お誕生日、おめでとう！楽天堂～～

29th February 2008, Friday

As we know 29th February only comes one every 4 years (a leap year) & if your birthday happens to fall on this faithful day, it can be quite a dilemma whether to celebrate the day you befallen into this world on the 28th or celebrate on the 1st of March...

Within my limited records of acquaintances, there might be this girl who I had a crush on during my sophomore year in NUS who has this unique birthday.
Otherwise the next one would be this place which brought me such happiness and laughters in the recent years, the one fittingly named La Tendo (or Raku Tendou) which means "the heaven of happiness"...

The pre-La Tendo days began when 3 local toys collectors decided to pit together a business concept which merged with their collectible interest as well as ingeniously made use of Vincent's significant contact in Japan as they shipped in Japanese toys and figurines, predominantly capsule toys (or gashapons) at that period.
My reunion with Vincent & Reedy was well-documented back in 2003 and I spent a great deal of Sundays for that year tagging along their little solicitation for local Japanese toys collectors in Clarke Quay....
By late 2003, the lads were orchestrating a stir in local collectible retailing scene which at that point being quite saturated with some small fry players to add competition with bigger establishments like Action City, Earth X, Dollz Inc. etc.

By February 2004, the new shop located in a relative unknown location of Sunshine Plaza was up and running to the joy of many collectors ...
However it wasn't all smooth sailing for my dear friends of La Tendo over the next 2 years or so....
One major shareholder left the shop, but business still goes on...
The market reached saturation point and price war was waging but they maintained not to caught up with the war themselves, upholding the integrity as well as not pushing the store to doom like many other retailers over the years...
In the midst of it, they decided to alter their business mode a bit and regulate the items they were bringing in, and continually winning loyal customers with their friendliness...

Over the years, many might had labeled them as "high price retailers" and scorned over their reluctance to lower price in local forums, but in the end those were also transient collectors who didn't survive long in this collection scene...
Those loyal ones remained to be the main cornerstone to keep La Tendo afloat and as a result together with the remaining big guns, the local collectible retailing scene is now dwindled to a handful.
La Tendo remained to be the only one to offer a myriad of selection as well as trying their utmost best to bring in exclusives from events like the biannual Wonder Festivals.

2007 marked the end of the road for the Sunshine Plaza era as the unscrupulous landlord threw an underhand which left a bad taste in the mouth.
The aftermath turned out for the better as they shifted to the current location of the Kallang Leisure Park which I might be cynical at first but felt with the establishment of the Sports Hub and the completion of the Circle Line, it could be one of the "in" place...
Loyal customers continued to patronize which is a sight to behold for a supporter of La Tendo myself....

Once again today marks the actual 1st (or in reality 4th) birthday to this shop with their crew who I count as some of my truest and most treasured nakama-tachi...
This evening together with the rest of the Lovely Frenz gang, we shall have a small celebration and we sure hoped by 2012 (the next leap year), La Tendo would further metamorphose into a bigger outlet at a prime location (maybe Marina) yet we are all still done to our roots and remained as the fun-loving bunch back in February 2004!

Japanese word of the day: ジェットコースター ~jie-tto-coo-su-taa (Roller Coaster) It surely had been a rollercoaster ride over the past 4 years for La Tendo...Otanjobi Omedatou!

True Otaku Experience

27th February 2008, Wednesday

The first afterthought of the trip was that it seems longer than it was supposed to be...
The trip itself was fueled by an itinerary which offers much flexibility and no mad rush from point to point...
We stayed the entire day exploring Akihabara on the first day while Sunday was just Wonder Festival and Odaiba-bound, so without much exploring Tokyo by JR trains or subways, the days seemed slightly longer....

When you have a crew like ourselves on board, it was no surprise that the trip was to be otaku-orientated....

Without the missus, I was given the liberty to explore Akihabara in depth and with the fact that we are living at Washington Hotel Akihabara, a stone throw away from the train station, it makes the exploring much easier...
However for a figure maniac like myself and Chan, there were only that few usual suspects we hounded for some of the few figures we could not get in our shores...
We had the time to actually compare prices between shops for the best deal and went back the same evening to grab it...Didn't indulged too much in Akiba though for the figurines...

