Josh's Random Blog

Warding 101: Defensive Lane Warding

2012-02-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first part of a long series for warding in League of Legends on Summoner's Rift. I know there are a ton of guides for warding, but I wanted to create a guide for low rated players or those who are new to the warding scene. I also want to dispel a few myths by getting to young warders and inform them that it is not only the job to buy wards. Since this is a guide for new players, jargon will have hover over tool-tips containing definitions.

This first guide will cover basic defensive warding for the . So without further ado, here is a map of Summoner's Rift with the wards for each team numbered for their explanations below:

Blue Team

#1 - This bottom lane ward is used to thwart enemy trying to by running through the far bush. It can also be used offensively to harass the enemy if they try to use that bush for cover. One advanced use for this ward is for a team mate with the teleport summoner spell to gank. This ward should be purchased by the Support or player.

#2 - This bottom lane ward is used to spot the enemy Jungler or mid lane trying to gank through the river. It also serves a dual purpose of catching attempts to kill the Dragon for global gold. This ward should also be purchased by the Support or Ranged Carry.

Q: When should the Ranged Carry buy wards?
A: Usually the Support buys the large majority of the wards for bottom lane, but if the Ranged Carry has a little extra gold after buying items purchasing a ward or two will help the Support get ahead on aura items. Help them help you. Ranged Carries can also buy the item Wriggle's Lantern which gives them a free ward every few minutes with all of the stats one would need to dominate the bottom lane. While the Ranged Carry requires the most itemization of all of the roles in the game, 75 gold spent now and then will help you stay alive so you can live to farm another day and prevent the enemy from getting their hands on a free 300 gold from your death.

#3 - This mid lane ward is used to catch the enemy Jungler attempting a gank mid or the Red Buff side of the allied jungle. Proper placement of this ward can see some distance northeast into the bush, as this is a popular spot for players to hide. This ward should be purchased by the player occupying the mid lane.

#4 - This mid lane ward is used to catch the enemy Jungler attempting to gank mid. When properly placed it can even catch the enemy Jungler killing their wraiths. When bot lane players see that the Jungler is far away, they can be freely aggressive without fear of consequences. This ward can also spot the enemy jungler trying to invade the Blue Buff side of the allied jungle. Keep in mind that this ward does not cover much if any of the river so mid lane players must keep an eye on ward #5 as well. If the top lane player on your team refuses to ward, you may need to place the ward at purple team's $4 spot. This ward should be purchased by the Jungler.

#5 - This top lane ward is used to catch the enemy Jungler attempting to gank top. This ward is placed far away because top lane players must run very far to get back to the safety of their tower without any support to help them stay alive. Since this ward does not cover any of the river, top lane players must keep an eye on ward #4. This ward should obviously be purchased by the top lane player.

Purple Team

#1 - This ward serves the same purpose as blue team's ward #1.

#2 - This bottom lane ward is used to spot the enemy Jungler attempting to gank bot. Purple team may also use blue team's ward #2 spot for Dragon control and to catch the enemy mid trying to gank through the river. For this reason, purple team is at a slight disadvantage when it comes to warding bottom lane. If you are killing the minions faster than your opponent and are close to their tower, you can ward both teams' #2 spots and forsake #1, because you have vision of all entrances to the far bush. If you opponents are pushing harder you may only need to ward blue team's #2. As on blue team, these two wards should be purchased by the Support and Ranged Carry.

#3 - This ward serves the same purpose as blue team's ward #4 and should be purchased by the Jungler.

#4 - This ward serves the same purpose as the blue team's ward #3 and should be purchased by the mid lane player.

#5 - This ward serves the same purpose as blue team's ward #5 with the added bonus of keeping an eye on The Baron Nashor if you place it down far enough.

Keep in mind that wards do not always need to go in the same places, but these general areas cover all of the basics for having a safe lane. Expert use of wards is what separates bad players from decent players, and is one of the first steps towards consistently winning your games but keep in mind that if you don't pay attention to your wards on the minimap then you may as well not even buy any. So I end with this entertaining song about map awareness:

Wish You Had Ranka Lee's Phone?

2012-02-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

I know I do! Korean designer Sang Hoon Lee has the answer with his new concept for the HeartBeat Mobile Phone.

While this is still just a design, with no real plans for production (at least as far as I know), it offers a vision of a not so far away future! Lee feels that our cellphones are becoming more and more a part of who we are. What better way to deepen this relationship than to make your phone act like the organ of love? The phone will be able to inflate and deflate itself like a real heart:

The phone won't only inflate in all directions like a balloon though, it will be able to inflate specific areas of the surface including icons as you hover your finger over them. It's like bubble wrap for apps! THIS IS TRUE GENIUS!

While this is a stretch, the designers want a way for the current emotional state of the caller to be expressed by the 'heart beat' of the phone. Lee wants the mobile phone to become an avatar of a person's being, much like how the phones in Macross Frontier personify their owners!

Credits:
Ranka Lee Illustration by Tony Taka

Note:
The design was more than likely NOT inspired by Macross Frontier.

Winter Anime 2012 Review

2012-01-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my very first Anime season review! Here I will be giving my first impressions on the shows I've watched so far this season. I'll only be doing the originals because, chances are, if it's a sequel to something you liked you will watch it regardless. I know I will.

This review will work much like the preview, I will sort each show into categories: Worse, As Expected, and Better, each of which describing my opinion of the Anime relative to it's position in the preview. Remember that these opinions are my own! If you don't agree, feel free to pose your arguments to me in the comments section, perhaps one of us will show the other the light, or even agree to disagree. I will also give each show a rating out of 10, pretty much in line with the description made by a fellow blogger (keikakudoori). I will also assign stars (out of 5) to various categories from the following list. Not every Anime will have every category, for the most part I will include only the relevant ones.

Animation - The quality of the animation including technique, transitions, fluidity, etc. I was tempted to make an Art category as well, but then I decided that grading it would be far to subjective, I'll make not in this category if I feel that the art was exceptional or horrible.

