Anyways, I give to you, in no certain order (I can never actually sort these kinds of lists) my top … lets say 10. My Top Ten favorite songs of all time.

Iris – Goo Goo Dolls

Alright, If I had to choose a song to be my favorite, this would probably have to be it. I cannot think of a song for the life of me that I can say I’ve loved for as long as this one. I first heard it on the soundtrack of City of Angels. This is also where I fell in love with Nicolas Cage, but that’s neither here nor there.

Something about the composition of the song, the message therein, and my love of acoustic guitar just makes this song hit a spot with me. If you can find and play the acoustic version of this song when I’m around, you’ll see me smile.

Voices – Yoko Kanno

You may or may not know this, but as a young man I was quite into Animé. I grew up in the time of Dragonball and Sailor Moon, so on some level I figure it was bound to happen. Now I’ll be the first to admit that neither of those are stellar examples of animé, but everyone has to start somewhere. Somewhere down the line Télétoon played Macross Plus in four parts. I managed to stay up late and watch these four parts.

I am so very glad I did.

Now I will say that I’ve never actually watched Macross, a sin my brothers never really forgave me for, so much of the back story to Macross Plus was lost on me. Thankfully, you don’t need to know everything that transpired in Macross to ‘get’ Macross Plus. I’m getting off topic, but I had to gush a little.

Anyways, Yoko Kanno did a lot (if not all) of the music for Macross Plus, and I can say that it’s got some of the best music for an animé that I know of. Second and third place are Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, but again we’re getting off topic. One of the songs from Macross Plus is called Voices. Something about the subtle tones, and the voice of the singer in it hits me in a soft spot. It’s a little sad, and a little soft, but it’s an amazing song.

Best part? It sounds good in both Japanese (original) and English (dubbed version).

Kryptonite – 3 Doors Down

I’m not a fan of Superman, so this is a somewhat odd choice, considering it’s basically about him. Anyways, to top it off I’m not even a fan of 3 Doors Down so how would one of their oldest songs become a favorite?

Once again, animé comes to the rescue. Specifically animé music videos or AMVs were pretty big when I was young, and though I’m too lazy to check, I’m pretty sure they’re still around. The video I’m talking about in question was about Gundam Wing W, and the song featured was Kryptonite.

Beyond being a very solid music video, which was on key and topical, the song just got to me. It could have been my repeated watching of said video, it could have been my impressionable youth sucking in the media, who’s to say? The end result was this quick-paced, dark-esque song hitting a spot with me. It’s got a solid beat, it’s got good lyrics, and it lands itself a spot in my brains’ appreciation centres.

Somewhere Out There – Our Lady Peace

Ah, now here’s a song that tugs a bit at my wistful heartstrings. This song came out just when I had my first real crush on someone. We spent a lot of time together, and she was a huge fan of The MTV. When we hung out, this song was on the charts, and for some reason it just stuck with me.

Now all that aside, it’s a fantastic song, and is a great love song without being a great love song. It’s heart-felt, it’s well-written, and it moves me.

And let’s not for get that Our Lady Peace is a fantastic band, and loving one of their songs shouldn’t really be that big of a stretch of the imagination.

Mixtape – Butch Walker

I love Butch Walker. I’ve stated this before, but it needs stating again. I love Butch Walker, were I woman I would have troublingly dirty thoughts about him, but as I am a male, I simply wish I could be him.

Anyways, this was, as near as I can tell, Butch Walkers first big hit. It’s a song about love never had, and given my terrible streak in my love life (before Theresa, thankfully) and so something about the song just speaks to me. I may sound like a little bitch, but that’s just how it is.

All Over You – The Spill Canvas

This song is my favorite “I’m want to fuck your brains out” song. Ironically I’ve never had sex to this song, but that really doesn’t matter. It’s got a strong base beat, the lyrics are impressively sexual and angry, and it’s just… fantastic. Granted I could be somewhat biased as I’ve been a Spill Canvas fan for years…

It’s a great song and easily my favorite off of the album from which it came. That’s “No Really, I’m Fine” in case anyone is wondering.

Konstantine – Something Corporate

It was a little torn between listing this song or Bruised from Jacks Mannequin, but in the end I chose Konstantine. Why? Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a 9 minute epic of bleeding heart singing. Maybe it’s the fantastic use of piano from start to finish. Maybe I’m just a sucker for heart-felt writing and high-pitched male singers.

In the end it doesn’t matter because the fact remains that this song rocks my socks completely off. It’s an amazing song that you don’t even notice is playing until your 5 minutes in and your brain clicks in that this isn’t just another background noise song.

If (Jeannie’s Song) – Butch Walker

Two Butch songs on this list? How dare I!  I told you I loved him didn’t I? Not two  paragraphs ago? Yes, I’m sure that I did. In any case, I’ve been a fan since I first heard the song, and years later I still love it. It’s rockish and a little sad, with just a touch of angst. It’s everything younger me loved, but somehow years later it still strikes me as a solid song.

Bouncy, morose, and long enough without dragging itself out too long.

Doomsday – Murray Gold

Le Gasp! A song without lyrics! Can Corey even listen to music without lyrics? Yes, as it turns out, I can. I have quite a love for theme songs, orchestra, and video game music. Anything that is soundtrack related can usually find it’s way into my grubby little hands at some point or another. I’ve got a variety of movies and TV show themes sitting in my iTunes right now (Rescue Rangers represent), so it’s only natural that Doctor Who would eventually find it’s way in.

I’m a big, big fan of most of the stuff that Murray Gold has put out for Doctor Who, but Doomsday stuck way, way out to me. Sure “Father’s Day” and “Rose’s Theme” are great tracks, and “This Is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home” is close to the feeling for Doomsday, none of them really compare in my mind.

I’ll grant that I have the moment of Rose and the Doctor separated between the wall forever fried into my brain, which probably contributes to just how much this song hits me, but still! It’s a stunning piece and it sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it.

When I hear this song, I’m moved to say “Fuck. Yes.” either in my head or out loud. It’s that awesome.

Wonderwall – Oasis

A classic, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t remember when it came out (I could look it up, but I’m far too lazy) but it’s been in my head for as long as I could remember. It’s one of those songs that you can totally forget about, but then hear it on the radio, and it’s like it never left. It’s got the power of Revertago. It’s like an old friend that you meet up with after years of separation. It all feels the same regardless of the years between seeing.

It’s got a good sound to it, a good beat, and everything about that song drips of awesome. Also, it’s a Rock Band 2 downloadable track so now you can even play it there. What’s not to love?

Yeah, I didn’t really stand a chance.

Synopsis

So the story of Professor Layon and the Diabolical Box starts off pretty much where we ended last time. I assume no more than a month has passed between stories. This isn’t important, I’m just giving context here.

Anyways, the Professor and Luke are sent a message from one of the Professors old friends. Said letter contains the friend’s ramblings about getting his hands on something called the Elysian Box. This box is said to kill any person who opens it. Of course the friend opened said box, and no one has heard from him since.

The Professor and Luke go to investigate, where the find their friend prone on the ground. After some additional investigation, the Professor and Luke make for an elaborate train that their old friend had a ticket to. The story gets decidedly more messed up from that point on.

Oh and of course you are solving puzzles pretty much from the get go.

Mechanics

Very little has changed, in terms of basic game mechanics. You still tap your way around the map looking for hidden Hint Coins (a currency used to buy hints to puzzles that have you flummoxed) and hidden puzzles. You have to solve puzzles to progress throughout the story, and there are points when you need to solve a certain amount of puzzles in order to progress.

There are three mini-games built in which I shall quickly go over:

• Broken Camera: Within the story you are given the task of repairing a camera. This involves finding the pieces, and then assembling them all so that everything fits within the frame of the camera. This isn’t as hard as you’d think so long as you look at it practically. The flash goes in the flash area, the plunger goes in the plunger area, and the lens goes in the lens area.Once you have built the camera, you can take photos of certain areas and have a most fun/infuriating time spotting the three differences between them. Succeeding in this usually results in being able to find yourself a hidden puzzle.
• Fat Hamster: You are given the task of getting a rather obnoxious and impressively obese hamster into shape. You are given a selection of hamster toys throughout the story which you can use to make the hamster run to. Getting him to run to enough things, lowers his weight. When you get him to a rank of 0 (in shape) he returns the favor by obnoxiously pointing out the location of hidden coins on the screens your traverse.
• Magic Tea Set: The magic tea set is given to you by an old woman after completing a set of puzzles from her. The idea of the tea set is to create 12 teas using a variety of ingredients that you pick up along your travels. But what is the point of making tea if not to share them with people?This comes to the second part of the game: helping others. Throughout the game, you will come across people who appear to be sweating. Approaching them at this point will give you a dialogue where you have to give them a tea that will meet their requirements. This can be a total pain in the ass if you screw up, because you’ll have to go back and forth to that screen until they’re sweating again so that you can have another shot.

Other than that, the game plays out pretty much identically as the previous installment. The puzzles will ask you to circle, draw lines, or input a number. Or slide things. Lets not forget the God-forsaken slider puzzles. There are enough of those to make you hate your life, I can assure you.

Oh, and yes, there are secret doors in the Bonus puzzle rooms. No I have not opened any because my girlfriend happened to save over my completed game from the first game. That means no code which means no secret doors for me. I know what’s behind them, but I’m not telling.

Words from the Wise

There isn’t really too much I can give in terms of advice. I’m not going to answer any riddles here, so if you’re looking for those, you’ll have to try somewhere else. Having said that, here are some things you can do to make your life a little easier.

• Tap everywhere. You never know where puzzles or hint coins are located. The hamster won’t show up every time, so be thorough. Beyond that, the hamster won’t point out puzzles, so you’ll have to scrounge for those yourself.
• Think hard before you answer. I can’t tell you how many times I lost points because I was impulsive with my answer. Just take a beat and think about your answer before you click that submit button.
• Don’t be afraid to use hint coins. They’re there for a reason. Sure you may want to man through it and not use any, but that doesn’t make your awesome, it wastes your time on stupid puzzles that could be solved much quicker if you just took a hint.
• Don’t feel bad about cheating. I did it, and I don’t feel bad. There are some puzzles that will blow your mind way open, and as such it will simply be beyond you to answer them. I cheated on most of the sliding puzzles, and one or two math ones. I don’t feel bad because after putting in 1000+ moves into each slider puzzle, I decided to bow out and let the Internet guide me. As for the math questions? Well when you have to make a Quadratic Equation just to figure something out? Go fuck yourself. I signed up for riddles, not math.

Overall

The writing, voice acting, and overall story was fantastically. The puzzles were, overall, enjoyable and gave my brain a workout. Having said that, slider puzzles and complex math questions can all go die in a fire. I’m aware that they’re concepts and cannot die in a physical fire. I can still wish for the concepts to die in a conceptual fire. Other than those, the rest of the puzzles were pretty solid.

The music was well done. Hell I’d go so far as to say that the music in this one was far better than the last game. The artwork was top notch, and it translated perfectly into the videos. Even the CG used in the videos was some of the best I’ve seen when blending CG and animation.

The story was odd, border-line cryptic, and had all the little details that really made the story come together. If you can take the extra time to talk to everyone in the game, you’ll get a much better understanding of what’s going on and gain a much better understanding of the depth to which the writers actually went.

All in all, it’s an enjoy able game and it’s a good way to kill 30 hours of time.

8/10

Writern Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, 500 Days of Summer is shockingly not about global warming. No, the story revolves around two people: Tom Hansen (played by the under-rated Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (played by equally under-rated Zooey Deschanel). Two people who met almost by chance, talked, dated, broke up, met again, and all the highs and lows that happen throughout.

Tom works at a greeting card company, where he thinks up slogans for the company, and prototypes cards. Summer comes into the company as the bosses new assistant. Though Tom tries to fight it, he is drawn to Summer for reasons he can’t explain. You see Tom has always believed in “the one” and felt quite certain that Summer was it. Summer on the other hand doesn’t really believe in boyfriends or any of that “fate” stuff.

Tom falls in love.

Summer doesn’t.

Within the first five minutes, you are introduced to every major character, and thrown right into the darkest part of the film. 2 minutes after that, you are thrown into the lightest part. It’s almost mind-boggling, but it holds itself together beautifully.

