Be Still my Beating Heart...

When i was younger, i used to be terrified of the dark. Then i outgrew that fear. Then i used to get homesick very often. I cried after spending 1 month in Australia cause i was homesick. I felt lousy during my entire BMT (my favourite song was '1 more day to BOOK OUT DAY!..")because i was homesick.

And tomorrow i'm going to embark on the longest trip overseas (solo or family) i have ever undertaken and now, the night before, thank goodness i seem to have lost that 'warm' fuzzy feeling of homesickness. That might change during the trip but i'm determined, barring disabilities, fatalities etc, to complete my trip (up till Nov 14th) before returning.

As expected, i'm much too excited to sleep the night before i fly off. So i got to updating both my blogs. I still havent decided whether to update this blog while i'm in Japan, so don't be suprised if this remains as my last post till sometime November.

Anyway, for those not in the know, PLEASE BOOKMARK:

http://japancyclingtrip.blogspot.com/
(MY CYCLING TRIP BLOG)
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrielchin/
(WHERE I'LL UPLOAD ALL MY PHOTOS)
(register as a FLICKR member (free) and add me 'shdw_mss[at]hotmail.com' to be added as a friend)

Again, if you're not in the know, i'm flying off to Japan to cycle tomorrow! For 3 months! From the South to North! Please visit my alt. blog and feel free to comment (i'll really appreciate if you do)! Tell your friends all about me if you can! I'll do my upmost best to try to update daily with photos or whenever possible when i'm in Japan.

In closing, i just want to add there's still one fear that i don't think i will ever conquer. And that's the fear of having a close relative pass away and me not being around to say goodbye. One of the biggest regret i will ever carry with me was not spending the last few moments of my grandfather's life beside his bed. (I was sleeping) A lot can change in 3 months. I just pray that God will bless and keep my family safe and healthy while i'm out enjoying my holiday.

Sayounara! Till next time we meet!

Good Riddance ODEX! Farewell Anime!

As some of you might know the main reason i got interested in all-things Japanese is because i was introduced to anime during my poly-days. Since then my taste has evolved to J-music, J-idols, J-movies and now most recently J-dramas. Now i think the think the time has come for me to give up on my first love (anime).

And i blame this on the entire ODEX and AVPAS crackdown on anime downloading that has been going on since the beginning of the year. I always try to place myself on both sides of any argument to try and understand where each party is coming from, so a brief summary on the 2 sides of this matter:

ODEX: Downloading anime is illegal. We own the licenses to officially release anime in Singapore have authorisation to take legal action (meaning: Fine $$) against anyone who had and are still downloading anime in Singapore. We blame our poor VCD/DVD (VCD..haha!) sales on these 'pirates' and won't hesitate to sue the pants off anyone (they actually sued a 9 year old-boy)

The 'other' side: You are just using the excuse of piracy to account for your poor sales when the real problem is that you don't understand what anime fans want. Your releases suck in video quality, subtitles and dubs etc... Using lawsuits and threats to recover your losses is really the lowest.

All this has been going on for quite a while now and my intention was to let all the hoo-hah die down before going back into anime but just recently i've been reading again about all that ODEX has done to persecute (some call it a 'witch-hunt') anime lovers (pirates) and i ask myself, is it all worth it to take this risk? I love anime, but i certainly won't die without watching it.

And just reading how unreasonable and unfair the law suits are. Basically, they CAN persecute you in a court for $10,000/episode but they will settle for an out-of-court settlement of $3,000 to $5,000, and from what i read you have to sign an agreement that basically allows them to sue you AGAIN for the same thing if they so please). And as someone questioned in a HWZ post, "Pay $3,000 and they still don't give you the anime huh?"

Furthermore, instead of first issuing a warning letter, the lawsuit will just land 'Boom' in your mailbox straightaway. It's like stealing candy from a mama shop and instead of the shopowner shouting, "Oei!" first and giving chase, he just whips out a shotgun and guns you down.

To be fair, i acknowledge that Yes, downloading anime is illegal and wrong. As soon as i read that there would be a crackdown i completely stopped downloading. However, i read that ODEX has the power to persecute anyone who downloaded within the LAST 7 months*!

