Europe Holiday (Part 1)

Europe Holiday (Part 1)

So after a long time awaz i thought i would post some info on how the europe interrailing is going. So far has been absolutlz amaying! (Btw in Croatia the y and z are reversed but i can’t be bothered to keep changing them except for countrys ).

If zou can’t tell from the picture the route is:

London –>  Paris –> Rome –> Napels –> Patras –> Karinthos –> Athens –> Thessaloniki –> Belgrade –> Zagreb (Currentlz here) –> Buddepest –> Prague –> Berlin –> ZweiBrunken –> Luxembourg City –> Amsterdam –> Home.

So for the start we went to Paris mainlz to see the sites, which we did. The mistake was the fat that we had the heavz packs on the whole time and the weather was about 33/34 all daz. It was cool but, zeah zou don’t reallz appreciate it while zour dzing from the heat. Sadlz the best part wasn’t the amaying architecture it was the man with cake-bread that lured all the birds to him so zou could watch them eating out of peoples hands, so cool! On a final note: Paris did not improve mz opinion of the French, also everzthing cost too much.

After that we took a sleeper train to Rome and found our hostel there. We took a while to find it because it looked like a car park from ther outside. Next door was some swimming satdium which we later found out (once we left Rome) was hosting the world swimming championship (FINA?). Got to see all the cool Roman stuff, such as Colosseum and the Panthion. Looks so amaying, but everzwhere zou walk there is a piece of ancient Roman artutecture. Rome was also extremlz hot, we had ice cream and that was a funnz experiance in that kind of weather. Oh zeah we also went to one more countrz: Vatican City! It was prettz cool to see some of the famous stuff (ie. Sistine chapel) and the area where the Pope gives his readings would be prettz easz to smuggle a sniper rifle into if zou go hours before he gives his sermons, hint hint.

Napels/Napoli was prettz nice, basicallz a seaside town but Italy stzle! Onlz promblem was when looking for the “beach” we found it, it was about 3öm long and had tons of people on it! Best part was that we visited Pompei from there, now that was amaying! The citz itself was prettz awsome but it was the dead people that was chilling.  On some of them the ash was a bit broken and zou could see the bones underneath, perttz cool stuff. One of the highlights of the whole trip was climbing up mount Vesuvius itself. The climb up the crayz roads, the view from the top and the inside of the volcano itself was so unbelievable! One of mz friends bought some volcanic ash which was just the same as the ash/dirt on the floor .

We then went to the port town of Patras just on a stop over and stazed at Carpe Diem which was basicallz a bar with a hostel attached to it. Thez were prettz cool guzs there though, all just a mix of different english speaking countries. From there we get on the ferrz to Karinthos/Corinth, we onlz found out when we got there that our tickets were onlz deck tickets so we had to sleep on the outside of the ferrz on it’s 17h vozage. Now that was a fun experiance. Here is also where i began putting €5 on red via the roulette. So far i’m 3-ö up on the casinos, see gambling is good i1m €15 up the travels arn’t over zet!

Not much to saz about Karinthos, we found a camp site that was extremlz cheap so on the first night we slept outside on the floor due a  lack of a tent. Next morning bought a tent, went back and wasted about 4 dazs lounging around on the beach. Here is where i read two books: Slights, about a caryz serial killer girl which is quite a good insight to a crayz person and Battle royal (!) the novel,m which is still one of the best books ever. The best part was that it’s slighlz different from the film and the manga so well worth it.

Roleplaying Games

One thing I have been meaning to do is to do a little entry on the gaming I have been doing at university.

Part of the motive for this is to showcase a few potential candidates for a game to run over the summer holiday.

Inspired by (or shamelessly plagiarised from) m’ colleague’s recent anime entry, I shall present them in an orderly fashion.

Dungeons and Dragons

After a little (read masses of) initial resistance, I finally agreed to play some 4e D&D. Not being a particularly mature product yet, it still has quite a shiny freshness to it, and, unlike it’s predecessor 3.5, there has not yet been a multitude of supplemental rules published by different authors which could be combined into unbeatable game-breaking characters. We were able to play a standard, diverse party just from the core books and our adventure was constructed very nicely from just those same sources.

The rules have been altered and it has been commented by many that they have the aura of an MMORPG, rather than a tabletop game. Certainly the variety of abilities available to even the most no-nonsense fighter and the fact that these are used ‘at will’, ‘once per encounter’ or ‘daily’ reinforces that image. The basic races and classes have also been mixed around in a similar way. Dragonborn are stupid. Tieflings are too nerd-wet-dream. Eladrin appeal to the same people that elves do, but elves are still there! I personally think we have enough ‘beautiful, slender, wise humanoids,’ why can’t we have fat elves anyway?

