Let's see, time to figure out how to imbed a YouTube video.



This is a cute video that I first saw on CNN. It's JibJab's parody of this year's election.

So I have discovered a site that is new to me at least: Flickpeek.com. It seems to have a lot of streamed videos available, including full anime episodes. Assuming this isn't a trap of some kind, I now have access to a lot of anime that I didn't before. Any recommendations as to what I should watch next?

I'm not sure how many people still reading this watch Naruto: Shippuden. I'm currently in love with the new opening song called "Blue Bird" (YES I AM SO PREDICTABLE). Let's rehash the lyrics real quickly.

habataitara modorenai to itte
mezashita no wa aoi aoi ano sora

kanashimi wa mada oboerarezu
setsunasa wa ima tsukami hajimeta
anata e to idaku kono kanjou mo
ima kotoba ni kawatteku

michi naru sekai no yume kara mezamete
kono hane wo hiroge tobitatsu

habataitara modorenai to itte
mezashita no wa aoi aoi ano sora

tsukinuketara mitsukaru to shitte
furikiru hodo
aoi aoi ano sora
aoi aoi ano sora
aoi aoi ano sora

English translation:

You said if you could fly, you'd never come back down.
You only have eyes for that blue, blue sky.

You've yet to learn what sadness is,
and are just now grasping what pain is like.
Even the feelings I have for you
must be expressed with words.

As you awake from a dream into an unknown world,
spread your wings, and take flight!

You said if you could fly, you'd never come back down.
You only have eyes for that blue, blue sky.

You know if you can just make it through, you'll find what you seek.
So keep trying to break free,
to that blue, blue sky.
To that blue, blue sky.
To that blue, blue sky!

So I was listening to this song "on repeat," and I started thinking about the lyrics. Who is it from the point of view of, and who are they singing to? Is Naruto singing to Sasuke, or is Sasuke singing to Naruto? Or is it some rando singing to Naruto?

I like the idea of Sasuke only having eyes for the sky, but that could be my fandom for him talking. It might be hard to reconcile only having a heart for revenge with only having eyes for the sky, though. If you stretch it, you could think of them both as one and the same... maybe. Alright, so maybe this one is a stretch.

Let's consider the song is about Naruto, then. Does Naruto only have eyes for the sky? He's always looking ahead into the future and towards his goals of rescuing Sasuke and becoming Hokage. I suppose if you think of the sky as "goals," you could say that Naruto has eyes for the sky. But then again, Sasuke's revenge is also a goal.

There's also another important line in this song. "You've yet to learn what sadness is, and are just now grasping what pain is like." This really sounds like Sasuke speaking to Naruto. Sasuke has always been the one who says that he knows sadness and pain the best because he lost everything, and Sasuke says that Naruto doesn't know anything, because Naruto was alone from the beginning.

Alright, so I guess my current theory is that the song is Sasuke speaking to Naruto, even though I wish it were the other way around. (I want Sasuke to be the blue bird.... *cough*) Any other thoughts on this?

I come bearing more puppy pictures! This time, I'm too lazy to host a thumbnail on my own website, however. The pictures are here.

So after the whole Basic Account debacle, LiveJournal has just announced that they are adding a new type of account: Sponsored. Sponsored will have the same features as a Paid account, but will have certain types of ads on it.

...so wait, they removed Basic Accounts because their three types of accounts were confusing, and now they are adding another type of account? Now we have accounts that are ad-free, have ads, or have sponsored ads? Okay...

I should probably re-make my own weblog soon. I'll keep cloning posts here because Friends pages are so convenient. I wonder if it's worth porting all of my posts that are here to the weblog.

Well, we have had our new puppy for about a week now; we got her the Sunday before last. Things were kind of hectic the first week as she adjusted to us and we adjusted to her. I think all of us have settled into a routine now though. We did end up deciding on the name Sakura, so that is her name.

Sakura is amazingly well-behaved. Since I was used to having a dog that hating being petted, picked up, and held, to have a puppy that will let me pick it up without growling and biting me is an amazing change. When we brought her home she stayed on my lap without fussing. Sandi, my previous dog, was horrible at riding in cars. Sandi would never stay put on my lap. Sakura is a car riding champ, and is content with sitting in my lap.

