So, I noticed the other day that the theme I was using for the site was not loading properly and instead just giving an Error 500 page. I have no idea what the problem is–I didn’t change anything…it just suddenly started doing that. I’ll have to take a closer look, but I’ve been really busy lately with work, so I haven’t even had times for updates, nevermind digging around in the code. I guess I’ll have to live with this temporary layout for now. >.>

Sorry for the lack of activity…on a related note; does anyone know a more efficient blogging system than Wordpress? It just takes too long to get anything working properly with how broken Wordpress’ editor becomes once you start using plugins to add stuff like video podcasting. I had considered using Twitter for updates because of it’s ease, but I didn’t like the character limit and I’d like support for podcasting.

Popularity: 9% [?]

A short trailer was just put online for Michiko To Hatchin–the story of Michiko; a free-willed “sexy diva” who destroys a supposedly inescapable prison fortress and Hatchin; a girl fleeing her strict foster parents. The two join forces on an improbable escape to freedom. The trailer itself doesn’t seem to show any of the actual scenes from the show, probably an OP clip, but the music and animation were both excellent.

With the production staff Michiko To Hatchin has got, I’m really excited to check this show out. Shinichiro Watanabe, the brains behind Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo will be involved, but not as a lead director this time; he will be involved in music direction. While Hiroshi Shimizu, who has worked in animation for FLCL, Fullmetal Alchemist, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, will be contributing as a character designer this time around. Also Sayo Yamamoto, an experienced storyboard writer from Death Note, Ergo Proxy, Eureka Seven, Rozen Maiden: Traumend, Samurai Champloo and Texhnolyze will be directing the show.

As you can see, the crew has some big names under their belt, but they are all trying new areas they haven’t done much in, so it should be interesting to see how well they do at it.

Here’s the trailer;

Popularity: 27% [?]

Yeah, I turned it off. It wasn’t exactly all that active (see: no posts at all), so I decided to disable it for now. On the bright side; I finally finished Mass Effect and it was awesome. I might write a post about it soon when I can find the time.

Popularity: 100% [?]

I was hanging out with a friend of mine and he showed me a new card game he got recently called Zombie Fluxx. I had quite a bit of fun playing it and it’s a very cool idea for a card game. Most card games have some set goals and rules that you follow, leaving you shaking in your boots when you look at your cards and see you have nothing of any use. Not Zombie Fluxx–in this game the goals and rules can be completely turned around in a single round, but don’t let yourself think that makes it confusing. It certainly makes you think a bit, but it’s a very ingenious way of doing things.

There is just a single deck of cards that everything is mixed into, at the start of the game each player draws three cards–if any of them are zombies you lay them infront of you and keep drawing until you have 3 cards in your hand. From the start of the game there is actually no condition upon which a player can win, the players actually have to introduce a goal themselves by using a Goal card which can be drawn from the deck, just like anything else. On your first turn you draw one card from the deck and then you can play one card from your hand if you want. The turn doesn’t necessarily end there though. Say, for example, you use a Play 5 Rule card; you can now play more 4 more cards. If you are lucky you might now be able to play a Draw 5 card or something of the like, allowing you to draw a few more cards than what you already drew at the beginning of the turn. There is also event cards that allow you to do nasty things like taking another turn or sending your zombies to another player. As you can probably guess; it’s bad to have lots of Zombies…mostly. There is a few Goal cards you can play that can completely turn the game around for the seemingly hopeless; some goal cards require you to have many zombies, like Zombie baseball…some even require that you have ALL the zombies in play! There is also mean things you can do, like play a Goal card that requires you to have Zombies to win when another player has the Zombie Repellent card.

It’s very enjoyable because there is literally no way to know when another player is about to win the game. If you like Zombies and you don’t hate fun I highly recommend you give this game a try! It’s only about $10 on ebay, how could you go wrong?

Popularity: 25% [?]

I’ve always been an avid supporter of web standards, so I was glad to here that Gecko 1.9, the layout engine used in the Firefox 3 beta, passes the Acid2 test, but I found the future version of Firefox is still lacking one single thing that I feel holds it back rather significantly from being what it could be. That features is the RSS Updates counter that Safari has had for pretty much ever. How long will it take before Mozilla catches on that Firefox’s lack of this simple feature is a deal-breaker for many people? I guess I’ll have to continue using two browsers until Mozilla catches up.

Popularity: 24% [?]