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Although my day job is in IT, I am also an avid Visual Novel player - and one day it struck me that there’s no reason why Indonesians can’t make a decent, commercial quality visual novel on par with Japanese’s (no, Cherry Days doesn’t count). Hence, approximately one year ago, VNProject forum ( http://vnproject.freeforums.org ), a visual novel discussion and development forum where anyone can discuss, propose, and develop their own visual novel was born.

Today VNProject has over a hundred members and two ongoing projects that have released their respective demos - and after our presence at a renowned expo we have received cooperative offers from various institutions. But still, there’s a long way to go before my initial goal can be achieved… I just hope I can still be part of the team when it happens ^_^;

If you have a passion for good Visual Novels and would like to be part of a team that is making one, come and join us at VNProject!

1) Never, ever, within 36 hours of your plane flight, watch Air Crash Investigation, Seconds from Disaster, Ground Zero, or any similar air disaster news or documentaries.

2) Likewise, within 36 hours of your car trip, do NOT read about poor condition and accidents in local toll roads.

3) Commenting about cable fatigue when you’re inside a gondola hanging on one such cable 100m above the ground? Don’t.

4) Before you scale that staircase or take the winding road to KL Tower 300m uphill, make sure there’s no free transport that will take you effortlessly up there first.

5) If you’re clueless about directions, make sure in advance that at least someone else in your group isn’t!

And last but not least, only gamble if you know when to quit.

Thank you and hope this helps.

It’s been a long time since we had our last proper Macross fix (read as: Macross Zero) - heck it was not even a sequel, it’s actually a short prequel featuring primitive atmospheric fighters in pre-UN Spacy era ^_^;

Finally the void was broken with the arrival of Macross Frontier - and boy what a break it makes! Continuing the fine Macross hardware (Kawamori Shoji is staying at his mecha designer post) and historical tradition (it again features a singer - a good human one, comparable to Sharon without the AI madness), it borrows significantly from its predecessors: Ghost unmanned AI fighter from Macross Plus (which, as I had somehow predicted years ago after watching Macross Plus would be useless when jammed and without a proper fighting AI - too bad the only and too successful example of such AI to date in Macross universe was Sharon Apple), capital ships and line fighters from Macross 7 (It seemed NUNS - sissy acronym huh - decided to mass produce the bastardized VF-171 instead of the real deal VF-17 - the result shows), and the Megaroad class colony ship (with attachable additional colony modules!) and infamous Skull legacy of the original Macross (albeit as private contractors now - they sure take lots of pages from USA, good thing Guantanamo here is now a CV class not incarceration facility). Kinda strange that YF-19 as the winner of the UNAF new fighter competition didn’t make any appearance here (yet), but VF-25 looks cool so what the heck.

Yes, I’m hooked. Now to find out how good the ‘Princess’ is at the helm of a VF-25…

P.S: References from Macross Compendium

Acquaintances and neighbours take notice: Especially since I’ve been working in IT Industry for years, 3 of them as Service Desk and Desktop Support Engineer, I know how troublesome, time-wasting, and expensive computer repairs can be - so keep in mind that I am *not* your free personal computer technician on your beck and call, especially if it’s for people I don’t know let alone like!!!

*big huff*

I just chewed off a neighbour for this today - don’t let yourself be the next. Just a hint - If I don’t recall your name right away, ask me any favor at your own risk.

An idle whim after stumbling at http://www.renpy.org turning into a full-scale Visual Novel project… Check out http://vnproject.freeforums.org and see for yourself!

Since a long time ago, I personally consider Babylon 5 as the best TV SF series in existence, followed closely by Space-Above and Beyond (Star Trek series fans can bring their crap somewhere else, the only thing I respect from there is Jean-Luc Picard). Many series have tried, and failed, to take the crown - the combination of strong story, solid characters, and exciting action scenes were simply unmatched even by later SF series. That is, until the emergence of the re-make of the infamous classic SF series Battlestar Galactica!

I will not review it here (Google around, you lazy bums!), so I’ll just mention why I consider BG to be among the creme de la creme:

1. Innovative storyline (well, at least for those who haven’t got the opportunity to watch the original) - one based on how humans have to fight for their survival against Cylons, their own creations (which they had abused in the first place). The hints of the humans’ origin and Cylon’s motives are revealed gradually as the story progresses, giving a rich background for the entire story…. I can’t tell this properly, you really have to watch it yourself to understand!

What I like most is that during the title scenes of the episodes, the number of human survivors traveling in the Galactica Fleet is displayed - and the number decreases in each episodes as more and more humans perished….

2. VERY solid characters - the rock-hard Commander William Adama and his shaky relations with his remaining son, the dying president Laura Roslin whom charmingly and delicately performed her duties for what was remained of the colonial government despite her ailment, the half-mad scientist Gaius Balthar and his affair with the dominating blond Cylon in his mind… there’s many more, in fact all BG characters are realistically build and will be rationally understandable by the viewers (although maybe not sympathized with, but that’s another good point of this series!).

