an advice (youtube)

(I heard that the snowstorm in the US is quite bad.)

When uploading videos (especially entire episodes), try not to use keywords that the company that produced it or YouTube/Google/DCMA would most likely to use when they try to find videos that violates the usage of the video.
To make it less likely for them to find it, do not use languages that uses Latin based characters (example: English, Spanish, French, etc...) as they are most likely to search in that language and names used within Latin based languages are smillar. (However, if you must, try using full-with characters （ｌｉｋｅ　ｔｈｉｓ） instead) Since YouTube, Google and many other companies is based in the USA, their employees are most likely not to understand languages other than English (and Spanish). So try typing the keywords, title of video and the description in languages like 中文, Русский, हिन्दी, العربية, 한국어, ไทย, 日本語 and so on.

updates 2 dec

This blog:
Changed header image, removed the names of my friend's blog, updated "Anime I'm currently watching
私が最近見たアニメ" section, converted images in the "Uploaded Images" section to the thumbnail version so the blog loads much faster.

The other 2 blogs:
Added Tagboard (which is the same as the one you see here)
Added my current mood
Changed the default colour scheme and increased font size for the jap ver (except for the tagboard, which is independent)

letting you know

In case you are not aware, posts not relating to Anime can be found here. While posts in Japanese language (and some translations of the earlier mentioned blog and this blog) can be found here. (5 Dec 2006 edit: URL changed from fnfd-jap to asuna888) (8 Sep 2008 edit: URL for the english version changed from fnfd to asuna888-en)

I'm not feeling well right now, probably because I have been cleaning my room extensively (update)

I also plan to change the header image and converting the images on the bottom left of the page into thumbnails as the current ones are actually full size images that are resized and need to save bandwidth so that these images load faster (and "save our (imageshack) bandwidth").

anime i'm watching

Here are the screenshots from some of the anime i am watching currently of the most recent episode:


ネギま！？ Episode 5:

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ときめきメモリアルＯｎｌｙ　Ｌｏｖｅ Episode 7:

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Ｎ・Ｈ・Ｋにようこそ！ Episode 19:


(I plan to remove some images or replacing them with a thumbnail version since it takes such a long time to load)

vector images

Recently, I have created another vector trace and it toke me about 12 hours to do it. This image is from the "ときめきメモリアル Only Love" opening single (soundtrack of the music you hear at the opening of the show).

Here's the original image (click on image to view at its original size):




And here's the vectorized image (click on image to view it at 4311 x 4800):



You may have noticed that I did not include the boys or the background. The reason is that the background is too detailed and if I included the boys, it would appear to be more crowded and make the boys appear out of place, not mentioning that the original image was very pixelated.

Earlier, I had posted another vector image here of "ひぐらしのなく頃に" (see post dated 15 August 2006 for more info):

.............

I just felt like posting this:
If you were here a few days ago, you may have notice that I had hidden all of my real information in all languages in white, the background colour of the section there as I have put links to this blog from various sites where huge amount of people whom I don't know (unlike friendster, which is mostly my close friends), may come here.




.　　　　　　　　　 　 -‐ '´￣￣｀ヽ､
.　　 　 　 　 　 　 ／　／" ｀ヽ ヽ　　＼
.　　　　　　　　　//, '/　　　　 ヽﾊ 　､　ヽ
.　　　　　　　　 〃 {_{ノ　　　 ｀ヽﾘ| ｌ │ i|
. 　　　　　　　　 ﾚ!小ｌ●　　　 ● 从　|、i|　nyoroーn
.　　　　　　　 　 ヽ|l⊃　､_,､_,　⊂⊃　|ﾉ│ 　　
.　 　 　 　 /⌒ヽ__|ﾍ　　 ゝ._）　 　j /⌒i ! 　　　　
.　　　　　　＼ /:::::|　l＞,､ __,　イァ/　 /│
.　　　　　 　 /:::::/|　|　ヾ:::|三/::{ﾍ､__∧ |
.　　　　　　　｀ヽ< |　|　　ヾ∨:::/ヾ:::彡'　|


The above is best viewed in ＭＳ Ｐゴシック (MS P Gothic).

