The Clean Room Tour

Once every so often I suddenly get the urge to clean my room. The last two heatwave days were one of those every so often days. Strangely enough, in 35°C weather, I was even more determined to get the place cleaned up. Though I must admit, I was even more motivated after looking at the "show your otaku room" thing happening over at DC.com where people basically showed off their awesome geeky collections. Compared to them, my collection is laughable. I admire their pretty glass cases. They don't need to worry about this despicable thing called DUST. I also considered a before and after picture but considering I'm a girl, I don't think that would be appropriate. Hey, I don't know what you're thinking right now but don't go there.

Also more recently and a little bit more off topic, I began putting some effort into placing more images in my posts. As a blog reader myself, I finally (finally? really? took me 8 years to get it through my dense head I guess) figured that just straight blog posts with heavy text (since I'm a rambling long-air blog poster) would probably be boring as eff. So! to make that work better, I had to switch blog layouts to give me a wider blog posting area. The area before was restricting like hell, making me only post dinky photos... hoping this solves that. I'll probably do more layout tweaking when I'm not so lazy. K, let's do this.


Figures area which is unfortunately already too full for more.


A portion of my Pinky: st family.


The secondary figures area which is, uh, full too.


I'm proud of my Gloomy.


I don't consider myself a real daimakuradakimakura owner until I get a full size big one.


I haven't made room for the two figures sitting awkwardly at the top of my CD stand. Not sure if I ever will.


Convention badge history.


Digimans and Pokemans.


This is the first place that gets messy. You can just start imagining the mountain that will start building itself in the next few days.

I was also told to get myself an LCD already so I can make even more room. My CRT was 'dying' at a certain point this one time (strange high pitched noise plus the rare but happens blank screen when freshly booted up) but it seemed to have recovered itself at the moment so I'll try and delay having to get a new monitor as much as I can. Besides, there's plenty of other priorities (like wow, I fell in love with this!).


So... I buy a lot of manga and they get stored under my bed because - pfft - who needs a bookshelf?! It's close to full (yes, the back has reached the wall and you are looking the edge of the frontline) so I gotta start figuring out where to store them next.

And that ends the mini tour. I also have posters but my walls have been tame since my last room overhaul.

Here's a bonus photo:

LOL SH!T LOAD OF [UNOPENED] VIDEO GAMES

Shining Force EXA

There was no real reason why I decided to start Shining Force EXA. I was looking through the backlog pile and then realized I've never played a Shining game before. Knowing that this Shining Force was not true to its Shining Force roots, I decided to try it anyways. Why not?

STORY : 3.5/5
Story was weak. So, it starts off with you, Toma, the last survivor of your tribe in search for the Shining Force (which is a sword) which was said to hold the power to control the world. You're journey around the world with three other comrades who has promised to assist whoever that's able to find and wield Shining Force. They finally do find the sword and Toma ends up being able to pull it out. Upon pulling it out, a giant fortress emerges and you become the controller of that fortress.

The world which is controlled by two major forces (essentially the humans and the magic users), their rulers also wish to get their hands on the Shining Force so they can destroy the opposing power. So they come by and try and manipulate you to do their doing.

[spoiler]Alright so what puzzles me the most is when you find out that you must kill off one of the Heiritors to get the full power of the Shining Force. Why is that neither of them really DIE after you do kill them off? And it ends up to be some happy ending for some reason. They make it all dramatic and sad just so both of them end up living at the end anyways. That's just cheating.[/spoiler]

CHARACTERS : 2/5
All the characters besides the two main characters were pretty boring. In the beginning, they had brief introductions which made me think they'd elaborate on them more further into the game but it never happens so you end up not knowing much about anyone. You only really find out that, oh, the two main characters love each other but they're both too stubborn and shy to say anything. You find out small details like, this person's a friend of this person but that's really it. I can't say I liked anyone in particular but neither did I hate anyone either.

SOUND : 3.5/5
The intro bgm is pretty epic though it sounds like it's missing some lyrics to go with it. The rest of the game's music's pretty decent. Some dungeon tracks are basically the repeat of a few lines of music which isn't all entirely bad since you go in and out of certain dungeon tracks depending on the monster's proximity to you. Some are particularly plain sounding and very "cave/dungeon"-like and it totally goes with the graphics/feel of the game. VERY DIABLO.

It's so hard to find this OST!

The English voices fit their characters well. Sometimes they sounded extremely awkward and sometimes it really fit in. Must've been another read off the script without much knowledge about the context? I think I might like the English voices better than the Japanese. I don't think Paku Romi as Toma would've been what I imagined at all.

