Aino Minako-chan

And a quick note to translation companies: if you are trying to encourage people to contact your company, you might want to avoid having TWO major typos on the "Contact us" page alone. (Or should I say, the "Contac us" page.) Le sigh. In other news...

( Video Games Part 1: Valyria Chronicles 2 )

( Video Games Part 2: Bayonetta )

( Video Games Part 3: Final Fantasy Dissidia )

( Senshi Gakuen.com )

I was going to make a post about video games and translation and the state of the Gakuen, but instead, I will share the following.

I received a free sample Lemon Vinegar Kit Kat while shopping yesterday, and after one bite at lunch today, I have this to say about the lemony, vinegary taste:

Oh my fucking god. What the fuck is this flavor? It's like lemons died in my chocolate. Oh sweet... I actually had to eat some crackers to get the taste out of my mouth.

More later when I can stop remembering the horror.

It's a few days late, but have a follow up to my Apple Juice Experiment, Part 1.

LAST TIME ON APPLE JUICE EXPERIMENT:

Minako-chan hand-squeezed an apple. It was fun, but it wasn't perfect. Would using a cored apple produce better results?

( EXPERIMENT TIME!! )

Okay, so a few days ago applcheeks posted the following hysterical video showing Murakami-san from the comedy trio Morisanchu showing off how she can get a young boy ready for school in less than 5 minutes.



Go ahead and watch it; it's hysterical. I'll wait.

........

ANYWAY, although there are many many hysterical highlights of the video, one of the best was when she hand-squeezed about half a glass of apple juice for the kid's breakfast. And I do mean HAND squeezed--no tools involved. For those who didn't catch the Japanese, she explained that she simply froze an apple, and then defrosted it. And I thought to myself, you know what? That... actually makes perfect sense. The freezing would theoretically cause the water in the cells to expand, bursting the cells, and leaving you with a readily-squeezable apple. AND, as I just so happened to have an apple handy, I decided to try it for myself!!

( EXPERIMENT TIME! )

ETA: I updated with Part 2 of the experiment here

1. Tokyo did not get the 2016 Summer Olympics. Even though I don't plan on still living in Tokyo at the time, I was relieved.

2. Yesterday, the cleverly named Typhoon #18 hit Japan. (Yes, despite the fact that Japan has colorful character mascots for everything from the police to pudding to condoms to Akita Prefecture, they apparently draw the line at naming their typhoons.) The rain hit Tokyo hardest late Wednesday night/early Thurday morning, ending a little after 8 and leaving only windy conditions. But the wind... [growl] Here is what my commute looked like Thursday morning:

( Hold onto your hats, because this gets long... )

3. To tie these two topics together, THIS is why I thought it was a miserably horrible idea to hold the Olympics in Tokyo. I mean, THIS is what commutes can look like in Tokyo when large crowds and delays start up. If you've ever been to a big fireworks festival around Tokyo, you know that the stations can get insanely busy when a large-scale event takes place. I was talking about it with a co-worker, and she suggested, "Maybe it would work... if no one commuted at all during the entire Olympics." Yeah, basically. So congrats, Rio de Janeiro! I'm more than happy to cheer via TV.

So things are going... Well, they're going. >_< My monitor blew out during the middle of work yesterday (literally, there was a pop and then it turned black) and so I spent a while carting monitors around and hooking them up. THEN, I found out that we have a surprise work day today (Saturday), which is just arrrrrgh. SO not fair; I really hate 1 day weekends. T_T It's hard to get inspired to get chores done or work out or whatever when you've only got one day off.

But in GOOD news, FINAL FANTASY VIII!!!! Just as FF7 was released as a download for the PSP a couple of months ago, FF8 was just released, too, and I'm soooooo excited. It's really hysterical to think that both video games fit onto my little memory card, but c'est technology for you. I'm about halfway through FF7 and just started playing FF8. I always really liked FF8 and have a special place in my heart for it.

( Eight Things I Love About FF8 and Random Musings )

tl;dr I love FF8 and can't wait to play more.

Okay, so for one of my translations at work, I was translating a catalog, and one product was a lotion with SPF 30. I ended the section with:

"[...] this moisturizing lotion contains SPF 30."

Anyway, I got a note back saying, "SPF is not an ingredient in the lotion, so you shouldn't use the word 'contain'," followed by a link to a Yahoo Answers question about "what is SPF" or something.

