And this is the ring I usually wear on my right pinky.

http://www.wolfman.co.jp/
http://www.loneones.jp/php/index.php
http://bigblackmaria.com/
http://www.curebirth.com/
http://www.sos-fp.com/store/catalog/default.php
http://www.zocalo.jp/
http://dr-monroe.jp/
http://www.puerta-del-sol.jp/
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/cream/shop.htm
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/first-arrows/
http://www.deal-design.jp/
http://www.bless-silver.com/
http://silver.sies.co.jp/
http://www.williamwalles.com/intro/
http://ark-silver.com/
http://diavlo.jp/
http://www.lemontree.co.jp/
http://www.mgc-silver.co.jp/
http://micweb.jp/welcome.php
http://micweb.jp/brands/
http://entura.jimdo.com/
http://lion-heart.co.jp/
http://www.christopherevance.com/
http://www.realdeal-rd.jp/travis/
http://rumors.jp/jam_home_made_ready_made/list.html
http://www.kingsroad.gr.jp/SHOP/238752/t01/list.html
http://www.royalorder.jp/
http://www.hydra-grp.jp/
http://www.king-limo.com/
http://www.bloody-mary.jp/
http://www.dreamers.ne.jp/shins-sculpture/shins-sculpture-top.html
http://www.ozabstract.jp/
http://www.realdeal-rd.jp/index.html
http://www.arizonafreedom.com/Page/TOP
http://www.rizardhead.com/top.html
http://www.x-diavlo.com/
http://www.k-smith.jp/
http://ameblo.jp/starlingear
http://www.billwallleather.jp/
http://item.rakuten.co.jp/mavazi/c/0000000140/
http://www.destinyplace.jp/ovallovers/
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/136-666
http://www.designs-e.jp/shop/home.php
http://www.designs-e.jp/cpd/

http://www.belluria.net/
http://ameblo.jp/ichimatsubelluria/
http://www.bassettwalker.com/
http://edifice.baycrews.co.jp/
http://www.thirteen.co.jp/jpn/

Even most updated english travel guides don’t have detailed maps, I mean like you can’t expect them to tell you where each store in harajuku, or the blue label in shibuya is located, but you get what I mean.

This is not a joke, if you can figure out the shortest way to even get from the west side of shinjuku JR to the east side of shinjuku JR, please let me know, I’m dying to know. What I usually do is I take the JR pass walk into the station and cut across it, or I just walk around it (!?)

I have no idea why no one has ever compiled a list of maps that are available online, but since I’m already compiling for my friends, I might as well share it with you folks that are or might know someone else who is going to Tokyo.

The rar file is made up of maps from:

• att-japan (PDF English, chiba, fukuoka, JR, kanagawa, kyoto, nagoya, nara, niigata, nikko park, osaka, sapporo, tokyo, yokohama, ripped from att-japan.net)
• superfuture (GIF English, shopping maps, ripped from superfuture.com)
• tcvb (PDF English/Japanese, Ginza, Marunouchi, Odaiba, Roppongi, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Asakusa, Asakusabashi, Ueno, Yanaka from tcvb.or.jp)
• tokyoessentials (GIF English, Asakusa, Ikebukuro, Odaiba, Roppongi, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ueno)
• Akihabara – (JPEG Japanese. There is a map which you can get from the station or just outside the station that is in ENGLISH, will most of the more popular shops. This is a life saver.)
• infomapjapan.com (PDF English, Tokyo Asakusa, Ueno, Akihabara, Marunouchi, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Roppongi, Sapporo, Sendai, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Umeda, Kyobashi, Namba, Bay Area, Nara, Kyoto, Kyoto Station, Kawaramachi, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kobe, Takayama, Kurashiki, Okayama, ripped from infomapjapan.com

Personally I use a combination of google maps, virtual maps, a japanese travel magazine, and a bilingual map book which I happened to buy at a Kinokuniya while I was in Shinjuku. I would highly recommend a bilingual map as the local streets are usually written in Japanese, and most guidebooks are written in either Japanese or English only.

If you need a physical map, this is the one I’m using: Tokyo City Atlas: A Bilingual Guide (3rd Ed.)

