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17 Sep 2008 mellow_bunny

Life Changes | They come thick and fast.

A Moment Of Thought

So in a moment of clarity last night I came to some conclusions about my life. In a manner that is easy to read and looks official I will list them below. A numbered list even, that’s how important this is.

1. I spend to much time on IRC.
2. I spend to much time on my computers.
3. I have attempted to invest my time in too many things.
4. I have failed to look after my health.
5. I spend to much money on something that gives no return. (Server .. which is up to $450NZD btw.. darn you exchange rate)
6. I need to have more control over my situation.
7. I need to stop downloading anime to have a clean conscience.
8. This all needs to happen right now.

An Explanation

The amount of time I spend on IRC is huge. If I am on a computer.. I am on IRC. We are talking upwards of 12 hours a day here. RIDICULOUS. As much as I love to converse with fellow bloggers and anime people the fact is it distracts me from my work. It is also mentally unhealthy. The content of some of the conversations can a lot of the time conflict with what I actually believe is right or drops below my normal “out of net” moral standard. All in all it is having a negative effect on my mental health.

As I mentioned before I can spend upwards of 12 hours a day on computers. I spend a minimum of 8 hours at my place of employment and then I logon when I get home. This means that I do not spend time with my family, friends or just time winding down the mind and doing something productive. My physical health does not improve either as I am not spending time on exercise. This has to change now. I have calculated and I kid you not.. of the last 6 months I have been sick for 5 1/2. I have had 2 weeks of good health in half a year.

I love the possibilities that abound in the internet. I love them. There are so many opportunites to create and collaborate with so many awesome people. Because of this interest that I have in making new things and being part of exciting projects, I find myself in a predicament. As of right now.. I am meant to be working on 9 different projects. I should be able to invest 4 hours of time for 3 of those projects a week. At this point it’s more like 30mins. Why? Because I have become exhausted and ill. I have spread myself too far and now i’m stuck in a situation where I am failing to meet the minimum requirements for the projects that really matter.

My health hit an all time low last month. I was told by the Doc that I needed to sleep, eat, work and then sleep again. I am almost running on vapors. As a result my mental health has suffered when it comes to managing stress. Of course this has a flow on effect back to my physical health. What does this all stem from? It comes from stress related to making sure I give my best to all the people I have dedicated my time too. This includes my full time job and the 9 other projects I am part of. This also comes from a lack of looking after my body with exercise and healthy eating. I am now on a managed eating plan of healthy foods. I am meant to be doing exercise daily but that hasn’t started yet.

I currently have expenses monthly that almost exceed my income. The one large expense that is growing with the current market uncertainty is my web server. Here is the dilemma for me. This server is the gateway to me producing online income. The problem is I haven’t as of yet created anything which will produce income. The scheduled upgrade and change of mellowSPACE isn’t meant to begin until the 1st of January 2009. In between now and then my expenses are set to increase with trying to keep myself healthy. I can definitely pay for this coming month’s bill which will see me through to October. After that I do not know.

I really need to take charge of what i’m doing. At the moment i’m drifting in life. Cruising. Just going with the flow and it’s completely pointless. I have goals I want to achieve and I want to make sure they are my priority. So as they become more of my focus then other things will swing around and shift in or out of my life. The end of it needs to be that I have command of what I am doing in my life for the positive.

Being perfectly honest with myself downloading anime is illegal. Totally illegal. Don’t give me crap about “unlicensed content” and stuff. People made the show and do not receive what they deserve when we download it illegally and not through official channels. I don’t want to have that sitting on my head anymore. As much as I love watching anime I cannot justify my actions.

All these things that I have finally admitted to myself are things I need to act on now. In fact this post is more for me then you as a reader. In writing this down i’m having to admit to myself where I am falling short. It serves as a sort of explanation to people too. I guess you’ll hear from me if I have a changed situation for you in regards to projects. At the moment all I can focus on is my full time employment and the web company that I am part of. I apologise if this puts anybody in an awkward situation but such is life and I can do no more.

Why would I not put a picture, seriously.

16 Sep 2008 mellow_bunny

Feeling Good | My most wanted song in an anime.

