音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

Maybe it's someday in March, I found "Hyakki Yakou" is so good for walking (the brisk Orgel version from "Ato no Matsuri", neither the original vocal nor the original orgel arrangement). The tempo exactly fits my walking speed (won't fit any more if it's a little faster), and simply makes me happy.
However, the daytime temperature is around 15 recently. Walking at this pace in such a summer-ish day is unpleasantly hot.

In the sense of that it's April, this is also a perfectly good BGM: April 1st -> Watanuki -> xxxHOLiC..
↑ isn't that otaku to understand, I assume.

I hardly take screen shots on cell phone (checking my scrcap folder, my previous phone screen shot was taken 2+ years ago. °A°;), and thus, I just learned how to take one on my Xperia Arc running Ice Cream Sandwich (yes, in last Feb. since I upgraded it I haven't taken any screen shot).

She looks smart in this shot! and sadly my smart-phone now gives a sharp quality difference between its built-in icons and the photo itself. (But I had no time at that moment to fetch my camera already).

-- Still Xperia Arc. Maybe at the time when I actually change my phone, Z10 is already available.

I didn't know that she (my highschool classmate) loves collecting cups (she definitely has cup-complex), while I have zero interest in it (if possible, I'd like to collect more exciting things, like shotguns... xD;;). So of course I barely buy cups, unless the current ones are broken.
But I just bought a new one, although none of current cups have any damage.

↓ Japanese abbr.: 救スプ

NOT an item for cosplay. It's a real bottle, which can keep warm for 6 hours. 270 ml. If lining up with a regular compressed air can, they're of similar sizes.

While I did my best to not use it in BIO2/3/Veronica, as a newbie holding one of this (or some herbs) indeed encouraged me a lot!
Even though they sometimes make the rank down, I still love them~~<3

The eroi-est laughing @ 4:31

and
The kakkoi-est singing @ 13:33

By the way, "Rose and the Old Castle of Twilight" has got a playable trailer on Mar. 31. I'm so glad it's not using the tricky but not can sometimes be extremely irritating touch screen. But since the trailer doesn't support save and I'm already stuck near the 2nd blood memory, I'll save the real fun to Apr. 26~

-- Although I don't know much about it "physically"..

While being much less productive recently, It's already the end of March!! °A° -- Wish I can restore the "normal" status soon.

I almost wasted $10 per month out of all the impulse to subscribe PS CC. Although it's still acceptable, I don't feel like I really want it -- after 10 years of use, I still don't even know how to do pen-pressure-supported outlining with the pen tool -- and it can't be helped as I'm no pro so an easy to use program is the best than an over-powerful one. I'm always having problem with outlining in PS and wished there's a way to improve. Fortunately, after browsing casually I noticed someone's comparison between many drawing programs, and Clip Studio Paint drew my attention.

- The very first, it recognises my Surface stylus (by SONY) without driver installation, and there was no hassle at all with my Ugee tablet driver (2011 version). I couldn't get any of them working in SAI paint tool at all.
- It has a big enough set of pens/brushes/etc, not like PS, even pencil supports pressure from the tablet (of course in PS it's alternatively achieved by playing with brush settings, but doing such settings is tiresome), and I simply love the pen tool!!
- Paint bucket has a gap close function, which means I don't need to spend time on connecting non crossing-over lines while worrying about taking a balance between different line qualities after applying such "line-patches".
- If lines are drawn in vector mode, it's only one click to remove extra lines after the cross-over point -- no more trouble to lasso+eraser/del+balancing (like what just mentioned above).
- The line has a more nature feeling (in terms of pen pressure and strokes) than those from default PS brushes.
- Compatible with PSD and supports big PSD files (SAI doesn't support over 10k px, although I don't really need it it's still not neat).
- Has all my mostly used filters/balancing settings/blur effects/etc.
- Tools/Panels/Short-cuts are fully customisable.
- It's cheap(er than 1-year office personal subscription)!

