Happy Holidays!

Image by Mina m  

I know that saying 'happy holidays' is usually for Christmas, but saying 'Happy Chinese New Years and Valentines day' is simply too long. Anyways, photo heavy post ahead.

 

In Vietnamese, we say "chúc mừng năm mới!" to others. It means 'Hapy New Year', quite literally. At our house, we celebrate the lunar new year in a rather unique way. It's a mix of the Chinese and Vietnamese customs, so we might have characteristics of the two traditions. We don't usually say it at home, but 农历新年 is 'Gong Hay Fat Choy'. 

Here's a platter of fruits. I've got photos of each fruit.

This is Rambutan (chôm chôm). They're quite sweet, though their seed is a bit woody. The fruit's shell looks kind of funny too. Put three in the photo because two might have a bit of phallic imagery. 

Sapodilla, or xa-pô-chê. The seeds of these are killers. They've got a hook-like thing on them that'll catch in your throat if you swallow them. The fruit has an interesting taste though. Tastes kind of like a malt. If you eat one that's not ripe though, it'll not only taste bad, but it'll dry your mouth out. Figured this out through personal experiences.

This interesting looking fruit is a water apple. Kinda looks like a cross between a bell pepper and an apple. As their name suggests, they have a very high water concentration in them. Can't remember how they taste though.

There are lots of names for this one. Sugar Apple, Sweetsop, and mãng cầu ta in Vietnamese. Interesting fruit, and super, super sweet. Eating too many of these might leave you in a sugar coma. It's skin comes off in pieces, revealing a pasty white flesh chock full of seeds. 

I only know this by the name of Soursop. It's mãng cầu Xiêm in Vietnamese. Like it's name suggests, this one is pretty sour. Like the sweetsop, it's got tonnes of seeds in it. It's quite soft too.

Now, on to Valentines day, or what I'll refer to as 'Singles Awareness Day'. You can see why:

The photos will look better if you enlarge them. Had to use a different camera because my camera's batteries died twice in the process.

On the other hand, I picked up this today. It tastes quite odd, though not in a bad way. Tastes kind of like a 蛋挞,an egg tart. I chose it randomly actually. I had a few choices, so I did a random choice.

Kenn through the Decades

Image by Masao

Well, being an early 90's kid, I've gone through a few gaming consoles out there. I've lived with my cousins my whole life, so we'd share consoles, to get the best of both worlds.

Before I talk about my gaming stuff and technology through the years, I'll talk a bit about my parents. If you remember, my parents (and aunt and uncle) run a new restaurant here in Vancouver, and down in Richmond. They meet a lot of people running the business, and every now and then, they meet someone quite interesting. They've met more than a few notable new anchors, and recently, the son of a person in a position of power. He gave them his dad's business card.

^^; It's not often you get a business card from Japan here in Vancouver. No clue where Nishihara-cho is, but I do know where Okinawa is. ^^; Was quite surprised when my parents showed me the card.

And now, back to the technology.

This was probably the first gaming console I played on. Yes, I'm that old. I played on a classic, retro Game Boy before, though I never owned one. I remember playing Snow Bros. with my cousin way back in the day. Fun times.

Probably the first gaming console I owned. Got this for my birthday in grade two I think. ^^; My faovurite games were Pokemon Puzzle League, Super Smash Bros. (the very first one), and Mario Cart 64. This was during the height of Pokemon's popularity, so I also owned a few Pokemon games with it, including Pokemon Stadium (to go along with my GB Pokemon Blue, Red, and Yellow), Pokemon Snap (so fun, so fun), and Hey you! Pikachu! (cutting edge technology at the time).It eventually broke down and disappeared. ^^;

While I had my N64, my cousin went along the Sony route, and owned the PSone. Played a lot on it,memorable games include Vanguard Bandits, The Legend of Dragoon, and Crash Bandicoot.

My cousin upgraded to a PS2, while I went to the Game Boy Advanced.

This bad boy lasted me a long time. From grade five to grade nine I think. Had lots of games for this one. ^^; Enjoyed the Fire Emblem, Pokemon and Final Fantasy games especially. It's definitely seen better days, and I didn't move onto the DS, going to the Sony's PSP from here.