By the way, In my english profile, I made most of the text in the last paragraph (below my info) in white and purposely make it in such a way that you can only see these words: gender, female, location, Japan. (The image and the SHIFT_JIS drawing are just a distraction away from the hidden message.)

jap and chinese text readability

In order to maintain readability for chinese and japanese text, normal text for those languages will be set at 3px while headers and parts that I would normally bold if it were in english, will be set at 4px. I recommend using the Arial Unicode MS font/typeface with any sub-pixel rendering (eg. ClearType) for even better readability.

I have also added profiles in japanese and chinese since I can easily refer to here instead of my wikipedia userpage in those languages. The part of the translated profile i'm not so sure about is the chinese transliteration of my name (do the characters for it have any meaning? If so, is it bad?), and the japanese translation of the name of my secondary school (Leave it as it is (ヒトデのカトリック教の中学(高校)), transliterate the english name (ハイーシングー・カトリクー学校) or use the same set of hanzi/kanji characters used in the chinese name (海星天主教中学)?)

edit (17 hours after the above was posted): I think i'll use the chinese name.

lol

I found this youtube video posted at mrbrown.com. It's about the funny comments written for the feedback of an NTU lecturer. (eg. "If we (the students) had a moustage like yours, we can become as smart as you.")

New content

Now I have changed the image at the header and re-added text that was on the header image before the previous one beneath the current image.

I have now added some information on myself, such as the names I used on the internet. Among those names, fnfd and the1iam are the most frequently used names.

I had come across my friends' blog and saw that they link to mine (this blog) and my other friends (and more links to my friend's blog on their blog) until what I had gathered on what you see in the links section. The link is labled as follows: (name of blog, even if it is the default name or contains special characters) (full/known name of that person)

By the way, I had added about 400+ images on my Windows Live blog that I had taken from April to September 2006. I will upload more next month as i had already reached the maximum upload bandwidth for the month. Most likely images taken this month (October 2006) and the next.

Youtube account

On 5 Oct 2006 at about 4am (GMT +8), my youtube account (fnfd) was suspended for "copyright violation". The videos that cause me to received warnings are 3 Inuyasha endings (warning received in July 12 by Yomiuri Telecasting Corp.), magical hamburger (Oct 3 by Fuji Television Network, Inc.), and one piece opening (earlier today by TOEI ANIMATION CO., LTD.).

By the way, I have already create an another one (the1iam) shortly after receiving warnings for the inuyasha videos as I know that the account that received warnings would eventually be suspended.

P.S. Videos that were in that account will not be re-uploaded except for the pokemon dp ending which i had improved the audio (it was too soft).

Edit (6 Oct): I have created a new account. It is sobadeniyoukoso. (I can't think of a better name at that time) It is form the words そばで (be with) and ようこそ (welcome). So the name literally means "Welcome to being with" (the excite.co.jp translator translates it as "it is in".)

Learning japanese by myself

(You may have noticed that the banner has been replaced with a drawing)

I was reading an article on "Enthenic issues in Japan" (or something like that) at wikipedia. It says that Japanese don't like foreigners (westerners in particular) because they belied to be rude and impolite (form their point of view) and are more likely to commit crimes (eg. overstaying). Well, that is not surprising since the japanese practice respecting each other through their culture and language.
I remember somewhere in the article that to be able to go around Japan independently (as a permenant resedent or naturalised citizent), one must be able to know about 2000 kanji (chinese characters; hanzi; 汉字;漢字). And um... i forgot the rest, apart form North American foreigners (in japan) are the most likeable gaijin as compared to elsewhere.

By living in singapore, i am exposed to chinese language. So naturally I allready know some amount of kanji as they are mostly based from chinese.

