As you may have noticed, BBI updates have been few and far between this month. I am not at all well at the moment, having just come out of hospital yesterday after recovering from surgery last week. Hopefully things will improve, but don't expect any major BBI updates until the new year.

Thanks to those who sent emails of support. I'm afraid I couldn't read them at the time, but they were a nice surprise when I checked my mail this morning.

Finally, happy holidays to all!

December is finally here and Christmas isn't too far around the corner... for several religious denominations at least, although mainly those from the Church of Rabid Last-Minute Shopping. Many of you reading this site who do the whole present buying/giving thing (I tend to do as little as possible since I am cheap) probably have friends who share an interest in Japanese games, manga and animation. One question you might be asking yourself is "what do I buy an Otaku for Christmas?" It's a good question and not an easy one to answer. Otaku (which I will use here to represent fans of Japanese game/manga/anime culture) are a notoriously fickle folk. They often have quite selective likes and dislikes. Buy them the wrong thing and it will surely end up in the bring and buy at the next con. And when you find something they might like, chances are they already have it. Thankfully, you don't have to worry anymore. I've done all of the hard work for you and located a gift that should be suitable for just about anyone with an Otaku streak. Presenting the BBI Osusume Christmas gift of 2003:

Moeru Eitango Moetan was a bizarre joint endeavour by Sansai Books and the doujin circle ElectromagneticWave. The premise - to create a series involving a cute, "moe" girl (the "moest of lovely teacher on the planet", apparently) to teach readers English words and phrases. The project's main product, the Moeru Eitango Moetan Wordbook (Amazon) was finally released a couple of weeks ago. However, this is no ordinary phrase book.

The promotional text on the front cover reads: "The WORDBOOK you've waited for! A revolution in english studying! 1000 most frequently used words and phrases!! Buy now, Falling Love with Ink-chan, and GET IN to college!!" Ink-chan is Ink Nijihara, the cute girl with the light orange-red hair in the picture on the left, your guide to one of the most wacky language learning books ever produced. Spread across its 228 full colour pages are some of the strangest phrases you're never likely to hear. The website provides a few sample pages (1) (2) (3) so that you can get an idea regarding the content of the book. Example phrases include "Dahhhhhhh! Don't launch lots of expensive missiles too quickly" and the ever useful "I met my brother after all this time. He had forgotten his purpose to destroy the earth."

Don't be put off by the fact that it is oriented towards Japanese learners of English. It is arguably just as useful/useless to learners of Japanese. ^^; Of course, this isn't supposed to be a serious educational reference book; it's just a big excuse for a lot of fun, which is something it achieves quite admirably. If you can't think of anything else for your Otaku friend this Christmas, you could do a lot worse than Moetan.

A quick bit of Koge Donbo news now. Volume 2 of Kami-chama Karin goes on sale today, exactly 3 months after the first. I haven't got my copy yet so I don't know if it will have the nice plastic cover that volume 1 had.

I've been spending a bit of time this week on Tenerezza, my current offline RPG (FFIX and Summon Night Craft Sword Monogatari have both taken a back seat until I have finished Tene). I think I'm in a "cute action RPG" mood at the moment. Playing Tene reminded me that I wouldn't mind replaying Dewprism - I borrowed it from a friend but never finished it. I'll have to pick up the game the next time I see it. I also need to get PuyoPuyo Tsu (2) PSX, the game I believe to be the best version of Puyo Puyo Compile ever created. I will dig out my copy of PuyoBox later to temporarily quash my Puyo cravings, but it's just not the same as Tsu. BAYOEN!~~~ ^_^

I am back! For the last week and a bit, I have been enjoying a whole new world of pain, brought on by a combination of viral infections and a Subway HIGH-DEX Sandwich of Doom. My temperature is now back to a reasonable level and the pain is but a distant throbbing so I am once again able to subject you to my annoying waffling.

I seem to have missed out on quite a lot while I was away. I could have bored you with endless commentary on what I think about the new Final Fantasy titles (FFXII, Advent Children, and any other FF games/movies Square-Enix announced when my back was turned). I could have rambled on about human stupidity in this modern era of rules and regulations, citing countless examples. But I'm not that evil. Instead, I'll ramble randomly around several topics as I usually do and wrap it all up in a post with some pretty pictures.

Anyone with an interest in Japanese PC games and doujin culture must surely have noticed by now that it's that time again. Yes, another Comiket (C65 - Dec 28th to 30th) is looming large on the horizon. Creators' websites are either being rapidly updated with last minute info on new doujin products or participating in the Big Shutdown - that strange phenomenon surrounding Comiket where hundreds of websites shut down during the month of the convention. VisualArts are doing their usual Comiket promo packages, so if you want your limited edition Gakuen Heaven ~Boys Love Scramble~ or Clannad CDs, calendars or telephone cards (Key once again making up for their lack of a game by selling us more merchandise), head over to Tokyo now. Or search around on Ebay afterwards.

Hoihoi-san was released while I was away - I intended to have a Hoihoi-san awareness day by splashing cute Hoihoi-san images about the site, but one vicious meatball sandwich put pay to that. Leaf are now shipping the new, improved DVD version of Routes. Utawarerumono DVD is still on schedule for a release on Friday the 12th.

Following the release of IO's Tenshi no Kakera, illustrated by Takamichi, IO are releasing the Kakera Fan Disc on Dec 28th to coincide with Comiket 65. The disc features material relating to Tenshi no Kakera and the earlier Mizu no Kakera including short stories, illustrations, music, minigames and the usual desktop accessories pack.

My apologies if you have been having trouble connecting to BBI's webserver over the past couple of weeks. Easily appear to have been having a few intermittent problems with their hosting servers. Hopefully this has now been resolved.

Yumeria, Namco's sci-fi-themed, 3D bishoujo adventure game, released for the PS2 this spring, will be making the transition to anime at the start of next year. At around the same time as the release of the game, a Yumeria manga, produced by Yukimaru Katsura, started running in Dengeki Daiou. This proved to be a hit and helped boost sales of the game. Following the news of the Tales of Phantasia OVA, Namco seem to have decided to go all the way with Yumeria by animating another one of their successful game-based series.

The anime lacks a lot of the "wow" factor which drove the release of the game. Nishioka's (Vampire Princess Miyu) character designs don't seem particularly inspired and aren't quite as cute as Okumura's designs for the original game. There has also been very little effort made by Namco to expand the Yumeria fanbase by promoting the TV anime outside of domains already dominated by existing fans. As a result, I fear Yumeria will become forgotten by fans before it's even been noticed - a shame as I feel that as long as the anime achieves a good balance between the cute, happy, real world and the horrors of the Dream World, the series will definitely be one worth watching. (Previous incarnations of Yumeria have so-far concentrated more on the cute aspects - something I would normally be the last person to complain about, but it does make the story a little less gripping than it would otherwise be.) The first episode of the series will air on BS-i at 12:30 am on Friday, January 9th. Be sure to watch it! Mone mone~~!

Eva news now. Well, old news but I thought I should mention it anyway. Tomorrow sees the release of Shin Seiki Evangelion 2 for the PS2, a combination of action and adventure game. Being a game designed and produced by Gainax, it suffers from the usual nigh-incomprehensible control system and a game engine programmed by enslaved chimps. As a result, this is a game for Eva fans rather than gamers.

On the bishoujo game front, there's quite a bit to report. While Key are as inactive as ever and seem to be working towards a 2150 Winter release for Clannad, Leaf, on the other hand, are working hard to bring us an updated version of their first visual novel game, Shizuku. The new package will hit shelves in January, 2004, exactly 8 years after the original release. Leaf have been very secretive as to exactly what the update entails but given that the game is 8 years old, it would be sensible to expect virtually everything, from the music to the event CG, to be redone. The release of the DVD versions of Routes and Utawarerumono are set to go ahead on November 28th and December 12th respectively - the new cover images on the DVD boxes are so cute (particularly Eruru on the Utawarerumono one), they almost make me want to buy the games again. *^^* Aquaplus will also be releasing volume 1 of the Comipa OVA, Comic Party Revolution, next month.

Things aren't quiet in the VisualArts stables either. While Key are content to sit around and do nothing, other companies in the VisualArts group have been more than making up for their lazy sibling. Studio Mebius (of Snow fame) seem to be busy with two new PC adventure games in the works. Toki no Uta (The Verse of Time) and Tomodachi Ijou, Koibito Miman (More Than a Friend, Less Than a Lover) are both slated for a release in 2004. Although no further details have been provided yet, Studio Mebius have promised that lots more information regarding these two titles will be made available in December. For those interested, Studio Mebius are also hiring at the moment.

The VisualArts group has also had a bit of a reshuffle over the past couple of months. Studio Ring is a new software house set up by a group of employees from Studio Mebius (one of the reasons behind the sudden recruitment drive). Studio Ring seems to have taken over the Nanami to Konomi no Oshiete ABC project, the third game in what used to be Zero's "Hajimete" series. Since Zero seems to be concentrating on games of an increasingly dark nature, an agreement appears to have been reached between Zero and Studio Ring to transfer control of the project (possibly along with ownership of the previous two games). Studio Ring are also developing at least one new game of their own although no details on this are available at present. Nanami to Konomi no Oshiete ABC will be released on December 26th.

December is a good month for fans of Koge Donbo with not one but two new artbooks due out next month. Chocola 2003, the next installment of all things DiGi Charat, will be available from the 20th, shortly followed by a Pitaten artbook on the 24th.

Lastly, I want to remind everyone before I go that there are only 8 days remaining until everyone's favourite bug-basher hits the PS2. Ichigeki Sacchuu!! Hoihoi-san will be released on the 27th of November. BUY IT. Or else. ^_-

MMORPGs are are a fun way to unwind. There's only one problem with them - other users. Final Fantasy XI, while a little unstable at the moment because of the influx of new U.S. players, seems to have a 'better' class of player than most MMORPGs. While there are always a few rude, unfriendly players around, the vast majority are good people. Contrast this with Ragnarok Online. I accept that the majority of players are still good mannered and helpful. However, I think it's true to say that RO does have more bad players than is normal for a MMORPG. Whether this is true of other ROs besides iRO, I'm not sure - it would be interesting to see if the proportion of bad players on a server varies from country to country.

There's a small update in the gallery for the exceptionally bored. It's a quick coloured doodle I did this morning, the first thing I have drawn with my new tablet. Getting the hang of drawing without pen and paper didn't seem to take me too long at all. A shame my drawing skills as a whole are still dire.

FFXI has been interesting over the last couple of days. On the morning of the 28th, the servers were busier than I'd seen them before - not with the expected wave of new American players but with current players waiting to catch a glimpse of the first gaijin newbies to arrive. People were sitting, huddled together in groups around Windurst chatting about it. America-jin spotting had become a spectator sport. ^_^; There were suggestions that Square-Enix should have turned it into some kind of official event.

The U.S. launch seems to have gone quite well. The servers don't seem to have been overwhelmed as some pessimists were expecting. Player numbers are up significantly, but as I said before, a sizable proportion of that can be attributed to the curiosity of existing players. The latest version up on the 28th saw the addition of phrase-book-like functionality to the speech-macro menu. When a player selects something to say from the menu, it is translated through a simple one-to-one lookup to the language of each player's client, making it possible for English and Japanese players to communicate to a reasonable extent in the game. At least for the purposes of partying and beating up small woodland creatures.

I've been a little busy this past week. Today, however, I've had a chance to relax again. This morning, I spent a couple of hours sorting through all of the doujinshi I brought back from Japan. Lots more cute to add to the collection. ^_^ It's a shame that good doujinshi is so hard to get outside Japan. Japanese companies won't export, domestic companies won't import and the eBayers only sell pr0n. T_T There are so many slated for this winter's Comike (65) that I want to get my hands on. I guess I'll just have to wait until next year.

I've also been playing a bit of Majokko A-La-Mode. The graphics are great and the scenario, while not being the sort I would normally play (i.e. un-Leaf-like), is still not too bad. It's a fairly happy, laid back story - plenty of fun and humour with only a few depressing, angsty moments. There is also Yuuki, the most ugly character known to man, but I'll save ranting about him until next time. (The image in the link doesn't really do him justice. You have to see him close up to fully 'appreciate' the horror of Yuuki.) As with a lot of popular series released in the last few years which claim Harry Potter (-_-) as the main source of inspiration (e.g. Ultra Maniac), aspects of Ms. Rowling's stories are noticable, but since most of the offending elements (the characters) have been removed, I have no objections to the game. Apart from the occasional, random sex orgy that the creators add to remind me how much they hate me, but since those can be dealt with through use of the scenario skip button, they can also be safely ignored.

... Unless you happen to be one of the PERVERTS who comes to this site through a search engine. This month's queries have been some of the "best" yet. For the curious, here's a top 5 of search engine queries that people used to get to BBI over the last month:

I am seriously considering checking the HTTP request headers for BBI and redirecting all page requests with queries containing choice words such as "pron" and "lolicon" to a page of rants...

Before I go, I'd just like to apologise for the last BBI post I made. I have a site rule that all pages should display correctly at a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 (given a reasonable configuration of font sizes, etc.). The graphic I uploaded as part of the last log entry was far too wide but I only noticed this yesterday. The graphic has now been resized and all should be well again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Phew. After the dullness of last weekend, the last few days have been pretty hectic. However, I now have a bit of time to myself so I thought I should finally get around to doing a proper update - the first since I got back from Japan over two weeks ago.

We got back on the evening of Wednesday the 8th. Amazingly, there were almost no problems with the hotel/hostel bookings or transportation between the locations we were staying at. I was dreading the thought of turning up to one of the hotels only to find out that our booking had been lost. I think that on the whole, everyone enjoyed themselves - we didn't kill each other at any rate. Dragging 8 people (9 at one point) around Japan for a month was never going to be easy but we managed it.

About a week after I got back, Kotoko, my main workstation, had to endure a Windows re-install after the previous installation of Windows 98 fell apart completely. She now has a shiny new installation of Windows 2000, which seems to have about the same number of problems as the Windows 98 installation, only in places that fortunately don't effect the things I do too much. The ATI Rage IIc had to come out because it caused an IRQ conflict with my network card under Win2K for some reason (good old MS PnP). I replaced it with the Matrox Mystique that Mint once had in her previous life as a desktop workstation and everything was fine again.

