End of Treo750 ROM development

2011-05-22T11:02:00.000+08:00

Well, it's here. The beginning of the end. Due to personal reasons, I've decided to end Palm Treo 750 development, for many reasons actually. It's not a lucrative investment of my time, and with my Treo operating at half it's production capacity (Send button dead, keyboard over-stressed, battery now half its mAh), I can no longer flash and flash like I used to. Not to worry though, I made some promises and I'm going to deliver. Hermann 2.1 is now stable, and perhaps the fastest 6.5 ROM you will ever experience on your Treo.

I hope everyone understands, as at first I started out a complete newbie, and I'm going out with a bang, as one of the few Treo 750 experts left out there who knows everything there is to the phone, both hardware and software. I've made some discoveries others have wringed their hair over, I've done a lot for the Treo that some have tried and failed, but more importantly, I didn't leave unexpectedly :p

It all began with a "is it even possible for our Treo's?" ended with a "I did make the impossible possible." Navenedrob tried his best, but mysteriously disappeared before his perfected release went live. Mietas actually did it but when push came to bug, Mietas no longer had a Treo to test on. 6 months went by before I decided if no one was going to do it, then maybe I can. Maybe it is possbile, and maybe, just maybe Treo750 users can have something to smile about before they eventually move on to their next phone.

What happened that day in December of 2010 was a day for Treo750 users to remember, as the first fully functional WM6.5 ROM without the dangers of a beta expiration, a working power button, and the removal of Palm's Messaging application which paved the way for more stability. That Version 1 ROM came with some interesting stuff, like a mapped side button and renamed drive arrangement. But it was just the beginning, and I didn't want it to end, despite the health setbacks of January and March of 2011.

The Version 2 ROM was to be quite the revamp, of my lessons learned, culminating to the impressive successful cooking of HTC's Touch2 ROM bits into a bootable ROM for the Treo750 hardware. Renamed "Hermann" (after having learned a lot from the HTC Hermann, aka CDMA Touch Pro), the V2 ROM was impressive as ever, such as the first ever customization of the Splash screen, the additions of key programs like Microphone AGC and Clear Storage, and for the first time ever for the Treo750, the usage of Bepe's Big Storage. For 3 years it was a myth to have the ExtROM joined with the Main Storage, but it happened, and it's here.

But all things have an end to them, and it only saddens me that the end of Hermann's development is because of time (age), and not of me having a new phone and retiring this Treo750. It's not that I didn't get anything in return, but you gotta admit, not many Chefs survive if their work isn't appreciated, despite my work being highly appreciated enough to spawn 2 chefs for the Treo750 after my December 2010 debut. It probably would have been better if I was heading over to the Touch Pro to cook for that device, but that doesn't even seem feasible now. Still though, I breathed life into the Treo750 when many had gone to despair of being teased of a WM6.5 ROM, only to have development suddenly stop leaving users high and dry. This is what it's about: I made Treo750 users have closure on the possibilites. We did it, guys. You can retire your Treo's with a smile, instead of a "it could have happened" sigh.

[XDA post]

My my, what a storied run this has been. Around the end of November, I thought, 'What if I can actually make a good ROM for this Treo if I'm going to be stuck with it for a while?' and it was that time at my first attempt, I removed my cast on my right hand, placed my hand on the mouse and tried the Ervius kitchen. It was a horrible experience, all the clicking was too much for my hand, and trying to optimize Nav's 21828 ROM was all of a miserable time.

It didn't stop me though, as I'm known for just barreling through trouble and looking forward to the happy side of a consequence and not the bad side. Against the logical idea of taking an existing ROM and boosting it, I switched to a smaller mouse (friendly for use with a cast), and set out to make this project entirely from scratch, using new, ingredients. Thanks to OS Kitchen Zero, looking at Nav's Ervius layout, getting lucky in extracting Mietas's ROM (in the end I never needed it), and not giving up till the end, we have the ROMs you see above. So this was not a solo effort from start to finish. I started out alone, and came out in the end a winner thanks to the great cast that is XDA-Developers, and it brings great happiness to be one of the few chefs to have gone from start to finish for the Palm Treo 750/750v. [End of XDA post]

-Thanks to everyone who knows me, and gets a laugh at my antics.

-Thanks to Navenedrob, wherever you may be, may you live a long and prosperous life. I hope you don't mind me using your Chess EXT package for 23563 fans, since they don't have BubbleBreaker ;)

-Thanks to MietasSR, for showing that WM6.5.3 is possible on the Treo, despite the antics of the Palm OEM applications.

-Thanks to Chaimd and his WM6.1 ROM, as it shows that taking out Palm applications while leaving the Today plugins alone is actually possible (I had to figure out Messaging on my own, though)

-Thanks to Da_G for the rollup thread, and MobileUnderground for the actual location of the builds.

-Thanks to the Chinese Treo chefs for the most unique Treo750 ROMs I have ever seen (yes, more so than the English ones). It showed me that it's possible to do things Palm should have done on the usability scale.

-Thanks to OS Kitchen Zero, and the utter simplicity of building and importing Builds proved to be the decisive factor in preventing me from fully breaking my right wrist.

-Thanks to Fjtorsol for the kitchen parts used for Hermann 2.1. My kitchen was a convoluted mess of about 6 different builds, 6-7 different devices, and 3 OEM package test folder copies.

-Thank you Naoe Kanetsugu. You go girl, as you brought smiles to my face with your hammer and twintails.

-And for the final thanks, thank you, Palm, for having this Treo 750 produced. Its rather low cost among the second hand market enabled me to have it as my first ever WM Smartphone (not my first WM device though). I don't know if it is funny or not, but am I really a Palm fan? Is there a reason for me to be using Palm devices since their Tungsten? (I still use a Palm TX to this day) :p

Osama Bin Laden is töt.

2011-05-02T21:55:00.000+08:00

Finally. May just started and it's already looking good.

Like, I don't even remember how many whiner babies over the years kept
saying he'll never be found, or killed, but finally we don't have to
see anymore tapes of this guy.

Unless he's been youtubing all this time. At least now the world is
rid of this guy. And despite all the claims of "it isn't over yet" or
"another will rise", I say screw all that. At least Bin Laden is dead.
And his numerous wives can split his leftover wealth. Fun for the
whole family!

Now if only we could see a body... I recall even Zarqawi had a death-shot.

I donated to the Japan relief, and I think you should too.

2011-03-20T17:43:00.000+08:00

At some point in your life, you'll come across a chance to actually do something meaningful. As a person who likes to remember the words "what man is a man who cannot change the world?", I think situations such as donating to the Red Cross for the recent Japan earthquake quite meaningful indeed. But this isn't just me telling you that you should donate too, this is also because I too have experienced a natural disaster (2009 Typhoon flooding of Manila,PH). I know what that feeling of dispair is like, the feeling of being surrounded by water, knowing that your food supplies aren't going to last (partly because of my foreigner self, of not knowing a thing about this country and quite literally not warned at all of the weather forecast) with literally no chance of resupply except braving the toxic water. That water didn't go down for more than 2 weeks, granted water never entered my establishment keeping my life safe, but I'm sure my poor state of health cheated death many times.

Not saying that you'd have to experience a natural disaster in order to know what it's like, recall that I have spent some time in LA, California and have experienced earthquakes past 6 on the scale, but it compelled me for a bit to at least help someone who wasn't as fortunate as I to cheat death. Maybe I won't exactly see my contribution directly affect someone's life, but you know, I can assure you, no matter what the amount, and no matter if it made a difference or not,

It is the thought that counts. And I truly believe the people of Japan will be happy that someone like me, despite the poor health and broken bones, thought of donating, when he could have used it himself. I may have less internet time because of it, and even now I am experiencing food poisoning because of yet another bad meal in this country, and even if I die tomorrow, I'm happy knowing that someone else could be happy too because of acts such as donations. And, as you can see on my Palm Treo750 ROM post over at XDA-developers, I edited the post 5 days ago to point donations instead to Japan. Not sure if other ROM chefs have done so too, but it's a good start.

Sorry for not giving links on where to donate (my donation was offline), I assume you would know where, as I'm not sure how it goes for the country you are in, as I suspect it is different for others, whether it be an online donation or a physical one at an authorized center, so I trust you remember that it's the thought that counts, and to go about it the way that is natural to you (I did see some links on tokyotosho). I guess for starters, you can read this article on Yahoo. By the way, it's another bleeding wall of text for what I originally just wanted to say "donate too!". Sorry lol.

Bad internet connection quality is unhappy internet

2011-03-14T14:17:00.000+08:00

I hate poor service. Heck, anyone would hate poor service, especially
when it's paid for. And my current wireless carrier of choice in this
country, Globe Telecom, just about pisses me off too much now in the
last 2 months.

You're probably wondering why I'm even sticking with them despite the
shoddy service. I may not be from this country, but I've observed
enough that slow speeds = hell of a time. I've experienced Dial-up
(har har), DSl, and finally 3G internet. I can tell you now, Dial-up
is hella slow, DSL looks as if Dial-up has 2 legs instead of 1, and 3G
internet here gives just about a decent price for the speed (1Mbps).
But dude, isn't there other carriers? Why Globe? Well, there's lots of
factors involved, such as not from this country = prepaid, and then
there's signal quality, and then finally speeds. When it comes top
speeds, Globe gave 1Mbps connections, and since I have full bars on
the signal strength with a 3G modem, no brainer on my choice, right?
The problem starts with how the service is handled. Sure it may be
fast, but the first obstacle is the ridiculous 800MB data cap per day.
800MB? With todays anime out there, that's just about 2 720p's, about
5 480p's, but what the hell when browsing todays websites and their
over 1MB content, I swear Engadget.com would push that, not to mention
sankakucomplex, which is just about driven by images. That's also a
part of the reason why I rarely post on my blog via the editor, most
of my posts are emailed to it. But the part I'm very unhappy with, it
sets me back on my anime viewing, and while it may look like the data
cap is what's pissing me off, it's actually the quality of the line.
For about 2 months now they've been doing something to their network,
fixing it or breaking it I have no bleeding idea what, and that's what
pisses me off. They don't tell you jack, they regularly spam you with
spam text, but they never not bloody once have they notified you that
they are performing maintenance on their service or whatever. It
pisses me off that the connection is sometimes reliable, but mostly
shoddy. I even had an ROM upload for the Palm Treo750 cut off because
the terms of the bandwidth cap changes as much as the climate does,
and there was one moment when they didn't count my uploads, and yet
they counted the one for the Treo.

Why not use another wireless carrier? The other choice, Smart
Communications, get's full signal strength, but it's slow. Enough to
make DSL look like a joke, but since I can't sign up for DSL (not from
this country, what I sampled earlier in this post was at the hotel),
Smart sounds like a good idea when it comes to no data cap, right?
Well, the trick to Globe is, the 800 cap is only for a day, meaning
once midnight hits, it resets. But there's the double-edge sword, see.
Globe is fast, has a cap, but at the moment stinkin service. Smart is
slow, no data cap, but hell if I know it you need to be lucky your
downloads even finish, because at this moment, both carriers are going
to cut you off whenever they want, and I've had that happen many
times, and it's worse when it's a large file, and either on Globe, you
pretty much reached your cap, or on Smart, you need tp spend half a
day again. So why I chose Globe, is because if it's just a 10MB
download, I'd rather it take 1 minute lowering the chance of cutting
off, than Smart and their 15 minute download with a high chance of cut
off.

By the way, even DSL is a rip. Somewhere north of almost $30 a month
for an unreliable not-really-1Mbps speed. I got better than that in
the USA for $20, but still out of reach because you practically need
to be a citizen here. I should note Torrent is absolutely crippled on
3G internet services, and nothing but bad stories on DSL.

In the end, I'm biding my time, waiting for the perfect time to strike
(connect).

Yet another absence, again due to health

2011-03-02T21:55:00.000+08:00

In the final week of February, I was able to write about my life because I got sick of all the smokers I encountered on my last night out at the mall, and I lie in bed typing away on my Touch Pro. SERIOUSLY SMOKERS, CUT IT OUT. I've been there before, all right, nearly crushed by depression, having desired for a smoke, but I fought that depression, I overcame the desire, and that year I proceeded to actually do something in my life (JP-Eng fansub translating), and I've hated the smoke since then. It's no wonder why I'm irate, despite my hankerchief covering my mouth, there just had to be smoker after smoker killing themselves and everyone else around them, just STOP IT okay? You opened up old wounds. I stopped, and so can you. At least don't do it in such crowded public places like the mall entrance. Where the hell was I supposed to wait? It's a hired ride, and it's a drop zone. PUT IT OUT. It's RUDE to smoke in public places, especially places that have hundreds of people passing by every hour. Have some decency and learn some courtesy that hell, if others around you aren't doing it, then we sure as hell don't want to be breathing what you're spweing out. End rant.

Fellow fansubbers had always told me to watch my health. I do, and I thank all of them for reminding a stubborn growing-too-old-too-fast dude like me. But if it is inflicted on me by a third party, then I have to suffer for it. And it takes up valuable time such as the last half of February, especially when I had just come off the January incident.

And now I'm seeing reality again. No cute girl to nurse me back to health as I helplessly lay there on my bed, no badly cooked porridge to get me riled up, no naked aprons no female childhood friend crawling through the window no girl falling from the sky, nothing, just... the truth about reality. I've read lots of Manga, I've watched lots of Anime, and for once in my life, I envied the lead males of those stories all because one day, they were a normal, average male, and the next day he's Mr Popular. Anime and Manga and Eroge/galge/ren ai games have all let me down, as I ponder yet again: .....will I ever meet a tsundere? XD
Wait, of all the questions I had to ask myself, did I really have to ask that? I-it's not like I like tsundere's or anything. D-don't get the wrong idea!
I know I'm a guy with a zany personality and an odd aura about that just seems to draw curiosity from girls, but I'm gonna follow Steven Seagal here: "It's not a job. It's an adventure."

Fun adventure I'm on now. Now I'm going on a furious anti-smoking campaign, and Blogger had to bloody jam up their widgets. Here's something I had a laugh at that I saw recently, and this is for you smokers out there:

"To learn more about lung cancer, keep smoking"

A night on the town, Manila, PH. Laptop repairing, girls and more.

2011-03-02T19:32:00.000+08:00

Still working on my panoramic skills

Quite a ridiculous, somewhat sordid and amusing tale happened to me in the early weeks of February, which I ironically am able to finally type all because I am not feeling well (again). It starts off with my laptop's AC adapter dying out of the blue, causing me to have a giant question mark over my head as to why I was running on battery mode. Lucky for me the adapter has a light that goes on when it is working, and that light was dead. So I went to the mall a few times wondering if a place like Radioshack exists, and I came across a place called SST Laptop, supposedly, the laptop repair specialists. So I trotted out my lappy over to there, hoping I can leave with a functioning adapter, was told to wait 1-2 hours, and did so.
For some reason, as big as that mall is (Robinsons Place Manila), those 2 hours went by quite fast, and I didn't even go around the entire place. Upon returning to SST, I inquired, got the adapter back, and was only told to sign something. I asked if I can test it, was told no, and to my surprise I asked if it was even fixed, and was also told no (remember I am speaking english here). So I asked what is the problem, and they said the Voltage Regulator, and promptly showed me a slightly burned piece. OK I said, slightly huffing under my breath "heh, laptop repair specialists". You see, that particular SST had a massive bunch of adapters for sale, for over 3,000 peso (roughly $75-$80), and the repair costs, had it actually been repaired, would've cost about 900 peso (a little over $20). The reason why I see that as a rip, is not only was it just a tiny simple little Voltage Regulator that died (thank you country for all your miserable blackouts and power spikes), but they returned my poor adapter in such a miserable state than when I handed it to them. I had opened it myself, to check for any visible burns that could've been fixed by myself (I had previously seen the demise of another Laptop adapter), and I had already made the insides accessible, but no, they had to cut even more IMPORTANT stuff that they didn't need to, I had already removed the metal cover surrounding the internals of the adapter, and they desoldered the damn things off, and as if an insult to injury, I got the adapter back with the metal part taped with some hilariously cheap uber-sticky electric tape, and then they glued the whole thing back together. Sit on that for a moment there. I gave it to them opened, and not glued, and they gave it back glued. It pisses me off because it wasn't even glued properly, whatever cheap-ass glue was used, was poorly applied and is the eating type of glue, that discolored some of the outer part of the adapter, and now I have an adapter with some white-ish coloring on the side, and the adapter still wouldn't work.

Hey, hermit crabs! Guess I'm not the only one in this country with them crawley's.

Well I didn't wait. As soon as I traffic-ingly got home, I tore apart another Sony adapter, ripped out the Voltage Regulator, and put it in myself. My lappy lives. IT'S ALIVE!!! I just did a Mwu la Flaga on my adapter, I did what [trained] professionals couldn't do! All at the expense of an external DVD Writer... without a soldering Iron mind you. I know I fixed phones, PDA's, 2 of my dead DS's, but nothing reached the level of this adapter because hey, it's a laptop. Not only does it cost a lot more, but I came to realize that I actually needed that lappy more than I thought, and took that for granted. This country has killed a lot of my chargers, but I wasn't going to write off my lappy so soon.

The regulator. Either it burned itself or they burned it when they de-soldered it off.

