New year, new experiences

Hello everyone and here’s my first post for 2009. Yes, it’s been a long time since my previous post. Lots of things done in such short period of time. Where should I start??

Emo Merlion.

New Year’s Eve was spent at The Curve. Packed, as usual. We were approached by a girl asking if we wanted to buy movie tickets off her and they were the exact same tickets we were lining up for! haha what coincidence! Obviously we took the bait :X and the movie wasn’t too bad in my opinion. NYE show with local artists, all of them were pretty good except for the main act! The chinese singer seems pretty famous but I think he can’t do it with that kind of crowd. Oh, we did countdown 5 minutes earlier…i wonder why they did that. Fireworks looked awesome but we were kinda right below it so the dust from the explosion was kinda annoying. As usual… exiting the Curve took us an hour or so….we could have been stuck longer if we didn’t use the shortcut.

Oh, there was the Malacca trip. It was Food, food and more FOOD. Interesting, but I’ll save it for a later post.

Right now i’m in Singapore, doing a month of exchange studies. No studying just plain project work. The night breeze is so enjoyable in Singapore, i’m beginning to love this place haha! Today was the first day of ‘class’ and we had a briefing of the project. It’s gonna be a tough month but I’m sure it’ll pay off quite well. The four students from UniMelb didn’t end up in the same group so we’ll see how things go from here.

Yep, there ain’t any pics but I promise to put them up next time.

Chilling in Asia

Woot, the holidays in Malaysia. Went on a road trip last weekend, travelled over 100km in 2 days, it was tiring as hell but it paid off well. FOOD FOOD FOOD. It was a pure food hunting journey to Penang and Ipoh. Luckily for us, we had contacts over there which made food hunting a tad bit easier. The roads in Penang is mad and bikes just keep coming all sides. If anyone want their driving skills levelled up, Penang roads is the place to go. LOL, i’m pretty sure Randy can drive like a true Penangite.

We travelled to Ipoh and had the famous Ipoh Sar Hor Fun, while Jo had, as he names it Ipoh’s Worst Chicken Rice. People…please do not eat the chicken rice in an old shop which sells Beef ball noodle and Sar Hor Fun. We ordered Ipoh White Coffee but we got Iced Coffee instead. All is still good, we walked opposite to a restaurant specializes in Curry Mee. The curry noodle soup was fail, while the dry curry noodle which got them on the newspapers was actually quite delicious.

We travelled down to Penang and were informed that the hotel room isn’t ready yet. It’s all good again, we went to have the PCK Cendol and I enjoyed a plate of Char Kueh Teow. It was awesome but we had to pay $0.50 just to bring the cendol into the shop. Later we went to check out Komtar but it was so deserted, i wonder why nobody wants to rent the place. Well, i could tell given the building conditions…

Luckily for us, we had Randy’s aunt to bring us around to get Tau Sar biscuits. They brought us to a rare shop (supposedly the only shop in Penang, even Penangites never heard of), Eaton Biscuit shop. It was good, but we wanted more so the next day it we were hunting for other brands. Dinner was at a hawker center near our place, and we checked into the hotel late around 9.30pm. We freshened up and head out for supper at Gurney Drive. Damn, didn’t get to eat Ma Zhi this time around. I’ll make sure I come back!! 

2nd day was Char kueh teow day again, again, as usual Randy’s contact brought us to Lorong Selamat, there’s an aunty wearing a red hat with goggles outside Heng Fatt Cafe. The prawns were huge and it was tasty. Next on the list is Kek Lok Si Temple Asam Laksa! Man, the place was packed as hell getting a place to sit was difficult. Don’t go to the shop opposite Dragon Ball biscuits, as they used to use newspaper as replacement for fish meat hahaha! be careful!

Travelling back to Ipoh to get better Chicken rice as Ronald had contacts over there, we left around 4.30pm and was stuck in the traffic jam to enter Penang Bridge for around 1 hour. Pushed back our dinner schedule to around 7.30pm. We were late i guess, cuz they only gave us white rice! Chicken was not meaty enough but the bean sprout was short and crunchy! Overall it was quite good, but lacking the chicken ‘rice’. Desert was the Ice Lolo place nearby the primary school Sam Tet, the yam flavour was very original.

And that end of the day, we had over 600 tau sar biscuits packed in the car, 3 salted chicken and a whole bunch of other random stuff driven back to KL. Lucky for us it didn’t rain at night but the long trucks were hard to avoid on the highway back. good FOOD trip! 

x.chng

Davies Zhong  : student no. xxxxxx   

Ernest Liu  : student no. xxxxxx

 

Dear  ALL 

It is with great pleasure to inform you that you have been selected  to participate in the special Exchange Program with National University Singapore (NUS). The subjects you shall undertake at NUS are…..

