i needa play my wii, smash bro.s just rock. if u don't believe me, read the following article and the madness surrounding japan
Japanese Queues up for SSBB
i hafta thank my fren for queuing twice and skipping the 1st period to get a copy for me :D
i think i'm a lazy person, i seriously do but sometimes other people's actions make think otherwise. he asked me to help him with a question he can't solve because he has to resit for a paper tomorrow. i don't mind helping him but while doing the question in his in room, i can't help but notice that 80% of the time he's in front of the pc playing an online game and when he's not, he's reading some manga. i would have thought that he would have studied harder, i mean if he fails again it would mean the dreaded 留年 or in english, to re-sit the whole year again. and when i finally solved it and passed it to him, he said'thanks,i'll look at it when i'm done finishing playing.' i left the room shaking my head...
it's not that i like to judge but i can't really help it on this one..
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never questioned… until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister - and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable… a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life… even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less?
i just finished reading this book and i must say it has got to be one of the most touching,thought provoking book i've read in awhile.Jodi Piqout is a genius when it comes to expressing human emotions and telling both sides of the story. How she switches from one character to another every chapter dwelling in their thoughts while continuing the flow of the story was brilliant. that there there wasn't a clear cut antagonist in the story only wrenches your heart even more when one of the characters has to make a choice he/she doesnt really want to.that said, it's not all sadness and fighting, wit and abit of humour is added into the tonnes of emotions you go through with the introduction of campbell,Anna's lawyer.i'm not gonna write whats going to happen at the end but i could feel my eyes a little watery at the end of it and i'm inhuman if i didn't.
I would definitely want all of you to read it but for the lazy ones, a movie is coming out somewhere this year i think.and i'm being pretty mixed about it going to the big screen after reading it. While i'm very very happy that Dakota and Elle Fanning will be casted as the sisters, Cameron Diaz as Sara, the mother is a little unconvincing. i just can't see her as the strong, caring mother type of role(hope she proves me wrong). even worse is that alec baldwin is rumoured to be casted as the father. he just seems to stiff for me for that role. and this is a pretty dense story with alot of sub-plots and flashbacks and i just hope that they don't chop up the story.but in the end, dakota and elle should be a love to watch. and the thought of dakota and cameron going bald would be pretty interesting.i hope they don't cut out that part of the story!
definitely a 5/5 for books i've read.
a lady protesting in front of 10 downing street against the iraqi war and gordon brown.
1st pics color,2nd is mono(black n white) which do u prefer? personally, i like the mono one
gonna post about my one day trip to nagano instead. my buchou(photo club president) and i made a 5 hr journey up to nagano to take some pics and we weren't disappointed!it was snowing heavily!i'm abit lazy to write alot, abit tired from doing nothing.but the pics at the bottom is matsumoto castle,one of the 4 'valuable' castles left in japan, meaning it wasn't bombed in WWII. that the castle is black is even more unique(and a big contrast to himeji's white)
today's a really sad day. 1st off,i woke up early to watch the totenham-arsenal carling cup semi final 2nd leg and while i wasnt expecting a win, i wasn't expecting a drubbing of 5-1! and it's our first lost to the scums in 9 years. our performance was just horrible, we weren't even holding the ball properly.i just hope it doesn't affect our league form.
next, i got even more shocked when i found out heath ledger has passed away. while cause of deaths or not confirmed, it is said due to overdose of sleeping pills. he's one great actor (takes alot of balls to kiss another guy on screen) and his role as the joker in the upcoming batman film, 'the dark knight' looks promising.also, i always liked him in '10things i hate about you' and maybe was the only good teen flick around.to read more about his death click here
may you rest in peace.
hampton court has got to be one of my favourite places. south of london(30 mins by train) it's a splendid palace with kickass gardens. i actually spent 4 hours here wandering about while listening to the audio guide, watching their plays and performances and just enjoying the sight. there weren't too many peopl as well. the gardens were really nice and they even had a maze(but it was closed when we got there) for 10 pounds,i'd say it was more than my money's worth
the palace front view
some demonstrations going on. i think the guy was making some pastry or sth
they were even roasting meat! i wonder if they gave it out later on...
this was the one pic i took that was in a non-shoot zone. i came in from the back entrance, the no camera zone was in the front! and everybody was taking pictures ,haiz
the jester of the court with his performance, he was pretty funny and got the crowd into the act as well
the gardens, nth spectacular, it was getting dark and it was hard to take pics
taking a break from talking about my trip,yet the pic is from my pic.the tube is moving, the guy is moving, it really emphasize on movement and the bustling city(it would be better if there were more people in the pic though)i chose a black and white conversion because it feels more natural and i felt that the colours only serve to distract the viewers from the main subject, movement.
