My week of November 6th, 2013

I had a little issue earlier in the week, about my ISP and the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS. Long story short, my wireless carrier prohibited large file downloads, making Resident Evil Revelations un-downloadable. Yeah, don't ask why I'm using 3G internet to download it, but it's my only internet access method, so I had to.... use a proxy. Yep, I shoved a proxy into the wifi settings on the 3DS, and got the entire game thanks to a proxy. As you might imagine, this left me completely unable to play my 3DS, so I did what any sane person would do: marathon anime! I finally am current with a number of my shows, such as Arpeggio and Golden Time, first time in a long time I watched so many eps in a row :D

Which was a nightmare because I stayed up late at night babysitting the connection most of the time, as I had to let it run night and day. This of course kept me awake for many hours, many much more hours, leading my left eye to get very, very sore. So sore, that the second night of downloading the game, an eyelash was caught in my left eye, and I wasn't interested in letting it itch me up, so I used the old wash and rinse with water to get the hair out. I then went to sleep and woke up a few hours later with some pain in my head. I naively thought "oh no another headache", but it was much worse. This finally confirms it, I can't let a large amount of water get to my eye anymore, I ran into this problem last time when I found out I cannot cry anymore or else it's instant pain, but I thought that was mostly the tears, now it seems like any sort of liquid cannot come into contact with my left eye. If you're wondering how I even take showers, I had to change that too, keeping my head mostly down, and have the water come down my forehead or around my eyelashes, I've become so paranoid because I'm still traumatized by the unforgettable pain I felt in my left eye during the incident. Trust me, I really thought I'd lose it forever, that's not a trauma to easily overcome.

The reason why I find that worse than my spinal-induced headaches, is because when I have the pain in my left eye, it's inside my head. Back in I can feel this really throbbing pain, and because it's inside my head, applying Tiger Balm or any other ointment/painkiller never helped. Not even an icepack helped. This is now something I just have to avoid completely, because there's no painkiller that can soothe it now. The only remedy I found was wrapping my eye tightly, and leave it closed as long as I can, which also means lowering my rapid eye movement to a standstill. This is now at the top of my list of things to check on when I schedule a checkup at the hospital (whenever that will be).

I then came across some bad news regarding that Seagate Hard Drive I have been keeping alive, the one at 2% health (which oddly went up to 4% just recently). I have to finally retire the drive after 6 years of service, which it just accumulated too many bad sectors since I got my Desktop (went over 2000 bad sectors in less than a month). This drive served me well, if only for a short amount of time, but more importantly, this was the drive that held everything that I did in Germany, from my fansub work, the backups, and pretty much my entire usage history of my time in Germany during 2006-2007, I think it did well, considering it didn't take a dramatic major dump like my WD 1TB did.

Then that typhoon came by, which I hadn't known the seriousness of that until that wind, which was so strong, it slammed my window shut. I found that particularly interesting because it's a rusty window, something you need to put your whole body weight into just to close it, and the wind just boop, slam. I'm very thankful my area didn't get the brunt of it, and my prayers go out to those that felt it's full force, I've experienced many of the storms here over the past few years (particularly the flooding of 2009), and I know it's not a picnic. I've not really spent much time online during that weekend, but I did come across this link at Amazon, so if you can, give a donation, no matter the amount. I really think these folks in the Philippines who are homeless because of the storm need to at least know that people care.

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_356995202_2?ie=UTF8&node=1297793011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-csm-1&pf_rd_r=1JA8C2Y82H2FR3S9PP5E&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1656429182&pf_rd_i=507846

Trust me, it's not a good thing losing what little you have, so stay strong, citizens of the Philippines!

The weird and wonderful 1st week of October: Nintendo 3DS, Army-Navy etc

That was the most strangest week I've had since, a very long time actually. Probably since I had both an HD2 and iPhone 3G at the same day. But I've waited 2 years for this, and I say this feels a lot better than getting 2 phones that were actually useless to me lol (my hands are bad with capacitive screens, at least those old ones back then)

I knew on Sunday September 29, that it was going to be one crazy week. That day I was out very late taking care of stuff, it got so late it ended up as the second time I found myself in a mall well into closing time. In fact it was so late, I had to grab dinner at McDonalds, which actually made me iffy because that was the 2nd time in 20 days (not a  good thing to me).