What I Liked

I am a huge fan of how this film was shot. amazingly simple yet strong shots really helped bring home. simple things like Tom on the Bus, freaking out about the song on his iPod, to he and Summer sitting in the Diner at the start of the movie, to the single best example of a movie breaking into a full-out choreographed song and dance number. Everything about the filmography had me, director Marc Webb does nothing less than stellar in the direction of this movie. The transitioning between scenes gave it an almost Tarantino feel, except for you know what the hell is going on. I loved the subtle use of colours and foliage changing that was a small foreshadow of how the next scene was going to play out.

I loved loved loved the use of typography in this movie. Now sadly, I’m not so much of a typophile to be able to tell you what font specifically was used, but I know it’s one I’ve seen, and it worked so very well for this movie. The transitioning between days was made that much better by the simple numeric counter that was featured (in said font, of course).

And lets not forget the music. From the Smiths to Feist, this movie ranges all over the place. What really impressed me though was how well the music actually went with each scene. Some of the musical choices might have been considered a little out of the way, but they really helped bring in the subtly of feeling that the audience needed. The soundtrack to this movie will be getting into my iTunes one way or the other, I can assure you of that.

I’m also going to give a shout out to whoever built the sets and/or found the locations to do the shots. There are some stunning locations in that movie. So much so that it made me want to crawl into the movie just so I could look around in wonder.

What I Disliked

Though I love Matthew Gray Gubler, his use in this movie was woefully contrived. He was quite literally “the friend” that you needed to fill in scenes or to say specific lines. His character, though enjoyable, was one-dimensional, and little was done to really add to it. His one moving line was too little too late to save the character.

The ending. Or, at least I should say the near ending. When Tom and Summer meet up and talk about what’s happened to them, I felt a little annoyed that Tom let Summer get off so lightly. Maybe I’m just a bitter person, but I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have been as big of a man.

Oh wait, yes, the actual ending. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but the name choice at the end of the film. Really? You actually went for that? Not even the least bit ashamed at the contrived selection? No? Well you should be.

Overall

I am a big fan of this movie. I may even pick up the DVD and add it to my very small pile of “DVDs I Can Be Snobby About Because I Love Them So Much” That’s right, I have that pile, and I am snobby about the movies in it. Don’t get me started on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we’ll be here for a while.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth the drive and the money. I would know, as I am a semi-extreme case. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s simple yet complex. It’s everything I wanted out of a movie, and it was delivered to me in spades.

P.S. Thank you 500 Days of Summer for not using Hand-drawn block text for your movie. There seems to be a trend with indie films and that damned font-face.

8.5/10

So when I found out about Time Hollow, I thought I’d give it the old college try, because along with Time Travel, I’m also a fan adventure/mystery games. You can refer to my gushing over Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice for examples therein.

Now I thought Time Hollow was going to be a fairly straight-forward mystery finder.

Yah, sometimes I’m just stupid like that.

Synopsis

The basic rundown of Time Hollow is this: You have a magic pen that allows you to make holes in time so that you can change things. That’s pretty much it. Oh, and some guy that you know nothing about is trying to eliminate your family for reasons you don’t really understand. Even when you do find out, it doesn’t make all that much sense.

To elaborate a little more, your character, Ethan Kairos is charged with correcting all of the weird time-hiccups that suddenly start appearing around you. This includes the removal of your parents, stopping a shockingly steep number of murders, and generally trying to make things the way they were before.

This sounds just as confusing as you think it’s going to be.

Mechanics

Time Hollow is a game that takes full advantage of the fact that you have a stylus, and punishes anyone who tries to use the controllers buttons for anything more than the occasional support. As you are required to search for things on the screen, you have to tap around like a monkey having a stroke, hoping against hope that you’ll find the one little thing that you needed to push the story forward.

You also use your stylus to make the actual holes in time, which sadly can only be opened at certain plot points. I was really hoping I’d be able to open them at any time and try my hand at playing God, but I guess there’s only so much you can expect from a DS game.

Other than the extreme pen-use, the game plays out pretty much like a novel. Other than finding the evidence/talking to people/wandering aimlessly, there isn’t much to the game. You have a town map of sorts, which you use to get around town, and your flashbacks menu.

Now the flashbacks are neat, because they show you what has changed since time has been messed up. You’ll need to review and confirm your flashbacks in order to progress through some of the story. Now you’d think this would be interesting, but really it’s just an annoying step that serves only to slow you down. Cool concept, bad execution.

What is a nice bonus is that after you get through the game the first time, you can play through again but with your previous knowledge in tact. This means that you can actually make more changes to those around you that make for a better ending the second time around. I have a soft spot for any game that allows me to play through again with added bonuses.

I’m a sucker like that.

Words from the Wise

Now having plowed through this game in a reasonable time, I feel it is my duty to disclose to you some very important information. There are only three things going on this list, but they are crucially important.

• Time Hollow is not for kids. I thought it was going to be, but people are kidnapped and brutally murdered throughout the game. It’s actually pretty dark, so keep that in mind.
• Read everything. Seriously, don’t skim over the text in this game because when you think you know what you have to do, there is a very solid chance that in fact you are not supposed to do that at all. There were a couple times that I skipped over the text, and ended up having to wander around the different areas of the game until something happened.
• At the start of the game, you will find out that “Koris very existence is what’s different.” At this point you have to go back to the school, and outside of the classroom on the greenboard is a white note. You need to read this note in order to progress through the story. Honestly it took me a good 40 minutes of wandering around until I found that stupid piece of paper. I’m not spoiling the game when I give you this tip, I’m saving you a lot of frustration.

Overall

I actually enjoyed the Time Hollow story, though the process of getting through the story was linear, and having to jump through every hoop was quite a chore.

To that end, I have to give honourable mentions to the music writers and graphic artists hired. Way to go guys, you made this game that much more enjoyable. The music was well done and amazingly creepy, and that opening theme song? Fabulous. As for the art: very well done. The art featured in Time Hollow is some of the best background art I’ve ever seen on the DS. Very polished and really helped make the story stronger.

It was a fun game while it lasted, though it was more like a short novel then a real game. Your participation is about as low as you can get in a game with it still remaining a game. You could beat it in an afternoon, so keep that in mind if you’re going to be on a bus or plane or train somewhere.

6.5/10

Perfect.

So without further delay, here is my giant list of (mostly) free mac apps.

Communication

Adium

Adium is basically the chat client on the Mac. Since Microsoft’s version of Mac MSN looks and acts like the original Microsoft messenger did, people have tried to find different chat clients that can pick up the slack. I’m sure there are others, but Adium is my clear choice for this.

Out of the box, Adium supports 20 services including (but not limited to): MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, and Google Talk. Hell it even has support (albeit a little shaky) for Facebook and Twitter. Beyond this there is a large collection of plug-ins that extend the functionality of this already robust program.

It’s also got a slew of options to customize the look and feel of the program, Growl support, and a whole boatload of customization options.

There are only two major limitations to Adium, and I’m not entirely sure one is their fault. The first is that Adium supports the viewing of custom smileys, but to date I have no figured out how to add my own. The second is that there is no sharing box. This was a big blow to me, as I was using my sharing folder a lot with the windows version of MSN.

Beak

Raise your hand if you use Twitter. Yeah, you and a gazillion other people. With the recent super-adoption of Twitter, applications to sift through the mass of 140 character messages are becoming more plentiful, more powerful, and way prettier. I know a lot of people will advocate for TweetDeck, and I wouldn’t disagree; TweetDeck is a fantastic program if you’re really into Twitter and/or have large screen real estate.

For those of us who have small screens, TweetDeck is just too big to be practical. It literally takes up 90% of the screen, and that’s not something I want when I’m doing quick alt-tabs. Beak fills in this role quite nicely.

Thankfully there is a huge list of Mac-Twitter applications in the Twitter wiki, but the big ones are generally TweetDeck, Twhirl, Twidget, and Tweetie. Beak isn’t as big as some of the others and it’s still in Beta, but since it’s most recent release it’s been amazingly stable and does everything I need. Tweetie is pretty solid, and similar to Beak (with some differences), but I don’t really want to pay 20 dollars American just to use Twitter (yes I’m aware there is a free, ad-supported version. That’s not much better.)

You get everything you’d expect from a solid twitter app – posting tweets/DMs, ReTweet, Favoriting, mentions, search, and link statuses – but with none of the cost. Now you can’t have multi-user support, something I personally don’t need to worry about, nor do you get TweetDeck’s Multi-column viewing. Everything that is featured is offered in a tabular view, meaning that you can easily switch between views. It also has a neat feature to display a users twitter information inline.

Everyday

Firefox

Let’s be honest here. I don’t need to advocate for a browser that advocates for itself. I’ll say that I’m not a fan of Safari, as I’ve always found the interface to be a little wonky. I know there are other options out there: Camino, Chrome,  Flock, Opera, SeaMonkey, Shiira, and I’m sure there are many, many more. I’ve been with Firefox for a while, and it’s done me well. I’m not a zealot, but even I must admit that Firefox does it’s job, and it does it well.

Hell I’ve been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix. That’s how old school I am. Kick it.

Thunderbird + Lightning

I’m aware the Mac comes with Mail and iCal, but neither of them are all that impressive. They’re light-weight, and do their jobs with minimal imagination. I tried mail out for all of 5 minutes before I was sick of it and downloading Thunderbird. Ditto for iCal.

Thunderbird is Mozilla’s local mail system. It has all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a mailing system, but it’s free. Sadly it’s not as polished as say, Microsoft Outlook – lets just pretend they’re not going to use Word to render emails for a minute – but it does it’s job and does it well. It has rule support, multiple account management, and a crap-tonne of other features making it a very appealing option to those who don’t want to log into a website to check their mail.

But what is an email client without a calendar system? Light-weight, yes, but not nearly as useful.

That is where Lightning comes in to play. Now on it’s own, Lightning is very much like iCal, if iCal tried a little harder. Lightning can hook into services like Google Calendar (so can iCal, I know) and allow you to actually create events, tasks, and everything else with amazing ease (something iCal does not do).

Now they’ve gone and developed a plug-in that gives you all of the abilities of lightning, integrated into Thunderbird. This effectively removes the need for an additional program running. One less thing running is always a boon to me.

Jomic

Back when Watchmen was coming out, I had no idea of the story specifics. This resulted in my having to read the entire story in one sitting. Now I didn’t mean for this to happen, but as it worked out Watchmen was a fantastic graphic novel, and Jomic was a fantastic comic reader.

Jomic is a sourceforge project, and though their website was obviously developed by a programmer, their program has a solid finish to it. Now I’ve tried a couple comic viewers for the Mac but I can assure you that Jomic was both the smoothest functioning and simplest to use.

It features nifty abilities such as being able to go straight into the next comic in the series (I assume this works off the concept that every comic is within the same folder), two page spreads, zooming, and keyboard navigation. If you want to read comics on your computer (those not in the ‘web’ format), Jomic is totally the way to go.

NeoOffice

There is absolutely no shortage of Mac text processors out there. Given that the list is as long as I am tall, it’s hard to pick out a sure-winner. NeoOffice is not by any means a sure winner, but it does it’s job.

Now I cannot explain all of the many things that NeoOffice apparently does, as I’ve only ever used the Text and Spreadsheet portions of it. What I can say is that from what I’ve used, everything worked as expected (minor visual hiccups aside).

I can’t gush over NeoOffice, because to be honest I haven’t had to use it that much. I’ve recently found myself gravitating more towards Google Docs, which is filling the need for a text editor pretty well.

Smultron

Everyone that develops on the Mac needs some sort of editor. Many swear by Coda, which I admit is a good program. The issue with Coda is that it isn’t free, and that doesn’t swing it with me. I ended up coming across Smultron and I haven’t looked since.

Smultron offers me everything I need from a code editor: Snippets, extensible colour coding, multi-file editing, project support, and automation commands. Now I’ll admit that it doesn’t have built-in FTP support, something Coda brags about, but it does work well with Cyberduck in allowing you to edit files you open and save them right to the server. This works just fine for me, though I totally understand the appeal.

Maintenance

ClamXav

I’ll admit that I’ve never really had to use ClamXav. That doesn’t make it a bad product, in fact it’s very simple to use. See the issue is that I have yet to run into a virus that would affect me. Having said that, it’s always good to be prepared, and that’s where ClamXav comes in.

Though its interface is far from sexy (nothing like having a giant frame with your disclaimer in it on the main panel) it does have a feature set that makes me happy. You can target specific folders for instant scanning, set up scheduled scans, and have a watch dog-style setup so that anytime a file is added to specified folders, they’re scanned instantly. Very handy.

OmniDiskSweeper

This is a very straight-forward program that has one goal: Tell you where all your Harddrive space has gone. I tend to run this every once in a while when I notice my hard drive space tanking out, and I cannot figure out where all of the space is being used.