Re-installing was an interesting experience. Windows itself took a little under half an hour to install. Next up were various hardware drivers which also installed without any problems. Application software - Office and so forth - took a little longer, but also proved non-problematic. The real fun started when I came to install Final Fantasy XI (or Final Patch XI as I now sometimes refer to it). The first problem I encountered was with the initial install from CD. After reinstalling Windows, I had forgotten to re-enable DMA-mode on my IDE controllers (disabled by default). The difference had not been that noticable when installing the couple of hundred megabytes of MS Office, but the six FFXI CDs made for a painfully slow 2 hours of copying data from the CD-ROM drive to the hard disk, both devices fighting over who got to use the controller.

The fun wasn't over yet though. Quite the opposite - it had hardly begun. One of the good things about Final Fantasy XI is that the staff at Square-Enix don't sit around all day doing nothing. They actually work hard to improve their software and this is passed on to the player in the form of frequent software updates (or "version-ups" as they like to call them). Unfortunately, working from 6-month-old installation media meant that the software I had was somewhat dated. Starting POL resulted in the client downloading patches for a good 40 minutes. All of the POL content data was also waaay out of date, which meant that for the first couple of days, every new thing I clicked on lead to a 5 minute download.

And then... Final Fantasy XI. I'm not going to say much about that because I think the screenshot below speaks for itself.

1907 files to download. And yes, it really did take over 10 hours.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the world of Vana'diel over the next two weeks. As most readers with an interest in gaming will probably be aware, the U.S. version of Final Fantasy XI launches in two days (October 28th). The U.S. website is now up and running and Square-Enix have been furiously patching the servers in preparation. While U.S./U.K. customers will no doubt be pleased that a domestic version of the game is now available, the responses from those currently using the service seems mixed. On the one hand, many people are looking forward to a wave of new users to play with. Then there are those who worry that the servers will become overcrowded, that the game will slowly become English-only, or that the dungeons will be overrun by thousands of loud, power-levelling U.S. teenagers.

I can sympathise with the existing players to some extent. While there are plenty of non-Japanese users already playing, the U.S. release will almost certainly result in an English-speaking majority on the servers. Or rather, that barely-comprehensible, English-like drivel that most 'English'-speaking teenagers seem to use online - increased exposure to which I wouldn't wish upon anyone. However, as for the concerns about server overcrowding, I really don't think there's too much to worry about. While the Final Fantasy name will no doubt draw in a large number of gamers (compared to lesser-known P2P MMORPGs such as Ragnarok Online), the world of Vana'diel is very expansive and should have no problems with capacity. Square-Enix has enough servers in place and the infrastructure and funding to install more as and when they are needed.

I don't have much time to play games this week, but what little time I have had has been spent on iRO since their Halloween event has already started and FFXI's hasn't. ^_^

Still on the subject of Final Fantasy, Square-Enix finally have a site up for FF12. Not much information as of yet - even the intro uses the same concept art we've seen time and time again, but the creation of the site does at least reassure fans that the development teams are hard at work. We'll just have to wait until after the presentation to hear what the various gaming publications have to say. It seems as if Square-Enix still have a lot of work to do so I don't anticipate a release any earlier than 2004Q2.

On to Leaf news now. While we're waiting for more information on the next big Leaf project, a few recent Leaf games, namely Routes and Utawarerumono, are being re-released on DVD. The DVD edition of Routes will hit the stores on November 28th with Utawarerumono following sometime in December. According to the information I have, the DVD versions will include event CG not in the original games. Other Leaf releases to look forward to include the next Leaf Vocal Collection album. LVC Volume 3 will be released on November 28th - surprisingly early since Volume 2 was only released a month ago today.

Sticking with music, I've updated their website last month to coincide with the the release of their 4th and 5th compilation albums (Lament and Out Flow). There's also a small page promoting Kotoko's first solo album, due Spring 2004.

And finally, something completely different. While we were in Japan, a couple of party members insisted on trying seachicken onigiri. I've never been too sure exactly what seachicken is. It looks like tuna and smells like tuna... but it's called seachicken. I always buy tins labeled tuna since I know what tuna is and I like to know what I'm eating. Eventually, the inevitable question was raised and the group came up with numerous suggestions. Was it fish? Was it chicken? Was it some kind of freaky genetic hybrid? Upon returning to the UK, I investigated seachicken more thoroughly and discovered that the term has been used all over the world to describe various oceanic inhabitants, although crabs and tuna do seem to be the most popular recipients of the name. Hagoromo Foods has a whole page describing the contents of its seachicken product range. Apparently, they use bonito, yellowfin tuna or albacore, depending on the type of seachicken (flakey, chunky, etc.) you buy.

Okay... I can tell you're bored now so I'll stop there. I'll try and improve the flow of the next post to make it a little more readable. Today was more of a ramble than anything else. Gomen ne.

Sorry once again for the lack of updates. I haven't abandoned BBI; I just don't feel like posting anything at the moment. BBI is my site of happy, cute things and it's hard to post when I'm not in a happy, cute mood.

Anyway, so as not to waste precious seconds of your lives on an otherwise pointless post, I'll post a link to a competition being organised by the OPN (Open Programmers Network) and brought to my attention by NullS. If you're a student of undergraduate level or lower and algorithmic problem solving is your thing, take a look.

Well, we're nearly at the end of our almost-a-month in Japan. It's been good fun and everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves. Much money has been spent and there will be many credit cards debts to pay off. :) The flight back to the U.K. leaves tomorrow morning and should get in around 6pm on Wednesday evening. I'm not sure how soon I'll be back online after that though as the word from home is that the cable box has died again. Anyway, with luck, I will next be speaking to you from the U.K. - whenever that may be. Until then, take care. ^^

2000 visits! Thanks, you've made Tomoko-chan very happy. ^_^

We've reached Osaka now. The plan for the day is to head into Den-Den Town and partake in a shopping marathon. Sounds like fun. I hope everyone is fine back home. I keep checking by Aniverse at various times but no-one ever seems to be online. If you've changed servers or something, perhaps you could drop me an email. Anyhoo, see you soon.

Konbanwa~~ ^_^

Today's BBI post comes to you from a dodgy little internet/manga cafe in Kyoto called TopsCafe. When I say dodgy, I mean I'm sitting in a fully enclosed little booth - one of hundreds in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike - with a desktop filled with links to porn sites, a chair that reclines further than any reclining chair should and a complementary packet of tissues. This keyboard feels sticky too... >_>

Anyway, enough of the ordeal I'm going through to bring you this greeting from afar. How is everyone back home? We're having a great time here. Shopping today was cheap - I bought about 20 tankoubon in Book Off for about £18. Unfortunately, the shipping at the post office to get it all back to the UK came to about £50, so the savings I made were somewhat diminished. Several people (including myself) filled their bags and suitcases long ago, so we have to post back everything we buy now. I'd guess around 100kg of 'stuff' has been shipped back so far. ^^;;

Notable purchases over the last few days include Majokko A-La-Mode and a nice Wacom tablet. Majokko A-La-Mode took a long time to locate. Apparently, F&C left pressing the discs a little too late. This, combined with the fact that they severely underestimated demand meant that the game sold out almost as soon as it went on sale and became virtually impossible to obtain. I eventually managed to find a copy in a used game store in Tokyo (although the game itself was a new, unopened copy that someone had, for whatever reason, been sitting on for a few weeks). The tablet is an A5 Favo model - about £80 so quite cheap although I was quite happy with it when I tried it in store. Look out for a torrent of horrible SoZ scrawls when I get back.

Anyhoo, I'm hungry - I think it's beef bowl time. I'll be back in a little over a week so I may not post another log entry here before then. Take care!

Hi! I'm alive! And more or less broke after a week in Akihabara. ^^;

Sorry again for the rapid departure - I meant to post a lengthy log entry before heading off to the airport the other week, but I ran out of time. Still, I'm sure you're all relieved to have been spared from rambling SoZ.

Things have been going well so far. We've been staying in a small hotel in Minowa - cheap and simple but quite pleasant. We have been combining shopping with sightseeing to take some of the load off our wallets. Toranoana's main store in Akihabara seems to be our most visited store at the moment, although we did manage a whole day in Mandarake Nakano yesterday. ^^;

Right, must go. I think my time with the 'net terminal is up. See you soon.

Apologies for the lack of updates. I'm going away for a while, during which time updates will be few and far between. Normal service will resume in about a month.

International Ragnarok Online servers Chaos and Loki will finally be migrated to RO Version 3.0 during the next maintenance period. Upgrades include Comodo, skill balancing (I'm particularly looking forward to trying out the changes to the Arrow Shower skill - at last, it might do something useful ^^;) and implementation of status effects. For full details of exactly what will change in the new version, see the RO V3.0 update page. I suppose the PvP arenas will be next. ^_^;

More reasons to buy a GBA. A little while ago, I mentioned Namco's new GBA version of Tales of Phantasia. Not wanting to be left behind, Square Enix released Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu for the GBA on Friday.

Anyone who has played any of the Seiken Densetsu series before will immediately feel at home. The game feels just like the SFC games, only on a smaller screen. This incarnation, like those that came before it, is great fun to play, adopting exactly the same style of action RPG gameplay and even interface layouts as earlier games in the series. The graphics are excellent and don't seem to have suffered during the transition from a TV screen to the GBA's LCD; the colours are vivid and the game fields well drawn and varied. I haven't seen enough of the game to be able to give any information about the story, but if this is, as it appears, a fully fledged episode of the Seiken Densetsu saga, it is certain not to disappoint. Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu is out now for the GBA, priced at 5800 Yen.

I finally plucked up the courage to watch episode 5 ("Onsen") of Popotan the other day. While it was mostly, as I had feared, an excuse to have the characters wandering around naked for more time than was really necessary, it was also the first episode in which the story really got going. After watching five episodes now (the 6th is awaiting viewing and I've yet to find anyone with a copy of the 7th), I have to admit that this isn't a particularly great series. If it weren't for the cute and the waffy stories so far, I probably wouldn't be watching it. It certainly can't compare with the other series I'm following at the moment, Narutaru. However, Popotan IS cute and the stories ARE waffy, so I will see it through to the end.

BBI is 6 months old today! Doesn't time fly?

A quick update on SoZ. I'm still very busy at the moment. The Japan trip took up most of this weekend due to changes made to the original itinerary. I sent off reservations for the hostels in Osaka and Kyoto yesterday, so I'll hopefully hear back from them soon.

And now on to more interesting things. ^_^ Recently, I've been bringing you information about upcoming games with illustrations by some of my favourite artists. Today, it is the turn of popular illustrator CO2A. He is the lead illustrator for F&C's new game, Majokko A-la-mode. The story takes place in the magical land of Mint Kingdom. You play a student in his second year at National Twinkle Academy, the top institution in the country for education in the magical arts. The story sounds quite cute and the art, as to be expected of CO2A, looks even cuter. ^^ The opening (title: Nostalgia) and ending (title: Adolescence) themes for the game are both performed by Under17. Unfortunately, F&C don't have a playable demo of the game available to download, although there is a very cute demo movie available here (28.4MB, LZH archive containing one MPEG movie). The game will be released this friday (August 29th) under F&C's FC01 label.

Another game I've added to the List of Needage is Meguri, Hitohira, an upcoming title from Caramel Box. I had not heard about this particular game before and just stumbled across it while browsing the web. I'm rather glad I did. The game is a visual novel and first impressions are pretty good. The story is quite involving, the character CG and environments are superbly illustrated and everything blends together so well that playing the game is a really enjoyable experience. Unlike most full-screen visual novels which overlay the text over the entire screen, the text of the novel in Meguri, Hitohira only takes up two-thirds of the screen width and is positioned off to one side. The character currently speaking is shown in the remaining space. In a scene where two characters are conversing, this can result in the novel text overlay flying from one side to the other with each sentence. However, this isn't as distracting as it sounds and is actually one of the more appealing visual novel presentation systems I have used. I should also mention the background music in the game which fits the story perfectly and enhances the feel of the game no end. These are mostly piano/synth tracks, some of which remind me of Kanon - although my mind could be affected by the nice snowy scenes. If you're eager to try out the game, Caramel Box have a nice surprise for you in the form of a downloadable demo version (119MB). Actually, it's not so much a demo as a sizable chunk of the game. It's huge - the biggest demo I've ever seen for a renai sim or visual novel - and will likely take you a few hours to complete. The demo version doesn't include the character voice data though which will be in the full game. Meguri, Hitohara will be released on the 26th of September.

I've now heard a few comments from people who've played the GBA version of Tales of Phantasia, my all time favourite RPG (on the SFC). I had long wanted a good portable version of ToP, but was worried Namco might cut too much away from the game and reduce it to a miserable shell of it's former self, giving us another Narikiri Dungeon. However, this time around, the verdict appears favourable. Everyone I have spoken to has praised the game as everything they could hope a portable edition would be. The GBA at last gives Namco developers the hardware they need to do the game justice. I am a little worried about a couple of aspects of the game though. Firstly, the music. I was very disappointed at Nintendo's choice of audio hardware for the GBA when the console was first announced - I , along with a lot of other people, was really expecting hardware SPC emulation after Nintendo had touted the GBA as a portable SFC. I am unsure quite how well the GBA will reproduce all those well-loved ToP themes. Secondly, there is ToP's famous real-time Linear Motion Battle System, which was an instant hit with RPG gamers when it appeared on the SFC all those years ago. From the screenshots I've seen, the battles on the GBA screen seem too cramped, limiting the movement of your characters and your ability to see over the far side of the battle area. Still, these are only minor niggles. I look forward to getting the opportunity to play the GBA port in the future.

Namco have been keeping busy though. When Tales fans have finished their pocket-sized game of ToP, they have even more to look forward to. The release date for Tales of Symphonia (August 29th) on the GameCube is edging ever closer. Everything points to this being one of the best RPGs released for the Cube so far, perhaps only topped by Crystal Chronicles. The game is a 3D cel-shaded affair which, from the screenshots, looks very pretty. The cute factor in this game seems greater than usual for the Tales series, with all the characters appearing slightly chibi and extra cute-looking. ^^ The battle system is similar to previous Tales games and is an upgraded form of the Linear Motion Battle System, known as the Multi-Line Linear Motion Battle System (or ML-LMBS) - essentially the old LMBS translated to a 3D environment. Quite how 3D targetting will work, I have no idea. Other classic Tales touches are making a return too, such as the character emoticons. This should definitely be a fun game to play. I never intended to buy a Cube, but I may just have to consider changing my mind. I'll wait a few months anyway - perhaps by then Nintendo will have lowered the price so much that Kellogg's will be able to give them away in cereal boxes. ;)

In addition to the new Tales game, there is also the ToP OVA to look forward to. Information on it seems hard to come by though. I don't even know which studio will be responsible for the animation. Production I.G. is a possibility due to their strong ties to Namco projects in the past. However, I'm not sure if Namco could afford to commission a full-length OVA from the likes of I.G. Gonzo and Madhouse are another two strong possibilities as they would be able to make the animation for a lot less and also both seem receptive to new series proposals at the moment. Whatever happens, hopefully the OVA will be worthy of the Tales name.

