Sayonara 2016

Today is the last day of in 2016 so as usual, it is time to summarise and reflect on the past year. The highlight for this year is my trip to Australia in March. I did not get the chance to hug a koala or play with kangaroos but it felt great to be back to Sydney. I always thought it would be boring to travel to the same place more than once but this trip proved otherwise.

Other than that, 2016 has nothing much worth mentioning. I realised that I really watched a lot of movies this year. I think the 'coma' of my laptop really contributed much to that as my internet time was less than previous years. Another impact from that is I am not watching that much anime or J-drama this year and I sort of not really following J-pop music.

I also achieved some 'smaller' dreams such as completing photobooks from my trips to Europe, Japan, and Australia. I also attended my first ever live concert for AAA. The experience is quite addictive and not as daunting as I expected. I will not hesitate to attend future concerts of people that I like. Hehe.. I also attended the fan club event and got chance to high touch them. Hoho..

I am pretty daring with my first attempt at investment. I started with the monthly $200 for POSB invest saver in 2015 which is considered quite a small amount. Lol. This year I contributed to crowdfunding which is considered higher risk but higher return. I really think I was quite crazy to pump in $11000 into it o_0 So far I only managed to get $5000 back and it is quite a roller coaster ride with few missed payments. Not sure if my heart can take more roller coaster rides like this haha.. However, the mind set of "I am prepared to lose the $xxx that I pump in" really helps for such high risk investment. As the economy is not doing well, I already stopped doing this. Haha.. I actually stopped sometime in June so I effectively only participated for 4 months. Now I am only waiting for the repayments.

Premium Bandai Singapore also opened this year and I am working with my friends in Jakarta to open a Gundam shop. My task is simple: just to help to order whatever he thinks will sell and forks out the money first. Lol. I have to think about storage as well since my room is already like a store room but at least he will handle how to get the items to Jakarta. Lol.

I still continue with my Japanese language class although I am at the brink of giving up. Sigh.. I do not really put in the effort to memorise and it gets quite difficult to follow. Can't deny that it still makes the mugger in me happy about it. Haha.. It contributes a lot to my fortnightly Starbucks to do the homework too T_T Haha... My diet goes down the drain this year as I hardly avoid egg, chilli, and butter and I cannot maintain the discipline with my L-men for dinner. Sigh.. Not surprising that I have become so embarrassing fat this year, fat enough for me to actually plunge into a gym training. I also walked a lot thanks to Pokemon GO! I am more willing to walk to catch pokemons than for the sake of just losing weight. Yes... crazy me.

The realisation that I simply run out of storage of space really puts a brake to my binging on toy collections. For the past year, my spending is only 60% than the previous year. The percentage looks fantastic but I really thought I could spend even much lesser. Hmm.. where did the money go as I don't really think my bank account increase that much also leh?

Hmm.. after all the above, something is missing. Yes, I leave the rant about my job as the last. After the fun and excitement of SEA Games last year, work has been shit this year to give me negative vibes for the rest of the year. More importantly, it is shit enough to push me to actually actively look for job instead of just grumbling that I want to change job. Well, my bond just ended this September anyway.

In summary, 2016 is so lacklustre as compared to the fantastic 2015. Things are expected to be worse in 2017 whether you believe in Chinese horoscope or not so I am really not looking forward to it. My wish for 2017 is to find a 5-day week job so that I can find more meaningful activities (such as volunteering or church activities) on the weekend. I want to continue with my Japanese lessons and I will join the gym membership. It is painful to drag myself out for the gym but I really hope that the realisation that I have spent so much, I will at least make use of it. I hope to continue putting on a rein on my toy spending (not sure if it can happen) as the storage issue really drives me crazy. Bleah... Not sure if I want to find a girlfriend since I really still prefer to die young.

Wew.. what a depressing end of the year. New year is supposed to be happy right? Whatever.. Sayonara 2016 and welcome to 2017 whether you want it or not.

No rabbits

I am done arranging and tidying up my comic cabinet today. It was very tiring but I was so eager to look forward to visit the Rabbit Land at Mall Kelapa Gading in the afternoon. The pictures on the website look interesting and exciting and I could not wait to play and have photos with the rabbits. Sadly, reality is very far off from the advertisement and my trip became a disappointment. The area is too small and there were so many little kids. Well.. it is school holidays after all. I am not going to compete with little kids as I still have my 'face'. Haha.. but I was pretty shocked that the rabbits were allowed to run around and we are supposed to chase after them if we want to hold and carry them. Urrgh.. please... I hope the rabbits are not traumatised. I prefer going somewhere where the animals are treated better and proper chance to interact with them is provided.

I am also emo after realising that there is Muji that sells a similar drawer that can be stacked into cabinets like the ones I bought yesterday. Yes it is slightly more expensive (almost Rp 30000) then what I bought but it is bigger and it is made in Japan. Definitely the quality is better than the ones made in China that I bought. I am quite irritated with my sister because I asked if there was any shop to get container box at MKG and she said there was not.

Oh well.. That's all for today. Holiday is really coming to an end and I am far from what I planned to achieve. Haiz.. I only managed to revise 2 chapters of my Japanese class, not to mention that I have not done the latest homework. I did not make any Gundams. Tomorrow I will clean my toy detolf and I shall see if the Saint Seiya Myth Cloth base can fit nicely for my small Saint Seiya figures. May the last day of 2016 be a good one.

Missing the past

The first thing that struck my mind when I reached home was how messy my house is!! Grr.. I like tidiness and cleanliness so it is really irritating. However, I have sort of expected that this home is no longer my 'home'. I want a nice and clean house but it is impossible without all the contribution of those living in it. I have done my part by removing all my clutter from the 'common' area. Sigh.. there is no point of nagging since I have no say or influence. I shall be happy with my own tidy and clean room -although it is full of things as well.

As years pass by, sadly the people are not getting more mature but getting worse. My parents and my eldest sister are still arguing on daily basis. Sigh.. My parents are getting older so they are becoming more bo chup since they have less influence on the kids. Thus they can only nag and nag now. But my sister continues to be immature and entitled. She should just keep quiet and let my parents nag so they will stop. But she answers and then the nagging continues. It is always the same nagging for the past few years and I am getting so tired hearing. My younger sister just stares at her own computer after work so she is hardly visible also.

Anyway today I decided to just spend my money and get those Rp 250000 container box that can be stacked like a cabinet if I wish. There are 3 types that I was interested in but none is really 100% suitable and I spent quite sometime deciding which one to get. I decided with the most squarish one although the material is the frosted kind that gives like a 'dirty dusty' feel. Bleah.. The other one looks like the typical cheap plastic cabinet when stacked so I don't want the cheap feel although the material is clear and has a 'cleaner' feel. The third one easily fell out favour because the size is slightly smaller. Anyway, it will be under the bed so I won't really see it and I bought 3.