Get ready for the zombiepocalypse :P

I also got meself a USB wireless adapter for my desktop at CDR King, which you might recall my desktop had nothing of the sort. Lucky for me, the Chinese-looking thing (like most of CDRKing's items) happened to be using a Realtek chip that supported AP Station mode, basically sharing an internet connection over wifi. Which meant I could use my USB 3G Broadband modem to stream it through the wifi to other wireless devices. Such as the 2DS I was planning to get. Of course, I didn't know it would be the 3DS I would get 3 days later:

I've finally joined the 3D race :D (or whatever the Nintendo 3DS group is called, for example PC gamers are "The Master Race" :P) The reason why it was unexpected was because I was originally out with someone to get computer parts (at the same area I got my desktop), but the deal was if the particular parts were not there, I could use the cash to get the 3DS instead. Which of course I was not expecting the parts to not be there, considering it was practically computer heaven. So I went into Game One Gadget and inquired about their 3DS price, and I was expecting it to be in the ballpark of the rival store, Datablitz's php7,600. Imagine my surprise when I was told it's php7,000, which is a little more than $20 USD cheaper. I just had to get that, especially when I consider that if I had pursued the 2DS and imported it into this country, it'd cost a heck of a lot more than that. What's even more complicated, was that I had planned to use my GameFAQ's earnings *cough* reward to get that 2DS, and they had just announced the July FOTM winners were going to be paid. In October! I then wrote off the 2DS because at that rate, it looked like I was going to be paid in January 2014.

It was a good meal...

...Made better by playing Flower Shop in a Krispy Kreme while waiting for a ride.

That night it was late (again), and I said forget McDonalds, twice in 4 days is a disastrophy. Enter Army Navy Burger and Burrito, which I have to say, if you've got one in your area, give it a try, really. Their Starving Sailor sandwich destroys Subway, at 8 inches I wasn't sure I was going to finish my Onion Rings. By the way, their fries are a blast, compared to that stuff at McDonalds :P

My ritual is safe once again.

Enough about food, you might have realized something about that day. I so wasn't expecting the 3DS that it didn't hit me until the ride home, that I didn't get a game >__< Aside from my DS games, but it's all about the 3DS games, right? 2 days later I went out and picked up Fire Emblem Awakening, something I was looking forward to ever since I made an avatar for a member at Animesuki (actually I've been looking forward to it since it's announcement, but the avatar piqued me further). I have to say I am impressed with Fire Emblem Awakening, and it's everything I was hoping it'd be. ( I made it even more hilarious by going to another Army/Navy for dinner, take that McDonalds, twice in 3 days :P)

That's how an adult Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière would look like!

I had originally wanted to get Dead Or Alive Dimensions as my first 3DS game, but they didn't have it at the store I went to (it wasn't where I got the 3DS). I'm serious, I was looking forward to that game 2 years ago, jigglies in 3D uh huh ;) That's actually one of the main concerns about my 3DS purchase, and you might be wondering why I was even considering the 2DS in the first place. You'll recall my left eye, and that I was very worried that it wasn't going to handle the 3D that well. It's one of the main reasons why I considered the 2DS, there's no one in this country that I know that has a 3DS, and I couldn't test the 3D effect on my eyes before making a purchase for the 3DS or 2DS. So it was a tense moment when I eventually got the 3DS, as you cannot test it before buying, the common rule in this country is that you can open it, and see if it works, but if it does work, you bought it already. And with no demo stations anywhere, I couldn't see the 3D without buying it. What's even more weirder, was that this particular 3DS was from Saudia Arabia, and although I was told it can plenty well play NTSC games, I wasn't sure, and the kind folks at the shop where i bought Fire emblem were kind enough to let me test it on my system before buying.

