Just watched Obama being sworn in. Well, I say watched, the telly was on BBC News when I walked past it. It was a "Oh, are they doing this today?" passing thought. Anyway I just had three quick things to say about the guy:

• The amount of hype surrounding Obama may lead to him disappointing a lot of people.
• At the same time, unless he single handedly implodes the Earth and all it's living creatures, he won't do as badly as the last guy.
• That armoured limo he has HAS to be the Batmobile in disguise.

In other news, try to trick this guy into not knowing what your thoughts are. It's insane.

First time I've had any time to myself in over a month.

So I drew this comic.

Enjoy.

Literally "When the Cicadas Cry", this is a "murder mystery" anime based off games of the same name. The story, if you can call it that, mainly revolves around the tiny country village of Hinamizawa and the curse of Oyashiro-sama which befalls the village every Cotton Drifting Festival.

I should probably expand on my story remark; the anime series is a collection of several different stories residing in seemingly different universes. In each "arc", as they're known, the setting stays the same but the backgrounds and characters are completely different. This is my first gripe with it, there is absolutely no point in getting attached to any of the characters as their personalities can do complete U-turns, varying from placid and lovable to bitterly psychotic. There also exist a pair of identical twin girls - Mion and Shion Sonozaki. When I say identical, I literally mean you cannot distinguish between the two besides their clothes and hairstyles, which doesn't help when the two start swapping places without any kind of incentive.

Story wise, it does a good job of raising suspense during the serious moments of the arcs, but often I feel they're a tad schizophrenic with the other half being over-the-top comedic anime expressions and poses. This has leaked into the serious sections on more than one occasion, if only by accident. One instance coming to mind is when Satoko, a girl no older than 10, manages to push Keiichi, a boy at least 6 years older and several stone heavier, clean across a classroom...twice. The transition between serious and non-serious occurs sporadically which adds to the overall tension of the arc, but they occur with such jump-starts you're at risk of breaking your neck. Spotting whoever's done it (or should that be "dunnit"?) is like playing Where's Wally if someone had highlighted him with a bright neon sign. Simply look for the person who laughs manically for no reason and who's eyes dilate to the size of periods. This leads me onto my second grip; a lot of the so-called "mystery" behind these events could be simply solved if someone, anyone, just stopped and said "whoa, whoa; what's going on and what do you mean by that?" instead of leaping to phenomenally polarised conclusions.

Overall I think I may be a bit overly critical of it. It's certainly a fresh approach to storytelling, and the suspense is very real and well executed, but I feel that the constant changing in characters personalities disconnects the viewer from any kind of emotional attachment to the story and/or characters. However that's not to say it's bad anime, it's just too differently executed for my tastes.

7/10
Good idea, flawed execution

Reserve slots.

For those who don't know, reserve slots are like season tickets for a sports event, you're always guarenteed a spot. In PC gaming if someone with a reserve slot comes online and wants to play a game, you're booted off in order to allow someone who's paid extra to play. This is very annoying, I feel no need at all to pay extra for something I've already paid for. Forking over an extra couple of quid in order to be guarenteed a playing slot is borderline elitist. I don't always have time to game. Sometimes I can leave a game for months then come back to it. It's the main reason I steer clear of MMOs with subscription fees. If I started paying monthly for something that would make playing the game a commitment, in order to fool myself into think it wasn't a complete waste of money, and once something becomes a commitment it stops being fun.

In other news, finally finished my exams so treated myself to The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray. Somehow, the Pencil Trick is better in HD.

Nearing the end of Persona 3 as well. It's an odd sensation I haven't felt in a long time - the feeling of not wanting to finish a game because it was that good. Most games released nowadays can be finished within a few hours, like Portal for example, so finishing the game is more like a surprise. I finished Fallout 3 without really realising it (the ending is really pathetic in my opinion) and the experience just isn't rich enough to get that attached to it. Persona 3 has taken me back years to when I used to play the old PSone Final Fantasies, with 80-90 hour game saves and having that one save just before the last boss. Games these days are just way too impersonal, they're about getting to the top of the leaderboard or getting Achievements/Trophies instead of being immersed in a world that's far beyond our own yet feels strangely like home.

On a completely unrelated topic, I've been pondering a theory. When there are more people in a situation they are less likely to help you, known as Diffusion of Responsibility, for example here. Now, whenever there's something serious going down how come there's always some camera phone footage on the news? Are people more willing to grab their mobile phones then lend a helping hand? I dunno. I need sleep.

Well, not exactly. My town just got this fancy take-away pizza stall...thing. It's basically a Greggs but for pizza and giant pretzels. Not exactly the most envigorating thing in the world, but the last thing I ever expected to end up in my tiny town.

Just watching an old rerun of Kelly Osborne - Turning Japanese, on ITV1, within which won't-admit-she's-hot-but-secretly-you-would Kelly Osborne bumbles her way through Japanese culture trying her darnest not to offend everyone she comes across (in todays episode she laughed in the face of a Buddist priest).

But the music to it, (I Think I'm) Turning Japanese by The Vapours can actually be interpretted to signify masturbating (just think of the face you pull at...your happiest moment).

Anyway, it's 0:36am and I still need to write 4 pages on something I have less than a paragraph of material on.

I can't get to grips with a lot of the new lingo that's coming out nowadays. For the longest time I assumed FTW was just WTF spelled backwards until I learned it was "For The Win", which makes even less sense when I think about it. I honestly don't mind FTL, however. :P

The newest one is the Win/Fail system. I assume this is meant to be a parody of Engrish, like on Mario Sunshine ("Shine Get"), but I just can't understand how something can be "full of win". Is Win an entity that can be used to fill something?

I'm only messing, of course. :P I understand them, I just don't get why people still use them outside of The-Chan-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

But I do feel old when I use Facebook. Or more precisely, when I can't use Facebook. Why the frig would someone bite me? Or send me a drink? I don't bloody drink! Friends, indeed :lol: