Inspired by maizie, I thought maybe I should write about some of the manga I'm reading. So, here's my first post about manga!

Rasetsu vol.3
Hmm, pretty cute and fluffy... but nothing happened.

Bokura ga Ita vol.7
OH GOD RIP MY HEART OUT WITH A RUSTY FORK WHY DON'T YOU

...

Thanks for reading my last post about manga...

And you thought I wouldn't finish these posts...

An amusing detail I forgot to recount on the Saturday post was a lively discussion we had before one of the panels. Omo had brought his copy of Love Plus with him, prompting WAH and myself to have a lively conversation about face rubbing - which, taken out of context, got us some pretty wild stares until they figured out we were talking about a game... which didn't really do much to mitigate said wild stares.

( Sunday )

In all, it was pretty interesting going to a convention I had never been to in a city I had never really visited in depth. I'm really not sure I would do an hour each way, ~$40 each roundtrip commute, and I'm not sure I'd really want to do NYAF again without a guest I'm interested in, but I definitely want to just take a weekend off and check out more of the city. Besides the concerts (the whole reason I took the trip in the first place), the most memorable moments of the weekend were the times we were away from con, checking out food or just seeing the sights. We'll just see when the next time I can make up there will be...

I forgot to write about this incident last post, but while we were on the way to dinner, we encountered a clearly malfunctioning walk signal:



( Saturday )

After the disaster of the last couple attempts to write con reports, let's see if I can get back into the swing of it this time, since enough interesting stuff happened that I would like to have a record of it. I'm going to write this somewhat quickly, so please don't kill me for all the tense shifts that tend to slip into my narratives.

( Thursday )

( Friday )

I'm a little late since I just returned from NYAF last night (more on that in a couple days, hopefully), but an expected-yet-unexpected bit of news dropped Sunday morning, that Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 (it's a Cave shooter) will be released to the Japanese market without region coding. That makes it, to my knowledge, the only Japanese game that will work on 360s that are not coded for that region. (Game regioning on 360 is optional; up until now, all Japanese 360 games were locked to only the J region, whereas the vast majority of North American 360 games work in both the U/C and J regions. PAL is probably screwed over.)

All the news sources quote Cave saying this is a test to see how successful the game is with the software restriction removed. The hope is that if this makes them a lot of money, we'll either have future releases continue to be region free, or we may see localized releases at what would hopefully be at a price point more people are willing to bite at. And the game is doing pretty well, judging by the fact that after only a day and a half the game is #3 in Play-Asia affiliate sales - behind only the latest two Pokémon variants.

Oh, and above all this, it's supposed to be a pretty good game.

After a quick read of this news article, I pasted an excerpt to IRC...

[14:31] <stc-work> "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the fire area Wednesday morning and served breakfast to firefighters, scooping Cream of Wheat into paper bowls and giving them plenty of protein so "they get all pumped up for the next fight out there with those fires.""
[14:32] <Turvy> get to the grain hopper?

I installed Windows 7 (x64) on my main PC on Monday night. Work has kept me too busy to mess with it too much, but I noticed two things right away: by default, Windows Media Player runs the 32-bit version even though the OS is 64-bit, and administrative shares are completely inaccessible. The solutions to both problems aren't obvious either. But in general, the impression I get from Windows 7 is... it's really shiny.

So at work, my latest project involves a window that is docked to the top of the screen, and hides itself much like a docked toolbar would. I figured this would be relatively easy to code, but of course, there was much, much more to it...

( Whyyyyyyy? )

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger LE plus artbook	$59.99
Handling and taxes	+6.14
Artbook sold on eBay	-85.25
eBay closing fee	+7.00
eBay Buy-It-Now listing fee	0.25
PayPal fees	2.77
Media Mail shipping	2.57
Insurance	2.25
Bubble mailer	1.89
-----	-----
Total cost of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger LE	$-2.39

Pretty good price for a game I can never play seriously.

In case anyone is interested, DreamHost is doing a July 4th sale where one -year- of hosting is $9.24. Just in case anyone who missed it the first 314 times they did this sale wanted in on it...

Since the promo page doesn't seem to load when an affiliate link is used... you have to use promo code "777" when signing up for shared hosting.

... but Death Smiles Limited Edition is back in stock at Play-Asia.

I played it a bit, and had a good time with it. Going to try to get back to playing it some more after the latest work crunch subsides.

