Saturday 30 November 2013

じゃーん

最近、「日本語でブログ出来る?」と思った。だから、今、日本語でブログしてみよう!出来れば、これは「じゃーん」って。そして、出来ればブログで日本語を復習するつもりだ!今日はね、なんかつまんない。私、長い間全然書けなかったけど、今日大変インスピレーションが出た。悪い事は紙に書けなくて、頭に全部舞い上がって。ムカツク!作家になりたいから、書く事が大切で、書くのが出来ない時は悪い。悩み。

それから、クリスマスはもうすぐ来る。まだ、プレゼント全然買ってない。皆に何をあげろう?!

長いのは出来なかった。でも、この短いのは初めてだけだ!

じゃ、今ゲームしよう。またね。

We are all people

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again
When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again
When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes

Will you give all you can give
so that our banner may advance?
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again
When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes

Do you hear the people sing
lost in the valley of the night
It is the music of the people who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth there is a plane that never dies
Even the darkest times will end and the sun will rise

We will live again in freedom
in the garden of the Lord
We will walk behind the plough share we will put away the sword
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that we bring when tomorrow comes

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that we bring when tomorrow comes


We are all people. 
Colour, religion, sex, orientation, money, societal status, culture, education and politics don't matter.
This is our crusade.
To make people understand.
Will you spread the word?

Friday 29 November 2013

23 Harry Potter books

So I just realised that I have 23 Harry Potter books. And that's without any doubles.

  1. Harry Potter och De Vises Sten (PS, SWE)
  2. Harry Potter och Hemligheternas Kammare (CoS, SWE)
  3. Harry Potter och Fången från Azkaban (PoA, SWE)
  4. Harry Potter och Den Flammande Bägaren (GoF, SWE)
  5. Harry Potter och Fenixorden (OotP, SWE)
  6. Harry Potter och Halvblodsprinsen (HBP, SWE)
  7. Harry Potter och Dödsrelikerna (DH, SWE)
  8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
  9. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  12. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
  13. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
  14. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  15. Tales of Beedle the Bard
  16. Tales of Beedle the Bard Hogwarts Library Collector's Edition
  17. Quidditch Through the Ages Hogwarts Library Collector's Edition
  18. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Hogwarts Library Collector's Edition
  19. Harry Potter to Kensha no Ishi (PS, JAP)
  20. Harry Potter Page to Screen
  21. Harry Potter Film Wizardry
  22. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Harry Potter
  23. Warner Bros Studio Tour The Making of Harry Potter Official Guide
Putting a number on the amount of books made me realise the actual amount (no, duh?!). 23 feels like a whole lot more than it feels like just looking at the shelf xD

Thursday 28 November 2013

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary

Originally we had planned on going to the cinema screening of the Anniversary episode in Stockholm, but in the end we decided not to and instead watched it at home yesterday evening. The episode was brilliant, though it felt a little rushed and I can't help but wonder if it would've been even greater had it been 90 minutes long instead of only 75.

[SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED IT AND INTEND TO - DON'T READ FURTHER!]

The day before we watched the episode I saw the two mini webisodes on YouTube. "The Last Day" and "The Night of the Doctor". I thought "The Last Day" was sort of insipid until I realised it portrayed the fall of Arcadia from a somewhat interesting angle. I thought "The Night of the Doctor" was brilliant. It gave Paul McGann a speaking role in the 50th Anniversary, which I think he absolutely deserves, and it tells us where in the chronology of incarnations the Mystery Doctor fits, and why he came to be.


Then there was the main episode. It started off like any other episode. Strange things happening and U.N.I.T. is involved. Doctor and Clara go to check it out. The painting Gallifrey Falls brings us to the Mystery Doctor/The War Doctor in Gallifrey during the Time War. He steals The Moment, a box-shaped machine of destruction that has developed a consciousness. It takes the shape of Rose Tyler in the form of Bad Wolf. Telling the War Doctor that she chose a form from his future. Then the fez comes through. Back to 11th and Clara and we find out the Doctor was married to Elizabeth I when he was 10th. Some kind of hole in the space-time-continuuum opens (I don't think these were ever explained or did I miss something?) 11th throws his fez in and it lands by the feet of 10th back in the 16th century, where Zygons have recently attacked. (Woo! Creature from Classic!). 11th remember the fez landing by his feet in the present day and jumps through to the 16th century. 10th and 11th meet. 11th tries to throw the fez back to Clara, but it disappears - that's the fez that turned up with the War Doctor. Suddenly the War Doctor shows up in the 16th century with 10th and 11th (thanks to The Moment). Hilarious to have the three Doctors meeting! :D After a whole lot of Zygons in the past and in the present Clara uses Jack Harkness' vortex manipulator to time-travel to the Doctors and they realise the Zygons were invading the present from the past via paintings. Sure I can buy that if you explain it so prettily.


