Some say that death is the end-all dead last pitstop of life. Those people, I think, have had fun with my life. Death, as I see it, is simply a release from the mortal coil that I've posessed so far. It's a transfer, not an end, a part of the journey. And, to be honest, I don't really think the next life, or the next life, or the little bits in between will be any better.

Right now, you could say, is my "emo" moment. Y'know, it's time to pull out the knives, the dark mood lighting, the candles and such. I'll pull this off with a nice dramatic bang, ok?

On the topic of reorganization...

Sunday, 11.12.2005

So. In the midst of the creative rebirth I've found myself in, I looked back to see how I used to be doing, and how my life was a couple days ago.

One of the scariest things I found was that I couldn't account for about half of the time I'd spent. It was just, well, gone. About half of the time I found was used for anime, the other half was used for homework and other things. But I haven't a clue about what happened to the other 50%.

I think it's a result of having waaay too little sleep. Perhaps I'm zoning out and then coming to without realizing it, and the end result is something no less than me being a zombie whose brain is only at 50% utilization.

Modern Society

Friday, 09.12.2005

Phew. It's been forever since I've last managed an opportunity to write here. "This space has been intentionally written in."

Anyway, I've started to take my bike out for rides recently (I'm trying to keep healthy here--there isn't any Poly requirement that I have to take x amount of PE classes per semester or year), and there's a lot of things I realized that I've been missing without exercise, or even outside exposure.

On Writing

Friday, 28.10.2005

Perhaps I've been going at this writing thing from the wrong direction--I just realized that I'm letting the English department at school dictate my writing style and topics.

First sign of this was when I wrote in this forced voice. You know, the voice that says "I'm an analyst, and above anything else, I'm smart."...

Prioritization of Communication

Wednesday, 19.10.2005

Here's what I think about IM and IRC and all the rest of the modern-day computer-based communication systems:

They suck.

Read why I think so of this matter.

Openminded-ness

Wednesday, 19.10.2005

Well, here's one of the first things I've noticed about society in general: it's horribly closeminded.

"Oh, great finding there cyan," you might say, "People have only known about this for how many years now?"

I have a point, though, and here it is: the closeminded-ness of society is transparent to those who participate in it. It's transparent to the fact that people with injustices against abnormal things won't admit that they have biases against it; they just can't accept the fact that their viewpoint might not be "normal."

For example, let's take the egregious topic of incest.

Many people think incest is sick, etc; people don't like it, people have problems with it, and people generally think that it's not a topic fit for dinnertime conversation.

Here's where I ask the question: "Why?"

It's probably quite the social standard thing; people aren't raised to think that incest is normal, as they're done with murder. (I'll agree that killing people is bad!)

But on the topic of incest, the lines get a little bit more blurry. If you've got true love that disregards the Westermarck Effect (i.e., a reunion with a separated-from-birth sister, or something of that matter), does it matter whether or not the love is between family members?

I mean, it's love, right? All love should be treated on equal footing, that's what I like to think. Yet still, the preconception is that such things are events that should be avoided at all costs. What would happen if a couple, after dating for a couple months, was told that they were genetic brother and sister? Would they split up and go separate ways? Why? They love each other, don't they? Incest isn't an external trait that you can really measure--it's an idea that you can ignore. It's not as if they suddenly grew into monsters or something that'd cause themselves to be repulsive.

Perhaps it's the body's natural response to inbreeding.

I really wonder why incest is such a taboo in Western society.

In any case, I'm just treading on already trodden territory; Jun, Westermarck, and Freud already discovered and played around with these issues, to great effect. Put in layman's terms, though, it's a much plainer case.

Time

Wednesday, 19.10.2005

...really needs to be infinitely allotted.

High school's getting hard to keep up with even without me maintaining this blog. It's amazing that I've even been able to keep this site looking good as it is (I'm reading a couple of titles on proper print typography; the analogies don't quite transfer over, but readability is readability), along with managing to do debate team and orchestra.

Which is to say, I'm pressed for time, no matter which way you look at it.

