Outlook on 2009

A new year, a new school term, a new season of anime. Having entered the new years pissed drunk and ironically with a more focused mind. I have a few things planned with this blog and with my hobbies… whether or not it will get done this year… We will see… I’ve already taken a few initiatives to make sure it happens.

This is more of a personal blog post more than any thing so reader beware. There is a few cheesy parts so don’t expect too much.

I think it is obvious by now that I’m a huge gamer. I feel that my blog revolves more around my games and the stuff I do rather than doing cliche episode by episode summaries that pretty much most of the anime blogsphere is doing. You got to be pretty bored to be doing that… I can’t imagine keeping that up for more than a week… It is just one of those small pet peeves. I don’t have a problem with people doing other things like showing off their figurine and such. As long as their content is original.

Still watching anime.

I’ve mentioned a few posts ago about how I love Toradora! I was quite surprised to see a preview of the next episode on 13. I initially thought of it being only 13 episodes after reading fansubwiki but this is good for the fans of the show. I felt that episode 14 was extremely satifying. I really like the direction that it is heading. In VN style description, major relationship flags as been triggered. All the characters, including the males, has began to shine. Minori has began to take notice Tasaku. Her serious mode is adorable. Ami is getting major points in my book with her maturity verses kid thing. Even Taiga, who I didn’t expect much, has began to grow on me. Tasaku playing an indifference card well. Showing little interest to Ami’s secret phone call. The deal with Kitamura has been getting increasingly complicated with his real love interest beginning to show. This season is going to be great. It is ironic for me to do something like this having mentioned originalty in the previous paragraph but this would probably be the last time you’ll hear me talk about Toradora! again until the series wraps up.

We’ll see what the next season has to bring. I’ve already heard rumours of some big name titles set for showing this year and I hope they don’t disappoint.

Always a gamer.

I know that one thing I can see myself doing repeated would be to pick up my PS2 controller and playing some jRPG’s. I will continue to replay my games because they offer such great replay value… who would have guessed that a game that takes 80+ hours to complete will have replay value? The PS2 is still lives! Those crazy Japanese developers. Please make RPG’s on the PS3.. I am waiting for something mind blowing. Persona 5 for the PS3?! There’s already an unannouced Shin Megami Tenshi title being worked on for the PS3 so who knows?!

I have a PS3 collecting dust but it most likely will not see any action for a few months until XEdge (Cross Edge) becomes localized in North America. (Thanks NIS!) I still have to finish Eternal Sonata which is still a pretty good game. I don’t have any lack of motivation to play it.. it just isn’t high up on what I want to do. I would rather play PS2 since it is more convenient for me.

Do visual novels count as games? I’ve made some personal goals to attempt to finish some during my winter break but I did not expect to spend so much time on Persona 3, Persona 4, and Space game. I have accumulated a lot of games on my hard drive but it is hard for me to get them started. Seeing naked anime girls isn’t high up on my to do list but regardless of that… there are still some I want to try out due to recommendation thrown out by other nerds whom seem to be an expert in the category.

Persuing other hobbies.

In my About page, I’ve written down that I like to pick up and play the guitar. I would like to get better at playing it which would in turn lead me increase my popularity amoung my peers. There are quite a few songs I want to learn how to play and I know there are definitely more out there for me to discover. After seeing the nerdy Mario Kart Love Song… I’ve gain the motivation to dust off the old guitar and play a few.

Another thing I had an interest in is web designing. Earlier today, I’ve decide to read up on the basics in hopes that I can eventually make my own WordPress theme. I already have a rough template/mockup made from last summer but later scrapped the idea since it looked too much like another blog.. but I intend on doing a few changes and making it truly mine… It is still very Web 2.0 and I intend on reading a bunch of resource sites during my spares in between classes to help me get it rolling. Jumping into PHP right off the bat would be a bad idea and I figured I would start by making a website for my guild as practice and eventually build up knowledge from there.

Original content.

I want to gain more readers… I mean.. what’s a blog for, really? My lack of regular posts isn’t really helping my case. It is all a motivation and time thing. I want to do something unique or different from the usual you would see on an aggregator site. I’ve briefly mentioned something like it above. Of course, I started this blog with random comments about anime and summeries on such was my initial plan but I just found that boring. Writing about my gaming progress seems to bring in different readers and I plan to continue doing that in the future. I suppose that getting a theme that really catches the eyes would be my first step to making it worth revisiting from time to time.

Getting a dose of sunlight.

Apart from going out to the anime convention happening in a few months from now… speaking of which.. I still need to get my gallery up.

I want to do some other random otaku things… Possibly I will go out to a couple fighting game tournaments to play some but I haven’t touched a fighting game in so long since my USB pad broke. I haven’t played MBAC, IaMP, and SWR in a few months now and I have little motivation to play Guilty Gear because it is extremely difficult to input commands on a pad.

A look back at last.

The friends I’ve gained over the last year has increased my personal status points and that itself I feel is quite important. We’ve met each other from an IRC channel before hand but never really knew anything about each. We all went into the game as relative strangers but came out as better friends. Through this, I’ve gained my real life stats is quite valuable itself. I feel a bit more charismatic, my leadership skills has gotten stronger, and I am beginning think more independently. These days around we just play Space Game and develop our gaming skills and keep us still relatively social with each other. We’re waiting for a MMO to really shine through in order to go into the game and make a name for ourselves like what we’ve done in DOMO.

Old picture but still has significant meaning.

Having gone and still going through some personal and financial problems. Some old friends began talking to me and seeing their success has motivated me even further to really work harder on my school. I know they have an alternative motive to talk to me but I benefited from those interactions as well. Further more, I came to realize which of my friends I can really depend on to have my back when I’m at an emotional low. Which hasn’t happened yet but knowing is still good. I suppose I am getting mentally more mature, ‘growing up’ perhaps.

The trip to Vancouver was quite a memoriable experience for me since it was my first time of vacationing with my friends rather than my family. This has further made me appreciate the smaller things in life and the stuff I usually take for granted. One of the things that really stuck to me when we met up with a friend in the general area said this, “you know who your real friends are those that you can sit around the table and just talk about things were you last left off.. no matter how long it may have been.” This would have been the first time we’ve seen him in a couple of months since he went off to do his military service. It is hard to disagree with such words.

The wrap up.

I realize that it is getting long a diluted. I never really intend on something like it to happen. It looks like more of a possible new years resolutions over anything else. I have a little more time this term regarding school (no labs reports!) so I should be able to throw in a few more posts ever now and then.

I’ve promised some of my friends to write some Facebook notes about my experience and adventures with my friends which I most likely will cross post it here. With my style of writing (whatever it may be), I suppose I’ve gained a few fans of my work due to the responses I’ve recieved protraying myself as the male protagnous without the harem. I’m glad people enjoy the stuff I write. Probably a reason why I continue to do so.

[02:13:44] [+Nihility] Give trance the Guts and prevail abilties
[02:13:48] [Mi-ki] rofl
[02:13:52] [Mi-ki] yea definately
[02:14:19] [+trance] I’m missing something here
[02:17:47] [+trance] Guts (???, Dokonjou):
[02:17:47] [+trance] * Completely restores the user’s hit points.
[02:17:47] [+trance] * Duration: Instantaneous
[02:17:57] [+trance] what does prevail do
[02:19:27] [+Nihility] Increased dodge, def, and hit% as hp drops
[02:19:43] [Mi-ki] haha that is just like trance

I hope that this post gives an insight to the workings in my mind. Again, I’m surprised that it was this long. I think that every bit here is important. I am not a robot. I am just a normal person trying to get through this game called life.