June 2, 2008
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Into Oblivion!
Long time, no blog. But then I could say the same for a lot of you (glares accusingly!) OK, so life’s been busy. Not unpleasant-busy (thinks back to final year of uni,) just busy in that time-consuming-enough-hours-barely-get-any-time-to-self kinda way. It’s taken about a month but things are finally starting to settle down. New apartment is almost looking respectable, with the exception of the front room/my eventual bedroom, which is still in chaos. I’m adjusting and compensating for the increased workload and responsibility in my new job which I’ve been enjoying about 90% of the time. And now I only have 6 weeks until a long (and paid) summer vacation begins. Jurassic Park! Anyway, guess I’ll try to recap the past month or so as best I can; by stealing an idea from Matt: sub-headings! (Takes a moment to try to tally how many ideas/concepts/stylistics/thingies Matt and Dave have stolen from each other…)
Gaming: With A Vengeance: I now have, in the corner of my tatami room/living room a huge-screened TV and a shiny, beautiful, wondrous (black) PS3. I hastily purchased WWE Smackdown VS Raw 2008 (I like pro-wrestling. Nothing you can say to me about this will be anything new and, I assure you, I will not care. It’s great fun) Assassin’s Creed (though I’ve yet to play it yet) Lego Star Wars: The Complete Trilogy and (after a dramatic pause and adopting the voice of Patrick Stewart….) OBLIVION! I’ve played Oblivion a hell of a lot. It’s a great game. Very much a Western RPG which, admittedly, I snub in favour of the exalted Final Fantasies but this doesn’t stop it from being highly enjoyable. A Japanese RPG is usually very story-driven. As a result it lacks a certain freedom but something I really don’t concern myself over as the plots and characters are so brilliantly designed, intricate, involving and emotive. Western RPGs often lack these compelling narratives and innovative design elements, relying more on fairly stereotyped Tolkien-derived sword-and-sorcery. Nevertheless they often allow for free-roaming adventure that Japanese RPGs often don’t (or capture in a different way.) Oblivion holds dear memories for me as Balex, Kate and I each had our own Oblivion quests going on Kate’s PC during our torturous final year at university, helping keep us sane amidst the nightmare of dissertations, kanji tests, essays, exams and Shirasu-bloody-Jiro! I’ve got it on right now, whilst I update. A benefit of how busy I’ve been lately: I seem to have gained a +3 to my “multitasking” stat.
Old Friends: A big reason for the business as been the presence of friends from various parts of my life surfacing in Japan. There’s no downside to that, it’s just been tricky to fit everyone in and kinda stressful trying to make sure every gets to do what they wanna do and stuff, despite my +3 level-up. Most precedent has been my fencing coach, Paul, who decided to, for the first time in his 35 years of life, to leave the UK and do it hardcore with a tour of South East Asia. He stayed for 2 weeks at my place and in that time we took in Himeji Castle (in the rain,) Nara, got some Shiatsu, ate at various places whilst desperately trying to accommodate Paul’s vegetarianism and played an inordinate amount of Lego Star Wars on my PS3. My wonderful, wonderful PS3! Then, there’ve been the NUFS Reunions. A huge one took place at Shooters’ about a month ago, when Ben and Julia took a trip to Nagoya, and I’m reluctant to start listing who was there cos I’ll only forget someone which’ll seem jerky; suffice to say there were a lot of NUFS Kids! A slightly smaller second reunion took place just this weekend past, Jen (visiting from the States) and Jeremy (from not quite so far, in Yokohama) were in Nagoya and Julia, back once again, wanted to celebrate the only way Julia celebrates anything; getting drunk at Shooters’. The next day Sho took us to a little spot in the Komaki countryside for a barbecue. Sadly Jen’s departure carried with it the weight of knowing it may well be another 2 years or so before we’d meet again. Though many new NUFS Kids are Japan-bound in the VERY near future (Sarv, Holly) Jen is planning on grad. school and won’t be residing Japan-side, at least in the foreseeable future….
It’s weird, but I spend a lot of idle moments in the day thinking of important stuff I could write about on here, or anecdotes of my own (another idea ripped from Matt) but right now I can’t think of anything. This isn’t even my longest update ever despite it being the longest I’ve gone without posting since I started this Xanga 2 years ago. I’m also aware I’ve still got no photos to show of my new place, largely due to not having a decent camera (maybe my next big purchase?) I’ll get some up in my photoblog once I can get some taken, possibly the next time Matt visits. I really would like to justify the lengthy silence with something more than just me recounting the details of my life but I’m drawing a blank. Think I’ll just play some more video games….!
Later. “Can’t say I was never wrong, but some blame rests on you…”
Comments (7)
I keep thinking about getting some decent anecdotes (also copying Matt). My problem is that I always forget about them before I update. Having said that, I haven’t updated my LJ for well over a month now, so I should probably start working on that.
Reply To what you sent me: I agree. I’m actually starting to realize that myself. *sigh*
I hope everything goes well for you, i really don’t know what to say about what you wrote about, but i hope that the bedroom in your apartment gets finished really soon.
And, hopefully its really soon that we all get to see your new apartment. =D
anyways
-Stacey-
Ah, you’ve updated!
I should update soon, seeing as I’m gonna go on a trip to Honshu and Canada and all that…..
Ive played Japanese RPGs alot more that more western-style ones, but they have always had a special place in my heart. Not sure why though. I like the anime-style and over-the-top fantasy/sci-fi/magic of the Japanese-brand RPGs, the original concepts and settings, and the character developpments. But the downside is that you sometimes lack freedom and ways to express your creativity (which I guess in a way is pretty Japanese). Its still good entertainment.
There is just something pure about being free in a huge and detailed world setting, complete with a pantheon of gods and demons, able to choose exactly what your character is like and what he does. Explore the world freely and either wreak havoc on cities or gallantly save even the poorest of peasants. Perhaps its the fact that I played games like Zork/Mist/RivenManiac Mansion/Day of the Tentacle/Elder Scrolls, which all emphasize freedom and the ability to solve puzzles using your head and the world environment in which you are in… Or maybe its just because I am an avid traditionnal RPG player, so I sometimes like to revel in the feeling of actually roleplaying my character in a large and detailed world. Also I am a geek who spent countless hours reading all the books in Oblivion and checking up the lore of the game on the wiki….
God, I miss playing table RPGs T-T
i wantses your tv. mine’s so small/crappy that i can barely make out any kanji on the screen. as if reading japanese weren’t hard enough to begin with (>_<)
Funny, I didn’t actually see your comment until I had already posted mine here.
it won’t be another two years if you come stateside!
Pretty effective material, much thanks for your article.
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