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I haven't played a game in Japanese in some time, so I've resolved to do now with Gal Gun what I used to do years ago, in that I'd have a notepad nearby and take the time to write out kanji and look things up if I don't know what it is from memory. It grinds the progress of the game to a halt but this is one of the few things I ever did right to learn the very little which I do know to begin with, so it's just as well to try to do things right this time as well. Sure enough, once I sit down with ...

So a few weeks ago I mentioned that I purchased some RAM for use in the PC of one of my wife's coworkers, on her basis of saying that the machine was "running out of virtual memory". Just recently she informed us that her PC had lost all of the files on her hard drive and that it was telling her that the drive couldn't be accessed. Sometime between my putting the RAM in and April 15, she found a way to be infected with one of those bullshit anti-virus trojans which make all of the files ...

My wife has been on a bit of Lumines kick lately, on the PS3 specifically. She's on vacation so she has some time to play that here and there. We played 2P versus for a bit, which we only did once or twice before, and I quickly remembered our primary annoyance with it - you can't just have a new song played with each new battle or choose Random or make a playlist or anything. In 2P, you keep playing with the same song until you exit out of the mode, reconfirm that two players are playing, and then ...

I have about an hour and a half before House of the Dead 4 finishes downloading. So let's kill a bit of time talking about this underrated title from Seibu Kaihatsu.

This game combines elements of Cabal/NAM-1975 and Crossed Swords. Certainly it is an odd mix but this game works very well. Basically as you trudge through each of the nine stages you'll be assaulted by various soldiers and their heavy artillery. When they're far away you can gun them down but if they get close you gotta ...

New York is under attack by Mutants. Are you a crude enough dude to rescue New York?

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it doesn't it? Crude Buster was known as "Two Crude Dudes" here in the US, apparently since it may as well be a sequel to Bad Dudes. It's the future and the key to stopping "Big Valley" (such a silly name for a game, maybe they should be wearing sweaters around their necks and play badminton) is in a couple of guys who like to say "whatta ...

I had an estate income tax return to do today, pretty much immediately after I returned home from retail work and had dinner. Notice the phrasing there, because that is different from a mere estate tax return, which is filed one time on a different form and only applies if, as of 2012, the estate is worth at least $5 million at the time of valuation. Independent of that is an estate income tax return, which occurs every year for the income which the estate receives. Having not filed a Form 1041 ...

I have successfully evaded the rain today. The downpour was very temporary but it was enough to give everything a good soaking, and while that happened I was high and dry (well, the latter at least). I have adjusted the remainder of the Excise Tax forms for the 2012 year and should be ready to start making tests soon. From the looks of it, I might be able to copy the majority of content from last year's outright - which I won't do, but rather cite heavily for reference to ensure that what I create ...

Also known as "The Great Ragtime Show", this shooter by Data East is not one you can approach like any other. I guess the closest comparison is Wolf Fang, also by the same company. Basically you start off in a biplane with a hook attached. You can use this hook to grab objects such as bombs, enemies, and other vehicles, then toss them around. Also the levels are designed to be far more grounded and detailed than the average shooter. Stages commonly take place in city streets, inside of ...

Five stockmen scheduled. Opener is a no call no show. Second is me. Third is the guy who has stopped coming to work and is possibly actively trying to be fired. Fourth has successfully applied for transfer to another store and will be gone in a week. Last guy continues to be scheduled despite injury. The machine died an hour before my shift ended. Another new helper sent out with me, and within the span of hours he goes from completely fresh to the job to saying that he "wants to slap people" ...

I played some Gal Gun just a bit ago, and I chose to do so then because I did so last night in the early hours of the morning and the noise from using a gun attachment with the Move controller forced my wife to turn the fan on so that she could remain asleep. I guess my masturbation noises weren't the problem after all! Haha! Have fun getting that mental image out of your head. Well, trust me, it'd be worse if you knew what I looked like. But you already know, because I admittedly own Gal Gun and ...

Data East's Sly Spy features the easiest boss in arcade game history. Basically he's an Oddjob kinda fellow who throws his hat. All you do is duck his hat, then stand up and shoot him. Okay yes you do have to perform this action more than once to take him down but really that's all there is to it. The boss never decides to throw his hat low to the ground or in some sort of wonky angle. Maybe this was supposed to be a parody of the movie Goldfinger. You see, if Bond actually had a gun when he was ...

Today's Lesson is that it is difficult to find a bank's RTN when you only have eight of the nine requisite digits, nor the bank's specific name. Managed to put the Form 720 revision under wraps, so that means I should be able to get the other two forms (6627 and 6197) under wraps pretty much within a few days, because I don't think those forms were revised, and they would take much less effort to update if they have been. Next thing I need to do are few State returns and I'll be all caught up. ...

One of the forms I set up a while ago is 1065 Schedule K1, which is used by the partners of a partnership to report income. Upon actually submitting the test return data now, it appears that I don't have to attach the document at all and I could have saved myself the work by not creating the form at all. Oh well! The IRS submitter client is also giving me all sorts of fits and I had to restart the program a few times just to get the tests through.

Continuing on Gold in Extra Mode. ...

Frustrating morning. I have two clients whom I want to file, one is much easier than another, and in both cases I have some information which I will want to confirm and establish before I push things through. Despite several calls, I never get any response. A $20 rebate I'm looking to get from my sound card was declined because the Amazon receipt which I printed was not specifically an Invoice or Tracking Number, so it has been declined. It has the order date, it has the order number, it has the ...

So many Taito games. Is this a theme or something?
No I'm just a huge fan of Taito. Of all the arcade devs out there I think Taito has the most style and creativity. In terms of art-direction, plot, music, and all that other non-essential stuff I mean. Actually non-essential might not be the right word. After all the point of an arcade game is to make money, and there needs to be something there to attract the player's attention.

Warrior Blade is the third and final entry ...