Rin

Man, I used to be huge on ROBLOX back in the 2010-ish days, especially as a clothes maker. Some of them still sell frequently, I have more robux on that dormant account than I know what to do with. Bought the 1k one, godspeed soldier

1) Definitely underperforming. There have been a good handful of games that a roster of our caliber really shouldn't be dropping, but there's plenty of time to course correct. 2) I think Rin's performance so far has been admirable, but I personally would like a bit more production out of her. My goal was to try and sit around the top of the point leaders among defenseman, but so far that isn't quite panning out. 3) Things have been sort of quiet in Saskatoon, but I'd say guys like Mograine or Janser should be at the top of the list. 4) My head's already there because of the first two questions, but definitely our performance so far. I think we're capable of a lot more than the record shows. 5) Easy one. Magical Mirai in Tokyo, JP to experience not only the biggest Vocaloid concert of the year, but also the surrounding convention and culture. The amount of albums and artwork on sale during Mirai weekend are insane, and that's not even mentioning the side concerts/sets being performed by specific producers who might not have a track on the official Mirai setlist. 6) Every meal is a cheat meal Honestly, I've really started to hold a taste for specialty mac and cheese. Get some quality pasta and cheese and spice it up with some meat and sauce, like a buffalo chicken kind of thing or even a brisket/BBQ direction.

So a while ago, I stepped back from the VHL. Going into reasons why would be a media spot-length article all on its own, so I really just want to touch on one of them that I felt most passionate about. I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. We moved when I was in elementary school to the hockey-less Houston area when I was young, but I never really identified as being from Houston, if that makes sense. There are sports teams here to cheer for, but being a fan of any of them would feel more forced than anything. Instead, I cheered for Chicago teams throughout my life, since that's where my parents and extended family are originally from. I got into the White Sox, the Bears, and above all- the Blackhawks. I'd always dreamed about getting a "hometown" sports team in Las Vegas one day, but I'd resigned myself to the fact that it would likely never happen. When an announcement was made that an expansion team in the desert was being considered, however, I was immediately on board. I followed the process religiously until the Golden Knights were officially revealed, and immediately prepared myself to fully back this new roster. Since their first ever game happened to be a reasonable drive away in Dallas TX, we got tickets behind the bench and attended in person. If you look up highlights of the James Neal goal that made it a 2-1 game, you can see me behind the bench in a Knights jersey. The entire situation felt like a Monkey's Paw scenario, though, because ever since I started cheering for Vegas I'd been blatantly disrespected by every other hockey fan online. Even though I grew up watching the Blackhawks religiously, I apparently now knew nothing about the sport. Neither I nor my team were good enough to participate in the watching or playing of hockey just because it's a desert. Everyone clamored that it would never work, and Vegas would never get a true home-ice advantage. And then when the Knights started winning, those opinions turned into unbridled vitriol whenever the discussion turned to hockey in northern-heavy settings. I could go on an entire rant or tangent about how genuinely awful the greater hockey fandom has been towards Vegas, I could go on and talk about how much the community NEEDED this team after the events of October 1 (which impacted some of our friends in LV directly), I could cite just how much the game has grown in the area (there's a casino being torn down near the practice facility to make way for MORE ICE RINKS), but I've gone on a billion rants like that before that have fallen on deaf ears. It really felt like nobody respected Vegas- fans and players alike. But not even a week after I got laid off, the Knights would be playing in the Stanley Cup Final. We already had plans to try and go, and now that I didn't have to negotiate time off of work...it was a lock. Everything fell into place. Game 5 was fucking unbelievable. One or two Panthers fans were drowned out by the loudest building I will ever be inside of. After six years (and more considering how long we didn't have a team) of everyone going on tirades about how I didn't deserve to be happy about my team, right after the indisputable low point of my post-college life...the Knights fucking lifted the cup with me in the building. And with that win, I was reminded just how much I honest to god love this game. Fuck you, Vegas is a hockey town.

Me, casually browsing through Media Spots as a 5 TPE welfare person, who already busted my ass on 2 players and is happy to cap at 11 most weeks so I can spend time doing other things:

1) No lower than cup champs, we have the talent to do it 2) I think I've gotta give it to Jigglejawns, one point for every letter or character in their name. 3) Vegas! I'd have to rep the hometown colors. No question. 4) With Jorji being right at the TPA cap for the M, I think they're a pretty safe bet for the season. 5) Honestly a fantastic question, I feel like it could be one of a few. I won't EVER turn down a good pizza though, I think I'll have to lock it in. 6) An even harder question. I controversially really like the Grape flavor, but Glacial Freeze is up there in a 1A/1B situation.

