Free buffet at Mandarin on Canada Day!

This is going to be my second post of the day, but oh well. Like the title says, there will be a free buffet at Mandarin on Canada Day. The stores will likely be packed like the Yamanote trains during rush hour though. It's only for Canadian citizens, so proof of citizenship is required. You can check out Mandarin's site here.

Ranking time! (Anime that is...)

Not much to do at work this week due to Canada Day and all, so let's talk about anime! What's my favourite anime? It's really hard to pick just one since it'll be like comparing apples and oranges, so I'll give a list of all the anime I've watched and rank them, giving reasons and such. Here goes!

Masterpieces

Crest of the Stars
Genres: Sci-fi, Drama, Adventure
Best part: High sense of adventure
Moves too slowly for some people -- lots of dialogue, character interaction, etc. -- but I like it. It's the best space drama out there.

Spirited Away
Genres: Adventure, Supernatural
Best part: Captivating world
Probably would have liked it even more if I were younger. Very original characters and setting.

Azumanga Daioh
Genres: Shoujo, Slice-of-life, Comedy
Best part: Very memorable characters
I've just recently watched this, so I may be a little biased, but I think it's a classic :) This has some of the most memorable and lovable characters I've seen (Yukari-sensei, Osaka, Tomo-chan). Sometimes progresses quite slowly though, with some unnecessarily long scenes.

Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genres: Drama, Horror, Psychological, Sci-fi, Supernatural
Best part: It's just so different from all the others
This anime is very different from all the others I've watched. Some of it is controversial, and other parts I just don't understand. It's difficult to explain, so just watch it if you haven't already. Just a little piece of advice: Don't watch the two movies until you've seen the series.

Haven't seen all the episodes but seems like a masterpiece:
Cowboy Bebop - Awesome music but seems to lack an equally awesome plot. Very entertaining though.
Full Metal Alchemist - Intricate plot and detailed characters. Has a certain suspense element. Looks promising.

Excellent

Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Nice story and great music. Everyone should see this one!

Love Hina
I think the best part of Love Hina is in its memorable characters and their interactions. That said, all the characters are pretty much predictable and not much development occurs, but this anime is highly entertaining and is regarded as a classic. Some episodes seem like filler though.

Kimi ga nozomu eien
This is a very serious anime with an emphasis on relationships and how they change over time. Very realistic but is emotionally heavy. A break after every 2 episodes is recommended.

Kare Kano
A very very good anime, but I think it has too many filler episodes. Excellent humour and great characters. Good job Gainax.

Serial Experiments Lain
I like its style. Very well made, but if only I can understand what's going on...

Planetes
Although this series picks up slowly, it eventually becomes quite interesting. Fairly complex story and universe.

Princess Mononoke
Excellent. Great adventure, good action, and fast-paced.

Gunslinger Girl
This one takes an interesting concept and does it well. I just wish this series is longer.

Good

Initial D
The general public is divided in opinion on this one. I consider it 'Good'. It's not outstanding nor is it a failure. I would have classified it as 'Excellent', but it is pretty cheesy and becomes predictable. Nevertheless, this is still a great anime, but you really only have to watch the first 5 or 6 episodes to get the gist of it.

Scrapped Princess
This one would have been categorized as 'Excellent' if not for its lackluster ending. It has its share of good moments but it starts falling short of excellence in the latter half of the series.

One Piece
I watched a few episodes in Japan, seems pretty interesting.

Naruto
see One Piece.

Tsukihime
This one has several "FROM WHERE?!" parts. It's a pretty compelling anime, but at the end of it all it leaves much to be desired.

Banner of the Stars
This is the sequel to Crest of the Stars. A very good series in its own right, but I miss the closeless and sense of adventure that were dominant in its predecessor. Everything here is on a larger scale, mostly focusing on the galactic war.

Gundam Wing
This is one of the first anime I've watched. The opening themes are quite nice and catchy. The space battles aren't bad either.

Not bad

Record of the Lodoss War
Might have been good for its time, but it's outdated. Plot moves slowly and some episodes recap too much. The overall story is good though.

.hack SIGN
Interesting concept, but has problems in plot development. I think it could have been done better.

Vandread
Sci-fi space comedy. This one is just a bit too silly for me I guess.

