Geekorner Blog Month in Review: August (And Tail of July)

This may or may not be a permanent feature. But since many of the people currently reading this blog did not read this blog when it was new, it’ll be here this time.
And don’t worry, we’re going to resume normal postings tomorrow or the day after.

August in review (and yes, details are lacking, since WordPress only shows me top 40 clicks/referers, and only “past 30 days” and such, can’t tell it to look at August as a month…):

Hits: 1,955 hits in August, the first full month of posts.
129 hits in July.
Note, at the beginning of August/end of July, I had 30 hits on the “hot” days, 10 on the rest, and a couple with 1-2, from August 6th or so, I’ve had a minimum of 30 hits per day, and from August 13th, almost all days had over 50 hits per day. I aimed at 500-600 hits total, for the month.

Comments: 154 comments in August (including my own).
6 comments in July.

Notable Referers: Note, if your site linked through numerous sites, I can’t see it, can only see the top 40 individual pages who referred. Also, counts some early September data.
Wordpress news (I made the fifth comment, mostly “bounces”, one time-visitors): 300.
Animenano: 166.
Gunstray: 28.
Taikutsu Remedy (Snark’s site): 28.
(It’s not random that Gunstray and Taikutsu Remedy lead to so many hits here, it’s in their site’s setup.)

Notable posts (doesn’t include posts people read off the blog’s main page):
Figure Friday (1): 151 hits.
[TIL]: Element Hunters: 122 hits.
My Room, July 2009: 116 hits.

One more QUESTION before we continue; would you guys be interested in hearing how one can gain a nice level of activity on one’s blog without too much effort (1.5-2k hits a month)? Or do you think you’re all there and it’s superflous?

And now, after the “read more” tag, a description of all the last couple of months’ entries. Please check to see if there are entries you’ve missed which you would’ve enjoyed reading. Thank you.

Month in Review: July

I hope to get to do this every month. Basically an outline and a line on two on what I’ve done the past month. Some of these things will still get their own post.
Stuff done in whole, so I might mention some other things, but we’ll see.

July was a month I was feeling crappy for much of, and had tests in the University, so it may be both more and less than usual. More anime and less books, certainly.

Movies:

• Ice Age 2: Turns out I have this on DVD. Watched this in preparation for Ice Age 3. Wasn’t very funny or good.
• Ice Age 3: Went to the cinema for this one. This one was quite hilarious, which is something I like seeing in movies. A rollicking good fun.
• Don’t Mess with the Zohan (uncensored): An ok movie, I guess. It could’ve been considerably better with some better editing. Cutting a 1-2 minute here, another 1-2 minute there, that were simply awful, would have done the movie good. It did show people what an Israeli accent sounds like though.
• Yes Man. An ok movie, relatively good time. Loved the music, loved Zooey Deschanel.
• Japan: A Love Story. A documentary. Voluntary slavery almost comes to mind, but of course, I’m an outsider looking in.

TV:

• Daily House M.D. re-runs continue, season 3 and 4. I guess when this ends next week or so we’ll get season 5. I’ve watched the episodes before, still, fun.
• Boston Legal season 5 started showing.
• Damages season 2 is showing. I am enjoying it a lot thus far.

Books:

• Wheel of Time 6, large portion of 7. This is where the going begins to get tough, but it’s easier than I remember it, because I was reading it quickly. Then again, barely touched it the last three weeks or so.

Manga:

• Fullmetal Alchemist 19: I had a great time, we’re finally getting to uncover more of the past of the series. Mood considerably different from the beginning of the series, I might need to read it all again when it’s all out.
• Future Diary 1: I did not get to read this one, apparently Tokyopop has issues. I thought the concept was cool, still want to read it.
• Rurouni Kenshin 1-15: I’ve decided to re-read the series.

Anime:

• Mai-HiMe: I’ve really enjoyed this series. I’ve loved Mai, I liked her Seiyu, the art, the story, the emotional impact. A+.
• Gintama: Watched episodes 1-8. Since I’ve had it, decided to watch it already. Highly suggested to Hayate no Gotoku fans. I like this one better, funny.
• Zero no Tsukaima / The Familiar of Zero; Seasons 1-3: I like how they are doing this series right, with the story continuing in its own pace, season by season. Series is nice, series is cute. Series is by no means “something special”. You do get a Yuki Nagato clone in it, and another “Sanzenin Nagi”.
• Tenjho Tenge 1-10. As I’ve covered it during the month, I decided to watch it again. Undecided if I’ll watch it all again or not.
• Onegai Sensei / Please Teacher: A series designed to appeal to teenaged geeks. It has some moments where it can “get you”, emotionally. Its backdrop is especially designed for that effect.

Had been reading bits and pieces of the Transhuman Space RPG.
I also got to eat at “Black Bar and Burger” for the first time. The hot-wings were a bit skinny and tough, the burger was delicious. Medium.

[TIL] Tenjho Tenge Review

First “Things I Like” post, a bit late, but it’s going up. And in case it’s not obvious, all such posts may have some spoilers.

I’ve watched the anime of Tenjou Tenge a couple years back, and am actually a bit surprised seeing it’s from 2004 and some comments, since I remember the art as being generally sub-par to what I consider the modern standard. Enough that I’m going to grab some episodes and re-watch them to see what’s up.

Anyway. I began watching the anime, saw cool cool fights, cool characters, and all was well and good. We then got to a flashback sequence, which lasts 6 episodes. I was all up for it in the beginning, but at some point I was going, “Hey, this is a limited run series, what’s up?”

We then get 3.5 more episodes in the present time, before we get another flashback sequence, from episodes 19 to 23, out of 24 episodes. At this point, I remember going, “What the fuck? When will I watch the series?” but after a couple of episodes I dawned of me, but it’s something that’s disturbing if you don’t realize it, and disturbing that (when?) you don’t know it going in:

The background story is the real story. What happens now is cool, but what happened before is cooler. You care more about that by the end, it’s amazing, it’s awesome, and it’s sort of like a bait-and-switch. After I realized that, I stopped waiting for the flashback sequence to end, because I’ve realized that was the main story.

Then the anime ends on a cliffhanger. Not surprising, considering it’s an adaptation of a still-running manga, and I now found out there’s been an OVA which I’ll have to track down. So the anime ends on a cliffhanger, after you finally know what happened in the past to set it all up, but not what’s going to happen. In a sense, the anime ends before the present day story can really start (ok, it did start, and made some progress, but now we were getting to the exciting stuff!), so it leaves you open-mouthed when that happens. You do get a full story though through the flashbacks, and a desire to know what happens next, perhaps it’ll be worth it to get the manga?

UPDATE: Viewing it again to check the art quality. Ok, I watched it before on extremely low quality, which made the drawings look ugly, both style and technique. I now compared it to high quality, and there I still hate the artistic style, how most characters/faces are drawn, but it’s very well-made on the technical level.

Hm, an 8 on a story within a story, but only 6.5 overall?