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| transmission :: Random thoughts |
[25 Aug 2010|06:01pm] |
++ Brandon Morrow's breaking ball is the stuff dreams are made of.
++ Why do all shooters seemingly require a tutorial when all of them control exactly the same?
++ I'm more impressed with what Nier has done in its first six hours than what Mass Effect 2 did in 30 hours.
++ RIP Satoshi Kon
++ You must be one annoying fuck of a pest for people to not even want to sit close to you at work.
++ Going to Nagoya in September for Nagoya Street Battle! Looking forward to seeing some people I haven't met up with in years.
++ Went to a coworker's birthday party/photo exhibition last night. Good times, and although I don't really know anything about good photography, I know that I liked what I saw.
++ I have a story that I want to write but I don't have the time to do it. I'm thinking of possibly picking up something more portable than my current laptop -- which is pretty beastly -- so that I can work on it during the commute to and from work, or on the weekend when I'm out studying/pimping.
++ I also need to study Japanese more but I haven't had the time because I've been somewhat obsessed with working out on the weekend and then retreating to my humble abode so that I don't spend too much money or eat too much.
++ Do you think the feeling of nostalgia is going to be a foreign concept now? With the technology we have nowadays, there's no more digging up old photos or videos or whatnot in the attic, which is convenient, but you also lose that feeling of actually discovering those old mementos. It's how I also feel about reading books as opposed to e-books. I don't think I can get used to e-books because I really like feeling my finger turn the page, or flipping through a book to find the exact page I was reading the day before without the use of a bookmark or creased page.
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| transmission :: Wedding tux? |
[17 Aug 2010|01:29am] |
I think I found the perfect one for me. What do you think? Come on, be honest.
Oooh, how about this? This is a bit more conservative, and it's all white! Perfect for a wedding, if I do say so myself.
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| transmission :: Planned purchases |
[05 Aug 2010|05:19pm] |
September
Ryu ga Gotoku (PSP)
October
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2
Vanquish
Fable III
December
Ninokuni (DS)
Vanquish is a maybe in October... it's a single player game that's 8000yen in a month where I already want to buy two other titles. On one hand, something tells me to pick it up ASAP, finish it quickly and then sell it back to get one of the other two. On the other hand, I feel like with Bayonetta, I may want to keep it in the collection of games that I want to keep around for reference, much like I did with Shadow of the Colossus, Psi-Ops, Mark of Kri and more recently, Bayonetta and Demon's Souls. I know that I probably won't keep around Fable III for very long, but who knows...
Thankfully, this year is going to be light on purchases compared to last year. I can at least sell of Ryu ga Gotoku as soon as I get through that to finance the other stuff I want to buy later on too.
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| transmission :: Tokyo weekend! |
[03 Aug 2010|05:13pm] |
Had a going away party for a coworker on Friday, so went to that and it was good. Was hoping a certain someone would get punched the fuck out but that didn't happen apparently. Went to Monte to play some Virtua Fighter, and then got on the night bus to head for Tokyo.
With Ibuki gone for the past 10 days -- she went to Munich/Vienna with her mom and little sister -- I've had a lot of time to myself to do stuff, and going to Tokyo was one of those things. I mainly went because my friend Alex is writing his thesis and needed to interview me. Rather than him coming to Osaka, I figured I'd go to Tokyo to see some people. I was in Tokyo in March for GodsGarden, but I didn't see any of my old friends, so I thought this would be the perfect time to see some of them.
I arrived in Tokyo at 7am, took a shower at a manga cafe and then killed time in Shinjuku Sportsland playing Virtua Fighter until Alex showed up. We did the interview, which was pretty interesting. His thesis is based on non-Japanese Asians living and working in Japan, and it was fun to help him out with it! Afterwards, we met up with Jon and Jonnyram for some dinner at this fancy little place where we had lamb nabe. Mmmm, good! I went back to my capsule hotel after that.
Now, this is actually the first time ever that I stayed at a capsule hotel, and I was surprised at how nice it was. They had their own shower/onsen area, masseuse area and recreation (TV/PC) area. The capsule itself was actually really spacious; I was able to fit my bag inside without any discomfort, even though I could've just thrown all of that stuff into my assigned locker.
So on Sunday I hung out with Woo, Justin and Alan at BARBACOA. MEAT CHALLENGE BABY. Mmm, so good! The problem with Barbacoa is that their food is so damn good, but after you gorge yourself on it, you wonder why the hell you ate so much! Your stomach feels like it's going to burst, but you never regret going there. It's a weird feeling, heh.
Once I parted ways with those three, I headed down to Yokohama to see Yurimi, who's working in Lumine inside Yokohama station. It's been over a year since I've seen her! She's cute as always. :P She told me she may be moving back to Kansai since her company is expanding into the area and they'd want a local girl working there.