Now OmniDiskSweeper isn’t a big program, nor is it all that impressive, graphically. It does, however do it’s job perfectly. It scans through your computer and lists off the main folders and the total size that they take up. From there you can drill down into the folders and find out what, specifically, is eating up all of your hard drive space.

OnyX

I love OnyX. It is pretty much your one stop shop for every day MacBook maintenance, tweaking, and general upkeep. Hell it even allows you to access functionality that would require you to operate a couple of programs.

It verifies your startup disk and file structure, it can run general system maintenance scripts, it can configure hidden parameters for things like Finder, Doc, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, the Login window, and more. It can delete caches, it can clean out logs and files. It also cuts Julianne fries (no it doesn’t).

Basically, if there’s something you want to adjust to your MacBook’s settings, run maintenance scripts (I didn’t even know the MacBook had maintenance scripts), and generally do some spring cleaning, OnyX is your best choice.

XSlimmer*

This is the only program I’ve paid for in this entire list – hence the “mostly” in the title. To that end, Xslimmer is so worth it’s money that not buying it is just silly.

Xslimmer basically saves your computer from having to store binaries of code that aren’t required. Universal installers are compiled to run on either the new chipset or the old one. This requires you to have twice the amount of code stored in your app in order for it to work across the board. This is a fantastic idea for developers, but for those of us who only install and use the product, it takes up twice as much room as it needs to.

This is where Xslimmer comes in.

Xslimmer is quite literally a program slimming utility. You can either select programs for it to attempt to slim, or run the Genie, and have it list all of the products that you have installed to see what can be slimmed. It has a built in blacklist you can update to help it know what programs don’t operate properly when slimmed. You are also given the option to install programs “pre-slimmed” meaning that you drop the app into XSlimmer, and it will slim it down before installing it to your system.

It has backup and restore functionality as well, so if you slim a program and everything borks, you can restore the previous version of the code without any terrible aftermath. XSlimmer also allows you to report any programs that should be blacklisted, allowing you to contribute to the community!

I am pretty sure I saved roughly 6 gigs of memory from running XSlimmer the first time, but I can’t remember. I do recall that it was some obtusely large number though, and that makes Corey happy… and talk in the third-person.

Utilities

Burn

I recently had to make a couple copies of CDs for the place I am working at over the summer. Now as far as I can tell, the MacBook only comes with the “Burn Folder” which is all well and good if you’re doing a data cd. But what If I have to make a copy of an instructional video for a class, and I can’t keep the original?

Burn comes to the rescue!

Burn is a painfully simple burning program that allows users to backup, burn, or make copies of CDs and DVDs. What I really liked is that when you back them up, it allows you to make a backup as a mountable hard drive. This means that you can actually emulate the CD/DVD from your desktop should the need arise.

Amazingly simple, yet surprisingly powerful. Now I don’t know how it would handle copy-written material, but that’s not something I generally use my Mac for anyways.

smcFanControl

smcFanControl is one of those programs that you kind of wonder why it had to be made in the first place. I mean really, I shouldn’t have to download a program in order to tell my computers fan(s) “ohgodtoohotburninglapcoolthisthingdownmoreitburns” but sadly, that does seem to be the case.

smcFanControl is a tiny app that sits in your menu bar, and allows you to change the current RPM of your fans on a whim. You can create your own settings for quick swapping (I have Default, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, MAX) and even has MacBook Pro support so that you can control your fans separately. It’s free, it’s tiny, and it’s saved my computer from melting while running intense Photoshop sessions. A total must-have.

Cyberduck

I used to use OneButton FTP, which I still think is a fantastic program. But when I moved servers, I had to change FTP clients because OneButton does not support SFTP or some other advanced connection options. So I went hunting around and eventually got my hands on Cyberduck.

Cyberduck does everything you expect it to do, and that’s pretty much it. It’s simple to use, easy to navigate, and can even detect local servers to connect to (a la Bonjour devices). It supports opening documents directly from FTP and saving back to, which is always nice. I’m not sure how common that is in FTP programs, but there it is.

It does everything the big, costly FTP apps do, but it’s free.

Oh, and there’s a widget that you can get with it to quick-upload things from your dashboard. So that’s handy.

FontExplorer X

Made by Linotype, FontExplorer X is a great way to quickly access, activate, deactivate, and test your fonts out. You can tell it where to install fonts (like the normal spot, or wherever you want them to go), you can organize them according to labels, and even have sets and smart sets.

Basically FontExplorer X has all of the features that Finder has for normal files, but for your fonts. Conveniently, FontExplorer X has the ability to buy fonts and download them direct from LinoType (much like iTunes).

All in all, it’s actually a very smooth process, and for those in the graphic design business, or for those new to it, FontExplorer X is a God-send.

UPDATE: Apparently this one is still downloadable, but no longer supported. I still recommend getting it while you can. You can always pay for the pro version, but once again: money.

DropBox

I really don’t know how much more I can really talk about DropBox. I have boasted it’s pure sex functional experience before.

I don’t think I need to get on my soapbox again, but let me say this: It’s a backup system that is simple to use, easy to install, and works. What more do I have to say that I haven’t said before?

Get it.

Senuti

I’ve only had to use this once, and that was only because I had to migrate all of my music that I had on my iPod. Now I know you can pull off the music from your iPod by making it act like a drive – blah blah blah – but when you do that, the file names are still encoded by the madness that the iPod runs off of. So what do you do if you need to get your music off of your iPod? iTunes won’t do it, so you have to go somewhere else.

Senuti is one of those solutions.

It’s fairly straight-forward, and does what it says it does. Plug in your iPod, select what you want to transfer, and you click the Transfer button. You’re asked where you want to save said files, and then it goes. Simple, to the point, no annoying setup times.

UPDATE: Apparently it’s not exactly free anymore, which is a damned shame. Still, if you only need to use it once (like I did) the trial will do you just fine.

Transmission

Not much to say about Transmission: it’s probably the easiest and best torrent program you can use for the Mac. Granted I don’t really download things often, especially on my Mac, but when I do have to Transmission makes it as simple as possible.

It’s got a clean interface (the most recent upgrade has improved it even more-so). If you’re in the habit of downloading legitimate, non-illegal files using torrents, Transmission is the way to go.

See what I did there?

VirtualBox

I heart VirtualBox. I don’t even need to run it all that often, but I still love it. As I use a Mac, it is generally thought that I cannot run any Windows applications because Microsoft and Mac don’t play well together. Well with the new Mac software, you can do a dual-boot into Windows. This is all well and good, but most people don’t want to have to reboot their computer in order to run Windows.

This has lead to programs such as Parallels, Coherence, and Fusion. The issue with all of these solutions is that they cost money. I’ll admit that they all work well and are probably worth every penny. I, however, prefer not spending money when possible. This of course has lead me to VirtualBox.

VirtualBox works by creating a sandbox environment for your new operating system. It’s sort of like picture in picture, with your Windows (or Ubuntu, or whatever) build running in a window. What really makes VirtualBox shine is that a) you can full-screen the environment making you “feel” like your in windows, b) you can make network drives to folders in your Mac (allowing you to share files between builds), and c) you can customize the beejeezus out of your box. How much RAM you want, what ports are enabled, localization, everything.

If you’re looking for a way to run your install of Windows on a Mac, and don’t have any more money because you spent it all on your install of Windows, then make sure to check out VirtualBox.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a collection of programs I use on my Mac, and I’ve only paid for one of them. I think that’s a pretty good track record if I do say so myself. I hope that my quest to not spend money for programs will assist you, the reader, in doing much the same.

If you have anything to add to my list, feel free to comment them in this post.

Her father grabs some dirt from the pile, while her mother sobs; screaming and rocking; her body wracking. The priest finishes his piece. Her mother drops to her knees. The priest is speaking his part, his tone never wavering. The casket is lowered down, to where it will rest. The pallbearers carry the casket towards the grave site. A collection of her friends and family stand around the hole in the ground, silent and still. The Priest is already there, waiting. The hearse pulls up, and the doors swing open. Cars start pulling up, first the family car, then friends and extended family.

The Pallbearers load the casket into the hearse.

The ceremony has ended, and the crowd parts for her family to pass through. The Priest reminds everyone to celebrate the passing, not mourn the loss; his words fall on deaf ears. Her friends step down from the microphone, voices fading. Her friends talk about the good times, and how fantastic a friend she was. They start to cry as they talk, unashamed and unaware of just how strong their tears flow. Her friends talk about when they first met, when they had their first fight, all their silly promises, and when they went to the cottage that one time. Two girls are asked to the microphone, to talk about her.

Her fathers heart breaks a little more.

Her father steps down, slowly, shaking; hands and face ashen and shattered, smeared with tears and mucus. He finishes speaking and his words echo in the room: “If I only had known that I’d only have one more day…”; the soft sounds of mourning breaking the silence, yet adding to it. He talks about how much he misses her already. He smiles as he talks about the time she got into a fight with a boy down the street. He talks about how his daughter wanted to change the world; all the dreams and aspirations she had. He stands silently for an eternity; a minute. He walks to the microphone, and grasps the podium with his hands. Her father stands, slowly, and stands for a moment.

The priest asks her father to say a few words.

The Priest ends off his prayer. He asks God and the angels to receive her, to protect her and to watch over her. He states that though we do not understand his plan, God does, and that is enough for his flock. The Priest prays, and the congregation half-heartedly follows along. The music ends. Her favorite song is played over the PA system while the crowd shuffles in. Her family tells the Priest that they’re ready for everyone. Her father, mother, sister, and little brother talk to her. Some of her close friends approach the casket and sniffle as they talk.

Her family and close friends enter the funeral home.

Calls are made and flowers chosen. Her mother and father struggle to pick a casket for their daughter. The funeral director opens the door, sits them down, and starts to explain some of the options that they have. Her parents stand outside of the funeral directors office, hand hovering above the handle; turning it makes it real. They make their way towards the main office, their faces muted, their bodies shrunken and gray. They walk through the hallway of the funeral home, looking around at the flower arrangements and the emotion-neutral paintings. Her parents enter the funeral home, breaking down on its steps; cars passing by as they crumble.

Her family pulls up in a silver car.

They don’t sleep all night; they haven’t slept much since the call. Her father stands in the doorway to her room, the door frame supporting him. Her mom is crying into her pillow, her screams and sobs muffled. Dust motes hover in the air, disturbed from their meal, their rest; vultures circling their dinner, circling their home. Her clothes lay on the ground, untouched since she got changed a few days ago. Her mom collapses on her bed, unable to form the words to articulate her grief. The door opens, and her mother stumbles in, knowing the pain will multiply, but unable to do anything else. A mosaic of photos on the wall shine from the streetlights outside.

Her cellphone lays on the pavement, bleating and shaking, waiting for it’s owner to pick it up, to answer.

The grass is painted a dark shade of red. Glass shards cover the ground, the pavement; turning this quiet street adding to the nightmare landscape that’s been formed. The smell of gas hangs in the air; the silence broken by the sirens in the distance. A man runs out of a near-by house, having witnessed the crash, phone in hand as he runs. He’s ejected from the car, his life ending as he soars for the first and last time. The cars connect, rending metal and grinding parts losing function, losing their identity. Tires scream in protest, but to little avail. She screams as their cars come together, unable to change direction in time. He flys through the stop sign; he doesn’t even see it. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s quickly losing control, his car swinging between invisible obstacles.

She rounds the corner, signal blinking innocently.

He drives down the road, swerving slightly; the smell of gin hanging in the car as a fog. He struggles to get the key in the door of his car, stab, stab, stab. He mumbles to himself as he sifts through the filth in his pocket for his weapon of choice, his hand eventually finding the cold metal he was seeking. As he closes the door, he considers locking the door but decides against it; if people want to steal his stuff, he can at least get some money from the insurance. He grabs his jacket from the floor, and jams his feet into his worn and tired shoes. He’s going to show them what they’ve done to him; it’s all their fault; they did this to him.

The bottle tips over, purged of its contents.

He drops the bottle on the table, scouring; he’s made his decision. He throws the phone at the wall, watching as another part of his life shatters. He hangs up; hand shaking. He continues to argue on the phone, his brain gagging on the fuel provided to it. He alternates between rage and sorrow as he barters with the voice he hears on the phone. He doesn’t bother saying anything, the voice on the other end knows to just start talking at him. He picks up the phone and wills his thumb to press the ‘talk’ button. The phone rings, a noise all to familiar by this point. Nothing good has come from it. As he lays on the couch, his life in tatters around him, day time television plays in the background displaying other people with other problems; a vain attempt to feel better about himself. He hasn’t moved in two hours, not since he brought the gin from the freezer.