Mall of Indonesia (MOI) is much better now after renovation. In the past, I only went there when I needed to buy container box from Carrefour. The last time I went, a lot of parts were closed for renovation and things like that and I was not expecting that the mall would last. Now there are so many interesting food places to eat and I simply had not enough space in the stomach to try them all. Today I tried otako (otak-otak goreng) and a very nice batagor. The batagor is Rp 28000 for 5 pieces so it is very reasonable and the taste is pretty good.

A bit more about the batagor because I am pretty sure it is the boss or maybe the boss' son who served me. He call me OM for goodness sake! Om means uncle and this is not meant to be a joke over the "Om telolet Om" meme. I don't think I am that much older than him or he can even possibly be older than me leh. Haha.. And I was wearing clothes that I wore during my secondary school days T_T Clothes can hide my signs of aging. Anyway I appreciate the friendliness and the small talks.

I saw him taking notes of how many items sold for the day and there were about 30 when I was there. Assuming he can sell 50 a day, after minusing the rent (I don't know how much), the wages for the workers, I think the profit may not beat what I am earning right now. I should be more grateful I guess.

Moving on the next thing about my old laptop. The first thing I did upon arriving home was to check if it was still capable of connecting to the internet. Thank goodness it is still capable using direct LAN cable. Antivirus updated, drivers updated, but the wireless and bluetooth adaptors cannot be revived. Sigh.. It took overnight to update the drivers (I don't really understand what it is all about) so I was very hopeful that it could somehow bring it back to 'life'. I cannot even do any update for Windows as the Windows Update just keeps searching sigh.. Anyway, it is 6 more months for it to be a decade old and it really has done a good job for me. Thanks, TravelMate! That is really the model name of my laptop, no pun intended haha..

My childhood rabbit plush (she is called Ui)  has a secret power of bringing me back to the past. There was 1 day when I slept by holding it and I literally had dreams about my younger days. The one at night was about me back in my secondary school days while the one at day was about me throwing tantrums to my siblings that ended up with me slamming the door and "Please get out of my room NOW!". Haha... I love you ui but I am not going to hold you in my arms when I sleep anymore.

Yesterday I decided to visit a few facebook pages that used to have Johnny's videos. They stopped uploading and removed their videos a few months ago citing copyright issues. Guess what? Now they are back!! Yay!! Haha.. I am not gonna say which pages so that JE does not harass them. I am pretty outdated so I was quite sad and shocked to hear that SMAP will be disbanding after this 31st December.

Time flies and Sexy Zone is already celebrating their 5th anniversary. Wow.. They are no longer kids now. I no longer 'followed' them after their 3rd album. I just got their fourth album which is horrible. The singles after their third album are not very nice and hence I don't follow this album but the other songs are not better. I think they are really losing their direction as they attempt to shed away their child image. Their newer songs simply no longer have the Sexy Zone feel and they will just end up as any other Johnny's group who has gone forgettable now.

They sang a medley in one of the Shounen Club episodes and I have mixed feelings hearing their older singles with their mature voice now. Yes it is more refreshing but at the same time, it reaffirms my perception that their voices are not unique enough to be recognisable. With songs which are getting more and more generic, it is really a journey towards obscurity. Sadly their 5th anniversary contains just copies of their previous singles. I would be less disappointed if they at least re-record to change previous boyish voices to their teenage voices now. Anyway, the new original songs for this album are also as forgettable as those songs in their fourth album. Oh ya, the title of the fourth album is Welcome to Sexy Zone. No reference to number 4 at all unlike all their other albums: one Sexy Zone, Sexy Second, Sexy Power, and 5th Anniversary Best.

I am waiting for my download quota for Hey! Say! JUMP's latest album so it is better not be a disappointment.

Old habits don't die

This is the first blog post since I reached home last week. As always, there is so little time for the so many things that I need or want to do. So far, I am done with 8 months worth of comics, I went for my hair cut, I bought the things that I intended to buy (working pants, L-men, bar soaps), I bought new plastic containers and tidied up my room, and most importantly, I am done with my procrastination for the cover letter to finally complete and submit my job application.

1-2 days before flying, I was so upset and stressed over the condition of my room. It is so full of toys and yet I find it difficult to choose any to bring over to Jakarta. They are either too big/bulky or I love them too much. With the limited space, I know I have to quit this hobby very soon. The same sentiment is repeated today while I was packing my anime artbooks and toy over at my room in Jakarta. It is just as full as my room in Singapore and really I have to stop somehow. Ironically, despite all these negative feelings towards collecting, I was already looking for items at Amazon this morning. Gosh.. I really need some help.. This is really already like an addiction.

I saw a nice cabinet at Carrefour on Monday but unfortunately there was no stock :( I spent the whole day from shops to shops to find a display rack or bookcase for my room. With the limited space I have in my room, it is not easy to find something which does not exceed 50cm x 40cm dimension. That cabinet fits the dimension and comes with door for each level. Sigh.. The price is also reasonable at about Rp 500000.

The cupboard in which I store my comics are already at maximum capacity and I am literally out of space for all the comics in the past 8 months. I am desperate enough to use the space under my bed and it is not easy to find a container which does not exceed 20cm in height. I have been eyeing one from ACE hardware but it is very expensive at Rp 300000 per piece. I guess that is the price for the versatility as each piece can be stacked on top of one another to form a standing cabinet. Even my large 80L container box only costs Rp 180000 each after discount. I still can't justify the Rp 300000 per piece but I think I will be desperate enough to eventually buy it. Unlike toys, I don't see myself stop buying comics as it is the only way for me to read manga because I hate reading scanlations.

I went for pre-Christmas confession before I flew over and I was telling myself that I hope to change: to be less negative and to be more positive towards this life. That hope is short-lived. I am still holding on to the wish of dying young. I don't know why but I get irritated when people ask when I am going to find a girlfriend and to get married. A part of me wants that kind of life but perhaps 90% part of me really just wants to die young. I am so tired of of living.. of working.. of everything.. Having girlfriend and then starting a family is like a responsibility for me to continue living which is against my desire. I don't know if I am weird. But next year I will be 30 years old and if I am still alive, I cannot keep on having this kind of thinking. Sigh.. Oh God help me...

It is already quite a long post and there are still a lot of things on my mind. I shall continue tomorrow. After all, it has been a week since my last post and I have been rather "free" for the past week to have a lot of things to think about. Lol.

Another chance?

In late October, my plan C was halted in the process as the job advertisement suddenly disappeared from the website. The same post was reposted last Thursday! Wow.. Is this finally a chance? Lol. Unfortunately, whatever I did in October was already deleted from the system so I had to do everything from the scratch again. I promise that I am going to complete my application this time -whatever the outcome maybe- since bonus just came in and January is a good time to throw letter. Haha..

