Fake consoles

http://www.hongfire.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35904&page=1&pp=10

Lots a wierd designs there O_o

MP3 player playlist!

Here’s my MP3 PLayer’s playlist for those interested. All of them are anime related at the moment. Recommend me some good anime songs

1) Yasashii Yoake (.hack//sign) by See-Saw — Sounds pretty exotic, for some reason reminds me of Suikoden the game.

2) Soyokaze no Harmony (Da Capo) by Yui Horie — I just like listening to this song alot, probably one of the best songs IMO in my playlist

3) HITORI no Yoru (Great Teach Onizuka) by Porno Graffiti — I just ran across this recently. Pretty nice song, Prono Graffiti is the one that sang Melissa from FMA. I like the singer :p

4) Sonzai (Da Capo) by CooRie — I might get more songs written by this author.
A pretty soft song, very nice to listen to. I don’t really know which part of the song I like, maybe the whole thing overall?

5) Haru Da Mono (Love Hina) by Yui Horie — I find this song rather cute without being horrible to listen (Neko Mimi Mode was…really troublesome to listen to despite its ‘cuteness’)

6) Tobira no Mukou e (Full Metal Alchemist) by Yellow Generation — This is a really nice song. Can’t really say much about it, it’s just really great to listen to.

7) Sakura Saku (Love Hina) by Hayashibara Megumi — Catchy

Distance (Gundam SEED) by Nami Tamaki — great chorus, fast and catchy. Probably one of the best songs in my playlist.

9) Northern Lights (Shaman King) by Hayashibara Megumi — O_O This song is the complete opposite of the mood Sakura Saku was sung (same singer). It is more packed with power and force. Dammit, why no one recommend me this song before I found it =/

10) Sakura Saku Mirai Koi Yume (Da Capo) by Yozuca — A pretty okay song in my playlist. It’s still great to hear because of the chorus.

11) Rewrite (Full Metal Alchemist) by Asian Kung-Fu Generation — The only reason this song is in is because of the beat and the chorus. I don’t find the verses very appealing at all though.

12) Catch You Catch Me (Cardcaptor Sakura) by Gumi(?) — Catch you Catch me is…well…Catchy and flooded with kawaii-ness. How could you not have this song if you are an anime fan? It sure lifts your mood on a bad day.

13) Pacem in Terris (Shaman King) by Yui Horie — I find this song a little bit intriguing. The bass beat got me hooked pretty fast. The chorus beat is nice, although simple.

14) Over Soul (Shaman King) by Hayashibara Megumi — Once again, another song packed with power. It is tied with Northern Lights in terms of overall goodness. Like Northern Lights, I really liked this song. She’s probably my favourite singer because of these few songs.

15) Harmonia (Naruto) by RYTHEM — Made by the (imho) best rythemic band in anime history. It’s a rather soft song, slow but sweet. Soft, slow, sweet…hmm…

16) Invoke (Gundam SEED) by T.M Revolution — I dunno why I placed this song in. I don’t really like it alot, but it is rather acceptable. Probably the wicked beat -.-

17) Melissa (Full Metal Alchemist) by Porno Graffiti — Probably one of the best chorus in my playlist. Like HITORI no Yoru, I like the singer.

18) Innocence (SHUFFLE!) by Hashimoto Miyuki — Rather touching song, and I’ve seen the animation for this song, which makes it even more appealing to me…

19) Comet Cloud (?) by RYTHEM — I always wanted this song because of it’s great chorus and woot! I have it

20) Platinum (Cardcaptor Sakura) by Sakamoto Maaya — There is a fairly good build-up towards the chorus in this song, and the melody is pretty much to my liking.

21) Let me be with you (Chobits) by ROUND TABLE — To be frank, I find this song a little annoying, maybe because I was unlucky enough to hear it 3 alternative times in a row. I haven’t got much to comment about this song other than the possibility of taking it out of my playlist.

22) Mirai no Melody (Da Capo) by CooRie — It is somewhat alike to Sonzai, only that the chorus is a little better imho.

23) Seishun KyousouKyouku (Naruto) by Sambomaster — BEST CHORUS EVAAA

24) Sleepless Night (Slayers) by Hayashibara Megumi — well, it’s pretty much the same as the other two songs I’ve written sung by her. Only that this was a duet. I’ll have to find the name of the other singer, but the main singer is her.

25) Smile Smile (Love Hina) by Yui Horie — Er…the chorus is irritating but I liked the verses so…*shrug*

26) D-Tecnolife (Bleach) by UVERworld —Soooo much better than its previous opening song.

27) Sakurairo no Kisetsu (Da Capo) by Yozuca —BEST CHORUS EVAAA….no wait, it’s taken…well then, SECOND BEST CHORUS EVAAA!!!

