Happy New Year everyone! It's actually still three hours away for me here back in California, but since my journal is set to Eastern Standard Time, might as well get this message in before midnight. Oh, how I wish I were in NYC right now. It must be really exciting there at this time despite the security.
I have the Mahou Tsukai Tai! DVD #5, but I can't watch it! I found it at Fry's today so of course, I immediately purchased it (after spending a few seconds amusing myself in front of the Dance Dance Revolution Demo machine they had where one guy was being tutored on the fine art of DDR). But the thing is, I don't have DVD #4, so I can't watch it because DVD #4 contains the first 4 episodes of the TV series. Arg! I even went to Suncoast planning to pay full price, but they didn't have #4 either! (They had everything else). Bummer.
Went to Costco today to help my parents buy stuff and experienced the merchandise checking that they do at the exit doors. I really don't know why people make such a big fuss over it. People seem like their rights have been violated because the people in the store compare the merchandise in the cart with the receipt (same practice at Fry's Electronics too). The common argument is that once the money is handed over, then the merchandise belongs to the customer, hence they should not be checked when they head to the exit. But I mean, if the customer didn't steal anything, then what the heck is he/she afraid of? The store is just trying to make sure that they arne't getting ripped off by some incompetent clerk or what not. If it means keeping the prices low, then sure, I'll wait in line for a whole minute while they do a check (which usually is cursory at best). Same argument goes for boarding airlines. I wonder if the same people who are against cart checks are against metal detector checks at airports. Do they think that the airlines assume they're terrorists and are violating the their rights?
Final Fantasy X is the best game I've ever played. I finished the game a few hours ago, after spending more than an hour trying to beat the last boss, and I must say that the ending is the most satisfying out of all of them, a bit sad, but satisfying. Here's my breakdown of the ones I've played:
Final Fantasy 8: The story wasn't all that engrossing, and well, the ending wasn't conclusive. I mean, what happened at the end? Did he live or die? Don't know. I think this was the weakest of the bunch.
Final Fantasy 9: Next to FFX, this has the best ending of the pack. But the problem with the game was that I didn't think it was paced very well. While I loved the end, I found myself spending too much time fighting and the plot barely moved.
Final Fantasy 7: This is the grand-daddy of all the games, and was my favorite one until this last incarnation. It still holds the title for having the best gameplay and the best music (If you give me *any* tune form FF7, I can tell you at what point in the game it was played), but the ending was very shoddy.
Final Fantasy 10: While it seemed very linear, I didn't think it affected the game negatively. The gameplay was paced very well, with balanced fighting occationally (except for the very end, but you just had to play smart), and the plot kept on moving. In fact, the 40 hours that I put into it didn't feel like 40 hours at all. The music wasn't as memorable, but I still like the Zanarkand theme. Of course, the nice graphics helped a bit (being a CS major and all =)).
Yup, loved the game. I would watch the ending again, but that means I would have to battle the last boss again. It would probably be faster now since I know how to beat him, but it's still a lot of time. I have my other computer downloading the movie from an FTP site.
'tis all. Now it's back to web page work. No more hardcore gaming until FFXI.
Life is always slow when I'm on a modem. I spend my days doing errands and stuff for my parents and when I have time, I try to finish up Final Fantasy X. I'm on the very very last boss and I'm getting my butt kicked. I guess what I need to do is just to go fight randomly some more. What I don't like about Final Fantasy and such is that usually at the end, you realize that your characters aren't strong enough and then you just have to fight, fight, and fight some more to build up characters.
On a humorous note, yesterday, a customer came into my parents store with a box of tree bark pieces. My mom asks if she was collecting those things and she replies that she can see fishes on the bark and uses color pens or something to highlight them (likened to how people can recongize images in clouds, this lady could recognize images of fish in tree bark). Of course, this is all nice and dandy. It's good that people have hobbies and are creatively, but what cracked me up (of course, not in front of her) was that she attributed her skill to her being "spirtually gifted." Her exact words were, "Because I am spiritually gifted, it allows me to see all these fish." It's called "imagination," lady! Some people try so hard to make themselves feel more special than they really are.