I can only see myself hating the sort of people who would pick the new Warlord class with its “Role: Leader” description. I get some consolation from the fact that the Warlord is more of a support character (“Status inducing magic, Cloud? Why, those suck!”)

These observations aside, we had a really good campaign. It’s still fun to be a halfling rogue which is the important thing. It is certainly more combat oriented (not a great thing) but with less need for those bloody miniatures (a brilliant thing!) The books are very pretty and very colourful (more MMO-like tendencies?) and the system seems very sound. Overall I think it is an RPG for the new generation and a good one at that, although I think I will always have difficulty thinking about it as DnD.

Call of Cthulhu

Being very familiar with the works of H. P. Lovecraft makes this one an obvious choice. Having played it before, I was very aware that the mood of the game varies massively from group to group. This was a fairly relaxed game. In it I played a doctor with a birdwatching hobby (the idea being to justify as many points in the “spot hidden” skill as possible!) in a group investigating the murder of a mutual friend by suspected cultists. As anyone who knows this system will expect, it only got weirder and more horrifying. I didn’t end up going permanently mad, although I did have a period of sobbing uncontrollably at unfortunate moments for a couple of days during the course of the game.

Call of Cthulhu remains a favourite due to the combination of cults, myths, sanity loss, 1920s setting and the overall futility of trying to fight the malevolent, uncaring gods whose destruction or enslavement of humanity is practically inevitable. While most RPGs are combat heavy, this remains a more plot-heavy, intrigue-filled alternative with a decidedly darker edge.

CthulhuTech

I have left this one until last for a reason. It was only by chance that I got to play this, since only one person had a copy of it, but I am so very glad that I did. Imagine Neon Genesis Evangelion mixed with a nearly-apolocalyptic Call of Cthulhu. It has mecha, it has bio-mecha, it has god-aliens, it has cults, it has sanity loss, it has ritual magic, it has ingredients for great stories and a nice system underneath, including a good mech combat system. It has scope for lots of types of games: Foot soldiers in enemy territory, mecha pilots fighting for the Earth, investigations into sinister plots of unspeakable cults or combinations of all of these.

It uses an interesting dice system where many d10s are rolled at once. Matching numbers and runs of numbers give higher scores which adds an extra element of fun to each task or attack. It has comprehensive rules for mecha and has many types to use. There are two races to choose from to add a bit of interest. There are no “classes”, just professions, which is a lot less restrictive and means, for example,  that characters can be pilots with academic skills or soldiers with engineering abilities.

We played for only one session (a long one though) and completed what I suspect was the introductory adventure but it was excellent. Though the whole game is a shameless pasting-together of many different settings and concepts, it actually feels very coherent and is great fun to play. This was a welcome new game for me and definitely a new favourite.

Others

We had a brief and disastrous game of Paranoia, a game which made no sense to me and involves never insulting The Computer and only touching things of your colour. I also took part in one guy’s home-made system which was a bit of an “I-wish-I-was-a-vampire”-clusterfuck. These have been omitted for obvious reasons.

God and Things

One of the things I have done recently is write an essay with the title “Is ‘Creation Science’ really Science?” Since the philosophy department seems to be full of idiots, and this actually counts towards my mark for the end of the year, I couldn’t just write “no” 2000 times. On the other hand I now have a hugely comprehensive knowledge on this subject so I guess it wasn’t all wasted. The central point behind it is that science must confirm predictions whilst giving the opportunity to falsify predictions.

Ignoring for the moment the fact that there is not a shred of evidence to support creation science or it’s newer incarnation “Intelligent Design” over any other explanation, and also ignoring the fact that creation science fails to even fullfil these criteria for science, it turns out that creation science can never be scientific.

The reason for this is as follows:

1. If the natural world was designed, it required intervention by a deity.
2. For a deity to need to intervene requires that the consequences of this intervention would not occur naturally.
3. If the consequences would not occur naturally, the act of intervention must be breaking one or many of the established laws of the universe.
4. In breaking laws of the universe, this action excludes itself from being predictable or falsifiable, putting it outside the realm of science (short of a psychological study of God and his motives).

There is no design in the universe and I may have accidentally implied that there is no God either. Whoops.

If this sounds boring to you, consider that it has been the entire focus of my life for the past 3 weeks, since I was confined to my room with only this that needed doing.

