Blog 194 > Assassins, Serpents & Wishes

Awww, thanx, Miyabi! We haven’t seen you since Hearts and Sevens! Sadly, I know this is another fabricated message, lol. Oh well, a birthday dream is better than none at all, lol. So, my Trembling Toyboxers, what’s in store for this broadcast week? Well, this week, we take another five-lap trek, peeking at ongoing otaku-blog battles, glimpsing at galactic hunters and bountiful assassins, staring through split-tongue serpents and masochistic dragons, digesting a few tasty birthday treats, and blinking at random red-red-red-tinged observations. And maybe, just maybe, Miyabi will say “Hi!” once more. Who knows? With her gorgeous figure in mind, let’s start the show…

Part 1 of 5. Ongoing Otaku-Blog Battles. Ah yes, the battles continue! Since our last exciting otaku-blog update, the theoretical numbers at Website Outlook have revealed yet another new development! The estimated worth of How a Girl Figures is now tied with a new challenger!

Website Outlook
Mar 15 | How a Girl Figures a.k.a. Dancing Queen

Oddly, that challenger is none other than my own site! Namely, xJAYMANx & xJAYMANx_toybox, hehe. How wickedly screwy is that? In fact, if you take a closer look, while our estimated values are identical at $12183.70, my site holds a super-slight lead in Daily Pageviews, 5091 to 4897. Crazy. Ridiculous. I mean, who visits my site? Okay, don’t answer that, lol.

Website Outlook
Mar 15 | xJAYMANx & xJAYMANx_toybox

Of course, surpassing both of our sites, the estimated worth of Angry Loli a.k.a. Mimi maintains a comfortable $1000+ edge. Again, lol.

Website Outlook
Mar 15 | Angry Loli a.k.a. Mimi

A-ha! For the first time, I’ve decided to include a graphical representation of “Blog Worth Over Time” pertaining to the otaku blogs on my “Battle List”, hehe. Based on Website Outlook’s theoretical numbers, this first graph depicts 11 “normal” otaku blogs, plus the “superhuman” blogs by Danny Choo (x10) and Sankaku Complex (x10), lol. To fit these two mega-blogs into the same chart, I simply divided their values by a factor of 10. As you can see, Sankaku Complex still holds a significant edge over Danny Choo. Enlarge for a clearer look.

This second graph depicts the 11 “normal” otaku blogs by themselves. Without the graphically-crushing effect by Danny Choo and Sankaku Complex, hehe. What’s remarkable to note is the similar trajectories between Angry Loli and xJAYMANx. Quite remarkable. As if a mathematical correlation existed between the two paths!

So what’ll happen in a couple weeks? Will xJAYMANx overtake Angry Loli? Nahhh, lol. I don’t think Mimi-chan would like that very much.


Part 2 of 5. Galactic Hunters & Assassins. Next, we jump from otaku battles to galactic bounty hunters! Hey you, do you remember the sexy punkish hunter who appeared for a split-second during Anakin’s podraces way back in “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” (1999)?

Well, her name is Aurra Sing. A bounty hunter born in the slums of Nar Shaddaa to a spice-addicted mother named Aunuanna. Here’s her introduction in the Star Wars Wiki.

Aurra Sing, also known as Nashtah, was once a female Jedi Padawan but, following a series of tragedies and misfortunes, left the Jedi Order to become a vicious bounty hunter specializing in Jedi assassinations. Her career spanned over seven decades, from at least 32 BBY to 40 ABY.

So why am I bringing her up? Well, yesterday, upon watching the 22nd and final episode of “The Clone Wars” Season 1, Aurra appeared for the first time in the CG-animated series! Nice.

Ah, the fearless bounty hunter Cad Bane.

The sharp-shooting assassin Aurra Sing!

And her extra long fingers, lol.

Aurra: “I’m in a bad mood.”

“Very bad.”

“Don’t even get up.”

“Because you’re dead anyway.”

“Bang. You’re dead.”

Bane growls in growing irritation.

Bane grins in satisfying victory.

