My Archives: January 2003
Monday, January 27, 2003
Song: All the Things She Said, T.A.T.U.
Ok this song (All the Things She Said by T.A.T.U.) was found during a Yearbook meeting after school, and it was pretty funny how it came up. We usually have music while doing our Yearbook stuff, so we all go to yahoo's music thingy (I forgot what it was called) and they have live music videos, so I utilize the superfast T1 connection there to watch all the vids. XP Well, I finished Michelle Branch's All You Wanted and this song came on (the songs rotate randomly). I liked it instantly, and was soon singing along with it. xP I looked over once in a while to catch a few scenes of the music video, and at one point I was arching an eyebrow, because it had a girl (probably T.A.T.U.) kissing another girl. I quickly glanced around but luckily no one else noticed. They'd probably have a fit if they found homosexuality in school. *rolls eyes* Anyway, this song is very catchy and sweet, and the music video's really nice too, if you don't mind homosexuality every once in a while. I think I'll look up T.A.T.U. and see who she is. She seems to be very popular too, I searched for that song on WinMX and 500+ results appeared. O.o;Good lord I hate DSL users. *smacks* I was downloading on WinMX and it's been 15 minutes and the download is about half way done. I look down to see that someone else was downloading my Witch Hunter Robin Opening so I was like ok *goes back to multi-tasking* I switch back literally 2 seconds later and my slow-arse download was still at 50%...however the person downloading WHR opening was already at 53%! I glance over at the speed of the person's connection and see DSL. =.= *stabs/kicks* xPPPP I hate my ultra-slow 56K.
What a spiffy layout Iris has over there. And she's *finally* back although we all know what she had been doing *coughcough* xP But really, I could relate to AP US History being freakin' hard. The semester final wasn't that bad, I managed to get a B, but hell, I failed every_single_test in that course and still managed to get a B (don't ask me how o.O). The DBQs aren't that bad, I just hate memorizing, like Fiona. History is all about memorization, and I suck at it. My memory is only good for remembering useless things, like the house number of the party we went to a week ago. ._.
My third and final attempt at enabling a hotlink code for aiNET has failed again. =.= I got a similar but different (does that make sense?) code from Lissaexplains and tried that overnight. This morning I went to my blog and all of the images were broken. -.- I don't think it has anything to do with how the code is setup, I think there's a glitch in Cyberpixels. x.x Right now I'll leave the hotlink code disabled, I hope no one tries to direct link, otherwise I shall seriously kick arses. O.o I'll probably e-mail Cyberpixels about this later on, when things settle down and there're no viruses attacking all the servers. They've probably got enough things on their hands right now.
I've been practicing CGing all afternoon, and boy, it sucks. It's not so much that I don't a tablet, but it sucks that I can't shade if my life depended on it. Grr *kicks* I was already straining my eyes while CGing Minako's clothes, then I looked at her hair and went: "ye~ah, right," and closed Photoshop. _-_ I guess I didn't really finish the sketch first of all, so I don't have any detail lines for her hair so it's even harder to shade. I'll have to draw the lines in using my mouse later. x.X The problem with CGing is that it's time consuming, and I rarely have 6 straight hours to spend CGing. Usually a sketch doesn't take me more than 1 or 2 hours. Eh, oh well. My scanner's broken right now anyway, so I can't scan. ~.~ I want to do a CG layout for DtD, and I didn't want to ask for others' artwork. It's not really my style to ask for a favor xP
And I'm not even suppose to be online. Feck.
Posted by Trinity @ 06:17 PM CST [Link] [x?]