Now on one hand, they're absolutely right. When you really think about it, "contains SPF" is a silly thing to say, so I changed the phrasing a bit. On the other hand, people do use the phrase "contains SPF", right? I'm not just hallucinating, right? Because it made me really paranoid. It sounds perfectly natural to me. Sure, it's not completely logical, but I would say that "contains SPF", "has SPF", or "with SPF" are all generally accepted phrases for the general concept.

Also, the Yahoo Answer link kinda pissed me off. Like, I know what the hell SPF is. I don't think that sunscreen contains SPF particles or whatever. I don't know. This was one of those situations where the change was perfectly acceptable, so I did it since there was no real reason to argue against it, but at the same time, I just want people to realize that I wasn't being incompetent, either. People say "contains SPF"! I swear!

It's that time again! I'm still alive and still reading (thanks, Kindle!). Not reading a TON, admittedly, but I'm not doing half bad.

( (13) The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch ) A really great fantasy story.

( (14) Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb ) Slow and not particularly likeable, and yet for some reason, I didn't hate it. Weird.

( (15) The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie ) I seriously cannot recommend this book enough. And I can't wait for Hugh's second novel to come out soon!

( (16) Warrior's Apprentice by by Lois McMaster Bujold )Long story short, I'm somewhat undecided about my feelings for the protagonist, but in the end, the rich world Bujold created is enough to keep me interested in reading another few books in the series.

( (17) Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold! by Terry Brooks )I got it for free, and I finished it quick, so it was worth it. Not so sure I'd be so happy if I had to pay money, though.

I'd also like to point out that I've gotten several of my books this year for free from the Suvudu free library (http://www.suvudu.com/freelibrary/). This is Del Rey's rotating library of free downloadable books, available in PDF or various eBook formats. From what I can tell, they pick authors who have a series or just several books available from Del Rey, and then they offer one of the books for free in order to encourage purchase of other Del Rey books. I stop by once a month or so to see if any of the freebies interest me. For instance, right now, both Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold! and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville are available. Even if you don't end up reading the book, or even if the book kinda bites, it's free, so why not?

Dear Japan Meteorological Agency,

Thanks for the EMERGENCY GIANT EARTHQUAKE warning this morning that turned out to be a total false alarm. It's the first one I've ever seen, and due to the rather dire message of "Duck and cover!" I dove for my doorway faster than I expected to move at 6:30 in the morning. Plus: Your alert system works! Minus: Your predictions apparently suck. Oh well. Halfway there!

Love and kisses,

Minako-chan

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Funny but true: Cracked had this satirical article about North Korea and, I kid you not, I completely misread the title. I seriously thought that it said, "Many Glorious Pantsuits In Which North Korea Is Clearly Best." I read the entire article thinking to myself, "How come there's not more about the pantsuits?" It's an easy mistake to make, clearly.

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The following is an absolutely hysterical little comic strip that I [heart], about a nubile mermaid and a lanky lad. And a magical dolphin with eyebrows. Oh, it cracks me up. Read it!

http://binsybaby.livejournal.com/640237.html

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Tomorrow is my birthday. [shifty eyes] Yeay!

Things I Discovered On My Summer Vacation

1. One can indeed get sick of ham, cheese, and bread.
After three days in Paris and one too many delicious delicious sandwich, I suddenly discovered that I was utterly sick of the combination. Honestly, if I had one more slice of ham, I thought I was going to scream. For dinner that last night, my mom and I went out of our way to order a plain omlette and spaghetti respectively.

2. I missed Scottish food.
This was surprising to me, since I dislike many "traditional" Scottish foods, like blood pudding or haggis or fry-ups, but I love meat pies and pasties and beans and empire biscuits and leek soups, so I was in heaven. Plus, my uncle (a former butcher) makes a to-die-for lamb stew. Seriously, it was a good few days in Glasgow.

3. My cousin got divorced.
I totally didn't know until my aunt started talking about his new girlfriend, which made me think that she was talking about someone else with the same name for three-fourths of the conversation. It was seriously confusing. No one tells me anything! (Note to kinomakoto : Not R, the one you know; I mean R's oldest brother. R has two little girls btw who are ADORABLE. The older one, age 2, is a doll who speaks with R's strong Glaswegian accent; it's hysterical.)

4. My grandpa has some great war stories.
Like, he told us this one about his earliest memory, which involved him in hospital when he was 3 with scarlet fever, during WWI, watching from the balcony of the hospital as lights lit up the sky to search for bomb-carrying airships (zeppelins, because they didn't use bomber planes in WWI). Or how he mainly worked on convoy rescue ships, which, despite the tendancy to run into German submarines, was the best job (he said) because the ships had lots of extra room and extra supplies since they needed to be ready to take aboard survivors. Or his story about manning a ship to carry a bunch of Americans and their sekrit sekrit package to Italy while being hunted down by more German subs.

