Halfway there

I am currently blogging from Abu Dhabi Airport. The 7 hour flight since 9pm to 4am has really made my feet sore.

Damn, I regret playing Para the night before I left.

Anyway, I've met 4 other first-years and 1 senior, who happened to be the housemate of the guy who gave me the briefing last Monday. Haha... what luck.

I just checked the exchange rate and apparently, Saudi currency is nearly 1:1 to Malaysian currency, with the Saudi currency value slightly higher. RM53 for AED50. Things at the airport are expensive as expected. AED20 for a burger set from Burger King. I just bought a 7-Up since I was only thirsty. The flight provided more food than drinks.

Well, another hour more and I'll be boarding the flight to Dublin!

Over and out.

See y'all again soon!

Well, in less than 17 hours, I shall be embarking on my journey to the land potatoes and leprechauns - Ireland! Going there will mark the beginning of my battle which will last for at least 10 years to come.

But never worry, for I shall never forget the family and friends who've helped me till this day.

I just wanna say "thank you" and "see you again soon" to all the people whom I shall be leaving behind.

However, know that this is not an eternal farewell (Hence, see you again soon). I will return in two and a half year's time. Some of you may have left by then too, but I believe that since we've crossed paths at least once in life, I'm sure we will meet again soon.

My first few weeks will probably be pretty hectic, so I may not have that much time to update my blog, Facebook or even online on MSN. But I will do so once I have settled down...probably. :P

Well then, farewell, my friends. Till the day we meet again.

Yesterday and Today

HAH! Impressive how two neighbouring days can be the complete opposite of each other! 26 August 2009 is arguably one of the best days I've had this year, whereas 27 August 2009 is perhaps one of the lousiest days of my life.

26 August 2009
Ragnarok was progressing well. I've already completed the basic shape of the sword. And I finished that in 3 hours. The only thing left was to wrap a layer of paper around it to hold the foam and paint it. But I had an appointment that day, so I had to save the wrapping for the next day. Oh well, I made great progress that day. A whopping 37%. Pure estimation.

At 6pm, Kazuki came to fetch me and we went to Town Steamboat Restaurant (or something like that). They said it was a farewell party for me and I'm really grateful.

We took our sits and started chatting while waiting for Max. I learned quite a lot about them. Kazuki actually has a lot of ties with the CF committee. That is seriously something. He is also the founder of a new otaku group called Malaysia Cosplay Toshokan. However, Michelle is the president since he doesn't want to lead. And Sumire is Director and the editor of their online magazine.

And here's something. They're planning an event in Time Square, Penang next year with the help of Animax and some CF committee members. Sadly, I can't help or even attend since I'll be gone next year. Sigh...

Max came to join us a little late, but once he arrived, boy did we make a lot of noise. Max brought us more stories of his 5-week stay in Japan. He got a FREE air ticket to Japan. The stories were seriously seriously epic. That whole country is twisted, I tell you! Anytime y'all wanna hear some of the stories, just ask.

I received the uncut version of our video too. And they're planning to remake that video and title it "How the video should have been". So, any cosplayers out there! Lend your support please!

Finally, Max dropped me home. I realised that he lives VERY close to me! I can't believe he lived a stone's throw away and I never met him till last Sunday! It really SUCKS to meet new and potentially close friends this late! UGH!!!

And I forgot my camera!! :(

But yeah, that day was excellent. Sigh... now there are times I wish I wasn't going to Ireland. Tch! Dammit! Look forward, Move forward!

27 August 2009
Let me start by saying @##@!%$$&^$%$@$@$ WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS GODDAMN DAY ABOUT!? FROM WHEN I WAKE UP TILL THIS MOMENT WAS SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT AND BLOODY HELL MORE GOD DAMN SHIT!!

Ahem...

10am, woke up feeling sore all over for no apparent reason. Struggled to get out of bed but couldn't until 11am.

11am, cousin came to visit, which means noisy morning. I had a foul mood so I just left him and my lil bro alone to play, replying with grunts whenever they called for me.

11.30am, started working on Ragnarok. Thanks to my aching arms and legs, the wrapping sucked. I redid it 3 times and still didn't get what I wanted.

1pm, got a somewhat satisfying result at last, only to ruin in after gluing the wrapping paper on by folding it a little. I was already too lazy, so I didn't bother fixing it. Then, I thought, "Ah well, going to Pikaby's place later. Things might not be so bad after this."

3pm, arrived at Pikaby's place and immediately started off with Wii Sports Resort and I got to try the new Wii Motion Plus. Not that it felt any different, but supposedly the Wii-Mote becomes more accurate. And of course, I got owned bad.

