The other weekend, I put off reading other manga to give time for my cramming of reading Vampire Hunter D Volumes 1-5 since it's free streaming was nearing its end. I was putting off reading it until the last 2 days. I was worried at first that I wont be able to finish reading it, since it falls around 350-400 pages per volume. But I managed somehow.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, VHD Manga Volume 6 is out. If you're from a country where manga is scarce, like me, you can read VHD manga Volume 6 via emanga.com. But of course, you have to purchase points and "Rent" it to be able to read.

Technically, the VHD manga is the same as the novels, only with graphics.  Therefore, Volume 6 is technically the same as Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane. So in D's adventure in volume 6, this time, he met a granny named Viper. She's a well known "people finder." Her job is to look for spirited children and return them to their families. And she's currently on her mission to return a girl named Tae who was kidnapped by the nobles and held captive for years at a castle called Castle Gradinia. By the looks of it, the granny probably had a hard time taking the girl back since this particular castle is quite known to be filled with nobles. As you know, nobles in VHD are like all omnipotent beings. And then she came by D, just like fate. He and another duo of bounty hunters traveled to go across this dessert that's known as some sort of "dessert of no return." Of course I'm not telling you what happened in the dessert because you might shoot me dead. All I can say is that you'll get to learn a lot of interesting things in this manga. Some of it were already hinted a bit by the previous ones, and some of it are faint hints of possible plot of future volumes. There will also be sneak peeks of D's personality throughout this manga. Definitely worth reading.

I was suppose to write this entry a day after I bought and played with it, but I got lazy and all. Anyway, last December 18th 2011, I bought myself a Samsung Galaxy W I8150 model smartphone. And I named him Amadeo, after my favorite fictional character, Armand from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Amadeo is Armand's name, given by Marius after he took him in and turned him into a vampire.

Amadeo is my New Year's gift for myself for doing my best for the past year. To be perfectly honest, it's been hard. I'm really trying my best to cope up with a lot of things. Thank you for supportive friends even though I go bipolar on them most of the time with random extreme depression and exteme anger streaks.

Of course, pictures!

The entire package is really small. It contains a the phone itself, a manual, a USB PC connector, and the headset.

Upon full charge, I started playing around with it. I've notice a few things here and there and I'll probably notice more as time goes, but here's what I think about my new phone:

On a positive note:

• One thing I love about this phone is the sync feature. I think this comes in with the OS, however. Whenever I add new contacts, it auto syncs itself to my Google contacts. Another thing is that I do not need to download apps directly from my phone. I can just click "Install" from the Market and it downloads itself to the phone.
• Second is the threaded SMS. It's so much easier to read back on conversation.
• Third is the email. I wanted something with the same feature as the email application I had in my old Nokia N95, and I'm so glad smartphones have them, and it syncs with my Google mail too!
• The same goes with the calendar.
• Another thing I love is the screen lock pattern where I can choose any patterns I want.
• One of my most loved feature is that it rotates horizontally when you tilt it. My old Nokia N95 doesn't do this.
• I also like the QWERTY keypad, but it's hard to use. Luckily, you can change the keypad to the usual number-keypad like that of the older phones.
• The default alarm clock is also interesting! I can set different times for each different day of the week!
• The Google Maps helps me a lot, especially the me who has no sense of direction. But not as bad as Hibiki Ryoga.
• Oh and the option to block people/contacts! Thank Android for this! OMG! I have a few cases of persistent unwanted calls from random people I do not know, so I've always wanted this feature in my phone. Back when I was using my Nokia N95, I was even tempted to purchase the tool you install in Symbian just for that purpose.
• The best part of it is that you get to play around with tons of apps in the Market, and these apps are handy most of the time.

Negative stuff:

• As every smartphone is, the battery drains easily. I'm always running low on battery.
• I'm not sure if it's just me, but it hangs up every now and then.
• The  earpiece is VERY low. I can hear calls clearly when I'm indoors but when, for example I'm on a mall or a bus station, it's very hard to hear the person I'm talking to.
• I'm always use up 80%-90 of my phone memory, even when I've closed all running apps and cleared the memory.
• I can't uninstall unwanted/useless pre-installed apps! D:

I'll try to play around more with it and probably root it after a few more month, just for seeing the difference between a rooted phone and not. I heard it's faster when you root it.

As most of you probably already know, I'm a huge fan of Vampire Hunter D, enough to own its fanlisting. Earlier this morning, I was trilled to receive an email from  eManga about Vampire Hunter D's 6th manga volume to be on sale at eManga tomorrow, December 28th, 2011.

I was also informed that in line with this launch, they'll be streaming the previous Vampire Hunter D manga volumes for free. Yes, that's right from volumes 1 to 5 and FREE. The free streaming of Vampire Hunter D 1-5 manga volumes started last December 24 and will end at January 8, 2012.

Maybe some of you have already heard of eManga, but for the sake of those who doesn't, I'll give you guys a few information about eManga before you head up here and start reading. eManga is an online manga streaming site run by Digital Manga, Inc. By streaming, it means you can only read them when you're connected to the Internet. And yes, that also meant that the manga are digital copies of the manga. The difference between eManga and the other online streaming sites like Batoto.net or StopTazmo.co m (if you notice, as an ex-scanlator, I do not support manga fox) is that eManga is a legit version, not from scanlated copies, but from the publishers themselves. Although, in eManga, you have to buy points and use these points to read the mangas. It's like buying the manga in cheaper price, without the physical book.

Personally, I prefer the physical book themselves, but in cases like Vampire Hunter D, where acquiring the physical manga is really hard, I would go for online manga streaming sites like this. Although I do wish to be able to download the manga instead of just always streaming them online for a few reasons like: (1) I have this picky thing with the media quality that whenever I read them online, they get pixelated and this irritates me; (2) I wanted to be able to read them from my laptop or my mobile phone even without internet; (3) I would be able to transfer them in different handles like my brother's tab, in case I wanted to read it there, without streaming it again. Although, these are just personal preference. I do, however, understand that they chose it to be streaming and using Adobe Flash player to prevent it from being stolen.

Here are the list of winners from Beyond Eternal's 8th Anniversary Giveaway I held last November 15th:

• Jepoy
• Nix
• Henry
• Hiyono
• Tin Rementilla
• keysi
• Stephen Rey - Forfeited. Prize re-raffled to Xian.
• Lee - Forfeited. Prize re-raffled to Chette.

Actually, I never got the chance to raffle them anymore. There were exactly 8 entries and I'm supposed to giveaway 8 Globe 100 Loads. I feel happy that it made my life easier, but at the same time, I'm sad because I didn't get that much participants in this raffle, but oh well.

Congratulations to the winners! I've sent you emails, please reply to them as soon as possible!

--

Update 2011.12.13 18.18:

Globe 100 Load has been sent to the winners who have replied to the previous email I've sent!

To the winners who haven't, you only have until this Thursday, December 15, 2011 12:00 AM to send me your mobile numbers or your prize will be forfeited. I'll re-raffle the load to those who were not able to join the contest on time.

Thank you!

--

Update 2011.12.15 14.10:

Stephen Rey and Lee's prizes are forfeited after not replying for a month. New winners are Xian and Chette! Congratulations!

Last ray of the sun,
Please show me which road to take.
The road is fading.