Lucky Number Seven
06 September 2009
I can't tell you how much of a pleasure it is to be using a new computer after suffering at the hands of my laptop for the past year. It's just so quick and painless compared to how it used to be. Now I don't have to waste hours of my life waiting for Windows to starts or for a program to load. I can even have several things running at once without slow-down, imagine that! Best of all, I can finally upgrade to a new version of Windows. As good as Windows XP is, it does feel very dated now compared to Windows 7. I'm currently using the Release Candidate as my main operating system until it officially gets released on 22nd October. So far it's been fantastic. It's like having the stability of XP combined with the aesthetics of Vista. It's pretty much everything Vista should have been plus a little bit extra. I'm particularly fond of the feature that lets you minimize everything but the selected window by shaking it from side-to-side. It's perhaps a little gimmicky but it sure is a lot of fun!
I think I'm pretty sorted as far as computers go for a good few years now. The best thing about getting a desktop is that I can upgrade the components as I go along. That way I can keep up with the advancing technology and not have to replace it in a few years. I'm currently planning on buying a decent graphics card in the new few months. I couldn't afford to get a dedicated graphics card on my budget so I'm having to use the integrated graphics found on the motherboard. It's fine for watching DVDs but it does struggle when you try to run a game that's been made in the last couple of years. All I need is a card that will be able to run Final Fantasy XIV when it comes out. Although, I've not decided if I want to play that on the PlayStation 3 or on the PC yet.
I would also like to get a proper monitor some time in the next year. My LCD TV is currently doubling up as a monitor at the moment. While it is an upgrade compared to my laptop screen, it's still lacking a bit in terms of resolution. What I'd really like is a monitor capable of outputting at least 1440x900, though 1680x1050 would be better. Considering how much that would cost, however, it's likely that I won't be able to afford it until May 2010. At least my RAM is sorted for a long time. I decided to spend a little bit more money and get 4 GB of RAM instead of 2 GB. That's the maximum my motherboard will take and should be more than adequate for at least two or three years. All in all, I'm a pretty happy bunny!
Posted byHocchan at 3:55 AM 1 comments
The Arch-Nemesis Returns
03 September 2009
It's funny; I was hoping to mark my return to this blog with some better news but it appears that a certain organisation is out to ruin my plan. And they've done a pretty good job of it by all accounts. So, rather than resurrecting Kuroneko Doumei with a cheerful story about elves and pixies dancing on a big cake of happiness, I'm going to launch into a scathing attack on one of the companies that's become the bane of my existence in the last few years - Royal-Fucking-Mail.
You may recall that I've been pissed off by Royal Mail's shitty service a few times in the past. This is a company that seemingly prides itself on its ability to make me angry. Time and time again they manage to do something which completely enrages me to the point where I feel like going out into the street, ripping up the paving slabs, and hurling them at the nearest moving object. What is it about this company that attracts the biggest bunch of tossers to come work for them? I swear to God, it's like they were trained to be incompetent.
This latest incident is the most annoying one by far. Here's what happened. I had recently ordered a new computer (which I'll probably write about in a separate post) and I needed a monitor cable to go with it so that I could use it with my LCD TV. I bought a Belkin monitor cable from a seller on eBay last Wednesday and waited for it to arrive. Days passed and there was no word from the seller. Then on Saturday evening I received an e-mail from the seller saying that they'd been on holiday, but they'd posted the item that morning and were sorry for the delay. Normally that wouldn't be too much of a problem. However, it just happened to be a Bank Holiday weekend which meant that it probably wouldn't arrive until Tuesday. No problem, I thought, my computer was due to arrive on Tuesday anyway so it wouldn't matter much.
