M Dash 27 - Blog by Hecko X » Random Post

December Updates 3: Geocaching

Hecko X — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:13:13 +0000

Hecko and Eutaku finding a cache during late-night stroll

First, for those who don’t know what geocaching is, here’s a short explanation provided by geocaching.com:

“GEOCACHING is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online.”

So, a few days ago, I was watching the news on TV, and they had this exposé on geocaching, which was the first I had ever heard of it. Loving treasure hunting and solving riddles, I decided to look further into it online, and discovered just how vast this game actually was.

I decided to give it a go, registered as a free user on geocaching.com, and downloaded the free, open source application, c:geo, for my Android phone (apps for iOS, Symbian, and Windows exist as well, just Google them).

It’s a pretty good app, but my phone’s battery life is shit, so it dies after only 3-4 hours of caching… I wish I had a proper GPS though, so I wouldn’t have to worry about my phone dying, but I make due for now.

To date, I’ve been geocaching for 5 days and I’ve found 6 caches (follow my progress here and on my Twitter). I think the low number of finds are directly related by me still being a greenhorn and because I’ve only been searching after nightfall, which makes it pretty difficult as well, due to limited visibility. On the other hand, there’s also less of a chance of being spotted, so…

A giant Winnie the Pooh we got to see thanks to GeoCaching

It’s good fun though, and a great excuse to get away from the computer and get some mental and physical exercise, and it’s easier to stick to than the elephant thing I tried, since I don’t have to take pictures.

Another great thing about it is that you get to experience new, interesting places, even in your own neighbourhood, that you might not have know existed. I, for instance, found a bunch of new playgrounds and saw beautiful artworks and fun stuff I never knew was so close to where I live ♥

But since I like geocaching so much, I’ve been trying to get others into it too, which I’ve managed to do with a moderate degree of success. I’ve even suggested it to Eutaku as a publicity scheme for Genki; spreading out 5-10 caches with a wristband in each as a “First to Find” prize, giving them free entry to the convention.

Anyway, I hope to one day go on a crazy cache hunt with a bunch of friends, so if this sounds interesting to you, please do give it a try ^-^

December Updates 2: Scanlations

Hecko X — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:55:06 +0000

WTF happened to scanlating?

As most of you must have noticed by now, I haven’t released a scanned chapter of anything for a solid five months. The reason for this is quite simply that I’ve ‘quit’ the scanlation business – major groups as well as my own thing – due to lack of time and motivation.

This is not to say that I’m not still working on a minor project, it’s just that I refuse to start releasing chapters of it until it’s almost done. So to those of you who’ve been kind enough to send me drawings for credit pages, don’t worry, I’ll use them eventually! OTL

Also, for those of you who have been reading Grappler Baki: Thanks for the support! The manga has been taken over by the people of U Mad Scans, so keep an eye out for it there. Fair warning though; they also have +18 releases, so pay attention to what you click.

December Updates 1: Food and Candy Reviews

Hecko X — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:28:02 +0000

I keep failing to update my blog, which is horrible. However, while I don’t update, I have actually been working on a few review posts, but they’ve just been a long time coming.

Noodle reviews

My basket was overflowing

Some time ago, I decided that enough was enough; I wanted to try brands of noodles other than my regular Xing Fu chicken flavoured noodles, to see if something could beat my favourite noodles.

So, determined to try what else is out there, I went to Asia Town in the heart of Copenhagen, and bought noodles for crazy amounts of money. The dude behind the register gave me a discount, because I bought more items than he cared to count.

I’ve bought both cup noodles and noodles in packets of various brands and countries of origin, so I look forward to trying them all. I even bought a bowl specifically for this purpose.

Candy reviews

Candy from KAIKI

I have a ton of candy reviews in the making as well. I bought a bunch of random Japanese candy on eBay some time ago, though not all made it to Denmark unscathed (1/5 became inedible). Nashayla’s dad also recently returned from Japan, where he bought me two types of candy, which I was pretty happy about.

Additionally, KAIKI gave me a delayed birthday present of 500 grams of assorted Asian candy that she bought for me while she was in China. It has like 50+ different candies, so it’s gonna take me forever to review.

I’ve been considering taking candy reviews a bit more seriously, and making a different blog for that exclusively, where each post will be about a single piece/type of candy, but I doubt I will have time for this, which is a shame. I barely update this one as it is, after all.

Fail Haircut

Hecko X — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:50:51 +0000

Finland is a character from the web comic Scandinavia and the World, which property of artist Humon.

