Can't sleep, can't wake up

The title says it all.

I can't seem to go to bed early. That's one big problem.
I can't wake up early either. That's another big problem.
In-between, I sleep quite a lot and really well though.

Even if I'm really tired (I am now and still can't sleep at least not right away) it will take at least 20 mins to fall asleep.
When I wake up early due to horrible circumstances (aka something woke me up and I'm not in a good mood), I still can't go to bed early on that night.

I've built up this habit over the years and it probably won't be fixed anytime soon.
The only time when I am sleeping/waking up like a normal person is after a travel, when I suffer from jetlag and thus, wake up at 6am and go to bed at 9pm.
Unfortunately, it doesn't last long since I'm recovering slowly, day after day, up to the point when I'm back on my own cycle.

This morning, woke up at 9.30. It was a living hell getting out of bed.
Right now, 3am, still up though I'm pretty tired so I'm going to bed soon.
Tomorrow, nothing special to do in the morning, will probably sleep until 12pm.

じゃあ、おやすみなさい～

Avatars from work

At work, like most companies, we have an intranet.
It includes the most commonly used features in a company, such as news, calendar to keep track of your meetings/appointments, room booking (if you need a particular room for a meeting for example), a wiki (for various uses, both technical and management), the list of people present etc.

We also have a page where we have to write our tasks for the day, things to do and done. It helps other people know what you're doing and also helps you keep track of your tasks over the days/weeks.
This page lists each person with an avatar of their choice.
It's kinda funny what people come up with (artists sometimes make their own avatar, I use gaijin pictures, those likely no one will ever have a clue about here yet so famous back in Europe).
Here are a few picks:

Mine (until next change)


The one from a co-worker (animator and hardware admin)


A slimey stuff from the chief animator, I think she did it herself


An artist wishing us Happy New Year


A freaky one (the one above is freaky too, I know...)


A picture from a programmer playing eroge (Japanese erotic games)


A lead programmer who loves cats


Look at that for a few mins...


Typical Japanese style


There are also many screenshots and pictures of what planners/game designers/artists do with the current projects, like the main characters wearing strange outfits and saying weird things, sometimes in strange positions (yea, you read that well, tolerance is rather flexible).
I won't post those of course, in case someone actually reads this blog and start spreading rumours in gaming forums.
Well, at least you have an idea what it's like around here :)

My dream last night

I had a weird dream last night.
Thing is, I get weird dreams all the time, completely nonsense without any meaning yet they seem so natural when you're in it (I bet that everyone gets those kind of dreams from time to time, if not all the time...).

I was back in Paris and wanted to go to the beach (already a nonsense, Paris has no beach). I wonder why but I had to take my car so I headed for the garage in my swimming trunks and a towel.
Upon arriving at the garage, there were people already gathered chatting. I went in to get my car when I realized I forgot my keys.
Bummer, heading for home to get my keys. That's when one of the people gathered chatting with the others called out for me. He was actually the son of the caretaker (a guy I once "knew" back in elementary school, like...20 years ago, never been friends with him though).
He asked me what happened. I guess I was looking suspicious, coming at the garage in swimming trunks and leaving soon after.
I explained my situation (the beach and the keys) and said that I'd be back soon with my keys to get my car.
I already left when he called out my name again. I came back and I saw him turn around and wave his hand looking far up behind him, in direction of a window in a building. He shouted "WAIT ! DON'T SHOOT ! DON'T SHOOT !" and turned back to me to ask if I could give him a drive when I came back. He had few things to bring to the beach, something about equipments for a concert if I recall correctly.

The dream more or less ends here.
Now if I analyze the few facts present in this dream, some could be explained while others I have no clue about.
I'll start with the ones that could be explained:
- being in Paris: makes sense since I lived there for like 24 years
- going the beach, wearing swimming trunks with a towel over my shoulder: for many years, I've been going to Spain during summer holidays. My parents own a flat near the beach, like 20 meters away (or 65 feet if you prefer)
- my car in a garage: actually, not really my car - my mother is the main driver of that car (the former car of my father) although I can take it whenever I need it. It is indeed parked in that very same garage.
- forgetting my keys: I don't recall ever forgetting my keys though each time, I'm afraid of it so I make double sure I always have them with me.
- the son of the caretaker was indeed a guy I knew back in school and he was indeed the son of the garage caretaker
- something about a concert: a friend blogged few days ago about a concert he attended
- the presence of a sharpshooter in that building: playing too much CoD4 I guess...

