Does anyone know where does this song came from?

Direct link, in case the video doesn't appear here:

It's a remix of Reincarnation from the third Touhou game, I know that much. I also know that it's quite possibly the most beautiful music I've ever heard. What I don't know is who made this arrange, what circle he/she/they is/are in, and where was this beauty first heard by the public.

I know the video description said it's made by El Dorado for the album Solaris Lues, but I have Solaris Lues and thsi track is not in it. I've also searched the Touhou Wiki for all songs that El Dorado has arranged, but Reincarnation is not mentioned.

So if anyone have any idea where does this particular arrangement came from, please do tell. I've enabled comment in my Posterous blog, in case you're looking at this from my Blogspot blog.

NaNoWrimo began yesterday

My first day didn't really go as well as I thought. School was murder, didn't even have enough to write five sentences. And by the time I got home, either my brain or my health was acting up again. Icouldn't think properly enough to write.

I did manage to get some words out by night, but they're so horrible I don't think I'll be using them for anything.

Any the story itself was not turning well in my head.

I'm not making any excuse, NaNoWriMo is all about throwing those excuses out of the window, after all. I'm trying to make a decision.

It seems I wil fail at this year's NaNo, again, for... what? Three years in a row? I never have a good commitment with my stories, always ending up with some unfinished excerpt that isn't even halfway there. Except for this one I've been working on but hardly ever written that I started when I was 6 or something, and is still mutating into something larger, they all fail gloriously.

So I suppose all I can do is either pouring way too much love on one story, or simply giving it too little.

Decision reached.

I'm still gonna join NaNoWriMo, but I'm gonna cheat. And I'm not going to call it that, I'm going to call it... actually, I'm not sure I'm going to call it anything, other than that weird alternative to NaNo.

So, the deal is, for 30 days, I'm going to write (preferebly also 30) short stories, with about the same wordcount goal and with the same system as NaNoWriMo. I don't care how many stories I'm going to end up with, or even if they ever reach their conclusion or not, I'm just gonna try it.

And another addition to the rule: They have to take place in the same universe as the three stories that I first planned for the actual NaNoWriMo, including that massive fanfic. Whatever the stories might be, they have to be clearly related to any of these three, whether by taking place in the same time, place, or using the same characters.

Who knows? By December I might already have enough to piece together into a novel.

 

 

Pirates of the Caribbean

Is the greatest movie(s) of all times... or at least compared to the all the movies I've watched, though it does have lots of tough competitors.

Just watched the Curse of the Black Pearl ealier today, because I somehow missed it for 5+ years. I love it so much.

Fun fact: All this time, I thought it's spelled "carribean", with double r and single d. I've been lied to my whole life.

Am now moving to Posterous Spaces

This post is to be autoposted to my Blogger blog.

Am now officially moving to Posterous Spaces, assuming it can live long enough. Its FAQ about Twitter's takeover is suspicious, and its official blog hasn't been updated in months. It's Twitter account is still tweeting, though, so it's probably not going to be so quickly abandoned.

I'm going to enable autopost to my Blogger blog, though. If you just happen to like Blogger more for some reason, or if Posterous is being laggy, my posts are still going to be available there... here... In my Blogger blog, basically.

Cheers.

 

It's like a party in my pocket

Personal rant incoming. Feel free to not click the button.

I do notice that I've mostly abandoned this blog. No, I don't mean to do it, like I did to my old Wordpress blog. I already put a disclaimer that this is a personal blog and that I don't pay attention to how I write here, so it's nothing like being ashamed about the blog's quality. It's just that I can't really find time to write, recently. I'd love to blame school and its ridiculous amounts of tasks and homeworks, but that's not it. I always find something else to fill my free time, none of which, unfortunately, have anything to do with the blog.

Yes, I do realize that nobody care, considering I never bother to care that this blog is even read. In any case, on to the rest of this post.

Touhou is like... some sort of creative magnet. It'll attract the most professional of artists to make fanarts, the most skilled of musicians to arrange its songs, the best of writers in all sorts of language to make fanfic for it. You just can't help it. Once you're into the fandom, or even just slightly in, it will tug on your creative strings.

Thanks to Japan's lax law about self-publishing and indie media, Touhou is also able to amass a kazillion of professional and professional-quality fangames. I already talked about Lion Heart's Mystical Chain before, an action-fighting-beat-em-'up game about the three magicians of Gensokyo which is definitely worth any gamer immune to seizure-inducing danmaku{aka: most Touhou players}'s time.