Until he picks up Ziro the Hutt. Grrr.

Haha, splendid finale! Easily 5 of 5 stars! Then coming later this year, “The Clone Wars” Season 2. Definitely expecting more of Cad Bane and Aurra Sing. Nice. Very nice indeed, lol. Not to mention a live-action “Star Wars” series coming in 2010. Amazing. “Star Wars” is taking over the world. Again, lol.


Part 3 of 5. Dragons, Snakes & Earrings. Next, for the main event, we leap from galactic hunters and killers to Tokyo sadists and masochists! Way back in September 2008, fellow blogger Miko-chan recommended that I read the 2003 novel “Snakes and Earrings” (Hebi ni Piasu) by Hitomi Kanehara. Then again in February 2009, she suggested on my Tiger post that I check out the 2008 film “Snakes and Earrings” instead. So finally, a month later, I did.

Lui/Louis (played by the gorgeous Yuriko Yoshitaka) enters the dance club.

The beauty stares blankly until someone catches her eye.

The wildly-pierced punk, Ama (played by Kengo Kora, who also appeared in the high-school comedy “Gokusen 2”).

The punk notices her.

The beauty notices back.

He joins her.

She lets him.

He wants to show her something.

She wonders what it is.

His split snake-like tongue!

She reflexively sticks out her tongue, lol.

While his tongue grabs a cigarette, lol.

Lui is mesmerized: “Sugoi.”

Ama asks her something else.

Lui nods.

A wild night of passion between Lui and Ama.

A night which ignites their journey into the unknown.

Shiba/Shiva (played by Arata) the master tattoo-and-piercing artist.

The master’s intense gaze.

The introductions, lol.

Lui’s unusual request.

Shiba’s intense curiosity.

Inspecting her tongue! I wonder why…

Later in the film, a couple of famous actors! Do you recognize the one in front? Or the other one? Yup, Tatsuya Fujiwara! Star of “Death Note” and “Battle Royale” (reviewed in Blog 188), haha! And behind him is Shun Oguri! Star of “Crows Zero” (reviewed in Blog 168) and “Gokusen”, wow! Two big but hidden stars!

Hmm, I wonder if Meimi132-chan has already seen this film, hehe.

Whoa. Shocking. Almost disturbing. While not as violent or bloody as films like “Battle Royale”, it bluntly and forcefully and painfully explores the darkness and emptiness within the world of body modification and sado-masochism. Definitely not for everyone. Especially if it leaves you even more empty in the end than when you started. Like myself. I’m glad I tried the film for its dark and grotesque realities, as well as Yuriko Yoshitaka’s stunning beauty and arousing sexuality. But not to watch over and over. If ever again, lol. Seriously, Miko-chan, I don’t know how you managed to watch it six times already!


Part 4 of 5. March Birthday Week. Whew. Enough of the dire and depressing. Let’s move on to the weird and wacky! As many of my Tricky Toyboxers already know, last Thursday, March 19th was my birthday. So here’s a stack of photos taken at work and at home, with that light-headed state of mind, haha. Ah yes, here’s my awe-inspiring cubby hole! Do you like my plastic light-diffuser (white trashbags) hanging above? It’s probably been there for at least a year!

Why three computers? [1] Well, the left-most desktop is physically wired to the network. While it’s the oldest machine of the bunch, the network printing and Pandora.com music are best, lol. [2] The center laptop is my wireless work laptop, primarily and temporarily for my Tiger Team projects. It has the most-advanced Microsoft Word, but not Adobe Acrobat. [3] While the right-most laptop is my wireless home laptop, primarily for chat and non-work emails. If it had more memory, I’d also use it for Pandora. But it doesn’t. Plus it has the most-advanced version of Adobe Acrobat. Simple, eh?

Haha, yeah, on Wednesday, March 18th, our CEO and his admin assistant joined a game of foosball! And believe it or not, they won! Pretty embarrassing for the other team, lol.

