Hi Newgrounds,
This may very well be my last post. As Tom recently announced, there's a crackdown underway on Flash made from copyrighted material. As you all know, EVERYTHING I have ever submitted has something commercial in it, so I'm fucked all over, especially considering I had something potentially awesome I wanted to make and showcase. I have a very poor creative complex, so I am unable to make any new Flash under the new regime. I know it may sound like an elaborate form of trolling, but I have official confirmation that this is legit. It's wrong, it's abusive, but it's real. I didn't see it coming; Newgrounds was one of my last few bastions of hope, but now that's all gone. So I have no choice but to leave Newgrounds. Forever.

Goodbye...

I know I should be happy, but I'm not. Today was one disaster after another. I accidentally overslept and was 5 minutes late to class, then I came home and baked my cake, then I got ready for dinner. I got sushi, which was probably the highlight of my day. I am no good with logistics and planning, and I originally planned to decorate the cake to look like the cake from Portal, but I wound up with a simple devil's food cake covered in chocolate icing and ground Oreo cookies. It still tasted good, however.
Here's a rundown of what presents I got:
not a single CD or iTunes gift card... T_T
a $25 check
a headset
a new USB mouse (I've had 2 die on me in the past week)
a Sonic the Hedgehog figure
and finally...
Adobe Flash Professional CS5 Student & Teacher Edition

If I can get this copy of Flash up and running, I should be back in business. Stay tuned...

EDIT 2010/11/3 2:53 PM CDT- I got my serial number back and am officially BACK IN BUSINESS! Stay tuned for whatever I churn out...

My mom died today at 1:40 PM CDT. She had been sick with cancer for 14 years and her health rapidly deteriorated over the past 3 months.
Now I don't normally share the details of my personal life with the whole Internet; the sole reason I am making this post is as proof to those who have doubted my credibility that I am not lying about my reasons for holding certain right-leaning beliefs. I sincerely believe that my mother was duped by society and the pharmaceutical industry into taking pills that gave her cancer, and I am using this as a warning to anyone who wants to force their wives, girlfriends or whoever to take birth control: it does have lethal side effects. If you are so adamant about population control, use condoms or have yourselves sterilized, and don't come cryin' to me if something goes wrong.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a nicer day than I've had.

Anyone ever heard of The Alfee? I've been listening to their music off and on since this past August, and I have come to a definitive conclusion: these guys are frickin' GOD TIER. How they could have fallen into obscurity outside of Japan is beyond me.
Just check this out and tell me whether or not you agree.

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I've been meaning to join their official fanclub, "Alfee Mania", but as far as I know they don't accept international applications. :(

P.S. Another reason I posted this now is because Masaru Sakurai, the bassist, just turned 55! (Hence my choice of smiley)

EDIT 1: I think I've found the reason why no one has heard of The Alfee stateside.

EDIT 2: The video I posted earlier was removed, so I replaced it with a different one. If you're curious as to what the original was, you can still see it here.

UPDATE: I just checked iTunes, and they have The Alfee's official podcast "My Cheerful Song" as well as Toshihiko Takamizawa's Rockban (which I just subscribed to). It's all in Japanese, of course...

UPDATE 2: My dad and I ordered the Type B limited edition version of The Alfee's new album "Shinsekai: Neo Universe" and it just arrived! I was puzzled by the size of the box it was shipped in; it turned out it's because the cover is the size of a friggin' LP! My mom freaked out when she saw it since our turntable is broken...
Here's a pic. I know it's a crappy shot; I took it with my webcam.

UPDATE 3 (URGENT): I was just listening to the CD and I noticed that a good portion of track 2 is "sampled" (i.e. plagiarized) from a certain classic rock song and I can't put my finger on its name/original artist! Can anyone help me? You can hear it here.
The reason I'm posting this is I know Toshihiko Takamizawa has done this before (see Edit 1 link) and as much as I admire him (yeah, think what you want :P ), I can't let him get away with it. Not after what happened with Timbaland.
(ETA): Props to Timmy for helping me find it: the song I had in mind was the Eagles' "Hotel California." It's not close enough to the original for me to make a case out of, though...
Anyway, I switched the link so you don't have to download it to hear it. I still have a gut feeling Takamiy ripped some other songs off, too, so if you find anything remotely close to a song you recognize, please tell me. Brian Farrelly's credibility may not be in the toilet, after all.
(Mini-update 2) Haven't I heard this somewhere before? An old Chevrolet commercial, perhaps? (Yeah, it was copied in Sonic Rush too.)

RANDOM UPDATE: Today (April 15 JST, still April 14 EDT) is acoustic guitarist Kounosuke Sakazaki's 56th birthday! Here's a (somewhat old) video of him doing solo stuff.
(edit 8/19: The video I posted was removed, so I replaced it with another one, this time involving Astroturf Digby.)

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</div>EDIT: Yay! It's Takamiy's birthday today (Japan time, right now)!
Here's something of his for y'all.

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Another update: Takamiy has a new solo album and single coming out this fall! Anyone else besides me want it? (edit: I preordered it; it should be here next week-ish)
EDIT 8/26/2010 5:23 PM CDT: It's here! I added one of the bonus wallpapers to my desktop.