4pm, mom SMS-ed me and told me to come home. "WHAT!?" I had to go and pray at my grandfather's grave. It had been raining the past few days, so we couldn't go. So, I reluctantly accepted it and went home. And you know what happened? IT RAINED!! Halfway home, it rained! And stupid ol' me didn't think of turning back because all I could think of was "Finally, I can go pray at grandfather's grave before I leave!" Sad, but true.

4.30pm, got home and my mom told me, "Heavy rain. Cannot go already. And don't you even think of going back there in this weather!" And all hell broke lose in my head. That was the last straw. I went straight to my room and just continued my futile attempts on completing Ragnarok.

7pm, at dinner, my mom saw my sulking face and gave me a lecture, "It's not like we did it on purpose. We didn't know either. Besides, you have chosen to go overseas, so you should have been prepared to part ways with your friends." I understood clearly. I wasn't even blaming her or anyone except myself. "Why didn't I turn back when it started raining? WHY!? I'm about to leave the country for 2.5 years and I spent 1 MEASLY HOUR with my best friend!! WHAT THE GODDAMN BLOODY HELL!!!!???"

10pm, cooled down a little. Started settling registration things and found a lot of troublesome procedures that have no explanation. Stupid website just leads me in circles. Site A>Site B>Site C>Site A>Site B>Site C and so on and so forth.

Sigh... I'm still really sore about Pikaby. He'll be leaving for KL tomorrow until Sunday, so I won't be seeing him at all for a very long time. I pray that our paths will cross again soon. Or I'll be forced to rake up my phone bill with another 2 hour call! Hahaha.... Sigh.............

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better. Kazuki is supposed to show me that wig shop after all.

Backache! Backache!

Goddamshit! (Guess the reference)

My back hurts! It's either because I'm getting old, or because I've been bending down for 3 hours straight, almost completely ignorant of the passing of time while carefully crafting out Ragnarok. And can you believe it took me that long to just finish one side of the blade? Now, I have to make the other tonight. Phew... another 3 hours.

Well, I now have more time to prepare Ragnarok since I'm almost done packing. The only things I haven't thrown in are my shoes, laptop, DS and chargers. Oh, and also the documents I'm gonna bring over.

As for the outfit, I'm leaving that to my aunt. The costume this time is very much easier so she said she would help me make it. My main problem now is the hair, but my mom is helping me find a wig. Yes, my mom is actually directly supporting me this time! Hmm... does that imply something?

Oh, Kazuki just messaged me. Yay! Outing tomorrow! I wonder who's going?

Cosplay Video Shoot Take Two

Well, that was pretty sudden. I received an SMS from Kazuki to redo the video last night during family dinner. There had been an error with the video we made (aside from the lousy quality). They needed full-body view and what we gave them was mostly half-body view.

It's a good thing I didn't washed the costume yet. I went and dug out the outfits from the laundry and quickly hung them to dispel the mild stench.

Half the day was pretty gloomy with rainfall from 9am till 4pm. The video shoot was scheduled to begin at 5pm. Good thing it stopped before that or the pitter patter of raindrops would really ruin the sound.

Ah, yes. We couldn't get the Equator today, so no spacious soundproof room for us. BOO!!

Anyway, today, we had more people. Besides the 4 of us from yesterday, we had Eric, Alvin, Gim, Ruben (my cousin), Max and his 2 sisters. The additional cosplayers were my cousin, Gim and Max. The other 4 were the camera crew.

This time, we had other problems. The high-definition camera from yesterday was no longer there and as I have mentioned before, no spacious, soundproof room. AND we had to take of our shoes, so a complete display of our cosplay was not possible.

We first went to a Japanese learning centre in Tanjung Tokong. It was still a pretty good place and we had a bigger green screen today, so we could remove all the background stuff. However, the place was borrowed on a whim and we had to leave at 8pm. We were making too much noise anyway. We then went to Kazuki's place to finish up.

There, we finally finished the the video and made a lot of improvements. Max was a good director and the cameramen were pretty helpful. However, me and Max agreed that the work was terrible, since we weren't in character at all since we were only given lines but not the story. Animax wrote the script for us, by the way. So we were all just dummies reading lines with barely any emotion or action. Yes, it's still bad.