Unfortunately, that means that I'm still giving up sleep (no, my plan to sleep more has been postponed due to time deficits), and the concentration's still slipping away.

To be honest, it's a really funny feeling when you continuously forget what you're going to say or do. It's somewhat like never knowing who you are; those amnesiac movies aren't too incorrect in their rendition of people with that predicament. Dazzled, blinded, and confused would apply to me pretty well right now.

And suprisingly enough, it's apparent that other bloggers, too, have trouble updating their posts when the demon of real life gets in the way--Scott of http://scottishot.com has given up his blog entirely due to his lack of time, and he was one of the most proficient bloggers I'd ever talked to.

Probably the one thing that nips them in the bud is the fact that writing about real life issues takes so much time. If you write about your daily schedule, what happened here, what happened there, and basically provide a window into your own life, it can feel more like writing a novel than a weblog.

That's how the last post about Death Valley felt for me, anyway. I won't be doing that kind of expository writing anymore.

Besides, people won't really care about my life except for my future self (maybe).

In any case, the predominant idea, I think, about this blog, will be to point out interesting social effects that I notice in society--a sort of third party observer, you might say.

Of course, the only reason I notice all of these odd little social nooks and crannies is because I don't participate in it that much; without a life, it's much easier to notice what things are nonconsistent than with a life. If you have a life, inconsistencies show up as invisible.

Next post, please!

On Scorching Hot Desert and Freezing Cold Mountains

Tuesday, 04.10.2005

The Death Valley trip was pretty interesting, actually. Polytechnic School has a program where you basically are shipped off to a remote destination with some of your classmates, spend the week there, and come back. They say it's for the purposes of "non-classrom bonding"... but, I'm not really sure if you'd ever want to know some of these people outside of the classroom. I'd imagine that they could (possibly) be a little bit more weird than me.

But anyway, about the trip. Essentially, the synopsis told us that we'd be going on day hikes (small hikes during the day), and travelling from camp site to camp site in vans (the opposite of backpacking, basically). For the last three nights, we'd get to stay at one of the research stations run by the University of California, and there we'd get ensured roofs over our head, dorms with mattresses and showers, and even better, pre-prepared food.

That's how it was supposed to go, anyway. I'd say they managed to summarize it pretty well.

Except for the fact that everything was a lot harder than it seemed.

Day One

Essentially, I got up at 5 (on a Sunday! Insanity, I tell you!), started packing, and then left at 9:15. I was supposed to get over to the school campus by 9:30; I barely managed to make it when they'd started packing the cargo van with bags and materials.

Start off with throwing your bag into the van, then throwing your other bag in, then throwing in your little knapsack with car treats into one of the three SUVs that would be taking people.

Tip #1: Always, always look before you leap.

I say that because I jumped into the front seat of a car, not knowing which people would be in it. The group that assembled happened to be my anti-thesis -- hip-hop listening groupies with iPods. (I find it really funny that all the hip and untechnical people have iPods, but the technical ones don't; that's a story for another day, though.) In any case, yes, this was a group of people that I was to travel seven hours with.

That being said, silence is no fun in a car that's travelling that long. The teacher that was driving us had one of those iTrip-style attachments (a mini FM transmitter that plugs into your iPod). I'd managed to burn a CD of several tracks before I left in a hurry, but it didn't really have anything like road trip music on it (considering the fact that it consisted of Lia's Light Colors, a MOSAIC.WAV track, a violin solo from Saikano, Yui Horie's Love Destiny, and some Duran Duran/Mae, it was a spastic CD ranging from emotional downbeat to "hyper Japanese music", as my friends put it). The group took over the music tastes for a while (I'd guess maybe about three hours), at which point I took over with my iPod. I played Japanese vocal music all the time, pretty much, and aside from the occasional "What the hell is this?", they didn't comment much on it.

Well, of course they didn't comment; they were already listening to their own iPods. So much for that.

So as we coast down the road with the stereo blaring KOTOKO (Suppuration, actually), it hits me: this isn't turning out to be much of a social experience.