I couldn’t let this go. Seriously I love music. This song… has to be my most wanted song in an anime ever. I can just see it now @__@! Damn I wish I could make anime magically. Seriously.. sit.. close your eyes.. and envelop yourself in this song.. let your imagination create the scene.

Anyway I found a couple of versions on Youtube. I’m not sure which version I like the most.. they all invoke different ideas.

Nina Simone

Michael Buble

Muse

In other news the ninth episode of Xam’d was again most excellent. Me and Extrange discussed it a bit and damn.. Extrange is following this series closely. There was lots of points that he er pointed out to me. The biggest one being the similarity between Nakiami and Haru (see the episode ten preview at the end of episode nine). This show is QUALITY. True quality, thank you BONES.

Also there are lots of exciting things being planned in the shadowy underworld of anime blogger developers lol. I wish I could say more.. OHH HOWW I WISH. I can let you know that 2009 will be a big year for mellowSPACE. The site is getting a bit of revamp to help it grow. Not only will it get a revamp in looks but there will be a few new features and a lot more content that you want to see ^^!

Anyway. My week at work begins tomorrow.. and ends on Wednesday. Hahaha I took a day off sick today and I have annual leave as of Thursday/Friday. I’ll be online but I have a lot to do over those four days. I’m meeting up with an old friend and hope to discuss my Anime Blog Anthology idea with him. Also i’ll be traveling for a day in total. It will be fun to see family though.

Peace out ladies! Have a great Tuesday!

P.S Does anyone else here get annoyed at seeing Danny Choo feeds on 1 billion other anime blogs? Seriously.. why? No disrespect to the guy… but that’s some sweet market penetration. WHY? It’s not like the blogs that have the feed actually receive anything back.. I just don’t get it :/

15 Sep 2008 mellow_bunny

Graphite 08 | Manga Art Competition

So anywho I received all this info on a manga art competion going down in what I believe is Singapore. Seriously it didn’t say Singapore anywhere on it. Anywho you can check out their website here. The press release is in a PDF format which you can find here. I have put in the poster below go check it out!

07 Sep 2008 Aka

And Aka is back- Sort of.

Aka is back in town. I’m blogging from my handphone right now, using the opera mini browser. I hope this post goes thru fine. And as for what i’ve been doing for the last two months, been stuck on a small military island training to defend my nation. Anyway, now i’m resuming my blogging activities to some extent, and i’m working on my own group of sites, Reinforce Network.. Hope to get it fully up and running sometime soon, and don’t worry, mellow, i’ll still be writing here as well. I actually have a few posts written on paper done during the spare time i had in camp. Hope i get the chance to post it out sometime soon. Anyway, aka out for now.

04 Sep 2008 mellow_bunny

Xam’d: Lost Memories}How often to you wish for good music in anime.

I was listening to the Kings Of Leon’s new single last night, Sex On Fire. It was addictive as hell and now I want the album when it releases. I find the music really fun and in some ways inspiring (more on this later). However i’ve been told by female members of society that this particular video clip is the sexiest the band has ever looked possibly as sexy as Extrange.

It got me thinking right.. the video clip gives the song atmosphere as such. It helps mould our thinking of that song to recall a certain environment or mood. The director of that clip appears to have set their sight on getting girls to swoon. As a guy.. when I saw that clip.. I was just like “wicked song.. I wish I could play like that … I like the way they shot the clip.. looks cool…. oh hey.. weird.. that guy is almost cross-eyed”. I can imagine however that the aforementioned female’s thoughts were something like this… “zomg zomg &(&@# @#&@()#@ #@*)*0 so @#)*@ hot (*)*@#)(#)#* mmmm mmmmmmm mmmmmmmmm mmm mmmmmmmm mmmm mmmmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm CENSORED* <– ENTER POSSIBLE YAOI FANTASIES?.

So my thoughts trailed on a little more and I thought about Xam’d and the Boom Boom Satellites OP. The OP for that show is excellent. The animation is in sync with the song as such and it evokes an exciting atmosphere. I recall the OP for Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei for both the first and second seasons was excellent also. I know i’m picking exciting songs and action here but the point being that music can have a serious impact on whether you enjoy a show or not. I love both these shows and if an anime has a bad OP then it does make me think twice about continuing to watch it.

