Nearing the Finish Line

440 artefact due today, but I want to play TF2. T_T Instead, I'm going to procrastinate and write a blog post. Tomorrow is the deadline for the last thing we have to hand in for 440, and it's both exciting and sad. Exciting because it means it's over. No more late nights frantically trying to locate where the stupid error is in the many javascript files. 440 was tiring, but overall, I think it was a good experience (despite being put off SE).

Speaking of things that are ending, I've been thinking about what happens when a blog dies. To me, a blog doesn't seem like something that can go on until the author dies. I'm sure there are people who have blogged regularly for a very long time, but eventually, doesn't it just run out of steam - just like most popular TV shows? Reading this blog post by collagecallgirl made me think about when a blog should just say, "Hey, thanks for the loyal readership, but this really isn't going anywhere." In particular, I'm thinking of a couple of blogs. One is a blog I read about FFXI, and it's still funny, but it just seems so repetitive - all he does is rant on about how stupid some FFXI players are. Don't even get him started on WoW players.

Not that I'm going to stop writing. In fact, I'm going to do more of it - NaNoWriMo is coming up! I have an essay to write and two exams to study for, but I'm still planning to take part. At first I was thinking maybe I could just continue this story that I started writing last year (I figured since I only had a prelude, it wasn't really much of the story, so it wouldn't be as bad), but on the way to the toilet I thought of a rough story idea that I'll probably end up writing because I'm feeling a little uncreative at the moment, but it's something I can think about while writing test cases (hopefully). I think I'm going to be a little unconventional in my writing, in that I'm going to do it as a post as I go thing. One of the tips is:

2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December. Think of November as
an experiment in pure output. Even if it's hard at first, leave ugly
prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later.
Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor
is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write
a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn't. Every
book you've ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft.
In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.

So hopefully that'll give me the courage to post my crap, half-thought out chapters, plus, it also means everyone else can see that I really am sticking to my word count, yay!

Fodder By Name, Fodder By Trade

So after months of saying I'd do it, I finally did it, and I should have done it earlier - I bought Team Fortress 2. Well, Orange Box anyway (argh, orange is such a terrible colour. T_T). I should have bought it when the Australian dollar was higher, but oh well, it would probably have lead to me being *cough* less productive *cough*. Though come to think of it, buying it in the last week of semester probably isn't that bright either. =/ Oddly enough, the reason I decided to buy it now was because of a blog post (which I'm not going to link right now, as I'm not sure the author wants their blog to be advertised, but I'll ask him about it), but the blog post was saying how the gaming industry had turned into a grindfest World of Warcraft style. Valve has introduced (I'm not sure when) a reward system for TF2 where you can unlock things by getting achievements, but some of those achievements are along the lines of "Kill x people in this particular way", where x is usually 10 or more, so it becomes like a level grind.

I finally decided to buy the game online, rather than from EB, mostly due to this discussion:

[17:55] <+|Lurking> i was going to buy tf2 today
[17:55] <+|Lurking> but now eb is closed :(
[17:55] <+|Lurking> wasted too much time playing werewolf >_<
[17:55] <+Atticus> just get it on steam
[17:55] <+|Lurking> but i want a box :(
[17:55] <+jo0fish> LMAO
[17:55] <+jo0fish> u can't have one
[17:55] <+|Lurking> no T__________T
[17:55] <+|Lurking> give me my box =(
[17:55] <+Atticus> :<
[17:56] <+|Lurking> hopefully the box isn't orange
[17:56] <+Atticus> don't get your hopes up
[17:56] <+|Lurking> only the orange box is orange, right?
[17:57] <+Atticus> teamfortress 2
[17:57] <+Atticus> likes its orange
[17:57] <+Atticus> and similar colors
[17:57] <+|Lurking> T________T
[18:02] <+|Lurking> it's $99 vs $50
[18:03] <+Atticus> is a box really worth that much
[18:03] <+|Lurking> plus, the box is orange
[18:03] <+Atticus> lol
[18:03] <+|Lurking> well, not if it's orange
[18:03] <+Atticus> why don't you buy it on steam
[18:03] <+Atticus> and buy the box of your choice, separately
[18:03] <+Atticus> save money and ensure you get a great box