Finally, some iRO news. After a long wait, the Comodo patch will at long last be implemented on iRO Sakray during the scheduled maintenance period later today. I probably won't have enough time to explore it before leaving for Japan, but it's something to look forward to when I return. ^^

The other day, I mentioned a forthcoming game based on the works of one of my favoutite illustrators, Kunihiko Tanaka. Today, it is the turn of Takamichi, another illustrator, some of the works of which SoZ quite likes. Takamichi, illustrator for such games as Hateshinaku Aoi, Kono Sora no Shita de (or Dokomademo Aoku as the PSX port was called), Hoshigami and Mizu no Kakera, has a new game in the works. Tenshi no Kakera, another game to be produced by Io. As with Mizu no Kakera, the game will be a Flash-driven, browser-based affair. Initial impressions are good - the game is a visual novel with what appears to be a good story, considered character development and, of course, lots of Takamichi eye-candy. ^_^ It should be in stores on the 3rd of October.

Today has been quite busy - I have numerous bits of paperwork that must be processed before the end of the week (so that gives me one more day then... >_>). Then there's the Japan trip - we leave three weeks today so planning is currently quite frantic. If any of the Japan trip travellers are reading this, I hope to get an email out tonight regarding the Osaka/Kyoto accommodation. Don't think I've forgotten about it. Trust me, I haven't. In fact, I think I might be balding as a result of this. I'll blame Swaff again since Swaff is the always the root cause of any Japan-related problems I may have. ^_-

I had a short respite from work this afternoon in the form of a trip to the House of Pain (although I believe they like to call themselves a dental surgery). After spending half an hour with the hand of an unknown man wedged in my mouth (unknown since the old Lord of Paingiving left last month so a new recruit has taken his place), I wandered around town while waiting for the feeling to come back into the right side of my mouth. And face. And right arm. Deciding that I needed something to lift my spirits as a way of temporarily combating the tiredness I had felt over the last few days, I went to have a look in an expensive hi-fi shop towards the bottom of the High Street, with the secondary aim of procuring a new pair of headphones. My current pair, just about visible through all the stickytape that prevents them from falling apart, have definitely seen better days. I thought it was about time I treated myself to a new pair, perhaps one of a slightly sturdier build. I have not really spent much time in a "hi-fi" shop; I presumed they were just like a normal high street electrical retailer, only one specialising in all things audio.

High fidelity, it turns out, is an artform of sorts. And a very expensive one at that. The cheapest pair of headphones they stocked were something called Sennheiser HD 580s. These, I was assured, were the budget-conscious audiophile's headphones of choice, and a bargain at only £99.99 (apparently recently reduced from a figure nearer the £200 mark). Ideally, I was looking for something I could buy with a twenty Pound note and still have change left over for a deli sandwich, but the salesman looked like he was enjoying himself so much that I didn't have the heart to stop him. After an hour, in which I sampled the aformentioned headphones (they were indeed very nice), talked about amplifiers and gawked at a £300 1m phono cable (made with expensive materials that haven't been discovered yet), I left clutching a small slip of paper with a list of the albums the salesman had recently been listening to in his car and which he had politely noted down for me. A bewildering yet fascinating experience.

After an uneventful walk back home, I arrived to discover that the hot water supply to the bathroom was no longer... supplying. The hot water tank appears to be empty and the inlet valve working fine - there's just no water coming into it. The only thing I can think of is that the boiler decided to perform a limescale flush and that there is currently a wad-o-limescale somewhere in the pipe. Investigations are continuing... The only other thing of note I can talk about today is the spider that landed on my keyboard a few minutes ago and which is currently lying in a rather deceased state next to the scanner. It was truly odd. Having descended on a length of thread from the ceiling, the arachnid scuttled across the keyboard and onto the desk. As I moved to intercept it with a plastic cup, it wheeled around to stare at me. Although out-eyed, I returned the stare. This had the effect of causing the spider to flip onto its back and die, right there and then. It's not sleeping or playing dead as a method of protection. It is absolutely dead. I'm trying not to read into this too much...

Well, I had a nice weekend back in Yorkshire for a friend's wedding - the first wedding I've been to for a good few years. Much to the delight of everyone, the day went perfectly from start to finish. It was also a mini reunion of sorts as I had a chance to meet up with a number of other friends, some of whom I had not seen in over a year.

But that's quite enough about me. There are far more important things to talk about, like Hoihoi-san on the PS2!!! (Please forgive me if I sound rather hyper for the remainder of this paragraph - it's probably because I am.) If you've read the FAQ, then you may already be aware of how much I love Kunihiko Tanaka's character art. Ichigeki Sacchhuu Hoihoi-san is Tanaka-Sensei's own series featuring the petit, gun-toting, bug-bashing Hoihoi-san (left) and which runs in Dengeki Daiou, that great magazine available from all good Japanese magazine stockists outside the UK... My apologies if I point out the availability issues every time I mention a Mediaworks publication, but it's an issue I'm rather annoyed about. Anyway, back to the game. It's a fun little action adventure in which you play Hoihoi-san taking on the bugs. Between each bug-blasting mission, the game reverts to a story mode in which events are played out in either the standard simulation game manner (character stills) or an anime cutscene. While it doesn't immediately look like something that will take the gaming world by storm, it's a Hoihoi-san game so it doesn't matter! Any Hoihoi-san is good. Maybe if this serves to raise awareness of the series, we might even see a Hoihoi-san anime! *gurgle-gurgle*

[[[ Re-engaging sanity filters ]]]

I didn't have much time for anime/manga/gaming last week, so I don't have much to talk about on that front. I watched episode 4 of Popotan and a couple more episodes of Narutaru, but that's about it. Popotan is still okay at the moment, although last week's episode (ep. 5, which I have not yet seen) was titled "Onsen", which should probabably serve as a warning although I shall no doubt watch it anyway. I hope it's not going to go downhill from here but I have this nasty feeling it just might. Meanwhile, Narutaru is shaping up to be a nice series. Nice in a cute-yet-dark-and-sinister kind of way. I have not yet read the manga properly, but the TV series still seems quite tame (so far) in comparison. I was put off the manga originally by its generally warped, hard-to-followness, but if I'm still enjoying the anime by the end of the series, I may give the manga a chance, lolicon/demon rape/mutilation and all...

The web is slowly returning to normal after another successful Comiket. Shortly before heading off to the con, Leaf announced the release of a Tasogare design works book. 144 full colour pages in a protective slipcase. *drool* It should be out at the weekend and has already been added to my list of things I "need". ^_^

——— Update ———
I should really spell-check these things before posting them...

And so the heatwave continues. Kotoko is holding out, but today it was Navi's turn to fall victim to the ridiculous temperatures (38°C) upstairs. Navi refused to work until relocated to the relative coolness of the hallway. I later discovered that the cause of Navi's refusal to do anything was that the CPU socket on the motherboard had expanded just enough so that the pins on the outside of the CPU weren't contacting properly - a problem I had experienced several years ago when Navi ran for long periods of time with the old heatsink.

If I had to choose between the two extremes in temperature, I would rather be cold than hot. I've never liked hot weather - you feel worn out and lethargic, annoying children come out to play in the street, food goes off far more rapidly (milk seems to go off in the time it takes me to walk from the milk hatch to the fridge), etc. No, I for one would be more than happy if the normal British summer weather were to return. Unfortunately, looking at the weather forecast for the week ahead, it's unlikely that will happen.

Featured series of the day: Ultra Maniac. I've finally managed to catch an episode of the TV series and I'm pleased to say it's a worthy animated adaptation of the manga. The image on the right is a cute picture of Ayu and Nina taken from the ending credits. If I can find the time, I'll try and watch a little more of the series to see how it follows/diverges from the manga; currently, it's following the original story quite closely. If you haven't seen the anime or read the manga, I highly recommend them both (obviously I can't really comment on the anime after episode 1, but if the level of quality remains the same and it continues to follow the plot of the manga, it should turn out to be a great TV series).

I've now seen episode 3 of Popotan and am still reasonably satisfied with how the series is turning out. It's hardly an epic series, but it is cute and certainly does the Popotan brand (and Petit Ferret) no harm. I've seen the final release version of the opening movie for Popotan Po! (the DVD version of Popotan) and it looks quite smart - certainly an improvement on the preview version they had on the website. And the music is still far more catchy than the TV OP. Speaking of the TV themes, the Popotan TV OP/ED single, Popotan e.p. came out a few days ago. I've fallen in love with the third track - Gem Stone, the image song performed by both Under17 and Funta. It's so cute... and bouncy... ^_^

I'll have to add some of Poyoyon Rokku's doujinshi to my list of things to look for while in Japan. The trouble is, they're so rare now that when they do turn up, you have to pay through the nose for them - a bit like Yoshitoshi Abe's doujinshi. The price of fame weighs heavily on the fans too it would seem. Nevertheless, I will keep my eye out. Perhaps I can afford one Poyoyon doujinshi; I just love the cute character designs. There is apparently a book coming out on the 27th of this month from Kadokawa - Rokku-chan no Himitsu no Ehon - but I can't find out anything about it besides the basic release information. A Popotan illustration book perhaps? Softbank already have the Visual Fan Book out, so it seems strange to have another very similar book from a different publisher. If anyone knows anything about this particular book, please let me know.

——— Update ———
I just noticed that Kadokawa finally have some information up about Rokku-chan no Himitsu no Ehon. Poyoyon Rock's character designs and original illustrations! It sounds great! ^_^ Also, I typed this post on Penpen since the room Kotoko is located in is currently uninhabitable due to the big, round, glowy fusion reactor passing overhead. Penpen's keyboard has a problem in that the 'M' key doesn't work unless you jump up and down on it. Therefore, if you spot a missing 'M' in the text, just pretend there's one there.

Before I do anything else, I just want to say thanks to everyone who attended the PLACICACDASCP at the weekend. I had great fun and it was good to see everyone again - probably the last time for a while. (Although for all those reading this who are also going on the Japan trip, I think one more future meeting, either in the physical or virtual world, might be an idea before we depart.) Thanks to a persuasive influence, I also picked up Kuroboshi Kouhaku's Kino no Tabi artbook which is a very nice artbook indeed.

I've finally managed to catch the first two episodes of the Popotan TV series... and I'm actually fairly happy with the way it turned out. Due to the nature of the series (think Sliders with cute), each episode is a completely independent story. For the moment at least; whether a much greater overriding story will establish itself later on remains to be seen. The TV series isn't really ecchi, although there are moments (usually for the purpose of humour)... and bath scenes seem to get more screen time than is necessary. However, the primary theme is one of cute. The first two stories are both nice and waffy which pleases SoZ muchly. ^^ The only thing that disappointed me was the opening which seemed rather unoriginal and ungenki after the DVD version of the game opening... Which reminds me - Petit Ferret released the aforementioned DVD version of Popotan on August 1st. Sorry, I meant to point the release out sooner but I forgot. -_-

I've also been reading some more of Toshihiko Kobayashi's Pastel, volume 3 of which I bought on Saturday. Since then, I've come to the conclusion (or rather reconfirmed my earlier suspicions) that the series is I''s, only with different characters drawn by a different mangaka. Once I've finished this volume, I'll move onto .hack//Udeden vol. 2 and then Taruto vol. 3 (which amazingly Asahiya had in stock, despite it only being released barely two weeks ago). So many things to look forward to. ^_^

Hi~~ The energy and genkiness is still lacking, but I watched all of .hack//Chibi in two sittings which I think had some effect. I have Saikano to watch tonight. I was waiting until I had all of the manga since I realised quite early on that the manga was significantly better than the anime. That's not to say that the anime was bad, but the manga didn't receive national acclaim for no reason - it is quite superb. Anyway, it looks like Asahiya don't want to get in anything beyond vol 4, so I will just have to wait until I go over in September to pick up the rest - and I can't wait that long which is why I've decided to finish off the anime now.

iRO is down again this afternoon. There is no official word yet, but everything seems to be pointing to some sort of database trouble. The Comodo rumours have resurfaced as they always do whenever the system goes down unexpectedly, but it seems a little early for that seeing as Loki and Chaos have only just got the Cute Pet patch.

While I haven't been playing much iRO lately, I have made a new character. I originally created her as a support character for AzieƖ, but she has proven quite fun to play by herself. Her name is Occie (pron.: "oh-see") and she is a lvl 21/17 merchant from the port town of Alberta. I don't have a full background story for Occie as I do for AzieƖ as I didn't plan to roleplay properly - rather, she was just a way of getting money and discount on AzieƖ's increasingly expensive purchases. However, I've become quite attached to her as a character (never thought I'd be saying that about a merchant - although that was before she started making profits of 100,000Z per day...) so I will probably work one out. I might even try to fit her into the planned fanfic which should near completion sometime in November, 2018.

Monday marked 5 months of BBI. Has it already been that long? The site has now logged over 1500 visits, which seems pretty good considering the overwhelming lack of content (which will unfortunately remain overwhelmingly lacking until I get back from Japan in October). "bishoujo game" is this month's most popular search string, although "lolicon" and "bittorrent ecchi" still feature in the list. >_<

Ooer... what an odd sensation. What little motivation and feelings of self worth I had left just deserted me. I actually felt them leave my body! It was at the exact moment I stuck a new Post-It note with a shopping list for Monday to my monitor. I think I need an injection of raw cute. Failing that .hack//Udeden should help - I've had virtually no cute for a week and I can feel it, physically. I never realised how dependent I am on it. Cute is a drug it would seem.

LAC is next weekend though (and with it, a PLACICACDASCP and a chance to see everyone again). The Japan Trip isn't too far off either, which should serve to lift my spirits (and give my wallet nightmares). Hopefully we'll have the accommodation all booked up next week. On a related note, I've decided not to upload the shopping guide until after I get back. I'm going to use the trip to do another sweep of all the shops in the guide to see what's changed. (I know at least two of the shops I put in the original guide are no longer there.)

No real news. Just to let everyone know who didn't really want to that the PS2 version of Omoi no Kakera ~Close To~ was released today. Information on the release of the Omoi no Kakera Sound Collection on August 20th has also now been announced.

It seems to have been a little cooler, weather-wise, this weekend - although not by much. Kotoko has stopped complaining though which means we don't have to fight over who gets the nice oscillating fan.

