Just wanna make a quick entry to thank friends and family for the B-day greetings and gifts~!
Thank you so much!

★ Also, I've uploaded a batch of Black Jack wallpapers here: http://community.livejournal.com/dr_blackjack/15935.html

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I've been watching the cut scenes to Yakuza 2 (PS2 game) lately, since I haven't seen what happens later in the game as my brother had finished it when I wasn't around to watch. I have to say, I love it (story) as much as the first game.



Yakuza 2 playlist~: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=328574338EC306B6

Though I've been hearing that Yakuza 3 isn't as good. =(

Very pleased that I got Black Jack volume 5 the day after release (no more ordering from amazon.co.uk anymore. "Book Depository" is where it's at!♥)

There's an obvious reason why I'm excited about this particular volume, as it has the "Print Proof" chapter in it, now called "Imprint". (Also known as "Carved Seal" and "Kokuin". So may names. ^^;)

Anyway, being the happy fan that I am, I made some scans, gag art/comics and nit-pick comments on this English translated chapter. =3

( Image overload ahoy!! Also spoilers if you haven't got the volume. )

OMAKE! A wolf girl who only rescues ugly people. XDD

Can't let the opportunity pass and I had to get the Ravex Trax album + DVD. Not so much for the music as it was obviously purchased for the DVD animated feature. =P


It's The Impossibles! "Rally Ho!!" XD
Ravex


I can't really say much about the story as it is all in Japanese (no subtitles either, which would have been helpful), but you can easily get the gist of it.

"As "another story" set after the end of the original manga, this what-if "Return" plot depicts what happens to the title character after his final act to save Earth. After drifting in space, the robot boy is rescued by the three members of ravex, and he is miraculously revived — not by Tezuka's Black Jack surgeon character, but by "Space Jack." The newly evolved robot boy will be named "Ratom."" Quoted from Anime News Network

Actually, Atom was revived by the 3 members of Ravex (with music). Professor Ochanomizu works with Space Jack to create the newly evolved Ratom. There's a reason why Space Jack is needed since the operation involves one other Tezuka character, which you'll see in the screencap below.
The story is very straight forward and short: Re-Earth (Earth) is invaded, bad guys attack, good guys lost leader, leader is fused(?) with Atom to defeat bad guys, fight, good guys win, the end.

The animated feature focuses mainly on these characters: 3 members of Ravex, Atom/Ratom (Astro), Space Jack (Black Jack), Sapphire, and Melmo.
You do see cameos of many other Tezuka characters like Professor Ochanomizu, Tamami, Lamp, Ham Egg, Rock, Leo (Kimba), Unico, Skunk, Hyakkimaru and more. But they (sans Professor Ochanomizu) have no speaking role and are pretty much there for the purpose of... being there. ^^;
Oh! And there's some fan service (for the guys that is). Some T&A from dancing scantily clad girls and nude Sapphire bathing in the lake.

Music (which is obviously featured and focused a lot on) isn't exactly what I would listen to, but I'm sure others will find it enjoyable if they like upbeat techno dance music.
One particular track that stood out to me was "I RAVE U" used during the fight scene, it reminded me of the "Techno Syndrome" soundtrack you hear from the Mortal Kombat movie. I was kind of expecting to hear a random person screaming "MORTAL KOMBAT!!" in the middle of all that fighting. ^^;
I just feel that the music doesn't fit too well with the looped, somewhat non-syncing animation of Tezuka's art style. Perhaps if they thought more about making the animation syncing to the music or even changing up Tezuka's art style to something more fittingly dynamic and funky, then maybe it'll work.


( Okay, on with the screencaps! )

A personal pet peeve that I do have with this short is the use of loop and recycled animation, like the dancing girls in the beginning are brought back again at the end of the short. You'll just notice all this re-used animation used to fill up time. Also, most common with modern anime, is the over use of glowing and blurring effects. You want to see what Tezuka characters are there during the 'dance' scene, but you can't cause of all the overpowering glowy effects! @_@

Well, in a way the short is purposely made to promote the album so the story isn't going to be ground-breakingly Tezuka, and it's nice to see some favorite characters in there as themselves (in an amusing space theme). =P

Highly enjoyable. =D

Geocities is said to be closing down later this year, which means I have to do some backing up and re-hosting on my own webspace. http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/geocities-05.html
Though I am glad that they're providing some way to backup sites later this summer, so I guess I can wait until then to back up larger sites and just start moving smaller sites now.