Later that night, Lisa decided to cook a dinner consisting of whole-wheat farfalle pasta in garlic tomato sauce, Texas Toast garlic bread and asparagus, mmm!

Not necessarily for my birthday. But it was nice nonetheless, lol.

Extreme closeup!

Mmm, garlic and asparagus!

My first plate, hehe.

Lisa, I’m not ready!

Eh, not bad. Super-tilted, but not bad.

I don’t know what the heck Lisa did!

Playing dead.

Acting surprised!

Guiness the Menace is not amused.

Don’t you hate cellphone interruptions during dinner?

I guess not.

Guiness (at bottom) takes a peek at Lisa’s dinner, haha.

My second, and less artistic, plate.

Ah, the next day, Thursday, March 19th! NaTasha (from my Blog 191) and I decided to have my birthday lunch at “Outback Steakhouse”. Well, actually, I decided and she couldn’t refuse, lol. Mmm, coconut shrimp!

Ah, my favorite! Strawberry Smoothie! Sweeet! Yeah, I forgot to take photos of the actual steak and fries, dammit.

Then the following night, Friday, March 20th, I finally found time to take photos of my random gifts. Three birthday cards, two M&M eggs (from Lisa), and a Dairy Queen Blizzard (from Lisa’s mom), haha. The real cash wasn’t bad either!

A better shot of the pile.

Finally, here’s Lisa’s amusing collection. “A universal remote control does not, in fact, allow you to control the universe. I did not get you a universal remote control for your birthday because, believe me, you’d just be disappointed. [Then she added:] I did not get you a remote for your new T.V. either because there is no new T.V. Happy Birthday! Lisa & Guiness, too!”

LOL, that’s an inside joke since I planned to buy a new 46-inch wide-screen LCD HDTV this year. Sadly, the recession delayed that plan. Hence, no new TV yet. Just the same old 30-inch tube TV. But fear not! If not this year, then next year!


Part 5 of 5. How Random Ran Red. Last but not least, the inevitably random portion of the mega-post! Red, red, red! Ladies in red! First, if you’ve never seen an episode of “Battlestar Galactica” (2003-2009), here’s my glorious review from Blog 149.

Lastly… “Battlestar Galactica”, Season 4 (mid-season 10 of 20 episodes), treads a darker more-twisted road between post-apocalyptic machines and the last surviving remnants of humanity. Technology, terrorism, religion, politics, sex, suffering and death are all wrapped in a blood-soaked flag pointing towards possible salvation. Is there any hope? The story lines are wicked and wrenching yet oddly fulfilling in its unrelenting and unforgiving exploration of the human soul. Not to mention the hyper-intense special effects and heart-pumping percussion-oriented music. Breath-taking. 5 stars. Can’t wait for the final chapter. ^_^

Then last night, wow! I finished the final episode of the final chapter! Glorious! Wickedly breathtaking. Heart-stoppingly mind-blowing. Twists, turns and surprises, haha. Maybe I’ll take some screencaps for my next week’s mega-post! But for now, here’s the “BSG” version of “The Last Supper”. Sex, religion, politics, all wrapped into one 1600-pixel wallpaper. Steal it! Steal it now!

Secondly, do you see my “Live Traffic Feed” in the second column? Well, recently, I’ve seen quite a few visitors from Google Sweden linking to this “Lisa as Lolita” photo below. Yup, the same Lisa as the Lisa who cooked the garlic dinner above, lol. So I thought I’d mention this odd note. Sweden? Why Sweden? Hehe, in any case, here’s the original Blog 124 from January 2008. From Frumpy to Loli!

Finally, yeah-yeah, I know I know, “Angry Momo” again. This will be the last time, I promise! Yeah, I know she didn’t win the Final Round, hehe. But last night, Saturday, March 21st, during our random chat, Mimi-chan gave me permission to share Momo-chan as my Toybox mascot. If I choose to do so! Because, in her own words, “sharing is caring”. Aww.

