News & Updates in December 2004

Made a bunch of corrections and additions today, getting the number of emails I still have to take care of down to just over 100. Modified my script that builds the profiles so that I could change the default country of origin for an anime. Never really had to worry about it before, but then Sky Blue came along, which is a Korean production. There are a few other anime series that are French/Japanese productions, so I should probably change the country of origin for those too.

Oh, I forgot to tell you all, when I got that Sky Blue screener, it actually arrived in a package with a bunch of other things, which I totally wasn't expecting. There was a DVD copy of Jeepers Creepers 2 (which was a cool movie, and I already have the first one on DVD), a nice, white polo shirt that said Sideways on it (which is supposedly a really good film, though it's not playing in our town), a black and white hand towel that says Friday Night Lights (and matches our black and white kitchen perfectly), a CD called SEAL "Highlights" (haven't listened to it yet, but it sure doesn't sound like Metal to me), and then some postcards and drink coasters from Euro Trip (now that was a funny movie). Cool, huh? Well anyways, happy new year!

Well, I finally got the forums up and running successfully last night after that hacker attack. Unfortunately we lost all data after November 25. But at least it should be safe now, as we fixed all the known exploits. We upgraded the webserver to the latest version of PHP, and also upgraded the phpBB code. And while I was at it, I also added a spell check feature to help give the illusion that we really do know how to spell.

Added a Sky Blue Image Gallery.

Wrote a review about the anime movie Sky Blue. Also added a profile for it.

Today the Forums were been hit by the PHP-Google exploit. We got it up and running again after a few hours, but lost about 3 weeks worth of data. But several hours after that the same guy started hacking it again, so for now I put up a little page explaining this until we can get it fixed.

Added a new forums for Manga Topics, Videogame Topics, and Hentai Topics. For the hentai forum, I added a similar type of pop-up warning/verfication that I use for the hentai profiles. I also added a gender field to the forums. Oh, and it looks like I'm going to be able to get a screener for the anime Sky Blue which opens in theaters on December 31. From what I've read, it sounds pretty good, so I'm really looking forward to seeing it. I'll get a review up as soon as I get it to let you know if it'll be worth a trip to the big screen.

Added character profiles of Chise (from SHE, The Ulitmate Weapon); Yomiko Readman (from R.O.D: Read or Die); Joshua L. Balboa (from Plastic Little- The Adventures of Captain Tita); Moro, Toki (from Princess Mononoke); Suguru Fujisaki, Tohma Seguchi, Ryuichi Sakuma, Noriko Ukai, Mika Seguchi (Gravitation); Andrey Kalinin, Kyoko Tokiwa, Mizuki Inaba, Richard Mardukas, Satoru Shirai, Shinji Kanzama (from Full Metal Panic).

Added character profiles of Amane Kaunaq, Kiriko Masaki, NB (from Tenchi Muyo! GXP: Galaxy Police Transporter). Added a bunch of pictures to profiles that lacked them, mostly thanks to Elwin Blaine Coldiron.

So, did you hear the good news? Growlanser Generations received the IGN award for Best PS2 Strategy Game for 2004! Cool, huh? It's been pretty much getting good reviews overall, so we're all really glad to see that after putting so much effort into those games. Of course, the important thing is that the consumers like the games. I know what it's like to shell out $50 for a game that turns out to be crappy.

About two weeks ago we ordered a queen size memory foam mattress from Dream by Design. It arrived only a week later... well, part of it did at least. I had no idea the mattress came in pieces, but I guess this isn't your typical mattress. The first piece came on Monday, and that was the memory foam part. The other two pieces showed up on Wednesday, and those were the normal foam pieces. Unfortunately, after unpacking everything and letting it sit for 12 hours we discovered that the memory foam section was only 3 inches high, same as the other two foam pieces, when it was supposed to be 4 inches. I was going to call, but sent them am email instead since according to the instructions there's like 24 hours left for it to completely expand and everything. Still, I highly doubt it will grow a full inch in that time.

I put up some screen shots of what the main page of this site used to look like. Sorry the file sizes are so big. I had to make them GIF files because the JPEG files kept drastically changing the link color to something much more dull. I also used Internet Explorer to show the pages instead of Opera, which is what I currently use, because the earlier versions of the site were not designed with Opera in mind. Now, you might be wondering why I'm mentioning this AFTER the mattress-thing... well, that's just because the screen shots were overlapping the image off to the right. Okay, I'm off to eat lunch and play some more Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. [GALLERY] columns:3, captions:on [/GALLERY]

Added a character profile of Booker Kudo (from Case Closed).

Wrote a review about the movie The Matrix Reloaded.

Wrote a review about the movie A Tale of Two Sisters.

Added the anime profile of Paranoia Agent. Added the character profile of Sho Marufuji (from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX).

I finally beat La Pucelle: Tactics this weekend. I was disappointed that, after the ending, they do not let you save. I was hoping to go back through some of the chapters and try to get better endings for the ones I didn't do so well on, but apparently the only way to do that is to start over from the very beginning. All I can do now is just replay various maps, and come on guys but how fun is that when there's no point it? So that was just a real let down. First time through the game was enjoyable, but with little replay value this game just got shoved in the closet.

Afterwards, I started playing Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. This was a Christmas gift from Treeses, but she gave it to me when it arrived earlier in the week because the anniversary gift she ordered still hadn't arrived yet. Then on Saturday morning the postman delivered a long, skinny package with Treese's name on it. When she got home from work later that evening she had me open it, as that was actually supposed to be my anniversary gift. Inside I found two wall scrolls, one of Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion, and one of Kurumi from Steel Angel Kurumi. Both are absolutely lovely!

Then on Sunday evening, Treeses had me open another gift that had been sitting in the living room (where the Christmas tree would have been had we actually set up). Inside was this really cool humidifying-lamp-fountain. The frame looked quite awkward as I put it together, since it continuously looked all bend out of shape. It seemed to take its shape once I got all the screws tightened though. Then we put the bowl on, poured in some water, and plugged it in. It gave a pleasant light show, but there was no mist at all. So we kept pouring more water in to see if that would help, and as soon as the water level reached a certain point, the mist shot out. This thing looks really cool. We brought it into the bedroom and left it on all night while we slept, but the next morning when we awoke we were still as dry as ever. I guess there's nothing really to that whole humidifying part.

Okay, so to review, my wife gave ME the following gifts this weekend, while YOU got absolutely nothing! Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha! [GALLERY] columns:4 [/GALLERY]

Added the character profile of Ryoma Echizen (from Prince of Tennis).

Added the character profile of Hanon Hossho (from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch). Added another row of navigation links to the navigation bar at the bottom of the page. This additional row is just a copy of the navigation links at the top of the page. Removed the option to select rounded corners from the Configure Preferences page. According to the logs, it's not an option that's used all that often, and it takes a lot of additional CSS and JavaScript to support it, so I figured I'd phase it out. This should allow me to provide a wider selection of page backgrounds as well, since I won't have to restrict them to being mostly white for the sake of the rounded corner graphics. I'll probably phase out the "semi-transparent" table background option as well since almost everyone chooses to use a solid color for the table background, though that can wait until I actually add some new background images.