Leaving on a Jetplane (soon)

16 more days and i'll be flying off! Besides deciding on my first few destinations this afternoon, MOST importantly, i have secured my 'sponsor' for my trip!

I was hoping to get a fixed sum to work with for my 3 month trip, but my 'sponsor' is going to get me a supplmentary card so technically, i have no restriction on budget. But in order to curb errant spending (which i am so often guilty of), i'm going to stick myself to my original plan of $100SGD/day, and any extras put aside to possibly further my 90 days (pending a visa extension application come November).

So, first 2 stops for me upon arrival will be... Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Just can't pass up the chance to visit the 2 A-Bomb memorial sites (Nagasaki Peace Park and Hiroshima Peace Memorial) especially since both are just to the west and east of Fukuoka where i will be arriving.

Up next: Gearing up my bicycle and getting a new handphone.

Electric Eye

I was going to have an afternoon nap today but upon hearing my CPU fans humming i was suddenly struck with this thought: I leave my PC on for almost 6 out of 7 days a week, so how much electricity costs am i running in a month or a year? And for that matter how much are my other devices draining?

So after some sketchy research into the subject and some rough guesstimation on my part (meaning for example, in the case of my PC i just took 75% of the max. power my power box can supply), this are some figures i came up with (based on Singapore Powers 1st July '07 electricity tariffs per kWh; 20.52cents) :

-My PC running @ ~330W w/o LCD monitor:
$397.26 if left on 24/7 for 1 year, $33.10 a month

- My Grundig LCD TV @ 200W:
$71.13 if used 7 hours a day for 1 year, $5.92 a month

- Xbox 360 @ 160W:
- $58.82 if used 7 hours a day for 1 year, $4.90 a month
(power usage compared to a PS3/PS2 in this article)

- Daikin Air-Con @ 900W:
$91.66 if used 2 hours a day for 1 year, $7.64 a month
(that's $366.64 a year if used 8 hours a day!)

- Tower Fan @ 40W:
$54.72 if left on 24/7 for 1 year, $4.56 a month

Anyway these are the main things that are used in my room daily. The biggest cost i can save is definitely on air-conditioning (and i only turn it on when friends come over). If i use my fan for a whole year i will still pay less than using the air-con for 2 hours a day. And despite what my parents say, me playing games for 7 hours a day is not the main reason for the high electricity bills.

Again i want to stress that all the figures are just guesstimation that take do not take into account electricity loss through plugs or energy saving settings etc. Reading for 15 minutes and spending another 15 minutes doing calculations did not make me a SME.

And how about environmental impact? Everything above is presented in dollars and sense so if you ask me how much does saving $50 a year in electricity slow down global warming, i seriously do not know.

I just suspect doing whatever little bit we can to reduce wastage (especially if you're a hug-a-tree kind of person) will do much more than say, having a 'Live Earth' concert and having millions of people around the world tuning in on their TVs.

There's lots of good reading online if you really want to find ways to cut billing costs or just do your part for the environment.

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The latest song from Guitar Hero 3 that looks set to dwarf 'Jordan' in terms of sheer difficulty is Dragonforce's "Through Fires and Flames".

If you like the song you can go to the Dragonforce official site and download the full mp3 version of the song for free (it's the full 7:20 version that will be used in GH3 compared to the 5:02 of the MTV).

Personally i find the song very epic/fantasy-themed and fun to sing along to. Alex says it sound very 80s ala the Transformers (the fantastic cartoon movie, not the crappy shit that came out last month) soundtrack. Bert says it sound very patriotic and that if you swap National Education lyrics in it will probably be a good national song. Anyway the lyrics are as follows:

On a cold winter morning, in the time before the light
In flames of death's eternal reign we ride towards the fight
And the darkness is falling down and the times are tough all right
The sound of evil laughter falls around the world tonight

Fighting high, fighting on for the steel
Through the wastelands evermore
The scattered souls will feel the hell that is wasted on the shores

On the blackest waves in history
We watch them as they go
Through fire, pain and once again we know

So now we fly ever free
We're free before the thunderstorm
On towards the wilderness our quest carries on

Far beyond the sundown, far beyond the moonlight
Deep inside our hearts and all our souls

[CHORUS]
So far away we wait for the day
For the lights are so wasted and gone
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and the flames we carry on

As the red day is dawning
And the lightning cracks the sky
They raise their hands to the heavens above
As we send them to their lies

Running back through the mid-morning light
There's a burning in my heart
We're banished from the time in the fallen land
To a light beyond the stars

In the blackest dreams we do believe
Our destiny this time
And endlessly we'll all be free tonight

And on the wings of a dream
So far beyond reality
All alone in desperation
Now the time is gone

Lost inside you'll never find
Lost within my own mind
Day after day this misery must go on

CHORUS [Guitar Solo Duel!!]

Now here we stand with their blood on our hands
We've fought so hard now can we understand?
I'll break the seal of this curse if I possibly can
For freedom of every man

CHORUS

Feel A Fear

Met two very old friends, Sun Jie and Alvin on Thursday night after watching The Simpsons Movie and Alone with Alex. Haven't seen them in at least 8 years, since Secondary School.

Incredibly Sun Jie remembers quite a lot of things from back then, even a stupid lame joke that i supposedly made (Alex vaguely recalls it so i guess i did). It's not like me to want to forget my friends (and they were very close friends) but my memory is really terrible.

Anyway Simpsons was better than i expected, short for a movie but still very funny (though i guess pretty soon the net will be choked with Spider-pig jokes and references). For such a short comedy Alex still said it felt draggy. This is a call for Hollywood to produce movies under an hour so they don't lose movie-goers like him.

