Galneryus - Mnemosyne OP/ED

Title: Alsatia/Cause Disarray - Mnemosyne OP/ED single
Band: Galneryus
Release: 2008

Tracklist:

01.Alsatia [05:23]
02.Wings [05:30]
03.The Awakening [07:08]
04.Cause Disarray [04:21]

direct download here

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Mnemosyne - a very interesting anime released in early 2008. The single for OP/ED has just been released a few weeks ago, among the single I'm really waiting for. The series itself is fairly good, especially with Kotomi+Shana seiyuu as the main cast (lol...).
Now I'm looking for the lyric of those songs, especially The Awakening.

Perceptive Play 4

MYM|slahser released his 4th edition of his DotA video music compilation, featuring many of his games from IHCS. Many cool stuff shown in this video, some of the highlights:

-0:11 - Precise timing to blink-dodge Beastmaster ultimate
-0:20 - double dagon ^^
-0:30 - Magina uses bottle between Wrath of Nature and Pugna's attack, avoiding death.
-1:25 - amazing image block by Magina, then kills Bloodseeker
-1:14 - poor Sand King misses his burrowstrike, hit by Arrow and dead :3
-2:24 - Naga Siren uses her ult, then surrounding Bane to prevent him from escaping.
-4:25 - Naga Siren at the brink of death, awesome dodging skill to avoid March of Machine from Tinker. She'd be killed if 2 or more March hit her :3
-4:45 - good usage of Replicate by Morphling to net a kill on Skeleton King
-5:22 - Impetus reach it's damage cap with such projective range - 400 damage on spectre ^^
-5:36 - experience differenciate the pros and average. MaNia predicted that the invis NA would definitely try to backstab him for combo, so he use ShadowRaze after turning back.
-5:52 - some roflcopter: Ogre Magi stun Tidehunter and deny the creep :3
-6:00 - PotM arrow projectile reach the edge of the map, thus sliding over the edge and hit magnataur.
-7:10 - if the first Morphling Replicate is used to kill, this time it is used to escape death.

i'm looking forward to the next series of Perceptive Play from slahser =)

Degree San Gakki

so my third semester, Bachelor of Science (Biotechnology) will begin next week, takes quite some time before I finally finished my enrollment. A few issues arise in the process, notably the unavoidable timetable clash, so I need to deal with the Science Faculty, see whatever I can do to settle my enrollment. In the end I (and the rest of Biotech student) will still miss one of those clashed class (Biochem tutorial or Microbiology lecture on Friday, 9 am).

Preparation? So-so I guess. My student card have yet to be updated, will do so once class has started. More importantly, my sleeping habit has started to return to normal, sleeping at 10pm and wake up at 5am :3

SENNHEISER Prime Defending 9: Conclusion

MYM SENNHEISER Prime Defending 9 concludes it's stage early this morning with the Grand Final Match between 2 times finalist MeetYourMakers (MYM) and an underdog Wolker-Gaming (WG).

To summarise what's happening during the course of this tournament, one can say that part of this tournament is tarnished by the lack of sportsmanship by some teams, lagging issue betwen Asian and American/Europe team, and some unprofessional management decision, but overall this tournament is a success to bring DotA to another new level.

The playoff preliminary stage starts off with the huge disappointment for a newly formed, fan favorite PluG team which consist of the former member of coL (Fear, ezy, stripez etc), whom lost in their first matches against an underdog team SGC-_-iR. Nevertheless they are placed in one of the hardest bracket, should they win, they still need to face the powerhouse MYM in the next round.
Another big issue rise in this stage in the match between Zenith and ViP. At some point, Zenith is almost certain to take this match, however they suddenly had serious bad lagging (pretty apparent in the replay) up to the point that they are unable to move, thus they ask for a save and rehost but was neglected. They end up losing, but this marked a very bad reputation for ViP. Zenith would definitely win this match if they somehow are able to rehost.
Then the biggest issue in this round - the maphack accusation on team Kingsurf in their match against 1P. In the end it was all due to the bug in replay and KS was released from their charged. Details can be read here. This incident clearly shows how unprofessional the administrator manage this kind of issue, making a hasty decision to spread the news without 120% confirming the validity of the accusation.
And finally the backdoor issue in Mineski vs Domain of Pain match. Mineski won the match by means of backdooring, not noticing that backdoor is forbidden in the rule (since most Asian tournament does not forbid backdoor). Noticing this backdoor issue, the admin makes a decision to give a win for DoP. Both team has agreed for a rematch, but due to time constraint, the admin does not give the gren light for the rematch and DoP continue to proceed to the playoff stage. Interestingly, Mineski backdoored 3 times in that game, yet none of DoP player realise that their tower was bd'd until the backdoor on their base tower. Not even the observer/referee notice it and give a shout to stop the match and reload. Hm....

