There's a saying that goes "you know you are getting old, when you start telling grandfather/grandmother stories". And if one were to adhere to the literal meaning of the term, then I'm seriously getting on in my age.

Putting that aside, I attended a little outing between old mods yesterday evening, and though the numbers were low I have to admit I enjoyed myself immensely. In fact, I'd say the low attendance made it possible for everyone to talk to one another, no one was left out of conversations, which IMO is a very good thing.

6 of us were there including Edenz, Starry, Menzo, Sexbomb, Denster, and of course me. Lots of things were discussed, and its quite amazing that though we all voice our dissatisfaction with how things ultimately become, all we did was look back, talk about it, and laughed as though we were looking from a distance. Maybe there were some sense of regret and disappointment at one time or another regarding some issues, but we were all adults and old enough to let bygones be bygones. It was very refreshing in a sense.

Why talk about old times? Lets put it this way, old times are in the past. Realizing that a part of your past has been the most enjoyable period of time in your life, one can't help but want to relive it or talk about it. Hence the saying "going down the memory lane". I'd like to say though that the only thing I miss about the old days of Blueserver, was the tight knit group of gamers and friends I made. We always looked after each other's backs, and wouldn't hesitate to speak up whenever one of us made a mistake. Though then all we do is see what the other types with a keyboard, we felt that the way they carry themselves and their words alone, made them worthy friends.

That sadly, is no longer the case. For the record, I'm not considering going back nor contributing whatsoever. Even back then my contributions were not publicized, I worked more with my fellow mods. I helped during meetings, to brainstorm ideas, etc. Back during the early days, I spotted people and took one or two people in, or I recommended them. They in turn took other people in, and what I called the First Generation was formed.

But now I have a job, and its unexpectedly taking a lot of my time than I thought it would. I've never appreciated free time as much as I do now. Simply because I don't even have much free time on weekends. So yeah, I've got all my other forums to visit, my own hobbies and interest. Blueserver just doesn't come anywhere near my list of priority. It's not even taking a back seat, its taken a nose dive into the depths of the Pacific. And I wouldn't want it any other way. :)

Here's a salute to the First Generation, we were the best, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. ;)

Contemplations?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm thinking too much. I even think about if I'm thinking too much. My brain seems to function for long hours thinking of really unnecessary stuff, and really its done nothing more than make it harder for me to fall asleep when I need to. I really admire those people who can konk out almost immediately after their head touches the pillow. =\

Now here's something I'd like to ask all of you. Do you guys go like "ok my eyes are starting to droop I should go to bed?" Likely, the answer should be yes. And often thats just how it is for most people. But for people like me, who are in front of the computer all the time, we really don't know if we are actually tired, or our eyes are just getting heavy from starring at the monitor for so many hours.

The dumb thing is how my eyes sometimes get affected to the point (plus I am actually feeling a bit emo/tired/etc), I'd go "alright I guess I should sleep". Switch everything off (I'm not the type to have my PC on 24/7) and yay! Sleep! Bliss...or so I thought. For the next hour or more, I'd spend the time tossing and turning as I try to sleep. Then after awhile you realize you won't be able to get any sleep, and you feel stupid for switching your computer off. But here's the thing, stick to trying to sleep rather than getting up again. You'll be better off that way, trust me. Don't give me that look now...I'm quite reliable you know? Well....most of the time...

Anyway, I personally have this weird problem where I tend to have a lot of things on my mind, when I'm actually mentally tired, or I'm feeling pensive for some reason. No I'm not emo. Rather than being emo, its more like I'm feeling melancholic. Life gets pretty dull after awhile when all you have is the daily routine. Nothing changes, nothing happens, no gold is gonna drop from the sky. Depressing thought, but hey you have to dig if you want gold. It doesn't just drop and KO you on the head with its 1kg weight. You wouldn't be delusional if you think that, I'd send you to the senile people's home.

"How's work?" Is what many people ask me, but truthfully I haven't experience enough that I'd want to make a definite claim of what I think is what. Though yeah on routine, the morning shift isn't killing me yet. But I've been promised that the night shift will. How fun to have it next month then. Don't expect to see a lot of me next month. What with CNY and stuff around. What? Valentines? What's that? Can eat one ah?

Something else I've been thinking about lately, how am I going to complete all those little small projects I've been telling myself I'd get to? Or the games I've left hanging and unfinished? Even my anime is starting to pile up, and if you know me thats extremely ABNORMAL. So what's the deal? Well time is. I really don't have a lot of time nowadays, and when at first I took the job I was like "working weekends? Not much of a problem since its rotational". How wrong I was. I now wish that I'd at least pick a job where I don't have to work on weekends. IT grads, never, and I mean NEVER pick a job where you need to work on weekends. You'll cry for your beloved weekends within weeks into the job.

