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Swirrrrrrrlllyyy

Posted on 2008.05.07 at 00:41
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: The Devin Townsend Band - Synchestra
Just a quick update here. I signed up at GameFAQs over the weekend as Myollnir98 (named for the powerful lightning spell from Breath of Fire III). In this short space of time I've managed to get four reviews done (three have been accepted as of typing), which has pleased me quite a bit. I have plenty more games to write about, and lots of opinions to flesh out that were previously confined only to scraps of paper or in my head. Final Fantasy IV is going slow but sure, I'm at the Tower of Zot just before you get Rosa back. I tend to play this for shorter periods than I did before, as I've less time on my hands. The Dreamcast is hooked up as well and in a day or two I should be the proud owner of a scart cable which should make 60Hz a possibility. I can also email the guys at Console Passion tomorrow (as they return after a holiday), to ask questions about modifications and such.

In general I feel fitter and more energetic. There is a steep hill I go walking up almost every day, and it's getting easier each time. I'm getting into a nice sleeping pattern too, a round 8 hours a decent mid morning rise. I had a bottle and a half of locally brewed ale over the weekend, but my abstinence remains firm at most times. Will probably indulge a bit this Saturday as myself and a few friends will be off to Darlington, first for a Chinese and then onto Twenty 2's, a microbrewery and real ale and import lager heaven.
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The captain's plans have hit a snag!

Posted on 2008.05.01 at 23:37
Current Location: England
Current Mood: determined
Current Music: Dimmu Borgir - Spiritual Black Dimensions
This is fast becoming a gaming blog, which is probably its best use for me right now. I'm not into divulging too many personal goings on these days. The new N64 is proving to be a lot of fun, I've managed to get all 120 stars on Super Mario 64 now and I've also sweated away on GoldenEye to reach to the Cuban Jungle mission. It's nicely challenging, with a pleasant kind of trial and error approach where finding where each objective lies and planning a safe route through to the end can take many tries. The annoyance of reapeating a level for the nth time is equal to the satisfaction gained at finally finishing it. As a (sort of) first timer, my refusal to play on the easier setting is probably affecting the difficulty in clearing each stage.

I have unfortunately stumbled upon a little problem with the system. I turned it on today after slotting my freshly posted controller pak (!) into the back of the controller only to have an unpleasant surprise. After some close examination it turned out that the power supply in the back of the system is making a clicking/"sparking" noise which got me rather worried. I switched off and unhooked it. The console still runs fine but I won't take any chances. I'll have to get a new one from eBay and hope that alleviates the problem. I might dust off and hook up my Dreamcast in the meantime. Retro Gamer magazine's recent article on the system has got me itching to play some. Shame I don't have it modded yet so I can play a few of those revered Japan only shooters released towards the end of its life.

On a whim, I also decided to start afresh on the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy IV. I don't know what got into my head to make me do it but I just did. I simply felt the need to revisit this classic. I plan to sign up to GameFAQs and start contributing reviews. It seems that they have just about every game open for submitting reviews now, even those that already have tons of them. I might as well seize the opportunity to get back to some writing for some fun (and not on anybody else's terms). Oh, and on a different note I decided to stop drinking for the time being. That was last monday and I made a week and a half before having a pint (just the one!) the other night while out with a friend for a meal. I intend to continue with the abstinence. My sister is coming up to visit over the bank holiday weekend too, good times!
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It's-a me, Mario!

Posted on 2008.04.21 at 00:30
Current Location: England
Current Music: Koji Kondo - The Legend of Zelda: Sound & Drama (Disc 1)
The wednesday before last, I stumbled upon possibly one of the finest gaming bargains I've seen in ages. In Game Station's often drab and increasingly retro free window, I spied a deal for a used Nintendo 64. For £199.99 it included:

The system istelf of course! (boxed)
1 x loose official rumble pak (Always loved Nintendo's marketing terms: game pak, control deck etc.)
2 x unofficial controller paks
1 x boxed red official controller

+ 13 games (all boxed, most with instructions):
Donkey Kong 64 (+ expansion pak)
Goldeneye 007
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
LylatWars (+ (another) rumble pak)
Mario Kart 64
The New Tetris
Paper Mario
Perfect Dark
Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
Super Mario 64
Super Smash Bros.
Turok Dinosaur Hunter

