Why? Why, why why?

Why do people feel that they have to put their grubby mits on every monitor or glass that they come across? If you're going to point something out to me on my screen, then actually POINT! Every time they touch my screen, there's this little smudge of finger grease that only god knows where it's been and there's no sure way of getting those off without a touch scrub with some windex. Even then, the smudge leaves behind a legacy of scratched screens and germs. Of course I could be one of those crazy people who likes things clean, but the amount of times I see people touching the screens and then SAYING exactly what they are pointing at makes it a fruitless exercise. You might as well just say it rather than putting your finger print on a monitor, after which our good ol' police state can then track you down if you ever said anything out of line.

That said, if everyone touches the computer screens, then they are just as filthy as keyboards. Did you know that a survey of government offices found that every 3 in 10 keyboards are even more filthy than a toilet that's seen three shots of diarrhoea and someone's dinner (no, this is not a made up statistic). They had to be removed to be DECONTAMINATED. If that's the case, our monitors are just as bad.

Remember kids, in future, look with your eyes, not with your fingers.

If you are reading this, do you think my posts are too long and rambling? Just a general question. Answer and comment away.

This post has nothing to do with the title. So suck it,

It's that time of year again. My birthday. I'd like to say thanks to those who have wished me a happy birthday either through facebook or when they met me. Overall it's not been such a bad day, spent most of it giving my heart and soul to a black hole called "cover letters", more on that a bit later on. What I'm most surprised about is how many people knew it was my birthday and that have actually took the time to say happy birthday to me. I don't consider myself important but I have lots of friends, but the amount of people that have come up to me and said "happy birthday" has been utterly overwhelming. I'm moved, really. So I'd like to dedicate this post to those kind people, cheers everyone!

Now, on to the matter of the dark mistress known as an internship. Oh lordy, where should I begin? Well, let's begin at the beginning since I can't start anywhere else but also end at the beginning because I've yet to get anywhere. I'm tired, so if you want this post to make sense, f*** you. The actual application form isn't at all bad. You fill in your details, education, skills, work experience etc. That kind of stuff takes about 15 minutes tops for each place I'm applying to (think investment banks). Then comes those evil little things called open ended questions. Here's a little taster:

"Why do you want to work for [name removed], why that department and what skills you can bring to our organisation. [300 words]"

That's about the general sort of stuff you get. OK, not so bad, all you have to do is write something down that will look good to the employer. But then I hear that the HR department only takes 10 seconds to GLANCE at the statements and CVs. Students have poured their hearts and souls into these letters, well okay it's bullshit, but it's bullshit from our hearts and souls and all you do is take a glance at it, tell whether it's in the right format and then say or, god forbid, think yes or no. At least take 3 minute to read through some of the entire application. If you work for 8 hours a day, minus a 30 minute break for lunch, 2 x 15 minutes for smoking breaks (don't do this at home kids) and a 1 minute break once every 3 minutes, you can go through 93.333 applications in a single working day. I don't want any excuses saying that you have other things to do, your HR department is huge and your only job is to process/read these applications and to approve or disapprove (is that the right word here?) them. But then, these applications don't all come through at once, do they? They come through in a trickle at the start and then more and more. If you done your job right, this shouldn't be a problem for you, right? Forget it, I think this might just piss off some HR people if they read it. If you gotten this far without being so utterly disgusted and decided to start a satanic hate group against me, write a comment about how you're about to start a satanic hate group against me.