This is not actually my first Middle Eastern device. I had previously used a Samsung i600 Blackjack, which was the most strangest phone I'd ever used:

Check out that keyboard, there's not only qwerty, but symbols and Arabic! It was hilarious to type on XD

NO, I DON'T :P

Now I know what you're thinking, what's a guy like me with an old phone, shakey health, and a whole lot of no time, doing with a 3DS? Well, aside from the cash originally being for something else, I had already notified my superiors about my plans about dealing with my health once all projects are settled, so that's out of the picture. My phone, as ancient as it is, it's qwerty, which a lot of phones these days aren't, and if you hadn't figured it out, I'm not too sure about any decent phone out there for php7k that won't take a dump when my fingers touch the screen. And since I've really been looking forward to the 3DS for years now, it was a no-brainer. My eyes can handle the 3D effect perfectly fine, although I've not tested playing with 3D on for more than 20 minutes. If I can survive more than 1 hour of non-stop 3D, then that would confirm it is incoming light sources that my left eye has a problem with (every device I use is at minimum brightness setting, including my computer monitor.) It's why I do very little photoshop these days, it demands my monitor go up to at least 50% brightness for superior editing. Something I'm afraid I can't do for long periods of time anymore.

But what's that, my weird and wonderful week only went until Friday? Nope, the reason why that will forever be a ironic week is because the next day after getting Fire Emblem, GameFAQs paid everyone. Including me. Talk about irony. Which I promptly donated to the owner of the cash, which I have a mini rant, why the heck is it so difficult to spend USD online while in the Philippines? Always with this US phone number verification this, must have US IP that, I tell you the e-commerce landscape changed since I was last in the USA.

Yes I will get to that post about my BenQ S6. Don't mind that Nvidia sticker, okay? It's not like I went mad scientist and shoved a GeForce into there >__>

The reason why I keep on helping

Yesterday I was feeling down in the dumps, having finally given up on my keyboard(s). For so long typing has been a part of my work, and for some ridiculously ironic reason, on my free time I am..... also typing. A part of the reason why I'm typey typey like crazy is because I do it very very fast. And somehow the help I give people involves typing. It's not helped by my incredible desire for phones with hardware qwerty keyboards, which I've used for years.

Then I had a chat with my mother, who I rarely get to talk to these days, and she was telling me about how difficult it is to deal with folks, people who abuse her goodwill, and how it's just unhealthy to converse with them. It hadn't really sunk into me until midnight was approaching, and I was browsing whatever I missed before I hit the bed, and I came across this wonderful piece:

The reason why my mother keeps helping people, and the reason why I fulfill requests as much as I can, is because my mother taught me when I was a kid that "If someone comes to you for help/something, never hesitate to help them, because you do not know who they might be". And that video above is everything I've stood for, and what helping really means. See that link above? I named it "Endeavors/past projects" for a reason. Granted I'm not able to help people physically, but the time I spend on the internet, if someone has a question, and I know the answer, I'll help. If someone wants an avatar done, I'll help. If someone needs help with their computer, if someone needs advice, if there's anything I can do to help, I'll do it. Whoever they may be, if it's something they needed help with, I'll help what I can.

This is also the reason why I was recently involved in a serious scuffle with someone on Gamefaqs' message boards, concerning the FAQ Bounty system they have up. The love of money blinds people, and it also brings out their true character, and that person who I shall not name was fighting off every suggestion I had for the new system, all because the new system would have rewarded those who think they deserved it, without even realizing the implications the new system has on bounty's smaller than $40. For a person like me whose very first FAQ was speedily toiled on to help others, that was a slap on my face and everyone whose primary purpose is to help, and I called out that person for the hypocrite they were, and not long afterwards the mod closed the thread. One person threw away their humanity for $60. And that wasn't enough for them.

 Money can make people do funny things. --All about the benjamins

Let's take a break from all the madness

Well it finally couldn't take it anymore.

