30.9.12

Mooncake, Coffee, or Festivities?

I just found out that today is the Mid Autumn Festival! Hope everyone celebrating is dancing themselves silly, matchmaking and stuffing themselves silly with mooncakes. Wait, I don't think you do the first two anymore. Not in this dynasty and this part of the world anyway, I think.

It is also Coffee Day again folks! The day we celebrate the aromatic beverage that keeps us awake when we least want to be. Go grab a cup of ol' joe to celebrate! I know I will :D.

Here's a quick marker-digital sketch I made for the occassion! Since the two celebrations coincide, this is a little bit of both worlds :).


So how's about sitting down to a cup of coffee and a mooncake today? A special coffee break for a very special day :). Happy Mid Autumn Festival and Coffee Day everybody! 

Loo | Me | AH!

Because I foresee this to be a long, detailed ramble, there will be the possibility of two or more posts on the same topic in succession. Feel free to walk away now, or grab some popcorn and a coke.

That being said, the announcement is this:

I am getting married. 


I got a new phone! And I'm sorry for giving you a mini heart attack. It was wholly intended, lol. 
Okay, so I got the Lumia 710 a good three weeks ago, but I put off blogging my joy out because I was too busy making sure I learnt all of its little functions and tested close to everything.

Readers will probably know that my previous phone  is (was? is? Oh grammar) a SE W508, swanked up to perfection. Or as close as it could get. I realize I only had it for over two years, and no doubt it served me very well. It braved many a fall, a thwack, and suffered greatly. It's had trouble charging and lately it was slower than a dead snail, so I knew it needed a rest...and a successor.


So far I am very very happy with this! :D. It has everything I really need in one pretty bundle, and even things I didn't know I'd need. The interface is beautiful, swiping through is super fast and touch-sensitive; I don't know, there's so much in here that just works for me. Right now I am using it mostly for communicating, entertainment, and organizer for my daily doings. I was surprised that most of the stuff that came in it is really good enough to get things going; no need for additional apps. Of course, I did get one or two (plus a lot of silly games!! XD) 

One of the biggest downsides is the battery, though I am told most smartphones live for a little over a day before it demands a charge, certainly less when you've been using a lot of apps. Windows Marketplace is a bit limited in apps, though most of the popular sites and games have apps. Not only that, there is only a non-expandable 8GB internal memory, which I think will be a bit of a problem in later years. But other than that, I feel a completely satisfied customer.

As you can see, I also got coloured cases to jazz up my phone. It's a bit hard to find casings for Lumias, as the market is very few and far between. However, these covers come in lovely solid colours of turquoise and coral- how lucky am I? =D. I also got an extra white case, for when the time comes for my phone to don some more colourful clothes ;D.

I meant to blog about some of the apps I have in the phone, but I'll make a separate post on that. Have a happy Sunday everybody! =D.

23.9.12

Shrimpy September Swallows

 This is one of the rare moments when I can really do nothing but sit, chew, and thank the gods for letting me come into this delicious world.


Today's lunch came straight out of my imagination (and whatever ingredients I happened to have, which isn't much, really). It is a spicy shrimp and bacon pasta! It's very orange, yes, but due to aforementioned circumstances, I don't actually have anything greeny to add in. Hence it is a lovely analogous palette of bright oranges, translucent pinks and blushing coral. And it's deliciously spicy!!!! ^O^. I can't begin to tell you how delicious this is. Perhaps to people who don't like spicy food, this will be something of a rocket bomb to the tongue. Perhaps the reason why I am sniffing right now is a mixture of the dish being oh-so-good and oh-so-spicy.

I didn't use any premade sauce, even though I do have some. But I relied on the salty bacon and juicy tomatoes to provide the liquids. And I helped it a bit by adding Tabasco. Bwahahaha.

I once watched Man Vs. Food and Mike was munching on something meaty and saying 'I don't ever want this mouthful to end'. That pretty much sums up all there is to know about this meal :D.


The bacon provides the right amount of saltiness, and the garlic and onion slivers give the fresh shrimp a lovely boost. You could most definitely make this yourself! It's so easy, and the bacon could be substituted with sausages or chicken ham if you want something halal. But the outcome will definitely be mouth-watering. 

Hope your lunch is as delicious as mine! Cheers to good food everybody! \ ^O^ /

22.9.12

Braidy Bunch

Hello Saturday! It's been pretty dull all day today. It's been dull for ages now, since I've been just holing up in front of the computer for countless weekends now. Can't even remember when I last went down into the city for window shopping. There is that one other reason I want to get down to the city centre, but that's a reason I shall further digress into in another post.

I got so bored I braided my hair over and over all day today. I started in the morning, trying to learn how to do a basic braid (which I managed after trying for half an hour). I continued practicing with little  sections, then one big fat one at the back that didn't quite turn out so well. It's so funny how just early this year I was deliriously happy over having no-fuss, relaxed hair. So easy to maintain! No faffing about with hair irons and pins and hair dryers. But now that my hair's growing out and returning to its wavy locks, the one thing I want to do right now is get the straight bottom to be wavy too so I don't look like a retard. I'm really trying to refrain myself from just attacking the bottom with a pair of scissors.

Though I think it grows a lot faster than most people's, I guess my hair is not quite long enough for the fanstastical hairstyles I see all over the net, even the simple ones. Have to keep waiting but it just feels slower now that I'm watching it and wishing it to grow faster. And what with it being thick, coarse and frizzy, taming my hair is one of my daily strifes. 

