April 2 (5M^_^)
 

<p>Now then, back to business. For today's update we have --
<p>Wait! I've got it! <i>Anime!</i>
<p>That's what all the cool sites are into now! Who needs sci-fi? There's a whole new genre just waiting for me to attack it! My hitcounts will soar! My frustrations will be crushed by giant robots! I'll never have to hear the name "Joss Whedon" again!
<p>From now on, this site is <b>Five-Minute Anime</b>! New <a href="..">front page</a>! New <a href="../a1/about.html">Statement of Purpose</a>! New list: <a href="../top10/102.html">The Top 10 Signs That You Wish Your Girlfriend Were an Anime Character</a>! And exclamation points for all!
<p>^_^

Boo

I decided to stop by and see what is going on.

Please tell me this is a late April Fools Joke. I need you to finish your Voyager fivers.

Arigato gozaimasu Zeke-soma! ^^

*looks at the disclaimer*

If I weren't lazy, I'd translate that. As it is, I get a vague sense of wrongness looking at it, but I can't brain Japanese right now.

I can't tell you how glad I am that you added the ^__^ to the About page, but didn't get rid of the zombie joke from last year.

"5M^_^'s Statement of BRAINS." I lol'd.

Yes. That was, um... yeah. I noticed that too late. Glad you enjoyed it.

There was a mistake in the T10 list as well -- I said "nanoprobes" a la Voyager instead of "nanomachines" a la Mai-Otome. To get the joke, either read up at Encyclopedia Dramatica (the nanomachines have become a meme) or watch the show, which is pretty good.

Good to see you, Neo! As you can see, <strike>this year's April Fool's event is underway</strike> the site has changed forever and ever. And ever. Anime till time stops!

It is better to light a single Google than to curse the darkness. The disclaimer is, of course, Mahoro's catch phrase.

Ach, man, ye should have jus' claimed it were intentional, and I'd ne'er been th' wiser.

...no, I don't know where that accent just came from.

Vague feeling of wrongness replaced by a strong one at the discovery that Zeke watches rom-com anime. Tell me it's because she's a robot, dude.

Though. I did like the Speed Racer joke. That is much more appropriate.

You would be well-advised not to assume I've actually watched anything I make references to during an <strike>April Fool's event</strike> event that launches a glorious new future for the site. Especially considering what the first fiver is gonna be...

That said, I am a <i>Mahoromatic</i> fan. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how I wound up watching it (which is something I can say about many animes), but obviously the robot thing got my attention. The characters kept it, though. I have no robot excuse for watching both seasons of <i>Ai Yori Aoshi</i>, so suffice to say I can enjoy a good harem show if it's got more entertainment than angst.

(Also, Mahoro's catch phrase is famous enough that I knew about it well before I watched the show.)

I sense a story here. And I want it told.

Well, I didn't say it was an interesting story. I was doing a Google search for something related to Rin, my favourite character in another anime (Fate/Stay Night). What I turned up was a page by someone using "Rin" as a handle. On it, she had a weird but amusing-sounding clip from the dub of some anime. The anime turned out to be Mahoromatic, which has another character named Rin (although she wasn't important in that clip). Even stranger, I think that's not the anime this particular Rin had named herself after; the pic on the page was certainly from another show. But that's how I found out about Mahoromatic, and what I read intrigued me enough to check it out.

The name "Rin" is one of the chief pieces of evidence for Zeke's First Rule of Anime: The more girls you run into with a given name, the more likely it is that there's also one male character with that name. The male Rin is in SHUFFLE!. See also Sakura (male in Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan) and Chiaki (male in Nodame Cantabile).

By the way, I haven't abandoned the event. I've done that with two <strike>April Fool's events</strike> site reinventions in a row -- not this time, baby. I'm riding this anime train till they run out of rail.

It's the 11th. I think the novelty of April Fool's Day has worn off. Perhaps you should've chosen a prank that would've taken less time. For example, creating a newspost that a new fiver has been published. Include a link, and have the "fiver" page say April Fool's, and call the reader a sucker or something.

In other words, PLEASE change the site back and actually put up something that won't be obsolete in a week!

No. We've been over this -- I do long April Fool's events. I enjoy it. And I'm going somewhere with this one. The fact that I'm running late is unfortunate, but not game-changing.

There's no way I can continue without sounding like a whiny condescending jerk. Just consider the replay value of event-related pages versus regular fivers.

I fully support long April Fool's Day events. I also support late ones.

Zeke, you taught me everything I know about ridiculously overblown AFD events from small websites. I've amused hundreds (and terrified thousands) with antic stunts thrown as a result of FMCheese and FMZombies. This year, my audio drama (Starship Excelsior; shameless plug; link in my signature; tell your nerd friends) is planning to spring its AFD joke sometime in June, because, quote, "the audience won't be expecting it then," unquote, and, quote, "we haven't even halfway finished it yet," unquote.

So keep on having absurdly-high-to-impossible expectations for yourself! You're a role model for All Internet!

In fact, the Excelsior AFD is what brings me here tonight. How would a voice actor pronounce "dsokdpach"?

Thank you. And thank you for the story. :)

I found the front-page one-liner the funniest "part" of the Top 10 list. I'm not sure what that says about me.

ARRRRGH.

You know the routine. I hit a wall made up partly of RL obligations (lots of them) and partly of perfectionism. I was so determined not to screw this one up, but here we are a month later. I don't feel guilty about it, per my policy of not doing that anymore, but it's extremely frustrating.

