News & Updates in July 2004

Added the anime profiles for Beyblade G Revolution, Giant Robo: The Animation, Happy Lesson, Kanon, Knights of Ramune, Midori No Hibi, Slave Doll, and Transformers: Robots in Disguise.

Added a link in the navigation bar of the Anime Profile Index and Character Profile Index pages which allows you to precisely specify which profiles should be displayed in the list. Set-up a new Absolute Anime Forum. The set-up was fast and easy, but I haven't formatted it to look like the rest of the site yet, as that seems like it's going to require a lot of time to do.

Added the anime profile Geneshaft. Added character profiles for Hyatt Mikako, Kobayashi Excel, Ropponmatsu 1, Ropponmatsu 2, Pedro Domingo, Misaki Matsuya (from Excel Saga).

The DirecTV lady came out this morning and got our local channels working again. She had to go back on the roof and replace a transponder (or something like that). She was here bright and early at 8 AM. Thankfully she called yesterday to let us know so we could be prepared. Oh, I forgot to mention that yesterday morning we received a call from someone in California who wanted to ask me some questions about Pacesetter. Apparently he was writing an article about another couple who had been having major problems with Pacesetter.

Added the anime profile Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Added character profiles for The King (from Dragon Half); Lettuce, Kish, Masaya Aoyama (from Tokyo Mew Mew).

Switched the character encoding of the pages from SHIFT-JIS to UTF-8. Added the id "AbsoluteAnime" to the HTML body tag so that people could make their own custom style sheets specifically for this site. Added the ability to display a specific random image on the main page by appending to the url a question mark followed by the number of the image to display (for example, http://www.AbsoluteAnime.com/index.html?12 would display image 12).

Added character profiles for Daisuke Niwa (from D.N.Angel); Jimmy Kudo/Conana Edogawa, Rachel Moore, Richard Moore, Yukiko Kudo (from Case Closed); Yuko (from Astro Boy 2003 Remake).

I added a new icon for displaying the Kana/Kanji equivalent of Japanese romanization. And then I had an idea on how to make all those tool-tip-like displays work in Netscape. So I implemented it, and not only did it work, but it ended up taking less javascript code than my previous implementation.

Added a profile for anime collection Vanilla Series. Added character profiles for Miho Nozaka (from Yu-Gi-Oh!); Hagiri Kaname (from Yu Yu Hakusho); Silva, Rio (from Shaman King). Split this updates page into separate pages according to month. This page was just getting too big.

I'm switching the character set for the web pages from ISO-8859-1 to SHIFT-JIS, which will allow the pages to display Japanese characters (written in Shift-JIS format). I didn't do this earlier because, when I attempted it, I noticed that some characters (such as é) wouldn't display correctly. I had just assumed that using the HTML character code (such as é) to display them would produce the same result. Recently, I discovered that it was not the case. Using the HTML character code forces the proper character to display.

Treeses appointment with the surgeon last Tuesday went smoothly. Of course, Dr. Cross, her surgeon, never showed his face, but one of the other surgeons talked with us and checked her out. He suggested that the Topamax might be causing her anemia, so she stopped taking that. And it was still too early to take the staples out, so that should be happening now in the next few days. We had a RABA van take us to the appointment, and afterwards she and them take us over to Denny's for some lunch (shhhhh) before heading back to the hospital.

Later on that same day my mom, aunt, and grandma all arrived at the house. My mom and I went out to get a frame for the bed to get it raised higher so Treeses could use it. We also got risers, but the bed really didn't seem sturdy with those, so we tried them on the couch, which worked well. Afterwards, we all went to Denny's and got take-out, then brought it over to the hospital to have a nice dinner with Treeses. She really, really enjoyed that...having a real dinner and real conversation with family who actually feel more like family than her own family. She was so happy!

The next morning she learned how to get in and out of the car. My car was still too low for her to actually try it, but the lady showed her how to do it, and now she can do it just fine. So while I was with Treeses, and then later at work, my family went and visited Turtle Bay. Later that evening we all went over to visit her again. Since I was at work and they were at the house we were just going to meet each other there. And the timing was perfect, as I ended up right behind their car on the way there. Treeses had plenty of leftovers from the day before, so we didn't get any dinner beforehand.

On Thursday we did the take-out dinner thing again, this time from KFC. I ordered Treeses exactly what she wanted, two legs and a wing, mashed potatoes, and a corn. Of course, I wasn't paying attention when they packed the order, so instead of two legs and a wing they gave her something like two thighs and a rib. And they weren't even busy! But Treeses enjoyed it anyway.

