First off, you don’t go outside in Japan with any sort of noticeable illness. The Japanese are absolute germophobes, and given, well, any reason, they will send your happy ass to the hospital. Seriously, my school tells us that if we start feeling a little under the weather to tell the resident director, so she can take us to the emergency room. Several of my family members are or were in medical professions, so I come from a long line of “tough it out” mentalities. It’s not happening.
 

So, instead I find myself falling back on my beloved handhelds. I have both my DS and my PSP here in Japan with me (since both are mostly region free), and I have a few English games (which I’m relying on currently, because my head is too fuzzy and too snotty for me to want to translate right now). I pulled out my copy of Final Fantasy IV and have been enjoying the remake of a real classic. The characters are very near and dear to me, and still oh-so-much fun to make fun of. Kain still thoroughly deserves the namesake mental disease of Kain Syndrome. Rydia could still wail on Edward with a sock ball and crumple him to the floor in seconds. And Yang still has a soft baby skull. I haven’t gotten far enough to confirm yet, but I still expect Edge to be the Fail Ninja I know and love.
 

On another note, I’m totally over Media Miner. Not that I frequent the site often, but sometimes I would brave it, after getting thoroughly fed up with Fanfiction.net. Bad choice. Really bad choice. My last visit turned up a story in which Link is raped by Redeads. I don’t know how else this could have spawned other than an angry insult-swapping concept on a game of TF2, because generally reverse-necrophilia is no sexier than regular necrophilia.
A couple hours of browsing later turned up a Kingdom Hearts fic in which King Mickey gives post-male-on-male rape counseling and goes on to discuss marrying three people at the same time (all three to each other). I’m totally moving to that kingdom, just so I can marry a string of random people and create a convoluted marriage chain. And if any of my husbands/wives/husband-wives ever piss me off, I’m marrying Chuck. Chuck doesn’t talk much, but he does babble incoherently and bite people without warning. He has his merits.
 

Tyrine of the con-going artist couple Muse Tap also cued me in to this comic via her blog. Give it a read if you don’t scare easily or if you feel like not sleeping ever again. The top of the page is in Korean, but just scroll down and the comic itself is in English.
 

And, now! back to gaming! And coughing up a lung…

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I know it's been said, but I'm leaving Xanga. My new site is here. Please subscribe if you would like to keep following.

My first reaction upon hearing today that Steve Jobs had passed on was to consider for all of ten seconds if perhaps I should refrain from referring to him as the Devil, the Anti-Christ, and all other manner of Unholy Beasts for the next few days in the name of sensitivity. Then I reminded myself that the best way to honor the dead is to keep the good times alive. To me, Jobs will always be another piece of Lucifer taken flesh, but I say so with a twisted sort of affection.


I learned that the recently retired former CEO of Apple had succumbed to cancer earlier today during a break from morning studies (Japan is ahead by half a day) from a classmate who, in the face of such grievous news, couldn’t keep a straight face. Naturally, I received such an announcement like one of the Faithful hearing that Beelzebub had been struck down and would never again plague humanity; I didn’t believe it and am still somewhat waiting for Jobs to come rising out of the earth in a show of magma and flames, condemning us all for our foolishness, the show complete with winged imps playing trumpets made of bone and heralding the start of his new dark reign. A con-buddy of mine has already remarked that surely Jobs has just coded his mind into the programming of his next big, Apple device, thus becoming iMortal. The word has a rather ominous ring to it, largely because I worry that it may be true and even worse because if such a being can obtain immortality, he can most definitely seek out and snuff out the lives of all who would mock him. But if I have to die, I might as well die laughing.


I have to admit that I am slightly sad to see Jobs go. My life is just that much more hollow with one less evil corporate overlord to poke fun at in my spare time. I also worry that the dripping nectar of evil hasn’t abandoned this world with the failure of its human husk, but has instead rejoined another piece of itself in Bobby Kotick. If Jobs was Emperor Palpatine, then Kotick is Horace Greedly. I at least prefer my super villains to have classier hobbies than curb-stomping baby seals.


I do wonder what will become of Apple now that its cult of personality is both dead and gone. I can’t imagine it will be good for the company, but only time will tell. Jobs may have uploaded himself into the super computer from Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot after all.


But for now, I should bid farewell to a man who was, perhaps, my generation’s greatest Evil Overlord. The List didn’t get to him, after all. God speed, Mr. Jobs.

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I should point out now that I am moving away from Xanga. If you wish to keep following me, I am in the process of setting up my own space as part of Fantasy Reflections. My blog is already up and running at EyesAsRed. I will continue to post on Xanga for awhile, but that will soon end as I finish up the new site. Thanks for the reads!

~Vinni~

Most cosplayers at the Game Show were women, so that's why all my photos are of chicks. There were a few good guy cosplayers, but taking pictures is hard as hell at TGS. Photo-bombing is pretty much guaranteed. But, here's what I got:

Dead Island girls: From the upcoming zombie game. What? That's a ZOMBIE between them...



Just a cute, little Yuna cosplayer. I bet Yuna wished she had a nice rolly suitcase when she was on her pilgrimage.



Yeah, actually, I don't know who these girls are supposed to be. Any guesses?



And the LovePlus girl, chilling out in front of the Konami exhibit.



It's too bad I don't have more, but cosplayers were the absolute hardest thing to photograph. They would be posed for people, and I would go to take a picture, and some other person would finish with their picture and just walk right in front of me. I was serial photo-bombed!

More pics later.