Archive for October, 2009

Happy Halloween, everyone! As always, I’m not dressing up for the occasion since I’m only going to be staying home giving out candies to the young ones (or the “young once” ). On the other hand, I thought I’d celebrate a bit in going back on an Arashi fandom hiatus for a month to concentrate on NaNoWriMo. However, hopefully I’m not going back from Arashi fandom hiatus forever because I found someone who I became writing buddies with whom I can cling on to so I don’t lose my sanity on being an Arashi fan. Please do support us, DesTi and me, as we embark on our literary abandon goal of 50,000 words.

I’ve got the tentatively official title of this year’s NaNoWriMo novel: Midsummer by the Sea. It’s technically somewhat of a rewrite of The Photojournalist and the Red Ribbon, but this would be more of a teen love story with probably a touch of mystery thrown in to it. And like the previous one, this is also somewhat tying in to my ongoing fiction project, Freedom Sky Mysteries. I put it on hiatus for now to work on AMNOSnet, but it looks like I’ve been distracted too much with other things that I could not even keep myself in focus on one thing. Dang video games and J-dramas… gah.

Yesterday on the History Channel, I saw a documentary about exorcisms. I know most of the world today don’t believe in this ancient practice of driving away evil spirits from troubled humans, but I really do believe in them. Usually exorcisms are associated with the Roman Catholic Church, however there are other Christian sects (ie. Orthodox Church, Anglican Church/Church of England, Protestant, Lutheran, etc.) who also perform exorcisms as well. I also think there’s also forms of exorcism in other religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and probably Buddhism.

I also believe in ghosts and evil spirits, but not to the point where I think that every single “bad” person or every person has committed many mistakes are possessed by the devil or anything like that. Back then every single “uncommon” behavior among people was considered the work of the devil. Today, exorcism is being practiced sparingly as behavioral sciences such as psychiatry, psychology, etc. are more commonly used among people. Also today, when someone is behaving strangely and differently from the way they usually behave, concerned family members would go to a psychiatrist first or even a doctor. If medical attention and behavioral science, even at the highest level, are unsuccessful, then this may probably be the time to go for spiritual methods, such as exorcism, as the next option.

Don’t get me wrong. I have not seen the movie The Exorcist at all because I’m terrified of horror movies in general. I have not seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose or Requiem either. And no, it’s not because of my being a Catholic that I believe in demonic possessions (in fact nothing of that sort is ever discussed or brought about in my weekly church or occasional Bible discussions either). I watched news, documentaries, read books and articles, just my daily news and reading routine. I’ve also heard stories from people I’m close to as well, experiences with other people who had to go through.

Well, since this is a hodgepodge entry, I’ll cut this short. I don’t want to scare anyone or even make the skeptics become more skeptical and call me insane. I’m not enforcing my own beliefs on those who don’t believe, as long as they don’t do the same with me.

Sometime at the final week of October, My NaNoWriMo blog will be re-activated again. Hopefully I’d be able to create a new layout for it, but for now, we’ll stick to the old one instead since I don’t have any inspiration for it. That blog was the second time that I used Artisteer as the WP theme generator using its defaults since I was still familiarizing with it then.

Whew, I haven’t really blogged in here for the entire week! Well, been busy with work and among other things, plus I got myself warped in to my video gaming fandom as well. New DS games, Age of Empires III complete with the expansions, and my unhealthy obsession with Luna Online and Mabinogi. If you’re a total Celtic Mythology fan (in particular Welsh Mythology), give Mabinogi a try.

Unless I find some really good (and definitely worthy) writers and contributors who would not mind volunteer some time to write in AMNOSnet blog with the latest content or just contribute something they want to write about Arashi just so the site can have fresh content, I’ll have to put the site on a one-month hiatus due to my participation in NaNoWriMo.

And speaking of NaNoWriMo, I am not about to abandon FSM. Why? Because my upcoming novel for NaNoWriMo will be in relation to FSM. If you’re interested in reading my NaNoWriMo novel in progress, then feel free to contact me or read my NaNoWriMo progress blog.

Part II of my Fan-Subbed Works entries will have to be put on hold for now, but I’ll get to it eventually. I also noticed that I’ve gotten a little mellow with my entries as of late (rather more specifically, my rants and miscellaneous entries regarding Arashi/J-Idols “fangirling scene”), but it’s not because I’ve run out of ideas, but because I’ve become more focused on other things other than “fangirling.” I personally can’t survive “fangirling” on Arashi or some other J-idol I happen to currently like.

Okay, I’m calling it a day. More later. Ha!

• Mood: Sleepy

I wrote my first Hodgepodge entry on my VOX account (and also generated on LJ too since hardly anyone goes to my LJ) as first of my Hodgepodge series. Basically, Hodgepodge is sorta like an unlimited version of Twitter, Tumblr, or any other microblogging systems. The only thing is, I post them up manually.

Birthday Hodgepodge #1: Co-workers @ the legendary denim jeans station gave me a suggestion to have my birthday lunch at Butterfly. What I love about this restaurant is that it’s a complete Asian fusion with each other, so most of the dishes on the menu are Asian dish-influenced. Despite of the fancy and scrumptious-looking dishes for their lunch menu, Kobe Beef Burger attracted me the most. It was seriously delicious and DANG off da hook! Of course, maybe not as tasty as the original steak-version of the Kobe Beef but still… it’s Kobe Beef! Before that, I had Fire Fried Calamari for my appetizer dish and a Virgin Mojito. What? You think I’m gonna be going back to work all drunk?

