Okay, so, here’s my 3rd package of 2010, and i got it just this morning. Ever since Cowon released their teaser for the Cowon E2, I wanted it (about 6 months ago if memory served me right). It was only about 2 months ago that it was officially released, and I wanted it! But… I didn’t wanna pay an extra $12 for shipping… So I held out, and waited till “I needed to order more than one item”. And so… I placed my order for the Cowon E2 recently, along with a case for the Cowon S9 (for Hugh) and three pairs of Comply foam tips for my UE Super.Fi earphones… And those foam tips are expensive for what they are…
I may do an actual photoshoot for my Cowon E2 later on, as you can see… the photo I do have is pretty terrible…
Package 3 of ?:
Arrived – 19th January
Origin – Sydney, Australia (minidisc.com.au)
Value – $126.95 AUD
Contents: “4gb Cowon iAudio E2”, “Comply Foam Tips T-500”, “Cowon iAudio Leather Case for Cowon S9”
Okay, here are images of the two packages I’ve received within the past two weeks thanks to my online spending sort of habit thing…
And, obviously, I’ve passed my budget of $1000 this holidays… I am past $1277 as of today…. So yay me eh? Anyway…. I don’t expect that number to rise too much more this holidays unless… well… something comes up and I’m like… *BUYS* But yeah… here’s a few photos of what was in those two packages… In case you wanted to know… I also hope to take much better shots and go into more detail in a later blog post… time depending…
Package 1 of ?:
Arrived – 7th January
Origin – Tokyo, Japan (Amiami.com)
Value – ¥8,658 JPY ($109.49 AUD)
Contents: “Petit Sample Series Cake-shop BOX”, “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai Hanyu Completed Figure”
I’ll take more of ^Hanyuu once I get Rika to match. =P
Package 2 of ?:
Arrived – 13th January
Origin – Hong Kong, China (citiwideonline.com.au)
Value – ¥8,658 JPY ($109.49 AUD)
Contents: “Canon Powershot SX200 IS”
Wow… It really was a heptic week last week… Trying to keep up to date with all the Consumer Electronics Show news was a challenge, and I really must give LOTS of credit and thanks to the efforts of technology blog sites that followed CES. The main ones I followed were CNET and Engadget, who quite frankly, really do deserve some sleep… I am stealing a lot of info off Engadget by the way…
I must say that I was a little dissapointed at what was announced at CES this year, especially in the digital audio player market… We saw a lot of Televisions, Netbooks, Tablets and E-Readers… Too many e-readers if you ask me… Speaking of which I saw someone with an Amazon Kindle the other day in the city. The Kindle doensn’t really interest me that much, and I thought I didn’t like the design of it, but as I walked past it, I was “Wow… That looks pretty awesome”…
Anyway, here’s a list of the tech that I was most interested over the CES period.
Sony Dash
It’s not a tablet or anything really uber, but I certainly thought it was a nice product I’d like to have in my room as an alarm clock. The Sony Dash features a 7 inch touch screen, runs the “Chumby” OS (Which I thought was interesting), has Wi-fi and really is basically a super-special-awesome clock-radio gadget that you put on your bedside table or something. If it weren’t expecting a sale price of $199US, I’d probably buy it. Engadget Link
Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid
It’s been getting a lot of attention, and I too think, that it is a pretty cool laptop. The Lenovo U1 is essentially your normal laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo, 128GB solid state drive, and it runs Windows 7 Home Premium. But what really makes it stand out, is how the screen is detachable, and it becomes an 11 inch tablet device! The tablet moves to Lenovo’s “Skylight” OS, and runs on the Snapdragon 1Ghz processor. It’s pretty awesome, and I wouldn’t mind my hands on one, but I don’t think it will be my laptop of choice. It should be shipping in June for $999US… Engadget Link
HP TouchSmart TM2 Laptop Convertible
I don’t really want to “remove” the screen, I’d much rather it convertible, hence why I much prefer this, and will probably be my laptop/netbook of purchase for this year. It has a 12.1 inch screen, and has a Core 2 Duo processor, and has a 9 hour battery life (which I like). The laptop is tablet convertible by flipping the screen around, and laying it flat on the keyboard. From the pictures, it looks very pretty, and it is cheaper than the Lenovo U1 Hybrid. It will be avaliable in the US for $949US by the end of January too! Engadget Link
MSI Dual Screen Netbook/E-reader
Rather novelty, and at the moment, it’s still just a concept, but I think it is awesome. It has an Atom Z Series processor and runs Windows 7 Home Premium. Other than that, there’s not much news about it. MSI had a prototype and engadget did a hands on video. Engadget Link
Samsung LED 9000 Series Television
I love LED screens. They are super-pretty, and Samsung makes them super awesome. The 9000 series is less than 7mm thick! It’s thinner than a pencil! And I love the design of it! So sleek… So slim! I’d expect some great picture quality too! It also comes with an awesome remote, as well as some other awesome features! I want one. Engadget Link
HTC/Google Nexus One
Not technically CES related, but it was announced during the week of CES. The latest and most awesome Android running phone, it has a 3.7 inch AMOLED screen with an 800×480 resolution. (Awesome!) It also has the 1Ghz Snapdragon processor inside it, as well as having an awesome kind of “industrial” design. 512MB of RAM, as well as having a removable battery and microSD slot, it’s a nice phone! Though it’s not a media phone, so I can’t say it’d be my immediate phone of choice once available here, but it is still awesome. Engadget Link
Inbrics M1
Another phone that runs Android. Engadget describes it as “probably everything we ever wanted”. Like the Nexus One, it has a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display, but has a a full QWERTY keyboard that the Nexus One lacks. It is similar to the Motorola Droid, though the Inbrics does focus more on media though, which I like the sound of. Not much about it though… I may be keeping my eye out for news on it. Engadget Link
