To think about ever blogging on cosplay used to be a far-fetched idea, but I decided to have AFA 08 a go and what an experience it was 
Me and WJ went on a camera frenzy, capturing almost all the cosplayers we met as we wandered around aimlessly before the May’n concert. We were quite late though, for most cosplayers would have already went away from the main cosplay event about 2 hours back. Nevertheless, we did pick up some great looking ones…
*spilt coffee* Final Fantasy!
Economics stuff wasn’t really what I have in mind to kickstart my blog again, but I thought (honestly) that this may at least get some readers to my blog.
AMD, the perennial underdog to giants Intel, just posted a straight 7th month loss, accumulating more than 1 billion dollars in losses and resulting in a change in leadership from Hector Ruiz to Dirk Meyer. Hector Ruiz was the one who led AMD to the heights of the Athlon first 64-bit, integrated-memory-controller fame, only to see it crumble now, because of a controversial, expensive buyout of graphics company ATI and the late release of new processors (Barcelona) which churn out lower-than-expected performance. Dirk Meyer sure do have an uphill task on his shoulders. But to any fanboy onlooker yearning for AMD to pick itself up again and provide real competition to Intel’s domination, the things AMD need to lookfor now cannot have been much clearer. As someone who hasn’t got a formal education in economics but is somewhat aware of its dynamics, I thought the following can help AMD get out of the blackhole it has gotten itself into.
Quite true to fans’ deliberation and speculation, HEART STATION was released on March 19th 2008 in Japan. Which naturally means this post comes in awfully late for a review on Utada Hikaru’s latest album, but I’m gonna get over with this anyway.
Before the album was released, 4 songs were pre-released as singles. I had to re-evaluate of my allegiance for Utada (as a fan, duh) when I first listened to them (they didn’t struck me as impressive), but slowly, I grew along with that Utada-style that has captivated legions of international fans – interesting mix of Pop, RnB and electronica coupled with vocal superiority.
Subsequently came the thought on how the 4 songs would complement each other in a full album, and it didn’t take long for them to be furnished in a nicely-balanced album which sticks to a central theme of life and the world, and most importantly… it sounds pleasant to the ears. However, this album is everything but an evolutionary step. While the previous album ULTRA BLUE (which I enjoyed a lot) encompasses songs of vastly varying styles (from ethereal Pop to beaty RnB to strictly electronica to slow ballads), HEART STATION is more laid back and seems more like an album stuck between the land and sea. It’s still a great album worthy to be on Utada’s discography, nonetheless…
1. Fight The Blues (4.5 out of 5)
What’s up with the word “Blue”? It’s everywhere in Utada’s world. But none of that thought came when the song started. This has to be an exceptional OP song. It is strictly synthesized, and is masterly crafted at it. The song started off with much energy, then drops a bit before springing back with the excellent bridge, where Utada seems to be in suspense amidst a captivating echoic breathing background. The chorus was not that impressive but it was a great album opener. And oh, most fans would remember the song Exodus while listening to this one.
2. HEART STATION (4 out of 5)
The album’s named after it…probably for a reason. Maybe it is the most meaningful of them all lyrically, I’m not sure. For someone who appreciates most of J-music by its face value, I’ve learned that the metaphorical nature of the lyrics culminated in the mysterious but mildly hopeful ambience emanating from my speakers. In fact, HEART STATION’s music video means a lot by portraying a solitary Utada in a train of black human figures : either the song is strictly for the lonely soul yearning for that special someone, or it’s for someone who has fallen asleep at Boon Lay and just ended up at Pasir Ris station. Nice and rememberable chorus, by the way.
