Chichiri's Cute Journal

Book Meme

anchan218 — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 03:44:38 GMT

Taken from [Bad username or site: tsukikage85 @ livejournal].

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? (My note - only 6??? I've read at least 29, with a few more I think I read, but am not 100% certain so I didn't mark them, and parts of a few others. Granted I read most of those 29 in middle school when I had more time, but still...)

Bold the ones you've read! Italicize the ones you've partially read!

01 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
02 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
05 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06 The Bible
07 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
08 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Studio Ghibli + PS3 game = want want want

anchan218 — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:57:54 GMT

http://www.ninokuni.jp/ps3/images.html So pretty!

Children's books

anchan218 — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:00:03 GMT

Hey all, I'm looking for suggestions of good children's books to get. Here's the ones on my list so far:

The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Where the Wild Things Are
Goodnight Moon
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Benjamin and Tulip
Some Max board books - any good recommendations since there are a ton of these

Does this mean being a woman engineer is officially cool now? @_@

anchan218 — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:30:02 GMT

http://geekfeminism.org/2010/02/12/barcbie-becomes-a-computer-engineer/

Freaky pink laptop. :O

Study Reorg!

anchan218 — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:52:24 GMT

For a long time Wes and I have meant to reorganize our study. It's been a rats nest of papers since the day we moved into our house. Partly this was because the desk we had was too small for how we wanted to use it - we originally got a fairly cheap L-shaped computer desk (no drawers) with the idea that both Wes and I could sit at it at the same time back when we were living in an apartment. However, it wasn't ever quite large enough for that and didn't really work. Then when we moved to our house, not only was the desk too small for what we wanted, it was space inefficient - we couldn't really store anything under it since it was so small, and it didn't fit under the window in our "study" so it ended up taking up a lot of wall space that could have been used for bookshelves. The bookshelves ended up in another spare room since they couldn't fit in the "study" with that desk there. The end result was two less than optimally used rooms, but although we've been in this house almost 3 years now, we procrastinated on doing something about it.

This week we finally bit the bullet and bought a different desk and today we got a friend from church in to help get it into the study and set it up. This one is also L-shaped, but larger, which ironically makes the room much more space efficient. First off, it's large enough that both of us can use it at the same time and we can still fit things underneath it. it also is configurable in a way that the long part of the L fits beneath the window, allowing the bookshelves to fit into the study. The friend from church also helped with getting the bookshelves into the room, and after he left we spent our time putting the books back on the shelves and getting the answering machine/phone and computer related items back on the desk.

The old desk we ended up selling on Craigslist. It's meant for locals to sell used things to other locals, so unlike Ebay most people pick up the items and there's no charge to sell things. We were amazed at how quickly the desk sold - we put up the ad last night (for a pretty cheap price since we used that desk for about 5 years, it was fairly cheap to begin with, and it had some damage) and early afternoon someone came over to pick it up.

Of course this is also just step one (or maybe step two) of a multi-step process to reorganize the house. Next up, we obviously need to finish getting all of the stuff from the study back into the study. There's tons of papers sitting in our bedroom and in the hall right now that we need to get back into file cabinets (we emptied them so we could move them out of the study in order to put in the desk) and there's still a fair bit of office supplies that need to move back in. We'll probably end up getting a "rolling drawer" type thing to put some office supplies in and we're also talking about getting some wall shelving to put above the smaller part of the L-shaped desk, which is still against a wall. There's some stuff that was originally in the study that we'll probably have issues figuring out where to put it, since they were on half-sized shelves that will no longer fit in the study.

Then we need to put together metal shelving (which we ordered from Costco this week and came in the mail yesterday) which we'll be using to hold gardening and camping supplies in the garage. Once we've moved the camping supplies from the spare room to the garage, we'll work on fixing up the spare room. Finally we'll get to some nice-to-do items, including reorganizing cardboard boxes in the garage (and probably getting rid of some of them) and possibly getting a dresser for our bedroom so we can move the wire drawers we're using now down to the garage, where we can use them to store non-perishable food items that we can't fit into our kitchen.

So, all in all we have quite a bit more work to do, but Wes and I are both pleased with how much progress we made in one day. It's much more efficient than what we had previously.

Back in Singapore

anchan218 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:53:04 GMT

We arrived back in Singapore 2 days ago, late in the evening. And it's a good thing, too, since Sydney had a huge dust storm yesterday. @_@ This meant that had we tried to leave yesterday, we likely would've been stuck. And those sort of conditions are not exactly very good for people with asthma.