Viliv P3
Suprisingly not a phone, but a portable media player! It has some nice specs, and if it released here, I’d like to get my hands on one. It has some nice specs! Runs Google Android, 800×480 AMOLED display an 800MHz processor, 32gb internal storage, with microSD expansion and has Windows CE dual-boot capability?!?! I’d expect it’d have some good codec support too! So… I’ll be looking out for more info on this! (I like how Engadget compares it to the Zii EGG) Engadget Link
iRiver K1
Something that also caught my interest nearing the end of CES, iRiver finally moves into close to iPod Touch competition with the announcements for specs of the K1 “Smart HD” portable media player. It has a 3.5-inch display with a 480 x 320 resolution, (same as the Touch) WiFi, and supports a lot of formats including .mkv, .flac and .ogg! I’d like to know a little more about it before saying “I want one” but from the specs, if it’s cheap, and works well, I may just get me one. No word on pricing or anything just yet though… Engadget Link
Well, it has been a long while since I have updated the Anime side of my blog, so here is my first post for a few months. Ookami Kakushi is the only Winter season of Anime I will be actively following, and I thought I’d post my first impressions of the openning episode titled “The Town of Jouga”. Already it has that slight RyuKishi sort of Higurashi feel to it, and for some reason, that slightly annoys me… But being a fan of Higurashi and Umineko, I’d thought I’d follow along with Ookami, and see if the ride will be any good. (Even if it turned out like Umineko… I was dissapointed…) One major difference between RyuKishi’s other animated works and Ookami is a change of studio. This time, Peach-Pit (Rozen Maiden, Zombie Loan, etc.) will be working on this, not Studio DEEN. (Thank god?)
The Opening Scene – I dunno… Mixed feelings… The openning scene is the scene that draws you in. Personally, I feel that it’s the most important part of the first episode. The whole “I know I love you” thing was… awkward… It did set up a nice sort of build to the show, as there is that sense of mystery that RyuKishi is praised for. Though I can’t help but feel as though it’s a little recycled…
The Characters and Setting – Jouga… is interesting. A city, seemingly, pretty much split in two, an old side and a new side. Those on the old side “oppose” the new side. Hahaha… I’m definately agreeing with everyone here. The main, Hiroshi, is a guy. I have to remind myself that… He does seem weirdly feminine? Having Koobayashi Yuu voicing him doesn’t help that much either. =P As he moves into the new school, everyone seems to love him! (I remember reading the plot synopsis and I could not help but think “Oh, that’s so Higurashi again…” and I don’t feel that statement is wrong…) He is surrounded by girls… As Hiroshi moves into the town of Jouga, the first person he meets is… Shall we call, the “Rena” of Ookami? ‘Cept Isuzu is annoying… rather than “moe”… She is… VERY forward from the looks of things… The discussion about visiting “the old town” reminded me of the famous “Uso-da!” scene quite a bit. But was no where near as awesome, and if there is something “mysterious” behind it, that scene didn’t really ‘excite’ me about the old town that much. The rest of the characters set some things up nicely… As always, “the one who doesn’t talk that much” obviously does… something…
Music and Sound – “Toki no Mukou, Maboroshi no Sora (時の向こう 幻の空)” by FictionJunction. *likes* I had heard the full version before the anime was officially out and unlike most OPs, I could tell that I liked it, and gave me an insight into what the Anime may very well be like. It will take some more listening before I can safely say that I *love* the OP, but it is very nice. The same goes for the OP’s visuals. The chase scene background score was epic. It’s gotten me excited over the OST already! Overall, the choices of Seiyuus seemed to match well enough. Looks like Koobayashi has played a fairly substantial role in all of RyuKishi related works so far. The ED, “Tsukishirube (月導)” by Yuuka Nanri, (also a member of FictionJunction) wasn’t that substantial to me… Interesting animation to go with it though.
Art and Animation – Unlike DEEN, Peach-Pit does care about animation!!! Finally one of RyuKishi’s creations isn’t ruined by terrible animation! Well, not yet… I always have mixed opinions to those “3D” style animations… I remember Trinity Blood, where it didn’t really work out that well… The character designs are nice and simple, nothing outrageous. (Some still go on about Mion’s unnaturally flourencently green hair…) Peach-Pit is a good choice. I hope.
Overall – There is that feeling that RyuKishi essentially will be recycling Higurashi for Ookami… Whether that’ll be good or bad… That’s something else… But for now, I do say, the first episode is intriguing, and I will most definitely be following along. For an opening episode, I do give it a 7 out of 10.
What better way to start off the new year in gadgets than with product announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas? As CES 2010 kicks off on Thursday, I thought I’d do a little top 10 predictions for 2010 in relation to gadgets and consumer electronics. Of course, this’ll mainly focus on what I’m looking for in my gadgets… But anyway, here are my top ten predictions in relation to tech, for 2010. Touch screens will continue to be all the rage.
10 -USB 3.0 will be slowly introduced… Kinda obvious since there are already motherboards and crap with USB 3.0 out, but I don’t expect USB 3.0 to become fully standard and universal until 2011 at the earliest. It’ll be a niche kind of product at first, and companies will slowly introduce USB 3.0 enabled gadgets. I certainly can’t wait for faster transfer speeds myself! I’m a little tired of waiting half-an-hour to transfer a a few gigs of data to an external hard-drive.
