Nuclear Monsters in a Nuclear Winter

This website was down for a while yesterday. I'm not sure why, but things have seemed to be running a bit slow recently. It must be something on the servers' end. Have patience, young Jedi.

Now, I'm not one to complain about the weather. I generally have a very high tolerance for both extreme heat and extreme cold. That all said, damn is it ever wintery out there! It has been just miserable, the worst I can remember a winter being in several years around here.

But that would not deter me, oh no. For today is a momentous day, and I was not about to let some snow and ice stand in my way, because today is the release date of Godzilla vs Megaguirus and Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters all out Attack on DVD. As a monster fan, I've been waiting for this day for a long, long time, and now these films are in my possession at last. Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla is slated for a March release, and I'll be picking that one up too. Perhaps someday I'll do a review on these movies, like I did in my Godzilla 2000 article.

I've also recently gotten my hands on the Ultraman Tiga starter set, containing the first of four volumes of the show and a spiffy T-shirt in a collectors' box. I've really been enjoying that, and it's great to see a high quality release of this classic Japanese series for the North American market. It's pretty expensive, but there's 13 episodes in each volume, so there's a lot of bang for your buck. Plus, it's subtitled, which is what the fans wanted.

On a similar subject, I had been keeping my eye on Kaiju Big Battel for a few years now. It's live action monster wrestling. What's not to like about that? Well they finally have a DVD available, called Teribi Sento, and I used some Christmas money to buy it. It's full of weird characters and lots of bizarre Japanese style humor that only a few people will find funny. I, of course, am one of those people. It's an acquired taste, and there is some room for improvement on the production end, but it's quite entertaining to see a giant sandwich fighting against a kung fu fighting can of soup. I also got a T-Shirt, some actual debris from one of their fights, and a whole bunch of stickers, pins, magnets, and other promotional items, which is very cool. Dr. Cube rules!

At the request of their tech support, my digital drawing tablet was shipped over to Wacom last week and has just arrived there. Hopefully they'll be able to fix whatever it is that's wrong with it without costing any money. I'm getting very anxious to start using it again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some monster smackdown to watch.

Sayonara.

Happy Chinese New Year!

So it's the year of the monkey. That is awesome for two reasons. The first reason, of course, is that monkeys are awesome. I mean, how can anyone doubt the awesomeness of monkeys? That's right, you can't. Just look at a monkey and you'll see the truth. They're so awesome. Therefore, any year named after the monkey must be awesome in turn. The other reason is that I was born on the year of the monkey, all the way back in 1980. And I think it goes without saying that I am awesome. Perhaps even more awesome than the monkey. Thus it's safe to say that the year of the monkey is a good thing.

Today I took a walk in the snow over to the mall. I had been meaning to go all week, however the weather disagreed with my plans. I was looking for Transformers bargains. I did find the brand new Ironhide and Jetfire from Energon at Toys R Us, which would have been great to take home, but what I was really after were some deals on the Armada toys that I missed out on. Lucky for me, there were a few to be found at Wal-Mart. I got 4 Minicon packs for $5 each, Predacon (the Transmetal Megatron recolour) for $15, and Tidal Wave for $20. I really had to dig around to find these, as they were scattered all over the place as if a bomb had gone off and the place had been ransacked, and the packages weren't in great shape, but good prices all around. It was a cold walk home, but worth it. So if you're spelunking for deals, take a good look around and you might come away with something cool.

Sayonara.

Anime Class: First Impressions

The groups that I am teaching in this session at Comic Book Masters are very small. I have one group of 4 in the first round class and another group of only 2 in a Robots class. It's a bit disappointing in that my previous groups in the fall session were both significantly larger than that, but at the same time it's great because it affords me the chance to teach more on an individual level. The first few classes, especially with brand new students, are usually very quiet, mostly because everyone thinks I'm really weird when they first get to know me (and they'd be right, for the most part), but the atmosphere livens up a bit after a couple of weeks. I'm sure that this session will be no exception. The second round class is a bit bigger, but I've left that group in the hands of Shawn the minion, and I'm sure that he'll do a good job.

If there's anyone in the York Region area who's been thinking of signing up but haven't yet, or if you just missed the first week, either of these classes will be a great place to learn about drawing due to the low numbers and individual attention that you'll get. It's not too late to sign up.

I have decided that BUSHUUUU! from Super Sentai World is going to be the new catchphrase. Believe it.

Sayonara.

Anime Teacher at Peace with Insanity.

Tomorrow I start up again with my teaching at Comic Book Masters, where I do my anime thing like no one else can do. I've really been looking forward to it. Hopefully there will be a big turn out of both old and new students.

I do hope, however, that nobody went from the CBM webpage and wound up here on my webpage from the link and read my previous angry little rant about spam, since they'd most likely end up thinking that I was some kind of maniac and that they shouldn't leave their children with me. I admit, that wasn't me at my best, not that I'm a generally cheery lad most of the time anyway.

Most of my students find out right away, just from the way I talk, that I am a megalomaniacal, vengeful, angry ninja, but they're ok with that. In fact, I think that they find it entertaining. So do I.

So, yes, maybe I am a little insane. But I think that makes me a better teacher. Believe me, I know from experience. I've encountered some bad ones.

Besides, I teach anime. This ain't rocket science.

Sayonara.

