Khort

Yes, I am alive!

2008-06-03T22:44:00.002+10:00

- 10:46pm -
Yar. I'm still alive.
It's been over a month since I last made a journal entry. Gotta keep myself updated. My old self will need a lot of things to read about. Missing an entire month will get me wondering.

Anyways, I'll start off with my birthday which was on May 31st. The day before my family had hotpot or whatever. Steampot? I don't know what you call it. Anyway, that was nice. We had really long noodles in the Chinese tradition. You have to suck it all up, not bite. Supposed to represent long life or something like that. It was great. I also got the usual $200 from my parents and a pretty nicely designed card from my sister. She always makes her gifts and cards...oh wait. She didn't for father's birthday and mother's day this year. I guess she's growing up (though she did use my money. >_<;; )
The only bad thing that happened was that my father got a bit unhappy and insulted my mother a bit because she bought a cake that was 90% cream.
My dad still complains about everything and blames everything on everyone else but takes credit for everything. That's him though. I'd bet my life savings he'll never change.

Anyways the day after was a Saturday, which was May 31st. I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was interesting at times but it just seemed so unbelievable at times. Sure in something like Harry Potter magic and fire-breathing dragons isn't real. But they make it believable. You never at any moment in a movie such as the Harry Potter series think "Hey, this isn't real". But in the Crystal Skull I had too many moments where I was just WTFUXing. The movie didn't capture me.
And throughout the movie I was wondering where I had seen that boy from. Only after reading in a newspaper about him (I think in that free newspaper MX that you pick up at the station) did I realize he was the star in Transformers. The article quoted him saying how hot he was throughout because the lighting was so intense.
And I must say that was another thing I didn't like about the movie. The lighting was FAR too intense at times. It added to the unrealistic feel of it. In one frame Indiana Jones and the boy would be in a room looking at some clues on a peice of paper. The next frame the camera is at a different angle and suddenly the light disappears (probably so you can actually see what is on the paper instead of being blinded by the light). It just seems so unreal.
The window is to their left and a bit back. It is daytime. The ceiling light is not on. Yet, Indiana Jones' head is white with light.
So many inconsistencies too.

Didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped.

I also went to Capitol Square and this time I tried my luck on the Wheel Machines, which I had never played before. Thanks to advice on how the machine works from some people on the SMASH! forums under Plushie Skill Testers (since the machine's instructions are in Japanese) I was able to play without screwing up. I won 2 medium-large Hannari Tofu plushies. One's a Tangarine flavour one and the other is a pink one with a flying carpet. They are love and have added to my ever-expanding collection of Hannari Tofu's. I now have 15!

June 1st was spent watching 21. From the description it seemed like a boring movie. It was.
It's basically about some college genious who is trying to get a scholarship into med at Harvard. He needs money because it looks like he most likely won't get the scholarship. He eventually ends up counting cards at the casinos. Nothing exciting really happens.
Some parts were kinda funny though. Here and there. Rare. The main person that made me chuckle a bit was Choi (that Korean guy). Other than that a lot of the time I was simply uninterested. I don't get excited watching the guy count cards half the time (or learning to count cards).
The very beginning where the main character is riding his bike and the feeling you get from that pretty much sums up the whole movie.

Oh, I won another Hannari Tofu plushie afterwards. It is unfortunately another chocolate Love "For You" Heart-type. I now have 3 of those. So why did I get the 3rd one? Well, mainly because the plushie was so perfectly positioned that I knew I'd get it the first try. I did.

May 14th was my dad's birthday so we held pretty much the same dinner as the one held for me. Steampot/hotpot. It's a nice change from the usual rice with the odd dumplings or lasagne + pasta here and there.

On Uni, I've done especially well in Microeconomics 2. Got high distinction in both mid-session exams. Now only for the finals. I'm hoping I can get a high distinction.
Finals start next Thursday with my FINS3616 at the Uni. The week after I have ACCT2522 on Wednesday, FINS2624 for Thursday and ECON2101 Saturday. Then it's OVER for the next month before Session 2 begins. My greatest concern is FINS2624.
Other than that I should do okay for the other subjects.

OMG, internet connection shaped again!!! 12gb isn't enough for me! T___T

SMASH! Sydney Anime and Manga Show 2008

2008-04-12T22:06:00.002+10:00

SMASH! Sydney Manga and Anime Show is back this year on 2nd August at Roundhouse@UNSW from 10am-8pm. It'll be as fun-filled and jam-packed as ever with a whole new stream of panels, events and other goodies waiting to be open.

Guest Artist
SMASH! is inviting Kidchan as our guest artist!! She will be running a few digital workshops on the day and selling her artbook - [i]Muted Colours[/i]. It is a great chance for artists in Australia to meet Kidchan and her original artworks!!
(If you don't know who Kidchan is, shame on you! j/k j/k, just check her dA!)

Art workshops and demos

will be showing us her inking and ink wash techniques *__* She was originally only showing it to but she's now going to show it to everyone *___*!! Don't miss out!

will also show everyone how she draws the lovely SMASH! mascot

Artist Circle
Like I mentioned previously, application for Artist Circle is open and we've already received applications within 3 days of it being open . Due to limited space we can only fit 20 tables this year so book your table before it is booked out !!
Artist Packs and application forms can be found here:
Artist Application

Manga Idol
Manga Idol is a new art competition on stage where artists are asked to complete artworks in 20 - 30 minutes. Join us for a chance to compete with the best of the best!!

Our current participants on stage:

Competitions
There's a whole range of competitions just waiting for your entry into them. Already there's a bunch of pre-event competitions where you prepare your entry before the event. These include Traditional and Digital Art Competitions, SMASH! 2008 Character Design Competition, Animavericks AMV Competition and Fanfiction Competition.
Competition details can be found here:
Traditional & Digital Art Comp
SMASH! 2008 Character Design Comp
Animavericks AMV Comp
Fanfiction Comp

SMASH! 2008 Travelling Artbook
If you are a budding artist, why not consider to contributing to the SMASH! 2008 Travelling Artbook!
The Artbook is a collection of artworks by budding Australian artists from, all over Australia! The Artbook will be auctioned off during SMASH! and proceed will be donated to charity! Yah!
Check it out here:
Travelling Artbook

Yah Hannari!

2008-04-12T22:01:00.001+10:00

Yah! I won 2 huge Hannari's at Capitol Square today!

...

That is all!

Ningen CRAZY!

2008-03-25T20:43:00.002+11:00

- 8:44pm -
I think that's how you spell 'human' in romanji or something...totally forgot my Year 7 teachings. Human's can be so crazy, including myself.

Let's see:
People constantly get fooled by so much going on in this world. Hey, I might offend some people here, so best not to read on.

Firstly, let me say that although there are some good things about religion, the bulk of religion is just utterly disgusting, and at times hilarious. Although it has become more obvious in recent times with the emergence and (unfortunately) the popularity of sub-sectors of the church such as the Pentecostal church and the huge donations they get from followers.
Also, at times I've had Jehovah's Witness' come to my door every month or so to give me articles...forgot what it was called, but basically about the bible/god/christianity-is-great/etc.

I was already an Atheist, but what upset me a lot was the fact that they quoted the bible as saying something along the lines that other animals were created by God in order to serve humans. There was a lot of that kind of stuff that basically said that humans were practically the center of everything. Center of the universe (until they changed it)/etc.
I just don't like that view. Seems so....human...to think in that way. It's probably why there was a time when we had slaves. The Bible just seems to human to be written by a greater being.
Church's take money from their followers. Their followers give the money to please their God. 'Offerings'. Something that has been going on since ancient times.
But do any of these followers stop for a moment and think of why their God would need these offerings? Why would God, this perfect being, need material goods?
And why is it that the heads of Church bodies always seem to be so well off, even though they don't get paid by anyone? Where do those funds go?

Why has there been a sudden influx of people who can speak to God?
And why can people be rid of their sins simply by confessing and giving some money to those in the church?
Why is it that major wards and acts of violence seem to always stem from God? Every American President has always taken their actions under the name of God; every terrorist has taken their action in the name of God. Own female relatives are killed off in the name of one's religion. People are constantly restricted by religious beliefs. So many people have AIDS in Africa because the Pope does not allow for condoms. Gay people are still looked down upon due to the non-consent of the Pope.

They say most people believe in some sort of religion either due to fear, or a need to be in a community of like-minded people. The first is the fear of death and the fear that perhaps God is real, and he will judge you. All those who don't believe in God end up going to Hell. Nobody wants that, so they join in, even if they never believed in God. With all the doctrines, documents and immense community-oriented prayers and events; people begin to be disillusioned and start to believe.
Others simply due to a sense of needing to be with others. People form parties, guilds, clans, empires in MMORPGs and other online multiplayer games. Why? It's because they want to be with other people, doing things with others/etc. Same with any religion. You've got prayers to your God which you do with a whole heap of other people. You've got walks and huge gatherings; all to bring people together. People feel a sense of being, a sense of importance.
That's how I see it.

And I guess that's why I'm more or less an Atheist, someone who doesn't believe there is a God. For me, there really can't be. Human reasoning says no, there can't be.
What's the point of spending part of your life on Earth praying to God so that you can be accepted into the afterlife? That's just a stupid idea; and would reveal how selfish and arrogant God must be if he truly exists.
Why would God favour those who believe in his existence over others, even though the Bible itself says he doesn't? If that is the case, he should be classified as a super-dictator, taking offerings for his own personal gain, and having prayers every week to heighten his own self-esteem and sense of supremacy.
He would be the worst sinner of all.

That is why I do not believe there is a God out there. He brings too much pain and destruction to this world; and takes away from people without giving anything except for a faint, false sense of something, that someone must feel they are getting from him to continue doing what they do for him.

-----

Next, on a more commercial front I just don't get why so many people use credit cards, when it obviously leads to more debt. Why not just use cash they actually have rather than being indebted to others so easily? Credit cards are also quite insecure.

Then you have those who fall for those rent-an-item deals, or those no-interest-for-this-many-months deals. They always rip you off big time! Especially when it comes to white goods and electronics, things that always decrease in price at a rapid rate. Instead of waiting a month to be able to buy, say, a $100 item, these people accept these rent and interest-free programs; and end up paying $300-$400 for an item that, just a month later could have dropped to $75. And even less over the repayment period. Stupid eh?

Ah well. Just don't fall for those things you guys! Just remember that most things are much cheaper if you pay it all off in one purchase, rather than monthly repayments/etc that include ridiculously high interests.

---------

Watched 10,000BC. Interesting at times; but overall quite boring. Movies just don't seem to be as interesting as they were ages ago. Probably because they are all too similar, and those which aren't are usually just plain boring Australian-made films.

Oh, and quit Wendy's.

And I need monies. Someone give offerings to the great God Khort! I need it more than those other Gods do.

Who am I?

2008-03-09T20:09:00.002+11:00

- 8:10pm -
- LAMBO-SAN!!!!

....anyways, started sculpting. YAHZ! Just for fun, I'm doing a Lambo-san from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! YAHZYAHZYAHZ!'

And that's about it. Took me about 4hrs just to finish the basic layout of his head. Though, I think I've done something wrong.
What did I do wrong? Seems to me I didn't set-up the wiring properly. If I stuff this one up, no probs. I'll just make another one with proper wiring this time.

Uni starts tomorrow! Wah, we start tutorials this week already!!!!
And we start forming groups for some assignment projects on our first day; wah. WAH!

@_____@

How to Converse?

2008-03-01T21:42:00.002+11:00

- 10:28pm -

Wah, so tired. Work was tiring today. Finished at like, 7:30pm-ish. Of course, I'll only be paid till 6:30pm. Ah well.
I'm going to be quitting soon. Very soon. Will give notice though.
I'm finding it too hard. Some new staff members I just can't stand. Thinking of my Uni life, having one entire day wasted emo-ing from work isn't good for my health.
Wendys is great; but tiring. Not something someone like me can stand working at for very long, especially if some staff members don't do their fair bit and you have to make up for them.
Really appreciate those who work really hard though and don't complain. They rock.

Those who do nothing (hardly anything compared to others) and still complain; are annoying.
...but today I've realised perhaps it's not a good idea to blame them. I don't know anything about them afterall, shouldn't judge a person just on how they work in one job.

Quit.

Okay. Conversation. Conversation is fun; when it involves discussions, arguments/etc on topics such as politics, human thought, world events/etc.

Other than that, the basic rambles seem kinda bland to me.
Boring...

But that's just me. My mind is old, or perhaps others will find it too childish. It's one of the two.

lol@me

2008-02-28T22:03:00.001+11:00

- 10:03pm -

lol@me. I bought two pen nibs and a pen holder; but no nib holder thingymabob, the main thing. hahaha. Can't use it. >_< Have to buy the middle part that I'm missing tomorrow. ^^;;

lol@train

2008-02-16T20:20:00.003+11:00

- 8:22pm -

Main highlight of the day: Somebody apparently throws himself/herself at the train I was on. Just my luck, since I usually don't catch the train. Should have stayed on the bus.
Bam, we stopped at Wollstencraft.
Train guy on mic reports incident and tells us all to move to the front. Of course, I was listening to my iPod so I didn't hear that, but I knew something was wrong cause we stopped in the middle of nowhere (as far as my part of the train could tell) and soon, everyone was moving towards the front; so I followed suite whilst drawing.

After a long wait, we were allowed off. The front of the train was at the edge of Wollstencraft Station. 4 cops were there, two of which were questioning people, most likely witness' to the incident that were on the platform.

Everyone was turning their heads as they walked past at the front of the train, so I was half-preparing myself for a huge splash of blood all over the front and some guy's dislocated head.
I didn't see anything though. Either that or I wasn't paying attention cause I just sort of looked at it for a second before paramedics jumped down onto the rails and headed for the other side of the train; the side I couldn't see. Only an old man was on the other side of the platform. (perhaps he pushed some poor drunk hobo down or something. o,0[ )

Anyways, firefighters came and the lot.
It was all very quite though, unlike what you'd imagine it would be, or how Hollywood protrays any incidents. All the servicemen and women were quite calm and collected.

Oh, other highlight of the day. This guy had bought one of those blow-up sex dolls. Haha, it was the worst day for him to buy it cause of the train stopping. He carried it all the way to Crows Nest before getting on a taxi. Hahaha. >__<

Finally. Wah; Wendys was busy today! And Jess left. Awwww.

Oh; and bought myself a Nintendo DS this week. Got Super Mario 64 DS, Final Fantasy XII: Revanant Wings, Phoenix Wright; Heroes of Mana and Guilty Gear.
I love FFXII on PS2 (and I have hardly started on it), and FFXII:Revenant Wings on the DS is just as good!(although you only get to use one gambit per player; boooooo).
Super Mario 64 DS brings me back to 1996 when I played Super Mario 64, on the N64 as a kid. That game was awesome, and Super Mario 64 DS is just as good! Only problem is the movement controls; the N64 joystick rocked; hard.

Can't wait for Bleach: Blade of Fate or something like that to come out in Australia. Coming out on the 20th or 28th.
I have to remember to get Rune Factory: A Harvest Moon Fantasy or something like that when it comes out.
Gotta also watch The Mist and Jumper.

Edit: Actually now that I think about it, perhaps we waited so long on the train because the cops were dragging the corpse to the side of the train where we couldn't see the corpse, and they probably sprayed sand on the blood and cleaned it up beforehand. Afterall, when I got out of the station, there were heaps of police cars/fire trucks/ambos outside already.

Meeting Minutes

2008-02-05T22:02:00.000+11:00

- 10:03pm -

Lol. Directly taken from SMASH!
Anyways, had Saturday up at SMASH! meeting. Yah. Forgot to bring $40 for Disgaea 2 from Nadia. Boo. I reckon she was pretty unhappy-ish.

Waaah, the stuff the guys at COFA do seems so much fun fun fun~~~~, like making backgrounds for 2D fighting games, making websites, banners, promotional material; and dollfie glasses.
Wah~

Anyways, was convinced by my parents in 5min of talking to continue on with Accounting. Luckily my internet connection, though it has hit the cap and is slow as hell, didn't lose out on me after 20 pain-stacking minutes thinking it would. I was - amazingly - able to change my subjects for Semester 1 so that I killed introductory management and instead chose Management Accounting, which is a core Accounting course. Yahz for that!
Over the next two weeks I'll be mass-revising on Accounting, since I really, really suck at it. I find that as soon as I finally am able to do a certain line of procedures (which is generally weeks after we are supposed to know how to do said procedure), I end up getting stuck on a few more weeks' work.
I guess that's why there was an almost 50% fail rate for the last two core Commerce courses we did last year, ACCT1501 and ACCT1511. Haha. Luckily I got a Credit for the first one, Pass for latter.

Motivation motivation motivation.

I find the human psyche to be quite an amazing little bugger. You've often got to 'trick' your mind into thinking positive. If you think negative, you get nothing done. So you always have to think positive. I'm still not that good at tricking myself, but I've found I've become better and better at it. Better at stopping myself from thinking of certain things that might make me feel negative about myself, and to start thinking in a way that I get things done faster, more accurate, and with greater efficiency.

And reading certain books have helped heaps too.
Reading that Donald Trump collection-of-quotes-and-advice-given-to-CEOs-in-America has helped a lot. One of the advice given by one particular CEO keeps recurring over in my head when, say, working at Wendy's.
The advice goes something like "no matter where you are placed, thrive in that position. Do well wherever you are placed and somebody will eventually notice you."
I like that quote. Doesn't matter if nobody notices you; as long as your mind thinks that somebody will eventually, you'll continue to be productive and take initiatives that other people do not take, thus to differentiate yourself from the rest.

I really like working at Wendy's. I won't be able to stay forever, but it has been a great experience. Lots of different tasks/etc; interaction with customers and staff. I find the environment to be absolutely awesome.
I have however proven to myself through my interactions with everyone that I really am quite old of mind. I seem to enjoy debating and discussing issues with people, and thus I find it easier and more enjoyable to chat with, say, Anita, rather than the younger people.

Today after Vera asked me to dust off one of the display panels; I decided to clean up the whole place. Although I myself never really noticed the dust that much, concentrating more on the customer and the middle, lower section of the store, when you actually look at the dust up close, it looks bad. Really bad.
So I eventually cleaned up the entire place. I still have the front top area to clean up, which I won't be able to unless I get myself a ladder.

I have to remember to resize all the photos I took of the ice-cream machine parts and then create a thorough image-based guide to reassembly and disassembly of the machine. I have to concentrate at least 6hrs of tomorrow into doing that since Anita needs the image-based guide as soon as possible. Plus, the sooner the better. The rest of the day will be spent revising the basics of Accounting all over again. Will have to get them from the attic.
Will also need to report my income for Centrelink and phone Mosman Library to renew my books. Books are...."No Country is An Island - Australia and International Law" by Charlesworth, Chiam, Hovell and Williams; "The Dilbert Principle - A Cubicle's-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions" by Scott Adams; and "The Great Wall - China Against the World 1000BC - 2000AD" by Julia Lovell.
Haven't touched them unfortunately. Been busy reading "Make Flexible Use of "Thirty-six Strategems" translated by Shanghai University Press.
36-Strats is basically about strategies used in War. It is a translation and interpretation of a good few strategies based off ancient Chinese texts such as "The Book of Changes" and "The Art of War". The strategies aren't only used for war though. It can be used effectively in politics, business and a whole variety of subjects given that said subject may involve conflicts.
Very interesting. As I read through the book I note said strategies being used in a lot of modern warfare and political debates/etc/etc.

I finished the book just today on the bus. I've been spending the 1-2hr loop per working day reading this book. Next I'll probably start reading one of the library books.

ROBOT Vol.4 has come out! How awesome is that! Waited ages for it! Now I'll have to wait a good few months before ROBOT Vol. 5 is translated into English. I think the Jap version already has Vol. 9. Ah well. ROBOT Vol. 5 has Hyung-Tae Kim in it! OMGOMGOMGOMGOGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!

Had a staff meeting today. Went to GPK like last time. Forgot to ask Bert about our feedback results. Talked about this and that. Was reminded to actively promote regular instead of junior. I must admit I haven't been actively promoting their names; Junior, Regular, Large. Also that video they were talking about. Had I watched it before during that meeting we had in November? Or is this another video? If it is I'll have to watch that. I have a gut feeling that it's probably a different video. ^^;;
Had a good few bouts of laughter with those guys. Awesome. Only Bert, Alice, Anita, Jessica, Jake, Helen and I turned up. Met Jake for the first time. He plays basketball! Gah, I should have more actively played basketball when I was a kid. That guy's 16 and his like, 1.8m+. HUGE.
They all are! All my family friends are taller than me now whilst younger than me! HEIGHT WRRRYYYYYY!!!!

Anyways, we gave Alice a $50 Borders Gift Card for her awesomeness as a supervisor and what I'd call a temp manager. I was surprised when Alice gave me an HMV Gift Card. I was just thinking WTFUX IS HAPPENINGS? Ah well.

I have worries over whether my once-a-week work at Wendy's during Uni will affect my studies. However on the flipside I'm wondering whether Wendy's would actually help me study more, by motivating me to work harder.
One reason would be stress. With the knowledge that one of my weekends will be taken up by work, I would feel like I have less time to study, and thus must start studying NOW and not lay-off/procrastinate until the next day. That's what I did last year. Even though I only went to Uni for 2 days, I procrastinated generally until the Sunday, the last day, to do my homework. Hardly any studying; just odd times. With this Semester having 4 days of Uni, and one day of work, hopefully it'll kick my senses back to where they are supposed to be.

A plus is also that the 4 days aren't full 4 days. Tuesday might get a bit busy, but Monday, Wednesday and Thursday are quite relaxed with only 2-3 hrs for the whole day. With that said, I'll be able to spend a long time in the Uni Library studying, away from random distractions.
The second reason why continuing to work at Wendy's would be good for my studies is because - over the course of the last 3 months - I have found that my communication skills, my work ethic, my motivation, my general mindset and my initiative has dramatically been heightened. I reckon this will rub off on my studies as well.

Away from studying, Wendy's has given me a hands-on experience in a variety of areas, and I am very grateful that Alice and Bert have given me the chance to experience teaching other staff, working with them, supervising them, dealing with cash and giving me an introductory look at what I would call early book-keeping. And hey, that's part of accounting, yea?
Alice also showed me a bit of how to order from our providers and has given me such opportunities too with Coke and GPF or something like that.

Thanks to the store, my mindset has changed into embracing challenges. As I go on at Wendy's, I'm thirsting for more things to do and to learn more things; to do more. The more I do, the more tasks that will occupy me, and the less bored I'll be when there are no customers or potential customers walking by.

.....and I was expecting Helen to turn up in lolita.
Oh well.

And have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE Stickies?
I've placed my Wendy's Roster there, Centrelink report date, Goals, To Buy, Piggy Bank (for saving up for things like the trip to Japan/etc), Exercise Calendar Chain (the famous Chain Seinfield used to write his scripts); health goals/achievements/andsetdatestoachievethemin; and Tasks.
I don't know where I downloaded the program from, but it sits on your desktop and it is AWESOME. Fully customizable in terms of color, size, background color, position, open-minimize/open-max/etc/etc. So good~
My color scheme is yellow for normal stickies, and then slowly turn to orange, then red, then bright, flourescent pink for the HOMGMUSTDOTHESETHINGS things.

Anyways, enough talking. I r go slep now.

I'm back!

2008-01-14T18:14:00.000+11:00

- 6:16pm -

Read read read!
31st till 12th January are all there. You'll probably have to either go the previous page to find the start, or, use the column on the right to find the 31st.

13th of China - The finale

2008-01-12T18:08:00.000+11:00

12th January 2008

Woke up and ordered Yon Ho. Nice as always. Then started packing the luggage. Pretty tiring work, especially since my leg hurt. We are at around 115-125kg. Could be just under, could be just over. Hopefully I can cut a bit off for hand-luggage, in which we can only carry 5kg each, apparently.
We’ll be heading out at 3pm in 2 and a half hours to catch the plane at around 6pm. We have to first head to Melbourne before heading to Sydney. We have 7 bags for the plane, and 3 bags for on-hand including 2 voilins.

~6:30pm we went on the plane. I was half-afraid that our luggage weight would exceed the 120kg limit, but luckily it was under by 2kg.
Our hand-luggage limit was also almost just exact.

Nothing much else interesting about the plane though. We had rice for lunch with egg and a favourite meat I usually eat which I don’t know the name of.
My iPod battery finally ran out at the waiting room. I conserved it for all these days just for the waiting room.
I still havn’t finished or even started watching Air or Bousou Renkin that I got just before the trip. I’m starting work again in 2 days on the 14th. All back to normal again. I hope I have enough time to watch all the movies we bought, especially since with work I’ll only have like, 2 days off to watch them all whilst updating on the Anime and Manga from Naruto and Bleach, as well as D.gray-man that I missed out on during the past two or so weeks.

Heading to Melbourne for now then transferring to Sydney since the plane to Sydney was apparently too full for today. Got some new earphones which are really nice. They basically block the surrounding outside sound, and concentrate on the music instead. With these earphones, I don’t need to turn up the volume of my iPod, thus not damaging my ears as much. The only problem is that the earphones blocks out surrounding sounds, which means I won’t be able to listen to them whilst walking across the road/etc/etc or else I won’t hear when a car comes by/etc.

12th of China

2008-01-11T18:07:00.000+11:00

11th January 2008

We got off the train at around 7:06am and went to buy pants for my sister at a random shopping building. Didn’t take long before my father got impatient and went a huge way away to a random books store. We took forever to finally walk to where he was. Later, we got some more books for myself and my sister, and father also bought a few more books in another random book store before we headed off for lunch at Yoshinoya. Yoshinoya food is DELICIOUS, but unfortunately there are only 2 Yoshinoya restaurants in Australia! 2!!! I have to find them, but they will probably be very expensive, since everything in Australia is expensive compared to China. Plus, Chinese people are used to noodles/rice/etc, so it is cheaper in China than in Australia.

We then visited my father’s brother’s office, which is in a huge building owned by the company he works for, which is one of the top financial firms. He is a liquidator there I think. Not quite sure though. Lost in translation.
The floor he works on his HUGE. We played a bit of ping-pong there which was pretty fun.
We then went on a ferry across the river to Pudong New Area where the Pearl Tower is. Went on a coach that cost only 1 yen, that basically did a quick tour of the area, dropping us off anywhere we wanted to. Those who wanted to go on the top deck had to pay 15 yen.

We were dropped off at Super Brand Mall, a humongous mall that I remember going to when I was 14. It is opposite of Pearl Tower and even though it only has 8 floors, the floors themselves are huge. We went to a Thai restaurant. The design there was absolutely awesome. Absolutely awesome from the entrance to the chairs to the toilets. I really loved the atmosphere. On top of that, there was a small group of thai dancers who were sent in to perform. They first performed outside probably to draw in customers. My mother told us to go out and take photos of them so we did, and Vin Ja and my sister awkwardly danced with them.
Later on they went around the inside of the restaurant to each section persuading people to dance with them. They eventually got to our section and, upon seeing us, one of them high-fived me before getting our entire table to dance with them. Only my father didn’t dance because he was filming us. I’ll send the video clips once we get back to Aus. The restaurant is called BananaLeaf. You can find them at bananaleaf.com.cn.

Afterwards, my family headed to my mother’s sister’s place to pick up some of the luggage we had left, before we headed back to my father’s brother’s house for the night.