Tonight, I'll be serving something more fitting for those strategist whose eyes cannot stand seeing fireworks being sick.

Splash screen, because its presence is always overshadowed by the main menu.

Celebrating Indonesia's Independence Day

 (( Originally published on 17 August 2012, or at least I attempted to. Blogger then came in and tell me that, yes, beside cooler yet more annoying interface, connection with your Google account, and the ability to customize your blog's appearance, Wordpress is more reliable than he is. ))

Here's a gross generalization: There's about hundreds of nations in the world, most of them have one special day where they proclaim their independence against whatever force was holding them. Today, 17 August, 67 years ago, is such day for one country in particular, something which probably will go unnoticed to those not involved with it, and sometimes even to those who are.

This country is my home nation of Indonesia. 67 years ago, taking advantage of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not that I approve of it), the founding fathers of Indonesia proclaimed our independence from the Japanese empire, and by extent Netherlands as well.

Bah, I can't seem to write coherently these days. I've been working on this programming project as part of my crash return course in Python, and as a result my brain starts to spout sentences in variables and riddles rife with programming jargon and built-in Python functions. Might need to spend the vacation actually vacationing, lest I'll be driven mad.  

For those not in Indonesia, or for those who doesn't use Google for some crazy reason, here's a gift from those folks at Google Doodle to celebrate the day.

Hurrah!

But I don't want to end you

Imagine a world, an empty but old world. You, a lone new being in this world, know next to nothing about it. So, perhaps by curiosity or for some other abstract reason such as wanting to save the world or overcome some emotional dilemmas, you walk around. You travel through this world. Journey through it.

Over time, you see new sights, you meet new people, see fantastical events happened and dissipated. Almost at the end of the voyage, once you've seen all there is to see, you look back and realize how much love you've grown for it. You love this world, its people, its sights and everything else it had to offer. This journey, this world, has touched your heart.

And then you see the edge of the world. One that you will have to pass, for the sake of everything and everyone in this world or the others. But once you do, that's it. The end. You will never return, or if you manage to, it will never be the same experience again. All that you've gained, once you cross that edge, will be nothing more than sweet memories. Your journey is finished. (Game) Over.

You know what that's like? Playing a most wonderful RPG. That's what a good RPG make me feel, what a good game makes me feel, right before the Very Definitely Final Dungeon: I don't want to end it. After all those love and explorations and looting and battling, I don't want to just... beat the Big Bad and then leave.

Oddly enough, it has never hit me so hard. Usually, after some hesitancy, I simply ram though those big door. Then came Bastion, the indie action-RPG by Supergiant Games.

Let me put it this way: It's been weeks, maybe even months, since that large looming 3-times-larger-than-everything-else castle has been lying open, ready for the ramming, on my map. And I kept trying to find some excuse to put it off. There's still this achievement to do, this side-dungeon to finish, that upgrade to do, bla-bla-blah.

 In most other games I hate those extra sidequests. I consider them a waste of valuable time, unless they give me some form of Infinity+1 Sword or somehing, but in this game I'm secretly grateful for what few I have, since otherwise I will be forced to fight the final boss. And then, what? Endgame? After all that I've done?

One of the things that make Bastion so precious is because you can't revisit old locations anymore. Once you're done with it, it's either completely destroyed or overrun by monsters or some other excuse so I can't visit it. This isn't a bad thing, since it kept the experience fresh and the prevent Gameplay-Story Segregation, but still. Sometimes I do miss those Stage Ones. 

It also gives me so little thing to do, come the final dungeon. So little opportunity for reminiscing. So little reminders about what I have done and accomplished. I'd love to look forward to the future, but I also want to look back.

I want something more to remember all those adventures by.

Chaining spellcards in Mystical Chain

I love the official Touhou fighting games collab between Twilight Frontier and Shanghai Alice. Never was a fan of button-mashing fighters, and the blend between bullets and melee there is excellent. But it just doesn't seem to retain the classic bullet-crazy gameplay in the original games (unless you're fighting Yukari in story mode. She still rains danmaku at you even where you don't have a tiny hitbox).

Then I heard of Mystical Chain, a Touhou fangame by Lion Heart (awesome circle name, by the way). It's a single-player fighting-platformer game where you can play as two of the three playable magicians: Marisa "MASTER SPAAARK" Kirisame, Alice Margatroid, and Patchouli Knowledge, switching around between the two chosen characters as you like, preferably strategically.