Earlier this month, I saw the advertisement for my earlier plan B so it seems that they still cannot find people for like 3-4 months already. In my heart, I am secretly praying that they just give up hoping for someone with inpatient experience and just take me. What are the odds but no harm in praying.. Sigh..

Today I attended a colleague's wedding and I got a revelation about my rejected lecturing job. My classmate got the job. Grr... I have always disliked her since school days and now she did this to me. Damn it!! Anyway, that fact reinforced my belief that I did not get the job simply because of my pay. Assuming that what is being considered relevant for the post is only working and training experience, I may only have about 1+ more experience than my classmate. Perhaps that is not enough to justify my requested pay which I foresee to be 20-25% more than what my classmate asked. After all, she was not promoted when she left the company and she was not first class. Thus definitely my pay is higher and my requested pay was even higher. It is another self justification and although I am still upset about it, I am feeling better to think that I got rejected not because I am incapable but it is more about cost-effectiveness. Haha.. Yeah.. call me thick skin.

Anyway Christmas is coming and here is currently the hottest Christmas video. No pun intended here unless your attention is to something else. Lol. See the video and you will know what I am taking about.

Can't beat the laziness :(

Today marks the end of my gym trial period and yesterday was my last session. It was a good and tiring session yesterday plus the rain this noon were reasons for me not utilising my trial membership to the max by also going today. I am going home soon and I have to think about if I am going to sign up for the membership.

Honestly, I enjoyed my sessions. The inertia to overcome the laziness is the most difficult part but once I started with the session, I actually felt pretty good. On the flip side, my diet got a little bit uncontrolled. Gym became an excuse for me to eat junk :( So it seems that my choices are between gym + junk food or sleep + diet. The outcome is the same which is I am destined not to lose weight but the first option definitely will burn a hole in my pocket.

It is going to be a tough decision. $329 per month x 12 months is not a small amount of money and I cannot imagine having a battle between my bed vs gym every evening :( I have been not exercising with the excuses such as bad weather, running is boring, it is troublesome to bring sport clothes, and the worry of injuring myself when there isn't any personal trainer. This gym actually solves all of these things: no running, indoor (and hence no issue with bad weather), clothes and shower facilities are provided + barefoot exercising, and there is always a trainer to ensure that I am doing the right posture. Plus the fact that I am already spending money and yet all these still fail to motivate me. I seriously do not know what it will take to make me healthy.

Gym trial

As promised, I am going to write about my gym experience after going for about 3-4x for the past week. The first session was the most painful. I went last Monday and I needed 3 days to recuperate. I felt as if I was growing wings with the pulling sensation on my both shoulders. As mentioned, I usually hunch to hide my fats while the gym exercises force the correct posture or they call it "proud chest". I had difficulties with arm movement while showering, taking off clothes, or putting on clothes.

It was not easy period for me and I had all the negative emotions. I don't understand how people enjoy going to gym as it feels like spending money to get physically tortured. And why would I pay monthly fee when my body is so pain and I can only go maybe twice or thrice a week?

So I went again on Friday and I gotta admit that I felt some improvement. It was not as painful as Monday. Lol. Although I still went down stairs like I just gave birth. Haha.. I went again on Saturday and my feelings started to become impatience. Why did I still feel tired after 2 sets of push ups? That was exactly the same as the first session! Why am I not losing any weight yet?

For the first week, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. Come the second weak now, the flesh is willing but the spirit is no longer willing. And it is much more difficult to overcome the latter. I have 6 more days of trial and see how it goes. I personally think that I am not pushing my ownself as much as I can or I should because I still don't like the idea of sweating too much. Like that then what's the point of going to gym right? T_T

Gym.. finally

Today is a perfect example of me sacrificing God for my human pursuit. I was still tired this morning after yesterday Distant Worlds concert and blogging about it. Yet, I had not finished my Japanese homework. So instead of spending the morning to attend mass, I used it to finish homework, played games, and slept. Haha.. I'm sorry God :(

I am on the verge of giving up with my Japanese class. I like learning but I think it is getting more and more difficult. The lesson has reached chapter 28 but I think my knowledge is still stuck at chapter 12. I keep playing games or sleeping during my free time instead of revising and memorising :( Currently I am at tandoushi (tadoushi) and jidoushi (intransitive) which is something like transitive (needs an object) and intransitive (does not need an object) words equivalent in English. The thing is English retains the same verb forms whether it is used in transitive or intransitive word. In Japanese however, the verb forms change and it is as if having to remember different vocabs altogether. For example, in English: I open the door (transitive) and The door opens (intransitive). The verb open remains for both form. However in Japanese, transitive form is akemasu and intransitive form is akimasu. Even in my native mother tongue (i.e Indonesian), verbs retain the form whether in transitive or intransitive context. That's why it is challenging as it is a new concept that I never come across in any language that I know.

After class, I went to gym. Yes! Finally.. The first session today was basically an introductory session so I shall not mention anything about the gym yet. I am quite glad to go as my posture was assessed. I was told that my 'resting' position tends to lean forward. Thanks to all the customer service bullshit of smiling, eye contact, and leaning forward!! At office I usually put my bag behind me so I never lean on the backrest of the chair. So I better make sure to take note of my posture while sitting as well as while dispensing. Of course work is not the only reason. I tend to 'hunch' i.e leaning forward and having my shoulders curl inwards to hide my tummy and man boobs :( I am not confident of my own body and I feel that I am fat. Sigh.. I hope I am okay for another session tomorrow to be able to write more about this overall gym-ing experience.

Final Fantasy Distant Worlds

After 7 years, Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert is finally back in Singapore. I did not watch when the first time it was in Singapore so I am very excited for this one. The tickets were selling pretty quickly but I have to say that I am pretty lucky to be able to get a 4-seater at the circle just next to the opening at the center of the hall. The concert was held at The Star Theatre at the Star Vista. It was my first time and I was quite amazed that it could hold 5000 people. Wow.

Despite all the excitement and enthusiasm, I was not really satisfied with the overall concert experience. The concert hall is bigger and better than expected but the acoustic is not good enough as the sound seems to be only coming from speakers in front of the stage. I was roughly at the center of the hall and I found it not loud enough. Not sure if those at the back were having it worse. The incline is not steep enough so the heads of the row in front of me blocked my view. The hall was also not cold enough.

