Christmas came and went by, 2 more days and it will be soon be 2005…somehow time flies past very fast like a blink. Just earlier on this year I was looking forward to my ORD date in june, and now it’s already closing to year 2005. Lotsa things happened for me this year, be it relationship, friends, work etc. It somehow changed me into a stronger person though, not that it’s bad. Afterall when you have imperative issues in life to resolve, you tend to learn from it and grow up. Moving on in life was hard for me, especially after what a downfall I had in my love-life, but still I’m glad I had finally moved on somehow, out of that melancholy despair that overshadowed me for awhile. Life was tough from then on, but still eventually I did it. People often say that no matter how hard things are, as long as you do try, you will somehow be able to do it, be it the smooth way or the hard way.

Well, I promised some pictures earlier on didn’t I? Here they are, it’s nothing much…just some photos taken of my new desktop system as well as some news articles related to sgGamers, it was featured in ST’s Digital Life section on the 21st December 2004. I wanted to do this earlier on, but always had no time. So well here they are, enjoy the pictures.

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Yeah I’m finally back! Sorry for the lack of updates, but it’s due to upgrading my system, met some minor hiccups and problems in the midst of it, but everything has been solved. Who would have thought such a non-general component such as the PSU in the system casing could be the whole cause of the problem, and for once I thought since I was out of the DIY hardware scene for so long, I won’t be able to identify and remedy my comp problem. Well let’s just say the ‘tech-geekness’ in me overwhelmed myself and took control, thus everything was well once again.

Well basically I have built a new Pentium 4 3.2Ghz HT-based system, and everything else was pretty much high-end. Coupled it with a brand new LG DVD burner as well as a brand new SATA Maxtor 160GB HDD (I coupled it with my old Maxtor 80GB HDD from my old sys, so total HDD capacity is 240GB now) so I guess it could last me for awhile with those download of movies and animes. Gaming was not top piority for this system in mind but still I went with a pretty good graphics card which is the ATI Radeon 9800Pro overclocked to XT clockspeeds. Also changed my soundcard from Creative Audigy 1 to Audigy 2, since I was gonna use a new 5.1 speakers setup (Altec Lansing VS3151R) so I thought what the heck might as well go for it. And actually I didn’t intend to get a new LCD monitor to replace my old 15″ Samsung 570S LCD, but in the end I still bought one (17″ Viewsonic VG712S LCD) to replace it since Mum was nice enough to sponsor it as a Pre-Christmas gift for me. (Thanks Mum I love ya!)

So there you have it, a pretty much new DIY system overhaul. I love it totally, the good clarity and responsiveness of my new LCD monitor totally awed me (12ms response time coupled with Viewsonic’s own proprietary OptiSync and ClearMotiv technology) especially when watching my collection of movies and animes on it. Not to forget playing back my music collection via my new 5.1 speakers setup was a total blast, Altec Lansing definitely didn’t fail my expectations when it comes to quality yet affordable PC speakers, my first 2.1 speakers setup was also by Altec Lansing so it was quite expected that I stuck to the same brand again. Actually my top choice was the Creative Gigaworks 7.1 but it was out of stock in SLS and I heard you had to order from Creative’s site, been such a hassle so I basically dropped the idea in the end. Will post up some pics of my new sys soon so stay tuned.

Well my parents and sis went for their Australia trip and came back just last week. I had the whole house to myself, even invited Jerm to stay over at my place to chill. Actually he has his unit’s anniversary thingy to attend early next morning, so it was not advisable for him to just go for Pris’ BBQ with me and go home, only to come back to Pasir Ris Park in the wee early hours of the morning all the way back to east again. We had some 2P arcade fighting greatness on my dreamcast playing KOF2K2 and Streetfighter 3rd Strike, it was great fun and I really enjoyed his great company. Then we had some long conversations about our lives before it was oyasumi for us at 4AM. Just trying to recollect some of the nice moments so I hope it’s not too late to blog about it. It was also great to see Priscilla during the BBQ, thanks girl for everything, though I didn’t had time to stay long enough but still it was nice catching up with ya.

Christmas is almost here. Can you feel it? This year will be a slighty better xmas for me, partly also because I’m not in NS anymore. And I already made some plans with Jerm and Kaiwei to celebrate it, we’re gonna have a nice dinner buffet at Kuishinbo and go somewhere else to chill after that. Later this week there’s a KTV session with the GS peeps, quite excited about it cos gonna meet some new people. And finally can get to witness Brandon’s singing skills! Hah we shall see about that. *grins*

Ok it’s time to sleep. More updates to come soon, probably a photoblog coming up too. Oyasumi nasai minna-san.

Chalet was good. Met some new people, had various topics touched on with the usual friends. Lotsa console-parties and fun had with the people there. Ben and Gary played very nice hosts, cooking and barbecueing the whole evening for the rest of us, without any complains. Not to forget Valentine also, been the organiser of this BBQ cum chalet and all, thanks for everything, you guys simply rock. I guessed most of us pretty much enjoyed ourselves, and it’s thanks to you people, that’s able to make it happen. I’m pretty sure this event has pretty much made us further bonded in every sense of the community. Let’s give each of ourselves a clap and a pat on the back hehe. *applauses*

And due to the tiring chalet event, I had a good 12 hours of undisturbed and sound sleep, was totally knocked out but woke up on Sat morning feeling rather refreshed. Went out around noon to go pass some stuffs to TK at Tampines, then headed down to Citylink to chill while waiting for Valentine. Had lunch at Burger King, my first unhealthy fastfood meal of the week. Well I’m just kinda particular about fastfood nowadays, that I try to avoid it as much as possible, excluding Mcdonald’s Sausage Mcmuffin breakfast, which I have a really soft-spot for it.

