Miscellaneous updates

I'd been considering moving this blog over to Wordpress. That blogging platform has sort of spoiled me over the past few years as far as features and flexibility goes, and I've really gotten a lot out of it. Blogger certainly gets the job done, but Wordpress has a ridiculous amount of customization and plugins available, whereas you're limited to the small amount of widgets and so forth that Blogger offers, on here.

So, all ready to make the transfer officially, I poke around in the Wordpress settings and discover that... Wordpress.com hosted blogs offer only a step or two more customization than Blogger, and as far as I can see, don't even have a Twitter widget option or access to their expansive plugin library to speak of. Well, I guess that makes sense, as I've been using fully hosted Wordpress blogs rather than Wordpress hosted - kind of a shame. Maybe if this blog gets a heck of a lot bigger I'll transfer it over to a proper domain, but for now I've decided that Blogger suits my needs on this blog just fine.

Progress has been steady on my poor ol' Anki deck. It's been a busy week but I've been able to keep at roughly 150 reviews a day and sure enough, the number of expired cards is no longer in the quadruple digits. I really feel the urge to insert more material, but that will come soon enough.

After a period of downtime, KeyholeTV came back up with a handful of new channels, including NHK and... what appears to be a channel dedicated entirely to Yatterman. 

Now, I'll admit that I'm really not the biggest fan of anime in the world. Perhaps it's a side effect of getting older, as I used to watch plenty in the past, but very few anime really appeal to me, most irritate the hell out of me and it's become rare that I find a series I can seriously enjoy. Yatterman is one of those exceptions that catches my attention and just won't let go, a series that's been around since the 70s and has recently been remade with all the silliness of the original and then some (plus many of the original actors!). Awesome. Do give KeyholeTV a shot if you haven't already.

Also on the topic of anime, I was recommended 空の境界 recently, which actually does look appealing to me. I'm a fan of Kinoko Nasu's writing and previous works (Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night), so this looks to be just up my alley.

I've also discovered one of the best study resources yet, in the most unlikely (yet obvious) of places - Yotsuba&!, the lighthearted slice of life manga about the adorable, curious little girl named Yotsuba, by Kiyohiko Azuma of Azumanga Daioh fame. Not only is the manga a joy to read (it's scientifically proven impossible not to smile while reading よつばと！), but its writing is at a level just above what I'm comfortable reading, making it the perfect material for me currently. Plus, loads and loads of glorious furigana! A necessary crutch, and an incredibly helpful one while I'm building my vocabulary.

And finally, I decided to take the plunge and join the rest of the ballers over at RevTK in Twitter. I'm not too keen on the concept of microblogging, but it's still been reasonably inspiring reading other people's study-related updates and so forth. You can find mine over to the right on the sidebar.

Now, I believe I had several hundred Anki reviews to get back to... masochism at its finest.