I just recently discovered that in Safari (for Mac OS X Leopard), you can oscillate between text encodings, and considering the problem I and other users have had regarding Newgrounds' limited interface for Unicode characters (which I suspect Wade may have requested >:C), it may be worth my while to do this.
Now, here we go:

A heart, a spade, a club, a diamond and an umbrella
%u2665%u2660%u2663%u2666%u2602

A simple Japanese sentence
%u79C1%u306F%u732B%u304C%u597D%u304D%u 3067%u3059%u3002

Now I'll post this and toggle Unicode and see what happens...

EDIT: DAMMIT! It didn't work!
And this all started because of a handful of trolls...
AGH!

Well, it's October 28th, my birthday, and I don't have much to say.
I got a nice Southern-style breakfast this morning, went to college and took a quiz and yakked about The Poe Shadow for an hour, came home, napped, went out for some sushi (OM NOM NOM good :3), came home, ate some cake and ice cream, unwrapped presents and now I'm here blogging about it.

Here's what I got:
a $25 iTunes gift card
the Animusic 2 DVD
and as I announced in the Pokémon club thread:
I got HeartGold AND SoulSilver!
(My brother has offered to try one out, even though he can't understand Japanese, at least not to the extent that I can.)

*sigh* Still no electric guitar... (-_-;)

And I guess that's it. Comment how you like (the rules still apply).

See you on Christmas Day,
HibiscusKazeneko

...and it's an adventure. College is nothing like high school, and I've grown to like the difference. I only have two classes per day (only one on Fridays) and I have lots of spare time. (I'm not employed; my mom won't let me work outside the house.) I've made some friends and, for the first time in my life, actually have an active social life.
The only thing I hate: PARKING. There is NOT ENOUGH SPACE for all the students and faculty, and when I arrive at school in the mid-morning, even the "overflow" on the grass is full. I have to drive around like a shark and wait for someone to back out. There is a LOT of competition, so parking my car can take upwards of 20 minutes.

I haven't been able to work on any Flash lately because I deactivated the license on my old computer and am having trouble putting it on my Mac. (It still thinks the license is active for some reason.) If anybody can help me, please comment or PM me.

Catch you later!

Hibiscus

This summer is drawing to a close, and so far I and everyone else in the house have done NOTHING fun or amusing, not even a trip to the movies. The reason? FUCKING TERRI SCHIAVO LIVES IN MY LIVING ROOM! My mother has been battling cancer (and losing) since 1998 and now she is constantly whining about being in pain and nauseous and my brother and I have to chauffeur her back and forth to the oncology clinic every week or so. She's clearly rotting before our eyes and I believe it would be MUCH more humane for her and all of us if we cold just put her down. I'm sure my dad is hemorrhaging money trying to pay for all the treatments (insurance companies refuse to cover us thanks to you-know-who) and my brother and I are being denied normal lives because we are expected to act as hospice nurses 24-7. Only God knows if I'm ever going to be allowed to attend college; at this rate, I may be forced to drop out so I can be "on hand in case of an emergency."
I have repeatedly voiced my need to escape from this twisted hell I was born into; all my cries for help have gone unanswered. When I told my family how I wanted to escape, they pulled the "Be considerate" card and tied me down, presumably for life. I've got "Considerate" gushing out my ass, people! It would be MUCH easier on ALL of us if the source of our problems was terminated; i.e. either my mother or me. If you're not going to put her down, put ME down instead. I've had MORE than I can take of this WRETCHED witch coven that I have been forced to call "family." I've had it, I've HAD IT, I'VE HAD IT!!!!

Whew...had to get that out...

No comments this time; I'm not in the mood to put up with trolls.

Today, we finalized the decision-making stuff and my dad, my brother and I rolled off the lot with a brand-new 2009 Kia Spectra! I have to say, it handles like a dream; I haven't been in a street-legal car this comfy in a LONG time. A picture of the model is located below; I'll edit to a pic of the real thing when and if I can snap one. (License plates will be blurred, of course.)

Now that I have the car, I'm working on personalizing it. I have a few stickers lying around the house and we just bought a sunshade. I still have to share with my brother, so he doesn't want it to look too "gay" for him. All décor suggestions welcome!

Edited in response to an urgent wake-up call:
I will NOT tolerate any criticism based on my choice of vehicle. I am vehemently against doing business with most major motor companies due to their unethical (and in some cases, quite possibly illegal) business practices. Visit Green America's website for more information.

As I may or may not have mentioned in the forums, I graduated from high school (finally!) on Wednesday and have done nothing but eat and party the past few days. My biggest graduation present, a brand-new MacBook, arrived this morning and I'm posting from it right now.

Meanwhile, in other news, since I've got lots of spare time, I dusted off an old Flash project and it should be released this summer. No estimates; I don't know if something will come up or not. I REALLY want to go to Los Angeles for the Morning Musume event at Anime Expo this year, but it has yet to be determined whether or not my parents will let me go. They're making me perform odd jobs for less-than-minimum-wage pay, so if I can't go to LA, I can at least have money saved up for when AnimeFest rolls around this year. (I missed A-Kon for the second year in a row due to the class trip; plus all the guests chickened out due to the swine flu scare.)

Catch you on the flip side!

~ Hibiscus