Mission-Blog

What?! Two posts in the same month?!?

2010-02-17T22:10:00.004-06:00

Yep, I think this is the first time I've blogged twice in the same month.

An update on my Japanese learning: I'm up to 37 hiragana characters. I only have 9 more for the basic 46 characters, but then there's another 60 characters to learn. So far it's been pretty simple, but I'm not looking forward to learning Kanji. You need about 2000-3000 kanji memorized to be fluent in reading Japanese.

I was going to learn a few more characters today but got sucked into this site anime-planet.com which is a great way to organize the anime you've watched, are watching, etc. Hmm, speaking about anime, I'm really looking forward to Anime Central in May, being held in Rosemont Illinois. What I really need is a job to be ready to splurge all over anime goodies. Hmmm, came out a little wrong.

I'm cutting this blog short. I have a couple of more things I want to talk about, but I'm kind of tired so ehhhhh, that's it for now. I leave you with this picture of a cat.

Refocusing on Japan

2010-02-06T20:15:00.007-06:00

Well as the title says I've been doing more Japanese stuff lately. I started watching anime again. Well, I've been watching Naruto for 2 months or so, I started watching anime with a schedule last week. Mondays are for Cowboy Bebop, Thursdays for Ghost in the Shell, and we'll see if I add anymore. I figure watching one a week instead of all at once will help me remember more of the series, plus it makes me feel like in the good old days when I used to wait each week for new anime episodes on adult swim.

I love adult swim but in my opinion they should focus a little more on anime instead of they're original programming. It's getting a little too weird for me. Shows like ATHF, Harvey Birdman, and Robot Chicken are great but then they're other stuff I'm not really into. I probably wouldn't even like Tim & Eric if Connor hadn't made me watch it. I remember we saw the 1st season together and I was like "wtf?". Eventually I started to like it but sometimes there are episodes that are just waaay too weird. C'mon adult swim! Step up the anime! I rarely ever see a bump for an anime show anymore, though I don't watch adult swim anymore because I only have basic cable now.

Yesterday I also started wondering if I might try and learn japanese. I'd always thought it'd be great to learn the language but I wasn't really thinking about the amount of work I'd have to commit to it. Well, I figured I waste my time so much already and don't do my homework I might as well do something productive in my time. Sure it's going to be work, but hopefully the fact that I'm actually interested in what I'm learning will help me keep on track. Anyway today I started reading up on some resources and places to learn it. I pirated Rosetta Stone but haven't used it yet, been using a couple of free internet resources first. Maybe I'll write about my progress and what resources I used in a future blog.

Right now I'm listening to Buck-Tick. Everyone says immersion in the chosen language is key. I also installed Windows7 today (illegally obviously). Seems pretty awesome so far, still trying to figure out the intricacies of windows explorer however. Unfortunately I forgot to backup my internet bookmarks when I reformatted my drive so I lost all of those :(

I also wanted to talk about QR codes, but ehh this blog is getting lengthy and I don't want to switch up topics. See ya for now

Half a year to go

2010-01-12T20:07:00.002-06:00

So, ya.....I am alive to all those who thought I died (Connor.....maybe). Connor yelled at me until I agreed to come blog. I have not blogged since the first day of school, and today was the last of my 1st semester finals. Odd, no? I am a failure as a blogger :(

So, I just got the HTC Hero yesterday. It's got the Android OS on it so that's pretty cool. I can stream directly from my phone which is cool. Only one day of live streaming and I've already got requests to take my shirt off from strangers. Lol.

I recently have returned to the great community at IPower. It's a great social networking site for those of you who don't know. The main sort of theme is social activism, so to better yourself and other assorted junk. Though it seems as if a lot of people are inactive, leaving me to debate the economy and it's effect on increasing industrial farming which leads to inhumane treatment of chickens (well pretty much all livestock, i just use chickens because thats what we talked about first). Hmmm. This paragraph isn't a very good incentive to join that community. Well.....I'm there so.......ya

I mentioned I had finals. Those were hard. Math was....a bitch. I failed the 3rd term(I didn't do any homework and failed all the tests) but hopefully I didn't fail the final (I don't think I did) because that would mean I would fail the whole class. I'm going to try and drop the class next semester, which reminds me I have to email my counselor to tell him what class I want to switch it for. I'm taking fitness next semester which I'm excited about, this time I will not stop working out halfway through the semester (I hope). Oh, I paid a visit to my old middle school yesterday and saw my all time favorite teacher and hero Mr. Martin. He was just as cool as always, but he kept talking to attention whore Connor (lol) about chemistry. Anyway he only talked to us for like 5 minutes cuz he had to teach or something.