Apart from the few specific facts like the keys or the concert, I guess that the background seems rather accurate (because I've already had dreams when the background definitely made no sense at all, with places I've never seen and people I've never met and speaking languages I don't even understand)

Now, for the unexplainable facts:
- why didn't it strike me plain the face that Paris has no beach ?
- why didn't I feel weird about wandering in swimming trunks and a towel in the middle of Paris ?
- why does a guy I've never seen in 20 years just pops into my dream like this ?
- why was there a sharpshooter in that building ? And more importantly, why didn't I say anything about having a guy aiming at me through his sniper rifle ?

Which brings me to the more general question: is there a way to tell I'm in a dream ? If in my dream I could say, "Ok this isn't right, things like that don't usually happen, you're in a dream so wake up !", well I guess I could wake up.

Some news

I'm still alive for those who didn't know, I'm still in Japan though I went back to France last month for two weeks. Anyone needs a rest from time to time.

Recently, I've been playing a lot of Call Of Duty 4 (on PC) and it's just great.
If you can, be sure to check it out as it's really worth 50 bucks.
Also, been playing a lot on Nintendo DS Lite.
Regarding that, I bought one not so long ago, after I ran into the Zelda: Phantom Hourglass limited edition in a shop at Akiba. Imported version from the US of course, I paid 25000 yens for it (the price of a Wii).
Many will say it's expensive but honestly, all other models never really appealed to me. Since I had DS games but not system (I left my original NDS in France), that was a great opportunity.

Next games on the list: Final Fantasy III and IV when it's released in English (though I MAY try it in Japanese, not sure yet...), Children of Mana and still have to beat Yoshi's Island 2. Since I play mostly on the train when I go to work (read by small chunks everyday), they will last for quite a while. Perfect since at this period of the year, not so many games are released.

Regarding my work, I'm still working on Way of the Samurai 3 (though some rumors began to surface saying the project was cancelled, well as far as I know, it's not) and some other projects (not yet announced) will probably require me to work on them too. I'll post about those whenever I can but for the time being... :)

"Your English is weird"

said a Japanese co-worker....to me !
Honestly, that sentence was a blast. Being told your English is weird....by a Japanese !
You have no idea.
For those who don't know, most Japanese people suck at foreign languages. They know Japanese and....that's it.
Even after spending like 10+ years at school learning it, they can't, for most of them, make a simple sentence correctly, not to mention the complex ones...
I know that we, the French, are famous for our lack of skills in English yet we are able to make sentences correctly and pronounce the words without chopping off most of the syllabes.
Because they have this hell of an accent, which is in my opinion dictated by the "alphabet" they use for foreign words : "katakana".

Here's an example: the word "elevator", the kind of word you see everywhere here, is written　エレベーター and is pronounced "erebeta" (because that's exactly how it's written in its katakana form).
The first time you hear it and without anyone telling you what it means, you spend like 2 hours looking for its meaning.

Anyway, that will teach me to make things easier for them to understand.
I was purposely speaking slowly, using simple words, making simple sentences and lowering myself to use their horrible accent when speaking English, up to the point that recently I found it quite difficult to use English as I used to in the "old days".
But no more. I will make sure they are flooded from now on and we will see who's the weirdest of the two.

PS : if you want to see English in its full nature, as seen by Japan (and more generally, asian countries) be sure to check http://www.engrish.com.

And here he is !

Yeeeaaaaahhh that's him ! Please applause ! *applauses*
As many of you were wondering, this blog is not dead. The lack of updates was only due to the lack of will from the blogger. What a lazy-bone !
Anyway, my last post was my coming back to France. Now is my coming back to Japan.
In fact, I've been back for one month already and will probably stay here for a much longer time, at least one full year.
My visa is currently under process and everything seems to be going smoothly.
So, what can I say ? This blog should be about video games and whatever topic about Japan I can think of.
Let's start with my work, which is if you don't remember or if it's your first time here, game developer.
We're still working on Way of the Samurai 3 for PS3. It's going pretty well I guess. I've been trying to get more and more involved in the project, and not just sitting around coding my own parts. That's quite a task, considering one important fact: I'm not fluent in Japanese (and far from it). That means a lot yet I'm doing my best (of course). I'm impressed at how much I've improved in fact, honestly. There's still a long way to go though. Wish me good luck.
As for the game itself, since many of you surely want to know more, I don't know if I can "leak" some information but I will ask about it and possibly, post few artworks.