11th of China

2008-01-10T18:06:00.000+11:00

10th January 2008

We checked out of the hotel at 10am before heading on a bus to shop in an area with Tiange’s family. My father had left beforehand to look at antiques in some random place. Tiange’s brother’s girlfriend was our bargainer. She was very good too, dropping prices way low. For instance, 3 large travel bags we bought going for 350 yen was sold to us eventually for 60 yen. A bag I bought costing 250 yen dropped to 70 yen. Shoes for $8 each.
She basically bargained successfully by first asking the price, then asking for a way-low price. Basically if they charge 100, she would ask 10-20. They usually drop their price down, then she either stays at her original buy price, or goes up a tiny bit. If the seller keeps refusing, she usually tells them that she bought her last one of that product for a said low price. If that doesn’t work, she says she’s leaving, and slowly pulls everybody away. Usually that’s when almost 100% of stallholders give-in and sell her the product for her price. Sometimes she might need to add on 5-10 yen.
Amazing bargaining.

Afterwards we left for the train that would leave at 7:38pm. We came 2 hours earlier and played Big 2 the whole time.
Train was as usual. Got really hot in the middle of the night though. Somebody must have turned the air-con on full-blast. I turned it down to 2. My father later on turned it down to 0.
I think the moisture from the heat was the reason why my socks were so moist/wet when I tried putting them on in the morning the next day.

10th of China

2008-01-09T18:05:00.000+11:00

9th January 2008

Woke up at 7am and took a different tour guide. First of all whilst waiting for the bread van we got takeaway at a Western-style buffet restaurant on the ground floor of our hotel. We also have an “R” floor just above the ground floor which is just restaurants.
After we got on, we went to the residence of a famous person where a movie based on his story was made – the film of which is apparently also quite famous. He was basically the only male in the entire residence, with everyone else being females. He wore female dresses with long hair/etc/etc; had 40 servants/etc/etc/etc. There was a few interesting twisting trees where every part of the tree was twisted except for the trunk.

Yesterday the coach we were in was almost full. Today only us, Tiange’s and 3 others were on. The mic was also bad so it sounded like the tourist guide had a strange echoing/futuristic voice.

We then went to CCTV broadcasting tower, which is apparently the sixth tallest broadcasting tower in the world. They also had a maritime museum below, just like the Pearl Tower having one right next to it. We saw a performance of seals and something else I can’t quite name right now. The second performance involved two of the things I can’t name. They pretended to be humans, even nodding their heads, clapping up and down (to incite us to do the same) and even bowing with the correct hand gestures/etc. One of them even towed a dinghy with a real baby in it from the audience. That baby was so brave. He probably didn’t know what the hell was going on cause he was just looking around stupidly whilst on the boat.

Also saw a shark feeding show. Pretty interesting.

Bought CCTV postcards at the top of the tower and sent them to Australia. The view at the top reveals to you just how big Beijing is. All the high-rise buildings everywhere in such a small area was good enough to beat all the buildings in the whole of Australia alone. I also bought a small mascot panda keyring. Forgot its actual name. We also took a few photos here and there, including next to large-sized cardboard stands of the bascots outside.

Our next location that we went to was supposed to be a random restaurant, but it was too full already so we went next door to the Hall of the Deva Kings, or something like that. There were a lot of large and fanciful Buddhist statues in one of the buildings. The one in the middle in front was most likely the King, because he had a crown and was sitting on a seat made of small Buddhists. Behind him were three Buddhists which I assume were three of the Buddhist gods or whatever. I’m not into religion that much so don’t know much about Buddhism.

There was a huge MASS of red good-luck charms the same as last time’s stacked everywhere around each statue like a slated castle fortress. More of those red-charms filled every fence and barrier in the huge area. There was also a Ming & Qing Dynasty Art Museum where some of the furniture from that time is preserved. There was also an area with differing Chinese architecture, apparently build so that the King/s could see the magnificence of all of China in the one location.
After lunch, where the spicy food was once again the best, we went to Beijing Movie City where some of the Chinese films are made (using the sets). We were taken to a small room where we could ride a ‘flying carpet’. Basically basic technology where the image sensor or whatever doesn’t read a certain color. In this case, the room was filled with blue, the bumpy table was filled with blue and the carpet was red. We got to sit on it and take a video of it for around 40 yen or so. Could also use a blue sheet that basically made us invisible if we covered ourselves with it.

Next was a room with a tea-shop set-up. Basically used to create a short video clip with professional equipment and lighting. My father volunteered and was given the role of waiter whilst two of the 3 girls who were on our tour bus became the customers and one middle-aged guy from another tour group became the cranky soldier with a rifle. It was very funny. My father should have bought the video but we didn’t.

We instead moved to another area where we played a short gun-shooting game with laser-guns. Pretty boring though since we only had to shoot at certain flashing markers in the area.
Afterwards we were sent to the next location on an old cart-thingy. Most of my family and Tiange’s sat on the first cart which didn’t have any seats and we basically stuck our legs out on the side of the cart. The second cart was like a multi-seated golf cart which my father sat on. He enjoyed the little trip better than I did because the two carts was attached by a bolt and small arm-length of metal. Basically whenever the front cart moved, the back cart would swerve from side to side. Very interesting.

We landed at an old Chinese-style movie-town that you see in so many films. The guys basically told us about how a lot of films are made in said area. We then went into a bar where we were given tea olden-day-chinese-style, and then watched a short magic show, which was pretty interesting, but not as good as some that I’ve seen (like the throwing-millions-of-cards-out-of-nowhere magician trick).

Afterwards, we quickly took photos of us chained up to the wall by fake chains before we headed to a mechanism used by martial arts movies to create that flying-through-the-sky/leaping-through-the-sky movement. Basically, one of the girls from our tour group was strapped onto the mechanism, was told how to pose and move, and was then given a fake sword. It looked pretty real, but it was very slow. They explained that it was slow because the machine was very old, unlike the modern ones available. I agree with them. The mechanism looked really old and rusted, and it looked like the wires could snap at any time.

We also went to a cinematic room where we saw a short thriller with sound-effects done by someone nearby. Wasn’t very good though. I loved the sound-effects choir that was at the Oscar’s in either 2006 or 2007. They were just crazily-awesome. They only used their voices to create all these different sound-effects. No instruments.

Tour guide ended and we went to a very big mall with a huge whole level filled with accessories and 2 levels filled with very good fashionable clothing. All stores different and the clothing was all very good. Most were not famous brands and some had no brands at all, which was just how I like them. The less famous the brands, usually the better they look and the less expensive they are.
Unfortunately most stuff was for females, and the rest were Winter-China clothing.

9th of China

2008-01-08T18:04:00.000+11:00

8th January 2008

Got woken up at 5:30am by phone from our tour guide service. I can’t really understand Mandarin all that much so I asked them to ring my mother at room 1620.
Finally left at 6:30am, since my mother told them to change the pick-up to 6:30. We left in a bread van which had a good few other people in it. Basically, these bread vans have a certain area where they pick people up from, before depositing them on a coach at a certain location. Tiange’s family was on a different breadvan but we met on the same coach.
However, our family decided to wake up earlier so we could see the raising of the flag. It was interesting, but we were very far away since we were watching on the coach. My dad took a video of it though. My father took a video of a hell lot of stuff, so I’m going to be uploading it on youtube or something and linking it here.

We then headed to the Great Wall of China after they picked up a few other people including Tiange’s family. The parapets were very low, which freaked me up because the Great Wall goes up and down, up and down and is very thin at parts (thin for me). I’m scared of heights, so it was very scary for me. If the parapets were twice as high as they were I would have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of walking on the Great Wall. Anyways, we got up using a sort of mini-rollercoaster-like mechanism that was freaky enough for me even though it only went up slowly in a straight line.

The way down was using the same mechanism, but there was a lot of twists and turns, and it was way faster, probably thanks to the fact that we were going downhill. Only reassurance were small nets to ‘catch’ us if we fell.
Since we were going on tourist buses, these guys kept sending us to random stores and other fake places that attempted to get our money. The tourist guides probably get a commission from those guys.
We first went to a jade shop where we were followed by 10-12 other tourist buses. The guys at the shop first walked us through a small gallery, and a small 2min tell-the-difference-between-fake-and-real demonstration. A further demonstration was made with how much water the real jade bowl can hold, and how it has holy powers to heal you.

Next was the restaurant. The service was really bad since it was all farmer-type people. I had to even put the fish on the table myself. The restaurant was soon packed with other tourist groups.
The only thing that was good once again was the spicy food, probably because the bad flavour of the meals was covered by the spice.
I had to go to the toilet, but only pissed since the toilet was absolutely horrible. One horse-drinking-water-container-thing was on the ground for doing your shit, and the other one on the other side was for piss. Small room as small as a small janitor’s room. No privacy since there were no walls. And worst of all, poo piled up like a small mountain. Bad stuff.

We then went to Zhao tomb for a very brief tour by one of the place’s personal guides. This place was pretty good. I found the ‘spirit gates’ to be very interesting and jotted a quick description of them. If I ever get to doing a manga that I’m ever going to finish, these spirit gates will probably be part of it. One was hollow, the other was closed (but no doors, just a wall) that overlooked a hillside where the King/s were buried.
I also found a disabled toilet with a seat! That was awesome.
I’m assuming the reason why most toilets have holes only is to prevent germs/diseases being spread.

We then visited a random hospital where they first guided us through a long hallway filled with photos of apparently famous doctors who worked at the facility.
They then led us to a presentation room where a middle-aged man started talking to us about the 5 principles of medicine/health or something like that. Afterwards, 5 doctors came in to give us free diagnostics on our health by reading the pulse of our hearts (by the touching-your-wrist method). My parents got theirs and the doctors told them they had a few problems that would have easily been attained from the questions they had asked my parents anyway. They also said that even though my mother doesn’t have it already, she’ll get a certain disease in the future.
They then told my parents to get certain special medicine that will easily cure all these problems. My parents said they had no money, and so the doctors told them to leave. My father then asked if he could learn the name of the medicine that they should take, and the doctor told them they had to order the medicine before they can tell them what it was.

Totally a scam to just get your money.

We then went to some Buddhist area. We first spun a whole bunch of broken-down, tin-can-painted-over-with-yellow-paint wheels that the monks usually spin, before being guided through a passageway of photos including of 3 generations of Buddhists who apparently live in Tibet. The first two looked pretty real, but the third one had sunglasses on. At first I didn’t suspect anything. Looked real enough.
We then were sent right to an area of spirit-cleansing, or something of the sort. Each family had to sit in separate seats. We then had to do some weirdo Buddhist hand ritual of prayerness. Afterwards, the guide chose my father to step up and burn some random white stuff in a furnace whilst being draped in a white cloth. The guy at the table in front rang a bell randomly whilst going “balalaololaoalaldkfaknasdkjh….ometofu…balskalslala” and shaking his head downwards. He wasn’t even wearing monk clothing or had a shaved head. Just normal clothes and spiky asian-style haircut.

We then prayed to 3 buddhist statues with povo striped scarves on their hands. Later we went inside and were told to each write our names on a good luck charm, make a wish in their heads, get blessed by the Buddhist inside who just so happened to ‘luckily’ come to the ‘temple’, then place the good luck charm around any of the fences outside. There were thousands already outside, so they must have scammed a whole lot of other people too. It was 70 yen, and we got ourselves a small fake Buddhist pendant.
We lined up in family lines to get blessed by the Buddhist monk or whatever, who was the exact same person on the photo outside. He had his sunglasses, a basketball shirt and blue jeans drapped in a yellow cloth. Definitely a Buddhist monk mate. Definitely.

After he patted our heads, we went to a waiting room before being guided to another room with a few ‘monks’. These guys joined our hands together in prayer and started talking about our great, great futures. Later on he asked us to help our future come true by burning a bundle of incense, for 900 yen minimum, 1,200 yen max. My father said we didn’t bring any money because we were told that there were a lot of thieves around these parts so we left everything at home. He then said, “that’s okay, we take credit card”. They even had one of those cashier machines and credit card tools at the front too.
When we kept saying we had no money, he said ‘okay, why not burn one or two incense, 300, 600, 900 yen. Any is good’. When we kept repeating we had no money, he told us to leave. Haha.

We then went to yet another jade ‘store’/warehouse. This time the people there were very kind and considerate. They led us to a waiting room where we were told to just rest our feet. They also had water for us, leather sofas and air-con. Later, a tall woman came in and started talking a bit about real and fake jades, passing jade bracelets around the tourist group to see if any of us knew which was fake and which was real. After a while she became very embarrassed and asked us if her job was done well. She then asked us where we lived, found out one of the families lived in an area her boss apparently lived in and told us she would try to get her boss to come to see us.

Before the boss came, she told us to tell the boss that she had done her job well. The boss came, asked us about her performance with a lot of laughs/etc/etc, talked about his town/etc/etc and then told us his company sells to overseas for extremely expensive prices/etc/etc. After the long friendlies, we went to the room next door filled with apparently real-jade stuff. He told us we shouldn’t buy anything because it was too expensive here. Then during the end, he offered a jade worth 160,000 yen for 1,000 yen because we were all Chinese/etc/etc/etc. All friends.
Nobody bought though, haha. We were too used to this shiz already.

The tour basically ended there. We left for the Golden Street, which is sort of like a bigger version of the area near Myers in Wynard/Town Hall. There were huge TV screens too, 2 of them featured Japanese and Korean artists performing in some apparent concert, and the other was for news. We looked a lot, but didn’t really buy much. Now that I look back, it is a good thing we didn’t because as I write this, we have just made it to just under 120kg weight for non-on-hand luggage.

8th of China

2008-01-07T18:03:00.000+11:00

7th January 2008

Woke-up on the train at about 6am. We had ordered breakfast beforehand and got some bacon and eggs, bread, noodles, porridge, milk/etc/etc, since we ordered a variety. We got off and took a few photos at Tiananmen Square. Unfortunately we were around 5min late for the daily raising of the flag by two squadrons of soldiers. We instead took photos of our surroundings after we were allowed to get back into the square after the procession had finished. I noted the considerable police and security presence, with guards and police slowly walking back and forth between areas and around 6-8 police vans in the square alone, not including those in the surrounding streets.

After that, we headed to Mao Zedong’s Palace (or whatever) which is one road away from the Square. We went to the top of the front gate and looked over at the spot Mao Zedong once stood waving at the huge mass of people and the army parade that usually accompanied them below.

There were a lot of random people trying to sell random fake stuff for very cheap. One old lady near the baggage storage area (since you can’t take your baggage up the wall) tried selling us some fake Beijing Olympics 2008 mascot keyrings for around 10 yen a set. These types of people are very annoying and will follow you almost forever no matter how long you say no. Thus, I jokingly offered her 1 yen for the set and she started chucking a fit at me.

I learnt not to joke with those guys ever again.

We had lunch at some random chinese restaurant in some random place which had some spicy eels. I reckon that was the best part of the meal. Everything else wasn’t so good. Afterwards, we visited a few antique areas nearby that caught my father’s interests. I seriously thought every single one of the shops’ stuff was fake, since the area wasn’t in some high-rise building but in a sort of small flea-market set-up. I just couldn’t imagine that ALL these people couldn’t afford a better place to sell their stuff, or wouldn’t sell at an auction. The only reason I thought that they wouldn’t do such a thing is that at an auction, professionals inspect your item before you sell it.

Visited Tiange’s family in some random place that took our taxi driver forever to find. They had a very cool dog, a breed of which I have never seen before. Once I get back to Australia and save all the pictures we took of it, I’m going to do a thorough search of its breed.
The dog basically looks like a cross between a lion and a cute-cuddly teddy bear. It is large. It snores like a human, which is hilarious and it even felt like a cute cuddly teddy bear. Doesn’t bark or bite either. Such an awesome dog!

Anyways, went to dinner with Tiange’s family after that at a restaurant nearby called Nine-headed Bird Chain Restaurant. Was pretty nice. Once again only the spicy stuff. Beijing people love their spicy food apparently. I do too.
Nothing much else to say for the day.

7th of China

2008-01-06T18:02:00.000+11:00

6th January 2008

Went on the train CTRIP Member Service (ctrip.com) from Shanghai to Beijing. In the train we had 4-beds per compartment. The aircon was on very high so it was very, very hot in our compartment. There was a table/tea/papers&magazines and other things ready for us. Clothes hangers, storage compartments, shoes compartments, bins, hotel-style ‘shoes’ and toothbrush + towel + toothpaste. Closing the door reveals a huge oval mirror. Pretty nice experience, and the first time sleeping properly on a train.
I slept on the top bunker of one of the beds since my sister was too scared of going up because she’s afraid of falling off the bed. My mother didn’t sleep on the top either because she was too tired to climb up.

The buses in China are quite interesting too. The front and back doors are for exiting, and the one or two middle doors are to enter and pay your ticket with the ticket people, or use the T-card-like system and swipe your card over the surface. Some buses have actual TV (not just ads), and has a sliding sign that shows what stop you are heading towards, just like on the trains. They also have an auto-voice-over in Chinese and English. Others aren’t as modern so they only have the ticket people telling everyone through a microphone.
Also, in China, the driver never talks. You aren’t supposed to talk to them. All directions and advice are given by the ticket holders.

6th of China

2008-01-05T18:01:00.000+11:00

5th January 2008

In the morning we ordered Yon Ho as usual. We then visited grandmother again, but only for a few seconds before my sister, father and myself went outside to shop. I bought heaps of stuff, especially really nice-looking belts and eventually filled my entire bag with stuff. My sister also bought a lot, but not as much as myself.

We then headed out to a restaurant at a shopping centre (9-storey shopping mall) that my mother’s sister manages. There we had lunch at Royal China: Shanghai on the 8th floor. Very nice food there.
Afterwards, we headed off to a violinist’s place. Apparently famous. He had a very nice and obedient cat. Stayed for a little while before we left to buy manuscripts near the Shanghai Conservatorium of Music. I also bought a few DVDs.

On our way to dinner we stumbled upon a corner DVD store. We bought about 40-50 discs. @__@ Hopefully they are watchable.
Dinner was at Charme.

5th of China

2008-01-04T18:01:00.000+11:00

4th January 2007

We arrived at the hospital again because my grandmother was having a bit of blood transfer or something of the sort to make sure that the cancer that she had doesn’t reappear somewhere else. We ordered breakfast from Yon Ho, which was delivered to our place pretty quickly since we live pretty close.
In the hospital we were introduced to a variety of senior nurses who knew and worked under my grandmother. They also knew my mother since when she was young she used to play around whilst my mother worked. A lot of the newer nurses have also heard of my grandmother.
Next, we watched a dance rehearsal by 3 of my mother’s dance friends as well as 3 others.
It was very nice. Basically they did a Chinese dance, with all those Chinese-like movements. Some of the movements were very nice and it felt like something to make you feel alive with. I found out I must be allergic to something in the room because I immediately started getting a running nose that lasted quite some time. Good thing it ended before they started their dress rehearsal.

Afterwards they left for their actual performance and we headed to a nearby haircut salon. The salon was HUGE, with two storeys to it. Around 20-30 haircut seats, 10 washing areas and more. There was HEAPS of people in there and different people did different things. Aka staff. They all had very fancy hairstyles and street-style clothing. All weren’t Shanghainese though. First, I had shampoo placed on my hair, which was hand-rubbed and messaged for a good 15min. I seem to remember something that looked quite nice.
Next, my hair was washed in warm water, thoroughly, before the haircut began. The haircut took about 45-60min. The person basically did a very intricate job on my hair. It looks really nice – a type of hairstyle I have never had before. Very nice. My mother and sister just had their hair washed.

I managed to buy a nice ‘hatch-belt’ on the way home. Only cost 10 yen. Next time I see a shop like that I’m going to buy a hell lot more of them.
Some baskers started setting up as the sun set in the city, so I decided to look around and bought another keyring of a cat with evil wings.

We then had dinner at The Barony. Wei Wei, whose 17 looked very nice and her fashion sense is very good. She is in High School Year 12 though. Her facial features reminds me closely of Being Being, my cousin whose 15 days younger than me. Wei Wei is pretty carefree and jolly. Reminds me of myself during Manly High.

4th Day of China

2008-01-03T17:59:00.000+11:00

3rd January 2007

We took a free breadvan/bus inside Canbridge. Canbridge, the enclosed village is HUGE! There is around 3-4 parks inside the village itself, not including the restaurant, mini-shopping centre and the sporting facilities available.
The interesting thing which I mentioned back when I came hear 4 or so years ago is that there are cleaners who spend the whole day cleaning the place, right up to your doorstep. There is no collection day for trash. Just leave it outside and the cleaners will take it away with them. All of this for a small fee of $100 per year. This includes payment for other services like the security guards/etc/etc.

This time although we had breakfast in the same shopping centre, we had it at a place called Yon Ho, their mascot of which is a fat boy in a straw hat. Great representation.
Basically, Chinese food. I loved the yubo or however you pronounce it in pinyin. Everything is so cheap as well. Most expensive item is 18 yen, which is around $3. Cheapest is 2 yen.

We then headed off to see Nabu, or, my mother’s mother. Anan is father’s mother in
Shanghainese. Waipo is Mandarin I think. Anyways, the hospital is called something along the lines of Pudong New Area People’s Hospital. Very big. Staff are very friendly, especially since my grandmother used to be head of the hospital back in her days and was (and still is) known as a very, very kind person. They treat her with special care and even the newer nurses know about her.
My sister started playing around with the video camera, taking it everywhere and asking me to be the narrator.
There was a person on the other side of the bed who was looking after someone who looked like either her mother, sister, or close friend. The person looking after the sick person looked a lot like somebody from my University back home.

Anyways, after the hospital visit, we headed for a café called DIO Coffee. That place was awesome. Awesome service in terms of a kind and sincere service, as well as very nice meals. My sister had spaghetti. First, they gave her an entrée of garlic bread and tomato-like soap. Then they gave her her chocolate pearl milk tea. She was then given a free plate of fruit before finally, the main course. Spaghetti.
I had a large Japanese-style-like plate of rice and spicy duck or something with lots of other stuff. Basically, they placed each different ‘ingredient’ into separate sections, where you could mix them together or eat them totally separately.
I had coffee milk tea. That was DELICIOUS. Unfortunately I must have drank too much cause after that I went to the toilet around 18 or so times. Not good in China to go that many times. Had to use lots of money to get into the public toilets. >_<
Personal reminder; don’t drink coffee.

Later, my mother needed to buy material to provide a tailor to create a dress for my sister, because her current performance dresses are too short for her. Whilst she did that, my sister and I were left to explore the building that we were sent to. Big place, almost like paddy’s market, only there was much more interesting stuff, especially on the second floor with stationary and toys. I bought a mushroom-mario keyring, a puppy-keyring, a few sticker sets, a medium-sized domo-kun, hannari, and other random plushies I have no idea what they are called. My sister did quite similarly, but she also bought a small white flower to place on her head during SMASH! And Animania this year. We are already planning and trying to buy the necessary clothing and materials to go crazy on those days.

Saw what looked like artbooks downstairs but couldn’t buy them because we were in a hurry.
We went to a pretty poor place to find a tailor. We found one. Very poor place. Walls proababy made of metal and wood slabs. Wallpaper = ads and newspapers. Smaller than a janitor’s room.
He was good, but couldn’t make 3 dresses in 4 days. >_< So we left.

Unfortunately took us HELL long to finally find a taxi to head to a restaurant called something that I can’t translate. I have a nice business card though. The place is under the olden scheme of old chinese doors/etc/etc. The biz card also has the same design where you open up the doors to find the details.

3rd Day of China

2008-01-02T17:57:00.000+11:00

2nd January 2007

Went shopping near our Uncle’s house. My father also showed me our own house that is currently being rented by somebody too. This whole area is called something along the lines of Canbridge something something. I’ll jot it down later.
Anyways, everything is so cheap in the stores.

Well, we first went to eat breakfast at KFC. Mother wasn’t there because she was spending the day with her sister and mother. Yes, KFC has breakfast in China. Basically, there are these EXTREMELY tiny hashbrowns, more like tiny fish fingers than hash browns. Everything is small – small wrap with prawns, small bacon & egg muffin/etc. Only thing now too small was the porridge, or whatever you call it. Not disgusting porridge, but Chinese rice in some soup with duck egg and other stuff inside. Very nice stuff that I love to eat at Chinese buffets back in Australia.

First off though, the supermarket inside the mall didn’t allow the carrying of any bags. We had to leave it with a storage service on the floor below. The supermarket is just like Dynasty Restaurant in terms of service. First, there is a lady who greets you and then hands you a trolley. Next, the actual entrance has two ladies who also bow and greet you inside. Furtheremore, HEAPS of store assistants are available and heaps of staff at the cash register, and lots of it.
Later on, two ladies wait at the exit to stamp your docket and speak through a microphone something along the lines of “Thanks for stopping by, we hope you enjoyed our services.”
Finally, at the bottom of the elevator, another lady helps pull your trolley over the end, and repeats the ‘thanks for coming’.

As for the things we bought, we bought a few DvDs and stationary. My sister also bought a new schoolbag and a new ‘fashionable’ scissor-bag. Also bought some gloves that are pretty comfy in.

We then went to some random place, the name of which I forgot. My father did some 2hr antique-exploring whilst my sister and I waited somewhere and read together The Phantom of the Opera. Even had comprehension at the end.

We briefly went into a 4-storey fashion and accessories building with stores almost like that of Paddy’s market. Lots of similar stores could be found too and I am assuming it is a place dominated by foreign tourists because the people there knew a bit of a few languages. Enough to sell their stuff and to hope to rip them off. They crowded around anyone who looked foreign and spoke English to them. Their store items have no price tags, so they can easily try selling something to you for a higher price if you don’t look like a person who knows your prices around the area.
Of course, some of the tourists are very good at bargaining. One I saw was buying some sort of technology and he kept pressing to discount the price.
Eventually he decided to leave and the storekeeper dragged him back saying “OK, OK. 20 yen. 20 yen.”

I later used that tactic.

Bought one belt. No brand. Does the job though. My old Bossco clip belt keeps coming off at the back because it is too small for my waist, or at least with how many layers I’m wearing.

We then went to a Sushi Restaurant nearby for lunch. Each plate was 6 yen. Basically 90c in Australian dollars. Very boring dishes though. Best was two dumplings that my sister ate. Too bad it was one-of-a-kind.

Then we went to father’s elder sister’s place for dinner. When I arrived I immediately had a stomach ache. It was bad, and probably caused by me not using enough wasabi on the sushi I ate. We ate around 16 plates of sushi.
Thankfully, I had brought my Buscopen (specifically for the stomach) and Panadol (win for everything!).
In the end I got a pretty nice coat from uncle that pretty much has kept me quite warm.

We then met some of father’s friends at a restaurant. Pretty bad service at the restaurant, but then again, we were in an area that was supposed to be closed at the time. Like father’s friend said, in China you have to be tough. If you are tough and strong in your stance, you’ll always get what you want. If you are weak, people will exploit that weakness.
Anyways, father’s friends were all artists. Talked about a lot of the good old times and I overhead them joking about how my father used to never wash his socks, but instead, hanged them up so that the wind could blow away the smell.
I don’t think father needs to do that though, since his feet are never smelly, his socks are always clean even though he never washes them, and his feet are as smooth as a baby’s.
There were really good-looking drinks though at the restaurant. Mine being lemon green tea in a very, very tall, thin glass whilst my sister’s was a fat, wide, chocolate milk tea with cream and fudge on top.
The restaurant had 5 separate areas all visible. Downstairs was café-like in terms of furniture. Upstairs, there is an almost Japanese-like center. Very private with a rock-bed in the middle.
Behind that; armchairs very closely connected around a round table. Very intimate.
Nice design.

A bit of observation for the day:
The city with a lot of its glamour is mixed with huge sections of ‘relative’ poverty, which most people are still used to.
However that said, most units, through looking bad on the outside; always has some interesting designs, such as a small park or mini-maze. They almost always have a basketball court inside, swimming pool and tennis courts. The inside of the house is also very nice. Plus, technology and everything else is cheap here so most people (or at least friends and relatives) have HUGE-screened TVs, very lavish furniture/etc/etc.

