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11 Nov 2008 mellow_bunny

himegimi | Grabbing my list NAO before the new site launches.

That’s right dawgs. Go ahead and post your himegimi list on your website NOW with the post title “himegimi|yourname” and then link it in a comment on this post. IF YOU ARE FIRST IN THE COMMENT LIST WITH AN UNCLAIMED HIMEGIMI YOU WILL THUSLY BE GIVEN “FIRST DIBS” ON THAT HIMEGIMI UPON LAUNCH. <– READ AGAIN FOR GREAT JUSTICE. NOW GOGOGOGOGOGO AND POST THEN COMMENT! DOOO EEEEET. Oh yeah if you don’t have a blog then just chuck your list in a comment.

Remember the same rules apply as before, your list must contain your top ten himegimis. If you don’t know what a himegimi is then pshaw. You can find out from someone who does know.. they will become apparent when the posts start appearing.

mellow_bunny’s list

1. Aoba Tsugumi (Kannagi)
2. Isurugi Noe (True Tears)
3. Kushieda Minori (I am leaving first dibs open on Minori) (Toradora)

As you can see my list is smaller then most of you will probably have. There will be many who will have great difficulty in choosing their list. ANYWAY FOR FIRST DIBS GOGOGOGOGOOGO!

I leave you with the below image of suspicious cheese.

30 Oct 2008 mellow_bunny

Update | Designing is fun when you are in the mood.

So just thought i’d give a quick update on my progress with mSPACE 09. I have the layout for the front page completed but I have as yet to finish off the fine details. Here’s a shot below of the almost completed post design. Needs a little more work yet.

I totally watched a couple more episodes of Kurozuka as well. It was in French so I was a bit @_@ but the show was good anyway. Toradora 4 was good also. I think there is another episode out so i’ll go try find that.

I read the first volume of Runaways a Marvel comic. Very cool. I’ll try grab the second volume I think. I also badly want to read Civil War stuff.

Anywho onwards to the weekend!

30 Oct 2008 mellow_bunny

EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT!

HOLY CRAP SOMETHING HUGE AND (insert large words here) IS COMING! WHAT IS IT?? Well to be honest it’s a sausage cut in half and made to look like an octopus.. or a quadropus… depending on how you look at it. Meet mellowSPACE’s newest companion or should I say.. MASCOT.

He will lead us into the new generation! He will lead us into mSPACE future! He will cook delicious breakfast! (Or be delicious breakfast…) A huge thanks to my good friend Stevie who helped create this amazing being!

20 Oct 2008 mellow_bunny

HORROR! | Or is it just spooky violence?

So I saw Mouryou no Hako and Kurozuka last week. I had no idea what was going on in Mouryou no Hako but there was hints of yuri and then random suicide? It was odd. I cannot be bothered to watch more to be honest. It was good but yeah not my cup of tea. It brought to mind thoughts of shows that bored me.

Kurozuka on the other hand was a brilliant (see: enjoyable) watch. (Yes hate on me if you will, I know someone at least will say the show is crap) I liked the art, the action, the impossibility and the atmosphere of the show. I was reminded of Samurai Champloo for some reason (see: footnote) I think it was the copious action and zombie type people. Anywho the show looked lovely. I don’t know about you guys but the quality of the shows this season seems to be higher then the previous… not to mention all the Aitch-Dee. As much as I enjoyed this show I think i’ll wait till it’s all done to actually watch it through.. or heck watch it streaming. It didn’t catch me enough.

It's funny because this picture has nothing to do with the post... I should work on that.

I plan to watch more Toradora (who isn’t) along with a little Hyakko. As well as a show JTFish is going to attempt to flap his fins at.

Anyway I altered the layout specs for mSPACE 09 again. The design has broken it’s centered box form. As you may noticed I have altered the current theme as well. As much as JT is able to influence my design skills with his Taiyaki powers, pink will forever be er shunned. IMHO.

Footnote

Samurai Champloo, full of seemingly endless filler-type episodes was an enjoyable show nonetheless. HOWEVER. It had one of the worst endings I have ever seen. I think the severity of a bad ending seems much higher when the rest of the show seemed to be ok. It achieved the badge of CRAPEND as opposed to BADEND (see: School Days) along with Kare Kano.

I'll work on relative images next time.. honest.. I will.

05 Oct 2008 mellow_bunny

Threes | I don’t care if that sounds wrong.

It’s somewhat a celebratory time here at mellowSPACE. We have reached some milestones! :D! We passed 3000 unique visitors this week (since we started using Woopra). We did it by posting three posts by three authors and we got about 300 uniques for those posts all up :)! So in celebration you can all go buy yourselves cake or candy.

I managed to watch Toradora the other day. I saw it in RAW and then grabbed the GG subs when they came out. I’m going to fanboy Taiga just to annoy Mike hahahahaa. I enjoyed the show and i’m pretty sure I will follow the series. I just need to get my CentOS CLI FLV converter to run. I hate putting acronyms in capitals but whatever.