Video is always better than screenshot for action-based game, but I don't have time to capture one, so...

The game, last I heard, consist of 5 chapters, each with 4 regular levels and 1 double boss fight. The regular levels is where you get to fight random encounters like fairies and ghosts, each with different attacks ranging from downright incompetent to really annoying. And when they get annoying, you will hate them. You will wish there's some way to just skip the whole level. You will wish that there's some way to spam Master Spark, assuming you're playing as Marisa. 

But the boss fight is where the game matters. In each fight, you will usually get to battle a pair of bosses, who may or may not work together, who may or may not pay attention to where they are attacking. These boss fights will be split into spellcards segments, with the boss(es) using different attacks in each. And here, is where the bullets will splatter the screen.

Kaguya is trying to kill Mokou. You magicians have nothing to do with this.

Obviously, with hitboxes that big, you're not expecting the bullets to be really heavy, are you? Well, these bullets also (usually) have a set pattern, just like in the original game. There will also be a point in the spellcard where the bosses will be at their most vulnerable, where they will be knocked out when hit. The goal here is to understand the pattern and to attack them as they become vulnerable, utilizing both characters, their abilities, and maximized teamwork. So it's basically more like a puzzle boss fight than a... fighting game boss fight.

Or you can just use your own (limited, but chargeable) spellcard when you want to end it quickly. You still have to attack them at their weak moment to end a spellcard, but it'll save you some time and rage.

Master Spark solves all your problems

All in all, while I find the non-boss fight to be annoying and time-consuming, I really do enjoy this game. The heavy emphasis on bullets and spellcards in a platformer-fighting game is wonderful. And the character-switching mechanic makes it a whole more... strategical, I guess? If you want a bullet-esque single-player-only Touhou fighter with more emphasis on puzzling your way out than button-mashing, or something along that line, I'd recommend the game.

Just wish it has some kind of co-op. At least you can justify the whole teamwork thing. Makes no sense when you have to work together with yourself.

Handy Tip:
1. Never, ever, press the Escape button unless you really want to. It'll automatically turn the game off, no comma, no prompts.
2. Ignore your finger's common sense to press Escape when you want to pause, and press Space instead. You'll be happy you do. 
3. Unless you've been to that level before, do not exit through the menu or the Escape button, as it won't save your progress

Download:
I highly suggest buying the original game if you like it, and if you can. No English Patch yet, but you won't have much trouble playing.
Link

So what have I been doing lately?

Mostly school, actually. I've had my entrance exam, and a bunch of other bureaucracy deals are done. Should be good to go in my new school by July. Until then, everyday is Saturdays/Sundays.

School, however, is, undeniably, a boring subject. So here's a simple breakdown of what I've been doing, beside school, and being sick for two days.

- Told my little sister that she shouldn't think that she's really sick. She is, but believing otherwise did help.
- Found and use a ridiculously cute Nazrin cursor.
- Finally created Alice in Persona 3 Portable.
- Play Bastion, a lot.
- Still play Touhou, a lot.
- Write more stories, none of them finished, few planned to be continued.
- Stumble upon plenty of amazing Touhou remixes.
- Found my XP installation disc, thus...
- Finally installed Eastern Language Support for my computer.
- Wish I could play SimCity/SimTown, but ended up doing something else instead.

So I've been writing a lot of stories, but right now I want to abandon everything, except for a little 30-minutes flash fic when I'm bored, for a single Touhou fanfic. This includes abandoning the one fanfic I have about Flandre and Koishi, the other I have of Eiki who visit the underworld, and the other about a retelling of UFO's Sanae's story.

This fanfic I'm working is also the one thing that prove that I am a Manipulative Bastard for my - or someone else's - characters. Just look what I did to Remilia!

Its working title is For Shinki!, and the image that's inspiring me to do it, is this:  

Take that however you want.

And, I'm telling ya, this time, I will finish it. No getting sidetracked by another story!


And another thing: Unless you're reading this only a couple of minutes after I posted, then the Now Playing section to the right should say that I am now playing Bastion, an indie action RPG Low Fantasy about a kid trying to fix the "Bastion" after an apocalyptic "Calamity nearly destroyed the world and the entire human race. So far, I have to say this game compete with Aquaria for the best indie games I've ever played. A semi-review might come someday.

