Disregard what I said about Akihabalove DVD

My purchase has apparently failed. I (incorrectly) assumed I had won the DVD as my 5000 yen bid had gone unchallenged for quite a while plus I was willing to go double that..until this morning during the final minutes of the auction, a massive bid war erupted. After seeing prices go above 10000, I declined to follow through. Final winning price?

52,000 yen (452 US dollars). For reference, that DVD was sold last year for 2000 yen.

Holy shit!!! I love Halko, but not "450 dollars for a single DVD" love. Japan has some serious fanboys that I cannot compete with. Maybe next time when I am older and richer ;)

Posted by Paranda at 12:06 PM | Comments (5)

New Halko Momoi album release date set for August 9th

Way back in January, I posted a small note about a planned Momoi album. Then it was never discussed again and I forgot about it. So imagine my surprise when Plug announced a release date for "Momo-i quality ~Best of Momoi~", a new compilation album featuring much of her post-UNDER17 work. The album will go on sale August 9th, 2006 for 3000 yen (3150 after tax, which is irrelevant if you are ordering outside of Japan).

Although Momoi may have dropped some hints during her fanclub concert earlier this Sunday, Plug says they will release more details at a later time so there is no official word on goodies or the tracklist yet. However, only hours after the announced release date, CDJapan has listed the product here and promised to include a promo poster if you get the first pressing, so definitely preorder if you want one!

Here's mine:

Also, I finally managed to buy the elusive "Akihabalove" DVD from last summer, so expect some videos making the rounds at Youtube very soon. :)

Posted by Paranda at 10:13 AM | Comments (8)

Tama-chan figure!

Just became available for preorder :) Seems to have swappable parts with Majichan. I prefer her wearing purple like in the animated series but what the hell, I've waited too long for a Tama-chan figure I'll take what I can get.

Tama is Magical Cute's mascot designed by Yuiko Tokumi and self proclaimed "world's smartest first grader." She is voiced by Halko Momoi in the TV anime "Bottle Fairy."

Posted by Paranda at 12:22 PM | Comments (2)

Better late than never: Mebius Ring

With download as promised.

A full month after its exclusive release at DreamParty, I have finally managed to get my hands on it. No new photos of Momoi are included with the disc unfortunately, but in the few times that I've looped it, I think Mebius Ring is quickly becoming one of my favorite Momoi singles. The full version of the first song may possibly be among the catchiest songs I've ever heard, and I hold this opinion even after I've had plenty of time to break in the melody from listening to the short version. Sweet Suite Room is also a nice slow track with gentle vocals which has been very enjoyable to listen to.

As always with Momoi's music...the fouler the content of the game it was made for, the better the song, as if to balance out the evil with good. If the design is intentional, I can only hope Momoi lends her talents to the OP of any horrible incestous tentacle rape loli guro franchises coming out in the future.

Recent interesting news @ Plug:

More details about the special June 11th fan club [m.m.m.] event at Shibuya O-East. She will be performing the top 10 fan requested songs. If you are in the area but don't have a chance to order tickets, several have appeared on various auction sites for very reasonable prices (some even cheaper than the original price).

The June 2nd issue of "Seiyuu & Anime Song Music Guide" contains a Momoi interview. I will attempt to scan this if I get it.

Various Momoi columns have been published. One title that grabbed my attention was Momoi's Otaku Moe Channel, which is some sort of message to Taiwan (she has performed there at least twice to my knowledge, at Frontier). Definitely worth tracking this one down for some laughs. Bonus points if she inserts her own brand of mangled Chinese like last time.

Massively updated profile page on Plug for Momoi, now with fairly thorough resume.

(Update: July 11th: Mebius Link removed due to pobladores.lycos.es/channels/juegos/El_Paraiso_de_Tifa leeching 4GB in 1 week. I rip and upload this stuff for your personal listening, not so you can put it on myspace or whatever other clones. Host it on your own space if you want to do that.)

