音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

Just finished SH0 this afternoon. Japanese PSP version so I don't have to struggle with the North America's reversed X and O button. After all these horror games, I've got a habit, that to keep pressing O in order to not miss any item.
-- and I can't stop putting Silent Hill and Biohazard together in the following part.

It's definitely not a good idea to do a no-save + no-map Silent Hill 0 run in a Sunday evening, especially that I've merely only cleared this game for one time. So I gave up for no-save, and will only focus on no-map + UFO end.
In the world of Biohazard, once you make to the end of the first time clear, maps are basically useless in following rounds, but it's completely not true in Silent Hill. First, it's just so dark that I can't see where the door is, which is really true in otherworlds; and second, the camera angle isn't fixed, making me -- who has no sense of direction -- get lost always. My first time clear record told me I opened the map for ~750 times during the ~5 hours of game play; this time, I'll see how many time I need without a map (right now already 1 hour yet I'm still wandering in the sanitarium orz).

Regardless being developed by the non-classic Silent Hill team, SH0 isn't that bad actually. While the worst to be the lack of radio-control, that confuses me every time when the camera angle changes, it's still Silent Hill, although not as scary as the main 1-4, plus it's a too short. Think about my other SH plays at the first time, none was cleared without spending over 13 hours! (But since it's on PSP, perhaps thus it's supposed not to be too long?).

There's no rank for how many monsters you kill, so in a sense it's much easier. With my experience in Biohazard, I'm now pretty good at passing by them to save my ammo. Besides, you can actually beat with your fist. So practical that I even feeling "it must hurt a lot" when I see Travis use his fists... Yet the "fragile" weapon system is indeed worth being poked in. I understand the glass bottles and such are easily to break, but why so do wrenches and hammers? Plus, due to my happy passing-by journey and my careful inspection of every corner of the map, by the end of game, even just pressing the "→" arrow to the end of the weapon list could take quite a long time. I know Travis is a tough guy, but without Doraemon's 4D pocket, how can he carry all of them? More often during the second half, as long as Travis picks up a new weapon, I said in my mind, "I know only you can take all of them, superman!" xD

The riddle dealing with the male seclusion and pills is interesting, and I don't get the meaning of those "reason of death" photos.
The Pyramid Head's SH0 cousin "the butcher", he's merely a mid-boss after all. I got rid of him quickly with a rifle and the same method as how Leon fights the Tyrant in the "golden gear" room in Biohazard 2. No tension, I was rather amused by how slow he moves.

I'm now in love with the hidden weapon moon gauntlet (reminds me Shadow Hearts this time). And you can now hear I laughing insanely when I get rid of a monster. "It's just way too strong! I'm invincible!" ← The reality is, I still can't avoid the monster attack.
Moreover, I also love the pumpkin flashlight available in bonus options. Silent Hill is getting more colours! A good match with Vincent's outfit as in SH3!

Final words, Alessa in SH0 looks so bad that I never have a desire to chase her if I were Travis..

Last evening when I walked downstairs, she was there sitting quietly, and I was startled by her staring!
Then I went to get my camera and when I was back, she was still there. That's how I could have a few nice shots including this~
↓

The clear blue of her eyes is so beautiful!

I CAN FINALLY TALK ABOUT "WOKASHI" AS MY COPY FINALLY ARRIVED!

To get a good cover image, I went to amazon.co.jp and hit on Akiko's newest release "wokashi". Then I happily noticed, it's out of stock already! I'm so glad I preordered it back to the end of July, so I got the even rarer animate limited edition.
As I said earlier, I did consider getting the wokashi special edition, but it doesn't include the bonus CD (and my other series of weird orders made my wallet rejected that plan).
Anyway, I'm happy, although I've stopped making my own rips and simply get others' rips instead long time ago.

↓ I still love to touch the real thing. What a colourful snap (and my cellphone straps fit well)! The only bad thing is the CD cover is made by paper, so I had to find another plastic bag in order to protect it.
The translucent spine-print (or whatever it's called) looks gorgeous. I usually use these spine-paper as bookmarks, but for this one, I decided to keep it together with the CD. <3

↓ with the limited bonus CD plus the B5 (or A5? I didn't measure) size folder. I'll be happier if that's in A4 though. B5 is useless for my stuff!

When I first saw this image from her official twitter posts, I was wondering why that's a guy. But now, after looping "otoshimono" for over 200 times, I'm wondering whether he's that "nii-sama" as from the lyrics although I believe "nee-sama" will be a better choice. (・ω・`)

↓ I can't help on the unbalanced amount of comments foreach song!