But then they're off. The War Doctor goes back to Gallifrey to do what he has to do. 10th and 11th go there too. They make up a plan to save Gallifrey instead of burning it and putting it in time lock, and at the same time destroy the Daleks. They get all the incarnations of the Doctor (including Peter Capaldi!) and all of their Tardises and save the entire planet in a separate universe stopped in a single moment in time. The Daleks not expecting this shoot each other instead of the planet. The three Doctors go back to 11th's present and after a dialogue telling us that only 11th will remember what really happened to Gallifrey both War Doctor and 10th are off. Clara tells 11th that an old man was looking for him and enters the Tardis. The Doctor observes the painting of Gallifrey Falls as the old man approaches. The old man is Tom Baker a.k.a 4th Doctor! :D 11th finds out that the painting's real name is Gallifrey Falls No More and thereby receieves an affirmation that they did manage to save Gallifrey. Woo! The final scene with Hartnell in the middle and all the other incarnations in a half-circle around him gave me goosebumps and it was the perfect ending.

Answers to some complaints:

Moffat destroyed canon by adding the War Doctor!
I disagree. There's a huge hole between Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston. Moffat used that to his advantage. Some say the War Doctor wasn't necessary and that Paul McGann easily could've played his role and been the Doctor to burn Gallifrey. I disagree. The Doctor knew what he had to do and he also knew that to do that he'd need and incarnation with less saviour instincts and other attributes that could help him make the hard decision. What happened on Carn explains all this. Also there has been hints towards the War Doctor ever since the episode with 11th in the hotel with their worst fears and the minotaur. It's not something Moffat thought of on the spot. It's been there for a while.

Moffat destroyed the Survivor's Guilt of 9th, 10th and 11th!
No, he didn't! It's said in the episode that neither 10th nor 8,5th (War Doctor) will remember any of it since their timestreams were completely humble-jumble. The only one it happened in the right order for was 11th and he will from now on know and remember what really happened to Gallifrey. But 8,5th won't remember so 9th will still think he burned Gallifrey, as will 10th and 11th up until now.

Dalek Caan was destroyed when he picked up the other Daleks from the time lock! How could 10th and 11th go to Gallifrey?!
This is also explained in the episode, but only so subtly. The Moment (the machine of destruction whose consciousness took the shape of Bad Wolf Rose Tyler) allowed 10th and 11th to come through. The machine created an exception at that precise moment for those two. It's explained in the episode. Pay attention!

But if Gallifrey is saved then how can The End of Time still happen?! Wouldn't Rassilon still be a danger to the universe?!
Rassilon wanted to evolve the Time Lords into incorporeal beings. The way I see it is that this was only a speculated option during the Time War. But after Gallifrey was put into time lock Rassilon had lots of time on his hands to convince the other time locked Time Lords that this was the right thing to do and tried to bring them out of the time lock to put his plan into action. Now hold on cause this is where it gets timey-wimey! The End of Time still happened. Cause this was in the 10th's time line. Saving Gallifrey was in 11th's time line. Which means it hadn't happened yet! In The End of Time 8,5th had still burned Gallifrey cause 11th hadn't come around to save it yet! And now that they've saved Gallifrey Rassilon won't have the time he had in the time lock. Cause the way I understand it in the time lock Gallifrey existed out of time, while the three Doctors froze Gallifrey in one moment to save it. To me this means that now no time at all passes on Gallifrey, while in the time lock it did. Timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly stuff.

Then some complaints of my own:

I hate that Billie Piper didn't play Rose. I hate that she was The Moment's consciousness in the shape of Bad Wolf. I hate that 10th couldn't see her and I felt so sad for him when he heard "Bad Wolf" but couldn't see her :(

What happened to the Zygons? They just feel like an excuse for the three Doctors to meet. They didn't stop the Zygon invasion? They made everyone in the Black Archive forget who was human and who was Zygon and they managed to stop the destruction of London... And then what? The Zygons are still there, aren't they?

We still have no explanation why Elizabeth I was pissed off at 10th in the Shakespeare episode. My guess is that he didn't come back to her after this whole thing with the three Doctors. But we still don't know for sure. When I heard that Elizabeth I was going to be in the 50th Anniversary I thought we'd finally know!