Characters - The depth and personality of the cast. This category will be mostly speculative for first impressions because characters have not been given the time to develop.

Music - This rating will be based on how well the background music, opening/ending sequences, and sound effects jive with the show. I will also include my personal opinions about how much I like the music, but since that is largely objective, I will try my best not to let it affect the score.

Pace - This measures how comfortable I was with the speed at which the show delivers its setting and progresses the plot.

Service - This category comes in two flavors, with the more obvious being sex appeal and the latter being fan-service by a more traditional definition (references to other Anime, hobbies, prequels, etc).

Story - Here I will rate the depth, delivery, and fluidity of the story. Like the character category, this score will be largely speculative and like the music category, I will try to keep my subjective opinions of the story out of the rating, but still note it in the review.

Before I start, I want it noted that I mean no offense to those involved in the creation of these shows. I appreciate the tremendous amount of time, money, blood, and sweat that go into each Anime. Anything I deem 'bad' is just relative to other things I have enjoyed. If I really thought something was trash, I wouldn't bother watching enough to review it on my blog. So please, take no offense and keep up the good work!

Keep in mind, there will be spoilers! Now, let's begin!

Recorder to Randoseru

Animation:

Characters:

Music:

Pace:

Service:

Review: Okay, I didn't look too far into this one at first, so I was surprised when the episode suddenly ended 3 minutes in. I have only ever liked one Anime short: Chi's Sweet Home. The first episode wasn't long enough to really rate anything, so the numbers above are somewhat arbitrary. It didn't hook me, so I won't be watching any more, but if you're curious I suggest watching at least one episode, it won't take much longer than writing that Facebook status update that you'd be doing instead anyways. Status: Dropped.

Mouretsu Pirates

Animation:

Characters:

Music:

Pace:

Service:

Story:

Review: Not sure why I expected more from this, I really didn't like the first episode, so I had to watch two. It's a good thing I did because otherwise I would have dropped this. It felt fake like an excuse to jump start the plot that her mother didn't tell her that she was the child of space pirates until the father she never new was dead, then just shoved it off casually like it was no big deal. It also turns out that director Sato Tatsuo will be removing any romantic content from this and Rinne no Lagrange in favor of a friendlier atmosphere. At first, I didn't like this prospect, but after some thinking I came to the conclusion that relationships in Anime like this tend to be poorly executed and the whole friends thing might give off an Ano Hana style warm feeling. I will give it a few more episodes at least before coming to a final conclusion. Status: Watching.

Kill Me Baby!

Animation:

Characters:

Music:

Pace:

Service:

Review: This Anime turned out exactly like I thought it would after watching the trailer. It wasn't bad. Some people enjoy this type of humor, but not me. If you liked the trailer you'll probably like the show, if not you'd best stay away. One good thing about it was the pace, scenes had little to no transition so it was just one thing right after another. Status: Dropped.

Rinne no Lagrange

Animation:

Characters:

Music:

Pace:

Service:

Story:

Review: Basically a girl who is "perfect" at everything is suddenly supposed to pilot robots. For some reason her sister doesn't want her to do it, but she is the only one who can pilot this super strong robot. The first episode wasn't too bad, I had some laughs (DAT ROBOT SUPLEX MAN...), Nissan's robots are pretty cool, and I got two new Nakajima Megumi songs out of it. The quality was all over the place and nothing really stood out, so I think I'll pass. Status: Dropped.

Animation:

Characters:

Music:

Pace:

Story:

Review: I picked this up thinking it would be more of a romance like Kimi ni Todoke. I could not have been more wrong. I have never actually seen a true horror Anime, there are a few I mean to pick up like Higurashi, but I haven't got around to it. Everything about this show from the music to the animation and the characters' awkward behaviors gave me that anxious feeling in my chest. I've watched scary movies and played scary games, but this is the first time I've seen a scary animation. Just for the new experience I will definitely be watching this! Status: Watching.

Credits:
Nanoha Illustration by TOM
Inu x Boku Illustration by algeria

Winter 2012 Anime Preview

2012-01-07T18:40:00.000-08:00

The next new season of Anime is starting up this week, this will be the second edition of what Anime I'm looking forward to this season!

I will probably end up only watching a few of these, but all Anime in this list will receive the standard 2 episode grace period before final judgement. For example, last season I ended up watching Hunter x Hunter, Chihayafuru, Ben-To, Mirai Nikki, Guilty Crown, Fate/Zero, Last Exile, and Shana. That is quite a few more than usual as last season was pretty amazing! This season has quite a few less entries, but there is no shortage of things I want to watch!

I'll go into a little more detail this time about how this works: Every few months, a bunch of new Anime airs and I decide which ones I'm going to try watching. I place those shows into four categories: Ugly, Bad, Good, and Great. The Ugly are shows that, by all my seasoned instincts I feel will be really bad but have faint little shimmer in the mud that could be gold or glass. The Bad are the next step up, these Anime are probably not so good, but have a number of potentially redeeming qualities. The Good have decent stories or a talented studio behind them but come up just shy of perfect for a handful of reasons. The Great have everything I look for in an Anime or are sequels to something that was at least good.

Alright, here we go!

The Ugly:

		Kill Me Baby! Producers: J.C. Staff This Anime looked pretty good until I watched the trailer. I honestly didn't find the trailer funny at all, but I'll still give it one episode at least...

		Recorder to Randoseru Producers: Seven Appearances are not what they seem in this Anime, that girl is actually 17 years old. Not surprised yet? Neither was I, that's pretty normal in the Anime universe. The catch here is that guy is actually 11, and acts his age. This Anime is about how the elder sister takes care of her 'little' brother. Could be fun, as long as there isn't too much fan service.

		Rinne no Lagrange Producers: Production I.G, Xebec Some girls. Some mecha. Eh, Okay. I guess it's been done right before... On a side note, Nissan will be designing the mechs, that much could be cool.