Spam You, You God Spammed Spamming Mother Spammers!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGG!!!

I've been getting a whole bunch of returned mail that I never sent in the first place. Mail that looks like it originates from Korea and contains obvious links to porn sites.

Somebody out there is using my e-mail server, complete with my e-mail address as the return address, to send wave after wave of vile, disgusting spam. Spam that looks like it was sent through sykografix.com.

I had NOTHING at all to do with this. This was completely out of my hands. Someone is using my site and my e-mail address to continue the endless stream of Internet sludge-pumping, and I've got to deal with the drops that don't go through the system. Now my website's name has been tainted by this scum, and that makes me look bad. This pisses me off to no end. This is the kind of thing that I've been trying to fight against, and for my property to be violated and this garbage thrown my way, well that just makes me sick to my stomach! This is a cancer on the Internet, and I'll be damned if I let my website become another malignant cell.

Go to hell, you worthless porn-swilling bastards, and take your God damned spam with you! You pigs make me want to vomit, and I can't wait until the day comes when all of your asses fry. In fact, I hope that I can actually be there when it happens so I can personally rip your freakin' heads off ahead of time!

There. I feel better now.

But you know what else pisses me off? With all the promotion that I do with this site, and with all of the times that I try to encourage participation and feedback, how much e-mail do I get? After cleaning out the several hundred spam mails I get each week, I'm lucky to get 2 or 3 actual, real e-mails from people who actually want to talk to me! That's pathetic.

Yeah, it's been a bad week, and I'm in a bad mood. Well my anger is justified. Somebody tell me I'm wrong. I dare ya. That's right, you can't.

Sayonara.

A Dumpster full of of Badness and a Trashbag full of Luck.

New updates for today. Take a look at what's been added this time around, and tell me what you think!

I wanted to have a brand new main index design for the new year, but due to the problems I've been having with my Wacom digital tablet, that's not going to be happening. I don't know what the hell these people at Wacom's tech support are doing, but helping me is apparently not in their job description. I've been trying without success to get this thing working again, having no idea why it stopped working in the first place. This piece of hardware cost a lot of money. Is it too much to ask for it to, you know, actually work? Until it does work, don't expect much in the way of new art from me.

And another thing that makes me mad is that this is the second time I've had to write this weblog update, because my freakin' text editor decided to crash for no reason last time I tried to update. Frag. I had more to say, but screw that, I just don't feel like it anymore.

I don't know if luck exists, but if it does, give me a big freakin' trash bag full of it. I could really use some.

Sayonara.

Supaaaah Linku!

I have seen the new Transformers show, Super Link (otherwise known as Energon). You can read my thoughts here.

Everyone is invited to post their thoughts in the SG 2003 Awesomeness Awards thread. What was your favourite movie of the year? How about, video games, Comics, and toys? Share your picks and discuss!

The legacy of the "flamer", the angry little pest who hates this website and just would not go away, has been chronicled here. Is it real? Is it a joke? Read the thrilling twists and turns! Will this flamer strike again?

My digital tablet recently decided to take a vacation. Meaning it doesn't freakin' work any more. This pisses me off. I'm trying to get some work done, and perhaps make some money at it, but I can not. I've been back and forth with tech support at Wacom but they haven't been much help. Very frustrating. The fact that my wrist is killing me doesn't help either.

Regardless, this website is going to be updated soon with some cool new stuff. So sign up to the mailing list to stay on top of it!

Sayonara.

Proof of my Awesomeness.

First of all, someone that has my e-mail address on file has a virus which is sending out corrupted e-mail that spreads the virus, making it look like I was the sender. Several e-mails have been returned to me due to virus blocking on the server end. Well, I did not send those e-mails and I do not have that virus. If you have my e-mail address, clean out your freakin' computer. If you got an e-mail from me that has a virus, it ain't my fault.

Next, someone hotlinked a photograph from this site and used it for their LiveJournal. Stuff like that happens all the freakin' time, on blogs and message boards and whatnot. It makes me mad, but there's not a lot that I can do about it. What makes this one worse is that since LiveJournal has that whole "friends" thing, where people can read the posts of other people who are friends with the author, that picture also appeared on like a hundred other sites, and my statistics picked up on that. So a whole bunch of people saw a picture that I took and that I spent my time putting on the Internet, and none of them actually came to this website. That sucks.

Most of these LiveJournal sites that I encountered through looking at my statistics are maintained by boring, annoying people with nothing important to say aside from how terrible their lives are. However, I did find this interesting little program on one of them.

The World Is MINE! by Demonac
Name:
You will conquer:	the Entire World, except Antartica (those Penguin Guerrillas prove impossible to dislodge).
Your title will be:	Commander
You will succeed by:	Getting your boss elected (then killing him for carreer advancement).
Your Enforcers will be:	Conan Obrien's hair.
Your first act as ruler:	Destroy everything you conquered (it was an accident).
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

If you know me, then there really isn't much in the way of new information here. The entire world being conquered by me should come as no surprise, and the penguins can keep Antarctica for all I care. It goes without saying that I'll destroy everything, however it being an accident is just what I'll write on the reports. Conan O'Brian's hair I'm not so sure about, but I am a big fan of his, so it's all good.

Now you try it.

Sayonara.

Important Notice.

This is the first SykoGrafix weblog post of 2004.

That is all.

Sayonara.