Here are some of the japanese words I already know (in no particular order):


一　話　二　三　四　六　七　百　千　年　日　字　時間　時　火曜日　中　国　本　十　一番　上　空　星　宇宙人　人　母　前　夢　猫　英語　東京　駅　中学　日本　二学期　制服　円　木　森　水　赤　お茶　未来　海　私　人間　女　男　バス　心　山　テレビ　ほら　こんにちは　ありがとう　漫画　三十一日　五センチ　恋　双　二人　三年前　桜　北海度　お休み　見　花　市　風　外国人　大　好き　子供　うそ　大人　ゲーム　名前　日々　高　ネコ


Translation in the order listed above:
one/1, talk/language, two/2, three/3, four/4, seven/7, hundred/100, thousand/1000, year, day, character, hour/time(in length), time, tuesday, middle/medium/inside, country/nation, book, ten/10, first/best, up, sky, star, alien, person, mother, (some time) ago, dream, cat, english (language), tokyo/eastern capital, (train) station, middle school, japan, 2nd term, uniform, yen/round object, tree, forest/woods, water, red, (green) tea, future, sea, I/me, adult, female, male, bus, heart/mind, mountain, television, now look (an expression), good afternoon, thank you, manga/comic, 31st day (of the month), 5 centimeters, love, twins, 2 people/together, 3 years ago, cherry blossoms/sakura, hokkaido, rest, see/look, flower, city, wind, foreigner, grand/big/very much, like (a persorn), child, no way/lie, adult, game, name, (several) days, high/grand/very, cat

That's all i could think off at the moment.　By the way, there are some words that I don't know the kanji for or how the kanji should be red out as. (eg. は/ハ is sometimes pronounced as わ/ワ, す/ウ and つ/ツ almost sound alike and not sure when ー or っ/ッ is used as it is used to make the sound of the character that comes before or after it longer. eg. "ハッド" may sound like "hadou" when it's actually "haddo")

Huh? What?

(Walking happily) "Lalalalala......"

(Hears something and then turns around)

(Sees something)

ｷﾀ━━━（ﾟ∀ﾟ）━━━!!

(Remains frozen for a while before screaming)

(Slowly open mouth)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

(Runs away until that thing is out of sight)

(Panting) "Wait a minute, what did I run away from?"

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Hehe, I was bored. XD XD XD

BTW, to those who know me in person (my classmates, obiously), the O-Levels written paper starts on 6 November 2006 (37 days from now). That is not long now.

(Looks at the above date) Huh?! That means that I should be studying now!!!

Ps. That drawing I made has been uploaded at Imageshack.

Anime

Ok, i have been watching several anime videos for some time now. (If you want to know what are the anime I watch, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fnfd/ver2 ; should be there somewhere; the ones i'm watching currently is on both my friendster and youtube profiles) I downloaded them using bittorrent and each video is only 200MB (or 3 hours download at about 23kb/s). I have now about 44GB of anime (even more if you count those that I had deleted or had burned to CD).

P.S. If I manage to get hold of Region code 2 anime dvds (from Japan; either buy there or online)... oh wait, I can't. At least not for a long time but by then, I might end up with a region code 1 blu-ray (different from dvd region coding) Wait, why am I posting this for? >_<

(This post is posted on Friendster bulletin board and my blog)

Blogger beta

I have converted mine to the beta of the new version. New features include "click and drop" interface, posts going live immediately after saving instead of republishing and new template. To convert (you can't convert back), you must already have a google account (eg. gmail). You will be notified if the conversion is complete. Note that your existing template (before converting) is kept but you will be able to convert to the new one. When you do, you would be able to revert back to the old format (but not to the interface before converting). The one you are currently seeing is under the old format (although the blogger bar at the top might change) since the formating is not compitable and making it would be time-consuming since i have no idea how to make it compitable and at the same time, not changing the layout.

Here's my another blog that is under the new format.

New Layout

As you can see, I have changed the layout and added an image here. The prevous layout was one of the default layouts of Blogger.com and was boring.

One more thing, my prelims are in just a few weeks and a major exam 2 months from now, so I don't have much time left to study.

(P.s. Sometimes I ask myself why I chose pink as the colour for the layout.)

14 April 2007 edit: testing 123

Windows Vista

(orignally posted on Friendster's Bulletin Board Message.)


(friendster display image)

Windows Vista is the new operating system after
windows xp.

Released to manufacturing (RTM) in October,
offical release in January 2006.