2nd Day of China

2008-01-01T17:56:00.000+11:00

1st January 2008-01-02

Today we went to my cousin’s place. Being Being. She is the cousin who is 15 days younger than myself, and who just moved to England to study there. She just came back yesterday for a holiday in China.

We had breakfast and grandmother gave us a few gifts. She first gave me a red envelope with 5000 rmb. That’s approximately $1000.

She then gave me another smaller red pocket bag with 500 rmb. The 5000 rmb was for me getting into University. Being Being also got one a few months ago before she left for England. The 500 rmb was for shopping money here even though we were already given 1000 rmb from our father and had our own Aus dollars to exchange.

My sister got 1000 rmb in the red envelope, and 500 rmb in the red pocket bag.

Furtheremore, Being Being’s grandmother gave us both 100 rmb.

Grandmother then gave us both a very nice Kindergarten to Year 12 Photo Frame, which she had also given to Being Being.

Afterwards, we left to visit my mother’s singing teacher. We went via train. The trains in China are very interesting. Firstly, they have a system just like that of Japan with one card used for all transport; just swiping it over a plate. Just like the plates that some McDonald’s now have. Our T-card fails hard compared to China’s. I cry for our crummy transport back home.

Next, the most awesome part is that the rail areas aren’t actually open to the public. There is a plastic wall protecting people so they don’t jump onto the tracks and get killed. It’s called the Outer Circle. The sliding doors are also automatic, and the train stops exactly so that the train doors are aligned with the automatic sliding doors of the Outer Circle so you always know where to get on.

Inside the train, the carriages aren’t split up with doors. Just like in Japan.

They also have an electronic map that shows you your route. Awesome stuff right there.

Electronic Road signs are also used on the streets, especially the highways where the electrical flashing light signs show whether the road is open or not, and whether it is clogged up or not with traffic.

After going to mother’s singing teacher’s place, we went for a quick stop at a friend’s place who was also at mother’s singing teacher’s place. My father saw a large piece of jade and a 2hr discussion ensued on shares, antiques, auctions and the suggested price of the jade piece.

We then went by taxi to a restaurant that needs a whole new page of its own to describe.

We had a bit of trouble finding the place, but the place is called Dynasty Restaurant.

IT IS AWESOME!

!!!

!!!!!!!

Basically, everything is painted with suggested gold. Could be real gold, but I doubt it. Everything was very majestic, even with very beautiful, expensive-looking chairs in the ‘lobby’.

Inside the private rooms, the food was also very, very nice.

The most interesting part however would have to be what you would have to call the best toilet service EVER.

Basically, the door is automatic. Ten points.

Second, there is a PERSON who welcomes you into the bloody toilets!

He even shows you towards the cubicles, which is ontop of a flight of steps. Very pro and all. The cubicle even has a put-out-smoking thingy-ma-bob.

Next when you go out, the guy directs you with a swift hand motion towards the sink, before bringing the soap dispenser to you, giving you a bit of soap and then adjusting the tap so that it is perfect for you. The tap is of course a sensor-type.

He then hands you some paper towels and directs you outside.

Show me a better toilet service.

The occasion for the dinner? Grandmother was celebrating her 80th birthday!!!!!!!!

And she had a HUGE cake. We could only eat 1/10th of it. The rest was cut up and each family took a huge box of the cake home with them. There was still some left over after that too!

We ate traditional noodles which is for both long-love-relationships as well as long-life. My sister got one strand of the noodles and literally gulped it down without biting into it so that the noodle wouldn’t be cut, even ‘measuring’ the strand to what she believed to be 56 years. In other words, she was hoping grandmother would live another 56 years.

Anyways, now at home typing today and yesterday’s up. I’ll be doing this daily from now on. I have a small notepad that I use which I store in my bag to remember key points of the day.

Gotta sleep. Tomorrow is all-day shopping. YAHZ!!!!!

Start of China - 31st December 2007

2007-12-31T17:54:00.000+11:00

31st December 2007

Woke up at 7am, left when the taxi arrived at 9am.
Today was a big day for my family. We were heading for Shanghai, China for a two-week journey from today till 12th January 2008.
Boarding the plane was late by 20min or longer.

On {China} Airlines we first had lunch where my sister and I chose different meals so we could share with each other. I chose the rice + fish meal whilst my sister chose the very nice rice noodles meal. Later on dinner came and I chose a noodles meal whilst my sister chose a rice meal with beef. My noodles meal had fish in it, which was pretty nice although the noodles themselves were really, really, bad.
There was a ‘pie’ or something like that that was really sweet and tasted quite good. Reminds me of those pancakes from Hontou Pancakes stands.
We watched a pretty good collection (3) of movies. One of the movies was repeated twice, about a Japanese hair stylist and a Chinese taxi driver who fall in love; eventually. Pretty nice, though we’ve already watched it before.
Another one was some Hong Kong-made one which was probably trying to copy a show such as the OC or other American-based TV series, but failed hard. 95% of the movie focused on close-ups of the actors’ faces, trying to show how beautiful they were. The acting was so fake, and on top of that the whole movie, as a whole, didn’t really make much sense.

We got to my uncle’s (father’s elder brother’s) house around 7:30pm. We had some really nice dumplings with corn, meat and vegetables (such as carrot) in it. Amazingly nice.
Uncle let us take over the house for the week that we are in Shanghai. Uncle and his family left to live at my father’s elder sister’s home.

Oh yea. Just before we got on the plane, my laptop batteries ran out since I was playing Sims 2 at home beforehand and even though I had plugged the power adapter in, my father had unplugged everything in the house beforehand…so I ended up with low power even before leaving the house.
I also forgot to bring my iPod Power Adapter, so my iPod won’t even last the week that I’m in Shanghai. I’m definitely not going to buy one in China because there is a hell lot of other stuff that I can buy, that I would rather buy than an extra power pack that I won’t need once I return home in two weeks’ time.

About the experience so far. I’ve noticed that a lot of the ‘new’ buildings (or at least ‘new’ for someone who hasn’t been to China in more than 4 years)….some of the new buildings are designed so that the top part is lit up (aka the roof), and the roof looks like a mini-futuristic building of its own. Some are like UFOs, others like two-storey mansions. Very interesting. Lots of tall buildings, and flashing lights. Very interesting designs in the buildings too.

Also, the traffic/pedestrian-walk-signs even have a count-down timer for when the green ‘walk’ sign is turning into the red ‘stop’ sign. Very smart. In Australia we always have to guess when the ‘stop’ sign will turn ‘on’.

Boxing Day BANZAI!!!!!

2007-12-26T20:11:00.000+11:00

- 8:11pm -
Christmas Day; got $200 from parents and a few other gifts like a pen-in-a-fancy-box and boxes-of-inedible-chocolate. Watched Howl's Moving Castle again. That was fun.

Boxing Day was great. SOOOOOO many people in the city. SOOOO many.
As promised, I took my sister out to have some fun watching movies/etc/etc/etc.
We first bought tickets to watch National Treasure 2. I enjoyed the first one, and the second one was just as good I reckon.
Anyways, whilst waiting for NT2 to start, we headed for Capitol Square and burnt $40 on UFO/Dreamcatchers and stupid rigged three-pronged-american-made-cranes machines. I got my sis a medium-sized bear with a necklace saying DANGER!!!!
My sis one two pint-sized toys, though one which I would really like - a christmas-pudding Hannari with an Xmas tree hat!

Anyways, after NT2, we watched Enchanted; the movie my sis picked for today. Was really good! And REAAAALLLLYYYYY full.
Missed out on watching The Golden Compass unfortunately; 1. cause it was too late and 2. cause my sister thought the trailers were scary and didn't want to watch it.

Visited Gellatissimo today with sis since we wanted ice-cream. I wonder if the staff even taste their own ice-cream because it was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY disgusting. You eat some Wendy's, then you try Gellatissimo and you just think....wtfux is in this shiz?

And has anybody noticed? I've started losing weight! My belly doesn't look massive anymore (massive in terms of what I think is massive)! I reckon it is all thanks to Wendy's. Without Wendy's I would be at home everyday doing nothing but sitting down reading on a chair, watching tv on the couch or on the internet like I am now for hours upon hours upon hours; which I can no longer do anymore.....!!!!!!! !!!!! !!!

Visited dRO again! I must finish giving away everything before Uni starts!

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAh
Bought myself Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars as well as Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts. Look like awesome games, but my laptop can't work with them. Doesn't have Pixel Shader 1.1+ *stabs laptop*.
*hugs Frozen Throne* At least you work. *hugs*

Going to China on the 31st! Too bad I have to work tomorrow, and Saturday, and Sunday. Then give keys to Rosie.
Can't wait for the plane-food. For some reason I love it. Much better than all that oily Chinese food I'm going to have to swallow when I arrive in Shanghai. Just hope it has improved as much as they say it has. Especially the toilets. Please let the toilets have seats.

Christmas Dinner Yahz

2007-12-12T18:00:00.000+11:00

- 6:01pm -
Had a Christmas Dinner with Wendy's Staff yesterday.
First, I went to watch The Bee Movie. It was funny at times, and I loved it when Chris Rock made a few appearances. His part was waaaaaaaay too short. Chris should have been, like, some sort of a comedic sidekick for Barry. Seriously.
The story itself was rather childish, and in the end when you put it all together, I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd like to.
They say Beowulf is good, but looking at the trailers I just see another boring hack and slash movie with naked Angelina Jolie.
I'll give Heartbreak a try next Tuesday. Yay for discount Tuesdays~

Anyway, spent the rest of the day till 6:30pm finding my mother something for Christmas. I went all of Westfield, all over Mandarin Centre, all over Chatswood Chase...then all the way back all over Westfield till I finally decided to get her a Christina Aguilera 75ml "Eau de Parfum". Aka, perfume. Came with a free Clutch Bag. I also bought a red decorated box to put the gift in. In the past I didn't use boxes and simply used my own horrible skills at wrapping random items with lots of sticky tape. Looked really pov. This time I'm going to do it all properly with boxes and proper giftwrapping.
Of course, I won't be giftwrapping it. Level 3 Westfield's Myer in Chatswood has a charity giftwrapping service. Chatswood Chase's David Jones (or was it Grace Bros?) also has one. I just have to remember to buy some more boxes for my father and sister.

I got my father a book (as always), this time on Alan Greenspan. In Chinese of course. That's one of the many reasons I love Kinokuniya. So easy to buy Asians who aren't good at English a gift.
I'm giving my sister two copics. One Sketch, one Marker since she wanted it as her Christmas gift. I'm probably going to get her something else too. Perhaps a Copic sketchpad or whatever you call those sheets of paper specifically designed for copics.

Anyways at 6:30pm we headed off to GPK - Gourmet Pizza Kitchen. Talked a bit about Wendy's and how we are going. We got 70% as our mystery shopper score for November. Yah! Would have been 80% if we had our name badges, which we haven't gotten yet. 100% and it's a win!
We had 6 different pizzas over there. Pretty nice. I took two slices. One was the seafood one and the other was the capsicum one. The capsicum one tasted like the sandwiches I sometimes make. I guess that's because almost all the ingredients in that pizza are in the sandwich I make (the exception being the green capsicum. I prefer red).
We met our new manager, Steven who comes from Canada, and Alice became our supervisor. Also, yet another new person, Annabelle will be starting...I think...tomorrow. Lots of new people.

Unfortunately since the meal till right now, unfortunate events have occured.

First - I forgot to stop drinking cold water whilst eating pizza. My stomach unfortunately had to remind me and I ended up going to the toilet 3-4 times after I finished eating.
Then, went again whilst walking with Helen, Rebecca and David to the station. Then again at Wynard station.
Bought an avocado, which leads to my second bad luck;

Second - Avocado must have been off, because I developed a stomach-ache by the time I got to work today. The milk I drank probably contributed to it. I haven't had breakfast in the past two weeks or so, and I don't know why but even though I know drinking milk in the morning always stuffs my system up; I just drank some today...probably cause I was afraid my intake of milk was low and my bones were going to break at any moment.

Anyways, the stomach-ache got me on a bad start. I decided after finishing stocking up and opening up the shop to just start cutting lots and lots of chocolate. I did that because it required little work, and I didn't have to worry too much about customers/etc. I knew my expression on my face and my actions weren't the most joyous that it has been.
Luckily after lunch, it started feeling better. The four stomach-ache supressants (aka pills) that I took might have also had a positive affect.

I did feel much better later on and was serving customers quite fine, though I still had to go to the toilet too many times for my liking.

Ooo, and in the morning I was cut on my right middle finger. I didn't notice it at all until I decided to wash my hands after picking some rubbish from the ground.

Ooo, and my nose was bleeding right after I finished work. That was horrible. A bad day for me.

Ah, highlight of the day was the revealing of our cake to the world!
Most dramatic part of the day was when one of the ice-cream cabinets (or whatever you call them) started puffing out smoke. We could all smell a faint hint of a fudge-like...well...smell throughout the day, but suddenly smoke just came out everywhere and we were all wtfux.

Anyways, I'm really happy to be earning my own money, and a lot of it at that. My current job at Wendy's is awesome too. It's a very intense, yet fun job and you get to talk to a lot of people so it is never boring. And there is always something to do. I believe it has really helped me, a lot. Yah for Wendy's! Wendy's BANZAI!

Yahz for job

2007-12-10T21:49:00.000+11:00

- 9:49pm -
Been really busy these last two or so weeks working at Wendy's. It is actually more intense and interesting then I thought it would. Wah, been so busy with my work that I haven't had much time to read through SMASH! forums. >_< Have to ask Kimiko about what I should be doing.

Hmm...let's see. Got lots of money saved for China. Gonna make sure I buy stuff that's really cheap in China yet also okay quality.
Hopefully won't have to spend most of the time sitting there trying to understand what family friends are saying. I hate spending my holidays simply going to family friend/relatives' places whom I don't even know and whom I can't understand at all. I just sit there for two weeks smiling and nodding.
Hopefully more time to see around the place like a real tourist and go on a shopping spree.

Yah for internet speed backs!

Yah!

Ooo, have a Christmas 'party'/'dinner' with Wendy's staff tomorrow. Day off. Yah! I have to start drawing again...once I find a full anatomy book, not just a hand-drawing book. >_<

Yah for Final Fantasy XII! Fun fun fun.
Yah for Final Fantasy Dirge of Cerberus. Fun fun fun. Though, not my type. Don't like the whole first-person shooer, real-time experience.

Must buy that Clearisel (can't spell) blackhead remover thingy-ma-bob. Remove those blackheads from my nose.

Hmmm..................................
....that's about it.

iPod Classic 80GB, SMASH! and Job!

2007-11-26T17:58:00.000+11:00

- 6pm -

Well, it's been a while since I updated. I'm slacking off on it. >_<
Anyways, I got myself an iPod Classic 80GB BLACK. Really nice. I get to watch all my favorite comedians like Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Russell Peters, Pablo Francisco and The Chasers on the bus/etc.
Never be bored again~
And the large storage is nice too.
Only thing I don't like is the MPEG4 requirement. I have to convert everything to MPEG4. XP

Let's see....also bought FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus (PS2) and FFXII (PS2).
For Dirge of Cerberus, I've already seen the cinematic clips compilation a year or more ago. Playing the game, a whole lot of the story I didn't understand has been revealed. Very fun real-time RPG, unlike most of the other previous FF series. Yes, yes, I'm late. But that goes for almost all games. I like to wait it out and buy it cheap.

I got a job at Wendy's Chatswood. It'll be a nice experience for me. Will be quite interesting I reckon. I had training at Eastgardens on Friday. Starting tomorrow. Fun fun. Finally get to work for my money, and a good amount at that since 2004.

I'm part of the SMASH! Committee now. Very interesting. I know I have a hell lot of reading and research to do before I can settle in comfortably.

Donald Trump's compilation of inspiring messages that a whole bunch of CEOs have been given is quite, well, inspiring. Motivational. Yar!

I'm going to Shanghai from 31st December till two weeks later, whenever that is.
Boo.
I don't like going to China, and for two weeks with family? le-sigh. I'll be spending each day meeting my parents' friends and sitting in their homes eating pigeons. *shakes head*. I'd seriously rather go to all the tourist spots and shopping centers in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, France, Italy and US rather than stay in Shanghai with parents. @__@
Boo!
It's embarrassing too.
Thanks to my parents being Chinese, if I go to China they expect me to speak Mandarin.
Now, if I was with a tourist group, it'd be different cause the locals would expect you not to know how to speak their language.

Anyways....*flies around*. Adios!

Resolution

2007-10-29T20:17:00.000+11:00

- 8:18pm -
Yayness! I got 10/10 in FINS1613 Quiz 3. So my current marks are 9.5/10, 10/10 and 10/10. Too bad I did horribly in Quiz 4 today. I was hoping for a 10/10 today too, but I realised too late that most of what was being tested wasn't in the textbook. The last few weeks' work really sucked since they didn't involve much of the information provided in the textbook, unlike the last three tests. Boo!!
I'm still aiming for a High Distinction for FINS1613.

Trying to get a High Distinction for ACCT1511. Distinction for ECON1203 and a Credit for ECON1202.

That's also the order to which I'll be studying and which subjects I'll spend the most time on. I've realised that ECON1202 takes too much effort to remember everything in the detail needed to complete 3 essays in the finals, so I've decided to give up on a Distinction or High Distinction for ECON1202, and instead concentrate on the other subjects, especially FINS1613, part of my major in Finance.

I got another payment of $30 from Emailcash. Love that place.
Since I'm 18 now, I'm back on Your Voice, which is run by ACNeilsen. Basically just like Emailcash, I complete surveys and get e-points to redeem for certain rewards such as MP3s/etc. Some surveys give a lot of e-points, and others give few e-points but puts you in the draw for some really nice cash and item prizes, like a multimedia set worth $15k.
Basically the polls you see on the news talking about, say, voter confidence/etc from ACNeilsen is done by people like us on Your Voice and other such programs.

I love Animatrix. Watched it a long time ago, but watching it repeatitively these days. Just something to listen to in the background whilst I'm surfing. I watch it on my PC, so I don't take up the memory/RAM/whatever on my laptop.

Blood Test Results

2007-10-26T20:37:00.000+10:00

- 8:26pm -

Rawr. Had a blood test a week or two ago. The doctor sucked out 3 tubes of blood from me. Just like my mother, after a few minutes I developed huge bruise-looking patches. I'm assuming internal bleeding. It's starting to go away now with only the most redish parts still visible.
Anyway, as for the results, my cholesterol is too high. 6.8 mmol/L, compared to normal range of 3.5-5.4.
Basically speaking, I have to drop on my egg-consumption, ice-cream consumption/etc/etc, and to start exercising more.

So, my parents gave me a huge overall. I'm now sleeping at 10:30pm, waking up at 6am and spending 30min-1hr jogging/walking before heading back home at 7am to get ready for Uni/or the day. At night I do the same, and weekends are spent swimming for 1-2hrs.

The Great Debate

2007-10-21T21:21:00.000+10:00

The Great Debate was on ABC and ...I think Channel 9. Maybe 7. Not sure. Anyway, the Channel 7/9/10 was either 60minutes or ACA. They had a 'Worms' system where the audience would hold onto either a "+" or a "-" on their pad. Basically represents if they liked what the person was saying or not.

John Howard really stuffed up big time, I have to say, and Kevin Rudd did very well even though at one time he was a bit slow. John Howard just looked at the broader picture and nothing else. He hardly mentioned any of the policies that he would implement in detail or certainty. His arguments were too vague. His closing speech summed up his side of the debate basically. The closing speech was just ridiculous on Howard's side. He started talking about the Australian dream, and kept going on about everybody needing to work together/etc whilst never mentioning his own policies AT ALL.
That practically summed up how he debated today.

Kevin Rudd on the other hand was really good. He was detailed, but at the same time was able to represent the broader picture whilst staying on topic and actually answering the questions that were presented to him. Only once did he titter away from the question. Howard on the other hand kept avoiding questions and his arguments were REALLY weak.

I was not convinced by John Howard to switch sides. I was already going to vote for Kevin, and thanks to "The Great Debate" today that ended just a few minutes ago, my support for Kevin has increased alot.

The "Worms" system and their audience also showed that. 66% or so of the time, Kevin had "+". And his "+" was really good. A good few times he had the "+" at capacity. In other words, the entire audience liked his argument at times.
John Howard on the other hand rarely tittered above the middle, and a hell lot went deep in the "-", especially when he started bragging about how good his team was.

Howard just didn't perform. He didn't address each issue presented clearly. He hardly mentioned any clear-cut policies to address the issues presented and from how he talked at times, and the things he talked about it seemed as though he was desperately trying to get the Australian people to empathize with him. Which did not work at all.

I can't wait to read what the journalists who were asking most of the questions today will write in their articles. Whether they caught things that I didn't.

The Kingdom and Rogue Assassin

2007-10-18T17:19:00.000+10:00

- 5:59pm -

I must say, Rogue Assassin starring Jet Li was definately a disappointment. There was hardly any hand-to-hand fighting at all. Just a few shootings. Didn't really get me on edge or anything. There were like, pin-pricks of excitement, then the rest was just boring, boring, boring.
That's how I thought of it anyway. At the end, it just left me empty. I was just like...wtf? That was it? Why in the world did this or that occur?
Why did I watch this movie?
You know? Too many questions. And these aren't the good type of questions that you want to think into either. They are just wtf questions.

The Kingdom on the other hand was very nice. I really was on the edge of my seat a lot of the time, and at the end I really had a good amount of mixed feelings; hatred, sorrow, empathy. A very good film. It also revealed to me just how quickly I can be at judging people. I thought a few people were the bad guys, but they weren't. The whole movie was very intense, and at times a slap on the face to my own thoughts.
Very nice.

Freaky Creepy!

2007-10-13T23:03:00.003+10:00

Ooo, and have I told any of you of what happened today?
It was SOOO weird. Basically whilst I was doing my work, I started hearing scrapping noises and kinda got a little curious. First thought something was in one of our chimney's. Then thought it was my dog so I went outside to check. My dog wasn't there.

So basically I decided to open my fireplace lid in my room right behind my work-desk.
The sound stopped. I got suspicious.

I closed the lid and started doing my work again. Moments later, the scratching started up again.
I opened the fireplace lid again. Silence.

That's when it was starting to creep me out. I was definately sure something was in my chimney and I assumed that something couldn't get back up the chimney and I didn't want to just ignore it and let it die and rot right there behind my fireplace.

So...I asked my father to go check since I'm afraid of the unseen.
My dad opens the lid and....

...pop! A rainbow lorikeet's head pops upside-down from the opening. It really didn't like to be in that dark place but at the same time it probably thought we were gonna eat it so it bit my father twice and flew into my window a good few times before my father was able to catch it.

In the process though it did two small poops; one on my workbook and one on my bed. It must have been scared shizless thinking we were gonna kill it.

Man, that had to be the weirdest thing that's happened in my current house so far!

The Island and Wedding

2007-10-07T00:16:00.000+10:00

- 12:17am -

Just finished watching "The Island" on Channel 9 I think. It was a really nice movie concentrating on the morality of a not-so-distant future.
I won't say more, because that would ruin the movie. It is set-up really well so that you learn things as the protagonists learn about them.
Really makes you think. And it is a pretty shocking future too that could happen.
You should definately watch it; very good.

Anyways, my sister went to a wedding today. You know the wedding I mentioned a few months back during Australia's Got Talent where a woman phoned the studio asking for my sister to perform at her wedding? Well, that wedding was today.
My parents and sister went, but I stayed home since I had to study for my three quiz in the next 2 days.

Also, UNSW Vista is SOOOOOO annoying! It never loads when I've reached my download limit. I always have to go to the library to view it, and even then it sometimes takes time to load. @___@
I guess that's one reason to force myself not to reach my limit before my next billing date.
However, reaching my limit DOES reduce the amount of time I spend watching Anime. So that I guess is a good thing. XP

And I've been waking up so late these days; trying to reduce it. Waking up at 1pm, next day, 12, next, 11, next 10. Today was 10am too. I need to try to reduce it to 7am before Monday. >___< Gotta get used to the usual sleeping patterns again.

Wah, I haven't had much time to use my tablet, or even draw at that. >_< So busy! Can't wait for holidays in 4 weeks time! Wait...including exams, 6-7 weeks time!

And today is yet another random day. So hot in the afternoon, then it started sprinkling a bit and was very windy and cold in the evening.
Dropped 10 degrees celsius in 30min!

Animania, S2 Mids/Major Update

2007-10-02T23:07:00.000+10:00

- 11:28pm -

WAAAIIIIII!!! Been so long since I last updated!
Okay, I'll try to get as in-depth yet as summarized as possible!

I had my Session 2 Mid-Session Exams. It was a few weeks ago though but I did alright.
I got 68% (Credit) for ECON1102 and 75% (Distinction) for ECON1203. ACCT1511 results aren't out yet. Either that or I just haven't seen them because I used up my download limit and for some reason my now-capped connection speed doesn't let me view the UNSW Vista Learning Services console. I'll check up on them when I head for Mosman Library tomorrow or Thursday.

I also got 9.5 for Quiz 1 and 10 for Quiz 2 for FINS1613 out of 10 each. The course mean this session for Quiz 1 was 6.65, so I'm extremely happy with my mark, and of course 10/10 for Quiz 2 is just awesome.

I need to do well in my Quiz 3 for ECON1203 though, in order to boost my mark because my last two Quiz got around 7 or so out of 10 each, and the marks are best 2 out of 3. If I can get 10 this time, my mark will be boosted to 8.5 average.
That's this week starting tomorrow.

Then there's FINS1613 Quiz 3 next week, ACCT1511 Class Quiz next week, and the ECON1203 Assignment/Project due the week after. Lots of stuff to get done, can't dawdle.

Anyways, I watched The Bourne: Ultimatum, Rush Hour 3 and Die Hard 4.
The Bourne: Ultimatum was pretty nice, though obviously you needed to have watched the other two to be able to understand this one. Rush Hour 3 I watched before Animania Friday and it was pretty hilarious, as you'd expect from the Tucker and Jackie duo. Die Hard 4 was pretty interesting, as was most of the other Die Hard's during their time. I still remember the Die Hard game I had on the computer. Don't know where the hell that is now; my father probably broke it during that time in Allambie Heights.

I guess the major recount would be of Animania September. From the 28th to the 30th of September, Animania was being held. I only went to Animania Friday and Animania Saturday though, since I ran out of cash for Animania Sunday. I REALLY need to remember to pre-reg next year so I don't have to pay so much.

- Animania Friday -
Animania Friday started at 5pm. Before then, I had watched Rush Hour 3, before hanging out at Kino for a while, purchasing a 600-female-Asian-hairstyles magazine to help me with my art references as well as a nice-looking, nice-feeling pencilcase for my Copics and Ink Pens.

I was kinda early. In fact, I had been one hour early. I was waiting at the steps on the side of Town Hall right opposite the Church. Those were the steps that I got into Animania in 2004 or 2005 and so I presumed it would be the same this year. I quickly went behind the pillars cause the seeds(orwhateveryoucallthem) that were flying off the trees was VERY annoying. That might have been the cause of my soar throat.

Anyways, it was only 10min or so before we were supposed to be allowed in that I realised that I probably wasn't at the right location. Indeed, the entrance was all the way on the other side. I'm assuming that in 2004-05 that side was being renovated, or perhaps it is a new addition which is why they changed locations.

Interestingly enough, I was near the front of the At-Door line, and the line for the Pre-registered was initially WAAAYYYYYY longer than the At-Door line.

