Just a quick photo - purposely done with a single light source to increase the feeling of doom and gloom (work lamp not pictured). I've got a paper today at 2pm.
It's not to say I don't know the material, I just don't feel I know it well enough.
Shows I'm Following Now
A few weeks into the new season of TV shows (both American and Japanese), and here we are again. As for American TV shows, I'm following the usual: How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Heroes, House and Boston Legal. I've decided to hold off on The Amazing Race for a while, since I'm already following so goddamn many shows.
Japanese anime series are more diverse every season, so I'm inclined to write more about the ones I'm following:
CHAOS; HEAD - A show with a Higurashi-like theme at first, but once the story picks up it's really about something else. I watched the first few episodes, and decided to play the visual novel. Now that I've finished it, I'm convinced the TV series, if done correctly, will still be awesome to watch (even though I know what's going to happen.)
Ga-Rei Zero - A show about demon slaying or something like that - by the name, I assume it's a prequel to the manga, although the timeline seems a little messed up in the first 2 episodes (compared to the manga) - making me wonder if those first 2 episodes are canon. Of course: plenty of blood to go around too.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Season 2 - I watched season 1 - so I'm obligated to at least follow season 2. :P
To Aru Majutsu no Index - A show about magic and ESPers and fighting based on a light novel series of the same name. It's interesting, although I'm not too sure what about it makes me find it interesting - I guess watching a worthless guy with the power to negate everyone else's power it kinda amusing.
Toradora - I guess I'd call this romantic comedy. Two people want to go after each others' friends, form a pact to help each other, and at the end of the day, probably (I don't know yet), fall for each other instead. What makes the show funny? Crazy antics of all the characters involved!
Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka - Eroge adaptation into an anime. Main heroine has gravity defying hair (coupled with strange hair colour) - is rich, and decides to get out of her engagement to her fiancé, who is the male protagonist, by staying with him and writing up a report on why he is worthless. Hilarity ensues.
So yes, I'm following 11 shows this season.
A New Addiction: Cubing
Last Friday - I decided to finally buy a Rubik's cube. Amazingly, I've never owned one of these standard cubes in my life. The closest I've gotten to one is a Pyraminx - which I have never gotten down to learning how to solve. So I went to the shop - and found the Rubik's branded cube to cost AUD27. That's a lot of money for a toy I know I'm gonna break at some point. So I decided to splurge on a cheaper alternative that cost AUD10 - and claimed to be the world's smoothest cube:
It is indeed smooth - probably smoother than a Rubik's out of the box (judging from forums and Youtube) - and after about a day of playing, it was good enough to start practising finger tricks on.
I'm of course not particularly fast, currently averaging about 2.5 minutes per solve - compared to the 10 minutes when I started, I'd say that's a massive improvement. I'm using a very basic method with minimal algorithms (about 10 or 11, I think) - I've however expanded that repertoire to roughly 20 at this point - and I expect to have it to double to about 40 by the end of the year. (Hopefully, I can get below 1 minute before the end of the year. :D)
(As for how slow I am - it takes me 9 seconds to do the M2 U M2 U2 M2 U M2 H-perm.)
Short rant: Didn't feel like putting this in the sidebar so I'm gonna say it here - I've decided photos are a good compromise since I don't have time to write long rants and articles - I know I've still got that part 3 to write.
And I just know that I'm gonna not post anything next week again. -__- And switch to something else. I guess this is why I called the blog Random Ideas. :P
Keeping Tabs on Travelling
These are my two latest used Metcards. If you don't already know, the prepurchasable tickets in Melbourne are called Metcards.
On the left is a 10 X 2-hour Metcard, and on the right is a 5 x Weekend Daily Metcard.
So - what does this tell you about me and my travelling?
The first most obvious thing - is that I (being the law-abiding, rule following person that I am) am not a fare evader. I pay when I get on - and get my money's worth travelling about the city.
The next thing you notice is there's a lot of 3:00am expiry times. This is because if you validate a 2-hour ticket after 6:00pm - the ticket is valid all the way until 3:00am. So - if you're counting, that's 9 hours of travel on a 2-hour ticket. That means I travel a lot more at night to maximize my travel time. There are caveats though - trains, trams and buses run at lower frequencies at these times (at best, they slow down after 8pm instead of immediately at 6 or 7.)
So what is there to do after 3:00am? I do a lot of things, like carry cartons of Coke home, go to Crown Casino for food, travel to suburbs far away for food... and the list goes on. Most recently, I had to go to the city to have a chat with potential employers, as well as fellow students that may in the future become my colleagues.
As for the others - there's always plenty of other random reasons, maybe I needed to travel a long way to a certain embassy, I was tramming down for some a huge sushi+sashimi lunch at Sushi Ten, or I just wanted to go shopping in the afternoon and planned to cart back loads of heavy groceries before heading back for home.
Weekend Daily passes are an awesome way to save money - a single use will last you the whole day - and since now it works on both Saturdays and Sundays - you can actually go to some places in Zone 2 which closed on Sunday that you couldn't go on a Sunday Saver for cheap.
It's fun to look back at these multiple use tickets - it's like a small log of your travels, your life and plenty of other funny things you do while in uni!
(Note - you might notice I am now posting larger versions of some photos now. Hehehe. As for why, let's just say - because it's something I couldn't do until recently.)
Proof of Boredom (but not Laziness)
Before the great disaster:
Aftermath of the great disaster:
(Any questions?)