Shameful Otaku Secret!

Keep a lid on the hateorade for a minute

I’ve seen those people who lazily fill their blogs with their Twitter updates, and I’m not planning on becoming that. I have, however, been gone a lot and unable to blog, I’m in the middle of relocating, and to top it off I decided to start a podcast with people on the other side of the universe (more on that hopefully very soon).

I’m still watching cartoons, never fear, and I’ll come back with a vengeance soon I hope, but this is a stopgap and my Twitter updates are almost all about anime. You will not be reading what I ate, unless for some reason I ate it at a maid cafe. You can actually chronologically view my descent into madness as I watch a show about girls rowing boats and love it.

Here’s what’s going to happen:

1. Twitter updates will be in the sidebar.
2. The Twitter roundup posts will occur every (X Number I haven’t decided) days, or when there are something like 10 or more updates. It will depend on what I have the skill to hack in the plugin. If it’s neither, I’l uninstall it because I do not want the volume of twitter posts to ever surpass the number of regular posts.
3. It won’t be in the RSS feed. I haven’t figured out how to do this either, but I’m pretty sure 9rules will frown on it because they specifically request their sites don’t add del.icio.us feeds, and this is the same concept.

That way, those of you who already follow me on Twitter shouldn’t even have to pay attention if you don’t want to. The reason I’m doing this is to keep the content flowing, force myself to be a little entertaining on Twitter, and encourage myself to do something during this really hectic period.

Up next in regular blog posts: some more music stuff, a podcast status update, and a quick semi-review of Full Metal Panic! since I joined the 21st century by recently watching The Second Raid.

Not exactly selling out to the man, but still trying

(Cue Professor Farnsworth voice) Good news, everyone!

This is a funny development indeed. Back in the day (not incredibly far back, of course), I suppose I technically competed with 9rules. I always had respect for them, though, because while we ended up being very successful in one sense, they always seemed to do well while maintaining an air of independence. You could more accurately call them a coalition or a collective than a blog network, per se. Plus, it’s impossible as a designer not to respect Mike Rundle, even if he does like rounded corners more than I do.

Well, fast forward a couple years, 9rules kind of dropped off the radar for a while but are resurfacing in a new revamped form, and I’m pleased to announce that I will be part of it. They were looking to expand their anime vertical, and according to Kabitzin, who brought this to the otakusphere’s attention in the first place, the number of anime blogs has tripled on 9rules. He’s got the official list at the post I linked. I don’t imagine much will change here, but if I’m lucky it’ll be good for a new reader or two.

No matter what, it’s fantastic to be in great company like Cruel Angel Theses, THAT, and Drastic.

Also, there are things a-brewin’ in my head, but not quite fully formed yet. Post is forthcoming. Follow me on Twitter to get undeveloped and dangerous thoughts, unfiltered, in 140 characters or less, usually randomly spat out while eating sushi.

What are you doing?

OK how many of you weaboos out there are “web 2.0″ enough to be on Twitter? If not, you should really give it a shot, especially the bloggers. It’s a pain in the ass to explain Twitter, but basically you talk about what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. They call it “micro-blogging,” and aside from being able to broadcast the most inane, banal minutiae of your boring-ass life, it’s great training for being a more efficient, clever-pants writer. I’ve used it in my “real” life for quite a while, but I thought I’d try an SOS account. So far it’s been great for getting out initial reactions to shows etc. etc. You may have noticed it in the sidebar a couple weeks ago, but I took it out because Twitter is notoriously slow and tends to hang the site.

So point your webernet browsing device to http://www.twitter.com/otakusecret and start following me for more prolific updates than I give on the blog. Or don’t. I’ll only be marginally offended.