Of course, Sakura isn't perfect. The first week we had a hard time convincing her that sofas and rugs are not to be chewed on. In addition to verbally reprimanding her, we picked up a bottle of Bitter Apple and sprayed it on the spots that she was chewing. Basically, it makes it taste bad, so that she won't want to chew it. It seems to have helped a lot, and she is leaving the sofas alone now. Unfortunately, she seems to have changed tactics to going under our desks where there are lots of wires. I haven't seen her chew any wires yet because I won't give her an opportunity. I wish I had some way of blocking access to the wires, though, so I wouldn't have to constantly make sure that she isn't under a desk.

Housetraining Sakura has been a challenge. She figured out pretty easily that when we take her outside, it's time to do her business. However, she hasn't figured out that it's not okay to do her business inside the house, nor has she figured out a way to let us know when she needs to go outside. She also has a problem with patience. I know that she needs to go outside right after a meal and right after a nap. There have been occasions where she has an accident immediately after eating or napping, and I had no time to get her outside. One time she woke up from a nap and I went into the bedroom to put my shoes on. I came out of the bedroom and she had already had an accident on the carpet.

Despite the challenges, I love having Sakura around. She is such a sweet puppy, and adorably cute. We gave her a couple of toys, and she loves playing fetch with just about all of them. She has a Milkbone that she loves to talk to. Yes, she talks to it as if the Milkbone is a person and is playing with her.

I took a bunch of pictures of Sakura yesterday and this morning. Here is a link to the Facebook photo album. They're on Facebook for now because apparently I can make photo albums public so that non Facebook users can view them, and it was so easy to upload the pictures.

LiveJournal - We Know Drama.

Apparently yesterday, March 12, 2008, SUP, the owner of LiveJournal, took the ability to make new Basic Accounts away. Basic Accounts are accounts with minimal features but no ads -- the same type of account that I use. They changed this without announcing it on any sort of news feed; they quietly noted in their FAQ that new users would no longer be able to create Basic Accounts and that was about it. Brad, the original creator of LiveJournal, who now serves on LiveJournal's Advisory board noted and opposed this change. The VP of Product Development responded to him with this:

From a product perspective it was more about creating a new registration process that was easier for new users to understand. I'm sure it's been ages since many of you signed up for an account, but it was quite confusing and included a table of options that was not very inviting to new users.

For new users to the site, the options of either having an ad-supported journal or the option to pay $20 annually for more (2GB) photo storage, more userpics, and ad-controls seems like a much simpler and easy to understand work-flow. We are working hard to add even more features and are currently revisiting our ad-supported strategy to find ways to deliver more user value in a way that isn't crass.

So basically, they took away the ability to create Basic Accounts entirely because creating an account was confusing for new users. YARITE. If that were the case there would still be a way to make a new Basic Account somewhere.

Today, after people noticed what they had done, they owned up to it and actually announced it on News. Somehow I guess they weren't expecting people to notice the change.

I'm not too pleased about this turn of events. I used to have a paid account, but went back to a basic account after awhile. SUP could eventually someday decide to turn basic accounts into Plus accounts -- accounts with ads. I don't want that; I'd sooner remake my blog elsewhere than have ads on it.

The encoding of the Gundam 00 episode 22 that I watched was really bad. :( I would get a couple of frames of video that were fine, and then in the next five seconds the screen would be replaced with a white screen or blocks of pixellated blobs. It's a shame because the episode was pretty good. At least the sound was intact. I'll have to download a better version when one is posted.

Okay, I'll be perfectly honest, I posted because I wanted to post with my new icon. /shame

I learned tonight that there is a remix of the first Rurouni Kenshin opening song in the 6th mix of Dance Dance Revolution. I was listening to the nonstop Megamix of the 6th mix when I heard a tune that sounded familiar. I didn't know the title since the Megamix is just one large mp3 file. I figured out that the tune reminded me of Kenshin's opening, and Rob didn't believe me. I had to find four links on the web that verified my discovery before he would believe me, but he still doesn't see the resemblance. O_o But anyway, it was cool to discover. I was proud of myself for recognizing it.

On Monday, Rob and I visited our Pembroke Welsh Corgi breeder to pick out a puppy. We ended up picking the cute little runt of the litter. She wasn't expected to live, but she's doing great! The other puppies used to pick on her and now she's learning to beat a bit of sense into them.

Also, since she wasn't expected to live, her tail wasn't taken off. I am happy she has a tail! Here's a video of her discovering her tail for the first time. She is fantastically cute.

Her tentative name is Sakura. Right now she's staying with the breeder, and we get to bring her home in another month. I can't wait! I have to stay pacified with watching the video over and over for now.