On the lighter side, I do find the malls here in Manila.PH somewhat amusing, as I made note that, despite the massive amount of people, you will see 95% of the stores empty save the 5-10 workers they got in there. No kidding man, stores usually have way more workers than customers, and it made me wonder, who buys these things? Excluding the foreigners there like myself, as Robinsons Place Manila is what I'd call a bonafide Foreigner Town, but really, where do all these folks walk to and why is it so crowded inside the mall, and not in the stores, is an answer I haven't found...

Being the astute observer that I am, I will say though the girls here are quite pretty indeed. The popular choice of fashion: hot pants, and a tee. Something to get every man's blood boiling, sure, but my observations of the hairstyles weren't so much to write home about. Sure, I saw a few ponytails, god bless those girls, but the popular choice here is regular hair down, or tied into a bun, further destroying hopes that maybe, just maybe in a country somewhere out there, Twintails aren't just for children, because lately that's all you'll ever see them on in this country. But another amusing observation I made, was that most of these girls are rather tiny in stature. Now I know the difference between a child (kid), a girl (unmarried female), and a woman (motherly aura), and believe it when I say this, grown girls here are usually small, quite small indeed that I always had to watch and make sure I don't bump into them because I was horrified at the thought of damaging them if I had. I am quite taller than most of them, and it also made me smile seeing foreigners with their much smaller asian wives (remember, I'm quite good at observation, and can tell the difference between wife and date). And in case you are wondering, I went to the malls only for business, and sought no action or one-night stands thereof, and have no plans of finding a girl here to call my own. Think of it as, me actually getting out of 2D and seeing reality for a change, real life ponytails and hot pants that seem to jeer at my hoping to see at least one skirt or two. Something tells me I didn't have to add the end part of this paragraph...

You really won't see girls wearing outfits like that (black outline) in this city. Seriously, it's... the sad truth.

I LOVE PONYTAILS!! There. I got that off my chest.

Laptop taking a long, long rest.

2011-02-06T17:24:00.001+08:00

So, we've entered the 3rd day since my laptop took a dive. The AC
adapter deep-sixed. It bought the farm. It's DEAD. Zombie wa AC
adapter desu ka. Ok, I am enraged by the lack of Kore Wa Zombo that I
have been so lacking these days, as I can't stand the thought of being
away from my Seraphim for any amount of time.

It's a sad sordid tale of bad timing and above all, irony. Bad timing,
as in, through everyday use something such as a dead power brick is
the thing that shuts down my laptop. Irony, which I hate alongside
"coincidence", because I had loaned my old laptop to someone else and
what do you know, that one is still going strong. Oh well why don't
you use that? Well, I'm not the kind of guy to say "hey man, give it
back" especially since I have moved the HDD out and migrated to this
newer laptop, which is an SATA drive compared to the old laptop, an
IDE. So my first choice is to fix this laptop instead. Just need to
find the time to go out on the town again (which I should say it's not
a fun thing especially when I had done so several times the previous
week and for the first time, I felt the limitations of my hurting
right wrist). I'm not even going to mention that I admit I have been
spending more time with my DS lately, as I find stylus-based games
quite amusing as I don't think I can ever hold the DS normally
anymore. Or that part where I sheepishly admit that I have beaten such
a small amount of games that I have, and have never bothered to even
complete for what, 6 years now? lol

But that's where the loveley world of mobile device computing comes
in! Nowadays I can play up to 480p content on my smartyphones, so I'm
not left out Alone in The Dark! Which leads me to my preposterous
thought of wondering just how far can I take mobile blogging and
viewing/reading. Yes, the thought of waiting till who knows when to
fix my lappy has occurred to me, and the thought of actually creating
a completely mobile manga project has gone through my mind before as
well. Can I do it? Will I be able to go without my glorious 720p
viewing experience? Am I to watch the Transformers DoTM Superbowl spot
on my tiny screen? Find out... whenever that is. Ah, how amusing it is
of late. Even my iPod Shuffle has been seeing more action, as my
primary choice of music playback. I seem to be digging up neglected
devices...

In the meantime, I have this nice link for everyone... XD

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=X6HAPX8C3VM7U

Testing the MobilLogging of Blogger

2011-02-06T17:18:00.001+08:00

Let's see how Blogger likes me posting via email... Hmm.

What else is there...

http://www.yahoo.com

äëß¤×üïö£ñæ bÿ™

Gone again? Why in the world...

2011-01-31T18:16:00.001+08:00

Where do we begin? Not to take one from the Joker, but I honestly
don't know where to start. I guess, to put it simply, I ran into one
of those starvation things my blog seems so full of. Honestly, I lose
weight, gain a little, lose more, ridiculous cycle of something
unforseen. Not really in the mood to fill my blog with posts like
these so let's end this at that...

On the lighter side, thank God I'm still alive, so you won't be
reading an obituary here lol. As a matter of fact, if I was spirited
away there'd still be no obituary, considering the closed-source
nature of my life. I then decided that nothing on planet Earth will
last forever, so I'm going to go ahead and see if I'm sane enough to
start working on manga, starting off in a one-shotty way before
jumping into my series, sounds like a good idea for someone who cheats
death so often.

So, here I am, and here I go again resuming online duties. lol @ PSP NGP

Whoa, week Jan 2-8

2011-01-12T14:36:00.002+08:00

My my, what a ridiculous week Jan 2-8 was. There was a lot of things this week, from real life down to anime. Let's get down to it.

- R.I.P. Marine Corps EFV. This was probably the most ridiculous news to cross my wires that hit me very hard. I have been following this program since its [publicly disclosed] revealing, and to see it cancelled like that hit me very hard. One of the things I never figured out, was that if these defense projects take more than 10 years to reach fruitition, it is dead obsolete from its inception. If you can't bring your weapon to war when you built it, don't even expect to win. Let it also be known that the STOVL JSF version has been pushed aside.

- CES 2011 has come and gone, and keeping with the news was a tough thing to do, but a little easier to handle since nothing of real interest came around.

- China's stealth technology demonstrator J-xx revealed to the world. A rather large aircraft, it leads me to wonder why SecDef Gates thought 2020 was a more plausible timeframe than 2010. In fact, what was this guy doing? Is Gates so hard up in defense spending that he didn't want to pay the extra data bandwidth just to visit chinese forums? This being the same guy who ordered mine resistant vehicles too late for Iraq, and the same guy who fired those knowledgeable about The 'stan when he is not the one on the ground there.

- On a lighter note, I finally got my HTC Touch Pro, very cheap (under $20), very much functional, and probably the final replacement for my Treo 750. But, not even that went well, as this country (the Philippines) has the most atrocious postal service (a corporation) in the world (at least the parts of the world I've been to), as this phone arrived in this country last year, but never delivered, prompting me to initiate a physical inquiry at the post office demanding some answers. You know it got bad when not even the super could find it, prompting a call to the delivery man who knew exactly where it was [perfectly hidden]. Explain that to me. (the guess was he was probably trying to have the 30 day package holding policy pass by so that he can have it for himself). I'm not even going to get into the treo replacement keyboard part I ordered last year as well, and yet to have.

- Postal issues aside, this week saw the retirements of my white LG KG800, and my HP iPAQ hx2415 (retired from frontline service). This Touch Pro will now handle all PDA related activities, as well as being the new platform for my drawing ability. Perhaps my Palm T|X will follow soon.

- Anime happenings go to my other blog.

- More 3DS bits came out, amusingly enough. Just when I decided not to post a post on the Animesuki forum about batteries still not advancing at the rate computers and smartphones do...

- On the question of my absence, I have been (ordered to) commiting to health rehabilitation, in a drive to better handle my body so that it won't go through those horrible illness' anymore. So that led me to only partake in a reading mode for my online activities. A lot to catch up to, huh. And my hand still hurts.

- Finally, the biggest piece of news to hit me hard, I know it is rather old news, but Stargate Universe has been canceled on the Syfy channel. Call me serious Sam, but it's not April, and I'm not laughing. Really, just when the story was getting good, we now have to live with a Season 2 episode 20 cliffhanger, with no word yet as to when that will be resolved. To say I'm disappointed, is an understatement. I am... only human XD

Posted from my Touch Pro via Blogger

I've done it! WM6.5 Build 21901 running on my Palm Treo750

2010-12-13T19:21:00.001+08:00

After several days of toiling away with OSKitchen, I have finally
cooked a bootable ROM for the elderly Palm Treo 750. Of course, being
bootable does not compute to fully operational, so given a few tweaks
here and there I'm sure everything will be fine. I hope.

Meet Shadow the HermitHog

2010-12-04T19:28:00.001+08:00

Look at that crab boogie!

Meet Shadow the Hedgehog, the name I gave a hermit crab which, although the pictures don't show it (due to a strange type of chameleon type shell), it has a primarily black spikey shell. That prompted me to name it Shadow, after the character in the Sonic Adventure 2 game and it's spinoffs thereafter.

This hermit crab was found in the amazing 20-crab roundup while vacationing at the beach. A funny event occurred afterwards when my oldest brother saw him for the first time: he called him Bowser, after the spikey turtle we all know and love. The name stuck for the rest of the way, but it will always be known as Shadow to me, which is the first thing I thought of when I found him.

And yes, I know. I censored my fingerprints. Start laughing.

Next crab, a molter! Oh me oh my...

Press your clothes on the Irony Board

2010-12-04T19:22:00.002+08:00

I had a pretty much nothing but laughs for the WikiLeaks fiasco going on now, considering I had just talked about operational security in my famous "Hermit Crab watches Hyakka Ryoran" post. The whole wikileaks thing started because an US Army Private decided to take some stuff. I can see why the US Army's Operation Security policy concerning the internet does hinge largely on a single soldier's common sense; put simply, don't do what you didn't need to. Every action humans take in this world will have a reaction, small or big.

But my past few weeks had nothing to do with the Wikileaks, I assure you. No, there are no documents or "cables" about me in there, and I am definitely am not the Private. No, this post mainly talks about just why do I have so many things to do these days. Of course, I'm not venting like my little moody post last week, no, this is about me wondering just how far can I keep multi-tasking.

My week started brighter than the last, me having decided I should do a little shopping, catch up on tv shows, etc. First we have me going through some emails, and my my how in the world do I end up with so much unread emails. More than 20,000 in my very first email ever (more than 10 years old I think), and then there's my current work email with more than 10,000 unreads. I'll say this, the only way I am ever going through my entire email inboxes is in a post-apocalyptic era where there's nothing else to do but... go through thousand of unread mail lol.

Show me another person in this world with this much unread mail on an email account they can still access 10 years later.

Shopping, of course, largely has to do with me finally deciding that I should fix my second Treo (the one without a keyboard, seen in the hilarious posts of my "Teruya Eiko love" and "Minna Dietlind Wilke love" posts over at my anime blog). Looking around finally yielded me a keyboard replacement, so hopefully I get that keyboard part soon (already shipped!). I did spend a lot of days of free time trying to fix the radio antenna of this phone, which was very much destroyed and rendered unusable, ....at a glance anyways. To me, nothing is broken unless it's a flex cable (which I have had bad luck with so far), and fixing the radio, despite the plug not being there at all, was something well within my capabilities. Now, the phone is ready for calls and internet, and once the keyboard part arrives, I will now have... 2 working Treo's lol. You might be wondering how could I, with a Treo 750, iPhone 3G, and HTC HD2, end up with just 2 Treo's? Simply put, I needed pen input, for, you know, drawing. Which I haven't done in a very long time.

Round off the week with some very interesting anime, as well as the usual American TV shows I am following (no Hawaii 5-O this week?). Stargate Universe Season 2 episode 10 was in my honest opinion the best episode yet, with the story getting on some serious actiony track. Probably the best part of the week for me, besides anime and a repair job well done.

It is the Destiny's destiny to meet it's fateful fate this way.

So there's my week. Which I should probably do more of from now on, ranting on my blog isn't exactly a fun thing to do, and not really something I like doing anyways. I prefer these long posts that don't fit in Twitter lol (no I am not a member of Twitter and no I am not Ryan Seacrest) wait a minute, this was supposed to be a post about me multi-tasking myself to death...

This post sent using my Treo

Even I have bad days (slightly NSFW)

2010-11-21T05:50:00.002+08:00

I had a bad day. I had a long day. I had a crappy day, worst day of my life, whatever it is, they all have the same thing in common: unhappy times.

The past few days were, well, unhappy for me. It all started when I decided I should at least attempt to help some folks at the XDA developers forum for cooking a working ROM for our Treo750 phones (I'm a bit tired of being on the outside looking in when it comes to this phone). That's when I ran into the brick wall that is my health (yet again). You see, this being a program, that meant I need to do a large amount of clicking (amusingly enough, very little typing is involved). The only spot available for my tiny mouse is on the right hand side, and my right hand being the ouchie hand (presumed broken wrist). Sure, this whole thing wasn't a really smart idea to begin with, the ROM kitchen I had from the previous cooker (who mysteriously disappeared, rumored to have been Microsoft silenced or CIA abducted) was outdated and flooded with a buggy OS, the situation with my right hand, and the whole timing of this plan. I swear, I'd estimate me having clicked the mouse button more times in that session than a single game of Company of Heroes. It started to hurt real bad, so I postponed my cooking attempts till a later date. It didn't help that my internet connection was being it's regular old crappy self, rendering ROM cooking even more useless without some documentation that seemingly only exists online (and not even with the kitchen). We all know how much I dislike crappy internet, and it makes me really really grouchy when I can't get the information that I need.

Shortly afterwards I had this fun (badly timed) idea of, just how exactly bad is my right hand. I decided to try some FPS gaming (which I was an absolute terror with a trackball), and that yielded some unhappy results. Played a little Mechwarrior (I know, not an FPS but still one of my all-time favorites), and it was a lot worse than when my hand was healthy (you know it's bad when your Lance starts to die off fast). Did a little Splinter Cell and Delta Force Extreme until I realized, things are the same way they used to be. My reaction time is slow, my aim is horribly off, and the biggest kicker of all, my hands no longer seem to be in sync (when it comes to WASD + mouse coordination). This explains why RTS or strategy gaming is a lot easier for me, the clever setup of mouse + laptop trackpad meant that with RTS' and their no need for WASD gaming, I used my left hand for the clicking (using the trackpad) and my right hand to simply move the mouse around. This lessened the strain put on my fingers, and basically means FPS gaming will never be the same for me again (remember, I've been using trackballs for nearly a decade). My inability to ROM Cook and FPS game largely centers around my hurt right hand.

I then fell into a state of depression not seen since the creation of this blog (when I was in Germany going through the stomach sickness), which kind of traumatized me in that I haven't drawn since before the accident, and I don't even know how that will be now, seeing as how FPS gaming isn't the same anymore. I was royally depressed at being afraid to draw, as everyone knows drawing is the thing I love to do most of all, even my laptop was entirely bought for that purpose. To me, not being able to draw is like suffocating me; it's just something I can't imagine doing and it scared me.

It didn't help that in my depressed state of mind, I do the other thing I'm really good at: overusing my smarts. When I'm depressed, I go on this brain-taxing rampage of absorbing as much data as I can on pretty much anything that comes to mind. This is detrimental to my health as the less I sleep, and the more I use my eyes, the worse my health becomes (breathing, dehydration, etc) and then, quite literally, my brain fries. I get this massive headache/migraine that is so unbearable, my head cannot be held up without a serious amount of effort, and my entire upper body becomes very heavy (the right-shoulder problems are the cause of this). The only solution to this migraine headache is to sleep it off, which requires me to do some really unorthodoxy stuff: apply as much external medicinal application, and wrap my eyes with a not-too-tight material, usually my basketball headband. So for the past 3 days I've been fighting off this headache in addition to my depression.

That's when I realized, this isn't me. Damaging my health to this extent wasn't worth it. I was really sad to have my health end my fansubbing stint, as well as my health playing a part in my absence of the year 2008 of anime (a year that saw me stomach-sick 5 times). I felt bad for forgetting my fellow fansubbers telling me to watch my health, and how much I could have helped them if I had watched what I ate and slept regular times. It was a good thing that I got involved with fansubs though, it makes me remember the time I spent doing so, doing the most sought for position (Japanese translator), and remembering it now showed me that, the good times roll if you're good to your body. Wasn't there a saying, "how can you love others if you don't love yourself?" well, how could I love happy times if I didn't love my health? If I'm good to my body and my health, then that's where my happiness is at. Being a depressed mangatron isn't what I'm about, I'm supposed to be the twintail loving, ponytail crazed, pretty leg craving mangtron, and being depressed and hurting my health prevents me from being that fun person and experiencing the hilarity of those fetishes.

So I coaxed myself to get that fire back by watching some anime (THE KISSING MACHINE IS DEAD) and re-reading some manga (like... Kyou koi wo Hajimemasu. I know, it's a shoujo, but it's a guilty pleasure I don't feel guilty of XD), and going about the shaky internet connection and looking up whatever pics of interest I missed (tags: twintail and military XD), and my regular old self was returning. Even my mother jumped on the encouragement wagon, telling me that running away from what I'm good at isn't the best thing for me, and that when one gets older it's the perfect time for my gift (my brain) to begin operating at its fullest potential (which explains why she was so against my recruitment of a secret organization back in the 3rd grade). Which I found a bit strange, since this whole thing started because of my right hand, which she knows about (and she was absolutely unhappy when she found out about it). But considering the perfect timing of her words, I've come full circle. Being a sad, depressed mangatron isn't what I'm good at. I'm going to try to draw once again, as I should be appreciative enough that I still have my right hand. I'm going to go back to loving girls with tied hair, and using my brain for creative things, not blowing my brain up. I am the mangatron. Hear me rawr ;)

As a show of gratitude for anyone who took the time to read this, here's a treat of one of my findings while doing the browsing: Kelly Brook (from 4funpics.blogspot.com, may be NSFW).