The Bad:

		The Daily Lives of High School Boys Producers: Sunrise Kimi to Boku was a disappointment, but this Anime is marketed as being 'realistic' so it should be less 'cute guys doing cute things' and more 'boys will be boys.' It should be funny, but I won't get my hopes up.

		Inu X Boku Secret Service Producers: Aniplex, David Production, Sentai Filmworks Some spoiled brat who doesn't want to be spoiled anymore and her harem of Secret Service fox spirit man slaves... Right.

The Good:

		Aquarion Evol Producers: Satelight, Media Factory, 8bit Okay, with the sole exception of the scene where the main character ate a rat or something (it's been like 5 years okay, I don't remember!) the original was pretty bad. I never finished watching it. Now, travel 12,000 years into the future where the original is all but forgotten, throw in the Director from Macross Frontier with music from Yoko Kanno and you have got yourself an Anime! The only thing keeping this out of Great is the lingering memories of the original.

		Black★Rock Shooter Producers: Aniplex, Ordet, SANZIGEN, Ultra Super Pictures Based on an alternate version of Hatsune Miku created by fans for a popular song by the same title. I was one of few people who though the movie was decent, but it was bad enough that there is no way I will put this under Great. I still have high hopes for this though.

		Senki Zesshou Symphogear Producers: Satelight, Encourage Films Girls fight aliens with music? Looks like Aquarion isn't the only Anime hailing Macross this season. The trailer made it look a lot more like they are killing the aliens in epic close quarters combat instead of music though. I was tempted to put this under Bad, but I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. I've also never heard of Encourage Films, they seem to only have had one other project.

The Great:

		Amagami SS+ Producers: AIC I really liked the parallel dimensions presentation of the first season, but I felt like I got the complete package. I don't know how many more awkward places to kiss someone this sequel can offer, but if it is anywhere near as good as the first season, I won't complain.

		Ano Natsu de Matteru Producers: J.C. Staff, Sentai Filmworks The two girls and a guy story of the season, NOW WITH 100% MOAR Tatsuyuki Nagai! I am definitely in the mood for another great Anime along the lines of Ano Hana, Chobits, or Toradora.

		Another Producers: P.A. Works Middle school transfer student Kouchi is seeing a mysterious girl with an eye patch who is always alone drawing pictures who could be the ghost of a girl who died 26 years in the past. P.A. Works always does well, why should this one be any different?

		Mini Skirt Space Pirates Producers: Satelight, Starchild Records, Sentai Filmworks SPACE PIRATES! Nuff said. I have been looking forward to this for a while, the trailer is great, all from a staff that brought other great sleeper hits like Basquash! What's not to want?

		Nisemonogatari Producers: Shaft Bakemonogatari was a masterpiece. This sequel will not disappoint! At least until the final episode is delayed for like 100 years... This time Araragi's sisters get some more screen time in a new plot that focuses on the curse from the Nadeko arc. More of that good old Shaft-style awesome.

		Zero no Tsukaima: Kessakusen (Final) Producers: J.C. Staff Noboru Yamaguchi is back from his epic battle with cancer and ready to finish what he's started! Since Shana has decided to keep airing into this season, there will be more than enough Rie for everyone!

Fall 2011 Anime Preview

2011-09-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

The next new season of Anime is starting up this week, here is what I'm looking forward to:

I will probably end up only watching a few of these, but all Anime in this list will receive the standard 2 episode grace period before final judgement. On that note, here we go!

The Ugly (These will probably be really bad.):

	Busou Shinki Moon Angel Producers: TNK, Kinema Citrus This is an Anime based on a series of Sky Girls-like figures. I always thought the figures were cool, but the chances of this Anime being any good are slim.

	Persona 4 The Animation Producers: Aniplex, AIC A.S.T.A. Really? When has anything like this ever been good? Despite the fact that it is going against impossible odds, a well made Persona Anime would be fantastic, so I'll give this a chance.

The Bad (These sound bad, but you never know~):

	Ben-To Producers: AIC Build SEGA gamer competes in some silly supernatural contest for a half-priced bento? WTF!?

	Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Producers: AIC Build A Visual Novel adaptation about a bunch of socially challenged kids that make a club in an attempt to make friends. Sounds cute, we'll see.

	C³ - CubexCursedxCurious Producers: Starchild Records, Silver Link Erm. What? The title is pretty interested to say the least, I almost decided to pass this one up because it sounds like this season's super fan service Anime, but the trailer reminds me of 11Eyes so maybe it will be decent?

	Kimi to Boku Producers: J.C. Staff, Aniplex This might be funny. It seems to lack any female cast, but with the ongoing inundation of K-ON style Moeblobs, I don't really care.

	Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon Producers: Sunrise I doubt that I'll be watching this "for some reason school students are better than soldiers" Anime because Zero no Tsukaima should sate any craving I get for such this season. The title sounds cool though so I'll give it a chance.

	Mashiro-iro Symphony Producers: Manglobe This will probably be another shallow ecchi Anime, but since I like the character design I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. It is based on a praised Visual Novel and produced by Manglobe so that gives it a leg up. On the off(not really)-chance that I am right, anyone who enjoys this sort of thing should find plenty of it this and every season for quite some time.

	Mirai Nikki Producers: Asread A TV series adaptation of popular Manga that was adapted into a poor OVA last year. The Anime itself sounds fairly interesting, but after seeing it on just about every season list for the last year and it never actually airing, I'm hoping the production won't be shoddy.

	Working'!! Producers: Aniplex, A-1 Pictures, NIS America, Inc. I really liked the first season because I felt like it ENDED. I guess not though, I don't think I'll be watching it again.

The Good (These sound good but, again, you never know.):

	Guilty Crown Producers: Production I.G Your typical sci-fi distopia story with high school age characters. The story sounds interesting enough, and the music will be done by Supercell (Although the last time I followed a song of theirs to an Anime, I found Cencoroll /swt). And yes, I do think he is fondling her with his magical hand of sorts.