There are tonnes of fantastic Final Fantasy songs but I feel the repertoire was rather poor. There are too many mellow songs which made the mood rather somber. In addition, there is not enough love for the older FF series. I may be biased because I am more familiar with the older series but the songs from the newer series sound somewhat similar to older ones. That is quite ironic considering the newer series have different composers while the earlier ones are mostly done by Nobuo Uematsu. They should just skip FF XI (not many responded when Arnie Roth asked who are fans of it). I think they do not want to be keep repeating the 'better' songs for all the concert and try to play some new songs but I really think the choices are quite bad. Even the usual favourites like Chocobo's Theme was 'butchered'. Bleah.. They should do more medleys as the FF VI and Battle Themes medleys were great.

The videos which are played to accompany the songs could have enhanced the concert experience greatly. Sadly, the videos seem to be just haphazardly done just to make sure that the audience is not bored and have something to see. The selected scenes got repeated a few times, told no story and held little significance to the songs except for the fact that they came from the same series.

The music was not perfect. I could hear wrong notes and imperfections particularly at the parts where there were running melodies that had to be played in quick succession at a short time. I just think it is not acceptable for a concert of this calibre or is it just my expectations. The choir did some gesture e.g raising fists after the Victory Fanfare which should be a fun thing but they sounded and looked robotic insead of fun.

Event management was disappointing too. I understand no photography and no videography rule is pretty normal. But it is really poor (and poor thing for the ushers) that photography was not even allowed BEFORE the concert began. Hello.. it is just a screen showing Final Fantasy Distant World and stage full of empty chairs. What's the big deal?

Part of concert going experience is to get the concert merchandises. I did not even get a chance to see. There is only a small (definitely too small for 5000 audience) area at level 5 dedicated for this. I caught glimpse of the poster and I know there were T-shirts (never mind), Distant Worlds CDs (never mind, I can always download), an artbook, Moogle plushie (saw another person carrying it), and I don't know what else at the bottom half the poster. Sigh.. I am a fan of artbook :( though I am consoling myself that FF is celebrating 30th anniversary next year so there will be artbooks coming out anyway.

The great thing about the whole thing is the conductor, Arnie Roth! He is both conducting and emcee-ing. His emceeing is fantastic: he knows how to hype up the audience, engage the audience, while providing a brief introduction on the next pieces to be played. While introducing the next pieces, he always asked who are fans of the series so this really gets the audience hyped up. He knew FF XV was just released over the week and asked who already played the game. He promised a surprise related to FF XV which turned out to be the 'world premiere' of Apocalypsis Noctis as it was its first time played in Distant Worlds concerts. Quite a smart way to put it that way although the song itself, while pretty good, sounds somewhat similar and familiar to other music from other similar games or some action movies. Good but not memorable enough as a tune just form 1 hearing.

I would have to mention the guest star, Rikki. I am not a fan of the song Suteki Da Ne because it is too mellow and I am disappointed that she really appeared just for that 1 song. She did not even say any words. At the end, Arnie brought her up the stage again twice just to literally stood around and thanked the audience. Aww... I am expecting more since she was so hyped up in the promo materials.

To promote FF XV, before Apocalypsis Noctis was played, audience was asked to don paper masks of FF XV characters and the official photographer would take a photo from the stage. At level 5 (again at the super crowded place that I did not get to go), there were some FF XV promotional activities: like standees of the characters and these paper masks things being given out. I am wondering, though, if the game was doing well as these paper masks bore the date of the game's release, not the concert date. Were these leftovers from game launch or were these specially made for this concert. Noone knows.

My friend kept saying that this felt so cult like right from before the concert. Haha.. We laughed at the taking photo with the paper masks things. To end it off, One Winged Angel was reserved for the encore and Arnie invited all the audience to chant 'Sephiroth' along during the song. LMAO really like a cult. Haha.. But anyway, it was great way to engage audience and the audience was participative. In fact the audience had been great and appreciative throughout the concert. As expected FF VII still got the loudest cheer.

Lastly, I think the best gesture was when Arnie as well as the video slides show mentioned and thanked the fans for undying support for Final Fantasy series so far. Awww... how nice and touching. I may not be that much of a fan but I think I pass the undying criterion with the absurd amount of money that I spent and am going to spend in the future for FF. Lol. While overall I am somewhat disappointed, will I watch again if Distant Worlds is back in Singapore? Yes, I will :) But why? I could just have listened to the music better played online and the nicer videos online too.. Hmm.. maybe because I am a fan and I am already into this cult. Lol.. 

Moana

I was a skeptic for Moana. When I saw the trailer for the first time (can't remember when I was watching what movie), it did not appeal to me: the humor fell flat, the visual was nothing special, the characters were uurgh.. My friend watched it a few days ago and he said it was great. He shared the song which did not impress me.

Having said all the above, I still watched it. I guess the holiday mood starts to set in so let's be merry and give this a try. I am glad I did. Moana turns out to be very hilarious and very entertaining. The whole cinema was laughing! It is pretty unbelievable that perhaps half of the joke is revolving around the chicken called heihei. Moana's grandma, who dubs herself as the crazy woman of the island, seems to be the designated comic relief character as every time she appears, she never fails to make us laugh, sometimes with her bad ass-ery like when Moana is worried if she is going to be reported to the father for trying to get out to the see and the grandma simply replied: I'm his mother. Why should I report to him? Haha..

Sadly, the story is just ordinary and provides nothing special. It goes straight just like any other go save the world adventure story. The main characters, Moana and Maui, also follows general template of go save the world adventure story personalities: a willing and positive heroine with no superpower and a powerful but unwilling hero. It does not help that both of them offer nothing unique to make them likeable. The music are kinda hit and miss. The songs which are sung by humans in English are kinda horrible. But those background music and songs to illustrate the voyaging history of the tribe are wonderful. The traditional Polynesian tune really sounds amazing, powerful, and has the sea-faring adventure elements. The visual for the nature is stunning too! If only real life beaches, islands, and nature are as colourful and vibrant as in this movie.

Anyway, humor alone can only propel the movie thus far. I think Moana is going to end up as one of 'forgettable' Disney movies as it does not have anything unique in terms of story, characters, or songs. The preceeding Disney movies which lack Princess' charm such as Zootopia, Big Hero 6, and Inside Out are unique and memorable as they explore new themes. Frozen (which most people has gotten sick of) may not be that fantastic in the story but the characters shine, despite them following the usual Disney personalities, and noone can deny that even a few years later, we still cannot let go its Let It Go.

Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2016 (AFA SG 2016)

AFA has grown so huge and so crowded as compared to the first one that I went in 2010. The good thing with that is the whole atmosphere really feels like those anime fair in Japan. On the flip side, I usually hate the crowd so yeah, it kinda suck. Well, can't seem to have the best from both sides after all.

