“DFF. It’s too addictive,” says my bro over in Japan.
Funny how I can’t think of a way to refute that, because that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing over the weekend. Yes, very sad.
So yes, that’s one of the games I’ve been working on for the past little while, Dissidia Final Fantasy.
I’d say it’s interesting in that it’s like a collaboration of the past FF games. It’s not an RPG, more like a fighting game, but it’s got a fairly decent story to it… I guess?
I’ll refrain from going on about the game, but it’s definitely worth a buy… once it’s out here in NA that is.
Approaching week 3 of school, and I feel so behind already *sigh*
Fourteen years may seem rather long, but some memories just don’t fade away.
I usually don’t go off writing serious stuff – I do enough of that for classes.
If there’s any day or time that I do feel like writing something serious, that’d be today, just because.
I don’t go off talking about my life so far in great details unless I’ve been asked to do so, and even then I only do it when I feel the necessity to do so.
So a lot of people think I grew up here in Vancouver (well yes, I have been, and still am going to school here for the past however many years), but there was a time about fourteen years ago when I spent time in Kobe, Japan.
It was just a coincidence, a really unpleasant coincidence, that my family and I happened to be in Kobe on January 17, 1995 – to become a victim and a survivor of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake.
It might be hard to imagine how it’s like being there without actually being there – a sudden roar coming somewhere outside but not being able to tell what the heck it is, then the sound of plates and cutlery falling and crashing onto the kitchen floor. Screaming at my brother to cover his head with his blankets and pillow, though now that I think of it, that wouldn’t have been much protection had that large crystal placed on the top of the shelves right above our heads fallen off – it was pure luck that our heads, or rather, our bodies are still fine.
It’s been long enough that I no longer fear power outages, pitch darkness, or anything else that reminds me of this disaster which killed 6434 people. I know my memory of the quake is slowly fading year by year, but that may simply be because of the fact that I’m still alive, and so are the people close to me. What if my brother had become the 6435th victim?
There’s only so much that an individual is capable of doing, but if there was one thing that I may be able to do as a survivor, is perhaps to keep remembering and to spread the word. I can’t let myself forget this – as people from the newer generations grow up without the knowledge of this catastrophe, it is only those who have the knowledge and those who have experienced it who can pass these stories on to them.
If this strikes anyone’s interest, perhaps take a look at the Wikipedia article.
And thank you to those who read this to the end.
January 17th,2009
blurbs |
No Comments
Unsuccessful. nuff said.
Edit: it’s not as successful as I’d like it to be.
I blame this primarily on myself – for taking up shifts that end at 1-2am, taking too much caffeine either prior to getting to the shift, or during the shift, and resulting in a bit of insomnia, which then prevents me from waking up at the proper times.
For the amount of fatigue, I’m still putting (at the very least,) partial blame on the airline company which will remain unnamed. Why am I still this pissed off about a flight from almost a week ago? Go read my previous entry from start to end and you’ll know why =p
I’m in slight disbelief that it’s already been about a week since I got back in town. My internal clock is still pretty f’ed up, which is probably the reason why I got up around 4pm today. Well, OK I was at work last night till 1am and was suffering a bit of insomnia, so I was playing Dissidia for a while, so it’s not entirely jetlag that’s f’ing me up here =p
On some other random note: after 156 hours of coursework and putting up with redundancy, I’ve acquired my TESL Coursework certificate from UBC. Now, all I need from UBC is my BA =p
Somewhat belated perhaps, but happy new year.
…and greetings from Vancouver, British Columbia.
No, I’m no longer in manga/animeland (more commonly known as Japan, more specifically Osaka), I’m back in prison… erm, I meant school and work.
Now, there are multiple reasons to explain why I’ve neglected to do updates up till now.
Well yeah, you can say I’ve just been slacking or was having too much fun watching Tenimyu or opening up boxes of merchandise that have accumulated over the past year, but that’s when I was back home.
Yes, it has been, in fact, 4 days since I’ve left Kansai Airport. The thing is that, in actuality, it’s only been 3 days since I actually got back in Vancouver.
So what the hell happened during that 1 day that I (at least claim) haven’t been in Vancouver but was outside Japan?
I was tossed between airports or terminals, f***ing missed a flight.
Erm, no, this wasn’t because I was getting lost in the airport, sleeping in, or was doing anything else that makes me look like a complete retard.
