Not too much has happened recently. I've meant to put my time to more productive uses lately, but besides doing some reading, not much has been done. I've been preparing for my exams all this time and honestly, it's been pretty hectic. It gets worse when you realize that the exam is only in a few days time and you are woefully unprepared for it, which means that your sleep schedule is going to get wrecked and your end up procrastinating a lot. If there's one thing I really, really got out of university, it's the fact that my sleep schedule is nothing like that of a normal person. Most people's day starts from 9 and ends at 5. Mine starts at 1 in the afternoon.

I've been playing a bit of Dota and Hearthstone lately, but neither feel all that close to me anymore. Dota, in particular, has become a game that I enjoy watching far more than playing, because I find the game really really stressful. The same goes with Hearthstone, too. Maybe it's a case of ladder anxiety, but I find it so much more comforting watching other people screw up than actually playing the game. I probably am not the only person with this mentality. The reason why Twitch is so successful is precisely because people like watching others play games for them. The division between labour and leisure is increasingly frail in today's world. When you realize that you are generating capital by watching others play games for you, you know that this world is kind of messed up.

The last anime I watched is Love Live S2, which actually ended up being pretty good, and very touching. If I had to find one anime that sums up today's anime industry, it'd be LL. They basically combined two things that obsessive otaku in Japan loves: idols, and high school slice-of-life aka fictional utopian hug-boxes. Add cute girls to the mix, and you have a show that sells on par with Madoka and Bakemonogatari. It's a pretty standard formula, really, but very well executed, and extremely well marketed. 

LL reminded me of K-ON, a lot. The scene where the girls declared they'd disband when the 3rd years graduate, was reminiscent of HTT breaking down in tears in their band room after their last performance. And I'm not going to lie: both scenes hit me like a truck. LL's execution was a bit less polished than K-ON's, and it didn't do as good of a job combining the slice-of-life elements with the music, and sometimes the drama was cringe-worthy. But very powerful nonetheless. So powerful that it makes you want to throw money at a bunch of girls who don't really exist.

So this is the cover of the character song I just bought.

I really like Honoka's face. It looks mildly autistic, which is kind of cute, I guess.

So I ended up eating up this capitalist marketing scheme and bought some LL merchandise in the end, in the vain hopes that the more money I burn the more real the girls will become. Well, a guy should be allowed to dream! Anyways, I bought two CDs (Honoka's character songs) and a Honoka wall scroll, which will take up the remaining stretch of my bedroom wall that isn't covered with cute girls already. It's only about 70 dollars of value in total, which isn't very much I guess, since my consumerist spending has really died down this year compared to the last. I'll write a review on those merchandise when they arrive.

Besides that, not too much has happened. It's quite amazing how much stuff I can type out when I'm in front of the computer when just a minute ago, I thought my life was so boring my post would end with a single paragraph. But I suppose I was wrong. I'm going to see a movie tomorrow, so I'm going to take some pictures of the mythical 'outside world' while I'm at it. Auckland is a really beautiful city, you know? Hopefully we'd have a nice weather tomorrow.

I've also started a Honoka folder. Soon it will be full of Honoka pictures. Here are some of the ones I really like. Yea I know you can get them elsewhere, but who doesn't like cute girls?

And last, but not least...