So while having my lunch (consider that brunch) at BK, there was this malay adult couple infront of me, aged probably somewhere btw late 20s to early 30s. They were sort of having a small dispute over something, I try not to listen to their conversaton but they were really raising off their top of their voices, that I couldn’t help it. Something to do with their parents, something to do with that guy’s insensitivity. That woman was really pissed with that guy, and that guy was showing off his anger to her. Not a very nice scene indeed. I decided to just quickly finish and get done with my meal and leave.

Called Valentine up and got to know that he will be late, so I went to hop over to Funan’s Gamescore to look for Deli and JL. And thanks to JL’s help, I finally got the v0.30 BB Navigator upgrade disc for my Sony Playstation 2’s HDD BB Navigator software. My BB Navigator software was still stuck on version 0.10, with really outdated features on the browser screen. And thanks to v0.30, I can finally move my savegames from my memory card to the HDD. And I finally bought the last copy of Half-Life 2 from Deli’s shop, damn I’m so lucky. Bought a couple of PS2 games too, sigh I guessed I really overspent alot on games for this month. Got the chance to sample Nintendo DS also which is Nintendo’s current latest handheld offering, officially retailing now at the price of $399, with one game bundle if I’m not wrong. This handheld is really innovative, you can actually play 2-player buddy buddy games on the same handheld, and also play games with the stylus. Had fun with one of the ping-pong games playing with JL, really innovative IMO. I also played a couple rounds of PS2 games like Devil May Cry 3 trial demo, Katamari Damacy and Capcom Fighting Evolution with them at the shop, while waiting for Valentine to reach. Soon more people dropped by like Ace, Brandon, Adam and Chengkai. I think they usually drop by to chill at Gamescore during Sats, after what Valentine told me when we left. I think I will definitely try to drop by more often, since most of the guys are dropping by over there during weekends.

So after meeting up with Valentine, off we went to Sim Lim Square to buy my stuffs for my new DIY system. Bought a couple of stuffs, mainly my graphics card, DVD Burner and harddisk. Decided not to buy everything at once since I don’t wanna carry too much stuffs, so I decided to come back again sometime soon. Soon we left SLS for dinner, headed over to Sunshine plaza for the famous wanton noodles. We met Echo at La Tendo before that, chatted for awhile then parted our ways, then finally settled down to have dinner. Had a good chat with Valentine on various topics, mainly about school and NS life. I was bitching about how good poly life is, how I never had the chance to experience it. And Valentine was bitching to me about how boring poly life is. LOL, I guess he won’t understand the fact till he goes through NS, then I think he will start to change his mind and understand that studying is actually a very blessed thing in disguise. After dinner we dropped by Bugis Junction to chill out at Kinokuniya, then it’s home sweet home for us after that.

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Thanks to Ben, I had the chance to attend the AnimaXtion Symposium event that was held at Cathay Cineleisure, Cineplex earlier on Tuesday, organised by MDA Singapore in conjunction with the Asia Media Festival 2004 that is going on right now. It was quite an eye-opener for me as we got to hear some of the famous people in the animation industry giving their speeches as well as talking about their very own latest works. Normally this kind of anime convention talk is considered kind of a rare event here locally, considering usually only countries like Japan, Korea and US will host convention talks like this one. We got to meet some of the famous anime producers like Mr Akitaro Daichi from Japan, showcasing his latest work, Makasete Iruka! (known as Grrl Power in US) as well as our very own Singaporean talent Mr Nickson Fong, CEO of Egg Story Creative Productions, his own company. He’s responsible for some of the highly-acclaimed animations in Hollywood productions like Shrek, and movies like the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as scenes from The Matrix Reloaded. He also showcased one of his latest work during the event which is a TVCM for the Singapore Navy, it’s about a transmariner transforming into a robot with very cool special effects. You should be able to spot or have already seen this TVCM on local SMRT buses and MRTs by now. Anyway I kinda enjoyed the event, hopefully next time in future MDA Singapore will organise more of such convention talks like this again.

Ok I shall stop here, it’s getting late and I’m gonna rush off for the BBQ event, so I guess I shall see ya folks sometime next week again? Till then enjoy and take care of yourselves everyone. *waves*

Ok, I’m pretty tired out and sleepy here so I will just do a quick update for today. Having had only 4-5 hours of sleep within 48 hours is totally bad. I know but I can’t help it, been totally addicted to my PS2 games and animes recently. And it all began like this. *chuckles*

My games parcel from Hong Kong arrived here on Monday earlier on, which only took 2 days from the supplier to ship and reach my place. *elated*

And upon opening the parcel, yes it’s my ordered list of games. I made an online order via Play-Asia earlier on, and been a first-time customer of the site I was at first rather skeptical about its shipping and reliability, but in the end I still couldn’t resist it and finally took the plunge, reason been they offer rather good prices for the japanese import games, much cheaper than over at NCSX. And since it’s rather hard to get japanese import games here (I don’t like to collect asian version of JP games by the way) and even if the shops here do, they often overcharge you with a premium amount which I don’t like. So rather than getting myself chopped like a carrot-head, I decided to take the risk and order online via Play-Asia. (no risk no gain right?)

The main actual reason for this online order is actually because of this particular game, called Katamari Damacy. Katamari Damacy can be literally translated as “Clump of Soul”. It’s a wonderfully fun and weird game, how weird you might ask? Just like what the Japanese title describes, though that doesn’t explain a lot unless you play the game yourself. Therefore I will cover some of the background summary about this game before I continue with my ‘mini-review’.

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