On the anime front, ladies and gentlemen, the London Expo is coming around again. My first time and hopefully not the last time. I'll keep you guys notified about it in my next post. As for the anime itself, Manabi Straight. Okay, I've honestly have had thoughts about someone coming into my room and seeing me watch this show and thinking I'm a paedophile. THEY ARE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. Blame the flipping animators making them look like bug-eyed midgets on crack. The plot revolves around one girl, Mikan Inamori, basically the only member of the school council. Due to falling birthrates and a failing economy, the Japanese children have been given the right to drop out of school after middle school to find work. Because of this, attendance at schools have been at an all time low and thus affecting the school council of Seioh High School, where Mikan is at. Then this energetic girl, Manami Amamiya, transfers in from another school, takes over as president of the council and decides to make everything more "fun". By now, it's beginning to sound like Haruhi, but it's not. As a show, it's OK, but it takes things a little bit too seriously. The lead characters are shown to be normal school girls with problems (no big surprises there) while the lead character was supposed to be Manami, or MANABI as she likes to be called, was suddenly switched to Mikan about halfway through. Overall, it's an okay show. Not something to watch with all-male friends, but something light-hearted to show to your sweetheart.

So there's the update and my moanings and groanings for this week. I'll be back later to slap you over the LAN.

So how was everyone's summer? If you are wondering why I haven't been updating this blog is because I really could not be bothered for the best part of the last year. Not that I don't like to blog but it was that I just did not feel like adding to this unless I have something to say. So why am I updating now? To be honest, I have no idea.

Now when I say that "I'm ALIVE", I mean that in the short term. You see, during the summer it has been bed at 2am and late brunches at noon. Now, however, it seems that God (or a minor deity) has got something against me. For, you see, I have just received my timetable for the next year. And what do I see? 9am starts lectures for Monday to Thursday but lectures start at 12pm on Friday. I think, "OK, it's not too bad, at least Friday will be good, right?" but noooo...fate kicks me in the crotch and puts a class at 10am in the morning on Friday. Even though I have to go to bed at human hours (at around 12am) to be actually able to climb out of it in the morning, the times actually means I'm free most afternoons, which frees me from the stresses of having one lecture in the morning and one in the dead of night. I'm not totally sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing any more.

On a more personal note, I'm officially the IT Halls advisor for my halls of residence this year and, from what I can gather, the next year too. The pay is good and the hours are perfect for me too. The only bad thing is that I've been dubbed this genius at IT by most people in my halls when I'm not. I haven't said anything to them, but it's been perceived that I am. I was approached by a guy this morning from the Bridge Society (the card game, not the thing that goes over large crevices) to help them do some stuff for their website. There's three things wrong: 1. I haven't done any website stuff for 5 years, not since my work experience down at the Royal Navy's website team, 2. I'm not part of the Bridge society, and 3. I practically know nothing about websites. He didn't believe me and said I was just being modest. Oh lawd. I'm pretty sure that in the next few days, I'll have students asking me to set up servers in their own rooms to hack into the Pentagon or something. I mean, it's not like I'm bad with computers, I'm proficient with using them, troubleshooting problems, sorting out internet connections, destroying viruses etc, but people who don't understand that just because I'm the IT guy, does not mean that I am good with everything that is to do with the computer. Just because you don't understand how to do it does not mean that someone relatively competent with the thing will know exactly how to do it. It's like saying to a dentist to operate on a hernia. They have their own specialities, same with the IT profession. You get coders and you get network engineers. One might have some idea about the other's job, but they can't do each other's job for them. I'm happy for them to ask me, but sometimes it's just embarrassing to say that "I don't know". Maybe I should put up a list of my required tasks on facebook or posters around the halls or something...

On the anime front, the summer season of anime is about over. Several good shows came out of it. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan (Or Heaven Piercing Gurren Lagaan), Lucky Star, Darker Than Black and RomeoXJuliet. Gurren Lagaan is basically for mecha fans and those who generally like Gainax, Lucky Star for those who want cute and a good laugh (Azumanga on steroids), Darker Than Black is for those who want action with a supernatural twist while RomeoXJuliet is one for those who like anime adaptations and love stories. I have yet to see RomeoXJuliet, but it has been rated highly, so yeah. Check them out. Beware that only Lucky Star has yet to be licensed, so you might have trouble finding the other three.

Anyway, have a good October. And here's some words of encouragement for the oncoming winter: "Go forth and multiply."

Insomnia. Who the hell came up with that? What the hell does it even mean? I can guess that "som" probably mean sleep and "In" meaning can't or the opposite of whatever the word that came after it means, but "nia"? If someone actually knows, please tell me.