Planning:
● Sticky Bubble will be the first to move.
● Trash B'z fan art site, I can just merge this with the B'z fanlisting (which desperately needs to be updated. ^^;)
● Gorin's Gym I'll have to wait until the summer. Was hoping to do a 10 year celebration piccy next year for my first website whilst it remained on geocities. ^^; Slight change of plans there.
● Tank Boy I'll backup at summer. Though I'm not too sure about re-hosting it online, or make a complete re-vamp of the site layout and content.

I'm kinda sad to see it go, but I can understand why Yahoo would want to shut it down.
Pretty much taught myself HTML because of geocities and made my first batch of beloved friends with "Gorin's Gym".
Oh well, I can always go on Wayback Machine to see the old site layout. (People sure use to sign guestbooks a lot back then!)

Work wise, 4 people have left (not laid off, but left on their own accord). 2 of those people actually have a great deal of understanding about the market and IT, so workload has increased for everyone. ^^; But I do wish them all the best, they were pretty cool to work with.

Recently purchased an XM-I X-Mini 2 capsule speaker for my cousin and have tested it on my iPod. Very surprised with the sound quality and how loud it is for such a small speaker! You can make it so loud that the mini speaker itself would tremble and move, but you'll get a bit of sound distortion. Not bad at all! Fully charged it has 11 hrs of playback time! So if you're looking for a portable speaker with long battery life and good sound quality, then this is it! ^^

Participated in Chris Evans Drivetime's cook-a-long and made a 5 minute Chocolate Mug Cake~! ^^

I scooped a bit off the top to taste test. XD Wish I had cream or ice cream around.

Surprisingly easy and quick to make! It just feels weird to walk out of the kitchen with a homemade cake within less than 15 minutes. @_@ So use to all that lengthily process. XD;

You can get the recipe here, and the radio show that goes with~! ^^

指定型好きなキャラクターバトン
(Thanks to Karin for translating the questions. I've rearrange the wording so it would make more sense. She already covered Black Jack in her quiz and chosen Makube for me. XD)

Theme - "Rokuro Makube"

1. Do you like this character?
Of course! Very much so! ^^

2.What name/s do you call this character?
Makube, Rock or Maku.

3.What image-color do you associate with this character?
Mostly black and blue.

4.What image-song do you associate with this character?
So hard to think of a song that suits this character. I have a few in mind, but for some reason keep on thinking of “True” by Spandau Ballet. ^^;
This choice is mostly lyrical based.

5.What blood-type do you think this character is?
I imagine him to be a blood type O. In a leadership, goal orientated and independent sort of sense.

6.Of all of the titles that this character appears in, what character do you like to put this character with?
Black Jack, most obviously! ^^

7.What would you want to say to this character?
You're cool, but please don't kill me. XD;;

8.Which do you want to do with this character: Shake hands, hug or kiss
I probably would be cautious, after all he is Makube Rokuro, so I would settle for a handshake. ^^; (Though a hug would be nice. Nice, but risky.)

9.Please choose 5 friends with your choice of character.
dia_aren_marie - (Choose what character you want to be quizzed on)
windyhurrice - Sawada Tsunayoshi
sexy_severus - Black Jack
kyq - Kamen Rider Kiva
sagesoren - Ion


Quiz source: http://www.blogri.jp/baton/?id=46968

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B'z time~!
Subbed B'z "Hey! Hey! Hey!" interview on isolabella LJ entry~!
Talks about Koshi's zipper being open. XD;;
♥ http://isolabella.livejournal.com/87217.html?view=304561

Koshi hasn't changed a bit in regards to being interviewed. So easily intimidated and always looking relieved to have finished talking. XD;; But still he's looking pretty good for his age, that's for sure~!♥ (Wow! He's going to be 45!) And, of course, Takboss is cool as usual. ^^

(Careful not to confuse Shinichi Osawa for BJ)

More info here: Astro Boy Returns in 'Another' Anime After Manga's End
♪ Official website (Can you recognise the star system characters?)
♪ About avex + Tezuka


Hmm, notice that BJ is wearing shades...

Thanks to Karin for the info~! ^^ Glad to hear that all the Star System characters will appear! (Rock! Yay!)


( Black Jack fan art testing markers )

No work on Friday cause someone tried to steal the main cable outside during the night. This left us and many other businesses within the building with no internet and some with no phone signals.
BT had been called out to fix it since 3 in the morning, but it looked like they're unable to get it fixed within that day. So most people are to take the work home with them.
So I spent the whole of Friday (and Saturday) cleaning up, organizing documents and sorting out my portfolio at home.

In other news, I donated my PC Engine console to someone online, thinking of selling a whole bunch of stuff (have some B'z "Be with" magazines I wanna sell, anyone interested?) and now clearing up and sorting out files and junk on my comp since I hadn't done that in forever and memory is running short! Can't store much more! XD;;

Haaa... My hands are all dried and chapped from all that cleaning...