I reached about 1130am and the queue for the ticket was shocking. I never remembered having to queue that long for any of the previous AFA. The queue moved pretty quickly but in the end it still took about 20 minutes. The ticket (just for the exhibition) costs $13 this year. It seems that nowadays they only give a wristband and there is no more 'ticket' per se. The wrist band is of much higher quality too. It has holes (like a watch) to cater for different wrist sizes. Once the plastic part is pushed in, you can't remove it so you cannot share with with other people I guess. Going in and out of the exhibition hall requires the wrist band to be scanned. There is a notice that says if you go out without scanning, you may not be allowed re-entry. Hmm.. is that so?

The ticket-cum-wrist band

My highlight this year is taking a photo with Animax mascot, OO-kun. Sadly, as I leaned towards him, our heads knocked and in the picture, Oo-kun is not not looking at the camera T_T I decided to buy the plush and small pillow for $35. Gotta admit that I was tempted because of the ~30% off as compared to buying individually. I was only interested in the plush and it was $26 alone.

The crowd inside the hall was terrible too. I did not enter a lot of the shops as it was too crowded. I personally don't really like shops as even if I entered, I would have nothing to buy anyway. I skipped the Creators Hub area as I could not even move to pass by that section. Wow. I prefer to have more booths by companies/developers/etc. The shops do not really bring in interesting things and the prices are still sky high that there is no incentive to buy.

Bandai is the star and the booth features almost 90% about Gundam. The remaining display is for One Piece and shockingly, there is no Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya. I am not a fan of One Piece so I only took photos of the Gundams.

PG 1/60 which will cost $550

Sword Art Online has interesting display of Kirito and Asuna wearing clothes from different countries. It was so difficult to take pictures of these standees as the area is too narrow and the traffic was.. gosh.. These are the most frustrating photos to take.

Yeah I cannot get the picture of all the standees in 1 shot

China

France

Japan

Singapore!! (Singapore boys don't wear those clothes though lol)

Germany

Korea

Spain

Thailand (the one that I thought was the most interesting)

USA

I took some pictures from Good Smile Company too. I am not into Touken Ranbu but if I were into it, I am pretty sure that I would be interested in their figures. It seems that Miku's hype is not as much as few years back.

This Link really looks gorgeous!!

I own these guys already :)

The food section seems much bigger but I find it too troublesome to get coupon first. By the time I was going to leave (i.e lunch time), the queue was too crazy. I only bought potato chips with Nissin noodle tom yum flavour. The black pepper crab flavour was already sold out. Sianz...

Overall I find this year is better than last year's AFA which I left after only about 1 hour. Surprisingly I took a lot of photos too. It was not as bad as 1 of the AFA (I can't remember which year but the one when Attack on Titan was all the hype) when it was super crowded that I could not even take any pictures without strangers appearing in the pictures. I am usually excited to go to AFA in hope of getting some merchandises. If the trend with what the shops are doing this year continues, I think I have less incentive to go again next year. Not to mention that the crowd would just grow bigger and bigger every year. When I left, the queue for the ticket had become CRAZY. It stretched literally from one end to the other end of the whole Suntec floor. And it was rather stagnant. I guess if I want to go next year, I better remember to go earlier!

The 4 fans are free for buying the OO-kun plush set. While the Squid Girl wrist rest is due to my luck!! Hehe.. It was from one of the 'lucky' chance by putting a ball at the top of a tower and see where it landed. I was prepared to get none but hey I got this ^^

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

At the conclusion of Harry Potter, JK Rowling promised that this would be the end of Harry Potter. Fast forward a few years later, there is sequel (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and there is prequel (this Fantastic Beasts movie). After the initial great reviews, it is announced that Fantastic Beasts will be made into a series of 5 movies. Wow.. if I am not a Harry Potter fan, I surely think that this is just a money grab.

I read the wikia for the Cursed Child and it got me hooked for a few hours. JK Rowling surely has not lost her magic touch yet. That made me even more excited with the Fantastic Beasts movie which already got me excited since it was announced. I am so happy to see that its duration is quite long (133 minutes) and that is a good candidate to justify watching it at Gold Class. I am frustrated that the Gold Class are always almost full house since the release. I am planning to take time off tomorrow to specially watch this. But after seeing the magic popcorn combo at GV, I decided that I should just watch it today and get the magic wand while stock lasts.

Welcome back to the new world of Harry Potter :) The plot is actually pretty simple and can be summarised as such: Newt Scamander arrived in New York with a briefcase full of magical creatures. There has been weird incidences in New York City which cannot be explained human-ly and MACUSA (USA's equivalent to Ministry of Magic) is concerned this disturbances will expose the magical community to the No-Maj (USA's equivalent to Muggles). With certain creatures escaping from Newt's briefcase, it is convenient to blame all the disturbances to these creatures. So Newt has to find all the escaped creatures to proof his innocence and at the same time, the 'thing' that cause the disturbances finally decide to lose control at the same time. The 'thing' is revealed to be an obscurus and Newt decides to do something since a few months earlier he just encountered one in Sudan. At the end, everything is revealed to be Grindelwald's scheme to bring war between human and wizards in America.

With all the positive reviews since the release, I have pretty high expectations. With the story being loosely or distantly related to the Harry Potter series that I am familiar with, the plot is certainly interesting enough to be made into a movie. However, for the 2+hours duration, there is too much 'filler' on the parts of recapturing the escaped beasts. Despite being titled Fantastic Beasts, there is too little screentime to feature the beasts. The journey inside Newt's briefcase is like a visit to the zoo and you just see various creatures and that's it. You don't really catch their names or know anything much about them. The action and adventure part is also pretty weak. The fights are not that exciting and too much of the black cloud CGI. Bleah.. It is really a waste that we don't see any action from Queenie and Seraphina. Tina is supposed to be an Auror but we don't really see much from her.

Eddie Redmayne is great as a lot of his interactions are with CGI monsters. However, I find his accent quite difficult to catch at times. So apt for Queenie to say that it is not easy to read minds of people like him because of the British accent. Lol. I know Newt is supposed to be a shy person but I find it awkward when he speaks to someone but he is not looking into the person! Tina's persona on screen is also rather lacking while Queenie and Jacob's screen presence is so enjoyable.

I feel that there are certain parts which are glossed over in the movie. If magical community is supposed to keep themselves secret, why do our protagonists so easily involve Jacob Kowalski (who is a No-Maj) into the wizarding world? Even MACUSA's president seems to tolerate it and think that everything can be settled just by obliviation. What is Newt's actual purpose of going to New York?

With all the high expectations, I find this rather underwhelming. I will give it 3.5-4 stars at most: not enough magic and not enough fantastic beasts. Having said that, I still look forward to the continuation. I am pretty sure the Shaw family will somehow have some memory about all the magical events despite the obliviation and will play a role subsequently. I look forward to more action from Tina, Queenie, and Seraphina. Surprisingly, I am not really excited to see how this is going to tie up with the eventual Harry Potter timeline that we are familiar with. I guess that is a proof that JK Rowling does a great job in creating a whole new story that is relatively independent from the original Harry Potter.