Don't ask how I went from Shirai Kuroko (an anime character) to Kelly Brook (a real, live girl!). It's one of those unexplained mystical phenomenons where one link leads to another site, and to the next and next (ok, so it's really easy to explain. It started with EnglishRussia, a site I like for the pictures of Russian military equipment (I was a really good expert in Soviet weaponry of the cold war) and from there it brought me to a fellow blogspot blog that well, showcases some really nice pics). Kelly Brook, how did I miss this girl. Hey, stop looking at her breasts. It's all about the legs, the legs, man! I just absolutely love it when girls close their legs together like that, it melts me to a liquified puddle. PickMeUpNews said it best when referring to Bar Rafaeli, that "God was in a good mood when he created Bar Rafaeli", well, he was in a very good mood when he created Kelly Brook, and I know that when you make others happy, then it's a good deed, and a happy mangatron is the best mangatron. But I'm just appaled that I hadn't heard of this girl before. When I was in the USA, I had thought 'Kelly' was an American name, which led me on the lookout for any girl with that name, but now it seems like I was looking at the wrong country. Maybe it's a British name after all lol. And yes, I thought about what she'd look like in a ponytail, and yes, using this odd brain of mine I was able to closely estimate her correct height from that photo alone lol (remember, I hadn't heard of her before, heck, I didn't realize that was her at the end of The Italian Job). I know, I had previously spent some time reading up on the US miltary's Social Network investigative process used in intelligence gathering, but correctly guessing her height wasn't related to that, honest. It's just that wierd method of thinking that I have (which will remain classified till a later date)

Thanks, 4funpics.blogspot.com.

This post done at 5 in the morning, because the mangatron has too much sleep.

Ow my hand!

2010-10-22T00:17:00.001+08:00

So, lately I haven't been blog posting. There are a number of reasons, mainly (but not limited to) my health, so I figured I'd do an update.

Some of you already know about my recent run in with stomach flu/food poisoning, and thankfully I've recuperated from that. but during the time of my rehab, a problem surfaced which I ignored during the first week of this "vacation". It's regarding my right hand, which many would remember is my drawing hand, and it is somewhat damaged. Now, I don't know the extent of the damage, since I can still use it and flex each finger, but I cannot lift anything more than a pound or so with it anymore.

Q: Oh man! How did it happen?
A: Actually, it's very embarrassing how it happened, kind of like that NBA (or was it MLB) player who cut his arm on a fruit knife.... that was on his bed. As I got up that morning, my back was in such a horrible state (the local beds are.... terrible to say the least), and unable to pull myself up, I used my hands to support myself, and in the groggy, half-awake state I was in, I put all 120 pounds (about 54 KG) of my body weight on the right hand, and I heard that horrible cracking sound.

Q: Why is it a problem now? didn't it really hurt right then and there?
A: My "two-headed" sword, as Gilbert Arenas would say. You'd know by now I'm no stranger to pain, and since I was able to use my fingers, I thought nothing of it. That's what I didn't foresee, was my stomach problems happening, and with that deterioration in health, I received little to none of the nutrients I eat on a regluar basis [due to the inability to eat properly]. That lack of nutrients led to my body allocating self-repairs to my stomach instead of my wrist, where eventually my wrist, without nutrients for self-repair, ended up failing, which is why I think I only started feeling the effects after the stomach problem.

Q: What now? No more Sawamura Seiji Right Hand?
A: Well, what probably happened was I dislocated my wrist, if that even happens. Since I can still use my fingers, and since I don't have symptoms of Carpal Tunnel, what I cannot do anymore is bend my hand forward (like how a cat does with it's paw) or that kung fu stuff (you know, Palm Strike... or something). But that's not the important stuff, see. What sucks is that now I have to limit the following activities:

-My Logitech Trackball is right hand based (as the ambidextrous Trackball mysteriously failed), so I can hardly use that without feeling pain, since the right hand model is thumb based (my specialty when FPS gaming as I am a terror with that mouse). Which, for the first time in almost a decade, I personally used a conventional mouse (the one with a tail, and that you grasp and move around a square pad. Wait, you knew that...). Funny isn't it? How I've just used a trackball all those years (Thanks Microsoft for creating your Trackball, lord knows what I'd do without it.), and my first foray into a conventional mouse since is due to health reasons.

-Some of you would do well to remember that my right hand is for precision, and my left hand is for power. Now I'm somewhat ambidextrous as my right hand can be very powerful (due to precise handling, as my brain is probably connected to it lol), and my left hand can be very crafty with individual finger usage. For a few years now I've been training both hands to be in tune and fully ambidextrous (as my dominant eye is surprisingly on my left), but with this recent injury I probably have to return to the previous state of Right Skills, Left Power.

-My right hand isn't new to injury, sadly. I broke the ring finger of my right hand playing American football back when I was in Germany in my younger years. This has brought about an unusual ability, such as showing someone the birdie, but instead of the middle finger I can use the ring finger lol. That injury, though, was the start of my eventual decision to be Right Skills Left Power.

-Now, very important here, is drawing. Precision is my right hand, and drawing goes with it. But now I must limit my drawing time to shorter intervals, as I have been knowing for drawing for hours for a month or so. Now, I'm uncertain how my art style is affected by this new predicament, as I haven't attempted to seriously draw since. I believe though, that my ability to draw manga and girls will not be deterred, and that I will continue to do what I love: drawing.

-Also important is the modern times, ja. You probably know I type very fast, quite unorthodoxly at that due to my unique ability to maintain a set speed across any form of keyboard possible. I won't be thanking Mavis Beacon, though, because I never finished her lessons and the typing games became more of a game than, well, learning how to type lol. Now, I know I'm not 100 WPM (because I believe people use that rating for full sized computer keyboards anyway), but I would put myself between 50-60 WPM. Keep in mind this is across mutiple keyboard form factors and sizes. I remember one time when my friend showed me his Samsung Q1 UMPC, and that he said the typing needs to get used to, and he had an external keyboard for that, which I did see, but when I asked him to try his device, he was shocked when I, for the first time using a UMPC, was typing very fast with no errors. Mind you the early Samsung Q1 model had no physical keyboard, and the software keyboard I used was cut in half, which meant you were only supposed to use your thumbs, and you only have two thumbs total. And that's where we are now, you would remember my current phone, a Palm Treo, which is a portrait QWERTY, and my thumbs do extra duty now that my right hand hurts faster than before. I still type damn fast, though, but at the price of pain and the sudden realization that I have an impulse to type fast before anything else.

There are other tiny little things like unable to princess-carry a girl unless I can somehow use my left hand behind her back and my right hand softening her butt, or now I have to use my left hand to roll dice, or now I'm unable to use my right hand to shake the hot sauce bottle lol. That may sound funny, but with me, when it comes to barbecue, it's all about my left hand to eat and the right hand to pour the ketchup. I'm somewhat of a clean freak in that in no way do I find it logical to use ones dirty hand for such things. So, this is also part of the reason why I'm not active online much anymore. That, and... I'll confess I have some new pets now, in the form of several hermit crabs (ranging from tiny, tip-of-your-finger sized, to the size of a pint carton). I find it fun taking care of these guys, in the hopes of seeing the smaller ones grow to ginormous sizes XD

Wish me luck.

Someone dial nein won won!

2010-09-03T18:21:00.000+08:00

Or was I supposed to say 112..... whatever, the real problem now is that I;m having those stomach problems again. While on a supposed vacation. Think about it again. I thought I was better for the greater part of a year, and while vacationing at the beach, I get food poisoning. And here I was supposed to do a blog post about how "fun" it's been here, but instead my first real post after a long time and it's about bad [local] food.

I'm serious, it's not healthy here. The locals aren't exactly clean, the water quality (faucet water) smells funky, and... it's not exactly a resort resort, but a local resort.... not sure I said it properly, but perhaps if I tell everyone where it is. Two hints: How many of my readers remember the last location I mentioned on this blog, and part 2, here's some fun coordinates (I hope I did this right, there isn't exactly a degree key on this keyboard):

13 degrees 40'14."N, 121 degrees23'22.29"E

So, later on with my posts about how this "vacation" has been going besides sickly, so to ease my frustrations, how about a piccy of the local kitty (taken with an HTC HD2):

Renovation test

2010-08-31T22:04:00.001+08:00

Not exactly renovating this blog.

But it's for the other blog.

wOWser

2010-07-21T11:13:00.000+08:00

Ouchie.

Meine goddannar, I knew my shoulder was bad yesterday, but when I woke up this morning there was a sharp pain in the right side of my upper body (right rib cage going all the way to my wrist). Man, that freakin hurt I know it was a stupid decision when I tried to go the the frontline in Iraq (thank god that never went through) but man, it felt like I got shot in my right lung. Now I'm scared.

Another long day...

2010-06-12T18:08:00.000+08:00

Or another bad day. Strange day more like. Whatever day it is today, it's supposed to be a Saturday, but man I feel so ruined that it deserves it's own blog post.

My day kinda starts like this: there's two funny things I heard about in my life; one is "[If] life is so short, why waste it on sleep?", and the other thing is that research a couple years ago indicating that people who get more sleep have better brain operational capacity than those who don't [get enough sleep].

Now, I'm doing a great job of not getting enough sleep [when I need it], and I'm keeping that up with a 'am good job of over-working my brain day in and night out. I am effectively using two "theories" and clashing them all into one big contradiction. But it seems, even that contradiction must come to an end, and I'm feeling it. A part of this whole mess is the insignificant wireless carrier that I use for internet, it is highly unreliable during the day, with it's only best use coming in at the ungodly hours of humankind (Read: when you are supposed to be sleeping). This means all the information I need is best accessed when I am supposed to be sleeping, and when I'm awake I cannot access them [in a reliable manner].

If you thought that was weird, I got word earlier this week that I am supposed to do some sort of autobiography or something like that about my life (in case you were going to ask, it's not an obituary >_>). Now, given the odd nature of my way of life, how am I supposed to do this? As far as I can remember the happy days came far and few in-between, I'm just going to be writing some strange, somewhat sad stuff of my past. Definitely not something I want to delve into...

But, life is life. If I want to live it, there's certain things I have to do. And now it seems like sleep is one of them.

Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou Research, series 01

2010-06-10T23:58:00.001+08:00

So... lousy week, actually. Lots of ruination and developments
affecting my performance in real life, my anime life has taken a
backseat yet again. Memories of 3 years ago are resurfacing...

Back to it though, the start of my Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou research
posts, meine gott meine gott, how much I could have done if I had the
time. Ahem, my real-life escapades aside, let's tackle something first
from episode 10. Part 01 of my II no DM research.

We learn from this episode that it was the headmaster and Bouchirou
that had a hand in the previous Maou's demise. This means it actually
clears up something interesting:

1. The legend of Brave defeating the Maou, was just that, a legend.
2. Because Peterhausen did not recognize Brave, this confirms that
legend/D-13 was created after the previous Maou's demise.

From this I believe D-13 was created after Sai went missing as a baby,
without him under surveillance D-13 was probably the plan B to take
care of the Maou when he arises later on. What is interesting though,
with D-13 having been created after the previous Maou bought the farm,
the Yatagarasu calling out Hiroshi as a hero would then seem more and
more like the setup I have been theorizing about a few weeks ago. Or
perhaps the yatagarasu is the headmasters' way of knowing ahead of
time where the chess pieces of Bouchirou's next game will be. Of
course, this will probably be a detail we will never see...

The next part I'd like to talk about, is when it is known the source
for controlling the monsters is within the school. Huh huh, one might
simply think it's Fujiko, but what if... it's actually Keena? Far as I
can tell there remains nothing else in the school basements other than
Peterhausen, so that would leave Keena, or... those weird
lights-in-a-circle. Let's see if I can make this Keena theory
something:

--Keena's special.
--Let's pretend Fujiko didn't really have control of the monsters, but
rather they just happened to be heading there to "assist her".
--There's still that egg debalce from ep 08.
--As well as her having some sort of attraction to some of the animals
related to monsters (demon dog, cucumber).

There is of course some things to consider about this theory, like her
not up to war and killing, and being sort of a saint, it's kind of
hard to see her having something to do with monsters.

My take on episode 11, has it as Keena being the deciding factor
between headmaster, Sai and Bouchirou. This isn't about Sai killing
gods, but about Keena not liking the idea of Sai being a killer. Keena
is going to save Sai, and the only possibilities of saving him are:

1. If he is about to kill someone.
2. If he's about to get himself killed.
3. If someone's going to kill him.

I'll say, #1 seems highly likely given the alluded hints of Keena not
wanting Sai to kill someone.

Part 2 of research will continue in a moment.

(Anime research by The mangatron is a feature of his blog where he
puts his mind to the history of anime, and how that history affects
the present, and ultimately future projects in the days ahead.)

Backup of a wall of text

2010-05-23T09:55:00.001+08:00

Just that usual backup of text I do from time to time.

About Soga Keena.

[b]Episode 01:[/b]
--She is chilling in the forest when Sai bumps into her and she greets him with a school-play like atmosphere. Keena proceeds to bring in the line where she will protect Sai. Now Junko arrives at the scene where we get our first taste at what Keena would do if Sai was in trouble: she'd apparently risk her life for him.
[u]speculation[/u]:
How important it all sounds, how her being there is to watch and protect the school and the world(connect to ep 08). So after all that "airheadedness" of the lines of poetry or what not, why did she bring about a dead-serious tone when she said he's important to her? Here's the best part: [b]the dove's mysterious glistening sound is heard as she says this.[/b]
--After the blast eliminates Junko, Keena proceeds with her lines of poetry of confessions. Why is this important?
[u]speculation[/u]: connect it with eps 03 and 07.

[b]Episode 02:[/b]
--The episode starts with a scene several years ago to a younger Sai handing a dove ornament accessory to a girl, we later see it's something similar to what Keena wears.
[u]speculation[/u]: We have no idea who this girl is. :uhoh:
--Near the start of the episode she casually floating around as Korone explains the meaning of her presence. At the mere mention of the headmaster, Keena is shocked in a scared kind of way and proceeds to escape in the best way she usually does: run away invisible.
[u]speculation[/u]:
Scared of the headmaster? Why should she be? If it's because of low class attendance then what's to stop him, Lily, and Fujiko from kicking her out? What's to stop Torii-sensei from turning Keena into an undead? Torii apparently lets it slide, the head master seems dead, Lily isn't doing anything to students who seem to be breaking the school laws, and Fujiko, merely as the head of the female dorm, has better things to worry about. My take: they're keeping her around for more than just good grades. Government guarantees a job for all students? We've yet to see what Keena's title is.
--Later in the episode Keena is seen walking around the forest naked. Apparently around the place where Sai was to meet Fujiko.
[u]speculation[/u]:
This one is heavy, as there are several implications to this. First, she might have lured out the demon dog towards Sai so he can take care of it. Or, she might have brought it down to take care of Sai and drive him out of the forest. Maybe she has a high attraction to monsters (possibly connect with ep 07, connect with ep 08) Or, she simply wanted to have a cause to be friends with him. Whatever the case, she was apparently here before Sai is set to meet with Fujiko. Connect with episode 03. One thing we do know: her mana appears to be undetectable, either as invisible or as a whole.

[b]Episode 03:[/b]
--Apparently our first look at Keena this episode has her visiting Sai before he sets out on the plan set by Fujiko to meet with Junko. She proceeds to leave just before the planned meeting time.
[u]speculation[/u]:
We later see the purpose of her visit: she removes the hearty pills from Sai's double barreled pistol. Say what? How in the world did she know? Apparently she was watching Sai's meeting with Fujiko in the previous episode, which adds further fuel to the fire of what she was doing in the forest in the first place (a forest with monster sightings, I might add). She is then hiding the fact that she knows someone is out to control the Maou (connect with episode 04).
--She dispels the crowd that attacks Sai later towards the end of the episode.
[u]speculation[/u]:
Saving Sai when he is in trouble? Check. Doing so without killing or even harming anyone? Check. Making those students happy? Check. The world around Sai proceeds to be a happy place. Make of it what you will.

