It’s amazing how all your troubles and worries just seem to fly away when you watch a yuri show (I’m watching Strawberry Panic right now, for your information). Practically every scene is corny, effectively making it impossible to take any of it seriously, I know I’m not.

So why am I watching this piece of crap, you say? Because it’s hilarious, isn’t that obvious? :)

Well, my phone interview with IBM just completed a little while ago. The IM client was actually unused although Chris told me I would have been writing code in it for technical questions if I did. Anyway, I don’t think it went too well (that’s what we all say, right, but I’m serious), considering that I was unable to answer the main question, which was a brainstorming of solutions for the problem that needed to be solved by the Extreme Project (or at least just try to get somewhere).

If I don’t make it I’m probably just going to go to school again this summer term with a light load and just send an application in for the 2007 Summer of Code.

It’s amazing just how boring assigned readings can be. Everyone I’ve ever asked has claimed that this course was easy and that was that, it sure would’ve been nice if they had forewarned me about these long and boring readings.

Before my blog went into flames in a fiery death, I had “promised” in another entry that I would look back at the year of 2006 and highlight some of the events/things/what-nots that I felt was worth mentioning, so here we go.

The below are in no particular order, I am only writing them down as they pop up in my mind. There are several other categories that I would have liked to bring up but have not done so due to the insufficient number of potential candidates.

Greatest Event of 2006
St. Louis trip in August
My brief stay in St. Louis last year was possibly the most fun I’ve had in a long time. While hacking on code in Eclipse for Eclipse gets my blood pumping too, it was just wonderful meeting my high school friends once again face-to-face after not having seen each other for such a long time. We had a lot of things to talk and catch up on and just as much nothingness to have idle chats over. It was just great for me to be in everyone else’s company and I hope those of you that were there and are reading this felt so too. I’d like to thank all those involved for taking time out of your summer schedules to spend it with this Canadian-Chinese.

Worst Event of 2006
St. Louis trip in August
I’ll never forgive myself for directly or indirectly causing Mark to crash his car on the highway. Mark, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone to St. Louis. This wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t get us all together. Maybe I’ll forgive myself some day when I refund Mark for the expenses in some way, shape, or form.

Most Stunning News of 2006
Sun commits to open source with Java
I don’t have the numbers of course, but I think this news really took the technological world by storm. I certainly did not expect the choice of GPLv2 (with or without the linking exception) or any of the licenses from the FSF for that matter, but there you have it. Vista may have been released to OEMs in November as well, but I think that’s hardly as huge of an issue when you consider the impact that this decision has caused to the software development community. Sun Microsystems will forever have its name in history books for what it announced on November 13th of 2006.

Most Stunning Japanese Animation of 2006
BLOOD+
BLOOD+ was arguably one of the most underrated pieces of work in the midst of the higher profile shows last year such as Fate/stay night and the rabid explosion caused by 『涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱』. I think BLOOD+ showed the Japanese animation viewing community (or those that actually bothered to watch it, har har) that modern series were still fully capable of awesomeness despite a perceived decline in quality from some fans these days. Of course, it is important to split ourselves, those that don’t live in Japan, and those that actually do reside in Japan. I don’t know what the animation viewing community in Japan thinks, but the general perception “here” is that shows just aren’t as cool anymore as people reminisce about Cowboy Bebop or Evangelion (well, until 『涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱』 came along).

Getting back to BLOOD+, Production I.G consistently pulled twists left and right whilst slowly unravelling the plot bit by bit, keeping its viewers glued to their television screens. I think episode 32 in particular will be one that will remain in infamy. While BLOOD+’s animation quality faltered at times, the story it told really cannot compare to any other series that I had the pleasure of watching last year. Since resuming the act of watching Japanese animated series on a regular basis about a year ago, BLOOD+ remains the only series that was so exciting that I downloaded raw TV rips with no subtitles just so that I could find out what was going to happen next.

Most Disappointing Japanese Animation of 2006
BLOOD+
Surprise, surprise, what’s this all about? It comes down to its ending, of course, of which I have complained over and over again many times in previous blog posts. Believe me, I’ve tried to convince myself that ending is “okay”…but no, I just can’t get over it, it is not “okay”. It’s one thing to have a predictable ending that’s pretty bland, but it’s another altogether when you gather up the suspicions of the fans and the amazing build-up over its span of the previous forty-nine episodes and then throw out this curveball ending on the last episode that just ruins all the tension. Despite how disappointed I am with the ending to BLOOD+, it will always have a special place in my heart.