1. をかし / wokashi
Complainant first, why it has 5 sharps, which means I can't play its main melody (yet)!! (ﾟдﾟ#)
But the song itself has nothing to be complained. An excellent "opening" song -- I also like the cat jumping out in the promotion video.

2. オトシモノ / otoshimono
After 20-ish times of play, I eventually got used to the "normal" melody flow instead of the hybrid version with "wokashi". ^^;
The deep desired vocal version since this year's beginning. There's no reason for me not to loop it first. Not to mention that I've already looped its short sample endlessly before the release.
However, when I came to the second half of the lyrics, I suddenly realised, this is a horror song, really, with the integration of a strong aura of "brother-complex" but that "nii-sama" is merely a 10-year-old kid, not moe at all. At least to depict someone as ikemen as Leon! xDD. This song just made me want to play Zero series (especially 2) again. ><
As usual the emphasised cello near the end is erotic!

3. 百鬼夜行 / hyakki yakou
For sure "hyakki yakou" is a magical title! A very brisk song that made me laugh a lot. I even double checked whether she put her name in hiragana only. But not.
Toward the end there's a short part reminds me of Ar Tonelico 2's hymmnos. I really appreciate the lyrics got furigana or I'd took fairly a long while to figure out that page of the booklet (even though I still got lost at that part!).
In contrast, its orgel version from the bonus CD is so different. Quiet, sweet and even a bit sad. At first I didn't believe they're the same track. After quite much of listening, I did find out the main melody of orgel ver. is indeed present or hide in the rich arrangement.
By the way, I just love the sound of koto at the very last to death!

4. 輝夜 / kagaya (I suppose)
Koto here is delicious. But this song is so Akiko-standard that I'm not having any special comments on it.

5. 花鳥風月 / ka-chou-fuu-getsu
The hiragana Akiko's cute work! Sort of like the "library" song in Laylania but has less laugh (?). "Hyakki yakou" already stole my heart.

6. 風薫る / kaze kaoru
Nakagawa Ken?! Long time no see! (Short on words but I'm positive :3)

7. 籠の鳥 / kago no tori
The arrangement is the darkest among the whole album. I'm thinking whether Noriko would give even darker lyrics. >> Dark songs ftw!
Regardless, I also want to say, everyone loves kazoeuta!

ex. 1 青藍 / seiran
one line comment: I wish it can be longer!

Now, something that almost made me cry.
Believing in that not getting the unlimited rocket launcher means the game is unfinished, I challenged to do biohazard 1 within 3 hours with Chris. I've done the game for so many times (including Jill's side) so the flow itself wasn't a problem; it's still not easy either. Chris is weird, why such a big man can only carry 6 items?? But I had no other choice, Jill's HP is too low, I don't really dare to pass by the zombies with her. orz
I played while checking the time, and even saving the time to obtain ink ribbons and "extra" herbs (as I know I won't die). I even yelled during the movie scenes "why can't I skip? you don't know I'm doing a time attack?". xD
And the result was...

3 hours and 1 second!!! I was nervous before seeing this, and when I actually saw it, I didn't know I should laugh or cry. (｡>﹏<｡)
Only 1 second late made me extremely unsatisfied, so after my retry, fine, 2 hours 59 minutes and 47 seconds. Almost fail but I was safe!
And now I can finally say I graduated from biohazard 1.
(again, "yumede owarasenai" is always good, and radio control is much better in games with fixed camera angles).

Last thing,

Opera's new animated themes are awesome, now I can always enjoy the rain~ (npp windows was placed in the middle in order to hide my speed dials)

Like Joachim, I believe I also have 3 phases: normal, yuri/moe and zombie (and if Shadow Hearts series has PS3 digital download version that'll be a definitely buy!). Right now I must be the zombie. No exaggeration, continuing doing that for 10 days made all my bones locked.
>> The trade-off for 100% willpower is, to have 0% of HP left.

If I decide to do something, I'll for most of times complete it quick without much delay, but in contrast, if I leave it behind, no one knows how long it can be.
This applies to what I just did as well. I bought it 5 years ago, and did less than 1%, until last week. I eventually decided to give it a conclusion otherwise I can leave it for another 5 years. So that my tank of willpower was full, which made me rushed to the end in 10 days.
-- and just now I got an email from Animate saying my copy of "wokashi" has been shipped, which means my currently pending drawing is again late (regardless it's like 85% done)! xD;;
But at least I did something.