Just to keep things up to date:

As a follow up to my most recent post about sleep experimentation, I have had to put that plan on hold for the moment as I started showing signs of glandular fever about a month ago. This put me out of action so heavily that I was unable to attend lectures or labs and spent at least 18-19 hours a day sleeping. Thankfully I am on the mend now, but it has meant that my life has been pretty empty and uninteresting since then, which may be why I wrote an entry about an essay I wrote. Ugh.

Random Life Update Part 2

Now that it’s the holidays I’ve been sleeping excessively again. Although it’s a long break there is still a lot of work to do, I can’t ignore it and just enjoy the holiday. Although I called it a life update, it’s all about anime so maybe it’s more of a no life update.

(Plot summaries and most images from animenewsnetwork)

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Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (3 Seasons)

Itoshiki Nozomu is the world’s most negative person. To his way of thinking, there is no hope or meaning in this existence. Even the three kanji of his name become the two-kanji word zetsubou, “despair”, when compressed. What an ironic twist of fate, then, that he becomes teacher to a class containing his precise opposite, the invincibly positive-minded Fuura Kafuka.

Although almost all of the jokes are based on Japanese culture, language and society it still manages to be very entertaining. The first few episodes are about introducing the various different characters, all but one are crazy in some way. Then it switches in an “Excel Saga” like mode, with the theme constantly changing. Episodes are often in 3 unrelated parts too.

It might be better to read the manga, a good translator can explain things and you can take your time reading the large amount of background text rather than pausing constantly.

My favourite character is the girl who wants everything to be clean and proper (it’s a 4koma, read the two columns separately):

Rating: 8/10 (The every-episode-panty-shot character is probably the least interesting)

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Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (1st Season)

It is the year A.D. 2307. Fossil fuels on Earth have been depleted entirely, with mankind turning to the next available power source: solar energy. During this time, 3 orbital elevators with solar power generation systems are built, each under control by the Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations (formerly United States of America), the Human Reform League (Russia, China and India) and the Advanced European Union. However, not all countries are able to enjoy the benefits of this system, leading to widespread resentment and war. Arising out of the conflict, a mysterious military organization known as Celestial Being appears, dedicated to end all warfare using Mobile Suits called Gundam. This begins the stories of Gundam Meisters (pilots) Setsuna F. Seiei, Lockon Stratos, Allelujah Haptism and Tiera Erde as they are thrown into conflict between the 3 superpowers and the various other factions.

The Gundam series has always been focused on conflicts while blurring the distinction between good and evil. Gundam Seed did this especially well in the beginning, showing both sides equally. But don’t watch the horrific Gundam Seed Destiny “sequel”, unless you like seeing the main characters become invincible, recycled scenes recycled after being recycled and a plot that spirals down and disappears faster than that of DBZ.

So back to Gundam 00, it might be a bit early to judge since the story is left hanging after the first season, but they’ve already done the typical “kill characters off then revive most of them again later”. It’s one of those things you don’t mind if they’re bringing your favourite character back, but hate otherwise (or if there’s an explanation like the character is actually a clone and there’s a whole vat of them floating about underneath the HQ).

Judging the first season by itself, it’s nothing amazing, 6/10. If the second season is really good I might write about it again, but probably not since I don’t particularly like any of the characters (except the one that drinks constantly but she cries too much).

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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (2 Seasons)

On one hot summer day in 1983, a transfer student named Maebara Keiichi comes to a peaceful rural village in Hinamizawa. There, he befriends his classmates Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. Accepted as a full-fledged member of the “club,” Keiichi and the gang plays all sorts of activities ranging from card and board games to hide-and-seek. But just as Keiichi was beginning to be assimilated in simple rural life, he stumbles upon the dark history of Hinamizawa. As Keiichi dives deeper into the mystery, he finds that his new found friends may not be all what they claim to be.

Most animes based on games tend to suck, because there’s no possibility of multiple endings, so they always have to stick to one path (usually the most predictable). But Higurashi gets around that by having the same few days repeat over and over, with all the characters dying by the end (I don’t know if that’s how the game works).

At first there are lots of mysteries, characters act weirdly and say strange things. It seems to be about magic and curses. It’s fun to try guess what is really going on and there is a great feeling of satisfaction when some pretty absurd events are explained.

Since I usually watch while playing games, when playing Melty Blood I noticed something peculiar, but just though it was a coincidence.

(Chie-sensei on the left, Ciel on the right)

When she was shown eating curry in the OAV I was pretty suspicious.