At the ticket booth area, it's set-up pretty nicely, though I still wonder why they had the blue light. I only see those blue lights in toilets away from the City, such as at Fairfield so that the druggies won't be able to tell where their blue veins are, and thus, won't be able to inject drugs into their systems. I doubt anybody would inject drugs right inside the ticket area. >_<

I think they gave us a green paper armband instead of a stamp to mark that we had paid.

Friday was utterly boring, or at least I was greatly disappointed. The only thing on was the Main Stage and the Chibi-Stage that had screenings throughout the day. I left at around 8pm. There were absolutely no stalls, artists/ nothing.
Before that though I had gone to KFC to eat dinner at around 6:30pm or so. I exited Town Hall and at Town Hall steps, there was a large mass of people who were partying, dancing and doing the type of stuff you see at a club. The only weird thing was that there was no music. Everyone was wearing headphones or earphones, so they were all dancing to their own music. And there were people with huge, pro cameras filming them too, which added to how weird it was.

After eating at KFC and went back to find that there were a few cops there, no ravers were there anymore and there were even a few beer bottles. So weird.

- Saturday Animania -

Saturday was by far a much better experience with all the stalls, games, artists/etc set-up. There was at least 20 Wacom Tablets and it had its own dedicated section. The artists who drew on the main CintiQ tablet were AWESOME! Freaky people who drew awesome drawings in a matter of minutes. The 4th guy along who participated in Duel Artists was the most freaky of them all, creating stunning pictures in the 10min time-frames they all had.

The artists' corner was nice, but I didn't buy anything since I didn't have the money. Would have liked a few badges and a bookmark though.

The Vendor's area and Gaming area were planned out very nicely. The difference between this year's lower floor and the one from 2004-05 is clearly apparent. The old one reminds me of SMASH!'s gaming area.
The one this year truly was representative of the type you'd expect from an Anime Convention, or any convention at that. Far more organized and far larger and appealing.

The Naruto game on Gamecube that they had there was pretty interesting too.
The stallholders were interesting too, with a few stores having a HUGE collection of Anime Figurines. Unfortunately once again, I didn't have the money to buy any, or I would have bought heaps. >_<

The cosplayers and the amount of people who came was amazing too, far more than 2004-05. The quality of the cosplayers was awesome too. However, like SMASH!, I didn't bring my camera. T__T Will have to rely on saving other people's photos that they post on the Animania forums.
Animania also mentioned that starting from next year they'll be entering the best cosplay skit performances in some international skit competition in Japan. Those chosen in Animania will compete against those in other states before the lucky 2 people will be sent to Japan to compete against other countries. Sounds so exciting~
I can feel that next year's cosplayers will be even better than this year's.

-----------

Oh yea, I also got myself a laptop! Yah!
My father had bought himself a new laptop and new printer a week before he bought me a laptop and new printer. So now we have 3 printers, 3 laptops and one computer. >_< Hahahaha.
No wonder our lights have become dimmer. >_<

Thanks to my new laptop, I'm able to watch Anime smoothly now, and games such as Command&Conqour: Generals now work smoothly unlike before on my old computer!

Sewing

2007-08-21T19:44:00.000+10:00

- 7:45pm -

Had to sew the strap back onto my bag yesterday cause it broke whilst I was walking home. >_< At Uni the strap was already half-way coming off and the zipper broke (the zip fell off!)

Luckily after some time I stitched the strap back on using lots and lots of loops in lots and lots of places on loads of material, and I somehow managed to get the zipper back on although it now zips the other way (from left to right to open instead of how it was when I bought it, right to left).

And...that's about it. >_<

SMASH! WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!

2007-08-18T20:25:00.000+10:00

- 8:25pm -

HOMG! SMASH! WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!
I so did not expect THAT many people to attend SMASH!, which is at a pretty far-away place (UNSW's Kensington Campus' Roundhouse). It was WAY more interesting than Animania even though Animania is in an easy-to-get-to location (Town Hall, Town Hall).

Anyways, I couldn't sleep too well the night before. Probably too excited or something, which was pretty frustrating because I needed my sleep! I met Billy, Chris, Nip and James at Eddy Avenue as they caught the same bus as me to UNSW Roundhouse.
What was kinda annoying was that the Pre-registered people weren't able to start going in at the proposed 9:45am time. In fact, it was about 10:10am or so before we went in, and a group of non-preregistered people (including Page and Froggy) got in before us! o,o

But I got a showbag so neh. XP Probably late due to technical issues.

Got in, and headed straight for vendors before hitting Artist Circle upstairs. I went to the Self-Publishing panel, which gave me a few useful tips. I should have stayed in Nadia's Photoshop panel though and should have checked out Chewie Chen's Storyboarding Panel. That one was packed. And hey, why wouldn't it be? Chewie Chen helped create Superman Returns and Happy Feet.

"Yunyu" sung for us on the Main stage at the start of the convention. She was pretty darn good! Her singing reminds me of Rurutia, which I absolutely LOVE!
Unfortunately not many people sat down to listen to her because they were either in the MASSIVE MASSIVE MASSIVE non-prereg line outside, or, they were rushing for the Vendors and Artist Circle.
I'll do a google of her, or find a link on the SMASH! website because I want to buy her album and e-mail her telling her how awesome she was.

Let's see...other people I met were: A few SS including Froggy, Page, Nessa, Elaeye, some others, frosty, Ammonium and a few more I forgot their names....
I also met a few more NSBHS like Jack and some current Year 12s including Chuc!!!.
I also believe I saw Vicky, but I'm not 100% sure.
Saw a few people from Uni I recognized.
Chao, Keen and Jeen were there too for SSBM, and Kevin came too though he left for Badminton shortly afterwards.

The Presenters on Stage were TOTALLY HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!! I hope they come back next year cause they were just AWESOME! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!!!

As for what I bought:
4 posters by X-7 Studio. Stunning.
An "We Love Sadako" and a 'Swimwear Ninja/Samurai' prints from Basu-zo. Nice style!
A Valkyrie print from Ammonium (the one in her Gaia sig). Awesome!
A Luffy pocket bag. Looks so cute!!!!
"Nintendo Ruined My Life" A4 print by Sean Tay. Beautiful.
And he gave me a free print of his Digital Art Comp entry: here.
4 x Pins by Dev Kimiko (Nadia)

Awesome stuff the lot of them!

I also won the 18+ Traditional Art Competition and got myself a 12-pack Copic Sketch pens. Awesome!!!!
(though I wonder just how many people who entered the 18+ section. o,o Maybe it was only me. >.>)
The artwork of the winner of the under 18s Trad Art Comp was awesome! She spent hours sitting there coloring it in and it was just awesome. Thank god she's only 15 or else I would have been screwed big time. The minute I saw her work-in-progress I thought I had no chance.

X-7 Studio's two own-created/designed clothing were AWESOME! I'm a guy and I know I'm straight, but god that male clothing was HOT HOT HOT!!!

And the Takoyaki was DELICIOUS!!!

AWESOME SMASH!!!!
CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR!!!!

Food Critic

2007-08-10T15:14:00.000+10:00

Reviewing food is fun. Will also help me decide what to eat.

Well for today I rate the following products:

HANS BITES: Mini Deli Sausages:
Okay, so these guys have a sauce and fork. Great. They also only take a max of 1min to prepare! Awesome!
Problem? All the mini sausages combined probably only adds up to one regular sausage. Maybe one and a half to be fair.
Not worth it for the price. I'd rather get cheap No Frills Frankfurts 8-Packs rather than this, which costs around the same price. Maybe Frankfurts are cheaper!

Khort's Food Rating: 5/10

Some weird-named can't-understand Ramen:
Absolutely awesome. It's one of those 'bowl' ones, not the ones in loose plastic. Drainage system and all. I was first unsure because of the Mayonnaise as one of its flavour packets but after trying it, it was just awesome.
Then again, a lot of Ramen that have drainage systems/etc are pretty darn nice.

Khort's Food Rating: 8/10

Mini Babybel Cheese:
Gives you 5 natural cheese portions in a net. Nice, kinda tasty. Way too expensive for the small amount of cheese it gives.
I guess the more handy and carry-able a product is, the more expensive it becomes.

Khort's Food Rating: 5.5/10

Nuoc Dua Xiem: FZ. Coconut Juice:
This coconut juice is made of win. Love it. Love it. Love it. Starting buying this since two years ago when I tried it when my parents were overseas along with a lot of other drinks.
This definately hits the spot. Not sure where you'd find it, but I've been getting this from my local Asian grocer.
Look out for a clear container with green text and pictures on it.

Khort's Food Rating: 8.5/10

Well, that's all. Tune in next time!
By the way, you can help my food reviews by donating to the Feed-Khort Fund.

GRRR to Accounting

2007-08-09T16:16:00.000+10:00

- 4:15pm -
Simply put, I don't like the Accounting textbook. That is all.

Well actually, let me expand on that. The Accounting textbook in terms of the text is great and all, but when you try doing the questions, you always find that something or other is not taught in the text. It's like the authors expect you to know something you've never been taught about. It's ridiculous, and wastes my time. 80% of the time when it comes to Accounting would be spent trying to find where in the text it teaches me how to answer some part of a question.

It goes like this from easiest to understand to least.
1. ECON1202/1203 is the easiest. Straight-forward with half the questions having answers to them. Questions are also based on knowledge developed in the text.
2. FINS1612/FINS1613 is the second easiest. Straight-forward questions that are made using knowledge from the text.
3. ECON1102/1103 is the third easiest. Straight-forward as well. Only problem is that the tutors never have time to go over answers.
4. ACCT1501/ACCT1502 is made of fail. Only 4-5 of the 20-30+ questions for each chapter has an answer to them, and it can only be obtained online using a PIN number that if you lost, you lose. The questions always have at least one important part of the question that is never taught in the text but the author expects you to understand.
Definately made of fail. If the author wants to ask a hard question at least not make it impossible without going to the internet and searching ages for how to do one component of the question. I mean, the textbook is supposed to teach you how to do the questions. If I need to go onto the internet to find out how to do 80-90% of the non-discussion/comprehension questions, it means something has got to be wrong with the book.

I'm not so sure anymore whether I want to do ACCT as a major anymore...
I went to the library today ready to study my ass off. Ended up only studying 3hrs thanks to ACCT. Reading and understanding the text was simple enough. Doing the discussion questions was easy too. Now, doing the Problems was difficult as hell. After I was half-way through just the third Problem, I gave up. Mainly cause it took me 2hrs to do just the first 3 problems. It's just crazy how much information is needed for each question that isn't in the text!
The authors are one of those types that either wants to show how smart they are, or, they aren't looking from our point of view and are using their own knowledge to determine what questions should be placed.

Oh, and I got my SMASH! ticket! YAH!

SMASH! Entry ready!

2007-08-06T23:03:00.000+10:00

- 11:01pm -

Yah! SMASH! Traditional Art Competition entry is complete! (or at least I think it is). I'll scan it in first thing tomorrow just incase anything happens to the original. I'm always afraid something will happen to my drawings...spilled coffee, drink/etc/etc. Anything could happen to it!
Anyways, won't be posting it on DeviantArt until SMASH! ends. ^___^

Man, I changed concepts and ideas for my entry 3-4 times. Let's see...oh wait! Won't tell you what the concepts are until after SMASH! XP Hehehe.

Hmm...gaining weight, and strenuously trying to put it off by doing sit-ups and...dun dun dun...skipping every day. I have it all planned out. Slowly each day do more sit-ups and ....skips. I've reached 300 skips so far. Hoping for 301 tomorrow. By the end of the year I'll have heaps! Obviously not 500. Haha. Not going to gain one skip per day endlessly. That'd be crazy. But I'd like to work on getting as high as possible whilst remaining stable (aka, not killing myself trying to reach a high number).
Same with sit-ups, though my sit-ups currently suck. Most I've done is 44 right now. Pretty crummy. >_< I got to burn them fats.

The skinny Shen all these years is getting himself a pot belly, from eating food! No beer-belly for me. Don't think I'd ever touch that kind of alcohol, and thank god for that (in my opinion...I'm Atheist though...meh...just a saying).

And man, I was tired to die. Was killing myself by ECON1203 lecture. On top of that for half the lesson the screen didn't even work so we had no slides to look at (and I didn't print the lecture notes out either). I can't listen to one guy in front of 100-300 people blab on for a whole hour without visual.
And so I left. Just as I was leaving half way through, apparently the screen started working again. Whether it actually did work I'll have to ask someone. Anyways, in my row when I was leaving, I met Lai! Haha.

It's interesting you know, just how easy it is to recognize most people you know. Lai looks just like he did in Year 7. I think it'll change after awhile though. Afterall, my father doesn't look like what he did when he was my age. (Then again, he DOES have a bald patch now. XP )

Let's see...I guess I'll touch on this so Grandpa Shen (40-50 years from now) will look back and recall this. Nobody really likes to talk about this kind of stuff, cause it makes you look emo, which is a stigma nobody wants in society (as far as I no).
Anyways, last night the sort of a thing that happened most often during senior high school hit me again! Le gasp!!
What am I talking about?

DEPRESSION! Dun dun dun!
Sometimes it never reaches me, other times lightly, and then occasionally, it hits home. Hard.
It's interesting too that depression for me only occurs during the few minutes (or up to an hour or more depending on how depressed I become) when I'm in bed trying to get to sleep. I guess it's because, well, once you're in bed there's nothing else to do or think about.

And it's funny too how I usually only get depressed at night after I've just read/watched some Anime/Manga that I really like. I start getting depressed over how my life isn't as interesting as the characters in that Anime/Manga. And I'm not talking about being able to use magic and fight dragons. Nah. I'm talking about those high school-type or romance/comedy Anime/Manga. GTO, Love Hina, Negima. That kind.
Having a fun time, making new friends, going places, meeting new people, enjoying life. The good life everybody wants.

And that's it really. It's almost retarded how I could spend a whole hour dissing myself and making myself feel REALLY, REALLY bad. Yet now that I'm typing this...not only do I not feel depressed...but it takes me only a few seconds to list certain things that I'm supposed to be depressed about at night. Then again, since I just read some more GTO, I might feel really depressed again once I hit that bed.
Funny eh? Not depressed now. No signs of depression. Once I hit that bed, BAM! My heart starts aching, premature tears start nudging their way out of my eyes and I end up unhappy again....till the morning. Then I've forgotten I was ever depressed.

And the cycle continues. @__@ Weird stuff. Grandpa Shen will probably have a laugh. *waves to the future Grandpa Shen* irgotimezmachinesoicanseeu!

Long lost update

2007-08-02T14:34:00.000+10:00

- 2:35pm -

Haven't updated in a good while.
Went back to Uni with, once again, a 3-day week. Worse this session I guess than the nice session before cause 3 tutorials are on the Monday, then there's a Tuesday tutorial with no tutorials on the Wednesday.
Worse still though, we have an Indian lecturer for ECON1102 and he's not that good to say the least. Also, we have a Chinese guy for our Finance lecture. He wrote the book we are using to study off of, but you can't really understand him - strong Chinese accent and lack of grammatical correctness.
Furthermore, one of my tutors speaks too quietly and has a slight Chinese accent, whilst the other one missed a whole tutorial (the one before mine), and so far it looks like he isn't giving us a chance to participate in the class.

SMASH! is in only 16 days! August 18th. I can't wait. I'm interested in almost all the panels, the delicious Takoyaki stall, the Art competitions, Iron Artist and other events held during the convention at the UNSW Roundhouse. Would have been even better if they had Anime Screenings, but oh well.
I'm really anxious to see whether the Travelling Artbook gets delivered by Australia Post on time. So far it's been around 2 weeks or more since one of the artist's sent the artbook to another artist via Australia Post. And so far, hasn't arrived yet. 16 days left till SMASH!. Hope it arrives so we can bid on it.

I was going to try out for being a Volunteer, but didn't know if I had anything to do around the time of SMASH! Now I know I don't, but it's been a month since I was asked to reply with my form and I'm obviously not able to apply. >_<>_<

Pirates of the Caribbean 3

2007-07-17T17:24:00.000+10:00

- 5:30pm -

Went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Well actually, first to the STA to book for a test since I've been procrastinating for the past two years. >_<
Afterwards, went to Kinokuniya and bought myself Pinky:st Range Murata x Youki Kanaya. Even though I'm sure Pinky St is targeted at girls, I'm trying to get all the Range Murata sets, because I absolutely adore Range Murata's artwork, and the ROBOT series. Only cost $25 too, which is nice.

I found it sad that there was only Volume 7 of D.Gray-Man. Was looking to buy from 1-7 at the least, but couldn't find any of the previous volumes. No new artbooks either, and especially, no ROBOT Vol.4 translated version out yet.

Whilst I was waiting for the time Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was going to be shown, I headed for Capitol Square where I tried my hand at the new stuff they have there. I got two larger-sized Hannari plushies in one go (there are smaller versions too)! Later I went to Galaxy World to play King of Fighters 2002, though the first machine I played on had fudged-up stick. I later caught a blue dog plushie for my sister.

The movie Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was pretty nice. There was quite a few hilarious moments and all in all a nice movie. I reckon it's far better than Harry Potter 5. 5 just wasn't that good even to somebody whose read the book (and thus understands what's happening).

Weird dream.

2007-07-16T22:02:00.000+10:00

- 10:02pm -

I had a rather weird dream last night. It's kinda scary how realistic some of my dreams seem. Most of them I reckon are created when I'm half-asleep.
Anyways, this time I was escaping from jail or something similar. I'm hiding from security, escaping the jail or whatever it was and heading for the hills and forests before hitting the road. I hid somewhere. Forgot where by security came and as they walked closer I got really freaked out, my heart was pounding and all that stuff. Felt so real.

Anyways, not something to think too much about I guess. I really need to scan in those drawings I've done over the week. Keep changing styles for various parts of each artwork. Experimentation is fun, but it also makes me unhappy at times since I want to stick with one style. Yet, each time I find a style, it doesn't suit me one way or the other.

I've always had this weird perception that just like with graphic designing, if you want to do well in drawing Anime/Manga, you need to think outside the box in terms of techniques. Things like: It might look horrible now and out of proportion, but once you add everything else in and fill in the details, it looks awesome.
Or hidden techniques that a normal person wouldn't be able to think up. For instance when I looked at tutorial for graphic designing, you find some tutorials where you have to use 1px pencil tool to manually highlight certain objects in the design instead of using the line tool/etc, or overlapping one obscure object with another to create a futuristic look that you normally wouldn't have been able to create.

I wonder if that's the case for drawing people in an Anime/Manga style. I see drawings by people like Hyung-Tae Kim, with the wide and chubby faces. Kim's work is AWESOME, but when I draw the EXACT SAME face, it looks out of proportion and weird. So how could there be such a huge difference? I reckon it's because I haven't add color, and haven't done the rest of the body that adds to the image.
That's why sometimes when I draw and it doesn't look so good, I continue on until I finish the whole picture in which case most of the time it actually looks really nice.
I wonder though if there is a way to see ahead of your drawing so you actually know whether it'll turn out good or not. What are the techniques to turn a boring, out-of-proportion-like picture into a beautiful piece of work?

I have yet to grasp that.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix

2007-07-13T12:21:00.000+10:00

- 12:20pm -

I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix yesterday. Awesome movie, it's the fifth in the series though I'm sure I haven't watched one of them. Hopefully it's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban or whatever, since that will be shown Saturday night on Channel 9.

Anyways, started with me heading off to Myer's at around 9:20am to buy some new shoes. They were having a stocktake like they always do around this time, so I got some pretty nice shoes for around $70. The brown and white color scheme matched my bag and all and it's quite comfortable. Then I some SS people at Kinokuniya just before 10am. The only ones I knew were Irene and Andrew. Page I know from the SS threads, but I knew nobody else. I'm sure most were SS members, but since I haven't been to an SS meet-up in ages, I haven't met most of the new people there.
I chatted with a guy called Michael whose finished University. He's got an interesting job as a health consultant. I reckon that's a pretty nice job to have.

When Kino opened, we went in to read and what-not. I just went in to hopefully find ROBOT Vol. 4 translated, but nope, couldn't find it so instead I bought "Flamboyant" by Ugetsu Hakua, the manga-ka known for works like Bakuretsu Tenshi and other mecha anime. I already had another artbook similar by the same person called "Yellow Tag". Very nice drawing, a nice style too both in the style and he coloring. Beautiful artwork indeed.

Soon we headed off to the cinema to book our tickets, and found out we were one ticket missing so Andrew had to stay back to wait in line again whilst we headed for Galaxy World. I hadn't been to the top level of Galaxy World in ages, so I was surprised to see no more pool tables. Luckily King of Fighters 2002 was still there on the bottom level. Spent one dollar and lasted a pretty nice amount of time.

The movie itself was pretty nice. For me the most intriguing part was the Death Eaters fighting with the Order of the Phoenix. I found that part interesting, since it wasn't how I imagined it would be when I was reading the book. More action, more 'magical' is what I'd describe that part of the movie. However, I did get a bit unhappy, since I had forgotten most of what happened in the book and when I saw the trailers and them saying "we're going to have a full uprising on our hands", I was hoping there'd be a HUGE war that would break out, with the centaurs helping the good side/etc/etc. But no. That was my main disappointment with the movie.

Later I left and searched for a bag. Finally came across a green bag and decided just to buy it, since it was only $18 and after weeks on end of trying to find a bag for me, I just thought, "Fuck it, I'll just get this one".
Afterwards I went to Modeller's world and bought a Fate Stay Night action set with Archer and Rin.

Recently I've been obsessed and spending most of my time reading "The Three Kingdoms". It really starts getting interesting after Zhuge Liang enters the scene around Page 300. However, you should read the whole thing, because previous sections develop the characters and their personalities. Very interesting, at least for me. Just 240 pages for me to read to finish Part 1 of the English-translated version by Moss Roberts, original by Luo Guanzhong. I don't think I'll ever finish Part 2 before the holidays end.

Today on dRO, Paw Alliance took 2 Geffens, which was awesome. Advant did an awesome job soloing Eeyol, and everyone did a tremendous work of taking over Yesnelph. Only real problem we had was the stalker, who removed Para and my traps with lightning speed.

Rape of Nanking

2007-07-09T19:42:00.001+10:00

- 7:40pm -

My father showed me an interesting video on Youtube, showing images and scenes, actual footage from Nanking.
Needless to say it's pretty much horrendous and I advise those under 18 not to watch it, as at around 20min+ in Part 2, there's photos of a lot of naked women. Also even before that, there are pretty explicit photographs of people having their heads severed, intestines outside them/etc/etc.
My father stopped watching in after a few minutes. I stopped watching it after around the 27min mark cause the stuff they did to women and the photographs just made me stop.

I had always known about the Japanese beheading the Chinese, about them burying them alive, raping women and burying Chinese men in the ground with only their heads up, taking photos of them, before cutting their heads off and hanging them everywhere. However, there was a lot more I learnt from this video.
I only looked at Part 2 and up till the 27min mark or so, didn't look at part one.

Here's the link to Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqH47MIpuoA
Be warned, it's not for the faint of heart. I had to stop myself before I was going to lose it, and before I start hating the Japanese forever.

I still have to remember that, most likely, that's what humans probably all are like given the circumstances and if there was no such thing as law, it'd probably be like that throughout the entire world.

SMASH!

2007-07-07T18:29:00.000+10:00

- 6:30pm -

Just got back from the city. Was supposed to meet someone at Kinokuniya to collect some posters/etc for SMASH! to distribute and post at random places in my area but I got there late, at 1pm and nobody was there.
Also, ROBOT Vol. 4 (translated version) still isn't out yet at Kino, and the only new artbook was a Samurai Champloo one and an Evangelion one, which I'm not interested in.

I also spent a good hour looking around Paddy's Market, and other stores for good-looking messenger bags, but Paddy's is FILLED with female-orientated bags and the ones which could be Unisex are all too bloody small for my liking.
T___T The city fails at providing the things I need. Same with pencil cases. Either too girly or too bloody plain.

It's basically 98% female, 0.5% male and 1.5% Unisex in terms of what is sold in the City. Probably 99.5% male, 0.5% Unisex for Mosman.
Sigh.

ALSO! Preregistration is open for SMASH! Only costs $9, and you can now pay via Paypal! Thank god I still had $15 in my PayPal! WEE!
http://www.smash.org.au/preregistration.php
For those who don't know, SMASH! is a new convention coming to Sydney around August!!!

Art Update

2007-07-04T14:42:00.000+10:00

- 2:40pm -

Finished a drawing at 3am in the morning today. I seem to be able to stay awake longer, and draw longer if I'm listening to comedy skits by Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. Weird, but oh well.
My latest drawing that I've actually scanned is "A Battlefield". I like it.
I seem to be using borders quite a lot lately, creating non-detailed but still interesting backgrounds to make the picture more interesting.

I finished drawing another picture just a few minutes ago, but I'll scan it tomorrow or later today. Too lazy since I've already spent time scanning one picture today.

I hear Death Note Anime has ended, which means the whole series in terms of Manga, Anime and Live-Action have been completed. I still haven't finished watching the Anime. I think I have around 4 more episodes to go. Finally I'll be able to mark an Anime off my watching/reading list. All the others haven't finished yet. ^^;;

I still haven't gotten any idea for the SMASH! Traditional Art Competition. I've only got a month to go too before the SMASH! convention. I mean...I just can't think of a way to include Tetris blocks or Cactus in my drawing without making it look uncreative and boring, as if I just purposely stamped a cactus on the edge of a picture or something.

Ah well, I'll be heading off to watch Entertainment Tonight on Channel 9 in 15min. ET is quite interesting, and it was the reason why I decided to watch Transformers. The exclusive previews they showed were awesome, and their ratings of the movie were high. Indeed it was an awesome find.

GAAAH

2007-07-03T16:53:00.000+10:00

- 4:53pm -

Man, for the past 3 days or so some random alarm or something has been constantly beeping here and there in short bursts throughout the day and night. Horrible at night time when you want to sleep. We have no idea where it's coming from either. Probably from the neighbors, who I thought hadn't moved in yet.
If that's true though, that means we can't stop the alarm till they move in. Which is HIGHLY annoying.

Right now the alarm has 'evolved' in the past 5min or so to a constant stream of annoying beeping that doesn't seem to want to stop. Hopefully the alarm is battery powered and will die in the next few months.
If not, the neighbors are going to carry one heck of a bill.

And it is fudging annoying. It was like the times in ACCT1501 in the Law Theatre when the same noise occured. I thought it was some ass who decided to use that ring-tone that adults supposedly can't hear. To tell you the truth, I still think it was that, since the lecturer couldn't hear it, or at least didn't worry about it.

Man, this 'alarm' thing is annoying. I don't even think it's an alarm. Some ass probably created it on purpose, since alarms don't change patterns of beeping every few hours.
Man, it's driving me up the wall. When it was only beeping once or twice every few seconds or minutes, it was okay but now it's CONSTANTLY beeping.

- 5:06pm -

My father just told it it's probably the neighbor's smoke alarm running out of batteries, which is why it's patterns are so random.

- 5:40pm -

Ooo, it stopped! Hopefully it won't start up again...
And I got myself a haircut. The usual almost-shaved-off haircut so I can last another few months without worrying about my hair.
HOMG, and I weighed myself today! 61kg!!! Can you believe that? I used to be 45-50kg. @__@ I gotta exercise more, I've been sitting in front of the computer more than ever since Uni began.

Transformers!

2007-07-01T23:03:00.000+10:00

- 11:05pm -

Yesterday I watched "Transformers" in the city. I first expected it to be like the childish cartoon version I used to watch, but I was hopeful due to the trailers on TV. What perked my interest was mainly the short snippets of scenes with the army men in the desert running from a menacing robot.

Suprisingly the movie was really nice, with lots of awesome fight-scenes whilst maintaining constant hilarious scenes throughout the film. Very pleasing and above expectations.

