I think I’m slowly getting back into blogging again. My new Black★Rock Shooter figure arrived yesterday, exactly two weeks after it was shipped from Hobby Search in Japan. I pre-ordered the figma version, as it’s less expensive than the other figures (seeing as I’m a student and all, I’m mostly poor), and it’s more customisable than the other more expensive firgures. This one is 14cm in height and cost me ¥2946 (about $40 AUD) including shipping (with my 15% discount from Hobby Search), as opposed to the 29cm figures that cost upwards from $170 AUD. :O

Anyway, Black Rock Shooter is an original character and song developed using the Hatsune Miku voice synthesiser. What gets annoying is how many people think that BRS and Hatsune Miku are related or are from the same series, as they look similar in appearance. Other than sharing the same voice in the song, they have absolutely no relation to each other!  I’ll add the music video here, which was developed as a pilot for the upcoming (at the time) release of the OVA. If you’re not a fan of J-pop, you may like to ignore the song.

Finally, here is the new figure that I bought, Black Rock Shooter Figma version. I haven’t placed it in a particularly amazing pose, or customised it much, but this will do for now. The figure came with several options, including the Black Rock Cannon, Black Blade, five pairs of hands, three faces, two hairstyles (one with glowing eye), and two metal chains that are most likely for display only. I was also really surprised to see that it also came with a copy of the OVA on DVD.

Well that’s it for now, I might update this entry soon to include an image with the her black katana if anyone’s interested. Let’s hope I can get back into writing blogs again.

Also,  I really need to find another theme for this blog now that I’m including videos and pictures more often, as there’s not enough space for anything. I don’t wnat to have to resize everything again… Let me know if you find a few decent ones. This blog will look weird until I change it, so help me out.

-Lachy.

Hooray, my new anime figures arrived today, that I bought from Ebay about a week ago. They’re a little smaller than I expected, the description said they were 10-12cm in height, but they’re actualy 9-10cm in reality. They’re still awesome though, so it’s all ok.

Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura now lives in my house. Jealous?  Sakura is the greatest, definitely my favourite female anime character. She has rollerblades, and clow cards, and Keroberos! The fact that it’s a shoujo anime means nothing to otaku such as myself, because she is full of win. If any of you haven’t seen Cardcaptor Sakura before, you definitely need to see it! But, keep a few things in mind:

First of all,  it is NOT Cardcaptors, it is infinitely better than the butchered English dub. The US version has no Japanese names, places or cultural references; the characters and their relationships aren’t nearly as deep; and they reduced the number of episodes. I could rant about it all day. The US version “Cardcaptors” is nowhere near as hilarious or interesting as the original Japanese anime.

Also, the show is actually really entertaining, it isn’t incredibly girly, as many fan images would have you believe… It isn’t completely covered in pink or anything, you just need to get past the pink phone, pink staff, and occasional pink battle outfits. It’s just an awesome magical girl series that has everything that is awesome. I’m thinking about getting a Cardcaptor Sakura wallscroll when I go to brisbane as well.

While I’m talking about anime figures, I think it’s time I updated some of you about my others. One of the following figures was actually acquired fairly recently as well. I’m sure Brent will like it. It’s Clare, from the anime Claymore. It also comes with Irene’s right arm (currently attached).

Clare from Claymore

And this next image contains the rest of the figures I haven’t included in previous entries. 

In case you haven’t seen my other two figuresalready, they’re pretty awesome. They should be somewhere under the anime tag. You can expect to see Spike Spiegel and a silver Astro Boy.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for right now.  I uploaded these images tonight using WinSCP, a freeware FTP client. It seems alright so far, I might keep using it for a while, so I don’t need to keep relying on the FlashFXP trial. I didn’t really like Filezilla much…

Ciao friends.

Well, the HSC is finally over. Now I just need to go back to school to sign out (and purchase a 200GB IDE drive for $23. ). I should be providing some details of what’s been happening, so I’ll start with the exams.

HSC Exams

Well, they’re over. I don’t want to go into much detail, so here’s a brief overview of my thoughts on the exams:

• English Paper 1 – Moderately annoying
• Information Processes & Technology – Easy
• English Advanced paper 2 – Annoying
• Mathematics Advanced – Mostly annoying
• Software Design & Development – Easy, though I know I missed at least one simple mark due to an error.
• Information Technology – Easy

Lennox Head

Well, for schoolies some friends and I went up to Lennox Head, about 30 mins south of Byron Bay. There were six of us going, taking two cars. Our group left soon after my last exam, and we just happened to get stuck in traffic between Korora and Moonee Beach for an hour. Great fun. So, what should have been a 3.5 hour trip ended up being 5 hours. At least we had a good chance to listen to power metal (including some laughing at DragonForce) along the way (my music was supreme =D ), and some of Peter’s misc good-feeling music. Also, we can’t forget Sam’s spectacular iPod, broken in half and held together by sticky tape.

So, to briefly describe what we did up there, it involved drinking; watching Black Books, Cowboy Bebop, Hellsing, Big Trouble Little China and The Goonies (Thanks to Crowley I actually liked it.); playing Xbox/360; going out to Mexican, which was awesome (and included chilli beer); and going to the beach.

Anyway, ’twas great fun.

Nothing

Since then, I’ve been doing pretty much nothing mostly. Watching anime (Gundam 00, Azumanaga Daioh, Cardcaptor Sakura again), watching Cool Runnings, playing some games (Crysis WARHEAD, Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed and Plants vs Zombies), swimming a bit, and working on applying for a job. I plan on applying to a few computer repair places, a web design business, as well as K-Mart, Target, Big W, Dick Smith Electronics and Tandy.

That’s basically it for me, I’ve also decided o start using a few more Google apps. I’ve just started using Google Reader, and I’m liking it so far. I needed a decent RSS reader. I’ve also just downloaded a pre-rlease version of ChromeOS, so I’m going to test that out from a USB stick tomorrow.

So, now that I’ve finished school I’ll be able to do a few things, like continue to work on my blog theme, possibly convert to a new database app, although finding a decent RAD app other than Access is hard, and start working on IPTBB again.

That’s it for now, I’m off to drink some Mountain Dew at 2am.

The HSC is almost over, finally. 13 years of school, almost gone. Wooooo! I just have one more exam on Friday, IT. Should be easy.

So, after the exam I’ll be going up to Lennox with friends to stay in a rented house for the weekend. Should be good. I plan on commandeering Sam’s PS3 to finally watch Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on Blu-ray, as I don’t have a BD player myself… ^_^;

So anyway, I’ll be back soon, with no more school and hopefully I will not have developed Motorphobia (fear of cars) in the event that Sam’s car turns out to be… The Yukari Mobile…

Wish me luck…

As promised, here is the Astro Boy entry. In case you didn’t read my last entry in which I made said promise, here’s the explantion.

For the last three years, the Coffs Harbour Anime Society (a club I go to) have been selling raffle tickets for a large, silver Astro Boy statue, a collector’s item that was originally purchased for $200 AUD, and now out of production. A few weeks ago, they finally had enough money to balance the cost of the prize, so the raffle finally took place.

The point is, I won! I don’t know how, but I did! So, here is a picture of the prize, as promised. It has made itself at home with Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop.

Silver Astro Boy - My prize.