The blog was down for the past couple of days as my VPS host was migrating servers to a new location1. Unfortunately, the rsync from the old server to the new resulted in a not very responsive system. Instead of fighting to get this working, I decided to bite the bullet, purchase one of the current plans the host was offering, and move emails, websites, and database from the latest backups. As a result, I am now running with 4 times the CPU cores, 2 times the disk space, and 50 times the potential network speed of the old VPS2 My emails were also out fo the past few days, but now things should be mostly up and running now. In any case, this was something I was wanting to do for a while anyways, and hopefully the new VPS and setup is faster than the old, but we shall see. 1. And they only told me about it on Thursday... Ok, so they *did* send an email in December warning of this... 2. Though I did go from 12 GB of RAM down to 720 MB, but that was a fluke as the old VPS was only supposed to have 512 MB available.
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The blog was down for the past couple of days as my VPS host was migrating servers to a new location1 My emails were also out fo the past few days, but now things should be mostly up and running now. In any case, this was something I was wanting to do for a while anyways, and hopefully the new VPS and setup is faster than the old, but we shall. 1. And they only told me about it on Thursday... Ok, so they *did* send an email in December warning of this...). Unfortunately, the rsync from the old server to the new resulted in a not very responsive system. Instead of fighting to get this working, I decided to bite the bullet, purchase one of the current plans the host was offering, and move emails, websites, and database from the latest backups. As a result, I am now running with 4 times the CPU cores, 2 times the disk space, and 50 times the potential network speed of the old VPS<fn>Though I did go from 12 GB of RAM down to 720 MB, but that was a fluke as the old VPS was only supposed to have 512 MB available.</fn>
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This was too amusing not to pass up: Shamelessly stolen from the AnimeSuki forums.
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Not dead, though my posting has been that way for a while. Lots of things I would like to talk about eventually1 but I've just been too burned out to do so. Been doing the microblogging thing on Twitter so I can keep some writing up2, though most of that is entered through the iPhone interface. Doesn't help that I had to turn on moderation as some bot/spammer is somehow getting junk comments in through all of the automated anti-spamming systems I've tried, so if you happen to comment and it doesn't show up immediately, that should be why. I do try to check at least once-a-day, though. 1. Including the Popcorn Hour, Ponyo, Kenshin, Coraline, and many anime series I've been watching... 2. And my Twitter feed is also showing the sidebar, if it wasn't obvious...
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So, I was going through my Linux RSS feeds when I stumble on this post of a translation of a "Ubuntu romantic school comedy"... I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both. Printing it out now to read it...
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Being inspired, I ended making a GDM login theme from a 1080p Blu-ray rip of Five Centimeters Per Second: It is designed for my 1920x1200 resolution laptop running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid. Modified it off of this Serial Experiments Lain theme. Source GIMP XCF file is available inside the tar.gz if you want to modify it. It's not the greatest, but it really didn't take much work. I added some sharpening and adjusted the colors and saturation from the source video screenshot, but that's about it. I'll probably make more from the various 5CM screenshots I have. I'll also want to get a few themes based off of The Place Promised in Our Early Days, too.
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I have to add another person to the coolest people in the world list1 list: I have to thank Laz, owner of Cherry Blossoms Falling, for the following2: Laz sent it to me for my work on the Ventrilo chat server I ran for Global Shinkai Day 2009. I still think it was too generous, but how could I refuse? Thank you, Laz. I hope we can pull off a bigger GSD 2010 next yer. This year has been a good one for receiving free stuff. 1. Astro is on there for seeding my Blu-ray collection (which hasn't grown any, yet) 2. Of course, frame not included with the gift. Went out and bought it for the poster. Now to figure out where to hang it...
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I figured this was going to happen last week, but it was only a few days ago that crunchyroll announced that they were going to host Makoto Shinkai's three major works for streaming for free for the 24 hours that Global Shinkai Day will last (Friday (2/27) from 5 pm/PST to Saturday (2/28) 5 pm/PST). So I'm late that even Anime News Network had covered this yesterday, just been a very busy time between work, trying to prepare a few things for GSD, and other responsibilities. There's a group made on crunchyroll for this event. Click here or on the banner below to go to it. Props to Crunchyroll1 for bringing even more attention to an excellent director. What just started as an idea on a fan forum has spread out far beyond what I expected. Hope more of these events can be held. Now hopefully I can get a Yasuhiro Yoshiura Day event going at some point in the future2... 1. Even if they have a pretty dubious reputation, they are at least working with the Japanese companies for distribution now. 2. He might need more significant work out before that happens, but Shinkai did get a "Collection" box set created when he only had 2 major works out!
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At times, I want to do a short post about anime, but going through and creating a blog post seems to be too much effort for me to go through, or I'd want to post some anime-based observation via my iPhone for some reason. So I have setup a Twitter account as NickIstreAnime1 for these purposes. I've resisted Twitter for a long time now due to some aversions to it, but then again, I did sign up on facebook and created a blog after initial reservations about those too.2 As a result, I've added a block of the RSS feed to a the Twitter account which should show the most recent 5 "tweets" on the right sidebar on the front page. I also added a second block which is an RSS pull from my Netflix account, which shows the DVDs I've received from Netflix. Finally, I've finally updated my links to Martin's new(er) blog at Mono no Aware. That has been a long time coming... Sorry Martin! 1. Oh, how original! 2. Hell, I can say the same about the iPhone. I was never planning on getting one, but my previous employer bought it for me... how was I going to refuse that? Now I can't live without it.... grr...
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After watching the first couple of episodes somewhere, I had to get the rest of Moribito to see the rest of it. The series does many things right, from the excellent animation production values1, to the solid storyline and settings, and, most importantly, the excellent characters. Chagum is not your everyday spoiled brat born in royalty kid. But Balsa is the first time I nearly fell in love with an anime character2. She's an excellently realized character, and she's also nearly thirty years old (Which is like, ancient and wise in anime) 3. Yes, Chagum does some growing up through his travels, but he's an amazingly perceptive, intelligent, and charming kid. Balsa also goes through her own changes of perspective. It's quite rare to see an anime where an established adult's character growth is central to the series4. As a result, Moritibo is on my list of "DVDs to get immediately when I get a job". 1. With a very slight drop in quality in the middle episodes. 2. I'd say I hope my girlfriend doesn't read that, but I have to be honest here 3. Actually, she might be thirty by the end of the series, too. 4. Last one I can think of is Monster, which has a 35-year-old neurosurgeon as a protagonist who undergoes a Yoko Nakajima-like transformation as the series progresses.
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Funny the things you see in your referral logs, like what search terms people used to find your site. Though I normally don't publish things like this because it's more of just a curiosity than anything else, but the fact that my blog currently comes up second on Altavista.com for "anime rape" was a bit of a surprise. ThankDamn you, Detroit Metal City! Took a picture for posterity:
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