Then to the playoff stage. Since the format has been changed and the group stage is removed, this kind of playoff provides a more exciting matches in every round. This is when every match is dearly awaited by the fan, especially if it's related to the big name like MYM, VP, KS and SK match. The summary can be found on the given link, but one thing to be noted - the defending champion, 3 times winner Virtus.Pro forfeited their match against WolkeR-Gaming in the loser bracket, thus providing a new Grand Final of MYM vs WG. VP starts their PriDe campaign convincingly, beating their opponent at ease, only losing once in the 2nd game of semi final to team Q. However, they bounced back and easily beat Q in the 3rd game, thus setting the overall inner bracket against MYM yet once again. Everyone expect an epic match, like the previous edition grand final game 1. However, VP doesn't looks like they're playing at their best, they were beaten in both game and sent to the lower bracket. Even more surprising is that vigoss isn't playing in both games, thus resurfacing some rumor about VP having some internal problem. Around the same time, VP participate in ASUS Winter 2008 and lost in their very first match against unknown team ItsOurTime (who manage to reach the final, but lost to Begrip.Gaming, the reformed sP[Palit]). Soon after that, VP announce that they forfeit their PriDe match...
Moving to the Grand Final, players reaction can be found here, and the match summary/analysis can be found here. From my point of view, this match isn't that epic compared to previous edition. Yes it'd be a good upset if WG manage to win against MYM in the first game and move to the decisive 2nd game, but I simply can't see that coming. MYM was totally in good shape, they never lost a single game in this tournament right from the start, and in the semi final, they show how terrifying their force can be, tearing TeG apart easily.

Overall, GG WP to MYM and WG, and congratulation to MYM, finally they were able to win their own tournament, although part of it is contributed with the withdrawal of defending champion VP from the LoserBracket match against WG. I'm looking forward to the next edition to Prime Defending, and hoping that new heroes won't be banned this time.

EPL gameweek 27 summary

Last week English Football presents some surprising, if not shocking, news to football fans. From the delight of Liverpool fan after the 3-2 win of their team over Middlesbrough with Fernando Torres scores a hat-rick; to Manchester United delight which saw them crushing Newcastle United 5-1 away at St. James Park; the controversial penalty which decide the game for Porthsmouth - Sunderland; the first trophy for Tottenham in 9 years after their 2-1 Carling Cup triumph over Chelsea; and lastly a horrific news to football fan - the injury of Eduardo in the match of Arsenal vs Birmingham.

Manchester United relentlessly shows their offensive prowess with a convincing 5-1 victory against Newcastle. With a full strength squad consisting of Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez etc, Man Utd looks a bit shaky at the start of the match, but things only got better for them after Rooney open the scoresheet at 25th minute mark after receiving a neat cross from Ronaldo. From that point, Man Utd control most of the possession, creating chances after chances, giving little room for Newcastle to attack. The match ended 5-1 with Rooney and Ronaldo score a brace. This win closes the gap from the top of table to 3 points after Arsenal slipped 2 points against Birmingham.

Another huge upset takes matches in Arsenal vs Birmingham match. The match ended with a 2-2 draw after Clichy concedes a penalty right at stoppage time to give Birmingham qualiser, added with William Gallas showing some childish overreaction as if the season is already over (yeah his reaction is so unprofessional, regardless how much passion he has for the Premier League crown). But most importantly, the early match is tarnished by a seemingly normal tackle without malice intention from Mark Taylor, but end up giving horrible injury to Eduardo. The injury is so horrible that the live match was unable to show the replay. I can only gasp in shock upon seeing all the replay video/pictures on the internet. His left leg, just above the ankle part is clearly bent at right angle than the rest of his leg, as if it's been chopped off. With that kind of injury, it's certain that his season is over and won't even make it to Euro08, but more importantly, his football career might be threatened. Nevertheless I still wish for his recovery and return to the field.

desktop v4

latest desktop after a few reformatting due to crap error. Still prefer the black ZuneDesktop Theme, new Foobar2k skin (FOOAvA), wallpaper: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

Baccano!