Part of the reason I'd burned a CD was the fact that we weren't supposed to bring iPods in the first place, only CDs, and even then, only if they were played on the car stereo. Why? Because it was supposed to be a group bonding experience, and a topic for discussion. Needless to say, it wasn't working that way; there were probably a couple of reasons why--I bet they weren't too enthusiastic about this car trip either, and there's also the fact that they probably didn't want to talk to me.

I played the most hyper, odd song that I had at the time (MOSAIC.WAV, of course). No response--I guess those earbuds do effectively block outside sound.

Arriving at the camp site, we setup our tents, and then slept.

Day Two

We started off with breakfast--standard camping fare, cereal. At this point, I probably should mention the fact that the food choices were left up to our "food groups", which we'd been given free reign over. Groups of three or four, they told us. Yeah, well, I ended up as a leftover, with another group of two girls; seeing that there wasn't any use in resisting, I joined them. The rest of the groups had been segregated amongst gender lines. Funny, though, our food group turned out to be one of the least interesting--we essentially never talked to each other when we didn't need to.

The cereal was good, though. Fresh milk is always good.

This is where the "day hike" misinterpretation came into play. When one sees the word "day hike", one may think of a short trail through the woods, then back out.

Boy, was I ever wrong at that.

Wednesday, 05.10.2005

Well, back to the point at hand--the rather lengthy day hikes.

On day two, we set off for a hike up to Wildrose Peak (but no, there was no snow). The trailhead sign reported a distance of 4.2 miles to the peak--not so bad, right?

And then I remembered how it was to hike uphill. Oh, the pain.

Thinking that I was a really cool guy, I tried to go along at the head of the pack as we started up the mountain, which only exhausted me to hell. I ended up in the back, with a couple of other people who wanted to take it easy too. It was a very nice hike, though, once we slowed down--you're better able to enjoy the scenery when you're not competing to see how fast you can go up the mountain.

There was a very pretty view of Death Valley and other mountain ranges from on the trail; one of the most breathtaking views I've ever experienced.

Moreover, I managed to get to know another guy in the slow group--Kevin. He seemed to be really cool, and my suspicions would be confirmed later. He was very neat in a geeky sort of way--most definitely a frood who knew where his towel was.

And from there, I went up with a small group of people to the peak. We numbered about 7, but I was in the slow group, and took my time on the summit trip as well. (The rest of the group stayed back at a nice lunch spot we had picked out.)

After seeing the marvelous view, we headed back down the mountain, and then got into camp.

I had chills, so I slept for a while.

Then dinner came and passed. There was some magnificent lightning and thunder--it quite spectacularly lit up the skies, such that for that instant, you could see in the night like it was daylight. It was pretty darn cool.

And then we all headed off for sleep.

Or so we thought, until it hailed on us in great quantities. Small marble-sized pieces of hail were fun to look at.

Sleep came back and ambushed us.

Day Three

Pretty laidback day. Wake up, pack up campsite, get in SUVs, ride to Scotty's Castle, and take a tour.

I was with the small group that took the underground engineering tour, and I'd say it was one of the cooler things I've seen in my life.

Scotty's Castle has an amazing labryinth of tunnels--all of its utilities and piping are accessible through them, and our guide was kind enough to show us some places where the tour didn't usually go, like the far ends of tunnels where the dead ends lie.

We got to wear hard hats in the tunnel! I'd say that's 50% of the experience right there.

But really, it'd seem like I was the only one in the group who enjoyed a look at the engineering side of the monument--seeing how all the piping was routed and how they laid cast pipes in 1920 as opposed to today. It was very, very neat. All the while, the rest of the group was either: a) falling asleep, b) about to bitch and whine and moan about how boring the tour was, or c) ambivalent.

More proof that I'm a true geek. Well, anyway.

After finishing off the tour, we were given the opportunity to buy things at the gift shop. A couple of guys got t-shirts, which was pretty cool.

And then the group discovered the snack bar next door, which sold food and soda and things we hadn't had eaten or dranken in about three days.