[b]Episode 04:[/b]
--We learn Keena is good with studying, bad with magic. Having no friends, she's apparently putting up with these facts despite wanting to protect the world.
[u]speculation[/u]:
This episode is probably where the speculation starts on whether or not she might be a bad guy. Being good with studies and not at magic? Sounds like someone entered the wrong school. So the way I see it, it might be similar to Sai: worked hard, good grades, enroll at magic school, Yatagarasu gives out a title and school life begins. Except, we don't know who processed Keena's enrollment and we have no idea what the Yatagarasu labeled Keena as.
--She lurks and stalks Sai as he heads out to the meditation shack.
[u]speculation[/u]:
Worried about his health or wanting to save him in case he loses his mind, or *gasp* she was out for the map from the get-go? Whatever it is, she yet again is there when something significant enters Sai's life. So why do I think she was out for the map? Well, first of all, she properly identified it as a map of the school, which we later find out the Student Council identifies it as locations of the school [i]100 years ago[/i]. At a first glance, there's no way anyone would have known it was a map of the school when its a location that predates the school by 100 years, well before the school was even built on there. She seems to have full knowledge of the school's origins in order to come up with that conclusion. Secondly, we can probably tie her knowledge of the map to her dove, possibly connect this with the OP, and episode 05.
--She commits a felony of breaking and entering of Fujiko's secret black magic room to steal the map, a map she proceeds to plaster all over the school.
[u]speculation[/u]:
First of all, how did she know Fujiko has the map? That is, she might have raided Sai's room before concluding the person she bumps into leaving the meditation chamber has it. Next, how did she even know how to access Fujiko's secret room? We know Fujiko simply snaps her fingers to open the doorway, but could it also respond to her black magical ways? Whatever it is, Keena entered the room, and she took the map, and she glue it all over the school. Graffiti? Public defacement of property? They sure put up with her.
--When Eiko introduces herself to Fujiko and the viewers, we see she knows a fact Keena knows as well: someone's out to control the Maou.
[u]speculation[/u]:
We can judge from Keena's episode 03 antics that she was out to stop Sai from falling under the control of another. Protecting him or carrying out a mission? Whatever it is, we later see Eiko knows this as well, so the big question remains: how did Eiko know? She first showed up at Fujiko's yuri lovemaking, if anyone else see's that at first arrival they'd think Fujiko is just some silly perverted girl. But what do we hear? Eiko sees Fujiko has failed at her plan to dominate the Maou. There's only two ways Eiko knows of this: either Keena told her *gasp* or Eiko's been lurking behind the scenes, which wouldn't make sense because you'd need first hand visual confirmation in order to come to that conclusion, a conclusion Eiko arrives at as her first order of business.

[b]Episode 05:[/b]
--Keena's absence is questionable as we see she's sleeping through this whole map ordeal. Why in the world would she do that?
[u]speculation[/u]:
This is probably the first time she pulls her shifty eyes to dodge a topic: she appears to not know the other girl who is with Sai, and later identifies her. There's two ways to tuesday: either she knows who Eiko is and what she's after, or she's trying to avoid a confrontation between the Teruya and Hattori families. Once Junko runs off Keena has the bright idea of dragging Fujiko into the mess, Fujiko, who seems content with watching things on tv. Again with the breaking and entering, but more importantly we find out bringing Fujiko to Sai did more than just give her ringside seats.
--The dove, the dove the dove. Dove soap is good for your skin.
[u]speculation[/u]:
Well well well, here we are at the cause of this whole series so far: the dove hair ornament accessory. We see it activates Peterhausen's DivX playback capabilities that reveals all there is behind the Etou brother mystery. The fun part that everyone seems to have missed: not the dove, or the intro that spoiled the dove's video playback ability, but rather, Keena apparently knows full well what Fujiko's been going through: the pains of dealing with the mystery behind her brother. Either Keena knew ahead of time what happened to the Etou brother, or eps 1-5 was all a setup to clear up the mystery behind Etou brother's death. She knows something...

[b]Episode 06:[/b]
--Probably the scene of choice this episode is not her discovery of the sea cucumber, but rather her alcoholic rice :heh: Ok, seriously, it's that alcoholic scene that is important, not the alcohol itself.
[u]speculation[/u]:
First of all, she is able to find Sai, despite the mana jamming in the area (Korone is unaffected remember?). Lucky guess or more than just coincidence? Make of it what you will, but she proceeds to warn Sai about Simon8 and nothing else. Nothing else she needed to share, anyways, because we later learn that had he knew of Korone's seduction plans, it wouldn't have worked on him, thereby he easily avoids a plot that he needed to avoid on his own (he did well on that too). Keeping that from him or too drunk to drive? Find your fate mystery.

[b]Episode 07:[/b]
--Keena as a monster magnet or she just plain didn't know?
[u]speculation[/u]:
It should be noted that a monster appears(X or the cucumber, you decide:heh: ) as Keena is present again, maybe just my small implication of her being around when monsters strike(connect with episode 08). But you might have missed the important part of my implication: she is apparently more affected by Mister X's Noizetanker than Hiroshi is, either she's got high enough mana to be affected from such a distance or she is just plain scared. Remember, Hiroshi is not so powerful so he probably wasn't affected by the Noize at that distance, compared to Keena (who felt it as a pain, while Hiroshi simply heard it as someone's voice) Yet another mystery? You decide.
--Here I'll connect episode 01's last lines of Keena's play-acting(she lines out what happens when Sai kills another) with this scene in episode 07.
[u]speculation[/u]:
Recall when Sai is about to fight Mister X, Keena in all her dead-serious tone of voice tells Sai he must not kill him. Protecting him or knowing full well what happens should Sai go berserk? She is definitely not an airhead so far in case you're keeping count.

[b]Episode 08:[/b]
--Blond guy, who apparently is a bad guy if we pin Etou's murder on him, has a pendant of what looks to be a girl with a dove pin in her hair.
[u]speculation[/u]:
Everyone might be pinning speculation on the dove, but we know it's not important now because Sai simply bought that at some bazaar or flea market or something. Whether or not the dove's mysteries of being Keena's source of mystery, I believe the implication is there already: Soga Keena. What's so special about her? Well, think of it this way: I believe she may be the angel of this world, or the goddess, so to say. There's a Maou, and there's a God, what's not to say there's a goddess inbetween these two? It would be even more apparent if we consider the blond guy as the God of this society, if we add up his knowledge of the mana's conditioning, as well as knowing the future as well as, we can see, being up on a high place. Remember Soga Keena's earlier implications of her imprtant person, if Sai considers her a fated partner, and this whole thing about watching over Sai since ep 01? She's the special one here, not the dove or her connections to whoever
it is she works for or what not. So just how holy can she be? No knowledge of her past? Check. In a church at such a young age? Check. A cross on her uniform? Check. Undetectable mana abilities? Check. Capable of flying? Check. Special sound [of her voice]? Check. Grand plan to save the world? Check. The way I see it, she's much more special to this whole war between the Maou and whoever is at the other end of the spectrum, in which the blond guy seems to be the other end if his upcoming final confrontation with Sai is any indication. What the dove plays into this remains to be seen, but it can be the catalyst of her power(s).
--Keena approaches Sai as her first objective being the thing about birthdays. When asked about if she is the girl of Sai's past, she's clearly not listening to it.
[u]speculation[/u]:
Only a future episode can clear up the mystery surrounding her birthday, and why Sai didn't need to know at that time.
--Keena steals yet another item from Fujiko, this time, it's something much more deadlier than a map, a monster egg.
[u]speculation[/u]:
My earlier implication of Keena being a monster magnet shows up again here. The mystery starts with how in the world did Keena even know Fujiko had the egg, when Fujiko clearly hid it from Peter and apparently she told no one but Etou oniichan. The mystery continues: this marks the second time Keena has taken something from Fujiko's black magic room, which we can now safely say all this in Etou brothers view. Why did he not say anything? He seems to have seen two things taken from Fujiko, which both were taken while Keena was invisible. Call Etou brother stupified at floating objects, but it happened twice, and he saw it happen.
--Keena a monster magnet part 2
[u]speculation[/u]:
When the double headed Gallus Domesticus hatches, who his first target? Why, Keena of course. Why attack her? Well, if my earlier implication is correct, Keena, possibly being a holy angelic being, is clearly a target of the baddies. We see it clearly went after again and again, only being sidetracked by the erotically tasty Fujiko, and *drumroll* it leaves when Sai attacks it. But wait! Look at it at another angle! What Sai may have unknowingly done was juice the chicken, of course making it bigger, but more importantly it may look like a command of the Maou to go somewhere else and wreck havoc. All those earlier scenes of Sai activating the egg, the monsters being restless due to Sai, it'll make sense with this.

The making of the mangatron's 4koma manga

2010-05-22T17:09:00.001+08:00

So, I thought I'd share with everyone just how I go about drawing my 4koma manga on my device, a business HP iPAQ hx2415 w/ 64MB RAM and 64MB storage, screen resolution of 240x320, resistive touch screen and dual memory card slots (Compact Flash and SD card), stock ROM was Windows Mobile 2003se.

The software used is Pocket Artist 3.3 for Windows Mobile 2003 or later. This is, essentially, photoshop in the palm of your hand. You have layers, brush tools, pencil tools, each with variable brush sizes. Standard tools include an erase tool, lasso, marquee tools, hand tool and temporary hand tool, as well as the move tool and more. It also includes filters, as well as a grid and ruler tools, transparency and so on, with a very useful guide tool. It is, the very definition of Photoshop in the palm of your hand.

Of course, the amount of layers you can work with and the size of your canvas determine how well the document can operate, with more device RAM you can work with larger images, supposing you have the megahertz to keep up with such large +1000 pixel images. There is of course, the resolution, as you can see in the above and below pictures, my art is hampered by my device resolution, which is a measly 240x320. That is to say, it is about 1/3 of today's largest windows mobile phone, the HTC HD2.

As you can see, even when I work in full screen, I still run out of room when drawing Keena, which I must say I had a real blast drawing her because of that hair of hers. But that blast meant it was difficult working on her hair, as you can see below Fujiko doesn't suffer from that due to her having long, flowing hair.

Of course, you're probably wondering how I finish up the rest of their body, which I simply zoom out and sketch draw, return to normal zoom and touch up.

You're now wondering why I don't upgrade to a better device with higher res screen and more RAM. Well as you may have known, they no longer make standalone PDA's, as well call them, devices without a phone radio. Nowadays smartphones are the next best thing, apparently, and it hurts, because a powerhouse like the HD2 is unusable to me because it uses a capacitive screen, thereby ruining everything I needed a resistive screen for drawing on (resistive screen are more accurate, providing you use a stylus). So until I find Toshiba's TG01 (which is to say, a resistive HD2 with 1GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and a 4.1 inch screen.

So why not use a tablet PC? Well, they are much heavier, their battery life isn't so high, and with a larger screen there is no palm rest. Also, with photoshop using as high a CPU cycle as it does, it'll drain battery life faster and make the unit hotter. Perhaps today's technology can handle it better, but currently I cannot afford to replace my laptop right now until I finish my work as I'm a traveler, so carrying two laptops doesn't sit too well with me or the TSA lol.

So there you have it, a peek into how the mangatron turns technology into a manga. If I ever do upgrade my device, I just may be able to go public and release my manga project entirely done on Windows Mobile. I would probably then be known as the Pocket PC manga-ka >_>

May 08 part 1

2010-05-08T20:41:00.000+08:00

As a part of my sub-routines, I will be posting some things that may
not make sense to you, so think of it as me making up for the lost
years.

Here it is

2010-05-08T00:34:00.001+08:00

May 08, my special day. What's so special about it? That remains my
personal secret.

Teruya Eiko in Iron Man 2

2010-05-06T11:44:00.001+08:00

So I'm sitting at my computer table, going through the recent
animesuki forum posts for Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou on my phone, and
I'm thinking about Teruya Eiko again (do I ever stop thinking about
her? ;), and I was wondering where in the world did I see it before,
in live action to boot.

And so I went through all the trailers I have for movies this year,
and fired up the Iron Man 2 Trailer #2 and there it is, Scarlett
Johansson does something similar to a Teruya Eiko Leg Wrap. From the
scene it doesn't look like she completely wrapped him, but... the
guy's reaction say's "It @#@$*#!kin hurts!".

The trailer can be seen at http://davestrailerpage.co.uk , listed
under "I", "Trailer 2". Personally I find that the best place for
trailers in a no-nonsense website.

I once was cold, but now I am hot...

2010-05-05T23:47:00.001+08:00

So, after two days of testing, I am fully healed. Thanks to an
imported medicinal from Indonesia, I, being the mad scientist that I
am, decided to test it out on myself, ready to bear any consequences
experienced thereafter.

I always believe that real scientists believe in their theories enough
to test their findings on themselves. Of course I planned ahead of
time of what I had in my possession and where its most effectiveness
will be felt. And thanks to my dare, that Nezu Haruhiko Nuclear Snot
is no more. This 2 day sickness, 3 day test proves to be my shortest
cold yet.

And now, I am so tired...

I have a cold...

2010-05-03T09:07:00.001+08:00

So, after enjoying almost a year of rehabilitating a 3 year sickness,
I had to come down with a cold now of all times.

How it happen was kinda lame. After spending last week theoretically
speculating and going berserk in my Teruya Eiko love campaign, I was
so slagged, I accidentally fell asleep... when the A/C was still on.
There I was, in my everyday clothes, not a blanket or a shirt to cover
me.

No wonder why in anime friends/family always cover a sleeping person.
Not that I didn't know that already, but I was truly slagged to the
point half my body was on the bed, the other half on the floor >_>

Lol what the hell google

2010-03-27T12:24:00.001+08:00

Sorry for the picture in the last post, Gmail decided it'd be hella
funny to re-upload the attachment. But if I do take the route of a
plumber, that is the ending to me lol...

Sent from my Treo750 (this and the previous post)

Life changing career decisions.

2010-03-27T12:20:00.001+08:00

You know, just recently I fixed a kitchen sink and a shower. Does that
make me a plumber?

In related news, I'm still doing electrical repairs, but so far no
luck on a laptop power adapter. Looks like there's more to learn.

So there's more where that came from, pard'ner

2010-02-19T04:27:00.000+08:00

So I recently got a Gundam Model Kit that I've had my eyes on for quite some time, but as you know traveling extensively really takes a toll on how much one can carry. Luckily for me half the stuff I left the USA/Germany with is now dead/worn out, so that freed up some room. I guess I'll take pictures of that some time.

And also I'll be blogging about my endeavors of my everyday life, from strange things like how many Lithium batteries I cut up to normal things like... what ever is normal anyways. so yeah, expect more from me.

Nintendo DS Lite joystick mod

2010-01-15T04:11:00.003+08:00

Maybe I'll go and claim that world's first DS Lite joystick mod, but... I think I just did. Anyways, What we have here is a mod I worked on for the same amount of time I did for my 4 speaker DS mod, and just like that as well this one is perfected. Best of all: the joystick is removable, for hot swappable lid closing portability! More on this mod here.

Q: Ok, million dollar question here. How do you do this mod?
A: If I answer, I get a million? Or are you charging me a million to answer that? I know the economy is tough these days, but gee... Well, I'll try to do this step by step.
What we'll need:
-A DS Lite. I don't have a DSi so I wouldn't suggest that right now.
-A joystick addon from the Pelican GBA SP Starter pack. I'm not sure of anything similar to this...
-A tri-screwdriver. Or is it called Tri-wing screwdriver? You know, the special kind that can unscrew Nintendo stuff. Believe it or not, I modified a flat tip to fit in 2 of the 3 slots of the Nintendo Screw, that when effort is used to turn the screw, it will turn as well as long as the flat tip of your screw driver fits well enough in the 2 of 3 slots of the screw.
-A small screwdriver. Philips or flat or cross shaped is fine, as long as it's a small kind.
-A guide to actually know how to open the DS lite. Searching online "DS lite disassembly guide" brought some nice results, try it out and see which one serves you best.
-Another DS to transfer any WiFi or other setting you may not want to lose. Removing the battery for an extended period of time will *synthesizes Sidious voice* wipe out your data. All of them.
-A soda can, or strong plastic. Or, if you have something comparable that is tough yet easy to cut/carve/slice and dice.
-One really strong, tough super glue. Or something to attach metal onto plastic, like a soldering kit maybe.
-Something similar to the width of the screw that is holding the Pelican Joystick together to it's base. I carved ABS plastic from a Gundam Model Kit parts tree and shoved it up the joystick's hole, eventually that failed so I took a small metal rod from an old bluetooth headset I had in a tech graveyard. Sounds cruel, but it's to ensure that the joystick will not fall out during gameplay and to also be able to remove the joystick when we want to close our DS (put it on standby).
-An exacto knife. Or a clone of one, as long as it's sharp and as long as it has cut you before a few times earlier in your life >_>

Some notes when fondling the innards of your DS Lite:
-Be careful of the L and R buttons. If you just aimlessly pull them out, the metal rod holding them might slip free and the spring might fly off into space.
-I start to split open the DS by starting at the D-pad side of the DS, seperate the bottom from the top starting there and it's all a matter of gazing at the circuit board underneath.

1. As you read earlier, I used the joystick addon for the GBA SP that came in the Pelican GBA SP starter kit. It looks a little something like this below: (note: It's not a GBA game case. At least when you buy it, it holds the 5 or 6 different joystick addons which unfortunately I can't show here as of now due to unforeseen circumstances [read: stowed away somewhere I don't remember where]. I ripped out the styrofoam inside and found out my GBA games can fit in there, 4 in all. Talk about Pelican pulling a fast one on us...)

Nice end to the Battle Network series, that Gregar/Falzer one...

2. When you remove the joystick+A+B button addon from the clear plastic case, turn it over (upside down) and you'll see a screw underneath the joystick. Unscrew that and you'll have two pieces, the stick and the D-pad'ish thing as seen in the first picture of this blog post. A spring will be there as well, but it's big, springless and worthless in my opinion. Remember that we will now be treating this joystick as two parts now, 1) the stick part, and 2) the cross shaped D-pad.