Exams...oh yeah. Doozy of a 2 weeks left for revision. None for economic history, well nothing that constitutes as formal revision unless you count writing essay plans that are 1) not in depth enough to actually be useful 2) that are most probably off topic anyway, making even more worthless. Stats and maths I've been doing papers like mad for the past 2 weeks. Getting the hang of the questions but have no idea what everything is and why we do them. I usually find exams to be a time of testing how well you can remember something in the short term rather than the long term, and I think I speak for all my fellow students that the above statement is true (well, to a certain degree of freedom...oh god...I can see the t and chi-squared distributions in front of my eyes! Away! Away! GAH!). Of course it eventually gets buried into our minds, of which we only use about 20%, and retrieved sometime in the next 30 years only to be used as a conversation starter in a speed dating service. Of course I'm not saying that all economics students will end up like that, most, but not all and I am basing this claim on data that my sleep deficient brain just made up. Go brain. Seriously though, most of the stuff we learn in university is worthless in the workplace. Of course there's the maths and English but not everything we learn gets used when we find a job. With probably the sole exception of doctors, most of the stuff we learn now won't be helpful.

So why not just send us straight into work, like in the good ol' days of child slave labour? Well first would be that it'll be unethical for children to work. Too many get stuck in chimneys and the chimney sweep companies can't keep up with the constant compensation claims for new chimneys because the old one is beginning to smell, but two, universities allow us to gain skills that would be helpful in the work place, such as leaving things to the last minute, sleeping at 2am and then going into work at 11, shifts always start 10 minutes later than the time your boss want to start, missing a few days here and there is OK because no one will notice or, my personal favourite, "it's only got two colonies of mould growing on it, nothing a good minute in the grill won't fix." Good luck employers. I've always wondered why the world hasn't already ruined, oh wait let me rephrase that, hasn't been ruined further than it already has thanks to us students? Well if I pass my exams, I suppose I'll find out sooner or later.

Well it's 2:38am now and my brain has just about shut down. And as per the last 2 (or 3, I'm too lazy to check), I'll post up an anime series review. This time: Planetes. That's ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ (if that's come out gibberish on your browser, tough. Get a better browser and character set). Basically meaning "wanderers" in Greek. For what reason the original artist for the manga (comic in english) decided to call a story about space rubbish collectors "wanderers" is beyond me. Anyway, the year is 2075. Space travel has been commercialised and people go into space for holidays and work. But as people go out into space, they create...shit. Well, not shit in the literal sense, though people do create shit, but by shit here I mean rubbish that are floating in space and are floating at about 5km/s. Basically the story revolves around a young man named Hachimaki (or headband in Japanese) who collects rubbish to buy a spaceship of his own and his new coworker, Tanabe who was just transferred into the Debris Section to help him. Basically he and she collect rubbish from space so it's safe for space craft to travel without being hit by a screw or something since it's already happened before a nail hit the side of a shuttle and caused the cabin to decompress killing most of the passengers aboard. Anyhoo, the anime just follows how space has been commercialised and its resources hogged by the rich countries that can go into space while the smaller, weaker and unstable countries that are left behind are invaded by the Union (UN, basically) to bring peace. Of course people aren't happy about that and so there's terrorism in space etc, etc. The story is good for those looking for a glimpse of what the future of space holds for humans in about 60-70 years if the market system prevails and the current political status and ranks (Superpower --> Developed countries --> Developing countries --> Countries that are going through some shit) then we'll probably see the whole thing come true.

Righto. 2:52am...need sleep. If you wanna comment, comment. If you want to complain, complain. But remember that Zoidberg Jesus watches you as you sleep. NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN AROUND HIM! BTW, this hasn't been proof read because I'm lazy. If you want to tell me about poor grammar and spelling, don't. You'll just piss me off and I'll shut your computer down from where I'm sitting. Yep, I can do that. So fear me, MWAHAHAHAHA!