Hmm well, I think that's it for now. Usually I proofread my blogs but im pretty lazy right now so.........ya. Maybe I'll post another blog tomorrow, who knows, maybe pigs will fly.

Back in Hell

2009-08-21T23:07:00.002-05:00

First off I have to say, Fuck TV commercials. The last couple of weeks of summer came by faster than I expected and all I'm trying to do is enjoy the time I have left but all I see is commercial after commercial about "Back to School". What the hell? These commercials started in JULY!

No I do not want to get a new haircut for school (Well, actually I did get a haircut, but I don't need a commercial to tell me to get a haircut, I just look in the mirror and if my hair looks bad and I can't do anything with it then it's time for a cut). No I do not want to get a whole new wardrobe for back to school. And FUCK NOOOOO I was not "Rock-Staring" at you, but I'm about to Rock-Shove-My-Foot-Up-Your-Ass!!!! (thank you Connor for the last quote :P) These TV advertisements made sure that school was never from my mind and therefore a constant downer on my mood.

Anyways I'm back in school again, didn't manage to get that creative writing class with Connor and I have a crappy lunch but that's why they call it ~~hell~~ school right? This summer sucked weatherwise with all the raining but I was also lazy so my gundam remains uncompleted. It's about 95% done with primer but....now the parts are just sitting at my desks. It rained again today.

And now something to make this post not all about me and my whining. The Trailer for Avatar came out yesterday and it looks amazing. For those of you who don't know its a Sci-Fi film that was planned 14 years ago by director James Cameron who also filmed Aliens, Terminator 2 and Titanic. Short synopsis is humans are colonizing a life-bearing planet with a race of sentient beings known as the Na'vi. The atmosphere is not breathable by humans so they create a Na'vi/human hybrid that harbors a human's consciousness as the "pilot". Then the battle for the planet ensues. James Cameron is supposed to be using some pretty incredible new technology to film this movie such as a 3d camera that uses two lenses to simulate depth of vision just like our eyes. The HD trailer looked quite amazing and if nothing else the movie will be gorgeous to watch. Here's to hoping it turns out ok.

My Gundam will Kick Your Gundam's Ass

2009-07-19T18:32:00.003-05:00

Well, unfortunately this summer has sucked for painting my Gundams. It rains every couple of days, jacking up the humidity so that the paint will dry poorly and look like ugly betty. The Primer that I ordered came yesterday (While I was at Connor's house) and now I just need to pick up some laquer thinner from a hardware store and wait for a good day to finish painting, hopefully tomorrow.

The stuff I wanted to use was called Mr. Surfacer and is made in Japan so it's pretty hard to find in the states and most places you'll find it online will make you pay for international shipping and will take weeks. Luckily I found this great site "Weber Plastic Models", and was able to pick it up for $5.39 and a $2 shipping charge. This stuff is supposed to be like the best stuff to use for plastic model kits. I'm excited to get to try it out.

I just set up a photostream for my gundam pics on flickr here: Gundam Pics. Hopefully I'll get some new pictures of a fully primed gundam up there soon.

Swine Flu has entered my World.....of Warcraft

2009-05-26T17:51:00.005-05:00

Yep, you read that title correctly, swine flu....in World of Warcraft. Here's a screenie:

Click to Enlarge

Apparently this disease has been in the game for more than a year, and its just coincidence that we're being plagued (ha, pun) by the same disease today. WoW really brightened my day when I saw this, yep, I felt joy at the sight of a deadly disease, how awesome. Heres a link on the stats of this disease on wowhead.com: Swine Flu

On a somewhat related note, 2 days ago I recieved an email from Blizzard Entertainment (devolopers of WoW) that my old account that I no longer use was signed up for a free 10 day trail. I thought this was odd but didn't really think anything of it. Today I get another email, here is an exerpt:

****Notice of Account Closure****

Account Name: EXIMIUSNERO

Account Action: Closure
Reason for Action: Terms of Use Violation - Economy Exploitation

After a thorough investigation, we have found that a player of the account listed above participated in activities designed to gain an unfair advantage in the World of Warcraft economy.

Damnit! I inadvertently broke those terms that nobody reads!

Hmm, so I guess someone hacked into my old account, time to change the password on my new one!!!

Assorted funstuffs

2009-03-01T21:06:00.005-06:00

Well, haven't posted in a while, but thought I'd tell you about what I've been up to.

