Since I constantly keep forgetting how to do this I'll write it down here and then I'll know where to find it just like my  Regular Expressions post.

In web development you often need to allow the customer/user to choose options and often they'll have need to select a type of something. An example would be to choose what type of account and on the back end the accounts types are stored in and enum. Since I don't want to change every page where I've got a control with type information when I add or remove an item from the enum, it's best to just bind the control to the enum in the first place.

  //Create an enum enum AccountType
  {
    Checking,
    Savings
  }
  //Assume we've got some methods on a page.
  protected void Page_Load(object o, EventArgs e)
  {
    if(!Page.IsPostBack)//Only do it on the intitial load.
    {
      //DropDownList ddl will hold our data
      ddl.DataSource = Enum.GetNames(typeof(AccountType));
      ddl.DataBind();
    }
  }
  protected void ddl_SelectedIndexChanged(object o,EventArgs e)
  {
    //Now get the selected Value out of the control and back into an enum
    AccountType acc = (AccountType)Enum.Parse(ddl.SelectedValue);
    //Do stuff
   }
source: How to Bind Enum Types to bindable Controls in ASP.Net....  on Geeks with Blogs

 

I failed Microsoft's 70-536 Exam today.  I'm extremly frustrated since I received a 675 score which appears to have been one question short of a passing. (700 is a passing score). I used the standard Traning Kit book as well as Trancender Preparation exams and I even attended a training course provided by my work.  Although I'd be the first admit the training class was completely useless since we just went through the book,(far to slowly),  In fact I can't recall the last time the class actually met... I've been working on my own and I felt I'd covered the book quite well.  Still when the test is seemly independent of the book what can you do.

The test itself was filled with far too many questions about AppDomains, COM (is this a .Net exam?) and CAS questions, stuff that I'm highly unlikely to ever use and am very week on.  If there had been even one more question on Generics or Collections or Cryptography or Serialization or Mail or even Graphics (my strong points) I'd have passed.  I know there are different tests, and the C Trancender test I took seemed slightly similar at least in general content (a truly godless amount of App Domains questions).  I always found that test to be the most difficult of the three pre-set test exams, so there's a little hope that the retake will be easier...

Another irritation is the result sheet which breaks down the test generally by a very general section( such as drawing, Globalization, and Text Manipulation)  as a bars running across the page.  On the left is Needs improvement and on the right is Strong.  Naturally you have no idea how many questions are in each category, or even if Microsoft weighs each sections equally. All I'm left with is an apparently arbitrary score since I don't even know how many I got wrong. Is this test scored out of 1000? 900? 950? Who knows.

I'm taking these stupid tests since it's required by my company and I'd like to get a raise this year, but my time is running out.  It would be nice if I could take the test again next week but the next opening at the Test Center isn't until November!!! It would be much easier if Microsoft was still offering Test through Vue, it would double the number of places I could go and maybe I'd get a test in on time.  I'd actually hoped to spend more time studying but today was the only opening at the Test Center this month.   thus there not much chance of passing two tests this year, but the only ray of hope is that I really only have to pass one.

I've finally got all my posts up on this new blog!  It was a bit tying although I found an extremely helpful post on RedGreenBlur, Subtext, Godaddy and redgreenblur, to guide me through installing SubText on my cheepo Godaddy hosting account. The directions were ideal and soon I had the blogging engine set up.

Now importing my old posts from Wordpress took a bit of work since the blogML plugin for Wordpress didn't create ideal BlogML and my Higurashi no naku koro ni Post kept breaking the import. sadly it took me far too long to realize this.  Ultimately I just had to comment out that post, copy the text and enter it into subtext as a new post.

After that I only had one more issue involving the entryList.aspx file was missing from RedBook skins control directory in the 1.9.5 Install. Once I pulled the file out of the source I could browse my archives

Finally, I need to get a redirect set up so the few links to my old blog will no longer be broken. And I need to start customizing the look of this blog to resemble my old version.  It would also be good to get the [spoiler] Some Text[/spoiler] functionality back as well....  So much to do....