Baccano! (バッカーノ！, Bakkāno!?) is a light novel series by Ryohgo Narita, with illustrations by Katsumi Enami. The first volume won Gold in the 9th Dengeki Novel Prize and the series has been made into a TV anime which started July 26, 2007 by Aniplex and Brains-Base. The second storyline in the series has also been adapted into a manga.

Alternative title:

バッカーノ！ (Japanese)

바카노 (Korean)

Genres: action, adventure, comedy, fantasy, horror

Summary: Baccano is Italian for noise, but Narita translates it as "stupid commotion." Each of the stories in the series involves several unrelated plots intersecting and crossing each other as events spiral farther and farther out of control. Immortal alchemists, mafia operated speakeasies, and many other elements of pulp fiction mashed together for a world straight out of the movies.

official site:
-BACCANO! -バッカーノ-
-WOWOW's BACCANO! Website

I've just finish marathoning this series. My first impression on the first few episode, I was left bewildered with all those jumping from scenes to scenes in different year, but later (especially after episode 7) I can finally grasp the story together. Weird but awesome, in a good way that word can't describe how amazing this show is. Like Cowboy Bebop and FMA, Baccano! has an interesting, unique style that brings you right into the craziness that permeates this show (of which there is quite a lot). Backgrounds, especially New York, are crisp, colorful and clean, while the character designs (both men and women) are sharp and attractive. Movement is believable, the action scenes thus far are close to flawless, and facial expressions are nice and varied.
Then the music selection, the OP and ED song. Surprisingly this is one of the few anime which I can't resist watching the whole OP sequence (Gun and Roses by Paradise Lunch) in every episode, where they introducing all main characters, whilst in the middle they include the summary of previous episode. The same goes for the great ED (Calling by Oda Kaori), one of the best slow-paced anime-related song that I like.

So many people said that Baccano is an underrated anime, and I have to agree with them. Theme-wise it may not be appealing to some audience, considering the massive amount of bloody-gore scenes which appears in almost every episodes. The main theme seems to focus on the competition between famous mafia family in New York (on 1930), but can also be focused on the train hijacking and murderous act by Rail Tracer (on 1932), or even the craziness of Isaac and Miria, 2 retard lovers that cause unsuspecting troubles everywhere they go. This duo couple almost always makes me laugh with their whimsical behaviour. And Baccano mixed all these plot into a perfect setting, jumping from one scene/year to another in those range of 3 years. For sure, Isaac and Miria present in all these plot, except in the 200 years ago flashback. The ending was perfect, just what an ending should be, concluding everything that most audience would want.

Well not much to say, this is simply one of the best 2007 show I've watched (although I only finished watching recently).

Baccano! Opening, Gun and Roses by Paradise Launch
Baccano! Ending, Calling by Oda Kaori

my rating: 9/10

Spice and Wolf OP/ED Single

Title: Wolf and Spice OP Single - Tabi no Tochuu
Artist: Kiyoura Natsumi
Street Release Date: February 6, 2008

Tracklist:

1. Tabi no Tochuu
2. Yakusoku no Uta
3. Tabi no Tochuu (karaoke)
4. Yakusoku no Uta (karaoke)

direct download here

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Title: Wolf and Spice ED Single - Ringo Hiyori
Artist: ROCKY CHACK
Street Release Date: February 6, 2008

Tracklist:

1. Ringo Hiyori ~ The Wolf Whistling Song
2. Namaiki na Bokura
3. Ringo Hiyori ~ The Wolf Whistling Song (karaoke)
4. Namaiki na Bokura (karaoke)

direct download here

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winter anime series introduced some of the best series for 2008, among them are Spice and Wolf. With the setting akin to Medieval Europe, the music selection is fairly good to fit the mood of the story, coupled with nice sequence of OP and ED. My favorite song: Yakusoku no Uta.

Valentine Drama

Today is Valentine Day (eh no, it was yesterday). A day of... well should I summarise what is it all about? You have the idea.
However, this Valentine Day is very significant to competitive DotA community, a day when the fans shows their love/supports to their beloved team.

