Watermark

Bleah.. I am very irritated when I come across an eBay listing of Final Fantasy VIII Rinoa & Siren statue by Kotobukiya. The seller stole my pictures but dared to claim "Real item. Sell as it is" under the item description. What a fraud!

Sometimes I come across nice pictures and I like to save them on my computer for viewing or to post it on my blog to accompany related posts. I hate pictures which are watermarked as they just ruin the viewing pleasure. Thus I decide not to do anything to my pictures although I am aware that everyone can just take them without my permission. Gosh.. now I understand those people who watermark their pictures! I don't expect people to credit me from using my pictures etc. But the least that they can do is to ask permission of they can use my pictures. That is basic courtesy. It is not as if I am going to say no anyways. However, I am absolutely disgusted with people mis-using my pictures for their personal gain. I am fine if they just would like to take the images to post it on forums for information etc. But to put it as an eBay listing and claiming that they are selling what being pictured... that is really too much!

Anyways, I am just ranting. I am not planning to change how I do things. Before I buy the old toys, it is almost impossible to get more information or more pictures of the actual item (not the official pictures from the manufacturer) even from google. The reason for me "showing off" my collections is merely to provide people with more information and pictures which I cannot find in the first place. That is why I don't bother editing, resizing, or watermarking my pictures.

Oh well, perhaps it is karma for me who usually takes people's images and posting them on my blog. Haha..
I just would like to say something: I am not selling all the items that I have taken a lot of pictures, written a great length about them, and boasted here! In the future, if I plan to sell any of them, I will definitely share it here. So for the people who have been cheated by unscrupulous sellers (i.e used my pictures when their actual item condiiton may be shitty), do not blame me for letting these people steal my pictures. 

Harmony Kingdom Disney: Celebrating 75 Years of Mickey

Celebrating 75 Years of Mickey was released in 2003 to commemorate 75th Anniversary of Mickey Mouse (like duh! Lol). Only 1500 pieces were produced and sold with a retail price USD 125. The box is rather squarish with 7.1" (L) x 6.75" (W) x 7" (H) while the figure itself measures 6.25" x 4.7" x 4.5". Robert King is the artist and being released only in 2003, it was already made in China.

The figure depicts Mickey Mouse (in his most well-known appearance of red shorts and yellow shoes) sitting down like a boss of Walt Disney company. He is holding a book titled "75 Years" and reminiscing his 75 years of history. He is surrounded by miniature Mickeys in various appearances throughout his 75 years. As I am nowhere near 75 years old, I can't recognise most of his appearances, except for his Sorcerer's robe as well as his first appearance in Steamboat Willie.

The figure that I have is personally signed by Robert King although there is no way for me to authenticate his signature. This is the main thing which tempted me to get this. My patience paid off as the selling price was eventually dropped to USD 65 before I decided to buy it. It arrived broken and I got a full refund from DHL for this so basically I got this for free. Yay! In the pictures below, the broken and glued part is not noticeable too. And as you realise by now, I got this since October last year but I only had the time to take pictures and write this 3 months later. Haha.. Let's enjoy the pictures, shall we?

Logo on the top side of the box

Unlike Aladdin, this piece is not numbered :(

The original price tag is at the bottom of the box. I missed it so I did not take picture of it. Too lazy to take and then transfer just one picture again. Heh..

No Certificate of Authenticity! Aaargh!

Front view

Back view

 Let's zoom to the faces now.

'Boss' Mickey. Unfortunately, the book pages are EMPTY! It will be great if they add just a bit more details a.k.a scribblings on to it!

Disney logo

Let's open up to reveal the secret...

Which is the steering wheel from Steamboat Willie

Harmony Kingdom logo on the top part

The base with Robert King's signature

Anyway, this will be the final Harmony Kingdom piece that I buy. I don't think I will buy anymore. After much consideration, I gave over Pooh and Snow White to my elder sister as she loves these series more than I do. Of course a part of me wish to keep them all as a collection. But due to space constraint, I have to bring those "less loved" items back to Jakarta and there I had the idea to just give it to her.

Lastly, as I made measurement of the box of this piece, I realised that I have been reading my inch ruler wrongly! Instead of 0.1" per marking, it should be 0.125" o_0 Thus, for all the box measurements that I made, they are definitely somewhat inaccurate!! Haha.. I am too lazy to remeasure and edit my posts. Not to mention that most of the figurines, except for Aladdin, Lion King, and this Mickey, are in Jakarta now. Hahaha..

To end it off with a bang, here are pictures to show all Harmony Kingdom Disney figures that I have :)

When I see these, it makes it difficult for me to part with Pooh and Snow White :(

Aladdin is at the center because it is the longest in dimension, not that I am biased. Haha..

