Sanity… is for the Weak

The RPG Class Test

Spellsword 55% Combativeness, 33% Sneakiness, 70% Intellect, 25% Spirituality

Aggressive, but with the brains to back it up: You are a Spellsword! Score! You have a prestige class. A prestige class can only be taken after you’ve fulfilled certain requirements. This may mean that you’re an exceptionally talented person, but it probably doesn’t. Spellswords combine arcane might with combat know-how. They’re much tougher than mages, like to wear armor, and can cast spells through their weapons. They’re very, very, good at doing lots of damage to a single target very quickly, and while not quite as tough as most fighters, are still pretty hard to kill. You’re both smart and aggressive, which means that you’re probably pretty dangerous when pissed off. You also tend to be somewhat straightforward, which is nice, and don’t have much use for spirituality or mysticism.

I *LIKE*

And I felt a disturbance in the Force…

Jedi Knights Want U.N. To Officially Recognize Them As Religion

November 17, 2006 12:19 a.m. EST

Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Correspondent
New York, NY (AHN) - Two self-proclaimed Jedi Knights have petitioned the United Nations to officially recognize their faith as a religion.

John Wilkinson and Charlotte Law, who calls themselves Umada and Yunyun based on their Jedi “religion,” have told the U.N. that the Jedi is worthy of being called a religion.

The petition came after a 2001 census in the U.K. showed that some 400,000 people “practice” the Jedi belief as their faith.

They also want the world body to rename the International Day for Tolerance to Interstellar Day of Tolerance.

Umada and Yunyun said, “For the last ten years the United Nations has marked the International Day of Tolerance. While we support this important work, we feel the U.N. needs to move with the times.

“Like the U.N., the Jedi Knights are peacekeepers and we feel we have the basic right to express our religion through wearing our robes, and to be recognized by the national and international community.

“We therefore are calling upon the United Nations Association to change November 16 to the U.N. Interstellar Day of Tolerance, to reflect the religious make-up of our twenty-first century civilization.”

There are also said to be 70,000 Jedi knights in Australia, 53,000 in New Zealand, and 20,000 in Canada.

In the meantime, with Lightsaber, train you must.

It took a while, and it’s not all the photos we took, but look for them in Flickr.

Movie Buff
Took a walk across the highway to Toa Payoh to catch “Happy Feet” earlier ~ a great show, but the environmental issues tagged on at the end did seemed a little forced to me.

Great animation, witty dialogue (as expected with Robin Williams!) and wonderful, wonderful music. Very worth the price of a weekend ticket.

My verdict: 4 out of 5 stars.

Gundam Simulator
I managed to find some footage of the Gundam Simulator mentioned a while ago!

Check it out:

To all the friends in the States:

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

You Are 80% Thankful

You are a very thankful person - for both the big and little things in life. Your optimism is powerful. Getting through hard times is fairly easy for you.

Holiday Photos
I know, I know! Ask me for anything but time!

I’ll upload them by this weekend, I swear!

samjo: Hey! It’s Jason Stratham ~ he’s always worth a weekday ticket!

Recently discovered JamGlue; it is kind of like an online eJay for people to create and upload their music. The community is still pretty small at the moment, but there are some really talented people in there ~ surf by and have a look!

While we’re on music, for those who were wondering (like me) which instrument made that catchy and very distinctive background track for the Wii commercial posted earlier, it’s from a Japanese 3-stringed instrument called a Shamisen. Some examples of this music can be found Here and Here.

Also, remember the Guitar pwnage post a while back about episode 12 of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi? Some guy managed to learn and play the lead guitar part for “God Knows”:

And in case you were wondering, he did “Lost My Music” as well. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but impressive all the same.

Anime
Just caught the first episode of Soukou no Strain (奏光のストレイン). Interesting so far, and I feel that it may have potential ~ shall watch a few more to see how it develops.

Episode 6 of Sumomo mo Momo mo… left me rolling on the floor and laughing ~ not a very hard thing to do as I already have to sit on the floor to use the computer anyway….

:Links:
Shamisen vs DJ Kentaro
Shamisen vs Tap
Shamisen Video

Bond, James Bond
Whee! Just went out and caught the latest Bond movie. Daniel Craig, surprisingly, comes off as quite a refreshing change to the franchise, although a little too brooding and moody at times. However, this show is a little too “lovey dovey” (as the wife puts it), but I suppose that since this is supposed to be the “pre-quel” that shows 007’s begginings, it’s only normal to show his “sensitive” side just this once….?

Bad Point:
Like, where are the toys, man? Where’s Q? What’s a Bond movie without the fancy gadgets? All we got to see was a tagging chip like we put in dogs, an Aston Martin with some extra drawers (that got smashed up because he was trying to aviod the girl), and a tiny defibrillator. That’s it.