Although there was this:

[19:51] <@Ratty> Anna was going to buy TF2? :O
[19:54] <+|Lurking> why is that surprising?
[19:54] <@Ratty> Not surprising, awesome! :P
[19:54] <@Ratty> Didn't think you actually liked it :P
[19:54] <+senseiphwoar> because she is bad at fps :(

Anyway, somehow Mpanda found out I had TF2, so after I got home, the first thing I did was play a few games with him - and we were soon joined by Autofix, Rangers and Sparks. Suddenly it was 4AM, and I have no idea where the time went. Despite dying a lot (I think it was something like a 1:4 ratio of kills/assists to deaths), and definitely earning the name Fodder (charging in as a pyro is awesome!), I had so much fun.

Then I realised I had completely forgotten to do something at 2AM that I should have done. Not only that, but I didn't start my 440 review even though I had planned to do it Sunday night. Starting to look like a bit of an addiction to me, but hopefully it's just the novelty of having a new game to play. I also missed saying goodnight to MrMan5.5, which makes me think of something Charlotte said in her blog post - who needs guys when you have games? *cough, cough* Not that I would ditch MrMan5.5 for TF2, or any game, but hopefully I don't start to neglect him because I want to play. :S

Security

In one of my favourite books, The Blue Nowhere, there's a part where one of the main characters mentions how he spent most of his time in jail reciting his passwords to himself so that he wouldn't forget them. He has a different password for all the various accounts he had, and all of them weren't your standard pet's name, mother's maiden name, etc. passwords, but just random strings of characters that he committed to memory over time. Passwords are an important thing to computer geeks (well, everyone really, but it seems to be more of a concern for them), must choose one that is hard to guess, but not too difficult to remember. My greatest memories of first, second and third year software engineering were of trying to find a password that muruke would be happy with. The stupid thing doesn't accept passwords that are similar to your old passwords, and must be at least 7 characters long with a non-alphanumeric character in it.

A couple of months ago, I opened my perform script in front of MrMan5.5 and he saw the password I use for mIRC. Even though I know it's not safe, I happen to use that password for a lot of things. =/ So he accidentally gained access to a lot of my online life. Not only that, but one night, I was too lazy to get out of bed to check my email, so I asked him to do it for me (our 440 process says we have to check our email every night after 5PM), so he also knows my password for email.

It's not the first time people have gotten access to things. I've given my WoW password to quite a few people (that password is one of the ones that isn't used anywhere else). When it happened, I realised what it meant that he knew my password, but it didn't really bother me all that much - at least not as much as I thought it should.

Makes me think about couples who are going through a rough patch, and then one person suddenly wonders if the other is cheating and tries to find out by setting up keyloggers, or reading emails/SMSs, or following them around while trying to look inconspicuous. To me, that shows a complete lack of trust in your partner, but you have to wonder if there was behaviour that caused this person to act so distrustful. I still talk to Charmeleon, and he still flirts, but that's just because he's a flirty person. MrMan5.5 says that he believes that I'm not doing anything behind his back, but sometimes I worry that I've given him cause to wonder what I do when he's not around.

I guess that's part of the reason I haven't gone crazy changing my passwords for everything. I've left my iPod at his house, which I kinda used as an external hard drive for a bit, so it has my chat logs and old SMSs stored on it. I don't care that he reads the SMSs on my phone (well, to be honest, I do care a bit - as I said, it's a sign of distrust, but it's not that big a deal as my SMSs are all boring).

Even with all of that, it's impossible for him to be completely sure that I'm not writing this post while straddling some guy other than him right now - although the lack of typos (I hope) is a sign that it isn't the case, right? Part of me is scared that we'll become one of those couples who has keylogged each other's computers, and are now so paranoid of each other's actions that even going to class seems like it's just an excuse to meet up with someone in a dingy motel room. Part of me also knows that it's my own fault for being the way that I am, and since I blog about it, he knows about it, but I'd rather he knew than I tried to hide it and he discovered my true colours and got hurt.