Drawbacks (although none is really serious):
- RGB code only, no HEX mode. Not very convenient as it's harder to remember 3 numbers at a time comparing with the 6-character HEX code.
- I can't buy the Japanese version as I don't have a Japanese credic card (I merely just love the JP interface).

I can live well without Office, but I for sure need a good painting program.

Moreover, this is exactly what I've been dreaming for!! Yet I'm not getting it. I'd rather spend less money to buy a few mirrors. ^^;

If possible, I turn off the light (or do things to make the room dark) and close my eyes each time when I listen to Dvořák's "Dumky" (and each time I exclaims how "eroi" it is!).
When the whole piece ends and returns to silence, I feel like waking up from a sleep, refreshed and pleasant. However, I absolutely assure I never fall asleep as I know every single note is entering into my inner mind.

So what is such unfamiliar feeling? Recently the word "meditation" began to linger around.
I never do Yoga. Even on my first try, I couldn't stop laughing because of some funny motions. I don't care how good people say it is, seems both my mind and body refuse it. But I do know meditation. A girl told me she ever fell asleep even though you're not supposed to really sleep during meditation (I guess!).

In my case, as I don't fall asleep, can I therefore assume my experience is, or somehow similar, to meditation?

-- I've read the definition of meditation on wikipedia in 3 languages but I still don't get what the text means... orz

As an INTJ, I shall believe my intuition.
I shall have been aware of this so that I could save some money and time on "limbo".
-- Right, I don't want to write the title all in Caps like how it's designed as I don't want to make it standing out from all text in this post too much.

After my first time clear, I had COMPLETELY ZERO feeling. Nothing. Like reading an ad board in the train.
For the overall ambience and settings, I do admit this is a well-done game, but like the yoga case, I myself have problem to accept it under my standards. It's hard to explain, but it doesn't change the result, that I don't like it. The end, no more words.
Well, maybe the only good point for me is that, to see a boy dying endlessly makes me feel better than a girl.

Thus following my intuition, I shall not do "Gochi-Usa". No matter how Moe it is, the genre doesn't suit me. Anime will be enough.

More about my recent games to end 2016's March:
↓↓↓ what an unfair characteristic!!! (｡>﹏<｡)

Not only that I can't tag my posts properly, I even have problem to name them as one single article can be so many various topics!

Five days have passed after Mar. 15, but I can still access Picasa Web Album normally. Didn't Google state they're going to stop that service and switch completely to Google Photos? As a regular user, I myself prefer Picasa as it does have a public gallery, and can browse all image thumbnails on one page, making searching for specific images much easier.
Let's see what will happen the next. I've accustomed myself to the less convenient google photos, somehow (there's no limit on certain pictures so I shall not worry too much on the duplication between "shared" and "in-album" images).

In the morning of this Thursday, I (for some reason that I can't recall) opened YesAsia website, and...
"I think I've seen this guy before."

At that moment I haven't looked at the left portion of the top image. Although I've 90% got the idea who he is, I couldn't bring the name up. "That must be of a soundtrack by Kenji Kawai, the movie that I once thought to be a Sci-Fi."
Then finally my eyes moved a bit left, "Ip-Man", so that's it!

There is a "3" attached after, while wondering whether the music will still be composed by Kenji Kawai, I went to his official website, and thus was aware of "Hana Moyu" has got OST 3. While on top, BIOHAZAD CG movie in 2017. I knew it in last year, but still wanted to highlight it to indicate it's of my favourite~

(It's perhaps already very obvious, that I'm not interested in the movie itself at all. I tried to watch the first one, but gave up after 20 minutes.)

Besides, Opera has got integrated Ad blocker again! Nice, so now I don't have to install a 3rd party plug-in each time when I install Opera!

I hesitated first whether to buy it, until seeing the (used) Japanese version available on ebay by 60% off. Fine, under this price I won't complain even if it's not good. And I'm hoping from bottom of my heart this is a miss-rated game, like BIOHAZARD 6 (which I've spent over 78 hours on -- longer than time I spend on most RPG's!).
↓↓ PSYCHO BREAK なのです～

Meanwhile, seems it's close to Biohazard's 20th birthday, and CAPCOM is releasing many interesting goods.
I was attracted by this item immediately.

