Tango Appassionata

2012 Greetings

2012-01-08T21:46:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

2012 is upon us and what was better than getting sick mere days before the new year, rather than getting sick BECAUSE of the new year. So somehow, from somewhere, I caught a serious stomach flu the last Thursday of December, leaving me bedridden the Friday, to only recover enough to celebrate a mild new years eve Saturday playing extremely old Wii party games and enjoy some good drinks.

Due to the timing of things, I finally managed to check in with a walk-in doctor the day after new years. I walked away with some advice and a mission to get it thoroughly checked at a lab to see if it's a bacteria that will require some more serious attention. Fortunately I already took a day off that week to chauffeur my mom to and from her visit to the hospital for a minor surgery appointment. I've yet to get a response from the doctor about my report but no news is good news. I still don't feel like I've recovered completely as _too_ much food still upsets my stomach and leaves me with a rather unpleasant feeling... and it's not exactly the usual ugh-I-ate-too-damn-much feeling.

Sickness aside, it IS the new year and I'm still working where I'm working. I haven't had much luck in the job hunting department and from how things are going now, the workload at work has been lessening quite an amount as of late. It IS also still early into the month so time will ultimately tell how the rest of this job's contract will pan out.

So 2012. My main new years resolution is to settle down on a GOOD long term job. Preferably something that sets me up for a clearer route for the many years to come (assuming 2012 doesn't end as a certain calendar says it will). There aren't too many major plans this year other than the usual traverses to the usual places.

Thinking back on 2011... it wasn't a particularly exciting year on this side of the world or even personally. Natural disasters hit a number of places around the world and devastated my life-changing chance to go to Japan. Things were pretty low-key until I was laid off at my previous job and it was only then life started to get interesting again. Then the year ended abruptly when a flu storm tackled me unexpectedly and now the mundane work life has returned... (but for how much longer?)

Nonetheless, I be looking forward to what 2012 has to offer... (other than D3, ME3, AX, PAX, etcetc.)

Diversions and Breaks

2011-12-25T02:50:00.000-08:00

As I'm diligently working away at this giant candy cane (as thick as my thumb all the way through), Merry Christmas! This year's Christmas is yet another wet and cloudy one.

It has been a stressful last two months (since my last post) but I'm extremely glad the winter holidays have finally arrived. I've been grateful for all the pleasant diversions from the monotonous work life.

We had a Halloween event at work where my team "carved" a hamburger and ate samosas in the cold.

[insert embarrassing canvas of a certain rabbit's head :V]

Checked out Raw Canvas and painted stuff. I clearly had no idea what to paint but not having painted in such a long time, it was really fun. Oh yeah, I painted a certain rabbit's head.

There was a Poutine Festival which failed to life up to its name. Held in a room in a community centre, the 'all you an eat' poutine was unable to deliver its promise as an AYCE. People waited ages for food that had to be fought over. Entertainment consisted of a guy who didn't sing really well and bad 80's rainbow/flashing lighting effects.

My company had their Christmas party at the Fairmont Hotel where we indulged in buffet food. Our department had our own little party in one of the hotel rooms we rented for the night where we mainly had wine and... chips.

As much as I wouldn't like to think that I'm overstressed (although my mom has been telling me how tired I look), I unexpectedly fainted earlier in the week. The location wasn't ideal as I hit the side of a counter table going down. Fortunately I don't think there was any brain damage though. My doctor wasn't able to figure anything out and I've also been unable to get myself checked up at a test lab due to the timing of the holidays. I think this break will do me some good though.

Life aside, Skyrim: I'm surprised I'm not at all obsessing over the game as much as I would imagine myself to be.

As it'll only be a short-lived break week, here's hoping I'll be able to squeeze in as much productivity as possible. (Productivity = Sleeping)

Wob Wob Wob.

2011-10-30T01:48:00.000-07:00

The end of the year approaches and I'm still not where I expected myself to be. Taking what I can get, I started a temp contract job at my university classmate's workplace as a publishing technician. As fancy as that sounds, my job involves editing, preparing, converting, parsing, formatting content and material mainly for print (with some forms of electronic). Definitely not something I had in mind at all, considering I am not one to particularly enjoy the print side of things, but hey, my skill set fits and I've had no luck with other places thus far. Speaking of which, I did come close to a number of opportunities but timing and the lack of experience (in years and/or months) has put me in a disadvantage. Although this job is relatively brain dead work, there's more to be desired in the work environment. Other than the music playing through my headphones, it's pretty dead quiet in the office. In my area, other than my classmate, everyone is rather old (= with kids) so casual conversation is little to none. Those around our age are on the other side of the floor and they seem too cool to mingle with. The keyword "games" is blocked at work and that makes me super sadface during my breaks. Computer activity is also monitored it seems and, although I have nothing to hide, it's still feels rather uncomfortable surfing/checking mail. Rants out and done with, hopefully I'll land something more promising in the near future.

Portal 2 inspired, perhaps?
The eight hours of menial work a day aside, some friends and I went to a... rave-thing? the other weekend. It wasn't quite a rave, nor was it a concert - it was a giant mosh-pit. Well, Skrillex made a stop at our city and added an extra day to his tour here. We originally got tickets for the first show but changed to the second showing to see another artist as well. Pretty amazing show (especially his set designer - insane!) but not so amazing crowd. The second show was all ages (what.) so the mob was unpleasant, to say the least. Still don't know how to dance to dubstep. Let's leave it at that. Speaking of dubstep, it's been sneaking into my Touhoes as of late. Why.

Literally a week before work though, I got whisked away on a cruise headed to Las Vegas (to fill an empty spot). It wasn't as enjoyable as it could've been if I didn't know that I started work the week I returned and that another interview was waiting for me. It wasn't all bad since food was aplenty (maybe too much). Shopping wasn't as exciting, been unemployed for the two months prior so money wasn't exactly exploding out of my wallet. Didn't help that my travel companions (aunts n uncles) weren't of the opinionated bunch.

Then there's this unnecessary drama which isn't so much affecting me as much as it is affecting my aunt and uncle. My uncle was diagnosed with leukemia recently and it's now when some of my distant relatives' true colours begin to show. Really makes you wonder what's going on in their heads. Only wished I can do more for them and their situation.

Hope this weather doesn't get any colder. I fear for snow.

PAX Prime 2011 Report: Part 2

2011-08-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday - Aug 27: Disappointments.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - We played the story option rather than the PvP/Capture the ~~flag~~ball. Eh, it's an MMORPG and I /dance'd.
Torchlight II - Tried the Berserker this time around and had fun following the big crew of people going around, destroying mobs and things.
Path of Exile - A point and click game that's free to play. Definitely disappointed, especially after Lester recommended it saying it was like Diablo. Very bland graphics and clunky gameplay...
Wildstar - A bit underwhelming. A brightly coloured MMORPG that featured rather generic classes and character designs.
Dead Island - The trailer gave off a different idea of how the protagonist and story would've been like. In the actual game, you're a drunkard who gets kicked out of the club for being a dick. Lovely.
Rusty Hearts - Insanely confusing controls but the pretty up your character feature is definitely there.
Dragon Quest Monster Joker 2 - K I originally played this for the swag but it was actually fun.

And the real disappointments:

The 18-letter Word to your Moogle was missing a letter Sty left back at Garret's. Great. They ended up finding another person with the same letter and handed in the word.
We were in a group of 4 at one point (with IonFONE and friend) and could've went to get our hands on a free T at the Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One booth but Sty forgot her head. They ran out of T's the next day.
The Skyrim food truck ran out of food and drinks about half way through its one and only session. Extremely disappointed that they'd underestimate their fanbase.

The food we never got. :((

After another busy day on the show floor, we headed to the Square-Enix panel where Quantum Conundrum was introduced and demoed. The visual style features a cartoony style which would remind you of Team Fortress and the gameplay is very much Portal plus some new features like changing the state of the room on the fly.

I decided to skip the Weekend Confirmed panel since it was right smack between the previous and the Dragon Age panel. The DA panel itself gave us a general outlook of the series and a vague idea of what to expect. Felicia Day showed up and they played a new trailer of the Retribution web series.

By 10:30pm, we were finally ready for some food. We managed to get ourselves a nice, roomy table at the Taphouse where we devoured drinks and happy hour appys for the rest of the night.