An updated view of Akihabara which was the haunt of the trip

Meanwhile WCCF was on the top of all priorities for Vincent and perhaps to some extent his partner in crime, Reedy. With Yuu-kun who join us since the first day since arriving from his hometown Kagoshima back to Tokyo where he is in the midst of acquiring his lawyer bar, the trio had a merry time visiting the Gigo Sega Game Center just a good 100 steps from the hotel to build their cyber soccer team, pitting their wits and skills against their Japanese counterparts over the course of the 4 days when we were there.
They also had a side quest on hand...card hunting.
As the probability of getting an excellent golden legend card from the card dispenser after every game seems rather bleak, money is always able to buy you the best player like in the real world.
Akihabara was littered with shops willing to buy back quality WCCF cards from gamers and sell to the open market for a hike price with the likes of a MVP Zinedine Zidane going at as much as 30,000 yen or so.
They started out scouring for good deal at Liberty, the store specialized in 2nd hand hobby goods where I always had fun hauling for figuriines of a good deal which progressed to a well-secluded shop in the middle of nowhere where they were willing to dish out good 2000 yen each for a lucky dip for rare cards...
Vincent was ecstatic when he got his hands on the Legendary pair of Shearer & Bergkamp.. They even went the extent to pay close to 10K for a Ronaldinho MVP card which the experienced online seller Reedy said that they could resell it for 2 to 3 times that price on ebay...what astute selling strategy which seldom sees him wrong over the years.

The rest of us too had our hands on some of the games as well as UFO catcher in Gigo where Chan poured 100 yen coins time and again for a couple of Yamashita Shunya style Kasumi from the fighting game "Dead or Alive" but eventually got them after multiple attempts.
We also signed up as the Federation army or Zeon guerrillas and slugged it out in "MS Gundam Senjou no Kizuna" as we were excited about hitting the battle pod and trying to see whether we are good MS pilots with the caliber of Amuro or Char.
I was with V & Reedy as the Zeon Zafts and we won our 2 games and Yuu, Chan & Ferris also tasted victory as Federation GMs.
However the motion sickness in the pod was a bit too much to take and we decided one trial was enough for the day and the trip itself....

Wining & dining was also on the agenda as we wanted to let Mrs Ferris, Lisa to sample as much authentic Japanese cuisine as possible...
From the Mr Donut selection at the very beginning till the fish cake sticks we had on the Skyliner train to Narita airport, I wonder how much we had spent to just appeasing our digestive systems which are over worked by the way...
We had yakiniku the first evening at Yodobashi Camera followed by 2 nights of izakaya, I think we clocked a good 14,000 yen on so for dinners over the 3 days (the last evening our hospitable host, Tsurudome-san treated us unagi-don to commemorate a great Wonder Festival)
The lack of fiber was also evident while Chan just couldn't stop drinking his favorite yogurt drink on daily basis...

MISTER ~~~ DONUT!!!

Speaking of my room mate, Chan had the habit of falling asleep when you least suspected it.. Perhaps the daily routine took a toll on his body but I was envious how easily he was engaged into the sleeping mode...
Our stay at APA hotel in Kiba wasn't as luxurious as Harumi the year before but was at least bigger than the Washingtons...
They served breakfast in the morning which saved us abit of money for dining but the food could be a wee bit better as Chan proclaimed...
The location wasn't too good as well as we had to take cab to and fro from the final station along the Yurikamome line which will deliver us to Tokyo Big Sight where the Wonder Festival was held.

The Wonder Festival sees another surge in volume of visitors but it was fun just scurrying to buy the exclusives before those suckers who were braving the cold outside for hours could get their hands on it first...

The gang preparing a long day at the Wonder Festival

Speaking of cold, it was indeed much more chilly as compared to the year before...
However the chill started to bite our bones when we got to the bay area in Odaiba over the weekend but it happens that strong gales were affecting parts of Japan, hindering flights and railways, so which was why we were nearly blown away at Kiba by the chilly winter wind....
It was still really cold when we hit Suidobashi station where we wanted to visit the JUMP shop across Tokyo Dome.
This was the only place I had never been to for the trip and sure was quite an interesting place with a leisure park, featuring a roller coaster ride which spans the facade of the shopping center, Laqua which looks like a ship.

Tokyo Dome Hotel, Jump Shop and Laqua

All in all it was a great time for all of us with extravagant spending and feasting and let's hope poor Lisa was able to salvage whatever intermission found in the otaku-themed trip perhaps the Disneysea adventure with her spouse...Even then the Fab 4 still managed to find time to spend tens of thousands at the Disney Resort store just outside....

