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Posted the character profile of Eren Yeager (from Attack On Titan). Posted the article Blu Ray Review: Star Wars Rebels: Complete Season 4.

Posted the anime profile of Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Posted the article Level 5 Takes Firm Stand with Ni no Kuni Anime Announcement.

Posted the article The Enduring Influence of Anime on Western Popular Culture.

Happy Valentine's Day! For my beloved I got an elongated ADA 18" high Kohler toilet... how romantic! I got and installed it on Tuesday and it took way longer than all the videos I watched had led me to believe. One reason is because I tried using Fluidmaster's Better Than Wax toilet seal instead of a wax ring for the seal and spent well over an hour trying to get it to fit right, but no matter what I did I could not get the toilet to sit flush with the floor, it always had some wiggle to it. So I eventually gave up with that and tried Korky's Wax-Free gasket, another wax-free alternative. This thing worked great, fit just right the first time with no wiggle. Then another thing that slowed me down was that the 9" water line we had didn't reach the tank so I had to go to the store and pick up a 16", but when I got home and tried to hook it up I realized I had picked up a sink faucet water line. I had definitely been in the toilet repair area when I picked it up so someone must have just thrown it in the wrong box when they went to put it back, thus I had to go back to the store, return it, and buy the right one.

Yesterday turned out to be a weird day. At 4AM our power had gone out, and we knew the exact time because when it happened the alarm on our UPS battery backup started wailing like someone was trying to kill a bag full of angry cats. There's supposed to be a way to turn the alarm off but it doesn't seem to work so I just turned off the UPS. I had noticed it was snowing outside before heading to bed and in the morning everything was covered in like 10 inches of snow. Also, the giant oak tree, which was more like two oak trees attached at the base, had fallen over. So no more oak tree :(. It hit and crushed the metal dog run fence in several spots but I can't see if it did any damage to the wooden fence further back as there's too many branches in the way.

Due to all the snow, Treese couldn't get to work so she got to have a snow day. Unfortunately, the power outage lasted until 5pm so it wasn't the most enjoyable snow day. It was really cold so we tried to keep bundled up and used the gas fireplace for heat which we haven't used in a long, long time (after taking out the fake fire log of course). We also used that fire to cook some canned raviolis since our gas stove doesn't function without power, which is a terrible design flaw. Who designs a gas stove to not work without power? It was around 5PM when the power finally came back on which was nice because it was beginning to get too dark to do anything. Once the power came back our living room clock started making a loud buzzing sound from inside, not like an alarm but like there was something wrong, so I unplugged it. I plugged it into a different outlet but the buzzing persisted. I tried to set the time but it was unresponsive so I think it's toast. Also, the cooling fans in our NVR got really noisy so I think I'll have to replace those. I haven't noticed any other problems yet so hopefully that's it.

Posted my review of The Grinch (2018). Updated the forum to the latest version of the phpBB software.

Posted the article Top 5 Gambling Anime and Manga.

The second page of the Japanese children's book ふんふん なんだかいいにおい is:

おおいそぎで ごはんを たべると どうなりますか。
さっちゃんの くちのまわりは たまごのきみで くわんくわん。
てのひらは いちごジャムで べたべた。
エプロンは とりのスープで しみだらけです。

The first line is "Ooisogi de gohan wo taberu to dou narimasu ka" and I know all those words except "dou narimasu" which apparently means something like "what will happen". So that sentence is "What will happen if I eat a meal urgently?" and the next three sentences appear to be the answer. The second line is "Sacchan no kuchi no mawari wa tamago no kimi de kuwankuwan". Here "kuchi" is mouth and "tamago" is egg but I don't know "mawari", "kimi", or "kuwankuwan". According to the Internet, "mawari" means "around" but "kimi" has different meanings and "kuwankuwan" is a complete mystery. The next two sentences don't get any easier, something about strawberry jam on hands and soup on an apron. I didn't expect a children's book to be this challenging!

Posted the article Just When You Thought One Piece Couldn’t Get Any More Legendary, They Brought In Dinosaurs.