Sunday - Aug 28: The last stretch cut short
We got all our stuff packed and ready in the car for our trip back before heading to the convention one last time. We established a plan to follow so we left at a reasonable time to make it back to whatever that was left of the wedding. Unfortunately things didn't work out that way when some people decided not to follow through with it.

Anyway, the final game I wanted to get my hands on was Resistance 3 and that's exactly what I went straight for when the hall opened. Luckily there was still some space left when I got there. The game felt very reminiscent to R2 but its visuals were definitely tweaked. It was a short but sweet 5 mins of killing which I somehow still ended up 2nd place.

Things got complicated after this but long story short, we managed to regroup to check out Halo Fest and I was pleasantly surprised with the displays.

Chief-sama!

Before we left for good, we stopped by to get some cheesecake. <3

On our way up we also had some cheap McDix chicken nuggets.

The haul looked more or less like this:

Favourite Game: ???
Favourite Swag: Resistance 3 or DOM2 T-shirt
Missed: Might & Magic Heroes, Borderlands 2, Orcs Might Die!, Wil Wheaton's panel ;<
Forgot: Heroes of Ruin
Underdog: El Shaddai
What happened?: Firefall
~~WHERE ARE YOU BAMCO?~~

I knew Sunday was going to amazing and yet we didn't get to stay for it. Gearbox panel which ended up with free Borderlands 2 codes (USA region or NOT it's still crazy), Tetris DS tourny (I missed out last year ;( ), and probably other random games you discover when you actually take your time walking on the floor.

It was definitely a very different PAX and it wasn't my most favourite. It didn't help that we were forced to leave early to head back for a wedding. A number of the games on the floor were not entirely new (Torchlight 2, Rift, End of Nations, EVE Online, et al) and some were just not completely up my alley but I didn't mind trying them. It was also quite different walking around with my friend Sty since we don't normally talk about games together, other than the odd game she played here or there. In fact, I don't even know what she has played other than some western games. I personally skipped a number of games I probably would've stopped to try *points to Missed bullet point* but I didn't want her waiting on me. In exchange, her girl power somehow landed some really good luck in a lot of places... don't know how she does it.

I've been asked what the highlight of the trip was and, honestly, I can't seem to figure that out at all.
The trip felt incomplete but what can be done. :(
*goes off to play something*

PAX Prime 2011 Report: Part 1

2011-08-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

"Mmm you look tasty little human girl, come over here."

Returned from PAX with a minor PAX/Seattle flu. Oh, why me?

Mere days before the event, Sty messages me saying she might have a ticket to the sold out event. Of course she was more than welcomed to join us but she soon found out that that ticket was no longer available. It felt that she was really looking forward to it so I decided to do some ticket hunting the night before we were to depart. I managed to secure two tickets for her and another friend from a cool local who had to give up his tickets for priorities at work. Knowing how scarce these tickets were, especially being sold and bought at cost, I definitely got lucky. So +1 to our passenger list.

Thursday - Aug 25: Yukkuri shiteitte yo!
The ride down consisted of ToFu, Sty, Lester and myself as we took two cars this time around since most of us had to return early for a wedding (ugh). We stopped in Bellingham where we had breakfast at The Daisy Cafe and followed to stop by Trader Joe's, then Walmart and gas in Tulalip, and finally arrived in Seattle for a break at Garret's. Rush hour traffic was bad going into downtown but when we got in, things were a lot smoother. We picked up badges and headed to Uwajimaya for some snacks and asian goodness. There we met up with IonFONE for the first time, even though we always go down to Seattle for all sorts of things.

Food plans ended up being complicated since our original plans didn't work out due to the timing of things so we went to have some good old American restaurant food at The Ram. Speaking of timing, things couldn't of gotten any worse when a suicide ended up clogging up the highway we were on. A 15 or less minute ride ended up to be 1 hour, and unfortunately the other guys who were in the other car got a good look of the incident.

Steak sandwich pickle tower.

We returned to Garret's place after food and pulled out an extremely oversized sake bottle we got at Uwajimaya. Drinking and relaxation ensued into the late hours of the night.

Friday - Aug 26: Too little time.
A large chunk of the day consisted of being busy in the exhibition hall.

Skyrim - Our first stop since Sty was definitely looking forward to this one. A 3 hour wait vs the content we got to play wasn't worth it, although I saw it coming. You kind of expect it from an Elder Scrolls open world game.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 - I haven't even played the first one so why would I want to spoil myself? Unfortunately for me, the Word to your Moogle game was only accessible that way. As a complete newbie to the game, the battle system felt kinda dumbed down as you mainly got to choose the different fighting strategies. Perhaps I'll get a better idea of the game once I actually play it. But yeah, spoilers wheeeeeee~
Bastion - I've already been recommended to play this game but I decided to try it out anyway and wow the demo really impressed me. Beautiful visuals, funny narrative and simple yet fun gameplay.
Dragon's Dogma - Western influenced 4 player co-op, much like Monster Hunter but no fancy armor and weird monsters, but features the traditional RPG classes. Had to burn the crap out of the poor griffin. :( But it was totally owning my group so I guess it was fair.
Lollipop Chainsaw - Oneechanbara but with chainsaws and a cheerleader.

When the floor finally closed up for the day, we met up with Markster and began seeking places to eat. Knowing most places were packed, we chose a Blarney's pub/resto which was a bit father away. We got there just missing the rush, but we still had to wait quite a bit to get the waitress' attention and get our food. Although the service was not what we would've liked, the food was really good so we were still satisfied.

We returned to the convention to catch the Giant Bomb panel (yay!). For some reason the enforcers cut their time short so it ended a half n hour earlier than expected. I met up with Neku briefly after the panel before calling it a night.

To be continued in part 2...

FF: Distant Worlds Returns to Vancouver

2011-08-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

Uematsu was actually here this time.

Welcome back, Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds.

So the actual day (July 27) ended up being horribly planned, generating plenty of frustration and annoyance.

First it was me debating whether I should drive+skytrain my way in downtown earlier or just simply getting a ride from a friend. Figuring that driving should be easier for the way back, I opted for the ride but the driver was late. Another friend wanted a ride in the last minute so we made a detour before heading to our food destination, Guu Garden. After having a bit of trouble finding the restaurant, we finally sat down but then waited around for two other latecomers. When they arrived we quickly ordered but the food took ridiculously longer than it should've and so we ended up cutting it short to speed-walk our way there. When we got to the Opheum, we waited some more for the driver friend to park and get his cosplay gear *headdesk*... many moments later, some of us decided to make our way in first to find that it had already started.

The first track, although watched from the TV screen outside, was FFVIII's Opening (Bombing Mission) which I think was the same opener from the first concert (the footage was the same as well). Other tracks they brought back from the last Distant Worlds were VI's opera (same three opera singers too!), Vamo' alla Flamenco, and the Theme of Love to name a few. Some nice additions this time were To Zanarkand, JENOVA, Man with the Machine Gun and You're Not Alone. They also featured a track from XIV which, in fact, is my starting city area's field music! Speaking of which, bikini update! P:

I wanted to strangle someone when they, once again, chose One Winged Angel as the encore but they did spruce it up this time with karaoke (although it doesn't change the fact that it's still OWA). This makes it the FOURTH video game concert with the same encore, and I've only been to four in total ever. I was also deeply disappointed there wasn't anything from XI... although I suppose it would've just been Ronfaure or the CoP theme again :( See, if they were able to feature Hamauzu's FFXIII Blinded By Light, they should feature something Mizuta Naoshi has done in XI like the delicious Ragnarok or any of his stuff from WotG. But sigh. Wishful thinking.

After the concert we headed to Earl's for some food and drinks (deja vu). Mmmm sangria and wings.

Oh yeah, we had horse sashimi at Guu Garden and, well, you just can't explain what it tastes like so just eat it for yourself to find out.

Involuntary Holiday

2011-08-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

Although I didn't request nor expect any sort of holiday this year, I have come to accept this unwanted break. I've gotten to the point where I'm leaning on keeping this NEET status until the end of the month when PAX comes and goes, and I would've run out of any other major events to look forward to.

The timing of things have been keeping me rather busy in and out of the house so I'm not quite living up to the NEET title yet. I've have very few days of just pure home time which I ended up spending on playing Tropico 3. Buenas tardes!

