Panda

I live in the Evergreen State: Washington. Many times if I tell someone online were I live they think I mean DC, not the state. Oh well. I live in the small town of Moses Lake in the Columbia Basin which is located pretty much in the middle of the state. It is very hot and dry here and lots of farms. No evergreens, just sage brush. We really are the desert part of the state. Many people are suprised since they think the entire state is just Seattle. You know: Rain, Starbucks and Grunge music.

I have a couple of instances that stand out in my mind. I am sure there are more but due to the tramatic nature of the embarassing moments I think I have a mental block so I can't remember them. Let's just call it a self preservation mechanism. The first was in high school. I was on my way to class and slipped in a muddy puddle right in the doorway landing right into it. Hurt my tailbone, got my jeans all muddy and did this infront of a bunch of other students on their way to class. I had to sit in my class with a muddy backside. The rest of the day I walked around with my jacket covering my rear end. The next was on my wedding day. I was taking pictures with my bridal party when my brother-in-law who was standing behind me and my hubby on these steps at the front of the church. He starts pointing down at me trying to get me to look at something. He was pointing at the train on my dress which was curved around me since a piece of ivy from my bouquet fell on it and would be in the pictures if not picked up. I, as well as my hubby who was standing across from me, looked straight now at my chest. It looked like he was pointing down at my clevage. There were some little bits of fern "needles" that were on the front of my dress so that is what we assumed he was motioning at...so without thinking my hubby reaches over and starts to brush off my boobs. First off this is in the church in front of all of our family and friends who were watching us take wedding pictures. It just looked like he was grabbing my chest. My brother-in-law said: "No, not the boobs, the train on the dress!" Ooops. Not mega bad, but at the time were embarassing to me.

I think my worst fear in life would be that I would be the cause of someones death. I don't think I could handle knowing that an action or decision I made caused another persons death. The guilt would drive me insane. Even worse would be if that other person was a loved one like my husband, parents or brother. Can you imagine how absolutely awful it would be knowing that it is your fault your loved one died? Terrible, simply terrible.

My user name came about because it is my hubby's nickname for me. I love Giant Pandas so I went with Panda as my name. I was really suprised that no one had already claimed it when I joined up. Lucky me! As for my name meaning something in another language it does mean a pun in Japanese. I mentioned this in another thread earlier. "Pan da" in Japanese means "It's Bread". I've seen this joke used in .hack//Legend of the Twilight and in Ranma 1/2.

I wandered over the OB after finding theOtaku.com. I love the moderating done on the boards to keep it free of mindless spammy posts. There are people who care about the grammar! It really was a shock to my system to find people who could hold an intellegent discussion about diverse subjects. Everything from anime series to religion and politics. All that and it's easier to secretly stalk Shinmaru on the boards. Oops, did I say that outloud? :animeswea

[b]Reality[/b] is for people who lack imagination. What my diploma says is that I am a Certified Veterinary Assistant. Unfortunately due to my health I am "retired" from working in vet med. So currently I am in the process of turning my dream job into my reality. As of now I work on theOtaku.com network, freelance work for anime companies like Harmony Gold and I am a screener (reviewer of anime) for ADV films. [b]Dream[/b] a little dream with me. I am currently in the process of working my way into the anime industry. I would love to become a staff writer for an anime magazine like Newtype. :catgirl:

I am not going to jump into the debate section of this discussion only add my 2 cents about what being female and male are in my eyes. Just my opinion and I don't expect anyone to agree/disagree with me nor am I trying to convince everyone that my opinion is the "right" opinion. I want to start with a bit of background on me. Growing up I was a tomboy. I did work on the farm with my older brother and dad. I could throw a mean dirt clod. Little green army men were more fun to play with than baby dolls. While all my girl friends were going to ballet class I was one of two girls in my Tae Kwon Do class. My brother, another boy and myself were the highest ranking students in the school. I could hold my own, many times doing better than the guys in the class. I basically grew up with my parents letting me do what I wanted to do in terms of what toys and sports I wanted to play. I wasn't told that was "only for little boys". The image of women being weak and unable to do things on their own was annoying to me. Women can change the oil for the car and not be considered "manly". Equally as annoying is the image that men can't take care of children. The "Mr. Mom" image of the bumbling dad who feeds chili to the baby and can't change a diaper. Men are not stupid, they can care of kids and clean without destroying the house. [b]What a man is to me.[/b] (Based off the guys in my life) Guys are basic creatures. They eat, sleep, work and play. They don't stress over physical appearances as much as women do. If their socks don't match or have a hole in the heel no biggie. If there is a problem they like to physically fix it. [b]What being a woman means to me.[/b] Having boobs that boys like to look at. We are expected to want to have babies and love children (Mind you, I don't want kids yet get constant pressure from friends and family.). We read too much into things at times and over think issues. Like right now I am wondering how someone is going to take what I have posted and read more into it or twist it around to make it sound like I am being negative towards one of the genders. Meh. In the end I think that both genders need to be appreciated for their differences.

I have always felt that the marriage/dating thing on message boards was in good fun. I have never participated in them unless you count the real thing. I am actually married to an OB member by the name of Novapup. He is my husband and we are going to be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this month on the 25th. So I guess I can say "Yes" to the question of me being married to someone on the boards but "No" since I don't put it in my signature.

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. I have thought about what the proper way to say member names and now I know. ^_^ Chabs you can add me into the camp that was saying your name wrong. I thought it was "cha-bee-choo". Gomen! I also thought that MangaFan007 was pronounced "Manga Fan Double Oh Seven" as opposed to "Zero Zero Seven". As for ^.^ and other members who use emoticons for names I have always wondered what you say to someone who wants to know what your member name is...do you say I am the member who uses (insert name of emoticon here)? Or do you list the individual symbols used to make up the member name? This thread has definately been a fun one to read. My name of course is Panda after Giant Pandas. Not as in the Japanese pun of "Pan da" meaning "It's Bread". I am not bread, but if I were I think I would be sourdough since I am pretty much round in shape.

Oh how I wish someone would give me a bunch of money. I would first pay off my all my bills...you know -- the mortgage to my house, all those credit card bills and the odds and ends of monthly bills. I would then give some money to my family for their bills. I would take a portion and invest it, Roth IRA, put it into a savings account to build up some intrest so it could later become a form of income. Sheesh, paying bills and investing sounds a bit lame and "responsible". I definately need to have some fun. I would travel to all the places I've wanted to go. Japan to visit family and friends for sure. Go see friends I have made on theO all around the world. Stalk Shinmaru properly. Buy all those mega expensive anime books that cost an arm and leg at anime conventions and finish buying all those manga series I started. After all that I should pretty much have nothing left. No extra money but no debt. That would rock.

rise against, Please make sure when starting a thread you post it in the correct forum. Discussion about writing should be done in the OB Anthology section of the boards. It is also very important to make sure your posts are well thoughtout with special care given to grammar and spelling. Due to the poor posting quality, double post and being in the wrong forum I am going to lock this thread. People can still contact you via PM with suggestions or you can open a new thread in the correct forum with care given to the quality of your post. If you have questions about the rules or posting quality feel free to PM myself or any of the other moderators on the boards. Thanks and best of luck with your story. -Panda

I believe the area you are referring to is the "Custom Title" area. This area you have "Starr" inserted. Just change that to what you want it to say. If you have any questions about how the site works feel free to PM me and I can help you out. :catgirl:

I've been keeping up with the manga! You know I can't just leave Xiao Mei! I really do love the part in chapter 52 when Al is comforting Xiao Mei, it is just so darn cute I can't help but melt over it! This is of course completely opposite of the entire story arc going on with [spoiler]Ed, Ling and Envy. Envy's form is very disturbing and I HATE that low blow he used against Ed, the one where he says: "Let's Play" and it makes Ed think of Alexander/Nina. The other part that really bothered me was with Roy and Bradley. Bradley said it angered him when Alicia was making noise at her father's funeral! I just wanted to strangle that...argh! I can't even say what I think that "jerk" is!![/spoiler] Just thinking about that puts me in a fighting mood! I just want to kick his butt! I better go back and look at the uber cute pictures of Al and Xiao Mei to settle me down.