	Phi Φ Brain: Kami no Puzzle Producers: Sunrise This sounds like another trippy Anime along the lines of Deadman Wonderland from a couple season ago. But more importantly, May'n is doing the music and Satou Junichi is directing.

	Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi 2 Producers: Studio Deen WHAT!? THERE'S YAOI ON THIS PAGE!? Yes. I actually enjoyed the first season, I thought it was pretty funny. What is a straight guy doing watching Yaoi you ask? Well first and foremost, it is one of the few genres I can watch with my girlfriend without her falling asleep. Second, have any of you watched any legit Yuri Anime like Aoi Hana? It's REALLY boring. The little known reason behind this is that any quality homosexual Anime's target audience is the sex involved, not the opposite.

	Shinryaku!? Ika Musume Producers: Diomedea The second season of our favorite squid girl's failed attempts at taking over the human world. I haven't finished the first season yet and therefore won't be watching this, but I thought it was pretty funny, so I'll leave this here for those interested.

	Tamayura ~Hitotose~ Producers: TYO Animations At first glance, this Anime bleeds super boring slice of life. After reading a little further down the page I found that it is being directed by Satou Junichi, famous for his "Healing Anime" genre with titles like Aria the Origination. It will probably still feel "boring" but it will likely leave you feeling chill after each and every episode. Something good to watch when you're having a bad day.

	UN-GO Producers: BONES Yet another detective Anime in the recent trend started by Gosick. While I had previously decided to stay away from any new detective Anime this season, BONES never lets me down!

The Great (There is a 100% chance I will be watching these.):

	Fate/Zero Producers: Aniplex, ufotable A prequel to Fate/Stay Night, this Anime will elaborate on the Grail War prior. Normally, this would fall under "The Good" because I wasn't overly fond of the first one.This time however, ufotable is handling the animation and that icing on the cake is enough to bump this up to the top!

	Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam Producers: Gonzo, FUNimation Entertainment Watch this, everyone. The first Last Exile was amazing and I'm sure this will be too. There will be little to no connection between the two so you won't have had to watch the original to enjoy this.

	Shakugan no Shana III (Final) Producers: J.C. Staff OMG GUYS HERE WE GO THE END IS FINALLY HERE! If you haven't started watching this show yet, then I challenge you to finish it before this airs on October 8th!

	Zero no Tsukaima: Kessakusen (Final) Producers: J.C. Staff OMG GUYS HERE WE GO THE END IS FINALLY HERE! Wait, what!? There was supposed to be 2x Rie tsundere action this season, but Noboru Yamaguchi was diagnosed with cancer and both the Anime and Manga's future were in danger. He recently had a successful operation and now it's back on! Albeit delayed until 2012, the final series' October timeslot will be filled with select episodes from previous seasons.

Angel Beats! Episode 13

2010-07-20T14:11:00.001-07:00

Here's my two cents about the potentially misleading timeline. (SPOILERS!~):

A few episodes previous, the computer thief mentioned that someone exists in the world that had erased his/her memories because he/she decided that the concept of love cannot exist in this world, because it would either turn into to much of a paradise and not a punishment or become a source of infinite torment such as what happened to Yuzuru before the credits.

I think it is possible that Yuzuru was this person who discovered love and wiped his memories. That would allow for a decent amount of time for him to be there before her, no?

A much less likely but somewhat Maeda-like possibility this presents (or maybe I'm just distracting myself with nonsense to gratify my sense of justice/morality) is that Kanade could have even been the person he fell in love with before. She was keeping a lot of things from him after-all and even mentioned that everyone she gets attached to leaves her. What would be exceptionally adorable is if he was the one who showed her the mabu dofu, since he liked it too.

My Stupid Mistake

2010-03-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

After two weeks of playing with Silverlight I still could not get it working in Firefox and Chrome, I read like a billion articles and forums, and even posted on one myself to know avail. Eventually I downloaded a sample and was perplexed as to how my .xap file loaded in their html file but not mine! So I ran to quickdiff.com and compared the two files and found that nothing was different aside from the page title. I even made sure the filenames were the same (not that I thought it would matter). Good thing I did that though because this is how I found the answer: I went to drag my .xap and .html onto the desktop for quick uploading (instead of navigating my extremely long path to the file) and tested it one more time to see if it still worked only to find that the html file was the "broken" one that I mistook because of the same filename which all of a sudden magically worked.

So as a programmer, my first reaction was "OMGWTFBBQ!!!?!?11" followed by a "Hey! I wonder if Firefox and Chrome have something about directory length" and then copy-pasta'd the files in each folder one directory up at a time until I got all the way down from "C:\Users\Public\Programs\Code\C#\Silverlight\SilverSpriteTest\SilverSpriteTest\Bin\Debug" to "C:\Users\Public\Programs\Code" when it finally worked. So I ran off to the Mozilla forums to ask about my deduction but I realized that the working address was rather short and that couldn't be the case. As I copy-pasta'd the second address I came to my dramatic conclusion!

Ready for it???

Are you sure????

Firefox and Chrome didn't like the # symbol.... Yup... That's it.... the cause of an entire weeks pain rested on the 1-byte shoulders of a SINGLE character.

Moral of the story? Don't make the same mistake I did and mind your paths kiddies!

Browser Games: The Next Wave

2010-03-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm sure by now all of you are tired of the same old Flash games, and I know I'm very tired of using same old Flash for any of my online projects! Finally, at the turn of the decade we have a few new options on the horizon.

The first and most notable is the Unity3D Web Player which allows for the hosting of full 3D games on the web. I'm quite impressed with the demo, which runs great even on sluggish school computers and looks better than many 3D console games. Unfortunately this option comes at a rather hefty fee which I won't be able to afford for quite some time now, but let us hope that many a developer bites and we see some rich new 3D web experiences within the next few years.

