For those of you wondering what's on my mind, this page is the best reflection of that. It will be a very crude page at all times, as it is not meant to be a pretty section to glorify something that is most likely wrong with society.

Rant for 06/01/07:
Now, what was that I said last time about the long breaks? Seriously, I didn't know it was THAT long! My mind just said holy shit to that time span, but that's well... an area I prefer not to wander. I don't claim to be a saint, but I prefer not using words like that, either.

So, what's my goal this time? I really don't know, it was just a spur of the moment thing, coming up from reading a friend's MySpace. So I guess it means nothing? Possibly. Anyway, since the last update, Shoujocon is no more, and even if it was, it's a little too far for me to go to now. I'm down here in VA, and while part of me is happy to be out of NY, the other part of me does miss it. Well, what do you expect for spending about 25 years of my life there? I've also been promoted to a moderator at what is, without a doubt, the best anime site on the net, AnimeOnDVD. This site has saved my remaining sanity several times, and I've been more than pleased to contribute to the site what I can. However, given the bad storm, and this area's frequency of power outages, I guess this really will be nothing of an update? I'll try to be back sooner than another 4 years from now... :P

Rant for 06/30/03:
You know, these long breaks are the reason I don't run a blog... I'd go batty! Anyway, just thought I would update a few things. I've finally left RIT for good, and let me state that since doing that, my stress has dropped considerably. Of course, the fact that I'm still doing a lot of things doesn't help, but it is better. One of those things that keeps me busy is the group I am now a part of: Oretachi Media Group. I'm the prime (read: only) editor, and now I'm also timing things for Shoujocon and the group, so I really shouldn't be doing this! ^_^

Anyway, my main thing for now is that I recently got back from a friend's wedding, and it was fun being a groomsman. (I think that's how it's spelled, at least.) Was it stressful? Of course, especially for the 2 involved most, but we all got to the same point: their union, and what mattered was having fun getting there! But, it was also that weekend that made a few other nice things happen. Anti-gay laws were struck down by the Supreme Court, possibly opening the doors to permit other things. (Such as in Canada, where homosexuals now can get married! If I find another guy, it's off to Canada for us!) Will it finally mean equality to EVERYONE under the law? We can hope. The only thing I don't want to do is plan the wedding. That will burn me out, and I know it already. I really don't need that.

Rant for 12/16/02:
Wow... I've really not updated this in a while, have I? Well, to start off with, my boyfriend from the previous rant, we have broken up. (He disappeared, and I don't know to where. I won't be keeping idle hopes anymore.) But, the main thing that pissed me off this time was RIT. (Wait... is there ever a time that's not the case?) I'll make this quick, since I have other things to do. To start off with, my Financial Aid wasn't clearing. I go there, and they say that I needed to still fill out a form (which I did before, but they never got it). It required being mailed home. So, it was sent back to me after going home to be signed, and I dropped it off in the office. All's well, right? Nope. 2 weeks later, I'm told there's a hold on my account for owing a bit over $9000. Where's my financial aid? It was late, and I didn't do so well in spring, so I had to sign a contract stating that I would have to do better this year. (Not that I care, I'm leaving after this year.) However, by the time that got processed, the quarter was over. They then said that I have to be here for 1 more quarter to get fall aid. Going to the Bursar's made this seem easy, except for 1 thing: I learned I had a pending suspension for being in career decision too long, and as long as I was suspended, I would not be getting ANY of that financial aid.

So, what do I do? Check into my old major. I told them that I had the paperwork under way for a change, and they would not lift the hold until I was accepted into the other major. This major was not doing reviews again until early in winter quarter, so I'd have to miss a week of classes to begin with! I went to that, and it turned out that my paperwork was never sent there, and they can't evaluate me without it. So the suspension on my account remained, and winter quarter is wasting away here. Why wasting? By my not being allowed to register, I was not a student, and so I lost my on-campus job. Mind you, even though the hold for RIT wanting money is still there, they won't let me work toward paying it. And people wonder why I hate this place so...

Rant for 06/25/02:
Let me warn you that this is going to be one of my most controversial rants yet, if not ever. A few days ago (the 22nd, actually) was International Boy Love Day. I took a look at their site, and well, to make it quick, yes, it can be a good thing, and this needs to be engrained into society just as its badness was. I won't go into the details here, since this is only a rant, and not a discertation. However, I've told a few people online already, and I'll say it here: I think I would have benefitted from having a boylover (BL) about 8 years ago. Here I am, turning 21 at the end of the week, and I'm still confused as hell about love and everything that goes with it. Yes, I have this gut feeling with my boyfriend online, and while we talk about meeting, what would I do when I do meet him? I don't know, and I think that's where I think having a BL would have helped. And, once I figured out things, yes, I would be willing to be one also. Forget society, and do what you want; answer your own questions with only your own approval!