It was around the time I got the Game Boy Advanced that I got my second computer. My first computer kinda died, though it was way back when I was a total idiot. ^^; Didn't know the ins and outs of computers very well.

Not quite sure where my first computer went, but this one is my second one. It lasted me a few years. I remember playing Maple Story on it. I think it was the first computer that I watched anime on, though I'm debating whether I can truly call Bleach and Naruto anime. It died at the hands of my sister. Not quite sure what she did, but she did something that fried it's insides. ^^; It's now been reduced to a nice piece of furniture.

After my second computer got fried, I got this bad boy. I have to say, this guy lasted me a long time. Okay, so another few years, but I went through a whole lot of crap with this thing. I started my descent into Otaku-dom, and I started Ragnarok Frontier on this machine. Not sure where I'd be right now if I hadn't met the people I did on RF. ^^;  The laptop took a few falls, and stopped working properly. It sits in my closet, patiently waiting for the day it gets revived...

I got my PSP a little after I got my laptop. As you can see, it's now missing it's circle button after it fell out somewhere, so I can't really use it anymore. This guy's got a whole lot of memories etched into it, especially Monster Hunter. All that hunting is probably one of the causes of the circle button's failure.

 

Got this computer so that I wouldn't always be on a laptop. ^^; Was a bit reluctant to move over to a desktop PC, as I'd have to transfer a crap load of files. After a few hitches, this machine is running fine. ^^; The one I currently use. It's not very impressive, though it serves it's purposes. I still played RF on this machine in it's earlier days. Not for very long though.

After the circle button on my 'fat' PSP fell out, I went ahead and got myself a PSP Slim. I like the Piano Black colour better, but I was buying from a friend of my brother, so I didn't have too much of a choice. ^^; This one's still going strong.

Back in October, you might remember that I made a post about buying a PS3. Well it's still here, and I've gotten another game or two. Ugh. Demon's Soul. I've made lots and lots of progress on it, but ugh. Was too lazy to get a picture of the Wii, so I'll include it's story here. I got it well before I got my PS3 and second PSP. My sister mainly plays on it now because the games take less than normal amounts of thinking. Wii Sports, Wii Restort, and some crappy looking carnival game thing.

My most recent tech purchase. I suppose the reason is reverse of the reason I got the desktop PC. I'll probably be using this for composition and school. At the moment, I mainly use it for it's portability. ^^; Can't bring my PC out into the room where the PS3 is, so I use the laptop.

Revoltech Reycal Photo Shoot

How can you say no to a face like that?

Alrighty, I spent most of yesterday at the PS3 figuring out the movement range and other aspects of my first revoltech. I'll have a comparison between the size of Reycal and my three other figma.

 She comes from the manga, オリハルコンレイカル (Orichalcum Reycal), by Tsunashima Shiro. It's probably one of the very few figures that are 1/1 scale. Yes, Reycal is about as small as this Revoltech is in the manga. 

 

Well first off, Reycal has a few more joints than most figma do. Her body is pretty much the same; ankles, knees, hips, torso, shoulders, elbows, wrists. However, she uses revoltech joints, sturdy and robust, though a bit lacking in movement. They're fine in her knees and elbows, heck even her ankles use them. But in her hips and shoulders, they're basically hinge joints, meaning they only go forward and back. To get a side to side motion, you'd need to change the positioning of the joint. Thankfully, Revoltech's are quite famous for having easily removable joints.

Reycal's quite balanced, as she can stand by herself without a stand. She also works with the Figma stand. Her clothing isn't quite as flexible as I hoped it would be. If you leave her in a pose that bends her clothing for a bit too long, you might have a crease in it. ^^; Learnt that the hard way.

You can't compare the looks of a Revoltech to a Figma. Figma look a whole lot nicer, though that's not to say that Revoltech can't look nice, as picture above. She's quite a catch, no? Sorry about the photo quality. Used the same set up as Miku's photoshoot, though it doesn't seem that it turned out that great this time around.

 Reycal comes with her Knight Eagle. In the manga, she uses this much like Athena's saints do with their cloths. She combines with the Knight Eagle to equip her armour. She also gains her weapon by combining with the Knight Eagle.