Then after this scene I felt pretty stupid for not noticing it earlier:

Rating: 8.5/10 (It’s a happy end, but like all happy ends a bit corny)

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Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (2 Seasons)

The Empire of Britannia has invaded Japan using giant robot weapons called Knightmare Frames. Japan is now referred to as Area 11, and its people the 11′s. A Britannian who was living in Japan at the time, Lelouch, vowed to his Japanese friend Suzaku that he’d destroy Britannia. Years later, Lelouch is in high school, but regularly skips out of school to go play chess and gamble on himself. One day, he stumbles on terrorists 11′s who’ve stolen a military secret and is caught by a member of the Britannian task force sent after them, who is Suzaku. As the rest of the squad arrives, Suzaku is shot for disobeying orders, while the military secret, a young girl, gives Lelouch the power of Geass, which makes anyone obey any order. While Suzaku is secretly made the pilot of Britannia’s brand new prototype Knightmare, Lancelot, Lelouch becomes the masked Zero to lead the rebellion to destroy Britannia once and for all.

Best friends forced to fight each other has been done before. Ambitious male protagonist aided by supernatural powers while hiding his identity has been done before. Giant robot fighting has been done many times before. It seems like there’s nothing new and before watching this I was already a bit bored of the mecha theme. The first few episodes are nothing special either.

Maybe it was low expectations, but somewhere in the second half of the first season I got hooked, each episode was progressively more exciting and I was afraid of watching the next because it was getting too interesting. But what really made this series great was the ending, it concludes the story and actually ties up all of the loose ends (but not in an obvious way).

Rating: 9/10 (I’ll never give something a 10/10 and 9.5 is reserved for something that interests me right from the beginning like Evangelion or Suzumiya Haruhi)

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So that’s it for my recently watched anime. Don’t be bored this Easter!

Random Life Update Part 1

So this term has gone by pretty quickly, the work is difficult and there are various evening obligations (not all involve alcohol) which make it even tougher. But since I refuse to work after 7pm I’m left with a lot of time to sleep, eat and pursue many non-academic activities.

It’s good that I can’t play Starcraft here, but the fact that I can just cycle 5 minutes home means I end up playing anyway. Somehow I’ve managed to find the time to watch more anime than I did during the summer holidays, so I guess I’ll talk briefly about some of them.

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Makai Senki Disgaea

They say it exists in the place deeper than any sea and darker than any darkness. It is a dark place where ominous things gather. No one knows where it is. But everybody believes it and is afraid of it.

Kliuchevskoi, the king of devils, died. The news of the great king, who had ruled the Devil World for a long time, traveled among other worlds. Soon, it got around all over the Devil World.

Taking this opportunity, ambitious daemons, who had smoldered with their complaints, rose one after another. Then the Devil World turned into the age of rival chiefs.

Two years have passed since then…

Basically I was watching this while playing Disagea 2, only reason I wanted to see it was because I hadn’t had enough of the characters from the first game. The anime roughly follows the story of the game but it seems like some characters’ personalities have changed.

The art and animation are not good, the music is taken from the game and I didn’t like the ending (there are multiple endings in the game). Basically there’s no one I would recommend this to, and if you’re a rabid fanboy of Disgaea then you will have watched it already.

Rating: 3/10 (because it’s cute at times)

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Koi Kaze

Soon after his younger sister was born, Koushiro’s parents divorced. The two siblings were raised separately – Koushiro by their father, and Nanoka, his younger sister, by their mother.

10 years passed and Koushiro had forgotten about his sister completely. He lives a normal life, working at a dating agency. However, his sister would be attending high school in the spring. To ease her daily commute, she moves in with Koushiro. This situation proves perplexing for him. To make matters more awkward, he had previously dated Nanoka without recognising her as his sister. To add to his embarassment, the agonies of a broken heart had once driven him to tears, and it was Nanoka who had comforted him.

Nanoka attaches herself to Koushiro as if to make up for the time lost during their separation. Koushiro decides to become a good brother, but fails from the start. Nanoka is just too cute, and he cannot help being aware that she was an attractive girl.

He knows he must hide his feelings for his sister. However, every time he
meets innocent Nanoka, those feelings surge to the fore and make him irritable, resulting in another day of self-loathing.

So it’s under-aged girl and incest. This may or may not be the secret or not so secret fantasy of every unmarried middle aged japanese man. I’m not entirely sure why I wanted to watch this. I remember it being recommended when I asked for something that wasn’t like the typical anime and made you think.