What has it been? 3 months since I last updated? Well nevermind. There hasn't really been much to say apart from my daily lack of sleep while continuously trying to finish work and gaming on the side. It's kinda like a little experiment on how the human body can cope with only 5-6 hours of sleep a day. The only odd thing is that I kinda get this tingly feeling every now and then. I think it's because of the lack of sleep. I hope. Plus I'm forgetting things lately too, like yesterday I took my laptop to uni. Picked up the power lead before I left, put it on the table, picked up my bag and left without the power lead. I only realised when I took my laptop out in the library. I don't remember what I said but it must have been either very bad or very loud since everyone around me was looking at me.

*Yawns*

It's Easter, finally. 10 weeks of work and 5 weeks of holiday. Great you would think, no? Well they expect 4 weeks of work from you during it. OK, I'm supposed to revise and all but then why the hell did they call this a holiday? Why can't they just schedule the exams a little later than 14th May? We pay around 3000 a year, or 12000 if you're international student, not including living expenses and for what? 23 weeks of teaching with minimal help. Yeah. Worth it. Anyway, after Wednesday or something I'll be working my ass off going in for the exams with the hundreds of past exam papers and my notes scattered around somewhere.

Animoo. So tactfully coined by VGCats webcomic. One word, Nodame. OK, two words, Nodame Cantabile. Those of you who are into music, you should know what Cantabile stands for. For those not in the know, it means "singable" or "songlike" (according to Wikipedia, the source of all crappy knowledge that we didn't think we wanted to know). Nodame, or Noda, is a girl in the best music school in Tokyo while the protagonist, Chiaki, a self-centred, egotistic and brilliant musical genius tries to get transfer into conducting from his current piano course. The story follows Chiaki and the parasitic like Nodame who falls instantly in love with him when he teaches her a piece of music while meeting up with other misfits in the university/academy.

The story to Nodame Cantabile is not totally original but it is a welcome change to Death Note, which seems to be going downhill lately. I'm enjoying watching the whole thing in perfect clarity since the rip is from a HD Channel in Japan (which I think is the same one that shows Bartender). I think the art looks like it was from the guy who did slam dunk, but on a much simpler level, which works since the show is supposed to be portrayed that way. That plus Tomokazu Seki (Sagara Sousuke, Full Metal Panic and Domon Kashuu, G Gundam) and Ayako Kawasumi (Osaka or Ayumu Kasuga, Azumanga Daioh and Fuu, Samurai Champloo) makes the show so much more enjoyable since their voices match the personalities of their characters.

Anyhoo, it's almost 10pm and I'm sleepy. For some reason I'm back in the LSE for one day as I'm picking up more notes and a cheque (My society owes me something like £30-40). I'll update this again whenever I feel like it and if you don't like it, I'll be sure to shed a gentle tear for you.

Comment if you want, just don't expect me to take much notice of them (probably).

Oh boy. Sorry for not writing for nearly a month, but it's been a...well busy holiday for me. Anyways, Christmas and the New Year is now over so the next holiday that I have to look forward to is Easter (and Chinese New Year but no time off *waves angry fist*) when it'll be REVISION TIME! Joy. Bloody joy.

You guys obviously have made New Years resolutions, right? Well mine is to never make another resolution ever again. I mean you make a resolution and there's no incentive to keep at it. Sure resolutions work with some people but whenever I set myself a target or set out a timetable, I never manage to keep to it. If the task is job related or work related, then of course, the deadline is important but a New Year's resolution is impossible for me to keep. So my new resolution is never to make another resolution. That'll save some time.

Anyway, on the anime front, 2 words: Death Note. Go watch. It's about a boy named Light Yagami who finds a notebook called Death Note which lets the user kill others by putting their name into the Death Note. Basically Light kills off most of the world's most horrendous criminals and in doing so finds himselve being pursued by a mastermind detective called L (who's the same age as him). Anyway, the original manga was a success so it was made into a film, which was the first several volumes. Then the anime came out which follows the manga quite faithfully except for some facts and events. The show's just one big game of chess with deception and lies where Light and L try to outwit each other, even though each of them don't know who the other is and whoever finds out the other's identity first wins and the loser dies.

