Meanwhile... Rant Ahoy!

Today I had to miss an important 501st Legion trooping event (so I heard, Fiona Xie was there too. Not that it matters). Not only that, I had to miss an exciting time watching the Volvo In-port race off the East Coast today too (I'm a sailor). Why?, you might ask. What could possibly happen on a carefree Saturday afternoon, so important to me that I had to forgo two seemingly once-in-a-lifetime events so as to attend to it?

Being a school team sailor for Meridian Junior College means having to train three times a week. Not gym training, sea training. That means having to go out to sea three times a week. Take an MRT Train to Tanah Merah three times a week. Ride the shuttle bus to SAF Yacht Club three times a week. If you missed the bus, take a cab to SAFYC three times a week. Pay an average of $10 to the guy three times a week. Haul up your heavy sail ttaw. Fix up the complexity of ropes and knots to your boat ttaw. Ride your heavy boat on its useless trolley down the ramp into the water ttaw. Bob up and down the waves ttaw. Struggle against the strong winds ttaw. If not, space out in your boat with nothing else to do during light winds or when there's no wind at all, ttaw. Capsize your boat ttaw. Shout at your less-experienced teammates for not doing it right ttaw. Strain your fingers pulling the ropes ttaw. Bruise your legs and feet against the boat while jostling for position ttaw. Hit your head with the sail as it swings across your boat ttaw. Lug your heavy boat on its useless trolley up the ramp out of the waters ttaw. Wash every part of your boat ttaw. De-rig whatever you fixed onto your boat ttaw. Change out of your wet clothes ttaw. Find out later on that the plastic bag carrying your wet clothes had leaked and that your bag is dripping with water ttaw. Go home feeling very tired, and as though you've wasted your whole day, ttaw.

I skipped today's events for sailing training.

A three-times-a-week occurrence. A part of everyday life. A part of school. Something I have come to dread very much.

Why then, did I still attend today's training session? Better still, why don't I just quit sailing altogether since i hate it so much? Why am I so stupid? Why can't I just get a girlfriend? Why am I still making rant posts on this blog? When's my birthday?

These must be the questions flooding your mind I presume. Firstly, I like being single and ogling at pretty girls, and secondly, I'll be starting another anime blog soon. In the meantime, this blog is back to its original general-purpose state. Thirdly, it's two days from now.

I am the vice-captain of my sailing team. That means I ought to have some position over the rest of my sailing peers, and to be able to get them to listen to me. I also ought to have something nice on my testimonial at the end of the schooling term. Additionally, I ought to be able to just leave the brunt of a leader's work to the captain, and only take on whatever she cannot handle. Therefore, being the vice-captain ought to be the best position for an under-achiever like me who still wants to have some sort of authority.

That's not what the teachers think. As a vice-captain, I was supposed to collaborate together with the captain to make things happen. I accept whatever responsibilities from beside the captain and not from behind. I play an active role in supporting the team. And more stuff you're really not interested in reading.

I even had a dressing down from one of the teachers-in-charge the other day. Apparently, I've been missing too many training sessions for unacceptable reasons. I can't deny that; sometimes there are one-a-year anime conventions or other events that I wish to attend. And sometimes, I just want to get away from it all, the mundane and dreadful sailing routines. After all, what's missing one session when there's always gonna be another one two or three days later?

No, said my teacher. As an executive committee member, I'm supposed to be keeping a near-impeccable attendance record. I'm supposed to be there all the time when my subordinates are, to show my presence, to wrestle me some authority and power, to act like a responsible model for them to follow, and just go through whatever they have to go through as well. They made the effort to attend for the day, why can't I?

I can't really accept why they don't really accept (lol) stuff like conventions, related events etc. as viable excuses. It's as though I have no life besides sailing. But no, it's because I am a vice-captain. Looking back at the time I eagerly rallied for a leadership position in my team, and jubilantly securing it, I come to the conclusion that it was that very moment that had enslaved me to my CCA. Yes, 'enslaved' is the best word to describe it. Because this situation is not that easy to get out of either.

