neko's thinkbox

*snore*

Err, yeah, after two weeks of disappearance, and an imminent blog birthday, I suppose a little update is in order.

So, anime-wise, nothing. At all. No clue why, the only thing that comes to mind is that I got so engrossed in Pangya/A18 (yet again) and DS games, that I completely… “forgot” that there were anime I was watching. Playing the DS also doesn’t require me to leave my computer on, so these few days/weeks were a welcome relief for my hueg electricity bill. But whenever I managed to come online, I tried spamming a lot on twitter. I don’t even log onto IRC that much anymore, cause I tire of circle jerks who only care about stroking each others’ small e-peen with their facetious stupidity – but eh, I should at least greet the 2-3 buddies I have in the #ab channel. Perhaps this post does the trick, too. Blimey, HI ALL!

But I digress. Have some delicious Rosetta.

Aaaaanyway, my latest addiction was Rune Factory (you’ll probably have come across a couple of tweets of mine already). Tired of Luminous Arc (which I mysteriously still haven’t finished), I decided to start a game of the time-tested Harvest Moon franchise. Back in the days of the old, bulky Game Boy, a friend of mine once lent me a Harvest Moon game, which I found interesting at first. I don’t remember much though, except the fact that after a week or so I already got the first storm, totally destroying my HARD FIELDWORK. That, plus corrupt savegame totally creeped me out for the next ten years…. until recently. But I digress. (I know a lot of self-proclaimed Einsteins hate when bloggers say that, well here goes. Wait, I’m digressing again.)

So I played Rune Factory, and… wait. Lost my train of thought, just got distracted with a KR powerplay vid, -40 BL easy… those koleans, so sad. What the no-lifers.

Neko’s Traumatical Rune Factory Experience, Take 2: show

So I played Rune Factory, and I immediately got into it, plowing, sowing, watering, harvesting, rinse repeat. But that wasn’t what caught my attention, it was the fact that I could “interact” (in a limited manner) with the townspeople, especially with most females whom I could pick one for marrying. Actually, I suppose the prospect of marrying one of those girls was the driving force that got me collecting wood and expanding my house, getting a double bed, etc. I suppose anyone who played RF (or a HM game) knows that feeling.

Now, guess which girl I picked. Don’t read my twitters, idiot…. T___T Yes, it was Melody. And for once I didn’t want to get Cecilia (although I often couldn’t resist her “I LOVE you, Natsu.”). But I was pretty torn between Rosetta, Mist, Sharron and Melody. I don’t want to repeat Lukas’ elegy about the different girls, but it was pretty much how I thought about them too. But after a while I went for Melody because I visited the bathhouse ten times a day anyway (even though it only allows one use) and Melody is just awesomely cute. So it was pretty obvious that I thrived to get the love meter to 10 as fast as I could, and in the beginning of Winter I finally got it. DOUBLE BED she wanted, she got, and we married. I was ecstatic, because yay I finally married the girl of my dreams IN THE GAME (what the ronery dork I am).

Melody, so hawt. But Rosetta, also hawt. FFFF Rune Factory needs polygamy.
For some reason, there is a lack of Rune Factory pics on Danbooru. Damn it.

But after a while, I got disillusioned: the only exciting thing I did was to choose the way she addressed me: Honeybuns, just before R4 got borked – rebooted DS, and on second try used Little Natsu. After that, the only new thing is that I can get a free snack every morning, Curry Noodles. And then, nothing. NOTHING! Just keeps repeating the same line over and over again, and lost any sense of social life: lurks at home all day long, on the exact same spot, day in day out. I go to bed alone, and she still stands there in the middle of the room. She doesn’t even greet me anymore! No more Ohayou! Konnichi wa! Konban wa! (Yes I am playing the undubbed version, because any DUBS FUCKING SUCK, period.) At least she tells me Arigatou! for every shit I throw at her. In the end I never found out what she really liked.

Well fine, it would have been the same with any other girl BUT of course I had to get the worst choice – as much as I like Melody (and I really do, despite her ineloquence), I CAN’T FUCKING USE THE BATHHOUSE ANYMORE. RAAAAAAGEEEEEE!!! Every time I go near the pool, my own character tells me “I will let you take a bath for free if you marry me.” Stucking FUPID! Of course it’s a known glitch which discourages everyone to go for Melody. I didn’t know, and I regretted it initially. But now I’m cool with that, got used to using Rune crystals to fill up my MoJo.

Although sometimes I wish it had occurred to me earlier to throw that stupid Grimoire Sword at Sharron’s head, marry her and fuck her silly (at night, when I can’t see shit). Or Lara, who didn’t want to swallow my… Lapis Lazuli, go figure. Or even Rosetta, at least she liked my Strawberries and my special Corm on the Cob. Good thing I made sure to backup the .sav file before proposing to Melody, so I can just run around and bend them all to my will, one after another. Except Bianca, she’s an elitist bitch. And she’s quite ugly. Tsundere, you lose.