My nightbus was scheduled to leave at 12:30am, and because they were having fireworks in Minato Mirai that weekend, I decided to bum around for a couple of hours instead of trying to squeeze in more meetups. Sorry to those who I didn't see this time around! I'll try to schedule things better... and perhaps actually mention I'll be in Tokyo a week or so earlier. :P
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| transmission :: Advice |
[23 Jul 2010|12:31pm] |
"Well, I'm not you."
This is the second time in about three months that someone has said this to me. It actually stings to hear this because it says a lot of things. It's part intimidation, jealousy and frustration. This time around, I heard this from a student that I tutor in English during the evenings. She wanted to know how to properly study some phrases so I told her about when I first came to Japan and how I spent a lot of hours going through the vocab and grammar and through brute force, memorizing kanji and sentence structure. I told her that perhaps she should try this method if she wants to improve her English ability, and she said she didn't want to do it, because she's not me and can't dedicate the time to do it the way I did it.
It got me to thinking that perhaps the way that I give advice is the wrong way to go about it; I often use personal ancedotes to support my opinions, and maybe that comes off as self-praise, as if I'm saying "man, I'm so great! Why can't you be as great as me?"
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| transmission :: A conversation |
[22 Jul 2010|12:57pm] |
Walking around with my fiance, we took a look at some of the real estate agencies around, since we'll inevitably be living together. Just as we're leaving, she says "hey, let's take one of the free papers they have", and I said we didn't need it right now, because it's a little bit too early to be looking through those things. We are getting married in two years, after all, not in the next couple of months. Of course, she punches me right in the stomach, takes a magazine and says we can read this at home. Fine, okay, I have no problem with that later.
Ten seconds later...
"This is heavy...", and tries to hand it to me to carry.
lawl.
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| transmission :: Japanese politics |
[12 Jul 2010|12:45am] |
They really are a fickle bunch here when it comes to their leaders, huh? They practically kick out every leader they get without even giving them a year to prove themselves, and now it seems like they're willing to go back to a party that's dominated the government for the past 50 years, after they themselves voted for "change".
Yeesh.
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| transmission :: Peace Walker localization |
[10 Jul 2010|09:38am] |
My favorite title this year so far is Peace Walker, and one of the more memorable moments in the game is the torture scene. In the Japanese version, it's a little bit odd, but it actually works well in my mind given that the character administering the torture proclaims to be a scientist and not interested in what everyone else is doing. So it surprises me to find out that the North American version is actually localized quite differently, and actually changes the character in the process. I'm not sure I like this kind of change because it really messes around with the story, and it gives me the impression that westerners really wouldn't buy into the idea of a person using laughter as a form of torture.
This is the Japanese version (around the 2 minute mark)
This is the North American version (again, around the 2 minute mark)
Is the change as dramatic to you as it is to me? I like the Japanese version a lot more than the overseas version. It really came out of left field when I was expecting some standard kind of scene, and it'll remain in my mind for that very reason.
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| transmission :: 6 Year Anniversary |
[24 Jun 2010|09:03am] |
6 years ago today I set foot in Japan for the first time. A lot has changed!
This is me now!
I made the obligatory "I'm here and I'm safe" blog post on the day that I arrived, so here's the first semi-meaningful blog entry I made when I settled into my new place, 6 years ago.
"Another update... forgive my punctuation, but the keyboard at this internet cafe really sucks, heh. I wont be able to get an internet connection for a while, possibly in the next two weeks or so, hopefully. I`ll be getting a phone soon, so maybe I will do some phone updates as well. The weather sucks here! haha. Its like 30 degrees, plus humidity, plus its raining intermittently. Apparently I came right at the beginning of the `bad` season. OH JOY. but other than that, Ive been having a blast. My roommates are really nice, and there are a trio of Aussie girls two floors above us that are also very very nice. I think I lucked out with my roommates and neighbors here. There`s a decent arcade with VF4 Evo and The Rumble Fish, as well as a total of three game stores that I`ve seen so far.
Oh, and the supermarket that I went to yesterday was playing the fuckin` Star Wars theme song when I was looking around. I fucking love Japan!"
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| transmission :: El Shaddai |
[22 Jun 2010|09:42am] |
Second trailer
I will buy the fuck out of this. So long as games that are as visually diverse as this come out of Japan, the West can honestly go blow itself.
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| transmission :: Mocking... |
[17 Jun 2010|05:31pm] |
I got a 68% on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test's mock test that I took over the weekend, which is a passing mark. To pass you need to score 60% or higher on every section and I did that decisively.
But I also did the mock test while at Starbucks, drinking a coffee, eating a scone, and listening to some podcasts. So I'm taking off 5% because I took the test in such a relaxed environment, which leaves me at a potential 63% for this test. With only two weeks left there's not much else I can do to improve my chances of passing the test, so it's going to come down to whether or not I'm having an off day or not. Hopefully I can get a good night's sleep and eat a good breakfast before the test starts.
