Switching soon & personal service

FYI... The reason I haven't posted in so long is because I came to not like blogger. I still want to keep my blog going but I just don't want to do it here on blogger anymore, and haven't wanted to in quite some time. When I started here, I thought it would work out great, but I quickly started to find bloggers workings to be annoying and incapable of doing what I wanted to. It may not make much sense to most, but I intend to make the switch from blogger to Wordpress. Why? Well there are a few reasons. First is ease of use and more control over the look and design of my blog. Second, and likely no one would even know unless I put it here, is the capability of mobile viewing. Yes, this means my few readers/visitors can see the blog with ease on their smartphones, whereas blogger doesn't give this functionality at this time. Next is the fact that in my Favorites/Bookmarks in my browser, I have a ton of sites that call WordPress home, in contrast to the single blogger site which I can nearly call deceased. Even some of my Anime Fan-subbing sites are WordPress based. So in general the purpose of this switch is due to my choosing control over ease of use. Like most choices in life, choosing the hard path usually contains the best rewards.

By the way... how many of you know that real butlers, maids and stewards are not extinct? I happened to find some very interesting facts and sites focus on this particular service industry while searching to find out if i could get a real personal maid for myself. I can honestly say that I feel great pity and endearment for the person who can take that role in my life. I have learned very grudgingly that I cannot function as a whole unless there is another person who can keep me on track. You might say that a personal assistant would work fine, but theres much more involved that I feel would be needed. I earn enough that I could possibly employ such a person but right now is not that time. And for the few who may ask why a maid and not a butler? Because I can honestly say that although I could empathize with a butler and they would be a great help, I find that a maid would be better suited for household purposes. Plus I would find it difficult to express myself to a butler. And for those who may think this rant is based on gender, you are completely wrong if you think only males can be butlers. My choice is simply based on job purpose.

Now, is a personal maid affordable? Not for most, and truth be told I'm not sure even I could pay properly. Average pay for a trained service member with at least graduating credentials is between $50k and $100k. If I looked and put an offer out for someone not trained, and offer to train them myself, I could possibly bring done the annual pay by at least 10-15k. I wouldn't mind training someone in that type of service, since they would be under my employ it would be, in a sense, customizing my maid to my own needs. STOP! Since you're reading this, I assume you've seen the rest of my posts and realize I love anime. Do I find the whole master/servant relationships and actions in anime intriguing? Oh heck yeah! I'd feel as if I had found my own utopia if that kind of thing happened with me. BUT! I understand the difference between fiction and reality, and I'd feel quite ashamed of myself if I sunk to the levels I've seen... at least without prompting from the other party.

Well that's enough of that little side show. See you over at Wordpress. I'll post the URL in a post here and on Facebook when it's ready.

Damn A.D.D.

Right after i made my last post my phone notified me of chapter updates for Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament Volume 2 over at Baka-Tsuki. I give some serious praise and bow to js06 for their serious speed translation of this Light Novel as well as how well they adapted it to proper english. In a matter of just under 5 days, js06 tackled the entire novel, both translated and adapted. There's very little editing that may be needed.

So from that bit, if you haven't guessed, due to the jaw dropping translation speed, I was deep into another great Index novel. I found it a bit dry since there was a ton of explaining going on though. Even the author stated in his Afterword that he didn't intend for it to be that way. He was intending to write with a bunch of comedy, but even though it started that way, the comedy ended fairly early. The first mistake, was to start the next disaster by chapter 2, instead of the next volume. This volume, in my opinion,  should have been the first SS (Side Story) volume for this new series. The protagonists haven't had a real break since WWIII started or even after it ended.

So anyway, now that I've read the book and read the last scene with Touma and Mikoto, even if the spark I was hoping for wasn't there, it still left a great starting point for my story i want to write. I'll probably start it in the morning and the plan is to keep anything R-18 out of it. I may write it in but remove the bad stuff before posting it publicly, but then again if I left it whole, it could make a great romance doujin with an R-18 label. And anyone who knows about doujin,  also knows how popular they can be if there's a good story involved and not just smut.

Realized the list was too long

Yeah, that's right. The list I started is way too big for my normal method. So the posts made, until I'm caught up will be truncated with a pic and a simple sentence saying if I liked it and if I thought it was good enough to recommend. The purchase links, if any, will be added at a later date.