I was faced with a dillema: should I be really snobby about the trip, and not get anything for myself, assuming that it'd ruin the feel of my trip? Or should I get something and satisfy my need for Coke? Choosing the former would make me look so weird in the eyes of the rest of the students--which was the effect I wanted to go for. Anything to make me stand out, I guess. It was almost as if I was staying away from it to protect my reputation of oddity; it didn't feel right. So I gave in and decided to run over to the snack bar.

The decision was made for us before we could get anything. One of our teachers came over and drove us out of the snack place--he'd totally forgotten about the fact that it was there.

We all trampled back into the SUVs, depressed at the fact that we were not going to get any soda or junk food for the next week, it seemed.

We visited Ubehebe Crater, which was pretty cool. The sun was getting low in the sky around this time, so we could see the crater and not get baked by the solar rays. The redness of the sunset added to the prettyness of the crater.

Crater watching was fun, but we drove back to our campsite, not more than 15 minutes from either of those destinations.

Cue the night and food preparation for dinner.

There were several people that I'd managed to get acquainted with in the past several days--you could feel the aura of geekiness eminating from them. They could pass as normal people, sure, but my geek senses were set off by what they were talking about, and how they talked about it; they were passionate individuals who had hobbies all their own that they knew other people wouldn't care much about, yet they did it anyway.

One of them was Kevin, the guy I'd accompanied up on the hike to Wildrose.

These people are awesome. They keep open minds.

And with open minds, it's possible to have some of the most entertaining conversations ever. We happily chatted away for a number of hours before falling asleep; we'd managed to delay sleep's ambush by a little bit.

In the middle of the night, I woke up. The horizon had a blue aura--the sunrise was imminent. And that's when I saw a really nice shooting star.

Luna was magnificent in that black sky. Glowing as if she had no competition, the moon had never looked more beautiful to me--without the haze of the urban pollution, and without the noise of the concrete jungles, she could show me her true colors.

I got up, span in circles, and raised my hands at the moon. I'd never felt better.

And watching Luna, it occured to me that the stars, too, had come out to play as her accompaniment; they studded the black night sky like an infinite number of small jewels on a black cloth. The stars seemed almost to twinkle as if they were laughing, happy in their places.

The constellations had never been more evident; I saw the Ursa Major, Orion, the Seven Sisters, and the rest of the other major formations. It was as if they had been lying in wait to be observed like this all the time--outside of the city, the sky is an entirely different experience. It was so beautiful, I wanted to cry.

And in the midst of all of this, mind you, I was still spinning in circles like a mad man.

Day Four

Well. I'll write about the rest of this trip some other day.

Ahahaha~ I'm baaaack!

Tuesday, 04.10.2005

Well, I'm back from my trip to Death Valley and my debate tournament.

More about those two in a little bit.

Sleep (Part TWO!)

Wednesday, 21.09.2005

Well... my plan to get more sleep hasn't quuuite kicked in yet, and I'm getting about the same amount of sleep.

See, it's awfully hard to balance an obsession, school, and sleep while still managing to excel in all three.

I'm not really sure how to go about this--it seems impossible from what I've tried. (And I haven't even thrown in additional ingredients into the cocktail, such as practicing/playing the viola, orchestra/sports practices, computers, and fansubbing.) It's going to be a terrible year if I don't get this juggling act down. So far I've been able to scratch by, but scratching by isn't going to cut it if I want to survive with a safety margin.

My brain's probably getting more damaged than ever as the nights pass on without sleep. I wonder whether or not the 9 hours of needed sleep can be broken up--will my catnaps in the car count toward my sleep debt and brain development? I sure hope it does. :(

On a side note, it seems that the writing part of my brain has been dead all summer. I'll be damned if there's anything that I've written in the past 2 months that actually seems like a good literary work (not that I'm aiming for Shakespearean prose or the like, but something that could pass as higher than average). Writing papers has never been more irritating; now I have to think hard about concepts and technique, where as last year, the words would flow magically out of my fingers and make everyone happy, my English teacher and myself included.

I must need more pixy dust. And we all know what pixy dust is made out of... loli.