A bit before my sudden lay off, I took a quick two day trip down to Seattle for a weekend early July for both Shi2's b-day and to meet up with online FFXI friend, Jiinn, visiting from Phoenix, AZ. Saturday consisted of some brief Downtown loitering, the Pike Place Market, the Space Needle slash French Festival thing, not awesome Chinese ayce hotpot and finally ended with a failed attempt at karaoke because the place was crazy packed. The rest of the night involved chilling out with liquor, chips and wasabi peas. Sunday encountered technical issues with online friend's mobile, so we ended up doing things ourselves with our gentleman guide, Garret, who followed us shopping ladies around when we shopped. Dinner was at none other than the Cheesecake Factory because no Seattle trip is complete without Cheesecake Factory! Then finally we raided Walmart as usual before getting home at a ridiculous time in the morning for work the same day (me, anyway).

The Saturday following my termination, a group of us visited an anime-themed Summer Festival at SFU to do some "research" for a possible business opportunity in the near future. More on it if/when it develops. I also surprisingly bumped into LightingSabre near the end of our visit. After pestering people to do the surveys for us, we fled the scene and stopped by the night market for some eats before finally going to Industry for ~~some~~ many drinks, compiling the survey results and unexpected appearances by childhood friends.

Oh, MiniComi. Spent the day hanging out with Jenny who wanted to check it out and take some photos of her campus before she left for Japan later that month. A bit disappointing seeing that it was a gathering of artists which unfortunately didn't quite capture the artist quality we actually have here in Vancouver. That one room they fit the event into didn't seem to do the event enough justice. Assuming it was successful to them, I'd like to see them do a lot better next year.

The International Autonomous Robot Racing Competition was happening at the same time right outside the SUB building. Not so sure about the "international" part since the competitors were all from Canadian universities. Watching the little guys move and recognize (or not recognizing) the road ahead of them was more amusing than what was happening inside the school.

It's the "Kinect" (top) VS the "PSEye" (bottom).

Tired and hungry, we left the campus when we were done with the photo taking. Found Shi2 and gang free for dinner so we settled for some good old bar food at the Flying Beaver. Brought with her was fellow bRO player, Kaz, visiting from England for the two weeks. Being the youngest group in the bar, we failed miserably at the songs-older-than-we-are guessing game.

And finally, went for a weekend trip to Portland during the last long weekend (last weekend of July). I sadly didn't end up getting anything but my parents (and aunt) got quite a haul. I spent most of the travel time watching Glee although I'm nowhere close to catching up. We followed a tour bus for this trip which also took us to some sightseeing places like the Point Defiance Zoo, but it was mainly all shopping. We sat in on a skit at the zoo which conveniently used the bad gamer stereotype vs the nature lover *rolls eyes* but yeah, compared to a video game, a real life lynx is a lot cooler.

To compensate for the lack of photos, here's some from Eat! Vancouver a few months back. Observe: beer tasting (with chocolates) and wine tasting (with cheeses).

Terminated

2011-07-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

Why, hello there! Here's your last paycheque and your way out.

I expected the day to act out like any other day but had a lemon thrown at my face half way through. Having being informed that I was replaced by two others, I was relieved of my work then and there. Without given the time to process what had just happened, I was already being guided out the door. Even now I still don't know what's going on.

Despite job searching the last two and a half months while still employed (and have had no luck). I can't help but feel pessimistic at this point. And now without income, the pressure feels even greater than before.

I would have appreciated some kind of forewarning, seriously.

Torchlight: Click Click Click

2011-07-05T13:36:00.001-07:00

Sick days are great for finishing up posts.

STORY 2/5
There was a story? Oh, yeah I guess there was.

You arrive in a town called Torchlight and was asked to help find her mentor who seems to have gone mad and disappeared. You were told he's in the mines so off you go. You, of course, do eventually find him after traversing 30 some-odd levels of this "mine". The lady who recruits you does not help you at all, although you don't need help anyway.

CHARACTERS 2/5
I have no background story so the character class really only determines your play style. The only person with some sort of background is the mentor, Master Alric who's, well, crazy I suppose. What drove him to his obsession with Ember, the main cause of all of this town's chaos, is played out through transcripts of his findings/thoughts when you descend the main story dungeon.

SOUND 3.5/5
The music and sounds in this game bleeds Diablo. I swear the original composer of the Diablo series who joined the team purposely made it Diablo-like. The town theme, especially, sounds just like Diablo's town theme. The sound effects are practically identical (e.g. the scrolls and gold sfx). I don't know if that's a bad thing but it definitely makes the game want you to feel right at home. Diablo's home sweet home feel.

Where's my Diablo... :(

GRAPHICS 3/5
Nothing impressive. If anything, it's outdated and cartoony but I've seen community mods available to possibly remedy this or at least update it a bit if you wished to do so. The simplicity of its visuals reflects the rest of the game quite well though.

GAMEPLAY 3/5
The deliciously simplified version of Diablo, keeping the formula that made Diablo so addictive. Unique to the game is a pet animal that's another additional inventory pack and can sell stuff for you while you're still dungeon crawling. You can also feed it different types of fish for it to transform into other monsters with different attacks and resistances. It's not particularly useful since it likes to die a lot. Speaking of fish you can fish at fishing spots scattered across the dungeon.

OVERALL 3/5
A great game reminiscent to Diablo in almost every way, which doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing but it definitely does make you yearn for more out of the game. Torchlight doesn't feel particularly polished nor incomplete, although its simplicity does do the job for what it is. The devs did mention that they had more plans for the game but due to time constraints, they had to take it out (e.g. multiplayer) which is where Torchlight 2 comes in to fill in the gaps.

The game was fun and plenty addictive but as a whole there was a lot of missing potential. We'll just have to see how Torchlight 2 does to make up for the first.

Change of Plans

2011-06-06T23:58:00.001-07:00

計画変更
It's halfway through the year and I'm where I wouldn't of hoped myself to be at. My JET interview wasn't perfect but the positivity level was high enough for me to believe that I had a pretty damn good chance of getting in. Then the unexpected of all unexpected happened -- a whopping earthquake shook the country and created a shitload of other problems bigger than the earthquake itself which then lead to frightened parents and uncertainty. After receiving word of my [partial] acceptance (waitlisted), there was no need for excitement since I well already knew I'd probably have to reject it. Having actually rejected the position left me with my current issue: finding a new job. I got this current job keeping in mind that it was temporary since the pay was no way up to par and the working conditions are extremely less than ideal. I figured the relative convenience for travel and it's relatedness to my skillset worked at the time. Not to mention it was a well known company in the area but I didn't know what kind of company it really was until I started working in it... no surprise there, really. Now that I'm here to stay (in Canada), I've begun thinking about myself, my career, and my future in the long term.

No, nothing philosophical here.

I don't think I've had this level of stress since my JET application (yeah, that sonuvabitch was stressful). I recently plowed through 3 interviews for a prospective global corporation but didn't make the final cut due to the less experience compared to the other candidate. It was unfortunate but it /was/ my first multi-tier interview, so it was a pretty good experience. Other than that, it has been extremely quiet on the battlefront since I've been picking my battles carefully.

On another front, I'm currently looking to invest in a place out of town. In-town (aka. Vancouver) has become unreasonably unaffordable and at this rate, the cities surrounding Vancouver will end up the same. Burnaby (see: Sovereign) is a good example of ridiculousness (it even sold out on the first day) and its prime location justifies its desirability, which in turn, jacks up the prices as well. Then there's Richmond which has become out of the question ever since earthquakes have become an ongoing global concern this year. Doesn't help that we also have to fight with foreign investors (aka. China people) who have way too much pocket change.

Although the job hunting hasn't been very fruitful, I've been well occupied and entertained by life's other diversions. Regrettably, Fable 3 has been doing quite the opposite and I'm just looking to get it over and done with. The inner [selective] completionist in me is making that rather difficult though. I definitely wasn't thinking straight when I decided to play Fable 3 when I was in the mood for a JRPG. Fable 3's disappointment aside, life's still being sprinkled with small moments of joys. The near completion of my brother's new place is one. The family will be taking a look over it tomorrow. And more recently I think I won something... kinda big. More on it when I actually get it.

Okay, now back to the hunt.

Ar Tonelico II: vine en vine, zweie arsye yor

2011-06-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

Erm, slight review backlog. This is from a year ago. Didn't have the time to put in the final touches. Allow me to finally dump this here.

