Temporal Paralysis

I find myself buying myself these products, on All Hallow’s Eve.

Apart from the fact that Hinagiku lost the semi-final vote to Hiiragi Tsukasa (HINAGIKU-SAN!!!…..), I’m delighted to buy good shows that I find it worthwhile to watch (and rewatch).

Surprisingly, the guy over at Ani-Play also imported an original edition (not the F░▒▓ed-Up Robotech series) Super Dimensional Frontier Macross. It’s a good tie-in with the recent conclusion of Macross Frontier, so fans who’s feeling a bit empty can shell out some money on this series. (Note: not for casual fans, the price tag is easily justifiable for 2½ sets of a Beat Blades Haruka figurine.)

Now, to find more budget for my first DSLR… shall it be a Canon EOS 450D or Sony α300?

  
There is a feeling of LOLz when I watched the live-action. Actually, I’m surprised there is a tribute album for the manga. Like, "Whoa!"

I’m pretty much indifferent towards the new season line-up of anime shows. Not only I’m sensing déjà vu in many of the shows, I felt like I’ve seen it all.

The only anime shows I’m keeping up with, are the ones that’s been showing on okto, the new free-to-air channel launched recently. A lot of fanfare has generated within the fan sphere regarding a certain mecha series, which by the way, I’ve watched the first season, and I pretty much foresaw how the show will progress.

So without further ado, shows that I’m taking on, and my opinions on the rest of the world:

Toradora!

Admittedly, the only reason I watched Toradora!, was that it was one of the few shows that got aired in our local station (beat that, U.S. of A!). And indeed, it’s an endearing show (albeit with ultra-tsun madness).

What made me liked the show more, was that amidst the chaos from the relationship between Ryuuji and Taiga (which I suspect goes along the lines of Shakugan no Shana, teenage bubbly pop version), there is a sense of sympathy between the two. Of course, Ryuuji would have to tend to Aisaka more than vice-versa, but I guess that’s what most standard Japanese anime/manga template would go for: lonely child in a big house (sounds like Nagi from Hayate the Combat Butler), misunderstanding of relationships (School Rumble), and, not forgetting, the voice actress link (Rie Kugumiya in Zero’s Familiar and Shakugan no Shana) etc. It’s a standard light-fare, yet likeable, rom-com show.

Skip Beat!

Now, I’m not really sure of getting myself into a centrally-shoujo show (genre tropic thunders ahoy!), but I dig into the premise: girl got dumped by actor-boyfriend, gets revenge by signing onto rival acting agency, and rise up to overthrow said boyfriend. Actually, it’s a refreshing take on most shoujo anime (not along the blurry lines of hot yaoi action pretty boys in questionable poses).

Kyoko is hopelessly in her belief of revenge (even if her agency finds an interest out of her pursuit). In fantasy, I would’ve dig her for her brevity (because in reality, there isn’t). Character design is very shoujo fare, yet the comedy is laughingly laudable in its timed SD forms (it’s a complement, damn wordplay). It’s not over-the-top, because the lead character is over-the-top. It’s like seeing a honest-to-goodness country girl found out that she’s being played with. It’s like Kannagi (the Tamil epic, not the anime show!), but less mythos and missing, err, chest.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty much scrimping through life. Not because I’ve already pre-registered for the upcoming Anime Festival Asia. And definitely not because I’m scrimping through savings for my first DSLR purchase.

It’s because I have started working in the real world.

NS is over for me, and suddenly, the stream of income I used to enjoy as a medic has suddenly stopped. It then rained on me to get my behind off my seat and start looking for jobs. A hikkikomori I wasn’t going to be.

I’ve received an SMS regarding my pre-order of Aria: The Animation by Nozomi Entertainment. Looking at my bank balance, it’s not looking nice after all. (By the way, support the industry by buying your favourite series.)

I’m fascinated by Mirror’s Edge, a futuristic, Big Brother-esque, first-person action game. (No, it is not an FPS game, it’s an FPA game!) I’ve been hyped by game magazines I read, and although it’s released on the gaming consoles at a much earlier date, I find no qualms about getting the PC version in January next year.

The problem with me, buying Mirror’s Edge, is that its publisher is EA Games — now Public Gaming Enemy #1. Their CEO’s labelling of their potential customers — who really don’t want encumbered DRMs in their computers — as "pirates," has really put off a lot of gamers. A lot of good games are published by EA Games, and their CEO is telling us that we are "pirates" for protesting against DRM.

This smacks downright arrogance like a stinking Swiss cheese. (No offense to any Swiss readers here.) Legitimate customers have reasons to hate DRM: they make purchased games look more like "an overpriced rental," when the idea is that once you buy a game, you have the right over however you want to use the game. People do not want to find out that years from now, the game that you bought can no longer play because the central server — DRM so-called "phones home" to them to verify that your copy of your game is a legitimate, and not a pirated copy — has either shut down or moved their operations elsewhere.

