So, a large part of this week has been critiquing papers written by my classmates. They’re doing the same thing, of course – in my Literature class everyone needs to post a draft of their final project and provide a critique on at least one other person’s draft, and in my Technical Writing class, everyone needs to post two drafts and critique four. Lots of critiquing going on, is what I’m saying. Lot of people seem to have completely disappeared from the class, too, the discussion board is virtually empty where in a normal week it’s hopping.

To make my point quickly and move on: There’s rather a lot of guilt that happens when you spend a half hour utterly ravaging some poor Joe’s paper and pointing out all the places they didn’t follow the assignment and in general have no business being allowed near a keyboard…

…And you get your OWN paper back from that same Joe and it’s filled with comments like “I really like what you did here” and “good images” and “this is great” and basically non-stop positive happy vibes…

I’m just saying, I’m glad I don’t have to actually face these people on a daily basis.

Other stuff:

The last Moon Phase / tsukiyomi DVD came out! Time to sit down and get my nekomimi on. Boy, that’s a weird phrase. Try : “Time to sit down and watch the rest of the series since I only watched the first 2 DVDs and now I finally have it all”.

The first Haruhi DVD came out! I intended to be strong and not buy the collector’s edition and maybe even hold out for the complete series box, but my wife wouldn’t let me – she took the box off the shelf and made me buy it. Probably just so she doesn’t have to hear me whining about missing out on it later.

I will present Greg Dean’s take on what it’s like to be lucky enough to be married to a woman who understands fanboys … This is really quite close to a normal scene for us.

On the subject of fanboys, one advantage of my new job is that if I walk home, immediately put a DVD in, eat, and walk back, I can get an episode of something in and make it back to work in less than an hour. So I’ve been re-watching Genshiken, a great series and probably this generation’s best answer to Otaku no Video. Otaku no Video represents a completely different age, of course, one in which being otaku was so unusual that if you were one you tended to turn into a bit of an evangelist… trying to convert people to the otaku way. These days, with the different attitudes and the sheer ease of access, converts find their own otaku way on their own, and seek out others of their kind. It’s hard to put in to words how things have changed… but I think if you were around then and you’re still around you understand.

To get off the maudlin sentimental bit, Deux Ex continues to be an excellent and engrossing game. I’m just past the bit where you meet your brother at the 747, I think that’s a good way to describe my progress without spoiling it for anyone. I think I have an awful lot of “game” left to see, there are so many plot threads open at this point that there’s no way they can resolve quickly. I’m kind of wishing I’d downgraded pistol at the start and dumped every point I could into low-tech weaponry, I find that 90% of the time I’m using either the baton or the prod.

Other stuff… I downloaded Stepmania recently and need to see if my PS2-to-USB converter works with my PS2 dance mat. I’d been curious about it for a while and not really sure where to get started, but j1m0ne posted an excellent writeup that got me going in the right direction. I’ve played around a bit with it on keyboard, but it will be much more enjoyable once it’s actually making me sweat. It’s like DDR… but with songs I actually know!

Also in Eternally Behind the Times… I can’t use my DS Lite’s Wi-fi connectivity at home because it only supports WEP and my wireless network is running WPA with as much security turned on as I can manage, but I did take it to a McDonald’s yesterday so I could try out the online mode of Bomberman Land Touch for the first time. First time I’ve had McDonald’s food in a year and a half, too, apart from a couple of McBiscuits – very weird considering I used to have McDonald’s probably 5-10 times every week.

But that aside aside, Bomberman Land Touch online. Setup was easy, very few people out there to play with though and once I got into a match I died quite quickly. Still an enjoyable experiment. I’ll have to look into what other DS games offer online connectivity.