A first aid spray!! -- designed water bottle... xD;;

I saw it on Biohazard official twitter. This waked me up just like how effectively the real spray restores your HP from danger red to fine green. I want it and sorry, I won't be able to spend more on Akiko's new release >_<.
But soon I noticed e-capcom doesn't support credit cards from other countries other than Japan. Alright, let me dig out the "lost" middle-man service email address... (seriously, after I registered on tenso.com, I haven't used their service for a few years.)
At the end, everything was settled. I can look forward this lovely first aid spray going work with me everyday (probably) in April (and I bet I'll take more shots when it arrives)!

Cats are adorable~

and they can rock with EXEC_EP=NOVA/.

Last night, I converted my current colour palette in png format into html format, which normally involved using of HEX colour codes. When I finalised the html this morning, out of curious, I attempted to convert HEX colour codes to RGB this morning, and surprisingly found it's definitely not as hard as I first thought.

Plus, Windows Journal is a better choice for local scrap paper, as OneNote, sometimes freezes when you "draw" too much.

Since I'm talking about colours... In face, after 2 blank months, I now have been back to touch my tablet (NOT the surface, I mean the one for drawing). This time, I tried a few more techniques, like to give an iris colour, actually depict the pupil in black (but, my goddess, blank and unfilled eyes with only filled blacked pupils DO LOOK SCARY!! ^^;), and using multiple types of blurring effects. I was happy with the current outcome and was even consider "remake" my previous works (if I'm out of new ideas). Although the first quick thing I did was to give a new colour scheme to my css files.

I'm kind of tired of pink, also I had some trouble to give more pink tones to the currently selected top image. So I gave up and ended up dying everything into 50 shades of violet (no, of course I only heard of this title from Notepad++'s creator, never watched and never plan to watch).

Instead, I indeed just watched the first episode of "gochi-usa", and almost moe-d to death. But I've decided I'm not going to play the game, the genre doesn't suit me.
Moe is justice~~~ >///<

Many people are complaining that they lose an hour since spring, and later feel happy to gain an extra hour in the winter. But why they didn't just realise that the universe moves on its own pace, and at such a moment Einstein doesn't really matter.
Although it may be of some influence to those who are ultra time sensitive, it's never an issue to me as my own clock is always "soft" like a piece of melting cheese you'd see often in Dali's paints. Actually, I didn't even notice the change as I've stopped using an analogue watch years ago. (it doesn't mean I'm not strict on a confirmed time schedule.)

Yesterday morning I saw her sleeping on the coach as usual, but still I couldn't stop myself to not to take a shot. Thinking she might change her pose or move after I get my camera, I decided to first take one on my phone.
And then it was the time for some flash magic. Not only she got two differently coloured eyes, one eye was sparkling like a sapphire!

which made me excited for a whole day~ (*´∀｀*)
Then I quickly grabbed my camera, and took more in higher resolution. I'm happy with Google's free less-than-18(?)-MP unlimited storage. I noticed Google got this new rule in late Feb., which is much more useful than previous 2048px-limitation. I wish I still have the original photos before being resized, but maybe I don't really care as I'm no pro.

I don't want to confess but I have to, that I was totally deep in KanColle Kai over the past weeks. Of course I never know much about how to gear up my fleet, and thus I'm planning to wait with super patience until veterans post detailed guides on how to deal with the top 2 difficulties. Just like I said last time, I mainly played it because the characters look so nice. Not definitely, but fairly close to the state being moe-d.
In terms of game play, I do believe I'm better with survival horror as I don't have to pay too much attention on the gears. Besides, horror can be moe as well, e.g. ZERO Series.
But in last day, the REAL MOE came.