Will bring the missus and perhaps our offspring to stay here in the future

Japanese word of the day: 満足(Satisfaction) Hope onto the Otake Japan railway...Satisfaction guaranteed!

The Perfect Weekend Which Precedes The Trip

18th February 2008, Monday

Seriously flying off to my beloved Japan was the last thing on my mind for the past few days...
There is some point of anticipation of course but it didn't generate enough hormones to get me harping about it...
Of course the missus couldn't go and she exerted pressure on me with regards to that.
Her workload had been increased tremendously at the turn of the year and it was evident that with the phones kept buzzing over the New Year festivities as well as during almost all of her rest time, she is in dire need of a break from it all.
She had granted me this hobby-themed trip to the Japanese capital but felt the cold winter weather packed with enough element for a shopping onslaught, she had played with the idea of tagging along.
However it wasn't meant to be as she had to do a supposedly important presentation this week and the cost of a SQ ticket to Japan now hanging precariously over the 1K mark (excluding taxes).
Her absence in the trip would be profoundly felt by yours truly as with exception to the short trip in 2004, she had been my No.1 traveling companion to the land of the rising sun, tending to my every needs as well as taking care of me in times of health ailments which had been shrouding me for several edition of Japanese escapades of late...

Speaking of health ailments, had been bugged by a couple of niggling ones over this home-bound weekend...
My left knee-cap felt an acute pain since Friday for no apparent reason but managed to be on the mend by Sunday...
However my lower left gum seems to have swell again, a phenomenon that occurs for a while which tends to subside as I paid very little attention to.
I got a feeling it's the wisdom tooth but my fear of the dentist just kept me refrained for getting that fix...
The molar tooth seems to grind relentlessly on the gum and now I had to chew my food gingerly so that I would not inflict more pain on the gum...
However the main cause of it all could be that my body is too heaty... With festive goodies lying around the house, I just had to succumbed to the gastronomical allure...

With the Chingay procession in full force on Saturday evening, the traffic from town to & fro Kallang would sure be crippled, so I felt I should just stay at home...
It was the golden opportunity to watch some art films and documentary as well as TV series I had been wanting to catch while VH1 on the MTV Southeast Asia channel provides me the best source of retro music with "VH1 Best of 100 80s songs" as the crew did intricate studies to check out the latest ongoings of 80s have-beens like Flock of Seagulls, ABC, Ratt, Bonnie Tyler etc.
I had also been rather addicted to a new NDS game, a strategy warfare game by the name of "Advance Wars: Days of Ruin".
This supposedly 4th edition on the Nintendo handheld platform reminds me alot of "Command & Conquer" but less extensive and much easier to digest...
With that said, as the campaign grew deeper, the chapters can become a tough nut to crack and pretty time-consuming as I tried to outwit the A.I. with little success at first...
So the movies, the game and lost of junk food filled up that 48 hours of my life...
Surely I am a walking oxymoron.... indulging in junk food yet disciplined myself to hit the gym at least 3 times a week... But in the begin my gym routine is to ensure my health and allow me to eat (not wolfishly devouring like there's no tomorrow)..But seriously those pineapple tarts are going to have a toll on my calories count...

The weekend also carbon-copy on itself as the missus was busy attending a business seminar in town, my sister went having a dandy time with friends while my parents had their own programme too including setting up their China trip for May.
This left me with the luxury of just enjoy my own presence with no boundary for a long time to come, a nice change for a while....

Finally back to the upcoming trip, many had claimed it could be the coldest winter Tokyo had experienced for a while that even Tamori and his co-host mentioned it too on "Music Station"...
I checked the weather forecast in Yahoo Japan which proves to be the most reliable and it seems like the average weather from now till next Sunday will be around 8 to 10 degrees with lowest at 2 degrees...
I had been rather reluctant to lug my hefty white thick winter jacket as we will not be scaling snowy mountains, doing icy lake fishing or even leave urban Tokyo for our 5 days there, so I felt my usual Zara autumn jacket should be suffice with an inner wear underneath my shirt should be suffice..
However my cold-intolerant wife was skeptical....
At the end of yesterday the progress of packing was a mere 10%....the trip is surely at the back of my mind for sure for now

Japanese word of the day:パッキング (Packing) Does how early you pack your luggage indicates enthusiasm level for an upcoming trip?