She sets off down the road.

She kisses her dad on the cheek as he hands her the keys; she’s visiting her friend. She’s already calling for her parents as her foot hits the first step on the stairs. She gets changed, running around her room, her favorite song bopping along from her cellphone. She closes her cellphone, happily clicking shut. She asks if they can get together, and they decide on a coffee shop five minutes down the road. Her friend is back in town for school, and wanted to surprise her. Her friends Internet connection hasn’t been working for the last couple of months, and her cellphone fell in the toilet, which explains the radio silence that they had. At first she’s mad, as her friend hasn’t talked to her in a while, and there was no explanation. She answers to find a friend she hasn’t heard from in a couple of months on the other side. Her phone continues rings, happily singing it’s song and vibrating in joy.

She wakes up to the sound of her cellphone craving her attention; dreams rolling back from where they came.

When it was originally described to me first one eyebrow was raised, and then the other. Then my face had no where to go, and so my eyebrows fluctuated back and forth. I eventually got my hands on it, and was actually surprised.

Turns out it didn’t suck!

Synopsis

You’re a spoiled Princess (Elise) with romantic notions of having an adventurer boyfriend.

Yes, this is actually a key story element. In fact, it is the catalyst for the whole damned story.

Anyways, you decide to whine to your father until he throws a huge ball and invites all of the adventurers and blue blood to the ball. There she falls for an adventurer who she thinks is the bomb digity. A humorous scene unfolds where they talk and fall madly in love, only to end up being a day dream. The reality is that the adventurer wants nothing to do with your spoiled, prissy butt, and mentions that you have no idea what it’s like out in the real world.

He then takes off, and the Princess’s mind is blown completely. So completely that she decides that she’s going to cut her hair, put on some stylish outside clothing, and go off to become an adventurer herself. The King, thinking that his daughter will surely be killed, hires the lands greatest hero, Nero. Nero’s job is to create quests around the Princess to give her the illusion that she’s adventuring. Actors are hired, and the hilarity begins.

That is until an actual enemy starts to watch the Princess, worried that she could be a threat.

Mechanics

My World, My Way have three major sections:

• The first is the over-all world map, which is sectioned off into 4 quadrants. You can only visit one at a time.
• The second is a grid system of land-tiles for each town/area. There are a collection of areas within each quadrant. Each land tile has a set amount of enemy encounters, and have their own attributes (plains vs forest vs farm field etc.).
• The third are dungeons, which are located within certain areas. The dungeons are a 3rd person 3/4 view of the Princess, and you navigate the hallways fighting monsters that you come across.

The quests work in one of two ways. Either you are collecting things (which can be found either in dungeons or by searching the land-tiles), or you are killing things (in either dungeons or land-tiles). The result is that you get a gate key or crest (or both) and away you go to the next area. Very straight-forward, and after the first few times of doing it, very boring. There are side quests which usually involve you killing a million of a certain enemy to find an item to return. The rewards are usually worth it though.

Where the game actually starts to show some true originality (other than the solid script and light humor) is in the stats available to the player:

• Speed: How fast you are (what order you will fight in battle… most of the time), and how often your attacks will hit.
• Will: How strong your magical attacks are, and how strong your magical defense is.
• Strength: How strong your attack is.
• Constitution: How high your defense is.
• HP: Your health. If this hits zero, you’re dead. Actually, not dead, but you take a penalty; half of your Money, or half of your Experience earned that day. Refresh your health by sleeping or by using a potion / elixir.
• MP: Your magic. You use these to cast magic. Refresh your magic by sleeping at an in, or consuming a magic potion.
• PP: Your Pout Points. Now this is an interesting addition. Being a spoiled princess, you can pout to get what you want. This translates into the actual world. You can use your pout points to change the terrain, make enemies weaker, find more items, gain more experience, and more. The only way to refill your pout points is to sleep at an inn. Trust me when I say that they are by far the most useful thing you can have.

Now you gain stats naturally through leveling, but unlike most games, the stat increases from your levels are minimal at best. You get most of your upgrades by eating foods at the local Inn. You will end up spending a good amount of coin on food. You won’t get far without it.

Words from the Wise

It took me a good while to play through this game (44 hours)  and so I think I am qualified to give advice on how to get through this game faster than I did.

Upgrade your stats: I cannot enforce this one enough. Upgrading your stats will make your life easier all around. concentrate on strength and defense at the start, later on add to your wisdom and speed. Speed only needs to be around 100 by the end of the game, so it’s not nearly as important as the others. everything else should be at least 130 by the time you get to the final battle. To make your life easier, I’d even try to get your strength and Will to around 150. Failing that, use the Might spell.

Upgrade your Pout Points: You will use these more often than you think, and it’s in your best interests to make sure you get this number high. I had over 300 by the end fight, which is all I ended up needing.

Fight every battle: On the tile maps, fight in every square. If you can pout for more experience and money, do it. It speeds everything up and makes fighting more worth it. I was level 69 when I got to the final map, that was 10 under the recommended. On that map, you’ll feel it. I ended up grinding my character to level 86 just to have a chance in the final fight.

Make enemies harder in dungeons: You are more likely to fight singular enemies in dungeons, and they are naturally a little higher in level than those above ground. When you are trying to upgrade your mimic buddy stronger parts, this is the best way to do it. On top of that, you get more experience and money for your effort.

Do all the side quests: You’ll get better loot and spells from the side-quests than you ever will from simply fighting through the map (the final dungeon is an exception).

Pay attention to the end of battles: You’ll end up getting a partner that can mimic enemies. The menu shows up at the end of battles randomly, and if you are blindly mashing the A button (like I was) you end up taking body parts that you really didn’t want.

Overall

It’s not as girly as you’d think. Other than being about a spoiled princess and having armor available to wear called “Princess Boots” and the like, it’s not all that girl-driven. The box art is more girl-oriented than the rest of the game.

The music was solid, the artwork was fantastic (and reminded me a lot of Professor Layton), and the graphics were about as good as you would expect for a DS. Good pixel art, and fairly decent 3D work.

As for the fun factor,  My World, My Way is fun for the first three quarters. When you get into the final area the story gets much lighter, and it feels more like a grind-fest. Hell the final battle couldn’t be any more anti-climactic if it tried. Considering how difficult that final battle was, I was a little shocked that I actually had to walk out of the dungeon myself. I was expecting a cut scene or something. When you get the final gate key, you go home, have a 5 minute conversation, and then the credits roll.

My World, My Way has absolutely no re-play value. It’ll eat away your time when you play through it the first time, but that’s about it. The writing is solid, and the humor is light, but enjoyable. You’ll smile through most of the dialogue, and you’ll even enjoy the short but sweet ending.

If you’re forced to grind for 8 hours in the final area like I was, the game will lose much of its appeal, and you’ll be wishing a painful death on the developers of the game. That’s partially my fault though. I was trying to fly through the game, and I was hoisted by my own petard.

Worth playing through once, but I expect to see a lot of used copies of this game sitting in the shelf at your local Gamestop.

6/10

UP sits right under Wall-E on the awesome scale. It’s not as epically beautiful, nor is it quite as artistically stunning, but it’s pretty damned close.

UP is a story about multiple characters, some present, some painfully absent. Carl Frederickson has always wanted to be an adventurer. As a young, round-faced child, he watches his childhood hero (Charles F. Muntz) on the big screen in wide-eyed wonder.

On his way home, he comes across Ellie, a fellow adventurer in training. We are then treated to a 20 minute montage of love and life with Carl and Ellie with all of the joys and heartaches that come therein. The montage ends with one of the saddest scenes I have ever seen Pixar create. Carl sitting, alone, in a darkened funeral home. I had to choke back tears, and this was only 10 minutes into the film.

We are then presented with is now a typical morning of Carl, placed to classical music, exquisitely timed, and a horrible scene of what will probably end up being me when I’m old. After a shockingly adult altercation between Carl and a construction worker, Carl is forced to go to an old-age home. The day he was to leave, he opts to lift his house out of the ground and finish an adventure Ellie and He had planned to do for years.

That’s when he discovers Russel on his porch.

Gushing Time

I cannot explain just how amazing and subtle much of the dialogue actually is. Listening to Carl talk to Ellie under his breathe is both close to home to all of us (you all know you talk to people who aren’t there) and painful. Carl’s underlying guilt through much of the film is subtle, but there, and it really adds depth to what would otherwise be a straight-forward kids adventure movie.

Russel is another twist for Pixar. In Finding Nemo, we were presented with a single-parent scenario. Something that is usually avoided in kids movies. In UP, Russel has a father that works to much, and a step mom that he calls by first-name. This throws of Carl as well as much of the audience. He puts on a brave face and wears his love and hope on his sleeve when he talks about his dad, but even his pain cannot be properly masked. It was heartbreaking listening to him talk about his family, and I’m sure most of the kids that see this movie won’t really appreciate the depth to which the writers went to.

Russel also has some of the most damningly honest dialogue in the entire film. Listening to him complain about walking is something that every grown up remembers saying, and most parents have heard some sort of variation therein. He’s simple and Carl can’t stand him, but like most children they can’t help but grow on you.

Kevin the Bird and Dug the (talking) Dog are both used to the best of their ability. Neither are over-played, but are used with the flare and understanding that I’ve come to expect from Pixar. Dug provides some of the best lines I have ever heard from an animated film including (but not limited to):

I have just met you and I love you.

Squirrel!                  Hi there!

I was hiding under your porch because I love you.

The visuals in UP are fantastic, if not slightly stylized. That’s Pixars way though. All of their movies tend to have their own stylistic flare while retaining the properties that make the movie inherently Pixar-ish. Fun fact: The balloons were animated by program, because it was impossible to animate them by hand. The same goes for Kevins feathers, and Russel’s hair. It took them over a year to figure out the system for the Balloons alone. That is dedication, and I love Pixar all the more for going that far for a convincing story.

The only thing I could possibly complain about is that the actual storyline in and of itself is somewhat weak. Thankfully there is so much more going on around that initial storyline that it doesn’t even matter. So many other stories are unfolding around it that it more than makes up for any weakness found in the main line.

Partly Cloudy

I have to give a shout-out to the opening short: Partly Cloudy. A story about where babies come from, using the classic stork methodology. The storks fly to clouds that produce baby puppies, kittens, and people. They are then bundled up and flown out to awaiting homes.

But what about the babies that that no one really thinks of? Baby alligators, Sharks, and Porcupines? They have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the Gus the cloud. His partner, Peck the Stork, is entrusted in carrying all of these dangerous babies to their awaiting homes.

I cannot describe just how funny this short is. Theresa and I were alternating between laughing out loud -borderline obnoxiously laughing- and crying and convulsing from the levels of funny that we were getting from the film. I really wish you could watch it online, but it’s a little hard to find.

Overall

Up is magical. It’s stunning, It’s funny, and It’s got appeal for any and everyone, regardless of age. I plan to own it when it comes out, and I will make sure my children watch if both when they are young, and when they get older. There is so much to appreciate in this film that you simply must watch it at different stages of your life.

If you miss the opportunity to see this in theaters, you are doing yourself a grave injustice. I happened to see it in 3D, but I’ve been told that it is just as magical without things pretending to pop out of the screen. You simply have to see this film. There’s really nothing else to it.

It’s not as stunning as Wall-E,, which is the best animated film I have seen to date, but if Wall-E, was a 100 on the scale, then UP is a 98.

9/10

Anyways, back in March, I was given a fantastic opportunity to visit Japan via a friend of mine. Given that it was a trip to frikkin’ Japan, I couldn’t possibly have said no. Had I known how long the flight was actually going to feel, I might have reconsidered. Going there took somewhere around 18 hours and coming back took almost 24. There’s nothing quite like an 8 hour layover to make you consider killing yourself and/or those around you.

Thankfully the Detroit International Airport has a fantastic massage parlor. Best 30 dollars I have ever spent.

I will also apologize in advance for the load of this page. I’ve got a bunch of photos in this one, so if it takes a while to load… well you’ll have to wait i guess! I’m going to note the numbers of the photos from my flickr just so you can sort of follow along.

In case you are too lazy to visit my flickr set, you can jump to the end of the post, where I have a lovely flash dohickey that will rotate through all of my photos.

