What's with this whole metal revival thing?

1 year 10 months ago

"Give MasterPlan a listen. Fantastic stuff, kind of speed metal, but with great lyrical and vocal quality as opposed to the older style screaming. In fact they remind me of some of the older hair bands."
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Canadian Bands

1 year 10 months ago

"I do like a slew of canadian bands. I think Our Lady Peace has few equals in versatility and quality. I really think Billy Talent is a misnomer though, talent is something that isn't there :) If he could SING then maybe... the tunes are kind of catchy at least.
"
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V4 Early Release!

2 years 3 months ago

"Seems quite a bit more responsive, and the layout is nice to look at as well as functional.

Will mouseover info on walls in the gallery be coming back? I found that handy!"
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Assisted Suicide

2 years 7 months ago

"I don't see why it shouldn't be legal. Anyone should be able to end their life if they so choose, and if they are unable to, and wish it.. well why not?"
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Download Anime?

2 years 9 months ago

"You guys are crazy. Even if that was a viable option legally and logistically, it would be more like 200,000-300,000 papers. That's putting aside all logic in regards to bandwidth, storage, etc.

Get bit torrent. Go to animesuki.net. "
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To Get a mac or not to get a Mac; That is the Question

2 years 9 months ago

"I just switched to Mac a few months ago. I've been using PC's for > 10 years. I've built my own pc's countless times, and built them for other people. I can't imagine ever going back to PC's now.

My pc was near the end of it's life, and I needed a new monitor as well. Adding up costs to get something modern and nice got me to about $900.. for an additional $300 I could get an iMac with a built in monitor. It's tiny, takes up no space on my desk. 17" widescreen BRILLIANT bright and constrasty monitor. It's almost completely silent unless I'm doing something real intensive like a big PS batch or dvd encoding.

There's a few reasons why I switched.

1) I was tired of dealing with random PC problems. I've dealt with a lot of pc's so I've dealt with a LOT of problems. Hardware, software, combinations, incompatibility, etc. Mac's pick a very small set of hardware to use, and write software ONLY for that hardware. You end up with a much more stable and efficient system because you don't have 2000 other drivers for things you don't use, and you don't have to check compatibility between all your components--it's been done for you.

2) MacOS X. Wow. Just.. Wow. Even taking away all the prettyness, it's still wow. There's so many little features that make using the computer easier. I hit a key and it "zooms out" and moves all my windows so I can see them all without overlap, then I click the one I want and it goes back to normal view, with that window on top. I can hit another key and it brings up all the PS windows in that fashion. I hit another key everything zooms off my desktop so I Can get to icons there.. hit again, everything goes right back where it was. I could go on for hours.

3) Much better at design/print. Apple's are designed for people who do design. Sure, you have most of the same software on PC now, but the computers and operating systems themselves have you in mind. Colour matching profiles are at your fingertips, and most apple monitors are calibrated to match. Widescreen is nice, though it's also available on PC now. There's a lot of small differences in the apps (PS, Flash, Dreamweaver) that are hard to describe, but useful.

I highly recomend you try one first. An ibook will be even quieter than my imac, plus portable. They are expensive, but it's one of those things where "you get what you pay for." Sure you can compare apple to mercedes, you're paying a premium for luxury. Is it worth it to you? That's up to you to decide. For me it finally was, and there's no way I'm going back. I work at a PC doing programming during the day, and it's actually kind of soothing to use my mac at night to check email or work on photos ;-)

Try to find a local apple store so you can play with them a while, you'll be hooked."
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My Naruto Wallpaper

2 years 9 months ago

"I agree with the above. It either needs some more contrasting colour, or some texture to the background. I don't really think it needs text personally, but something to make naruto stand out better from the background."
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Your favorite BLEACH's CHARACTERS

2 years 9 months ago

"<-- /Obvious"
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My Fisher Price First Wallpaper

2 years 9 months ago

"The styles on the text looks a lot better I think now!"
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My Fisher Price First Wallpaper

2 years 9 months ago

"I like it so far. My only iffyness at the moment is the bloody text. Though you did well making them look like blood, it might be too much. Maybe it's too much red on red, maybe the embossing takes my attention from the character.

I'd fiddle with burning the text into the background instead of setting it on top. Maybe some blurs. Don't lump it all together. The feeling of the images are crazed/manic/incoherent so scatter them about a bit/add some variation to the different segments?

This font came to mind thinking about unstable/berserker rage

Angstrom
"
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Dubbing STINKS!

2 years 10 months ago

"You know, dubbing has gotten a lot better in recent years. While I still prefer to watch things subbed, some of the bigger licensors really put some effort into making accurate dubs--not only linguistically accurate, but emotionally as well. Now while I'll definitely agree that in a general case dubbing is inferior, there are actually many dubs out there that aren't bad!

Example, the original Akira english dub was downright hokey. I kept expecting Kanada to yell "COWABUNGA!" or someting, he just had that tone to his voice, but the latest dub is much closer to the original japanese. I'm also a fan of some of the disney dubs of the ghibli films. They don't beat the original japanese, but they also don't ruin the story at all. They stay true to the characters, and very close to the dialogue.