Tuesday came and my computer arrived as expected, along with the keyboard and mouse which I had ordered from Play.com. However, there was no sign of the monitor cable. I was slightly annoyed since I wouldn't be able to use my new computer until it arrived. I knew it would probably turn up the next day so I decided to wake up early and wait for the postman so I would definitely hear him knocking. It gets to Wednesday morning and I wake up at 8:00 AM to wait. It gets to 10:30 AM and I hear the letterbox lid slam. Odd, I didn't hear anyone knocking (I was listening intently), I thought. I went downstairs and there's a 'Sorry, you were out' card by the door. The postman was already long gone by the time I got there. He didn't fucking knock! What a bastard! He just left his shitty little card and pretended that I wasn't in. Cheeky son of a bitch!
As a result of this shit-faced tosser, I've had to wait until this morning until I could go COLLECT my monitor cable from the depot. What's the point of me paying postage if I have to bloody go collect it? And the worst bit is, the parcel would have easily fit through the letter box which means that the postman didn't even have the fucking thing with him in the first place. He had intentionally not taken it with him on his rounds that morning and instead, forced me to travel into town to pick it up. What a cock! What the fuck is he being paid for? He's a fucking POSTman, so fucking post my shit, you whore! FUCKING ROYAL MAIL IS SHITE!
Posted byHocchan at 10:24 PM 0 comments
Infinity
22 June 2009
Why do university text books have to be so expensive? I've been thinking of buying a couple of them for next year but I'd forgotten how expensive they were. It's going to cost me over £50 just to buy the two books that I should have bought last September. The high price was the main reason why I decided to just borrow them from the library for the whole year instead. I never intended to do that but it just sort of happened. I had expected to borrow them for a couple of months and then buy my own copies but I quickly ran out of money that semester. As long as no one reserved them (which no one did) I could theoretically keep them for the whole year, renewing them every four weeks. And that's exactly what happened. I'm not sure if that tactic will work next year, though. There will be new students starting on the course and I might have to compete for 'ownership' of the book. So it might just be easier to finally give in and buy my own. But as I said earlier, it's so bloody expensive! Plus, I'll probably have to buy the next volumes of the text books soon as we've almost covered all of the material in the current ones. I have two choices really: fork out over £100 for new text books; or fight the first years for them!
Among the books for my course, there's one that's not actually required but will probably be quite useful. It's the 2008 edition of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test exam paper. I'm planning to take the exam this December and get my first formal Japanese qualification. It's not required by the university but I've been planning on taking it for awhile now. The only thing is, I'm not entirely sure of which level I should take. I'm fairly confident that, with minimal revision, I could pass Level 3 (Level 1 being the hardest, Level 4 being the easiest). However, I wonder if I should try for Level 2 and just work a bit harder during the lead up to the exam? The only problem with that is that the jump from Level 3 to Level 2 is supposed to be massive (hence why they're changing the system in 2010). As the exam is only available once a year (and costs £60), should I risk it? I'll have to consider my options carefully before the application period opens in July.
Posted byHocchan at 12:15 AM 0 comments
Don't Say Lazy
19 June 2009
I'm currently enjoying my summer holiday at the moment by catching up on all the computer games that I've neglected during the year. I finally completed Lost Odyssey a few weeks ago. I think my play time at the end was just over sixty-hours, which wasn't bad considering that I spent a lot of time levelling up and doing side quests. I have to say that the game was a lot better than I had expected it to be. I was kind of put off by the artwork when I first saw it. However, as I played through the story, the characters really grew on me. Well, all except that twat called Mack anyway...
One thing that I'm very pleased about is that they included the original Japanese audio track. It made the experience a million times better. I'm slightly disappointed that they didn't sync the lips to the Japanese vocals, though, that would have made it even better. But at least the option to listen to the Japanese voices is there. It really pisses me off when publishers don't keep the Japanese audio track as an option. Unfortunately, it seems like Lost Odyssey was a one-off as the latest JRPGs to be released in the UK (Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Tales of Vesperia) both don't include a Japanese voice option. Bastards! One thing is for sure, when Final Fantasy XIII gets released, I'm importing a Japanese copy instead of buying the domestic release. English dubbing can go screw itself!