I just received a spam email so bizarre that I had to post it here:

Subject: Hamburgers - please read. (5/12/2009)
From: "Liz Monteroso" <lizmonteroso@socal.rr.com>
Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 20:23:26 -0700
To: "starcreator" <starcreator@juno.com>

Hello,

I represent a company called Star Position, a company that does what's known as advanced search engine placement. We reach a Network of over 35 million people who are predominantly US based. Our Network is entirely opt-in, and the users on our Network allow us to present them with a preferred choice whenever they are looking for anything on the top sixteen search engines. (GOOGLE, YAHOO, MSN and thirteen others.)

I seek one source to send the users on our Network, from the major search engines, for different types of premium hamburgers.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience. I am in the office daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time.

Best regards,

Liz Monteroso
Business Segment Analyst, Star Position
Phone: 800.481.2979, ext 2002

... what?

On Saturday, after dim sum and the Gamer Symphony Orchestra performance, I went with my family to eat at McCormick and Schmick's Seafood Restaurant in McLean. They offered valet parking, and I didn't see any signage for self-parking, so the car went off with the valet.

On Sunday, my dad tells me after mowing the lawn that there is a dent on my bumper, and asks if I hit anything. I hadn't.

The dent.

Last night, I called the restaurant and obtained the phone number for the valet contractor (Metropolitan Valet, 703-243-1959). I am now awaiting a call back as their office had already closed for the night.

Figures that the foglight set I was going to install on the bumper arrived last night too...

EDIT 12:30pm: Called again since they hadn't responded, and the person claimed they no longer handled valet service to the restaurant. I was given another number to call, this time to a Metropolitan Healthcare at 703-243-3739, where I was again told to call another number - a risk management director that apparently uses her cell phone as her work number rather than working in the office. Called it, got sent to voice mail, and now am awaiting a call back yet again.

Dear Jack Hsien-Jen Wang,

A final review of your academic record has been completed for the University requirements as well as completion of major/minor/certificate requirements. This is to inform you that you have met all of the degree/diploma requirements to be eligible for the award of a bachelor's degree in December 2008.

Degrees will be posted on January 21st and your diploma will be ordered January 23rd. It will take 10 business days for your diploma to be processed and mailed directly to the address provided on your graduation application. Please be aware that diplomas and official transcripts will not be issued to students with outstanding financial obligations to the University.

Congratulations and we wish you the best in your future endeavors. If we can be of any assistance, please e-mail the Office of the Registrar at graduation@umbc.edu <mailto:graduation@umbc.edu>.

Sincerely,

Steve Robinson, Ph.D.
University Registrar

[22:38] <g0lfer18> !record
[22:38] <GGSBot> g0lfer18's record: -363 [12/23/2008]
[22:38] <g0lfer18> !newrecord -364
[22:38] <GGSBot> Your record is now: -364 [12/29/2008]
[22:42] <StarCreator> !record
[22:42] <GGSBot> StarCreator's record: -262 [06/15/2008]
[22:42] <StarCreator> ;-;
[22:42] <g0lfer18> just scored -31 bl ^^
[22:42] <g0lfer18> with a par on 10 xD
[22:44] <Sega> g0lfer18
[22:44] <Sega> shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[22:45] <g0lfer18> (lol)
[22:47] <g0lfer18> i chipped holes 2,3,4,5,6,8,13,16,18
[22:47] <g0lfer18> nike'd 1,7,12, and 15

I went to Il Mee Restaurant with Chris, Shiene, and Alison today. When it came time to pay the $92.20 bill, I gave them my card. After what must have been 5-10 minutes, they came back with a receipt for $9.22.

I could have totally just signed it and left, but I instead told the waitress and waited again for them to void it and bill me the correct amount.

Maybe I'm too nice.

Lately, my PC of over four years, Kami, has been hanging inexplicably. The problem seems to be hardware-based, as nothing shows up in the event logs. The problem only occurred occasionally when it first started happening a month ago, but now the system can't even stay running for more than a few hours at a time.

I'm not completely without a computer as I have both my laptop and the desktop I built in February, but I was still using Kami for a lot of my daily functions. Hopefully I'll have enough time to get to the bottom of this over Thanksgiving.

Well, it's almost the usual, except I managed to come down with something over the weekend, so I probably couldn't even sleep well even if I had time to. It's not going to be a fun week...

I don't normally get political at all here, but skuldchan linked to a rather stunning argument against McCain/Palin (which, by the way, is not the same as being for Obama/Biden, just to throw that out right away). Everyone who plans to visit the polls next month needs to read this.

I'm posting this on the last day to register to vote for the election in Maryland. The last day to register for an absentee ballot is a bit later.