For shopping fanatics, I would recommend a Japanese shopping magazine for girls. Yes, it exists, the Japanese magazine is very simple. There’s ONLY maps of Harajuku, Shinjuku, Omotesando, Shibuya, and Ginza. Sure, it’s in japanese, but it’s updated and if you need to shop, you need to shop, there’s always a way : D

There’s also a food guide, if you’re not rich enough (who is, seriously???) to try out all the food listed in the Michelin Guide Tokyo 2010

And finally, here’s a preview of the maps which you can download from HERE (41 MB)

/system/etc/apns-conf.xml

You can actually rip it out from the different roms, and repack the rom zip file (Or so I’ld assume)

The settings are (Do take note I haven’t quite figured out how to use MMS):

apn carrier IDEAS
apn e-ideas
user *
password *
server *
mmsc null
mcc 525
mnc 01
type default

apn carrier IDEAS MMS
apn e-ideas
proxy 165.21.42.84
port 8080
user 65IDEAS
password IDEAS
server *
mmsc http://mms.singtel.com:10021/mmsc
mmsproxy 165.21.42.84
mmsport 8080
mcc 525
mnc 01
type mms

So Kenny was showing me this random wooden puzzle box that has a “secret” way of opening. The sob took me a good 10 minutes to figure out, even though I’ve opened it before when I was in hong kong.

It turns out that it’s called a “malaysian magic box” of unknown wooden origin. But anyway,� the authentic japanese ones are called “himitsu bako” and they feature up to 50+ moves to open the damn wooden box.

It’s kinda nice and since I’m always not acting my age, I prefer exquisite wooden stuff over cold hard steel now.

Here’s a list of sites that sell such stuff, do note that while I do not know all of them, they are more reasonably priced than other sites.

http://www.hakonemaruyama.co.jp/secret-e.htm << I bought some from here. It’s pretty reliable.

http://www.uniqueboxshop.com/

http://www.karakuri.gr.jp/creation/invitation/invitation.htm
http://www.karakuri.gr.jp/creation/purchase/purchase.htm

In D&D, it goes something like this: “The princess grasps you by the hand and leads you away with a smile. She pads softly down the halls into utterly dark corridors. You hear a heavy door being opened, and she guides you inside. The door closes. ‘My father has left to the battlefront and his rooms are forbidden to any but him,’ she says. ‘They should be the perfect place for us…’ So, are you willing? Yes? Very good. The evening fades, and what has been promised to another man is now yours.”

Here’s the link for those who are interested. Yes I’m talking about you kenny.

http://www.kismetrose.com/dnd/DMRomance.html

You think your friends are the suck? Your friends are a reflection of yourself.

I’m not usually any good with people out performing me in any way that I deem to be important, so I went on to find out more about myself. As it seems, “personality test” brings out pretty much what I wanted. So after a whole series of tests, I find that I am an ENTP. Or at least what the test usually says (I’ve taken these like at least 6 times since I was 21, not that I ever paid any attention to it), the one I tried at facebook tells me I’m an INTP.

Extraversion – Introversion defines the source and direction of energy expression for a person. The extravert has a source and direction of energy expression mainly in the external world while the introvert has a source of energy mainly in the internal world.

Personally, I would think the general description of ENTP fits me more than the INTP. but it does bother me that my closer friends feel that I’m either an Introvert, or 50/50. After fussing about it for a while, I find that it is relatively true. Let’s see some examples:

• I like to be at the centre of attention, and I like to be cooped up at home
• I meet lots of new people at networking sessions for fun, but sometimes, I just feel like sitting there to be approached.
• I avoid crowded places, holidays and events like the plague, a rainy evening will guarantee a cosy evening on my bed.
• On rare occasions, I will randomly make friends with the nearest moving object.

Now that I have taken so many variations of Carl Jung & Briggs-Meyers, I believe it’s not accurate for me to take another one since I know which question is obviously an I or an E now : \ Generally I would say that this is quite interesting, considering that I think I know myself pretty well.

You think you know yourself? Try it. Another aspect is, it is able to recommend a type of job compatible to your personality, or a partner who can complement you, or the school you might want to trained in the future.

From what I read, it is common in japanese culture to base personalities, on blood types. The wiki doesn’t exactly give a comprehensive rundown on how it works, and the origin is little flaky, but generally, a specific blood group will have certain traits. Let me rip it off another site:

Type A: calm, composed, serious, reliable, perfectionist, arrogant, suppress their emotions
Type B: curious, bright, cheerful, enthusiastic, superficial, unreliable, selfish
Type 0: carefree, generous, independant, flexible, clumsy, flighty
Type AB: sensitive, considerate, careful, efficient, strict, moody

I find this method totally unreliable, and lack of scientific basis. But I believe that most japanese merely use blood types just for fun. So I’m type B+-, last I remembered.

Next up, horoscopes. I abhor going to soothsayers and fortune tellers and the whole bulk of them, because mainly, a part of me tells me I shouldn’t scold them in the face when they say something I don’t like at them, no matter how true it is, because they are doing their job. Plus, most of them are quacks anyway. That aside, I do believe that, on a certain level, it is actually quite scientific to me. Let me try to rationalise it properly, as I seem to have a problem convincing people.

