stolen colours

Went to watch Animation Nation films this weekend with Deepblue, Penance and Terence. On Saturday night we watched Interstella 5555: 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem , which is directed by Leiji Matsumoto and set entirely to the music of Daft Punk (French dance music group). I didn’t know that there was totally NO dialogue at all! Which meant that the characters were archetypical, the plot was cliched and obvious, but the whole thing was still really fun to watch. Couldn’t take the pounding beats after a while though; thankfully they had lulls every now and then. I loved the colours, art style and the music (well, most of the time), though at some parts the music didn’t seem suitable for the scene.

Then on Sunday it was a marathon of Japanese Animation Shortcuts, Singapore Animation Shortcuts, and Hair High.

The Japanese Animation Shortcuts featured some really nice things, like Hoshi no Koe and She and Her Cat by the wonderful Makoto Shinkai. I’ve watched Hoshi no Koe before and I’m so glad they showed the whole thing instead of just a trailer. To Penance: Makoto Shinkai is a guy…anyway I can’t wait to watch his newest work, Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho.
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Got this link to a Japanese Macromedia game off Dr BFG’s page. It’s really quite addictive! The whole point of the game is to cook and serve as many okay pancakes (not raw, not burnt) in 1 minute. You get 2 extra seconds for each good pancake you serve.

When the game starts there are 3 buttons on the left.
1st button – flip the pancake.
2nd button – serve the pancake.
3rd button – glare at the cat when it raises its paw to swipe at the pancake.

Quite fun! Try it, people. So far my best is 8 pancakes, but Dr BFG has done 15!

Tried to download the DSL Commander Program by following a link to a Deutsch site. BIG MISTAKE. Never, ever download things from a website in a language you don’t understand without putting it through a translator. In the end I mistakenly ran some firmware upgrade programme instead. Temporarily lost Internet connection (at which point siblings glared at me) and ended up having to rely on Deepblue to help me get support phone numbers from the company’s website. In the end, Brother solved the problem by just retyping all the router settings that were lost after the firmware upgrade. Grr. He had the stupid DSL Commander Program ALL ALONG. And there I was agonising over how to access the router setup page for 2 days.

Anyway I did call Aztech’s support helpline many times, then finally left a message. They close at 5.30pm, but the guy actually got back to me at 6pm! Felt a bit sheepish ‘cos Brother had already restored the router settings by that time. I emailed the support people a bit earlier, and they got back to me at around the same time…but saying that my router model is now extinct.

And I still haven’t solved my NAT error yet. Aiyah.

lord valentine’s castle
Why did I not start reading Robert Silverberg earlier! His style is beautiful! Male authors usually aren’t advantaged in this area, but he is. It’s so descriptive, but in a way that fills you with wonder. For once I find myself not skipping huge chunks of descriptions of scenes. Though for Janny Wurts I did that very often – she’s too rigidly detailed. Haven’t really gotten anyway near the climax of the story yet, but highly recommended *beams*

Because I can’t resolve the NAT error. Adding rules for my computer is fine; but I can’t seem to do anything about that router.

Went to Johor with First Aunt and Uncle to open accounts this morning. I have a checkbook in my name now! It’s rather funny that my first cheques will be issued from a Malaysian bank, not a Singaporean one. The Woodlands checkpoint is really quite convenient on weekday mornings since there’s no queue at all. I can just see myself driving to Malaysia alone one day to buy stuff and settle things ^^;; And if you want to change money into ringgits, go to the Woodlands town centre (very near the checkpoint) – the rates are the best in Singapore, so my aunt said.

Went back to First Aunt’s house to install Norton Systemworks and liveupdate cracks on her computer, drink green tea, and pick up jackfruits. First Aunt grows jackfruit trees (and many other fruit trees) which bear too much fruit for her family to finish. Did you know that jackfruit seeds can be eaten? You just boil them for a while, then eat them. They’re soft enough; the consistency is a bit like chestnuts, and they taste rather like walnuts, just not as bitter.

Then went to Suntec City to play with the capsule machines. I was rather lucky on my first attempts at the Gundam SEED and FMA machines – Aegis and Roy! Mwahahaha. Also managed to pick up chrysanthemum tea sachets at Carrefour.

You are Coraline! You are quirky, strange, and
charming. Some people may find you a little
alarming and not always get you… But they can
piss off, right? You are the kind of person who
always needs to be entertained, otherwise you
get uncomfortable. You probably still enjoy
everything you did when you were little, such
as childrens books and Disney movies. Youre fun
to be around and are usually the life of the
party.

*~Which Neil Gaiman book are you?~* at Quizilla

I have cleared my desk. It’s so pretty and empty now that I think I’ll start doing all my stuff on the floor to keep it that way.

Also watched 13 Going On 30, courtesy of suprnova.org. It’s worth $6.50 but not $8.50.

Dragged myself out of the house in the blazing heat to the Medicamp games dry run yesterday afternoon. They asked for 4 people per OGL group to attend, but I really didn’t have the heart to push anyone from my group to since most live in Changi-Tampines-Pasir-Ris and the rest are jet-lagged or overseas. So I just sent out SMSes and left it at that. Thankfully James and Ruth appeared.

Shan’t tell you the rest. I can’t wait for Medicamp. *grin* Now to await Michelle’s return from Myanmar so that she can start Fright Night preparations.
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