Hope everyone had a good Christmas! I spent my Christmas evening driving my dad to the hospital because he had some serious back pains. He's okay, though. Not much progress on Final Fantasy X since I've come home. I've probably played a total of an hour since I came home. I quit after Yunalesca kicked my ass. I'm in no rush though because after finishing the game, the only thing left for me to do at home is to work on my web page. And I'm *really* not in a rush to do that. ;)
What a long day of traveling it has been. My original intended flight was from JFK to Las Vegas and then from Las Vegas to San Jose. I would leave at 8am in the morning and get to San Jose at 1pm. But last night, I get a call from the airline company at around 1am notifying me that they changed my iterinary. According to them, there was some new provision with the FAA, where the pilots had to rest more or something, so my flight to Las Vegas got delayed by two hours to 10:30am. And by doing that, I would miss my original San Jose flight. So they put me on other flights. Get this, I would take my original flight to Las Vegas, but then, travel EAST again to Phoenix, and then finally to San Jose. And instead of arriving at 1pm, I would arrive at 9pm. I don't really mind it though, as long as my luggage (just one duffle bag, for a change. I didn't particularly want to be searched and have them find out I'm carring loads of electronics, like my external hard drive, my DVDs, etc. Plus, I'm going home, so I have enough clothes at home for the 3 and a half week stay) got there on time (what poor writing style, with such a long statement in parentheses). (I love parens).
I did have a scare this morning though. At around 6:30am, I was planning to leave for the 10:30am flight, as the lady said during the phone call. But I wanted to make sure, so I checked online for my flight reservation. While it was updated to include my new flights, the flight to Las Vegas was still scheduled for 8am! So, I kinda freaked out because that would mean I only had an hour and a half to get to the airport, get checked in, and board the plane. Considering the security issues now and that it's probably the busiest traveling time of the year, that was not good. So I left as fast as I could. But in my rush, I forgot to bring some stuff. The things I forgot were not that important though, but would have been nice to bring along. Anyway, I went outside to get a taxi. Because I was in a rush, I didn't have time to put in my contacts or to get my glasses out of my backpack. Since it was still dark and my vision sucks at night (usually, I can make do without glasses. I have like 20/30~40 vision), I couldn't see whether the cars coming were taxis or not. But then I realized that this was New York, and so like a New Yorker, I just put out my hand blindly and let them spot me instead of the other way around.
So I get to the airport to only realized that the plane was really delayed by 2 and a half hours, even though it said 8am. Oh well, the wait for check-in was an hour and a half. So I stll had lotsa time remaining. Scary sight at JFK though with the military people toting around their assault rifles.
So close, so close. I'm 32 hours into the game, and the end is in sight. Probably another 5-10 hours left, based on what I've read. Okay, so I peeked at the walkthrough online a bit and figured based on the length until the end of the document. But unfortunately, I can't do it because I'll be flying back to California about 12 hours from now. Have things to buy, dinner to eat, friends to meet with before I leave, files to backup (course files from classes this semesteR) yada yada yada. Will finish at home though. I wonder what airport security will think of a PS2 in my luggage?
Final Fantasy X is quite possibly the most perfect game ever made, including all previous Final Fantasy series. I'm about 25 hours into the game, and considering that I started Wednesday at noon, I've devoted 25 out of 60 hours for the game, and 35 hours for my finals, final studying, sleeping, eating and bathroom breaks. But I won't do a full review on this until I finish the game (just it case it pulls a FF VIII...i.e. poor ending), but at its current rate, it looks like it's gonna be awesome.
Please disregard my previous rant. Apparently, there were two openings with the same scene. The first one I saw didn't have the speaking. The second one did (they're exactly the same scene). But I'm 3+ hours into the game already (had to nap...really tired). Back to gaming for another 3 hours...then studying.
