Past News Archive: March 2008
March 25, 08
Forgotten that this past weekend was Easter. I'm looking track of my time& days lately. Too tired. I'm so tired that I can't sleep as long as I want. I try to, but my body or mind doesn't want to. Plus, I needed to cover for our new front desk agent for two hours. She was suppose to work those two hours which is overtime, but she needed to go to an audition that she missed from the previous week due to her work schedule. So, I took those two hours instead. Not too much of a big deal for me since it's only a couple of hours. Plus, it's overtime for me too yet again. I've been doing too much of it lately again. Getting more money isn't an issue, it's more about the amount of stress really.
This past weekend, I've been being lied to by guests in my workplace about how our shuttle service pick them up before 9:30pm. Because I don't get the whole story from both sides beforehand, I need to yield to the guests. You are technically not suppose to call them liars & the principle of "the customer is always right" is abused here. But I plan to be a hard ass next time it happens. I hate being lied at & can't talk back in such a weak state & position.
Recently got two new PSP games in the mail from Amazon.ca. Got Dungeon Explorer & Wild Arms XF. As much as I'm dying to play some new PSP games (particularly the SRPG ones), I plan to hold them off. I plan to play Crisis Core once I get it in my hands. For the time being, I'm going to try & complete some incomplete games in my gaming library. Recently got Dragoneer's Aria & Tales of the World done finally. While I was trying to complete those, I was also working on Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 as I haven't unlocked all the characters & stages yet. I think this game would last me for the time being. Plus, I remembered that I have Samurai Warriors to finish as well. All of that should get me busy for awhile since Crisis Core will be coming in the mail from Amazon.ca. Plus, I still have the bonus extra on Monster Kingdom that I'm currently slowly working on. I haven't touch that game for over nine months.
Speaking of getting stuff in the mail, I recently discovered that Shuraki #4 Needa has been delayed to May now. It was suppose to be released this month. I preordered it on YesAsia with some other stuff which included Nendoroid Miku Hatsune. That one is going to be released this month for sure. Because of the way that YesAsia works, I'm going to have to wait until probably June to get Miku since she was in the same order. But I'm more concern about Needa since YesAsia cancelled an item in a previous order before that had the same situation like this. They didn't know that a certain item was delayed & they cancelled it since they couldn't get in stock on the original schedule release date. I was okay on that one, but Needa is a different story since the price I got her at was good & she's in high demand. Miku can wait, but losing Needa is a no-no to me. Another delay are the Nendoroid Lucky Star figurines for the second time. They are now scheduled to be released on April; one month later according to the official Nendoroid website.
In anime news, Viz licensed the Bleach movie: Memories of Nobody. It's planned to have a limited theatrical release in North America. Also licensed from Anime Boston this past weekend are Rocket Girls from Bandai & KIBA from ADV Films. The only one that I found to be big was Bleach personally.
Updates this week includes a PSP game review (finally!) of Dragoneer's Aria since I finally completed it. Also, in there is a game review of Fate/Tiger Colisseum. In that review is contents about the Limited Edition of the game & the PSP accessories package as well. However, these reviews & other PSP ones will have a layout change as well. Don't know when I'll get those done. Also, I did a brief update on a collectable review of Kotobukiya 1/12 Multi-Material Mahoro-San & Sportsbike Statue. I finally discovered that the statue does have die-cast parts in the on the bike. But the statue is still in the box. The reason why I opened it was due to open spaces on my shelves now since I sold some stuff away recently. By the way, I updated some of my reviews to reflect this. Take a guess which ones they were. Hopefully, next week/month I will get something going here at a descent pace.
March 18, 08
Got my final volume of Fate/stay night this week to complete my set. I was surprised that Amazon.ca was able to get it at this time of the year considering what Geneon did last year. I tried to preorder it, but was unlucky. It was the regular edition. I was more lucky to score the limited edition which I never heard of until I saw it for order on Amazon.ca that time. I ordered it for the heck of it at the time after knowing what happened to Geneon. I guess losing out on the first order paid off here. Weird.