9 – E-Book readers… A fairly large number of them too… I don’t see how this will be a huge market (or even is a huge market), but I can see there can be some innovations to e-book readers, such as the Barns and Noble “Nook”. Amazon’s Kindle will definately be around for a while, but increasing competition in the e-reader market should help see prices drop, and possible media/e-book readers, either as pocketable candy-bar form gadgets, or wi-fi/netbook style tablets.
8 – Creative will either come out with a product for the commercial market containing the hyped-up last year “Zii” chip that will a) be really successful or b) be a complete waste of effort and no-one will buy it. I personally think it is very much about time Creative really showed off to the general consumer public as for what their “Zii” chip is really made of… We’ve already sort of seen the results of the Zii EGG and the recently announced concept “Zii Trinity” phone, but nothing to consumers as of yet…
7 – Google’s Chrome OS won’t be successful. (At least not in the beginning) I do question whether or not Google’s Chrome OS will really be any good… I mean the aim for Chrome’s OS is simple, a quick starting OS on netbooks to access the internet… It is a cheaper option, and as
6 – Sony will release a new generation PSP, possibly running NVIDIA’s Tegra chip. There was an “accidental” leak supposedly suggesting a new generation PSP… If it does come out, I expect it’ll look a lot better than the PSP Go!, which was kinda… fail… and similar to the PSP Go, it won’t use the UMDs. It will probably be that same proprietary Sony memory stick stuff too. It will probably have a touch screen of some sort (resistive) and probably won’t be that much of use. Sony will also probably either make the next PSP super-aweosme, or like the Go, another “fail”.
5 – GPS navigations, will really begin to die out, similar to the current dedicated mp3 player market. Ever since phones, began having mp3 capabilities, and now many having GPS capabilities, these two markets are slowly dying, though GPS will probably die out first, possibly this year too… Comapnies such as TomTom and Garman etc had their share prices fall last year, with thanks to Google. mp3 players may still have an edge, as no phone will be able to carry your entire music library… Hence why the iPod is still super-succesful…
4 – Google Android will continue to expand rapidly, and I would like to see it possibly, catching up very closely, or taking over Windows Mobile, in terms of popularity in mobile operating systems. There are already a fair few Android running hand-held devices around, but some of them still lack the qualities that the other mobile OSs have, especially Apple’s iPhone OS. No doubt we will be seeing a lot more phones running Android, and the newly announced Nexus One “superphone” was released today, and is available for purchase. Other phones such as the XPERIA from Sony should further strengthen Android’s hold in the mobile OS world. Whether it’ll take over iPhone…
3 – 3DTV will be commercially available and be like how HDTVs were around when they first came out… As in, like, how when HDTVs were out, they were on displays at stores all over the place, and only like… “One of my friends have one” and you yourself won’t have one till maybe a few years after they came out… Though, there is an issue with the whole “always wearing glasses” to see 3D that is… Though apparently, some companies will be displaying 3D TVs where you don’t need the glasses? Well, they’re saying, if we’re gonna see that happening, CES is the place.
2 – The Apple Tablet – Just like many of those in the tech world, I belive that Apple will come out with some form of tablet. Whether it be a super-large iPhone of sorts, an e-reader that does media playback, or as a netbook sort of slate device, Apple will release something like that, sometime this year. There has already been many “claims” of leaked specs and pricing, but of course, there is nothing concrete as of yet. Though even if Apple does release an “iTablet”, would you actually buy one? Rumors do have them out as around the US$800/900…
1 – Google will take over the world. Okay, maybe not in 2010… But expect to see A LOT more Google in the world, way more than what you’ve seen so far.
So, with 2009 over, and hello to 2010, it’s only appropriate to do a little self-achievement post for myself… Along with some depressing number crunching… Back when I had a page dedicated to “goals for 2009”, I wanted to have at least $3000 saved up… Yeah… I’m way off… I never really sustained a balance pass $2000… Even now… it’s not there… So, that was a fail… Anyway, so listing time! Anything in red represents a “fail” as I did not achieve the goal. Remember that this list was developed pretty much the day it was made in January last year and many things on this list probably would be different.
As from my “goals for 2009”: Movies: Yes Man, Seven Pounds, Madagascar 2, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Ghost Town, Dragonball, Star Trek, Angels and Demons, I Love You Man, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Funny People, Astro Boy, 2012 TV Shows: Lost – Season 5, Fringe – Season 1, The Mentalist – Season 1, How I Met Your Mother – Season 4, Air Crash Investigations – Season 5, How I Met Your Mother – Season 5, Flashforward – Season 1, Stargate Universe – Season 1, The Mentalist – Season 2 Anime: Higurashi no naku koro ni Rei, Umineko no naku koro ni, Elfen Lied, Code Geass, Kanon (2006), The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Shakugan no Shana, Mobile Suit Gundam 00. What I Plan To Buy: Higurashi: When They Cry Graphic Novels, When They Cry: Higurashi DVD Box Set (Because you can’t), A new Portable Media Player, A new shiny looking phone, Japanese Dictionaries, Portable Hard Drive, A Domain name. Misc. Fold 1000 paper cranes, Put those Japanese Dictionaries to use, Get good results for school (Sorta), Remember the full Periodic Table of Elements, Go to Animania, Sydney in September.
Blog Stats
Number of hits – 2519! (Do I visit my own blog that much? XD)
Total number of blog post entries – 138
Most viewed Page – Atlantis – Dubai’s Newest Attraction – 105 views
My 3 most expensive single purchases of 2009
– Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5 Extended Bass Earphones (July)- $245
– Creative ZEN Vision:M (January) – $199
– Creative ZEN X-fi (June) – $185
Okay, so those stats aren’t really that interesting were they…? Nah didn’t think so… I was kinda dissapointed… Anyway, here was the year of 2009 for me in a month by month kind of nutshell thing!
