Friday, November 21, 2008 - Sulfata and Tsunehisa's day, and hatching my DekaPosted by Elana |
I realized late last night that I had never recorded Sulfata's growth from Maruten to her child stage. She became a Kodoten, which is one of those heartbreakingly cute characters. It's a winged baby. Ee!
Last night was a Little Beeps hatch, which was quite a success because I messaged all the Tamagotchi fans on my IM contact lists and a lot of people swung by. ^_^ Everybody hatched something interesting. I hatched my Deka Tamagotchi for the first time, and it is SO COOL. I'm thinking about doing some instructional videos with it, because there isn't much information about it online. Tama Square has translated instructions, which were a big help. I'd like to use the Deka Tamagotchi to teach some Japanese vocabulary, since there is a lot to read. It's a good way to learn words, because when you go shopping you can see the item and its name underneath. And it's EXCELLENT reading practice for hiragana, because every conversation that happens at every location is printed in hiragana that scrolls up the screen at a medium pace. I read it aloud to myself before it scrolls off the screen, and even if I don't understand most of it, it's still very very useful reading practice.
It's a huge, oversized Tamagotchi and it comes with a little plastic kick-stand so that it can sit upright on your desk. I have it on my nightstand. The time screen makes it a pretty handy little clock, but it's always fun to look over and see my little girl doing her thing on the screen. ^_^ I named her Natsumi, which means "summer". I always thought that was a very pretty Japanese name, although it wouldn't work very well in an English-speaking country... I don't think any little girl wants to be named "nuts me". 
The idea of the Deka Tama is you have a little girl living in a house, and you explore your little town, try to save up some Gotchi Points, and spend it on lots of cool stuff! You can buy TONS of different furniture, toys and decorations for your house, and you can buy upgrades for your house too. Once the house is upgraded to a certain point, you can buy PETS for your house! That's right, PETS for your PETS!!! Can you see why I'm so psyched about this Tamagotchi??
You can buy Keitai items on the Deka and then transfer them to your Keitai. You can also send GP to your Keitai, but not vice versa... which is unfortunate because I have 9,999 GP on Pink With Hearts Keitai and presumably a lot on Milk Tea Keitai too. I wish I could send that money to my Deka to buy house upgrades and furniture!
The way you make money is by playing games. You go to the Tamagotchi Game Centre and one of two games is randomly selected. There's a bow and arrow game, and a face-matching game. They're both pretty challenging at first, and are completely timing games, so your adrenaline really starts to pump to try to win! They're very short games, and payoffs are between 50 and 300 GP depending on what character was on the screen at the time. I can go into more detail about the games if people are interested, but I'll probably do it on Little Beeps instead of here.
You can also gamble money in a double-or-nothing spin game at the Gotchi Bank. It looks like about a 50:50 ratio of wins and losses when you play that. There's probably some mathematical formula you can apply to manage your betting increments to maximize your winnings... I have a friend who's doing a Ph.D. in math right now, I think I'll ask him, hee hee hee.
So far I've upgraded Natsumi's house once, and I bought her a little broom to help her clean up, and a goldfish in a bowl to decorate her house. ^_^ So far items just sort of sit on the home screen and don't do much, but I haven't been watching my Deka for enough hours to see what might change... There are a lot of interesting and VERY expensive items in the shops, I'm sure some of them must have secret animations associated with them!
On the home screen, Natsumi seems to rotate through a sequence of resting animations that are very cute. She cycles through different bouncy dances (kind of like regular Tamagotchi characters do), and she also eats from a little bowl with chopsticks sometimes, and goes to bed in her futon sometimes too. Each mini-animation lasts about two seconds, so they're very quick. It's kind of like watching her blast through a bunch of days, so that you sense that time is passing much more quickly inside that little Deka shell.
I am really excited about my Deka. It's not like a regular Tamagotchi in that I don't think there is a life cycle. She won't change, age or die as far as I know; it's just building more and more and collecting more items. Since the game payoffs are so small relative to the cost of items, it could take a looooong time to accumulate enough GP to collect all the items that I want from the shops. This Deka will be on my nightstand for a long time, I think. 