Yuna has a nice dubbed voice, although I bet the original was better. Tidus's voice ain't that great.
HE DIDN'T SAY IT! I *?@#%*^ HATE DUBS! ARRRRRRRGGGG! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO SAY "Saigo ka mo sirenai darou. Da kara, zenbu hanashitai n da." which translates to "This might be the last time. So, I want to say everything." IT'S THE FRICKIN' FIRST TRACK ON THE SOUNDTRACK! Probably the BEST TEASER/LINE TO START A VIDEO GAME I'VE EVER HEARD. AND THEY FRICKIN' LEFT IT OUT IN THE AMERICAN DUB.
Frickin' dubs.
I am holding in my hand Final Fantasy X. It's funny how when a game is good, it doesn't need any blurbs on back to sell it. Listen to this, the game boasts "Characters with Voices!" and "Complete 3D Environments" and "Newly Designed Battle System" and "Real-Time Facial Expressions." Unlike other games, it doesn't mention anything about the storyline. But it's assumed that it'll be nothing less than great.
And with that, I bid farewell to thee for the next few hours, if not days (I have a final tomorrow, so I can go hardcore like I did with Final Fantasy VII). Mou hajimarimashita.
Mission FAILED! My journeys across NYC in search of Final Fantasy X has yielded no results (at least for today). My trek began from the 86th Street subway station to Grand Central to Times Square. I scoured the Times Square Toys 'R' Us, only to find out that they won't have it on the shelves until tomorrow morning. Still thinking the day was early, I set forth north to the FAO Schwartz. Along the way, I passed by Kinokuniya again, and went in to see if they had Animage restocked. No such luck. However, I did get a nice picture of the Christmas tree at Rockerfeller Center because Tuesday evening isn't really a touristy time there. I also dropped by the Sony store, but they didn't have it either. I wandered around 6th Ave. for a while before I found FAO Schwartz. What a neat toystore that is, much more "old-fashioned" than most with tons of stuffed animals and such. But alas, they didn't have it either (their video games department isn't all that large). So I come back and stop at the Software Etc. on 86th Street, which doesn't even have the shipment, so they're guessing it'll be on Thursday.
Looks like I'll be off to Toys 'R' Us tomorrow morning. At least I got some great pictures today.
Today will be the day that I reformat my hard drive (the part that contains programs). I do this about every 6 months, usually at the end of school semesters right before I have to leave my high speed Internet connection. Usually, it's because there are too many things in my computer system that I've installed and uninstalled and it just bothers me. Yes, I'm strange, if you didn't know that already. =)
I got to the part in Fushigi Yuugi today where Miaka meets up with Yui and Yui gets really "offended" at Miaka (trying not to spoil it). Of course, I went on with my raging tirade calling both of them names, to say it politely, even though I've already seen the whole series once before and knew that it was going to happen. That's probably why I choose to watch anime alone rather than having other people around watching it with me. That's also why I'm not a good person to watch any TV show with, especially news conferences and such. I would go off screaming at President Bush when he says or does something really stupid, like how he withdrew from the ABM Treaty and wants this new treaty in place. Apparnetly, this new treaty would limit the amount of *offensive* nuclear weapons that can be produced, BUT Bush and Co. don't want it to be binding. See a contradiction? WHAT THE HECK IS THE TREATY IF IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING? Sigh. I really do give myself high-blood pressure sometimes.
Tomorrow, I will hunt around town to find any place that might have Final Fantasy X. Among the stores that I'll hit are Toys 'R' Us at Times Square and FAO Schwartz (if they don't have it, no one does). Then, I'm probably going around to Macy's and Bloomingdales to take pictures of their window display (or at least look at them). Fun day tomorrow. Hope it doesn't rain.
I've updated the journal a bit in regards to the information on the info panel. There's a thing under "Reminiscence" now that is titled "Monthly Journal Visualation" which I think is very neat. It'll give you a good overview of things that I write about during a month without actually having to read through every single word. I spent all of last night making the Java program that draws it.
