Past News Archive: August 2006
August 30, 2006
I'm somewhat happy this week. We finally got a new person at the hotel! However, this person will need some training which adds more work for me still. AH THE PAIN! If that previous front desk agent was more direct in telling our manager about quitting that taking 2 weeks of due to emergencies, the other front desk agent & I wouldn't have suffer this much stress. If we found another person more earlier & trained that person during that time, it would have made my workload more lighter. Not to mention less overtime. Also, the manager tells me that he wants to promote me as an Assistant. This was the old position that the previous front desk agent had. I would get more authority & more money. Of course, it means more workloads too as I need to be trained on the new tasks that I need to do. Right now, it's pretty much on low profile to most of the hotel employees & my manager will officially announce my status in September. However, the previous front desk agent's assistant position was never announced to anyone & was kept in secret from other employees for some reason. I think I'm the only 1 in the hotel that knew about this since the previous front desk agent & manager told me about this. I'm not sure why.
During this summer, I heard a lot of things from my old college friends. I have a couple of them getting married or currently engaged. Hearing this, I look back into my own life. I spent too much time during my school years studying that I isolated myself from the social world. I still had friends at the time if you are wondering about that. What I mean is that I didn't take the time to get a job or develop a love relationship. I was too focus on studying. Now that I'm older, I don't know if I can make up for that lost time.
This week, I received my Fate/hollow ataraxia Black Saber plush. As of now, I have a complete set of the plushes. I'm not sure if EXhaust will make more of them. Now I need to wait for my Fate/stay night Saber cloth changing figurine that has been recently released to come in the mail as well as my Japanese version of Guilty Gear Judgment PSP game. Also last week, I picked up a set of Palm Characters Rozen Maiden Träumend trading figures & another Pia Carrot G.O. PVC figurine of Mimori Kugahara from my local Japanese hobby store. It looks like I'll be getting the whole Pia Carrot G.O. PVC product line from Kotobukiya again. But, I'm missing 1 of the 3 right now & I didn't know it when I brought Mimori. The 1 I'm currently missing is Yaegashi Kanae. I think I'll get her when I find her somewhere. When I have time, I need to update my collection list since I haven't included the new stuff I got this past summer. Reason: Too much work at the hotel.
Sometime tomorrow night, I'll be holding an anniversary sale for my anime webstore, tamago toys. It has been a year since it opened. Although business hasn't been good due to lack of involvement to the business, it's still pretty good that we've lasted this long. Even though I would probably pay high tax amounts due to poor performance. It will be held for the entire month of September. You people reading this are the 1st to know about the early sale start.
Some anime news. During these past couple of weeks, some more anime titles have been licensed in North America. Yawara is licensed by AnimEigo & Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society by Bandai Entertainment. Funny thing about the GITS license is Bandai issuing warnings to fansub groups not to fansub this title. What a nice company.
Nothing to update here. Just a PSP review of an old game called Y's: The Ark of Napishtim in the PSP Game Reviews section.
August 24, 2006
Lately, I've been very tired. I finally got a day off from my hotel job after working 7 days straight! After that, possibly another 6 more days of work. More overtime! Good thing that my manager is finally looking for someone for the front desk position. I hope he hires someone soon cause I don't think I can keep up anymore. I've been making too many mistakes & I've been receive quite a lot of complaints here & there; big & small. I think I'm really at my limit now. Just about 2 more weeks of high season left. Not good really.
Last week, I received my Palm Characters Fate/stay night Archer & Rin figures set. They aren't impressive as I thought & it was no surprise. But since I got the Saber & Shiroh set, I thought I would go for this 1 as well. Now, my Black Saber plush is coming from the mail & I'm expecting it to arrive before this month ends I hope. I still have my Saber & Rin plushes (the official ones) in their packaging bags.
Since planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~ is now released for PS2, I would like to celebrate it by finally opening up the planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~ special section! I've added it to the frame menu on the left. It's not very big since it's a small visual novel, but I would like to have it be more exposed out there in the English speaking community. Also, updated on the site are the following:
In the Anime section:
Next week, I don't think I'll have much stuff here since I'm too tired with all this overtime & stress going around. I might not update the site too since I want some rest.
August 16, 2006
Things couldn't get more worse for me at the hotel. One of our front desk agents is planning on quitting as she found work at another hotel. Everyone in the hotel knew about it, but the manager didn't. But the manager found out somehow & got upset. I don't know how he knew about it. Anyways since you need to give 2 weeks notice before resigning, she decides to take 2 weeks off for vacation. Actually, more like family emergency. As a result, I'm working an extra day this week & probably next week as well. Because the hotel is seriously understaffed in the front desk department, I need to work overtime. On top of that, this is the worse time to do it! Chances are I may need to work 7 days a week until another front desk agent gets hired! I wish my hotel wasn't too cheap on paying on man labour. I've been seriously thinking of getting another job. This time, probably something that's not hotel related. However, I'm still working on my anime online store, tamago toys. But, full time work has me spending less time on planning & improving that place.