After all that, we were all starving. Somebody gave the idea to use hunger as a driving force. "Finish the video properly, then we eat!" And went to eat we did, at Sri Ananda Bahwani...in cosplay. Surprisingly, not many people were bothered (Well, some were in the beginning). And I think I heard some kids scream "Hey, mom! Cosplay!") The Chicken Mahsala Chapati was nice. Max recommended it since I didn't know what to pick.

There, we chatted for a long time, listening to Max's trip to Japan. My Japanese teacher had told me many stories of Japan, but from the viewpoint of a businessman. So it was pretty nice listening to stories of Japan from an otaku. And it's a whole new world compared to Malaysia.

We keep saying that anime in Japan would obviously be of a whole different level. What we didn't know was how big the difference was. In an RPG, we'd be around lvl 5. Japan would be about lvl 90+. Here's something. Otakus have a hierarchy in Japan. I would be somewhere on 2nd or 3rd lowest level. Sigh...

Oh, and about that guy Max. Remember the Count Dracula dude during Disted Ball 2008? That was him! YES!! He decided to go with a bang for his final year in Disted. He is now a home tutor, and aiming for that job in Japan. He's already very close to achieving that dream.

After dinner and chatting, we took a group pic and finally said our goodbyes. I really made some good friends these 2 days. It's really really unfortunate I'll be leaving before I could really get to know them. And can you believe it!? They said they were gonna do a farewell outing for me on Tuesday! I only met them for like... 9 hours.

And once again, my cousin has demonstrated an incredible skill to make friends wherever he goes. I'm sure Frog remembers that very well!

Sigh... well, better continue packing. And I have a briefing tomorrow.

Cosplay Video Shoot

Unbelievably, I received the invite last night at 12am. Quite a lot of my costume was already ruined and obviously, there wasn't time to remake or even patch them. But since Kazuki ensured me that it was fine as long as it's still pretty obvious that I'm cosplaying, it's acceptable.

There were supposed to be 6 people, but in the end, only 4 turned up. Kazuki, Sumire, Michelle and me. We waited for the other 2 to arrive but they ditched us! So, 4 of us had to be the cast and crew. And since we did at Equator School of Arts, we also "forced" some of the receptionists and staff to be the background characters.

As for the place we borrowed, Michelle had earlier obtained permission to use one of the rooms. It was pretty spacious and it was soundproof. All the noise we made inside wasn't even audible from the outside and vice versa.

The video camera we used wasn't professional quality but it was still HD and pretty high-end. The recordings were beautiful. Detailed facial features, clear voice recording, quick button reaction etc. It's a darn shame we made something very worthy of the title "EPIC PHAIL x 20".

The video was bad. Bloopers were funny, but in every way, it was humiliating to every otaku and cosplayer out there. Angry mobs would be chasing us out of the solar system if they ever saw that video.

But it was fun. I enjoyed the time we had, even though what we produced was "ughblarghgabahharvecrustchstorgleflorgenshtivelrespah..."

I didn't get any pics though, because I didn't bring a camera. It was unfortunate that Migryl and Tsukino came down with a high fever (confirmed not H1N1), so they couldn't join us. And since it was pretty last minute, I couldn't get anyone else, not even Wei Yun.

I'm hoping to meet them again. Well then, family dinner calls.

X the Complete Series

I was thinking of watching this after I return, but since I had time last night, I thought I'd watch a few episodes first (5 actually).

Despite the average ratings it got, it managed to captivate me from the first episode (known as Episode 0). There, they introduced the whole main cast to you through the eyes of a dreamseer. The bad things is, it roughly tells you what's gonna happen too, so... I suggest skipping this episode and going straight to episode 1.

Introducing Kamui, a super-powerful, yet arrogant, selfish and anti-social teen. He is cold and very hot-tempered. He'll pretty much attempt to kill anyone just because the person invaded his privacy. And someone like him actually holds the fate of the world in his hands. One where he joins the Dragons of Heaven and save the world, and one where he joins the Dragons of Earth and destroy the world.

Kamui holds two futures, and even the greatest of dreamseers and fortune tellers don't know which future he will choose. What's more, there are supposedly two Kamuis, so what will happen from now on will be pretty interesting.

Another one of CLAMP's works that touches the occult, space and time. Oh, and although not as much as Code Geass, the storyline is pretty much continuous. The next episode always picks up from where the previous episode ended. So, this is pretty gripping too.

Kick

Kick kick kick kick.

You have been pwned the moment you read this!

Please join the forum

Like video games? Like Nintendo? Like Nintendo fans? Like jokes, puns etc lame and corny as they may be?

No?

Well, WHO CARES!? Just click the link under 'Visit Here' and register as a member of the Kirby 5 Star forum!