Something related to my work but not entirely work itself, that's my being graduate. I've finally been through ALL the necessary steps required to get my diploma and I am proud to announce that I am finally done with studies. (*switching to a more general context*)
When I take a look back, that was quite a long way till where I stand right now; not only the 5 years of computer engineering but the 24 years behind me. I've spent most of my time at home at my parents' or at school studying. Now I'm living by myself at the other side of the planet, one of the furthest place on Earth from home.
Though I was mentally prepared a long time ago, to think that I ACTUALLY made it; I mean, as far as I remember, I've always wanted to work in the video games industry. After all these years of useful/useless studies (depending on your own opinion), 24 years of life spent living with your parents, a few years less living for your own dream and when you actually make it through...I wish everyone to live their dream :)

Well, that post was a small coming back so my ideas were a little widespread but next time, I promise to focus on more precise topics and subjects, as anyone would expect from a good blog (nearly all the cool blogs I read about here and there from time to time focus on precise topics in each of their posts, I'll try to do the same).

See you next time !

Back to France !

Hey everyone.
I'm finally back, though it is temporary. I really needed some holidays so I took one month off to settle the last things with my school and other stuff.
Meanwhile in Japan my company is making the necessary steps so I can get a real working visa (and not a working holiday one) and start working again next month.
I'll be going back in January for at least one full year. The real life begins !

Now that I'm back in France, I can enjoy cheese, French bread, chocolate sweets, yoghurts and much more !
I definitely missed those.

I'm also working on my final presentation regarding my internship and my school. That will be my last exam, the last test to take as a student.
がんばるぞ！

Anyway, see you later.

What do we do at work besides work ?

Here is a list of things we do at work besides work:

• play tetris DS (everyone has his own DS)
• try out demos and games on the company's XBOX360 (we haven't received a PS3 yet)
• read game magazines and give our opinions on the games
• discuss game concepts and ideas (it may be work for a game designer but that's not my role)
• intrude on co-workers' discussions, read the following discussion

- "hey guys, what's up ? what are you talking about ?"
- "エロゲ" (eroge)
- *goes back to work*

For those who don't know, "eroge" is the contraction word for "erotic game". Yes, the kind of PC games Japan is famous for.

PS for gene: man you will be like in heaven here...

Question pour un champion (French ahead)

Il fallait absolument que je vous montre ca, je me retiens d'eclater de rire au boulot la :D



Merci a NoFrag (ou j'ai trouve le lien dans les breves) pour cette petite minute de fou rire :D

Puke.

Send the kids to sleep and scroll down.
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A picture is worth a thousand words.

11/11

What happened just yesterday night and this morning in Japan ?
Of course, the release of the Playstation 3 !
I could not have missed that, so after enrolling few co-workers, we went, like many other thousands people, queuing in front of a store, trying to get our hands on a PS3.

What you may not know however, and that's what I will explain now, is that Japanese people are crazy when it comes to a console release (specially the PS3).
They want a PS3 and they want it now.
There were only 80,000 units for whole Japan.
What do they do to get one ? They start queuing the day before, at 7 PM for a sale the day after, at 7 AM.
They have experience in this, Japanese people are really patient and are used to wait for various stuff.

We headed at first for Akihabara in front of the Yodobashi Camera.
Queues like these were seen


And going on



Gathered like that



Again



And again


and again



I wonder if this ever stops


Probably not...


Ah ! Here is the end !


More shots on the way back




They thought about every possible case and prepared for the worse.
I even heard that some fights occured in Yūrakuchō....


Seeing that this would be impossible, we headed for Ueno, Yodobashi Camera again.


Much less people, around a hundred in front of us. We decided to wait here, next to the trash


You can see that they have prepared everything !
Some people even came with their own deckchair ! (No pictures for these sorry...)


So you can see where we were exactly, we could see the Pasela center from there, where a SEGA arcade center lies (and where I go playing VF5, if you ever want to drop by some day)


Just in front of the Keisei entrance


More people gathered after we arrived


Everything is good enough to make the wait feel better. We chatted with other people from the queue over Pictochat.


At around 2AM, a truck arrived and started unloading huge boxes.
I was too late to take some good pictures, the truck was already empty.