As always, I don't really have anything interesting to say. However, I will pass on a couple of interesting findings I made over the weekend. Firstly, it seems that this month's issue of Magazine Z (another publication widely unavailable in the UK) will be carrying the first chapter of a new Popotan manga series. This will be the first official Popotan manga (there have, of course, been numerous doujinshi and anthology comics). However, this isn't necessarily a good thing. The manga is a collaboration between Petit Ferret and doujin circle Abarenbow Tengu's chief mangaka, Yuujiro Izumi. Izumi-san's track record leads me to believe that there is a strong possibility that more than a hint of ecchiness may work its way into the manga, which is more than I would have liked. I'm also not too keen on some of his character designs. Having said that, it shouldn't be too bad - I've seen a couple of pages and the characters look better than his usual doujin fare, plus the Popotan website describes the story as only a little ecchi, which goes some way to reassure me that it won't be an all-out hentai-fest.

Finally, I'll leave you with this. Of course, real cat lovers know exactly what their cat is trying to tell them without the need for such a device. ^_^ Well, most of the time - there are always those times when your cat decides she wants something, although she can't decide quite what, but will let you know about it all the same in the hope that she will realise what it is she wanted eventually. Anyway, it does look quite an interesting little gadget.

P.S. I do not have a gender bias when it comes to cats. I substituted "she" for "he/she" in that last paragraph because four "he/she"s in one sentence seemed a bit too much. I decided on "she" because, for some reason or another, most non-cat-owners seem to regard cats as female. However, my cat would like it known that he is very much male, and that anyone calling him a "she" will soon discover exactly how a scratching post feels.

It's been a busy week, but nothing really exciting has happened that I can write about here.

I added a new picture to the gallery yesterday. A coloured pencil sketch of a catgirl. I think I'm improving slowly, although there are still plenty of things about the image I'm not happy about.

Oh, and in iRO, the Cute Pet update finally went live on Loki and Chaos a couple of days ago. I like the way Lunatics (little bunny things) flap their ears and hover several feet off the ground when they're happy. Soo cute~ ^_^

Tsuki no Mori (Guardian of the Moon) was a game by Ark that I spotted shortly after its release back in March. It stood out because of its stunning background art and cute character designs. The music was also above par and the story looked interesting. I never found out the nature of the adult segments in the game though. One review site I visited described is as a junai game, while another contradicted that claim. That was one of the main reasons I didn't investigate it further. That, and the ridiculous import prices. If anyone knows for certain if the story is predominantly junai-oriented, please let me know.

Anyway, I then forgot about the game until now. The other day, I noticed that Ark had got together with D-Dream to create the Tsuki no Mori Art Collection, available to download as an "e-mook" for the reasonable fee of 1,980 yen. The collection comprises CG scenes, background and character art, music from the game and a few extras. There's a small, free-to-download demo also available from D-Dream so you can get a feel for it. It's a nice price, so I may go back to check it out later (registration - and a Japanese address - is required, but they do accept popular credit cards - Visa, MC, Amex, etc.).

After mentioning the Popotan TV series yesterday, I went and dug out the old game demo I had for it. (Yes, another game I want but don't have due to silly £50+ price tags. Okay, there is the ecchi too, but the cuteness is cute enough to make me selectively blind to that.) There's not much to the demo, but it does have plenty of cuteness and a minigame (a cross between DDR and whack-a-mole). I'm interested to see what approach they will take with the TV series. Will the series be story driven or will the episodes be self-contained mini-stories? I'm hoping the former, otherwise Popotan might just become another Happy Lesson TV. Not that there's anything wrong with Happy Lesson TV, but I would like to see a series with a bit more substance. The BS-i 12:30am timeslot is also worrying me a little, since it opens the door for potential ecchiness. Oh well, no use worrying. I'll just have to wait and see.

——— Update ———
I just discovered Tsuki no Mori has tentacles. Doesn't really sound like junai to me... T_T I guess I'll just get the Art Collection (where tentacle-viewing is optional) rather than the game itself.

I was under the impression that today was supposed to be cooler than yesterday. Maybe it is, but it certainly doesn't feel it. I don't function well in hot weather. -_-

I realised today that I am not keeping up with anime releases as much as I would like. There are still too many series from late spring that I've hardly started to watch (Kino no Tabi, Wandaba Style, Matantei Loki Ragnarok, etc.) and now the summer season has kicked off. Thankfully, there aren't too many new series starting this month. Narutaru is probably the only one I will make an effort to see. Happy Lesson Advance will probably be a bit of lighthearted fun while at the same time being nothing particularly special, much like the first TV series. Continuing the trend of turning renai simulation games into anime, D.C. started last Saturday. I have no idea what to expect from it though. Popotan is another game to anime series on my 'must see' list and starts next Thursday (July 17th). I love the character designs and the cute happiness. ^_^ Something else I wouldn't mind catching is Ultra Maniac, which started back in May. I haven't had a chance to watch any yet, but I enjoy the manga and every time I thumb through a copy of Ribon, I am reminded that I should make an effort to obtain an episode or two.

There just isn't enough time for me to source and watch everything I want to. And it's not going to get any easier. Daisuke Moriyama's Chrno Crusade, a favourite of mine running in Dragon, will make the transition to the animated medium later this year. Studio Gonzo will be producing the animation, but have yet to launch an official site. Another Gonzo production, Kaleido Star, kicks off in just over a week. Another series of Chicchana Yukitsukai Sugar will appear at the end of August, set some six years after the events in the first TV series - more Koge Donbo-inspired cuteness to look forward too. Oh... and there's that new series of Ai Yori Aoshi in the works too... I don't know why I dislike that show so much. Probably something to do with every episode I've seen of it seeming to be devoid of story and full of fanservice. Kinda like Mouse, but without the plot...

I'm also looking forward to Steam Boy which is released this October. There's something about fantasy stories set in late 19th/early 20th century settings but with advanced technology based around simple concepts such as steam power that appeals to me. That was one of the main reasons I was drawn to Sakura Taisen - an early 20th century society but with all mod cons, provided by imaginative uses of the technologies available at the time.

Anyway, enough about anime. I've noticed a few release lists online have started to list the DC version of Snow. However, I'm puzzled that some of them have listed it as an 18-rated game. I'm not sure if that's true or whether they've just copied all of the details from the PC version. Neither Studio Mebius or NEC Interchannel have commented on whether it will be an adult game, although NECi do now have a webpage up for the DC version. It would be disappointing if it is as I was hoping for a non-adult version of Snow on the DC. I'll have to keep on looking out for announcements. A game release that snuck up on me is the PS2 version of Close To - Omoi no Kakera on July 24th. Love the Goto-P goodness. =^^=

I'll leave you with another KID release, the KID Music Museum vol 1, which will appear on shop shelves on July 16th (or possibly the 15th if you're in range of a good Joshin store). It's a 2 disc music compilation album. I was a little disappointed to find it didn't feature any tracks from Tentama (my favourite KID game), although Close To is on there. Maybe there'll be some Tentama tracks on vol 2, due on August 22nd.

A short while ago, Tycho over at Penny Arcade was discussing how few magazines he buys today compared to a few years ago. It occured to me the other day, while throwing out around 100 old copies of PC Plus, that I have also stopped buying magazines on a regular basis. 3 or 4 years ago, I had a subscription to PC Plus and most months also bought a copy of Computer Shopper and another random magazine that took my fancy depending on the cover CDs (usually either PC Format or Linux Format). That was 3 magazines, every month. But with information that was once only obtainable from the magazines now freely available on the internet and without the constraints inherent in dead-tree publishing with a fixed timetable (namely the speed at which information can be carried from the publisher to the reader), magazines are no longer good value for money. With the advent of broadband internet connections, most of the programs featured on cover disks and CDs are but a short download away. The only magazine I'm currently buying every month is Animage, since while most of the news and information is freely available online, its so widely dispersed that it would take too much time to search for it all. The Ghibli exclusives (Animage being a Tokuma publication) are nice too. ^_^

From one webcomic to another. Mr. Angst (the artist formerly known as Piro) over at MegaTokyo appears to have had another falling out, this time with his publisher, I.C. Entertainment. This makes the release of MegaTokyo vol 2 and Warmth later this year a little difficult, although I suspect a new publisher will be found shortly.

On to Ragnarok now. iRO is more or less back to normal now. The BBS is back up and the hack is a fading memory. The server restart at 9pm PST tonight to end the 2nd 2x EXP and drop rate 'compensation period' will also mark the start of a fun little event called "The Days of Red Snow" - also known as PvP in Lutie. ^_^ I haven't played since the 3rd post-P2P rollback so haven't regained the levels I lost. As a result, AzieƖ is a little too low level to be participating in a PvP event. Nevertheless, if I get the time, I may wander up to Al De Baran to see if I can at least get one hit in before I am annihilated by a level 95 Wizard. While on the subject of RO, here's an interesting little story that was /.ed earlier on how the Thai government is combating the evils of online gaming.

I feel like doodling...

A happy 4th of July to those of you who celebrate it.

Apologies for the brief disappearance. With any luck, all should return to normal from next week. I've been pretty busy this past week, and while saying that I haven't had the time to update BBI sounds like a poor excuse for not posting updates on the life of SoZ, it's the truth. Due to the unexpected busy period, the shopping guide that I originally thought might materialise the other weekend never did. Therefore, I'm not going to make any more predictions as to when I'll upload it. It will be online when it's ready.

The world has been busy during my absence. This weekend marks the second of the 2x EXP and item drop rate bonus events to take place after the 3rd rollback on iRO since P2P (the 2nd since The Hack). Gravity also restored access to the iRO BBS yesterday after it collapsed a week ago under the load of thousands of disgruntled players. Hopefully, this is the end of the whole sorry affair and we can get back to the old routine of killing innocent woodland creatures and buying 'cool things', like we did in the old days. ^^ Development of iRO is still rather slower than that of KRO, although considering the problems Gravity have had, it's not too surprising. I think I'd rather they concentrate on ironing out the existing problems rather than introduce new features for the time being. However, at the rate at which things are going, iRO should hopefully see both the Cute Pet patch and Comodo on Chaos and Loki towards the end of the year with PVP following sometime in early 2004.

While I'm discussing dates, a few more have come to my attention. Key have said that barring any unforeseen problems, Clannad should be with us in 2003 Q4. I'm sure we've all heard them say things like this before, but they do sound quite sincere this time. The mood among most Key fans at the moment seems to be one of cautious optimism. Square-Enix have also reconfirmed that they are going to release FFXII (or perhaps FF12 - most of the recent official press releases from Square have seen the use of Arabic numerals in the title) in March 2004. There had been rumours a few weeks ago that Square may have been considering the possibility of getting the game in stores in time for the Christmas/New Year sales boom, but the execs seem to have come to their senses.

While I usually find little to comment on in politics, this week has probably been quite entertaining for political spectators. At last, we have a European politician with a level of diplomatic skill to rival that of George Bush. Things are just as interesting across the pond, with Arnie again trying to get a foothold in politics. Remember that bit in the film Demolition Man where Sandra Bullock was explaining the political history of the United States in the early 21st century? Strange how fact often follows fiction...

I was browsing through the site logs the other day. The site generates its own basic stats (click here or on the visitor count to the left to view them), but the Apache logs throw up some much more interesting information. For example, did you know that, at the time of writing, BBI has had 69,505 hits? (That's 'hits' as opposed to 'page views', so is really a meaningless figure but one which looks impressive nonetheless.) More interesting are the search strings people have typed into search engines to locate BBI. In theory, they shouldn't be able to, but AltaVista seems to pay little attention to robots.txt. I intended to remove the restrictions in robots.txt once I had enough content on the site to make it useful - the Osaka shopping guide would be a good start - but I suppose appearing on AltaVista can't hurt. Anyway, the top three search queries were:

Yes, I am being completely serious here. After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that it was probably the BBI log entries regarding Moerin that caused that last one to return a link to BBI. At least I hope that's it. Either that, or there are things about BBI that I don't know. *glares at the webserver*

Following Senator Orrin Hatch's comments about music piracy I posted last time, this news article was quick to appear. ^_^ Not much else to talk about here at the moment. Still fiddling with the map for the Osaka guide thing. I have a moderate interest in space exploration, so I was going to comment on NASA's development programme for impulse engines (the VASIMR to its friends). Following the success of the prototype ion unit on DS1, the folks at NASA seem to be continuing the trend of building more exotic propulsion systems. Unfortunately, I don't have any weblinks though since the website of the On-Board Propulsion Branch of the Glenn Research Centre seems to be a complete mess.

——— Update ———
Indeed, Moerin was to blame for the lolicon entry in my webserver logs. Check Altavista UK's search results for lolicon and you'll see what I mean. -_-;;;

First of all, yes, that is an advert you see up there. I'll explain that in a minute.

Sorry about earlier this week. I'm feeling much better now since the last post I made on Tuesday - I was just feeling a little worn down. I'm sure there will be other occasions when I don't see the world through rose-tinted spectacles, but for the time being I am GenkiSoZ again. ^_^ I also have myself a LiveJournal now. >_> I'm not too sure why, but apparently I needed one. I can feel a strange sensation, like evil feasting on one's soul, but that would seem to be normal for new registrants.

I have been fiddling with BBI a little. Probably the most noticable change is the advert on the front page. No, it's not part of some money-making scheme. Yes, I put it there on purpose. Why? Because I felt like it. I often come across things I like that I feel I should share with the world so that others can enjoy them too. I can write about them here in this log (as I have with all of the adverts currently shown), but I would like to do more to 'spread the word'. That's where the adverts come in. In my opinion, they're not really intrusive and they add a splash of colour to the site. If you have an opinion on the matter, feel free to let me know. I will leave them up for a little while anyway, just to see how they fit in.

In other BBI news, I've been tinkering with the Osaka shopping guide again. I've just rechecked all of the details for the stores listed on the guide and am in the process of finishing off the Nipponbashi map. I don't want to make a promise I can't keep, but there is a possibility I'll get the guide online sometime this weekend or early next week.

What else was I going to ramble about? Oh yes, more humour to be had as a result of the authorities' attempts at combating online music piracy. I'm speaking of Senator Orrin Hatch's proposal to destroy PCs involved in online music piracy. At a hearing in Washington earlier this month, Senator Hatch supported a plan to attempt to remotely damage the machines of file-swappers. "I'm all for destroying their machines." Did I mention he was from Utah? Of course, such practices would be illegal under current laws. It is a little worrying though that the proposals were put forward by a person for whom making changes to the law is their business. "Norton AntiVirus says: Your computer has been infected by the RIAA-datamasher-v1.02 virus. Sorry, but this is a legally sanctioned virus and cannot be removed. I have taken the liberty of locking your keyboard while your data is trashed. Have a nice day."