For those of you taking breaks between reads for this massive monster post, here’s a quick table of contents for you:

• Getting There (Day One)
• First Impressions: Tokyo (Day Two)
• Day Three (Technically)
• Day Four
• Day Five
• Day Six
• Day Seven
• Day Eight
• In the End
• Photos!

Getting There (Day One)

I didn’t really sleep the night before (I think I slept around 2 hours, and that was a toss-and-turn affair) and by 6 a.m. we were at the Toronto Pearson airport, and by 9 a.m. we were on our way to Detroit, where we were given a lovely 2 hour stop over. To Detroit’s credit, the airport is pretty nice. The area we were in was basically a very, very long tunnel with shops and terminals [ photos 1,2 ]. We ended up sitting around until our next flight, which would bring us straight to Tokyo.

13 hours on a plane is, quite simply, too damned long to be on a plane. I took a couple of interesting photos of Siberia and the ends of the world, which you can find on my flickr album [ photos 3-6 ]. I honestly ran out of things to do while on that flight. I studied a bit of my Japanese (a side project that I’ve been neglecting recently), I played through half of Apollo Justice, and watched a movie or thirty. I had painful cabin fever, and ended up spending a lot of my time just walking around the plane.

To those of you out there that can sleep sitting up, on a plane, or even when uncomfortable: I hate you. I cannot sleep in any of those situations, and so I was up for roughly 40 hours (with a 2 hour pseudo nap) when we finally landed [ photo 7 ].

Another weird thing to get used to: You pretty much lose a day when you fly to Japan. You gain a day when flying back. It sounds simple, but trust me when I say that You will be confused when you get there. Everyone at home is 14 hours behind you. Keep that in mind when you think it’s a good idea to call at 4 in the afternoon Japan Time.

Also, I became sick the day we were leaving (of course) and so as we toured Japan, I ended up wearing a face mask for a better part of the trip.

First Impressions: Tokyo (Day Two)

So when we landed we met Yoshi, our guide for the next week, and were escorted to a bus [ photos 8,9 ]. We drove from the airport directly to our hotel which was located in the Shinjuku Business-ish district. I wish to God I had taken photos of the hotel we stayed at because, frankly, it was fucking awesome. Brand new, and each room was basically a small apartment. Kitchen suite, sliding HD T.V. love seat, and a sweet shower.

I was so enamored with the place that I almost didn’t open my luggage to change. Then I tried and found out that I had lost the key to my luggage. I figured I’d left them in Canada, which was epically  stupid of me. Long story short: after being awake for 40+ hours, there I am 8 p.m. Japan time swinging the largest crowbar I’ve ever held trying to hit a lock that is roughly 1/2 an inch wide. In the end I had to buy new luggage, which set me back roughly 160 Canadian.

Turns out the keys were in my wallet the whole time. I had to laugh when I found them. Then I cried.

Anyways we were taken out for some sort of deep-fried wonder dinner, and then let go to pass out for the night.

Oh and every workplace that requires a uniform basically requires that said uniform be made from polyester. This is so the uniforms can be utterly seamless, unnaturally bright, and shaped in some sort of space-aged Doctor Who style fashion. Spotless and perfect. Freaked me right out.

Day Three (Technically)

When I awoke (at 5:30 Japan Time) Sir and I opted to go walk about once the sun was up and see what was around.We were greeted with sketchy bar streets [ photo 10 ], a sort of micro-shrine [ photos 11-13 ], a Seven Eleven (which are frigging huge in Japan, apparently), and some of the business district which featured some very unique building designs [ photos 14,15 ]. I’d like to point out now that unique building designs is the norm in Japan. We suck architecturally compared to Japan.

After exploring the near surroundings, we were politely shoved onto the tour bus, and off we went to explore Tokyo.

I’m going to make an aside right now, and note that our bus drivers were artists with their bus. They weren’t driving those buses, they were one with them. They could feel the road. When the bus turned, it was by their divine will. The road was their bitch, and their bus their mighty stead. They did things with buses that we didn’t know you could do with buses. They were making turns in busses at speeds that I wouldn’t have done with my Yaris.

Meiji Shrine

Our first stop was to the unrealistically picturesque Meiji Shrine. Words really fail to truly describe just how pretty this place was. There was no garbage, everything was green, the sun was shining, and it was quiet [ photos 16-23, 26-29, 31, 33, 34 ]. Despite being sick and sleep-deprived [ photo 30 ].

While we were there, we got to witness a traditional Wedding Procession [ photos 24,25 ], and I even found where some of the wedding photos had been taken. Nothing is quite as classy as a rug and old Victorian High back chair placed outside [ photo 32 ].

East Imperial Gardens

Our next stop of the day was the very, very large Eastern Imperial Gardens. Only the eastern ones are open to the public year ’round. The rest of the Gardens are private excluding on the Emperors birthday. What the Emperor needs with that much garden, I have no idea. It was easily the size of a small town.

There was a lot of walking involved in the Eastern Gardens, but well worth the steps. Though much of the area was very open, and not as green as Meiji Shrine, it was pretty none the less [ photos 35-55 ]. The trees were all in bloom, and it was a pleasingly warm day (14 degrees? in March? I’ll take it.) In the background of photo 52, you can see the foundations for what used to be a giant watch tower. It was, apparently, frigging tall. I’m sad it’s gone, but the foundations remain, and are still very impressive.

Ueno

We were running ahead of schedule thanks to Yoshi’s amazing ability to keep us moving without being pushy, and so we took a small detour to the Ueno shopping district. Here the girls (and one boy) went nuts shopping while I went on a hunt for new luggage. I had savaged my old one getting it open (Hulk Riiiiiip).

If you’re wondering what shopping in Tokyo is like, observe the photo above [ photo 56 ]. Now remember that you’re in Tokyo, and every shopping district frigging looks like this. Packed with people, stored stuffed into any available crevice (I was actually told about a hat store that was literally a set of stairs going down. When you got to the bottom of the stairs, that was the end of the store.) The main streets offered you the big names – Lacoste, H&M, Guess, Mark Jacobs, etc. – and all of the side streets, alleys, and holes in the wall featured wares to fill in where big stores missed out.

Also, there are a lot of hat stores. The Japanese friggin’ love their headgear. Cowboy hats and flat caps were the big sellers. I was very tempted to buy some hats myself, but my funding was limited, and the hats were a bit on the costly side. I died a little inside every time I left a hat store empty-handed.

Senso-Ji

Senso-Ji is apparently the oldest temple in Tokyo [ photos 57, 58, 62-65, 72 ]. It’s also easily the busiest one we visited during our entire trip. There were people everywhere. You could barely walk through the bazaar area due to the mass of people [ photos 61,66-69, 71]. The bazaar is so busy and so popular that shops have spilled out into the streets beyond, resulting in a massive outdoor mall. I later found out that this style of shopping district is actually very common (and damned convenient). It’s literally a mall, but outside. There are roofs protecting the major routes from weather, and roads that run across them at set intervals. These intervals make for great signage possibilities [ photo 70 ].

It was all so pretty. Reds and whites all over the place, (fake) cherry blossom branches hanging everywhere, some very stunning architecture, and everyone was just so happy to be out and about. The only drawback to coming here was one of the main gates was under massive reconstruction/restoration and we couldn’t see what we were told was a fantastic sight.

Also, I missed out on a monkey that was wondering around. To make up for it, a very old man sought me out in the crowd just to touch me. He was so damnably happy just to have met me, and he was nothing but smiles. I couldn’t even be afraid of him, he was just that happy to have seen me. I assume he went home that night and pulled out his big list of things to do in life, and crossed one off:

• stand on head for 3 days
• meet a real read-headed person (no dye jobs)
• sit on the toilet for a whole day

I was also taught how one gets a fortune at this temple. It involves a large wooden shaker of sorts, and you tumble it around for a while before tilting it on its side. A stick with a fortune number written on it slides out. You say (or in our case present) the number, and it is given to you… for a fee. I can only assume that divining the future requires you to pay off the demons that plague the layers between realities. That or it’s a cash grab. At least in my case it was a fantastic Engerishy fortune [ photo 60 ].

Tokyo Tower

After Senso-Ji, we were back on the bus, and off to our final destination of the day: Tokyo Tower.  This is one of those places that every kid who has ever watched anime ever simply has to visit. It’s a thing that you just have to do. To say that you went to Tokyo and didn’t go up the tower will get you stoned in some circles.

It wasn’t as tall as I was expecting, but it totally blew my expectations for how orange it was going to be. I knew it was orange, but it sets the bar for al things orange. If oranges hadn’t been called orange when they were first seen, they would have been called Towers or something [ photos 73, 81, 82 ].

Also, I have to take a knee with you here and say this: the Tokyo Tower mascots look like either dog penises, or condoms. I know they’re supposed to be towers, but I just don’t see it. They look like something related to having sex. Either the tool or the peripheral, but they look 18+.

Just saying.

Anyways we waited in que for about 20 minutes while the exceptionally uniformed ladies let exact amounts of people onto the multiple elevators to go up to the first observation deck. We didn’t get tickets to the second deck, because they were something like 1200 yen more per ticket. That adds up when you have roughly 30 people in your group.

So we got up to the observation tower, and the view blew my mind. It’s not something I had ever seen before, given that I’ve never been up the CN Tower (for shame, I know), and my fear of heights makes me wary of such ventures. All that aside, I have never in my life seen a horizon that was buildings [ photos 74-78 ]. In every direction, all you could see were buildings with the occasional green space sprinkled in. There was a shrine near by that was massive in size. We didn’t get to visit it but when I go back there, I’ll be sure to make a stop there.

Another thing I noticed was that all the buildings were unique. Unlike Canada, where a developer may get the chance to develop an entire area, in Japan each building looks like it was its own project. Like they found a different person to conceive each building individually. Hell, when we went to the Umeda Sky Building (later in this post) I actually saw a building with a highway running through the 8th floor.

That just isn’t shit you see here.

On our way down from the tower, we were delighted to find more Engerish [ photo 79 ], and the scariest I don’t know what the hell mascot ever [ photo 80 ]. I don’t know what it’s for, but man, does she mean business. I wouldn’t mess with her. She’s seen things. Terrible, terrible things.

We were then shooed off to a traditional Tempura Dinner, which I actually took a photo of [ photo 83 ]. It’s the only photo of any food I actually ate, which is a shame given some of the cool stuff I actually got to eat.

I have to say that all in all, I’m not really a Tempura fan. I like fish, but that was a lot of goddamned fish. They had fish in formats I couldn’t even understand. Fish Jello? This is a good idea to someone?

Oh, and we got an egg dish that looked suspiciously like an oil painting. I was not a fan of that, either.

Day Four

Day Four marked our first day outing. We got on the bus, bright and early, and head off to Hakone [photos 84,85, 87 ] . En route to Hakone, we got to see Mt. Fuji off in the distance, which was a treat [ photo 86 ]. Apparently it’s normally obscured by cloud cover, so we lucked out on seeing it on such a bright, clear day.

Hakone

Hakone is lodged somewhere in the hilly landscape that makes up a lot of Japans countryside. It is very much what I would identify as a tourist location, except that it was in no way touristy. The only way you can tell is by the fact that there was no one walking around. Seriously, the only people I saw were either waiting for the boat, selling tickets for the boat, or driving the two cars that went through town.

Having said that, Hakone, much like everywhere else we visited (excluding the downtowns of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka) it was amazingly peaceful. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and there was an arctic wind coming off of the lake. How it was so cold, I have no idea. I’m sure there are things going on with that lake that defy science. I assume the spirits have something to do with it.

I’ll take a moment here to explain that vending machines in Japan are huge, and generally have weird advertisements in them. [ photo 90 ]

Lake Ashi

We approached the dock [ photos 88,89 ], and awaited the arrival of what I thought was going to be a typical lake-based people mover. You know, something you’d see in Toronto or Vancouver. Japan doesn’t fuck around like that. Instead we got a Goddamned Pirate Ship [ photo 91].

That’s right, a pirate ship. Complete with paper mache-inspired fake crew statues [ photo 95 ]. Fun fact: the guy that took my photo with the Cap’n there, was so excited to take my photo that he let out this animalistic scream of pure joy. It took everything in me not to burst out laughing.

As we went along the lake, I couldn’t help but notice just how pretty it all was [ photos 92-94, 96-98 ]. With Fuji in the distance, the picture opportunities just made themselves. If I’d had a more elaborate camera, I would have gone stupid taking photos here.

