Out of the Ashes...

>Introduction
>Post-Chapter 1: Where i bitch about Singnet and admit how sexist i am
>Post-Chapter 2: Where i try to muster your sympathy for my sufferings up Fraser Hill
>Post-Chapter 3: Where i boast about new stuff that i bought this week
>Post-Chapter 4: Where i try to get you to watch what i think is interesting
>Post-Chapter 5: Where i write on games i don't own on consoles that you probably don't have

Introduction
WARNING!! THIS IS AN ETERNALLY LONG POST..SO LONG THAT I HAVE TO DIVIDE IT INTO CHAPTERS. AND (FAINT..) THERE ARE CLOSE TO ZERO PICTURES!

Post-Chapter 1:
FINALLY...After a record 5 days without access to the Internet i am finally back online so that i can get myself in touch with the world outside of the newspaper. I wouldn't be in this predicament if it wasn't for Singnet's extremely lousy broadband link and customer service (7 days to the earliest appointment to fix my line..).

True story: I called Singnet's helpdesk last Thursday and a woman 'technician' picked up the phone. I was already feeling a little sceptical (because you can't trust women with tech stuff) about whether she could help me so i described to her how my ADSL light kept blinking. Her immediate response (midway through my sentence no less) was "Oh, that means your modem is spoiled!". Her answer left me in a 50-50 state; one half was groaning at the cluelessness of the girl on the phone and the other rejoicing that i was proven right in my prejudice. (FHI, the ADSL signals blinks when the modem can't detect a DSL signal in the phoneline and remains lit when the connection is established. And just because i LOVE to be proven correct, i tested the line (used new phone cables as well as different DSL phone jacks in my house) with my 2 other modems and guess what? All the ADSL lights were blinking.) Anyway i gave her my explanation above and asked politely that she have someone come to check the lines. I called Singnet again on Sunday as well and this time a guy tech immediately concluded that the fault was the phone lines.

So bottom line is, Singnet's broadband reliability sucks. The outage this time coincidentally happened a night after my previous post 'Singnet Sucks!' was posted. Hmm... I would suspect a conspiracy but after my experience with them i can assure myself that they are too lazy to bother to do such a thing.

Post-Chapter 2:
I was gonna post details before a cycling trip with my family to Fraser Hill last Friday to Sunday but if you had read PC-1 above you would have known why i couldn't. I thought that i was fit enough for some uphill cycling but boy was i wrong. Fraser Hill (it's more of a mountain than a hill) consists of 2 notable sections, the gradual climb (about ~26km) up to the Gap from the main road and the "short ascent" (all 9km of it) from the Gap to Fraser. Too bad the site doesn't mention what a killer the last 9km are. It's the type of gradient that you can't find in Singapore (having been up Bt Timah Hill and Mt Faber) and it's also damn bloody long. I'm actually quite proud to say that i did not resort to pushing my bicycle up.

If you haven't been to Fraser Hill, all i can say that it's small, peaceful, cooling, has beautiful scenery and flowers, and also totally devoid of any type of life or entertainment. The only way to enjoy (or torture) yourself would be to bring a bicycle up or if you like golf there is a beautiful course up there. I want to post some pictures of my trip but it'll have to wait till i get my home internet up and running.

Post-Chapter 3:
First up would be my new DSLR camera which i bought primarily to bring with me to Japan. Bought it on day 1 of the IT show (Thursday) cause i wanted to test it on my Fraser Hill trip (CP-2). Confession: I'm an absolute noob when it comes to cameras. I contacted Matthew Chuah (whom i haven't spoken to in 7 odd years) and Ah Chua to ask for some recommendations cause i know they have some expertise on this matter and both recommended the entry-level Nikon D50 for a newbie like me. Anyway the D50 has been out of production for some time so i went to the IT show and went for the best deal, which to me was the Olympus E-500. (review here and here)



Price was well within my budget of 2K ($1,199) and it came bundled with an extra lens (40-150mm) on top of the kit lens (15-45mm), 2 X 2 GB CF card, tripod, lens cleaning kit, bagpack w/camera compartments and some other extras. Well i read the reviews of it only today but it looks pretty well-rated for its price range. And i'm happy with the performance and also the ease of use of it. I even taught Brandon how to adjust and shoot with it pretty quickly. Took 500+ shots (w/o flash) with it in Malaysia and the battery indicator still showed over 50%. Might get an extra battery pack before my trip.

