Boyonka Boyoyonka
28 March 2009
After a friend showed me the special offers on a mountain bike shop's website I've been tempted to buy a new bike. There's a 2008 GT Avalanche 3.0 Disc available for only £269.99 and it looks to be a very good deal. Although the specification of the bike is fairly low (compared to my 2000 GT Arrowhead which I spent a lot of money upgrading), the frame decals are very nice. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to buy the bike and ride it 'as is' until I get an opportunity to upgrade the parts. The only problem I can foresee is where I would store the bike. I really don't have enough room at home to house two bikes and I won't be moving into my new flat until September. That leaves me with about three months where I won't have anywhere to put it. If I can sort that little problem out then I'll probably end up buying it in May.
March really is the time where everything seems to end in Japan. All the drama series are pretty much finished and all the anime series are coming to an end. This includes the two series that I was watching - Toradora! and The Tower of Druaga: Sword of Uruk. The ending to Toradora! was slightly unexpected but it did finish off the story quite nicely. The show overall has been thoroughly enjoyable with a good story and some likeable characters. The only flaw I can pick out is that the artwork seems a bit inconsistent in places. As for The Tower of Druaga: Sword of Uruk, the second series wasn't quite as good as the first. The story felt a little rushed and disjointed towards the end. It's still worth watching though, even if only for the opening and closing theme songs.
It's getting to the end of the term at university now and the work is starting to pile up a bit. If I'm too complacent then there's the possibility that I won't pass the first year. That's only if I completely screw up and don't hand in pieces of work though. I just need to make sure that I don't procrastinate too long and get the essays finished. Of course, I still need to make sure that they're well-written and not rushed. I should also make a start on my portfolio work soon too. I really don't want to have to work through the night to get that done like last time...
Posted byHocchan at 11:02 pm 0 comments
Hello!Blog's Hello!Project Poll 2009
27 March 2009
Posted byHocchan at 10:16 pm 3 comments
Peace And Rock And Roll
26 March 2009
It seems I failed quite badly today. After demanding to know our marks for almost the whole semester, we finally received them this morning. Unfortunately, for me at least, I kind of wish that I'd never found out now. The reason being that my marks are a lot worse than I had been expecting. Perhaps I was hoping for too much but 55% is just very demoralising. I had written quite a lot during the exam and I thought that I knew what I was writing about but I guess not. I feel very disappointed in myself for achieving such a low mark. The only positive thing I can take from this is the fact that the exam was only worth 10% of the overall module mark. It's still kind of soul destroying though. I'll have to pick myself up from this disappointment and try harder next time.
At least I have Yakitate!! Japan to cheer me up. I had a serious urge to re-watch it again for some unknown reason. I'm very glad I did though because I'd forgotten how good the anime was. It's so hilariously funny all of the time and it's very addictive to watch. It also makes me want to start baking bread again. I haven't made any bread for a couple of years now but I think I'm going to get back into it again soon. I'd like to try making some melon-pan again, as well as maybe croissants and loaves. Perhaps I could make it a regular thing this time. The only bad thing about watching Yakitate!! Japan again is that it takes up so much hard drive space. The whole series is about 10GB and I was already quite low on hard drive space before I started downloading it. I've had to save it to my internal drive for the time being. It looks like I'll have to buy a new external hard drive soon. Something with a big capacity would be nice - 1TB or so is ideal. They are a little bit costly though so I'll have to wait until summer before I buy one.
Posted byHocchan at 3:48 pm 0 comments
Dakishimete, Dakishimete!
21 March 2009
I decided to sign into my Final Fantasy XI account yesterday, just to see who was on. I didn't sign into my character - I'd have to renew my content ID to do that - just into PlayOnline. I happened to see one of my old friends online so I sent them a quick message to see how things were going. They informed me that the linkshell I was part of was no longer around. It came as a bit of a shock but, I suppose, it wasn't unexpected. When you spend six months away from the game things change. And the linkshell itself had been going for many years already. Many core members had slowly gone their separate ways during that time so an eventual split was perhaps inevitable. It does make me quite sad but I still plan on returning to the game over the Easter holidays, and perhaps more permanently over the summer and into the second year of university.
Did I ever mention how bad the British Rail service is? Well, I'm going to mention it now in any case. Yesterday, I came back home via train, as usual. Only this time I'd arrived at the train station earlier than usual, which put me right in the middle of rush hour. There were quite a few people standing on the platform, waiting for the same train as I was. You'd think that during the peak hours they would have trains with plenty of carriages to accommodate the passengers, right? But not according to British Rail. They sent a train with a piddly two carriages; carriages which were so old they required a conductor to open the bloody doors for you! Half the people (including me) had to stand in the luggage bay in order to fit on the train. It wasn't until near the end of the journey that I managed to get a seat. It's safe to say that I won't be catching a train at rush hour ever again.