Saturday, January 25, 2003
Song: White Destiny, Pretear
I don't think anything annoys me more than not getting what I paid for. (ok maybe there are some other things that annoy me just as much, but this is certainly one of the tops) Cyberpixels has been down since the night of January 24th, that's including ALL servers, as well as their own webpage. I checked several of my friends' domains, all of whom I knew had Cyberpixels for hosting. None of them were up, so this is definitely not just my domain. I've noticed small down times for my domain since I signed up with Cyberpixels. They weren't anything big, about 10 to 15 minutes and they weren't too frequent, so I didn't mind much. But if all the servers were down, and they have no backup generators, and even their own webpage is down, you can't blame me for becoming suspicious. O.o At approximately 3:40pm today, they're back up, and it seems they've been hit by a virus, which worms into servers. More info here. From their explanation, I take back most of my blame, because various other hosting companies have also experienced this virus. But, various other webhosting companies haven't, such as Hostrocket and iPowerWeb. I've heard from numerous people that Cyberpixels was very good, and from what I've seen, they haven't gotten a lower grade than an A- on a review. So I figured they were pretty reliable. Since they are the first hosting company I've gone with, I can't compare them to any others, but I'm willing to bet Hostrocket is better at reliability, because they haven't been down very much at all from what I've heard from Nahi-chan, and she's on practically 24/7. xP I'm already thinking of switching to Hostrocket in September when the hosting expires, now I'm about 99.9% sure I'm going to switch. Although, I just found out about iPowerWeb from Annie, and their only plan looks so good! o.o I haven't heard anything about their reputation though, so I'm a little reluctant to go with them.Then there's Hostradius, run by Shi and Zed, created after Shi left Cyberpixels (I've been hearing that Cyberpixels has gone downhill since Shi left). I've heard some very nice things about hostradius, and they do have pretty good plans, so when I purchase hosting for asylum*nu later this year, I'll most likely get hosting at Hostradius. I have until December to see how good Hostradius really is. I also have until September to see how Cyberpixels will hold up. Eh, that's the update. x.x While we're on this topic though, what do you guys think? Should I go with iPowerWeb, Hostrocket, Hostradius or stay with Cyberpixels? Dodo's board provides some recommendations, good hosts vs. bad hosts.
Posted by Trinity @ 02:52 PM CST [Link] [x8]
Thursday, January 23, 2003
Song: Owari Nai Yume, Aikawa Nanase (Inuyasha)
Gah. I really, truely need to rant and vent my heart out about something that has to do with elitism, but I can't. There are times like these where I'm thinking a private livejournal might actually prove useful. But I have a hard time keeping up with this blog to begin with. xP Anyway, I will vent about something else that I've come across.I went through a site recently and was quite impressed with both the webmistress's designs skills and also with her amount of content. I went to her guestbook and left a message, then scrolled through to read some other messages that viewers have left. What I found were harsh, unreasonable criticism among the many compliments. Some said the design alternated way too much, some said this and that were annoying, some said the navigation was bad. First of all, she has a low graphics version. Secondly, I don't believe "back" buttons are necessary when the *entire* site navigation is on every page and clicking on the links would direct you back anyway. Plus, what is so awful about hitting the "Back" button on your browser that you just *have* to click on the 'back' link that the webmaster provides?? There's navigation throughout the whole site on the sidebar anyway! ARGH.
Honestly speaking, I have not come across a perfect site in my years of surfing and being online. Why? There's no such thing. You cannot create a site to please everyone. If people like your site, they leave pleasing messages and encouragements. If people don't like your site (and they're mature), they usually just leave. That's why there are rarely any negative gbook messages. If any, they're from flamers or idiotic people. Here is one example. Lets say you don't want to be dull, so you create varying layouts for each section of your site. Then you get feedback that it takes too long to load, it gets annoying, etc. etc. etc. So you revert to one layout for all the sections. Now you get feedback such as: there's not enough variety to keep me interested, the layout gets tedious after staring at it from page to page, etc. Another example: If your site is all information and no media, you will get people complaining about not having anything fun to do or pretty images to stare at. If your site is all media with no information, you will get people complaining that your site needs to have informative content as well. (Viewers like me >D) This is assuming your media site isn't an image gallery but a character or series shrine.
See my point? You can't please everyone, and that's ok. It's not your goal to please everyone. (It shouldn't be) You make a site because you enjoy it, because you love a series or a book or a TV show. You don't do it to please everyone, and your main goal shouldn't be to get hits. To me, what makes a site *really* unique is opinions, insightful essays or articles as well as informative content to explain something to others that have yet to see the series your site is on. Multimedia and all that isn't that important to me, but that's just me. XD Everyone has different opinions of what makes a good website, that is why there's no perfect site. Having a perfect site would be boring as well, wouldn't it? xD If every site were a perfect site, where would the variety be? My sites are far from perfect, and I'm glad they're not perfect, because I try to be unique and have variety in my sites. I try to improve on them from what viewers have said, but I'm not going to add a free graphics section to a site just because someone wanted the site to offer free blog layouts.