Bought some more DVDs from YesAsia.com today. Synesthesia, The Twilight Samurai, Confession Of Pain and Su-ki-da (Limited Edition). I haven't watched the DVDs from my previous order yet but i'll post my comments if they're any good.

Lastly i bought Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 for X360 from Funz Centre which moved to the new AMK hub. Haven't played GRAW 1 before but i've only heard good stuff about the game from the net and friends. Gamespot rates it better than the original GRAW but nowadays i'm apprehensive whenever reviews say the best part is to be found online. Xbox Live was fun for the first few weeks but now...it's just a novelty. Give me a good story-based game anyday. Furthermore i don't have any close friends who has the X360 and the same games as me. So i end up selling my games once i'm done with the story and after dabbling online for a few rounds. That's the same gripes i have about MMORPGs.

Post-Chapter 4:


Watching 2 'new' series, Egao no Hosoku which i have not got much to write about since i only managed to dl the first 2 episodes before my internet died. It stars Takeuchi Yuko (i always enjoy her shows) and Abe Hiroshi" (Hero).

2nd show is Stand Up!! which Joseph Wong kindly lent me. Easily one of the funniest dramas i've seen so far (up to ep 7 of 11). The story is about 4 childhood friends who find themselves the last virgins left in school. So during summer vacation, the 4 of them try their best to get laid. Standing in their way is their too conservative parents, lack of experience with girls and their reputations as virgins. There's Shouhei who probably the most normal, except he's deeply in love with his English teacher and often fantasizes of her in her lingerie; KenKen, who is extremely faithful to his girlfriend, except her priority is getting into Tokyo University before getting into bed with him; Hayato, the self-proclaimed Ero-King (he can identify an AV actress's from hearing her moan) who's just a plain loser and finally Kouji, the soccer captain who's too shy to even talk to girls. There's some good (but predictable) jokes and slapstick but the cast is good and the entire show very enjoyable. Screenshots after i get back online at home.

Post-Chapter 5:
God of War 2!. The Gamespot review makes it sound really awesome. After reading it i'm pretty sure it won't disappoint like other sequels (ahem, Guitar Hero 2 and Devil May Cry 2). Really looking forward to this.

End of the month will see the release of DDR: Universe and possibly Guitar Hero 2 for X360 as well. Abit torn between the 2 because i never owned a DDR (w/mat) before but i definitely like GH2 better than it. Hope i have enough money at month's end to get both with the accessories as well.

STUPID SINGNET!

Finally got around to hard-subbing Gal Circle. Did it once previously but i didn't like the Divx quality of the re-encode (used VirtualDub with filters). So after testing many different codecs i decided upon Xvid because of its video file size-to-image quality ratio. Think i'll rewatch Gal Circle again cause it's in English this time round.



No prizes for guessing why i'm watching it again.

Saw 3 movies the past few days, first would be 'Letters From Iwo Jima', or as Sau Kit calls it, 'Letters from 1WO Jima'. When i told Peng Xiang that we were going to watch '1WO Jima' i thought he would know that i was mocking Sau Kit but turns out he is another bodoh. He went to the ticket counter at EW West Mall and asked for tickets to 'that 1WO show'. I had to step in quickly and correct him. That auntie behind the counter tried to act smart by telling me it is pronounced EYE-woh instead of EE-woh but i'm 100% sure my pronouciation is correct. Movie was slow paced but i liked it (i'm sure MW will hate it). It's a complimentary film (from the Japanese perspective) to 'Flags of our Fathers' which i haven't seen, both films were directed by Clint Eastwood. Rating: 9/10

Ken Watanabe (Right w/binoculars) as General Kuribayashi

2nd show i watched was 'About Love' which is basically 3 short stories about love (duh!) short by 3 different directors in 3 different locations (Tokyo, Taipei and Shanghai) that has to do with breaking cultural and langauge differences. All 3 pairings are played by a Japanese and a Chinese actor/actress. And suprise suprise! Ichikawa Yui pops up as a minor character in the first story! Didn't expect to see her in this movie. Besides her the only other people i recognise were Misaki Ito (Densha Otoko, YUA, Ju-On etc) and Takashi Tsukamoto (Battle Royale, Midnight Sun). But i thought that Chen Bolin was pretty good-looking, and he rides a bicycle as well! Gonna get a jacket/long pants combo like him to cycle around Japan. Movie was light-hearted, nothing mushy or to cry about but i enjoyed it. Rating: 7/10