i'm slightly busy today, just finished fixing up my compressor and testing begins next week. needa learn bout inverse matrices later and abit more on elastic bodies for my extra class tomorrow.i have a report due thurs too!
at first i thought i'd post something that didn't have anything to do with my trip but seeing the relevance , why not.
i just couldnt wait to get here. emirates stadium,home to the gooners.girls will never understand guy's obsession with this things(at least i don't think kelly did :P) so much merchandise! i bought hell lots of rubbish aside from my no.11 v.persie jersey :D
that said,0-3 away win at fulham in a convincing manner was pleasing. 2 headed goals by ade only serves to prove his critics (even amongst our own arsenal camp) wrong time and time again. the only negative i could think of yesterday was manure winning and ronaldo scoring once again. that guy is frightening.More than half the season is over and while we looked rusted over the last few weeks, i think we're coming into stride again. more so that we won big games while not playing at our best only adds to our credentials as title challengers.
Aside from Hleb who's been playing so well this season, i guess the least expected most improved player is clichy. i never did like him when he first started cause he wasn't cole and was trying to be a carbon copy of him(wenger's education could be blamed for that though)but he's really improved this season and without him and sagna on the flanks, Arsenal's tactics won't work. these 2 people are really adding width towards the play and clichy's cross is proof of that.it wouldnt even be wrong to say that he's surpassed cole this season. better at defending,pacey with good footwork and pretty decent crosses.
i'm still betting for Arsenal to win this season, actually Arsenal needs to win this season, either the EPL or CL . Arsenal are playing one of their bests football now and if they don't get any silverware towards the end, i suspect that their morales would be hurt badly,very badly . if they do win, this team might become something said in legends, like manure's class of 92. all the best gooners!!
i'm growing fond of this picture by the day even with that harsh highlight.seems so old yet so new.
the emblem, think i'm gonna put it permanently on my blog :P
me at emirates in the cold in a jersey!50 pounds well spent.
after kensington and before tower of london, we made a brief detour to picadilly to see the photographer's museum. it was pretty interesting(kelly was bored as hell though) and the photographs were amazing. after lunch, we headed to the tower of london! here, we made the fatal error of coming late. we thought we could finish the place in 2 hours but we were so so wrong. the place was MASSIVE!
it closes at 5 and we were there at 2.30. we then went for the yoemen guard towers which was damn interesting.the guy was talking about hangings,dissing the americans,french,canadians, australians and almost anyone with links to the old GBR. it was a gruesome tour with blood and gore and the crowd liked it alot(talk about sadists, me included though)
other than the guards, the crown jewels are the main attractions!just look at the bloody queue! it goes all the way up to the end building and midway of that building is the entrance. kelly saw it and didn't want to queue. she rather not see the crown jewels and headed somewhere else. the wait wasn't that long though, only about 20 mins or so and it was pretty interesting inside the building. aside from the jewels, they had all the state emblems on display. the jewels though was amazing. glitter!sparkling! are the only few words that i can use to describe it.they have the biggest diamond in the world there as well and WOW
this is tower bridge, near the tower of london.i would would have loved this shot so so much but the tower part was out of focus, my mistake, i focused on the moving bus :(
the tower bridge. average sshot ^_^
p.s: Arsenal needs a win tonight! everyone support!!!!!!!
We started the 2nd day slightly later than we planned and it became abit of a mess after that. we walked to kensington gardens from our hostel. parks in london are really huge! kl should do something like this(and keep it well maintained!) we then went into kensington palace, where diana used to stay. it was fairly interesting and a small tribute to the late princess as well.no photos inside but kelly still chose to take..:P i might have to write an article on photography ethics in the future.
the palace,shot from quite far, i didn't want tourists inside my pic so i shot from the fence.those metal balls are an eyesore though. it's supposed to be made for diana.they're metallic flowers in remembrance of the thousands of flowers she recieved on her death.