Working my Way to a Promotion

13th February 2008, Wednesday

While switching on my mobile from hibernation every morning (which recently had a barrage of irritants stuck up the speaker or something), there was a welcome message "2007 is the Year of Progress".

It was composed back in August 2006 when I just bought the Motorola Razr V3 cellphone to inspire myself for a promotion after toiling (a bit harsh of a word) in the parent organization for a good 4 years plus with the 5th year staring in my face in 2007.
When I jumped ship to the current workplace, the Human Resource assured me that my past performances would be taken into account and it indeed seemed more probable for me to progress here than the previous hell hole...

However on my first full PMA (Performance Mentor Assessment) on February last year, my French supervisor felt it was rather premature to grant me the promotion as I had been here for a mere 8 months or so...
Desolated by the rejection, I took as a man and vowed to get that elusive promotion the following year...

So I craved on opportunities to impress myself over the past years in both my own work as well as trying to make my presence felt in front of the bosses by volunteering with some tasks frowned upon by others.
However, my acting skills is yet well polished and pales in comparison to that of the Beautiful One who still supposedly is the apple of the eye of the bosses, much also due to his seniority and blatantly ignoring his persistent & malignant style of worming out of doing tedious work...

BY, who had a promotion 7 years duye was rewarded last year and I had hoped to follow suit...

During the PMA this morning, it seems like the probability is high and the ball is in my court... I mean I hadn't been the most enthusiastic or passionate when come to work; but I always tried to lead by example, always admit to errors made (kinda of error-prone earlier on) and always managed to grind out results in impossible deadlines which might has impressed my Gallic-speaking superior...
She mentioned she would recommend my promotion this time round (YES!) but nothing is confirm till come May when we were summoned to collect our faithful letter from teh HR office, then we'll see if I hit the jackpot....Felt it was high time for it as my records at work had been exemplary over the course of 5 and a half years, except for some minor blemishes...

It boils down to the dollars and cents and with the probable global recession and inflation, it is always better to have some money with you...
And also perhaps build on the sum much required if we are going to conceive a baby which had been the theme as usual for the festive season...

I think I had been always lucky in my career, embarking on jobs which can be carefree & always had the luxury to work under understanding bosses who held me at respectable regards...
While the likes of BY and several senior figures at work had been vociferously discussing of a plan to jettison out of here, I am more than willing to commit my service here for as long as they want me and possibly usurp the Beautiful One as the cornerstone of the department which is almost impossible as he would be the last soul to leave here much like in the case of the obnoxious JxMMy D over at the other side...

Wish me luck comes May then....

Japanese word of the day: 昇進(Promotion) I'm still eons away to be promoted as that of the unscrupulous Beautiful One who is a senior research assistant while myself a measly lab technician...should had gone for an Hons in the past...

Where has Quality Rest Gone for the CNY Break?

11th February 2008, Monday

As the title implies, I crept out of bed, low on blood glucose and badly in need of more sleep... Dragging my body to work after the hefty break, I wondered if I did really had a good rest over the festive periods...For the past few days, the exaltation & fervor of paying visits to relatives and friends not seen for a while or simply playing host to others had been much subdued by the thought of Monday would arrive too fast as well as the lack of quality sleep I supposed...

I had been pretty restless and jittery even for the first few days when we had to travel elsewhere for visits... And somehow the missus will drag a bit too long for the make-up which affected me especially on the 2nd and 3rd day...
Unlike last year when we flown off to Japan on the 2nd day of the Lunar New Year, we had to go through the full ordeal of distributing red packets this year...
Surprisingly we didn't see many of my extended family over the course of the 4 days especially from my father's side, as they didn't dropby our place like they used to...

The usual visit to the missus' clan where her grandma still was the focal point to hold her maternal family but this year only the usual suspects arrived with many elder cousins failed to turn up...
Some internal squabbles with one of the son's wife and the depature of the house maid, led to no cooking from the patriarch this year and we ordered Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken instead...
Not truly festive but it'll do to curb the hunger...

