lately between doing other things, i haven’t had time to post, or too much to say. life is pretty full of uni/work/gaming.  but not posting for what is gradually crawling towards a full month is not my style, so i thought i better say something!other than the monotonous java bugfixes i work on most every day at work, i have been spending my time doing..

manga!

i have been reading the NANA manga, and wow – its the first time i’ve started reading a manga series from the beginning, and i’m really enjoying it. the last time i read a manga seriously was the last chapter of “kodomo no omocha” – just to see how the ending was different from the anime (was told it was a lot better… and it was!). i have caught up to where i watched the anime up to, and am now watching after i read each episode as time permits.

i find it really awesome that they fully captured the manga – every frame is portrayed perfectly to the anime, every line of dialogue and thoughts are translated perfectly. a lot of the anime conversions out there lose a heap of detail, or even change the story, so it was nice to find this out . i can basically read the manga and have the sound of the manga in the background for read-along stylez!

riding!

i bought myself a bike. nothing special – just a ~$400 road-style bike for getting around the place. i was planning on saving money this year, but after losing my concession fare on trains (part-time enrollment ftl) and doing a few calculations, i would save over a year period quite easily.

its also just as fast to get to work (and even faster for the 80% of days when the train never comes) clocking in at ~22minutes. only thing i miss is stereo sound – there’s no way i’m keeping both in-ear headphones in my ears while riding… because i would hear nothing – that can’t be safe ^^;

piano!

i’ve been learning planetarium (ootsuka ai) on piano. i guess i’ll try and perform this and put it up on youtube at some point at well. should really spend more time playing piano than i have been! so much fun making progress on songs.

the spiritual successor of Total Annihilation was… *ahem* “released” on friday. needless to say it is awesome fun, and really adds lots of new features without losing the TA feel. there’s a screenshot thread on upppy for a bit of a look into the game, but ill include a few of my favourites here for kicks.

this is one of the largest units in the game. it is armed with a powerful red laser along with artillery and anti-air guns. keep in mind those little red icons are heavy tanks, and you will have a good idea of the size of this thing.

aircrafts undocking from my submersible aircraft carrier. this thing seriously feels like its straight from full metal panic. armed with an array of weapons and has built-in repair stations for all aircraft that dock on it. the pattern in which they come out is really cool.

in other (more productive) new, i also got around to recording myself playing shirushi on piano. after watching the drama series 14sai no haha, i just couldn’t get this song out of my head. it really has enlightened me to the fact that mr children own. its quite strange – over all these years i was only familiar with one of their songs – Tomorrow Never Knows (quite an old one at that) through beatmania. i’ve spent recent times listening to more of their music, and have to say that their new single Fake is very very catchy too . makes me want to see the movie for which it is the theme song – どろろ(dororo).

please leave a comment/rating on youtube if you’re that way inclined!

the bad thing about working is having no time, no energy, and no shortage of false transperth infringement accusations. the good part is having a bit of money to throw around. of course, then you have to find time to enjoy what you spend the money on. which means the end result is 睡眠不足 (lack of sleep).

i decided it was about time i got my own pair of headphones for my yamaha keyboard – i have been stealing my dads at every opportunity over the last couple of weeks. after doing a bit of research, i was pretty keen on the audio-technica open air AD900s.

they are ever so comfortable, and the sound quality is unquestionably better than any headphones i have heard up until now. works especially well with the keyboard – the grand piano soundbank sounds nothing short of awesome!

i also didn’t pass up the opportunity to pick up something to replace my falling apart 3-year-old sony headphones. enter the Ultimate Ear s3 canalbuds. while i haven’t really tested these out, they definitely put out sound that at least equals my old sony headphones, in a much smaller footprint. it will probably take a few days to get used to having plugs in my ears, but will be good for blocking out the idiot aboriginals that catch the train at the same time as me every day!

(｀□´)　以上である!(爆)！