maybe you could open a video store that sells and rent animes and martial art films? but you'll need to save up abit first, or could try getting a loan..
i'm not sure the states will recognize my certificate since it's local and not known, if i'm from MIT then it'll not be a problem xD but i was thinking of getting MBA first, at least i can do some administration work if i can't find a job in the aerospace field.
Argh, damn i really hate my ISP, it sucks. The whole area around my place is having problems (i asked my friends living nearby). We're paying about 40 USD/month and this is what we get. Anyway sorry about that, just a little rant Dx
I'm majoring in Aerospace Engineering. But this field isn't that well developed in my country so i'll probably become a N.E.E.T. when i can't find job in the end T-T
Actually, what are your interest? I mean, what do you like to do? (hobbies etc)
haha, well it's good to enjoy your work. I used to work part time as a ticket checker for concerts so i get to see bands performing and get paid xD
You have any plans to switch jobs later?
btw, i'm still an undergraduate. I don't work now cause this is my final year and there's quite alot to do Dx
Hehe i always use those fonts in my banners. It's like my signature, along with the rounded rectangles. I always try limit my color pallete to the colors present in the original background.
Anime has a lot of great artwork as it is. I want the text to complement it and be "transparent" as much as possible.
what can he do with just 1 hour/day? i mean.. the work will never get done right? man, i hate selfish people like that, never considering the inconvenience it might cause to other people. Good thing you don't work there anymore :]
so where do you work now?
I just remembered that episode where Sakura had to shoot the lazor gun from that bus at the bikers with lazors. Why did you have to bring this up? Now all of these horrible memories are coming back to me. lol
While I'm here, I forgot something very important.
The music was used very poorly in the second season. While certain songs were introduced during important scenes in the first season and that was the only time they were used, in the second season those same exact songs were used multiple times in different types of situations that didn't fit at all. Remember that song that woman sang at the bar in Outo? Then do you remember how it was used when that woman was fixing the bus in that lazor gun episode? What could they have been thinking when they did that?
In the second season it was like they relied on the music from the first season to make the viewer feel something, and the result was them shoving songs in where they didn't belong. I imagine they thought something along the lines of, "Wow, this music is incredible. If we put it in every other episode then they'll all be incredible!" That's not how you should use music though, and it really hurt the season, like so many other things.
I think I see the problem. You're not passionate about it, yet you're either on here or AN, or watching anime for what seems to be several hours each day. If that's the case, then yes, you should probably find you could really enjoy doing.
Now for that which shall not be named. By the way it's not on your list. lol
*ahem*
1. The characters' voices and personalities were different:
Syaoran's voice and way of speaking went from polite to borderline feminine, and as a result, lost the sense of urgency that you'll see all the way up to episode 26 of the first season. Just go listen to him at the end of the first episode of the first season. That's incredible voice acting. Then listen to him at any point in the second season. It's totally different. This is obviously the second season's fault because he sounds just like he did in the first season in the non-crapified OVA Tokyo revelations. They changed all of the voices back to how they were before, thankfully. Anywho...
Mokona's voice and way of speaking also became very feminine. Not necessarily as a result of that, the sarcastic attitude completely disappeared as well. It was replaced with some mild teasing of Kurogane every now and then.
Fai's voice and way of speaking became slightly more feminine(I mean, look where he started).
Kurogane didn't change at all because...I don't know. They tried and he wouldn't let them? It's possible.
2. The art changed. All of the characters were drawn differently, and I'm not sure how you could have missed this one. Clean art was exchanged for bishiness. Watch out for Fai's hair, it might poke your eyes out. Outside of this change, the art and animation quality fluctuated drastically between episodes, namely the filler and non-filler ones. Aren't you the resident graphics whore? How did you miss this horrible art...
3. The pacing was annihilated because there were far too many filler episodes. All of those single episode world visits killed the sense of continuity of adventuring from one world to the next. I'm the biggest fan of CCS around, but that world with the butterfly? That was horrible. They should have just aired an episode of nice boat for the week instead. 16 out of the 26 episodes were filler, so this poor pacing dominated the season overall.