NSFW Google Game

Hecko X — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 06:34:33 +0000

A few years back, just for the lulz, I made the ‘hypethesis’ that if you added “asian girl” to any single search term, regardless of what it was as long as it was a common noun, you’d find at least one pornographic image on one of the first three pages. From then on, it would become a game to try to think of a search term that WOULDN’T result in a pornographic image appearing.

I recently remembered that game, so I figured “Fuck it, I’ll share it with the Interwebermernet“, and made an image thingy with rules explaining the game. I updated the rules a bit since Google’s image search has change over the past few years. So, well, here:

October Update 2: Work

Hecko X — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:15:30 +0000

Pimped Comic Party website

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, it’s off to work I go~ ♫
Or not really, I work from home, LOOOOOL!

One of the main reasons for me not posting here so often anymore – other than plain meh – is because I am prioritizing work.

Right now, I’m trying to finish translating and typesetting 170-ish pages by the end of the month, which is a bit FFFUUUUUU- since I also have an exam coming up soon, not mentioning the paper due Friday /whine whine whine

ANYWHO, other than the usual Comic Party work, I’m also now doing a weekly post (in Danish) over on the Comic Party website, hoping to get more traffic to the site thus creating more buzz and hopefully more customers, so I won’t be out of job.

The Banana Cosplay site

In addition, I recently got a job as the webmaster over at bananacosplay.com, which is a site for cosplay merchandise. They ship internationally, in case some people out there are interested!

Why am I working so much, you may ask? Because I need the money, duuuuuuur. I’m trying to save up for summer, so I can fiiiinally take a trip to Osaka in Japan and be all OM NOM NOM NOM on their food.

October Update 1: Relationship

Hecko X — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 17:31:41 +0000

Intense stare of teh sexy /ay caramba

See that really hot Asian chick on the right? That’s mah sexy señorita~

Since the last update, we had some… turbulence… in our relationship, but we managed to work past things and have been together for 10 months today :D

These last few months with her have been AAAAWSUUUUUUM! We’ve been going out a lot, having good times, hosting events for friends (like the mahjong thing), and playing Tekken; AAAAAAAAAAAWWW YEEEEEEEEAH!!

So guys, too bad, she’s mine! And considering she went through the trouble of getting me a 110 cm tall inflatable penguin, you’ll have to pry her from my cold, dead hands if you want her!! D8<

Okay, not really, I’m not that creepy… BUT IT WON’T BE WILLINGLY!!

Penguin of fucking awesome!! Nashayla on the right, Tux in the middle, Nash's colleague on the left.

Life Update Part 4: Comic Party and Elephants

Hecko X — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:10:11 +0000

CP#4 cover
Left side by Yamazaki Urita
Right side by Sandra Norup Andersen

Well, long story short, we managed to finish Comic Party #4 only a few days behind schedule (albeit the 3rd schedule…) and it has been sent off to the printers.

And yes, I have actually been taking pictures of elephants, but because I got some last second extra work on Comic Party, the pictures have been taken sporadically, and I haven’t really had time to turn them into .gifs and upload them.

That being said, work on Comic Party #5 has already started, and I will try my best to find time between school and work to upload the elephant photos. On a ‘sadder’ note though, it seems that several of the elephants have been sold ahead of time, so there’s no chance of getting all 102 elephants.

Life Update Part 3: Nashayla

Hecko X — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:48:53 +0000

About three weeks ago, Nashayla and I had our six month anniversary. She had been planning it for a while, and had meant for it to be a surprise, but I unfortunately spoiled parts of it because I like to deduce stuff… ;>.>

Regardless, I had an absolutely wonderful time with her; we went to the movies and watched Kung Fu Panda 2, then we went to Tivoli Gardens and tried a few rides, and finally, we went dining at a restaurant. We also exchanged a few gifts; she gave me a tie and Kung Fu Panda + Happy Feet on DVD, and I gave her a silver necklace for her crucifix, since the one she had from childhood unfortunately broke.

Sadly, the weather turned out a bit bad and we forgot to take any commemorative photos :c

Nash and I, dining with her family.

Anywho, recently, on July 5, it was Nashayla’s birthday. She was supposed to go dining with her family, but I got invited along also, since I’ve never had a meal with both her parents (I’m a pretty picky eater, so it’s really embarrassing for me…). Regardless, I was invited to a small, Italian establishment really close to where I go to school.

