下手の横好き世界２

SONY

Jun 15, 2009
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Oh, hi PSP! I just wanted to check on my PSN account info real quick.

AN UPDATE IS REQUIRED BEFORE YOU CAN ACCESS THE PSN NETWORK. SEE THE DOCUMENTATION FOR DETAILS.

The documentation? Really? I could have sworn there was just some easy downloadable update thingy I could hit. Hmm, let’s look around for it.

Search search search…

Where is that update thing? I’ll check that message again to see if it said anything useful.

AN UPDATE IS REQUIRED BEFORE YOU CAN ACCESS THE PSN NETWORK. SEE THE DOCUMENTATION FOR DETAILS.

Ugh, can’t you just say “Press Circle to update now” or something? Why do I have to look around for it myself? Ohh, here it is, Network Update. Okay, let’s do that.

INSERT A MEMORY STICK™ WITH 52MB AVAILABLE BEFORE UPDATING.

Whoa, I don’t have a Memory Stick™ inserted? Let’s check the slot… Oh! I see! I do have one inserted, but you just didn’t bother to check for me. Is it really hard for you, being a computer, to check whether you have access to storage media?

DOWNLOADING SYSTEM UPDATE

Okay, good, now install it please!

BATTERY IS LOW. CHARGE THE BATTERY AND TRY AGAIN.

Uh… How about I just plug you into the wall? Surely that’s good enough for you to update the system? I promise I won’t unplug you!

Plug…

BATTERY IS LOW. CHARGE THE BATTERY AND TRY AGAIN.

Really? But you’re plugged in! That’s even better than a battery! Urgh, okay…

Charge charge charge…

Okay, now your battery is full! I guess if you insist on using the battery, I’ll unplug you from the wall and bring you to the couch so you can update there.

RESTARTING… RESTARTING…

…

YOU MUST PLUG IN THE AC ADAPTER BEFORE UPDATING.

…Really!? Fine. Back to the wall.

INSTALLING… INSTALLING…

INSTALLATION COMPLETE. YOU MAY NOW DELETE THE UPDATE FROM THE MEMORY STICK.

Uh, thanks, I will…

But why didn’t you delete it?

The Elements of Typographic Style: An Infelicitous Title

May 22, 2009
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The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst is a superb book; I have found it indispensable to my work and my personal pursuits. But I avoided reading it for years, because of its title.

The title is an admitted tribute to William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White's The Elements of Style. It simply adds an adjective to the title of that book, as if this work were nothing more than another application of Strunk & White's potpourri of advice and admonishment, but on a different topic. Chicken Soup for the Typographer's Soul. In fact, ETS is an exhaustive primer, reference, and specimen collection for anyone who works with type. It has much more in common with The Chicago Manual of Style than it does with The Elements of Style.

I came across arguments against Strunk & White at the excellent Language Log before getting around to reading my own copy. Now I am not in much of a hurry to read it; having heard arguments from both sides, I don't suspect I'll appreciate it very much.

This masterpiece of a book deserves a better title.

In Memoriam Some Video Games

May 21, 2009
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I got realistic and changed the status of quite a few games in my Gamepedia database. It's sad, but with the limited amount of time I have anymore, I need to prioritize more dispassionately.

Status was “stalled”; is now “gave up”:

Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia
Atelier Marie, Elie, & Anis ~そよ風からの伝言~
Phantom Brave
Piaキャロットへようこそ
SIMPLE2000シリーズ Vol.81 THE 地球防衛軍2
Xenosaga I・II
イリスのアトリエグランファンタズム
サクラ大戦物語～ミステリアス巴里～
ファイアーエムブレム封印の剣

Status was “queued”; is now “no plans”:

新世紀エヴァンゲリオン綾波育成計画
VM JAPAN
セガガガ
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA ~アバタール・チューナー~
フロントミッションザ・ファースト
リーズのアトリエ ~オルドールの錬金術士~(通常版)
同窓会2 ～again&refrain～

Goodbye, games. It was fun spending years and years thinking I'd ever play you. I still have an intense aversion to getting rid of games, so I suppose there's still some hope that I'll pick you up off the shelf someday.

Atelier Rorona looks pretty beautiful

Mar 27, 2009
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GUST has started posting Atelier Rorona screenshots and art to their supporters' club site. They don't seem to want people to just mass-repost them, so here are a few selections of images I found interesting.

