colorful人生

Phew, so I guess I'm dual majoring in Geo (BSc) w/ focus in GIS and Japanese (BA).
I finished minor reqs for bio and gen ed two semesters ago, but I felt like I was hitting a dead end with Biology.
It's possible that I might spend an extra semester and some summer classes, but I love what I'm doing now.
Currently taking my 4th semester of Japanese, so I just need to take 3 more classes (two over the summer) and a JLPT prep class.

Need to step up my kanji game though. I only know most of the Genki I + II ones, but I'll try and pick up more Joyou Kanji via self-study/memorization.

Sweet that they're including the 9/28 live for Type D.
I got the DVD & Happiness single as part of live goods at their Halloween live, but they must have been quite limited (I would expect more on auction).

I will have to warn those getting the Type D version (particularly for the DVD) that after the first song, the audio quality takes a plunge.
In this preview it looks like they fixed the mix to emphasize Sena's vocals, which sounds somewhat better.

Woah, they have an awesome flumpool/indie/soft-rock feel. 

The treble-y sections (cymbals) and the vocals are a tad high in the mix at certain times, but other than that I'm pretty stoked!

Currently playing :

Taiko no Tatsujin V Version (almost everyday)
Project Diva F Second (on and off)
Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax: Ignition [Vita] (Emi is my main)
A Hat in Time (beta ver.)

Land's End and Esper for Gear VR 

[Really just messing around in the latter two since they're fairly quick to complete]

It's pretty surprising that I'm actually playing more than one game for once. Typically not a heavy gamer outside of retro stuffs & rhythm games.
 

Since visual novels are also technically games, I'm additionally going through Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate since it's been recently translated into English.
I could probably play more VNs with my Kanji dict. at hand (or VNR), but English makes the 50+ hours of game time much less painful.

[Does anyone still play Maplestory? I haven't touched the OG game in 8 years and private servers in 5. I'd probably get addicted again if I made a new acc. o_o]

A Powerball lottery ticket because maybe if I win I can buy all rarez and reenact that scene in "The Hobbit"

when Smaug rises out of the gold (except with CD cases). Then I can proceed to chase irl hobbit after
he tries to steal maximum 10/10 glowy rarez.

...I didn't match any numbers though D: ...

In other news, I bought some neato caffeinated shaving cream and some stuff on Like an Edison/ZEAL LINK (anfiel - LUNAR PHASE (both types) and lost world's first mini)

Finished watching the sit-down discussion between Obama and Anderson Cooper along with members from the audience with varying backgrounds/opinions.
An hour and fifteen minutes of decent, worthwhile discussion that further outlines and reiterates the president's strategy and purpose behind his executive orders to mitigate gun violence.
Increased funding to ATF agents, cracking down on the gun show loophole, and especially conducting more expansive/thorough background checks are perfectly reasonable.

Individuals from both sides asked reasonable questions which were met with very reasonable answers by our president. 

Immediately after this peaceful and informative back-and-forth I started to switch to other "news networks"... There's suddenly this explosion of anger that nothing was clear-cut and "Obama is going to take our guns away!". What.



AHHHHH! I can't wrap my head around the individuals who somehow watched this discussion and still refuse to accept these incremental changes to mitigate gun violence.
He LITERALLY repeated over and over that he wasn't going to hinder the public's legal access to guns, yet somehow these conspiracy theorist nutjobs think he's STILL trying to instill
some sort of "totalitarianism" in our government. Are these people deaf?! I shouldn't be surprised with inflammatory rhetoric like this on the news, but COME ON. You're killing me...

You can revert to your previous operating system if you upgraded straight from 7 to 10 (Update & Security -> Recovery). 
Pertaining to looks, I would tend to agree with JukaForever's statement in that 10 aesthetically is not too far off from 7 (unless you were ricing the hell out of it).

I use Rainmeter and Fences with 10 and I'm pretty content (since in my situation my laptop started out with Win . Other than that, you're pretty much out of luck
doing anything more extensive at the moment.

I thought of making a thread like this for Tai-pop a while back, but I felt that it might of been a bit niche (underestimated that, lol).

Like others, I've only dabbled in the genre since my only gateways were F4 when Meteor Rain/Garden aired ages go and Crowd Lu's Vitas shenanigans (both artists included below).

A couple of my Tai-pop/C-pop favorites:

(btw, Crowd Lu is amazing, check out "100 ways for living", one of my fav. albums)

(God... F4 those sexy bastards. Great music too.)

