Friday, December 29, 2006
12/29/2006 01:17:00 AM
"Hmmmm..."
what affects us the most?
due to the earthquake in taiwan, singnet and starhub have lost internet connections to areas out of asia
6 communication cables were cut and 2 were found dead with 42 injured.
now the thing is, everyone is focusing on the loss of internet instead of the families of the bereaved
there will be some people who will say that it is wrong and we should turn our attention to the dead
not to sound uncaring but i guess if you look at the big picture, the internet problem is more important than the dead and the injured
we're talking about asia here.
i know due to the breakdown in communications, deliveries cannot be made, work cannot be done, economies will start to slip
it's going to take at least 3 weeks to fully recover our bandwidth
it is definitely affecting a lot of us
are we being realistic here? yes.
are we being selfish? maybe.
it's just being human.
in other news!
i took 6 hours to finish building my GP03S Dendrobium vs Neue Ziel / Gebera Tetra!
oh man it looks so awesome!
i wish i had gotten that HGUC Dendrobium... when will they release it in 1/100 scale? :P
sasa will be back tomorrow! weeee!
~fin~
transient dreamer.~`unconscious
Sunday, December 24, 2006
12/24/2006 03:18:00 PM
"Passion"
the title of the concert i attended last night
last night was one night gamers in singapore will never forget
it was the night we had the first game/anime music concert held here
by a small ensemble from Eminence, an australian group, we were treated to songs from games like chrono cross and xenosaga, and from anime like Laputa and Princess Monoko
Mr Yasunori Mitsuda was there as a guest and he is one of the most revered characters in video game music production.
Hiroaki Yura, the lead violinist, founded the group and last night, he was accompanied by Ayako Ishikawa, violinist (she is DAMN chio.), Natalia Raspopova, pianist, Zane Banks, guitarist and Joshua Hill, percussionist.
together, they presented to us a performance that ended with thunderous applause!
i would like to give special mention to Hiro and Ayako, who played with their hearts and soul instead of just their hands. the expressions on their faces when they played were mesmerising.
i had some minor gripes though:
1. Time's Scar's violin role was kinda masked by the percussion
2. Super Mario Bros was a little too short but ended well with the "game over" music
3. more final fantasy please
4. i want zelda! ZELDA!
this was one concert i fully enjoyed and only until zz told me that is was 10pm already did i realised that 2 hours had just passed like that.
i would definitely go for their concert again!
...or the Black Mages could come to singapore and give us their rendition of one-winged angel!
Job well done Eminence! you shall be the one who starts the ball rolling.
Hopefully singapore can be a gaming hub for console gaming instead of just things like DotA or CS. and give us our wii damnit!
oh oh there was this joke told to us by Hiro where Mr Yasunori Mitsuda went for an interview at Squaresoft, or currently known as Square Enix and My Nobuo Uematsu was there (the god of Final Fantasy music.):
Mr Nobuo Uematsu: Do you know Final Fantasy?
Mr Yasunori Mitsuda: Err, no.
Mr Nobuo Uematsu: (shocked) Well what games do you know?
Mr Yasunori Mitsuda: Err.... Dragon Quest?
Mr Nobuo Uematsu: (still in shock) Are you intending to stay in our company?
Mr Yasunori Mitsuda: (with a smile on his face) I am using this company as a stepping stone.
XD that's what i call character lol
~fin~
transient dreamer.~`unconscious
"Jingles~"
it's xmas eve! it's xmas eve!
i've managed to keep myself really busy these past 2 weeks or so...
i found a hidden stash of money somewhere *gasp* that i was saving up for something huge next year but i decided that with all my commitments, maybe i won't be able to achieve that
looking at how i cannot get my Wii (curses!) before xmas, and i didn't want to waste precious holiday time, i went ahead and bought myself an Xbox360 (oh the horrors!)
i was never an xbox fan since the previous xbox had really crappy games
but boy did i have a time of my life!
i have been sleeping at 2-3am every night playing Gears of War (voted game of the year) with other singaporeans trying to relive my good ol' FPS/TPS days!
guess what? i'm back to my hardcore console gaming again!
In total i spent about $1000
i went through 2 days of mental torture though...
in order to achieve a good internet/wireless signal in my third floor bedroom, i had to make some changes to the house and install some hardware.
i went ahead and bought Linksys AM300 (ADSL2 modem), WRT54G (router) and WRE54G (range expander).
the problem was, i spent 2 days troubleshooting the ()&(*^(&% router and only after seeing a forum hardware thread, did i find out that the latest batch of WRT54G had one big problem: it was a router that could only support 1 computer.
i bit my lips and went to buy a DLink DI-524 router which solved all my problems within 5min. In total, i think i spent almost $350.