Listen up, homies. We need to have a talk about your forum sigs and how the fuck this is supposed to work. (And as a disclaimer before we get into the meat of it, this is tongue-in-cheek. While I do unironically want to present the opinion, the tone isn't that serious and it ultimately isn't a big deal. I hate having to clarify, but people have taken the bait before...you've been warned). My brothers, sisters, and otherwise in Christ. The resolution of my desktop monitors are 2560x1440 pixels. You know what I expect to be that large? My wallpaper. You know what absolutely SHOULDN'T be that large? Your fucking forum signature. A wise man once said, "the ideal signature graphic is 185px high by 400px wide. And that wise-ass man set the standard for generations of sig makers to come, putting into stone the holy words that governed our functioning society. Deviation from the norm was common, indeed, but never so egregious as to completely detach themselves from the holy light of our divine spirit. And yet, despite the holy teachings of those that came before us, we somehow have hordes of people rocking fucking desktop wallpapers (yes, plural!) after every single post they make on the forum. We're talking gargantuan tomes worth of screen space taken up by ludicrously large and unnecessarily hi-res renderings, enough to literally triple or quadruple the amount of real estate taken up by your response that just contained the phrase "lmao." "But Sonnet Rin, my idea couldn't be contained in such a small box!" Absolutely fine. Not a problem whatsoever. The sacred texts did not define a requirement, but a guideline that future artists could refer to when sculpting out their masterpieces. I don't care if your graphic is wider, a bit taller, if the aspect ratio has more of a hockey card kind of look. But if its resolution starts creeping into that 4 digit range, maybe it's time to take a second look. "But Rin, if you don't like someone's sig, why don't you just mute it? The forum lets you block certain signatures from showing up fairly easily." Because I like looking at all the cool shit people make on this site. We have some wildly talented people here, people who have been around eons longer than I have and have honed their craft over their tenure. People who are just getting into things, showing incredible progress or unique ideas that introduce a whole new concept or approach to the idea of a forum signature. I don't want to mute someone's dogshit, phone book lookin graphic sig on one day, only for them to change it to something fantastic and real estate-considerate the next. Actively blocking myself out of good content is a last resort "emergency" kind of action that I would rather not take. TL;DR: If it's over 4 digits, it's time to revisit. Happy sig making, homies

The second I saw "Guastav commented on..." I knew it would be a single word, and I knew EXACTLY which word it would be

100%, everything could use just a little more anime

This one comes with some fun context. Much like my last Rin signature, this sig is based off an album cover by my favorite Vocaloid producer. Coincidentally, the artwork is done by my favorite artist as well, so this is sort of a match made in heaven as far as my interests go. The text in this one is fairly simple- “開始“ is just kanji for "start," or a commencement/beginning of something (thanks DeepL) which is fitting for the kicking off of Rin's draft season. The bottom right text is just "Sonnet ft. Kagamine Rin" to cheekily implement the "Hikarisyuyo ft. Kagamine Rin" text from the original album cover. The album cover is Hikarisyuyo's most recent release, "Twilight" The Saskatoon render was kind of done by me- the lines and logos were added on top of a blank jersey artwork done by kwkunai. And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't include a sample song off of this album since I'm making the effort to invoke its imagery. I'm rolling with "Sunburst," which for some reason gives me FFXIV boss fight vibes with the tempo and melody of its hook.

1) I think the draft was really solid overall, though there were some criticisms on stream that the "wrong" defenseman was picked. I, of course, greatly disagree. 2) Nope, I got that 5 TPE welfare baybeee 3) Cup or bust 4) Miami had an absolute field day in this draft with the amount of picks they had, I think they'll end up being a tough out. 5) Not yet, that'll be at the end of this season for me. 6) Kinda/sorta, I think they get a little tedious for me when I'm doing nothing but graphics all of the time. On the other hand, though, they're fun things to work on in the evening when I'm just looking to turn my brain off and listen to some music.