Interestingly, The New Tetris turned out to have F-1 World Grand Prix II in the box... err... okay. It's not supposed to be that bad a game so I think I'll keep the cart and flog the box on eBay or something (I guess I could get a couple of pence for it!). The rest of 'em were thankfully, the right games. The only other problem was that the console was a bit dirty and stank of smoke. After wiping off the bits of caked on shit carefully however, it looked almost brand new aside from a mark here and there. The red controller looked fine but closer inspection revealed a fair bit of dirt stuck in the grooves at the side, but I got it out fairly easy though. I managed to get a good couple of handfuls of the games I really want for it too, including a sweet copy of the rare Paper Mario (even though it's now on the Wii's virtual console). Considering it can go for quite a bit on eBay I think I snatched a bargain especially considering the price of individual games when they came out new (£59.99 in some cases!). Some of the boxes were in immaculate condition, the rest very good and at worst a bit worn and flattened. I'm kinda making a big deal out of this but I have strong feelings attached to this system. I started my home console exploits with a Super NES back in 1995, became an insane Nintendo fanboy for a time but eventually jumped ship to Sony's PlayStation in '98. I could only have one of the then current generation systems and as most of my friends had PlayStations it seemed a logical choice. Boy, does it have some excellent games!

It wasn't until 2002 that I finally got the chance to play an N64, sadly at that point mowed down by its Sony competition and giving way to the GameCube. I borrowed my mate Geoff's system for about two weeks with most of the games listed above, and while trying to play them all in that short space of time meant I finished none, I still had a blast. I got heavily into playing and collecting games at this point, since my mate and his uni chums were very much hardcore gamers. It stuck with me but I never could pull myself away from musical obsession to dwell in full bore game collecting so it went slowly from that point on. I picked up a GameCube well before I went back to get this, and as my love for the big N reawakened I just had to play these games again. I can't say I'm disappointed either, a week and a half has passed and I've racked up 83 stars in Mario 64, and begun anew on Goldeneye. I want to concentrate on them only one or two at once this time around.

Here's a couple of photos of my current game setup:

The N64!
The Nintendo 64 itself!

Game setup
The PS2 as well. I only have two systems hooked up at any one time for energy/space issues and because I hate tons of wires.

The rest of life is fairly mundane at the moment, I still have to make the appropriate bookings for this summer's Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium and I continue to shovel out application forms, letters and e-mails to potential employers. I also spend a bit of time in the pub, which I should cut down if I want to save a bob or two. My old friend Matt should be back from his holidays in Canada soon enough so I hope to be able to get together with him and possibly some others for a meal and a pint soon enough.

Awesome sites that I visit frequently

ScrewAttack
Hardcore Gaming 101
Console Passion
Ctrl+Alt+Del (My fave of all web comics, one of the few I've never lost interest in)

Until next time!
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New Beginnings

Posted on 2008.04.06 at 16:39
Current Location: In my room
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Dream Theater - Awake
It's been a very long time since my last entry, a good two years in fact. I've decided to restart this journal partly for [info]yuna_kikumaru, and partly because I've found I really enjoy re-reading some of these old entries. There are some nice memories here. If I can get into the habit of making regular entries then it'll make it worthwhile, and I'll have plenty of more memories to enjoy reading about and hopefully a few others might enjoy reading it as I go along.

So much has gone on that it'd take me reams of text to begin to mention everything that's happened. I'll just mention some highlights as well as picking up on major changes from the current entries. Okay, here goes nothing! Right, things that have changed first. Myself and Kat became ancient history very shortly after the last entry I made, the details of which aren't necessary. The resulting drama through the Easter break did however heavily affect my university performance to the point that I was rushing to complete two major projects, both at different stages of completion. I failed to finish either, while at the same time getting bogged down with the demands of a new module at the start of the summer term which I attended for the first few weeks until I could no longer cope with this mountain of unfinished work. I soon gave up hope of completing my degree, plunging into a reactive depression I still haven't 100% recovered from. It all turned out okay though, with the great help of my supervisor, Hidekazu Tanaka and a counsellor I appealed my degree which I eventually got later in October. Oh, and in the middle of this all I went to the Wacken festival in Germany at the start of August which remains the highlight of the whole year as far as I'm concerned. I quit that crappy cleaning job in late May 2007, only to go into another crappy cleaning job that overlapped with the other one for a bit and lasted until late July 2007. It had longer hours but was still a fairly dull and unrewarding time. Due to problems with finding new housemates to renew our contract, in addition to other severe financial difficulties I was forced to return home to Durham. I spent a few months on the dole before getting a kickass job at Waterstones from Nov 07 to Jan 08, and here I am now, still looking for a new job. But I now my mental state in general is very much improving, and I am gaining the self-esteem and confidence that is necessary for me to achieve all I have wanted to since even before I made the first entry here.