My best friend and I had this conversation just the other day. It is quite shocking to see what kids are allowed to wear. She was telling me that there are girls in her daughter's class who have tattoos on their lower back...her daughter is 13 years old. And the tattoos are not stick ons, they are the real deal. Kids can't get a tattoo unless their parent gives permission. Unless these girls who are obviously pre-teens are convincing the tattoo shops they are over 18 then their parents are signing off on this. Bizarre, just plain bizarre in my book. I can't imagine allowing someone so young make a decision about getting a tattoo at such a young age. They, of course, are also wearing lower than low hip huggers and thongs so you can see their tattoos. Maybe I am too old and not on the cutting edge of what is going on with the younger set these days, but it does seem to me that parents are much less conservative these days.

Welcome back to the forums Gelgoog Pilot. Yes you are right, some mod will take care of this thread. I highly recommend that your review the rules of the site to refresh your memory about the rules of the site. It would be bad for your account to be banned as soon as you came back to the forums. Due to the lack of quality conversation value of this thread and that introduction, in this case re-introduction threads are frowned upon I am going to lock this thread. If there are any questions on posting quality or the rules of the site please feel free to PM myself or any of the other moderators. Thanks! -Panda

Welcome to theOtakuBoards Anime_Freak13. Please be aware that we have a rules page that all members are required to read before posting. These [URL=http://www.otakuboards.com/rules.php?"][U]Rules[/U][/URL] and [URL=http://www.otakuboards.com/faq.php?][U]FAQ[/U][/URL] can also be found on the left navigation menu as well as the underlined links I have provided. We encourage people to introduce themselves within their posts as they enter discussions throughout the boards. We would rather that than having a ton of introduction threads. Because of that reason I am locking this thread. Feel free to just jump into a thread that interests you and start posting, you'll make tons of friends in no time at all. If you have any questions please feel free to PM myself or any of the other moderators. Again, I welcome you to the boards and I hope to see you posting around the site. Have fun! ~Panda

The double posting, negative attitudes and off-topic subject matter need to stop now. If this thread does not stay on topic I will close this thread. There has been quite a few misunderstandings in this thread that some members have taken to heart. Drop it now and stay on topic. Responses need to be on the thread topic and be descriptive, not just random lists of traits you think are what the perfect man or woman need to possess. Tell us why you think they need to have these traits and/or what made you attracted to these traits. [COLOR=Red]Remember: Stay on topic.[/COLOR] If anyone has questions concerning this please feel free to PM myself or any of the other moderators on the site. Failure to follow the rules may result in the banning of your account. Please stay on topic. On topic: For me I am very lucky to be married to my idea of the perfect man. My hubby is the perfect man for me. He loves me for who I am and exactly how I am. As for when I was looking for him I did have certain traits I was attracted too. These include but are not limited too: Physical Traits: I like a man who is taller than me. I am only 5'2" tall and if I were to date a man shorter than me we would be a very short couple. I like having a man next to me who has a larger stature than myself. If I were to be in a burning building I wanted a guy who could pick me up and carry me out of danger. Needless to say this also means he would have to be on the muscular side. Hair color and eye color were not a major concern but I have always been attracted to blondes with blue eyes. I think it comes from being in an entirely Japanese family where everyone is black haired and brown eyed. I just always though the lighter hair and eyes were very cool and exotic. Personality: This of course is the most important thing to me. If I can't stand having a conversation or the guy is a jerk there is no point in being with someone who is simply "eye-candy". A great sense of humor is very high on my list since life is so full of downers it is nice to be around someone who can see the sunny side of life. I have a pretty happy-go-lucky attitude and want to be around a guy who has the same. Life should be filled with laughter and fun, not sadness and tears. Pretty much the main thing that made the perfect man for me was and is everything my husband is in my eyes. My soul mate.