Seen its posters since last November, and the first impression was was naturally "it's so moe!". I hesitated whether I should go playing it, as apparently it's not my favourite genre. Fortunately there are 2 Anime seasons. Finally, after almost half year of no-anime, time to bring some sweet stuff to balance my days blended with BIOHAZARD Revelations, Silent Hill 2, LIMBO and PSYCHO BREAK~!

Next step, I shall hold myself back from my fleet and spend more time with my girls. >> chromatique magicians

Although I was planning to post something 2 weeks ago, it got delayed as usual and now I've forgot what I initially wanted to write.
And the main reason for this delay is...

I was deep in "KanColle Kai" and finally made my first game clear on last night. -- The ending "report" looks cool, but too bad the game doesn't generate a log file afterwards.

l knew it from a YouTube game streamer, but wasn't that interested as both the IP issue and my belief-in-that-an-online-game-never-ends. I'm happy to see it's out on PSV so l can really have a try.

Of course, l have no idea on what kind of game it is, and I normally treated it as a RPG since there're battle and level-up. "A RPG shouldn't be that impossible to clear on hard", so ignoring the recommended easy mode for new people, l first chose hard. "Even in Re-Bio, I made it to the end of the real survival mode".
But the truth was, I was wrong and it's actually a SLG that I have zero experience. Thus l gave up and switched to easy 2 days after.

Regardless, l don't care about SLG or strategy or whatever, I just want to be Moe-d. To me, it's more like a "Yuri" game. -- Well, I'm not to explain why. Just 2 hints: 近代化改修 and ケッコンカッコウカリ.
↓ My favourite character.

Hibiki Kai 2 -- I can't type her current name as it's in Russian.
Haruna is the following, almost at the same degree, she can't be top 1 as she isn't a loli.

The last line in this topic: submarines are the most annoying!

A few days ago, I saw a 5-star rated PV in the PSN store. The thumbnail was almost all in black, which reminded me "LIMBO" immediately. I got curious and quickly found the publisher is...
Nippon-Ichi, the one who created Yomawari and htoL#NiQ!
Taking a closer read, it's so much like the latter. Just the overall tone isn't that green-as-spring anymore.
Thus this one will be "The Red and The Black" version of htoL#NiQ~

The PV's BGM is good too, a bit less than Yomawari though -- why they didn't post the composer's name anywhere?!

I'm also looking forward how DARK this one will be (So far the PV doesn't look bright at all)!

Sleeping at such a place, Mei-chan you want to be stepped?! xD;

It was on last Friday, when I looped "kakurenbo" (by Shikata Akiko) for the whole day. There were tiny snowflakes falling down in the morning (pretty much like the scene in Silent Hill). While having that in background, everything was so peaceful, which made me so pleased.

That another thing made me even more pleased was my brand new Surface 3. After re-configuring most tasks on LipAura, I eventually had a chance to try some more exciting stuff on it. With a pen it was possible to take quick notes with a speed just a little slower than using real pen and paper. Writing experience is good, not exaggerating (I'm using a Sony pen).
-- I specially love to write music on it, so I don't have to get staff paper any more. Plus sometimes it cpuld be hard to be accurate due to the ink being absorbed around.
It does reduce lots of trouble!

So wonderful, technology that people imaged years ago in Sci-Fi, now really come true. At least in this world, no other living beings are able to achieve such. Humans are intriguing and mysterious.
...way too off topic...

However, I'm not intended to dump here another piece of review. Simply the point, that the song I tried to transcribe above pulled the trigger to reach a completion of the orgel album "Ato no Matsuri".
And of course, still by Shikata Akiko. (I should have mentioned it earlier in this January, right after its release, but I was deep in the world of BIOHAZARD series.. ^^;)

Released on last year's winter comiket -- We all know when she has no new songs but wants to attend such an event, she make an orgel album. XD
This is now my top 1 among all Akiko orgel albums, followed by "Haguruma ... something". Once again, the strong Japanese classical aura in "wokashi" series is the shining star that attracted me.

With my Surface, the desire to "dissect" the songs became stronger and stronger. Over this long weekend, therefore, l poured all my energy to satisfy myself.