Music's always been a focus of this journal too, so I've got to talk some on that. I feel the range of my taste has expanded a good bit since a couple of years ago. I've refused to let go my love of metal, but have embraced progressive rock, fully explored some j-rock (including the great alice nine.), j-pop and I am digging my way into jazz-fusion and classical as well as spending more time indulging in orchestral film scores. My story with prog has been a gradual journey, but intensely rewarding. Since I first picked up Dream Theater's Images and Words I've been intrigued by bands that strive to create more complicated contemporary music and not to restrict themselves to one way of thinking about how music should be made. I followed a fair few prog metal bands in the couple of years after I first discovered DT, Opeth most especially but it wasn't until I bought Genesis' Foxtrot in late 2004 that I really dived into the history of this music. Before then, Genesis was simply known to me as that huge 80s pop group that also launched the massively successful solo career of Phil Collins, I didn't even know Peter Gabriel was with them at one time! I couldn't even believe this was the same band, and really it kind of isn't. All of these bands and albums were very tough to get into at first, even Metallica's 8 minute songs were difficult to appreciate in the first few listens, but something intrigued me and slowly I developed an enthusiasm for it. The catchy Pull Me Under kept me coming back to Images and Words while I struggled to get to grips with the following softer Another Day and the complexity of the wonderful Metropolis Pt. 1. I wasn't used to albums shifting gears so much back then!

Rush came to me via 2112 some time after this and connected with the band very well. They were heavy but still progressive, and were a nice bridge to full appreciation of the music. I tried out King Crimson's debut In the Court of the Crimson King, but unsurprisingly didn't get along with it well to begin with. The story properly began when on a whim, my research into older prog music led me to buy Camel's Mirage album, and that was it really. I loved it and began going back to Genesis, made a point to listen to all the Dream Theater and Opeth albums I'd missed, gave King Crimson another chance, indulged in Yes, Gentle Giant, Änglagård, Frank Zappa (he's somewhat unclassifiable though), The Flower Kings, Jethro Tull, Kansas, and many more... I haven't given up on any of the music styles I've discovered in the past six years, I just keep picking more up as I go and carry it along with me.

I'm still gaming strongly, although there have been periods of drought for it. I still haven't moved onto the current generation (Xbox 360, Wii, PS3) yet, but I'm concentrating on revisiting old classics and building up a retro collection. I'm playing through the quirky classic Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee once again currently, with the intention of rescuing all 99 mudokans this time round. You just don't get many games coming out of America like this one now, with its highly creative cartoony sci-fi design and dark humour. It all seems to be war themed first person (or indeed, third person) shooters and ultra violent gangster/crime "sims" at the moment. I don't have anything against those genres, but they are over done these days. I've also become obsessed with the Metal Slug series of run n' gun games and the Sega Mega Drive Collection on PS2 (shame the Streets of Rage games still elude any of these classics compilations Sega puts out). After digging it out of the loft, I've been trying to put to rest an old PC favourite of mine, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It's nowhere as exciting as I remember it and has many dated elements but it still deserves a bit of praise and I want to finally finish it.

Wetherspoons has also been having its latest real ale festival which began on 27th March, and I've been down a good few times to indulge in another of my passions - good beer! This time they're bringing in a few international beers too which suits me just fine. My favourite of them being the St. Georgen Brau Keller Bier, which sadly didn't last long - no wonder! Other favourites are the Theakston Black Bull bitter and the Ringwood 78. I also tried out a Japanese brew called Tokyo Black, which I quite enjoyed despite being a heavy porter (not my favourite type of beer at all!). I just had to try it anyway. Also of note is the Belgian Cookie Beer which really did taste remarkably like cookies with a nice ginger and cinnamon flavour to it. I hope I can get to try that American IPA too before the festival is over! (14th of this month)

Well I have rambled a bit and brought this journal up to speed at least. I've not gotten through every detail I wanted, but there's plenty of time for that.  Anime report next time! As long as I have comments from Mariella ([info]yuna_kikumaru) to push me forward, I'll be updating a fair bit from now on. Here we go again! 
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Shitting Crikey!

Posted on 2006.03.30 at 11:41
Current Location: In my room...
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Dark Moor - By the Strange Path of Destiny
Shite, missing work is NOT good. Having to phone up and apologise/make an excuse is even worse. So goes this week, which I thought would be easy and a breather but has turned out pretty (mentally) nauseating so far. Issues with folks, lack of work done, late reviews - about time for a change of fortunes I reckon... will the angst never end? Oh noes.