That was a really interesting story: He said that he never did find out what they were carrying, but that the Americans they were with weren't military, as the only real military aboard were he and his fellow British gunners; he assumed that the Americans were CIA or something. (I would think that the captain and main crew would have been British military as well, but they apparently weren't; Grandpa was the highest-ranking military member when they arrived in Italy for the debriefing. Maybe they loaned gunners to the merchant marines?) Grandpa said that they were followed by an American naval ship, and he was always amused because he said that the American sailors never seemed to go below deck; there were always people lounging around or even sleeping above deck. But whatever they were carrying, the Germans apparently got wind of it and started submarine attacks. Grandpa said that one night, there was a gigantic explosion, but he didn't know what had happened until the next morning when he realized that the American ship was simply gone.

When they arrived in Italy and unloaded the sekrit sekrit cargo, he said that he and his fellow gunners went to a debriefing with the American military in which he was the highest-ranking military officer and therefore had to deal with them the most. One American military guy got on their cases for looking so untidy and unprofessional, saying that they all looked like they hadn't slept for days, to which my Grandpa replied, "Well, that's because we haven't. Because of the submarines." At which point an apparently higher-ranking American military officer chewed out the first guy for giving my Grandpa and his men crap, and he ordered them to have a shower and some sleep before they came back. Grandpa said that the first American military guy never apologized, but later on, the guy did take a car and drive Grandpa and his fellow gunners to visit Pompei for a few hours, so he supposed that was the guy's way of saying "Sorry I was an ass."

5. You can remove the seatbelts from airplane seats.
Okay, so I had an adventure getting back to Japan... First, my luggage was temporarily misplaced. I had two connections on the way back to Tokyo. My first flight was running late, but I managed to make the connection. Unfortunately, my bag did not. Luckily, I had a long layover, it was a short flight, and there was one more flight that night, so my bags made it in time for the last leg. Then, on the plane to Tokyo, I went to buckle up... only both sides of the buckle were firmly attached on one side. The other side, normally the side with the adjustable strap, was reduced to just a strap. I blinked at it for a while, tried to figure out if I could thread the buckle back onto the strap, and just called a flight attendant. She and another flight attendant discussed it for a bit, and since I really didn't want to move from my nice aisle seat into the only other available seat (a middle seat), the flight attendants simply decided to replace the seat belt by removing the entire thing. It involved shoving one part back a bit and a lot of yanking, but it turns out that the seat belts are basically just hooked onto a bar with a spring-loaded latch. It doesn't come off EASILY (seriously, they were yanking the hell out of the seat in confusion, and I ended up with a twisted strap because they were having trouble installing the new belt right-side-up before the plane took off), but it can be done. You learn something new every day!

Movies Seen On My Summer Vacation
1. Star Trek
Yes, there is nothing better than Star Trek in its full glory on a 7-inch in-flight screen. (lol) But it was fun and I enjoyed it. Also, my mother apparently thought that the Sulu fencing joke (you know, when Kirk goes "What kind of fighting do you do" and Sulu goes "Fencing") was HILAROUS, and it always cracks me up to discover what parts of movies my mommy likes the best. No really, she couldn't stop laughing. It was cute. ^_^

2. The Time-Traveler's Wife
The logic doesn't make a huge amount of sense, and it's slightly creepy when you really think about how he visited his wife as a child, but overall I quite enjoyed the movie. It was just a tear-jerking, sweet romance with a sci-fi twist. Now, to read the book!

Remember this? I'm going to be an extra in another freaking video for... I have no idea what it is this time. Possibly the same product. It involves a security camera, I know that. All I know is that it will be far less intensive (I'm at Starbucks, but the camera can see me! I'm sitting in the lounge, but the camera can see me!), and thus also far more boring. (It sounds like it's going to take all day to film me sitting in random locations.) I'm also going to be co-starring with Random Foreigner who they pulled out of god knows where, and I'm apparently supposed to be "friendly" and "chatty", the thought of which makes me want to groan. (I don't think that I can be chatty with a stranger for 7 hours! It's just not in me!) With me luck! >_<

Question for work (and I am unfortunately not even kidding you, this is actually for work):

What anime, manga, or cosplay-related sites (informational or sales related) that are only available in Japanese would you like to see in English? (Or any similar sites that just have, say, an incomprehensible English HP would be fine, too.)