The food was excellent! I wasn’t much for the starter, but I absolutely loved the main course and dessert, so all in all, a pretty good place. It was still a bit awkward to have her dad pay for me though… OTL

Nash at the Vietnamese restaurant.

Two days later, I took her out for a birthday dinner, just the two of us. I had hoped to take her out to her favourite Vietnamese restaurant, but because we had the worst storm in Denmark in the last 500-odd years, they were closed due to water damage. Instead, we went to my boss’ aunts Vietnamese restaurant, which wasn’t bad, but a tiny bit bland (the food, not the restaurant).

The place itself was pretty cozy, and the paintings reminded me of the ones my late grandfather used to paint, so looking at the walls reminded me of my childhood. The service was pretty good, but the waitress should have buttoned up her shirt some more; way too much was showing… ;>.>

Life Update Part 2: Back in School

Hecko X — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 16:16:24 +0000

The two textbooks I'm using for class.

In the last week of June, I returned to school after a one-year long leave of absence to earn money to help pay back bank debts. It went decently well, I think, around 45,000 DKK including my savings. Anywho, my leave of absence ended in June, and I am to finish my last year of my bachelor’s degree this coming school year.

Since I still very much need to work, and also because studying Japanese takes a lot more time than people think, I decided to take my electives during summer school, which is also why I’m not in Serbia right now.

As can be seen on the right, I’ve chosen Consumer Behaviour and Internet Marketing, as I plan on taking a master’s in marketing, if I’m to take a master’s at all. Consumer Behaviour is pretty interesting, but Internet Marketing is incredibly dry and boring.

Anywho, I’m currently doing my mid-term exam in Consumer Behaviour, which is due in about a week, and is actually kinda fun. At the same time, I’m also trying to find a way to study up on Japanese, because I’ve become insanely rusty, so I’m not exactly looking forward to Year 3 Japanese after the summer vacation ;>.>

Having already finished my electives by then though, and no longer having to spend time on Genki, I’m feeling confident that my skills will significantly improve, as long as I keep my head in the game, so best of luck to me! :D

Life Update Part 1: Quitting Genki

Hecko X — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:37:37 +0000

Genki mascots (Ping & Pong)
Drawn by Fei Huang / Edited by me

Realizing that I haven’t updated this place in like two months, I figured it was about time I did, but since so much has happened over the course of the last 60 days, I’ve had to split things up a bit.

One of the biggest occurrences is that I’ve quit the Genki organizer group and stepped down from my position in the Genkai voluntary association. The main reason for leaving was that I was greatly dissatisfied with having to spend what little free time I had to pick up the slack of a certain someone through the past 12-18 months, and getting promise after promise that were never honoured.

Genki was meant to be a hobby, not a full-time job, but having to pick up the slack often meant sacrificing study time, sleep, not to mention my social life. I had originally planned on holding out until the end of the year for the general assembly, but recent events made me just go “fuck it all,” so I left.

After quitting, the changes in my life have been immense, to say the least. I’ve been hanging out a lot more with friends and with my girlfriend, I’ve had time to actually study for classes(!), and I’ve been sleeping regularly and been putting on weight because of it. I estimated that in the average week, I’ve gained an additional 10-12 hours, formerly spent on Genki work :D

In all honesty, a few days after I had quit, and actually realized how much extra time I now had and opportunities to hang out with friends I hadn’t had time for in almost two years, I actually cried a little from happiness. So while a few people have said that Genki is probably gonna crash or die or something horrible, without me running interference and picking up the lose ends (which is a bit over the top, but sweet of them to think I’m that important to the event), I currently have no plans of ever returning c:

Haiku Contest Results!

Hecko X — Tue, 31 May 2011 12:46:14 +0000

Oh my, it’s been ages since I updated >///<

Anywho, the results for the Japan-EU relations themed English Haiku Contest were published a few days ago and DADA DA DAAAAAAA! … I didn’t win.

Lulz.

Regardless, the winning European haiku was actually REALLY good, so a super huge congrats to Ms. Bertacchini of Italy for the following haiku (added links in case someone didn’t get the references):

Blue sky and twelve stars
Embracing a round red sun
A fraternal hug

My Haiku Got Published on FB

Hecko X — Fri, 13 May 2011 13:33:34 +0000

Long story short, in occasion of the Twentieth Annual Summit Meeting, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and the European Union are hosting the Second Japan-EU English Haiku Contest. They created a Facebook page for this, which can be found here.