Will money buy happiness?

My prayers are unheard and unanswered. I knew I asked for the impossible but yet when it was not possible, I still got upset. I asked my landlady again and the moving out date has been confirmed: 14 March. And that made me very emo for the rest of the week.

I actually just returned from a weekend trip home. It was unusual for me as I dislike flying home over a short period of time. The tiredness and the money spent simply do not justify such trip. However, with my moving house comes closer, I have to bring some of my things home. In addition, this latest trip only cost me $62 for return ticket so I just gave in.

This latest trip made me realise that the nothing is better than family and home to make me happy. When I am at home, I can live without computer and internet. I can live without following the latest toys to buy and I don't even think about money and things to buy. I don't know if it is because I am busy with reading manga at home although during my December trip, I was not able to complete reading my 8 months worth of manga. In contrast, when I am away, I can't seem to get away from these things. 

I think that I am preoccupied with my family when I am at home that there is no need for me to "find things to do". I know it is just another impossible dream and wish to ever own a house in Singapore so I don't know if I will ever feel happy here. I have a comfortable disposable income but that does not make me happy. On one side, it appears that money does not make me happy. On another side, I think if I have MUCH MORE money, I can get a house and I can get my family to live here and then I will be happy :(

Each time my parents mention about a house here, I get very upset and angry. I know it is terrible for me to demand a house from them and clearly something is wrong with my mind and my negative thinking. Honestly, if I try to be positive and honest, God has been very kind to me. For the past 2 years, I have been paying an HDB room rate while staying in a landed property. Now I am so angry with the thought of staying in an HDB again although if God was not kind to me, I would have been staying in HDB throughout. Gosh.. forgive my ungratefulness, my dear God :'(

Wew.. today I finally managed to sell away my Gundam SeeD Destiny Emotive Figure. It took almost 1.5 years to sell them all after the first two. That shows how bad my business is. Lol. Anyway, out of desperation, I actually bundled all of them together and threw in a bonus of Saint Seiya Chess Figures from Megahouse for $25 and then $20 and then $15. Things were only sold when it reached $10. There was one buyer who did not mind paying $10 but only wanted to get Lacus, Cagalli and Auel. Not sure if I felt happy or sad at that time as my main aim was to have more storage space. That was in October last year. Today, I managed to sell the rest for $10. Well in total I spent close to $80 to get them all and I only forked back $25. Jeez..

I actually still love Athrun and Shinn because their discoloration is not so bad. The rest has pretty bad discoloration. I guess that's my main reason of selling them, not that because I hate Gundam SeeD Destiny

In November, I managed to sell Dissidia Duodecim Game Guide for $30. I was so excited to purchase it many years back but after that I don't think there are enough pictures for me to keep it. Haha.. Anyway I don't the guide is that useful anyway. Lol.. I still keep the guide for Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep as I think it is useful if I want to replay the game. The buyer asked if I wanted to sell the game also. Well I bought the Limited Edition because I want to keep them as collection. But since there is a potential buyer, I just quoted a sky high price which was of course rejected. Haha..

And just before my holiday last year, my Fear Itself was also sold for $25. So sad that the buyer did not want to add on Fear Itself: The Fearless too!!

Anyway, the rate of me buying things is simply much higher than the rate of my unwanted things being sold so I doubt this really helps in giving me more storage space :( My Gundams and Final Fantasy VIII stuff please be sold quickly T_T

Identity crisis

6 months have passed and I could not be bothered about my PR application anymore. So when the letter finally came, I thought it would a rejection. I was wrong. The immigration authority wants a proof that my race is Chinese. Initially, I found that quite shocking. I have heard that they want to maintain a Chinese majority here but I think asking people to prove their race is way beyond racist. Although objectively speaking, it is not surprising that they find me ambiguous. I come from a Malay country, I have a surname which sounds Indian, a first name which is English, and middle name which makes people guess whether I am a Japanese or a Thai.

Anyway in Indonesia, race is not documented in any of the official documents so really I have no direct proof. The only proof is perhaps my parents' birth certificates, when Chinese names were still allowed, and the name change certificates when Chinese names were banned in the 1960s. What shock and sadden me is actually my dad's certificate of citizenship conversion from a PRC! Yaiks!! I know that all Chinese have ancestors who come from China but I always thought it was many decades ago. I never expect that my dad, although was born in Indonesia, was born as a PRC citizen.

