音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

In the following week, it seems to be near 30°C everyday.
Not a good thing at all, I feel I'm melting down. Due to it, my timezone is getting weird. But, that's why I'm having my own 27-hour custom time display...
Summer should not exist... u_u

In the past month, I know I'm too deep in the world of dark souls, and eventually, I became the dark lord on this Monday. Before the last boss, which wasn't that a big trouble, I sort of "gave up" on the DLC boss Manus and hit him down far away outside with my +5 lighting longbow... I'd never say I'm getting any better in this, but I'm much more confident with the world map, as I've died so many times and thus the map naturally embedded into my mind. Beating Gywn without parry -- impossible for someone who barely parried throughout the entire gameplay -- I kited him around the stalactite-ish rock and achieved victory soon within 3 retries. This made me satisfied and also stimulated my mind of "to return to the normal". But it didn't mean I stopped. I just entered the second round, and was quite pleasant with my current weapons, the sharp lifehunt scythe, which didn't make me feeling too bad in a harder mode -- I'm not that skilful enough to handle the dragonslayer spear with no flaw, I apologise.
So in the next morning, I with a rather excited voice holding my Piccolo and saying aloud: "I'm gonna be normal again since today!" But still he didn't like people holding him and quickly slid away. ^^;

Sometimes there's a melody lingering in my head but I just can't recall its name. Like yesterday, when I evenually recognised another piece that had been drifting over weeks. "Scenda Amor, scenda Imeneo", the last chorus from Idomeneo. But it's so strange that I could even remember any other piece of melody from it, as mainly my focus on this opera is the aria that Akiko covered in Shadow Hearts 3...

だから今日から、この七夕のきっかけで、「普通」に戻ろう。未完成の「輝夜」イメージ、もう二度とやり直したくないドイツ語、頭の深くに沈んでする「企画」、そして…あれこれ、全てが私を待っている。でも、行動を行わないと始まらなくて続きもできないんだよ。
知ってるのこれぐらい。
だから、
私なりの時間を、今こそ紡ぎ出し直そう。

私なり絶対にできる（やる気マンマン）！

ちなみに…
リリィちゃんかわいいよぉぉ～～！！　（*´▽｀*）

最後に、遅れてる七夕のお祈り――
ダブルストップをうまく弾けますように！

時間だけはみんなに平等たるもの、だから早くても遅くても、あくまでは何ひとつも変えられない。それより、自分なりの行き方を見つけ出すのは、自分という存在を確かめ、時間の流れを大事に実感できる。

こんなにあれこれ書くことも、この時間が「通した」印を残せるので、今日の私もまた、自分なりの速さで頭のなかに積んでいる記憶を整理し、文字列に変換する！
激昂し過ぎるかな‥とりあえず始めよう～(´・ω・`)

3 days ago, I tried to unlock my Arc's bootloader. But it seemed not working, because the device itself is from a carrier. I don't want to pay whatever $$ that's required nor send it to the manifacture either. So I had to stay with ICS 4.0.4, until Arc is physically damaged or having a battery death.
Later I got a check on amazon, that in general Xperia not-so-new devices cost about $300, and Lumia series is usually lower than it, while Apple stuff is higher. Still, it's not saying anything about the bootloader (of course, not that many people would even care...).
Thus I asked on the product page, with little hope finding the answer. I began to wonder how many people are at least sort of geeks. Out of 4 answers I received (fairly quick response, it's my first time asking there any way), only 1 looked reasonable. And it also began to make sense, that why geek is a category that only fits a small amount of people.

It's getting off again.. ↓
Maybe a Windows phone can be my next choice, since I never really care about apps, which always have lots of ads.
However, it's not going to happen right now. I Arc is still fine (although I thought I almost killed it at that night). Or who knows if there's another way to force unlock it!

Psycho Break is going to have #2!
First I thought it's just rumours, but with the recent E3, I believe it's true, it's going to happen!