GAMEPLAY : 5/5
Since there was nothing much going on with the story, there was a lot of action instead. This is where I think the game shines particularly brightly for me because it reeks of Diablo! :V

There's two 'modes' to this game played in the game style and you take turns using the hero and heroine. You travel usually with two NPCs assisting you while killing stuff and getting drops. The main story requires you to venture through dungeons/fields to get to places to do more of the same stuff. Occasionally there are "fixed" and/or timed battles that happen back at base (your fortress) where monsters are attracted to your power and so they try and take over your base. Training dungeons under your base are randomly generated as you can repeat them endlessly which makes the game more slightly varied. Throughout the game, you can upgrade your base with defensive/offensive robots, a better barrier, better recovery abilities and etc.

Drops are mostly random and dropped stats are randomized too, so this game has to do a lot with luck and timing. Even if you don't get your most ideal equips, you can still manage to get a few relatively good combinations. If you find your equipment to be unfavourable, you can also upgrade your own stats with the use of mythril which you can find as random drops and grown mythril in dungeons as well. On top of that, you can also use gold to upgrade your equipment if you're filthy rich.

There are points where there are so many mobs, it becomes a serious clusterfucked lagfest. You end up not being able to see your characters anywhere, but if you're well prepared, they're usually no problem. If anything, they're actually more fun.

GRAPHICS : 3.5/5
There isn't much to complain about. I watched a short making-of for some of the game and they tried to make their character sketch look the same in the CG scenes and it sorta worked but it still looked very awkward -because- it was obviously CG. Though I would have preferred anime cutscenes over awkward CG that was trying to be anime-like. There was at least the intro which was a nice (but typical) anime movie.

Dungeons felt almost too Diablo-like but I'm not complaining actually. The shading, shadows, colours felt nostalgic so I got used to the game pretty quickly.

OVERALL : 4/5
I'm totally overrating this game but I really enjoyed it. I liked it so much I went on to complete it - optional dungeon, completion of training grounds, completion of weapons collection. If only there was more, I would still be playing it even now. Well, technically I can beat the game indefinitely as it saves you at the last chapter every time you beat it but then the challenge is lost. The optional dungeon and the last bit of the training grounds were pretty tough but the tougher the better.

This game isn't all that bad (I guess nor it was it all that great) but it's still under the radar. If you don't mind the bleh story and super-bleh characters (which most people probably would) it's suparrr fun.

I think I should try a 'real' Shining game now.

Fireworks 2009 - Part 1

It's that time of the year again! ..when we sit at the beach for long periods of time (up to 10 hours) under the insanely hot sun of summer (up to 30ish degrees) for a 15 (or was it 20?) minute fireworks display four times a year!

Even though we're only half way through, it's already been plenty eventful.

Wednesday July 22 - Canada
I had work in the daytime so after I headed home first to grab my beach bag before busing my way down to meet up with Moni at the Burrard station. On our walk down we picked up awesome White Spot food and joined up with the rest of the beach bum gang who were already there. There were an insane number of people for a Wednesday evening.

The night seemed to go by pretty quickly. Canada's theme was Wizard of Oz so the songs were basically the famous few vocalized tracks which got everyone singing/dancing but then there was a rather long (and boring) evil witch instrumental track. The sponsors for the event also gave out 3D paper glasses you wore during the fireworks viewing and it sends you to some psychedelic high mode where everything looked so trippy it was as if you were on something ('shrooms?) but then not. Say if there was only one firework in the sky, the glasses would multiply it and make 5 more for you and then rainbowitize it and made sure you didn't miss it by spreading them everywhere. Trippy.

Saturday July 25 - South Africa
All week, the weather people has been constantly warning about the heatwave that is to come. Temperatures hitting as high as 33 and up. So Saturday wasn't that looked forward to. I met up with Saboo at 1pm at T&T so we could possibly do some quick snack/food shopping. The T&T at Tinseltown was rather lacking so we didn't end up just getting a snack for the road. We took Robson this time around, stopped by a Blenz for drinks and Subway for food then continued our way down Denman.


We got there to meet up with Ruby and D who were already there not so enjoy the wonderful hot weather. We set up camp with the beach umbrellas and tarp we brought and tried not to move as much because of the heat. We expanded our territory as more people joined us and indeed it was HOT.