Speaking of Geneon, Rightstuf has licensed Maria Watches Over Us (aka Maria-sama ga Miteru). They got everything. The two seasons & the OVA. Scheduled to be released in July 2008. Funny thing is that Geneon owns a domain for Maria & is not set to expire for a long time. I have a feeling that Rightstuf is part of Geneon. Those comment cards from some Geneon DVDs are addressed to TRSI which I believe stands for The RightStuf Inc or something along those lines. Maybe Rightstuf will release the other DVDs the Geneon licensed here. That's just my guess though.
Lately, I haven't been trusting my site stats of this place. It goes up & down. It's not stable or accurate. I was in the 5000 range overall for every parts of this site. Now it's in the 3000 range. I don't know what to believe in anymore. Recently, I've been looking for anime directories to list my site on again to get more exposure of this place. It would be great some of you readers would suggest my site to others as well. May not be the best around, but I'm trying to get there. I think my weakness is the anime reviews. I tend to do them quickly & sometimes forget things from the shows. Mainly because of time I guess.
For more money burning, I recently helped my dad win an auction from eBay for a Canon EOS 40D camera. Cost more than my bi-weekly pay cheque. Although my parents said that they would pay me back, it's actually getting deduct off from the monthly payments I make to them. This would act like credit to my payments them. About two months worth. So, I don't really get money back. Spending frenzy will go down this month. I was planning to save up some money & transfer it to another bank savings account with higher interest rates. Oh well. There's always next time. I hope.
In PSP news, Sony released firmware version 3.93. Aside from the security patches, it offer more internet radio channels & more library support from the Playstation store. Nothing big really. Inserted this news in the PSP News, Hacks & Secrets section.
Now for my biggest complaint from my work week. Was hoping to avoid this, but I guess I couldn't. This past Sunday was a HELL OF A DAY! It started off with a call at midnight. Was sleeping at the time & the night auditor phoned me up. Thought it was weird as night auditors never call me. Turns out the fire alarm in the building went off & he wanted to know how to turn it off. Taught him the procedures, but he was panicking & asked me to come over. When he told me that there was no fire when I asked him, I figured that I didn't need to come. Was told that the cops were on the scene & guests were in the lobby. Since the cops were there, it would be best for the cops to handle it. Plus the fire trucks were on the way. Since I was going to work in the next few hours, I was like I'll handle it in the morning. I was thinking some kid played a prank & pull on the fire alarm switch. When I came in to work, I learned that it was something else.
Coming to work, I asked the night auditor about how the situation was handled. Found out that it wasn't a prank, it was something more serious. Some drunk guest created a huge disturbance in the hotel, mainly on the floor he was on. Not only did he trash the room, he went out in the hallway & started to break things in his path. In the room, here's a list of what he's done:
Overall, it's a total mess. Nothing I have ever seen before. In the hallway, he torn off some more light fixtures, torn down a painting, smashed open the fire extinguisher case, & took it to use it to ram other guest room doors. I heard everything from the night auditor, but the extinguisher wasn't told to me until the guests mentioned it to me. It was more serious than I thought. I also learned that the fire alarm went off because of the exposed electrical wires from the light fixtures. They were live & smoking a bit. Because of this whole incident, I get complaints all over the place. Complain about how no one answered the phone, security not tight, can't call 911, situation not handled fast enough, etc. All I can do is say sorry about the incident as I know nothing about it in terms of being there. Some guests were understanding about it which was great & easy on me. But I had to compensate five rooms for this incident. Needed the manager's approval on this as I thought about it carefully since I had so many check outs. I imagined how many free rooms I would have to give & thought about how the GM won't like it. I would have been giving them like it was nothing. Since he was there to clean up the mess & saw the drunk get arrested by the police, he pretty much knew the situation better than me & gave me the green light & try to do what I can. I was lucky it wasn't too bad due to some understanding guests.