Anywho, I submitted a Haiku poem earlier today, which they then posted on their Facebook page not more than 10 minutes later, which I think is pretty cool. Many more poems will probably come, but I hope mine makes it through to the end c:

Click image for bigger version and readable Haiku Submission. If you approve, please like it here.

Hanami Copenhagen 2011

Hecko X — Sat, 07 May 2011 22:22:00 +0000

There were no flowers on the trees, but lots of romance in the air.

Onigiri with the Ladies

Hecko X — Fri, 06 May 2011 22:54:06 +0000

Today, Trini, Nashayla, Sarina, and I decided to be more awesome than usual and make a bunch of onigiri as a snack for both today and for tomorrow, when the annual Hanami festival in Copenhagen is being held. I’ve been wanting to try onigiri for ages, so I had totally been looking forward to this.

I decided to make mine with noritama furikake, which is dried seaweed (nori) and eggs (tamago) that is sprinkled on top (furikake; dried food sprinkled on top of something) of the onigiri, rather than stuffed in the middle. Being who I am, however, I couldn’t resist trying to make some gummi bear furikake and sprinkling that on another one XD

Considering how long I had wanted to try onigiri, I was a bit disappointed by the taste. I’m pretty sure it has less to do with onigiri being bad than it does with the fact that I’m a complete fucktard when it comes to making food, so I screwed it up. My first onigiri was too thick and I forgot to add the salt, so there was a huge contrast between the salty noritama furikake on the outside and the completely plain rice on the inside.

Because I got kinda nauseous from my failed first attempt, and also because I’m kind of a chicken shit at times, I made a minigiri (they’re not actually called “minigiri”, I just think it’s catchier than “small onigiri”) to go with the gummi bear furikake. As if the slice’n'diced gummi bears could feel they didn’t belong on rice, they wouldn’t stick to the minigiri at all…

When I finally succeeded, I was completely freaked out to find that it was actually crazy tasty! I had only done it because the idea of gummi bear sushi had been stuck in my head for so many years that I just had to try it out, so I didn’t expect it at all! I’m pretty sure it would only work with a minigiri though.

So all in all, I’m deffo gonna try onigiri again some time, just not for a little while. I still have half a kilo of rice though, which I forgot at Nashayla’s, but all good. Come to think of it, I forgot my noritama furikake there too ;>.>

Oh, as an added awesomeness, Nashayla made my favourite sponge cake again, and we all pitched in to help out :D It turned out better than last time, but I forgot to bring some pieces home with me, because I’m a fucking idiot… TOMORROW, I’LL DEVOUR THE CAEK OF OM NOM NOM!!!

Sulley Retired and Moved To My Neighbourhood

Hecko X — Thu, 05 May 2011 19:28:19 +0000

Though it worries me how he still keeps an eye on little children…

So, What’s New?

Hecko X — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 20:47:02 +0000

Well, a lot has happened in the period the blog has been out of service. The biggest event has probably been that I’m now in a steady relationship again, for the first time since KAIKI; but more about this in a later post :D Apart from that, I have been crazy busy with the second issue of Comic Party and with Genki.

Comic Party

Comic Party has unfortunately not gone as well as hoped, in terms of sales, and for that reason, I might be getting canned as a translator (not enough money to pay me, so the editor would rather do it himself then).

Should that happen, I’ve decided to also resign as a typesetter, since with the amount of paid work I do, not to mention all the pro bono work (meticulously double-checking the typesetting, translations, spelling, even the Japanese translation at times, etc.), it just doesn’t pay off, as my would-be hourly wage is actually pathetically low; almost a third of minimum wage.

The only reason this is legal is because I get commission pay, and I just grind my teeth and do it because I want to help out my buddy, because I support the project, and because I really need money at the moment. However, if the outlook is €250 before taxes for 40-60 hours of work, I’d rather find a job as a tutor (which I have already been offered), earning well over six times the amount per hour, or even as a cleaning lady, earning 3-4 times the amount, and then having more than double the free time to spend on other things.

Genki

Genki is progressing smoothly; I’ve been having crazy amounts of meetings with the tax offices, sponsorship foundations, etc. and we’re getting places in some aspects. We have the contracts and accountancies in order, and several events ready to go with more being planned, so I hope we will do well.