Crappy photo, yes. But it demonstrates the joints in her hair. She has quite a few of them too. A bit odd, though it allows for a whole new world of posing. Can show direction she's flying, the direction of the wind, etc.

 Full photo of the one at the top.

The Eagle's talons become her gauntlets. The "claws" fold back to allow the attachment of her hands, though if you forget to fold them back, she'll look something like that. Hitagi? Get that reference?

 

The beam came from one of my gunpla. It fits nicely into the hole that usually houses the peg in her hand. Makes her more mecha than her Knight Eagle.

 

She looks pretty darn cool with her armour on, though there are more than a few parts that need to be swapped and exchanged to get her into her armour. I'll have a few more photos up after my camera batteries finish recharging. I'll remember to include the mass of spare parts, and extra that came with her.

Boxing Day is War

Alrighty, so I went with my cousins and their friends to Future Shop on Bridgeport to play our roles as consumers. Photo-heavy post, includes Christmas dinner.

My cousins thought that the guy there looks a bit like me. I can sorta see the resemblance...

 

 

My cousin cooked the dinner this year. Ham and turkey was bought, but everything else was made. Tasty dinner. Very filling.

My plate. Ham, salad, risotto, and mashed potatoes. Had a baked potato after too.

We lined up @ Future Shop @ 8 pm. It wasn't that bad then. Heavy fog, but there were only four people before us. The store opens at 6 am by the way.

It's pretty much empty here in the lot. The fog is slightly clearer here. Killed time by listening to music (on my iPod Shuffle to save batteries on my iTouch for the games), and jamming to DJ Max Fever on my PSP. My fingers eventually and inevitably got too cold to play DJ Max

 

Big red sign.  The line up didn't start growing until around 12 am. My cousins and their friends were after a killer deal on a nice TV. $600 for Sharp Aquos 40" 1080p LCD HDTV. Limited quantity. xD But we were at the front of the line, so as long as you could get there first you could pull over a bunch for everybody.

Bad photo, but the dog wouldn't keep still. He's my cousin's friend's dog. Friendly little guy.

 

A guy at the front of the line brought this out later in the night when the temperature outside dropped to it's lowest.  It hovered around -2 or 0 from around 11 until the store opened at 5:45. We roasted mini-marshmallows and kept kinda warm by the fire while people behind us looked on with envious eyes.

Spoils of war. A new laptop and a red bull. Quite scary once everyone's let in. The laptops were locked up in a cage, so getting your hands on one required the assistance of an employee, which were in high demand, though not enough in supply. A majority of the check out stalls didn't accept cash, so I had to follow the guy helping me through the store. Got it in the end. Still gotta go to Best Buy and exchange my 360 copy of Assassin's Creed II for a PS3 copy. My mom got it for the wrong system. ^^; Probably have to pick up a copy of Microsoft office too.

Figma Hatsune Miku Photo Gallery

Image by hazuki

She's so smexy, isn't she? Anyways, as promised, I've finished Miku's photo shoot. Lighting problems hampered some of my photos, but I managed to iron them out. I got it out before the end of the year too.

Merry Christmas!

 

Click to view full size pictures. Looks much better like that. All of them.

Anywho, rolling right along. My new photo set up. It's pretty frugal and crude, but it gets the job done. I don't plan to redo my previous ones on this. Maybe one or two photos.

 

This shot's before ironing down all of the lighting things. Very bright. 

 

Got all the lighting down in from here on. Probably need to lower the camera a bit...

 

Close up of the photo before. She's so cute.

A bit of panchira there, but hardly noticeable. Miku and her iconic sprigs of negi. My photo editing software chopped off the top part of the photo when I went to rotate it. Sad face. Used photobucket, and it worked fine. = ="

Lovely pose. Not much to say about it. A photo is worth a million words anyways.

 

The box Miku came in was quite nice. Very futuristic, and also, very shiny. The inside has a mirror-finish, so I had to adjust the lighting to keep the reflections out. They're still there though. The mirror finish coats the inside of the back, and two sides, so it's almost like a kaleidoscope.