All these complaints got to my head & gave me a headache. Plus, I was getting very tired all morning which lead to the afternoon. To make it more worse, the drunk comes back from the police station & wanted to get his belongings back. He was willing to pay for the trouble he caused. Because of the situation he put me in, I was pissed off. To top it off, he asks me what he did as he doesn't remember. That made me more angry. I was pretty rude to the guy, but not in a direct way. I basically told him in a straight tone about what he did & how we can't give him his stuff back. Reason why is because the GM told us not to enter the room (but most of the staff did anyways) & not to touch anything. He wanted to take pics for insurance purposes &, I think, for the police to examine since this has a case number on it. About an hour later after he leaves, he phones me about his stuff. I was still pissed off at him & told him the same answer. I told him that I don't know when he'll get it back & the police may take it. He told me that the police won't take it since I think he said that he was released on bail or something. Told him to call at the end of this week since I have no idea when that room is out of bounds.
But the GM will be returning the guy's stuff since we don't have any use for them as I would imagine. The guy called back the next day about it & ask about the stuff again & knowing that money was taken from his credit card already. We took $1,000 by the way, but it's not enough of course. The GM wants him to see the damages in the room. I think the guy was surprised about the cost he has to pay as he was thinking it was only a couple of hundred or something. It's like a $30,000 damage.
Sigh. Enough bitching & let's go to the updates. This week's updates are brief ones again. Again still under work on getting this place looking more appealling & fancy with the limited skills that I have. Got up Eien no Aseria: The Spirit of Eternity Sword after finding out that the OVA stop suddenly, brief reviews of Ghost Hound & Yotsunoha. Also up is an updated review of Tokimeki Memorial ~Only Love~ after I found out that there was another extra episode found in the last DVD volume. Next week, I hope to get this place up to speed somehow & things don't turn out like hell again.
March 11, 08
Hotel work has slowed down a bit. But reservations for the summer is still draining in. Although I'm better in health, my throat gives in at times which makes talking a bit hard. Aside from work, I've been over my head last week in upgrading my sister's computer. We decided to upgrade it when we decided to go wireless in the home. Since her old computer was a P4 & couldn't use a D-Link wireless N card for some reason, we thought it was time to invest in a new one just for the sake of going wireless in the house. But, there's something in her room that makes her not connect to the net at times. I tried moving her computer to my room & I don't have problems. We put the computer in an open area in her room & it's a bit better. But she would lose her net surf capabilities even though she still has about 80% or more in signal strength. It's really driving me crazy thinking about it.
Another thing that has me going crazy in my blood is an incident from work. A girl calls us about a lost textbook that at our hotel. She lost the book for some time. She made two calls. The first call was giving the address. Before doing that, she blames us for losing her book. Tells me that shuttle driver rushed her to get going at the shuttle time she booked for. Blames about how the clock in her room & the shuttle driver's time is different. Either way, she should have been down around 15 minutes early. I was there at the time when it happened. There were other people waiting in the van for her & it was already past the schedule time by three minutes I think. I don't remember exactly, but I do remember it was pretty late. It was pretty cheap of her to blame us like that. After getting her mailing address, she doesn't give me her credit card as she tells me that she doesn't have it. Tells me that she'll call back later.
After three hours or so, she calls again to give me her credit card number. Then I tell her that we'll have it ship sometime this week. She starts making a fuss about it & ask me why it can't be shipped the next day. I told her that I'll talk to the manager about it & see if he can do it. The reason why I said that is basically because I have no idea what's my GM's schedule is like the next day. I don't want to give an answer & only have it not done. Then I tell her that we may need to find a box for it since it looks thick. It's an university textbook. She tells me that an envelope is enough. Told her it looks thick & don't know if it will fit (found out it does a bit after a hour after the call). During my explanation to her, I coughed. Then dead silence came after from her. After getting an answer that she's still there, she asks me if I laughed. I told her that I was coughing because I had a sore throat. Although I have the feeling that she thinks I was laughing at her, I didn't apologize because I was not laughing at her. Plus, I don't want to get the impression that I was laughing at her. Afterwards, she refuses to give her credit card number over the phone & I acknowledged that. Then she tells me that she wants to talk to the manager the next day & asks about time & stuff.