As for the "real" life, I'm doing okay. I've finished with the big programming project for the class, and only have a Japanese final Monday and another final on Thursday, as well as a presentation on Thursday. I finish all my classes Thursday night, which is the very very last day, or rather, the last hour of the semester. After that, I'm going home to California for a month for winter break.
But there's just a little problem. Final Fantasy X is coming on *this* Tuesday. I'm leaving Sunday morning. So, that gives me about 5 days to finish the game, during which, I have a final and presentation. Do you think I can finish it? I think I can. Otherwise, I might have to take my PS2 home.
I've started again with Fushigi Yuugi again, and am in 7 some episodes. It's so strange watching anime at such a slow pace. I'm used to sitting through 10 or so episodes at once because I finish everything as I get them. The consequence of that though, is that I hardly remember any of it. Although I'm watching it slower now, I seem to remember more of it.
And lastly, I apologize to everyone who I've alienated the past week or two. I've really been busy, so I haven't gotten around to emailing or calling anyone. Gomen!
Man, gotta stay up another 45 minutes. Anyway, might as well spend the time talking about my day. Today, well, yesterday, I had to go to school to do a presentation on my final project. However, during the hours before my presentation, I didn't really have anything to do, so I decided to go to a bookstore and pick up the latest issue of Animage. I first go to my favorite store, Kinokuniya, at Rockerfeller Center. Man, it is soooo pretty there with that huge tree, and lighted angels. Kinokuniya was out of stock on the magazine. Sucks. So, I go to my second place, Asahiya Bookstore near Grand Central. Guess what? They're out of stock too! Woe is me.
So after the presentation, I met one of my dormmates in Chinatown because he wanted to have me show him where all the Chinese VCD stores were. So I took him around on a tour of the place and on the way back, I got a big cup of my favorite Pearl Milk Tea (at the Ten Ren tea shop on Canal and Mott). Yum yum.
So we come back at around 10pm, where I introduce him to the Teriyaki Boy restaurant behind where we live.
We then come home and guess what? I kinda have a semi-party in my room with all my multimedia thingys. I first show them the music videos that I have on my computer, and then we go through my song collection ONE SONG AT A TIME! We just quit about half an hour ago, after reaching song 500 on my list (we would listen to excerts and then go to the next song).
I am so tired, but need to wait 30 minutes more.
CLAIM TO FAME! Google just added 20 years of USENET postings to their database, and I decided to go fishing. I found my very first (or so I think) posting on the web!
As you can see, I was a computer geek way way back then too (I believe I was using Netscape 1.0 or something like that. Or maybe even Mosaic). Funny thing is that I was already keen on using a "fake" email address for public posting at the time, much like how you put in a web mail account for web site registrations that you don't want to get spam from. Memories.
While we're talking about finding yourself on the web, I also found out that one of my old professors at Cornell used my final project for his class in a talk he gave at an academic conference in 1999. It seems like his web page is down right now, oh well, I'll probably post it some other time.
Oops, forgot to mention that I finally got the Magic Knight Rayearth "Best Song Book" CD today from CDJapan. It's a collection of vocal songs from the series. It was supposed to come in with my other CDs that I got a few weeks ago since it was part of the same order, but it was out of stock at the time. So, they finally got it in and shipped it to me without charging me twice for the EMS shipping from Japan. What a nice company (they actually sent me an apology email when they realized they hadn't sent me this CD last time). I think I'll buy from them again sometime. It's actually cheaper to buy CDs as imports as opposed to buying them from animenation.com or even Kinokuniya bookstore here because the exchange rates are sooo low.