If you plan to buy a new pc, wait till jan or
latter otherwise you would have to pay extra to
upgrade. To see if your pc is capable of running
it go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/capable.mspx

Broadcasting of anime episodes.

(Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl; TV Tokyo will air on its 6 networks nationwide (Japan); Starting on 28 September (Thursday)) Click on image to view the entire thing.

Don't you hate it when you heard that the cartoon you like have newer episodes aired elsewhere?

Here's an example for pokemon of the time difference in countries:
Japan: Airs the latest episode in Japanese
U.S.: Airs the dubed version of the episode about a year after the japanese airing. (not to mention non-stop background music)
Singapore: Airs about half a year after the U.S. release, 1 and a half year after Japanese broadcast.
Other countries in Asia (not sure about China and South Korea): Airs earlier episodes.

To give you a rough idea about what episodes are airing there:
Japan: Battled the last/5th frontier Brain in Kanto; new season would be taking place in Shin'ou. (See img above)
U.S.: In Kanto Region, after battling the 1st frontier brain; Just before meeting Bonsly.
Singapore: Battling Juan, 8th & final Gym leader in Hoenn in Sootpolis city; before grand festival
Other countries: Not sure, but the last time I saw, NTV7 (Malaysia) was airing season 6 episoes (english dubbed) and SCTV (indonesia) airing season 3 (jap dubbed into indonesian language)

The irony is that the episodes aired in most of Asia are much latter than those in Japan (which is also in Asia) whereas those in Europe/North America fall somewhere in between in terms of when the episode are aired. Can't they just use the japanese version and add subtitles instead of dubbing them. (and also preserve original openings and endings)

I'm not against dubbing but most of the dubbed episodes i have watched (including pokemon season 9 onwards) have awful voices and the timing don't match. Somtimes, the background music (theme songs, background sounds (eg. cars, birds) are removed, reoving the feeling of it. But sometimes when the original background music is played, the music softens or removed when a persorn speaks but doesn't in the origninal version, making it awakward and annoying, in addition to the awful voices and bad timing.

(Wow, i didn't realised I have typed this long. :P )

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Ending (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱ＥＤ):


I know the series ended a few months ago but I can't help mentioning that it is still porpular. The video above is uploaded by me back in June (while the series was still airing). Now that video has been linked/embeed on various sites (mostly japanese) and has now been watched 103,000 times, about 1/4 of of the total videos I uploaded. That number is quite high. (@_@)


P.S. I downloaded the entire series in RAW (without subtitles) video in 1200x1024 (or something like that; about the same resolution of a HDTV). The size turned out to be quite huge, not to mention that my monitor's maximum resolution is lower. It's worth it, as the images are sharper than 640x480 (VGA/NTSC) version when viewed in full screen.


BTW, i'm not sure if my DVD burner is workning properly since it stopped writing a CD-R for some reason at around 99%.

Converting from rastor to vector

For the past few days, between 13 August (Sunday) and 15 August (Tuesday), I had been working on this image: http://e-shuushuu.net/images/2006-08-12-29679.jpg
(if the link doesn't work, go to that website and search for image id no. 29679)


The following Is proof that I actually did it (If you enlarge the final version from here and zooming into the area shown below, you can see that it is not as clear as what you here. That's because the image is converted to rastor and quality is further reduced when saving in JPEG format.)

Final Image (click on image to view the enlarged version):


Selected area in rastor zoomed in:


The same area converted to vector:


(P.s. The video in the prevous blog (Japanese learning English) had received about 3400 views within 3 days of uploading it.)

Japanese learning English (英語を勉強する日本人)

This video is soo funny.

Description:

EN: A TV show where participants are not allowed to laugh when watching someone learning english
ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten = 100 XD

JA: 笑わない高校
だれかが英語を勉強しているのを見るとき関係者が笑うことができないテレビ番組。


(Posted this blog from youtube, edited on blogger)

Testing

I am entering this from my e-mail to see if this works.