On Saturday, we left for Karen's place under the punishing heat the island had been experiencing for the festive period and boy was her place at Jurong East really far...With that, I think I had completed my tourney of all the places of residence of my La Tendo clique...
After some tasty lontong and seeing a kid petrified by her gentle and deaf dog, the next port of call was our place as the gang just cozied up in front of the TV to watch some lame old local drama as well as admiring my figurine collection on display.
Finally we got to Serangoon North to the Chong's residence where Bryan was the man of the household now that Ferris had moved out and their parents on vacation...
However the younger Chong was too lazy to entertain us and the older one shown a bit more zeal to offer us the delicacy on display...
Chan arrived after visiting his relatives and rumors sprouted from EK about a girlfriend seems to be baseless...
After some karaoke, we headed to AMK Hub for the movie, "CJ 7", Stephen Chow's parody of E.T. with a Chinese poor man twist...
Think everyone was aptly entertained after the movie though it was still a rather lackluster affair; but I chose it anyday over the wretched basketball-Jay Chou vehicle by the name of "Kungfu Dunk" which my wife hustled and cajoled me to watch persistently over the few days before...

Sunday was when my colleagues came over for lunch while her colleagues came more for some mahjong fun...The house was pretty lively throughout with my paternal auntie and uncle dropping by as well...
I think my colleagues were thoroughly entertained by "who's who" in BY's polytechnic class who degenerated (aged) over time as we compared pictures of their present state; then they had a great laugh at the gay flick "I Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" since it was a topic we had been so affectionate about especially our dear beautiful One, is a blooming gay himself...
After they left at around 4 plus, I coached the missus in her mahjong education and perhaps it was beginner's luck that she managed to get good tiles over the game and only managed to lose a single dollar...

One of her colleague then sent us to TW's place at Eunos as we paid his family a visit and had a good chat for come catching up as well as more delectable red wine for the missus before she was knocked out, watching me and TW marveling over the storyline of "Devil May Cry 4" before my buddy sent us back to the North with her drunk and me reeling from Monday blues...

So there goes our rather eventful CNY celebrations, did a good amount of visiting as customary what we should had done, caught a couple of movies and even gathered some "ang baos" which we should be getting because of our marital status...

Over the weekend, one iconic figure of tourism of Singapore, Ah Meng the orang utan passed on due to old age to the grief of the entire nation while Edison Chan continues to be on hot soup with more risque pictures of female celebrities he seemingly had taken for his own pleasure but got leaked out when his Apple notebook was brought for repair and caused this massive scandal which shrouded the entertainment scene in Hong kong and perhaps rest of Asia for the past 2 weeks or so...so not all was well for everyone in the Year of the Rat...

Japanese word of the day: 休 ~ya-su-mi~(Rest) Seriously at my age (reaching 30 soon), there's never enough rest...

迎接鼠年...The Year of Ratz

6th February 2008, Wednesday

Hours to go before we usher Mr Pigsy and welcome the year of the rat (or mouse or simply rodents)...

The past year has been good to me and seemingly this year has something ominous looming over the horizon as my Chinese zodiac sign seems to enter the "犯太岁" and Mom has already appease the deity on my behalf...
The main objective I had in mind would be getting the long overdue promotion come the appraisal evaluation in April/May... Otherwise I just pray it's a peaceful year for me..nothing too spectacular or dramatic....

Perhaps it's time to do some savings for the future which looks terribly uncertain of late...
Luckily we are not in certain parts of China right now which is engulfed in chronic snow storm...

For the past weeks, many people are downed with the flu including the missus and my sister, which is terribly unfortunate at the brink of uncontrolled feasting with all the New Year goodies...
With the many families of infectious virus mutating so fast that our bodies can fight them, it is always important to build your immune system... I'm just glad my regular work-out pays off its due..

For the quartet of rest days in stall, I think I pretty much have to make my family obligations for perhaps the first day and a half, and then it's just my free time...
Saturday will be reserved for the La Tendo gang while Sunday is for my colleagues and hers perhaps... Perhaps trying to visit my buddy's place on Friday and catch a few movies...
Then back to slog at work for a week and a half before my Wonder Festival escapade...

I hereby wish all Chinese or those who celebrate Lunar New Year (recently just heard the Koreans celebrate it fervently as well), 鼠年行大运，事事顺利!

Japanese word of the day: ネズミ~ne-zu-mi~(Mouse) I think we shall follow the rodent and just sneakily proceed with our matters for this year till the exterminator comes and cease our day...