Genesis 2 begins by finishing up the seven day creation story, stating that God set aside the seventh day as a day of rest. The significance of this is that there are times for working, and times for resting. Christians also set aside this seventh day as the holy day and as a day for worship, but that is not addressed in this passage.

The rest of Genesis 2 contains the first part of the Eden story. It describes how God puts the first man in the beautiful garden of Eden, where there are many fruit bearing trees. God tells the man that he can eat from any tree except one, the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. I think God put the tree there on purpose. I'll probably address this more when I read Genesis 3, but I think it was God's plan all along that he wanted humankind to have knowledge of good and evil.

God decides to make a companion for the man. He first brings all of the animals to the man, but none of them make a suitable companion. Finally God creates a woman for the man by taking a rib from the man and creating the woman from the rib. The significance of this is what since woman was made from a part of man, woman is a part of man. And, I would argue, man is a part of woman. Both together become one whole. Together they are complete.

This year for Lent, I decided that my Lenten resolution would be to read a little bit of the Bible every day. In addition, I decided to make things overly complicated on myself and I decided to post my thoughts on each chapter here in my weblog. If it gets too time-consuming to post my thoughts I may cease posting them, so the posting part isn't part of my resolution.

Today I read Genesis 1. This is the creation story, so I've read it many times before. There is a definite progression and an organization to how God creates the universe. The universe begins from nothingness, and then things are progressively added to it until it becomes a complex universe. Creating the universe is split up among six days. I find that some parts of creation remind me of what is known by science. For example, the world being born from nothingness reminds me of the Big Bang Theory. The waters that covered the entire planet I believe are part of the theory of how the Earth was formed. I like the fact that I can find bits of science in the creation story.

A main point throughout the passage is that God is pleased with His creation. Also, it is mentioned that humankind was made in God's image. Humans are like God, but they are not identical to God. It is mentioned that God puts humans in charge of the animals. I suppose that this means that humans have a sort of superiority over animals and have the power to subdue them, control them, and eat some of them.

I need an anime to watch that I have not seen yet. Recommend one to me that I'll like and make sure that I can get it on Bittorent.

Happy new year! I'm taking some time to look back at what happened this year.

January
* World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade released.

March
* My wedding shower.
* Sandi, my dog, died.

April
* Massacre at Virginia Tech.

May
* Rob and I got married. :)
* Strikethrough '07.

June
* Honeymoon in Japan.

December
* Rob, Caleb, and Michael make a Roanoke Times appearance.

I don't have any resolutions in particular for this year. I'd like to be more productive, which may range from more weblogging to helping Rob with his company. We shall see. By the way, let me know if anyone needs some paid web design work done.

Tech trio seeks market for new game

Rob (and two friends of mine) got interviewed for the Roanoke Times :).

I had a fantastic idea, and that idea was a ramen shop that does delivery. Rob and I (okay, mostly me...) already had the idea to hire a bunch of ramen chefs from Japan, bring them to the U.S., and open a Japanese ramen shop over here. But if it did delivery...?!

Ramen delivered to my apartment door puts me in my happy place.

( WoW Expansion Spoilers )

Let's see, I've done a lot in the past two days.

Yesterday, I farmed some Argent Dawn reputation on my druid with Rob. We were getting his level 56-ish shaman (she keeps levelling) some experience, reputation, and quests done. My druid is finally revered, but I am saving all of the scourgestones he has collected to turn in after the patch. In the patch they are doubling the reputation you get from kills and quests for Argent Dawn, Timbermaw Hold, and Cenarion Circle. So after the patch I get to turn in 185 Minion's Scourgestones, 461 Invader's Scourgestones, and 96 Corrupter's Scourgestones. I also have 6 Healthy Dragon Scales waiting to be turned in as well as some Bone Fragments, Crypt Fiend Parts, and others of that sort.

We also ran some Hellfire Ramparts and Blood Furnace for Rob's shaman for experience and reputation. I took my level 68 paladin on the runs (all I get is experience since he is already honored). We ran Old Hillsbrad afterwards. I took my hunter for the trash pulls to get her some reputation, as she is still not revered with Keepers of Time. It's the only heroic key she is missing. I had to bring my paladin for the bosses, though, since we needed a healer. When we finished, I decided to buy the rest of the Firewing Signets that I needed to get my paladin to Honored with the Scryers.