Stay active and you might just get a present from me! Be inactive and you'll get a different *dark aura* "present" *dark aura* instead!

Kare Kano Kanon

Before I go to bed, I feel like promoting this song. Most of you will probably bash this song, but I like it. Credit goes to Pikaby for introducing this impressive piece of work.

Note: I'm referring to the song, and not the video.



This is my first time watching the video too. To think Idolmasters took it up, but i guess they do have lots of ties with Taiko no Tatsujin. I didn't want to give y'all the Taiko video since the drumming would kinda ruin the music. But if you insist, here's the video.

Die by Oni!!

Endless Eight is OVER!!

OH YEAH!!! AT LAST!!!

What a great idea Kyoto Animation came up with. The Endless Eight arc. Repeating one episode 8 times with some wardrobe changes and calling it 8 different episodes is an aBsOLuuTeLY ingenious idea!! NOT!!!

It was annoying as hell!! In the beginning, I actually thought I was watching the wrong episode! Then, I redownloaded and then realised it WAS the correct episode.

WWWWHHHHAAAATTT!?

I understand that you're trying to make us feel the gravity of the situation they (Kyon and co.) were in, but they had little to no recollection of the repetition of events. WE, the viewers, DO!!

Twice or 3 times would have been enough. I mean, telling us that they had repeated the same thing 15,532 times would have been shocking enough...probably.

Sigh... Oh well... let's just see what they come up with next.

No GACC for me

Just when I was about to win my parents' permission to go down to Melaka for GACC 2009, H1N1 just had to go and kill someone in Melaka last week. If I weren't so busy completing my video games and preparing for my studies in Ireland, I'd be forming a "We Hate H1N1" club.

I was looking forward to meeting my fellow CF forum acquaintances, and entering the Taiko and cosplay competition. Darn. Fine. 2.5 years later, as long as H1N1 or whatever disease don't wipe out humanity, I will attend GACC and other anime cons (hopefully, they fall after exams and during the holidays.)

Final Fantasy XII... Completed

At last... after more than a year and a half, I've completed the latest installment of the Final fantasy mainstream series (since FFXIII isn't out yet, it doesn't count).

Ever since that fateful day of 4 December 2006 when I encountered that glitch which prevented me from going anywhere beyond Phon Coast, I've gone through hell and back searching for a way to continue. It took me nearly 8 months before I finally gave up. But then, thanks to my cousin's efforts too (since he had the same problem), he found someone with a disc that didn't have this glitch. With that, I was able to complete the game.

Now, I can erase FFXII off the list of "unfinished business before I leave for Ireland". Man, that was a mouthful.

Well, just like the other gamers have said, FFXII is a serious disappointment when it comes to storyline. It's not like it's not good, something just didn't feel right, like you never really got the story.

The following things are what I found wrong with the FFXII storyline:
1. Most boss battles have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the storyline. Some random super-powerful monster just pops up and forces you to fight.

2. Vaan really lacks a role in the story. Everyone of the main party and some of the side characters had a much larger presence in the story than Vaan (except Penelo). Balthier would have been a better main protagonist than Vaan.

However, I do love the new battle system. It gives you a stronger sense of urgency in battle since it's now real-time. If the game utilised Kingdom Hearts' battle system, it would have been more fun, but it would have been too easy. If they had followed the traditional FF system, it would be a little boring after some time. So, I'd have to say... NICE CHOICE!

And here's something for Cubix. Before you go to Sky Fortress Bahamut, make sure you stock up on healing items, set healing gambits for everyone and get some good armour. I didn't see "Game Over", but try fighting enemies that keep coming after you while you have only 300 HP left and inflicted with Blind, Silence, Sap/Poison and Slow.

Well, time to finish Devil Summoner 2 now!

38 to go!

Guess what the title is referring to.

Anyway, Popular is suddenly selling anime cheap today. Well... not exactly very cheap for those already cheap, but for the box sets that cost like RM69.90 for 25 episodes, the prices were significantly dropped to RM25.90!

Tight schedule!

After today, I will no longer have work. But I'll still be busy. With 63 episodes of D.Gray Man, 3 volumes of .hack, Final Fantasy XII, Devil Summoner 2 and Tales of Legendia to finish, things'll be pretty hectic for me since I have to complete all that while learning how to cook and sew and prepare a cosplay to be brought to Ireland. I have my eyes set on Nikaidou Akira but even that is unconfirmed since I have yet to finish the whole series.

It's a damn good thing most of my friends are already down in KL or somewhere else! Yes, I blame you people!