
Whee!!! We’re past the launcher menu! Time to play the game! What’s that you say? More menus? *sigh* Alright, let’s get translating… Read More >

The final menu for Brothers (WE’RE NOT EVEN STARTED THE DAMNED GAME YET) is considerably more straightforward than the last two menus. We’re using much more simplistic kanji, a bit of katakana, and some English here. In fact most of the kanji on this the Edit Key Bindings menu actually gets a kun reading for a change. Remember, Kun readings happen when it’s just a single kanji by itself. That means there’s a couple characters here that (I believe) will get different pronunciations based on their context. So let’s get started: Read More >

Right then, so today we look at menu 2 of Brothers. Wow did this take me a while to look up. No wonder I was advised against RPGs. The amount of time I’ve spent just on two menu screens is bananas. There were a couple of kanji in specific that I eventually had to give up and use the camera part of the google translate app since I couldn’t figure out the necessary radicals to look it up on Jisho. Read More >

Whilst I normally do 50 words each time I load up Influent, I ended up with a few extras this time around. I saw my way to 300 only by including verbs and adjectives. Wanting to be 100% sure that I found all nouns that are in the game, I ended up tracking down a word list for the game. Sure enough, I had missed six nouns. So after adding them to the collection I nabbed an extra four adjectives to top off at an even 60. Read More >

Japanese on a treadmill. That is how I lunch. Read More >

That’s right, I’m diving in! I’ve still got a lot of other things on my plate at the moment, but I’m too eager to legit play a game, so I’m going to make the plunge.
I came super close to buying both ファミコン探偵倶楽部 and リンクの冒険 over the weekend for the Game Boy Advance… but with the Canadian dollar as low as it is right now, the >$70 it was going to cost seemed a little absurd. The good ole CAD is on it’s way (slightly) back up at the moment, and I’ve got other things to keep me busy, so I’m going to hold off for the time being. But I already decided that I’ve got a couple of games at my disposal that I can try out, and so try them I shall! Read More >

Anyone who knows me, should be able to tell you that video games have been a rather significant part of my life. Some of the most solid memories of my youth involve the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis… and this hobby has carried through into adulthood where I’ve dabbled in indie development and now work as a VFX artist during the day. And you can bet that playing games is still one of my favourite things to do. Read More >

It was a busy day today. I ended up working through lunch today so no gym nor Pimsleur today. It was also a teaching night for me, so I ended up spending some time in Influent reviewing words. After doing maybe 30 or 40 words, I decided to take on some new ones. So we’re now over half-way through the kana vocabulary… though once I finish learning the words in kana, I’m going to have to spend some time learning the readings in kanji. Read More >

I’m so happy that Japan uses as many English loan words as it does. Memorizing vocabulary is horrible, but it’s a lot less stressful given that a lot of the words are the same between our languages. Banana, Toilet, Laptop, Neck tie ~ バナナ、トイレ、ラップトップ、ネクタイ… definitely easier than it could be. Amazingly, it also seems that I’m able to get a lot of reinforcement of vocabulary as I work my way through the three main sources I’ve been using to teach myself. So I’ll hear “lunch” one day in Pimsleur, and then read it in Human Japanese a couple of days later. Or I’ll learn “orange” in Human Japanese, and then again in Influent the next day. It feels like a great system! Read More >

I just spent like two hours looking into keto diets, because I find myself being semi-obsessed with going to the gym and trying to get back down to a healthy weight. But I think that now that I’ve done that much reading… I’m both a: convinced that it’s a great concept and it works, and b: convinced that I don’t have the time or patience to learn anything more about it. Every food item I looked into has more protein than fat, and I just can’t see a way to balance out the dietary budget to get the ratio I need without straight-up drinking heavy cream. And forget that. I’m just going to have to continue going to the gym, and trying not to eat too much candy and bread and hopefully things just work out.
In the meantime: Read More >