YouTube

(Click on one of the images below to go to one of my account profiles)



These days, I have been uploading videos onto YouTube. Most of my videos are anime related. The rest are recorded videos by me (except for some of them). Click on the image on one of the images to view my videos. (If there isn't any, click on the other one.) You can rate and comment on my videos and profile if you want to and I would prefer if you leave your name (if I know you personaly) either in my messages or in your profile. You may have noticed that there are half-width / regular spacing between japanese text. This is so that a ? inside a diamond (for mozilla firefox) or a rectangle box (Internet explorer) would not appear mid-way in the sentence.





By the way, if you look at the comments dated 8 August 2006, you would see that there are 2 comments in Japanese by 2 different accounts.

For those who were wondering what it says (in the order it appears, newest at the top):

fnfd: ありがとう！ (Thank You!)
the1iam: お誕生日おめでとう! (Happy Birthday!)

Although it may not seem obivous at first, (as mentioned above) those 2 are actually me. I feel silly posting and replying to my own text under a different username.

(P.s. My birthday was on the 5th of August and there is a hidden link somewhere on this page.)

Blogger layout

I am currently searching for a layout for this page.

Preview layout (layout may change completly)

Place to find skins

Anime Images

I can't seem to find anime images that I like. Finding them is not a problem as I know of websites that have various anime images. (Some of the sites even have about 10 new images added everyday)

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Some of the images I had found. (Click on image for a larger version):

Learning Japanese

TheJapanesePage.com - Useful tips on the Japanese language.

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A few years ago (around the year 2003), I became interested in the language. Even more so recently. (more about that at the bottom).

Anyway, on a not-so unrelated note, an article on "The Sunday Times" (Singapore) on 30 June 2006 state that among those surveyed, 56% of the people in Singapore would like to emigrate and 4 in 5 would like to work overseas.

(The following is copied directly from my YouTube profile)

This year, I am preparing for my GCE "O-Level" examinations which starts in October (the prelims is in September, oral in July/August). So I might spend most of my time revising and not have time for other things, including going to the internet.
140.
I do understand some Mandarin Chinese, though to a certent extent. As for japanese, I can recognise most kana and some kanji characters. (eg. 今,日,水,私,北,時 and so on)

The excite.co.jp translator (the one i am using, one example is the text on the channel info box) is more accruate than Altavista's babelfish (which everyone uses). So accruate that you may think that my Japanese is fluent. (Although I learned some by watching Anime. Though I have trouble reading Kanji chars besides those like the above example.) Since Chinese (of which Japanese originated from) is the 2nd most spoken languange in Singapore, though I can't understand (Mandrin) Chinese as much as Japanese.

This Blog... (and MSN/Windows Live Spaces)

I'm new to blogging in general and I normally don't type much (mainly because I don't know what to type). I don't really have anything specific to put here. So I might put random things like school to a particular anime.

Below are blogs from my MSN Spaces (in reverse Chronological order):

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School carnival - 14 July 2006 16:03:54
On 15 July, there will be a carnival at my school. The thing is that everyone has to go and it lasts from 7:45am till 2pm. Not sure what to do there. (entering this from one of the auditorium room at Temasek Polytechnic)

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School - 25 June 2006 13:28:17
(i am entering this from the 17th floor of the HDB Hub in Toa Payoh) the new term is starting tomorrow. Since i am in Secondary 5, that would mean heavy revision of subjects until sometime before the actual o level around November. Too much things to study. (i scored an F9 on most of my subjects.)

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YouTube videos - 22 June 2006 13:12:16
I have recently (well 2 weeks before this post) created a YouTube account. (For those who don't know, it's a place where you can upload videos and watch other's video). At the time of post there are 23 videos uploaded that can be viewed to the public.

All the videos in the playlist at my Friendster accounts (1st and 2nd) and hi5.com are uploaded by me.


Here's the link to my YouTube profile:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=sobadeniyoukoso

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New anime. - 20 May 2006 13:18:21
While browsing through a Webcomic's forum, they keep having picture of a character which I have never seen before. I look around and I found the title, 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱. I found out that it started airing at country J about a month ago and I (somehow) manage to watch it. P.S, I find the 1st episode rather lame and disturbing.