To begin with, I woke up that morning, finding out that Malaysian team KingSurf was suspected of MAPHACKING in their match against 1P in SENNHEISER Prime Defending 9 Playoff stage, and further "investigation" by MYM crew (which was conducted for 2 days), they're proven guilty for maphacking and BANNED for the rest of the tournament and Prime Nation 2. Sad story, the details can be found here.
This, of course sparks the flame war between maphack hater, as well as Asian hater. A lot of flame was thrown to KS and their fan for the cheating. But then suspicion arises: the screenshot given in the link given above are flawed (which has been replaced by the Admin): There is no bonus damage to Spectre, who obviously has radiance, and Warlock having Dagger Path icon despite being ally with Spectre. This sparks for more counter-argument against the maphack claim, not only by KS fan but also another professional player (eg: Maelk, Slahser, Drayich).

Seeing the massive uproar regarding this matter, Dota-Allstars admin, Naz takes a quick action to investigate this matter himself, with the help of one of the best replay analyser in TDA, Seer. It all takes just about 2 hours to clear all this mess, and he concluded that Kingsurf is cleared from maphack.

quoting Naz,

Today MYM announced that they found Ks guilty of maphack in their game against 1p, a lot of the community members were shocked and a lot of them didn't feel like it was conclusive evidence. As the pieces didn't fit together for me I decided to check it out myself with some help from a very experienced replay analyser when it comes to maphack cases seerTneerGevoLI from Clan TDA.

Lets start with this, for those with a short attention span, the incidents that MYM posted at 33:23 (Ks-papaxiong (Athropos)), 40:11 (Ks-MiKeBz (Mirana)) and 44:35 (Ks-x|aOmA (Lina)) are either just plain out wrong or due to both delay issues and Warcraft 3 engine issues.

Update There seems to be a misconception, while I personally do not believe that anyone in Ks maphacked it is still entirely possible for a user - any user - to use maphack without detection. The point of this article is that the arguments given to ban Ks were not conclusive enough to conclude a banning and a public lynching. Innitially 3 players were accused of maphack, one of them (Lina) should be cleared because there isn't any evidence at all in the replay whatsoever (mistake on the admins side). The evidence for both Atropos and PotM isn't conclusive and can just as easily be accounted to the warcraft 3 engine.

To understand this there's one thing that you need to realise, delay plays a part when it comes to registering actions made in a replay. The player can legally click on units as long as they are not in fog on his screen the click command is transmitted to the host to be recorded in the replay - concluding: if the host and the player are not in the same place, the lag time may result in the click firing after the target enters fog. In this case the host was from Denmark which more then covers for the delay in actions for Ks.

Another mechanic that was overlooked in the youtube video made is that as long as you clicked the unit when he wasn't in fog the unit will stay selected untill the user selects another unit. Meaning that the length of selection is irrellevant in the case of whether Ks maphacked or not.

Now to look at these specific cases, all evidence that MYM gathered is based on clicks made 0.1 to 0.3 seconds after the unit goes out of fog, factoring in the delay this makes perfect sense and is not unusual in any way whatsoever. In addition, the claim that Ks was playing in a LAN center with spectators makes it extremely unlikely that they were maphacking.

QUOTE(seerTneerGevoLI)

What happened is this: he selects warlock right on the edge of fog. the command takes 20ms to propogate to host, so in the replay the select fires after the warlock is fogged. the bane does not click on anything for three seconds.
Result: replay shows he clicked in fog, the click "stays" there for 3 seconds - which really means he didn't click anything else in that time.
Warcraft does another optimization on selects so that selects are instant for the player (this is different from spells and attack orders), but the selection recorded in the replay is the one the host includes in the action lists that he sends out to all the other player.

And the same applies to the other two instances as well.

The third case is something special, the claim was that the Lina made the selection while in reality it was the Mirana that made the selection. If you watched the replay you could see the red circle when watching through lina because she shared her chicken this automatically gives her all her allies' selection circles, but she was clicking on herself at the time. Regardless, the click was made 0.1 second after the unit goes in fog and is therefor perfectly explainable like the other 2 cases.

As there both isn't any evidence to accuse this team from maphacking nor is it logical when you consider the circumstances I believe that a mistake has been made and that an apology is in order, I for one would like to give my sympathy to team Ks for being called cheaters while in fact they weren't cheating at all, I'm sorry that it got this far.