Story 4/5
AT2 brings us another tale of Ar Ciel, this time in Metafalss where Reyvateils are being affected by an epidemic of unknown origins. Croix (ku-ro-a), an exceptionally skilled knight, wounds up becoming a bodyguard for Cloche, the holy maiden of the Grand Bell, when she gets attacked during her holidaying by a resistance against the church/organization (governing body) she represents. This becomes the start of his investigation into the source of the epidemic and uncovering the powers and history of his land.

Croix isn't complete without his trusty childhood friend, Luca, who's the perfect polar opposite of Cloche. The two ladies butt heads throughout the story but, of course, there's a whole huge reason behind all of the bickering. The two eventually have to come to terms with each other for the sake of the world and their loved one (aka. the lucky protagonist) after they find out their wield more power than they think.

Saving the world isn't a surprising story but the references from the first game definitely make this experience a lot more deep and interesting. Just like the first game, the second allows you to choose one of the two paths (the two girls) which opens up a different part of the story but closes others. There's also a third girl option which usually takes a bit more effort to reach but she's worth it. I played through the game twice again (yes, it's absurd) to get both paths and to finish with two of the three girls. Luca was not one of them, so now you know.

Characters 4.5/5
I really liked how the design direction of the characters in this game felt more mature (although I think they're about the same age as the prev series). Neither main girls really spoke to me, but Cloche was a bit more interesting than Luca. Still, her ending left much to be desired. On the other hand, the third reyvateil was pretty amusing with her sarcastic personality and her quirkiness makes her all the more interesting. I already knew what was featured in the ending from the Concert OST so watching the scene for myself just topped it off for me.

Unfortunately the protagonist is, again, an indifferent guy who is unaffected by the pretty girls who'd die to get in his pants. His (or I guess yours) feelings will change according to how you advance with the girls but it comes off a tad bit forced. The fortunate part, though, is that his character design is refreshing a nice change in comparison to the genericness of Lyner of AT1. His look is complete when he wears his glasses when he's in normal clothing (glasses fetish? me? no way!). Perhaps I'm a sucker for cool guys. Maybe.. yeah, probably. He even uses a giant lance and his strongest move is called, ahem, maximum penetration. Who can resist a manly scream like that. ;)

Overall it felt like there were more character sub-stories (some selective merchants) and more background stories to be uncovered (if one wished to pursue them).

Sound 5.5/5
AT music has always been known to be nothing less than amazing. I was already well familiarized to the hymns prior to the game and playing the game put the tracks into context. I fell in love with the distinct music style of the vocal tracks just the same as how I did for the first one. Always loved the duets and multiple singer tracks and without a doubt, my most favourite track is featured in the third reyvateil's ending as a duet with Croix.

Yusa Kouji makes such a cool and delicious Croix and out of character Suwabe Junichi as Chester in the optional Cosmosphere was the icing on the cake for this game's Japanese voice track. I avoided the English language track as usual and it's a good thing I did as I heard it's quite distracting and embarrassing to play when the girl shouting for you to insert the thing into them, telling you its overflowing from the inside, and that they demand for more. Ahem.

Graphics 3/5
Average graphics although there's definitely improvement from AT1. Areas have more dimension as the perspective adjusts and move with your character now. Your pixel character, however, continues to be its pixel self. The still portraits and full background images return to provide that dating sim feel but the cutscene animations seemed to have dropped in quality.

Gameplay 3.5/5
The gameplay probably received the biggest upgrade from the first. The battle system has evolved and every action you take now counts for something towards your reyvateil's performance. You now also get up to two beautiful ladies to protect during battle - 2x more work but 2x more powerful. Battles are divided into turn phases (attack and defense) and your offensive turn is to be used as efficiently as possible as you're under a timer. Songs now have branches and evolve depending on your battle action and with the right circumstances, you can synchronize your reyvateils for a powerful attack, call on a satellite for help, or just evolve the song to its most powerful level.

Other nifty [mostly optional] gameplay features include the Cosmosphere (from AT1 - diving into the minds of the ladies to uncover deep dark secrets), bathing events (no you don't get to bath with them but you can watch!), crafting (the ridiculous inventions return) and finding infected reyvateils (which you then recruit to do your bidding).

Overall 4/5
As a second timer into the Ar Tonelico series, I knew what to expect and it definitely lived up to its name. The typos and bugs aside (it won't let me fight Raki :( ), the obvious sexual innuendos are so amusing and that itself just continues to entertain. Having a bit more than just a bit of reference from the first game ([spoiler]The third reyvateil[/spoiler]), made this game all the more interesting as well.

Creepy bug I felt like snapshotting.
Looking forward to diving into AT3 and whatever else they have planned for the world of Ar Tonelico!

Sakura Con 2011 Report

2011-04-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

Admiring from a distance... Delicious Perfect Grade.
Easter weekend fell on the final weekend of April this year and Sakura Con followed suit. Things kind of worked out: worked furiously at my portfolio up until the week of Sakura Con to then work furiously on the changes for my costume. Thanks to stress, I had the worst migraine the night before but I managed to recover enough.

Thursday - Day 0
Would've took the day off from work if the workload wasn't so disgustingly big in the last month. Fortunately I was able to jet early and headed home to do some last minute packing before gathering the gang - ToFu and Sty. We ended up leaving Vancouver way later than planned due to all sorts of delays but luckily we still beat the border rush. We made a stop at the Premium Outlet which lasted longer than we originally wanted but it was a nice break from all the sitting.

When we finally got into Seattle, we decided on Kylie's Chicago (deep dish) Pizza for dinner, a mere half n hour before the place closed. After filling up we headed to Garret's place around 10:30ish to finally settle down. We stalked the Will Call page for as long as we could before we decided to call it a night.

Friday - Day 1
Will call finally opened early in the morning so we finally registered. We made our way to the convention to make it to VOFAN and Jo Chen's first panel where they demoed how they collaborated and completed the Sakura Con exclusive Japan relief poster. The level of complexity of the two art styles (Jo Chen and her 3D-style; VOFAN and his character design process) and watching their progress fast forwarded was pretty amazing.

After our first panel we checked out the Artists Alley and then took a visit to the Exhibitor's Hall where I tried really hard to find something I really wanted. I did spot Fate Testarossa Movie version for a whopping 280$ (overpriced 2x) which came out earlier this year. Sadly not happening. With a passing interest in the panel's title, we stopped in to see Jo Chen's BL Circle panel where my respect for her grew even bigger. :D

We finally had our first meal of the day at the Tap House before returning back to check out the "How to Talk to Girls" panel. To our dismay it really was just a counselor girl studying psychology? telling us that anime is not real life. Thanks for the wake up call. We escaped a few minutes into the panel to revisit the Artists Alley before heading to this year's Iron Artist where ToFu reigned supreme again against Garret. After kicking some drawing ass we went to the Swimsuit Contest. Horo and her can crushing with her thighs of steel was kinda cool. Just saying. We have no idea who won though since we left before the results.

Saturday - Day 2

Here's some Moriyama.
Autograph day: VOFAN & Jo Chen, Mitsuishi Kotono (fsking long line + angry fans), Moriyama Daisuke and finally Atsushi Suzumi. Since Atsushi's autograph line was short, we were able to request artwork as well. Lined up on her table were some of her other works and Tokyo Ravens caught my eye so I decided to request that from her. A pouty Natsume was completely up my alley!

Dancing girls in the distance.
Finally after hours of autographing, we hung out outside for some fresh air and watched some photoshoots happen. Checked out the Berryz Koubou concert a bit before heading to Cheesecake Factory for some food and to meet up with the SF gang. I had some firecrackers:

After food we loitered outside before I was spotted by some Touhoes. Decided to check out their little pre-party meetup at Gameworks and, yeah, lots of people showed up. I helped myself to their veggie platter to keep myself busy. P: There was some sort of role playing happening in one corner, Touhoes on a laptop in another, a bunch of non-cosplayer friends chatting to each other or karaoke (aka a capella). Eh. Anyway, I wanted to see that one DJ from Japan at the dance so I headed back to the convention. Unfortunately there was no schedule for the DJs performing so I didn't get a chance to hear that guy's music and I sure wasn't willing to wait around until 4am to find out.