After I completed Lost Odyssey I moved onto Oblivion for awhile. I bought it together with The Last Remnant and had only intended to give it a quick go. However, it quickly got me hooked and I found myself playing it full time. Unfortunately, several things started pissing me off big time, and it wasn't long until I gave up on the game and moved on to The Last Remnant. It's a pretty good game so far, despite the horrendous frame rate problems that it suffers from. The battle system is very interesting and I like the way you recruit leaders and soldiers to fight for you. I'm disappointed that there isn't a Japanese voice option, the English dubbing is truly dire. But at least you can turn them off during the battles, that's one saving grace.
But alas, it's not all fun and games for me at the moment. I seem to be suffering from some pretty severe toothaches lately. I think the reason why it's so painful is due to the fact that it's coming from two different sources. The first being the massive cavity that I've developed on my third molar on the right-hand side, and the second being the emergence of my Wisdom teeth. As a result, they've both combined to give me an excruciatingly painful time. I think that if it continues to be so unbearably painful then I might have to give in and finally pay the dentist a visit. I'm sure the pain of root canal surgery can't be as bad as what I've already experienced.
Posted byHocchan at 8:21 PM 2 comments
Just Wild Beat Communication
31 May 2009
It's been over a week since my friends and I went over to Germany to play in the German Reach Mahjong tournament. It was an enjoyable trip overall, but it did have a couple of rather annoying moments. One of those being the half-hour delay to our train back to Bremen from Hanover, and the other the extreme lack of sleep from staying overnight in the airport. Of those two, the train delay was definitely the most irritating. I was extremely tired after staying awake for thirty-six hours straight and it was something I really didn't need. Plus the fact that the German announcer didn't tell us what was happening in English, when it's an international station, really got on my nerves. I think the reason for the delay was down to the football fans (of which there were hundreds) that were crowding the train station, both in Hanover and Bremen. In any case, it was severely irritating. I hope that I'll never have to experience that ever again!
Apart from those two niggles, the rest of the trip was good. We did run into a massive rain shower during the afternoon in Bremen but it cleared up not long after it started. We spent a few hours looking around the city and got lots of free rides on the trams. Speaking of the trams, it appears that you don't actually need to buy a ticket for it, even though there are ticket machines on-board. You see, no one actually comes around and checks for tickets. And the locals don't ever buy them either. So I'm guessing the machines are only there to fool naive little tourists like us. Another interesting thing about the trams and trains in Germany is that they use a very strange bell tone when they announce each stop. It's a single, very dull 'dong' sound - very similar to that of a death toll. Extremely eerie, especially at night.
The tournament itself was fantastic. We only just about managed to get there on time, thanks to some ingenious navigation by the sun. The first round was extremely nerve-racking but I soon settled into a rhythm and played three decent rounds. By the start of the fourth round I was in 25th place. Unfortunately, I began to chase the win in the last round and lost about 20,000 points. If that hadn't happened then I would have finished in the top half of the table. Unfortunately, it did and I finished in 35th place in the end, which I was slightly unhappy about. My friends, rather disappointingly, finished in 42nd and 45th place. But it is our first tournament and I'm sure we'll be able to do a lot better next time, when we've actually had a decent night's sleep!
I've finally got around to taking a picture of my figure collection. The Ignis figure that I ordered arrived last Tuesday and it quickly became my new favourite. The detailing on the figure is fantastic and Ignis' pose is extremely fluid and dynamic. The cast-off features are an interesting bonus but doesn't really add that much to what is already a superb figure. My only concern is that the whole figure is supported on only one pin in Ignis' left foot. This means that there's a risk of the figure leaning over after awhile. I don't think it shouldn't be too much of a problem, though, as the tentacle also provides some extra support to the weight of the figure. I'll just need to make sure I check it regularly for any signs of it leaning.
Posted byHocchan at 8:24 PM 0 comments
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