I watched this while playing Arcana Heart, which (almost) has an entire cast of lolis. That may have been why I wanted the characters in Koi Kaze to be have their faces smashed in. But I think it’s mainly because I found the whole thing very boring. Unsurprisingly it’s hard for me to relate to or feel sympathetic for the dopey, grumbling main character. The girl often acts very mature for her age, which I find makes her character less believable.

Maybe if I found the little girl attractive this wouldn’t have been such a snore-fest. Not that everyone who likes this is a paedophile. But I suppose it’s more likely they will be. There’s a lot of cutesy loli types in anime but this is the only one I’ve seen where underage sex is clearly implied. Well at least it has a happy ending.

Rating: 2/10 (only finished it because it was short)

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Nodame Cantabile

Shinichi Chiaki is a gifted, if arrogant, student at the Momogaoka Music Academy. Although he has enrolled in piano classes, his real dream is to become a world-famous orchestra conductor. Unfortunately, an extremely traumatic event which occurred during his childhood has resulted in a fear of flying, destroying his chances of studying abroad under the wing of the renowned conductor, Sebastian Viera.

Chiaki’s attitude, as well as his frustration and disappointment with the state of his life, results in him keeping an arms-length relationship with his fellow students, and in conflicts with his instructors.

However, things begin to change for him when he meets fellow piano student Noda “Nodame” Megumi. She may be a slob, an airhead, and a slow learner, but there’s something about her piano playing that moves his heart. Perhaps even change it.

Light-hearted and lots of classical music. It’s not really that funny for a comedy, but my sisters seemed to enjoy it. So if you’re a 10 year old girl who plays the piano, or a teenager whose favourite movies are all chick flicks then you’ll love this.

Like a lot of anime, how much you enjoy this will depend entirely on how attached you get to characters. Also you don’t need to have much knowledge of other anime or japanese culture to understand the jokes (except maybe know what Doraemon is).

Currently watching the second season, although you can stop after the ending to the first.

Rating: 5/10 (average)

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Chaos;HEAd

Takumi is a high school student. He is withdrawn and is not interested in 3D things. In his town, a mysterious serial murder case happens and people get panicked. One day, when he chats on the internet, a man suddenly contacts him and gives him an URL. He goes to the website and finds a blog image that suggests a next murder case…. On the next day, it really happens….

Takumi Nishijō suffers from intense delusions as a result of his apparent schizophrenia and the extremely secluded lifestyle he lives as a hikkikomori. One day he accidentally stumbles upon a gruesome murder scene, a part of a chain of events called “New Generation.” After this, his life gets caught up in these events, and he meets a bunch of increasingly insane anime girls with swords.

Starts off with the typical harem theme. Nerdy guy suddenly finds himself under the attention of a variety of girls in different shapes and sizes (colour coded of course). But fortunately that doesn’t last long. It’s quite a simplistic psychological thriller which won’t take much of your time but leaves you feeling quite satisfied by the end.

The main characters pathetic cowardice is annoying but understandable. He pulls it together eventually after screaming like a girl, for a girl, in front of a girl, in front of 2 girls, with a girl and so on.

Rating: 6/10 (a bit above average, although nothing special)

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I’ve kept the good ones for part 2.

Sleep

I have been wondering a lot about sleep recently. After a couple of days training and using far less willpower than I was expecting, I now jump out of bed as soon as my alarm goes off. At the moment I’m letting it wake me up at 7 or 7.30 and, provided I have a short sleep around 2pm, I feel alert all day and can even stay up just as late as before. It seems quantity of sleep is not hugely important (within reasonable boundaries) and this means

1. Sleeping later in the morning is not going to make me feel less tired during the day, I am just putting off the inevitable difficulty.
2. There isn’t really any need to go to bed early in order to wake up early.

Bearing these in mind, I have been considering switching to a polyphasic pattern of sleep. It’s one of these things I would love to try at some point in my life, and there is no better time than university during which to do it. As a student my day is very flexible, as long as I attend the compulsory lab sessions and tutorials, the rest of the time is my own. I am meant to do a certain amount of reading and preparation work, but I can do that whenever I want. At present the hardest day to get through on polyphasic sleep would be Tuesday, since I have a 1 hour tutorial, 3 hours of labs, a 1 hour break, another 1 hour tutorial and then 2 hours of lectures. That means that on those mornings I need to be awake and alert between 9am and 1pm, plus time for walking, and in that one hour break I would have to get to college, have a sleep, have lunch and get back to the department in 1 hour.

That being the most difficult period of the week, I do think this is possible and so I am going to work towards switching to it over the course of the rest of this term. I’ll keep you informed.