According to what I know of astrology, everyone is born under a different star, and according to that, there you can generate a star chart based on a your birthday, time of birth. So what this chart does, is what I call, a visual representation of your entire lives. I think it is, somewhat similar to the fengshui/fortunetelling book.

First off, I don’t care what anyone says about hacking your save file, it being unethical, cheating, defeats the purpose of the game, blah, whatever. What anyone does with their save is their business. If _you_ want to stuff 10 jewels into ssp, that’s your own business, and you’re asking for it if you go kai. So there.

FC = FreeCheat = A cool psp prx app by the chinese folks over at their website
MHP2ME051 = Another cool windows app, a MHP2G Memory Dump Editor also by the chinese (Yes, it has no icon like a trojan, either that or there might be a virus running around my home network that I’m not sure of)

BOTH FC and MHP2ME051 are in chinese. If you can’t read that you’re kinda screwed, cos I’m having trouble reading the item/armour/weapon/gem list myself.

It took me a good 20mins to read it and translate it to my thai friend, it could have been shorter but my understanding of small chinese fonts is what one might call, “a piece of shit” : D

Download the FC files, place the entire directory like this:
ms0:/FreeCheat/

Append “ms0:/FreeCheat/fc_3xx.prx” into your ms0:/seplugins/game.txt, and your ms0:/seplugins/game150.txt

Enable the prx, via holding R when you turn on the PSP, blahblah.

Go in game, press the “note” button on the psp to activate FC. X = Cancel, O = Confirm (Excellent choice I would say, can’t stand the english counterpart)

2nd option from the right column ( 内存管理 ), O
1st option from the menu ( 内存转储 ), O
2nd option from the menu ( 开始转储 ), O

Your memstick light should blink “furiously” for maybe 5 seconds, and a popup ( 超作完成 ), X, X

You’ll be at the main menu. Connect your USB cable if you haven’t done so.

5th option from the right column ( USB 连接 ), O

Menu closes, should see your PSP popup in windows. Navigate to PSP_DRIVE:\FreeCheat\DUMP\

The dump should be named mem00X.mem. This is the file you edit with MHP2GME.exe

Modify like there’s no tomorrow. When you’re done, from MHP2GME.exe, do this: 文件，保存文件，保存为FC格式. Name it as anything you want, it’ll show up as ULJM-05500.pat

Copy this ULJM-05500.pat into PSP_DRIVE:\FreeCheat\PATCH\

Press the “note” button on your PSP, to activate the FC menu again.

5th option from the right column ( USB 连接 ), O

Pro tip: It’s always safer to disconnect via a software disconnect rather than by pulling out your cable, it forces a “sync” command to flush whatever’s left to copy, even for thumbdrives.

2nd option from the right column ( 内存管理 ), O
3rd option from the menu ( 加载内存补丁 ), O
You should see your ULJM-05500.pat, O
Usual popup ( 超作完成 ), X, X

Check the stuff you haxored, and save your game. Viola~

• Upload video file to server
• Re-compress video file and convert to .flv format
• Display using JW FLV MEDIA PLAYER
• Viola, data will be streamed automagically.

There are several alternatives such as those listed below but I’m particularly looking for that that can do mouse scrolls.

Web-Anatomy FLV Player
Rich Media Project FLV Players
Flowplayer embeddable video player
OS FLV – the Open Source, embeddable FLV player

Also, if programming and shell scripting isn’t your cup of tea, you might want to try plone /w plumi. See, that didn’t take the usual amount of long from me, and you learnt something new today~

I will, however, need help from dbf experts who might give me some insight on how to extract more information on mhp2g’s data.bin. If you have a method to read passworded dbf files, do leave a comment and we can see how we’ll proceed from there.

Another thing I would need help on, can someone run ethereal when trying to connect online? I need to look for the ip or domain the psp tries to connect to when downloading quests.

A gist of my planned table of contents:

• Using the dec.exe / enc.exe kindly donated by CG to SoC
• Extraction of japanese text from bin files using CodeStation’s opensourced tool
• A table comprising on where to go about translating certain parts of the in-game text
• Methods used to extract information on the extracted bin files

Of course, this is all somewhat technical and educational in nature, I do not expect everyone to want to read it, but I feel that this is important information for the further development on MH3 on the wii when it comes out.

And finally, I do not have possession of SoC’s english patch, so please kindly stop bothering me with requests for downloading the patch. If you want a playable english patch, look for the WinZer, he’s the nice thai guy who made his own patch in english, which got leaked out. English is not his main language so you’ll have to forgive him for his mistakes, if any, if you manage to get your hands on his patch. As of this time, his latest version should be 1.2 R2, if I’m not wrong.