The Hobbies and Interests of Dracil

While walking to 7-11 I happened to look up and was struck at just how clearly I could see Orion and Mars in the East.  The street was relatively bright so I was surprised that they stood out so well.  It also means the sky was very clear, a rarity here in SF.  I should go to Stern Grove one of these days and see what I can see from there.  Wish it weren't so cold now though.

http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/videos/index.php?songid=1215

It's funny how nate mdance is trying to pretend to be me.  Should I be flattered? :P  Thanks to MrRubix101 for IMing me about this.

I didn't hear about this until a few months ago as I was looking around for some good DS games.  I think this was on sale at Play-Asia.com so I looked up some reviews.  People said it was like Ouendan with classical music, but it didn't look that exciting so I never did get it.

However, the description of the story on Wikipedia intrigued me so I acquired the anime.  It was a good decision.  Maybe it's because I've played the piano and violin before that I liked it more since I could *kind* of identify a little with the characters (although not nearly at their level of playing).  Emotionally, well, it can be very funny at times, such that I would giggle for a long time.  Even now, if I watch those parts again, I still smile and laugh.  However, it also has really touching parts as well.  I'm sure the music also helps in this aspect.  Well, I guess this is another thing that I can add to the list of things that can kinda bring tears to my eyes.

Also watched one episode of the Live Action version.  The first episode basically takes twice as long, but it's fine.  The feelings are still there but it's done in a very anime-style which makes me feel that one might as well just watch the anime.  I guess it's more suited for people who don't watch anime on principle.  Although I have to admit, I liked the "Mozart was a scatologist" bit in the opening minutes of the live action.  That wasn't in the anime and I don't know if it was in the manga.

Edit: So I guess I never really said what it was about.  It's a romantic comedy about this guy who's extremely talented at the piano and violin, but what he really wants is to become a conductor.  However, he's stuck in Japan because of his fear of traveling and wonders how far he can actually go in Japan.  He's pretty arrogant as well and thinks everyone else there is basically bad, but one day he hears a girl (Noda Megumi, or Nodame)  playing piano and was amazed at her playing, although he's annoyed at how she doesn't follow the score, but plays however she wants in a songlike way (cantabile).  This girl is pretty much the opposite of his perfectionism.  She's filthy, weird, hates practicing, etc. and whose ultimate goal in life is to become a kindergarten teacher.  It also turns out they're next-door neighbors.  Like a lot of the other characters in the anime (both girls and guys), she's in love with him even though he has no interest in her except for her potential musical ability.  It's a pretty realistic portrayal of their growth in their musical paths as well as their relationship with each other and other people.  Oh, and here's the wikipedia description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodame_Cantabile

Wow, taking pictures of the eclipse was pretty hard.  I had to use some focusing shots with the slowest shutter speed to find the moon in the camera, and then use that to aim and take another picture.  Definitely quite orange/red, and the moon looked a little more 3-dimensional than usual.  Used my binocular mostly for viewing.  Since I was in front of the house, I tried time the views and pictures between the streetlight turning itself off.  Overall though, the pictures didn't turn out very well.

Also saw the Pleiades nice and high in the Eastern sky.

Oof, I don't want to think about trying to get up and stay awake tomorrow.

So this is one of the Touhou music CDs released at Comiket 72.  Wacky and fun music and promotional videos as usual.  You can find the better quality swfs below the Youtube video links.  Yes, it's much more relaxing listening to the music than actually playing the games.  :P  It's also cool how two of the tracks has the same style as Ali Project.

http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho5_OyomeNiShinasai.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho5_Usatei_EX.swf
http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_toho5_TabooTearsYouUp.swf

So it's Comiket 72 in Japan right now.  Which means I'm drowning in a sea of games.  I'll probably make a more detailed post of the offerings later.  But for now, all I have to say is, I am extremely out of practice.  /cry

Package_l

I'll let the videos do the talking first.

What is it?  The first two videos are from the arcade version, the first one is a fight commentary video that shows how it's actually played with the table, the second is a bigger screen recording of a game, and the last one is what it's like on the DS.

Ok, but what is it really about?  Basically, the game is a CCG/RTS arcade game ported onto the DS set in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms/Records of Three Kingdoms era (三國演義 and 三國志 respectively).  Before the game starts, you select a group of cards representing generals and their army that have a combined cost of up to 8 (costs vary between 1-3/card), set them up on the board, select a special ability to use in the battle (such as increasing power, reducing recovery time, restoring troops, etc.).  The game then begins, and the objective is to siege down the enemy fort before your own falls.  Every card also has its own special ability that can be used which uses up your morale (think of it as a constantly regenerating mana bar).  There are also 6 different troop types each with their own advantages and disadvantages (for example, spearmen get a row of spears in front of them when not in battle that does damage to enemies that touch it, while cavalry get a blue aura when moving that reduces projectile damage, increases speed, and does charge damage on contact, but will get massive penalty damage if it touches an enemy spearmen's row of spears).

