I've been looking into a couple of free Mmorpgs and discovered Florensia. It's not easy getting into a new game when you're used to WoW's oh so simple interface and settings, but I've been giving it a shot.

Starting off, you chose between four different classes: Explorer, Noble, Mercenary and Saint. I picked a Mercenary, he was the most badass looking one (and not a lot at that).

At first I was a little cunfused. Questgivers and their hand-in counterparts don't show up on any maps. However, the questlog states who I need to talk to, and the 'big map' displays where all the npc's are at. It's a minor inconvenience looking for someone, but so far there's only some 20 npc's to select (in the town where I currently reside) so it's not too bad.

Another thing I found a little annoying is when 'sealed' gear drops. Sealed means that I can't use the item unless I unlock the seal. How do I unlock it? Find the local bartender..

..What?

At first I was thinking, alright, this is a Deckard Cain type thing, where I whip out a few gold to have my gear identified, right? Nope. You still need to shell out some cash, but you also need.......fish a Dissolution Pearl, aquired from fishing.

...What?!

In other words, I'll need to find out how to fish, which'll be a drag. Or not, as I found out you can go away from keyboard while you fish and it'll keep going until you run out of room in your inventory or run out of bait. That's kinda sweet. Every once in a while you'll catch a pearl. (Don't ask me how that works, catching pearls with a fishing hook..)

It'll be a huge improvement from the fishing in WoW. (I swear, I have NEVER in my years of playing come above rank 7 in fishing).

Another thing that I have yet to explore is the ability to get your own ship and take to the seas. It sounds really cool and will be useful when travling between the islands that make the world of Florensia.

So I kind of got it all down now, I can kiiiinda read hiragana and katakana, albeit really really slow, and I still stumble a bit upon some of the characters. Especially the dakuten and handakuten. But it's getting there.

Now, I've taken on the task to properly learn to write them. Like, for instance, if I see this せ, I know it's 'se', but if I am to write it from memory, I'll have to stop and think, hard. But I'm working on that and hopefully, in a near future, I'll be writing a few posts in Japanese.

Some while back I found a site where yould submit what you've written (in whatever language) and native speaking users could correct you or make suggestions. I've lost the site, sadly, but that could've come in handy. :-]

(Read this first).

The DVD was released on tuesday and it dropped in my mail yesterday. So finally, I got to see the movie! It was pure awesome and both Oskar and Eli were as cute as I imagined when I read the book. Both Lina and Kåre did great jobs with their characters, even though the dialogue felt just a little stiff at times (not at all limited to these two, however).

What bugged me (apart from the -again!- far-too-few scenes with Oskar and Eli), was that they left so much out of the story. So much info about Håkan was lost. Information about Eli's past was lost, only hinting about the "I'm not a girl"-bit. Quality time with Oskars' dad was lost (although there was a kind of a montage [even Rocky had a montage!!1] that kind of covered that I suppose).

All in all though, a wonderful movie. I'd encourage you to read the book before watching the movie. And I'd encourage you to watch it before the Americans destroys it with their upcoming remake. :-]