Posted the character profile of Puri Puri Prisoner (from One Punch Man).

Memrise, one of the apps I use for Japanese language practice, recently did a major update. This update introduced a rather annoying bug where instead of showing the translation of a kanji it just shows the kanji itself, thus, no way to know what the kanji means! This update also sees the removal of a feature I really liked which was that when typing an incorrect translation of a given English sentence in Japanese, the app would show the correct Japanese and then underneath would show what you had typed and highlight the part that was wrong. Now it no longer shows what you typed. One change I do like is that they finally fixed the Speed Review so it's now possible to finish. Before this update it would give you less and less time on each screen until finally you had like one second to read the English then read all four choice boxes of Japanese and choose the right one. That was tough for individual words but for screens with complete sentences it was impossible. I couldn't even do that if everything was in English, there just wouldn't be enough time to read the choices. Now you get the same amount of time on each page and so for the first in over a year I was able to complete a speed review.

Posted the article Top 4 Anime-Themed Online Slot Games.

Posted the article Overwatch, Anime & eSports: How MonteCristo Became A Villain. For all Captain Underpants fans out there, the second season of DreamWorks The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants is premiering exclusively on Netflix February 8th! Check out the trailer on YouTube.

I posted on japanese.stackexchange.com asking for help understanding that sentence I couldn't translate and received a great response from a user named Chocolate who broke it down piece-by-piece. That sentence means "Why? ... I can't tell that to Mom.", so the first page says "Sachan ate breakfast urgently. Mom always says 'please ate slowly' but today it cannot be helped. Why? ... I can't tell that to Mom." Now that page one is done, I suppose it's time to move on to page two!

Posted the article Advertise your anime account!.

The first page in the Japanese children's book ふんふん なんだかいいにおい that I'm trying to read is:

さっちゃんは おおいそぎで あさごはんを たべました。
おかあさんは いつも 「ゆっくり たべなさい」 と いうけれど、 きょうは ゆっくりなんて していられないの。
なぜって‥‥‥
それは おかあさんには ないしょなの。

The first sentence (Sachan wa ooisogi de asagohan wo tabemashita) means something like Sachan ate breakfast urgently. I understood that without having to look anything up except I don't know why the particle で is there after おおいそぎ. I struggled more with the second sentence. I knew "ゆっくり たべなさい" meant something about eating slowly but I didn't recognize the ~なさい (~nasai) conjugation. Searching the web I found that it indicates a request, like ~kudasai, but is used when talking to someone who is a lower rank than you such as a parent to a child, so that phrase simply means "Please eat slowly". I also didn't know that "と いう" means "to say" in that a person was just quoted. I did know that けれど means "but/however", きょう means "today", and ゆっくり means slowly but I didn't recognize the なんて on the end of it. Apparently it's just a word that give emphasis. Then I also didn't recognize していられないの which according to Google Translate means "cannot be helped". So the second sentence should mean something like "Mom always says 'please ate slowly' but today it cannot be helped". The third sentence starts with なぜって‥‥‥ which I didn't recognize at all and apparently just means "why". Then それ means "that" and おかあさん means "mom" but I didn't know ないしょ or なの. Apparently ないしょ means "secrecy" and なの is just an informal version of ですか, which is sort of like "to be?". But both Google Translate and Microsoft Translate give different translations of that sentence, neither has a word like secrecy in it and neither seem to make much sense in the context so I'm still not sure what that sentence means.

Posted the character profile of Roger Ruvie (from Death Note).

Posted the article Slot Game Themes Inspired By Anime. Fixed the My phpBB Extensions page which wasn't showing any extensions due to the server not being configured to read files inside ZIP files.

Posted the character profile of Alastor (from Hazbin Hotel).

