More missed Momoi merchandise

So, the DreamParty concert at YLMA went off without a hitch. I am currently searching all over to look for any pictures that may or may not exist. Nakid decided to pull an insane amount of goods out of their ass on short notice at the last moment, which I believe you can only buy from the event stands and had I known about these I'd have paid off Yuta to go buy me some crap beforehand. Why won't they wide-release? Oh god I wanted those lights and that shirt so bad.

I did manage to find the Live EX CD on P2P though, and it is pretty awesome. Now if only a respectable company that ships overseas would stock it.

Posted by Paranda at 7:47 PM | Comments (0)

LOTR Marathon

Time to advertise my favorite DVD website ever, Deep Discount DVD.

Yesterday, my LOTR box set arrived, and of course I set out to challenge the famous LOTR marathon attempted by nerds worldwide. Extended edition. Armed with huge buckets of buffalo wings and other snacks, my brother and I started with Fellowship at 10PM and carried on through the night. We went through all three films and appendixes. The experience can only be described as exhausting yet somehow extremely rewarding. One great thing about doing this though is you start noticing a lot more detail connecting the films together. I have now developed an intense hatred for Frodo's incompetence that I had never noticed before, and Sam is like the best most incorruptible invicible character ever. Gandalf was also nerfed in RotK when we saw his ass get kicked by the witch king. Jeez, that extra scene completely screws up the later battle..as there is NO WAY Eowyn could have taken down someone nearly as strong as the witch king.

Special thanks to Deep Discount DVD, with their dirt cheap prices made even CHEAPER by their special summer sale. 20% off entire cart. Use USWEEKLY as the coupon code. I got this box for 60 frigging bucks and free shipping. If you are considering purchasing the box set and running a marathon of your own, I strongly recommend buying through them.

http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=NLD007347

Posted by Paranda at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

Random Momoi Haruko News

It's been a while since I've updated on Halko happenings this month, so let's get started with a few items today. For the month of June...

Item 1: Momoi's website seems to be getting a design overhaul. If my understanding isn't completely off, the new version will be hosted on a different server (under the same domain name), and boasts her own handwritten HTML. Please correct me on this if I am wrong. Right now the page is a temporary placeholder. It's really cute how she is just ditching the old blog software and editing the news entries manually. Momoi also has a thing for hit counters, and even the makeshift temporary placeholder site does not disappoint in this. I guess that really just shows her old school style. In the 90's, everyone absolutely had to have a hit counter on their site. I remember doing the exact same thing with all my early geocities pages. The original website can still be found here, but is no longer maintained. For even earlier Momoi pages, you can use the Wayback machine.

Item 2: DreamParty OSAKA 2005 Spring concert is coming up in only 3 days. Initially, I always wrote off Dreamparty concerts as minor events, but after seeing some shots of DreamParty in Tokyo back in May, I've changed my mind. The events appear to be VERY Halko-centric. I am really looking forward to seeing pictures from this one, and still waiting for the DVD of the last concert. She always chooses the best outfits and sings in such a great voice. When other girls wear net like that, they look hideous. When Halko wears net, it's wholly different. Once again there is the magic. As robot touch from SA so accurately puts it, "The strange paradox is that, although I'm utterly retarded for Momoi's voice and how adorable it is, if some random girl in a shop or on the street started talking that way, I would punch her right in the neck. Right in it. Nobody has an excuse to talk that way."

DreamParty EX Shot:

Stolen from geek

Item 3: It looks like they will be making another season of Ragnarok. Hopefully, we can see Momoi reprise her role of Maya. They BETTER include Maya. Clearly her relationship with Alice and that other half demon were the most interesting and strongest parts of the entire season. The other characters were all horribly weak. Roan was basically a dick, Iruga was so emo, and Yuufa had a massive and decidedly creepy oniisan complex. Maya made the show worth watching, although I may be biased.

Posted by Paranda at 10:53 PM | Comments (1)

Not all clowns are bad

Not this one at least.

The previews at the end of Yakitate 30 have my mouth watering. This is the beginning of a new story arc so I suggest if you were thinking about starting Yakitate, now is the time to do it. I personally enjoy this arc way more anyway...and all thanks to this clown.

Posted by Paranda at 9:52 AM | Comments (0)

Angelrabbie PV finally in hand.

After noticing a rather large spike in bandwidth usage this month, I decided to go check out the logs. Apparently, a particular site had been hotlinking my Koi no Milkyway PV videos. Although I would usually throw fits about hotlinking and such, when we are dealing with Halko my hostility towards these kinds of practices are overridden by curiosity and satisfaction (plus he was even nice enough to link back to me. Thanks guy); that another site exists that would host or even leech remotely UNDER17-related content..the more the better, and I chalked it up as another victory for the Halko fanclub. Yes, I realize I sound like a huge faggot.

Anyway, it turns out this was the best thing that could ever happen to me because today I followed the link and BEHOLD: Direct download of Tenbatsu Angel Rabbie PV (ZOMG SO HOT)! This particular one had escaped my eye in both Winny and Share, and now that I have obtained it my day has been made. I'd like to say once again, "Thanks Somdan you are pretty awesome."

http://ncity.net/~somdan/tt/index.php?page=1

Posted by Paranda at 11:36 PM | Comments (3)

Melon bread is pretty good.