As a result l AM satisfied!

↑ a fangirl's self-made cover page~

1. 月影に沈む
C/Eb/Bb/C#
At first l happily saw it is in simple keys, but eventually it developed into the rare C#. Yet l feel it might be easier than F# as every note gets sharp-ed. A harsh opening.

2. をかし
B/F#
Last time I only got the first half, and sorta managed to go with it. But Akiko just likes modulation so the second half gets in the "gorgeous" F# -- Same as "COSMOFLlPS"!

3. 輝夜
Eb/Ab
Be brief, I had more trouble with the 6/8 compared to the arpeggio in the middle.

4. 花鳥風月
Ab/G/B
In a genuine Ab! I think I like the orgel version over the original vocal. Introduction/interlude melodies are cute!

5. 青藍
Ab/C
The shortest piece as usual. Pretty much the vocal-less original.

6. 百鬼夜行～因～
G/Bb/Ab
This name must be a magic spell! I love all the 3 versions of it! Here, Ab joins alongside G and Bb that are present in the first orgel version. But it's now much more cheerful, and meanwhile holds a unique ambience created by the crystal-clear instrument.

7. オトシモノ
C
The "stable" C. Superb. Although I myself do it know why I say it's "stable".

8. 風薫る
l don't dislike it, but the composer isn't Akiko => skip.

9. 籠の鳥
C/Eb/Bb/Ab
The longest and with the highest number of modulations switching back and forth, that l even made a list for all modulations for easier editing. The dark aura is maintained well.

10. かくれんぼ
C/F/D
The peaceful ending song. The trigger for this completion, and another one that isn't involved with Ab!

Conclusion
This can be a good etude collection in those "weird" keys!

The next is to fight with my fingers. I'll see how long it can take -- I wonder how much she likes A-flat!
-- I swear if I can compose F# would be my favourite key~

Her next release in March has been announced. Another one sung in her own language, with the title "caTra". I'm having a feeling that it'd be like the Ciel no Surge series, which also from its cover design.
Although l haven't decided whether to order it this time (due to its absence on Web-shops with low shipping fee), THE TITLE DOES SOUND CUTE, like a cat's name~ :3

This morning, I spent 5 minutes standing in front of a dog, staring at him calmly (I also assume he was friendly to me), and left peacefully while speaking to myself "I always know dogs aren't that cute at all".
but cats are different, regardless that's a kitten,

or an adult.

↑ enough for the old topic, I merely just wanted to show those pictures!

In last year's some day, my LipAura suddenly resisted coming back from sleep, which made me force-shut-down for over 10 times and eventually it returned fine. So I didn't pay much attention.
But after shutting it down for 1 month and starting it again, at the beginning things were running, other than it's a bit slow. But quickly it turned to be a dead space, that nothing (except the mouse pointer) was moving. I decided to do a start up, and then had a "great" day.

Doing rebooting several of times, while it got stuck at either after the windows-is-starting-up screen, or right before bringing me to my desktop. Perhaps I've done so many brutal force-reboot, the system directed me to its light blue screen of "trouble shooting". Too bad I don't have a backup image, no restore point, even no system repair disk. Removing all mild solutions, I had only the last option to perform a system reset.

"At least I don't have anything important that isn't stored on EHD or online cloud. Maybe I shall go back to windows 8.1, as there's less tiresome issues based on my past experience (windows 10 has minor problem with its visual rendering for a few old programs, specially, AI x86 version; and the title bars aren't all-white)". The system reset took an hour, however, I wasn't fully convinced to go back to 8.1, considering I want the windows 10 licence for my future self-build computers when this laptop retires (very possibly won't happen in next 2 years). So that's my last try. If things were normal again, I'd stay on 10.

Therefore I started to rehabilitate LipAura, and the first thing was for sure to perform the system update. Not that many shown in list, but at the very end I saw Windows build some digits. "Could be the one I installed long time ago." Soon it said there's no enough disk space on C. While thinking it wasn't possible, I was surprised to see only 5GB was remaining free, followed by seeing "windows.old" like a curse. Fine, I don't like it, but I know how to handle it. Another short while after disk cleanup, the not-that-long update entered installation mode.