Kimi No Na Wa

I usually avoid watching Japanese anime movies as somehow they will be available for download online (yep.. shame on me!). So I have to admit that I am sort of drawn to all the positive reviews about Kimi No Na Wa which is likely going to be the no 1 film in Japan this year. That poster is not a lie haha.. Of course I am pretty sceptical considering those Studio Ghibli movies are not really that impressive to me. I read reviews about Kimi No Na Wa and they make me even more curious. How can a story about a boy and a girl who swap bodies be that interesting?

Hmm.. Kimi No Na Wa is actually not only about a gender-swapping story. It has elements of everything. We start with the typical comedy from gender-swapping experiences, then to mystery and science fiction as we realise the swap happened during different periods of time, then to adventure as Taki (the male character) tries to solve the mystery behind this and eventually for Mitsuha to save her city from a falling comet, and it ends with some kind of romance. I would say it is a roller coaster ride for a movie but it is great the these elements are interwoven nicely.

It is also a roller coaster ride for my emotion. I will go crazy if what happens in the movie actually happens to me. Firstly, during their body-swapping experiences, both Taki and Mitsuha think that everything happens in their dreams while it is actually a reality. The body-swapping happen in random manner so you can be living as 1 person today and as the other person tomorrow. Wow... Realising that it is a reality is already shocking, so how shocking it will be for Taki to find out that he is swapping with someone from 3 years ago and that person is already dead. Similarly for Mitsuha, how does it feel when 'someone' from the future informs you that a comet will strike your town tonight and it will kill everyone? How to convince everyone to run away from the impending doom when everyone is so eager to view the comet? Whooo.. I got chills imagining it.

Although I mention that the last part is sort of romance, it is not really a romance. It is actually quite heart wrenching that both Taki and Mitsuha (yep in the end she successfully save her town.. don't ask me about time paradox lol) cannot remember about anything that has happened and yet they always feel that there is something 'missing' and they are constantly looking for 'it' without exactly knowing what they are looking for. I guess that strikes a chord with me because I am feeling quite lost in my life and I am searching what actually is my purpose here.

Ultimately, this movie is not really my cup of tea. It is interesting, it is great, it is unique, but it does not make me wanting to go watch it again. Well, I guess the Japanese really has a unique taste for movies because all their hyped movies turn out to be only quite so-so for me.

Night life

This post is 1 week late. It is about last weekend. It has been a long while since I got out in the evening. After all, I am just a lazy bum who prefers sleeping around and slacking doing nothing. Well, Pokemon Go decided to do something special for Halloween and thanks to the adjustment to the walking distance to hatch the egg, I went out in the evening.

On Saturday after dinner, I decided to walk back home. I was deciding if I should go to Kinokuniya to see if there was anything to buy to utilise the 20% off. I missed the buses that went to Orchard so I told myself never mind and to just continue walking home. If the next bus came when I reached the bus stop nearer to my home, then I would go. That did not happen but my egg almost hatched so I decided to walk to the next bus stop before turning back and going home. The bus came when I was at the next stop and I was off to Orchard.

I did not know Orchard Road was closed for traffic due to the SJ50 celebration (50th anniversary of diplomatic relationship of Singapore-Japan). I was very worried if the bus would only stop at Suntec or something. Thank goodness it stopped somewhere opposite Wheelock Place, although that is not the usual stop for bus 162. It was not too far to walk back to Orchard. It was raining the whole morning so the weather was humid and sticky so I did not really bother about the matsuri at the road.

My intention was only to check out books to buy since I already met my $500 credit card spending for October's rebate. I did not know why I decided to buy Justice League 8 and Injustice Year 4 Volume 2. And I suddenly had the desire to buy them from Kinokuniya Bugis to get CapitaStars. Haha.. It was 830pm and still I decided to go. Lol.

Perhaps it was due to Manga Genesis 2 that I saw at an exhibit at Thomson Plaza when I went for lunch. In fact, the reason why I went for dinner there was also to buy this at the same time. I shall write more about the manga at a separate post as this is already quite a long post. Hehe...

On Sunday, I decided to go to MBS to hunt pokemons. Yep.. again because of the egg hatching as well as for the double candy. Unbelievably, I spent 2 hours hunting there!! Haha.. My intention was actually to just walk once along the bay and then went home but there were too many rare pokemons. I got to evolve Shellder, found a wild Pikachu (for the very first time), countless Magikarp, but no Snorlax, Dragonite, or the ones that I was specifically looking for: Magnemite and Voltorb. Whoever thought Pokemon Go is dying should go hunt at MBS because it seems that all the Pokemon hunters are flocking there.

Being FON

It has been a bad week that forces me to be a bring out the bitchy nasty customer in me. The first problem that I have is with Ta-Q-Bin. It is a shame to their Japanese parents company as a lot of the items I buy from Yahoo Auction Japan will offer Kuroneko Yamato domestic shipping and so far everything is good. Ta-Q-Bin Singapore, however, is the worst courier service. DHL, UPS, and FedEx never gave me such a lousy service.

I had a delivery from Premium Bandai and I specifically requested for 5-8pm delivery. On Wednesday morning, I received an sms to inform that delivery would happen in the evening. It did not happen. I called the customer service at 730pm and the lady could not even confirm if a delivery would happen. Gosh! They informed me to wait, they failed to deliver, and they did not inform anything about it. They attempted to delivery on the next day at noon which is ridiculous since the packaging has a big sticker to hightlight 5-8pm delivery timing -_-".

It is a good thing that they were willing to deliver on Saturday which happened to be public holiday. I opted for 8am-12pm delivery timing. I asked if I could get a 'narrower' time frame to wait: nope. I asked if the courier could call me before arriving: nope. Imagine my shock when on Friday, I received an sms to inform me that they were still unable to locate my items but they assured me that delivery would still happen on Saturday. How can I be assured!! Gosh..

Saturday delivery was late again. At 1145am, the customer service called me to mention that delivery would be late. I could understand delays but I could not accept that he could not advise me how long I had to bloody wait. He just said 'afternoon'. Seriously what the fuck! You failed to deliver your service and still had the cheek to ask me to wait for the whole afternoon??? I don't care if your driver has 100 parcels to deliver because it is your problem. As far as I am concerned, you failed to deliver, you made me waited 7 hours already now you are expecting me to waste the whole Saturday.

So yeah, I sent email to them as well as to Premium Bandai. I don't care if they label me as FON as long as they really do what they promise: they will assign someone more experienced for my future deliveries. Seeing similar complaints online that people write about Ta-Q-Bin from previous years, I am a bit skeptical of any promised improvements.