My apologies if I sound very racist but from my life experiences for the past 10+ years, I just have deep dislike and disgust towards PRCs. I am not going to write why as it will be too long and it will be too racist. Anyway, I am that "close" of being a PRC too.. Sigh.. This realisation makes me feel awful and disgusted with myself. Jeez...

I don't know if these documentations suffice. I am only able to give them a copy of these documents as unfortunately, Jakarta is affected by massive flood since Friday. Looks like it is no longer a big flood every 5 years but it has become Jakarta Annual Big Flood. My parents are unable to get these documents translated and sent to me. I shall see if the immigration authority will give me time extension to follow up with the translated as well as the original copies.

Outside my home yesterday. Not as bad as 2007 flood when the whole rubbish bin was submerged under water.

The dilemma does not stop. On one side, I don't want to lose almost 50% of what I earn now to go towards my pension fund. Who needs money for old age when I want to die young eh? On the other side, I know PR will make it easier for me to change job. And if I want to do part-time study + part-time working, PR is the only way to go.. I don't know.. Haiz..

A late happy new year 2014!!

2013 was such a looooong year that it took me so looooong just to look back and reflect upon it. Nah! I have just been very busy with work that I have to bring some work and continue them at home. I am more or less done clearing my holiday backlog and thus have the time to blog again. Yay!

Personally, life in general gets boring after you start working. So it is quite difficult to rate whether the past year was good, so-so, or bad. Work-wise, I completed my first year of working experience rather uneventfully. I presented and won the best project for 2013 among the 9 branches and it was great that my branch was also the best for 2013. Nothing too much about it as being the best simply means hitting the most KPIs. Unfortunately, these were not reflected to higher bonus during the mid-year. I was disappointed that I just got the same one as everybody else. Sigh.. Considering I am a junior staff, I thought my performance was slightly better than the rest of the new people so I thought I should get higher grade. Jeez.. Anyway, should not work so hard if there is no reward.

The project that I thought was good was actually not good enough when being compared with those from other institutions and judged by other healthcare professionals. That really made me quite sad as I thought of even sending it for international competition. The fact that it could not even win at a "higher" level competition means it is bad and don't even hope to win at international levels.

Still about work, with people quitting etc, I end up becoming the second most senior at my branch o_0 December was crazy and the craziness still spilled over to now. I hate all the extra responsibility without the extra pay. Anyway in late November, a new colleague joined and by title, she is more senior than I. After 2 months, she is now able to take the senior's responsibilities so at least I feel less stressful. That's all for work :) Oh shit.. wait.. I almost forgot about my first dispensing error! Fuck shit, man! It really made me down for almost a month about it :'(

2013 was special to me because I had my first trip to Europe. I am not going to repeat about what happened or why I enjoyed -or did not enjoy- it as it will take too long. Haha.. Anyway, it was really an eye opener to me. It made me realise that I kinda enjoy travelling. Unfortunately, I am friend-less that I am unable to have great overseas trips with friends. Sigh..

If you notice, I have so many posts on toys for 2013 which only mean 1 thing: I am getting more and more spendthrift. I spent close to $9000 in 2013 just for these things. Sigh.. To be honest, with that amount of spending, I am still quite surprised to see my bank statement at the end of 2013 as compared to 2012. My savings are also actually a lot.. Haha.. But if I don't spend so much on toys, I will end up with even more money. Honestly, I think my hobby is getting out of control as I am running out of storage space in both Jakarta and Singapore! Sigh.. But ultimately, I always argue that there is no point working so hard for money and not to enjoy them, or worse to enjoy them on food which makes me fatter! Of course buying things only solves one thing but create another problem of the storage space. Bleah X_X

I admit that I was being a bit hypocritical in the previous paragraph as in reality, my spending for food also went up. Jeez.. So does my weight that I ended up hitting 65kg. I am officially overweight now. At my lowest times, I could be having fast food, bubble tea, potato chips, Starbucks (high in sugar! lol), etc for every other day. Pimple breakouts and broken weighing scale are what makes me realise that I better stop all these nonsense in 2014!

Year 2013 was also a disaster for my spirituality. My frequency of going to church dropped to every other week, or even worse, once a month. No idea why I don't feel anything or getting anything out of attending mass anymore. Is it because working life so boring? Is it because I have money that I feel I no longer need God? Money is the root of all evil after all. Ironically, at home, I will still try to pray a bit and still regularly read daily reflections etc. No idea what's going on with me seriously.

Family-life was also quite bad in 2013. As they are growing older, my parents got into verbal arguments more often. As they are growing older, my sisters are getting more childish and disrespectful towards my parents too. Since most of the time I am not with them, I don't want to be bothered since they also can't be bothered about me anyway.