January
I welcomed in the new year by finishing Chaos;Head… wow… What a bad way to start… Maybe that’s why I didn’t watch that much anime this year… I got super psyched at this Creative “Zii” chip and how it would “change everything I knew”. By the time CES 2009 came round, I was dissapointed… I bought my Japanese Dictionaries, along with a ZEN Vision:M to help me watch my anime on… I discovered online shopping at that point… Ordered my first volume of Higurashi manga! Haha, Tom and Bayden had their go at trying to create blogs… Certainly a “commitment” issue… US Airways 1549 (An Airbus A320!) Lands in the Hudson! No-one hurt. Amazing!
February
HIGURASHI NO NAKU KORO NI REI!!! My first “Rambling” post, and boy did that stir an argument between Bayden, Nick and I… Daniel left for Germany on a Black Friday… (Wow? Really? Only that long ago?) I wrote him a nice farewell message too that certainly wished him the best… ETHAN ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING IN FOOD TECH!! I had the “Song of Jigglypuff” in my head for a while… Which led to a short phase of Pokemon music…
March
Had a lot of work to do in March, yet I still managed 13 blog posts… I officially launched my Anime Blog… Spent a lot of time researching about mp3 players as my aging ZEN’s right button didn’t respond properly. I met a Bakugan crazy spoiled brat. Not all that happy with “Lie to me”… The “Sped” moniker began to catch on for poor Nick… I realise that my goal of $3000 was unreachable… even back then… It rained Macs for a day… Then, we were off to Tasmania!
April
I loose my Sennheisser CX-300 II earphones, along with my ZEN Stone… They were somewhat a depressing factor into what was an awesome trip… I love public holiday pay rates. Nick needs to learn how to count… I spend a good $2o not getting a plush huskie at the Easter Show… “The Boat…” really “rocked”! Dragonball was fail though… Procrastination is bad…
May
Swine Flu… I get really mad at Haruhi Suzumiya… So I force myself to place Haruhi on first-priority… LAZOR TAGZORS! Lost Season 5 was awesome, and The Menatalist impressed me a lot. 5 episodes into Haruhi and I confirmed my suspisions that Haruhi Suzumiya IS A FREAKING ANNOYING CHARACTER… Why the hell do people like her??? My test results were rather dissapointing for my standard… EPSIODE 2 OF HIGURASHI REI!!! =D=D=D LED backlit TVs are awesome! I finish Haruhi… and the series was very much enjoyable… as long as I could hold back my want to punch Haruhi in the face…
June
Poker begins taking a bigger role in my social life… Air France has a crash that was the first ever loss of life on an Airbus A330/A340 aircraft… “The Corny Paper” is left to collect dust for a year… I begin to really stress about what my mp3 player of choice should be… MORE HIGURASHI REI!!! YEAH! RIKA GET’S ANGRY!!!!! <3<3<3<3! I recieve my shiny ZEN X-fi! My blog officially turns One Year Old on the 13th! Hugh gets himself a Cowon S9. Umineko no naku koro ni is official! R.I.P Micheal Jackson…
July
UMINEKO NO NAKU KORO NI!!! We visited the Good Food and Show. Creative announces the Zii EGG!! I wanted so much!!!! “Bruno” was… “… … …” Mmmm… Dr Pepper and Jelly Bellys!!! ‘Cept some of the Jelly Bellys… I place my order for my Audio equipment stuffs… Down $500…. After much annoyance to my friends… Aww… *cries* Kanon!!!!!='( So beautiful…
August
Mangroves. Our first Anime Convention! “Smash!” was awesome!!! Free Gundam is good. I rewatch some good ol’ Stargate Atlantis… I listen to the Umineko OP a lot… Geography is easy when your teacher gives answers duing the test. Umineko is still awesome. I am an idiot, and deserve to be “stoned”. Brad Pitt is pro at Italian.
September
Big month in Tech for me… lots of new shinies! Animania was awesome too! Not as good as “Smash!” but nonetheless, fun! Nick “St-pwned” me good… Apple continues to monopolise the mp3 market. Zune HD’s offer stiff competition, and look really shiny! I wouldn’t mind me an Archos 5 Android either… *sigh* The Era of Higurashi is over, with the last episode of Rei. (WHICH WAS HILARIOUS! Ah… <3 Rena) Facebook lied to me…
October
Huzzah! Lots of people hated Endless Eight therefore they should have hated Haruhi at the time! CANAAN was fun! And Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood has been awesome! And yet… Haruhi can’t help but taunt me still… Yeah, holidays resulted in Poker and lots of procrastination… Somehow ‘minimal’ money spendature… Which was surprising, and good. ‘cept I spent a lot more earlier…
November
Yeah, I know, I didn’t do very well in my tests for my standard and all that… Lots of people lose money (including me) on Melbourne Cup day… The new seasons of TV started off nicely. Once again, I remained very indecisive as to which mp3 player I should buy… And wasted a lot of time doing that too…
December
I got rather lazy with my blog as many other things began to happen those few months… I developed obnoxiousness-ness and was too lazy even to watch Anime! So instead, I just hing round Facebook, read a lot about Tech news, and sat and did nothing for most of the time… It was boring, and a waste of time… I knew that as I was doing it… but for some reason…
Anyway, that was 2009 for me in a very simplified manner… All leeched off blog posts throughout the year cos I have a terrible memory… Hope you had a great 2009 too!