To play on the arcade, you need to first pay $5 for a starter deck.  After that, it's something like $3/game (-$1 every time you win in a row but minimum of $1), but you also get a random card after every game as well no matter if you win or lose.  And every game is ranked.  It's like an automated CCG tournament.  In comparison, the DS version is a one-time cost of (currently, as there's a deal) $29.90 + shipping on play-asia.com and it also comes with 5 exclusive DS-only cards, as well as an actual card you could use at the arcades.

Of course, playing on the DS has its quirks.  For one, you only have one hand (your stylus) for moving cards around since the DS doesn't support multi-touch, but the same limitation goes for everyone else so it's not too big a deal.  The graphics are not as refined of course and the screen is tiny, and it's hard to pick out cards if you've stacked them on top of each other (I guess I should learn to rotate cards more).  That said, it's STILL $29.90, based on the 2nd arcade version, is portable, and has Wi-Fi play.  What more do you really need?

If you buy it now, and want to add some other stuff, you can even use some discount coupons on Play-Asia.
10$ off 60$ coupon: DE-ALT-AKB
5$ off 30$ coupon: DE-ALT-AKA

And if you're feeling generous (particularly if you're using the coupons), please use my affiliate link.  :)

If you're cool and thus already have the game, my friend code is 0817-1261-7843 :3

For more information, the official site is at http://www.sangokushi-taisen.com/ds/

One of my friends claims that this is a girl's game.  I whole-heartedly disagree.

1. The first two PM games were definitely at least PG-rated, if not R.  There's no sex, but there's full nudity.  In the first game, it was an option to look at your daughter's state of development.  In the second game, you needed a cheat to get "The Emperor's New Clothes" which included the description "Daddy's favorite"
2. In the first 4 games, you take the role of the father.
3. You can marry your daughter (to be fair, at least in the earlier games, you could be 11 years old at the start of the game, 1 year older than her, and she is not related to you by blood in all the games)

Meanwhile, my friend's only argument is that her sister played it. :P

So.. Princess Maker 5.  It's set in the modern world (about time!).  That means unlike the rest of the series, she's no longer forced into child labor to earn money for her education.  Instead, she goes to public school and then has the option for part-time jobs or extra classes or club activities after school, just like normal kids nowadays!  For the first time, your income is also at a level where you can actually pay for her classes as well (well, I picked a steady job of teach/doctor, but there are other jobs that give you less stable income). The public school thing is nice as it encourages making her somewhat more well-rounded.  Still, she's probably going to end up with the Heroine ending (I tend to take them towards the fighting route because I like increasing Stamina which improves her ability to handle stress, plus it was useful for the adventuring sections in the early games)

The art's not as nice as, say, PM4 although there's more variety I think.  They've also tried to add a lot in way of details, like now your daughter can become nearsighted from too much studying, and it seems like they brought back some fighting (although I haven't reached that point yet).  You can even turn her into an otaku by taking her to anime shops and buying her manga.

Not sure yet who the prince(s) for this game will be.  Maybe it'll turn out to be some kid in school who's also in exile from her world.

So nice clear sky.  Went to a nearby park with my cousin about 15-20 minutes before midnight and we stayed there for about 40 minutes.  The park's better than my usual spots because it's darker and flatter (most of the lights are turned off there at 10PM), but it's just farther so I don't usually go there.  He stayed in the car (speaking of which, I suspect to a small degree he just wanted an excuse to drive his new car :P), but I found a nice long table and laid on top of that.  Saw for certain 6 meteors and maybe up to 5 more in that time period, although I did spend some time looking at other stuff including showing my cousin Jupiter's moon.  Saw Ganymede and could sort of see Europa.  My cousin could only see Ganymede.  Also, I guess I wasn't looking at quite the right area of the sky, think they were mostly concentrated on the East but I was looking mainly at the zenith/South given the direction of the table and because I was looking straight up.

For comparison, today's meteor shower is supposed to peak at about 80 meteors/hour at a dark sky site, while the September first thing is supposed to be about 200/hour.  BTW, there's some good info on it at http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/aurigids.html