It's been awhile since I put up an anime review and considering the fact that season two of Higurashi is now airing in Japan, I ought to write something about the first season. First of all, this anime was based upon a visual novel. A visual novel, despite the seeming contradiction in terms, is basically it's a story with music, sound and still pictures. Kinda like an RPG but without the fancy animations, interactive stuff and flashy fight scenes to get in the way of the story. Anyhow the main storyline is divided into eight arcs which are then subdivided into two groups, Question Arcs and Answer Arcs. Naturally the question arcs introduce the story and characters and provide enough details to confuse and addict the viewer, while the Answer Arcs, provide the information understand and solve the mystery.(Though obviously the first season leaves out two arcs, so not everything is revealed yet. Hopefully this will be rectified by season II)

Each Question Arc has an associated Answer Arc which shows which another view of the original question arc so the viewer can make sense of the initial arc. And I assume once one goes through all the arcs there will be enough information to understand the entire mystery. Sadly the first season of the anime does not provide enough information, since it only covers the first six arcs, all four question arcs but only the first two answer arcs. Each arch runs a different scenario where tragedy(except hopefully the last arc, Matsuribayashi-hen, which I've heard is the good end) and then in the parlance of our times, things reboot for the next arc. The new arc then starts with the same setting, but with different parameters, so each arcs runs a little(or a lot) differently.

Setting:

The story takes place in Hinamizawa, a rural town in the mountains of Japan, naturally you'd expect it to be the den of much villainy. The main events happen in June of 1983, before the local festival, Watanagashi (Cotton Drifting). Our hero Keichi just moved to Hinamizawa from a more civilized location (Tokyo? Cleveland?) or at the very least a place without killer Lolis. Their he enrolls in the school and joins the after class activities club where he meets Mion,Rena,Sotoko and Rika, who + Shion make up the killer Loli brigade and oddly enough they are also the heroines of the story.

The Town of Hinamizawa has been the scene of quite a few disturbing events of the previous five years starting with the oppitiion to the building of a dam which would have drowned the town. During the protests several of the Dam workers and a supervisor were grisly murdered on Watanagashi in 1979, but one of the perpetrators is still at large. Then during the festival the next year, a dam supporter and his wife (Satoko and Satoshi's parents) died while on vacation. Again tragedy stuck on the third year when Rika's father was found dead and her mother vanished. Last year, a Satoko's aunt was murdered and a Satoko's brother Sataoshi vanished, which has naturally given the festival a grim reputation. It is often whispered around the village that the murders and disappearances are wrath of Oshiro-sama, the local diety in whose honor the festival of Watanagashi is celebrated.

Onikakushi-hen (鬼隠し編)
Spirited Away by the Demon Chapter

Intro to Hinamizawa, Keichi hears about the grizzly series of murders during the Watanagashi festival from an odd bird watcher Tomitake. However when Keichi asks his friends, Mion and Rena about them, they deny anything happened. Then after on the night of then Tomitake claws out his own throat and the Nurse Takano disappears under vary suspicious circumstances; a cop Oishi, seeks out Keichi. Oishi is suspicious of Keichi's friends and wishes that Keichi act as an informant on his friends. He then proceeds to enlighten Keichi on his friends past such as how Mion was deeply involved in the Dam resistance movement while Rena went psycho at her old school and smashed all the windows. Later while walking home, Keichi complains about secrets and Rena confronts Keichi about speaking to Oishi.

Conveniently for the plot, Keichi's parents choose this time to head out to more civilized parts of Japan leaving him home alone. Mion and Rena stop by to give him some stuffed rice balls (of all things, I think I'd rather have burger) so he wouldn't starve. Supposedly one of the Rice balls is specially made, now this ought to be a warning since girls don't just randomly stop by with food, so it is no surprise that Keichi finds, to his dismay, that the rice balls of friendliness are actually stuffed with needles!