However 6pm rolled around and the dark clouds we saw approaching earlier began to tower over us and soon started dripping. We (and mostly everyone on the beach) figured the little trickles wouldn't last long since there was no weather reports of precipitation falling at all. The longer we tried to wait it out, the heavier the rain started to get and then it was just beginning to get annoying.


The next thing we knew, the thunderstorm was officially here - above us. The skies were roaring and flashing. The whole beach (and us too) was all like "whoaaa" when they saw the light flicker across the skies. By then, the beach people were all leaving because none of them were prepared for such a downpour. Luckily for us, we had umbrellas so we hung on there even though we were constantly told to not hide under our umbrellas during a thunderstorm. We started standing when it began pouring and stayed staying throughout the fireworks show. There was also a live band performing there during the last few hours of our wait and they made a song about not being afraid of thunderstorms on the spot. When the fireworks started, more people started coming back and began standing in front of us to block more of our view but the night was already sucking enough already so we left them as they were.

South Africa was not bad 'cept, I swear, Pirates of the Caribbean theme song is so overused. The outdoor shower was insanely packed after the fireworks presentation but we waited anyway so we could rinse off our tarp and feet.

On the way home, I noticed that my belongings were soaked all the way through. My PSP. My DS. My phone. Luckily my gadgets were ok. My DS case was soaked in though and I've yet to test my Tetris DS that was soaked in with it. My wallet - luckily only some receipts were wet. My keys - My stuffed Toro was drenched. A pack of tissue which turned into soggy wet naps. Worst of all... my MANGA.


Wet books are unsalvageable. I tried to at least minimize the yellow mold damage by drying it as fast as I can with the blow dryer when I got home then combined that with the weight of my computer tower (which I think is the heaviest thing I could think of that was in my room) but alas, it was no use. I lost sight of the little glimmer of hope when I noticed the pages itself were fraying a bit and the ink was melting onto other pages.

I've had slightly damaged manga before (e.g. me crushing it in my bag due to bad placement) but this is the worst it has gotten and it was unavoidable too. I don't think I can live on without having to get myself replacements. Hm, maybe even the library won't even want these.

PS: Post #777.

Reimu Nuigurumi

So I saw this and thought, aww that's cute - I'd buy that!

Then saw the price: 29,800円 = 300$.

?! What.

Then, Oh! It's because it's, like, THIIIIS BIG.

I need more spontaneous friends

^ Would you buy that Hulk if you saw it?

So we went to Playland Saturday for Sty's bday. Actually we had this other crazy idea at first: Saboo SMSs me late in the evening Friday reminding me that the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert was happening and she wanted to go. I already had given up on trying to plan our way down to see it (in Seattle) but she also mentioned that Gar was going - WITH A DATE OUT OF ALL PEOPLE/CIRCUMSTANCES. Jealous that he was able to go and specially with some girl he only met once even, me and Saboo tried to scramble to find spontaneous final fantasy fans to head down with us. Sadly our spontaneousness didn't work out and we couldn't find anyone who was willing. Oh well, we tried.

Anyways, Playland felt like nothing after experiencing Six Flags. We managed to finish everything in the park within 3 hours of our stay there. There weren't that many people to begin with though. On the rides that featured cameras, we decided on poses like the "face flower" and the bored look to make things a bit more interesting. The best picture was on the log ride where the theme was contemplation. The photo was so good, we even bought ourselves a copy (which is not in my possession, unfortunately).

Oh yeah, there were a bunch of cosplayers there at the park, riding rides, being normal but then not really. That addictive yet annoying song, Caramelldansen (not even going to bother checking the right spelling of the name) went on on the music ride when they (and we) were on it... either it was by request or a shout out to them because they went absolutely nuts when it played, bunny earring like there was no tomorrow.

So a bit about the workplace as of late. My psycho supervisor got shipped to Toronto to be some sort of rep for the company only because she knows French (but she can't delegate for sh!t) so the reason for her going is weak. Besides, it's silly to assume people there still only understand French and nothing but. During her time away, another lady has slowly taken over her duties and (hopefully) eventually relieve her of her position completely. During the last week, I seemed to have established quite a few interesting practices at work. Hobo gloves, maximizing clean floor space with the use of scrap cardboard to cover the dirty floor, expanding the table space by using the corners of two tables close to each other...

If there was a label-sticking diploma, I would've graduated from it. I label about 15 sheets per hour, 30 labels per sheet... 540 label stickers which means 540 cardboard boxes, which also means about 5 and a bit more skids. They complete about 40 skids a day. Yeah, this seems to make sense.

My fingers, my arms, my legs ACHE. WHINE WHINE WHINE.