So, my first impression was: is it Zero?!
No wonder, there's a camera in front of his (= Seb?) face in the background, plus the screen shot (?) beside the text, that he's shooting a (old styled) camera-monster.
Also from the description, I feel it's going to be another Silent Hill 1. A father looks for the daughter, in a different "dimension".
Interesting. I'm really excited, even without knowing what roll the camera would play.

Reminder to myself, that I need to finish the DLC sometime, in order to have a more complete idea about the main plot (as the official DLC info claims).

Time to get a PS4, I've found a reason.

Although recently I'm enjoying my PS3 pretty much.
Yesterday I was not that surprised that I passed the 4 kings without "so many" tries, that I spent a whole week beating Ornstein and Smough after all!
It was so tough that I had to take a photo as a souvenir.

Black sorcerer series, I had no other choice as it's the lightest one to let me doing fast rolling.
First I was going to beat Smough second as he's slower, but I got upset because of his bulldozer plus butt-press were way too scary to me. Thus I switched to Ornstein as the second. It wasn't much easier either. But there's another reason behind. The world serpent thinks Smough's soul only is worth $1... not to mention I myself won't have a chance to hold his huge hammer after crafting the special demon weapon. Ornstein's spear looks so cool that I can't resist. I levelled up merely for taking that with single hand -- hope I'm not wasting my points.

In another search about the duo, I found this..

↓ Which explained why searching solely "Ornstein" will give you a related tag "Pikachu". xD;;

Catime: Piccolo likes KanColle too! :3

To differentiate between CERO C/D/Z is sort of meaningless. Although the physical difference (to me) can be that you'll need a local credit card for CERO Z. << what I've just remembered.

I'm mainly talking about this:

I saw the writer's name who wrote Higurashi series!!
It must be horror, isn't it!? Moe-Horror, my favourite~ (/･ω･)/
(Sadly it's CERO Z = no play or buy hard copy..)

And one more, with more expectation!

Shin-Yomawari is coming!!~~ (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Two characters this time, reminding me Nippon Ichi's other recent games, like Hotaru Nikki and Rose and the old castle. The system itself is getting better and better, so I'm not having any bad hunch for this. And it's possible to go into the buildings this time, which sounds more fun, and it can be harder. Think about earlier Biohazard series, I always chose to kill all the zombies even with only a knife, as running around in a house is just hard as physics or molecular chemistry.

From the official text, I'm already expecting a dark ending (like Hotaru nikki), but, maybe it's grey (as Yomawari) or can even be pure white (Rose and old castle). I personally would like the very first type. Besides, I'm wishing the girl in Yomawari could show up as a guest (but perhaps she won't).

Last, the main theme doesn't sound as much impressive as Yomawari, it's also beautiful though., making me wanting to transcribe the main melody again.
I can't play the middle fast part in Yomawari yet, need more practice, but my focus is right now not that.. orz

Biohazard Vendetta is eventually out, with its OST by Kenji Kawai!!

The main theme, just like how it sounds in the promotion movie, is cool. I'm satisfied with it, and the next is to wait for its bluray release -- it has to be the Japan version since I want the Japanese voice.. (*´∀｀*)

As for photographing, I'm getting into the direction, I think.
At least using a point-and-shoot smart phone I wouldn't be able to shoot the moon a few days ago like this:

Taking a careful look, the Earth's shadow is also visible. I'm happy with this outcome.
The lack of a remote shutter release, on the other hand, wasn't a problem though, as it's the moon, it doesn't move so fast. A timed shutter can simply compensate this. But I do feel there's a need for a tripod. As currently I'm positioning the camera with various supports: step stool, book, coaster, litereally anything that stays steady. ^^;

Note: I'm planning to take a picture of the moon everyday, as long as the night is clear. And it'll also be a good chance to observe more in terms of the moon phase, which I don't really pay much attention. -- Although it had been a two day break due to the clouds. When I just look at it, it has turned much more of a round shape.

