in bulk….it will go by so fast. By time you realize it, you would have zipped through the series without getting a firm grip at its plot…then you’d be crying foul play.

Heh…I have no clue what got to me. I started watching Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, and Ultraman series that I was once so fond of when I was a kid…then I found myself unable to move my eyes from the screen. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not that old. The TV network I watched as a child (that should have been airing anime like the rest of the world) actually broadcasted a couple of these shows back then.

Hooray…reliving my childhood indeed…

Have a Happy,Steaming Hot, and Warm Holiday everyone! For most of you, I would like to say…Merry Christmas (Happy Christmas for my British friends). Why, you might ask, am I saying ‘most of you’? Well, I live (or once lived a considerable amount of time) in a very diverse and colorful multicultural neighborhood  (much more of a city, if you ask me). In that regard, I would like to express my respects to my non-Christian friends who have opened my mind to the different cultures of the world by saying…’Happy Hanukkah,’ and ‘Happy Kwanzaa,’ or better yet, ‘Happy Christmahannukwanzaka’!

I hope you all have (or had,) a wonderful time, presents or no presents, snow or no snow. What matters most is that, well, you are alive and you are well. So yes, I hope you all rocked your spirits by celebrating all the festivities to the fullest.

I for the most part, will be hibernating…but not without stuffing my seemingly bottomless stomach with food and trying to be well, merry. Aww f[**bleep**]k…is that a cut in my mouth?! Dammit! Out of the whole freakin year to get a mouth sore, it has to be on the occasion where my gobbling rate is at its maximum! f[**bleep**]k this!

Uh oh…looks like I’ve been naughty with words…I guess no presents for me then? Oh well…doesn’t matter..I still got a job! I can buy whatever I want. ^_^ That’s something to be thankful for, right? Right?!

[Please Santa...gimme a PS3..lolz]

Happy Holidays to my blogosphere friends and to the rest of the world:

• 53rG10
• Amayalee
• Biankita
• Blissmo
• FuyuMaiden
• Kairu Ishimaru
• Kanzeon
• Kitsune
• lostty
• Nazarielle
• Maura
• Omysith
• Rest of the world

Cheers! ^_^

I sure wish I had a Kallen drop...

To make way for the incoming winter anime series, a few current series have to be dropped. Apparently I learned/relearned two important things in blogging…

1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew
   • This especially applies to bloggers who are just starting to blog. Chill…don’t get too excited and get too greedy in the process..
2. Avoid series that are still being published in the manga
   • I feel sorry for those the episodians who are still blogging Naruto, Bleach or worse….Inuyasha

Having said that, we now go to our drop list…

1. Things I dropped out of boredom
   • ef~tale of memories
   • Tales of the Abyss
   • Yozakura Quartet
2. Things I dropped because of ongoing manga publication
   • Toradora!

Do keep in mind I only drop these for blogging…not necessarily for watching

Late the flaming/ranting begin..up next, Winter 09 Lineup.

Hooray!

Finally! After three or more weeks of contemplating, I finally managed to finish changing the color scheme  of the blog to commemorate the holiday season….and just in time as well especially since Xmas is only 9 days away. As far as coding the color schemes, I’m not entirely satisfied. Meticulous observation will reveal some image ‘mismatch’ all over the site. That aside, everything looks as planned. I intended to add a moving object around the site (i.e. falling snow, etc.) But seeing how the snow has already been provided to me, I decided to make the stars twinkle along the banner area.

Speaking of banners, the banner used is something I bumped randomly into. I am not entirely sure what anime it’s from, but it does resemble a lot like Lucky Star.

Overall, the coding did not turn out as hard as I thought. I actually did not spend as much time as I did when I coded the Halloween theme. Guess I’ll take that as a sign of improvement. Then again, I did not consider the additional time I took to make sure everything was neatly done. Given more time, I would’ve spent an hour or two to fix the bugs – but time isn’t just luxury for me anymore.

[WARNING! Boring Life Story Below. Skip to the next section as soon as you start drooling]

So what’s 7 been up to lately?

Well, a lot of things happened actually.

As most of you might know (especially if you have me on your Twitter), I am in college..and since December is the last month of the Fall semester, exams have been piling up like crazy.  I, at least, have taken most of my major exams. I have one more major and one minor exam left….and all of that is going to end this Friday. But yes, up from the time I declared I’m on hiatus, all I ever did was read, read, and read.

There’s also the matter of moving to a new house. Yea, I moved…and the best part is, I moved close to the four-year university I’m planning to transfer to. Translation? It means I’ll save at least $10,000 a year by not dorming. Woot! Anyhow, if there was ever a time I wasn’t studying, I spent it on packing…and my gawd…I did not realize until that moment that we’ve accumulated so much junk!