So how's the weather today?

I can't tell, not right now. I mean I can't tell the weather right now, and  not that I'm going to find out later. It's 12 minutes after midnight as I write this. It's probably too dark to see outside, but I really can't prove it. I never have the guts to open the curtain at night, at least not without someone watching me.

Yesterday night I slept early because I wanted to wake up earlier. It failed horribly. Woke up an hour before noon, 4 hours after the planned wake-up time, even though I already carefully planned to sleep about an hour before I usually ends up sleeping. So for tonight I'm just going to let nature do it. I'm never much of an early-sleeper anyway, these days. My eyes persisted to have a more nocturnal schedule. I swear, they feel fresher at night. 

The sky was bright and sunny when I woke up this noon. The sort of picture-postcard perfect kind of summer afternoon when you just want to get outside and play under the sun. Not an uncommon weather, but it's definitely rarer than the awfully-too-bright noon that we usually get during the Dry Season.

The weather got weirder as the sun started to escalate to the west. At 1 it was cloudy; clouds which at the end produced no rain whatsoever. The sky was slightly dark in the afternoon and, frankly, gloomy. And it was, for some reason, silent. Except for the birds chirping and the occasional four-wheeled machines passing by. The dogs are even tonight than then. It was like the sky, the whole neighborhood, forgot what weather it was supposed to be in.

I took my two cats out to the front yard then, because they kept running into the off-limit backyard. Figured they need some sun. But it was a bad time to get some sun, as, as I 've already mentioned, the sky was dark. They enjoyed it anyway, sniffing around at all the new smells. Being outside (the backyard has high walls and is mostly roofed. Not much of a yard) is new and rare to them. They don't go out much.

Through the day, I didn't go outside farther than my fronyard, and that's only when I took the cats out, despite the weather. I don't really have to go anywhere, since my school's not going to start until mid-April. But it was still... awfully lonely when I think about it. I don't have many friends I'd like to go out with, and I've never communicated with my neighborhood friends since we were 7 years old. I played with them a lot back in those days, riding bicycles and playing in the park in front of our houses, all under the sunny sky.

It feels awkward to meet them now. We got so busy with our own new life.

I didn't go out yesterday either, and the day before that, nevermind how he weather is. It's like I won't ever get outside unless I really have to. All the things I need, I can get at home. I don't have to go out much, so I don't go out much. 

It's not sad, really. It's just awfully lonely, preceded with perfectly cheerful times. Funny, how it was like the weather today.

Touhou sparks too many creativity

I used to sleep at exactly 10 pm. every night, even on weekends. This ensure that I can sleep long enough and able to wake up around 5 or 6 am. without any ill merit. Waking up and sleeping this early give me the advantages of proper communications and interactions with perfectly diurnal people without dozing off in the middle of their conversations..

Touhou completely ruins my schedule, not because I play the games, but because I play with its soul.

Dramatization aside, it's a well-known fact that the Touhou project has over 13 games, over 70 characters, and just as many locations. It also have a sort-of backstory and personality, each one of them unique, for each and every single character. Sort of. There's not much canon backstory and personality shown, but Touhou is already like a community project where every fans participate with making the whole story. Sort of.

Nowadays, every time I play Touhou, or read about it, there's a sudden urge in me to draw fanarts, to create fanstories, to browse the internet for its fanremixes, to basically do something about it. I don't usually make fanworks, since my brain is heavy enough with ideas to supply me with art and story concept for decades to come. But for Touhou it's different. It pulls me into it, begging and crying for me to expand what short details we have about its characters, world, and stories into something bigger.       

Before I sleep, for some reason, that is the voice that speaks to me. So instead of letting myself into Dreamland, I would get up, get a piece of paper, a pencil, and doodle or write whatever. Sometimes it's not even anything to do with Touhou, but I know inside that it's somewhat influenced by it.

Then I ended up sleeping around midnight.


I already have about a dozen pages in my drawing book of Touhou fanart. Might scan it sometime. I also already have a couple thousands words logged in my computer for Touhou fanfic. Might show it sometime if I ever finished them. For now, here's some Photoshop results I made for it:

 

Nuclear Utsuho

Original artwork by U-Joe of deviantArt

Mystic Oriental Shrine Maiden

Original artwork by Silver Forest doujin circle

 

Marisa Kirisame

Click for full-size

Original game artwork for Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody by alphes 

Flandre Scarlet

Click for full-size

Original artwork by marionette ex of deviantArt

I might use some brushes made by someone else there. No idea what or how or where. So if you somehow notice them and know where they come from, give me a call. If you're also the artist of the original artwork used in them and do not want these to be shown, also give me a call. 