Story 1: Tokyo

Story 2: Taipei (suckiest of the 3)

Story 3: Shanghai

Last movie was "Midnight Sun" which is basically the movie version of Taiyou no Uta (see post below). Even the characters names are exactly the same in both versions. The story however has quite a few changes (Koji can't play the guitar, for example) but all in all i was pretty disappointed with this version. I preferred Erika Sawajiri over Yui as Kaoru Amane. Erika's insert songs ('Stay With Me' and 'Taiyou no Uta') i found to be more catchy then Yui's ('It's Happy Line', 'Good-bye Days' and 'Skyline'). It uses less Engrish as well. The story is far too simplistic as well and even though it's a 2 hour movie alot of the screen time is wasted on awkward silences and unneccesary camera panning. It fails to have the same impact on me as the drama. Would i be feeling the same if i had watched the movie and then the series? I honestly don't know. I loved 'Be With You' the movie but i'm a bit apprehensive about picking up the same drama series with different actors. It doesn't help that Takeuchi Yuko is one of my favourite actresses as well. Anyway i would highly recommend the drama for Taiyou no Uta over the movie but if you do want to catch both, then watch the movie first so you won't be so disappointed. Rating: 6/10

And i want to add that this is probably the most annoying post i have ever had to write because i kept getting D/C while i was searching for URLs and uploading pics. Singnet is fast when everything's normal but more often than not there's alot of problems with the connection. I want to say that the grass is greener on the other side (Starhub) but i bet many cable users have their own complains as well.

Crying in The Rain

Watched finished "Be With You" yesterday morning at 3AM. Very beautiful heartwarming show. I cried alot during the last few scenes till my nose got blocked again (still not 100% recovery from the flu). The pacing of the movie (1HR58MINS long) is steadily slow but i think it's appropriate for a drama. But if it were that similiar pace for an Action movie then i would just fall asleep. The ending song is "Hana" by Orange Range(whose only other song i know is "Asterisk" from "Bleach"). Maybe it was the momentum of the movie but i also shed a few tears when i read the lyrics (translated of course) of the song during the ending credits. It really captures the feelings of the movie's main characters. I went to find the song immediately after the show ended and it's been been repeating on my PSP ever since.


Hana Single Cover - Orange Range. Nice orange peels petal.

Also went to learn more Jay Chou songs by finding 2 of his albums Still Fantasy and November's Chopin. I dislike all his R&B songs in which he raps, he has a lazy way of slurring his words that just irritates me. His ballads however are very catchy and the lyrics are pretty good as well, but i'm probably a poor judge cause i hear only a little Mandarin songs.

I was looking for this movie "Sky High (2003)" but this morning when i checked my download it was actually this "Sky High (2005)". I'm trying to find "Sky High (2003)" because i like the director Ryuhei Kitamura. He directed "Azumi" (not "Azumi 2" which sucked) starring Aya Ueto and also "Versus" which i am trying to find so i can bring to office to screen during VA. He was also involved in directing the cutscenes of the remake "Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes" for the Gamecube. To me his trademark is making low budget action flicks look good and gory. Too bad i don't see many of his DVDs for sale in Singapore. I wouldn't mind collecting his shows. For the time being i don't know what to do with "Sky High (2005)" that's on my HDD. Should i take a risk and waste one and half hour of my life to watch an American High School Comedy or just delete it? Hmm...

Take That Thailand!