Because I don't want to leave this post as a wall of text, and because I don't want to go a-googling for a picture of a pointless potato, here is a picture of my two messy braids. Aren't I adorable? =P.


Happy Saturday night, everybody!

21.9.12

A Walk In The Park

Teehee. A very apt post title, I must say. Let's take a walk in the park! The park of memories. The park of nostalgia, of rock.

Rock? Yes. I said rock. I meant Linkin Park, actually.


red demon

It's not everyday one can remember how one comes about knowing something, be it a book, or music, or a movie. But somehow I remember quite well how I got to know Linkin Park. Back then I was a kid besotted with Westlife, and the closest thing I knew about rock was...Michael Learns To Rock. Which is not a very rock-ish thing, lol. Shaddap, I was young, I didn't know any better. And even then I thought real rock was noisy and scary (yeah, I was young =P). 

webkinzinsider
When Papercut first came out on tv, my sister and I used to quickly change channels everytime the MV came out, lol. Cause we knew it was going to be all noisy and freaky XD. And I remember after that the MV for Crawling came out and one fine day we decided to "hey, let's not change channels and sit through this." We sat through it, alright. I think we enjoyed it a bit, cause after that we started watching the One Step Closer MV, and later we even started watching Papercut. And then suddenly my sister got the Hybrid Theory album and we started listening to Linkin Park, like it or not. Lol.

red demon
I think Linkin Park made rock music accessible to n00bs who have the impression that all rock music involve dark, undecipherable screamo lyrics and crazy electric guitar and drum shyt, with being satanic thrown in to boot. Of course, there are so many different sub-genres of rock, but Linkin Park's music give new ears something wonderful. You listen to them, like them, then feel compelled to look for more awesome rock music. At least, it did for me. Haha.

Hybrid Theory has a special little place in my heart, the way Westlife's first album does XD. One of those albums I can listen to and sing along without realizing I actually memorized most of the lyrics. 

brokensuicide
They've gone so far with their music. And one of their best albums, for me, would be Minutes To Midnight. It's a different take on their original style, but what captured me was the lyrics. I never took much notice of the words when I first listened to the album. But then sudden unforseen circumstances occurred, and when they did I surprised myself by crying when I listened to songs like Shadow of The Day, and Valentine's Day. Perhaps the lyrics weren't even meant the way I interpreted them to be, but somehow I felt I could relate to them, that the words meant a lot more to me than they had in the past.

Anyway, their new album, Living Things, is very nice indeed! And most Medal of Honour fans are hyped up as anything for their upcoming MV for Castle of Glass. I even know some people who took great pains in doing a special photoshoot and making a short clip in style of it. Check it out! 



TGIF everyone! Have a rockin' weekend :D.

20.9.12

Hiatus in Huts

It's the middle of September, and I'm busy how most students will be when they've been thrown a whole felony of assignments all due at around the same time and demanding the same amount attention for each.

I'm not even sure if felony is an appropriate word to use here, though my subconscious tells me it is a very wrong word to use. However because I felt like it on the spur of the moment, and because I've already typed it and am not bothered to go back and change it to something else, I shall leave it as it is.

Please excuse me momentarily as I go about tending to the businesses of reality. Will be back soon.


Here is a fairly bad photo of a mother cat and her kittens to distract you while I'm away. The cats are not mine. Their fur is unbelievably soft though. Imagine yourself giving them imaginary pats.

Now no more mention of Christmas until the day actually arrives. Wait, how did that even come into the picture? Never mind, just don't bring that topic up again. 

*ArnoldSchwarzeevoice* I'll be back.

5.9.12

Multiply the Division

jmusicmaxcaz

Happy September everybody! Up above is the picture I have made a mental note of to work on for my next marker illustration assignment (and probably regret it later =P). And do you know where it came from? No hints. Here's the answer.

the Gazette's latest album: DIVISION.

Okay, I'm going to be honest that I didn't quite like their previous album, TOXIC. I can't even remember most songs, except of course RED (yes, Gazette have this tendency to overdo the caps lock a bit). But I've just procured DIVISION, and listening to it now, I think I'm walking down the nostalgic, lovey-dovey JRock road yet again \^O^/.

The first track just made me think, a la Gazette with caps lock on: D'ESPAIRSRAY. Maybe it's because of the dance-rock vibe of D'espa's Love Is Dead. But it rocked me in a very good way. Still progressing through the album, and may I proudly announce, I did not press the next button, the way I did in their previous album :D.

Their album+tour theme is pretty darn kewl too. All modern and abstract. Their recent single/album covers remind me of couture fashion spreads. With an odd, Japanesque twist to it.

One thing that still gets me, though. Seriously, no one should ever sing in a language they can't pronounce coherently. English on Japanese tongue is already alien on a usual basis, throw in screamo-random-phrases-fast-paced-action and you're bound to get something that rivals Skrillex's dubstep.

Anyway, Skrillex bashing aside, well done Gazette! Thank you for reminding me of the happiness JRock brings to the world. Unlike *some* other singers/artistes I wouldn't really like to mention aloud (*coughhackcoughgacktcoughhackcough*)

Busy busy weeks ahead! Stay cool and don't forget to divide your time wisely, so you may multiply your efficiency and fun times :D.