Instead, we spent most of the day shopping with Wes's Uncle Hwa-Heng and Aunt Adeline. Wes did quite a bit of splurging and got a 5 layer steamer pot thingy and a bunch of Chinese medicinal stuff. I got a very good condition used copy of 白騎士物語 (Japanese White Knight Chronicles). I'd originally been looking for Tales of Vesperia, but I guess that is too new. Very few stores even knew what it was, and we only found one that had a sample disc for the game and could obtain it by order in 2 weeks. Wouldn't work for me, obviously, so I gave up on that. I'd been debating whether or not to wait for the English version of White Knight Chronicles, which is due out next year, but now I'm glad I didn't since the main new features are with the online play, which I don't think I'll bother with, and the American version won't have the Japanese track.

Dinner was a big family affair at some really fancy restaurant famous for their black pepper crab. It was a HUGE feast!! There was some appetizers (one of which looked like a bird in a nest), bamboo clams (very long skinny clams), black pepper crab, chili crab, jumbo shrimp with some sort of curry sauce, mango chili fish, vegetables, fried noodles, and then dessert. I was getting stuffed after the shrimp and only managed to taste the fish, and had to skip the noodles all together.

Today Wes and I went to Little India. I wish I had brought my camera! It was all decorated for some festival. We really just wandered around all morning, looking at this HUGE everything-you-could-want store called Mustafa and then just browsed the streets. It was pretty cool to see a different side of Singapore. We then ate Indian for lunch. After lunch the sun had come out and it was getting quite hot, so we headed back to his Uncle's house. Wes got a haircut and I took a nap. Right now Wes is on a walk, but I still think it's too hot. ^^

Tomorrow we don't have much planned aside from seeing Wes's Uncle Francis. Hard to believe it's the last day before we head back to the States. Time has really flown!

Melbourne and Ballarat

anchan218 — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:57:05 GMT

Fact of the day: Melbourne, Australia was founded by Batman. Maybe they should have called it Gotham instead. ;)

The last 2 days we spent in Melbourne and Ballarat.

Wes's parents and we arrived late Wednesday night and basically just went to the hotel and had a bit of a late snack (Chinese porridge, vegetables, etc) before going to bed.

Thursday Wes and I spent wandering around the city on our own. Unfortunately it was rainy, which curtailed our sightseeing and we should have done some more research on the Royal Exhibition Hall, since they only allow 15 people to see it a day at 2pm, but overall it was enjoyable.

We started out the day by wandering around the "laneways", which is one of the icons of Melbourne. These are tiny alleyways between the major driving intersections. I think they sprung up originally as pedestrian-only walkways, but over the years have morphed into rows of storefronts and cafes. We had a breakfast of omelet and scrambled eggs at one such cafe. Our next stop was the Immigration Museum, which talked about immigration into Australia over its history. There was also an amazing temporary photo exhibit on Hampi, which we wanted to see in India back when we went, but were unable to because of when we went to India. At this point it started to rain, but it was somewhere between a rain and a drizzle.

Next we hopped on the tram - something similar to San Fran's trolleys except it's free for everyone to use and just goes in a square around Melbourne's city center. Our next destination was Queen Victoria Market, which is a HUGE open air market with about everything you could want - clothes, bags, souvenirs, jewelry, fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, cheese, tea, and coffee. We had lunch there - weisswurst sausage and a "borez", which was some sort of pastry filled with lamb and vegetables. We also bought some apples for a snack later on. Then we headed to the Royal Exhibition Hall, but arrived after 2pm since we didn't know that was the only time you could get in. :( The guy at the Melbourne museum was REALLY kind to us, though, and gave us free tickets to see an exhibit with some items from the Royal Exhibition Hall. It was pretty interesting to read about some things of Australian history that I'd never heard about before, like Phar Lap the racehorse. By the time we finished with the exhibit, it was absolutely pouring out. We ended up eating our apples here and waiting till the rain slacked off enough for us to hop back on the tram and head back to our hotel without getting TOO wet. After freshening up, we met up with Wes's parents, who had spent the day seeing different nurseries to buy a lot of stock trees for their bonsai business. Then we all went to a street called Lygon St, which was Little Italy. So of course we had Italian, though it seemed more like Australian-Chinese than the authentic Italian food I've had.

