LIFE ON MARS!

I want to be the first to bring this to you. Life has been discovered on Mars.

No other site will tell you such relevant and important information. Why? Because they lack vision, the kind of vision only growing up in the 80's can bring you.

You see, Link is lost on Mars. I can only theorize as to how this happened, but the valiant yet unfortunate elf boy has apparently had a malfunction of his flute, and is now wandering Mars endlessly trying to find his way home.

Dont believe me huh? I'm not supprized, it is incredible. But I have visual evidence!
Link1
And not just one, but two!
Link2

I was unable to reach Nintendo for a response, mostly because my Japanese sucks and I didnt try. (but mostly the first)

This irrefutable evidence comes from NASA itself. Just look at the URL in your browser for proof. I hereby swear under oath to your god that this is factual, and once again remember, you heard it here first.

Links of the day!

THIS is the greatest LOTD I have ever posted.
A poem that all too acurately explains my life
How cool is this? All you germophobes will love this

Nihon no hon wo yonda, yatta!

Today I am happy. I finished my book.

Now, me actually FINISHING a book (as opposed to starting) is an accomplishment in itself, usually I read about 1/5th to 1/3rd and get bored with it, but this book is special.

Its my first book in Japanese. ^^
Ok, its not a BOOK like er- Stephen King or Charles Dickens,(thx KoshNaranek for solving my brain fart on authors names) but its not See Spot Run either. Its a manga, a Japanese comic for the un-initiated, this particular one is Full Metal Alchemist #1.

It has furigana (pronunciation notes next to the kanji for kids and foreigners like me) and thru using my dictionary as sparingly as possible, and also knowing a fair amount of the story from watching the English dubbed anime on TV, I would say I understood about 70% of it.

Which is fine with me, I do hope that number grows.

At first it was slow going. I'm a slow reader even in English (high comprehension rate compensates for it) but even tho I study Japanese a lot, real world usage opportunities for me are quite low. It had lots of non-commonly used language (the story line is somewhat fantastic, having to do with Alchemy) but I trudged thru it.

Last night, I read an entire chapter (~40 pages) before bed, then woke up and read the last chapter (about the same) this morning. I can see my reading speed, accuracy and recognition increase already, so its quite fun.

On the other hand, I know I've said this before, but I really really really really really (etc etc) cant speak a friggin word of Japanese anymore. I get tongue tied and lost with the simplest things.

I think its a self inflicted curse, because I used to joke that I would rather be able to ask the cute girl what the sign said and understand her answer than learn 2000 kanji. But really, I have no chance to speak Japanese commonly, and the rare occasions it comes up I am WAY shy about it, even in class. There's no Japanese 4 next semester, so I will probably take the conversation class instead and work thru it, or get a private tutor.

For now I'm happy to be reading ^_^

On another note, the blog changed styles again, firefox and IE display the scrollbars different, but both do it well, and I like the look. Hope you do too, because if not, you'll be stuck with it for awhile.

Links of the day!

The perfect case If my friend Adam had an Ipod
Eliminating data securely This site is full of cool things I don't understand
Learn Khmer Long story short, I use ICQ and LONG time ago changed my details and picked funny sounding languages and claimed I spoke them. Literally 4 years later, I get tons of messages from people who can speak them who want to add me (its an Indonesian language I believe, but most people were from Canada for some reason) anyway, expand your horizons!

Douglas!

Blogs been rather heavy lately, so on a lighter note....


Meet Douglas, the newest extended member of the family. Dougie (not like Howser..) for short, which sometimes morphs to Doggie (how creative eh? calling a dog doggie) he's a full sized Basset hound that my brother got a few days ago from a breeder, and we all think he doesn't realize just how big this dogs gonna get...


Here he is in his natural state. Apparently this is the height of activity for him. Of course, he's only 12 weeks old, and human babies sleep a lot too.


Here he is with his owner, my brother. (The original Mr Excitement)


Then it was time for him to go... He actually cried as he left, think he likes our house better than the bachelor pad he lives in.

