Happy Chinese New Year!

I wish everyone a healthy and prosperous Year of the Dragon!

We only had a small family dinner this year. It seems as I get older, holidays and celebrations aren’t as big in my family anymore since everybody is busy working. Times are hard in this economy.

Image Source: pixiv (リーマン　ザ　夢湯)

It’s the start of a brand new year!

Some highlights of 2011 for me include being a new exhibitor at Anime Expo, traveling to Japan for the first time, and surviving my first year working as a software engineer. What were your highlights of the year?

My ongoing side projects still include Figure Haven and Dollars BBS. I plan to keep going with this blog as well, although my time and motivation to post has been dwindling.

One of my goals for 2012 is to get into game development and release a completed game. We’ll see how far I get in a year. I also want to travel to somewhere in Europe…maybe Italy?

Happy New Year! I wish everyone a great 2012!!

Image Source: pixiv

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has an awesome Christmas weekend. Be sure to spend time with family, stay warm, and have fun!

As for me, I’ll probably be working on a few side projects and just having a Christmas dinner in the evening. Nothing too fancy.

Once again, I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Image Source: pixiv (ベルゼ)

Saber and Tohsaka Rin summer version figures by ALTER along with a Saber plastic kit by Kotobukiya.

I’ll be adding the two ALTER figures to Figure Haven sometime this week (perhaps tomorrow?) along with a bunch of other new arrivals. All I have to say is, ALTER does not disappoint.

Aksys Games is running a sale in their online store until March 24th where 100% of what you spend there will be donated to charity efforts in Japan.

Here is a quote from their CEO, Akibo Shieh:

The thoughts and prayers of our staff are with the people of Japan. We have many friends, relatives, and business partners who have found themselves suddenly faced with a level of tragedy that most of us can scarcely imagine. The scale of destruction is immense, but we have no doubt that with a combined effort it can be reversed, and every contribution—no matter the size—will play an important part in doing so. We can all play a part in helping Japan overcome this crisis.
With that in mind, we at Aksys Games would like to announce the following sale. It will run from today until March 24th, and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to charity efforts in Japan. If you can’t afford to buy anything, spread the word. Together, we can help.

Aksys is awesome for putting so much effort into contributing to those in need in Japan.

Take a look around their store, they have many good games for sale. So if you were thinking of donating anyways, this is a large incentive to do so.

Northeastern Japan was devastated by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake (the epicenter was around 231 miles northeast of Tokyo) and its resulting tsunami on March 11, 2011.

So far the USGS has recorded 371 aftershocks, with many of them in the 5.0-6.0 magnitude range. The damage has been widespread including fires, blackouts, and ongoing troubles at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Google has set up a Crisis Response page with up-to-date information and also put a simple method to send donations to the Japanese Red Cross Society.

I strongly urge those who can spare some money to donate because there are a great number of people in need of assistance and every yen counts.

The strength of the main earthquake makes it one of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history. I have read reports that said it lasted around 3 minutes with constant aftershocks immediately following. Since I live in California, the threat of earthquakes is very real to me. Videos showed skyscrapers swaying back and forth during the earthquakes, but the minimal damage to them is a testament to how good Japan’s building codes really are. The tsunami on the other hand, caused massive damage to many areas. I was left speechless when viewing live footage of the tsunami on Friday.

My thoughts and prayers are with all those in Japan.

I decided to catch up on Bakuman around two weeks ago and then proceeded to consecutively watch 16 episodes of the anime. The story that follows two students working furiously to reach their dream of becoming manga artists really drew me in. In fact, I went and read 120 chapters of the manga right after that since I simply couldn’t wait for the next episode of the anime.

Stories where we can experience the ups and downs of another person’s life can be infinitely intriguing. The Count of Monte Cristo and David Copperfield are both excellent examples of this, and I still regard them as two of my favorite novels of all time. This is why I was so easily drawn into Bakuman, and into the lives of Mashiro and Takagi.

Watching them toil endlessly towards their goals and aspirations made me think of all the times I wanted to do something, but instead continuously put off doing so. However, it is never too late to start right now. Time spent watching television/movies/anime, playing games, surfing the web, and idling could instead be used to do something you might have always wanted to do. It can be picking up a new instrument, learning a new language, starting a side project, and/or actively working towards one of your goals.

I’m not saying to stop playing games and not watch anime, but just remember to take things in moderation. Everyone needs their leisure time and I’m no different. But I do realize that I spend way too many hours idly surfing reddit, or sitting immersed in a video game when I could instead be coding a game of my own.

Pick something you’ve always wanted to do or learn. Now put aside some time each day, or even each week, to work on it until it becomes a habit. Remember, nothing is impossible. Nothing is too far out of reach.

Before the year draws to a close, here are some of my highlights for 2010.

This will probably end up being one of my more memorable years since I graduated from college with a Bachelor’s in CS. Then we had a booth at Fanime for Figure Haven and went to the Bahamas right after that. Unfortunately, there was no Japan or Europe trip this year, but at least I went somewhere I haven’t been before.

When I got back from vacation, it was job hunting time for a while. I now work as a Software Engineer at a web development/user interface design company. Fun stuff.

My side projects that I worked on were mostly Figure Haven and Dollars BBS stuff. I guess keeping this blog up also counts. Too many ideas, too little motivation and time.

So I think I completed most of my goals for 2010, except for the traveling part. No resolutions for the upcoming year this time around. *shrug*

Happy New Year everyone and here’s to an awesome 2011!

Image Source: Safebooru

We didn’t really do presents this year except for my mom. She got me a vacuum flask that’s specialized for tea. Other than that, we’re having hot pot tonight for dinner which we haven’t done in ages.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas weekend!

Image Source: Safebooru

Another year of my life has rapidly passed by when I turned 23 today. It’s true, the years really do go by faster as you get older.

I apologize for the downward trend on posting. Since I started working full-time these past two months, my motivation to do anything productive at home has significantly decreased. After a long day of coding, I feel lazy just like Yui in the image above.

Now that I’ve settled in though, I plan to get back on track with all my projects (including this blog). As for Figure Haven, we have a huge shipment that is slated to arrive this week. Plus, I plan to make a bunch of improvements to the site over winter break.

Otherwise, I hope everyone has a safe and awesome winter break. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Image Source: Safebooru