"Just don't go black screen with nothing but the mouse pointer." I prayed, and went to configure my first Surface 3, which replaced my old white VAIO and inherited its name "SilentHill" -- simply because I didn't want to bother making up a new name. With quite a few reboots, the good thing was there wasn't any black screen and startup-stuck. It might work this time, but was this really installing the same update as I thought? With a slight worry about the hack to display colour on active window's title bar could (not) be the reason, I went back to its default theme with all windows being snow white (yes, there's no user defined colours on the title bar of "settings").

I then checked for couple of times to make sure there's no more update, time to bring all software back. Now let me bring up the must-be-opened "cmd.exe" -- "Wait, I see a colour on its title bar. Something is wrong. Did my theme got messed up again?" In the following mass-clicks on various build-in themes, I was sort of assured the colour was from windows itself with no hack. So the MS staff listened to users' voice, good.
I might got a different update. I began to think.

However, the cmd windows was somehow off from my personal feeling. I went to its property and got it changed. I suddenly wanted to drag its window frame. "Hold on, I see it can stretch much longer than before, is that also due to resolution rendering issue?" I then double-clicked its title bar, with no special thinking. "Oh, it's now full screen like the Penguin's terminal."
-- Full screen?! O__O

Sadly I still couldn't believe what happened. I waited for my Surface 3 SilentHill to finish updating. Once it's done, I first checked its active title bar -- it had a colour. Then, the cmd window... Yes, full screen.
I finally believed, that I was doing a different update. Probably before it couldn't finish due to similar disk space reason, but I missed the warning somehow (since last November!).

Moreover, after connecting to a 1440x900 monitor (LipAura is 1920x1080). Before this update, there was black areas on top and bottom, but now, amazingly, it automatically adjusted to fix the extended screen to with its own resolution (although the black shows up when you take a full screen caption).

No more words (I've already put a lot here), I was for the first time fully satisfied by windows 10!

My mother gave me an ipad 2 last year, and I kept complaining for a year about how useless it is. Slow, small, heavy, rubbish camera, utterly out of attraction. However I didn't buy Sony's or any other company's android because I still felt even though android is better, it can't be any useful for me. Anyway, regular apps can be done on my phone (which isn't that possible for lots of cases as my phone's spec can't handle newer stuff). Speaking of a useful tablet, I couldn't think about any others but windows. Many people may dislike it, but I don't.

Eventually I bought it in last year's Christmas, while seeing amazon was giving it a $200 off discount with a free amazon-purchase limited wireless adaptor. I initially wanted to get the 64GB model but at last was more greedy and got the 128GB one -- No need for pro, or I'd just buy another laptop.

In every angle, I'm happy with this.

- Although I've heard many people saying without a pro, you can't change display language, I magically got Japanese installed. Could be because my MS account is already linked to a windows 10 pro (the one on LipAura) and thus the data got synced. Whatever the reason is, I have it.
- The most critical reason for me to love Surface. The machine itself is a tablet, but it runs exactly the same like on a regular computer. I can install my favourite stuff such as notepad++, opera and foobar2000, run "cmd" and "regedit" and Perl. Definitely no more hassle in finding a good and free app for this or that! The thing is, I don't even trust apps, a program being actually installed into the machine makes me feeling stable.
- It looks just pretty. With a fit-for-both-lying-and-standing-position 3:2 screen and a kickstand to save you money from buying an individual one.
- The pen, which I bought separately from Sony, made it more different than using your finger to take horrible looking notes on an ipad. Need not to say much here.
- Just as a record: This Surface came with a 1 year Office 365 subscription, so all in a sudden, I rocketed from 2003 into 2016 (in fact I use almost only Notepad++, so I don't really care about it)!
- No, I never say it's cheap, but still cheaper than a expensive-yet-stupid ipad.

I'm an Apple-hater, complaints? xD