http://www.vllasko.com Translations, Art, thingamajigs English http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=495 I recently heard Jane Zhang's rendition of this song and it totally blew me away. It was really different hearing it sung by a Chinese person but her voice is ridiculously amazing. I've heard she's being considered to sing at the Olympics in Beijing and if it happens that would be awesome. You can go check her stuff out at YouTube. http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=494 And, if there wasn't a doubt; I need to put translations on hold. With regards to this site, I always say I'm going to do something and put forth a date of when I'm going to get it done. 9 times out of 10, however, it just never happens. I guess that's just my track record with site updates. *s!gh* Real life is just really kicking my ass right now. Please bear with me, ok? http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=493 Well, it seems that updates regarding this site have fallen by the wayside this past quarter. Truth be told, I've been really busy with work and studying that I just haven't really felt a compulsion to translate anything or post anything either. A few people have requested that I translate "rocket sneaker" by Otsuka Ai so I'll try and get around to doing that in the coming week. I finished up my BGP / MPLS Cisco exam so now, in addition to CCNP, I'm CCIP certified. I picked up a book on CCDA a few months ago but am finally getting around to reading that too. For the most part, I find this stuff rather interesting and it seems to come to me a lot easier now that I have a stronger foundation from reading the past material. I'm trying to avoid being too book smart though so I'm attempting to use the things I learn in the everyday workplace. So far, it's turning out rather well. I'll post again when I have "rocket sneaker" translated and ready to go. http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=492 For some of us, there is that one person in our life that we’d throw ourselves under the proverbial “bus” for; a person for whom we’d do anything for, a person that can do little wrong; a weakness that there is no cure for, a kryptonite. For myself, this so-called “kryptonite” takes the form of a Japanese girl living in Hiroshima. It was only a little over half a year ago that I had met her while she was on a summer program in the States. And though it was a mere couple of months, in that short period of time, I had been thoroughly captivated. Surely, I know those things that I find attractive and memorable; but to this day, I’m not sure exactly what it is about a person like her that draws me irresistibly. Yet, I’m a realist. There are some things that are perhaps not meant to be. I remember, in vivid colors, the painted sunset on the waters of Miyajima Island that day; the day I had gone to her hometown in Japan to meet her. Having seen her in the distance, approach from the other end of the long gravel path, my heart raced. And though, there was a sense of bliss, having seen her again for the first time in a long while; there was also a nostalgic sense of sadness that I couldn’t chase away. I’d like to think that I had let that part of my heart sail away on the rising tides of Miyajima Island, but months later, the thoughts of that day and the few days that followed continue to bring an unmistakable smile to my face. A part of me would like to think there are still to be unwritten lines to this chapter of my story; but another part of me knows that the next chapter has already begun. Even still, kryptonite will forever remain kryptonite. http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=491 In less than 24 hours, it's "Download Day" for Firefox 3. Support Firefox and download a copy to help set a record for downloads of an application in one day. A little bit of a geeky idea but Firefox is definitely a superior browser and Firefox 3 definitely takes things to another level. I've been using the beta candidate of Firefox 3 as it had come bundled with Fedora 9 which I have moved to as my OS of choice nowadays. Don't bother with IE. It's a bunch of crap just like Windows Vista. One has only to look at Microsoft's touting of Windows7 as "the second coming" less than a year after Vista was released. In other news, I ended up passing the 642-642 Cisco QoS test. That test was pretty ridiculous but I managed to pass it with a 928/1000. Thank goodness that is over. Only the BGP/MPLS test remaining now... No further translations are forthcoming anytime soon, sorry. I've just been entirely focused on exams lately. http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=490 Well, it seems like my transition off my web server and onto a hosting company went without a hitch. My site is now hosted on Hostgator; which, for the most part, has been very good to me. They've accommodated all my behind the scenes cron scripting as well as my custom perl scripts. Believe it or not, the hardest part was getting my php scripts to work and after a good couple of hours, I realized my mistake and changed a line of code and viola, it all just clicked. If you notice any bugs, please shoot me an email. I'd love to know about it. As always, I get sidetracked by things instead of putting out more translations. This year it seems to be Cisco. It's almost as if I have ADD and get bored easily. This seems to happen the most when I'm not learning anything or taking a test of some kind. Hence, I've found myself studying a lot for my CCIP certification lately. There's just so much to learn about the networking world that it just seems that every single test is a brand new language and yet, somehow they are all sublimely intertwined; architecting something of a grander scale. OR maybe it's just that Cisco has driven me to madness and I don't make sense anymore... In other news, I'm just not even impressed with Otsuka Ai's new single. It's soooo "meh" at best. Even the B-side tracks seem like something second rate. Am I too harsh? I dunno. Gokusen 3 is driving me batty; soo funny. Same with Puzzle. I find puzzle so simple in concept yet sooo entertaining. Ishihara Satomi is just pure amusement. I've still not gotten around to watching "Change" yet. Perhaps I'll wait until it's finished. I've heard Gokusen 3 had higher viewership anyway... http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=489 A lot of really cool things are set to debut this month. Kimura Takuya's new drama "Change" just debuted, and although I haven't watched it yet, I'm excited. Nagase Miyu's new single is also set to be released next week along with Otsuka Ai's "Rocket Sneakers." I'm not really thrilled by the latter as I find the song kinda "meh." But oh well, it's Otsuka Ai, right? The iPhone 3G is also rumored to be unveiled in early June or maybe even this month?!?! wowzers. To top it all off, Fedora Core 9 is going to be released today. I remember having started out with that distro when I first learned linux back in the redhat 6 and 7 days which then turned into Core 1. Since then, I had forsaken it for other distros like Gentoo, Suse and Ubuntu. For some reason this year, I've just come full circle back to it. Perhaps it's just a familiarity thing. There's also a long list of movies I want to buy off YesAsia. I've been soooo far behind!!! http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=488 The good part of the drama year is starting up again! Already, I'm more excited about this year than the I was the previous year. Kimura Takuya's new drama "Change"(it's going to be really hard to top Karei Naru though) is set to come out shortly and already Gokusen3 is looking pretty good! Already this year, we've seen the Proposal Daisakusen Special and another Attention Please! Special to boot! Zettai Kareshi is also looking interesting although a little weird too... Oh my goodness the time sink this is all causing....my my... http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=487 I've translated the remaining song on the Otsuka Ai's LOVE PiECE album. That pretty much wraps it up. whew! I guess I should try and wrap up some of those older ZONE albums I had started translating years ago ya? :P http://www.vllasko.com/archives.php?id=486 Site updates / new translations have been bumped up on my priority list as you can probably tell. My recent return from Japan has invigorated me with a greater sense of motivation to make better use of time, double my efforts and put up a solid and consistent performance throughout the year. We will see how long it lasts! In any case, a new Otsuka Ai translation for ya'll!! This one reminds me a lot of Neko ni Fuusen. Only 1 more translation until I finish translating the whole LOVE PiECE album (*cough* a year after it came out, I KNOW!!!). Enjoy!