10 days, and I think I'm not slow. I've been leaving my other things aside only for that, and I didn't think I can hold for another week. Maybe it's true for most people, that when you're desperate, your mind may have so many unusual thoughts. During the second half of doing this, my mind wasn't expecting a beautiful piece; instead, I kept thinking, "the butterflies must be extremely poisonous, see these bright colour combinations!"
When I managed to finish everything by 16:00 today, suddenly all my nerve cells began to go hibernation. Now I feel my hands have lost all their sense on how to type on a laptop's keyboard. I know I need a break. Although it's to be ironed, I don't have any more interest to do it, at least not today. More importantly, I get to ask my mum how to iron it as I can't do ironing properly. orz
However, to be honest, the happiest thing after it's done was: I can finally cut my fingernails. I had to keep them or the entangled threads could drive me hysterical.

I'm not going to write much today, my brain is already blank. If there's anything doesn't make sense, that's not my fault. ( _ ) ﾟ ﾟ

I saw this tweet in the very morning, and liked it so much so I'm embedding it here:

うそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだうそだ

— スガシカオ@フォロバ中 (@shikaosuga) August 31, 2015

the reason is this. Anyway, he made me want to refeel Higurashi! xD -- Although I don't think I'll actually watch it again. The last time I watch an anime was probably back to this February.

I don't know how. But that annoying thing just made its way onto my working PC. At first I saw the interface of a program running in the system tray. I didn't pay attention and simply assumed it's a junk software came along some free package. I went to control panel and uninstalled it, but the real mess began after. More and more often I got pop-ups/embedded ad's that couldn't be blocked by my only one browser Opera; eventually I noticed the poisonous name appearing beside.
It took a few days when I reached the conclusion that it's a virus/malware/whatever -- I've been quite calm while dealing with such things actually. So I did a quick scan and it detected an unknown bug. Of course I selected to remove it, and even reinstalled Opera. However, seemed this time the crappy bug liked this PC and resisted to go.

As previous uninstallation didn't work, and Opera's extension manager didn't list it, I decided to google for some others' experiences.
-- And quickly learned it's useless.
Most most search results told me to install this or that, which are all a sort of antivirus software. No way! I was already like a cat with flatten ears; if the only thing I could do was to install another sound-like-rubbish-or-even-another-virus "antivirus" program, I'd rather to reinstall the whole OS.

So, before I proceed to the awkward yet effective ultimate resort, I gave myself a last try.
If people, or even Microsoft itself, say that Microsoft Security Essentials isn't that good, I don't care. I've been using it all the time since 2009 and had no security issue (until now?).
To not only maintain my trust toward this program, as well as to not bother with finding/trying/evaluating a third party alternative, this time I gave it a full scan, which I hardly perform (it's not my own computer, so I'm lazy). Again, the same bug was there. It looked like the previous removal request didn't work, or somehow it got a second life. Whatever, I took one more step by looking at the "details".
Perhaps at that moment I knew what to do. It did say "to remove these folders immadiately" with a list of about 7 virus-like directory names, all under "C:\Program Files (x86)". So that's the real reason? I couldn't tell, but I did know how to permanently remove them.
Things afterwards were straightforward. Reboot, re-full-scan (nothing), uninstall and reinstall Opera just in case, and search in registry for "unlocker" just in case (again).
No more installation of unknown programs, no wipe out of OS, no much of hassle, and a happy end.

In last month, I tried out Chromixium and wanted to stay with it. But in last Wednesday, I eventually switched back to Linux Mint 17.2.
Hope I'm not like an idiot. orz
A couple of main reasons. 1) I can't make it to get used to an icon free desktop, 2) a better geared up mint should handle more tasks easier, 3) better compatibility, in terms of both soft and hard wares. P.S. the built in colourful icon sets are good!
Yet a few missing goods. 1) the cute icon set, 2) a less demanding running, 3) which is also the most important, a fully functioning fcitx-mozc. It's working on mint, but I can't bring out its settings and have to use ONLY the romaji mode -- I want kana input mode!!
I got Anthy worked with kana mode, but it's not as flexible as mozc (like by typing "kao" you can get tons of kaomoji). u_u
At least, I finally figured out how to separate the most of linux stuff from your home directly so you can switch between different versions. My future updates/try-outs/etc. will be less tiresome as I don't need to copy my stock music/videos any more!