Said teacher has given me the choice of relinquishing my position for this year, for what's left of my training stint (5 months) with the school team. Thinking about it, I realized that letting go of your position is not as easy as it sounds. The repercussions are great. Others' perspectives of me would change. My pride would be tarnished. There is a pictureboard outside the general office displaying the various student leaders of the school, and I am among that group. What would happen to my image there were I to drop my role?

That is why I told him that I would stay on as a vice-captain. I will weather the last 5 months of this grueling training, taking on whatever responsibilities I am required to see to. I will continue to go through the routine three times a week until everything is over. I will do it together with the rest of the team, and I will make them admire me for what I've contributed (yes, I'm vain that way). I will fulfill my role as the vice-captain of the school sailing team to the maximum.

That is why I went for sailing training today. I now look forward to Gordon's report on the trooping event, and somewhere hopeful for the results of today's in-port race.

TL;DR ecchi Tamaki for you.

Pic related. She's wearing a seifuku. This is a sailor's rant if you hadn't noticed.

Danny Choo in the Straits Times, Deconstructed

*Picture BALEETED on Danny Choo's request.*
Few weeks back during the Animax Blogger talk session, Danny attended some press interview with The Straits Times, Singapore's local and as of yet broadest newspaper brand. I had assumed he would appear in the Digital Life (IT stuff and whatnot) or Life! (lifestyle), so I closely followed both.

Over the past few days I found nothing. That is, until two days ago, when Danny mentioned about the flaming article that was written of him. A search on that day's Life! section yielded nothing, and Digital Life was a weekly publication that did not publish that day.

Fast forward to today. I just got back home and was relaxing for a bit. There was a thin newspaper beside me, apparently a section of the Straits Times. It turned out to be Urban, the other weekly publication, all about fashion. It was dated 28th November.

No way...

There was only one place in Urban he could be. THEBAGPAGE. A last-page featurette of famous celebrities or sub-celebrities, whoever TST can get their hands on that week, and what they stow in their bags.

without further ado. Deconstruction.

The Bag Page, Stephanie Gwee.

Danny Choo

ask celebrity blogger Danny Choo anything about the over 300 anime figurines that he has amassed over the last 20 years, and the 36-year-old perks up.
"They are so cute. Look at their faces, how can you not love something as cute as that?" he enthuses.

well, hell. That's a pretty awesome way to put it. She makes it sound like

1. He's obsessed (highlighting the number of figures and the number of years he's been collecting, and his diction). I doubt Danny ever put it that way. Now I know what Danny means by 'putting words into my mouth'.

2. He's being childish (noting his age, and again his diction).

Ask about his famous father, malaysian shoemaker Jimmy Choo, or his childhood days in a stately home in London, however, and he loses the grin.
All he would say is that he worked as a designer for his father when he was 16, handling tasks like making toe-caps and cutting out the shape of the leather.
He had little interest in following his father's footsteps as he hated the smell of glue, says the London-born Choo...

Being a fashion publication, it was obviously inevitable that Jimmy Choo would be brought up. Guess the Urban people only view Danny as 'Jimmy Choo's Son' after all. Can't blame them, but I feel this to be very undeserving to Danny. But really, I don't understand why the hell he must be put in Urban and not anywhere else I feel more fitting. Could it be because of all the wonderful things in his bag that they just wanna check out?

But, I digress.

I feel that the 'loses his grin' part is a bit exacerbated. For all those of you who know about it, there's a perfectly good reason why Danny Choo would suddenly get so serious at the mention of London (for those who don't, good luck finding it out). The uninitiated however, upon reading this, would get the impression that Danny holds the fashion industry in disdain. To later find out that it was all exclusively because of the smell of glue would lead them to establish their impression of him as being simple-minded. There was no mention of his other pursuits that time which would have led him away from shoemaking, too. In short, a very biased viewpoint from a fashion enthusiast.

On the otaku or Japanese pop culture of manga...
"I was naturally attracted to the Japanese mangazines with cute girls on the cover," says Choo...
So much so that he spent three years earning a degree in Japanese and Korean studies from the University of London.

Being an aspiring writer/journalist myself, I can't help but notice how the writer can record an interview, then report it in such a way that the whole essence and meaning had turned into something different. All you need to do is capture a line that sounds ambiguous, then affirm the wrong meaning through additional yet subtle texting.

