“Team Kaibigan” Logo | Click to enlarge

Another unusual story… So on Tuesday, 03 June 2008, my friend Melánie asked me out-of-the-blue to design a couple of logos for her friend Christine Toledo, the #1-ranked Muay Thai fighter in the USA and #3-ranked in the world. So for a free Thai-food lunch and a free T-shirt, why not? LOL ^_^; And so…

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SOS Danny - A Wikipedia Tale | Click to enlarge

For the humble readers of DannyChoo.com, I’ve got a short-lived (March 2nd to April 9th) tale which I’d forgotten to tell till now… Several months back on March 2nd, I was writing a blog entry quoting Danny, and wanted to reference him without citing his blog. Instinctively, I searched Wikipedia. But nothing. No Danny Choo. So what did I do? I decided to create an entry for him.

From that point on, 95% of the credit goes to *DOSGuy* (thanx dude!) for developing the Danny Choo article to its fullest. However, despite attempts to reinforce the entry over its several-week history, the article was speedily deleted on April 9th for failing to meet the guidelines of “notability”. Which, I admit, is understandable. Self-advertised popularity doesn’t necessarily equal encyclopedic noteworthiness (and vice-versa).

Luckily and incredibly, *DOSGuy* saved a copy of the article and still hosts it under his user page here.

So months later, the question remains: Do we have anything to add to the article that might make it good enough (notable enough) for resubmission? Should we care about Wikipedia or “notability”? After all, if indeed we have something, we can still edit it. In other words, S.O.S. = Save Our Stormtrooper Danny. ^_^;

P.S. Thanx *Chun*, I hope I can borrow your “seal of shock”. ^_^;

Photo 2698 by xJAYMANx | Click to enlarge

Vinyl bowls?… Yup, once more, just one day (Feb 10th) after her gun photoshoot in Blog 126 (Feb 9th), Lisa appears in yet another impromptu photoshoot! This time, she’s in my kitchen, heating old vinyl records in the oven to mold them into funky-looking bowls for gifts… Not only that, thanx to Lena and her amazing night-club photos, I was inspired to attempt my own HDR (high-dynamic range) photo-editing experiments… What do you think? Enjoy the rest of the vinyl-inspired wackiness, lol.

P.S. Yeah, I know, it’s been ages since my last anime-oriented entry. Unfortunately, more life-important work-editing, friend-helping and house-hunting activities have shifted my priorities around into a routine 5 hours of sleep per night… But hopefully, I can cram a figure photoshoot sooner than later. ^_^;

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I don’t know if this has ever been done before — creating a video by setting a figure photoshoot to music — but in any case, here’s my first one. Ever since my original Blog 044 > Fateful Circumstances anime-figure photoshoot (47 shots taken in March 2007) featuring Yukino & Arima (from Kare Kano) and Saber (from Fate/Stay Night), I’ve had this intriguing idea in my head, of somehow composing a slideshow and setting it to music. After a preliminary 3-photo test, plus a few hours composing this one, I think the video actually turned out pretty well for an experiment! Enjoy the show!

Original Photoshoot >>
Original Full-Size Video > 856×480 WMV >>

Photo by xJAYMANx | Click for December 2006 Photoshoot

A few days ago, my close friend Vanessa and I entered into an intriguing (almost heated) discussion regarding dating, relationships, and eventually my anime blog, particularly my figure photoshoots! In a nutshell, she was notably concerned about how my figure photos — typically of scantily-clad anime girls — would look to the random or casual blog visitor (especially a Westerner) not familiar with anime and its unique influence in Japanese mainstream culture. While they carry artistic value, she noted that the photoshoots could still be mis-interpreted as “creepy” or “perverted”. Fortunately, she knows me well, and understands that this is a common Western stereotype of anime fans (or otaku). But I admit, she does makes a good point that most visitors don’t know me so well, especially if they might include potential employers or recruiters or yes, even a new non-otaku girlfriend!

Needless to say, I value Vanessa’s opinion very highly. I can still enjoy anime, experiment with anime photoshoots, and blog about it, but I can do so without plastering and magnifying those images throughout my entire website. Consequently, over the last couple days, I’ve reworked my website in several ways. (1) I’ve restricted my anime header images to only a few specific anime sections. (2) I’ve moved the full photoshoots away from my blog posts and into these anime sections, behind a low-level anime login. (3) I’ve also set this anime login to protect any blog access from my website (i.e. front door), while keeping the direct blog address open (i.e. back door). (4) Similarly, I’ve also moved more-sensitive non-anime pages behind a friends-level login.

By implementing these changes, I hope to accommodate not only my otaku friends and acquaintances, but also my non-otaku friends (like Vanessa) who may feel awkward or afraid of forwarding my website to their own friends, and lastly, the random non-otaku stranger who may be a potential new friend. For a non-Japanese citizen residing outside of Japan, does this social sensitivity make me any less of an otaku? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I guess it depends on whether an otaku is supposed to possess any social graces to begin with, haha!

Click for December 2006 Photoshoot >>

Image 001 by xJAYMANx | Click to enlarge

Hey folks! If you don’t already know, I follow the otaku blog DannyChoo.com. Not blindly, lol, and not only for otaku news, but also for inspiration. And inspiration smacked me yesterday with Danny’s post on fan art of his mascot Mirai Suenaga. I’ve had several lingering ideas over the last months — okay, maybe just one idea, lol — but I was always too lazy to execute. Well, this time, I was fired up. The idea: Take the amazing and classic His & Her Circumstances (Kare Kano) image of Yukino and Arima dancing in the high-school hallway (seen here), and fuse it with Mirai. But how? Who would be her partner?

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Image by xJAYMANx | Click to enlarge

Well, folks, after only a month, I’ve decided to end my “xJAYMANx_weblox” blog (at Blogger.com). My experiments over the past week helped me decide to stick with just two blogs: (1) my heavily-customized (and soon website-integrated) “xJAYMANx_toybox” for public posts on anime, web design, other hobby-related activities, as well as life in general, and (2) my long-time “xJAYMANx” LJ for duplicated “toybox” posts, plus more friends-only posts. That’s about it! Blogger lived out its experimental purpose. Maybe something else will come along, but for now, these two primary blogs should serve me well.