Without any conclusive evidense of this team maphacking I expect everyone to refrain from accusation without basis, feel free to contact me if you think there is any conclusive evidence in the replay.

Best of luck to Ks

Naz

12 hours have passed since, yet no word came out from MYM admin, especially s1rro and Snake (who seemingly urged S1rro to publish the news hastily), and the page given in the link above was flooded with over 1200+ comments, mostly defending Kingsurf from the accusation, some with good argument and resoning while others are just trolling. Read all those comment for the details.
Then they eventually come out with the official statement about lifting the ban and accusation, here.


to be honest, I won't truly believe if Kingsurf is maphacking. They play on Kingsurf Cyber Cafe in Johor Bahru (except KS-MikeBz), where maphacking is impossible to be done because you're playing in front of the crowds and fans. Secondly, the accusation rises merely on the basis of the appearance on "red circle" - as seen in the first link given, which is partly caused by Warcraft 3 replay bug - this has already been explained in some of those 1200+ comments. This prrof is further explained in detail here and here. And as summarised by Naz, the delay due to distance from Europe-Asia.

MYM has announced their apology in the second link given, the lasts sentence "A public apology from the myMYM Prime Defending administration towards KS."

my reaction to this incident: I'm bitterly disappointed with the way MYM admin handled this issue - rather unprofessional. I know they did their best to enforce the rule and take immediate action upon receiving suspicion of maphacking, but they never inform Kingsurf for this matter (prolly because of timezone restriction, but still, 2 days and there's no way of contacting Kingsurf?), and most importantly, take a hasty decision on publicising the news without even 120% confirming whether KS is maphacking or not. Maphacking is a serious deal, it can heavily tarnish the good name of such famous team like KS. Even more disappointing is the way they apologise, with those simple line which looks insincere. I'm not clear with the event behind the scene, but I truthfully hope that the MYM admin, especially Snake to personally apologise to Kingsurf, and even better an open apologise to Kingsurf fan.

this is the epic confrontation on Valentine Day in DotA history. A Valentine Day to be remembered for the fan who triy their best to protect their favorite team.

the links:
MYM: KingSurf banned for maphacking
MYM: KS cleared from maphack issue
GG-Game: Some evidence of Ks not maphacking
GG-Game: Clearing KS and MikeBz from Maphacking Accusations

February rant

About 3 weeks left before my new semester begin, 2nd year Bachelor of Science (Biotechnology). A few things have yet to be settled, among them are my enrollment :3 Only need to take 3 subjects this semester, I've done enrolled in two of them ( [core] Microbiology and Biochemistry), as for the final subject (to fulfill 12 hours credit) I'm still deciding between Genetic or Chemistry. I do like Chemistry a lot, so does Genetic. Taking Genetic means I must also enrol with MBS Practical C, while if I'm enrolled in Chemistry, I need to endure 4+ hours practical every two weeks :3 Well I guess either one is fine.

Lately my sleep time has shifted from the usual morning sleep (5, 6 am to noon) to afternoon sleep (usually at 2pm - 6pm) - largely caused by a lot of live matches of DotA Tournaments in the morning (MYM Prime Nation 2, SENNHEISER Prime Defending 9). Both tournament have reach group stage and playoff round respectively, where a lot of the matches were held during night time (GMT), which is usually around 5-8 am GMT+9.30 (Adelaide). With many of the matches need to reload (eg: Virtus.Pro vs nEph), the replay won't provide full coverage of the match, so I need to watch the match live on GGTV or else I'll miss the match (especially for VP, SK, KS, MYM, Russia, Malaysia etc). I hope my sleeping habit can return to normal by the time I start my new semester :P

oh and first year student arrived from Malaysia a few days ago, seems like a lot of them take Engineering, while a few others take Biotech/Architech/Medic, and none take Accounting. One of my underclassman from Serting (I didn't recognise him until he remind me that he's my junior at Serting - such an upperclassman I am lol) is among those who take Biotech.

Scenes at home: Home contract renewed for another year, unfortunately the rent increases a bit due to increases in tax rate (okay, at least there is a lot of buses going to city). Paku going out, Haikal transfer in. Still got a room for 2 more people, or else the current room will stay as it is, filled with XBOX360, PS2, a decent TV and another crap TV, flippable sofa/bed....