SO MUCH SO.

To explain with words just how much these 3 words can effectively insert a very strong vibe (of disapproval) into the paragraph would be insufficient. You have to read and understand it for yourself.

SPENT THREE YEARS. DEGREE. UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

AK: Oh yes, I'm sure they're trying to show appreciation to just how much Danny has devoted himself to pursuing what he enjoys. Yes, a degree's very nice and all, and UoL's a pretty prestigious college. It's all good, all very commendable.

Uninitiated casual reader: Huh? Just so he can watch Japanese anime, read Japanese manga, play Japanese games, he blew off three years studying for a degree? He's just wasting time for the renowned UoL professors! Why can't he be a normal Weeaboo like everybody else? Why must he put so much effort into it?

You get what I'm trying to say, right?

... Blog gets two million hits a month...

LOL. They don't even know what the technical term of a 'hit' means. In conclusion, I do agree quite strongly that this article has been done unfairly, but you can't blame Urban for trying to do a write up on somebody who is better associated with technology. As said before, the only thing that connects between both sides is Jimmy Choo, and on that part Danny has distanced himself quite far away, leaving the interviewers with a rather awkward report on otaku-ism for the most part, something they are not very familiar with, hence resulting in a few unintended (I'd like to believe it to be unintended. ST is a renowned newspaper; they have a reputation to uphold) meanings here and there.

By the way, the stuff they listed out in his Bundeshauptstadt Berlin bag was:

1. Kagamin Figma (naturally)

2. Macbook Pro (very widely known to us)

3. Animax Notebook

4. Namecard holder

5. Casio Win phone

6. Xacti 6-megapixel video camera (Danny, and Gai to some extent, has persuaded me to go for Xacti for the first videocam I buy in future)

7. Anime clock (from KKnM, featuring Sakagami Tomoyo from Clannad. WIN)

8. Wallet

Which reminds me, I owe you guys a review on my Figma Tsuruya. Will do that up soon. Along with the string of LaMB-related posts in line with this blogging competition Animax is holding. I haven't given up on AFA08 day 2 (drafting in progress), so watch this space.

AK out.

Team Fortress 2!

That's right folks, AK here has found himself yet another activity he can generate unproductive hours on!

The real way one should play TF2.

However, I do still get dragged down by immense lagging, even in the low latency servers. I blame the lappie once again. Almost all the games I run through with System Requirements Lab declare that everything in my computer meets the sysreqs, except that shitty Intel Graphics Processor graphcard. It is the sole reason this comp keeps failing epicly at sysreqs.

Looks like it's gonna be a whole of LAN for me again. I'm starting to get better at the game already, all it takes is a willingness to part with $1.60 per hour of smooth gameplay with fairly respectable sound, graphics and hardware.

As it turns out, mum just got her Canon Powershot Prosumer back from repairs, and she's not ready to loan it to me just yet (look, it wasn't my fault it went caput, bro was hogging it the whole time to do his camwhoring). I don't expect any photojournalism soon. Ish sadded.

Reminds me, I should post a rant about my brother one day. Of late I've been getting really pissed off at him for various reasons (mostly the inconsiderate things he does). then again, I'm still as lazy as ever to do something like that. Besides, I don't think I should be acting that negatively. So yeah. A rant about my brother, in one paragraph.

I decided to pick up the Sekirei manga, having watched the first few episodes on Crunchyroll (anime hardly ever satisfies me as much as the manga does). My progress has been slow, as of now I'm only at the second chapter. Despite this, I've got more than my fair share of ecchi already. Looks like Sakurako-san is really liberal about the boobaga, there's no 'censorship' (like how Akamatsu Ken-san does it) whatsoever.

I've been making plenty of trips down to Toys R' Us lately. I had recently decided to relive my deprived childhood by buying as many Star Wars action figures as I could and playing around with them (in more mature terms, creating dioramas). So far I've got me a bunch of Episode III clones, a handful of Confederate droids (I can hold them alll in one hand), and pretty neat Captain Rex and a General Grievous, both from the same series. This should make for some decent fan-made storytelling. All I need now are some vehicles, and substantial background elements to create an environment.