Another interesting project is called SilverSprite. This nifty little collection of dll files allows you to port any 2D XNA game using SpriteBatch based graphics into a Silverlight application capable of running in a browser page. I found this a most ironic turn of events, because I was already in the process of moving from Flash to C#/XNA as my language of choice for rapid prototyping, mostly due to my frustration with Flash's performance. My discovery of this also came at the perfect time of need when my team needed a new browser game technology for the Westwood College 2010 2D game competition. This project is much more appealing than Unity because of its incredible price point of $0. There is already a Kongregate-ish website built for showcasing these games at SilverArcade. All this after I thought Silverlight would never amount to anything more than a cheap Flash knockoff :)

UNIVERSAL BUNNY!

2010-02-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

I can't wait any longer for Itsuwari no Utahime... Universal Bunny is now my new favorite song <3. The movie had been in theaters for a couple months now, and it looks like there won't be a DVD release until April >.<

Top 10 Series: Favorite Anime/VG Characters (Female)

2009-11-04T01:22:00.000-08:00

Since I lack things to post on this blog I think whenever I feel like updating it I will create a new top 10 list of my favorite ~instert random topic here~. This will be purely based on my opinion (not that any of you care what I think) so it is not to be taken seriously! Flame me all you want though if you feel it's worth your time :P

Included in each Top 10 Series will be 10 relevant choices each complete with a bio, picture, and what I like about that entry. Thus, without further ado, the first series will: Favorite Anime/VG Characters (Female). I found that actually picking which ones I liked most was extremely difficult, so this time I'll just list them in alphabetical order to preserve fairness: (Be careful! There might be spoilers!)

	Arche Klaine ~ Tales of Phantasia (Video Game) Age: 17 Height: 5'1" Bio: Arche Klaine is the very first spellcaster in the Tales of franchise, a half-elf born in an elven community in Ymir forest where her mother resides. She however, was exiled as a child and never allowed to return due to her human blood. My Opinion: Arche is always a fun party member to have around with her endless supply of energy and cheerfulness. She is responsible for most of the best scenes in Phantasia, such as the one where the party was drinking on the boat, she even managed to earn her own voice-over for in the PSX version for being too cute~

	Hatsune Miku ~ Vocaloid2 (Software) Age: 16 Height: 5'2" Bio: Hatsune Miku is the mascot for the voice synthesis software Vocaloid2. Her name translates to 'First-Sound Future' and she is voiced by Saki Fujita. After the software grew in popularity from certain videos Miku became the Internet's singing idol. My Opinion: While her voice is rather high pitched, it still sounds great. Miku is very cute and there are TONS of really awesome music videos created with her, if you haven't already I strongly suggest you spend an hour or so on youtube watching them all, it's definitely worth it!~

	Izumi Konata ~ Lucky☆Star (Anime/Manga) Age: 18 Height: 4'8" (I knew she was short but WOW) Bio: Izumi Konata is one of the four protagonists from the popular parody Anime Lucky☆Star and one of the most popular characters on the Internet. Raised as an otaku through her father's influence, Konata loves Anime and plays many games including MMORPGs and her father's Eroge. My Opinion: I don't think that I would have liked Lucky☆Star nearly as much if it lacked Konata, mostly because the parodies she was responsible for most closely matched my own interests. Her many unique eccentricities (gaming, eroge, cosplay, etc) make her an ideal 'waifu' for many of my geek brethren, even though she would end up wearing the pants in any relationship.

	Marona ~ Phantom Brave (Video Game) Age: 13 Height: ?? Bio: Marona is a little girl whose parents perished when she was only 5. She now lives on an island and was forced to become a Chroma (Mercenary) to provide for herself. She is not alone however, because her power of Chartreuse Gale allows her to talk to phantoms including the ghost of Ash, a friend of her parents that died with them on that dark day. Because she can talk to ghosts, everyone looks down on her. Despite this prejudice she is very kind, often turning down the reward money for a job just so she can help people. My Opinion: Having one of the saddest character stories I've heard, Marona is impressive just because she can cheerful and only cry every once in a while. She is only 13 but works very hard to support herself and help out those around her, both living and dead. This level of determination certainly makes her one of the strongest game protagonists ever.

	Mayumi Kurokawa (Mistral) ~ .hack// (Video Game) Age: 25+ Height: ?? Bio: Mayumi Kurokawa is a gamer and future mother who lives in Japan. She plays the Wavemaster PC Mistral in the online game The World and gets her kicks from collecting all kinds of rare items. She joins Kite's party because his Twilight Bracelet is the rarest item of all. She eventually becomes more serious after she learns the severity of the events occurring inside The World. My Opinion: Mistral was always my favorite to have around in my party. Her enthusiasm helped me hang in there through .hack//'s many long dungeons. I was really depressed when she went offline for nearly an entire game, until I later found out that she had given birth to a daughter who would later appear in .hack//DUSK and all was forgiven.

	Meredy ~ Tales of Eternia (Video Game) Age: 16 Height: 5'2" Bio: Meredy is a Celestian who flees her home in order to warn the Inferians on the neighboring planet of the Grand Fall, a disaster that causes the two worlds to collide. Later on Meredy her parents were betrayed by her uncle, her father was killed, and her mother was possessed by the God of Chaos Nereid causing the Grand Fall. She starts her journey knowing that one day she may have to confront and kill her own mother and uncle. My Opinion: Meredy is another very strong character because she begins her journey knowing the risks and never backs down, not once. She maintains her cute and upbeat personality throughout all of her hardships and even rubs off on the arrogant Keele, making him a better person. Despite her inability to communicate most things through the language barrier, Meredy is very kind with strong morals and is always there for the party's emotional support.

	Meru ~ Legend of Dragoon (Video Game) Age: 16 Height: 5'1" Bio: Meru is a Wingly who did not believe the stories that humans would kill them should they ever leave their hidden forest village and set out to explore the world as a dancer. When she encounters Dart and company she feels a strong connection and joins them on their quest to save the world. She later gets the power of the Blue-Sea Dragoon. My Opinion: Meru, like Mistral, is just a happy character to have around, always cheerful and fun. She is very supportive of her friends, pushing Dart and Shana's relationship, cheering up Kongol, playing pranks with Haschel, etc. She despises Lloyd for toying with Lenus' heart even if she was an enemy, much like I do!

