Anniversary Tonkatsu

Today was spent in a remarkably Japanese way. Never mind the fact that we woke up at our usual obscenely late hour that would probably have qualified as morning in Japan anyway, the Wife decided that since we’d been satisfying many of her Asiatic cravings (such as proper Dim Sum) It was now time to do the same for me. Although I don’t actually many Asian cuisine cravings, one thing in particular I developed a fondness for in Singapore was a dish known as Tonkatsu Curry, which is essentially breaded, deep fried pork cutlet with rice and some of that unique Japanese curry that does NOT kill my tongue for hours afterwards the way normal Singapore spices do. Back in Singapore, there was a little restaurant in the basement of the big Japanese department store Takashimaya, and they happened to have Tonkatsu Curry as their house specialty, offering it both as a dish with rice and as a sandwich. It was VERY tasty, and I’d obviously not had any of it since coming back to Canada. It turned out that further into the downtown core was a restaurant that had Tonkatsu, and they even offered Japanese curry as a side order, it just never occurred to them that this particular combination was, in fact, an actual dish in Japan. So though they were mighty confused about my wanting both, when we arrived, they did indeed serve it to us. It wasn’t as good as the stuff in Singapore, but then you have to make allowances when you eat Asian food in the West.

Other than that, the Japanese theme continued with playing some Gran Turismo Prologue (now that the demo for this game is finally available in Japan; thank you internet, and thank you Sony Playstation Store dummy account) and it’s good. And HARD. It would probably help if I had a steering wheel, but we’ll worry about some other day.

The only other thing of note is that I finally have an IGN article out that you don’t have to be subscribed to IGN Insider in order to read. Whoo hoo, I’m finally in the free, “normal, mainstream content” channel. The article is essentially just my impressions after finally getting a chance to play Rock Band on the Playstation 3, a particular concern for me since I obviously have one, and I wanted to see whether or not the game was going to be butchered on the PS3 the way Guitar Hero III has been (it looks like the Xbox 360 version is the one to get, Neversoft/Activision have pretty much given The Finger to owners of Sony consoles past and present) and it turns out… IT’S NOT! Whoo hoo, Harmonix still has a place of respect and affection in their hearts for Sony consoles, so I was relieved when I tried it… and it didn’t suck.

The full article is here.

More Work

Finished off a GameAxis review, wrote a bit of Lost In Loveless, that’s about it…

Another Quiet Day

Aside from starting on another IGN article, all that occurred was messing around with a demo for some Japanese horror game (which still managed to creep me out despite the fact that I had no idea what was going on) and bought some donuts. Yup, exciting stuff…

Sunday At Home

Wrote a bit more of an IGN article, did a bit of shopping, and talked extensively with the Wife about an idea for a new book. But not fiction. This could be interesting, but it’s going to take a little more thinking (and begging and pleading a lot of people in the gaming industry) to really take off.

Saturday The 13th

Just another quiet–albeit noticeably more chilly outside–Saturday. The Upstairs Neighbor came down to hang out, play a little Skate and decide he wants to come back when he’s got several more free hours to play A LOT of Skate, and a little bit of re-watching of Battlestar Galactica (the pilot) occurred, and some writing of the children’s novel. Yes, I actually wrote a little of it today. Not saying I’m completely back on track, but I’m going to try to be more regular about it in the weeks to come and at least write my way back to what was lost in the hard drive crash a few months ago.

Also for completely gratuitous reasons, here’s a video that only means something to people that have played Final Fantasy X-2 and the Dead or Alive series of fighters. Done by one geek with a lot of time and talent to burn:

Taking It Easy

Friday was yet another quiet day, with the exception some busy-ness on the freelance front. First, after the interview with Jonathan Mak, creator of Everyday Shooter–and that interview isn’t up on IGN just yet, but probably by next week–I got the obligatory heads up from Sony Canada. It’s funny how when you say “I’m with IGN,” that just blows the doors wide open on access to anything in the game industry. I could really get used to this after all the “I’m with GameAxis,” lines which were inevitably replied to with “Game-wha?”

Anyway, the point of this, is the heads up that I was given was an invite–presumably for the media only–to a much bigger Sony Media Day that’s going to be held at some swanky, restored concert hall that had its heyday in the 30′s deco period, and has been renovated back to its former, pre-WWII glory. Not knowing whether this was going to be a big deal or not, I threw the invite back at IGN and asked them if they’d be interested in once again having a “Canadian correspondent” pick up some slack on their behalf since none of them are crazy enough to live in the Great White North. It turns that they’re VERY interested, and so I will be going to this event on Wednesday. However, considering how many games there are on hand, it’s going to be a bit busy what with all the questions, playing games (and getting kicked off Rock Band. Again…) and making sure I get all the details, so it’s going to be hard for me to do all that and get some pictures. Fortunately, I have already cleared it with Sony Canada and they have allowed me to bring a guest, so The Wife will be attending to gawk at the geekiness, and take pictures since she knows how to use the camera way better than I do. This frees me up to tackle the games and ask questions without worrying about whether I got the shot or not.

Gonna’ be an interesting Wednesday. Looking forward to it.

Nearly Done

Just putting the finishing touches the last of the GameAxis articles for this month. And, of course, now conducting my weekly ritual of checking the Playstation Store online to see what new goodies are available. So far, nothing too hot…

Shorter Days & Lagging Memory

A quiet Monday where all that occurred was rent was paid at the last minute, articles were written at the last minute and Skate was copiously played. Gettin’ real hard now, that game is. But MAN is it fun…

Surviving The Reading

In the end, the Wife didn’t have to read the book. She did have to go, and she did have to talk about it, but since she’d been written up as an illustrator, they were more interested in having her draw something, so the bulk of her talk was showing off the pictures in the book, briefly summarizing the plot, and showing the kids how she penciled and inked something.

And now, back to Skate.

Another Humdrum Friday

Interviews were transcribed, Skate was played–or more precisely, subjected to one grievous injury after another, and not much else. The Wife is now getting ready for her first reading tomorrow morning of this:

It’s the children’s book she illustrated. She’s going to go down to the library to read it to an audience of children.

In the meantime, it’s back to more bodily abuse…