Yet another boring episode. I think someone should ban Sunrise from making any “character development” episodes because frankly I don’t give a damn about the Gundam Meisters.
In fact, let’s just turn all the Gundams into unmanned weapon systems that are controlled by Veda through mesh networking!
Woohoo! It’s that new layout that I was talking about! Yay! It took less time than I anticipated to finish it. WordPress is really quite a decent CMS.
It’s my first attempt at building my own WordPress theme instead of modifying the default one. There are still a lot of things that are incomplete (mainly plugin integrations) so I’m calling it “beta” for now. Why “version three” you ask? Well I just felt like it. Please don’t ask me to explain which layouts were version two and one…
Nitty gritties after the break.
Eh. I think this is the kind of episode that most people would enjoy. It has some fighting (lame), character development (lame) and plot development (what plot?), all the jazz that people claim to watch Gundam for.
But I didn’t really like it. It’s boring and doesn’t really invoke any feelings. I almost fell asleep translating it. Give me episode 9 back!
If you are reading this, that means the new DNS has propagated for you. I had to manually edit my HOSTS file to access this site. Stupid ISP and its stupid slow-updating cache. This site is now hosted by HostGator for no particular reason.
Some administrative matters to take care of:
ipconfig /flushdns and restarting your browser to see if it helps.Update: The server is backup! And wp-cache is working now too! Hurray!
Here’s your daily dosage of “WTF everything I hold to be true and dear in this reality has been torn apart and disintegrated.” Angel’s Tale from StudioGU is a bishoujo game made in Thailand. Yes, the one in Southeast Asia.
Uh, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t exactly associate Thailand with bishoujo games. Although Kotaku says that this game is ero, I don’t see anything that supports this claim. (And Kotaku is generally wrong about otaku-related stuff anyway, despite its namesake.) But I can’t say for sure either way since I can’t read Thai to save my life.
Promo and gameplay videos embedded after the break.
Nendroid is a PVC figurine series from Good Smile Company that turns popular anime characters into awesome chibified caricatures with oversized heads. VOCALOID2’s Hatsune Miku recently received the Nendroid treatment and topped the Amazon preorders chart with over 10,000 preorders in just two days.
Mika-tan, an employee of GSC, posted some new “product testing” pictures (what an awesome job) of this wonderful creation on her blog today. Chibi Miku stetching out her hand while holding a negi is so cute, it hurts my tooth. (Or maybe it’s just my tooth decay.) I did preorder one some time ago. Hopefully I can get it.
[ Mika-tan’s Blog ]
This episode is a pretty good one because we are finally seeing some semblance of actual combat tactics being employed. Also, it has some character development for Felt, which is good. (But maybe not. Refer to the last line of this entry.)
It’s a Haro harem!
Louise and Saji do make an appearance in this episode, but thankful it is a short one. Dear Sunrise, please hurry up and kill them already! :(
Due to some strange twist of fate, I now have in my possession an 8GB iPod touch. (Basically a gimped iPhone without the Phone.)
It’s a very, very awesome piece of technology, and yet it suffers from the same glaring flaws that all Apple products are forever destined to bear, at least as long as Steve Jobs runs the show. My relationship with my spanking new iPod can be best described as a ツンデレ (tsundere) one of epic proportions.
The site was getting way too slow, so I tried applying for DreamHost’s new invitation-only Private Server option. It finally got approved yesterday. It’s basically a virtual machine with a specific amount of CPU cycles and RAM dedicated to each user. It’s also damn expensive.
The site does feel more responsive now. However, I’m still not entirely sure if a virtual machine is worth the premium over regular shared hosting, so I’ll monitor the situation before I decide if I want to keep the current arrangement. Do let me know if you notice any differences in speed. (Maybe it’s just my imagination.)
My one-year contract with DreamHost is actually up and I’m paying monthly right now, so I can switch to another host if I find a better one. But I have a feeling that with the current site traffic, switching to another regular shared hosting plan with oversold bandwidth (4TB for 8 bucks?) won’t solve any problems. Shared hosting is starting to show its cracks, but I don’t think I can justify paying for a dedicated server at this stage either. Sigh. In the meantime, DreamHost is still holding up.
By the way, if you are signing up for a new DreamHost account, try using the promo code HARUHI for $97 off your first year or if you want to make payments monthly, YUKI will get rid of the $61 set-up fee. (According to DreamHost, the maximum discount for promo codes will be capped at $50 from December 11th onwards.)
On another note, this site will be down for maintenance at 10:00PM PST (GMT -8), November 30th 2007.
Don777 recounts his trip to Shanghai where he visited a maid café run by a Japanese owner. The cafe name is @Niaohai (ï¼ ãƒ‹ãƒ£ã‚ªãƒã‚¤), which is the Mandarin reading for the owner’s surname Toriumi (鳥海).
According to him, the staff generally consists of university students and they do speak Japanese. Also, they will actually sit down to chat with the customers, something you don’t really see in Japan. The décor looks better than most of the maid/cosplay cafés I’ve been to in Japan and the price is about the same: 40 RMB (about 5.30 USD) for a cup of coffee. (About twice as expensive as Starbucks in China.)
The café is located in Jin Jiang Tower, which belongs to a hotel chain that has presence all over China. You can read more on Don’s blog (in Japanese). And if you’re interested in visiting the place yourself:
Shanghai Jin Jiang Tower 6F,
161 Chang Le Road, Shanghai
Tel: +86-(0)21-6415-1188
Email: niaohai55@yahoo.co.jp
The café also has an official blog with a picture gallery. You can also find more pictures and thoughts in this blog entry by a Japanese student studying in Shanghai.
Woot. Meta-blogging!
