Sorry to be chattering so much about Baten Kaitos

Looking on Yahoo Japan to see what kind of Baten Kaitos books there are. Found the official settei book. It costs 46,800 yen. That's a pity; this is one game where I actually would shell out for some behind-the-scenes information on the art direction and high-quality illustrations.

ETA: Found the same title on Amazon Japan for a little under 10,000 yen. Progress, I guess.
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Magazines I subscribe to

When you're vegetarian, you tend to have a very limited menu unless you learn to prepare a larger variety of dishes yourself. I subscribed to Vegetarian in an attempt to increase my repertoire. I've discovered a few neat recipes, and it's nice and often comforting to read other subscribers' accounts of shared experiences in the lifestyle, but there're a couple of issues with the magazine's approach. First, they don't exactly aim for convenience with the ingredients list; it isn't uncommon for recipes to reach 15-20 ingredients, and many of those are spices that can cost $$$ but of which you'll use only a pinch. Second, the audience can get really hung up over calorie counts. They once a featured a dessert that totaled 500 calories per serving, and the readership pitched a fit. I mean, most Gardein not-chicken filets and whatnot clock in at 100 calories per person. I think we can afford to splurge once in a while.

Ironically, Martha Stewart Living has been more consistently helpful recipewise; the editors seem to make a point of including a couple solid veg dishes with every issue, and I can usually find a neat dessert to try. I didn't buy it for the cuisine, though; I instead was attracted by how remarkably erudite it was in featuring and introducing ways to make your living space better, new hobbies to try, and intriguing creators in their workspaces and daily routines. Even if you're not moved to try a project, shop an artist, or visit a locale yourself, it's all presented so attractively, in a refreshingly clean and contemporary style, that it's a pleasure just to read the articles. The magazine's also remarkably free of the stupid diet and self-help stuff that junks up other "women's" publications that try to sell their readers perpetual self-doubt; it's more honestly focused on how to make your life - well, certain aspects of your life - better and is geared for curious minds.

I used to subscribe to Popular Mechanics but didn't get around to renewing once my Something Awful-aided free year's subscription ran out. I found it stimulating in a pragmatic way, in how it showed you how stuff works and how you can take charge of your environment through DYI repairs, but I guess I didn't find enough issue to issue for it to make the cut. I still have a free sub to its sister publication, Popular Science, but I'm kind of surprised with how much purely speculative stuff gets in here - it seems the editors go more for headline-grabbers than solid theory. And it has some bad writing; I recall in particular an article on the use in the military of the "positive psychology" of Martin Seligman, whose latest book on the subject I read last year, that totally screwed up both the basic concept and how its use could be both helpful and problematic in resolving PTSD issues. The short-article format isn't exactly conducive to thoughtful examinations of the ideas on tap. It makes me miss Astronomy, to which I once subscribed. I'd do so again if it weren't so dang expensive.

Saveur seems to be the best-regarded of the monthly food publications, and I can tell that it's plainly for a higher income bracket than mine: its articles presume the reader to be a globetrotter who regularly jets here and there for haute cuisine. To be fair, it does devote a good deal of space to recipes that ostensibly allow you to recreate the international experience at home, but you're necessarily dealing with rather advanced techniques and esoteric ingredients. Not for me, but I'll recommend their indispensible 150 classic recipes feature, which bucks the aforementioned trend to showcase solid recipes for cornerstone dishes from a variety of cultures. (Colcannon, the Irish mashed-potato variant that's #2 on the list, is quite good.)

I used to have a subscription to Islands. (Yes, another free one from SA. You can get a lot of subs if you check the Deals forum; I understand you have to beat Wall Street Journal and Maxim off with a stick once you sign up for them.) It ended only about three issues in, though, so I don't know if the magazine went defunct or what (if it did, then, gee, I wonder why!). I've no chance of visiting any of the locations featured in the near future, but the photography was predictably gorgeous, the articles often smart and colorful; it was a nice little monthly vacation.