Music to my ears~ <3

I often find myself listening to an album and pondering what sort of story it would go along with. Take for instance the song City Of Delusion by MUSE. That song quite simply is awesome. It inspires my mind to no end and I can imagine it used in some sort of epic anime movie. I spent two days once listening to a live album of Daft Punk, as I listened to it I formed a complete story that would run with the music. If I ever get around to writing it down I will be on the way to fame I swear. It was truly epic.. and I thought up the art styles and everything. Geez.. now I want to make it haha. I really will have to write it down.. It’s freakin cool.

TOO CUTE.

When you watch anime normally do you pay special attention to the music? Do you go gaga fanboy/girl over the music? Do you sometimes wish more western music would get in there? Take a look at Appleseed for instance.. they used a collection of well known artists from around the world. Sometimes I wish that would filter down to just the normal anime. It makes it a little more exciting ya know? In preperation for this post I gathered up some headphone pictures. Hikago was telling me there was some sort of artbook out advertising headphones that used anime girls… if anyone knows of it could they perhaps point me to where I could buy it?

ENJOY YOUR THURSDAY PUNKS :D!

Music! Cellphones! Sweet Sitting!

03 Sep 2008 mellow_bunny

IRC Angst, Creating Exciting Projects, Updating the Blog

IRC Angst

So I’ve gotta say.. IRC can cause angst. I’ve seen it before… It sucks people in. It’s an amazing sort of ZONE for anime bloggers though. It’s a place to talk directly to other bloggers, a place to get the latest news as it happens and definitely a good place for getting to know other bloggers (as opposed to blog comments or forums).

The one thing that can happen on IRC though is DORAMA. That or hilarious situations. In fact the second is more likely. Typos are the main source of hilarity with people making freudian slips commonly. The thing is IRC can almost drain you of anything to discuss on your blog.. it’s like news that was reported in the morning is ancient by the afternoon. So you feel less motivated to perhaps blog the information.

It is however a great place if you need information on something, people can give you some really great advice or let you in on awesome resources. It’s fun. Also if you want to be super cool.. use a terminal and go hardcore. Tunnel through SSH for +100 secure points.

Creating Exciting Projects

I seem to be involved in quite a few new exciting web projects that are focused on the Aniblogosphere. Two of these projects are sitting in their planning stages and are being expanded upon by various members of the community. These two are probably the most exciting from my point of view.

The aim of these projects is to not only do something new for our communities but also do something unique to blogging in general. The first project is something that I thought up just a couple of days ago and it has somewhat evolved from my Kyouki idea. It will require a fair amount of volunteer commitment to complete but will result in something quite simply awesome. Something we can have sitting on our desks… maybe coffee tables.. or just in our bookcases.

The second project is something that will add “value” if you will to the blogging experience. It will allow us bloggers to find that medium between IRC and forums as such :P! It also will not be hard to adopt, the system will be easy to use and very versatile in fact. I’ll let you know now that it is called Taiga :P! 50 points if you can guess why…

Updating The Blog

I think this is something that we all might forget to do. It seems that a lot of us tend to forget the housekeeping that can make our blog a great place to visit. It doesn’t hurt to get out the old broom now and then and tidy up your sidebar. Maybe go through and clean up your categories or tags. Maybe it would pay to make a tag page or a cloud somewhere?

It’s just come into Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere and hence my urge to tidy things. But think about it, now might be the best time for you to finally sort out your blogroll. Prune it a little, update.. make sure they all work!

Perhaps now is a good time to consider some design changes? This may not be an entirely new theme for you. You may change your default font for instance.. maybe do some tweaking of the text size or perhaps change the default size of your pictures. Think about how you want to present your blog and for goodness sake ask for advice from your web friends if you need some. They might be able to give you some pointers.

03 Sep 2008 mellow_bunny

Toshokan Sensou, A Kanokon Revisit, Karekano

Toshokan Sensou (Library Wars)

So I finished Toshokan Sensou today. My overall impressions of the show are good. I liked the animation, the music, the characters and the story :)! I wish some of the backstory could have been more detailed but such is life with only 12 episodes.