Today at work, I've had two growths. Two, because, after yesterday's death, I have instated a two-Tamagotchi policy. ^_^ Sulfata and Tsunehisa both came along in my purse today.
Tsunehisa was the first to grow up. He became a Debatchi. Next was Sulfata. She became... a Ginjirotenshi!! I don't remember who it was, but I told someone that I was hatching my Angel, and they said, "I hope you get Ginjirotenshi!" Throughout raising her, I had that character in the back of my mind. Last time I raised my Angel, I got Kuriten and then the twins, so this is an exciting new development for me. She is MEGA, MEGA cute. The Angel has quite the reputation as being the Tamagotchi with the cutest characters, and it's really hard to argue with that.
She did an angelic act today: she danced in a sparkle shower while she made sparkly beeps. It was so adorable, I almost regretted having to ring the bell and praise her because it meant that she would stop.
I am really happy and excited with the crop of Tamagotchis I have running right now. Four or five Tamas seems to be the golden number for me. I feel comfortable, happy, and not overwhelmed. It seems like having only one Tamagotchi active at a time loses a little bit of momentum and excitement. It's easier to forget about them when there's only one. And carrying two with me at work seems comfortable so far too. Before I became involved in the online Tamagotchi community, I used to have two around with me all the time: Pink Tama and Purple Tama. So maybe this is the level of Tama-raising that my Tama-raising style "grew up" with.
I'd love to add pictures later but I'm writing from work at the moment! Catch you later, my darlings! |
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Thursday, November 20, 2008 - One growth and a RIPPosted by Elana |
Cozy has reached his adult form on my leopard print V4.5. He became a character I've never seen before... a Matsuritchi!!!! He made me giggle when I first saw him, because he looked like a sushi chef to me. But just now I looked up the character name for this blog and freaked out with delight when I found out he was called Matsuritchi. "Matsuri" is the Japanese word for "festival"; there are lots of fun traditional seasonal festivals throughout the year in Japan, and they have the best music and really fun activities. Many of them are local to a particular township or region. People dress up in traditional yukata and go down to a part of town that is all decorated and eat takoyaki and play carnival games...! The main event of the matsuri depends on where and when it takes place and what the theme is. There's an interesting Wikipedia article that can give you a taste of the variety of Japanese matsuri! And I Google Image Searched for some pictures to show you what they can be like:
Some matsuri have magnificent floats:
Some involve taking the local shrine out for a stroll around town. ^_^
One common game is to try to fish out a goldfish from a stream/tub, and if you succeed you can take it home!!!!
The last time I was at a matsuri I was too young to appreciate it... I don't even really remember. I think I saw floats being walked down the street, and I think I got to wear a kimono... I think I was five years old? I should ask my mom, she'd remember.
There are lots of matsuri scenes in episodes of anime, and they're always drawn with care and are full of nostalgic memories. They are usually very romantic scenes too!
So I am super pleased to have a Matsuritchi. He's wearing a little headband and a traditional yukata and he looks like he's ready to have a good time! 
My other news is kind of sad... my Kuchipatchi on Denny-tama was starting to show signs of aging and neediness. I guess I was in denial because I wasn't keeping up with his hearts dropping. He didn't survive the walk to work this morning.  I was a little bit pissed, because his dying beeps started the second I stepped into the store. If he'd hung on a bit longer, I could have put down my bag and found him and tended to him. But instead I went the whole day without a Tama. It sucked! I have to start carrying backup Tamas!! At least two at a time from now on!! Or is that crazy? 
In about two and a half hours, we're meeting at the Little Beeps chatroom for tonight's hatch. I went through quite an ordeal last night to pick up my Deka from my apartment, but I'm sure it'll be worth it! It's been ages since I started up a Tama that I've never played before. I've been doing my research and I think I'm pretty well-prepared to try out this Tama that is still not very well known due to its price and rarity. There is a lot of Japanese to read in it too, lots of menus, so I'll be expanding my brain a bit for this Tamagotchi! It's so worth it!!!
