4 of 7 gods

I had a pretty low key weekend. Spent all of Saturday in bed sleeping and recovering from the hang over from hell. Woke up around 5pm to find the house deserted, so was looking forward to hanging out with Brad, but he had other ideas. I watched Broken Flowers at home instead and planned on catching up with FFXII, but in the end sat around surfing the web feeling completely bored and kinda lonely. Sunday was spent wandering around the city with no purpose really. I spent an hour or two in the studio playing the drums, which made me feel better. I found two syringes in the hallway of the building, so called security and had them organise to get rid of them. Thank you heroin addicts!

I planned to go see my parents on Sunday afternoon too, but that didn't happen. I eventually came home and spent most of last night in my room. I didn't do any specific Japanese study last night, but I did attempt to translate a bunch of questions from English to Japanese - not sure how well I went though. Then late last night, I spoke to Chie in Nara via Skype video - which was cool. I haven't spoken to her for 6 months, so it was good to catch up again. I'll tell you one thing: just when you think your Japanese is starting to get somewhere, you have a conversation and your mind goes blank, or you blurt out stupid stuff, and your confidence goes back down several notches. We talked about maybe doing Japanese / English lessons via Skype - I'll see how that goes.

So right now, I am in my room where I seem to be spending 90% of my time these days - listening to to Cut Copy while 4 of the 7 gods of Japan stare at me from below my monitor. I just completed an assignment on sound design in games. I am really enjoying this subject - it's something I know a lot about, and it's easy for me to write on. Now I should probably devote the same time to my other subjects.

I would give just about anything to not have to go to work tomorrow.. That's a bad sign, eh?

the dentist

Last week, I had to hand in a game review as part of the degree I am dragging myself through. Prior to writing the review, I did some reading on "old" vs "new" game journalism - something that I found interesting. There was an article posted on the subject website by a game journalist in the UK, talking about the shift in focus from reviewing the mechanics of a game, to putting the emphasis of a review on the gamer's experience. He used the analogy that game reviewers should become "travel writers to imaginary places". I started to think about my Wii, and the direction Nintendo has taken over the last few years, coupled with the fact that the original gamer generation (my generation - people who grew up with atari 2600, C64, NES, SNES, etc) is getting older and couldn't agree more about this idea of new game journalism. I am all for reviews allowing themselves to be somewhat more intellectual, and incorporating cultural references from outside the video game canon.

I set about writing a review for the game Okami (PS2) and attempted to try and explain to a non-traditional-gamer audience why I love video games through the review - by explaining those small instances of time, where the interaction between the controller and your hands, or the screen and your eyes, makes you feel something. I'm not sure how successful I was at doing that, but the end result was that of the ~1000 words that I wrote, not many of them focused purely on the game in an isolated sense - disconnected from the fact that I was playing and I was describing my experiences with playing it. Some may see this as self-indulgent, and in fact more an op-ed piece than a game review, but my aim was to describe a gaming experience to an audience that doesn't necessarily understand why people play games at all - and isn't that the game industry's Brave New World?

I'm not sure whether I want to post the actual review; I'm not sure anyone is all that interested anyway.

I got back from the dentist an hour or so ago - I had gone 17 years without seeing a dentist, and despite 10 years of smoking and more of compulsive coffee drinking, all I needed was 2 fillings. They were done a few weeks back, and today I went in just for a clean. It hurt a bit and made my gums bleed, but I now have shiny white teeth for the first time in years. The strange thing was this is the same dentist I went to last - 17 years ago - and not a thing has changed. He is located in the town that my parents live. The office is exactly the same. The room he works in is the same - same chair, same light, same aerial picture of the area stuck to the roof for you to look at while he drills your teeth. He says he remembers me too. The only thing that had changed was that they removed the fish tank from the waiting room. That was the best part!

I have been studying lots of Japanese in the last couple of days, with Shinpei-sensei and Yoko-sensei, as well as listening to Alex and Beb. I will get around to posting some resources that I have found - for now, check out a now defunct podcast called Talk Sushi - done by an Australian guy living in Japan. The site used to be a subscription based thing, but then he opened it up to everyone for free, so check it out. I want to scan some of the Japanese children's books that Yoko gave me to study with too - I'll do it soon.

30th birthday party tonight - we are getting old, that's for sure.

8 krispy kreme donuts later

I downloaded some of Rob's podcasts today. The real News from the Other Side, not the other one about gay haflings having sex with farm animals that I found on iTMS, the one with the conversation about the doco on people who have sex with horses - and wandered around Melbourne this morning, shopping for a present for my flat mate's birthday while listening. I'm by no means a podcast expert or anything - I've listened to a few, never made one myself, but this is what I like - just a guy kind of documenting conversations and points in time. No ads, no agenda (as far as I can tell), just a regular self-proclaimed nerd. Must be weird having some stranger from another country listen to your seemingly trivial conversations..

Anyway, I found an awesome virgin mary toast stamp. Apparently you stamp someone's bread with it, then toast it and proclaim A MIRACLE when the toast pops up. Not a present for my flatmate though. I also found a black joy division t-shirt - the one with the Peter Saville design on the front, which is rad, but not a present for my flat mate either. Got a new charger for my DS lite, a new bath mat, a football scarf for Yoko and 12 krispy kreme donuts, but no present for my flat mate. Bad shopper.

I studied zero japanese today, though I did use the phrase "それはいっけませんね” when I got home to find that my flat mate had spilt hot tea on his chest and burnt himself. I also always read the labels on the FANCL bottles on the shelf in the bathroom when I'm in there. Does that count as studying?

Watched Dog Day Afternoon yesterday for the first time. Good film!

ok

I wonder how many of these things appear and disappear in any given day? I bet everyone starts them with the best intentions to update them regularly too. Well I am one of those people it seems. Sometimes you need to just get stuff out, or document an experience or god forbid bitch about someone doing something stupid. So it is with great insignificance, that I make this first post of my new blog. It's not my first blog mind you - I do have another one online, but that was purely for a university class, and is mostly just design stuff, and none of my personal endeavours, of which I'm sure none of you will find interesting. At least this isnt a fucking myspace page eh?

I'm not really sure what my exact intentions are for this blog. I plan to share a bit of what's going with me - stuff I'm into, music I like, how much I hate my job, how my degree is coming along, my continuing and agonizing battle with trying to learn Japanese, my mis-guided attempts at putting a band together, my family, whatever else I feel like spewing forth via my keyboard I guess.

This is one of those things where I have no idea if anyone will actually read this, which is kind of strange. I mean, who am I talking to then? Myself? Isn't that a diary? I dont know other bloggers, and I'm not a member of any online community that I give a shit about. Maybe that is part of the intention - to meet people who are even remotely like me. Or nothing at all like me, but we get along. Or maybe not - fucked if I know.

I'll be posting photos and probably some music and stuff too. I'm pretty sure I can do that from here. If not, I'll do it from somewhere else.

So right now, I'm in my room typing this from my pc. It's completely dark except the light from my monitor. Saturday afternoon, raining outside, listening to The Boredoms. I have no plans to go anywhere tonight, but I have loads of games to play. I started playing Dragon Quest VIII last night, but fell asleep shortly thereafter, so I'll probably dedicate a few hours to that tonight. For some reason, while in the city today, I felt the need to buy 12 Krispy Kreme donuts (as if I wasn't fat enough already), so I guess I'll get stuck into those too. Im also currently playing FFXII and Zelda on the wii, though to be honest, the sword swinging wrist action has kind of been detering me from playing it - and I LOVE the zelda series.


We talked about jamming tonight, but Im not sure Im in the mood. I'll see how that goes.