Volume 7 of Kino no Tabi was released the other week, now available everywhere except places accessible to SoZ. -_- That's not the only thing Kino no Tabi fans have been looking forward to though. In case you didn't know/care, the Kino no Tabi game is in the final stages of development and goes on release next month (July 17th). It will take the form of a visual novel/adventure game (yay!) which pleases SoZ greatly. The visual novel part of the game will consist of a selection of chapters taken from the Kino no Tabi novels, plus one other written especially for the game. With the accompanying visuals, music and voice, the travels of Kino will really be brought to life. Yet another reason to get myself a PS2.

nyaa~~~

Ugh. I feel exhausted again. My short break seemed to work, but the effects weren't long-lasting. Unfortunately, the last few months have not been great ones and coupled with spontaneous health problems, have really worn me down. I'm feeling a little better this evening - the nasty throat thing that had been annoying me over the past few days seems to be clearing up and I am in the company of good friends (thanks to IRC) and a good manga (Dragon). Hopefully I can make the LAC meeting next month too which should serve to lift my spirits.

I should also apologise for the lack of updates. I've not had much time for BBI updates recently, and when I have had time, I've not really been in the right frame of mind to do them. That's not necessarily a bad thing - you're being saved from dozens of potentially bad SoZdoodles. ^^ Anyway, I'm verging on angsting now... which is a bad thing. If I'm not careful, I could end up with a LiveJournal. >_> *shudder*

I've been playing iRO and Nexus when I've had the time this week. AzieƖ is now level 41/30 and is well on her way to becoming a hunter, while in Nexus I can now morph into a purple cat. ^_^

Not much else to say. I could comment on To Heart 2, but everyone who would be interested probably knows about that already by now. No word on a PC release, but I wouldn't be surprised if AquaPlus announce one somewhere down the line. If it's a long way off, I may have to resort to sourcing myself a PS2 that can sit next to the 2nd hand Dreamcast that's already on my list of consoles to obtain. ^^

Yuriko kindly gave permission for the image I spoke about in the previous log entry to appear on BBI, so here it is. Cute, ne? *^^* Visit Yoizuki.com for more YuriArt. I'm sure she'd appreciate any messages or comments left on her TagBoard too. ^_^

Last weekend was good fun, although I felt a little guilty as others were unable to join in due to a heavy workload at the moment. Hopefully everyone will be able to make it next month. Asahiya didn't have volume 2 of .hack//Chibi (Udeden) in stock though, so I was forced to once again return Balmung-sama-less. ;_; Worse, I still ended up spending an obscene amount on random tankoubon and shoujo magazines (JP-Books had the sacred May edition of Nakayoshi with the first chapter of Koge Donbo's new series, Kami-chama Karin - Asahiya only had June's). Before I get started on my main topic for this post, I want to bring to your attention something that Maiko brought to mine earlier. Presenting Acts of Gord, the humorous chronicles of a video game store owner's never ending battle against the stupidity of the public at large. Definitely worth a read if you have time to spare.

Anyway, onto the bit where I ramble at length about something that doesn't interest you. No, really. Go over to Penny Arcade or something. I hear the Fruit Friend 2000 is causing havoc over there again. ... Still here? *sigh* A real glutton for punishment, aren't you. Oh well, don't say you weren't warned.

I first read about Nekoneko-Soft's (Mizu-Iro, etc.) new adventure game, Aka, in Comptiq back in February (in their "Hit Maker 2003" special feature for anyone else who reads Comptiq). At the time, I remember reading about it and thinking that it had the potential to be really quite good, story-wise. Since then though, due to creeping release dates (I think it was originally April) and a lack of media coverage, it had largely slipped from my mind. All that has changed now though. The release date is set six days from now for Friday 13th (I hope they're not superstitious) and the media hype machine is once again whirring away quite happily.

Aka is set around 1000 years ago which puts it in classic RPG territory as opposed to the city suburbs and country retreats of more modern renai adventure games. The desert environment has really allowed the background artists to shine, creating vast walled cities and plenty of beautiful stone architecture. The depth and attention to detail complements the story perfectly, allowing the player to truly be drawn into and feel a part of the game world. The characters are of the usual cute variety Nekoneko-Soft has delivered in the past, although the character art does look more refined than in previous efforts such as Mizu-Iro.

The game itself takes the form of a visual novel. (You should all know by now how much I like the visual novel format.) This should give the scenario writers the room needed to tell the story properly. Unlike the commonly recognised visual novel format in which the image is used as a background onto which the text is overlayed, Nekoneko-Soft prefer what they call the "cinemascope" approach, where the graphics are letterboxed and the text is displayed in the black space at the bottom of the screen. I've always been somewhat sceptical of this approach, believing that it doesn't offer quite the same degree of story telling flexibility as the common visual novel format. It's more like a visual novel forced into the dialogue box of a normal adventure game. Having said that, I don't think story development in this case will be a problem given the time they have had to adapt to the system of storytelling. Then there are the movie cutscenes which have been spliced in at key moments and which also play a large part in driving the story forward.

The in-game music is well above par too, although with I've involvement, I would expect nothing less. Eiko Shimamiya's Suna no Shiro is strangely catchy and now gets multiple daily plays here in SoZville. It's not just the vocal tracks either - from what I've heard so far, the regular BGM is really quite impressive too. A few tracks including various BGM samples, Sunagin (the opening) and the aforementioned Suna no Shiro are available to download from Nekoneko-Soft's download page along with the opening movie. (For those who can't read Japanese, Sunagin is BGM sample 3, Suna no Shiro is BGM sample 6 and the opening movie is the third link down. Sorry, but I feel guilty about directly linking to someone elses files.)

The first edition release of Aka will be released for the PC on June 13th at 8,800 yen. The normal edition will follow a couple of weeks later on June 27th at 6,800 yen. Both versions include a copy of the OST, although the first edition one is apparently gold and more shiny - and therefore obviously better.

Before I go, some other brief game news. NEC-IC announced a while ago that they were planning a release of Episode of the Clovers on the Dreamcast. After a long wait, it's almost here - it should hit stores on June 26th. And now, some genuine red-hot news straight from the source. It turns out that Studio Mebius and NEC-IC have decided to attempt a console release of Mebius' hit renai adventure, Snow - yes, that one I really, really want. Not many details yet, but according to the official announcements, we should see the Dreamcast version of Snow making an appearance some time this Autumn. ^__^

That's all from SoZville for the moment. Now to locate my nearest supplier of 2nd-hand Dreamcasts...

Time for another BBI update, keitai-style. (So brace yourself for plenty of typos and examples of horrifying grammar. ^^) As I said previously, I am currently away, hence the lack of updates and the fact that this one is coming to you from my phone. I should return on Tuesday, so don't expect any major updates until then.

I am currently enjoying my week away from the 'net and work, spending time with my family and so on. It's made a nice change from the particularly hectic period that was the past few months. In fact, this is the first time I've been able to properly relax for over 6 months, so I plan on enjoying it. This evening, I'm off to Windsor to listen to a musical recital in which my cousin is performing. Not normally my cup of tea, but I'm going along to lend my support. Besides, she is enormously (annoyingly?) talented, so it will likely be an enjoyable evening.

Anyway, enough about SoZ. It would seem that while I was away, BBI saw its 1000th visit. Thank you to everyone who has visited BBI over the past 3 months. I think 1000 visits for a site with no real content is pretty good going. ^^;; And a special thank you to Yuriko who both pointed out to me the visit count and drew a nice picture to commemorate the event (which I will try to post here later with her permission). Regarding the (lack of) content situation, I have plans for a few new additions now that I have a little more time to work on the site. The oft promised shopping guide is still not quite ready though (gomen).

In other news, the iRO beta programme has finally come to an end. As of next month, the game will become a paid subscription service. As with the transition from closed to open beta, characters and stats will be moved to the new system intact. However, players will be pleased to hear that this time, items and equipment will also be retained. When paying by credit card, subscription costs around $10 per month, which I feel is quite reasonable for a service of this type. (The exact cost depends on the length of subscription. For credit card payments: 1m $12, 3m $32, 6m $57) Gravity will begin accepting payments from tomorrow. I have decided to continue playing, an experience which I hope will prove much more enjoyable with the much lower user-to-server ratio promised with the subscription service.

Right, thats all from me for now you'll be glad to hear. Ja ne.

I'm tired again. Not the kind of tiredness brought on by lack of sleep but the work/stress-related one that makes you wish you could just vanish for a couple of weeks and hopefully come back feeling refreshed and bouncy. I'm looking forward to meeting up with friends tomorrow and over the next weekend, which should help to lift my spirits. The long-awaited Colindale shop will doubtless help too. I should also add, before I go on, that I will be away-ish over the next week or so. If anything of note happens, I may update BBI, but otherwise it will probably be quite quiet.

Something occured to me the other day - I haven't been gaming much recently. In fact, over this last year, I seem to have been neglecting games somewhat. It's only recently, with the acquisition of a Playstation and the launch of the iRO open beta that I've rediscovered gaming. The screenshot on the left is from Moon Stone's Ashita Deatta Shoujo released on May 30th. Unfortunately, it's rather too ecchi for my taste, but the art is cute and the production values are quite high. I suppose one of the reasons this game appealed to me is that it is in the visual novel format I love so much. This allows for far more detailed, fluid storytelling than a 'standard' renai sim with a text window at the bottom - see any of the Leaf VN games for a good example of a visual novel. All of the characters' lines are fully voiced and the music is also above par for a renai game. There are a couple of demo versions out there for the curious. The official demo can be downloaded from various sites on the download page. Another, more modem-friendly demo can be found at Colorful PureGirl.

Well, SoZworld is fairly dull at the moment - even more so as I've just got back, looked at the IRC channel and discovered that everyone went to bed 10 minutes ago. T_T

Anyhow, I thought I'd bring news of the new Leaf games that were announced last month. Technically, only one of the games is truly "new" as the other two are new versions of old classics. I'll start with the new title first - Tenshi no Inai 12-getsu, due for release in July. I can't say too much about this game since detailed information is still a little hard to come by. Visually, it's all you would expect from leaf. The character designs are cute (almost Key-like in a way - not quite as radically different as those in Routes though) and well drawn. The story promises to be reasonably engaging, but I'm unsure if it will prove more ecchi than more light-hearted Leaf games such as To Heart and Comic Party. The advertisements I have seen so far do suggest this may be the case. It's hard to draw any firm conclusions at this stage, but I will try to keep you informed as information becomes available to me.

The other two games Leaf has in store for us are what many people have been awaiting for quite some time. These are Comic Party DCE and To Heart PSE, the PC ports of the Dreamcast (Comipa) and Playstation (To Heart) versions of these games. As you may know, these two games were originally released on the PC and were adult titles (although refreshingly, the adult parts were infrequent and never got in the way of the story). Later, as Aquaplus grew and developed, these two classic Leaf games were chosen to be ported for a console release. Perhaps "port" isn't a strong enough word. The games were entirely remade from the ground up. New graphics, new sound, new story (non-H, since these games were intended to be suitable for all ages). Now, these games are being ported back to the PC so we can enjoy the new graphics, minigames and other extras we didn't get the first time around. Plus, we get the console versions of the stories, free of the adult scenes of the originals. While I would love to get my hands on these games, there's still something about the original PC versions that makes me feel nostalgic - the 8-bit VGA graphics, the nice cardboard boxes covered with cute art (none of these cheap DVD cases PC games seem to ship in now). Perhaps Key will also take the initiative and decide to convert a console version of Kanon back to the PC. While there was a PC rerelease of Kanon (which removed the one or two H scenes present in the original), the character voices were only added in the DC and PS2 releases. Key isn't really in anyone's good books at the moment though, with the continued delays on Clannad and their unwillingness to divulge any more information concerning possible release dates. Anyway, I'm rambling. Comic Party DCE will be released on May 30th. To Heart PSE will follow shortly afterwards on June 27th. Both games will be shipped in regular and limited editions (which include a collectable phonecard).

Sorry for the lack of updates. When the powers of work and Ragnarok combine, it would appear that I don't have much time left to devote to website updating.

Regarding iRO, I'm still enjoying the game, although I won't be posting any more playdiary-type things here. Instead, they have been relocated to a new temporary home at ITP Online while the main site is being worked on. The game is going well now, although levelling up is proving a challenge.

I don't have much else to say, so I will bore you with random news that you probably already knew and comments you didn't want to hear. I'll start with Atelier Violet, the latest instalment in Gust's ongoing series of RPG fun continuing the adventures in alchemy in the land of Gramnad. Fans of Jun Futaba's fantastic character illustrations will be pleased to hear that he is once again responsible for the game's character designs. If we're lucky, we may even see another Gust Illustrations artbook featuring his work, similar to the one released around the time of Atelier Judie. For those with the bandwidth, the opening is available to download from the site. Atelier Violet will be released for the PS2 on the 26th of June.

Fans of Ragnarok Online (and MMORPG fans in general) should keep an eye on the continuing development of Nexon's Asgard. Since the game is currently in the beta stage and the (469MB) client is freely available to download, it is hard not to draw a comparison with that other popular MMORPG at the moment. Although the new version of the client has been sitting on my hard disk for a while now, I still haven't got around to looking at it due to a lack of time. At first glance, it's not quite up to Ragnarok Online standard (RO is the clear winner in the graphics department with its 3D terrain rendering). However, for true MMORPG fans who can see past the eye candy, I think you'll find a game you can enjoy. I will endeavour to give it a test play at some point, but in the meantime, Softbank Games has a nice overview of the game if you'd like to learn more.

Finally, I'll leave you with some random news from The Register that I found interesting. There have been a number of recent successful attempts to bypass the security/identification devices that governments hope will one day enter everyday use - smartcards, finger print scanners, etc. The techniques used to fool these systems are noteworthy because of their sheer simplicity and highlight the fact that smartcards and biometric identification technologies still have a long way to go. So, from The Register this week, we have hacking with light bulbs, hacking with Gummi Bears and hacking with marker pens. Okay, so the last one doesn't really have anything to do with personal identification, but I enjoy posting anything that spites the RIAA. Besides, if the Mac-eating Key2Audio CD corruption becomes more widespread, I think consumers are well within their rights to protect themselves and their equipment from harm. First there was the planting of viruses on filesharing networks and now this. The RIAA has never been in the business of making friends, but this is starting to get ridiculous.