if miyajima/nara has deers,hyde/kensington gardens definitely have squirrels ! and they're so tame and bushy!i might print a big picture of this :P
we went to london on the 27th of december, taking a 1pound! bus from cardiff to london victoria. i wished there were 100yen buses to tokyo from here :(
after checking in to our dodgy hostel, we left for oxford circus and the surrounding areas. did a bit of souveniour shopping,window shopping ,etc.. and when it was about 2pm, we made our way to Her Majesty's Theatre for none other than the Phantom of the Opera musical! seat was alright(my sis said it was bad but i could still see clear enough).seats were a tad bit tiny though.the show was however, stupendous! i would pay to go watch it again! the music,the drama, the effects and special praises to the 3 leads,especially the girl playin christine. her voice was just amazing!okay,i'm gonna end here before sae rips my head off o sth.
then while waiting to meet some frens for dinner, we strolled around the area and there was this small play fair going on.some shots of the rides :)
after finally having everyone gathered,we had to move around to find a place to eat. everywhere was full and fitting 10 people wasn't easy :P that said it was like a mini asean gathering ,people i didn't expect to see,i saw. ppl like hm who incidentally was on a hols from kl/sg , xin yee from prague, kao yuan from france and later pei xin from states. it was nice to see goh hui lin though, my ex-ajc classmate. she still cracks me up everytime she talks. her honest,bluntness is unparallel. just disappointed that she didn't introduce us to mr.goh though.
my player finally arrived today and i'm pretty impressed with it. don't even need a manual to understand how to use it and syncing with wmp is bloody easy. initial sound quality impressions are good but i can't tell until i get my earphones which was supposed to arrive today!!
there was quite a few surprises today(not in chronological order) . the most interesting has to be steve job's announcement of the Macbook Air. Serious,it's freakishly thin(it's at 1.98cm at the thickest part)it just looks so so cool. and with a 13.3inch led display, i reckon the display would be stunning as well. also featured is a 64gb static memory(optional) which is freakingly expensive but it doesn't spoil as easily and it's faster. what i didn't like about it is...
1) no optical drive which is understandable consider how thin it is! and 99 for the superdrive ain't too too expensive.
2)the battery is non-removable. stated usage is for aproximately 5 hours which is normal. i don't mind it that much but the thought of having to send it to appple every 2 years or so(the life of battery is roughly that) can get annoying.. after all, you're paying so much for it.
3)1 usb port!!! this is something i cannot live without. i'm already using at least 4 (mouse,
keyboard,cardreader,hdd)though the keyboard can be omitted but i still need an extension or
even 2!
that said i do really like the design. whether i'm gonna buy one is a totally different matter.i can't be considering a mac at the moment cause my replacement for my mp3 is windows only :( prices start from 1700usd or 220,000yen.
this has got to be the most shocking news! a dragonlance film/animation! i know when people think about fantasy novels,they think about lord of the rings or *gasp* harry pothead but this has got to be the defining series for me. what started out as a pet project to create a story from the role playing game,dungeons & dragons has spawned to a roughly 10book main series( with at least 20 more side stories) and why do i like this over the rest? while the animation(more on that in a while) isn't great but it shows the number of dragons and better still, how much magic was just invovled( raistlin used at least 5 spells and all gandalf could do was wave a shining wand)! the characters are definitely more diverse and more complex and when you combine all that, you just get a wonderful storyline.
i've watched the animation and i thought it was so so. they were definitely doing this under a tight budget and the cheap graphics showed. it was also pretty short being only 1.5 hours and feels rushed and somewhat less focus on character development but on the good side, nothing important was missed and the storyline was spot on.after reading the official website, i did find out that they were trying to get it done as a movie but no studio would want to fork out 75m for it( if i had the dough, without thinking twice,i'd fork out 100mil and get walden studios for the graphics)there was a blessing though,margaret and tracy(the 2 authors) had their say in the production and they didn't have to bow down to money making idiots(which could be the reason that they couldnt find a studio...)i do hope hope they make a sequel..actually until summer flame! which would be 10 dvds! haha, i'd collect it! and keifer sutherland(jack bauer from 24) was a catch!
back to my trip! cardiff is almost synonymous with the millennium stadium! after wembley closed back then, the millennium std became the place for major events including the f.a cup final and carling cup final. this was where a young group of arsenal players lost to a one led man team last year.
my replacement mp3 player and earphones will be here tomorrow! i might do a short review of it then. mp3:toshiba t401s or t400 in the states and a pair of denon ah-c551 buds.
i spent christmas 2006 skiing and while it was fun and definitely white, it just wasn't christmas. this year, i get to spend it with my sis, probably our first in 3-4 years? there was a small party, midnight mass(the choir was amazing) and just relaxation.some of the pics below.
after getting back from bath, we went skating the next morning!i'm not a good skater and i dont think i will ever be :P not much to say about the pics but i do like the night shots though :)