Yesterday I also saw Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone thanks to Channel 9 I think. They'll be showing the second Harry Potter movie this Saturday at around 8:30pm or so. Pretty awesome when these types of movies are about to come out, because previous movies from the same series are aired on free-to-air TV for all to watch. I was able to watch Spider-man 2, which I had never watched before thanks to Spider-man 3.

I'll probably check out the latest Harry Potter movie a few days or a week after it opens in cinemas next Wednesday, cause next Wednesday would probably be fully packed.

I also watched up to Episode 37 of D.Gray-Man. Awesome Anime, even though there's quite a few fillers compared to the Manga, but it does 'fill' in the gaps of the Manga quite well, developing the characters in a way that the Manga didn't.
I love Road/Rodo Kamelot in D.Gray-Man. What can I say, she's just awesome.

Holidays end on 23rd July. A month of holidays, pretty nice.

Hmmm..let's see what else to mention here:
- Gordon Brown is the new Prime Minister of Britian. Not elected though, elections are later. Just that Tony Blair has kept to his promise of stepping down.
- I wish all the Anime Figurine/Models stores in the city had a greater product range. It's so inconvenient getting things online.
- My waistline is getting bigger. It's scary. All the rest of me is so thin still. @__@;;

Copic Markerage!

2007-06-17T14:48:00.000+10:00

- 2:48pm -

I went to the city today to buy my sister past English papers. On the way I also bought some Copic Markers. They are bloody expensive, at $8.50 each at Kinokuniya (10c cheaper than at Dymocks!)
Since the Copic Sets were sold out, I had to choose colors myself, so I bought:
100 Black
G24 Willow
B26 Cobalt Blue
RV25 Dog Rose Flower
E57 Light Walnut
R27 Cadmium Red
V17 Amethyst
E00 Skin White

They didn't have Indigo, so I had to make-do with Amethyst instead. T_T
Also, with this limited amount of colors (costing $68), I won't be able to do any proper shading...or at least I don't think so.
This'll be the first for me using colors in a good few years (like, 10 years or so of never touching color) so I'm sure I'll screw up a good few drawings with my colors before I get the hang of things.

I also need to find information about what is the 'best' pen nibs for drawing Anime. I hear G-Pens are, but I dunno. Not sure if Kino has them or not. Will have to ask next time in their Stationary section.
I also bought a Daler~Rowney 150g/m2 Acid Free Catridge Paper Sketchbook. My other one ran out. T__T
Art supplies cost so much. T__T

I gotta hide these markers from my father and sister, or else they'll use it all in one day. That's one problem with having an artist for a father. I don't use anything he buys (cause he uses charcoal and paint), but he uses everything I buy. T___T
Same with my sister, I have no idea where the hell she's hid my mannequin. I don't have anymore references for the anatomy!!! T__T And she already has a mini-mannequin, why does she take mine? T,T

-------

Lolx, Pablo's awesome! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3ZwjTSzXz8&NR=1

D.Gray-Man

2007-06-12T19:43:00.000+10:00

- 7:45pm -

I started reading D.Gray-Man yesterday and by today, I'm up to the latest chapter. Very nice Anime. At first from the few images I saw on Youtube here and there on one of the Anime groups I had joined, I thought it'd be just like Pokemon or something in terms of a boring, repetitive storyline/etc/etc/etc - just for kids.
But now, I find it amazing. It has a childish element to it, but it is quite a breathtaking anime. I have yet to see the Anime though, only read the Manga up to the latest. The artwork is definately amazing, especially some of the characters who look really, really nice.

What amazes me about D.Gray-Man is that - to an extent - the boundaries between good and evil are cut off. On the one hand, the 'evil' Noah's family seem to believe that the Dark Priests are evil. On the other hand, the Dark Priests believe Noah's family and the Akuma are evil.
Yet, you see in both cases that the family of Noah, and the Dark Priests, are both human and have human feelings. They share sadness, joy, anger, everything.
That's one of the many things that makes D.Gray-Man so interesting. To an extent, it almost reflects current society in terms of Christians and Muslims. Just like Noah's family and the Dark Priests, at some point in time, the Christians and the Muslims fought for their 'God', believing the other side was evil and had a 'fake God'. Yet both groups were humans, only fighting each other due to their beliefs.

For me, I don't want to see both the Dark Priests or Noah's family die. For me, even though the main protagonists of the story have pin-pointed the Noah and Akuma as their enemy, you don't come to see Noah's family as evil, horrible monsters or anything.

Anyways, I really enjoy this series, and will be looking forward to all their updates to come!

NOT MUCH TIME!!!

2007-06-10T23:07:00.000+10:00

- 11:08pm -

Recently started watching Samurai Champloo. Awesome stuff. A very nice approach to the Samurai genre. Funky moves, funky people set in an Edo period-like backdrop. Also, you can like all the main characters very easily. It's hip. It's out there. It's awesome. I can't wait to watch more of it.

Also started reading Akumetsu. Nice manga about a guy who calls himself Akumetsu who aims to cleanse Japan of 'evil' people, mainly bureaucrats who misuse their position. It's quite interesting cause to an extent, the bureaucrats within the manga represent to a certain degree certain scandals that have broken up, like senior White House officials being alleged to have attended a brothel under investigation on charges of prostitution, as well as World Bank's head (who has now retired for obvious reasons) who was alleged to have helped his girlfriend get a pretty nice renumeration package or something of the sort.

Finished a drawing as a submission to Ayaai's art contest on dRO here.
My drawing took one or two hours whilst listening to the BBC News Radio. I like it too. You can find it on my deviantart. More information about the drawing can be found in my submission. I really liked it. ^__^
Going to be reusing that style of ears for a few other drawings. ^__^

And man, it seems awesome to draw comics/manga and all that jazz. You must have an awesome feeling of accomplishment, and having something physical like that attached to your name must feel good. I really liked Poshua and Chuc's comic submissions for the 24-hr Comic Challenge.
You can find links to their stuff on the SMASH forum here.
On that note, if anyone hasn't joined the forums or heard of SMASH yet, then you should join the forum and read the front page now! It's an Anime Convention that will be held at the UNSW Roundhouse in August, before Animania so check it out! Entry fee is as low as $9 for pre-registration!!! Also, it's their first convention, so be there and tell everyone 10 years down the track that you were at SMASH's first convention!

I'm personally saving up for the SMASH! Artbook that will be auctioned off. I'm hoping to win it. It's basically a collection of artwork be various artists who are attending SMASH. From the current previews of some of the submissions (the Artbook isn't finished yet), it looks awesome!

I checked up the trailer for Resident Evil 3. Forgot the name of it, but the trailer looks horrible. That's all I can say about it. I'm probably going to be disappointed.
Then again, I don't like scary stuff either. I'm not the type who will watch 28 Weeks Later or anything like that. They'd all haunt my mind forever.
Seriously, it takes me forever to get scary images out of my mind.

Ah, and have I mentioned how awesome Pablo Franscisco is?
Here's one of his most famous performances.
And here's another one I liked. Ecstasy at Techno Club.
The weird thing about stand-up comedians seems to be that they change their appearances all the time. Look at Pablo, and now look at Russell Peters. 3 different performances I saw of him had him with 3 different weights, hairstyles and overall looks. If you looked at them seperately, you wouldn't even recognise him. In fact, his voice changes throughout the three performances too.
Must show their progress through the ranks, their confidence levels, and the amount of money they get for their performances. Changes a person I guess.

And I just noticed that the vast majority (of the few) entries this month have been in capitals. Interesting. Haha.

Also, updated my timetable for Semester 2. 3 days once again, 1hr spaces apart with WoE on dRO taken into consideration. Perfect times once again, though, I have a tutorial in the morning. @__@ This Semester was awesome, since even though Monday was the busiest day, I could skip till 2pm since everything before that is lectures.
Finals starting on Friday, then next Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Then it's OVER for Semester 1. I'll finally get around 2 or so weeks to take a break, have some fun/etc/etc. Hopefully I'll be able to get a tablet before then so I can start practicing using the stylus.

WAHHH

2007-06-09T17:32:00.000+10:00

- 5:30pm -
WAHHH! Scary weather! Really scary here. Dunno about in-land,but scary here!
I just saw a news report that had an image of Cremorne Point's wharf being like, hanging tilted in the water. @__@ And I exercise over there at Cremorne Reserve every week! @__@
Really scary weather. @_______@ Guess this is the only problem about living right next to the harbor.

Anyways, update with more detail later. Right now I'm in the middle of watching the news and exercising.

- 7:00pm -

Only thing I can say about the Cremorne Point Wharf is that, well, they should have realised that having a floating dock that is held-on by around 8 wooden poles around it wasn't the brightest idea.
Awww...now I can't go to the City via the Wharf on a ferry. T_T Must use the usual, boring bus across the Harbor Bridge.

I wonder if it'll rain during my exams. Two of my exams start at 8:45am, which is absolutely HORRIBLE cause then I have to wake up at around 5am or earlier to make sure I get to the venue on time. This time though, two of the venues aren't at the Randwick Racecourse but are on-campus.

And god, that collapse in the Old Pacific Highway is SCARY. I feel so sorry for the family who just happened to fall into that place. Freaky.

NO MORE PLUSHIE!!!!

2007-06-06T21:41:00.000+10:00

- 9:40pm -

They took away the He Is My Master plushies in Capitol Square. Now I'll never be able to finish the set on my own. T_T

Check this out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4vST6_clnA&mode=related&search=
Been watching it for a few days. Haha.
Pablo is awesome. I'm not sure if I posted his Little Tortilla Boy stand-up.

Took some time today to re-add all the BGMs on Ragnarok, as well as replacing a few with some new songs, since I'm kinda bored of my old Se7en songs.

Updaterage

2007-06-04T16:30:00.000+10:00

- 11:35pm -
Well, my birthday was on the 31st May. I TURNED 18!!!! WOOO!!!!!!
Anyways, the Deli's been pretty awesome lately, and we hit 6 castles taken during WoE (unfortunately only 2 kept at the end). All and all I'm improving on my Sniper. Still hunting for a few cards though and trying to achieve certain upgrades in my equips so I can finally make full use of some of my cards.

I also watched the latest Bleach, but wasn't able to watch the latest Death Note since I can't find it anywhere.
I hate how slow things take to translate in the commercial world. If they were as dedicated as the fans, they would have translated everything faster than the fans do. Aka, in less than 2 days after the original screenings in Japanese. Unfortunately these lazy bums usually take a good 2yrs before they release the official, English subbed-versions of the Anime. They then take another 2yrs to stuff up the dubbed-versions which nobody but little kids back home want to watch.

I'm still waiting on Volume 4 of Ranga Murata's ROBOT series. Volume 6 or 8 is already out in Japanese. Does it REALLY take this long to translate?
And I just realised after reading Volume 3 that Yoshitoshi Abe is the person who made Serial Experiments Lain, and looking at the series he/she is doing for ROBOT, you can tell just how dark and twisted his/her concepts are. Very dark stuff.

By far the best is Hiroyuki Asada in there. I totally LOVE the unique style, the ideas and the cozy and kinda funny-in-a-cute-way style that each strip ends in.

Mini-Birthday

2007-05-27T21:42:00.000+10:00

- 9:45pm -

Had a mini-Birthday of sorts today, since we don't have much time to celebrate this Thursday.
Basically a bit of happy birthday singing, some present-hunting that my sister always does and a quick cake.
Definately not unhappy though, since I'm used to this.
Got $200 from parents as per usual, and a got a box of chocolates from a family friend who owns a shop in Neutral Bay. Gave me Lindt Petits Desserts: "A fine Selection of Chocolates inspired by famous Dessert Recipes". Looks interesting. Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks.

Haven't watched much Anime lately. Will need to catch up on Bleach and Death Note. Just trying to save up on my download cause I think I'm almost over the limit and can't bear go down to 64kb/s again for the next two or so weeks.

$200 will be saved up for my New Computer fund. This week's $190 or so for this fortnight will have $150, and $30 to two weekly bus tickets, with the remaining $10 for me to spend as I like...though I'm assuming I'll use my $10 within a day.

Finally going to turn 18 on Thursday. Credit Card, voting for this year's Federal Elections, lots of 18+ only things to do like some hardcore Paid Surveys that only allow 18+/etc/etc.

SuperStar LOLX

2007-05-27T12:39:00.000+10:00

- 12:38pm -
God, now I understand about that joke with Guitar Hero.
My sister got Singster or Songster or whatever for the PS2, and she got a score of 8000 or so and it said she was a superstar, so she started shouting that she was a superstar, telling everybody in the house about it.
^^;;
I hope she doesn't REALLY believe she is a superstar. Maybe that's how all those people in Australian Idol started to believe they were the next idol.

Anyways, started another ninja in dRO and have more or less an idea of what I'm gonna create her into. She's called Outro Virus, one of the ending songs for one of Se7en's albums. Had HEAPS of fun in Double Domination, but lost HEAPS of money cause my side kept losing, especially after Juubei came in. >_< I had NOOOO way of taking out Juubei except by waiting till he was below 3/4 hp and then venom splashering him, haha.
Used up a lot of DPBs too.

Run-Down

2007-05-25T16:38:00.000+10:00

- 4:45pm -

Run-down of the past few days.
Well, I went back on dRO. Had some fun, went and participated in WoE and almost kept a Geffen before having it taken by one of the now banned people. Spent 2 days collecting 999 panties to get myself a Winter Hat.

3 days after I joined, the server goes back down thanks to the Maelstrom scandal, who had injected around 20-30 billion zeny into the economy in the past 3 or so months. Along with that, millions of MvP and BLs. Screwed the economy basically.

Anyways, a week later the server comes up (yesterday) and we find that there's been a zeny and item rollback to March 10th, or somewhere near that date.
Luckily I was on hiatus since February so I was unaffected besides losing my Winter Hat and gaining a whole bunch of shiz like pet eggs that I had given away last week.

WoE was great today. Used my Sniper once again and took a Prontera from Royalz, though most guilds were pretty unorganized and significantly weakened thanks to the rollback, which led to many people leaving the server on top of the few significant people who had left in the past few months. Then, due to the rollback many people lost a lot of BLs and MvP cards, and important equips. Those who joined in the past 3 months, or characters that were created in the past 3 months have noticed they have absolutely nothing except their character levels on their accounts.

Hopefully WoE will pick up again in the next month as people begin to get their old items back again through farming/etc.
A big blow to dRO, that's for sure.

King of Thorns

2007-05-20T15:57:00.000+10:00

- 4:00pm -

HOMG! I absolutely LOVE King of Thorns. It's a Manga I recently started reading and I've become SOOO obsessed with it that I lost track of time when reading the first three volumes and a bit. Can't wait for the next chapter, just finished reading Chapter 21.

Teh awesome. @__@

Basic run-down. A mysterious disease called Medusa is spreading and it slowly turns people to stone. 160 people are chosen to go into cold freeze capsules to wait it out until humanity finds a cure for the disease. Two twins, Kasumi and Shizuku are infected with the disease, but only Kasumi is chosen to go into the freeze capsules.
When Kasumi finally awakens, she finds the world around her totally changed! What will she and the other survivors do to get out of the situation they are in, on one side escaping from horrible creatures they never knew existed and on the other hand, racing against time to find a cure for Medusa, the disease which is slowly spreading throughout their bodies!

READ IT NOW!

MxO

2007-05-13T21:07:00.000+10:00

- 9:05pm -

I love MxO, a Manga about a guy who attempts to get into a private High School, only to realise it isn't as normal as it seems. A fun read. I'm waiting for the next scanlations. T_T
Go read it!

Blair's Resignation

2007-05-10T21:56:00.000+10:00

- 10:00pm -

Today, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced his resignation on around July 27th of this year. He'll most likely be succeeded by Chancellor Gordan Brown. Blair is a person who most people know quite avidly as a supporter of the US during the Iraq War and someone who followed on the heels of Bush, just like John Howard did and still does.
For me, Blair didn't really seem too much like a Prime Minister. I thought he'd be more posh/etc since he was a Briton, just like I imagine John Howard with his laugh and his voice that seems rather ....I don't know, carefree?

When Blair talks, it seems like he is always thinking of his next word. I feel there's a sense of fear in his voice, but obviously there is none.

Anyways, he'll probably be writing a biography soon, so I'll be buying it once it's out. I wonder if US President George Bush will do the same next year, and if John Howard will do so this year.

I predicted that due to the Iraq War, the threesome, Bush, Howard and Blair would all fall at the next elections.
Blair will leave office based on his promise in 2004; Bush is increasingly being pressured and has lost his majority to the Democrats, with Barack Obama increasing his support; and according to the polls by ACNeilsen, people prefer Kevin Rudd to Howard.
Seems like my prediction could come true. The issue of Iraq is just too big I guess.
There are ups and downs. Iraq helped the threesome win the elections of 2003 and 2004 for their respective nations. And the Iraq war will most likely make them lose the elections of 2007 and 2008.

Nga Nga

2007-05-09T21:00:00.000+10:00

- 9pm -

We're learning about Calculus again in QMA which is really boring, but since I've forgotten how to do everything, I still need to study for them.
Behind on the other subjects, even FINS1612 even though I'm almost ready for next week's quiz.
Need to register for Perdisco. Hate how we have to pay a fee. Will need to get my father to pay it since I'm still not 18 (just a few days left!).

Started a new drawing which looks pretty nice. Also, I can't seem to have any creativity or ideas in a commission with an angel in it and a castle. I just can't seem to give the angel a good pose that fits the description required and how to connect that to a gloomy background. I'll think about it some other time.

For Virtual Villagers, I've got around 40 villagers now, a golden child, a child prodigy and I've upgraded all tech points and got almost all Puzzles/Milestones except the fish one and the treasure chest one.

I've set-up a plan to save for a Wacom Tablet. In order to properly CG on the computer, I need the tablet. Much easier to do lineart on the tablet too. Also plans to save for SMASH and Animania.

Happy Birthday!

2007-05-06T21:20:00.000+10:00

- 9:25pm -

Today, we celebrated three family's birthdays, two people (including my father)'s birthday being tomorrow and one other being on the 15th. I'm on the 31st, but we like to keep my birthday secretive. My stomach's about to burst from the buffet at the Ashfield RSL Club.

Anyways, recount:

Left the house at around 9am, but it was too early for the Basic Skills shop in Chinatown to open, so I went to Level 2 of the building to study ACCT1501 whilst eating Fran: The Original Pocky, which tastes pretty awesome compared to Edo's Pocky. Heard about the brand Fran from J-List. Also bought some random coke candy balls, which are pretty nice-tasting till you get to the end.
Once 1pm arrived in which I finished ACCT1501's homework, I bought Year 5 Maths and Science Competitions for my sister, then headed off to Ashfield where I studied in the Library until 4pm when it closed. After that, soon my parents and sister arrived and we went for some quick shopping before heading to the RSL club.

I ate quite a lot this time, or more exactly, I drank around 4-5 cups of pepsi. I switched between Pepsi and Pepsi Max to see what the difference is. Max just has a stronger taste. Nice food as usual.

My retainers are a pain in the ass. I got them yesterday, and I can't speak properly with them. Not only that, but the top retainers hurt when I put them on, but then it becomes a-okay. However, it hurts again when I take them off. However, worst part is not being able to speak properly. I sound so...dopey and stupid when I talk with them. But, that's cause we chose the cheap retainers, rather than the hi-tech, see-through ones that act more as a very thin mouth-guard and in which you can speak in them.

Also, have to add that these days, everytime I've judged somebody, I immediately trash the thought and move on. i.e., if I think the person in front of me looks really dorky, I immediately trash the thought and forget about it, focusing on something else.
I think this has helped me a lot. Instead of thinking about certain things I don't like about somebody, instead I either look at their good points, or, simply stop judging them. By doing this I don't build up any unhappiness in me; any hate against others. Allows me to see things differently.

4th May

2007-05-04T23:26:00.000+10:00

- 11:28pm -

Uploaded a picture I recently finished drawing that I started drawing two days ago. Called Emiliana, I rather like it.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54608781/
More info in the above link.

Did a lot of ACCT1501 today, doing a lot of questions so I actually understand it. It's rather hard to do the practical cause you have so many questions, such as which account to put a certain transaction in/etc. It's always a huge relief when the trial balance balances and it's always a pain when it doesn't balance. Though, I guess you do learn quite a lot if you actually do the questions, rather then rely on simply reading and understanding the meaning of certain terms.

I want to create my own unique stationary, clothing and apparel. Part of it will come from designs I make once I learn how to properly ink and CG. The other part is actually making my own clothing/etc. Would be pretty fun. *_* Just need the proper equipment and materials. For the clothing though, I can just use my old clothing as material. ^_^

And I've found some pretty nifty collapseable storage boxes.
And my father's birthday is next Monday, but we'll be going to Ashfield RSL Club to celebrate with a few other families since one of them has their birthday on the same as my father's, the other on the 12th and another on the 15th. I'm on the 31st, so May's a pretty busy time for my family.

I'm still trying to figure out how I got $320 in my bank this week. I know around $190 is from Centrelink...but...what about the other? I thought maybe I tried tricking myself last fortnight and it worked (aka, tricking myself by pretending I didn't have any money in the bank so I wouldn't spend it all), but I doubt that. So the next would be that Google has paid me for Adsense. Unfortunately Westpac online banking is being an ass and I can't view it. Takes forever and ever and ever to load just a tiny proportion of the website even when I switch images off.
I wonder how many 56kers must hate Westpac's online service.

Must wait another few days so my download limit resets and my speed goes back up again.

Results #1

2007-05-02T23:01:00.000+10:00

- 11:07pm -

So far, a few results are up.
ACCT1501 - 26/40 - 65% - Above Average
ECON1202 - 19/20 - 95% - Unsure where I rank

Happy about ECON1202, not happy about ACCT1501 but my results are understandable. I'm studying hard now to make sure I actually do a lot of questions, instead of just reading.
Can't wait for ECON1101 results. Hopefully just as good as my ECON1202 marks. >_<

FINS Catch-up

2007-04-29T23:47:00.000+10:00

- 11:47pm -

I didn't look at any of the FINS1612 Share market 1,2,3 topics, mainly cause FINS1612 didn't have any Mid-Exams, but also because our lecturer was replaced (hopefully temporarily) by some Chinese guy. Unfortunately, you can hardly understand this guy, he speaks with a dead and faint voice, and he keeps rambling about China. Sure, I'm Chinese, but I already know a lot about the Chinese economy, and I don't need a guy who speaks monotonously to inform me about the latest chapters. He - simply put - killed my interest for Finance.

Luckily today from Noon till 11pm, I spent the time reading and thoroughly understanding the three chapters on the introduction to the share market. It's interesting how much I've learnt in just one day, and it shows that you can really do a lot in one day if you put your mind to it. Amazing yet is the fact that I did it all at home, not in the Library. At home, I'm usually quite distracted, but thanks to Virtual Villagers and the fact that my download speed has dropped, I haven't had the urge to do anything besides studying.

I also forced my mind to believe that the FINS1612 Quiz 2 is tomorrow, even though it is on Tuesday. This way, I'd be forced to study harder. It's always been this way. The day before a test is the day I spend hours on end studying, so I thought that if I tricked myself into thinking the test was tomorrow, I'd be able to study hard as well. Seems to have worked too.

So why did Virtual Villagers help? Well, since it is a real-time simulation, I'd spend 2min checking up on the Villagers every hour or so, and since improvements or tasks I assign to them won't bear fruit for at least another hour or more my mindset allowed me to study in-between these visits to my Villagers. I can't exactly describe the mindset, but basically it was like thinking of the 1hr or more of studying as a 'tiny break' before I'd 'play a game' for a huge amount of time and enjoy it (in this case just 2min). Once again I guess you could say I was tricking myself. In a way.

I also seem to be improving in terms of actually studying. Instead of reading things blindly, I'm actually now making sure I understand all the terms and concepts expressed in the text. It's only been a few hours, but I already know heaps of new terms and concepts and actually understand them, like the new CLICK XT electronic exchange system used by the ASX and CHESS (Clearing House Electronic Sub-Register System) used by stockbrokers and corporations in ensuring that T - 3 is kept through the use of uncertificated documents showing ownership of the shares to the buyer.

Of course, with all of the things I learnt today, parts of it will slip through my mind here and there, so I'll have to revise them tomorrow and the day after before the Quiz on Tuesday. Hopefully I'll get just as good or better than last time.

During the Mid-Exams, I promised myself that I'll study harder and study ahead of what we need to study, but also give myself a more realistic timetable to follow by that will ensure a balance between studying and enjoying myself beyond what I learn from Uni. I'll probably need more practice in timetabling, but my timetabling will definately be better than my previous ones, which I never followed 100% due to the lack of leisure periods.

Study hard, play hard. Something I've never really done. I've always made time for myself to study heaps every single day, but in the end I'd be waisting my time when studying, and because of this I would have to cut back on my actual leisure time. So in the end I didn't study well, and wasn't happy cause I didn't play well either.
I'll study hard, and play hard. Make the most of both appointed times.

Anyway, midnight, going to sleep. Adios.

Virtual Villagers

2007-04-28T23:04:00.000+10:00

- 11:05pm -

Started 'playing' Virtual Villagers: A New Home two days ago. I love real-time simulations that don't require too much work since I don't have time to play that many games, and games in general get boring after awhile.

In Virtual Villagers, a few survivors of something or other end up on a remote island. They find some uninhabited primitive huts, and a bush filled with berries. A few other landmarks are on the island.
Anyways, as with anyone stranded on an island, they need food.

You assign tasks to the various villagers, starting off with five villagers. You can assign them to Farming, Building, Research, Healing or even Breeding! Of course, each villager can do any task, but it can depend on their research level and their ability levels. Also, the villager gains more experience depending on which they are assigned to specialise in.

Since it is real-time, not everything happens all in a small amount of time, so often you are only spending a few minutes, maybe even seconds checking up on your villagers here and there, maybe changing what they will be assigned to do depending on the situation.

You need researchers/scientists to research and gain tech points, which can buy you upgrades in the villagers' abilities to do the various stuff. It's quite interesting.
Also, you can unlock 16 Puzzles/Milestones throughout the village and throughout the course of the 'game'.

My first village went horribly. I explored everywhere with one of my villagers to understand everything. I unlocked 3 Puzzles/Milestones, but unfortunately I didn't assign everyone to appropriate tasks and I didn't upgrade the correct technology at the start. I should have taken the hint that food was the most important thing at the beginning. Eventually, all my villager's died because the Berry Bush thingy ran out of berries...and since I didn't upgrade my Farming technology...I didn't have any other means of collecting food.
No food = death.

Luckily for me, my second village went well since I put more than one person on research, and concentrated on Research and Farming, ignoring the other possible tasks until later.
Right now, I have Level 2 Farming, and Level 2 Construction/Building with the default Level 1 in all other aspects. Thanks to the Level 2 Farming, I only need to assign two villagers to Farming, and they are farming the crops. I've also found out that the Berry Bush regenerates at a rate of 30 berries every few hours.
I've also placed two people in Research, since I want to get Level 2 Science as soon as possible, to increase the rate of earning Tech Points to get all the other stuff.

Since my food is at around 1.2k now, PLENTY for only 8 people, I've been starting to breed as fast and as much as possible with one person.
Thanks to one of my Scientist's turning into a Master Scientist, I've also converted one of the huts into a school, so infants get more skill exp before they even become old enough to work.
Also found out that having a person be a Parent (by assigning them the skill Breeding) will make them automatically try to embrace with other villagers; produce a baby; then embrace another villager once their baby turns 2 (and no longer needs the care of the mother). Due to that, I had to quickly change one of my villagers back to an Adept Builder...or else when I wake up tomorrow I'll have too many babies to feed.
Hopefully when she finishes caring for her recent baby, she'll head over to the lagoon and clear the blockage there.