Also Star Wars-related, my friend has finally persuaded me to get my own Clone trooper armour. Having admired Danny Choo (link at left) and other Storm/Clone trooper costumers for so long, yet put off by the immense capital and effort one had to put in, I finally made myself submit, just so I can have better things to do in my time rather than Facebooking all day (which just got even worse, now that I've added plenty more applications to my playlist). I would expect to pay about $1200 in total for a full suit (see below; this is what I'm making), as well as a lot of careful attention when cutting parts up. I've already started work on the soft parts (non-armour accessories), but it hasn't been looking to good. And I don't have a camera to show it. ARGH.

Finally reached level 10 in Forumwarz. Currently waiting for episode II. If you're a fan of the Internets, memes and everything, you should consider giving this game a go too. You play as an 'agent' who visits forums and literally pwns them by posting non-related griefing business. It works like a turn-based RPG system, complete with items, equips, shops, interactive NPCs, and achievements (the best part)!

Not forgetting studies, now that the promotional exams are done (Ds for Chinese and Math, Es for Physics and Literature, and an S for Chemistry, KI unknown as of yet), the focus has shifted to KI (and fooling around in the school library). Oral Presentation is the next target, and the timetable for the next two weeks counting down to OP is practically filled with nothing but preparations. I shouldn't worry too much about the speaking part of it, just I'm having problems coming up with ways I can up the standard of the presentation by injecting jabs of humour here and there. Much as I try to be a comedian (seeing people listen and laugh at my comments is what gets me through the day happily), I tend to fail at come up with funny stuff.

My Japanese is languishing. And I can't do anything about it except attempt to converse with my Japanese friends, with embarrassing results. I just wish I had more time and freedom... And less laziness.

I should seriously start learning not to feel so pathetic with myself all the time, and just live and let live. I keep scrutinizing myself and revisiting awful memories of failure in hopes that I can improve myself one day. It doesn't seem to be working though. To think that I know what I'm supposed to do, yet I'm still too LAZY to do it. Oh well, one step at a time. First step would be updating this blog with some incredibly long post. That oughta warm my blogging spirits up.

TL;DR My life story currently. Nothing much that is interesting, just had to update this blog. In other news, the near future looks... Unpredictable.

Happy Birthday to Kobayashi Mao, Amerie, Rob Zombie and Me!

Yes, it's silly, but I like my birthdate just the way it is. It's January 12th, by the way.

Nothing much happened on that day, by the way. No, nothing much at all. Though, the chocolate cake I baked turned into a cookie, and all the cheese over the pizza I baked had turned into a delicious-looking black. The Gundam Red Astray I bought myself about a week ago was considered birthday present enough (pics of it soon, I'm in school right now). I'm still expecting my first order of sangokushi taisen 2 cards from Japan (which I forked out a hefty $160 for), that'll be belated. I didn't go out or do anything, as I still needed to do the housework. I got a bit of free time to play Star Wars: Empire at War and Grenado Espada. I took the day off and didn't do any homework (which meant having to spend 12pm to 6pm on Sunday glued to my desk. Seriously, it's that much. JC's like that, I guess).

Now, compare my situation to those from other more significant bloggers out there. Darkmirage sure had a lot to say about his 2007 birthday, didn't he? No, I'm not jealous, I'm just making comparisons. I'm not your typical anime blogger who's got loads to spend on PVC figures (my Gundam costs only $34-something and it's hardly considered Revoltech material) and other related Akiba-ken items or spend a week in Japan, or who's got a proficient knowledge of Japanese, so he can rant (or boast) about the JPLTs he can take. I'm just your normal insignificant Singaporean Japan-lover who's trying to carve a niche for himself in the whatever industry you call this, in a slightly different way than others. For dislike of being called an Otaku I don't do things to the level other Akiba-ken people do, like buy 1/8 figurines, import doujinshi, embellish blogs and stuff (I've given up on AnimeBlogger for now, those sloths), and I don't plan to change that any time soon. What I do plan is to be different, to be special, to be unique. You may not see anything now, but I can assure you, sooner or later you will. That I can promise. That is all.

And no, I didn't blow any candles this year either.