Here's an oekaki pic of Alabaster FBI Rock:



Oh! And Happy Chinese New Year!

Watched "Resident Evil: Degeneration" a couple of days ago. *Sigh* There are a lot of things in RE:D that really irritated me, so much so that I was pretty much making fun of it throughout.
It's like watching RE2, but in a different setting. It's set 7 years after the events of RE2, Claire and Leon are obviously our protagonist, whilst we have substitutes for Ada (Angela, whom Leon forgets Ada over) and Shelly (Rani).
It's not the worst movie ever and I love RE2, it's just there are a lot of nagging moments in the movie, like how come their clothes are so clean after all that action? Why is their hair perfect and clothes dry after coming up from the water? Why are Leon and Angela still standing in front of that burning house? Wouldn't everyone held in quarantine get vexed about not being able to leave instead of just 2 people whining about going home? Uh... The logic is completely out of the window!
And if it was trying to keep to the silly logic of the video games, then why not actually run with it? Bring on the missile launcher and gatling gun, have them push crates and solve puzzles, make some corny one liners and state the obvious, something like that!
Okay, I'm sure hardcore fans would love it, but this movie just wasn't for me. I suppose it's better than Uwe's movies.

My brother made up for the lackluster movie with "Wolverine vs. Hulk" movie, which I actually enjoyed. XD; I was surprised by the violence, mainly because I was associating that art style with shows like Teen Titans and Justice League TV series. Time flew by and it just goes to show how much one is enjoying it. With RE:D I kept wondering how much of the movie we have left. ^^;

Stolen from ryosato


Go through the list and check off the titles you have watched. For our purposes, "watching" a title means that for TV and OVA series, you have to have seen at least one episode. For one-shots, you have to have seen the whole thing. At the end of each genre/category, add up your sub-total. At the very end, add up the sub-totals to come up with your grand total. If your grand total is 80 or over, congratulations -- you are an obsessive anime watcher!

An Editor's Note: not all the titles listed here are great, and some are even steaming piles of crap. Titles on the list are here because they are either 1) genuinely good, 2) insanely popular, 3) good examples of the genre, or 4) just plain notorious. Good anime obsessives should be able to watch series with any of those qualities.,



( meme is here! )

It's freezing here! It snowed a bit earlier in the week, but not enough to be a winter wonderland (aww...), but snow is better than no snow. Though, when it's this cold it takes me a while to fall completely asleep due to me cold feet. =(

Anyway, I've been trying to catch up some old episodes of "Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe". It's a wonder why I missed so many episodes as they all air around the time I'm tucking in for sleep. But the show has that late night time slot as it showcases Television, which means basically everything from production, porn, violence, children's programmes, advertising, etc. For some reason I love watching people angrily rant about things so long as their argument is valid with an addition of humor and counter balanced with a bit of self ribbing. It's what attracted me to the likes of SpoonyOne, Yahtzee, AVGN, NC and so on (actually, Yahtzee named Charlie Brooker to be one of his main influences).

( video sample )
I would so love for him to tear apart some perfume commercials. They're a current pet peeve. 2 or 3 perfume ads are shown in each ad break, and from the moment the ad starts I can tell what they're trying to sell cause they're almost all the same! *Stabs* Oh, and I hate Hollyoaks with absolute passion! *sigh* I'm getting old...

Oh yes, also managed to get round and finish playing "Astro Boy: Omega Factor". Now wonder it's considered the game to have for the GBA, Treasure were a part of making the gameplay. Treasure, who are responsible for great games like Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes, Silhouette Mirage, Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun~! You can't go wrong with Treasure (though I still can't forgive them for "Advanced Guardian Heroes"... It's not a bad game, but it doesn't live up to the first. Also, killing off the interesting old characters and replacing them with bland colored swap palette new ones... urgh!) Black Jack and Rock do make an appearance in the game (yes, happy me) showcasing what they do best.

Last but not least, I got flamed on DA~! For what? Well, for drawing human Tails... ^^; Yes, I don't get it either. *Shrugs* Oh well, report time~!

Stolen from dia_aren_marie. Originated from holiday_wishes

STEP ONE
- Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you. [Note: Your home address is not required!]

- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ, or link to this post (it'll be public) so that the holiday joy will spread.

STEP TWO
- Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:

- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call. There are no guarantees with this project, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

( Wish list~!♥ )

RL wise, things are busy at work as it is the holiday season, also got to play Guitar Hero World Tour with my cousins (Singing isn't my forte).
Been watching a lot of "Have I got New for You" episodes online. Brain Blessed is probably the MOST bizarre (but fun) guest presenter the show's ever had! XDDD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1gwVIhJ8II (Uncensored! Swear fest!)