While I was playing Yuzusoft’s Sanoba Witch, I already knew about HanaSaki Work Spring! — the new release from SAGA PLANETS. Funny thing is, I’ve actually played two games from this studio: Konohana Kitan and Kisaragi Gold Star. The first was pretty good, the second was a total trap. And honestly, the first one being good was probably thanks to the music and the way the story was structured. Kisaragi Gold Star is what this studio’s average actually looks like.

So I hesitated for a moment about whether to play this game that reeked of moege from a mile away. About 30 seconds, maybe. Then I saw Sawasawa Sawa in the voice cast and just dove in…

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So sometimes you just shouldn’t go poking around forums. A few days ago I was browsing Hi-PDA and saw a thread about what the best MicroUSB cable is…

The answer was remarkably unanimous:

Long cable: Softbank Short cable: Logitech

I happened to be short on cables, and they weren’t expensive, so I bought some to try…

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11月のアルカディア is a March release. I honestly thought there was nothing worth playing this month until I saw the OP — it looked like a mystery/plot-driven thing, so I tried the demo. Then I noticed the protagonist actually has a voice actor. No idea who, but he sounds kind of like Yuuichi Nakamura.

Going on the principle that “if an eroge bothers to voice its protagonist, the story probably won’t shit the bed,” I jumped in without hesitation.

And it didn’t let me down. This is the first thing since Mahoutsukai no Yoru that I’ve been able to praise without reservations.

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Getting this mouse was a total accident.

I’d been using an MX518 since college, and it miraculously never broke — at least until last week.

Then last week the MX518 finally kicked it. The middle click was failing intermittently. Warranty was out of the question; I’ve forgotten how many years it’s been. So at last I had an excuse to buy a new mouse lol.

Originally I was going to wait for the successor to the G700s, but Logitech just refuses to make one. Buying a G700s now isn’t great on price either, plus it has the short battery life problem. I figured the G602 misses the mark on some specs, but at least it’s a new product, so I went with it.

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At first I had no intention of playing Kujira-gami no TearStilla (鯨神のティアスティラ). The premise sounded boring — even a shoulder blade could tell it was just a heroine with a whale skin slapped on. But then one day, for no good reason, I listened to the OST and found the two EDs, 神様いつかこの想い and 瑠璃色, were insanely good.

So one night, bored out of my mind, in a Can’t help myself touching my body at night kind of mood, I downloaded the game and started playing.

Verdict up front: this game is pretty great in every respect except the story…

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My dad needed a laptop. Requirements:

1. Cheap, because it might end up shared at his workplace and get lost easily.
2. Low-key, nothing too flashy.
3. Fast enough to browse the web and chat.
4. Tough, because the work environment is pretty rough.

So I dug around online for a while and picked up a rebuilt ThinkPad T500, P8600 + 2G + 160G, for 900.

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These days there’s a standard term for the bag you haul around every day: EDC, supposedly short for Every Day Carry or something like that. Anyway, it just means the stuff you carry around daily. By that definition I’ve got an EDC bag too, usually with a work ThinkPad and some other accessories, plus a portable headphone for hooking up to the laptop.

At first that headphone was the AKG K420, until a family member took it. Then I switched to the JVC SR500. Honestly the JVC wasn’t as good as the K420 — portability alone was a fail. It felt loose after folding, and the sound had nothing going for it; the highs weren’t transparent enough.

So after a year and a half of service, the JVC SR500 finally broke! (Why do I say “finally”?)

Thus the search for a successor began. Requirements: 1) portable; 2) decent sound; 3) comfortable; 4) under 200; 5) closed-back.

So I picked up the Edifier H690.

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Boku no Hitori Sensou (ぼくの一人戦争) is AB2’s new release, and the reason it caught my eye is simple: the writer and the artist previously teamed up on two classics, Sharin no Kuni and G-senjou no Maou. I found both endings a bit of a stretch, sure, but the good parts in between were genuinely worth praising — the way the high-class exams fleshed out each heroine’s personality, the psychological dueling in G-senjou no Maou. Those still stick with me.

So when Boku no Hitori Sensou was announced, I couldn’t hide my excitement. I was expecting more of those standout scenes…

No such luck.

Let me get this out of the way first: today I’m going to complain about this game, carefully. Carefully, because I didn’t understand about half the Japanese — I only got the gist, followed the plot, and who knows what details or implications I missed. But judging by the parts I did fully understand, the game still has plenty of flaws. All it gave me was confusion and endless disappointment.

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Whether built-in or external, some USB DACs support 24-bit 96kHz or even 24-bit 192kHz sample rates. In Linux you can set this correctly with some PulseAudio configuration — I wrote about it before: PulseAudio sound quality tweaks on Linux

Known facts:

1. The Sony PHA-2 and ASUS Xonar U7 support up to 24-bit 192kHz over USB.
2. The FiiO E17 only goes up to 24-bit 96kHz over USB.

So the question: how do you configure PulseAudio so it adapts to both devices at once?

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So after my Surface Pro 3 came back from repair, besides noticing the fan was a bit loud, I also found that my stylus could no longer quickly open OneNote by pressing the gay-purple button on top.

Honestly, I don’t have much use for that feature — I rarely use this thing for notes anyway — but it’s still a feature, and a feature not working right is just uncomfortable to look at. That’s a normal psychological need, not perfectionism.

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