I am trying to learn Japanese. I had taken some classes in college but hadn't kept on it, then in the middle of 2017 I decided to start up again when I found a phone app that could help. At the end of 2017 I had set a goal of being able to read one of my Japanese children's books by the end of 2018. I didn't practice with the books at all during the year, but rather focused on daily practice using multiple phone apps. Over the past year and a half I learned a lot: vocabulary, grammar, phrases, the Japanese alphabets, and even some kanji. When the end of the year came I broke out one of the books ふんふん なんだかいいにおい ("Hmmmm, it smells good") and gave it a whirl but was only able to make it about three pages in, and even that was slow going. I didn't think it'd be so tough considering it's written in mostly hiragana with a little katakana thrown in, and no kanji at all which meant they used spaces to separate words, something that's rarely done in Japanese. But there's just too many words I don't know yet, so I am renewing this same goal for 2019. I will continue to practice Japanese through the apps but I think I'll also practice with the book.

Another goal I set for 2019 was to learn how to solve the Rubik's Cube. It's something I've wanted to do ever since it became popular back in the 80s. My mom had even gotten a book on it and was able to solve it. I have no idea where that book is now but thanks to the Internet it doesn't really matter. I looked up a beginner's guide online and even that was daunting. I followed the instructions but kept messing up somewhere which was totally frustrating. Eventually I was able to go through all the instructions and get it solved, which felt good but not great since I was being walked through it step-by-step. So then I started practicing and was shocked to find that after only about week of practicing somewhere around 15 a day I was able to solve it on my own, without looking at the tutorial. I did my first real solve on Thursday night and have been solving it multiple times a day every day since in order to really lock it in my head so I won't forget how to do it later on. I still make mistakes on occasion, usually when I get distracted during a sequence, but I'm always able to recover and finish the cube. I don't really time myself but it seems like it usually takes around 3-4 minutes. I seriously thought accomplishing this goal would take a lot longer so now I'm going to have to come up with another goal for the year.

Posted the character profile of Jean Kirstein (from Attack On Titan).

The trailer for The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle was released today. Personally I haven't seen this show yet even though we do have Amazon Prime but the trailer makes it look more funny than the original series which I was never a huge fan of.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g7ZvCs2ews&feature=youtu.be

Posted the character profile of Azusa Nakano (from K-On!).

Happy New Year everyone! We're only two days in but I hope you all got off to a good start. We went to see Aquaman yesterday, which was fine. Enjoyable for the most part, Jason Momoma was great as usual. I loved his character in Stargate: Atlantis and enjoyed every performance I've seen since then, even when the movies themselves were nothing spectacular (Conan the Barbarian, Braven). He brings an energy that makes the character enjoyable to watch and easy to get invested. That's something the DC movie universe really needs. My eyelids started getting real heavy during that ending CG battle, though, when it switched from watching characters I care about to a whole bunch of computer generated people I had no investment in fighting each other. I struggled to stay interested during that whole sequence, but up until that part I was enjoying it. I thought they did a good job with the underwater effects, the hair and the way people moved.

Added Myst III - Exile to the PS2 HDLoader Compatibility List.

We saw Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse this weekend and really enjoyed it. We also saw Bird Box on NetFlix which Treese heard everyone talking about at work, and it was fine. Not sure what all the buzz was about, we didn't think it was super amazing or anything. When it ended I had questions (spoilers ahead!).... why wouldn't the creatures go inside buildings? How did the group know that the creatures wouldn't go inside buildings, like the giant supermarket where they all took off the blindfolds once they got inside. If Gary was already infected when they let him into the house, why weren't his eyes all freaky and why weren't the birds totally freaking out like they did in the supermarket? When the rapids were approaching, why didn't they get out and walk the rest of the way. It's not like they had to keep going down the river for miles and miles after the rapids, their destination was right there. So yeah, liked it but wasn't in love with it. We also binge watched the TV show Titans this week which we enjoyed. I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe New Years Eve tonight!

A couple days ago I implemented a feature where I would fade the background and prevent clicks whenever the dropdown menus were active in an attempt to prevent accidental clicks on Google AdSense ads that would be behind the menus. Afterwards I submitted the page for review to the AdSense team and today I received an email saying my page was reviewed and no policy violations were found, so it looks like my solution worked.