A lot of people seem to be looking for perfect sites. They complain, "you don't have this, make this!" "You need more of that, and this is really annoying, get rid of it." Honestly, what's your point? You're not trying help improve the site, you're annoying the webmaster and even possibly pushing them towards shutting down the site because of all the negative feedback. Why go and do that? You can't have everything. Webmasters don't spend all day trying to please everyone. They do what they like, and if you don't like the spectacular creations they've made, feel free to leave. If you don't like how a site is presented, go make your own. Fellow webmasters know firsthand how frustrating it can be to have people nagging about doing this and that all the time. Constructive criticism is fine, most webmasters look for ways to improve and are open to new ideas and new perspectives. But when you blurt outright that "these layouts take too long to load" and there's obviously a "low graphics" version alternative, that's not criticism. That's a blatant disregard of a webmaster's hard work through rude, unthoughtful, and completely unnecessary whining.
Everything from internet etiquette to this rant has to do with respect. Yet people lack respect. =.=
On other notes, I think Bel's latest entry on elitism has got to be one of the most insightful rants I've come across, so I direct everyone over to read and raise her hits XP Also, Fiona brings up some VERY VERY good points about pluggage and the layout loading issue. I can't believe I didn't find her blog sooner. *kicks self*
Oh, and Tomato forgot to tell me it's her birthday today (until today, of course xD), so the result is that she will get a severe cyber-beating from me later. *cough* XD *huggles* HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Pffftt...I knew I was forgetting something. I promised Jay I'd do this but I keep forgetting, so here's a plug to his Feck Elitism webring, join if you dislike elitism, change "feck" to "f*ck" if you feel strongly against it, like me. XP
Posted by Trinity @ 02:27 PM CST [Link] [x6]
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Song: Anti-Nostalgic, Kotani Kinya (Gravitation)
Anti-nostalgic is the one of the best Gravi slow songs. I downloaded it a couple of days ago after many trials before. It's so soothing and relaxing. *falls in love with it* Kotani Kinya is so unbelieveably talented. XDGot this from Europa: YES! The 5th Harry Potter book is due out in June...that's so damn far away. I want to read it now. xP
Mizuno's birthday was the 16th and I totally missed it O.o So Happy Birthday Mizuno! I hate it when I miss my friends' birthdays, it makes me feel so bad inside. Please, if your birthday's soon, announce it so I know! Like how Ko is doing the countdown. xD Birthdays are extra-special, and should be shared with friends, right? Otherwise you're going to make me feel very bad. xP I have a tendency to feel bad whenever I feel like I did something wrong or missed something important.
I finished Yami no Matsuei today. It's such a freakin' awesome series. <3 <3 There was much less shounen-ai than I had anticipated xP although the few hints were very strong and the scenes intense. The last Arc really heats up things, and the story revolves mostly around Tsuzuki. The poor guy, such a horrible past. I urge you all to go out and get YnM! XD It's being released in the U.S. under "Descendants of Darkness" which is a pretty direct translation. I think what attracted me to it initially was the artwork. I'm a huge sucker for good artwork when it comes to anime. Then I found out it was shounen-ai! Could it get better, yes. The plot was unique, so I dug it out and saw for myself. Pity it's only 13 episodes. x.x Still, I place YnM behind Gravi. Gravi is hilarious, has good music, lots of bishies and what not. YnM is pretty much the same, but with a much more serious note and lots and lots of angst, especially towards the end. >D *is reminded of X/1999* Although I like both humor and angst, I'd vote for humor over angst. I've started making a wishlist, staying true to my new years resolution, and almost all of the items are related to Gravitation. Honestly, when I get a chance to go to a convention (hopefully later this year or next year) I'm going straight to the dealer's room and drown myself in Gravi heaven.
What's more, the Gravi manga is now being licensed by Tokyopop and I for one do not like it. Tokyopop has screwed up more than a few decent manga, although some others are alright. I hope Gravi doesn't end up being one of those screwed up manga.
