WELCOME to the personal home page/blog of Matthew La France. Please enjoy your stay.

5/27/2005

I had a couple of days off. I think I am getting sick which kind of sucks. I did some translation which was good. I worked on 3x3 Eyes and I finished editing the Ace of Spades script. I did some research looking for additional online translation aids but the most useful thing that came out of it was probably just updating my JWPce with the most recent version of EDICT. I also came to futher appreciate how cool Space ALC really is. I also came to appreciate how shitty my Japanese is. I'm not going to be hard on myself, but there is probably a limit to what I can learn by translating games. It's not like I'm going back to school any time soon though, so that's going to have to do for now. I wish I had like 3 months off and didn't have to worry about money the whole time, and could just write and translate and play video games. That would be cool. Sucks that's not going to happen. :P
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5/24/2005

I'm feeling a little worn down. I get a day off after tomorrow, but it feels like it's been a long time coming. I'm trying to lose a little weight and build my body a bit, which can be tiresome and sometimes discouraging. I'm gonna try to keep at it though. I got a little over-excited about having a script for 3x3 Eyes - Seima Kourinden and I ended up dumping a font for 3x3 Eyes - Juuma Houkan. I ran it though a Japanese OCR program and hand-checked all the kanji. I'm hoping that it will be the start of a table file. We'll see.
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5/19/2005

I added some links to my translation projects page. I also have a new project to announce! I've recently had the good fortune to have been give a script for the Super Famicom game 3x3 Eyes - Seima Kourinden by none other than KingMike whom I recently worked with on Sword of Kalin. This script will get my top priority just as soon as I've finished with Ace of Spades. Needless to say, it's put a little fire under the Ace of Spades project currently.

I have another day off an I am hoping to enjoy it. Watching anime and translating are my main goals. I am also planning on doing some second hand clothes shopping. I've been feeling the urge to go a little goth recently, not lipstick and eyeliner sort of goth, but at least dark and sensous clothing sort of goth. I'm starting to add to my wardrobe slightly.
7 comments

5/13/2005

I had a day off yesterday which was pretty good. I did a little writing, and some translating on Ace of Spades. I also played some more Welcome to Pia Carrot. That game is pretty cool. I want to try finishing the game with all the girl's endings, with the help of a faq of course.

I finished watching Genshiken not too long ago, something that I think changed my life a little bit. I guess just because it's about the otaku lifestyle, but also about accepting who you are and what you like, no matter if it seems weird. There is also a lot of going to Comiket (they go twice int he show) and buying of doujinshi. Being that I am planning to go to Comiket for the third time this coming winter, I guess it speaks to me a little bit. It also helped me understand how "normal" people think a little.

I also had the opportunity to see Lewis Black live last night thanks to a friend who invited me along. It was a lot of fun. I've never seen stand up before, and while comedy is not necessarily my thing, Lewis Black is funny as hell. He's really good on stage. The little bits of "real life" that he interjected into his show, like the fact that when he performed for the congressional correspondence dinner, he was in the same room that he had been in for his prom, in a tux no less, made it even funnier.
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5/10/2005

Life is overwhelmingly real. It's sort of sickeningly real. It's no wonder that many of us, myself included, spend a lot of time pretending that it is not real, or trying to find a way to get away from it. I sort of feel like I'm in the process of accepting the reality of life. Within the reality of life, there is the opportunity to create your own reality, real or imagined. A sanctuary where things make sense and you can be who you are. It really doesn't work well though, without accepting reality for what it is. It's a trite and crappy movie, but reality does in fact bite. (So that we are on the same page folks that's a reference to the movie "Reality Bites", not a quote from it or anything, just a reference.)
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5/06/2005

I purchased Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory for the PSP on release day but I've only gotten a chance to play it recently. I'm finding that it's a pretty fun game. I find myself wishing that items were available fore sale rather than dropped solely by enemies, but I guess that gives it a PSO sort of feel, esp. since you are playing the same levels/rooms over and over again like PSO. I've just started to get a feel for trying out different weapons combinations and I have to say, it's pretty interesting.

For instance, I just got a chainsaw, which is equipable on either of your arms or your head. I had a blade as my close combat weapon with an attack value of 200. The chainsaw is only an attack value of 120 with 20 heat damage, but either the rate of attack, or the heat damage takes down enemies very quickly. For the heck of it, I tried equipping my old blade on my head, because I wondered how that would even work, but it turns out you just drop your head and charge like a bull. This make an interesting combination however, because you can use your blade to make a charging attack that brings you in close to attack the enemy with your chainsaw.

I also got a chance to mess around with adding slots to your various body parts. I wondered if you could add, lets say, two handguns to your head and fire two shots at the same time. Not the case. But it turns out that some equipment, like the repair system, requires more than one slot to be equipped. Ah, now I get it. Suffice to say, I'm fairly excited about aquiring more equipment and trying out different combos of weapons. I'm interested to see how it goes adding heat resistance or extra slots to various body parts. I hope that I don't find myself later on wishing I'd put all my heat resistance on my head instead of my left arm, or added extra slots to my right arm rather then my head, etc. :P
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5/03/2005

I'm listening to Bonnie Pink right now which I haven't listened to in quite a while.

I found a cool comic just the other day called Genshikan. It's basically about a couple of college freshman who are major otakus who both join a club called the "Society for the Appreciation of Visual Culture" or something of the sort. I've recently come to appreciate the way that Japanese fan culture (from my perspective) seems to reference itself a lot. Like in Welcome to Pia Carrot your sister engages in cosplay and goes to Comiket. Comiket is part of the otaku culture that comes up over-and-over, sort of a lynchpin holding something vast and unorganized together. Akihabara or "Akiba" as it exists in otakudom is the same sort of central unifier. Maybe it's just nice having an icon that represents someplace you belong, or just having a place to belong at all.

I did a little spot-translating recently for a couple of bits of misc text from Slayers. It should be coming along here one of these days.
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