New Vegemite name chosen from online suggestions

*Shakes head*

ETA: I should point out that this particular Vegemite is a new variety which is supposed to be mellower in flavour and easier to spread than the original - reviews here suggest is premixed with butter.

I'm feeling:: wtf

Saw Star Trek on Tuesday night with the usual suspects.  Not having watched collectively more than two hours of previous incarnations in my lifetime (although knowing more than enough about the characters to follow everything), I went in with zero expectations.  Thus, I came out more than entertained, to the point where some guys from work wanted to go two nights later and I had no objections to seeing it again.

Finished Valkyria Chronicles last weekend, now just going through again to unlock the last few pieces of content to be opened.  Definitely recommended to PS3 owners who are anime and/or Strategic RPG and/or Turn-based Strategy fans, as well as those who like an immersive story.

The new Transformers trailer is making me look more and more forward to the movie coming out.

Gacked from annearchy :

I'm feeling:: awake

Usually I would have called myself a masochist for what I did on the weekend.

Built my own computer.

First time I ever did it.

Not sure I'll ever do it again.

But for all the grief, the chasing down parts, the wondering why the hell your monitor won't display the image for more than a few seconds at a time sometimes (thank Joe Pesci that it wasn't anything more than a broken video cable), to see it up and running, and running well, there's quite a bit of satsifaction for a job done not too incompetently.

Now to go and finish downloading my flight stick's Vista drivers so I can install and run Flight Simulator X and see if the increase in performance is commensurate with the improvements I got from World of Warcraft.

I'm feeling:: satisfied

QUEENSLANDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm feeling:: ecstatic

Saw Get Smart with the usual suspects tonight. Second time around and it's just as funny as the first. Definitely does the TV series justice, IMHO. It's ridiculous the number of movies coming out here in the next few weeks. Hancock this week, next week The Love Guru, then The Dark Knight, followed two weeks later by The Forbidden Kingdom. Add to that the local Reel Anime festival which has two or three movies I'm interested in seeing, and it makes for a sizeable drain of time and money. However, since I'm not going to Gold Class anymore, I can see most of these movies for less than the cost of one session in the premium cinemas.

Menawhile, for those who own a HDTV, I bought a Oppo 983H DVD player recently, took delivery of it yesterday, and was ecstatic with the results when played on my new TV. The upscaling that this player does on standard DVDs is nothing short of brilliant, with a couple of movies, it not only left me with the opinion that getting any Blu-Ray version of the movie could wait, but that it might not even be necessary. Granted, it's a little expensive at US$399 for a standalone DVD player compared to prices of Blu-Ray players and even the PlayStation 3, but if Blu-Ray doesn't interest you yet, you're not happy with the upscaling your current player does, or you just want a player that will give you the best possible upscaled rendering of your DVD collection, I can recommend it completely.

Saw Speed Racer last night. Does the anime justice and then some.

Just got home from Kung-Fu Panda. F***ing awesome movie. See it.

Now to get back to interview preparation.

I'm feeling:: busy

Hmm. It would appear that Lawrence Kasdan has been hired to write the screenplay for the Robotech live-action movie. I have renewed hope now that the movie won't suck. After all, we're talking about the guy that wrote the screenplays for The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Lawrence, just don't use the movie Macross: Do You Remember Love as your original source material and you'll do fine. Now that the probability of fucking up the storyline is much lower, that leaves the most likely failures being in casting (please, NOT Tobey Maguire playing Rick Hunter) and mecha design (please, guys, do NOT try and "modernise" the looks of any of the mecha or ships (though, that said, this will depend on how Warner approach the contentious and controversial licensing issues surrounding the Macross licence rights in the US).

Now if the whole aforementioned Macross licensing issue in North America could just be resolved to the point where we can see a release of Macross Zero and Macross Frontier in the US (or failing that, one in Australia). Ideally, Macross 7 would be nice too, but from what I've been told, music licensing issues will prevent that from ever happening.

I'm feeling:: tired

Just came back from seeing Iron Man in Gold Class with freddo, windtear, and kohi_no_tora.

Iron Man = awesome.

Be sure to see it, and be sure to stay past the credits - extra footage.

Meanwhile, Birch Carroll and Coyle should fire its IT staff. They have no fucking idea how to roll out a new software system. Not to mention quite possibly not having a clue about how to adequately test one.

And now, to the kitchen.

I'm feeling:: bouncy

Well, it's been awhile since I updated. Been a combination of being flat-out between moving and working, nothing particularly noteworthy to post about, and a slice of apathy thrown in to boot.

Firstly, I am now living in my own place. I finished moving out of my sister's unit last week and took delivery of my last piece of furniture yesterday. Though I do have to send in one of my sofas for repairs, since there are some problems with how it was made. It cost me an arm and a leg, but all up all the furniture does look nice, and the bed and mattress I got are very comfortable. Now the only thing left is the 42" Panasonic Viera 1080p Plasma...

