April Get! Part 3 (Final)!

Holy spending, Batman! Okay, these are small items that are a week apart so I hope no one attacked me about it. :P

Bought a HDMI switch for my Work/Play Space since I got the Dell monitor two weeks ago. This one doesn't need an external power source and works as well as I hoped. (The monitor only has one HDMI input but I want to connect 3 devices - PC, PS3 & Xbox 360, so I looked for a switch.) Costs RM37 without postage.

It is just that I finally can come to a conclusion that you shouldn't really try to invest in really cheap HDMI cables unless you've good experience with them before. They do work well enough but sometimes don't connect properly if bent too much. ^^;

Next up...
This one, as you all know costs 1000 Yen and just arrived at Momotoys earlier this week. I immediately got it since I was dragged there (not literally). As I don't own the HGUC, yet, I'll get this first for the time being. It will pair up with my SD Unicorn very well. >:D

I hope I can build it after my assignments are done or after my finals later this month. At any rate, gold trims! Fight-oh!

Okay, back to my important work. :(

Updated Review Buttons~ Plus "Formal" Announcement

There won't be much postings on this blog or the secondary blog for a while*. (I'll try to do a few monthly posts at the very least and comment on my fellow bloggers' posts from time to time.) I won't be calling in for a hiatus, but if you guys want to know what I'm up to, stalk me on Facebook or visit the Swinburne Anime & Manga Society blog, forum or Facebook group. I prefer the forum for a more civilized, more concrete conversation though. :P

So, everyone who is still actively looking at my blog, go to the forum! XD

*Why am I quite busy?

• Swinburne decided it was cool to cut the semester period from 14 weeks to 12 weeks. Now we have to do more work in a shorter amount of time! D:
• I don't have any long enough, fee enough, semester breaks until end of the year. :(
• I have many things to care of due to being president of SAMS. I have things I must do and things that are wished to be done.
• Gaming year! :D

Thus, I'll be more active on social places for this year. A few figures still need to be opened and "tested to the limits" though... hmhm.

PS: For those at Kuching...

More details here and here.

Japan Earthquake Donate Drive @ Swinburne

Starting from tomorrow (1 April 2011) until 14 April 2011 Swinburne Anime & Manga Society (SAMS), Swinburne Japanese Language Club, Swinburne Green Club and Malaysia Red Crescent Society (MRCS) will be holding a donation drive at the G Block Lobby of Swinburne. The booth will be open from 9am until 3pm on weekdays.

Those who are currently going to Swinburne to study, work or just happen to pass by can give a small bit of donation for the sake of Japan!

If you're not clear about what has happened to Japan recently, a quick look at either CNN.com or BBC.co.uk will give you a good idea about what happened and how bad it was for them. The situation is still pretty bad even now!

April Fools on Friday

Just a heads up to all. Friday happens to be SAMS' general meeting day so something special is in store for you all, even though most of the degree students will be busy then (I luckily have no paper on the 1st, but that doesn't mean I'm all that terribly free). This is targeted to foundation students.

Don't afraid to be a fool for those who dare to come, a prize, that I'm thinking of giving out a rather nice one if I have enough chance to go to the shop before Friday that is, for those who are "unlucky".

Until Friday then... ugh, exams!

Mid-Term Exam Week

Even though I got "hoards" of games I'd like to play, I'm going to have a mid-term exam next week. 3 papers only though since 1 subject had its midterm earliest last week.

FYI, the Foundation students are coming in next week. So, I'm wondering, if there are any readers by chance, who are going to Swinburne as a new student starting from next week? O.o

Okay, better get myself and the book acquainted properly before I make my life harder when the papers are before me. :P

Wish me luck! And good luck to those who are having exams right now or waiting for results too!

Too March Games

As much as I like to say I'm not rich, I will so totally look rich as you read this post. Or at least lucky that my parents even allowed me to take out my savings for it since it has a more family session purpose of buying.

After lots of thought, with a PS3 bought just earlier this year, I've finally completed one of my dreams - to complete one generation's worth of game consoles. It wasn't easy and the large amount of accumulated funds from young and educational benefit bonuses (Thank you SPM!) allowed me to reach this far. As well as it isn't just for me alone. If it were, I don't think I'll get half of the consoles I own now. Yes, having siblings makes having things like these have a greater meaning. Depending on your parents and yourself of course.

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SAMS 2011 Test Forum!