The joystick and the d-pad

3. The part where you'll need to have patient hands and also the part where you'll read my disclaimer: Warning. Opening your DS will void your warranty. Maybe. I didn't see that classic "removing this seal will void your warranty" sticker anywhere... But yeah, I'm not responsible for anything that may happen to you or your DS lite, ie sudden loss of battery life after applying joystick mod, an accidentally cut wire, sleepless nights from extended play, etc. Do this mod at your own discretion and at your own budget and at your own free will and in a sane and reasonable manner. Pelican is also not responsible for the mutilation you will be doing to it's joystick addon. Please mod responsibly. Thank you. Proceed.

3.5 (Please consult online documentation on disassembly of the DS lite. Be sure to heed the warnings.)

4. Once you've got your DS opened, remove the only screw that is visible and hold the circuit board together with the case. with your DS slightly opened (that is, open it like your going to play), push the touchscreen inwards (towards its internals) and the circuit board ought to go along with it. Remove the rubbery substance covering the D-pad and remove the D-pad itself and grope it to your hearts content, because it may be the last time you will get to do so.

5. If you've got that soda can, or something similar with a tough easy to cut metal/plastic, cut out a round circular CD-rom disc like thing out of the soda can/metal substance. Using the DS lite D-pad you just removed, use the quarter-like shapes underneath the DS lite D-pad to compare the size to your mini disc'ish thing. Don't worry if you don't understand, it'll all come to you when you see the underside of that D-pad. Once you've carved it into the likeness of the circle beneath the D-pad (from a top view of the D-pad it looks like there's a circle underneath), grab that Pelican cross shaped D-pad and grab some glue. An example of how the mini disc should look on the cross shaped pad below:

Tubular dude...

6. Reason for us cutting that mini disc thing out of the soda can, is because the Pelican Joystick does not have this underneath the cross shaped part. So what we'll do is glue this tough, circular object onto the base of the cross shaped d-pad, and make sure your glue is a good one, because this joystick is gonna abuse it. Be sure to use the DS lite D-pad as a reference on where to apply the mini disc onto the cross shaped pad of the joystick. Or weld this thing if glue isnt your style. Not sure how welding metal onto plastic will work...

7. Once all the glue is done in let the part dry. This next part will be a bit tricky, but if you have an easier way of doing this, it would either be to not do it or glue the stick onto your d-pad permanently. Not fun for closing your DS.

8. You'll recall we unscrewed a screw from the Pelican Joystick. This screw actually helps in holding the whole joystick together so you won't experience a dead stick some time in the close future. But wait! Do we have to put this screw back in once we shove this joystick into the DS? No! That's why we'll make a makeshift "plug" that we will be inserting into the stick part to compensate for the lack of a screw. The reason for us sticking this "plug" into the stick part and not the cross shaped D-pad is so that when we want to close our DS, we simply pull the stick part and with it the plug, leaving the cross shaped D-pad in the DS lite fitting nice enough to be closed on. So, using your exacto knife or clone of it, find a little plastic pole or similar and carve it so that on side will fit tightly into the stick part, and the other side will go into the hole of the cross shaped D-pad. Rememeber not to make that side too long, as it just won't fit. Also remember that the part that goes into the cross shaped d-pad must have a rounded tip, similar to the DS lite d-pad. Or, if model kit hobbies aren't your thing, just find a metal rod that can fit in the joystick part and have a rubber tubing as shown to hold that in place (and eventually compensate for the lack of a rounded tip)

That's the metal piece in place.

9. Once that plug is in the stick part, try connecting the stick part to the cross shaped D-pad. If the "plug" is sticking out through the hole in the cross shaped D-pad, you are good to go! As long as your super gluey thing applied to the cross shaped D-pad part was the fast drying type. Make sure that it is sticking out from beneath the cross shaped d-pad, and easier way to tell is compare your new joystick with the old DS lite d-pad.

10. Make sure that you only insert the cross shaped D-pad by itself onto the DS lite, not with the stick part as well, since it's easier to re-assemble the DS when the lid is closed.

11. So, re-assemble your DS. Remember to be careful and to consult the online documentation for disassembly (I'm sure they include re-assembly too...)

12. Once the screws are back on, battery in place and battery cover not lost as easily as the old first production model GBA battery cover, stick your stick part onto the cross shaped D-pad and oogle at your new joystick-on-a-DS mod! Except when we turn on the DS we need to re-configure it...

13. Once your DS has been reconfigured, shove a game into the Slot-1 and enjoy some joysticky action! (Shove the game in when the system is off, obviously >_>)

14. This tutorial was done in less that 15 steps!

15. Oh no! we've reached the 15th step. I forgot to add "Show this off to friends and co-workers and brag about how cool it is and how easy it is to play with".

16. Ok, no more steps. We're really done!

Enjoy and hope you didn't mind my very walls of texty explanation on making your own joystick mod for the DS Lite. This mod definitely stands among my other successful usable mods, which was a HP iPAQ hx2415 Gaming D-pad adjustment (it's a business PDA mind you, the default D-Pad sucked for gaming), and a Palm Tungsten E2 Battery transplanted to an even older HP iPAQ rz1715, which granted the iPAQ more juice (long since retired though).

If this post looks odd with a lot less pictures than you thought there'd be, that's because I didn't put much effort into this post due to tiredness. I thought I'd get this out of the way so +1 for nothing else to do when your dead tired.

More on the DS Lite Joystick mod

2010-01-15T03:51:00.004+08:00

I may have started the new year blog posts in an odd way with my DS 4 speaker mod, but being healthy yet again makes me invigorated to make proper posts like this one.

What we have here is something that's been on my mind for awhile now, as we all know how thin the Nintendo DS lite is when it is opened, I'll say the base is about as thick as two Compact Flash cards stacked on top of each other. That makes holding the DS Lite a bit tiring playing for longer than 20 minutes.

So the solution to my DS gripless problem was this odd joystick that came in a Pelican GBA SP starter pack I got a few clicks back er few years back. What was odd that when attached to the GBA SP, it's a rather tight fit and a few skipped hearbeats removing it from it's crabby grasp on the GBA SP. And you can't close the GBA SP with this thing on, so the idea of it being hard to remove wasn't a really good one there.

With my GBA SP nothing but a museum piece now, I do all my gaming on the DS and GBA games go on there without a second thought. That's when I said good riddance to the Pelican joystick and shoved that onto my DS, which we have the outcome below:

That looks like a N64 joystick would fit there...

As you can see from the pictures it fits perfectly where the original DS lite D-pad used to be. It's slightly smaller than the original DS lite D-pad, but it's the joystick on top of that that matters most.

Let's do this in an interview style:

Q: So what is the purpose of having this joystick on there?
A: Well, think about a D-Pad. You press on it, right? D-pad's aren't like the analog stick on the PSP where you slide that thing around, d-pad's are digital where you press up, down, left and right. Of course some old d-pads weren't capable of the 8 way style of today, but the mod I did brings a little taste of a joystick in the form of how it works. D-pads are pressable, right? With my mod, you just tilt the stick, or in some cases push it. NO pressing. No sweaty thumb slipping off costing you that extra point online on Nintendo WiFi.

Q: Has your gaming improved?
A: Yes it has. I get effortless kills on Metroid Prime Hunters using Kanden's Volt gun from a distance from one end of Combat Hall to the other end shooting at Elite class CPU bots (multi-card play option) while juking left and right avoiding their shots. Try rapidly tapping the L Button like that while moving left and right rapidly with the d-pad, it was hella tiring, with two fingers burning out faster than with one only.

Q: So now the index finger on your left hand hurts more?
A: Yes. Being able to transfer the D-pad strength to the index finger using the joystick, that means more presses for the L button. And more pain in the joints.

Q: So why is it on your White DS Lite and not your Japanese Ice blue DS Lite?
A: Because my import is more precious than the North American one. You know how much it cost me to import that? I wasn't about to bust open a Japanese import, first production run just like that, not to mention it has a 4 year old, scratchless screen protector(from my DS Fat) that endured early abuse like Wario Ware Touched and the Feel the Rub Rabbit series of games. No, instead I opted to test this joystick on my White DS lite, because not only was it an impulse buy, it was yet another first production run that had the faulty touchscreen calibration. Early adopters might know what I'm talking about, if you have Goldeneye Rogue Agent, that game would have the top screen shaking erratically randomly. I know it's not my cartridge because if it is I'll sue EA, because, well, I hate EA for being a big company and releasing crappy games like Rogue Agent. Note I did check reviews online before buying, it's just that DS releases were slow that time of the year and waiting for Advance Wars Dual Strike wasn't fun, so off I went to the store, the wonderful store of all... By the way, I sort have fixed the touchscreen problem by adding a weird, anti glossy, slightly thick low grade screen protector. The Goldeneye shutterbug happens less, but still happens. Talk about messed up...

Q: Does the joystick come off during gameplay?
A: No, thanks to some modding I did to compensate for the lack of a screw that originally held the joystick together. A rubberized tubing for the joystick part made it more difficult to pull off.

Q: What if you want to standby in a flash?
A: Well, if you've gotta do a piss-break (honestly, who hasn't done that at least once in their online FPS gaming life?), simply put a magnet on top of the ABYX buttons. No seriously, it'll work, it has to be in the center but if you have a large magnet it'll work even when on top of the ABYX buttons. Or you can use a busted headphone speaker, similar to an example in the latter photo below (in this case, I used a speaker from an Palm E2). Face the speaker face down (face the side where sound comes out face down) and if it is the slightly magnetic type it will put the DS on standby. While it is open. Or just pull the joystick and close your DS. Your call.

Note the off screens and the standby light on.

Q: How do you close the DS? Is the joystick removable?
A: Amazingly enough, it is. As you can see in the following pictures, a special plug was made from Gundam Model Kit parts trees and shoved into where the Pelican screw used to be. In this way, if you want to close your DS and pocket it, simply pull the joystick upward and it'll pop right out. When closed, the DS lite has a slight opening as you can see in the latter images. It can still be closed shut, it just stays like that if you don't fit it into something like a jeans pocket or tight slip case.

Note the right side of the DS and compare to the left.

That is a direct frontal view, note how much the joystick part sticks out.

Q: Any pros/cons?
A: While I think you know very well what the Pros would be, the only Con I can think of is that it is a bit loud, but that could be 2 factors, 1) My White DS lite is known for that (my Ice Blue DS lite is quiet due to extended use), or 2) It could be because the joystick cross shaped D-pad is a bit smaller than the original DS lite D-pad. It's the rubber pads that are making the noise, so it could be just my DS lite. Note: ADRESSED THE NOISY JOYSTICK problem. It's as quiet as the old d-pad now. Another bad thing: I broke the power switch, which, unsurprisingly enough, is not uncommon for those with DS Lite's. But as always I fixed it, it's even better than the default none broken one.

Sure doesn't look like it used to...

Hey look, it's on!

Q: Are there other joystick parts besides that round thing with 4 arrows?
A: The Pelican GBA Starter Pack includes about 5 or 6, from what I remember it is: The one in my pictures, a ridiculously larger version of that, 1 that is similar to the analog stick on the PSP, and possibly a larger one of that, and an odd, taller version of the one in my pictures. Of course, anything that fits and is comfortable, like the one in the picture below, works. (It's this funky rubberized microphone cover I ripped out of an old telephone.)

Q: Will this work for the DS Phat (1st gen DS)?
A: No, partially because the DS Phat has the d-pad at such a thin size when viewed from the side, if you were to add anything the DS definitely will not close. That and I can't think of anything similar that is the size of the rather large DS Phat D-pad. That d-pad on there is huge, a lot fatter than you'd think...

Q: Why are you using Top Gun DS as an example, of all games?
A: Because that game has a special part in my video game buying history. Not only is the touch screen useless in the game (seriously, it's not a map), it is the only game that I bought after reading negative reviews. I checked weekly DS releases on Gamespot, saw Top Gun in the release list for that week, saw the review rating and read the review, laughing at how bad the reviewer said it to be (with a Good being the Top Gun theme playing in the menu screen). So I went out to the store, bought Top Gun DS, stuck it into my DS and what do you know, after doing the tutorial and all that, jumping into Free Play for the first time I was laughing at the "He's got a lock on me!" and that laughter instantly died down when I realized how bad the hit detection was, how the gun was pretty much as strong as rapid fire missiles, how easy it was to get shot down, and so on and so forth. Money well spent? Think about it! I own a rare piece of history! A game I knowingly knew was bad but went and bought it anyways just to have the sorry butt cartridge in my hands! XD

Note the power switch left on the on position. No more accidental power-off's now! As if one could accidentally slide it off...

Q: How many DS's do you have?
A: 3, one grey/black DS Phat first production run, one imported Japanese Ice Blue DS lite first production run, and one North American White DS lite first production run. I must have fell in love with buying them when they were first produced, huh...

Q: So you like anime girls?
A: This is not the place to discuss that.

So, there we have it. Another successful post, another successful mod.

The world's first Nintendo DS 4 internal speaker mod?

2009-12-31T23:54:00.011+08:00

Hey there, GameFaqs contributor einsteinecker here (I'm better known as mangatron in the anime world) So here we are, 10 months later from it's conception, (possibly) the world's first 4 Speaker Nintendo DS mod. Well, I've not the time to go through those 140,000+ search results, so for now I will lay claim to the title. It shouldn't have taken this long, but sickness, acquisition of HSDPA internet, writing FAQs for GameFaqs, and that other DS mod kept me quite busy till I eventually posted this on such a time of the year. So while I'd like to divulge on the details, I'll leave that for the full story here. On to the parts:

-A Nintendo DS Fat (grey and black first production run)
-2 Internal speakers from Palm Tungsten devices, or some DS Lite speaker parts from Dealextreme would be nice, except for the part where they are too large. Radioshack anyone?
-2 Copper wires measuring about 10 inches long in length, about half a millimeter thick
-Plastic (preferably rubber) tubing to fit the wires inside
-Triwing screwdriver (I used a flat tip optimized to fit the DS size)
-Flat tip screw driver (that's why I modified a flat tip for both triwing use and cross/horizontal screws)
-Some electric tape (personally I prefer Masking tape, with the right one it won't leave a mark in the long run)
-Super Glue. Super? Maybe there's something else called instant glue? What about Forever Glue? That might make a good name...
-Maybe a soldering gun, but I didn't use one. Simple, right?
-Rubber gloves or a static wrist-strap like for computers, that's if you work on the DS while it's on
-Hobby knives for cutting the new speaker holes.
-Speaker covers (those round black ones came from the Tungsten speakers)

Flash is used to try and show the cutouts where the new speakers are. The Palm T|X was used to lessen the flash reflection on the DS screens (darkest object I could find nearby, without it I have a ghastly picture)

Hmm, I don't know whether or not I should put instructions, I mean the pictures are plenty self explanatory, right? This isn't like deciding whether or not the voltage is correct, or replacing the wifi module, or replacing the screens. A couple of wire insertions and steady hands is all it takes... Or maybe I can put up some resources (really, I don't even know how to explain this in a DIY way, to me it's very simple, but yeah I know what's simple to me may not be simple to others, so...)

Those wires actually fit in there...

Ah heck, maybe I'll make it simple. Start by opening your DS. This site sounds like a good place to go. Start by removing the backing of the top screen, then the base of the lower screen, since we'll need the top exposed. The top of the DS, that is... ahem, I should note if you have any wifi game settings you'd might want to move it over to another DS since removing the battery for more than 15 seconds resets to factory defaults. Anyways, our first move would be to remove the mainboard down on the bottom half of the DS, and then hold the DS on it's side, mainboard facing you (like you're playing Hotel Dusk) and use your four fingers to lift the touchscreen up, in turn also lifting the mainboard from its roots.

For me, I started from the bottom working my way to the top. We'll start by cutting holes into the DS shell right where we want the speakers to go. And yes, I carved both holes while the mainboard was still in place. Simple right? Hint: start cutting on the outside. Once your foxholes have been dug, place your speakers as shown below. I secured them with super glue.

Don't mind that Goldeneye game cart. There just wasn't any other FPS that year, that's all...

Now let's wire this place. As you can see in the pics, the rubberized tubing only went through the hinge part of the DS, my method of making this quick and simple (you know how hard it was to carve those holes?) I start by inserting the left speaker wiring through the hinge, followed by the right (take note the right wiring might need a bit longer wiring than the left speaker) Once the wiring is setup up on the bottom of the DS, place the mainboard in its spot and put the base of the DS back on. We're moving up top.

Hope the camera flash isn't too blinding...

The top screen of the DS is no laughing matter. As you can see, I severed the wire connecting the right (left) speaker to the circuit board. Of course such a thing can easily be worked around, so I'll caution you that you just might ruin your wiring. Now attach the wires to the main speakers, before I simply attached them to the main wiring itself but that didn't work in the long run. By attaching them to the main speakers themselves, opening and closing the DS won't interfere with the wiring too much. (yeah, I tried attaching them to the main wiring itself, wasn't a good result)

Note where the blue circled wires end.

So, with that done, I guess you can test it out! Except when you power on your DS for the first time, you will have to re-input all your data! Mwuahahaha!

Guess which is the 2 speaker loudness and the 4 speaker mod. Tested using a mono microphone setup though so the obvious is even less painfully obvious...