This episodes causes Keichi to be a bit paranoid and to carry the baseball bat he found in an abandoned locker for protection. However, when Rena pops up with a hatchet, things get rather harry and the next thing Keichi knows he wakes up back in his room with Mion and Rena. Mion whips out a syringe filled with goo that she skillfully injects into Keichi causing him to go berzerk and batter the girls into pieces. Afterward Keichi leaves a note for Oishi regarding the injection and a person Mion referred to as the diretor, before runing off. Keichi soon call Oishi on a secluded public phone an babbles about Oshirio-sama while ripping clawing out his throat. Later Oishi finds the a doctored version of the note Keichi left and the arc ends.

Watanagashi-hen (綿流し編)
Cotton Drifting Chapter

In this arc we're introduced to Mion's twin sister Shion. The odd thing about the twins is the fact that they live separately. Mion lives with her grandmother in Hinamizaw, while Shion live in Okinomiya, and works as Waitress at the Angle Mort restaurant. Now to make things even more confusing the both sisters have a tendency to impersonate the other when it suits them. This causes some conflict when Mion, who was unable to overtly express her crush on Keichi, impersonates Shion in order to bring Keichi tasty foods(in other words not, needle filled rice balls). This in tern sparks a somewhat friendly rivalry for Keichi’s attentions.

In this arc, Keichi doesn't learn about the murders until he's actually at the festival where he runs into Takano and Tomitake. During the actual Watanagashi ceremony, Shion drags Keichi off into the bushes in order to see what Takano and Tomitake are up too. They find the aforementioned duo breaking into one of the storage building behind the shrine and are invited to join in. Naturally for out of curiosity (and for plot advancement) they accept and enter the building. Inside they find a Statue of Oshiro-sama and a large amount of torture tools. It seems that the now peacefully village liked to torture people they didn't like, and that the peaceful seaming cotton drifting festival has some pretty dark roots.

The next day Mion grills Keichi regarding a break in at the shrine the night before, naturally keichi denies all invlovement and the matter seems to end there. Oishi pops up and does the same with the same result. Oishi also mentions how the Sonozaki's are the local Yakuza family and the Mion is in line to inherit the leadership off the underworld. However it's not until the evening that Shion informs him about Tomitaki's fate. Like the first arc (and all the future arcs) Toomitaki claws out his throat, but this time Takano didn't disappeared but was instead her body was found burned. She then gives the usual speil about Oshiro-sama's curse and how and equal number of people who died should equal the number of people missing.

Surprisingly Keichi doesn't immediately, instead the village chief disappears. He then runs across Rika who in her cryptic way promises to smooth things over for Keichi. Sadly this is the last time he sees her alive. Rika followed by Satoko soon vanish. Amazingly Rena wasn't behind it and actually acts as the sanest person in this arc. She puts on her detective hat and fingers Mion as the culprit. Keichi and Rena confront Mion, who confesses as to being the source of the disappearances. However, Rena being a romantic falls for the "just let me have 30 minuets with my boy before turning me in" line. Mion takes Keichi back to the cave of doom where he finds Shion in a cave of doom. While Keichi is entraced by a minamilyy dressed Shion, Mion smacks him on the head with a rock and straps him down to the table.

Mion claims she has been possessed by the demon and prepares to pound a few nails into keichi's fingers. Keichi asks that the demon leave Mion and spare Shion. This touches Mion, since he didn't ask anything for himself. While she hesitates, Oishi and the cops start breaking down the door. She only has time to zap him with a tazer.

In the final act, Mion had escaped and Keichi and Shion were rescues. However one night a day or so later, Mion lures Keichi out in the street and knife's him. Not long after Shion is found in pieces after she fell or was pushed from her apartment balcony. The final news was given to Keichi in the hospital, how the cops had found Mion at the bottom of a well, but that she'd died the day that Keichi and Shion had been rescued from the torture dungeon. So who stabbed Keichi? The last thing we see in this arc is a bloody Shion bring a hammer down upon poor Keichi. The guy doesn't seem to ketch a break in the arc. In fact the only one who comes off ok,(if you count having all your friends murdered as okay) is Rena.