Then there is the other issue at hand that will be much less of an issue. People are whining that their cable/DSL modems are too slow, and that they can "only" upload at 15K/sec. To those people: quitcha whining! Go to 56K after being on an OC3 for 9 months! You want to talk about slow now?

Rant for 05/10/02:
Boy have I been busy lately! You can prolly tell because of the 6 month delay here, too! ^_^ Anyway, with things winding down here, I've actually been happy, and have nothing to bitch about. Or do I? How about the continued corruption here? We just learned last week that part of the student activity fees went to getting SG lovely Palm-Pilots. Now, they spent $5000 on this! Given that there are 100 clubs on campus, that would've meant $50 per club, at a flat distro. However, with the size our anime club is, we'd get a few hundred dollars, or a DVD box or 2! So what do other students (even NON-anime club members) see from these Palms? Nothing. $5000 gone. Then, I just found out that part of these fees also fund the Office of Student Affairs. Sound familiar? Do you know how pissed I am to learn that some of my funded my own judgment against me? I should demand a mistrial! They are screwing students at every turn, and it is only know that the news gets out. Wonder why...

Rant for 11/21/01:
Quick one this time... I don't have all day. Is anyone else getting tired of the media blowing up EVERY bit of bad news into epic proportions? There was the WTC incident, the incident with Bin Ladin, and now it's the Anthrax issue. Stop giving me the bad news! I'm not saying that it's not important at all, but I don't want to keep being reminded of it! You want to know why people are paranoid? Look at the media. They are the reason.

Oh, and also, I'm going to be putting a new poll on my message board. Should I move this rant page to another place online that specializes in this?

Rant for 11/09/01:
Okay, I've just made a new discovery in life: it's called IRC. Yes, yes, I know that a lot of you already know what that is, but I only recently got it. But, there's already some things that irk me...

I'll start with scripts, since that's the big one. Everyone knows what LOL is, right? So, WHY write a script that writes out the words, and then gives it a different color, with the first letter of each word being different from the rest! Using this with NO fancy marks takes up 9x the bytes as just LOL. Why waste our time? LOL is a lot faster for the eye to read.

Then we've got the auto-greet scripts. They're nice ways to greet someone as they come on... WRONG! They are NOT personal, and many times, they are sent even when the other person is away. Go to a channel where there are a lot, and wait for a network splice that doesn't kill you. I've been in a channel where, when everyone reconnected, there was a PAGE AND A HALF of auto-greets! Pointless, people! In addition, there are also some that come in all these ugly colors that detract from the conversations already going on! Don't waste my time, if you want to say hi, do it yourself! Even if it's just a "Hey, [user]". That's more personal.

Finally, to leave scripts, we have the issue of connectivity. I seem to have more problems with conencting to the servers than anything else that I connect to. I don't know what this is, so I'm not going to go into it. Just wanted to mention it. Oh, and if any of you want to msg me, I'm on both #EnterTheGame and #DALnet, but my nick changes. Look for a dunno001, a dunno|*, or troutman. Those are the 3 most common for me. (The * is a wild card.) That's it for me...

Rant for 10/15/01:
Another quick one, but that's because it's so close to the other one. I wish to talk now about professionality, or rather, the lack thereof. Why does this bother me so much? Ask RIT. Of course, they'd not be able to give you a straight answer; they're all doped out! That's why they can't do things professionally!

I know, you want me to back this up. Well, how about the 2 times this year that they've cut my internet access? Neither time have they sent ANY warning whatsoever. No calls, no e-mail, no messages in the mail folders... nothing. Nada. And, to top it off, when do they do it? Friday, circa 5 PM. Why at this hour? Because they don't want to justify their actions to me for the entire weekend. Ergo, I have to wait for Monday before I can even make an appointment to see them. Now, I have also scheduled a meeting with the student advisory board. They were in such a damned hurry to get my info, that they gave me less than 1 week to give them my schedule. I've now been waiting 2 weeks for them to tell me when this meeting will be scheduled. I'm about to e-mail them a very nasty e-mail telling them to hurry the f*** up NOW! Although, I already know what they're going to try to do: either make my meeting when a FINAL is, or make it over break, so I can't go home to family. Any bets that they won't?

