About Y! Avatars

Nope, this is not today's DQ issue xDD. It's a whole different thing. As practice for Japanese, I've decided I'll at least try and sneak into some of Yahoo Japan's forums. I don't _produce_ nearly half as much as I read, and that's quite a problem. I know my teacher won't be exactly a big help there: sometimes I do ask myself why I'm paying her exactly, but, it sometimes has its perks, like free books or some resources I might not find on my own.

Anyhoo, Yahoo Japan's forums feature Avatars, which are basically dolls you wear with clothes picked from the site. Some -aha!- are premium content (ok, 60 yen is not much, but still... and the backgrounds are 240 yen!), some are not. Guess which ones I picked.

It's funny though how obvious some things are when you pronounce the katakana. Like, this short, slightly spiky haircut I picked, it was called "penkinguberiishooto". I blinked. Then again. Then I read it aloud. Of course: "Penking Very Short". Jeez. Like "kuroozetto". Closet. Well, duh.

You can pick every sort of complement and clothing, it's pretty funny. Under the "Toppusu" (Tops, of course) category, you'll find Suutsu (suits), T-Shatsu (T-shirts), Poro-Shatsu (polo shirts), vests, parkas, sweaters... oh and the T-shirts are also divided in categories depending on whether they show the belly or not (half-size or full-size, hansode, chousode). I'm right now looking at the "Botemasu" (Bottoms) section. There's chino pants, jeans, skirts...

Oh, there's Accesories, Jewellery, Pets, Shoes (Sneakers, Business Shoes, Boots, etc.) and you can even change the background. Some guy in the Top Dressers has a bleeping water bike behind him! Complete with sunset, sunglasses and all. It's... way too much.

Though I still can't understand why I can't wear my black Y! shirt under my green parka. Drat and double drat. Gah, all shops are premium content. Amazing, there's a horribly pink heart-filled background in there as well.

In short: all backgrounds which are actually usable ARE premium content. Nobody's gonna use a plain background and a plain floor. Nothing is better than that. Oh, there was a very interesting dicussion on why nothing was a thing (a thing that is the lack of things) and no thing is well, not a thing (but a way to say that a certain set of objects do not satisfy a certain predicate or condition). But that's not about Avatars.

Woof, it's already 2:28am. Time to go... playing OGame some more (Kami bless vacations!). It's a web-based space exploration game some of my classmates (and fellow Naruto fans) told me about. www.ogame.com.es for the Spanish version, but I'm sure they have others: the server itself is German-based.

Still haven't got a stupid Colonizer. My "empire" still consists of ONE planet.