I'm still not done with the Nobel part 2 photo-shoot. It's creeping very slowly and the already loose right hip joint paints an unhappy face on the review. Well, it was already loose since finished the build. How... unfortunate.

Anyways, that isn't what this post is about.

Due to the recent lag in Facebook, I decided to make a simple forum hosted at Proboards. In actual fact, SAMS attempted to make a forum in the past, hosted on the same server as this but it didn't get officially publicized, not yet anyways. As such, this is a forum test to see how participation may fare before increasing the load of the server. Else it may just go off in the way of the SSSC forum last year. The lag at Facebook is already gone by now, so the initial purpose is lost...

If you join the forums, you can see earlier RAW notices of events, even when they haven't been completely confirmed! You can also join in discussions as well as make suggestions to events as well. Personally, I'll be able to easily see it since the posts are not drowned by other things like when they are posted on Facebook. Nonetheless, news post will be cross-posted for better spread of information.

Thus, join us in the forums!

Note: Please register NEW accounts instead of login in with your Facebook, Google, Twitter, WLM, Yahoo!, MySpace or AOL accounts since it can be quite risky to share accounts throughout various sites.

Copy and paste my post from SAMS' blog.

I'm willing to open the forum to all people who are interested to form a community and share a common interest with one another. Remember your manners! (Even if an argument breaks, be civilized.)

That's all for now. Might as well make a post tomorrow about what I've been up to that made me delay an entire second part of a review. >_>

Earthquake in Japan

Image from CNN.

I'm not too familiar with the full details but an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.9 hit Japan yesterday. Tsunamis and fire followed with it too. Earthquakes aren't too foreign to Japan but this time, it looks very bad, well obviously.

Those who are a bit off with the news, can see images, here;
Sankaku Complex, 1, 2 (NSFW)

Or can just go to CNN where most of the news is. Compiled here. Live blog here.

I'm personally quite speechless about this turn of events but as long as we can help, pray for the country's safety and donate when you can to aid in this time of need.

That's all from me this time. I hope Japan can return back to its everyday operations as soon as possible~

Very Busy this Month ^^;

A lot of stuff needs to be done this month since school started. It is more quick paced than last year since our semester has been shortened by 2 weeks. Plus I have a lot of things to bring up for SAMS this year due to the lack there-of last year.

Anyways, I'm still kinda unhappy with myself for not being able to finish the Nobell review, not yet, but if I can, I may make a slew of random comic strips involving her - if I don't forget whatever idea I have came up so far when I get a chance to do a photo-shoot. ^^;

For those who live in Kuching or specifically go to Swinburne, come to the weekly SAMS general meetings where we watch anime and possibly do some other related stuff on every Friday from 1.30-4.30pm at G901.

That's all for now. D:

Before the End of the Semester Break

I had, well need, to do a few stuff before the next semester begins again which delayed the next part of the Nobel Gundam review. Sorry about that. I wanted to do the post this week but I got preoccupied with the other things I wanted to do. ^^; (Hope I can do it next week since I'm yet to be busy for the first few weeks of class. Class will begin next week.)

Anyways, what have I been doing?
Some bits of relaxing and especially gaming. I recently "got" Marvel VS Capcom 3 on the Xbox 360 and will later on get a real copy on the PS3 in order to play online. Played it a bit and spent a good part of the day playing. Used Zero as my main for the "quick" playthrough to get a quick feel of the game. XD
Anyone else playing this or plan to play? :3

Other than that, I continued playing Tales of Vesperia, just to get stuck on Secret Mission 17. I actually stopped close to that and now I'm in my head with the hardest, most annoying actually, secret mission in the game. I'll get back to this when I feel like it since I got the boss "memorized" (who is actually easy to beat unless you want to get the secret mission).

This is the oldest PC in the house that is still in used. The third computer to be ever bought in the house and it runs a second generation AMD Sempron. The monitor and mouse are quite new though while the keyboard and speakers are almost 10 years old. Monitor is 20" FYI.

Then, after discovering RemoteJoyLite, though late of me, I played with my PSP some more after quite the neglect (due to staying at home most of the holiday and if you're staying home, better play with the home consoles, yep). Using just a compatible USB cable (easily obtained), you can output your PSP screen to a larger monitor through your computer. The only bad thing is that, the larger your screen, the more pixelated it will be. Not a big problem for me even though it can be quite visible at times.

Note: Go to Youtube and find a good visual instruction on this. The video details should have links to the required files.