Posted by Paranda at 2:11 AM | Comments (0)

Great War begins

A quick account of what's been going on in the Utop world lately:

First war of the age began hours ago, only 2 days OOP. It seems luck has shined on me and placed me in a decent KD with nice activity and a competent monarch. 21 attacks in 9 hours since war start! I haven't deluded myself into thinking we can WIN the whole game since our IRC chan is basically barren, but definitely we will make it 3 to 4 rounds with this kind of activity. Keep in mind absolutely nobody knew war was going to start on the 15th.

June 15th, YR0 A war has started with II The BloodPack II (##:##)!
June 15th, YR0 Cyrax (##:##) captured 145 acres of land from Euthean (##:##).
June 16th, YR0 DarkDeathFromBelow (##:##) invaded Chipicy (##:##) and captured 124 acres of land.
June 16th, YR0 Our kingdom has begun a dragon project targetted at II The BloodPack II (##:##).
June 16th, YR0 Chipicy (##:##) captured 135 acres of land from DarkDeathFromBelow (##:##).
June 16th, YR0 Chipicy (##:##) attempted an invasion of DarkDeathFromBelow (##:##), but was repelled.
June 16th, YR0 I am B (##:##) captured 145 acres of land from Lazy Undead (##:##).
June 16th, YR0 I am B (##:##) captured 100 acres of land from Lazy Undead (##:##).
June 16th, YR0 Our dragon has set flight to ravage II The BloodPack II (##:##)!
June 17th, YR0 Death and Texas (##:##) captured 134 acres of land from Skara Brae (##:##).
June 17th, YR0 Death and Texas (##:##) captured 168 acres of land from Karakura Town (##:##).
June 17th, YR0 Amaretto Red Army (##:##) captured 148 acres of land from Kydoimos (##:##).
June 17th, YR0 Castelgarde (##:##) captured 94 acres of land from Replacable Parts (##:##).
June 17th, YR0 Our kingdom has begun a dragon project targetted at II The BloodPack II (##:##).
June 17th, YR0 Requiem of Souls (##:##) invaded LORAS (##:##) and captured 132 acres of land.
June 17th, YR0 archanland (##:##) invaded Chipicy (##:##) and captured 53 acres of land.
June 18th, YR0 LORAS (##:##) captured 148 acres of land from Dead Body Man (##:##).
June 18th, YR0 LORAS (##:##) captured 148 acres of land from The Castle Defender (##:##).
June 18th, YR0 Smeagol (##:##) captured 182 acres of land from otse anaali sulle (##:##).
June 18th, YR0 Smeagol (##:##) captured 88 acres of land from archanland (##:##).
June 19th, YR0 Cute Things are Evil (##:##) invaded Smeagol (##:##) and captured 157 acres of land.
June 19th, YR0 prydwen (##:##) invaded I am B (##:##) and captured 137 acres of land.
June 20th, YR0 IWasOnceAlive (##:##) captured 116 acres of land from Karakura Town (##:##).
June 20th, YR0 Lazy Undead (##:##) invaded Ormkerr (##:##) and captured 119 acres of land.
June 20th, YR0 IWasOnceAlive (##:##) captured 150 acres of land from TheWiseOne (##:##).
June 20th, YR0 Chainsaur (##:##) captured 150 acres of land from prydwen (##:##).
June 20th, YR0 Chainsaur (##:##) captured 105 acres of land from prydwen (##:##).
June 20th, YR0 Dead Body Man (##:##) invaded Deltaria (##:##) and captured 137 acres of land.
June 20th, YR0 Dead Body Man (##:##) invaded Ricempire (##:##) and captured 132 acres of land.
June 20th, YR0 Fightin Naked (##:##) captured 150 acres of land from Cute Things are Evil (##:##).
June 20th, YR0 Skara Brae (##:##) invaded Ricempire (##:##) and captured 110 acres of land.
June 21st, YR0 Fightin Naked (##:##) captured 70 acres of land from archanland (##:##).
June 21st, YR0 Skara Brae (##:##) invaded Deltaria (##:##) and captured 111 acres of land.
June 21st, YR0 TheWiseOne (##:##) invaded IWasOnceAlive (##:##) and captured 121 acres of land.
June 21st, YR0 TheWiseOne (##:##) invaded MyWifeCanBashYouUP (##:##) and captured 146 acres of land.
June 21st, YR0 The Castle Defender (##:##) invaded LORAS (##:##) and captured 120 acres of land.
June 21st, YR0 The Castle Defender (##:##) invaded MyWifeCanBashYouUP (##:##) and captured 67 acres of land.
June 21st, YR0 Kydoimos (##:##) invaded Smeagol (##:##) and captured 98 acres of land.
June 22nd, YR0 DarkDeathFromBelow (##:##) invaded Chipicy (##:##) and captured 97 acres of land.
June 22nd, YR0 A Dragon from II The BloodPack II (##:##) has begun ravaging our lands!
June 23rd, YR0 Chubay Bin Sio MansO (##:##) invaded Death and Texas (##:##) and captured 60 acres of land.
June 23rd, YR0 Chubay Bin Sio MansO (##:##) invaded Death and Texas (##:##) and captured 61 acres of land.
June 24th, YR0 USO DA (##:##) captured 112 acres of land from DarkDeathFromBelow (##:##).
June 24th, YR0 USO DA (##:##) captured 49 acres of land from archanland (##:##).

