Just watched Eva 2.0 last night, after 2 days with little sleep. I enjoyed it tremendously, despite feeling sleepy-ish throughout the show. There were plenty of action scenes, with angels popping out rather regularly to break the peace of Tokyo-3 (as well as wake me up a little). We see the old cast, Rei and Shinji, complemented with Asuka’s lively appearance, and topped off with the new mysterious bespectacled brunette Mari in a whole new Evangelion plot. A remake of the original, Evangelion 2.0, also known as 新劇場版: 破, brings the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy to a whole new exciting level.

I’d like to spoil as little as I can, as the film is nothing short of awesome in its own ways, and I’d very much encourage you to watch it on the screens. However, if you’re fresh on the Eva franchise, here’s a little plot teaser (from wiki’s article on Eva 2.0):

“Continuing where the previous film, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, left off, the movie opens with a new EVA pilot, Mari Illustrious Makinami, launched with EVA Provisional Unit 05 to destroy the Third Angel which is attacking the arctic Bethany Base of NERV. She successfully defeats the Angel by self-destructing Unit 05, safely ejecting at the last moment. The film the cuts to Shinji and Gendo visiting Yui’s grave and NERV Chief Inspector Ryoji Kaji is later revealed to arrive and hand Gendo a suitcase containing an object referred to as the ‘Key of Nebuchadnezzar’. When the Seventh Angel attacks, EVA Unit 02 and its pilot Captain Asuka Langley Shikinami arrive in Japan via air transport and quickly destroy the Angel.”

Again, I’m definitely going to watch this on the screens again. Have you caught this film yet?

Finally, after expensive attempts at it, I’ve got my Class 3 Driving Licence! There’re several ways one can pick up driving in Singapore, either by enrolling in driving schools or by private learning. Enrolling in schools makes a systematic approach in learning, booking of lessons and tests, therefore on the whole speeds up the process. However, private learners are offered better flexibility, lower learning fees, and more focused teaching (one instructor one student). I enrolled in the driving school at Kampong Ubi, ComfortDelGro Driving Centre . The entire learning process can be as fast as in 3 months, but will cost two thousand singapore dollars at a minimum…

Driving on public roads in your own vehicle is nothing like driving as a learner with your instructor sitting beside; continual traffic awareness is an absolute must, as well as being road-smart. However, I’d admit that parking is really different from what you learn initially. The lack of other cars nearby (to crash into), and visual aids make it easy to ‘learn’ parking, but in real life, there’re no visual aids, plenty of cars beside, and probably a few irritated drivers behind waiting for you to finish your deed. Also, navigating retardedly cramped car parks is a nightmare for a beginner.

Of course, getting a driver’s licence marks the beginning of one’s experience behind the wheel, as we continue to learn (we always do) to be better drivers. As of now, I’m hoping to be able to drive (my dad’s Toyota) regularly and get the hang of driving eventually. Or at least until I get stuffed into National Service.

Here’s something I thought would be interesting to share. How’s driving like where you are? (Unless you’re also Singaporean) Have you any experience on the road? Or are you undergoing driving lessons as well?

More often than none I come back saying ‘Hello again’ to my blog. It’s been a while, and I’ve finally completed my final year project, and am now in the midst of a well-deserved holiday. Here’s a little summary of what happened the past couple of months…

1.) ACME happened. I did join the event, in the morning to find myself 22nd in the queue. Got my stuff nevertheless ^^

2.) AFA09! Plenty of bloggers seemed to have some coverage of it already. If you haven’t seen it yet, do visit
www.afa09.com

3.) Getting back into the World of Warcraft. Currently heading a small guild in a normal PvE server, Nagrand. IGN’s Bishan. Completed original WotLK 10-man raids, contemplating to continue progression into Ulduar 10 mans.

4.) Becoming bored with Magic. Sure it’s fun and all, but it sucks to spend so much money all the time.. =x I like my goats deck though.

5.) Bakemonogatari is one of the few gems left I’m eager for. Good show, do watch it!

6.) Probably going JB some time soon, to eat A&W’s. :P

7.) Somehow failed my Class 3 driving exam again. !#@^%*(

Finally picked the latest sequel to the first Transformer epic, and I’m not disappointed at all. At least not in the amount of explosions.

I remember hearing it rated 0.5 out of a maximum 5 stars, and I thought straight, huh? C’mon it can’t be that bad? We all still remember and love the first Transformers! It was totally badass!

Remember how the band of US troops got ambushed in the middle of a desert? The guy that shouted “LEFT CHEEK LEFT CHEEK”? The dumb credit card scene? Oh yes that was it. The aftermath of losing a military base, and the story developed somewhat more sinister a fate for the US military. They got pummelled, kicked in the butt, burgled, and had what remained of their reputation saved by a squad of hero soldiers. One of which skidded off his motorbike to shoot a deadly barrage into a Decepticon’s crotch. However fear not, the second movie was their redemption. /sarcasm

Here on, there’ll be spoilers, so for those who haven’t got around to watching it, you might want to stop here and bail from this post. The second movie, I thought, was amusingly all about the US military hardware. Oh yes badass aircrafts, humvees, tanks, ships and whatnot. They’re basically the ones doing the bulk of the damage to the Decepticons! The first movie saw them caught unawares, ambushed and all. The second saw them with a cool new Anti-Decepticon division, with the crotch-shot hero soldier dude, and the LEFT CHEEK LEFT CHEEK soldier taking up most of their screen time. What’s even cooler is he even throws his superior out of a plane! Isn’t it COOL?

Ah wait. This ain’t aliens versus predators the US military. What about the autobots? We see a couple of new ones, and the old ones getting more powerful. Bumblebee became really really powerful, for about 30 seconds of screentime, and Ironhide still has his badass cannons, and badass aiming. What about the other 2 odd hours? Well, like I said. It’s US vs the Decepticons. Optimus Prime woke up from his nap towards the end of the show to kick the Fallen’s (real) ass. And give Megatron some due eyepain. Sadly, even if the incessant huge assplosions did serve to be excellent eyegasms, the story-factor (in under a minute) was a big turnoff. Little was said about Cybertron, the Fallen, the Primes, except from that extremely concise, well-summarised, few minutes worth of half-assed explaining.

Apart from the obvious lack of Autobots and some real transformers story-telling, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is indeed a good watch. Enjoy your 2 hours worth of explosions, it’s fun to see how much can blow in that short time.

p.s. Anyone thought the Primes resembles the Espers in Magic? Vedalken wizards anyone?

Just a thought, how many of you guys play Magic? Recently I picked it up after my friends started to play it (again after stopping for years), and I’ve been having quite some fun with it. In my opinion, unlike other trading card games like pokemon, yugioh, Magic is a more complicated game, with mechanisms that sometimes are hard to understand and fully make use of. Breaking rules are sometimes a part of the game as well, so understanding the rules of the game is essential, though I haven’t bothered poring through the 153 paged rulebook. QQ

If anyone’s interested, you could always visit the Magic website and take a look at the game. The goat deck I’m playing is pretty damn fun ^^

Been long since the last update, I know. Somehow the length of the past 2 months or so eluded me. Right now I’ve hopped out of my attachment to my Final Year Project. More 8-to-6 days until mid-August. Eaarrgh.

p.s. In the end I think I won’t be putting up the shots I took at Ubin, unless anyone here really want to take a look I guess. Since the shots didn’t turn out fantastic… Ah well.