Tatarigoroshi-hen (祟殺し編)
Curse Killing Chapter

This arc starts with the finding of murdered woman floating in a river, and everything gets darker and more confusing from here. Keichi's Parents leave him home along since they have business in a location(Canada?) where people are more normal. Naturally being your average incompetent anime lead, he tries to fry himself up some dinner and if it weren't for the intervention of Satoko, he'd have died in fiery inferno.

Unlike the previous arc which were focused on Rene, Mion and Shion the central heroine of this arc is Satoko. Keichi becomes really fond of little blonde prankster and wants to replace the brother who vanished a year ago. Unfortunately for our characters Satoko's uncle Teppi returns to Hinamizawa and makes Satoko his slave girl. With no one intervening, Keichi takes it upon himself to try and rectify the situation by removing the Uncle from Satoko's life with Satoshi's baseball bat. He plans to do it the night of the festival when everyone is partying in the village.

He follows through with his plot, but this doesn’t go completely according to plan. His first strike only knock teppi off his bike and Keichi has to chase him down in the woods. Afterwards he then is picked up by Takano as she's mysteriously driving through the woods. She offers to take him home since he seems tired and it's pouring rain. She then cracks a joke about barying dead bodies, which naturally freaks Keichi out. He then notices a bike looking strangely like Tomitaki's in the back seat, but that Takano claims is hers. She then drops off Keichi asking him to forget that he saw her and she promised to do the same since it "would be better that way." Keichi was a little unhinged after this and wishes that Oshiro-sama's would strike her.

At school the next day, Keichi's friends pretend that he was at the festival and everything was normal. Satoko even claims that her uncle's still alive. ?? So Keichi goes back to the scene of the crime to make sure that he didn't dream about the night before where he's caught by Oishi and some goons who ruff him up a bit and dig into what looks to be a freshly dug grave. However they find nothing. After this ruff treatment Keichi uses Oshiro-sama curse upon Oishi.

On the final day of Hinamizawa, Keichi determines to finish the job and make sure Teppi's dead. He grabs an ax and heads out to Satoko's house. However, all he finds is Satako clearly ill and slightly deranged, counting randomly in the bath. He tries to carry her to the doctor, but as he nears the clinic he finds it full of police, claiming the doctor had committed suicide. Also it seems that Takano has been found dead and Oishi's missing. At a loss he decides to take Satoko to Rika's place, during the trip Keichi starts going emo that all these deaths were caused by his cursing of these people, which naturally makes Satoko afraid and suspicious of him. When they get to Rika's shrine, they find Rika's dismembers corps. This basically breaks the last shred of sanity left in keichi, since never wished anything bad on Rika. Satoko thinks Keichi killed Rika and runs off pursued by Keichi. They come to a bridge and after some talking, Satoko snaps pushes Keichi off the bridge because she feels he's crazy and caused all the murders. As he false Keichi curses the entire town of Hinamizawa.

Now the scene changes to a T.V. report about the great Hinamizawa disaster where a large cloud of Carbon Dioxide bubbled out of the swamp and destroyed the entire village (causing world temperatures to rise alarmingly) and everyone in it, except for Keichi who was found alive.

Himatsubushi-hen (暇潰し編)
Time Wasting Chapter

This was the shortest arc and the only one to take place during the back story. This arc is setting during the Dam Resistance movement five years before the present of the main story.(so 1978). Then we follow the adventures of Akasaka, a cop sent from Tokyo to find the abducted grandson of a politicians involved with the Dam project. Akasaka becomes involved with Oishi and eventually finds the abducted boy, but does not apprehend the kidnappers. During his stay in Hinamazawa, he runs across Rika, who acts exceeding strange, seemingly displaying knowledge of the future, telling him about the horrible series of murders which will take place during the future years, and asking for his help. It is implied in this arc that the Sonozaki's are behind the kidnapping. .