I also saw the first episode of Yozakura Quartet. I watched it in RAW so I can only guess at what the back-story is. It looked somewhat interesting but not amazing. I will probably watch one or two episodes if it gets subbed. Cat girls are irresistible.

Another great release by icie is out for all you Eve no Jikan lovers. We get to explore more of Sammi’s life I guess. I still need to watch it.

The new mSPACE 09 design is coming together nicely. I managed to sketch out a lot of the layout today while I was travelling around. Notebooks are awesome. I would love a leather bound journal to use though .. with a nice pen. ALSO PLEASE IF SOMEONE IS FEELING GENEROUS AND INSANE GO HERE.

Anyway peeps that’s all for now i’ll catch you later. (Going out to a BBQ.. also I HATE databases.)

03 Oct 2008 mellow_bunny

Bloglomerates | They are forming, are clouds of war approaching?

“Bloglomerates”  As told to me by RyanA (his thoughts here). The following are my own thoughts on the word and what it means.

I may have mentioned this before but I have a very active imagination. I treat it as a special gift. The title of this post is somewhat misleading as to what I actually think of bloglomerates but it painted a cool picture in my mind.

Imagine a world where writers control mankind. Not through magical words but in great literary battles that are fought between the great corporate writing bloglomerates. Their clashes shaping and moulding the world around them and changing the opinions and thoughts of those who read their words. I keep imagining some sort of anime done by BONES on the subject. Bloglomerates would rise and fall, new alliances and friendships and new enemies would be found in each clash. Those destroyed by the power of other’s words or the lack of any will to fight themselves, would disappear off into.. wherever.. obscurity would be good. I think that would make an awesome show.. or at least some sort of narrated art book ;D!

Anywho my actual opinion on bloglomerates isn’t that of fear or as seeing them as fighting and squabbling groups. I actually think they are a sign of the progress and friendship that is formed in our greater community. We have a few bloglomerates of late and there is two types from what I can see. The first type of bloglomerate could be defined as “self-contained”. They are self-contained in the sense that they have a single focal point to represent themselves. The writers for these bloglomerates may have their own blogs but they choose to post either in parallel or dedicate more to the bloglomerate headquarters. Below is a list of some of the bloglomerates that I know of and follow…

Are-are

Heterochromia

Oi, Hayaku!

THAT Animeblog

The Scrumptious Anime Blog

Yukan Blog!

㊥出し

These bloglomerates are great places to get regular written food for the mind. They are composed of multiple authors who usually post on different topics thus allowing you to enjoy a wide range of topics. These are the first type of bloglomerates and probably the more obvious. Because of the amount of content that the bloglomerate sites generate a lot of people will follow the bloglomerates in herds. HERDS I TELL YOU. Followers of a bloglomerate may end up joining the group or even forming their own bloglomerate.

There is however a second type of bloglomerate. This type may be composed of different multi-author or single author blogs that work in harmony to reach certain goals. They could be involved in projects together that are for the community or they could be friends who regularly work together to create posts or events.

This second type of bloglomerate could be classed as more creative or innovative. They are more likely to make things that aren’t in the norm or that are new and exciting. They are not confined to writing to a particular schedule or to particular guidelines and are more likely to develop ideas that they come up with.

I would like to think that mellowSPACE is part of a bloglomerate that combines with one or two other bloggers. We work together behind the scenes trying to bring new things to the community and in that sense we have more then just a common purpose or goal. We actively work together to make these things happen. I guess the one thing we lack is perhaps an outward unity which is visible through writing collaborations or similar.

What is your take on bloglomerates? Do you agree with how I have portrayed them? Would you place yourself in a bloglomerate? Could you envisage a more formal arrangement for bloglomerates such as an index?

Edit: I for some reason was not aware that Random Curiosity is multi-author. I’d say that RandomC is deifintely a self-contained bloglomerate that has quite far-reaching influence.

01 Oct 2008 mellow_bunny

Planning | It is not for the foolish.

In preparation for projects be they big or small, it is necessary to plan ahead. Why? Quite simply because it helps you to avoid problems which can either slow down your work pace or completely nullify the work you have done. With any project you should first lay out your goals and objectives. Then once you know what you want to achieve you can begin the process of planning how you are going to get to that point. <– THIS ALL I KNOW ABOUT PLANNING.

Planning has left me in EMO ANGST.

I have a serious problem when it comes to planning. I am a complete impulse creative. I all of a sudden think of an idea and WOOOOOOOOOSH I need to make it. I do not know of a good formula for actually writing a plan out. A structure that is easy to understand and which covers everything I need to think of. I think I really should just sit down and sort that out before I continue on any of the work I am doing. If anyone can suggest a good way of doing it please let me know.

Some of the things I would like to implement in mellowSPACE 09 are user accessibility related. An optional minimal theme that will display for both IE6 users and those who choose to view the site in that manner is a necessity as I will not support IE6 with some of the more modern code I will use on the main theme. I also want to implement a mobile ready version of the website. Now, I know these things can be done and relatively simply. My problem is that I haven’t written down ANYWHERE all the things I want to put in. So I now find myself not knowing what to place where in my design because I haven’t defined what I need.