Actually it's really good; so good that I could probably eat it every day for the rest of my life, and that's what I was doing until I was cut off from my supply in NYC after school ended. Back home in Paramus, generic sub-urb #34626531, there aren't any bakeries..no interesting ones anyway, and I needed to feed my addiction. So, today when I slipped out from work and headed to NYU to get my registration sorted out, I made a side trip to M2M (Asian Supermarket/Bakery on 3rd Ave. They also have neat curry bread) and cleaned out their entire melon bread stock. At last I have my bread.

If you haven't tried it, you don't know what you're missing. Once you start though, don't get too attached to your teeth, because they're as good as gone. This thing is a sweet roll, topped with a flaky sugar crust, and filled with sweet paste. The name comes from the distinct melon pattern on this outer crust, although it happens to look a bit more like brains in my pictures. I blame my unsteady hand, which seemed to be inexplicably vibrating while holding the camera after I gobbled down three rolls in the span of one hour. In total, I spent 18 dollars for 12 rolls (or two weeks worth of bread) which I find to be a pretty good price for the quality of the bread.

Eventually, I hope to find a more specialized bakery in NYC that sells even better melon bread, preferably one with a thicker chewier crust but for now I'll enjoy my sugar-induced heart attacks with what I've got. It's been too long. Sweet sweet bread.

Posted by Paranda at 10:55 PM | Comments (1)

Monarchy Woes

So about a week ago, my kingdom declares the Smurfs and it goes to war. Things were looking good during hostile hours with our provinces hitting hard and barely getting a retal, but the instant it went to war, we were surprised by insanely active TM/Attacker elves (I'm impressed they had enough patience to pull a stunt like this) who completely destroyed us in the first day. Thinking we had just screwed ourselves, I immediately started planning our escape. Considering our kingdom has a lot of pride and a history of war wins, I knew if I surrender, it would be a pretty hard blow to us. So, I immediately began preparations for Mutual Peace, by sweet-talking the Smurf's monarch and a bunch of diplomatic mumbo-jumbo. Hopefully, they'd let us slide with an MP if I could impress them enough with my "politeness" (usually we on Utopia prefer to trashtalk like it's an artform).

By the end of the second day, I had negotiated a Mutual Peace and Ceasefire. However, to my horror after logging in, I noticed we pulled a 180 and now "WE WERE WINNING!" Somehow...either the Smurfs were intimidated by Attack Team A's razes, or they ran out of runes and mana. We were now about to throw away a war win. Of course, just as easily as we could turn the tables, they could turn it back...so I decided to wait. I noticed at least, that all thievery and magic ops on me had stopped and this calm time provided me a chance to grow into my barren acres. So we waited.

3 hours later, my absolute best, strongest, most active province, Buu, messages me saying he is getting screwed up the ass by 8 different TMs (landlusted for over 2000 acres and over 30,000 troops killed from meteors and nightstrike). I couldn't understand it. Why did they target him? He was around the same size as me and we had the same wpa. It should have been me. Traditionally, the leader is the one who is supposed to take TM hits for the kingdom since his bonus makes him most resistant to attacks, yet the Smurfs had decided to concentrate their full power on Buu. I realized why we started winning: the TMs switched strategies and focused all their firepower onto one guy, which allowed every one of our provinces to recover and start hitting for land.

Now we could win, but to do it was going to cost my best province an arm, and a leg, and perhaps another arm. I needed to give him time to recover, but I couldn't throw away the chance we had to win. The only solution was to accept the cease-fire, but backstab the smurfs on the MP and just continue hitting them full power after the cease-fire period was over. But this is like...the lowest most dishonorable thing ever especially since they let us go with an CF/MP when they were winning two days ago, so I was unsure whether to go through with it, or uphold my morals and screw the rest of our kingdom out of a war win. I decided to stall and wait for the CF. It would give me enough time to think about what to do.

During the CF, a couple of things happened. First, there was a miscommunication about start time. One of my provinces was unaware of the CF start date (he didn't read the forums and my HUGE MESSAGE THAT I POSTED IN EVERYONE'S LOG IN SCREEN), and attacked into Smurf after the CF started. I sent them a message apologizing on behalf of this province, and said they could make one retaliation. They took advantage of this, but instead of attacking the offending province, they targeted Rovenhagen, who was one of our highest honor TMs and stole a huge amount from him. This pissed me and the rest of our kingdom off, as we did not agree to retal by proxy. Satan Protege gets pissed that the gains were uneven and retals again. So begins a chain reaction until the CF turned into a complete mess and was dissolved.

We are now back in full scale war, but Buu has managed to recover somewhat. We now have an unfair advantage of recovering with more land (due to our war win) and I have their monarch asking me to uphold my initial agreement of MP. I used the excuse of this CF mess and blamed it on them for ruining the CeaseFire with their dirty tactics. Right now, it gives me a reason to cancel the MP agreement and press them for surrender, but I think we have already gained a lot of land and honor from them. Now Degar wants to start a dragon project, which I think is overkill for a kingdom that we are about to screw over anyway. I have decided to go through with the war plan and kill them, but I will not feel good about this win.

