Past News Archive: January 2009

January 26, 2009

First off, Kung Hey Fat Choy to everyone celebrate the year of the ox for Chinese New Year!  As a side fact, I learned that Barack Obama is born on the year of the ox.  Oxs are hardworking & stubborn.  Maybe he can fix the US after all.  Not saying he doesn't have the skills since I think he makes a good choice as president.  Heck, I would had voted for him if I was a US citizen & I'm not the type that does vote.

Going back on track a bit, I attended the Tourism Richmond Service Awards ceremony that was hosted by Tourism Richmond & River Rock Resort last night.  I personally didn't want to go, but my GM took me & another guest service agent along.  Basically he says that it's a chance to meet new people (meaning people working in our industry).  When we actually go there, he then tells us it would be good to show some support to the industry.

The first part of the ceremony was the cocktail & appetizer reception where network is made with other hotels in Richmond.  It lasted for one hour.  It basically allows us to network & meet people in or supporting the tourism industry.  Didn't approach anyone as I don't know who's who.  Plus it was open to the public, so I would look like an idiot if I approach someone that wasn't working in my industry.

We did have some people approach us (mainly my GM) & I managed to meet some council members from the city, some other hotel GMs, & some members from Tourism Richmond.  I expected our GM to approach people since he has been to meetings/board while I haven't.  So, I expected him to know some people & go up to them.

Turns out that our GM didn't & tells me & the other agent that he doesn't approach people unless he knows them.  Then he tells us the art of approaching people (icebreaking).  Technically, I know this & he should be introducing us to others since he's the GM.  Spent most of time eating & talking among ours.  Didn't eat much as I don't attend cocktail parties & the food is mainly foreign to me.  Don't want to run out during the awards presentation with an upset stomach.  Been having a sensitive stomach these days.

The second & final part is the awards presentation that suppose to last for 1.5 hours.  Actually ended earlier at 8 since some (actually most) of the winners didn't give a speech after receiving a special award.  Initially, I thought I was going to leave at 7:30pm as my GM said that the ceremony is only one or one & a half hours of presenting awards.  Didn't except the reception part.

Anyways, there wasn't that many people at the presentation.  Looked like more people came for the food.  By the way, the ticket to get in was $15.  This was confirmed at the raffle drawing when three winning tickets were called & no one claim them.

As the awards itself, it was kind of dry for a new approach.  First part of it was mainly speeches from city council members & Kyle Hamilton (a gold Olympic medalist from the 2010 Beijing  Olympics for the eight men rowing team), & a couple of video presentations.  When it got the awards part (there was eight categories), it went very fast.  Nominees announced, presenter on stage to announce winner, winner comes up & receives award from mayor & Tourism Richmond Chairman & get picture taken from press as winner's story for the award is took in the background.

Overall, it was a low budget ceremony.  Although I congratulate the winners for their accomplishments, I found the ceremony to be boring.  Probably cause I didn't get to network with many people as I expected my GM to do that & the number in attendance for the awards part was very low.  I think it didn't hit 50 people as that number doesn't count the special guests, presenters, & organizers.  Hope there will be some improvements for next year if I'm to attending again.

Going to this site, I'm still trying to get this place revamp ASAP.  There is a lot of things in this place than I expected.  Although it shouldn't take too long, it's the fixing that's driving it & "copy & paste" action doesn't really cut it much due to CSS.  Need to reformat my paragraphs, spell & grammar check, & redo the images (mainly collectables) as a lot of images from Imageshack are disappearing.  Plus, I'm thinking of ways to make the site more "pretty" with CSS such as the table designs.  I hope to get one section on this main site up like the anime reviews section or something.  But broken links will appear, so you will have to use other links to get to them.

January 19, 2009

As of late, updates here are minimal to none.  As you know it's mainly because of revamping the place & work of course.  I manage to complete the Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3 special section.  I've put it up earlier for testing, so some of you many have some errors or caught a glimpse of it.  But it's still needs some tweaking, so expect the errors to continue.  It's made with CSS programming, so you would see a lot "white" spaces & lengthy pages now.  Here's a comparison of the two pages:

 VS. 
Old Site                              New Site 

One problem with the new web layout is that it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.  Divshare gave me a hard time trying to figure out how to stream mp3 with my own player instead of their's.  Their player is too big & would cause stretching problems on the page.  Thus, I didn't get the songs I wanted on some of the pages.  Do note that the links to the Pia Carrot!! 3 collectables won't work.  Mainly because I'll be organizing my file in this server much better.  Easier to track down to upload, edit, etc.  Plus CSS seems to take a lot of resources & time in loading pages.  Prepare for that if your computer isn't up to date.

Next up is actually the main site instead of the planetarian special section.  Reason is trying to get updates (aka reviews) going.  I got too much to do & I only seen one new anime from the 2009 Winter season: Asu no Yuichi!  Great funny anime harem type show.  Recommended.