Projects

Monday, 19.09.2005

I'm having fun developing a new model of my headphones--hopefully, this model will solve a lot of the problems of the other ones (e.g., open cell foam which traps hair for the cushions). They'll be awesome!

OpenHazuki is really spinning its wheels. I have no idea whether or not it provides any tangible value if it's setup, but it would be very fun to do so. I'd like to write up a good proposal and cart it around to the various wireless groups, but I really don't think the idea's up to scrutiny yet. That, and I'm kind of embarrased of being called a "giant fool".

Blogging

Monday, 19.09.2005

I wonder what it takes to blog earnestly and lengthily. Despite the fact that my life should be interesting, I can't bring myself to actually talk about what happens in reality; in the translation to words, the events seem to lose their place and meaning.

I wonder how my friend Scott does it.

I think I know why, though--he's a different kind of person entirely. He used to be a geek like me (we used to compete for computer count), but he's left the camp for good. Scott's got a life now. Devastating, isn't it?

Sometimes I wonder if anybody actually reads these things--I mean, what does someone get out of reading about somebody else's life? It's of little to no value to them, even less if they're across the country and don't have anything in common at all. Maybe that's why they're interesting, though; people like to read stories, and if they're true, all the better, no matter what their content.

There's a thin line I've been walking in writing this blog. People in real life occasionally come up to me and mention that they've found my website, and it's great and all. They've also discovered the real me, as well; that's something that doesn't come out too often when I'm around people in reality--it's my internet personality, one could say. So where does one draw the line between saying too much and saying too little? If I kept everything that could be used against me off of this site, well, it'd be empty.

Should there even be a line at all? Shouldn't the people offline and online know me as the same person?

Shuffle!

Monday, 19.09.2005

...has the worst characters of most any anime I've ever seen.

You've got flat characters that are dead-set on serving the male protagonist, and really, the only humour that comes out of the entire deal is watching them screw up.

And the voice actresses get annoying to the point of death--Sia's VA grips me like a rabid cheese grater!

The fathers of the female characters make the entire show. They need to have their own 20-minute block.

...all that being said, I still watch it because I'm that kind of person.

Sleep.

Wednesday, 14.09.2005

The truth about needing sleep is true. For the past 5 years now, I've been getting <8 hours of sleep during the school year; sleep deprivation has finally reared is ugly, ugly head.

I'm forgetting things more than ever, overlooking small details, blanking out on typically trivial/simple problems. It's ridiculous; it's never been this bad before.

It's wreaking havoc with my life, I realize--my procrastination is a main result of me forgetting what I was going to do, then using that newly acquired free time to do something else. Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous, but that's how my life's running now.

So I'm going to try and get more sleep, which will possibly offset my schedule a little bit--however, I might be lucky. The increased gains in productivity from more sleep might be past the break-even point, which'd mean that I'd actually have more free time, not less. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Well. Hopefully I'll manage to concentrate in the first place and not get distracted in my fully-slept state.

If you've ever had that feeling of life not going together as you want it to, that's the feeling I'm having right now. It's kinda like I'm drowning under a sea of pressure, but I'm not exactly sure why I'm drowning; it just feels that way. I'm not even getting bad grades, but that feeling just lingers. Why? I have no idea.

Sleep deprivation's gone past the creative stage into the insanity page. No more keeping insanity spirit for me.

School Things

Tuesday, 13.09.2005

Life seems to be shaping up pretty well; it isn't the horrible experience I thought it might turn into.

Probably the only problem now is my time management--I really need to get down to business and stop procrastinating. (I've been staying up 5-6 hours checking Slashdot every half-minute and Wikipedia browsing; this isn't good for me.)

If I continue at this rate, I'll be dead by the end of the year!

Internet Explorer.

Tuesday, 13.09.2005

...is okay and all, but that's it. Okay. It'd be nice if the majority of users would go ahead and install something standards-compliant, like Opera or Firefox or Mozilla.

That's a webdesigner's wet dream, of course.

And on that note, why must IE7 not be fully standards compliant?! WHY?!