(for the record: yes, there was one time I actually slept in and missed a flight, almost got myself in trouble with my relatives, got yelled at by my parents, making myself look like a complete retard – the said relatives still poke me about this for the hell of it every single damn time I go back)
So, the remainder of this entry will consist of rants and complaints related to all the chaos I went through on my way back here from Osaka, which made this the worst experience with flights.
Trust me, I don’t go off ranting about crappy flights to this extent (warning: yes, it’s friggin’ long), but really, if it wasn’t for this flight screwing me over, I wouldn’t have been as jetlagged as I am right now, and would not have missed more than 1 class (which, by the way, I deliberately and intendedly missed)
So, feel free to keep reading for the hell of LOLs and facepalming =p
Read the rest of this entry »
January 9th,2009
blurbs | tags:
flight logs |
No Comments
…and by “late,” I mean 5 minz to 4 o’clock.
…of which I meant, 4:00am. Yes, it’s friggin’ 4 o’clock in the morning.
I think I put partial blame on the fact that I slept for a good 9-10 hours last night, on the fact that I was drinking (hey t’was my last night here, which means my parents go nuts about what kind of stuff to feed moi, which means drinking kinda have to happen), and on the fact that I had a sip of “mixed” FF Dissidia potion (by that I mean a mixture of ver.Cosmos and ver.Chaos – which basically tasted like grapefruit and grape mixed together, both of which contain caffeine), and that I had tea after dinner (also caffeinated).
result: Packing? What packi……oh SH** F*** I’m leaving tomorrow! I meant, I’m leaving in like, 12 hours!!!
So yes, packing is becoming a total b*tch now, especially w/the amount of merch I’m bringing back with moi… of which I’m pretty sure I probably should be, at the very least, “somewhat ashamed of,” if not “very ashamed of.”
And of course, I’m nowhere close to being ready to get back to school. My brain’s probably been away from academics for too long, I know this upcoming jetlag is going to be more of a b*tch as I have a connection, which does no good other than to screw up my brain and time management.
Bah, need sleep =p
To come to think of it, “beginning” was a word I stumbled on back in my high-school days. I could never remember whether it was spelled with 2 ‘n’s or 1 ‘n’ =p
Anywho… Happy New Year, and welcome year 2009!
There really isn’t much for me to talk about at this time – more like, there’s far too much stuff that I *can* talk about that it’d take me days to get through them all, so I’ll leave that for some other time once I’ve organized my thoughts.
In the meantime… I’ve 4 days left in Japan, and I’ll be heading back to Vancouver on the 5th (erm, yeah I’ll be skipping class that day… maybe I oughta email my prof for the hell of it =p)
I’m already dreading packing… the thought of the amount of stuff I need to drag back to my rez (and seeing how much a crappy, disorganized state my room is currently in) is giving me a headache *sigh*
For the time being… lookin’ forward to Tenimyu tomorrow!
January 1st,2009
blurbs |
No Comments
…in Japan, ver. 2008.
This, by the way, only applies to geeks, specifically anime geeks =p
to do:
- go to an Animate at least twice, if not more, during your stay
- watch anime on TV (and perhaps take a video recording of it); it’s as legit as things can get, and need I mention its quality is nothing comparable to online streaming websites? *cough*
- go drink some potion. Yes, I mean the drinkable type. Yes, I mean the ones that taste like grapes and grapefruit.
not to do:
- wake up at 3:30am to get to the comiket venue, and then suffer waiting outside and freezing your @$$ off.
- fail to think ahead and fail to reserve a ticket for the return trip from Tokyo to Osaka – tis a biaaaaaaatch standing in the Shinkansen for 2.5 hours
- spend too much money on merchandise to the extent where you start wondering where the money for your return ticket has gone and/or whether you have enough money for it
- buy too much “books” to the extent where you start freaking out whether your shoulder’s going to last
Erm, yes… this is what I pretty much did over the past 3 days in Tokyo.
I should be glad I made it back alright from Tokyo, considering that:
a) today’s one of the peak days for people from Tokyo to be returning to their hometown, which means that there are thousands of people who will be fighting over spaces (no, not even “seats”) in the non-reserved cars of the Shinkansen – fortunately, I was able to get on the train at a fairly OK time, but ended up standing for a good 2~2.5 hours
b) of all days that this could have happened, there was an accident by one of the stations, which caused a delay in the Shinkansen schedules/timetables – fortunately, my train passed that station *before* the accident happened
c) I was rather exhausted after yesterday (day 2 of comiket), and sure enough, I’ve acquired quite a bit of merchandise that I had to carry back here – fortunately, my body isn’t really suffering from it anymore
More on the whole comiket stuff to come later, but I probably should sleep for the time being…
…if it wasn’t for it becoming such a darn big spoiler.