Similarly, the upcoming Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 will also feature DRM, and being an avid follower of both the Tiberium and Red Alert universes, I’m saddened that they decided to nix upstanding users like me out of their games.

Consider anything that is touched by EA Games, demonic entities.

Today was a very silly day. I had planned to come down to my station to return back my issued items (a process known as "de-kit"), signed some clearance forms and get back my IC. All of this was to be done in the morning and be done quickly. What ensued was a long wait that took the entire day to complete the whole process.

Anyway, the de-kit process is a simple affair: return back all of my No. 3 working uniform plus badges, my issued items (required for chemical accident turnouts — thankfully I didn’t have to —), and other miscellaneous. After completing that process, they told me, in a rather apt manner, that personnels ORD-ing on that particular day (today was my ORD date — WOO HOO! —) can only be issued back their pink IC after 5 p.m.

So I returned back home to take a rest, and returned back around 4:30 p.m. to collect back, only to find out that my platoon mates who worked in another place got back theirs earlier. Ah, such is the <censored>-up National Service.

Looking back, I finally realized that 2 years of my life had gone.

For the past 2 years of my life, I served the nation’s call for service in the uniformed organization. I had attended the basic training, made friends with lots of my platoon mates, my fire station colleagues and trainees. I had also suffered under the hands of the strict discipline; made to complete various endless punishments; standing by for emergency activation; phoning back during all those automated recall & mobilization calls; endure the various behaviours and attitudes, both from my colleagues and superiors; enjoyed the various calls I attended to; and not more importantly, enjoyed my time serving NS.

I’ve seen all kinds of human condition as a medic following the ambulance: road traffic accidents, suicides, fall from heights, cardiac arrests, and all other conditions that will gross out normal people. I don’t fancy the retarded calls: prank calls, drunkards, keng (feigned sickness) and others. Life as a medic is an experience that can only happen once in a Singaporean man’s lifetime, and it’d be something I’ll hold dear to.

I guess National Service isn’t really a waste of time: for guys like me, it’s a growing up process, something that they need to go through, because for a country like Singapore, its people will be the sole defender of their country. It sounds like a propaganda, but otherwise, my other retort would be: the government is giving you 2 years, with allowances and something to work for. You can also spend the time in NS to contemplate on your future — if you had not done so —, to think of what you’re gonna do in life. Using this time was something I had used, to retrospect, introspect and contemplate about my future.

In the end, the O.R.D. date has come. My time in NS is over. Now, the big future awaits those who dare to dream, and opportunity, along with time, waits for no man.

Now listening to: Ai Otsuka ~ Tears

There was a tinge of sadness (NOT!) when I finally parted ways with my old PSP-1004, which had been with me for the past 2 years. I finally decided to sell it off, because the analog nub has become cranky, and overall, I had no more interest in playing anymore PSP games; I prefer watching my videos on it instead.

So when I spotted this article about the "refresh of the Sony PSP," I had to concur with the writer.

Overall, even though my former NS-mates are heads and heels over their shiny PSP-2000, I had lost interest in the platform, particularly because I was less convinced that the PSP will be viable in the future.

The PSP platform hasn’t made any significant progress over the past year, sans God of War or Patapon. Too few outstanding games stand out for the PSP platform, compared to the plethora of games for the DS platform. I guess the PSP tried its best to be both a gaming handheld and a multimedia player, but convergence is something that normal people had trouble adopting.

I had been eyeing on the Nintendo DS Lite (not to be confused with her original fat sister) since the game "The World Ends With You" debuted in the middle of last year. Admittedly I will lose out on the fabulous video features that the PSP carried, but overall, the large catalogue of games and the cult following that followed the DS has been attracting me since.

Of course, I can either wait for the PSP-3000 or the NDSi, but I prefer to get my hands on either the Canon 450D or the Sony α300. There’s lots of events I want to cover for this and next month.

(Courtesy of EEEPCnews.de)

This so-called ‘ad’ was spotted on a website I visited occasionally, and what made my day was a gross attempt by the same company that trade barbs with another company, albeit on a different product class. Silly ASUS, you have to jailbait yourselves into another debate.

Care to have a chat with our leaders? (Who conveniently disparages any defamations by full-frontal defamation suit assault?)

Don’t you love Ars Technica? They’re getting better at simplifying things in a rational, yet stern manner. This time, they’ve highlighted a flaw within the TCP/IP system — pretty much the entire Internet infrastructure system — that can cripple target machines even after the attack has been completed. [Article: Researchers disclose deadly cross-platform TCP/IP flaws, Ars Technica; New Denial-of-Service Attack Is a Killer, Slashdot]

This does not bode well for the rest of the Internet community. Fortunately, the people that discovered the flaw has made attempts in contacting the various hardware, software security and associated vendors, although their voices are relatively mute. I want to highlight this news because 2 months back, there was a big news regarding another flaw in the DNS system that is also potentially disturbing. It’s a food for thought, and an opportunity for those pursuing in the line of systems security. (Just don’t throw yourselves into the arms of Cisco, will ya? *wink wink*)