Tales from the Electric City

malreid @ 2009-12-09T01:45:00

2009-12-08T16:45:23Z

Finally, I have made a site to hold the translations of my wife's manga blog about us (better than I've just made it sound, I swear)

You can find the site here

malreid @ 2009-12-01T11:13:00

2009-12-01T02:13:52Z

Parcel delivery just came.

Managed to prove my suspicions though - Syan got to the door before the guy had had the chance to run away, and he had to admit he hadn't bothered to bring the packages and was just going to do a "we came while you were out" slip

malreid @ 2009-11-21T14:52:00

2009-11-21T05:52:36Z

For me, Christmas has now begun.

I was in Ito-Yokado, with my mother-in-law, shopping for pants and socks for my wife (don't ask...) when they started playing "Merry Christmas Everybody" by Slade - weird, because it's an unknown song in Japan, they then moved onto "Last Christmas" by Wham, also unknown, which makes me suspect they bought licensed their Christmas music from a foreign company.

Anyway, much as they say "the show isn't over 'til the fat lady sings", for British people Christmas hasn't begun 'til Noddy Holder has shouted "It's Chriiiiistmaaaas!!"

Perhaps not a very interesting anecdote, but there you go.

malreid @ 2009-10-24T15:39:00

2009-10-24T06:43:16Z

OK so right now I hate hate HATE Family Mart and Burger King (Japan)

Family Mart were doing a Macross F Tombola which started on the 17th and was meant to run til the end of the month.
The nearest one doing it was 2km away, so I walked there on the 17th, had 3 goes, and went home, planning on hitting it up regularly, partly for things I could sell on eBay, partly for the exercise. Went back on Monday and it was over! WTF?

Burger King too, had this "Windows 7 Burger" thing on offer from the 22nd til the 28th. Went there today (a 4km walk, in the rain) and they'd sold out in half an hour on the first day. Why the hell would you claim to offer something for a week or so and only have enough for 30 minutes? If it were to get people in the shop, so they would buy something else (which was more profitable) it back-fired as when I found out I left the place straight away. Still angry though.

malreid @ 2009-09-27T18:33:00

2009-09-27T09:37:50Z

Rather amused by this terrible article in the New York Times about the iPhone and TGS.
Apparently the number of mobile games on show this year proves that everyone is going to stop playing on dedicated consoles and switch solely to the iPhone.
Unfortunately,
(a)mobile phone games have outnumbered "proper" console games at TGS for a long long time - phone games cost much less and take less time to develop than proper games, there's a good half dozen phone games released in Japan on a very very slow day.
(b)of all the mobile phone games on show, 5 or so were for the iPhone, far less than shown for any of the proper consoles (including the PS2, a "dead" platform)

Reading through the article, there's at least one factual error per paragraph it seems, and even more in some (including the stuff about Hudson, an unlocked original iPhone wouldn't work in Japan as there's no usable 2G network for it)

On a side-note, I've now seen my third ever person in Japan to own an iPhone, and like the other two she had a "proper" mobile too, as there's so much the iPhone can't do.

malreid @ 2009-07-28T21:28:00

2009-07-28T12:29:05Z

Been talking about what we should do for the first dance at our wedding - I'm pushing for having it to Nine Inch Nails' "Closer"

malreid @ 2009-04-05T23:51:00

2009-04-05T14:52:26Z

Well, it left me so full of rage that I have to say something about it - the ending to Life On Mars US, what the fuck was that about?

malreid @ 2009-03-12T01:24:00

2009-03-11T16:28:39Z

Currently thinking about having The One Ring as our wedding ring. I suggested it half-jokingly and my GF totally went for it. Reasonably cheap too, which is good - gf isn't interested in a ring that costs x months salary anyway, she'd rather spend my money (:p) on better things.

Also, she was staying with me for the past few days (slowly but surely moving in together) and, when I came in on tuesday, she burst out from where she'd been hiding and gave me a scare - apparently that was an "April Fool!" - the fact that it's still March doesn't seem to have been a problem.

Seeing her again on Saturday, can't wait.

malreid @ 2009-03-10T23:24:00

2009-03-10T14:25:22Z

Oh god there's so much to think about before you get married - at least my gf only wants a simple one

malreid @ 2009-02-09T21:54:00

2009-02-09T12:56:26Z

So, I went to Kyoto.
Absolutely not what I was expecting.
My boss forgot an essential piece of gear for debugging, so I took the Shinkansen there, ate, bought a present for my girlfriend, and came straight back.

As a sidenote, well, I guess I have pictures to upload. A bunch of stuff from the past few months. Just need to work up the enthusiasm, haha.

malreid @ 2009-01-19T23:45:00

2009-01-19T14:46:03Z

Hart dead but Harris is alive. Is there no justice?

malreid @ 2009-01-16T00:43:00

2009-01-15T15:45:51Z

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan

malreid @ 2008-12-08T01:46:00

2008-12-07T16:47:03Z

Just watched "My Name Is Bruce"
What could be a better ending than that?

malreid @ 2008-11-24T02:07:00

2008-11-23T17:09:41Z

Got Fallout 3 off Steam from Link - his local post office seem to totally fail at sending international money orders.
I still really don't like the idea of getting DRMed games off Steam, purely because it means you have to rely on Valve keeping the service up indefinitely, but hey, I have a legitimate key (the biggest form of Copy protection the game has from my point of view, you need it to register the game into your X-Box Live profile) so I can warez the game if something happens.

malreid @ 2008-11-14T18:37:00

2008-11-14T09:46:21Z

One of the unwelcome side effects of working crazy long hours is that I've had no time to watch TV recently.
One of the shows I have ended up really enjoying is a show called "Stitch", a Japanese TV show all about, well, Stitch from Lilo and Stitch - but set in a fictional Okinawan island rather than Hawaii.
Stitch being voiced by the same guy who played Spike in Cowboy Bebop and Briaeros in Appleseed.

oh, and - Americans. I hate you for not watching My Own Worst Enemy. Cancelled after 4 episodes!

malreid @ 2008-11-05T15:43:00

2008-11-05T06:50:50Z

Writing this now so that when it happens I can point you to the entry and see "say! I told you so!"