 

Seems like it’s gonna be different this coming holiday. 

This is awesome lol

Pick up the pace.

It’s Soundwave ‘09. Can’t wait to see Anberlin, FFAF and Billy Talent again. Oh, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Madina Lake, NIN!! Holy shit. It doesn’t stop there. The 2nd lineup is even bigger. Forever The Sickest Kids, Jack’s Mannequin and Underoath announced that they’ll be at Soundwave ‘09 as well. Guess I won’t be able to see every show again. Oh, it’s gonna be good. Damn better be.

It’s the exam period and here I am taking a break. 

If you haven’t been following the news. Barack Obama is our new US President. First black president in the White House. Seems a bit extraordinary but lets hope nothing from 24 actually happens :D

Seems like i’ll be getting Guitar Hero World Tour after all that. Heidi Klum ftw.

I just tried Windows 7 and what more can I say, it’s great. The new superbar makes switching tasks easier. Here’s a great post for starters. 

And a smart way to clear up the screen. Shake your mouse!! 

Using PS3 Guitar Hero World Tour Controller on the PC

Wanna use your PS3 Guitar Hero World Tour guitar on the PC (or Guitar Hero 3)? Then this guide’s for you!

UPDATED ARTICLE MOVED TO HERE

- Firstly, you’ll need to download some files!

• JoyToKey v3.79 from here | mirror 1 | mirror 2
• Download the PS3 Guitar config file here | mirror
• You need the Gibson Les Paul PS3 guitar and the game. Obviously.

Unfinished business

As an intruder to this space, I would just like to share some of the work I’ve done in building gundam model kits. My gunpla projects at the start of the year seems to have stalled because of work and studies. Since I’ve stopped working and have some spare time before I begin to study for the exams, I decided to complete my unfinished Strike Noir Gundam.

I built it early in Jan but was too lazy too gloss coat it for decal transfers. So I decided to finish it today.. it took almost 7 hours to complete the detailing process. Here are some pictures I took before spraying the flat coat, excuse my blurry shots, I used my lousy old camera =)

I used a mix of dry decals and water slide decals which I bought from Samuel Decal late last year. Used the handy Mr. Mark Softer to help set the decal onto the gloss coat. From experience, dab a cotton bud onto the water slide decal and allow it to dry by itself. If not, use a dry cotton bud to slowly dab the excess away but make sure you don’t slide the cotton bud as you might tear the decal away! This process should be repeated a few times to ensure that the “borders” of the decal are dissolved away into the gloss coat.

After a lengthy process, I snap fitted the parts to see if there were any parts that required more detailing. Seemed okay to me, so I continued to spray the flat coat to seal the decals. I personally like flat coats because of the plastic feeling it gives instead of a smooth glossy surface. Will post some action pictures when the parts become dry sometime soon. I need to find some time to start on my next gunpla project. Anyone wants to guess what it will be?

- Joseph

[EDIT]: A few action poses I took. As you can see the surface is not shiny anymore. I still love the Unicorn Gundam.

Bittersweet.

Whenever you tell me thank you 
It’s somehow bittersweet 
The spell doesn’t break after you say goodbye 
Faintly bitter 
The flavor of life             

We’re in the middle, neither friends nor lovers 
Green fruit dreaming of the harvest 

We can’t take that one last step 
So it’s so irritating or something, baby 

Sweet words of seduction 
Flavorless talk 
That doesn’t pique my interest 

“What’s up?” you suddenly ask 
No, it’s nothing 
My smile disappears after you say goodbye 

The more I want to believe 
It’s somehow bittersweet 
Don’t you think “I really like you” 
Suits you better than “I love you”? 
The flavor of life 

I suddenly remember 
The scent of a person I’d almost forgotten 
I want to be able to just sit back and enjoy 
The white snow fall 

I want a warm future 
Softer than a diamond 
I want to spend this limited time we have with you 

Whenever you tell me thank you 
It’s somehow bittersweet 
The spell doesn’t break after you say goodbye 
Faintly bitter 
The flavor of life 

Holidays ending soon. Assignments are gay. Wipeout HD is gay. J-drama is gay. Aero is gay. Gay exam timetable is out. Everything is getting gay. Gotta work hard sighs. I’ll have to enjoy the rest of my holidays… and Selamat Hari Raya!