Pretty awful

Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo - This is just way too weird for me.
Dragonball Z - This has some long and drawn-out scenes where almost nothing happens.
Digimon - I guess I'm just too old for this.
Pokemon - see Digimon.
Sailor Moon - see Digimon.

Whoa, this is my longest post yet by far! I'm being a bit harsh on some of the anime here, but I didn't want a disproportionate amount in the masterpiece and excellent levels. Tell me if I missed any! And feel free to express your opinion and/or flame me :P

Google in H4x0r and "Bork Bork Bork!"

I think it's cool that Google offers "localized" pages for those l33t h4x0rs and the irreversibly damaged (I'm guessing) out there. Those Google programmers sure do have a sense of humor. I'm going to change my homepage from Google Canada to Google Hacker now :D

Here are the links: H4x0r and "Bork Bork Bork!". There are more weird "languages" to be found too.

The calm before the storm

There isn't much going on at work these days, but my supervisor tells me things are going to get rough soon. Ever since we (the development team) finished working on Japanese, we have pretty much been slacking off. In a week or two though, 8 (yes, eight!) new languages will come in and start kicking some developer ass. Boo yeah! (wait, I'm one of the developers...)

Anyways, on the first day of driving school the only things I learned were car noises and their associated problems. I can now diagnose things like car hiccups and gas problems. Great! :P. Actually, they were fairly hard to memorize. I don't think they sound the *same*, but when you hear too many of them, they start sounding very VERY similar. Like "screech!" and "screeech!" and "Screeeeche!". How am I going to pass the test this Sunday? Does anyone know if passing these tests actually matter?

Saturday D

Yesterday I got together with friends from my former EE class and had a blast down at Centre Island! We chatted about lots of stuff as we strolled about on the island, and even spent like an hour by the beach throwing/skipping rocks and debating the purpose of life :P. Then, it was dinner time: Korean BBQ Buffet! (yakiniku tabehoudai) I think I ate *way* too much...ugh... (tabesugichatta..kana)

Yesterday was also the first of two days in which the annual Dragonboat Competition is held. We saw the last few heats of the day, but I missed the one in which Joyce and Esther took part :(. Anyway, I also met Ben, Catherine, and Auntie Judith near that big bridge thing...yes...(WAY too tired to be articulate). Overall, a very fun and tiring day. Came home at 1, fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. ZzZZzzZzzz...

Lots of things...

Yeah. There are a whole bunch of things worth posting. Starting with the most significant...

1) Driving school! I'm FINALLY taking driving lessons, starting this Sunday. Obviously, I can't make it back to 'sauga this weekend :( (sorry Alan). It runs for 4 weeks, so basically I can't leave RicHill until the end of July. Now, to find a way to make effective use of all this free time...

2) My laptop doesn't have an audio-out port!!! How lame is that? While it has a digital S/PDIF-out port which is "better" (more advanced) than the traditional one, it obviously doesn't support analog devices. Which means only expensive digital devices can be used with it. Which means I can't use any of my speakers or headphones. Anyone know a solution to this problem which doesn't require the acquisition of huge audio systems?

3) Courses for the Fall term! In keeping with my tradition of indecisiveness, I'm going to take only the core Math courses and put off declaring a major for yet another term! Woo hoo! That's like, 4 more months to decide guy! But seriously, this does allow more time for weighing pros and cons, so I'll do just that. I think I've narrowed it down to anything but ActSci and Stats :P.

4) Last thing: hmm, I forgot what I was going to say. I'll just subjoin it to this post when I remember what it is...

Perfect gyroscopes and the what not

I found a couple of interesting articles on science and tech: testing the General Theory of Relativity and Personal Robots. I absolutely love hearing about advancements in science and technology.
Also, I'm going to make an effort to learn some Chinese (mostly reading/writing). This is because the development team I'm in just finished working on Japanese and is now starting on Chinese - and I can't read a thing! Quite shameful, I'd have to admit, being Chinese and all :P.

Go

Recently I've become intrigued by the game of Go. I've played Chess and Chinese Chess before and in comparison, the rules of Go seem much more elegant. The name Go comes from igo (囲碁), the Japanese word for the game. A good site for learning about Go is Sensei's Library. I've tried playing against the computer with GNU Go and I got owned horribly :P. I say if you haven't given Go a try, go and try it out :).

Also, I'm going to make an effort to add only one space after a period instead of two. I was taught that adding two spaces is correct, but it looks like everyone is using only one. Meh.