(No seriously, this is for work. Don't ask.)

Wow, I haven't talked about my books in a very long time, but I swear that I'm still reading! Honest! Here's a roundup, homefully without leaving anything out...

( (7) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ) Definitely a recommended read for most everyone.

( (8) Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik ) A great addition to the Temeraire series.

( (9) Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman ) A wonderful, wonderful superhero novel.

( (10) Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves ) Calling all Neil Gaiman fans: Stay away. Stay faaaar away.

( (11) Storm Front by Jim Butcher ) To put it in mathematical form: Harry Potter + Harry Lockhart = Harry Dresden.

( (12) The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis ) A bit slow in parts, but over all very quirky and quite funny for a slightly surreal read.

FYI, I got a Kindle as an early birthday present, and it's actually perfect for me, because A) I honestly don't have room for any more paperbacks in my little Tokyo apartment, and B) when you take into consideration shipping costs and general markups added to English books is Japan, Kindle prices are honestly a good deal. Plus, it's much easier to cart on the train! I'm honestly not sure if I'd use it if I still lived in the States, but in Japan, it's really great.

For those who are curious, the Japanese parliament is currently starting its debate on reforms to the current organ transplant law (concerning deceased donors). The main catalysts for this change are a combination of A) problems with the current law, especially with the fact that donors must be 15+ years old, thus essentially making transplants for children illegal, and B) changes to WHO rules on transplants in foreign countries (in order to combat the concern of "transplantion tourism" as far as I can tell). I'm not an expert on transplants by any means (although I know people who are!), but it's an interesting debate in Japan, and I'll try to summarize it here.

( Cut for those who don't really care and b/c it's kinda long... )

In short, it's an interesting debate to watch. We'll see what happens.

UPDATE: Surprise! Plan A passed in the first house by a rather wide margin. We'll see how it does in the second house.

UPDATE #2: Plan A passed the second house in mid-July. Hurray! Now if we can only get families to agree to donate...

I had a pretty good weekend to combat recent work/life stress. On Saturday, johnabe took me to see "Terminator Salvation" (just known as the more logical "Terminator 4" in Japan). It was my first ever Terminator movie, and you know what? I quite liked it. It has lots of fun action and explosions and some pretty amazing shots (there's a helicopter crash in the beginning that I thought was really well done... it really DID remind me of being in my mom's SUV when it flipped, only, obviously, longer). Plus, it has MARCUS WRIGHT (played by Sam Worthington), who was totally awesome and I loved him like an awesomely awesome thing. Anyway, for some non-spoiler fun, the credits to the movie turned out to be accidentally hilarious:

1. One poor actor was accidentally credited as "Soilder". I loled pretty hard. Go go proofreading skillz!

2. At the very end, when they had the "Special Thanks" part of the credits, there was one line that went something like this: "Special Thanks to the Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force, but especially to the Department of Defense."

No seriously, it mentioned the DOD twice. I couldn't stop laughing. I imagine a meeting with the producers and the guys from the DOD went something like this:

Producer: ...and, of course, we will make sure to credit both you and the Air Force for your cooperation...
DOD: But we're responsible for the Air Force.
Producer: Um, yes, but the planes are actually being flown by the Air Force, so...
DOD: Well, sure, you have to thank them... but it's thanks to us that the Air Force even exists! So you need to, you know, thank us double.
Producer: Oh, well. I guess we could...
DOD: Can you print our name in big letters?
Producer: I suppose...
DOD: Or make it flash or something? Like, one of those scrolling thingamabobs?
Producer: Er...
DOD #2: What about sparkle font?
DOD: Oooooo...
Producer: ...We'll just thank you twice.

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One of my friends invited me to a little livehouse on Sunday night. Her boyfriend is acting as the temporary bassist for this comedic three person rock band. Their music was actually pretty good, and they were also very funny as well. They had songs called things like "My name is Bacteria Man" and "Draemon Ash" (a play on famous cartoon "Doraemon" and rock group "Dragon Ash"). Their lyrics were by turns humorous, surreal, and weird, and I quite liked it. I think my favorite song was one that mainly consisted of instrumental music while the lead singer/guitarist Sugawara-san (I've met him a couple of times) talked, giving a short setup to a joke (about current events, politics, whatever) that lead up to a killer punchline. But after Sugawara-san made a few good jokes, he forced the drummer, Endo,  to take a turn, and his joke went like this:

Endo: You know, you hear people talking about all of the horrible things happening to modern Japan, but I don't think people talk about Japanese eating habits a lot. You know, more and more people are cutting back on rice, and they're eating more and more bread (pan in Japanese). And to me, that's the real PANdemic.
Audience: ............
Endo: [attempt to hide behind drums]

I laughed. It was a pretty entertaining show. ^_^

This has been making its way around the internets, but I just hate to think that anyone would miss the hilarity. Disclaimer: I love Bonnie Tyler's song "Total Eclipse of the Heart". It's one of those big epic over-the-top rock ballads. Little Minako-chan used to turn it up on the radio and watch the video on MTV, that's how much I liked the song. Having said that, the video makes no freaking sense. It's honestly just mind-bogglingly weird. There's fencers and shirtless schoolboys and a very literal take on the lyrics "Turn around bright eyes". It's just SO weird.

Which is why the LITERAL version of the video, in which the original lyrics are replaced by descriptions of the video, is so good. I weep with laughter every time I see this video.

( The Original Version )

( The Literal Version )

In conclusion, it's still a great song, but the video, wtf?

I saw him again! As I mentioned twice before, there's an awesome guy at my gym. And today, while walking around in Shinjuku, I think I saw him again! Okay, so I was walking along, and I saw this person from the back. At first, I thought it was a middle-aged woman, but the outfit... yellow turtleneck, yellow socks, Birkenstocks, and teeny TEENY khaki shorts that not only displayed rather significant amounts of ass cleavage, but also appeared to be giving the world's most painful-looking wedgie. As this person also had long hair tied into a side ponytail (with a hairband attached to a giant pink flower) and was also carrying a purse that (although I wasn't close enough to see the entire pattern) would have likely worked as a purse for My Little Pony or Care Bears, I assumed that said person was a woman. But then, as said person turned a corner, I caught a glimpse of this person's profile, and there was a rather significant beard. I couldn't tell for sure if it was actually gym guy, but I'd be rather frightened if there was more than one of him hanging around Shinjuku.

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Some videos I should mention... There's a commercial for Combat (a cockroach insecticide) that never fails to make me howl with laughter:

( Cut for the YouTube embedded version. )

You can watch the YouTube version (bigger but low quality) or you can visit the web site (teeny but high quality). Long story short, it's got the Johnny's-related idol group Butokan doing a very idol version of this insecticide commercial, and it ends with a very dramatic, "Gokuburi (cockroach), to the heaven." Seriously, I WEEP with laughter.

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Also, http://www.dothetest.co.uk/ has a new version of their awareness videos. The original one "Basketball" is still incredible, but the new version "Whodunnit?" is equally pretty awesome.

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Finally, my parents are currently in Hawaii visiting relatives, and they went to my cousin's graduation. Now, Hawaiian graduations are always celebrated by giving the graduate leis. Basically everyone the graduate knows sends a lei, so every graduate can end with piles of flowers. (Even I, when I graduated in Colorado, ended up with two fresh flower leis and a ribbon lei from relatives.) Monday is Memorial Day in the US. (For non-Americans, this is the day for commemorating soldiers who died in battle. A separate day, Veterans Day, is set aside for other veterans.) In honor of Memorial Day, a large veterans cemetary in Punchbowl (Honolulu) asked for donated leis, as they cover each grave in a lei. They needed 50,000 leis. They apparently now have too many leis, but they're still collecting anyway. My mom said that at my cousin's graduation, they had a box near the exit. Anyone who wanted to donate the leis after the pictures and all were over could drop the leis off in the box. Sounds amazing... I'd like to see that.

I literally ran from my dinner when I heard the news so that I could post this as quickly as possible:

SMAP's Kusanagai Tsuyoshi was arrested for public indecency after apparently getting drunk and running around a public park naked.

I shouldn't laugh at someone getting arrested, but I find this to be absolutely hysterical. I'm in tears with laughter after hearing this news. This is the definition of LOLz.

On the minus side, this is Japan, not the States or Britain or somewhere (where this would just be a hilarious story to tell interviewers), and Tsuyoshi-kun's not just a normal celebrity, he's a JOHNNY'S, and therefore technically an idol, and therefore this looks like it's going to be a HUGE deal. There's already been an official statement from Johnny's stating that Tsuyoshi-kun has been temporarily suspended, no indication yet of when he'll be let back in. OH THE DRAMA.

