Another busy week crammed in again. What have I been up to? Here's a quick list:

• My brother's 20th Birthday where we had Italian food at Gianni's in Hamilton! The first time I've been there, but there is great food to be had there~
  
• Finalising project plans for my IT group project - its not hard, just uses heaps of time. =(
  
• Getting exam results - I'll have to study a lot more now, too much time spent on job applications! >_<
  
• Tidying up my room - I'll try to keep this up for as long as I can, it just makes life a lot more easier by being organised!
• Bought Everybody's Golf: World Tour from Kmart for $30. I've heard that it's great fun but I haven't had the chance to give it a go yet.
• I also managed to grab a copy of Shadow of the Colossus - I've heard it's a pretty rare title, and an "epic" game, so I got a copy for $10 without the manual or cover art.
  

I recently picked up this title from PSN (Playstation Network), and it's great fun! It is based on the arcade remake of the original Outrun back in the early 90's. Both of which I have embedded below.

Overview: Basically Outrun is an arcade racer where you start off at A and finish off at B. What makes it unique include: the collection of Ferraris that you can choose to drive, deciding whether or not to drift corners, and which of the 5 final destinations you will finish at. It is really addictive, with the drifting physics pretty easy to execute, and there are 15 different areas to explore depending on your road choice - check the video below out to see what I mean!

What I liked:

• Playing this version was pretty fun, with Online multiplayer too.
  
• Classic Arcade experience, with eye candy in pure 1080p HD goodness!
  

• My online experience was pretty glitchy, with random glitches here and there that occur randomly - see below.
• Online community wasn't as good as it could be, with people disconnecting when they realise they can't win =S
• G25 support is almost non existent, and is easier and more satisfying to play with the DS3 instead.
  

Random Online glitch =S


Original Outrun!


Outrun Online Arcade Online Gameplay.

As promised, here is a post about my latest Gunpla, a 1/144 model of Gundam Exia, which is the first Gundam the main lead character Setsuna F. Seiei pilots. I really enjoyed this series, and would highly recommend it for those who love robots, and love for a good story. There are elements of love, the issue of war, and what it means for people to unite. I can't wait for the movie!

This 1/144 Exia took me less than 3 hours to make. Kinda slow, but I'm not really good at building these things. This is probably the second gunpla I've made in years, so there were some hiccups too. I lost one of the stickers that was supposed to stick to the back of the head, but as most of the details are at the front, it's not that bad.

I have here two pics of two different poses I managed to make my Exia do. I really love it how they're easily posable, and would be great if I had more! I should probably do my best to secure a job asap to fund my ever extending expensive hobbies. xD

A fully equipped Gundam Exia excluding the GN Beam Sword.

Exia wielding the GN Sword, reminds you of the gunblade doesn't it? xD

I thought i should probably post something otaku on here, since it does mention otaku in the description! I bought this set almost a year ago, and it was as a result of enjoying the Lucky Star series. I just have a soft spot for chibi stuff, I have no idea why, and it doesn't help that these are really well made. xD I have a few other Nendoroids too, might post them up sometime later too.

I'm kinda glad that I'm not that into figure collecting that much, otherwise I'd run out of money really quickly. Hopefully I'll be able to secure a job for when I graduate, so I can spend money on these hobbies!

It's almost Easter! Which means holidays are just around the corner, although it's only a week. So, what have I been up to the past week?

• I managed to grab Valkyria Chronicles for 59 AUD off eBay. Sealed copy too!
• Went to the final job interview at Deloitte - it wasn't too bad, but probably could've answered some questions a lot better.
• Attended The Source launch party - basically a networking event, and did some AIESEC work, letting everyone know how it was.
  
• Filling out some more job applications, I'm going to be so happy when all this is complete!
• Doing a job interview on Wednesday next week with BDO Kendalls, we'll see how that goes.
  
• Easter break starts on Friday!
  

Hey Guys! How's things? It's finally become colder now, starting to feel a lot more like winter, and not the bipolar temperature that has been happening lately. I think I've seen most of the wildlife here, but I never manage to snap any of them on camera. I've yet to see the famous banana slug though, but my friends have. >_<>

• Finally enjoying the winter side of things =D
• Eating homemade Japanese Stew - I thought it was pretty delicious, and something different for a change!
  
• Went to a Japanese mixer - involved eating some nice food, and meeting some new people because of it
• Ate at a Thai restaurant
• Australian culture night!
  
• Bought some manga for friends of mine
  
• Pissed off at the assignment submit system - had to submit an assignment late because they say I didn't submit it...*sigh* I wish it was on paper.
• Still in holiday mode, when my first exam is coming on the next Thursday! T_T
  

The two manga I bought for friends of mine.

Aussie culture night!

Thai food!

Japanese Mixer!

At Kana's house with the delicious stew! (see below)

Japanese White Stew!

It's that time of the week again! The 5th week already! Here's the usual summary of my week:

• Went to Gilroy Premium Outlets - where I managed to spend 70USD on clothes = I have to start saving now, before I run out of money soon. I managed to pick up 2 shirts, a pair of shoes, a necklace/choker thing (I'm not sure what they call them lol), and a belt.
• Tried out Jamba Juice - pretty decent, but more or less like the Boost Juice we have at home.
• Ate some Häagen-Dazs as it was on special - I love cookies and icecream.
  
• Had a try at the I Love Sushi restaurant - made me realise why I hate hype, with some people claiming it to be the best sushi restaurant. It was alright in my opinion, but in no way the best place to have sushi. It was more or less like Oishii, but all the dishes were basically the same, instead of the variety they have at Oishii.
• Ate some decent American food at Chilli's in Capitola - pretty good I reckon, expect to see it on Oishiilog soon! Dessert was good too there for you chocaholics!
  
• Met some new people along the way!
• Same old classes

Decent outlet place, that surpasses the ones in Brissy by far!

Random Necklace thing I bought at Gilroy's.

Boost equivalent!

Decent American Food place I have had with variety that doesn't involve just burgers/hotdogs and fries

Part of the monstrous main meal I had at Chilli's

Awesome dessert at Chilli's

Cheap Haagen Dazs ice cream!

Oishii equivalent!

Australia vs America differences 1:
Fairy Floss = Cotton Candy

My friend came back from Hong Kong recently, and I told him to grab me this while he was there. This is a pqi Intelligent Drive i810 Plus - it's a series of USB flash drives that a Taiwanese company, pqi made. This series markets the fact that it is the smallest usb drive ever. Even compared to the Sony Microvault drives, these ones are smaller. How small? Just check out the following pic:


Compared to (the width of this drive is the same as the above):

How does it manage to get that small? The thing is, it is a retractable flash drive. Beneath the "shell" of the drive is a moveable section that you can use to have the usb connectors stick out, just like this:

And all that is left is to stick that into your pc! Pretty clever, ay?

This flash drive was 18AUD - roughly around the same price as your typical usb here. The thing is, you can't get one for that price for something this small - the Sony Microvault drives are sooo much more expensive!

Credits to Hexus for the pic!

Back in the times when I first had my PS2 came, when there was no such thing as "downloading demos to play" were the joys of demo discs that you get by purchasing the Official Playstation magazines. In doing so, I discovered this pretty looking, fast paced mecha series known as Zone of the Enders.

As time passed, I never got around to playing this series - ZoE1 and 2. Until recently, I started taking an interest in it again, and managed to grab a preowned copy of the first one. It was alright for its time I reckon, but had dodgy English translations as per usual. A tad short, but definitely sweet. I decided to try my luck hunting for the second title everywhere around here, with little or no luck. This was apparently a really rare title that only had limited numbers in PAL territory. But thanks to eBay, I managed to scrape a copy for a price cheaper than what EBGames was offering, with the listed stock in another town.

The cover of the very rare ZoE2

The inside cover of ZoE2

• new VR Training options
• added scenarios
• more difficulties
• a music video featuring a remixed "Beyond the Bounds" theme
• improved anti-aliasing and graphical optimizations
• new Orbital Frames for Versus Mode, among other improvements to the game.
  

Here's to hope that ZoE3 will be out soon to add to my collection!

Thursday was my first time attending an expo for anime and gaming stuff in Australia! I must say though Gencon 2008 was pretty interesting and opened up my eyes about the different "gaming" hobbies that people have. From video gaming to card playing to cosplaying to warhammering to ...any other kinda games relating things. Hobbies are a part of everyone's life, and it kinda made me wonder what exactly is my hobby... for me its from old Pokemon cards to video gaming, to anime nowadays. I guess there's nothing wrong with a bit of everything!

So how did the day go? Like most things, if you go to these events that appeal to a lot of different people, you have to be open minded and be able to appreciate that there is always something for someone there. Otherwise you'd find yourself bored, and leaving pretty early! Day started off pretty early, with heaps of people lining up by then. (Forgot to take a pic of the queue, as most people do for these events xD)

After we got in, with our showbag (there was one and only one T_T, was hoping for more...) we toured around the different stalls where hobby shops have them set up. After browsing and SSBBing there for a bit, ended up wandering to the anime karaoke stand, and belted out some tunes, while realising that I'll never be able to keep up with fast Japanese songs no matter how much you have listened to it. You'll have to memorise it like a dictation test.

Lunch was next, grabbed what they called a "Wagyu Beef Burger" - doubt that the organisers really know what they were on about. Should've taken a pic of the burger, but was too hungry to do so. (FYI - Wagyu beef is considered to be the best beef, more info on wiki; burger was average, and not enough meat!) Not long after, was the cosplay competition, and was interesting to see how much effort some people put into their costumes and pics can be found on this blog here. I came to appreciate cosplaying by being in the audience and as a photographer there too.

Being at one of these expos usually equals increased spending. I was tempted to buy the Haruhi boxset, but the price made me think otherwise. In the end I just bought a bleach booster pack, and was lucky enough to get a Unohana shiny foil card, as shown here (along with random and other character cards):


I guess the one thing here that I thought wasn't done as well at GenCon, was the less emphasis on console gaming as such. The only console gaming tournament being a Guitar Hero one, which just happened to be one of the only genres that I don't play. On the whole it was enjoyable, and I'd like to go to another one of these expos another time. It finishes this Sunday, so you still have tomorrow left if you really want to go. I'll leave you guys with two random Star Wars pics I managed to get on the day:

Why you...

Asleep as usual

For those of you who don't listen much to J-Pop or any other kind of Japanese music, you may not get the title of this post. But yeah, my copy of ayaka's latest album, "Sing to the Sky" arrived today. It was released in Japan last Thursday (26th of July). I was quietly surprised at how quick it did arrive - was expecting it to be for 2 weeks.

So why ayaka? Once you have heard this girl's voice, you know that she's good. Although her voice can be a bit deep for a girl, the power and emotion she uses to do so is empowering (I know such a bad word, but my vocab sucks atm xD). In my opinion, an artist's recordings of their songs don't do them justice; you only know how good they are depending on their live performance.

This song "I believe" was her debut song, and the first song I heard of hers:



As you can see, she's something really different, and should be pretty popular in the future! Without further ado, here are some pics of the new album I bought. Here's the cover of "Sing to the sky", unopened:


And the back of it unopened:
The inside of the cover itself - as I bought the limited special edition that comes with a Live DVD, its one of those 2 disc cases. Here is the first side:

And the second side where the DVD is located:

Which cover do you prefer?

I like the first cd art more - dunno why the new one seems a bit plain...

I'd have to say I'd prefer the first one again on this

In terms of the music itself, overall I'd have to say I like the variety of songs that are in the album, but the first album has more "great" songs. I guess I can't really say until I've played some more of it! Tracklist at the end of the post.

To finish this post on ayaka, I leave you with a live performance of my number one favourite song of her's - Mikazuki:



The Tracklist:

1. POWER OF MUSIC
2. Ai wo Utaou (愛を歌おう; Let's Sing Love)
3. SKY
4. Jewelry day
5. Good Night Baby (グンナイベイビー)
6. For today
7. Why
8. Gold Star (ゴールドスター)
9. Mahoutsukai no Shiwaza (魔法使いのしわざ; The Magician's Deeds)
10. Te wo Tsunagou (手をつなごう; Let's Hold Hands)
11. Ai mo Uso mo Shinjitsu (愛も嘘も真実; Love, Lies and Truth)
12. CLAP & LOVE
13. Kimi ga Iru Kara (君がいるから; Because I Have You)
14. Okaeri (おかえり; Welcome Home)
15. Kon'ya mo Hoshi ni Dakarete (今夜も星に抱かれて; Wrapped in the Stars Tonight)
16. WINDING ROAD (ayaka x Kobukuro (絢香×コブクロ)) (bonus track)
17. I Believe (English ver.) (bonus track)

Credits to Vox for the tracklist