Well, that's it for now. Have a picture, Death Note crossed with Futurama (Top left, Fry = Yagami Light; top right, Bender = Ryuk, or a Death God; bottom, Dr Zoidberg = L)

I got one of my friends to read this blog. Basically he said, "WTF?!" except with more expletives. Anyway, yeah, that's the general feeling I this blog to give off. I mean what's a blog that doesn't give off that "WTF?!" feel? You have blogs that chronicle people's everyday lives, people who have a specific opinion, people who are doing it for the money etc. Of course there will be "WTF?!" blogs out there (cool, I just created a new catagory of blogs), but I want mine to be just totally random ramblings about nothingness.

Anyways, holidays. Love them or hate them. Parents complain that I'm getting 1 month off as a Christmas holidays is too long and some of my friends want it to be 2 months. A saying comes to mind when I type this: "You can't ever make everyone happy". Well 1 month off for a university is good. Gives me sometime to catch up with lost sleep, get to grips with some of the stuff I learnt this term (I'm trying not to laugh as I write that...) and get some of the backlogged anime watched that are stored up on this lil' laptop here. So 1 month seems good for me. HOWEVER, I wish it could just be 3 weeks and have 1 week in between the terms, like a half-term. A friend of mine at Warwick gets a reading week to catch up with readings. Of course he's doing law and that requires reading but that doesn't apply to LSE. Oh no, they work you and work you and work you (and ninja all your money while they work you too) until you are all worked out. Then they take your shrivelled husk of a body and stuff it into a tuna-can called Crush (a party that's named for the number of people that gets crushed every Saturday). I feel sorry for the law and history students (I do an outside option in Econ. History so I know the reading lists are murder) for having to put up with the reading, essay writing and lectures for 10 weeks. But from the looks of it, there won't be any motion put up any time soon for the school to change it's policies.

I like the holidays like the next imaginary person, but there's something that's been irking me. The Sainsbury's in Portsmouth (Farlington if you know the area) ut up Halloween stuff in September. After October the 1st, the Christmas stuff went up. Every year Walk past the isle of Christmas decorations in mid-October and think to myself:

"Why the f*** do they put up these stuff so damned early?"

I still have no idea at the moment (email your thoughts to me at idontgiveadamn@hotmail.com). Christmas is all about the birth of Christ or whatever your specific religon/cult/family tradition dictates for this time of the year, not a huge spendaton for presents that would just be returned or given back to you a year later. I think we need to remember that this time of the year is to get back together with your family and spend time with them (if you are in prison, use a spoon or something. You know what to do). I've heard recently that the parents and grandparents of a 12 year old child had him arrested because he opened his Christmas present (a GBA, yes, the boy was actually excited to get a GBA. WHAT CAVE HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING IN?!). I mean it's getting ridiculous, children have been annoying their parents for a XBOX 360 and then getting some kind of chemistry set on Christmas day. This not only ruins the atmosphere but you also have a pissed off preteen with a bunch of chemicals that could become a toxic hazard but it also destroys affection left within the family, all in the name of gift giving and good will. Well, I say pish tosh. If we spend time together that would be the best christmas gift anyone can want (unless you're that family then you'll be spending lots of time together in the mortuary).

Well that's it for this entry. As the song I'm listening to is aptly named, adieu and good night.

So I went paintballing last week and caught a cold (that explains why I haven't been posting stuff up). As it was my first time paintballing, I thought I'd share my first thoughts on the game.

1) It hurts

But only if you get hit but then again, it hurts less if the paintball acutally splatters on you rather than just bounce off. I got two bruises showing that it really hurts when paintballs just bounce off you. Of course there's no fun when there's no pain but still I thought it should have hurt a little less.