What better way to announce something like this on a new year?
Well, it is now official! I have my own domain name! I’m finally off free webhosting services, and finally actually paying for webhosting. Goodbye Freewebs. Goodbye Freehostia. Hello Dreamhost. Welcome to my new home, gochisou-deshita.net! So if you’ve subscribed to my rss or bookmarked my website, it’s time to update! I wonder how many there really are…
I officially bought my domain name about a week ago, and so I’ve had a week or so to officially set my blog up, and so here it is! I’m not a fan of my current layout or anything right now, and I do plan on changing it very soon. It was done in a rush in order to meet the New Year deadline that I set for myself, but now I just see ugly… Especially the header images… At first I thought it looked good, but now, it looks… bad… rather bad… and those “quotes”… Yeah, I’ll get rid of them soon enough, along with a full layout overhaul if I have the time.
Oh, I haven’t dropped “The Corny Paper” or “thecornypaper” alias entirely yet… I will still be using that here and there, but for the main part, I will be using the alias “gochisou” for a while now, considering it is my new website name. I created a sorta “logo” too, as you may be able to tell… (The favicon thing is wrong… I’ll need to correct that…) What do you think? I do lack creativity, and I’m not an artist… Hence the logo and the name “gochisou”…
Things are still a bit of a mess around here, mainly the categories, and I do plan on fixing a few things up in the coming days. Please note that some blog posts before the 1st of January 2010 may be incomplete, missing links and/or images, broken or out of date.
Anyway, thanks for following my blog, and I certainly hope to continue blogging for years to come!
Well, you’re probably not asking that, but oh well… It’s my blog, I can be selfish… right??? Anyway, so, as you all know, most plans never pan out how you originally planned them out to go, and so, once again, I really don’t expect to cross everything off this list either… So, as I finish the most recent episode of Umineko, I write my plans. This mild-ly over the top list is somewhat inspired by Leon’s very “Ambitious Summer” list… Of course, circumstances will change for some things, and thus, some items on this list may change/be impossible.
Budget hoping will be kept under – $1000 (Haha, funny eh?)
TV and Movies planned to be seen and/or followed:
Where the Wild Things Are
Astro Boy (Wait, what? It’s already been shown???)
Sherlock Holmes
Avatar
Zombieland
Stargate Universe (Pending)
The Mentalist
How I Met Your Mother
Fringe
Anime that MUST be seen/followed/completed:
Umineko no naku koro ni
Kanon (2006) (Rewatch)
Higurashi no naku koro ni (Rewatch)
CLANNAD
Code Geass: Lelouch if the Rebellion
Ookami Kakushi
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
My Neighbour Totoro
Gadgets:
Buy new Digital Camera (Canon IXUS 120 IS; Canon Powershot 200 IS; Panasonic Lumix TZ7)
Try out the Archos 5 Android Internet Media Tablet and ZEN X-Fi2
Buy new Portable Media Player (Archos 5; Sansa Clip)
Buy Netbook (Asus T91; Asus 1005HA/HG; Samsung N110)
Receive my Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5 Extended Bass earphones back!! (SOON HOPEFULLY!)
Buy a new pair of earphones (if above fails) (Klipsch Image S4; UE Super.Fi 5; Moda Vibe)
Buy new Printer (Canon PIXMA MP560?)
I expect to change to above due to upcoming CES 2010 early January. =D Psyched!
Projects that I would like to be completed.
Come up with a name for my own domain
Create my own domain including website content
Add some shelves to my wall and/or get a new desk
Clean/revamp my room
Complete/Scrap “Fadeaway” Anime Music Video
Create/Begin AMV for Umineko and/or Higurashi to respective theme songs
Create/Begin AMV for Umineko to Beatrice’s Character Song “Chains”
Create/Begin AMV for Umineko and Higurashi to Jessica’s Character Song “Dokkun Heart”
Outings
Go Fishing
Attend as many Poker Day/Nights as possible
“Beach Party” for Thomas
Somewhere to welcome back Daniel from his trip to Germany
Probably minimum of four outings to the City
Did anyone have plans for Christmas and/or New Years?
Okay, so that’s all I can think of at the moment… Depending on how much I can resist things, I hope I can keep under this $1000 budget that I have for this summer. I at least want to break even with the amount of money I may earn from work during these holidays. Should be fun eh? Oh yes…
Ah, so, no more Food Technology as an elective for this year anymore… I wonder what life would have been like for me had I not chosen to do Food Tech, and chose to do something more boring like Information and Software Technology, or my other choice of Japanese… Food Tech is probably one of my most life changing experiences over the last two years, the predominant other change would have been the choice to join Facebook, and the obtaining of employment. But, Food Technology has been a subject of pure-legendary-ness and led to a number of interesting mishaps and fun. Food Tech has changed things forever, I’m going to miss my Food Tech group/class…
The Mildly Corny First Paragraph: Probably the biggest highlight of having chosen Food Tech was the getting to know of people in my Food Tech cooking Bay. If it weren’t for Food Tech, chances are I’d not know them as well as I do now. *waves to Nick, Ethan and Martin*. Now we have all sorts of weird adventures here and there sorta… Though that wasn’t our original group. When we first began Food Tech, Nick and I used to cook with Alex. I think we Nick and I were way more pro at Food Tech when we worked with Alex, but then Martin and Ethan moved over to our bay, and thus, we unwillingly had to kick Alex out of our bay, and he had to go with Bradley… I feel kinda sorry for him, but if that change hadn’t of happened, life would be rather different… Bay 4, it’s been good working with all of you!