I'll update again after the hatch and tell you all about my Dekatama! |
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - Tsunehisa becomes a teenPosted by Elana |
Right when he woke up, Tsunehisa the Kuribotchi on Pink With Hearts Keitai grew into his teen form and became a Ringotchi. I'm really pleased about that because it means that I took fairly good care of him. It's a relief to know that, because it's been a while since I've run multiple Tamagotchis! Granted, it's only when I'm at home, but it's still some nice positive reinforcement. Anyway, it's good to see him progressing. I think by this stage he's already capable of connecting with a Deka; as far as I know, once past the child stage, a Keitai is ready to connect with a Deka. So we're all set for Thursday night's hatch.
Today I took my Kuchipatchi on Denny-tama to work with me. I've been very aware of how quickly he's dropping hearts, worrying for the first sign of neediness that comes with age. My expertise is with Connections that never gain neediness when they get old, so whenever I'm running a 90's Tamagotchi, it's always an anxiety in the back of my mind the second they reach their adult stage. How many more long, healthy days do we have together? When will I start seeing tons of empty hearts? It's a little exercise in fear of mortality every time I raise one of these. |
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Sunday, November 16, 2008 - Dylan's birthday hatchPosted by Elana |
Tonight was Dylan's birthday hatch at Little Beeps. It was a small event, with just me, Dennis and Dylan, but that was to be expected for a small event that was planned on pretty short notice. Dennis and Dylan are a party though, so it was a great time!
Dylan hatched a P2 and a Digimon, and I hatched my Angel. I had planned to hatch my Angel with Dennis last month, but I ran into problems with the batteries and then the screw stripped. It was the night before I went on a weekend retreat with my choir, so I didn't have time to deal with it. Today I had plenty of notice, and I sat down in the afternoon with my Angel and a screwdriver, put on Cardcaptor Sakura, and worked on boring through the head of the screw for a couple hours.
After about four episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura, I managed to pry off the backing of my Angel. It didn't go perfectly, unfortunately. I accidentally snapped off one of the teeth on the bottom of the backing that fit into those slots to keep the backing locked in place. I snapped it off on the side with the stripped screw, too, so that side is especially insecure now that I've bored a hole to pop the backing on and off the shrunken screw head. I've attached a piece of masking tape on the back to try to keep the backing snug. Dennis came up with the idea of replacing the backing on my Angel with one of a healthy Tama, but I'd rather use that as a last resort. I don't like the idea of another Tama hanging around with no backing at all!
Dennis has a bit of experience with stripped screws and busted backings, and his experience shows that tape is only a temporary solution. My Angel seems to work fine even without the tape there, but the backing isn't perfectly snug and pops up a little. So there is contact with the batteries, it's just not totally secure the way it should be. The tape is just there as an extra measure so that it feels just as secure as a healthy Tama. I'm prepared to replace the tape as often as necessary when it loses its adhesiveness.
The hatch went really well. It's been years since I played with my Angel, so I had a few questions about how it works. ^_^ Luckily Dennis and Dylan are well-versed in 90's Tamas and could answer all my questions.
I invented a name for my Angel baby: Sulfata. I think it's quite romantic-sounding. ^_^ Like the name of a jinni or something. She's a Maruten now.
While the three of us were in the chatroom talking about Tamas and things, we talked about having another hatch on Thursday night. I've been really stressed out at work lately, and I've been kept really busy with all of these choir gigs and things. Tamagotchis are a great hobby that help me unwind and think about trivial things for a little while. They really cheer me up and relax me. Now that I don't have any choir gigs coming up in the immediate future, I'd like to give myself a chance to really play with some of my Tamas, especially the ones I haven't played with before. I have a pretty extensive collection and most of them are still in their packages. As Christmas gets closer, work at the store is going to get more and more insane, and I am going to need this calm centre more and more. Thinking about hatching new Tamas that I've never played with is something that I can really look forward to with excitement, and it doesn't cost me any more money than I've already spent on collecting them. ^_^
The next Tama I would like to play with is my blue Deka. I bought it years ago and it's still in the box. It's a magnificent Tamagotchi. I'm experienced enough with my Keitais now that I think it's time to add a new dimension to my Keitai experience, and activate my Dekatama and collect all the items. I was reading the instructions and I got myself all excited! So that is what I am going to hatch on Thursday night.