	Reisen Udongein Inaba ~ Touhou Kaeidzuka (Video Game) Age: 38+ Height: ?? Bio: Reisen is a Lunar Rabbit that fled the moon after the Apollo 11 Invasion to avoid the Lunar War. Upon reaching Gensokyo she found Kaguya and Eirin, infamous fugitives that fled before her. She now protects her masters from intruders so that they will not be forced to return to the moon. My Opinion: Reisen is one of few Touhou characters that has her head on straight and while she is not very social she still possesses a kind heart. Her power to manipulate wavelengths which she uses to instill apathy or insanity in her enemies is definitely one of the coolest powers I've ever heard of.

	Shana ~ Shakugan no Shana (Anime) Age: 16+? Height: 4'10" Bio: Shana is a Flame Haze trained by Wilhelmina with the powers of Alastor who never had a name previous to meeting Yuji, the Mistes of Reiji Maigo who names her after her sword: Nietono no Shana. My Opinion: While most Tsundere have a certain charm to them, Shana is especially lovable. Her feelings toward Yuji and the way she tries to hide them is especially cute. On top of that, her Flame Haze form is one of the coolest character designs I've seen.

	Vita ~ Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's (Anime) Age: 8 (Creation Date Unknown) Height: ?? Bio: Vita is a Guardian Knight program of the Book of Darnkess whose purpose is to protect the Book's current master. However when Hayate aquires the book she orders the knights not to do anything evil. After a while the Book begins to steal Hayate's health and the knights are forced to steal magical energy from others behind her back. After the issue of the book is solved, Hayate frees the knights, allowing them to live real lives. Vita is hot-tempered and stubborn but she is a nice person and lives to protect her friends. My Opinion: Vita's endless determination to protect those important to her is very admirable. This quality is emphasized when Vita is charged with destroying the engine of the Saint's Cradle, persevering until the end despite several grave injuries. Also, her bunny hat is awesome!

Runner Ups:

Anise Tatlin ~ Tales of Abyss (Video Game)
Asagi ~ Disgaea et al (Video Games)
Pleinair ~ Disgaea et al (Video Games)
Rita Mordio ~ Tales of Vesperia (Video Game)
Suzumiya Haruhi ~ Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (Anime)

Flash IDE Troubles

2009-10-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

As I type this I am waiting for the depressingly slow Flash CS4 IDE to complete a few menial tasks. All I want to do is select all of the frames(10) in a short sprite animation and scale them by 50% and then reposition them to 0,0; easy right: toggle the edit multiple frames option (wait 10 seconds) drag the slider to include all ten frames (wait 20 seconds) edit > select all (eww... 50 seconds) modify > transform > scale and rotate: 50%... ok (c'mon, 2 minutes?) properties tab > x = 0 (wait 30 seconds) tab y = 0 (wait 30 seconds). This is ridiculous, Adobe may be notorious for slow applications, I may be using a laptop which is by no means fast (1.7GHz Turion x2, 2GB RAM), but even after setting the process priority to "Realtime" this is just torture. Even on my room mate's Phenom II x4 and nVidia 9600GT doing anything vaguely intensive in the Flash IDE is a chore.

And so I ask the Flash community, are there any complete replacements for the Flash IDE? I'm already using Flash Develop to replace the built-in text editor that lags when I type faster than 40wpm and an external flash player to test the apps but I still require the IDE to manage and create library objects.

Also, while I doubt any of you will ever read this, I must ask Adobe to treat Flash the way it deserves to be treated. As it is, it seems it is treated as just another member of the Creative Suite, but unlike programs which only need a few tweaks or maybe a more modern UI every once in a while like Photoshop and Illustrator, Flash needs some serious work before it can become a jewel in my eyes. If the Flash 11 IDE is no better I will certainly replace Flash as a prototyping tool in favor of an equally simple one like Java or C#.

Hey! My IDE is all done working, look at that :)

Windows 7 House Party

2009-10-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

Woot! I got accepted to host one of those Windows 7 house parties that you may or may not have heard about. I applied completely on a whim after I heard there would be swag in the form of a signed copy of the Ultimate Edition and here I am! I'm not sure what I'll do for it quite yet I guess I'll just wait till people show up and wing it.

I didn't expect to be approved with such minor requirements, it seems Microsoft is going all out when it comes to free copies of 7 as an attempt to divert our attention from bashing Vista. I've even heard from a number of my friends while they were out computer shopping that big vendors like Best Buy and Frys are offering free upgrades to 7 when it comes out in just 3 weeks, soon the horrors of Vista will be all but non-existent. :)

Fall 2009 Anime Preview

2009-09-28T01:43:00.000-07:00

Alright! Here we go... my first blog post of what I think about the next up and coming season of Anime. As far as blogging series like other authors do, I'm not sure yet but if anyone has any requests I'll be glad to oblige. Since I lack an idea of what to write in this introduction other than that this season looks pretty awesome, ~~lets just get started in the same order as this nice chart.~~ Looks like the newest version of this chart has both the Anime I found that were not on the original as well as a few others...

Kuchu Buranko

Staff: Toei

Summary: Irabu Ichiro is a shrink with several fetishes that always makes the lives of his patients worse before better.

My Thoughts: It sounds pretty fun, but Toei is notorious for sub-par Anime so we'll see how it is. According to Anime News Network this Anime will be a fusion of 2D animation and live-action. Most of us know how horrible live-action can be, but this is a unique approach so I'll have to at least give it a chance.

Tatakau Shisho - The Book of Bantorra

Staff: David

Summary: Several armed librarians defend a library in which the souls of the dead are stored in books that can be used to learn the person's past. Tonisu has his memory erased, gets wired with a bomb, and ordered to kill the most powerful of the librarians.