The next problem I have is with photobooksingapore.com. The end product that I received were cut. In the software, there are blue edges and red edges. The advise was for writings not to exceed red edges while pictures/items should be until the blue edges. The end product that I received basically had everything printed until the red edges.

Firstly, I did not receive any reply for 2 freaking weeks after I replied them with sample pictures. Today, I received their explanation. Erm.. more like excuse. They said that from printing can be anywhere between red edges and blue edges. Hey.. that's not what their software prompt me!! And if as they mention that the red to blue edges is 3mm-wide, 3-mm wide is a HUGE MARGIN for goodness sake. I am sorry but I will find other providers as I am not going to live with 3-mm variability.

They offered me 80% off if I want to have my photo book reprinted but I have to edit my pictures all to the red edges. Will that solve the problem? What if the end product that I receive will be printed until the blue edges this time? I will have 3mm empty borders surrounding all pages? Fucked up! Anyway the money is not the issue, it is the time and effort! It took me 1 month to complete the photobook and asking me to reshuffle everything.. man.. easier said than done.

It seems that whoever replied my email is just smoking me. Prior to this, I had completed 3 different photobooks with them and all were printed until the blue edges. The end products are according to what the software showed me and I am happy. I did exactly the same thing with my latest one and now they are telling me that I did the wrong thing. Seriously.. 

Doctor Strange

In the world of Marvel superheroes, Doctor Strange stands out as one of the more interesting characters with magic-based superpowers in the midst of all others physical or scientific based superpowers. I am excited when it is going to be made into movies but I am not really into Benedict Cumberbatch. Haha..

My biggest worry was that the magic-based superpowers will appear rather lame on screen with all the CGIs. I think Marvel does pretty well with the fighting CGI scenes. The blend between the magical and physical realms look believable enough and is not too cartoonish. The fights are enjoyable although do not exactly meet my expectations. Considering that this is an introductory movie, perhaps I am expecting too much that there will be more spells and incantations that Doctor Strange uses in the comics. But hey, after all those things are what makes Doctor Strange unique.

Marvel retains all the elements that makes their movies successful so far: quite linear and simplistic story line (not sure if everyone will agree that this is a strength) and the sense of humour. There are a lot of references to current real life situations for the humour such as the mention of Beyonce and the funniest bit about the Wi-Fi password at Kamar-Taj.

One bit that I think lacking is that there is not enough reason to explain why Doctor Strange chooses to be a Sorcerer Supreme instead of having his brilliant life as a surgeon back. After all, he is depicted as being an arrogant and proud man at the beginning. Again, it is an introductory superhero movie so this sort of 'deficiency' is expected. The Ancient One reprimanding Strange for his aloofness and pride strikes a chord with me. I am also a proud person who look down at other people and it is often said that pride is the most difficult to overcome out of the 7 deadly sins. Hence, I cannot fathom why Strange chooses to forgo his surgeon life.

I hate my job. If I have the option to be healthy or to be a sorcerer, I will definitely choose the latter one and get out of my job. But hey, Stephen Strange loves his job! That's another reason for me to question why he chooses to be a sorcerer.

I also notice that the Marvel opening scene for the movie has changed! Usually it is the flipping pages of Marvel comics but now it is scenes from the previous Marvel studios movies!! Yup, that is a nod to how big Marvel movie universe has become and I hope they will continue with their fantastic superheroes movies in many years to come.

14 years later

That day of the year comes again.. 14 years being independent, sacrificing my youth, happiness, and humanity, and what do I get in return? I am becoming more ruthless, selfish, and unfeeling. I doubt that I can ever have a girlfriend, wife, or family. I don't think I can ever love others except for myself.

The only consolation to sustain me is the acknowledgement that I would never become a Catholic if I never left home. It seems that thought is unable to sustain me anymore. I simply cannot be bothered about my life anymore. I have had enough and I really don't mind dying now. No guarantee that I will end up in heaven with the kind of life I live, but I am so sick of my current life. Anyway, I am not being suicidal. I am just prepared and hoping to die, rather than to live. Now that the words from a responsial psalm completely makes sense: 

"Oh that today you would listen to His voice, harden not our hearts."

Yes, I really feel that my heart is hardened now. There is no point living in the past and thinking of 'what if's and 'what could have been's but that is the only thing that can make me going for now.

Today was not as bad as I expected as work was unexpectedly not crowded and my movie kakis suddenly wanted to watch Dr Strange. Usually they are price-sensitive but the pre-holiday mood and the overall slack feeling made them okay to pay almost double of the usual Tuesday rate. Haha.. I shall write about the movie tomorrow. Now my gastric is acting badly and it really reminds me of my hernia episode 2 years ago :(

Another disappointment

After waiting for 2 weeks, I finally got the chance to get more information about my plan B. Yet it turned out to be another disappointment. With no inpatient experience, it is basically out of my reach as I will not have the insight gained from working experience to be able to do the work effectively. Am I disappointed? Well, I feel more cheated than disappointed because there is no mention about inpatient experience in the job advertisement. If it is mentioned, at least I will not even consider this in the first place. I think it is almost a month since the first time the ad was published and it is still being renewed weekly. Hmm.. I am hoping that the post cannot be filled and then they contact me? Lol.. Better to have someone imperfect than noone at all right?

I have found the next one to try. Lol. This time is about safety and quality improvement. At least something that I am quite interested in. However, according to my ex-colleague, statistics knowledge maybe required. I don't know if I should be thick skin to just send my resume to try. I shall think about it over the weekend.

Honestly, this job search really sucks. In the newspapers, it is very common to see reports about job seekers being too picky bla bla bla. In reality, it is even more common to see employers being to picky. Where on earth can you find someone with only 2 years of working experience but in areas A and/or B and/or C? 2 years working at a place is still like an orientation and how do you expect someone to be experienced in so many things.

Since I am most likely stuck in my current condition, I decided to be true to my bitch self today. I have to admit that I am naturally a bitchy person and pretending to be good is just tiring. It is so relaxing today to just blurt out everything to my in-charge. Yes, I am not gonna be the only one to work my ass off. I want everyone to be rostered and hence forced to work their asses off as well. I can't be bothered if there is any negative feelings. Work is work.

Android Final Fantasy

Dissidia is the last Final Fantasy game that I play in console. And that was so many years ago. With the rise of mobile gaming, it is just a matter of time before Final Fantasy joins the bandwagon. I am not interested in port version of the old games while spin off Final Fantasy titles tend to be rather bullshit. Surprisingly, currently there are 3 Final Fantasy games that I am (still) playing. I will just talk briefly about each of them.

