Favourite Quote of the Week

"My dear, we are not coming here to catch butterflies...."

This is what my country manager said to a fellow colleague. As bitchy as it sounds, i had to control my laughter but i just thought it was so utterly funny.

End of random post

A week of dodging bullets and Barcamp!

Phew, what a week! So much work in so little time and it makes it even harder when unexpected problems occur along the way.

But overcoming these obstacles is what really matters. I fought long and hard and was rewarded by getting some important things done during the long, arduous days at work.

Now, recently I made a previous post about OnLive and my sister recently came back from the Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco where she actually got to try out the OnLive micro console.

After talking to her, she shared with me some problems about this new technology. First,if you have a unit at home and to enjoy an optimized gaming experience, you better hope that the data center is nearby.

Although data center was nearby to the venue, my sister was able to detect a slight lag during gameplay.

Also you would require a smooth and consistent broadband line of 2Mbps.

Hmmm, Malaysian internet lines do not have the word "smooth" and "consistent" as part of their context so altogether right now it looks like Epic Failure for OnLive to be ever implemented here AT THIS POINT OF TIME.

My sister also bought me a pretty thing from the land of Obama!

My first Coach!

Thankies big sista!

Now,moving onto what I did today.

I attended BarCamp KL in Inti Subang!


A great event where people from different industries (IT,marketing,advertising and so forth) come together to meet with each other to share ideas and build networks.

Some attendees checking out the schedule of sessions

I wanted to go there to have an enriching experience by attending some of the talks by other fellow participants of the event.

The sessions were interesting and varied from each other such as the future of social networking, dos and donts of advertising to how to hook up with a japanese chic. :P

How to make a social networking platform by Bernard Leong

And yes, i did attend the talk on how to hook up with a japanese chic just for fun and to find to no surprise that the room was filled to the brim with men. I was one of the 3 gals in the room. It was entertaining to see how enthusiastic the audience were and after the talk there was a raise of hands on questions to the speaker who happened to be a single Japanese lady. I couldn't help but laugh and roll my eyes every now and then. But the talk gave insight on not only how men should approach a Japanese girl but also to any girl of any nationality.

I also attended a talk on the 10 biggest sins in advertising by a young speaker named Jackson Teoh. You can check out his blog here.

I also attended a session where multiple speakers would give a talk on interesting subjects like their services, industry or ideas.

Here's a video of a speaker reciting his poem after giving a talk about the current poetry community, reaching out to poetry enthusiats and cultivating it here in this country.

After dinner, I came home feeling pretty exhausted.

Tomorrow I will be attending the second day of BarCamp to check out some of the other sessions by fellow BarCampers!

Anyone with an open mind and an innate curiosity to learn more should attend!

Deadends

Bunga orkid in my landlady's yard

On Saturday, I took time to actually draw which i have not done in years.

I have an extremely bad habit when it comes to drawing. I would work on a piece and when i see its has gone slightly awry, I would give up on the piece and leave it unfinished.

Throughout the entire week I have been itching to do a Natsume Yuujinchou fanart. I love this anime to bits and I knew I wanted to have the honor of drawing a fanart of it.

Natsume with Nyanko-sensei

So I spent the entire Saturday cooped up in my room,tracing over lines and rubbing it off furiously trying to get it right. There were many times halfway through the piece I wanted to give up but I managed to get it done.

It's finished!!Finally!!

Excitedly, I was preparing to reinstall my Photoshop to color it but as luck would have it, my installer CD went missing. I looked all over my room and I just was unable to find it. In the end, I would have to buy a new Photoshop installer pack. Just as I had finished my first art piece in years , I am left unable to color it!Sigh,oh well i can color it next weekend.The first dead end encountered...

As nighttime fell, Earth Hour was celebrated in my home in darkness save for the dimmed lights of candles. I turned off everything except my laptop and sat in my room in darkness while i chatted with my landlady who sat in the hallway.My neighbourhood was plunged into darkness save for some very rare few who couldn't be bothered.

Earth Hour 2009 in my neighborhood

Then today I collected my Holga camera. When i met with the seller i was disappointed to know i would indeed require a special film to use the camera.I asked him if they were easy to find and he gave a VERY unsure answer. Bad sign. Oh well I thought to myself they shouldn't be that hard to find since there is a big community of Lomographers in Malaysia.