Meakashi-hen(目明し編)
Eye Opening Chapter

 

This is the associated answer arc for Watanagashi-hen. Just about everything in this arc is a spoiler for it's associated question arc. [spoiler]we see the events of Watanagashi from Shion's point of view. First we learn about her love for Satoshi who had disappeared the year before. Before her disappearances the Sonzaki family had punished her for her indiscretions by ripping off three of her fingernails. Unfortunately for Shion, Satoshi, still vanished. Shion is devastated and during this period Takano approaches her and fills her head with conspiracy theory's regarding the Sonozaki's.

Just when her emotional wounds had started to heal, Mion cries about not receiving the doll from Keichi. This wakes jealously and her memories of Satoshi, which she had just about moved past. Coupled with her resentment of her family and the things Takano had told her set the stage for the tragedy.[/spoiler] With this arc more than a few of the red herrings planted during the question arcs are dispelled.

Tsumihoroboshi-hen (罪滅し編)
Atonement Chapter

 

This is the associated answer arc for Onikakushi-hen, unlike the previous arc, this is a different scenario than the question arc. Like the previous arc I'm not going to go too deeply into this since I don't want to give too much away. This arc focus on Rena, so as you imagine there is lots of crazy stuff going on. We get to hear her back story, such as she was originally called Reina, but her parents had some issues, or more precise her mother left her househusband father for a doctor. Rena, being the vengeful type could never forgive her and even changed her name to Rena.

In the present time, Rena discovers that her Dad's new "lady" is part of scheme to blackmail him out of his livelihood. So she takes her trusty cleaver and takes care of the dastardly lady and her partner (who happens to be Satoko's uncle Teppi's ) Her friends find out and after a touching scene promise to help her hide the bodies. (how did that old joke go?)

[spoiler] Sadly things don't go well after this since Rena is approached by Takano who fills her head with visions of deadly parasites from the marsh and evil plot by the Sonozaki's to regain influence using these critters. She takes Keichi an Oishi in as confidants, but soon she resorts to hiding out in her special place. Rena's slides into paranoid insanity, Keichi remembers the events of Onikakushi-henand how through his paranoia he beat to death his friends who were only trying to help him. Keichi resolves to not let this happen to Rena. [/spoiler] Rena becomes extremely paranoid, believing that bacteria from the swamp have infected her and in a plot Osama would be proud of, Rena holds the school hostage so that she can get her demands met regarding the Sonozakis. Keichi manages to use his confidant status to get enough freedom to find detonator, but is forced to face off with his friend in a duel to the death. It's a bat versus cleaver duel that end ups being so much fun it breaks Rena out of her insanity.

Things seem to have ended happily since the school didn't explode, but during the ending credits it appears that another arc has started so things aren't over yet.

[spoiler]Sadly later that night the great Hinamizawa gas disaster occurs killing everyone in the village.[/spoiler]

There is still more story which is being told in season two.

The Good

Higurashi is a truly entertainingly twisted story. It's nice to have the show play with the views minds by leading them down improper avenues of deductions. I really like the question/answer duology, in that the questions arc lay out mysteries and red herrings that are slowly revealed by the answer arcs. Now that I've gone over the first season I think I'm all prepared to properly enjoy the second.

The Bad

The animation tends to lag in some places and the facial contortions are overdone in some areas. Also, it can get a tad graphic in some places. Obviously, from the existence of a second season the story was much too complex to fit into one season, so some things were rushed which makes a confusing story even more so. Luckily the internets have information that was left out of the First season which greatly helped to make sense of the story.

Resources.

 

• I'd like extend some special thanks to the folks at Animesuki: Higurashi forum for taken the time to translate things left out of the anime. It made it much more enjoyable to watch with the extra pieces provided.
• Tips
• Poems by Frederica Bernkastel