Why did I place spoiler tags? Donut know, lol. Oh, not enough pictures to hide WALL OF (useless) TEXT. Anyway, leaving the bad jokes aside, I believe I temporarily lost track of the main goal in Rune Factory: was there one? Oh yeah, probably beating the Evil Sechs Empire (best pronounced Sex Empire, of course. What the fucking perverts they are at Natsume). And I thought I was playing a Dating Sim, where swinging the Cheap Hoe was a distracting pastime to drag the flirting into temporal length. Of course not. As far as my tepid assessment goes (thanks wikipedia), it’s a farm simulation RPG, so the mirrion dorraru question is as follows: why the hell did I expect it to be a dating sim?

Ah yeah, because it was the only interesting thing in the game. Small catch: after marrying, the Dating Sim stops abruptly, as emotionally explained in the spoiler tag above. And then, shit sucks bad.

Now I’m in the last cave just before the last battle AAAAAND…. I stopped playing. Same phenomenon as in Luminous Arc, actually. You see I’m one of those guys who frantically waste hundreds of hours, trying to complete most if not all (rationally possible) side quests to get the best weapons and stuff, and get to see every freakin’ dialogue in the game. BUT, overwhelmed by the amount of items and ingredients yet to search and find, I lose heart. I’m not like those sick Koreans in Pangya (just to pick up the video link above) who spend years figuring out every single pixel of the game, I think my patience span is way smaller.
The paradox with this hiatus is, I can’t get myself to finish the game just yet, because I haven’t gotten all I wanted yet. Had the Dating Sim part required me to clear the game, heck I would have in a flash. Heh, today I almost started Rune Factory 2… Damn, neko, finish your games, EXACTLY LIKE WATCHING, SUBBING AND BLOGGING ANIME! Wait, I already do. Things half-done, that’s my manifesto.

Self-explanatory.

Yah, this wraps up my useless explanation about what I have done these past two weeks. I might not have been online much, but at least I managed to adopt a healthy sleep pattern again. Healthy neko, for the blog birthday which is… when. Jan 17th? What, today? Oh shit, can’t be arsed to think of any good post now. SlimStat was set up on the 19th though… oh well. So you can expect a small post in 2 days then I guess, yay!

Wait, I haven’t reached 1500 words yet. Here’s a little omake: I ordered a laptop today, because my mum convinced me not to take my bulky desktop computer + 22″ LCD screen to Venice. Transporting costs/plane fees would be quite horrendous, and yeah it would be a little bad for the mobility. A laptop would be most convenient for everyday life in Venice – I could even take it to the campus! What the genius I am, I really had a gigantic epiphany yesterday.

Which laptop I ordered? Err, some Acer TravelMate somethingsomething 15,4″ with an Intel P8600, ATi HD3650 Mobile 512MB, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HDD yadayada. Ordered a 1 TB external drive with it for good measure, so I won’t be missing on my music, games and animu. I wanted a bigger screen actually (without a goddamn Glare screen which reflects even your shining peen in your pants), but in the end, all I could find was bad CPU/GPU combinations for all the models I had in mind. Oh well, it will be good enough for my needs.

Moo.

Not there yet, so must FILL: I got particularly pissed with all the different CPU and GPU denominations. Like, the Core 2 Duo would be T5xxx, Pentium Dual Core T2xxx, C2D with Centrino 2 P7xxx/8xxx, not even going into all the differences between those damned CPUs – even now I’m confused. All I know is that the Centrino 2’s are in 45nm and thus have a TDP of 25W, which is great in my books. Now, add to this the many different graphic cards you can have for your laptop: Geforce 8xxx/9xxx GS or GT, or Ati HD 2xxx/3xxx. ATi are particularly annoying with numbers like 3450 and 3650, and when you encounter the exotic OEM versions a la 3430 or 3480 or whatever the fuck they call ‘em, it gets outright stupid.

And yet, the numbers don’t always tell you which one is better! The one’s clock might be lower, or RAM clock, or both, or less features, or WHATEVER. And comparing each one with their Geforce counterparts… what a trainwreck. By dint of trying to simplify their denominations, they’re just overcomplicating matters, especially to those who have absolutely no clue at all about computers. Oh well, enjoy your Formula 1 CPU with snail GPU and RAM, ignorant fools. I just wonder how often they will have to cycle their xxxx numbers… Ah, I miss the old Geforce 2 times. Still doing great in my 10yo comp on my right.

Ah well, Nvidia is now returning to 3 digits… for how long.

Yosh, 1700+ words even. I’m awesome :D So, see ya in 2 days or something.