My pretty Holga...which is useless now with no film

I went to all three shops in the malls and lo and behold, THEY DID NOT SELL MEDIUM FORMAT FILMS! Let alone normal films. With the overwhelming demand of digital format cameras it's hard to find any shop that sells films anymore. The second dead end....

I went home feeling dejected and frustrated that i was unable to do what i have been wanting to do all week!First, to complete a Natsume Yuujinchou fanart piece and to take vintage photos with my spanking new Holga!

The saving grace this weekend was having dinner with my friend and catching a horror movie with him.

We had dinner at Ikea having to fulfill over sudden need to munch on delicious meatballs. Nomtastic!

After dinner , we watched The Unborn and as much as I hate to admit it I was very reluctant to watch it in the beginning, as I knew after watching a ghost movie, it would immediately put my imagination into overdrive resulting me in not wanting to go home late and constantly looking over my shoulder.

..Evil also happens to be a big time pervert...

Turned out, there wasn't much to worry about as about halfway through the movie, the storyline panned out to be rather lackluster and predictable.

And now i'll be turning in to face another hectic week.

It's a Friday!

My favourite day of the week has arrived!

Nothing much planned over the weekend. I expect to spending time by myself and working on my art piece .

This arrived in my email that I truly feel it's worth mentioning

My Threadless shirts are on their way to my loving arms very soon!

Also in case everyone has forgotten, remember to switch off your lights or any form of electricity in your home for Earth Hour tomorrow



Earth Hour is meant to send a message to all the world leaders that global warming should be a top priority of their agenda during world talks and conferences so please do the planet a favor by switching off ALL of your electrical appliances!

However i'll have to wonder what am i going to do during that hour in darkness.

/Whips out PSP

The future of gaming?

Recently , gaming and tech websites across the internet has been abuzz with the recent news of an innovative device that could take over world of console gaming. Imagine, we would not need to rob,steal or beg for money to buy that PS3 or Xbox that will collect dust after 2 years (like my PS2 sadly)

Yes it's that f**king small

Get this...its the size of a deck of cards . A very big difference from your regular and bulkier consoles.

Introducing OnLive, the future of gaming as the makers call it. A small and slim device that taps onto your broadband internet line for you to access a library of games for you to play. Basically you stream the games and play it online(Imagine Youtube). You would not need to download and install it onto your device. Just search for the game you want to play and play it!

This is all very exciting as this would remove the need to buy a super expensive console that lasts for only a few years. What's more you don't need to keep going out to buy games for you to play. What you need is to pay a monthly subscription (yet to be finalized),tv,your OnLive device and console.Very good for your pocket i'd say.It's also playable onto your MAC and PC.

Makers of OnLive have also mentioned the OnLive MicroConsole is cheap to make making it cheap to purchase hopefully and they have already signed on some impressive titles to their growing library of games such as BioShock,Tomb Raider : Underworld,Crysis Warhead and FEAR 2 just to name a few.

According to published reports, makers of OnLive kept the development under the radar after 7 years and have now come out to say "Forget your Xbox,PS3 or Wii. This is IT"

However there are sceptics of this new generation of consoles and for me as a Malaysian I already see one and almighty problem....

MALAYSIAN INTERWEBZ STRUKTUR = FAIL

Hohoho...I will be keeping tabs on this as I would like to see if OnLive would be able to live up to its reputation.

Refer to these links to read more about it!

OnLive Official Website

AFP Report : onlive to stream videogames as online service

Yahoo News : New tech could make consoles obsolete

Sceptics

GDC 09: 6 Reasons OnLive Could Be a Bust

Death by an adder

Isn't it pretty?

Unfortunately it isn't mine. I was allowed to test it during work.

So another item on my wish list...a Razer Death Adder

Threadless Sale!

The Threadless Sale is on again! Shirts with eclectic and witty designs selling for USD 10-5.

And once there's a sale, the inner shopaholic comes bursting forth.

This resulted in me purchasing these 2 shirts for USD 5 each.

Squueezzzeee Me! by vwoop

Epic Battle by Jeff Battocletti

I can't wait to wear them!

How have you been?

At around 8pm this evening,someone buzzed me over MSN and I was unable to see her name as I did not have her in my MSN friends list.

Her first words to me were "How have you been, my friend?"

Puzzled I tried to recall who she was as her email she used to sign up in MSN seemed so familiar. I immediately asked who she was and there was a pause in her reply, obviously hurt that I was unable to recognize her.