Oh yes, you do need to be running a custom firmware to run the plugin. A vanilla PSP can't do this unfortunately.

A few good things come with this setup;

• You get a larger screen.
• You can have a more comfortable grip using almost any PC usable controller.*
• You can output your PSP to PC speakers to allow better sound and range.
• You can record gameplay videos with it.**
  
• Battery barely, doesn't seem to, decrease if you leave USB charging on.***

*You can use a PS3 controller by getting the PC drivers for them.
**To record sound, you need to do something which I'm not so sure what. Search up through Google about that one.
***May cause the battery to degrade faster since it will be constantly charging. Not so sure on this though.

So, if you're at home and want to use a bigger screen, forget the composite/component cable for the PSP and just use RemoteJoyLite instead. Saves money and you can use the whole screen. If your PC is connected to a LCD TV or a projector, even better.

Okay, enough with the "advertisement". I'm currently finishing up Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep right now on it. Only Aqua's story and some of the Xehanort Reports left to go... I have to say rushing in doesn't work so well in this game, which makes the game less of a simple button smasher which KH2 felt like. After completing Ventus and Terra's story so far, it... *SPOILERS* T_T

That's it for this filler post. If you have a hacked PSP, try it out and enjoy a larger screen at home without needing to buy any special cables at all.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Even though it isn't a "proper" sketch/drawing, I wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! For those people who are still trying to form a relationship, gun for it today! And maybe it will work out! XD
(Characters are OC, side characters for Alternate Spark.)

A bit late to post over this side but I just got home and will still be busy until tomorrow. So, enjoy the evening everyone!

Slight Delays

Just making this note post as I might not be able to do the next part of the Nobell review in time for Valentine's (my intended date) since I have some stuff to do for the house tomorrow, well, since yesterday. Yes, I'm suddenly busy and this is the best time to do the stuff for the house so I will need to delay this review. ^^;

At any rate, I wish anyone who's gonna enjoy their time with their special someones tomorrow a Happy Valentine's Day! :)

Happy Chinese New Year! (2011 Edition)

Due to lack of time to allocate to the blog for a bit, I'm wishing you all a simple Happy Chinese New Year as we soon will officially enter the year of the rabbit.

I know I still have quite a bit of stuff un-reviewed and still mint in the box thus so but I'll be gaming on with a few RPGs which some of you know what they are. I'll be doing a few RPG runs before the end of my break so I might not squish in a review unless the mood bug bites in. Other than that I'll be going around visiting some houses this week so there goes some time as well. ^^;
And Plants VS Zombies on the NDS is hell'a fun even though I'm playing this for a 2nd time. I just don't know how those Pop Cap people do it but their games are captivating, no matter how "simple" them seem.

I'm feeling that the next review will be on a certain winged figure with a possible angst attacker for an omake. Then a sudden nendorific entrance...

Oh, did you guys know that the UDON Mega Man Tribute has extended the deadline to 4th February? If you have the time or thought you didn't have enough to finish before, take this chance! I've ended my turn with my entry already.

That's it, enjoy the holiday and until the next post.

Internet & Camera are BACK! Yay! :D

Rarely Mondays are so joyous and wonderful and this was an exception. Yeah, his post is coming after midnight so it's Tuesday already but did a lot of stuff today including clearing out my room to make more space and make it easier to clean and whatnot.

Internet was down since Thursday night after a heck of a slowdown since Wednesday night. It seem to be an international problem, a usual excuse by TM but looks like my line totally went to nigh-unusable due to the weather as my phone line was affected severely as well. Luckily, all problems were solved today.

My camera was sent off near the end of December last year. I just got it back today and it is spot free one again! Thanks goodness to Canon's great warranty service!

Before I end this quick posting which will lead to bigger posts soon-ish, here's a photo with my new "set-up" and cleaned camera. :D More on that in the next post.

Onwards to tomorrow! Hopefully I can finish this guy tomorrow since I want to use the HG 00 Qan[T] for the G-Shot contest... (I planned to since the beginning) and now I can take the other one as well for the best customized/paint job category(since camera is back). Can anyone guess how am I gonna pose it later? >.>

Wish me luck!

White Base MS Hangar GET!

While I was at the usual bookstore I regularly go to (3rd Mile Life Bookstore), I went to the Chinese/HK magazine section and spotted...

This!