What a heart-stopping Finale to the 2006 AFC...Singapore looked like they were going to collaspe anytime under the Thai attack (match report) but somehow (as always) we managed to come back from an early goal down to defend our title as ASEAN Champions (1998, 2004, 2006 Winners!) I guess the turning point of an otherwise torrid match for Singapore was when Noh Rahman managed a superb last ditch block on the goal line to deny Thailand their 2nd goal (70+min). After that the Thai attack started to sizzle out and Singapore managed to get their foot back in the game, ending in a fantastic strike by supersub Khairul Amri in the 81 min. Wow, me and my dad nearly had a heart attack when Amri scored. But i think we were the only one in my whole street watching the match cause it was so quiet all around except for the both of us screaming our lungs out (alot of old folks living around our house..i think we might have woke some of them up). I think i shed some tears of joy while celebrating. I think Thailand mentally cracked after such a later hammer blow cause they seemed to just give up from that point on. Indra also did his part while on the bench to irritate the Thai players (earning himself a yellow card) by holding on to the ball and delaying play during the last couple of minutes.CONGRATS to Singapore..even though we had a bad game but we showed them 30,000 Thais our never-say-die spirit and deservedly defended our title. Really looking forward to the Lions victory parade in Orchard Road when they return. I'm already planning a new poster to get autographs from the team.

Met with Alex Wu (my best friend from BMT) yesterday for a drink and dinner to catch up. He shared this very funny YouTube clip with me (view here). If you have been following the news or forums you would have heard of this. Basically it's just some chinese guys going to an Indian (Halal) food shop and ordering pork as a prank. Hilarious stuff.

Borrowed 3 DVDs from Video EZY yesterday, Seven Swords (七劍), Be With You (いま、会いにゆきます, Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu) and Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War. Watched about an hour and a half of Seven Swords and then stopped cause i couldn't handle how corny the movie was. And this is coming from someone who enjoys watching corny and B-list shows. The seven swordsman are so powerful that its not even cool when they manage to destroy the bad guy's fort of over a 1000 people. And all the villans always talk big about taking the head of the heroes but they are so weak compared to them i actually feel sorry for them. I was hoping that at least one of them will kill one of the hero in the first part but alas, no such luck. Unless the storyline starts twisting for the final hour of this show, i will probably rate this as one of the WORST asian movie i have ever watched. I have no idea what the reviewers on IMDB were talking about when they said it is a masterpiece. Bleah..

The 2nd DVD i skimmed through was Be With You (starring the lovely Yuko Takeuchi). I just watched the Trailer for the show under the Special Features and i already cried a whole bunch of tears. Better ready my tissue box(es) when i actually start to watch the main feature.

Be With You (いま、会いにゆきます, Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu)

Too Much Pride Will Kill You

I was gonna write about some incident that happened at City Hall MRT but the more i thought about it as i typed the more i realised how petty i am. So i'm not going to describe what happened but all i will say is that it involved 1 (quite)cute girl, 1 ugly guy and myself. Ok, end of story.

Bought 5 2nd hand X360 games today for $210.:
1. Gears of War (going to sell this off ASAP since i already owned and sold it before)
2. Call of Duty 3
3. Saints Row
4. Marvel Ultimate Alliance
5. LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth II (disappointingly doesn't support keyboard and mouse)

So i will probably be sufficiently occupied/entertained this weekend.

Disclaimer: Capcom did not pay me a single cent to put this banner up or link to their site.

But before starting those games i want to complete Lost Planet (X360) since i'm on the 2nd last mission already. The novelty of blasting insectoid alien after alien is starting to wear thin and i will sell this off once completed while it's still a new release. What i will say is that Lost Planet is very challenging without being frustrating even on the Normal difficultly. No way will i play this game on Hard or Extreme. Other games pending for myself are Okami (just started) and Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria (halfway through).

Chionged through Pride episodes 5 - 11 (end) yesterday night till 3am. It's no big secret that i am a Kimura Takuya (Halu) fan and this series didn't disappoint. I have not watched a Takeuchi Yuko (Aki) drama until this one but i instantly became a fan of hers overnight. She may not look that pretty or young (as Erika Toda) but her character and acting was very sweet and moving. And she has such a very cute way of talking and smiling. Gonna try to find more of her dramas soon. This may be a romance drama but if you're like me and hate long mushy romance scenes in dramas then I highly recommend this series, and even more so if you are a Kimura fan. Good news too if you are a Queen fan. This series has loads of Queen song, the best used one with the ongoing scenes IMO being "Too Much Love Will Kill You" (ep 11).

Aki (Takeuchi Yuko)

Halu (Kimura Takuya)

P.S: I have an extra gallery ticket to the Singapore vs Malaysia match this Saturday. Anyone care to take it off me? F.O.C. I'm going with my family by the way.