Chemotherapy fries the brain. I am sorry for the mistake. It is "Member" and "Senior Artist". Meh. My mistake. I didn't bother to look it up and just went with what was off the top of my head and I was wrong. Sorry for the confusion. :animeswea Now, to answer the questions: [b]Senior [u]Artist[/u] Requirements[/b]: This is given to members who have stuck to the rules and submitted several works that have received votes (art), been sent (greetings), been downloaded (wallpapers) and been taken (quizes). You don't have to do all of the submission, but to be a Senior Artist you do have to submit something. You can just be a greeting card artist or fan artist to receive the new title and approval abilities. I do not change peoples titles so don't ask me to do it. You just need to keep up the great work and be patient. Those who do will be blessed by theOtaku.com Senior Artist Fairy who will mysteriously one day change your title. [b]Auto-approvals[/b]: We need to give trust to our members. The site is for the members by the members. Keep in mind that many of the approvals are done by the large staff of me. When I am sick or on the very rare vacation another administrator takes over my job of doing the approvals for the "Member" status submissions. The moderators make sure the Senior Artists and, of course, the work that I have approved are all within the guidelines. Being human I do make mistakes and sometimes let something slip by. They (the stolen submissions) are generally found quickly by the mods or by attentive members using the "Report" button and then dealt with promptly. There is no way I could keep up with all the hundreds of daily submissions if every piece had to be approved individually. Keep in mind that of these hundreds that are approved there are at least twice as many denied for various reasons. Some are multiple submissions of the same piece, stolen works or poor quality (low quality, image is too blurry, pixalated images, misspelled words, greeting cards that have no text...etc). As is, I spend at least 3 hours daily doing approvals, longer on the weekends when more submissions are sent in to the site. Let's just take the fan art section. We are just a hair under 70,000 approved pieces in that section alone. The amount of submissions is quite large and giving the members the auto-submit ability gives them more control about how [b]our[/b] site progresses. The members make this network so great by submitting great works and keeping ourselves in check. With the moderators keeping on eye on the site plus the millions of visitors viewing the site, pieces that don't jive with the rules are found quickly. Let's say that the member who is breaking the rules is a Senior Member. They no longer are allowed to auto submit work and can have their account frozen, banned, all their work deleted from the network or have all their work approved before pieces are allowed on the site again. The punishment depends on what rule(s) were broken. So it's not like we just let Senior Members do whatever they want, they still have to follow the rules. [b]Denied Submissions[/b]: This really is a learning situation. Sometimes it is as simple as a typo. I am sure no one wants to see their "Yu-Ge-Oh" wallpaper published on the site so the entire internet world see you can't spell your favorite characters name correctly. "You're" and "Your" are also major problems. Text in a font that is the exact same color as part of the background leading to some funny lines, such as: "Believe In Your elf!" If the letter "S" in "Yourself" is the same color as the background image it won't show up...leading to what was an inspirational, spirit raising statement to become more like something you would say to a D&D player or fan of "Lodoss War". Go Deedlit! Elves rule! I think I covered it all. Hopefully this actually answered some questions and made some sense. (I'm sleepy, gomen!) Please feel free to post any concerns, questions, rants and raves (hopefully more raves than rants!) in this thread or if you are more comfortable PM or email me and I can address your concerns individually. I truly believe that we, all the members regardless of what our status on the sites, make the network what it is: The best place to spend time while on the internet.

I am sorry but leaving personal messages on the boards is really not the best way to contact someone. If this person is an artist who submits to theOtaku then you should leave a comment under that particular wallpaper. On theO you can also look up members by their member name. If they are a member of the OB then look up their info in the "Members List" in the side menu bar and PM and/or email them. Or you can leave a note in your signature that they may see. An entire thread dedicated just for one person is really not a topic of quality discussion for the rest of the boards members. Please make sure your topic is something that the members can all participate in and not just a personal message to one member. Because of the lack of discussion value in this thread I am locking it. If you have questions on posting quality please feel free to PM myself or any of the other moderators. -Panda