On Friday morning they all left for home. Treeses was being released at noon, so I went to pick her up. I had to take the Bronco, as she still couldn't get into a car as low as mine. I stayed home from work with her all day. Both the bed and the couch were at the perfect height for her, and she has no problem getting around with her walker or reaching things with her pincher. She seems to be getting stronger every day, which is wonderful.

On Saturday we had a lady from DirecTV come out and install a new dish so that we could receive the local channels. She was able to install it on the roof by attaching it to an exposed wooden beam. Then when she came in to mess with our receiver, I had to bring out the TV from the bedroom and hook it up directly to the satellite receiver box, as she kept getting confused by our TiVo. I kept telling her that it was just a stand-alone unit, but it's like she couldn't understand that the signal was just passing through it. And she also kept saying that we must have a very old model (because it only had one tuner and a display she didn't recognize, which is different from the DirecTivo's that she's used to seeing).

Anyway, she got it set up, and had me sign a couple things. One of the papers was a service checksheet, which was all filled out in advanced, including the circling of "yes" for the overall "were you satisfied" question. She tried to hide this paper under another paper, revealing just the place that I needed to sign. Sneaky little... Well, she didn't do hardly any of the things that were checked off, but that was okay because the channels were working and I didn't care about any of the other things. I really just wanted her to leave. So, everything was working fine until today, when all of a sudden our local channels stopped coming in. All we're getting now is a "Searching for satellite signal..." on them, so it looks like I'll have to call DirecTV tomorrow.

Yesterday we went out and picked up our tickets for the Weird Al concert that's later this month. Got front seat balcony!

Added the character profile of Miya-jun (from FLCL).

Did some corrections this weekend, but didn't have the time to do any profiles.

Treeses has been doing well at the hospital, so on Friday they transferred her to the Northern California Rehabilitation Hospital. I was there during the transfer and stuck around for a couple hours afterwards while they were getting her set up and telling us about the place. Even though they have the same visiting hours as Redding Medical Center, this place actually locks the doors, so now I have no choice but to get there before 8 PM. I left work a little early so I could pick up Treeses some fruit and a pizza for dinner.

On Saturday morning, I was going to get an oil change and then visit Treeses, but when I took my car in they let me know it was time to do a bunch of other maintenance, so I had them drop me off at the Rehab hospital while they were doing that. Her leg muscles seem to be getting stronger every day. I think it's at least partially due to her really wanting to get out of there.

I spent all day Sunday over there, and we went outside for the first time. That was my first time pushing a wheelchair. The iron level in her blood is really low, so she can't walk too much yet. They're giving her iron pills for it, but it will take something like a month to get her levels up to where they should be. Oh, we found out that the doctor put in the ceramic hip, and supposedly made her legs the same length. Before there was a 3/4 inch difference.

Tomorrow she has an appointment with her surgeon, so we'll finally get to talk with him. We're hoping he's going to take the staples out, too, but were not sure as the appointment was made before the surgery had been delayed a week. Also, my mom, aunt, and grandma are coming up tomorrow to visit Treeses and see how she's doing.

It seems DirecTV has finally gotten local channels in the Redding area. Yipee! Of course, you need a multi-satellite dish to receive them, which I don't have. I called to find out how much it would cost to upgrade, and apparently it's absolutely free, installation and everything (as long as you agree to keep using DirecTV for at least a year). So I scheduled an appointment this weekend to have that installed. Yaaah, no more static!

Hopefully they'll be able to install it on the roof. We have those concrete shingles, and the previous installer said he couldn't put a dish on those, so he put it on the platform that covers the firewood. Well, that thing has gotten pretty wobbly since then, and also, with it over there, the wires have to run across the walkway, making it very easy to trip. I saw someone down the street who had a DirecTV dish on their roof, which is the same type as ours, so hopefully they'll be able to do that.

Added the character profile of D (from Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust).

Today is my wife's birthday. Happy Birthday!

Added the character profiles of Sweet (from Zoids Fuzors); Dark Magician (from Yu-Gi-Oh!).

Added the anime profiles of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth, Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and Miami Guns. Moved the feedback form to its own page.

Treeses had her hip surgery today. It was scheduled for about 11:00 AM, but the doctor was late so it didn't actually start until one-ish. After they prepped her, they let me sit with her until the doc finally arrived. Once they rolled her to the operating room, I went back to the waiting room. I played Game Boy Advance for a while, then when the battery light went red, I turned it off and practiced reading some Japanese. Then around 5-ish Victor dropped by to see how she was doing (since she was supposed to have been out of surgery by then). Even though Treeses wasn't done yet, it was still nice to have someone to talk with for a bit.