It took us roughly 40 minutes to get across the lake (Pirates take their sweet-assed time in Japan) and along the way we came across two other ferries. One was a fellow bandit-mover, and the other looked like a prerequisite for riding was a love of champagne and savvy tuxes. Just to make Japan a little more awesome, along the ride, I saw a couple shrines that could only be accessed via boat [ photo 96 ]. Now that’s a shrine that means business.

Mount Komogateke

Mt. Komogatake is one of those mountains that doesn’t look anything like a mountain. When I think of mountains, I think of rock and cliffs and snow caps and climbing equipment. What I wasn’t expecting was greenery running all the way to the top (which is twice as high as the CN Tower). It just looked like a giant hill. Sort of like a grade 6 boy that got his growth spurt way too early. Large, but still kid-looking.

At the base of the mountain-hill was a collection of stores, that I can only assume were for the tourists (a la our group). There was also a golf course, which kind of impressed me, given the local terrain.

We were escorted past all of the shops – salivating for our Yenn like a pack of rabid dogs – to what I can only describe as a cable car station that never had a chance out of the 70’s. It screamed 1973 from every crack in it’s art-deco cement surface. It was all weird curves and… hell it just looked like the 1970s. The one at the top of the mountain looked near identical [ photo 107 ].

We got in the cable car (all 26 of us, as well as natives) and started the 12 minute accent to the top of the mountain. It was a tight group, literally. You couldn’t move in any direction without getting a backpack in the face or a forehead in your eye. I managed to take a couple photos on the way up, though they really don’t give the view any credit [ photos 99,100 ].

Here’s an interesting fact: The tops of mountains are windy. Very, very windy. And cold. Windy and Cold. We were not prepared for this in any way. No one told us these (in retrospect blatantly obvious) facts beforehand. As a result, my ears went totally numb in the 15 minutes I actually spent outside. In that time though, I got some absolutely stunning photos [ photos 101,102, 104 ]. We got the obligatory group shot [ photo 105 ], and then opted to run to the very top of the mountain and visit the tiny shrine [  photo 106]. We came all the way up here, why the hell wouldn’t we run up the muddy, dangerous flag stone steps to see the tiny shrine?

I wish I could remember the story behind the mountain shrine, but all I can recall was a something to do with a dragon that tore up the country side, felt bad, and then settled in the mountains. I’m sure my memory is wrong, but that’s all I can get my memory to pull up.

When we got back into the 70’s building we huddled around a little fire, warming our frozen brains, waiting for the cable car to arrive. When we got back down, we were given some free time to shop, eat, and enjoy the most amazing children’s ride ever [ photo 108 ]. I, as well as some of the students, ended up at a noodle house where I was presented with a very intriguing menu item [ photo 109 ]

In case you’re wondering, I did not end up selecting that specific meal. I opted for something a little less questionable.

Harajuku

After spending far too much money in the biggest gift shop I’ve ever attended, we were moved onto our bus (that somehow navigated the mountain-side and got to the shops before the pirate-ferry had even landed). We coasted along the countryside back towards the population monolith that is Tokyo.

On our way I saw an honest to God Hermit shack. How awesome is that?! I couldn’t even figure out how he got the metal up there to make the shack. Way to go creepy hermit dude. I also found my first bit of graffiti [ photo 110 ], and a dog in a stroller [ photo 111 ]. These were, until the photos were taken, only existing within a realm of theory. I later found out that dog strollers are very common, and graffiti is usually done for effect, and not hooliganism.

Anyways we were delivered almost in the middle of the Harajuku Shopping District. For those of you unaware of what Harajuku is, picture the swankiest shopping street you can. Now imagine that it’s full of alleys that also have swanky awesome stores. Now make it turn in on itself so that it becomes a pretzel of fashion.

That’s almost what Harajuku is, but more majestic [ photos 112,113, 115-117 ].

The girls (and one boy) were utterly beside themselves with joy. To hell with the electric towers (which were awesome, don’t get me wrong) here you could walk around and ogle things in windows with prices that will make your eyes bleed. It was all so pretty, and so very, very expensive.

Expensive, that is, unless you wander down the alleys. This is where the prices go down, the people count goes up, and you get to see some impressively odd stores [ photo 119 ] and and fantastic signage [ photo 118 ]. I counted no less that 5 hat stores in one alley alone, confirming my suspicion that the Japanese have a very (un?)healthy fascination with headgear.

Wandering around Harajuku, I was also introduced to the very publicly advertised Condom Cave. It’s not really a cave so much as a nook. A very,very busy nook. Standing room only sort of busy.

Oh, I also got a can of hot chocolate from a vending machine while walking around. It was warm. And it was good.

The kids piled back onto the bus, laden with bags of over-priced clothing, snacks, and general oddities (we had a kid walking around with a wooden katana and a kamikaze bandanna. We were sent off to dinner, and then more very welcome sleep. I can’t recall what we had for dinner that night, but I think it was pretty tasty.

If anyone wants to know what Tokyo looks like at night here you go [ photos 120, 121 ]:

This photo was taken around 11 P.M. in downtown Tokyo. Notice how bright it is. Tokyo has done away with things like darkness in its streets. Everything was so brightly lit, it was like being at a baseball game at night. With your shadow cast in every direction, you had nothing to fear.

We also took the subway in Tokyo to get around that night. On our way back I snapped a photo for the reserved seating [ photo 122 ]. Fairly normal looking, basically “give up your seat for any of the following: Pregnant Mother, Recent Mother with Child, the Elderly, and the Injured.” All pretty normal right? So why is it that the new mother has a much more pronounced ass? I don’t think the Japanese really thought that pictogram through.

Now remember that I was taking the subway at 11 P.M. on what I think was a Tuesday, though it could have been Wednesday. The amount of people coming out of, and going into, those trains blew my frigging mind. I’ve been on the subway in Toronto, and in London, and nothing prepared me for the mass of buisness suit-clad humanity flowing from those trains. Truly mind-bending.

Day Five

When we awoke, were were shipped onto the bus nice and early so that we could go to the train station.We were being shipped off to Kyoto for the next leg of our trip. We were introduced to the Shinkansen Bullet Train, which went at a speed of around 350… K/H or … M/H… I can’t reacall which, but it was damned fast. I also made sure to get myself a Bento box for the ride.

I was expecting pork, but got fish. The pictures were small and not very detailed. It was still fairly delicious.

Now here’s a story to demonstrate just how awesome Japan is. My friend forgot his camera on the train. we didn’t know this until after it had pulled out of the station at Kyoto. Depressed and despondent, my friend went and told the security staff what had happened. They got him to write down where he was sitting and told him that they would check at the next station.

When the train arrived at the next station (Hiroshima, I believe) the cleaning staff had a look, but could find nothing. My friend was depressed, and assumed that someone had walked off with his camera.

The train staff assured him that when the train was taken in for night cleaning, they would scour the train for his camera, in case it had been moved, or a place overlooked.

The next morning we got a call from the security office in Kyoto. They had found his camera (despite being left where it was for at least 14 hours + downtime) and it was en route, via bullet train, back to kyoto, where it would then be delivered to our hotel.

He got his camera back, completely intact, wrapped in an envelope, wrapped in bubble wrap, and wrapped in another envelope.

That just wouldn’t happen in North America (and wouldn’t, as it would later turn out).

Anyways, when we got to Kyoto station, we were escorted onto another bus that was going to take us around the surrounding area. Our first stop of the day was Nara. Along the way, Yoshi, our tiny yet fantastic guide passed around some candy for us to enjoy [ photos 123, 124 ]. Along the way there, I found a place where taxis are born [ photo 125 ]. There were so many taxis!

Oh, on the way I saw the Nintendo building. I have to say that I was a little let down. I was expecting something more than a white cube.

Nara

Nara is a town about 30-45 minutes outside of Kyoto. It’s a pretty place, and I wish I could have seen more of it while we were there. Most of our time was spend at Todai-Ji – Eastern Great Temple – which is a large temple complex with impressive grounds. It’s a tranquil location that happens to house the worlds largest wooden structure, called the Great Buddha Temple – Daibutsuden – and houses the worlds largest statue of the Buddha Vairocana.

Todai-Ji

Oh, did I mention that deer are sacred in Nara’s Deer Park (where Todai-Ji is located), and the entire grounds of Todai-Ji were overrun with deer (which happen to be protected there)? We were warned not to wave around any paper, because the deer will see it, and the deer will eat it [ photos 126, 128, 133 ].

I have to say that of all the places I visited on this trip, Nara was easily the most relaxing to me. The grounds were clean and quiet, and everything was just so peaceful. I could have spent hours wandering around the Todai-Ji grounds and not even notice the time passing. The grounds were, quite simply, stunning [ 127, 129-132 ].

The inner shrine, housing the Great Buddha Shrine, was a sight all its own. with it’s giant paving stones, it’s golden grass, and it’s fantastic architecture, it was truly something to see. [ 134-138 ]. We took yet another obligatory group shot (I actually don’t have one) and I took another photo of the elusive Yoshi [ photo 139 ]. For a little lady, she did her job amazingly well. To hell with crowds of people and busy schedules. She ruled with a dainty iron fist.

Sadly, most of my photos taken within the shrine itself didn’t turn out. For reasons I can’t understand, 90% of them were blurry. I assume Buddha is camera shy. I did manage to get a couple photos out though [ photo 140-142 ]. Somewhere out there is a photo of my going through a hole in one of the pillars of the temple. From what I was told, if you could fit through the hole, you were eligible to achieve nirvana.

I just fit through. a little wider, and I would have become very, very stuck.

Kasuga Taisha

Also located in Deer Park, the Kasuga Shrine – Kasuga Taisha – is a Shinto shrine created by the Fujiwara family. It’s been rebuilt many times over its life, and apparently has something to do with a renewal cycle. Along the pathways [ photos 143-150 ] were hundreds of stone lanterns that were kept alive via donations from people, familes, and organizations (note that some of the lanterns have papers in them).

When we went into the Shrine, I was amazed at how orange everything was. Much like the Tokyo Tower, this shrine took the colour orange and made it it’s bitch [ photos 151-154 ]. Though it was around this time that I found out about what the colour orange signifies: happiness. Apparently my hair is, in essence, happy. I have happy hair! Alliteration!

In any case the Shrine grounds were very pretty, and filled with stuff that has been standing forever, and just oozed history from their very being [ photos 155-157 ]. This day was easily the most relaxing and reflective day of the trip.

Kyoto at Night

Because if Yoshi’s inhuman ability to get us anywhere ahead of schedule, we had lots of time after dinner in which to explore. We arrived at the hotel (which was not nearly as nice as the first one, but you can’t win them all) we opted to do some wandering around and sauntered over to the Kyoto Train Station.

Bonus: [ photos 158-160 ] these are photos of the 70’s era lounge located in our hotel. Yes, those are porcelain dogs. Yes that’s white leather, and yes, it reminded us all of Scarface.

Now this might sound like a boring option, but if you ever saw the Kyoto Train Station, your jaw would drop. It’s 11 stories tall, including a finished underground area, and it’s full of stores, restaurants (oh my god the restaurants) and was an epic structure in and of itself. It had at least two health clubs in it, and I believe it has two high-end hotels attached to it.

While exploring the outside I came across something amazing:

Astro Boy! [photo 161 ] This is when I found out that Astro Boy (along with everything else done by the same studio) were created in Kyoto! Also, as we went to explore the Train station, I was greeted with some fabulous Engerish [ photos 162-164 ]. Most of the building was closed, sadly, but the restaurants were all open.

All 5 floors of them.

Did I mention that you can go onto the roof of the Kyoto Train station, and walk down to each of the restaurants via their patios? well you can [ photo 165 ]. As it works out, you can actually walk all the way down to the ground level by stairs and escalators. It was awesome. I wish something like this existed in Canada.

On our way back, we opted to stop in at the local 7-11 (seriously, they are everywhere) and see what alcohols they have. I found a rather sketchy rum [ photo 166 ] (at least I think it was rum, could have been anything) but we settled on a rum that came in a medicine bottle. It was called “Dave’s Rum” and from the taste of it, I can only assume that Dave is either an alcoholic, or has no taste buds. As we went back to the hotel, a suped-up van passed us. [ photo 167 ] Now the photo doesn’t give it credit, but I can assure you that it had a totally pink interior.