Time for another not-a-playdiary update. ^^ A fair bit has happened since the last one, so I'll try and cover the main events briefly. Also, you'll be pleased to hear I've cut back on screenshots... a little.

After becoming an archer, AzieƖ continued to level up in and around Payon. After a while I decided it was time to take AzieƖ out past the newbie area (Pay_fild01) to see how she could manage. In doing so, I discovered a new area to level up in (Pay_fild02). This is south of Payon and is home to a large wolf population - a reason I had avoided it in the past. However, wolves are harmless unless provoked. Since many newbies stick to the starting map for leveling up, the monster to player ratio here was much higher making leveling up a far easier task.

After that initial success in venturing further afield, I decided to attempt the trek to the neighbouring port town of Alberta. This turned out to be a fairly enjoyable trek through fairly easy country, with interesting scenery and new monsters to square up against. Alberta itself turned out to be quite a pleasant town, but lacked the vibrant feel of Payon. This was partly due to it's overwhelming lack of population. It would seem that merchant is not a common profession. On the way back to Payon, AzieƖ was savagely attacked by a pack of wolves. As a result, she now keeps at least one teleport item on her at all times. -_-;;

Forgetting the incident with the wolves, I was encouraged by these successes in adventuring to continue journeying to new areas. The next I discovered was a great area for leveling up, just south west of Alberta. There were no wolves to worry about, but there were plenty of spores, allowing AzieƖ to level up much faster and in relative safety. Unlike wolves which hunt in packs (attack one and any others in the vicinity will come to its aid), spores will happily sit around watching while you slay one of their ilk.

AzieƖ has improved considerably and is now level 25/19. Her archery skills are also reasonably impressive as her range and aim now allow her to attack monsters some distance away and even fire down on monsters from safe positions.

There have been many other interesting happenings along the way, but I am sure you're not all that interested and I don't really have time to list them all. As usual, I will leave you with a few screenshots.

	A Yoyo appeared in Payon and went on a brief killing spree before it was taken out by a group effort. Afterwards, we had a game of musical corpses.
	Outside the Merchants' Guild office in Alberta.
	Onboard a ship docked at Alberta.
	The bustling centre of Alberta...
	Falling prey to a pack of wolves on the way back from Alberta.
	A hunter! And the Payon blockade.
	AzieƖ's first wolf!
	En route to level up.
	The leveling up continues.

No SoZ updates so I'll cut to the chase and continue with AzieƖ's Ragnarok Online pseudo-playdiary. ^^

AzieƖ is continuing to enjoy life in Payon. It's a warm forest area in the South East of Rune-Midgard and an attractive environment in which to learn the ways of Ragnarok.

AzieƖ has now completed her basic training, and after a small quest was accepted into the Archers' Guild. She is now well on her way to mastering the bow, although she was sorry to say goodbye to the sword she had loved and spent time and money upgrading. She is currently a level 8 Archer (character level 14) and is learning both the Double Strafe and Arrow Shower offensive skills. My eventual aim is to convert her job from Archer to Hunter (an extension of the basic Archer job type).

I still haven't plucked up the courage to take her far beyond the outskirts of Payon and the "noob" forest area to the south of the town. On the one occasion I did venture into a wilderness area, I stepped out from the map teleport point to see three foolhardy adventurers being shredded by a pack of wolves. The wolves made quick work of the players and then turned their attention towards the newbie. Needless to say, I dived headfirst into the teleport point without waiting to see what might happen.

I also had first hand experience of 'MMORPG sexual harassment' today. A number of female players of other MMORPGs have commented in the past that they often find themselves on the receiving end of crude comments and unwanted attention from male players. If I really want to know what other people think of my "ass", I will ask them, thank you very much.

Onto the screenshots!

	AzieƖ resting by a tree, admiring a curious Willow. Unfortunately, the fact that the Willow was preoccupied meant that its attention was distracted from the sword-wielding youth who entered the picture from the left about five seconds later and reduced it to firewood.
	This character (the girl with the bow in her hair on the right of the picture) caught my attention and was also subject to a brief stint of stalking. She carried no weapons and was enormously strong in hand-to-hand combat.
	Level up! AzieƖ reaches level 10.
	A Fabre about to be minced by this adventuring duo.
	This is the commercial centre of Payon holding a number of stores including those of the all important weapon and armour merchants. Note the merchant with cart. The smiley mask he's wearing is part of an event currently underway in Payon in an attempt to "boost the happiness" of the residents of the town. In addition to looking ugly, it also acts as a defensive item.
	The Engrish in the game isn't too bad. Actually, it's a darn sight better than the majority of those players for whom I know English is their first language. Still, the NPCs can amuse at times. ^^ Not only is Granny perverted, she's apparently blind as well - AzieƖ wasn't a "young man" the last time she checked.
	At the Archers' Guild after being accepted as an Archer and where I received my bow and fetching blue tunic.
	On the grass outside the Archers' Guild, equipping my new bow and arrows.
	Double Strafe, my first special offensive skill. This unsuspecting Willow is about to get a nasty surprise.
	I'm not sure how, but a Golem somehow found it's way to the centre of Payon where it started to wreak havoc. Although predominantly a newbieville, the centre of Payon sees quite a few high-level travellers passing though who were happy to assist. Everyone who could fight chipped in and eventually we beat it. =^^=
	And now, a few of the sights of Payon. These are the steps leading up from the main driveway to the courtyard of Payon Castle, home to the Chief of the town.
	Another view looking towards the bridge. AzieƖ is seated on the bank behind the pub.
	On the road to the Archers' Guild.
	In the woodland to the north of Payon, near to the Archers' Guild. The global messages from the OPs relate to a couple of unscheduled restarts of servers on the Loki and Chaos networks. The RO staff seem friendly, polite and give everyone plenty of warning of impending shutdowns.
	A raised area of open land near the Guild, used mainly as a meeting place. The kit shop is to the left and just off the edge of the screen is the entrance to the Payon caves.
	The approach to the plateau mentioned above.
	After discovering that my bandana was no longer effective as a defensive item at my level, I traded it in for a nice blue ribbon which has a small amount of magic defense. Here's AzieƖ showing it off.
	The centre of Payon during a slightly busier period.

Hmm... maybe I overdid the screenshots a little...

This is it. The end of real life as I know it.

Yes, I finally got my sticky mitts on the International Ragnarok Online client. The download completed at about 4am this morning and I rushed to get it installed as fast as my ATA-133 IDE interface would allow. A couple of minutes later and I was ready to play.

Since I had specified in my profile that I was female, I had to choose a female character. (I have a strange subconscious thing at work in my head that makes me play female characters in most games, probably because in many RPG/adventures, the story often makes them out to be less aggressive than their male counterparts, so I feel closer to the characters. That's the best explanation I can come up with for my strange behaviour so far.) Anyway, I chose "generic female character" with "ponytail" and "red hair" - your initial character customisation choices are quite limited. For stats placement, I tried to balance out everything fairly evenly so as to be as versatile as possible until I have a feel for the game.

Upon entering the game, you must undergo a three stage training process which serves to introduce the player to Ragnarok. This takes about half an hour if you do it properly, after which you are let loose in the Ragnarok world. The final part of the training is a personality test to gauge which job you are most suited to. It determined that I would be idealy suited as an archer, which is the path I eventually chose.

So AzieƖ (for that is the name of my character) is now building up the experience she needs in order to apply to become an archer at the Archers' Guild in Payon. This is achieved through the mindless slaughter of small woodland creatures. I have only died twice so far, although embarrassingly, both times at the hands (paws) of Pythonesque killer rabbit-like-creatures (somewhat aptly called Lunatics). Now that I have purchased a Big Sword™ and have a little more HP, I am taking my revenge on the rabbit population of Payon. I think that's all I can say for now. I'll leave you with a few screenshots I snapped this morning. Hopefully I'll be back in a couple of years... ^^

Nooo... I've now finished all eight episodes of Moerin that have been released to the world so far. Not one cliffhanger in the entire series, apart from episode 8. >_< What perils await Moerin on her journey? Will Moerin-tachi be able to rescue Aoi-chan from the clutches of the evil quizmaster of "Who Wants To Be A Moe-onaire"? (groan) Will the needless fanservice ever stop? Why am I playing this game?

I am now wasting time fiddling with Densha De Go 2 while waiting for the Ragnarok Online English language client to bittorrent its way to me. As well as discovering that I should never, ever be put in control of several hundred tons of locomotive, I have also had a little time to work on the Osaka shopping guide, pushing it ever closer to completion. I'll start on the maps soon in anticipation of a possible upload towards the end of May.

These next couple of days promise to be quite stressful, work-wise, so this could be the end of my run of daily posts. (The 5th consecutive daily log entry!) Nevertheless, I will hopefully make another on Wednesday, although I can't promise I'll have anything to report.

What little time I had free yesterday was spent ploughing through a few chapters of Salad Days (one of my favourite manga series, by Shinobu Inokuma). I'm having to ration myself since Asahiya don't restock very often so what I have is all I'm likely to get for a while. My attention was concentrated on the last three chapters of volume 10, a 3-part story entitled "Diet Love". It's a rather cheesy story - girl asks childhood friend to help her impress new boyfriend, friend falls in love with girl in the process but says nothing, girl runs off with boyfriend, girl discovers boyfriend is evil, girl's friend reappears to rescue her... and they live happily ever after. Yes, it's vomit-inducingly waffy, but I love it. =^^= And Inokuma-Sensei is amazing with a drawing pen. Why can't I draw like that... T_T

Two months of BBI and counting!

I'm still playing/watching Majo-ko Moerin (just finished episode 4 now), so I though't I'd say a little more about it. Firstly, yes, it does become a little more ecchi after episode one. Thankfully, Moerin is still only the subject of numerous panty shots and the recipient of 'suggestive behaviour' from others, but the female Javabots in episode 3 are used as an excuse for random gratuitous nekkidness. >_< Another thing likely to irk some players is the moe-bishoujo nature of the game. For anyone unfamiliar with these aspects of Japanese 'Otaku' culture, the game could be viewed as quite disturbing. However, the game is a comedy and as such is not supposed to be taken seriously.

What IS it about then? In short, it follows the story of Moerin and her younger brother Monkichi on their adventure to the Land of Magic. Along with their lolicon-freak, Otaku sidekick Buucho and bishy super-hacker Shoogo, the pair battle such evils as computer viruses and obsessive collectors. Armed with her Magical Compass, Moerin is able to pull off special mahou moe-moe attacks to destroy her foes (think "Sexy Commando", but with a girl knocking her enemies off guard with a gratuitous panty shot).

No, it's not a great game, but it is humerous (some Japanese ability required) AND it is free, so if you have spare time, bandwidth, and feel you can stomach its unhealthy moeness, you may enjoy it. But for now, it's back to work for me...

In contrast with yesterday, I'm feeling insanely genki today. I think I overdosed on cute earlier this morning. >_>;;

I managed to catch a glimpse of the animated adaptation of Kino no Tabi, based on the novels that, according to Asahiya Shoten, don't exist. (grr...) Given the good things I've heard about the books, I can't see the anime quite matching it for depth, but it's still one I'd like to sit down and watch at some point. The novels would be preferable though, if I can ever find them...

And now for something completely different. [Warning: One or more of the links that follow could lead to pages containing material you may find offensive. Nothing of a horrific nature, but if you're the sort of person who really doesn't like adult doujinshi or bishoujo games, you might want to stop reading now.] ... Anyone still with me? Oh good. Well, during my earlier stint of gallery browsing in order to find cute, I stumbled across Tech Gian's (an adult bishoujo game magazine) web site. After skimming through the page (there are some things there that it's best not to ponder over for too long), I found another link to Tech Gian Online, a pay-per-download site hosted by Famitsu.

This site contains a number of Tech Gian downloads - games, CG collections, etc. The idea is that you pay a small fee (around 400 yen) for each download, which sounds like a reasonable fee for a game. However, one game listed - Majo-ko Moerin - caught my eye. Why? Because it's free, and I can't easily refuse a free game. ^^

The game isn't so much a game as a combination of adventure-simulation game and Flash animation. It was designed with lolicon-loving, bishoujo game freaks in mind so there are Moerin panty shots aplenty. However, if you can live with that, it's actually rather amusing and fun to play. If you have a broadband connection and a little free time (or a modem connection and a lot of free time), click here and download episode 1 (the last in the list - you could start at episode 8 and work backwards, but I take no responsibility for the story not making any sense... not that it makes much sense if you watch it in order >_>;; ). You'll need Macromedia Flash 6 and Windows (it comes packaged in a self-extracting Windows executable) to enjoy it. As a Flash-hating Linux user, this annoyed me somewhat, but I have to say I think it was worth the hassle. ^^

(n.b. I have only watched/played episode 1. It seems reasonably clean so far and there were no age warnings on the site. I don't think it will degenerate into an all-out hentai orgy by the end of the second episode, but the game is described as a "little bit ecchi", so don't say you weren't warned.)

Feeling drained again. Hopefully I'll have perked up by next Wednesday, but until then, don't be surprised if you encounter a less than genki SoZ. Maybe I should buy myself a tazer and zap myself with it periodically to see if it has any energy-boosting effects. ^^;

My brain is worrying me again. I don't know what brought it on, but for some reason I'm contemplating the feasibility of natural language translation using Lambda Calculus. I find the best thing to do in these situations is to just let my brain get on with it and hope the strange ideas eventually work their way out of my system.

As is usually the case, I don't have much to say. So I won't. (Unlike the last time when I bored everyone to tears with that 'dream' thing.) However, I will say a special hello to Kirinji, Lord of Darkness, the 666th visitor to BBI. ^^ Congratulations are also in order to The Fish which celebrates 5 years of web page translating this month.

Wow, what an exhausting week. I had a little time off earlier, but otherwise I've been working pretty solidly.

... Just so you know. I wouldn't want you to start reading this in the hope that it may prove interesting only to end up sorely disappointed.

Some time ago, I was thinking about dreams. Proper "sleep" dreams as opposed to daydreams or the imaginative wanderings of a bored mind. I haven't had a real dream for some time now. I suspect that the demise of my sleep-time fantasies can be traced back to the moment I shunned what most people would call 'normal' sleeping patterns in favour of... erm... the most likely very unhealthy 40+ hour days punctuated by occasional periods of rest that I have now. Anyway, I had recently watched a television programme on advances in the understanding of the human brain. What caught my attention and started me thinking about how this could relate to dreams were the methods used to stimulate areas of the brain using external electrodes and similarly mounted receptors to read responses. The programme discussed conventional uses of new electro-neural interfaces - stimulating damaged areas of a brain in order to encourage growth, teaching stroke victims how to use a functional area of their brain to carry out tasks that would otherwise be carried out by a 'dead area', etc. However, at some point, another use for these electro-neural interfaces occured to me.