They finally rolled her out around 5:45, and the nurse came and got me so I could be with her as they took her to her room. I was kind of expecting the doctor to came out and explain what had went down when it was over (just like what happened with everyone else in the waiting room), but that didn't happen. She was in a lot of pain, and the morphine didn't do anything for her. A few hours later they were finally able to swap it out with some other pain medication that worked really well for her. So once that was set up, she was finally able to get some rest, and so I took off around 9:30.

Added an anime profile for I Love You. This was another review DVD I just received. I also got Comic Party Vol 4 a little while, which was quite good. But since it was volume 4, I really didn't know the characters or what was going on. Still, it kept me interested and made me laugh, so I figure that I'll probably end up buying the first 3 volumes pretty soon. I also made that search box Google logo disappear whenever the box has a cursor or text in it. And of course, made more corrections and additions to existing profiles.

Treeses and I went to see Shrek 2 today. It was just as good as the first, which was cool. I think they could have done a little better in their music selections, but that's just nitpicking. Tomorrow we hope to go see Fahrenheit 9/11.

For most profiles, the main picture off to the right often needs to be scaled down from it's original version in order to fit nicely next to the data. When the web browser does the scaling, a lot of times the image can look distorted, so when that happens I make a copy of the image, use an image program (IrfanView) to scale it down, and then display that image instead. Clicking on that image will take you to the full size image. Anyway, I hadn't updated that image program in a while, so I went and installed the latest version...and discovered that this new version had command line support for re-sizing images! This meant that I could now have the script that builds the webpages automatically create the smaller images, which is exactly what I did.

Uploaded Recycle.zip, which contains a script and program that will move files to the Windows' Recycle Bin. Normally, in batch files and scripts, there is no command to delete files to the recycle bin, which sucks, because then the files either get overwritten or deleted forever (well, there is an undelete command, but it's not nearly as safe as the Recycle Bin). I had been looking for a script or program that would do this for a long time, but never found one. I came across a reference to one, called recycle.exe, but was never able to actually find it. So I finally broke down and wrote one, and then modified it in such a way that I could use it as a script and compile it into a program. The zip file contains both the script and the program. To use the script, you'll have to have Windows Scripting Host installed, and to use the program you'll have to have Microsoft's .NET installed.

Treeses hip replacement surgery was supposed to have taken place yesterday, but it didn't. Why? It's all because of one lady. One lady who has had a pissy attitude with Treeses ever since my wife first met her, and we have no idea why. This lady was supposed to schedule a metal test for Treeses to find out which metals she is allergic to. Later, when Treeses hadn't heard anything about it, she called to find out when it was supposed to be. The lady, again with a pissy attitude, told my wife that they would call her. As the surgery date grew closer, Treeses went in to the office and asked her when her metal test was going to take place. The lady, the same lady, had no idea what Treeses was talking about. Before Treeses lost control and strangled her, a guy behind the lady who overheard the conversation took out Treeses file and looked it over, then showed the lady right there on the paper where it said she needed to be scheduled for a metal allergy test. The guy made her get on the phone and do it write then and there.

They got it scheduled for the day before the surgery, but when Treeses when to do it, she was told that not only would it take a couple days to do the test, but that he didn't even have the metal to do the tests with. So the surgery was postponed. And that same morning, the drivers at RABA had voted to make their medical insurance worse so that they could save a few bucks every month. Oh yeah, and my mom was driving up to Redding so she could be there while Treeses was in surgery. Next week she won't be able to be here, as she'll be out of state. But we're not the only ones who are pissed at that lady. The doctor who will be doing the surgery was scheduled for a vacation next week. He was nice enough to offer to come back so Treeses could get her surgery as soon as possible, which I'm sure pissed him off. Hopefully she'll get fired.

I left messages for my mom telling her that the surgery was postponed, but she didn't check any of them before leaving. She arrived around 5:30, and took a nap shortly afterwards because we were all going to see the midnight showing of Spider-Man 2 with Victor. We arrived at the theater around 11:30, and it was already packed. There weren't four seats together, so Victor sat with my mom and I sat with Treeses. We were all on the far left hand side, but were pretty close to the back so being off to the side wasn't very noticeable. The movie was excellent. You all must go see it.

Since Treeses is going to be in the hospital on her birthday, I decided to let her have her birthday gift a little early, and so I gave it to her last night. It was three box sets of Yu Yu Hakusho. She was overjoyed, and couldn't stop smiling. Just like a little kid, she wanted to watch them all right then. We watched a couple scattered episodes, and then skipped to where they left off on TV with Yusuke and Togoro's final fight.