Last time we saw this drive, it had 66 bad sectors, and 632 weak sectors. I guess making it a boot drive was a bad idea :<

That... took it's time escalating.

Last Sunday was the first time since 2005 that I've drank wine. And it's as nasty as ever. Personally, I don't like wine, never did, don't mind me I'll just mix me some Tang and be on my way.

It's better up there :P

Updates for July 14 through 19

Finally got better from a cold I got last Sunday, again due to sweating exposed to the extreme cold. Seriously speaking, I was just about to come out and say never ever go to bed when dead tired, and then I get this cold. Who came up with these terms anyways? When you have a cold, you are a lot warmer than usual. Some time from now someone is going to have to change the term for high drug use as "being feverish", because whenever you have a fever, you can hallucinate and stuff...

If I could have it any other way, I would

It would probably be an understatement to say May was a terrible month for me. It was a drastically horrific month for me. And, that was mainly because in the one time a year I can be myself, it was very much the opposite.

Cracking my spine, a nearly 4 hour CoH match and more

Last week I cracked my spine. Did you ever crack your spine before? I'm not talking about the Bane breaks Batman's back in Dark Knight Rises, it's just a simple cracking of the spine that was the most frightening sound I ever heard from within my body. Maybe for some people it's normal, but it really freaked me out. That's probably because of the circumstances of how it happened, and it happened when I was asleep. The nightmares have become more frequent lately and in earlier nights I would wake up in cold sweat or my breathing was too high, to the point when I cracked my spine, I woke up very suddenly and my stomach went skyward and I gasped for air quite loudly. That's when I heard the crack and I tell you, it's not a sound I want to hear again.

Thankfully, it wasn't serious. The first thing I remember doing was checking my limbs to see if I was paralyzed, and all seemed well. Now that it's been a few days, I noticed some strange things due to the cracking of my spine. For one thing, I've not had those aches and pains on my upper body, and because my right collar bone has almost no muscles linked to my neck (nearly my entire right shoulder is broken), I used to have severe neck pain but not anymore. One side effect I do see was my thinking had been erratic, there were times when the information flows too fast, and other times where I felt lost, as if I had to do something but felt no urge to do it. Some of you might have noticed my sudden increase in participation in the Vivid Red Operation thread at Animesuki over the weekend, which was linked to this. Searching online yields mixed results, to some it is a good thing, to others it is a warning sign, as much as it felt good, I don't really want to go through that again. I still can't think straight and I go to sleep paranoid of it happening again. Though I think it is unlikely, last week was too strange a week. The weather was a lot colder than I thought it would be, and I ran up a little cold, and my nose was stuffed for a few days, so that might have contributed to my inability to breathe properly.

As if my weekend wouldn't get any weirder, I was playing a casual game of Company of Heroes Skirmish, and if you ever wondered how scrambled my mind was during this time, this ought to give a clear picture:

That's a 3 hour 51 minute match right there against the AI. Sure, many folks will say the AI is easy to beat, but not when I played. For some reason, I was off my game, I could never hold my ground on the only road into my territory, and when the expert AI double teams you with 2 Airborne commanders, it's a miserable hell. They frequently did back-to-back bombing runs, they'd drop anti-tank guns as if it's all they got, and I had to use mortar fire strikes just to burn them out. That went on so long, I only wanted to play a simple session to see if my thinking power was affected by the spine cracking, but for more than 3 hours, I was totally embarrassed and I had enough.

I had to end it as quickly as possible, and with my AI buddy doing nothing but spawning StuH's and losing them, I had to Hummel smash the nearest enemy base as much as I could (above). The only other time I played a nearly 4 hours match was when I had my old Sony lappy, and it ended up that way partly due to the laggy graphics. Now I know I really ought to take it easy if my mind is muddy, and NO GAMING IF YOU HAD A SUDDEN HEALTH CHANGE XD

War against mosquitos

I don't like mosquitos. There are some bugs I like, and some that I don't like, but mosqy's are definitely in the "do not want" camp. And for some reason these guys just want to bite the heck out of me. There were jokes about these local mosqy's wanting some foreigner blood, but I've just about had enough of them. Armed with my trusty electric swatter and my hand, I set out on a holy war against these pests.