Asura Cryin’ S1 & S2

 

Asura Cryin’ was a “coulda been” kinda show. It was still a very good show and it ended pretty much the way I expected which was fair but it leaves you wishing for a super happy end. The reason I say coulda been is because the story could’ve been much better detailed. I’m not saying it was hard to follow, I’m just wishing they would’ve finished it with more explainations throughout the show.

Heroic Age

 

Heroic Age is a great tale of space eploration, and an unbreakable love that transverses the universe. I found this show to be extremely better than I expected. I will watch it again.

 

I won’t be detailing my posts today like I usually do. For details about the items  I post about just click the first appearance of the title in the post like always.

It’s been a while and this is how it all started.

Yeah it’s been a rather large amount of time since I made a real post about what entertainment I’ve been enjoying. It started with Light novels, then since the last one I had read was Toaru Majutsu no Index, I wound up rewatching that. But that shouldn’t have taken all that long, right? Well after watching the 3 related seasons I wound up checking the web for updates on the airing animes that I’m watching and then it went from there to what seems to have been like a mini Big Bang of binging on animes. So lets kick this off.

The Cake is a LIE!!!!

So, yeah. I guess I lied. I was supposed to have this huge compilation of posts up this past weekend but never did. Reason being, is that I had planned to do just that after I completed the shows on my short list so I'd only have to make one stop here... but things happened and I'm only just now finishing the last show on my list. So expect the big listing of posts to happen this weekend.

In regards to my last post where I mentioned writing a fanfic about Toaru Majutsu no Index involving the logical pairing of Touma and Mikoto, it seems my choice to wait for the 2nd volume of New Testament was the correct one. Over at Baka-Tsuki, they just posted the Illustrations from it, and the last picture from the book is Mikoto grabbing Touma's hand. So I'll be impatiently waiting to see the author's official work before letting my own story flow, because if the author finally chose to bring them together then my efforts would be wasted. I could easily make a cat-fight story involving Mikoto, Kaori and Itsuwa, but in the end due to Touma's last known personality traits, it would all just wind up pointless because I wouldn't understand why they're fighting... or he'd be really dead by trying to break it up and they'd all gang up on him for interfering. LOL

No the blog hasn't ended

Really, it hasn't I've been on a reading spree and haven't been able to stop. A certain Index and Railgun have kept me on my toes for the last couple weeks as I've completed all 23 direct series novels and 4 side story novels. That's a lot of words. After reading them I kinda want to write my own fanfic side story with Touma and Mikoto but That'll have to wait until I've gotten to read the new book due out next month. Reason is because it's the first book in the series that focuses on the relationships of the main protagonists and the girls that love them. I'm specifically waiting because Touma was thought to be dead at the end of World War 3 giving his life to save the world (see volume 22 of the main series), but he apparently somehow miraculously survived and was brought back home by an individual at the VERY end of New Testament Volume 1 (aka volume 23) and was told he needed to go apologize to the girls he made cry while they all thought he was dead. Since this will likely have an impact on his relationship with Mikoto (who only realized she loved him JUST before he got involved with the war (see volume 20 and 21) and was horribly depressed in volume 23 thinking she'd never see him again), I want to wait and see how it turns out so I don't go off and write something that the author himself winds up publishing. Since I've got a strong grasp on his writing style and the character personalities it's quite possible I could do that.

 I don't know how he plans on leading Touma's relationships, but since there are 5 girls that like him (2 are completely in love with him, but I guess one of those could technically count as 9969(?) [she has 9968(?) clones] and the other has no shame in her blatant attempts to get his attention) it could go in any direction. I personally am at a toss up for which I'd want to see him with. Between Index, Mikoto, Itsuwa, Kaori, and Lessar, it stands to be a difficult choice. Mikoto (and her clones), Itsuwa and Lessar are definitely in love with him. Kaori (she's having issues admitting it) and Index like him a lot.