Sunday - Day 3
We failed to leave on time in the morning and ended up missing some of the potentially interesting fashion shows. Following the schedule, we went to VOFAN and Jo Chen's final panel for some fun, free for all Q&A time. We ended up throwing a number of entertaining questions at them. We suspected that VOFAN was probably holding back on some of the answers to the questions since his wife was in the audience.

VOFAN and Jo Chen
Stopped by the Touhou panel after the Q&A to find that they were already doing the photoshoot. We made our final visit to the exhibitor's hall for any last minute deals and purchases to finish off the convention.

There was also an amusing encounter with the niconico.com stream. I'll just leave it at that.

Post convention: we made our way to Uwajimaya and Kinokuniya for some more shopping before heading to Crab Pot for dinner.

What a delicious mess.
My damage which mainly consisted of games I bought and shipped to my friend's place for my pickup convenience:

Gawd too many games.
Then came Monday and normal work life resumed.

Welcoming the next age bracket

2011-04-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

Birthdays are great reminders that YOU ARE GETTING OLD. DO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE WITH YOUR LIFE BEFORE YOU BECOME EVEN OLDER.

I must admit, my original plan post grad was pretty well set if JET worked out. Now that Japan is still having trouble getting back up on their feet because of their nuclear mismanagement and frequent semi-big earthquakes, I'm not at all happy leaving home knowing that my parents will be worried sick every day. I only did just check my email to find that I was accepted as an alternate (the filler for those who decline). Almost wished I was outright rejected so I don't have this choice at all. I've still got a week-ish to sit on it and respond which I will definitely do with all my weight.

So, about age brackets. I now get to select the next age bracket up. To celebrate, I bought myself something... a bit big.

My very first purchase at Book Off!

Then had the best cake in the world.

DURIAN. FILLED.

One particular geeky gift card also did well persuading.

Looks like black sesame sponge cake.
Filled with a GTX570 though~

Speaking of food, I tried McDix's Angus Burger (Mushroom & Swiss version) for 1/2 off and it was a bit of a letdown.

Also attempted natto for the first time just earlier this month. Sadly not my cup of tea. It's fun to mix and make stringier though?

Other than getting old, I prepared for the worst (for my JET results) by redoing my portfolio (yet again) so I can get out of this hellhole job asap. I'll need some time to recover my drive to jump ship after spending all my energy this past weekend at Sakuracon though. Next up: con report.

Limbo

2011-03-11T00:32:00.000-08:00

Time has never moved this painfully slowly. I mean that in the both literal and figurative sense.

My work area (at work) was never really comfortable. I was given the opportunity to pick my own chair from the company's office furniture supplier on my first week but little did I know how it would feel in context, with the table and everything else. The chair's arms ended up being too high for the keyboard tray pull out and as a habit I would rest on the arms. As for the keyboard tray pull out, it's adjustable to a certain extent - the lowest position touches my legs so I can't move or cross them; the highest position, I tried to level with the chair arm height, scrapes the bottom of the tabletop and either blocks access to most of the top left keyboard keys (my important keys: ESC and F2) or traps my fingers. There's also a built-in bar cushion for the keyboard on the tray which is just annoying and unhelpful in wrist cushioning. The mouse is not any better; I'm supposed to use the built-in, permanently inclined and non-adjustable mouse tray that's connected to the keyboard tray. In other words, it doesn't work for me because it's too low so I'm forced to share the keyboard space with the mouse.

It would be easy to ignore it, which I did for the past half a year I've been here and now it seems to have caught up to me. The veins running down my fingers, through my wrist and forearm are now showing signs of CTS. I bought a wrist brace for my dominant hand and it seems to be helping me wonders. Although I think I need to get another brace for the other hand now too.

I refuse to be burdened with such an avoidable issue so early in my life. Fuck this.

In other depressing news, after many, many awesome years of imported Japanese book goodness, Iwase is closing down mid-March. I remember buying my first super expensive "air-mail"-priced magazine ($20+ bucks) which was either an Animage or a Animedia. Every month after that I bought and tried out another magazine and eventually stuck with Newtype until I finally stopped my monthly magazine buying habit altogether last summer when I realized that I was 1. running out of space to store them 2. I've stopped watching anime regularly 3. money priorities have changed.

I recall my first manga bought there was Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. I had all these fabulous plans on an amazing manga collection that included super long running series I always wanted to own for myself. Every time I visited, I'd stare longingly at the Sazan Eyes and Rurouni Kenshin shelves aiming to complete these series one day. As a side note: till this day they're still both quite incomplete. Having said that I still did start and complete a few series with Iwase (Card Captor Sakura comes to mind), although not many did see to completion after I discovered a much, much cheaper alternative called the Internet.

It was also because of Iwase I started this crazy, but brief obsession for pinky:st. As much as I wanted to support them, their ridiculous yen to cnd exchange rate couldn't be justified. I was grateful for their old school video rentals for my once a year visit after the new year for the latest Kouhaku event. Speaking of which, I didn't get to rent it this year and so I'll have to resort to downloading. :/

So I decided to stop by for the very last time last Saturday for a final farewell and to take a look at what this "sale" was all about. It was probably the busiest I've ever seen the place and the sale was more than just tempting. Sadly the manga and artbooks were not on sale but there were some tasty magazines and plenty of other books that were worth picking up depending on your interests. I honestly didn't really need to buy anything but 70% off just sounds so good, doesn't it? ...said the inner-shopaholic. I ended up buying some random, borderline gag-merch I knew some people would appreciate and at the very end, it didn't even really turn out that cheap for me.

My trivial distresses aside, the world hasn't been all too happy this year seeing all the earthquakes and weird weather patterns occurring all around the world. :/

One definitely positive thing I can say right now is that king crab season has started and I've already had my first.

But really though, work just feels like the calm before the storm. I can sense the danger looming before me, the workplace meteorologist within me warns me so.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is first

2011-02-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

I'm going to see if I can remember the game from a year ago.

Story 3.5/5
World War III destroys the living conditions on Earth, leaving the survivors to find a new planet to live on by traversing into outer space. A new organization is created dedicating itself to space explorations and research. As part of the space fleet, Eeedji-kun and Reimi venture into space on their first mission only to be disrupted by an unexpected meteor which forces them to emergency warp out from their travel course. They crash land on a monster-infested planet and create a new team to continue on the main mission while the old team stays behind to figure out what exactly happened. They find and destroy planets, combat diseases, and answer a number of questions from the Star Ocean series.

As the prequel, things surprisingly made sense. There were some recurring themes that linked with the other stories. I still question the last boss though. The biggest wtf was definitely [spoiler] the space dragon!! [/spoiler]

Characters 3/5
Everyone's so lawl about this. This game's the greatest generic stereotype library: we've got the happy-go-lucky protagonist who turns emo at some point, the cute childhood friend who gets jealous easily, the orderly one, the loli, the father figure, the megane airhead/kultz, the cat fetish, the boobs, and the goth. They covered most of their bases.

Personality-wise, I don't think there's a character I particularly loved (although I suppose Reimi scores pretty high) but I can definitely tell you my most hated character was Meracle. Eleyna, who was just a side character, might've been even more interesting than the main cast. Playability-wise, I enjoyed using Edge, Reimi, and Lymle.

Oh and wtf happened to Welch? Welch in her early days or not, she's no pink-haired ditz. Super disappointment. :(

Sound 3/5
More yays for the international version. Fortunately I avoided the English voices completely so my game was graced by the voices of Kishio Daisuke (Edge), Sawashiro Miyuki (Lymle) and Saiga Mitsuki's (Faize). The unfortunate part is that their voice actors couldn't make up for their in-game counterparts.

Sakuraba Motoi's music style really shone through in the battle tracks. Can't say much for the other stuff though.

Graphics 4/5
Pretty decent looking game with blinding lightning effects. The glassy doll eyes are really creepy at first. Like Magna Carta 2 but they actually stare straight at you as opposed to looking away.

PS3 wins with 2D character profiles.

Gameplay 4.5/5
4 brings back all the classic gameplay features from the other games - crafting, real-time battles, private actions - and adds blindsiding (going behind the enemy), battle bonuses (wait were there bonuses in 3?), and a special attack gauge (Rush Mode - a la Tales' Hi-Ougi). Rush mode is one of the more exciting parts of the gameplay since it can be super cheap if used correctly.

Swapping characters mid-battle is a great added feature. If you're so dying to the point that it's hopeless during the ass-pain that is the second optional dungeon, the Wandering Dungeon, then this is the function to use to your advantage stat.