Everyday I go home nowadays, I keep telling myself, "hey I've got that fanfic project hanging, lets work on it". Next thing I know I'm either checking forums, reading blogs, reading manga, or watching anime (which has turn to be not so enjoyable recently with the ghosting problem on my LCD monitor). Its just that nowadays when you get back, you really don't wanna do anything anymore other than stone around and just wait for dinner. Well of course, replace stoning for manga and anime in my case.

Speaking of which, does anyone have a monitor (can be CRT) that you are not using and won't mind loaning out to someone for 2 weeks or so? I promise I won't destroy it! I need to have a spare monitor for use while I send my LCD monitor for repairs. This has been a problem for months because I can't repair it if I don't have another monitor to use. (Read: can't live without manga and anime! must have monitor!!!!!!!)

Well oh look! This post made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Not like I was trying to make sense. Workload slows down in the afternoon around here so it tends to be more relaxing. But I can't exactly relax because I'm too tired from lack of sleep and a bit of a headache.

*sigh* Once again! Spare monitors anyone? Urgently needed! Pretty please with anime on top? (I lend you my DVDs!)

Your typical TMNUT rant - Don't expect too much from it

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This is a complain on the poor, or should I say extremely lousy service your company is providing to me.

I quote your support page, "Helping you maximize your total online experience

Enjoy the full capacities of the World Wide Web at fast connection speeds. Let us assist you so that you can fully experience the Internet as it should be."

You services are NOT maximizing my online experience. You are NOT offering me full capacity of the WWW and definitely NOT at fast connection speeds. I am obviously NOT experiencing the Internet as itshould be!

I have been very patient with your services along the 4 years or so that I've been using it. I frequently have problems, but I can normally fix them myself. What I'm absolutely disgusted with is how whenever you have a "maintainence" service in some far off state NOT ANYWHERE NEAR MINE, but my Internet speed gets affected nevertheless.

I ping local servers to test the routing speeds of your routers and general connection speed to local sites. And I emphasize a LOCAL SERVER, and I get latency response of an average of 400+ EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Today, 11 January 2008, you claim your company is doing a maintainence in Terengganu. Do tell me how a maintainence for connections in Terengganu is affecting my connection speed in Old Klang Road, KL.

I am now getting a latency response of 1.5k ms to LOCAL SERVERS, and above 2k ms for international servers. That is 1.5 seconds for a local server and 2 seconds for international servers to respond. And no, with a 1Mbps connection, this should NOT be possible.

I've said earlier, I've been very patient with your services and the way your company operates, as well as its obvious disregard for customer feedback. We complain but nothing gets done, because your company feels safe that nobody will change providers due to your comfortable monopoly on the market.

My patience is running thin. If I do not see an improvement in my connection and your services in the foreseeable future, I will unsubscribe from your services and seek those of another provider, regardless of the differences in prices.

You have been warned. This is no joke. If you keep this up, I will recommend all my friends and associates to avoid using your services and seek one that can guarantee stable connections.

I have included an attachment as evidence, and I dare you to call me a liar. Do something about this, or you'll have one less subscriber soon. You may think its not a big deal, but I'll start a propaganda on this.

Most annoyed,
Matthew
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End quote:

Now you'll probably think this is futile, and likely it is. But I had to blow off some steam, so I decide I'll release some pent up anger at the unlucky support staff that will have to read my email.

But note! I'm serious this time. If Jaring or Maxis can offer me STABLE connection, I will unsubscribe from Shitmyx and switch providers. This is probably very unlikely too, but I'd like to hope that not every company is as useless as TMNUT. Call me a fool if you like, but I draw a line for everything and my patience is limited.

4 years of lousy service, I've had enough. Buck up TMNUT, or else.

Anime season Winter 2007/2008.

Note the time of the post. It's now actually 10:48am. I was about to start my post, but had work to do so I couldn't type this post till now. ARGH! This job is a lot tougher and tedious than I thought. There aren't a lot of good things about this company either.

Regardless I'm not here to rant today. Fall season passed and its winter over in Japan now. With the new season comes a new slew of anime series. I'll be linking a post to a summary of what's on show and share my own list as well. Oh and since I picked up some Fall season anime just only recently, I suppose I'll add those as well. Darn I really need a new hard disk now. Had to burn out that 20+GB of Gundam Seed and Destiny just to make space.