Every arc in the first season followed a formula:
1. The characters arrive in a world in conflict.
2. The characters establish some kind of "base," either thanks to Yuuko or because they join one side of the conflict.
3. From this "base," the characters move out to accomplish something while sticking together, or split off into groups, build relationships through battles or otherwise touching scenes, do whatever they need to do in that place, and then leave, all being closer to each other and stronger overall, as a group.
In the second season, everyone was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. They didn't move as a group, they didn't act as a group, and they didn't bond and grow as a group. There was very little character development for any of the characters except for Sakura, but that's because she was literally developing from scratch through the feathers. This is a fundamental aspect of every shounen out there. The problem is that this wasn't limited to filler.
The pod racing arc that started the season was a really bad way to start off. Like I mentioned above, the characters were different, and now they're in some futuristic world where instead of fighting, they race cars. One change at a time please. Nothing significant happened in this arc besides the reintroduction of that one person that was working for that guy who's name you're not even supposed to know yet(Fei Wong Reed). After this bizarre arc is over, we get dumped into a whole lot of crappy filler.
Then the second arc starts. This is much more like the first season, except that's not a good thing here. There's this epic war going on, with two incredibly powerful people leading each side, and...no one gets a scratch. There's no blood, no violence, nothing. There's no sense of tension or danger, and that killed this arc. The Outo arc is a good example of how to create an appropriate atmosphere for a situation that was similar to this. The character's did not change during this arc either. Then we got a little bit more filler before we're thrown into the third non-filler arc.
Aside from the last episode of this arc, which is actually filler, it was the best part of the season by far. The characters learned about each other's backstory and motivation, moved as a group, developed, we got to see Fai do his thing, etc. It was good stuff. Then we get, I believe, 11 filler episodes to finish the season.
The last arc was retarded. For starters there weren't even that many feathers to begin with, so I'm not sure why they tried something like that. The introduction of that many feather really hurt the chances of the story continuing in a meaningful way. Secondly the concept a clump of sentient feathers that traveled on its own at that point ruined the storyline, filler or not. Instead of waiting for her to show up to give her a few feathers, they could have travelled on their own, right to her. Then in the end they all just fly away? What? Anyway, it's what got the anime cancelled, along with the season's overall quality.
Regardless of whether or not you and saw a change, these people called CLAMP did, and they told Bee Train to go suck it and cancelled the anime. They passed the torch to Production I.G. and they showed that they could do a slightly better job. The OVA thankfully retconned the last 11 episodes out of the anime's continuity. I don't know if you've seen the OVA or not yet, but if not, you should watch it whenever you get a chance.
Yeah yeah you're the second person to point out the typo in my Nodame Cantabile banner. I guess I'll go fix it now... :P
Thanks for taking the time to check out Gimp. The method you suggested wouldn't be helpful to me until I can export my vector layout into Gimp though, so I'll first need to figure that out.
The "combined" comment means that your .gif is "optimized", as in each progressive layer uses the data from the previous layer to draw the next image. The other option is having each frame as a standalone image.
My method is a lot of work, but I actually like having so much control. I'm basically making several static banners. I can really optimize the file size by deleting repeated frames and playing with the timing to make the animation match the original.
Thanks for the tip. I'll see if The Gimp has a similar feature and if it will work in the animation department. The Gimp treats each layer as an animation frame.
I actually do the text, graphics, and layout work in Inkscape, a vector graphics program. I haven't figured out how I can easily manipulate text in The Gimp. I can spend as much as 20 minutes per banner tweaking the size, colors, and layout of the text. :P
Why does it matter how many different activities you divide your free time into? As long as you're enjoying yourself I don't see what's wrong with just doing one thing.
Since I don't, you know, stalk your profile or anything, you might want to look at your comments in the club and on AN to make sure you haven't missed anything else. I just remembered these ones because we talked about them.
I imagine if I still watched series that quickly, I'd have trouble remembering to add them too. These days I only occasionally watch anime, and then it's just one series at a time so I never have trouble remembering to add things to my list.
mine is an ultra compact, panasonic fx-35. i brought it because i couldn't afford any good dslr and this camera has super wide angle and some interesting features. D40 is definately one of the best camera around. Have you seen D80? also try sony a200, but of coz the price is crazy.
and yea, i had those moments where you see an amazing scenery but just coudn't take a picture of it, that's why i brought one using almost half my savings xD but still, i regreted i didn't get 1 earlier, there are so many things i wished i had taken a picture of