MORE ANIME HOMIES MORE ANIME HOMIES

Didn't end up getting some of my smaller PTs done last week- there was a big anime convention in town that a good handful of friends ended up flying in for. Despite some huge issues flying in and out of the con, the event itself was an absolute blast. There was SO much more Vocaloid representation this year which I was absolutely thrilled about- from cosplayers to vendor booths to a whole setup from Crypton themselves to promote their worldwide series of concerts, Miku Expo. That booth, specifically, had a huge screen playing through past concert footage. Most of it was for Miku, but with Rin getting some screen time (and love from passersby), I was pretty thrilled. It's a little tangential to the VHL, but coming out of the weekend I can safely say that I've entered my...third honeymoon phase when it comes to Vocaloid/Rin specifically? I feel like every time I get to just weeb out for a weekend, I'm reminded again why I fell so in love with the concept. For those not in the know, Vocaloid is essentially a synthetic voice software, where character voices can be tuned and used as an instrument. Producers have been using the likes of Miku, Rin, Len, etc for well over a decade as vocalists for their projects, spanning across countless genres and artists to create one big collective. In a sense, it feels like a community was given a tool to help build the identity of these characters, and even a sense of built-in exposure. I, personally, have felt compelled to check out a NUMBER of artists just because they use Rin, since I already love her voice and design. Having that familiar element to their work makes it so much easier to just jump in and listen to a bunch of different stuff that I might not have even considered otherwise. But what about the live concerts that they put on? Who provides the music for those? Actually, the concerts themselves are compilations of some of the more popular songs throughout the community. Hypothetically, ANYONE could produce a song using Rin that makes it all the way into official setlists. I explain all of this to get around to the major thought I wanted to put forth. Interacting with other Vocaloid fans this last weekend and seeing just how much love they were getting both officially and unofficially gave me a huge sense of pride, in a way. This is something that can only exist because of the love of not only the creators, but fans as well. Vocaloid has been around for well over a decade at this point, and being in a big general anime environment that still features them so prominently is heartwarming. It's a similar feeling to the VHL, where you have this massive community/entity that can only exist because of every one of its pieces. In a very stereotypical way, both are products that are far greater than the sum of their parts. So, yeah. I'm back on a massive Rin high. Again. Would be fantastic if this was my first player to make it into the HoF. Since it was the prominently featured song in the booth's playlist, my song this week is ungray days:

First off...good LORD do I love the Rin render used for this. She's fucking adorable Second...this was a great non-intentional nudge that my "first gen oopsie" re-roll was approved and applied. Went ahead and put in my new build, hopefully that's in time.

Giving the "A" to an anime girl is the W of all W's Let's get this bread

Poking @Josh, lmk when the change is made!

1) Not fantastic, though I guess that's to be expected. There's still a curve in learning how to build, so I'll take the little bit of the season I played and use it as a learning experience. 2) I really hope so! Fish of destiny. 3) Definitely get back into the film room to see exactly where improvements can be made. Shifting over to the North American game from Asia is without a doubt a massive move, so it should come as no surprise that she's off to a slow start so far. 4) Honestly, none of them. I've never been a big off-season sim guy, but I'm definitely looking forward to the draft. 5) It's one step to not having the E, which is a plus I guess. I understand the function of it from a gameplay/league balance point of view, but man is it not fun to have two to three seasons of sifting around in the minors while you wait to join the real conversation. Not a fan of the teams they removed, both of their logos were pretty killer. 6) Maybe get in a quick TPE reroll to come into next year with a more optimized build.

Remember when I said "I'd like to apply for GM" and it got someone banned for a few days LMAO

Rin Kagamine +10

I will always fawn over the effort put in to swap logos and uniforms. Love it

Well, I'd like to think I have some history with-- I'm just fucking with you, you're not getting me with this one again.

I need a .com article topic this week, so I figured I would "react" to trivia moving to a portal-based task these days. Does my opinion matter? Is it even interesting? Not in the slightest! But I'm going to look back on old trivia anyway. Unsurprisingly, I think the move to the portal is the best thing that ever happened to trivia. "Back in the day," we used to have to send our answers to a designated trivia head, who would check the answers and award TPE in a week-ending thread that tagged everyone who was eligible for the TPE. Not only was this a grueling, time-consuming manual process, it also kept the door wide open for people to just cheat and share answers. See, everyone would end up receiving the same questions every week, meaning a lot of people would just rely on a buddy or a LR relaying the answers in order to get their free 2 capped TPE. While a good number of members knew where they should look to find answers to trivia questions, mostly everybody ended up being lazy and just submitted whatever answers were posted in a LR chat. With things moving to the portal, though, you get a number of obvious benefits: Every user can get a unique set of questions, as the portal can just pull from a large bank of them and randomly assign two per week Nobody has to constantly check the answers received; the portal will do that automatically No claimable thread needs to be posted in order for users to get their TPE, and updaters don't have to clear the queue in order to award TPE. The portal can assign capped TPE automatically if questions were answered correctly. So with the move to the portal, a LOT of overhead is simplified down into an automated workflow, making it so much more practical to both engage with and be rewarded by weekly trivia. Fantastic change, I always love to see something so overly complex brought down to a much simpler, cleaner method.

The real best take is always in the comments