I finally read Watchmen 2 weeks ago and man, what an amazing book. Rorschach has you sucked into the story from the first page. The things that happened in that book were pretty shocking, and more so because it was written in the 80's. I love Dr. Manhattan. Anyway I'm super excited to see the movie, I'm going opening day this Friday.

I'm so tired of this Chicago weather. I need it to be spring so I can spray paint my gundams :(

I revisited Batman: Gotham Knight this weekend after having another dismal weekend at my dad's. Watched it twice, the second time with commentary on and it was awesome. I noticed a lot more things this time and picked out the few links between the 6 episodes written by different writers. This was the first commentary I've seen on a dvd and I thought it was great. I felt a lot closer to the dvd and batman in general (lol I sound gay) and it was really cool to hear what these guys and Kevin Conroy ( I love him! lol more gayness) had to say.

Batman R.I.P. Ends!

2009-01-10T01:12:00.007-06:00

Well, Batman R.I.P. ended this december and it was a great ride. I'm still new to the comic book world (starting at the infinite crisis a couple of years ago) and this monthly batman comic has been my favorite so far (Booster Gold coming in a close second though). In this six issue arc bruce tries to find the leader of the Black glove, an organization he believes to be out to kill him. Some of the ideas Morrison used in writing this series were great, like using very strange and campy batman stories from 50 years ago and somehow making them work in a modern day comic book.

I have to say though, I am a bit disapointed with the ending. It leaves off Batman's fate and the identity of the black glove pretty ambigous (though we all know Bruce isn't going to die right :P). I myself was getting very excited for the big reveal and was sort of letdown with the lack of clear answers. I guess I'll have to read closer on subsequent reads.

Batman R.I.P.

2008-08-14T00:21:00.007-05:00

I haven't posted in some time, for which I apologize, but I have been very busy with school work, building my Gundam (yay), hanging out with Connor, and of course reading comics. Which brings me to my discussion today, Batman R.I.P.

Those of you who have been following Grant Morrison's (current writer of the Batman comic) run on Batman (which is amazing in this humble reader's opinion) know that R.I.P. is what he's been building up to for the past two years. To give you all an idea of how huge and awesome this story arc is going to be, in an interview at the Comic Book Resource Forums, Grant Morrison said that what will happen to Batman will be,

"so much better than death. People have killed characters in the past but to me, that kind of ends the story! I like to keep the story twisting and turning. So what I am doing is a fate worse than death. Things that no one would expect to happen to these guys at all. This is the end of Bruce Wayne as Batman." Full Interview HERE.

Morrison's writing is great and brings back many obscure ideas from past Batman comics (that flew over my head) that seem very fresh. He always keeps you guessing, but gives you just enough information so you won't hate him and will follow the story to its inevitable explosive ending. Every issue is cleverly laced with clues to the storyline. Each one challenging you to figure out what the "answer" is, then smacking you in the face when you're wrong.

With 4 issues out already (Oh man! I haven't read the 4th yet!), R.I.P. is shaping up to be one of the best stories I've read in a long time, defiantly much better than that letdown Countdown. Don't even get me started on that series. On another note, if you are reading Batman R.I.P. or are planning to, you might want to check out GeniusBoyFireMelon's Blog. His explanations have been invaluable to my understanding of this series, which is a little challenging to read, especially for new readers like me.

Batman: Gotham Knight

2008-07-11T00:40:00.007-05:00

For those of you who haven't heard, B:GK is a "film" that shows the Batman's transformation from newbie to professional badass. I use the term film loosely because this dvd is actually a series of semi-standalone episodes. Each episode is directed by a different person and has a different visual style. It is also produced by the same people who did Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Now some people might be turned away from this film because its anime visual style but I thought it brought a whole different element to the Batman. There are 3 anime studios who work on this productions. Even anime lovers might question what they're getting into if they're not familiar with the art style in the first episode "Have I got a story for you". I admit at first I didn't like it but I found that it was perfect for the theme of the episode, in which a group of kids tell of their experiences seeing the Batman. The background animation is simply superb; they are full of such detail. Some of the later episodes, most notably "Deadshot", had some of the best animation I've seen.

On a completely different note, Hearing the AMAZING voice talent of Kevin Conroy, voice of Batman in Batman the Animated series as well as Justice League, was one of the best features of this film.

On the whole I would have to rate this an 8/10. The choppiness was a bit jarring at times, and aside from the visuals I was never really blown away. Though there were some great stories in there. It also didn't seem to have much in common with the Chris Nolan films, although it did reference the Narrows and the idea of the gangs could play a part in The Dark Knight. I also have to say it was too short, I wanted more.I would recommend this to any hardcore batman fan or a casual viewer who won't be turned off by the visuals; anyone else should probably rent it first.

