Holiday Cheer: Mobile App Cheer

I know that I've been away, but I'm actually back in Savannah for a bit, chilling out and enjoying my holidays. So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy-I-Hope-You're-Doing-Well-This-Season. I wanted to throw some apps at you that I've downloaded and enjoyed this entire year. If you've heard of them, great and pass them on! If not, I hope that you can benefit from the enjoyment they offer in their own ways.


‣ BLENDOKU.
This is like sudoku for colours. This game helps me see colours better; sometimes the changes are so minute that it might take a bit of time to figure it all out. You're compared against the world average speed and if you can solve a single puzzle perfectly without any mistakes. Available for Apple and Android devices.

Download from App Store. Download from Google Play.


‣ CRUEL JEWELS.
Has a similar set up to Bejeweled, but it comes in different modes and stages. There's a voice over that narrates your score type: Brilliant, Marvelous, Absurd, Preposterous, and Inconceivable. The music is very calming and catchy. If you're just in it to spend time, playing the Continuous mode is a good way to go. Available only on Apple devices.

Download from App Store.


‣ WORD STRIKE.
You're given four hints, and you have to spell the one word that's similar between all of them. Created by Ticbits who also made a Mahjong app, which I would highly recommend playing. Both available only for Apple devices.

Download from App Store. Download Mahjong from App Store.


‣ TETRIS BLITZ.
Just a rendition of a lifelong favourite. The concept is the same, but it comes with incredible power-ups as well. So if anything, this is probably one of the apps that I plays the most. Available for both Apple and Android devices.

Download from App Store. Download from Google Play.


And that's all from me, I think. I know this is a late post, but it would have been earlier if it wasn't for the fact that we made dinner for so long! I hope you guys are having a good week, and I'll try to have more posts of actual note this season. If not, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

JetPens Mini-Review

So I've been longing for something from JetPens for, well, I don't even know how long anymore. Since I'm always in the market for new notebooks, I really wanted to buy something from them since I had the funds. I've had these notebooks for about a week now, and I've only used the black leather one. It's hard for me to do a proper notebook review, since I've never done it before.

What I can say is that these goods are high quality. The binding on the Kokuyo Campus A5 notebook is spectacular. I love the outer look of it, and the pages feel... sleek. It's hard to explain; it doesn't exactly feel like regular paper. It feels a lot smoother than regular notebooks; the Maruman B6 Cover Note feels the same as well.

The Maruman Cover Note looks sleek, and even though I've ruined the pages with my quick scripted short hand, I enjoy opening and using it every time. There are two different ribbons (the red and the black one), and I suppose that'll be useful in the long run.

The Pilot Hi-Tec-C Maica gel pen, though. Wow, now that's a beautiful tool there. It's 0.4mm, which is the smallest I've ever used before. I'm fascinated by the control, especially since it doesn't leak unnecessarily or have a lot of ink drag. On regular paper, the gel pen dries in about a second. On more sleek paper like the Maruman Cover Note, it takes about, hm, twenty seconds or so for it to dry without smearing. I absolutely love it. It's probably my most favourite thing out of what I bought. I'll let you all know, in the long run, if anything changes amongst these items (something breaks, or runs out, etc). Until then, just know that I'm pretty impressed with these purchases and will more than likely go back to them.

If you're interested in the individual items, here's the Kokuyo Campus, the Maruman Cover Note, and the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Maiga gel pen. And of course, feel free to check out JetPens' amazing inventory, and remember: tell 'em GDR sent ya.

Swift☆Stitch It All Together.

Thank you, Yasu, for bringing this to my attention.

So I started playing this game called Swift☆Stitch, and it's quite a game. It's very uncomplicated in its design, and it's a colourful puzzle game with a new twist on solving each level. It tests your reflexes like never before, and if you're in need of some serious training, this game is good for that. One of the cool things is that Swift☆Stitch actually comes with achievements as well. But be careful, glancing up to read them might result in you bashing your cursor into a wall.

The controls are simple to use. You can choose to use your mouse (as I did) or your keyboard, and all the while, you're accompanied with pretty nice background music. You can change your control settings, if you like; it's colourblind friendly(!), and you can even select one of the three different game modes. Even though the idea is to go fast, you can turn down or speed up your cursor through each level.

It's a good game; it's a fun game, and it can be hard. Because I left the speed on the default level of four, it was a bit more challenging for me that it might have been if I toned it down. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed myself. If you want to try out Swift☆Stitch, you can go visit the official homepage and download it for your Windows, OSX, or Linux system. You can even take it mobile — I guarantee it'll really help you pass the time.

Hope you like it, and if you do, tell 'er GDR (and Yasu) sent ya!

"I DON'T LIKE ME", but I Love This Song.

It's been a long, long time since I've dabbed into Aldious' music, and I'm so glad that I was on Ameblo when I was. After jumping from AKIRA's blog, I found myself on Re:NO's blog, and on her sidebar was a video for "I Don't Like Me". Re:NO really delivered this song, and the other members, each and every one of them, produced such a beautiful melody.

I'm sad that it's just a video sample, because I could listen to this song over and over. I've already played this video an innumerable amount of times as it is. It's been a while since I've touched a KERA magazine, or since I've listened to Jrock-esque music, especially from all girl bands. I'm trying to fix that up by listening to more dansou bands, and that's helping me rediscover my musical likes and loves.

If there is one song you have to listen to by Aldious, this would definitely be the one. I'm going to look around to see how I can buy the CD+DVD of "Damnation/I DON'T LIKE ME", and if I come up with anything, I'll be sure to let you know.

Further Down the Rabbit Hole: Alice in Wonderland Planner

I've been something of an unorganized mess, and I've been eying this planner for a really long time now. I bought this November 21th, and it didn't get to me until December 5th. The wait wasn't really that bad, if I'm to be completely honest. I wouldn't expect it to get here super fast considering the shipping was free.

All in all, I'm completely happy with it right now. It's a lot smaller than I thought it would be! It's the size of my hand and almost as wide with both my hands size by side. Here's a quasi-decent photo of its size.

To talk in detail about it a bit, it comes with a lot inside.

In the first section after the year calendar, there's a place to take a monthly account of your budget, and within that monthly, there's a weekly breakdown. It helps if you're doing a lot of online or personal spending. You can divide it up by living, dining, home dec, communication & tax, traffic (bus travel, I assume), savings, and more. It's extremely handy, and something I need to utilize in the future for sure. After the monthly budget, there's a brief diary section. I supposed where you can put little notes. Opposite every note page, there's an illustration from the original Alice story. The daily record follows next, and towards the end, there's a place where you can make notes about where you visit, concerts you plan to visit, and so on.

For such a small book, it has a lot to it, and I'm really thankful for it. It comes with diary stickers and four pages of stamps. I'm going to keep the stamps as collector items, I'm sure, and I'll use the index stickers scarcely. I'll try, ahahaha.

This is one of a few planners, but right now, I ultimately think that this one will be my favourite.

If you're interested in buying this planner, you can buy it directly from this listing or from cupidgift, the seller on eBay.

The Daily Lives of High School Idiots.

I hardly know where to begin with this one. After a long time of listening to otto and Yasu talk a lot about it, I finally decided to watch 男子高校生の日常 aka Daily Lives of High School Boys. I have to say that this anime is a lot more than I ever thought it would be. There's... a lot to it, and there's a lot to take in, but we're going to try to break down first impressions, mid-season thoughts, common thoughts, and final decree.