Since we started dating, I haven't felt the urge to run away with someone else, although that might just be due to the whole "honeymoon period" thing that Beanie keeps talking about. I definitely have no intention to cheat, but there have been some times where I've thought, "One day he's going to wake up and realise he has made the biggest mistake of his life, so I should dump him before he dumps me." Which makes it weird that I've given him the information that I have - as he now gets to see, if he so chooses, who I was before I met him, and maybe get a glimpse of who I am when he's not around. Hopefully that is enough for him to sleep at night. At least I'm going to tell myself that so that I can.

Food For Thought, Day 2

A bit late to post the report, but better late than never, right?

I woke up and didn't feel like eating anything at all, but mum made me eat a bowl of cereal (which I ate really slowly T_T), and I went to meet GP for an interview for his assignment. Then I went back to uni and still didn't feel like food. I made myself eat lunch anyway, and went to my 440 meeting. It was only at 2AM that I finally felt hungry and ate some mi goreng. Everything I ate that day was really slow, and not really much food at all.

There's a scene in Never Been Kissed where Josie is talking to her brother while eating a pie, and during the phone conversation, she says, "Who ate all of my pie?" surprised that the pie is gone (also because she was partly high). I used to be like that - I'd have some food in front of me, and then it'd suddenly be gone, and I wouldn't really remember eating it at all. I used to be able to eat a lot of food, maybe not all that quickly, but definitely a lot more than I can now.

I think I have to contribute my lack of eating to WoW. Auto keeps saying how if you eat a lot, then your stomach changes to accommodate that, and if you eat less than normal, your stomach shrinks. While I was playing WoW, eating was something that I didn't always remember to do. Reminds me of how one of the loading screens in Baldur's Gate II said something like, "Just because your characters don't have to eat doesn't mean you don't". One of the good things that came out of it was that I went from size 16 to 12 - Julian says, "Being fat sux".

I figured if I ate more, I'd be able to increase the amount of food that I can eat, but I guess one and a half weeks isn't really enough to increase the amount of food that I can eat, but still be healthy. So instead I'm going to aim to eat a Domino's pizza faster, but not the amount of pizza that I eat.

Now it's time for pizza training #2.

Food For Thought, Day 1

Super Chris reminded me that Armageddon is coming up soon, and one of the events there is a pizza eating competition. MrMan5.5 said he didn't think I could do it, so of course that means I have to do it now to prove him wrong. I should get around to emailing them to ask if they can get cheeseless pizzas. Anyway, today was day 1 of my training. I managed to beat Autofix and Cheka (although he sat there for a bit waiting for his pizza to cool, and I only just managed to beat him), with a time of nearly 17 minutes for one Domino's pizza. I think that's pretty poor, because MrMan5.5 managed about 12 minutes, and he said that is probably really slow compared to the other people in the competition.

MrMan5.5 said that the trick is to keep forcing yourself to eat even if you feel really full, so after a couple of hours, we went to KFC, and I tried to eat two snack boxes (one hot rod and one original recipe), but it took me about 25 minutes, and I didn't even finish the hot rod (I wanted to try it, and I don't think they're all that nice. It's like a zinger burger, without the burger, so it's really dry - it came with hot and spicy gravy dipping sauce, but I can't eat that).

The only problem is, now I feel really sick, even though it has been about 5 hours since I last ate. I feel like a water balloon, I just want to flop around and not really move. T_T I'm not sure that it's good for me to be doing this, but I've always been a slow eater. When SEE goes out to dinner, it's usually just me and Auto left eating. Not only that, but I rarely finish what it is that I buy, I usually rely on MrMan5.5 to do that. I've always wanted to eat faster, but after trying to demolish a pizza in under 20 minutes, I'm starting to see the good side to eating slowly - you get to enjoy what you're eating.