There's another British institution that I have problems with, and that's Royal Mail. I'm sure I've written about their sub-par service before. It's finally gone and done it this time though. About three weeks ago I received a letter from Student Finance asking me to sign a form and return it. This form is the last step of my application for a loan next year, and without it, I won't receive any money. I hastily signed the form and sent it via recorded delivery. Two weeks later, I check to see if the letter had been delivered. It hadn't. I keep checking everyday but nothing changes. The bastards have gone and lost the single most important letter that I'll be sending this year! Are they intentionally trying to screw me out of my student loan or what? Goddamn whores! You'll be certain that I'm going to claim every penny of compensation out of them for losing my letter.
Posted byHocchan at 5:59 pm 0 comments
Ohrinalda
19 March 2009
A strange thing happened to me this weekend - I lost my voice. Not completely, but I had to put a lot of effort into making myself heard and understood by the people I was talking to. I don't think I've ever lost my voice like that before. It was quite an odd experience - kind of like having your larynx anaesthetised. It's recovered now, somewhat, so I can speak properly once again, albeit between the coughing and croaking. I'm grateful that whatever I've managed to catch hasn't turned out to be something more debilitating.
I've been having a bit of a drama-watching spree recently. I finished watching Ryuusei no Kizuna last week. I really enjoyed that series. It was funny, it was sad, and it had some very good characters. I'm still watching Mei-chan no Shitsuji but there's only one more episode to go now. I've got it downloaded to my hard drive so I'm just waiting for the subtitles to get released. In the meantime, I've started watching Voice. It's about a group of students in the forensic medicine department of a university. They come across various cases in which they try and find the 'voice' of the deceased person, in order to bring to peace to the families left behind. It's an enjoyable series to watch but it does seem to get a bit formulaic after awhile. If you can overlook that little downside then it's well worth watching.
There was a written assessment in Japanese Language on Monday. We were given a list of our imaginary family members - each with several traits and facts about them - and we had to write about them using our knowledge of grammatical constructs. It was quite a long list and we were only given one hour so I only just about managed to finish on time. Overall, it wasn't too difficult. There were really only two or three different conjugations that we had to use. Perhaps I could have made it a bit more complex but I would have run out of time if I spent too long thinking about it. It's only worth 10% of the module mark in any case - nothing too serious.
Finally, since Taurinensis wrote about this in his recent blog post, I'm going to finish this entry off by talking about Resident Evil 5. Admittedly, I've only played a little bit of it so far but I do intend to buy it at some point in the next couple of weeks. From what I've seen, it's not a rapid departure from Resident Evil 4. The graphics look similar, its control system (although slightly modified) is pretty much the same, and it's still very action-based. In some ways, it leaves me kind of disappointed. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic here, but I had hoped that they would return to a more classical style of Resident Evil. That is a game less action-based and more puzzle-based, with the same camera style as 0, 1, 2 and 3. That's what I believe the 'real' Resident Evil is. Not that the new style is bad, far from it. I enjoyed playing 4 as much as the next person. But it just wasn't Resident Evil. It's more like a closely related spin-off in my eyes. I read that 6 was going to be another massive change in style so maybe there's hope for us traditionalists yet. Maybe...not...?
Posted byHocchan at 5:08 am 0 comments
Urs!!
06 March 2009
Somehow, despite promising myself that I wouldn't let myself get short of money again this semester, I've found myself...well, short of money. It probably has something to do with the fact that I bought myself a new TV during the start of the term, as well as some new clothes and shoes a few weeks later. The damage deposit on next year's accommodation has also taken up a fair chunk of my remaining money. At least this time I've left myself a small amount of reserve cash in a savings account so I have that to fall back on. I don't think I'll have to use that though, as long as I don't buy unnecessary things and save all my money for essentials. There's only about three weeks until the next scholarship payment arrives so it shouldn't be too hard to survive until then.
In the meantime, I have quite a lot of work to keep me occupied. I have a couple of essays to finish before the end of next week, and a timed essay on Monday. The essay will be interesting, seeing as how it's all going to be Japanese. I'd better revise some of the key vocabulary and kanji before the test, just in case. As for the essays, I don't foresee any problems with them. I'm about halfway through the first (I really should have finished it by now) with about 700 words to go. I haven't even started researching for the second essay yet but I can delay that until Easter if I really have to. That would give me time to concentrate on my Japanese portfolio which I've been neglecting. I'd like to make some sort of role-play video with a few of my friends and include that as a speaking task. I'd also like to include some sort of kanji exercise this time. I'll get started on it next week, I think.
My luck in Mahjong has been pretty dire recently. I don't know if it's the tail-end of the immense winning streak that I was on before or not, but it's been downhill for quite a few games now. I don't think I'm doing anything differently from before but I just can't seem to complete hands any more. I'd hate to think that my previous wins were purely down to luck but it's looking like that may be the case. On the other hand, though, if it was pure luck then surely I'd have won something by now. It's just a matter of probability after all. I guess I'll just have to ride out this rough patch and keep playing until my luck returns. Perhaps it's retribution for that Ryuu Iisou...?
Posted byHocchan at 8:33 pm 1 comments