Recently, my old RO guild made a forum site. The guild that I use to belong to is call Club Ice Blue (CIB in short). It's a guild that was made in a private RO server that helped bind & build the community together in that server. Now, it's gone beyond into other MMORPGs like WoW & possibly doing other stuff as well. Some of you may have come from that site to here from a posting made by a member from that guild. If not, check the forum here. I also added it to my Links page. You can pretty much talk about anything there & "flame". Of course, I don't think they mean pissing each other off really. Chances are I'm not going to be in that forum since I don't have time. Even with the tamago toys forum, I haven't done much there.
Because of the amount of time that I'm spending at work & resting myself from all this stress overload, I've been making very little progress on this site. Here are some updates that I managed to put up for the time being. It's actually a lot in my view:
In the Anime section:
In the Collectables section:
In the Downloads section:
I don't think I'll be able to get a lot of things up here during August & the 1st couple of weeks of September. I'm still aiming to get the new special section up in time through. We'll see what happens next week. Hopefully, I'm not too stressed out as it is. I think I'm ready to blow a fuse anytime soon.
August 10, 2006
Working at the tourism or hospitality industry can be a pain during high season. This past weekend, I had a group of guests trying to check in early around 10am when our check in time is 3:30pm. What upsets me more is telling me to get the rooms for them right away while I'm still in the process of checking people out which lasts up to 12pm. To make things more worse, 1 of them tried to bribe me with US$20 to get the rooms for them right away. I don't take bribes &, even if I did, it wouldn't work since housekeeping & clean all those rooms right away as they are working on others. Plus, I can't tell people in the rooms to get out of them before the check out time & the hotel was fully booked from the previous night. Also, I'm working my ass off on almost everything as it is. Sometimes, people can be selfish & not considerate for others. As much as I want to put them in the rooms & avoid moving a lot of heavy luggage, I can't do it. So, if you plan to check into a hotel, be considerate & think about the situation that the hotel employees have. Also, think about the situation of the guests that are staying in the hotel from the previous night. Don't be an ass in pushing the front desk agents in getting the rooms ready solely for you.
Went to my favourite local Japanese hobby shop recently & picked up a few things that I didn't think I would do. I picked up 3 Love Hina action figurines that I wanted for a long time; more than 6 years I think. The owner was clearing some shelf space for new stock. I also picked up an Air Gear gashapon set & a set of Neverland Heroine Collection trading figurines. When I 1st saw those trading figurine boxes, they were big! That was looking at the inner box only. I didn't think they were so big & pricey. Plus, there are very detailed & it was worth getting.
In anime news, some good anime shows have been licensed at Otakon 2006. ADV Films got Shadow Warriors Chronicles (aka Utawarerumono) & Blade of the Phantom Mask (aka Shin Angyo Onshi). I find the English name for Utawareumono to be weird, but I guess it's better than the Japanese name for non-Japanese people. The 1st release will be on early 2007. Another anime licensed is School Rumble by FUNimation. They got all of it: 1st & 2nd season as well as the OVAs. Hopefully they don't butcher the show. It's expected to be released in 2007.
Updates? Barely. I didn't think I would have a hell of a week. I got a lot of catching up to do around the house. Grass cutting, answering emails, re-organizing my small business, cleaning my room & parts of the house, etc. The only PSP section got updated. The PSP News, Hacks, & Secrets got a minor update & I included game reviews of Samurai Warriors & The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion. Hopefully, I'll get more here. But that's really doubtful.
August 2, 2006
Water, water everywhere! It was a watery hell of a week for me at my hotel. We had a quarter of the ground floor flooded due to a sewage clog & I had to walk some guests that had reservations with us out to another hotel. Two days later on my last day for the work week, a guest clogged up the toilet & created a backflow. The water came all the way down to the lobby from the 2nd floor & I had to wipe up the pool of water like mad in order to prevent guests from slipping. Man, that place is really falling apart on its own!
In PSP news, firmware version 2.80 has been released. I'm not sure when it was released really, but it was sometime in late July for sure. In that update, it's mainly more support in playing the video & music files such as downloading them from RSS channels or no need to rename them. Plus, you can now register the PSP's LocationFree Player via wireless LAN. Not a major update to say the least.
I don't remember when I open this website, but I know it has been a year already. Not much hits here, but at least I know it's still running. To somewhat celebrate, I got some updates. There isn't a lot since I'm too busy with life's activities:
In the Anime section:
Complete review of High School Girls (Joshikousei Girl's High)
Brief review of Strawberry Panic!
For the Collectables section, I added an article about Bootlegs since there are lot of fake anime goods out there now. It should help you in learning which products to avoid.
Hopefully by next week, I have a new special section here like the Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3. If you have been here for a while, you would know what it is. If you don't, check out the Past News Achieve section. Also, I achieved the July 2006 stuff already.