Let's see... what other things did i buy...?
i pre-ordered a local version of the Wii.
i bought the limited ed zelda guidebook with cloth hyrule map.
i bought battery packs and a charger for my 360 controllers.
1600 MS points for xbox live.
3 month gold live subscription.
new glasses.
munchkin card game expansion pack for zz and family.
a cd from Passion concert. (which i will come to in a little bit)
treat my former DXO to lunch.
i think i spent about $650
that's $2000 never to be seen again...
i still have my cloud/seph coldcast statues to look forward to and my wii
goodbye another $1200 or so
time to survive on bread and water. i think i've bought enough to make up for all i had saved this year...
Merry Xmas to myself! Yay!
~fin~
transient dreamer.~`unconscious
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
12/12/2006 10:09:00 AM
"Kyushu~"
the land of sights, food and shopping!
Even though it was a short flight, it was still a 1am flight and being me, someone who cannot sleep on planes, it was kinda painful. Lousy movies! Anyway, after we touched down and spent an hour at immigration, we set out on our tour of Kyushu island!
First stop! Huis Ten Bosch, a quaint little town designed European style. When I walked into the shops, I felt as though I was really in Holland again. Only difference was that this place was much cleaner and brighter haha. They sell tons of "Miffy" products here as well as abundant cheeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. We spent almost the whole day here and went back for a good sleep. zzzzzzzzz....
Yeah yeah was posing for photo and I realised I looked like a Priest in this one:
First damage of the trip. Blueberry sherbet softcream. I blame my sis for all this icecream madness. Same thing happened in Italy ._.
The next day we visited Glover Garden. It was yet another European designed housing. It was on a hill and we had to climb in early in the morning. With all the winter clothing, well it was good exercise!
Second half of the day we visited the Nagasaki Peace Museum. It was all about the nuke in WWII. Saw all the relics and read about what happened to the innocent people exposed to the burns and radiation. If I am not wrong, this glass case was dedicated to a little girl who died due to the radiation. Folding paper cranes from the paper used to wrap the medicine was told to help in recovery. Poor girl...:
We then visited the Peace Garden just around the museum. It was a huge open area with a passageway to a fountain:
Back to hotel for our first Onsen! aka Hotspring bath! I happily went for the outdoor one who gave me a fever the next day haha. Took this before we left the next morning to Hello Kitty Land:
Hello Kitty Land. Err not much to say about it except that it was quite small and the number of visitors were almost equal to the number of service staff. Fun place for young kids I must say. Bought a lot of nice food and Hello Kitty stuff there! My first time on a Ferris Wheel too!
In the evening we went to a very famous Nabe (hotpot) cum Sashimi place. Their chef can slice sashimi and leave the fish still alive without cutting the nerves. The mouth was still moving even after the sashimi has been finished >.<
We were already in Kumamoto, where we stayed the night. Yay! Act cool picture!
We headed down to Kumamoto Castle, where a great battle was fought in the past. It was... awe-inspiring. Got to climb to the top to take pictures as well. Apparently it took 50 days to overcome this castle and it was surrender.
After that awesome castle, we went to visit a traditional Japanese Landscaped garden. There we found a shrine where we prayed for divine lots. (prayed as in gave 100 yen)
It was still early in the day so we traveled to view the majestic Mount Aso. We were really lucky to have good weather that day so we could take the cable car up the live volcano to take a look. Below the volcano were plains so huge I have only seen in video games and movies. The larva was blue as seen from the top due to the sun's rays reflecting off the surface. Interestingly, I didn't smell much sulphur in the air. After that it was back to another hotel with more Onsen! Massage after onsen was a heavenly feeling. The room was weird as in they gave us 4 beds. It turns out almost every room was a 4 bed room.
The last day of our trip we started out visiting another hotspring. It was special in that there were lots of iron deposits (I am guessing Fe2O3, iron(III) oxide) which makes the pool red. They call it the Boiling Blood Pool or Hell's Pool.
We spent the rest of the day shopping at Hawks Town and Hakata Canal City. Just the usual high-end brands here and lots of food. Spent all my time in Toys R Us and HMV looking at all the Japanese stuff we usually don't get in Singapore. Oh oh! The world's biggest consumer Pocky! Everyone's reaction to it was "wtf!"
Next morning it was back to Singapore for us... Not before I make a new friend!
I want to go back to Japan again >.< So much stuff I've yet to buy! We almost had luggage problems when we came back haha.
p.s. if you want to see the pictures in bigger sizes, you can visit HERE!
~fin~
transient dreamer.~`unconscious
