Archive for October, 2007
One of these things…
31 October 2007
…is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong!
God hates me
30 October 2007And it happens again!
I think I have the black lung
30 October 2007On my way to work this morning I think I may have passed the two dirtiest trucks in Japan. The amount of pure black pumping out of those trucks still haunts my soul. I’d have passed them, and the road markings said I could, but considering the roads curved every half a second, I wagered it was either my lungs or my life. Poor, poor lungs.
Nothing quite like a chainsword to the face
30 October 2007
I became addicted to Warhammer 40k right before I left for Japan. I’d try to play here, but my folks haven’t gotten around to shipping me my army yet. While little has whet my appitite, the recent PSP demo for Warhammer 40k Squad Command is doing a good job thus far.
The game is actually turn based as opposed to real time which excites my Netherlands. Unlike most turn based strategy games, it lacks the “testing” phase of the order issuing. That is to say, when you tell a troop to do something, it does it and there’s no taking it back. While I’ve been prone to making mistakes, this also tends to make the playing a bit more fast paced and ‘raw’. Also leaves a lot of dead Space Marines at the end of some turns. That leads into my biggest complaint thus-far. Out of all the many races available in the 40k universe, only Space Marines and Chaos will be playable. Other than that, while in no way exactly like the table-top game, it retains enough to give a great experience.
In the given brief army construction menu it can already be seen that customization of your army will take place. In exchange for the “points” that are commonly used for playing 40k, beefing up your individual units causes a reduction in its available action points (AP) each turn. These are the points that are required for your moving and shooting. So, it is possible to double the ammo carried for a powerful gun, but setting the unit up for that perfect shot may take more time. Speaking of perfect shots, it seems that when you do take aim at your enemy, you can expend more AP to increase your chance of hitting. Spending these points doesn’t increase your damage, though, so it’s not worth it to unload a whole turn’s worth of AP into one shot.
I’ve played through the demo mission five times already, and I still feel like I can get fun out of it. I did manage to make it crash once when I ended my turn with no visible enemies on the screen, but since that it’s been cool. I’ve now placed a pre-order on Play Asia. Thirty five American bones with free shipping on top. It comes out sometime in November, so that’ll be a nice treat. Hopefully I get it before the Dragon Quest IV remake hits, though, as I’m sure that will suck a lot of my Winter gaming.
Did I forget to mention anything? Hrm, oh yeah, the environments are destructible. It’s pretty badass to blow a hole in the wall the enemy are standing behind, resulting in a couple of gas tanks taking enough damage to blow them bitches to kingdom come. The camera system is pretty assy though. Would have much preferred a rotation system instead of only the tilting they let you do right now.
Mean Bean Machine
29 October 2007I’ve been playing too much Rhythm Tengoku. The kids were singing a song in today’s morning meeting and I almost started clapping along with their “tan ton taton” part. Damn video games blurring reality.
Speaking of the blurring of reality, I’m having a little trouble seeing right now. See, now every Monday the schools have a big meeting to talk about whatever it is they need to talk about. At the end you have your procession of kids heading back to their classrooms. So here I am greeting, waving and giving the occasional high-five. Now, I don’t know if Japan has the whole “Hit me high, hit me low” rhyme thing I often did as a child, but post one of the high-fives a child decided to indeed “hit me low” as I suddenly felt a sharp sting in my testicles. Thanks to the sea of children and my watering eyes, the culprit was able to escape. My balls have since recovered but my pride is still a tad moist.
Time sure flies when something something
28 October 2007Today is October 28th. Which pretty much marks me having been in Japan for 3 months now. Three months. I can’t even begin to conceive where that time went. I’ve lost about 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds. I’ve improved my Japanese, I think. Not too sure on that one but that’s kinda hard to gauge. I’m still single, but I am dating so that’s something. My teaching has gone from never having done it to being able to manage, so I started with no where to go but up and I’m slowly getting better.
So everything seems to be going pretty damn well right now.
I’ll be twenty five years old in about a week and a few days. That’s hard to believe. I’m playing Secret of Mana right now, in Japanese, and if memory serves me correctly I was 11 years old when I played it for the first time. Fourteen years ago. Wow. Same age as some of the kids I’m teaching now. I wonder if I even knew back in ‘93 that this game came from Japan. Maybe I did, but would I ever really think that I’d be sitting in Japan 14 years later playing the same exact game?
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking as of late what I want to do with my life. I can’t answer that question. I let it bother me more than I probably should.
The Rich Bounties held within
24 October 2007Man, I love when I get free stuff. I used to try to refuse it all, but it’s becoming impossible. Today I return home with pound-cake and some kiwis. While it’s unfortunate that the latter is not a couple of New Zealand women but rather some kiwifruit, I’ll take what I can get.
The hospitality I’ve received in this town is unreal. Two days ago I told Yumi, my self-appointed Japanese mother, that I was looking for a used scooter. Low and behold when I stop by the bar yesterday, I see a sign posted asking for people to tell her if they’re looking to get rid of a scooter. Inconceivable.
Being the teacher of every single 7 to 12 year old in this city really has elevated me to a higher status of sorts. I can’t go anywhere now without someone waving at me excitedly. But shit, that’s a good thing! This really is the best damn job I ever had, and the thought that I’m limited to 3 or at a difficult most 5 years is already heartbreaking.
Oh yeah, and I may have mentioned to some of you that I had an “open lesson” today meaning that some important folk came and watched me teach. The class went awesomely. Thanks all for your continuing support.
More hilarious spam from Amazon.com
23 October 2007Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has bought kids’ video games at Amazon.com, you may be interested to know that the “Bee Movie Game” is here!
The only game I ever ordered off of Amazon.com is Odin Sphere.
And it sucks dick.
Feel my pain!
23 October 2007I was playing the Japanese version of Secret of Mana last night, and ran into an annoying bug. Check out the vid and feel how I felt.
…
That’s right. NO GODDAMN FUCKING DOOR APPEARED AFTER BEATING THE BOSS!
Vroom, vroom!
22 October 2007
Well, I just discovered that by having a Japanese license, I am also able to ride 50cc bikes. Since I hate cars, I think this just might be the route I go to prevent myself from missing rad opportunities that the infrequent train stops of Gojo occasionally prevent me from having.