Past News Archive: April 2007
April 24, 2007
Got my DJ Max Portable 2 Orpheus Package ~ Metallic Silver ~ from the post office last week. To go even nuts on the DJ Max Portable 2 brand, I've brought the store promo poster as well. Should be expecting it next week I think. I also got my Gundam Seed PSP game. Can't remember how the VS series were played in the arcade since it has been a long time that I touched the game. It was hard at first since I kept dying a lot in the free mode. But I got better a bit over time with some practice. Fun game though. Highly recommended. But I'll be working on Gurumin first since I finished Legend of Heroes III now.
With the Canadian dollar getting stronger now against the US dollar, I'm thinking of buying some anime collectables again. PVCs that is. Some nice ones coming this summer that have caught my attention. But they are very pricey due to size & details. Good bye, money!
At work, I've been training the other new front desk agent. She's pretty good as lot of people were saying. Much easier to train too. I felt that she should be full time instead while the other goes part time. The other doesn't seem to listen & makes the same mistake over & over again. She's too much of a concern really. Although she's still training with me for the rest of this week, I felt she's ready to work alone already. However, most of the time she'll being working with someone else as she's the second person needed to help on the weekends.
In anime news, Zero No Tsukaima has been licensed by Geneon Entertainment (USA). ADV Films picked up Innocent Venus. All announced at Anime Boston 2007 over the weekend. I updated my reviews to reflect on these changes. ImaginAsianTV has picked up three old school anime series: Cat's Eye, Nobody's Boy Remi, & Orguss.
Updates for this week is still minimal. Working on them, but time is still tight & I'm usually to tried to do anything. A brief anime reviews of Nodame Cantabile & Getsumen To Heiki Mina are up for the time being. Because of the new front desk agents having a hard time on one of the hotel's system feature, I've decided to make a worksheet/exercise for them while working on the procedure manual.
April 17, 2007
Not a bad week at work for me. Come back & see that I get to work for three days instead. Lucky me. Not sure if my days off is set for for Tuesday & Wednesday instead of Wednesday & Thursday. I wanted to get Valhalla Knights this week & PSP games tend to be on the shelves on Thursdays here. A bit of a problem for me if they are those limited number games. It's also going to be a problem as well next week when the next Generation of Chaos game is released as well.
Speaking of PSP games, I won both limited edition sets of DJ Max Portable 2. Got the Night Black Orpheus set first. The Metallic Silver is coming last & it's already in Canada either at customs or the post office. I actually brought the Metallic Silver first, but it was shipped from South Korea. The Night Black Orpheus was brought last, but it's being shipping two cities away from me so it came very fast as the seller shipped it over the weekend. I couldn't believe I spent over $500 on those sets! Night Black cost me almost $100 more than Metallic Silver. Although I know how rare the Night Black is, I didn't think I would blow my money just like that so easily on a Friday the 13th. About 75% of my bi-monthly paycheck is gone because of those sets. I should have settled for Metallic Silver instead. I plan to open Metallic Silver & keep Night Black sealed. That one cost me too much! So, I should make it as a collector's item. Technically, both sets shouldn't be opened at all. Some people buy both sets & the game itself. Don't see myself doing that as it is. Even I think I've gone nuts, I had the buyer's remorse after winning the Night Black set. Although I suck ass on the demo, I don't know if blowing that much money on a game I'm no good at was worth it. As the game says, "Practice Makes Perfect". Hope that's true as a lot of people started out bad & later became good. Also, I still have so many games that needs to be completed & haven't been opened. Worse part is that they are mainly RPGs. At least, I can settle for the OSTs which I'm looking forward to.
At work, the new front desk agent that I've been training is creating some concerns for our general manager. I feel the same way as well. Apparently her weaknesses are costly as I thought. She's very disorganized as she has her notes & paper all over the front desk. The front desk area is much too big as it is for normal operations & she manages use up all the space. Plus, her people skills aren't too great from what I seen & heard. She stays too focus on one task & either doesn't know how to focus her surroundings or just ignores them. Another thing is her not admitting her mistakes & puts the blame on others when she gets frustrated. I personally want to find another front desk agent to replace her if possible. She isn't too fit for the job even though the skills I taught her have finally taken its effect. I still haven't train the other front desk agent yet & I don't know how she is. I've been hearing that she's better than the one I've trained. I feel this is true.
Updates? Only a complete anime review of Ghost Hunt. I'm currently still working on the Pia Carrot G.O. special section & some PSP game reviews of games I haven't played yet. Those are based on what I've seen & read. Also, I've still got to do that front desk procedure stuff even though it's really optional work.
