Warren Shea - World of Warren

Archive for the ‘My Life’ Category

Gate Keepers + Gate Keepers 21

Saturday, April 17th, 2010 at 10:50 am

Skimmed through Gate Keepers 21…

I loved the original Gate Keepers, it was like a Saturday morning cartoon…lots of over the top excitement, fun, great characters. There was a bit of darkness…from one character but it was generally very fun. It takes place in 1969 and deals with the darkness of society and the direction it was heading.

Gate Keepers 21…was pretty different. It was much darker…if Gate Keepers was a series about defeating the darkness in society 30 years ago, Gate Keepers 21 is the future of that world (actually, the present) if the world continued to get darker.

And not surprisingly, the world in GK21 is just like the world we live in now. While Gate Keepers was fun and a favorite when I was younger, I’m a bit more jaded and realistic now. No longer the idealist I once was, Gate Keepers 21 speaks more to me now than Gate Keepers.

It might be because the main character form GK21 is a lot like me. The way she thinks…that humans are insects…the way she gets bothered when laws are broken, the way she feels like the world is a terrible place…it’s all too familiar.

I loved each episode (there are only 6) for very different reasons…despite disliking the character Miu…episode 5, titled after her, might be my favorite of the 6. When she opens her hands at the end of the episode…I was just speechless. That moment was so powerful for me.

When I loved Gate Keepers, I thought GK21 was okay. Now, I feel the opposite. I love GK21 and Gate Keepers takes a back seat to it. I guess I’ve matured a bit…or become more jaded.

Maybe I should watch Digimon S3 again, which was the darkest of the first 3 Digimon seasons…

Tags: Gate Keepers 21
Posted in All Posts, Miscellaneous, My Life | No Comments »

“A person who does not like herself should not want be friends with a person like herself”

Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 10:10 pm

– Ukiya Ayane (Gate Keepers 21)

It’s strange, I’ve been rewatching a lot of shows/animes…and seeing the same thing but getting something completely different out of it because of how I’ve changed. I always liked the main character of Gate Keepers 21…she’s like me in a lot of ways. Below is her wiki:

An intelligent student, Ayane is ranked third-highest of her entire class at Tategami High School. Ayane’s classmates consider her to be a geek and more than a little strange, not only because she is seldom seen without her computer, but also because of her introverted attitude and near-hostility to social situations.

She is bitter about almost everything, as if she does not care about her surroundings, which is why she has few to no friends at all. Her past is revealed bit-by-bit in each episode, including her reason for avoiding any of the connections to her father. She and her mother were left to fend for themselves when her father, Shun Ukiya, dies battling Invaders. Because of this abandonment she resents using UP-15 and her inherited Gate of Wind. The only thing she treasures is a tiny bell, one of the few happy memories she has from her childhood, which she keeps on the lid of her laptop computer.

Gate Keepers 21, when you get past the gates and super powers and invaders, is about this one girl who hates everything (the main villain) and finds someone who feels the same way as her (the main protagonist, Ukiya Ayane).

**SPOILER ALERT**
In the end, Ukiya Ayane tells the villain “A person who does not like herself should not be friends with a person like herself”.
**END SPOILER ALERT**

Anyways, Gate Keepers and Gate Keepers 21 were two of my first animes! Here’s the GK21 Intro, it’s one of my favorite intros ever…it’s got the pure raw innocent fun of the original GK intro but throws in spinning a cell phone in the palm of your hand…which I practiced doing…

And while I’m at it, here’s the original Gate Keepers Ending. I used to love this song…

Tags: Gate Keepers 21
Posted in All Posts, Introspection | No Comments »

Counting & cashing in my change

Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 1:09 am

Rolled all my change ($) at work + change jar from home today…
Co-worker helped me sort it…she said she actually enjoyed sorting change O_O – !? I wish I had the change sorter I built out of cardboard in high school. It actually worked…

My change, after being rolled

(40 x $2) + (31 x $1) + (240 x $.025) + (250 x $0.10) + (120 x 0.05) + (450 x 0.01) = $206.50

My co-workers and I also guessed the monetary value before we counted…with Price is Right rules (winner must be closest to the price without going over).

everyone was pretty far off…our designer co-op won the $5 with the winning guess of $115.43

Went downstairs to cash the change in…got the attractive spasian teller, of course.
I always get lucky with that stuff…but given the nature of the task, I was pretty embarrassed >_< Sigh…

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness | 1 Comment »

Addictions: Old & New

Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 12:23 am

Old Addictions
I have an addictive personality. Obviously. I can only recall a couple of things I’ve been addicted to recently though I’m sure there are tons if I think a little harder…which I don’t feel like doing.

1. FarmVille – I started playing FarmVille despite telling my co-workers that I shouldn’t. I resisted longer than everyone but eventually caved. And then I went crazy with it. I did the math on the crops with an excel sheet…found out the best exp. per dollar per time per space. I caught up and surpassed everyone I knew. Really fast. That was my goal. And then I quit. At least I went out with some AWESOMENESS:

2. World of Warcraft – I played this for years but recently quit. I won’t go into the reason why I quit. While I had a goal (10 80s, one for each class) that I reached a couple of months before quitting, I still had other goals that will remain unfinished forever. I’d like to say quitting was difficult because it was an addiction…but it was surprisingly easy. One day…it just didn’t matter to me at all anymore.

New Addictions
With these two old addictions out of my life…I’ve started a few new addictions. Slightly more productive than the last 2.

1. Twitter
2. Blogging/warrenshea.com
3. Google Analytics

RE: 1 & 2 – The first 2 are obvious…given the number of tweets I post, as well as the number of blog posts.

RE: 3 – With my new site, I’ve recently began to love looking at Google Analytics. It’s quite interesting to see what Browser/OS is being used to view my site, how many hits I’m getting, what resolution people are using, where the clicks are coming from (with map overlay). I can’t tell where specific clicks come from, Google blocks that level of detail…it only says what city they’re from…so my Toronto # is huge…and I have some readers in Waterloo, Montreal (?) and London (?). I have no idea who these people are -_-; Kinda creepy. Post a comment so I know!

Phasing out Addictions & Distractions
1. Gmail – I have Gmail open all day. I check it hundreds of times a day. I don’t think it’s healthy. I’m going to try to limit my Gmail use to a couple of times a day…
2. MSN – not sure what I want to do with this…I don’t really like getting messages when I’m working on my site, which I’ve been doing a lot lately. I like being in the zone, being left alone, just me + music/show + warrenshea.com + PS + DW. I might start going off MSN when I start working…just finding it slightly annoying these last few weeks. Even when people message me, my replies are pretty cold anyways…like I don’t have time for them. And I don’t. It might be better socially if I’m just not there so I don’t reply with rudeness.

Side Note of Creepy
Tried logging in to Facebook and it seems someone’s been trying to get into my account…someone from the US (Saint Paul, Minnesota). Never had this happen before…I’d assume it’s because I’m a much stronger online presence now? Maybe my email’s “out there”. Or maybe it’s just coincidence…Anyways, I’m on to you !

Posted in All Posts, Art, Blogging, Writing | No Comments »

New Self-imposed Blogging Rule

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 6:51 pm

No posting blog posts til the day after I write it.

I think that last post was TMI. I shouldn’t talk about my OCD……Agree/Disagree?
I hope no one read it…but I doubt that.

And if I discard my last post about not blogging until Friday, does that self-imposed rule still exist?

…I guess not.

Posted in All Posts, Blogging, OCD, Writing | No Comments »