Then, a message that came up on some of the message boards that I frequent- regarding leeching. Certain leeches drive me nuts. I will start by stating that to me, an anime leech is someone who DLs lots of episodes without care to commercialization, does not contribute to the community, and then thinks they have the right to whine when links are broken! Let's make this clear: whine to us, we'll ban you. Period. Those of us who serve get sick of hearing about it. I know that there are some lesser leechers that hit me; I expect that with the size of the server that I run. However, I will admit, I've considered making it semi-private just to get rid of the whiners. Conversely, I've met more people willing to return the favor then I expected. I wish to take the time to thank those people; they are the ones that will keep anime strong! The leechers? Well, to hell with them. And to hell with RIT, while we're at it!

Rant for 10/05/01:
I've even gotten lazy here now, haven't I? This one will be a short one, for a change. This one, I admit is a touchy subject for many, myself included. Homosexuality is something that is cropping up on the net. And with this, I've seen 2 views take place: the view of good for them and coming out, and then there's the others who want to suppress them. I hold the view of the former. To me, your preference is based partially on fate, and partially on your EARLY childhood. (Meaning less than 2 years old.) Once it is set, your decision is made. Choosing to practice on it is your decision. But, NOBODY has the right to chastize you for your decisions and actions! The decision, no matter what, is NOT wrong so long as it's legal. (Meaning no rape or people about 40 years in age apart!) It is YOUR life to live how you see fit, not to how others see it. If you are gay or lesbian, be proud of it! Truthfully, I don't know what I am, and I regret that. I'm leaning toward bi, but it's merely a thought. A friend of mine had a word that I still use to describe my sexuality: bi-curious. I'm still a virgin, damn proud of it, and THAT's my decision!

Rant for 05/25/01:
I have 2 things to complain about now. First, I've noticed that many people complain that life keeps getting harder as it goes on. Why is this? Well, perhaps if you're one of those people that complain that, you should look over your actions!

Many of the people that have problems are procrastinators. I admit, yes, I am a procrastinator. However, life has not gotten harder for me, because I know when to STOP putting it off. Someone I know had 4 projects to make up from winter quarter here. Why is it, then, that he left 3 of them untouched until FINALS week? Oops! I'll give myself about 2 weeks to do those 3 projects, because then if I have a problem, I DO have some leeway. Even people out of school... they jam their schedule full with family and work, and wonder why they have no time. Okay, I'll allot 45 hours for work, and 56 more for sleep. Given that a week has 168 hours, those 2 things use up 101, so you have 67 hours left, or almost 3 days from that week! And you have no time? What are you doing, then, that uses all that time?

Next, I will make a quick complaint. How many people have seen pages on the net that have not been updated in a long time. Now, before anyone cries "Hypocrite", I'm not referring to 1 or 2 months, I mean the pages that are over 1 YEAR without updates! If you're one of those people, do us a favor, and give us some sign that you're still alive! I hate looking for information on a series, just to see that a page still says "Coming Soon". And yes, folks, I've seen pages with anime as old as Evangelion say that! GET A PAGE UP! It doesn't take 5 years to review something!

Oh, and while I said there were 2, I just recalled something. Perhaps I didn't include it because of how it could start a flame war. However, there is nothing offensive; it is merely a point of view that you may interpret how you want. I have noticed that Apple has all of the Mac users tied around their finger. They seem to have become accustomed to pay more for pratically everything, from the computer itself, to many software applications, to accessories. And Apple knows that they can get away with it, because they suckered its users into thinking that it's worth the extra money! For an example, I had my roommate check on notebook at Apple's site, while I checked at Dell using similar specifications. (For those who don't know, Dell is known for being the expensive PC maker.) Given everything comparable, the Mac notebook came to about $2500, when the PC was just under $2000. Is it REALLY worth that 20% markup? No, but Apple has fooled its users into thinking so. How about software? I know a lot that like a browser called OmniWeb. It's not even a free browser, but Mac people pay for it just because it's Mac based. (I'm not kidding... one has 3 other browsers, all free: IE, Netscape, and MoZilla.) In another instance, take MPEG encoding software. Some on the Mac run as high as $700! Compare to a PC version (SAME name!): $400. The features are identical. Ethernet cards? PC has plenty for $20, the cheapest I could find one in the same store for Macs is $60.