Final Verdict: 3.5 Stars

Audio/Visual Update
Audio:Slave
In the B&O:
+Dire Straits: Sultans of Swing
+Ok Go: Oh No
+Hed Kandi: The Mix 2006
+Elv1s: 30 #1 Hits
+The Prodigy: Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005
+Blur: The Best Of
+Hiromitsu Agatsuma: Eien no Uta- Eternal Songs

Visual:Slave
In the DVD:
+Final Fantasy: Advent Children
+Gokusen
+Howl’s Moving Castle
+Karas
+Vandread: the Second Stage
+Gun Parade March
+Samurai 7
+Gunslinger Girl
+Initial D: 4th Stage
+Scrapped Princess
+The DaVinci Code
+V for Vendetta
+Magica Girl Lyrical Nanoha (魔法少女リリカルなのは)
+Mythbusters: Season 1 / Season 2 / Season 3

In the PSP:
+Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi)
+Battlestar Galatica Season 1
+Battlestar Galatica Season 2
+Ouran High Host Club
+Zero no Tsukaima (ゼロの使い魔)
+Paradise Kiss
+Sumomo mo Momo mo
+Pumpkin Scissors
+Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

Movies to Catch:
+Ice Age 2
+Superman Returns
+Cars
+Mission: Impossible 3
+Pirates of the Carribean 2
+Miami Vice Looks like we missed this one.
+Tristan and Isolde And this one too.
+Underworld: Evolution
+X-Men 3
+Lord of War
+Open Season
+The Seninel
+Casino Royale
+The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift
+Over the Hedge Missed this
+Night At The Museum
+Crank
+Zoom
+Happy Feet
+Azumi
+Man of the Year
+Flyboys
+Accepted
+Deja Vu
+eragon
+The History Boys
+Flags Of Our Fathers

Movies to Catch: 2007
+Spiderman 3
+Transformers: The Movie
+Ghost Rider
+Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
+300

In addition to these, I also caught The Lake House and Dragon Tiger Gate on the plane

I love going on holidays ~ what I don’t like about them is the amount of clean-up required after we come home. Just spent the whole of yesterday simply doing the laundry, and today will be cleaning and mopping the house.

More travel pictures. This time of the Osaka Aquarium:

Wii
Given the extremely insane lack of PS3 sets available, (the the equally insane prices of the grey-market sets ~ I saw a 20GB set for sale over at Parkway Parade yesterday for $1500), Nintendo’s Wii is looking better and better:

Cool, isn’t it?

ｶﾞ━━Σ(ﾟДﾟ|||)━━ﾝ!!

Another year older, and hopefully somewhat wiser.

Play Station 3
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get my hands on a unit here ~ the limited amount for sale meant that the stores would only sell via “luck draw” or “first come, first served” terms. However, I did see a few units that were put up for re-sale by some shops, but at SGD$1500 a piece, I thought that it was a little too hardcore even for me.

Japan Trip
Flying back home today… but we’ll be back soon! In the meantime, here’s some random shots of Japan:

Woo… finally checked into a hotel with an internet connection!

Still uploading the pictures, but you can probably see some of it in the Flickr bar on the right.

Anyway, Japan is a wonderfull place, and 10 days is just barely enough to just scratch the surface ~ we’ll be back, and for a longer stretch next time.

Anime and Gaming
First up though, will be something near and dear to my heart: Anime and Gaming. In this, the country of Gamers and Otaku, the Mecca will have to be Akihabara:

Not only does this place have enough electronics to send a Neo-Luddite into catatonic shock, it is also an Otaku’s heaven, boasting at least 6 (I stopped counting after that ~ sensory overload) multi-storey buildings selling nothing but anime, manga, gaming and related merchandise. Heck, even in Shinkuku where the biggest Kinokuniya I’ve ever seen (which occupies about 6 floors) houses it’s anime and manga section in a seperate annex building!

Speaking of anime, we went to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, about 30 minute’s train ride from Tokyo:

Cool Fact #1: For admission tickets, they use film strips from their anime… and you get to keep them!
Cool Fact #2: You get to see a short film in the in-house Saturno Theater… which is only ever shown in-house and never released anywhere else.

Eat your hearts out, 1Obn!

Finally, for gaming, Japan probably features arcade games that are found nowhere else in the world. Case in point; while walking around in Akihabara, I saw this poster outside an arcade centre:

The fact that it’s a Gundam-related game caught my interest… but what was interesting was the details…. it’s a %$#@! *ZOMFG! Gundam Simulator!

Full 180-degree display, 4-pods interlinked for team play, head-sets for inter-team communications, pilot station for stats (you get a card with your record).

*drool*

Now, when will this be coming to Singapore?!?

Was just surfing around and I came across this old classic: Michael Jackson’s Thriller

How many of you still remember it? In addition, how many of us 30-somethings tried to copy the dance?

Finally perfected my pancakes… the secret? Use low heat ~ keeping the flame small allows the pancakes to cook evenly and throughly. Now why didn’t I think of that earlier?

My Recipe:
1 Egg
150ml Milk
200g Flour

1) Mix egg and milk in a bowl, then slowly add flour. Stir until there are no more lumps in the batter.
2) In a frying pan, heat some oil on medium until it spreads and evenly coats the pan. Reduce heat to low.
3) Add a quater of the batter and let it spread. When bubbles form and break the surface, use a spatula and turn, cooking to a golden brown.

Makes 4 pancakes.
Serve with honey and a little dollop of butter for extra taste.

Travel Plans
Looks like there’s a slight change of plans ~ we will be leaving tomorrow for Japan on the 1am flight for Osaka Kansai Airport instead of the earlier flight to Narita. I guess we’ll just have to take the Shinkansen for Tokyo after we land. Thank goodness for the JR Pass!

My Otaku Quotient

Your otaku Purity Test Results
You answered “yes” to 58 of 200 questions, making you 71.0% otaku pure (29.0% otaku corrupt).
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 9%, based on a comparison of your test results with 91823 other submissions for this test.

The average purity for this test is 66.4%.
The first submission for this test was received August 5, 1998.

Just how much of an anime otaku are you?

Xak: Not so hardcore, I think.

Anyway, Pumpkin Scissors Episode 5 is out!