Overall 4/5
Speaking of the Wandering Dungeon, gee-zeus it's so tedious so no I didn't kill the hardest boss in the game although the Seven Star Dungeon was deliciously fun and entertaining.

With a passable story, not so desirable characters but excellent gameplay, the game is still worth many, many hours of gaming dedication. Just remember this game is Japanese so playing with Japanese voice overs will help those strangely awkward moments.

Stumping Interviews

2011-02-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

The JET Interview has come and gone. My half hour appointment felt like it would never end. Kept catching myself looking away when I was gathering my thoughts but that's out of habit so it was unavoidable. Overall it felt positive although I got stumped twice by the same guy with his only two questions. Even now I still don't know how to measure the success of the program upon returning (which was the first q). The other question was something about what I'd teach in 15 mins to a bunch of career-driven high level English-speaking/understanding Japanese students about Canada. It looked like he was looking for a specific answer which I suppose I failed to identify. Woe is me.

I only saw one other interviewee that whole morning when I was heading out. Wished her good luck. Other than that, the place felt so deserted. Fortunately the stormy, windy, wet and cold weather morning of Vancouver was revived by a pipping hot earl grey milk tea handmade by Mike at his bun factory. I hadn't seen him in ages but Bonchaz and his cafe seems to be doing really well. The rest of the day was superbly relaxing with some delicious ginka bishounen.

I wish I took more days off.

Alright back to the waiting game.

Taihen Exciting: 2010 to 2011

2011-02-05T03:04:00.000-08:00

あけおめ～
Happy New Year & Lunar New Year~

/welcome 2011

Looking back at 2010 now, 2010 was a beast. From losing my last grandparent, to the mess that was the Olympics, to graduating university, to getting into my first major car accident, to Las Vegas, to AX again and met Horie Yui and Konishi Katsuyuki, to finally getting a new phone... and a lot of amazing things in between. Yeah, it's been quite fulfilling. Thanks 2010.

Now, looking ahead... Hows you, 2011?

JET had been on my mind the last two weeks since interview notifications were sent out and, to follow up on that, I got word of my interview for mid February (ughh reading break that doesn't apply to me at all...!). And as much as I'd put to put all my eggs in one basket, I finally decided on a Plan B just to be safe. SO thus began my portfolio revamp project with a self-set deadline (so I couldn't keep slacking off) and spent the past week plus to update and tweak. Although I lost a bit of sleep, I feel a bit more prepared and now it'll be up to the companies I applied for to answer my ~~plead~~ call. As for JET prepping, I'd like a few days to recuperate first ~~(ahem, kick some FF12 Gilgamesh ass)~~...

Having experiencing the mind-~~blowing~~numbing excitement of full time work again, I've begun looking forward to all the possible events that may come my way. The next closest thing is probably Sakuracon which is scheduled a bit later than usual to follow Easter's shift in mid/late April. It's not at all bad as I'll either be going there feeling super excited or super bummed after getting my JET results two weeks before. Then there's AX - hm, will deal with later when the time comes.

The lunar new year is already upon us though - the year of the rabbit. It's especially tasty for my year. I took a look at my forecast and it got me pretty hyped up... aside from the fact that the only two of the zodiac fortune tellers I read (from a list) both said something about traffic accidents. It's definitely made me paranoid. And one of the two had an obsession with placing cups of water in certain places. Oh and pink things.

Ah yes, new years resolutions:
Since I'm entering the next age bracket this year (omg! D:), I'm putting on the serious hat to save big money for big investments.

Serious hat with serious sheep.
(btw I've stopped playing but I needed my serious hat pic)

So, after using the SH-01C for a good month plus now I can officially say that the Signal Out on a hypersim is so much more of a pain in the ass than the simple firmware unlock. Oh where have those good old days gone?

Remember this?

It's slowly turning into this:

What is this trend...?
I just need this and this.
Get back to me in about a year and I'll tell you how well I do.

Decembering and Christmasing

2010-12-31T00:56:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! A final post before the new year.

It's been a long time since I've had to work through the Christmas holiday. The last time was also in the retail business. Surprise surprise. :( Although I haven't had a lot of personal leisure time, December didn't disappoint with all sorts of stuff happening out of the norm.

There was another PZAG gathering mid-December where we hot potted indoors but for some reason had the front door open. I found out that Jicky also applied for JET this year and if we both get accepted, we're going to raid the host bars and spend all our money on seiyuu events. I very much like that idea so I hope it really does happen. ;>

The following weekend was Tofu's bday which involved eating, Tron, and ogling at maids. Crazy optimistic entrepreneuring discussing also happened. The Sunday was supposed to be dedicated to a shopping-filled day in the states but my bro finds out that his passport expired over half a year ago the night before. GJ.

Family celebrated Chinese Winter Thanksgiving at Fleuri in the Sutton Place hotel (yep, very Chinese I know). They had no bison and no chocolate buffet but the food was still excellent as usual. Later that night, I picked up my new baby - the SH-01C:

Merry Christmas to me!
The red is dead gorgeous in real life. Most of the awesomely extra features are tied with the service provider so I'm sadly locked out of them (e.g. i-mode, gps, i-concierge). The biggest upset is probably the change of ringtone format from mmf to mld. As there's no real good software support for the mld, my music customization's going to be limited. If only au KDDI phones were importable. Oh and I actually already dropped it once - fuck me.

Continuing on with the Christmas week... Christmas eve was spent at Sty's place where we had ham and this monstrosity:

Actual Christmas Day was dedicated to sleeping in and dinner at my aunt's place where we had giant turkey and experimental candied mashed yam. The experiment was a delicious success btw. As an added Christmas bonus, I got a tour around the Relic Entertainment office downtown after dinner. I would've stole some pictures if I could. Especially of the giant space marine out at the front. P:

Boxing Day: I'm glad I didn't work that day. They would've have paid me anyway. Later that night, our company dinner (+ boss' relatives) was held at the Chinese restaurant on the 2nd floor of Continental Centre where we hogged up 5 big tables to ourselves. Many beers were passed around and deliciously expensive shark's fin was served. The Caucasians stayed far away from the delicious delicacy which meant more for us! :V

I agreed to work the following stat holiday day just to relieve the load off the web-related stuff piled up on the weekend. The boss treated us to a nice and long dim sum lunch for those few of us who showed up. Yay to long breaks and free food.

The last of the major events was Mina's ahem, secret, civil wedding held at Gudrun. I took half the day off to attend the private event where we ate homemade food and had the papers lady come in to do the ceremony and documentation. Clearly just the food wasn't enough as we went out for bubble tea and snacks right after.

To top off the week, NYE tomorrow... er today. Stuff will happen.

It's depressing knowing that I haven't had the chance to vegetate this winter break. It's even more depressing realizing that I don't see a chance in the near future to take a break anytime either.

Anyway, cheers to 2011. Bring it on!

Play! A Video Game Symphony: In Vancouver

2010-12-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

The other lesser known video game concert. After finally experiencing it firsthand, I think I can see why.

I arrived downtown about an hour before the start of the show and wandered about the stores on Granville while waiting for the rest of the people. On our way into the Orpheum, we were (illegally) handed flyers advertising VGL's return next year (again??). I must say, it's a pretty dirty but smart strategy though...

It started not too long after we got warmed up to our seats. 8pm rolled around and the conductor, Andy Brick, came out to play the first piece prior to his intro shpeel. PLAY! Fanfare was a piece specially composed by Uematsu for their concert, which sadly wasn't that amazing... but if anything, it definitely does make their event the more special and different from the others.

Of course, a video game concert isn't complete without a Mario medley which was the first video game to start. Good momentum yes? Bam! Came the WTF: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Really? REALLY? Award for best video game musical score or not, I don't think it's quite the right series to bring with you. I can understand that you want to dedicate a track to the composer in the audience, but really, how many of us have played the DS game? Even as HP fans, I'm not here to listen to HP thank you very much. Besides, there's plenty of other better known games to choose from his resume? Rant aside, I won't deny that it is a good piece by itself.

Back on track was Silent Hill, Theme of Laura was awesome with an orchestra and the old man ripping it on the guitar. Followed was Civ 5! I haven't even played it yet but it sounded good. The piece was a mashup of a variety of tracks and one part was clearly the theme for East Asia as the CG lady on the screen was some sort of Japanese/Chinese. The composers were also in the audience.