2) It's muddy

Yeah, slush through puddles that are 2 inches deep and ruin your shoes for ever. I wore a pair of old trainers (the right one had a hole in it) so my right foot was caked with mud afterwards. I didn't mind the mud but it was the wetness that got on my nerves. The jumpsuit was sufficient in preventing any mud to stain my shirts and trousers which was nice. But the wetness really gets to you when you reach a map with a small hill. THERE'S NO DAMN WAY YOU CAN CLIMB UP A HILL WHEN IT'S MUDDY AND WET! Of the team of 13, 8 slipped, 5 had to use their guns to climb up which meant that their barrels were filled with mud and were useless and I almost didn't make it over the hill. Yeah, we should have picked a drier day. I thanked god I had a change of socks and shoes.

3) Paintballs are really easy to lose

I lost 200 (and so £10) by not having my paintballs secure. One of the paintball holder's tops just literally fell off while the other 100 fell out when I was reloading and someone shot me which caused me to tilt my gun, you can figure out the rest. Here's a lesson to all newbies like me: KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR BOTTLES AND GUN!

4) The god damned paintballs swerve!

Yeah it was windy. Even with the paintballs travelling at 120mph the wind swerves them so your perfectly aimed shot goes 3 metres to the right by the time it gets to the target. Also I thought the paintballs wouldn't arc in the air, but they do! You would think travelling at 120mph would mean pretty much a straight line for at least 10 metres, but nooooo, they arc which means that damn ball only goes about so many metres before falling to the ground. So damned annoying.

5) The guns jam

Yeah, some guns lose CO2 faster than others while others don't jam. On one of the missions, I had a perfectly good firing position and had 3/4 people ready to be mowed down by a hail of paintballs. THE GUN REFUSED TO FIRE! I went to get it replaced but the match had already ended. When I took the paintball container off the gun and fired it at the ground, guess what? 6 paintballs came out all at once.

6) Grenades can be useful

On one of the maps, one group was stuck inside a house while the other was positioned all around the house. The group inside the house can comeout but only at a 5m distance from the house while the other group can't get within 8m of the house. When the match began, me and my friends shout have just tossed in about 3 smoke grenades and shot the guys while they came out. Good game.

Well there's more but I really can't be bothered right now. It's half past 11 and I'm tired, so don't bother me when I sleep.

If only statistics was a lot easier to understand. I mean what the hell does this mean?

1 = E[or sigma](S!(N-S)!x!(n-x)!)/((S-x)!N!(N-x)!n!)

OK, sure if you understood it yeah fine. But when the lecturer explains stuff and then sets stuff in the homework that is pretty much impossible to understand and then NOT provide comprehensive answers that allows you to know HOW to answer the question in the first place but instead give cryptic hints that should give you some idea of how to work it out if you know what you're doing but got stuck somewhere which doesn't make sense because if you know what you're doing you won't get stuck but if you don't know what you're doing then the notes won't help you unless you know what you're doing so in other words the answers that he provides us are not actually answers because one they don't tell you the answers and expect you to intuitively know exactly what's going on while not explaining on how you're supposed to get to that conclusion in the first place but not only that the hints that he gives also makes any who reads it feel that the problem is on their end and that they must be stupid for not understanding what's going on so it makes them question their own self worth in relation to the course that they are doing which in turn decreases their morale and self esteem that creates horrible holes within a human psyche and destroying their confidence which would result in them failing almost pretty much every class because they are asking themselves over and over again whether they are stupid for not understanding the statistics notes and therefore must not be smart enough to understand what's going on in the other classes or whether it's because that everything in the LSE is so complicated there is no point to continue with the studies because if everything else is so complicated too there's no way that they will be able to understand.

*Gasps for air*

OMG, it's Saturday already? It's 00:56 as I write this. Should I go to bed or to polish off the rest of the Naruto manga I'm reading? Decisions, decisions.