One thing I like, that a lot of people seem to hate, is what ADV does with osakan accents. If you've seen the dub of azumanga diaoh, or magical shopping arcade abenobashi, you know what I mean. The characters have a southern drawl quality to them. While that seems to offend a lot of viewers... it's accurate! Osakan accents are analagous to our souther accents here in the states. If you don't believe me, listen to an osakan sing, or better yet listen to them speak english! The vowel shifts are virtually identical to what we experience in our midwest vs southern dialects in america. I value that sort of attention to detail. That shows me that the company is working to produce something as close to the original as possible while extending their possible audience. And since the original japanese is on the same disc... why complain? :)
"
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Fav. Manga-ka

2 years 11 months ago

"#1 - Masami Tsuda
Wow, I can't believe I'm only the second person in the thread to mention her! Her art is wonderful, her characters are completely believable, and deep, and her quarter panels are hilarious.

#2 Yu Watase - I don't think this needs any explanation.

#3 Saki Hiwatari - I am a Please Save My Earth fanboy. Interesting story, believable characters and interactions, a bit of mystery, a bit of sci-fi, a bit of comedy. Very enjoyable."
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Guys reading shoujo?

2 years 11 months ago

"I am not ashamed to say I like Shoujo. In fact for the most part, I don't like anything heavily shonen, as I feel it can be too formulaic. Fan service can be funny but that's not why I'm into Manga. Fights are great... but only if they move the story along.

I guess what I prefer are the shoujo and shonen titles that are well balanced and not catering heavily to one gender. Most of the comedy series fit in there, but lean more shoujo. Almost all of the non-fantasy/magic series I've read and enjoyed are shoujo. "
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Gasaraki

2 years 11 months ago

"I really enjoyed the series. A lot of it may be too dry for many, as there is political and military talk as the main point of several episodes, but it's interesting. There are few (if any) true bad guys, it shows the opposing sides in shades of grey and justifies/explains almost everyone's actions.

The animation is good, the music is better. It probably feels slow for many because of the focus on dialogue, but the underlying mystery pulled me in and kept me watching."
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Where do you from ?

3 years 6 days ago

"I'm originally from Lousiville, KY. That's middle of the US for those that don't know, a river town. Life there is slow and slightly old fashioned.

Nowadays I'm living in South East Florida, just a short commute from Miami. The place is packed, fast paced, always moving. Beautiful climate (even with the hurricanes,) but too many people too close together for me to ever completely relax."
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Different taste in anime

3 years 4 months ago

"<!--QuoteBegin-asher_aj_wei+Jan 14 2005, 03:29 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(asher_aj_wei @ Jan 14 2005, 03:29 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Definitely the strangest anime from Gainax in my book<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I don't know if that's redundant, or profound. <!--emo&B)--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cool.gif' /><!--endemo--> I liked FLCL pretty well, artistically much better than the manga, story wise... yeah it was frenetic, and confusing.. but it DID have a story, and a point, just... it was hard to get to. That's unlike say, Excel Saga, where there didn't really seem to be a point. While we're digging on gainax, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi. While very funny and well drawn, the first few episodes I thought it was going to be just another excel saga. In the middle things got more serious and hope bloomed, the end... ALMOST redeemed it.. but not quite. It was fun to watch, but I'm not going to again.Gundam Wing. People are crazy about this, but to me it seems like a watered down, prettied up retelling. With the exception of the bad guys, the characters do not develop. Like a lot of shonen, the plot is very formulaic: Set up new conflict, large battle, move overall plot forward a microscopic amount, repeat... eh, maybe I should shut my pie hole.. I liked Utena and it had the same sort of formula for over half the episodes."
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JPOP AMV Contest Results (A lot of great videos!)

3 years 8 months ago

"<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and i bet all of those are hosted on teh org =/

lmao i just read the post and they ARE. Luckily ive been a member at teh org for years <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->

and actually Ozone, the AMV.org forums (yeah thats not the url but why would i type it all out) have an entire part of it made JUST for amv contests...so i dont see how you can say youve seen noone else do such things =/  
i also find that like 75% of those people ive talked too  :lol:<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Not do a contest <!--emo&:)--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> do a contest limited to only JPOP music for the videos heh."
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JPOP AMV Contest Results (A lot of great videos!)

3 years 8 months ago

"For those of you who like AMVs <a href='http://www.orangeanime.com' target='_blank'>Orange Anime</a> recently held a JPOP Amv contest. We hadn't seen anyone else do this before, so thought it might be worthwhile.

Here are the results.

<a href='http://www.orangeanime.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5185' target='_blank'>http://www.orangeanime.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5185</a>

If you're a fan of jpop or amvs or both, you should go check out the videos. ALL of them were pretty awesome."
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6 people killed over a XBox!

3 years 8 months ago

"I saw this on the front page when I was at AFO! (Anime Festival Orlando, close to where it happened.)

That article is pretty horrible. It's hard to find good reporting anymore. It wasn't about an xbox at all really, it was just a minor detail.

Basically what happened is there were these guys living in the house of one of the victims relatives (who were not there at the time.) Essentially they'd broke & entered, and were proceeding to live somewhere uninvited. After several calls to the police, they finally got kicked out. Several more calls to the police were made about them harassing the true owners (or owners relatives, not real clear.) The final straw was apparently when they dumped the squatters stuff, they came in and killed them.

Pretty screwed up all around. An xbox was just one item that was left there by the criminals originally. Doesn't make any sense... I don't know what's wrong with people."
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