Plans foiled again by blogging and the Internet

(tags game, book, Xbox 360, Trusty Bell, windows, English, failure)

I was going to relax by:

1. Playing some Trusty Bell (Eternal Sonata) on my Xbox 360
2. Finish up Shukufuku no Canpanella on my PC
3. Read some English fiction book, The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks

but, no, I had to blog and read up on my RSS feeds and auctions and the like.

BTW, Trusty Bell looks really beautiful. Vibrant colors and cell shading. I can't yet evaluate the game mechanics but at least it's not a menu fighter. And Aya Hirano (平野綾) as the main voice actress, ugh. Wait, no ugh, I need to just listen to her acting, not her.

I should have went... Street Fighter IV controller pad

(tags game, English, controller, Xbox 360)

First off, I got called on my misuse of English on a forum: "I should have went to the store...", which elicited a "I hope you're not teaching English (in Japan)". :-/ Ouch. I lack confidence in my Japanese, and now I just learned that my English is shot up in ways I haven't even noticed. It's like those people who don't know they are incompetent and grade themselves highly. I feel reluctant even to continue typing English right now. :-/ :-) haha, I turned off comments (I never had them anyway!) so... :-/

In any case, I should have gone to the Nipponbashi game import store with the quickness to pick up the Street Fighter IV third-party controller. It has the comforting D-pad (like a Sega Saturn controller) but the buttons are slightly different. I tried playing Shooting Love and Ikaruga and other shmup games recently and I am back to hating on the Xbox 360 standard controller again. Why can't Hori make a mainly D-pad based controller for the Xbox 360? They make enough joysticks already.

BTW, I got age "23" for my "shmup age" in Shooting Love. Is it sad that I feel good about this? :-)

Chrono Trigger in English

(tags RPG, Chrono Trigger, Dual Screen, English, Japanese)

I was totally surprised that Chrono Trigger for the DS is also in English as well as Japanese. W00t!

Dated sci-fi but it's not too bad: Anything You Can Do by Randall Garrett

(tags science fiction, free, English)

I just wanna say right now that I'm reading more Free Speculative Fiction Online. One of the stories that stuck in my mind is Anything You Can Do by Randall Garrett (1963). I expect some antiquated plot devices and theories but there are always surprises.

The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

(tags book, English, French)

I just finished reading The Virgin Blue, a novel by Tracy Chevalier. I don't exactly remember when I got this book, but it must have been during a trip to Spain. I was enthralled by Chevalier's break out novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, some years ago so I decided to get some more by this author. I finished this book within a day.

If you had an opportunity to find out more about your ancestors would you do it? This book seems to match some aspects of Chevalier's life: American living in Europe, infatuated with ancestors and/or history. It seems typical for a first novel. I was pleasantly suprised with the distant connection (as opposed to close) between the painting on the cover of the book and the actual story.

I drew some parallels to the 20th century's main character's plight of living in a foreign country and sticking out like a sore thumb, to my own experience. Are there some things that I do that label me as "foreigner" that I am not aware of? Well, I don't paint my shutters any ghastly colors, though. Still I can related to people insisting on speaking English to me when I try my best to speak their language.

Also, this book uses some French phrases that are beyond the reach of my high-school French, with no directly explanation in English as to what they mean. I felt dissatisfied with that, and with myself for forgetting the French. I did look up some place names that the book mentions. Ah France, shaped like a cow's head.

I want to scream at the irrationality of the people in the 16th century. Are we that close to animals? Maybe we are.

I am searching the reading guide questions now. It brings a little clarity to my "review". For example, I never considered the psoriasis as more of a coincidence between the 16th century heroine and her 20th century counterpart. Maybe she should just go back to the States because she never had the outbreak there. Haha, my attempts to keep this entry spoiler free make it irriatingly vague.

Overdosing on Mraz

(tags music, artist, English)

As I said I recently got that Jason Mraz Mr. A-Z CD. I've already played this album many many times, so many times that I wonder if I will get sick of it.

Today I had some time to check out more Mraz videos ("YouTube surfing"). I found more live concerts, some of them in San Diego, my hometown. I caught up with some of the songs I haven't heard yet. Also there was different type of clip that I did enjoyed: the Investigative Report - Invisible Mic News "Golden Record" video where he "unboxes" his Golden Record he received for selling 500,000 records.

I really like his image, positive and optimistic. Well also melancholy and crazy. I also wish he was more popular.

I only have three of his CDs, all mainstream releases. I found that he had some other albums available, through shops like iTunes Store. I do have an aversion to buying DRM digital music, so I didn't go overboard.

Maybe in another couple of months I'll get his other older releases, but not now. Moderation, yes, moderation.

Teary eyes: Mr. A-Z and Lovely Complex

(tags music, English, anime, season 2007/04)

Two things today made me melancholy. Jason Mraz's Mr. A-Z album which I just ripped today, but I seemed to have played countless times. Especially "Please Don't Tell Her". "That I'm crazy like the rest of us.../and I'm crazier when I'm next to her." Aaah. Japanese release has printed English lyrics with Japanese translation. w00t.