Now disregarding that they don't send out warning letters before a lawsuit, if they were to suddenly send a letter saying, "Hey, we're going to sue you for what you dl'ed XX months ago. Despite you stopping your downloading when we made public that it was illegal, we still see a need to sue you to earn back our $$." Now they CAN do this. That's just totally unfair and unethical, IMO, moreso than 'stealing' a video.

It seems that they just out to make a quick buck from lawsuits rather than improve their releases and pandering to the anime niche market.

Lastly, just saw this articles today about ODEX director gloating about suing people. If i didn't hate him (or rather his company) before i certainly hate him now. Anyway you can follow this saga through this links:

- Hardware Zone forumers expose Odex director?
- how do i gotten pwnt
- Excuse me, is that Stephen? The Stephen Sing?
- Stephen Sing: Odex Director (Hardware zone Forum thread, their CSI team investigating the 'gloating' matter)
- ODEX Wiki

Anyway after all that is said and done, yes, i will try to wean myself off anime. I DON'T need to 'pirate' to keep myself entertained. I have always imported DVDs and CDs of shows/music i like. I have no financial issues about buying original. I LIKE buying Original.

ODEX, you will never have my support on any of their products unless you stop this lawsuit bullshit and reimburse all the people you sued. I certainly don't need any of your shitty releases. You will need consumers like ME more than i will ever need anything from you. Good riddance.
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Oh ya, after feeling a bit pissed today reading all this ODEX crap, i called the police on the neighbour living across from me. That dumb *insert expletive here* was burning some things and all his ashes flew into our front porch. Talking to him didn't seem to do any good (retard..) so i just called the police hotline to confirm whether i could file a complaint on this matter and the police said yes. So i did.

I feel justified in my decision because i didn't use the power of the law for monetary gains or greed! I'm within my rights and just protecting my property and teaching some idiots a good lesson in return. They should thank me.

BPL Opening Night, Counting my Piggy Bank

I hate the acronyms 'BPL' compared to EPL. It sounds like British Petroleum League. That's like WWF changing to WWE. It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you say it.

There were a few good matches and goals but the only match that mattered to me was Aston Villa vs Liverpool and Villa lost 2-1 . I'm only a teensy bit upset because them losing to Liverpool is like a foregone conclusion (cos they haven't beaten 'Pool at home in 9 years).

That's the advantage of supporting smaller mid-table clubs. Your expectations aren't as high. A draw against a big club would be a happy result, a win would be a miracle. But i think Liverpool were lucky to get the win. They needed a Laursen OG and a 87 min to get all 3 points. Poor Villa. And except for Reo-Coker, the entire squad looks the same as last season..
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I finally opened my piggy bank and counted the coins inside on Friday.

Grand total : $374.20. Decent for a year's savings (and considering how often i take coins out of it for bus fares etc) but a little short of my $500 target. Anyway i'll be changing the coins into pocket money for Japan.

Look! It's the National Day Parade! AGAIN!!

Before it strikes midnight, i just want to say something on this, our 42nd National Day and NDP: How many hundred times do we have to watch a NDP flash Live or on our TV screens before we realise we've just been watching the same old-rehashed crap every single year??

I'm not trying to be unpatriotic here, but give me a break! I just turned on my TV and became overwhelmed by a feeling of deja vu; Didn't i see this last year? And when i think back of the year before i can remember myself thinking the exact same thing.

If someone can introduce me to a NDP Otaku who can tell me the subtle differences and improvements from this year, last year and the 36-40th editions, please do. I really want to shake his hand. Makes me wonder why we Singaporeans are so hard-up for those tickets. I guess it just reflects our 'everything free must grab' mentality.
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Drama: Ushi ni Negai wo - Love & Farm (Episode 1 - 3)

This will probably one of the last J-dramas i watch before i fly off next week. Basically there are only 2 things you need to know about this drama, 1, the plot; 6 university students from Tokyo go to a farm in Hokkaido for a farming internship program (this drama is supposed to be 'educational') and 2, Toda Erika is starring in it.

Words of wisdom suddenly ring in Kazumi's head: "Don't have a cow, man!