There definitely were the PS3 in some of the earlier boxes.
Like 30 minutes after, a guy came with a megaphone shouting that they only had 40 units of each version, making it 80 units in total. Our position was like 150, too bad for us :/

From what I heard (internal sources + info on the net) :
- 700 units for the Yodobashi Camera in Akiba. When you look at the amount of people, that was definitely impossible.
- around 1200 people gathered in Shinjuku (you can easily find the videos on Youbube)
- few stores held a lottery to decide who would be able to buy a PS3 :D

That's it for today. This was quite fun and I had to do it at least once in my life.
See you next time.

一緒に行きましょう！

In Japan, most of the activity in cities are gathered around the subway and train stations.
There are malls, restaurants, game centers, shops of all kinds and hostess bars.
There are few of them at Kameari station (the station where I live).
Every day, when I go back home, there are few guys trying to lure customers in.
It seemed that recently business has not been so good for them, as tonight, when I went past them, the hostesses themselves were on the task of baiting people.
They probably understood that a girl asking you in (saying "Let's go together !") is much more attractive than a guy.
Unfortunately, the girls are not really attractive either.
The only customers I see sometimes in front are either old and fat 'salarymen' or a group of friends (both girls and guys).
Business is not easy...

携帯電話！

I finally bought a mobile phone !
Here is it: Sony Ericsson W42S.
It's a model only available in Japan.
I chose this one because it was the cheapest. I got it for.....10 yens !
But don't be mislead by its price, it was actually a bargain, lasting until the 10th of october.
The monthly fee is around 3000 yens with 1000 yens of included communications. I can also use mails and other services specific to au by KDDI, such as music download, GPS localization, web browsing and buy stuff through their portal.
But as you can see on the website, its most useful feature (besides calling and taking pictures) is to be used as a music player.
It has a 30 hours autonomy of continuous listening, 1 GB of internal memory and a Memory Stick Pro Duo slot to extend to 4 GB.
You can either download from their LISMO service (for a small fee of course) or transfer your audio CD via the computer.
The phone comes with a nice controller and pretty good earphones, I have been really surprised by their quality.
Finally, here's a picture taken with the phone :


That's it for today. See ya next time.

Dead I am not

Heeeyyy guess who's still around.
Yeah I know I haven't been posting lately. A lot happened and work is still taking too much of my time. Anyway, I'll try to catch up later and post as I remember what happened recently.
I'll save the TGS report for later. It was fun with hot girls and everything, as you would have expected.

Today, I'll talk about a business here in Japan where you can get girls, money, alcohol, tabacco, not subject to taxes and everything in the most perfect legal way. In fact, people will even thank you for what you do.
I know many of you are interested to just read on.
The job I'm talking about is being a.....MONK !!!
HAHAHA look at your face, I got you there heh ? Just kidding....
Actually, I'm not.
I had a talk yesterday with a co-worker who taught me everything about monks in Japan.
He told me that there is a type of monk who will pray for people and stuff, like mostly all monks do.
In what they differ is all what I mentioned above.
They are paid very well (I heard something like 10.000 yens, the cheapest of course) for praying and doing their stuff.
They are not subject to taxes, have a lot of clients, meaning they have a lot of money.
Being that type of monk, you can even get girls (many at once, money you know...) drink alcohol, smoke and possibly other things the money would permit.
"How is that even possible ?" is what you wonder. I don't have a clear explanation myself. Something about religion, not real faith and stuff like that.
Anyway, you can now become a monk in Japan !
In fact it's not that easy. It seems it is only hereditary, "passed from father to son" to quote my colleague.
Too bad heh ? It was too good to be true/easy. Anyway I'm sure some of you will find a way to work around this :D

This Friday...

Click here.

G*dd*amn f*cking bl*ody mosquitoes

I HATE THEM !
Since Saturday, I have been going through a true living hell.
I went to put my clothes in the laundry (which is outside, a small room fit up just for this purpose).
It was as usual very very hot in that room and I made the huge mistake to go in there while wearing shorts.
When I came back, I had 5 mosquito bites all around my left leg. I didn't care about it as I always have been bitten and barely felt anything afterwards, or it lasted 1 or 2 days at most and it was over.
But this time, I was mistaken. Why ? Because they are Japanese mosquitoes. How are they different you ask ? I'll tell you. When they bite you, the bump coming out of it is NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN in your whole life.
The bites doubled the volume of my leg and I really mean it. It became a hard red stone. I could barely stand up more than few minutes before a cramp showing up. Oh, and of course, the itching is proportional to the size of the bump, which means YOU'RE DYING.
But there's more to it. The day after, when I got back home, it was very hot as usual and I was sweating a lot. I didn't notice that a mosquito followed me in my room and had already bitten my on my left arm, right near my elbow. Soon after, it was my right foot, near the ankle and the morning after, he got my left wrist.
The two days that followed I spent them scratching my leg and my arm. All day, I was unable to concentrate more than 5 mins on work before the coming back, more powerful than ever, of the itching.
My co-workers advised me to buy a medicine called キンカン. I did so on the same night I knew of its existence (damn there my left hand starts to itch again, aaaAAAAaaaaaAAAAHHHH).
It's supposed to be efficient, though you have to use it like 5 times a day. So far, it's relieved me a little of the pain and the itching but the latter still comes back from time to time and it's freaking annoying.