I'm never a real penguin user; I use windows 99% of time. So a kana-less Japanese IME doesn't really hurt. ^^;

A "kamikaze" hachimaki!!
However, it's too wide while using in a normal way. So I decided to use it as a hairband.
ACTUALLY I DOUBT I'LL WEAR IT THAT OFTEN! lol

No. 2.1

Shimotsukin 10th anniversary Premium box! with her real signature!!! ≧▽≦

And another thing a piano can do nicely~

I initially wanted to make my own rips, but quicked dropped off the idea. There're 6 discs!! I don't want to wait and just hear my disc drive spinning. So I got a digital copy from someone else's rip.. ><''

No. 2.2

For Silent Hill, I'm okay to play EU or NA versions (with a desperate fight against the inverted X and O though), but I can't stand with how Biohazard is titled in non-Japan areas so I keep buying the JP version (thankfully that PS3 discs are region free! <3).

No. 3.1

And really it comes the expected desperate fight for the X and O switch. I'll see... ~_~

There're a few more items will be coming/released shortly, so I'll have a "part 2" when they're all gathered up~

- Last week it was mostly smokey, due to the wild fire from the west. I feel so bad for the trees, and nothing else.
- So far, I've managed to handle the basics of C,G,D,A,d minor (let me use it instead of F!!),B♭ and E♭. Surprisingly the one with the lowest compatibility is B♭! I myself don't understand, that how come the skipped over E♭ is easier?! The blessing of Umineko? :3
- Over the past two months, I've been completely owned by my roommate's cat! <333 And I've changed my mind again: I'll have at least two cats in future, and I'll call them Piccolo and Viola. As my mom also wants a dog, s/he will be called Timpani! xDDD
- Today's (wired) internet was even slower than James May! °A°

Suddenly I'm addicted to the concerto for flute and harp, K299. It's so sweet. In terms of my way of interpretation, flute = lemon and harp = honey => a refreshing taste!

Akiko's "wokashi" trailer is out, and thus my goal that to finish the over 1 month drawing was delayed again. I was completely drowned in the vocal version of "otoshimono", and couldn't stop looping even the short sound clip for almost half day. I'll see for how long I can loop when the full version is released. Sep. 16, I CAN WAIT!
Yet I don't think there's a point to release such a sample CD on Comiket. She could just use sound cloud or youtube instead.

"Otoshimono" simply stimulated all my synapses. Today, my mind was flooding, with quite a lot of imaginations. My current status must be having only 1 SP (=sanity point in Shadow Hearts). I even doodled a draft, which would be my next drawing, at work! But too bad I forgot to take it with me when I left. Hope no one touched my desk after. XDD;;

Now let me return to the topic of the long-lasting unfinished drawing.. no, it's not finished, finally.

My belated birthday gift~

Hinamatsuri Variation

Speaking of "Otoshimono", I tried to play its main melody, in a reversed fashion. The result was.. a bit weird, but very amusing. It first popped up when I picked up the sheets that fell onto the ground. And for a moment, I couldn't tell how I should place them until I saw the clef -- a piece had no sharps/flats or any other text. Maybe it could be a new way of self-entertaining, that to play a piece...
like this... ↓

Akiko's new release "wokashi" has been delayed to September 16. Not really a problem as I'm so good at waiting (?). And it indeed reduced my new orders' arriving jam (I've been ordering weird items since April and the coming one will be so crazy that I never imaged I could actually buy).
Although I wanted the special pack, as a fanatic with a yet parsimonious mind as the bottom line, I eventually moved to aim for the Animate special since it includes an extra CD. That was in the end of July, and today, I happened to have another visit, for no specific reason -- and the tracklist has been updated!

All are new songs as expected (although I don't mind if "Akakakushi" being there). I'm so happy that "Otoshimono" will now have a vocal version (my new year's wish now comes true!). And then, my eyes were fixed onto track 5..
↓

That's Akiko Shikata after all! I'm not surprised.
判る人は自然に判る…
--People who know the truth know what I mean. (´・ω・`)

Besides, track 3 is titled "百鬼夜行 (Hyakki Yagyou)".. I clearly remember I fell in love with another track with the same title from xxxHOLiC's soundtracks -- seems it's a magical title! and for track 6, long time no see, Ken-san! xD
>>Pure Japanese style. I feel like to play some Zero again (I've been stopping playing this series for a while after the exhausted ghostlist completion for all of Zero 1-3...).

On last Sunday, I did my first "serious" php script. So far, what I've done was limited to "include XXX" and that's the end of story. But, blame that an index.php is configured to be recognised by default while index.cgi is not, I had to do a deeper dive into it as none of available scripts/templates/etc I found online served what I was aiming for.
I did have a hard time finding out the proper built-in function, but at least I didn't spend much time on figuring out how to use them.
While I agree php is apparently a better solution for web based scripting, it can't be helped that I'm already dependent on Perl and tend to add a "my" on every new variable! Others are like "#" for commenting, and "$fh" for an opened file. :3
↓

There's no magic on google plus so every feed generator has to utilise its API. As long as I can assure this, I'm better with what I've done. If you can make something exactly suits your own specific need, why use others' stuff that isn't 100% satisfactory?