In this week, suddenly I began to loop Akiko's "Kagaya (? or whatever it's pronounced)". At a point, all my imaginations had gathered to the tip of my pencil.
I'm just saying maybe my next drawing won't be motivated by "kinema mosaic" but this, which is more summer fitting... °A°;;

Even though I should have finish some notes about the largely mutated "lantern" image art, the majority of my free mind had been gone into the world of dark souls. I know I'm dying way too frequently, by all kinds of things, from walking into an endless hole by myself, forgetting the stamina bar while keep doing shield-guard, losing balance while rolling through layers of swinging axes, or messing up so many keys -- the control is indeed complicated!
But still, It's fun. And I've learnt that one important technique: hit and run~

The main topic today, the make-up of:

記憶の再結晶化を司る番人達

Next:
The draft was almost ready even including the background, and following my current plan, time for some (Taishou-romantic) "kinema mosaic" blending with (black) military uniforms.
I am excited, especially for the outfit, and its overall ambience.
Can't say when it's going to come true though..

##
Maeda Jun is having a new "Love Song" project! But sadly the featuring singer isn't Annabel.. (even though I know it may not be possible at all I'm still having such a little wish) Instead, that's someone that I don't even know how to pronounce her name, although I'm pretty sure I've seen her name for a few times before, somewhere.
I'm afraid I'm going to pass it, for such (?) reasons.

##
Just noticed my "R" key begins to show a sign of death! It'd be fun to get an order of how each of my keys retires.. xD

##
Double stop! I'm taking more seriousness in it!!

Again, my near-death D key has caused so much trouble whenever I'm coding or doing regular writing. It's now giving no response unless I do a hard-press, and in turn puts a string of D's that I have to trim out.
Although I wished Q could just break instead of D, it won't ever happen as D definitely gets more used compared to Q...
Didn't Holmes said that the most frequently used English letter is E? And why it didn't happen on my Ctrl first?

"Dark Soul" so far gives me a much stronger feeling of nothing but the purest evil. Those experienced ones don't need any explanation, do they?
Yet I'm not saying PsychoBreak AKUMU is easier. Just, playing the former makes me feeling that my analogue sticks would be worn out quick..
Generally there's no BGM in game, but each Boss has its own limited jukebox. I'd like to say they sound great, but I really don't have much attention in each fight. Usually it's entering the Boss room and getting killed within 3 seconds..

Like this... thing, which put me into exactly the situation above.

He's cool though! Frankly he by himself isn't really a big problem (in a sense); his two dogs are, plus the moveable range you have (trees so often made me blind)! °A°
Dogs are annoying, in whatever games (Biohazard, Silent Hill, and this); I'd prefer fighting the dark knight over this!

Any way...
The OST gave me a good time this afternoon. Another great game soundtrack found!

Now, less evil in this section.

In this week, I've watched two players playing the sounds hot game "Little Nightmares", as I'm never going to play it myself. It's not worth doing, not my style.
Perhaps the most common thing for people who just clear it for the first time would be thoughts like "I don't get the story".
And this is why I'm not tending to have a favour on it.

When there're not so many in a similar style like Limbo just got released, people found it's interesting, worth digging a lot from many aspects in order to assemble for an entire core. Being positive, I'm willing to assume the staff does have a deep meaning hidden behind, however, I hate things become too veiled. It's a responsibility for the authors to make others understand. If things become too vague, no matter what a wonderful idea is hidden behind, it would more likely cause misunderstanding and negative attitudes.
Don't think a mysterious-ish atmosphere can win much. The lack of story (and/or enough hints) means the staff wasn't sure what story they were come up with, or merely being just lazy, etc. In either case, there's no much difference from finishing a sudoku grid. Although yours may be more of some addition of action, colours and whatsoever.

Things I'm completely positive are like the environment does look good, and the little girl "looks" cute. << which are easy to achieve. Story is the pith, just like melody in a musical composition. u_u

Finally, it's time to get the "lantern" inspired artwork done..
I mean, it's 99% done. I just need a proper title.
It's graphically not related to lantern any more. Since last time I talked about the background, I had added a few new elements. I've got a new crystal cluster (supposed to be the yorlga crystal! :3) thing as the far-end background, and replaced the original grass-ish floor to a more wild shining flower field. As the foreground I removed the flowers in focus (they got put inside of the glowing jars), and instead there are many bigger flowers that look like lanterns. Even though I'm trying to keep the original motif "object", it's really more of fantasy over a grotesque night fest.
I still want to use a long title, just to echo with its mental root.
So hopefully it's getting the last stroke tomorrow~

Since I'm not a brain scientist, today's topic is of course about the ultimate (?) ridiculous Psycho Break AKUMU difficulty.
However, I managed to get it done!

