My life is very colorful now, so I declare that I will (try to) blog again.

First up, I will update my blogskin with up to date cool stuffs, namely all the fb/twitter link. Gosh my blog is so yesteryear. Time to learn programming.

Labels: Personal

Sitex'09 is going to start tomorrow and I have a pretty long list of items to buy, namely wireless n-router, a blu-ray drive, and probably some parts for a new computer I am going to setup.

Took a look at Sony VAIO CW price tag in the flyer. Pretty disappointed because the HDD is only 320 GB and it is about SGD300 more than the initial price. Don't think I am getting one anytime soon.

Labels: Computer, Personal, Sitex

As with last year, I went to Anime Festival Asia '09 as part of putting a bit of effort to stimulate our economy. IMO, I didn't stay there enough. I originally intended to explore the place for about 2 hours and catch some events, such as this, but in the end I was there for only about an hour or so and then attending the concert for the rest of the time spent in Suntec. That's because I went to catch Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance before heading there. I actually planned an hour half of Suntec hall exploring before the movie but due to unforeseen circumstances, namely serious traffic jam outside Orchard and long queueing times in Cineleisure, I sulkily skipped that exploration. Eva 2.0 was good by the way. :).

Anyway, here's all that I have in that short hour. Missed some pretty good stuffs, but the things on display can wait for me. It's quite image intensive, so click on the entire content button to reveal the rest of the post.













ZETSUBOU DA!












And some cosplay I was lucky enough to see.


Mio (K-On!)

Zero/Lelouch (Code Geass)

Hatsune Miku (Black Rock Shooter)

The concert was next. I was so tempted to snap a photo or two but my seat is so exposed to those AFA officials I decided not to. There were a lot of Gurren Lagann songs being sung by shokotan which is one of my main motivations for being there. Things would have been better if there were an actual band though. (And for miku's performance, I'd rather they give one fully rendered animation such as this than give three half-assed jerky and polygonal music videos.) Wasn't as great as I like it to be but it's still a worthwhile experience.



That's my only photo of the concert. I found more at shokotan's blog though.

The crowd:
http://ameblo.jp/nakagawa-shoko/entry-10393692311.html

And the gurren lagann's believe in me who believe in you:

P.S. The kamina figurine is not from the festival

That's about it for the first day. There's K-On! experience on the second day but ah, I couldn't make it. Gotta find pictures online tomorrow.

Labels: 2009, AFA, Anime, Personal

I was lying on my bed about 20 minutes ago and arching my back like a lazy cat when I felt a jolt. It felt like my body involuntarily twitched from my stretching so I decided that it's not the best position to stay in. Thus I turned my lazed body slightly and have it facing the ceiling such that I am laying on my bed staring at the ceiling like some stoned individual. It was pretty comfortable in that position and then this perpetual wave of seemingly very mild seismic activity set in. Okay I sort of exaggerated. It wasn't perpetual. It lasted for less than a minute I guess. I lay there wondering what it was and sort of enjoying it in that indolent mode. It wasn't my heartbeat since the vibration was so faster and it wasn't vibration caused by resonance. I couldn't care less though until my dad broke my surreal state of thought by asking me whether I felt the tremors. I certainly did.

But hmm, earthquake somewhere near Singapore again? Probably. I have never felt the tremors that vividly before since I live somewhere in the middle of the west area, not near the coastal areas. Thankfully for us, we will never feel the full impact of the earthquake because Singapore doesn't lie on the boundaries of plates, as taught proudly by our Geography teachers in lower secondary levels. Still, any tremors felt is sure to instill some degree of fear in some paranoia citizens (no offense intended if you were one of them) as proven times and times in the past. Just google "Singapore earthquake" and you will know what I mean. I still don't know the cause though so I stepped into the shower while others were investigating the cause (through the news I predict).

According to my mom who heard this from the news, this was caused by the earthquake in Sumatra which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale. I visited ChannelNewsAsia and the news proved to be true. We were definitely blessed to be only feeling tremors. Those in Sumatra are far worse off. May there be minimal casualties.

The news:

source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1008365/1/.html

Labels: Earthquake, Personal

Here's an image of the external hard disk I am using. It was bought in July last year and has been acting funny since November. And for the past few months, it cannot be read by any of the computers I tried so far, be it windows or mac. Upon googling this product, this is what I found:



Quite negative eh? There's more of such comments here but I couldn't be bothered to upload so many of them. It seems to common for Imation hard disk not to be detected by computers and I've found similar problems posted on tech forums on the same brand in the not-so-distant past. It's irritating especially when you have your pictures, songs, videos and everything stored inside. The warranty only covers replacing of the product, but not the repairing, so it means your data is going to be lost forever if you don't fork out the cash from your pockets.

