How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?
I'm listening to the greatest albums that came out this year:
- Def Tech - Catch the Wave
- ohana - ohana hyakkei
- Tokyo Incidents - Adult
- YUKI - WAVE
- clammbon - LOVER ALBUM
- GUST - Ar tonelico OSTs
- Herbert - Scale
- Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
- clammbon - 3peace
Here's my year in 24 words.
Tokyo winter, reconciled with vertigo, Kyoto together, Ar tonelico, Tokyo summer, new place/desk/title/products, Jang Geum, Oregon, WWDC, resident visa, Wii, Stephen.
NISA has updated their Ar tonelico site with some more text, more screenshots, and a character trailer. Most of the voices seem all right, but I'm rather worried about Shuleria. She's supposed to be a centuries-old, sagely protector, but she sounds kind of like Ash from Pokemon. @_a
What's something you did when you were younger that you still haven't confessed to your parents?
Submitted by Bizz.
- As a kid, I broke the button in the mouse for our Mac IIsi, probably by hitting it too hard after losing some dumb game. I opened it and tried to fix it, but I couldn't get it to work reliably anymore. When my Dad asked, I feigned ignorance.
- When I was in grade school, my parents took away my Magic cards because I was getting bad grades. I thought it was unfair, so I secretly took back my main decks and left the rest. I was dumb enough to carry a card box to my friend's house, under the pretense that some other game was inside, so I'm sure my Dad knew. I still feel awful about this.
- I was in a bowling league, but I eventually got bored of it. Each time my Dad dropped me off at the bowling alley, I'd go in, wait until he drove away, then walk 2 miles to the comic store and use the bowling money to buy Magic cards. I still feel awful about this.
- While my parents were away on vacation, I had some friends over. We were in the basement messing around, and my friend who was jumping on my brother's bed or something ended up collapsing part of the rickety ceiling tile assembly. I claimed that it fell on its own, but that's stupid.
- Shortly before college, I really wanted an iMac. My grades were still miserable, so my Dad was ambivalent about getting me one for my graduation. I told this to my older coworker at JCPenney, and she offered to loan me the money to buy one. I ordered a 333MHz Lime iMac, and I secretly set it up in my room, taking it down and hiding it in the closet when I wasn't using it. Then, my Dad offered to buy me an iMac after all (in retrospect, probably testing me because he knew I already had one). I happily agreed and a couple of days later, I made up an elaborate lie about how my friend at work had to buy it for me in order to take advantage of a sale that was about to end, and that he should write her a check. I still feel awful about this.
These are just the first five things that come to mind, but I'm sure I could go on all day. Most of them are made worse by how obvious it must have been to my parents that I was deceiving them, but that they didn't call me on any of it. I was a dreadful child.
I guess I won't be going to bed after all! It looks like they got the Flash source for the original Japanese site and reworked the whole thing in English. Nice job, NISA. Check it check it out!!
It was a great Christmas-time in Chicago. I saw my whole family, ate tons of delicious foods, and gave and received a bunch of presents. I feel loved; check out this haul:
- Five clammbon-related ceedees, from myself.
- Pick Me Up, a kind of kids' encyclopedia. Katy got me this because I was staring at its hep graphic design (including 3D cover by eBoy) for so long at the store.
- Katy had my name for the gift exchange, and she went all-out:
- $65 in iTunes gift cards, combining the card from Katy and the one in my stocking.
- Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage.
- Ostrich slippers. I asked for ridiculous animal slippers; Katy really came through.
- From Mom & Dad:
- Eats, Shoots, and Leaves 2007 Calendar.
- The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax by Geofferey K. Pullum.
- Word Origins And How We Know Them by Anatoly Liberman.
- The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker.
- A nice Pierre Cardin suitcase that Joe & Mindy were going to throw out because it was so beat up. It's still the nicest suitcase I've ever owned. Maybe I can get it cleaned up.
- The Seafarers of Catan from Ann. We're going to have some intense Settlers sessions when Jules and hachi are here.
- A big pack of choco-covered mocha beans from Kodos. People keep giving me stuff without warning! I'll have to counter with some New Year's zons or something.
I'm in the house where I grew up. It's always weird to come back and see that things just keep going on even when I'm not around. It's also remarkable how easily I revert to being comfortable here, knowing where all the lightswitches are and the quirks of each doorknob, subconsciously filtering out the grandfather clock every 15 minutes, and helping myself to Ovaltine and Mom's special Chex Mix, with Cheez-It instead of peanuts.
I have reserved the ability to preorder the North America version of Ar tonelico; what are you waiting for?
The NISA e-mail included our first glimpse of the English version:
- Orica has become "Aurica"; I'm not sure why, but it's not bad.
- Misha is spelled "Misha" after all; a lot of the original materials romanized it as "Misya", which I'm glad they avoided for the English release.
- Glassmerc (グラスメルク), the synthesis system, is now "Grathmeld". Again, not so bad, since it was a pretty arbitrary-sounding name to begin with.
Dag, I need to check the QotD more often; just a few days ago they asked for our top 5 video games. It's not in the QotD queue anymore, but I'm answering it anyway:
- Xenogears
- Sakura Taisen (all five)
- Ar tonelico
- Shenmue (both)
- Street Fighter (including Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Capcom vs. SNK 2)
I don't think I can go a day without one of these games at least coming to mind, if not occupying my mind for a good while.
So I've got a lot of products on my mind these days, and I just got my bonus today. What should I buy? Who deserves my attention when I'm in the mood to be entertained?
In the order I think of them:
Utawarerumono: A 4-year old Leaf PC game cleaned up, fitted with a new tactics system by Flight-Plan, and ported to PS2. It looks like it could be good, but how many tactical RPGs do I need? And how many medieval fantasy worlds do I want to task myself with keeping track of?
Summon Night: I bought Swordcraft Story, the first English-localized title in this venerable series from Flight-Plan, on a whim. I just thought it was dang cool to find such stuff on the shelf in my home country. I still haven't even put it in the DS yet. Again, how many tactical RPGs do I need?
Atelier Series: I'm looking forward to Atelier Lise on the DS, but I have pretty much stalled out on finishing Grand Fantasm. I still love GUST.
Ar tonelico: I think I'd rather just play this again than try most games on my to-play list. I'm quite ready for GUST to announce part 2.
Fire Emblem: Serious, high-grade tactical RPGs from Intelligent Systems, the guys who invented the genre. I found Path of Radiance this weekend for $20 brand new, and I couldn't resist. Should I even bother with the quirky, stylish ones from Nippon1 and Flight-Plan?
Yggdra Union: More quirky and stylish tactical RPGs, this time from Sting. Do I need them? Who knows?
Riviera: While I'm considering Yggdra Union, why not its predecessor, too.
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: This visual novel is intriguing and it has become quite a phenomenon. I'd like to get through it, but it seems hard enough to decipher for native speakers of the language, let alone me.
12 Kingdoms: Not a game, but the novels. I'm reading them now, but do I need to? Should I get into another medieval fantasy world that's barely distinguishable from all the others?
Melty Blood: A PS2 port of a NAOMI arcade port of a tuned revision of a PC doujin fighting game based on a PC doujin visual novel. It looks fantastic, and I'm ready for a new 2D fighting game, but I'm afraid I'd be a bit late to the whole Tsukihime party after all this time, and I am not sure I could convince Jon B to play it seriously with me.
Okay, there's my psyche-dump for Japanese pop-culture products. I guess I'll just stick to my "buy them all, try them all, and stick with them as long as you are honestly interested" method. It's all just keeping me entertained between major milestone playing experiences like Sakura Taisen or Xenogears.