Edit: Wow, I absolutely love Kimberley's voice. Thanks beni!

I'm the type of person who attacks Christmas wrapping like a cat to a scratch post. So no, I don't have any unopened releases.
For the most part, most of my CDs are not even in their cases since I've managed to fit them all into my CD wallets. 

I digress... 
 

While stuff like this is really subjective, I personally find it wishful thinking to expect (most) CDs to drastically increase in value later in life (with the sole purpose of reselling).

CDs are what I foresee to be the last physical medium that'll exist for music before we go completely digital (viability of storing lossless files w/ inc. storage), and currently they're everywhere. 

Vinyl has had it's appeal with analog sound reproduction and "aesthetic", but other than live-limited/rare releases/flat-transfers I can't find the collectibility of "run-of the mill" CDs aside 

from a personal-collection standpoint.

However, the art and booklets (+ obis) could be valuable themselves (?), and CDs have a drastically longer life span than the cassette keeping them "functional"... *rant* *rant* *rant*.

Who knows, lol. I could be very wrong. I'm not entirely versed with CD collecting, so I apologize if I come off as ignorant on the subject.

[if there's any expansion on this topic for any reason, I wouldn't do it here. Maybe a separate thread could be made (or it already exists).]

Purple Stone is killing it right now.
I haven't been too into them the past two singles, but I really enjoy this concept + melody.

After a pretty depressing weekend, this arrived an hour ago. Currently bouncing off the walls in my dorm =D.

This band gives me very "Diz-esque" vibes (kinda filling the gap they left T_T), there's potential so hopefully they produce more material.

Talk about flashbacks... 

I remember watching the Tagalog dub/re-airing of Slam Dunk and somehow Ojamajo Doremi XD (I was 6 at the time)
While my cousins were invested into Slam Dunk, I liked the whimsical nature of Doremi and this ED really stuck with me.
 

I did a bit of research and realized I must have been watching the TV Asahi Japanese ver. because I vaguely remember the screen
shrinking after a show ended and a bunch of Japanese at the bottom and right sides of the screen. 

Other than Toonami which would air shows like DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho, my second and more permanent push into anime 
and Japanese music wouldn't come until 2006 when Toonami Jetstream launched. I became addicted to Hikaru no Go once 
I watched the first OP. God, that series had a brilliant set of OPs and EDs (ending made me tear up too T_T)

...

Since then, I've watched a ton of anime series eventually getting invested into the whole seasonal schedule.

Here are a couple of my favorite OPs and EDs that I felt really fit the theme of their respective shows:

There's a million more I could post, but I don't want one post to take up a whole page XD. 

Got a PS Vita roughly 2 weeks ago and have been playing the shit out of Taiko no Tatsujin and Project Diva f (more like replaying it since I've beat the Eng ver. on PS3). 

Since the console is arguably "dead" in the U.S, I was able to grab mine with a 64gb card and a extended battery housing for cheap on Ebay.
Since the Vita is still alive and well (sorta) in Japan, I've been using it has my Rhythm game/J-RPG machine and it's def. been worth it. 

I also got a bunch of "the Raid." goods from their 10/25 live (CDs, DVDs, and a towel) to be shipped soon.

Giggity~

The group song sounds fun, but I can't really imagine myself listening to it on the regular (good live song though).

All the individual tracks sound fine, but as much as it saddens me; I can't get into recent Type-A Royz tracks anymore D:.

At this point I'm more excited over Kiryu than anything else. 

(Not sure if I should include the following to this thread in particular, but it seems relevant enough to include it)

For those who want to view region blocked videos in the U.S, download TOR browser and follow these instructions substituting {US} w/ {JP}:

http://miscool.blogspot.com/2014/11/how-to-get-fake-ip-address-of-specific-country.html

While streaming on YT runs at tortuga-speed, as a free solution it should suffice for now. Also, you can use clipconverter.cc to download said video in HD quality through the browser.

I use Private Internet Access (PIA) (paid VPN) w/ region set to Japan in conjunction with TOR and get slightly better speeds.

Correction: You can change it to anywhere that isn't the US. Closer the location = better speed (for the most part). I have it set to JP anyway so I can access the UVERworld official channel (not the VEVO channel)

As of late yesterday and today, it seems like anything under Sony Music Entertainment, Victor Entertainment, columbia, anything protected under "eLicense", etc. have been region blocked in the U.S.