Oh, I'm going off to a friend's place tomorrow and making Chinese dumplings. I'm making the mince (a pork one and a vegetarian one) and hopefully won't be making everything myself by the end of the day. Then on Sunday, PAINTBALL! I'm wishing that the gale warning that's been issued doesn't hit London, specifically Upminster where I'm going to play with 32 other people. £15 for the entrance fee, gear hire and 100 paintballs is quite cheap but the £5 per extra 100 paintballs is going to bankrupt me. Hey, it's the first time I'll be going so I'm sure that my paintball ammo is going to be disappearing faster than a freshly cut stake at the home for hungry dogs.

Anyways, I've decided to finish reading my Naruto manga before bed. Nighties!

Even though I've been in the LSE for, I don't know, 2 months now and I've just realised that most of the students staying in the halls can't really cook. Obviously some can cook but most of them can't. I dunno why. Maybe it's because most of them are boarding school students and relied on their school cafeterias for meals. I can't say that I can cook well but at least I get by with cooking meals from scratch but from what I see in the shared fridge, most of the stuff my flatmates buy are just readymeals or stuff that you can shove in an oven or just boil etc. That stuff kills off your brain cells faster than cheetah trying to break the world speed record.

Still the food that I cook can't really be considered healthy either. Stir fries every day is going to build up the oil inside my body until one day someone exposes me to a naked flame and my name shall be remembered as one of the biggest tragedies in human history.

As I write this, my thanks and love goes out to the Italians and their pasta. It's simple and easy to make, shouldn't take more than half an hour to prepare and cook all the stuff. I love Italy and all it's people, but there's one thing I can't stand, it's their language. For some reason, my mind does horrific mental spasms every time it's exposed to the Italian language which makes my ears bleed (well not literally. If you thought I really did bleed from my ears you should get that thing in between yours checked tomorrow). I reiterate that the Italian people are wonderful and so is their country and traditions, but if only they could change their language back to Latin or something, I'd love them even more (in the metaphorical sense you perverts and stop mentally undressing me, it's distracting).

I'm typing this as I eat home made sweet and sour chicken (yep from scratch, the sause and everything). The damn thing took me an hour and half, but it was worth it. I think I'll make a curry next Monday or something.

Anyways, as the Screening Night Officer of the LSE Anime and Managa Society, I have to go back into LSE and put on an anime scheduled for tonight (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, or When Cicadas Cry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higurashi). Even though it is anime, I'd recommend you guys watch the 26 episode psychological horror series (get it from www.animesuki.com through torrents). I've shown it to people who's previously not into anime and they all loved it.

Well, I need to finish eating and get going. Until next time, my little slaves, hehehe.

My god, is it me or has the sun decided to play hide and seek with Andromeda? It was dark at 3PM! That's is so goddamned ridiculous. I know British summer time is over but dark at THREE PM?! Sure there was dark and gloomy clouds in the sky and it was drizzling too but how the hell is it possible to be DARK AT THREE IN THE AFTERNOON?!

Ah, forget it.

Well, today wasn't too bad a day. Bought some stuff for Saturday's dumpling-making-athon with some friends. Good thing was that I found most of the stuff we need. Bad thing was that it costs around £10. £10 isn't too bad but it would have been cheaper if I didn't need to make a vegetarian option for my friend's girlfriend. Not that I'm complaining that she shouldn't be a vegetarian, but everything would have been simpler if she ate meat. Meh.

In other news, I've started playing the recently released Super Robot Taisen Original Generation 2 game that was released last Thursday in English (at last). The game is a Strategy RPG (turn-based) mecha game that is based around the original characters and original mecha that the developers Banpresto have introduced into their Super Robot Taisen games over the last 15 years. If you want to know more, just pop over to www.srwg.org or if you can read Japanese www.suparobo.jp for more info about the GBA game. I'm glad that pigs are flying over a frozen hell because an SRT have been released in the West but to be honest, some of the name translations are slightly disappointing. Like a BGM that was originally called Dark Prison has been remained Man in the Dark. WTF?! I mean sure, if there was spacing problems then I'll understand but MAN IN THE DARK is LONGER than Dark Prison. Atlus (the game translators) blame Banpresto by saying that it is they who decide on all final translations. I think someone's growing whiskers out of their cheeks and becoming weasel like. I mean come on, at least you could have come up with the excuse that it is done to protect the American/Western society from pain and suffering in some form, but nooooo...they blame it on Banpresto. I admit that Banpresto must have had some influence but according to their blogs, some of the Original Generation developers have shown their displeasure at the English translation of names and other scripts. *Sigh* Ah well at least I have an English game to play.