Make sure your submissions meet the guidelines. The images submitted are scanned clearly and not fuzzy or faded. The number one reason why pictures are denied is because of poor image quality. The next thing to remember is that the image, if containing text, cannot have inappropriate language on it. Nudity is also not allowed. Also make sure it is anime or gaming related, after all we are an anime/gaming focused website. :catgirl: Every single fan art piece is reviewed daily, often several times in one day. They are either approved or denied. As of right now I can say that there are no pieces waiting for approval. There is no backlog and the submissions section of the site is one that is always up to date. If your piece did not show up make sure it is within the guidelines then re-submit. If you still have questions about it please feel free to email me the image and I can tell you why it was denied. But as I mentioned before, the main reason images are denied is due to poor image quality. Edit: I forgot to mention that you need to wait 48 hours before re-submitting a piece. The reason we ask for this is because some people get a bit overly excited about their artwork and submit the same piece several times in one day which slows down the approval process since we have to deny the duplicates. After you have a proven track record of sticking to the rules your member status will change from "member" to "senior member" and that means you do not have to go through the approval process and your submissions are automatically approved. You still have to stick to the rules, you just don't have to have each and every piece reviewed before being published on the site.

Since this is a question concerning the site itself I am going to move it over to the Suggestion and Feedback Forum. On topic: I would have to say there is not age limit here. Anime fans who want to socialize with other fans should have no age limit. It is much like the people you can see attending conventions. Everything from parents with newborn babies, kids, teenagers, adults and senior citizens. TheOtaku is much the same way. That is one of the great things about anime, there is no age limit to the fandom. On the site I know of members in their 50's but an exact number I am not sure about.

[quote name='Submission Guidelines for theOtaku.com'] * Wallpapers can consist of modified screen shots (or official artwork / manga scans) or your own artwork, but cannot include the artwork of others. This is plagiarism.[/quote] The quote that Rene' is referring to is the reminder right before submitting work. It is there to remind you of the above rule I posted before submitting. Using officially licensed art is not the same as using someones fan art of the same work. This is saying that you can't use the fan art of artists like Druihd who does beautiful Inu Yasha fan art. You can use Rumiko Takahashi's art books, manga and the anime itself. Official = Good. Fan Art made by someone other than you = Bad. Please keep in mind that some members have "Senior Member" abilities to submit work without going through the approval process because they have shown that they meet the quality requirements. This of course doesn't mean they won't break the rules later on. Some senior members have been banned or their account frozen for breaking the rules after they were given the trust to submit on their own. This is where the moderators and the other members come in to help monitor the site. We police ourselves. I understand when taking the one reminder as a stand alone rule it isn't specific as to what is "fan art" and what is "official art". This, thus implying, that all submission are plagiarized. I will see if we can be more specific in that reminder note. That last reminder rule before submitting was more like your mom telling you to "Be careful!" when leaving the house for the day. She isn't going to sit there and remind you of every single thing she wants you to be careful of since you should already know from what she has warned you about before.

Welcome to the OtakuBoards tsukasa13! Since your questions is about the workings of the site, or in this case not working, it is best to post your inquiry in the Technical Support forum. For that reason I am going to move this thread over to that forum. Hopefully someone over there will have an answer for you. :catgirl: -Panda

Welcome to the OtakuBoards Broken Thumb! We have a very high standard when it comes to posting quality. Your post will not generate conversation beyond, if you are lucky, a name of someone in your area who plays D&D. Questions like this are best suited for your signature which I see you have already done. Due to the lack of conversation direction with this thread I am going to lock it. If you have any questions on posting or about the boards please feel free to PM myself or any of the other moderators on the boards. Best of luck in your search for some D&D players in your area! -Panda

What would I do if anime died out? I would be sad. I would have many friends out of jobs. I would have to watch the anime I have on DVD until the end of time. It wouldn't be the end of the world but it would definitely change things for me. I would probably play a lot of video games. I have been in a Final Fantasy kick lately so I would just continue on with that and other games. I would more than likely get back into music. I use to be really into music. No so much anymore because my anime obsession has taken over. I use to go to concerts at least once a month. Now I save that money and go to Anime Expo in California every year. With no anime I would spend it on music again. Going to concerts, buying CD after CD, downloading music from iTunes...that sort of thing. I would probably crochet and bake more. Maybe take up a hobby that gets me out of the house like gardening. I would be a, dare I say it, normal housewife.