3. Beautiful World (5 out of 5)
Beautiful World is notable for being the experimental song. The nice experimental song. Its predecessor is BLUE in ULTRA BLUE, and both of them share this unique natural aura that makes you feel out of this world. In the case of Beautiful World, one would feel himself running through a lush sunny field of green grass, but nearing the chorus, dark clouds start to take over signifying the darker times in life, before they disperse and hence, life returns to normal. To portray this, Utada unleashes the whole range of vocals and left listeners in awe. Seriously. There are intriguing highs and lows throughout, and Utada hits them all perfectly. The instrumentals in the background are in total tandem with her already-beautiful vocals and so, this sums up yet another great pop song.
MORE COMING UP SOON
Anime fans can glady breathe a sigh of relief and excitement. Gundam 00 may be out for another 5 months, and the current serving of the long-running Bleach and Naruto series may not be enough, but rest assured, the new line-up of animes looks as promising as any other years. Such is the evergreen nature of the anime industry 
One series that I’m currently following is….
Allison and Lillia
A heartwarming series on how two orphans, Allison and Will from the country Roxche, were reunited in a twist of fate in the search of a treasure…. rumoured to be able to stop the 2 major warring worlds, Roxche and Sou Beil, from their Cold War-like stance. Their backgrounds and past interestingly involved people from both countries; Allison being a junior Roxche air force pilot who had letter exchanges with an “enemy” pilot, and the fact that they were raised by a renowned philanthropist from the enemy state Sou Beil, thus putting them in a favourable position to explore the unknown in enemy territory. With more twists of fate and luck, coupled with the overly-optimistic Allison’s prodigious piloting skills, and Will’s impressive IQ, an adventure like never before is bound to happen. Plus, the plot is set in the 1940s (think biplanes, water-planes and aerial dogfights), which makes it all the more interesting.
Man Utd started the match with an odd 4-4-1-1 formation with Rooney relying on Nani’s backup, Park and Fletcher on the flanks with Anderson and Carrick running the middle of the park. It looks like Sir Alex’s playing soccer roulette, but his gamble payed dividends.
Arsenal just could not cope with the surging runs, tenacity and enterprise of tough-tackling Anderson, who looks set to replace Scholes anytime. For once, it was Man Utd who was running the show for Arsenal, with short passes well strung together and the traditional runs from the attacking right and left defenders being fully appreciated.
Rooney scored the first goal with a good header. After some effort from Man Utd to swing the ball into the penalty area from a corner, Anderson was on hand to head the ball towards Rooney, who in turn directed the ball past Lehmann.
Nani, in Ronaldo’s total absence, delighted the crowd with a piece of trickery; he sidestepped a defender to the crossline before faking a cross, and finally duly delivered a nice cross for Fletcher to head in – possibly with a little bit of help from Gallas’s head.
Rooney had a couple of chances, with crosses coming from Park and Fletcher. While he did very well to control the ball and get between the towering Toure and sturdy Gallas, his final finish was wide of the mark.
Carrick showed his vision and trademark pass to pick out Nani, who was then making a surging run to the left, chested the ball and smacked the ball to the right. 3-0 to United within the first 35 minutes of first half and United was in cruise control.
Arsenal’s misery piled up when Eboue was sent off for a high-legged challenge on Evra when they were battling for an aerial ball on the 49th minute, before Nani again turned provider, executing a couple of sidesteps into the penalty area before unleashing a high cross to the far post for Fletcher to convincingly head in the ball. 4-0 to United.
It was the style of play that used to be a trademark of Man Utd and it remains till today, but even the first team hasn’t played as convincingly as today’s supposedly second team. Man Utd fans and non-fans alike will agree that Man Utd’s performance today was simply breathtaking.
Firefox 3.0 as a whole promises a sweeping lot of changes over its predecessors, and it’s really beginning to show up in Beta 3.
…btw, beta version is a version of a program which is still under development. Hence, Firefox 3 Beta 3 means it is still being tested, and it is in its 3rd form. There is no fixed number of betas before the final completed program is released, and so far, Firefox betas are fully functional enough to be used as your one and primary web browser…
For a casual user, Beta 1 and 2, with all those new and improved oblivious features like increased security against malware, viruses and other threats, one can only observe better loading times (partly thanks to memory leaks being ‘plugged’) and better rendering of websites previously less nicely intepreted by earlier versions (thanks to the adoption of the ‘Gecko engine’ that runs the new Firefox).