The Video: My memories of events that transpired last year in Food Tech are a little vague, but I do have this video. Those who have Facebook may already know about that video that was created by Jesse in Year 9 for his IST assignment. But yeah, not a bad example of what gets done in Food Tech… Though much more sped-ness goes on nowadays…
The Sped: Now this whole “sped” thing just grew to be, and I’m sorry for it catching on Nick. It all began when I had moved up maths classes and we decided to have “Food Tech in Maths” except for the Martin… We were playing around with Ethan’s new iPod Nano, and the accelerometer. (Where you shake the Nano to change the song) Ethan was listening to a video, and Ethan was just sitting there doing nothing. Suddenly, Nick grabs the iPod and began shaking it in a very sped-like manner. Ethan then yells out “Argh! Nick you sped!” and me being me, I laughed a lot at that… And then, Ethan and I began calling Nick “sped”… Then came a series of “sped” jokes and anytime, anyone did something un-co, we’d immediately call them sped…
The Onions: Ohhhh…. As far as I know, there have only been two occasions when we discovered that onions are deadly. August last year, we made a tomato soup… (as in the video) But what Jesse didn’t record, was what happened earlier, while the soup was being cooked… Onions, onions and loads of onions! In a frypan, cooking… Now that can hurt your eyes… Now multiply that by… say… 10? And what do you get? PEOPLE ALL HAVING THEIR EYES IN EXTREME… Pain? Is that the right word? Well, all of us yelling and and covering our eyes because of the onion… Ohhh… It was bad…
The Gingerbread House: I also distinctly remember the creation of our Gingerbread Houses in December last year, mainly because of the blog post of “How to make a Gingerbread House the Food Tech way!” post. We stole a lot of lollies and digested A LOT of sugar during those days… Good Times… By the end of it, the Gingerbread itself was of mediocre taste… Overall, there haven’t been absolute fails in our cooking unlike the things that go on… Most of the time it’s in relation to the oven…
The Oven: Many of the fails of Food Tech have been unrelated to the actual cooking process, but the way we use things… Notably for those in our bay: Turning on an oven… Much earlier this year, Nick was absent on a day we were cooking, and so we had to cook without him… We had thought we had turned the oven on for pre-heating… We turned the on switch, and turned the temperature dial… It was only when we had placed our stuff into the oven, when we realised, the oven hadn’t been turned on. The cause of this: Nick was the one who always turned on the oven. As a result, none of us knew how to turn it on properly. We discovered that you had to press the “Mode” button in order to get it working… It was then we realised, that speds were a necessary part of life.
The Really, Truly, Unbelievably, “Fork-ing” Bad Puns and Sexual Connotations: (“Alright let’s DOUGH this!”) Nearing the end of this year, Food Tech essentially became an allocated time slot for when we made tons of really, really bad puns… (“You KNEAD it good!”). We made so many “spoon” jokes it wasn’t funny… (“I’ll spoon you to death!”) Waaayyyyyyyy too many “that’s what she said” comments… (“Wow… it’s rather thick!”) Argh… It’s been an interesting combination of being extremely fun, and extremely annoying…
The Quality: Thanks to Food Tech, I can no longer take the word “quality” seriously anymore… With Alex and Bradley in an opposite bay, we kinda expect some “fail” cooking by them, and they continue to claim that their work is “quality”. It’s funny how sometimes the things the things they make turn out way better than all of ours. But there have been a number of times when they have created something… interesting… and have called it “quality” food… Remember people, it’s “quality” not “quantity”.
The Clean-ness: When you do Food Tech, you begin to make a whole lot of new friends… There is almost always some friendly ants or cockroaches crawling around to keep you company, and help you cook! The younger years are also very friendly. You can always rely on them to thoroughly clean all of the utensils and bowls till they’re spotless! *ahem* *cough* *cough* LEARN TO CLEAN YOU BITCHES!
The Laziness: It has become an almost fact that Food Tech theory is one of the most boring theory subjects of all subjects. Surprising as it is, Food Tech does cover a broad range of subjects, namely Science, but also Geography and History. Thus meaning, we find other ways of entertaining ourselves during theory lessons… When tests come along, many of us really can’t be bothered going through the piles of sheets we get… The assignments we get are somewhat strange too… (Writing a narrative?) Most of them are really boring to do, thus leading to large amounts of procrastination, and last-minute work. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that most of my procrastination posts are related to Food Tech… Many of us do finish our assignments at the last minute… Ethan can tell you about that.
The Copyright: Just a little note to you people who do Food Tech. Not sure about the people in the other class, but know how our teacher keeps on telling us about no copy-pasting, and the whole plagiarism thing is bad and shouldn’t be done? I’d like you to, if you still have it, look for your sheet about Ice Boxes, and then head over to the Wikpedia page for Ice Boxes…
The Tasmania: If I hadn’t of done Food Tech, I probably would have never gone on that excursion to Tasmania… If it weren’t for Tasmania… Well, I think life would have been even more different… Tasmainia has to be the most awesome excursion I’ve ever been on full of awesomeness and funness. Though it was a little more than that though. It shall be for me, known as the place where I lost my first ZEN Stone, and my Senheisser CX-300II Earphones, which later prompted me to spend money on audio-gear. It’ll be the place I blame if I’m later broke on spending my money on Audiophile greade stuffs. It’s also a place that will be remembered by “The Cabin Crew” for the “Sink Pasta”. Which I must say, was epic. But Tasmania was really the first time Leon and I actually talked… Which has led to some interesting happenings…
The Food Tech: Generally a mix of awesomeness and pieces of crap… I guess that’s why I chose it as a subject for next year then eh?