Enjoy your ear deafening 4 speaker DS mod! Next upgrade: inserting a subwoofer! Hoo-rah!

FAQs

-Q: What's the purpose of this mod?
-A: Well, as with all of my mods, it starts as a proof of concept kind of thing, then if it works, I turn it into a full fledged working mod. Those battery mods I've been doing are like that. That and connecting the DS to a computer is just... I don't know, not worth it? Because what I did before was connect my DS to my desktop computer with a 4 speaker setup, which was also connected to a surround sound system with two 3 foot tall 1980's era speakers. Now that's connecting it to the computer. But then your playing a handheld with its strings attached to a desktop computer... hence this mod.
-Q: So how loud is it?
-A: Very loud. DS players who own more than one type would know the DS Fat is louder than the DS Lite (unfortunately, I don't have a DSi to test). Surround sound enabled games like those from Nintendo (Metroid Prime Hunters, Mario Kart etc) sound even better with this 4 speaker mod.
-Q: How's the battery life?
-A: Hard to say. The battery that's in there right now is the one from purchase, and that means it's the first production run DS battery from 5 years ago! With the battery operating at less than half of it's rated capacity, I only get around 2-2/12 hours of gameplay now. So no telling how much juice is being used (although I noticed even less playing time when the volume is full blast.

Sneak preview of my other awesome mod: possibly the world's first built-in joystick mod for the DS Lite, removable as well enabling the DS to close!

You have no idea how much better FPS gaming has been with this joystick mod.

Comments are open to anybody, Google members or not.

The story behind the making of the 4 Speaker Nintendo DS mod

2009-12-31T23:47:00.004+08:00

So, on this last day of the year, I finally post this mod I started back in February, before that major stomach flu/food poisoning incident that crippled me for 3 months. Thanks to that sickness though, I realized no one lives forever, and so I said "This DS won't live forever either, so why not cut it up..."

I actually had second thoughts about this one. This wasn't the same as totally taking apart my Palm OS devices, or taking batteries from one device and moving it to another, this is my First Nintendo Ds, that grey and black first production run DS, the very same with a Metroid Demo and Thumb stylus strap. I have a sort of special feeling for first time devices, and I really hated cutting holes into this thing and removing screws.(My AfterBurned Original Indigo Gameboy Advance doesn't count, right?) But what I had going against my personal feelings, were several reasons:

-This DS is wearing out. I'm talking fading colors (the grey is turning white, an ominous sign of aging), serial bar code disappearing, battery that lasts about 1/4th of it's rated output, not to mention it's not really that bright and the colors just aren't up to the DS lite/DSi.
-It's heavy. Seriously, I'm not really up to holding up this thing for extended periods of time (the aforementioned sickness had me lose about 16 pounds and severely weakening my muscles).
-It's getting old to the point where a just-as-old game "Feel the Magic XY/XX" is having a working rate of 20% (The DS is having trouble reading the cart, despite the cartridge's contacts cleaned regularly). Cleaning the DS's Slot-1 contacts isn't having any results whatsoever.

The DS shows its age. Note the white-ish parts. With a little bit of work, I can turn it into a white DS!

So, rather than toss this nostalgic piece of history, I decided to mod it. Now, I really didn't think it was going to work, I also didn't like the part where the DS might end up in the grave before me, but I said what the heck, No turning back now. I succesfully ripped a battery from my Palm OS Tungsten E2 and put it in my HP iPAQ rz1715, I braved electric shocks to temporarily revive my Casio Exilim Camera, I heavily modified my HP iPAQ hx2415's D-pad into a gaming friendly version, I was on a roll to the point where I ended up being known as the "Repairman" in the family.

The Casio Exilim camera in its current state.

Looks like an ordinary LG Chocolate cell phone, huh?

Until you find out I shoved my Gameboy Advance Micro's battery into it. Yes, I can make calls, take pictures, play music, etc. just like before the mod. And it charges through the phone.

So what we have here is a 4 speaker mod for the Nintendo DS. Originally I planned to add only 1 speaker (from the previously mentioned Tungsten E2), as well as using Fruit Ties for the cabling (don't ask). Later through several weeks of testing I find the Fruit Ties cable setup being too stiff, lacking flexibility to twist along with the upper screen. It was around this time that another one of my ancient devices, a Palm OS Tungsten E, died when I apparently forgot to charge it (it was kept on life support, constantly connected to a USB port for juice and itself being used for Palm application testing)

With another Tungsten speaker in hand, I sought out a dead electric water heater kettle and ripped the wiring out to give me the flexible cabling I needed. The end result: A beautiful sounding handheld gaming system using up double the battery life of the already paltry amount available.

So the big questions are, why a speaker mod? It wasn't my first choice, actually. I tried to give the screen more brightness, or higher contrast (I find the DS Fat to be a nice size for my hands, if only it weren't so heavy). My additional lamps weren't lighting up, so I ended up brightening up the top screen with a more highly reflective mirror reflector taken from the previously mentioned Casio Exilim camera. My question is, why didn't Nintendo include this in the first place? (The mirror-like piece of plastic goes directly behind the LCD screen, mysteriously not present in my DS Fat) By lengthening it to go under the backlight, it was able to brighten up the screen, so much so it's close to the DS lite at it's lowest setting!

Intermission time. Guys, I have to ask, does your wife (or girlfriend for those with significant others) do this? Maybe a kiss? Or is this only in Japan...

After brightening up the top screen, I thought of several things, like adding a joystick in place of the D-pad, putting Dreamcast-like triggers in place of the L and R buttons, I even thought of making an extending antennae for the Wifi module. But those were make or break mods, modifications of existing components that if something broke, there's no going back. So I decided on "additions", add-ons with no modification to existing electrical components, thereby lowering the failure rate. At an earlier time, when I opened my DS to optimize the L and R buttons, I made note of that ridiculous amount of space inside the DS. Really, this system is so mod friendly, I wonder why there isn't much mods for it (a quick search on google several weeks ago only gave me links to PSP mods)

Adding a thin piece of anything hard like in the above pic helps the L and R buttons.

So my research told me that that Tungsten E2 can really be chopped up (I was more than happy to rip it apart, several years ago that was $200 down the drain with Palm's half assed approach to a minor "upgrade" from it's previous PalmOS devices. I later bought a Palm T|X to forgot those years). My Joystick and Dreamcast triggers ideas led me to look at that vast amount of space on the sides of the DS, one could probably fit that PSP analog stick in there. So that brought me to that other new thing bugging me of late: being in a hot country, with killer humidity levels, the A/C is on usually during the times I do my gaming sessions. Sure, headphones make a big difference in both quality and enjoyment, but I've been sticking those in my ears for 2 decades now and I'm on a quest to preserve my already great hearing. That, and I just don't like the cabling getting in the way of anything, which is probably why I use a bluetooth headset for my cell phone.

The Tungsten E2 in its current state.

So I ultimately decided that my mod had to be a speaker mod. Additional speakers in the unit would not only look cool, but it would enhance those games with surround sound, as well as not require me to wear headphones. Look, I got nothing against headphones, I use both earbud and over the ear types, mostly while gaming on my laptop, but those, especially the massive ones that cover your ears completely like ear muffs, aren't friendly when it comes to ambiance, or rather the important sounds of everyday life (I can easily miss a text message or even a phone call with headphones on) With an increase in sound volume from the source, I won't need to use headphones, and I won't miss a call or message. Or the doorbell when the mailman has a package. Or the overflights of airliners landing at the nearby airport...

The speaker candidates. Left to right: speaker from HP iPAQ rz1715, speaker from Casio Exilim camera, speaker from Samsung Upstage phone, and an unnamed speaker from some Gamecube candy holder.

The Gamecube in question. Note the 3 holes.

So the birth of the 3 speaker DS, eventually evolving into the better 4 speaker DS.

The 3 speaker mod in it's earliest conception.

Fun facts (or the painful truth's)

-While working on the battery switch of the Tungsten E2 - Hp iPAQ rz1715, as well as reviving the Casio Exilim camera, I got shocked several times, giving me the taste of the reality of tasers. I had two super nasty shocks out of several: One when the Casio camera mysteriously had charged the camera's flash module, letting me have a taste of a full flash discharge, and the other when trying to fit the E2 battery into the rz1715, I held the negative contact with one hand and the other hand was holding the positive. The most brain numbing I ever got came, and the battery super heated to such a high level I literally threw the battery across the room.(Don't ask why I forgot about human conductivity...) I was that close to having it blow up in my face. So when working on the DS mod, I used rubber gloves and continually discharged any static I may have had (the DS had to be on when attaching the speakers, so as to test levels and usability when opening/closing the DS)
-I thought of using an even bigger screen in place of the current one on the top. Believe it or not, the backlight flex cable is exactly the same size as the one used for Palm's Tungsten series (hence why I tried to add them before this 4 speaker idea, it actually fit and lit up). I'm not surprised though, at a time when Sony declared LCD shortages and dropping out of the Palm race because of that, to see the same tech in two completely different devices didn't surprise me (same way an old iPAQ rz1715 had the same sized battery as the Tungsten E2 that came 2-3 years later)
-The DS Fat doesn't not have rubber conductive pads. It instead has a similar standard button layout of handheld devices of its time, silver metallic discs on top of a circuit board. Had it had the rubber conductive pads of the DS Lite, this would have been nice to mod a joystick into, as well as give more spring to the ABXY's step. Or perhaps that low layout is more ideal for modding...
-You might have noticed some odd carvings in the case. At the headphone port, I had to carve a curve large enough for my stereo headphones 3.5mm plug to fit into there (and by that, I mean those large, ear covering style headphones. To be honest, I found only my iPod headphones to fit in the space allowed by Nintendo (and YOU know how small the 3.5mm plug is on the iPod headphones)
-I thought of putting LEDs inside the case (a la Lock's Quest LE DS) to light up some crevices in the DS, but alas, given my battery situation and those rash of news of exploding batteries I decided to just forget about lighting up my DS and instead stay with the 4 speaker layout.
-I had several candidates for the speakers, although it was too rare to find two of the same [sized] speakers to use. Perhaps it was fate that led me to buy that Tungsten E2, which would probably be one of the few series of devices I have bought (the DS's being one of them, as well as my GBA's.)
-Believe it or not, I thought of adding a third screen. Yeah, it would have worked too. In fact, it is possible, just not in the way you are thinking. See, my idea involved adding one of the dead Tungsten E's on top of the DS, itself being powered by the DS's battery. The Palm device being separate, it would have been ideal for FAQ writing and viewing (I myself a FAQ contributor for GameFaqs). Alas, we are faced with that battery drain issue. It's a nice concept though... I just prefer Windows Mobile over PalmOS.

Look forward to my DS Lite joystick mod.

Happy Holidays! How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?

2009-12-25T22:10:00.002+08:00

Hey Hey Hey it's a Happy Holiday! Yeah, it's that time of the year where family gathers and gives each other Nintendo 64 boxes, aka the N64 Kid, aka .... clothes. Really though, I know that clothes is the #1 gift to give for Christmas, but why? Especially when it's summer clothes, why give such a gift during winter time? (most countries, yeah I come from Germany)

Anyways, per my usual tradition, I watch Die Hard 2: Die Harder this time of the year. I know, odd isn't it? There's a whole lot of other Christmas movies out there and I watch Die Hard 2? Hey, it's not the only movie I watch, it's just the one that has a funny story attached to it.

You see, back in 2006 AFN Europe aired Die Hard 2 on their AFN Movies channel. Since this is a tradition of mine, I decided to watch theirs. Oh yeah, how fun that was. AFN Movies being a channel even kids can access, their version of Die Hard 2 was heavily censored LOL (curse words, complete lack of blood, and most notably, the famous Icicle in the eye stabbing. Remember that? Unedited you see the icicle in the guys eye, but not in the AFN one lol) Sure, I've seen Die Hard 2 plenty of times on broadcast in the USA, but I went into this one thinking AFN at least kept it original (PG13 isn't the only rated movies they air)

After that I had to watch the DVD. No way was I going to sully the day with an edited version of a classic. XD

So yeah, Happy Holidays and here's my recommended movies for this day of the year:

Die Hard 1
Die Hard 2
Jingle all the way
Home Alone 1
Home Alone 2
Wonderful Life
Night at the Museum

Coming up next: The first ever Nintendo DS 4 Speaker mod, made by me!

Image posting test

2009-11-27T07:49:00.000+08:00

So, seems some changes went on in Blogger that I didn't even notice, and images won't show up on my other blog. So let's see if blog templates have an effect.

Water! Water everywhere! Who you gonna call?

2009-10-02T05:16:00.001+08:00

Fire control?

Some of you may recall I'm in the Philippines right now. Tropical Storm Ketsana, Typhoon Ketsana, whatever the world wants to call it, I didn't like it. No, it wasn't the water, no it wasn't the ensuing widespread blackout for more than a day, no no no. It was the fact that I was even here to experience this nightmare, is what riles me.

Sure, I was born and raised in Germany, where the worst flooding I saw was one that engulfed my shoes. Shoes. Right now I'm looking out my window and I see beachfront property. Houses on water? How about houses in water, that's what it's like now. And it's The Sixth Day already. No, not something Arnold Governator is responsible for. In fact, when Grey Davis left house and the Governator came aboard, I never saw a power outage in the time I was in L.A. since then. So yeah, we could use a Governator in this country. In fact, get rid of this corrupt government including that not-so-bright 1-million-peso-dinners president. POOR HANDLING OF THIS FLOODING. Poor judgements made. Bad calls, missed calls, hell even iPhone style dropped calls all because of this government.

I don't like this country one bit. I never did. This government shot down any hopes of me changing my negative views on this country. I somehow feel that whenever the USA takes their military out of a country, the country changes for the worse. Maybe because with a USA Military presence, said country wouldn't want to screw themselves over in case of an international incident. Now, I can't include Germany in all this, even though I was there when the USA military had a strong presence (Frankfurt AM Main) till they are just down to two (well known) base locations. I've seen bases close down, and bring the jobs they brought to the local community down the drain. While I'd like to delve more into my life in Germany, right now I'm not home. Yes, right now I'm in an island, that is surrounded by water, and ironically it is also filled with water as well. Sure, some areas aren't flooded anymore, but why?

Why is it Day 6 and there's still water where I'm at? Thankfully, no water has entered the residence that I'm staying in, but seriously. How long will it take to have this water go away? I propose we MOAB bomb this water out. Oh, but then, they'd have to ask help from The Americans just to do that. If only this country wasn't so rotten...

/end rant.

So in the meantime, while I'm stationary in the upper floors, I fixed my DS PHat 3 speaker mod. I did that... by cutting a crucial wire. Wow.

More added information regarding Ayano's past

2009-08-20T06:30:00.001+08:00

This is to continue the previous posts about Ayano from Luminous Arc 2 from my posts at GameFaqs.

I know my previous posts were just snippets of that vast collection of notes I gathered in my research, but well, I opened a door, so might as well see what's inside.

It's odd that there's no mention of an elemental wizard. Take Pip for example, not really an element major. Added to the fact that there is also no mention of Crests for wizards as well, so this leads me to believe wizards are probably users of a wide range of magic, not entirely stuck to one element, as opposed to the witches, pretty much using only one kind of element. there has been no mention or portrayal that I can remember in the game of a witch using a second type of magic. But then this whole thing is centered around those who have an aptitude to using magic are witches(female) and wizards(male), and as they eventually perform well with one element, that will ultimately decide their aptitude to that element. But so far I've only seen elements tied to the witches... Remember that the Crests must choose their witch, which according to the game specifically mentions "Witch". There, again, no mention of a Crest for Wizards. In fact, I don't recall any mention of a Lapistier for Wizzy's either...

Now I'm well aware that there were some Navilian survivors, and I even contemplated that perhaps that Rune Knight may have lived for a bit more, but all this is confused by Beginning Day, which states it ended Navilian civilization 4000 years ago, around the time of Elicia's sealing. Mostly where my Phoenix Inferno theory comes from, but let's see why there may have been Navilian survivors:

-The demon blade was created after Elicia's sealing, as it has strong ties to the Masters. Possibly created by Ayano.
-Sophia is probably the only documented direct descendant of an Navilian. She wasn't just magically created...
-The Navilians of course were the ones who made Carnava Palace, as there were, apparently survivors of Beginning Day who founded the whole country.
-The seals were also created by them, which obviously happened after Elicia's sealing, as well as the Conclusion gate, which was eventually sunk into the sea.
-They also left behind those clues, legends, and what not, the ones which Bharva eventually pieced together.
-While I'm not sure if Ayano had the Mother Lapis made, the fact is it's tied to the Magic Association, which she has a hand in. On the other hand, the Nav's were the source behind the Queen's chair... >_>

Here's where the fun begins. Let's start with Beginning Day. It apparently ended Nav civilization, yet some survived. Now we know Carnava isn't the only place on the planet with life, there are obviously other countries as well (Moose), but then again these countries most likely popped up after Beg. Day. Now we know there's a planet, but no mention of whether or not the Nav's occupied the entire planet. We do know that the planet is pretty much mostly rich in magic, since the Granseal draws its power from it. And yet, what is this Beg. Day and why end all(some) Nav life as we know it?

