Christmas Shopping. Ping! :D

Ahh....Christmas is coming closer! And I've spent more money in the past two days than I do in most months. It couldn't be helped...after I bought Fuuka, I was so shell-shocked that I didn't give much thought to what I wanted for Christmas. There wasn't much else I wanted....until now.

Ooooh......O_o....I don't know what happened to trigger it, but all of a sudden I really want to play Mega Man games! Is it because of that new anime series that's airing in Japan? I'm not that interested in that, because it's another spin-off and not the original series, but hearing about it triggered some serious nostalgia! ^_^

I can't find my Nintendo anywhere, and even if I could I'd never be able to locate all my games. I have all of them--yes, I do! Those games used to be my specialty..eh heh heh....I'm the only one in my household who's beaten all of them (1-8, at least!) Well....^^;;....I did use the Game Genie on 5, but not until I had already reached the Dr. Wily stage on my own. I just wasn't motivated to finish it through my strength alone. ^____^

The third game was my favorite, but I liked 2 almost as much. I didn't think the first one was that great. I hated 4! The music was awful, and the enemies were borderline retarded. After playing 3, I kept looking for Protoman in the 4th game, and he only had a cameo. -__-;;.....I think 5 was better than 4, at least. 6 was kind of dumb, but I still liked it. I liked 7 and 8, too....^_^;;.....

And I thought to myself, "Time to swipe Mega Man 8 from the little brother! But there was a copy of Rockman 8 on eBay, and I couldn't resist...;_;...

And there comes the big confession.

I broke down and ordered a Japanese PS2. I guess I can say that the initial reason was to play Tales of Destiny 2, but since it can play Japanese PSX games as well I thought it would be a good investment. ^_^;;...I did preorder Tales of Destiny 2. I figure that even if I'm disappointed in that game, I can rest easy knowing I'll never have to use a stoopid mod/swap trick to play an import game! :D

I admit that watching Kristen play Persona 2:EP in Japanese was...humbling. I had the hardest time understanding Katsuya's dialogue, but I understood most of what Ulala (and, of course, Ellie) said. Kristen tells me that series is pretty hard to understand, even for her (though she does a damm good job) but it worried me. Is all my Japanese falling out of my head?

It's the kanji I have a problem with. And my reading speed's too slow. I had no trouble understanding what little dialogue I've seen from Tales of Destiny 2, but I wonder if the rest of the game is going to be that easy? Eh heh heh....^___^;;....I figure I can't be worse off that anyone else who's importing the game. I at least know enough to compare a Japanese game script to the English translation in the US release and say "What the HELL?"

I'm not saying that Japanese is always better. The original language is always better. Once you translate something from one language to another, you lose a lot of the semantics. Maybe it's weird, but I've always liked to pick things apart like that ^_^;;....

Ah, but I digress! I won that copy of Rockman 8 and am waiting for it to come in. I heard the Japanese voices are pretty good. Though Roll appears to have the same voice actor as Lisa from Persona 2. Bleh.....I mainly wanted to hear Blues/Protoman (yeah, you know where my mind is!), even though he doesn't speak until the ending. Yeah, I know that Rockman's Japanese voice is girly, too, but I don't really care. Considering the way he looks, if he had a deep, manly voice I'd be frightened! -_-;;....

La la la...on the doll front, I united my white-skinned body with the white-skinned green hair head. I boil-permed her hair wavy. I don't know when I'm going to paint her, though. I have a lot of stuff to do.

My mother bought me a printer/copier/scanner for Christmas (she doesn't know about the Japanese PS2, and she doesn't need to know!), and that means I'll be able to make more clothes for Fuuka and Miyako once I resize those patterns. Oh, and Kristen's finally getting her Myu! Thanks, Minako ^_^! I ordered some wigs from Frank for the big Volks order. If he had been offered Mimi for the list, I might have gone into convulsions, but, thankfully, nothing else caught my eye. Phew.......

Rain....

Another entry today! Somehow, I felt in the mood to write again...

What did I do today? I painted a doll head to sell. I've been having trouble painting lately (I repainted Yuka and am not at all happy with how she turned out, I wonder if I should do her over?) and wanted to see if I could get my "groove" back. ^_^;;.....Well, for once I decided to not emulate anyone else's style and just do what I felt comfortable with. I tried blending soft brown at the lower corners of the eyes instead of leaving them white or giving the whole lower lid a strong outline. I like the way the eyes came out. I'd feel fine about selling the head--I'm not ashamed of it or anything. I'll probably have Kristen put it on eBay tomorrow. I hope it sells! ^_^ I used a Volks prerooted gold A-type head. The hair is a lovely yellow-orange color (I left it long) and I painted the eyes in blue-gray.

Armed with one of Kristen's old Japanese-English dictionaries, I started reading volume 2 of the Persona 1 manga and have been looking up and writing down any word I don't know. ^_^;;....I learned a lot of new words today! I hope I can remember them! I had a good enough understanding of the text in order to do a translation--I guess I'm not as bad as I thought, but there's still no end in sight as far as I can see. How much is enough? I guess it's like in "The Secrets of Mariko"--Mariko says that learning shamisen is one of the best hobbies you can have, because you can never master it. Maybe Japanese can be my shamisen? Uh....I can think of a lot of things that can be my shamisen! ^____^ That's a relief. After all, if you master everything you've set out to learn, you'll probably fall down dead. ^_^ No need to live, right?

I didn't mean that to sound nihilistic *_*! For some reason, a lot of people throughout the course of my life have accused me of being nihilistic. I just don't see it. If I fall into a nihilistic mood I'm usually either tired or being lazy. And that's all I have to say about that!

Mom bought this weird, pre-cooked pot roast tonight for dinner. There wasn't enough for me and Kristen, so I made us sandwiches. I think we got the better end of the deal.

It's become warm all of a sudden! I don't think I like it. It feels....moldy. Is this Indian summer?