Thinking about hatching my Deka, I decided that I should probably have a character on a Keitai that is ready to connect with a Deka. I took out Pink With Hearts Keitai and named the baby boy on there. I named him Tsunehisa, who was the son of Prince Yoshihisa, which is a name I used a number of generations ago on Pink With Hearts Keitai. He's a Kuribotchi now.
Once I got started, it was hard to stop. I poked through my paused North American Connections to try to find a mate for poor Ulfa who's been waiting so long on Pink Tama. I found a teenage boy on my Leopard Print V4.5, Cozy the Ura Young Mametchi. I should give him a chance to grow, and he can eventually become Ulfa's mate.
I won't be able to handle all four of these Tamagotchis when I'm at work or otherwise occupied, but they're at least out on my nightstand and in regular rotation for the time being. Denny-tama will continue to be my main Tamagotchi for the next few days at least! He's still a young and strong Kuchipatchi. ^_^
And of course there's my Pocket Pikachu, that I'm always too scared to wear because I'm afraid it'll fall off and I'll lose it...
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Saturday, November 15, 2008 - Denny-Tama Grows UpPosted by Elana |
I'm writing to you from the "meeting room" of the university's hockey arena. My choir is singing the national anthem today before our team plays against Concordia University. I got here way early and have been sitting here reading a comic book while listening to jocks act like jocks outside the door.
Kuchitamatchi has been at my side, and moments ago I heard the musical beeps of a transformation. Don't act too surprised: it's a Kuchipatchi. I don't think I've ever gotten any other character on this P1!
I'd like to add a photo when I get the chance; I'm writing with my iPhone at the moment!
Update: here's a photo of my new Kuchipatchi with me in the little "meeting room" at Varsity Arena!
Dennis also corrected me today; I've never gotten a Kuchipatchi on Denny-tama before! My first time raising it, I got a Mametchi. Next, a Masktchi. He has an impressive Tamamemory, and I forget things pretty much instantaneously. |
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2008-Nov-13 - Josh HutchersonPosted by Micky |
Josh Hutcherson is hot and he is in the movie bridge to terabithia and a lot of anther movies. but my fav movie that he has dun is journey to the center of the earth. because he is rely hot in that movie and because it is a good movie and I also love this pic of Josh because he is rely hot in it. It is also the best pic I have seen of him!! |
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2008-Nov-13 - Josh HutchersonPosted by Micky |
well now that is a sight for sour eyes
I love this pic of josh
Don’t you think that he is hot but not hotter then Skandar Keynes because no one is hotter then Skandar!!!!!
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Thursday, November 13, 2008 - A lovely transformationPosted by Elana |
It's only an eight-minute walk from the store to my parents' house, but it's always a lovely walk. It's a quiet stroll through suburban streets, big houses, and rarely another person sighted along the way. Lots of squirrels and little birds, and at night sometimes a cat. Some of the houses have beautiful gardens, and others are messes. There's always at least one interesting thing to observe on each walk, to and from work.
Tonight was an exceptionally lovely walk home after a long day at the store. It's a full moon tonight, and it was extraordinarily beautiful. The sky was a perfect midnight blue at 7:30 in the evening here, with wispy clouds flowing over the moon, hiding it and revealing it like a fluttering silk scarf over a bellydancer. It was so round and perfect and white, it gave me a big smile all the way home. The criss-cross of naked leafless tree branches were perfect moving frames as I walked underneath them. They're really piddly little trees, still quite unremarkable and underdeveloped in such a new subdivision, but they were magnificent tonight.
Just as I was about to walk up the driveway to my parents' house, I heard faint musical beeping from inside my purse's front pocket. Marutchi was also very moved by the beautiful evening, and grew up all at once! I watched the pixels dart around on his screen before revealing a Kuchitamatchi. Hello my dear!
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