My Thoughts: Wow... poor Tonisu, good luck? This Anime sounds pretty cool and it's called "Armed Librarians" what more can I say? This may be one of the Anime I finish this season if it's any good.

Darker than Black: Ryusei no Gemini

Staff: Bones

Summary: This Anime will be a sequel to Darker than Black that takes place two years after Hei and Yin escape the syndicate.

My Thoughts: I'll certainly have to buckle down and finish the first season before this one comes out, I like what I've seen so far very much. I'm sure this one will be just as good. It is still being produced by Bones, which is without a doubt one of my favorite studios.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

Staff: J.C. Staff

Summary: A side story to the popular To Aru Majutsu no Index that follows the character Misaka Mikoto.

My Thoughts: Another Anime that I enjoy but haven't gotten around to finishing. I'll definitely be watching this one to. For anyone who hasn't seen the first season I highly recommend it as an interesting mesh of magic and science.

Tegami Bachi

Staff: Pierott

Summary: Gauche is a letter carrier for the government charged to deliver any letter anywhere. After meeting Lag Seeing and becoming friends, he convinces him to become a carrier. Now Gauche is a missing and Lag decides to find him.

My Thoughts: I really like the art style of that little picture in the preview and from the summary it could be one of those heart-warming journey type Anime like Kino's Journey.

Sangoku Engi

Staff: Beijing Glorious / Future Planet

Summary: Your typical story of the three kingdoms, anyone who doesn't know it by now probably just doesn't care.

My Thoughts: I've always been a fan of ROTK but I would much rather watch something along the lines of Koihime Musou than this. I'll definitely give it a shot and watch it if it's any good.

Seiken no Katanakaji

Staff: Manglobe

Summary: Cecily Campbell has been searching for the legendary blacksmith Luke Ainsworth, who is capable of defeating enemies with a single sweep of his "mysterious" sword, to repair her late father's sword.

My Thoughts: Anime like this are usually a hit or a miss so I won't have a verdict until I've at least watched the first episode. The story sounds interesting enough, so I'm sure it has a decent chance.

Fairy Tale

Staff: A-1 Pictures / Satelight

Summary: Lucy, 17, wants to become a mage and enter a guild called Fairy Tale. One day she meets a mage named Natsu and is invited to join.

My Thoughts: Many of my friends absolutely love this series and have been trying to convince me to read it for some time now. It isn't that I didn't want to I just never got around to it. Either way, this Anime sounds like it's going to be pretty good, just as long as it isn't like a million episodes. I'm not a big fan of long Anime, so I'm hoping it isn't any longer than 52.

Kobato

Staff: Madhouse / Clamp

Summary: Kobato's mission is to fill a bottle with the suffering from people's hearts to create her utopia while also trying not to fall in love with her co-worker whose heart (for some reason) she must heal.

My Thoughts: Well, that's certainly a very Clamp'y sounding story. While the story sounds predictable at first (girl falls in love with boy, realizes that this means not all people are bad, forgets about her utopia) but knowing Clamp there will be a number of ridiculous events that mess things up big time. *cough*Tsubasa Chronicles*cough* It sounds interesting and the collection of sorrow vaguely reminds me of True Tears so I'm certain I will end up watching it this season.

Kimi no Todoke

Staff: Production IG

Summary: Kuronuma Sakuro's only wants to make friends, too bad she looks like Sadako from The Ring. She likes a guy in class who happens to be the only guy who is nice to her.

My Thoughts: Right... this almost sounds like it could be a true story albeit a little exaggerated. It sounds pretty bland, but as with everything else I'll give it one episode as a chance to prove itself. I have no expectations though.

Sasameki Koto

Staff: AIC

Summary: High school honor's student Sumika likes her classmate Ushio and while she has heard that Ushio is also totally into girls she has not yet expressed her feelings.

My Thoughts: I have a feeling that this yuri will be just as boring as Aoi Hana looked to be last season. In fact because the main character already knows who she likes AND has a legitimate reason not to be afraid of telling her, I have a feeling this will end up as drawn out and frustrating as Lovely Complex was, without the humor to make up for it. We shall see.

Winter Sonata

Staff: G&G / JM Animation

Summary: Kang Joon-Sang whose life is somehow tied to that of his classmate Jung Yu-Jin. The story will follow their lives in school and thereafter.

My Thoughts: Sounds pretty good, I've always been a softie for the dramas. It is apparently based off of a Korean drama, so I'm sure it will be at least decent and not just a Clannad knockoff like I had originally thought before doing my research.

Nyan Koi!

Staff: AIC

Summary: Junpei Kosaka hates cats but his crush Kaede Mizuno adores them. After traumatizing a cat god by kicking over a trash can, he is cursed to understand the way cats feel

My Thoughts: THAT'S MORE LIKE IT! This is the Anime I'll be looking forward to this season, it sounds absolutely HILARIOUS. I can't really think of anything else to say, being so astounded by the awesome emanating from that summary.

Natsu no Arashi 2

Staff: Shaft

Summary: Sayoko Arashiyama is a ghost from the past who went to a school during World War II. In modern times, Hajime Yasaka meets her one day and they both travel back in time in an attempt to make the past during WWII better for a number of people.

My Thoughts: Although I never liked the art style, I finished the first season and thought it was really interesting. I liked how every time they went back to the past, I realized what parts of the first half of the episode were caused by their escapades. Since I enjoyed the first one, I'll watch this one. I hope there is a little bit more story content this time.

White Album 2

Staff: Seven Arcs

Summary: Toya Fuji is dating rising idol Yuki Morikawa. This Anime details the numerous challenges to their relationship.

My Thoughts: I may like dramas, but the first season didn't do it for me so I won't be watching this one. It wasn't that hated it it, I just kept falling asleep from the lack of anything really going on most of the time. I liked REC much more, but that isn't a fair comparison because the latter was a comedy.