Sick Life

This post is rated R for sick content and adult features. Read at your own peril!

I was talking to QC last night, while Rangers and Ryan were waiting to play DotA, so MrMan5.5 told Rangers that he was going to the toilet so that I'd get time to speak to QC before the game started. After a while, Rangers asked me how long MrMan5.5 was going to be. I told him that I didn't know, and he told me to go and tell MrMan5.5 to hurry up, and give him a blumpkin to speed things up. Don't google that, by the way. Why do I say that? Obviously because I googled it. I don't know why, but I just can't help myself. If someone mentions something, I want to know what it is. There's just something about weird fetishes that makes me so curious. Partly because I wonder if people are actually turned on by this kind of stuff, but partly because I fascinates me that someone could come up with something like that in the first place.

And to answer your question, no blumpkins were given by me. -_-

From here on, it might get a little sick, so if you're sensitive, stop reading now!

I managed to find out what a blumpkin is from Urban Dictionary (always an awesome source of sickening stuff), but I couldn't stop there. There was also a blumpkin pie (which is a blumpkin while eating pie), and then there was.... Argh, it was sick! Anyway, it got me thinking about where sexual fetishes come from.

So there is this whole thing about how porn affects what turns guys on. They watch so much porn featuring guys ejaculating on girls, or girls having massive penises shoved into them, or girls swallowing enough cum to feed a starving African village in one video. So would a guy who has never seen one of those porn movies be turned on by doing something like that?

I think I've made a post about this before, but I asked Charmeleon why he likes it when a girl swallows after oral sex, and he said it feels good. That made no sense to me, because it's over, he has finished already, how could something after the fact affect it? I'm remembering back to some of the porn we've watched together, and he seems to like watching girls suck off a guy and swallow. Maybe it's just something he has been conditioned to enjoy?

This is going somewhere, I swear, it's 7AM, bare with me. OK, so if someone spent most of their teenage years watching a particular type of porn, then it makes sense that they'd be wired to enjoy that type of sex in real life. So where does the market for that type of porn come from? You have your standard, vanilla missionary position sex, which gets featured as softcore porn in movies, and I'm sure there is an abundance of in the hardcore porn industry to. Let's say that is the porn baseline. Then someone wonders, "Hmmm, I like boobies, maybe we should show more of them." So you get the same porn, only with a lot more focus on boobs. Then you get someone else who thinks, "You know, I already have a penis. I really don't want to see someone else's. And I like boobies" That starts the "lesbian" porn trend. After a while appears the, "Women can multitask, so they must be able to do many men at once" and well, you can probably tell where that's going... It starts with a "Bu" and ends with a "kkake".

So my question is, what line of thought leads to sitting a guy on the toilet about to take a dump, having a girl come in and suck him off, then having him cum in her face and dunk her head in the toilet?

Yes, I am a sick, sick person.

Guest Comic

Taking a break from 440 for a moment, while I make the switch from coding to video editing. Don't have the brainpower to write a proper post, so I'm just going to post a comic from wolfishgrin Dave, which he made in our I&T class.

Stolen From Jenny's Blog

I can't sleep, so it's meme time! I should really be doing my assignment, but I don't want to.


Do you usually sleep with your closet door open or closed?
I don't have a closet, but I guess it would be closed because I'd be too lazy to bother putting my clothes in it in the first place, so there would be no need to open it.

Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotels?
I don't, but Mum always does, so does that count?

Have you ever 'done it' in a hotel room?
No, although nearly ended up in a motel one time. =/

Where is your next vacation?
Sydney/Launceston/Adelaide, not sure yet, whatever Sharon and MrMan5.5 decide.

Have you ever stolen a street sign before?
Tried to, but apparently the police were warned about people stealing that particular sign during Prosh Week, so there was something there watching it. =/

Who do you think reads these?
Nobody, but I'd like to see someone comment with "TLDR".

Do you have a calendar in your room?
Yes, a World of Warcraft one Sharon bought me for Christmas.

Where are you?
At home, not doing my assignment.

