Little contest : orz

I launch a small contest. Nothing to win.
Try to find the meaning of this : orz
Post your answers in the comments.
If you already know what it means, then sshhh and let the others think a little :)

Revelation !

It doesn't seem to be a secret anymore (well, it never has been one to start with, it seems...), the project I'm working on is...Way of the Samurai 3 on PS3 !

That's it. See you next time :P
(I have to hurry or I'll miss my train and wait another 15 mins...)

Truth about Japan

You thought you knew Japan ? Its culture and customs ?
In fact, people never really wanted to tell you the truth.
Here it is, unveiled for the first time ever :
What you never knew !

Politically incorrect

Hey folks.

I just learnt from a friend currently in China that my blog is inaccessible from there.
I wonder, is there any content in my posts that could be forbidden in China ?
Like, I talk about random topics taken here and there, video games, code, Japanese food, post some pictures and that's it.

Anyway, maybe if I start posting about communism and stuff, they would allow this page to be displayed ? :P

.....

Hey everyone.
Don't be mislead by the title, the thing is, I have a hard time coming up with good titles so...
Anyway, this is another week end post.
Fortunately, I came but not to work today, nor yesterday.
After seeing me coming to work the whole week end last week, they wondered if I had too much work. Since priorities were not clearly defined, after a small meeting, I'm less stressed while still having the same amount of work. It's really important to define the priorities :)

I quite don't know where to start, so I'll just enumerate briefly what happened this week.

Every morning, I have a meeting regarding the project I'm working on. It's still a secret so I can't tell much but this kind of meeting is really important, the kind of meeting, though simple, can save you a lot of time. We usually talk about what we did yesterday and our plans for today. I expect the meetings to grow longer as the project goes on.

I used to go to the combini everyday for lunch and dinner, until co-workers told me that "if you eat combini every day, you will die". Well, I sure didn't expect that but you get the idea. This is why I now eat at Hokka Hokka Tei for lunch. It's more or less the same price, has much more choice and is also very good. I usually order (not all at the same time :)) a カツカレー(katsu curry, curry with pork cutlet and rice), a チャーハン(chahan, Chinese-style fried rice), a かつ重 (katsuju, similar as the so popular katsudon) or, just recently, after a co-worker recommended it as "original Japanese mother taste" (in short, all Japanese mothers know how to cook this), a しょうが焼弁当(shouga yaki bentou). I'm expecting much more good discoveries next week, as someone told me we would go to cheap places where they serve food good for your health. I'll try to take pictures next time :)

I also received a new monitor. I really didn't see that one coming, here is what happens.
I am working, headset on.
Someone comes up, with a huge 24 inches 16/9 LCD flat monitor on his hands.
He says "Here, it's for you".
That's it. I still don't know why I was the one who got it, he just said "I got a new one so I'm giving this".
Anyway, now I have too much free space on my desktop, with a screen res of 1920*1200. I can have a split vertical window in Visual studio, while displaying all the width content of my files.

Yesterday, when I came at work but not to work, I tested my new monitor, along with the new comp I received the week before (some huge monster, like Athlon 64 X2 and a Geforce 7900GT) by playing Prey again. I can only say that it's F*CKING beautiful with a constant high framerate. Honestly, I never thought I would get to play on this kind of machine one day.
One hour later, I was browsing the web, looking at some industry news when someone popped up behind me, saying "おつかれさまです" (see my last post few pages down to see what it means, or actually doesn't mean...). I removed my headset, turned around to see....the president, my boss, THE BIG BOSS of the company, along with his daughter. We shared few words (mainly regarding the monitor, honestly I wonder if it is right for me to have it, like there are other designers at the company who may need it or, I don't remember having seen such a monitor, even on HIS desk) and he then went on to speak with other people currently present AND working.
He sure frightened me. I came to work, not to work, in the middle of people who work and NEARLY got caught in the middle of a game. I don't think there's any risk, since I first asked my chief before coming but still, in front of the president among others who are here on important matters, it's definitely not the best situation to be in.

Anyway, I think I talked too much so here is the return of the pictures !

The back of a chocolate box. Why the hell is there a naked baby angel you ask ? I have no clue...



The kind of show you can see on TV. Yes, this is Arale....or not :|



A picture taken at the north exit of Kameari, the nearest JR train station near where I live.
This statue has been erected after the famous anime serie こちら葛飾区亀有公園前派出所(Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen Mae Hashutsujo). Here is a Wikipedia link.


A Silent Hill horror house I found near Shinjuku. Was it Kabuki-chou ? I don't quite remember.
Anyway, it just opened. If I get the opportunity to try it, I'll tell you.


That's it for today. That's quite a lot though :)

See you next time.

World cup, work and sleep (or trying to...)

France lost in the finals, too bad !
Anyway, I think they did pretty good all along (during the World Cup) because I never imagined they would go this far. In 4 years I expect at least as good :)

I also came to work yesterday. Honestly, when I look at it, it seems to be a never-ending pile of work waiting ahead.
Day after day, I work for about 11~12 hours (including 40 mins for lunch). I think that I do pretty well, given the amount of "code" and functionalities I produce....but there always seems to be much more. Like you finish one task and behind it, you discover 10 new ones. Great.
Thanks god I'm working in the video games industry in Japan. I'm definitely motivated about it otherwise, I would have given up long long ago :P

The 12 other hours, there is 1 hour and a half for transport (15 mins walk to the station, 30 mins of train, twice a day), 1 hour of GBA (I have to take my mind off work you know) and the remaining time, I sleep....or try to.