Spent a lot of time with Kat this week, as we usually do but I'll try and get down to some work today and hopefully most of tomorrow too, I really need proper space to get down to this. I'll also try and get the balance of relaxed/active that I'm trying to achieve working from now on, and attempt to not tear my hair out with not one, but two bills to sort out between the house (considering two of them aren't here, which makes things a bit tougher).

Anyway, onto the good stuff, discovered another top class power metal act in Dark Moor, been unintentionally depressing myself further with some Doom/Death via the first two Anathema records (but actually having them grow on me from when I last listened to them, oh, over two years ago was it?), and digging into all the stuff I haven't listened to much or at all in the week I went home (Dio, Madonna, Kiss, Bal-Sagoth to name a few). Been listening to some good doses of the fab Type O Negative with Kat, who I'm glad to say is enjoying them. Maybe she'll like some more of my kind of stuff then since she also digs the mighty metal monoliths that are Opeth and Cradle of Filth, which are huge gateways to a variety of metal styles.

Also went around to Pete's the other day for a mini anime marathon (or at least that was the plan) and watched some Cyber City Oeda 808 and Crying Freeman, both pretty decent and suitably 80s/early 90s anime fare. Ultra violence reigns supreme! Attempted to watch Doomed Megalopolis and City Hunter but both had horrible tracking and we couldn't sort that out. Might borrow 'em and see if they work okay on my video machine. Got loads of it here now to watch as well since I have lots of free time heh. Pretty addicted to GTA: San Andreas too, I'll get it finished in the next few weeks damnit!

Oh well, signing off here! See you next time for a hopefully happier entry.
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All Guns Blazing!

Posted on 2006.03.20 at 15:01
Current Mood: contemplative

Well, wadda ya know? Everything has changed since the end of the Christmas hols. New girlfriend, new job, new house ready for next year. I also have a renewed sense of vigour and happiness in the few days since the mad maelstrom of the last leg of term was over. I seem to keep passing my modules and staying on at uni, which this time I'm very glad of, since I now feel that I'm gonna make it. I think I've felt I was going to get kicked out after every set of assessments I've done in the past two years, after that disaster of a first year. Got to admit to myself I could have put more effort into that work back then, work which seems quite easy to me now... if only I'd have got down to it and tried to understand it then.

This time I have two whopping great big projects for the Easter hols, which is much better than having exams to do, revision is not my forte. 5 weeks to do 'em in, and only one term left after that, so I might as well go all guns blazing from now on. It's just what I'm really going to commit myself to doing after I leave which will be the problem then, but I can worry about that when I've actually got a degree to my name.

Going home today so won't be able to see Katty (the missis) for a while, which made me a bit sad earlier but oh well. I really could use a break from everything now before I get right down to work. It'll be awesome to get back to Durham for a week since I haven't been back for aeons. I'll make another update soon with all my usual music and anime babble, but for now, gotta go catch the train!

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Posted on 2006.01.05 at 01:32
Current Mood: working
Current Music: Kreator - Violent Revolution
And what do you know?

I'm very, very bored at the moment so therefore I'm writing in my journal. I'm currently a dry well at the moment, I'm resisting the call of booze until the Friday evening. Until then I'm buried deeply into revision and work for two exams, an open exam and a write up for next week. Pretty heavy stuff but I'm coping, it's nowhere near as horrifying as it was this time last year. I'm back to York on Friday early afternoon to collect some course pack for one of next term's modules which apparently has to be got before week one. The stupidest thing was that they sent out the email about it on around the 21st of December with instructions to get it asap, after everyone's gone home for Christmas. D'oh! You clever people, linguistics department.

I'm starting my TEFL write up now, while cracking out some Kreator from the shelf. I bought Megadeth's "The World Needs a Hero" in the slipcase for the ridiculous price of £2.97, I can't believe they're still desperately trying to get rid of those limited editions... that album sold poorly and it's not hard to see why. Got Killswitch Engage's "The End of Heartache" and the Powerpuff Girls Movie coming soon in the post. Hopefully they'll arrive before I have to leave on Friday.

