CAN'T BREATHE

Because I refuse to use something like Twitter or FB to dump my inner fangirlgasms... So um, warning - fangirl alert :|

- The latest announcement is YUN KOUGA @ AX! HOMGOMGOMGOMG... I have nothing for her to sign so I'm hoping to get her artbook there. Having her sign something Gundam 00 related doesn't seem right so :0

- Earlier today@E3: XIV! MMO! XIV! I'm stoked about FFXIV's announcement being S-E's latest MMO... I've been itching to go back to FFXI, but this is relieving me of that itch!

- MORIKAWA TOSHIYUKI@AX! LEGENDARY IS RIGHT! I hope he doesn't get bombarded with stupid Sephiroth questions :|

- GURREN LAGAAN DIRECTOR AND CHARACTER DESIGNER! I'll be honest, I -still- haven't finished watching Gurren yet so I think I'll try and get that done before AX rolls around. :B

- Speaking of Gurren, Revoltech is releasing a movie version Yoko that has caught my interest. I don't know why.. maybe it's because they let her hair down and that looks HOT :O

- Yasuhiro Nightow who hasn't done anything new as of late is going to be there too... He feels almost a bit out of place ;b I might just drop by to get a signature for my bro tho.

- Then there's two staff from the BlazBlue team. It's a shame that my bro's copy of BlazBlue probably won't arrive in time, considering it releases June 30. :| And I have no Guilty Gear goods FOR SERIOUS, I don't think I can really call myself a fan :D? Oh and Blazblue is pronounced Blayblue - I NEVER KNEW THAT. WHERE'S THE Z?!

- SETH GREEN IS GOING TO BE THERE HEY? BUFFY FOR LIFE! :B Oh and Dr. Evil's son and whatnot yeah sure :b

- We're all still hoping there's another musical guest announcement besides Morning Musume. CROSSING FINGERS ONE MONTH TO GO.

Baibai May

*sigh* May has now come and gone.

The work side of things has still been quite depressing. I've already forgotten what I've been ranting about but at this rate, I might just get away with not working at all this summer. Actually, the thought of that is kind of sad. No income means NO LOOT, NO LOOT makes an unhappy consumer.

Strangely though, life's still been plenty eventful. The past week, my mom's childhood friend (+family) has come to visit from HK. They mainly came to her son's post-sec graduation so they decided to make it into a little vacation trip as well.

The first night, I followed them to my Aunt April's place where they were staying so I could mooch dinner from them (they had Chinese). After food, they sat and talked at Aunt April's place for a few hours (that's the sad trade-off :|). The morning after they drove all the way to Whistler. I had no intention on going whatsoever. Nothing to see there anyway so, again, I followed them to dinner instead (this time, it was HQ Japanese).

The next day, it was the One-Day-GVRD Tour and I was assigned as one of the drivers. We started the day off with a mediocre Chinese breakfast. None of us has eaten at this restaurant for a while so we didn't know what their quality has become. It was close, so we just randomly chose the place. The first stop was Minoru Park where we found BUNNIES! Did you know bunnies ate bread? They all got to enjoy freshly baked Chinese square bread even though they weren't allowed to. My mom's mother was my aunt's mother's best friend so after a walk in the park, we headed to visit my grandma's grave for a bit. Next was up the hill to SFU. We walked from the main gathering area to the open park area. On the way there were free juggling lessons. Moving on, we headed to Granville Island where we did not get to sit beside the water to enjoy our late (4pm) lunch. That's alright because we had yummy gelato in the Market afterwards. After the nice food stop, we headed to UBC. When we got there, my dad who was leading the way seemed to not know his way so we ended up going around in circles a few times. The passengers in my car were all asleep throughout the UBC roadtrip so it didn't seem to matter to them now did it. Finally, the last stop was Queen Elizabeth Park where we stopped and took a stroll around the upper botanical park area. The garden was in the middle of a season change so most of the plants were uprooted and the beds were quite bare in places. After that, I was relieved of my duties and was sent home. Woohoo.

Out of curiosity, I popped in the stops in Google maps, and it tells me I drove about ±110km. Is that a lot?

There was still one more day of dreadful driving. The started off with a wonderful dim sum lunch at Viva. Then we headed back to my Aunt April's place to get the dog and headed to the Steveston Pier. We walked down the whole pier and then had the area's famous fish and chips at the docks! After that awesomely good snack, we returned back to my aunt's place where the uncle, his son, and I bummed while they went to do some grocery shopping. There was nothing on TV so I ended up watching some live NBA Playoffs (instead of NHL playoffs? XP) from the son's laptop. When they got back from shopping, they quickly began the cooking. My dad and the aunt duo cooked in the kitchen and made an amazing dinner. The both of them are cooking fans, so I imagine the whole activity was fun for them. Another trade-off however, I ended up having to be bored out of my mind after food for an additional few hours. Then again, it wasn't all boring... they had quite a few interesting stories about my grandma and her best friend I never knew about. Not to mention, the revealing of the events of my mom's childhood memories.