Yesterday we ate buffet breakfast at the hotel and took a road trip to Ballarat, which is about 1.5 hours away from Melbourne. Ballarat is known for its part of Australia's gold rush, which happened roughly around the same time as America's gold rush, and Eureka's Rebellion, the only armed rebellion in Australia (which ironically occurred because of the heavy taxes the government placed on the gold miners). Today they have a museum on gold there and a village set up like the city would have been at the time of the gold rush, much like Mystic Seaport or Williamsburg, VA. We spent several hours there, but could have spent more time. We had a very late lunch of sandwiches and salad and then went to the airport to catch the 1 hour plane flight back to Sydney. Once there we had a late dinner of Chinese, unpacked, and then went to bed.

Today Wes and I will be going to the city for some shopping and then will meet up with some of his high school friends for an Italian dinner. :)

Misc

anchan218 — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:25:36 GMT

The last few days have been fairly laid back. Mostly they consisted of going shopping (sometimes on our own and sometimes food shopping with Wes's mother), eating (mostly Chinese food, often with friends of Wes's parents), and seeing friends.

Several days ago Wes's parents and we went to a place called Kiama which is south of Sydney - it's a small touristy sort of town near the coast. Mostly it's famous for this rock called "the blowhole" because it has a small hole in it towards the top and at the right time of day (i.e. when the tide is in) water will come gushing against the rock and spurt out of the hole like the blowhole of a whale.

We also went to see Wes's 2nd cousins Kenny and Pauline a couple days ago. Both are married and between the two of them have 6 kids now, all between the ages of 6 months and 4 years old. We got to play with the kids and ask for some parenting advice. It was a fun time.

Yesterday we went to town. We did some shopping for people back to the states and otherwise just wandered around. For lunch we had Tiger pies at "Henry's Cafe de Wheels", which is famous enough that hollywood stars and the like have been there. The Tiger pie is a beef meat pie with a mountain of mashed potatoes, mushy peas, and gravy of on top. Wes had never eaten it before either. We ended the day in Chinatown eating Uigher food (I love their long long handmade noodles!)

Today will probably be pretty low key. We'll be going to Melbourne tomorrow, so we need to get ready by figuring out where to go, getting a suitcase ready, etc.

In Oz

anchan218 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:59:24 GMT

Well, we made it to Australia yesterday morning.

2 days ago was so-so. It was hotter than the day before and a lot of the day I was feeling not so great due to the heat / humidity. I ended up not eating that much and napping much more than I should have. :/

Basically the day started with us going to a hawker center for breakfast with one of Wes's aunts and uncles. I had "la mien" which is the Chinese noodle ramen was based off, though la mien tastes a fair bit different. Afterward Wes got a form filled out to get the tax off some vitamins he had bought the day before and headed back to his aunt's house to pack. Lunch was laksa, a coconut noodle soup. I like this dish a lot, but wasn't hungry at all and didn't eat. Then we went shopping for a new cell phone for Wes's mother. After this I ended up taking a nap in the car. ^_^;; Wes did some shopping for tea in little India, then we headed back to his aunt's place where I napped until it was time to go to the airport. Then I napped more in the airport lounge. The flight to Australia was a red eye. I did sleep some, but as it was only 6 hours and they feed us at the beginning and end of the flight, it wasn't that long.

Yesterday we took it fairly easy - hung out at Wes's parents' place for most of the day just catching up with his family. His sister moved out into her own apartment about a month ago (and is rooming with the daughter of one of their church pastors). His brother is doing well at University (he's studying law) but is currently on holidays for a few weeks. His parents are doing about the same as always, although they are obviously excited about being grandparents. Wes's mother gave us some baby clothes and a baby blanket someone at her church knit (and they look gorgeous - like something you can buy from a store). She's also been eyeing strollers and the like at stores. ^^

I did get a haircut before lunch at a Chinese restaurant, though. Wes's mother's hair dresser is very very good at cutting my hair well. :) Too bad I haven't found a hair dresser that can maintain the hair cuts well in Portland.

Wes is going to take care of his Australian driver's license today and a few other chores. Then we'll probably have dim sum, possibly do some shopping, and then have a family dinner at home with one of Wes's cousins and his sister stopping by since it's his mom's birthday today. Earlier this morning they booked some rooms in Melbourne for 3 or 4 days, so I guess we'll be taking a trip there. That should be fun as I've never been to Melbourne before.