Today, I did some Arathi Basin on my druid to get my Arathi Basin Marks of Honor up to 40. I am thinking about getting Marshal's Leather Belt for tanking. It's an upgrade, but I want to see if Tree-Mender's Belt will drop from Heroic Hellfire Ramparts first. After I got the 40 marks, I finally ran around and did some Karazhan quests that were in my druid's quest log (the ones where you just have to run around and talk to people). Because I did those quests, I got Violet Badge for my tanking set.

I did some Timbermaw Hold reputation grinding with Rob, but unfortunately because my druid is level 70 I didn't get very much reputation at all. My druid is still only unfriendly. I also decided to do one Wintersaber Trainers quest just for the heck of it since I was in the area.

This evening we did a pickup group Gruul run. We successfully did one last week for the very first time, so we decided to make it a weekly thing. My druid was the off-tank. The druid tier 4 shoulders dropped from High King Maulgar and I won the roll for them.

Hello LiveJournal! I keep meaning to post, but I forget to, and I also forget what I've done recently to be able to post about it. I made a point to write down what I did yesterday, though. I dinged 68 on my paladin and took my druid Tsukii to Karazhan. Tsukii got the Mithril Chain of Heroism for his kitty set, and he also main tanked Prince. I was really nervous about main tanking Prince, because I wasn't sure if I would know where to position him, and I was also afraid of being unlucky with infernal placement, but it all turned out alright and we killed him on the first try. Now that I know how to tank him, if I do it again I'll try to get some screenshots.

Tsukii's kitty gear is getting better. I finally enchanted his staff today with Savagery since I seem to be doing more DPS than tanking in raids. I'm up to 2416 attack power with Mark of the Wild and 32.85% critical strike chance. I still need to buy an enchant for his helm and enchant his legs.

Here is my Japan post, at long last. I'm finally home in Blacksburg.

Monday, June 18th

We began our trip at BWI airport. The only thing to note here is that somehow, a sparrow had managed to get inside the terminal. It was super cute. We flew from here to Toronto airport, which is pretty much just like any other airport even though it is in Canada.

Our flight from Toronto to Tokyo was 12 hours. I tried to sleep just about the entire time, but I got about two hours sleep total at best. We were seated in the front row of the back of the plane, so there was a lot of leg room. However, we were right next to the flight attendant's area, and there was a lot of noise before each meal due to the flight attendants preparing the food. We received one snack and three meals.

Tuesday, June 19th

Narita airport was pretty much the same as last trip. Customs went by quickly. We took the train to the area where our hotel was located, but we got lost trying to find the hotel. No Japanese seemed to recognize it.

We stayed at the Conrad Hilton, which was very ritzy, to the point where it was too much. We were escorted to the front desk and to our room. Our escort even came into the room and didn't seem to want to leave even though we were exhausted after travelling all day and night. It took us 10 minutes to figure out how to put the curtains down as they could not be adjusted manually. I finally found the controls next to the controls for the lights in the room.

In the bathroom there was a white rubber duckie. It was cute, and later we got two of them to take home. The shower's head was in the ceiling, and there was also the option of a handheld shower head. There was a separate bath tub in the bathroom. The clothes closet was lit by a light that would automatically turn on when the door was opened.

We received passes for a free continental breakfast each day. The breakfast mainly consisted of fruit, cereal, and pastries. For some reason I thought I had read that internet in the hotel would be included in the price of staying in the hotel, but it ended up costing a lot of extra money.

Wednesday, June 20th

On Wednesday, after the continental breakfast, we went to Akihabara. We tried to activate Rob's Japanese cell phone, but they would not let us activate it, possibly because the phone was four years old. We were able to activate it two years ago, however. We bought an Olympus digital camera. Rob bought a Japanese version of Chrono Trigger and a PSP version of Disgaea.

We had lunch at a ramen shop and then headed back to the hotel. We had left the "Do Not Disturb" sign up because we didn't want room service that day, but the hotel left us five thousand messages until we finally agreed to let them do room service while we stayed in the room. At some point we also received a delivery from Rob's mom -- it was decorated chocolate mousse, served on a table directly to our room. It was good but we did not manage to finish it. We fell asleep at 4pm and got up the next day at 3am.

Thursday, June 21st

On Thursday we went to Ueno Park. It consisted of some small shrines and a park. We went for a ride on a "swan boat," which is basically what it sounds like: a boat in the shape of a swan. I wanted to go to the Ueno Zoo, but we couldn't find the entrance, although we were able to see the zoo through fencing. I was pretty disappointed that we couldn't go to the zoo. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Ueno and we got a shotglass souvenir.