Most Disappointing Song of 2006
Emily Curtis - maybe tomorrow~ending medley
I fell in love with this song the first time I heard clips of it being played in one of Xenosaga III’s trailers. I am, after all, a sucker for Yuki Kajiura’s compositions and an even greater sucker for vocal tracks in general. I really believed that this song had the potential of getting ahead of Sweet Song (Xenosaga II Ending Theme) in my list of great video game vocal tracks which also happened to be composed by Kajiura (I think I see a trend here…). Regrettably, the whole medley bit really just didn’t do it for me as I do not personally feel that vocals have any place in a medley piece. They just sound too out of place amidst the epic themes that have been added into the mix.

And there you have it. The regular blogging program will resume in the next post, so until then, it be good bye for now, my dear readers.

I just got an email from Canada’s Extreme Blue staff and they’re looking to schedule a phone interview with me on next Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Apparently, it’s going to be an hour long and will also require the use of an instant messaging client. I’m not too sure as to what that’s all about just yet, but I’m guessing I might need to maybe type out some code onto it…? Or not…because that sounds kind of retarded now that I think about it. Oh well, I’ll find out soon enough.

As someone that lives by a pretty monotonous lifestyle, it’s always surprising to me just how fast time really flies. Going in a constant loop of going to lectures, hacking on code, and watching Japanese animations really rarely brings up the question of just what day of the week or what date of the month today is. It’s rather pitiful, really. I caught sight of the fact that we’re only a week away from this month’s end and decided to mention it because I figured when it really was February I wouldn’t actually notice it and because I’m sure all my readers are just oh-so-very interested in what crap I’ll be producing in this blog post to top the ones I’ve written in the past.

Anyway, looking ahead at this school term, I’m really primarily concerned over ACTSCI 221 and ECON 102. As looks can be deceiving, this 102 course is actually quite the challenge given the way that the course is structured. The first midterm appears to be thirty multiple choice questions with an allocated time of sixty minutes. You just know it’s going to be rough when you’re given two full minutes to pick between five choices.

I don’t remember when I first heard about the “Drop To Frame” feature of Eclipse’s Java debugger, but I certainly don’t recall using it much, if at all, until today. It essentially pops back stuff off of the stack so that you can start debugging right at the entry point of the method. If you click on the preceding method call and click on the “Drop To Frame” button again, you can even go back to that preceding method call! As you can see, this function is useful for those times when you’ve mistakenly set a breakpoint too far down in a method or want to go back and step through a method one more time because you’ve missed something. There are of course scenarios where this isn’t going to work because of the way your object might have been modified over the course of those method calls, but it’s still a handy feature to have at your disposal.

You can find the “Drop To Frame” button to the right of “Step Return” in the “Debug” view.

I finished watching the OVA production of 『ローゼンメイデン』, 『ローゼンメイデン・オーベルテュー』, a little after noon today after I came back from my morning lectures. Thus, I’ve now completed watching all of the anime adaptations that this series has to offer and I have to say that this series is freaking awesome. The only problem I have with this series is the second season’s ending (but I won’t say more than that to prevent dropping hints of whether the ending was rushed, whether it hinted at a third season, or anything else of that nature). So I guess you can say it’s kind of like BLOOD+, without a Kai.

So, in no particular order whatsoever, here are my reasons:

1. Brilliant music
2. Tanaka Rie’s amazing voice acting skills
3. Shinku
4. Character chemistry
5. Humour (watch episode five from season one)
6. Fight scenes
7. Consistent and excellent animation quality
8. Intelligent storyline execution (cliché material does not feel cliché)

A word of caution, it is of utmost importance that the two seasons and the OVA be watched in succession. Watching them out of order will spoil major plot points, so don’t come crying to me saying I didn’t tell you.

Most of my friends knows that I’m a fan of tragedies. This might make me sound like some kind of sadistic person that enjoys watching people suffer, so I guess I should state that what I mean to say is that I like watching emotional shows. Movies like Forrest Gump, and Saving Private Ryan would fall into my category of “emotional shows”.

Anyway, since I’ve filed this under “Anime”, surely, I must be talking about some animation series I’ve been watching recently that’s touched me emotionally. Actually, this isn’t really the case, per se. I was actually clearing up my hard drive in anticipation of backing up the second half of ローゼンメイデン・トロイメント because my brother stopped half way when I stumbled upon my Chrono Crusade folder. Needless to say, I felt compelled to watch the final episode once again since it really touched me when I finished it back in September of last year.

I almost cried. I wanted to, though.

I came close, really. I did one of those “hacking chokes” and it was obvious that the perimeters of my visibility was slightly blurred. I didn’t get this reaction when I watched the ending last year but this time was different…for some odd reason. This is the closest I’ve come to crying in the last couple of years, I’ve had similar reactions from watching movies and other television or Japanese animation series, but nothing enough to bring me down to a “hacking choke”.

This is truly staggering news. Of course, it is, not an official announcement. However, it was leaked prior to Sun’s actual announcement that they were going to use the GPLv2 for Java and it was indeed the case. Still, I find this hard to believe, because…well…you know, the GPLv3 isn’t even out yet, maybe?