Who remember's the Althea ending? Remember the words? If I remember correctly, it's something along the lines of "We are born of the flames, and to the flames we return." This is, in my belief, the Phoenix Theory, how life starts/ends. Obviously the Nav's got flamed up as a start, but why end them with the flames? That's where my Phoenix Inferno being cast 4000 years ago comes from, as it was stated that although Life magic was rumored to have ended them, I believe it was because of Elicia performing the Life Magic where the rumor comes from, but not exactly the cause of Nav demise.

Confirmation of my GameFaqs post regarding Master Mattias

2009-08-20T06:28:00.001+08:00

This is a backup of the post I did at GameFaqs' board for Luminous Arc 2.

Ah that B-witched article, I remember talking about those with some of the early players. Sparked quite a few Kaph followers XD

In response to Nargrakhan's contributions:

Don't take these the wrong way, I'm not trying to disprove you but rather clarify some things you might not know about.

From what I remember there weren't really apprentices to possibly all of the witches. This is due to the Crest choosing its witch, which I really don't see them training their replacements immediately after that lol. We'll also note that Sadie has been alove for a long time, and who knows how long the Wind Crest stuck to her. As for the Verdure witch, as I stated earlier she really wouldn't have trained an apprentice had she had the position just recently. We'll also note that Pop most likely was born around, or after the Granend Event 15 years earlier, and she of course worked hard enough for the Nature Crest thingy to accept her.

I honestly believe the Flame and Shadow Frost witch positions were filled in yet either, as it hasn't been explained what caused the SF's demise, had there been one. We also know that Stevey and Gaston were good friends with Mattias, so no words from them about Roland's mother just gets thrown in the large pile of stories with "heroes with no mothers". As for the Flame witch position, I really don't think that has been filled for a while prior to Granend Event, or maybe not ever at all. We'll note Althea has been training since Ayano found her (Squirrel Barbecue event), and the fact that the other students weren't really fond of Althea, kind of make me think that Fire position wasn't going to be filled anytime soon, further slowed by Fatima pilfering the Crest.

I also don't believe that Sadie has done an Unity before. As we heard from Josie, there's hasn't been two Masters present at the same time. For Sadie to unite with Mattias and then Roland would kind of really destroy the purpose of swearing ones loyalty, especially something as sacred as Uniting. Add to the fact that Sadie is kind of anti-social, we also take into account that Roland's initiation was the only one where she was present, as it was only till after the Granend Event that she held onto the second piece of Mother Lapis. Thinking about it, Sadie only deemed Roland worthy of the trial after battling, and losing to him. Perhaps Sadie battled with Mattias 15 years earlier to see if he's worthy of a kiss, and maybe he lost.

Maybe I should note that, if I remember it correctly, Mattias had just become a master about a year before Granend Event. But, it wasn't long after that he had his "mental fits" where he found out about the Demon Blade. Remember what happened? He shut himself out many times from the outside world, and according to the previous Brilliant witch, who tried to help him only to be brushed off. This leads me to believe Mattias wasn't friendly with anybody, much less having bonded with anyone.

But I'm not done lol. Recall Mattias's above situation. He wasn't really Master long, where he ends up training Fatima. This also leads me to believe that there has not been a Shadow Frost witch in a while, much less one present at the time, due to Mattias specifically training Fatima for the sole purpose of using Frozen Void, which we all know would eventually kill Fatima. So it really would not have been possible for an existing SF witch to be present, if Mattias' plan was "Train Fatima, have SF Crest recognize her, bond with her and eventually use her to destroy the world behind the gate", which of course, was his plan from the start.

Don't forget one of Mattias' last words: *to Roland* "You have something I didn't(could never) have: Friends" (clarification needed) which further leads us to believe there was no bonding with him.

Confirmation of my Ayano story FAQ at gamefaqs part1

2009-08-14T13:37:00.001+08:00

This is to confirm my post at the Gamefaqs boards for Luminous Arc 2 concerning Witch titles, in case someone sees fit to rip me.

Hmm, it has been more than half a year since I wrote that brain fried post, so not even I remember where I pulled the Sadie reference from >__<;

I do suggest you read the following, it's excerpts from my undisclosed guide, which is a great read for LA2 players who were befuddled by the story (or lack of storytelling)

To address some of your questions/comments, Althea more so a witch than Ayano simply for the fact that in that modern world, there has to be 6 element witches, with that Fire spot quite vacant. Of course, after all those years there hasn't been a successor of the one that died 15 years ago, and you can bet when Althea unlocked her latent potential that the fire crest, at that moment being held by a girl most coldest in the world, scurried over to the nearest burning superior intellect nearby.

About Ayano, she is in fact a witch, just not in the class of human witches. The human witches are those born after the 4000 yr ago event, with the 6 elementals thing most likely created by Ayano to help police the world. Let's remember this through some in-game facts:

-Navilians have a high knowledge of magic, making them all pretty much magic users, because,
--Their language is great for spellcasting.
-But their language died out 4000 years ago when,
--The "Beginning Day" event happens. All life dies out when, guess what? I believe someone cast Phoenix Inferno!(or a navilian version of it) While it doesn't exactly say Phoenix Inferno(it's Phoenix Theory) is the cause, the facts are:
--Phoenix Inferno destroys all in it's wake (its a world destroyer class magic), probably thanks to a girl and her lover,
---The last Rune Knight, who was around over 4000 years ago! I kinda remember that the Phoenix Inferno can only be cast when the witch and her master are one and in tune, but wait! The title of Master only appeared after the Beginning Day event, so in that time it was most likely not a Master but rather the Rune Knight.
-With (most likely) Phoenix Inferno wiping out all the Navilians, Ayano makes it her mission that the language dies along with them, and to create a new order of magic users to ensure magic does not destroy again. The 6 elemental witches are titles second only to the Mage Queen, one element controlled by one person each, most likely again a method conceived by Ayano to ensure one witch does not control all elements.
-Don't forget, Ayano is the Director of the Magic Association.
-The Rev Magic Academy has been around for over 4000 years.
-Ayano owns the Rev academy because the building is hers (most likely all the other Magic Heritage sites as well).
--She owns those places since 1, she has a ton of money, and 2, being the last Navilian on the planet pretty much gave her everything lol...
-In short, Ayano is a witch, but that of before the Beginning Day event. In their time she is just a plain magic researcher who helped spearhead Elicia's work.

continue below decks.

Confirmation of my Ayano story FAQ at gamefaqs part2

2009-08-14T13:33:00.001+08:00

This is to confirm my post at Gamefaqs Luminous Arc 2 board concerning Witch titles.

Fun facts: (a bit of theories, but they make sense if you add up all the horribly scattered pieces throughout the game)

-Did you figure it out yet? I'm not sure, but I believe Ayano was the one who cast the Phoenix Inferno that caused Beginning Day. It makes sense when she is the only survivor, and Rune Knight guy, most likely her lover, dies out early since he wasn't cursed by Elicia, and Ayano, later on, pretty much is sick of immortality, if I remember her words correctly she made note of how "she doesn't have any friends because they [would]/did die eventually, leaving her alone again". Would make sense that she doesn't want any more friends if her lover, Mr Rune Knight, died, breaking her heart.
-How did that guy die anyways? Well, Phoenix Inferno destroys all, ja? Remember how when Althea cast it, Roland pretty much had no way to survive, had it not been for Ayano's charm? Ayano most likely created the charm to avoid a repeat of her inability to protect her lover(she probably learned a thing or two from her own immortality curse). Anyways, how did that guy die? Well, say when Ayano cast Phoenix Inferno, she knew not even herself would survive, but when she cast it, Elicia in all her power cursed Ayano with longevity, which pretty much canceled out Phoenix Inferno, making her the sole survivor!
-But wait! Wasn't PI supposed to kill all? Well, not Elicia, remember she has 2 forms. Ayano most likely cast it on the humanized Elicia, pretty much weakening her, enabling Ayano to finally seal Ahrtania along with her. Remember how the game ends? Roland and co weaken the humanized Elicia, then kill off her Queen form with PI.
-Althea most likely knew this due to her being pretty much a duplicate of Elicia.
-Ayano probably had the Mother Lapis created with the heart and soul of her lover, Mr Rune Knight. Remember that the Master position was created with the intent of leading the magic association, and that Mother Lapis would choose said master wisely, one who fits the bill. But why even bother?
-"Nothing lasts forever." Words from Ayano's very own cute mouth. She most likely knew that the Great Seals weren't going to last forever, so she created the Master position so that said Master dude would eventually find his lover witch, make out with her, become one etc so that when Elicia woke up again, there would be a Phoenix Inferno waiting for her all over again. LOL!

I better stop lol. It's 4 AM and I can keep going on and on, except.... these were all taken from my unreleased guide, the absolute answer to all the unexplained story elements of Luminous Arc 2. From these posts, you can pretty much see that this game is probably a whole lot deeper than they meant to show. What, maybe not enough budget or not enough space, whatever the case I feel strongly about my above speculation, which, at this moment is not confirmed but gee whiz, you gotta admit. 230+ hours into this game, I spent a great deal of that ripping the story apart enough to conclude those above findings. time will tell if I'm correct or not...

---
Mobile posting is tough on the thumbs...

Opera mini 3.10 test

2009-06-24T20:52:00.001+08:00

Well well, a bit late for this, but this is a test for those quotation errors of the previous posts. Let's see if Opera Mini can survive the rigors of mobile blogging.

That's
Where's
There's
What's it accelerate? (lol)
How's

Posted via Yahoo Mail Full browsing via Opera Mini 3.10 via Esmertec's java running on a Palm Treo 750 with Windows Mobile 6 ROW WWE 2.27.

In sickness and in health...

2009-06-02T09:44:00.004+08:00

Is that how it goes? I wouldn't know, I haven't gotten married. Yet? Er, anyways, I figured this would be the right time to explain that awefully long absence I had since my last transmission online (I believe that was on the GameFaqs forum for Luminous Arc 2)

That week, 3rd week of February, I encountered my worst stomach flu/food poisoning yet. That marks the 5th time I've gotten sick while in this country (Philippines) and you'd think that by now I'd be just about sick of this country. (If you know about that joke from NGE(Evangelion) about Germany being the worst, that is nothing more than a joke because this Philippines wins hands down for basically the most unhealthiest country that [I've been to so far].) While I'm not going to lament the serious lack of hygiene or the utter lameness of cleanliness, this country really needs some heavy sanitation done on it. I mean, the way the food is handled in this country... really makes me say "I'm definitely a foreigner..."

Putting my thoughts on this country aside, the sickness lasted over 3 months, at times it got so bad I just had to lie in bed, now and then unable to have even the strength to hold my DS Lite (The DS Phat just seemed to have gotten even heavier). Now I've lost a heck of a lot of weight, I eat less and even more of less (or more or less lesser), and, well, I'm back to where I started, but lost 3 months in the process, and this is the first time I've taken so much medicine (orally and external application.) Not to mention nowadays I just have no apettite for food, in some cases I am under orders to eat at least a bite of something (forcing me to cook my own food since buying food made out there is like, a death sentence or something) While I understand that I can't work without some form of food for energy, I just can't help but wonder, is this country worth it? The work that brings me here, is that something I should continue doing? (There's something funny about Germans working in southeast asia, My uncle worked in Singapore for a bit.)

I ponder the worth of this country, and whether or not the citizens even care about their own country (I mean the air quality, the AIR quality!! I didn't even mention the food. Ok now I did...)

Hopefully now, with wireless broadband and a little luck, I hope to be back in full gear and ready to post some interesting things that happened during my rehab. Well, that and I had to help a few people over at the XDA developers forum. So from my Blackberry Curve browsing to my DS hardware modifications, to my degraded health, I will survive.

And yes, I still am working on those Luminous Arc 2 guides. They are... coming along nicely >_>

(Edited due to mobile blog posting being a major piss ant.)

This is a Blackberry 8320 test.

2009-05-27T19:01:00.001+08:00

The only way I can tell for sure whether or not the problem is my Treo, Isummon my Blackberry Curve 8320 with a T-mobile brand plastered all over the bottom. Here goes:

It's not's there's that's what's

These keys are tough to press.

Unicode or it's just me?

2009-05-23T14:38:00.001+08:00

So, it seems we have some browser issues. It could be that I didn't set the encoding right, or it's my laptop, with the region set to Japan (files are in Japanese lol)

So, I've set Netfront encoding to Unicode, so let's see how this goes.

Treo 750v post via Netfront 3.5.

2009-05-23T01:21:00.001+08:00

I'm sure you see the previous post... Opera browser seems like a real bad test.

So after all that, it still was unnecessary

Let's see how Netfront would react.

Palm Treo 750v post

2009-05-22T15:45:00.001+08:00

Well well, seems dumbphones will stay dumb, if that previous double post was any indication. So, being a whole lot faster with a better browser to boot, this could be a start of a beautiful form of mobile blogging. Fun, modern times I say...

(this post brought to you via a Palm Treo 750v with Vodaphone's WM6 ROM on a 3G network using the Opera 8.6 browser.Till they sorted out the incompatibility mess of the 9.5 version.)

Netfront is probably better, but I wanted to try Opera for the first time (for WM, since I've used Opera Mini on the Blackberry before)

On a side note, if this looks like a double post, that's due to the "send" button being right below the message box. Way to go, Yahoo...

This is a test post.

2009-05-19T09:39:00.001+08:00

this message has been brought to you via a samsung 3G dumbphone. posts will be done on my treo and blackberry from now on.

This is a test post.

2009-05-19T09:39:00.000+08:00

this message has been brought to you via a samsung 3G dumbphone. posts will be done on my treo and blackberry from now on.

Endings FAQ for Luminous Arc 2

2008-12-22T07:25:00.000+08:00

With the release of my Endings FAQ for Luminous Arc 2, I hereby acknowledge that the FAQ is of my original creation, and that it was created by me, The mangatron with CNET username einsteinecker.

With that said, this post will be the main basket for all your feedback, suggestions, typo fixes, contributions, etc., in the form of your comments posted here on this post. Remember that anyone can post a comment here, no Blogger account required, but if you post a contribution remember to include whichever name or nick you want to be credited with (should I actually use your info).

And with that out of the way, the planned Version 1.2 update will be as follows:

-Add more evidence supporting my Ending designation theories.
-Various typo fixes
-Will add this blog post as a link in my FAQ to direct comments and feedback.
-Will have better integration with my Intermission and Choices Guide.

And a very special announcement, I have a planned release of something very Luminous Arc 2 related, hopefully it will be out later today Dec 22 between the hours of 6-12PM GMT +8 time. I'm sure players who beat the game will be amused with what I have in store for them.

Remember to add me to your RSS feed reader thingy in case you're not the type to mass refresh a page every 5 minutes. Also remember to add both this blog and my "animesuki's mangatron" blog as well. This blog isn't the only one to get updates in the near future mwuhahahaha...

The RSS subscriber link is at the left of this page below my "Link List".

This is a confirmation post...

2008-12-05T00:55:00.000+08:00

... confirming my submission of the Intermission and Choices Guide for the Nintendo DS game, Luminous Arc 2. I hereby acknowledge and admit wholeheartedly that my guide submitted to GameFaqs is my work, sweat, tears and happiness, as a result of my dedication to the girls of anime, manga and games.

For the glory of the Witches of Luminous Arc 2!

New Transformers Movie branded product!

2008-04-01T17:27:00.000+08:00

As the battle for good and evil rages amongst the Transformers, so does the battle for superior Graphics cards as well, with ATi trying to gain ground after merging with the all powerful AMD, whilst Nvidia continues to rage against the machine building SLI after SLI. ATi's newest onslaught brings the best of both worlds, Megatron + ATi Graphics cards = pure monstrosity. Utilizing 256MB DDR graphics memory with speeds as high as 8x the AGP normality, you no longer require the power Megatron sought in the Michael Bay film, Transformers. Using the Catalyst Software suite you can be the catalyst that Megatron should've been in the Michael Bay film, Transformers. With the power of Megatron marketing and ATi products, you can render graphics beyond your wildest 4d imaginations. Why there may be the power to rival the strength of ILM, giving you the possibilities that can land you a job to work on Transformers 2, where you too may be criticized for weird mech designs.

Megatron and ATi. "No Prime, it's just me!"

And in case you don't know the post date, happy laughs ^__^

Now about the pic:

I actually made this early summer last year, 2007 when the Transformers movie hype had escalated to argumentative proportions. I wanted to set it apart from all the crap that has awashed forums that took part in Transformers discussion, so I decided to wait a whole year now just to release it. Sure, it's gotten old to the point where some people don't want to remember the movie, but hey. As long as you have a good laugh, that's the whole point of this day, which would make it better if you know the old jokes that have arisen from the box art of ATi graphics cards, to quote a former fellow beta tester, "Man, those ATi box covers would give my kids nightmares." Of course, old jokes like groups taking a dive, or big names doing/saying things they normally wouldn't. I figured why not have a different kind of joke for April Fools. Although, this pales in comparison to the awesomeness of the Mahou Kotonoha joke from the team behind the anime/game/manga School Days.

Hope you had a laugh, either small or LOL. :)

I'm still alive!

2007-09-08T16:15:00.000+08:00

Grr, it sucks to be sick right at the end of summer. I guess I know now when the cold rolls in. When I start coughing lol.