The day after I heard my parents drove them to Stanley Park and Gastown. So much driving. Though they did say they will rent a car the next time they come and visit. Apparently they're the type of people that actually enjoy exploring places themselves. They said they rented a car in Japan and went around with only a GPS at hand. They're insanely brave.

Alright, some notes for myself:
- Fall registration for school started today. I totally forgot.
- School's Moodle admin is back from holidays today. I forgot to e-mail them back about my 4th year major project like LAST WEEK. F.
- I was going to call up my old work places for some possible work possibilities today. I forgot to do that.
- I need to activate my new MasterCard already, it　expires this month. Whoops, forgot.
- Red Faction bonus at Bestbuy tomorrow. I almost forgot.

June 1st. The day of forgetfulness.

Today though, I WAS busy driving my mom to a funeral of one of her fellow church member's. The service took the whole afternoon (surprisingly) because we ended up watching the whole burial portion of it and then followed to go to their reception dinner. The 30°C weather was unforgiving, especially when one wore all black.

Avalon Code Review

Seems like I've been doing a lot of game reviewing lately. I have too much free time... that's not good.

I actually had no interest to start playing this game at all. I was having trouble locating (and securing) a copy here so I had my friend keep a look out when she went down to Seattle for a day. It just so happens that she -did- manage to find it, so I had her get it for me. She apparently bought too much that day so she opened the games she bought for me so it didn't look like she just bought it (it's hard to hide games to begin with isn't it? o_o)... Since I got it opened, sure why not, let's play this one next!

The only thing I knew about the game is that it's localized by XSEED and made by MMV. Oh and it's an RPG. Since I didn't know what to play next, Avalon Code was a perfect candidate to keep me occupied until I did know.

STORY 3/5
It's saving the world AND recreating it... well, not so much on the recreating unfortunately. You start off picking your gender which determines who of the opposite sex you can woo. You're napping at your usual napping spot on the hill until suddenly a frickin' book pops out of a giant rock/tablet. The next thing you know, you're getting attacked by mysterious soldiers. A magical spirit comes out of the book to your rescue, teaches you the basics of using the book to beat up the bad guys and then tells you your role. So hello, apparently you're the destined creator/designer of the new world when the current world falls. Your goal is to gather data from the current world so you can use it in the world to be.

The recreating idea was really neat but it seemed like it fell a bit short. I was hoping for some more customization with the future instead of just getting a mere glimpse of it.

CHARACTERS 3.5/5
I was a pretty optimistic and nice protagonist so it seemed like everyone was generally pretty neutral. The characters were rather shallow so it was difficult for me to pick a guy I wanted to chase after or a girl friend I really wanted to befriend. There is one guy character that is involved with the story itself and had a bigger back story but sorry I don't particularly dig childhood friends who try to act tough but are actually wishywashy. I also find it weird that you can choose to hook up with one of your spirit friends instead if you wanted.

And gosh the confession and feeling scenes were so corny and awkward.
(insert floating bubbles background) "I love you!" *fade out*

SOUND 3/5
They managed to put a few voices here and there and they weren't half bad. Music-wise, nothing particularly stuck.

GRAPHICS 3.5/5
The characters and fields are surprisingly rather detailed for a DS game using a 3D engine (but then again, I don't play enough NDS games to begin with... so I don't know if I have a say in that). However, on field/world textures and backgrounds are reused often so going through the multiple maps of the areas does get rather boring. There's also a pretty little anime opening which includes your typical jpop song.

GAMEPLAY 3/5
I didn't expect this game to be an action RPG. In fact, I didn't know what to expect so I can't really say. You had to go around "code scanning" objects throughout the world by SMASHING your book on the object (no really - it looks and sounds painful). Then you get to equip a weapon on each hand and decorate yourself with pretty/useful equipment. Weapons and equip can be customized through the usage of the codes you scan. Different scan combinations can create stronger equipment, etc etc. Then there's a strange little feature called "Judgement Link" where you basically juggle enemies to their death. It sounds weird and it actually looks weird too. On top of being action RPG, it also heavily features on PUZZLES. There's the dungeon puzzles (which are ok) and then there's the SLIDING PUZZLES(!). Some objects you code scan require you to solve the puzzle to get the item. Such time wasters but I beat them all just to show it who's boss! D:

The most frustrating part of this game was the menu. The game revolves around the book being the menu so imagine scanning everything in the world - everything has its own page. Now try going through those thousand of pages just to find one particular code you want just to complete a code combination! URAGH, that was probably the most tedious and annoying.