Just as when I thought there’s nothing else that could stand in my way of accessing the internet, my ISP (internet service provider) goes bitching slow. Apparently, it takes a couple of days for our internet to move to the new address. I don’t know about you but for me, a couple of days without internet is like ages. Ages passed and the wait was finally over. Just as when I was about to surf the web, we realized our connection was so f*cking slow. I tried checking the semi-GPS on my iPod touch (a semi-GPS program that can tell your location based on a wireless access point) and found out that the GPS pointed to my old address. I don’t know how the system works but if I had to guess, I’d say that our access point hasn’t completely moved to our new location yet. Even now , I’m enduring a connection speed just above the rate of a Dial-up modem..and I have to tell you…IT IS F*CKING SLOW, especially when you’re trying to login WordPress with SSL enabled and coding stuff like CSS.

Catching Up

As soon as I finish all exams, I will be lifting my hiatus to start the first 5-week long winter break I’ve has since 12 months ago. Catching-up plans? Sure! My plan is simple – watch a marathon, then post a marathon. My posts will probably combine all episodes I missed for the same series, and I’m probably gonna post one series a day until I catch up on every series. This pretty much explains my agenda.

Plans on moving to self host WP

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has plans on moving to a self-host WordPress, knowing how self-hosts have much more freedom plugin-wise and coding-wise.

I’ve actually decided to run some test blog sites across the web (on ad-paid free web hosts) to test out different theme layouts, plugins and such. Right now, I have a theme in mind that I really wanted to use. It’s just a matter of finding a good host with no ads whatsoever. I really want to avoid spending money for hosting. Although I’m more than capable of paying the monthly fee, I personally feel it’s not worth spending on something I don’t use on a timely basis.

I wanted to join dasaku…but Randall now requires a recommendation to get in. I barely know anyone from dasaku save for two…blissmo and Maura. So yea…if any of you folks would like to reccommend me, I would really appreciate it!

[Ahhhh...feels good to be back at blogging, well, at least partially until my winter break comes. I've missed so many episodes good episodes, but I barely even have the time anymore. Because of my absence, I've decided to give a comprehensive post of all things Chaos; Head, or more specifically, my attempt to digest the concept of it all. Episode 7 got me so turned on interested, yet at the same time, confused. Hopefully, this post will clear up my mind so I can peacefully go to sleep.]

Out of all episodes of C;H released so far, this has yet to be the most understandable one yet. Ironically, this episode also happens to be most verbose of them all. So basically, just as when you think you understand a concept, they smack you in the face and give you a pile of vocabulary you swear you’ve never heard in your live, that is, if you aren’t a geek or something (no offense and pun intended btw).

Before I proceed to blabbering, please…keep in mind that

7 is dumber than he sounds….

What I’m about to blabber might be wrong, might be right. As to whether or not you agree with them is entirely up to you. If you feel like I’ve missed something, kindly let me know.

Now that that’s over with, let’s start with…

Gigalomaniax

Perhaps the simplest description one can provide for Gigalomaniax is a person or a group of people who are able to see a Di-Sword. Not so complicated is it? That’s because that was the easy part. When it comes to understanding the abilities of a Gigalomaniax, it’s completely another story. Let’s start slowly…

• According to one of the Nozomi agents… Noah II, the backpack responsible for inducing mass illusions upon the public, was meant to mimic a Gigalomaniax’s abilities; that is to make turn an illusionary projectile (simply an illusion of any object) and convert it to electromagnetic waves in such a manner that attacks not only the target’s vision (remember, your eyes see images through electromagnetic waves), but also your dopamine receptors. In case you didn’t know, dopamine plays a major role on your sympathetic nervous system, which includes but is not limited to your heart rate and blood pressure. Simply put, what better way is there to make an illusion so real other than fooling people through their sight and emotion? I say it can’t get any real than that. Wait, here’s a question you might ask…
  • What about the other senses? Good question…let me answer that by another question…aren’t all the other senses somehow connected to a nerve? Oh wait! We mentioned nervous system before!

• By the way, did I mention how Noah’s function is to serve as a mechanical counterpart of a Gigalomainiax? Well, if Noah could do all those things, I bet Gigalomaniax can do the same at an equal, if not greater, magnitude…one excellent proof of that is their ability to materialize their Di-Sword. Speaking of which, you should have noticed by now that Di-Swords come in two states; one in which the sword is only visible among Gigalomaniax, and another which people and physical objects can interact with (aka Real Booter).