And then some fangirling:

10th and 11th together! OMG! :3 LOVE IT! ♥♥♥ And the War Doctor's comments about both of their behaviours are just hilarious! And then 10th saying "I don't want to go" before entering his Tardis and disappearing! 10th, I love you! ♥♥♥

I love that we got a picture of every incarnation of the Doctor when they saved Gallifrey, includiing Peter Capaldi! ♥ I love that he got a part in the 50th althought he hasn't officially entered the series yet! :D I loved that the U.N.I.T. girl wore the 4th's scarf and I love the cameo appearance of 4th Doctor Tom Baker in the end ♥ I loved the half-circle in the end ♥ I screamed out loud when I saw Capaldi's brow and I screamed out loud again when I saw Tom Baker. I love that they gave Tom Baker a speaking role in the 50th ♥♥♥

I loved how Paul McGann in the mini webisode said the names of several of Classic Who companions. They all got their small part as well. I would've loved a picture of Sarah Jane as well though, since she couldn't be there for the 50th, although she has been such a huge part of the whoniverse.

But I really enjoyed this episode and I thought it was a fitting anniversary.

On a side note. The War Doctor asked 11th if he could talk without waving his hands around. I'm more interested to know if Elizabeth I can talk without wiggling her eyebrows.
This is now my new desktop background

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Mansions of Madness!

This weekend we had some people over for a boardgaming night. Saying it like that makes it seem that we played many games though, which we didn't. Cause everytime we have a boardgaming night we start with Mansions of Madness and it ends up taking a really long time. But it's always a lot of fun ^^

This time we played the 4th scenario: Classroom Curses, and although the map was big and the story was intriguing the scenario fell a little flat due to the abscence of monsters. Mostly this scenario's goal was for the investigators to find the clues and beat the very few monsters that showed up before the Keeper made us all go mad and kill off each other.

We (the investigators) thought we did really well and honestly believed we were going to win this round. But when one of us had to leave around 11pm, we realised that we'd never make it to the final clue before the final event happened. There wasn't even a remote possibility. So we decided to give up, since we were going to lose anyway and just revealed the final event (which ironically enough included all the monsters). Monsters swarming the place, killing all the investigators and the Keeper's main monster. And that was that. It was a fun evening anyway. The most fun was when one of us went into the Furnace room to look at the clue. The room went dark by the command of the keeper and then the door slammed shut behind the investigator in the room. He was looked in a dark room. Ironically enough one of the events happened just after that and it involved the Furnace room igniting and setting the whole room on fire. So he was looked inside a dark, burning room... (How can a room be dark and burning at the same time?)

Then it's still equally funny that a lot of cards have sentences like "discard this card to discard a trauma card". Reading those always makes us all laugh out loud.


Wednesday 20 November 2013

I fell into Skyrim once more

I fell in. Again. I promised myself that after I had played Morrowind I'd try out some games on the 360, like Tales of Vesperia, Lollipop Chainsaw and perhaps make another attempt at Alice: Madness Returns. But no, I had to start up Skyrim again "just to see".

That's when I realised nothing worked anymore. Steam had removed the Unofficial Patches and the High Res DLC interferred with my gameplay (whole patches of purple), the game kept CTDing and my saves had become corrupt... Oh the joy. So with the help of Steam community I first tried to get the Unofficial Patches from Nexus, but the game crashed anyway. Then I tried to fix them with BOSS, which made the sound stop working on my computer -.- I got the tip to back-up my saves and reinstall everything without patches. I did that, but the game still crashed on me. I got the tip that the High Res DLC could have this effect and turned it off. Still crashed. Then someone said that my saves probably were corrputed and if I would want to play again I should probably just start over. After much debating with myself I deleted my saves and started over. Everything worked great until I got to Windhelm. Suddenly I couldn't exit the city without the game crashing on me. I googled it and found that someone who used Windows 7 32-bit like me had somehow forced the OS to use all 4 GB of RAM instead of the normally limited 3,6 GB. This person had typed a command into the Command Prompt program from the Accessories folder, and said that it had solved all the CTDs he/she had had with Skyrim. By now I was pretty ready to try whatever I found. I typed the command and rebooted my computer. Since then Skyrim hasn't crashed once. I SOLVED THE PROBLEM! WHO'S DA MAN?! :D I had forgotten that the reason I had stopped playing Skyrim to begin with was the more and more frequent CTDs and no one I knew had been able to solve it. Thanks to Google and this unknown person I managed to solve the problem and finally play the game properly.