2nd most frustrating is probably the fact that the game required to use both the stylus and the buttons. So you'd action RPG button mash and then have to stylus your way around to use the menu... and yes, you do use the menu quite often. However, the up side is that you can go into the menu anytime in the game... even in the middle of a swing/chop to SAVE if you really want to.

Ok, so the gameplay wasn't all bad. The dungeon crawling is pretty fun: each map gives you a goal time plus objectives you can try and complete, so it wasn't all just hack n slash.

OVERALL 3/5
As I mentioned, I wish they did more to the "future world" concept. I seemed to have looked forward to that the most. The game became a free roam after you "saved" the current world, which made the game (or story, at least) feel incomplete.

The game's pretty original overall. If they had a sequel, I'd dig it... that is, assuming they make the necessary improvements of course. :B

Mmmm Nap

So I chose a ridiculous appointment time today to bring in my car for her regular maintenance. I usually wouldn't find 9:00am an issue, but having to sleep the night before at 4:30am did make it an absolutely dreadful morning to wake up to. To make up for it (or, more like, giving in to my bodily/mental desires to sleep) I took a 4 hour nap just now.

Hm, I always seem to regret it after napping. It feels like I'm wasting my precious day time.

End random.

Oh, Star Trek was AWESOME. The movie left me smiling at the end. I never noticed/cared/really knew who Chris Pine was until the movie but they made him look pretty good looking. :D Zachary Quinto was quite a cool looking Spock too and I couldn't help but smirk everytime John Cho showed up thinking he'd do something funny. The rest of the cast members were pretty lovable too... NOW MAKE MORE FASTER.

Hello Mid-May!

Now, all of a sudden, it has become almost the end of May. Upcoming random thoughts post.. GO.

- I need to watch Star Trek. This weekend probably.

- Even though I've been a faithful member of NEET for a month and a half, I've finally got a positive response from a potential employer of a job that's completely unrelated to my career path. It makes me deeply miss my graphic design position pay. After calculating the difference, I cried a bit inside. I guess I should just suck it up considering my circumstances.

- About interviews.... I got a phone call interview this morning. I was really unprepared, but obviously I should've been prepared though considering I've been applying here and there. It made me realize I haven't gone through an "official" interview for 3/4 years now. Now it's back to the usual questions: "Why do you want to work for us?" "...! D:?!"

- Anime Expo is roughly a month and a little bit away (WUT!). I must say, the guest line up isn't all that wonderful (a seiyuu or two, or another band besides Momusu, or a mangaka - any would all be nice). There's a lot of power rangers BUT THERE'S NO ORIGINAL WHITE RANGER TOMMY...! Or any other first gens (besides the Black Ranger, I think?)... Oh well, I guess I'll be stalking the exhibitor's hall again, as usual.

- While on the topic of conventions, I completely forgot about our lil ol' local con, Anime Evolution. They bumped up the dates this year but then again, we never seem to remember when it happens anyways. Grats to them for the venue upgrade, but the guest lineup is still quite boring. Maybe the ReBoot creator guy could be interesting... but that's it. Might just stealborrow a badge from someone again then follow to post a complaint on their forum.

- The USD/CND exchange has improved! $1.14 is wonderful news!

- Gas is still $1.04, not so wonderful news!

- I have a bunch of manga-related babble to talk about. Maybe I'll leave that for its own post.

- That newly announced PSP-3001 pack with the FFVII stuff... I was stoked at first until I noticed the PSP IS PLAIN. NO WANT. I knew I should've just bought myself a carnival colour when I had the chance... I shake my fist at the Project DIVA accessory set made especially for the 3000 series, GRR. It's my only reason for getting a third gen PSP. Oh and no glare! PSP under the sun without having to be a beach monster would be wunderful.

- I heard the Richmond Night Market has once again started. Time to make some plans (to food raid and loiter).

- I stumbled across Volks and their M.O.E. Collection earlier line today. I knew them as the FFS model people next to wave but I think only recently did they start making figurines? Their models are pretty decent but they aren't featured in the hobby review sites I visit. The underdogs perhaps?

- There's someone trying to pull me back into MHF. The temptation.........

- While on the topic of games, Shining Force EXA has reminded me of how awesome Diablo is and I/we/theworld needs Diablo III now. Faster please, Blizzard. Starcraft II can wait, really.

- Alright, mind dump complete.