What's your plan for the day?
Finish R&U assignment, go to R&U lecture, hand in R&U assignment, skip R&U tute, film stuff for the video, buy food for SEE, I&T drinking game, SEE, 371 lecture, nap, 440 work, dinner, sleep.

Are you reading any books right now?
No, unfortunately.

Do you ever count your steps when you walk?
I used to always count the steps between our school and the church whenever we went to mass in primary school. Then I changed to a non-Catholic school.

Have you ever peed in the woods?
It's the only place to go when you're out camping.

Do you ever dance even if there's no music playing?
Yes, the victory dance!

Do you chew your pens and pencils?
No, and everyone in my house claims they don't, yet for some reason, we have lots of pencils with chewed tops. =S

What is your "Song of the Week"?
Caramelldansen

Is it okay for guys to wear pink?
Pictures speak louder than words: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=478475&l=2b651&id=585222195.

Do you still watch cartoons?
Does anime count? I'm still trying to find a copy of Captain Planet, because I want to watch it again.

What's your favorite love movie?
Bridget Jones's Diary.

What do you drink with dinner?
Water or orange juice.

What do you dip Chicken Nuggets in?
Tomato sauce, yum, yum!

What is your favorite food/cuisine?
Chicken pizza with BBQ sauce, capsicums and tomato paste with herbs. Has to have a decent crust and no cheese.

What movies could you watch over and over and still love?
Mulan, Euro Trip, Rat Race, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Zoolander

Last person you hugged/kissed?
MrMan5.5, after I dropped him off at home.

Were you ever a boy/girl scout?
I was a girl guide - we were never called girl scouts for some reason, I never found out why.

Would you ever strip or pose nude in a magazine?
No, and be thankful for that. I feel sorry for anyone who has to see me naked.

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper?
Last year some time. Tasha and I used to write to each other, but now we just message each other on Facebook. =(

Can you change the oil on a car?
No, and I have no idea why you'd want to. Someone care to enlighten me?

Ever gotten a speeding ticket?
No, because I never speed. *cough, cough*

Run out of gas?
No, but I'm always afraid MrMan5.5 will, and he'll ask me to push his car somewhere. T_T

Favorite kind of sandwich?
Toasted banana sandwich with honey - tastes better than it sounds, I swear!

Best thing to eat for breakfast?
Might sound weird, but soggy Weet-Bix with Nutri-Grain (I know, I know, it's bad), and Corn Flakes, soaked in warm milk. Haven't had it in a while though. :(

What is your usual bedtime?
Usually around 3AM, but I think I've ruined my sleeping patterns, as I'm finding it hard to sleep even at 5 or 6AM.

Are you lazy?
I'm lazy for some things, and not for others. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to clothes, but when it comes to baking, I'm a lot less lazy.

When you were a kid, what did you dress up as for Halloween?
Never dressed up for Halloween, but I used to have a Pink Ranger costume, and I've cosplayed once before.

Do you have any magazine subscriptions?
No.

Which are better, legos or lincoln logs?
LEGO is way better, that's why you never see Lincoln Log Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Batman!

Are you stubborn?
On occasion, and it always causes trouble. :(

Who is better...Leno or Letterman?
I can never remember which is which, but I like the one that had Whose Line Is It Anway?, which I think is Leno. :S

Ever watch soap operas?
Soap operas are worse than watching Dragonball Z. You can watch an episode, and then tune in again 6 months later and know what's going on based on the "Previously, on Bad Soap Opera" because it moves that slowly.

Afraid of heights?
Yes. T_T

Sing in the car?
Only when I'm alone.

Dance in the shower?
No, because I'm clumsy and I'll fall over and die.

Dance in the car?
I don't think I need an excuse to make my driving worse than it is.

Ever used a gun?
Nintendo light gun. *nod, nod*

Do you think musicals are cheesy?
Musicals are awesome!