On another note, I'm in pain today, got my ass kicked when I bumped the cabinet next to my door last nite and had a speaker fall about 4 ft directly into my chest broadside. Guess I'm lucky it didn't hit me on the head or land with a corner first... but it feels like my lung is bruised.

Links of the day!

The local bar Not goin there anymore...
Perpendicular People at Hitachi should REALLY have something better to do.
Quit whining It's funny.

Farewell to a friend

The Pope died today.

I take nothing back from my previous blog. Because its the truth, at least as Ive heard and precieved it, and thats all we have to go on in this life.

He was a great man. He went into the world far more than any other previous Pope, but its also true that he had more opertunity to do so than any other Pope.

But thats not the friend I am mourning.

A little over 4 years ago, Im not sure when, I first attempted to use IRC. I went to aniverse. the first few days on #lovehinaparty, where I met someone (unbenounced to me, an ircop) that helped me learn the ropes. Then I forgot the chan I was in, and found #mae. From there, I met friends, I watched the inception of a chan called #RG where 'we hate you, now go away' I found more friends, and overtime, I ended up in #catgirls.

Aniverse is my home on irc. Its the place I first joined, and the place I fought to keep. I watched it grow from a nothing server to one of the top ten irc servers in the world. It was a beautiful thing.

However, the fact they only have one server, no matter how powerful it is, overtime proved its weekness, as they have been subjected to attack after attack by the idiot 12 yr old script kiddies who cant get laid. This proved its downfall.

Two major DDOS attacks made most of the larger channels leave for other networks. Still, I was reluctant to go. I had found other chanels on other servers that I liked, but aniverse was always my home.

I have watched #catgirls slowly die over the months. Pretending it wasnt happening. Slowly we lost people, without any new life comming in.

Finally, I decuded it was time to go. I will still always be on aniverse. My friends in #rg are still there. but I will probably spend most of my time on rizon now, where #catgirls has moved.

I already miss my good friend.

If you want a great irc network, full of good people (not always friendly to newbie/idiots) aniverse is a great place to go. You will meet many good people there. And I will be there too. But for now, the majority of me has moved, and its sad.

Links of the day!

IRC leeching If irc interests you as a place to get files, read this. But if all you do is leech, youre missing out.
Aniverse www they have a great web server too.
Wow I have got to start waking up early and watching tv

The Pope is a hypocrite

Since I had two people complain about my last post, and I didnt even know two people read my blog, Ill fan the flames.

Ok, now I have nothing against the Pope, the news is full of his long list of humanitarian and spiritual conquests and I applaud him for each and every one of them.

That doesnt mean he cant be a hypocrite tho.
You see, durring the whole Terri saga, the Pope called the people starving her murderers. He even said (and god (tho hes probably on the Popes side huh) I wish I could find the link) that if HE was in that situation, he NEVER wants the tube removed.

Now aside from the fun philisopical concepts of this, mainly that the only way the pope can stop being pope is to actively abdicate the er.. popistry meaning a vegtable living for 15+ years would have a feeding tube in and be Pope...

It also means if hes gonna call people murders and state something so outrageous, and the oppertunity comes up JUST A DAY LATER- he better live it.

He's dying, he knows it, everybody knows it. Even the Italian media prematurely killed him today, but hes close to Jesus and its near Easter so on the third hour he rose again.

But he dosent want to go to the hospital, (can you hear my impression of a small whiny child there?) you know, that place that HAS ALL THE TUBES. Nope, he wants to sit at home and wait to die. And no the situations ARENT the same, because the POPE can still make his own decisions, which is what makes him a hypocrite.

And hes welcome to. Its a right anyone should have. But when you say one thing and live another, thats hypocricy. (Seriously, look it up.)

Heres hoping Cara doesnt kill me.

Links of the day!

MMM Darkside... If theyre going to turn everything into nothing but mass marketing, at least lets make it this good and creative.
Clocky! Id say I really need one of these, but I really dont. If it runs away I can ignore it easier.
Blair Witch This is a website for the town that was featured in the movie (apparently, I never saw it) their horrible web page reminds me of the good old days of the web.