Blog 186 > Sevens, Heavens & Harems

Wow, Maria, thanx! Sadly, this is a fabricated message, lol. Japanese AV idol Maria Ozawa never sent me any congratulations of any kind. Dammit, lol. However, according to the mathematically approximate yet amusingly curious WebsiteOutlook.com, my site-and-blog’s estimated worth has leapt from $5861.90 to $7774.50 USD in a mere 3 weeks. Just as page hits and views and loads can be quite illuminating, my site worth (or lack thereof) must largely fall in the hands of my passing visitors and long-time readers. Humble thanks. Arigato gozaimasu. Muchas gracias. And may Maria watch over us. Hehe, anime joke. But on top of adult-video starlets and saintly anime, this blog week burns through itchy skin, drives through mystical fog, and hops through harems of women, lol. So on that nonsensical note, let’s begin the show…

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Blog 185 > Wikis & Evangelion Gothlolis

Dammit! Seems like my posts are taking longer and longer to assemble, lol. But no worries. It’s worth it. Including this week. Not only do we dive into the wretched world of Wikis, Wikipedia and Wookieepedia, we also float along a WordPress upgrade, and wade through a massive photoshoot of Evangelion Gothlolis, both red-haired and blue-haired. Did I mention Danny Choo too? Yup, no doubt, it’s a three-headed mega-post. But you know why? Ahh, to celebrate something else… My final figure. Interested?

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Blog 183 > Colors of Rage, Peace & Flesh

Heyyy, Happy Twenty-Oh-Nine! And for those of you in the Eastern Orthodox world who celebrate Christmas on January 7th, especially Anna in Ukraine or Lena in Russia, I haven’t forgotten you, hehe. “Merry Christmas!” To help celebrate, here’s an eye-grabbing “Snow White” photo (above) by Russian photographer and long-time LiveJournal buddy, Lena Chernaya. Plus some more titillating chaos about random shirts, bloggy values, and the comedy of hate, lol.

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Blog 182 > Year of Anime, Rock & Otaku

Ah, what a year it’s been! For my last mega-post of 2008, I tackle another mixed bag of “Rock Band” sessions, a year’s truckload of anime speed-reviews and faves, and a sparkly sprinkle of otaku thanks and wishes. So happy holidays and all the rest. Now on with the show…

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Blog 180 > Snowball’s Chance – Teaser

What the frak? Blizzard in Vegas? Bakana! Like I mentioned on Puppy-Chun’s blog, I believed it snowed in Vegas only *one day* in the last *three years*! Until today. At least six hours of non-stickable snow, followed by another six hours of stickable snow. Accumulation of up to eight inches deep. The worst Vegas snowstorm in years, if not decades! Damn, after slipping and sliding on the slow-ass highway drive home, I was lucky it took only an hour, lol. More pics coming soon…


By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask this. With all the different blog types, how do you prefer to get notifications? Some blogs feature a subscribe-able follow-up email notification with new comments, others don’t. Of course, there’s also the option to subscribe to a blog’s comments via an RSS reader. But RSS comments can get annoying if the blog gets too many daily comments to follow. Then there’s Meimi132‘s clever method of commenting back, not on her own blog, but on her commenter’s blog. Yet it can be tough to string together a discussion without duplicating them on one’s own blog, lol. Or do you just use the *brute force* approach of going through all of your favorite blogs on a regular basis? So what do you do? Which do you prefer?


Like I said, more pics coming soon…

Blog 178 > Blog Antics & Anime Battles

Holy crap! I’ve got so much crap to talk about that I may not fit in any anime crap, lol. But I’ll try. From old layouts to new readers, from post updates to blog widgets, from shiny iMacs to blazing Zazzles, and maybe some random tunes too. But what else? Anime mascots? Seems like every anime blog is caving in with their own new mascot~ not only Mimi, but Koshiko, Dancing Queen and the latest Meimi132 too~ inspired by DC no doubt, lol. Fortunately, I haven’t succumbed to peer pressure… yet, lol. But we’ll see.

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Blog 177 > Mimi’s Zazzle & iMac’s Dazzle

Oooh, a new post… Ahhh, the lazy rainy-to-sunny holidays… Awww, thanx again Mimi-chan for your gracious mention of our Zazzle T-shirts. Like I commented on your post, 50% of the proceeds will be donated to your college fund~ because MIT is freakin’ expensive! Moreover, thanx to Lindsay@Zazzle for modelling our virtual T-shirt image~ doesn’t she make the shirt look smexy?