I'd have to say either Misaka Mikoto or Kanzaki Kaori would be my choice. Mikoto loves him (so do all of her clones), but even though Koari is only at the stage of liking him and in denial, I think she'd make a great girlfriend for him (or maybe I'm just putting in my own wishful thinking). Since Kaori is shy and "innocent", she's pretty dense when it comes to love, just like Touma, and I feel she could be good for him since she's from the Magic side while he's from the Science side. Mikoto on the other hand falls into the top spot because she's tsundere, and now that she's finally reached dere they could make a lethal combo in life and love. Plus I think he's the only guy that can be her boyfriend/lover. I'm pretty sure that Touma's power of "Imagine Breaker" is the only thing that can keep her power in check when her mind is no longer capable of concentrating enough to do so (I really am suggesting those kinds of activities). I mean who wants to date a girl if she's gonna electrocute you after her concentration breaks and her power goes wild. That's why I say Touma's the only man for the job since he can just negate it all together.

But anyway, look for a huge number of posts sometime this weekend. I may have been busy reading but I've watched a lot of shows on the side.

H2O: Footprints in the Sand

 

H2O was a short yet sweetly tragic romance. The story revolves around a boy who is blinded by the psychological trauma of watching his mother die by what I guess you could call train slaughter. He not really injured or blind but thinks he is because his brains is telling him that if he can’t see then he never really saw his mother’s death. So he moves in with his uncle in this screwed up village with a screwed up past all centered around two families. The family of the village elder forces his granddaughter to earn favor with the boy. But the boy chooses the outcast girl from the other family. But a supposed spirit comes along and grants his sight back to him. And so the story progresses and all the bad things about the past are cleared up and everybody becomes all happy. But of course that’s just not possible right.

 

SPOILER!!!!

Yes I’m putting a spoiler here because I’m hoping someone who’s played the Visual Novel can answer my question at the end. So due to the shock of the boy thinking he killed the girl he loves in a fit of rage (which she egged on) his sight goes away again (never really regained it, everything he did was real but he only thought he saw it all). And then to make matters worse the “good” girl makes him chase after the “outcast” to stop her from leaving town, but in doing so, he winds up saving her life and his memories regress to where he thinks his mom’s alive and that the girl he loves is his mom. They move back to Tokyo on the doctor’s orders and she dies the same way his mother did while saving a boy. This snaps him out of both his memory regression and his blindness. The story jumps a few years and he’s back in the village and the spirit comes back after he completes making a windmill in his girlfriends memory, bringing her back to him. NOW, my question, is she really, miracle of God, back alive or is she just a ghost like the other girl? From what the anime shows, he moved back to the village after Hayami’s death, got with Hotaru, and even had a kid. So where does this put the dead/alive Hayami? I’m SOOOO confused. If anyone knows, please leave a comment below.

"The fall and return of the X" or "How I painfully updated my Android OS"

LOL. So this all came about when my Droid X began, for lack of a better term, "playing" with itself. It just  started randomly interacting with icons and menu items and even the apps i was in. It got so frikkin annoying when i was trying to read in my Kindle app that I decided to call tech support. Since my droid is my only phone, I was limited in how to deal with their instructions. After going through several troubleshooting steps, it was decided to wipe and reinstall the OS. But the fun part was that my phone was still using Froyo (Android 2.2) and they wanted the newer version installed. The problem with that was I've had my phone "rooted" since day two. Any official means of updating was thereby negated and I was left to my own devices in how to accomplish this feat. I easily found all pertinent info with a quick search on Google. But the difficulties started then. Gingerbread (Android 2.3) doesn't have any means to be rooted. As I use several apps that require superuser priveledges this was a necessity. So deeper and deeper I dug until i found a wonderful article at DroidXforums that offered a prerooted Gingerbread that met Verizon's version requirements and even provided an easy to follow walkthrough. So I accepted the risks of bricking my phone and got to work. The only downside was having to purchase a bootstrap app to install the new software.

Now that all is said and done and spending nearly 12 hours of trial and error before finding that easy guide, I can say i feel it was worth it. It looks nicer, runs just as smooth, and i haven't found anything bad...yet. If I do run across anything I don't like I'll update this post so others know what to watch out for if they choose to do this as well.

*UPDATE* - It's been a few weeks and I can truly say that there are no issues concerning the update I made. It took a couple of days to get everything reorganized to the way I like it but in the end I've found it well worth it.