In Singapore

anchan218 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:03:28 GMT

After travelling for 20 hours, we are in Singapore. Our itinerary went Portland->SF->Tokyo->Singapore. United was feeling somewhat generous and let Wes upgrade our seats on the international legs to business class using miles although technically they shouldn't have with the fare codes we had. On the SF->Tokyo flight this equated to using the new business, where they had lie-flat beds. Those were pretty nice, though Wes thought the seat was a bit narrow and short for a bed. I found the food a bit nicer on that flight as well, though frustratingly the Japanese option on both flights had fish in it and lately I have not been able to eat fish. :( I felt either pretty tired or dehydrated on the SF->Tokyo flight near dinner time so the stewardess was kind and let me leave the dinner for later.

Since we had somewhat long layovers, we also used the airline lounges (which we were eligible either through Wes's frequen flyer status or the business class seats) both in SF and Tokyo. The Tokyo lounge was better, partly because we went to the ANA lounge there, lol. It had better food, including a noodle bar, and fancy Japanese bathrooms where we both took showers.

We arrived in Singapore around midnight and stayed last night over at one of Wes's uncle's and aunt's house. Today we had a leisurely day. Ate breakfast at a hawker center with one of Wes's aunts, which is a normal breakfast in Singapore, then went to church, had lunch at a Taiwanese place named Din Tai Fun (I think?) with the same aunt, and did some shopping. Afterward I ended up taking a nap, oops. Although most of the day had been cool and not THAT humid, it had gotten more warm and humid and combined with being night time in Portland and not having something to keep me active, it was too much for me. Luckily, I think it was only for an hour. Soon we'll be going out to eat at a restaurant called Mushroom Park with some more aunts and uncles (and maybe a cousin or two). Yum yum!

I'm not sure what we'll be doing tomorrow during the day, but we'll be flying out to Sydney in the evening on a red eye flight.

Final Fantasy XIII and House Cleaning

anchan218 — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:04:13 GMT

First the Final Fantasy XIII news. dwchang will probably find this really frustrating. I've learned that Maaya Sakamoto will be voice acting the main character in FFXIII. However, Squeenix says they won't be including a Japanese track in the North American release of FFXIII. In fact, I've heard they're going so far as to redo all the cut scenes for the North American release so that the lip syncing matches the English voice actors. :O :O :O Now I have to decide whether I import the Japanese version although the language is going to be a big challenge for me or do I wait and deal with the English voice acting, but not have to struggle with language? :/

Anyway, for those wondering why I haven't been posting much lately, we've been doing a lot of house cleaning. The downstairs is quite tidy at the moment and our bedroom is the tidiest it's been in probably at least a year. :O :O :O The study looks about the same until you consider a lot of the papers on the floor in there now were previously in our bedroom or downstairs... So, in short a lot of progress. Here are our next steps:

1) Pack stuff in the study into boxes and move the boxes into our bedroom
2) Go to Ikea / Some other furniture place and get a new desk / organizing furniture for the study. Probably should also get some sort of shelves to put in the garage.
3) Get rid of current cheap desk / furniture in the study that aren't doing an adequate job of organizing
4) Move stuff from bedroom back into the study
5) Start moving bookshelves from the spare bedroom into the study
6) Move camping stuff in spare bedroom's closet to the garage

The end goals are basically to get the study into some sort of presentable shape and to totally redo that spare bedroom.

I'm still alive!

anchan218 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:44:08 GMT

Yeah, I know it's been a long while since I've last posted. Mostly I've been engrossed reading 天は赤い河のほとり manga again. This time I'm determined to finish it!! When I haven't been reading that, I've been watching Wes play Yakuza 2 - a PS2 action/RPG cross that takes a pretty romantic view of the yakuza (the hero is a big name in the yakuza scene, yet there's a million quests where he helps out people, like a depressed musician, an orphanage, etc etc.)

Another part is just how hot it's been here lately - today, which only got up to 88, was the coolest it's been in over a week. The rest of the week it's been somewhere between 95 and 105. @_@ There were multiple days where the low was 70. And we don't have AC. As such I spent several nights eating ice cubes in the dark.

Wes, however, was lucky enough to have a conference in San Francisco Monday-Thursday last week and so missed the worst of the heat wave. -_- But the upside is we decided to have a weekend getaway with just the two of us in San Francisco where we saw the sights - the golden gate bridge, the trolleys, fisherman's wharf, japantown, chinatown, and some of the parks. And we got to eat good Chinese food in the process. :) To those who live in the bay area, sorry that we didn't contact you, but I wasn't there for that long (got in LATE Friday night and left Sunday afternoon). Afterward Wes was pretty busy with business-type stuff.