Thanks Ying for the info on Photoshop slicing :3 She's got a beautiful singing voice as well, it astounds me. *.*
Other updates: New layouts @ Subdomain-ated, Host Panic, Recollection, and here, of course (covergirl: Zhang Zi Yi). Those first 3 layouts haven't been changed for about half a year now. I was productive this weekend. Fwee. xP
Oh yes, if anyone views the latest layout and sees nothing but broken images, please holler so I know something's wrong. ^^; My hotlink protection seems to be backfiring at times. O.o;
Posted by Trinity @ 06:47 PM CST [Link] [x11]
Sunday, January 19, 2003
Song: Clocks, Coldplay
Ok, I finally semi-understand why newbies on the net seem to have a tendency to direct link. They actually teach it in school and textbooks. I'm taking an intro to web design course at the moment (yes, it's boring me to death but I get to sneak online) and I was going through the book as usual, doing the required exercises. Well, lo and behold, one of the exercises goes, "this exercise will show you how to link from an online server." I talked to my teacher today, and he said "who cares? It'll probably give them traffic." WTF?.....I told him it'll eat up the site's bandwidth, and he just laughed it off. There is something seriously wrong with the world these days. O.oAlright, my daily rant of the day. This time it's a special, special treat. xD I've listed mostly all of my internet peeves and ranted about them. Oh the glory. xP Beware of occasional coarse language as well, mostly #07. :3 I think I rambled too much on the elitist issue. *sneakers* xP
Oh yes, and for all you Photoshop experts (I know there are definitely plenty), please let me know how you slice in Imageready and export it as GIFs when it's saved as a .psd file O.O I couldn't figure it out. -.-;
Posted by Trinity @ 09:52 PM CST [Link] [x9]
Thursday, January 16, 2003
Song: Rainy Days Never Stays, The Brilliant Green
I LIIIIIIIIIIVE! *rises up like Moo-shou from Mulan* xD
Ok, to make the long story short, I had about 20 hours left of internet time till the 16th, so I really couldn't stay online for long. If I were online, it was only for a few seconds. But anyway, now I'm fine. xD I know you missed me, did you not? ^.~I've been listening to The Brilliant Green and Coco Lee for the past few days. "Rainy Days Never Stays" is so pretty, it's an awesome song. :D And ever since Sakuya sent me "So Crazy" by Coco Lee, I've been downloading more of her songs. So Crazy is very catchy, English and Mandarin mixed. :3 I actually like her pop-ish music xD I've found out that Chinese rap is so hard the ears (really, the language is not meant for rap). x_x And they cannot make good music videos to save their lives. O_O Some things are just not meant to be done. xD Coco Lee can speak about 5 different languages and dialects o.o (Cantonese, Taiwanese, Mandarin, French, English) I was in awe. People can be extordinary. :D
Maddie's (really old x.x I'm so late) entry about being confused with herself and her future really touched me. :) I was confused with what role I was suppose to play in life. But that was then, and this is now. (forgive my puns) :3 I know where I'm headed, what college I want to go to and such. So presently I have no major worries.
Since I couldn't go online much during the weekend, I busied myself revamping my Minako/Venus shrine. That shrine is l *long* overdue for a revamp. I'm just extremely lazy and negligent. O.o I realized while doing my layout archive that I haven't had a new layout at that shrine for 2 years. 2 years! Holy son of a crapping lizard. ._. But I hope this made up for it, since I have varying layouts for all of my sections and subsections now, enough to keep your computer's memory running a bit. XD I left each subsection having the same layout though, otherwise it'll be too taxing on 56K and under comps (Poor Ka, it must suck to have a 28K =.=). So run along and have a look at all my hard work! (that rhymed...)
Lord lord oh my dear lord Meredith's Yami no Matsuei shrine is finally up! *throws confetti* My dear I have been waiting for that shrine since...er..since I knew you were doing one! *suppresses amount of drool on keyboard* I spent the majority of my online time Friday staring at all her pretty layouts. Tas, I hope you're reading this. xD She also updated WindschaserCOM. *hearts* and wow...WTF?!? I'm so easily jealoused, (a word??) I mean, the previous Ayame layout was gorgeous, but this new one just left me in awe. O.O And look! Zita-babe's back! *smushes* xP I'm also in awe of her lovely new layout, *enviousenvious of artistic talent* Ouh, and look at Ariel's new domain, seems like a Duo x Heero fanfiction shrine with some general yaoi info. ^o^ I miss Furura ;_; I had a hard time having a social life with my studies in Asia (aharhar, believe it or not I have one now XD), but I hope she's doing well with her studies over there. ^o^
Last but not least, a huge thank you to everyone who commented on asylum.nu! I shall plug everyone on the next entry, since I'm running out of time now. :D I usually don't plug this much, I don't like to bore people with social plugs ._. I missed everyone and it's only been a week and a half. Chats with you, you, you, and
youhave made me realize that I am nowhere near having sanity. I'll scrunge around now and find a "how insane are you" test to find out just how much sanity I have. O.o
One more thing...anyone care to recommend some good places to get winamp skins? I've tried winamp.com and got 13 results. O.o I remember having seen more there a while ago...*shrugs* I have a feeling that the one I currently have won't go over well with my parents...(Shuichi holding Yuki's head *cough*)Posted by Trinity @ 12:49 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, January 7, 2003
Trin will not be blogging or online from now until the 16th of January, due to internet complications.
