So I got THE IDOLM@STER2 First-run Limited Production Edition today for PS3! I was so excited! I would have gotten it the day before yesterday, but I just didn't get home early enough to pick it up from the post office. Anyway, I picked it up yesterday, and there was no stopping me. First, a shot of the box. The box it came in next to my 360 copy of iM@S2 When I picked it up, it was lighter than I had imagined, and I it seemed a little small to get an A1-sized tapestry in it, but opening up would show my fears to be unfounded. Unpacking it all, I found everything I'd hoped for. The contents of the shipping box I unrolled the tapestry and the poster to take a look and them, as I had bought the game specifically from Gamers to get them. They are pretty awesome. The A1-sized tapestry The B4-sized poster I also opened up the foil packet to see what was on my anime film strip. Turns out it's the same as the Gamers postcard I got with the set. I wonder if maybe ce...

So I just made some Kara-age tonight from some kind of Kikkoman kara-age mix. It was really straightforward. I just cut up some chicken, shook it around in a bag with the mix, and then fried it. My results are below. I made some rice to go with it and just ate that. Wasn't bad. Some of the pieces were still a little powdery, but I blame that on my poor cooking ability. I feel like it was saltier than I would have liked, but I guess it's hard to adjust it when it's a pre-made powder. I'll have to look into a real recipe for kara-age sometime.

I just saw the banner today about the iM@S Social Game (temp name) coming out at the end of November. Although I had seen the blog post when it came out yesterday, I hadn't gotten around to reading it and sorta forgot about it. Anyway, it's certainly an interesting idea, and I'm curious how it will turn out. It seems that there will be over 100 girls to produce, including the already present 765 Production idols. I do hope the 876 Production idols will be available too, but no news on that. It will apparently be on Mobage . You will put together a team of 5 idols that you will produce from those over 100 girls and you can do jobs with them, raise their abilities through lessons, and have concert battles with rival idol teams. So far, it sounds a lot like regular iM@S, but with a lot more idols. But then they say they're going for some kind of card battle type game. So I'm curious as to what they're going to do with that. I was already getting my card battle ID...

It's Hamuzou's birthday today! Also Hibiki's. Anyway, as usual, you can get all your wonderful birthday extras from the official iM@S anime website .

The first DLC for iM@S2 PS3 has been announced ! The video is below. So the most exciting part of that was the end! I'd read from ANN a few days ago that Miku was going to be iM@S2 PS3 as DLC, but I got the impression from the article that maybe she'd just show up in the DOTOP TV as a PV with her song, and maybe show up as a rival at a festival. But she'll be in S4U! as well! That's awesome! Ok, sure it's not quite as awesome as if you were able to produce her in the regular game, but it'll still be amazing to have her in S4U!. I hope that she'll work the same as the other idols and you'll be able to choose her songs, clothing, stage, and stage partners. Looking closely at video though, it looks like "World is Mine" is to be Miku only though. I still hope it means there are Miku versions of the iM@S songs so that you can still put her with the other idols on stage. I'm really looking forward to it. As for the other DLC, it seems like th...

So just the other day, I tried out the Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Demo on my Xbox 360. It was an interesting experience, but I'm not sure I like it a lot. First thing I want to say is that my comparisons will mainly be to Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation. I think that's reasonable, considering that was the last game in the series to come out on the Xbox 360. Anyway, there are two modes in the demo, fighter plane mode and attack helicopter mode. I tried plane mode first. There are two control schemes you can choose for plane mode. One is called Standard, and the other one is called Original. Standard is an easier mode where the plane auto-levels in the absence of control inputs, and you simply push the left control stick in the direction you want to go. The rudder is still a separate control though that can be used for yaw adjustments. The demo defaults to this control scheme. Original gives you full control, making the x-axis of the control stick control the plane's roll...

For those that are interested in what had been keeping me busy for the previous week, I have pictures up now showing my trip out to Illinois to help do job fair recruiting for my company. Of course pictures of me hanging around a booth at a job fair wouldn't be very exciting, so the pictures were mainly taken when I was hanging out with friends before and after the job fair. Just click on the picture below to be taken to the appropriate Picasa album.