New look :D

Well, there you have it. I figured it was time I changed my layout as I've been using the last one (the Bluebird one) for at least a year now. However, I will be the first to admit that I am no art designer, so I went over to Blogskins to look for a skin, and this was it.

I prioritized Clannad in my search, and it returned me two blogskins (one of which was this). This one looked pretty good, so I decided on this. The skin's name was "Eternally Divine", in which I included it into the blog name (hence "The Crystal Impulse [ver. Eternally Divine]). However, once I downloaded it, problems began to surface, and it wasn't for at least an hour that I realised that this blog skin needs to be used in the classic interface (the new one would just reject all the codes). It sounds simple, but then I'd realise I had to recopy ALL my widgets, from the tagboard, to the clock, and then the links again.

The most difficult part was the IMEEM music player on the sidebar. I had to crop it up to the sidebar's side (170 pixels), but the cropped look doesn't look very nice so I may remove it or replace it with a new song later. Also, I had hesitations on whether I wanted to re-add the Play-Asia ads (as I don't do reviews anymore), but for now I'll just keep it there in case I ever do a game review - I doubt so seeing I rarely touch my DS now.

I have realised the Blogger "bar" on top of the blog doesn't exist. It's part of the skin I guess. Also, the font is nice, but abit small...I might try fixing it up - but I think it looks pretty okay for now.

I've also copied over the links from the previous layout and added a few new ones. I have decided not to link any of my old reviews unlike the previous layout however - I've noticed my Nintendo WiFi Connector review being one reason why people come to my blog - which is nice.

As for WHY a Clannad skin? Well...coz I'm a pretty huge fan of Clannad ever since I've watched the anime last year. I kinda wished it was Kotomi and not Nagisa up there, but hey this is a fantastic skin nonetheless (The other blogskin did feature Kotomi - heck it actually featured all the other Clannad heroines, but I think this one is just fine). Overall, I say this blogskin is fantastic and credits to Jocelyn for making such a wonderful Clannad blogskin :)

Anyways I'm pretty tired from having to copy over and fix up the blog, so I'll sign off now.

Music: None. Yes, silence. Golden isn't it ;)

New layout.

Currently restoring buttons and stuff...be back later.

Changed the layout back to the old one....

For all the pink-ishness in the last Blogger layout, it started to look VERY messy. I reverted it back to the last one. I'll look for another one later but I think I'll remain with this for abit.

EDIT: Yes, the banner (by penman) is missing. I'm looking for it =.=

EDIT2: If I can't find it, i'm going for a new layout. -_-

Alarm clock woes.

I think I seriously need a new alarm clock.

Basically my old (actually lost/stolen/whatever) phone Nokia 6300, i used that as my alarm. If i missed the alarm, the phone would just ring again after like..10 minutes..so I usually woke up slightly later.

But this 5610 Xpress Music -_-

I set my alarm clock to 10am for the past 4 days. For the record I've gone to sleep at 3-4am. Here's the times I woke up:

Day 1 - 12.30
Day 2 - 1.10
Day 3 - 2.40 <--- YES, FOUR HOURS AFTER THE ALARM WTF GG
Day 4 - 12.40

-_- Turns out that this thing STOPS ringing after the first time.....and it's not as loud as the one before. -_- damn it now I have to buy an alarm clock that works, and I'll need it too -_- can't imagine what would happen if I was employed and the above happened >_>

Mission complete. Now I can finally officially quit ID4 TA with a happy end...

Irohazaka DH Dry 2'43"655 RX-8 Type S (SE3P) - my CP times.

Okay fine, so I didn't really hold true to my vow and quit ID4 TA - but now, I can finally do so. When I did that post down below, I was abit unsatisfied, since I didn't really get to achieve what I wanted - or at least something I can be happy about. Nevertheless, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be serious about ID4 ever again.

Well...at least till today.

I had some major form going on when toying around (just for fun since the MT3 machines were full) with my MR2 (1-1-1-1-0 tuned)...did 2'46"955 Iro DHD with it so I thought hey, why not give it a try again. So I tried my fully tuned RX-8 then. For 8 games I tried I kept getting good CPs with it. While the above time was abit of a disappointment (CP3 was +0.4 off my last personal best of 2'44"1xx) nevertheless it is still a 2'43.

Could I have pushed it? Yes, probably....but no more. I do notice that if I had not messed up the third section (due to the fact I lost 10km/h coming out of the final jump) I would have gotten a 2'43"2xx which would have really been nice, but I don't think I want to push this anymore...seriously, no more....

As far as my ID4 TA times are concerned, this is it...its the end..300+ days since I first touched the machine in Sunway Pyramid. I will never declare that I will stop ID4 for good (like, 100%) because inevitably I will play battles or have some fun games no matter how I try to resist. But as far as seriously time attacking is concerned, "Time Is Up". I neither have the passion, nor the resources to commit myself to this, more towards the former...

What next for me? First priority now is to get a job. Yes, I know it's been overdue for so many months now....but I will be the first to admit its partly due to my laziness. Now though, I should get serious regarding this, because despite being in such a mental state that I'm lazy yet I definitely need a job reality hits hard - I need money, and I need it if I'm going to survive.