So, I've been writing...

A lot lately. Ever since I was a kid, I've always loved to make stories, creating worlds, messing around with my characters, et cetera et cetera. I also made a great deal of fanfiction back then; cross-overs, self-insert fics. You name it.

Amazingly, a story I made when I was around 6 years old or something is still continuing today, although it was never written fully and is all in my head. It started as a self-insert cross-over fanfic, then it grows like an abominable mutant into something... not quite the same. More mature, definitely. Feels like it's growing as I do.

But I'm not going to talk about that right now. I'm talking about the now.

So I like making stories, from the normal slice of lifes to the most bizarre fantasies. Sometimes I like to write them down too. The thing is, while my head can be stuffed with the most amazing details, it is not quite easy to put them on paper. There's word diction, grammar, punctuation marks, language; stuffs that my head really don't have to bother while creating the story itself. It's how to tell the story that's difficult.

And then there's the problem with length. Until today I've never finished a single story. Every time I start on a story, it'll just go on and on and on. Even if I do have the whole plot ready, it just never reach its conclusion. And since my head is like some sort of generator which can create new ideas every 5 minutes, I am most likely to just start a new story and abandon the one I already have.

Until today, yeah.

I just discovered the core of the problem which caused none of my stories to ever be finished: they're just too dang long. The world is too big, the plot too loose, there's too many nooks and crannies for my characters to visit. There's also a kazillion room for improvisation, which I use gladly without thinking about the long-term consequences.

So here's the current deal I made for myself: I'm going to try making stories that are just a snapshot of the character's life. A little piece of it, like a random interesting conversation between two characters, or a short but effective problem-solving. No more hunt for the mysterious artifact, no more fight between two ever-warring kingdoms, and no more quests to defeat the Big Bad. From now on I'm just going to try making a simple but meaningful story.

Well, that, and I'm going to stop describing every freaking thing in the story. The ones I made have a borderline Purple Prose. Sure, I describe the details in an interesting way. But how I write now is just not efficient and make the story way longer than is bearable. 

I made a Touhou fanfic this morning. Finished it in one sitting. I felt absolutely brilliant. Might post it here someday, after I'm done proof-reading it.

I have many things to write about, really

It's just that I keep forgetting about them before I gain access to an internet-connected computer. I even have this nice story-style recount of my visit to... some tropical island... some time ago, but I never did get a chance to write any of them down. There are mentions of fishes, corals, ships, life, the universe, everything, and those darned sea urchin in it, but I didn't manage to write any of those down. Shame.

I've no more desire to write any of those blog posts I plan to write, mostly because by now I have no idea what I was planning, really.

So now I've got nothing to write about....

Oh, I just got two new pets! Two cute little kitty cats. Their names are Orin and Chen, taken straight out from the two cats from Touhou games. I think I'll put their photographs here sometime later, provided I remember to do it.

I also recently discovered that my obsessiveness with Touhou is getting rather out-of-hand. Not in a monetary sort of way, more like staying up way pass midnight drawing Touhou fanarts sort of out-of-hand. And spending hours reading Touhou-related things in the internet. And my drawings aren't even as good as ZUN's. 

There. Now I've got nothing to write about.  

Machinarium, you lovable monster

Previous post stated that I  bought the Humble Botanicula Debut, which I did. Botanicula is an amazing discovery game and is infinitely cute, but the real prize here is Machinarium, another game in the same pay-what-you-want bundle.

The game is a 2D point-and-click adventure game, a nearly dead genre. This game requires that you have adequate thinking skill, persistence to figure out what you have to do next, a good brain to solve some puzzles, and, most of all, the desire and patience to click every dang surface in the game, to try combining every item with every other item, and to try using every item with every surface that you can interact with. In other word, it's a point-and-click adventure game. Not really special in this regard. 
 

The scenes, however, the visual, is stunningly beautiful, in a steampunk sort of way. The animation is fluid and detailed. And although it has no dialogue, at all, it can still tell a story with its animations and visual dialogue boxes. It's music is nice and very fitting with the atmosphere too.