28) Realize (Gundam SEED) by Nami Tamaki — Great beat and melody. I was once addicted to this song for period of time. Too bad the version I got was a bit soft.

29) You! (SHUFFLE!) by Yuria — I kinda reminded me of Sakurairo no Kisetsu for some reason.

30) Kesenai Tsumi (Full Metal Alchemist) by Nana Kitade — or is it ‘Kesunai’? Anyway, this song got very good chorus and beat. The chorus is pretty short but I like it.

31) For Fruits Basket (Fruits Basket) by Yui Horie — God this is a nice soft song. IT’s hella soft and sweet. So damn soft that I can hardly believe this is an opening song, but still nice to listen to.

32) Be for you, Be for me (Naru) (Love Hina Again) by Yui Horie — It has the little intrigue in Pacem in Terris sung by the some person. One of the better overall songs in my playlist.

33) Ignited (Gundam SEED) by T.M Revolution — It’s the same as Invoke, only that it’s chorus is 10x better than Invoke.

34) Haruka Kanata (Naruto) by Asian Kung-Fu Generation — Those who watches Naruto and its 2nd opening has no reason NOT to love this song. The animation fits the song soooo darn well.

35) Tobira wo Akete (Cardcaptor Sakura) by ANZA — Catchy chorus, I like this chorus better than Catch You Catch me.

36) Kanashimi o Yasashisa ni (Naruto) by Little by Little — Very very fast. I remember googling for the site of the author, but I can’t remember what she looks like.

Anyway, that should be it for my mp3 playlist. 1st part of the D&D campaign’s story should be up soon once I make the minor adjustments. And see you in SK!

Mujuushin Kenjutsu

You know Jin from Samurai Champloo and his kenjutsu style? Here is a nice wordy webby I found about Mujuushin Kenjutsu: http://www.spookhouse.net/angelynx/comics/no-abiding-mind.html

For those who are lazy, from the above link…

“One definition of mujushin is “spirit in continuous motion” like clouds in the wind, or flowing water.”

“When every other school of kenjutsu taught its students how to conquer an opponent by strategy, swift response, strength, or shrewd foresight–or any combination of these–the Mujuu taught that one should not even react to one’s opponent; that to treat the art of swordfighting as a mode of combat was a corruption of its purity, a descent into crude bestiality. “

“Sekiun Goroemon Harigaya –founder and first master of Mujushin kenjutsu
Ichiun Odagiri –Sekiun’s heir, second master
Mariya-tsu Enshiro Gikyoku (a/k/a Mariya Enshiro, Mariya Enjiro)–third and last known master”

*NOTE* Mariya, in Samurai Champloo the anime, is Jin’s master.

“In terms of actual combat, one must know the enemy and oneself; one must make the enemy conform to one’s own will. At the same time, the swordsman’s spiritual state should encompass both the serene benevolence of Zen and constant flexibility, enabling one not to become totally absorbed or attached to anything in this world”

“Merging real history with Champloo’s plotline, we can theorize that Sekiun-sensei would have been headmaster from his creation of the Mujuu in c. 1640 until his death in 1662, Ichiun from 1662 to sometime in the 1670s, and Mariya Enshirou from then until approximately 1675, when he met his death on the sword of his star pupil and would-have-been fourth headmaster, Takeda Jin.”

Dragonshard

This post is more or less my impression on the new D&D RTS/RPG game that I bought that was just released a week or so ago.

Unlike C&C or Warcraft, this game does not feel like an RTS. There are many aspects that makes it not an RTS, which would be further explained later. At the same time, it feels RPGish, yet it is nothing like NWN or any RPG for that matter. That’s why it’s a RTS/RPG.

Resource Gather
All RTS’s have some sort of ‘gold mine’ in their game. Warcraft was gold mines, Warload Battlecry was mines, Starcraft was those crystal fields/refinery thingy which can only be gathered by worker units. In Dragonshard, however, you do not have a worker unit at all. Resources are gathered by your combat units.

There are 3 types of resources: Dragonshards, Gold and Experience Points. Dragonshards and Gold is needed to build buildings and units. XP is needed to level up your units. Dragonshards are (usually) found on the surface world. Every now and then, there will be this storm thingy that sends these shards crashing onto the surface, replenshing the map’s dragonshard resource.

Gold is mostly found in the Underworld. Killing ‘random encounters’ in the Underworld will yield gold. Gold can be found in heaps or chests. If there is a locked chest, you will need a rogue to pick its lock. The higher level the lock, the higher your rogue’s level is needed to pick its lock.

Exp is simply gained after defeating your enemies.

Units
In Warcraft 3, your army would probably consist of 30 gargolyes, 30 huntresses, 10 shamans/10 witchdoctors or a hell lot of siege tanks. In Red Alert or Generals, you mass all kinds of tanks or aircrafts. Basically, you just mass and mass.

