Since this new blog’s inception, when it stopped being named ‘Sigil of Hope’, the title banner was not clickable because unlike ‘Sigil of Hope’ that actually had the text there to route the reader back to the main page, I hid the ‘Hantsuki’ text and only used an image instead. Thus, there were no <a> tags to be had. As the image was being rendered by CSS, it was not immediately obvious to me as to how I would go about implementing a hyperlink.

This issue actually bothered me quite a bit but it wasn’t until Sam complained to me directly recently that I decided to investigate the matter a little more. With the help of some googling, I was able to track down an onclick attribute that can be embedded within a <div> tag. You can do the same by embedding onclick="location.href='www.yourblog.com';" style="cursor: pointer;" into your own <div> tag, enjoy!

Well, I finally went ahead and have placed down my order for a ThinkPad T61 notebook. Jen said that she got her notebook from Lenovo within the week’s end. So since I’ve placed this order today on Monday, I suppose that I should be getting my notebook before Friday. More to come then when the notebook is actually in my hands.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll only have two more weeks of work left to go. It’s been a lot of fun and I think that we’ve really made something special here, but it’s also been extremely draining on my part. That statement actually carries a lot of weight when you consider the fact that I’m hacking on code day in and day out minus the occasional break here and there to catch up on some Japanese animation.

The next two weeks are going to be pretty fuzzy as we cram in as many presentations, demos, and conference calls as we can to try and find some interested party that’s willing to route some resources this way to turn our project into a reality. We just had one on Thursday and we’re going to be doing another one on Tuesday. I also believe that we’re going to be presenting to our sponsor on Wednesday. We’ve actually never presented to him nor has he ever seen our demo, it’s actually kind of disturbing. So here’s to hoping that he won’t think that funding this Extreme Blue project was a waste of his budget. ;)

This episode really did little to advance the storyline so I have to say that I was a little bit disappointed. I was hoping that more information would be revealed or some blood would be shed. However, I suppose that since the Watanagashi festival hasn’t even started that it’s only natural for there to still be a bit of some peace of quiet in Hinamizawa. Here’s to hoping that this pacing business is going to all work out at the end of the day when this arc concludes.

Looking at the plot, one has to wonder as to just what exactly is Satoko going to do about the fact that Rika’s going to die in a couple of days. Will Rika’s death be prevented? Will we find out who killed her this arc? I find that to be pretty unlikely since this is a completely original arc so I don’t think they’re going to pull anything that’s really out of the ordinary that’s going to steal the thunder from the last two arcs. One should also consider that the (seemingly) “happy ending” that was presented at the end of “罪滅し編” doesn’t really work out anymore. The viewers all know that there’s some kind of a time loop thing going so unless Keiichi and company figures out the cause, which they definitely won’t in this arc, presenting anything remotely “happy” isn’t really going to fool anyone.

But, when it comes down to it, as long as they keep things interesting for this arc, I don’t really have any qualms as to what exactly happens to the characters, be they dead or alive. And from the look of things, we’re probably not going to get a “useless” arc like “暇潰し編” or something like “祟殺し編”, which really made little sense and would’ve been a pretty crappy arc if not for the murdering scene. So anyway, as long as we steer clear of something around the lines of the two aforementioned karcs, I’m cool with whatever.

It seems that the movie’s soundtrack will also be released on September 21st in conjunction with the movie’s DVD release. I haven’t actually laid down an order for the DVD through Amazon though it seems like I just might have to get on with it given the current circumstances.

Stardust, a novel by famed author Neil Gaiman, will have its movie adaptation premiere tomorrow. I would’ve opted in on watching it tomorrow after work but have chosen not to due to other obligations. Watching it on Saturday has a pro in and of itself since catching a movie before noontime brings the standard student price down from ten dollars to a mere five. I’ve never read the book although I have read Gaiman’s American Gods and Neverwhere, both of which were fine novels, so I presume this shouldn’t disappoint. And when you consider the fact that Gaiman himself is one of the producers, they just can’t possibly screw this up.

I’m typing this blog post inside the ILC (IBM Learning Center) at the moment. It’s pretty much free time for the Canadian teams until the 1530 meet-up of all Extreme Blue teams back at the auditorium. I’m just catching up on emails and CVS updates at the moment. I’m also logged in onto various IM networks and IRC channels, just lurking around.

It’s been pretty uneventful thus far here at the ILC though life’s going to be a lot different when we do our presentations and demos tomorrow. ;)

Alexei’s going to be by with the airport cab at around 0545 to pick me up for our flight to Toronto at 0730. I set my cell phone’s alarm at 0445 and I have to say that I’m pretty awake right now.

And now this is the end of this blog entry since I’m going to shut down and pack this ThinkPad T60p notebook away.

We’ll be having our local expo at IBM Ottawa’s Palladium Lab today. The two Extreme Blue teams from Montreal will be down here with us so there are going to be four teams in total pitching and demoing and answering questions in their own respective rooms. I’ve been told that the other EPIC students also have their own posters as well and I imagine will be talking about what they’ve been working on thus far in their internship. We’ll be leading the first of four pitches, so we’ll be setting the bar for the next three pitches. The bar may be low or it may be high, but at least we can say that we did set the bar for the teams. ;)

All of the work that has gone into our project since the first day on May 14th has finally come to an end, per se. Of course, we’ll still be doing work after the expos, but we’ll be in low gears then for the most part. Anyway, we’ll be doing this local expo today and then an expo in Markham will follow tomorrow in the Toronto Lab along with the other two Toronto teams. After that, we’ll be flying out to New York on Friday and then having a dress rehearsal on Sunday, pitches on the Monday, and the demos on the Tuesday. We’ll then be flying back here on Tuesday night.

So, of course, if you don’t see me on any IM networks or IRC channels, now you know why.