I like almost every one of the songs on this CD. Okay, so you might be thinking "George doesn't even understand a word of it." Not true. I probably understand 10% of it (understanding songs in a foreign language is probably the hardest thing to do since they never pronounce or intonate the words correctly. Heck, I can't even understand many of the alternative songs, even though my native tongue is English!). On top of that, the human voice is also an instrument too. If the voice and the instrumentals go well together, then it's good music whether or not I understand it. Yeah, there are some stupid ones where the voice actors from the series try to rap and stuff, but it's all good, cute, and entertaining.
Finished Cowboy Bebop! I finished my project around 3 this morning, at least the working part...need to clean up the code and write a report still. So, I popped in the rest of Cowboy Bebop and finished it.
I don't think Cowboy Bebop is my type of anime. The stuff I like usually has a continuing plot throughout the season. Cowboy Bebop, like I said before, is disjoint, with each episode being independent. While this is good for casual anime watchers, I'd rather have a long story so I can feel "fulfilled" after sitting through 26 episodes. Unfortunately, I didn't really feel that way after watching episode 26. Don't get me wrong, there were some really good episodes in there like the episode #10 (Ganymede Elegy), which is one of the sadest episodes I've ever seen, as well as the next episode, #11 (Toys in the Attic) which is one of the most hilarious ones I've seen too. But yeah, I prefer a series with more of a story.
How come I'm not appreciated? I spent the past 5 days working on my final programming project for a class. It's turning out to be really really nice. But looks are deceiving because programming it was a pain in the ass. However, when I had a few dormmates come and look at it. They weren't even a bit impressed, even despite the work that I put into it (5 days of my LIFE).
Just 3 more days before I can get back to a normal life and write about something more interesting than "I woke up. Programmed. Ate. Slept."
This was my day: Wake up at noon. Work on project in my room. Eat. Where "Eat" is just now happening. But that's good. I never work while I'm eating because eating is on my time and it's bad luck, I suppose. However, I do watch anime while I'm eating. And so, Disc 4 of Cowboy Bebop has been inserted into my DVD player.
Tonight, I must be quick. I will be going to sleep very very soon, not because I'm tired, but because I want to avoid some people. You see, last night I spent almost two hours helping a fellow dorm mate on her essay because English isn't all that great. I don't mind, but I was really tired at the time and didn't want to spend that much time on it. Plus, I'm not that great of a writer, so I had difficulties when a few things she had. So, being my typical self, I'm going to sleep rather than saying "I'm busy" when she comes tonight (don't know if she will).
I'm done with the first 10 episodes of Cowboy Bebop, which leaves me with 16 more to go. It's different than the other Anime I've been accustomed to. This is more like an American cartoon where the stories are disjoint with no continuing story line between, but unlike anthing produced here, even in prime time (with a few rare occations), the stories that happen in each episode are very well written, despite being short (geez, that was a run-on sentence if I ever read one, you see why I didn't really like correcting the paper last night?).
Well, off to bed for me. Well, maybe not. I'll bring my laptop to my bed and watch more Cowboy Bebop until I fall asleep or the batteries die. Sou siyoo.
Damn spam. It seems like every other piece of mail I get at my email account is a piece of spam. Why do they even bother? If it's not from someone I know nor if it's from my notification program that sends me email when someone updates the guestbook, I just trash it. But I guess I knew that would happen since I put my email address on the web. That's why my school email accounts have always been kept a secret!
Well, after 2 hours, I come back to writing my journal. I just hosted an Evangelion Episode 1 in my room...in FRENCH (w/English subtitles for me). It's pretty strange listening to it in French since I'm so used to it in Japanese, but for me, it still sounds better than an English dub.
Aaah, so much work, so much work. Must sleep...but not now.
No, no, no, no, no! Final Fantasy X is being release at the end of the year, which is when I'll be back home and PS2-less! I would have to wait 3 weeks before I come back to school to play it! Which leads the question of whether I should bring my PS2 back home. And on top of that, I read that a box set of Evangelion will be released next summer. That's the thing about anime, if you jump on the bandwagon too early, you're left with a bunch of loose DVDs when they release the box sets at the end. If you jump on the bandwagon too late, the only things you can get are off eBay (as previous experience with getting Sailormoon music). It's all about the timing.