Is Christmas stressful?
Christmas is the best time of year. :D

Ever eat a pierogi?
Nope, but whatever it is, I'm probably allergic. According to the Wikipedia article on pierogi, they look like
dumplings, which I have eaten. Oh, but they have cheese in them.

Major annoyance right now?
Impending feeling of doom...

Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid?
Princess (no, I didn't know you had to be born or marry into the job).

Do you believe in ghosts?
No.

Ever have a deja-vu feeling?
Yeah, but mostly with stuff that usually has happened in the past and is uncommon, but not rare, so I normally brush it off.

Do you take a vitamin daily?
Does mi goreng count?

Wear slippers?
Yes, mum hates us walking on non-carpeted floor barefoot.

Wear a bath robe?
No, usually change straight into clothes after a shower.

What do you wear to bed?
PJs or a night gown.

Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart?
K-Mart, because it's closest to my house.

Nike or Adidas?
No-name brands.

Cheetos Or Fritos?
Heinz Big Red Tomato chips. T_________________T Bring them back please!

Peanuts or Sunflower seeds?
Sunflower seeds. I haven't had them in ages, I should get some.

Ever hear of, "gorp"?
No. =/ Seems to me like someone is running out of questions to ask. Google says it's trail mix, and I think MrMan5.5 has told me about something similar, but I can't remember what he called it.

Ever taken karate?
Yes, but I never made it past white belt.

Ever kissed someone of the same sex?
Yes.

Can you curl your tongue?
No. T________T

Ever won a spelling bee?
Do we have spelling bees in Australia? Maybe Australia just assumes people can spell, unlike Americans... Oh, wait, both countries fail at spelling.

Ever cried because you were so happy?
No.

Own any record albums?
No.

Own a record player?
I think we have one somewhere.

Regularly burn incense?
Not regularly, but we do for Chinese New Year, and anniversaries of deaths.

Ever been in love?
Yes.

Hot tea or cold tea?
Depends on the type. The tea they have at yum cha is nicer hot, but I like iced green tea better than hot green tea.

Tea or coffee?
Tea.

Favorite kind of cookie?
Choc-chip, but I still haven't managed to make ones like the ones they have at Subway. T_T

Can you swim well?
I could, not sure if I still can now.

Can you hold your breath without manually holding your nose?
Yes, can't swim competitively otherwise. =/

Are you patient?
I think I'm more patient than impatient.

Ever won a contest?
Yep. It's how I got a Sega Mega Drive + 5 games (including Sonic which I have been trying to find so that I can play it with MrMan5.5). I put my name in for a draw at Toys 'R' Us and won it. Does that count as a contest? I don't think there was much skill involved.

Ever had plastic surgery?
No.

Which are better black or green olives?
Neither, I think olives are too salty. :(

Can you knit or crochet?
I used to be able to do both, but forgot how. T_T

Wash room or bathroom?
Bathroom.

Do you want to get married?
No.

Who was your High School crush?
David and YN.

Do you cry and throw a fit until you get your own way?
I'm more of a silent treatment type of person.

Do you have kids?
No.

Do you want kids?
No.

What kind of mum are you?
Abusive, negligent, crazy, alcoholic.... I have no kids!

Do you miss anyone right now?
I miss sleeping. T_T

Who do you want to see right now?
The sandman.

Fail

So AJ sent an email earlier today:

"
As far as I am concerned, the main reason that I have not talked to

the consumer UI group or looked at their code much, is because I see

little point in discussing improvements to non-working code, and their

code has never fit my definition of working."

After I linked to what I've done so far for 440, AJ said:

"... it is better than I was expecting, so that's something."

Clearly he didn't expect much of me. I'm always getting emails from him suggesting better ways to do things, but I can't help but feel so helpless. To be honest, at the moment, our project sucks. At the start of the year, everyone was saying we're the awesome team, but we have the least functional system at the moment, and I don't think we're going to get this done in time. I feel bad because I've let my team down - I'm even blogging right now instead of doing more work trying to get more working before client acceptance this Friday. I haven't finished our team's Panorama video.