With Beta 3, for once, I had difficulty trying to adapt to the removal of the Home button from the main navigation bar, though I’m perfectly fine with it after a few tries. Beta 3 also had a newly-rendered forward/back buttons that adds a sense of sophistication, and downloads progress are now shown in the right side of the bottom bar (besides the page loading progress bar). Also, not forgetting a further 1000 changes over Beta 2, which includes about 350 plugs for memory leak and fix for stability issues.
Click on the picture for a better view!
Beta 3 still retains the new changes from the previous betas. The address bar conjures a drop down menu showing the websites related to the word being typed in the bar, complete with the website icons and a star – to indicate whether it has been ‘favourited’ – beside it). The downloads manager still has the search box, which filters through the downloads on-the-go according to the word being typed.
Performance-wise,the 1000+ changes are not certainly not redundant in reducing loading times, though the amount is not that great with some websites – but then, you can’t really complain, as the new firefox is still significantly fast enough. Only a few plugins can work now (vs. none in Beta 2), and so far only StumbleUpon works for me – don’t think about trying MSN, Yahoo and other Web 2.0-related plugins as Beta 3 is not ready for them yet.
Also oblivious to many is the new-found ability to take on the thematic/graphic settings of the different OS it is operating in, much like a chameleon : it will look different in Windows vs. Linux, Windows XP vs. Windows Vista, Ubuntu vs. other Linuxes.
*** Update
How can I forget about the link to download? Click here to get your copy!
Be sure to take note that it will overwrite your current version of firefox but bookmarks etc will be untouched and still rendered usable in the new firefox 3 beta. I’ve been using firefox 3 beta as my primary web browser with absolutely no qualms.
About 3 web services in the past, back when I was still using Blogger, I made a solemn promise to post the best music Japan, in particular the anime world, has to offer. A promise which was never fulfilled till now….
So..as promised, here are some of the best instrumental songs that the great anime Eureka 7 has to offer.Featuring the very original works of Naoki Sato, also known for his contribution to Neon Genesis Evangelion and more recently, Heroic Age (both animes btw).
They’re guaranteed (depending on how you see them) opuses of psychedelic excess, simple yet nice melodies, or simply mindless yet relaxing japanese singing that are sure to guide you peacefully though your book, mugging or sleep =)
Click here to launch the player!
Here’s a quick guide of what you’ll be listening to:
haiz..i’ve finally settled on wordpress.com for a reliable blog service. so much apologies for having to hitch a ride on my blog-hopping adventure, having gone through different permutations for firestinger.xxx.com.
My preference for a blogging service has always been a user-friendly and highly editable blogging platform like wordpress and to a lesser extent, Blogger. And backed by a reliable, free and not to mention, ad-free hosting service. I was previously on a great one, until they started imposing ads on every single page. That kinda screwed up the blog’s theme. Exasperating for a quick fix, i hopped onto a few services at the same time (talk about kiasu-ism), but was let down by an irritating cookie bug that kept me logged out of the
user logins.
So, i settled on wordpress.com. WordPress is actually installable at any servers, and wordpress.com is really generous enough to also provide hosting space for anyone in need. The drawback though is that the additional functions e.g. counter, stats,
special photo albums are strictly limited to what wordpress.com offers. This kinda writes off the “extremely editable” tag WordPress is well-known for. Nonetheless, no one can beat WordPress.com in terms of nil server crashes and loading times – and that
is enough to win the hearts of many.
