July 14: Produce!
Today I got up at around 9:30 and took a shower before heading out to get breakfast. Since my "weekend" is actually in the middle of the week, I was able to go to the greengrocer that's never open! I got 5 plums, a bunch of bananas and three good-sized carrots for 450円. I then went to the Yokosan and restocked on senbei and milk and got 2 korokke for breakfast (they cost 67円 instead of 50円 today). I very much enjoyed having fewer korokke and more light food for breakfast, and I think my body liked it too, as I felt pretty darn good all day. I had a nice chat with Mom and Jiuna and after that I played some StarCraft with Kevin. Unfortunately I really, really sucked. >_< I'm not sure if it's the whole not-playing-for-a-month thing, or if it's the difference in keyboard/mouse/monitor, but I was amazingly terrible. D:
After getting my teeth kicked in by Kevin, I headed out to Akihabara for the day to play some SINGLE PLAYER GAMES. ;D Actually I tried my hand at 3rd Strike against people who were much better than me, but I fared much better than I thought I would. The players I typically play with, and as it turned out the ones at least a little better than them as well, have very lopsided game skills. They can do these great combos and can parry stuff like crazy, but I can often get them to around half life just by poking. If I could learn how to capitalize on a damn knockdown, I'd be golden! >_< The same goes for Melty Blood. The players I play against can do 3000+ damage combos, but they are so damn predictable that the only reason I lose to them is because I get less than a third of the damage off a clean hit. Please keep in mind that I am playing against people who are really, really terrible (like me).
I went to Yellow Submarine (a hobby shop) in search of Dominion, but it is so not even the right kind of store. >_< They've got like, figures, models and collectible card games only from what I saw. I will have to make a trip to Moebius in Suidobashi, but first I have to figure out how to get there!
I played a little Mushihimesama after that, but I was really terrible, so I had to stop. I used the break to go eat dinner at Meryl Streep Presents Possibly Maid Cafe Curry (it's not actually called that). I had the MEGA katsu curry again, which I should probably stop doing, because it's a bit of a white-knuckle affair towards the end. >_< What can I do though!? It's curry!
After dinner I played more Mushihime and was luckily much, much better. I didn't manage to set a personal record, but I did get a decent way into stage 5, which is not something I am able to do often. It's a shame that that's the case, because stage 5 is basically PARTY STAGE, in that there are huuuuge amounts of bullets and enemies flying everywhere, and at almost all times you are shooting at a type of enemy-producing structure that when you kill it, it turns all the bullets on the screen into point crystals. It's totally wild, and there's gold and purple flying everywhere, and I can hear the explosions through my earplugs haha. Ah yes, earplugs. I may have forgotten to mention that I now wear earplugs when in arcades, as they are too loud and I like being able to hear. I'm not sure what to do about the cigarette smoke. Can Jiuna bring me a gas mask when she comes?
After getting to stage 5 in Mushihime, I decided to try out the MAX mode that seems to be the one that most people play (even scrubs like me who play on Original, not Maniac or Ultra). Oh my god! I wonder if I'll be able to go back... It turns out that MAX mode is actually secretly PARTY MODE! Hahaha! It introduces a combo counter, and you start off will maximum firepower, and you only get one bomb per life as oppposed to three. However, you will automatically use your bomb if you get hit (instead of dying), which turns the whole affair into ONE BIG PARTY.
I think despite the silly PARTY-ness of it, MAX mode is actually really good for learning the game. Because the scores are so vastly inflated (meaning you get the 2 point-based extra lives easy peasy) and because of the auto-bomb, I was able to get to Stage 5 pretty much no sweat, and was more daring in my approach to bullet patterns as I didn't have the fear of wasting lives. MAX mode also introduces more bullets at some parts of the game, which is also really nice, as stages 1 and 2 have sort of degraded into "Will I lose my focus badly enough to fail to No-Miss No-Bomb clear these or not?" (though they were still a bit dreary on MAX). I'm sad that I only experimented with PART--I mean MAX mode on my very last play before leaving Akiba. I am looking forward to it next time though!
Also, I got the daily 2nd place high score for Normal MAX mode at HEY! on my final play, which is something that makes me very happy, despite it being somewhat akin to winning a silver medal in a tricycle race with possibly as few as 4 other participants. For those of you scratching your heads at that, I play on the easier game setting, on the less prominently featured machine, and I can't confirm that more than 4 other people even TRIED to get a high score, because only 5 high scores are displayed. But still! It's HEY!! Hopefully QNT will one day rule the leaderboards of ULTRA MAX mode with scores that can only be concisely expressed using the Ackermann function (sooo not gonna happen).
On the train ride home my job was apparently to be a pillow for the woman next to me. >_< The first time her head bumped into my arm she acted super embarrassed and straightened up and fiddled with her belongings, but I am just too damn comfortable (nice and squishy D:), and by Kawasaki she was totally sawing logs. She didn't drool, so I guess I don't mind, but it was a little wierd.
I have discovered a wonderful use of the 2 hour trip to and from Akihabara! Today before leaving I copied two chapter's worth of vocab from my Japanese textbook, and I just reviewed it over and over and over again for the whole ride there and back haha. Next time I will prepare better and bring more! The other girl beside me (not sleepyhead, obviously), showed me up by pulling out her English practice that was like, suuuper well done. >_< I seriously didn't detect ANY grammatical errors, and the casual speech portions of it even sounded pretty natural (there were a few awkward sentences here and there).
Apparently Japanese people have a rather incorrect understanding of the North American use of the word "diet". I have heard/read on two occasions now that they think that North Americans don't use "diet" to mean cutting back on fattening foods or food in general. We most definitely do mean that; don't let the fact that many people on "diets" don't adhere to them lead you to believe otherwise! I was considering pointing this out to her, along with the fact that "Jazzercise" should probably be capitalized, but then I realized she was on the train to YOKOCHUU, and might be at the point where the next white guy that randomly starts talking to her gets a free macing, no questions asked. I hope she doesn't lose marks or whatever due to her non-capitalization of "Jazzercise", but safety first folks.
In Yokochuu I didn't hang around to play Project Diva, because the bus to my dorm was due to arrive just a few minutes after I got to the stop. I came straight back home and tried to find out more on how to play Elena properly (QQ no one plays her...) before blogging.
It's long past when I should be going to bed now, so I'll bid you all goodnight and hope I can get up early tomorrow (fat chance haha).
Night!
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