Secondly, my sister finally arrived home from the UK yesterday morning (on a 6:50AM flight - damn I'm glad I only live one train station away - albeit a one-station trip with a $13 fare). Mum and Dad were there to pick her up, and we quickly stopped by her place (including me giving her the grand tour of my place) before she headed home with Mum and Dad, who definitely are breathing individual and collective sighs of relief.

Finally, they will make a Harry Potter film that purportedly doesn't have chunks cut out of it, because they realise that you can't. Sixth Seventh Harry Potter Film in Two Parts (Sixth is actually in the title of the story). According to this story, Deathly Hallows will be split into two parts, released in May 2010 and November 2010, which means the final movie will screen nine years after the first. Not bad when you're looking at 8 movies. For those interested, here's the CNN version of the same story. They've cut several books to ribbons and now for the finale they're interested in preserving the continuity of the book. I suppose they realise now that not only can they cover everything that needs to be covered, they can profit twice as much. Meanwhile, I'm a bit perplexed about Daniel Radcliffe's comments about HBP - I don't recall it being particularly funny...

Rebuttal can be made here :P

I'm feeling:: tired

Papelbon strikes out Smith swinging.

RED SOX WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!

*Bounces around*

Red Sox advance to the World Series 11-2!!

I'm feeling:: bouncy

I have to admit, I had reservations about seeing it, but it was excellent, IMHO. The action was incredible, the acting was good, and the plot was fairly good. The CG was unbelievable.

I will say no more, for the sake of those who are yet to see it. I can't ever recall Australia getting a Hollywood blockbuster a week before America.

I'm feeling:: satisfied

QUEENSLANDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

kohi_no_tora

I'm feeling:: ecstatic

Okay, I think that's the first time I've seen what I can only describe as a causal loop caused by an internal, reciprocal breaking of the fourth wall.

I'm feeling:: geeky

Took yesterday off sick, and came in to work today to find an email congratulating me on my promotion, effective immediately.

*Bounces around a bit*

I'm feeling:: bouncy

.. but still managing to buy stuff you'd like to see at said convention.

I have in the course of the last seven days, seen the 2006 remake of Kanon in its entirety, and in turn gone back and watched the original to compare.  While Toei's original was enjoyable, I'm glad I didn't watch it first.  Kyoto Animation's beautiful 24-episode remake could afford a greater degree of subtlety with some critical plot points (those who have seen both versions will know what I mean) and this subtlety (and the surprises underlying it) would have been lost had I seen the Toei version first.  Having seen Kanon now also means that a certain scene in episode 2 of Air is a lot funnier than I found it the first time I saw the episode (come to think of it, since the usual suspects went off and grabbed lunch while Air was playing at anime club, I may not have even seen that episode, or the scene in question).  Anyway, guess what series has move to the top of my "Please licence this series" list ^_^.

Getting back to the relevance of this discussion to buying stuff, I found the 2006 Kanon's opening song (a re-recording of the original OP song for the game rather than that used in the Toei anime) to be the most touching anime OP or ED song since Maaya Sakamoto's Gravity for the series Wolf's Rain.  Thus I knew I must have it.  Trouble was, my usual haunt for anime music, CDJapan, didn't have any suppliers who dealt with Key Sounds' merchandise.  Strike One.  Strike Two was called when the other Japanese candidate stores (Amazon JP and HMV Japan amongst others) didn't ship the OP outside Japan.  Then someone on the AnimeOnDVD forums linked me to Himemeiya.com, which offers to do custom orders for anything you don't see listed on their site.  So, I got a reply from them overnight saying that I could get the OP from them.

I looked at the cost, yeah not a problem, the song's worth it.  Shipping cost: well, I can't justify buying 1 thing with a base cost of US$19 and then $3 for second and subsequent items (EMS is the cheapest option).  And of course, I found other goodies in my travels last night which went on my wishlist.  To make a long story short (too late), I added the following items to lower the per item shipping cost (and thus the individual item costs):

• Melty Blood PC
• Melty Blood Re-Act PC
• Kanon/Air Piano Arrangement 'Re-Feel' (what can I say, I'm on a Kanon run right now and I am a sucker for piano music)

I'm feeling:: geeky

Schoolgirls find no trace of Vitamin C in Ribena.

Yup, that blackcurrent cordial which for years in Australia, the UK, and New Zealand amongst other places purported to have 'more than four times the Vitamin C of oranges', was found to be almost totally devoid of Vitamin C. In New Zealand at least.

Said discovery was made by a pair of then-fourteen-year-old high school girls doing a science experiment.

Glaxo SmithKline, the company that produces it, is facing fines of up to NZ$3m for misleading advertising.

Not that it worries me that much. I never drank that stuff anyway. Just find it rather amusing.

I'm feeling:: amused