So after the Surface Pro 3 came back from repair, besides noticing the fan was a bit loud, I also found my stylus could no longer launch OneNote quickly by pressing the purple button on top. Honestly this feature isn’t all that useful to me—I rarely use this thing for notes—but it’s still a feature, and having a feature not work properly is just uncomfortable to look at. That’s a normal psychological need, not perfectionism.

I haven’t played that many Yuzu (Yuzusoft) games. Counting on my fingers, just Tenshin Ranman and Natsuzora Kanata. Most of the others I’ve only glanced at — “oh, a Yuzusoft one, I remember that face” — and then never got around to them. Still, I owe Yuzusoft some thanks: Tenshin Ranman was the first 18+ game I ever touched. Sure, I played the PSP version, but up to then everything I’d played was Ever17, MO2, MO4 and other genuine all-ages stuff. Thinking back to the first time I imagined Chitose Sana’s H scene still gets me a little excited… Ahem, that’s a bit off track. Actually I do have some feelings for Yuzusoft games, I just rarely play them. Mostly because I kept hearing people shit on them — that Yuzusoft games are pure moege, and trending toward nukige. And honestly, judging by the premises, that’s true. Whether it was the later vampire one or Sensei of the Sky Colors, the utilitarian angle got more and more blatant. Then at the end of 2014, a new title called サノバウィッチ just popped out of nowhere, and I didn’t read any of the intro — I just saw the word “heat.” Then I looked at the plot summary… oh boy… have they completely thrown away all decency? The heroine goes into heat on a schedule, the protagonist secretly sees it, and the story builds from there… what else could it be but fucking? A victory for the utilitarian crowd, a sob for the story crowd. For me, one glance at the premise and I’d already lost interest. I can stage a little fantasy in my head anytime about fucking a girl, and each one would be better than this. Is there any need to play the game specifically for that? But then I played the trial version and found it was nothing like that. The heat thing is just a gimmick; the story itself is actually decent… of course, I mean the trial version’s story. So after finishing the full game I figure I should seriously talk about a few things in this game.

Stumbled onto a sale at a ThinkPad shop on Taobao — both the ThinkPad TrackPoint Bluetooth Keyboard and the 6-cell battery (72Wh) for the X250 were going for good prices. I’d just returned a bunch of stuff I bought for Spring Festival and had some money sitting in Alipay, so I bought them. Both shipped from Beijing, and fast enough… First, the keyboard:

Back when I bought my first pair of balanced-armature IEMs, the UE TF10, I had this weird sense of superiority. Because everywhere online said BAs were the new tech, wiping the floor with dynamic drivers in every way — superior resolution, badass multi-driver setups, vocals so poisonous it hurt, etc., etc. Looking back now, BAs aren’t all that. Not that those strengths are bad, I’m just saying that when I listen to music with BAs, something always feels missing. Sure, the Focal (Phonak) female vocals were poisonous, sure the ER4P’s treble was transparent, sure the UE900 had strong instrumental expression — but it never quite had that flavor. A while back I was eating with a friend. The restaurant had a small stage, and a resident singer was up there performing “Love Like a Tide.” After that song, I think I understood what BAs lack. What’s missing is that sense of atmosphere, like sitting in a tiny bar and feeling the music reverberate through the space. BAs are too cold and clinical — that’s when the dynamic driver needs to step up. The Sennheiser IE 80 is probably a pretty good dynamic.

The last time I put together a model kit was in elementary school. I remember it was a ship, and it looked hideously ugly. The rest of the time I was playing with Mini 4WD cars, and those are so modular I don’t think they really count as models — you can knock one together in a few simple steps. Guro is something a small toy merchant makes himself, and apparently there’s intellectual property involved and all that. I saw it was a limited sale at the time, so I put in a preorder. It arrived last November, and when I got my hands on it and took a look… Holy crap, over 200 tiny parts, detailed down to every joint. Then I looked at the assembly instructions and my whole body got drunk. So it got shelved. Today I finally finished The Witch’s Dinner Party and felt sick to my stomach, so the only thing left was to assemble a model. I saw someone on X bragging that they finished assembly in 15 minutes. I can tell you that guy is absolutely full of it. It took me almost 3 hours…

As a semi-loyal ThinkPad fan, my love for the TrackPoint is no less than my love for Ms. Atsumi Tanezaki. So whether on the X230 or the X250, the TrackPoint has become my go-to pointing device. Sometimes even with a Bluetooth mouse connected, I’ll find myself using it for a while and then tossing the mouse aside to go back to the TrackPoint. So here’s the thing: my X230 has been in use for almost two years now, and its TrackPoint is battered—gray and no longer bright, and it seems a bit shiny too. So I figured I’d find a new one to swap in. I knew Taobao had them… but I didn’t know there were actually three kinds of TrackPoint:

Looking at the intro or whatever of Izayoi no Fortuna, you won’t spot any obvious highlight. But successful people always tell us that when there’s no highlight, you should go find one yourself… Case in point: in the game’s planning credits, we see a familiar name: Satoshi Yaginuma Who the hell is that? Right—the guy from fripSide who plays piano while shaking his ass, the one in MVs and lives who always looks like he’s desperately holding in a piss. Times really have changed. Even musicians are getting into Galgame planning now. According to a detailed expose of the Galgame production pipeline I read on Douban, the planner determines the basic plot and outline, while the scenario writer follows that outline to write the script. So the plot of this game was dreamed up by Satoshi Yaginuma… Out of sheer curiosity about what kind of story a musician would cook up, I played this game… Of course, I still don’t know if he was in the planning for those fripSide MVs…

The world says spring is when all things revive, and also the season for love. In this season of revival, I shook off the filth and mud I’d accumulated over winter, crawled out of my hole, rubbed my eyes that had spent years in darkness, steadied my mind, and hoped to see the outside world clearly again. At the very least, in this season of spring breezes, I ought to follow the trend and do the things I’m supposed to do. The sunlight above was blinding, the wind hitting my face carried the breath of life. Once my vision settled, I saw the source of the great light—besides the sun above, there was something gleaming gold on the ground. It was a book. On its clean cover were just two lines: a big title, SPPL, and below it a subtitle: alice the magical conductor. Nothing else.

fortissimo EXS//Akkord:nächsten Phase is a visual novel developed by la’cryma… I’ve played la’cryma’s early games! I even own physical copies! I’m talking about this one! But then this company called la’cryma apparently took something weird, because they suddenly cranked out a game absolutely dripping with chuuni energy, and they’ve been milking that one game for years. I looked it up—this studio has ties to Circus… so of course they inherited the fine tradition… First came the all-ages fortissimo//Akkord:Bsusvier Then fortissimoEXA//Akkord:Bsusvier, which added two routes and a final boss fight Then fortissimo EXS//Akkord:nächsten Phase, which took the previous version and added 18+ content And recently there’s the PSV version, Kadenz fermata//Akkord:fortissimo, which throws in artificial science-magic and what’s probably new story content Pit after pit, and I should mention I’m the type who gets suckered in by game OPs. If an OP looks good, it’s love at first sight with a girl. So when I saw fortissimo’s absolutely banger OP, I jumped right into this pit.

A gentle sea breeze blows on this remote little island. Mr. Iori arrives alone and meets a girl. “Sir, this isn’t a place ordinary people visit. So may I ask… what brings you here?” Iori flashes the long sword in his hand. It’s still in its sheath, but it radiates a chill. “Are you… a swordsman, sir?”