There was only 2 so I bought them both for RM20 each. Not as "cheap" as the usual price but way cheaper than me buying the Japanese version. This is the HK version BTW which is obviously much cheaper for us. ;)
More on this later? Even though there isn't much to review. I got an idea what to do with the base but... not now.

Other than that, a rather annoying thing happened...

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300th Post - Entertainment Center as of January 2011

I actually didn't plan to get the PS3 this early this year but I did plan to get it later this year after a bit more savings in the pocket. However, I was browsing the garage sales board over at Lowyat forums once again and an offer I can't refuse was there. The price, condition and seller location was simply perfect! It is as if the world/universe was telling me to do it and I did.

Thus, I present you, the now Blu-Ray capable entertainment center!

Before this, this PS3 belong to the Lowyat user greyshadow who seems to be more of an Xbox 360 gamer. His PS3 had less attention to the point that it is still shiny to this day! This is one of the earlier units and it is 2 years plus already. If it was a very used unit, I might have not bought it second hand in the first place but considering the condition and everything, it wasn't a bad deal.
FYI, this is the 40GB Japan model. It was bought from Penang initially which was imported from Hong Kong before PS3 became official in Malaysia.

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On the Afternoon of Christmas I Went to a Maid Cafe

Kirameki Maid Cafe (Star City, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah)
My Second Time, And it Felt Better

So I went to the maid cafe in Sabah on the very day of Christmas. I could have gone the day before when I first visited Star City but the day was still young so the cafe wasn't exactly opened yet. Nonetheless, I went in with my sister who decided to follow me that day and had my rather different and special Christmas lunch.
Note: All photos were taking with my Samsung Champ(ion) phone since my camera was being used elsewhere.

Taken on 24th December way before 12 noon. I left and went back to the hotel after I got my 2 Robot Damashiis and 1 SIC Kiwami. ^^;

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Kota Kinabalu Haul

There were a few shops that took my notice while I was at Kota Kinabalu (KK) last week and bought a number of stuff, even some that are slightly overpriced but not easily found over here.

EDIT: Forgot to state here but have said it before on FB... Thanks to Evaritus Lau (AKA sbhboi) for telling me about Hobby Kingdom, Hobby Densetsu (sadly closed during Christmas) and Revo Toys (became member only since there was not much there yet) at Star City. ^^ Too bad we weren't able to meet up. I was able to go to the Kirameki Maid Cafe at Star City as well. Hm, should put up the photos for that.

Bought these from KK Toys at a "pretty" price. I won't recommend anyone to buy there normally but they do have some rather nice items in stock. The DS screen protector, for some odd reason, is always overpriced wherever I go. This one was a little cheaper than at home here but then again, it could be much cheaper... I miss Singapore (there was a slightly off game shop selling it cheaper but I found it only later). ^^;

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Camera is Currently Away for Servicing

Due to the black spots I've stated before, I've sent my camera away on servicing. So, expect less posts from me or not. Considering how well my phone camera performed for the 00 Qan[T] quick review, I still can. Then again, I can just use my previous camera. ^^;

Next review up is on my all time favorite Gundam, again. Never thought I could get this version but very happy that I did which made my trip to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah worthwhile.

I also upgraded the house internet infrastructure a bit since I managed to get two of these for RM30 each (although they were sold for RM25 during the PC Fair earlier but I couldn't get them at that time). Now I can position my ADSL/Router better and have a more well spread out wireless range for the computers in the house. :D

That's all for now.

Robot Damashii 00 Qan[T] Review

Although not as complete as I would like it to be, I feel it is quite done, done so I shall end it here.

Main part of the review. This was taken with a Samsung Champ(ion) phone camera @ 1.3MP. Might be shocking to some that the quality is quite up there for even a budget phone. Then again, that's most likely due to the great amount of sunlight the I was getting during the photoshoot.

Taken with my current camera, however, I realized I really need to send it to Canon for servicing now as the black spots are really obvious. I'm quite sorry about that though but I hope you'll enjoy the final part of the review.

For those curious at how bad my camera is in now... well...
The blue screen test. Open a completely blue picture on your computer monitor and take a picture with maximum zoom. To my not to happy further realization, it was worse that I initially thought. My camera shall be MIA for a while and I hope I can send it for servicing under warranty successfully.
FYI, the black spot has been around for a while already but most of the time it is either noticeable or seemingly disappear after a while. This time, that isn't the case. Ah well, wish me luck guys, I'll try to do it tomorrow, or rather, later today.