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I think the way the translation turns out can affect your impression of the VN, though. Maybe not a difference between "like" and "dislike", but it could cause a difference between "good" and "great", or something like that. By the way, does anyone know if they ever fixed Da Capo? (I know they fixed Shuffle for the boxed release, they said so on their site, some hundreds of problems were fixed...and I heard a patch was made available for the original DL customers as well)

I found the original 1st Gundam series on one of those Amazon affiliated stores, I've been watching it off and on. I've never been a huge Gundam fan by any means, but, there is a certain kind of campiness in watching this old series that I really enjoy...

This could pass for concrete poetry.

OK Swedish people, just because it's called "Swedish sauce" in the USA, I have no idea if it's actually from Sweden. Any more than I know that the French toast I eat actually comes from France. Come to think of it, it does seem a bit odd that Sweden would only have one sauce, for the whole country... :-) Anyway it's basically a beef gravy, with other stuff like cream of mushroom soup, Worcestershire sauce, and sour cream, mixed into it. Does that sound Swedish to you?

(I'm going to go back and visit some more I've Sound friends)

The next time you visit the great state of Tennessee.

So do you have a large bookcase where all your commercial anime DVDs/blurays go? Or are they piled in drawers? Do you have fansubs on DVDRs or BD-Rs in individual cases, or a big carrying case with sleeves? Or just a stack of hard drives? Do you have a RAID system? Are they in alphabetical order? How do you track what you have, and what you've seen? MAL or some other online site? Do you keep and do you track multiple versions of the same show or movie? This is me: Bookcase for commercial anime and for as many fansubs as would fit in slim cases (DVDR and BD-R) A couple of those carrying cases with sleeves for the spillover. I back up everything I like and want to keep onto optical media. Hard drive is only for what DLing or watching at the moment. Organization is at a minimum, lazy, you might even call it. I have a text file with all the fansubs I'm keeping in it. But it is always out of date. To know for sure if I have a show or not, really I have to look on the shelves and in the cases. If there are multiple versions, I will only know by looking. Whether I've seen something or not? I rely on memory. Are you more organized than me? It probably wouldn't take much...

There's this thing I like to make when friends come over. Basically it's meatballs with Swedish sauce served on top of egg noodles, and sprinkled with peas. People really seem to like it. It's one of those things where I have to leave the meatballs simmering in the sauce with some onions and sliced mushroom for a long time, until the meatballs get really tender. Chewy meatballs work great with speghetti but not with this, with this you almost want 'em to fall apart.

I'm not a rice expert by any means. I'm a bread person. I seldom make my own rice. So I'll tell you my rice story. Actually, some number of months ago I tried to make some rice. I didn't even know what kind to get. I selected some "medium grain" white rice. Because from the word "medium" I figured maybe this is a good rice for general purpose use. Well, each time I tried it, it tasted OK, but I think my rice had absorbed too much water somehow and puffed up too much. Because it was extremely filling. I only ate a little bit of it and then I was very full. Recently I have located a Rice Cooker. Maybe my rice will turn out better now. Of course, I am going to start with good old steamed rice. After that, I would like to try making some Spanish rice. That's one of my favorite ways to have rice. There is a style of fried rice I really like, I'm not really sure what you call it. It's not the kind they usually show where someone is frying it in a pan over a flame and continuously tossing it. It is the kind where they have a big flat iron cooking surface and they cook the rice on that, maneuvering it around with a metal spatula.

You mean the wiki copy rice. Hold on, I did eat some rice today: OK, now you can proceed with Corn or whatever comes next.

Well I looked up Hanako Games, having never heard of them, and was surprised to find on their page: "For too many people, "games for girls" means nothing but bright pink and dolls and dress-up and shopping...why aren't there more girl games with unicorns instead of prom dresses?" Sounds pretty rummy to me. Well, I brightened up when I saw this: "Georgina Bensley once had a ColecoVision, and it gave her a lifelong fondness for games that are small and simple but well-designed and fun. Some of her more recent favorites include the classic Quest adventure games from Sierra, the never-officially-released Princess Maker, and the excellent Fallout RPG series." Hear, hear! Clearly their designer has good taste.

Oh well..I'll try again at some point. But today, I have a day off (memorial day U.S.). Usually I wouldn't be home around now

I feel great. I finally got on IRC when people were talking. I actually got to chat for about 2 minutes. And then the connection suddenly terminated. But still, what a rush.