3. ‘Shaky’ camera: Perhaps a first in western SF (anime already had employed this for a LONG time), BG employs this technique for virtually every space action scenes, realistically emulating how a camera would unable to make steady shot during hectic space maneuvers. It makes the scenes very realistic and engaging!

4. Realistic backgrounds; BG correctly shows how tight things are in a ragtag fleet running from a superior enemy, with no support in sight since all existing Colonies have already been conquered by Cylons - how they have to mine materials they need, build and repair fighters from limited resources, and tightly ration limited supplies; How people have to resort to black market to purchase necessities due to the rationing; how military personnel were stressed out because they have to fight all the time without any reinforcement, resupply, or replacement… THAT makes for an interesting, realistic story. Unlike, for example, the perfect world in some other certain series where everybody prospers and poverty have been eliminated? Yeah right.

5. And, of course, Grace Park! *big fanboy grin*

There was an old episode of Mythbusters (too lazy too lookup which) where those lovable curious personnel tested the myth of CDs shattering inside high-speed CD drive - they had to make special cd-spinning rig to test it, but in the end they managed to shatter a disc just by spinning it at high speed.

Well, mine is a run-of-the-mill LG 16x DVD RW drive, but yesterday I have just achieved the same feat (not that I am proud of it!) with an old cd from my collection. I inserted the damned cd and browsed its contents for a few minutes when a loud ‘pop!’ sounded - and the poor drive stopped working! With the particular Mythbusters episode in my terrified mind I immediately tried to eject the disc - to no avail (Later I found out a piece of the shattered CD blocking the drive’s eject mechanism). Hence I spent the better part of the night disassembling the drive (and voiding its warranty, but don’t tell the distributor that and removing all the pieces of the shattered cd, which fortunately gets the thing back to work.

Today though, tired from doing all that after the tiresome task of helping with a colleague’s marriage, I’m down with throat inflammation ^_^;

Lessons learned:
1. Don’t buy crap CDs! Buy only brand name, high quality stuff or prepare to suffer the consequences!

2. If you already have one with data in it, copy the data somewhere else and dump the thing before it explodes inside your new high-speed drive ^_^;

3. Watch Mythbusters! It actually gives you practical knowledge ^_^;

This one is still in Bahasa Indonesia… Perhaps someday, when somehow I could find the time and inclination, it’ll be translated into English - keep your fingers crossed ^_^;

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Mau share pengalaman pribadi nih… (taela!)

Kalian tau Jembatan Penyeberangan Orang (JPO) Benhil kan? Itu tuh yang dulu sempat masuk berita karena penuh boobytrap akibat pelatnya pada lepas2? ^_^; Nah, karena ruteku pulang-pergi kantor lewat sana tiap hari, aku jadi lumayan ‘hapal’ sama situasi di sana - in particular fakta bahwa kalau lewat sana tiap hari kerja pasti akan dihadang oleh gauntlet minimal enam(!) pengemis yang sudah standby di tempat mangkalnya masing2. Kondisinya macam2, mulai dari tua (malas? banyak kok orang tua yg masih bisa bekerja), buta, wajah yg disfigured, sampai yang semua limbs cacat sejak lahir.

Dua tahun pertama melewati jembatan itu, setiap kali lewat aku selalu menyisihkan sedikit uang untuk minimal salah satu dari mereka. Namun sejak aku baca di artikel koran bahwa ternyata banyak pengemis yang sebenarnya tidak miskin, aku berhenti melakukan itu (kecuali utk cacat yg bener2 parah) dan simply mengamati mereka. Para pengemis itu nampak terorganisir, dengan ‘rotasi’ penempatan baik di JPO Benhil sendiri maupun antar JPO lainnya - malah sampai ada orang yang mengantar dan menyediakan supply makanan untuk mereka.

Jumat malam kemarin (20 Jan), aku pulang melewati JPO Benhil habis lembur. Mungkin karena sudah malam, pengemis yang standby tidak sebanyak biasanya - hanya empat orang, dua di antaranya (keduanya pengemis buta or at least tampak buta yang sudah at least dua tahun nongkrong di situ) mengobrol di ramp turun di sisi Benhil tanpa pasang pose mengemis. Saya yang sudah capek dan suntuk karena kerjaan pun melewati mereka dengan cueknya.

Tiba-tiba terdengar suara ringtone HP. Saya dan pejalan kaki lainnya secara instinctive melihat HP kami masing-masing… ternyata bukan call ke HP kita. Lalu, dari mana? Celingukan, pandangan saya terhenti pada satu dari pengemis buta yang ngobrol di pojokan - YANG MENGELUARKAN HP DENGAN SANTAINYA LALU BICARA DENGAN SUMRINGAH TANPA TAMPANG SUSAH YANG BIASANYA DIA PASANG SAAT BERAKSI!!!