Yes, I've named myself USO DA after Rena's warcry. Now opposing provinces can tremble at my massive WS fueled TMs.

So as you can see I've been updating here sparsely now, since between work, managing my Utopia province, and beating Resident Evil 4, I basically have no time to do other things. Yes, suddenly I am 100% back into the serious Utopia habit (you know the one where you set alarms to wake up to make a hit). Why?

Because now I'm also in a GOOD Worlds KD too, so now I'm watching more than one account at a time, and very often. Much thanks to a good friend who managed to get a spot for me. It's much more organized than my last one, which I abandoned since I was so fed up with the activity there. New KD is in the top 30 in Worlds (we were top 20, got knocked out after being waved by ABS KDs), and so I had to STEP UP my playing up to SuperKD level. I haven't seen a good kingdom since Spawn, which was at least 5 or 6 ages ago and it's pretty exciting seeing that the glory days are back again. Actually Spawn has nothing on this..our old record was 10 mil I think, but we're already 7 mil now about halfway in the game. Ozmaj and Smubeht, teammates I've been playing with since 4 years ago, also have positions in there so we'll be slowly orchestrating even more improvements between the three of us.

And of course, currently we are ALSO in war on Worlds so there is yet another reason to keep me busy as hell instead of just growing slowly at a leisurely pace. In fact we're getting the shit beaten out of us so I've had to invest the majority of my time home and at work preparing provinces and sending out aid. There is a dire lack of attackers and we're down 2000 acres, but Faes are doing their work very well so we may yet pull it off if we keep the pressure on: I've got over 100 thief ops logged since the start. There has been some talk on the chans about changing our faes to attacker. I understand we have a shortage of attackers, but the inefficiency of converting fae rogue T/M to attacker/thief makes me cry. Definitely will NOT convert with ZOMG, especially not after I sci pumped him with purely for T/M strats.

Still keeping my T/M build going..doing ops until I get to Lord (I'm so close! 1430!!!). Percentages for success! Fae Rogue at 4tpa, 24% TD, 55% thief sci means Orcs and UD die, hard >:D! Did I mention that despite all this, I am still maintaining a 75 DPA, a decent PPA, and 105 BE? Bwaha!

Oh yeah, Res Evil 4 is so much fun. Get it if you like shooters. It doesn't have any of the things that made the old RE's suck, so I recommend it even for those who hated the previous games.

Posted by Paranda at 2:42 AM | Comments (0)