I apologize if you don't like rants. I'll have to compensate for that.

Remember, Gundam pix! >_<

And I'll just add in one pix here too, since I haven't done so in a pretty long time now.


Teh pwnage.

Dear Beloved Readers and Subscribers of my blog...

It is unfortunate that my personal life blog and otaku blog have to be in the same page. Sadly this is the case, as this blog has indeed started off as a personal life blog, so I feel it is only appropriate that my life rants continue to go here instead of somewhere else. After all, the blog URL says 'Our World' in Japanese, but I am still part of this world after all. I guess you can say this is the advantage, or disadvantage of my blog in comparison to other otaku blogs.

My parents were involved in a very bad squabble late last night, which lasted till about 2 am this morning. It wasn't anything new, and not as serious as last times, thankfully. I believe it had something to do with my dad, in his usual nighttime drunken stupor, criticizing mum about her work-over-family priorities that evening. This came about when he found out that morning that I was at mum's office helping her set up a new printer, when I was supposed to be at home working on dad's admin assignments with the home computer. I did get back to his work later in the afternoon, but made little progress as I still had to share the computer with my siblings, since mum's brought the laptop to work. Dad was really frustrated, cos he was the one who keeps telling me that he has taken good care of the family, and that all of us are indebted to him. He criticized my actions of helping mum out in her office by questioning if I owed her company anything. In a fit of rage he even tried to delete all my admin work, but thankfully, being the computer-illiterate person he is, didn't know how. There he was, yelling at me, "I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!", and a few moments later shouting, "HOW DO YOU DELETE THIS DAMN THING?!"

I hit the roof too. In the middle of their squabble I put on some clothes (trivia: AK's always only in his underwear and shorts at home) and run out the door. It was 2am. I decided to take a walk down to the nearby marketplace then back, hoping that the argument had died down by then. a few things I learned from my journey:
The majority of cars going up and down the mostly empty roads are taxis.
At this hour there are still people walking around, usually in pairs (not couples).
The nearby LAN gaming shop was STILL OPEN. The LANMaster and one pudgy 20-something guy were still inside.
This hour is usually when a certain Indian Coffee House gets the most customers. It was practically packed when I walked past.

Today dad's locked himself up in his room, and mum's at work again. Even our maid's taken the day off. Looks like it's up to me to hold the fort. Wish me luck.

Today's pix.

Boredom

An increasing occurrence that's happening to me is the lack of things I can think of doing while I'm spending valuable time with the computer. When I turn on the computer, I immediately turn on Windows Media Player, MSN Messenger, and Mozilla Firefox. Player loads first, I run my playlist. MSN opens up, I sign in. Mozilla comes last. Check my subscribed dannychoo.com feeds. Drop by at darkmirage.com. Drop by at animedesho.animeblogger.net. Drop by at kurogane.animeblogger.net. Check out Windbell's blog through dannychoo, along with another random Singaporean blogger featured at that website. All done in a matter of 15 minutes. When there's nobody to talk to on MSN, I log in to Facebook. Frag a random guy in Rise of the Rebellion, then in Counter Strike: Red Team Go. Go off exploring the galaxy in Rise of the Rebellion. Check my Warbook account. Recruit soldiers, build more mines, attack cities. Done in ten minutes. Check out kawaiiheavens.net. Barren wasteland as always, nothing ever happens there. Check out animeb.com. Crumbling before my very eyes. No place for me there, ever since I took off months ago and only returned recently. Ten minutes gone. It's not even an hour yet. If I'm in the mood, and my Internet connection works well, I'll catch up with my anime dosage at Youtube, thus killing me lots of time. If I'm not, I'm left with nothing to do.

Except come here and rant about me being left with nothing to do.

Creating a blog with the theme 'Tokyo in Singapore' turned out to be a very bad idea. I used to have tons of ideas for this blog, but by now all that studying and IRL business has made me forget most of them. In the end I'm left with a blog that betrays its title. It's not fit to be linked from other otaku sites anymore. That's why I had decided to open up an animeblogger.net account so I can revert this blog back into a personal one, while using the ab.net blog for otaku-related posts. This is have turned out to be not such a sound idea either, since the ab.net staff already have 1000+ other clients to look after when it comes to site setup. As of now I'm still awaiting support for my site...