Bought a Humble Bundle

Info flash: Humble Bundle is a, well, bundle of indie games that is sold for whatever price you want. Seriously, any price you want. Whether you want to shell out $1000 to get to the Top Contributors list or if you're so broke you can only spare a cent, you can get (usually) awesome indie games. One bundle usually only last about two weeks or so, then nothing until the next bundle, containing different games, is out.

Right now, the Humble Botanicula Debut is running. Bought it, love it. If you can buy something online, and like point-and-click adventure games in general, I highly recommend giving it a look. There's still one week left to buy it. Or if you are not a fan of adventure sorta-puzzling games, just bookmark the Humble Bundle page or something. The next bundle might be more to your taste. 

The rest of this post is more of a personal banter, or educational information about Indonesian's gaming industry. Call it what you like. It's the result of how this blog post veered from its main purpose.

Final Exam done

For about three years, anyway. I won't be seeing this sort of big-deal school exam until I'm almost done with high school.

So, the most important test for the last three years is done. Over. Poof. Just like that. I didn't even study like mad and dive myself into endless textbooks pages, which I usually do before exams. But now it's all finished.Just... finished. I can even make a campfire out of those schoolbooks, they're not needed anymore. But I never have the heart to do anything worse than banging a book to a wall, even to the books that I loath, so stuffing them into a giant eye-sore of a plastic box will do, perhaps never to be seen again.

There's sort of a feeling of emptiness now. For... about two months I think, I am no longer truly required to study, or even do anything that isn't life-sustaining. It feels almost boring. Of course, there's still many things that I can and should do, instead of lying in bed all day. But still, with the madly long holiday coming up there's bound to be days when I have no great ideas and will probably end up spending the whole day to playing Civilization IV or reading TV Tropes, probably without planning to.

But still, it feels great to be free of school. I don't have to get up so early, for one, and I can actually focus on what I want to do, like trying to play the keyboard or making a proper program. And spend more time and thoughts for more writing. Writing, literature, seems to be the only branch of Creativity that I can try to excel at, beside shapeless imaginations. I have a million stories in my mind, none of them but one cheap short story I made for a school assignment is done.

So, hoping to have something to show in the upcoming holiday that are better than game Achievements, beaten game, and speedruns high-scores... Actually, those are fine too.

Here's hoping for a good summer-on-the-northern-hemisphere vacation. It's really just my luck, and how Earth revolves around the sun, that Indonesia doesn't have a convenient four-seasons system to mark its yearly holidays.

Drawing... stuffs

So the most important school test for the last three years is coming up, something that folks at school consider something akin to life and death. It's beginning Monday, and most people will normally dive into assortments of text and exercise book to get themselves ready. Me? I practice drawing. And it's turning up finer than when I try doing music.

So I royally failed every formal music lessons that I've ever tried, but nobody has ever actually taught me how to draw. Since I was young I only doddle by myself. Stuffs I made up, people I made up, and stuffs that came out of cartoons that I watched on TV. Just little doodles, not meant to be anything. It's fun. I made nothing that impressed anyone, but it was fun. No one praised me or showed any appreciation. I didn't care, it was still fun.

Only when the internet came around that I noticed that, man, my drawings are horrible. So I looked up some tutorials, anatomy guides, and artworks with the kind of style I can relate to. My drawings become progressively better as I practice and look at more better artworks. But I can never agree to have someone taught me face-to-face. I never even follow a tutorial straight-on. It just feels a bit irking, having someone telling what to do with what I make.

Not sure what point I'm trying to make here. In fact, I should be getting back to drawing things instead of dropping another nonsensical ramblings into the sea of blog.

Later.

I tried doing music

Here's a life story I don't mind sharing.

When I was a kid, I heard all sort of things about music, and to be specific, how anyone should learn to do it. How much it'll help develop creativity and those blah-blah-blah. I didn't hold much interest in music then, my ears weren't as accustomed to listening and paying attention to them.

My parents thought having me learn how to play music is a fine and dandy thing, and I had nothing against the idea. The earliest formal lesson I could remember was in Elementary School, where playing either a flute or pianica is a mandatory subject, whether or not you're good at it. And I was, or at least it felt like I was. Playing the flute for school is still the best formal lesson I ever had in music, and as it turned out, the only one that I enjoyed.

