Neverending new beginings

Japanese Language Proficiency Test

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:23:09 GMT

I took the JLPT level 3 at the Japanese School (日本人学校（小学部）チャンギ校) today. (Level 4 is the easiest, 1 being the hardest but enough for living in japan) I'm aware that there is also the Standard Charted Marathon run with the SC that morning. Well, I registered for it back in August (about 1-2 weeks before regestration ends) at a obscure place called Midland House at Middle Road (hmmm). I hardly studied. Some of the reasons for that is that there is the lack of study (though i have studied a bit), too much school related activities (mic money sense, sc oath taking / grad night), watch/read too much anime and manga (though they are in japanese with no subtitles). I went there from my house (simei blk 164), walked to Jln Pelatok (there were dogs barking madly at me around there one night) and take from the bustop along Upp Changi Road East and alighted at the school at Upp Changi Road North (quite near). Removed shoes before entering the exam room. During the 2nd part of Listening (聴解) section of the test, I filled up the correct ones but did not for the ans for the wrong ones. I felt that there was not enough time. Overall, I felt that I could have done better if i didn't spent too much time reading the question (though there was enough for the Reading-Grammer / 3rd section and time for correcting mistakes), tables facing the front (mine was in the home econs room), and the clock not being set about 5mins ahead of the correct time.) At the end, there was this strange happy music being played through the PA system. There were a lot of people when leaving, let alone the bustop. So i decided to walk along Changi North Ave 2 before realising that I went the wrong way when I saw the PIE towards the airport (and an airplane landing) and turned back to the school again. The crowd was still there despite some time since I left.
So staying on the side opposite the sch, walked along the pathway until it comes to a dead end. To continue, I climbed over the (extremely dusty) metal railing (the ones you see along expresasways) onto the side of the busy road (vechiles from TPE, PIE and Changi) in the direction of Expo) when I found a dirt path further down at the end of the railing. Had to wait for quite some time when crossing over the PIE (Changi Airport / Tuas) entrances (there was grass to walk on and the side of the flyover had a walkway). I continued on until I reached the bustop opposite where i boarded and walked home (actually, I already am) from there.
Test started at 1420 and ended at 1735. Took me 10 mins to get there but an hour to reach back (due to the croud and detours) to get back. Parents bought me some crappy food from some hawker center for dinner. I'd rather have EVM from MacD instead.

During the 20min break between each paper and on my way out, I managed to explore the campus and take these pictures (havent went to the gym or the other floors though. Also there were food and drinks, but the food and cups ran out T_T):

 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZHqhPIsT2vydE4_dC2O0RE3s3PopmRA_L5zyc1f2I4BKfjUWx45FykXrJtIoYsAsUY">
 Classrooms opposite my exam room.
 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZGtQ8KoCGvvc8EyLP82U3XlCHowUPsp0F6IUHeIQlptqR_xmIQcuOcidYuIkseVyz0">
 One of the swimming pools. The other is somwhere around the gym.
 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZFcq4a-9LsmysFoXo3xKAF75ryR5EEtp6KcEEo_L1-4yoPi35WBtU1dGaBdF0YH968">
 View of the school.
 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZHe7s2Lf1fNQmn8mAFKGywuzophs8cHT-ATOfJTj5Vf3L7GTB4UzIFsE8B6m2i0Tm8">
 One of the notice boards and a clock
 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZF-mRTU5qec_RpKK90x4tO7G7ktMlUe6fqP00MQYA2lOzY7q4w66xbMhMMqsyDOccY">
 Same place as above turned 180 degrees around.
 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZEoc6ZoFCf_aw0ndjn1-5Zg-uqt2n8__Ik8Em55T42zJF0RX1vCe2PI80gzQ-eotkI">
 The sign outside says "Teachers' Lounge" but it looks more of a storeroom.
 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZG6k-WHE-DN8pkJqS-4sM5jE5rTCIA0bTU7NtlABbO6xNAMI5i7WX_jUGLAzuhXdE8">
 Same place as 2 images above but facing the entrance gate at the center.
 <img src="http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1peV4bCq0_kZFGbM5Gw3ISRNiyFF4ZFasq_2KBUvIow8f7d0B6pGrgcha12ecfcS_FdAAqf11q-mY">
 Saw this on the right hand side on the way out. Around where the guy with the white shirt and blue tie of the above image was.
(If the above did not show the images correctly, go to "December 2007" album here)

P.S., The classrooms errily resembles the schools in Japan. From the (Green) Blackboard, to the facilities, toilets and stuff. Though the location of the classes are not along an indoor corridor (with windows) or classes on the opposite side.Or a large field between the entrance gate and the building itself. Kind of like most of the anime I watch and a segment of a game I bought at a closing down sale of a branch of a department store. Forgot what it's called but the english name is "Raw Danger".