Right now, I really don't think software engineering is for me. Sometimes I get that feeling of obsession when I'm coding, and don't think of anything else until I've finished, only to realise when I'm done that it has been 19 hours since I woke up and I haven't eaten anything in all of that time. I know it sounds stupid, but it sort of makes me feel like a real programmer. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as my body would say), that feeling doesn't happen very often.

It's a little disappointing that I'm pretty much in my last year of software eng (I think I have one CSSE subject left to do in my degree, so next year will be almost all arts subjects) and I'm wondering what I've done with my life. I've learnt C, Haskell, Prolog, Java, shell scripting, Python, Javascript, MySQL. I haven't really used any of those skills for anything, although Auto and I plan to write a dating sim in Python.

I still have an interest in forensics, but after my fail Summer vacation interview, I'm wondering if I'll ever get into it. Maybe I'll just become one of those database administrators, who spend the rest of their life wishing they had gotten into a more interesting field of computing.

Anyway, I was meant to post this earlier, so sorry for the late notice:

I&T drinking game on Tuesday, 2:15PM in Theatre D of Old Arts. BYO drinks, please try and be conspicuous. The idea is, every time Charles laughs at the lecturer, we all take a drink.

Novelty Post!

I'm writing this post from my PSP. I couldn't sleep last night so I started playing with its in-built browser. Checking out the Internets on the small screen.

Most of the net fails. Google Reader Mobile works, but Gmail fails. Not even going to touch fail Microsoft sites, so this won't be on.WLS until I get to a PC. Couldn't get YouTube working, but I'm looking into a Flash player for the PSP.

Anyway, PSP text input has a character limit, so I have to end this here.

Weekend Wrap-Up

So after a few weeks of fervent anime watching, Manifest has come and gone. Manifest has changed for me. It used to be about spending an entire weekend watching various anime, but now it seems to be able seeing people, and buying stuff. I guess there isn't really any other time that's good for seeing a whole bunch of anime nerds in one place, and being able to buy lots of merchandise, but for someone who didn't think ahead and save money for Manifest, there wasn't much to do. =/ Though I got to see Super Chris and his friend Carla (?), but I missed seeing Mpanda. T___T

I wanted to catch up on some anime because I think AMVs are better if you've seen the anime that is featured in it, because not only do you get to see the awesome video editing skills of the makers, but each of the images conjures up a memory of that anime. Luckily I had seen the anime for the AMV Iron Chef comp (well, having seen a few eps counts, right?) so that was pretty good, but I think I might have enjoyed some of the other videos if I'd seen the anime that was featured in them. Especially the one that won the drama category, as everyone seemed to think it was great, but I thought it was so-so. I didn't get to finish Brave Story, before going to see the movie, but I think I might play through the game anyway. *cough* Pirate *cough*

I think my other motivation for suddenly watching a lot of anime was that I knew I'd be meeting MrMan5.5's ManiFriends™. I didn't really want to embarrass him by saying something really noob, and I wanted to be able to contribute something to the conversation other than, "I haven't seen that yet." Turns out most of them cosplayed characters from Gintama which I haven't seen yet, and so the only one I recognised was his friend Chi who cosplayed Rikku from Final Fantasy X, and she looked pretty good. :) I didn't end up talking to his friends much, and was really anti-social, standing to the side with Cheka while MrMan5.5 talked with them. I fail.

Once again, there was an attack from "Free hugs" people. One of them was a friend, Will, who was dressed in some cardboard boxes, so I think he was just being silly, but there was an emo looking person with a "Free hugs" sign, which made me die a little inside. I don't even like hugs all that much, but for me, hugs are meant to be a sign of affection from one person to another. You don't generally greet someone with a hug unless you feel close to them (although some people don't seem to feel the same way). Getting a random hug from someone isn't going to make me feel better, and if they're just doing it to make themselves feel better, then why can't they find some other way that doesn't involve them offering to  wrap their smelly bodies around mine?

I'm not sure that I want to go to Manifest next year, but on the plus-side, at least I didn't bump into any of the people I didn't want to see there!