Halos, art, and a little Strange
Halo 3 is out. I picked it up. Some games have multiple language tracks on the disc and will play acording to what language you set your system to (Ninja Gaiden, for example). Other games are one region only, so they play in Japanese no matter what (Phantasy Star Universe). In Halo 3, all the voice-overs are in Japanese, and although the cutscenes have subtitles, the in-game voices don't. That means I miss most of what the grunts say, and more importantly, miss the lines voiced by various actors from Firefly/Serenity. Nate Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and Alan Tudyck are all listed in the credits as having done voices for some of the marines that are with you in some of the missions. I am catching more of the Japanese than I recall understanding when I played Halo 2 here, though.
My Art exhibit opened yesterday. Being the first day of the exhibit as well as a Monday, there weren't that many people, though a few stopped in. In the morning, journalists from two different newspapers came in, so I'll be getting some press coverage. The first reporter didn't speak any English. The second one, who is an acquaintance of mine, came while I was talking to the first guy. The first guy said I was understanding 99% of what he was asking, though I would've put it at 80%. The gallery owner said the first day is usually slow, but after the newspaper articles come out, there will be quite a few more people coming in. The gallery blog, in Japanese, is here- you can see the exhibit announcement- and the gallery's website is here- there's nothing bout my exhibit there yet, but it should be updated within the next couple of days with a bunch of pictures and more Japanese text.
I went to Mos Burger, a Japanese fast food chain that dropped the word "fast", for lunch. While waiting for my take-out order, I noticed that they have some kids books along with a couple of little toys for families that go there. The book selection caught me a little by surprise: Harry the Dirty Dog (in Japanese) which I haven't seen here before, and Emily the Strange (also in Japanese). I kind of want to know who made the selection. They're either really cool, or don't have a clue.