May not be on for some time

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:33:02 GMT

Firstly, I am getting quite busy preparing for teachers day that is on the 31 August with the MIC Club at ITE College Bishan. Preparation is so much that I had to spend the weekend doing preparation and reach home from sch at night. (Sometimes so late that i just manage to catch the last train (11:30pm) to reach home).

Secondly, I would need to go and register for the Japanese Prophihency test (JLPT; Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken) level 3 at somewhere near the national liabary (kim chuan reference) and The Continential (hotel next to bugis) by 6 September which is less than 2 weeks now.

Thirdly, i am switching from pacific internet's 512kbps to singtel's 3Mbps (6 times faster) for obvious reasons. This would happen around the middle of september. since this happens during the school holiday, i might not be able to go online at school to log in to friendster and stuff. the process between discounting from pacnet and activating singnet would take at least 4 days.

Forthly, there is a pc show at suntec from 30 Aug to 2 Sep (erm, might conflict with what i mention at point 1 and 2) and a 2nd student counser interview on 6 and 7 sep (thinking of quiting; might conflict with point 2).

Fiftly, I have exams for accounting fundimentals and business fundimentals around the 11 and 12. (might be the same week as point 3)

(Note that this will not be mentioned at friendster or myspace. It would look suspicous if i post it there (except for my 2nd myspace account) as most of the people there thinks that I am a female japanese.)

i really didn't want to post this but...

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:39:54 GMT

i really didn't want to post this but this has gone too far for me to ignore.
This guy by the name of Uchiha Sasuke (http://www.myspace.com/infinitezala), Akaza Zala (http://www.friendster.com/31024514) and Hayate Haramoto (http://www.friendster.com/43365062), has been copying me from the way i phrase words to the images i upload there. I don't know what to do with him...

Image 1: This is the myspace profile mentioned above. It is only viewable if you are "friends" with him. The things he copied is quite obvious.

Image 2: This is my myspace profile. As you can see, that box below the display image is supposed to be in the MS PGothic (ＭＳＰゴシック) with the background transparent (may appear blue-ish if viewed in Safari (Apple) browser) and saved in PNG format. In Image 1 you can tell that he edited it and typed the name different from the display name and saved it in JPEG format, which means a loss in image details (due to compression) each time it is saved in that format.

Image 3:A closer look of Image 1. This guy copied the same text as me (and box, which is mentioned earlier) and has the nerve to call my drawings as his.

Image 4:He also copied the list of anime i am watching currently (though the shows are slighty different and most of them are not of current anime/episode). The japanese text were originally saved in GIF in with 35px with Terbuchet MS in paint. He rezized it to height to 50px and created more in the same height but in a different font (most likely Arial Unicode MS). After I first noticed that he copied me, I used a vector program instead of MS Paint, changed all the stuff to what you see in Image 5.

Image 5: "Anime watch list" in the media box on my 3rd friendster profile. As you can see, the background for the japanese text is transparent and can see the background image through it. (if entered as text instead, it would convert to some code or to ?'s).

Image 6: In addition to Image 3, he also put my drawings even after I reuploaded them. (the earlier ones did not have the date and the website url). If you are curious on what was on the blog on that image, go to: http://asuna888.blogspot.com/2007/06/please-read-this.html

Image 7: The zoomed out version of Image 6. Loacted between Image 1 and Image 4. You can see that he posted more of my drawings (and none of his own) on the profile.

Please read this: / これを読んでください:

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:31:56 GMT

My drawings should only appear at the following sites:
私の図面は以下のサイトに現れるだけであるはずです:

http://www.friendster.com/4623690
http://www.friendster.com/21470648
http://www.friendster.com/32399691
http://www.friendster.com/42670116
http://fnfd.spaces.live.com/
http://asuna888.blogspot.com/
http://yukarifujimi.blogspot.com/
http://fujimiyayuki.blogspot.com/
http://the1iam.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/fnfd
http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa33/asuna888/
http://profile.imageshack.us/user/fnfd

If you see them appearing on websites other than the ones listed above and claiming that it's theirs, they are lying. The person who owns the following URLs is trying to copy me from the layout right down to the images I put up at friendster (note: this person have configured the settings in such a way that only 2nd and/or 1st degree friends can view them.): http://www.myspace.com/infinitezala, http://www.friendster.com/31024514, http://www.friendster.com/43365062
あなたが、それが彼等のものであると上に記載されていて、主張しながらそれらがもの以外のウェブサイトに載っているのを見るなら、それらはあります。以下のURLを所有している人は私をレイアウト右から私がfriendsterで提供するイメージまでコピーしようとしています(注意: この人は2番目、そして/または、第1度友人だけが彼らを見ることができるような方法で設定を構成しました。): http://www.myspace.com/infinitezala 、 http://www.friendster.com/31024514 、 http://www.friendster.com/43365062