Society/Mass Media: Why?

Sunday, 10.09.2005

Society is awfully restrictive. It defines happiness for us, even--you have a lot of people going out on a limb to get thinner so they can be "happier." You have lots of people aspiring to be really rich so that they can be "happier."

Of course, the proliferation of mass media hasn't helped at all. Now once you go outside into any urban center, you're bombarded with advertisements that claim that their product will make you "happier," and you've got no choice but to look at them. (Try avoiding all advertisements for a while; you'll see that it's near impossible.)

So why do people fall into the trap of adapting what those companies want you to think?

Is it true that 90% of the people on Earth have a weak-willed constitution?

If everyone was more open with who they are--sexual preferences, sexual orientation, tastes, and the entire lot-- maybe we wouldn't have so many problems and maybe we'd have more peace on Earth.

Peace doesn't sell, though, because you've just broken up the marketer's oh-so-loved demographic statistics.

So really, what runs the world is money, which feeds companies, which brainwash the masses, which pay more money, ad infititum.

I'm definitely starting to have issues with the entire "being trendy" thing. It just doesn't make any sense.

Unless you include shame and embarassment. People do fear embarassment more than death, after all....

Embarassment requires people to embarass you, though; it's another endless cycle that needs to be totally eliminated, or else it doesn't work.

Maybe society should just start over again.

Moved.

Friday, 09.09.2005

Well, I've moved my blog over here because I figure that people who visit the front page probably don't want to know about the stuff I do all day, which can range from horrifying to utterly boring. So it's here, now!

On that note, do note that this is my blog, and it's probably the most dissecting view you could get of me.

I do not hesitate to talk about the goodness of lolicon!

Unyuu~

Thursday, 08.09.2005

I hate outlines. Hate them only because they're required--I'd be much better off if I wrote an essay, and then structured an outline from that. At least that's how my mind works, anyway.

Color scheme of the day: Loliconnection.

Lolipops~

Wednesday, 07.09.2005

So... second day of high school. What do I have to report?

It's school! And it's fun right now, but I bet by the time trips week rolls around (around a month), I'll be dead tired of the entire thing.

I think I'm very lucky though; I've managed to get the good teachers in all of my classes--especially English and Conceptual Physics. In English, I managed to avoid that one strict teacher who has a love of highlighters, and requires 6 of them--in class, organized, and readily available. As for Conceptual Physics? Well, I got Mr. White. He's a very cool teacher--just as much as his website.

I like my schedule, though. I'll start off the morning with a very nice, easy, lax class, Human Development. Basically, it's a class where we talk about problems that we're having or going to be faced with and whatnot, but the awesome thing is that we're allowed to bring food and drink and eat in there. Mmm, breakfast catch-up time.

Anyway, I think I should probably bring up my more serious point: does ephebophilia fall into the "illegal and horribly disgusting" category of fetishes, or could it be viewed as something more normal?

Here's what I think: it's a small evolutionary glitch that evolved, and now our culture's trying to change that biological clock.

Naturally, females are more fertile when they're young--that being said, it'd make complete sense from a "survival of the species" point of view that older men go for the younger women, as there'd be more chance of propogating the species.

Up until the drastic increase of lifespan with the revolutions in science and technology, girls always were married early; twelve wasn't an odd age to be wed.

So why is it that ephebophilia and its distant relative, pedophilia, get such a bad reputation?

Drawing the otaku aspect of these fetishes in, it's easy to see why many otaku have a lolicon. Pedophilia's probably not quite how you should put it, but lolicon does have a relation--the fact that the girls are young. So, an explainable reason for lolicon would be the fact that it triggers a primal urge, and the girls, more often than not, are structured to be the culmination of moe

Lolicon isn't that weird.

I will say, though, that non-consentual acts are disgusting, and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

Nihaha~

Tuesday, 06.09.2005

I've decided to continue my little weblog experiment for now--I figure I should at least give it a chance before I look at it, feel disgusted, and trash the entire thing.