January 12, 2009

Last week felt like Christmas for me.  Too much stuff came in the mail.  This is a problem when things are released just before Christmas in Asia or things get pushed back a lot of days.  For games, Disgaea 3 for the PS3 & DJ Max Black Quattr4 & To Love-Ru Doki Doki Rin Kai Gakkou Hen LE for the PSP.  Won't be playing them for a while since I got other games lined up.  The PSP ones are more of a problem as the ones are mainly galge.  On the way still is SIREN: New Translation Asian version for the PS3.  For PSP, upcoming games that I didn't preorder such Star Ocean: Second Evolution.

For the figurine side, Mikuru Asahina Gothic Punk ver. & Queen's Gate Alice Adult version HJ limited arrived.  I thought Alice would have been delayed as it didn't get released just in time for Christmas from what I've heard.  None of them are going to be displayed for a while since the flooring in my room is going to be changed.  Don't know what flooring will be used as it's still being decided & the time to do it isn't there yet.  On the way still is Nendoroid Saber Lion.  GAO!

Crunchyroll is really on the roll.  Aside from new anime shows, they have picked up some old school classic stuff from Toei Animation.  They will be streaming Captain Harlock & Galaxy Express 999.  I haven't gone to Crunchyroll before, but I guess it must really be a popular site.

Speaking of site, I'm still moving along in redoing mine's.  Nearly got the Pia Carrot!! 3 section done, but the media stuff like the BGM & pics are giving me a bit of a hassle.  Imageshack is losing my pics for some reason & they haven't been restored for a long time. 

Thus, I'm using Tinypic now & reuploading ,if not, all the pics from Imageshack to there.  Luckily I have backups in my computer, but the wallpapers in the Download section isn't.  It will be a problem if they are gone as I don't remember what they were & find the disc for them is a chore.

Hopefully, something new will happen here before this month ends.  As of now, I haven't done any reviews at all.

January 5, 2009

Happy New Year, everyone!  Hope this year will be good than last year for many of you despite this economy problem.  As usual, new month means archive.  December 2008 are in the Past News Archives

For me, the start of the new year wasn't great.  I got a lot of headaches from work.  Got two, if not three, front desk agents fight against each other.  I want to say it's a "he said, she said" thing, but I can't since they are all females.  One of the current front desk agents has a problem with the newly hired one due to her mistakes being pass to her.  Also, she doesn't like her name being dropped for things that she didn't make a mistake on.

While the current front desk agent has this story, the new one tells me that she never dropped her name & never did the things that the current front desk agent says.  Most of the time, she's being mad at from her.  From this, I get another name in the circle & I don't really talk to this other agent much due to her second career taking off again.

As a result, I was in the middle of a bitching session.  The problem was no doubt communication between agents.  I know I'm in this a bit since I don't recall much & I admit that don't remember since I'm currently suffering from memory loss due to that illness I had back in August.  For some reason, I can't recall some things in the past or whatever happened like a minute ago.  I thought it was aging, I think the lack of oxygen to my brain affected it as I did have some major breathing problems during my illness.  Anyways, if I do remember that I actually did it, I would go back & admit it.

Long story short, I shouldn't be involved in this even though I'm an assistant manager.  Although it's work related, this is during my off time.  Plus, I don't want to be involved in a catfight.  Also, adding another person into the equation will just makes things more worse.  This matter should be resolved between themselves.  Moral of the story: don't drag a third party from the outside to be involved in your problems with another party.  But the worst part in all this is how the two manage to make up in like one minute.  Got me worked up for nothing!

Last week, I got my Suzumiya Haruhi Yakusoku Premium Box.  I was surprised on how good the condition is.  I brought it as used, but everything in there is virtually new.  The game itself is still sealed in its original wrapping!  I have no idea what was used in the box as most of the other items are still sealed.  The other things that aren't sealed are the earphones & book.  The earphones aren't taped up in the packaging & I don't know if the book is suppose to be unsealed.  But those items have no evidence of usage.  I have no idea what the previous otaku did with this box.  Must of been a regret purchase by the person & tired to refund the game after removing the wrapping around the premium box (if there was one).

In anime news, two companies are really roaring up a lot of titles.  FUNimation got more Geneon titles.  They are Gungrave & Samurai Champloo.  Some titles that FUNimation got themselves are Slayers Revolution, Slayers Evolution-R (don't know what that is), Soul Eater, & Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone. 

TV Tokyo continues to supply Crunchyroll with more anime to stream online.  They are Neo Angelique Abyss (with Second Stage), Natsume Yuujinchou, Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou, & Fairy Musketeers.  Also, two new companies jump in on the Crunchyroll bandwagon. Toei Animation brings Pretty Cure & BS Fuji offers Moegaku5.  All shows will be English subbed & aired this month.

Because of the hell of a start for the new year, I got nothing up again.  I'm close to finishing the Pia Carrot!! 3 section as I need to put some finishing touches on it & add some stuff that seemed to be missing.  Hope to have that up next week or else before this month ends.