Anyway, it's pretty hot, so I think I'm going to sign off to shower and open some windows.

Links

anchan218 — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:17:16 GMT

Taken from yoshitsune because they're awesome and must be passed on. :D

Hammertime!
Mythbusters recreate the Mona Lisa using paintball guns

Yay long weekend!!

anchan218 — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:31:51 GMT

We are going camping tomorrow!! Yay!!

Dreamwidth Invite Codes

anchan218 — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:38:28 GMT

Hey, I have some invite codes now, apparently, so I was wondering if anyone wanted one. :) I need your email address to send it to you.

Sweet!

anchan218 — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:16:04 GMT

Dreamwidth turned on the advanced customization page for free users! :D See here. Time for me to play around with stuff! :D :D :D

Spring Cleaning Motivation Needed - Apply Within

anchan218 — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:50:48 GMT

OK, this is somewhat off-topic, but it needs to be said - I'm using kanji mood icons over at Dreamwidth, but some of these are translated pretty weird. How does 悲 translate to restless?

Anyway, I feel like a lot of spring cleaning needs to be done around the house, but somehow I feel too tired to do it. Tired as in I can't seem to focus on anything and feel like I could fall asleep if I were to lie down. And yet, I feel somewhat bored and restless, like I want to do something creative / artistic /entertaining but I can't quite decide on what to do... :/

I suppose part of this restlessness is wanting to do something with my Dreamwidth account, but not having any vision for what I wnat to do with it. Even something as basic as giving it a decent name, although I'm liking it more and more due to having the username I want, lol.

List of spring cleaning-type things that need to get done:

Vaccuum
Clean the shower
Redo the filing system
File/shred/throw away a lot of papers/receipts/bills
Redo the front flowerbed
Redo the back landscaping
Get a new desk for the study
Get more storage things for the DVDs/CDs/video games downstairs
Move the bookshelves from one of the spare bedrooms into the study

OK, OK I'll stop procrastinating and do something.

Tulips and Cellphones

anchan218 — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:43:28 GMT

This weekend has been fairly low key, mostly chores, but there's been a few notable items.

Yesterday we went to Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm with a few other friends since there was a tulip festival going on. The weather was a bit cold and windy for it, but it was amazing to see fields and fields of tulips blooming. :O We ended up buying some bulbs for a flowerbed in our front yard: Couleur Cardinal and Daydream. I hope they look nice when they grow next spring!

Today I got a new new cellphone. Sorry lain_wired that it's not a Moto phone, but the Moto T-Mobile phone that looked the best to me out of my choices (Zine) cost more and had a worse radiation rating. ^^; The Nokia 5610 is supposed to be good for listening to music so I've been busy uploading MP3s to it. :)

Valkyria Chronicles

anchan218 — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:13:13 GMT

dwchang will be happy to know that I managed to beat Valkyria Chronicles last night. :D

Overall, my opinion of it really hasn't changed much from this earlier entry. The characters were quirky and fun and the plot was enjoyable (although I found it a bit predictable - I didn't get EVERYTHING but I guessed several things, including a fairly major plot point 6 or 7 chapters before they actually revealed it.) The game play is quite unusual. I guess you'd classify the game as a strategy RPG in that it's turn based, you have a cast of characters that you move on a playing field, and you move the characters one character at a time. However, rather than having a grid you can move the character a certain distance, you can select a character multiple times in one turn (or none at all), and when you shoot the enemy it takes you into a FPS sort of mode where you have to aim at the enemy. The game writers also did a good job of keeping the battles interesting by creating a lot of different battle conditions - different terrains, different conditions for beating the battle, etc. Finally, the game is unusual in that it's set in a WWII-ish sort of era and has a pretty watercolor-type artstyle.

I won't spoil the end too much, other than it's pretty cool that they list how many of the squad made it through alive and that it's one of those games where you want to watch it until after the ending credits. The ending is pretty nice. :) After you beat the game you have the option of replaying to try to get As on everything. If you chose to start a new game using your completed game's data you can read in the Personnel section to find out what happened to all of the characters once the war ended. ^_^ That was quite a nice touch. On the replay they also let you skip through the cut scenes for faster replay.