In terms of a RPG character, my current status must be HP 1/999 and MP 0/999, while the numbers were given for the sake of an easy looking. Why I switched to do the php coding was in fact driven by my Saturday's MP draining out experience -- both of myself and my laptop.
Regardless a cache of 10 GB has been so normal for me..

So what's the situation? I'm crushed by my girls? or my dream hina dolls? ^^;

Since my girl's birthday had already passed, I'm allowing myself another week for HP/MP refill, and give it a final finish during this weekend -- although I think my HP will still be just around below half for fairly a long while in future.

At the very beginning, Happy 9th birthday to my little girl! ヽ(・∀・ )ﾉ
I can feel you growing year by year, if that's not day by day. And you definitely grow faster than me when I was 9. So what I was doing back to the age of 9? Seems I don't have any clear memory -- it began a year after I guess. Perhaps I can still dig out my ancient age diary book, but it's way too embarrassing for me to have a read. orz

Actually, I'm tending to be more off-line recently -- which I don't mean I can live without electronic devices -- but it's all mainly about:

1. a cat -- no wonder that I'm the type who can be healed by just staring at a cat's photo.

2. an elegantly curved magical box -- still awkward but I believe it will eventually come.
Yet I don't want to bring too much here. Maybe I will sometime (much) later.

3. a shogi board -- I just began for less than even a week, but I'm already in it, deeply. It has much more fun than chess. The captured pieces can be turned into your own side, and most pieces can do a "transform" after going across the "borderline". While still not memorising all the pieces' moves, it's still quite challenging to me, and I simply keep failing, but losing is fun too (and I'm definitely not M)!
Also, I feel so good in another sense. At least in future when people ask me what's my favourite sport, I have an answer.
Meanwhile, I was wondering, what will happen if I have a computer vs. computer? That I'll have a try soon or later.

Thus, even though about 3 weeks ago I got the idea and made the overall draft arrangement, and I finished most basic outlining/colouring 2 weeks ago, all my attention has been transferred into those mentioned above. It could be strange as none of them is completely new to me, but this was just what happened.
So sorry I can't make it for your birthday! >_<
Maybe next year I'll give you a full hina-set! ^^;

Last night, I finally saw the get windows 10 app gave me some good news. My upgrade was ready! But since it was close to zero hour I did the upgrade tonight.
I initially had Win 7 home, then I hacked it to Win 7 Ultimate. When Microsoft just (?) released Win 8 I purchased it by only half of the regular price, and a year after from Win 8 to Win 8.1 with some huge improvements, and now, the free Win 10 upgrade.

Due to this or that, all of my OS fighting ended up with a fresh installation. This time, I decided to trust Microsoft and let it go. The experience was indeed good. The upgrade began like a regular system update, then from copy files, getting drivers to personal configs, I watched all the changes. The biggest thing was about the drivers, which could be observed easily through the change in screen resolution. Before I was worrying that might be another hassle in dealing with my laptop specific drivers (my previous lesson made me uploaded them into an online cloud), but it didn't happen this time. Display is good, touch pad works (even the long term problem of scrolling in Opera is fixed on Win 10!). Then the files, just like from win 8 to 8.1, not a worry at all. Nothing was lost, including my custom mouse pointer files stored under the "system32" dir. And finally, all my programs are there, my settings for each program (such as fb2k and notepad++, even the cmd colour and size) are all untouched.
The classic windows' start menu is back -- I don't really care about it though. I've said for a lot of times, that I need to thank win 8's removal of that so I get used to the mighty cmd shell. Win 10 is supposed to have an even better performance compared to Win 8.1. As I'm not good at such I'll (positively) believe what they claimed.

However, standing out from all these good things, I couldn't stop being bothered by its snow white window title bars. I don't understand why an advanced OS doesn't let you to choose whatever colour you want. It's not a small phone that to get a good colour scheme doesn't really matter. Plus I'm fairly sensitive to colours, being unable to see the colour I want on the title bar only made my eyes hurt.
At first I wanted to accept it. It's the new OS' decision. But I thought I should at least have some attempts before giving in (of course a 3rd party program isn't of my taste either). And quickly I found it's not unchangeable, thanks to this article.

Now I'm eventually satisfied. Windows 10 with colours on the window title bar!! <33

Microsoft accepted people's feedback and put a simple start menu for Win 8.1, now I wish they can listen to what people say again and let us changing the title bar colours without this hack on their Win 10.1 release.