2nd day of the 5th month of the year 2007

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 12:00:05 GMT

(i know. I'm aware of lucky star (and code geass) being featured in june 2007 of Newtype Japan)

Okay, i know i have not been updating my blogs lately. i just don't feel like updating and not to mention that i have school (holiday is in june/july) and many different profile and blogs to maintain, i regularly update those at friendster. i receive a very long list of friend requests. especially at http://www.friendster.com/friends/4623690. since the list there is almost 1000 (actually, it already has), i had to delete those with non-anime/japanese related display images but still accept at the other 2 accounts until either reaches the 1000 limit. (btw. i have a myspace account you can add to. the link is in my 3rd friendster profile).

Speaking of updates, i plan to correct the chinese name of one of the schools mentioned in my profile (you have to highlight to see everything) and the "anime i'm currently watching" on all the blogger.com blogs (including the japanese blog). Updates to that can be found at the bottom of all my friendster profiles (with the 3rd being the most up to date).

Note1: I have dropped "Nagaserete Airantou" as at episode 8. I'm sick of seeing 19th century japan-like environment and nosebleeding comming from the only guy on the island. (the rest are females and odd looking animals and plants)

Note2: ODEX is the devil for being the only legal anime distributor here and provide low quality video and subbing.

Note3: It seems that only 2/3 of the anime i watch now (out of 8, more if you count those i have watched before) are licensed by ODEX. They are "Idolmaster Xenoglossia", "Darker than BLACK" and "Nagaserete Airantou". (oddly enough, even though "School Days" hasn't started airing in japan yet (though they have released a preview in 2005), they have already licensed it)

Note4: Seems that some poor guy has been caught for ilegally downloading anime (go to www.darkmirage.com and look for blog entry around end-may/early-june 2007). Looking at the scan/pdf of the letter (dated mid-may 2007), it seems that person download subbed version of bleach and inuyasha from DB (dattebayo) and whatever site/groups i don't download from for the month of february of the same year.

Note5: Don't download subbed anime, especially popular ones ;) (hint hint) If you want to watch the subbed one and not support ODEX, buy those R1 DVD ones.

Note6: in the letter mention in note4, none of the downloads that "violate" (can't verify if the orginaisation the letter is from is legit) contains raws or non-latin based charaters. though i'm not sure about those sent to other people.

Note7: None of my friendster profiles contains my real name, including my main (3rd) acc. (though you need to add my real given name as the last name or 1 of the few email addresses with my real name in it to add me)

Note8: So long.... -_-

Note9: I should go update that list now.

Note10: Singapore sucks. Hot tropical climate (no winter), small land area (=dense population and expensive houses. a 5rm (200sqm)apartment (with minimal/no furnishings btw;) is already around SGD 300,000 (SGD1.5=USD1) and single houses in the 1mil range. Houses in the suburbs of other developed countries are barely even 50,000 and the size is larger.), might emigrate one day (most likely around 2018)

Note11: I want to marry someone from japan, move there and change my name and surname

Note12: Trying to understand japanese including both spoken and written.

Note13: Ok, enough notes!

cheap food at changi airport

Tue, 01 May 2007 02:11:25 GMT

i'm not sure if you people know about this but the staff canteen at changi airport (b1 for t1, 3m for t2) sells it cheaper than the rest of the airport. the entrance is not obvious though.

２００７年４月２２日

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 15:54:12 GMT

Read Mark's profile on Yahoo! 360 that's dated 17 Apr 2007. He did mention about sch (ITE College East (Simei)) ending at 4pm, a lot of facilities like 77th street (whatever that is), a MacDonals Hamburger restaurans and the lack of "cho bu" (cute girls). HAHA. At my place (ITE College Central (Bishan)), there are alot of girls. Infact, they form more than half of the population of the school, let alone my class. In my opinion it's too big (mark's sch that is). For mine, there is a shopping center, public library and so on near the bishan MRT station (ironically, I live in simei). When the circle line section btwn bishan and paya lebar opens (hopefully before mid 2009). It would be much faster, bypassing the city area. Due to the location on the line, I can go to orchard road or suntec city on my way back.

URL changes

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:23:57 GMT

I was navigating to http://www.myspace.com/the1iam when I saw a guy that is not me. (urls on MySpace cannot be changed). Also, a few months earlier, while searching for fnfd on youtube, i saw a video of a fire bridgage putting out a fire. On search on google, it turns out that FNFD means ??? ??? Fire Department and also something that has to do with stock market. Since my nick was not original to begin with (fnfd was shortened from flyernofoolsday (which itself is shorten from "a flyer which is not a fool on a day"), a name i used on neopets), I might as well create a new one from scratch. The new urls are based on the display name of my friendster accounts at time of typing. (1st: ' ' ' ' Konomi Fujimiya, 2nd: ' ' Yukari Fujimiya, 3rd: Yukiho Horie)

So here are the changes that uses the following:

fnfd -> fujimiyayuki
the1iam -> yukarifujimi
(asuna888 is unchanged)

Therefore, new accounts and places where the display name and/or URL can be changed, are with effect from 13 April 2007 (Friday). Note that some of the links still points to the old ones.

New spring anime that i didn't like.

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 16:33:45 GMT

If you are an anime fan, you would know that new anime shows are out on (Japan's) TV stations.

The ones on TV here are mostly either from the US, which are targeted for children, or are few years behind and are dubbed (although the audio is NICAM stereo) and/or with irremovable subtitles (annoying if both the subbed and dubbed language are the same, unless you're deaf or something's wrong with the speakers). The ones on video are decent but the quality is terrible. Come on, why on VCD when DVD is now common. The video quality is more than 2x better. (3 1/3 times if you compare it to that of the HD version). At the very least why the hell must there even be a region code? At least you can change the one on your pc (up to 5, but the point is that you can change) and the Blu-ray region code is different than that of dvd. (Same region code as the US and Japan! Yay!).

Anyway, here are the reason for the anime that are out between 25 March and 14 April:

Seto no Hanayome (瀬戸の花嫁) : When I watch the OP and ED, it's like "WTF?!". The opening at 1st has nice music but shortly afterwards, there are people (and sea creatures) dancing (facing you) along with oversized credits. As for the ending, it's nothing but zooming out from a picture in a room with many things. Oh, as for the episode itself, the parents bring son to grandmother's house by the sea. Dad brings him to the beach the next day. Hero somehow got drifted from shore and is drowing. Mermaid saves him, brings back to shore and leaves. Father appears shortly. Hero goes back to the house with him. At night that mermaid (with legs instead of a fin) suddenly asks to marry him (and mentioning that both would die if they don't marry as a human is not supposed to see a mermaid). After rejecting, 2 yakuza (?!) members appear from nowhere and drags the hero and his parents into an underwater carven-like house (how illoligical). Anyway, what mainly turned me off (other than the OP and ED) is the stupid parents, the yakuza and the fierce father.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS) : I'm not really a fan of Nanoha to begin with (I've watched the whole of A's, prevous season). There's too much action and hardly any storyline development. In fact, it doesn't even follow the style. Oh, the fighting outfits seems oversized though.
El Cazador de la Bruja: I did'nt watched this but I'm not interested old west and spanish themed things.
Over Drive: This show has sports as the theme (cycling). (the 1st episode has the main character falling in love with a girl though) I mean, what's the point of doing stuff that is nothing to do with the girl? I'd rather rescue a girl from the bad guys than this.
Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo (この青空に約束を―) : This story is boring despite the very beautiful charaters and the lack of things from the game which it's based on which is (oh wait, didn't i review on this on the prevous post?)
Romeo x Juliet: I'm not really a fan of medival themed ones and one by William Sakesphere. Also the story is very typical: Parents (of royal status) got stabbed by a sword (not fired by a machine gun as i hoped) and the children happened to witness it and blah blah blah. The character design is also ugly. The only thing good i have is the op and ed song which is emotional. (It's the japanese version of "you raise me up" by gorsh gorhan (or something like that).)
Toward the Terra (地球へ…): I've only briefly watched this but what i see so far is another storyline that goes nowhere and with ugly charaters. (Even uglier than the above). I thing this is a prelude to something before the main storyline begins/something very bad happens. In any case, the ugly charaters allready put me off.

(originally posted on Yahoo! 360° on the same day)

How my friendster came to what it is now

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 05:22:44 GMT

How the heck did my profiles became from something plain like everyone else to something colourful with so much content you see now? It stated when i put the phrase "i dislike displaying my real picture" on my friendster account no. 21470648. No, it probably started when I created friendster account no. 4623690 and the photos i post there then were anything but me. That's why you may have noticed that I have added my secondary friends more than once. The profile you are viewing this on is supposed to have pictures of me, but let's just say that i'm camera-shy and got interested in anime lately.
Speaking of 4623690, besides what I mentioned above, it started when I added to anime related profiles (back then, there were no groups) and posted anime related images. At that time, I had already added my friends to there (the number of friends then barely even reach 25). Then I started adding other anime fans until they form more than half of my actual friends (at at 3 April 2007, the number is 607). To accommodate more ppl, 21470648 was created under the name "Tenma Tsukamoto"(from School Rumble; now chaged since i no longer like that anime). However, even now, the numbers is fewer than that that in Sep 2006 (1 year later) and not to mention adding more of my real friends since it's my final year in secondary school (sec 4/5=year 2 in high school/whatever level when you are at 17yrs), I had created 32399691 and added (most) of my real friends from 4623690 and 21470648 (some of them complained). It was recently that they introduced featrued friends where you can select up to 6 friends to appear on the profile itself instead of the list. (Previously, or if that is not enabled, the 6 newest accounts would appear there.)
As for 32399691, form where the above left off, i transfered photographs (i took) form 4623690 to here and removed obvious traces of me (though my friends remains there, including those i've added to 32399691). Then I changed the Hotmail (now Windows Live Mail, though the domain is still @hotmail.com instead of @live.com and existing accs are unchanged) email address of 4623690 to 32399691. My Yahoo! Japan email adress (i forgot how i created it, it appears to be created in October 2003) to 4623690 and my Gmail adress. (My Yahoo! Singapore email adress was used during the change). The reason being my hotmail address being used as my primary email and also for the Windows Live (MSN) messenger and want them to find me easily.
Now, the number of people who viewed 4623690 has reach into the hundreds (around 1000 for March 2007; 1/2 and 1/4 of that amount for the others) . So much that there are about 5 friend request per day (per week fror testimonials). In November 2006, 32399691 shortly had anime images. Around March 2007, it looked like my other 2 profiles other than images in the gallery and real stuff about me. In order to avoid people from the other 2 (mostly form indonesia and philipines, which make up the majority there) to know more on the real me, I changed my gender (that's stated there), put up a random real female japanese name as the 1st name and my real name as the last name (which is hidden but required when that person is not already friends with my 1st degree friends. Email address can also be used instead), and translated those in "School (Other)", hometown and the 1st 2 sentences of the "about me" (part of it appears at the top) into romanised japanese. (I can't put it into kana or kanji although you were able to prevously). Btw, the names of places for my schools are based on the chinese charaters of the name.

http://www.friendster.com/32399691

(I just felt like typing this)

a very large amount

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:21:09 GMT

At friendster, I have created 3 accounts at various times. One at December 2003 (1), the other at September 2005 (2) and the other at September 2006 (3). (Note: Friendster was at beta as at december 2003, which explains why it has 7-digits starting with the numbers 462 instead of the current (as at Feb 2007) 8-digits starting with 3805.) The number viewed is massive; 599 views (at time of entry) since 9 March 2007. (I don't know why the 9th instead of the 1st. Mabye they did some major update or something.). The number of friends is 550 (out of possible 1000) while the other 2 has about 1/2 and 1/4 of that amount, the same applies to the number of views. I have attached an image of a screenshot of (1) that shows you the main page logged in. The arrows in the image point to (2; right) and (3; bottom).

Friendster profile update (23 & 24 Mar)

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 15:34:19 GMT

23 Mar:
Went to log in into the email for the 2nd acc and saw 140 unread messages (1st acc had even more in the same period of time) and marked all of them as read. Went to Friendster and was automatically logged in as the 3rd acc. Decided that the background img i put up the day before was ugly and reverted back to the one before it which itself was uploaded less than a week ago. Then, I went to my Windows Live Spaces blog and created a post on new anime that would begin in summer 2007 and copied Japanese names from animenewsnetwork.com. In that list, i saw an anime that would begin in July. Copied the image and used it as the friendster profile (though i saw and saved a full and higher res ver on 2chan the day before). Changes made to that profile were my school (I used the 汉字 names and treated it like 漢字 (i had no problems as both uses the same charaters) and converted that to ローマ字), some in the "About me", my gender and status (for fun) and post a shoutout saying that I would update the below.

24 Mar:
I was looking at the "About me" and "Who I want to meet" on my main Friendster profile (http://www.friendster.com/asuna888) and posted a shoutout on people whom i don't know adding to that account and realized that some of the things I typed there don't make sense and the links kind of blended in with the sentence as you can't tell that it is a link unless you hover over it, which is troublesome due to the amount of text. My other profiles already have links well organized. Now I have managed to do it (though i think the links on my other profiles have too much spacing between links) and saved the number of characters for each section by removing and rephrasing sentences.

New Anime (Spring 2007) [updated 27 March]

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 22:57:39 GMT

Here are the list of anime that will start from late-March to July (OVAs and movies are excluded):
Keitai Shoujo (ケータイ少女)
Hitohira (ひとひら)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Seto no Hanayome (瀬戸の花嫁)
~~Robby & Kerobby~~
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS (魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS)
Heroic Age
Hayate the Combat Butler (ハヤテのごとく！)
Gegege no Kitaro Zero no Tsukaima 2nd Series
Touka Gettan
Idolmaster Xenoglossia (アイドルマスター XENOGLOSSIA)
El Cazador de la Bruja
Sisters of Wellber
Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica (神曲奏界ポリフォニカ)
Shining Tears X Wind
Saint Beast: Kouin Jojishi Tenshi Tan
Over Drive
Ohedo Rocket
Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo (この青空に約束を―)
Engage Planet Kiss Dum
Claymore (クレイモア)
Nagasarete Airantou (ながされて藍蘭島)
Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula
Koutetsu Sangokushi (鋼鉄三国志)
Kotetsushin Jeeg (鋼鉄神ジーグ)
Kaze no Stigma (風のスティグマ)
Darker than BLACK (Darker than BLACK ‐黒の契約者‐)
~~Bakugan Battle Brawlers~~
sola
Kamichama Karin (かみちゃまかりん)
Toward the Terra (地球へ…)
Lovely Complex
~~Guardian of the Sacred Spirit (精霊の守り人)~~
Emma - A Victorian Romance Second Act (英國戀物語エマ第二幕 SECOND ACT)
Emily of New Moon (風の少女エミリー)
~~Blue Dragon (ブルードラゴン)~~
Lucky Star (らき☆すた)
Bokurano (ぼくらの)
Princess Resurrection
Ookiku Furikabutte
The Skullman
Tetsuko no Tabi
Wangan Midnight
Umisho
Shigurui
School Days
Nanatsuiro Drops
Kodomo no Jikan
CODE-E

The following are contiuations as they are carried over (latest episode at time of post / total episodes):
Death Note (デスノート) (23/37; started October 2006)
Nodame Cantible (のだめカンタービレ) (10/24; started January 2007)
Ghost Hunt (ゴストーハント) (24/??; started October 2006)

Bold: most likely to watch
~~Strikethrough~~: least likely to watch
Italics: Anime that had started before March 2007

Note: "Hayate no Gotoku!" mentioned in the January 2007 post actually starts on April 1. Back then, there was no specific date mentioned other than it being in 2007. Also, it is unknown when the 2nd season of "Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion" (コードギアス反逆のルルーシュ) will start other than it being confirmed. Episode 24 (labled as "Stage 22") of season 1 is the current latest episode.

27 March 2007 edit: After watching the Promotional video of anime that are due out in April, here is an updated list I will watch in April (11 total):

ひとひら(the PV was on their website)
ハヤテのごとく！
瀬戸の花嫁
アイドルマスター XENOGLOSSIA (ep1 was on @nifty on 23 March, but the quality was low as it was streamed over the internet)
この青空に約束を－
Darker than BLACK -黒の契約者-
ながされて藍蘭島 (there was no PV I could find for this but the description is enough for me to look forward to it)
かみちゃまかりん
sola
らき☆すた
ぼくらの
風のスティグマ

Typing in Japanese (日本語)

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:03:04 GMT

Please stop bothering me on how to type in Japanese appear as you type (like Wei Ji) because the steps are complicated and may vary on the operating system. In addition, there are additional steps required if you don't have a Japanese keyboard and want to switch between higarana, katakana and half-width alfanumeric characters without using the mouse to select (useful if you want to type quickly or in full-screen mode). If you really want to know go and search for it with keywords like "japanese", "input", "IME" and so on. If you simply don't understand what people are talking about, just buy a keyboard (or new pc if you can't be botherd with adjusting the settings or want the pc to be in that language) from there. Akihabara (秋葉原/あきはばら) in Tokyo (東京/とうきょう) is a good place to look for electronic (and anime) related products. The picture attached to this post is an example (from wikipedia) of the layout of the keyboard.

(Blogs and profiles at http://fnfd.blogspot.com/, h ttp://the1iam.blogspot.com/ and http://www.friendster.com/asuna888/.)

PS. Mark and Tiara said that there is a class outing on 20-25 March. There will be ice skating and eating at seoul garden (all-you-can-eat). You can ask people like kel win and leslie for more info.

bought something

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:17:30 GMT

I bought the March 2007 (35th) issue of マジキュー at 紀伊國屋書店 (the one at Orchard Road; a major shopping district) for about S$23.80 (including 5% tax).
You may notice that the price on the front says 980円 (not sure if it includes tax), which is roughly equal to S$12, but considering the fact that I never been to 日本 before. At that time I was considering if I should buy volumes 3 & 4 of 魔法先生ネギま！ (they are about S$10 each although the back of the book says ￥390E. (What does the "E" mean? "Excluding tax"?). (edit: I found a square at the bottom left of the back which looks somethig like 本体９３３円)

Since most of the マジキュー (majikuu/magic) magazine pages (130 in total; each page is about the size of an A4 paper or more than 2 times in terms of area as compared to that of a manga page) is in full colour and but manga is small enough to fit in your pocket. In the end I decided to go with the マジキュー magazine. Inside was illustrations from anime related games / tv show etc. etc. (most of them are of girls btw) This is better than looking at images from the internet. Of course, I will buy more if I earn at least 10x more than the usual S$100 a month (none if there is school vacation) and able to go to Japan since it is obviously cheaper than buying here (though the price here includes transportation etc. which kinda offsets the cost of buying a flight to there and back plus accomadation, etc. ).

I found great difficulty removing the plastic wrapping off it since it is enforced with strong (transparent) tape at both horizontally and vertically. I ended up using a scissors/pen knife to cut it.

By the way, is it cheaper if I take a budget airline (Tiger Airways, AirAsia etc.) from here (Singapore) to Hong Kong and then from there take a regular flight (ANA, Singapore Airlines etc.) to Narita as compared to taking a regular flight directly? (And when will this "Rock Airway" (search at google if you want to know what it is) start it's service? It's been almost a year since people first heard of it recurting people. It claims to be a budget carrier that flies to East Asian cities.)

(The above was orignally posted at http://fnfd.blogspot.com . The larger version of the above image can be found at that blog and at my imageshack profile (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/fnfd))

Subbing complaints

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:47:18 GMT

I have recently been busy making subtitles. I type the text from an already subbed version by a group then add the subs to a raw (unedited; usually to a higher quality ver). The reason for doing it is the one subbed by a group have hardsubs (espically the opening/ending) and cannot be removed. Next, even if there are softsubs, the op and ed and some scenes is still in hard subs (for most groups these days. Exceptions (everything including op/ed, credits of ppl who did the subs)include POGO (which, unfortunately translates only from Japanese to Chinese). Obvious
examples include the 1st episode of "Saint October" (Jan 2007) by Ryoumi subs (though another group did a better job): The ローマ字 (romanised japanese) for the opening; an annoying waving text that goes to the next line every japanese word (about 3-7 in romanised form) in a poor attempt to follow the japanese text (which is hard to copy btw). Next, group subs that put some image before the video starts (which means that the timing is pushed back) and even more annoying if that thing appears and the audio of the actual video is heard only and only appears a few seconds later. Examples include スクルーランブル二学期 (1H 2006-3Q 2006) by yourmom subs (that's the name btw and another subbing group stopped subbing until ep 9 (of 24) due to it being licensed by some US company though yourmom continued until the end [i heard people saying US=the world]. They post random photos from lamposts to cats), N・H・Kにようこそ！ (3Q 2006-4Q 2006) by toybox (the part about hearing audio only applies to this; one of the main female charaters on an orange background with text of ppl who did the subs and their IRC channel). Fortunately, another subbing group is doing it and the fonts are better. next, SHUFFLE! memories (1Q 2007) by ayako (or something like that). A picture of a featured charater (from the game or a CG art; the former is likely) appeared before it starts (there are no japanese text; only the romaji and english translation for ep 3 btw). ep 4 is worse: that image along the audio of the original video appeared until the first line of the song begins. I'm not sure if the following is done by the same group but the OVA of はぴねす！ (DVD raw was released on the 1st week of January 2007) starts off with an alien looking outside (from the inside) on a planet (the scenery is something like at the moon). Speaking of that episode, it involves Wasare Jun (who dresses and behaves very much like a girl) and one of his close friend/classmate (i think his nam is yuma) being turn into a real girl after being hit by combined spell that resulted by an accident, got hit. Jun went to the toilet after it happened since jun felt something strange with jun's body. Jun notices "those things" from the chest and "that thing" missing from Jun's bottom (Jun got hit directly but the latter was right next to Jun when it happened. Therefor no one noticed until Haruhi (another classmate) notices that yuma didn't go crazy over Jun (by which the spell is removed) unlike all the guys in the school and then notices "those things". Afterwards, the madness that happened to Jun (being chased by all the boys in school, although that didn't happend to jun immedately) happens and that is where the episode ends. The entie episode focuses on jun by the way).

ps. I don't know how to extract the subtitles from videos (mkv) containg softsubs. If i did, i wouldn't go through this much trouble. I plan to do Negima!? (1024x756 (although the 640x780 version is aired earlier); done ep 1-5, 6 in progress), SHUFFLE! memories (used 1280x720 but found no difference in video quality as compared to 704x396 when viewed in full screen at 1024x768.; only ep 4) and Kyoushiro to towa no sora (640x360; havent started).

[Feb 2 edit: I think I will also do のだめカンタービル (1280x720)]
[Feb 9 edit: Decided to put 京四郎と永远の空 on hold as there is only 1 episode at 1024x768 (by AniMa-RAW) while the remainding episode by many other RAW providers are at 640x360. The video with subs by Ayako (the same group that did SHUFFLE! memories, only without images appearing before the video) seem to clearer/sharper than the one by other RAWs of the same resolution. I guess i'll wait until the DVD rips are avalable.]

(the above is originally posted on February 5 2007 at http:/fnfd.blogspot.com)

New anime (January 2007)

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:26:30 GMT

(originally posted at http://fnfd.blogspot.com/)

Here are the anime that I will/had start(ed) watching this month:

Negima!? (ネギマ！？, Negima!?)
Saint Ocotber (セイントオクトーバー, Seinto Okutōbā)
Death Note
Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora (京四郎と永遠の空, Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora)
Tokimeki Memorial Only Love (ときめきメモリアル Only Love, Tokimeki Memoriaru Onrī Rabu)
Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion (コードギアス反逆のルルーシュ, Kōdo Giasu Hangyaku no Rurūshu)
Getsumento Heiki Mina (月面兎兵器ミーナ, Getsumento Heiki Mina)
~~Manabi Starlight~~
Shuffle: Memories
~~Les Misérables - Girl Cosette (レ・ミゼラブル少女コゼット, Re Mizeruburu, Shōjo Kozetto)~~
Hayate no Gotoku!

The ones in bold have started around October/November but are still airing currently and they are now around episode 15. The underlined ones have not started yet. The ones striked out are the ones I have watched before but stopped after episode 1/2 because I found them boring and does not interest me.

A full list of the anime I watch can be found at Wikipedia.

(2007-01-24 edit: End up watching "Shuffle: Memories" again. The 1st episode was a recap of the original/prevous season. Many people commented that only that episode was boring.)

Posted by ハイカル・アジス at 10:23:00 PM 0 comments

About the images I uploaded here

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 03:59:58 GMT

You may have noticed that I had uploaded a massive amount of pictures (436 in total) in just 6 hours. Some of these pics are allready posted at friendster in this profile and as private photos at this profile

In any case, I can't upload anymore pics since I have reached my monthly upload bandwidth. :P
Since it is allready towards the end of this month, it might not be long before I can upload pics again. Most likely pics taken on Febuary 2006 and earlier allong with pics taken this month. (some of the yet-to-upload pics are allready on friendster.)

youtube acc suspended

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 23:07:42 GMT

my yt acc (fnfd) was suspended on 5 oct. the link to my spare acc (the1iam) can be found at 2 of my friendster accs.

I wanna go there...

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 19:12:58 GMT

I am sick and tired of allways going to Malaysia (Malacca especially) and not going to other countries in my whole life, not even Indonesia which is also near Singapore. The furtherest away from Singapore in the world I have ever gone to is Pulau Penang, Malaysia (again and 12-15 hours by bus in one direction; in that time, i can actually go to Narita, Kanto, Japan and then to Tokyo by train from the airport). My father allways talk about things that relates to malacca (i suspect that is because he spent most of his childhood there and my aunt living there). The furthest my father had ever gone is Taiwan for national service.

With the Internet, I started to know about other countries (mostly those in East Asia, Europe and North America) by reading articles, pictures and know what it is like there. I dont want to imagine what the place might be through the computer screen, I want to actually be there physically. In fact, I have never experience autum, winter or spring before.

If i get a job that pays me at least SG$2000 a month and not buy a car here (singapore is small and the public transport network is good and not to mention high road tax for owning a car), I might have enough money to travel and bring someone along with me.

P.S What kind of jobs that pays you around SG$2000 a month and working overseas (prefably having winter around December)? Also, I want to immigrate (I wont say which country) since Singapore has a small land area and the houses are expensive (SG$200,000 (in installments for up to 30 years) for a 4 room apartment which is 95sqm; at least SG$1m for a 2/3 story terrace house) with that same money, you can buy a larger house overseas (eg. a typical house in the U.S.; of course, outside the capital city of the country) and still have money left. The problem with this is the language barrier (athough they might know simple english but it is better to speak in their native/national language) and finding a gf there. You might even feel out of place if everone there is of a different race (eg. a chinese in Europe) but you might also be mistaken for a local if you appear to be like them (though overall that might be a good thing).

Photo Album: January 2006

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:18:59 GMT

January 2006

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Photo Album: December 2007

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 10:59:53 GMT

December 2007

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Photo Album: November 2007

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:34:44 GMT

November 2007

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Photo Album: October 2007

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:14:23 GMT

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Photo Album: September 2007

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:08:12 GMT

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Photo Album: August 2007

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:30:09 GMT

August 2007

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Photo Album: July 2007

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:03:02 GMT

July 2007

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Photo Album: June 2007

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:59:11 GMT

June 2007

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Photo Album: May 2007

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:26:18 GMT

May 2007

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Photo Album: April 2007

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:13:11 GMT

April 2007

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