And now I'm stuck again. Can't stop playing Skyrim. I wanted to play other games, but my mind is stuck on Skyrim. And after having played Oblivion and some Morrowind, and having read the plots for Morrowind, Daggerfall and Arena I now notice references to past games all the time. References to Oblivion make me nostalgic. Just like mentions of Skyrim did while I was playing Oblivion. Oblivion is a great game, probably just as great as Skyrim. The only thing that could make Skyrim better are the graphics. Some new screenshots I've taken:
1). M'aiq, you crack me up! xD 2). Barbas has a point... 3). Sheogorath! I've missed you 4). Back to the Shivering Isles? Can I come? 5). Absorbing Dragon Soul

I have also gotten some help that should make Morrowind easier on me. Now I just need to get my head out of Skyrim... As if I could.

And if I continue like this Skyrim will have to get its own label on my blog. I talk about Skyrim in these posts:

This would make my third playthrough on computer, my fourth in total if you count the one I started on 360. First time on the computer I made a Dunmer mage called Nemesis, but it was my first time playing a game like Skyrim and it turned out badly. Then I tried as a Nord called Alana on the 360, but it wasn't as fun on the console :P So I started over on the computer as a Nord named Neela, and that was the save I had to delete to get my game to work. Right now I play as a Nord named Eira. And due to the thread in the Skyrim forum on Steam community called "Who are you", where players tell the story of their characters I now also have a complete background story for Eira xD She was born in Vvardenfell, Morrowind to Nord parents. She grew up poor in the village of Hla Oad and when she was a young girl she ran away from poordom and made her way into Cyordiil. There she heard stories about the Oblivion crisis from 200 years before and set out to find the remnants of all the Oblivion gates. There's a rumour that this is what turned her eyes black... The more time she spent in Cyrodiil the more curious she became of her parents' homeland and decided to make her way to Skyrim. It all went well until she found herself in the middle of an ambush and before she knew it she was brought to her execution. Escaping Helgen she made friends with Ralof, but in the end she joined the Legion since she didn't feel as connected to the Nord customs having grown up in Morrowind. She only wanted to explore her parents' homeland, but the discovery of her being the Dragonborn threw her off course. She tries to postpone all those resposibilities and focus on exploring. If there's some coin to be made she's always happy to help people, and due to her growing up poor she always feels that she's the most needing and steals whatever food and money she can find. She's usually seen travelling along the road with her Dunmer companion, Jenassa, while she keeps her mind off things by picking flowers, mushrooms and berries. 

See what I did there? I bound Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim together :P

Let's finish the post with this:

Sunday 10 November 2013

Morrowind drives me crazy

A while back I started playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The game is from 2002 so the graphics are... well, really outdated. But with some help I found a mod that makes the graphics somewhat better. All the people aren't ugly anymore and they don't walk as if they just pooped their pants anymore. All good. The fighting style, though. It looks like my character is standing with her arm stretched out and waving a toothpick around. Seriously, it looks ridiculous. But the game is old, so the graphics are bad. Let's move on.

There is no quest marker. No. Quest marker. After every playing session my head hurts from trying to remember everything. Which town I should go to and which way that town is. Where that character was and how do I get back there. Where that place is in that town and how to find my way back. It doesn't help that my sense of direction already sucks, but now I have a game that doesn't help with that. NO QUEST MARKER. At least the map of Vvardenfell that I got in The Elder Scrolls Anthology is being put to good use :/ That's the map I use the most, cause the map in the game sucks. The local map is too zoomed in to be of much help, and the world map is just a big pixelated blob that shows nothing but the places I've already been and there are no names on it. So finding my way to a new town on the world map - impossible. Finding my way out of the present town on the local map - difficult. Presently I'm in Vivec and the town is a maze! I learned Balmora pretty fast and Seyda Neen wasn't difficult, I did get lost in Ebonheart castle but nothing compares to Vivec.

There is no fast travel. Seriously. Have you any idea how frustrating it is having to walk everywhere? Unless one feels like paying a bunch of money to the people running the silt striders, that's what one has to do. The island of Vvardenfell is huge. I've played the game for 12 hours already and I've only been in the south-western corner so far. Just exploring the island could take me 100 hours of game time. Not kidding. Hopefully I'll get some quests done in that time.

There is no autosave. I had no idea about that so the first time I started the game I went around Seyda Neen and got killed. Assuming that the game would autosave upon entering and leaving locations (as both Oblivion and Skyrim did) I had not done a proper save yet. I was killed and realised that, yay, now I have to start all over again -.-' Now I try to remember to save often, but there are moments when I've forgotten and been killed and then realised that I'll have to redo a bunch of small side quests, because I forgot to save.

There is no button for blocking. I tried to find it before but then I realised that the higher the Blocking skill is the more the character blocks. So the blocking is automatic. I hate that. I just stand there waving my toothpick hoping my character has the good sense to block in time.

