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Wednesday, August 29

Just to Let You Know that I'm Still Alive...

Thanks to Judge Lau, the new hero of anime fans all over Singapore, I can rest assured that I won't need to worry about anything if Odex happens to nab me while I'm downloading all the Lucky Star episodes I've been missing out on.

I believe myself to be one of the latest of Singaporean Haruhi fans to have seen the awfully long and boring Haruhi season 2 video, played entirely from CCTV footage and featuring scenes from Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody. Again, my studies are to blame. Bleh. I just wish I could get the O's over and done with. Darkmirage, Tsubaki, Insanelampshade and the rest must be so lucky.

Things between me and my dad aren't going too well either. In fact right now the only time I ever am allowed a chance to use the computer is when he's out on his evening jog and nobody else is on the computer to tell me to buzz off and mug for my exams. I hate that they're using the O levels against me...

Given these circumstances, I'd like to see how my blog posts can get longer and more interesting. I only have the heart to do summarized rants now.

I look forward to my migration...

Sunday, August 19

The Thing About Anime Fans and Odex

There's a lot of news and shizz going on around town, all associated with the name 'Odex'.
If you've been living in a hole and don't know who the Haruhi they are, Odex is a small, insignificant company doing business in a small, insignificant Red Dot. They distribute Anime, basically. And they absolutely suck at it. Product quality is lower than lulz level. I won't elaborate, but My Love Hina Christmas Special VCD, the first and only product from them I have, is somewhere in the landfills right now.
Now, Odex is seeing sales drop to below 50%, and desperate, they start finding reasons (or rather, excuses), and decide to target the (seemingly innocent) anime downloading committee. They're resorting to court stuff, even. Downloaders are beginning to receive the 'Lulz you to Court' letter from them, demanding thousands of bucks for DL-ing Lucky Star Episode 14 (which is by far the best Lucky Star ep I've seen. Absolute win).
The Straits Times newspaper is following the story's progress, I've been visiting anime bloggers, talking to friends in school, and 1 thing can be concluded.

This world is teh suck.


Not in the sense that you'd hang yourself, but that you look all around you, people acting out of greed, impulsiveness, stupidity, doing the kinds of things that really help nothing. The anime community here has decided to start rallying and rebelling (I heard they're conducting a mass Odex-products-burning session at the Youthpark sometime end of this month. I have nothing to say). Experts say they stand no chance, but, for the love of Haruhi, they'd want to get themselves into trouble and do it for the lulz (actually, I'd support that).

Andy Ho, a Straits Time journalist (and a person I really admire as a writer) did an article on the situation, expressing his point of view from the neutral side. Standing on the same ground myself, I think his speech talks sense. He even quotes:"Oddly, this may not necessarily be illegal", which I wholeheartedly agree. Read on to learn more.
Stuff from Tsubaki, in case you don't use my Feed links.
This guy's not bad himself.
Darkmirage, of course, shows to potential of a political analyst. Check his post too.
The bottomline is, all (or, most, especially the uneducated) Singaporeans, smart as they attempt to be, in doing all these 'whoah, big deal, big deal' things, always turn out stupid.
There, that's my viewpoint. Meanwhile I'll patiently wait for everything to blow over, including my O levels, and continue downloading where it is safe. Either that or I'll try other methods of getting my anime, like initiating campaigns to put them up on TV, getting Starhub to include Anime Channels from Japan, even talking to Animax to see what they can come up with. Then I'll be thinking like a professional, not your average Spore-rean.

Saturday, August 11

Happy Freedom-From-Malaysia Day!

Actually, that was two days ago. But I never got a chance to blog since then, until right now. Sorry bout that.

Went to the open field opposite the Singapore River (and the Marina Bay Stadium) that day for a nice quiet picnic, and to catch a free view of the celebrations with a pair of binocs. What we actually got was a noisy, rowdy group of fellow Singaporeans, ugly and non-ugly alike, a sea of red and white, among other less prominent colours, having a ball chanting at each other and riling everybody up, shouting things like, "get offa my territory" and "sit down, mamas (Indians)! I can't see!" I found myself a spacious spot near the riverbank to gaze at the stadium, which was soon filled up to my left, right and behind with other people and camera tripods keen on sharing the sights with me. My legs held off really well, especially when I had to crouch there among everybody else when we got shouted at to get down. The sights and sounds were spectacular, nonetheless. I got to see our Air Force's F-16Cs fly past with afterburners at full blast, heard the rumbling of cannons during the 21-gun salute, listened to the stuttering of rotors as Chinooks and Apaches flew past, and most importantly, observed the 3-minute fireworks display with much wonder and delight.

There was a 'Jellyfish' display too, which were lighted balloons attached to motorboats floating around the river (what that symbolizes, I never really paid attention to). Said balloons were actually moored just in front of us prior to the performance, so half the time I couldn't get a clear view of the stadium itself.

Afterwards, when the celebrations were over and everybody was marching back to the nearby parking lots and evading the heavy traffic, I stuck around long enough to see the litter left behind in the grass. So much for a litter-free country. Among the debris were even miniature Singapore flags. So much for patriotism. Dad made me delete the photos I took of them.

We joined the parade (it was a really huge one at that, all those people taking up a 3-lane road and a whole traffic junction, which even had a traffic officer to divert the cars manually. That scene reminded me of Akihabara and Shibuya) back to where we parked our Mitsubishi Grandis, the Old Food Court multi-storey Carpark, where we proceeded to wait 10 minutes before we could finally move out of the lot and join the queue of cars trailing up to the fifth storey that were leaving as well, and another 15 minutes going down to the first floor and passing the toll gates, before emerging into relatively less crowded roads.

By the way, I'm still coughing. I'm on renewed medication now, since I've already exhausted the prescribed cough syrup from the Polyclinic.

I promise I'll rant more about Tokyo in Singapore soon. I'm just kinda unsure of what to talk about now. My aspirations and to-buy list would be ideal, but that'd be too corny.