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Blog 152 > Afro Samurai Attack!

Finally! A little late, but who cares? Some 18-19 months after its original broadcast, I’ve finally finished my 25th anime title of the year: “Afro Samurai”. Stylishly violent and almost-romantically post-apocalyptic, this 5-episode gem paints quite a refreshingly retro-futuristic view of hell-on-earth, life-long revenge, and inexplicable survival. Haha, Samuel L. Jackson voices the titular lead as well as his babbling sidekick, and why not? A bad-ass playing a bad-ass. Nuff sed, lol. Despite the brevity of the miniseries, the revealing flashbacks cast a shadowy depth to a seemingly simplistic quest. Quite impressive. Four of five stars. Can’t wait for the second season!

Now that that’s outta the way, time for some red-eyed ranting, lol.

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Blog 148 > Lelouch Commands You

“Jump complete!” Well, after a Saturday of exporting XML data from my old WordPress 2.0 “Toybox”, installing the latest WordPress 2.6 “Toybox”, duplicating the template, importing the XML into the new template, then a Sunday of (category, link and post) cleanup, I’ve finally upgraded to the newest version of WordPress.org! So hopefully, this blog will feel a little less glitchy and a little bit quicker. ^_^;

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Blog 141 > My Toybox Blog Layout

Hi, in the same spirit as Danny’s newest blog changes, I’ve decided to update the layout of my *Toybox* blog. Essentially, I’ve reorganized the center column: (1) moving my favorite blogs and sites to the top, (2) inserting the “Daily Updates” from my website to help fill in the gaps between less-frequent posts, and (3) lifting the more-lively “Danny Choo” posts above the lengthy “Category List”. That’s about it! Plus, it’s a good time to take a snapshot of my blog, more than a year after its rebirth, lol.

P.S. Okay, after a morning of packing more magazines and books (arghhh), gotta get back to drawing “Blade 1” (Day 2) for fighter Christine Toledo (Blog 136). My first commissioned anime-art project! ^_^;

Blog 092 > Otaku or Not Otaku?

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 >>

Blog 049 > End of the Blox

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.

Blog 048 > Toybox 2.0

Guess what? Remember my last post? Well, I did it, I applied the new table-less template design to my “Toybox” anime/remix blog. It was a b*tch to use optical illusions to “fix” the columns and backgrounds, but looks pretty sweet. Here’s the new “Toybox” look. (Like before, looks best in Firefox or IE7.)

Next steps: (1) Add blog name/image to (randomizing?) header. Fix fonts. (2) Finish up “xJAYMANx” website. Convert HTML to PHP. (3) Figure out how I want to organize my old content. Transfer the content.

Blog 047 > Faster & More Flexible

Faster & More Flexible [Wednesday, April 4, 2007] Cool! You know how I was going to PHP-reconstruct my website with the SAME design? Well, maybe NOT the same, lol. Last night, I started tinkering with a new template: 1000px wide, triple column, WITHOUT tables! Yup, no rigid table tags, but faster more-flexible CSS (stylesheet) “div” tags instead. Here’s the new test page. (Looks best in Firefox or IE7.)

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Blog 046 > Backwards & Forwards

Backwards & Forwards [Saturday, March 31, 2007] Guess what? For the first time in years, I’ve thrown a bunch of 80s-90s CDs (Alice In Chains, Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes, Billy Idol’s Cyberpunk, Def Leppard, Erasure, Garbage, Guns N Roses, Heart) into my ancient SONY 100-CD changer, and pumped up the volume on my stereo. Is it nostalgia for my rosier college days? A return to my 20s? Haha, who knows, but I just felt like it, lol. :)))

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post 382 ~ bling-blingo!

post 382 ~ bling-blingo!

  • gahhh, i couldn’t help it… b/c i’m in that general “web-curiousity and update-my-website” phase, such as researching RSS feeds, and trying out WordPress.com (nahhh) and Bloglines.com (yeahhh)… and i already use the A9.com search engine to earn Amazon.com discounts…
  • but i just had to steal this from since she’s already won free stuff just by using the “blingo” search engine (based on google, of course)…
  • click here to be my “blingo friend”, lol…

    Blingo

  • plus, you can check how i added it to my website … cool, huh?