I'm most worried about the listening exercises since that was the worst area when I took the 3kyuu almost 5 years ago, but the mock test had a surprisingly manageable listening section so perhaps that may not be my downfall. Anyway, Saturday and Sundays are being owned by Japanese study! Gonna have to work my ass off for that 2kyuu!
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| transmission :: E3 Short Thoughts |
[16 Jun 2010|06:22am] |
Microsoft just got its ass kicked by the combination of Nintendo and Sony, hah!
The 3DS looks soooooooo god damn good, and the games announced are a mix of new concepts with established characters. In particular, Kirby Epic Yarn looks FUCKING AMAZING. The fact that the 3DS gets the second best Zelda game (Ocarina of time) and the best Metal Gear Solid game (Snake Eater), PLUS a new Kid Icarus, Street Fighter, Resident Evil and god knows what else already makes this the system to beat now.
And then I saw the new Zelda and Epic Mickey. Sweet jesus, it's like Nintendo said "what, you guys think you can top us? NUH UH".
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| transmission :: Oi... |
[14 Jun 2010|08:53am] |
I had a dream last night that I was helping out Ibuki and her mom at their restaurant, only they weren't running a cafe but a huge BBQ event. And Ibuki's mom managing the grill, asking me to make it bigger so that it would be the world's biggest BBQ. I did that and then she threw on several dozen sausages and was cooking them to perfection. Then she poked skewers into them to get them ready to serve....
...and then I woke up. Fuck.
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| transmission :: After the first six months |
[07 Jun 2010|05:17pm] |
Let's do this! It's already June... sweet lordie.
The big thing for the past six months has been trying to control my diet and lose weight. I've set out to lose 15 kilos... eventually, and I'm happy to say that in six months I've lost around 9 - 10 kilos already. I didn't make some sort of silly new year's resolution to do this though, it was just a goal of mine to do it, although Ibuki did say that I would have to lose that much weight before our wedding day. Well, I'm well over halfway there and the wedding isn't for another two years, heh heh. The secret to the weight loss has been to maintain the weight during the workweek, and then work my ass off at the gym during the weekend and not eat anything too unhealthy at the same time. This has worked well since I can eat somewhat regularly while at work, which has prevented me from going batshit crazy. During the workweek I also refrain from having a medium-sized dinner, usually opting for coffee with either yogurt or a banana, or all three. Lately I haven't been able to maintain that because I've been going out a lot, but starting from this week I'll try to get back on that regime again to see if I can't lose the rest of the weight by the end of this year. I don't expect myself to be able to accomplish this, but I'll give it the good ol' Canadian boy try! More important than losing the weight is going to be the challenge of changing my diet so that it's healthier.
I feel that because I've been concentrating on my workout so much, I've neglected my Japanese studies a lot, despite actually studying every weekend in preparation for the JLPT in July. I only recently finished up my reading comprehension study, and now all I have left to do is work on my listening comprehension, but I feel that a month is really not enough to improve on this, especially at the 2kyuu level. The worst part about this situation is that I've heard that if you fail one section, you actually fail the entire test, which was not the case in the past. So even if I got near perfect marks on every section but fail the listening portion, I fail the test. Grrr.
Anyway!
Best Game: Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker -- It's worth the 40/40 that Famitsu gave it, no matter how people want to spin it. I was really disappointed with MGS4, so I went into this game expecting the worst, but it turned out to be beautifully presented, with smart design choices that totally gel with the portability of the system it's on. I guess I'll write up something more extensive later when I have time. Runner up would be Tales of Vesperia even though it came out two years ago. It still holds up very well and it was a pleasure to run through.
Best Movie: Up -- I know it was last year, but I didn't get around to watching it until early this year. Fantastic movie though, I really enjoyed the entire thing, although the first 30 minutes was definitely the best. I guess Hurt Locker would be a close runner-up.
Best Book: None -- I finished the Tales of Earthsea quartet last March, and ever since then I've been on a book burnout. I recently picked up a collection of O. Henry's short stories and I still have Dave King's book to finish up though, but only recently have I moved out of the burnout phase, so I'll be starting one of those two very soon.
Best Sports Moment: Crosby's game-winning goal at the Olympics, without a doubt. There is no runner-up to that one!
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| transmission :: The End of 24 |
[26 May 2010|09:03am] |
Wow, what a great way to end the series. I had zero complaints about how it went down, and all major loose ends were tied up nicely.
My TV schedule is now empty because the only shows I now watch on a regular basis are How I Met Your Mother and Glee. Most of my TV time is dedicated to sports so that will probably eat up the time that's now available... it's kind of sad that the series that I started watching in university, that was with me when I moved to Japan, and then moved to a new job, is now over.