Where I live, people get rice thrown at them when they get married. (Usually uncooked rice.) And, after actually reading the posted article, I realize this was redundant.

After looking 'round at the other topics, and being rather sleepy, this seems to be a good topic to comment on. I guess my comment would be that, on pasta, olive oil is not bad. Providing, of course, you drizzle it on there rather than drown it. Also, speaking of pasta, I eat my instant noodles with a fork and spoon, too. No chopsticks for me.

I voted for Ruru. She reminds me of a more grown up looking Aisia. Most yuks I got so far were ep. 8 and 9. I might have voted for Mikoto had she been in the poll. Licca/Ricca is too pushy.

Marked 'Other' on last question because I think, on the whole, Japanese VAs and their directors are superior, or at least take their work more seriously, than English VAs and their directors. In first questio, I would've voted for "both new English audio and original Japanese audio provided, and you can choose which one you want from the game's options menu.

Nope. I agree. It feels natural to learn this way. Eventually, I think you do need to memorize the individual readings. But I only did that _after_ I learned to read basically using the same method you outlined in your post. Well, I don't know about "awesome". Basically I think an ideographic writing system has to have that property in order to survive. Otherwise, how could it hope to compete with the efficiency of an alphabet, where you can look up any written word immediately... Besides, as you say it only works sometimes. 空調 as air conditioning makes sense, because it's literally "air/sky, tuning/regulation" 空港 as airport makes sense because it's literally "air/sky, port/harbor" 速度 speed is "fast, degree" But what about these: 素人 how do you get Novice from "bare/plain, person"? 非難 how do you get Criticism from "not, difficult"? In fact, it seems like the more advanced/technical words can be broken down by meaning, whereas the more everyday words can't (as if they've been around so long that the meaning has drifted somehow) Well, for me it was clear I didn't want to use Heisig, or any method that tries to teach you kanji without learning the core language. Why? Because on my shelf are dozens of manga that I successfully read, all shounen (and some shoujo) manga which all have furigana. Clearly, I would not take advantage of those if I had spent my time studying kanji first. It's a similar story with VNs, except that you have to know at least a reasonable number of kanji, or the reading pace will be terrible.

Wasn't it great? And I normally hate meta, anime about anime fans or gaming or otaku etc and still I liked it so much Esp season 1 when it had the most impact season 2 was basically more of the same You can't get a "cooler" magical girl show than Nanoha, IMO (sorry, "cool" is the only word in my cache atm) You CAN get a cuter one. It's called "Nanatsuiro Drops" Problem sounds like you are allocating anime and VNs out of the same block of time, but what you want is two separate, guaranteed blocks. If anime increases, VNs should not decrease. Something else should decrease. Please reallocate.

Not sure where else to put this, so I'll put it here. I'm trying to use light novels to improve my reading ability. Started on Mayoi Neko Overrun in earnest today. Just like the old days with manga, and VNs, I had tried a couple of times in the past, found it way too hard, & gave up. This time, it seems to be working. I know it's going to be slow--there's no AGTH/EDICT/mouse-over dict to fall back on. Just an endless wall of vertical text. But that's okay. If I have to study, then at least I'll be practicing on something I like...

I haven't been to Japan yet. But I'd like to go. At some point. Meanwhile, if you've already visited there, or are planning to, let me know. I'm basically thinking of tourism, not business. Did you go alone? Was it worth going? How long did you stay? Where did you go? (If you are just planning, take that previous line and change it to the present tense) From where I live the trip is tremendously long, like 14 hrs of air travel, not counting stopovers. Still I might consider it at some point.

I never eat and play. Why should I split my mind's attention between 2 things? If the food is really good or the game is really good, I enjoy them better with undivided attention. If the food is lousy, I could inadvertently associate the game with bad tasting food. Even if I want water, I will get up and go drink some water, then come back to the game.

Hi JeMhUnTeR-sAn, Mangagamer has Shuffle and Da Capo I/II and they have great character art. There is a fan-tl of Canvas 2 and it also has beautiful character art. Also Yoake Mae Yori Ruri-Iro Na will have a fan-tl (someday) and maybe my favorite artwork of all so far. Even Mirai no Kimi to Subete no Uta ni has great art (but only for Miku)