I'm still worried about the tendency for high-res, 3D worlds to be undifferentiated and depressing. Every imperfection and cut corner becomes disappointingly obvious in such a high-fidelity environment, and the potential for imagination decreases more and more. But perhaps GUST will pull through, and we can get all of the charm and atmosphere of the old Atelier games and then some.

Random album meme

Feb 25, 2009
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Album

I forgot about this blog for a little while. It's getting harder to know what goes where, now that I have five blogs and bouquet and Twitter.

Create your own band and debut album cover randomly

To Do This:

1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random – The first random Wikipedia article that comes up is the name of your band.

2 - http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 - The last four or five words of the very LAST quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days - The third picture in the top row, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 - Post it to your preferred online outlet with this text in the “caption” or “comment” and TAG the friends you want to join in.

Best approximation of a rosetta yet

Feb 13, 2009
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photo.jpg

AT2 Retranslation and Visual Guide

Feb 10, 2009
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I guess I am contributing to two ambitious Ar tonelico 2 fan projects.

Ar tonelico 2 Visual Guide

Ar tonelico 2 Retranslation Project

Fans

Feb 4, 2009
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I never stop being impressed by how dedicated fans of niche works can be when it comes to making those works more accessible to people.

Of course, the Mother fan site Starmen is the premier example of what devoted fans can do for English-speaking fans of Japanese games.

Gemini and Tom reverse-engineered and translated the entirety of Persona 2: Innocent Sin.

Asmodean has created hundreds of technical tools to fix, patch, and improve games in both languages. He has fixes for bugs in the NA version of Ar tonelico 2.

There's also an anonymously-released patch floating around to restore the Japanese voices that were removed from that game.

And the people at A Reyvateil's Melody are hard at work translating bits of Ar tonelico lore and are even planning to relocalize the game to supplant NISA's unacceptable job.

The more I see, the more I think NISA is in bad shape and shouldn't be trusted with such excellent games. The NA version of AT2, beyond bearing NISA's routinely questionable writing style, has serious corrupted-text bugs and consistency problems. There's a show-stopping bug in one of the final battles. And what I think is even worse than the crashing bug, an enormous chunk of the Japanese voice acting from the original game was removed from the localized version because NISA didn't manage to record English equivalents for it (even after delaying the release).

So far there's no official word from the company on any of these problems, and there isn't even an AT2 section on their members-only forum. I'm relieved that I can play the original versions of GUST games and regretful for my friends who can't.

I guess this post started as praise for passionate fans and ended up as a complaint about bad localizers.

Items Procured Japanuary 2009

Jan 30, 2009
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Artbooks

Toume Kei: “Yesterdays”
Ar tonelico fan book
Persona 3 artbook
Persona 4 artbook
Odin Sphere artbook

Games

Mana-Khemia 2
Persona 4
Atelier Iris 2 LE with Felt & Viese music box
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Matsuri LE with booklet, soundtrack, postcards
Fate/Stay Night [Realta Nua] LE with PSP hanafuda game
Quartett! LE with postcards
Kashimashi LE with audio drama and soundtrack
Persona
Odin Sphere
Segagaga (bought for me by Andy 6 years ago)

Comics

Mushishi volumes 1-5
Genshiken volumes 1-5
Evangelion volume 11
Koutetsu no Girlfriend 2nd volume 4-5

Clothes

1 fleece
1 v-neck sweater
1 shawl collar sweater
3 plain color t-shirts
3 design t-shirts
1 set “room wear”
2 pair long johns
3 pair socks
Fancy new boots

Home items

Fluffy futon sheets
2 scrolls

Lotus Guitar: Second Tide
Bonus Itou Daisuke single

Miscellaneous items from Andy

Daft Punk Interstella 5555 animated card
Sakura Taisen 4 2-sided poster
Red & blue Magic deck
Blue & black Magic deck
3 old, treasured MDs
PSP (metallic blue, PSP-1000)

4GB memory stick for PSP

Mayfly Project 2008

Jan 11, 2009
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Shoreline. Justice. OmniFocus for iPhone. 4 epic RPGs. Ice & Fire. Chicago. RUSH. Masaki. Mazda6. Obama GET. Anathem. Lady's job. Bacheloric holiday. Feelin' fine.