Trouble is, I can't abandon this event. And not just because the last two were false starts. No, I'm going somewhere with this one, and the point won't become clear until about halfway through. So I'm just gonna have to ask you to bear with me.

If I can, I'll start again on Monday. (Can't do earlier -- I'm moving my stuff from one room of the house to another this weekend.) But here's the plan: I won't start up again until I have as much of the event "in hand" as possible. That way I can move through it quickly and we can all get back to our lives.

Indeed I do. :( You'd think I'd learn to avoid that by now, but . . .

I tried to imagine where you could take anime, and for some reason the only thing that popped into my mind for a while was "blinking text". ;)

<MARQUEE> </MARQUEE> tags. You heard it here first.

We are patient fans, Zeke. Keep it up. We'll be here.

ARRGH. You can't see it, but there is smoke blasting out of my ears right now. Home situation is beyond belief. Please wish me luck resolving this.

Duly wished.

I can pray, too, if you're to that point. Little known talent of mine.

Thankfully, things have now settled down to the point where that shouldn't be necessary -- but I appreciate the offer.

Ah, well, everyone knows life sometimes gives you lemons. But there are also times it likes to hand out trick candles.

Rotten lemons. With worms. And half-worms.

Still better than spoo.

I like to call those "wos". (It's easier to pronounce than "rms".)

In other news, the situation is stable enough now that I hope to finally update tomorrow. I've got to finish this event, and the fact that it's our anniversary month hasn't escaped me either.

Ack! I'm stuck in a timewarp where it's June 27th for me and still the 14th for everyone else! Nothing is changing! If anyone can hear this, please pull me out of this limbo!

Quick, try a jump to the left.

And then a step to the right.

With your hands on your hips.

And have a wonderful... time?

In other news, bashing my head against the wall here, but I'm making progress. I swear this'll be worth waiting for, if perhaps not this long. And the home situation has remained relatively stable.

Meanwhile, if you're eager for something related to the Trek movie (which is my next stop after this event), I whipped this up a while ago.

...oh, Yukari damn it. I get called out and it takes me three months to show up and notice it. It's, to say the least, rather fail of me. Dreamer would revoke my lurking license.

PS: SOOOOOOOULS.

Called out? I didn't realize I'd done that, but it's good to see you back.

In local news, I had a seizure in the cafeteria today. It was messy, so I'm glad I was unconscious for it. We're waiting for word on whether this indicates anything more serious such as epilepsy (which my dad has, but it was acquired, so it shouldn't be hereditary). For now, I'm just extremely sore in the parts that hit the ground. I've lost math camp time I can't get back, too.

Event's no deader than I am, however -- and if you'd like a hint at one of the series I'll be putting to use, check today's date. (Tuesday's, that is.)

YES! I've always wanted to see Seven Days get fived!

What? Stop looking at me like that!

Saw your Twitter entry from yesterday on this and was thinking "seizure, WTF?" I'm taking it that you've had no previous incidences of this sort; at least, I can't recall you mentioning anything like it before. How long a wait for "word" are you looking at?

Actually, I've had a handful of similar experiences, but most of them predate this site (yep, all nine years of it). I collapsed after running for the bus once, and on another occasion I fainted on my front step after my first bike ride in a long time. The most recent collapse happened at home in Waterloo, back in '05 or so. Exertion or stress seems to be the only common element.

I got checked out at the hospital the last two times this happened; the bus incident was especially worrying since I fell down in the road (fortunately, the driver was doing his job and stopped well in advance). But the tests never turned up anything. This time was different in a couple of ways -- it was more severe than the others and it happened in the middle of a cafeteria line. The people around were very helpful; they called the paramedics right away and kept an eye on me till they arrived. It would have been much worse if I'd been alone, assuming I took the same damage on the way down. (The floor did a number on my back, and I chomped my tongue hard enough that it looked like I was bleeding from the mouth while I was out.)

Anyway, the doc wouldn't say for sure that it's epilepsy. Even if it is, I'm in no immediate danger. I got some tests on the day itself and I'm supposed to go back for an MRI; I'll also be seeing a neurologist. Otherwise I'm okay. Back's still sore, but getting better. And the rest of the math camp went smoothly.

Wowbagger: You may actually be surprised how close that is. Or you may not.

Not to be a jerk, Z, but is this really the kind of stuff you want recorded for posterity? Is there that much on the Internet that will not be saved in some database somewhere? E-mail close friends about these things, don't put it on a billboard for anybody with a computer to see.

Lords of Kobol. Has it been nine years? *shudder*

Good luck, Zeke. Sounds like you need it.

Incidentally, I'm amazed anyone else has watched Seven Days, much less considered fiving it. Win!

Any release date before March 7th, 2017, will be a pleasant and winful surprise to me.

Those two are common enough culprits in triggering or exacerbating a number of conditions. Stress may also be a precipitant for an epileptic seizure, but that seems to be far less common.

Good that this turned out reasonably well (sore back and tongue being only temporary, one hopes) and that you're getting it checked out again. Perhaps this time you can get a more definite call on what it is (or isn't.)

If it makes you feel any better, Zeke, our show (Star Trek: Excelsior, for those not paying attention to my signature) is only just now entering post-production on our April Fool's Day episode. We, too, refuse to remove the "April Fool's Day" tag from the file. Despite an August release date!

So... yeah, I just thought you'd like to know that you are not alone in either your unbearable and chronic lateness or your insufferable fixation with April Fool's Day that borders on the obsessive. Indeed, everything I know about AFD I learned from 5MV.

Now get the joke done!