Signing out for now, bad Streamyx connection doesn't allow me to surf the net much.. being limited to local sites and MSN sucks.

Current music: Nobuo Uematsu - Submarine Nautillus (Final Fantasy 3 DS OST)

Ooh..my Japanese name is....

My authentic japanese name is 長谷川 Hasegawa (long valley river) 有祐 Yuusuke (have aid).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Watashi wa Hasegawa Yuusuke desu. Dozo yoroshiku ne :D

One picture that made a whole new difference.

Well, who would have thought just a class picture of the old years would bring me back from the depths of seperation from old classmates. And also re-sparked my interest on Facebook.

Just about two weeks ago, I was bored online so I went to my rather dull and boring facebook account. At the time I didn't really use it much, probably once or twice every week but no more than that. The lack of activity factor was the main reason - why would I want to go on a site to do nothing? And yea, that time, my list of friends on Facebook was rather absymal (It actually still is now). So I thought I'd do a fun search on my old school SK Seri Mega and lo and behold I found a group.

Not just any group. I found some of my old school mates there. And the pic of my ol' 6 Seroja class. So I intro'd myself in one of the topics and commented on the pic. Within a few hours I got some replies from old friends such as Desmond and Esther :).

The rest from there? Well, I met up with Wen Jian, Esther and Sue Li (albeit for a short while) yesterday for yumcha. Had a great time talking about things nowadays (and I do realise I missed out on a lot of things :( ).

Then I managed to communicate with some other friends like Yuen Mei and Brian. Now my facebook routine has changed from once a week to like three to four times a day. Could say I'm addicted now. I'm sorta glad that I actually made the decision to search, or else..well, I'd still be pretty "isolated".

I've felt very happy about the whole thing, all this in just a matter of two weeks. :)

Well wouldn't you believe it....

http://idforums.net/index.php?showtopic=34691

Initial D 5. How long was it since the last version came out in Japan? Not even 2 years. -_-. Now IF it comes out I surely hope it's nothing like the crap that was ID4 because ID4 was a huge mess.

And what razorsuke said on the thread was right - no point getting good at the game because the next version comes out so fast. What the hell man. -_-..

It's official in my book. I quit Initial D 4.

Yes, you read it right. *cue WTF WTF WTF*

I quit Initial D Arcade Stage 4 as of 22nd June 2008. The game has became too frustrating to play for me and this in turn makes it money consuming. As I'm already playing Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 (far more enjoyable than ID4 ever will), I will devote any arcading funds to that game from now on.

Seriously though, ID4 had its chance to redeem itself through v1.5 and the new physics completely killed the game for me. Why penalize players with an idiotic oversteer? Yes, maybe the better players will come here and say "You just don't know how to do the turn right". Well I say, forget it. The physics suck. That's my opinion, you can keep yours to yourselves. Furthermore, I have no other incentive to play when Wangan is so much more fun.

I will still be with @D4 (my Initial D 4 team) as they are still my friends and I will still go out with them on team meets. But I won't play ID4 seriously anymore...because I am frustrated. Very frustrated.

Will I ever make a u-turn to my decision? Highly unlikely, unless a miracle happens (or a new physics ver comes out which is highly unlikely now...). Will I play an Initial D 5 if it exists? Sure, why not? Just don't make them physics damn retarded as this one.

In the meantime... goodbye mountain roads (sans Hakone) and hello to the Metropolitan highways.

Mission accomplished! ...but not with a good end!

Start date: 22 May 2008
End date (supposedly): 8 June 2008
Duration: 17 days (School holiday)
Mission: Gain the next level up from battle (400 stars)
Start point: 100 stars (22nd May 2008)
Ended with: 415 stars (7 June 2008)
Total stars attained: 315. (average: 18.5 stars per day)

With the school holidays approaching I figured it would be the best time to bump my star count up (and rank up: I'm planning to go for S class for my R32). Actually, this wasn't even in my initial plan, seeing that I WAS supposed to go Penang with Team -KS- but in the end that didnt work out for me because of some "problems".

It started off badly on the first day. The first half of the day yielded only five stars out of five games. Totally lost form, kept getting 3rd or 4th...consecutively. Later that day my form improved though it didn't really "come back".

Then later, I was at my best. For the next 10 - 11 days, races kept going my way (luck played a really huge part in some of them), and I easily hauled up to 20-30 stars a day with just ten bucks. Last place finishes were a rarity. I was definitely at the peak of my game, even more so than when I used the RX-8 to battle.

Then when I reached the 370+ star mark, my form started to slide. It started as a slow downhill, then today, it became a steep cliff. I've never had a form this bad that I had literally screw myself out of sure-fire stars just because I was greedy. I did eventually reach the 400 mark on the same day, but still, there were stars that was as good as mine, only to be thrown away at the last 1km.

Nevertheless, mission accomplished. Although the end wasn't such a good thing. I wonder if I need to lay off on Wangan for abit, it seems that my form is on the slide now that its not really a good idea to battle...not for now at least.

Well, at least I managed to come close to beating my personal best of 12.11.9 with Kenji's R32 with my own...came up short by 0.2xx but its my first ever successful TA with the 3rd person camera view...so I guess there are better things to come :)

What's next? Hmm...I guess the next level up (1000 stars) isn't too hard..but that, will be for another time. :)