after van helsing, we have troy. you can read my sorta review/take on the movie at yahoo! (i’ve been currently playing around with yahoo services lately XD). to sum both of the movies up, i like both! it seems like 2004 summer movies are good (mind you, good… not really great…), and i’m looking forward to more of these. we’ll hopefully be watching shrek2 tomorrow. going back to troy, i read her take on the movie and it was soooooo funny! one of the most entertaining reads i’ve had these past few days. a difference of opinions, between the two of us. but i still respect her for what she said… plus i find myself nodding at some of her points (particularly at that helen thing XD).

an another note, was able to get my hands on an xbox for the past week. nope, it’s not mine, just borrowed. but heck, it totally blew me away. been playing with it like mad. the unit i was able to borrow was modded so it was able to play my download anime eps. seeing naruto in tv was splendid (better than seeing it at the pc) ^0^ and i can’t get enough of the games in it. it had ninja gaiden (which kicked my ass for the first boss ;_;), crash bandicoot, lotr, ssx3….. but one of the games that i totally and absolutely love is prince of persia: sands of time. i actually have this on the pc but wasn’t able to move on. and with the xbox, i finally finished the game! ^_^ it’s actually really really linear and easy and but it totally rocks that i love it. the dialogue. the graphics. the prince. farah (though i hate her sometimes since she keeps on hitting me with her arrows) one thing that really bothered me though was that at the ending…. *highlight since some spoilers are here* why is it that when the prince rewinded time, he seemed to rewind it to a time before he had the dagger. but when he was at farah’s room, he has the dagger in his hands. am just curious with that one. can he also manipulate time? aside from rewinding and fast-forwarding it? …. anyway, even after finishing this game, i’ll try to get it when i get my ps2. i know the xbox port of the game’s the best, but i don’t know if i’ll get one in the far future. maybe, i’ll just borrow the console again ^.~

layout update on shiromaNU. this one’s something new. no pictures, no frills. pretty minimalistic. i think i’ll do a series of no-gaming no-character layout such as this one for the white-mageNETWORK. i just don’t know how far this challenge to myself will go plus i don’t know how each long each layout will last.

was just talking about 1Gig gmail service by google the other day. then i saw this article talking about gmail being auctioned off at ebay. wow… a gmail account which can be acquired free being sold for 60USD?!… and here i gave one of my invitations for free. XD when i headed off to ebay yesterday and did a search for gmail accounts, i can see them going as high as 80USD. easy bucks, man. right now though, they’re down to 20USD average.

on another note, i saw the lunar eclipse last night. actually, more of this really really early morning. around 3:30AM. when everyone’s in dreamland. the moon’s pretty big with this orangish-reddish glow. was lazy to get my telescope and set it up in my room, so just watched it with the naked eye. heard that there were also supposed to be some comets sightings as well. that one i wasn’t able to see. will try to catch it in the next couple of days… hopefully.

on another level, was able to download some manga off snoopycool. i didn’t know they were doing MAR, the manga nobuyuki-sensei is currently doing after Flame of Recca. the characters remain as cute as ever though they still remind me too much of Recca and his co-horts. another series they’re doing is Midori no Hibi. i heard that this is released as an anime. don’t have any news on that one (the anime that is). but this is one freakin’ funny manga. the third current series i’m checking out in SP is Yakitate Japan. think Cooking Master Boy crossed with Hikaru no Go. I don’t know why but it has some similarities with HikaGo. i think it’s the art. the artwork in the chapters that i read are similar to HikaGo. but i know YJ isn’t done by Obata-sensei. or again, maybe my eyes are deceiving me.

well… that’s all right now. i’m off to catch van helsing. it’s already released here (philippines, that is). two days advanced than what’s said to be the released date in the states.

consolidating all ButtonUp updates here.