mDuo13

So today on my way home from work I stopped at SVGL, where I was planning on meeting Spiritsnare for some DJ Max Technika. As it turns out, he was at dinner so I had the machine to myself. I figured I'd play a game or two and wait for him to come back; Matt's an abnormally fast eater, after all. Well, something like 8 games later, neither he nor anyone else wanting to use the Technika machine was on the premises, and it had gotten quite dark. I was riding home, so I left (and made great time, taking a trip that normally costs me an hour in 45 minutes flat), but not before beating Stop, Blythe, and a few other things. I planned on throwing some money in the Pop'n machine, too, but that didn't happen. As it was, I'm nearly too tired to blog about today's kanji.

• 車 - kuruma, sha - "car" as in 車 (car), 自転車 (bicycle), 救急車 (ambulence).
• 学 - gaku, mana - "science" as in がっこう (school), 科学者 (scientist), 学ぶ (learn), 学生 (student), or just as a suffix meaning the study of (e.g. 文学, literature).
• 教 - kyou, oshi as in 教会 (church), 教える (teach), 仏教 (Buddhism). This one looks kinda hard. I'm gonna have to study it more when I'm more awake.

But as I can barely keep my eyes open as it stands, it's goodnight for now.

It seems I've unintentionally continued a trend in this website, where I post a lot one month, skip nearly the entire next month, and then return. I dunno what the deal is with that, but I at least have a pretty good excuse for not posting in the past month: I got a new job. I am now an employee of social gaming startup Playdom, where I'm documenting internal processes and things like that (in the hopes of making the company more efficient and less confusing). So that's been taking a pretty big chunk out of my week, and besides that I've been keeping up with a reasonably large number of anime and hanging out with friends about as often as not... this blog kind of fell by the wayside in between. But I'm not satisfied with that, so here's a brief rundown on what I've accomplished in the last month.

→ Read the whole thing

Well, I'm now breaking what I think is the longest streak of not writing any blog entries since I updated this site. And it hasn't been for a lack of things to write about; closer to a lack of time to write about them. In the time since my last post I've finished ARIA The ORIGINATION, Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 and a few other anime series, graduated from college, played Metal Gear Solid 3, gone to Fanime Con, started smoking, gotten married, gotten divorced, lost my job, gone to the moon, fought off cancer, climbed Mount Everest, and played a lot of mahjong. Okay, I admit, a few of those were made up. But really, a lot has happened.

→ Read the whole thing

I finally, today, finished Okami (for Wii) after almost 37 hours of game-time. Now, compared to some other games like Tales of Vesperia (Current playtime: 74 hours, 27 minutes, and that's not even finished), that may not seem like much, but Okami was deceptively, perhaps even unpleasantly long. On one hand, I can't say that it's a bad game - it has a host of qualities aside from its unique art style that are quite commendable - but nonetheless, I can't unequivocally say that I liked it, either.

→ Read the whole thing

I've finally finished Chrono Trigger DS (including the bonus dungeons and the special ending, but not all of the original endings). It was a special experience revisiting this game - one I've placed among my 2 all-time favorites (with only Super Metroid as company), but have not played in almost a decade. The DS version sure packs a lot of bonus material, none of which detracts from the game, but none of which is really, ultimately, necessary.

→ Read the whole thing

I've finally finished the third and final Metroid Prime game. It was a pretty good game, on the whole. Each individual aspect of the game is quite good, and the structure is much the same as the previous two Metroid Prime games. Nonetheless, I have a few reservations about it that cause me to conclude: It's a fun distraction that even the hardcore fans can enjoy... while they wait for a 'real' Metroid game.

→ Read the whole thing