I think most memorable for me would be the parents coming to visit episode. Also when Kasahara realises Doujou is the Prince Charming hahaa. I liked the somewhat sneaky character of Shibasaki ;). I watched this series in HD and recommend it thoroughly. The show looked great.

As a note, I have found that any anime series of 12 episodes to be much more enjoyable then the larger 24 or 26 episode series. I guess the story progresses much faster and stronger emotions are usually in play.

A Kanokon Revisit

I was doing my nightly Antenna trawl of blogs looking for posts of interests when I came across a post on Euphoric Field. One thing lead to another and I came across this Kanokon post on Euphoric Field. Quite simply hilarious. The post near perfectly describes my thoughts on the show and was written in a muchly amusing manner. Go read~

Karekano (Anime)

The biggest waste of my time and angst ever. 2 years ago now it was that I first hired out the DVD volumes of this show. I only ever made it to the 4th disc however. The angst I felt over the possibility of them splitting made me fear the last disc. I finally decided to face my fears last week and hired out the final DVD.

I… I can’t believe it.. I’m still in shock over the utter crap way it ended. Worst ever. EVER.

31 Aug 2008 mellow_bunny

Then there was rest.

Yeah I was completely gutted. I announced a project, I was pumped! Kyouki is something i’m quite motivated to do. It’s something I want to complete. However, circumstances dictate that I now have to put it back into the standby status.

Those of you who have spoken to me will know the reasons for this and in short it comes down to not having time. Never fear, I still will potter away at the code in preparation for launch and heck.. who knows someone might be able to run it for me. Read more…

08 Aug 2008 mellow_bunny

Kyouki: It’s going to be madness.

It’s about time I make a proper announcement and get this project well on it’s way. After a few months of intense workload I now have time to complete and launch one of three projects I have in development. If you hadn’t guessed already I have a personal goal in improving our blogosphere and creating new experiences for us all to enjoy.

So in line with trying to achieve this goal I have created a competition that aims at trying to get you out of your writing comfort zone. Not only is it meant to stretch your capabilities but it is meant to help you grow as a writer and to have fun with it. We shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things, we can only improve from what we learn.

Why is it called Kyouki?

Pretty simply it comes down to me playing with a Japanese -> English dictionary. I was looking for something that represented ‘crazy’ or ‘extreme’. I came across kyouki which much like kichigai, kyouran and hakkyou can have the meaning of ‘madness’. I kinda grabbed onto the ‘madness’ and ran with it. Kyouki can also mean ‘dangerous weapon’, which I think kind of suits this competition. When you think about it, words can be more powerful (sometimes more treacherous) then a physical weapon.

So although it was somewhat of a whim I think the naming of this project actually suits. Why is it Japanese? Well why not? I do have a fascination with the culture bordering on weeabooness. It only makes sense. Plus it means I can use sweet characters in the banner.

What’s in it for me?

Quite simply, prizes and prestige (aka e-pen0r). Not to mention that although your article will appear on the e-zine site, your blog or website will be linked to. Nothing beats easy web traffic. A mini profile of yourself will be on the site and we will have information about you placed on the right hand side of your article.

You will also experience a lovely warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you are one of the chosen few who get the chance to show their stuff off to an eager public. You will also feel a warm glow from knowing you have made a little bunny called mellow very happy :D!

You got me at prizes! How’s it gonna work?

As I stated before this is a project of mine. I have received valuable advice and input from a few bloggers such as yourself. Those who helped me out with forming a plan have first dibs on helping to  run it too. Because this is just a project, I am unable to fund prizes for all 12 months that i’d like it to run. Hence the first month that we run this competition will be a sort of pilot month. Based on what happens with the first month I will go to potential sponsors asking for some support.

When it comes to participants we are looking to have twelve different writers each month create feature articles. The idea is that instead of just writing something up and submitting it to us, we will work with you to create an article that reaches a certain level so to speak. This project is about creating something real, something of excellent quality and something that will bring our blogosphere to the fore.

Each of the first eleven months will feature a different topic. The topic will be quite broad to allow as many views as possible to be expressed. What will the topics be? This has yet to be decided and most likely we will put our feelers out to the chosen twelve authors of that month to give us ideas.