Soundwave Scorpion

4th February 2008, Monday

Since the breakdown of my home theater system just days before the New Year, we had been sorely missing some DVD watching luxury as highlighted by the missus who tries to catch some Japanese dorama whenever she is free at home.
We had tried using the PC as a replacement but that means I cannot have access to it whenever she is watching it, and I felt the resolution when transferred to the LCD TV is not as sharp with constant flickering which kind of irritates me.

A lot of options was thrown in the air since I am sure the laser of my system had announced it;s early pension plan.
One of which was getting a Playstation 3 which had been verified to play DVD despite myth that the 40GB version is incapable of doing so. However the region code issue (most probably Code 3 for South East Asian market) is still a major doubt which even PS3 owner like Chan is ignorant of.
However despite not being an audiophile, I felt if I made an effort to buy pretty expensive dolby digital enabled movie DVD with perhaps 5 .1 or 6.1 channel configuration; just depending on the bare speakers of the TV is insufficient to attain the maximum listening pleasure, so a home theater system with it's packaged speakers and woofer will have the upperhand to dish out the great sounds that give the full satisfaction of watching an authentic DVD.
I had contemplated on getting a new system set after my performance bonus a good 3 months away, while seeking prospective candidates that I would be interested in...

It just happened that there was an household appliances, IT and furniture megastore which finally opened over the weekend at the ground floor of Kallang Leisure Park.
Prior to their opening, they rented a small space to display some of the items they had on sale, which predominantly featuring Akira (despite the savvy Japanese name, is a local brand which offer affordable electrical appliances).

I led the missus to have a look at the home theater systems they had to offer, on our way out of the mall after my weekly La Tendo trip.

Then our attention was instantly grabbed by this sleek black mini compo system which features a heavy bass blasted by the efficient woofer at the bottom. There were only 2 speakers which has a design the like of Bang of Olufsen or harman/kardon would be proud of.
It was perhaps the most stylish product Akira had produced thus far, and it perked our interests further when it is supposed to be a DVD theater system with radio tuning capability and the one thing that I had been seeking for in my ideal system..One that can play MPEG4/Divx files, i.e. general video files we downloaded online.
The sound was good as this system with the flashy name Soundwave Scorpion (sounds like some Decepticons) bangs on the high quality sound due to their 10,000 Watts speaker/woofer capability (does that mean they consume more electricity?)
It was no surprise the price was also a bit to the higher end, yet still measly compared to other well-known brands I supposed.

I was rather skeptical on whether with the 2 speakers, the Dolby Digital (let's say 5.1 channel) can be projected nicely.
So I got the friendly sales assistant to test on some DVD with DTS capability.
After some problem adjusting the audio format (as this player lacks the "surround" capability, they have to change the mode to mere dolby digital), we began to hear the sweet sound the speakers were able to churn out and we were bought.
My missus pointed out that we couldn't spread the wires of the speakers of a system with 5.1 channel capability around our bedroom, so the twin speakers should be suffice to be housed on the TV console, so it was the deal we had been looking for.

We didn't take long to make the decision and made the payment as we figured a way on how we were going to carry the hefty packaging box back home.
A cab seems the only logical option and we did just that...

Back home it took us a good hour to dis-assemble my previous system, now serve merely as a radio; clearing the dust that gathered over the year (nice timing for the spring cleaning as well) & rigging up the Scorpion, and soon we have the fitting home theater solution we had been in sought of...
Some interesting features is that the audio synthesizer & power unit is actually inside the woofer, thus allowing the main console to be that slim, and it is connected to the woofer by some cable resembling that commonly used for a computer.
There is a HDMI cable slot, so I wonder what usage I could with that, perhaps linking with Playstation 3 for sound? That sounds tempting with the sound this baby can produce.
There is also a USB slot, which allows on to simply plug in a thumbdrive to play a video, listen to mp3 or looking at pictures..A nifty feature which I used to watch the premiere of the 4th season of "Lost" with...way cool.
As of all other DVD players that allow one to play digital video file, codec remains a hindering factor...so only pure divx/avi can be played, for the likes of h.264 format (most of my Japanese variety programs), i still require the PC to watch...if only we can patch the system to read all codecs....

Anyway we really enjoy the new system which combined aesthetic pleasures with high performance; we even rented some DVDs on Sunday to just utilize our new toy...

Japanese word of the day: 蠍 (Scorpion) Perhaps I was made for it since my zodiac sign is scorpio...