Hey a new post and a new background to share with everyone. Full size is 1920 x 1080.

This came about with the right mixture of being bored, having recently installed Windows 7, and needing a new background. Several hours and several different brush styles later and there you have it: a Senjougahara wallpaper to pay homage to the 2009 summer hit Bakemonogatari.

So I finally got my hands on the official Melancholy of Haruhi DVDs so now I can remake my original AMV without subtitles in the way. Maybe it will open things up for maybe a whole new AMV somewhere down the line. For now though, I just wanted to experiment with the idea of overlaying the DVD quality video over the old fansubbed version.

Good ol’ Premiere took some time to figure all over again. This time around I was using Premiere CS3, which is rather different than 6.0 that I originally used for this AMV. For some reason, this new Premiere put in these two black bars on both sides of the video, which took another day just to get rid of. It didn’t help that I was working on this in hot weather, while under the weather or under attack by allergens, and with a headache for hours already.

So with a few extra added scenes, slightly better cuts, and multiple file conversions between raw uncompressed video to an acceptable MP4/FLV version, it’s finally complete. Unfortunately, there were some converting issues and it’s not exactly the best thing possible, but I just don’t have enough time to sit around to fix them, if I could even do such a thing.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

I finally got around to figuring out how to stream HD flash video without having loading issues and the like. So here’s official ‘working’ version number 1.

All it took was to encode in H.264 to mp4 format, run a little program that I found to move meta/header data to the front of the file to allow for streaming right away, and change the file extension to FLV. Piece of cake, though it took months before I got to this point.

Watchmen is going to be great.

Took a good two years of saving to get this, and it’s exactly what I wanted. Black on black with nav. And it’s no 250 weakling.

Got it last week, but too lazy to get a photo in or a post in, but I had to get a picture of it now, before the wax and shine disappears and its age beginning to show.

From Utada Hikaru’s album, Heart Station, it’s track 2, which is aptly named “Heart Station”.

It would appear that the next season of Haruhi will most likely be The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. I’m definitely excited. And here’s why I believe it’s going to be based on this storyline (from Anime News Network):

SPOILER ALERT!! –
After the Anime News Network message, I’m going to go a little in depth to the storyline.

The official Japanese website for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya television anime series has announced further details about the franchise’s next anime project. In the spirit of the first anime series and the Haruhi Suzumiya science fiction comedy light novels that spawned the franchise, the announcement was made in a roundabout, cryptic manner.

On Tuesday, the site “disappeared” and began displaying a false error message that read, “The page cannot be found.” A second message then appears over the first message; it states that a computer program is starting up and prompts the user for a password. If the user enters “K,” “N,” “S,” “A,” and “K” (the initials of the family names of the members of SOS brigade, the main characters in the series) into the password fields and selects the radio button to the right, a fake xterm terminal session opens. A series of messages from “YUKI.N” confirms that the key to the “emergency escape program” has been found and asks for a final confirmation before starting the program. If the user hits the enter key, a new page opens that shows the character Yuki and lists the production credits of the new series.

The page reveals that the previously announced second anime season of Haruhi Suzumiya has been “cancelled” and replaced with a new animation project. Yasuhiro Takemoto (Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Lucky Star) will direct the new project, and Kyoto Animation will still be animating as it did for the first anime project. As in the previous anime project, the fictional “leader” of the new anime project is the character Haruhi Suzumiya herself. The “disappearance” of the website on December 18 at 4:00 a.m. (Japan Standard Time) is a reference to the pivotal date in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, the fourth volume in the light novel series and an apparent indication of which novel plot the new anime project will adapt. Bandai Entertainment finished its English-language release of the first anime project in November.

Alright, on to a preview the Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi.

So what happens is one day, Kyon wakes up and the world literally has changed over night. Haruhi is missing, no one knows who Haruhi is (except for Tanaguchi), Asahina doesn’t know him, Itsuki is missing, and Asakura is back! Not to mention, Yuki, the only person who can save the day, has become a fragile loner of a bookworm. Talk about the odds stacked against Kyon.

So where’s Haruhi. Well, someone changed history to have Haruhi end up at a different school. Here she is in another school uniform. Looks quite spiffy, if you ask me. By the way, Itsuki is at this school too.

With Haruhi at another school and not having met Kyon, the SOS Brigade would never have been created. Sounds like a villain plotting the destruction of the SOS Brigade by making sure it never even had a chance to be made.

And as for the big spoiler: Let’s take a look at the image released by Kyoto Animation. This is an image of Yuki with her arm stretched out aiming at the school. Since I read the novels, I know exactly what’s going on here. And it points out what Haruhi Season 2 is going to be, which is The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. Not only is it this, but it should be this one by the fact that it is the only one next to the original novel that actually has a decent anime-acceptable plot. The other stories available are rather short or not interesting enough. This one is, and many would agree. Here’s another cover art to finish it off:

So a couple of months back, I had a visitor to my site who was nice enough to provide me with the Hishoku no Sora piano version that he produced from a transcribed MIDI source. And it sounds pretty accurate to the one played on the anime. Enjoy.

(Sorry, comments have been disabled on this post as comments have become pushy, violent, and aggressive, which I have duly deleted. Thanks for ruining it for everyone else.)

These new black and white PS3 commercials are kick-ass. Makes me proud to be an owner of the PS3. I read one comment where it was good enough to make the commenter go buy another PS3, though I’m sure he was just kidding and just making a point.

Well, here are the commercials that have been airing during the month of November:
(BTW, if you’re wondering, the song’s called “Ladies and Gentlemen” by Saliva)

Shakugan no Shana Second (First) Opening Sequence
“Joint” by Mami Kawada (TV Size)

Here’s the opening sequence for your viewing needs. I consider it the first sequence because chances are it might have a second one halfway into the series.