The next thing that they would quip is stability. I use Windows 2000 Professional, and it's not crashed since installation. There are also other OSes, such as Linux and BeOS, that are multi-platform. Save the money, and get a PC if you want one of the understated OSes. Besides, there was once an old saying that went: "A Mac is a smart computer for a stupid person, a PC was a stupid computer for a smart person." Does this mean that everyone who uses a Mac is stupid? Maybe, but I do know they've been brainwashed by Apple.

Rant for 03/31/01:
What? Another rant? Yes, there is too much wrong with this world to not find something wrong with. This time, it's the bootleggers. I got talking with my roommate on this, and it bothers us both that people are too self-centered to support what they like, but rather, what they like should be given to them on a silver platter. Nope. The case is strongest in anime. This is still a relatively small secor, yet the bootlegs are just as common as the software giants! I'm looking for the press release where CPM admitted that the bootlegs, if they continue, would put them OUT OF BUSINESS in 5 years. Fast internet connections with greedy people are the cause. People share the commercial files to get popular, and the other leeches are just getting it, with no intent to buy.

Regarding fansubs, no company has declared these to be a problem, INCLUDING companies in Japan! US companies watch these to see what series are hot, and they get the rights to them. Going by fansub rules, you are to either destroy the fansubs, or buy the commercial releases. By US law, you may keep the fansubs as legal backups. The Japanese see it as a 2-edged sword, in that while they are not making money from the fansubs, they ARE helping to increase the awareness of the series, hence making it more likely to be picked up.

However, the leeches are hurting the industry, as people are looking for things such classics as "Tenchi Muyo", or ones slated to be released, such as "Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo". If more people look for encoded fansubs of commercial things, this WILL, in the end, slow production in Japan due to a decreased cash flow, and it would TERMINATE all anime released in North America! This is NOT what any fan would want, but then again, by being such a leech, you are no more than that: a leech. Do not call yourself an otaku, an anime fan, or anything of the sort! You are not helping the cause, you are the problem. Would a true fan create such a problem?

Rant for 03/26/01:
Hmm... what is this stuff about people being obessed with poor translations, and even poorer spelling? There are FAR too many people (such as my roommate) who would say nothing but, if I didn't scream at him. (Personally, my weapon against him is the Menchi song... I keep that MP3 [and that one ONLY!] on my server so that people can know what I mean!)

I'll start with bad grammar. Even though it's an old game, ZeroWing seems to have made it "fashionable" to butcher the English language! I don't want to hear ANY line that is in that opening! If I hear it, I might go berserk on you! Try using REAL English! I know that a few accidental typos get out (such as an instant message being an instant "massage", which is parodied at Gamers.com), and I see those as ok. However, to have complete disregard for the language, as is demonstrated in the ZeroWing op, means you should go back to elementary school, and learn how to talk!

Then, we have the spelling issue. This is the internet, and I know that some people's native language is not English, and I forgive that. (What's real strange is that many of them apologize for their poor English, when it's better than about ½ the English speaking people I talk to!) Others, myself included, like to make shortcuts, such as BRB, or l8r, those are fine, and to me, acceptable shorthand for the internet. But, as of late, people seem to be obsessed with using numbers AS letters! NO! Numbers in abbreviations are fine, but if you use a 3 in place of an E, I think you should be shot. No apologies! (Disclaimer: I will not be the one shooting you.) Learn how to read, write, and everything else you should've learned in kindergarden! That is NOT a form of shorthand, it is mere irritance. Also, in some cases, it takes MORE characters! Many people, again including myself, regardless of the connection speed, (I'm on an OC3) do NOT want to download your extra 15 bytes because you want to be "cool" or "elite". English isn't that hard to learn! Try actually learning the basics. I have spoken with people from France, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and more, and they all have the basics! If you can't learn the basics, we'll ship you to somewhere like Somalia, where you BETTER learn something fast!

Rant for 02/10/01:
I've recently finished reading some book for English class. This book had to be the most boring thing ever created! The title? "The Tree of Red Stars." First of all, what kind of a title is that, anyway? There is no "red", nor "stars", and the only "tree" is a tree that a few children climbed up. However, this was supposed to be a story about the problems in Uruguay in the late 60's. How about the problems of today? Such as stories that don't make any sense!

Also, for this story, none of the professors had any choice in the matter of this one. RIT decided that they want EVERYONE to be bored to death by the same story. I also think that the ability to get the author here at the college for what was most likely a bag of peanuts helped to contribute to this. How about getting us a REAL story, one that would keep the students interested? This is a TECHNICAL school, not a school of fine (bad choice of words for this story) arts. I have nothing against the arts, but please make it palatable for the average person who might be stuck dealing with it.

Understand it? Then you may go back home.