Castlevania Sucks

2008-06-06T12:14:00.006-05:00

This weekend I played Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the psp. I wouldn't go as far to say that this game sucks, but I defiantly didn't enjoy it too much. Now I've heard really great things about the Castlevania series but I found some things I didn't like about it.

First I have to say, the intro video to this game was incredibly cool and I was totally psyched about it. You can see it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=245TkRS2sGQ. But on to the actual game; why the hell do you jump backward when you double jump? This seemed pretty cool at first but it soon frustrated me as I tried to double jump out of the way of enemies only to land on their heads, damaging me.

There was a particularly stage (4 I think) that required a lot of jumping and so was very difficult for me to complete. Maybe it's because almost all games make you jump higher when you tap twice on the jump button and I wasn't used to it but it was still very difficult. I would find myself getting used to the jump but every time I reacted on instinct in a tense moment I would forget about the jumping back and damage or kill myself.

Another gripe I had about the game is the girl (Sophie I think) you unlock in the 2nd stage. Why the hell is she so much more powerful than the main character? First off, she uses birds! She throws Doves, the birds of peace, at her enemies as a weapon! Not only is this a stupid idea, but it's much more powerful than the main character's whip. Once you use the main character's whip you have to wait till it returns to you until you can use it again (which makes sense). But if you tap quickly on the attack button for Sophie, she can have like 3 birds out a once. Another reason to hate the main character even more is the fact that when you double jump with Sophie she jumps higher on the second jump, not back. So I found myself playing a little pale girl in a white dress throwing birds most of this game.

While not as important as the above mentioned problems with this game, as far as I played there was no storyline. Apart from the intro video and some dialogue in the begining of stage 1 there was no storyline and no explanation for what the main character was doing in a house infested with zombies, ghosts, and floating eyeball things. Then you meet a girl in stage 2 and she persuades you to let her fight with you. No reason for her being in that castle at all or why she wants to fight apart from her parents being "ok" with her being with you.

Now, I'm not a stranger to games with light storylines and a lot of gameplay, I happen to love the Devil May Cry series, but the gameplay in this game wasn't good or rewarding enough for me to stick around to see if there was a plot to this game. I'm sure if anybody reads this post they're going to say that I didn't play it enough or give it enough of a chance. I played this game on and off throughout all of my Sunday. I would play for 20-30 minutes or so, get frustrated, put it down and leave, and then come back to play. I probably played this game for at least 3-4 hours, (I'm a slow gamer) but still couldn't look past the issues I had with this game. I mean I really tried to like it, but I guess me and Castlevania just weren't meant to be.

Blog up!

2008-04-19T14:09:00.007-05:00

So, here we go, I'm making my first blog. I have to admit, I've never really gotten blogs until yesterday when I read one that actually had some interesting stuff on it. This is more for myself than anyone else, I mean I don't expect like 1000's of people to visit this site. Just a place to post some cool things that peek my interest. This is the blog the started it all: The Comic Rack , unfortunately it looks as though its writer has stopped updating it.

I also just started using digg.com yesterday. For those of you who don't know, digg is a a site that you can post a site, image, video, etc. and share it with people who might find it interesting. The amount of "diggs" your article gets, the more popular it gets.

Well, I guess now I should get to the part about posting cool things so here is cool thing #1:

Some great ideas being thrown around here. And very nice job on the blog CG.

I have to say, yes I download comics. I first got interested in comics when a comic shop opened a couple of blocks from my house. I went there and bought a whole bunch of comics including some TBP's like Crisis On Infinite Earths.

After this I was hooked, but it didn't take me long to figure out there was a problem...comics are expensive. How does DC expect me, a 16 year old without a job that goes to school and has very little free time, to spend $25-30 a month on comics?

This is why I unfortunately download new and old comics. I agree with most of you here that downloading comics more that 4-5 years old is fine, as long as they haven't reprinted them in a nice TPB recently.

But I do feel that I am hurting the comic book industry and that it is wrong to download new comics, but, how else am I going to get it? I can honestly say that right now my number 1 dream in life is to be able to get to a position in where I don't need to download anything illegally. Whether that be a millionaire investor or just a guy that works at McDonalds. I realize that might sound kind of stupid but hey, I'm only 16 years old. :)

This is a comment I left on The Comic Rack about the issues surrounding downloading comics for free using torrents.

Thats all for now, :)

~John