Anyways, overall a great game for those with not much time who like seeing things grow. Just think of it as having an Ant Farm, or fish.

- 11:25pm -

Ooo, just upgraded Spirituality to Level 2, and now I can bury the two villagers who died before (due to starvation. Only managed to save 4 villagers before I got my Level 2 Farming). Since I am able to bury the dead, I unlocked another Milestone/Puzzle.

ECON1202 and ECON1101

2007-04-27T19:04:00.000+10:00

- 7:05pm -

Today, I woke up at 5:30am to get to Uni at 7am, though I had estimated that it would be 8am when I got there. Eventually arrived with more than an hour to go before the 9am ECON1101 Microeconomics 1 Mid-Exams.

My ECON1101 Exam was in the Derby Room, Level 2 of the Central Room or something like that. The Elevators are very long and interesting, almost like you are going to the airport or something cause the elevators jut out of the rectangular building.

Did well in the examination.

Next was ECON1202 QMA. Firstly though, Brian and I headed off to UNSW along with others to buy some food and study there. I caught up on the things I didn't have time to revise over, which were just small things like deferred annuities and general annuities.

We got back to Randwick Racecourse and this time I was in Upper Tea House. The examination went pretty well for me there too, only one I am not sure of is question 12 because I just couldn't get an answer exactly the same as any of the choices, only got one near one of the answers; extremely near.

So yea, that's about it.

Resting now, before FINS1612 quiz on Tuesday.

ACCT1501

2007-04-24T20:24:00.000+10:00

- 8:25pm -

Today was ACCT1501 Mid-Exams, a test involving 40 multiple-choice questions all done in 1hr's time. I did okay, but there are a lot of questions which I was unsure of. I got 80% in the practice test involving 30 questions based on week's 1-4 or so in which I spent 12 minutes doing the test.

Surprisingly I only took 15min to finish the ACCT1501 Mid-Exam thanks partly to the 10min reading time, which allowed me to answer the first 13 questions immediately. I checked my answers 3 times, but due to uncertainties, I don't think I did that well.

Ah well, next is ECON1101 at 9am Friday, and ECON1202 at 1:45pm Friday. Then FINS1612 Quiz 2 next Tuesday at 1pm.

Today though I came a bit too early. I went to Uni and arrived a bit earlier than 10am, hoping to study for ACCT1501. Walked to the Roundhouse, but it was closed! Went round the back, still closed! They were setting something up too! So, I walked all the way to the Library to study. Sat there for a while, Dr James Shin called me to say I'll have to go to the dentist next week instead of this Saturday due to Anzac Day halting the production of my special special retainers.
Then Brian SMSed me about where to meet up since he didn't know how to get to the Racecourse.

I soon fell asleep. Too tired to study and couldn't be bothered to study since I really didn't think there was anything more for me to study.
Anyways, rain rain rain.
More rain.
Waiting.
More waiting.
Went to Finance tutorial only to find only around 5 people there. Most of us just left cause we were allowed to.
More rain.

Met Brian at 2pm, then headed off to Racecourse.

Rain, more rain.

I was at Lower Tea House.

More rain.

Sat the test.

Left the test.

Huge downpour.
Rain.

Huge puddles.

We followed a group of people cause we didn't know how to get to a bus stop.

More rain. Got lost. Took 30min to eventually find the bus stop.
Along the way we were like Lemmings with umbrellas, following the footsteps of the person in front of us so we wouldn't step into a huge puddle.

Hate my shoes, they don't have enough grip so where there are marble/etc tiles, I always feel like I'm about to slip.

Went to Capitol Square and spent $4, but didn't get anything. T__T
And that's it.

Oh, and I need to seriously ask my father whether our cable plan is 2GB or 12GB per month, cause I don't think I used more than 2GB of download and I'm already down to 64 or so kb/s.

I can brush my teeth again!

2007-04-21T14:47:00.000+10:00

- 2:50pm -

Back from Ashfield and the City. I went to Ashfield today for my dentist appointment and got my braces removed! Wai~ Freedom! I can finally brush my teeth the proper way, and I no longer have to worry about food that gets stuck between my braces which not only looks bad, but smells bad too.
Very, very happy.
The pulling out of the braces didn't hurt at all, except one of the bottom front teeth which didn't break off properly the first time. All the others didn't hurt one bit, even the brackets, which I found quite surprising. The only thing that hurt was when the doctor was cleaning all that glue-thingy that was still on my teeth, cause he had to clean all the way into my gum, which hurt a bit here and there.

Next week I'm going again for my retainers, those see-through thingy-ma-bobs; almost like those things those in rugby wear, mouth-guard only not as thick.

I also had yet another haircut yesterday so I look totally different once again. Once again, I've cut almost all of it off and eventually in the next few months it'll grow back all over again.

Also, coming back from Ashfield I went to Capitol Square and won a He is my Master plushie! This one being Kurauchi Anna, the greenish-haired girl. Just need to get the other two some day. xP I knew it! You have to either choke the plushie to death, or grab below their arms and hope their head isn't too heavy (so they don't fall through the legs)
Though, I was kinda annoyed at the medium-sized Chopper plushie I was trying to get. I had Chopper right where I wanted him and he even traveled half-way towards the chute, but then he fell cause the crane kept moving back and forth (swinging) and so that somehow made the grip loose. Very unhappy. T__T

But yea, I finally found the Gashapon area too. There's so many stuff to try your claw machining hands with. I need more practice! And all those machines are a few months new at least, since the last time I went there I never saw them...so...they should have come in about a year ago. ^^;; Haha.

I then went to Kinokuniya and bought ROBOT Volume 2 and Yellow Tag 2006, which I think is done by Type Moon.

And the He is my Master plushie is so cute~ @__@
But I wanted Choppy too. T__T

HH Comic

2007-04-20T14:44:00.000+10:00

- 2:44pm -

I stumbled upon a comic called HH a long time ago when I first found J-List. Nice comic to check out every few months, since it takes forever to get a new strip done.
It's advised not to read it with parents around though cause even if it isn't hentai, it's a parody on hentai.
http://www.jastusa.com/webcomic/index.php?page=1&lang=

Enjoy! ^_^

Death Note Phone Straps
Bleach Shinigami Robe
Vincent - Dirge of Cerberus Necklace
Ghost in the Shell Hoodie

King of Fighters 2002, mine, finally!

2007-04-19T16:48:00.000+10:00

- 4:47pm -

Just got back home. Today, I spent the day around the City and at Uni. I went to Uni today with the purpose of finding out where the Randwick Racecourse was, and how to get to the entrance of the racecourse from Uni.
And now I know! Took me ages though.

First, I headed for the Roundhouse to play KoF. Amazingly I did extremely well and got to the 5th stage or so. Can't remember though, but I did do extremely well. And this is without using -> A D or <- A D. That's right, didn't use any of those dodge moves, cause for some reason it doesn't work in the game, or maybe I don't know which buttons are A and D on the arcade pad. I'll eventually find out. Wahaha! Anyways, after spending a whole $2, I went out to find Gate 9 where my journey would begin. I looked at the map and saw a Gate 9, and buildings surrounding it. I knew where it generally was so I went up to the Library lawn and tried finding it. Couldn't. So I went back down again to look at the map. That's when I realised I was supposed to go through the Arcade next to Mathews Theatre. I am supposed to know where Gate 9 is though, due to the tour during O-Week, but I just forgot. Memory went blank again like it so faithfully does every time I need it. Anyways, got to Gate 9. I went down High Street and came across some random street! So I went all the way back up to find that Wansey Road was RIGHT opposite of Gate 9. What a dumbass I was! Anyways, I slowly went down the hill till I got too tired and sweaty, so I gave up after I saw Randwick Racecourse, since I had already checked out the map and knew I just had to turn into Alison Rd and walk up a couple of minutes. I'm guessing it'll take me around 50min to get there by foot. Though, the 372, 374, 376 and 339 from Stand C of Eddy Avenue also gets there, so I'll go through them next time. I actually saw the 376 next to the 891 I was traveling on when heading for Uni. Anyways, after that I went back to the Roundhouse to play KoF again, using another, dun dun dun, $2. This time I failed miserably, mainly cause I had never fought the team I was fighting for KoF 2002. Plus, the other $1 was spent on KoF '98, and the moves for Kyo are different so tactics change a bit and that stuffed me up. ^^;; Afterwards, I headed for the City. I went to Kinokuniya to check if there were any new artbooks, and if hopefully they had PS2 games cause my other goal for today was to get King of Fighters 2002 on the PS2. They didn't. I thought and thought. Thought and thought, and finally I realised that I knew of a place with EB Games, as well as a Modelling place right next to it. I thought and thought, then realised it's probably at World Square!!! So I walked ALL ZE WAY to World Square! And then....it hit me! EB isn't in World Square, it's in Galeries Victoria!!! So I walked ALL ZE WAY BACK to Galeries Victoria. Then, tada! I found my oasis and began investigating whether they had KOF 2002 or not. Firstly, I checked every single title on the 50% off stand at the front. Took ages cause there were so many PS2 games there. Next was the PS2 shelf. Only found KoF Neowave. Not what I wanted since there wasn't Vanessa in there, a character I love using. I then searched the Pre-owned shelf section. KoF Maximum Impact. Not what I wanted. I don't like 3D KoF, and there's too few characters for my liking. Next, I checked the Pre-owned BOXes. Found KoF 2003. Not what I wanted cause there wasn't Vanessa yet again. Then finally after finding a few other KoF 2003s, I found one KoF 2002 for around $24. God's bright light thingy shone on me and I believed in God for 2 seconds before I bought the game, checked out the Model's store right next to them, and then left for home. Home sweet home. But no, can't play it now cause my father'd get pissed. So now I am writing this up and soon will be studying my ass off till tomorrow where, when my parents leave I'll play it and smile at my sister and say I'm watching a movie! ^__^ ...too bad they didn't have the KoF arcade stick. T__T I gave up on God after they said they didn't have it. - 8:44pm - OMG! I learnt a new combo move for Kyo that's so awesome-age! Problem is I can't do the 20 or so other combos the guide had cause it's too hard to do 'dragon punch' (aka, forward, down, forward-down) on the keyboard. Gotta try them later on the PS2 tomorrow. - 9:30pm - Was posting heaps of esnips-uploaded songs on Gaia for suggestions for SS' Karoake tomorrow. Reese should definately sing La La La and 2Nite by Se7en. Anyways, I asked if any awesome pro-claw machiner could teach me their skills. Then suddenly it hit me. If I can find guides on King of Fighters, then why can't I find a guide on Claw Machines? TADAN! Google wins again with: Teh eBay Guides - How To Win Something In a Clawing Machine.

Now I know I have to choke the plushie with the claws to get it!

- 9:55pm -

HOMG FREAK!!!
http://kotaku.com/gaming/crane-game/clips-crane-game-queen-of-japan-229510.php

- 11:25pm -

WTF? Am I blind? Why haven't I seen Capsule House in Capitol Square before?
http://www.capitolsquare.com.au/html/capsule.html

o,o I would spend all my money on them! Though, I actually went to the Capitol Square website to find if there was any info about claw machines and what prizes they had. T__T

Sinking

2007-04-18T01:29:00.000+10:00

- 1:30am -

Watched FLCL again. What can I say? It's awesome!

I seem to not be saving money. Was hoping for $1,000 in the bank by July by that can be scrapped at the rate I'm going.

I keep planning to exercise, but never do.

Youtube deleting vids has made it that much harder to watch Anime, especially since most of the other anime streaming websites aren't up-to-date with all the Anime I watch, especially Bleach.

I've noticed in the past two or so months, I've been eating too much. Having too many snacks.

I need to stop listening to music all the time, or listening to stuff at all. When I was watching Bean's Holiday and 300, I noticed that I had an awfully strange feeling of uneasiness when I took off my earphones and listened to the surround sound that wasn't that close to my ears.

And I need to spend more time away from the computer when at home. I've noticed most of my time at home is spent either on the computer, or watching TV.

Eyes and ears. Wonder what it does to me.

Sleeping this late as well. I usually do 2am before I sleep these days. Not good.

Going to sleep now. Need to study properly, been slacking.

I have money issues.

Lots of issues actually.

Lots.

Wish the world was like Anime. But Anime is perfect. Even the problems are perfect. That's why I fantasize about living in such a world. It is perfect. I wonder. I like the world the way it is right now, but at the same time I don't. And yet, when does my ambitions, goals and hopes fall into the world of fantasy and the impossible?
I don't know.

GAAAAAHHH

- 11:23pm -

As most of us know, US' worst school shootings occured yesterday with 33 people killed, including the gunman himself, a 23-year-old Korean, Cho. He is described as a loner.
Once again it shows how having 18+ people allowed to purchase guns for 'self-defence' under the US Constitution is ridiculous.
Of course, the problem is that the US is surrounded by countries. Mexico, Canada. Plus, the country is huge and there's millions of people who have guns.
You can't easily ban guns in a country like the US. It's much easier in Australia, since we are surrounded by water so it's much harder to smuggle them in, and we have a smaller population to deal with. Not only that, but since we don't have guns in private hands anyway, it's much easier to maintain a no-guns policy here.

Unfortunately I don't think the US will ever be able to have a no-guns policy.
I wonder how the US came up with the idea of a guns-for-protection constitutional right....unless that right was made like, during the 'Wild West' periods. ^^;;

But yea.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9604204

For some reason though, when I think "a tragedy", I hear John's voice on that Comedy Channel show when he was making fun of Dick Cheney when he shot his colleague.

And I find it funny after checking out videos on youtube and the comments on the Virginia Tech massacre. When I saw on the news that it was a Korean, I immediately knew there'd be heaps of idiots who'd start talking about Asians and how crazy they are/etc/etc. Which is funny because most school shootings are done by white people.
And it'd be so sad if these people posting racist comments aren't little ignorant kids, even sadder if they are adults.

300 and Bean

2007-04-15T16:40:00.000+10:00

- 4:45pm -

Just came back home from watching both 300 and Mr. Bean's Holiday. I loved both of them.

Firstly, I watched Mr. Bean's Holiday. It was very funny a lot of the time, and the movie within the movie was just hilarious. So retarded! And the expression and acting of the movie's director (the movie within the movie's director) was hilarious as well!
The girl was pretty good-looking too. Great to find Mr. Bean found his double.

And then there's 300 that I watched 45min after Mr. Bean's Holiday. Before that though, I checked out Kinokuniya, but was frustrated not to find any artbooks that looks inspiring.

Anyway, 300 is not for kids. Definately not. It is very upfront and explicit in the way it conveys massacre's, the evil of humanity, lust, bloodshed/etc/etc. Pretty gory compared to most films I've watched (then again, I don't watch horror films so maybe it isn't that gory). Lots of killing, stabbing, legs chopped off, heads chopped off, arms chopped off/etc/etc/etc. It shows the evils of politics too.
And the sex scenes are all quite explicit too. You can tell the girl's having sex because she actually...can't explain it besides saying she actually looks like she's having sex, not like other films where they are just rubbing against each other like cats do.

The way the fights were brought out obviously had a future game in mind. The wave after wave of attacks, of different enemies coming up, of mythical creatures and monsters coming out wave by wave. Obviously it'll be used greatly in multiple games. You could have an RPG, strategy, or even fighting game like Dynasty Warriors only with monsters involved too.

It's interesting to note that the director obviously made note of how the Spartans historically accepted and treated women far more highly than any other civilization at that time and before that time (except the Amazons...since they were all women).

And I liked it how the women weren't portrayed as going "Eeee!" when they stab someone or see somebody die.

The 'death' tree as I call it was ...pretty out there.

300 is a movie to watch, if only for the fights, the awesome fighting moves and strategies of the Spartans, and generally what the Spartans were like. 300 obviously doesn't recount what the Spartans were, but they come close in terms of what they stood for, and how their clan was run.

- 5:15pm -

I also got one of my current favorite songs yesterday from the BBC. The BBC talked about France and the discrimination against immigrants or those with certain skin color or names. They featured briefly a song by Diams called Ma France a Moi or something like that. I've got that song now, as well as another by Diams.
Also, I was thinking about a song I heard a while ago, and I found it! Took some time to find, but it's called Inner Universe and is part of Ghost in the Shell. I love it!

Youtube's gonna lose a lot of viewers

2007-04-14T22:36:00.000+10:00

- 10:35pm -
Youtube has finally started removing Anime Episodes en masse. Thanks to Google purchasing Youtube and their attempts to show that they don't like piracy, they are constantly removing Anime Episodes all over Youtube.

I checked today and none of the Bleach 121 videos available were watchable, all removed.

I'm sure other video uploading sites will be taking out their champagne to enjoy this news and - if they allow Anime - then they'll get a HUMONGOUS boost in their member base, and Youtube is likely to lose a HUGE proportion of their member base unless there is some way of people to still watch full Anime episodes on their site (like you can with movies).

Right now, to watch full movies, you have to befriend the user who has the movies and once they accept you, you get to go into their private folder to view their private videos.

If that's the case with Youtube for Anime episodes, then Youtube won't lose all of their Anime fans, only a HUGE proportion of them (because most don't know about private videos).

Man, if only I knew how to code...then I'd make my own and reap a huge member base on the first day I set up or something like that. @_@

Update for art

2007-04-13T16:54:00.000+10:00

- 5:01pm -

Updated my Deviantart for Kei since I've done the bulk of the pencil drawing and I'm now beginning on the inking.
Found here: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/52853362/

Stuff about how I drew the stuff is on the DeviantArt; so I won't mention it here.

Anyway, I took the small coffee table from my parents' room and placed it in mine because the table is glass, which is what I need to ink properly. I also took down an old shadeless lamp from the attic and placed it on top of a few books to get it as close as possible to the glass table. Unfortunately, both the lamp and the table's stand is kinda annoying cause I can't get the light close enough to the center of the table; but generally it'll suffice for use for inking.

I've placed my artwork at the bottom, then placed on top of it a projector sheet (see-through), then on top of that a piece of paper to ink on. Testing it, it's alright. However, the light bulb's shape means that it creates repeating circular patterns and it is kinda fuzzy but I guess I can get used to it.

My own make-shift 'art studio' table. I know there are actual professional ones where they have a table that has long lights below it with a glass area for use for professional inking, but I'm guessing that it costs too much for me and is probably too big for my current room.

- 5:47pm -

Gah! My Artline Drawing System pens bleed! *cries* Must buy a new one, or, find a different type of paper to ink on.

Pencil complete!

2007-04-12T17:12:00.000+10:00

- 5:12pm -

Kei's penciled version artwork is complete! *is proud*
I found it very enjoyable finding all the references in the library as well as in the Bleach manga for drawing the buildings and seireitei. If you check out the drawing closely, you'll find that I have quite a few tiny fun details placed in that appears in Soul Society and certain locations can be seen.
So yea, I really like it, though some parts are a bit messy because I didn't want to use my crummy rubber to rub out some of the guidelines for the buildings. I'll do that in the ink version in which I'll be using blue scanlines, so I can ink and stuff it up as much as I want, and just have to print out another to ink over.

Hopefully that'll only take a week. After my Mid-Exams, I'll hopefully be able to start cleaning the lineart in Photoshop, and a week after that, begin the coloring which will hopefully finish within a month giving me just a week or so before the contest ends. If I don't make it, then oh well, I'll just submit whichever version is more complete.

Curse of the Gold Flower

2007-04-11T22:17:00.000+10:00

- 10:17pm -
"Curse of the Gold Flower" or something like that is what I saw today, and I'm guessing the director is the same as that of "House of the Flying Daggers" and "Hero".

The constant 'two-hourly' medicine time chorus thingy is very annoying and very strange, but that just shows how strange the Emperor is. The Assassins are awesome, and so is the army vs army fighting. Very interesting fighting, but the other parts aren't that interesting besides what you eventually think about each character.

At first you might think this and that, but in the end the Emperor stands out a lot. You feel kinds horrible at the end of the film and want to wrangle his neck. Also, the director seems to have gone crazy with this; due to the idea within the fighting about not touching a certain person, as well as the fireworks (which shouldn't have existed back then or else they'd be using guns) and the color of the pillars in the Emperor's Palace which looks as though the director was on drugs when he did this.

So if anything, the only reason why you'd watch this would be the fight scenes, and for all those ninja/assassin-lovers, cause this movie has some pretty awesome attacks, like Assassins sliding down a rope encircling a village from the mountain that surrounds it. Their weapon looks pretty darn awesome.
But yea, other than that, this movie will leave you feeling at a loss, and there is no happy ending to this (like the other movies by the same director). I guess in that way, it is trying to be more realistic. The good guys all die.

I'd give this a 6/10, only things that's good about it is the sway away from the happy ending cliche (though I don't think the audience is ready for that yet) and the fight scenes (especially ones that involve all the ninjas/assassins).

2007-04-10T18:27:00.000+10:00

- 6:30pm -

Scanned and uploaded Bradvil on DeviantArt. Been around a week or more since I started him and I finished him a while ago too but never got to scan him.
The name Bradvil comes from Bradville (or something like that), a random city. I got it from BBC World News when they start with their theme "This is the BBC in ...*city name*" x 10 then "You're with the BBC".

I've got it all stuck in my head now from listening to it every day on ABC News Radio, listening to it online whilst I study or chat to others.
"This is the BBC in Boston; This is the BBC in Geneva, Bradville, Shanghai....You're with the BBC"
"Cause now more than ever, events that occur around the world effect everyone else...have your say...here...on the BBC"

"This is NPR news with All Things Considered, I'm Melissa Blog...and I'm Michelle Norris"

Anyways, back on track, I just found an Art Contest on Gaia called 1000 Lanterns or something like that. I'm entering in it and currently you can check out my WIP (Work In Progress) called Kei. She's an OC inspired by Bleach and I'm hoping to complete the pencil drawing of it by the end of April.

I also got a notice from an artist I really liked and watched months ago, kurot. And check it out! Cute prints of some of my most favorite characters in some of my series! *buys the prints*
Since the prints for FMA, Death Note and Bleach only cost a total of around $7-8, I'm getting them! >_<

And it's kurot the inspiratorer! Very inspiring stuff. I remember when my drawings were like the 1995 ones there. >_<
Still improving! Still improving!

Download Limit Reset!

2007-04-09T11:10:00.000+10:00

- 11:15am -

Just woke up, and Wooo!!! Download Limit Reset! No more frighteningly slow 64kb/s. Now I can finally do something!

Off I go to do something.

- 2:45pm -

Just came back from Cremorne Reserve. I actually only spent one and a half hours reading my Finance text, mainly cause of the darn flies that kept biting my left arm. Evil flies, and there was only 2 as well. Plus, I forgot to bring a bottle of water so I needed to drink.
Still, I did read and understand quite a bit. I'm happy with the way I'm studying right now. Unlike during the HSC where I just read everything, then forgot about it afterwards, this time I'm reading and constantly looking back to make sure I understand key points addressed during each chapter and if I don't understand it, I look it up on the internet.

I watched "Merlin" yesterday. At first I thought it was just another version of it from the last one I saw when I was in Primary School, but after watching it a bit more, I recalled parts of it and realised that it was the exact same movie. Interesting movie "Merlin" is.

Tomorrow the Library will be open once again, so I can study properly then. It's hard to study at home, so I spend as much time as possible away from home to study unless I need to use the computer for my studies.

As I was walking yesterday at Cremorne Reserve to exercise, I noticed the clouds more often than usual and imagined images being formed using the clouds as inspiration. As I was walking back home, I started imagining creating an Anime; a non-conventional one where a boy grows up in the daily grind of life as we know it, his life repeating over and over like a ground-hog day. His asks his friend about this and his friend suggests it could just be some weird ground-hog day, but even though everything is the same, his daily actions, his friends and neighbours and society's daily actions are the same, he gets older and older...but every so often he checks the clouds.
Yet the clouds keep changing, showing different shapes every single day, with different forms every single day.
Eventually, he dies and the Anime shoots towards a cemetary with heaps of identical graves.
At the end of this very short Anime, it brings you back to the city with its daily grind, and suddenly a little girl stops and looks up at the clouds...and that's when it ends.

I was just wondering during that time, how repetitive human life is compared to something like the clouds. With our so-called 'superior' intelligence over other beings, we have become like machines almost.

And then yesterday night after "Merlin", there was a program on ABC about how humans are becoming more and more like machines. It showed bits and pieces of lots of movies past and present because film producers usually show the fears or future ideologies of humanity at the present level. It showed "Bladerunner", "Frankenstein", "Terminator" series and a hell lot of random olden days films. How nanotechnology, and the ability to place microchips into a person's brain to improve their memory capacity could change the way humans think/etc.
It reminded me immediately of what Ballum said a few years ago about how the day microchips are implanted into all babies is the day we lose our privacy and freedom. We'd be machines who cannot do anything that is not 'prescribed' for our life.

Already many people have metal prosthetics, pacemakers/etc that help improve, fix, or replace parts of our biological self. The program talked about how we ourselves will turn into machines before machines begin to have their own emotions and their own thought-processes (i.e., their own soul).

And I guess it's true. With our current technology, those who receive bail or are under house arrest and are highly dangerous usually have chips placed inside them so that police can determine where they are at all times.
What if such a chip was placed in all human beings when they are born? In that case, the government could be like Big Brother, knowing wherever you are. Maybe even have a self-destruct mechanism in the chip that kills the host; thus being able to control all of society.

Or like The Matrix. The machines found out how to stimulate human emotions. Technology could help suppress certain emotions in people like hatred, jealousy and resent. Unfortunately, that isn't a good thing. We'd be like the people in Brave New World, happy all the time and if there is anything bad that happens that could affect our emotions, we'd take Soma and be all happy again. Or the creation of Clones, like in Star Wars, mass clones with a predetermined life that they cannot escape.

And already we can choose certain genes for our babies. There's many films on that too: Parents asking for certain haircolor, nose length and shape, height/etc/etc.

Who knows, we might already have predetermined lives set out by some greater body of governance overlooking everybody, making sure to stimulate certain emotions during certain situations so that we become conditioned to not like or like certain things.

Slow....

2007-04-06T09:59:00.000+10:00

- 10:00am -

WAH! My internet's fallen to 64kb/s due to me exceeding the download limit, and I have absolutely no idea when the next billing date is, though hopefully on the 15th or sooner. Sooner the better of course!

2007-04-05T22:37:00.000+10:00

- 10:35pm -

I failed to get 10/10 for my First Attempt at the ECON1202 Quiz 2 that began this week. Hopefully I'll get 10/10 on my Second Attempt. Once again I'm pretty pissed cause I got 3 wrong, and all three are due to silly mistakes, with one of them being that my original answer was the correct one. ^^;;

Anyways, I read that the Australian dollar is at around $0.80 USD. It might even hit $0.90 later this year if there is another rate rise here. If I had the money, I'd buy heaps of USD and wait for the Aussie dollar to drop back to around $0.75 USD. Of course, I don't have enough money to outweigh the brokerage fees. I guess that's why they say the more money you have, the more money you can make. Haha.

Cliques

2007-04-04T21:44:00.000+10:00

- 9:45pm -

Hehehe. Cliques. I used to have joined around 4-5 of them. One of them was about an anti-art-theft thing against those who steal content online and pretend it's their own. Another was an I *love* Anime one...and a few others.

I'm gonna join a few more as I find them. I won't actively search for them, but whenever I stumble upon one that I like, I'll add it. XP

And it's holidays! For 14 days!
I did okay in my ECON1101 Microeconomics Discussion Question 7 Presentation today, but DQ8 was freaky. She'll probably get 15/15 for it.

Also, I got 13/15 for Finance Quiz 1! Wheee~ happy happy!