Okay, I've got to ask because I've heard about it on other people's blogs and on news sites and even from my freaking parents... Susan Boyle. Am I seriously the only one who didn't start weeping and having a life changing experience upon hearing her sing? I mean, she's a good singer, and if she were at my karaoke night, I'd cheer nice and loud. But it wasn't exactly the best performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" that I'd ever heard, and I wasn't that impressed, and I certainly wasn't anywhere near tears. (Then again, I was also never impressed by Paul Potts two years ago, either.) It makes me wonder if maybe I'm cold-hearted (although I cry at half of the movies I see), or if maybe I'm some sort of elitist music snob (always a possiblity). So, have a poll!

Poll #1385024 It's like a poll you'd write in middle school:
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 21

Do you like Susan Boyle Y/N?

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In other news of a video that DID get me choked up, I watched the latest "Harry Potter & tHBP" trailer, and I was doing fine until the end of the trailer when they showed obviously end-of-the-movie Snape scenes, and I started getting teary-eyed. It's just [SNIFF!] all so very sad, and I will likely blubber like a baby at the end of the movie. July 17th in Japan, gotta mark my calendar!!

Holy cow, I'm exhausted. The filming today took no time at all, but I still spent half of the day in either a car or train, so I chugged a very sugary latte in an attempt to wake up. (Note: Backfired big time. Caffeine is a total crap shoot with me: I'm either insanely wired for the next 6 hours, or I immediately want to curl into a ball and go to sleep. Guess what happened. >_<) Anyway, the video was pretty hysterical; it involved me 10 seconds of me pretending to take money from an ATM, and then getting into a tug-of-war fight with my co-worker Miokawa-san (dressed in all black and looking hysterically suspicious) over my bag. It was pretty awesome. After some debate over when I should shriek and how long we should wait until Miokawa-san started attacking, we got it done pretty much in one take, so I went back to work. (Well, I took the train for an hour and THEN got to work.) But luckily, I had plenty to keep me occupied! And with that, here are my three big video game news items (because good things come in threes):

1. Final Fantasy VII (PS3/PSP). They just brought this out on the Japanese Playstation Store, so I was able to download the game. Now I can play it on the go with my PSP (as I did today), or at home on my PS3 (note: FFVII on a large high-definition TV is HYSTERICALLY overkill; each pixel is like the size of my thumb). I played it during my long travel time today, so I just got Tifa in my team and we're about to go off to take down Tower 5. It's pretty darned awesome, and I'm totally excited to get further along so that I can just run around and level-slut on my commute. Good times!
   
2. Final Fantasy XIII. FFVII:AC comes out on Blu-ray on... Wednesday? Thursday? In any case, I've got a copy on reserve with the FFXIII demo, and I'm totally excited. It looks very very purdy and lots of fun and it's going to be pretty hysterical to play it back-to-back with FFVII. ^_^
   
3. Valkyria Chronicles. I had been interested in it when it first came out, and then I forgot about it, but recently I picked it up due to a recommendation from kinomakoto. And, well, I adore it. It's a turn-based RPG strategy game with surprisingly little actually strategy required (lol). Essentially all you need to do is accomplish your goal (normally a capture-the-flag type deal), but you're mainly graded on speed. You can get bonus points for killing leaders and tanks and getting aces and all that, but your main points come from your rank in the battle, and your rank seems to mainly depend on how fast you capture the flag. So while you have five classes of soldiers and a tank, essentially all you really need is about two good soldiers to carve a straight line through the enemies and get to the flag as quickly as possible. And to be entirely honest, plowing through the enemies while attacking like a mad-woman, completely ignoring defense, and focusing solely on the end goal is how I normally play strategy games, so this is a perfect match for me. Add in the beautiful artwork made to look like painting instead of CG and the somewhat hysterical storyline (as Mako-chan described it to me, "It's set in Gallia, a neutral country stuck between warring NotRussia/Germany and NotBritishEmpire. (By location, it would be Poland, but it acts like Switzerland and the people are Austrians. Large plotpoints center on Edelweiss.)"), I really love the game. Two thumbs up so far!
   

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In non-video game related entertainment news, johnabe dragged me to "Frost/Nixon" totally against my will, and would you believe it, it was an awesome movie. I thought it would be rather dry and dull, but instead it's suspenseful and exciting, and despite the fact that it's based on true history, you still spend the movie on the edge of your seat. "It's the final interview... will Frost get a leg up over Nixon!? I just don't KNOW!" It was suprisingly good. Recommended!