Annoyingly, EVERYONE from the university is either a loser, spoiled or just a plain jerk EXCEPT for Toda Erika's character, Chiba Kazumi. And i'm being totally unbiased (hard as it may be to believe) when i state that. The show's supposed to semi-educational but i don't really want to know (or care) where my milk and meat comes from...

A quick run-down of the cast and characters:

1 : Toda Erika as Chiba Kazumi: Clumsy but hardworking. The friendly cute girl next door amd the only normal person in the group. If this was a harem this will be the girl you should probably choose to end up with.
2 : Koide Keisuke as Mano Tohei: 101% Jerk. His father is some bigshot and he loves to act like the leader of the group and boss people around. Hates it when someone else upstages him.
3 : Nakata Atsuhiko as Wakamatsu Ryuta: The silent weirdo (read:loser). Loves to draw pictures of people when they aren't looking.
4 : Aibu Saki as Fujii Ayaka: Spoiled, irritating city slicker. She gets jealous over another girl flirting with a guy who is not her boyfriend, even though she has a boyfriend.
5 : Karina as Suenaga Mihoko: The spoiled rich kid who does not want to do a single thing around the farm.
6 : Tamayama Tetsuji as Takashimizu Takashi: His family owns the farm and he wants to run away from inheriting it. Wishy washy and weak-willed.
7 : Extras

Ultimately, what's gonna keep me watching this series will definitely be Toda Erika. The show is low-average 6/10 material at best and unless you got a fetish for cows and farming then you'll probably not care what happens to any of the dumb cows. Watching all the crying and arguing over cow-care just made me hungry instead.
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Found this funny Borat video on Youtube. Quite old stuff but great if you couldn't get enough of his brand of humor from the movie:

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I finally decided to cut my hair before flying to Japan. With a good chunk of my hair off, i feel at least 5 years younger and it's much more cooling, especially since it's been very hot this past few days. No prizes for realising my new 'do looks the same as all my previous haircuts.

24.0 Megapixel Camera!

http://reprolabels.com/camera/

Specifically, it's a sticker you can buy to 'convert' your camera into a 24.0 MP model! Now will there be anyone so stupid to fall for this i wonder? As i'm thinking about this i already have a few IT-morons in mind who might actually believe it.

If the 'Bling Bling' caption wasn't amusing visit the main site here and check out their photo model. He reminds me of this Maddox article.

Stop playing Sweet CHILD! (WCG 2007)

FACT: The only song on GH2 that manages to cross all age boundaries in GH2 is 'Sweet Child o' Mine'. EVERY Tom Dick and Harry went up onto the stage and played Sweet Child. I must have heard it repeated 200-300 times in the WCG hall on the 1st day alone.

I was on and off the Guitar Hero 2 mini-stage playing whatever song i thought i could 5 star. Somehow that didn't work out right, though i did manage to win 2 free GV movie tickets.

"Take the tickets and get off the stage!"

Yup, they had to bribe me to get me off the stage so other people could have a turn at the game.

Herbert went down with me on Friday and Saturday. No prizes for guessing which booth we hung around most of the time.

"I can play this with my eyes half-closed."

And he even got to sit on a special chair. Damn, i wanted to sit down and play too.

Unfortunately, i did not bring my camera on Saturday, which i really regretted because there was a cosplay event (CosCon 2007, there are pics of it at SGCafe, the individual contest winner (maid with a machine gun, which i think is based on this game)was pretty cute) and also because me and Herbert got interviewed by a Channel V VJ, who just suddenly jammed a mic in my face and asked me how my friend (Bert) got so good.

I gave a short answer ('we practice together at my place alot') and then those idiots didn't get my hint that i had nothing more to add on. There was like an awkward 10-20 secs space of silence where i didn't know what to say with the cameras still rolling and then finally (thankfully) the VJ started laughing, "Don't leave us hanging man!" and moved on to interview Herbert. Good thing it wasn't a live feed.

Wish i could have gotten some pictures of that. And if they do air this on Channel V i hope i can somehow record it (but i don't even subscribe to it so my best bet is to hope for some webcast)

Anyway throughout the 2 days there were alot of spectators taking pictures of Herbert playing GH2, so if by some chance anyone comes across any of his pics on blogs or whatever please let me know!