Hence, channels like Pony Canyon, Danger Crue, Resistar Records, and nobigdealrecordsCH have had the entirety of their videos region blocked in the process (as of now in the U.S). 
 

The general consensus on varying forums is that this is due to Youtube Red coming out in a few days, considering it's abruptness. (Videos not complying to ToS or corporations blocking in response to new ToS)

Additionally suggested by yakihiko, it would be great if we could make a list of the channels affected somewhere on the forum since this affects fans of J-pop, J-rock, Visual Kei, J-Indie rock, etc. 

While region blocking isn't anything new (-SMEJ channels/idol groups), this is probably one of the largest and most abrupt instances of region blocking I have witnessed on YT.

I'm hope this can be resolved in the coming days, but I'm a bit pessimistic at the moment.

*Edit: It looks like this has also taken down an innumerable amount of videos with idol groups and promotional anime material (Gundam, etc.). 

Super panic mode right now since a ton of major Japanese music-based YT channels have just been region blocked in the U.S.
Anything under ownership by Victor Entertainment, Sony, columbia, "eLicense" etc. have been blocked.
Channels like Pony Canyon and Danger Crue (under Sony's distribution) have also been region blocked.
 

Apparently this is in preparation for YT Red coming out in 4 days... WTF

I would personally love it if they split Itunes into smaller apps!

I use Kodi + MPC-HC (w/ madvr, etc.) for my videos/movies, I read books on my tablet, and I already have other software/apps that I can tweak to heart's content to suit my needs.
As someone who doesn't exclusively use the Apple ecosystem, just having MusicFinder would be suitable enough for me.

(though I would prefer all the Music "library" apps to act as functions of one piece of software; you don't need to seperate playing albums v. individual songs in a library)

One of the qualms I've had about Itunes is the fact that it's always inadvertently presented as a "music" software ( I "tunes"). I've never used Itunes to purchase books or videos, and you have to do a bit of clicking
to get to their respective sections from startup. Separate apps could be really beneficial to individuals/companies/etc. to have their content seen from the get-go. 

 

Everything arrived today perfectly!

My uni is usually timely or bizarrely untimely when it comes to distributing packages, hence the delay.

Would recommend 10/10
 

So, the past 3 days ~3 hours and 20 minutes a day I've been playing Undertale. (cue profile pic.)

Current Progress (SPOILERS):

I've "beaten" the game once to get the pacifist end, and I'm about to finish the true ending and fight Asriel/Flowey. I'm hesitant to play the Genocide route since it frankly scares the shit out of me (I've watched the whole thing)

As additional confirmation, for those who loved playing Mother, Earthbound, and/or especially Mother 3 you're going to love this game.

Even if you haven't played any of the titles (like myself, but I've kinda got it spoiled via lets plays), if you want something with an amazing plot and appreciate  "-bit" graphics this is GOLD.
It, for the most part, deserves it's place as the top indie game on Metacritic (it is an aggregate). If not deserving of that, then at least the best indie game of the year IMHO. 

and... the second reason for buying the game...

I just realized... I think this is the first time since the end of "Taste of Life" that I've seen a somewhat upbeat Satoshi. 
They should have incorporated a making-of on the DVD, since this MV looked undoubtedly fun to make. 

I've recently found YouTube channels pertaining to urban exploration and dead malls ("The Proper People" and "This is Dan Bell." respectively.)

I mostly find that malls (built within the last two decades or so) architecturally are built to be immutable, but are inevitably at the whim of very "present" factors. (surrounding community, local economy, etc.)

So in a weird way I find dead malls, while facing failure, aesthetically pleasing since they simply regress to their "blank canvas" (as the shops disappear.) 

(Dead malls have a "vaporwave-y" feel too)

Older abandoned buildings/structures that reflect their respective times are also pretty cool time capsules.

I also like the creepy Fallout vibes I get from the more dilapidated buildings.

(These pair nicely with Muzak)
 

The vocals are strongly auto-tuned. Notice the flawless pitch, but utter lack of vibrato.

Implied that it is insanely pitch-shifted via the autotune, I notice a bit of wavering in his vocals (unless that's a byproduct of the autotune (?)).

Nevertheless, while I like the sound the constant pitch change gets a bit grating over time. So hopefully they tone down the autotune in future releases.