We returned to the hotel and chilled in the afternoon. We ate dinner a shop at a nearby pastry shop and returned to the hotel to watch TV Tokyo. There was some anime that I didn't recognize at 6, some weird bowling show at 6:30, Pokemon at 7, and Naruto at 7:30.

Friday, June 22nd

On Friday we went to Roppongi. I'm not sure why I put this on the list of places that I wanted to see. Luckily, there is a Hard Rock here, so there was something to do at least. We ate lunch there and went to Shinjuku. Shinjuku had a lot of Pachinko places and shopping places. We tried to find a movie theatre but couldn't find one.

Saturday, June 23rd

On Saturday we had lunch at a curry restaurant in Akihabara. I had bread that was filled with curry. It was pretty good. From there we took the train to the heart of Tokyo and attempted to go the Imperial Palace gardens. The internet search that I did indicated that the palace is closed to the public, but that the gardens are open to the public. However, when we arrived at what I thought was the entrance to the gardens, a guard shooed us away. That was disappointing.

From there we went to Ginza. Ginza is basically a shopping district. Ginza's main road was closed to traffic so that shoppers could walk down it. After a short tour of Ginza, we went back to the hotel where I had a Green Tea Frappucinco from Starbucks. They don't make those in the U.S. Housekeeping kicked us out of our room, so we went to Akihabara where Rob bought a GPS for his PSP.

Sunday, June 24th

On Sunday, we found a ramen shop close to the hotel to eat at. After lunch we took the train to Harajuku. We toured a street that had a bunch of small clothing shops, a few restaurants, and places that sell crepes. I got a crepe with chocolate ice cream, banana, and whipped cream. The clothing shops had cute clothes. From this street we went to a bridge which would normally have a bunch of goths dressed up posing for pictures, but it was raining so there wen't very many.

We walked from here to Meiji Shrine, which was fairly large. We got a few pictures and shopped at a nearby souvenir shop. I got a small bag that I am going to use to store makeup in. We passed by the bridge again on our walk back to the train station and there was a bagpipe player playing in the middle of the goths, which both Rob and I found amusing. We ate at a McDonald's for dinner. In Japan McD's has Teriyaki burgers. I didn't get one, but Rob did.

Monday, June 25th

On Monday, we decided to not plan the day in advance, since it would be our last full day in Japan. We decided spur-of-the-moment when to do things. We ate at the same ramen shop as the day before for lunch. We went back to Akihabara and shopped for a little while. I bought a Tokyo T-shirt. We ate at McDonald's for dinner.

Tuesday, June 26th

Tuesday was our last day in Japan. We ate lunch at the ramen place again. We took a bus to Narita airport instead of the train this time so that we would not have to worry about carrying our luggage on the train. At the airport, I found a shop that had souvenir pens. This made me happy, as the only pen I had brought with me had died earlier in the week and I had been looking for a replacement ever since, but I couldn't find any stores selling pens. You would be amazed at how happy I was to find pens. I also bought a bag of Pocky. We also found a sushi restaurant in the airport and we got fresh eel. It was great! I was really happy.

Overall Thoughts

These are not necessarily in any order.

• Signs are illustrated by cute drawings. For example, in Narita airport, there is a sign explaining that you can't bring livestock from other countries into the airport. The sign is illustrated by a picture of a cute chicken.


• There are English translations in a lot of places, including the airport, the subway/train, and quite a few restaurants.


• English names and English letters (romaji) are everywhere.


• People were usually dressed up in black and white -- men in black and white suits, women in suits and dresses. Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday seemed more casual. I did not see any females in T-shirts, and I saw very few people wearing jeans. It definitely made me feel like I was sticking out since I was dressed in baby doll T-shirts and jeans all week.


• Trains are covered in advertisements. I saw Tiger Woods on one ad.


• No one talks on trains. :( This is frustrating when travelling with someone.


• I saw Keiko Kitagawa on an ad for a cell phone -- I think it was called Do Re Yu.


• In curry and ramen restaurants you pay for your food before you receive it.


• It was hard to find any soda other than Coke. I missed my Sierra Mist :(.


• A lot of toilets had bidets for some reason.


• Anime/game stores have about seven floors, at least in Akihabara. Each floor features something different (CDs, games, models, etc).


• TV commercials are very entertaining -- sometimes more entertaining than the actual programming.


• Simpsons, CSI, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sesame Street have all been dubbed into Japanese.


• We were not carded when purchasing alcohol -- not sure if that is a cultural thing or because we are foreigners.