... with 400+ deaths, and I have to mention, that I loaded my manual save in chapter 6 to upgrade, and thus I "lost" ~200 deaths in the never-ending two-room. So the real death count should +200 roughly though (I had LOTS of upgrades).
Still, it's better than what I thought, which could be over 1k deaths.

Halfway of the play through, I gave up recording the death count categorised by different enemies. After each death and during the 30-second-ish long loading screen, I tended to think about the strategy rather than drawing an additional line in the piece of death record paper.
AKUMU it's challenging, but I don't think I'll come back to do it again! I don't mind the one-hit death, but once again, the loading time is just way too long (I'm not confident at all to "not" die due to this or that mistakes. -_-'')

I didn't skip any cut scenes this time, hoping to find more new clues about the story. From the very beginning when the city collapsed, I began to think about Inception, which sadly I've forgotten most parts about its plot. Indeed the environment of such a ruined city is my favourite through the game... it's not what I want to talk though.

I haven't played nor got spoiled by Kidd's DLC, so for now, its my current understanding. After seeing the ending scene, I'd like to think they didn't escape/wake up completely, yet. Even with all the surrounding people from the police, it's still inside of the dream. In my opinion, the only "real" scene is the moment right before its ending, where we see Kidd and Tatiana together. The rest, all in a "dream" or a sort of advanced version of "nuroimaging", when multiple's brain are connected together. In chapter 1, the three receive the order and head to the hospital, soon the interruption comes, indicating that's already inside of such unreality. In the following chapters, unrelated scenes keep getting blended and transmitted into each other, including people involved like Joseph or the doctor. Previous memories imported into STEM system, and exported into current receivers at the terminal. In the very, very centre of that layers of worlds made from imagination, that's Ruvik and his spreading pure evils.

Being a nerd in studying living being's brain alive or in a bizarre way, Ruvik caught the attention from Doctor (don't know how to spell his name at all). They soon "collaborated", and Ruvik could make even bigger progress because of "samples" from Doctor. His goal, since lost his sister, could have become to get her back to life, perhaps through STEM. At a stage when it's mostly finished, Doctor betrayed, could because he wants to get all the honours, and has realised Ruvik's brain would serve an important role in STEM, plus (?), Ruvik might cause huge problem because of his research (pure guess).

Yet inside STEM, Ruvik became the core. Thoughts sent into STEM later from people who couldn't survive gradually turned to monsters. All of them want to return to the reality, and in my understanding more like reincarnation through replanting back into some living person's mind. In that case, according to those many audio records, two thoughts inside of one brain clashes, they would either kill each other, or eventually reach to a state of coexistence. Ruvik's target is Leslie (finally I understood why Doctor murmured "Leslie is the key" in chapter 4), but he perhaps also attempted to test on everyone inside of his world. After the second Laura fight, he said something like Joseph is not of hope for him, and later on when Seb helped Kidd, there's a scene that Ruvik attempts to transport into his mind.

Regardless, Ruvik might have a chance at the end when Leslie "melted", Laura won't be revived, because Ruvik is dead, and even after that, she becomes the ugly spider lady and just kills everyone she touches -- impossible for her to come out!

Too many memories and living thought get connected, and the inner world is exploding and becomes more and more complicated. As a new recipient, s/he may have an independent "core" with a mirror of Ruvik at the centre. The two are linked somehow, and to escape, one has to defeat the mirror core, like what players do in chapter 15, go out of "this" layer of STEM, sees Ruvik's brain, destroys it, and returns to the "previously recognised" reality. Meanwhile, the deeper core somewhere far away is still affecting this layer of normality, and this layer gets to merge into another one. Maybe after many layers, Seb will really wake up. I'll believe Joseph would survive too, so would Kidd who is an agent that is all I know from a quick glance of spoiler. Posters and newspaper and all other notes are fragments remained when two minds merge, while they're all based on the reality. After the story begins, we learn more truth from touch others' thoughts, which in turn all gather to one single point, the STEM core.