Posted by Trinity @ 05:23 PM CST [Link]
Saturday, January 4, 2003
Song: Love Tropicana, Sister Mayo
This is the funniest song! *laughs* It's a great song to dance to xP So catchy! This is one of the catchy kidlike songs that I actually like. It's so amusing to listen to. xD The theme song for Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, an absolutely *hilarious* and adorable anime. :DDDSorry for not blogging for the last couple of days. x_x I have a good reason I swear! :P
Clickie! I am proud to announce my newest creation *bows humbly* (Like anyone's reading this over the big text above) *cackles* xD The guestbook is currently leading to Ainoyume.net's gbook, because for some reason it keeps giving me a 500 Internal error even though I did everything right. x.x Hopefully I'll get it fixed some time soon.
My dad's told me I have to start using my laptop more instead of the family's computer, to download all of my programs there and "screw around there" instead of on his computer. ;_; We'll see the outcome of this soon...<.<
Posted by Trinity @ 02:25 PM CST [Link]
Wednesday, January 1, 2003
Song: Beauty and the Beast (Pop remix), Jump 5
Woohoo! First entry of the new year! 2003 shall rock my socks XDDDD My graduating year as well the Year of the Sheep (daddy dearest's year). Lets see, what did I spend the last night of 2002 doing...well, my 2 best buddies ('ph33r the XDs' xDDDD) were on so we had fun. xD Jay's tagboard suddenly became ultra-popular in less than an hour, I was refreshing the board every 2 seconds and there would be 5 new entries. xP There was also talk of his upcoming non-elite clique, which I believe should be called "Fuck Elitism." xD The sound really flows. :3 (oy) Tas literally spent an hour trying to decide which code button to use for the X fanlisting she joined. *cackles* Upon handing the extremely difficult task to me, I managed to narrow it down to two. However, I COULD NOT DECIDE between Subaru or Seiishirou! *cries* Anyone who has seen/read/heard about X or even Tokyo Babylon will justify this. You honestly cannot have Subaru without Seiishirou accompanying, and vise versa. *nudges Belinda* Honestly, I'm one of the biggest SxS fans, although I don't reveal it much. ^.~ All that taunting/stalking Tas for SxS fanfics is just a habit. xP Anyway, Tas ended up deciding to make the two buttons into an animated GIF so it rotates! The brilliance! The genius! *applauds* While that was going on, Tas was also sending me random Yami no Matsuei images (YAY!) so I can stock up on those much needed images that I'm lacking. I realized I only had 4 images of Yami no Matsuei in my folders, so of course I had to get some more fast. :D The more images I saw, the more I wanted the rest of the anime. =_= *only has episodes 1-7* Yup, to sum it up, the majority of the latter part of my New Years Eve was spent staring at gorgeous Yami no Matsuei images and trying to pick which X icon to use. *cackles* How lovely.With any luck, I'll be getting Witch Hunter Robin, s.CRY.ed, Yami no Matsuei and Full Moon by January! *pleading look at Tas* I am absolutely obsessed with the former 3 anime at the moment. *_* It's all Shiori's fault I tell you! Full Moon however, I haven't heard much of. I've visited Flipper's Full Moon site a couple of times and read up on it and seen a couple of layouts. From what I gather, the plot is supposed to rock. The art is nearly identical to Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Time Stranger Kyoko, and as much as I love the artwork, I must say it's no fun seeing the same exact design on different anime. @.@ It's hard enough to distinguish between KKJ and TSK already. I mean, you can always tell CLAMP's artwork from other artists, but even they have slightly different designs for each anime/manga they produce. CCS, MKR and X manga are definitly CLAMP creations, but the more recent ones, such as Angelic Layer, the art is quite different.
She has some of the most unique designs I've seen in a while. *envious* *laughs* If you and I live anywhere near each other, you can trade Cowboy Bebop for either X or Gravi! XD I haven't seen all the good 'ol traditional anime, i.e. Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Fushigi Yuugi, to make a few. Heck, I haven't even seen all of CCS. Most of it yes, but not all. Sheesh, and Belinda loves Savage Garden too. o_o I used to be a rabid fan of them, but the rabidness has died down after a while. xD I do have their first CD however, I listen to it every now and then. :3
I found a host for my portfolio! *dances* I was trying to get my .nu domain to forward to the host on New Year's Eve as well...it didn't seem to work. O.o;