How do you get to be a writer? Once our staff has been assembled we will launch an application page. All that will be required on the entry form is your name, email address and a link to an example of your writing. It will basically work in a first in first served basis. Writers will be given a few weeks before their deadline is due. I don’t as of yet have a timetable for this but our staff will work with you to ensure your article is ready on time. We do not have plans to allow extensions for writers who are late. We have to stick to a firm schedule to make this work.

Writers will have a set of guidelines for the content that they write. This is to not only protect themselves and all those involved when it comes to legalities but will help keep a certain level of writing. I will explain more on this when we launch the Kyouki site.

So how does a writer win the prizes on offer for the month? Well the main purpose of this competition is to exhibit the writings. So the whole choosing who wins it is a simple process and almost a by product. Basically anyone can sign up with the site and vote on each article. They can vote on some or just one article, it’s entirely up to them. The voting is done on a star scale and whomever gets the highest votes wins.

You said staff, what are they for… and can I be one?

The staff are there to help run this event over the (hopefully) year. They do not have to commit to the whole year but it would be nice =x! Positions that are currently available include the following.

Moderators

These guys will be in charge of looking after comments on the articles and filtering out the spam and trolls. Their duties will also include proof-reading the articles and the odd other duty.

Editors

I am looking for a team of Editors, these peeps will be the support for the writers and will oversee them. Each Editor will look after a given number of writers for the month. They will work with their writers to ensure a level of quality and make sure that they are within the writing guidelines.

There will be more positions i’m sure but at the moment the Editing is the big one. I know i’m asking a lot because at this point I cannot offer anything but e-pen0r. Please contact me on “mellow at mellowspace dot com” if you would like to apply for these positions.

You called this a project.. how does it end?

At this point the project is planned to run a total of twelve months. The first eleven months will consist of different writers making their individual entries with our Editors. The twelfth and final month will be a chance for all the articles written over the year to be re-featured and re-voted for. The prize pool will be extended for this month and will feature prizes from all of the year’s sponsors. There will be a collection of slightly smaller prizes distributed to an as of yet undetermined amount of winners.

The end of the final month will signal the end of this project. At that point we will look at the possibility of re-running the event for another year under perhaps revised guidelines. We will not make a firm decision on this until the end of this year though.

This is when the REALLY exciting stuff will happen. The editors and management staff will then work through the 132 articles and ready them for printing. That’s right printing. Unless we are unable to use the article because of legal reasons we will publish your article along with the others in a high quality glossy magazine format publication. This will be available to all the writers in a PDF format. There will be a limited run of the magazine for those who want to pay the cost.

It is my true hope that we can come away from this event with high regard for the written word and the topic we so passionately blog about.

mellow

06 Aug 2008 mellow_bunny

Status Update: New shows and fresh ideas.

So after delving into Extrange’s posts on Xam’d: Lost Memories I decided I should watch it. I was definitely not disapointed. The show has it all and yes it did remind me strongly of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Eureka 7. The characters were fun, the animation was most enjoyable and the story was full even in the first few episodes.

I also got a hold of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu and watched the first four episodes. The story is lighthearted and fun and the characters are good. Also.. has anybody noticed strange animation speeds in this show? I liked Mika she was hilarious.

The interview with Extrange that I did went well. I’ll be doing a few more interviews with other bloggers. The interview netted 300 unique visits, 250 in one day. That’s quite a spike for mellowSPACE. We average around 40 unique visits a day normally.

In the interview I asked Extrange if there was something that he thought could be done to help improve our anime blogging community. His idea was brilliant and something i’d be keen to push for actually. RyanA thought so too and as a result i’m going to set something up so we can get a few more people to provide input on how they think the idea could come to fruition.

On the thought of new ideas, I know I have said a few times now that i’d announce something about Kyouki (blissmo this is what I was talking about) and I won’t disappoint. I will be making a proper full fledged announcement that most likely will be XBOX HUEG. I hope you all take the time to read it though as it could net you prizes if you get involved.

There is also a new project (started it today) coming which will hopefully be used by a lot of us bloggers and will be trialed on AB.net blogs. It’s going to be a hoot and i’ll let you know more once we have it a little further along. I’ll give you a hint it’s somewhat similar to spasm+traits :D.

For now I have to complete some real work and finish off a blog design. Thanks for dropping by!

mellow