First State

Seeing as to how there has not been term assigned to this Di-Sword state, I’ve taken the liberty of dubbing it First State, which I will continue to refer as until that term is released to the public.

Getting back on topic, if there is anything you want to know first about Di-Swords, it would be how to get one. While Takumi gets a blank response from people whom he asked for instructions on how to get a Di-Sword, Sena at least points out how Di-Swords are more likely to appear in the presence of extreme power sources, pretty much in the presence of strong emotions such as sorrow, hate, etc. This pretty much explains how Takumi was almost able to materialize his Di-Sword.

Real Booter (or Second State)

Famous French philosopher Rene Descarte once said ‘I think, therefore I am,’ or in simpler words, you wondering about your existence is in itself proof of your existence. So how exactly is this related to Real Booter? Well, as Sena (or was it Kozue) pointed out, Real Booter (or materializing the sword in the physical plane) can be performed by confirming the existence of an otherwise invisible sword with others. Think of it as a modified version of Rene Descarte’s philosophy. What used to be ‘I think, therefore I am,’ is now ‘Other people think, therefore it [the Di-Sword] exists.’ Simple as that.

You thought that was hard? Wait ’til you see the last one…

Dirac Sea

Okay, so you probably got lost when they started talking about Dirac Sea and channeling energy from it to the Di-Sword. Well, who wouldn’t? Dirac Sea is a model people use when they take advanced (Einstein level) physics. I myself got stuck for a bit too, at least until I figured out an analogy (again guys, I might be wrong).

So, what exactly is the Dirac Sea?! No, no, no…it certainly isn’t something you swim in. If you’ve been paying attention to the episode, Taku describes it as an ‘invisible surface of boundary that’s overflowing with energy. Wow!!!!! That helps a lot…not!

The simplest I can go when describing Dirac Sea is a blanket of grenades. If you pull the grenade from its pin (that means you leave the pin on the blanket while you hold the rest of the grenade), you’ll have yourself a surge of energy from the explosion (theoretically of course..you’d explode otherwise). This is pretty much the same concept when it comes to Dirac Sea. Dirac Sea is a blanket filled with particles that have a negative energy. Turn that into positive (similar to removing the pin off a grenade) and what you’ll have is the creation of particle, and along it, energy. On the blanket, you’re left with antiparticle (analogous to the pin).

So how is this related to Di-Swords? Remember how Gigalomaniax need to confirm to other people before they can physically materialize something? Well, in order for them to confirm with people, they need to see it; and in order for them to see it, their sight and emotion needs to be targeted. And guess what is used to target their sight and emotion….it’s none other than the particle created from the Dirac Sea!

That’s all folks

Well, that’s as far as I can understand. Remember, these are only my interpretations/opinions/thoughts. I could be wrong or right.

Not exactly my representation of a hiatus...but oh well, this will have to do...

[Edit 09 Nov 2008 11:12 PM EST]

I will be lifting my semi-hiatus status around the first school break I’ll have in one full year.

Sorry for not making this clear. When I mentioned break, I meant this coming winter break. Apparently, I’ve been going to school without breaks (yea, that includes summer) for twelve months now.

[End of Edit]

It just happened to me that a considerable amount of blogs I visit on a regularly basis or, ‘frequent on’ (as biankita would call it) are on some magnitude of hiatus. From what I’ve been reading, it seems like everybody’s in hiatus mainly because of upcoming exams and/or job related issue (school > job). I’ve also noticed that these blog authors are in some kind of academic transition (i.e. high school to college), which lead me to believe that a significant number these bloggers started blogging around later half of their teen years, more or less. *Sigh,* I would’ve started blogging around that age if it weren’t for distractions *cough* girls*cough* (j/k). Bottom line, school goes first (more so now since you’re better off in school than out of it, especially since it’s hard to get in a job nowadays  because of the world economy).

Speaking of the phrase, ’school goes first,’ I, myself will be spending less of my time blogging and most of my time studying and/or working, temporarily of course. I just had my third biggest exam on Organic Chem today (I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted somewhere about my two biggest pain in the ass subjects) and I simply got f****** in the *** OWNED.

if it were only Alchemical Engineering....

I usually don’t have a problem with chem subjects considering how it’s all math…one problem though…Orgo has little to no math at all! And considering how I want to be a ChemE, , my future will be at stake, if I could not pass Orgo.

...not my idea of studying either

So yea…little advice: don’t only study hard…enjoy it as well. I will be lifting my semi-hiatus status around the first school break I’ll have in one full year. Until then, my blogging will strictly be on episodes that peak my interests. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be sticking around here to blog once in a while.

じゃあね