Oh well, lesson learnt. Don't scrimp on your external hard disk especially when you are going to use it to store your precious information. Buy one with a good brand name, like Seagate and say, Western Digital. Maxtor used to be pretty faulty but since it's bought over by Seagate it should be better. Imation may be cheap but it's certainly not worth the value. (Not gonna buy their products anymore)

Labels: Computer, Imation, Personal

Anyway one of the reasons I stopped blogging is that I lost direction of what I want to do with this blog. I never really had a direction to begin with but now it is just worse than before ^^.

Leaving this to rot until I decide that I want to do something about this.

Labels: Personal

I didn't really feel like blogging but since I am able to catch a breather from everything, I might as well post a small entry here.

First thing first, my company is part of this trial batch thing and we are supposed prepare for some GP style presentation using old-school methods (marker and vanguard). That is in addition to some essay writing competition too. I don't really like all these thinking things too. It consumes my already short break before I go back in. D=.

Okay enough ranting. One thing I really missed in the past weeks is nua-ing. It just feels like I haven't nua-ed enough and I am looking for more. ~-~. Just can't find a time for it.

On a side note, those whom I have met up with recently would have noticed that I suddenly have a fetish for wearing hats. I think they are comfortable to wear. Slight change in my preferences. =).

Lol, this post is quite random.

Labels: Personal

I was pretty much in Sitex for nearly six hours earlier. This is the 20th year running for this annual electronic fair, and whao, you do get a lot of good bargains there that you can't get elsewhere.

Just take the set of speakers I bought today as an example. It's only an entry level speaker but at around 25 bucks, it is just too good. It's only twice the price of those rubbish speakers but it's definitely wayy better than them in terms of everything(and most importantly, sound quality). That set of computer speakers is sold at almost half price though. If clearing stock is their purpose, they have definitely achieved it because what I bought was one of the last few available sets.

That's not the only good bargain too, there's a lot of vendors selling laptops there with plentiful of free accessories. Heck, almost every item you buy there comes with free accessories.

Many will think that in a severe recession (source) such as now, and with future prospect looking bleak, such electronic fair will not be well received because consumers lose their confidence and fear a loss of buying power in the near future. That is however, not the case. At 11 when the fair has started, the halls were already crowded, but by 2, there were so many people at the fair that everybody is squeezed like sardine and moves together. When I say squeezed like sardine, it is not an exaggeration at all because at some places, it was so crowded that you can't even squeeze through to the opposite side. I will not make any blatant comparisons though because I do not have relevant information pertaining to past Sitex success.

Perhaps it is more appropriate to use another example. Now that people are poorer because of the recession, they no longer buy 16 gig iPod Nano. Instead, iPhone are sold out and 8 gig iPod Nano goes nearly out of stock at one Apple reseller and 8 gig iPod Nano starts selling out in the other. And you have to queue 20 minutes or more to buy an iPod too. Yea, people are "switching to cheaper alternatives" now that the economy is bleak. :). And did I mention there were a lot of people lugging a HD ready TV set each home?

Hmm, maybe people are bringing forward their expenditure for the sake of the discounts and see MP3 players as a necessity in our technologically prolific world.

Anyway, I have nothing against them since I am one of those people. I won't know whether sales of Sitex will drop this year but if it didn't, then that's good news (for the economy), maybe more so if private consumption doesn't make up only a small percentage of our GDP.

Hoho, I bought quite a lot of good bargains today. ~-~. By the way, the AFA post is updated with links to pictures already.

Labels: 2008, Economics, Personal, Sitex

I've just reached home from Suntec, where the AFA is held. (It's open today and tomorrow from 10am to 9pm.) I intended to spend some money there initially but instead came home empty handed because they ran out of stocks. There's still lots of Gunpla around and other random stuffs like the mecha san guo things though. Man, they sure run out fast, maybe I should have been in the thousand man long queue in the morning to grab the goods.

Some of the figurines I could have potentially bought:




Okay, they are all Miku figurines. =/. Some other nice figurines on exhibit (most of them are either not on sale or sold out):










(The cloud figurine above is on sale for a hundred bucks from what I can remember)





Yeps, quite a lot of popular titles there. Haruhi Suzumiya, Shana, Lucky Star, Death Note, FF7, Gundam, etc. Next up is some cosplay spotted at the festival, there should be more cosplayers tomorrow since the cosplay competition is on tomorrow. ^^

Lenalee & Road (D.Grayman):


Tobi & Deidara (Naruto):


Sasuke & ? (I am not a big fan of naruto =x) & Sakura (Naruto):


One spastic Ranka (with the wrong eyes color?) (Macross Frontier):


Gundam Exia:


There should be more of these cosplayers tomorrow. I came home early so I missed the Ichiru Mizuki performance. And there's going to be a May'n concert tomorrow too!


EDIT 30/11:
Here are the promised links!

http://www.splifearts.com/2008/11/afa-cosplay-photos/
http://www.darkmirage.com/2008/11/24/anime-festival-asia-2008/

Labels: 2008, AFA, Personal