I’ll say it again. Aww. That’s so sweet of her. I haven’t 100% decided yet. But if I choose to go ahead with Momo-chan as my Toybox mascot, I’ll actually be “un-breaking” one of my “Seven Broken Rules”. Yeah, un-breaking! Here’s the original list from my Blog 189.

Seven Otaku-Blog Rules Broken by xJAYMANx_toybox

[1] No official blog mascot.
[2] Not a participant in the e2046 banner exchange program.
[3] Not a member of a blog club or coalition, such as Team Blue.
[4] No major design change since April 2007.
[5] No up-to-date support of Internet Explorer 6, 7 or higher since July 2007.
[6] No blog-linked Danny Choo Member News posts since September 2008.
[7] No daily-post or holiday-post schedule. Specifically, no more than 1-2 posts per week.

LOL, so should I fix what’s already broken?


Well, that’s all for this week, folks! Sorry, my Tempted Toyboxers, I couldn’t bring back Miyabi (Maria Ozawa) for a final hello or goodbye. But I’m sure she’ll be back with another update in my estimated blog worth, hehe. So how was it? What’d you think of this week’s five-lap mega-post? Did you get enough? Peeking at ongoing otaku-blog battles? Glimpsing at galactic hunters and bountiful assassins? Staring through split-tongue serpents and masochistic dragons? Digesting a few tasty birthday treats? And blinking at random red-red-red-tinged observations? Thanx, Aurra, Louis, Yuriko, Lisa, and Mimi-chan! Thanx for the assassins, serpents and wishes! Peace. Out.

61 thoughts on “Blog 194 > Assassins, Serpents & Wishes

  1. @A20: Ehh, IE? Still using IE? That’s half of the problem right there, lol. As for the HTML, one key is consistency. The repetitive [p] styles and [img] classes should be identical, etc. Otherwise, the results can be unpredictable.

  2. @A20: Haha, isn’t that like giving a two-year-old the task of holding an ice-cream cone for u? But it’s rather curious. You haven’t even mentioned Firefox yet. Bad experience with FF? ^_^

  3. Heh, I had Firefox on my old com, up till the point where it was destroyed by a virus. At that point I was running, I think, IE7, which was like backup for whenever Firefox hanged (which was often). Chrome was the latest edition to that PC, and didn’t get much of a chance to use it.

    As for my current usage of IE8, I read an article on it, which said that it’s more secure than Firefox (perhaps due to the lack of 3rd party apps), and since I still haven’t gotten my PC fixed and am using my dad’s laptop, I’m perhaps being a little over-cautious here^^; I’m slowly migrating to Chrome, though. As for whether I’ll ever go back to Firefox… I don’t know, I just hated it when one window on FF crashed and I had to start the whole thing up again…

  4. @A20: Ah, I see. Yeah, FF tends to use lots of resources. But otherwise, it’s worked fine for me. In fact, it’s the basis for my current design. Plus it works in both Windows and Mac environments. Neither Chrome nor IE can do that. While Chrome has its own appeal, I’m waiting patiently for the day when it begins to include awesome plug-ins or add-ons like FF. On the Mac too. Then Chrome would be sweeeeet!

  5. Agreed. I don’t know if that will ever happen though, since Google owns both- they might prefer to go with the minimalistic approach for Chrome and the user-developed approach for FF. Chrome would be gorgeous with apps, but that may very well kill off FF, unless the die-hard FF fans stick with it.

    aprilius20´s last blog post > Otaku Mime

  6. Ah, my bad. They don’t own it, but they do finance FF. Taken from Wiki:

    Mozilla said that Chrome’s introduction into the web browser market comes as “no real surprise”, that “Chrome is not aimed at competing with Firefox”, and furthermore that it should not affect Google’s financing of Firefox.

    http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/222147/mozilla-google-is-not-trying-to-kill-us.html

    aprilius20´s last blog post > 意味のない悔しさは止めましょう

  7. @A20: LOL, “not aimed at competing”? Then why enter the browser arena at all? As a Firefox teammate? I must be missing something.

    @Ezra: Haha, I might have to check out “Irokoshi”! ^_^

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