1. Final Fantasy Record Keeper

I have been playing this for more than a year. I almost quit at one point but surprisingly, I am still playing it now. The game introduces a new character, Tyro, from a kingdom which keeps paintings of events from various Final Fantasy series to inspire peace and heroism to its citizens. Darkness falls upon the kingdom and the picture from these paintings start to fade. Tyro has to 'go' into the painting to take parts of the various events to restore the paintings. That is the background story.

The gameplay, however, has very little RPG aspect. The focus is on turn-based fights with characters from various Final Fantasy series to be used as the characters. The challenge, however, each character in the fight can only bring 2 skills with them. It is like a 'limit' that makes the game difficult but at the same time, it makes the challenge of the game is the strategising part: which characters to bring and which skills to equip. I personally see the game just to collect the characters while at the same time get strong equipments, play the missions and events, etc. Passing or failing or even skipping the events has no bearings whatsoever to the story. So it is really a casual game for fun.

The RNG for the strong weapons is shit as I keep getting shit and that is the thing that makes me wanna quit at times. However, the game is pretty generous with mythril (which is the currency to draw the random weapons) and I have yet to spend any real money. The game difficulty is quite steep at the high end as even having the maxed out characters and their unique weapons may not guarantee you to beat the strong bosses.

Tyro is mediocre: average on all stats but yet able to equip all weapons and all skills. While he may be easily overshadowed by native FF characters, he carries the most useful skills, Sentinel's Grimoire, which makes him still relevant character. That is one thing that I think the game does well. Tyro is not neglected while they continue to milk from nostalgia of the other FF characters.

2. Final Fantasy Brave Exvius

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius introduces 3 main characters: Rain, Laswell, and Fina. It has a nice CGI render of these characters and I am a sucker of eye-catching graphics. This really feels like an RPG as it includes travelling at the world map, at the dungeons, on top of the battling. Despite the emo faces at the CGI images, these 3 characters are actually big jokers. Their interactions in the game are very funny, ridiculous, and tend to be silly which make the overall feel of the story somewhat light hearted. That's a good job to deviate from the typical emo and brooding FF characters.

The turn-based battle is also more true to typical FF as each characters will get stronger and learn more skills as they level up. Sadly, the game maker seems to be more eager to cash in from the characters from other FF series. Rain, Laswell, and Fina are significantly more useless than the native FF characters and you may end up with a party of native FF characters and completely forget that you are playing a different game altogether. What a waste since they have 3 interesting original characters already.

The progress with the story is rather slow so the gamemaker try to make us busy with side quests which are not relevant to the main story. It gets grindy and repetitive to repeat the same dungeons all over again just to collect x number if items or to defeat x number of enemies.

I have stopped playing this although I have not deleted it from my tablet. At the beginning, I enjoy the dungeon exploration as it really reminds of me of the traditional RPG games in which I can control the characters to move to which direction etc. However, due to the grindy nature, I find it too time consuming. Perhaps I am also getting old and getting shorter attention span that I prefer playing something that I don't need to stare so much on the screen. I feel quite sad for this game because I think it has a lot of potential as an original standalone FF game but yet it falls into the trap of being cash machine milking native FF characters and neglect everything original from this game.

3. Final Fantasy Mobius

Final Fantasy Mobius introduces Wol in the world called Palamecia (no idea why they choose the name of the empire in FF 2). The world is in the verge of destruction by Chaos and Wol goes on to a journey to fulfill the prophecy to be the Warrior of Light to save this world (sounds similar to FF 1).

I am enthralled with this as the graphics are insanely awesome for a mobile game although on the negative side is that it is draining the battery. Although it is an RPG, the focus is more on the fighting and strategising as the story is quite linear and the exploration of the map only involves clicking from one point to the next.

The battle system is confusing at start but once I get the hang of it, it is quite enjoyable. The battle system stems from Final Fantasy job system. There are 3 basic jobs: warrior-type (strength or defense type), mage-type (magic type), and ranger-type (agility or critical damage type) and all the more advanced jobs are based on any one of these. Each job can wield 3 elements and only skills belonging to the elements can be used, rather than the job type i.e if your job can wield fire element, you basically can use all types of fire cards.

The battle is action-based which is interesting at the start but get boring with the same grunting sound effects. That 'auto' function is a blessings as the AI is damn smart. Does it make the game boring? Not really. Because for some of the more difficult battles, controlling Wol manually may still be preferred. Yep, no matter what AI still cannot beat human intelligence.

I honestly got bored of this game quite quickly but recently Mobius becomes my favourite. It is frustrating if you are a completionist because there are so many jobs and so many skill cards but the resources to have them all is very limited. Having said that, there is no necessity to become a completionist. I am still playing with the ranger basic job and I am still doing fine. My cards are mediocre too.

But I am such a sucker for graphics, seriously. Different jobs have different costumes and I like this gimmicks. Lol. Mobius is really crazy in the sense that even for the event scenes, what Wol wears depends on the job that you currently equips. It is that 'personalised' instead of using a standard template. Haha.. Although usually I like magic type of characters, I hate mage jobs here as they all wear mask and I can't see the face. I like ranger best as the clothes are the skimpiest. Haha.. When the game was announced, it created quite a ruckus about how sexy Wol is. Yes, the warrior and ranger clothes are too skimpy and not battle-proof. The warrior wear heavy armors but their back is exposed (silly right?) while the ranger has exposed torso.

Multiplayer mode was introduced about 3 weeks ago and I am impressed even when I lose my connection, when I login back to the game again, I can still go back to the the real-time battle. Usually for internet based multiplayer games, once a player is disconnected, that's it.

That's all from me :) It is pretty clear that currently Mobius is my favourite and I hope the developer can keep it at the right track.

Plan B... start!

The rejection email finally came :( Sigh.. as nice as it is being worded, rejection still hurts. I wish they could have been more honest to just state whether I am rejected because my expected pay is indeed to high, or simply because I suck for the job. Gotta admit that I got my ego bruised and pretty upset about it. Haiz.. But after a good nap, I woke up feeling better.

Lucky I trust my gut feel and I already started my plan B this morning. I thought I could get more information about this first before updating my CV but the person asked for my CV as well. I did it last night and today I finally asked him. I am glad that I got a response for further discussion for me to find out more about the job.

It is pretty obvious that I have lowered my expectations from 'I want to change a job with an increased pay' to 'Never mind to change to something with the same pay'. If I fail again, I think I don't mind finding something else even with a pay cut. I am at my breaking point with my colleagues. Sigh.. Every morning I pray for humility and patience but every day I go home feeling upset and angry. I can't simply continue this any longer. I just want to do something for myself. There is no point working hard for everyone's goal when everyone else is slacking. I am tired being the 20% that contributes to the 80%. I want to be part of the 80% who only does 20% of the work.