Sigh.. now that I am coming to an end of the post, I realise that 2013 was rather depressing for me. My wish for 2014? Of course to be better than 2014. I am trying very hard, with success noted so far, with regards to cutting down on the junk food. I think work and spending on toys will just get worse in 2014. Not to mention that I have to move rental place again this year and no holiday is planned for this year. Okay, outlook for 2014 is basically worse than 2013. Perhaps it is time to return to God to ask for His direction in this life.

Oh and 1 last thing about 2013: how can I forget about the HAZE!!! Lol..

First time in forever

Holiday is over and it ends with not-so-good things. My flight was delayed for 2 hours. I have been reading news about how overcrowded Soekarno-Hatta airport is but this was my first time experiencing how bad it is. It is the end of holiday seasons and I am sure airport will be damn busy. Firstly my boarding gate was being changed because the previous flight using that boarding gate was delayed so passengers were still waiting there. A bit of delay before the usual announcement for boarding was expected. What I did not expect was to take a bus from the gate to the plane. I thought the plane was waiting at our initial boarding gate but the bus drove off to the budget terminal and my plane was waiting there! Gosh!! Honestly, that was my first time taking a bus and then climbing the staircase to board the plane when taking an international flight from Soekarno-Hatta!

To make matters worse, after boarding the plane, we had to wait another 2 hours for our turn to take off. Sianz.. That was basically a 2 hour delay. I rather being made to wait at the boarding gate because at least I can still go to the loo.. But then, I guess they rather make people wait at the plane and free up the boarding gate for the next flight lor -_-" I actually slept for an hour and when I woke up, the plane was still at the same spot lol..

There was an idiot who was arguing with the stewardess about the delay. I am not sure if the person did not understand English (because the pilot already informed about the 2-3 hour wait at the beginning) or he was just an idiot. It was the airport's fault and really there was nothing that the pilot or stewardesses can do right? They even opened the door and let a ground staff to speak to the idiot. Luckily I was seated quite far from the idiot or else I would be very irritated. Haha.. but because of the distance, I could not hear what the idiot spoke to the ground staff.

Now this really makes me think twice about going home over the weekends. My proper resting plan is totally screwed. Jeez.. Not really a good start of the year :'(

Anyway, 2 videos to suit the title of the post. Hehe.. Frozen has quite good songs.

2013 closure

Here is the last post in 2013 and I am just writing for the sake of writing one final post to close 2013. Haha.. There are still things left over from 2013 for me to do as I have been procrastinating in calculating the amount of money I spent for anime related items in December. Bleah..

Anyway over the weekend I went for a short trip to Pontianak to see my grandma. I flew there with Garuda Indonesia and seriously, once you take a domestic flight with Garuda, you would not even want to use other airlines. Don't even bother about low cost carriers. Garuda specially reserves Terminal 2F which is as good as international terminal: fully air-conditioned and no cigarrette smoke. Soekarno-Hatta airport is way too overcrowded now that almost all flight will have delays. I took 830am flight so the delay was not too bad. The boarding was on time but we had to spent about 10 minutes queueing at the runway to take off.

I always dislike my trip to Pontianak so I really had nothing much to write. The only thing I was looking forward was to check on Gramedia bookstore to find old mangas that I missed. Sadly, I returned empty handed. Bleah!

On the way back, I took Sriwijaya which is a low-cost carrier. My flight was supposed to be at 1210pm but the incoming plane only landed at 1210pm. Lol.. Definitely there was a delay. I could not complain as the delay would even be longer if I took Garuda. Before landing back to Soekarno-Hatta, we had a 15 minutes detour while waiting for our turn to land. Crazy shit: traffic jam both on the land and on the air -_-" 15 minutes is 1/4 of the actual journey from Pontianak to Jakarta. No wonder the air tickets for domestic flights are getting crazy day by day.

I am very tired now and I still have like 30 more comic books to read.. Faints.. That's it for 2013 and I need to get back to do my money calculation before 2014 comes. I shall do 2013 reflection and the typical new year resolution for 2014 tomorrow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 :)

May 2014 be better than 2013 ^o^

Merry Christmas 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2013

For Christmas post this year, I shamelessly am showing off my Christmas present this year which is a gift from myself for myself. To make it more shameless, it is actually a personalised mini size figurine sculpted from my photo. Hoho..

I had always dreamt of getting this figurine since many years back when I saw the pull cart outside Disc Tarra. I was a student so money was an issue at that time. Not to mention that it took several weeks for the completion and I did not want to order if I could not be around when the item was ready. When I returned subsequently for holiday, the whole area at MKG 2 level 3 was renovated and the pull cart was gone. About 1-2 year ago I knew the pull cart relocated to La Piazza but due to the time taken, I was not interested. However, this year, I saw a stand at Funan IT Mall which made it very convenient and revived my intention to get one. 