In Dragonshards, you can’t really mass with your really low population limit. Dragonshard units are broken down into 4 types: Champion, Juggernaut, Captains and soliders( can’t remember the name).

Champions are your humanoid…well, something like being level 30+ in D&D. They have 3 types of abilities: Global passive, Global activate, Activate. The Global active skills requires you to output a certain amount of damage on the battlefield before using it. These abilities can really change the course of battle. Like the Order’s Paladin Champion can cast Mass Heal, an ability can heals ALL your units in the game. The damage output thingy is there so that you wouldn’t see people hiding their champions at home just to cast those spells.

Juggernauts are your…well…CR Rating 30 monsters that you can control. They mostly have area attack and they, like champions, can easily change the tide of the battle. Juggernauts, however, are flying units and thus cannot enter the Underworld. In fact, all flying units cannot enter the underworld.

Captains are your…er…level 5 n00b hero. They got special abilities like champions, but in order to upgrade/get other abilities, you will need to level them up, up to the level cap of 5. Their level 5 ability is pretty scary. For example, the Order’s Ranger can learn Snipe, which can do a fuckload of damage from afar. Focus fire on my hero, it’s gg for him/her/it. When your captain levels up, they can train their own soldiers (if you are near the Nexus, which will be explained later). Soldiers are merely nothing but walking shields for your captains so I wouldn’t go in depth about it.

Building
Your base is The Nexus, where you build your own buildings to produce units. The Nexus is surrounded by walls and towers that can be upgraded. In the Nexus, there are 2×2 squares at the north, south, east and west of your Main building. The Main building allows you to build Champions and Juggernauts.

The arrangement looks something like this:
[ ][ ]
[ ][ ]
[ ][ ]K K[ ][ ]
[ ][ ]K K[ ][ ]
[ ][ ]
[ ][ ]

K = Keep
[ ] = spaces

Level up works this way: You choose a type of captain, you level up, all captains will then be at that level. At first you can only level up to 2 with one building which produces that captain type. For example, if you have one Lorehold, you can only level your Clerics up to level 2. To reach higher levels, you must build another Lorehold ADJECENT to the first Lorehold. 3 Loreholds make level 4. 4 Loreholds make level 5. Then you have monuments which grants bonuses to units produced by buildings built near it, etc.

That’s all the info I can give about the game. Buy Dragonshards! =D

Back!

Yep, I’m finally back, only to see my SK account go kaput (wtf =/)

The training was pretty…interesting. Our instructor, thankfully, was a nice guy, although he gets rather fierce at times when we don’t do things quickly. Lol, it’s amazing how much I learnt over 3 days compared to all the kendo training before this camp combined. I get to hit live targets over and over again. I remember when I first joined kendo, I wished to hit a live target and when I finally get one, I held back and did not hit with all I got. Now I can do ‘do’ cuts properly :p I think it would be my favourite hitting spot in a shiai. Don’t tell anyone that.

It’s funny that you feel the pain after and before a training, but not during the training. for some reason, all the pain that I have before I went into my first attack of the training got washed away once I prepare the stance called Chudan no Kamae. Our instructor is, as our seniors said before, very strict on basics. He keeps talking about this Ki Ken Tai No Itchi (spirit, sword, body
in one) where the cut, the body and the spirit focuses into one point when you make an attack.

I found this pretty simple site for kendo while googling.

(http://www.isu.edu/~jon/kendo/technique.html)

Have fun.

Camp

Going off for a kendo camp tomorrow and will be back by Saturday. Until then, there will not be any updates

I’m Back!

Well, it’s bee a long time since I’ve updated my blog, but I’ve been really busy or lazy to do so. So many things happened then: Wei Lian won Project Superstar, projects, DS, etc.

About Wei Lian, I don’t really want to talk about it. That bastard won because of sympathetic votes. All because he can play guitar and walk around blind, people voted for him. It’s rubbish.

Finally, I managed to get a DS before the project term starts. I had loads of fun playing Jump Superstars with my friends wirelessly. That game was so fun with multiplayer…I can camp one spot readying a chidori, throw spirit bombs from the sky and pushing people from out of the ring. The money spent with worth it :p

About the final year project, I don’t want to type anything about it either. I was the group leader, with *great* group members, so great 85% of the programming was done by me. Presentation wasn’t good either, I was down with a slight fever and wasn’t thinking straight. Many of us apparently misunderstood the meaning of ‘hard coding’, including me. Bah, I can only sit and wait here.

I’m really really free right now, although I’m carrying a depressed feeling around because of the recent project. Tomorrow will be the start of hardcore kendoing. The entire week will be dedicated to that because of the upcoming 3 day camp.

John and yz just came back from Thailand! But I was too depressed to talk to the at that time…but I made an effort to talk to YZ though; heard they bought a katana for me O_O;

Anyway, thanks for the present :p when it comes.