Come to think of it, this experience suddenly reminds me of life. All of us have some goals and expectations in mind, and by default, we have to achieve them to garner happiness and satisfaction. But, sometimes, it is really the basic stuff that we’re really
lacking – and those are usually the very stuff that can make us feel cosy with our lives. Finding an ad-free and fast blog hosting (a hard chore at it) had me crawling in the end, only to revert to the “old and basic” wordpress.com for salvation. It’s pretty much the same for life – one can get PS3s,PS2s,PSPs,Wiis and XBOXes for all he can – but many, especially now, grossly undermine the power of love and care with loved ones and those close to us.
It’s been quite a while since ODEX extended its wrath into the heart of the anime community here in Singapore. It is unanimous that downloading animes as a whole is illegal, but there exists a thin, fine line between the downloading of licensed animes and non-licensed ones. An even fragile margin hangs in the balance between downloading fan-subbed animes and getting them by more conventional and legal ways e.g. by purchasing CDs. In fact, for years, fan-subbed animes have been the natural source of all the frenzy and excitement that has fueled the hunger of the evergreen local community.
As if the apocalypse were descending on us, ODEX began to transcend that line and vowed to hunt down illegal downloaders, by enlisting the services of a company called BayTSP to track down downloads via bit torrent. However, to do so, ODEX have to drag the ISPs to court to be granted the permission to track downloaders’ IP addresses – with the intention of tracking those who are going against copyright laws. And from there, ODEX clearly gained the upper hand, and has since issued the dreaded warning letters “indiscriminately”. With those letters came the statement asking the unlucky recipients to pay up a few thousands in settlement and compensation for various costs (in employing BayTSP and court fees primarily).
The manner ODEX fishes out offenders and slaps them with a “fine” has inadvertently met an uproar in the community. ODEX has since tried to lighten the situation by not issuing the letters to offenders according to backlogged illegal downloading activities, which means past downloaders are spared. However, ODEX still treads on with a serious and unrelenting stance.
Many fans are outraged by the amount of money they may be forced to pay up, or risk facing court action by ODEX. Considering that the number is in the thousands, many are also inclined to believe that ODEX are trying to make some profit and stem losses for the past few years, something which ODEX has denied. Perhaps, more leniency could have been employed, like posting warning letters to particular first-time offenders, and not just vague warnings on forum posts that have extensive but not a thorough reach to the community. Some has questioned their ISPs authority over protecting the customer’s privacy policy, which ODEX has demonstrated to be “assailable”. More importantly, the whole saga raised a common question : does a private company, whether it is part of an affiliation or not, even have the right to claim damages and bring forth infringement cases while acting on behalf of Japanese animation houses? Such is the discernment of some members of the community that ODEX’s recently opened online anime CD store was hacked and its page splashed with questions on its policies [ take a look at Dark Mirage's post ]. To tarnish the already affected reputation of ODEX, warning letters were mistakenly issued to downloaders abroad, resulting in even more uninvited backlash (though they were sent under BayTSP’s name).
My take on the issue? It’s quite simple, really. I see ODEX as becoming an “all-seeing big-brother entity that overlooks the workings of the anime world”, in Singapore that is. It’s pretty much like the Celestial Being in Gundam 00. Here’s how ODEX resembles Celestial Being in real life :
The battle between Clare and Priscilla continues in the same volcanic area, a purposely and decidedly epic battleground. After unleashing a blinding blue energy, followed by the silhouette of a humanoid figure with extra arms , it appears that Clare has actually selectively awakened another part of her body – this time, Irene’s arm and to some extent, her whole being. In the meantime, Priscilla is still very much engrossed in thinking about Clare being Teresa,and the evil Yoma who have murdered her beloved ones. And for that, Priscilla loses no time in ending Clare’s share of limelight by ferociously shooting the green spikes from her wings, but Clare uses her improved technique to evade the attack and launch swift counter-attacks. Clare may seem to be faster now, but Priscilla is up to the challenge, effortlessly twarting Clare’s meelee attacks with ever-slight, lazy movements of her own sword.
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