April 11, 2007
Working at the hotel became worse than I thought. I didn't get the results I want from the trainee, but it's acceptable at the moment. I didn't realize the trainee I was training has no computer skills or experience. It would explain why she focuses more on her notes than the screen when the instructions are pretty much there. So, it kind of threw me off track on what my plan was.
The other trainee I heard is having not much progress. I think she's much younger than the one I'm training. It seems that her skills from the shift she's working on is ok. Her problem is typing from what I've been told. She doesn't know how to type. The front desk agent that was training her (she's now gone & working at another hotel) told her to take some time to practice her typing skills. I've got no typing skills myself, so I would hate to see how bad this trainee's is. My typing skills were developed from somewhere else. Plus, it's mainly for show & style. I'm such a show-off! A bad one as well.
After updating my PSP, I tried out the downloaded demo copy of DJ Max Portable 2. Pretty tough, but strangely addictive. I've never played any music rhythm related games such as Beatmania or anything in that genre. When I did some research on the game, I found that there was a 4B mode. The demo was 5B. I figured that I might get good on the game since I managed to improve bit by bit when I kept playing it in one sitting. Still get a lot of Game Overs & never completed the demo as I was mainly button mashing. But pretty fun. So, I decided to actually aim for the limited edition of the game. Found out the prices for them aren't as high as before. But still expensive. Believe it or not, I'm actually aiming for the Night Black & Metallic Silver editions. I actually decided to hunt for the silver one first on eBay since that was the only one I saw. But when I saw the black one available, I thought about it & figured to get them both. Waste of money since it has the same game, CD OSTs, & maybe artbook. But the puzzle & postcards are probably what drove me to this point. The silver is the most attractive one to me actually than the black when I told a brief glance of the contents. I'm thinking it I should hunt for the gold edition that's only for Japan. Even though I'm opening up with a lot of options in case I can only get one, I think I'm being too greedy & wasting too much money for getting all the editions. My mind wants to get them all even though it's not needed. My main interest is really the OST. This is what you get being as a collector.
In anime news, this past weekend FUNimation announced that they have the rights to Hell Girl (aka Jigoku Shoujo). It's unknown if they have all seasons or just the first one. Bandai has licensed Zegapain. I haven't finished watching it yet too. So, I don't think I can complete the review for it now. I updated the Jigoku Shoujo to reflect this license & put up an incomplete review of Zegapain.
Also up are reviews of Inukami!, Fairy Musketeer Akazukin, & Busou Renkin. I don't think I can do anymore than that for the time being. Still doing some training for the front desk staff at work & making that front desk procedure thing which I haven't touch since my last day off.
April 4, 2007
First off, all March 2006 stuff are in the Past News Achieve section now. Not much there even though it was a lengthy month.
We got two new front desk agents. I'm training one & the other is being trained by two other agents. The one I'm training is being trained by another agent as well. Because of our situation, the front desk agent that was suppose to leave is still here for another week. It was hard to find front desk agents due to them quitting so soon or not fit for the job. The one I'm training is a bit slow as she focuses a lot on her notes. Being her second day (since I least thought her) & having no front desk experience, it's okay so far since I can't really ask for perfection. Plus, I'm pretty much rushing her with so much information. I was very surprised on how she tells me how confident she is on her second day. Her second day wasn't too bad & she picked up a bit as I wanted. But, I couldn't manage to teach her a lot since her pace is slow & the amount of work increases. Hopefully, she'll be okay when I get back to work from my two days off.
The other front desk agent is slow as well from what I was told. She does have front desk experience from Russia, but she needs to be re-taught from scratch. I'm thinking it's because of language barriers as she tries to translate it into her language. Plus, I noticed how fast her trainer was going. Possibly the info isn't transferring to her head very well too. I don't know if I will have the chance to train this person & see for myself.
Recently, I downloaded a demo copy of the PSP DJ Max 2 Portable. I wanted to see what the hype is about. It's like the game is a must have for the PSP & virtually all Koreans with a PSP will have it in their collection. Problem is the game required firmware 3.11, which I don't have since my PSP is set at 2.71. I downloaded the latest firmware, which is 3.30 (see the PSP News, Hacks, & Secret section is see what the firmware has). I'll update my PSP later since I don't have it at over 75% power; requirement to install firmwares. I've been out of the loop for a while in the PSP firmware world really & have been thinking to remove the PSP part from my webpage title. Because of the hype, I've been thinking about getting DJ Max; mainly the limited expensive collector edition that's been sold out at the day of its release. Besides, I think I got too many PSP games at the moment & there's a number of them that haven't been touched or opened yet.
Enough typing. As for updates, nothing since I'm too busy focusing on other stuff. I'm currently revising my hotel's front desk procedures since the one I found wasn't too clear from the looks of it.