The Future: Well, with a new kitchen, we can certainly expect some more “quality” to come from the stuff we make in Food Tech… I’m going to miss Martin in Food Tech, and probably Ethan too, as he’ll probably be dropping it next year. Well, at least I’ll have Nick with me in my Bay right? I mean, a fair number of us already Food Tech-ers will be doing Food Tech next year too. I don’t expect Food Tech to be as awesome as it has been for the past two years, but it should still be fun, I farewell those who aren’t Food Tech-ing next year, and I look forward to working with those who are Food Tech-ing next year!
Okay, this is relatively expensive and modest wishlist that I seriously don’t expect anyone to pay for, and I don’t ask you too pay for either. This wishlist is more for reference to me and for my own selfishness more than anything else. My wishlist contains a whole lot of gadgets and electronics that if I were to get, I’d have to be paying for… I would also like to note that at the moment, I have no interest in saving up for a car, house or anything like that at this time. I also would like to note that if you were hoping to buy me something for Christmas within a reasonable price range, this is not where you should be looking.
Organised in order for what I’d like the most out of the list, while items in blue indicate the most realistic purchase if I were to buy one within the category.
Digital Compact/SLR Camera Nikon D90 – ~$1500
Canon EOS 50D – ~$1500 Nikon D5000 – ~$1100
Panasonic Lumix TZ7 – ~$500 Canon IXUS 100/120 – ~ $400
Mobile Phone
Archos Phone? – Yet to be detailed Sony XPERIA X10 – Yet to be released Motorola Droid – Yet to be released Samsung Omnia HD Icon (i8190) – ~$1000 HTC HD2 – Yet to be released Samsung Spica (i5700) – Yet to be released
Portable Media Player
16gb Archos 5 Android Internet Media Tablet – $450
16gb Zune HD – $330
32gb Creative ZiiEGG – ~$500
32gb Apple iPod Touch – $360 16/32gb Creative ZEN X-fi2 – $200/$230
8gb Samsung YP-P3 – $230
4gb Sandisk Sansa Clip – $70 4gb Cowon E2 – $70
16gb Sony Walkman X1000 – $550
Netbook/Laptop Asus T91 – $600
Asus 1005HA – $450
Samsung N110 – $500
Acer Timeline Laptop? – ~$1300
Misc Electronics
Creative Inspire S2 Wireless Speakers – $180 Creative Aurvana Air Earphones – $180
Creative Gigaworks T3 Speakers – $250
Canon PIXMA MP560 Printer – ~$200
Creative X-fi Titanium Sound Card – $100
NVIDIA Quatdo Graphics Card? – $200
Sony PlayStation 3 – $500
Windows 7 – ~$300
Adobe Premiere/After Effects – $100? Dyson Air Multiplier – $400
Randoms My own Domain name. (A creative name is what’s stopping me atm)
Pretty much anything Umineko, Higurashi or Kanon related. Rika and/or Hanyuu Figurine by WAVE – $80+ each
Giant Anteater Plush (Anime Reference) – ??? Anyone know where to get one from?
An Actual Bookshelf
New Desk (Wood would be nice)
Die-cast metal model planes. – ~$50+ each
More DS Games? – ~$50 each
Things that money can’t buy:
Time
Motivation
Okay, that’s pretty much it I thinks? I’m keeping this list a little short as other things I want are a little too ambitious/don’t think I’ll actually get. If I do want any of these, it’s out of my own funds. I also realise that some of these can substitute something else. (Phone can substitute as an mp3 player) Mmmm… I wonder how much I’ll be spending this summer? My plans for this summer will be in another blog post later on this week. =D
Sony Dash
HP TouchSmart TM2 Laptop Convertible
Viliv P3
Well, it has been a long while since I have updated the Anime side of my blog, so here is my first post for a few months. Ookami Kakushi is the only Winter season of Anime I will be actively following, and I thought I’d post my first impressions of the openning episode titled “The Town of Jouga”. Already it has that slight RyuKishi sort of Higurashi feel to it, and for some reason, that slightly annoys me… But being a fan of Higurashi and Umineko, I’d thought I’d follow along with Ookami, and see if the ride will be any good. (Even if it turned out like Umineko… I was dissapointed…) One major difference between RyuKishi’s other animated works and Ookami is a change of studio. This time, Peach-Pit (Rozen Maiden, Zombie Loan, etc.) will be working on this, not Studio DEEN. (Thank god?)
The Characters and Setting – Jouga… is interesting. A city, seemingly, pretty much split in two, an old side and a new side. Those on the old side “oppose” the new side. Hahaha… I’m definately agreeing with everyone here. The main, Hiroshi, is a guy. I have to remind myself that… He does seem weirdly feminine? Having Koobayashi Yuu voicing him doesn’t help that much either. =P As he moves into the new school, everyone seems to love him! (I remember reading the plot synopsis and I could not help but think “Oh, that’s so Higurashi again…” and I don’t feel that statement is wrong…) He is surrounded by girls… As Hiroshi moves into the town of Jouga, the first person he meets is… Shall we call, the “Rena” of Ookami? ‘Cept Isuzu is annoying… rather than “moe”… She is… VERY forward from the looks of things… The discussion about visiting “the old town” reminded me of the famous “Uso-da!” scene quite a bit. But was no where near as awesome, and if there is something “mysterious” behind it, that scene didn’t really ‘excite’ me about the old town that much. The rest of the characters set some things up nicely… As always, “the one who doesn’t talk that much” obviously does… something…
Music and Sound – “Toki no Mukou, Maboroshi no Sora (時の向こう 幻の空)” by FictionJunction. *likes* I had heard the full version before the anime was officially out and unlike most OPs, I could tell that I liked it, and gave me an insight into what the Anime may very well be like. It will take some more listening before I can safely say that I *love* the OP, but it is very nice. The same goes for the OP’s visuals. The chase scene background score was epic. It’s gotten me excited over the OST already! Overall, the choices of Seiyuus seemed to match well enough. Looks like Koobayashi has played a fairly substantial role in all of RyuKishi related works so far. The ED, “Tsukishirube (月導)” by Yuuka Nanri, (also a member of FictionJunction) wasn’t that substantial to me… Interesting animation to go with it though.
