Well guys, I had planned to (hopefully) mutilate my next opponent and send them to the moon. But life doesn't always go as we plan it. Unfortunately I had major computer problems. I felt like it was the week before a project is due in school, and everything wants to go wrong.

It started when I tried to burn a music cd. My comp froze and wouldn't restart on it's own, so i manually restarted from the tower. When I did that, it was running really slow. So i restarted using the Start menu, and the next time, my comp wouldn't go past the Compaq logo, even after 10 minutes. Oh boy.

Because I can't get back into my comp after several attempts, I had to reformatte. After doing so, it was a bit better, but stuff like my Add/Remove programs took more than 10 minutes to show up. I was like "what the what?! and i just reformatted!!" So to make a long story short I went here and there and talked to different people, and came to the conclusion that it might be one of my external drives.

Well fortunately it was still within my first month of owning it. So I bought a new one, planned to transfer the data, and was going to bring the faulty one back to the store. Well the stupid thing kept freezing while i was transferring the data, and even a 12kb file could take up to 3 or more minutes to transfer. Freakin' A. So after several attempts, I only got a few things off of the drive (about a gig's worth).

So, I had to finally give up and return the drive without getting everything off of it. At the end, I ended up losing about 50 gigs from the reformatte, and 150 more gigs from the faulty external harddrive (also found out it was really hot to the touch, unlike my other ones. too bad i didn't notice it was the drive earlier).

So yeah, by time I got everything back to normal and working, the deadline was an hour or two away, and all of my work I did was erased. Beautiful. But fortunately all my of my writing was saved to 3 different drives (pc, faulty drive, and the 2nd not faulty drive), so everything is still safe. And Tokyopop won't have to come looking for my head for missing the deadline. Thanks for anyone who took the time to read all of this and give a care (all 1 or 2 of you i'm sure lol). Maybe I'll draw you a picture or something as a prize. Congradulations.

Well I'll just have to watch out for another tournament to join, and hopefully I'll be able to work my way up again. This time i'll save my work in 10 different places, and on 3 different computers or something lol. And that's the story of why I had to drop out of DA: Survivor. *leaves room for audience applause*

Oh yeah, and make sure to support my manga, Orange Crows when it comes out. Or else we'll find your dog (or cat) and dye it orange. You think it's funny now, until it actually happens T_T

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P.S. The ending to Gurren Lagann rocked. If you didn't hear me say it on my fanart, go watch the show already. That is all.

First of all I wanted to say thanks for over a 1,000 views. That means 1,000 of you came
to visit my site whether you enjoyed my work or not *laughs*

What better way to celebrate than make a big announcement?! I've finally got the contract cleared with Tokyopop and I'll be writing my own orignal action/adventure title called Orange Crows. *cheer*

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Who is that fiesty brunette in the above link with the stylish domino scarf? Well that's Cierra, the main character of the story. She's a Forsaken (exiled) witch who was cast out by society for making a few too many mistakes. The 'mistake' that got her exiled also burned the left half of her face and left a serious scar, which is why our poor little witch has a bandage there. A witch?! That's right, this will be a world of magic slinging witches, fist fighting warlocks, action, drama, comedy, and anything else you can think of (well not ANYTHING. but i'm trying to promote here, let me exaggerate a bit ^_^).

I (James Perry II) am in charge of story and character concept design, and my partner in crime, Ryo Kawakami, takes the visual lead and brings the world of Orange Crows to life with his amazing artwork and enviroment design. Check out his deviantart page for some sample pieces he's done!! I'll give more information on the story and characters as time passes. Look foward to it ^_^

Here are a few links to Ryo's work. There are more so visit his site to see the rest of the pics!

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Copyright James Perry II and Tokyopop