Alone was above average. I could smell the plot twist coming from miles off and almost all my hunches were proven right. Scares were a plenty (like one every 5 mins) but the shock factor wasn't really high (though to look at Alex cover his eyes everytime the music turned an ominous note, you would think otherwise). Better to have a horror film with more cheap scares than those where you never even see the ghost till the last 5 minutes of the movie. And at least the plot is very accessible/understandable for a Thai film, no cultural references or whatsnot.

Safety is Contagious

My Toda Erika poster arrived today! I really like the picture and I need to go get a frame from Ikea sometime this week to frame it up. From what i know this poster is quite 'rare' in the sense that it's not available via retail, instead it's given out by the The General Insurance Association of Japan (aka Sonpo, the poster(about fire safety) even comes with a letter from Sonpo about displaying it properly) for display around Japan. Quite lucky to find someone selling one on Yahoo.jp auctions.

Went out to collect my Forza 2 Subaru goodie bag today at Dhoby Ghaut mrt. Quite a nice package for just a few hours of racing. It comes with 1 Subaru shirt, 1 Xbox 360 Winning Eleven X shirt (don't ask me why..), 2 Forza car headrest, 1 universal USB handphone charger, handphone strap, Subaru 2007 catalogue CD-rom and some other misc stuff.

Miyazaki Aoi and Olympus

I'm glad my sixth sense led me to buy Olympus, cause look who's the face for their E-410 and E-510 DSLRs! And I can't help but smile when i see her in the commercial. Simply too irresistibly cute...

CM for the E-410..

..and the E-510.

Asian Cup 2007: Australia vs Japan

Looks like i got my wish, though it wasn't a thrashing but in the end it's the results that matters i guess. Quite a big of excitement after 70 minutes when Australia scored through John Aliosi, then Japan equalised through Takahara almost instantly.

Strong, composed finish from Takahara

And a few minutes later, Australia had a man sent off for a flying elbow challenge. I thought Japan would impose their grip on the match after that, but it went all the way to a penalty shoot-out.

Australia had their own selves to blame after their first 2 PK takers (Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill) had their poor penalties saved, but all credit to the Japan goalie. Japan won the shootout 4-3 and will face either Uzbekistan or Saudi Arabia in the semis.

Celebrations after winning the shoot-out!

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Finally completed [eM] -eNCHANT arM- (the NA title is "Enchanted Arms") today. First RPG i've finished on the X360 and it's actually very good. The combat system (sort of like turn-based chess) is unique in that the damage for every move is clearly shown beside the move name, eliminating random damage (or critical hits) so you actually can plan right down to the last HP how much you can hit an enemy in 1 turn.

If you think that makes it sound easy, think again. The final boss(es, all 7 'final' battles) are actually quite challenging and require alot of prior preparation. A little short (26 hours) for the main storyline but that's excluding me entering the bonus dungeon or aggressive levelling (finished at lvl.47).

Next game i want to start on (and hopefully complete) is the IdolM@ster. Looks like only 1 person in Singapore has completed that game so far.

Moonage Daydream

Saw this sign on the way to Funan today to collect my replacment X360. When i saw the the line "Thanks Be to God", the first thought that came into my head about what the developers were trying to say was, "Wow! How did we ever manage to find so many suckers to buy into this property? Thanks Be to God!" But i think that's just me being cynical.

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Matthew and Herbert are officially the first 2 of my friends to visit my room! Played a few songs in GH2 , ordered KFC, watched 2 episodes of Little Britain and then they sat and watched me play Resident Evil 4. Maybe they were being polite (or feeling too sleepy) because no one asked for their turn on the controller, which actually made me feel quite guilty.

Amazingly, Alex just noticed that the girl in my DP (Alex: "so cute!!!!!!!") and the actress in Nana are one and the same (Miyazaki Aoi), which just leads me to conclude he skipped reading every single past post i made on her. He claims i ruined his newfound 'true' love (delusions...) when i told him she's getting married soon.

So he asked me to go spoil her wedding when i'm in Japan and then pass her his love letter. Man, i thought i was stalker-rific/Borat-ish but he really takes the cake.

Asian Cup 2007: China vs Uzbekistan

It's been 5 years since my house's was hooked up to SCV. Now we have 3 sets in our new place and i even got one for my own room. Frankly i don't watch much TV and the only thing that makes the price of cable worth it, in my opinion, are the sports programmes. Gone are the days where i have to invite myself to other people's house to watch soccer or MotoGP!

I was rooting for the South East Asian teams (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam; teams i would normally be booing in the Tiger Cup) but only Vietnam managed to advance to the q-finals.

Caught the China vs Uzbekistan game tonight, and knowing me you know i would be hoping China would lose badly. And probably the best thing to happen to me this week was to watch them get thrashed 3-0.

1-0!

2-0 as the ball takes a slow roll into China's goal.

Too bad i already took my camera down when they scored the 3rd late in injury time.

However, the match took an ugly turn early in injury-time when China's striker no.9 stayed downed on the pitch for a good 5 minutes and was eventually stretchered off, quite motionless.

As much as i enjoyed watching them lose, no one likes to see someone get injured in any sport. Hope he's alright. The match ended with an unheard of 11+minutes of injury time because of this though.

Man, i wouldn't want to be China's coach right now. He will be lucky if he is just fired straight. I expect him to be stoned or to face a firing squad when he arrives back in China.

So the quarter finals line up:

Iraq vs Vietnam
Japan vs Australia
Iran vs Korea Republic
Uzbekistan vs Saudi Arabia

Secretly i'm rooting for Japan to win the cup again. Actually any team besides Australia would be fine. Haven't forgiven them for thrashing us 3-0 in our final Kallang Stadium match. Have to keep this Saturday night free to catch Japan take on Australia, and hopefully thrash them.