Art and Animation – Unlike DEEN, Peach-Pit does care about animation!!! Finally one of RyuKishi’s creations isn’t ruined by terrible animation! Well, not yet… I always have mixed opinions to those “3D” style animations… I remember Trinity Blood, where it didn’t really work out that well… The character designs are nice and simple, nothing outrageous. (Some still go on about Mion’s unnaturally flourencently green hair…) Peach-Pit is a good choice. I hope.
8 – Creative will either come out with a product for the commercial market containing the hyped-up last year “Zii” chip that will a) be really successful or b) be a complete waste of effort and no-one will buy it. I personally think it is very much about time Creative really showed off to the general consumer public as for what their “Zii” chip is really made of… We’ve already sort of seen the results of the Zii EGG and the recently announced concept “Zii Trinity” phone, but nothing to consumers as of yet…
5 – GPS navigations, will really begin to die out, similar to the current dedicated mp3 player market. Ever since phones, began having mp3 capabilities, and now many having GPS capabilities, these two markets are slowly dying, though GPS will probably die out first, possibly this year too… Comapnies such as TomTom and Garman etc had their share prices fall last year, with thanks to Google. mp3 players may still have an edge, as no phone will be able to carry your entire music library… Hence why the iPod is still super-succesful…
2 – The Apple Tablet – Just like many of those in the tech world, I belive that Apple will come out with some form of tablet. Whether it be a super-large iPhone of sorts, an e-reader that does media playback, or as a netbook sort of slate device, Apple will release something like that, sometime this year. There has already been many “claims” of leaked specs and pricing, but of course, there is nothing concrete as of yet. Though even if Apple does release an “iTablet”, would you actually buy one? Rumors do have them out as around the US$800/900…
Oh, I haven’t dropped “The Corny Paper” or “thecornypaper” alias entirely yet… I will still be using that here and there, but for the main part, I will be using the alias “gochisou” for a while now, considering it is my new website name. I created a sorta “logo” too, as you may be able to tell… (The favicon thing is wrong… I’ll need to correct that…) What do you think? I do lack creativity, and I’m not an artist… Hence the logo and the name “gochisou”…
Ah, so, no more Food Technology as an elective for this year anymore… I wonder what life would have been like for me had I not chosen to do Food Tech, and chose to do something more boring like Information and Software Technology, or my other choice of Japanese… Food Tech is probably one of my most life changing experiences over the last two years, the predominant other change would have been the choice to join Facebook, and the obtaining of employment. But, Food Technology has been a subject of pure-legendary-ness and led to a number of interesting mishaps and fun. Food Tech has changed things forever, I’m going to miss my Food Tech group/class…
The Sped: Now this whole “sped” thing just grew to be, and I’m sorry for it catching on Nick. It all began when I had moved up maths classes and we decided to have “Food Tech in Maths” except for the Martin… We were playing around with Ethan’s new iPod Nano, and the accelerometer. (Where you shake the Nano to change the song) Ethan was listening to a video, and Ethan was just sitting there doing nothing. Suddenly, Nick grabs the iPod and began shaking it in a very sped-like manner. Ethan then yells out “Argh! Nick you sped!” and me being me, I laughed a lot at that… And then, Ethan and I began calling Nick “sped”… Then came a series of “sped” jokes and anytime, anyone did something un-co, we’d immediately call them sped…
The Gingerbread House: I also distinctly remember the creation of our Gingerbread Houses in December last year, mainly because of the blog post of “
The Quality: Thanks to Food Tech, I can no longer take the word “quality” seriously anymore… With Alex and Bradley in an opposite bay, we kinda expect some “fail” cooking by them, and they continue to claim that their work is “quality”. It’s funny how sometimes the things the things they make turn out way better than all of ours. But there have been a number of times when they have created something… interesting… and have called it “quality” food… Remember people, it’s “quality” not “quantity”.
The Laziness: It has become an almost fact that Food Tech theory is one of the most boring theory subjects of all subjects. Surprising as it is, Food Tech does cover a broad range of subjects, namely Science, but also Geography and History. Thus meaning, we find other ways of entertaining ourselves during theory lessons… When tests come along, many of us really can’t be bothered going through the piles of sheets we get… The assignments we get are somewhat strange too… (Writing a narrative?) Most of them are really boring to do, thus leading to large amounts of procrastination, and last-minute work. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that most of my procrastination posts are related to Food Tech… Many of us do finish our assignments at the last minute… Ethan can tell you about that.
The Future: Well, with a new kitchen, we can certainly expect some more “quality” to come from the stuff we make in Food Tech… I’m going to miss Martin in Food Tech, and probably Ethan too, as he’ll probably be dropping it next year. Well, at least I’ll have Nick with me in my Bay right? I mean, a fair number of us already Food Tech-ers will be doing Food Tech next year too. I don’t expect Food Tech to be as awesome as it has been for the past two years, but it should still be fun, I farewell those who aren’t Food Tech-ing next year, and I look forward to working with those who are Food Tech-ing next year!