I still plan on playing the game some more, since I still need to do the following:

- Get all of the weapon/tank upgrades. I'm almost there - just have one or two more upgrades on the Eidelweiss.
- Max level all of my character classes. They're either 18 or 19 right now.
- Get all of the orders. I'm not sure how many I'm missing, though.
- Get As on all the chapter battles. I'm not sure how many that is.
- Get As on all the skirmishes at all difficulty levels. I'm not sure how many this is, but it's bound to be a lot since I only played normal difficulty the first time through, I haven't played the last skirmish yet, and hard difficulty just got unlocked.
- Get all the medals. I don't even have half of them yet, I think, so this will take awhile.
- Get all of the secret characters. I have 2 out of 5, but I don't know what I need to do to get the last 3 yet.
- Unlock all the potentials on the secret characters. Audrey's potentials are all unlocked, but the scout I just got and obviously I don't have the other 3 secret characters yet.

Weekend

anchan218 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:52:37 GMT

Hopefully this week is better than last week, work-wise.

This weekend has felt a little productive because I did some cleaning. dwchang will also be happy to know that I'm now half-way through Ch15 in Valkyria.

Oh and did you know the person who's singing the opening song for the Valkyria anime is a Canadian otaku who won last year's Anison contest? Her Japanese isn't that good, but she can sing (judging from Youtube videos) and I admire her drive to go after her dreams, no matter how far-fetched they may seem.

Happy Birthday!

anchan218 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:14:04 GMT

Happy birthday meruru4!!!

It's been awhile

anchan218 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:17:49 GMT

Yes I'm still alive. Work has been kicking my butt lately - I've been working around 11-12 hours a day for the last few weeks and now I'm getting a cold. :( Mostly my days have consisted of get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, go home, cook dinner, relax for an hour or 2, get ready for bed, and then go asleep.

Since I'm sick the last 2 days I've actually come home at a decent time, though. dwchang will be glad to know I have made the time to play some Valkyria Chronicles, though. I've gotten back to where I was when I rented the game and all of my troops are now elites. I'm not sure what this gets me with lancers, engineers, and snipers, though. Oh, and I beat the supertank battle with an A this time. :D :D :D

Obama should hire this guy

anchan218 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:56:36 GMT

Obama should hire this guy. He could make a lot of $$ from an exclusive toy line!

(Link curtesy of Steve K.)

Wes's arm

anchan218 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:11:05 GMT

I've been so busy this week, that I didn't get a chance to mention it earlier, but Wes took skiing lessons this Saturday. I didn't go since I figure 1) I'm not the most coordinated 2) I have thin bones so I'd probably end up breaking something. Wes did ok until the last run, when he tried to stop and fell badly on his right shoulder. The medical staff there took some X-rays and determined that he had a "separated shoulder". This is basically stretched or torn ligaments in the shoulder. Wes came home with a CD of X-rays, a sling, and the advice to see a specialist ASAP.

He got in to see a specialist Monday afternoon (I had to leave work to drive him there since his arm is not in a condition for him to drive), where it was confirmed that he has a separated shoulder, but thankfully not a very bad one. He should be able to drive again late this week/early next week and after 4-6 weeks should be pretty much back to normal. For his degree of injury the doctor didn't even think physical therapy was strictly necessary, though because Wes has hurt his left shoulder in the past decided to recommend Wes some physical therapists to help him with both shoulders. Wes will start the physical therapy either Saturday or next week (I'm not entirely clear on it - originally Wes had made an appointment for Saturday, but may have changed it to next week based off advice from a co-worker). The only other thing the specialist told Wes is that he should stop using the sling as soon as possible.

Today Wes didn't use the sling and seemed to feel comfortable. He said his movement is better, but still doesn't have much strength in the arm. Because his work hours are different from mine, he has been working from home, though he hopes that Friday he'll feel good enough to drive. We shall see. Obviously in the meantime I've been doing all the cooking, dish washing, laundry, driving around, etc for the last few days. It's a bit tiring to do so much work, but there's no helping it.

Anime Meme

anchan218 — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:30:01 GMT

Yanked this from tsukikage85

Go through the list and check off the titles you have watched. For our purposes, "watching" a title means that for TV and OVA series, you have to have seen at least one episode. For one-shots, you have to have seen the whole thing. At the end of each genre/category, add up your sub-total. At the very end, add up the sub-totals to come up with your grand total. If your grand total is 80 or over, congratulations -- you are an obsessive anime watcher!