Day Six

We awoke from our tiny beds, showered in our tiny shower (my head skimmed the top of the shower if I stood up straight, Sir was far less lucky) and were shipped onto the bus to go on a whirlwind adventure through Kyoto. As we only really had one day to see most of the sweet sights, we had to get our A Game on. On our way to our first destination, we crossed a train track (which many of our kids nearly perished on. Don’t play chicken with trains people!) and I snapped a sweet photo [ photo 168 ].

I don’t think I could manage to get a photo like that here if i tried.

Fushimi Inari-taisha

Our first stop was to Fushimi Inari-taisha, a shrine to the Gods of business and if I’m not mistaken, also the Gods of Sake and rice. The first set of temples are to the latter Gods, and the temples further in are to the former. As you go in, there are pathways that lead to smaller shrines and temples, and the pathways are covered in Toriis – Gates – that are all donated by businesses.

Now this shrine held foxes as sacred, but unlike the Deer of Nara who populated the area with no sense of self-preservation, we did not see a single fox.

We wandered around the lower shrine for a while [ photos 169-180 ], before moving off to the inner shrines. A couple of us broke off from the pack to go exploring down a side pathway, and we were rewarded with a bamboo forest, and some private shrines [ photos  188-193 ].

The Inner temple was an interesting sight, lined with fortune stalls and charm stations, it really payed credit to Inari, the God of business and success. We got a couple interesting photos including some posing [ photo 187 ], some more Engerish [ photos 183, 184 ], and some just outright absurd [ photos 185, 186 ].

We traveled through the Torii-riddled pathways [ photos 181, 182, 194, 195 ] back down to the bus, and moved on to our next destination, but only after visiting the shops that lined the bottom of the shrine, and my picking up some of the best sushi I have ever tasted. I don’t have a photo of the place, but she had a wooden cash register, which I do have a photo of [ photo 213 - dont know why it's out of order ]. It blew my mind; it was almost totally made of wood. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t even know if it worked, or if she just pretended.

Either way that sushi was damned tasty.

Sanjisangen-do

Our next stop was Sanjisangen-do, which translates, quite literally to Hall With Thirty Three Spaces Between Columns, but is normally referred to as Rengeo-in, which translates to Hall of the Lotus King. Photos were not allowed to be taken within the hall itself, which is a damned shame, because it was stunning. There are roughly 1000 statues of the Kannon. My Buddhism is sketchy, so I can’t recall exactly what she was but from what I understand she had something to do about the embodiment of compassion.

If any accomplished Buddhists would like to correct me, I’d be happy to make the edit.

Anyways, upon entering, we were greeted with some pseudo-engrish [ photo 196 ], and told that we were not allowed to wear shoes within the hall. It was colder in the hall than it really should have been, and man, all those statues were so well done. They were amazingly preserved considering how old they are. The newest ones are from the 13th century, which makes them almost 800 years old, and given how good they looked, I couldn’t help but be impressed.

When we got out of the hall, I put my shoes back on and started exploring the rest of the grounds. I swear it was amazing. [ photos 197-212 ]. They had fantastic trees in full bloom, and if I’m not mistaken, some of those photos have cherry blossoms in them. We wandered around the grounds for a while before we were escorted again to visit our next location

Kinkaku-ji

Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Pavilion Temple, is quite simply the most picture-esque location you can visit in Kyoto. I don’t know if you can take a bad photo in this place if you tried [ photos 214-219 ].

As you can see, the photo above was taken with a normal point and shoot, and it looks awesome (in my own, humble opinion) there were people there with lenses as long as my arm, and I’m sure viewing those photos would melt your brain. The grounds were so amazingly green, and wandering through them really does help instill you with peace, despite the fact that there are at least 800 people walking around doing the same thing.

Now from what I understand about the temple, it used to be a Shoguns residence, but was later turned into a temple by one of his sons. It’s been burnt down and rebuilt a couple times due to wars. The top two stories are covered utterly in pure gold leaf.

That’s right, this house was painted in gold. How many people could say that in this day and age?

As you wander around, there are donation shrines that you are supposed to try and throw money into, like a mystical version of a carny game. The only prize is a private blessing by the higher powers. sadly my only attempt bounded off of the side of the bowl, so no lucky blessing for me. I was still rather impressed that I managed to aim that well.

Trust me when I say that I have terrible, terrible aim.

On the way out I managed to snap a photo of a sign telling us that we may not return [ photo 220 ]. I’m sure that’s not what they meant, but it was still rather funny.

Once we were done being wowed by the serene ostentatious-ness of Shoguns past, we piled back into the bus for our next stop, which was something I was looking forward to way more than any straight guy really should.

Kyoto Textile Centre

We arrived at a very normal-looking building, and escorted inside. At first glance, it seemed like a typical office building. Typical, that is, until we rounded the corner and were presented with a fashion catwalk.

Heading up the stairs, we were then presented with as many silk items as you can imagine, and then tripled. Silk shirts, silk ties, silk kimonos, silk fans, silk silk, silk frikkin’ everything. In retrospect I wish I had dropped the extra coin to get myself a tie or two, because the detailing in them was amazing.

What was even more amazing is that they had looms there. They were making the fabric and clothing right in front of us. Tiny, aged Asian women hunched over a table and cloth, wielding their tools, creating art from the fabric. I honestly could have sat there watching them forever, but there was some shopping to be done, and a fashion show to witness.

I picked up a silk kimono for Theresa, a deep purple one featuring Cranes in flight, and winced as I handed over most of my remaining money. At the very least she now has a fabulous kimono. Now all she needs is an excuse to wear it.

Anyways, with a dimming of the lights, and a sudden increase of thumping music, the fashion show was underway. I had to fight my way through a good portion of the crowds just to get the spot that I had, and I was still a good distance away from the catwalk. I wish I could have been closer, but I can assure you that it was impressive [ photos 221-230 ]. One girls kimono stood out from the rest. Easily the most exquisite the last one that came out [ photo 229 ], it was amazing. My camera couldn’t give it the credit it’s due thanks to the crazy lighting they were using.

A couple of our kids opted to ditch the show and try and find a certain martial arts supply store. They got a little lost, and so did we looking for them. Regardless of the delay, we were still way ahead of schedule. You know what that means?

More shopping.

Shopping in Kyoto

Shopping in downtown Kyoto reminded me a lot of shopping on Queen street in Toronto. Except if Queen street ran through the heart of Chinatown, and then china town was frigging huge. I explored more fantastic side streets, and walked through a department store that blew my mind.

Let me tell you something about department stores in Japan. Here we have things like The Bay, and Sears, and they are wide stores that usually have an underground and maybe a second floor. In Japan? They have an underground floor, maybe two, and then at minimum 6 floors going up. Now they may not be quite as wide, but the total shopping area for Japanese department stores dwarfs anything we have here.

Don’t even get me started on the “electric towers” they have there. It’s like Future Shop (or Best Buy, for our American counterparts) but awesome.

Now something to be said about Kyoto is that their questionable areas and their classy areas are crammed very, very close together. [ photos 231-236 ] You will notice that some of the photos feature such colourful things as the “Fetish House” and “Club Laid” but just down the street was the swanky shopping area. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

That night we had some sort of omni-omelet (Okonomiyaki) which didn’t sit all that well with me. Too many weird flavours going on for me to really enjoy. There was also a good-humoured prank that when totally arwy when the prank tool in question was thought to water. Turns out it was an oil of sorts. That didn’t go down all too well.

Kyoto at Night

Unlike Tokyo, which banishes the darkness, Kyoto seems to use it to make everything as artistic as possible. Shadows weren’t scary, but merely added to the ambiance. A group of the children, myself, and some of the other chaperons went on a night time excursion back to the shopping district, to explore some of the many, many areas that we hadn’t got to before. While the chaperons went to a bar for a drink, I went exploring with the kids.

We found a lot of very interesting things. Amongst them:

• [ photo 237 ] – This phone was found outside of a store. It’s a public-use phone, and it’s sitting on a lop-sided desk.
• [ photo 238 ] – A Koi fish the size of my thigh. We found this monster in a shrine that was located in the middle of the shopping district.
• [ photo 239 ] – A coffee shop exhibiting some fantastic Engerish.
• [ photos 240,241 ] – A collection of girls walking around in Disney-themed pajama one-pieces.
• [ photo 242 ] – A tiny dog party. All the dogs were of the same breed, and there were many more that were off camera.
• [ photo 243 ] – a giant, automated crab for a crab food joint. I later found out that this is a chain, and that all of the chains have these massive crab monsters. That made me sad.
• [ photo 244 ]  – A Company called Omnigod. apparently God didn’t just go corporate, he’s gone to the omega.

On our way back – via the Kyoto subway system – I snapped a photo of the prettiest kimono-wearing girl that I saw in my time in Kyoto. Now I’m not a pervert or a creeper, I’m just saying that that girl looked very, very pretty in her Kimono (which was also fantastic).

That’s something about Kyoto I didn’t mention before: girls and ladies in Kyoto will randomly wear their Kimono. There isn’t always ceremony behind the choice, they simply want to look pretty. I have to say that they honestly do look very pretty. Our Sunday finery just doesn’t come close to their day to day Kimonos.

Oh, interesting fact: if a woman’s kimono has long, hanging sleeves, they are not married. If they are cropped to the arm, they are married, or at the very least spoken for.

Day Seven

Osaka

We had to be up early the next day, because we had to dive into the bus and head to Osaka for the day. Now Osaka was an interesting place; with it’s off-shore airport (which we would be visiting soon) and it’s strange mix of eastern and western architecture. It was easy to pick out which building were built by what district, and it really went to show how boring Western architecture tends to be. Straight lines and box towers, oh boy. I managed to take some photos both before, and during our departure from Kyoto, though I wish more had turned out. [ photo 246, 247 ]

As we went through the city, Yoshi told us tidbits about Osaka. Sadly I can’t remember too much, as I was damned tired from having to wake up early. We hit a slight snag, as where we were originally going to park was closed off for a marathon, so we ended up having to take an impressive detour to get to our destination.

Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle [ photo 248 ] was probably the biggest let down of the trip. From the outside it looked fairly impressive, but much like everything else in Japan, it’s apparently had some fire-related issues. That is to say that it’s burnt to the ground at least three times.

That always instills you with confidence.

Now the inside of Osaka castle was pretty much a pseudo-interactive museum, which was a huge bust for me. I was expecting cool castle-related stuff, but instead I got armour behind glass cases, and miniature soldiers dieing in a miniature war. Not really my cup of tea. On that note, they would let you wear some of the stuff [ photo 249, 250 ].

The view was pretty solid, though not nearly as impressive as Tokyo Tower’s [ photo 251-253 ].

Where Osaka Castle really shines is in the grounds surrounding the castle. If they could have made that park any prettier, butterflies would have been showering down self-affirming sparkles. wonderful pathways that lead all over the place, nice and wide, and there were even mini trains that could bring you around for a small fee.

Along the way, one of the kids and I happened across an old man. This old man realized we were Canadian, and then decided to flip the fuck out in the best way possible. He got a photo with us, his smile shattering reality. He was spouting off random English phrases with such joy and effort that I swear he was starting to foam at the mouth. We were worried that he was going to have a heart attack.

Sadly because I ran into the happy man, I missed out on feeding a parrot.

With my mouth.

That’s right.

On our way back to the bus, I snapped a couple photos of the best gate ever [ photo 254 ], and the most amazing minimalist examples of bathroom signs I’ve ever seen [ photo 255, 256 ]. Simply by moving the intersection of lines, they clearly define who was to go where.

And let’s not get started on the toilets in Japan that aren’t space aged. Porcilin Holes in the ground.

Dotombori

For the afternoon, we were introduced to Dotombori [ photo 257, 262, 265, 266 ]. Dotombori is a major attraction in Osaka, and I can see why. It’s a massive, single street that runs along the Canal that shares the streets name. It’s full of bright, colourful signs, a bing-boggling array of stores, and some amazing engineering in terms of fitting that many people into that narrow of an area.

Dotombori is also where I found the next Giant Crab (there were actually two, if you walked long enough to find em). Wikipedia is telling me that these crabs are roughly 6 meters tall, which sounds about right to me. This would turn out to be the least ridiculous thing I would see in Dotombori.

We stopped at a noodle hut at the start of our adventure for lunch. I can honestly say that the place was so typically Japanese that I almost wept. A little old lady cooked everything, and the years of hard noodle labour gave her a permanent arc in her back. She was so hunched and so short that she could just walk under the counter without having to lift it. I slurped those noodles hard, and for good reason: they were fantastic.