Good night, sweet prince.
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| transmission :: Foot, AGAIN. |
[16 May 2010|06:20pm] |
On Monday my foot was kind of fucked up but I still went to work regardless. There was pain around my left ankle and heel but I managed to get through the day without too much trouble. On Tuesday I decided to take the day off because it was still hurting, and that pain lasted until today. It's still hurting but it's not as pronounced as earlier in the week, which is good. The problem is that this has been happening on a yearly basis so I'm lead to believe this may be a chronic injury that I have, and that I need to get it examined by the doctors more thoroughly. I've had x-rays done on my foot before and there's no sign of a heel spur (which I initially thought it was), so I think it may be related to the muscles surrounding the heel rather than the bones itself. I'll have to get it checked out sooner, but luckily it feels much better now.
And yes... I did go to the gym today despite this injury lol. But I only did some swimming at 3/4 speed so it didn't strain my foot at all, thank god. And thank god despite taking a week off from the gym my weight didn't balloon up. I was afraid it was going to be a lot worse than it was.
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| transmission :: Digital Download Dilemma |
[08 May 2010|02:26am] |
So the other day, I was talking to someone online because I wanted to buy Peace Walker, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to buy the digital version or just go with the UMD version. I figured that with the digital version, since all the data is already on the memory stick, loading and such would be faster, but in the end I went with the UMD version simply because it gives me the option of selling it back once I'm finished with it.
Despite having two iTunes accounts (Japan and Canada), I've only purchased 5 or 6 applications, and none of them have been more than $5. I simply balk at buying something online that's over that limit because there's no way to resell them once I'm finished, and it's disappointing to know that the companies behind the most popular DD services aren't going to bother implementing such a service. It may be old fashioned, but I really enjoy buying items that are not only tangible, but can also be some sort of asset to me down the road. I've been able to buy whatever games I want, finish them and then sell them off once I'm finished to facilitate future purchases, and it's great because I know that there'll be someone out there who will want to buy my copy. On top of that I can swap games/CDs/movies with my friends if they want to borrow something from me, or vice versa, which you can't really do with digital copies that easily. Of course it's possible but it's not as easy as handing over the disc to someone, which is what I want.
Ultimately it comes down to choice, and not having the choice of being able to sell what I purchased irks me, especially when I know I'm never going to use it again. There's no way I would've bought stuff like Hokuto Musou or the new Star Trek movie if I knew I couldn't sell them off later on, and sadly I doubt companies will set up any type of trade/barter system to facilitate this. Sigh.
Ideally, what I would like to happen is for companies to enact some sort of refund/trade-in system. Imagine you're downloading, say, Halo 4 for $60, with a trade-in value that decreases at increasing intervals.
- Trade in the game 24 hours after purchase: $40 back
- Trade in the game 7 days after purchase: $30 back
- Trade in the game 30 days after purchase: $10 back
Obviously these are just numbers I'm pulling out of my ass, but I think this system would work, and it gets rid of the used game market that so many developers hate while still giving customers choice on how they spend their money.
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| transmission :: Golden Week |
[06 May 2010|12:45pm] |
So Golden Week is usually the time when people relax and do something fun... a vacation, watch a couple of movies, go to the beach, whatever. Me? Well, Ibuki was at her restaurant the entire time, so I didn't feel like going out without her, and since I made a deal with her that I'd lose 15 kilos by our wedding date, not to mention the fact that I also applied for the 2nd level Japanese Language Proficiency Test, I realized that this was probably the best week to kick things into high gear.
Well, first, last Thursday was a national holiday too, so I went out to play softball with my coworkers and friends. We got our asses kicked but it was fun and I got my usual hits. The field we were playing on sucked because left field didn't actually have a fence, so if you happened to hit a strong grounder into left field and it got past the fielder, it was basically a homerun. On the other hand, right field was fenced off so people were just playing me deep, which resulted in a lot of flyouts. Anyway, after that we went to dinner then I went home, nothing too exciting.
Saturday kicked off Golden week, so I was off from work until Wednesday, but I didn't do anything other than study, play games and work out. I had a small gathering for Super Street Fighter 4 on Saturday, and we also went to the batting cages to practice and played a bit of ping pong. Good times, good times! From Sunday until Wednesday I was at the gym for a good 2 hours or so, and then afterwards I would go to Starbucks to study up, and then back home to unwind and play some games. I got some good studying in, and I was also able to beat Tales of Vesperia, finally. It took 45 hours, but it was a very good 45 hours! Really enjoyed the entire experience and playing that really shows you how lacking a game like Final Fantasy 13 is. Hell, it shows how lacking something like Dragon Age is too.
All in all, I got a lot of good out of Golden Week even though it wasn't necessarily different from my normal weekend. I was able to drop a good 2 pounds over the break, study up, and play some games. Now... back to work. :/
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