Lesson of the day: Tidak semua pengemis miskin, dan tidak semua orang miskin mengemis… Kalau mau bersedekah, telitilah dan pastikan kita memberikan uang pada orang yang tepat dan layak menerimanya. Kalau ragu-ragu, masih ada badan amal dan lembaga sosial yang aktivitasnya jelas yang membutuhkan sumbangan kita! Daripada buang-buang uang ke pengemis kaya…

Cheers,
John

To end 2006 and welcome 2007 in style, I and several friends planned for a plain and simple BBQ at Yukichi’s place - which turned out to be quite far from plain and simple ^_^;

First off, we didn’t even have a BBQ grill! So off I and Yukichi go to a nearby Carrefour based on my earlier discovery of a discounted grill sale there - only to find out that it’s been nearly sold out! Luckily we could snatch one of the remaining three grills (the one already assembled as display - we’re such lazy bums) and continued on the rest of the shopping objectives. After overcoming our initial amazement at how expensive things are nowadays (less than 100kg of raw sirloin would empty my paycheck!), we finally made off with a lot of meat and meat products, a pound of marlin, a grilled baked chicken (to be re-grilled for quick serving), a whole watermelon, seasonings, some corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, a jumble of BBQ utensils, as well as the celebrated grill itself. We didn’t buy any firework due to the venue of the party - smack in the middle of the Mediterania Apartments at Tanjung Duren, totally surrounded by four tall apartment buildings.

Spared from the grisly prospect of having to assemble the grill, we spent our preparation time on actually preparing the foodstuffs. This didn’t take very long, and soon the whole hungry pack began hauling the food train down towards the poolside of Mediterania Apartment where we planned to hold the event. It turned out there was another, much larger crowd with the same idea as ours starting to assemble their own BBQ party - not that we mind, for reasons we’ll explain below ^__^

Lessons learned:

1. Bring some bloody matches! Good thing there’s that other BBQ crew ^_^;

2. Put some tinder and make sure your charcoals are as dry as possible so that you can start BBQ-ing faster! We forgot these too, but fortunately we did bring along a small can of spiritus jelly - it sure burrrrnnnnnssss.

3. If you’re inconsiderate jerks (unlike us) you actually CAN hold a fireworks party in the middle of Mediterania Apts… The loud bangs resonate all over the place, and some firework rockets actually struck the surrounding apt buildings (they do make nice sights as they explode though, I hope Tonny got the pictures right so that I can post it later). In the end apartment security had to stop them after some rockets exploded just right outside of people’s window… One actually strayed inside the 30th floor and nearly blew up the elevator motors ^_^;

For us it’s actually a nice sight to see however, especially since we don’t have to pay a single penny and the whole shebang happens nearly overhead. Literally under the exploding fireworks we watched and gnawed on our food peacefully although on some certain firework displays it almost looks like we’re in the middle of Baghdad during Desert Storm - heck we could smell the gunpowder!

Yes, there were misfires. And yes, we watched gleefully ^___^

4. Buy only what you can eat - it turned out that despite our sincere efforts we could eat less than half of the foodstuff we bought ^_^; This is easily solved the next morning as we held an indoor BBQ at Yukichi’s apt to take care of the unfinished business!

5. The weather report is not always reliable! Looks like weathermen were a little bit slack that night as a little drizzle managed to sneak in… However we found to our pleasant surprise that our little BBQ grill was highly manportable (it can be lifted easily by one man, along with all blazing charcoals and sizzling sirloins on top!) and we’ve set up our equipments to be able to be unpacked easily - in only minutes after the drizzle ended we’ve already redeployed and continued the party!

Overall, it’s a great experience - we can’t wait for our next BBQ party ^_^

And, of course…

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Those who read this blog from the beginning might notice its writer’s preference to peaceful, down-to-earth anime about ordinary characters - and this 13-episode masterpiece deserves its own spot on my favorite list.

The first thing noticeable is the Venetian-esque background -  Neo-Venezia, the city in the watery planet Aqua where Aria’s story takes place,  borrows heavily from Venice, replete with canals and gondolas. In fact, the settings plays heavily in the heart of the story - Aria is the story of four (Aquan) months in the life of Mizunashi Akari, a young Undine (gondola rower/tourist guide combined) trainee in Neo-Venezia.

Aria adds much to the peculiarity of its own settings and make a unique story and world of its own - Akari’s friends and fellow Undines with their own lively characters (all bijin! Gokuraku gokuraku… ^___^), the various perks and habits of Undines and its companies, the history and growth of Neo-Venezia, the way Aqua is being maintained and the people responsible, all revolving around ordinary - but never dull - stories about Akari and friends’ daily life around the seasons of Aqua.

All in all, the series’ creator deserves a big kudos in bringing to focus a story about a job that looks boring on the surface - and transform it in an impressive, memorable warm story. All that without bringing any kind of violence or pornography into the picture!

There is a dark side to Aria, although so little that only observant viewers would notice - Man-Home, the original planet of Mankind Aqua’s inhabitants had migrated from, has become so polluted that its seas are no longer swimmable and its dangerous to even play with the earth… But who the heck will remember that with all the beautiful sceneries of Aqua throughout the anime? ^_^;