Anyway, back to work!
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Blossom! <3

Posted on 2005.12.27 at 20:21
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Ozzy Osbourne - Just Say Ozzy (E.P.)
Wow! I've actually found a look for my LJ which I LOVE! Go me. Anyway long time no update (again...), but with any luck not the last time for several months now. I'm really liking this look and I'm actually updating my MySpace thing too so wow, just wow. Okay, time for some brief updates before I go on, me and Rachael broke up, I joined a band with Tom and Pete called Ellipse and my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) seminar went really well.

Right onwards, Christmas was pretty cool this year especially the dinner! I got an effects pedal for my guitar (going to have to wait til I get back to York to try it out though!), a new watch, a USB storage disk, chocloate(!) and a small bottle of whiskey (complete with miniature hip flask and funnel, hurrah!). I've also become obsessed with The Powerpuff Girls, hence the new user pic up there. I'm also warming up to Killswitch Engage's music, despite a disappointing DVD release which I will have a review of in the next issue of Powerplay (www.powerplaymagazine.co.uk), see if you can catch it! I'm also digging Within Temptation's "The Silent Force", Kalmah's "Swampsong", Cynic's "Focus", Moonsorrow's "Kivenkantaja", and my "Christmas" run of albums: Judas Priest "Painkiller", Nightwish "Oceanborn" and Slayer "Hell Awaits". And for those of you who think I listen to way too much metal I brought out some Gloria Estefan the other day, memories!

Also found myself playing the first Tomb Radier game in between all my revision *cough* Now that's a succulent slice of gaming. I'm thinking about getting the second one again because that was pretty good too. I went in an out of favour with the series and parted with my copy of that. I wasn't always the mad collector I am now, and I regret getting rid of plenty of games (who'd have thought that Discworld II would become such a prized rarity). I was really disappointed by Angel of Darkness but The Last Revelation stood out for me so I might get that one too. I can't stomach having Chronicles there on the shelf but maybe Tomb Raider III would be okay too...

Anyway I'm babbling so to round it up, I've got a few hard weeks ahead of me full of revision and exams at the end of it, wish me luck!
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Baka neko!

Posted on 2005.10.31 at 11:54
Current Mood: enthralled

Huzzah! I'm sitting in Goodricke computer room bored out of my skull so I thought I might make this long overdue update. Life is getting slightly more interesting as the weeks of term progress which means this might get updated a little more often.

Had Introduction to Language Variation and Change this morning, which isn't too bad for a  two hour 9:15. Far better than 4 hours on a Wednesday, considering Tuesday night is the only time of the week a suitable metal meeting can be made between the madmen of York's  metal scene, namely - well especially Toby, along with myself, Pete and Tom.

Lots of interesting, and dare I say it, crazy things have happened since the last update, one thing being I'm no longer single anymore. Yes, you read right. She's called Rachael and is an occupational therapy student at York St. John, where the aformentioned "Best. Drunk. Ever" Toby goes as well. Met her in Ziggy's on my birthday but everything that's happened since then is too much than I can be arsed to write about now. I'll just give you the short version and say that it's been nothing short of great. Definitely the most exciting first term I've had at uni and possibly my entire education. Gah, I want to learn Finnish! [/randomness]

I'm also thinking about how much of a strange, and pretty upsetting year it's been for metal, despite a number of cracking albums. David Wayne (Metal Church), Doc (Vader) and Dennis "Piggy" D'Amour (Voivod) have all died and now Tarja has been fired from Nightwish. Though the last does have its positive implications as well as its disappointing ones.

I also have no idea why I set my mood to "enthralled" but I just decided it's the coolest mood ever and that it has to be used. Anyway I'm off back to the department to tell a couple of friends that we thankfully don't have a rescheduled seminar now.

P.S. I think Full Metal Alchemist is slowly taking over from Azumanga Daioh as my favourite anime. Just thought I'd mention that too for the anime folks who read my journal.

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My youth is over...

Posted on 2005.10.11 at 00:23
Current Mood: content
Current Music: Heathen - Breaking the Silence.
Today I turn 21... Oh Good Lord... next stop death. Anyway, I'm off out in the evening and I know this is abominably late, but I'm still trying to round up a few more people to an already decently sized list. It's actually working mind you... Might be an idea to go post something about this in Richard's journal just to see if there are any anime soc members who can and/or might want to come along.

My Jackson KVX10 won't be here til the end of the week sadly but I can still keep jamming on the old Squier for a little while longer. I think my new amp will arrive quicker so I might get to see how she sounds on a more powerful amp. Also going to snap up a GameCube once my loan comes in, and of course school up a whole years' worth of phonetics & phonology for next Wednesday...

Rock on!
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