Sometimes I wonder why I still posts in this blog. Really, nobody's reading it anymore. Or perhaps I'm hoping for something to happen in future that will draw attention to my blog, so that readers would go back into the pst and read all these rant posts and learn a bit more about this blog's history and how I used to feel before?

Perhaps so. There's always hope, as I say. Even when there's no hope, there's always hope. Yes, I tend not to make sense sometimes.

I really hope there's somebody, anybody, reading this post, needless to say my blog.

I just hope.

My First Paycheck: $109.50; Even more Obscurity; Depression

After working for three days at Xpress Works, a telesurvey company, doing administrative nonsense and all that, I am finally relieved of active office duty, and presented a paycheck of $109.50 (seems like they want to be accurate to the nearest dollar). No, that doesn't mean I got fired. I was only supposed to provide extra manpower over a few days to help sort out some stuff. By the way, that company was run by 6 other people around my age, plus a 30-something year-old boss. The environment was very office-like, but the fact that all my colleagues are actually around my age takes a bit of getting used to. We do telesurveys by the way, and I was the main man for keying in data into the computers and generating numbers for my colleagues to call up.

Prom night was dealt with promptly too. Nothing too fancy, just classmates with make-up and fancy dresses. No pictures right now, unfortunately. All I can say was my performance was not worth it. I hate my band. I'm disbanding. Nuff said.

Currently searching for a spot at the SITEX convention. newspaper ads aren't doing very well at the moment, it would seem that my first interview with a minor comp accessory company had failed (woman promised to call me back the next afternoon to confirm my spot, either that or she forgot), so I'm gunning for another one that only goes for 4 days at the exhibition instead of the full 3. Now I know how hard it is to get a job (that everybody else wants as well).

If you're reading this, you most probably chanced upon this blog, either by mistake or by Blogger-surfing. I say that because I'm pretty unimpressed at how unpopular my blog is. It seems as though nobody's reading it at all (or, at least, nobody who's got a Blogger account and can pass comments). My faith and commitment to this blog is slowly fading, and at this rate I'm getting too lazy to even post pictures. Whatever it is, I still have the will to type. And that's all I need.

I wish animeblogger would hurry up with my support ticket. I'm still having problems with my account and they don't seem to care. I have links at various other blogsites but it doesn't really matter cos no one's clicking. It's very depressing, this all is. I can't do any anime or Japan-related blogging while it's still awaiting support (yes, I'll be changing the name and theme of this blog too).

I'm still committed to my other commitments, though. It's a good thing a new gym opened up within my residential district. It's not a good thing it's only open at night.. My story's coming up very nicely too. But at this rate I'll need to put it more hours so I can get it done... As for the plot... A Singaporean guy living in Japan. FYI, my blog was inspired by this story, not the other way around. Even though I created this blog first, I had the story forming in my mind way before.

Speaking of which, I have a lot of things forming in my mind which I find very hard to conceive into action. Well, that's cos I'm lazy. Good thing I know it, so I can find ways to solve this problem. Too bad I'm lazy, so I don't feel like doing anything to help my laziness at all. See the conflict here?

I've decided to get myself a new graphics card for this computer too. Looks like I can't install any more games on the laptop without getting screwed up by my mummy. Beh. GeForce 8600 sounds good... Wonder if I could pick it up at SITEX, too.

I still have my quiet self-thinking times, and whenever I do I always think about myself in relation to the world. I used to be confident in my upcoming O level results, but after all that 'I don't believe you' crap from my dad, I'm starting to use these quiet times to worry about my O levels instead. Not healthy. Also, I still get envious of people at better positions than me, in terms of popularity, skill or even money (not quoting names). I keep thinking of ways to make myself special, to make myself admired. Yes, I'm an attention seeker, and it was all derived from that precocious thinking of mine when I was very young that went something like 'it's my life, I control it, so I want it to be special'. That's why I'm usually always the oddball of the lot, and people tend to want to make fun of my attempts to be different. They may laugh at me for being different, but I laugh at all of them for being the same.

Ah, whatever. Enough said. Time for a serious workout.