Even the committee in my neighborhood caught wind of the sudden rise in mosqy's, and they set out to gas the place. I don't know what it was they were gassing, but that stuff seemed to have worked. Unfortunately for me, the mosqy's sought refuge indoors where the gas was less. My swatter has no effect when I'm at my lappy, and in the magnified image above, that mosqy was killed when it invaded my personal space. What happened was business as usual for me, but that dude was buzzing around my hand. In my surprise I rolled my chair back a little and the dumb mosqy landed on my trackball mouse. In 1 or 2 seconds my mind was a speedy mess: I could make a break for my swatter for a sure kill, but it would notice my movement and fly away, or I could risk my already hurt right hand and hulk smash. The end result:

I had to smash it. I'm not sure how fast I am, I know for sure I'm a terrible fighting game player, but these mosqy's are smart and I wasn't going to take a chance, but what this particular mosquito did was freaky. It was the first time in my life I saw a mosquito walking. I mean it was walking with those dangly legs, desecrating my royal trackball with it's bendy legs, I was half furious, half awe struck at watching something walk for the first time in my life after having seen them be flyers for years. By the way I have been a trackball user for 13 years.

Let's go modding

I did mention in an earlier post about mods, so here goes one. HP designed some really bad laptops. Strangely, I only notice this in their AMD lappy's, I don't really see this particular design in Intel based machines, which did lead me at one point to speculate that perhaps there was a conspiracy where Intel paid off these manufacturers to cripple AMD machines with poor ventilation, because I seriously doubt a manufacturer would be this dumb to adopt this particular fan design that HP used for their DV7 AMD-based series.

What you see is a downward facing exhaust fan for one of life's most hottest mobile chips, the Turion 2 Ultra series. From this angle you can already see how stupid this design is for a chip that idles at 59c (800mhz) and gets as hot as 83c (2.5ghz). Explain to me how a chip this hot is supposed remain cool when the exhaust is not only thin, but pointing downward where, you know, the surface of where the laptop is sitting on. As you can see above, the grills are extremely fat as well, prompting me to cut off some of them, and then I proceeded to carve out from the chrome lined part to the rest of where the cut grills were connected to. I wish I did a before and after pic, but I was fed up with the heat this machine was spitting out, and with permission from the owner of this lappy I wasted no time in cutting it. It paid off too, heat is down at least -3c from the usual temps, and for the first time in my life with this machine I saw the green checkmark in Speedfan.

First time a green mark. It had always been a fire icon, indicating how hot the temps are.

I paid a price though: my hobby knife slipped on the first carving and drove deep into my finger. Till now this cut remains, and it hurts when I touch it.

I also have to clean the laptop regularly as dust gets trapped very easily in that exhaust vent. Before I cut the grills, I painstakingly pulled out big clumps of blackened dust that was caught behind the grills, very very poor design HP, and that time you were one of the biggest PC makers, I sure hope you didn't hurt AMD's sales by designing fan exhausts like this, AMD laptop reviews would always mention the heat. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if I have to replace the thermal!

My left eye

I cannot cry anymore. That's the sad discovery I made last month November, and I believe it has to do with the tear duct in my left eye.

It started when I was watching the Strike Witches movie, and I was so happy, I had no idea it was going to be released last month and after the grueling 2 months of worrying about my 1TB hard drive, I was in desperate need of something to be happy about. And I was really happy to see the girls again, so happy I shed tears of joy, I missed the girls, I missed their pantsu, and when we first see Micchan, I was waiting, waiting and I cheered when her crotch came on screen, oh I loved it :D