Hello, Kingdom Hearts! Interestingly enough, they actually had Kingdom Hearts CG playing on the screen (versus VGL only had Disney clips). I personally loved their rendition with both Hikari and Passion. Following with the awesome was an excellent arrange of Legend of Zelda.

The build up was interrupted by an intermission and the 2nd half started with, what... Sim City 4?! Really? REALLY? I don't mind Sim City at all but choose something just a tad more popular. Just saying you'd probably get more reaction from the audience that way.

The concert continues with Guild Wars. Seriously, enough music for the attending composers and more for the audience you're supposed to be catering to. I won't deny that it was still enjoyable for what it was.

The highlight of the concert was supposed to be the Chrono Cross/Trigger arrange BUT being the picky fangirl that I am, they didn't perform up to my expectations. The solo flute player and the solo first violinist failed to be on beat and not loud enough, respectively (for Time's Scar). Rantrantrantrant, but hey, I loved the Chrono Trigger ending theme!

And then we had Halo. This version didn't sound as epic as VGLs. The choir definitely wasn't loud enough. The next nice surprise was Sonic the Hedgehog. I remember the Green Hill Zone and it was played wonderfully!

Play!'s version of Castlevania was pretty mellow and definitely gave off the orchestrated symphony feel compared to VGL's all-out rock (which yeah, isn't very orchestraded now is it?).

Finally, to finish off, there was World of Warcraft. I'd probably be all over this piece if I were a WoWer. But I'm not so I wasn't.

Surprise, surprise there was an encore. And guess what it was? Fucking One Winged Angel. Been to three video game concerts ever, all with the same encore.

So in retrospect, I had a lot of complaints. Overall it was decent but the flaws were obvious. I hate to have to compare it with VGL since Play! clearly presents music completely differently than VGL does but I would definitely still question the choice of some tracks (mainly HP and Sim City really). Perhaps because VGL was able to squeeze that many more songs into their program (medleys featuring multiple series etc), it felt a lot more satisfying.

Seeing that this was a more traditional orchestrated concert, it was hard to cheer and make noises like Andy Brick said we could've; it was all the more awkward, really.

The videos that played on the screen wasn't as synced to the music as one would've wanted them to be. The visuals that were shown also got duplicated quite a bit in the same score and it didn't seem as well edited. It also didn't help that I sat beside a fangirl who was very vocal with her experience with the games featured. I've played this, I've played that. I remember this, I remember that. Good for you girl. It was also a bit funny that she wore a VGL t-shirt. It's like going to a True Blood meetup with a Twilight fan shirt on. Yeah.

I definitely give props for providing a thorough tribute to each game as multiple tracks were incorporated into one piece instead of just the theme songs. Seeing their score collection though, I would've wanted to hear Lost Odyssey, Actraiser, Shadow of the Colossus, Shenmue or Stella Deus... just the games that were a bit out of the norm. I did have high hopes on the selection, mainly something aside from the mainstream market but alas, I was disappointed. Although they did try with uhh... Harry Potter? I guess. :| I would've definitely liked to see them differentiate themselves from VGL, perhaps, with the niche market or lesser known but just as popular games route.

My friend brought up a good suggestion - Katamari Damacy. Imagine that with choir and orchestra. Just imagine... wow.

All 'n all, good try but they definitely need to differentiate themselves better from VGL rather than being the other "not so good as VGL" concert. They clearly want to offer a different experience but they don't seem to be doing it right somehow. They have potential and they should totally try and find some sort of exploit they can use to their advantage. If not, they'll always be seen as the second rate concert second to VGL forever.

T'was a good run, 902sh.

2010-12-04T23:33:00.000-08:00

5 years and 6 months later, my Sharp 902sh has finally croaked. I've been meaning to get a new phone for the past *cough* year anyway and didn't get more serious about it until the past few months when the Nokia N8 was looking like an excellent candidate. Sadly my phone couldn't last a month or two more for me before I'm able to finalize my decision. Then again, I probably would've just held it off as long as I could.

Clearly the one that's looks like a phone is my phone.
Now I'm scrambling to get a new phone. I'm not particularly a fan of touchscreens but the features on the N8 were really delicious so I was already ready to try something new. I was almost dead set on it until I got word that it's being released here with Rogers. It's definitely great news that Canada's finally catching up with the latest mobile phones though. But as for me... I think my heart's still with my Japanese phones.

I think I've narrowed down my choices but it seems like the mobiles nowadays lean on the hypersim unlock rather than the software. I've been so used to software unlocking that I don't know what to feel about this whole hypersim thing and how it's going to be like. But! I'm all up and ready for an adventure so why not.

My mom lent me her old Sony Ericsson for the time being though. Every time I felt like getting it set up, I turn it on to be reminded that my mom's old data's still in there and then I don't feel like it anymore. Doesn't help that my phone data isn't compatible with my ancient sim card and it's been backed up into a file that the SE can't read. I might just have to get over that soon though since I won't be getting my new phone immediately. I so do prefer starting fresh. :(

*Rant: iPhone/iPod Touch shitty tap games have consumed my mom. :(

Busy November.

2010-11-27T17:49:00.000-08:00

First snowfall this week. I tried so hard to delay (and even avoid) the purchase of winter tires but I gave in hearing all the snowfall warnings. I'm glad I did get a set though seeing it really DID fall and there's still plenty of crazy drivers out there... crazy as in still driving at insane speeds regardless of road conditions. Funny enough, the roads were a lot emptier once the snow stuck. The drive home was quite pleasant 'cept very cold. The snow did come and go now that the weather's slightly warmer, the rain's been pouring like mad. I imagine we'll be seeing more snow later next month though.

I've finally submitted my JET Application earlier this week. I decided against sending it too close to the application deadline date (Nov 30) just in-case of unforeseen problems. I went through about 4 draft overhauls, more than I've ever done on any academic paper. I definitely wouldn't of gotten to my final version without the support of my English proficient friends (yeah you know who you guys are). Now that it's over and done with, I can get on with my next task - my portfolio. I'll have to try and not think about it for another 2 months before the next dreadful hurdle called the interview. :|

Amazon.com is the evilest POS (hint: not point-of-sale). They had a vid game promo for a buy 2 get 1 free and I somehow splurged. A week later some those games go on sale for even cheaper. UGH. On its way up the border, customs got a hold of it and literally attacked my special Record of Agarest War limited edition. No, sorry to disappoint but there's no bombs in the shape of oppai mousepads in there.

My porn has been spoiled. :(
Work's been a bit hectic. We recently (two weeks ago) opened a new location in Coquitlam and then followed to get robbed the next day. We also got a new POS (point-of-sale) system which we launched in the same month as all these happenings which is also a great POS (not point-of-sale). Outdated, unintuitive, slow, unfriendly, unreliable (crashes)... everything you'd want in an efficient software of the 21st century.

And so November comes to a close in a few days.

PS: Monsters is such a shitty movie. Don't watch it, even if's free!

Mass Effect: The Second

2010-11-15T21:40:00.000-08:00

Overdue half a year.

Aloha, beaver teeth!
STORY 4.5/5
The "continuation" of ME1... The Normandy gets attacked by an unknown ship on the way to finish off the geth leftovers. The crew are forced to evacuate but Shepard gets blown out of the ship and falls into a nearby atmosphere. Supposedly dead, Shepard wakes up back in one piece in a Cerberus lab under attack two years later and is told to join them in facing a new threat. You gather a fresh group of teammates, old and new, and get a new ship. Although this time around, ME2's ending prepares the setting for ME3.

The story this time around was definitely more character development driven as all the members of your crew had some significance in the main save-the-universe storyline.

CHARACTERS 4.5/5
Where to start? I think I liked everyone. It felt like the characters were definitely more alive in their fluid movements, facial expressions and just had more personality in general.

Miranda's front two beaver teeth drove me up the wall though (much like Sookie's front two teeth gap).. until I eventually got used to it. Jacob was cool, but I somehow kept unintentionally triggering the flirt dialogue lines. Grunt, the Wrex replacement, was cute but not as cool as Wrex. Loved Thane's story. Was indifferent with Jack but apparently she's a popular choice for romance. Samara - Justicars are cool. Mordin! They made him so awesomely hilarious. I would've totally tried to date him if the choice was there. ;)

[Partial spoiler?] Tali'Zorah returns. Meh. :b As for romance I was actually able to choose Garrus this time! The whole romancing thing with him was a bit of a disappointment, but hey, he's not exactly human so I let it slide. My wish from ME1 came true though. :D As for Alenko, WELL, I'm glad we broke up![/spoiler]

SOUND 4/5
The delicious epic music and voice acting has lived on in ME2.