An Editor's Note: not all the titles listed here are great, and some are even steaming piles of crap. Titles on the list are here because they are either 1) genuinely good, 2) insanely popular, 3) good examples of the genre, or 4) just plain notorious. Good anime obsessives should be able to watch series with any of those qualities.

Action and Adventure
(-) .hack//SIGN
() Airmaster
() Battle Arena Toshinden
(-) Bleach
() Blood+
() Burst Angel
(-) City Hunter
(-) Cowboy Bebop
() Dragonball
() Flame of Recca
(-) GetBackers
(-) Inu Yasha
(-) Lupin III (any)
(-) Mai-HiME
(-) Naruto
(-) One Piece
() Tenjou Tenge
(-) TRIGUN
(-) Saiyuki
(-) Yu Yu Hakusho
Total Here: 13/20

II. Comedy and Parody
() 2x2 = Shinobuden
(-) Adventures of the Mini Goddesses
(-) Azumanga Daioh
() Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan
(-) Di Gi Charat
() Dragon Half
(-) Excel Saga
(X) Fruits Basket
() Galaxy Angel
() Here is Greenwood
(-) Kodomo no Omocha
() Kyou Kara Maou!
() Midori Days
(X) Ouran Koukou Host Club
() Pani Poni Dash
() Project A-ko
(-) Ranma ½
() Tenchi Muyo
(-) Those Who Hunt Elves
() Urusei Yatsura
Total Here: 9/20
Total so far: 21

III. Drama and Miscellaneous
() Beck
(-) Full Moon wo Sagashite
() Gankutsuou
(-) Genshiken
() Glass Mask (original or new)
(X) Haibane Renmei
() Hitsuji no Uta
(-) Honey & Clover
() Kaleido Star
(X) Last Exile
() Le Portrait de Petite Cossette
() Monster
() Paradise Kiss
(X) Princess Mononoke
(X) Read or Die OVA
() Speed Grapher
() Twin Spica
(-) Weiss Kreuz
() Wings of Honneamise
() Yakitate!! Japan
Total Here: 8/20
Total so far: 29

IV. Ecchi/Mature
() Agent AIKa
() Cutey Honey
(-) Ebichu (It's all Meng's fault!)
() Golden Boy
() Grenadier
() Hand Maid May
() He Is My Master
() Iketeru Futari
() La Blue Girl
() Lingerie Senshi Papillon Rose
() Mahoromatic
() Mezzo Forte (I have seen Mezzo: DSA, though.)
() Miyuki-chan in Wonderland
() My Dear Marie
() Najica Blitz Tactics
() Negima
() Puni Puni Poemi
() Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend
() Yumeria
Total Here: 1/20
Total so far: 30

V. Fantasy and Supernatural
() Angel Sanctuary
() Aquarian Age
() Berserk
(-) El Hazard (Saw OVA only)
(-) Final Fantasy Unlimited
(-) Fullmetal Alchemist
(X) Howl's Moving Castle
(X) Magic Knight Rayearth
() Mushishi
(X) Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
() Record of Lodoss War
(X) Scrapped Princess
(-) Slayers (Saw all of original Slayers, Next, and Try, plus some of the movies)
() Tales of Eternia
() Trinity Blood
(-) Tsubasa Chronicle
(X) Vampire Hunter D
() Violinist of Hameln
(X) Vision of Escaflowne
(-) X: TV
Total Here: 12/20
Total so far: 42

VI. Historical and Alternate History
() Anne of Green Gables
() Basilisk
() Barefoot Gen
(-) Chrono Crusade
(X) Grave of the Fireflies
() Fire Tripper
() Kaidomaru
() Legend of Condor Hero
() Millennium Actress
(X) Nadia - Secret of Blue Water
(X) Ninja Scroll
() Otogizoushi
(X) Peacemaker Kurogane
(X) Porco Rosso
(-) Rose of Versailles
(-) Rurouni Kenshin
(-) Samurai 7
() Samurai Champloo
() Steel Angel Kurumi
(-) Victorian Romance Emma
Total Here: 10/20
Total so far: 52