I'm not sure why it bothers me, since I have been much more ruthless in the past (bwahahahahaa razing Old School was the best thing ever), but I think it's because I am just getting tired of these game politics and diplomacy. It's been a good 4 ages since I've been King and it's about time I stepped down. Still, I can only trust Buu to be the one to take over my throne, but he also has past experience with monarchy and hates the politics. He just wants to play the game without worrying about plans and teams and organization. Satan Protege wants a chance to take a stab at king but based on the way he handled this CF and his quick temper, it would probably bring the downfall of our kingdom. Nobody wants to follow him either...sometimes, you do a job too well and now the entire kingdom has an irrational loyalty to you (uh it's just a game). I want to resign, but no one can take my place. Thus, I am stuck being Monarch once again. Maybe next age.

Posted by Paranda at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

Why does this exist?

No, seriously.
Why?

Posted by Paranda at 7:38 PM | Comments (0)

Suncoast now carries HENTAI.

Well, they always have I think...but now they're advertising with huge eye catching signs. Their choice of words is also pretty ambiguous. I expect hilarious misunderstandings in the near future. Or so I heard. I will be heading to the mall shortly after to verify this. Don't we just love Suncoast and their brilliant ideas?

PotatoSan from the SA Forums says it better than I can.
"The best part is "special orders available". I wonder how many of those they get. First, you've got the stigma of buying porn, but not just in a porn store, in a more public, "family-friendly" store. Second, you've gotta be looking for anime porn. Third, you need to investigate and determine that their selection of anime porn is unacceptable, and that you want something special. Finally, if you can get past all of that, you need to talk to a clerk to special order a specific title that you are looking for that they do not stock. Anyone who has the balls to do this in all seriousness is a hero of shamelessness."

Posted by Paranda at 7:24 PM

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pressrelease.php?id=1060
IT...CAN'T BE TRUE...
http://www.anime-expo.org/2005_guests_GOH.shtml
IT IS!!!!
AAAARRRGH I ALREADY BOOKED OTAKON I HAVE NO BUDGET TO SPEND ON TWO CONS IN THE SAME SUMMER. WHYYY GENEON, WHYYYYYYYYYYY????? WHY DOES AX ALWAYS GET GUESTS LIKE UNDER17 AND KOTOKO WHILE OTAKON GETS RANDOM AMERICAN VOICE ACTORS WHO NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF???? WHYYYY????

It is time for me to get a second job. That said, anyone going to AX have an empty spot in their hotel room? I'll only stay for one day. I promise I am not insane, and no molestation will take place. There is no way I can shell out $1000 for travel/room/board fees just to see KOTOKO. Halko maybe, but KOTOKO...argh dilemma. Damn you Geneon!

Posted by Paranda at 8:24 PM | Comments (1)

Glass no Kaze anticipation

There are only five more days until Glass no Kaze comes out. Today, I finally broke down and decided to preorder a copy from CDJapan.

Track list is as follows:
01. RETRIEVE
02. Wing my Way
03. Oboetete Iiyo
04. Tameiki Clover
05. Meconopsis
06. Sasakure
07. Kohaku
08. Re-sublimity
09. Glass no Kaze
10. 421-a will-
11. Free Angels
12. ß-Nendo no hoshi
13. Akai tama, aoi tama

It doesn't have much new stuff, but neither did Hane and I did not regret buying that. I think the bundled DVD will be worth it.

If you understand a bit of Japanese, you can find more information about Glass no Kaze at KOTOKO's official website.

Posted by Paranda at 9:15 AM | Comments (0)

Desktop Cutification

There is a criminally low(0) supply of good Momoi wallpapers out on the web today. Partially, this is due to shortage of good hi-res Momoi photographs in wallpaperish poses, and partially because Momoi has no artsy pretentious photoshop-happy teenage fans to make them for her. There didn't appear to be any solution in sight. I had even taken it upon myself to create several "test" wallpapers, but in order to squeeze space for icons or remove background clutter I had to make several painful crops and edits. The end results failed so spectacularly that they managed to make Momoi uncute, a task previously thought to be impossible. Soon I had given up on having good Halko wallpaper, and settled on letting Habanero-tan grace my screen.

A week ago, my wallpaper woes were finally taken care of. The solution presented itself, when I had the opportunity to request a piece of art. Thinking back to Momoi, I realized it was the chance to finally get a nice Momoi wallpaper. My entire thought process had been wrong in trying to force a photo to turn into a wallpaper. If there were no photos of Momoi suitable for a good wallpaper, why not make one from scratch? It just so happened that mandichan was insanely talented with cute SD caricatures. So, I requested a drawn Momoi wallpaper. Yesterday I saw the results. The outfit is based off the real costume, as shown side by side.

An excellent background for a desktop, don't you think?

My special thanks goes to mandichan for the unbelievably awesome artwork and for being nice and taking the request while putting up with my constant idling, surprise AFKs, and general unresponsiveness on AIM.

Posted by Paranda at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)