GRAPHICS 4/5
Great improvements since the first game. I'm sure that I couldn't stop staring at Thane whenever I had a conversation with him. The details on his FACE were stare-worthy. The loading of textures and details were not noticeable like ME1 where objects would load by layers.

GAMEPLAY 4/5
There's no more weapon swapping, just only between the different types. e.g. sniper rife or bazooka. Ammo is no longer unlimited. The Mako's been changed into a planet probing mini game and it's even more time consuming than before. I must admit, I grinned when I probed Uranus though.

The morality feature had been revamped into a simple Paragon/Renegade system which is opened up by dialog/actions you take throughout the game. Certain Paragon/Renegade actions became available during dialog/cut scenes to alter the story a bit. I felt less worried picking a few Renegade choices here and there this time around. (ahem, beating a guy three times to get him to talk)

Traveling the universe now requires gas. SERIOUSLY. Thanks for reminding us that gas is indeed expensive, ME2. I was always poor because of fuel costs.

OVERALL 4.5/5
It was neat how my PC Dragon Age bonus armor for Mass Effect 2 was able to transfer over but it sucked how my helmet was always on. I didn't really get to see my actual face much until I finally gave up on wearing my awesome blood armor. :(

Having played the first one, ME2 definitely stood out with returning characters and the development of a universe I'm already well aware of. Even the little Cerberus news update that changes every day was a nice touch to the game. If you login every day, some stories actually related which was neat. :D

Again just like the first, you get to decide the fate of something universe changing at the end... which will be transferred elegantly into the 3rd game! More cameos, returning characters and then a bunch of new ones all over again! I'm ready for some more ass whoopin'!

Who needs candy anyway

2010-11-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

It's unbelievable how it's already November. Geez, slow down 2010.

So Halloween which usually involves costumes didn't happen so much this year. Had a pumpkin carving party at Saboo's new place (or at least I hadn't been there yet) where a lot of everything happened but most importantly, the pumpkin carving was definitely the highlight. The first half involved eating when food was available (live chefs!) and I didn't actually start carving until 11pm (mainly due to the amount of people carving at the same time and waiting on people).

Yeah, I carved a fat(ter than the norm) wobbuffet. Ended up staying until 2am to finish up. Still waiting on the pumpkin group photo from Saboo though.

The followup was a visit to the Dunbar Haunted House with Saboo and Kyle (new friend!). Even though I do not particularly enjoy scary things, I wanted to check it out anyway since the lack of Halloweeny partying this year's underwhelming. The wait was about an hour or so and fortunately when it started to rain I had my trusty sword umbrella with me. So alright, it wasn't THAT scary but the costumes and props were amazingly good and I did get freaked out maybe twice or.. so. The amount of people forced us to move quickly so there wasn't any gawking time. The rest of that night involved fooding, Batman: The Dark Knight and Another Century's Episode, game courtesy of another new friend Marco (?!?).

Sunday, I decided to stay in since it was Monday the next day. Oh work, I hate you. Rant for another day though.

Still busy on JET application. Seriously, this thing is more stressful than all my schooling combined.

Oh yeah, double rainbow today.

Busy October.

2010-10-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

Not because of FFXIV. Well, FFXIV is one of the culprits eating up the little precious time I have left per day work leaves me with.

I've also been hacking away at my JET application. The actual app isn't even out yet although it's usually out by late September so something has gotten strange this year... the closing application date probably won't change, meaning the window will be shortened significantly this year. Reasons unknown but everyone's getting anxious.

Parents are actually out of town this week enjoying the World Expo. My daily routine feels like baby sitting at times, with a 役に立たない brother around at home.

Recently got a new (and cheap~) computer to replace my dad's dying video card computer. It didn't make sense to replace only the video card seeing his computer (or at least his mobo) was 7 years old. I'd have no idea what to get anyway (if there's anything out there that's for such an ancient system), so lessen stress and start fresh. Hopefully it'll be a nice surprise for when he returns.

Side note: Ugh why are GPT drives so complicated. If anyone has an awesomely free and easy solution for accessing GPT partitioned drives, send them my way.

Little work rant: Having being in the company for a very short time and had very little to do with the hits on their website (I've only been keeping their sales up to date), I was somehow blamed for their drop in web profit. What. Really? You must be kidding, right? Nope. They didn't even bother putting any of the other probably more influential and obvious factors into their conclusion before pointing fingers. I had them check their sales history and there's was no real trend. So how am I to blame. :| Believe me, I was plenty pissed and still am when I think about it.

One rant a day: done.

Quick touch on food experiences this month:

I tried out Q-Go ramen. Not bad. I'd go back if it wasn't so inconveniently located.
I made ricotta mashed potatoes the other day at Sty's house for Thanksgiving. We had TURKEY! SO GOOD.
Had a crazy housewarming party food feast at Vee's. Numnumnum.

BRB, fancy dancing.

{My Life} {Where is it?}

2010-09-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

Okay so Final Fantasy XIV was released last week.

My life is so screwed.

Cute fluffy [dangerous] things!
Let's put my screwed life aside for a moment and talk about FFXIV.

So CE version ~~retail~~ pre-release (before the 'official' release tomorrow) is finally upon us. The pressure's been on the XIV team for years now so I'm not surprised this got pushed out so quickly with yet so many flaws, bugs, incompletenesses... So yes, FFXIV is incomplete but so was FFXI back in the day. The main difference is that XIV's system/world is so much more complicated thus the amount of negativity and things to complain about are bigger than that of XI by ten fold. Everyone just needs to rant about it (so do I). We'll still keep playing though, no worries there. We just gotta get it out of our system.

But you'd think that they learnt something from FFXI being in service for 8(?) years now. NOPE. WHY IS THAT? Stop trying to make it a completely different game by removing everything that was good! Not saying they should make it the same... but the fact that we see no solution or the feature is missing completely, doesn't make things any better.

Hello, greetings.. tis I. I am actually female this time. For serious.
Here's a list of rants I can think of right now (besides the obvious bugs and glitches)... with bonus profanity, caps, and anger:

FIX THE CHAT - Give back our hotkeys. Make our lives easier please.
MENUS - This is effing menu hell. I don't use a controller so STOP IT.
LAG - Inevitable... but fix it somehow! There's more people coming so why aren't you prepared??
TARGETING - what is this shit? THERE IS NO REAL TARGETING SYSTEM.
TARGETING 2 - The targeting keys for mobs and parties system are absent. WHY. Make some soon please.
CHAT LOG - the visible area is too small and with all this spam it's useless since I can't scroll up easily. where's the easily accessible full chat log reader?
CHAT CHARACTER LIMIT PER LINE - what is this limit crap? this isn't fucking twitter.
AH please or at least a retainer bazaar catalog system - none of this stand around in Batallia Downs but 10 floors of it bullshit.
SEARCH - I swear I'm not a stalker but I would at least like to know where my friends are so I don't have to ask them every time. Also for party forming.
DEGRADING ARMOUR - Fuck. Make it easier for us to find out which piece needs fixing at least.
DELIVERY BOX - should be essential.

Of course not everything is bad but negatives always outweigh the positives huh. Positives!

Multi linkshell conversations (although not even fully functional yet :b)
We can see the accessories we wear now yay!
Retainers are cool; they're like slaves. My slave's spankin' gorgeous.
Instant job change transformation is wunderful~
There's some voice acting. Not too-too bad.
Crafting is actually kinda fun
Guildleves are enjoyable, reoccurring quests that are party-able.. although the cooldown timer is still too long.
Traveling from crystal to crystal to node is quick.
Job trait/ability/action sharing across jobs is awesome.
No penalty when you die?

The strange thing is that I've been playing since closed alpha and it feels the same... just more crowded. Although I didn't play it much back then, I feel more comfortable learning things now than before.

They must be really behind.

Oh well. Now that it's released, they have all the time in the world... until we get fed up and leave.

I will finish this post with a bug.

INVISIBLE SYNTHESIS!