VII. Kids and Family
(-) Angelic Layer
() Astro Boy
() Beyblade
(X) Castle in the Sky
(-) Detective Conan
() Digimon
() Doraemon
() Hamtaro
(X) Kiki's Delivery Service
() Kimba the White Lion
() Monster Rancher
(X) My Neighbor Totoro (Raw VHS- 7th grade- on my rewatch list since I didn't know what the heck was going on- Watched during my Pre-anime days)
(-) Pokemon (well, most of the TV series, at least 4 movies)
() Samurai Pizza Cats
(-) Sazae-san
() SD Gundam Force
() Sonic X
() Speed Racer
(X) Spirited Away
() Yu-Gi-Oh
Total Here: 8/20
Total so far: 60

VIII. Magical Girls and Boys
(X) Cardcaptor Sakura
(-) DNAngel
(X) Earth Girl Arjuna
() Erementar Gerad
(X) Hime-chan no Ribbon
(-) Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne
(X) Magic Users Club
() Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (God, was it awful.)
() Magical Stage Fancy La La
() Mahou no Star Magical Emi
() Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
() Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok
(-) Ojamajo DoReMi
() Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo
() Pretear
(-) Sailor Moon
() Saint Tail
() Tokyo Mew Mew
() Ultra Maniac
() Wedding Peach
Total Here: 8/20
Total so far: 68

IX. Romance
(X) Ah! My Goddess (OVA)
() Ai Yori Aoshi
() Air
(X) Ayashi no Ceres
() Boys Be (Hated it.)
() Chobits
(X) Fushigi Yuugi
() Hana Yori Dango (I don't suppose the dorama counts...)
(X) His and Her Circumstances
() Kimagure Orange Road
() Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
(-) Love Hina (Although only the TV series, none of the specials.)
(X) Maison Ikkoku
(X) Marmalade Boy
() Peach Girl
() Piano
() Please Teacher!
(-) SaiKano
(-) To Heart
(X) Video Girl Ai
Total Here: 10/20
Total so far: 78

X. Science-Fiction
() Appleseed (I own it but haven't watched it yet.)
() Blue Seed
() Bubblegum Crisis
(X) Crest of the Stars
() Galaxy Express 999
(-) Gundam
() Macross (Saw Macross plus.)
() Outlaw Star
(-) Patlabor (Just the movie)
() Planetes
(X) Please Save My Earth
() RahXephon
() Saber Marionette
(X) s-CRY-ed
(X) Soukyuu no Fafner
() Space Battleship Yamato
(-) Stellvia
() Transformers
() Voices of a Distant Star
() Xenosaga: The Animation
Total Here: 7/20
Total so far: 85

XI. Shounen-Ai and Shoujo-Ai
() Ai no Kusabi
() Descendants of Darkness
() Earthian
() FAKE
() Fish in the Trap
() Galaxy Fraulin Yuna
() Gravitation (Not the sequel, though.)
() Haru wo Daiteita
() Kannazuki no Miko
() Kizuna
() Lesson XX
() Loveless (The loli-undertones scare me...)
() Maria-sama ga Miteru
() Mirage of Blaze
() Oniisama E
() Seikimatsu Darling
() Song of the Wind in the Trees
() Sukisho
() Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
() Zetsuai/Bronze
Total Here: 0/20
Total so far: 85

XII. Sports
() Ace wo Nerae
() Ashita no Joe
() Ayane's High Kick
() Baki the Grappler
() Battle Athletes
() Buzzer Beater
() Captain Tsubasa
() Eyeshield 21
() Ginban Kaleidoscope
() Hajime no Ippo
(X) Hikaru no Go
(X) Initial D
() Major
() Monkey Turn
() One Pound Gospel
(-) Prince of Tennis
() Princess Nine
() Slam Dunk
() Suzuka
() Wild Striker
Total Here: 3/20
Total so far: 91

XIII. Surreal and Psychological
(X) Akira
() Betterman
() Boogiepop Phantom
() Elfen Lied
(X) FLCL
() Gantz
(X) Ghost in the Shell (seen the movie, not the TV series)
(X) Hellsing
() Jigoku Shoujo
() Karas
() Madlax (Exlax?)
() Melody of Oblivion
(X) Neon Genesis Evangelion
(X) Noir
() Paranoia Agent
(X) Perfect Blue
() Princess Tutu
(X) Revolutionary Girl Utena
(-) Serial Experiments Lain
() Texhnolyze
Total Here: 9/20
Total so far: 100

It's amazing how much stuff I've seen part of, but not the entire thing. :P And there must not be too much new stuff listed on here since I recognize the names and I haven't been following the names of new anime much lately.