I also had the pleasure of consuming what is noted as being “The Worlds Best Hamburger.” Now I’m a pretty big hamburger fan, and even the remote chance that I could eat the worlds best burger was too big an opportunity to pass up. I bought the 350 Yenn burger (that’s roughly 5 dollars at the time) and consumed. It tasted like lasagna. Not in a bad way, but It was by far the most unique taste experience I think I will ever have from biting into a burger.

I’ve got too many things to write them in paragraph form, so here we go:

• [ photo 258 ] – Dragon Gate, one of many, many adult arcades for people to spend their money. The lengths that these places go to entice was almost disgusting. There was one here that I didn’t take a photo of, but I can assure you they had bi-planes hanging outside of their hyper-lit shop.
• [ photo 259 ] – A noodle hut with a dragon on it that obviously suffered one too many head traumas.
• [ photo 260 ] – This is a dog in clothing. This dog just came out of a dog cafe; a place for dog owners to take their dogs and talk about dog dressing and other dog-related topics. This was not the first, nor the last dog in clothing that I would see on my trip.
• [ photo 261 ] – I don’t know what the hell this is, but it’s there, and it’s big.
• [ photos 263, 264 ] – The first and only pet shop I came across in my travels. All the animals were kept in small class boxes (as seen in the photos) and I couldn’t help but want to free them all. We were quickly told to stop taking photos. I can only imagine why.
• [ photo 267 ] – Glico Man. The giant running man is actually the logo for Glico candy, and has been around since 1935. Note the insane use of advertising space on any available surface. Now multiply that by a billion. That’s a good start on the sort of advertising saturation you’ll experience here.
• [ photo 268 ] – I assume this was an advertisement for a bottled green tea or something. I don’t know, but I wanted one of those for myself.
• [ photo 269 ] – I have nothing to say about this photo that it doesn’t say for itself. I don’t know what that store did. I doubt it knew either.

I enjoyed wandering around Dotombori immensely, and I’d love to go back again, if only to get a ride on the ferris wheel. It wasn’t operating that day, which broke my heart a little.

Umeda Sky Building Observatory

the Umeda Sky Building looks like it was built by a man who failed physics class. Two spires with various connecting hallways, and an observation deck with a giant hole in the middle [ photo 270 ].

As we ascended the tower, I couldn’t help but notice the numerous emergency stations along the walls [ photo 271 ]. Now maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help but think they look just a bit too much like Hal for my liking. I was just waiting for the elevator to stop half way up, and start talking to us in an eerily calm voice.

When we got near the top, we had to take a transparent escalator to the top [ photo 272 ]. Basically the Umeda Sky Building doesn’t give a shit about anyone who may find heights scary, and assume that if you’ve come this far, then You’ll have no problem going through a tiny transparent tube to your final destination.

When we got to the top (finally) I was shocked at how retro everything felt. The chairs, sofas, even the observation stations. It all smacked of the 70’s with such gusto that I actually sort of enjoyed it [ photo 273, 276, 278].

The view from the Sky Building was fairly impressive [ photo 275, 277, 279 280 ], but what got me the most was the highway that went through a building. Honest to got, they built a building around one of the highway turns [ photo 274 ]. I wanted to drive through that so much that it hurt. Never have I seen something of the like, and it drew my attention like a moth to the flame.

Sadly we never did drive through it, though we did get very close.

I was also introduced to the Spring Stool [ photo 281, 282, 283 ]. You could actually lean like I was in the photos and it supported your weight. Very weird feeling.

There was also a room with some neat seats that effected the projector inside, depending on the pressure of the seats. Anyways, there was a sign outside of the room [ photo 284 ] depicting what was, and was not, acceptable. Now I don’t know what a heart symbol stands for let alone a heart symbol and two people sitting on a couch.

Making out is alright? Don’t do anything on the platform? This stuff basically writes itself.

I also took a couple photos of random funny things that I found [ photos 285-287 ]. The old guard standing along out in the rain struck me as epic in a funny sad way, and then we just have some fantastic packaging.

When we got back to the hotel, we got some more alcohol (terrible, terrible rum, some wine in a can, and some Coronas), and decided to relax and enjoy our final night across the world. Of course things always lead to the immature, and things like [ photo 288 ] are inevitable.

Day Eight

This was a very sad, and a very, very long day. Most of the kids (myself included) would have been quite happy to stay in Japan forever. The catch being that we had people we missed and non-existent visas. Regardless we were piled onto the bus and shipped out to the airport located on the man-made island on the coast of Osaka. While on our travels, I took a couple photos [ photos 289, 290, 296, 297 ] of our travels, and some photos of tiny erasers [ photos 291-295 ] that Yoshi had handed out to everyone. Everyone got a unique eraser, which really shows dedication on both her part, and on part of the eraser manufacturer.

We crossed a 13 kilometer bridge to get to the airport, which was impressive on its own. Now imagine that the bridge is three layers high, and trains run on it as well.

That makes it way, way cooler.

Kansai International Airport

Osaka Airport was an interesting place. Other than having a sweet cross-breeze and feeling very new – construction on it started 22 years ago – you are also treated to ceiling art that actually moves in the breeze [ photo 299 ]. Very neat.

So here’s a funny story: One of our kids lost his passport. Well okay, “Lost” is the wrong term. He knew exactly where it was, but it was not on his person. It was laying on the bed of his hotel room back in the heart of Osaka. Yoshi was on the phone so fast you would have thought it was attached to her head. After some quick work, we had the passport en route to the airport via express taxi.

The gate closed in 40 minutes, and for 40 minutes we waited. Then we waited some more. 55 minutes of waiting, and the passport arrived. 160000 Yenn later (that’s roughly 200 dollars) we were heading towards the gate. We said our goodbyes to Yoshi [ photo 298 ], who was utterly amazing on this trip. I’d recommend her to anyone in a heart beat.

Now in North America, this would be one of those “You’re Fucked” scenarios. What do they do in Japan? They keep the gate open for you. Then they escort you through security. Then they run you, and I do mean run, to the monorail that they are holding for you. Then they have people on corners to direct you to your flight, because everyone in the fucking building knows who you are, what you look like, and where you are going.

And when we got to the gate? The original lady that helped us, who didn’t get on the monorail, is waiting at the gate to say goodbye to us.

She was absolutely amazing, and was the only one of two people to whom I actually bowed. I said thank you and gave the head nod to anyone that helped us on our trip, but this lady went well above the call of duty to make sure we got on that plane.

We had a very brief stop over in Tokyo as we took on more passengers, and then it was off to Detroit, where our souls would die a little.

Detroit International Airport

Fuck you Detroit International Airport. I hate you so very, very much. You may look pretty, and you may have a cute monorail, but no one in their right mind would want to spend 8 hours stuck in you.

That’s what happened to us. You would think that we could have just taken a bus back to Toronto, which we should have been able to. Sadly, due to scheduling retardation, we were forced to wait 8 hours for a connecting flight to Toronto that would only take an hour. We were not impressed

Some of us managed to sleep the time away [ photo 300 ], but those of us who can’t pass out anywhere – me – ended up wandering around the terminal, like lost duckings looking for their mother.

I ended up getting a massage, which felt amazing after being on a 10 hour flight. We also ate, and I killed the rest of my DS’s battery sitting around.

Some kid left their camera sitting around, and when they went back for it, it was missing. We had lost and regained very important things all week, and within the 8 hours we were in Detroit, a camera was stolen. It really makes you think about us on a societal scale, doesn’t it?

In the End

I loved it in Japan. I’d live there if I could. At the very least I’m going back there for a longer stay. I encourage any and everyone to go over there and be amazed at the richness of culture and history that you can find around every turn. My only wish is that we could have visited Hiroshima, which another tour group got to do. They were staying longer though, so it makes sense.

Photos!

And here are all of the photos from my trip. Enjoy!

I used to stay as far away from platformers as I could, given that my ability in them scored somewhere in the negatives. Every time I would try one, I’d get about 4 levels in, and then start to hate myself. It’s really not a pretty sight. Give me turn-based games and experiences points, that’s what I say!

Of course to every rule there is an exception, and Super Princess Peach is, shockingly, one of those exceptions.

Synopsis

Like all Super Mario games (and all Mario game spin-offs) the story is fairly straight-forward. Bowser has opted this time to capture Mario and Luigi in lieu of the Princess. I can only assume that he did this so that he could actually have a chance at ruling over the LSD-enabling countryside. Of course, Peach decides to step up and prove that breasts are no reason not to kick the shit out of Bowser.

Of course you have to go around correcting the entire countryside first. ‘Cause you know, that’s just how these games roll.

The game operates on the basic level-trolling principles that have worked so well in the previous incarnations, with a couple twists. On top of going through all 48 levels (40, excluding boss fights) you can also find toads, who are lost in the worlds. You can also find mini-games, music notes (which allow you to listen to songs in the game menu), and spend your money in The Shop.

That’s right, there’s only one shop. Dude much be loaded.

Mechanics

Super Princess Peach introduces a couple unique aspects to the platform-genre that really tickle my fancy. Peach, given that she is a princess, is genetically more robust than her Italian pipe-cleaner. Here’s a quick run-down of her genetic enhancements:

• Happiness: Peach gets so damned happy that she starts to float in a cyclone. An added benefit is that you can actually fly with this ability, so if you’re like me and prone to cliff jumping, you can save your ass. There are limitations to this ability such as active flying eats away at your “Flow” – Magic, to the rest of the world – and there are certain points where you will be unable to fly, forcing you to rethink your strategy.
• Sadness: Peach defies all known physical facts, and starts crying our geysers from her eyes. If you’ve ever seen a kids anime where a girl cries waterfalls, you know what this looks like. Added perks to this mode are running like a bat out of hell, and watering plants into massive vine-trees of doom. There are points in the game that require you to use this ability, and quickly.
• Anger: Channeling all those times that Peach’s father (does she even have parents?) never gave her that jewel-encrusted pony, Peach turns into the Human Tourch. She walks slowly, stomps the ground whenever she jumps (good for knocking everyone on their ass), and nothing can touch you. Stomping, like flying, eats up more magic when used. Also, fire and wood don’t mix.
• Joy: Not to be mistaken for happiness, Joy heals the Princess, so long as she doesn’t get assauted by any enemies. This mode simply transforms magic into health. Good when you are in dire need of life. This mode is automatically turned off when enemies hit you, but not when you pick up/consume them.

These abilities add to the game by providing obvious puzzle elements (fire can light lanterns, water make plants grow, wind makes smoke dissipate, etc. etc.), as well as giving the user a couple more options in dealing with situations.

I mentioned earlier the term “Flow”. Flow is, as previously stated, your magic bar. Your magical umberella can consume enemies to refill your magic bar, or you can find gems to do the same thing. This allows you to decide whether to bathe in the blood of your enemies, or just flat out consume them wholly. Morbid when you really sti and think about it.

Oh yes, did I mention you have a magical umberella? Yes apparently a little boy was transformed into a magical umberella, and through certain happenstances, landed in the hands of Princes Peach. Peach uses this umberella for a variety of things including, but not limited to: Bashing enemies, consuming enemies, floating in the air, coasting in water, and throwing things around. She really has no regard for the poor umberella, which leads me to think that Princess Peach strongly believes in the caste system.

Bitch.

Overall

Overall, it’s actually a pretty solid play through. The nice/terrible part is that after you’ve beat the game the first time through, you are given 3 new levels (per section, so 24 more levels) that you can access by defeating all of the bosses, excluding Bowser, a second time. It doesn’t matter if you’ve beaten them 100 times, once you’ve defeated Bowser, you have to go back and fight the other bosses to unlock the additional levels. In order to find everything in the game (music notes, mini games, etc) you have to play all of the original levels twice (once before and after pre-game) as well as the 24 new levels. If you add it all up, that’s a total of 119 levels of play. That’s a lot of game play for a DS game.

I mostly enjoyed this game, though I could go my entire gaming life without ever having to do another underwater mario level. I hate those levels simply because you drift, and gernally this means you drift into things that want to kill you. Also, you can’t use your abilities while under water. Keep that in mind.

It’s not overly difficult, and the learning curve is basically spelled out for you. Just take it one level at a time, and upgrade as you go along. The more Flow you have, the better off you’ll be. Other than that, just enjoy the game for what it is: A cheerful, straight-forward platforming game. No mind-bending puzzles, no cryptic under/overtones, just a smiling peach beating the hell out of the native population. A game that you can turn on, play through a 4 minute level, and then turn off. Lends itself heavily towards small bursts rather than long-haul style game play.

Cute, straight-forward, and with enough originality to give it some flare.

7/10