And then I realize that there was a plugin that I dl’ed just so that I can hide spoiler material, which was lying around on my desktop untouched till now =p
So here goes…
Gundam 00-S2 ep.whatever-the-heck-we're-on... I meant ep.11
- It wasn’t all that great seeing all those guys naked at the beginning of the episode tyvm, especially when my mom and grandma switched the channel to MBS (by accident, before I got to my own room to watch the show) and commented “what the heck is this?”, but yeah, I guess there isn’t really a need to talk about *that*
- ZOMG Ribbons slapping Wang Liu Mei eh? Not just that, but he seems to be getting rather emotional in this ep. The whole “OMG I can’t believe that there’s something I’m unaware of dammit, screw you Aeolia Schenberg!” (alright, he didn’t quite say that, but that’s essentially what he meant, right?) made me laugh. One of the rare moments when we see that guy act like a human =p
- So… let me get this straight: Louise hears Saji’s voice, she thinks he’s on a Gundam; then remembers Setsuna, who lives next door to Saji, is a Gundam Meister. Thus she assumes Saji and Setsuna are both part of a terrorist group, who killed her parents. Great, I love how this is turning out. These kind of turns and twists in the plot are somewhat typical of Kuroda (the guy doing the script), which I quite like. On top of that… I reeeeeeally don’t like Saji or Louise, so yeah…… (and sorry if any of you folks like the pair.
- It’s darn obvious that Anew Returner’s an Innovator, which makes me wonder… if it were the case that she’s been working on the 0-Riser w/Ian, Linda, et al, then wouldn’t she have given that info over to Ribbons? Or… is it actually the case that she’s kinda like Tieria, who’s not all that up for siding with the Innovators?
- Saji, Saji, oh Saji… you and your Louise obcession. Now wait till you find out what she’s thinking…
- last but not least… Lyle and Anew? I mean… alright, I don’t really want to see Lyle and Feldt getting together (yeah sure Lyle and Neil are identical twins, yes, but but but y’know, it’s not the matter of appearance here – let’s not substitute Neil with Lyle for *everything*), but hrmm…
Dammit I need more Hallelujah… more Tieria works too, but Hallelujah please =p
Last but not least, the whole Neil and Lyle being a twin thing kinda reminded me of this article I read recently: hmm, does this apply to fictional twins too?
December 22nd,2008
blurbs |
No Comments
So it’s my third day back home (yes, *home*), and I dunno, it feels I haven’t done much.
Probably has to do w/the fact that I can’t start opening boxes and fiddling around with my merchandise unless my dad’s at work.
By that I mean, the weekend probably isn’t the best time to do this, since dad *is* going to be home.
So instead, I’ve done the following:
- got my hair done – I’m surprised they still let me use the 30% discount coupon they sent me like, months ago
- got my flu shot – my arm feels slightly numb even after a day and a half, but meh. I also feel rather dumb realizing that if I got it done back in Van, I would’ve been able to get reimbursed via UBC’s health plan (I…think? I’m thinking that plan covers immunizations…?)
- Started opening outer boxes of various merchandise (ie. just the outer boxes of which the merchandise came in – I haven’t gotten around to opening the individual packages =p)
- watched the newest ep. of Gundam 00 like what, 2 hours ago? – more on this tomorrow, just so that I’m not spoiling the ep immediately
To my surprise, jetlag isn’t really killing me too much this time around. The flight *was* tiring, which usually ends up screwing up my internal clock pretty badly and thus ends up impeding my jetlag recovery. UA being a bit of a retard, they screwed up with their check-in process for the YVR -> SFO flight (which, btw, made me be at YVR at like what, 3:30am?) which delayed the flight departure time by 20 minutes. Then, my YVR -> KIX flight departed more or less on time but ended up arriving in KIX about 15-20 minutes later. And sure enough, baggage claim was slooooooooow – security/customs were done in no time, but my suitcase took forever to come around.
Despite all this, I’ve been able to get up and get to bed at a fairly “normal” time… and then the moment I say that, I start dozing off orz
I guess I’m still be at the beginning sgate fore a while.
December 21st,2008
blurbs |
No Comments
Just something quick before I get the heck outta here.
This’ll be my last post while in Canada for this year – and yes, you can expect to see a bunch of stuffs (incl. pics) once I’m back home in Osaka.
In Osaka in less than 24hrs – here I come yo!
December 18th,2008
blurbs |
No Comments