In fact I think I work in reverse when it comes to making new websites. I start with a design and then work out how i’m going to use it. It’s a bad way to go. Here’s a small look at the coming new mellowSPACE design.

This is just a draft by the way, this shows a post preview.

My launch date is set at the 1st of January 2009. Once mellowSPACE is up and running all new-like then I will be working hard on getting the Bloggers Anthology 2009 going. That project is going to be awesome by the way. The end result will be a 200-300 page magazine that you can read and enjoy.

I think I should probably change the title of this post to something like Not Planning | Is the fools way because seriously .. it is so much harder to do things without thinking them through.

Anyway congratulations to Yukan Blog! on their new design and new authors. It’s good to see blogs with nice layouts and easy to read posts. As a collective whole if we present ourselves in a classier manner we are more likely to get more attention.

Anywho I should do some work, my boss is looking at me like ( ~_~)!

26 Sep 2008 mellow_bunny

Team Dynamics | How stuff goes down in mellow town.

So as you may know.. there is actually like… 5 writers.. wait 4 writers on this blog. Toshiyuki has retracted himself as he focuses on his school work. Also Toshiyuki smells like eggs. Having 4 writers on board doesn’t mean we actually have a lot of content though. We have a very relaxed kinda style around here. There are no deadlines, no topics of the day.. nothing. We just exist together. Like some freakish symbiotic anime/manga consuming organism.

There are winds of change blowing towards mellowSPACE however. Currently underfoot is a rather large construction of not only a new theme but many new features. This theme will most likely stick for the whole of 2009 but will be able to be altered by users. At least the colour scheme that is :P! There will be openings for writers on mellowSPACE to either a dedicated topic or just whatever they want to post. Writers will share in any success mellowSPACE might experience financially as well. It’s not just the writers that will benefit though, readers and members of mellowSPACE will be able to take advantage of new services and features as well as promotional offers from sponsors.

So in light of this mellowSPACE is moving away from being just an anime blog. It is moving towards becoming a provider of otaku content. As tj_han pointed out recently the anime blogosphere isn’t that anymore. Otakusphere does indeed seem to fit better. More and more blogs are either merging or partnering together. They aren’t always blogs either. Some sites are more resources for images or show information. But they fit under the larger umbrella of an otaku realm as such. As a good pal Ryan said er…. it was something like… “bloglomerates are forming” but he said it with more dramatic impact. These bloglomerates are providing more then just anime content.. they have seiyuu posts, merchandise posts, blog on blog posts (maybe I should have just copy-pasta’d tj’s post lol).

One question I want to know the answer to is if the same type of online Otaku community exists in Japan. Do they have blogs like ours? Do they gather in forums and IRC channels?

Anyway… I can’t remember what my aim was with this post. Enjoy a picture.

29 Jul 2008 mellow_bunny

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Fun times and kawaii maids.

Moooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~

This show has my approval. Why? WHY MUST I BE SUCKED INTO THE MOENESS D:! If my friend Stevie was here right now she’d tell me it’s a curse and we’d discuss the many ways in which I show my unmanliness. (Off topic… in a large way.)

I like the show for it’s upbeat fun-loving atmosphere. The main characters Yūto Ayase and Haruka Nogizaka have a lovely budding relationship. Yūto has the type of character that DOESN’T SUCK. You know.. the whiny “zomg why do girls jump on me BAWWW” and Haruka is just cute as hell.

They spend some time in Akibahara shopping and things. Haruka has drawn up a map with a picture of a cat on it. Yūto mistakes it for a bear but recovers nicely :D!

ROARRRRRRRRRCAT

Episode 2 introduced a new character Amamiya Shiina (thanks meganeshounen), even if just briefly. She looks mischievous.. although I hear Haruka’s sister Mika is pretty damn sneaky too.

Muuhahahahahaha totally mischievous.

Ruka Ayase is hilarious along with Yukari Kamishiro, ah yes.. drunks. I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of shows with drunk funny people. The last one I can remember was probably Please Teacher.. but my memory is fuzzy.

Oh yes drinking games lead to all sorts of fun.

So I’m enjoying this show, it’s an easy watch and it’s funny. It also has lots of cute girls and heads up.. I sense maids.. possibly copious amounts of neko maids in the future.

ZOMG.. this girl looks like a friend of mine... damn my mind...

So it would seem it’s way easier to put pictures in a post then words but hey, i’m not much of a writer :P!

-Toshiyuki-

26 Jul 2008 mellow_bunny

himeGIMI: Upgrade coming very soon.

In preparation for the new version of himeGIMI the current version will be replaced with a splash page. Thanks to everybody for participating in the Alpha. In the new Beta version all those who have been in the Alpha will have their data transferred over. They will also be able to participate in the new Beta from day 1.

The new Beta version should be up by the end of August. Once the basic systems are in place the Beta will open to a total of 50 users. This may expand over time. As a heads up once the new version launches it will be hosted at http://himegimi.com.