"Bla bla bla just shut up and give us the list" Right. Kidding. As if there are a lot of people reading my blog. *rolls eyes* Yeah yeah, be a bit more appreciative man. You're probably someone I know if you read this blog, and I'm the only one crazy enough to watch so many anime within my circle of friends. Ok maybe not, Alvin probably watches quite a few too, but he probably doesn't read this blog. ANYWAY, I'm digressing again! Must be the empty stomach, you guys know what to do if you wanna reward me for this post. :)

Alright, the following link is from Omni's Random Curiosity (no, not that rich brat Omni that we know). The Winter season anime list is from that site obviously. Check the Winter 2008 list here.Links to the original site and information site are in the list itself, so check those there. I'm too lazy to go anidb or ANN just to get all the links, too many of them.

Okay, so prominent on the list for people who don't read a lot of manga or stuff outside of the anime and manga we normally see in Malaysia won't know much of the anime on the list. Fact is, most of the are adapted from manga. There's a few adapted from games, one of them from an eroge.

Anyway as I was saying, prominent on that list for most will probably be the 2nd season of Gunslinger girls. Back after a 4 year period from the previous season. From reviews and impressions, the art seems to have been dumbed down a bit, though the quality is still acceptable for most. As usual you have the extreme critics who can't take anything that isn't to their taste", but I ignore their opinion anyway. However to be honest, I haven't really watched the 1st season yet (still downloading the batch) so I don't have a basis for comparison.

There's Zoku Zetsubou, a continuation from the 1st season of Zetsubou sensei. I haven't tried that either, but I've heard good things about it so I might get it once the batch comes out. Adapted from a manga too, Zetsubou sensei's setting is typical comedic slice of life anime set in a high school environment.

What else? I'll probably also be following Shigofumi, true tears, H20, Minami-ke Okawari (more Mako-chan! lololol), Ookami to Koushinryou, and Kimi ga Aruji. That's about it. I picked up Kimikiss and Myself;Yourself of the Fall season too. Kimikiss is really excellent so far. Can't say anything about the other one since I haven't watched it yet (though I've downloaded all of the episodes).

Lots more I wanna watch really. I'm gonna see if I can get the .hack series from Alvin if we manage to go for another outing before he and the Aussie gang go off for their studies in Australia. How many anime I have? Quite a number really. Counting those I've burnt into DVDs, I probably have more than 300 GB worth of anime. Of course, I know people who have more. Still its annoying when that stupid Apple go around calling me otaku or calling me a Clantard to which I'll say "shuddup you noobish Narutard!". *rolls eyes* Though fact is I do watch Naruto too, but I'm definitely not crazy about it. I prefer the manga anyway.

You know if there are more of my friends reading this blog and like anime, I'll probably be more motivated to bring them more detailed news on anime and my reviews on those that I watch. As of now, there's just no incentive to work hard on something that's not rewarding. In conclusion, this is where my post will end. XD

Ciao~

Happy 2008! (well at least I hope its happy for you)

Quick post since I'm stuck at work, can't do a lot of things and the settings and stuff here are strangely not the same as the one I have at home. Shouldn't the settings be saved on the server?

Its 2008! I say this all the time but its really unbelievable how time can just pass you by and the next thing you know another year has come to a close. Its almost unreal sometimes, and I feel its sometimes stupid how people make a big fuss about it by going for countdowns and such. To me, its no different really, just another day. The only thing that's changed is the numbers on the calendar. Yeah sue me for being not fun. *rolls eyes*

Anyway new year means resolutions and stuff, and I dunno if I have any of them at the moment. Heck lets be honest, I've never bothered to make any resolutions because I know I don't keep them anyway. So yeah, what do I feel about the new year? Well new beginnings? That's about it. I've learn to try not to anticipate anything much and just go with the flow. That kind of attitude could get you in trouble if you don't think things through and just get washed away by the flow, but meh I'm sure you people are adults enough to think for yourselves.

Anyway I kept thinking, its new year and stuff, but there's a lot of things that are well...old and I haven't watch them. That being said, I'm gonna go ask Alvin if he'll give me access to his server so I can FTP his stuff over to my comp. Wanna watch stuff like Gatekeepers and such. Yeah I had a list of old anime I wanted to watch just awhile ago, but as usual I typed a lot more than I wanted to an kinda deviated from my original topic, and thanks to my funny memory (some people dunno whether to say I have good or bad memory, because sometimes It seems either way) I've forgotten.

Maybe I'll edit this post later when I get back and remember what I wanted to type.

In any case, hope you guys have a great year ahead. Me? I'm stuck in the office till 3.45pm so I won't be able to start enjoying the year anytime soon.

あけましておめでとございます～