I decided to get it done in Singapore. It cost me $118 ($148 and 20% off) and it took about 2 weeks to complete. There are more than 400+ designs and since Christmas was nearing, I chose a Christmas design. The one in Jakarta has less designs but there are more interesting ones based on movie characters like Spiderman, Superman, Green Lantern, Star Wars, etc. The pricing is similar but it will take 5 weeks to complete! Bleah.. No idea why it is taking so long. I actually went to Funan 3x because I was quite embarassed to submit my own photo and make my own figurine! Lol.. The first time I went there, it was a young man manning the booth so I was shy. The second time, it was a young girl. Lol.. I was looking for the auntie who I asked for more information the week before and lucky I caught her the 3rd time.

I was so eager to make one that I did not really do a research on the quality. I did not even ask whether I can touch and look at the samples more carefully. I was excited to read that the figurine is made of resin which means that it will be quite durable. Resin durability was my excuse to justify the price I am paying. Therefore, I am extremely disappointed to realise after getting the item that only the BODY is made of resin. The head is sculpted from clay which was then baked. So it is something like Play-Doh! It can get dirty, quite fragile, and I am worried about the possibility of melting due to hot ambient temperature. In fact, I got a part of hair damaged when I reached home. Shucks!

Other than functioning as a figurine, it can be used as a photo holder too. Unfortunately, the metal holder cannot stay in place with the hole at the base. Not that I am intending to use it as a photo holder but I was thinking of attaching the original photo to compare the face.

Those displayed at the shop resemble the original pictures very closely so I am also a bit peeved that mine does not really look like the picture I submitted. I will say about 50-60% resemblance only nia... Nope I am not going to show the photo which I submitted for comparison. Haha.. I don't want people to know who I am who writes this blog.

Well, more pictures to show off this thing. Hehe..

The packaging box

Foam packaging to protect the figurine

Look at the stupid stick as the neck! Not seen here but there is a "crack" at the point where the head is stuck to the neck. This is the result of not inspecting those samples :'(

 The details of the resin body

 Close up on the face

Imperfect attempt to stick back the broken hair

Ultimately, the main turn-off for me is durability issue with clay. If the head is also made of resin, I will not hesitate to make more figurines of myself!! At the end of the day, for someone as narcissistic as me, it is another tick on my wishlist. I have a sketch of my face, a poster-size framed photo of myself, and now comes a figurine sculpted to my likeness. What's next? Haha...

A holiday like no other

I always have a good time when I have a trip home. After living alone and doing everything on my own like a slave, I want to wind down and live like a prince -with maid preparing my food whenever I want, washing my clothes, cleaning the house. Unfortunately, this time I have no maid which ironically makes my life even more pathetic with me having to HANDWASH my own clothes, preparing my own food and washing the dishes, throwing away rubbish, and so on. Sigh.. Housework really sucks :(

My room is also in a terrible condition. When I see the amount of things which I have, I know that I have got to stop buying toys for my collections :( I am really running out of space to store my things and I am unable to keep track of what I have. In addition, all the things make my room very messy that I no longer "enjoy" my collections. Haiz.. As much as I feel like this, whenever I step away from home to the little red dot, I will immediately lose control when I see pretty toys.

Whenever I am feeling down, the ungrateful side of me will surface and I will forever be complaining. What's the point of working so hard if I don't enjoy my hard earned money and just to keep them in the bank?? In addition, if I don't buy things, I will keep thinking about getting them. But when I buy them, I will be stressed over storage space. Ultimately, what I want is my own home.. my own space.. something unattainable with what I have right now. Bleah.. Christmas is coming so I should be in a thanksgiving and joyful mood but I am feeling meh -_-"

Another "must-do" when I am at home is to read my comic books. In 2012, I thought my comic collection is nearing an end because Indonesian manga translators were releasing so few good titles and the releases were to slow. Come 2013, it was crazy. I have 8 months worth of comic books to read and the number is 67 books o_0 That is not counting the 8 I just bought today and another few which I am still hunting. Wow!! Seriously did not expect that the industry will be moving at such a lightning speed again! Not to mention that there are so many new titles which are currently the latest in things from Japan like Magi, Saint Seiya Lost Canvas, Saint Seiya Episode G, Attack on Titan, Kuroko no Basuke, and many more. I gotta read at least 7 books a day if I were going to finish them all before I fly off again. But ultimately, the big questions is WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO STORE THEM!!!