Yes I try to because some factors seem to prevent me from doing so :

- It's damn hot here in Tokyo. Even though I have the air con, it won't do leaving it running all night. It makes quite a ruckus too.

- The neighbours. While I first thought that other tenants would be silent at night, they aren't (I forgot I was in a gaijin building...). Some are talking (phone or not), others are watching TV and yelling to let you know that they are watching a funny show, or watching the final of the World Cup (two Italians next door, that's how I learnt this morning, through the wall, that France had lost).

- And finally, the electric drill ! Because, every morning, and they sure are right on time (8.20am) I wake up to the sound of a peaceful and loving electric drill, operating just 5 meters away from my window. Isn't that nice ? There has been better however. One morning, it was a jackhammer, right under my window (2 meters to the ground). I could clearly hear it (who wouldn't ???).
Just imagine how would you react if you barely slept for the night because of neighbours/heat and once you are finally asleep, you're awaken by a drill.

That said, however, don't think that I'm not happy being here :D
I couldn't be happier. That's what I have hoped for so many years. There's no reason to complain. I think I will just find another apartment once I get the opportunity.
(French mode : Petit clin d'oeil a Kitti, toi qui a vecu plus ou moins les memes choses que moi, quand je me relis, j'ai l'impression de recopier ton blog :))

That's it for today. It's been a long time since I last posted pictures. I don't have time to use my camera though. I barely took new pictures since then...

Until next time, またね。

aaaaahhh those Japanese people....

Week end post ! I promised !
In fact, I came today to work, a Saturday yes. I didn't feel like staying at home playing GBA today so...Plus I have quite some huge amount of work waiting to get done and sitting around, even on the week-end, won't help.

Anyway, I won't blog about work, as you may noticed by the title. I will blog about Japanese people. Both good/funny and bad/irritating ones. I'll start with the good one or else it will ruin the mood for everything else.

On Wednesday, I went to the bank office with someone from the company, the one in charge of all HR stuff. I needed a bank account and since I received my pay few days ago, it was the perfect moment.
I'll pass about the name stamp which is required for any official papers and stuff in Japan, this thing cost me 2000 yens, to have your name written on it.
So we arrived at the bank, got our line ticket and were immediately received. We explained that we wanted to open an account and the girl gave us a form to fill in.
As you may have guessed, the form was all in Japanese and honestly, I was quite happy that someone came with me, like when I went to get my "Alien card" (yes, I'm officially an alien in Japan), he helped me fill in the form.
Unfortunately, this time, that was not possible. The girl specifically told us that "I" should be the one filling the form. And in Japanese please, no gaijins letters.
Ok ok, I have seen worse in my life, so I took the pen and started to write my address all in kanjis, my name in katakana and stuff.
Once done, we gave the paper to the staff for checking. After few minutes, some formal talk I had no clue about, the girl gave the paper back asking me to FILL IT AGAIN.
What the... ?! Is there a problem ? I can correct it directly on the paper if you want. But no, I had to fill it again. The reason ? Be prepared, this is going to be a tough one.
I had written my name all in capitalized letters, which includes a "i". This makes it "I" but in my handwritten "font", I wrote the capitalized "i" with a dot on top of it, which is not considered capitalized then (even if the size of the letter was perfectly correct, add the top and bottom SHiT and it's capitalized).
Yes, for this I had to fill the entire form again. They didn't want me to correct the "i" into an "I".
So I wrote it again, this time making sure that the "I" is definitely capitalized (at least, for them).
She took the form, watched it and started criticizing my capitalized "U", which is much like the "u", meaning with the small tail. But thanks god her manager told her it was alright because I definitely was not going to fill in a 3rd form...
So, if you ever go to the bank to create an account, be careful, you have been warned.

Now, the irritating one.
Two days ago, when I left for home at around 11.30 pm (quite late indeed), the train was packed with people, as usual. So packed that you could barely move. It also reeked of alcohol, with all those salaryman (and not salary men, since this word became Japanese as a whole) drunk every evening.
As some of you may already be aware of, this kind of situation is bliss for perverts. You barely see what's happening, you can barely move, you can barely tell who is next to you.
And that evening, there was one just next to me.
I won't go into details but the girl was definitely a minor. If I'm not mistaken, getting caught and brought to the police is a free-trip to prison.
That's really disgusting, you really want to place a nice headbutt on the guy, plus the fact that he wasn't very tall either. But when you see that other people around also notice and don't say anything (the guy just in front of me definitely saw it and immediately turned his head around) you start thinking that making such a fuss in a crowded public place is not really appropriate.
Instead, I used the train jolts as an excuse to hustle the guy. Not really efficient but that's what I could only do.
Sorry for all the girls out there (and reading my blog ? are there ? honestly ?) who most probably would have whacked him.

Anyway, that's all for today. I have to get back home, since all my clothes are out drying and I fear that rain suddenly starts to fall, as it usually does on week-ends...

Small update

Hey guys.

Just to keep this blog alive, I do a small post.
In fact, I'm getting more and more busy days after days and hardly have time for blogging now :P
I will try to post more by the end of the week...