11eyes

Staff: Dogakobo

Summary: Kakeru Satsuki has been in mourning over the suicide of his sister and last remaining family member. Then suddenly him and a number of classmates are taken to Red Night from where they cannot return until defeating the six black knights.

My Thoughts: Like the Sacred Blacksmith, this Anime will be a hit or a miss. I'll have to wait and see when I watch it.

Inuyasha - Final Act

Staff: Sunrise

Summary: If you don't know by now you can safely skip to the next preview.

My Thoughts: I gave up on Inuyasha a long time ago, but my sister toiled onwards only to realize the author just sort of got lazy and stopped. All I can say about this is "finally" I'll have to at least watch the last few episodes out of obligation.

Asura Cryin' 2

Staff: Seven Arcs

Summary: Tomohara Natsume is haunted by the ghost of his childhood friend. Soon after moving into a new house he gets caught up in a battle between several supernatural factions and obtains a powerful ability that many sought out to abuse or destroy.

My Thoughts: I started this one when the first season came out and I thought it was pretty cool, I'll have to finish the first season before I start this one though.

Kampfer

Staff: Nomad

Summary: Natsuru Seno wakes up one morning and find that he'd become a girl. He/she discovers that he has been chosen to participate in battles with other girls.

My Thoughts: He certainly scored some pretty blue hair... Anyways, I'll have to wait and see on this one. It could be really funny, but more than likely it will over do the fan-service or something to screw it all up.

Heaven's Lost Property

Staff: AIC ASTA

Summary: Tomoki Sakurai has a dream about a girl who he cannot remember asking him for help, only to awaken to an animal falling from the sky that turns out to be an angel.

My Thoughts: This will probably be one of the primarily fan-service type Anime this season, I'll probably watch it though if it has some level of decent content and isn't as lame as tu-love-ru.

Seitokai no Ichizon

Staff: Deen

Summary: Ken Sugisaki is chosen and the only male in the all female student council where they discuss the daily activities of the student body.

My Thoughts: Okay, correction... maybe THIS will be the most fan-service-y Anime this season. This however sounds like it could have better content and more tasteful comedy than the previous. It is also being produced by Studio Deen, I'm sure that won't hurt it one bit, though that thought scares me into thinking that such an innocent looking Anime will quickly become a bone saw wielding loli mania.

Queen's Blade: Heir to the Throne

Staff: ARMS

Summary: An all female cast fights using any means possible (apparently include rape) to become the queen of the country.

My Thoughts: No.

Shin Koihime Musou

Staff: Dogakobo

Summary: An alternate re-telling of the three kingdoms story using female replacements for the majority of the cast. Unlike Ikkitousen however, it still takes place in the appropriate time period.

My Thoughts: Being a big ROTK fan, I really liked the first season and I thought it was pretty cute. I hope there is more story this time around, but that may be too much to ask for.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

Staff: Diomedia

Summary: Nogizaka Haruka is your not so typical rich girl with a secret. She is really an Otaku.

My Thoughts: I really liked the first season of this Anime too (man am I getting spoiled with sequels this season :3). I'll definitely watch this one as well!

The last 5 in a nutshell:
- Futuristic Bio-Dome Lion King Ripoff
- Another card game
- A little loli baking stuff, uhh, right.
- A sequel to Stitch.
- A Tomagatchi Anime, serious?

I probably will not watch any of these. There is a chance I could enjoy Battle Spirits much like I enjoyed the unique comedy of Duel Masters, but I doubt it.

And now for some little jewels that I dug up which do not appear on chartfag's list:

Kiddy Girl-And

Staff: Gonzo

Summary: A Sequel to the popular Kiddy Grade that takes place 50 years after Éclair and Lumière restored peace to the galaxy. The galaxy once again stands on the brink of chaos with two new heroines: Ascoeur and Q-feuille.

My Thoughts: OMG, OMG.. I heard this Anime got delayed indefinitely... but here it is! I can't wait.

Miracle Train

Staff: Yumeta Company

Summary: A number of Japanese train stations are personified into male characters...

My Thoughts: Okay, random... but this COULD prove to be funny so I'll give it a chance.

Kaidan Restaurant

Staff: Toei Animation

Summary: Each episode will be split into three "dishes" the first two will follow the life of Ako Ozora and her classmates' misfortunes and the final dish will be a short ghost story told by Ako.

My Thoughts: This sounds like it could be pretty cool, perhaps it'll have a Ghost Stories feel to it.

While I usually won't preview the OVAs there is this one exception:

Shakugan no Shana S

Staff: Toei Animation

Summary: An OVA sequel to Shana the Second.

My Thoughts: While this may just be a teaser to keep me from inciting a riot before the third season comes out, I'm glad I have at least a little bit more Shana to tie me over. The news of this release came with news that there will be another Shanatan and that they are indeed working on the third season.

So there you have it, after typing all that I still haven't thought of anything to say... Enjoy!

Windows 7 Official OS-tan!

2009-09-28T00:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right Microsoft has announced an official mascot for Windows 7 to be included in Windows 7 Ultimate voiced by none other than Nana Mizuki. She is known for her roles as Fate Testarossa in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, Hyuga Hinata in Naruto, and being the only seiyu to top the charts in the Japanese music industry as of this post. She also happens to be my personal favorite.

Ever since I last February I have been using the Windows 7 Beta and Release Candidate and I have been impressed with the improvements on the operating system to the point where I have had to re-think several of my biases against Microsoft but I do believe this seals the deal. Microsoft is now, for the first time ever, on my awesome list!

There is however one problem with this: the moefied version of Windows 7 Ultimate is only going to be released in Japan so anyone who wants a copy of this theme will have to find alternative methods. I'm sure the tech community won't let us down and we'll have a compatible download within a week or so of the launch, if not I'll try my hardest to deliver!

My First Blog

2009-09-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I suppose it is about time I made one of these things, everyone has one and it seems like a good place to post exciting news and my opinions of what is going around in the world. This blog will center around my hobbies: Gaming, Programming, Anime, etc. I hope you enjoy it~