Strike Witches means so much to me, when season 2 aired back in 2010, it was one of my most followed that Summer, and the girls make me so happy. But when it was all over, and I wiped those tears, I felt something was wrong. I was having that feeling whenever I feel a headache coming on, that all to familiar feeling I've felt many a time before, but this one was different. The pain was concentrated on the left side of my head around my eye, and I thought maybe I am having a headache, and I took it easy the rest of the day. Until the next day came by, and I still had the pain, I thought maybe it's one of those 2 day headaches I used to have, and I was watching less anime and sleeping more. This is when I went out that weekend, and the following week of my great Android kernel milestone I knew something was dead wrong. This pain was persisting. It was getting so bad, my eye started to hurt just like how it did back in April, and I then I knew right away, that it was my tear duct.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but when the glue sealed my eye, it was a very intense pain, it was the most painful thing I ever felt while conscious, and the one thing I'll never forget: I was crying my eyes out. I think it was a normal reaction the eyes do should a foreign substance come into contact with the eye, but my eye was really pouring those tears as if to eradicate the glue in my eye. And it hurt, I remember clutching my head and I wanted to scream, but the pain was too much to even say anything. And somehow, maybe I became traumatized by that incident, in that whenever I cry again, that pain I felt in April come haunting me and severely demoralizing me. After I found this out, any attempt to form tears in my eye yields the same result; the pain in my eye. So that time when I bought my 750GB hard drive, I was looking, searching the nearest drug store for an eyepatch, I thought if there's one thing I can laugh at about this whole ordeal, if I can find an eyepatch like that girl in Chuunibyu, maybe I can take a pic of me twirling my fingers while wearing that thing. But I couldn't find any. In fact there was nothing for the eyes, they had all sorts of bandages imaginable, but nothing for the eye! What the hell kind of drug store/pharmacy is that that doesn't have medical care for ones eyes? (it's Watsons by the way)

This hit me hard, as I'm a rather emotional person, and it is one of the reasons why I don't like to see a girl cry, because it makes me feel real bad. And now, I have to learn to crush those emotions so that I never shed a tear again. That's impossible, the only way I can do that is to become an annoying bastard who takes pleasure in giving other people pain, completely the opposite of my nature. I don't want to do that, and not to mention there is anime with great drama enough to make me cry too, now I can't watch those?

I can no longer spend more than 14 hours awake. I can't do those 18 hour days I so loved to do a few years back, my life has changed. It's this experience that gave me an immense amount of respect for those people out in the world who lost a part of their body, be it an arm, or a leg, and people who need to wear an eyepatch for the rest of their lives, I have mad respect for you folks. You don't ever let it weigh you down, and no matter how painful the pain is, you're still alive, and that's the most precious thing I am very appreciative of right now. I may need to change the way I live my life from now on, but at least I'm alive. I can still enjoy seeing the things I love to look at, and even though it's a lesser amount than before, I'm happy to at least see something instead of permanently losing my eye.

Investigating my 1TB drive, 2 months later

Earlier this month I finally got my USB 3.0 ExpressCard... card. I say finally because it took over a month to finally get to me, from the time I ordered it to the time I realized something was wrong, to the eventual inquiry to my post office and what do you know, they had it and didn't notify me. Which is weird, they know who I am, they know my M.O., and it wasn't held at customs, they just... fell asleep I guess.

After plugging it in, setting it up, the big result is what you see below. Here's what the test intended:

A week in the life of me

To say I am tired is an understatement. In fact, I'm so mind wiped right now it's schway man. So what did my past two weeks consist of? Well, since I can't access my 1TB hard drive for now, I wanted to keep my mind busy. Anime, well, this new season is starting pretty slow, but there are some good apples here and there. But it's not helping, and when I think about the other Summer shows I kept on my 1TB and have yet to watch, kinda puts a damper on things. I figured if I have to sell my phone some day, why not do something with it first before I have any more regrets.

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

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.

Whoa, week Jan 2-8

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

Meet Shadow the HermitHog

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.

Press your clothes on the Irony Board

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.

Even I have bad days (slightly NSFW)

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.

Ow my hand!

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!

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):

wOWser

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...

 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.

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

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.