In short, shared dreams. Imagine being able to don a headset before you sleep, hook it up to the Internet and enjoy a shared dream experience with friends. Admittedly, this is a rather fanciful vision and the technology required is not quite there yet, but if technological and medical advances continue at their current rate, who knows. Currently, these interfaces are able to influence areas of the brain, but not sense and trigger the impulses in specific neurons without direct physical contact. As such, we would only be able to influence each other's dreams in vague, undefined ways rather than engage in any form of conscious communication. Perhaps that's for the best, given that we are usually unable to control our dreams and their purpose is primarily to fulfil our conscious or subconscious fantasies; if playful 'forward' behaviour developed between you and a close friend, despite you having no intention of doing anything of the sort in the real world, you could find yourself in an awkward situation the following morning. On the other hand, perhaps society will grow to accept such things. Currently, most of us feel our minds are our own. I suspect we would be deeply embarrased if we could read each other's thoughts on occasion. But maybe in the future, shared dreams could become a new, more intimate way of bonding between good friends.

As I mentioned above, the technology to precisely control a mind is way off. Even the idea of influincing the brain may not have the desired effect in many cases, due to different neural mapping between individuals. A pattern of neural activity indicating 'pleasure' in one individual may map to 'fear' in another. It may be possible to overcome this through 'calibration' of each individual's headset thingummy, but I don't want to concentrate too much on the technology that allows the system to work.

Another possibility: What if you could select your dreams? It makes sense that if, by connecting two or more people, they are able to influence each other's dreams, a third party (likely a computer) would be able to do the same. The carrier I envisaged for these signals was the Internet. Imagine, years from now, a host of Internet services that allow you to select your dream from a database of popular offerings. All you would have to do is connect to this service when you sleep and enjoy your chosen experience. Assuming a system that only allows for vague neural influence, these could be "pleasure", "exhilaration", "relaxation", etc. - simple programs that stimulate your brain in order to bring about these sensations. They could sense the feedback from your brain and react accordingly in order to serve you better. In the event that more precise neural interfaces become available, the possibilities for these kind of services are almost limitless. Such a development would have more of an impact on our conscious lives than it would in our dreams (communication, control, total immersion, etc.). However, a type of "total immersion" computer environment that could be predefined before sleeping would be ideal for dreaming. Imagine an MMORPG that you could "play" (although it would not be on a conscious level) with your friends while you sleep. Another of the roles of a dream management system such as this could be to prevent embarrasing situations such as those I cited previously by detecting such signals coming from an individual by either filtering them out or attempting to influence that individuals thoughts through feedback.

There are other possible uses (or in some cases misuses) for a shared dream system. An extreme form of 'dream learning' is one example of an idealistic use of the system. Corporate marketing departments would be sure to take an interest in dreams though, and this is where we start to see the possibility of worrying trends developing. Much as the World Wide Web went from being a network for the sharing of ideas to an outlet for commerce, the dream network could suffer the same fate. Imagine if, in those dream experiences you could select from an online provider, part of the dream was given over to a sponsor's advertisement. The subconsious effect TV and magazine advertising has on people is significant, but to be able to influence the subconscious directly would be a particularly scary development. Unlike in your conscious state, you would be prone, unable to avoid the commercial messages targeted at you. Since the Internet is a public network, there is also the possibility of 'hacking' - not quite on a Ghost In The Shell level, but there are enough similarities for it to be a very worrying concept.

All this means that any dream network would probably be subject to a number of legal constraints. The development of the legal situation surrounding any system of this nature would probably be almost as fascinating to follow the development of as the system itself. I'm not just talking about laws that would apply to companies, would-be-hackers, etc. The extent to which laws would apply to regular users would be the most interesting of the legal aspects of a dream network and would have a profound affect on the dream network and society as a whole. Should we be held responsible for "actions" we take while asleep? If our subconscious contemplates something illegal, what then? Bear in mind that use of the internet is subject to a number of laws in many countries. For example, if two paedophiles linked dreams and engaged in "bad thoughts", could it be argued that they were transferring illegal data over a public network? All of these questions also are also applicable to conscious mind-networking if/when the technology becomes available. Our minds may not be the sancturies they once were if our thoughts become subject to legal constraints.

I'm wandering off the original topic so I'll finish here. I wanted to just talk about the technology with regard to dreams, not conscious thought, but with more precise interfaces that permit conscious communication, there is an unavoidable overlap. Anyhow, my apologies to anyone who had the staying power to read all of that. It was rushed and badly written. I shall endeavour to write about something more interesting next time. ^^;;

No real news as usual. I'm still quite busy so no time for site updates at the moment. I did employ cunning work avoidance tactics earlier which resulted in another horror for you to laugh at, but that's about it.

I see Sega and Namco are considering getting together again. This time I hope they can actually make it work. I would hate to see Sega link up with Sammy and end up going the same way as SNK. It just doesn't seem like a fitting end for the company who brought us the blue hedgehog.

Someone should write a book entitled "Case-modding - Walking the Path to Inner Peace in Style".

There was a computer fair held at the Sports Center yesterday, an event that comes around every two months or so and which gives me the opportunity to stock up on CDR media while poking around amongst the other junk for anything that captures my interest. Sadly, while the attendance at the fair seems to have increased (both in terms of customers and dealers), the ratio of dealers selling nice things to those selling junk has been falling. There were no CDs with a recognisable brand name (I am picky) in sight.

There was, however, a table selling various case-modding components - the usual fayre; big, flashy fans, things that glowed, etc. I had decided a long time ago that such things served no purpose in terms of increased functionality and that I would therefore never bother with them. ... But they were cheap. What caught my eye was a UV cold cathode lamp. I find it hard to resist things that are purply in nature. Particularly if they are shiny and glow. £5 later, I was walking away with a chibi UV strip-light.

By the time I'd reached home, I'd gone over in my head at least a dozen times the moment when all common sense deserted me and I handed over the money. Was the lamp emitting some strange mind-altering waves that had affected my brain? Or did I just let my weakness for cool, shiny, glowy, purply things get the better of me? Twenty minutes later, I had it mounted in Kotoko and all doubt that I had made a foolish purchasing decision flew from my mind.

It was so... PURPLE! (Well, violet actually.) I spent most of the evening just sitting there, gazing at its appealing purple glow. The motherboard's power and standby LEDs created a warm orange glow from the bottom of the case that blended with the purple cascade from above. Occasionally, activity LEDs mounted on the bottom of the Maxtors and the network card flickered, throwing flashes of green into the mix. While I have been known to worry people by sitting and looking at pretty tech for unhealthy lengths of time before, I don't think I've ever given the same level of attention I devoted to this mesmerising display. It was so pretty, and relaxing at the same time. While I can't see it as the solution for world peace, perhaps aesthetic case-modding does have a practical use. Maybe as a way of reducing stress in the workplace. Having said that, the amount of time given over to staring at the attractive light displays could possibly have a knock on effect on productivity.

If I actually had any regard for how others perceive me, I might actually be worried at how "sad" this makes me appear. Luckily, I am not afflicted by such concerns. Having said that, I don't think I'll be doing any more case-modding (not for aesthetic reasons anyway) for some time. For now, I am happy just to sit back and bathe in the purple glow... ^^

A slow day today. After wrestling with lexical analysers earlier this morning, I gave up, screamed and ran off to Leeds to buy trousers. I then spent the rest of the afternoon doing absolutely nothing, which made a rather pleasant change from the hectic week that's just gone.

Oh, and there's a new doodle in the gallery if you're bored.

First of all, if anyone sees someone with the username KaiOne on the Aniverse IRC network, feel free to pass on my gratitude to him/her in the form of hot, flaming death. Don't ask why because you probably don't want to know. The brain-purge is still underway and will likely continue for several months.

I'm afraid there's still not too much happening in SoZworld at the moment. Not noteworthy things anyway. I'm still bogged down in work, so the site is more-or-less at a standstill. I've done a little more work on the Osaka anime shopping guide, but don't expect to see it anytime soon. The only updates you'll probably see over the next month will be these front page logs and the occasional gallery image when I get bored enough to draw something.

I noticed yesterday that Studio Mebius are releasing the Snow Original Soundtrack in a couple of weeks. (I've been forgetting to check the site recently. T_T) It's a smart-looking 2-disc set with a range of BGM and vocal tracks (good news for I've fans) that will probably complement the Image Album in the Comiket pack quite nicely. I also see that they're currently hiring. Anyone in the Osaka area with good Photoshop skills feel like becoming a professional character/background CG artist? ^^ Strange, I hadn't noticed it before, but they're located only about a mile away from where I used to work...

I'm also looking forward to getting my hands on the new Sakura Taisen Kayou Show CD as soon as fate (or Asahiya Shoten) permits. I know they overhyped it a lot this year, but most people seem to agree that it was a good show and I really do like the live Hanagumi performances.

Lastly, some plugging. Although I'm not a great fan of most of Itokatsu Sensei's work (which usually has a 'dark' feel to it and is mainly adult in nature - hence the reason I haven't linked to his homepage here), he does have a nice 'cute' style that he uses occasionally and which I find hard to resist. In addition to a number of cute paper-based manga (Momoshino in Magi-Cu springs to mind), GA Graphics host Nyan Nyan Police and Chelsea, two of Itokatsu's online manga series. If you're stuck for things to do, have a read. It's cute and it's free. What more could you ask for? ^^

After a little hiccup at Easily yesterday and early this morning, Bokeboke Island is back up. Still no word on exactly what happened, but it would appear that all Easily-hosted sites (except the main Easily website) went offline for a while.

Thanks to those who were present for a fun LAC weekend. It was nice to take a break for a few days. Unfortunately, I must return now to more mundane, work-like things. Alternatively, I could bury myself in Magi-Cu Premium for the rest of the evening...

Current mood: Indeterminable ^^
Current music: Maaya Sakamoto - 24 (VIDL-30450)

Hmm, not sure if I want to make that a regular feature. True, I am usually listening to music while sitting at the computer, but my mood is 'indeterminable' more often than not, so there seems little point in mentioning it. If something should happen to cause a sudden and obvious mood change (for example, Key finally releasing Clannad), I am sure it will be quite apparent without the need for a little textual indicator.

Still no exciting news to report on in the life of SoZ. This weekend will be the monthly trek down to London for LAC, enabling me to take a break from work and see everyone again, so I'm looking forward to that. The total time spent on BBI development since the last log entry on Friday probably comes to about 5 minutes and consists of 1 tweak on the gallery feedback page, two new quotes from Black Mage (8-bit Theatre) in the quote/fortune thing on the front page and some minor adjustments to the Tomoko-chan graphic leaning next to the menu.

I was going to write a semi-rant about the impact of PHP5 on LAMP web solutions, but after a couple of paragraphs, I couldn't be bothered to continue. I doubt you would have wanted to read it either. It's just that I can't help thinking that the adoption of a full OO model is a step in the wrong direction for PHP. With Perl, due to common usage away from all things WWW, I can understand the adoption of OO principles. But PHP, while being a powerful language and now offering a command line interpreter in addition to the web scripting interfaces (which I do often use in place of Perl due to ease of development), is still a web scripting language at heart. I can't help but feel that while the OO evangelists are getting their way, the average PHP user may loose out over this move.

It all boils down to implementation I suppose. If PHP5/Zend2 can maintain the fast, fresh feel we've come to expect, I won't have any complaints. If, however, the changes result in a slow, bloated, Java wannabe, then there will be more than a few unhappy users. Compatibility issues will certainly arise (there must be plenty of LAMP developers out there who recall the fun hours spent making their PHP3 code work with PHP4) but as long as the basic language syntax remains the same (apart from the OO features), I doubt it will take long to adjust.

Whoops. That almost became a rant. Apologies for that. Feel free to send any comments, opinions, questions or flames you might have. ^^

Hooray! BBI is one month old today! Since the site was launched in February, it has admittedly been a rather short month, but it's a month nonetheless. In the time the site has been online, it has notched up over 400 visits (the 400th was actually earlier today) and a total of over 2000 page views. >_>;;; I'm not sure why, since there isn't really anything on the site at the moment. Even when I get around to putting content up, I doubt there will be much of interest.

So, back to the roadmap. As I originally predicted, I haven't done too much to the site this month. There have been occasional tweaks here and there and the MinamiCon 9 photos, but no large updates to the content. The Osaka shopping guide is next on my list of things to add to the site, but due to my workload over the next few months, I can't give an exact date. I will aim to have it up sometime in the next two months, but I can't make any promises.

Barring the development of any unforeseen situations which may keep me from the site, these log entries will keep on coming though. I am sorry for the lack of interesting topics of conversation so far. A side-effect of my lack of time to do anything interesting in. ;_;

Apologies to everyone for last night. FrF made me sleep...

Very little to report again. Maybe I should wait at least a week between each of these log entries? At least then, something vaguely interesting might have happened in my life for me to talk about. I spent the morning dithering between work and fiddling with things on BBI. One or two more minor modifications have been made to the site, but no big updates. However, I have dumped a new image I drew and CG'd in one of the more unproductive moments I had this morning into the gallery for your viewing "pleasure".

Sorry for the lack of updates. I haven't got the time to work on anything on the site at the moment. However, while sorting out junk on the fileserver, I did find a few photos taken at MinamiCon 7, so I may try to stick them up on the events page at some point.

The only change I've made to the site has been a little tweak in the CSS to remove the dotted underscore from items in the menubar when the site is viewed in Mozilla. The reason for the underlining in the first place is that each menu item has an associated <ACRONYM> tag containing a short description of the page. This generally appears when you hover over the link with your mouse. By default, Mozilla highlights acronyms with a broken underscore, but this just had the effect of making the menus look messy.

Another tiring day. The weather has been noticably sunny and spring-like since the Vernal Equinox, even reaching Huddersfield which is usually enveloped in its own weather system of grey wetness. Unfortunately, I've been working solidly this weekend, and the only time I ventured outside was on a quick trip to the supermarket to restock on bodyfuel and other essentials.