This week ECON1202 Quiz 2 is due. I think it is all on Annuities. I don't like Annuities. T__T
And today for ECON1202 Lecture, we learnt about Matrices! They look so hard, but they are actually quite easy to understand and work with once you actually know what you are looking for in them and what all the numbers mean.

And wah! I'm gonna buy the Death Note Chibi Figurines :
http://www.smash.org.au/forums/index.php?topic=3.msg2303#new
>_< Awesome-ish!

Snakes

2007-04-03T21:14:00.000+10:00

- 9:14pm -

I don't think I've ever posted this, but a year or so ago before they released Snakes on a Plane, a guy posted on newgrounds with a mock flash trailer (aka, parody). I really liked it, and I'm just gonna post it up here for future reference and for your viewing pleasure.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/333294

Have fun!

Also, I scanned in my recent artwork! Yah!
Jenerael:
I really liked this one, especially the feet. Thanks to this drawing, I've been able to play around with feet ever since. Though the real thanks has to once again go to Oxide2x for actually placing images of how feet look like in my head. I really like this style of artwork, but who knows what'll happen. xP I'm always changing my style.

Get ready for two more of my artwork that I'm hoping to finish by the end of Wednesday. ^__^

0.o Hot sex!

2007-04-02T20:26:00.000+10:00

- 8:25pm -

Really happy today. Drew some awesome artwork that I'm really proud of (except the hands as usual). This time, I actually drew the feet! And they look awesomely sexy!

It all started off in FINS1612. Wait, let's roll back. Today I woke up at around 7am after sleeping at 2am, and for some reason unlike all the other times I wake up at 7am and sleep at 2am, my body wasn't waking up. Even after my miracle shower which usually cures all illness and laziness, I was still dead. Walking to the bus stop, each step seemed like I would collapse. Almost like I had a hangover, but I was sure that the only alcohol I had last night was the load of Garlic and Red Wine Marinade on my turkey.

Anyway, got to FINS1612 and was greeted with an old Asian guy who kept going on and on about things - and constantly mentioning China - whilst everybody was talking. I would have been interested if everybody wasn't talking, but the guy didn't seem to mind, not telling them off even once so they just kept talking. I decided to start drawing, and over the period of the boring 2hr lecture, I almost finished the bulk of the drawing I did today.
Needless to say, I experimented even more with body proportions, as well as clothing and it turned out REALLY well!
I just need to find an opportunity (probably Wednesday) when my father isn't at home to scan it in.

Pretty unhappy at the fact that the Uni store didn't have any clear sheets, cause I only have one, and I need like, 3-4 for my presentation on Wednesday.
If I don't find any tomorrow at Uni, I'll be forced to go to OfficeWorks. In fact, just to be safe, I might just head over to OfficeWorks in the morning just incase it closes by the time I get there in the evening.

- 8:35pm -

Nup, just checked. OfficeWorks closes at 7pm for Tuesday, so I'm safe.

Death Note: The Last Name

2007-04-01T21:31:00.000+10:00

- 9:30pm -

Just finished watching Death Note: The Last Name. Needless to say, it was AWESOME! I loved the actors of both Misa Misa and Takada. Unfortunately, it didn't include N or M, but the way the actual movie wrapped it up till the end was just awesome and I'm actually happier that it didn't follow the Manga so closely, which the Anime does. The Anime is alright even though it follows everything precisely because it is nice to see it in animated form with all the sound effects and background music. However, the two movies are quite unique. They twist the original details, but maintain the general plotline.

Some parts from the Manga I wish would have been included in the Movies, but parts of the Movies I totally loved.
The ending to Death Note: The Last Name was truly awesome, and I bow my head to both Kira and L, especially L for his nobility in order to seek justice.

In the Manga, and thus most likely the Anime, L was depicted as a guy aiming for justice, but he really wasn't any different from Kira in terms of the way he sacrifices people for his own goals: The goal to catch Kira.
In the Movie, L is seen the same, but at the end you can tell his nobility and it shines a much better light on him; you also feel for him.

I give the second movie of Death Note, Death Note: The Last Name a 10/10 and for those who have been watching the Anime and have already read the entire Manga and believe this is going to be boring, you'll be surprised!

I've realised that the DVD I bought is actually the legit copy, and the English subtitles are pretty darn good. The only 'problem' is that it shortens surveillance to survill or something like that, but it is easily understandable.

Art Update

2007-03-31T13:10:00.000+10:00

- 1:10pm -

I finally scanned in my recent artwork I did all this week.

Chibi Cassandra:
This one just came out of the blue at 1am in the morning one day. I didn't even use any reference lines for her. Just going with the flow, and it turned out pretty good.

Diphon:
This one I did yesterday after checking out Oxide2x. I was really inspired by Hyung-Tae's works so I drew this, in which only the retina, lace of the shoes and the outside 'jacket/cape' was copied directly from the illustrations. Everything else was simply inspired by the artwork to let my drawing run free of any restraints I usually place on it, such as the body proportions/etc.
I've only noticed now that I haven't finished drawing the ammunition...

Yuri (Mature Content):
Yuri was drawn a while ago, actually, not this week at all. I think two to three weeks ago whilst I was experimenting with letting myself free of the restraints of my usual drawings where the hands don't really have any depth to them. I think this was one of the first I drew that has finally till today begun to make my drawings become more free from the restraints and boundaries I had with them in the past.
As noticed, it's a naked drawing, mainly because recently I've been drawing naked people, then using tracing paper to draw clothing for them.
Yuri Clothing #1

Amonica (Mature Content):
Amonica came after Yuri did, and there is a pretty big difference between the two, and I'm quite happy with how I drew Amonica here, though obviously I still have a lot to work on in terms of getting the anatomy looking okay, even if she is a demon.
Amonica Clothing #1

Now I just need to work out how to ink the images. I think like I mentioned before, I'll place the clothing on top of the naked images, then shine a lightbulb below my glass table and hopefully, that'll allow me to see both images and draw them properly.

- 11:20pm -

1/8 OS-Idol Win-chan PVC
1/16 JMSDF Girls 1 Box (10pcs)
Mine Yoshizaki HotGimmick Axes-Jong Ultimate Coll. 1 Box (8pcs)
1/6 Alice Carroll PVC
Black List Crossroad #1 Route A 1 Box (12pcs)
Dokuro-Chan Colle. Fig 1 Box (12pcs)
MMS Type Flower Zyrdarya
1/8 Takeuchi Asami Kit
1/8 Fujinami Tomoko Kit
1/8 Maid Tomo-Chan PVC
Choko Soda Ice Version PVC
Choco Chocolate Banana Version PVC
Prop Plus Lelouch Lamperouge
Prop Plus Suzaku Kururugi
1/8 Nemu Asakura PVC
1/8 Otome Asakura PVC
D.C. II Mascot Collection 1 Box (12pcs)
1/6 Asuka Langley Dress Ver Kit
1/8 Shinji & Kaworu School Uniform PVC
1/5.5 Asuka Langley Room Wear Completed
1/6 Iria Swimsuit PVC
1/9 Fine Scenery Re2200 (Italy)
DX Voice I-doll Meer Campbell
Situation Figure: Lunamaria Hawk
Situation Figure: Meer Campbell
RAH DX Tifa Adill PVC
Creator's Labo Ayumi Yamada PVC
1/8 Kamisaka Haruki Initial Setting Color PVC
Shion Sonozaki PVC
1/7 Bashoku Yojo Resin Kit
1/6 Hakufu Sonsaku Competed Limited Color (Black)
1/8 SMC Youko PVC
1/8 SMC Nadeshiko PVC
Momono Momoko & Sumomo
1/8 Aoba Tsuzaki & Moribito Type 2 PVC
1/8 Ayu Tsukimiya PVC
Kashimashi Trading Figure Part.2: 1 Box (12pcs)
SR DX KOF Bonne Jenet 2P Swimsuit Ver.
1/6 Rin Kokonoe PVC
Lovely Idol Cosmix Plus Figure Collection 1 Box (8pcs)
Magical Girl Stick 12 #1: 1 Box (10pcs)
Figumate Negima!? School Edition 2: 1 Box (10pcs)
1/7 Natsuki Kuga PVC
1/7 Mai Tokiha Y Shirt Version PVC
Mai-HiME & Mai Otome Figure Special
Nina Wang Coral Robe
Arika Yumemiya Coral Robe
Mecha Musume #3: 1 Box (10pcs)
Melty Blood Pretty Collection 1 Box (10pcs)
Fee-tan PVC
1/6 Ginko
3D Design Figure Neosphere Premium Box
1/7 Komugi Nakahara Ribbon Nurse Completed
Voice Figure Shirayuki Hime
Voice Figure Ibara Hime
Figumate Akazukin 2: 1 Box (10pcs)
Akazukin Figure Collection #2: 1 Box (10pcs)
1/8 Rei Tachibana PVC
1/8 Arin PVC
1/7 Maid Girl PVC
1/8 Saika S. Farnese PVC
1/8 Nagi Death Cloth Version PVC
Petite Cat Daily 1 Box (10pcs)
Dogs Enjoy Life 1 Box (10pcs)
Ayano Kunugi Swimsuit PVC
1/8 Eri Sawachika Swimsuit Version PVC
1/10 Eri Sawachika PVC
1/7 Miya PVC
1/7 Kusano PVC
Tales of The Abyss Trading Figure 1 Box (12pcs)
TFC The Key of Avalon #2: 1 Box (12pcs) Ltd Version
Haruhi SOS Team Cosplay Collection
Figumate Haruhi 1 Box 10pcs
1/8 Marianne ~Doryu Marianne Kick Ver~ PVC
1/6 Tamaki Kousaka PVC
1/6 Kousaka Tamaki First Day of School Version
1/6 Amamiya Sayuri PVC
1/8 Hatsune Arisaka PVC White
1/7 Hazuki Nekomimi Dress Ver. Completed
1/8 Chiwa Amano PVC

New Stuff!

2007-03-30T01:14:00.000+10:00

Anime/Hobby Collection

2007-03-28T20:32:00.000+10:00

My Anime/Hobby Collection. ^__^ It's always nice to have real copies of the stuff I love. I'm quite proud of them so mhrr XP
One of my hobbies is to collect Anime Figurines. Here, I list the ones I have and keep a count of how many I have. I'm hoping to get around 100 by 2010. The numbers in brackets shows how many I have of the Gashapons compared to the whole set available.

Figurine/Toy Count: 4

Naruto Series Sasuke's Brother 'Game' Gashapon [1/??]
Panda Gashapon [1/??]
Premium Heroines Naruto Beach Gashapon Series [1/9]
Strawberry Marshmallows Gashapon Beach Series [1/5]

Other Anime/Asian related Toys/Games:

Pokemon: Trading Card Game, Water Blast Theme Deck
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Trading Card Game, Starter Deck Joey
Love Hina Playing Cards
Dynasty Warriors 2 (PS2 Game)
Oni (PS2 Game)
Mischief Makers (N64 Game)

Anime:

Getbackers Part 1 Volumes 1-3 (DVD)
DNA^2 Full Series (DVD)

Manga:

Blade of the Immortal Volume 1, 2, 4, 5 by Hiroaki Samura

Artbook:

How to Draw Manga: Bishoujo Around the World by Hikaru Hayashi
ROBOT: Super Color Comic Volume 1 by Range Murata
Oxide2x by Kim, Hyung-Tae

Films:

The King and the Clown [Korean Movie] (DVD)
Death Note: The Last Name (DVD)

Music:

Kwon BoA - Do the Motion Single (CD)
2004 Japan Pop Music (CD)

Gashapon!

2007-03-28T20:06:00.000+10:00

- 8:06pm -

I bought two Gashapon's today from Modeller's World. Gashapon's are basically toys (in this case Anime Figurines) which are random. I.e., you don't know what you'll get. Basically like trading cards, only this time, it's trading toys/figurines.
I got Premium Heroines, Naruto edition Gashapon and a Strawberry Marshmallow Gashapon. The Premium Heroines one got me Sakura in her ninja uniform, though I wanted her in one of her swimsuit ones. I guess I'll just have to buy another and hope it will be it.
It stands at around 11-12cm or 4-5 inches. It has a circular, transparent stand.

The Strawberry Marshmallow Gashapon I got was of the outer-most left of the whole set. Don't actually know her name, but she's the girl in the yellow swimsuit with blue goggles on her head and a beach ball in the water. The only problem I found with the Gashapon is that the water isn't bluish as is represented in the box picture. What I do like though is that it does look really good, plus, you can connect the stands. The stands, unlike the Premium Heroines one is actually part of a beach setting. If you collect all the Gashapon's, you can connect them up. Really nice.

I need to ask J-List staff about whether the Gashapon Sets they have are actually Random Gashapons, or, the actual complete set. If they are the complete set, then I'll buy the Gashapons online from J-List instead of buying them from Modeller's World. I just don't want to have two of the same type.

Another thing that I found really nice about these Gashapons is that they are good for drawing with. Great references as you can turn them around at any angle, view them from above or below to be able to draw the postures that they are strutting.
The Strawberry Marshmallow is around 7-8cm tall, pretty detailed (or at least it looks good) and costs $8.50 at Modeller's World. It'll probably be cheaper during Animania Conventions on March 31st and during September.
The Premium Heroines Naruto series (Beach Version) is around 11-12cm tall and costs $15 each at Modeller's World.

Besides them, I also have a very small, 4-5cm non-detailed, highly blurred Naruto Gashapon I got from Animania which is of Sasuke's brother. Though, I do remember it was quite expensive. I think it cost $20? So in terms of value, it wasn't too good compared to the ones I bought today. I also have one of a Panda Gashapon, which has a huge set of varieties. Also got from Animania two years ago. Another is a keyring figurine of Naruto himself. That one has alright detail, but doesn't have a stand so he keeps falling over.
So now I have 5 Figurines, with one being a non-Anime character, one being a toy figurine and one being a keyring figurine. The real figurines are the two Gashapons I bought today.

I'll be checking online shops to see if they can get me the stuff cheaper than getting them here due to their large volumes of sales (the more they sell, the more they can bulk buy wholesale products, the cheaper they are for them, and the lower they can place their prices).

With these two, my figurine collection and my hobby of collecting them has finally started. Wahahaha!

- 10:15pm -

I bought 3 see-through film papers for the printer hoping that I could use them to ink my artwork...but unfortunately the ink simply connects into tiny blobs even though the general feeling of the artwork still remains. I really need to find proper see-through art paper. If there is no such thing as that...then I need to buy an art table, or, place a light below my current table and remove the current table stand.

Anyways, just finished inking the naked version of one of the drawings I did of a demon girl. It looks really nice as I display it on my computer screen (since the film is see-through afterall), but if I put it on white paper, you can tell that the ink isn't exactly sticking to the paper too well as the lines are all dotty/bulgy due to the ink not sticking. But who knows, it might look good, though I hope it dries up so when I scan it in, it doesn't stick anywhere.

Hail the SMSer

2007-03-27T18:53:00.000+10:00

- 6:55pm -

Okay, whoever SMSed me recently about my sister as well as Animania...I hail you as the almighty SMS pro. How the hell do you SMS me back so soon? Last time, it took 5 seconds for a whole sentence to be SMSed back at me when I sent it, and this time when I got back home and checked my mobile, then SMSed you back, I didn't even have time to close my phone before you SMSed me. @__@ Freaky freaky. Must be some pro SMSer.

And Goal #2 for March is complete! I found Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the Asian Literature section of Kinokuniya! I don't really like the covers for the English translated version. It doesn't look as mystical and Chinese-y. Ah well. Part 1 cost $28.29, and Part 2 cost $27.97. Just the thing for reading when I have nothing else to do.

FINS1612 Quiz today was kinda scary in the fact that when I got to Question 3 (there are 4 questions altogether), the tutor was like "5min left!", so I had to change my style from long sentences to dot-points, which is allowed. Though, not sure what my mark will be for the fourth question, since I didn't state every single part of that question.

wahahaha!

2007-03-26T20:30:00.000+10:00

- 8:30pm -

Things just get better and better! We just got a call from a person in Sydney who watched my sister on Australia's Got Talent and...wait for it...want her to perform at their wedding!!! HOMG!
So now there's two options to take. If she makes it to the finals, she'll have to drop the wedding performance because of contracts, and if she doesn't make it into the finals, she gets to perform at a wedding! >__< Awesome!

Anyways, Microeconomics today was really weird. These two guys came in around half-way through the second lecture, with one guy saying really loudly "FUCK! I told you we're gonna be late!"
Next, one of the guy's phones rang really loudly for a while and he was like "FUCK! Shut up man!"
Later on, the other guy ran to the front of the lecture room with the first guy chasing after him shouting "FUCKIN GIMME MY PHONE BACK!", before heading out the door screaming either "Macquarie!" or "Go Sydney Uni!" One of them. So we're guessing their from one of those universities and just decided to come to UNSW to muck around since they don't check IDs.

Even a Year 8 High School student could go to UNSW and attend every single lecture there, as long as there are spare seats, since there are a lot of really small people over 18 here as well.

Though, that's not the case for ACCT1501. Last time the lecture room was full, and there were heaps of people who couldn't find seats so they were kicked out. Mainly cause there were people in the lecture who weren't supposed to be there. We have that problem everytime, so the lecturer has decided to have our IDs checked every week from now on, which means we'll waste around 10min having every single person's ID checked (300+ people).

Anyways, off to study FINS1612 for the quiz tomorrow.

- 9:52pm -

I just started a Contacts list, cause I get annoyed all the time when I forget somebody's e-mail address/etc. I'm using Access and I guess I have to thank the Accounting firm I worked in for teaching me about data entry and how to enter and properly view data in Access. Very helpful.

- 10:15pm -

Ah, forgot to mention. I started a second drawing yesterday after I mentioned about my first one. I really, really love this one. No references, all done by myself. It's a unique drawing where I let myself free and drew a tall character instead of my usual restricted ones. The theme is vampire/demon-ish girl. She has two rings with seals on them on her wrists, as well as two on her legs, one on her head (the only normal one for vampires/zombies) and then a huge and extremely long seal starting from her head and falling back to the end of her knees. I really like the hands and the face, especially the hair.
I also like the clothing I've drawn for her, and of course like all my other recent artwork, the clothing has been on a separate tracing paper. The normal A4 printing paper is where I draw the anatomy (aka, the naked version of the person), and then I put a tracing paper over it and start drawing the clothes. This makes it so that I can draw an infinite amount of clothes for the same drawing.

I've been experimenting a lot and going outside my usual boundary of drawing. One I started this morning doesn't really do that, but the one I did during Microeconomics does, being a girl sitting with her legs crossed and looking behind her. Though, I think I'll need references for this one, because it doesn't look quite right. ^^;;

Sister Vote!

2007-03-25T20:13:00.000+10:00

- 8:42pm -

Vote for my sister please! SMS "FIONA" to 19755555. Even if you have no idea what this is, just do it!

Anyways, today we decided to make Sushi. My sister and I got our hands pretty sticky, but luckily we knew that using vinegar water would make our hands stick less to the rice. Or maybe the other way around.
Anyways, only problem with that was that it placed heaps of vinegar into the sushi. >_<>_< Not good, I was hoping I'd get a break to actually study ahead of the course to make life easier, but no~. FINS1612 this week, ECON1101 DQ7 next week, ECON1202 Assignment Part A the week after Recess, then Mid-Session exams. Then the week after, FINS1612 Quiz 2; then ECON1202 Quiz 2.

Ah well. I need to restructure my timetables now thanks to this change of events.
I find that it is quite productive to do my studying in the Library. There's no distractions.

Also, went to the Mosman Library today from noon till 4pm. Finished all my QMA work, and almost all my ACCT1501 work in that time. I took a stroll around the area, but was disappointed when I couldn't find an Asian store there. I think only Neutral Bay has one, so I guess I'll have to stick to that shop for all my Asian goodies if I can't be bothered to go to the City and to Miracle.
Checked the book store in Mosman, but they didn't have Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I'll have to check tomorrow or the day after.
Also, the Newsagency closed down when I got there, so I ended up not buying any bus tickets for this week. I'll have to go all the way across the street to buy some. Very disappointed, I was hoping to have everything flow through smoothly today like it usually does when I go to Mosman.

And I STILL haven't watched "The King and the Clown" even though I bought it 2-3 weeks ago. Just no time.

I'm having a bit of trouble forcing myself not to go to Animania for March 31st after I heard that Chao will be there doing some special stuff. But...if he doesn't buy me my tickets, then I won't go. xP I need to restrain myself till September.

I have a GO sheet on the floor next to my bed. I've had it for a month or two now. I add a few stones to it every now and then, versing myself. Right now, my black stones are totally destroyed even though at the beginning they were owning. The whites just kept cutting them apart and the black stones - eager to destroy the whites before - didn't concentrate on their defence...which is why black stones are totally owned right now. White has basically surrounded them, even though it doesn't seem obvious at first.
I like the tactic my white stones used this time. I purposely didn't put some stones right next to black, but instead a bit away. Not too close that black can surround and kill my white stones, but not too far that black can form 'eyes' for defence. That's why black is dead. It doesn't have enough space to form 'eyes'.
Looking from a black perspective, I've realised that continously looking to take the enemy's stones is not a good idea, because you become blind to their own attacks and formations. It's like a fighting or strategy game. If you send all your units to attack the enemy's base, sure you have a better chance of doing damage to the enemy's base if you send all your units, but that makes your own defences open, and if your attack isn't coordinated enough, even your assault will be picked apart, bit by bit until there's nothing left.
Just looking at it. I have no way of keeping my 24 black stones alive. If I try to keep them alive, I'll only incur more losses.

WAIT! Looking at it closely now, I 'might' have a chance to keep the right-side of the bottom area alive...if I can connect the peices to the lone black stone at the bottom-right area. There's only one move I can make that could keep me alive. Could. But since I'm versing myself, I can easily block this...or can I? I'll play it out now...

Ah darn. Forgot it's white's move. If it was black's move...black might have lived...Darn.

And about that Mao Ze Dong Chinese-Communist tapestry-thingy-ma-bob? My father bought four long peices of wood, and a thinner one and created a 'frame' or support for the tapestry, stretching the fabric across the wood to make the tapestry look better, and it definately does look better because it is all squarish now and tight-ish. Also, it matches REALLY well with the wall, because the living room wall is red, and has a green 'line' on it. Can't describe what it is, but let's just say it is decoration that occurs in every room. Matches really well with the Red and Green of the tapestry. Hell good-looking!

- 10:10pm -

Whee~!
1/8 Forest Guard Nowa and 1/8 Hired Guard Ekidona by MegaHouse [ Limited Release ]
Crayon Girl #009: Creator's Labo
Kuma-San #010: Creator's Labo

Nice stuff.

NSW Elections!

2007-03-24T12:21:00.000+11:00

- 12:23pm -

Wai~! New products! Wishlist adding!
Yuki Nagato SD Version
Yuki Nagato 1/8 PVC Figure
Domo-Kun Post It Notes
Aria President Pokoteng Coin Bank
High School Briefcase Bookbag
Uneri Deluxe 2 Tier Bento Box w/ Chopsticks & Chopstick Case -- Navy
Fuwarinka Gum -- Rose Flavor
Getsumen Touheiki Miina -- Full Set *Set of 5*
Tachikoma Trading Figure 2 *Set of 6* -- Full Set
Sho Totoro Aizome Type 2 Tier Bento Box

Don't forget about daylight saving! Wind your clock's back 1hr before you go to sleep today!

Also, the main highlight of the day, NSW State Elections voting is today! Counting of the votes will begin at 6pm, and I'll be listening on ABC News Radio Online, as well as probably watching SBS World News Australia. I think Labor will win, but I'm unsure of how many seats the Liberals will get.

Also, my sister's performance on Australia's Got Talent is TOMORROW! Don't forget that you have to turn your clock back 1hr by 3am tomorrow or else you'll miss the show. xD

- 4:08pm -

The thing about Dr. Tan was quite scary, eh? Happened on Falcon Street too. He was heading for the hospital to deliver a baby for one of his clients when he stopped on Falcon Street at the intersection due to the red lights, and then he was robbed, assaulted, forced to go to several ATM machines and withdraw all his money, then whilst he was in the boot of his car, his car was set alight, but luckily he managed to escape.
Pretty scary eh? Falcon Street too. It's rare for crimes like that to occur on the Lower North Shore or North Sydney.

And the other article "Dad's pain shared by many" in Thursday's The Mosman Daily. The guy is seperated from his wife and kids, his ex-partner leaving him for another man after being married with him for 14 years. He provides them with $7500 per month in support, even though he's the one who was left; and he only sees his children once every second weekend. That really sucks.
I don't know what type of character this guy is, but for some reason I think he's probably the same as Elie's father. Elie's father was a really nice guy who did all the housework and worked for the family. His wife left him over some Australian guy and they were divorced, Elie going with her father and her younger sister going with her mother.

It's things like that, that really sucks. But I guess it happens all the time, and more often than not it's the guy who leaves the girl. But maybe I'm just fooling myself. There's two main things I worry about when it comes to marriage and relationships.
1. What will my children turn into?
2. Would my future wife dump me, have me "traded in for a newer model" as Richard in the article says he was? There's always that possibility afterall. You see all the time women going for richer and richer men, or those who look better.

Of course, most women keep a close relationship with their partners "till death do us part", but there are always those Diva's and others who hop from one guy to the other, snatching as much money as possible and when they are all sucked out, they go for their next victim.

Also, totally off-topic, next I think I'll talk about the Christian Democrats. Why? I've hated every single time they made a statement. Everything they say is absolutely ridiculous. And now I've stumbled upon a 3/5 page advertisement in the newspaper. A 27-Point Checklist, that I can only laugh at because it helps others.
1. Support prayers to open Parliament each day:
Greens: No, Democrats: No, Labor: Yes, Liberal: Yes, National: Yes, Christian: Yes
Comment :- If this is compulsary prayers, then they can go to hell.

2. Teach Australia's Christian heritage in all schools:
Greens: No, Democrats: No, Labor: No/Unsure, Liberal: No/Unsure, National: No/Unsure, Christian: Yes
Comment :- If they are going to teach Christian heritage, why not teach all the religions? And Christian heritage? I'm sure the Aboriginals weren't Christian.

3. Support traditional family values in education:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- What ARE traditional family values? Are they Western Family Values? If so, isn't this a multicultural society that we live in? Why have one line of family values for?

4. Support state funded education vouchers to encourage school choice:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Encourage school choice? WTF is that? If you don't deserve to go into a school, then you don't deserve to, and private schools already have scholarships.

5. Actively support unique status of marriage between a man and a woman:
Greens, Democrats: No, Labor: Yes/Unsure, Liberal, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- 'Unique status'? This is why I hate Christianity. Can't they accept that some guys like guys, and some girls like girls? Why make those who like the other gender superior beings? You know, I always believed that Christianity and religions themselves were the source of all evil, creating conflicts between people/etc. This only justifies my opinion on this matter.

6. Presumption of shared parenting following a relationship breakdown:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- If a relationship breaks down, there's obviously a reason for the relationship to have broken down and I don't think that the people who just left the relationship would want to see each other again. However, in terms of the kids, I guess that all depends on whether the parents want to support and share parenting of the kids or not. If one of them doesn't want to, then too bad!

7. Oppose the decriminalisation of abortion and enforce current laws:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- My stance on abortion is that it should go ahead. I don't believe that those who are still so tiny in the womb of a woman would be able to contemplate that they are alive. In fact, most of their movements are done by jolts in their nerve system.
If people argue that you've prevented giving life to a person, then why not argue that those who have sex without producing anything is preventing a life from being born, and that people should have sex every second because if they don't, their poor sperms and eggs that could have created a living being would die?