And I started watching the anime version of Lovely Complex (ラブコン), with the trajectory of manga to movie to video game (PS2). I watched episodes 1 to 9 non-stop and I loved every minute of this romance comedy with Osaka manzai. It feels like the first arc is over though, so I wonder how it will turn out in the second half. I feel guilty though, since I have the PS2 game since last year but I haven't played it.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't grab episode 12 of Lovely Complex. I'm hating myself.

Harry Potter : finished him

(tags book, fantasy, English)

Looks like I snapped up that previous shot too soon. I blazed through the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. J.K. Rowling gave me an series finale that I could anticipate, but not in the way I could ever imagine. I am satisfied and contented with it.

I couldn't find the first 3 books for this shot, unfortunately.

I did have some nagging questions, and I tried searching this book for it. I realized I did not remember all of the Harry Potter lore. Fortunately we live during the Internet era, so I was able to find answers. (spoiler link 1, 2) And I agree with this review from Jenny Sawyer of the Christian Science Monitor (spoiler link 3). I didn't finish the series because of Harry Potter the character. Rowling left some bite-sized take-away messages, but I suspect I will forget them before the week is over.

Now I don't have an immediate urge to read the series again, I want to toss these books away. The next time I encounter Harry Potter will probably be on the big screen.

Oh and give me some sci-fi to counter all the fantasy I have read.

Harry Potter : finish him

(tags book, fantasy, English)

Though I said I didn't want to buy the hardcover version of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, the previous book HP and the Half-Blood Prince left off on a big cliff-hanger. Plus I remembered that I really have to fix my RAID setup, which meant my computer would be off-line.

Unfortunately there were two downers when I bought the book. One was the price, which was about 4000 yen. The other downer was that I didn't see the special in-store display containing all of the Harry Potter stuff. Consequently I missed being able to choose between the UK adult version (bigger and different cover) and the regular hard cover. Ahh.

Read read read. This is not bad at all.

Harry Potter has Jumped the Shark

(tags book, fiction, fantasy, English)

I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Saturday. I feel that HP jumped the shark in this book, though I will continue to read this series. Even though this book is about 800+ pages, it still doesn't feel long enough to explain the parts I'm interested in.

I went to Kobe Random Walk and I hefted the next book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but because I already bought another piece of entertainment that day I put it back on the shelf. They were having a sale on the hardbacks which worked out to be around 2100 yen, but I rather get the 1700 yen paperback to match my set and also to be able to bring it with me. Actually I don't want to buy the hardback of the last book, so I suppose I have to wait for the paperback coming in a few months?

SPOILERS

I wished Harry spent more time with Cho, actually, but given the time that the author spends on the two, its obvious she's just a side character. They kiss but it just seems so vague that there's no lasting emotion. She doesn't take part in the action either, so how could Cho be in touch with Harry's feelings. And what about Harry and Hermione and Ron? It's a love triangle waiting to burst. Maybe next book.

It feels like the author brings out Dumbledore whenever she wants to show her cards. The author has a habit of pulling hidden plots at the end and telling you I told you so. Actually in this book I could anticipate some of the story, such as Dumbledore keeping Harry at arms length. Also Snape is becoming more human to me, while Harry's beloved father is revealed to be a cruel person. The Sirius and Harry relationship was one where the two think of the relationship differently: Sirius sees Harry as more like a friend than a son, and Harry wants Sirius to be his father figure.

I found it unbelievable that people would deny or refute the truth for so long. Umbridge seems to me the right hand of Lord Voldermort but there seems to be no relation at all. And Harry's temper seems to be getting out of hand, but then again he is 16 years old.

END SPOILERS

Lightweight people prefer Ruby and Haruhi

(tags presentation, Ruby, Japanese, English, China, criticism, anime)

Here's a "lightning talk" called "Diligent People. Lightweight people." done by Masayoshi Takahashi, chairman of the Nihon Ruby-no Kai, the Ruby programming language core and libraries developers (and support) group. (Thanks to _why's post "Chairman Takahashi in Taiwan") This is a rare English sample from the mainly Japanese presentation group.

Basically a lightning talk a short 3 minute speech with big kanji Powerpoint-like (or is it Evangalion-type?) visuals, usually on programming topics. Try it out here: "About Nihon Ruby no Kai" (日本Rubyの会について), but don't forget to maximize your browser.

So Takahashi makes an argument for lightweight ("lazy"!) people and processes instead of "diligent" people, but rather than spoil the humor I urge you to watch the video.

I realize when says "lightweight people prefer scripting languages like Ruby" he is expounding the strengths of unit-testing, dynamism, and less documentation, as much as a 3 minute talk can allow.

But his "lightweight people prefer Haruhi (light novel)" is just icing on the cake. He's definately not saying that Ruby is so like last year's anime, ie. old news. Still any programming language that can be associated with making people dance in the streets is novel.