I wonder how long this will last. I can't stand it anymore. The next mosquito I see will pay for all the others. I don't mean to kill it, no....just a long and painful torture...
I also wonder how come their bites can be so "destructive". It's like they sucked ten times more blood out of me, in 5 different places at once, as if Japanese' blood is not tasty enough ?
A co-worker suggested a reason : "Maybe because you eat too much meat ?" (Japanese people barely eat meat and I'm known in my company for being someone who loves meat)
Time to ponder over it :)

Earthquake !!!

My first one ! Just 10 mins ago !
Everything started to move, my desk, my chair, the walls, all furnitures...
It felt really strange, you are supposed to be on a steady ground and yet, it moved and shaked around.
It lasted few seconds and faded away. Its strength was around 3, from what a co-worker says.
Also, I feel a bit dizzy right now. Really a strange feeling, definitely not like being on a train or on a plane about to take off.

Well well, back to work now.

Toilet paper

I ran out of toilet paper, lucky that I noticed it before something "urgent" came up if you know what I mean.
So I went to the drug store near here and to my surprise, they didn't have toilet paper. What the hell ? No toilet paper in a drug store ? I'm not kidding, I searched through all the store, nothing to be found. Then I resigned to ask a salesperson when he lead me outside, where the toilet papers are stored. THEY HAVE TOILET PAPER STORED OUTSIDE !! And tons of it. The funny part is that you have to get one pack and go back in to pay. If it is an emergency and you don't have 200 yens to spend for it, you could also run away, I bet no one would notice.

Japanese cinema

As I said earlier, I went to watch Superman Returns.
Honestly, it is a great film but I can understand why some critics went all the other way about it.
But it's Superman so, who cares ? :D
Just go watch it, 'nuff said.

Now I will talk about cinema in Japan. I will compare it with cinemas in France, since I don't know about cinemas elsewhere in the world.

The cinema I went to is the MOVIX, near my home
It's located on the 3nd floor (3rd in Japan, 2nd in France) of a mall, called Ario.
First of all, the ticket. Before coming, I already checked about the whether the movie was showing in English or not. Hopefully, it was. So, as a 外人 (gaijin) and totally assuming it, I bought the ticket all in English, that way there would be no mistake if she would have ever sold me a ticket for the Japanese version. She then showed me a map of the room, because you are assigned a specific seat when you buy the ticket, compared to France where you have to fight your way in for the best ones. I chose a seat in the middle, when she told me that the best seats are behind.
Anyway, I sticked to my choice, bought a coke (200 yens, pretty cheap compared to what you see in France...) and headed for the entrance.
There, I showed my ticket to the staff and as I headed to the room 5 for the movie, I saw people getting blankets (you read well) and cushions, which were available for anyone to take. If you are afraid of getting cold during the movie or if you want to do things with your boy/girlfriend without being seen, go for it.
Then you spot your seat, thank God or whatever you trust in for not having listened to the girl because your place couldn't be more perfect, get on it and wait for the movie to start. They show trailers, along with a small serie called "Rabbit's minute" or something like that. It's just a very short CGed movie, featuring 2 rabbits and their so-wonderful life near a public trash where living carrots prevent them from taking a disposed but good-looking and working piano (if you don't understand, nevermind).
Finally, when you think that the movie is about to start, a staff comes in, stands in front of the screen and says stuff like "welcome to movix" "you are about to watch superman returns" "please turn off your phone and don't smoke" "enjoy blabla". Besides what I enumerated, it's pretty much the same in France.

Planning this week end

There are many interesting things to do this week end. Things like :
- attend the location test for the new Guilty Gear at Akiba
- go watch Superman Returns
- play VF5

Yeah all those cost money.
Otherwise I could stay at home in front of the computer.
If you have any suggestions, post them in the comments.