Anyway, today happened to be the first day of school, and with that came a pleasant suprise. My reputation's followed me all the way from Chandler to Poly, and I didn't even realize it! I've had random people come up to me and say, "Hey, aren't you Raymond, the computer guy with a thousand computers?" I cracked up when I heard that one.

"No, only 32," I'd say. And that's when I realized that my computers have probably been overkill ever since I had more than 5 of them--or when I had to transfer them from underneath my desk to a dedicated sever shelves so that they were managable.

My facial hair's seeming to identify me as well; as I suspected, there aren't any other 9th graders with a mustache and goatee like me--think it's been already a couple of occasions when I was mistaken for either a faculty member, or someone older than a freshman.

Time's going to get into a real crunch, now that school's starting up--doing duty for AnimeYuki as well as beta testing over at Mirror Moon is going to become harder and harder. As they say, "Pick two: sleep, social life, or studies." It'll be hard, but I think I'll be able to juggle my time successfully enough--picking two just doesn't work for me! Let's make a blended time smoothie!

The actual school and activities have been pretty nice so far: the facilities are clean, activities seem to be pretty well organized, and most of all, it's fun. I'm really looking forward to the club meetings--so far, I've signed up for Debate Team, Yearbook, Robotics, DDR, and Compeace (which I think is going to be a major blow to my cluster's expansion, but that's a story for another day). Sadly, there wasn't any anime club, and there aren't any overt otaku at Poly either--you know, the stereotypical smelly fat person who obsesses over odd, odd things. I guess I'll just have to explore the darkness and see if there's anybody at all out there.

Moo?

- Raymond "Cyanoacry" Jimenez

First Blog Entry?

Wednesday, 01.09.2005

Updates? Well, I forgot about this site for a while, then was reminded when I was browsing through my website-related things.

This'll be the first blog entry I've ever done, and it may very well be the last. I've had a long-running love/hate relationship with blogs--on one side, they can be very useful and very evocative, with interesting comments and ideas all over the place; they can be creative inspirations and literary experiences like no other (no, really.)

That being said, of course there's the duds in the general outlay of blogs--the majority of whom are angsty teenagers that start updating their web log because it's trendy and cool; much like tourists, they attracted lots of attention to those who were blogging, but now they've overstayed their welcome and turned the word "blog" into a word that connotes not-so-good feelings in certain circles.

Well. And here's for my actual blog post:

Today marks the first day when I've actually realized that my life is going somewhere--I'll be soon attending Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California. With that comes the scary fact that I can no longer hide behind the moniker of being a child--high school students are looked on as different beings than those who are still in junior high and elementary.

In other words, yes, I'm getting responsibilites.

One of those responsibilities (and really, it's not cliched!) is the responsibility to go out there and make friends. "Friendship isn't a responsibility," you might say, but in a certain sense it is--a responsibility to myself to make things better. A responsibility that'll result in a social web which will, in the end, benefit me as I go trod along in life.

I'm not really much of a social person (I'll try to avoid sociability if I can get away with it), but somehow this school has a nice community that makes that change. I just got back from a freshman meeting over at the campus, and I've never had an experience like that before. You know, an experience where I wasn't relegated to the corner, an experience where I was noticed and talked to. Creepy stuff.

Well, maybe that's because I'm trying now. Trying hard to fulfill that responsibility--ever so often, that pain in my heart will swell up when I realize that I don't really have any friends, but rather talk to computer screens all day--while people on IRC may still be people, they are hidden all the same.

The otaku inside me has begun relegating itself to a shelf--no longer am I limited to moe characters, lolicon, and other things--no, I'm better now, and I can see things outside of that niche. Heck, I'm even beginning to get back into good American music (what little is left, anyway).

I'm half-writing this as a ridiculously emotional lament to other people, to prove that the anime and plot paradigm of characters miraculously changing in the middle of the plot is possible, but not too common.

I'm also half-writing this as a note to myself in the future--what fun it'll be to look back here and realize how ridiculous I used to be.

And good night, I say to you; be you a reader who has come here out of curiosity or is a friend of mine, I hope that you got something, anything, out of this post tonight.