I’m just worried that we might be stalemating a bit since it’s only February, which might make some people just sit back and go “plenty of time, I’ll do it a bit later,” instead of getting it done and then not having to worry about it later ;>.>

On the plus side though, even though it’s this early, we’ve already sold 14 tickets, which is pretty awesome!! :D

OrionWave and Grappler Baki

As some of you may recall, I decided to resign from OrionWave because I quite simply didn’t have time for it, and wasn’t able to meet deadlines with my steadily increasing workload.

On the plus side, this means I’m finally going back to releasing Grappler Baki, which I have postponed for months, so yay~! I’m hoping to get a chapter released by the end of the week, I just need to get ‘back in the groove’.

That was all the updates I had for now; hope to see you back again soon!!

100 Facts Meme

Hecko X — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 08:48:43 +0000

Fave or download it on devART bly clicking here (or something, lulz, I dunno OTL)

Hi-Ho Comic Party, Away!

Hecko X — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:48:23 +0000

Phew, it’s been long since I’ve written a post here 8D
I’ve been crazy busy with Comic Party, which has now finally been sent to the printers! WUUUUUUUW!! Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ
And just to explain the pic on the right, while the graphics guy (Usk), my boss, and I were working at the office, my boss said that we should figure out a way to create “buzz” for the comic. Not having slept for 30-ish ours at the time, I was like huuur dur durrr, and made that XD

The past week has been a bumpy ride though! A lot of the RAWs and especially the cleans came in really late, some even less than 24 hours before the comic had to be sent to print, so stress levels were FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!! One of the one-shots never even got here, since the mangaka unfortunately never got back to us! D8

We were fortunately saved by the one-shot Presm by KAIKI (some of you regular readers may still remember her), which is also featured in -English- in the anthology Six, and the manga series Lost Heaven by Hiroko Kairi, who I totally adore right now (♥♥) for being so awesome and sending us stuff even though the contract hadn’t been signed yet (LH wasn’t supposed to launch until issue 2, I think) and we asked like 4-5 days before the deadline ;>.>

But those two, along with Digger by Ursula Vernon, quickly became my favourites in the first issue of Comic Party, because of awesome stories and awesome art, especially Digger!! *A* CRAZY inking skills and the main character is a wombat. A WOMBAT!!! ♥♥♥ Lost Heaven also turned out to be way more interesting than I had thought it would be~

Anywho, things were crazy and lack of sleep was abundant! Usk had to go to EXPO in London and had uploaded a .zip folder for the other graphics person to take over, but the file was corrupted and all the work lost!! LA>JFAIDFH_KSDBGN!!! Needless to say, we missed the deadline ;3;

This turned out to be a good thing though, since due to sleep deprivation, I had made some embaaaaaaaarrassing rookie typesetting mistakes, which I will live down, and we found a few spelling errors that had crept through QC, again because we were all crazy tired… In the end, 73 pages were redone, a page for each hour I had been awake OTL

Everything was finished by Sunday, and those of us who had time went to a sushi buffet to celebrate the first issue being done! When I came home, I celebrated once again by sleeping for like 14-15 hours. So… good… TT^TT I then woke up, early afternoon, logged on to Skype, only to have Usk call me going “yeah, the printing place called, some stuff messed up, so we aren’t done yet.” FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-!!!!

All is well now though… I hope… and issue one will be hitting the stands around mid-November. The issue can also be bought during the Danish animanga convention, J-Popcon 2010, so for all of you Danish-speaking readers, please go buy it or pre-order it on the website by clicking here and filling out the form (there’s a pre-order goodie-bag!) 8D

Finally, one last testament to my extreme sleep deprivation; while the boss, Usk, and I were working at the office, one of the things I did was typeset Lost Heaven. Usk then started talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and my mind just snapped from being tired and produced this:

Robot Unicorn Attack; Play It, But Not Too Much…

Hecko X — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:01:26 +0000

First off, if you don’t know what Robot Unicorn Attack is, wtf is wrong with you? Are you moss? Do you live under a rock? Go try it here or on Facebook (the song is “Always” by Erasure), and know that it is okay; yes, it’s a unicorn farting rainbows, smashing stars, and collecting faeries in a rainbow-filled stage, but it’s a ROBOT unicorn farting rainbows, smashing stars, and collecting faeries in a rainbow-filled stage, and that makes it manly (enough)!

In case you are just absolutely crazy about the game, and you have an iPhone, you can get it as an application, so go nuts with it. HOWEVER, BE WARNED!!! Excessive playing can lead to eye fatigue, headache, nausea, and in worst case, partial transformation into a ghey unicorn.

A tragic soul after having logged 27 straight hours of gameplay…