Things to do...things to do...

Econ History notes needs typing up...Economics Problem Set #2 needs to be done by 8th of Dec...Economics quiz to be done...well, gotta go.

Hey all,

Another blog on the vast wastelands of internet blogging, one which will be casually overlooked by all apart from me, myself and Mr Chirpy by imaginary friend. So if that is the case then I really don't give a damn about what I post up here, but if the internet police from whatever government reads this then I'll probably disappear for several months and come back with nothing to show except some mental scars (which you can't see anyway).

Since this is my first blog, I'll introduce myself. You guys can call me Nabeshin III. I'm not telling you my real name because who knows what kinda nut cases might be reading this(*). The name Nabeshin is copyrighted, I presume by the anime series called Excel Saga and it's director Watanabe Shinichi (hence nabe shin). The III that came after it was my own creation, but some of you die-hard law degree holders with knowledge in copyright/trademark bastards who say that everything we say and do is copyrighted/trademarked, the III is also trade marked by some obscure person who's also copyrighted millions of other words and is currently building a money-brick house in Aruba. On a side note, if you are Watanabe-san, your films and anime are great (please don't sue me, I'm poor and hungry).

(*: You might notice that this contradicts what I said in the first paragraph, I'll be doing that quite often. If you feel the need to comment or email me about it, fine but I'll just be wondering how with no one reading this blog can suddenly generate feedback.)

I'm a student at the London School of Economics (LSE for short, kinda like the London Stock Exchange but with less shouting men and women). It's the 3rd best university in the UK who's a little bit like Robin Hood where they take the money from the poor students and redistributes them to the rich (but suffering) shareholders, boardmembers and overpaid lecturers, to whom we clap for at the end of each lecture, BUT WE ARE PAYING THEM BETWEEN £12000 AND £3000 A YEAR TO DO THAT, WTF?!

As you probably realised, I'm a fan of Japanese animation. Go ahead, laugh, I'll give you a minute to settle down before I carry on.

How did I get into Japanese animation, you ask? Oh, you didn't. Well up yours, you're going to hear it anyway. I'm not too sure how or when I magically got thrown into the world of animation. I think it started with transformers back when I was little in China, but the only thing I remember was OPTIMUS DIES!!! But after I moved to the UK, anime (short for Japanese animation, if you think I'm going to type Japanese animation one more time, I'm going to reach through the TCP/IP line and smack you) was practically non-existant. Sure there was the good ol' Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds but those aren't really cartoons. I think the first instance of anime that was shown on public television had to be Pokemon. I'm not going to say anything else on the subject of my life but if you want to know more, please direct all relevant mail to mailbag@pokemon.com, go bother them, shoo. Anime eventually lead me to become a mecha fan and a fan of a Japanese game called Super Robot Taisen. I'll be talking about that game and other related stuff so I won't bore you with that now.

Chicken, jam, 7, Debby Moore, consider, ocelot, vat.

Those words don't actually have any meaning, I was just checking whether you're still awake.

Carrying on, I'm currently doing a degree in Economics (I can hear the groans already). Another fool trying to get his way into the world of business, heh. Well, let's just say I like to take on challenges that come my way when they get here. It's not like I'll be scrambling my way over the dead bodies of other slain graduates in the market, am I? It would be cool if that can actually happen, the scrambling over the dead graduates part, not the difficulty in getting the job part.

Well, I think I'll leave that there for the moment. Need to get some reading done and gonna have some sweet and sour chicken tonight for dinner. Going to try and NOT make the sauce taste like watered down vinegar this time.

Nabeshin III