And, I just can't seem to hide from people. I can't believe how one of my old friends was even contemplating my form of demise. That's what happens when you know alot of people online and the rumours just pile up lol....But, I'm healthy and back in gear. What I have to do now is upload that darn overdue image I was photoshopping several months back. It's finished, but by Zeus's lightning bolt I just didn't get it out in the wild.

And, my anime/manga blog will get in gear once I have compacted this long queue of to-watch and to-read. Seems my manga queue got longer too. Yes, I'm talking to you [boogerboy].

Sad day, does it ever seem to get better?

2007-06-22T18:12:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, one of my Uncle's rabbits died, the same rabbit I took extensive pictures about. Ah, I had good times with the rabbit. And it was easiest to hold than the other rabbit, and it was more civilized as well.

From my poor attempt at autopsy, it appears the rabbit died from lack of food. Apparently. Yeah, it makes sense when throughout it's life it's food was always eaten by the other rabbits. (It used to be housed with it's mother and brother/sister) At time of death it was roomates with it's brother/sister, and I'll say it's brother/sister was the type that would take the food from the other rabbit [that died]. Oh well, the last time I tried to feed it the [rabbit that is alive now] would eat the food too, to the point where both rabbits eat the same piece of grass.....lovey-dovey style lol. (ie each rabbit eating off the other end of the piece of grass) So, in order to make it fair I "dual wielded" two pieces of grass and fed both rabbits at the same time. but I knew something was wrong as the [rabbit that is currently alive] would finish it's [longer] piece of grass than the other [rabbit that died].

Those are memories, short yet fond ones as well. And in my current state of health I hope too that I won't die of starvation.

Image gallery of my time in Northern Germany

New Starscream pic and more on Transformers

2007-06-02T19:04:00.000+08:00

Well, when I get time to write up on my adventures here while staying at my Uncle's place, in the meantime I have this new bit from the Transformersmovie.com website. Behold, the not yet complete, someone-find-the-missing-pieces-to-the-puzzle picture of Starscream!

You know, I would have done the Optimus pic but we all know Optimus Prime is fairly large, and his pose is not a full posture. I knew it right away when I saw this Starscream pic that there was more to the pic than meets...... the rest of it lol.

And, I wanted to update on some things. A site reader asked if I was the "mangatron" at the Autobot game. Although the question doesn't ask which one, I will say which ones I am in.

I am the 3rd ranked player at Chevrolet's ChevyAutobot game. I used to be 1st until some people past me during my travel days. See what happens when you don't have a net connection for 2 days?

I am also the same "mangatron" in the Transformersgame.com Battle for the Allspark game, which, much to my amusement is one hilariously bugged up game. Not to mention the forum for that game is not a safe place to be, so I'd say play that game at your own risk lol.

Next post will (hopefully) be about my days here up north in Germany. Cold, warm, cloudy, sunny, feels like a weather master is up in the skies over Northern Germany....

Hi res Transformers ss from the latest trailer

2007-05-18T03:12:00.000+08:00

Hey everyone, ten days since last post (which was about posting via email lol) and today the newest trailer for Transformers was released. I know some of you cannot play Hi-Def video on your computers, so thanks to Averatec for making my computer HD-capable, I bring you some screenshots of scenes that were first introduced in this trailer (not scenes we've already scene months ago)

I chose 720p as the source, as any larger and I think the blurryness of the ss will be too staggering lol. Go to my gallery here and check the screenshots there. Here's a taste:

See the rest here! (choose "Download Photo" to DL the 1280x534 size)

By the way Bonecrusher is my favorite behind Brawl, who we have yet to see lol. Gotta love Bonecrusher crashing into Prime.

Remember that they are blurry like they are. You can note how only the Transformers are the ones blurry, but the background and what is not.

RE: This is another email post

2007-05-08T01:42:00.001+08:00

Again perhaps try with a picture.

This is another email post

2007-05-08T01:39:00.001+08:00

And, perhaps try with a picture.

Which apparently didn't work. Oh well....

Transformers and Optimus Prime.

2007-05-05T09:13:00.000+08:00

You know, forget all you know about Optimus Prime. People are clouding their thoughts about who Prime is so much they even out-rank those who twist the meaning of "lolicon" on my list of Most Pathetic People on the internet. Here's what I have to say about Optimus Prime.

[quote of JesterJJZ from Shoot For The Edit forums]

That wasn't Optimus Prime, it was a completely separate character. Roberto said himself that movie Prime is supposed to be "THE" Optimus Prime that's based off the G1 incarnation. He should look the same. "THE" Optimus Prime always had a faceplate.

[/quote]

You know what, I think I've gottent annoyed enough lately. First the TF Allspark Wars online game was an incomplete, buggy game at launch day, more Frenzy hating, etc. and now this faceplate issue rises again. So while I am totally not in the mood, I think I will attack the above quote at full force.

"That wasn't Optimus Prime, it was a completely separate character."
Not one of the prime's ever concocted were "a completely seperate character". They all shared the same characteristics that is the Optimus Prime: protects humans, stops Decepticons, fights hard etc. To say Beast Wars Prime is a completely seperate Prime is like saying G1 Prime is the only prime in this long odd life of TF. So let's just keep remaking G1 to death is what the G1 trashbags want in other words....

"Roberto said himself that movie Prime is supposed to be "THE" Optimus Prime that's based off the G1 incarnation."
He did? When? Before pre-production or post-production? Yahoo interview? Why is it only one of them said that? Where's Alex [Kurtzman]? My point is from the outset, this was not supposed to be a G1 remake, or a 50% G1 homage salute, but they (the HasBeen er HasBro) said, in a paraphrase, "this is to be the introduction of a new line of TF". Which Don Murphy said it will/might/would share similarities with G1. In Don's words "The first thing I will be (vying) for is Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime". Don's got his wish, but what else did he wish for? He said that pre-production, and so far most of what he said has changed alot. So until I hear from Bay, Spielberg, Rob and Alex that this is exactly a G1 clone, I will say this for now: Movie Prime already is based off the G1 Incarnation. Because,

"He should look the same. "THE" Optimus Prime always had a faceplate."
This is a movie. This isn't like the G1 cartoon where in the cartoon they didn't have to explain how that faceplate keeps moving up and down. Why does it even move up and down? Somethin's moving, isn't it? Prime must have a jaw then. Let's go back in time and go to that ep when Prime was first created. Apparently he was a norm, casual civilian caught up in the war. Poor guy, got hurt and dropped by the nearest pit stop. And, if I remember correctly (sorry, I'm in Germany right now and my tapes are back in the USA), Prime was one of those with a mouth. A norm, a rather high-spirited one at that, that got "battle moded" by Alpha Trion. "You may not recognize him anymore, but his (heart) is the same". He said it. The "real" creator of Prime said what needs to be locked into the brain of every TF fan out there. No matter how different he may look, his heart is the same. His heart is what made him Optimus Prime. Let's go back to all those Peter Cullen interviews, pretty much the only live action element in the G1 Prime.

[quote "TFormers.com at Anime Matsuri 2007"]

Question: What inspired the voice of Optimus Prime?

Cullen: When I looked at the character drawings, which is what an actor gets presented to him when he's auditioning, [i]I couldn't figure out what a truck would sound like. *Truck Noise Impression* But then when you read the character breakdown, what the substance of what this person was, what he's supposed to be and the qualities that he had, I modeled the voice actor after in this particular case after my brother Larry who was a former Marine and a captain of the Marine Corp. When he came home and he changed quite a bit and he was quiet, he was calmer, he was in control and I was very impressed by that and when we were younger, we were only 13 months apart and he would say *Larry Impression* "Peter! Cut it out! Gee Whiz!" and when he came how it was *Larry/Optimus Prime Voice* "Peter, cut it out" OPTIMUS PRIME!.

[/quote]

Paraphrase: "Forget what a truck sounds like, it's Prime that matters. Why?

[quote "Gamespot TF game interview"]

GS: I'm wondering when you went in for that initial audition, how they described the character to you--as a giant robot who was also a Mack truck? And I'm wondering how you visualized that and what were your impressions of the character at first? Was it something that you could easily picture?

PC: No. To see the truck, a freightliner, a big old flat-nosed freightliner--I'd never done anything like that before. So I think basically I studied the character analyses, which gave me the only clue I had. Because normally when I look at a cartoon character I will look at its neck and body, chest cavity, and what kind of a sound would come from it, whether it would be a trumpet or a tuba or whatever. But there was none of that. It was really confusing, believe me. I had no idea of the concept of the show and of course years later we find out how just involved it was, and god, it's just incredible.

So the leadership qualities led me to Optimus Prime, and I just went from there and that's how that happened.

[/quote]

Aha! Say what?

[quote "Gamespot interviewer"]

GS: I'm wondering, how do you approach such different roles? Optimus is obviously this leader of men and robots, and Eeyore is this slinking, sunken-eyed donkey.

[/quote]

See, no matter how you look at it, and no matter how many random civilians you ask out there say it, but Prime isn't characterized as a truck. As you can see both Peter Cullen and the Gamespot interviewer practically said "It's not by how he looks, but what his characteristic quality is". So he sure as heck isn't characterized by a faceplate, but by what he is. By the majority or all of the Prime's ever concocted, he was/is a calm, leader type of....being. You know, he can have a Space Shuttle, or a Submarine, or a gosh darn Titanic mode, if he shares the leadership qualities that is Optimus Prime, then he is Optimus Prime, regardless of how un-G1'ish he looks. Another score for the power of knowledge. Knowledge, 1, G1 Purist hackjacks, 0.

Fire away your comments and see how stuck up you are (if you're a G1 Purist/fanatic/idiot.) But remember, you're not blasting at just me, you're blasting at all the other more knowledgable people that have more sense than you, the G1 stuck-up, who apparently has no brain.

Ha, an email post!

2007-04-28T05:04:00.001+08:00

Normally great for a phone, but my goal is to post without opening a browser or what not. All about making life easier ja? XD

So, with mangatron Ver 2.0 launched, where was I before then?

2007-04-13T07:06:00.000+08:00

Yeah, another 3 column setup, but this one kinda sucks a bit to a considerable degree. For one thing, if the browser size is squished, so does this blog which also means everything will fall apart. So just remember to stay 1024x768 size and everything is good lol. Now, onto my story. Actually, I had a system failure. My one and only laptop, gasping on AC adapter power and heavily breathing through the system fan. What happened was, I had multiple device failure on the DVD writer, Ethernet death, HDD slowdowns and the list goes on, but I had to delete alot of files, in the process losing a heck of alot more data than I originally intended to (the purpose of the system recovery was to save my data, not lose it). So trying to save my data before a total system crash did, I ended up losing alot more than I thought I would. And good thing my laptop came OEM with a Phoenix Firstware Pro 2004 recovery program so I could restore my OS without boot discs and what not.

So there you have it, for about a week I was restoring my laptop, losing data but the end result, not too bad: DVD drive can once again write DVD-RW's and play movies, HDD has had a 5 hour Defragmentation thanks to Perfect Disk 8, haven't tried ethernet as I'm going wireless now, but yeah. I was also able to split my drive into two partitions so that program files go in one, data in the other.

And, unforetunately I had to put off fansub duties. Ddin't want me working on a file then having a system crash in the middle of it all :/

So, yeah, uh, this blog will be about my personal life, my experiences and what not. I'll be doing gaming updates on my Gamespot blog, mostly about my gaming life, Nintendo DS experiences, and other things. I'll also comment here about other non-anime things I watch/read, news I read and what not. Also, I'm trying to watch my health. And, just like my anime/manga blog, everything is still in the design phase. I'm all about making it work, not just look good.

Note: as said in the previous post, I re-acquired my FTP info and will now store all images on my FTP @ jag.fu8.com.

So what happens to my blog now that I...

2007-03-31T06:57:00.000+08:00

...re-acquired my FTP information for my website. Seems I need to refresh myself on website design... drat, yet another thing to spend time on. And here my blog is so easy to update, so quick to enhance....and yet, my website hosting service has more space and....grr, life sucks lol.

And yeah, I haven't used my PS2 lately, sucks when there's so many things to do, no time.

Last post was...October? lol...

2007-03-28T07:26:00.000+08:00

Man, I guess nothing much happens in my life. Well, let's see....aside from having many health issues, soda-fied stomach, nearly broken shoulder, lack of food options, poor lighting, lack of table for laptop, I could go on about how sucking this life is, but let's look at a brighter side, ja? How about I showcase a couple of pictures my oh so happy digital camera tries to paparazzi off of me:

Handheld device hell (No, that's not the only GBA game I have. Hint: DS's are on)

The James Bond briefcase with 2 Hard Drives and a PS2 lol

Oh, including my Master Grade Wing Zero Custom (no it doesn't go in the briefcase)

Yes, I really carry that much handhelds and that briefcase is entirely for the PS2 and HD's. So where does my laptop go? Well, my brother carries it lol....well, he carried it when I came here to Germany, so, technically yeah he carries it lol. The handhelds are scattered across a DS bag, GBA steel case and a hand carry suitcase that really is running out of room.

Hmm, wonder what's good for my next post....maybe I can post what a nightmare it is to eat out. I'll probably take pics of all the boxes that were the end result of "eating outside because you damn straight can't cook in a hotel" lol.

Thank you for 1000!

2006-11-01T07:36:00.000+08:00

Yes, thank you. No I'm not a baseball player who reached hit #1000 lol. I'm really glad to have visitors from many places all over the world. As a treat, I'll post some interesting tidbits about the story behind me:

Before, I wasn't really a figurehead on the internet. I'd like to contribute my success to the day I joined L33t-Raws way back in Jan/Feb 2004. It was since that day that my life has become...more busier lol.
Actually, that year was somewhat amazing. I was a beta tester for Novalogic, being one of the first people to participate in a 250 player game among the other fellow beta testers. The map was nasty huge with at one point had 60+ people attacking a AAS base!
That same year was also the same time I migrated to Animesuki after Animenation revamped their forums to appeal to a more American anime audience, with purportedly deleting the games and Coming Anime sections. But, that set the stage for....
2005, the year of the mangatron, as I like to let the whole anime world know lol. Mahoraba ~Heartful Days~ has aired and the mangatron has nosebleeded to death the entire season. With the mangatron taking over threads after that, the stage was complete for his age old goal...
I had finally taken the top ranking on search results from Google and Yahoo. For years even before Animesuki was born I had tried to retain the top spot, but failed miserably lol.
My past life aside, here are some interesting site stats:

Most unique visitor I had was someone from near Madagascar lol.
Most visitors from a country: 28% from United States
Most used Browser: Currently tied 36% IE 6+ and FF 1.5.0 . Oddly enough FF 2.0 is less used lol.
Most used OS to access Animesuki's mangatron: 90% WinXP, with 4% unknown, I'm guessin Mac OS since 3% is Linux :/
The last 5 visitors to 1000:

995-United States, 996-Japan, 997-Singapore, 998-Canada, 999-Argentina, 1000-Germany.

And there you have it, the mangatron and my silly sense of humor :P

Comments always welcomed!

And so, the testing begins

2006-10-23T09:31:00.000+08:00

And here is where the test resides. Or, text. Or, tecks. Whatever, smarty pantsu. Point is so that previewing won't be a error filled 404 oh my nelly pain in the jazz lol.

Archive

End of Treo750 ROM development

Osama Bin Laden is töt.

I donated to the Japan relief, and I think you should too.

Bad internet connection quality is unhappy internet

Yet another absence, again due to health

A night on the town, Manila, PH. Laptop repairing, girls and more.

Laptop taking a long, long rest.

Testing the MobilLogging of Blogger

Gone again? Why in the world...

Whoa, week Jan 2-8

I've done it! WM6.5 Build 21901 running on my Palm Treo750

Meet Shadow the HermitHog

Press your clothes on the Irony Board

Even I have bad days (slightly NSFW)

Ow my hand!

Someone dial nein won won!

Renovation test

wOWser

Another long day...

Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maou Research, series 01

Backup of a wall of text

The making of the mangatron's 4koma manga

May 08 part 1

Here it is

Teruya Eiko in Iron Man 2

I once was cold, but now I am hot...

I have a cold...

Lol what the hell google

Life changing career decisions.

So there's more where that came from, pard'ner

Nintendo DS Lite joystick mod

More on the DS Lite Joystick mod

The world's first Nintendo DS 4 internal speaker mod?

The story behind the making of the 4 Speaker Nintendo DS mod

More test posts

Happy Holidays! How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?

Image posting test

Water! Water everywhere! Who you gonna call?

More added information regarding Ayano's past

Confirmation of my GameFaqs post regarding Master Mattias

Confirmation of my Ayano story FAQ at gamefaqs part1

Confirmation of my Ayano story FAQ at gamefaqs part2

Opera mini 3.10 test

In sickness and in health...

This is a Blackberry 8320 test.

Unicode or it's just me?

Treo 750v post via Netfront 3.5.

Palm Treo 750v post

This is a test post.

This is a test post.

Endings FAQ for Luminous Arc 2

This is a confirmation post...

New Transformers Movie branded product!

I'm still alive!

Sad day, does it ever seem to get better?

New Starscream pic and more on Transformers

Hi res Transformers ss from the latest trailer

RE: This is another email post

This is another email post

Transformers and Optimus Prime.

Ha, an email post!

So, with mangatron Ver 2.0 launched, where was I before then?

So what happens to my blog now that I...

Last post was...October? lol...

Thank you for 1000!

And so, the testing begins