Bad News: Found out that my final project that I was working on was due LAST NIGHT AT 11:59:59pm. Fortunately, I didn't need to explicitly submit it because of the system we use for storing our programming code, so they just took the copy that I had at 11:59:59pm last night. It was working, but doesn't have the nice (optional) feature that I added this morning.
Good News: I got TWO anime related items today! First off was the Cowboy Bebop Limited Edition Box set. Yeah, there's a big hubub about what number it was. Mine is like 12000 something, which, to a collector isn't as good as, say, a 100 something, but whatever. Stuff is just stuff. It's the content and it's effect on you that matters. Secondly, I got the second CD to Mahou Tsukai Tai!, the TV soundtrack (I had the vocal collections before). The covers of the two CDs join together to form a bigger picture! Hooray! And on top of that, the new CD contains my most fav. instrumental anime background music (with my limited Japanese, the only thing I could get was that the track title is named "Sawanoguchi's _____" =P yah, those two years of Japanese are *really* paying off
But I think I'm going to start Cowboy Bebop now, and put my re-watching of Fushigi Yuugi aside. So much anime, so little...(you know how the saying goes =D).
Ah..so...very...tired. End of the semester means that projects are due, which means that there's always a rush to finish it at the last minute, which is what happened tonight. I guess it's not exactly that, because I was pretty much done, and what I was working on was semi-optional. But I still did it anyway.
Besides working on my final project (oh, it's a computer programming assignment, just in case you didn't know that), I rewatched the first two episodes of Fushigi Yuugi last night. I think I'm going to rewatch the whole two seasons again to get a better understanding of everything. (nod nod) that's a good idea, me thinks.
Me's delirious. 'Night all.
Why do I always stay up so late? It's probably because I have this bad habit of taking a nap during the early evenings, which keeps me awake for the rest of the night. Fortunately, I don't have classes until noon, so I can sleep in late. =)
I got and watched the 12th DVD of Kenshin today. Episode #48, the first one on the DVD, is very sad. It's the story of the Buddhist monk, Anji, and his past. The thing about Kenshin is that most of the characters in the story are really fleshed out. You understand their motivation for doing what they're doing (whether it be good or evil), and to me, that's what makes it so interesting to follow. Granted, a recurring theme in the series is the idea of revenge, and getting even with people for events in the past, but the creators have a way of bringing up that theme without making the series repetitive. Very impressive. I must watch it 'till the end. Actually, I can finish it right now because I have all the episodes of the fan-sub, but I will excercise self-restraint. That's tough though, considering every episode now (the end of the Kyoto Arc) is left with a cliff hanger.
Some things are sooo expensive. I just came back from a birthday dinner for one of my friends at the Red-Eye Grill ("Home of the Dancing Shrimp" or something like that) on the corner of 7th and 56th. There were about 14 people in our group, and we had a decent dinner appetizer, a main dish for everyone, and a bit of dessert. The final bill came to $725 dollars. Yes, 3/4 of a grand. The restaurant kindly included the tip in the total, which was a 17.5% tip and that put a hundred bucks into the total. Very crazy. We each ended up paying $52 bucks each, which pretty much wipes out my eating allowance for the week (no, I won't starve myself, but I'll just have to get more moola from the ATM).
Speaking of which, I just found out that the Oh My Goddess movie is out on DVD now. That sucks, because that's one more DVD to my "to buy" list of DVDs. Currently on there are, and I quote, "The rest of Kenshin TV," "The rest of Cardcaptor Sakura," "The rest of Sailormoon," (that's already a ton) "Magic User's Club TV Series" and the Oh My Goddess movie. They're also releasing the Oh My Goddess: Mini-goddess series out next year too, and considering that my most favorite song in all of anime (possibly of all music) the ending credits to it, I have to get it...despite the fact that the show's only semi-good.