Birthday Hodgepodge #2: San Francisco is the capital city of the LBGT community, so there are a lot of same-sex couples there. They are in their own culture and in their own world, but they are indeed good people. I ended up having short conversations with a gay couple (male) about Asian cuisine in general. They ended up talking to me because I’m Asian and all.  I don’t mind because they’re interested.

Birthday Hodgepodge #3: Sometime during my enjoyment time with my Kobe Beef Burger, a rather young Asian couple just walked in and was assigned the table next to mine. The guy had straight-out bleach blond hair and the girl had long, straight black hair. When they walked in, their aura seriously reminded me of something familiar.  Then I realized: サンフランシースコの「恋空」？？！ They came in holding hands and they had these really cute, adoring faces. However their skin looked so pale white that it’d make you ponder if they just woke up from the dead or something. Many of the people near our area were basically gawking and “aww”-ing and flailing at them because they just looked too darn cute together. Even the gay couple next to my table were smiling happily for them. They both said in a whisper: “Ah, young love.”

Birthday Hodgepodge #4: At home, I got about $200 worth of personal checks from the family (yes, I’m a charity case ) and two gift cards from Target and Barnes & Noble. But the best part of the birthday dinner was that we were all at home together as a family, having a nice and quiet and relaxing dinner. Noodles (Pancit Bihon) included for a guaranteed long life.

Birthday Hodgepodge #5: Got a call from the data recovery experts at the local computer repair shop. My data from that good-riddens ext. HD has been saved. I’m picking up my new HD on Friday along with the recovered data. Now I am truly happy. In the end, I’m writing this hodgepodge blog entry.

That’s all for my birthday. This is just the beginning. The best part is probably this weekend or the weekend after. Whee.

• Mood: Happy and Content

PRECAUTION NOTE:

A friend suggested to me that I should write some kind of a pre-warning note before I start writing one of my (Male) J-Idol Fangirlism series entries for the sake of the ones who take fangirlism seriously and of course, for the sensitive types. I thought it was a stupid idea to write such notice but after being attacked by the said individuals thinking everything I write in my blog is aiming specifically towards them, I reconsidered putting one up before the actual entry. Sure, these entries may direct towards fangirls in general, but these people have to keep in mind that they are not the only fangirls of a particular fandom that exist in this world. Sadly (or rather somehow), they think the opposite. Oh well.

This particular entry (and yes, it’s another novel-length entry, so if you hate long blog entries, best leave now ) is another request from one of the users who stopped by my blog. It’s a pretty good subject too, to be honest, though I did mention a bit of this at my past entries. This particular entry will aim directly towards the said subject on the title.

In addition to being novel-length, this may even become in to a mini-series of the said subject. There is actually a lot to cover regarding fansubbing that all users and fans should be aware of. I don’t want to bore all you readers by putting all the information and such in one entry, so I’ll make it easier and break it down for you all. Sound fair?

Going back to the paragraph before the previous. In other words, if you come here and read this entry and then attack me and claim that you’re not interested in reading this entire entry (but you read it anyway, what the hell…), then seriously do yourself a favor and click the X button on the top right corner or next to your browser tab and get over yourself.

One of the benefits of being in a fandom of something coming from a foreign country online is being able to gain access to various sources presented by fellow fans to fellow fans. One of the most common sources that us fans are fortunate to gain access and enjoy more of our fandom is the ability to download and watch video clips of TV shows, drama series, movies, interviews, and even at times audio clips from radio shows that do not exist in our local TV sets or even at our local stores. Best of all, for a fan of something that exists outside of your own country, the biggest blessing that we are able to have is if these particular media clips have subtitles in them (most especially if they are subtitled in English, since most people around the world understand or have a good grasp of English in general).

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• Current Location: Home
• Currently Drinking: Coke Zero (ran out of iced tea T_T)
• Currently Reading: Narrative of the Life and Other Writings by Frederick Douglass
• Mood: Anxious (about her ext. HD problem)
• Quirky Sidenote: 10/14 is my birthday. Happy Birthday to Me! ^_^

Just as I’m already on a roll, my system has gone down.

Earlier today I panicked when my main laptop (which is the one I’m using now) stopped loading and froze on the first screen. I took it down to Geek Squad and for some reason the system began to load up again. However, as it went through its first diagnostics, there are problems.

First, their system spotted that there’s a Trojan virus infecting my system. The thing is that my antivirus program is very screwy right now and I’m pondering of uninstalling & re-installing the progrram, but I don’t know what good would that do.

Second, there’s some error/warnings or something that came up from my hard drive (or my memory… I forget which one). There may be a bad partition in it, it said, and it may take about a week or two to fix it. Of course, it’ll come down to how much it’s going to cost me if I were going to turn in this system.

Sadly, right now I’m on a bind. I wanted to seriously work with my sites big time but if I do end up sending this out for repairs the cost is going to be seriously out of my budget. If I decide to discard and buy a new system (laptop preferably) then I won’t be able to retrieve some of the software that I normally use (ie. Adobe Creative Suite CS2, etc.) and will have to spend money just to get those types of software. I might as well start training myself in to using GIMP.

That’s all I have right now. I’m going to see if I’ll be able to do my own repairs for this system without having to pay hundreds of dollars just to have this whole thing fixed.

Well, wish me luck. *crosses fingers*

• Mood: Frustrated