Recently, after it hit the point where it was obvious he'd win, Boris Johnson endorsed Barrack Obama. BoJo is fairly right-wing, though he's been forced to lean rather left thanks to accidentally ending up mayor of London.

Why would he want to do a thing like that?

BoJo, for all his English bluster, is an American, born in New York. I think he's angling for getting the Democrat nomination when Obama is done - 2016 he'll still not be THAT old.
Also gives him 8 years to become leader of the Tories, and get elected Prime Minister of the UK.

That I think is his plan, he wants to be President of the US and British Prime Minister at the same time.

Tell me I'm wrong! Tell me it's impossible! Because as far as I can see there are no legal barriers to it happening, it's just that BoJo is the first person who's been in a position to call it off. I mean, the guy's a unionist, so doing the democratic equivalent to what James VI of Scotland did must appeal to him on some level.

malreid @ 2008-11-03T01:27:00

2008-11-02T16:33:58Z

There is a show on Japanese TV called "Zettai Karen Children". (Zettai Karen translates to something like "absolutely lovely")
It airs in the 10am kid's cartoon slot on TV Tokyo, the most conservative channel in Japan.
Don't get me wrong, I love the show, I am just totally blown away by the fact that a show that's so inappropriate for the timeslot has run for over 30 episodes and is going strong (cleavage shots, panty shots, 10 year old girls coming on strong to adults, breast play, huge quantities of English-language swearing whenever a "Komerican" (terrible pun on American) character is in the episode etc etc)
One day a TV Tokyo exec is going to notice what they've been broadcasting and it's going to be bigger than the Brand/Ross scandal.

Speaking of that, now that Brand has quit radio 2, I think that Andrew Sachs should be given his show. So that he can - with a crony, I'm thinking Barry Norman maybe - phone up Brand's phone and sing a little song about how he fucked Brand's grandmother. Turnabout is fair play after all.

malreid @ 2008-10-16T23:21:00

2008-10-16T14:31:35Z

Time for an update showing what I got (from one person) and ate for my birthday (2 different days, you can probably split them pretty easy by the lighting)

Going to throw in an LJ-Cut but apparently they don't work any more (?)

malreid @ 2008-10-12T18:38:00

2008-10-12T09:44:54Z

Went to TGS today.
Even though Kotaku claim that visitor numbers are "in free-fall" all the non-mobile phone games had queues of 90 minutes+ (except for Snoopy DS, at 15 minutes. Not that I played it)

Only actually played Resident Evil 5 (netted an official bandana) and Idolm@ster SP (no freebies, but looks to be a fun little game - weirdly, Miki is now one of the idols at your competitor's management company, not a manageable character) and after waiting over 3 hours for 10 or so minutes on those two games I just couldn't be fucked to wait for another hour plus to play anything else.

When I left there was an hour til closing, and the queues for The Last Remnant and Star Ocean 4 were 1.5 hours and 2 hours respectively, no idea why people at the ends of the queues were still there.

Oh, and in a weird reversal of all that is normal, a boothbabe asked me for my picture.
MS were doing a "boothcam" thing on one of their monitors, showing people's faces as they played the game, so they asked me (only foreigner playing a demo at that point? I guess so)

malreid @ 2008-10-10T23:28:00

2008-10-10T14:30:35Z

Today, for lunch, I had the best curry I have yet had in Japan - actually tasted good.
It's in a really easy to find place too, just out of the way compared to where I usually eat. Shall have to add it to my list of places to eat when I can't be fucked to cook I guess.

malreid @ 2008-09-29T01:19:00

2008-09-28T16:20:50Z

Less than 100% sure that spending 9 hours in the pub was a good use of time, but it was a FUN use of time!

malreid @ 2008-09-23T20:02:00

2008-09-23T11:11:31Z

My mum is apparently planning on going to Iran next summer - it'll be her first time back since she was 18 or 19 - and is currently going through the fun and games of getting her Iranian passport re-issued.
It's extra fun for her because she has to start off by getting a new birth certificate showing that she was born in the Islamic republic rather than the Empire of Iran.
Well, actually it's extra fun for her because she's forgotten how to read Iranian - the written form omits all vowels so there's a lot of guesswork involved.
Oh, and I've no idea what name she's applying under as her married name is pretty offensive in Farsi.

malreid @ 2008-09-22T02:00:00

2008-09-21T17:00:57Z

Well,　I'm in the Hello Kitty Online Founder's Beta.
I know you people are all jealous now.

malreid @ 2008-09-20T15:10:00

2008-09-20T06:11:30Z

New project has been cancelled by the customer - but we've told the current client I'm off doing something else because I wanted to do something in English for a change.
I'm going to be there for, well, til I'm told what else to do.
No idea what is going on, I never get told anything...

malreid @ 2008-09-11T23:59:00

2008-09-11T15:03:31Z

2 weeks with no entry, hah.

Anyway, still dunno when I'm changing project, client is so slow.
Recently I've had fuck-all work to do, 10 or 15 minutes a day, but have still ended up having to stay late-ish just in case I'm needed. Not particularly happy about that, but typical for Japan.

Otomedius' release has been put back indefinately so I cancelled my 27,000 yen preorder of the LE. Think I shall be saving that money to hopefully be spent doing something exciting around New Years (not sure if it's happening or not, hope it is)