Kotoko also had some problems this weekend when the thermal cutout on one of the hard drives tripped twice. The drive was generating far more heat than it should have veen (I suspect dodgy bearings) and being sandwiched between two other drives didn't help air circulation. After jiggling the drives in the bays around a bit and wedging an old fan taken from a Socket 7 heatsink in between the two Maxtors, the temperature has dropped significantly. It's not a perfect fix and the new fan sticks out the side of the case by an inch or so, but it will do the job until I can sort the ventilation out properly.

As I predicted, I didn't post many updates this week due to being busy with other things. This trend is set to continue for a little while yet so please bear with me a little longer. ^^;;

I have added one new picture to the gallery though. I got exceptionally bored this evening and decided I would take a break from work and do something completely unproductive instead. Unfortunately, the result is terrible, so don't bother going out of your way to take a look.

I considered posting about a number of current affairs and politically oriented topics today; namely the Iraq situation and the continued drive in China towards globalisation through the opening up of the .cn TLD to foreign organisations. However, I decided not to in the end. Firstly, I can't be bothered to write it, and secondly, I doubt there are many people out there who would want to read it.

So instead, I'll inflict upon you something even worse than my dull ramblings. MinamiCon 9 photos! =^^=

A friend remarked earlier today that I had been in rather a "strange mood" lately. This is nothing out of the ordinary as I am rarely in what could be considered a 'normal' mood. ^^ However, I take this to mean that I was in a stranger mood than is 'normal' for me.

It's nothing to be overly concerned about. I've been under a bit of pressure lately, with fast approaching project deadlines and a project that's doing its best to keep me from meeting them. I've also been giving some thought to my life in general, particularly with regard to employment over the next couple of years or so. All this has resulted in slightly increased stress levels in SoZ. I try my best to be happy, GenkiSoZ online and in person instead of depressed, AngstySoZ. While sitting on negative emotion is probably not a healthy thing to do, it seems better than the alternative of unleashing my frustrations on other people. However, this stress can occasionally manifest itself in "strange moods", when I overcompensate for my depressed state of mind by trying to be extra genki on the exterior.

To summarise, please excuse any strange behaviour on the part of SoZ over the next few weeks. Also, due to my workload over the same period, expect BBI updates to be few and far between for a while. I'll try and add log entries as and when I get the time, but the gallery may be a little neglected and the Osaka Anime Shopping Guide is unlikely to put in an appearance for a couple of months yet.

Please bear with me. Normal service will (hopefully) resume shortly. ^^;;

Not much time for site updates I'm afraid. I've added a new section in the links page to link to the sites of a few friends. If there's a problem with the link or I forgot to add you and you think you should be on the list, let me know.

I also stuck a new doodle in the gallery, which isn't really worth a look, but it's there nonetheless.

Lastly, congratulations to Makkers for being the site's 200th visitor! =^^=

Tsukareta... z_z

After getting back from MinamiCon at about 2:30am yesterday morning, I had a few hours kip before the day began. It was nice to get away from everything for a while. I took no work with me over the weekend, which meant that I had some catching up to do today, but also that I could just forget about work and relax for a bit for the duration of the con. Next year, I might see about getting the Monday off as well, so I can travel back in a more leisurely manner instead of trying to zoom back home on Sunday night/Monday morning.

I was planning to post a concluding MinamiCon post when I got back, but having re-read the logs I posted over the weekend, I see little point. I think I covered more or less everything I would have said in those posts. However, I will still post a summary of the weekend at Anime.org.uk later today if anyone wants to read it.

I've just made a few modifications to the website. Previous front page log entries are now readable on the log history page - see the link underneath these log entries. I've decided that I'm going to leave the front page displaying the last 5 log entries for the time being though. It makes it easier for anyone who doesn't check the site often (and to be honest, why would you want to) to catch up on what's going on. Plus, it makes the front page look bigger and more impressive. ^_^ I've also fixed a few bugs on various pages and done a little cleaning up.

I'm back!

zzzzzz~~

The coldest place on Earth is York station at 12:30 in the morning. The trains have been running well, but I'm now doing my usual hour wait at York station for my connecting train. York station doesn't have any indoor waiting rooms open at night (for security reasons) and the shape and direction of the roof turn the station into a virtual wind tunnel. *shiver* Luckily, it's quite mild today and I'm wearing 3 coats that I'd packed specifically for this moment. Not much longer to wait now though.

All good things must come to an end I suppose. I am writing this while sitting on the train back to London from Southampton. The weekend has been a very enjoyable break from the usual routine and many thanks to those who devoted time and effort to make the convention a success.

Anyway, a quick summary of today's events. I popped up to the art room as I had originally intended. It was more or less a shrine to the work of Niki Broughton which pleased me greatly. There are perhaps three or four manga artists / character designers in the UK that I really appreciate, and Niki is one of them. The rest of the day was spent hopping between the dealers' room and the video rooms. The closing ceremony was at 3pm, after which we camped in video room 1 while the convention wound down. It was another cheap day in the dealers' room with £10 going on 8 volumes of Marmalade Boy. There didn't seem to be much in the dealers' room that caught my eye.

I'll post a proper log and tidy up these keitai logs tomorrow. I may or may not post another keitai log before then. It depends on how bored I get on / waiting for the GNER to York. Ja ne.

Egads!! I've just encountered an early morning Dragon, and it was certainly not a pretty sight. (j/k)

Well, I'm now in that period of time between breakfast and the start of organised con entertainment at 8:30. I'm going to try to get into the art room in a short while, but that depends upon someone getting up and opening it. Haibane Renmei will be showing in video room 1 at 9:30, so I may camp in there for most of the day except for occasional trips to the dealers' room.

Oh, and I just noticed the visitor counter has passed 100 visits. Thank you for taking the time to visit BBI. I hope I'm not boring you too much. =^^=

Well, it's 5:30am and I'm sat in video room 2 at MinamiCon with Phoenix and RallyIV watching the various oddities that the video program contains at this time in the morning. Currently we're watching Quartet, a strange film directed by Joe Hisaishi, a man probably better known for his film soundtracks. Also in tonight's program were Versus, a martial arts horror comedy (an odd mix of genres that produces... interesting results) and Millennium Actress (a great film and the first time I've seen it all the way through).

As you may have noticed, FrF was responsible for the previous log entry, although it's still signed SoZ as I hard-coded that since I never expected anyone else to post on BBI. ^^;; I'll fix that when I get back. Anyway, I think FrF updated you with a few of yesterday's highlights, so I won't say much more. I will just tease one potential reader in particular by adding that Miroku did look really good in his costume. (Yuriko: We have the photos! Now, how much are they worth? ... ^_^)

Yesterday also saw ... [*is temporarily distracted by 4 people playing violins in front of a herd of cows in Quartet*] ... *ahem* Sorry. Yesterday also saw the usual trip to the dealers' room. I lacked the patience to queue, so waited until about 10:15 before trying to enter. Assuming I don't go on a mad plushie buying spree tomorrow (sorry, today even), this will probably be my cheapest MinamiCon ever. So far, I've only purchased 2 CDs, 23 tankoubon, 4 plushies and 2 doujinshi.

As soon as the film finishes, I think well head off to breakfast and watch some random anime before hitting the dealers' room again. Stay tuned!

(Update: Corrected the sig on FrF's post)

Update from FrF: Just seen the masquerade and auction. Highlights include a Miroku cos-player (complete with jangly staff - don't you wish you had come now, Yuriko), near life size (with removable clothing, of course) Sailor Moon statue that sold for £150, and "Dejiko's Game of Life".

Hmm... I should probably read my log entries before submitting them in future. I've just checked the one I wrote yesterday morning and those typos are horrific. >_< Using this phone to update the site works, but it's not the easiest of things to do.

I finally got to MinamiCon after much fun on the London underground. Someone kindly decided to throw themselves under a train as I arrived at Kings Cross leading to the evacuation of the station and therefore much fun with buses for me. The trains down to Southampton were running well though, so I finally arrived at MinamiCon shortly after 3pm.

The opening ceremony was possibly the shortest ever for a MinamiCon, although Dragon and co. did look rather exhausted so it's not too surprising. After that, most of our time was spent watching favourites such as Azumanga Daiou and Gravitation. Everyone's having an early night tonight in order to join the queue for the dealer's room as early as possible.

I'll update again later today to let you know if any exciting purchases were made. Until then, take care.

Hooray! Another victory for the great British public transportation system. I'm now on the 09:19 GNER service from Wakefield Westgate to Kings Cross. It was a close call though. The first train I caught that connects with the GNER service was running about 5 minutes late. These trains share the same platform at Wakefield and there's a 3 minute window between the platform allocation times. -_- Thankfully, the driver 'stepped on it' and managed to arrive in Wakefield late, but within the allocated platform time. MinamiCon, here I come!

Since I'm not at my computer at the moment, I'm testing a system I quickly threw together on Wednesday that should allow me to update BBI, keitai-style. I performed a litte bit of testing, but I'm not sure how reliably the system will perform in the field. I guess I'll only know when I get back on Monday. Anyway, this should hopefully allow me to post regular MinamiCon updates over the weekend, although this is dependent on how long it takes for me to become annoyed with adding these log entries on a numeric keypad. ^^;;

Regarding the site, I've noticed quite a few bugs here and there (3 on the gallery comments submission page alone). I'll try and update the affected pages when I get back next week. If you spot any bugs before then, please let me know about them.

MinamiCon 9 is now only a day away! I've just been checking that I have everything I need for the weekend. Nearly set now, I think. The GNER tickets from here down to London arrived yesterday. This is the regular route I use to get down to London for LAC meetings, so I am aware of how unreliable it is. I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope that all goes well, or I might not arrive at the convention before the opening ceremony. Aside from that, I just have packing to contend with, which I will leave until this evening.

Not much progress on the website side of things as you can probably see. I modified the display of this front page log slightly. First of all, there's a little NEW-->OLD arrow thing on the left hand side. Normally, it would be obvious from the dates, but if I ever post three times in one day (yes, perhaps a little unrealistic), it will make the order clearer. I suppose I could add a time to each log entry as well as the date, but I think that would just make it seem more cluttered.

Also, until I get some sort of log history page up (it'll only take a few minutes to write, so I'll probably do that sometime next week), I've increased the number of log entries on the front page from three to five. I'll probably change it back to three once the history page is up.

Here's something you may find amusing. A couple of hours after BBI launched on Friday, an email from Easily (my domain registrar) arrived in my inbox. The email was to remind me that my rights to the domain were about to expire and that further payment was due if I wished to continue using it. ^_^;;;; Yes, it's been almost a year since my initial registration of the domain and only now have I finally started using it. Ooops...

I remember when I first had the idea to start a website like this last year, sitting (or rather standing) on the train coming home from work. The night before, I'd spent an hour or so translating a chapter of a manga in Magi-Cu Premium, and I wondered if I could share this on the web. (Originally, one of my ideas for BBI was to use it to host these "scanlations". This was before I realised I have practically no time to do them on a regular basis. Besides, most of the series people want to read are already being translated by fans with far more time on their hands than I.) So, that night, I sat and thought about what I could do with the site and also tried to come up with a name. Through a very technical scientific process which involved writing down a list of names that popped into my head and choosing the one that sounded less silly than the others, I settled on Bokeboke Island. There were about three candidates, but I don't remember the other two.

The next day, at work, I registered bokeboke.co.uk. And that's more or less it. There was a survey about the website I put up after registering the domain, and there have also been one or two holding pages over the year. But apart from that, the domain has been sitting idle.

Until now that is. I can't promise BBI will be a hive of activity, but I will try and make sure it has some semi-regular updates. I discussed my long-term plans for the site a couple of days ago, and I will try to stick to them as best I can. Anyway, I must slink off now and reply to this email from Easily, otherwise BBI might not live long enough to see any of those long-term plans realised. ^^

There. My first image in the gallery. It's a quick airbrush-coloured version of the concept sketch I drew for the CG of Tomoko-chan I'm working on at the moment. The Tomoko-chan graphic at the top of this page is taken from a preliminary version of the CG image.

Okay, so it's not great, but I feel better now that I have something in the gallery. ^^ Hopefully I can increase the number of images in there over time.

Well, there we are. I've finally managed to get BBI online. And it's only taken... how long now? -_-;;;;

Anyway, it's done. I'm sure over the next few days or weeks, there will be a couple of bugfixes that need to be made and the odd typo rectified, but the core of the site is more or less complete. As it stands, the front page is complete, as is the FAQ (although I plan on extending it), the gallery (except that it's imageless right now), the contact/feedback page and the links section. The next thing I plan to work on is the Osaka Shopping Guide which is still lying on my hard disk half-written. Other things that I'll try and do over the coming weeks include tidying up the FAQ and adding a few more links to the links page.

In the long term, I hope to populate the gallery with a reasonable number of my pictures, although that's rather dependent on me finding the time to draw them. I'd also like to put up a few pages on learning the Japanese language, with a list of links to various useful resources and recommended reading materials. I'll also include a special section on practicing Japanese through reading manga, again with a list of recommended books (or in this case, series) to read. The links section too is something I hope to expand upon. I've been toying with the idea of making a link list, much like HML, but in English, to compile a huge list of sites, not just of artists and mangaka, but also of anime/game music composers, anime studios, etc. It would take a while to do, but is something that I personally would find useful and believe many others might too. If successful, it would also help to boost BBI as a site.

The front page of BBI is designed function in a similar manner to a blog. That doesn't mean I promise to update it regularly, but it will be more than just a list of site updates. Currently, it will only display the last three entries, but I plan on adding a history function sometime in the near future.

Lastly, there's Tomoko-chan, the BBI mascot. You can see currently see her at the top of the front page and also standing next to the menu bar. You may have already noticed that I only have one picture of Tomoko-chan at present, hastily CG'd for the site launch. I hope to draw a few more Tomoko-chan images and scatter them around the site in appropriate places. The one by the menu bar will probably be the next one I change - perhaps to have her leaning against the side of it... Anyway, I'll work on that later. In the longer term, I have a few ideas for things to do with Tomoko-chan. There will doubtless be images in the gallery, but I also forsee the possibility of a Tomoko-chan doujinshi at a future MinamiCon. I'm not sure if anyone would buy it though. Being a catgirl, it would have been nice if I could get one ready for MC9, but I've been sooo busy as of late, it just hasn't been possible.

So, I think that pretty much sums up what I see as the purpose of BBI, both now and in the future. My ideas are continually changing though, so don't be surprised if I forget everything I've just talked about here and do something completely different two months down the line. Whatever happens, I hope that I can contribute something through this website that others may find useful. If you have any amazing ideas for things to do with the site, why not let me know. *points to 'Contact' on the menu* ^^

That's all for now. Thanks for reading and take care. =^^=