8. Protect human life oppose use of RU 486 - abortion pill:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Same as #7

9. Prohibit use of embyros for stem cell research and reject human cloning:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Embyros should be allowed to be used for stem cell research. As far as I know, stem cell research leads to the possible cure of some diseases, and it allows people to produce new limbs/etc. That would help those who are alive who are disabled, who have their skin burnt or who have a disease currently uncurable that could be cured using stem cell research. Human cloning? WTF? If they are talking about the cloning of kidneys/etc, I support it. Those with kidney failure/etc won't have to be worried about whether there are enough donors and won't have to wait for months to get a kidney.

10. Oppose civil unions and relationship registers for same-sex couples:
Greens, Democrats, Labor: No, Liberal, National Christian: Yes
Comment :- Gays and Lesbians should have the same respect as others. There wouldn't need to be civil unions for them if they were accepted either.

11. Protect children prohibit same-sex couples fostering and adopting children:
Greens, Democrats, Labor: No, Liberal, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- There are heaps of children in orphanages. I'm sure it isn't because of same-sex couples' demand for adopting children that has caused those children to be seperated from their real parents. I can't believe the Liberals, Nationals and Christians would prevent same-sex couples from being foster parents.
What about the heterosexual couples who are foster parents? Let's screw them too!
Or why not look deep into the source of why people turn into orphans such as divorces, seperation, disownership/etc?

12. Consistently enforce ban on X-rated videos to decrease sex crimes:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- The only reason why this should be enforced is to protect people from Christian bishops and other staff members. They are the ones who are committing these crimes.

13. Strengthen family relationships raise moral standards on TV, film & radio:
Greens, Democrats, Labor: No, Liberal, National: Unsure/Yes, Christian: Yes
Comment :- How does raising moral standards on media going to help with strengthening family relationships? What is so bad about the moral standards of today's media? It's pretty good to me. Kid's shows show in the afternoon when they get back, and in the morning. In the afternoon, there's movies, Huey's Cooking/etc for the stay-at-home parents, and late at night when children are supposed to be sleeping, there are more higher-rated shows.
If anything, they should watch out what the parents are doing.

14. Support mandatory clean feed filtering of internet pornography:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Once again, they'd only need that to filter those of their own religion. Parents need to be responsible themselves for keeping these sorts of things out of their kids' views until they hit 18. Plus, it's hard to filter internet pornography. Very hard to take it all out.
I mean, I know of many gaming sites and even Anime sites that are perfectly legit, but have one or two hentai/porn advertisements on their sites, tiny buttons. Or what about newgrounds? Their banners are filled with porn and hentai; do you ban people from checking out newgrounds because of this even though the main content is not 18+ and they have clear ratings?
Or what about topsites? Most of them have one or two AT THE VERY LEAST.

15. Restore rights for local government to refuse brothels and gaming venues:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- How stupid can the Christian Democrats get? People are constantly talking about how children these days don't have anything to do, so they try experimenting with drugs, crime and sex, just for something to do. Taking away gaming venues is just telling them to start experimenting with crime.
And as for brothels? Same thing. Let the men have some fun in an enclosed area with girls who do it for a living instead of doing it to some random person on the street.

16. Make all prostitution illegal - exploits women and promotes sex slavery:
Greens, Demorats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Again I laugh at the stupidity of the Christian Democrats. I've even watched documentaries of prostitutes and how they live. As far as I know, they all weren't forced into having sex with the people they do. They have sex for the money, and I'm sure they are very happy with the idea that they are making money without needing an education/etc. Just needs a body.
It does not expoit women. The men who pay their prostitutes generally respects them.
Plus, it gives an avenue for men to release their sexual desires legally, instead of going up to people on the street and raping them.

17. Reduce gambling venues and machines to protect families:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Hahaha. Why not destroy Christianity to protect and establish families? Many people who love each other deeply are forced to part because of their parents having overwhelming Christian 'values'. Thus, many people are forced to part from their loved ones.

18. Children need mum & dad - No IVF for single and same sex couples:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal: No, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Ah come on, children won't die if they don't have both genders. Usually in same sex couples, one of them is more masculine than the other and vice versa. Everybody has a proportion of masculinity and femininity. Just cause you only have a dad or mom doesn't mean anything.

19. Support the promotion of renewable energy:
All Parties: Yes
Comment :- Haha, is this the only one I'd agree with?

20. Support greater care of God's environment:
All Parties: Yes
Comment :- Did they have to put it that way? 'God's environment'. Bloody hell. Pretty hectic environment. God obviously doesn't take care of his own property.

21. Protect family values refuse to support Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras:
Greens, Democrats, Labor: No, Liberal: Unsure/Yes, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Why is protecting family values and refusing to support Mardi Gras linked? I don't like Mardi Gras though, but in a land of freedom of speech, Christian Democrats and Nationals are seriously deranged. When they were talking about the idea of not allowing Muslims to migrate to Australia and they were accused left, right and center of being racist and supremist; they shouted "freedom of speech!", yet when it comes to giving others freedom of speech, they have no idea what it means.

22. Raise the age of consent to protect our children's sexual integrity:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal: No, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- I always reckoned that the 'age of consent' was created by mankind, not by nature. If a person starts getting horny, it's natural. You don't have to suppress it.
That's right, hear me again. You don't HAVE to suppress it. It is best to suppress it due to having to start a family at a young age, or being used by somebody for sexual orientations that might cause physical and emotional traumas; but besides that, if a person wants to and he/she is mature enough to have sex at a certain age; go ahead! We're animals as well you know!
Let's think of this. Let's prevent horses from having sex naturally because somebody a couple of thousand years ago decided that horses shouldn't have sex till they are 16.

23. Help drug addicts by immediately closing drug injection rooms:
Greens, Democrats, Labor: No, Liberal, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Man...drug addicts are addicts because they are...dun dun dun....addicted! Closing drug injection rooms won't change their addiction! All it will do is force them to re-use needles and share needles with others, which can spread diseases amongst them. Not good!
Then again, this idea is coming from the Christian Democrats and afterall, the Vatican doesn't support condoms, so he can watch Africans die from HIV AIDS. Christian Democrats really do support life! No kidding!

24. Zero drug tolerance - Retain criminal penalties for illicit drug use:
Greens, Democrats, Labor: No, Liberal, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Drug users will never want to quit if they will always be tagged as drug users. Give them a chance and they might just take that chance. Don't give them a chance, and what do you think they'll do?

25. Ban alcohol advertising to reduce the damaging effects of alcohol abuse:
Greens, Democrats, Labor, Liberal, National: No, Christian: Yes
Comment :- I say no, mainly because the damaging effects of alcohol only occur by those who aren't responsible enough. It's like saying banning the selling of any sharp objects, because of the damaging effects sharp objects can have on people. Or banning every human-made item, because of the damaging effects it could or already has done to the environment or, for the Christian Democrats; 'God's environment'.

26. Oppose all vilification laws to protect free speech:
Greens, Democrats, Labor: No, Liberal, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- lol? I think the Christian Democrats just needed an extra point to justify their cause...

27. Protect human life - voluntary euthanasia to remain illegal:
Greens, Democrats: No, Labor, Liberal, National, Christian: Yes
Comment :- Well, I'm neutral on this matter. If a person really feels like he wants to die because he definately has nothing left and he believes and everybody else around him knows he'll have a horrible future 'life', euthanasia might be good in that case. However, in terms of life, some people who might think the way I just mentioned might turn round and end up with a rather happy, if not, satisfied life.

---

In conclusion, Christian Democrats are hilarious. That is all.

- 10:35pm -

Labor won! Though they lost 2 seats. Ah well, hopefully that'll tell Iemma to work hard if he wants to stay on for the next elections.
Now at the end of the year, the Federal elections and next year, the elections in America.

Goals 2007

2007-03-23T17:49:00.000+11:00

Goals 2007:
Checklist of things to do during the Year 2007, the year I started my Undergraduate double degree in B Comm/B Eco at the UNSW.
Green = Completed
Red = Failed

1. Get at least a Distinction in all 4 subjects Session 1
2. Get at least a Distinction in all 4 subjects Session 2
3. Save up $1000 by June 1st, 2007

March 2007
1. Get 10/10 in Second Attempt of ECON1202 Quiz
2. Get above 80% in FINS1612 Quiz on Tuesday, 27th March
3. Purchase "The Romance of the Three Kindgoms" English translated copy
4. Don't go to Animania on 30th March

April 2007
1. Get 10/10 in First Attempt of ECON1202 Quiz 2 on April 2nd
2. Finish ECON1202 Assignment Part A by Sunday, 8th April
3. Finish ECON1101 Discussion Question by Wednesday, 11th April
4. Get at least 80% in Mid-Exam for ACCT1501 on Tuesday, 24th April
5. Get at least 80% in Mid-Exam for ECON1202 on Friday, 27th April
6. Get at least 80% in Mid-Exam for ECON1101 on Friday, 27th April

May 2007
1. Get above 80% in FINS1612 Quiz 2 on Tuesday, 1st May
2. Get 10/10 in First Attempt of ECON1202 Quiz 3 on May 7th-11th
3. Get above 80% in FINS1612 Quiz 3 on Tuesday, 15th May
4. Finish ECON1202 Assignment Part B by Friday, 18th May
5. Pay for ACCT1501 Practice Set by Friday, 18th May

June 2007
1. Get above 90% in ACCT1501 Practice Set, Friday June 1st
2. Get 10/10 in First Attempt of ECON1202 Quiz 4 (final one), 4th-8th June
3. Get above 80% in FINS1612 Quiz on Tuesday, 27th March
4. Get above 80% in all the Finals Examinations for all 4 subjects

July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007

Friday, March 23rd 2007

2007-03-23T16:37:00.000+11:00

- 4:36pm -

Death Note 23 was awesome! Watari's a great sniper, and Higuchi is just...well...sub-par to Light. Higuchi just doesn't contemplate his actions and his thoughts are just too shallow, not deep enough to take on both Light and L. Wahaha! But the whole episode was great. Quite thrilling.

I also started watching "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The artwork is like that of Saint Seiya, and their's not a lot of special effects or anything. It's basically like a basic recount of what occurs in the novel, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and so it won't appeal to a lot of people. I like it though, mainly cause I liked Dynasty Warriors but wanted to know what actually happened, not what happens within a game that only lightly touches on the actual history.
Some time this week or next when I'm in the city, I'll go to Kinokuniya or Dymocks and get myself the novel in English translation. It's always nice to have these books with you, and not have to worry about having to return them to a library/etc.

My father recently placed a huge ...thing on the living room wall that is sort of like a carpet, but the design is that of Mao Ze Dong and some Chinese words, as well as a Chinese-Communist background. I wonder what our neighbours think of it, cause they can easily see it from their place cause of the huge windows in the living room that we never cover with the blinds.
Sometimes I wish my father would stop buying these sorts of things. He loves Chinese antiques and the like. He spends most of our money on buying jade statues, ornaments, snuff bottles/etc from antique auctions, leaving us with hardly any money for basic stuff like food/etc.
But I guess that's an investment for the future as well, and hey, at least he has something to be excited about instead of working day in and day out with no real purpose.
Plus since my parents are sole traders and for some other reasons, my parents never placed any money into a super fund, so I guess these antiques, place our house in China are pretty much their 'super'.

My parents have always talked about living permanently in China again, especially with the rise of China. I'm guessing at the latest they'll probably go in 2011, the year it is predicted that China will be the biggest economy in the world. But who knows. Who knows.
They might have to wait till I earn my own money, since my sister is now pretty established in Australia so she might not want to go to China and have to cram time into learning Mandarin above her current level. In that case, I'll have to support my sister and I have a feeling that our Cremorne house will be sold, which I don't want since I don't think I could live anywhere else but the Lower North Shore area. Another option would be the rent the vacant rooms in our house to others, which would pretty much support my sister and I let alone any jobs I do; but of course with the jobs we'll have savings for the future.

But, in the end they might not move to China. Haha.

I also recently 'finished' a GBA game called "Summon Nights". It's an awesome game, an RPG with a blacksmith and real-time element to it. Basically, the RPG system is like that of Final Fantasy and other such games, but the battle system is similar to Ragnarok Battle Offline. Also, you get a Summon Monster near the beginning who helps you in battle. Basically, think of King of Fighters when you press AC in some versions which allows you to call your Striker. Sort of like that, but your Summon Monster gets 4 different moves that you can choose from a whole list of moves they'll eventually learn as you fight more monsters.
What I found unique about this game besides the battle system was the weaponry and the forge system. It is basically like being a Blacksmith on Ragnarok Online. As you fight monsters and break crates/etc, you receive material to make different types of weaponry. There's a variety of weaponry, and there are a few classes: Swords, Spears, Axes, Knuckles, Drills.

The game is rather short in terms of the storyline as far as I know of it; it took me around 15-20hrs to get to the credits. However, don't close the game when the credits come. After the credits end, you'll go back into the game and this time more of the Labyrinth is revealed to you past Floor 50. That's when it gets really difficult, and also after the credits it gives you the chance to find and discover more 'techniques' (the ability to forge a certain weapon), and it's said there are around 170 different techniques. You get the basic ones from your Master, who gives you one everytime you have finished making all the techniques on your list. The rarer ones, and the elemental ones are found in the dungeons/etc.

Since I haven't reached the bottom floor of the Labyrinth yet, I have yet to know if there is a further storyline, or if it is just fighting and forging from here on end. If it is, that's alright too. It's kinda fun fighting the enemies and getting to know how to deal with them, and what weapon-type to use/etc. Though if there isn't any further storyline, then for most people this game would be a short, 20-25hr game. Fun and short.

Advice in-game: Only ever buy curry. And don't worry about your money, cause you never use it for anything else since you get all your equipment from the dungeons; plus you have heaps of money on you every time you fight in an area because of all the materials you get to make weaponry that you can sell.
Also, when the Gold Guild guy asks you if you want to sell them 10 iron sabers for 5000 gold, accept it! You'll eventually end up with 5000 gold plus the 10 sabers (even though you give the sabers initially, he'll eventually give you them back)! Plus, Vance's economy will boom and your weaponry will sell for extremely high there.

Another thing, once you beat the game in terms of the storyline, you'll end up with around 40k-50k gold so you can buy heaps of materials from the store in floor one and floor two of Wystern to make stuff if you can't be bothered to go down into the dungeons again.

- 11:28pm -

WOOO! WOOO! WOOO!
Got 10/10 on my ECON1202 Quiz 1 today, and thus completing one of my Goals for 2007.
Very happy. Now I'll be focusing on my FINS1612 quiz next week on the Introduction stuff and Banking Systems. I don't think it'll be too hard, since I generally know most of the stuff from both Year 11 and 12 Economics, Year 11 Business Studies and my own past knowledge from reading financial reports and newspapers all the time.

Very happy indeed today. ^__^

I've found that using Windows Media Player is much easier and breaks down far less than using Real Player Alternative for ABC News Radio. ABC News Radio is something I listen to when I have nothing else to listen to, and it can get quite interesting. I listen to it on the internet though, since I'm always on the computer.
It's got ABC World News Australia, NPR News (American), BBC World News (British World News), Asia-Pacific (Asia-Pacific News) and other bits and peices like the Science news and Tech news/etc. Can get quite interesting at times, and I'm always up-to-date with things happening around the world.
Sometimes on both NPR and BBC News, you get panels as well, which can get interesting as the people there discuss about certain issues.

Goal 1000

2007-03-22T14:49:00.000+11:00

- 2:50pm -

I got $400 in my bank now, or around that much. Tuesday's payment by Centrelink was actually for the last two weeks, so today's payment is for this week and next week. I think the most I've ever had in my bank without taking anything out was $500, so my next goal is to keep $1000 in my bank without taking it out! I should be able to achieve that more or less in the next 3 months.
Though, my parents will probably give me $200 for my birthday, so I might drop that to 2 months. I'll probably get $1000 in my bank by June 1st.

Anyways, I'm off to study more for my QMA quiz that I'll be doing today, tonight.

- 7:30pm -

Well, did my first attempt at QMA Quiz 1. I got 7/10, which is definately not good. I'm pretty annoyed at the fact that I missed, ONCE AGAIN the difference between compound amount and compound interest. I KEEP getting that wrong, ever since Economics in Year 11 and 12. Another question, I wasn't thinking properly so I screwed up the numbers.
However, there was one question that I think is either arbitrary and not written correctly, or, I just don't know how to do it...though I'm sure it wasn't written properly.

I'm going to ask my tutorial tut about the question and see what he thinks of it.
Anyway, I have to wait another hour to attempt my last try at the test, hopefully this time getting 100%.

FINALLY! Not broke!

2007-03-20T18:10:00.000+11:00

- 6:10pm -

Finally, I'm not broke! Centrelink payments are finally coming through of $190.20 every fortnight. $38-$40 will be used in transport fees. So that leaves $120 or so left to generally save up every fortnight.
HOWEVER! I'm still in debt, mainly cause I owe my sister so much money. That's right, I was only staying on top of my bus fares and my Uni equipment + 'accessories' (box of mini-tissues/etc) due to my sister. I think I owe her around $220. I should be able to pay her back after a month. Luckily she doesn't know anything about interest or I'd be dead. XD

Ah well, spending her money means she won't be able to spend it herself. Basically like having money, but not being able to use it.
Man, if she had kept every cent of her earnings from piano contests, photo shoots and Australia's Got Talent thus far, she'd have around $500 by now, not including all the money saved up in Chinese banks by her relatives in China.
Then again, the vast majority of my money is in China as well, where I can't access it till I go there myself and meet my relatives again. I also have a bunch of those Chinese money that has aligned print numbers on them. Real money, and the numbers are one on top of each other. I.e., number 100234350098, 100234350099, 100234350100, 100234350101/etc/etc.

I've found out that the Uni billboards stuck all around the campus are quite useful. There's always heaps of extremely cheap furniture/etc for sale from those moving out of college/etc. If I had my own car, I'd check them out, but right now the moving fees might be a bit much, so I'll stick to local garage sales.
Also, being in the Lower North Shore is fun. Every time white goods day comes (where everybody throws away stuff they don't want like furniture/etc/etc), there's always perfectly good stuff that are thrown away.

My next door neighbours (who lives a wall away from us, cause we live in a semi-house) threw away a huge stack of unbroken wine glasses, as well as bed mattresses/etc that were still in perfect condition. Our other neighbour to the left of us threw away loads of very nice sofa's, chairs, a book shelf and loads of other odds and ends. I was going to get some of the stuff that were still useable (because it started raining), but by the time I had had a shower (from coming home in the rain) and by the time the rain stopped, most of their stuff that were still useable even when soaked in the rain were already taken.

I remember when there'd be a few people in utes that would come up to Allambie Heights on white goods day, and their utes were always filled with heaps of furniture/etc. I'll do that when I live by myself too. Getting perfectly fine stuff, or ones which can be easily fixed/mended for free is awesome. A big tick from me!
Garage sales are also good. Sometimes if you are lucky, you can even get some pretty valuable stuff for very cheap. My father back then when we were about to move to Cremorne where we live now sold many stuff for extremely cheap including:
1. A basketball ring and stand from Rebel sports for $60,
2. A table-tennis table for $60,
3. A huge trampoline for $60,
4. Two samurai swords and a stand for $100,
5. Cricket set from Rebel sports to a kid down the street for $5.

Crazy prices there. Wish we were the buyer, not the sellers. T__T

Ah well. I'll find some good deals too!

Ooo~ Bleach movie trailer. I think I've seen only static images of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N__btDlFZE

- 10:20pm -

Just finished reading Bleach 165, or something close to that. Really intense fighting now. Lots of fun. I really liked the female Arrancar #103 or something like that. The drawing of her was very nice, especially her true form. That was awesome on so many levels.
And yah for Chad!
And that cute little Nell girl is awesome! Maybe in the future she'll fall in love with that 'mischief' Arrancar that appeared the second time they came down to the material world since they both look alike, just the female version is extremely small compared to the male version, and the female version talks alot compared to the male one.

And Grantz sucks. He's like the Hueco Mundo version of the researcher captain in the Gotei 13 in Soul Society (forgot his name).

-12:30am -

You know, I REALLY liked the short manga, Homonculus. It was very interesting of a manga. No fight scenes or great romance or anything. Not about the heart, ego or muscles; all about the head, the brain. It really stimulated my brain.
There IS a scene which looks like a rape scene but in fact turns out not to be, but other than that, it's all about the brain, human thought/etc. Psychology at its height basically for those who don't want to spend 7 years on the subject.
It really made me think. Most Anime have morales and stuff every now and then which you can agree too, or say "hey, that's interesting". But "Homonculus", the manga, makes you think about people's conscious self and unconscious self. How secure they really feel. Who they are? What are they?
Are you just a pile of sugar, changing shape to meet the circumstances? Are you a robot, someone who has formed a hard, cold barrier over themselves? Or maybe you're water, collapsing as soon as you are poked?

It's interesting, really. Of course, it isn't advised to do what the guy here did and at the start of the manga, it could be 'slightly' gory when the 'drilling' begins, but other than that it's a very interesting manga. The artwork isn't that good in terms of style, and one of the guy's looks kinda gayish, but once again, it's the written text that matters, not the pictures.

I give this short 7 volume manga a 10/10!

Fashion

2007-03-19T20:02:00.000+11:00

- 7:02pm -

I'm having fun drawing different clothing for the picture I've been drawing. All I do is place a sheet of paper over the original drawing, then draw the clothes on like that. So far I've drawn a business-woman outfit, an almost lolita outfit, and a pretty nice robotics outfit.
I really like the lolita outfit, and parts of the robotics one, but I need to find some references to texture designs and details for certain clothing.

I guess it's back to cutting out images from magazines for me again.
I'll start practicing and experimenting with hairstyles once I run out of ideas for clothing for her.

Oh yea, and I'm broke again. I found out about this awesome Japanese drink that I think I mentioned before (not too sure). It's awesome; and it's the same as the one in Rahxephon. Really nice drink, and I love the unique-ness of the marble in the drink.
It's called Ramune. Go buy it at Miracle underneath Ernst & Young building thingy in Town Hall/Central. They sell 3 types of Ramune there, one which isn't see-through, unfortunately.
Rattling the marble is fun...and the first time I tried opening it, crap spilled everywhere because I didn't open it properly. I was supposed to hold the 'pusher' thingy down and keep it down whilst I pop the marble inside.

GODIVA VOTE!

2007-03-18T10:19:00.000+11:00

- 10:20pm -

Just need 3 more subjects to prepare for, for this week. I feel really motivated today, don't know why though.

When I woke up at 7:30pm, I panicked after I woke up a second time at 8:30pm cause I thought it was Monday. It took me quite a while before I realised it was Sunday. In fact, if my sister wasn't talking to my father about going to a friend's party at 1pm that my father accepted (which he wouldn't do on a school day), I would have still thought it was Sunday.

Maybe that, plus the fact that I really enjoyed drawing yesterday night and early this morning is placing this motivation, plus the fact that Microeconomics never has a lot of review questions to do, because most of the time is spent listening to those who have discussion questions due.

And I'm collecting lots of Clover Pins on Gaia, cause it's the first St. Patrick's day that there are event items, and because pins are always good since they don't block other clothing or accessories and don't take up too much of an avatar so it can be used in almost all outfits.
Wahahaha, I'll buy heaps when they hit 100g each by buying them in the Wanted area for 50g each!

Once my parents go to work today, I'll scan in the artwork I did early today and yesterday. I really like it, though I didn't draw the hair, clothing or hands and feet yet. I'm not going to draw the hair or clothing until after I scan it in, resize it, change the color so the scanner won't detect it; then re-ink it. Afterwards I'll use tracing paper to draw in different types of hairstyles and clothing, so basically I'll be able to practice drawing clothes and hair on one girl and compare them to see which is the best; or maybe even choose them all!
She can be a live mannequin. XP

I also got REALLY confused. Everything was pretty easy and I only needed references for the ass, because I didn't really know what it looked like when a girl was sitting down. Couldn't use myself as an example since my pelvis isn't as wide and jutted as a female's is, and my ass isn't as big either.
Another thing that took a HUGE amount of time was the panties. I've never drawn panties and after trying to search for references that suited the posture the girl I was drawing was in, I just failed miserably. There was so many problems with what I drew. First, I drew what I thought it looked like, which turned out to be what it looked like when a girl is standing up, so I had to change that part.
Then I found out there was a LINE on girls' panties, but from all my references, they all placed this line in different areas. Some placed the line near the butt-hole, others placed it in the middle of the vagina, others placed it inbetween the ass and the vagina. I was so confused. @__@ I eventually lowered the line for my one, but it still looks kinda weird like her panties are inflated.

Plus...I still don't understand why panties bulge out even though there's nothing there! I'm sure all the girls I used a references for the panties don't all have penises....>.> Why the BULGE!?!?!? @__@;;

Bulge.

T__T

Anyways, off to take a shower since my father's finished mopping with some crazy smelly detergent the kitchen floor, so I can safely go to the shower without dying from intoxication and other horrors.
Then it's back to prep work.

- 2:45pm -

Woo! Finished two subjects, two more to go, then study all the way for QMA before watching Australia's Got Talent on Channel 7 at 6:30pm till 7:30pm with my mobile phone ready to vote for my sister's teacher's group!

- 3:45pm -

Scanned the Work In Progressive #1 for Siyu. Haven't finished the hands or feet yet, but besides that everything else is ready for the initial inking.

Now...could anyone please tell me whether the line on her panties is correctly drawn?

- 6:24pm -

Almost Australia's Got Talent on Channel 7, and I've got a new goal.

New Goal: Save up $200 in the next half a year to purchase Art Reference and Art Lesson books.

- 7:45pm -

HOMG! The performances today for the first round of the Semi-Finals was absolutely AWESOME! I loved Kerry's performance a lot too! Very nicely planned out.

SOOOOOOO vote for them! SMS "GODIVA" to 1975 5555! Don't forget that's 5 5's.

And I can't believe it! They are only allowing 2 people to go into the Finals per round; the one person that is chosen by the judges (this time the pianist) and the one chosen by the audience.

I REALLY hope enough people vote for my sister next Sunday. T__T
Plus, this time it was really weird. They had 15 people who were supposed to perform, but when they got to Melbourne, the judges decided right there to only allow 10 people to perform, so 5 people, including those 20 or so Irish dancers were kicked out without even getting a chance.
I feel so sorry for them, they were up there waiting as well. That must have sucked big time!

Stupid Rain!

2007-03-17T15:53:00.000+11:00

- 4:00pm -

That's one evil rain. It was all sunny and all with a bit of cloud when I left my house to go to Mosman to buy:
- A Pen
- My bus passes
- OfficeWorks Printing

The Printing cost me $22.05, and took around half an hour or more because the lady didn't really know how to use the printer properly. Luckily half-way through the printing, one of the other staff members suggested using Tray 1, and it all worked out from there.

Though, as soon as I stepped out of OfficeWorks, BOOM! It started pouring like crazy! I obviously got wet, but luckily and thankfully one of the staff members gave me a plastic sheet to protect my paper, and luckily I brought my bag with me too.

I was planning on watching "The King and the Clown" at 2pm today, but I guess I can't anymore since my parents will be back and my father would probably ask me a billion questions about how I obtained a DVD they didn't have. Especially a Korean one. Haha.

After all that, I've ended up with only $35 left in my pocket. T__T Ah well, at least I'm not broke!

- 4:25pm -

HOMG! Look! Found the YouTube for my sister's teacher's performance in the quarter-finals!
GODIVA Performance

Gonna go find more!

The Excelsiors!
Awesome talent these two, and they were both performing in the week that my sister did, so she met them in the quarter-finals and the semi-finals.

- 10:30pm -

Ooo. Milo powder + ice-cream is pretty good.