But playing the flute was only for school, it didn't grab much of my attention. Then my mother had an idea to give me guitar lesson in a local music education center. I just nodded my head, thinking being able to play the guitar would be pretty cool. So she took me there once a week, sometime after school, where I would be taught how to play from the very basic by single teacher who only has a single student each day.

So I notice there's a Now Playing thing?

At the sidebar? Right now only existing as a white box with "Coming Soon!" in black? One of the many things that I planned but never carry out for this blog. I might actually use it, I might not. It's meant for showing what video game I currently play, and now that I think about it, what book I currently read. The two will, most likely, heavily influence whatever I happen to make, blog post or otherwise.

It is now abandoned, forgotten, just like every other thing in this blog.

EDIT: Finally made use of the Now Playing spot. The 12th Touhou games, Undefined Fantastic Object, should be shown there instead of a big white-and-black stock picture. 

And now that I think about it, maybe it needs a redesign, the blog I mean. The current design is just a Blogger default, modified as I see fit, but not modified enough. I guess I really do need to mess with the basic stylesheets. I have some experiences on the field, should be enough to tweak it a little.

And look, I find the trouble to spare a few minutes to write another blog entry, even though it's about the blog itself. Maybe it won't be useless as I think.

This is a fact

That I cannot keep a journal or blog of sort, to be updated regularly, without eventually abandoning it before getting anywhere, is a tried and true fact. The only successful journal I have is a physical one that I drag around wherever I go, and while dragging a portable computer is fine and dandy, internet connection is not available everywhere. Writing one offline to be put up later is also not a desirable option, it will just be left in my hard disk, never to be read again.

This blog is just a little experiment, one that is already doomed to fail, in a way, and looks like it has already failed. But that I find all the trouble just to post another post might be a sign that this blog hasn't died yet. Or at least powered by some unearthly necromancy so it can stay alive. Yet, just like every other places in the sea of blogs, this one's fall and/or revival most likely went unnoticed by most. One would never notice if one grain of salt disappear from a vast ocean, after all.

I still go to school, and these last few weeks it has kept me busy. There's fewer times to spend for surfing the web, reading, or playing with little programming knick knacks I made when I want to do something more useful. It's very unlikely to see any of those little excuses of a software to be released to the wild wild internet, but I still have hope that one day I'll make one that won't be embarrassing to look at.

Right now I'm pouting over my internet connection, and possibly my browser's capability, which seems to always run into trouble whenever I play a video longer than 10 minutes. But when I think of it, connection has been quick and speedy, nothing to be complained. It's just my impatience. 

And what's up with my use of English here? It sounds poetic or... prose-ic... or something... Must be all the hardcore Purple Proses I've been reading, not all are enjoyable, although most are rather pompous.

Second!

Still got nothing to post about. It's a little funny really. It was easy thinking "Next time I find a computer with internet connection, I'll make a blog." and wondering how much fun it'll be. Apparently, actually using it is something else entirely. I didn't think much about what will it'll be about, I just decide I want to make one.

I'm not the kind who take constant record daily real life events publicly, unless it's really notable. Not even if I parodied it until there's a guaranteed laugh track, which seems to be what famous bloggers are doing these days, or at least in Indonesia. I can, perhaps. I'm just not confident that my slightly geeky sense of humour can go that far. As anyone know, you can't just force humour in. I'm not a fan of sour joke.

Guess I still have that Profile page to fill up. Now there's something to write about. I'll try to make it short and less pompous as my site About pages tend to be.

First!

The first post is only in English. What is this madness?

If you're reading this, go and have a look at the New Visitor? page. It explains absolutely nothing. But it does show you some things, like that I'm just testing the water here and the next few posts will probably be unimportant ramblings. When the water can be considered clean, clear, and useful, the next posts will also probably be unimportant ramblings. Until I completely forgot that I have a blog, which happens more often than it generally is.

While I use this blog as a place to rant, type random semi-madness essays, and generally type things into the internet, it can probably be considered as another speck of dust in the ocean of blogs for you, dear reader. If you find this place entertaining, why thank you. However, I have an odd sense of humor, irregular style of writing, and overly long non-descriptive way of expressing anything that is probably only entertaining for myself, so that's a fat chance.

I'm not hoping for much here. Just another little place I can call home in the Internet Archipelago.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

And I'll probably post a Profile/About Me page later, which might or might not explain whose writings you're reading here.


~ PseudoMon

Hello World!

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