I don't understand the level system. As a level 1 and 2 I could beat a level 5 without much difficulty. As a level 2 I met with a level 8 character that I had to kill. He beat me. In two hits. TWO HITS. Fine that the level 12 character killed me in two hits, but a level 8? While I could beat a level 5? So I decided that since the game is so unfair as to not give me any quest markers it's alright for me to cheat a little with the leveling. So I found the console command for money. Typed it in and then spent half a fortune with different trainers leveling my character. I'm now level 7 and the game has gotten somewhat easier. Though I meet a lot bigger creatures when I'm out walking now. I kind of miss the slugs (Kwama Forager), the mudcrabs and the rats. Now I'm fighting dinosaurs (Kagouti). Dinosaurs against a toothpick.

I'm also not sure if I approve of the quests and the factions. I've encountered a quest that only a male character can do, and since I am a female character I can't. It bugs me that there are quests unavailable to me because I chose to be a girl. Then there are the factions. From the quest names that I've seen online it's obvious that the Fighters Guild and the Thieves Guild are fighting against each other. But I could join both? Will I have to choose later? Can I join all the Great Houses, or am I stuck with Hlaalu now because it was the first Great House that I encountered? Since the Great Houses all are fighting amongst each other, I wonder if it's possible. I want to be able to make every quest the game offers, as I did in Oblivion and as I've almost done in Skyrim. But I'm starting to wonder whether the game will let me.

I guess it's true that games were harder in the past. But out of all this I've mentioned, what bothers me most is the lack of a quest marker. Not just because my sense of direction sucks (I would love to not have my head ache after every session, though) but because it feels really weird not having a pointer to follow!

It sounds like I only have complaints, but when I am playing it I'm actually enjoying myself. It's only when I turn the game off that I realise how bad it really is by the present day's standards. Those who have played Elder Scrolls since the beginning tell me that Morrowind is the best game of the series. I will finish it. But I can't pretend that I don't miss Skyrim every time someone in the game mentions Solstheim... Or every time I meet a Nord... Just like I missed Skyrim every time I entered Bruma in Oblivion.

I miss the Steam Overlay. Had to disable it to get the graphics mod working. Now I can't take screenshots.

Sunday 3 November 2013

BioShock madness!

I'm starting to think that I love BioShock as much as Elder Scrolls. After Games for Windows was closed down I played through BioShock 2 again to get the Steam achievements. This time I also played through the DLC Minerva's Den, and I tried the Protector Trials. I'm not very good with challenges, though! I think I had to try the first challenge 5 times before I figured out how to pass it. I got to 12 stars (I think) before I tired of the challenges. On a whim I then decided to try out the mutiplayer part. I started it up not expecting to find many people still playing it, but I was surprised! I've played two maps, thus far: Survival of the Fittest (everyone for themselves) and Turf War (two teams against eachother). I never really liked multiplayer, cause I don't like having lots of people everywhere. But I found that fps mutliplayer is very different from MMOs, and for some reason it's not as frustrating to be killed by the same person over and over as it is to fail in a game at the same place over and over. Positive first experience of fps multiplayer! :P
1). Rapture. 2). Big Daddy doll. 3). Little Sister going home "Bye bye, Mr. Bubbles". 4). Schrödinger's cat! 5). This is MINE. 

I finally started playing BioShock Inifinite. I was sceptic, though, cause I knew I was going to miss Rapture. But I fell in love with Columbia as well, and after a whole day of only playing the game I found myself gliding along sky-lines in my dreams the following night! I like Infinite, but it feels more lik Dishonored than BioShock. Gliding along sky-lines isn't that far away from Blinking from rooftop to rooftop. Fighting soldiers rather than Splicers also feels more BioShock. I miss the Big Daddies and the Little Sisters. I'm also not sure if I like Elizabeth or if I find her extremely annoying. She just keeps running away and I have to run after her all the friggin' time! But her Tear-Opening is awesome and her finding stuff for me in the middle of battle is also awesome. As the story evolved as the game went on I became more and more amazed with the story. The final moment was incredible. I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING! =O After I finished the game I tried out the Clash in the Clouds DLC, which consists of a series of challenges. Completing the first one unlocks the next one etc. The first challenge includes 15 waves of enemies to defeat and to get the extra prize there is a specific way to do so. I keep failing at the 6th wave, which is kind of annoying. Now I'm eagerly awaiting Burial at Sea DLC, which will finally take us from Columbia back to Rapture! 9 days to go! Can't wait! :D
Columbia