Ooh, smack.

@chungking.espresso: Yeah, I'm just glad we get to hear about it now.

Deservedly so! The DS versions are deliciously fun, even if I do worry about the health of my screen sometimes. Ah well, I did buy those screen protectors for a reason.

Germany seems more active in this field than you generally hear about. Here's hoping for a cityscape Berlin game, ala The World Ends With You re: Shibuya. They have to keep Tacheles in the game, though, even if they tear it down in real life. Could be a game in itself.

@EloraHRanma: The "legendary" fidelity of Japanese companies to its workers has already changed. This was in the mid- to late-nineties, I believe. The lifelong promises to watch over you and your family, economically, are no longer there. The incentives to be loyal are no longer there to the extent that caused…

Creepy! Nothing could induce me to become an internet personality whose boundaries conform more or less to my real ones. I much prefer dickeyed anonymity and the freedom to retreat, when disgusted or disheartened with the general state of the masses, knowing that there is no moral or economic incentive to drag me…

@svetlana: ...and when I say revel, I mean regard the state of affairs back home with a shade less grimness than has been the norm the past few months.

@Spoony Bard: Man, if you expect something other than foaming-at-the-mouth right-wing invective from a bunch of gamers, you have more faith in your community than I.

Do you have a friend that can handle dogs? Puppies?

It's easy to overemphasize this, and I don't want to make the same mistakes Ruth Benedict did re: crass generalization and a tremendous amount of oversimplification.

@Soldier_CLE proclaims Steve Wiebe The REAL King of Kong!!!.: I agree...it's too easy, and sometimes (at least when I was a kid; it probably has changed by now due to a rise in nationalist sentiment post-9/11) knee-jerk, to say "wait there, hold it, ignore ALL of that history that you know is constructed by the powers…

Hey, it's Whirled! You're giving them press! Yay! I found them through the Three Panel Soul webcomic, the artist of which works at Three Rings.

@svetlana: That is, if there ARE people trying to reclaim the images. I have no idea.

@Soldier_CLE proclaims Steve Wiebe The REAL King of Kong!!!.: I believe that's the unit dealt with tangentially in Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire (which isn't to say the book is at all relevant to its title...the title's a bland attempt to capture attention; the book itself deals much more with the…

@Soldier_CLE proclaims Steve Wiebe The REAL King of Kong!!!.: Out of curiosity, what is the appeal in that style of art? Before I was dating him, I passed a book reprint pinups from the 40s to my boyfriend in a library and he jumped in his chair, he was so turned on. But he finds it problematic in that, on the one…

Ah, a hula girl welcoming the brave soldiers west. Now all we need is one of those buck-toothed racist caricatures of Japanese guys and we'll be all set for a politically-incorrect paradise.

Any news on Agito? The regionalization of the larger consoles makes my being in Japan an unmilkable convenience re: FF13 itself, but I might still be able to score bragging rights to my stateside friends if Agito comes out here sometime before it does, uh, there.

@Chesu: But I'm going to go out on a limb and say you were comfortable around girls a hell of a lot sooner than your brothers-only-having counterparts. The most awkward boys I knew growing up lived either as only children or as one of a posse of boys. It was a life-changing moment when I met my boyfriend, who has…

My grandmother was an only child and told my mother and my aunt it was hell. She said she refused to have only one child, and made that clear to my grandpa before they got married. (Though, in the 1930s, I'm not sure why she had to make that clear.)

Bah, they want 4000 yen for that here. I'll get my sister to send it to me from the states, thanks. *grumble*