It turned out to be my ex-colleague who left the company and we were close friends. However a bitter argument created a rift between us and when she left the company, in my anger, I did not give her a proper goodbye and proceeded to delete her from MSN list. Silly I know.

Anger does that to me sometimes. It makes me do childish and impudent things that I end up regretting later.

After she left, I thought that was the end of our friendship but pretty soon I no longer was upset with her and felt stupid for not saying farewell.

That was a year ago.A year has passed and now she asks me how i am and again me being me, i made it clear that i had erased her from my MSN list. It's unimaginable to feel so stupid...again.

We ended chatting like old times and about old times. Our weird antics in office and how we would have dinner almost every night after work.

Furious clanking of my fingernails against the keyboard to tell her what i have recently been up to and giggling when we talked about how we were still unable to find any suitable boyfriends made my heart swell with happiness and it provided me a chance to actually rekindle our friendship. It was pretty much like old times when we would sit behind our cubicles and send random jokes to each other on MSN or talk about the latest gadget we would be itching to buy.

"Would you like to catch up?I was thinking of paying a visit to Mandy who will be giving birth soon.." her words appeared in the chat window.

I immediately straigthened up in my chair and typed out an affirmative to the idea. Mandy was our previous Human Resource Manager who left the company as well.

It was obvious we had long forgotten the resentment and anger we had each other.

At the end of our conversation, I told her I had to leave the office.

I said to her , "It was nice talking to you after so long"

"Yeah me too. I'll see you soon"

Her reply made me feel good as I packed up and left the office.

So all in all, besides the datelines i was unable to meet, the nagging bosses and stress i habored throughout the day I went home feeling happy because of a simple greeting from a long lost friend.

Hotlink Anime and Games Festival

I have a love-hate relationship with Sundays. I enjoy Sundays because I usually spend it quietly by being at home. I would do my weekly chores like cleaning my room,washing the toilet (ugh!),doing the laundry,paying the bills and prepping up for the big week ahead. The hate part comes in when I know I am on the verge of having ANOTHER hectic week again and this mundane cycle begins again.

Today however,I pulled myself out of bed and paid a visit to Berjaya Times Square to see the Hotlink Anime and Games Festival.

I really really enjoy going to comic or anime festivals like this. Usually to be awed or cringe at our Malaysian cosplayers. I truly admire these quirky bunch because they really enjoy doing it, parading around in their costumes of their favourite anime or game characters. Even when they look so awesomely bad, they seem to be so comfortable with what they are doing.

When I was in Melbourne, during my uni days I often entertained the idea of cosplaying as an anime character. Alas, I never did cosplay as anyone but I met cosplayers at festivals and they seem cool to be around with. I remember the fat Sephiroth I met in Melbourne's Anime Festival in Melbourne University on a bitterly cold weekend. He was fun albeit tacky fella when he said "Heh, I shaved my chest hair for this!"

Back to the Hotlink Anime and Games Festival. Here are some pictures I took with my new camera.

I am not sure who they are cosplaying as but you gotta give them credit for their costumes design. Girl with giant blue fans won first prize for Best Lookalike Category

(From left to right)Girl (or guy?)cosplaying as male character from some Chinese themed anime, Faust from Guilty Gear,lead character from Detroit Metal City and a Star Wars cosplayer.

Nemesis from Resident Evil

Beautiful Enma Ai from Jigoku Shoujo

I like him (or her?I'm not sure). He looks like real life bishonen.

The busiest booth at the festival seemed to be the Sudden Attack booth. There were ongoing competitions with Razer merchandises giveaways for the winners. While the competition went on, spectators and gamers alike seemed to circle around the booth to see how the participants fared against AsiaSoft staff personnels and other players.

Swarming around like bees.If you notice the bunch of young men on the left with bowl cut hair, they are actually Korean players that have played Sudden Attack published in their homeland before this.

Boy on left : Damn we're losing!
Boy on right : Chill it's just a game!

After I had enough of the festival I drove home and RM10 poorer after paying the obscenely priced parking charge.

Tomorrow another day...another start to a week of increased blood pressure and looming datelines.

On a brighter note, I'm going to be getting my new Holga camera next week!I'll be doing alot of random snapping of inanimate things in the room and scenery around my area.

But now,time to sleep.

zzz