If not, email me, because I'm doing something wrong.

Edit: Okay, so this is why I really wanted to never blog in my life--it's way too apt to turn into a long, blase rant that goes absolutely nowhere. Well, I guess one's experience in writing can only come from performing the actual deed; so bear with me as I write and write and write here, trying to find a style, an audience, and topics that work.

Origami Wings

Wednesday, 27.07.2005

Folded feathers attached to look like wings.

Hack-a-day'd

Wednesday, 27.07.2005

Wahahahah! Hack-a-day'd!

Origami Cuckoo Clock

Tuesday, 26.07.2005

Okay, so I lied. Pictures of the Origami Cuckoo Clock

Origami

Tuesday, 26.07.2005

I'll probably start posting my origami stuff whenever I have time... but in the meantime, I won't have much up.

Server cooling!

Tuesday, 26.07.2005

Rip open the case and let fresh air flow through those desparate places.

Switch cooling!

Tuesday, 26.07.2005

Cool your switches! Release the heat demon from the innards!

Cases!

Tuesday, 26.07.2005

Cardboard iPod cases!

Otakon!

Tuesday, 26.07.2005

I'm going to Otakon and taking my headphones with me. If you see me, go ahead and ask me about them -- you can try them out! On that side note, I'll probably be bringing other stuff too, as I'm meeting up with Kaori. Not quite Defcon, but we can run a little geekfest by ourselves...

Kaori, don't forget the power cord again! >.<

And if anyone happens to have an LCD monitor... could they maybe just bring it to Otakon? We have no display for his brieftop. :(

Headphones?

Tuesday, 26.07.2005

This daily update thing might actually start happening. Anyway, I've put up a page detailing my headphones -- yeah, the odd homemade ones. They're cool, they look insanely geeky, and they sound good. They're awesome.

Cyan-style Headphones

And in passing, let me mention my other pet project: OpenHazuki. She's gotten very little attention in the past few months... poor project. Take a look at her and comment on the wiki! She's an insane idea, but I think it could work... maybe.

Updates 'n Stuff

Monday, 25.07.2005

So I finally get around to updating this old piece of... well, junk. I'll be writing more in the upcoming months, and adding reviews, stories, pictures, hacks, random thoughts... basically, anything that fits my fancy. Maybe even fanfiction. Barring that, I'm finally getting around to signing up for fanlistings.

Which brings me to my other point -- I'm now a member of the Sister Princess fanlisting. Banzai!

Kokoro Toshokan Fanlisting

Sunday, 28.02.2005

I love Kokoro Toshokan. The music's awesome, the animation's good, and the plotline's a nice break from a hectic almost Futakoi-Alternative-like world. Kokoro's so cute, too. Who can go wrong with that?

Jiiiiii~

Sunday, 28.02.2005

Mahoraba ~Heartful Days~ is good.

Iichau! Iichau! Popotan~

Sunday, 28.02.2005

I don't actually know what to put here, so here's random things:

NNL released the Colorful Hearts OP, from the sequel to Colorful Kiss. Banzai!

And in other news, Air 8 from Koi was released today. I'd say "Yay!" but the fact is, there's a cliffhanger. Need more Air.

I'll put the "Systems" section up soon enough, as I actually have an idea as how to do it. Other sections will come whenever I feel motivated enough; most likely the IRC page will come second.

Comments

Odd Ramblings

On the topic of reorganization...

Openminded-ness

Time

On Scorching Hot Desert and Freezing Cold Mountains

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Ahahaha~ I'm baaaack!

Sleep (Part TWO!)

Projects

Blogging

Sleep.

School Things

Internet Explorer.

Society/Mass Media: Why?

Moved.

Unyuu~

Lolipops~

Nihaha~

First Blog Entry?

Origami Wings

Hack-a-day'd

Origami Cuckoo Clock

Origami

Server cooling!

Switch cooling!

Cases!

Otakon!

Headphones?

Updates 'n Stuff

Kokoro Toshokan Fanlisting

Jiiiiii~

Iichau! Iichau! Popotan~