When someone dies inside STEM, others could see that when they wake up, and thus there's nobody in Leslie's tub, maybe he's alive in another layer, or maybe he really melted. Others may be forcefully connected to STEM, but I just don't know why Doctor is there too. Maybe to look for Leslie, who is another precious sample after surviving from Ruvik's connection but got lost this time.

I like this type of story (and I just hope what I've just wrote above is making a bit of sense), while the ending is sort of open, yet from all clues, it seems there's a clear answer. Definitely I'll find a time to get the DLCs and find more hints!

Besides, I just got this:

Pretty much because of people I follow on youtube keep referring to this and thus got me being curious.
Yet the first thing I did after game start was something worthless...
that to knead out a Leon S. Kennedy face! without knowing a single thing like what this game is all about AND knowing the character will have a hood/hat/etc...
By the way, I named the character "Ruvik"... (´・ω・｀)

The most stressful thing in this week could be in Friday evening when I carelessly typed the SQL statement "UPDATE table SET XX=YY" withOUT appending "WHERE id=xxx". I even wondered after hit enter, that why it took so long to execute this simple command, but soon I realised the irreversible mistake.
At that very moment, my brain felt being stung and squeezed -- perhaps close to the state of being flash-bolted by Seb's agony crossbow, which also because I knew I didn't have any acceptable SQL dump.
Fortunately, quickly I recalled just at the noon, there was a chunk of probably useful custom exported data I did at noon, and things I've affected on the remote DB could be extracted from it. So the issue was solved, sort of. Things for myself, that even after the recovery, I can't assure it's 100% good, but... I'll only say it here. ~_~

Therefore, as a way of letting off steam, I once again began to challenge PsychoBreak AKUMU, which has been pending for a while. It's hard, really hard, although I can't tell which is harder comparing to Silent Hill 2's 10-star result (because I can't do it yet). Last time I stopped in front of the shutter that first time releases Trauma to players. With the long time rest, I had less hard time to pass it, and surprisingly, in the next stage with two zombies + two traumas, I went through without problem at my first try, which was simply shock bolt + throwing all my 5 grenades + one fully upgraded harpoon bolt << apparently I didn't know whether I missed or not, as I was always in panic at this difficulty. But just due to the large consumption of ammo, I redid this checkpoint, which went better: shock bolt + 2 grenades + a few shotgun shells.

Then, Laura again! I had to finish it in two days with a good rest -- I've already lost count in how many times I ran into my unexpected death due to bear traps, bombs or whatever. Although I attempted to burn her up, I quickly gave up as I felt it would be so hopeless in AKUMU. I got stuck in Friday night, and finished within 3 tries in the next day. The following boss stopped my Saturday progress, but still, I passed it on Sunday within 5 tires.
I do believe such a longer rest yields a better condition to pass.
And thus, I wish I can pass the sequence with waves of zombies with fireworks, rifles, and machine-guns in next week easier!

Some handmade grissini for today (finally I can use up my bottle of rosemary that has literally expired many years)!

And, time to say good-bye to Canon IXUS210 and say hello to Sony DSC-HX400!
↓ It's a rainy evening, with these dark clouds.

Thanks to "Mastering Digital Cameras" and Mastering Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO and Exposure, I feel much better with most settings on the new HX400, in which many were not available on IXUS210. That author also had books on how to take good photos, but I personally prefer to only get the basic knowledges from experts, as for the artistic aspects of a photo, I'd rather find the way of expression by myself -- Every one is different!
Nonetheless, no matter what, I can't switch to flickr even though its 1TB storage sounds delicious. ^^;

Finally, the make up of the "lantern-motif" drawing is going well, although showing the sign of moving into a more fantasy-ish atmosphere instead of a retro, Orient and even "grotesque" one.