After I implemented my attempted solution of fading the background behind drop down menus to prevent accidental clicks, I submitted the page for review to the Adsense team. I got an email today saying my page was reviewed and no policy violations were found, so it looks like my solution worked.

When hovering over the main menu, everything behind it will now dim and prevent clicking. I did this because I received a policy violation report email and when I checked it said the violation was "Encouraging accidental clicks: Layout" on this specific page: Shirley Fenette. I looked over the page and didn't see any violation so I asked for help in the AdSense Help Forum and the response I received was that the dropdown menus can overlap the AdSense ads. I've had other pages reviewed after I've fixed other policy violations and none of the AdSense reviewers ever mentioned that the drop down menus were a problem, but I do understand the logic behind it. A user could accidentally slip off the menu slightly and click the ad by mistake. With this dimmed overlay, such accidents would be nearly impossible because it prevents all clicking on anything other than the menu and instead of disappearing instantly when the mouse goes off of the menu it fades away slowly.

I hope everyone had a good holidays! We spent this Christmas with my family. My Aunt Terri and Uncle Dean were in town so we got to visit with them a bunch which was really nice. Two days before Christmas we went out to dinner with Dad's side of the family at the tasty Black Bear Diner though the table was so long and we were on the end so didn't really get to visit with everyone there, but we did get to visit while we stood around in the lobby waiting for the table to be ready. On Christmas eve we went to see Bumblebee with my mom and oh my gosh it was actually a good live-action Transformers movie! We opened presents Christmas morning, then went to my cousin Tedd's new house which I hadn't seen before and I got to hold their little baby Zayne. He was so cute! And he shares my hairline....

My parents got us a unique gift this year, a land donation in our honor for The Wild Animal Sanctuary's new 9,004-acre Wild Animal Refuge that's being build in Southern Colorado. Mom had told me about her visit to the existing animal sanctuary and showed me a video of it and the new one larger one that's being built. Seems really cool where there are really long walkways built high up so you can explore the park and see the animals with them still being able to roam completely free. I'd urge everyone to check out their website and watch the videos: www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/.

Posted the article 5 Signs You Might Be Addicted To Anime.

Merry Christmas!

Posted the anime profile of SSSS.Gridman.

Posted the article Bitcoin Casinos and Sports Betting in Japan.

It was cold this morning but I still went out and finished fixing the main water line for the backyard sprinklers. I cut a small piece of 1" PVC and glued it to the union connector to make a little pipe extension, then glued that to the other end of the screw on connector. After allowing that to dry for a few minutes I then glued the open end of the union connector to the existing pipe. After about 5 hours I turned on the water and checked leaks. Success! I'll check it again later and probably once more tomorrow morning before filling the hole in with all the buckets of dirt I excavated.

Posted the character profile of Ochako Uraraka (from My Hero Academia).

We heard running water last night outside my office window, the sound like when the sprinklers are running, but the sprinklers were off so I went out to investigate. I traced the sound to the back lawn where I found water rapidly bubbling up out of a spot in the grass. It was the general area where I had repaired two broken pipes eight years ago. I shut off the valve to the water line that runs back there and this morning went out and dug up that whole area. Once I got down to the pipes and cleaned them off enough so that I could get a decent view I discovered that one of the union connectors I had used in my previous repair was cracked. So I had to take a trip to Lowe's. I looked at various options but eventually bought the same union connector as before. It was one of those expansion ones with adjustable length slide-action. Only the non-sliding side of mine was broken but they didn't sell just one side so I had to get the whole thing. I also had to get a simple union connector so that I could make the pipe longer to account for having to cut off the old cracked part. By the time I got home and got the pipe cut it was getting too dark to do any gluing so I'll have to do that tomorrow.

Posted the article The Best Anime Relationships of All Time.

Posted the article Best Microgaming Casino Games in Anime Style.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We went to visit family for the whole holiday weekend which was nice and relaxing. I ended up wining one of those Amazon giveaways on Thanksgiving morning which was a nice surprise. It was a Panoramic Fisheye Wi-Fi Security Camera. I still haven't gotten around to opening it yet but I should probably do that soon just to make sure it works.