Minutes later, the girl calls again. Only this time from the toll-free reservation line. Probably did it so she thinks that she can avoid me. Of course, jokes on her. Reason for the call is to get head office's number. Hearing that, I knew what she was up to even though she didn't leave her name. I gave her central reservation's number since I don't have head office's number & that's the closest one to it. Minutes later, someone from corporate head office calls & tells me about the situation. Told her that I knew about it & explained to her what I told the girl. Basically about how I told her about me asking my manager about shipping it the next day. Then we ended it with how the girl will talk to the manager the next day about this. If you are thinking about COD, it doesn't work with Canada Post for some reason. My GM told me about this. After the call from corporate, my GM appears surprisingly to the back office. Told him the situation & finds the girl's attitude to be bad. Tells me that he'll give her a hard time & not to worry about it. But he told me it's surprising that some from corporate will be working on a Sunday. In the end, the girl never call the next day; at least from my shift. Morale of this long senseless story: don't be a bitch by not admitting your own mistakes & going to head office about something so petty. It would be interesting to note that I was the one that personally went & helped her find the book in her room when she call from the airport about it. That book had been sitting with us for nearly a week since she call us about it.
This place is going at a much slower rate these days due to things happening around my house. I still want to get this place up to speed. Aside from my hotel whining, here's what's up this week. Nothing much though. Complete anime review of Hidamari Sketch Special. Plus, some brief reviews of anime shows of H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, & Minami-Ke Okawari. In the Artbooks & Illustration Books section, I'll uploaded Flawless Yakushijii Ryoko Case File Illustrations description. Speaking of artbooks, I've received my Sweet Dreams Shunya Yamashita Illustrations book from the mail yesterday. More junk to come!
Next week, I hope to get more content & interesting stuff up. However, I'm still having an headache about the wireless internet connection in my house. ARGH!
March 4, 08
Say goodbye to February & hello to March. Got all the February entries in the Past News Archives section now.
Got some new anime figurines. Last week, I forgot to mention that I got the Nimbus the Black figurine. It's been sitting in the packaging box unopened for a long time & my family wants to know what it's inside. In case you don't know what Nimbus the Black is, it's Ignis the Black. Orchid Seed decided to call it Nimbus & I don't know why. Maybe people that first saw the HJ ad didn't translate it properly or something. It is Ignis after all in black. Anyways, got Shuraki Trinity Box #3: Char Rhousemann in the mail yesterday. I'm temporarily stopping right now since space is running low & I got a few more in preorders coming soon. Plus, I got one figurine that I'm eyeing on as well. None of the new stuff is getting open anyways. Also, I've pre-ordered the WF2008 Nendoroid Lucky Star meets Fate figurines. Good Smile Company made an online order for these figurines even though they are for the WF 2008 convention. This happened for some of the WF 2007 as well. The figurines will be released at the end of June.
Aside from figures, PSP games have caught my attention as well. This month is full of goodies to me. I've downloaded a demo of God of War to try out since I haven't played the game before & wanted to see how fun it is. Big mistake. Now I'm itching to buy it & it wasn't on my to buy list. What I got on that list is Crisis Core, Warrior Orochi, & Wild Arms XF. I'm still looking for Dungeon Explorer since last month, but have no luck finding it from any physical stores here. Going to Amazon.ca to get it now. Even worse is I still have unopened games in wrapping that hasn't been touched yet. Wasting too much of my money in untouched areas. Overall, it's March Madness on my wallet.
Updates for this week is still small. My workplace is still killing me for some reason as if summer was still going. Anyways, what do we have this week? Nothing. That's right, nothing. What a way to start off the month. Been very busy with hotel work & house work as well. Right now, I still need to clean up parts of my house that I haven't done since I was sick last week. But as an apology, here's some brief reviews on from the Love Hina collectables section: EPOCH C-Works SkyLuv Project Love Hina #4 Mitsune Konno & EPOCH C-Works SkyLuv Project Love Hina #5 Mutsumi Otohime. Didn't think that I would leave something undone, did you? As a side note, I do plan to get rid of those figurines & other Love Hina stuff that I have. If you want to buy them off me, email me before I get them up on eBay. That is if the price is right. Also, if you see something that you like from my collection & want to buy it off me, email me about that as well. I do plan to thin out my collection a bit & there may be some figures that I don't want anymore. But keep in mind that there are some that I don't want to get rid of. So don't pester me about it if I say no about selling them.